On 9/11/21 19:42, James Catchpole - jlcatchpole at googlemail.com (via tml list) wrote: > On Tue, 9 Nov 2021, 09:29 Alex Goodwin - alex.goodwin at > multitel.com.au <http://multitel.com.au> (via tml list), > <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote: > > > What happened before the rise of the TAS, such as during the > duration of > the Nth Interstellar War, after the Terrans developed (IIRC the first > non-Ancient) meson bang bangs? > > Figures, though - the bunch of human nutcases without a collective > cultural memory of the Ancients being the first ones to independently > develop meson weapons, within 2 centuries (canonically) of > independently > developing Jump. > > > I thought that meson guns weren't invented until after Sabmiqys was > contacted? I may well sit corrected. On one hand, Captain E. Random Poorsod did indeed cop it from meson fire in 1367 BC. Judging from the travwiki article, I guess the Challenge article doesn't give much technological background? On other hand, what I've cited below actually meshes with your statement - ~3600 years later is still "after". I had read what I had written as "the first _human_ nutcases to independently develop meson bang bangs were the ones without collective cultural memory of the Ancients". That is, out of the four non-minor human strains, the Yaskoydri, Vilani and Zhodani all had some cultural memory of the Ancients (even as myth), but the Terrans, lacking such, said "bugger putting a brick on the accelerator, weld the bloody thing to the floor." My apologies for the ambiguity. As per GT:ISW, p 217: "_Indomitable_ herself served as Grand Admiral Albadawi’s flagship during the Ninth Interstellar War. _Unstoppable_ laid down history’s first meson-cannon barrage during the Battle of Muan Kwoyen, destroying numerous Imperial ships" p 35 of that book places IW8 as 2228-2238 AD. p 36 of that book places IW9 as 2245-2256 AD, and also adds "During the Eighth Interstellar War, Terran engineers made two critical breakthroughs in naval technology. The jump-3 drive had the potential to give Terran fleets unprecedented speed and mobility, while advances in particle-beam technology gave rise to the first meson-cannon weaponry." That would seem to put a hard later bound on Terran development of meson bang bangs as 2238 AD (3606 years after Captain Poorsod's Bad Day), and combat employment no more than 18 years after that. Alex
