HFQ Official Snippet #28

I was actually thinking of Dragon Island not Claw or Trove as the training center for Garvai and Windshare. I wasn't suggesting anything more than Alvarez not complaining too loudly if he had to deal with surrendering to the EoC and Republic. How much worse is surrendering to the Allies than being allied to a bunch of stuck-up, horse fornicating, inbred, aristocratic arse-hats? During any hiatus in the stories, well Dohlar might just pull together an Expeditionary Force and take Hankey and most of north Kohlman. Ahlvarez can work out something so that Silkiah will take North Watch and Dohlar will have enough of Northern Desnar to maintain the Mahrosa Canal. Dohlar then will have an alternative passage from the Gulf of Dohlar into the Gulf of Jahras.

I am not sure how tall Thirsk is either. I do think that having someone not so blooming tall will make any trickseyness with Thirsk more likely and believable.

lyonheart wrote:Hi PeterZ,

You know how long I've been suggesting that Thirsk will be a regent for one of Rahnyld IV's grandsons, along with Ahlverez, and I hope Duke Fern also survives.

Claw Island is rather small for the Corisandans to fully train on, especially its lack of vegetation for camouflage training, NTM terrain variation etc.

Ahlvyn Kapahr is rather tall, only ~3-4 inches less than Merlin, but your suggestion that Nimue substituted for for Thirsk to explain his execution scene is truly excellent!

It will take time as I posted for them to get their 'pigs and ducks all in a row', but I see an accommodation as the alliance armies proceed west past Dohlar cutting the temple's land communications south with Dohlar, Silkiah NTM all of Howard at Dairnyth, rather than invading if the negotiations go well.

Your suggestion about Ahlverez venting his spleen on the Desnari is intriguing [How exactly? Invading Hankey?], but that may have to be in a later book.

L

dan92677 wrote:

DrakBibliophile wrote:Ah, Sword of the South is available now so there won't be more snippets of it.

Amazon shows my order to be shipped Aug. 4?????

Peter2 wrote:It was available for a time as an eARC from the Baen Books website.

Baen have been selling the actual E-book since the 16th. It's excellent BTW!

Thanks to our favorite author for another snippet.

So... DE and EHM are joining in the job of taking out Kaitswryth, are they? That gives us some additional pieces of the puzzle. This is the first we've heard of EHM and DE since the destruction of the AoS.

But it does leave the question of how heavily Hanth has been reinforced to deal with Rychtyr who has been falling back toward Evynstyn where he could be reinforced from Dohlar. We do know there was a force that went from Roymark to Cheryk and presumably beyond, apparently to beef Hanth up a bit.

Just a sidenote in response to Larry... briefing the good archbishop doesn't bother me. Not withstanding need to know and all of that, I'm quite confident that the info won't be leaked. And I can think of other times when RFC clued his readers in advance.

Commenting to Lyonheart, if the ICN does manage to take the Salthar canal, they can start moving through some riverclads to deal with Thirsk's screw galleys...

Finally, I wonder how long the campaign against Kaitswryth will take. Once it's over, will the alliance keep that army group together to deal with the Harchongese? It's starting to look very much like the main thrust of dealing with the Dohlarans will come from the sea...

Gotta love Symkyn's grammar... rough and tumble soldier capable enough to move up through the ranks.

Don

Larry wrote:You see, there is no book world reason for the General to brief the Archbishop in detail on his plans, and every good reason to keep him in the dark as a matter of operational security. Go ahead and bless the troops your holiness, and a good moral booster it will be, but reveal the plan? Ummm no. So why do it?
Larry

Why not? It's not like Cahnyr is going to go off thru the snow and ice and tell Kaitswyrth. There's no way he could pass the message even if he wanted to short of sending someone. So even if he wanted to, it's unlikely he could soon enough to make a difference. Threat of the information being leaked is minimal.
One reason to tell him is that it makes the victory seem more "normal" and expected. It'll make it easier for Cahnyr to defend the lopsided victory as better planning rather than they help from shan wei should someone claim otherwise.

Larry wrote:Nice Plan. Sad the online map isn't quite up to letting me visualize it completely.
Larry

Agree 100%. I'm really having trouble with the online map finding where they are.

Hi PeterZ,

Thirsk is so short his feet didn't reach the floor after sitting on the side of a bench in Lt Zhwaigair's laboratory.

This means he's too short for Nimue to substitute for him.

Darn!

Another great idea shot down by a cruel and vicious gang of facts. ~quoting from -WSC

L

PeterZ wrote:I was actually thinking of Dragon Island not Claw or Trove as the training center for Garvai and Windshare. I wasn't suggesting anything more than Alvarez not complaining too loudly if he had to deal with surrendering to the EoC and Republic. How much worse is surrendering to the Allies than being allied to a bunch of stuck-up, horse fornicating, inbred, aristocratic arse-hats? During any hiatus in the stories, well Dohlar might just pull together an Expeditionary Force and take Hankey and most of north Kohlman. Ahlvarez can work out something so that Silkiah will take North Watch and Dohlar will have enough of Northern Desnar to maintain the Mahrosa Canal. Dohlar then will have an alternative passage from the Gulf of Dohlar into the Gulf of Jahras.

I am not sure how tall Thirsk is either. I do think that having someone not so blooming tall will make any trickseyness with Thirsk more likely and believable.

lyonheart wrote:Hi PeterZ,

You know how long I've been suggesting that Thirsk will be a regent for one of Rahnyld IV's grandsons, along with Ahlverez, and I hope Duke Fern also survives.

Claw Island is rather small for the Corisandans to fully train on, especially its lack of vegetation for camouflage training, NTM terrain variation etc.

Ahlvyn Kapahr is rather tall, only ~3-4 inches less than Merlin, but your suggestion that Nimue substituted for for Thirsk to explain his execution scene is truly excellent!

It will take time as I posted for them to get their 'pigs and ducks all in a row', but I see an accommodation as the alliance armies proceed west past Dohlar cutting the temple's land communications south with Dohlar, Silkiah NTM all of Howard at Dairnyth, rather than invading if the negotiations go well.

Your suggestion about Ahlverez venting his spleen on the Desnari is intriguing [How exactly? Invading Hankey?], but that may have to be in a later book.

L

lyonheart wrote:Hi PeterZ,

Thirsk is so short his feet didn't reach the floor after sitting on a stool in Lt Zhwaigair's laboratory.

This means he's too short for Nimue to substitute for him.

Darn!

Another great idea shot down by a cruel and vicious gang of facts. ~quoting from -WSC

L

From how it reads, I think that the two of them about the same size.

jeremyr wrote:

Larry wrote:You see, there is no book world reason for the General to brief the Archbishop in detail on his plans, and every good reason to keep him in the dark as a matter of operational security. Go ahead and bless the troops your holiness, and a good moral booster it will be, but reveal the plan? Ummm no. So why do it?
Larry

Why not? It's not like Cahnyr is going to go off thru the snow and ice and tell Kaitswyrth. There's no way he could pass the message even if he wanted to short of sending someone. So even if he wanted to, it's unlikely he could soon enough to make a difference. Threat of the information being leaked is minimal.
One reason to tell him is that it makes the victory seem more "normal" and expected. It'll make it easier for Cahnyr to defend the lopsided victory as better planning rather than they help from shan wei should someone claim otherwise.

Besides, Cahnyr has proved over and over that he can keep his mouth shut - both in Zion[implied] and in Glacierheart [before he escaped]! I rather think that he has taken on the terseness of his mountain men.

jeremyr wrote:

Larry wrote:You see, there is no book world reason for the General to brief the Archbishop in detail on his plans, and every good reason to keep him in the dark as a matter of operational security. Go ahead and bless the troops your holiness, and a good moral booster it will be, but reveal the plan? Ummm no. So why do it?
Larry

Why not? It's not like Cahnyr is going to go off thru the snow and ice and tell Kaitswyrth. There's no way he could pass the message even if he wanted to short of sending someone. So even if he wanted to, it's unlikely he could soon enough to make a difference. Threat of the information being leaked is minimal.
One reason to tell him is that it makes the victory seem more "normal" and expected. It'll make it easier for Cahnyr to defend the lopsided victory as better planning rather than they help from shan wei should someone claim otherwise.

Plus, by telling him the plan, it keeps Cahnyr away from the front lines for a longer period of time, and makes it harder for Cahnyr to successfully argue that he doesn't need a large (or high ranking) escort that will be harder for him to walk over their restrictions/objections when they try to keep him safely out of trouble.
Of course, I suspect that while he is there, Cahnyr will find it hard to leave the headquarters area without Ganieda Cysgodol following him to keep him out of trouble or get him out of it when Cahnyr manages to get into trouble anyways.



I suspect that things may not go according to plan, or things may happen to change the plan, but I really doubt that it'll be because Kaitswyrth gets reinforcements that the Allied troops didn't get warned about. Kaitswyrth may well get more reinforcements that they're presently anticipating, but it's functionally impossible that those extra reinforcements will manage to not be noticed while en route, long before they actually arrive to disrupt the plan.

Kytheros wrote:I suspect that things may not go according to plan, or things may happen to change the plan, but I really doubt that it'll be because Kaitswyrth gets reinforcements that the Allied troops didn't get warned about. Kaitswyrth may well get more reinforcements that they're presently anticipating, but it's functionally impossible that those extra reinforcements will manage to not be noticed while en route, long before they actually arrive to disrupt the plan.

The reasons to worry on Charis' part from readers having heard the plan are two:
First, narratively, a plan that works out just as previously sketched is unusual - it's a bit redundant for the reader. So you expect to have undescribed plans go perfectly and described ones go off the rails.
Second, it is a complicated plan and that sort is even more likely to go belly-up when the enemy arrives.

Complicated as it is though, all it really takes for it to work is for (a) a nicely large concentration of Temple troops to fill a pocket and (b) Allied troops to get around almost all of them and squeeze from one or more directions while (c) at least basically holding in the others. Or just hold longer and let them get hungry inside.

So the plan is free to go a bit wrong in a lot of details, and go right in only some of them, and it will still work out well enough. Miss some Temple troops? Oh well - so long as they don't cause trouble behind the encircling forces, it's just a bit less successful. One of the jaws has to give ground, or can't advance well? Make it up with the others, or with time and hunger.

The really severe risk would be that one jaw could have the whole pocket escape through or around it, but these aren't small jaws and Allied troops can hold a line very, very well. And Clyntahn isn't likely to allow a retreat or make it look palatable anyway, so they are almost self-surrounding as targets.