Headscratchers / We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

• In chapter 24, Riker and Homer enter the Solar System at 5% of the speed of light, while steadily decelerating at 2.5 g. According to the text, they're supposed to pass very close to the Sun at a speed of 0.1 C. Maybe my math is off, but why would they still be moving at 10% of the speed of light, if they entered the system at 5% and are slowing down?
  • They probably changed their acceleration several times between entering the solar system and getting close to the sun.
  • They're decelerating, but they're also falling toward the sun, which would cause acceleration. It may have been a mistake, or he might have done the orbital mechanics, which are weird and counterintuitive.
• We are told several times that von-neuman probes are a numbers game, and the first to start replication wins - so it seems a little silly that none of them decided to stay in the solar system, and get a ~ten year headstart on replication in comparison to the others. (This is also one reason why RL engineers consider the idea to be a little silly. Mathematically it's much quicker (and safer) to keep the von-neuman reproduction in your own system, climb up the order of magnitude ladder, and then send the ships out once you have enough of them.)
  • The Bobs consistently fail to take advantage of exponential growth themselves, building only minimal infrastructure and then struggling along with the resulting manufacturing and raw material shortages, and repeatedly going into fights with inadequate numbers and weapons as a result. It makes for rather frustrating reading at times, with major tragedies happening because he didn't want to build printers. He really should have paid more attention to those talks he attended before he died...
  • The Solar System is noted to have already been stripped of most of its easily-accessible resources; a problem that complicates recovery and evacuation efforts by the Bobs later on.
    • Which itself seems like an instance of Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale. What did humanity *do* with all those materials? Other star systems also seem to be incredibly tiny in terms of available materials.
  • This was stated to be the Brazilian Strategy by in large, focus primarilly on launching probes in systems with weaponry. Besides, once you have a factory in another system producing additional probes it's much harder to shut down and you have a foothold in that system.
  • Further, it's possible that someone did try cranking out von-neuman probes in the Solar System, and most of them got wiped out in the interplanetary war that kicked off soon after the first probes launched.
• why do the colonists on Asgard complain about the gravity? It's seven percent higher than earth's. That translates to about 18 pounds for a 250 pound person. Within a month that weight should be almost negligible to the average person.