Official HFQ Snippet #24

Tonto Silerheels wrote:Kakai wrote:

5. Remnants - Kau-yung and Shan-wei sympathizers who survived nuke and Alexandria. Likely the least armed and numerous, due to the latter's bombing, but Kau-yung's forces, as someone noted above, might've consisted of many marines, meaning that one-on-one, they'd be the most dangerous.

There's something that's been bothering me, and I'm hoping someone on the website can help. I've been discussing Shan-wei's followers and Kau-yung's followers, but I'm not sure you and I and the author mean the same thing when we use those terms. By Shan-wei's followers, I mean the people in the Alexandria enclave, the people in Langhorne's headquarters, and the people scattered abroad who openly supported giving technology to Safehold when the time was ripe. I presume the vast majority of those people were killed when the rakurai struck the Alexandria enclave, or in an assumed mopping up operation in Zion following.

Despite the small number of Shan-wei's followers, I think Kau-yung's followers were fewer. Maybe just himself and Proctor. I reason as follows. There could not have been a great amount of time between the destruction of the Alexandria enclave and the destruction of Langhorne's headquarters. If there were, then Langhorne would never have allowed Kau-yung into his presence. It would have been too risky for Kau-yung to actively oppose Langhorne for a long time because Langhorne would have discovered the deception. So, if Kau-yung decided to destroy Langhorne shortly after the Alexandria destruction he wouldn't have had time to convert his men into active opposition to Langhorne. Remember, ostensibly Kau-yung supported Langhorne, and you can't appear to actively support someone if you suborn one thousand or ten thousand of your most closely trusted men.

When Kau-yung killed himself and Proctor, he may have killed all of his followers. If that's so, then why does the author speak of Kau-yung's followers?

~Tonto

Tonto Silerheels wrote:snip

I think it's more likely that Kau-yung opposed Langhorne earlier, but he let Kau-yung into his presence because he believed Kau-yung to be unarmed, despite what I said earlier.

~Tonto

PeterZ wrote:There are two reasons I could see Langhorne allowing Kau-yung into his presence. The first is that Langhorne trusted him sufficiently to allow the meeting. The second is to use that confrontation to achieve some sort of political goal. That goal might have been to take Kau-yung into custody or shore up shaken supporters after nuking a boat load of people or announcing deeper policy changes after destroying Alexandria.
(snip)

Kytheros wrote:There's also another category:
Megalomaniacs - those who initially went along with Langhorne's plan not because they believed in it, but because of the personal advantages it gave them - power, etc. And decided that they liked it, and saw an opportunity to gain more power for themselves after the pocket nuke cleared out most of the competition.

Kakai wrote:
However, Kau-yung didn't necessarily have to act right after Alexandria's bombings. He was estranged with Shan-wei for fifty-odd years, after all. Even in a society living for three centuries, this must be a lot of time, so after Alexandria's end he might not have been immediately on "suspicious" list. OTOH, I'm fairly confident that some time must've passed, as I doubt Langhorne would let a military leader anywhere near him right after murdering his wife. My guess about the events right after the bombing is that Kau-yung kept it low and waited for an opportunity, while perhaps preparing forces which would, after his suicide, oppose Langhorne.

wingfield wrote:
The problem here is that Kau-Yung reacted immediately to the bombing of Alexandria by going to Nimue's cave, recording the message to Nimue, plus presumably other finishing touches, and then heading straight to Zion for his appointment with Langhorne.

Quote from RFC:
Wed Dec 18, 2013 5:43 pm
"The detonation of Kau-yung's nuke happened within days of the Alexandria strike, guys, not years and years later."

Kakai wrote:This begs the question of what was Langhorne and others thinking, letting Kau-yung anywhere near them right after something like this. Either Kau-yung was the best actor in the universe, capable of fooling a person whose surname became synonym for psychology on Safehold, or Langhorne and aforementioned person were horrible, horrible judges of character (looking at you, Bedard).

Or maybe they were already suffering from Pavel Young's syndrome of not seeing other people as real? Given the megalomania they've displayed so far, I wouldn't be surprised.