Frustrations with tactical blinders on the Inner Circle

I've really enjoyed this series from the very beginning, but with the last couple of nbooks, I've become increasingly frustrated with the artificial constraints being imposed on the Charisian leadership. I understand the intent to draw out the suspense of the "arms race" and prolong the war, but it's gotten to the point where the willing suspension of disbelief is getting more and more difficult.

A few prominient examples:
1. The "moral" stand against assassination.
Even if we were to accept the argument for preserving the lives of the AOG's leading engineers (which is difficult - rebuilding a star-faring society will necessarily be the work of generations; keeping a few clever mechanics alive now will not significantly shorten that process), I find it offensive that we would prefer to watch hundreds of thousands of conscripts, on both sides, be slaughtered rather than shortening the war by taking out the handful of effective generals & admirals fighting for the AOG.

2. The unwillingness to use TF technology in any active manner.
Even if we accept the perceived dangers of using advanced weaponry (especially given that defensive systems may have been left behind by Langhorne, et al), there are so many other things that could be done using the advanced technology available to the good guys - rather than sitting, watching surveillance feeds and wringing their hands about things.

For example:
Worried about the Dohlaran fleet? Take a recon skimmer out on an overcast night. Attach remote-controlled mines to the underside of each ship. Trigger them. Stop worrying about the Dohlaran fleet. Stop off on the way home to blow up some canal locks and AOG supply dumps. There are saboteurs everywhere...

3. The aristocratic prejudice of the Inner Circle.
So, you, say, Merlin doesn't have time to do all that sabotage stuff described above? (And why not, what actually is he doing all day and night?) But, in that case, let's stop pretending that only the nobility and clerics are intelligent enough to accept the truth about the world's history. They're not. Let's recruit a dozen senior non-coms into the Inner Circle, give them modern (TFN) body armor, OWL-made weapons, and set them loose in a recon skimmer to secretly destroy the AOG's supply chain. There are saboteur's everywhere...

4. Supply shortages...
The Charisian Empire has become a big, complicated enterprise. No one (except possibly Merlin, OWL, Nahrman, etc.) can possibly keep track of all the moving pieces. So, you need an extra 10,000 rifles or 100,000 rounds of ammunition? Have OWL run them off and discover them in a convenient warehouse in mislabelled crates. Seriously, who (other than the Inner Circle) would ever question that good luck?

So, am I the only one who thinks that the whole "the ONLY way to win this war is to build up the Charisian industrial base and pretend we don't have any access to advanced technology (other than communications)" schtick has gotten a bit out of hand?

One cruel fact is that Merlin's goals and humanitarian goals such as a quick end to the war are at odds. The longer the war goes on, the further and wider will be the technological progress he wants.

The usual argument against sabotage is that it will lead to other villages of innocents being tortured and murdered in reprisal, as Clyntahn did after something that was a for-real accident.

I disagree with most of these issues.

1) Assasination is not a workable long term solution to anything. Not only do surrender the moral high ground but it doesn't usally help your cause. You dramatically increase the chance of a competant opponent appearing as replacement or massivly motivating the opponents fighting men. Also in this case you also open your faction up to allegations of "Demonic interfearance". There "May" be a case for it in peacetime but in wartime it doesn't help much unless the opposition is a kingpin reigeme where killing one man derails the whole plan. None of the opponents fall into that category here.

2) Asside from detection by Zion or the OBS the whole point of the exercise is to force Safeholdians to innovate and break the proscriptions and they seem to be doing just fine on that big goal right now so there is no need for intervention. Also how do you explain every man in the royal charisian bodyguard suddently sporting modern assault rifles? as for the mines comment that gets back to the "Demonic interfearance" aspect and you want very hard not to inflame the religious beliefs of the opponets common fighting man more than necessary, you want to keep it political so they feel they are serving the temporal demands of the church not the religious ones.

3) Most of safehold is barely above functional illiteracy and has a very narrow and provincial view. The inner circle needs smart educated comopoliton folks and in tradional societies like the ones on safehold the vast majority of these people will come from noble of church backgrounds. There 'ARE" commoners in the inner circle but they are either young officers like Hector or long time retainers to the nobility such as Iris's bodyguard. Finally you need to KNOW they are trustworthy and you generally know your social peers better than random peasants and the nobility already have thier fingers on the leavers of power.

4) As they havn't had the shortages yet other than when shells were first introduced I am not seeing what your issue is here. Either they have enough to carry on as normal or too many people KNOW that there are no other sources for the shiny new toys so having some appear would raise a lot of red flags.

Re #2: The leaders of the Church may be dogmatic, but they aren't idiots. Any suspiciously convenient turnaround for Charis against the Church is going to be pretty quickly identified. There are only so many natural occurrences where a magazine blows up or ships mysteriously disappear before it becomes a pretty obvious that it's enemy action. And once it becomes obvious that they're occurring through means beyond available to Safehold, then the charges of demonic intervention will come hard and fast, and will be impossible to dispel. Indeed, even people on the Charisian side would be hard pressed disbelieve such accusations, because they would be accurate, as far as their worldview is concerned. So no, they aren't going to use Terran Federation tech beyond the limited scope they have set for themselves.

Re #3: There is zero aristocratic prejudice from the Inner Circle. Quite a few people have been inducted who have no connection to the aristocracy, for example, those from the Royal College. What the Inner Circle is looking for are people in key positions who can influence outcomes in the big picture. There's no point in inducting random Joes into the Inner Circle.

As for your idea about equipping a strike team with modern tech, see #2. Besides, Merlin and Nimue are more than capable of doing a little behind the line raiding.

There are a number of infodumps David has made in this area. I recommend reading through the FAQ section to see his rebuttals.

More generally I would go as far as saying that Merlin et al are actually using thier tech more than they should. Every time they give in to emotion and rescue the little girl from the inquisitors they risk discovery for no gain in the big picture. It works as a story because of the tension between humanity and the big goal but from a purely logical stand most of Dailyd Mab's actions are a colossal blunder.

Silverwall wrote:I disagree with most of these issues.

1) Assasination is not a workable long term solution to anything. Not only do surrender the moral high ground but it doesn't usally help your cause. You dramatically increase the chance of a competant opponent appearing as replacement or massivly motivating the opponents fighting men. Also in this case you also open your faction up to allegations of "Demonic interfearance". There "May" be a case for it in peacetime but in wartime it doesn't help much unless the opposition is a kingpin reigeme where killing one man derails the whole plan. None of the opponents fall into that category here.

2) Asside from detection by Zion or the OBS the whole point of the exercise is to force Safeholdians to innovate and break the proscriptions and they seem to be doing just fine on that big goal right now so there is no need for intervention. Also how do you explain every man in the royal charisian bodyguard suddently sporting modern assault rifles? as for the mines comment that gets back to the "Demonic interfearance" aspect and you want very hard not to inflame the religious beliefs of the opponets common fighting man more than necessary, you want to keep it political so they feel they are serving the temporal demands of the church not the religious ones.

3) Most of safehold is barely above functional illiteracy and has a very narrow and provincial view. The inner circle needs smart educated comopoliton folks and in tradional societies like the ones on safehold the vast majority of these people will come from noble of church backgrounds. There 'ARE" commoners in the inner circle but they are either young officers like Hector or long time retainers to the nobility such as Iris's bodyguard. Finally you need to KNOW they are trustworthy and you generally know your social peers better than random peasants and the nobility already have thier fingers on the leavers of power.

4) As they havn't had the shortages yet other than when shells were first introduced I am not seeing what your issue is here. Either they have enough to carry on as normal or too many people KNOW that there are no other sources for the shiny new toys so having some appear would raise a lot of red flags.

Appreciate the comments and obviously have different opinions.

Re: assassination, I can't accept that accepting the deaths of tens of thousands of soldiers is in any way morally superior to the targeted deaths of dozens or even hundreds of officers. Furthermore, surveillance gives the allies excellent amd immediate visibility as to which enemy commanders are dangerous and which are not - as well as the effectiveness of their subordinates and replacements. It is an unusual situation where there can be considerable confidence that removing one man (or even ten men, if necessary) would meaningfully degrade the AOG's ability to conduct the war while further degrading the morale of the AOG leadership, as shown by the outcome of Merlin's reprisals against concentration camp officers.

Never suggested any use of advanced weaponry or mass distribution of advanced technology - that would just be daft. Although I think the risk of automated response has been overblown considering that we're using communications and skimmer-type technologies pretty much without restriction. Still agree it's probably not worth the risk.

However, Lywysite mines used against ships in port would be blamed on saboteurs. Even better, if an entire fleet in transit were to disappear - then that's just a mystery that's never going to be solved, isn't it?

As the war continues to turn against the AOG, it will be easier to see traitors and saboteurs in every corner. As the Church has continued to embrace and adopt each Charisian technological innovation, the charge of "demonic" intervention (at least without the appearance of an assault shuttle in the air above the Temple) has become effectively irrelevant. Likewise, the strength of the Proscriptions have eroded to the point where the "benefit" of prolonging this costly & bloody war is outweighed by the costs.

Who would you assassinate? Other than Clynthan who is not just going to be replaced by the next man in the chain of command?

Even assinating Clynthan doesn't do much for your cause long term as the rest of the Go4 are just as committed to crushing heresy and much less dogmatic about things so are more flexible and dangerous as a result. At the risk of invoking Godwins law there is a reason that the allies decided not to kill Hitler, specifically he was helping them more than his less nutty replacement would have. Clynthann is the same.

Silverwall wrote:More generally I would go as far as saying that Merlin et al are actually using thier tech more than they should. Every time they give in to emotion and rescue the little girl from the inquisitors they risk discovery for no gain in the big picture. It works as a story because of the tension between humanity and the big goal but from a purely logical stand most of Dailyd Mab's actions are a colossal blunder.

It's accepted that seijins can do things the average person couldn't hope to do. Thus actions that are clearly attributable to a seijin aren't a problem. Yes, they bombed a warship--but they were careful not to leave witnesses and they planted the story that it was a magazine explosion--something that can happen.

The only thing they have been doing that can't be explained away easily is the news they are posting in Church territory.

Silverwall wrote:Who would you assassinate? Other than Clynthan who is not just going to be replaced by the next man in the chain of command?

Even assinating Clynthan doesn't do much for your cause long term as the rest of the Go4 are just as committed to crushing heresy and much less dogmatic about things so are more flexible and dangerous as a result. At the risk of invoking Godwins law there is a reason that the allies decided not to kill Hitler, specifically he was helping them more than his less nutty replacement would have. Clynthann is the same.

Right. The expectation that they've got a list of targets, the execution of any of whom would save tens of thousands of troops, is just too easy, whether the OP's idea is that without that officer, those Temple troops would peacefully surrender and live or Allied ones would not get killed.

In fact, Merlin is using assassination to shape their behavior - it's just not of the high-profile political or military leadership, much less the guys innovating on the Temple side, doing exactly what Safehold will need to, undermining the Church itself while the Church demands they do it. (If anything, the Inner Circle ought to be bodyguarding the Temple tech wizards!)

Merlin's instead offing the Inquisitors who are going above and beyond the call of duty in their atrocities. The rest of the Inquisition - between that and the Fist of Kau-yung - are getting the message that they've got to ease up or die, and Clyntahn is losing patience and control as a result. People get a very clear idea how not to get killed there - act like real priests or within the bounds of the Inquisition's traditions, instead of Clyntahn's abominations. It's not setting anyone up in an us-against-them dynamic that jeopardizes future peace; the "them" is a self-selected group of people acting clearly outside the bounds of decent behavior, and they're called to account for it.

JeffEngel wrote:

Silverwall wrote:Who would you assassinate? Other than Clynthan who is not just going to be replaced by the next man in the chain of command?

Even assinating Clynthan doesn't do much for your cause long term as the rest of the Go4 are just as committed to crushing heresy and much less dogmatic about things so are more flexible and dangerous as a result. At the risk of invoking Godwins law there is a reason that the allies decided not to kill Hitler, specifically he was helping them more than his less nutty replacement would have. Clynthann is the same.

Right. The expectation that they've got a list of targets, the execution of any of whom would save tens of thousands of troops, is just too easy, whether the OP's idea is that without that officer, those Temple troops would peacefully surrender and live or Allied ones would not get killed.

In fact, Merlin is using assassination to shape their behavior - it's just not of the high-profile political or military leadership, much less the guys innovating on the Temple side, doing exactly what Safehold will need to, undermining the Church itself while the Church demands they do it. (If anything, the Inner Circle ought to be bodyguarding the Temple tech wizards!)

Merlin's instead offing the Inquisitors who are going above and beyond the call of duty in their atrocities. The rest of the Inquisition - between that and the Fist of Kau-yung - are getting the message that they've got to ease up or die, and Clyntahn is losing patience and control as a result. People get a very clear idea how not to get killed there - act like real priests or within the bounds of the Inquisition's traditions, instead of Clyntahn's abominations. It's not setting anyone up in an us-against-them dynamic that jeopardizes future peace; the "them" is a self-selected group of people acting clearly outside the bounds of decent behavior, and they're called to account for it.

Hi JeffEngel,

Exactly right. Or to state the point a bit differently, the title of the book is "Hell's Foundations Quiver." One of the chief reasons it is quivering is that what Merlin is doing to the inquisitors in the camps is shattering the inquisition's myth of invincibility.

Don

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