Caina Amalas vs. Nadia Moran – who would win?
A reader asks who would win in a fight – Caina Amalas from THE GHOSTS or Nadia Moran from CLOAK GAMES?
Probably Caina, for two reasons. First, Nadia knows that in an emergency she can always rely on a gun to get out of trouble. Caina doesn’t, as firearms have not been invented in the world of THE GHOSTS, so she’s better with knives and unarmed fighting.
Second, Nadia relies heavily upon her magic, which is exactly the wrong tactic to employ with someone like Caina. Nadia’s preferred strategy for dealing with Caina would be to Cloak herself, wait until Caina walked past, and then shoot her in the back of the head. As you might expect, this would ordinarily work quite well. That, however, would be exactly the wrong strategy for dealing with Caina. Caina would sense the Cloak spell and realize that someone invisible was in the room. Alternatively, if Nadia disguised herself with a Mask spell, Caina would sense it, and then would play along with Nadia’s ruse until the moment of maximum advantage arrived.
After the events of GHOST IN THE SEAL, Nadia would be at an even greater disadvantage. If Nadia Cloaked herself, since Caina would be able to see exactly where she is. All of the spells Nadia uses to hide herself would only serve to draw Caina’s attention, putting Nadia at a likely fatal disadvantage.
So, Caina would probably win any fight…at least at Nadia’s current level of skill and ability.
-JM
Also, Nadia’s job is serving a powerful magician with no qualms about massacring and enslaving people. Caina’s job is killing powerful magicians with no qualms about massacring and enslaving people.
(I’m liking the Cloak Games stuff a lot so far, incidentally.)
Oh yeah. If Caina and Nadia survived their initial encounter, Caina would quickly become an enemy of Morvilind.
Glad you liked the CLOAK GAMES books so far!
Who Wins in a war the empire of Nighmar or the high Queen
As the High Queen has control over what is a more or less modern Earth in addition to her Elven loyalists, and the Nighmaran Empire is essentially an iron age civilization with magic, even ignoring the fact that it is riven by a rebellion … there’s not much of a contest there – especially when one remembers that much magical knowledge has been lost to the Magisterium of the Empire. Optimistically, the Magisterium could at best neutralize the magic of the High Queen and her forces. She still would have millions of combat troops armed with modern weapons available. Even if modern weapons are off the table, my understanding is that military training in the Cloak Games universe isn’t just modern warfare, it has a heavy focus on pre-gunpowder-era warfighting as well. And in the highly improbable event that things lasted long enough, there would be the option to bootstrap up to producing the electronic bits that wouldn’t survive transport and plugging them into equipment otherwise built on Earth. Although that might well happen anyways – there’s no way the High Queen would stop with the Empire, she’d eventually go for the rest of that planet too.
It would depend if the High Queen attacked the Empire from the Elven homeworld or from Earth.
If she attacked from the Elven homeworld, she would probably lose. The Elves tended to fight in a very feudal way, while the Legions are much more systematic. Additionally, the Magisterium is very accustomed to backing up the Legions in battle in an organized way. The High Queen would probably have better luck against Istarinmul or Anshan or New Kyre, and then digging in for a long war against the Empire.
If she invaded from Earth, she would probably win, depending on how many nukes she managed to bring through the Shadowlands.
Dont teknologi die in the shadowlands
If a device is disconnected from is power supply, packed in a shielded container, and transported across the Shadowlands, it can be reassembled back on Earth of the Elven homeworld or wherever.
The challenge, of course, is getting across the Shadowlands without getting eaten in the first place. Not even Morvilind or the High Queen will go to the Shadowlands without an army save for an absolute emergency.