It was a radio signal that killed all systems in the solar system. So… no firewalls? Air gapped life support and critical systems? Sanitized inputs?
The guy that blew up the initial terraforming mission was the lowly tech on that ship meant for the observer coffin… how did he have the elevated privileges to do any of what he did?
Why was the initial planet meant for this stupid science experiment instead of as a colony?
If they could build an ark ship, I have trouble believing they actually had to abandon earth. They could have continued living there with vastly higher access to resources
Also, I think at some point they brought up military personnel that were kept asleep because once you take that cat out of the bag it won’t go back in. Yet later when they had two existential crises, those soldiers weren’t woken up?
Edit: I also found it galling when Kern mused about how maybe things would have gone differently had people been more empathetic, towards the end. Like, lady, you were a dick almost the entire time
The signal doesn’t have to take down everything. Just a critical mass to take the world down. For example, if it couldn’t get the hospital, it could get the power companies nearby. Or take down the next town over and overrun the functional town.
I’m pretty sure his elevated privilege was the gun (or bomb or whatever, it’s been a minute since I read it).
The funder probably got to chose where the money went. And Kern wanted a monkey planet. I think the goal was to establish communication with them.
I think they found people were living there, and IIRC, that’s how the book ends, with them headed back to earth.
I can’t speak for the military thing. I don’t remember it well enough.
I still find it doubtful a single signal, sent out from earth, would be sufficient to do anything to a colony world, let alone even a run down rock hopper. I’d think that kind of attack would require a local agent in a sustained attack. I would expect ships and colony worlds to be fairly hardened against electronic warfare, especially important subsystems, which I would imagine might be set to not accept remote commands at all. Yeah often in the real world security is lax, but messing up doesn’t usually prevent us from breathing
I think the observation tech locked all other crew out of ship controls and then blew the ship by overloading the drives. Maybe I’m misremembering. I though kern only got through and released the monkeys and virus because he had neglected the coffin
I just find it unbelievable that the first terraformed world, which must be heinously expensive, would be used as an experiment instead of a colony
I thought the signal at the end was from the world from the next book, I didn’t read it though so idk
I swear they mentioned military personnel distinct from security personnel during the failed initial rebellion, but could be misremembering
Like 90% of today’s technology runs on Windows, Mac or Android. 3 viruses would wipe us out today
It was a radio signal that killed all systems in the solar system. So… no firewalls? Air gapped life support and critical systems? Sanitized inputs?
The guy that blew up the initial terraforming mission was the lowly tech on that ship meant for the observer coffin… how did he have the elevated privileges to do any of what he did?
Why was the initial planet meant for this stupid science experiment instead of as a colony?
If they could build an ark ship, I have trouble believing they actually had to abandon earth. They could have continued living there with vastly higher access to resources
Also, I think at some point they brought up military personnel that were kept asleep because once you take that cat out of the bag it won’t go back in. Yet later when they had two existential crises, those soldiers weren’t woken up?
Edit: I also found it galling when Kern mused about how maybe things would have gone differently had people been more empathetic, towards the end. Like, lady, you were a dick almost the entire time
The signal doesn’t have to take down everything. Just a critical mass to take the world down. For example, if it couldn’t get the hospital, it could get the power companies nearby. Or take down the next town over and overrun the functional town.
I’m pretty sure his elevated privilege was the gun (or bomb or whatever, it’s been a minute since I read it).
The funder probably got to chose where the money went. And Kern wanted a monkey planet. I think the goal was to establish communication with them.
I think they found people were living there, and IIRC, that’s how the book ends, with them headed back to earth.
I can’t speak for the military thing. I don’t remember it well enough.
I still find it doubtful a single signal, sent out from earth, would be sufficient to do anything to a colony world, let alone even a run down rock hopper. I’d think that kind of attack would require a local agent in a sustained attack. I would expect ships and colony worlds to be fairly hardened against electronic warfare, especially important subsystems, which I would imagine might be set to not accept remote commands at all. Yeah often in the real world security is lax, but messing up doesn’t usually prevent us from breathing
I think the observation tech locked all other crew out of ship controls and then blew the ship by overloading the drives. Maybe I’m misremembering. I though kern only got through and released the monkeys and virus because he had neglected the coffin
I just find it unbelievable that the first terraformed world, which must be heinously expensive, would be used as an experiment instead of a colony
I thought the signal at the end was from the world from the next book, I didn’t read it though so idk
I swear they mentioned military personnel distinct from security personnel during the failed initial rebellion, but could be misremembering