Upcoming Ops (SPOILER)

Tanstaafl wrote:Are we ready for King Rainos Ahlverez of Dohlar and his prime minister Lywys Gardynyr, Earl of Thirsk.

Ahlverez is only a knight and Thirsk is an Earl. Odds are when Ahlverez supports Thirsk, he will lose most if not all the political support of the Old Guard. Thirsk has the support of Duchairn and Bishop Maik. If Dohlar falls apart, Thirsk ends up on top.

jmseeley wrote:
As I see it there are 3 possible ways the war will end:
1. On the brink of defeat, Duchairn eliminates Clyntahn and offers terms. I doubt very much he'd include heretics' access to the Temple as part of those terms. The allies would accept because only the Inner Circle knows that access to the Temple is a primary goal of the war.

The allies would not accept terms that did not give them sufficient access to the Temple. Precisely because the Inner Circle are the Allies - or at least their Emperor and his closest advisors. Terms get negotiated and Temple access would be one of the stipulations Duchairn would have to swallow. He is only offering terms in the first place because they are getting hosed, right? Otherwise Archbishop Maikel stands up and says he cannot support any peace that does not give the CoC faithful Temple access, and Charisian public opinion is not going to go against him.

It's much less likely that Duchairn will give up the inquisition. The inquisition has a very legitimate role in safeguarding the moral and spiritual welfare of Safehold in his opinion. It has just gone off the deep end lately. With a proper humility and an actually godly Grand Inquisitor with a genuinely collegiate oversight from the Council of Vicars it has always been an essential part of securing the blessings God and Langhorne intend for God's Children.

I've wondered if Bishop Maik might become the next Grand Inquisitor.

Randomiser wrote:The allies would not accept terms that did not give them sufficient access to the Temple. Precisely because the Inner Circle are the Allies - or at least their Emperor and his closest advisors. Terms get negotiated and Temple access would be one of the stipulations Duchairn would have to swallow. He is only offering terms in the first place because they are getting hosed, right? Otherwise Archbishop Maikel stands up and says he cannot support any peace that does not give the CoC faithful Temple access, and Charisian public opinion is not going to go against him.

It's much less likely that Duchairn will give up the inquisition. The inquisition has a very legitimate role in safeguarding the moral and spiritual welfare of Safehold in his opinion. It has just gone off the deep end lately. With a proper humility and an actually godly Grand Inquisitor with a genuinely collegiate oversight from the Council of Vicars it has always been an essential part of securing the blessings God and Langhorne intend for God's Children.

How many Vicars does Aivah have to kill to secure that outcome?

DrakBibliophile wrote:I've wondered if Bishop Maik might become the next Grand Inquisitor.

=2014/02/22=

Hi Guys

I think Nynian/Aivah will be a MAJOR player in Zion's downfall.

??Any ideas out there on if, how, and when that will happen ??

R
.

My thought is that when Clyntahn falls, most of the current high ranking Schuelerites fall with him because they were supporters of Clyntahn.

In that situation, Bishop Maik may be the highest ranking Schuelerite acceptable to the Vicars.

PeterZ wrote:How many Vicars does Aivah have to kill to secure that outcome?

DrakBibliophile wrote:I've wondered if Bishop Maik might become the next Grand Inquisitor.

DrakBibliophile wrote:My thought is that when Clyntahn falls, most of the current high ranking Schuelerites fall with him because they were supporters of Clyntahn.

In that situation, Bishop Maik may be the highest ranking Schuelerite acceptable to the Vicars.

I think to take down the Inquisition, Duchairn (or whoever) would have to kill Clyntahn, Rayno, and the layer of senior Inquisitors below him in order to eliminate anyone who might quickly assert control. That should prevent the Inquisition from an organized countermove while they're rounded up. Of course that implies a large enough conspiracy that the Inquisition could catch wind of it before it matures. Unless, of course, they they get some expert assistance from some master of conspiracy with an existing organization in Zion...

jms

Randomiser wrote:

jmseeley wrote:
As I see it there are 3 possible ways the war will end:
1. On the brink of defeat, Duchairn eliminates Clyntahn and offers terms. I doubt very much he'd include heretics' access to the Temple as part of those terms. The allies would accept because only the Inner Circle knows that access to the Temple is a primary goal of the war.

The allies would not accept terms that did not give them sufficient access to the Temple. Precisely because the Inner Circle are the Allies - or at least their Emperor and his closest advisors. Terms get negotiated and Temple access would be one of the stipulations Duchairn would have to swallow. He is only offering terms in the first place because they are getting hosed, right? Otherwise Archbishop Maikel stands up and says he cannot support any peace that does not give the CoC faithful Temple access, and Charisian public opinion is not going to go against him.

It's much less likely that Duchairn will give up the inquisition. The inquisition has a very legitimate role in safeguarding the moral and spiritual welfare of Safehold in his opinion. It has just gone off the deep end lately. With a proper humility and an actually godly Grand Inquisitor with a genuinely collegiate oversight from the Council of Vicars it has always been an essential part of securing the blessings God and Langhorne intend for God's Children.

My idea is that Duchairn give up the current Inquisition, and rebuild it if he sees fit. With some exceptions, such as Maik, the Inquisitors looks less like servants of God trying to protect peoples souls and more like the SS. Getting rid of them lets the Church start with a clean slate.

Another reason to strip Inquisitors of their power is to reduce their effectiveness in any postwar maneuvering. Remember that in Corisande the Inquisitors were one of the engines of the resistance and committed the worst atrocities. Ideally, most of them could be shipped off to monasteries in the Mountains of Light, but that's not gonna happen.

jms

Tanstaafl wrote:

jmseeley wrote:.
<SNIP......>
In my suggested terms I included the elimination of the Inquisition specifically to eliminate the secular power of the Church. In my timeline, by the time Charis offers terms the Church's armies would be broken and the Inquisition would be the only remaining tool for exerting power, hence provision 2. The only places where the Church is likely to retain substantial influence are the more conservative countries, mainly the Empires of Desnair and Harchong. If the Church tries to rebuild it's power it will have to innovate and that will undermine its own goals. Charis still wins.

<SNIP......>
jms

The power of the Church is not through the inquisition.

The highest civil authority in the Harchong Empire is not the Emperor. It is the Archbishop of Harchong. If there is a difference of opinion the Archbishop can order the emperors bodyguards to arrest the emperor. And they probably will, because they are law abiding citizens. And because they are good sons of mother church.

And the LAW says they have to follow that order from the Archbishop.

The same is true in every other state on Safehold except EoC and Siddarmark.

To end that situation is what the current war is all about.

With or without the inquisition, the 80% of Safehold under control of the church will do everything needed to become as strong as the heretics (Siddarmark and EoC) and beat them. And without the inquisition with more gusto!

If it takes to ignore or nullify the proscriptions, they will do that. But they keep on fighting. If there is a treaty, it only gives them more time to build a new, bigger army before they start fighting again.

Charis has to kill the CoGA (Conquer Zion and the Temple) or replace the government and political structure of Dholar, Desnair, Harchong and the Temple Lands.

Compare it to the USA. You either have to get Washington D.C., or you have to get California, Texas, Florida and New York.

And think of Charis as Hawaii and Siddarmark as New England.

I just don't see straight up conquest as the most effective way to kill the Church. The cost is just too high. Far better to fatally weaken it and let it die a natural death or to mutate beyond all recognition. It takes longer, but it's no less complete. In losing the war, the Church loses the one thing it can't do without - the universal belief that the Church is Gods instrument in the world and therefore He won't let it lose.

jms

With the defeats taken in LAMA and the next next defeat of the AoS by Green Valley in the opening parts of the next book, all immediate threats to the EoC and RoS have been eliminated. O sure, one last CoGA army remains active in Siddermark, but he's heavily isolated and caught between a vice of three allied armies maneuvering around him, he can't do much besides surrender or die a glorious death in the name of Mother Church.
The big thing here is that effectively the only part of the RoS still under Church control is the Holy Langhorne. Dohlar, Silkiah (to the extent that they partooko) and Desnair have been dealt body blows. The only real powerhouse left to he Church is Harchong. And that's more of 1920-30s USSR. The allies have to deal with Dohlar and Desnair while they can. This is why I proposed sending one of their armies into the natural bottleneck Dohlar and Silkiah offer. It neutralizes Desnair's "mobility" and sets up a Thermopylae situation favoring Charis and the RoS.

The next thing is that the allies have to move into the Hsing-Wu and storm the Temple and Zion. As someone mentioned earlier, in LAMA Zhaspar made sure the only "forces" in the that area were Inquisition and Temple Guards. That's a huge restriction on who is going to be available to defend-the-holy-land as it were.
Remember, the only thing going to the Church right now is the huge, and modern, Harchong relief army of some 1-1.5 million troops that are finishing up their retraining and moving towards the Border States via land-- aka The Temple Lands. It was also mentioned in LAMA that the Hsing-Wu has always been the Church's waterway. If nothing else so far as the sea, they are the masters of it and no one has ever given them reason to doubt that. Even now with the Juggernaut that is the ICN. A surgical, amphibious operation by the allies into the Hsing-Wu and into the capitol of the CoGA itself would be a massive psychological blow to them, make their morale tank even more, and may just allow the allies to intercept the Harchong relief column in transit. At best they can destroy it in detail as they try to bring both ends of their column to bear on the "smaller" army of heretics or they don't realize--or acept what is happening. In that case, the 1/3 that the ICA/ICN combined forces hit is slaughtered, utterly and the lead 1/3 continues its march into the RoS where they are destroyed by Green Valley. The last 1/3 breaks off and returns to Harchong to reform/regroup. All the while, the Temple and Zion are even more isolated, exposed, and become more and more desperate. With the Sephamore lines going to it in allied hands and Wyverns being intercepted as they are launched, the entire Command and Control, nevermind the influence, of the CoGA is ruined.

Then you have a situation where the few remaining loyalist nations, however large, bottled up and isolated try a series of uncoordinated and desperate attacks on the allies' Fortress Siddermark. Remember, they would not merely be isolated from Zion but each other as well.

Now we get to the part where Charis and Siddermark could offer terms. Where they have the Temple under siege and more and more pieces of Zion are falling into allied hands daily (think Battle of Berlin).
At this point, I see Zhaspar dying by either suicide or Duchairn and Magwair remove him. That leaves the Grand Vicar and I don't know what is going to happen there. The allies offer terms that the Chruch has no choice but to accept.

For the record, I don't see this siege being as costly as people have argued here. Remember, even in the Battle of Berlin, the Germans had a force of over a million defenders...on paper. Most of those were Volksfront (elderly or Hitler Youth draftees) and SS, than Wehrmacht. They got more in the way of their own troops than do anything effective against the Reds. The SS was more kept in Hitler's bunker as a security detail than deployed as actual combat troops. And most of those "combatants" were maimed and sick troops in hospitals from all 3 different fronts. They had an order of Battle and they fought desperately, but their defenders were the tattered remnants of much greater, and defeated, armies. They had no air force left and they're navy was sunk or just as useless. I see the Temple and Zion being set up as much the same way.

I'm not saying there won't be casualties, but I don't see the Charisians using their ships, mortars, and cannons as battering rams and simply mass charging into the streets of the Zions. That's what the Reds did in Berlin with their T-34 tanks and they took horrendous losses against what were broken and desperate, yet well trained, defenders.

Compare the CoGA to Hitler's Germany all you want. The CoGA cannot match either the discipline or the tenacity of the German field commanders. Though they can be as jacked up as the German High Command and the SS as you claim.

From there, the terms. I have no idea how to speculate that, but at a minimum, full recognition of the EoC, RoS, and their various churches; full access to the Temple complex; full disarmament and surrender of all Church forces; the release of all those interned in their concentration camps. Plus or minus a non-aggression pact.

I wonder how Charis will continue to innovate when its life is no longer hanging by a thread.