Wall of Nessus

Jeff Wilson · 16 Jun 2010, 03:38 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2010 22:38:44 -0500
Subject: (urth) Wall of Nessus
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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.

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

> 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, assuming the weapons require 
it. Meanwhile, the low edible yield encourages more to be killed to 
produce a given amount of food, 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.


-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >

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