Speculating on Sandaria; what happens next (spoiler)

Hi Kakai,

I think Nimue needs her more than OWL and prince Nahrmahn, so we may see her out of the cave pretty soon.

Because good executive officers are very hard to come by, and too many of the sisters and others who know Nynian well would ask questions where Sandaria is, since in all the previous books she's been nearby, almost Nynian's shadow, for her not to resume her duties soon.

I suspect part of her reaction so far might result from all the kibitzing by fans that all the inner circle nominees so far have accepted everything 100% immediately, Olivia objecting only initially, so now we have someone who knew a surprising amount of what the inner circle knows and still had problems accepting all of the truth; to show its not going to be easy for lots of people when the 'great reveal' eventually happens.

Personally, I'd find a discussion including Olivia's new or reinforced religious perspectives due to her own research of OWL's data banks to be fascinating; NTM as the 'queen mother' of the royal inner circle, I think we should be hearing more from her, since her mature perspective could save some grief.


L

Kakai wrote:Well, as you said, after the initial shock she does seem to be reacting well to the truth. Perhaps she can join the Nimue's Cave Gang as a third member? Not sure what that would give to the story, but she's already there, so maybe?

lyonheart wrote:Hi Kakai,

I think Nimue needs her more than OWL and prince Nahrmahn, so we may see her out of the cave pretty soon.

Because good executive officers are very hard to come by, and too many of the sisters and others who know Nynian well would ask questions where Sandaria is, since in all the previous books she's been nearby, almost Nynian's shadow, for her not to resume her duties soon.

I suspect part of her reaction so far might result from all the kibitzing by fans that all the inner circle nominees so far have accepted everything 100% immediately, Olivia objecting only initially, so now we have someone who knew a surprising amount of what the inner circle knows and still had problems accepting all of the truth; to show its not going to be easy for lots of people when the 'great reveal' eventually happens.

Personally, I'd find a discussion including Olivia's new or reinforced religious perspectives due to her own research of OWL's data banks to be fascinating; NTM as the 'queen mother' of the royal inner circle, I think we should be hearing more from her, since her mature perspective could save some grief.


L

Kakai wrote:Well, as you said, after the initial shock she does seem to be reacting well to the truth. Perhaps she can join the Nimue's Cave Gang as a third member? Not sure what that would give to the story, but she's already there, so maybe?

Hi Lyonheart,

I agree that if Sandaria continues to react well, it won't be long before she is out of the cave. Given her background as Nynian's second in command, probably the most useful thing she could do would be to resume that role, especially since Nynian has so many irons in the fire...

Don

n7axw wrote:

We also know on that Nimue's most recent memory when she woke up was of the plans for that expedition in the Andes on Old Earth.

I don't think that mitigates against Nimue defeating Kohdy. We know that when Nimue (in her incarnation as Merlin) awakened in her cave that the Andes trip was her most recent memory. We are also led to believe that when Nimue (in her incarnation as Nimue Chweriau) awakened in her cave that the Andes trip was her most recent memory. That means that when the file holding Nimue Albin's personality is loaded into a PICA that the PICA's most recent memory is of the Andes trip.

We know, from Pei Kau-yung's reminescences, that at least one other person knew of Nimue's existence. We are told that said person was to die the next day, but we don't know that the death actually happened, nor are we certain that no other persons knew or learned of her existence after that point in time.

Let's suppose, just for the sake of discussion, that Kau-yung's compatriot survived the blast. Let's call him Kamehameha, just so I don't have to keep calling him the guy that knows about Nimue's existence, survived the Zion blast, and is a follower of Kau-yung.

So, Kamehameha goes along for a couple of years until Kau-yung's followers and Chihiro's followers start battling each other. Kau-yung's followers start creating demons by using NEATS. Chihiro's followers start creating seijins using some method we aren't knowledgable of, but which makes better fighters because it uses a person's experience. A NEAT can teach you how to fight, but it can't give you fifteen years experience teaching armed and unarmed combat to Marines. Kamehameha needs some kind of super-demon to defeat the seijins. What alternative does he turn to? Lo, and behold! He remembers the existence of a PICA. The PICA has experence and a really tough body. Not a seijin in existence can defeat it. So, he goes to Nimue's cave and awakens her early, points her in the right direction, and says, sic 'em. She does, but ultimately fails because of the superior resources of Chihiro's followers.

At this point everything matches except for a couple of loose ends. The PICA isn't in position to be awakened when we know she did, and she has all of these memories that we know she doesn't have. I have thought of two ways to tie those ends, and there are probably others, but let me say just one.

Nimue fortells ultimate defeat, despite all she can do, and she's sick unto death of all the killing and maiming. She finally realizes there is a remaining chance, if they just allow Chihiro to think he's won. She enlists Kamehameha to go with her back to the cave, and she gives up her "life" a second time. Kamehameha erases her memory, reloads Nimue Albin from the file still on the server and allows her to sleep where he originally got her.

~Tonto "deus ex machina"

Hi Tonto Silverheels,

That's definitely "deus ex machina".

If not stretching the OAR record inside out and devoid of all meaning.

Given the tremendous superiority a PICA has over a typical human, why were they losing?

With such a weapon as a PICA, why couldn't Kamehameha have taken Chihiro, Schueler, and the rest of the Langhorne successor leadership out quite easily, ie assassinated them, since the PICA was virtually indestructible to any weapons they had and could change its features after each mission etc?

The problems Nimue faced when she woke up again according to you could have been considerably reduced by lots of things she could have done earlier if there was a particle of possibility in this fantasy of yours.

Given what we know now, he could have demonstrated that his fellow "demons" had the same or superior tech, overturning the proscriptions besides bring the Langhorne cult into question, something obviously vital to winning the war.

Can you guess why I wouldn't bother reading such a story as you suggest, even without the above details, or why RFC wouldn't write it?

L

Tonto Silerheels wrote:n7axw wrote:

We also know on that Nimue's most recent memory when she woke up was of the plans for that expedition in the Andes on Old Earth.

I don't think that mitigates against Nimue defeating Kohdy. We know that when Nimue (in her incarnation as Merlin) awakened in her cave that the Andes trip was her most recent memory. We are also led to believe that when Nimue (in her incarnation as Nimue Chweriau) awakened in her cave that the Andes trip was her most recent memory. That means that when the file holding Nimue Albin's personality is loaded into a PICA that the PICA's most recent memory is of the Andes trip.

We know, from Pei Kau-yung's reminescences, that at least one other person knew of Nimue's existence. We are told that said person was to die the next day, but we don't know that the death actually happened, nor are we certain that no other persons knew or learned of her existence after that point in time.

Let's suppose, just for the sake of discussion, that Kau-yung's compatriot survived the blast. Let's call him Kamehameha, just so I don't have to keep calling him the guy that knows about Nimue's existence, survived the Zion blast, and is a follower of Kau-yung.

So, Kamehameha goes along for a couple of years until Kau-yung's followers and Chihiro's followers start battling each other. Kau-yung's followers start creating demons by using NEATS. Chihiro's followers start creating seijins using some method we aren't knowledgable of, but which makes better fighters because it uses a person's experience. A NEAT can teach you how to fight, but it can't give you fifteen years experience teaching armed and unarmed combat to Marines. Kamehameha needs some kind of super-demon to defeat the seijins. What alternative does he turn to? Lo, and behold! He remembers the existence of a PICA. The PICA has experence and a really tough body. Not a seijin in existence can defeat it. So, he goes to Nimue's cave and awakens her early, points her in the right direction, and says, sic 'em. She does, but ultimately fails because of the superior resources of Chihiro's followers.

At this point everything matches except for a couple of loose ends. The PICA isn't in position to be awakened when we know she did, and she has all of these memories that we know she doesn't have. I have thought of two ways to tie those ends, and there are probably others, but let me say just one.

Nimue fortells ultimate defeat, despite all she can do, and she's sick unto death of all the killing and maiming. She finally realizes there is a remaining chance, if they just allow Chihiro to think he's won. She enlists Kamehameha to go with her back to the cave, and she gives up her "life" a second time. Kamehameha erases her memory, reloads Nimue Albin from the file still on the server and allows her to sleep where he originally got her.

~Tonto "deus ex machina"

Obviously, Sandaria is feigning growing acceptance of the lies these demon servants of Shan Wei are telling her so she can get out of this execrable cave and back to civilisation where she can blow the whistle on them and, sadly, Nynian to her Sisters. Nynian is going to have to terminate her before she can do too much damage. Time we had one of those!

lyonheart wrote:

If not stretching the OAR record inside out and devoid of all meaning.

Alright. Coincidentally I was scheduled for a meeting at 3:00 p.m. today, but the meeting wasn't held after all. Meeting changes happen all the time, so it's not beyond the pale to believe Kamehameha didn't make his meeting that day. If it's the use and reuse of Nimue's PICA that fashes you, I should tell you that not all of my ideas tying up the loose ends use it. For example, we know that Kau-yung's followers can make PICAs. After all, Merlin's followers made a PICA, and Merlin's resources pale beside Kau-yung's. If it's something else then I request you specify just which stretch it is that makes you so uncomfortable.

I didn't want to mention it, because it deals with the author's motivations, and I would rather concentrate on the characters' motivations, but why was there another person who knew of Nimue's existence? Why did the author mention the existence of that person?

Given the tremendous superiority a PICA has over a typical human, why were they losing?

There was only one PICA, and there were thousands of seijins.

With such a weapon as a PICA, why couldn't Kamehameha have taken Chihiro, Schueler, and the rest of the Langhorne successor leadership out quite easily, ie assassinated them, since the PICA was virtually indestructible to any weapons they had and could change its features after each mission etc?

An excellent question. The answer is because Chihiro, et alia have excellent PICA detection methods. We know that because Merlin can't enter the Temple precincts. As to the weapons, it's not true that a PICA is virtually indestructible to any weapons. It's only true that Merlin would quite likely survive a cannon ball, driven by gunpowder, to the midsection.

The problems Nimue faced when she woke up again according to you could have been considerably reduced by lots of things she could have done earlier if there was a particle of possibility in this fantasy of yours.

You know? I appear to have offended you greatly. Let me say that all such offense was purely unintentional, and I apologise for all of the unintentional offense I gave.

Given what we know now, he could have demonstrated that his fellow "demons" had the same or superior tech, overturning the proscriptions besides bring the Langhorne cult into question, something obviously vital to winning the war.

That would have been unavailing because the people of Safehold would have accounted it as forbidden knowledge given to the demons by Shan-wei. The proscriptions are something the people of Safehold were to follow, and the Church of God Awaiting were to administrate. Overturning the proscriptions requires the people of Safehold to believe that the proscriptions shouldn't be followed, and for the Church to abandon their administration. Doing as you have suggested would be as if I were to start killing people because Sam Berkowitz's dog told him to.

Can you guess why I wouldn't bother reading such a story as you suggest, even without the above details,

No.

or why RFC wouldn't write it?

I take it you've never read Out of the Dark by David Weber?

~Tonto

Its good that the book its already written, and i do hope that the idea that Tonto Silerheels, is nowhere in the book (tonto i'm referring to one of your first post in this thread).

This is the post:

Tonto Silerheels wrote:n7axw wrote:

Now she is going to read the Spanish portion of the journal. How will that impact her? Will she remain skeptical?

Sandaria is going to ask for a written copy of the translation. Then, either she or one of the other women looking after the journal is going to compare the translation against the original to make certain the Merlin is playing no shenanigans, so far as that's possible. What I mean to say is that they will check to see whether "not" is translated as "not" and "shirt" is translated as "shirt" within the limitations of translations from one language to another. She will find some discrepancies, like when "dough" is translated as "batter" in some places and as "money" in others, but she won't find enough discrepancies to cry foul. Being unfamiliar with translation she is going to be worried, but will be satisfied by analogy with English and its overloading of definitions onto words. After that--it depends on what Kohdy wrote.

~Tonto

Why you will ask? because a person who has never seen earth and who has never had any contact with our diversity, will find it extremely hard to believe that a language so different could exist.

Let me try to explain, the only common point that spanish and english have is that both come from europe and they belong to the indo-european superfamily of languages, english come from the germanic side, spanish come from the Italic side, so apart from modern words who have been made in late 20th century and on the 21st century, spanish and english have as much in common as a cow and a tree (both are living things and thats about all of what they have in common), Whenever I need to translate from Spanish to English or from English to Spanish, I usually need to do two translations, a literal translation (not always the most accurate) and a cultural translation (and this one gets complicated because each spanish country has its own dialect or accent, and the same happen with every english country).

So if sandaria ask to have a written dictionary english-spanish, to compare by herself and make sure that everything translates correctly, she will most probably (99.9% chance) get it wrong, the only person that right now in all of safehold who can do the translation, even if she doesn't speak the language is nimue, the why?, because she lived on earth and know about how different the languages can be, and know that certain expresions can be translated as something that if you make a literal translation wont make sense, this also happens between people from the same language, and if you dont believe just grab a person from the united states, 1 from britain, 1 from canada and 1 from australia, sit them together and enjoy the chaos, with spanish is exactly the same thing.

2nd post in a row, first to Lyonheart on your

Lyonheart wrote:Given what we know now, he could have demonstrated that his fellow "demons" had the same or superior tech, overturning the proscriptions besides bring the Langhorne cult into question, something obviously vital to winning the war.

I already talked this issue with RFC in public on this forum when book 4 or 5 just came out (around 3 or 4 years ago give or take), I remember RFC pretty much telling me that yeah the easy solutions was for Nimue to just drop a nuke on Zion then make sure to destroy the temple and declare himself as an archangel and overthrow all the teachings, but that he RFC didn't find that story interesting at all and that he was not going to write it, he chose this moral point and this decisions because its what he liked, and to tell you the truth I like the story too.

Also Tonto Silerheels, no offense but what the hell are you taking and where can I find some? some of your ideas lately have been way too surreal, I know that we like to go into full on rants about all the conspiracy theories that we end up thinking of as evil machinations of RFC but you have gone way beyond that point, take a step back clean your mind of all theories and speculations, then reread all seven books. (I think we have seven books so far right?)

And to RFC: See what happen when you postpone one of your books for en entire year, the withdrawals signs are such that people are going nuts with conspiracy theories, and some of them I suspect are going at it with very psychedelic sustances.

Charles83 wrote:

Also Tonto Silerheels, no offense but what the hell are you taking and where can I find some?

It was kind of hard to keep from taking offense at that, but, since you asked politely, okay. I don't take any offense at it. My mood-altering substance of choice at present is Sangria. It's a little sweet, and I can get a gallon of the flavour Carlo Rossi makes for not much money.

some of your ideas lately have been way too surreal, I know that we like to go into full on rants about all the conspiracy theories that we end up thinking of as evil machinations of RFC but you have gone way beyond that point,

Certainly if you don't like my posts, then I might suggest you not read them. I'm more likely to make full-on-rants, as you call them, long after a snippet has grown stale, say, a week-and-a-half. So, if you like some of my posts and not others you wouldn't go far wrong reading for the first week-and-a-half and then avoiding them until the next snippet comes out.

take a step back clean your mind of all theories and speculations, then reread all seven books. (I think we have seven books so far right?)

I don't mean to brag, but I'm fairly certain that I've read each book at least five times. Seeing as how Hell's Foundations Quiver won't come out before October I'm fairly certain I'll add a sixth before it does. May I ask you this? Is there any specific point upon which my, admittedly far-flung, speculations contradict anything in the Safehold series? I mean, such a contradiction should be easy to find if my speculations are, as you claim, surreal.

By the way, as I stated earlier, I don't believe Nimue defeated Khody. The way I phrased it was zilch plus epsilon. It's fairly widely known that zilch means zero. It may not be so widely know that epsilon is engineer-speak for a negligible amount. I'm an engineer and I use it to mean a positive number that can be made arbitrarily close to zero. And as Earnest Rutherford said, you should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 10^-12 to 1.

~Tonto

Tonto Silerheels wrote:lyonheart wrote:

If not stretching the OAR record inside out and devoid of all meaning.

Alright. Coincidentally I was scheduled for a meeting at 3:00 p.m. today, but the meeting wasn't held after all. Meeting changes happen all the time, so it's not beyond the pale to believe Kamehameha didn't make his meeting that day. If it's the use and reuse of Nimue's PICA that fashes you, I should tell you that not all of my ideas tying up the loose ends use it. For example, we know that Kau-yung's followers can make PICAs. After all, Merlin's followers made a PICA, and Merlin's resources pale beside Kau-yung's. If it's something else then I request you specify just which stretch it is that makes you so uncomfortable.

I didn't want to mention it, because it deals with the author's motivations, and I would rather concentrate on the characters' motivations, but why was there another person who knew of Nimue's existence? Why did the author mention the existence of that person?

Given the tremendous superiority a PICA has over a typical human, why were they losing?

There was only one PICA, and there were thousands of seijins.

With such a weapon as a PICA, why couldn't Kamehameha have taken Chihiro, Schueler, and the rest of the Langhorne successor leadership out quite easily, ie assassinated them, since the PICA was virtually indestructible to any weapons they had and could change its features after each mission etc?

An excellent question. The answer is because Chihiro, et alia have excellent PICA detection methods. We know that because Merlin can't enter the Temple precincts. As to the weapons, it's not true that a PICA is virtually indestructible to any weapons. It's only true that Merlin would quite likely survive a cannon ball, driven by gunpowder, to the midsection.

The problems Nimue faced when she woke up again according to you could have been considerably reduced by lots of things she could have done earlier if there was a particle of possibility in this fantasy of yours.

You know? I appear to have offended you greatly. Let me say that all such offense was purely unintentional, and I apologise for all of the unintentional offense I gave.

Given what we know now, he could have demonstrated that his fellow "demons" had the same or superior tech, overturning the proscriptions besides bring the Langhorne cult into question, something obviously vital to winning the war.

That would have been unavailing because the people of Safehold would have accounted it as forbidden knowledge given to the demons by Shan-wei. The proscriptions are something the people of Safehold were to follow, and the Church of God Awaiting were to administrate. Overturning the proscriptions requires the people of Safehold to believe that the proscriptions shouldn't be followed, and for the Church to abandon their administration. Doing as you have suggested would be as if I were to start killing people because Sam Berkowitz's dog told him to.

Can you guess why I wouldn't bother reading such a story as you suggest, even without the above details,

No.

or why RFC wouldn't write it?

I take it you've never read Out of the Dark by David Weber?

~Tonto

Hi Tonto,

Out of the Dark was my least favorite Weber so far. I read it once and never bothered to reread.

Yes. The plot as you have outline it could have been written. But I think it is so far removed from what we have so far that we have moved from speculation to fan fiction.

There is absolutely no evidence at all nor even a hint from text that the other person who knew about Nimue did not accompany Pei Kau-yung to that meeting after he recorded Nimue's briefing and perish with him when they took out Langhorne and the council. We would need at least some hint that it worked out differently for the speculation to have credibility.

There is no evidence at all to suggest that Nimue's 750 years in stasis was interrupted.

Unless we are anchored in the story we have before us somehow, we are simply free lancing, which of course, we are free to do. But then we are no longer discussing David's story.

Don