Illogical decisions

Philip Stanley wrote:This post is not a discussion of illogical decisions - it is a question regarding what seems to me to be a failure by Merlin to take a logical action.
In BSRA Merlin returns from the Monastery of Saint Zherneau and learns from OWL about the 212 colonists reprogrammed by Pei Shan-wei. He knows that four of these are Jeremiah and Evelyn Knowles and Kayleb and Jennifer Sarmac, the four who were placed in the Tellesberg colony.
My question is: why didn't he use OWL's resources to identify the colonies where the other 208 reprogrammed colonists were placed? That seems like such an obvious next step: to find out which other colonies had been seeded with Pei Shan-wei's "arrows" and if any of these colonies showed any sign of their influence.
Not to take this obvious step is not logical, and I can't help wondering why the omnipotent AUTHOR did not have Merlin do this. We're only finding out NOW (6 volumes later!) that one of the groups was placed in Zion, and even now we learn this not because of Merlin's researches, but because that group revealed themselves him.
I can only conclude that the AUTHOR has plans for these revelations of group locations in future plot arcs, and deliberately had Merlin fail to do the obvious research. IMHO it's a little manipulative, but what the heck, it's his universe.
Philip Stanley

runsforcelery wrote:

Philip Stanley wrote:This post is not a discussion of illogical decisions - it is a question regarding what seems to me to be a failure by Merlin to take a logical action.
In BSRA Merlin returns from the Monastery of Saint Zherneau and learns from OWL about the 212 colonists reprogrammed by Pei Shan-wei. He knows that four of these are Jeremiah and Evelyn Knowles and Kayleb and Jennifer Sarmac, the four who were placed in the Tellesberg colony.
My question is: why didn't he use OWL's resources to identify the colonies where the other 208 reprogrammed colonists were placed? That seems like such an obvious next step: to find out which other colonies had been seeded with Pei Shan-wei's "arrows" and if any of these colonies showed any sign of their influence.
Not to take this obvious step is not logical, and I can't help wondering why the omnipotent AUTHOR did not have Merlin do this. We're only finding out NOW (6 volumes later!) that one of the groups was placed in Zion, and even now we learn this not because of Merlin's researches, but because that group revealed themselves him.
I can only conclude that the AUTHOR has plans for these revelations of group locations in future plot arcs, and deliberately had Merlin fail to do the obvious research. IMHO it's a little manipulative, but what the heck, it's his universe.
Philip Stanley

What makes you think he didn't do exactly that?

Philip Stanley wrote:When I posted earlier in this thread regarding Merlin's failure to research the other 208 reprogrammed colonists, I wasn't thinking of identifying the specific organization or location they may have established. It is probable that any organization or group they may have initially established would have been secret and concealed to prevent suppression by the Temple.
What I was thinking of was rather of a group's influence on the culture or beliefs of their region of Safehold by it's influence applied over the hundreds of years since the colonization of the planet. The group might have been clandestine, but it's influence might be more discerned.
Why, for instance, did Siddermark develop a republican form of government? Or Harchong or Desnair a slave/serf based culture (not all of the groups would necessarily influence a culture in the same direction)? This is what I meant when I said that Merlin should look for their "influences"
Philip Stanley

runsforcelery wrote:
What makes you think he didn't do exactly that?

DrakBibliophile wrote:One individual has been complaining that one of David Weber's characters (Merlin) has ignored/won't do things that the individual thinks are logical actions.

I hope the following isn't taken as an attack on him or anybody else. It's just my thoughts on "logical or illogical decisions" of people and characters.

First and foremost, many people see the actions of others as "illogical" because they operate on different assumptions than the other person.

In any logical debate there are "premises" that the person based their arguments on. The problem is often that the other person may not accept the "premises" that the first person starts from. Even worse, in informal discussions, the premises may not be expressly stated and the person may not consciously realize what premises he is starting from. So another person operating with different premises, will find the statements as illogical.

Of course, there's also the problem of "incomplete" information. IE we think that a person's actions are illogical because the other person knows something we don't.

In addition, there's the problem that even intelligent people do stupid things. Sometimes the person realizes that "he did an idiot thing" but other times the person may try to blame others on his mistakes.

In an article on another site, David Weber talked about a historical person who by all accounts was very smart but took actions that afterwards seem very stupid. David Weber said that if he were to base a character on this person, many of his readers would find the character unbelievable.

Of course, people doing "idiot things" also involves the person's emotional state. Depressed people do idiot things because of their depression (I speak here from personal experience). Our emotional state strongly influences how we think so it's not surprising that we can make illogical decisions.

To bring things back to the Safehold-universe, let's consider the situation at the time of Project Ark. Mankind had been fighting a losing war for its survival for about thirty years. That is not going to be a positive influence on how well people were thinking.

For all of Nimue's life and military service, war was seen as being done to protect human life. While military personnel, in the past and currently, are painfully aware that their actions will cause the deaths of innocents on the "other side", Nimue's war was different. The Gbaba were aliens and at the time of Project Ark, no "innocent" Gbaba could be harmed by the Federation's actions.

So here's Merlin carrying all the emotional baggage of the original Nimue involved in a war where no matter what he does, human lives will be lost. It is not surprising to me that Merlin may make less than logical decisions. He has never thought about "collateral damage" in times of war.

Finally David Weber has said (in my words) that everybody in the Federation was slightly insane. This explains (but not excuses) the actions of Langhorne and the command staff. This also explains Merlin's less than rational feelings/thoughts when it comes to collateral damage.