HFQ Official Snippet #7

"I treated the Jews I sent to the gas chambers really really well. Much better than others. As best as I could. I feel very repentent now. I was just following orders" was tried. It worked to some degree if you consider that Speer was not hanged but rather got 20 years.

Tanstaafl wrote:

jgnfld wrote:While I hear you, this argument really didn't fly well at Nuremburg. Thirsk is a willing participant in evil. He will need to face those consequences and I remember textev of Sharpfield, at least, pointing this out in LAMA. Ah here it is in November Year of God 896 Chapter 4:


"I'm pretty sure it wasn't Thirsk's idea, but there's a price for something like that, whether it's your idea or not, and I'm not the only officer in Their Majesties' Navy who wants a little payback. A lot of payback, actually.

Sharpfield was not e member of the inner circle. He did not know what had happened in detail.

He knows Thirsk did have the responsibility for the POW’s. He does not know how Thirsk has (tried to) live up to his obligations.

This kind of unfounded opinions can win you elections, but get you nowhere in court.

SYED wrote:is it possible that instead of keeping their harchong force along the canal, they will send them to keep dohlar intact? That way less of a drain where they are, and some of the sailors sent to the army could be returned to the navy.
Also, since the drained the armories, having those men there, means their weapons are there as well.
I would be a way to bloody them for battle.

I doubt that the Army from Harchong will be of much positive use. The Northern allied armies are maneuvering into position earlier than the church expects, as their leadership is less than wedded to the concept of winter quarters. I expect we will see a lot of action on the Norther front in this book.

jgnfld wrote:"I treated the Jews I sent to the gas chambers really really well. Much better than others. As best as I could. I feel very repentent now. I was just following orders" was tried. It worked to some degree if you consider that Speer was not hanged but rather got 20 years.

Tanstaafl wrote:

jgnfld wrote:While I hear you, this argument really didn't fly well at Nuremburg. Thirsk is a willing participant in evil. He will need to face those consequences and I remember textev of Sharpfield, at least, pointing this out in LAMA. Ah here it is in November Year of God 896 Chapter 4:


"I'm pretty sure it wasn't Thirsk's idea, but there's a price for something like that, whether it's your idea or not, and I'm not the only officer in Their Majesties' Navy who wants a little payback. A lot of payback, actually.

Sharpfield was not e member of the inner circle. He did not know what had happened in detail.

He knows Thirsk did have the responsibility for the POW’s. He does not know how Thirsk has (tried to) live up to his obligations.

This kind of unfounded opinions can win you elections, but get you nowhere in court.

Equating the CoG with the Nazi party is problematic at best. The Nazis were aware that they were acting in defiance of all standards of international law (whether enforceable or not) and morality. They were also acting in defiance of the tenets of virtually all major religions and Western moral teachings. The Church is following the letter not simply of international law but of God Himself, so far as anyone on Safehold has ever been taught. The heretics --- the ones defying international and divine law --- are the Charisians and their allies.

The problem is, at least in part, that the Writ is schizoid. On the one hand, you have the Book of Bedard and the Book of Langhorne, each of which repeatedly emphasizes the believer's moral responsibility to treat his fellow humans with compassion and kindness and both of which underscore the belief in a merciful and beneficent God Who wants His children to love one another and Who has so ordered and constructed the world (and granted so many and manifold capabilities through the teachings of His Archangels) that His children will be safe, well-cared for, and healthy. On the other hand, you have the Book of Schueler, which teaches the retribution and savagery to be handed out to those who defy the Proscriptions and justifies them on the basis that it will help to save the souls even of those who suffer the Punbishment. So what seems a very clear moral choice is nothing of the sort. The internal compass used to tell you that the Punishment is evil is the same internal compass which teaches you it's God's will. This is the entire reason resistance is so often and so consistently stated in terms of resistance to the Group of Four for misusing God's law for their own personal ends and for identifying their own beliefs and desires with God's. The argument that the Punishment itself is against God's will comes later in the theological and moral journeys of most Safehoildians, whereas it seems to me that many of the commenters think it should be the other way around.

Tanstaafl wrote:Thirsk did act!

Actions that can have NO effect are empty gestures. Getting yourself and your family killed because it feels so good to make an empty gesture is immoral.
But Thirsk did act. He told Sir Gwylym Manthyr in advance what was going to happen. And he arranged for final farewell letters to be sent home. Had he been found out, it could have cost him and his family their lives.

His frustration is that he could not do more.

Not that he did not dare to do more, not that he was not willing to do more, but that he was powerless to do more. Both in open and clandestine actions he has gone to the limit of his possibilities. He has risked the lives of his family to soften the fate of his POW’s.

There was no way he could have done more.

He could have acted not to support or acquiesce to evil. Choosing to live is a positive action. He chose to live and in living acquiesce to evil. Yet, my judgment of evil is made using my Christian moral code. Thirsk doesn't have that code. His code says the Inquisition has the authority granted by divine beings to do as they did.

As a believer, I also recognize that God might well inspire Thrisk to recognize that the moral paradigm he was given is faulty. Accepting that recognition as Truth is a moral choice that Thirsk appears to have made after his POWs were taken from him and tortured.

Not being able to stop evil doesn't absolve one of NOT acquiescing to it. Even if acquiescing to it simply means living. That action asserts that the actor values his life higher than an action that defies evil. Will God forgive that person? Sure, He will. That doesn't mean the act of placing one's selfish desires higher than the resistance against evil in whatever small way possible is not an act of evil. It is. Yes, this is really an absolutist view, but that's the sort of moral paradigm Thirsk is working with and needs to reconcile in his situation.

Randomiser wrote:

Annachie wrote:Dropping Hektor onto one of the KH's, probably the first one, complete with a promotion, would probably be a good thing. Though it might be a bit rough on Irys and the incipent baby.

Given that admirals choose their own flag lieutenants and Sharpfield already has one, and that Hector is way too young and inexperienced for any command, absent the kind of nepotism Cayleb does not go in for, it's really hard to see how he can do significant good in that rôle.

Give the KHVIIs as a task group to Admiral Yairley, who's already demonstrated he knows how to handle special-purpose groups. Hektor is already his Flag Lieutenant. Yairley in turn reports to Sharpfield. Of course we still have the whole 'How do you know THAT?' thing vis-a-vis Hektor.

jms

jmseeley wrote:
Give the KHVIIs as a task group to Admiral Yairley, who's already demonstrated he knows how to handle special-purpose groups. Hektor is already his Flag Lieutenant. Yairley in turn reports to Sharpfield. Of course we still have the whole 'How do you know THAT?' thing vis-a-vis Hektor.

jms

Seriously? I thought the foreshadowing of that answer was obvious enough. Irys' love and prayers persuaded God to allow Hektor to remain with her. Upon awakening he finds that he was given....more insight...to replace what was taken by that misguided assassin's incendiary device. His love and sacrifice was recognized by God.

I can see Nahrmahn running wild spreading that rumor and enjoying the entire process.

PeterZ wrote:

jmseeley wrote:
Give the KHVIIs as a task group to Admiral Yairley, who's already demonstrated he knows how to handle special-purpose groups. Hektor is already his Flag Lieutenant. Yairley in turn reports to Sharpfield. Of course we still have the whole 'How do you know THAT?' thing vis-a-vis Hektor.

jms

Seriously? I thought the foreshadowing of that answer was obvious enough. Irys' love and prayers persuaded God to allow Hektor to remain with her. Upon awakening he finds that he was given....more insight...to replace what was taken by that misguided assassin's incendiary device. His love and sacrifice was recognized by God.

I can see Nahrmahn running wild spreading that rumor and enjoying the entire process.

So Hektor's sacrifice and recovery left him touched by God's Lesser Fire (I couldn't find the term)? I thought about that, but I figured that Merlin's aversion to actually claiming divine favor would argue against it. Still, its advantages in the current situation could outweigh that objection.

jms

I can't remember if it's ever been discussed before, but in those circumstances it would be a lot simpler, from a tactical point of view, just to bring Yairley into the Circle.

[/quote]

Your point, Don, assumes that choosing inaction and not opposing evil does no harm to the soul. I believe it does. By his inaction, Thirsk indirectly condones evil. That harmed his soul. In opposing evil, even unsuccessfully, he would prevent harming his soul. If he began his opposition after his POWs were taken from him, that might argue that he is acting now. Acting now does nothing to absolve his inaction in the prior event.

In Thirsk's defense, I would claim that the loss of his POWs presented him with that which allowed him to resolve his conflicting moral issues. That resolution now allows him to act.[/quote]

From a Christian point of view, the heart of morality is love of neighbor as opposed to centering upon the self. If Thirsk cannot better the situation by acting, he is not necessarily absolved, but his responsibility is directly proportional to the amount of impact he can have.

Then there is the question as to who is the neighbor. No doubt but what the prisoners have first call on that status simply due to their helplessness, their vulnerability. So if he can improve their lot, he is bound to do so. That is the lesson of the Parable of the Good Samaritan -- though far from the only one.

Also claiming neighbor status are the men under his command. He must ask how his possible absence would impact them, how they would fare under less effective leadership.

His family also claims neighbor status. To act in a manner that would put his daughters, their husbands and children at risk when there is no way that he can change the condition or the fate of the prisoners would not be moral, at least not in my book.

Then there is the matter of the fate of Thirsk himself. On the one hand, the last person involved in the situation whom he should be concerned with is himself. That includes worry about staining his soul. Yet on the other hand, God calls upon us to value life, including our own.

Add into this matters of vowing to serve his country, his perceived responsibility to the church and you wind up with a very complex brew.

Finally, when push comes to shove, all Thirsk can really do is to try to do the right thing within the limits of the situation in which he finds himself and entrust the results to God.

Don

saber964 wrote:Thank you RFC for the snippet.
"less than a dozen men - the most senior an army lieutenant-had escaped the debacle by commandeering a sixteen-foot sailing dinghy , somehow evading the Charisian pickets, and crossing the six hundred and seventy miles of stormy salt water between claw island and the Harchongese province of Kyznetzov"
This part of the snippet reminds me of Lieutenant William Bligh's voyage after the Mutiny on the Bounty. Bligh and eighteen loyal crewmen in a 23 foot (7 m) launch travelled 3,618 nautical miles to Timor which was the nearest Eurropean settlement. It took them 47 days.

Comparing the Lt's escape in a sailing dinghy to CPT Bligh's accomplishment is a bit of apples and oranges. Sailing dinghies are basically light, shallow hulls designed to sail on the surface with lateral resistance coming from a centerboard or retractable keel, rather than the hull itself. Lifeboats have a deeper, narrower, heavier hull which is inherently more stable. Dinghies sit on the water while lifeboats sit in the water. Think of a 1x6 board with the 6" side resting on the water as the sailing dinghy. Think of a lifeboat as a 2x4 sitting in the water with the 4" side projecting down into the water. Without getting into a complicated discussion about form stability let me say, in this humble sailor's opinion, the Lt's voyage is an incredible effort and, should he survive the Inquisition, Safeholdian seamen will raise a glass to his accomplishment for centuries to come.

Even more so, More than likely the sailing dingy probably had at most a basic compass ie with only the cardinal points. Where as Bligh had both a ships portable compass a sextant and an area chart.

Bligh had a compass, a quadrant (measured angles to 90 degrees) and no charts, sextant, or chronometer. They were loaded so heavily that there were only 3-4 inches of freeboard and 4 of the loyalists had to be left on the ship and released in Tahiti.

Despite its name, the Pacific isn'ta peaceful ocean, and Lt. Bligh deserves all the accolades he received for his seamanship.

Please note that I removed several quote indicators when dieting this as there were too many quotes. I apologize for doing so and will not repeat that error as I have now seen an excellent method for avoiding that issue