TFT Snippet #7

It's probably inexperience on their part with the current situation, but I'm moderately surprised that no one brought up the idea that "joint" ventures with the Church of Charis like this might lead to non-violent reconciliation down the road.

It won't happen of course, but I would have thought the idea would occur to someone.

Weird Harold wrote:

Isilith wrote:Sending the CoC into Harchong will open up things for Merlin to have active, or should I say OPEN, operations there. Maybe Merlin goes and rescues a member of Rainbow Waters family?

I can also see a few ( be they overly brutal serfs or aristocrats ) visits being paid by Mab as well.

Merlin doesn't need to become involved in North Harchong, Nor does "Mab" or any of his -- or Nimue's -- established Aliases. ANY of the previously known Seijin would be seen as Charisian imperialism or some-such.

Merlin and/or Nimue can just as easily establish Harchongese Seijin identities and coordinate between the various rebel factions without involving any Seijin from the First War or giving the appearance of Charisian involvement.

One could imagine the ecumenical outreach to include a specific invitation to negotiate details, the obvious invitation to Charis being for one of God's Holy Warriors who captured Clyntahn. In that case, the interesting scene happens soon.

evilauthor wrote:It's probably inexperience on their part with the current situation, but I'm moderately surprised that no one brought up the idea that "joint" ventures with the Church of Charis like this might lead to non-violent reconciliation down the road.

It won't happen of course, but I would have thought the idea would occur to someone.

Give them a few chapters.

phillies wrote:

evilauthor wrote:It's probably inexperience on their part with the current situation, but I'm moderately surprised that no one brought up the idea that "joint" ventures with the Church of Charis like this might lead to non-violent reconciliation down the road.

It won't happen of course, but I would have thought the idea would occur to someone.

Give them a few chapters.

That presupposes that it stays non-violent.

To paraphrase Frank Miller: "This is Safehold!"

(of course it isn't going to stay non-violent. We aren't out of our first month and they're already skipping right to 'burn')

runsforcelery wrote:

Julia Minor wrote:I'm a bit surprised that Rhobair didn't suggest calling on the Siddarmarkians to help with the humanitarian effort.

Maybe "surprised" is the wrong word -- after all, if Charis isn't called in, Merlin has no excuse to get involved. But we know from the last novel that there's a lot of Siddarmarkians who fall halfway between the Church of the Temple and the Church of Charis. Siddarmark has the same "street cred" of having been attacked by the Temple, is closer to Harchong geographically, and unless I hideously misread things may be closer to the Temple theologically.

OTOH, I'm now suspecting that Charis being called in to help is part of what gives Merlin a chance to check out the Temple in that out-of-order snippet.

There are a bunch of reasons not to get Siddarmark involved. Including the fact that Siddarmark's western provinces are ---

Oops. I meant Tum-Te-Tum-Te-Tum.

Is there something wrong with those western provinces other than being a near-uninhabited wasteland that will take a generation to rebuild?

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:

Julia Minor wrote:I'm a bit surprised that Rhobair didn't suggest calling on the Siddarmarkians to help with the humanitarian effort.

Maybe "surprised" is the wrong word -- after all, if Charis isn't called in, Merlin has no excuse to get involved. But we know from the last novel that there's a lot of Siddarmarkians who fall halfway between the Church of the Temple and the Church of Charis. Siddarmark has the same "street cred" of having been attacked by the Temple, is closer to Harchong geographically, and unless I hideously misread things may be closer to the Temple theologically.

OTOH, I'm now suspecting that Charis being called in to help is part of what gives Merlin a chance to check out the Temple in that out-of-order snippet.

runsforcelery wrote:There are a bunch of reasons not to get Siddarmark involved. Including the fact that Siddarmark's western provinces are ---

Oops. I meant Tum-Te-Tum-Te-Tum.

Is there something wrong with those western provinces other than being a near-uninhabited wasteland that will take a generation to rebuild?

Hm. Thought I'd already replied to this post, but apparently I lost it somewhere. So, to reiterate . . .

Tum-Te-Tum-Te-Tum

runsforcelery wrote:

Hm. Thought I'd already replied to this post, but apparently I lost it somewhere. So, to reiterate . . .

Tum-Te-Tum-Te-Tum

A sorceror's apprentice tried to use magic to help farm the lands and caused a major flood?

Annachie wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:

Hm. Thought I'd already replied to this post, but apparently I lost it somewhere. So, to reiterate . . .

Tum-Te-Tum-Te-Tum

A sorceror's apprentice tried to use magic to help farm the lands and caused a major flood?

Smaug??

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:
There are a bunch of reasons not to get Siddarmark involved. Including the fact that Siddarmark's western provinces are ---

Oops. I meant Tum-Te-Tum-Te-Tum.

Is there something wrong with those western provinces other than being a near-uninhabited wasteland that will take a generation to rebuild?

If I recall at the end of AtSoT Stohnar was thinking what a mess it was going to be when the Temple Loyalist population decided they wanted to return to their property. Especially with most of their surviving neighbors being victims of the inquisition's death camps. And some of those returning individuals might be guilty of atrocities themselves. Considering how contentious the right of return is in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict I find it unsurprising that something bad is going on there.

elaineofshalott wrote:
If I recall at the end of AtSoT Stohnar was thinking what a mess it was going to be when the Temple Loyalist population decided they wanted to return to their property. Especially with most of their surviving neighbors being victims of the inquisition's death camps. And some of those returning individuals might be guilty of atrocities themselves. Considering how contentious the right of return is in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict I find it unsurprising that something bad is going on there.

The Right of Return and the Palestinian refugee problem is a consequence of several factors that have worked against the resolution of their particular problem. There were many groups of refugees both from that region and other both at the time (1948-9) and since, yet all of those refugee groups have been resolved and are no longer refugees because they fell under the UNHCR, which has a very good track record on resettling refugees. The Palestinians conversely have had their very own refugee agency (UNRWA) that sadly has not done much to resolved their refugee status. This is due to Israeli refusal to contemplate any actual Right of Return to Israel proper, the Arab League's refusal to allow resettlement of any Palestinians within their members' territories, the Arab governments' use of the Palestinian refugee problem as a political club to beat Israel (without actually caring what actually happens to them) and the Palestinians unwillingness to accept any settlement that does not include an actual Right of Return. As a result, they are the only group of refugees in the world for whom refugee status is inherited (and now has 4 generations of refugees).

So the Inner Circle would have to know about this issue - Hopefully that particular conflict will be resolved by the time the Gbaba wipe out the Terran Federation (though the cynic in me is not so sanguine). We now know that Rhobair Duchairn had been willing to pay the Mighty Host for 6 months until finally resettling its 2 million men and the families of its officers in the western episcopates of the Temple Lands. It stands to reason that Siddarmark might have insisted at the very least on financial compensation for the Sword of Schueler, including all the debts the Temple repudiated, as the first step towards so sort of reconciliation with the Temple. However, many of those refugees in the Temple Lands are probably guilty of murder and other crimes that were perpetrated at the Temple's behest. As such, guaranteeing their safety for the Sword's survivors was always going to be a thorny problem. The most they could hope for would be trials and investigations yet proving their guilt would be a problem as well. As such, the Temple may have had no choice but to foot the bill for their resettlement in the Temple Lands as well. Then again, RFC has hinted that something is amiss in Siddarmark's western provinces that may have something to do with those refugees.