Question Regarding Charisian Strategies

Why has Charis not attacked Zion or the Temple lands yet?

Because they are not sure that something under Temple would not react on this. And if something would activate and fight back, it would be the utterly and complete disaster; the "divine intervention for the Holy Temple protection" would just destroy Church of Charis.

Steambucket wrote: I can't remember who said it but at some point quantity takes on a quality all it's own.

Only on the same technological level. The industrial age weaponry are pretty capable to dealigh with large mass of thecnically inferior enemies. Machineguns, shrapnel, quick-firing field guns, aerial bombing, artillery rockets... this could crash any low-tech army even in superior numbers.

Dilandu wrote:

Steambucket wrote: I can't remember who said it but at some point quantity takes on a quality all it's own.

Only on the same technological level. The industrial age weaponry are pretty capable to dealigh with large mass of thecnically inferior enemies. Machineguns, shrapnel, quick-firing field guns, aerial bombing, artillery rockets... this could crash any low-tech army even in superior numbers.

Except Charis doesn't actually have most of those available. It's probably close to some of the lower tech precursors, but they're not there yet.


Besides, if the CoGA manages to mass all its ground forces, and could manage to support them, even the entire Charisan Army, Marine Corps, and the Siddarmarkian Army all combined would get drowned in bodies. Tbe qualitative differences are not presently so great as to overcome all quantitative disadvantages.

First, most of EoC military campaign so far has been reactive, not proactive. CoGA attacked Siddarmark, so EoC needed to help Siddarmark.

EoC had large >>navy<< but not a large >>army<<. Chisholm had a decent army, but even that was not of the size sufficient for mainland wars. The army was sent to Siddarmark with the intention of... effectively plugging the hole until RSA can be rebuilt. Any successes on top of that are a bonus.

Because of these numbers, any army that could have been sent at the start of the current war, to Zion, if it was of sufficient size to do something, would take too much manpower away from critical and urgent areas in Siddarmark.

This doesn't mean that an army cannot be sent to Zion now or a bit later...

While EoC is now rather large, a lot of its parts are newly added, and it takes a while for, say, Corisande to move from the stage of uprisings against Charis, to peace, to being a loyal part of the empire, and then for Corisandians to voluntarily join EoC army and attack Zion. It takes changes in beliefs, changes in attitudes, and these come neither quickly nor easily.

When Siddarmark's army is rebuilt, when Corisandians enlist in significant numbers, when there are troops from Tarot and Emerald in numbers, there might be enough to launch exactly such an expedition - Hsing-Wu's passage to Zion.

Then there is the question of what would trigger awakening of whatever it is that sleeps under the Temple. IMO, Merlin and the inner circle want the science and industrialization to spread as wide and as much as possible before that happens.
If there is someone from the original command team in cryosleep, or as a PICA, or an AI, or as a virtual personality (a copy from the original command team "archangels") at that time he/she would be in a situation where he/she cannot reverse the flow of things, not short of using OBS to bomb the whole planet, and there's no point of the entire Safehold colony if they would destroy the human race themselves.

In a similar line of thought, the more time people of Safehold are given to readjust their beliefs and attitudes, the easier it will go when the final moments come, and when "The Great Reveal" finally comes.

Also, while the CoGA had a huge advantage in numbers originally, a lot of it has been destroyed by now; and if the contingent from Harchong can be neutralized in a similar fashion, not only it will be generally easier for EoC, but they will be able to take more people out of the Siddarmark and send them elsewhere (Zion). Also, if that part of the Temple army is neutralized, other countries will be less likely to send more armies... nobody wants to throw his lot in with the losing side.

Aethor wrote:First, most of EoC military campaign so far has been reactive, not proactive. CoGA attacked Siddarmark, so EoC needed to help Siddarmark.

<Snip>

Also, while the CoGA had a huge advantage in numbers originally, a lot of it has been destroyed by now; and if the contingent from Harchong can be neutralized in a similar fashion, not only it will be generally easier for EoC, but they will be able to take more people out of the Siddarmark and send them elsewhere (Zion). Also, if that part of the Temple army is neutralized, other countries will be less likely to send more armies... nobody wants to throw his lot in with the losing side.

Very good points - basically the question of invading Zion isn't if, but when? The answer is "not this year, maybe next, or the year after that..." The King Haarahld battle cruisers need to be finished, used to mop up the Gulf of Dohlar, and possibly next year when the war in Siddarmark may be largely over and some troops can be siphoned away or new troops from across the EoC have been trained, then Cayleb and Sharley can keep their promise to send the fleet to Port Harbor and start unloading the troops.

Clearly they can't wait too long, and in a year or two they may well be in a military position to make a move on Zion and capture the Temple. Whether Safehold will be ready to accept the corruption the Temple represents and looks at an invasion that results in the "heretics" physically seizing the Temple with relief rather than as a rallying cry for TLs everywhere will depend on how much the EoC (via OWL's broadsheets and Aivah's dirt on the vicarate) have been able to educate the populace by then, as well as how badly the CoGA's military forces have been defeated.

Once the EoC captures the Temple, Merlin & Co. need to maintain a physical presence there to figure out what's in the basement, and hopefully how to control it and stop the return of the archangels, if that's necessary. So any truce or treaty between the EoC and the CoGA needs to ensure that the CoC has continued access to the Temple.

As for strategies to capture the temple, see this thread: http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6920 and this one http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6871&hilit=capture+temple

This topic has been discussed for years, so if you do a keyword search using "attack" and "Zion" for example, you'll get a lot more examples. I've written similar replies on several threads over the years, so it's a topic that comes up regularly.

Of course the EoC needs to capture the Temple rather than attacking Zion, which some threads consider impossible. (It's doable, the ICA just needs to be sneaky...)

Weird Harold wrote:

Jovanne wrote:Why has Charis not attacked Zion or the Temple lands yet?

For much the same reason the US didn't invade Tokyo right after Pearl Harbor.

Doolittle wasn't supposed to land and occupy, then??? I thought that was the original plan!

jgnfld wrote:Doolittle wasn't supposed to land and occupy, then??? I thought that was the original plan!

Sarcasm aside, The Doolittle Raid had a very aptly named commander because it was from the start a piblicity stunt designed to "Do Little."

Wikipedia wrote:Sixteen U.S. Army Air Forces B-25B Mitchell medium bombers were launched without fighter escort from the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier USS Hornet deep in the Western Pacific Ocean, each with a crew of five men. The plan called for them to bomb military targets in Japan, and to continue westward to land in China—landing a medium bomber on Hornet was impossible.

Wikipedia/Pearl Harbor wrote:From the standpoint of the defenders, the attack commenced at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time.[13] The base was attacked by 353 Japanese fighter planes, bombers, and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers.

As a response to Pearl Harbor, the Dolittle Raid was a futile gesture and a waste of 16 light bombers.

Sorry Weird but the Doolittle raid accomplished two things.

1) An American 'victory' in the middle of a series of defeat after defeat. A much needed morale boost.

2) It caused the Japanese to bring aircraft, men, and anti-aircraft guns from the battle fronts to protect the Home Islands.

Thus IMHO it was not the useless publicity stunt you portray. The men who did the raid are all gone now IIRC, but that's no excuse for belittling their sacrifice, some were beheaded for 'War Crimes'. Shame on you.

Charlie

Weird Harold wrote:

jgnfld wrote:Doolittle wasn't supposed to land and occupy, then??? I thought that was the original plan!

Sarcasm aside, The Doolittle Raid had a very aptly named commander because it was from the start a piblicity stunt designed to "Do Little."

Wikipedia wrote:Sixteen U.S. Army Air Forces B-25B Mitchell medium bombers were launched without fighter escort from the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier USS Hornet deep in the Western Pacific Ocean, each with a crew of five men. The plan called for them to bomb military targets in Japan, and to continue westward to land in China—landing a medium bomber on Hornet was impossible.

Wikipedia/Pearl Harbor wrote:From the standpoint of the defenders, the attack commenced at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time.[13] The base was attacked by 353 Japanese fighter planes, bombers, and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers.

As a response to Pearl Harbor, the Dolittle Raid was a futile gesture and a waste of 16 light bombers.

No. Harold wasn't belittling anybody's sacrifice. But he did overlook the reality that "publicity stunts" are not neccessarily a waste. Indeed, they can vitally neccessary.

Don

Dilandu wrote:

Why has Charis not attacked Zion or the Temple lands yet?

Because they are not sure that something under Temple would not react on this. And if something would activate and fight back, it would be the utterly and complete disaster; the "divine intervention for the Holy Temple protection" would just destroy Church of Charis.

The notion of something under the Temple reacting to an allied attack is interesting.

I'm not sure how that shakes out, so in the interest of promoting a discussion, I offer the following:

Whatever is under the Temple doesn't really care what happens upstairs as long as it doesn't involve tech sophisticated enough to pose a threat which it is programed to counter. A force with edged weapons could move in and completely over run the Temple and replace its personnel and what's under the Temple would slumber on without so much as an alarm.

Don