David Falkayn and Chee Lan in Muddlin' Through confront a fleet of twenty-three spaceships: nineteen streamlined destroyers, two cruisers and a large, heavily armed, spherical battleship. This is a formidable adversary. However, the fleet, approaching with reckless speed, remains in a tight formation. Also, Falkayn realizes that every vessel but the battleship is too small and must be two full of instruments to carry a crew. Deduction: everything but the battleship is robotic. The being called Gahood who commands the fleet might be a war lord with a personal following who has come to Satan without having to consult with anyone else.
Chee Lan comments:
"'....I feel a touch more hope. The enemy isn't quite as formidable as he seemed.'" (XV, p. 143)
Faced with such a fleet, they are neverteless able to deduce that it is not as formidable as feared. Deductions from technology have sociological implications. Falkayn will defeat the fleet and learn a lot about his enemy.
2 comments:
One immediate deduction is that the enemy don't have many personnel -- and that they're few in number and/or not very organized.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
And the thought I had was that it's dangerous to depend too much on robotics, however necessary they will be tactically. Computers can only do what they are programmed to do, I don't any program can react as swiftly as a living mind can if the "strategic" situation changes.
Ad astra! Sean
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