Annotated 30-19
Yeah, there’s no actual Sun Tzu in Arkerra, but this is a pretty good example of how he’d say knowledge informs strategy: your knowledge of the enemy (“those ships look more expensive than they’re willing to waste”) and your ability to limit their knowledge of you (“They don’t know…”).
As mentioned in earlier comments, we could’ve made Goblaurence a more typical engineer, the sort who understands machines better than people. But making Goblaurence the sort who understands people too, and finds them all the more frustrating for it, makes him able to devise the Sun-Tzu part of this strategy without one of the others’ direct guidance.
Not sure whether Rana gets it, but he’s a living artillery shell. You point him at a target, he moves in a straight line toward it.
Getting echoes of “Trigger” from Robin Hood from that vulture-esque avian…
Ha! Yes! Was about to say the same. Including the face in shadows. I’d guess that the Avians are from all sorts of different stock.
Shouldn’t they be strapped to their bellies? How are they going to pull the thing on their back while flying?
Especially given that their “fingers” are on their wings.
It’s tricky. They have to pull the cord in between wing beats, while they’re essentially gliding. It’s a jury-rig at best, but it’s all Goblaurence could do on the spur of the moment.
Goblaurence’s constant caustic bile reminded me of an anecdote about Conan the Barbarian I read once. It was about this Conan fan that wrote to Robert E. Howard to ask him why so many characters Conan met when he traveled to big cities were often loudly supercilious and contemptuous of others, whereas Conan was often stoic and reserved, even somewhat polite. Mr. Howard answered something to the effect that Cimmerian barbarians were mindful of their own tongues because in a Cimmerian village disrespectful jackasses were promptly dealt with via repeated blunt trauma to the head.
I wonder if the tribes from the World’s Rebellion are just more laid back than that, or does Goblaurence get some sort of free pass because he’s a Champion?
I got the impression that all goblins were kindof like that, but also that Goblaurence was related to someone important (maybe Don Gobligno?) which afforded him some measure of insulation.
(to clarify: by “like that” I meant supercilious and contemptuous)
If I recall when we were introduced to Goblaurence, Don referred to him as his “cousin”. Now whether that is actual relation or merely metaphorically I’m less certain
This reminds me of the analogy about certain Japanese battleships in WWII. Was that an inspiration?
Not that I’m aware of, but maybe indirectly.