Spoiler Ridden HFQ guesses

So, realistically, when can we look for the first snippet from HFQ?

The Safehold books normally come out yearly, so the worst case is probably the same time next year, and on Jan 12 RFC posted that he had 12,000 words written so far

I don't think she is part of the Schueler clique. Recall that she contacted the Wylsyns. Prior to that Nynian wasn't part of that multigenerational effort.

More likely her tech or legacy group came from/derived from a group competing with the winners of the Succession Wars. Parts of that group might have simply gone quiet and stayed that way when they realized their faction wasn't going to win.

If that group had survived the succession wars, it certainly would have developed sound enough doctrine and tech to avoid detection. Avoiding the current temple tech and counter intel should be pretty straight forward in comparison.

DrakBibliophile wrote:snip

Some (including myself) have speculated that Aivah is a member of a group founded by Schueler but the Wylsynns, who were started by Schueler, were not given "angelic communicators".

If Aivah's group have "angelic communicators", why didn't Schueler provide the Wylsynns with "angelic communicators"?

Could she have acquired it or more of them recently?

Readers will recall Nahrman concerned that his earplug was missing after he was blown up. OWL was not told to report use by good people and did not speak up? I believe she has had this remarkable competence since too early on, plus only one of these gadgets would not solve the problem.

However I have not yet read the book.

PeterZ wrote:Yeah, what is the source of that com gear I wonder? I would like to believe it was a losing faction in the War of the Fallen. The gear was passed down unused in the convent she was educated in. Or perhaps used sparingly. Nynian of course persuaded the Abess/Mother Superior to release that gear to her. If not persuaded nynian simply took the gear and connected her old school friends to form the backbone of her network.

DrakBibliophile wrote:Plenty of guesses.

I just don't have a good record of guessing correctly.

However, there was a comment about Merlin not knowing how Aviah contacted her people in Zion and that meant that she had Federation technology.

Quote from September Year Of God 896, Chapter I

Merlin considered what she’d said … and what she hadn’t. He didn’t doubt she contacted them as infrequently as she could, especially since he still hadn’t caught her at it, even with the benefit of his SNARCs. But clearly there was at least some communications flow in the opposite direction, given her ability to keep track of “her people’s” accomplishments, and he found himself wondering how that flow was managed. He started to ask, but didn’t.

End Quote

While it's definite that Merlin didn't know how she doing it, I'm not convinced yet that she has Federation communications tech.

She's a known businesswoman so she likely has been sending and receiving coded letters.

While I'm no expert, I suspect that some of her coded letters were sent to Zion via some other locations.

IE a person received a letter from her but one of the codes told the person to forward the letter to another person in Zion.

Even with SNARCs, it would be hard to cover all her letters and know that some were forwarded elsewhere.

Especially when those SNARCs would be needed to cover more important targets.

Learning how her communications worked would be closer to a matter of curiosity than a necessity.

The com gear was pure speculation. It stems from Merlin's internal monlogues from MTaT reflecting that he couldn't figure out how she communicated with her people even while SNARCs watched her.

Now, she might well have found Nahrmahn's device and deduced Merlin's identity that way. Didn't consider that angle but that might work out.

phillies wrote:Could she have acquired it or more of them recently?

Readers will recall Nahrman concerned that his earplug was missing after he was blown up. OWL was not told to report use by good people and did not speak up? I believe she has had this remarkable competence since too early on, plus only one of these gadgets would not solve the problem.

However I have not yet read the book.

I have a nasty suspicion that the Harchongese army might find itself with the dubious and unenviable honor of being the first to face automatic weapons fire. (Well, the original model Gatling gun was cranked, not really automatic as such, but that's a rather academic detail when you're on the wrong end of one.)

I'm not basing this on any one piece of text. It seems appropriate for the level of technology we're seeing out of Charis & co right now. Moreover, I'm guessing it'd be very effective against a large but ill-equipped and poorly-trained army.

DrakBibliophile wrote:Some (including myself) have speculated that Aivah is a member of a group founded by Schueler but the Wylsynns, who were started by Schueler, were not given "angelic communicators".

If Aivah's group have "angelic communicators", why didn't Schueler provide the Wylsynns with "angelic communicators"?

The Wylsynns were intended to be a check on the church's power from within the church. He might have thought they wouldn't need communicators but that an external group might.

Remember SPOILERS

Okay, so I totally whiffed on the northern pincer through Midhold, mostly because I thought it was going to take a LOT more of the ICAEF to deal with the Dolhar/Desnair contingents. IMHO, RFC has written a believably incompetent performance in that area that allowed the ICA & RSA time to beat them without the aid of Green Valley and his troops.

Having Green Valley in charge of the northern pincer being carried out during winter also works, since his access to the SNARCS turns the winter “fog of war” into the “partly cloudy skies” of war. Given Green Valley’s advantages in supply, mobility and firepower the northern contingent of the AoG is in deep trouble. If he is sitting in Guarnak by early spring, getting supplies and more troops sent to him through the Sylmahn Gap, he is going to be in great shape to deal with the Harchong contingent that will most likely be sent his way.

Maybe Cayleb will finally get to take the field with the southern armies? If Hanth destroys or neutralizes the Dolharan formations that still exist in Cliff Peak, Cayleb could be in overall command when the southern AoG contingent meets their doom.

I wonder if RFC will allow the good guys to communicate to their opposition the following-we have a bunch of your people prisoner; if you turn any more of our soldiers over to the inquisition we are going to kill (5?, 10?, 20?) of them for every one of ours, and whenever possible they will be the friends/relatives of the ones doing the turning over or the highest ranking ones left. Also, our buddy Mab will be out in the boonies killing those responsible whenever possible.

I also wonder what the good guys are DOING with all of those POWs. They have to be approaching 100,000 prisoners. Are they “reeducating” them? Will we see a Harchong/Dolharan/Desnairian formation join the ICA, like the St. Patrick’s battalion in the Mexican-American War?

I think that once the Church’s power is broken the alliance against Charis will collapse. The cream of the Desnair nobility is either dead on the field or captive. Dolhar is in pretty much the same position or will be soon. Even if they have the population to replace their casualties, do they have the will? Can they even do it before the war is over?

Yes, the church is innovating, as well as stealing information about available technology, but they still have the design and bug removal stages to get through. Soon the ICA and RSA will have magazine fed bolt action rifles and artillery with modern recoil compensating devices. Charis is going to go from gun cotton to Pudre B to Cordite in very short order because all they have to do is read Owl’s wiki about it.

Can’t wait to see how the Aviah surprise works out and don’t have a clue how it will.

I think this war is two summers away from being over. Yeah!

Royal Guard Lieutenant McBigotpants will get duped into aiding an assassination attempt against Daivyn and/or Irys. No way he's not coming back to avenge his 'humiliation'.

Nah, he gets transferred to the Imperial Charis Army and gets assigned to a force in Glacierheart. (Remember how cold Glacierheart gets).

Of course, he later tries to pass what he thinks are valuable secrets to the Temple Boys but since it's garbage, the Temple Boys treat him as a heretic.

TheGlyphstone wrote:Royal Guard Lieutenant McBigotpants will get duped into aiding an assassination attempt against Daivyn and/or Irys. No way he's not coming back to avenge his 'humiliation'.