Astardis wrote:Hmm, nice chapter Fel.
On the other hand, I hope you keep the influx of "super" "uber" or "god" technology to a minimum. Up until now, you managed to keep Jason ahead of the other Faey with his quick and cunning mind, his ability to "think outside the norm".
Now, you have introduced several new advanced technology. As I stated in the Sub17 spoiler posting, I don't like "deus ex machina".
I can't really see, how Karinne would have been able to hide such great advancements to the rest of the empire.
First of all, there is the money. If you compare research hundreds of years ago with nowadays it should be clear. Newton sat under a tree and he wrote his theories. Today even for the smallest findings you need huge particle accelerators, hundreds of technicans and so on.
The only logical way to gain enough of the necessary money, in my opinion, are the royalties from their inventions, selling patents or producing products themselves with their advanced technology.
Second, even if they kept alot of findings a secret, they still used them. If you use technology so far above anyone other, it is bound to get noticed. For example, all other Faey knew the Karinnes were stronger in telepathy. Some could have been explained by their breeding program but not all. So I am sure, the only thing that prevented the other Faey to come to the conclusion of telepathy amplifier was the paradigma that telepathy and technology doesn't mix.
But that can't work for all the other advancements like the FTL transmitter.
And third, the "human factor" ... pardon the "faey factor". I can see a faey scientist/professor deep involved in Karinne research telling his students just a bit more than he/she should have. Discussions of technicans in a bar, overheard by other patrons and hundreds of ofter possibilities. And that leaves direct espionage still out of the equotation.
No one can keep something a secret, as long he is using it. After all, the US couldn't keep their B2's a secret after they started to test/use them.
So, all I can hope in the end is, that Fel isn't going to end his phenomenal story by turning on "god mode" and squishing Jasons enemies to pulp. I would like to see them fading away slowly

The Karinnes kept what they were doing a secret easily, by following these simple guidelines:
1: Visitors to Karis were restricted to a very small continent where the Academy was located, hiding the rest of the planet from outsiders. All travel to and from Karis was STRICTLY controlled. It was harder to get to Karis than it was to get to Moridon, with multiple security checks, telepathic screenings, and scans. And that was just to get IN. Getting OUT was even harder. Most people attributed this security to the Academy's advanced research and the need to protect it, and the Karinnes' general isolationist views, for they only tolerated outsiders at the Academy. If they only knew.
2: Outsiders could not control ANYTHING, as they had no means of interacting with any of Karis' technology OUTSIDE THE ACADEMY. Interfaces and gestalts were NOT used in the Academy out in the open, only in controlled labs. Everywhere else outside the Academy required an interface or gestalt; one could not even open a door on Karis off Academy Isle without an interface. An outsider on Karis Proper that somehow managed to elude Karinne security was very quickly and very easily singled out and dealt with. Usually a "dealing with" of a permanent nature.
3: The Karinnes were the most powerful telepaths among the Faey. Even if someone DID discover their secrets, they sure as hell weren't getting off the planet with them.
Oh, and remember: in that era, interstellar communications were impossible. Even getting a message out was a daunting proposition, given that one had to broadcast to a ship, and no ship could get within communications range of Karis without being challenged.
4: And if all else failed, there was the Kimdori. They did a lot of work keeping Karis a secret.
Money: Money for the Karinnes was not an issue. This is kinda a minor spoiler, but the Karinnes refined replication technology to allow them to produce complex molecules, but they were still restricted to producing no base atom heavier than Iron (even they couldn't quite get the knack of replicating a heavy element and make it stable). They simple replicated any materials they needed, and since they could replicate precious materials like gold, well, let's say that they could produce a staggering amount of money in a short time if it became needful. Clearly, though, they saved this for true emergencies. The rest of the Imperium thought that they funded their house and their efforts via tuition fees at the Academy, but the truth was, that money just paid the salaries of the outsiders that worked there.
Sure, they kept up the illusion that they were a house that played the economic game like everyone else, but they had a major ace up their sleeves.
The Human factor: Yah, this happened. Quite a bit. But that's what those exit screenings the students/spies had to go through before they left the planet were for. Nobody could hide ANYTHING from a Karinne Mindbender, who were the most powerful telepaths alive. Anyone who had suspect information had that information culled from their memory and then healed over so they never knew they knew it in the first place.
It took a lot of effort and discipline to keep these secrets for so long, and they had lots of help from the Kimdori. Jason's already realized this, and he's come to the conclusion that, like the Karinnes, he's going to have to take some pretty extraordinary steps to protect Karinne technology. The first decision he made is that the Imperium will NEVER know that Karis has been cleaned up and is inhabitable. To them, it will remain a dead planet. He's going to use the scout ship en route back to Karis as the vehicle by which he establishes his position as the new leader of the house of Karinne.
Telepathy: actually, that's exactly what the others believed, that it WAS the breeding program that produced such powerful telepaths. It was absolutely inconceivable to just about everyone that a machine could interact telepathically with a Faey. It had been reserched and studied for thousands of years, and it always ended in failure. Even the Karinnes failed, until they did something that's pretty much unthinkable; wide-scale genetic engineering to produce telepaths that COULD.