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Originally Posted by stonecypher5413
Well, EC, I must congratulate you on your restrained and polite responses to our posts on this thread.
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Thanks for saying so. Getting up online was, at first, a real lesson in self-control. I'm not the only one on the hot seat; another member of the Board has some websites assigned to him, and we all deal with the publicity we generate by our own activities. I wrote that inflammatory article about how prepping won't work, so I have to deal with the questions and comments that it produced. It got a little attention, I must say. Really ticked some people off, too. No one's refuted it factually, mind you, they just didn't like it.
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Originally Posted by stonecypher5413
Now you've got me intrigued enough with the CONCEPT to put you on the hot seat a little bit longer and play devil's advocate:
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Fire away.
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Originally Posted by stonecypher5413
1. Just because you're at sea doesn't mean you will escape aerial surveillance (NWO black helicopters)  and satellite pass-overs, when the PTB are finished hunting us hunkerers down. Copter-fired missiles, blub-blub, you drown. |
There are four main principles of survival that apply here, aside from, "prepare at a secret location as much as possible."
One, make the enemy hunt over a very broad area, across jurisdictional lines and varied terrain, to find you. Four hundred ships could hide in the Amazon, for example, for years, undetected; not that I'm recommending it, mind you. Ships can disappear in most of the East Indies, which are absolutely huge and still have vast unexplored areas. just a few examples of the strength in scattering in small groups. In both those areas, as examples, there are natural materials to build more ships. Fifty could go in and a hundred come out. The newer ones would lack some of the technology of the older ones, but could be retrofitted later.
Two, when a society's power production and industry are distributed, meaning each Manta Ray makes its own power and, if the owner is a manufacturer, has his manufacturing facility aboard, there are no cities nor infrastructure which can be hit to weaken the society. If there are a thousand of them, and you spend a certain amount of money and time destroying one, you've only weakened your enemy by one thousandth. Compare that to the relatively small effort necessary to knock out a power station, which cripples hundreds or thousands of industrial plants. The military can really only win if they can hit "high value targets," like infrastructure, rail yards, that sort of thing. We deny them access to those by simply not building them in the first place. By the time we build heavy industry, like, say, a tractor factory, we'll be doing it on floating colonies that can move as fast as any other ship. Seriously.
Three, everything about our training and the way of life we choose promotes emotional maturity, a necessary condition for success in ocean combat. The kind of top-down society that's being created on land is one that literally punishes maturity, and reduces the number of people who actually finish growing up. The Soviet Union was a great example of that: their navy had some truly amazing equipment, yet never accomplished jack, because they couldn't produce leaders truly capable of taking responsibility: the system wouldn't allow them to either exist nor function. We'll have the same advantage over just about everyone as the US had over the Soviet Union in the seventies and eighties at sea.
Four, when you can get away from your enemy, he cannot oppress you. The ocean is a big enough place that a group of sixty ships could scatter literally sixty directions, and a pursuing fleet would have to have sixty ships to catch them, making it a one-on-one fight when they meet, eliminating the "fleet" strength from the equation.
As for pirates and other marauders, the only mention we make of that in pubilc is to state that these vessels are capable of mounting real defenses. Benign example: Are you familiar with radar deflectors? They're sold commercially for sailboats, about the size of a basketball, and under $100. They're supposed to make you really visible on radar so bigger ships won't hit you; they make you look the size of a battleship on radar. But, if you take one of those, and float it under a helium or small hot air balloon a couple hundred yards off your boat, just a hundred feet up, guess what target the missile or fire control radar will be trying to hit? Float six of them in an uneven circle around your boat, so your boat's not in the center, and enjoy the fireworks. Should they actually hit one, float another one to replace it. My point is, we've given this some thought, and we'll give it more, the tools and resources exist to mount serious power, and we like our chances at achieveing real freedom. We just don't say much about it publicly. DOD reads our website every week. Seriously.
I will say that with radar reflectors to render the longer-range missiles largely worthless, if that system is deployed effectively and alertly, it will force the helicopter into a range that's reachable with civilian weapons, like a .50 semi auto. Notice I haven't mentioned any of the goodies which are readily available in certain ports - for cash.
There are also steps you can take when you know hostilities are in the offing. Not all the time, but during hostilities. Here's a simple one, though it will affect ship-handling somewhat. Imagine a pair of outriggers which support a thin, inward-slanted concrete wall about eight feet outboard, all the way around. Missile detonates eight feet from target, target is immediately air conditioned, no glass whatsoever and the cupboard doors are toothpicks, but if you were in battle stations when it happened, you had two to four inches of steel-reinforced concrete between you and it, and you still float and are seaworthy IF your sails were down at impact. You should have one spare sail and frame aboard in any event.
And we really don't expect to survive "untouched." No frontier has ever simply rolled over and showed its belly; they always demand a price in blood. We ARE planning and preparing to make that price as low as possible, because we're not a top-down nation that can send its young men to fight the old men's battles. Risks are society-wide, so we're putting plans and policies in place to deal with them as a society.
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Originally Posted by stonecypher5413
2. Aren't boat wakes pretty visible from space, speaking of the Forces of Evil and what technology they have?
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Very.
We already know we need to pump water through channels in the hull to keep cool in the tropics; a slightly more aggressive channel/pump system means approximate infra-red mimicry of the water underneath us.
There will of course be a period of extreme vulnerability; this could even be stillborn. They could wait until we're ready to launch our first Corvette and sweep in, plant child porn on everyone's computers, and charge us with wiretapping. However, if we can get going at all, we have a huge chance, because when you Launch from our floating shipyard, you'll know how to build every part of a LifeYacht. That means that even three families can arrange a place and time to meet, and flee different directions and meet up later to begin the fleet anew. Everyone we Launch will have the potential to do that, so they'll be like dandelion seeds if the Big Bad Wolf goes "puff."
Location will have a huge effect on start-up security. The Steering Council hasn't chosen a location for start-up yet. Because of the vulnerability problem, if I'm on that Council I'll be pushing for somewhere like Costa Rica or the Philippines: modern cities where you can buy tools and materials, and right next door, deep wilderness where a few crazy people building ships won't be noticed.
We think, which is not as strong as saying, "we believe," that the worldwide plan right now is to tear down nations, including the US. This nation once had an Army and 50 National Guards. The Guard equipment was wrecked in Iraq, and according to reports I've been getting, been only sparsely replaced; very sparsely.
US Naval strength is declining somewhat numerically, from 2000 to 2011: 318 warships eleven years ago is now 285. They're better now, but the number of ships matters when you're trying to hunt down little guys like us. Also, don't forget the emotional stunting going on throughout much of America right now, which will give us easier and easier opponents, like in the Soviet Union example earlier.
We currently believe we can only hide under trees on rivers, and that not completely. Our military planning so far assumes the enemy will find us when he wants to, so we're preparing things so as to avoid giving him a reason until we have measures in place. We know some of those measures, and will develop more, but the day will come when they can come find us, and when the dust settles, there will be more of us floating and fighting than them. No, we can't get there in one year. Camouflage, harmlessness, and for the Sea Lions, as opposed to the Terraformers and Freeholders, the handy cover of bringing religiosity to the fuzzy wuzzies will go a long way toward putting us at the bottom of their do-list.
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Originally Posted by stonecypher5413
3. Marine engineering creds on my part = ZERO, but I know intuitively if you drive a ton or so of auto off one of your boats, you're going to affect the balance and stability of the whole craft.
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That was addressed before we even designed in the garage or shoreboat bays. The watertight flotation compartments are fitted with valves and compressed air lines, and are trim tanks. The list created by loading or unloading a car won't last long. We have the same problem with the shoreboat bay; to decrease draft, some captains will want to pump out the water while under way, which will throw off the balance unless there are trim tanks on all four corners. Same problem when you drop anchor, it the anchor's a really heavy one: you have to adjust trim. All the watertight compartments are trim tanks, so you can still trim if you hit something and tear a hole in one tank. You can also use that compressed air to help a concrete patch support stay in place if you patch the hole at sea.
The compressed air tanks are to be filled in heavy weather if you have the Capsize Recovery System installed, because that system uses boat-raising balloons on the ends of the masts to force the ship to tip back up. You'd normally keep air in the tanks anyway just because you might want to adjust trim, and there's no real reason to empty the tanks.
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Originally Posted by stonecypher5413
4. Deep ocean zones won't supply a lot of food fish, which tend to congregate closer to shore -- plan on fishing only when you tie up at one of those friendly areas without any pirates or banjo-playing locals?
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The Manta Ray has farm and garden space aboard to feed ten people, including meat, eggs, and dairy. The Sting Ray is being examined to see if we can lengthen it to provide farm and garden to feed four. The Corvette will probably always be reduced to towing a farm barge for growing food, but all our LifeYachts have twice as much sail as is necessary to achieve max hull speed, just in case you want to tow something or some sails get damaged or shot away.
If we lengthen the Sting Ray, we may just drop the Corvette and redesign the original, short Sting Ray for four people plus farm and garden. It could be done, believe it or not; hydroponics experts, and I stress experts, have produced thirty pounds of food per cubic foot of garden per year.
I was the driving force behind the farm and garden, because I just don't care for seafood much. An occasional lobster, and I've had enough for that year. Food will be less of a problem than laundry soap. We don't know how to make that out of sand and seashells.
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Originally Posted by stonecypher5413
5. A commune on water is still a bunch of individuals who will never be able to reach a consensus on anything if this is a "flotilla" scenario for protection. Ditto on your "Extraction Fleet."  |
No, our system of governance is Omniarchy
The Ericsson Council - Omniarchy - An Overview (http://www.ericssoncouncil.org/page13.html - broken link) Just like a scratch football game, everyone agrees to the rules, and if someone violates them, the whole group enforces compliance. We train everyone at the Construction Fleet in Omniarchy, whether they use it or not after they Launch.
Part of Omniarchy is an agreement to serve a set schedule in the armed forces under the orders of the armed forces Council. When you're on active duty, you retain the right to bring charges for violating the Compact. There are things the armed forces council, and the officers, can't order you to do. If they do, you can bring charges immediately, and be heard by a civilian jury if there are any civilians in the area. Else, you'll be heard by a jury drawn by lot from those Omniarchs who are in the area; they have to hear the case, and render judgment according to the Compact.
There's a lot more to it, and that only applies to Sea Lions, Terraformers, and Freeholders; Independents do as they please once they Launch, but are otherwise not affiliated with us in any way. While at the Construction Fleet, Omniarchy is practiced and taught, but without the military service requirement. Everyone is trained in site security, like a rent-a-cop, so they can sign up for gravy security shifts, but the worst they face is standing nightwatch or responding to an alarm.
It's a lot of reading, and a lot of it's not up on the site yet, but we have a very flexible but strong structure. I've been a Project Manager in IT for several years, and that structure comes primarily from my experiences in leadership, along with a long, long reading list of history.
Anything else I can tell you? You ask good questions, and this sort of thing is part of my job as a Board Member. Feel free.
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Yes, they've done a lot.
