Book 2 – Page 25

[Reclaimer]

Maybe Charlie was pissed that Sammy haggar started indulging in rough play without having payed the fees first. That's very bad for business.

I think it's this as much as wanting to get rid of Ansom once and for all. Charlie will have much more control over Jillian once he removes those pesky love interests. He's gotta know she'll blame him for it, though.

[gameboy1234]

I think Charlie is a tuna myself.

LOL! "Sorry, Charlie."

Say aren't they an endangered species now?

[Dr Pepper]

Sammy's eye view from behind the axe-- awesome!

[Dr Pepper]

And here we go, Charlie's putting his cards on the table. Or at least he's putting down cards and letting people assume they are his.

[gameboy1234]

Maybe Charlie was pissed that Sammy haggar started indulging in rough play without having payed the fees first. That's very bad for business.

I think it's this as much as wanting to get rid of Ansom once and for all. Charlie will have much more control over Jillian once he removes those pesky love interests. He's gotta know she'll blame him for it, though.

Naw. I'm sure that Charlie's sole motivation is to have the untrustworthy Hagar soak loss for both Faq and Jetstone. Ansom will survive the first wave easily--GK has a ton of units in that column still. It's the second and third waves Ansom has to worry about, probably both will happen at the same time (and I'm betting Jillian will be successful when she attempts snag Ansom, probably by smoshing him with her megawatsit.)

[Dr Pepper]

I don't think Sammy decided he'd be going first.

I feel this is Charlies own suggestion, in order to make sure Haggar doesn't make any rash moves afterthe battle(if he survives).

That and Sammy did harm some of Charlescomms assets.(morality and any potential caring for his units aside, Archons are valuable units, and no one likes to see resources wasted by someone whose nominally supposed to be being helped by said Archons(in Charlies grand scheming mind of course..)

It also means that Ansom will face a warlords (and his column of heavies) whose intentions towards him are unconflicted.

[Aquillion]

I think it's this as much as wanting to get rid of Ansom once and for all. Charlie will have much more control over Jillian once he removes those pesky love interests. He's gotta know she'll blame him for it, though.

Why do you think Charlie cares about Ansom?

He's never given any real indication that he particularly cares about Ansom or Jillian. His sole reason for being in this fight is the Decrypted Archons, recall. They know some secret of his that he doesn't want revealed.

[unumplurum]

I don't think that having Sammy croak or capture Ansom would be a very smart plan. Charlie must know Jillian better than that. She apparently loves Ansom enough to save him rather than stop GK (and Stanley!) from taking over the world with the Arkenpliers. If Charlie destroys Ansom so that Jillian will have no reason not to kill Wanda, she's obviously going to be angry at him! And Jillian has a history of doing what seems right rather than what is strategically optimal. She certainly won't be willing to ally with Charlie any more; there's really no saying what she might do.

If Charlie captures Ansom, he might have some leverage over her, but he would be sacrificing all the goodwill in their relationship, which is probably worth more in the long run (since, again, Jillian seems unwilling to ally with those she finds personally disagreeable). It would be an extremely heavy-handed way of getting his way - he'd be sacrificing most of Haggar's army (which is effectively his own army right now) in order to somewhat increase his influence over Jillian. Jillian has powerful fliers, but are they really worth it? Charlie has plenty of his own powerful fliers!

So even though it's less subtle, I think the plan might be just to punish Sammy and ensure that Jillian doesn't die attempting to turn Ansom. But, assuming he wants the Arkenpliers, Charlie will still have to deal with the fact that Jillian will try to stop him from killing Wanda.

[Reclaimer]

Why do you think Charlie cares about Ansom?

Ansom's the reason Wanda isn't dead right now. Also, consider what would happen if Ansom were to somehow be restored to his former status as alive. He would not be very happy at Charlie's actions at the Battle of GK, and he can hold a grudge just fine. It's not in Charlie's best interests to see him walking around again on the Royal side.

As for the decrypted Archons, they've had those for quite a while now. I'm sure he assumes that whatever they knew, GK now knows. And they knew a bit, but not enough to compromise his entire operation. If he cared so much about silencing them, he would be attacking Wanda's airforce, or GK itself, not Ansom's battlegroup.

[SteveMB]

I don't think that having Sammy croak or capture Ansom would be a very smart plan. Charlie must know Jillian better than that. She apparently loves Ansom enough to save him rather than stop GK (and Stanley!) from taking over the world with the Arkenpliers. If Charlie destroys Ansom so that Jillian will have no reason not to kill Wanda, she's obviously going to be angry at him!

He may not have anticipated that Prince Sammy would reveal his involvement (if he did, he really ought to have made non-disclosure part of his price for not sacking their capital).

If Charlie captures Ansom, he might have some leverage over her, but he would be sacrificing all the goodwill in their relationship, which is probably worth more in the long run (since, again, Jillian seems unwilling to ally with those she finds personally disagreeable). It would be an extremely heavy-handed way of getting his way - he'd be sacrificing most of Haggar's army (which is effectively his own army right now) in order to somewhat increase his influence over Jillian.

The operative words are "right now". Haggar might wriggle out from under Charlie's thumb, and go looking for revenge, later -- best to weaken them as much as possible before then.

[Glenn]

Given that Ansom's current nature as a Decrypted is a result of a direct application of an Arkentool, I suspect that the only way to turn a captured Ansom is for Charlie to Link with Vanna and possibly the Healamancer. If it works, then Jetstone will have a strong motive to A) not to Croak Wanda, and B) work with Charlie, until such time as they've captured and turned Ossomer.

It's obvious to Jetstone that there is some sort of agreement between Jillian and Charlie, but they aren't going to understand it unless and until they learn all of Jillian's and Wanda's back story. So I think they will probably suspect that Charlie is protecting the "the Croakamancer" from Jillian, rather than the other way around. After all, Charlie and Wanda are both Arkentool users, so they seem on the surface to have more in common than Jillian and Wanda.

[gazes_also]

He's never given any real indication that he particularly cares about Ansom or Jillian. His sole reason for being in this fight is the Decrypted Archons, recall. They know some secret of his that he doesn't want revealed.

Recall nothing, there is absolutely nothing to support that contention even though it seems that repeating it often enough on these boards somehow gives it credibility.
In Parson's discussion with the Archons it said that speculating about the powers of the Archendish was a favourite activity of Archons. They don't know anything beyond what they Need To Know operationally. They've never seen him and seldom seen his personal staff. As far as the Archons were concerned Charlie's primary motivation was to earn smuckers for the upkeep of his Archons - a very Archon-centric view and therefore likely pretty limited.
The Decrypted Archons treat GK as Full-service clients - not as if they were Charlie. If push comes to shove, I suspect Charlie could still assert control over them

[Snowtitan]

Interesting...
Charlie's obviously setting something up, I don't think it's quite as simple as killing Sammy off, Charlie's plans are quite Machiavellian
For those who seem to think he's motivated by anger , at the poor tortured Archons - they were sacrificed, they were obviously left there to be discovered in order to get Sammy's attention. Charlie may know all his Archons by name, but he is a canny enough commander to know when to take losses
Charlie's Blackout was probably something to do with the multi-caster spell.. Using His time to cancel GK's?


PS do they have peroxide in Erfworld, Sammy's hair doesn't match his beard!

[SteveMB]

It's obvious to Jetstone that there is some sort of agreement between Jillian and Charlie

There seems to be a bit of a loophole in Charlie's NDAs that allows the party of the second part to still reveal enough to make the existence of an agreement (and from there infer at least part of what the agreement is, based on that party's actions). It's rather like the old joke:

"Did you spend Thursday evening at the apartment of one Bambi E. Z. Roundheels?"
"No."
"Did you spend Friday evening at Ms Roundheels' apartment?"
"No."
"And Saturday night? Did you spend Saturday night there?"
"I decline to answer on the advice of counsel."

Sammy also revealed much more than Charlie wanted (unless there's a deeper level of his agenda yet to be seen) -- directly mentioning Charlie's involvement, and making it obvious that Charlie was coercing Haggar. That may serve to reinforce the Royal side's distrust: though it's convenient now to send somebody else into the meatgrinder, the fact that Charlie did that to one Royal side raises the question of who's next.

[Reclaimer]

The Decrypted Archons treat GK as Full-service clients - not as if they were Charlie. If push comes to shove, I suspect Charlie could still assert control over them

Correction: The decrypted Archons treat Parson and all other GK warlords as full-service clients*. The conversation in which this was revealed was purely in reference to the fact that they'd never served beneath a warlord (AKA middle management); nothing is stated on how they feel towards Wanda (A caster, and their own personal Jesus) or Stanley. They certainly don't seem to long for Wanda's touch or anything but I suspect she's replaced Charlie by and large, and the fact that they view most of GK's command structure as clients is somewhat ominous in regards to Wanda's rather ambiguous goals. Since they are prone to screwing over their own clients as much as possible.

*Edit: This also implies that anyone who has paid for Full Service could get all of the information from an Archon that Parson also received. Food for thought, to those who think Charlie's so concerned about an information leak that he'd throw so much into closing it up so late in the game.

[BLANDCorporatio]

*Edit: This also implies that anyone who has paid for Full Service could get all of the information from an Archon that Parson also received. Food for thought, to those who think Charlie's so concerned about an information leak that he'd throw so much into closing it up so late in the game.

Nice observation this. I guess "full service" coves just about everything except breaking Charlie's rule no. 1. You do not talk about Charlie.

Interesting...
Charlie's obviously setting something up, I don't think it's quite as simple as killing Sammy off, Charlie's plans are quite Machiavellian
For those who seem to think he's motivated by anger , at the poor tortured Archons - they were sacrificed, they were obviously left there to be discovered in order to get Sammy's attention. Charlie may know all his Archons by name, but he is a canny enough commander to know when to take losses
Charlie's Blackout was probably something to do with the multi-caster spell.. Using His time to cancel GK's?


PS do they have peroxide in Erfworld, Sammy's hair doesn't match his beard!

They have REDOX reactions, for sure.

As for the vengeance for the Archon torture thing*, that's just us trying to humanize a thoroughly monstrous character. Nothing to see here, move along.

*: you send your soldiers, on the expectation that some may get killed. Fair enough, you don't begrudge the enemy their right of defense. Torture though, well, you'd start thinking retribution.

[Reclaimer]

As for the vengeance for the Archon torture thing*, that's just us trying to humanize a thoroughly monstrous character. Nothing to see here, move along.

*: you send your soldiers, on the expectation that some may get killed. Fair enough, you don't begrudge the enemy their right of defense. Torture though, well, you'd start thinking retribution.

Agreed. They were there to keep tabs on Sammy because he was intending on using them all along. He left them there to get croaked/captured so that he'd have justification to force Spacerock's column to dance for him if the action came under any sort of scrutiny. Or he entirely didn't care what happened to the girls as long as he got to have a little chat (Which is why he sent six instead of one; more likely there'd be at least one survivor). None of this could've possibly been a surprise to Charlie, so the only other explanation is that it was always part of the game plan.

[badninja]

That was an interesting now how is Parson going to deal with this and will he now know that Charlie is up to something? A good update over all and if this is the end of chapter 1 of book two it is ending on a high note. I enjoyed how this sets up a major point that Charlie is going to do everything in his power and wallet to get back at GK or Parson for that little volcano indecent. Now on to the next part of the story.

[Altima]

Personally, I think Charlie is exhausted from linking with Vanna (and presumably a third caster) to make the turn-ender spell. If he is, it might make him somewhat sloppy.

This adds an interesting opportunity. Even if Haggar-side actually survives, they'll be severely depleted. With Charlie's threat--assuming Sammy was able to report it--their forces will almost undoubtedly return to their capital. So Charlie just basically offed an ally for the RCC2.

If Sammy were a particular vicious little jerk, he could call Charlie's bluff. After all, if Charlie were to attack Haggar, the RCC2--the very people Charlie is attempting to re-ingratiate himself with--would have to consider him a threat as well. And probably Faq, too, since they're allied. It would then cause all sorts of problems for Transylvito, as well.

Tactically speaking, this is going to be a slaughter. That bridge served as a defensive chokepoint for a reason. Basically, they're going to be walking into GK one stack as a time, and will most likely get eaten up by Ansom's massive bonuses. Archers can't even soften GK up because they can't fire across the hex borders. Even with Jillian getting in on the action, both sides may suffer so many losses that it may create a strategic lull, enough for Parson to rebuild GK's forces, and perhaps take the field.

Anyway, I kinda like Sammy. He and Haggar aren't planning anything out of character. After all, look at who their neighbors are--Jetstone. Can you imagine all the boop they've had to put up with over the many turns? Charlie will almost have to beat Haggar into near-oblivion just to keep them from allying with GK when they come around again.

Also, we haven't seen Tramennis's reaction to what Sammy has said. Sure, Tramennis seems satisfied by the fact that Sammy has been leashed, but with the fact that they have to go in first and absorb what will have to be massive casualties...well, Tramennis doesn't seem particularly vindictive.

[Reclaimer]

Charlie will almost have to beat Haggar into near-oblivion just to keep them from allying with GK when they come around again.

Interesting thought, since Paul Stanley (of KISS) did have some involvement with Van Halen (which later included Sammy Hagar), almost getting them signed to the same label (Gene Simmons axed the deal because his manager didn't like their sound).