Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

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GBLW
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Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by GBLW »

Just in case there are any other 'fact fanatics' out there like me, here are a few gems about the Chinese Navy that I have discovered online over the past few years - all of the links are presently available if you want to check anything.

Anyway here is a little online Chinese Naval info - as of Aug 2013 (all available on BBC.)

June 8, 2011:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13692558
China confirms that the refit of Soviet aircraft carrier ( formerly the "Varyag") is underway.

August 10, 2011 :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14470882
The Chinese navy's first aircraft carrier (a refitted former Soviet warship) has begun its sea trials.

March 4, 2012 :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17249476
Military budget tops $100 billion - China is developing an aircraft carrier, a stealth fighter jet, and missiles that can shoot down satellites.

September 13, 2012 :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19553811
New Destroyer launched - 10 additional hulls under construction.

September 25, 2012 :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19710040
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19709577
The Liaoning, China's first aircraft carrier, officially entered service with the navy. (Former Russian vessel - the Varyag)

November 25, 2012 :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-20483716
China has successfully landed a jet fighter on its new aircraft carrier for the first time.

February 26 - 2013 :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-21590331
China launched its first stealth Frigate - 20 more under construction

March 24th, 2013 :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21930280
“China is buying 24 Su-35 fighters and four Lada-class submarines, reported the Communist Party organ the People's Daily and China Central Television (CCTV).”

KP

OOPs - later edit -I just realised that I made scarce mention of the 'People's Liberation Army / Navy' submarines.

By 2012 the Chinese had about 50 conventional powered subs and approximately 10 or 15 nuclear submarines with more in the planning stage. To be sure they are somewhat secretive about the numbers of their subs, but Wikipedia does have a relatively accurate article on the submarine fleet, as well as one or two about their surface vessels. - kp
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by Belgarion213 »

I hope we get a few sympathetic Chinese people showing up. IIRC one of the few things that bothered me about this otherwise excellent story was the American Centered Morality. Not that I'm saying Chinese is spotless, or not just would be cool to have a bit of divided loyalties, Dragon's making friends with people other than the US and having it cause a bit of friction with President Walker, Jenny etc (especially with the astral tether etc. I'm sure SOMEBODY in Washington is frantically pointing out that as long as the Dragon's are only tethering personal from the US, they have a near monopoly on magical 'agents'.

Oh well whatever Fel writes is pretty cool so Ill be interesting to see how things progress.

Lots of fun in this chapter already.
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by kabalman2000 »

Hmmm ... repairing their burrows with concrete. I wonder if they considered spraying their lava weapons over the forms instead of using a less renewable resource like concrete. They would have had to build interior forms for the concrete anyways (probably out of rock) and then sprayed concrete or built exterior forms and poured. I would think spraying lava to the needed thickness then having the water dragons douse it would have been a easy, cheap and quick option for the kells at least (being next to the ocean, although have to be careful of salt build-up). Maybe there's not enough strength in sprayed rather than flowed rock.

Oh well, I was thinking this would be the perfect technique for earth dragons to fill in or seal off un-needed passages in a manner that would seal them pretty darn tight. Build a wall, spray several meters of fresh lava filling in the cracks and pluging the passage (maybe building a second wall as the lava rises to prevent flowing.

Just a crazy thought.
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by Mizriath »

Just made me wonder why the Chinese was so towards attacking the dragon island. Maybe because the leaders actually had a selfish evil chromatic hiding in a mountain in China. When the chromatic lose its power due to the earth dragon going into hiding, it was frantic and the chinese leaders were told to attack Dragon Island after the secret was revealed. One of the lost dragons.

Well another was actually still hiding in Scotland. And this is an Water Dragon who lives in the waters. Loch Ness??

And Kel and his team actually did not manage to "unearth" this lost dragons. Eh....
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by SYED »

Hopefully the fleet is stopped before the ships get to dragon territory, but if they do, it is hoped that they can restore the island protections. If they do so, the navy still has GPS as well as Longitude and latitude. They could hack the GPS network to hide themselves, and make the fleet miss. THey may wish to extend the island unique protections on every navigational marker in the region, reefs and islands. If they cant be seen, and can be GPS marked, then it would increase the risk in attempting to enter the area. Also, allows for future expansion, they could be where they build artificial island or underwater habitats. On the islands, they could build what ever they needed.
The dragons have plenty of clear dragon spikes to donate to the cause,
Longitude and latitude depends on a marine chronometer and sextant, so I wonder if they can use the magic that messes with senses. Also, weather magic would nuliphy attempt to sail in.
DUe to the constraints that human weapon will kill the dragons except earth dragons, I wonder if they will attempt to copy/transfer/add the elemental immunity they have. We know humans would gain the immunity if bathed in the blood of dragons, and that king Arthur's scabbard made from earth dragon bone, granted him the immunity. If other dragons can gain immunity to metal, even temporarily, they would be far more able to face guns.

We can guess that Earth dragons have stolen the plans for a rail gun, they could possibly make a gauss/coil gun if they wanted. SAy they build them on the small islands around their home, they could potentially make it too dangerous to go to the island. NOt only would they enemy have to find a hidden island, there are other hidden islands that are armed with a ship killing ranged weapon.

If dragons are seen so favorably by the chinese, how do they justify the whole invasion? WHy not use public opinion against the chinese, their people are possible allies.
Dragons taught 2 group, the emperor bodyguards and the shao lin monks. WHy not send dragons either publicly or privatly to the shao lin temple and offer to once again teach them magic? Or at least recruit/search for them. SAy the dragons send a public message that the chinese have a collection of dragon books, it may provoke them in to giving away the collection location over their computer systems which have been powned by the dragons.
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by physicalard »

The problem with interfering with GPS is that from what I've read, most miliitaries use Inertial Backups. They do this to prevent this exact situation from occurring. Even interfering with the gps would still allow them to find the island when the chinese found that their inertial backups disagreed with the gps. If the dragons hacked both the gps system and the usually computerized inertial guidance systems, which I have no clue about being connected to the internet, then it would be down to solar or stellar navigation, which could be blocked by air dragons removing all visiblity.
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by SYED »

The best defense is a good offense, destroy all censorship and electronic monitoring in china, let the public have access to everything. So their only solution would be ripping out all internet and communication infrastructure in the country to stop the people have access to the free press.

THey could in response to the invasion offer taiwan a chance at getting magicians.

I once made a comment about how shangrila may be real, hidden/restricted by magic, so why not build one of their own. a secure base of their own in chinese territory.

I doubt scions will be restored for a while, so operations are limited via flight and water.
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by hermit-bob »

The Chinese government is actually more restrictive of information than they need to be. The likelihood of a counter-revolution to overthrow the Communist Party and gather a democratic representative government is very low. China was built upon a Socialized Obligatory Dictatorship controlled by a Monolithic Bureaucracy, not much actually changed in HOW China is governed when it became the PRC. If China were to lose all censorship, even in a matter of minutes, how many people would cling TIGHTER to the current regime out of horror of the western view of the world?

I would call what the Chinese do insulation rather than censorship. Should they be doing it? No, probably not. Does it work for them? Seems to, what right do we have to judge?

I believe the Chinese as a People would not want to go to war against Draconia, but the Bureaucracy has other plans...
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by SYED »

SAy the dragons capture the nuclear missiles, What if they publicly sell them to any of the safe nuclear countries or possibly back to china? These missiles are brand new, so many would want them. Might be enough to clear up any remaining debt with the Americans.
I wonder if the dragons could figure out a way to create a completely clean/ near clean nuke. It would allow for it to be used as an engine for space ships, if for nothing else.
Is the presence of nukes enough to allow for all the non nuclear cabla warships to be sunk, possibly even them? THe water dragons could hunt the chinese sub fleet and force the humans to abandon ship.
Could the dragons hunt the chinese merchant fleet? or blockade their harbors? The chinese will back down if they realise this is a battle that will go badly for them.
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by dellstart »

Great chap.
In a funny way, this might be a Dragon version of the bay of Pigs . Definitely the stakes have been upped . I can un fortunately , see the scorched earth policy being enforced as well , :cry:
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by NSC »

I'm about halfway through this latest chapter. Finding time to read even a page or two is hard lately due to an overworked schedule at work, leading to being behind on a ton of stuff at home. Anyway, I'm currently reading where Kell is analyzing which Chinese ships to sink/strand, specifically where he's looking at sinking the oilers that will be used to refuel the military ships.

Aren't the dragons concerned with the possible ecological issues involved with sinking ships carrying that much fuel oil? I would imagine it would be hard to sink them without causing an oil leak. I would think the water dragons would be concerned about that, and effect it would have on fishing in those areas. Stranding the tankers, and keeping a constant threat around them to prevent rescue, seems to me a more viable tactic.
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by SYED »

How good in the water manipulation of the dragons? Can they use it to ensure pollution from the ship is contains, so surround the target in a bubble that blocks pollution from contaminating the surrounding water.
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by konman »

When Kel is explaining his plan he does mention that the Dragons are planning on keeping the oilers and taking them to the island to use or sell the fuel to the Americans as well making sure they do not contaminate the ocean.
Sinking their oilers is another one of those they lose we win scenarios, because it hamstrings any Navy ship we don’t cripple by vastly reducing its operational range. We’re going to keep those oilers, mainly so they don’t get sunk and threaten to cause a diesel oil spill,” he told them. “The water dragons wouldn’t like us fouling up their ocean like that, and besides, that diesel fuel has a material worth to the Americans. We can trade them that diesel fuel for extra food and supplies. The water dragons will sink those oilers carefully and then cart them back to the island.
The question should be how will they be able to sink them safely. I suspect that if they Aerate the water around the oiler causing the density to decrease the ship will sink and drown all on board.

I belive that this was mentioned earlier in the book as a potential tactic.
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by GBLW »

konman wrote:When Kel is explaining his plan he does mention that the Dragons are planning on keeping the oilers and taking them to the island to use or sell the fuel to the Americans as well making sure they do not contaminate the ocean.

The question should be how will they be able to sink them safely. I suspect that if they Aerate the water around the oiler causing the density to decrease the ship will sink and drown all on board.

I belive that this was mentioned earlier in the book as a potential tactic.
Hasn't aerated water been proven to be more bouyant than normal water, making that concept a fallacy? If I recall correctly there was even an attempt by the 'Myth Busters' to sink one or the other of the two main characters. Whoever drew the short straw got into skin diving gear and the whole ball of wax, then once he was in the aerated water he bobbed around like a cork. Their conclusion was that the aerated water created a upswelling or vertical current in the water which more than overcame the lessening of density in the aerated water column.
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Re: Earth Bond Chapter 21 Discussion (spoilers!)

Post by SYED »

What if they do that special super speed zone directly under a ship? so easily seperated fromthe fleet. easier to capture if isolated, And the rapid movement would disorientate the crew.
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