- Spires do not float. I don't understand the reasoning of "If there is a bottom port, then the spire is not on the ground." There is an entryway at ground level, but it's like having a shipping dock on the ground on a planet where the critters from the Alien movies are having a big Happy Fun Acid-blood Picnic: not conducive to stepping outside for a smoke.
No, the Spires are firmly rooted to the ground. Take the Olympian group in the inn in Habble Landing. They were angry that their rooms had been taken after they had to make a dangerous overland journey to Albion.
Multiple items that imply, but in all honesty do not prove the Spire floats
• I do not recall any mention of the Olympians traveling overland. I remember a dangerous ship journey, but the phrase overland was not there. After all, they arrived at Landing, not somewhere much lower in the Spire. Nor was there any mention of all of groundside movement. I totally get it that this is not proof that the spire is flying, but the lack of these comments leaves open that possibility.
• There are also MANY references to the surface as someplace very dangerous, very exotic.
• The Aurora marines took a highly risky hanger dive into air duct maneuver to get into the Spire. If the Spire was on the ground, why not attack that way. It is not like there were a ton of troops on the bottom to fight them off. It was clear the only major concentration of troops was at the naval base on the top (marines) and the guard was scattered. Not definitive as the attack approach was stealthy.
• There are massive channels of energy flowing through the spires through channels created by the builders. This is specifically mentioned in the book. That energy is really the point. It is there, so why is it there if it is not being used. Since there are no other obvious uses for that power, a flying Spire is not an outlandish explanation.
Net, there is not clear evidence of Spires floating, but nothing completely rules it out either. And there is a lot of energy designed to flow through the Spires that is doing something. Which was my original point – why are they not using that energy.
As for power sources in the habbles we have lumins [crystals] the spirestones themselves channel etheric energy Jim hasn't said that i recollect what fuel they use to cook for example but could be electricity from an "etheric"source we just don't have the detail. We know there are steam engines they need power to heat water wood is expensive no petroleum coal [surface problems] so my money is on electricity generated for public use and to power steam. We have Grimms electric tea pot as an example. Demand and supply!
There was a whole discussion about how the Spire does NOT make electricity available to hubble inhabitants. And steam engines need heavy fuel, which is clearly expensive to haul. It is true the lumin crystals could be what consumes that energy, but is just seems inadequate.
As for the attack. From memory the admiral of the Fleet [Wilson?] was embarrassed by the sneak attack that dropped the marines. He ordered the fleet out to form a cordon around the spire so no attacker would get close. But they were already here and he reacted exactly as the Aurorians expected.
- Habble Landing's port has two important aspects: 1) It took years and years of wearing down the spirestone wall of their habble (spirestone is tough) to put an opening in it. 2) The port structure was added on by the habble and is not made of spirestone. Habble Landing was born as a middleman in the trade between habbles, to provide much quicker shipping between upper and lower habbles (there are no lifts/elevators inside, so they essentially have rudimentary ships that are really little more than lift crystals with big platforms to raise and lower cargo, turning them into the equivalent to freefloating freight elevators); it's a purely commercial venture by one habble, which can easily be vulnerable to the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing sneak attack that happened in the book (if your firepower is all docked and is suddenly under fire while you're sitting there picking your teeth, say bye-bye à la Pearl Harbor). And the fleet defense was unwisely concentrated by the military leadership around the fleet's port at the top, not at Landing.
All this is saying is that the Spire made no effort to seriously defend their 2nd most important port, when they knew and expected an attack. A port they knew was both very valuable and very vulnerable. Even placing a few light ships nearby to spot any intruders would have been totally sufficient to block the merchant ship/raider from getting away and would have taken away only a trivial portion of their strength. Having naval batteries that can deal with a warship is also a no-brainer. The fact that they did none of this only makes sense if you assume their admiral acted like a complete idiot. But The Admiral is specifically described as a master at defensive warfare.
This is not pearl harbor. This is a German q-ship managing to sail into London harbor at the start of WWII and destroying half the city because the British did not bother to create any defenses or base a single warship there. It is not as if the Spire was not expecting occasional wars. They build a powerful military and have a strong military tradition.
All I am saying is that the port was far to easy to destroy and that did not make sense.
Mistshark was a neutral merchant under a Dolosian flag and already docked. Grimm suspected for his own reasons but no evidence and would the fleet believe him. Knowledge of Marines was not common knowledge and Spirearch kept it secret to flush out the traitor or traitors who could be in the Guard. So no Guard deployment. Just Grimm and his small crew who's orders were to protect and support Ferus and the others. He did what he could when he could. The marines blew up the landing Mistshark caused chaos by destroying neighbouring ships thus assisting in the escape. The fleet is miles away looking out not in so relatively easy for Random to dodge the cordon until of course the Fleet knew it had been fooled again. Await with interest to see the political fallout in the fleet as a result.
- Grimm is frankly understaffed and under gunned for full interdiction on top of everything else he and his crew are trying to do at that particular moment.
My point was not that Grim could have stopped the Marines, but my point was that there was a lot of things he could have done that would have made it harder on the Aurura marines using that merchant ship as an escape route. Even manning one gun would have done it or letting the guards know to expect attack when he sent his forces into the tunnels to attack the marines. He could have blasted marines as they tried to get onto the dock (with powerful naval guns) and really hurt them badly/block access to the landing. He could have alerted the Landing Guards to expect attack (when he left to attack the Marines) or simply made sure his own ship was ready (ie - powered and shields). Yet none of those things were done. Grimm is clearly an experienced and very smart military commander and not taking any action on a very strong suspicion again makes little sense.
- Plastics are out of the question; they require petroleum-analog substances and therefore surface drilling in the places where such analogs are. Most ferrous metals are also out of the question for, well, reasons.
Yet the hubble shave access to a lot of iron, a lot of copper, loads of raw materials for vat production of everything from vegetables or beef to crystals, all of theses raw materials have to come from somewhere. Again, my point was that if iron was such a bad material to use, why did the builders not enable them to produce a better material. Copper coating iron is a VERY POOR solution. Think of all that iron armor. At the end of any battle you have loads of damaged armor, tons of broken iron armor exposed to elements. There is no way that armor can be repaired and recoated quickly. A warship could seriously compromise its armor after just one battle and require weeks in the shop to completely replace its armor. Impractical. Normally I would not quibble on this, but Butcher spend a lot of time emphasizing repeatedly the fact that iron rusts extremely quickly (24 hours and a sword can be brittle). If the author does that, he needs to spend the time thinking through the implications.
- Getting a message between habbles would involve either an on-foot messenger running up aaaaaaaaaaaaall the ramps between levels or a courier flying outside from Landing to the summit (which, if you don't have a dock, is kind of hard to start).
Also the Spirearch has his resources witness the rallying of the Habble to putting out the fire etc. He simply was using Ferus et al as his trigger in a long wider game in which risks must be taken.
Yes, but there is a constant stream of barges moving back and forth between all three ports. It would be easy enough to assign a crewman to hand deliver a message to the Spirearch. We are talking a time period close to 8+ hours at least between when they first recognized the landing was likely the primary target and when the main attack occurred. Maybe 20 hours. A message could have been totally useful/appropriate even though it might have not actually effected the events that occurred in the book. The whole point of being part of a larger organization is that make reports so your leaders can act to back you up/deal with the mess you find and/or move their resources to where they were needed. With this information, the spirearch could have concentrated his forces and been more effective, send some naval forces down, or many other things that he could not do without some hard information. The whole reason the team was sent down in the first place was to get information.
I like butcher as an author. The book is a fun read. But it does feel that, given such an unusual world, the author did not spend enough time thinking things through in his world building.
