Rakurai mimicing

We know that merlin has some flight capability to orbit, so he could simply drop rocks on to targets. It likely wont be as powerful or impressive as the canon in orbit, but it could do some useful damage, that could be seen as an act of god, or just a meteor.
Sure it wont be an ultimate weapon, but it could be useful.
Create a path throught he mountains on the land bridge between howard and haven.
Shatter a frozen lake pei, limiting the resources that can reach the church.
as it is not really advanced tech, less chance of any automated systems reacting to it.

SYED wrote:...that could be seen as an act of god, ...

Except Merlin is explicitly avoiding any possibility of claiming divine intervention or divine favor.

I think, in the thrust and parry of battle, that we tend to forget that Merlin(Nimue)'s goal is not actually to win the war, as such. His/her goal is to get technology moving forward again on Safehold. Breaking the hold of the church, or at least breaking the Proscriptions and getting people to innovate is the real goal. Charis is the most convenient tool to do that, but with every loosening that Clyntahn allows that goal is moved on just as much. Indeed the development of circles, Duchairn pushing for standardization, the use of steam by mainland forces, etc. do as much for the goal as do any Charisian victories. Magwair developing a real soldiers attitude among the Harchongees will do more to break the social straitjacket that the society is in than anything that Baron Green Valley or the Safeholdians do. Why would he want to screw that up by dropping a rock on them. He needs to change the Mainlanders thinking process, not kill them. Innovation can't be just in Charis, it has to spread among the mainland realms or Charis might win but Merlin and Humanity will lose.
And such change can't be forced. The mainland has to adopt it thinking it was their own idea all along.
So he/she (Because at the core Merlin is still Nimue on some level) is being sneaky.
And Moral, at least as Moral as Merlin/Nimue's internal code lets him/her be while still fighting doggedly towards that goal of freeing Mankind to survive and eventually beat the Gbaba. That morality doesn't need that dropped rock. Pinpoint assassination of a particularly obnoxious impediment to progress, yes, as a regrettable instrument of war. Wholesale annihilation of an area, no. That's how I see it at least.

Larry

Larry wrote:I think, in the thrust and parry of battle, that we tend to forget that Merlin(Nimue)'s goal is not actually to win the war, as such. His/her goal is to get technology moving forward again on Safehold. Breaking the hold of the church, or at least breaking the Proscriptions and getting people to innovate is the real goal. Charis is the most convenient tool to do that, but with every loosening that Clyntahn allows that goal is moved on just as much. Indeed the development of circles, Duchairn pushing for standardization, the use of steam by mainland forces, etc. do as much for the goal as do any Charisian victories. Magwair developing a real soldiers attitude among the Harchongees will do more to break the social straitjacket that the society is in than anything that Baron Green Valley or the Safeholdians do. Why would he want to screw that up by dropping a rock on them. He needs to change the Mainlanders thinking process, not kill them. Innovation can't be just in Charis, it has to spread among the mainland realms or Charis might win but Merlin and Humanity will lose.
And such change can't be forced. The mainland has to adopt it thinking it was their own idea all along.
So he/she (Because at the core Merlin is still Nimue on some level) is being sneaky.
And Moral, at least as Moral as Merlin/Nimue's internal code lets him/her be while still fighting doggedly towards that goal of freeing Mankind to survive and eventually beat the Gbaba. That morality doesn't need that dropped rock. Pinpoint assassination of a particularly obnoxious impediment to progress, yes, as a regrettable instrument of war. Wholesale annihilation of an area, no. That's how I see it at least.

Larry

The only thing this overlooks is the absolute hatred that Merlin has developed for the Go4. I believe that everything that you said is correct on Merlin's motivations, but if assassination or soe other atrocity is commited by them against the Inner Circle, or someone else Merlin holds dear, I would not be surprised if the gloves come off...

The problem is, that - as mentioned above - Merlin didn't really want ANY "divine intervention" in this war. The point is to undermine the religion control at all; not just to replace one religion with another.

Probably, in truly desperate situation, Merlin MAY think about something like that - at least on the level that would be "unlikely, but not directly supernatural". But current situation is far from desperate. He basically didn't need something like that to run situation.