Through Fiery Trials, Snippet #1

Randomiser wrote:

PeterZ wrote:So, the Inner Crcle has to plan for a return of either 15 or ~100 years. They have to plan on NOT introducing electricity for those periods. If the return happens in 15, then the Reveal resolves the Safehold issues one way or the other. Introducing electricity and other technological advances may begin afterwards, if they survive. If the Return doesn't happen in 15 years, the IC needs to continue their plan of deseminating all tecgnology short of electricity.

Either way, establishing a hidden and shielded production center for more fabbers is almost a necessity.

Well, maybe. They have to decide whether to leave the strategic momentum with the other side or to try to take it themselves. That is, do they let the 'Archangel's Return' happen and hope they can cope with it, or do they try to get their retaliation in first, hoping that will give them a better chance of coming out on the winning side? For example, if they reckon the control loop really is broken, and even if not, it may be a whole lot better to take out the OBS even if doing so wakens up whatever is under the Temple early, rather than allowing it to waken up with the OBS still active and potentially under its control. It seems that merely investigating the OBS won't be a big problem, since it wasn't before. Of course trying to take it out and failing might be a bad move ...


However you look at it, you are right about more production capacity. Tools to build tools, to build more secret TF tech. Military spacecraft if possible. Nimue's cave is a massive single point of failure, they need to build as capable a back-up as possible. Then maybe OWL #2 could have a go at deciphering the Key. Would the upside to deciphering the Key, be enough to counter the downside that it may be an important part of the return? [If it turns out to be an SD card with wifi, for example] Maybe they should just go ahead and force the Key to self destruct.

As Nahrman so colourfully says, the last thing they can afford to do is to let themselves become paralysed by worrying about the possible effects of their actions.

ywing14 wrote:— from The Life of Merlin Athrawes, Zhakleen Wylsynn,
Tellesberg, Royal University Press, 4217.

This might be my favorite part "4217". That's a long way off.

Undercover Fat Kid wrote:I do have to say that while I do like the idea of seeing how the one goes about overthrowing a genuinely worldwide religion, trying to explain to a group of Flat Earth believers that we do, in fact, live on a globe, has led me to the conclusion that merely showing incontrovertible facts that can be demonstrated in anyone’s back yard if they care to try is no guarantee that the truth will be recognized.

Dilandu wrote:

Undercover Fat Kid wrote:I do have to say that while I do like the idea of seeing how the one goes about overthrowing a genuinely worldwide religion, trying to explain to a group of Flat Earth believers that we do, in fact, live on a globe, has led me to the conclusion that merely showing incontrovertible facts that can be demonstrated in anyone’s back yard if they care to try is no guarantee that the truth will be recognized.

A bit of good anti-religion propaganda could help... USSR made a lot of anti-religion posters, some are quite good!



(Translation: "Thank you for enormous cultural additions - but your place on the shelf with other myths and superstitions.")

PeterZ wrote:One assumes this is the year 900 and the 890 is a typo.

PeterZ wrote:So, the Inner Crcle has to plan for a return of either 15 or ~100 years. They have to plan on NOT introducing electricity for those periods. If the return happens in 15, then the Reveal resolves the Safehold issues one way or the other. Introducing electricity and other technological advances may begin afterwards, if they survive. If the Return doesn't happen in 15 years, the IC needs to continue their plan of deseminating all tecgnology short of electricity.

Either way, establishing a hidden and shielded production center for more fabbers is almost a necessity.

runsforcelery wrote:

thanatos wrote:
I have wondered about the Gbaba on occasion and thought that perhaps their motives, alien though they might be, are also essentially religious. It is possible that they view themselves as the most perfect beings in creation and seek to eliminate all other "demons" in the cosmos. It could equally be a desire to eliminate evolutionary competition as well, but RFC has done that theme in the past (the Kanga/Shirmaksu in the Apocalypse Troll stand alone). I also doubt he'll use the Achuultanni example from the Dahak series (i.e. aliens controlled by a computer that wishes to maintain control over them and is thought to be a god to them). He could of course come up with something truly alien but given the centrality of religion as a force for good and evil in the Safehold series, something tells me the Gbaba's motives might also be religious.

They aren't.

dobriennm wrote:I read another series of books by a different author who had had a slightly different idea for aliens who instinctively exterminate any other intelligent race they meet.

His idea was this race evolved on a world with two intelligent species- think humans in 100,000 BCE existing with intelligent Velociraptors (human sized therapod dinosaurs) at the same technology level (spears at best).

So basically a long (100,000 years) struggle between the two species with each side eating the other (kids, eggs, everyone) as part of the spoils of victory. And each side improving their "technology" over that time. With the end result being one species exterminates the other (with technology levels like we had 2000 years ago) and the victor continues technology advancement to space travel.

Then the victor encounters another intelligent race. What's the likelihood of the victors saying "Yes, let's make friends with this other species! We've had such success with that in the past. ". At that point it's liable to be instinctual to kill first (you didn't survive if you didn't kill the other first).

It's a variation on evolutionary competition, but mixing up both intelligence and basic animal instinct.

runsforcelery wrote:They aren't.

thanatos wrote:
I have wondered about the Gbaba on occasion and thought that perhaps their motives, alien though they might be, are also essentially religious. It is possible that they view themselves as the most perfect beings in creation and seek to eliminate all other "demons" in the cosmos. It could equally be a desire to eliminate evolutionary competition as well, but RFC has done that theme in the past (the Kanga/Shirmaksu in the Apocalypse Troll stand alone). I also doubt he'll use the Achuultanni example from the Dahak series (i.e. aliens controlled by a computer that wishes to maintain control over them and is thought to be a god to them). He could of course come up with something truly alien but given the centrality of religion as a force for good and evil in the Safehold series, something tells me the Gbaba's motives might also be religious.