The SSK without Nynian and Sandaria (SPOILERS)

fallsfromtrees wrote:Too return to the basis of this post, the supposition has been made that if Sandria has to be sequestered, that Nynian will have to be also.I am by no means convinced that this is the case. As the head of SSK, Nynian is well aware that a non-believer is a threat that must be eliminated, as evidenced by her acceptance that if she had failed the initial test, she would have been killed. Given that in Sandria's case, the choice is going to be putting her on ice rather than killing her, I believe that Nynian will accept the fact, and continue to work with Merlin as an ally.

For that matter, options in case of disbelief/shock/gotta-think-about-this are wider and softer still. There's also confinement to the Cave, and working confinement: spend your time wrapping your head around The Truth monitoring and directing SNARC uptake. That last may even be a good default assumption - call it a working vacation while you absorb the shock. When you're ready to come back into the world, it'll be waiting.

n7axw wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:Too return to the basis of this post, the supposition has been made that if Sandria has to be sequestered, that Nynian will have to be also.I am by no means convinced that this is the case. As the head of SSK, Nynian is well aware that a non-believer is a threat that must be eliminated, as evidenced by her acceptance that if she had failed the initial test, she would have been killed. Given that in Sandria's case, the choice is going to be putting her on ice rather than killing her, I believe that Nynian will accept the fact, and continue to work with Merlin as an ally.

Interesting, isn't it...We really don't know what the settled (after the shock has worn off) position of either woman is going to be. Wonder if we'll find out before the publication date of the book!

Don

I can't help but think whatever settled position they take will drive the intervening cold war. Either in having the SSK break up and portions support the COGA and the remainder supporting the CoC. Not sure who leads who.

JeffEngel wrote:For that matter, options in case of disbelief/shock/gotta-think-about-this are wider and softer still. There's also confinement to the Cave, and working confinement: spend your time wrapping your head around The Truth monitoring and directing SNARC uptake. That last may even be a good default assumption - call it a working vacation while you absorb the shock. When you're ready to come back into the world, it'll be waiting.

Very well said - in fact pretty much what my response was going to be, but you did a better job of saying it than I would.

Merlin was particularly grateful that he had at least two options other than killing Aivah or Sandaria if either one couldn't accept the truth. My initial thought was that he'd put them in cryo, but given Aivah's position in the SSK and her talents, that would be a complete waste, ditto for Sandaria. So a "working vacation" while they both become familiar with TF tech and OWL, which will completely disprove the CoGA that they believe in if only it were run correctly, along with a few long discussions with Archbishop Staynair ought to help them accept and embrace the truth.

Aivah is going to be much more effective as their chief spymaster once she's fully integrated into the inner circle, and her assets in the SSK will be much more efficient once she's able to send them messages more quickly to arrange and coordinate their actions. (But of course she'll still have to avoid being too efficient...)

Another advantage is that Merlin won't go stark-raving bonkers from multiple personality disorder now that Aivah knows that the twenty-plus "spies" that send her regular reports are all imaginary people whose letters are written by OWL, and there may be some other "Seijins" he's created who he'll no longer have to impersonate. (I just hope he's still Mab now and then - I like that guy!)

McGuiness wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:For that matter, options in case of disbelief/shock/gotta-think-about-this are wider and softer still. There's also confinement to the Cave, and working confinement: spend your time wrapping your head around The Truth monitoring and directing SNARC uptake. That last may even be a good default assumption - call it a working vacation while you absorb the shock. When you're ready to come back into the world, it'll be waiting.

Very well said - in fact pretty much what my response was going to be, but you did a better job of saying it than I would.

Merlin was particularly grateful that he had at least two options other than killing Aivah or Sandaria if either one couldn't accept the truth. My initial thought was that he'd put them in cryo, but given Aivah's position in the SSK and her talents, that would be a complete waste, ditto for Sandaria. So a "working vacation" while they both become familiar with TF tech and OWL, which will completely disprove the CoGA that they believe in if only it were run correctly, along with a few long discussions with Archbishop Staynair ought to help them accept and embrace the truth.

Aivah is going to be much more effective as their chief spymaster once she's fully integrated into the inner circle, and her assets in the SSK will be much more efficient once she's able to send them messages more quickly to arrange and coordinate their actions. (But of course she'll still have to avoid being too efficient...)

Another advantage is that Merlin won't go stark-raving bonkers from multiple personality disorder now that Aivah knows that the twenty-plus "spies" that send her regular reports are all imaginary people whose letters are written by OWL, and there may be some other "Seijins" he's created who he'll no longer have to impersonate. (I just hope he's still Mab now and then - I like that guy!)

One thing that hasn't been mentioned about visiting The Cave and perhaps a period of sequester there is the process of familiarizing a doubter to the angelic tech. Having OWL, a bodiless spirit to such people regardless of how he/she/it is explained, communicate and explain all the tech must have a significant impact on eroding the atavistic fear of those devices and leaving in large part only awe and wonder.

The two pronged argument reconciles well in a period of sequester in the Cave. The CoC's and Stanayr's reputation as good people reinforced by the sequester (rather than another more permanent solution) and OWL further emphasizes the benign nature of the tech. The thought process moves from suspecting the tech is demonic to hoping it is angelic before settling on benign and completely secular.

I just checked all the snippets, we know that Nimue was thinking of bringing Nynian into the confidence of the inner circle, but at the same time he distrusted her because nimue has cause, nynian is definitely a double dealing woman, but the most important part is that nimue saw that nynian had a pragmatic side, and nimue was trusting its instincts into thinking about telling her and convincing her pragmatic side.

Now I think that RFC made a mistake, but until now I havent said anything because I had my history with RFC and his female characters, but this time its just a plot related issue.

The inner circle and merlin were considering Nynian for the truth, they were not considering Sandaria, #2 Sandaria's reaction is wrong, if you belong to the sisterhood, and have enough trust from the current mother superior to bring you on this trip, then that means the sisterhood gave you enough trust to see the old journals and possibly the relic, that means that you should have a little skepticism towards the church, not God but the church, so that Sandaria is so reactionary, well I think the first person who would kill her would be Nynian because if she doesn't share some of the skepticism of the sisterhood, if she is going to be totally reactionary to the truth, that means that she cannot be trusted to stay on the upper echelons of the sisterhood because at any time she could go ahead and betray the sisterhood to the inquisition, in other words, the sisterhood has some suspicions about the place before creation thanks to Kody writting in spanish, so in the end, since Sandaria was not veted by the inner circle, its not the inner circle's fault that she is not a believer.

What I find to be a deep mistake is that if you are already in an organization who suspect that the church has something to hide, that you would be totally reactionary when you get the truth from another source (yeah you can be suspicious of this "new" organization who is giving you the info, some paranoia is perfectly justified but not a total reactionary action), specially if you are in the high ranking position of that organization.

In other words, if Sandaria belongs to the sisterhood, and she is so trusted by Nynian her reaction to the truth is not believable, as we see in the earlier snippets, if Nynian suspect that there was a time before the adams and eves, then those on the upper echelons of the sisterhood probably know or suspect the same, receiving info that confirms that shouldn't cause the faith crisis that she is having right now, if she was a person to have a faith crisis because of something related to the church she shouldn't have made it so high in the sisterhood, and she exhibits this kind of reaction, it would be Nynian responsability to remove her, not only from the inner circle but also from the sisterhood.

Of course Sandaria could have been just a very gifted "Lady" who had training to survive and that was quite low on the hierarchy of the sisterhood, that way her reaction would be believable, since yeah the sisterhood would have her but they would never let her join the upper ranks, but if this is truth then the solution of just putting sandaria to sleep on stasis or kill her is greatly simplified since its obvious she is not very high on the ranks and that she cannot be trusted and since the one that insisted on bringing her is Nynian and not the inner circle, it is Nynian fault for whatever need to happen right now.

In other words, since Nynian was the one that insisted on bringing Sandaria, Nynian will need to be the one that deal with whatever disbelief Sandaria is displaying, because Sandaria was not just a normal citizen, Sandaria was already part of an organization that was on a Cold war with the inquisition.

Charles83 wrote:I just checked all the snippets, we know that Nimue was thinking of bringing Nynian into the confidence of the inner circle, but at the same time he distrusted her because nimue has cause, nynian is definitely a double dealing woman, but the most important part is that nimue saw that nynian had a pragmatic side, and nimue was trusting its instincts into thinking about telling her and convincing her pragmatic side.

Now I think that RFC made a mistake, but until now I havent said anything because I had my history with RFC and his female characters, but this time its just a plot related issue.

The inner circle and merlin were considering Nynian for the truth, they were not considering Sandaria, #2 Sandaria's reaction is wrong, if you belong to the sisterhood, and have enough trust from the current mother superior to bring you on this trip, then that means the sisterhood gave you enough trust to see the old journals and possibly the relic, that means that you should have a little skepticism towards the church, not God but the church, so that Sandaria is so reactionary, well I think the first person who would kill her would be Nynian because if she doesn't share some of the skepticism of the sisterhood, if she is going to be totally reactionary to the truth, that means that she cannot be trusted to stay on the upper echelons of the sisterhood because at any time she could go ahead and betray the sisterhood to the inquisition, in other words, the sisterhood has some suspicions about the place before creation thanks to Kody writting in spanish, so in the end, since Sandaria was not veted by the inner circle, its not the inner circle's fault that she is not a believer.

What I find to be a deep mistake is that if you are already in an organization who suspect that the church has something to hide, that you would be totally reactionary when you get the truth from another source (yeah you can be suspicious of this "new" organization who is giving you the info, some paranoia is perfectly justified but not a total reactionary action), specially if you are in the high ranking position of that organization.

In other words, if Sandaria belongs to the sisterhood, and she is so trusted by Nynian her reaction to the truth is not believable, as we see in the earlier snippets, if Nynian suspect that there was a time before the adams and eves, then those on the upper echelons of the sisterhood probably know or suspect the same, receiving info that confirms that shouldn't cause the faith crisis that she is having right now, if she was a person to have a faith crisis because of something related to the church she shouldn't have made it so high in the sisterhood, and she exhibits this kind of reaction, it would be Nynian responsability to remove her, not only from the inner circle but also from the sisterhood.

Of course Sandaria could have been just a very gifted "Lady" who had training to survive and that was quite low on the hierarchy of the sisterhood, that way her reaction would be believable, since yeah the sisterhood would have her but they would never let her join the upper ranks, but if this is truth then the solution of just putting sandaria to sleep on stasis or kill her is greatly simplified since its obvious she is not very high on the ranks and that she cannot be trusted and since the one that insisted on bringing her is Nynian and not the inner circle, it is Nynian fault for whatever need to happen right now.

In other words, since Nynian was the one that insisted on bringing Sandaria, Nynian will need to be the one that deal with whatever disbelief Sandaria is displaying, because Sandaria was not just a normal citizen, Sandaria was already part of an organization that was on a Cold war with the inquisition.

First of all, it is premature to judge Sandaria's response at this point. Let's wait and see how she manages to sort things out with what I presume will be the most loving support possible.

Secondly, part of the point of bringing the ladies to the cave was to avoid the need for "drastic" solutions. They can stay there as long as necessary with no time constraint at all.

Finally, Nynian a "double dealing woman"???? Sorry there, guy, but I haven't seen any evidence of her as being anything other than being a very compassionate human being who has been working hard to bring down the G-4. There is no textev to suggest that she she has been anything other than straight with Merlin or anyone else she has been working with.

I think the most helpful visitor to the cave right now would be Father Paityr, given their history with the Wylsyn family. I wonder if it will happen...

Don

n7axw wrote:

Charles83 wrote:I just checked all the snippets, we know that Nimue was thinking of bringing Nynian into the confidence of the inner circle, but at the same time he distrusted her because nimue has cause, nynian is definitely a double dealing woman, but the most important part is that nimue saw that nynian had a pragmatic side, and nimue was trusting its instincts into thinking about telling her and convincing her pragmatic side.

Now I think that RFC made a mistake, but until now I havent said anything because I had my history with RFC and his female characters, but this time its just a plot related issue.

The inner circle and merlin were considering Nynian for the truth, they were not considering Sandaria, #2 Sandaria's reaction is wrong, if you belong to the sisterhood, and have enough trust from the current mother superior to bring you on this trip, then that means the sisterhood gave you enough trust to see the old journals and possibly the relic, that means that you should have a little skepticism towards the church, not God but the church, so that Sandaria is so reactionary, well I think the first person who would kill her would be Nynian because if she doesn't share some of the skepticism of the sisterhood, if she is going to be totally reactionary to the truth, that means that she cannot be trusted to stay on the upper echelons of the sisterhood because at any time she could go ahead and betray the sisterhood to the inquisition, in other words, the sisterhood has some suspicions about the place before creation thanks to Kody writting in spanish, so in the end, since Sandaria was not veted by the inner circle, its not the inner circle's fault that she is not a believer.

What I find to be a deep mistake is that if you are already in an organization who suspect that the church has something to hide, that you would be totally reactionary when you get the truth from another source (yeah you can be suspicious of this "new" organization who is giving you the info, some paranoia is perfectly justified but not a total reactionary action), specially if you are in the high ranking position of that organization.

In other words, if Sandaria belongs to the sisterhood, and she is so trusted by Nynian her reaction to the truth is not believable, as we see in the earlier snippets, if Nynian suspect that there was a time before the adams and eves, then those on the upper echelons of the sisterhood probably know or suspect the same, receiving info that confirms that shouldn't cause the faith crisis that she is having right now, if she was a person to have a faith crisis because of something related to the church she shouldn't have made it so high in the sisterhood, and she exhibits this kind of reaction, it would be Nynian responsability to remove her, not only from the inner circle but also from the sisterhood.

Of course Sandaria could have been just a very gifted "Lady" who had training to survive and that was quite low on the hierarchy of the sisterhood, that way her reaction would be believable, since yeah the sisterhood would have her but they would never let her join the upper ranks, but if this is truth then the solution of just putting sandaria to sleep on stasis or kill her is greatly simplified since its obvious she is not very high on the ranks and that she cannot be trusted and since the one that insisted on bringing her is Nynian and not the inner circle, it is Nynian fault for whatever need to happen right now.

In other words, since Nynian was the one that insisted on bringing Sandaria, Nynian will need to be the one that deal with whatever disbelief Sandaria is displaying, because Sandaria was not just a normal citizen, Sandaria was already part of an organization that was on a Cold war with the inquisition.

First of all, it is premature to judge Sandaria's response at this point. Let's wait and see how she manages to sort things out with what I presume will be the most loving support possible.

More than that - Sandaria is shocked and devastated to have what she believed in - both as matters of fundamental fact and who was wearing the black and white hats - attacked so thoroughly and effectively. She's certainly not reacting like, say, some Hanchong archbishop here. "Reactionary" isn't a term that ought to be on the table here for her. I'd peg this kind of response as about the best one might hope for on Safehold, and each one that's been better or more accepting as the peculiar ones.

The SSK has had a variety of opinions about St. Kohdy's background and judgments, the War of the Fallen, and the account of Creation. Nynian's stances seem to be among the most "radical" of the common ones there, and she probably figured that she was staking out a position about as wild as could be. She gets shocked to find out that the truth is a lot wilder still. Sandaria probably didn't share all Nynian's "radical" ideas already, and she's struggling with the truth being even further out in left field than her community - itself a conspiracy embracing ideas out the far side of heresy - has ever considered.

Cut her some slack.

Secondly, part of the point of bringing the ladies to the cave was to avoid the need for "drastic" solutions. They can stay there as long as necessary with no time constraint at all.

Finally, Nynian a "double dealing woman"???? Sorry there, guy, but I haven't seen any evidence of her as being anything other than being a very compassionate human being who has been working hard to bring down the G-4. There is no textev to suggest that she she has been anything other than straight with Merlin or anyone else she has been working with.

Ah, you're going to have to ask that of every customer of Ahnzhelyk Phonda, just to start the examples. This one's a fair point, kinda. She IS a professional spy, conspirator, agent provacateur, and revolutionary. She lies, deceives, misleads, and betrays constantly and has done so for decades, very very well.

But two points that have to be brought up. First, there's no evidence that she does so to everyone, or outside the needs of her conspiracy. And she's been under a lot of scrutiny the last couple of years by an agency with means she's had no background to foil. Second, it's hardly an accusation Merlin, the Inner Circle, or the Brotherhood of St. Zherneau can level with any moral indignation. They have had, you know, some secrets of their own. A few. And they've been prepared to go to some lengths to keep them - like burying their allies under the highest, most remote mountain on the planet if they get twitchy hearing them. If Nynian weren't such an effective conspirator, the whole situation of trusting her or not would not apply.

There is a vast difference between dealing with an adversary who cannot be counted on to be faithful or who stands for a cause one cannot sanction or embrace on the one hand, and dealing poorly with people who are on your side.

A spy, for example, has to be a person of extraordinary character to remain true to his values and his country given the ambiguity constantly thrust upon him by his duty.

With Nynian, given the cause to which she has committed herself, there is no evidence that she has ever been untrue to that cause or to Her principles, which as Nimue has observed, are less flexible than Edward's best steel armor.

In short, she has been completely trustworthy for the people who should be able to trust her. For the other side, "if you are not cheating, you are not trying hard enough."

Don

My point is that it appears that sandaria would be a person Nynian trust and that she is part of the sisterhood, if she is both then I think she could have a better mental flexibility than the average safeholdian, I think this kind of reaction of having your entire world flipped around would be more likely in a person like thirsk, a civilian or military man who doesn't belong to any society and who doesn't have any historic information.

The reaction of father wylsin, i think was perfect he had information from the past and he started to analize what merlin and the other told him and came to a decision, specially because of that info he could sort of know that there was some friction between several of the archangels, now the sisterhood see that kody had motives to use an old forgotten language, and they are not going to think that there was some kind of friction?, again I don't think sandaria's reaction is correct, she belongs to a secret society, if she was a full civilian i understand, but not if you belong to a secret society.

Also the point as Nynian being a double dealing woman as jeffengel just posted, She is a professional spy and worse for our protagonist she have her own organization, that means she is going to be less trusted, why? because Nynian will at some times not say something that could be critical to the saint zhernau people just to protect the people of her sisterhood, in other words by Nynian having her own organization her loyalty will never be complete to the inner circle and to nimue's mission, so these will means that whatever information she gets will be limited, they may disclose the full truth of the past, but current operations they will be careful, or should be at least.

Tonto Silerheels wrote:kbus888 wrote:

I define a LIAR as someone who
knowingly tells things that are not true.

I think we're in general agreement, but I did want to mention a couple of specifics that are dissonant with your statement. I claim a liar is someone who 1) knows something is false, 2) conveys that something to someone else, 3) intends for the recipient to believe it to be true, and 4) isn't doing so for humorous or pedagogical reasons.

The reason for 3) is for things like liars' contests or similar entertainment where someone will tell a whopper knowing full well that no one will believe it. The reason for 4) is for things like jokes. For example, if I were to say a priest, a minister, and a rabbi walk into a bar together...I wouldn't want to be branded a liar merely because I believed that none ever did. It's also for things like teaching. It's a good idea to give general principals without all of the specific exceptions mentioned at first. This gives the student a chance to assimilate the new knowledge without being inundated with too many facts. Donald Knuth uses this to good effect in a couple of his books.

~Tonto

Many questions are useful because they cause us to think. How about "Is a person a liar because they lied, or do they lie because they are a liar?"

Ehhh - I think protecting his people was about invading other people before they had a chance to do the same; offering them something as much like the protection of law an autocrat can; and giving them the cover of demonstrated, emphasized orthodoxy in the eyes of that Church.

This one sounds like some parts of Russian history, without the church dominance. They still have a strong tendency to attack possible future enemies.

Unfortunately, the USA seems to be picking up that habit.