Quote Originally Posted by Killer Angel View Post
I still think that a good part of this "offer", is a bluff.
I do think it's a bluff that he has enough archons nearby to get to Stanley before he gets home. Parson's right; here's really no reason for Charlie not to simply let Stanley deplete his forces on Jillian then croak him, if he has the capability. Worried about Jillian being decrypted and revealing Book 0 secrets? That can't happen until Stanley meets up with Wanda, so Charlie can recover or destroy the body before it's a problem. Concerned about breaking contracts by using archons he's supposed to commit elsewhere? I doubt the value of those contracts is more than 200,000 schmuckers, and the reputation damage from breaking contracts to croak Stanley would be minimal. I'm really not seeing a downside to simply bringing overwhelming force to bear on Stanley, if that's an option. And really, the force required to destroy Stanley's already-weakened strike force isn't a substantial amount for Charlie to divert from other uses. A couple dozen archons could do it easily, if Charlie had them nearby.

That said, it's unclear how worried Parson should be about Charlie deciding to make destroying him a priority. We know Charlie has at least 600 archons, both in his capital and fulfilling various contracts elsewhere. If he were to pull them out of the field and attack Gobwin Knob with even half of that, they'd be hard-pressed to stop him. And really, the only reason for Charlie not to do that is the enormous upkeep of archons. If Charlie has 600 archons, with upkeep ranging from 200-500 schmuckers, the cumulative upkeep is at least $150,000, probably more like $200,000. Since Charlie has only one city, the vast majority of that upkeep must come from mercenary work, which is presumably what most of his archons are doing; earning upwards of $200,000 each turn in dozens of petty conflicts (making his offer to Parson here chump change). Which means that Charlie probably *can't* bring the bulk of his forces to bear; he can't afford to take them off mercenary duty for more than a handful of turns unless his treasury is in the tens of millions. Charlie certainly has some number of archons that aren't tied down by mercenary work, and some amount of reserve funds that he can use to pay upkeep if he needs to go into the red for a while, but we really don't know how many archons Charlie could commit if he wanted to. It's certainly possible that he could easily wipe Gobwin Knob or any other side off the map if he chose to do so, but it's also possible that he's actually in a fairly precarious position, only a few turns away from ruin if he loses his income stream.