HFQ Official Snippet #5

OK, very off the wall bit of speculation.

Chihiro and Scheuler left to the Dawn Star. Assume a roughly 1,000 year orbit. Also assume cryosleep can't keep a body alive that long. If one of them cloned a body with a NEAT and downloaded his personality multiple times, he could return in the flesh.

Not saying this likely, but I can't get away from RFC's turn of phrase..."departing in victory". Father Paityr refers to the millennia as the "return". That suggests that Hamlicar took the archangels away and will return with them.

Kudos to Lyonheart it seems on the Hamlicar issue.

Everyone has been suggesting that Kohdy was an Adam, but there is another possibility. He could be part of the command team. Most of the posts have been assuming that the Archangels were the entire command crew. But the Archangels were the “generals” of the command crew. There would have still been majors, captains, and NOCs that are part of the command crew. So Kohdy could have been a NCO in the command crew. He wouldn’t have been directly involved in any of the “big” decisions, and might not even know they were being made. But as the command crew fractured, and the civil wars started, he would have been loyal to one subset of the command crew, and fought for them. So he fought in the war, but didn’t really think about what it all meant. At least until the “demon” spared his life. And since he was part of the command crew, his memories hadn’t been erased, so he was able to write his journal in Spanish.
The question becomes, when he went to talk to the remaining “officers” did the officers kill him? Or did he convince the officers that he was loyal to that they should take a stand, and then those officers were killed at the same time he was? Because the snippet also says that the remaining Archangels “Schueler and Cihiro had departed in victory”. But if they won the civil war, why did they leave then instead of sticking around for a bit longer to make sure everything settled down?

This allows cutting to the chase in the books replacing pages of conversation with Merlin's analysis of the gist conversation's important information. David does this well and has done it before in this series. In an 800 page book it's a God send, although not usually recommended in creative writing. That's part of RFC's genius knowing when to scrap the usual rules, it's still dialogue, just internal dialogue

tootall wrote:A most interesting way of writing-

She approaches Merlin- They have their long conversation. Merlin reports to his own "inner circle". Then the whole of it is played back to us- mostly in first person narrative- via Merlin's memory.

Why not just have the conversation?
Not that I object to the writing style- It's just a very interesting way of going about it.

The historical speculation around Khody, Chihiro & Schuler is interesting but of more immediate importance is who is Nynian and why has she approached Merlin?

Clearly, Nynian is an important member of the Sisterhood, possibly even the Mother Abbess herself. So, as implied in the last sentence of the snippet, the Sisterhood has decided to come out of the shadows, at least to the extent of revealing their existence to Merlin. Why approach Merlin instead of going to Caleb or Staynair? Likely, because Nynian trusts Merlin/Ahbriam because she has not only studied him for some time but worked with him directly and trusts him to keep the sisterhood a closely held secret. She also needs Merlin's assistance in a very important mission though she could have approached Caleb and asked Caleb to assign Merlin to the task. She may have also deduced from her observations of Merlin/Ahbriam that Merlin sometimes acts independently of Caleb and might be willing to help her whether or not Caleb approves.

Sharp Claw wrote:The historical speculation around Khody, Chihiro & Schuler is interesting but of more immediate importance is who is Nynian and why has she approached Merlin?

Clearly, Nynian is an important member of the Sisterhood, possibly even the Mother Abbess herself. So, as implied in the last sentence of the snippet, the Sisterhood has decided to come out of the shadows, at least to the extent of revealing their existence to Merlin. Why approach Merlin instead of going to Caleb or Staynair? Likely, because Nynian trusts Merlin/Ahbriam because she has not only studied him for some time but worked with him directly and trusts him to keep the sisterhood a closely held secret. She also needs Merlin's assistance in a very important mission though she could have approached Caleb and asked Caleb to assign Merlin to the task. She may have also deduced from her observations of Merlin/Ahbriam that Merlin sometimes acts independently of Caleb and might be willing to help her whether or not Caleb approves.

Nynian has no way of knowing how much Cayleb knows.
To her it might be possible that she is the only one who has seen throu Merlin's disguise.

Hmm, we've already seen Merlin discussing this matter with his inner circle thus he's not keeping it close to his vest is he? It is likely in a Snippet we haven't seen Merlin asks permission to discuss this closer alliance, rather than just doing it to maintain Nynian'a trust.

The more likely reason is she knows and has worked with Merlin/Ahbriam and trusts him, but does not know Caleb or Staynair in this way, depending on how things go, yet

Poker

Sharp Claw wrote:The historical speculation around Khody, Chihiro & Schuler is interesting but of more immediate importance is who is Nynian and why has she approached Merlin?

Clearly, Nynian is an important member of the Sisterhood, possibly even the Mother Abbess herself. So, as implied in the last sentence of the snippet, the Sisterhood has decided to come out of the shadows, at least to the extent of revealing their existence to Merlin. Why approach Merlin instead of going to Caleb or Staynair? Likely, because Nynian trusts Merlin/Ahbriam because she has not only studied him for some time but worked with him directly and trusts him to keep the sisterhood a closely held secret. She also needs Merlin's assistance in a very important mission though she could have approached Caleb and asked Caleb to assign Merlin to the task. She may have also deduced from her observations of Merlin/Ahbriam that Merlin sometimes acts independently of Caleb and might be willing to help her whether or not Caleb approves.

=2014/09/09=

Hi Guys

In answer to the question of "why did Nynian approach - - -", I believe the timing might be a result of the current mess the CoGA finds itself living.

The Church is becoming more and more obviously in error and NOT acting according to God's will.

I suspect the Sisterhood's long term plan is to "go public" when eventually that plan has a reasonable chance of success.

??Comments??

R
.

kbus888 wrote:=2014/09/09=

Hi Guys

In answer to the question of "why did Nynian approach - - -", I believe the timing might be a result of the current mess the CoGA finds itself living.

The Church is becoming more and more obviously in error and NOT acting according to God's will.

I suspect the Sisterhood's long term plan is to "go public" when eventually that plan has a reasonable chance of success.

??Comments??

R
.

By Occam's razor!
Because she needs a ride.

=2014/09/09=

Hi Guys

I believe Nynian is one of the MAJOR members of the Sisterhood.

In fact, I predict that her "maid" works for her (maybe somewhat like a 'flag officer' in the Navy) -- which would make Nynian the equivalent of "Fleet Admiral").

??Comments??

R
.

Is the ocean wet? Is snow cold? Yah' she is important, and perhaps the Abbas of the Sisters of Saint Kohdy.

Poker

kbus888 wrote:=2014/09/09=

Hi Guys

I believe Nynian is one of the MAJOR members of the Sisterhood.

In fact, I predict that her "maid" works for her (maybe somewhat like a 'flag officer' in the Navy) -- which would make Nynian the equivalent of "Fleet Admiral").

??Comments??

R
.