Spoiler - Snippet 12 An interesting thought

PeterZ wrote:Don,

The odds are 100% because the outcome is written. We just don't know what RFC wrote.

You know my thoughts since before HFQ snippets. Pretty soon we might get a clearer idea how Nynian will respond.

Hi PeterZ,

Gotcha... I'll accept that as a friendly amendment! Good to see your post.

I'm waiting, holding my breath, so to speak!

Don

The only points I can bring up are that we really can't know for certain that some sort of advanced weapons haven't found their way to her. If anyone on the planet could have access to ray guns, it would be her. Also, as you say, she is capable. Very capable. They still haven't caught her sending her coded messages, so they have no way to stop her from at the very least getting some very damaging messages out, even if she personally fails to do anything else. Just my two cents.

n7axw wrote:
Well, to play Nynian's (or the devil's) advocate, Nynian is really a lot better prepared to receive the truth than anyone to whom it has been revealed so far:

1.She has been engaged in a shadow war with the church all of her life.

2.She knows that the church lies, commits murder, forgery, extortion and the like.

3. She is aware of a story line about the beginnings that contradicts the Writ and the testimonies.

4.Yes she is devout, but not more so than, say, Father Paityr or Mikael Staynair who both at various stages had to come to grips with the truth about the archangels.

5.She has been introduced to us not only as being very capable but as a person of kindness and compassion.

6.There is really no plausible weapon that would be available to Nynian that could damage a PICA, although it is true that she doesn't know that and were she to try something she would find out the hard way.

7.The real reason there is so much nervousness about her both in the story line and her on the forum has not to do with her character but because she figured out part of the truth about Merlin and approached him and not the other way around.

Of all the people in a position to understand that there is a difference between God and the church, Nynian and Sandaria are probably in the best position that we have seen so far.

So here is my wager, guys... If I am wrong, belly up to the virtual bar and have a round on me. There is 80-20 odds of Nynian and Sandaria adjusting to the truth just fine. If I am right, what we are seeing now in the snippet is a plot device being used to reveal more of the story of the War against the Fallen and the early days of the COGA along with gaining access to more Nynian's sourses in the temple and possibly Duchairn's plot. If I am wrong... worst case, the cryo chambers for Nynian and Sandaria.

Don

n7axw wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Don,

The odds are 100% because the outcome is written. We just don't know what RFC wrote.

You know my thoughts since before HFQ snippets. Pretty soon we might get a clearer idea how Nynian will respond.

Hi PeterZ,

Gotcha... I'll accept that as a friendly amendment! Good to see your post.

I'm waiting, holding my breath, so to speak!

Don

Actually, to speak about the odds of an event after the fact is merely to measure your uncertainty. Think of it as the Schrödinger's cat of story telling.

n7axw wrote:Well, to play Nynian's (or the devil's) advocate, Nynian is really a lot better prepared to receive the truth than anyone to whom it has been revealed so far:

...
<snip list of things I agree with in every detail>
...

Exactly, what that guy said. ^^^

I don't see her having any issues with accepting the truth beyond the initial attempt to assimilate the magnitude of the reality that's been hidden from her. The only quibble I'd give is on the odds, I'd put them well over 90% in favor of her taking things fine.

n7axw wrote:

Undercover Fat Kid wrote:I'm convinced that something bad is going to happen as a result of this. They've had several years of smooth sailing and I can't escape the suspicion that they're overdue for disaster on the conversion front. If Aivah or her assistant were able to smuggle a modern weapon along with them, or find a way to gain access while on site, it would definitely be a solid plot twist, or, given the devious nature of Aivah, if she claims conversion then goes on to do as much damage as she can back in Sidarmark, I can't help but believe that she could do terrific damage. Granted, she's smart, and she's already accepted that the Church isn't what it clans to be, but she IS devout, and determined. What if she just can't make the final step and accept the full truth?

Well, to play Nynian's (or the devil's) advocate, Nynian is really a lot better prepared to receive the truth than anyone to whom it has been revealed so far:

1.She has been engaged in a shadow war with the church all of her life.

2.She knows that the church lies, commits murder, forgery, extortion and the like.

3. She is aware of a story line about the beginnings that contradicts the Writ and the testimonies.

4.Yes she is devout, but not more so than, say, Father Paityr or Mikael Staynair who both at various stages had to come to grips with the truth about the archangels.

5.She has been introduced to us not only as being very capable but as a person of kindness and compassion.

6.There is really no plausible weapon that would be available to Nynian that could damage a PICA, although it is true that she doesn't know that and were she to try something she would find out the hard way.

7.The real reason there is so much nervousness about her both in the story line and her on the forum has not to do with her character but because she figured out part of the truth about Merlin and approached him and not the other way around.

Of all the people in a position to understand that there is a difference between God and the church, Nynian and Sandaria are probably in the best position that we have seen so far.

So here is my wager, guys... If I am wrong, belly up to the virtual bar and have a round on me. There is 80-20 odds of Nynian and Sandaria adjusting to the truth just fine. If I am right, what we are seeing now in the snippet is a plot device being used to reveal more of the story of the War against the Fallen and the early days of the COGA along with gaining access to more Nynian's sourses in the temple and possibly Duchairn's plot. If I am wrong... worst case, the cryo chambers for Nynian and Sandaria.

Don

I am inclined to agree with this in its entirety with one nitpick, and that is number 6. We have from descriptions heard that she has in her possession a "magic" sword that cuts anything, or as we almost certainly can assume it is, a sword like Merlin's short sword made of battle steel with a monomolecular edge. It is therefore possible she also has access to a dagger of a similar nature, and a monomolecular edged weapon would probably do major damage to a PICA if it connected, so I think the possibility for a weapon that can hurt Merlin is there and that she could have access, although I am not saying I think this is actually the case. Just that given the information we have so far it is not unreasonable as a possibility, and if Merlin just assumes he is being hit with a normal edged weapon without knowing it is a monomolecular edged weapon he might not try to stop it thinking it would make a point about his nature and be surprised by it. As Honor says, surprise is what happens when what you have seen all along turns out to be something else entirely (paraphrasing here). It is too easy to forget that not all weapons that can hurt a PICA have to be high energy/kinetic based, monomolecular edges play no favourites after all. Whether it can connect, and with enough force to really damage Merlin, that might be another matter, but that such a weapon could do him harm and be accessible to Nynian, I think that is something worth considering.

Now, I actually agree with the conclusion in the quote, I think and thought when I first read the snippets that we were going to get an expansion of the early history as it really happened as opposed to the sanitized version we know Chihiro left, something we've known since the first book when Nimue first woke and read what was left in her database in the cave.

Strictly speaking, the probability of an event happening given that it has happened is 1, or so the classic definition of probability would say. That is you define probability as the ratio of individual alternative possible events over the universe of all possible events. Why? After the fact the universe of possible events contracts to one as does the number of alternative events.

Of course if one wants to delve deeper into intellectual realms such as frequency, prior uncertainty, likelihood ratios, etc. there are other ways of viewing this question.

As a frequentist more than anything myself, I tend to go with expected frequency of the observed event over time without looking at uncertainty reduction, really. It's up in the air whether your certainly has been reduced by observing an event depending on how much of the event is caused by random versus nonrandom factors. To me, for example, said cat it merely an observation. Now if you had said prior uncertainty--which maybe is what you meant--I'd be on side.
...

Actually, to speak about the odds of an event after the fact is merely to measure your uncertainty. Think of it as the Schrödinger's cat of story telling.

jgnfld wrote:Strictly speaking, the probability of an event happening given that it has happened is 1, or so the classic definition of probability would say. That is you define probability as the ratio of individual alternative possible events over the universe of all possible events. Why? After the fact the universe of possible events contracts to one as does the number of alternative events.

Of course if one wants to delve deeper into intellectual realms such as frequency, prior uncertainty, likelihood ratios, etc. there are other ways of viewing this question.

As a frequentist more than anything myself, I tend to go with expected frequency of the observed event over time without looking at uncertainty reduction, really. It's up in the air whether your certainly has been reduced by observing an event depending on how much of the event is caused by random versus nonrandom factors. To me, for example, said cat it merely an observation. Now if you had said prior uncertainty--which maybe is what you meant--I'd be on side.
...

Actually, to speak about the odds of an event after the fact is merely to measure your uncertainty. Think of it as the Schrödinger's cat of story telling.

The actual course of events in HFQ is set in stone (pretty much - it might be possible that there could be minor tweaks before publication, but effectively RFC has written it all down. Since we don't know what he has written, we are engaged in speculation about the probabilities that he has written about this or that. The uncertainty is what we are talking about. Any given speculation is either true or false, since the action has already been taken (written), but until publication (either by Tor or via snippet) we don't know which it is.