(urth) Wall of Nessus

[Jerry Friedman]

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>


> On 6/15/2010 1:42 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>> Then again , there are some number of hungry folk who come into possession of energy weapons in the
>>> course of any number of wars,
>> 
>> There's more than one war?
>
>Between the Age of Myth and Severian's time? Probably at least 2-3.

Oh, okay, could well be.

>>> and their line-of-sight range may indeed make high flight a survival liability.

Do we have evidence of weapons with a line-of-sight range?  Evidence that there are many?  When Severian is in battle, it's clear that such weapons are quite rare right where he is.

>> I don't think high flight would ever be a liability for waterfowl.  It just wouldn't help anywhere near as much
>> against energy weapons as against bows.

> It's the same math as the wall's height vs sight distance; the higher they fly, the more acres of hungry
> infantrymen, impoverished dimarchi, or mounted dwarves can draw a bead on them.

There's also math about visibility and hittability.  A Ruddy-headed Goose (apparently the most migratory goose in temperate South America) 4000 feet away would would subtend an angle of around 1.4 minutes of arc (beak to tip of tail).  That's a speck--a person with 20/20 vision can resolve two lines that are 1 minute of arc apart.  For comparison, the bullseye of a B-6 (CP) 50-yard slow-fire repair-center target from National Target appears to me to subtend about 2.5 minutes of arc at 50 yards.

http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=9528/Product/B_6__CP__50_YARD_SLOW_FIRE_REPAIR_CENTER_TARGETS

or http://tinyurl.com/259kd2y

Hitting a moving overhead target the size of the goose, from a standing position, strikes me as a lucky shot--if you saw the goose in the first place.

>From a mile away from ground zero, a goose 4000 feet up would be well over the horizon, as you point out, but pretty much invisible.

Back on topic: the mounted dwarfs definitely don't have weapons with a range of 4000 feet, or we wouldn't be reading this story.  The only weapons like that in the battle, as far as I recall, are the Ascian artillery.

>> It's not clear to me that the poor could recharge ex-military energy weapons enough to use for much hunting,
>> or that the weapons would leave much edible meat on a bird.
>
> There seem to be any number of places where still-running machinery indicates the presence of electrical
> power,

Places where people are likely to get a shot at a wild goose?  In fact, Severian crosses quite a bit of uninhabited and very sparsely inhabited territory with no electricity in sight.  It seems likely that there are big regions with no hunting pressure on game that's out of bowshot.

> assuming the weapons require it.

We know they can run out of charges, anyway.

> Meanwhile, the low edible yield encourages more to be killed to produce a given amount of food,

Assuming charges are so easy to get you can use one or more for a sooty drumstick instead of saving it for a baluchither or an alzabo or a brigand.  Severian refers to the charges of the irregulars' conti as "precious" (/Citadel/, Ch. XX).

> and even a
> sooty drumstick is a feast to someone who hasn't eaten in days. Besides, they might be anpiels posing as
> geese while spying for the enemy.

Quite true, quite true.

Jerry Friedman