Spoiler: Duchairn's plan for the manpower from the Orders

In the beginning of LAMA, Duchairn and Magwair had a discussion about how the great Orders where being forced to provide a percentage of their manpower to the church for use in the jihad, and that the Orders where not happy about this. Since then, we haven't heard anything about how this was working out. When you think about it, the Orders are not going to give up their best people to be relocated. I would think the more militant have already left for the jihad, and the rest aren't to eager to leave home. This should give Duchairn a chance to move his people and others around to get them away from the Inquisition and to build his power base. Likewise, you now have a large group within the Church who are unhappy about being moved, and less than inclined to work or go out of their way to support the jihad. So I wonder, will we see productivity for the church decline as some only do the bare minimum, and is this the way Duchairn and Magwair put together a force to revolt against the Inquisition and Clyntahn.

I wonder if this movement of people would allow him to move inquisitors and clyntans allies to the front lines, or at least bolster the allied nations of the holy war. Once out of zion, it could be possible to weaked/deal with the rot in the church. Currently, the inquisitor rules by fear, but if only the temple guard are left in zion, then that power would be lessened.

SYED wrote:I wonder if this movement of people would allow him to move inquisitors and clyntans allies to the front lines, or at least bolster the allied nations of the holy war. Once out of zion, it could be possible to weaked/deal with the rot in the church. Currently, the inquisitor rules by fear, but if only the temple guard are left in zion, then that power would be lessened.

I'm all for sending as many Inquisitors to the front lines, where they're likely to be shot in the back by "enemy" fire, but unfortunately the Inquisition is an organization spread across the entire planet. (The EoC excluded of course!) It isn't one of the monastic orders, and Clyntahn isn't going to allow the Temple guards and Inquisitors currently assigned to the Temple and Zion to be moved - they're under his control, and he likes it that way.

The impression I got from that conversation was that Duchairn was referring to the monastic orders, and that he is dragging the monks out of their monasteries and putting them to work helping the jihad, with no pay of course! Even if I'm wrong and the new policy Duchairn is handing down includes all the Bedardists, Pasqualites, Sondheimists, Truscotters, etc. across the planet, it doesn't include the Order of Schueler and the Inquisition. Clyntahn rules that with an iron fist and simply wouldn't allow anyone else any degree of control over it.

(I had a lot of fun guessing at the names of the orders based on the archangels whose books they follow. I wonder if RFC ever gave us a list? Truscotters...

AAMOF, all the orders are monastic: they all own religious houses for the accommodation and training of their members, and no doubt retirement for the lower ranks. I recall to your attention the Schuelerite abbey raided in Manchyr after Merlin ratted them out. What none of the major and few of the minor orders are is cloistered [I think that there are some, but not many] The percentage of members normally resident in the abbeys probably varies a lot from one to the next, of course, particularly since marriage is the norm for priests.

Sondheimist, BTW, is subject to some... unfortunate... elisions when scanned quickly. I'd suggest that -er is preferable. And rolls off the tongue in reasonable comfort.

McGuiness wrote:

SYED wrote:I wonder if this movement of people would allow him to move inquisitors and clyntans allies to the front lines, or at least bolster the allied nations of the holy war. Once out of zion, it could be possible to weaked/deal with the rot in the church. Currently, the inquisitor rules by fear, but if only the temple guard are left in zion, then that power would be lessened.

I'm all for sending as many Inquisitors to the front lines, where they're likely to be shot in the back by "enemy" fire, but unfortunately the Inquisition is an organization spread across the entire planet. (The EoC excluded of course!) It isn't one of the monastic orders, and Clyntahn isn't going to allow the Temple guards and Inquisitors currently assigned to the Temple and Zion to be moved - they're under his control, and he likes it that way.

The impression I got from that conversation was that Duchairn was referring to the monastic orders, and that he is dragging the monks out of their monasteries and putting them to work helping the jihad, with no pay of course! Even if I'm wrong and the new policy Duchairn is handing down includes all the Bedardists, Pasqualites, Sondheimists, Truscotters, etc. across the planet, it doesn't include the Order of Schueler and the Inquisition. Clyntahn rules that with an iron fist and simply wouldn't allow anyone else any degree of control over it.

(I had a lot of fun guessing at the names of the orders based on the archangels whose books they follow. I wonder if RFC ever gave us a list? Truscotters...

It seems to me that it is more likely the die hard fanatics would get the front line positions in the war, those eager to fight, and so sure that being a priest is protection against harm. also, those types would be far more willing to get teir hands dirty.
Also, the clergy in monastaries are likely less politcal in nature. So their influence on the rest of clergy might, be a calming and stabilising to the church.

SYED wrote:It seems to me that it is more likely the die hard fanatics would get the front line positions in the war, those eager to fight, and so sure that being a priest is protection against harm. also, those types would be far more willing to get teir hands dirty.
Also, the clergy in monastaries are likely less politcal in nature. So their influence on the rest of clergy might, be a calming and stabilising to the church.

Good point. Duchairn might realize that, and the calming influence of formerly cloistered monks and nuns working side by side with others in the jihad could cool the flames quite a bit. Clyntahn would hate that!

I certainly hope that the most fanatical members of the Inquisition have been assigned to the army, simply because that makes it easier to kill them! It also increases the likelihood of having their own troops turn on them when ordered to commit atrocities or to fight to the death instead of surrendering.

Unfortunately, as we saw when Mab had to take things into his own hands, a lot of really vicious inquisitors are behind the lines, and a surprisingly large percentage of CoGA soldiers administer the Punishment and the Question with great zeal. The rot is wider than the Inquisition, so the entire notion of jihad needs to be declared an anathema, and butchery in the name of God must be renounced, like the CoC has done. Some Nuremberg style trials would be useful as well, although I prefer Mab's approach!

Louis R wrote:AAMOF, all the orders are monastic: they all own religious houses for the accommodation and training of their members, and no doubt retirement for the lower ranks. I recall to your attention the Schuelerite abbey raided in Manchyr after Merlin ratted them out. What none of the major and few of the minor orders are is cloistered [I think that there are some, but not many] The percentage of members normally resident in the abbeys probably varies a lot from one to the next, of course, particularly since marriage is the norm for priests.

I don't think you can really call the great orders monastic, they certainly have monasteries, abbeys, retreat houses etc, but those are not their main purpose and most of their members don't live in them.

In the Appendices of LAMA RFC wrote:All clergy of the Church of God Awaiting are affiliated with one or more of the great ecclesiastic orders, but not all are members of those orders. Or it might, perhaps, be more accurate to say that not all are full members of their orders. Every ordained priest is automatically affiliated with the order of the bishop who ordained him and (in theory, at least) owes primary obedience to that order. Only members of the clergy who have taken an order’s vows are considered full members or brethren/ sisters of that order, however. ... Only full brethren or sisters of an order may attain to rank within that order, and only members of one of the great orders are eligible for elevation to the vicarate.

These people run the legal system, hospitals, agricultural and veterinary consultancies, school and university systems, church bureaucracy and treasury, poor-relief system etc, etc. And that's only the ones that don't work directly in Parishes. The point was that although all these things are excellent, 'Don't you know there's a war on?' Duchairn realised that there was a big pool of educated people the church was already paying for who could be reassigned to the war effort. So the draftees may not be the orders' very best people, perhaps, but they will all be committed people who started out with a strong faith and loyalty to the CoGA. Very few of them will have come from a cloistered background.

Hi Randomiser,

We don't know the sizes of all the orders or their total, so estimating what 25% of those man and woman hours could be serving the jihad more directly will be a guess until we get more hints, but it might total up to 10 or even 20 million in the KotTL alone since most adult males in the KotTL seem to be in some order, and the same applies to many women especially those not married or finished raising their children, since the church and the vicarate are essentially the KotTL's reason for being.

One wonders how many are effectively unskilled for the jihad or will just be used in custodial or clerical capacities rather than be retrained for industrial work, since the CoGA industries aren't that big or that technically complex yet.

Still, even only 1-2% of the above figures could double or triple the direct jihad industrial workforce in the KotTL, with similar dramatic improvements in production, only RFC knows exactly how much they'll help.

L

Randomiser wrote:

Louis R wrote:AAMOF, all the orders are monastic: they all own religious houses for the accommodation and training of their members, and no doubt retirement for the lower ranks. I recall to your attention the Schuelerite abbey raided in Manchyr after Merlin ratted them out. What none of the major and few of the minor orders are is cloistered [I think that there are some, but not many] The percentage of members normally resident in the abbeys probably varies a lot from one to the next, of course, particularly since marriage is the norm for priests.

I don't think you can really call the great orders monastic, they certainly have monasteries, abbeys, retreat houses etc, but those are not their main purpose and most of their members don't live in them.

In the Appendices of LAMA RFC wrote:All clergy of the Church of God Awaiting are affiliated with one or more of the great ecclesiastic orders, but not all are members of those orders. Or it might, perhaps, be more accurate to say that not all are full members of their orders. Every ordained priest is automatically affiliated with the order of the bishop who ordained him and (in theory, at least) owes primary obedience to that order. Only members of the clergy who have taken an order’s vows are considered full members or brethren/ sisters of that order, however. ... Only full brethren or sisters of an order may attain to rank within that order, and only members of one of the great orders are eligible for elevation to the vicarate.

These people run the legal system, hospitals, agricultural and veterinary consultancies, school and university systems, church bureaucracy and treasury, poor-relief system etc, etc. And that's only the ones that don't work directly in Parishes. The point was that although all these things are excellent, 'Don't you know there's a war on?' Duchairn realised that there was a big pool of educated people the church was already paying for who could be reassigned to the war effort. So the draftees may not be the orders' very best people, perhaps, but they will all be committed people who started out with a strong faith and loyalty to the CoGA. Very few of them will have come from a cloistered background.

Hi Reader_of_Fiction,

Welcome to the forums, please feel free to have your favorite simulated beverage on the simulated forum.

Kudos for some careful thinking.

Your surmise that the most fanatic have already volunteered to serve closer to the front of the jihad may be entirely correct, leaving the far less motivated as you see them to apparently mumble along behind and perhaps quietly sigh or moan alone over how unfair their lot is.

However, the top 3-5% of several million plus might be all the motivated workers needed to double or triple some industrial production, which might give the alliance some increased difficulties; even though brother Lynkyn Fultyn told Magwair that they couldn't increase production much at all last September by simply shifting people away from what they were trained to do without retraining them first, so it may be awhile before production climbs to where it it should go given the resources applied.

So while some may find themselves underground shoveling coal, or building more water power reservoirs and chimneys, or working in the clothing factories, the majority may still be near where they were before, doing more physical labor perhaps but not too strenuous.

OTOH, I don't think there's all that much time to shift all these people around to specifically overwhelm the inquisition, simply because so far as we know Rhobair has no major allies or confederates to carefully sift all these non-volunteers etc, especially given the time that would take, so he can't know who'll support the inquisition or not in the first place, so I doubt he sees them as some kind of counter to all the inquisitors.

Given he's the reason they've been kicked out of their comfortable places, I don't see them automatically supporting him.

At best, he might win their temporary support by promising to return them to their old comforts after dealing with Clyntahn and the inquisitors ASAP, so I'd consider them fair weather friends at best.

It may be that he expects the situation to continue to worsen, and someone independently without prompting from him, probably Allayn, will suggest the still relatively unskilled be trained and armed to defend the KotTL's own territory, commanded by the remaining temple guard officers.

In the face of attack from several hundred thousand alliance soldiers, how could Clyntahn object?

If using this labor pool in that way is a part of Rhobair's plan, finding those willing to fight or at least sabotage the inquisition will take considerable time, time Duchairn may not have given how quickly the allies may come calling, ie possibly by fall.

150 days and counting down to find out.

L

Reader_of_Fiction wrote:In the beginning of LAMA, Duchairn and Magwair had a discussion about how the great Orders where being forced to provide a percentage of their manpower to the church for use in the jihad, and that the Orders where not happy about this. Since then, we haven't heard anything about how this was working out. When you think about it, the Orders are not going to give up their best people to be relocated. I would think the more militant have already left for the jihad, and the rest aren't to eager to leave home. This should give Duchairn a chance to move his people and others around to get them away from the Inquisition and to build his power base. Likewise, you now have a large group within the Church who are unhappy about being moved, and less than inclined to work or go out of their way to support the jihad. So I wonder, will we see productivity for the church decline as some only do the bare minimum, and is this the way Duchairn and Magwair put together a force to revolt against the Inquisition and Clyntahn.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Reader_of_Fiction,

Welcome to the forums, please feel free to have your favorite simulated beverage on the simulated forum.

Kudos for some careful thinking.

Your surmise that the most fanatic have already volunteered to serve closer to the front of the jihad may be entirely correct, leaving the far less motivated as you see them to apparently mumble along behind and perhaps quietly sigh or moan alone over how unfair their lot is.

However, the top 3-5% of several million plus might be all the motivated workers needed to double or triple some industrial production, which might give the alliance some increased difficulties; even though brother Lynkyn Fultyn told Magwair that they couldn't increase production much at all last September by simply shifting people away from what they were trained to do without retraining them first, so it may be awhile before production climbs to where it it should go given the resources applied.

So while some may find themselves underground shoveling coal, or building more water power reservoirs and chimneys, or working in the clothing factories, the majority may still be near where they were before, doing more physical labor perhaps but not too strenuous.

OTOH, I don't think there's all that much time to shift all these people around to specifically overwhelm the inquisition, simply because so far as we know Rhobair has no major allies or confederates to carefully sift all these non-volunteers etc, especially given the time that would take, so he can't know who'll support the inquisition or not in the first place, so I doubt he sees them as some kind of counter to all the inquisitors.

Given he's the reason they've been kicked out of their comfortable places, I don't see them automatically supporting him.

At best, he might win their temporary support by promising to return them to their old comforts after dealing with Clyntahn and the inquisitors ASAP, so I'd consider them fair weather friends at best.

It may be that he expects the situation to continue to worsen, and someone independently without prompting from him, probably Allayn, will suggest the still relatively unskilled be trained and armed to defend the KotTL's own territory, commanded by the remaining temple guard officers.

In the face of attack from several hundred thousand alliance soldiers, how could Clyntahn object?

If using this labor pool in that way is a part of Rhobair's plan, finding those willing to fight or at least sabotage the inquisition will take considerable time, time Duchairn may not have given how quickly the allies may come calling, ie possibly by fall.

150 days and counting down to find out.

L

Hi Lyonheart,

Just thinking about the screaming protest my body is about to make getting out to do yard work after a winter of sitting around...

Can't you just hear those monks when they go from transcribing the Writ to shovelling coal? Bet there will be a market for chiopractors...

Or perhaps cannon fodder: no, no Father, you don't thrust the barrel into your shoulder, you point it the other way...

What glorious artisans they'd make: Brother Zyke, you are supposed to grind on the part, not your finger...

Interesting times ahead in the Temple Lands...all to the glory of the Jihad!

Don