Official HFQ Snippet #24

Kakai wrote:

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."

Uh, right. Forgot about that.

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.

Or a bit of both. And as someone else just mentioned, there could be a plan to handle a much, much smaller form of attack. And on top of that, a personal appointment with one of your senior and nominally most trusted advisers after a major policy development (!) is something hard to refuse.

Really, had Kau-yung not asked for a little chat after the Alexandria Strike, it would have been extremely suspicious, and refusing it would have invited a coup.

True, the nuke is likely not something that comes to mind when you think "revenge". I'm also not sure whether Langhorne could actually imagine anyone in the command crew performing suicide attack.

JeffEngel wrote:Or a bit of both. And as someone else just mentioned, there could be a plan to handle a much, much smaller form of attack. And on top of that, a personal appointment with one of your senior and nominally most trusted advisers after a major policy development (!) is something hard to refuse.

Really, had Kau-yung not asked for a little chat after the Alexandria Strike, it would have been extremely suspicious, and refusing it would have invited a coup.

Only it wasn't a personal appointment. Apart from Chihiro and Schueler every single archangel was wiped out. It must've been some big affair, if all of them were present. I'd say it was rather Langhorne calling a meeting to discuss the policy change. You're right, though - it would be bad not to invite the chief of military forces.

I'm quite curious how Kau-yung carried the nuke through the security arrangements. Was the security officer that day in league with him, did he manage to disguise it or did no one check? The last one would be quite a security slip, doubly so if Langhorne suspected Kau-yung's infidelity or outright planned his arrest.

Kakai wrote:True, the nuke is likely not something that comes to mind when you think "revenge". I'm also not sure whether Langhorne could actually imagine anyone in the command crew performing suicide attack.

JeffEngel wrote:Or a bit of both. And as someone else just mentioned, there could be a plan to handle a much, much smaller form of attack. And on top of that, a personal appointment with one of your senior and nominally most trusted advisers after a major policy development (!) is something hard to refuse.

Really, had Kau-yung not asked for a little chat after the Alexandria Strike, it would have been extremely suspicious, and refusing it would have invited a coup.

Only it wasn't a personal appointment. Apart from Chihiro and Schueler every single archangel was wiped out. It must've been some big affair, if all of them were present. I'd say it was rather Langhorne calling a meeting to discuss the policy change. You're right, though - it would be bad not to invite the chief of military forces.

I'm quite curious how Kau-yung carried the nuke through the security arrangements. Was the security officer that day in league with him, did he manage to disguise it or did no one check? The last one would be quite a security slip, doubly so if Langhorne suspected Kau-yung's infidelity or outright planned his arrest.

Security implies fear of attack. Up until the Rakurai strike on Alexandria, I get the impression that none of the "Archangels" had ever physically assaulted each other before.

Up until then, any "security" would more likely be focused on keeping non-"angels" out of any high level meetings. So I think it's likely no one searched Kau-Yung because it never occurred to anyone that Kau-Yung would do anything so grandiose as carry a suicide nuke into a meeting.

I'm quite curious how Kau-yung carried the nuke through the security arrangements. Was the security officer that day in league with him, did he manage to disguise it or did no one check?

In that time and place - "A vest pocket nuke" may be smaller than the size of a current cell phone. It might actually fit in a vest pocket. (Vest pockets- for those few of us who haven't worn one -border on tiny.)

I just went back an reread that paragraph of Kauyung's message to Nimue in OAR where he reveals his intent to take out Langhorne --and himself along with the only other surviving person who knew about uNimue. On the next evening after the recording, he and this person have an appointment with Langhorne and the Administrative Council at which time he plans to use his vest pocket nuke.

That would have vaporized Langhorne and the Administrative Council along with Kauyung and this other person who knew of Nimue's existence. I find myself wondering how many of Langhorne's people would have survived, not being present atthe meeting.

Don

tootall wrote:I'm quite curious how Kau-yung carried the nuke through the security arrangements. Was the security officer that day in league with him, did he manage to disguise it or did no one check?

In that time and place - "A vest pocket nuke" may be smaller than the size of a current cell phone. It might actually fit in a vest pocket. (Vest pockets- for those few of us who haven't worn one -border on tiny.)

I suspect that the answer to this is that that the threat of that kind of attack never occured to anyone, therefore they didn't guard against it.

Don

Kakai wrote:True, the nuke is likely not something that comes to mind when you think "revenge". I'm also not sure whether Langhorne could actually imagine anyone in the command crew performing suicide attack.

JeffEngel wrote:Or a bit of both. And as someone else just mentioned, there could be a plan to handle a much, much smaller form of attack. And on top of that, a personal appointment with one of your senior and nominally most trusted advisers after a major policy development (!) is something hard to refuse.

Really, had Kau-yung not asked for a little chat after the Alexandria Strike, it would have been extremely suspicious, and refusing it would have invited a coup.

Only it wasn't a personal appointment. Apart from Chihiro and Schueler every single archangel was wiped out. It must've been some big affair, if all of them were present. I'd say it was rather Langhorne calling a meeting to discuss the policy change. You're right, though - it would be bad not to invite the chief of military forces.

I'm quite curious how Kau-yung carried the nuke through the security arrangements. Was the security officer that day in league with him, did he manage to disguise it or did no one check? The last one would be quite a security slip, doubly so if Langhorne suspected Kau-yung's infidelity or outright planned his arrest.

We have no textev of which I'm aware to suggest that all the archangels apart from Shueler and Chihiro were wiped out. What got wiped was the administrative council. Any one who was a member of the council and absent along with any archangel who may not have been on the council and thus not present would have been survivors. We really don't have any numbers.

Don

IIRC the U.S. has already gotten down to some fairly small nukes. During the 50's the tested a nuke bazooka that had a blast range of four miles, problem was the bazooka only had a range of three miles.

n7axw wrote:We have no textev of which I'm aware to suggest that all the archangels apart from Shueler and Chihiro were wiped out. What got wiped was the administrative council. Any one who was a member of the council and absent along with any archangel who may not have been on the council and thus not present would have been survivors. We really don't have any numbers.

Don

"Arch"angels is the title used for the colony administration's top ranking personnel. Everyone else were merely normal "angels". Or as Nynian called them, "lesser" angels.

Odds are, there were never very many archangels to begin with, so it's entirely possible that Schueler and Chihiro were the only surviving ones after Kau-Yung's nuke.

saber964 wrote:IIRC the U.S. has already gotten down to some fairly small nukes. During the 50's the tested a nuke bazooka that had a blast range of four miles, problem was the bazooka only had a range of three miles.

"Shoot then run really, really fast the other way...."