(SPOILERS) Rampant Speculation Based on "What If"

Following up on Duckk's analysis, the other occasion when Merlin turned into a one man SEAL team was an absolutely critical strategic intervention, namely saving Sharleyan. He may have had his judgement clouded a bit by sentiment but it's also a cold fact that she's not expendable.

Following up on how Merlin felt afterward, it will be a very bad sign for his psychological and spiritual health if he ever starts enjoying missions like those.

n7axw wrote:I think the ideas here are starting to drift off into never-never land...

How about this one... the Gbaba show up and help Clyntahn win the war because they've decided that enslaving humanity is more fitting than extirmination...

41 days and counting...

Don

***POTENTIAL SPOILERS***



Is anybody else thinking that with the Title HFQ, Shan Wei (COGA DEVIL) effectively helping (Nimue) Charis, a Charisian ship getting dusted on the cover, Thirsk's armoured screw galleys (Pt boats) coming into play against the Harolds Rakuri (kamikaze) style, and the briefing to the bishop that we are all worried about:

Maybe just maybe this is the major set back book for the Charisian Empire that will force Merlin to throw his soul to the wind and start playing NO HOLDS BARRED!!

Of course just when he turns the tide back bet a certain scout ship enters the solar system in the last scene...

Of course after the Gbaba wipe everything out - MWW will reveal in final scene of the final book that the whole series is just a VR exercise exploring the validity of Operation Arc (note the spelling of Arc vs Ark)

Ummm....

No.

The Sylmahn Gap is _not_ the best way to move an army into Siddarmark, just the shortest. And you're forgetting that there's a perfectly good canal under all that water, so Wyrshym wouldn't be stuck out on a limb. And with half a million reinforcements, grinding his way through the Gap would be doable, if punching didn't work. Even if the RSA retreating from Serabor managed to completely destroy the canal system to the east, it's not all that far by high road to Siddar.

And that ignores the Gap's major weakness: there are too many ways around it. Ways that were only held because of the logistic paralysis imposed by the Canal raid. The Northland Gap is no more impassible than the high road to Fort Tairys, and the only real issue the Army of Shiloh faced was a bit of vagueness on the subject of asses and holes in the ground. Speaking of Shiloh, do you really think that if Kaitwyrth had had unrestricted supply and massive reinforcements coming up, Eastshare would have pulled out of the blocking position he already held in the _hope_ of moving fast enough to capture another one to the south too quickly for the other side to notice he wasn't on the Daivyn anymore and waltz right through the defenses he had left weakened behind him? [assuming of course that Kaitswyrth had not felt confident enough to take things a little easier and pin him in place properly] You would not be looking at the current situation in the south or the centre. At the very best, what's now the Army of Cliff Peak would be fighting the AoS in the open ground of Shiloh. At worst, in the earthworks around Siddar City.

Or, to put it another way, do you really think that what happened is that Cayleb sat up in bed one night and said "Hey, guys! I just thought of something that guarantees our readers 20 pages of thrills, spills and chills. Let's see if we can talk His Authorness into writing it!"?

McGuiness wrote:

Duckk wrote:It took the threat of a complete strategic reversal to get Merlin to intervene with the Canal Raid. The Church forces were certain to punch out Siddarmark, and nothing in Charis' conventional arsenal could hope to stop them long enough. At which point they lose not only Siddarmark, but most of the Empire's land forces as well. It was an all-costs objective, so Merlin had to intervene. And note that afterwards Merlin feels absolutely shitty about killing the semaphore crews, who had no chance at all. He's not interested in doing this on any sort of regular basis.

As for the retaliation for Sarkyn, that was simply a reminder that the Inquisition's excesses will be called into account. Merlin cannot hope to be everywhere to police the Inquisition. He's done nothing at all regarding the concentration camps, for example. This was a pointed message to Clyntahn to keep his worst impulses in check.

I actually believe everything you just said - although I'm not quite sure that the ICA couldn't have held at the Sylmahn Gap, and in Glacierheart. In fact, it might actually have been worse for the CoGA if the canal raid hadn't occurred, since they would have brought the MHoG forward, and they'd have kept the 30k pikemen at the Gap.

Church quartermasters or not, I don't see how they manage to feed the horde, which would have eaten its way through Wyrshym's entire food supply long before spring. DE still could have pulled off the pincer move in South March as well, so other than Wyrshym having more troops with more winter clothes but vastly insufficient food, and BGV guarding the Gap instead of clearing Midhold, we'd be pretty much at the same borders that currently hold.

So although it made for fun reading and caused Clyntahn to accidentally clear an aorta or two when he had a massive fit which sadly didn't end in a coronary, I'm not convinced that were it not for the Great Canal Raid, Wyrshym would have cracked through the Sylmahn Gap and even if he had, he might have simply trapped his army hundreds of miles further south from his supplies.

David Weber responded once to the question "Why doesn't Merlin use SNARCs to sabotage the Church's war efforts?" See the FAQ at the top of this page.