Another out of sequence snippet

Ed130 The Vanguard wrote:Interesting that it is Nimue advocating a an OBS style attack on a target in Zion.

You would think something like that would trigger some sort of alarms, not to mention the religious implications and what happens when they need to reveal the Truth.

Don't use a bomb--pure kinetic strike from deep space. The worst that might happen is the OBS shoot down the meteor that's heading for Zion. The OBS wouldn't know the meteor had a seeker on it.

Randomiser wrote:[snip]


Is there any reason she can't mean a small-ish rock from orbit with enough force to take out the said Inquisition headquarters? What would it take to produce say a 100ft crater?

[snip]

Judging from the RAF's first use of the "Tallboy" bomb on the Saumur rail tunnel shortly after D-Day, a 6-ton (Imperial ton, not American) bomb with an RDX charge penetrating to a depth of ca. 90 ft before detonation should just about do it.

Simply dropping a rock to give you a crater that big would create enormous surface blast effects that would flatten most if not all structures for some way around – I'm guessing that there would be significant damage for about a mile. In terms of astronomical speeds, it would have to be very slow-moving to reach the ground in one piece. The Tunguska event was estimated to have been created by a rock of ca. 120 ft diameter moving fast enough to be stopped by the atmosphere (ca. 33,500 mph), but it left no crater. The shockwave flattened the forest for 770 square miles, and blew a man off the chair he was sitting on 40 miles away from the impact point.
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Loren Pechtel wrote:

Ed130 The Vanguard wrote:Interesting that it is Nimue advocating a an OBS style attack on a target in Zion.

You would think something like that would trigger some sort of alarms, not to mention the religious implications and what happens when they need to reveal the Truth.

Don't use a bomb--pure kinetic strike from deep space. The worst that might happen is the OBS shoot down the meteor that's heading for Zion. The OBS wouldn't know the meteor had a seeker on it.

The issue is getting to deep space to launch it.

And minimal textev is that the OBS has point defense that zapped anything Merlin and Owl tried to get near it, but there has been no indication it can blow a meteor headed to Safehold out of the sky. Would it even detect it, and what would it use to do it if it did?
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Dennis

Peter2 wrote:Simply dropping a rock to give you a crater that big would create enormous surface blast effects that would flatten most if not all structures for some way around – I'm guessing that there would be significant damage for about a mile.

I agree. David made noises about a main Inquisition center in Zion nowhere near the Temple or Temple Annex.

Charis would want a surgical strike that took it out, but with as little collateral damage as could be managed. They wouldn't want to vaporize a bunch of civilians who were simply unfortunate enough to live or work in the neighborhood.

Charis will want to deliver the strike in a manner that the Church can only view as a Rakurai strike, since they'll know no other way it could occur.

Precisely how Zhaspar Clyntahn will try to explain it will be lots of fun to watch if it happens.

(And one intriguing question will be the effect on Rayno. We've already seen evidence he's not happy about everything Clyntahn has been doing, and has been put in the "How do I manage my boss?" quandary many lower level managers have confronted. It's been made clear he's in a box. He's risen as far as he can in the Church hierarchy, because he's made too many enemies on the way up. Everything he is, he is by Clyntahn's patronage, and he keeps his position only so long as Clyntahn is firmly in control. It's possible he's increasingly regretting hitching his wagon to Clyntahn's star. What he might do as that pressure mounts will be an interesting question.)
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Dennis

Thrandir wrote:

Undercover Fat Kid wrote:....and Nimue used to be such a nice young lady.
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Obviously your definition and my definition of nice young lady are a bit different .. we are referring to the same 'nice' young 'lady' who demolished a hulking guard officer in less than 1 minute?

I think one reason Nimue reacted so strongly in that case as opposed to Merlin is that as a male, Merlin hasn't experienced the gender discrimination that Nimue has, and had not experienced as an officer in the TFN.

DMcCunney wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:And, yes, whatever else may be true about the snippet, Nimue is definitely arguing for a boom. A great BIG boom delivered air express. Precisely what the nature of the boom may be remaineth classified.

Nimue is younger than Merlin. He carefully didn't supply a full copy of his experiences since he awoke in Nimue's Cave, to spare her what he'd been through. She'll have quite enough opportunity to accumulate her own bad memories.

Merlin has had to grit his teeth, realize that Shit Happens, now matter how good you are or what you do, and that people who were his comrades and friends would die before affairs on Safehold were settled and he couldn't prevent it. Worse (though it doesn't appear Nimue has internalized it yet), Merlin is effectively immortal, and everyone he knows will die while he's still around to see it. With luck, they'll live to a ripe old age and have had a long, happy, and productive life, but they'll still be dead and he won't be.

He'll be dealing with a variant of what Honor Harrington deals with in the Honorverse series, because she comes from a society where Prolong provides lifespans of 300 years or more, but various people she knows come from places that didn't have Prolong, and are too old to accept the treatments now that they are available. She'll watch them age and die while she's still in what they would think is the bloom of youth.

Nimue is getting caught up in the emotion of fight because she can. In the war against the Gbaba, everyone was doomed and knew it. All they could do was go down fighting. In the war against the Church of God Awaiting, she's on a side that can win, and some of the things Clyntahn and friends will get up to will provoke a "I was going to settle for hanging you, but I think I'd rather see you subjected to the full rigor of the Punishment and watch you die screaming like your victims" response. She's hardly the only one to feel that way.
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Dennis

I'd written most of a reply almost identical to this, so not for the first time I'll just say "Well done Dennis" and save myself several paragraphs that explain how Nimue has yet to go through the gut-wrenching experiences that Merlin has, and so it's to be expected that she'll have the same emotional responses that Merlin had early on, where he longed to lash out and destroy those who hurt those he cares about. The example where he was tempted to explode the SNARC riding on Hektor of Corisande's shoulder comes to mind.

If Nimue stops to think about it, or asks OWL about the feasibility of dropping a kinetic object from orbit (which isn't how I think she'd do it) I believe she'd come to the conclusion that creating a "Rakurai strike" isn't a good idea when you're trying to discredit the Writ and the stranglehold it has over the last bastion of humanity. Plus the collateral damage would be difficult to control, and the facility she'd like to obliterate is located within the largest city on the planet.

Which doesn't mean that I wouldn't cheer if a skimmer happened to drop a 2000 lb. bomb on a major facility of the Inquisition in Zion! Just attach something like the powder that lifts a massive signal rocket on top so it leaves a brilliant trail above the bomb as it drops, giving the impression that it is indeed the Rakurai showing its displeasure. If it's visible falling from clear across the city, the populace will draw only one conclusion!

Despite the immediate annihilation of hundreds of evil (or fanatically misguided) inquisitors and giving a quick and painless death to any prisoners who may be suffering from the Inquisition's tender mercies in the facility, Nimue's demand for a big boom is going to get shot down (no pun intended!) when cooler heads prevail.

By no means does this mean that Mab may not lead a bunch of seijin snipers (or even a special platoon of scout snipers which I've been expecting to be organized for quite a while now just for this sort of thing) to take out targets of opportunity all across the city. When no vicar, inquisitor, or Temple guardsman dares show his face outside his home or the Temple, the head of the snake will be badly injured, although not entirely cut off. (That happens when the KH VIIs sail into Temple Bay and the transports unload the troops, which we'll see within the next two books!) (RFC, don't make me a liar!) (Sorry for all the parentheses.)

We saw how the "excesses" of the Inquisition slowed down a great deal in the prison camps once the inquisitors realized that Mab might take a personal interest in them. He only had to shoot a few in broad daylight and eliminate everyone responsible for the horrors in Sarkyn to do it, but the average inquisitor assigned to the prison camps in Siddarmark is badly frightened for his personal safety.

It sounds like it's time to make the Inquisition that's been feeling so smugly safe at home in Zion realize that the seijins can and will get them wherever they choose to hide, as Mab promised in his letter to Clyntahn.

Goody, goody goody! I can't wait! (Too bad cooler heads will prevail, but the inner circle will do something we'll enjoy!)

And if they do choose to use a bomb, I'll enjoy it a lot!

If it wasn't for the talk about Mab in the snippet, I'd assume a laser guided bomb on a inquisition facility in Zion. But "a dose of Mab's medicine closer to home" seems to imply something else... But then there is David's latest post. So..???

Wondering what has Nimue so thoroughly pissed...

Don

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n7axw wrote:Wondering what has Nimue so thoroughly pissed...

Never, ever mess with Taco Tuesdays.

DMcCunney wrote:
(And one intriguing question will be the effect on Rayno. We've already seen evidence he's not happy about everything Clyntahn has been doing, and has been put in the "How do I manage my boss?" quandary many lower level managers have confronted. It's been made clear he's in a box. He's risen as far as he can in the Church hierarchy, because he's made too many enemies on the way up. Everything he is, he is by Clyntahn's patronage, and he keeps his position only so long as Clyntahn is firmly in control. It's possible he's increasingly regretting hitching his wagon to Clyntahn's star. What he might do as that pressure mounts will be an interesting question.)
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Dennis

Ah but what if its Rayno who decides to take out Clynthan and successfully pulls it off? Wouldnt that suddenly vault him to the top? Youd have to be stone cold nasty to take out Clyntahn from within and with him gone (and Rayno being his XO) wouldnt the rank and file of the Inquisition fall in line behind Rayno then? Certainly you'd have some higher ups in the hierarchy thinking that they could take a shot at Rayno in an attempt to do the same thing to him what he did to Clyntahn but Rayno is a cool enough customer to be a bit more flexible that Clyntahn would be, and having pulled of his dastardly treacherous plot hed be on the lookout for any similar plots against him. Plus it seems that Rayno is the mover of most of the Inquisitions business, while Clyntahn is the originator and motivator of policy. So hed be in a pretty good position of controlling the levers of power within the Inquisition thus being able to seamlessly segue into Clyntahns role.

Of course this is all WILDLY extreme speculation but I've always wondered what would happen if Duchairn or someone would just walk up to Clyntahn and stick a knife in him. Repeatedly. Of course thats far too simple of a plot to actually write but one can always daydream.

Son_of_Sith wrote:[snip]

Ah but what if its Rayno who decides to take out Clynthan and successfully pulls it off? Wouldnt that suddenly vault him to the top? Youd have to be stone cold nasty to take out Clyntahn from within and with him gone (and Rayno being his XO) wouldnt the rank and file of the Inquisition fall in line behind Rayno then? Certainly you'd have some higher ups in the hierarchy thinking that they could take a shot at Rayno in an attempt to do the same thing to him what he did to Clyntahn but Rayno is a cool enough customer to be a bit more flexible that Clyntahn would be, and having pulled of his dastardly treacherous plot hed be on the lookout for any similar plots against him. Plus it seems that Rayno is the mover of most of the Inquisitions business, while Clyntahn is the originator and motivator of policy. So hed be in a pretty good position of controlling the levers of power within the Inquisition thus being able to seamlessly segue into Clyntahns role.

Of course this is all WILDLY extreme speculation but I've always wondered what would happen if Duchairn or someone would just walk up to Clyntahn and stick a knife in him. Repeatedly. Of course thats far too simple of a plot to actually write but one can always daydream.

I'm a firm believer in condign punishment, and for me, to have somebody quietly sneak up behind Clyntahn and stick a knife in his back just wouldn't cut it. He would feel little pain, it would be over far far too quickly, and probably fewer than a handful of people would be there to witness his passing. Clyntahn's demise needs to happen in public, and above all, it needs to take place in such a way that he experiences to the full the fact that he has lost, and irredeemably lost – preferably with Paytr Wylsynn looking him in the eye before his (i.e. Clyntahn's) lights go out for the last time. He needs to know before he dies that all his plans have turned to dust and ashes, and to feel that Langhorne has finally turned his face away from him.
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