Military Speculations

EdThomas wrote:thought inspired by Weird Harold...
Those who follow after the demise of the current Gof4 decide a gesture of good faith might help their situation and offer to accept a "mission" from the COC be based in Zion and meet regularly with the Council of Vicars.

Paityr is included. He's been "infected" with a set of smart nannites which passively records electronic emissions in the Temple.

Merlin, Nimue, Owl and Nahrmann will probably stick his virtual nose in,then examine the data which leads to sufficient data to enable the Inner Circle come up with a plan.

Ok, I got to ask. I must have missed something here, but where is this information about Nimue somehow being around (not as Merlin, but as herself? I'm missing something here) and Paityr being given nanites coming from?

Zakharra wrote:

EdThomas wrote:thought inspired by Weird Harold...
Those who follow after the demise of the current Gof4 decide a gesture of good faith might help their situation and offer to accept a "mission" from the COC be based in Zion and meet regularly with the Council of Vicars.

Paityr is included. He's been "infected" with a set of smart nannites which passively records electronic emissions in the Temple.

Merlin, Nimue, Owl and Nahrmann will probably stick his virtual nose in,then examine the data which leads to sufficient data to enable the Inner Circle come up with a plan.

Ok, I got to ask. I must have missed something here, but where is this information about Nimue somehow being around (not as Merlin, but as herself? I'm missing something here) and Paityr being given nanites coming from?

The bit about Paityr being given nanites is speculation in this post. The Nimue being refer to is the PICA that was made and introduced in LAMA.

Hi Don,

Something to consider is that as far as Langhorne knew before the commodore's nuke was that there were no PICA's on Safehold.

Despite Merlin's worries, suppose he could have entered the temple from the very beginning?

I wouldn't be surprised if RFC has a "If only I'd known" reaction from Merlin at some point regarding entering the temple.

Granted there may be some complications, but I suspect Nahrmahn will have OWL build some low tech sensors, ie not then current 24th century federation tech, that that can ride the wind, crawl, or burrow slowly close to the temple to sample what sensors its actually using, then determine what the various power sources are.

All of which might be put into action after Merlin returns from Zion with Aivah.

L

n7axw wrote:

EdThomas wrote:thought inspired by Weird Harold...
Those who follow after the demise of the current Gof4 decide a gesture of good faith might help their situation and offer to accept a "mission" from the COC be based in Zion and meet regularly with the Council of Vicars.

Paityr is included. He's been "infected" with a set of smart nannites which passively records electronic emissions in the Temple.

Merlin, Nimue, Owl and Nahrmann will probably stick his virtual nose in,then examine the data which leads to sufficient data to enable the Inner Circle come up with a plan.

This doesn't deal with the temple defenses. Merlin has been avoiding the temple with his snarcs out of fear that the temple would react to advanced tech. Father Paityr would face the same issue with nannites. Either you avoid the problem altogether by using stealth or edged weapons or you overwhelm the place with Federation tech.

In a way, I suspect that the guard and the inquisition are almost beside the point here. They may well not be aware of the Temple's defenses themselves and if they are aware, I doubt they know enough to control the defenses. So all agreement to enter would mean for them would be agreement to not oppose entry with what they are aware of and can control. Therefore provision for dealing with the temple's built in defenses must be made over and above dealing with inquisition and guard.

Don

Actually Merlin already has the snarcs with their almost microscopic probes. Given their function, they would probably be about as stealthy as stealthy gets. He could have rode one in on Duchairn's shoulder and attended Go4 meetings. Yet he doesn't out of concern about detection by the temple's tech.

Why would the nannites in Father Paityr be different or less detectable to that tech?

Don

Handwavium, maybe?

Weird Harold wrote:

SWM wrote:But I never said that the explicit Proscription against electricity would or should be removed right away. All I've been saying is that a direct goal of the war is to provoke innovation.

If you provoke innovation that breaks any of the proscriptions, you set in motion innovations that will break all of the Proscriptions. Merlin started world-wide innovation and to some extent he and the Inner Circle can guide innovation in the EOC.

What he cannot do is control innovation or shut it down when it gets too innovative. Now that innovation has been jump-started, ALL of the Proscriptions have to be suspended or negated and that means removing any possibility of automatic enforcement.

The Goal is not just "to provoke innovation" it is to make innovation possible.

I think you are picking at nits, or perhaps just using a different definition than I am. I would argue that Merlin has already made innovation possible, by forcing the CoGA to accept things they never would have before and showing how incredibly useful innovation can be. At least you have agreed that this is a direct goal of the war, though.

I do NOT think that the explicit Proscription against electricity will be removed in the near future. I believe that the interpretation of what constitutes a proscribed innovation will change, but explicit Proscriptions will still stand until the Big Reveal. I do not believe that this will produce any danger from the orbital weapons. So I still disagree with you that the orbital weapons must be dealt with in the immediate future. Since this is a matter of opinion, and neither of us has any real evidence either way, I think we will have to agree to disagree on that point. But even if they do manage to eliminate the danger of the orbital weapons, it will at best be an indirect result of the war, not a direct goal. The war itself cannot directly affect the orbital weapons; at most it may gain access to some relevant information or resources.

n7axw wrote:Actually Merlin already has the snarcs with their almost microscopic probes. Given their function, they would probably be about as stealthy as stealthy gets. He could have rode one in on Duchairn's shoulder and attended Go4 meetings. Yet he doesn't out of concern about detection by the temple's tech.

Why would the nannites in Father Paityr be different or less detectable to that tech?

Don

Handwavium, maybe?

I believe the idea is to have a purely passive stealthed recordning system. Something that would see more than human eyes might see. If such a device could be attached to someone who knows the Temple and where to go to activate the Key, we could have a better idea of what awaits before they go active.

Also, if OWL and Nahrmahn had enough time might they not develop such a device? If developed, taking time to truly scope out the Temple might not be a bad idea at all. So either by crushing the AoG, occupying Zion and slowly researching the Temple in such a way or by accepting a truce and then conducting the search, the IC needs to get a much better idea of what is in the Temple.

=2014/06/30=

In LAMA Chapter OCT/896 (XXII)we have
QUOTE:
... There’d been only two good things about the last nightmare day. The first was that he’d long ago injected Hektor and Irys—and Davyn and Earl Coris, for that matter—with the same nanotech with which he’d injected every member of the inner circle. ...
ENDQUOTE:

RobertG wrote:<SNIP>
The bit about Paityr being given nanites is speculation in this post. The Nimue being refer to is the PICA that was made and introduced in LAMA.

SWM wrote:I think you are picking at nits, or perhaps just using a different definition than I am. I would argue that Merlin has already made innovation possible, ...

The war has made limited innovation possible. All of the Proscriptions have to be suspended or lifted for unfettered innovation can happen.

SWM wrote:I do NOT think that the explicit Proscription against electricity will be removed in the near future. I believe that the interpretation of what constitutes a proscribed innovation will change, but explicit Proscriptions will still stand until the Big Reveal.

The Proscriptions may well be just "suspended for the duration" in CoGA controlled areas but convincing innovators -- especially those outside the control of the inner Circle -- that some Proscriptions are more important than others is an exercise in wishful thinking.

SWM wrote: I do not believe that this will produce any danger from the orbital weapons. So I still disagree with you that the orbital weapons must be dealt with in the immediate future....

You are insufficiently pessimistic.

The threat from the OBS and/or whatever is under the Temple has to be treated as if it will sterilize Safehold if a threshold is crossed. Occupying the Temple and deactivating it's defenses is the Direct war goal, with the assumption that doing so will provide the necessary information to disable the OBS. On that point, Merlin's war aims and Charis' war aims differ slightly; both need to occupy the Temple, but for slightly different reasons. Charis only needs to definitively demonstrate the defeat of the Go4, Merlin needs to remove impediments to his long-term goals.

As you have not shown any actual evidence that occupying the Temple and deactivating its defenses is a direct war goal, we will have to continue to disagree, as I said before.

SWM wrote:As you have not shown any actual evidence that occupying the Temple and deactivating its defenses is a direct war goal, we will have to continue to disagree, as I said before.

By the same token, you haven't shown any evidence that it is not.

There is ample evidence that Merlin is concerned about the possibility of automatic OBS activation and ample evidence that he is anxious to determine what is under the Temple. It can be easily inferred that access to the Temple is very high on Merlin's war aims.

On Charis' part, occupying the Temple provides a definitive inescapable mark of victory. Since there is explicit textev that Temple Loyalists don't consider an oath to heretics binding, Charis must have a definitive, inescapable, Visible victory over the CoGA and Go4. The CoGA can't be trusted to abide by a peace treaty or truce, so outright Victory is Charis' only option.