Special Forces

Weird Harold wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:I don't understand why you think there's some rush to slap NEAT's in every head you can as soon as you can. It's not likely to make a difference dealing with the Thing in the Basement, and dealing with the Gbaba isn't on that tight a timetable. They're not scouting anymore for Ark survivors, judging from the timeline - it's why Pei waited this long to revive Nimue. They're not, apparently, scouting or exploring at all. The danger would just be if Safehold stumbled out among the stars without knowing about them, but returning to the stars knowingly in 50 years or 500 would do fine.

It is not so much that NEAT technology needs to be rushed, it is that a "Terran Education" is diametrically opposed to the superstition and religion based "Safehold Education." It isn't really possible to educate engineers and technicians within the Writ-based "science" of Safehold.

Howsmyn's crew seem to be doing well, and the Royal College is developing scientific processes, methods, and sheer data, with the Writ as a starting point and source material. It's not something you could do under an orthodox CoGA; it's not encouraged by the Writ; and it's going to run into difficulties if/when you really need electricity or something else that would trigger the OBS. But if you call it impossible, I'm going to think your standards are excessive.

More to the point, there's a Safehold education and there's a Safehold education. What Charis has and is sharing is shifting gently away from the Writ's superstitions: not challenging them head-on but embracing an attitude that takes them as a start of inquiry rather than as a conclusion of it. They can go from there to what the Terran Federation had, in time, and again, there's no rush. Faster would be nicer, certainly, but I'm not going to sacrifice orphans - their lives or freedom - on the altar of scientific advance, and NEAT's can wait for the Reveal, absent some exceptional class of child who, for whatever other unavoidable reason, may never be able to be a part of Safehold's general society before that Reveal.

A cadre of people who grow up learning from the Terran database is functionally no different than the "two technological enclaves" called for in the original Operation Ark plans.

A cadre of NEAT-equipped people would be even closer to the original plan, but that is going to take a generation or two to implement because of the age limit for installing NEAT hardware. It probably is too late for all but the youngest war orphans already, but it would not be too late for the children of war-orphans in a "New Alexandria" enclave.

That New Alexandria would have to stay a total secret from the remainder of Safehold, and the only members of it who could be permitted contact with the outside world (apart from the Inner Circle) would be those who could nevertheless pass for normal Safeholders (or seijins, I guess). If the enclave is small or a skewed demographic (e.g., a few monks and nuns of St. Zherneau and the sister order plus a bunch of orphans), it's not fair to the participants and you may not get people well enough adjusted to be that cadre later. If it's larger, it's that much harder to hide, and still likely a lousy deal for the inmates.

Maybe some settlement that would be a whole, separate society could be worked out and hidden and be a healthy home for all concerned, even in that isolation, but it strikes me as a long shot and, with the only benefit being jump-starting the redevelopment of technology on Safehold after the Reveal, it's not worth it.

Alexandria itself was intended to bear the knowledge of the Gbaba and to be that cadre when it was safe to come back out after, oh, maybe 500 years tops from the arrival on Safehold. As it stands, Nimue, Owl, and the Inner Circle have Gbaba information covered so long as they survive, and instead of a technological stasis broken by those TF-standard teachers out of the Alexandria Enclave, Safehold is getting home-grown technological and scientific advance (helped along by Merlin and friends but started and going before them) that it can carry out, if need be, without any such teachers at all.

6L6 wrote:Most of the orphans liberated from the death camps would be to old for NEATS. After years of Federation level schooling and with near Federation level tech and training these people would become superb Special Forces. Cayleb, Hektor and many more characters were child warriors. There is a war going on, not only with the COG but with the Gbaba, during the ACW and WW2 the South and the Axis employed children on the front lines. The orphans after undergoing the brutality of the camps would be some of the most likely people on Safehold to turn away from COG dogma, a full reveal might not be possible but a replacement dogma that is built around Seijins of the past might be possible, some would have to be weeded but there are hundreds of thousands in the camps.

The Allied position on Safehold isn't as desperate - not desperate at all - as that of the Confederacy late in the ACW or the Axis late in WWII. Certainly arming kids and sending them off to kill and die as a matter of course clashes with what Charis, Siddarmark and so on view as proper treatment of children - and in this case, especially brutalized children.

I'm sure none of them would care to hear much about Schueler's bravery, compassion, or wisdom in the War Against the Fallen now, and their devotion to the CoGA is scoured away completely. When they get back into schools, their teachers can darned well skip any of that crap out of the Writ. And when they are mature, I'm sure they'd be welcome into the armed forces of that time. But the Allies can well afford to treat them as children in need of care until then instead of as a source of ready recruits, and give them an education that doesn't assume that they'll be eager to flock to the colors or prepared to hear about the Terran Federation and keep that knowledge a secret from all their friends, family and neighbors.

shaeun wrote:You are assuming facts not in evidence in my reply.

First - I never extended the training regiment to move into an actual active military formation.

According to your argument, Military Boarding Schools, the Young Marines, JROTC, The Naval Sea Cadet Corps, The Civil Air Patrol and Devil Pups are all bad as well.

Giving structure to an orphans life by immersing them into an organization they can believe in will help to remove some of the more extreme psychological effects caused by being abused in such a way. A lot of victims of these types of incidents feel powerless and an organized group structure can give them a sense of belonging and accomplishment.

I do not see how any of these things are morally "beyond the pale", especially given there is absolutely no way they can get the clinical attention they deserve.

Will most of them join the military? Quite possibly, however the need for the military will quickly fade as an unsettled truce evolves.

There is a huge difference between child soldiers and military youth auxiliaries.

I was thinking along the same line, but was trying to keep it in context of Safehold. I wasn't suggesting to mislead youth, but instead guide them in their formative stage. We are thinking and talking about the future of humankind, but it is a matter of perspectives. As I've stated before as well, they still don't know what happens in 30 years.

Since homegrown development is better than gifts, maybe indeed it's better to delay installing NEATs until Safehold is approaching TF technology on its own.

Unless ...

If there's Gbaba activity anywhere near then there could be a screaming hurry.

Expert snuggler wrote:Since homegrown development is better than gifts, maybe indeed it's better to delay installing NEATs until Safehold is approaching TF technology on its own.

Unless ...

If there's Gbaba activity anywhere near then there could be a screaming hurry.

Oh yeah, in that case, all bets are off. Big Reveal now, slap NEAT's in every infant, be ready to glass the whole area around the Temple if it should cause problems, let the chips fall where they may....

I wonder if there is even any means of detecting the Gbaba set up though. I doubt the OBS was set up with that as any concern, and it certainly wasn't inserted into an expected cultural milieu where reports from it to any humans could do any good. That would leave independent sensors, not targeted by the OBS but not hooked up to it, and Owl's remotes. The former isn't all that plausible (barring spoilers from HFQ that I don't want to read!!), and the latter certainly aren't set up with the expectation of gathering information from deep space. Safehold's got quite enough going on that merits attention!