All Quiet on the Howard Front

It seems that for the first time ever, a portion of Safehold ( Howard) is about to lose all ability to communicate with the Church. When The Deltek II Gunboats move into the Sea of Harchong & Gulf of Dohlar, nothing will move in any direction without the consent of the ICN. IMO North Watch and Silkiah are about to be occupied/controlled by the ICA. That would cut off all signals traffic over land as well.

What can South Harchong, Sodar, Delfarahk and Desnair do without communications with CoGA. What will they Imagine is happening in the War. The tales of the South March and setbacks will be the last information Desnair will have of current conditions. Sodar is a non-entity, Delfarahk is still wondering when the next shoe is going to drop on their heads.
South Harchong is churning in the industrial end and production booming – then bang - no market, blockades and no instructions from the Church or from their Emperor.

Any Ideas on the ramifications or outcome of this scenario??

I can see the kingdoms on Howard breathing a sigh of relief. Desnair can lick its wounds without raising another army since it won't be able to get it into action anyway.

Most interesting is South Harchong... Its not hard to imagine then going their own way. Let the country hicks up north pay the price and cannon fodder for the Jihad... We can do just fine down here without all of that.

Being isolated from the Temple lands will weaken COGA control although since the inquisition will still be on hand in its local manifestations, it would be unwise to make too much of that.

Don

n7axw wrote:Being isolated from the Temple lands will weaken COGA control although since the inquisition will still be on hand in its local manifestations, it would be unwise to make too much of that.

Also, no blockade is perfect. Smugglers will get orders and couriers through from the mainland. I suspect that the Inquisitors will get orders from Clyntahn that will tip the scales from isolated to rebellious.

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:Being isolated from the Temple lands will weaken COGA control although since the inquisition will still be on hand in its local manifestations, it would be unwise to make too much of that.

Also, no blockade is perfect. Smugglers will get orders and couriers through from the mainland. I suspect that the Inquisitors will get orders from Clyntahn that will tip the scales from isolated to rebellious.

Very True. I think the Inquisitrs might be a bit nervous though. Charis is pursuing them and their strength is in the areas where industry resides. The coming raids and destruction of industry by Charis may make the inquisitors lay fairly low.

The ability todefeat the church forces in Sidermark, ability to take control of the worlds maritime shipping and cut Howard off from the Church lands and the Harchong Emperor may help open negotiations on a wide range of topics

I am a minority here on the forums, but I doubt there will be much negotiating with the COGA.

Howver, I can see negotiations being more meaningful with the major mainland realms like Harchong, Dohlar, and Desnair. And Delferak! Poor ole Zhames never really wanted to be a part of the party to start with...

Don

Hi Weird Harold,

You're forgetting messenger wyverns, which could cross the Gulf of Dohlar in 9 hours or less at its narrowest, so the temple's orders might be delayed only by a matter of hours, weather permitting.

Of course if the ICN were to raid both wyvernries, the delays might be far longer and much more dangerous for the humans running the blockade as more steamships become available for such duty.

L

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:Being isolated from the Temple lands will weaken COGA control although since the inquisition will still be on hand in its local manifestations, it would be unwise to make too much of that.

Also, no blockade is perfect. Smugglers will get orders and couriers through from the mainland. I suspect that the Inquisitors will get orders from Clyntahn that will tip the scales from isolated to rebellious.

lyonheart wrote:You're forgetting messenger wyverns, which could cross the Gulf of Dohlar in 9 hours or less at its narrowest, so the temple's orders might be delayed only by a matter of hours, weather permitting.

Of course if the ICN were to raid both wyvernries, the delays might be far longer and much more dangerous for the humans running the blockade as more steamships become available for such duty.

Nope, haven't forgotten them, but messenger wyverns have to be transported from "home" to the message senders. Like homing pigeons, messenger wyverns are one-way flyers. Smuggling and blockade runners are still the key to maintaining communications.

Hi Dwileye13,

This has been discussed here before, and letting Howard dwindle in unbelief is quite advantageous to the alliance, as it means at least a third of the temple's remaining potential manpower is no longer a direct threat to Siddarmark.

Granted they were so pitiful, they weren't that much of a threat to begin with.

OTOH, neither the church nor Desnar can afford another Desnari army, and the internal reaction to losing it so incompetently may have all sorts of interesting repercussions.

Encouraging South Harchong's independence thus was mentioned here before we had the textev of Sharleyan supporting it in LaMA, and anything that breaks up that monolith is a very good thing, NTM amusing to see South Harchong depending on the ICN for its increasing independence, as also previously noted.

The border States have been disarmed for the sake of the MHoGatA, so the alliance will have less to worry as they collapse, making their advance to Zion all the swifter.

Given the snail like pace of Desnar and Delferahk, the war may be in Zion or the temple lands and thus almost over before they become a new threat.

L

dwileye13 wrote:It seems that for the first time ever, a portion of Safehold ( Howard) is about to lose all ability to communicate with the Church. When The Deltek II Gunboats move into the Sea of Harchong & Gulf of Dohlar, nothing will move in any direction without the consent of the ICN. IMO North Watch and Silkiah are about to be occupied/controlled by the ICA. That would cut off all signals traffic over land as well.

What can South Harchong, Sodar, Delfarahk and Desnair do without communications with CoGA. What will they Imagine is happening in the War. The tales of the South March and setbacks will be the last information Desnair will have of current conditions. Sodar is a non-entity, Delfarahk is still wondering when the next shoe is going to drop on their heads.
South Harchong is churning in the industrial end and production booming – then bang - no market, blockades and no instructions from the Church or from their Emperor.

Any Ideas on the ramifications or outcome of this scenario??

Hi Weird Harold,

It wouldn't surprise me if such wyvernries existed before the war for a variety of purposes, and the Go4's commandeering would be rather quick in the extremity, if the church didn't have them as a backup or more secret communication network; I suspect Clyntahn would love his own 'secret' network that no one knew about, however relatively slow it was, especially after the Go4 suspect the semaphore has been penetrated almost 4 years ago.

Given the speed that wyverns can identify their current nest as home, as indicated by Wyrshym getting private messages from Magwair at Guarnak and info dumps, it may take less than 2 month's to establish such a wyvernry.

Which leads to the question of whether the Go4 has set up a series of wyvernries to enable contact with the TL's in Charis, etc.

Given a range of 3-4000 miles that are known to the church, only a couple would be needed to reach Desnar to tie into established communications.

L

Weird Harold wrote:

lyonheart wrote:You're forgetting messenger wyverns, which could cross the Gulf of Dohlar in 9 hours or less at its narrowest, so the temple's orders might be delayed only by a matter of hours, weather permitting.

Of course if the ICN were to raid both wyvernries, the delays might be far longer and much more dangerous for the humans running the blockade as more steamships become available for such duty.

Nope, haven't forgotten them, but messenger wyverns have to be transported from "home" to the message senders. Like homing pigeons, messenger wyverns are one-way flyers. Smuggling and blockade runners are still the key to maintaining communications.

lyonheart wrote:It wouldn't surprise me if such wyvernries existed before the war for a variety of purposes, and the Go4's commandeering would be rather quick in the extremity, if the church didn't have them as a backup or more secret communication network; I suspect Clyntahn would love his own 'secret' network that no one knew about, however relatively slow it was, especially after the Go4 suspect the semaphore has been penetrated almost 4 years ago.

Well, we've seen such a mews established in textev, both for commercial interests and spying. It wouldn't surprise me to find the Church had a message wyvern network in place.

The problem is still going to be getting the wyverns through the blockade to the message senders.

lyonheart wrote:Given the speed that wyverns can identify their current nest as home, as indicated by Wyrshym getting private messages from Magwair at Guarnak and info dumps, it may take less than 2 month's to establish such a wyvernry.

Establishing a new "home" mews quickly would be a bit of a drawback when you have a limited supply of wyverns for any given address and an uncertain supply of new wyverns because of a blockade. Messenger wyverns would seem to be a "use 'em or lose 'em" kind of asset; if you keep them long enough they re-home, they've lost their usefulness.

Just out of curiosity, I wonder which would win an air-to-air battle: A wyvern or a SNARC?