AClone wrote:One thing that I found odd about the Siddarmark situations, is that A. A Charisian agent gave a woman advanced, tailored medical intervention simply so that she could get pregnant, and B. Merlin not only substituted ballistic-resistant attire to various important Charisian figures, he also secretly gave them gave them nanites to keep them healthy--against their knowledge...
...and yet no one thought it was a "good idea" to provide similar protection to multiple Lord Protectors of Siddarmark.
And all it really would have taken was the first one.
As a result, millions are suffering. Plus, Safehold's advance is inevitably going to take longer than it would have. Boggles the mind.
Very good point!
Stohnar was a *friend* as well as an ally they could count on.
So they should have considered that.
thing is I'm against Dilandu's "realpolitik" outlook in fiction and of course in real life, as it ALWAYS degenerates into situations where war and chaos happen.
Strong friendly personal relationships help enormously.
Amity and mutual cooperation are not "weak", all evidence proves "sociopathy" is a bad strategy.
Distrust breeds more distrust.
War and chaos cause much more harm than is realised, if you look at how so many damaged men came back from the insane stupid slaughter of WW1....then the moronic screw ups and atrocities of WW2 etc...
domestic violence, suicide, crime, drug addiction, depression that robs potential...and losing huge numbers of people who'd be great workers, leaders, researchers and just plain decent citizens.
Wars and other major problems set up spirals of ever worsening crap that drags the entire world DOWN.
You can't afford to lose decent folk and decent leaders make colossal differences.
Khrushchev and JFK had their problems and sins, but they had their fill of carnage etc and so worked to avoid a nuclear war...and then...scumbags made sure they lost power...
Now, consider
today.
Can you imagine many of the current world leaders actually working with brains and amity to avoid catastrophe, hm?
Garbage like the Vietnam and Iraq wars have shattered stability, trade, societies, made work against OTHER problems near impossible etc.
In Safehold, all the severe hate from such evil as the Inquisition and colossal carnage will cause enormous problems as we see in Siddarmark.
another issue as I've raised before though is:
BOY, aren't all those deaths
SOOOOOOOOOOOO coincidental, eh?
Sure, 20 odd years go by and many will die, but...some of 'em are definitely suspicious, like Seamount's.