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Safehold post-Jihad

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Re: Safehold post-Jihad
Post by Keith_w   » Sun Feb 12, 2017 8:55 am

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DMcCunney wrote:I'm not sure I see a civil war in North Harchong. Who would be the combatants? Those currently there want to maintain the status quo.

The civil war I see as possible will occur if the Mighty Host attempts to repatriate to North Harchong. The last thing those there want to see is is the best part of a couple of million serfs and peasants who have been given modern arms and taught to use them.

North Harchong attempts to keep them out will be doomed to colossal failure, as they'll be arguably more outclassed than the traditional Safeholdian armies armed with pikes, bows, arbalests, matchlocks and non-portable muzzle loading artillery were when they encountered rifle equipped Charisian forces. Earl Rainbow Waters winding up as the new Emperor when the dust settles would be a distinct possibility.

A more likely place for the Mighty Host to land is South Harchong, who might just welcome a trained, well equipped field army, thumb it's nose at North Harchong, and say "We secede." What could North Harchong do about it? (Whether South Harchong could resist the temptation to add the Kingdom of Sodar as a province is a good question. It's unlikely Sodar could resist if they tried.)

Another possibility is that some might just stay in Siddarmark. The devestation and depopulation of western Siddarmark leaves a fair bit of land that needs a lot of work. Most of the Mighty Host infantry were farmers before conscription. Offered an opportunity to become Siddarmarkan citizens and either employees of existing large agricultural efforts or freeholders working their own lands by the Lord Protector, a fair number might jump at it. Going back home and resuming their status as serfs and peasants won't be a popular notion.

Dennis


The problem I see with the thought that North Harchong might not allow the MH to return is that many of them, serf, proletariat, (didn't remember what to call the non-serf, non-noble class) and noble, left families behind. I don't see any of them being willing to abandon them in North Harchong. I also don't see North Harchong being willing to allow them to emigrate to other locations, especially not those of the serf class. The CoGA of Harchong is already in defiance of the edicts of the Grand Vicar with regards to the Inquisition, so I cannot see the Harchongese bureaucracy and or nobility obeying a command to allow them to leave, even if the serfs of the MH knew where to send for them. Also, that would be a pile of come and join me if you want to letters to be written by someone who could write to someone who probably cannot read assuming they were ever allowed to be delivered. (It's easier to keep a serf on the farm if you can keep him/her ignorant). So I think the majority of the MH is going to want to go home, and North Harchong is going to have a tough time stopping them.
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad
Post by Castenea   » Sun Feb 12, 2017 9:40 am

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Keith_w wrote:
The problem I see with the thought that North Harchong might not allow the MH to return is that many of them, serf, proletariat, (didn't remember what to call the non-serf, non-noble class) and noble, left families behind. I don't see any of them being willing to abandon them in North Harchong. I also don't see North Harchong being willing to allow them to emigrate to other locations, especially not those of the serf class. The CoGA of Harchong is already in defiance of the edicts of the Grand Vicar with regards to the Inquisition, so I cannot see the Harchongese bureaucracy and or nobility obeying a command to allow them to leave, even if the serfs of the MH knew where to send for them. Also, that would be a pile of come and join me if you want to letters to be written by someone who could write to someone who probably cannot read assuming they were ever allowed to be delivered. (It's easier to keep a serf on the farm if you can keep him/her ignorant). So I think the majority of the MH is going to want to go home, and North Harchong is going to have a tough time stopping them.

Just to add to the trouble, I suspect that part of Magwair's attempt to demobilize the Mighty Host will be to try to resettle them inside the Temple Lands where they would take the place in the civilian economy of the casualties of the armies raised in the Temple Lands. I have strong doubts that more than a noticeable minority (5-10%?) would take Magwair and Duchairn up on this offer, but those that do are likely to be offering support to their former comrades in arms who are prepared to rejoin their families in North Harchong by force of arms if necessary.
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad
Post by DMcCunney   » Sun Feb 12, 2017 11:49 am

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phillies wrote:One might also propose that the OBS would recognize Nimue Alban, agree that she is the highest ranking TFN officer and ask her what her orders are.
I doubt it. The OBS wasn't a TFN construct. Textev says it was built aboard Hamilcar, and deployed just before use against the Alexandria Enclave in part to leave Commodore Pei no chance to interfere.

We don't know what sort of intelligence it might possess, but I doubt it would consider itself a TFN construct subject to Nimue's orders as ranking officer in system.

Returning Archangels would almost certainly possess the required control sequences to activate it and give it orders, and would likely plan on doing so.
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Dennis
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad
Post by Dauntless   » Mon Feb 13, 2017 10:10 am

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I half expect Nimue/merlin to continue experimenting and find out that the assault shuttle won't be fired upon if it doesn't go near Zion.

Said assault Shuttle will take merlin and Nimue and some remotes from owl and will then co-opt or more likely destroy the bombardment system
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad (Spoilers)
Post by PeterZ   » Mon Feb 13, 2017 11:55 am

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Be warned! Spoilers!

@Dennis,

I agree that Desnair will take longer to flare into civil war. I further agree that North Harchong isn't ripe for civil war right now. EVERYONE in leadership roles there is committed to the status quo. The wild card to both Desnair and North Harchong's stability of their current regimes is South Harchong.

As was pointed out in the waning periods of the Jihad, South Harchong produced the food and weapons for the MH. North Harchong did not have the infrastructure to ship what they could produce beyond their local regions. We also know that South Harchong has become steadily more liberal with respect to social institutions, like serfdom. The episode in Greentree Island with Thirsk's family illustrates this quite well.

I conclude two primary items for consideration. 1st is that South Harchong has discovered that initiative in the work force increases productivity and that initiative and forced servitude are inconsistent with one another. 2nd and likely most important, their vastly increased wealth and productivity in this new innovative world Charis has made has placed them in an unavoidable collision course with their Northern aristocratic brothers.

The North requires strict social conventions to keep the vast majority of the population (serfs and pesants) under the aristocrats and bureaucrats thumbs. There simply isn't enough productivity up North to actually share the product of this forced labor equitably. South Hatching realizes that increased productivity will inevitably increases the size of the economy immensely. They recognize that any loss of control is more than offset by the massive increase in wealth. Since they never had the degree of power the aristocrats had up North, their perceived loss of power is much smaller than what would be perceived by the Northern Aristos.

However, they will fight to keep enough flexibility in their social conventions to maintain that valuable productivity. They must or the North will include the merchant houses in the new restrictions the North feels is required to maintain control of the Empire. The impending restrictions Northern Harchong will implement is the reason that the MH will not be headed to the Southern Empire. The North will not allow the South that sort of weapon to resist their envisioned restrictions.

Regardless of where the MH ends up, its South Harchong that will supply the funds and wherewithal to the more liberal elements of both Desnair and North Harchong. Whether the South will collaborate with Charisians in creating a network to liberate both slaves from Desnair and serfs from North Harchong or simply disseminate propaganda a la the seijin broadsheets from the jihad, the South will foster social change either as a semi-official policy or simply by having wealthy families put their money where their conscience is. That effort will lead to either insurrection Harchong or an open war with Desnair.

@Keith_w,
The CoGA in North Harchong is not yet in defiance of the Grand Vicar's new policy with respect to the Inquisition. They are simply digging in their heels in very slow walking the process of transition. That resistance might well erupt into open defiance if Zion gives the MH support in going home or going to South Harchong. That a schism will happen seems inevitable to me and I bet to most readers. I suspect Duchairn will also suspect that. Even so, he cannot assume it as a fait a complis. He will try to heal any potential rift that will further cause the CoGA in Zion to hemorrhage moral authority.

How successful he will be is open to question. However, aiding the MH return to North Harchong and spark social unrest that will lead to millions more dead is a rather inauspicious beginning for the reformed CoGA. Loyalist nations will wonder just what the Grand Vicar is willing to ask them to sacrifice in the service of his reforms? That loyalist nations will believe pales to what Siddermark and Silkiah will believe. They will keep their distance and let the loyalists get their sh*t together before they even think about a rapprochement.

Duchairn wants to heal as much of the CoGA as he can. Allowing the MH to return and destabilize so much of his loyalist support is the most likely way to inhibit any healing within the loyalist nations and rapprochement between the schismatic nations. Duchairn might succeed in persuading all involved to keep the MH in the Temple Lands, but that strikes me as still too close to Siddermark. Siddermark will want them in Howard not anywhere in Haven, outside Northern Harchng.

@Castenea,

The Lord Protector is dreading bringing back the Temple Loyalist Siddermarkians to Western Siddermark, let alone import trained Loyalist soldiers. The survivors there will have a very significant proportion of their members released from Clyntahn's concentration camps. I suspect a majority of the residents knows someone who has survived those camps. Regardless of how humane the MH treated the inmates under their control, the MH still acquiesced to the Inquisition's maintenance of the camps in the first place. They were the guards that fought so well that inmates had to suffer a year longer than they needed to.

How many more inmates died that could have lived had the MH not propped up Clyntahn's unjust jihad? How can anyone in Siddermark trust the MH that remained loyal to the corrupt Inquisition the new Grand Vicar freely admits launched this jihad unjustly? Their Protector, their neighbors recognized how unjust the jihad was, didn't they? How can they ever trust people willing to see innocents die because they were unwilling to face the demands of the truth? They aren't like the Archbishop of Trikah who saved people at the risk of his own life, who fought for Loyalist and Reformist alike? Why the heck would any sane Siddermarkian accept neighbors that will take up arms against them again, if the idiots in Zion got another bee up their a$$?

Between the locals antipathy to anything loyalist and the Lord Protector's suspicions about having a trained force millions strong that remains loyal to the very church that killed so many of his constituents residing in his nation, sorry but that's not gonna happen.
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Mon Feb 13, 2017 4:27 pm

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Dauntless wrote:I half expect Nimue/merlin to continue experimenting and find out that the assault shuttle won't be fired upon if it doesn't go near Zion.

Said assault Shuttle will take merlin and Nimue and some remotes from owl and will then co-opt or more likely destroy the bombardment system


I disagree. Merlin will do nothing to provoke the system that isn't essential.

His probing of the system has been limited to things which appear to be natural and things which were essential (steam power). I do not believe he will change that until Safehold is too far advanced to put the genie back in the bottle.
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad
Post by DMcCunney   » Mon Feb 13, 2017 5:03 pm

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Loren Pechtel wrote:
Dauntless wrote:I half expect Nimue/merlin to continue experimenting and find out that the assault shuttle won't be fired upon if it doesn't go near Zion.

Said assault Shuttle will take merlin and Nimue and some remotes from owl and will then co-opt or more likely destroy the bombardment system
I disagree. Merlin will do nothing to provoke the system that isn't essential.
One unanswered question is how much autonomy the OBS has. Could it strike on its own volition, or would it phone home to a human controller for instructions? And if it did phone home, what might answer? The Angels and Archangels were long gone by the time Merlin awoke, and I doubt the departing Archangels and Angel subordinates would have left that sort of control in colonist hands.

My guess is that the OBS might react on its own volition to any direct threat to the Temple in Zion, but things get murkier beyond that.

Early on (like the first book, if memory serves) Owl informed Merlin no weapons at his disposal could destroy the OBS, and that would presumably include the recon shuttle. It was mentioned that attempts to get Owl constructed remotes close enough to the OBS to investigate failed, as they were localized and destroyed by OBS point defense before getting within useful range.

And Merlin will test fairly carefully before doing anything drastic.

Recall his test of steam power on an island in a chain of uninhabited islands far from anywhere, where what a tech equipped observer might see would look like steam power plants and steam powered vehicles traveling between point on the island. Not a peep out of the OBS.

I do wonder what a similar test of electricity on that same far from anywhere island chain might produce.

Use of electricity can vary. If the generating plant is buried underground, and electricity conducted to what it will power by buried cable, will the OBS even detect it?

Radio gets more problematic, and another test might be a transmitter on that same uninhabited island chain. If it gets a Rakurai strike, it's not like there will be witnesses to see it. And if the BBS reports making the strike, who would get the report? With the Inquisition essentially neutered by Duchairn and Magwair's coup, the most likely part of Mother Church to get the report likely wont be there to receive it.
His probing of the system has been limited to things which appear to be natural and things which were essential (steam power). I do not believe he will change that until Safehold is too far advanced to put the genie back in the bottle.
He'll do whatever he thinks he can get away with that won't result in a kinetic strike. That might be more than we assume.
______
Dennis
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad
Post by DrakBibliophile   » Tue Feb 14, 2017 5:37 pm

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That's the 64,000 dollar question. ;)

During the steam power test, Merlin noticed that the OBS didn't even attempt to "phone home" let along not attacking the island where the test was happening.

From what David Weber has said, Steam Power was not expressly condemned so Merlin felt safe in testing the OBS's reaction.

However, David Weber has stated that the Holy Writ expressly links electricity and lightning with both as falling into "this is something only God and Langhorne can use" territory.

David Weber has stated that the Inquisition has been actively seeking out people researching electricity and punishing them.

From Merlin and the Inner Circle's POV, it is safer to assume that the OBS would react to, without "phoning home", to any obvious wide-scale generation of electricity.

Of course, they have no way of knowing what "wide-scale" means to the OBS.

Also, with Father Paityr surprise announcement about the Key of Schueler and what it does, the Inner Circle has even more reason to be concerned about "What's Under The Temple".

So they have good reasons to believe that the OBS would react in that situation and something under the Temple would be woken in that situation. :evil:


DMcCunney wrote:One unanswered question is how much autonomy the OBS has. Could it strike on its own volition, or would it phone home to a human controller for instructions? And if it did phone home, what might answer? The Angels and Archangels were long gone by the time Merlin awoke, and I doubt the departing Archangels and Angel subordinates would have left that sort of control in colonist hands.

My guess is that the OBS might react on its own volition to any direct threat to the Temple in Zion, but things get murkier beyond that.

Early on (like the first book, if memory serves) Owl informed Merlin no weapons at his disposal could destroy the OBS, and that would presumably include the recon shuttle. It was mentioned that attempts to get Owl constructed remotes close enough to the OBS to investigate failed, as they were localized and destroyed by OBS point defense before getting within useful range.

And Merlin will test fairly carefully before doing anything drastic.

Recall his test of steam power on an island in a chain of uninhabited islands far from anywhere, where what a tech equipped observer might see would look like steam power plants and steam powered vehicles traveling between point on the island. Not a peep out of the OBS.

I do wonder what a similar test of electricity on that same far from anywhere island chain might produce.

Use of electricity can vary. If the generating plant is buried underground, and electricity conducted to what it will power by buried cable, will the OBS even detect it?

Radio gets more problematic, and another test might be a transmitter on that same uninhabited island chain. If it gets a Rakurai strike, it's not like there will be witnesses to see it. And if the BBS reports making the strike, who would get the report? With the Inquisition essentially neutered by Duchairn and Magwair's coup, the most likely part of Mother Church to get the report likely wont be there to receive it.
His probing of the system has been limited to things which appear to be natural and things which were essential (steam power). I do not believe he will change that until Safehold is too far advanced to put the genie back in the bottle.
He'll do whatever he thinks he can get away with that won't result in a kinetic strike. That might be more than we assume.
______
Dennis
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad (Spoilers)
Post by DMcCunney   » Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:53 am

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PeterZ wrote:Be warned! Spoilers!

@Dennis,

I agree that Desnair will take longer to flare into civil war. I further agree that North Harchong isn't ripe for civil war right now. EVERYONE in leadership roles there is committed to the status quo. The wild card to both Desnair and North Harchong's stability of their current regimes is South Harchong.

<...>

Regardless of where the MH ends up, its South Harchong that will supply the funds and wherewithal to the more liberal elements of both Desnair and North Harchong. Whether the South will collaborate with Charisians in creating a network to liberate both slaves from Desnair and serfs from North Harchong or simply disseminate propaganda a la the seijin broadsheets from the jihad, the South will foster social change either as a semi-official policy or simply by having wealthy families put their money where their conscience is. That effort will lead to either insurrection Harchong or an open war with Desnair.
Agreed on the social structure of South Harchong vs North Harchong. South Harchong seems to have been going its own way for some time, and paying nominal lip service to the Emperor in Shang-mi in the North. (And I suspect the South Harchong bureaucracy is very good at telling North Harchong what it wants to hear, and remitting enough taxes to keep the North content while carefully not reporting how well it's actually doing and how much tax it really should be paying...)

But while it's an interesting and plausible speculation that hadn't occurred to me, I'm unclear on why South Harchong would stir those particular pots by providing funding. The problem with helping foment revolutions next door is keeping them from slopping over onto your territory. (And my thought that South Harchong might welcome a chunk of the Mighty Host is precisely to have a trained standing field army with modern weapons that could keep conflict in North Harchong or Desnair from spilling over into South Harchong.)

If I were the South Harchong decision makers, I might stay carefully out of revolutions in North Harchong or Desnair, wait for the dust to settle and victors to emerge, and then do profitable business with the winners (or ignore them, depending upon just who won.)
______
Dennis
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad (Spoilers)
Post by PeterZ   » Wed Feb 15, 2017 1:14 pm

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DMcCunney wrote:
PeterZ wrote:Be warned! Spoilers!

@Dennis,

I agree that Desnair will take longer to flare into civil war. I further agree that North Harchong isn't ripe for civil war right now. EVERYONE in leadership roles there is committed to the status quo. The wild card to both Desnair and North Harchong's stability of their current regimes is South Harchong.

<...>

Regardless of where the MH ends up, its South Harchong that will supply the funds and wherewithal to the more liberal elements of both Desnair and North Harchong. Whether the South will collaborate with Charisians in creating a network to liberate both slaves from Desnair and serfs from North Harchong or simply disseminate propaganda a la the seijin broadsheets from the jihad, the South will foster social change either as a semi-official policy or simply by having wealthy families put their money where their conscience is. That effort will lead to either insurrection Harchong or an open war with Desnair.
Agreed on the social structure of South Harchong vs North Harchong. South Harchong seems to have been going its own way for some time, and paying nominal lip service to the Emperor in Shang-mi in the North. (And I suspect the South Harchong bureaucracy is very good at telling North Harchong what it wants to hear, and remitting enough taxes to keep the North content while carefully not reporting how well it's actually doing and how much tax it really should be paying...)

But while it's an interesting and plausible speculation that hadn't occurred to me, I'm unclear on why South Harchong would stir those particular pots by providing funding. The problem with helping foment revolutions next door is keeping them from slopping over onto your territory. (And my thought that South Harchong might welcome a chunk of the Mighty Host is precisely to have a trained standing field army with modern weapons that could keep conflict in North Harchong or Desnair from spilling over into South Harchong.)

If I were the South Harchong decision makers, I might stay carefully out of revolutions in North Harchong or Desnair, wait for the dust to settle and victors to emerge, and then do profitable business with the winners (or ignore them, depending upon just who won.)
______
Dennis


South Harchong on the whole would likely prefer to remain above the fray, any fray, anywhere. My assumption is more that some of the merchant families in the South will have strong feelings about the social abuses in both the North and Desnair. How different are they from similar merchant dynasties in the Northern States of the antebellum USA?

All it takes is one or two of these families and movements get funded. Once funded, these movements take on a life of its own with those passionate but less wealthy members providing the hands and feet of the movement. Furthermore, I doubt Charisian interests will remain above the fray in supporting such endeavors. Private and public interests will have their interests coincide in facilitating social change in Desnair and North Harchong.

All this suggests to me that the Northern Aristos will fight tooth and nail to prevent any part of the MH to move down south. That sort of weapon will allow South Harchong much more freedom to tell the North to pound sand any time they believe the cost of compliance is worth the effort to avoid compliance to any Imperial policy. The only way the North will allow it is if there is a benefit to the North in having the MH move South. One example would be a war of conquest against Desnair. Adding Desnair to the imperial tax base would be worth letting the MH kill itself in Howard. The longer that fight continues, the fewer soldiers will be around to cause mischief. After the war is over, those soldiers can provide the garrison for Desnair. I seriously doubt letting the MH anywhere else in Harchong doing anything else will make the North comfortable.
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