PeterZ wrote:Hey Don,
Not disagreeing about the Sleepers needing to be neutralized. My disagreement with doing so before the Inner Circle (IC) is prepared. Preparations will include finding out much more about the Temple than is currently known. Absent that data, I recommend the IC wait. Wait and prepare by teaching Father Paityr about computers, begin recruiting an assault force to be trained in Terran tech and most importantly using Aivah to learn as much as possible about the Temple.
Sending in a team with a half assed plan as soon as possible when speed is not essential is foolish and dangerous. They only have one chance to do this right. Take the time to research, prepare then execute the best plan possible. Not the best plan possible right now, but the best plan possible within the decade or two the IC believes it has.
I certainly have no objection to waiting if waiting improves chances of success. Also someone introduced Aivah here, more than likely in anticipation of what is probably Merlin's upcoming trip to Zion. Perhaps she does have access to info that would improve prospects for getting Paityr into the basement. We do know that she has at least one sourse within the temple itself...maybe someone who actually has the keys to the castle!!!
But consider: We really can't plan on having the full 20 years margin before sleepers awake. For one thing with Schuler's hologram to the Wylsyns, when does the clock start ticking? At the Day of Creation? At the end of the war between the archangels? At the time that the hologram is made? I haven't read that section recently, but what I do remember is that it was not clear. I remember wondering if Schuler was intending to be precise or mysterious using that thousand year figure as a symbol for an indeterninate time. Religious writing and revelation does a lot of that sort of thing.
My point is that we really don't know and the 20 year hiatus shouldn't be used as a benchmark for guessing when the archangels will return. They really could come back any time from shortly to so far into the future as to make them irrelavant to the story.
What I get out of all of this is that getting into the temple and gaining control of the computer should be expedited with all reasonable speed. That doesn't mean going off half cocked without careful planning or deliberation. But it does mean making it priority one.
As for entry, I see two options. Either you overwhelm the place with a force armed with edged weapons and escort Father Paityr to the door of the basement. Or you disguise a group of men as inquisitors, put Father Paityr in the middle of the group and have them casually enter the temple under the pretext of having an appointment with someone, say Rayno, and they escort him to the door to the basement.
What you don't do is enter with federation tech weapons until you have control of the computer and hopefully shut down what defenses there might be and are still functioning.
Hopefully the results of this are that if the sleepers are in the basement, having control of the computer would give you control of if or when they awaken. Also, you want to gain control of the OBS. If these things do not turn out to be possible, at bare minimum you are hoping to find out what you are really up against so you can start planning to cope with it.
Don
