Dragaera

High Tech vs. the Orb (some Issola spoilage)

Howard Brazee howard at brazee.net
Wed Jan 18 11:35:10 PST 2006

Jon_Lincicum at stream.com wrote:

>>Intercepted *and* decrypted. We're not dealing with WWII technology here.
>
>Even WWII had encryption (The Enigma Machine was a type of encryption, for 
>example). It was just encryption that was breakable once computers were 
>invented to decipher the keys. Can sorcery be used to decipher complicated 
>mathematical problems? I'll be a Hawk could tell you.
>
>"P" vs "NP". Who wins? ;-)
>
>Of course, a simple clairvoyance spell used to listen in to your enemies' 
>strategy meetings makes radio encryption basically worthless, anyway. 
>  
>

Separate issues.    I'm sure the enemies' strategy meetings are 
protected.   I'm less confident that all of the communications officers 
sending the encrypted orders by whichever means are protected.

Some radio intelligence can be done without human intervention.   
Clairvoyance might find it hard to read the minds of spy satellites, for 
instance.  

One way of using many tools could be illustrated in an example of 
protecting a prize.    The first thing to do is make sure all the 
physical doors and locks work as designed.   Then make sure the 
sorcerous doors and locks work as designed.   Then make sure the 
watchmen work as designed.   Include some cobwebs at strategic spots to 
discover if someone has entered the prize location.   If you can add 
psionic protections (maybe dread), add them.  If you can add witchcraft, 
add it.

The technology that the other guy overlooks is to your advantage.   The 
technology you overlook is to the other guy's advantage.

>Well, in their brute-force use of sorcery the Jenoine are at least very 
>powerful. They do tend to come across as especially unsubtle (i.e. stupid) 
>users of sorcery. I'm not sure how well this impression is justified, 
>however.
>
>  
>
For one thing, they don't think the way we do.