The Temple—How might it be taken?

Expert snuggler wrote:It would take a good cover story to explain a band of pilgrims composed entirely of healthy young men in good physical condition.

They don't have to look like healthy young men in good condition... Make the robes long enough and they can look like starving mendicants on their last legs...or even disabled vets from the front. Maybe even a unit of guardsmen on a last hoorah before they get sent to the front. With well designed costumes and good thesbian abilities, where there is a will, there is a way...maybe even disguise them as agents inquisitor. That way nobody would dare ask them questions...

Don

n7axw wrote:

Expert snuggler wrote:It would take a good cover story to explain a band of pilgrims composed entirely of healthy young men in good physical condition.

They don't have to look like healthy young men in good condition... Make the robes long enough and they can look like starving mendicants on their last legs...or even disabled vets from the front. Maybe even a unit of guardsmen on a last hoorah before they get sent to the front. With well designed costumes and good thesbian abilities, where there is a will, there is a way...maybe even disguise them as agents inquisitor. That way nobody would dare ask them questions...

Don

Since as far as I know I invented the "burly pilgrims" invasion strategy, so I'm happy to see people embracing it and adding their own twists.

I like the idea of disguising them (which was always going to be the case regarding their wardrobe) but some makeup and robes to disguise their youth, health, and the armory they're carrying would help. I'd originally envisioned them wearing robes as some sort of civilians, although that's probably not common Safehold apparel.

Not sure why they'd be limited to edged weapons though - the Temple guards are certainly carrying double barreled pistols with primer caps by now, so if any tech in the temple is sniffing for gunpowder, it started finding it a century ago. So a couple of six-shooters hidden under the robes of 100 pilgrims wearing various disguises could most likely do the trick - although I expected more like 500, depending on the number of pilgrims who enter the temple on an average day to avoid raising suspicion.

Heck, pick out some short soldiers, give them a good shave and wigs, and pass them off as women I can see the Monty Python sketch now. Queue the falsetto voices!

Some of Aivah's assassination squad are female, so they could come in handy as well...

Could be a few disguised as under-priests or Army of God wounded. I think that Aivah Pahrsahn's assassination team might fill this roll.

just my two cents

Expert snuggler wrote:It would take a good cover story to explain a band of pilgrims composed entirely of healthy young men in good physical condition.

C. O. Thompson wrote:Could be a few disguised as under-priests or Army of God wounded. I think that Aivah Pahrsahn's assassination team might fill this roll.

just my two cents

Expert snuggler wrote:It would take a good cover story to explain a band of pilgrims composed entirely of healthy young men in good physical condition.

Why not just send in a couple regiments.
If the things under the temple are awake - no amount of subterfuge will hide the attack, so why not just use overwhelming force?

McGuiness wrote:Heck, pick out some short soldiers, give them a good shave and wigs, and pass them off as women I can see the Monty Python sketch now. Queue the falsetto voices!

Some of Aivah's assassination squad are female, so they could come in handy as well...

I'm sure Siddarmark's civil war has had a whole lot of female partisans on either side - not their proportion of the population, not on Safehold yet, but well over none. Now that battle lines are semi-solid, a lot of them are back in more-or-less secure Allied territory. I'd imagine plenty of them would be well prepared and eager to beard the dragon in his lair.

rrw wrote:An orbital bombardment system (OBS) takes time to arrive at its strike point. Merlin is experiencing grief and world weariness.

If Merlin were to infiltrate the temple, he would probably be detected but probably too late to prevent his entrance. He could deactivate his cloaking, stealth system to ensure he is detected as a forbidden power source once inside the temple. The OBS would destroy the temple and show evidence of the wrath of God.

The OBS would destroy the Temple under these circumstances only if the designer of the Temple's defensive responses was COMPLETELY STUPID.

Upon detection of a forbidden power source, the Temple's autmomatic response would most likely to be...

a) wake up whatever "Sleeper" is in the basement or elsewhere to get a reasoned response, or...

b) deploy non-sentient "Servitors" (aka, combat drones) like the ones used in the War of the Fallen or other built in defenses that no one knows about but is perfectly doable with known Fed tech, or...

c) both.

There's no reason to assume the OBS would automatically and stupidly destroy the Temple even if it were programmed to automatically fire on artificial power sources. And note that Merlin (and us) don't actually KNOW that the OBS is actually programmed to do that.

McGuiness wrote:
Since as far as I know I invented the "burly pilgrims" invasion strategy, so I'm happy to see people embracing it and adding their own twists.

I like the idea of disguising them (which was always going to be the case regarding their wardrobe) but some makeup and robes to disguise their youth, health, and the armory they're carrying would help. I'd originally envisioned them wearing robes as some sort of civilians, although that's probably not common Safehold apparel.

Not sure why they'd be limited to edged weapons though - the Temple guards are certainly carrying double barreled pistols with primer caps by now, so if any tech in the temple is sniffing for gunpowder, it started finding it a century ago. So a couple of six-shooters hidden under the robes of 100 pilgrims wearing various disguises could most likely do the trick - although I expected more like 500, depending on the number of pilgrims who enter the temple on an average day to avoid raising suspicion.

Heck, pick out some short soldiers, give them a good shave and wigs, and pass them off as women I can see the Monty Python sketch now. Queue the falsetto voices!

Some of Aivah's assassination squad are female, so they could come in handy as well...

The reason for edged weapons is that gunpowder is probably against the proscriptions, dispensation or no. Edged weapons would give whatever is under the Temple nothing to react to.

I don't know whether or not the Temple Guard has pistols. We do know that when Phandys went after Hauward Wylsyn, it was with a sword. So maybe yes, maybe no...

Don

Merlin believes that he would set off the self defense systems and he is too valuable to the efforts to risk lightly. I suppose the same could be said of any member of the inner circle, but there will need to be at least one of them there, unless David is going to provide us with another group of people that would not freak out using communication equipment.

Someone has to be able to evaluate and respond to the automated systems.

Just my two cents

evilauthor wrote:

rrw wrote:An orbital bombardment system (OBS) takes time to arrive at its strike point. Merlin is experiencing grief and world weariness.

If Merlin were to infiltrate the temple, he would probably be detected but probably too late to prevent his entrance. He could deactivate his cloaking, stealth system to ensure he is detected as a forbidden power source once inside the temple. The OBS would destroy the temple and show evidence of the wrath of God.

The OBS would destroy the Temple under these circumstances only if the designer of the Temple's defensive responses was COMPLETELY STUPID.

Upon detection of a forbidden power source, the Temple's autmomatic response would most likely to be...

a) wake up whatever "Sleeper" is in the basement or elsewhere to get a reasoned response, or...

b) deploy non-sentient "Servitors" (aka, combat drones) like the ones used in the War of the Fallen or other built in defenses that no one knows about but is perfectly doable with known Fed tech, or...

c) both.

There's no reason to assume the OBS would automatically and stupidly destroy the Temple even if it were programmed to automatically fire on artificial power sources. And note that Merlin (and us) don't actually KNOW that the OBS is actually programmed to do that.

C. O. Thompson wrote:Merlin believes that he would set off the self defense systems and he is too valuable to the efforts to risk lightly.

Sure, but there's a HUGE difference between "set off self defense systems" and "trick the OBS into nailing the Temple because it detected an artificial power source there". I'm objecting that latter would actually happen because any competent defense designer would build a more measured response to detecting potentially hostile power sources in or around the Temple.

McGuiness wrote:Are there scanners that check each person who enters the Temple for gunpowder? That's unlikely, since gunpowder was clearly against the Proscriptions. The Temple itself was built after the War Against the Fallen when it seemed fairly clear that the genie had been stuffed back into the bottle where the use of "God weapons" was concerned, and we have no textev that gunpowder was used in that war, or that it was present on Safehold prior to its introduction in Harchong of all places a couple of centuries ago. Since the archangels never anticipated that gunpowder would be developed and approved, the Temple is unlikely to scan for it - if it scans for anything at all.

I'm finally getting around to catching up on the Safehold discussions and I had a thought on this; basically coming to the same conclusion from a different angle; which was touched on a couple times already in this thread.

Background: I assume that the current Temple occupants lack the knowledge and/or access to adjust any scanning routines (whether to adjust the list of unauthorized devices/materials or to exempt specific people from those limitations).

So if there was scanning for gun powder I assume it would affect everyone, including Royal Guards. And if Royal Guards had to leave their guns behind when standing duty in the Temple I think that would have been noticed and mentioned. It's a pretty drastic failure in foreshadowing otherwise. (Plus the Temple reacting hostility to people bringing in gun powered weapons could really only have been found out the hard way. I doubt gunpowder could have kept it's allowed status under the Proscriptions if people carrying gunpowder weapons into the Temple were uniquely struck down by the Holy Servitors . (As opposed to people carrying muscle powered weapons)


Therefore I'm pretty confident that, at least the majority of, the Temple complex does not screen for guns or gunpowder. (I allow for the possibility that there may be a few much higher security, more restricted, areas that do scan against pretty much any weapon ever known to the TF)