[Spoiler] The final chapter

Randomiser wrote:

Montrose Toast wrote:4. How many books left in this war? How much time? Much of what we are seeing now in development and manufacture is forshadowing of the tools for the next war...

5. How many troops does the Church have left that are not National forces? The death of CoGA as a nation/military power has already been established - the signature on the death certificate is comming soon. Which leaves Temple Loyalists scattered everywhere for the forthcoming civil war oppon the reveal.

This war is about to end and many of the events occuring now are part of the setup for the next one...

4. 1 or just possibly 2, according to RFC's last comments on the matter

5 Well they are intending to raise or train an army of 4 or 500,000 this winter (I forget which), which is far from chickenfeed. Also the church has never needed an army of it's own before the present unpleasantness, because it has always relied on forces from various nations when required (hence all those former Temple Guard officers suddenly frocked as AOG officers and Bishops Militant). On that front they expect a Harchongese contribution of about 2.5 Million by next campaigning season. The CoGA has lots of problems but lack of warm bodies in uniform sure isn't one of them. Rumours of their death have been greatly exaggerated!

Can they trust the Harch? If Clyntan takes over and starts to issue stupid orders - how long until that force rebels?

They have competent leadership. Competent leadership tends to wind up in friction with Clyntahn.

Rebellion in the rank and file is less likely but it would be good strategy to foment it. The peasants are uneducated but never confuse that with stupidity. Start a rumor that they'll never be allowed back home with their military skills and knowledge. They'll be smart enough to take it seriously.

evilauthor wrote:

Bosparan wrote:Just wondering, but ... anybody else find it mighty convenient that there was that accident that delayed the King Harald ships?

I mean, here we are close to finishing them and then they just get pushed back into the next book. With this book just ending with a certain admiral who's probably about to switch sides.
Here we are about to get a few new ships (which will need an admiral) and here we are about to get an admiral (who'll probably need something to do).
hm.......

And wouldn't it be poetic irony, if the man who built the Dolaran navy got to be the man who smashed it?

Then again, I'd love to read Clynthan's tirade when he get's the news ...

Hmm. Don't think Thirsk will be switching sides. Or at least, if he does switch sides, he's going to be bringing his whole kingdom with him. He's just too loyal to his own king and nation for that.

Switch sides along with his whole kingdom bringing a repaired Dreadnought with him.... Now that would really get the bloodboiling in the GOF enough to produce a stroke or two.... You can only hope...

Sorry for my ignorance, but could someone clue me in on what "RFC" means. It appears to be a reference to Mr. Weber, but I can't come up with the meaning.

As to Thirsk, this is a bit of a dilemma. His character has been developed over several (if not all) the books, so to just kill him off now seems unlikely. I wonder if he could turn into another "Nahrmann" and be an advisor to the EoC. That way he wouldn't have to physically fight against his former colleagues but could still play an important role in the end of this war and in assisting in planning for future war(s). Perhaps starting to help develop better tactics against the Gbaba. That probably seems unlikely, but a good military mind is a good military mind no matter who the opponent is. At least he could be kept in the story line this way.

TBird50 wrote:Sorry for my ignorance, but could someone clue me in on what "RFC" means. It appears to be a reference to Mr. Weber, but I can't come up with the meaning.

[SNIP]

RFC is short for runsforcelery, David Weber's nome de plume in these forums. It is a treecat name the 'cats love celery from the Honor Harrington series. Several others here have treecat names, my pokermind since I can play poker with 'cats and not get skinned, another favorite of mine is Waddles for desert there are others.

Poker

I suppose there is something in Gorath that Charis would very much want destroyed - the captured ironclad. Could Charis have infiltrated commandos along with Merlin into the city to nuke the boat, and grab Thirsk.. ?Providing a credible capability to smuggle him out of town using conventional means... Waiting merchant galleon or something like that? With a burning drydock and probably half the city's wharf providing cover?

My guess is RFC is getting revenge on all the pestering he gets for snippets for each book.

My guess on how Thirsk is going to act is to use the fact that the inquisition has started to act against him AND his family despite his record of service to the CoGA. That would be very compelling to Alhverez given his performance which gives a lock on military force.

In light of how the Desnairian Earl Hennet is managing to survive when ALL of the group of 4 wanted to hand him over to Clyntahn feels like a foreshadowing of how Dohlar will act. (Trust nobles to look after their own skin) Remember is was Duke Fern who made the "suggestion" to Clyntahn, why he did this is NOT explained yet. Did he do it to hang Thirsk out to dry or is he playing another game? It does not seem worth it to me to piss off Clyntahn for the lives of common soldiers, at least for a noble as high as Duke Fern so why did he do it?

Looking at the Safehold map one thing that struck me was that if Dohlar went neutral there really is no easy way for the Temple Lands to respond. They pretty much have to clear all the Charisian and Siddarmark forces before they could even begin to approach Dohlar. Which is the same logic behind Desnair's neutrality.

CJK wrote:My guess is RFC is getting revenge on all the pestering he gets for snippets for each book.

My guess on how Thirsk is going to act is to use the fact that the inquisition has started to act against him AND his family despite his record of service to the CoGA. That would be very compelling to Alhverez given his performance which gives a lock on military force.

In light of how the Desnairian Earl Hennet is managing to survive when ALL of the group of 4 wanted to hand him over to Clyntahn feels like a foreshadowing of how Dohlar will act. (Trust nobles to look after their own skin) Remember is was Duke Fern who made the "suggestion" to Clyntahn, why he did this is NOT explained yet. Did he do it to hang Thirsk out to dry or is he playing another game? It does not seem worth it to me to piss off Clyntahn for the lives of common soldiers, at least for a noble as high as Duke Fern so why did he do it?

It may be worth pissing off Clyntahn for the willingness to fight of large numbers of common soldiers. They are, after all, the men between senior Dohlaran ministers and Charisians with pointed questions about the treatment of POW's.

Looking at the Safehold map one thing that struck me was that if Dohlar went neutral there really is no easy way for the Temple Lands to respond. They pretty much have to clear all the Charisian and Siddarmark forces before they could even begin to approach Dohlar. Which is the same logic behind Desnair's neutrality.

It's a little different, in that Desnair can reasonably, if pathetically, claim they're not currently able to pursue the jihad by any means other than sending tithes. They've lost armies, they've lost modern gear, they've lost the navy, they've lost ports, they've lost shipbuilding infrastructure - really, claiming they can still fight would be a lot like the knight with his arms and legs cut off from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" demanding the foe come back so he can bite his kneecaps.

Dohlar remains a going military concern. They've got a navy second to one, they've got the means to re-equip an army once they recruit another, all their infrastructure is intact - for now. So they can't quietly desert the jihad for being effectively beaten like Desnair, or not that strong like Sodar, Delferahk, or isolated states off the mainland. They do, as you note, have the freedom to ignore Temple reprisals if they drop out - apart from whatever anyone already in Dohlar chooses to do.

South Harchong is in the same boat. For that matter, with their coast mostly protected by the RDN, they could do a Desnair in a hurry if the RDN withdraws, defects, or is merely driven back into Dohlaran coastal waters. And the army that would normally be used to put down any serf revolts or noble separatists in South Harchong is way up in western Siddarmark or the Border States now, so they're quite free to adjust their standing with regard to the Empire.

Montrose Toast wrote:
5 Well they are intending to raise or train an army of 4 or 500,000 this winter (I forget which), which is far from chickenfeed. Also the church has never needed an army of it's own before the present unpleasantness, because it has always relied on forces from various nations when required (hence all those former Temple Guard officers suddenly frocked as AOG officers and Bishops Militant). On that front they expect a Harchongese contribution of about 2.5 Million by next campaigning season. The CoGA has lots of problems but lack of warm bodies in uniform sure isn't one of them. Rumours of their death have been greatly exaggerated!

Merlin had a good summary of the big picture and total manpower numbers a couple of books ago. I have to think though that the Temple is going to start heading up against some hard carrying capacities beyond which widespread starvation could become an issue, especially if they start losing access to some of their larger population wells.. Like Desnair and Dohlar.. If these Finlandize or go neutral. Assuming Harchong has a normal population pyramid and on the primitive side of 17-mid 18th centuries levels of ag productivity, societies that restrict fighting power to males might be able mobilize 2% of their populations. Let's say Harchong has 200 million people, that means a hard limit of 4 million troops with conscription ... And that would basically mean it would be putting an entire generation of young men on the line, and clearly it'll need troops for other security concerns, like homeland defense and crushing revolts of inevitably starving serfs. I have no idea what the populations of the Border States and Temple lands are. In other words, if they push and risk starvation on the home front, they might be able to do 1 1/2x the Mighty Host before their short term manpower well runs dry.

Charis - which probably has around 120-130 million, with Siddarmark, is presumably more industrialized and if push came to shove, Owl could always assist with some ag innovations. It may be able to push closer to a late 19th/early 20th century proportion of its population under arms - say, closer to a maximum of 5%. but, again given a normal population pyramid, it won't have nearly enough fit young male volunteers, It might conceivably do half of that or 3 million troops.. If they wanted to go to higher levels of mobilization, they could always look to start recruiting women into combat roles or move to a conscription model to get closer to the 5%.. If these assumptions are accurate, Charis may actually have a deeper manpower well than Harchong does.

Knocking Desnair, Dohlar and whatever else is down there in Howard out of the war, might conceivably be tantamount to Charis winning it by the raw manpower numbers.

@ JeffEngel Desnair may have a "reasonable" excuse to be unable to commit to the jihad, which last time I checked had NO impact on Clyntahn whatsoever. Specifically his response to the failure of the first 2 Desnarian Naval commanders was to order them to be killed along with their families. (thus making their asylum seeking with mentioned family members a wise decision)

Now 2 years later Clyntahn is unable to get the head of Hennet the second in command of the Army of Justice? That is a pretty fast change in policy, especially from a nation which is dependent upon the church to confirm the right to power/rule of the nobility as Desnair. This might be me just being cynical here but it looks to me that Desnair jettisoned church loyalty the instant it thought it could not be punished for it.

The argument of Desnair being useless is a valid one, right up to the point it ALSO means that they have no army to face 1 million strong army of god and archangels. Unless Desnair thinks Charis can win why are they trying for neutrality, when they have to know that Clyntahn will not forget their lack of loyalty to the CoGA? NTM saving Hennet from the inquisition will also be considered a slap in the face.

IMO pissing off Clyntahn is too dangerous given his extremism in carrying out the jihad, therefore those that do court his anger must be terminally stupid or acting under the belief that he will not be in a position to act against them. Ever. For desnair to come to that conclusion they either see Charis and Siddarmark winning (which is not at all certain given the numbers) or they see the financial collapse of the CoGA.