anwi wrote:Well, every author twists internal logic now and then in order to tell the story he needs to tell. And usually the readers don't complain. (Note that SNARCs should have been capable of sniffing out the black powder in the wheelchair used for the attack on Hector&Irys in Manchyr - must've been tetrion field interferences...)
In this case, we got the esteemed author somewhat red-handed.
To wit: Charisian high command has access to SNARC information. Whoever is running Desnairian naval tactics right now, he'll be monitored. Since pack tactics need coordination and approval at high command, Rock Point should have been aware of their new approach.
Then, there's OWL. He tends to provide convenient probabilities on lots of issues and shows initiative. A message like: "There's a 73% chance of losing at least one of the really important ships in the latest weapons convoy." would have been plausible.
So, ICN admiralty and inner circle should've been able to prevent such a loss at an inconvenient moment.
Moreover, the CoGA has pursued a campaign of mass murder that combines the sadistic perversion of midieval witch hunts with the slaughter of ethnic cleansing. Consequently, the EoC already kills every inquisitor it can find. So, if I'd be in the sailors shoes, I'd figure my best chance would be sinking my ship before surrendering - the Desnairians might lose interest. In fact, I'd expect that most EoC and RS units simply wouldn't consider surrendering any more - and a policy that wounded would be offered Pascale's grace in case of retreat.
Finally, it's a long way to Desnair from the likely route of the convoy. Might be we find out some of the Desnairian spoils of war found the bottom of the sea - eventually.
Summing up, this particular turn of events looks a bit suspicious to the reader, especially since RFC makes quite some effort to provide plausible explanations. But he knows, might be the Desnairians got incredibly lucky. However, he'd probably figured he needed that twist to further the plot. It'll be interesting to see for what.
And on something completely different, I wish RFC all the best with his back. He's on the pert side these days, I get...
Actually, no, you haven't.
Mind you, it's happened before, and I've owned up to it more often than not when it happens. In this case, though, I never said that the inner circle wasn't aware of the Desnairian commerce-raiders, or of the change in strategy to promote them. What I said was that the concentration against this particular convoy came as a surprise — a tactical surprise, not a strategic one.The availability/distribution of information from the inner inner circle is not unlimited. Our Heroes™ have to jump through all sorts of hoops to conceal the fact that they have — literally — "supernatural" information sources. Now, in Tellesberg itself, we have a sizable crew who either know the complete truth or at least are cleared for the "Seijin Merlin has visions" school of intelligence operations. However, Merlin isn't in Tellesberg at the moment, and hasn't been for some time, and the vast majority of — indeed, for all intents and purposes all — of the ICN's officers are most definitely not cleared for access to the sorts of information that Owl's SNARCs capture. Nor do they have personal coms.
Now, the inner circle knew about the buildup of Desnairian Empire commerce-raiders, and the ICN's convoy commanders were briefed on the fact that "sources" suggested there was going to be an upsurge in commerce-raider activity. However, these folks don't have radio. So, when the inner circle became aware of the fact that this particular convoy was in danger of being swarmed in a mass attack — which even Owl didn't become aware of until just before they sailed* — there was no plausible/reasonable/explainable way for Rock Point or anyone else to warn the convoy commander of what might be coming. Moreover, all of the ships involved are sailing vessels with "visible horizon" only sensors which operate only in daylight conditions, and there were multiple potential targets in the "threat zone" established by the Desnairians' sailing orders. In other words, the inner circle (1) was caught short by an un-anticipated change in operational orders which was made before the commerce-raiders sailed but only after the convoy was at sea; (2) there was no way — even if the inner circle had been prepared to risk widespread "how did they know that" questions — to send the information to the convoy commander even after they had it; (3) the convoy in question wasn't specifically targeted (because the Desnairians had no way of knowing it was out there to be targeted), and the fact that it was the target that was ultimately attacked depended upon vagaries of wind, weather, and ship speeds there was no way even for Owl to predict.
{*Edit: The "they" in this case refers to the commerce-raiders, not the convoy escorts. The change in emphasis resulted from a last-minute suggestion by one of the senior civilian --- i.e., "private enterprise" --- raider skippers, not something that the Navy itself came up with, but the Navy --- which provided between a third and a half of all the ships committed to the mission and is exercising overall coordination of the new strategy --- pounced eagerly on the idea of sending out a commerce-raiding fleet to operate cooperatively in sweeping a larger volume of space and then swamping the escorts. It was the units of the regular Desnarian Navy who took almost all of the lumps against the escorts.)
What I said in my original response to this was that it took the inner circle by surprise and that you don't make allowance for things your intelligence doesn't suggest are likely. The provisions to protect the convoy which had been made before it sailed would have been completely adequate against the threat anyone — including the inner circle, which was indeed monitoring the construction of these ships — knew to be looking for. Had the convoy commander been a member of the inner circle, he not only would have been updated on the threat when the inner circle became aware of it, but would have been able — courtesy of the SNARCs — to select an evasive route to avoid the attack and/or to have deployed his warships efficaciously enough before the raiders arrived to beat off the attack, in all probability.
There are going to be times when fortune favors the Bad Guys™, and this was one of them. I didn't have to "throw the game" to allow it to happen; there are internal factors which have been built into the stories from the beginning (and most of which have played parts in the action of the stories) which make it perfectly feasible for the Desnairians to have pulled off this attack.
Now, if I choose to — and I haven't said that I do — I can certainly arrange for the prize vessel in question to "mysteriously blow up" at sea before reaching Desnair. I can also choose for it not to blow up. And, to be honest, there are reasons the inner circle might choose either of those two outcomes. Which one I've chosen is another matter entirely, of course.
As for the crew of the ship's failing to blow themselves up or otherwise commit mass suicide to avoid capture, not everyone who's prepared to destroy his ship succeeds. I didn't see any reason to go into all of the ramifications about how this particular ship — whose capture occurs offstage — might have fallen into that category. For that matter, not everyone aboard might have agreed that the ship needed to be destroyed. History is replete with examples of people who "should have known better" surrendering or allowing themselves to be captured even when all of their personal experience and knowledge suggests that they are only going to be killed out of hand, anyway. I'll admit that knowing about the Punishment of Schueler ups the ante all around, but there are plenty of people who will trade the possibility (or even high probability) of an eventual lingering death for the certainty of dying immediately. I'd like to think that wouldn't be a trade I'd make under the circumstances, but more than enough people have made it over the course of human history for me, personally, to have no problem with the fact that someone aboard this ship might have made that decision.
As for the gunpowder in the assassination attempt against Irys and Hektor. So you're suggesting that Owl has enough SNARCs and remotes to put one on every single individual in a crowd of thousands to "sniff out" the chemical signature of black powder? And you're further suggesting that all of the troops deployed around the square (all of them armed with gunpowder weapons) — including the cordon stationed directly in front of the wheelchair in question and probably within 15 or 20 feet of it — wouldn't have been producing plenty of gunpowder "footprint" to clog/distract the remotes which were deployed?
I'm not arguing that it would have been impossible for a SNARC remote to pick up the charge in the wheelchair; I'm simply saying that this isn't the case of everyone passing through metal detectors trying to get into a stadium and that the sheer size of the target and the presence in large (and legitimate) quantities of the compound being searched for make it entirely plausible for the assassin to have slipped through.You know, I don't show you all of the assassination plots that are foiled, so perhaps you're assuming that vast numbers of them are getting through, but they aren't. Again, sometimes the Bad Guys™ get lucky, too, and it's really part of a writer's responsibility to let them get lucky from time to time. If I'd been forced to create a limitation out of whole cloth — sort of a "god weapon" limitation — in order to let the assassin get through, that would be one thing. I wasn't, however. I suppose I could have had Nahrmahn and Owl lecture the other members of the inner circle on what the actual limitations were, but it really wouldn't have contributed anything to the movement of the plot and it would have been one of those "As you know, Bob" moments that I, personally, hate. It would have been akin to a story set in World War Two in which the flag captain reports to the admiral that the enemy has been sighted at 40,000 yards, and the admiral turns back to him and says "In that case, we should probably open fire with the 16" guns, which — as you know, Bob — have an effective range of 41,000 yards. And when the range drops to 23,000 yards, we should probably open fire with the 8" guns, which — as you know, Bob — have a range of 23,000 yards. And once the range drops to 18,000 yards, we should probably open fire with the 5" guns, which — as you know, Bob — have a range of 18,000 yards."
Everybody Nahrmahn and Owl were briefing knew what their limitations were because they'd had to deal with them before, so I saw neither reason nor plausible excuse for having someone recount them all over again. But that's just me.
(And, BTW, one reason I do the infamous "info dumps" is that --- as a reader --- I prefer for the author to do that rather than twist his narrative and dialogue into a pretzel with "As you know, Bob" moments. In the Honorverse, I was able to do quite a bit of legitimate character-to-character exposition by sticking the poor damned Peep officers with commissars who didn't know squat about naval tactics and had to have them explained, but I don't really have that option on Safehold. Or not to the same extent, at least. I can still get away with having Duchairn and Maigwair hammer Clyntahn over the head with doses of reality which let me hand info to the reader in legitimate conversations, and I can do the same thing when the handful of Church tech weenies get to explain to one of their superiors. Neither the assassination attempt nor the convoy losses really lent themselves to that approach, however.)
As I say, I have been caught "red-handed" in this sort of logic hole you're talking about in your post, but these two instances aren't really examples of it. I try — probably harder than the majority of authors — not to give my readers "pay no attention to the man behind the screen" moments. That isn't necessarily the same thing as saying "I will always tell you why this Bad Thing happened so that you know I didn't play fast and loose with my own universe's internal consistency." Now that I think about it, I probably do quite a bit of the latter, as well. I simply saw no reason or advantage — and some downsides from the storyteller's perspective — to be telling/showing you that in these instances.
Edited to clarify a point in my 3rd paragraph and to gas on a bit more about Bob and his stupid explanations.
