HFQ Official Snippet #11

anwi wrote:SNIP

I guess that this part of the story will carry us through at least the first part of HFQ. And how RFC will make the CoGA a serious threat is even less clear. So, there should be something unexpected - besides the Spanish Inquisition...

Actually, I'm fairly worried about what happens on the battlefield next summer for two reasons: the Harchongese contingent of the CoGA's army, and the fact that there are NO weapons currently in use that the church hasn't managed to reverse engineer, or even improve!

There are 640,000 rifles distributed among the Harchongese, some 90,000 of which are breech loaders that are better than the Mahndrayns the ICA uses. Ironically the canal raid that saved Siddarmark from extinction last summer is going to make next summer's campaign much more difficult for the allied forces. The Harchongese would have been brought forward, where they would have been decimated in human wave attacks while armed only with pikes, bows, crossbows, and slings. Now they're going to attack armed with rifles and artillery like a real army. Not only that, the delay has enabled the CoGA to create mortars and land mines, so for the first time the allied forces will be facing weapons equal to their own.

Even the introduction of the M96 won't help much. It will speed up the rate of fire, but initially it will still use black powder so the resulting smoke will obscure the enemy, which makes the rate of fire relatively unimportant. (Except for blind fire if the enemy is charging.) Once smokeless powder is introduced both visibility and range will improve, but the enemy will still be hidden behind the clouds of its own black powder weapons. Snipers will have a field day, but the infantry - not so much. The church already has 4000 of them, so Magwair will understand what his troops are up against even though the church cannot duplicate brass cartridge ammunition. (If Charis was really lucky there was no ammo on the captured ship with the 4000 M96's aboard!)

BGV should wipe the map with Wyrshym, clear the north end of the Sylmahn Gap, take Guarnak, and drive northwest towards the oncoming church reinforcements - the Harchongese. Kaitswyrth is toast, and Ahlverez may or may not be caught and decimated before he escapes into Dohlar, but if a large portion of the Harchongese are diverted to help Dohlar, things are going to be quite dicey in the south as well.

The arena where the allies will dominate in HFQ is at sea, where we finally get the Haarahld VII's arriving in the Gulf of Dohlar to wipe the map with Thirsk's fleet and interdict troops and supply movement by sea. That will put a serious strain on the CoGA's attempts to supply the entire southern theater. It also helps take Desnair and South Harchong entirely out of the war.

The Battle of Gorath should be wonderfully entertaining, and I expect a seijin or two may be involved in spiriting Thirsk's family away so that he'll be able to surrender what's left of his fleet before the ICN completely destroys it.

Yes, the CoGA is in an unenviable position, but after the initial setbacks in HFQ, it will have both the manpower and the armaments to meet the allies on an even playing field, and that won't be pretty!

Personally, I believe they're bringing Sandaria along so that she can be the recipient of "As you know, Bob" lectures and data dumps, and so that there aren't pages of dialogue between Merlin and Aivah, who talk very much alike.

I suspect that The Author is plotting/writing big chunks of the later books now, and just realized that he hadn't written in mass transport capability and it would be a neat plot point to have at a later part of the series, so he's planting the breadcrumb. It's Chekhov's gun, but he's putting it on the mantelpiece early enough that we'll be expected to have mostly forgotten about it when it shoots later on.

I can think of two distinct points in the series when Merlin mentioned that he had cryo suspension capability in the cave. One time was when he was worried about telling someone, and said if they reacted badly he would kidnap them and stuff them in suspension - I think it was Ahlfryd? Also, the only other human who has visited the cave is Sharleyan, while she was pregnant, for a medical checkup.

So maybe Sandaria needs to be kept on ice for a while, or needs the advanced medical capability of the cave?

Someplace upthread, there was a reference to OWL not having the components needed to build arbitrary numbers of PICAs. That was what OWL said when she was a running on few cylinders. It did not occur that I could see to Nimue to ask OWL what components were necessary, and OWL did not volunteer that she needed a supply of low-grade cast iron to make the brains. It may be that the components are readily available if requested.

hmm harchorg horde is big but it mean it have only limited axis of advance it have to move close to canals or rivers. So far we still dont know what is BGV plan but if he go for Fife Forks he can take it before horde can start move and when they get there so they will have small problem call ironclads raiding their suply. I think BGV get to lake city in summer campagne mostly because ironclads support.

NinaKatarina wrote:Personally, I believe they're bringing Sandaria along so that she can be the recipient of "As you know, Bob" lectures and data dumps, and so that there aren't pages of dialogue between Merlin and Aivah, who talk very much alike.

Oh, that could be the ulterior motive, yes. A slightly less ulterior motive may be to give Sandaria some dialogue opportunities so she's less of a cypher for the future. But whatever the author's motives that way, there's got to be something motivating Aivah to ask for this.

I suspect that The Author is plotting/writing big chunks of the later books now, and just realized that he hadn't written in mass transport capability and it would be a neat plot point to have at a later part of the series, so he's planting the breadcrumb. It's Chekhov's gun, but he's putting it on the mantelpiece early enough that we'll be expected to have mostly forgotten about it when it shoots later on.

I can think of two distinct points in the series when Merlin mentioned that he had cryo suspension capability in the cave. One time was when he was worried about telling someone, and said if they reacted badly he would kidnap them and stuff them in suspension - I think it was Ahlfryd? Also, the only other human who has visited the cave is Sharleyan, while she was pregnant, for a medical checkup.

So maybe Sandaria needs to be kept on ice for a while, or needs the advanced medical capability of the cave?

The possibility of having to put Sandaria on ice may be something Aivah has in mind, if this is all too much for her - and the introduction to the Cave itself and recon skimmer travel may be a matter of exposing her to the scariest stuff right away to see if the cryo option is necessary for her. We don't know - Aivah may.

Getting her oldest, closest friend and right hand medical care, or at least the best checkup on Safehold, may be another motive for her, agreed.

Just what Sandaria's mental framework and health history are are certainly things Aivah's got reason to know or wonder about and we're still totally in the dark about, so it's a fertile field for speculation.

McGuiness wrote:

anwi wrote:SNIP

I guess that this part of the story will carry us through at least the first part of HFQ. And how RFC will make the CoGA a serious threat is even less clear. So, there should be something unexpected - besides the Spanish Inquisition...

Actually, I'm fairly worried about what happens on the battlefield next summer for two reasons: the Harchongese contingent of the CoGA's army, and the fact that there are NO weapons currently in use that the church hasn't managed to reverse engineer, or even improve!

There are 640,000 rifles distributed among the Harchongese, some 90,000 of which are breech loaders that are better than the Mahndrayns the ICA uses. Ironically the canal raid that saved Siddarmark from extinction last summer is going to make next summer's campaign much more difficult for the allied forces. The Harchongese would have been brought forward, where they would have been decimated in human wave attacks while armed only with pikes, bows, crossbows, and slings. Now they're going to attack armed with rifles and artillery like a real army. Not only that, the delay has enabled the CoGA to create mortars and land mines, so for the first time the allied forces will be facing weapons equal to their own.

Even the introduction of the M96 won't help much. It will speed up the rate of fire, but initially it will still use black powder so the resulting smoke will obscure the enemy, which makes the rate of fire relatively unimportant. (Except for blind fire if the enemy is charging.) Once smokeless powder is introduced both visibility and range will improve, but the enemy will still be hidden behind the clouds of its own black powder weapons. Snipers will have a field day, but the infantry - not so much. The church already has 4000 of them, so Magwair will understand what his troops are up against even though the church cannot duplicate brass cartridge ammunition. (If Charis was really lucky there was no ammo on the captured ship with the 4000 M96's aboard!)

BGV should wipe the map with Wyrshym, clear the north end of the Sylmahn Gap, take Guarnak, and drive northwest towards the oncoming church reinforcements - the Harchongese. Kaitswyrth is toast, and Ahlverez may or may not be caught and decimated before he escapes into Dohlar, but if a large portion of the Harchongese are diverted to help Dohlar, things are going to be quite dicey in the south as well.

The arena where the allies will dominate in HFQ is at sea, where we finally get the Haarahld VII's arriving in the Gulf of Dohlar to wipe the map with Thirsk's fleet and interdict troops and supply movement by sea. That will put a serious strain on the CoGA's attempts to supply the entire southern theater. It also helps take Desnair and South Harchong entirely out of the war.

The Battle of Gorath should be wonderfully entertaining, and I expect a seijin or two may be involved in spiriting Thirsk's family away so that he'll be able to surrender what's left of his fleet before the ICN completely destroys it.

Yes, the CoGA is in an unenviable position, but after the initial setbacks in HFQ, it will have both the manpower and the armaments to meet the allies on an even playing field, and that won't be pretty!

Yes, the church will have improved its armaments some, but improve it's position relative to its opponents? Probably not. The thing is, No matter what the church manages to steal or imitate, there's always another nasty surprise waiting in the wings. That is the result of Charis' institutionaling innovation.

Don

phillies wrote:Someplace upthread, there was a reference to OWL not having the components needed to build arbitrary numbers of PICAs. That was what OWL said when she was a running on few cylinders. It did not occur that I could see to Nimue to ask OWL what components were necessary, and OWL did not volunteer that she needed a supply of low-grade cast iron to make the brains. It may be that the components are readily available if requested.

I really doubt it would be anything so trivial. It's probably some rare earth metal like iridium or osmium. Besides, Owl had gained additional self awareness at the time he advanced the PICA project, plus Nahrmahn to help him along. Someone as perceptive as Nahrmahn would not have let something so obvious pass him by.

Duckk wrote:

phillies wrote:Someplace upthread, there was a reference to OWL not having the components needed to build arbitrary numbers of PICAs. That was what OWL said when she was a running on few cylinders. It did not occur that I could see to Nimue to ask OWL what components were necessary, and OWL did not volunteer that she needed a supply of low-grade cast iron to make the brains. It may be that the components are readily available if requested.

I really doubt it would be anything so trivial. It's probably some rare earth metal like iridium or osmium. Besides, Owl had gained additional self awareness at the time he advanced the PICA project, plus Nahrmahn to help him along. Someone as perceptive as Nahrmahn would not have let something so obvious pass him by.

At the very least he would have asked the question "What do we need to make another one?".

McGuiness wrote:Actually, I'm fairly worried about what happens on the battlefield next summer for two reasons: the Harchongese contingent of the CoGA's army, and the fact that there are NO weapons currently in use that the church hasn't managed to reverse engineer, or even improve!
(snip)
Even the introduction of the M96 won't help much. It will speed up the rate of fire, but initially it will still use black powder so the resulting smoke will obscure the enemy, which makes the rate of fire relatively unimportant. (snip) The church already has 4000 of them, so Magwair will understand what his troops are up against even though the church cannot duplicate brass cartridge ammunition. (If Charis was really lucky there was no ammo on the captured ship with the 4000 M96's aboard!)

BGV should wipe the map with Wyrshym, clear the north end of the Sylmahn Gap, take Guarnak, and drive northwest towards the oncoming church reinforcements - the Harchongese. Kaitswyrth is toast, and Ahlverez may or may not be caught and decimated before he escapes into Dohlar, but if a large portion of the Harchongese are diverted to help Dohlar, things are going to be quite dicey in the south as well.
(snip)
Yes, the CoGA is in an unenviable position, but after the initial setbacks in HFQ, it will have both the manpower and the armaments to meet the allies on an even playing field, and that won't be pretty!

Several comments:
First, the last generation EoC weapons are (as far as I understand it) described as superior to everything the CoGA has and, moreover, the CoGA isn't even able to duplicate the captured weapons because that exceeds their technological capabilities. (And there was ammo on the captured transports, whereever they ended up.) Consequently, the EoC can innovate itself out of significant problems.
Second, when the Harchongese become militarily significant, the RSA should have deployed unit numbers with rifles and artillery that are significant even compared to the "mighty" host.
Third, the effectiveness of the "mighty" host depends on the strategic approach by the parties. I assume that the Harchongese under Temple Guard guidance could realistically be able to successfully defend a well prepared position. (Note: Success being defined as inflicting casualty numbers on the ICA that make an attack prohibitively costly.) So, if the ICA would try to wipe the CoGA from the whole of the RoS, then it would get interesting. Conversely, that "mighty" host will be less effective on the offensive (coordination and transport being much more difficult) and vulnerable to the defence in depth strategy and tactics already seen successfully implemented by the ICA. (Note: The ICA didn't have a lot of choice, but effectively they sucked their enemies in and then defeated them by counterattacks and cutting lines of communication).
Forth, I don't see the inner circle risking excessive casualties, so they should refrain from attacking a superior number force in prepared positions with adequate weaponry. I don't see Clyntahn understanding the limitations of his "mighty" army, thus sending them to disaster. Therefore, I'm wondering how RFC will create the tension he needs. We'll see.
Fifth, with the increased activity at Nimue's Cave, there's something significant in the woods. I'm not sure what, but I fully expect that it will change the paradigm of the current military conflict.

Well, if it was only the OBS, then the simple thing to do would be to put a spark gap transmitter in the middle of the Harchong army and let the OBS dispose of that army. However, the risk that it might cause an early wake up makes that a bit too risky.