TFT snippet #3

Bluesqueak wrote:Thanks for the snippet, RFC.

Hmmm... who I'm thinking of now is Sandaria Ghatfryd. Because if she had decided that Merlin, OWL and Narhman were really demons who'd fooled Nynian, Cayleb, Sharleyan's er al, she had an awful lot of experience in hiding what she's truly thinking while working for Helm Cleaver and the Sisterhood. Not to mention lots of experience in working on a very long term plan.

So her conversion to the truth could be fake - and she does rather drop out of sight in At The Sign of Triumph. And she would be in a superb position to ask the Inner Circle to wake Eastshare up, because she's the only one of them with experience of having not believed Merlin straight away.

If she could figure out a way to help Eastshare escape, even if it was ten or twenty years down the line, that would restart the religious war. A Chisholmian noble and famous Charisian General, claiming the Church of Charis is the product of demonic influence, who was captured by the demons, and hasn't aged in twenty years? He'd be the poster boy for the new Holy War.

Might not be Sandaria, but I suspect Eastshare isn't going to stay in his cryogenic capsule.

Interesting thought. I was thinking that we've had a progression as they've become less cautious and more confident in telling people. Duncan and Sandaria who really struggled. Now Eastshare who couldn't accept it but was contained. I certainly expect someone to not accept it and either manage to get away or at least be unable to be contained quietly, but I hadn't considered the possibility Sandaria was playing a long game. I'll have to take another look at her scenes.

That Merlin has access to suspended animation has implications as to what's under the Temple. Could be one or two of the originals.

Daryl wrote:That Merlin has access to suspended animation has implications as to what's under the Temple. Could be one or two of the originals.

I think there is textev that there are limits on how long you can stay in cryo. I don't remember which book it was in to search for it though. But I would think for one of the original "archangels" to be in Cryo would be really pushing it unless they managed to develop some more advanced methods in secret while on Safehold.

ETA:
Found it:

So far as he knew, no one had ever used the cryo suspension systems for a period greater than thirty or forty years. Theoretically, they were supposed to be good for up to a century and a half. But nine centuries?

Weber, David. How Firm a Foundation (safehold Book 5) (p. 185). Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition.

I know that Tor is the publisher here, I am sure that RFC is being well compensated for his work, I was just lamenting the lack of access to the eARC that is so easy to get from Baen. I have already ordered my hard copy and kindle versions from amazon and am counting down the days.

NervousEnergy wrote:

bigrunt wrote:Thank you very much RFC. While I like the fact that Baen allows us to buy advanced reader copies I can wait for January.

Unfortunately Safehold is published by Tor, and their corporate masters still for some misguided reason reject the rich bounty of selling a book twice for top dollar. January is the fate of all of us.

Unless you're willing to haunt eBay for a physical ARC.

I had a feeling he was going to be the primary character that wouldn't take the truth well.

elaineofshalott wrote:So we have our first person the inner circle informs who completely rejects the truth. At least since Merlin woke up.

It had to happen some time.

I'm kind of surprised they tried to take EastShare into the inner circle.

He always struck me as being the type that was a true believer and was going against Mother Church because of the corruption of the Church by the Gang of Four.

They may have felt they didn't have a choice because he was so integral to the Imperial Army and taking down the armies of the COGA. They may have felt they couldn't sideline him after the war and being a smart man would have figured out the sejinns had way more than human capabilities if they continued to work closely together. Thus, potentially demons.

But as you said, it had to happen sometime

@ElaineofShallott regarding recording personalities. Thanks for the detail in your post on Friday, which I why I'm not quoting it here. I guess I'm about 80% convinced

The reason for the other 20% is that almost all the quotes you provide are about Nahrman and his current situation, when everyone agrees that his position is due to Merlin using an inappropriate device in an imminent death situation. The question being could they successfully do it some other way if they had plenty of time and a cooperative subject. The only quote that suggests otherwise is the one about finding a personality for the second PICA. The reason they couldn't use someone else is never actually specified. However there was some time pressure there also; they could always have recorded Merlin but wanted the PICA operational faster that that could be done. Just maybe that's why they couldn't record one of the others in a safe way as well - it would have taken too long. Say 20% chance.

Bluesqueak wrote:
Hmmm... who I'm thinking of now is Sandaria Ghatfryd. Because if she had decided that Merlin, OWL and Narhman were really demons who'd fooled Nynian, Cayleb, Sharleyan's er al, she had an awful lot of experience in hiding what she's truly thinking while working for Helm Cleaver and the Sisterhood. Not to mention lots of experience in working on a very long term plan.

So her conversion to the truth could be fake - <snip>.

The difficulty with that is she would have to be fooling Nynian who has been her bestie and superior for years and years, not to mention being one of the smartest characters in the story AND any Remote monitoring of her that, say, Nahrman, is doing (Oh yes he is ...) Just sayin...

With the war over, I can't say I see any urgency to bring Eastshare into the Inner Circle and a lot of obvious negatives in having to disappear him. This doesn't seem a very rational decision, I think Cayleb and Sharley have allowed their emotions to outweigh logic and got bitten.

One high profile character having a heart attack after a private dinner with the Emperor and Empress is unfortunate, two would be coincidence, three ... They need to be even more careful not repeat this kind of failure.

Randomiser wrote:

Bluesqueak wrote:
Hmmm... who I'm thinking of now is Sandaria Ghatfryd. Because if she had decided that Merlin, OWL and Narhman were really demons who'd fooled Nynian, Cayleb, Sharleyan's er al, she had an awful lot of experience in hiding what she's truly thinking while working for Helm Cleaver and the Sisterhood. Not to mention lots of experience in working on a very long term plan.

So her conversion to the truth could be fake - <snip>.

The difficulty with that is she would have to be fooling Nynian who has been her bestie and superior for years and years, not to mention being one of the smartest characters in the story AND any Remote monitoring of her that, say, Nahrman, is doing (Oh yes he is ...) Just sayin...

I'm not entirely convinced myself, but Nynian is human and she clearly was deeply emotional over the possibility they would have to eliminate Sandaria that would allow the possibility for her to see what she wanted to see and miss what Sandaria was feeling, especially if she didn't do anything until after the war. As far as monitoring is going, the do have limited capacity for that, they are still monitoring other countries, and based on the snippets so far, they are adding quite a few people to the inner circle, it would be logical to focus monitoring efforts on the new people, not the ones they "know" have already adapted.

The one thing that is nagging at me right now since this theory was presented is that we have two members of the inner circle who had trouble accepting the truth. For Duncan I know we've had scenes with his POV. We know he has thought things like "the Archangels never existed." I can't think of any similar scenes for Sandaria off the top of my head.

With the war over, I can't say I see any urgency to bring Eastshare into the Inner Circle and a lot of obvious negatives in having to disappear him. This doesn't seem a very rational decision, I think Cayleb and Sharley have allowed their emotions to outweigh logic and got bitten.

One high profile character having a heart attack after a private dinner with the Emperor and Empress is unfortunate, two would be coincidence, three ... They need to be even more careful not repeat this kind of failure.

I think one factor is that we've seen that they feel guilty about keeping the knowledge secret. We saw that with Seamount. They felt he deserved to know. I imagine it was the same with Eastshare. Another is that they seem to be telling a lot of people. Enough that a rather large meeting can still encompass only a "small percentage" of the inner circle based on our snippets so far. They've now told Seamount who was deemed too high a risk during the war. And they've arguably told people who were higher risk like Irys and Petyr Wylsynn. So I think they may be a bit over confident in their ability to persuade people of the truth.

They do definitely need to be more careful now. Of course that mostly means dinner with the Emperor and Empress can't be the go to setting. Heart attacks and strokes are common enough that one person dropping dead during dinner with the Empress, one in a private meeting with the Archbishop and one dropping dead at sea with Duncan and Hektor wouldn't be so noticeable as long as it isn't in too short a time.

I can't say I am too shocked. Poor Eastshare one of my favorite characters...

The fallout from this is going to be hard to underestimate though, its going to pretty much put the brakes on HARD where it comes to admitting new members to the inner circle. Not only is it going to be a HUGE blow to Sharleyne and Cayleb mentally, she in particular will probably start second guessing themselves hard on this subject matter, but how many times can one of their close confidants drop dead with a heart attack during dinner? Once sure, twice, it could be hand waved away I guess, but people might start wondering. Three times? Yea at that point people are going to notice, coincidence only goes so far.