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.

No, actually it's pretty much predictable. The others have been there as the Inquisition slowly ramped things up, they've adapted to the atrocities.

Nimue, OTOH, has come in late in the game, and hasn't had to "get used to it." I don't find it the least bit surprising that she's far more ready to "get extreme" than everyone else.

McGuiness wrote:

DMcCunney wrote:<...>

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.

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.

Or worse, the part in discussions with Nahrmahn where he talks about the temptation to just nuke Zion and die in the process. He feels responsible for letting the genie of religious war out of the bottle with millions of attendant deaths, and Nahrmahn has to practice "tough love" to give him a good shake and snap him out of it.

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.

The first issue I can see is how you do the strike from orbit. If you can somehow hijack control of the OBS it's easy enough, but if you can't it's another matter.

And as mentioned elsewhere, Charis would want to do a surgical strike that as far as possible only took out the Inquisition center, and did as little collateral damage as possible. With the right precision guided munition, that's possible, and the trick comes in delivering it in a fashion the Church can only interpret as a Rakurai strike because that's the only way they know it can be done.

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!

Not clear that it would need to be a 2000 lb bomb. It would depend on the size of the Inquisition facility targeted. I suspect Dr. Lywys's Lywysite might do for the explosive. The question would be the delivery method.

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.

Likely, I think. The final determination might just work out to "It's nasty tactics, but not good strategy. It provides too many opportunities for the Law of Unintended Consequences to bite us on the arse if we do it."

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.)

Owl's remotes could do it. The scout snipers likely couldn't, as how would they get inserted in Zion and extracted again afterward?

And the biggest strike involving Owl's remote happened at night when the camp defenders could only see rifle armed opponents, and not clearly see who or what they were. Effective operations against Inquisitors in Zion wouldn't have that option.

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.

I'm waiting for Mab to pay attention to Archbishop Wylbur in Lake City.

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.

The issue is that they are fairly safe in Zion, given Merlin's reluctance to operate too near the Temple. The sort of SNARC Merlin was tempted to repurpose from listening in on Hector to killing him has possibilities, it Merlin can arrange to plant them on Inquisitors, and program them to crawl into ears and explode later.

(Cue a vision of one of Rayno's Agent Inquisitors sitting down with him to report, and suddenly his head explodes... Rayno might just need a change of underwear.)
_______
Dennis

Peter2 wrote: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.
.

Most eloquently said, although I'd emphasize that the church he's twisted to his own fanatical and corrupt ends is a lie, that there are no archangels, and that Langhorne was a mass murderer and a megalomaniac, so the two of them should get along dandy in Hell!

I think Mab said it best: "Understand me, Priest,” that executioner voice said, “because for the first time in your life, you’re about to hear the truth. Your Langhorne was no ‘Archangel,’ just a lunatic, a liar, and a mass murderer. Your Schueler was a psychotic, your Church is nothing but an obscene lie, and you’ve helped torture and murder thousands in the name of a religion whatever God there truly is would spit upon.”
Tahrlsahn’s brain whirled, whiplashed by terror and anguish. No. No! It was a lie. It had to be a lie—all of it!
“Look at me, Priest.” Despite himself, Tahrlsahn obeyed, and squealed in horror as his captor’s sapphire eyes began to glow with hellish brightness. “I’m older than your Church,” the abomination behind those eyes told him. “I’m older than your Holy Writ. I was born, lived, and died before your first ancestor opened his eyes on this world, and I will personally destroy your Church. I will eradicate it from the face of the universe. Men and women will remember it only as what it truly was—a monstrous, perverted lie concocted by madmen who only thought they were gods. They’ll be known for what they truly were … and so will the butchers who served them. Think about that, Priest. Take that thought to Hell with you. Langhorne and Schueler are waiting for you there.”

As a villain whose crimes rival the worst butchers in the history of humanity, Clyntahn deserves a eulogy at least as eloquent as this one, which was given to Father Vyktyr Tahrlsahn. He was one of the inquisitors who tortured and murdered Gwylym Manthyr and the rest of the Charisian POWs captured by Thirsk, and he further distinguished himself during the butchery at Sarkyn.

Mab stabbed him through the heart with a 14 inch midshipman's dirk and killed him instantly right after making that speech, which in Clyntahn's case seems a bit... hasty.

Most of us will be satisfied if his death is incredibly painful and very, very, slow from Clyntahn's viewpoint. Spend the hours he takes to die taunting him that both he and the lie disguised as a church that he corrupted further are mere bug stains on the windshield of the universe, and that soon they'll be every bit as dead.

(Sorry but there's a joke that goes with the preceding metaphor.)
What's the last thing to go through a bug's mind when he hits a windshield? His butt!

Yes, I agree with everyone who thinks Clyntahn deserves to go through the entire litany of tortures outlined in the Question and the Punishment, but who on the Charisian side is going to stain his hands and his soul doing that?

I vote to impale him on a short stake!

Son_of_Sith wrote:

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.)

Ah but what if its Rayno who decides to take out Clynthan and successfully pulls it off?

I don't think he can. But I can see him taking actions (or not taking actions) that will set up conditions where Clyntahn will be vulnerable. It might not even be a conscious effort to derail Clyntahn. Just flawed thinking under increasing pressure.

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?

That's a good question. Would they? I'm not certain the dominoes would fall that neatly. We know Rayno is Clyntahn's XO, but we don't know that much about the rest of the Inquisition hierarchy, and who might think he was better suited to take over.

And recall that Clyntahn was elected Grand Inquisitor by the Vicarate (in an election Rayno rigged.) Rayno might assume interim control, but wouldn't be the Grand Inquisitor unless confirmed by the Vicarate. I just don't see that happening. Too many Vicars are his enemies, which is why he isn't a Vicar.

Best case, it would cause a period of confusion and floundering that would give Duchairn, Magwair, and even Trynair room to maneuver.

(One potential actor everyone forgets is Grand Vicar Erek. We never see or hear from him, and it's made clear he says what Trynair tells him to, but he is the Grand Vicar. He's likely the one that will have to convene the Vicarate to elect a new Grand Inquisitor.)

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.

Assuming he can get the support of the rank and file. I think that's open to question.

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.

The problem from Duchairn's view is that even if he could do it, he'd be killed by the Inquisition afterward, and he thinks (correctly) that's he's likely the only one who has any hope of salvaging Mother Church after what Clyntahn has done.

If he could feel confident that things would be better enough after taking out Clyntahn that Mother Church might be reformed and continue to exist, he might willingly go to his death to achieve it. But he's too smart and too experienced to believe that's likely.
_______
Dennis

The reason I've suggested infiltrating a team of scout snipers into Zion is that RFC has set the stage for something like it. One of the cargo lorries in Nimue's cave has been modified so it has seats to carry several people rather than cargo. Why would RFC slip in that little tidbit if he didn't plan to use it eventually?

(Because we all know that he's sneaky and devious and that he loves to plant false trails all over the place, and then he laughs at our predictions!)

However, if this isn't one of his false trails, one of these days that lorry is going to come in handy. It may take the Sisters of the Snow for a quick trip to Nimue's cave. It would come in handy if the agents of the Fist of God need to escape from Zion quickly. (Which may be what Aivah was hinting at when she told Merlin that she needed to travel to Zion in a single day.)

A platoon of scout snipers scattered on rooftops surrounding the Plaza of Martyrs could have lots of fun "cleansing the vicarate" on a day when Clyntahn and his merry gang of inquisitors lead the latest group of heretics who've managed to survive the Punishment to the stakes for immolation. Of course we don't want Clyntahn to die that quickly or cleanly!

Those snipers can do something that PICAs can't - get close enough to the Temple to do some meaningful sniping. Once smokeless powder is available (which will also increase their range and accuracy) escaping after taking several shots won't be too difficult, since the small amount of smoke won't be easy to spot. Shoot through a window inside a building, and nobody will see the smoke at all, and no one would know where the shots were coming from unless they were looking in just the right spot and saw the muzzle flash.

It's the sort of attack that you could only get away with once using large numbers of snipers, but during that assault they could shoot any servant of Mother Church in the plaza (and also those horribly mangled by torture to give them a quick death) until they ran out of targets. It would also be the last time prisoners were burned at the stake in the Plaza of Martyrs.

After that the Inquisition would be forced to post spotters around the plaza looking for the smoke and muzzle flash of gunshots, and post others by the buildings around the plaza and on the rooftops to prevent future snipers from getting into position (or escaping from) another slaughter.

The most enjoyable prospect of striking at the very steps of the Temple itself is that no priest, inquisitor, or Temple guardsman could cross the plaza again without wondering if a bullet was coming his way. That could happen now and then, since the Inquisition couldn't post men on every building around the Temple in every sort of weather every single day!

Lather, rinse, repeat at random intervals in random locations. Outside (or inside of) vicar's houses, churches, monasteries, brothels... It wouldn't be long before no vicar or inquisitor would dare walk the streets of Zion wearing his ecclesiastic garb. The Temple guard would have to go incognito as well.

Can you imagine Clyntahn's frenzy once no official of Mother Church was safe on the streets of the most holy city on Safehold? Especially since attacks within Zion itself are supposedly impossible due to all the holiness oozing from the Temple or some such nonsense. (Although I have to admit that the corpses would be a lot more holey after they took a bullet or two!)

Of course there is the non-trivial problem of wandering the streets of the world's largest city with an M96 sniper rifle in your hands while speaking with a pronounced Charisian or Chisholmian accent. I guess Zion's orchestra could receive a large influx of foreign violinists. (Nah, the cases wouldn't be big enough. Better make them bass players.)

Should the snipers escape without being identified, the "seijins" could claim credit for the attack to "cleanse the plaza of those who have corrupted Mother Church and to release their innocent victims from suffering." This is the sort of pinpoint assault that Nimue could really get excited about.

Since the demon Murphai (not the seijin by the same name!) always seems to rear his head, the snipers had better carry cyanide capsules and be able to get to them quicker than some yet to be named woman we've heard of...)

RFC is the mastermind, so I leave the details of how the snipers successfully escape to the waiting lorry up to him!

McGuiness wrote:Most of us will be satisfied if his death is incredibly painful and very, very, slow from Clyntahn's viewpoint. Spend the hours he takes to die taunting him that both he and the lie disguised as a church that he corrupted further are mere bug stains on the windshield of the universe, and that soon they'll be every bit as dead.

(Sorry but there's a joke that goes with the preceding metaphor.)
What's the last thing to go through a bug's mind when he hits a windshield? His butt!

Yes, I agree with everyone who thinks Clyntahn deserves to go through the entire litany of tortures outlined in the Question and the Punishment, but who on the Charisian side is going to stain his hands and his soul doing that?

I vote to impale him on a short stake!

I've had the odd fantasy of somehow managing to get a recording of Clyntahn's personality. After he's hung, he "awakens" in Owl's VR unit. He gets told that since he was so fond of administering the Punishment, it's only fair he experience it himself. And he will, again, and again, and again, once for every victim he murdered that way. Death won't release him because he's already dead. This is merely an interlude before he spends the rest of forever burning in Hell.
______
Dennis

Well, the most sensor-free solution would be to use heavy stealthed SNARC to threw a simple dumb bomb.

The SNARK's are supersonic (probably even hypersonic, because they could reach escape velocity). It would not be hard to just put a dumb bomb under the SNARK and send it completely passive (only inertial navigation) to threw it into the target. Old-fashioned toss bombing: the SNARC reach supersonic speed, started to climb and then detached the bomb to fly on ballistic trajectory, trading momentum for rage.

The orbital drop of some kinetic projectile may be more accurate, but we have reasons to assume that either Temple or Rakurai array are scanning for such things, and may have their own opinion.

Duckk wrote:

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

Never, ever mess with Taco Tuesdays.

How about another assassination attempt on Daivyn? Maybe one that succeeds in injuring him badly?

McGuiness wrote:The reason I've suggested infiltrating a team of scout snipers into Zion is that RFC has set the stage for something like it. One of the cargo lorries in Nimue's cave has been modified so it has seats to carry several people rather than cargo. Why would RFC slip in that little tidbit if he didn't plan to use it eventually?

That's a stretch! Merlin has already used his air-bus, presumably, to transfer the family from the inquisition camp to the cave, which is what it was ostensibly for - ferrying groups of people to the cave if required.

The barrier to your scout-sniper scenario is the same as it always was - It requires bringing a platoon of grunts a long way into the circle while maintaining absolute security. Can't see it happening.

(The sisters are a somewhat different game of course because they have their own reasons for, and lifetimes of practice in, maintaining security.)

Randomiser wrote:
That's a stretch! Merlin has already used his air-bus, presumably, to transfer the family from the inquisition camp to the cave, which is what it was ostensibly for - ferrying groups of people to the cave if required.

The barrier to your scout-sniper scenario is the same as it always was - It requires bringing a platoon of grunts a long way into the circle while maintaining absolute security. Can't see it happening.

(The sisters are a somewhat different game of course because they have their own reasons for, and lifetimes of practice in, maintaining security.)

And also, the air buses aren't probably as well stealthed as skimmers. I.e. either the Rakurai array or the Temple itself might detect them, and start to ask questions.