The Temple—How might it be taken?

They'd better have exercised it. A procedure that a unit has never drilled on is at best slightly better than improvising.

n7axw wrote:

SWM wrote:There is no evidence that the Temple require high-tech keys or credentials to enter the building. As far as we know, the entrances are currently protected by contemporary defenses. It's not getting into the Temple that poses a problem for Charis--it is getting into Zion.

There may be (probably are) high-tech defenses for the hidden depths of the Temple. However, the fact that they have not had security patches for nine centuries is irrelevant, since Owl hasn't had an upgrade in nine centuries, either. In fact, Owl was put to sleep a century before the Temple was built, and only woke up a few years ago.

Getting into Zion is a problem how? The place has no defenses and no regular troops defending it. Land an army at Port Harbor and you are in...

Don

But that's exactly what I mean. I believe that the biggest problem of getting into the Temple is getting the troops there in the first place.

Expert snuggler wrote:They'd better have exercised it. A procedure that a unit has never drilled on is at best slightly better than improvising.

You know - an exercise for the Temple Guard to actually guard the Temple like that would provide excellent cover for a coup against the Inquisition. The Guard would be securing the Temple and controlling critical parts of the inside, armed and organized.

A threat to Zion would provide both the pretext to bring plenty of Guardsmen back to the area and to practice ancient procedures for defending the core of the Church. If Duchairn and Magwair are willing to make that move, the Allies may not have to do more than land in force nearby to set it up.

The Temple from proto-Safehold in Heirs of Empire was taken by straightforward invasion and then secured by co-opting the tech. Could Schuler's Key enable the co-opting trick? This part of the series could end with a last stand set-piece as a change of pace from all of the epic slaughter.

I'm more inclined to think the Temple will fall offscreen when Zion is capture or, more likely, access will be negotiated before assaulting Zion is necessary. Zion seems indefensible if the Temple Lands fall and COGA's situation will be untenable once the Harchong force is taken out.

A negotiated peace would let RFC spend more time on revealing what's beneath the temple and setting up the next set of books.

noblehunter wrote:A negotiated peace would let RFC spend more time on revealing what's beneath the temple and setting up the next set of books.

That depends on how lovingly he describes the negotiations. I think it would be just so anticlimactic, and not at all like RFC, for all that to happen off screen.

How could the Go4 explain negotiating a peace after declaring that God required victory?

Merlin has said flatly that his goal is the complete destruction of the CoGA. He won't be happy with a negotiated settlement. He could sabotage one easily.

She Of Many Names wants revenge rather than a cease fire. She is not someone you would want to turn against you if you made a separate peace with the CoGA.

Cayleb's youthful enthusiasm and Nahrmann's cynicism would both recoil from a negotiated peace. Macchiavelli said to crush opponents completely or make friends with them, but that nothing in between was safe or stable. Nahrmann figured out most of _The Prince_ on his own, likely including that part.

Maybe in fifty years with different leadership on both sides the humans could arrange something short of unconditional surrender. Then they'd have to persuade Merlin.

Expert snuggler wrote:How could the Go4 explain negotiating a peace after declaring that God required victory?

Merlin has said flatly that his goal is the complete destruction of the CoGA. He won't be happy with a negotiated settlement. He could sabotage one easily.

She Of Many Names wants revenge rather than a cease fire. She is not someone you would want to turn against you if you made a separate peace with the CoGA.

Cayleb's youthful enthusiasm and Nahrmann's cynicism would both recoil from a negotiated peace. Macchiavelli said to crush opponents completely or make friends with them, but that nothing in between was safe or stable. Nahrmann figured out most of _The Prince_ on his own, likely including that part.

Maybe in fifty years with different leadership on both sides the humans could arrange something short of unconditional surrender. Then they'd have to persuade Merlin.

It wouldn't be with the Go4, obviously. They'd have to be deposed first. Merlin would recognize that he can't destroy the CoGA in a single war. The rest would recognize the advantages in not marching on Zion or be appeased with Nuremberg-style trials.

I think it's critical that the war be ended as soon as it's possible to enforce a favourable peace on the CoGA. It would not do for religious war to become a habit. Destroying CoGA is better done at peace than at war.

Merlin doesn't expect any war to destroy the CoGA - it has never destroyed any church in the past, after all. [at most, warfare has driven the losers underground, where, very rarely, they have withered and died] S/he simply acknowledges that war will be an inescapable element of the process.

By the same token, whatever Aivah may have wanted when she... was younger, she's not looking for revenge now. Other, at least, than the somewhat vicarious revenge of overturning all Langhorn's hopes and plans. Frankly, I doubt that she ever wanted revenge per se. She was a Reformer; she wanted situations like hers to stop happening. Now, she's lined up right beside the rest of the Inner Circle.

noblehunter wrote:

Expert snuggler wrote:How could the Go4 explain negotiating a peace after declaring that God required victory?

Merlin has said flatly that his goal is the complete destruction of the CoGA. He won't be happy with a negotiated settlement. He could sabotage one easily.

She Of Many Names wants revenge rather than a cease fire. She is not someone you would want to turn against you if you made a separate peace with the CoGA.

Cayleb's youthful enthusiasm and Nahrmann's cynicism would both recoil from a negotiated peace. Macchiavelli said to crush opponents completely or make friends with them, but that nothing in between was safe or stable. Nahrmann figured out most of _The Prince_ on his own, likely including that part.

Maybe in fifty years with different leadership on both sides the humans could arrange something short of unconditional surrender. Then they'd have to persuade Merlin.

It'd wouldn't be with the Go4, obviously, they'd have to be deposed first. Merlin would recognize that he can't destroy the CoGA in a single war. The rest would recognize the advantages in not marching on Zion or be appeased with Nuremberg-style trials.

I think it's critical that the war be ended as soon as it's possible to enforce a favourable peace on the CoGA. It would not do for religious war to become a habit. Destroying CoGA is better done at peace than at war.

evilauthor wrote:

SWM wrote:There is no evidence that the Temple require high-tech keys or credentials to enter the building. As far as we know, the entrances are currently protected by contemporary defenses. It's not getting into the Temple that poses a problem for Charis--it is getting into Zion.

There's no evidence against either, especially when the Temple has an "Open Door" policy when it comes to pilgrims. When you have a constant flow of traffic going in and out of the Temple, it's simply easier to keep the door open all the time than to shut it when no one's going through at the moment.

But if I were designing the Temple, and if I were as paranoid as the original designers seemed to be, then I'd put lockable doors on the main entrance. If the right emergency came up (a beseiging Charisian army for example), then the only thing needed to close and lock the front doors would be the door guard pressing a few "God Lights" in a panel just inside the doors.

Heck, it wouldn't surprise me if the Temple Guard has actual procedures for how to defend the Temple from attack handed down from the Archangels themselves. They just never expect to actually need to USE them, but they'd be on the books all the same.

And of course, we don't know if they have any of this stuff because the Temple has NEVER come under attack. Yet. So there's been no need so far to do an exposition dump on it.

Getting into the room below the temple is not a job for an army, it is the work of special forces.

Whatever is down there represents a potential resource that should not be destroyed if it can be compromised.

So the question is... were the builders so paranoid that they would drop a rock on it if someone entered the wrong password?
If the likelihood is too great then the platform has to be neutralized. EMP or maybe a handful of commandos set to drift to it and attempt to gain access and control or, failing that... place the EMP bombs and drift away to be recovered before the thing short circuits.

Just my 2 ₵

Getting into the room below the temple is not a job for an army, it is the work of special forces.

Whatever is down there represents a potential resource that should not be destroyed if it can be compromised.

So the question is... were the builders so paranoid that they would drop a rock on it if someone entered the wrong password?
If the likelihood is too great then the platform has to be neutralized. EMP or maybe a handful of commandos set to drift to it and attempt to gain access and control or, failing that... place the EMP bombs and drift away to be recovered before the thing short circuits.

Just my 2 ₵[/quote]

Actually, it would be the job of a specially trained infiltration team which in the current era(modern earth) would be best filled by some soft of specialized operational force. the EoC has very few missions of this sort and would spin up a force for this 'to order' based on the efficiency hit that would be taken by not being able to transport the force as a Rapid Response Unit. This is shown by how they rescued Irys and Daviyn from the Go4.

However, my analysis of the situation is that the best way to handle this long term is to 'let the genie out of the bottle' so to speak and force the Go4 to go so far down the technology path that there is no way to bring invention and innovation back under control.

There is a risk that is posed by the return - however it is not known who or what it returning. For all we know it could be Kody...