Not that he ever WOULD have... But he COULD have...

Not disagreeing with any of your thoughts because they're all valid in one context or another.

But....

If Merlin HAD used technology in aid of Charis - through the Limpet Mines on SOME vessels route, or perhaps by spiking the artillery that was firing with extra powder to make them randomly burst, or through some of the thousands of little ways that Owl's remotes could have caused "plausible bad luck" or "accidental mayhem" then think of the possible reduction in overall loss of life.

Maybe Merlin didn't want to expose a LOT of Owl's technology, but the odds against Charis were (at least at the OAR stage) pretty significant! He did SOME things to mitigate against SOME disasters (medical nannites, anti-ballistic undies, and battle steel armor come to mind) but other than providing intelligence - at a time when the only things Charisians really knew was that "Merlin sees things" he didn't do anything OFFENSIVE.

It may not be this way for everyone, and I can understand your sentiments, but I personally think it's out of character for a trained tactical officer who lived his/her entire life (up to the point where the PICA recording was first uploaded into the Merlin chassis) in a survival-imperative was that (s)he KNEW was going to be lost - the Gbaba war.

Dilandu wrote:

n7axw wrote:Actually, I suspect that had the entire Dohlar/Tarot fleet blown up with no survivors, it would have been attributed to a storm... But that trick would have been good for one round.

Don

-

No, it wouldn't. The loss of the WHOLE fleet of sufficient size without any survivors could not be explained just by storm. It's far too statistically improbable.

Considering that A - the fleet was send against supposed Charisian deviations from the Church doctrine, and B - the fleet was near Armageddon Reef (the sole most accursed place on Safehold), it would basically be inevitable conclusion that "Charisians summoned demon hordes from Armageddon Reef to slain god's warriors".

And after that it would be CHARISIAN problem to explain that the mysterious disappearance of the whole fleet was not supernatural. Which would be simply impossible, and the Holy War would starts with the absolute majority of Safeholdians being sure that Charisians are true Shain-Wei believers, and must be stopped at all cost.

There was a huge storm. "We all lost sight of each other." Losses were 80-90%, with survivors reporting hulls simply fell apart under the battering. Wooden ships that have structural failure can go down very quickly. The effect is the same and not obviously supernatural; you just need some maskirovka.

note
another prime reason for Merlin NOT to take out those fleets with tech is:

the Charisians have to learn things, to stand on their own two feet etc
you can't make a true "nation", a cause, without effort, suffering and loss, without struggle etc
Darcos Sound etc was as important to them, as the Battle of Britain was, or the US Revolutionary War and Civil War, or many other pivotal events