Hi Don,
I think the map is often more representational than exact when it comes to things like many city locations.
Thesmar before LaMA seemed to cover both sides of the river, and given the size of Zion and the conflicting textev, I suspect is both near and far from the temple as pointed out.
From the map the Zion river is at least 10 miles wide and generally closer to 20.
Part of it may be simply to give RFC more leeway in future stories, or to surprise his desperate fans.
Regarding using only 15,000 Corisandans to attack then police Zion, who as yet are poorly trained on modern weapons, ie no current ICA ones, let alone tactics, I think it would be a disaster for several obvious reasons.
Besides I expect some Corisandans including Windshare to kick a few Chisholmian noble butts before they ever get to Haven.
I'm betting on BGV being the first army to get to Zion, being the closest and best positioned to get to Zion and the temple, NTM the best equipped to stay the winter as well, since leaving before the freeze severely undercuts the alliance negotiating position.
L
n7axw wrote:I don't see that we are really contradicting each other. There is no problem visualizing Zion itself on the other side of the river from the temple with the total metro area of Zion on both sides of the river. I would suspect that both city and temple are fairly close to the banks of the river. Heck, if the poor huddle around the heat vents which we do have text ev for, there is no issue with them walking across the river on the ice to get there. I'm not convinced that the river is really 5 miles wide, at least not most of the time.
Zion is the biggest city on Safehold. I would visualize it as being roughly a million plus, although I might be wrong on that.
The point that Philip was making, and I think he is right, is that a very substantial portion of the greater Zion area is on the far side of the river from the temple and wouldn't be part of the problem of isolating the temple. That would mean that far fewer people would have to be evacuated, easing the task of sealing the temple off from the population of the area.
As for supplying the city, use the same procedures that are already in place, perhaps improving on them a bit by transporting foodstuffs in from the sea in addition to what is already being done.
So, how big of a force would be needed? I am going to go out on a limb here and say it probably wouldn't need to be very big at all... perhaps a force of 15,000 of Gahrvai's Corisandians who after the attempted murder of Irys and Daivyn by the "rakurai" would be very strongly motivated to say nothing of the fact that they now know who murdered their prince.
So why so few? Well, as far as we know, there are no walls around Zion since prior to this it had been unthinkable that anyone would attack the place to start with. Add in to this, Clyntahn banned the guard from the area so that his inquisitors would be the only people representing a force, not to take into account whatever they do for city police. In short, not really a force to be reckoned with.
If the mission is limited to isolating the temple rather than attempting to control Zion, then the 15,000 are probably enough. Show up with the landing as early in the spring as practical before there has been any substantial resupply of food. Then isolate the temple, and wait them out. How long would they last? A month to six weeks? Two months? Who knows? Maybe Duchairn would appear at the front door waving a white flag holding Clyntahn's head tucked under the other arm. If anything could inspire the conspirators to action, one would think that this would do it!
Don
