[HFQ] SPOILERS -- Why didn't Merlin?

McGuiness wrote:That was my take on it, since there really wasn't necessary for Merlin to use any of the weapons he's created for the skimmer that won't attract attention from the OBS to blow up the ship, unless it was a heads up for events to come.

I covered this more in depth in an earlier post in this thread or some other, and I'm glad RFC decided to toss this bit of info our way. Of course Merlin needs to be careful where and when he uses those weapons - after all, it would be hard to explain thousand pound bombs falling from an empty spot in the sky during the day! I was glad to learn of the skimmer's new weapons, but my gut objection to using them in this case was that a SNARC in the magazine would have done the job less detectably, although the likelihood of the bomb itself being seen before it hit and exploded in the dark of night was practically nil. I wasn't worried about the skimmer being seen at all due to its stealth systems - although in retrospect I should have made that point more clearly.

It's interesting to note that the majority of those posting here seemed to have had the same reaction I did when the Thunderer was captured: "This is the one time that using a SNARC to blow something up wouldn't cause anyone to bat an eyelash, and it would keep EoC tech out of enemy hands, so why didn't anybody in the inner circle do it?" It's certainly what I'd expect Cayleb wanted to do, although the arguments that its a technological dead end for Dohlar and the CoGA, and also a waste of their resources makes sense, since it will be sitting at the bottom of Gorath Bay soon enough if they don't get it under sail soon, in which case it will end up on the ocean floor somewhere in the Gulf of Dohlar.

Thirsk was dictating a report in which he was about to say that they couldn't duplicate some aspect of the ship when he was interrupted and shot. So the Dohlarans recognized that at least some of the methods used to create the armor or the guns were beyond their abilities - I'm betting on the armor.

Realizing that the EoC can build ships like this in bulk while you can't build them at all has to be bad for morale. A commander who thinks that his wooden ships may end up facing a squadron of ironclad ships is half-beaten before he even sets sail, and they don't even know about the city-class ironclads that RFC has said are on the way, or the King Haarahlds that will follow on their heels. So the eastern Gulf of Dohlar will be an abattoir in the next book. The question is whether Thirsk can get his captains to strike their colors quickly enough so that the crews survive. He has a date with Clyntahn looming next summer if his men don't stop the Inquisition from seizing him and his staff and sending them off to Zion to be tortured to death. Of course we know that things are going to change drastically before the Inquisition is scheduled to snap Thirsk up, since the NoG will be fighting for its life and he may well be at sea and out of the Inquisition's reach.

Merlin probably doesn't know that Clyntahn is planning to move against Thirsk yet, since Clyntahn discussed it with Rayno in the Temple, so that may not come up in their conversation. Too bad, since it would go a long ways towards convincing him to take Merlin's advice - whatever that will be.

Aethor wrote:And Dreadnought is the perfect example. It's armored in steel. There was already a discussion in books, a couple books ago, when Thirsk & Co were thinking about how to protect ships from exploding shells, and their conclusion was that they simply cannot produce iron in nowhere near the necessary quantities, what to speak of steel. They armored screw-galleys in iron, and even that was an effort.

CJK wrote:Thirsk has never been the type to run in the face of adversity, examples such as the his thinking in setting up defenses after the battle of Armageddon Reef (before he got owned by Cayleb's night sailing trick) and how he kept harping on about needing galleons not galleys despite pissing everyone off. IIRC Thirsk actually mentions he has a duty to not just his king in book 2 and I doubt he was talking about the CoGA. With inquisitors holding his navy men hostage for their failure to defend the prisoner convoy it is really unlikely Thirsk is going to cut and run leaving them on their own.

To be quite frank I suspect that the attempt of the inquisition to punish the surviving naval personnel from the prisoner convoy will be what pushes the navy into rebellion against the CoGA.

Now the bone Charis has with Dohlar is a different issue, though handing over a boatload of inquisitors could probably work. Would be a pretty sign that they burned their bridges with the CoGA at least. My concern with Dohlar trying to get out of the Jihad is that from the text ev we have only Thirsk seems to be against the CoGA policies. Ahlverez for instance is quite willing to kill any heretic based on the word of the CoGA (from LAMA) and have yet to hear differently since then. That's the main reason I think Dohlar looks to be a very messy powder keg, too many loyalties pulling in opposing directions.

JeffEngel wrote:

CJK wrote:Thirsk has never been the type to run in the face of adversity, examples such as the his thinking in setting up defenses after the battle of Armageddon Reef (before he got owned by Cayleb's night sailing trick) and how he kept harping on about needing galleons not galleys despite pissing everyone off. IIRC Thirsk actually mentions he has a duty to not just his king in book 2 and I doubt he was talking about the CoGA. With inquisitors holding his navy men hostage for their failure to defend the prisoner convoy it is really unlikely Thirsk is going to cut and run leaving them on their own.

To be quite frank I suspect that the attempt of the inquisition to punish the surviving naval personnel from the prisoner convoy will be what pushes the navy into rebellion against the CoGA.

Now the bone Charis has with Dohlar is a different issue, though handing over a boatload of inquisitors could probably work. Would be a pretty sign that they burned their bridges with the CoGA at least. My concern with Dohlar trying to get out of the Jihad is that from the text ev we have only Thirsk seems to be against the CoGA policies. Ahlverez for instance is quite willing to kill any heretic based on the word of the CoGA (from LAMA) and have yet to hear differently since then. That's the main reason I think Dohlar looks to be a very messy powder keg, too many loyalties pulling in opposing directions.

Ahlvarez at least won't care to have his nation and his soldiers used as so much ammunition to satisfy Clyntahn's bloodlust and no-retreat-anywhere-ever strategy. He's also seeing the heretics as at least conforming to the conventions of honorable warfare, with the possible exception of the treatment of inquisitors. But even he may reluctantly see the point there.

He's stubborn, he's a conservative aristocrat, and he's does not exercise his mental flexibility without kicking and screaming along the way. But he's not blind to inconvenient truths, so he does get the point eventually.

All it really takes in Dohlar is a recognition that Dohlar's interests aren't Zhaspyr Clyntahn's - at all - and that the Mother Church they've loved and obeyed since birth isn't quite identical with the Church out of Zion anymore. That's not a comfortable hurdle or an easy one by any means, But they have a raft of different examples of states who have reached those conclusions in different ways for a spectrum of reasons - Charis, Siddarmark, Emerald, Corisande, and Desnair (not a complete list, but it covers a variety of experiences) - and can see it on their own.

Don't get me wrong - I agree there's a lot of potential for mess there, and even the variety of reasons for opting out leaves a variety of ways to do it and places to go afterward, where tensions can be crippling for national unity. (Desnair, for instance, looks to be dodging troubles as they come as the court perceives them, in ways that may invite running headfirst into others.) I do think that a working consensus to leave the jihad could emerge and work in Dohlar well enough.