Speculation on the next in the Safehold series

Well if your going to dream, dream big I say. Wait for winter to shut down the roads and links around Zion. Then blow every semaphore tower around the city for three hundred miles or so. Isolate that place to where messages take forever and a day to get in and out, then wait for paranoia and the need to know whats happening drive the big four out of the city. Then bump them off. Or at least bump off Duchairn and Magwair as the only competent minds in the group. By all means leave Clynthan alone. The man is worth his weight in Gold to the reformation minded because of the stupidity he would bring as he regretfully takes over and then tries to manage the Jihad and for the anger his increasingly (with no one to rein him in) draconian policies would engender. Kill the bright ones, leave the stupid leaders in place.

Can you imagine what the Group of Four would be like if their communications took a hit like that? What Zion would be like in winter if they suddenly had that kind of time lag in comms? What rumors you could start in the remaining college of vicars? Oh such merry fun for Psych-Ops it could be!

Larry

I'm not in agreement with what seems to be the majority sentiment here. As an individual who basicly is responsible for murdering more than 3 million human beings and is intent on making that number bigger, my vote is that he gets taken out as soon as possible.

I also don't think his demise helps the COGA in the credibility department. After all, the COGA gave birth to the monster.

Don

n7axw wrote:I'm not in agreement with what seems to be the majority sentiment here. As an individual who basicly is responsible for murdering more than 3 million human beings and is intent on making that number bigger, my vote is that he gets taken out as soon as possible.

I also don't think his demise helps the COGA in the credibility department. After all, the COGA gave birth to the monster.

Don

I can't on balance recommend sparing him as a policy. I think doing so would be useful for Merlin's mission and for winning this war; I just don't care to let more people suffer and die on that account. The man's a living atrocity generator. You don't let those keep ticking away, even if what they represent for their side is so congenial to yours.

The CoGA developed into a corrupt institution for sucking up power and delivering wealth to its management. That's not at all good, but it's still not remotely as bad as an institutional atrocity generator. It wasn't an institution that had to deliver a fanatic to the top - mostly, it just sent up jerks.

But a merely shabby organization with all Safehold's faith and the Writ behind it could be something Safehold would live with again, if it had the option. And for that matter, if Clyntahn were out of the way, Duchairn would make sure it stopped being a shabby religious mafia and lived up to Langhorne's promise again.

To repeat what I have said several times before, the naming Merlin - Nimue appears to be a loaded shotgun. the pseudohistorical Nimue locked Merlin in hius cave for a thousand years, then went on her way. The minor detail that Nimue made an intensive careful study of Federation hand to hand, and Merlin seemingly did not, suggests some details of the ending.

Merlin will find himself in a VR dream with heaven only knows who else...not Nahrman and Olivya I suspect...until all of the unpleasant aspects of what he has done wear away. Nimue and the Inner Circle will deal with the Safehold Technical Revolution, followed by expansion in directions away from the Gbaba including planting boltholes if possible outside of our Galaxy and finally careful reconnaissance to determine if the TNF was fighting the Gbaba main fleet or the local Coast Guard detachment 'no need to upgrade them; they face no serious opponents'.

Annachie wrote:I'm wondering if Merlin will survive to the next series. Not that anything can hurt him. I wonder if he'll shut himself down and allow a fresh Nimue to take over for the next war.

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JeffEngel wrote:

n7axw wrote:I'm not in agreement with what seems to be the majority sentiment here. As an individual who basicly is responsible for murdering more than 3 million human beings and is intent on making that number bigger, my vote is that he gets taken out as soon as possible.

I also don't think his demise helps the COGA in the credibility department. After all, the COGA gave birth to the monster.

Don

I can't on balance recommend sparing him as a policy. I think doing so would be useful for Merlin's mission and for winning this war; I just don't care to let more people suffer and die on that account. The man's a living atrocity generator. You don't let those keep ticking away, even if what they represent for their side is so congenial to yours.

The CoGA developed into a corrupt institution for sucking up power and delivering wealth to its management. That's not at all good, but it's still not remotely as bad as an institutional atrocity generator. It wasn't an institution that had to deliver a fanatic to the top - mostly, it just sent up jerks.

But a merely shabby organization with all Safehold's faith and the Writ behind it could be something Safehold would live with again, if it had the option. And for that matter, if Clyntahn were out of the way, Duchairn would make sure it stopped being a shabby religious mafia and lived up to Langhorne's promise again.

Clyntahn not withstanding, there is no way that what the inquisition has done will be forgotten. The memory of what it was all like is already seared into memory for generations to come, especially in Siddarmark and the EOC. While there will always be a TL representation in these lands, Mother Church's role as God's voice and the keeper of men's souls is forever shattered. In that sense Clyntahn will live from the grave.

I will grant you that there are areas that will be willing to live under COGA authority, but I would propose that those are the lands currently willing to do so. If Duchairn ever presides over anything (which I doubt), it will be a rump rather than Safehold as a unified whole the way it was before the G-4 launched its attack on Charis.

Don

Phillies, you keep hopefully beating that Nimue-Merlin drum, but I just don't see it.

Apart from anything else you are looking at the wrong end of the prophecy and the gun has already been fired. Nimue Alban has already put 'Merlin' to sleep and locked him in her cave for nearly 1000 years, with a little assist from Commodore Pei Kau Yung! Now the wizard has awoken and emerged to defeat evil and put the world to rights.

PS In some versions of the Merlin legends the woman who entraps him is called Niniane. Go chew on that one!

You know, between the kody agents in Zion, and some deep infiltration by EoC specialists, they could do something similar to the COGA's semaphore network.



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NervousEnergy wrote:
--Snip--

Big battles are crazy, crazy places. Murphy is a FAR greater demon than Merlin has ever been, but just a nudge here and there could make a big difference, and unless it was way over the top it would never be noticed.

But doesn't Merlin now have a persona named "Murphai"?

n7axw wrote:

I'm not in agreement with what seems to be the majority sentiment here. As an individual who basicly is responsible for murdering more than 3 million human beings and is intent on making that number bigger, my vote is that he gets taken out as soon as possible.

Agreed. Furthermore, when the big reveal comes, it's going to be hard to answer the question, "Do you mean to say that you could have killed Clyntahn, but you let him live and kill three million more in order to provide an incentive to hate the Church of God Awaiting? What kind of monster are you?"

~Tonto

The return of the archangels in twenty years is something the official Church doesn't know about and that implies the majority of the command crew didn't know about it.

Schueler is increasingly an ambiguous figure.

The Alexandrists had skilled hacking capability available. If whatever is about to wake up is in a computer, it may not be what the creators of it thought it was.

Which side is best known for leaving things buried to pop up centuries later?

Is the Return Shan-wei's third arrow?