Remember: Vanig believes his ass is covered. He also believes that Tavanis (who, as mentioned, has the outward reputation of being bookish and mild - an administrator rather than a solider) won't start a clan war over one individual who, it could be argued, was reasonably believed to not be part of the Red Hand. So Axex is certain he's gotten all his ducks in a row. Allyria is alone, isolated and vulnerable and Vanig has been mulling his injured pride for months. This is the opportunity he's been waiting for. To hurt the Red Queen by breaking one of her toys and doing it in a way that, even if it does lead back to him, would be... politically difficult to deliver retribution for. His timing is even worse than normal (though he doesn't know it). With Adrianna dealing with the losses in the Veiled Reaches and both Kursk and Sundial building up steam, she can't afford to start up a war with the Blotted Suns. So his position is even more secure than he might otherwise think.
Doesn't it just?
Fixed; thanks!
Martial Marshall said:
True; stun/less-lethal weapons do exist, but they tend to be... persnickety, especially if you're expecting them to work on multiple species. As mentioned in Predator, Prey, something that could take down a Tribune, Worker or Brute will almost certainly kill individuals from smaller species. Or vice versa: you have stun rods that can easily incapacitate smaller species like Broken, Didacts or Steersmen but if you have some angry Kobolds in the mix, the effectiveness of your stun batons might as well be set to 'mild itch'. So all less-lethal weapons have to be tailored to a specific species or range of species. Even as we see with less-lethal options today ranging from gases, tranquilizers, projectiles and more there's a gamut of people that they won't effect at all, or will have too much of an effect on. When you throw in nearly two dozen different physiologies and physical capabilities, it gets much more complicated than 'set to stun'.
Grace wouldn't be able to order Tavanis to do anything. He's an Overseer, she's a (brevet) Leader. At most she could 'emphatically suggest'.
She doesn't, but she is still bound by practicality. That's what she learned early on: not to over-extend and to pick and choose her battles. As much as she might hate the idea, right now is really bad time for her to get into a scrap with another large Unbound clan like the Blotted Suns. While she does have a well-earned reputation for dealing with other clans who've crossed her (and she might very well want to go after Vanig just on general principles), there are other concerns that her advisors would bring to her attention. The Charred Temples were an existential threat to the Red Hand... the Blotted Suns aren't (at least, not right now) and getting into a shooting match with them over one life would be ill-advised, no matter how much she might want to publicly push Vanig's shit in.
I thiiink that’d essentially be what Ankh-morpork’s night watch would once have called “suicide”,
There are no stars.
Seems to be about Alyria again. Or we finally get back into the action in the Black Veil. Can't remember any situation that would fit there. The Red Hand couldn't be considered a cornered animal either.
There's never a good time to ignore an attack on your people, but not every incident like this leads to a full-scale clan war. The threat of something like it keeps syndicates from up and killing each other all the time, but there are lots of instances where they might or must let something slide - as long as it doesn't embolden rivals.
To quote Ian Malcolm: "[It] would be the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas."
Let me put it this way: Red will go Chariot-hunting as a matter of course, but even she doesn't want to go up against a Naiad monarch.
Lahkesis is probably headed back home, wearing a metaphorical hangdog expression.
Very true. Bad things happen. Things like [FRAGMENT DELETED], even...
It would be unlikely. Grace may have gained enough credit with them in Kelkon to no longer be a wet-nosed war-virgin, but there's a difference between earning the gratitude and respect of the crew and having them be willing to go behind the back of a superior officer, right under his nose. If Tavanis says 'wait', the crew would wait.
So basically galactic pest control.
It seems unlikely to me that the Principality would find the resources anytime soon, they are busy enough defending themselves against the Compact.
They consider "Naiads" spacer yarn that evolved into a convenient cover story for illicit ships and transmissions, but IIRC the inner circles are aware of (more of) the facts.
how would the Naiads even know War had been declared? Dead Tones implies No speech/talk/words/communication
people move away from hurricanes, tornadoes and fires too. doesn't means mean they have any sentience behind them, I was saying if there is no way of communication how would they know the INSECTS had declared War?
That's because the people involved are too poor to deal with them.
I don't remember how well that was, was it actually properly faked or just repeating something picked up somewhere without understanding beyond "signal A leads to reaction B"?
decoy calls, doesn't mean you understand what is being said
A bit of both. Many Naiads don't interact with any particular variety of deadtone enough to do much more than parrot back distress signals and such. Others, who have hunted them more, can speak deadtone better than some deadtone and are easily capable of imitating the mannerisms of individual insects in order to draw more prey in.
