A Real spoiler....

If you look at the national flag on the ship that's getting attacked by the recon skimmer, it looks like it's a Charisian Navy ship. Someone defecting or friendly fire?

Sigh.

The question of Cayleb getting Sharley pregnant while he's supposed to be in Corisande has come up before.

The Word Of Weber is that they did forms of sexual play that did not involve "insert C-Rod into S-Slot".

McGuiness wrote:
Whoops, it looks like you got me there. The character depicted actually looks like Cayleb, a la AMF, which can be argued is also Merlin. I just don't see any waxed mustachios in either picture!

I edited the original post so it now says Merlin is in the skimmer in BSRA, and is watching the battle in AMF. I just wish the author would read a description of Merlin and realize that he has exaggerated waxed mustachios - which we sort of got in LaMA.

I was also mistaken in that Cayleb doesn't take a flight in the skimmer until BHD when he and Merlin fly to Charis to give Sharley the Big Reveal and for Cayleb to "show her how her communicator works" or whatever the kids are calling it these days...

(Did anybody else worry about her getting pregnant while Cayleb was supposedly in Corisande?)

StalksInShadows wrote:If you look at the national flag on the ship that's getting attacked by the recon skimmer, it looks like it's a Charisian Navy ship. Someone defecting or friendly fire?

Or false flag. See Hornblower, Horatio for iirc uses of this stunt.

Or it's possible that What's Under The Temple has other toys stashed down there. Nothing says that the skimmer belongs to the good guys.

Is the Temple on top of or part of the Hamilcar?

Is the Stone of Schuler the "key" to reactivating the Hamilcar?

Was Chihiro the author behind the book of Schuler, and the power of the Church after the War of the Fallen? Was he the last one standing?

If that recon skimmer does not belong to Merlin, we are in for one heck of a book...

McGuiness wrote:BSRA - Cayleb is shown in the skimmer in orbit. Accurate! /quote
Slight nit, but I'm pretty sure that's Merlin on the cover and the scene depicted is the very first one in the book when he's looking down on Safehold and contemplating his life. /quote Whoops, it looks like you got me there. The character depicted actually looks like Cayleb, a la AMF, which can be argued is also Merlin. I just don't see any waxed mustachios in either picture!

I edited the original post so it now says Merlin is in the skimmer in BSRA, and is watching the battle in AMF. I just wish the author would read a description of Merlin and realize that he has exaggerated waxed mustachios - which we sort of got in LaMA.

I was also mistaken in that Cayleb doesn't take a flight in the skimmer until BHD when he and Merlin fly to Charis to give Sharley the Big Reveal and for Cayleb to "show her how her communicator works" or whatever the kids are calling it these days...

(Did anybody else worry about her getting pregnant while Cayleb was supposedly in Corisande?)

I did. Obviously it didn't happen, but would have been very difficult to explain if it had. OTOH, 1st babies are often late...

CRC wrote:You all are assuming that the skimmer belongs to Merlin and OWL, and that the ship being attacked is not ICN.

That may not be the case considering all the "hidden" stuff that is showing up in all kinds of places.

Shan-Wei and Pei are probably not the only ones who stashed high tech all over the place...

Wow, the out-of-the-box thinkers are out in force today.

My gut feeling is that RFC wouldn't have gone to such efforts to keep all TF technology other than a sharp sword or two and some armor, and of course the antiballistic undies out of the sight of Safeholdians, (sorry about the pun!) who wouldn't recognize them as special, only to blow the whole secret sky high by having someone else show up with a recon skimmer.

I must admit that a skimmer is one of the most likely things to have been preserved though, since the angels used them to travel in style and "prove" their divinity. The TLs (and pretty much everyone else) would consider the skimmer to be a kyousei hi, a glowing globe that carries an angel.

It would be a nasty surprise to find out that some division of the Church has one in reserve. Church doctrine teaches that the appearance of a demon will always be countered by the appearance of an angel to fight it. Since Merlin was declared to be a demon years ago, if the Church had access to a skimmer, it would have made a major demonstration that an angel had appeared to fight "Cayleb's demon familiar" several books ago. (So if that's a skimmer, it doesn't belong to the CoGA and certainly not to the Inquisition!) The CoGA could have destroyed the entire Charisian fleet in OAR and every book since with a single skimmer, so if the scene depicted is accurate, the skimmer is not owned or being flown by an agent of the CoGA.

Merlin debated using his recon skimmer to pose as an angel but rejected the idea based on the fact that he utterly despised the CoGA and wasn't going to act in any way that would indicate that Mother Church wasn't a complete fraud. Besides, he decided never to lie about anything so those with whom he interacted would trust him, and posing as an angel would have been destroyed that trust - and caused everyone on the planet to reaffirm their belief in Mother Church.

Let's not forget that Merlin has two skimmers, and there's a possibility that one of them could be stolen...

Can't tell about Nimue since she's turned away from us in the artwork, but Merlin looks pretty blase about the whole thing.

I'm calling it, Sandra steals the skimmer and single handedly defeats the Charisian Empire, while she's on the com with the Lord Captain Commander of the Gbaba requesting immediate fleet support. Seems legit......

Undercover Fat Kid wrote:I'm calling it, Sandra steals the skimmer and single handedly defeats the Charisian Empire, while she's on the com with the Lord Captain Commander of the Gbaba requesting immediate fleet support. Seems legit......

If you ever write a story about action woman's amazing adventures in space, let me know. I'd sure love to read it.