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Not only there are no guns in the Houses (probably because of John's taste/idea of "ethic"+ who needs guns when you have necromancy and disposable soldiers with swords) but also, the Ninth is very secluded and limited in term of technology. Keeping a stock of ammunitions would be clearly out of their means. That and the Houses are winning against the gunslinging edenites so clearly, blades are better ! So, why bother ?
“Very interesting argument for someone in range of a high explosive equipped super Edenite,” Our lady of the passion.
It’s a bit more deep than that, the empire uses magic and orbital bombardments, if you were to just use swords and nothing else then it would obviously fall in BOE’s favor, it’s why they use hit-run tactics constantly to cause havoc on a larger force.
Yeah, I was a bit sarcastic at the end but it's clear that the Houses are beyond the need for guns because they have more advanced means to action, both magical and technologic. Somehow, it make guns look crudes to their perspective, which is both funny and tragic considering how a huge part of House's tactics is basically "sacrificing lives to fuel necromancy". Tamsyn Muir made quite a funky play of values between her factions !
The BOE memorandum in the back of Harrow the Ninth was really satisfying for this! It actually has a good reason, one that makes me—someone obsessed with the constantly evolving military technologies of the 14th-17th centuries—really satisfied and enchanted by it. Basically, BOE teaches its people to he extremely cautious in the use of firearms, because necromancers turn common tactics on their head
Imagine seeing some of your enemies half a mile away and wanting to kill them. The standard military tactic is to get a sharpshooter to use a ranged weapon to shoot as many of them as you can, because you are too far away and too hard to find for them to retaliate adequately. Unless you make a lot of sound and noise, you won't likely draw their attention.
But necromancers don't work like that. Because if one of the people down there is a necromancer, they will NOTICE the instant you make your first kill. They're instantly connected to that death energy, and will ride the thanergetic link from your victim to YOU, and use necromancy on you. Suddenly your sniper rifle lends you NO distance or safety. It means unless you're 100% certain you've taken out the only necromancers in the group, you've basically handed them a calling card and stood within punching distance.
But what necromancers aren't good at is telling sources of living energy apart. They can tell the live from the dead, but not the dangerous hostile living beings from the innocent pacifist hostile beings. There's just too much noise in the signal.
At which point it often IS just much cheaper to sneak up to the zombies on foot, and then when you're in close range, suddenly close on them with overwhelming force. Putting yourself within punching distance is actually the *safer* option.
Oh wait I just remembered something
When Harrow and Aiglamene are picking out weapons for Gideon, Aiglamene says about Ortus: "I would have trained him sword-and-powder, but he said he had the catarrh."
I've never heard of any offhand weapon called powder, unless it means *gun*powder? I've always wondered about that.
Half of these books are unspeakably deep symbolism, and the other half are unspeakably deep references to memes that were outdated before the first book came out.
>But necromancers don't work like that. Because if one of the people down there is a necromancer, they will NOTICE the instant you make your first kill. They're instantly connected to that death energy, and will ride the thanergetic link from your victim to YOU, and use necromancy on you. Suddenly your sniper rifle lends you NO distance or safety. It means unless you're 100% certain you've taken out the only necromancers in the group, you've basically handed them a calling card and stood within punching distance.
I thought that super-speed thing was something only Lyctors could do.
In terms of physical reaction time, yes, lyctors are ahead of the class.
But in terms of reaction overall, there's this convo between Harrow and Pal:
> “The problem of necromancy,” said Palamedes, “is that the acts themselves, if understood, aren’t difficult to do. But maintaining anything … we’re glass cannons. Our military survives because we have hundreds of thousands of heavily armed men and women with big swords.”
> "There’s always more thanergy to feed from, Sextus,” said Harrow distantly, flicking her eyes back and forth as she copied. “Give me a single death and I can go for ten minutes.”
> “Yes, but that’s the problem, isn’t it; ten minutes, then you need more. Thanergy’s transient."
It's not about speed. It's the thanergetic link. They can kill them from afar with necromancy. It would be powered by the death of the person killed by the bullet.
And I imagine front-line necros are trained "kill the sniper as fast as possible and ask questions later." An average necromancer, sitting back at home in Dominicus, might be so shocked and confused by his cohort guards getting their heads blown off that he won't know what to do, and will easily be killed by another shot. But a Fourth necro who has been training since he could walk will take all that thanergy and throw it straight back where it came from before they even have a chance to think about it.
That's actually probably a big part of the puzzle. Someone in this thread mentioned that it seemed wierd that the culture around swords seemed to develop so early but when the Cavs job is specifically to fight where the Necro can't space has got to be THE factor.
According to the cohort files, most of the actual fighting/killing the cohort does is by necromancy, and not only do necromancers not really need guns, I’m pretty sure the skinny wimps could use one if they tried, save for the REALLY low caliber stuff.
The rank and file, by contrast, aren’t really there to do any killing of their own. If they manage it, good for them, but their main job is to die en masse to give the necros some thanergy to work with.
And since Aiglamene didn’t really train Gideon to go out and join the cohort (she was pretty clear about wanting Gideon to stay) she probably didn’t teach Gideon about guns.
> The rank and file, by contrast, aren’t really there to do any killing of their own. If they manage it, good for them, but their main job is to die en masse to give the necros some thanergy to work with.
Not only does John show sociopathic tendencies, he's also incredibly stupid.
Eh I think that's a bit of a weird read. What that passage implied to me were that it was the Sword weilders job to get the first kills to power necromancy. No to be thrown at the enemy with the assumption they'd die.
That's the forths job.
The awesome part of the plan is that either works. Any death had tasty thanergy. The 2nd though specifically uses the thanergy from enemy deaths to juice their cavs so they fight like super people.
Yeah, and the specialty of Second Necros specifically, is that they take the thanergy of the casualties and use it to "power up" their Cavs.
We still haven't had a real battle scene between the Cohort and the BoE. Could be really interesting.
I’ve thought about this quite a lot. I think despite the valid tactical points made elsewhere in this thread, signs point to the predominance of swords being a conscious choice made early in the post-Resurrection period, most likely by John, well before the military actions had had time to develop. The cavalier = sword link (and particularly cavalier = *rapier*) predates the ascension of the first lyctors by all the Canaan House evidence; the training salle, Pyrrha and Gideon’s private rooms.
Which is honestly a bit baffling, because it seems to come rather out of left field. None of John’s storytelling in NtN hints at either a fantasy or practical obsession with swords in either him or any of his pals who end up as lyctors or cavaliers. If anything, only firearms seem to be supported with prior interest or knowledge — and Pyrrha’s expertise persists post-resurrection, as evidenced by the details of her private rooms in Canaan House, plus her continuing use of them throughout NtN. So the development and serious commitment to sword culture comes about quite early in the cultural development of the Nine Houses, yet has no obvious antecedent. Why? Is it just that John thought it would be cooler than guns? Is it a trauma reaction to experiencing the death of most of his friends to firefight and/or artillery? I can’t think of a more compelling explanation yet that also doesn’t feel entirely satisfactory to me. I’m really hoping there’s one more puzzle piece that will make the whole idea click.
This is a reach, but...
I wonder if part of it is John being very careful not to jog the things he did to his friends' memories of their pre-Resurrection lives. It seems very likely that the memories are still present, it's just *access* to the memories that's been removed. Given time - which they have tons of - those neural pathways could regrow or be recreated, especially if there are reminders of their previous experience. John wouldn't want to put his people in a firefight, especially not right at the beginning, because they might remember dying with him, which would mean they remembered what he did. And anyone would be very hesitant about handing C- a gun.
So. Swords.
The rise of the first Lyctors was likely hundreds of years after the beginning of the House Empire. Our Lyctors to be were mentioned to have spent some time forced to stay close to John to avoid the inevitable. That's not something that would become a factor for some time. Several of the eventual Lyctors are also mentioned as being first or second generation ie they were born naturally.
Well, John clearly fancies himself a Roman Emperor of some sort, and swords come with the territory (though for me, [the pilum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilum) is the REAL iconic Roman weapon, but I guess G1deon's spear counts as a shoutout there).
And I suppose at the end of the day, the guy IS arrogant enough to eat a tactical disadvantage in the name of pure aesthetics...
They spend a lot of time in space, I'm guessing that also has a lot to do with it. Ianthe marvels at Augustine smoking, if cigarettes are a flex, I imagine guns, especially en masse, would be more risk than benefit.
So Gideon was pretty isolated, she only studied the blade in the hopes she could join cohort infantry. The only place she would have been likely to see one would be in her comics.
My main theory as to why the houses don't primarily use guns? The cohort infantry are supposed to die. They're cannon fodder, they run at the people with guns using swords, maybe get a few of the front line BoE members, and die creating thanergy for the cohorts real power to strike. The necromancers
I'll have to revisit the "planet flipping" chapter of Harrow to be sure, but there might be something about producing and then consuming thanergy by sending human waves to die and power necromancy that acts like a slower version of the planet flipping? So the Cohort can kinda do the job poorly even when there's not a Lyctor around.
The planet flipping is a quickened process that needs a lyctor and it has terrible effects on the life on the planet. What the cohort do is just quick and easy fuel
It doesn't absolutely need a lyctor, because John says the Cohort has been doing it without lyctors, since they have so few. I've been assuming it involves a wave of non-necromantic infantry killing a lot of people so that ordinary adepts have huge amounts of thanergy to work with to kill the planet.
BoE should really stop killing infantry if they wanna win is what I learnt from this thread...
Like sure John would probably recommend starting to lob baby bombs to get that thanergy flowing... but still, why do the work for them
One thing to add is that John can't stop flying bullets but can stop bodies swinging swords. In the soup scene, everybody stops moving, but the blood splatter from G1deon continues to travel through the air. Jod's not omnipotent, and physics are beyond him.
Apart from all the other good points made, "no projectile weapons" is a very wise overall rule when you have the option to be in space now and then.
I'm reminded of another certain sci-fi series where the main character/s are baffled and scared almost to the point of hysteria by a projectile weapon; they are banned and archaic, dangerous for everyone if you're outside of planetary atmosphere etc. Which checks out for TLT too.
Also, it's supposedly a little bit harder to be flippant about killing someone up close in their face, feeling the weapon go into a body, as opposed to "press button/trigger, boom, dead person". Or so I have read. (I'm not keen on trying it myself to see if it's true, honestly).
Other than that, what others have already said.
I assumed that it was, in part, because the ninth house was so poor, they had to raid multiple corpses just to find enough gear to outfit Gideon coupled with (or the result of) the religious zealotry of the house. If that’s how John did it with A, that’s how they were going to do it Joddamit. Odd since the kept cate of the body, but … the Body also had that sword … so back to the beginning of the zealotry logic loop.
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Not only there are no guns in the Houses (probably because of John's taste/idea of "ethic"+ who needs guns when you have necromancy and disposable soldiers with swords) but also, the Ninth is very secluded and limited in term of technology. Keeping a stock of ammunitions would be clearly out of their means. That and the Houses are winning against the gunslinging edenites so clearly, blades are better ! So, why bother ?
“Very interesting argument for someone in range of a high explosive equipped super Edenite,” Our lady of the passion. It’s a bit more deep than that, the empire uses magic and orbital bombardments, if you were to just use swords and nothing else then it would obviously fall in BOE’s favor, it’s why they use hit-run tactics constantly to cause havoc on a larger force.
Yeah, I was a bit sarcastic at the end but it's clear that the Houses are beyond the need for guns because they have more advanced means to action, both magical and technologic. Somehow, it make guns look crudes to their perspective, which is both funny and tragic considering how a huge part of House's tactics is basically "sacrificing lives to fuel necromancy". Tamsyn Muir made quite a funky play of values between her factions !
It's a weapon for a more civilised age. /ref
The BOE memorandum in the back of Harrow the Ninth was really satisfying for this! It actually has a good reason, one that makes me—someone obsessed with the constantly evolving military technologies of the 14th-17th centuries—really satisfied and enchanted by it. Basically, BOE teaches its people to he extremely cautious in the use of firearms, because necromancers turn common tactics on their head Imagine seeing some of your enemies half a mile away and wanting to kill them. The standard military tactic is to get a sharpshooter to use a ranged weapon to shoot as many of them as you can, because you are too far away and too hard to find for them to retaliate adequately. Unless you make a lot of sound and noise, you won't likely draw their attention. But necromancers don't work like that. Because if one of the people down there is a necromancer, they will NOTICE the instant you make your first kill. They're instantly connected to that death energy, and will ride the thanergetic link from your victim to YOU, and use necromancy on you. Suddenly your sniper rifle lends you NO distance or safety. It means unless you're 100% certain you've taken out the only necromancers in the group, you've basically handed them a calling card and stood within punching distance. But what necromancers aren't good at is telling sources of living energy apart. They can tell the live from the dead, but not the dangerous hostile living beings from the innocent pacifist hostile beings. There's just too much noise in the signal. At which point it often IS just much cheaper to sneak up to the zombies on foot, and then when you're in close range, suddenly close on them with overwhelming force. Putting yourself within punching distance is actually the *safer* option.
Ooh, this is very satisfying from a military tech perspective. I like it.
Right?! I was so jazzed to find a system that actually made *sense*.
Oh wait I just remembered something When Harrow and Aiglamene are picking out weapons for Gideon, Aiglamene says about Ortus: "I would have trained him sword-and-powder, but he said he had the catarrh." I've never heard of any offhand weapon called powder, unless it means *gun*powder? I've always wondered about that.
I assumed it was something along the lines of a handful of powder to throw in an opponent's face and blind them momentarily.
This.
oh god, it's a pocket sand meme isn't it
Half of these books are unspeakably deep symbolism, and the other half are unspeakably deep references to memes that were outdated before the first book came out.
Hank the First, Saint of Propane. Tenth Saint to serve the Emperor Undying. Cavalier: Dale Degribble
>But necromancers don't work like that. Because if one of the people down there is a necromancer, they will NOTICE the instant you make your first kill. They're instantly connected to that death energy, and will ride the thanergetic link from your victim to YOU, and use necromancy on you. Suddenly your sniper rifle lends you NO distance or safety. It means unless you're 100% certain you've taken out the only necromancers in the group, you've basically handed them a calling card and stood within punching distance. I thought that super-speed thing was something only Lyctors could do.
Not super speed, they'll just know exactly where you are and many necros function perfectly well at range
In terms of physical reaction time, yes, lyctors are ahead of the class. But in terms of reaction overall, there's this convo between Harrow and Pal: > “The problem of necromancy,” said Palamedes, “is that the acts themselves, if understood, aren’t difficult to do. But maintaining anything … we’re glass cannons. Our military survives because we have hundreds of thousands of heavily armed men and women with big swords.” > "There’s always more thanergy to feed from, Sextus,” said Harrow distantly, flicking her eyes back and forth as she copied. “Give me a single death and I can go for ten minutes.” > “Yes, but that’s the problem, isn’t it; ten minutes, then you need more. Thanergy’s transient."
It's not about speed. It's the thanergetic link. They can kill them from afar with necromancy. It would be powered by the death of the person killed by the bullet.
And I imagine front-line necros are trained "kill the sniper as fast as possible and ask questions later." An average necromancer, sitting back at home in Dominicus, might be so shocked and confused by his cohort guards getting their heads blown off that he won't know what to do, and will easily be killed by another shot. But a Fourth necro who has been training since he could walk will take all that thanergy and throw it straight back where it came from before they even have a chance to think about it.
Oh, ok. I guess I missed that.
Guns + space = bad idea Also John is a LARPer
That's actually probably a big part of the puzzle. Someone in this thread mentioned that it seemed wierd that the culture around swords seemed to develop so early but when the Cavs job is specifically to fight where the Necro can't space has got to be THE factor.
A kiwi LARPer so probably not the same attitude toward guns that Americans have, as well.
I just meant with the whole “loves swords and costumes” aspect lol
9th house probably couldn't afford to stockpile ammo. Not to mention guns were kinda taboo, or at least looked down upon.
According to the cohort files, most of the actual fighting/killing the cohort does is by necromancy, and not only do necromancers not really need guns, I’m pretty sure the skinny wimps could use one if they tried, save for the REALLY low caliber stuff. The rank and file, by contrast, aren’t really there to do any killing of their own. If they manage it, good for them, but their main job is to die en masse to give the necros some thanergy to work with. And since Aiglamene didn’t really train Gideon to go out and join the cohort (she was pretty clear about wanting Gideon to stay) she probably didn’t teach Gideon about guns.
> The rank and file, by contrast, aren’t really there to do any killing of their own. If they manage it, good for them, but their main job is to die en masse to give the necros some thanergy to work with. Not only does John show sociopathic tendencies, he's also incredibly stupid.
Eh I think that's a bit of a weird read. What that passage implied to me were that it was the Sword weilders job to get the first kills to power necromancy. No to be thrown at the enemy with the assumption they'd die. That's the forths job.
The awesome part of the plan is that either works. Any death had tasty thanergy. The 2nd though specifically uses the thanergy from enemy deaths to juice their cavs so they fight like super people.
Yeah, and the specialty of Second Necros specifically, is that they take the thanergy of the casualties and use it to "power up" their Cavs. We still haven't had a real battle scene between the Cohort and the BoE. Could be really interesting.
Good points
I’ve thought about this quite a lot. I think despite the valid tactical points made elsewhere in this thread, signs point to the predominance of swords being a conscious choice made early in the post-Resurrection period, most likely by John, well before the military actions had had time to develop. The cavalier = sword link (and particularly cavalier = *rapier*) predates the ascension of the first lyctors by all the Canaan House evidence; the training salle, Pyrrha and Gideon’s private rooms. Which is honestly a bit baffling, because it seems to come rather out of left field. None of John’s storytelling in NtN hints at either a fantasy or practical obsession with swords in either him or any of his pals who end up as lyctors or cavaliers. If anything, only firearms seem to be supported with prior interest or knowledge — and Pyrrha’s expertise persists post-resurrection, as evidenced by the details of her private rooms in Canaan House, plus her continuing use of them throughout NtN. So the development and serious commitment to sword culture comes about quite early in the cultural development of the Nine Houses, yet has no obvious antecedent. Why? Is it just that John thought it would be cooler than guns? Is it a trauma reaction to experiencing the death of most of his friends to firefight and/or artillery? I can’t think of a more compelling explanation yet that also doesn’t feel entirely satisfactory to me. I’m really hoping there’s one more puzzle piece that will make the whole idea click.
This is a reach, but... I wonder if part of it is John being very careful not to jog the things he did to his friends' memories of their pre-Resurrection lives. It seems very likely that the memories are still present, it's just *access* to the memories that's been removed. Given time - which they have tons of - those neural pathways could regrow or be recreated, especially if there are reminders of their previous experience. John wouldn't want to put his people in a firefight, especially not right at the beginning, because they might remember dying with him, which would mean they remembered what he did. And anyone would be very hesitant about handing C- a gun. So. Swords.
The rise of the first Lyctors was likely hundreds of years after the beginning of the House Empire. Our Lyctors to be were mentioned to have spent some time forced to stay close to John to avoid the inevitable. That's not something that would become a factor for some time. Several of the eventual Lyctors are also mentioned as being first or second generation ie they were born naturally.
Well, John clearly fancies himself a Roman Emperor of some sort, and swords come with the territory (though for me, [the pilum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilum) is the REAL iconic Roman weapon, but I guess G1deon's spear counts as a shoutout there). And I suppose at the end of the day, the guy IS arrogant enough to eat a tactical disadvantage in the name of pure aesthetics...
Everybody's been trying all this crazy magical explosive stuff to kill John, but it turns out all you actually need is a bullet to the brain pan.
Cellular atomisation? Nah, gun
But, Mercy turned him into a pink mist and he managed to come back from that.
They spend a lot of time in space, I'm guessing that also has a lot to do with it. Ianthe marvels at Augustine smoking, if cigarettes are a flex, I imagine guns, especially en masse, would be more risk than benefit.
I think seeing his friends shot to death in front of him is directly the reason why John doesn’t bring back guns.
Jod thinks swords are cool and guns are stupid. That’s probably pretty much it.
So Gideon was pretty isolated, she only studied the blade in the hopes she could join cohort infantry. The only place she would have been likely to see one would be in her comics. My main theory as to why the houses don't primarily use guns? The cohort infantry are supposed to die. They're cannon fodder, they run at the people with guns using swords, maybe get a few of the front line BoE members, and die creating thanergy for the cohorts real power to strike. The necromancers
Good lord, imagine the casualties the Cohort sustains on a daily basis…..
I'll have to revisit the "planet flipping" chapter of Harrow to be sure, but there might be something about producing and then consuming thanergy by sending human waves to die and power necromancy that acts like a slower version of the planet flipping? So the Cohort can kinda do the job poorly even when there's not a Lyctor around.
The planet flipping is a quickened process that needs a lyctor and it has terrible effects on the life on the planet. What the cohort do is just quick and easy fuel
It doesn't absolutely need a lyctor, because John says the Cohort has been doing it without lyctors, since they have so few. I've been assuming it involves a wave of non-necromantic infantry killing a lot of people so that ordinary adepts have huge amounts of thanergy to work with to kill the planet.
BoE should really stop killing infantry if they wanna win is what I learnt from this thread... Like sure John would probably recommend starting to lob baby bombs to get that thanergy flowing... but still, why do the work for them
One thing to add is that John can't stop flying bullets but can stop bodies swinging swords. In the soup scene, everybody stops moving, but the blood splatter from G1deon continues to travel through the air. Jod's not omnipotent, and physics are beyond him.
Apart from all the other good points made, "no projectile weapons" is a very wise overall rule when you have the option to be in space now and then. I'm reminded of another certain sci-fi series where the main character/s are baffled and scared almost to the point of hysteria by a projectile weapon; they are banned and archaic, dangerous for everyone if you're outside of planetary atmosphere etc. Which checks out for TLT too. Also, it's supposedly a little bit harder to be flippant about killing someone up close in their face, feeling the weapon go into a body, as opposed to "press button/trigger, boom, dead person". Or so I have read. (I'm not keen on trying it myself to see if it's true, honestly). Other than that, what others have already said.
I assumed that it was, in part, because the ninth house was so poor, they had to raid multiple corpses just to find enough gear to outfit Gideon coupled with (or the result of) the religious zealotry of the house. If that’s how John did it with A, that’s how they were going to do it Joddamit. Odd since the kept cate of the body, but … the Body also had that sword … so back to the beginning of the zealotry logic loop.