Through Fiery Trials, Snippet #1

Kael Posavatz wrote:The concern for a potential intelligent opponent wasn't even a consideration until Paityr shared that 'family story' about the archangels coming back.

I think the analysis was something along the lines of, if there was an AI or human intelligence keeping track of things the CoGA would never have become internally corrupt, at least not to the degree it had. That as things existed circa OAR, that corruption was going to keep applying pressure until something broke at which point society would destabilize, fast, and sooner or later someone facing an existential crisis would throw the Proscriptions out the door.

Pretty much. And with no concern about intelligent opposition, Merlin reintroduced knowledge in pretty much their original forms.

Part of the reason he did so was to avoid "lying", because he knew he'd have to come clean eventually and being caught explicitly lying would have called into question everything he was trying to teach. So when teaching, he always made sure to emphasize that his knowledge came from someone else.

Rereading this snippet, a couple of things occurred to me.

I don't believe that we have ever been told what Chihro's function in the command crew once. Since the two factions of the Order of Chihro are the scribes and the military, he may well have been a quartermaster, or senior administrator.

If this is the case, then he almost certainly did NOT do the actual programming of the OBS for detection of emerging technology, and whoever did do the programming actually sabotaged it - leaving in the detection of electricity, since Chihro apparently really focused on that, but deleted any concern about steam as an emerging technology.

Also, at the very end of the snippet is evidence that the date should actually be 900 - when musing about the time, 15 years to 915 would mean a current date of 900, 96 years to 996 would mean 900, and 110 years to 1000 would mean 890 - Hopefully this gets caught and cleaned up in the copy editing phase. (and the statement that Nahrman had been dead almost 5 years also points to 900, since he was killed in September 895.

fallsfromtrees wrote:Rereading this snippet, a couple of things occurred to me.

I don't believe that we have ever been told what Chihro's function in the command crew once. Since the two factions of the Order of Chihro are the scribes and the military, he may well have been a quartermaster, or senior administrator.

If this is the case, then he almost certainly did NOT do the actual programming of the OBS for detection of emerging technology, and whoever did do the programming actually sabotaged it - leaving in the detection of electricity, since Chihro apparently really focused on that, but deleted any concern about steam as an emerging technology.

Also, at the very end of the snippet is evidence that the date should actually be 900 - when musing about the time, 15 years to 915 would mean a current date of 900, 96 years to 996 would mean 900, and 110 years to 1000 would mean 890 - Hopefully this gets caught and cleaned up in the copy editing phase. (and the statement that Nahrman had been dead almost 5 years also points to 900, since he was killed in September 895.

There's a passage early in OAR about Chihiro's place in the command crew, I think it was something like a senior aide or maybe Langhorne's 2IC (need to open the book when I get home and double check), but also as principal author of the central Writ.

Kael Posavatz wrote:There's a passage early in OAR about Chihiro's place in the command crew, I think it was something like a senior aide or maybe Langhorne's 2IC (need to open the book when I get home and double check), but also as principal author of the central Writ.

Being the Writ's principle writer/editor makes me think he was Operation Ark's G1, ie, the guy in charge of all personnel paperwork matters. G3 (operations) and G4 (logistics) don't seem to fit.

I'm not sure OA even needed a G2 (intelligence).

*Googles army organization*

OTOH, G5 (civil-military operations) might be more his speed.

evilauthor wrote:

Kael Posavatz wrote:There's a passage early in OAR about Chihiro's place in the command crew, I think it was something like a senior aide or maybe Langhorne's 2IC (need to open the book when I get home and double check), but also as principal author of the central Writ.

Being the Writ's principle writer/editor makes me think he was Operation Ark's G1, ie, the guy in charge of all personnel paperwork matters. G3 (operations) and G4 (logistics) don't seem to fit.

I'm not sure OA even needed a G2 (intelligence).

*Googles army organization*

OTOH, G5 (civil-military operations) might be more his speed.

So I tracked down that quote I remembered. It's in May, YoG 890, III.

Off Armageddon Reef]On top of that, there was the way Langhorne and Bédard had programmed the colonists into an absolute belief in the "religion" they'd manufactured. Nimue's library included the original text of the Safeholdian "Holy Writ" which Maruyama Chihiro, one of Langhorne's staffers, had composed, and she'd skimmed it with a sort of horrified fascination."

So, we don't know what the exact staff position was.

We do know that 'Chihiro' is a given name used predominantly for females, and she is referenced a number of times as being such.

I do find it interesting that the Archangels are named by their last name regardless of whether it is given or family name (I rather doubt the colonists knew that their archangels even had more than one name). Though, I suppose this makes it easier to differentiate Kau-yung and Shan-wei.

Kael Posavatz wrote:There's a passage early in OAR about Chihiro's place in the command crew, I think it was something like a senior aide or maybe Langhorne's 2IC (need to open the book when I get home and double check), but also as principal author of the central Writ.

evilauthor wrote:Being the Writ's principle writer/editor makes me think he was Operation Ark's G1, ie, the guy in charge of all personnel paperwork matters. G3 (operations) and G4 (logistics) don't seem to fit.

I'm not sure OA even needed a G2 (intelligence).

*Googles army organization*

OTOH, G5 (civil-military operations) might be more his speed.[/quote]

Kael Posavatz wrote:So I tracked down that quote I remembered. It's in May, YoG 890, III.

Off Armageddon Reef]On top of that, there was the way Langhorne and Bédard had programmed the colonists into an absolute belief in the "religion" they'd manufactured. Nimue's library included the original text of the Safeholdian "Holy Writ" which Maruyama Chihiro, one of Langhorne's staffers, had composed, and she'd skimmed it with a sort of horrified fascination."

So, we don't know what the exact staff position was.

We do know that 'Chihiro' is a given name used predominantly for females, and she is referenced a number of times as being such.

evilauthor wrote:I do find it interesting that the Archangels are named by their last name regardless of whether it is given or family name (I rather doubt the colonists knew that their archangels even had more than one name). Though, I suppose this makes it easier to differentiate Kau-yung and Shan-wei.

Actually, Chihro --- Maruyama Chihiro, to be precise --- is a masculine name in my references and I believe I've referred to him as "he" throughout. That was certainly the intent, at any rate, and any female pronouns are typos.

Nimue doesn't know what his exact position on Langhorne's staff was, either, since she has no memories of ever having met him and doesn't have a table of organization which lists his official position post-arrival on Safehold. She does know, however, that he was one of the people named to Langhorne's administrative council as part of the "reorganization" which stacked it with Langhorne loyalists while Shan-wei and Kau-yung were off terraforming Safehold. And she also knows from Kau-yung's notes that he was one Langhorne's most senior staffers before Armageddon Reef and that he had a lot of responsibility in logistics and engineering.

evilauthor wrote:

Kael Posavatz wrote:There's a passage early in OAR about Chihiro's place in the command crew, I think it was something like a senior aide or maybe Langhorne's 2IC (need to open the book when I get home and double check), but also as principal author of the central Writ.

Being the Writ's principle writer/editor makes me think he was Operation Ark's G1, ie, the guy in charge of all personnel paperwork matters. G3 (operations) and G4 (logistics) don't seem to fit.

I'm not sure OA even needed a G2 (intelligence).

*Googles army organization*

OTOH, G5 (civil-military operations) might be more his speed.

To keep everyone on their toes, the U.S. Army changed the designation of its main coordinating staff officers four years ago. The current designations for U.S. Army coordinating staff officers per paragraph 2-37 of FM 6-0, Commander and Staff Organization with Change 1 (2014) are:

Assistant chief of staff (ACOS), personnel (G-1/S-1).
ACOS, intelligence (G-2/S-2)
ACOS, operations (G-3/S-3)
ACOS, logistics (G-4/S-4)
ACOS, plans (G-5/S-5)
ACOS, signal (G-6/S-6)
ACOS, financial management (G-8)
ACOS, civil affairs operations (G-9/S-9)
Chief of Fires
Chief of Protection
Chief of Sustainment

It is possible that a ACOS, information (or engagement) operations (G-7/S-7) may be revived in the future. That was an item of great discussion when I retired 25 days ago.

Undercover Fat Kid wrote:....addendum:

I think Merlin dies in this story arc. These types of history books tend to be written post mortem, me thinks

I agree. I have long believed Merlin would eventually die. Which is why he created the other Nimue PICA. He knew there might be a chance his pics body may not survive. . I will miss him if that does happen. He is my favorite charactet

DianeSilva wrote:

Undercover Fat Kid wrote:....addendum:

I think Merlin dies in this story arc. These types of history books tend to be written post mortem, me thinks

I agree. I have long believed Merlin would eventually die. Which is why he created the other Nimue PICA. He knew there might be a chance his pics body may not survive. . I will miss him if that does happen. He is my favorite charactet

Well, possibly, but note that the 'life' was written about 1000 years (Terran, presumably) after Nimue awoke in the cave, which leaves the potential for a whole lot of story still to come.

DianeSilva wrote:

Undercover Fat Kid wrote:....addendum:

I think Merlin dies in this story arc. These types of history books tend to be written post mortem, me thinks

I agree. I have long believed Merlin would eventually die. Which is why he created the other Nimue PICA. He knew there might be a chance his pics body may not survive. . I will miss him if that does happen. He is my favorite charactet

Or he lies sleeping in a hidden cave, to awaken only in Safehold's hour of darkest need...

More seriously, I took it that the 'Life' was being written when it was because the Gbaba had been defeated and 'Merlin Athrawes' was no longer needed. So, possibly dead, or possibly the Merlin persona has been shut down. There is, after all, that Chekhov's Gun matter of the automatic personality dump. We never have found out how Proctor got round the software - suppose he simply managed to replace the 10 day deadline with, oh, say, 1000 years?


If RFC is playing games with legends, though, there should be a point where Nimue has to take over from Merlin. Whether this is the Little Sister Nimue, or the Chekhov's gun of a rebooted Nimue who no longer remembers Merlin, we don't know.

The Life of Merlin Athrawes could be a deliberate gift to a 'Nimue' who no longer remembers what she's done.