<It was primarily public opinion resulting from the Trin incident
that holds the Regency behind its lines, at least officially.> Knowing
Norris quite well, you can bet he has feelers out there somewhere....
(probably everywhere, Norris believes in viewing everything as a potential
resource and in not wasting anything (except maybe a few PC's <grin>).
<Glisten...the resulting comm-filter technology is nearly full-proof
and such filters are installed in all bots, ships, and communications
equipment manufactured in Glisten.> Nope. Won't work. Nothing is
full-proof for one. The virus is too smart for two.
<Sophisticated diagnostic methods are used to monitor the canary's
health,> Just remember not too hook up the diagnostic equipment to the
'canary'. And forget automated boarding inspectors. I expect Robots in the
TNE era won't exist for awhile.
<At the height of the crisis, several dozen citizens became possessed
by viral control through the net's direct neural interface, and ran
amuck.> All possessed (who connected anyway, if the Virus hit Mora or
Glisten). Deckheads wouldn't be able to compete with the Virus, they would
be turtles, Virus would be having them fight copies of itself while it gang
banged one decker at a time.
<As Pallique's computers were designed to operate in the
extreme cold, this planet was barely troubled by the virus at all.>
Problem is the Virus is the computer, not the other way around. If
Palliques computers can stand the cold, so can Virus. Not to mention
that a fair amount of machines the Virus affected are probably using
superconducters and are cold anyway (maybe, some at least).
<silicon-based computer/fiber-optic> Who says Imperium computers
are all silicon based <though at least the transponders were>. But than
most of the Imperium warships had fiber-optic computers for all the
good it did them.
<Collapse (or at least its nature) could be associated with
the constitutional arrangements of the Third Imperium.> Not so much the
constitutional arrangements as much as the Nobles forgetting who there
obligations belonged too. Nobility could still be possible, if more
requirements were fixed on the Nobles. The RCES 'democracy' could run
into the same problems (just look at the general interest in term limits
on elected officials).
<someone started reposting digests of the Genie discussions to TML>
Not easily possible as GEnie has copyrights on the material
(though it is possible with the writers permission, but this can be a
real drag, I've tried to do it here and there, but it's too hard to get
yesses from the writers (though admittedly none would mind that I know of)).
Daniel T:
<Since the average travel time from planet to 100 diameters is 85 hours
(assumes 1G acceleration and a 13000 km diameter world), making the minimum
bridge crew 1 must mean that the ship can fly itself for the most part. So
what happens if something unexpected comes up while the pilot is asleep?>
The computer wakes the pilot up. Technically there should be a 24 hour
watch on the bridge, but MT ships are pretty well automated and just need
the pilot to tell it where to go. If it weren't that automated you'd probably
need at least 3 bridge crew (6 on/12 off, something like what we have
in the current wet navy).