Louis R wrote:That's unfortunate.
I'm afraid you'll have to take your disagreement up with Himself, however. He's the author who has Kau-yung tell Nimue explicitly that Langhorne did _not_ oversee the terraforming, but stayed with the main colony fleet. '"Of course"--he smiled bitterly--"we didn't realize then why he was staying there"' he goes on to say.DMcCunney wrote:Sorry, but I can't agree. It was the command ship and a major industrial node. Just where else would it be, and why? You tend to want HQ and major industrial center close to where the work is being done. I see no reason for it to be elsewhere.
Dennis
As to WHERE the main fleet was or wasn't, the following extracts from Pei Kau-yung’s reflections, OAR, after the confrontation between Shan-wei and Langhorne but before the kinetic strike on the Alexandria Enclave, provide the only answer that we have ever had:
"Second, the colony had been provided with not one, but two complete terraforming fleets. One had been detached and assigned to the preparation of Safehold, while the other remained in close company with the transports, hiding far from Kau-zhi, as a backup. If the Gbaba had detected the ships actually laboring upon Safehold, they would undoubtedly have been destroyed, but their destruction would not have led the Gbaba to the rest of the fleet, which would then have voyaged onward for another ten years, on a totally random vector, before once more searching for a new home.
…
She and her people, watched over by Kau-yung's flagship, TFNS Gulliver, had battled the planet into submission while most of the colony fleet had waited, motionless, holding station in the depths of interstellar space, light-years from the nearest star."