[HFQ] SPOILERS -- Why didn't Merlin?

Hi RFC,

Thanks so much for the explanation. And I certainly didn't mean to suggest any criticism on the story. It was more of a question of trying to understand Merlin's motives. In a later post, I believe I pretty much came to the same conclusion as your explanation indicates: that he took a bad situation and turned it to his advantage by getting her included in the circle more quickly.

Thanks again,
TBird50

runsforcelery wrote:I get accused of explaining too many things in too much detail. It's rather refreshing to be accused of explaining something in insufficient detail.

I shall make no flip remarks about being unable to please all of the people all of the time, but I shall think them very loudly.

Honestly, this should be one of those things that DOESN'T need explanation. Because complaints are being made with 20/20 hindsight based on capabilities and tactics that Merlin and company hadn't developed yet.

Sure, Merlin had the TECHNICAL ability to do these things, but he didn't have the IDEA to do them and many of those ideas would only be suggested to him by other people looking at his tech with fresh eyes. Just as the tech to make fully automatic assault rifles had existed since the 1920s but never got implemented until the Nazis built the first ones late into WWII and wasn't employed on army-wide scales until the 1960s.

If anything, Merlin failing to exploit his Fed tech abilities early on as he would do later is showing just how fallible he is, just why he needs a civilization of innovators, and why trying to coopt Langhorne's religion by pretending to be a returned angel is a BAD IDEA.

Speaking of using Federation Tech. Clearly the Federation did not go directly to implants in babies. There must of have been intermediate development steps for implants in adults during the development of NEAT technology. Those probably could be used by the inner circle without fear of detection by healers.

In fact, I am surprised that no one in the Royal College has looked into it.

Hildum wrote:Speaking of using Federation Tech. Clearly the Federation did not go directly to implants in babies. There must of have been intermediate development steps for implants in adults during the development of NEAT technology. Those probably could be used by the inner circle without fear of detection by healers.

In fact, I am surprised that no one in the Royal College has looked into it.

We can't get everything going on on Safehold in the text, especially the stuff that's not pressing for the war effort.

But yes, agreed, there had to have been precursor technologies. Complete specs on them in Owl's memory, that's another thing. References Nahrmahn could work on in virtual testing, that's about what I'd expect - but I'd not necessarily expect to read it in the text til it comes up, or until we get RFC annoyed and/or chatty here on the subject.

I'm sure work on pre-NEAT's will commence shortly after the Reveal, and that it's borrowing effort that's premature before then. The Gbaba will wait, apparently, and the improvements in human life can come along at a speed short of breakneck in between the Reveal and going after the Gbaba for Round Two.

At some point, Merlin and others are going to have to deal with whatever the capasities of the Temple are in dealing with a population who has gone compleatly off the rails the THE PLAN.

Say Charis gets armies on the doorstep of the Temple and Clayton discovers that there is some way to get the attention of the Archangels or at least the Lesser Angles who have been "waiting". Do they cut the popluation down to about the size of the immediate post-deamon revolt and - having dragged all the information out of the surviving leadership of the nations in revolt - essentilay destroyed all the eveidence of inapproiate learning, run the survivors though a new round of mindwipe and reprograming? With what facilities?

How many mobile weapons platforms and operators do the Temple "spirits" have available to actually do things to the poplulation at large. Sure, one SKIMMER with lasers could burn or otherwise sink evey ship on Safehold given enough time.
Are there any restrictions the Temple spirits have in what they can use? Remember, the last time there was an actual Civil War between the people who had been located on Safehold, both sides had the use of seijin (or demons) to seek out opponents. How many are left (and their equipment) for the use of whatever is going to be representing Langhorn's side in the comming struggle. What happens if what is under the Temple (or hiding in an orbit somewhere disguised as an asteroid or moon) has an AI running it at maintence levels and that AI has long since gone quetly nuts- only to be kicked into full paranoid maniac mode? Something triggers one or more sets of instructions because there are serious problems to THE PLAN and whaterver is waiting just lashes out to stop it? Cause that would probabley close the series in one short volume.

Brigade XO wrote:At some point, Merlin and others are going to have to deal with whatever the capasities of the Temple are in dealing with a population who has gone compleatly off the rails the THE PLAN.

Say Charis gets armies on the doorstep of the Temple and Clayton discovers that there is some way to get the attention of the Archangels or at least the Lesser Angles who have been "waiting". Do they cut the popluation down to about the size of the immediate post-deamon revolt and - having dragged all the information out of the surviving leadership of the nations in revolt - essentilay destroyed all the eveidence of inapproiate learning, run the survivors though a new round of mindwipe and reprograming? With what facilities?

How many mobile weapons platforms and operators do the Temple "spirits" have available to actually do things to the poplulation at large. Sure, one SKIMMER with lasers could burn or otherwise sink evey ship on Safehold given enough time.
Are there any restrictions the Temple spirits have in what they can use? Remember, the last time there was an actual Civil War between the people who had been located on Safehold, both sides had the use of seijin (or demons) to seek out opponents. How many are left (and their equipment) for the use of whatever is going to be representing Langhorn's side in the comming struggle. What happens if what is under the Temple (or hiding in an orbit somewhere disguised as an asteroid or moon) has an AI running it at maintence levels and that AI has long since gone quetly nuts- only to be kicked into full paranoid maniac mode? Something triggers one or more sets of instructions because there are serious problems to THE PLAN and whaterver is waiting just lashes out to stop it? Cause that would probabley close the series in one short volume.

These are reasonable questions. You could certainly visualise a scenario where an AI with access to the OBS could rather drasticly prune Safehold's population. And Merlin and the others in the inner circle have to be concerned about that.

However, as a reader I don't think that's how it's going to go sinse I don't think David does "evil ultimately wins" scenarios. But I could see some high drama around the issue where the good guys (barely) squeek by...

Don

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evilauthor wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:I get accused of explaining too many things in too much detail. It's rather refreshing to be accused of explaining something in insufficient detail.

I shall make no flip remarks about being unable to please all of the people all of the time, but I shall think them very loudly.

Honestly, this should be one of those things that DOESN'T need explanation. Because complaints are being made with 20/20 hindsight based on capabilities and tactics that Merlin and company hadn't developed yet.

Sure, Merlin had the TECHNICAL ability to do these things, but he didn't have the IDEA to do them and many of those ideas would only be suggested to him by other people looking at his tech with fresh eyes. Just as the tech to make fully automatic assault rifles had existed since the 1920s but never got implemented until the Nazis built the first ones late into WWII and wasn't employed on army-wide scales until the 1960s.

If anything, Merlin failing to exploit his Fed tech abilities early on as he would do later is showing just how fallible he is, just why he needs a civilization of innovators, and why trying to coopt Langhorne's religion by pretending to be a returned angel is a BAD IDEA.

At the risk or beating a dead horse, I respectfully submit that the argument that the capabilities and tactics hadn't been developed yet is not a good argument. It was only 6 months later in Feb 894 that he decided to go to Zion as Abrahaim Zehvons; and also in Feb 894 Merlin used Owl and his Snarks to throw a rock through Gharvai's window to direct them to Waimyn. By your argument, this shouldn't have happened because they hadn't been developed yet. IMO, these tactics came about because he almost mis-handled Sharleyan's rescue in June 893. I think Merlin kept thinking about how and what he could have done differently/better. I certainly agree that he must not have thought of all the things he could have done. Nimue was certainly not trained as a spy or for subterfuge, for instance, so it's entirely possible she/Merlin just didn't think of these things. But within 6 months Merlin had come up with the rock thru Gahrvai's window and Merlins alternate Zehvons. For that matter, in Oct 893 when he takes Sharleyan to Nimue's cave for her exam, he changed his voice from Merlin's to Nimue's. So while RFC has stated that he didn't have time to change from Merlin to Zehvons, he could have changed his voice. But this is all water under the bridge. they didn't happen even tho IMO they could have. But I still think he was kicking himself for potentially mis-handling her rescue and came up with all these tactics as a "why didn't I do ...". And as far as I can tell, he came up with these tactics on his own, they weren't suggested to him by someone else.

On the other hand, he may have just decided this was the best way to get her into the inner circle.

I'm done now, so thanks for the debate.

I don't believe that Sharley's rescue was botched or even that significant mistakes were made.

However it is also true that Merlin's role develops as the story progresses. I think the rescue was the first time Merlin was involved in what might be described as covert ops. It's certainly not unreasonable the role grows more sophisticated as time goes on.

However as a believer in Occum's razor (the kiss principle), I also think that one reason that things played out as they did was to give Merlin a plausible reason for spilling the truth to Sharleyan which he was wanting to do anyway.

Don

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TBird50 wrote:At the risk or beating a dead horse, I respectfully submit that the argument that the capabilities and tactics hadn't been developed yet is not a good argument. It was only 6 months later in Feb 894 that he decided to go to Zion as Abrahaim Zehvons; and also in Feb 894 Merlin used Owl and his Snarks to throw a rock through Gharvai's window to direct them to Waimyn. By your argument, this shouldn't have happened because they hadn't been developed yet. IMO, these tactics came about because he almost mis-handled Sharleyan's rescue in June 893. I think Merlin kept thinking about how and what he could have done differently/better. I certainly agree that he must not have thought of all the things he could have done. Nimue was certainly not trained as a spy or for subterfuge, for instance, so it's entirely possible she/Merlin just didn't think of these things. But within 6 months Merlin had come up with the rock thru Gahrvai's window and Merlins alternate Zehvons. For that matter, in Oct 893 when he takes Sharleyan to Nimue's cave for her exam, he changed his voice from Merlin's to Nimue's. So while RFC has stated that he didn't have time to change from Merlin to Zehvons, he could have changed his voice. But this is all water under the bridge. they didn't happen even tho IMO they could have. But I still think he was kicking himself for potentially mis-handling her rescue and came up with all these tactics as a "why didn't I do ...". And as far as I can tell, he came up with these tactics on his own, they weren't suggested to him by someone else.

On the other hand, he may have just decided this was the best way to get her into the inner circle.

I'm done now, so thanks for the debate.

You know, having the occasion to consider might-have-been's very, very seriously is one fine spur to developing alternatives for the future, even if, on reflection, you would not have chosen to use them for the occasion at issue, or could not have done so for various practical reasons.

So - he could have been kicking himself for not having a range of possible response options in hand, even if he'd not have picked them in that event, and gotten on those options as a result. The air lorry and passengers is another example: speed and stealth would argue for the recon skimmers anyway for flying Nynian and Sandaria to the Cave, but it was an occasion for considering that useful capability he could develop but hadn't yet.

n7axw wrote:I don't believe that Sharley's rescue was botched or even that significant mistakes were made.

However it is also true that Merlin's role develops as the story progresses. I think the rescue was the first time Merlin was involved in what might be described as covert ops. It's certainly not unreasonable the role grows more sophisticated as time goes on.

However as a believer in Occum's razor (the kiss principle), I also think that one reason that things played out as they did was to give Merlin a plausible reason for spilling the truth to Sharleyan which he was wanting to do anyway.

Don

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Well, maybe the rescue itself wasn't botched, but the situation was nearly an un-mitigated disaster. Sharleyan & Seahamper were the only two survivors, and Tayso & Raiyz were killed inside the guest house with her, so it could easily have been her killed instead of them. I totally agree that Merlin used the situation to tell Sharleyan the truth, but I don't think he would have wanted to do it that way. For one thing, Seahamper would have to be told too; so that doubled the risk. I think he wasn't too worried about Sharleyan, but I don't think he would have thought that telling Seahamper would be an optimal outcome.

I find it quite refreshing (if that's the right word) that Merlin isn't immune to making mistakes and mis-judgements. It makes him more human IMO. It's also fun to see him develop strategies, tactics and alternatives as Jeff discussed just above.

I keep saying I'm done, but I find this section of the story so fascinating that it's hard to quit.