War final objective? Which front is main axis's of advance?

While I disliked some of the earlier comments about "fundamentalists", this isn't the place to debate the nature of the American "fundamentalists" or the defects of the American educational system.

Note, I'm not a moderator.

JRM wrote:

Hildum wrote:The key, which is why I asked about it in one of my first posts, is the educational system. That is where the future lies, and why in the US you find school boards frequently the target of stealth fundamentalist christian candidates who use the school board and text book selection control to try to force their beliefs on the students in their districts.

Why do you worry about the fundamentalist? Is there any area of the U.S. where a significant portion of the population believes what the "fundamentalist" allegedly do? What you should worry about is the fact that 30% of the population can't name the three branches of the federal government. We had 300,000 people demonstrating in NY about the climate. There wasn't a single thing printed about the demonstration that indicated any of the demonstrators knew the empirical evidence that supported AGW and the evidence that opposed it. Today, the Wall Street Journal had a main editorial about the need for a functioning democracy to have a patriotic education. Those are the education issues that will make or break our economy, and our society. Frankly, Charis needs to avoid a great portion of U.S. education practice.

Hi Drak,

Normally, I would agree with you, but this whole book series is an alternate time line. So we are shown the author's opinion of how to industrialize without the historical excesses, we are shown advances in military doctrine without the spectacular failures, we are shown economic advance without the great depressions. At some point, we are going to be shown advanced education without teaching fantasies, such as the pacifism that was embraced in England after WWI, or the Germanic legends that were embraced by the Nazis, or the making of government policies based on emotions by a large portion of the U.S. education establishment.

For Charis, it is one thing to allow Temple Loyalists to have a voice in education to promote their view of what Charis should do and be, it is another thing to allow the Temple Loyalists to teach that the killings and atrocities of the GOF were really propaganda of the evil Church of Charis.

I will agree that this is really, really off topic.

DrakBibliophile wrote:While I disliked some of the earlier comments about "fundamentalists", this isn't the place to debate the nature of the American "fundamentalists" or the defects of the American educational system.

Note, I'm not a moderator.

JRM wrote:Why do you worry about the fundamentalist? Is there any area of the U.S. where a significant portion of the population believes what the "fundamentalist" allegedly do? What you should worry about is the fact that 30% of the population can't name the three branches of the federal government. We had 300,000 people demonstrating in NY about the climate. There wasn't a single thing printed about the demonstration that indicated any of the demonstrators knew the empirical evidence that supported AGW and the evidence that opposed it. Today, the Wall Street Journal had a main editorial about the need for a functioning democracy to have a patriotic education. Those are the education issues that will make or break our economy, and our society. Frankly, Charis needs to avoid a great portion of U.S. education practice.

IMO you can have that discussion without references to American fundamentalists and without reference to the flaws in American education caused by others.

IMO American fundamentalists aren't the modern equivalent to Safehold Temple Loyalists so are not relevant to these discussions.

I also don't think it's a good idea to say more about the flaws that some people see in modern American education.

JRM wrote:Hi Drak,

Normally, I would agree with you, but this whole book series is an alternate time line. So we are shown the author's opinion of how to industrialize without the historical excesses, we are shown advances in military doctrine without the spectacular failures, we are shown economic advance without the great depressions. At some point, we are going to be shown advanced education without teaching fantasies, such as the pacifism that was embraced in England after WWI, or the Germanic legends that were embraced by the Nazis, or the making of government policies based on emotions by a large portion of the U.S. education establishment.

For Charis, it is one thing to allow Temple Loyalists to have a voice in education to promote their view of what Charis should do and be, it is another thing to allow the Temple Loyalists to teach that the killings and atrocities of the GOF were really propaganda of the evil Church of Charis.

I will agree that this is really, really off topic.

DrakBibliophile wrote:While I disliked some of the earlier comments about "fundamentalists", this isn't the place to debate the nature of the American "fundamentalists" or the defects of the American educational system.

Note, I'm not a moderator.

Hi Drak,

I totally concur with your points.

But it is an indication of the amount of thread drift than occurs so easily here.

Trying to get back to the previous posts, the 20 year gap between the world wars had a distinct pause for around 15 years due to all the leftover WWI stuff.

R&D continued through the 1920's etc but very slowly, while politicians devolved tanks to 'tankettes', stopped battleship construction and restricted cruiser sizes and class tonnages for all major powers, until the threat of war made all those restrictions pointless, so the various military bureaucracies, personalities and national politicians could start messing things up.

I'd argue the major difference between the 15 years before WWI and the 15 after was the generational change or turnover in what the engineers knew was possible (between the first or second generation of professional engineers and the second or third) and their sheer numbers; ie they were far better trained and aware of possibilities, at least in the US and Germany etc as opposed to the more feudal or class system in England; NTM far more of them in the US and the rest of Europe, and all the vast various supporting sciences were being recognised for their contributions.

So corporations and engineers were more than willing to discover what they didn't know because so many corporations, like GE and DuPont to name just two American, had learned R&D could always be made to pay, like today's pharmaceutical corporations that sell drugs for purposes originally unintended.

Space and time don't permit further exploring why a cold war isn't as effective as simple open competition as others have begun, which RFC referenced by having the KH VII's demonstrate to all the continental powers why Charis is so far ahead, compelling national long term R&D on all sorts of things, regardless of what Clyntahn may say or want.

Shelling Geyra and Desnar from miles out of range of their limited defenses ought to drive home to whoever survives that relying on lance armed cavalry isn't going to work for Desnar not just any more, but changing drastically is the only war Desnar can survive, requiring some social changes.

The same is true for the King Haarahld VII's message to the rest of the continents:

Change or die!

L

DrakBibliophile wrote:IMO you can have that discussion without references to American fundamentalists and without reference to the flaws in American education caused by others.

IMO American fundamentalists aren't the modern equivalent to Safehold Temple Loyalists so are not relevant to these discussions.

I also don't think it's a good idea to say more about the flaws that some people see in modern American education.


*quote="JRM"*Hi Drak,

Normally, I would agree with you, but this whole book series is an alternate time line. So we are shown the author's opinion of how to industrialize without the historical excesses, we are shown advances in military doctrine without the spectacular failures, we are shown economic advance without the great depressions. At some point, we are going to be shown advanced education without teaching fantasies, such as the pacifism that was embraced in England after WWI, or the Germanic legends that were embraced by the Nazis, or the making of government policies based on emotions by a large portion of the U.S. education establishment.

For Charis, it is one thing to allow Temple Loyalists to have a voice in education to promote their view of what Charis should do and be, it is another thing to allow the Temple Loyalists to teach that the killings and atrocities of the GOF were really propaganda of the evil Church of Charis.

I will agree that this is really, really off topic.

DrakBibliophile wrote:While I disliked some of the earlier comments about "fundamentalists", this isn't the place to debate the nature of the American "fundamentalists" or the defects of the American educational system.

Note, I'm not a moderator.

*quote*

while politicians devolved tanks to 'tankettes'

Er, nothing even near. The tankettes were simply the first attempt to give tanks some real tactical mobility. The problem was, that the full-scale tanks of this time simply couldn't move fast enpugh (even "Whippet Medium" cavalry tank). The only solutions, avaliable on this time were to carry tanks on heavy trucks, or to build tanks smaller and lighter.

It was a military, not a political decision. In addition, tankettes made with a lot of automotive parts could be produced cheaper and faster and on a larger number of plants.

Ramhawkfan wrote:

OlorinNight wrote:For that to be true, you need a system that is able to detect and recognize violation of the Proscriptions. But some of those violations may be to small (from a signal point of view) to be detected and recognized efficiently.

The easier way would be to implement a few clearly recognizable signal that need to be crushed: use of electricity, use of nuclear power,... Huge concentration of energy on very localised spot...

For all we know, the use of steam may generate a signal that could be confused with a small forest fire...
.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6262#p161218

Merlin set up the test to make sure it looked like non-natural use of steam. He simulated trains, cars, etc. It would not have looked like a forest fire. That's why they proceeded with steam.

Yeah, but if they were going to set up the OBS to hit steam, it'd have to be reliable enough to never in thousands of years mistake a natural phenomenon for steam power and blast it. And presumably Safehold has geysers and other hydrothermal phenomena.

So it would make sense that they'd leave steam power out of the list of things to blast.

cralkhi wrote:
Yeah, but if they were going to set up the OBS to hit steam, it'd have to be reliable enough to never in thousands of years mistake a natural phenomenon for steam power and blast it. And presumably Safehold has geysers and other hydrothermal phenomena.

So it would make sense that they'd leave steam power out of the list of things to blast.

Totally agree. The multi-gigaton strikes is too powerfull to let them be launched just in case of some freakish natural phenomenon.

Dilandu wrote:

cralkhi wrote:
Yeah, but if they were going to set up the OBS to hit steam, it'd have to be reliable enough to never in thousands of years mistake a natural phenomenon for steam power and blast it. And presumably Safehold has geysers and other hydrothermal phenomena.

So it would make sense that they'd leave steam power out of the list of things to blast.

Totally agree. The multi-gigaton strikes is too powerfull to let them be launched just in case of some freakish natural phenomenon.

My only comment to that is re-read the section where he set up the test. There is no way any natural phenomenon is going to act like that for the several weeks he let the test run.

Steam doesn't cause a long-range detection risk for the Gbaba. Electricity does. Besides, if I were the designer, I'd think that if things have broken down so badly for the Church and the Proscriptions that they were instituting broad-scale steam applications that electricity production couldn't be far behind.

Man-made electrical generation would be far easier to detect, pinpoint, and smash in a spectacular fashion. I wouldn't really care so much about steam if I'd been Langhorn, since the obvious next step would send them back to another millennia or two of slavish obedience to the proscriptions.

From what David Weber has said electricity itself isn't a matter of "detection risk".

It's a matter that generation and use of electricity is a major step in the creation of a civilization that can return to space.

According to David Weber, Langhorne was more concerned about mankind returning to space travel (especially FTL travel) which would lead to another meeting up with the Gbaba.

NervousEnergy wrote:Steam doesn't cause a long-range detection risk for the Gbaba. Electricity does. Besides, if I were the designer, I'd think that if things have broken down so badly for the Church and the Proscriptions that they were instituting broad-scale steam applications that electricity production couldn't be far behind.

Man-made electrical generation would be far easier to detect, pinpoint, and smash in a spectacular fashion. I wouldn't really care so much about steam if I'd been Langhorn, since the obvious next step would send them back to another millennia or two of slavish obedience to the proscriptions.