I scarcely know how to begin.
Events swirl thick about our cause these days, but none bring themselves close for examination. There is no resolution, only an endless array of unforeseeable occurrences and baffling circumstances.
I do not know who blew up the ocean. The Heathen would have directed such an attack against your Host directly, and the Demon would no doubt have struck once again at the moon. The great waves and distant shaking seem a poor prize for what must have been a vast expenditure of resources and powers.
I do not know who killed Death. I found her dead outside my audience chambers. Calliope viewed her past, and informs me that her killers were a mob of strong Ultras, not Linked, not any of our warlords. I can only surmise that in her zeal she confronted the Union directly, and fell to the strongest among them.
And, finally, I do not know why the Demon does not stir. Our agents have confirmed that her torpor is not confined to your Great Pilgrimage, however. She goes forth to her own territories no longer, and remains, so far as the public is permitted to know, cloistered within her Lair.
I might choose to believe that she feels your tread upon the earth, that she knows her days draw to a close, and frets away the hours until your arrival. But I do not. We both know that ignorance is never victory’s herald.
I propose the following:
You have written to me of the difficulties that you face maintaining control of the Brides in the face of the tedium and endlessness of the march. I believe, in the face of the Demon’s inactivity, that you should allow them a little exercise.
Choose the most rambunctious and rebellious of that lot. Let her win your favor by leading a strike team of her sisters against the Union. Send the malcontents forward.
Not too many. Not enough to meaningfully weaken the Army of Sunset. Just a hundred, or two hundred. Enough to destroy the Union, if the Demon does not act.
Send alongside them one or two with the power to alert you to their fate. If they conquer, well and good. If they fall, then the strength we take from learning how will make up for their absence on the field of battle.
You know my only thought is of the billions in our keeping. The waves are far from the worst that could be turned against them. Only you have the might to save mankind. Only your gift can keep schism at bay.
Crush our enemies and come back to me.
I’m assuming in what follows that SOV was the one who struck the Ocean.
Prediction: cracking the surface of the moon had a very clear and practical objective. Firing orbital strikes on the Pacific Ocean is an attempt at “cracking the Earth” for the same purposes.
Alternatively, cracking the Moon was an attempt to kill the Inviter, instigated by Karen/Remover (I doubt Prevailer knows what the Inviter really is). That attempt has probably failed, because if I were the Inviter I’d gibe myself the most powerful gifts. In that case, I don’t know what the goal of bombing the ocean was…
If we want to be very charitable toward the AIs on board, they might have been trying to dispose of all the ammunition before Psyche decided to use it on more juicy targets.
If we want to be very scared of the AIs on board, we can think that the “great waves and distant shaking” will set in motion a series of events that will defeat the Pantheon and save the Union (or reach whatever terminal value the AIs happen to have).
I’m pretty sure that the one who “blew up the ocean” and caused the “great waves and distant shaking” did so at the end of Strongboat 1:6 at https://thefifthdefiance.com/2017/10/05/strongboat-16/
Well, maybe… But it was just a nuclear weapon. A small one, sonce Consumer couldn’t conceive of bigger ones. I see no reason for the ground to shake because of such bomb. The Pantheon is perfectly aware of nuclear weapons (they’ve tried to smuggle one into the Union!). Maybe they can manufacture one themselves, or have kept some in store when they’ve conquered Asia. So for them to call it “a great expense of powers and resources” I kinda thought it would have been something much bigger than a simple nuclear bomb.
“w, cloistered within her Layer.” > Lair.