Serran
Getting sticky.
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2014
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Nice new chapter, thanks for the update.
I think that Sophia tries to prepare for a worst case scenario befor she was really working on the more realistic one. The more likely one is that the local noble tries to conquer the Confederation again. An unstoppable Wave of ships to drown them in is explicitely unlikely. They would likely need to gather this Fleet from Ressources outside the local area.
Since the previous War left the Vilani with the impression that a large fleet of their own can just roll them over.
Even if her upgraded technology (whichever form it takes) is reasonably readily reverseenginered it will still need to be captured and delivered to a facility where that can be done. Than these upgrades need to be implemented. Under absolute ideal circumstances I would still have this take a year barring something like the forge. Sophias own abilities might give her tunnel vision.
Any major fleet reenforcement by the Vilani that are strong enough to counter an initial advantage by the Confederation will take long enough that Sophia can tech up further. She doesn't need to hand out the uncounterable perfect tech, though I can certainly understand the desire.
As an extension of a previous point, I find the idea of the Vilani reverseengineering a vastly upgraded or completely new technology that Sophia introduces in any meaningful time pretty much unlikely, just from what I read in the story.
The Vilani do not seem to have any foundational research or advancement for more than a millenia. They just refined what they had. Sophia should maybe consider in depth what that means.
First of, that any personal initiative by a company or private person has been actively suppressed or at least prevented from getting actionable results. Otherwise someone would have tried advancin technology to get an advantage themself. The political System of the Vilani seems to support this conclusion.
Second of, that there is no one with the training to do the research, on account of no one inpower being comfortable with their very existence.
There was apparently some tech from Earth that the Vilani bought, which is a very sad statement for a stellar power of that age. I would expect they got the scientific explanation alongside the products they bought.
For the reversengineering to happen the Vilani need to:
1) Capture an intact version of the supertech and bypass all attempts to scuttle it.
2) Overcome the political inertia against Research to get started.
3) Find personal interested in doing the research after this impulse has been actively supressed by them
4) Train and equip these people with what they need rather than what the politician thinks they need.
Realistically I would expect each of these goals to take month for local efforts smaller than a modern country has and years to be of any real use. With at best marginal overlap in Implementation time.
On the writing I found this chapter a little bit to much tell and not enough show. In all previous major segments we got a human touch on who she was interacting with. Scenes to flesh out the world. Here we learned only a single persons name (the Professor she didn't meet) and didn't see or even read about her interacting with anyone. Even if it was just a transitionary station in her life and Sophia ignored everything but her advancement that should be mentioned.
The draft is going to be interesting. The Genius patrol must be pretty certain that she will be receptive to it and not make it a problem. Though Sophia is at least implied to be interested. Even more importantly they must be certain that they can keep her engaged with them and not alienate her with whereever they are going to stick her. I am looking foward to how this turns out.
The Forge side also seems to be kind of weird. She had 400CP for many month or almost a year and nothing wortwhile dropped?
I think that Sophia tries to prepare for a worst case scenario befor she was really working on the more realistic one. The more likely one is that the local noble tries to conquer the Confederation again. An unstoppable Wave of ships to drown them in is explicitely unlikely. They would likely need to gather this Fleet from Ressources outside the local area.
Since the previous War left the Vilani with the impression that a large fleet of their own can just roll them over.
Even if her upgraded technology (whichever form it takes) is reasonably readily reverseenginered it will still need to be captured and delivered to a facility where that can be done. Than these upgrades need to be implemented. Under absolute ideal circumstances I would still have this take a year barring something like the forge. Sophias own abilities might give her tunnel vision.
Any major fleet reenforcement by the Vilani that are strong enough to counter an initial advantage by the Confederation will take long enough that Sophia can tech up further. She doesn't need to hand out the uncounterable perfect tech, though I can certainly understand the desire.
As an extension of a previous point, I find the idea of the Vilani reverseengineering a vastly upgraded or completely new technology that Sophia introduces in any meaningful time pretty much unlikely, just from what I read in the story.
The Vilani do not seem to have any foundational research or advancement for more than a millenia. They just refined what they had. Sophia should maybe consider in depth what that means.
First of, that any personal initiative by a company or private person has been actively suppressed or at least prevented from getting actionable results. Otherwise someone would have tried advancin technology to get an advantage themself. The political System of the Vilani seems to support this conclusion.
Second of, that there is no one with the training to do the research, on account of no one inpower being comfortable with their very existence.
There was apparently some tech from Earth that the Vilani bought, which is a very sad statement for a stellar power of that age. I would expect they got the scientific explanation alongside the products they bought.
For the reversengineering to happen the Vilani need to:
1) Capture an intact version of the supertech and bypass all attempts to scuttle it.
2) Overcome the political inertia against Research to get started.
3) Find personal interested in doing the research after this impulse has been actively supressed by them
4) Train and equip these people with what they need rather than what the politician thinks they need.
Realistically I would expect each of these goals to take month for local efforts smaller than a modern country has and years to be of any real use. With at best marginal overlap in Implementation time.
On the writing I found this chapter a little bit to much tell and not enough show. In all previous major segments we got a human touch on who she was interacting with. Scenes to flesh out the world. Here we learned only a single persons name (the Professor she didn't meet) and didn't see or even read about her interacting with anyone. Even if it was just a transitionary station in her life and Sophia ignored everything but her advancement that should be mentioned.
The draft is going to be interesting. The Genius patrol must be pretty certain that she will be receptive to it and not make it a problem. Though Sophia is at least implied to be interested. Even more importantly they must be certain that they can keep her engaged with them and not alienate her with whereever they are going to stick her. I am looking foward to how this turns out.
The Forge side also seems to be kind of weird. She had 400CP for many month or almost a year and nothing wortwhile dropped?