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This scene actually happens in the book.
"Earth is dead. Humanity is hiding. Invention, Progress, Change... are all forbidden.
It's time to change all that."
Tagline from Off Armageddon Reef

When a spacefaring humanity discovered evidence that a hostile alien race known as the Gbaba was likely to try and annihilate them, they spent the next ten years preparing for the inevitable war.

It wasn't enough.

In the face of extinction, the human race played a last desperate gamble. They secreted a fleet away to terraform and colonize a new homeworld and prepare for Round Two. To remain hidden long enough to make sure the Gbaba wouldn't find them, those in charge of Operation Ark decided that on this new world, humanity would temporarily abandon its technology, so the Gbaba couldn't track them down by their emissions, and retrieve it later to confront the Gbaba again on their terms.

That's when the real trouble began.

Nine hundred years later, Terran Federation commander Nimue Alban wakes up in a robotic body called a PICA; inside a giant, strange cave, with no memory of how she got here. A recording left behind by her late mentor updates her with the bad news: Ark's chief administrative staff brainwashed the colonists into forgetting everything. Technological progress was banned under punishment of painful death, opposition was wiped out in a kinetic strike, and the planet of Safehold is now stuck in Medieval Stasis with the universal Church of God Awaiting suppressing most progress. The current Grand Inquisitor is a megalomaniac and control freak. The web of lies woven by Ark's chief administrator is bound to be unraveled sooner or later, and with no knowledge of the Gbaba humanity is sure to be annihilated again — this time, to the last man.

Desperate to reveal the truth and avenge the Terran Federation, Nimue allies with the small island kingdom of Charis, a nation too independent in the eyes of the Church. Under the identity of a mythical warrior, a seijin, called Merlin Athrawes, she starts to steer Safehold slowly but surely towards the improvements it needs to survive — improvements the Church strictly prohibits.

The Safehold series by David Weber consists of ten books to date:

  1. Off Armageddon Reef (2007)
  2. By Schism Rent Asunder (2008)
  3. By Heresies Distressed (2009)
  4. A Mighty Fortress (2010)
  5. How Firm a Foundation (2011)
  6. Midst Toil and Tribulation (2012)
  7. Like a Mighty Army (2014)
  8. Hell's Foundations Quiver (2015)
  9. At the Sign of Triumph (2016)
  10. Through Fiery Trials (2019)

Has a Wiki all its own. For similar series, see David Drake's Belisarius Series and S. M. Stirling's The General Series.


This series features examples of:

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    A to H 
  • Abdicate the Throne: In At the Sign of Triumph, Earl Thirsk forces King Rahnyld III to do this in favour of his son.
  • Absolute Xenophobe: The Gbaba instinctively try to kill any other sentient species they find. It's possible that they do everything instinctively, and have stopped being sentient themselves.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: All battlesteel weapons are this. Merlin has his katana, which is merely extremely sharp, and his wakizashi, which he only uses in special situations and is likely the sharpest weapon in the series.
  • Accidental Truth:
    • Clyntahn and the rest of the Group of Four claim that Charis' schism with the church is the result of a long-term plan by Shan-wei worshipers in Charis to subvert the authority of the Church of God Awaiting. Considering what the church sees as demonic and the tools Merlin brings to the table...
    • Merlin never claims to be a seijin, but does note that he has some of the abilities traditionally attributed to them. It turns out that, just like Merlin, the original seijins got most of their abilities from Federation technology.
  • After the End: Every other human world except Safehold is presumed destroyed.
  • Afraid to Hold the Baby: Shortly after Hektor and Irys' twins are born, there's a cute scene where Prince Daivyn is asked to hold one of the babies. He agrees, but is clearly terrified of doing something that might harm the child. To be fair, Daivyn is roughly 12 at the time and had zero experience with babies.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Prince Hektor's death is surprisingly moving, as he's abruptly shot down, along with and next to his partly estranged son, and realizes that he's always loved him.
  • Altar Diplomacy:
    • King Cayleb of Charis marries Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm in what was originally a cold-blooded political move to unite their kingdoms. When they finally meet, it is Love at First Sight.
    • Prince Nahrmahn of Emerald and his wife Princess Ohlyvya were betrothed at a young age, and eventually ended up falling in love, much to their mutual surprise and benefit, as the practically-minded Ohlyvya tempers some of Nahrmahn's... more volatile characteristics.
    • Done deliberately with Irys and Hektor. They clearly like each other, but both are unwilling to make a move due to the circumstances. Sharleyan decides to deal with it by making their arranged marriage a condition of the peace treaty between Charis and Corisande.
    • Through Fiery Trials:
      • The tenth book plays with the trope in that, while not actively sought, it just sort of happens anyway. Between her place on the dynastic food chain and the fact that the Empire of Charis is, by this point, well established, Crown Princess Alahnah has more freedom to choose her husband than most. She ultimately chooses Lywys Whytman, the Earl of Thirsk's grandson and, while they initially have to keep their relationship quiet, the potential for a strengthening of bonds with Dohlar is built in to that relationship.
      • This trope also gets mildy Inverted with Lywys and Alahnah. One of the main reasons they end up having to keep their relationship secret is precisely because of the inherent strengthening of bonds between Dohlar and Charis it brings — they're afraid that such strengthening will destabilize the already fragile political situation in Siddarmark.
      • Prince Daivyn has similar freedom due to Irys and Hektor's marriage. He ends up pursuing a Childhood Friend Romance with Grand Duke Zebediah's youngest daughter, and because he courts her with all due propriety, it goes a long way towards smoothing out hard feelings between her homeland and Corisande dating back to his father's reign. Nahrmahn's actually annoyed at this, because the possibility never occurred to him and it damn well should have.
  • Ambiguous Situation:
    • Some characters wonder whether Clyntahn is cynically playing a Knight Templar to gain power, or if he's really a fanatic Believing His Own Lies. At the Sign of Triumph confirms it's the latter.
    • The War Against the Fallen is a great pile of ambiguity, with only certain things being the fighting itself, its starting point, the victors and the fact that seijins were used. We don't even know who the factions fighting really were, what were their agendas and, alas, whether the victors were who they claimed to be. More answers seem to be forthcoming in Hell's Foundations Quiver.
    • The discrepancy between Book!Schueler and Key!Schueler goes unexplained so far. Given the ending of Through Fiery Trials, book 11 may begin to explain his deal.
  • Amnesia Missed a Spot: The original seijins were Adams and Eves who had useful skills before their memories were reprogrammed, and then had their memories of those skills returned so they could fight more effectively against Kau-yung's followers. However, this caused some of them to start recalling things they weren't supposed to remember as well. When Seijin Kohdy started remembering his life as Sergeant Major Cody Cortazar and asked the Archangels what was going on, they murdered him.
  • Ancient Tradition:
    • The Brotherhood of St. Zherneau was founded in Charis after reading knowledge about the true history of Safehold left to them by an Adam.note  From that point on, they became the safeguard of that history and knowledge and worked to ultimately bring that knowledge back to Safehold. Most of Charis' previous kings were part of the plan. Upon revealing themselves to Merlin and Cayleb, they become a check-and-balance for the Inner Circle, vetting new candidates to be inducted.
    • Hell's Foundations Quiver introduces the Sisterhood of Saint Kohdy, led by Aivah Pahrsahn. They've been active much longer than the Brotherhood, but the source of their knowledge is a journal left behind by one of the original seijins, who had only begun to suspect what had been done, so they lacked the full knowledge of Safehold's past that the Brotherhood possessed.
  • Anti-Mutiny: Shan-wei's goal before Langhorne killed her.
  • Anti-Villain:
    • Vicar Rhobair Duchairn starts becoming this early in By Schism Rent Asunder after he starts to rediscover his faith. Though still a member of the Group of Four and still committed to the war against Charis, in By Heresies Distressed he has grown enough to warn the Wylsynns that Clyntahn must have found out about their secret organization. At the end of A Mighty Fortress, he's a full Anti-Villain. The only reason he's not moving openly against the other members of the Group of Four now is that he knows he wouldn't accomplish anything but becoming one more victim of the Inquisition without building a new political power base. And he's using his position as the Church's treasurer to make sure the Church run hospitals, soup kitchens, orphanages, and schools are fully funded to take care of those affected by the war and trying to become a Good Shepherd in general.
    • Earl Thirsk is a Worthy Opponent motivated by genuine belief in God and the Archangels and loyalty to his kingdom, and is disgusted at many of his allies' tactics. There's also the fact that his family is being "protected" by the Inquisition.
    • Rainos Ahlverez is essentially Thirsk's equivalent on the army side. A Dohlaran commander who is endlessly frustrated at the incompetence of his Desnairian allies and is concerned above all else with the welfare of his men, determined that they not die pointlessly in battles they can't win.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Several characters lose limbs in battle, the most prominent being Admiral Sir Domynyk Staynair, Baron Rock Point, who loses his lower right leg at the Battle of Darcos Sound, leading to him often being referred to as the "one-legged admiral" in text.
  • Automaton Horses: Averted. If Merlin has to go on a long trip on horseback instead of recon skimmer, he gets frequent remounts. Some minor-character cavalry officers are specifically noted to have left most of their units without horses due to asking the horses to do too much on too little food and rest. On at least two occasions, Weber points out that even war-trained horses are not predators, are not going to act like predators, and are not going to charge headlong into an unbroken line of Charisian bayonets.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: At first glance, the King Haarald-class battleships. A single City-class ironclad could take on the entire Church fleet and win without difficulty, and a King Haarald costs as much as ten Citys. But the purpose of the King Haaralds isn't military — it's to be so awesome that anyone who wants to be taken seriously as a naval power has to build the equivalent, and it's impossible to do so without completely discarding the Proscriptions of Jwo-Jeng.
  • Babies Ever After: The size of the Ahrmahk family explodes in the Time Skip between books 9 and 10.
  • Balkanize Me: As a result of a peasant uprising in Through Fiery Trials, Harchong is effectively split into four countries. The southern half is all that remains of the original nation. Meanwhile, in the north, the west ends up under the control of a coalition of nobles who avoided rebellion by avoiding the atrocities to justify one, who also create a parliamentary body so that the underclass can have a voice in government, which will gradually increase in power. The east ends up being pacified by former Mighty Host veterans, who again set up a less autocratic government. Both of these declare autonomy from the original nation. The land between them ends up a war-torn wasteland in which various nobles try to conquer as much territory as they can for themselves in the name of reclaiming it for their monarch.
  • Batter Up!: Some of the Sword of Schueler rioters learn the hard way that you shouldn't harass the family of a former pro ball player while he's carrying his lucky bat.
  • Bayonet Ya: Rifles with bayonets eventually become the weapon of choice for the Imperial Charisian Army and they're so good with it, it's said that any Charisian force could take an enemy unit four times larger than them and win.
  • Believing Their Own Lies:
    • Pei Kau-yung feared this was happening to Langhorne and the other "Archangels", that they liked the idea of being gods so much they convinced themselves it was true.
    • Frequently remarked as one of the single most dangerous and creepy traits of Zhaspahr Clyntahn. It's noticed by others as early as By Heresies Distressed that Clyntahn can say things about the heretics that just as much apply to him with complete sincerity without acknowledging the hypocrisy.
  • Better to Die than Be Killed:
    • Some of Clyntahn's potential targets did this in A Mighty Fortress. Hauwerd Wylsynn forced this on his brother before committing Suicide by Cop.
    • Gwylym Manthyr kills one of his young midshipmen, rather than see the boy tortured in front of him and then executed in public. Also doubles as an extreme tearjerker.
    • The forlorn hope defending Cliffpeak against the Army of God rig their own defenses with explosives, killing themselves rather than letting themselves be taken and face the punishment of heretics. And taking hundreds of their assaulting enemies with them.
    • This is true for any enemy of Mother Church, especially after Clyntahn has over two thousand people tortured and killed in Zion for being part of the Reformist movement within the church or merely related to them. The only people spared were children under the age of four, with those between the ages of four and twelve being granted the "mercy" of being sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in cloistered monasteries and convents.
  • Big Damn Kiss: Cayleb plants one on Sharleyan at the end of By Schism Rent Asunder, just before his departure to invade Corisande and in front of everyone gathered to see them off. It's highly improper and breaks protocol in about seventy different ways. The crowd loves it.
  • Blessed with Suck: How Nimue/Merlin views her/his condition. He's superhuman and immortal, but lonely and faced with considerable self-doubt over how much he counts as a person and who he really is.
  • Bolt of Divine Retribution: Safeholdians view the Rakurai, an automatic kinetic bombardment last used to kill Shan-wei, as this. It hangs over the protagonists' heads because they fear if they go too far, too fast, they could inadvertently trigger it on Charis. When Merlin sets up a test to see how far they can push things without triggering it, he does so as far away from civilization as possible to avoid any chance of someone seeing it and interpreting it as God's Wrath against one side or another.
  • Bottomless Magazines: They're not actually bottomless, but when Merlin fires twelve shots from a pair of revolvers (killing fifteen people), those around him react as if they were. After all, everyone knows that you can only fire a pistol twice (once for each barrel) before you need to go through the laborious process of reloading.
  • Brain Uploading:
    • Nimue's personality and memories until just before Operation Ark are implanted in her PICA.
    • Merlin does the same to Prince Nahrmahn following him being fatally wounded.
    • In Like a Mighty Army, Merlin builds a new PICA and uploads a new "from scratch" copy of Nimue Alban, soon named Nimue Chwaeriau.
  • Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit":
    • Many local Safehold animals are named after mythical creatures from Earth, such as the kraken.
    • Or even just regular creatures and plants from Earth. Such as titan oaks, near-pines, and spider-rats. Makes one wonder why the Archangels didn't change the names to completely original or more innocuous names to avoid questions like "What is a near-pine supposed to be near to?"
  • Catchphrase:
    • For Merlin: "One tries."
    • For Cayleb/Sharleyan: "Here I/We stand. I/We can do no other."
  • Chekhov's Gun: Before his death in A Mighty Fortress, Hauwerd Wylsynn slipped Duchairn a note pretending to run into him. In At the Sign of Triumph, it's revealed this paper was a list of potential anti-Inquisition allies who could be called upon to rise up.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Grand Duke Zebediah. Cayleb and Nahrmahn enter into dealings with him knowing full well he'll attempt to betray them if it looks like a better opportunity. Their response is to keep an eye on him with SNARCs while he collects enough rope to hang himself with.
  • The Church: The Church of God Awaiting is, at first, the one church of Safehold. The Church of Charis splits off from it as the war changes from allegedly secular realpolitik to a holy war. After the war ends, the Church of Siddarmark forms from Siddarmarkians who reject both the Church of Charis' innovations and the authority of the Temple in Zion, and there are signs of a Church of Harchong forming, as the North Harchongian aristocracy and the local clergy reject Grand Vicar Rhobair's reforms.
  • Church Militant: The Temple Guard is supposed to fulfill this role within Zion, but as the books go on the Order of Schueler and the Inquisition co-opt much of the Guard's duties. Once the land war starts up, the Temple Guard is partially converted into the Army of God and its commanders are given the rank of Bishop Militant.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: "The Question" is the primary way the Inquisition gets evidence against the heretics they're planning to execute. It's also implied that some secular rulers engage in this as well.
  • Cold Touch Surprise: In A Mighty Fortress, Emperor Cayleb ministers to the morning sickness of Empress Sharleyan. Then he crawls back into their mutual bed and warms his cold feet against her.
    Cayleb: Well, they got frozen in your service. The least you can do is help me thaw them out again!
  • Colony Drop: What the Rakurai weapons platforms do, and how the Alexandria Enclave was destroyed.
  • Common Tongue: Everyone on Safehold speaks English, or at least a language that started out as English (with a few loan words derived from Japanese) before going through a thousand years of lingual drift. This makes the diary of the late Seijin Kohdy rather fascinating to those who have read it, as parts of it were written in Spanish.
  • Conflict Ball: One of the conflicts in By Schism Rent Asunder and By Heresies Distressed is the fact that Cayleb and Merlin can't tell Sharleyan anything about Merlin, because the Brotherhood is dragging its feet... ignoring the fact that they could easily have given her the "visions" story while leaving out the high-tech details. The inconsistency is highlighted by the fact that they bring Clareyk and Nahrmahn in on the "visions" on their own initiative in By Heresies Distressed. In those cases, Clareyk had already begun to suspect something was up so they needed to satisfy him, while Nahrman was told about the "visions" because they needed informed advice right then. Further, he was given the "vision" story immediately before the visit where Sharleyan was told everything. Still, not bringing in Sharleyan even on the "visions" is still a conflict ball, only justifiable by the fact Merlin wasn't even there for very long before they headed to Corisande, rendering visions specific to Merlin a moot point.
  • Conspiracy Theorist: The Inquisition comes to the conclusion that a gunpowder barge exploding (purely by accident) and destroying a critical canal lock had to have been done by heretic saboteurs through a mixture of paranoia and circular logic. They then use this as grounds to purge and/or relocate seventy percent of the population of the nearby town.
  • Cool Ship:
    • HMS Delthak, an improved copy of the CSS Virginia, otherwise known as the Merrimack. She and her sister ships deliver so many Oh, Crap! moments that the Army of God thinks they are demonic in origin.
    • The HMS Gwylym Manthyr is essentially a WWI Battleship in a world where the most powerful vessel of every other nation in the world is an 18th-century ship of the line. Its entire purpose is to be so incredibly and lethally cool that the every nation in the world that doesn't have one is forced to acknowledge that their navy exists at the sufferance of the nations that do, forcing everyone to expand their tech base to be able to make comparable ships if they want to survive.
  • Corrupt Church: The present day Church of God Awaiting. While it was always a Path of Inspiration, everyone below the Archangels could be assumed to be sincere about their worship of God and the Archangels. By the time Nimue awakens, however, such sincere clergy are a distinct minority, with bribes and power-grabs determining what the Church does more than any humanitarian concerns. The Church even has a secular identity, the Knights of the Temple Lands, to get around the fact that the Church aren't actually supposed to get too involved in other nations' affairs.
  • Covers Always Lie: The covers of Midst Toil and Tribulation and At the Sign of Triumph depict Charisian troops as heavily resembling German troops of WW1 in feldgrau uniforms and pickelhauben. The books however describe their uniforms more like modern splinter pattern camoflauge and plain steel helmets.
  • Crazy-Prepared:
    • Madame Ahnzhelyk plans ahead — with a vengeance. Many of the actions she takes in the story, such as her evacuation of potential targets of Clyntahn's from Zion, utilize plans and preparations set up long before Clyntahn himself was Grand Inquisitor.
    • The Archangels themselves. As noted by Doctor Mahklyn, they had to be able to give a divine explanation or justification to just about every single thing Safehold's descendants might possibly encounter to prevent the development of things like the scientific method or the very advances they wished to hold off.
    • Decades before the main plot, back when he was still Crown Prince, Hektor successfully planted a double-agent inside the Inquisition. Years later, this ends up crucial to securing the safety of his children Irys and Daivyn.
    • Hauwerd Wylsynn set up an entire secondary Helm Cleaver network inside the Temple Guard as a fallback plan in case the Circle fell. He then entrusted this network to Duchairn shortly before his death, which allowed the Treasurer to join forces with Nynian and topple the Inquisition.
  • Crisis of Faith: While the Inner Circle's endgame goal of exposing the fraudulent nature of Mother Church is important in the long run, Maikel Staynair has expressed his worry at the consequences for the souls of those who might, for what he acknowledges are valid reasons, decide God himself is a lie after learning that the Church itself is.
  • Cult Colony: Langhorne and Bédard's manufactured religion turned Safehold into one of these, not that they know it.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle:
    • The final battles of Off Armageddon Reef, during which Charis takes on the combined naval might of the entire rest of the world and wins handily.
    • Any swordfight involving Merlin, thanks to Merlin's superhuman capabilities.
    • Merlin... versus alien squid-sharks!
    • Pretty much the entire invasion of Corisande, which takes up most of By Heresies Distressed. Despite the fact that the Charisans are only just starting out in actual land warfare with their marines, the tech advantage and well-trained troops make up more than enough of the difference.
    • The introduction of steam-powered ironclad gunboats in Midst Toil and Tribulation versus, well, anything.
    • Nimue Chwaeriau completely destroys the sexist jerk Lieutenant Charlz Sheltyn in Like a Mighty Army after he picks a fight with her. Merlin finds the recording very entertaining.
  • Defiant to the End:
    • Surprisingly, Erayk Dynnys, combined with Doomed Moral Victor and a Facing the Bullets Final Speech as he's about to be executed as a scapegoat for the events of Off Armageddon Reef. He was offered a painless death if he said the right thing, but instead guaranteed a horrific and painful death by speaking the truth.
    • Hauwerd Wylsynn's Crowning Moment of Awesome, effectively a Suicide by Cop as he fights the Temple Guard while denouncing Clyntahn all the while.
    • Gwylym Manthyr gets to spit in Clyntahn's face before being put to the Punishment of Schueler. Also a Dying Moment of Awesome. Merlin even has prints of the moment distributed as part of his propaganda campaign.
    • In the finale of At the Sign of Triumph, Clyntahn tries to be this, but when Merlin and Nimue visit him in his prison cell and show him archive footage of the "archangels", he breaks down completely.
  • Distaff Counterpart:
    • The Sisterhood of Saint Evahlyn and Sisters of Saint Kohdy to the Brotherhood of Saint Zherneau. Both Ancient Traditions which strive to maintain what they know about the truth of Safehold's origins.
    • Nimue Chwaeriau to Merlin Athrawes, the former being a second PICA created and given Nimue's pre-Safehold Brain Uploading but remaining female.
    • Aivah Pahrsahn/Nynian Rychtair to Nahrmahn Baytz. Both supreme chessmasters who work to upend the Church of God Awaiting using the less savory tools of assassination and political plotting.
  • Divided We Fall: In the Army of Justice, the Dohlaran and Desnairan high command are at each other's throats almost as often as they are on Charis', and it comes to bite them when they start losing and only one side can admit this.
  • Doorstopper: They're thick, alright. The shortest book in the series is just short of 500 pages.
  • Double Agent: Rhobair Seablanket. Book 4 reveals that he's an agent of the Inquisition. Book 5 reveals that he was planted in the Inquisition by Prince Hektor, having a very valid personal grudge against the Church.
  • The Dreaded: The Inquisition learns to fear Merlin's alter ego Dialydd Mab very quickly. He's got this habit of hunting down Inquisitors he thinks have gone too far, you see...
  • Drums of War: The Siddarmark army is specifically noted as using drum beats, instead of bugle calls, to pass commands in battle.
  • Dumb, but Diligent: At the end of the fifth book, an Inquisitor is accused by the Charisians of killing an officer on his own side in an attempt to enrage his men into killing the people they're pursuing rather than take them alive. One of the officer's men describes his late commander as "dim but always trying his best" and sides with the Charisians, leading to the Inquisitor's execution.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome:
    • King Haarahld's defense of Midshipman Hektor Aplyn. Young Hektor was prepared to take the bullet for Haarahld, only for Haarahld to do it for him instead, insisting it's a king's duty to protect his people.
    • Soldier-turned-devout-priest Hauwerd Wylsynn doesn't want to give the Inquisition a chance to haul information out of him or his brother through torture, so he instead chooses to die after killing his brother. He takes at least four armed and armored soldiers with him.
      "Oh, fuck you, Kahrnaikys! You always were a prick! And fuck Clyntahn, too!"
    • In How Firm a Foundation: Gwylym Manthyr is the last to be tortured to death on a rack, and has had his tongue cut out so he can't speak in his own defense. So when Grand Inquisitor Zhaspahr Clyntahn performs his "cow the heretic" act before the crowd, knowing Manthyr can't speak, Manthyr finds a way. And as he dies, he gets to savor the look on the Grand Inquisitor's face.
    • Also doubling as a Heroic Sacrifice, Nahrmahn, upon realizing he and his wife have just pulled up next to a suicide bomber driving a gunpowder-filled wagon, throws her out the other side and shields her from the ensuing explosion with his own body. Especially badass because he was in the middle of a very serious (read: distracting) conversation about an identical suicide bombing that had happened mere hours before all the way over in Tellesburg, but was still aware enough of his surroundings to notice it. And unlike some others among the royalty, Nahrmahn never served in the military, so he had no battlefield instincts to warn him.
  • Dynamic Entry: Merlin's rescue of Earl Grey Harbour in book 1, via smashing through the skylight of Duke Tirian's townhouse and taking off the arm of the Earl's bodyguard, who secretly worked for the treasonous Duke. In the middle of a thunderstorm, for extra drama points.
  • Dystopian Edict: The Proscriptions of Jwo-jeng, which forbids technological advancement of too high a level and which the protagonists have to dance around to avoid upsetting their own population with the innovations they're introducing.
  • Easy Logistics: Oh so averted. A sizable number of Duchairn's scenes center around his effort to figure out how he's supposed to fund and supply the Church's forces. The initial campaign to conquer Siddarmark is thwarted when the Charisian Navy blows several key canal locks, making it impossible for the Church to ship supplies to the front lines, which bought the defenders a desperately needed year to reinforce and resupply. Charis has its own logistical problems on occasion, mainly centered around being able to make enough guns and ammunition to equip its forces.
  • The Eeyore: Rhobair Seablanket, Earl Coris' valet. Though that could just be the face he presents to keep Coris from suspecting that Seablanket is really one of the Inquisition's agents. Except he's not.
  • The Empire:
    • Inverted when the protagonist countries of Charis and Chisholm form an empire in By Schism Rent Asunder.
    • Played straight by Harchong, which has a terrible reputation for how it treats serfs (which are, more often than not, slaves in all but name). Corruption is so rampant that grafts are factored into the budget as a matter of course.
    • Mother Church could also be considered The Empire. Or at least the Temple Lands and its secular rulers the Knights of the Temple Lands (who just happen to also be the leaders of the Church).
  • Enhance Button: Merlin mentions in book 5 that Owl doesn't have enough processing power to watch everything, so Owl just stores away the raw images (which don't show individuals) and enhances them later once they need more detail.
  • Entertainingly Wrong:
    • Aivah Parsahn manages to work out that Merlin is able to change his appearance and travel at speeds that should be impossible. Because Aivah is not aware of Safehold's true history, she deduces that these are simply part of Merlin's abilities as a seijin which, while not inaccurate, is not entirely correct.
    • The Sisterhood of Saint Kohdy is an even older, mainland equivalent of Charis's Brotherhood of Saint Zherneau. However, their patron had only begun to suspect that the Archangels weren't entirely on the up-and-up. As a result, they do not know Safehold's full history like the Brotherhood does. They were, however, able to work out that the original Adams and Eves were someplace else before awakening on Safehold. There has been debate within the Sisterhood itself over whether it was the colonists or the colonists' souls that were somewhere else.
  • Epic Fail: The Church of God Awaiting's attack on Charis in book one. Mind you, they had no way of accounting for Merlin's satellite recon abilities, and little of accounting for the new artillery, but the people planning the thing didn't even understand how naval warfare normally worked, and didn't account for the weather, the limitations of ships designed for coastal waters, and the effects of wear and tear on the ships. And neither did several officers that were put in command of the fleets.
  • Eternal English: Averted. Nimue has to learn Safeholdian English before she can venture out among them. Also, many names have changed in spelling and/or pronunciation over the near millennium of Safehold's history.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
    • Some of the more unrepentantly murderous and sadistic collaborators in Like a Mighty Army are members of a mountain clan who mourn how their own children are suffering from cold and hunger due to the supply shortages.
    • A bishop who orders mass arrests and torture of people with legitimate grievances against Clynthahn is thinking about how nice it would be to take his wife and kids on a vacation right before La Résistance takes revenge on him.
  • Exact Words: In Off Armageddon Reef, Merlin is questioned with the assistance of a lie detector, and is very careful in how he words his responses. At least one person present notices this (and later comments on it), but not the person asking the questions.
  • Exponential Plot Delay: Seems to be heading this way as of the fourth book, thanks to the cast list increasing faster than characters are killed off. Even major characters like Nahrmahn can go hundreds of pages without an appearance.
  • Expy: Earl Thirsk, who is a) a dedicated Navy man trying to give his sailors a fighting chance of survival while hampered by a nation (or in his case planet-wide church) going mad with its own power around him, b) a genuinely honorable man, c) a Worthy Opponent to the protagonist Charisian Empire, d) determined to treat his prisoners of war with all due respect and dignity while terrified as to what will happen to them if the Inquisition gets its hands on them, and e) stages a coup to overthrow his country's bad government, winding up in a fairly high-ranking position, paving the way for said country to become an ally of the protagonists' country. He has a few too many parallels with the Honorverse's Thomas Theisman for it to be a pure coincidence.
  • Fake Memories: The colonists of Operation Ark were to be reprogrammed with these so they could easily adapt to the low-tech lifestyle they would have to live on their new home. However, Langhorne and Bédard instead used the equipment to program the colonists to believe in their God Guise.
  • Fantastic Livestock: The setting has a mixture of imported earthly livestock and domesticated native animals. Particularly common examples of the latter are the domesticated draft dragons (six-legged herbivores roughly the size of elephants) and the various species of domesticated wyverns (the native bird-analogs).
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
    • Charis as England and Emerald as Ireland are only a couple of examples. Merlin himself makes the comparison to 17th or 18th century England or Holland for Charis, and the audiobook narrator for books one and two reads Emeraldian dialogue with an Irish accent.
    • Thanks to the relationship between them and Charis, Corisande may be a better fit for Ireland, especially considering the resentment they have for Charis after being conquered. Then again... Corisande might be a counterpart for France, which frequently warred with England until the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Like Corisande, France has been conquered by England and Salic law prohibited women from becoming queens regnant, just as Princess Irys cannot inherit her father's throne.
    • Harchong, from what little we know, seems to be based on medieval China. Among other things, they invented gunpowder and have a corner on silk. They are also notorious for their gigantic bureaucracy.
    • Siddarmark has some similarities to the United States, especially as of Midst Toil and Tribulation. Specifically, it can be compared to Civil War-era America. It's also the only powerful republicnote .
    • Raven's Land and the Raven Lords who live there are Scotland and the Scots, respectively.
  • The Federation:
    • The Terran Federation is implied to be this in the backstory. Back when it still existed, anyway.
    • The Charisian Empire is developing into an "imperial federation", of the sort that The British Empire never quite got around to becoming (despite several proposals).
  • Fictional Document: The prologue of book 10 is a passage from a biography of Merlin, which suggests that one day he will succeed in breaking the Writ.
  • Fictional Geneva Conventions:
    • Safehold's laws of war are mentioned a many times — usually in the context of how they're being thrown out the window with the Jihad. For example, the canals of Safehold are sacrosanct, but once things hit the stage of total war, blowing up locks becomes a core part of the Church's defensive strategy.
    • The treatment of prisoners is also a major one. One of Thirsk's and the Dohlaran Navy's biggest regrets in the war was handing over Gwyllym Manthyr and his men to the Inquisition. To them, this amounted to submitting prisoners who had surrendered honorably and were due humane treatment over to Cold-Blooded Torture and summary execution.
  • Foregone Conclusion: The prologue of book 10 is from a history book written around 4200 AD, suggesting that one day Safehold will regain full knowledge of the past and eventually defeat the Gbaba.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • At the start of the Battle of Darcos Sound, Prince Cayleb has his ship signal the rest of his fleet "Engage the enemy more closely". This was Admiral Nelson's final signal to his fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar. It's King Haarahld who dies in the battle, not Cayleb.
    • The phrase "final solution to the Charisian problem" shows up in book 1. The concentration camps show up a few books later.
  • Framing the Guilty Party: When Sharleyan's nobles begin plotting to overthrow the crown in Chisholm, along with their previous tactics of watching them with SNARCs and keeping the local leadership informed by mundane methods, records are kept of the conspirators' written correspondence so replicas can be made and used as evidence in their trials even if the real ones are burned. As one character notes, they can't exactly claim they know the evidence is fake because they destroyed the real thing.
  • Friendly Sniper: Sergeant Edvard Wystahn is a good country lad and a really nice guy; he helps out his comrades in learning to read or with words of reassurance or comfort as they need it. He also has no problem putting a bullet through an enemy officer's head from under cover at 500 yards.
  • Fun with Acronyms:
    • Personality-Integrated Cybernetic Avatar (PICA)
    • Self-Navigating Autonomous Reconnaissance and Communication platforms (SNARC)
    • Neural Education and Training machines (NEAT)
  • Game Changer:
    • This is the main role of Merlin Athrawes. By Technology Uplifting Safehold, Merlin strives to break the planet Safehold's enforced Medieval Stasis. Approximately every other book features the Church of God Awaiting and its forces getting hammered by the Empire of Charis due to various innovations that were brought in thanks to Merlin's influence. Starting with farther-ranged and more accurate artillery in the first book and introducing ironclad warships in the most recent.
    • On a more individual scale, Merlin had been acting alone in this plan for the first book and a half. The Game Changer to this strategy was the revelation midway through the second book that there were others who knew the history he did, enabling him to bring more people in on his ultimate plan.
  • The Ghost: King Rahnyld III of Dohlar, despite the importance of his country to the plot, has absolutely no page time throughout the first nine books, including when Earl Thirsk forces him to abdicate. He honestly doesn't seem to be an especially attentive ruler.
  • Glass Cannon: Dohlaran screw-galleys. Armed with massive forward-facing cannon, with thick armor on the front — and only the front. One engagement between a group of them and a galleon sees the galleon require dozens of hits to sink, while just two hits on the side from the galleon's much smaller guns is enough to cripple one of the galleys. And the guns themselves are prone to shattering from time to time when fired.
  • A God Am I: Langhorne, Bédard, and their fellow "Archangels".
  • God Guise: Langhorne's group used their technology to fake their various "angelic" abilities, and also meticulously craft their own holy book.
  • Good Is Not Soft: The Charisan leaders often have to make decisions in this vein, most prominently when facing defeated enemies and forcing them to surrender. They'll often try to negotiate a relatively peaceful surrender with any prisoners treated honorably, and threaten that there won't be any prisoners if that surrender is refused or betrayed. To date, no enemy commander has tried to call their bluff (mostly because they realize while speaking face to face with the Charisan commander in question that it isn't a bluff).
  • Good Shepherd:
    • Maikel Staynair and Paityr Wylsynn are both often noted for their serenity and confidence in their faith and are frequently good sources of advice for the other characters.
    • Duchairn is making an effort to become one of these, as atonement for his role in bringing about the war with Charis. He largely succeeds, as it's often noted he's become a favorite among the populace and the more charitably minded members of the priesthood, who actually call him "the Good Shepherd". At the end of At the Sign of Triumph, he kickstarts a full-scale rebellion in Zion that ends with Clyntahn in chains and Duchairn himself as Grand Vicar, determined to rectify the excesses and evils of his Church. Not bad.
    • Archbishop Zhasyn Cahnyr of Glacierheart, though a relatively minor character, is shown through the entire series as a Good Shepherd. As early as Off Armageddon Reef he's presented as a foil to the more corrupt Erayk Dynnys. Later, when Dennys is on death row, Cahnyr is the one to offer him comfort and helps smuggle messages to Dynnys' family, despite the prior bad blood between them. While initially fleeing Glacierheart to escape Clyntahn's purge of the Zion Circle, he soon returns to offer what moral support he can during the Siddarmark civil war.
  • Gratuitous Japanese:
    • Although all of Safehold writes modern English and speaks a slightly shifted version of it, the multicultural founders borrowed foreign terms like seijin (Japanese for holy person) and rakurai, and used names from Asia for both places and people.
    • "Archangel" Chihiro used Japanese names for many supernatural concepts in the Holy Writ, such as anshinritsumei ("lesser touch of God's fire" in Safeholdian, "enlightenment" in Japanese) or kyousei hi (Japanese for "great fire", Safeholdian for the light accompanying the archangels). Justified, as Maruyama Chihiro was of Japanese descent.
  • Handicapped Badass: Clyftyn Rahdgyrz has, by the ninth book, lost one leg, one hand and one eye. He is still actively commanding in the field and fighting in the thick of it with the best of them.
  • Happily Married: Cayleb and Sharleyan. Nahrmahn and Ohlyvya. Any number of others. Once again, despite the various other kinds of hell he puts his characters through, this really does seem par for the course in your average Weber novel.
  • Have You Told Anyone Else?:
    • Subverted, since Duke Tirian really wouldn't have hurt his father-in-law given any other alternative when he was confronted by him over his treason.
    • Played completely straight in How Firm a Foundation when Urvyn Mahndrayn, Baron Seamount's assistant, tells his cousin, Trai Sahlavahn, at the Hairatha powder mill about 45 tons of missing gunpowder. Trai is actually responsible for this, and stabs him in the back when they go to check it out. Minutes later the entire powder mill explodes.
  • Heart Drive: Merlin's mind, memories and consciousness are not in his head, but in a small, fist-sized computer in his torso, hidden behind enough layers of battlesteel to withstand everything short of a nuclear strike zeroed on it. If the body's destroyed, this computer can be plugged into another PICA or VR unit.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • Prince Nahrmahn in By Schism Rent Asunder. He goes to Charis to offer his surrender, fully expecting that Cayleb will want his head over his role in past schemes against Charis. Cayleb instead drafts him into an Intelligence role and, to his own surprise, befriends Nahrmahn as the series progresses.
    • King Gorjah of Tarot plans one in A Mighty Fortress. He eventually does so and, though we haven't heard much from him personally since, we do see Tarotisian commanders in the Imperial Charisian Navy, suggesting the integration seems to be going rather well.
    • Corisande as a whole makes one, though it takes a while. They grow to accept the Church of Charis and tolerate the Empire of Charis' rule. As of Midst Toil and Tribulation, Prince Daivyn has decided to swear fealty and make Corisande an official and equal member of the Empire.
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam:
    • Corisande's Prince Hektor and his older son are murdered on Clyntahn's orders to make them martyrs when his agents discover Hektor is planning to surrender.
    • In the fourth book, we get several members of the clergy who don't like how corrupt the Group of Four has become. Most of them are subjected to the cruel torture/execution of the Punishment of Shueler. So are the clergy's families... including the women and children.
  • He Knows Too Much:
    • A constant danger for the Inner Circle. Every time they bring someone new in they run the risk that person may not react as they hope and will betray them. Thus, each character we see informed about it from about the fourth book onward also gets a warning of what they'd have to do in case of such a betrayal. By later books, the Inner Circle removes murder from the equation after Merlin sets up Nimue's Cave to act as a Gilded Cage for those who need time to think the situation over or to use cryo-sleep on anyone who simply can't accept what they're doing.
    • A specific instance also occurs in By Heresies Distressed when Merlin arrives at the scene of Sharleyan's attempted assassination. Merlin kills every enemy present because they absolutely cannot be allowed to realize Merlin was in Charis when he was supposed to be in Corisande.
    • In Midst Toil and Tribulation, Merlin has to slaughter a bunch of civilians (who are manning legit wartime targets) to make absolutely certain that his plan works and that the HMS Delthak doesn't get trapped in the canals. He doesn't mention this to anyone beforehand (even afterwards, the only person who is confirmed to have learned about it is Nahrmahn) and suffers some serious Heroic BSoD, both during and after.
  • The Heretic: Everyone who isn't a pure Temple Loyalist, including not only the Church of Charis but also the Reformists. Even the Loyalist Charisians who emigrated to escape their kingdom's heresy are given the label thanks to association.
  • Hero of Another Story:
    • Siddarmarkian Archbishop Zagyrsk and his staff spend the civil war providing food and medical care for forced laborers, preventing the inquisitors from harming people under their jurisdiction, and smuggling hundreds of children out of concentration camps. However, none of this is mentioned until the end of the conflict, when they meet Green Valley and he reveals his knowledge of their actions and praises them when they except to be arrested or worse as enemy prelates.
    • In the eighth and ninth books, soldiers assigned to at least four concentration camps mutiny to try to save the prisoners (two groups succeed, one fails, and one is wiped out but does save some prisoners) but only of one of these mutinies is shown.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
    • The original Nimue Alban had herself transferred from one of the ships going to Safehold to one of the ships sacrificing itself to let them escape in order to set up the plan, as otherwise there was no way to "lose" her PICA from Langhorne's equipment lists.
    • King Haarahld becomes a martyr via this, when he sacrifices his life to save a young midshipman who had been about to do the same for him.
    • Prince Nahrmahn saves his wife from an assassin's bomb by throwing himself on top of her.
    • One archbishop, along with two others, throw themselves on a grenade-wearing suicide bomber at a mass in book 5, saving the crowd.
    • In Hell's Foundations Quiver, there are two scenes where (minor and relatively moderate) villains sacrifice themselves to save other people. Both are members of The Inquisition who convince the military commanders serving with them to surrender to The Alliance and save their men from annihilation, even though the inquisitors themselves will be executed due to Mikael's standing decree against them.
  • Hidden in Plain Sight:
    • In How Firm a Foundation, rather than lay low, Madame Ahnzhelyk assumes a false identity in Siddarmark and openly lives the high society life.
    • This is also how several Wylsynns, including Paityr, hid the Key, which is described in the book as a suitable size and shape for a paperweight.
  • High-Class Call Girl: Madame Ahnzhelyk Phonda and her girls, which we later learn was Ahnzhelyk's way of getting information while in Zion.
  • Hold Your Hippogriffs:
  • Hufflepuff House:
    • Trellheim, which is mentioned once or twice as being inhabited, and Raven's Land, which forms the land border of the country of Chisholm, which is only noted in the world map.
    • Raven's Land has gotten an upgrade as of Midst Toil and Tribulation.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: Wyllym Rayno is growing into this as Clyntahn spirals deeper and deeper into a Villainous Breakdown. If something happened to the Archbishop, Zion would probably turn into a charnel house, as all the competent Church officers would be put through Punishment along with their families and the Army of God's funding and supplies would break down completely. This is stated to be the exact reason no attempt has been made to assassinate Rayno.
  • Hypocrite: The Group of Four decides to wipe Charis off the map in the first book, claiming the handful of innovations they've recently made were heretical. Failing that, they proceed to implement as many of those innovations as they can in an effort to destroy them. They claim that the Charisian versions of the innovations are powered by black magic, while the Church has managed to get the same effect without demonic help.

    I to Y 
  • I Have Many Names:
    • Ahbraim Zhevons and Dialydd Mab are the most prominent, but Merlin has developed a significant number of seijins to run errands and perform tasks Merlin can not. He's lamented more than once at need for some kind of chart to keep track of them all.
    • Aivah Pahrsahn, a.k.a. Nynian Rychtair, a.k.a. Ahnzhelyk Phonda. The woman has a large range of identities to hide herself as well as maintain assets and holdings without anything being traced to her.
  • Implacable Man: Merlin is this one, as he's lightning fast, made of metal and possible to destroy only by high-tech Federation gear. Visible especially in Like a Mighty Army, during his Inquisitor-killing trip as Dialydd Mab, when he shrugs off pistol and rifle rounds. Complete with Mook Horror Show.
  • Insane Troll Logic: Clyntahn claims that Siddarmark had to have been planning to rebel against the Church. If they hadn't, they wouldn't have had the military strength to prevent the total takeover he launched without any warning. The same also goes for Charis — there's no way they could have survived this long if they hadn't been planning their heretical rebellion for years. Many of his other explanations for his actions/plans can come across as this as well, since the Writ's statement that "Extremism in the pursuit of godliness can never be a sin" means that everything he had done up to that point was always justified as far as he's concerned.
  • Interfaith Smoothie: The religion of the Church was created as a mash-up of various actual religions, although it mostly comes off as a Crystal Dragon Jesus of Medieval Catholicism.
  • Interservice Rivalry: The Army of God is a multinational force formed from nations that had been rivals for centuries before Clyntahn launched his Jihad. As a result, there tends to be a great deal of friction when the overall commander of one of its armies is from one nation but some of the subordinate units are commanded by someone from another. Each nation also has a rivalry between the infantry and cavalry, and different doctrine as to how each should be used, which doesn't help. And that doesn't even account for the friction over how the chain of command works out between the career soldiers, their political masters, the Inquisition, and the local bishops and archbishops (who often theoretically outrank the Inquisitors, but get overruled anyway).
  • Invented Individual: Zhevons, Mab and Slaytyr are all Merlin's guises used by him when he has to be someplace that, by Safeholdian standards, he shouldn't be able to reach quickly. It goes up to eleven when Owl starts writing reports to a spymaster who's Locked Out of the Loop — it creates an entire host of fictional seijins, each of them with their own style and handwriting.
  • Jesus Was Way Cool: Inverted. Most who learn of the "Archangels'" lies still hold God Himself in high regard.
  • Karma Houdini: Nyklas Stantyn is never seen getting any comeuppance for betraying the Wylsynn's group of reformers and falsely accusing them of pederasty and condemning them and many members of their families to horrible executions.
  • Kill on Sight: By How Firm a Foundation, the Church of God Awaiting's Inquistion has caused numerous atrocities, with their forcing honorably surrendered Charisian prisoners to be turned over to them for Cold-Blooded Torture and execution serving as the last straw for the Empire of Charis. They announce from that moment forward that, while any rank-and-file soldiers can surrender and expect honorable treatment, Inquisitors will be shown no quarter. The best they can hope for after that is to renounce their service to the Grand Inquisitor, at which point they'll stand trial for any crimes they committed rather than be executed outright.
  • Kill Sat: The orbital platforms above Safehold remain a looming threat.
  • Knight Templar: The passage in the book of Schueler stating "Extremism in the pursuit of godliness can never be a sin" appears to be a license to act like this. The Inquisition certainly takes it as one.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Wyllym Rayno rigged the election for Grand Inquisitor so Zhaspahr Clyntahn would win. What he ultimately gets in return is being stabbed in the back by Clyntahn himself.
  • Leave No Witnesses: Merlin finds himself forced into this a few times, because if anyone can testify that he was present in a place where it should have been impossible to be (and would have been impossible if not for his very Proscription-violating recon skimmer), the Temple will have proof that he's a demon.
  • Lensman Arms Race: As other nations try to emulate the innovations Merlin helped Charis discover.
    • Merlin wants to encourage this, because forcing Charis' enemies to embrace innovation means victory for his ultimate goal of killing Safehold's technophobia. By Midst Toil and Tribulation, it has come full circle in that Earl Thirsk and his officers are actually starting to come up with new and innovative warship and weapon designs instead of just copying Charisian tech. Merlin has mixed feelings about this, as on the one hand, this development supports his long-term goal of destroying Safehold's technophobia, but on the other hand, it's going to make winning the war more difficult for Charis.
    • Gets even more pronounced in Like a Mighty Army, when Earl Thirsk and Captain General Maigwair's men come up with a breech-loading rifle design they can mass-produce that is even better than the ones Charis has issued to its army. Thankfully for Charis, they quickly counter with the magazine-loading lever-action rifle.
    • As an overall point of reference, at the start of book one, the height of naval technology is the oar-powered galley, with naval actions generally decided by boarding. Nine years later, the final naval action of the Jihad features a pre-dreadnaught battleship and a half-dozen armored cruisers taking on coastal defenses that are almost sufficient to stop them. On land, the rate of progress is similar: at the beginning, the matchlock arquebus is slowly displacing the crossbow as a projectile weapon, pike and shot is the premier infantry formation, and cavalry is a major (and prestigious) part of most armies. The final land battles of the Jihad would not have looked out of place on the eastern front of World War I.
    • The King Haarahld class of warship is intended to be the pinnacle of this. It's noted with only mild exaggeration that a single King Haarahld is more powerful than every other ship on Safehold combined. However, it is blatantly overkill for what remains of the enemy naval forces by At the Sign of Triumph, when one is finally used, and the resources for one could be used to build ten of the lesser but still blatantly overpowered City class ships. It's explained that the awesome outweighs the impractical, because the true intent behind the King Haarahld is to make everyone else need one, or something like it, yet actually building one requires fully embracing the techniques and technology Charis has introduced, making it a potential death knell for the Proscriptions of Jwo-jeng.
  • Living Relic: For a given value of "living", Merlin and Owl are both relics of Terran Federation and humanity's high-tech SF past, and their aim is to bring this past back.
  • Locked Out of the Loop:
    • Plays a major part in the plot from By Schism Rent Asunder onward, as the protagonists have to decide who to allow into their Inner Circle due to either how trustworthy an individual is or how they might react to the crisis of faith the truth would inevitably cause.
    • Baron Seamount is a unique case in this. While his abilities would be incredibly useful combined with access to Owl in the short term, his status as a One-Man Industrial Revolution without access to Owl's records is far more valuable to Merlin's long-term plans to get Safehold's people to embrace technological innovation. Sharleyan, at least, is very displeased about the consensus being to keep him locked out. And there's another reason he's locked out: the inner circle fears that he would be so angry at what the "Archangels" did that he wouldn't be able to keep his knowledge secret.
  • Logical Weakness:
    • Just because the Church of God Awaiting doesn't know how the Charisians stay one step ahead of them doesn't mean they can't work out countermeasures against it, as the fourth, fifth, and sixth books demonstrate. The Church utilizes Sealed Orders, written in the Temple where they know Charisian spies haven't infiltrated, and those orders aren't revealed until the last moment possible so that, even if the Charisians do find out what's in them, the time they have to respond is drastically reduced.
    • Clyntahn's Rakurai agents exploit a separate weakness. The Inner Circle can bust spy ring after spy ring because they can identify members and eavesdrop on conversations. The Rakurai work alone and act as independently as possible, as lone actors are far more difficult to track.
  • Looking Busy: At one point in Hell's Foundations Quiver, the Inquisitor in charge of security for a meeting pretends to be in the nearby park for a picnic lunch and some reading in the sun.
  • Loophole Abuse:
    • The Charisian leadership have to be very careful about dancing around the Proscriptions. Though doing so is made much easier once Father Paityr is inducted into the Inner Circle and cheerfully helps abuse said loopholes.
    • Following the end of the Jihad, the Temple begins undergoing reforms. Unfortunately the Grand Vicar can't forbid the Punishment of Schueler as part of these reforms because that's enshrined in the Writ as holy law. He can, however, set the rules for when it is applied, and ensure that it's practically impossible to invoke.
  • Lost Colony: Safehold was intentionally lost so that the remaining human population would be far enough away from the Gbaba to give them time to advance beyond their foe's level of technology, so they can definitively win the next war. Unfortunately, Langhorne and Bédard's manufactured religion has slowed down the original plan considerably.
  • Lost Technology: Federation tech is this for both sides, although only one side is aware of it. Charis has ultimate spying bugs, invisible recon machines, laser weapons and Merlin, Implacable Man android. The Church has the Temple with its code-breaking capabilities and Rakurai, a Kill Sat nobody would like to awake.
  • Love at First Sight: Cayleb and Sharleyan upon their first face-to-face meeting. Played for laughs as the two try, and fail, not to act and feel like a pair of lovestruck teeangers.
  • Ludd Was Right: Word of God says that Langhorne and Bédard genuinely believed the Gbaba were punishment for humanity's technological hubris.
  • Machiavelli Was Wrong: Clyntahn's downfall ultimately stemmed from his inability to understand Machiavelli's advice that a man who rules through fear must take care that he is not hated. When he finally pushes too far, a little push from the Inner Circle is all that's needed to spark open revolt in Zion itself.
  • Majorly Awesome: Lt. Commander Nimue Alban. Merlin is eventually promoted to Major.
  • Mathematician's Answer: Owl, Nimue/Merlin's AI, stubbornly sticks to literal answers for the first three books, despite its supposed learning ability. Only when it starts interacting with living Safeholdians does it improve with colloquial replies.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • The best example is Nimue, already a name from Arthurian Legend, going by Merlin and naming Cayleb's sword Excalibur. The names of almost every seijin are Welsh. Not even necessarily Welsh names, either.
    • Athrawes is the feminine form of "teachernote ".
    • Dialydd Mab means "Avenging Son".
    • Chwarieau is Welsh for "Little Sister".
    • Ganieda Cysgodol translates as either "Shadow Witch" or "Shadow Sister". Ganieda was also the name of the Arthurian Merlin's half-sister.
    • Dagyr Cudd means "Hidden Dagger".
    • Cleddyf means "Sword".
    • Gwyliwyr means "Sentinel".
    • Merch O Obaith is "Daughter of Hope".
    • Cennady Frenhines, or, more specifically, Cennad y Frenhines is "Queen's Messenger".
  • Medieval Stasis: Strictly enforced by the Proscriptions of Jwo-jeng.
    • In Harchong they moved backwards, technologically speaking, from where the Archangels started them. This is mostly due to a preference for abusing their massive population of serfs/slaves rather than using more efficient draft animals, because serfs are cheaper. They are Mother Church's favorite secular power.
    • Now that Charis has broken with the Church, they've broken out of this quite spectacularly. In book one, the world's tech level ranged from fifteenth to seventeenth century level. In book six, which takes place a mere six years later, Charis is introducing mid to late nineteenth century technology.
  • Mercy Kill:
    • Samyl Wylsynn, Lainsair Svairsmahn. Both to escape the Punishment of Schueler. In the first case, his brother killed him and himself so that they wouldn't reveal that Anzhelyk saved their families under torture. In the second, the killing was done after the poor person had already been horrifically tortured.
    • In Midst Toil and Tribulation, this gets done en masse, to the survivors of an entire company of Siddarmarkians who fought to the finish despite impossible odds. Given that their fate would otherwise have been the Punishment of Schueler, they were grateful. It should be noted that officer who ordered the Mercy Kill was aware that he may be put to the Punishment himself for sparing them when he ordered it. In this case, there's even a name for it: "Pasquale's Grace", when it is more merciful to end someone's life then let them live in whatever painful condition they were in.
    • In Hell's Foundations Quiver, Dialydd Mab snipes an Inquisitor who had been defrocked and was being put to the Punishment for providing decent food to sick prisoners in an Inquisition concentration camp to spare him further pain. He also snipes the people who ordered the Punishment in the first place, for less merciful reasons.
  • Mook Horror Show: The entire attack on the barge carrying the Inquisitors who ordered the Punishment of Manthyr's crew in Like A Mighty Army is narrated by the bad guys attacked, showing just how terrifying Merlin can be when he turns off his internal limits.
  • Morality Kitchen Sink:
    • In Off Armageddon Reef, it's definitely presented as Black-and-White Morality with the Charisians as the good guys and the Church of God Awaiting and its supporters as completely evil. Later books are more nuanced but with the Church forces as still far darker and no real bad guys in the Charisian Empire unless they turn traitor.
    • While we don't see it directly in the narrative, it's clearly stated that the battered civilians on both sides of the conflict in Midst Toil and Tribulation have committed atrocities and counter-atrocities, including widespread murder, torture, and rape.
  • Mundane Utility: Among the many more practical things Cayleb uses Owl for: keeping track of baseball games.
  • My Country, Right or Wrong:
    • Prince Nahrmahn of Emerald. He is ready to do anything it takes if it will benefit his Princedom. Even if doing so might mean his head, such as when he surrenders to Charis.
    • Earl Thirsk continues to support the Jihad against Charis less out of personal conviction that it's right and more because he made vows to Mother Church and his king which he takes seriously. In At the Sign of Triumph, the circumstances change enough that he can begin to enact the "if wrong, to be set right" portion of the trope naming quote in Dohlar.
    • The ultimatum that Cayleb issued in Off Armageddon Reef is the biggest sticking point for Thirsk in A Mighty Fortress.
  • My Death Is Just the Beginning: Shan-wei, all the wei. Her plan continued to develop and unfold long after she was killed.
  • My Nayme Is: All over the place, as the result of 800 years of language drift. A few examples: Lewis Whitman -> Lywys Whytman, Peter Wilson -> Paityr Wylsynn, Jasper Clinton -> Zhaspahr Clyntahn.
  • My Own Private "I Do": While the relationship between Crown Princess Alahnah and Lywys Whytman needs to initially be kept quiet due to political concerns, nobody who knows of it actually has any objections. So when the couple decide to marry, wanting to make the most of the time they have in case the Archangels do return in a few years, they get a very private ceremony with close friends and family in attendance and Archbishop Maikel himself officiating.
  • Named Weapons: Cayleb's battlesteel, eternally sharp katana that Merlin gave him is named Excalibur. The late Seijin Kohdy had a sword named Helm Cleaver, which the Sisterhood of Saint Kohdy still possesses, and it is still sharp enough to cut granite.
  • Naval Blockade: Both sides try this against each other. The Church tries to do it through politics, which falters because too many ports are dependent on the Charis trade for survival. Charis simply sinks or captures every ship flagged to a nation working for the Church that they can find, and since they have a bigger navy than the rest of the world combined, they manage to make this work.
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name: Clyntahn and the rest of his Inquisition are explicitly compared to the SS in Midst Toil and Tribulation. There's also mentions of pogroms in the Temple Lands and camps set up for Reformists caught behind enemy lines in Siddarmark to hold them until the Inquisition gets around to torturing them to death. They are routinely called "concentration camps" in Like a Mighty Army, where the Temple Loyalists start using them as forced labor to help with the war effort.
  • Nepotism: Often a problem with the Army of God's senior officers. Far too many of the high ranked officers got their posts by being related to someone important at court, and have useless aides who were chosen because they are related to the officers they serve.
  • New Tech Is Not Cheap: When the Jihad turns into a Lensman Arms Race, both sides find themselves facing the issue of how the heck they're going to pay for the weapons they have to have to survive. The discovery of gold and silver mines on Silverlode Island saves Charis' economy; meanwhile the Church of God Awaiting goes from the richest organization on the planet in book 1 to nearly bankrupt before the start of book 9.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Rhobair Ducairn works to mitigate Clyntahn's evils and ultimately leads the revolt in Zion that deposes him. The heroes point out that while this saves a lot of lives and prevents a lot of destruction in the short term, had Rhobair not intervened, the power of Zion would have been broken once and for all and the Inner Circle might be well on their way to breaking the Church of God Awaiting itself. As it is, they will soon have to fight another war, one that will probably be even worse than the last, to finish the job.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Clyntahn's actions often do a lot of short-term damage to Charis, and long-term damage to the Church.
    • His assassination of Prince Hektor and his heir ultimately results in the sincere loyalty of Irys and Daivyn in what would otherwise have been a tenuous Enemy Mine.
    • His purge of the vicarate Reformists definitely cows the bulk of the population into obedience, but also makes all but the most zealous realize just how brutal Clyntahn is, if they hadn't already known, and prompts a lot of reconsideration of events that had been blamed on Charis (which directly results in the above example with Irys and Daivyn).
    • His Sword of Schueler attack did much the same, devastating the Republic of Siddarmark, sparking a civil war within it, and forcing it to ally itself with Charis when it would otherwise have remained neutral, at worst, and giving Charis a much needed mainland ally. It's compared, in-universe, to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
    • In Hell's Foundations Quiver, Clyntahn's insistence that the Army of God's troops not give any ground, no matter how practical the reason, essentially makes Charis and Siddarmark's jobs significantly easier since it forces the AoG to defend positions that are far less defensible than other places they could go or maintain position on the wrong end of a cut supply chain. Magwair even flat out tells Clyntahn that his threat to have the Inquisition take direct control of the jihad would doom everything they've worked for, but Clyntahn's zealotry means he may well do it anyway, damn the consequences, if he thinks Magwair and Duchairn aren't doing their respective jobs to win the war.
  • Number Two: Langhorne had two: Chihiro was the author of the Holy Writ and his chief administrator, while Bédard was responsible for keeping the colonists in the dark.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity:
    • Prince Nahrmahn is far more intelligent than he lets himself be known for. Many characters are aware of this and still underestimate him.
    • Duchairn begins using this to keep Clyntahn from viewing him as a threat.
  • Obviously Evil: Earl Coris on Clyntahn: "There ought to be a law that villains shouldn't be allowed to look like stereotypical villains."
  • Off with His Head!: This tends to happen every time Merlin gets in a sword fight. Witnesses (many of whom end up getting the same treatment a few seconds later) tend to be very impressed by his ability to do this, which is only possible because he has Super-Strength and an Absurdly Sharp Blade.
  • Oh, Crap!: There are many instances of this on the Temple Lands' part, especially when Charis manages to produce some new weapon.
    • Special mention goes to the steamboat HMS Delthak and her sister ships. They even scare the crap out of their allies.
  • One-Steve Limit: Averted hardcore, but sometimes played with. There are people with the same first name, but sometimes with different spellings and/or pronunciations (e.g. Erayk and Erek).
    • One of the aversions combines this with Embarrassing First Name: Midshipman Aplyn, who is introduced in Off Armageddon Reef, shares a given name — Hektor — with the Prince of one of his kingdom's enemies.
    • A particularly unfortunate Charisian officer has the surname Clyntahn.
    • The son of Hektor Aplyn-Armahk and Irys of Corisande in Through Fiery Trials is universally referred to by his first and middle names — Hektor Merlin — because of the number of Hektors in his family.
  • Only Sane Man: As the things go awry for the Army of Justice, Alvahrez turns out to be the only person who can see the situation for what it is. Everyone else considers it defeatism and thinks they're on their way to victory.
  • Our Founder: The main dome of the Temple has a giant statue of Langhorne on top of it.
  • Overly Long Name:
    • The fresh and new Harchongese army, titled "Mighty Host of God and the Archangels". When a noncom from another country complains about the name, his Harchongese friend replies that outlanders have no sense of poetics.
    • There's also the royal family of Charis: Cayleb Zhan Haarahld Bryahn Ahrmahk, Sharleyan Alahnah Zhenyfyr Ahlyssa Tayt Ahrmahk and their daughter, Alahnah Zhanayt Naimu Ahrmahk.
    • Deliberately invoked by Baron Star Rising early in Through Fiery Trials, when he suggests calling the ad-hoc governing body of one section of the former Harchong Empire "The Provisional Council of the United Provinces of Boisseau and Cheshire". Star Rising points out to the others that in common usage, everyone will abbreviate it to the "United Provinces" — meanng that by the time the Provisional Council is ready to turn things over to an elected Parliament, the populace will be used to thinking of themselves as citizens of the United Provinces instead of the Harchong Empire.
  • Painless Death for a Price: In By Schism Rent Asunder, Erayk Dynnys was promised a relatively merciful death (by garrotting before the horrific tortures of his Punishment were applied) if he would give the public confession that the Grand Inquisitor wanted as an excuse to invade Charis. Instead Dynnys publicly confessed... to his faults for not standing up against the lies and corruption of the Church as it plotted to invade Charis for no good cause.
  • Pass the Popcorn: Merlin and Cayleb's reaction to a fist fight between Nimue and an insubordinate lieutenant.
  • Path of Inspiration: The original Church of God Awaiting.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: Though the Church attempts to portray Charis and its allies as bloodthirsty heathens and monsters whenever possible, Charis only actually lives up to that slander when the Church does it first, such as refusing to take prisoners in battle after defeated opponents of the Church were brutally murdered, and burning down the entire waterfront of a city that had previously massacred unarmed merchants and their families.
  • Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Most arranged marriages, especially among the good guys, are this.
    • Cayleb and Sharleyan. Made as a cold-blooded strategic political decision, but turns out to be Love at First Sight.
    • Also happened with Prince Nahrman and his wife Ohlyvya.
    • Seems to be the case with newly betrothed Princess Irys and Hektor Alpyn-Ahrmahk. This example's played with, though; the marriage was, in part, arranged because the two were clearly attracted to each other anyway.
  • Pillow Pistol: Earl Coris keeps a dagger under his pillow. Not that it did him much good when Ahbraim/Merlin paid him a night visit.
  • The Plot Reaper: A large number of important characters get killed off over the course of book ten, mostly though a combination of age, health problems, and the stress of dealing with the Jihad and its aftermath making the other two worse. Meanwhile, the book also spends a lot of time building up new important characters, such as Crown Princess Alahnah of Charis and Lywys Whytmyn.
  • The Political Officer: The Inquisition agents in the Army of God serve this role. And they provide ample evidence as to why allowing someone who doesn't understand military matters to override those who do in the name of ideological purity is a very bad idea.
  • Power Perversion Potential:
    • PICAs possess the ability to Gender Bend and are fully functional. Merlin learns this the hard way when he is invited by Cayleb to play rugby and discovers too late that Charisian rugby is played in the water and, more importantly, in the nude. As this is early in the story, Merlin still thinks of himself as (the female) Nimue, is in the water with several handsome naked members of the opposite sex, and encounters the male reaction to such a situation. When Cayleb is reminded of this incident while being told of Merlin's true nature, he busts up laughing at the realization of what had happened.
    • Merlin takes advantage of that "functionality" once to maintain cover in A Mighty Fortress. It's the source of some idle thinking about whether doing so counts as his cover identity of Ahbraim Zhevons being interested in the opposite sex or Nimue being interested in other women.
  • Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: From Off Armageddon Reef, doubling as a Shout-Out to "Crocodile" Dundee:
    Tirian: After all, what do you think the odds are of you managing to defeat fifteen of my best?
    Merlin: Better than average.
  • Precision F-Strike: Most recently: "Oh, fuck you, Kahrnaikys! You always were a prick! And fuck Clyntahn, too!"
  • Privateer: Charis puts these to good use in early books. They start having some problems with other privateers in Midst Toil and Tribulation.
  • Properly Paranoid:
    • Clyntahn of all people, but for all the wrong reasons. He's actually correct that Charis is part of a conspiracy designed to overthrow the Church. It would just never occur to him that the Church are the bad guys in that. It should be noted that some characters theorize he is actually paranoid by medical definitions.
    • The Brotherhood of St. Zherneau is described throughout A Mighty Fortress as being "insanely cautious". But this insane level of caution is also regarded as completely justified, due to the danger to their entire cause inherent in inducting the wrong person into the inner circle.
    • The prologue of Through Fiery Trials mentions the anthropologist who first speculated the existence of the Gbaba. Although the general public mostly didn't believe him, and the Federation government publicly didn't believe him, in secret they appointed him the first Navy Minister three years after he first proposed the theory, as they began to build a real military.
  • Pyrrhic Victory: Invoked by the Nahrman Plan. The Inner Circle know that if the Archangels return as prophecied, and if these returning Archangels have control of the Rakurai array, there is absolutely nothing they can do to stop these Archangels from raining devastation upon them. So their strategy is to spread industrialization so broadly before the prophecied date of the return that there will be no way to get rid of it without completely destroying human civilization on Safehold, and gamble that the "Archangels" will be smart enough to realize this and work with them.
  • Punished for Sympathy: An Inquisitor working in one of the concentration camps is sentenced to the Punishment for providing decent food to sick detainees who hadn't yet been convicted of anything. Dialydd Mab executes the people who sentenced him, then grants the Inquisitor a Mercy Kill.
  • Putting on the Reich: Merlin expressly compares the Inquisition to the SS at one point.
  • Rabble Rouser: Corisande sees an increase in these, courtesy of the Northern Conspiracy, after Charis takes over.
  • Raging Stiffie: Merlin joins Cayleb and a few other guys for a game of rugby, only to discover too late that Charisian rugby is played in the nude, at this point in time Merlin still identifies as a woman, and that PICAs are fully functional. Cue the natural reaction to being surrounded by several hot, wet, naked members of the opposite sex. His only saving grace is that Charisian rugby is also played in the water, so he avoided detection by staying waist deep in the water, making sure to be the last to leave the water and being very careful to keep his Modesty Towel secured, something Cayleb remembers when he's reminded of the incident later and finds it hilarious. Merlin promptly shuts down that feature.
    Cayleb: Oh, my God! That was why you stayed in the water! Why you were so damned careful about that towel!
  • Ragnarök Proofing: Federation tech seems to have reached this level, as everything is in a perfect or almost-perfect state after nine hundred years. Partly justified, as Merlin's equipment was kept in a neutral atmosphere specifically to defy an aversion of this trope, and defied with medicines, which Merlin doesn't dare use after such a long time.
  • Rape, Pillage, and Burn:
    • Cayleb does everything in his power to avert this trope out of a combination of his decent nature and an unwillingness to give the Church more fuel for its propaganda machine. As a result, his military has very good discipline and rarely does anything dishonorable. The few times they do cross the line, the perpetrators are promptly and publicly dealt with.
    • This was the Group of Four's plan for Charis in Off Armageddon Reef, or at least the pillage and burn parts. The rape would be a side effect that they really wouldn't have bothered worrying about anyway.
    • Happens a lot, on both sides, in Midst Toil and Tribulation, as the result of mixing a holy war with a civil war.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
    • Back to back in How Firm a Foundation. Rhobair Duchairn gives the good guy version to Zahmsyn Trynair when the latter pleads with him to attend a public torture/ execution. Then it cuts to Zhaspahr Clyntahn who gives a more traditional, villainous one about Duchairn to his underling, revealing that he has a perfect understanding of what's going through Duchairn's head, how little it matters, how Hobbes Was Right, and how everything he does just plays into Clyntahn's hands. Also, at the end of the same book Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmanhk (who is 16 Safeholdian years old, or about 14½ Earth years) delivers one to an Inquisitor before turning his head into Pink Mist.
    • Merlin takes some sadistic pleasure in inflicting these on priests of the Church of God Awaiting. Bishop Mylz Halcom in By Heresies Distressed and Father Vyktyr Tahrlsahn in Like a Mighty Army are each treated to a lecture about the true nature of the Church of God Awaiting before Merlin (or Dialydd Mab in the latter case) kills them. Merlin, as Dialydd Mab, also sends a letter to Zion addressed to Zhaspahr Clyntahn, Grand Fornicator.
    • Merlin delivers one to Clyntahn himself as the latter is awaiting execution, providing documentary evidence to show the (former) Grand Inquisitor that everything he's believed in and fought for was a complete lie. Unlike the others, he has time to think about it before his death, and is utterly psychologically broken when executed.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure:
    • Haarahld and Cayleb both are pretty understanding. Haarahld especially when his own cousin was a traitor. Haarahld makes sure to offer consolation and assurance to the traitor's family, acknowledging they had done nothing wrong. Cayleb knows the value of not being a capricious ruler, so he'll do things like leave a potential backstabber like the Grand Duke of Zebidiah in place, until said backstabbing attempt is made at least, to avoid issues where other nobles might fear Cayleb will simply remove them in favor of cronies. Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm fits this as well. Among the clergy is Paityr Wylsynn, the intendant of Charis, who is perhaps the only member of the Inquisition who can make this claim.
    • Earl Thirsk and perhaps Father Maik may also qualify, but their hands are often tied by their superiors.
  • Recycled In Space:
    • The series is very similar to the Thirty Years' War, especially in religious aspect and the land war technologies introduced.
    • A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, anyone?
    • The scene where Gray Harbor confronts Duke Tirian in the first book bears a strong resemblance to the description of Howard Clinkscales confronting Jared Mayhew in Honor of the Queen. In both cases, upon discovering that the cousin of the current monarch is a traitor, one of said monarch's advisors confronts the traitor, who admits his treason and tries to recruit the advisor.
  • Redemption in the Rain: The consecration of Grand Vicar Rhobair II occurs in an icy rain, symbolically washing away the crimes of Clyntahn and the Group of Four.
  • Red Herring: More than a few Chekhov's Guns have gone unfired. The first book had both Hektor and Nahrmahn potentially plotting to kill Merlin, but nothing came of either instance. Clyntahn put the Circle of Reformists plotting against him to a horrible end. Nahrmahn's overly indulgent diet and the associated health risks were mentioned repeatedly. Princess Irys' vow of revenge against Cayleb was cast aside throughout How Firm a Foundation and Midst Toil and Tribulation.
  • Refuge in Audacity:
    • Cayleb loves to use this to maximum effect, to the occasional consternation of Merlin. In Off Armageddon Reef, after demolishing a hefty chunk of the Dohlaran navy and sending them running, Cayleb insists on giving chase. He insists on this even though it means sailing his fleet through a narrow area in pitch black, stormy weather — something only Merlin's SNARCs make possible. The sight of the Charisians coming at them in such impossible circumstances causes a near total panic in the remainder of Earl Thirsk's fleet, with some crews grounding or setting fire to their ships before the Charisians have the chance to do it to them.
    • Cayleb is nothing compared to Madame Ahnzhelyk. In fact, Cayleb's reaction to her smuggling over two hundred potential Inquisition victims to safety in Grand Inquisitor Clyntahn's own transport sleighs is described as "almost reverent". Admiral Rock Point wants to marry her based on her reputation alone.
  • Religious and Mythological Theme Naming:
    • Nimue's name is already from Arthurian legend, so when she needs to adopt a male identity on Safehold she chooses to go by Merlin. One of the sejin network's names, Ganieda Cysgodol, also uses this as "Ganieda" is the name of the Arthurian Merlin's half-sister.
    • Many of Mother Church's and the Navy of God's ships are named after Archangels and other figures in the Holy Writ. This theme naming carries over to the Army of God and its various squads and army forces.
  • Remember the Alamo: When Gwyllym Manthyr is about to lead his damaged ships into doomed combat to allow the undamaged ships in his fleet to get way, he has his signalmen raise flags to spell out "Remember King Haahrald!"
  • The Remnant: After At the Sign of Triumph, North Harchong is developing into this, as the last bastion of the Clyntahn-era Church, where serfdom remains the rule and innovation is distrusted.
  • Rescue Introduction: How Merlin Athrawes introduced himself to then-Crown Prince Cayleb in the first book. This repeats when he appears to rescue Earl Coris, Irys, and Daivyn in How Firm a Foundation.
  • La Résistance: The Fist of God, AKA Helm Cleaver, the Nynian-sponsored guerilla organization working for justice in Zion.
  • Restraining Bolt: Autonomous PICAs are normally only able to remain active for ten days. This feature had to be hacked out of Nimue's PICA so it could perform the task needed of it, and doing so damaged the PICA's data port, so the PICA has to learn everything the old-fashioned way instead of just downloading it into his head. This does not apply to Nimue Chwaeriau, who was designed without said feature from the start.
  • Revealing Cover-Up: The Archangels attempted to create a Medieval Stasis by developing a theological explanation for everything: for example, there would be no need to develop germ theory to explain the hazards of drinking untreated water when your holy book says it's Pasquale's Curse of Pestilence for failing to bless it with the appropriate purifying powder. Eventually, somebody realized that you could design explosives by looking through the Writ for actions that would summon the Wrath of the Archangels, which was the starting point for a decidedly non-medieval chemical industry.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better: Merlin uses two revolvers in How Firm a Foundation. Let's just say they make quite an impression. They were the first repeating firearms fired on Safehold.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Dialydd Mab's retribution against those who committed the atrocities at Sarkyn. Said revenge includes the Inquisitors who carried it out and every officer in command of the Sarkyn garrison at the time.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: The Ahrmahk dynasty of Charis, and a few others. Cayleb's third scene in Off Armageddon Reef reveals he wanted to go hunting a slash lizard because the beast had been killing farmers and he wanted to make sure it was stopped before it did more damage. Also, as a man of action, he prefers to be on the field of battle with his soldiers and resents when he has to be relegated to staying behind even though he's fully aware he's doing just as much if not more good where he is.
  • Rules Lawyer: Upon receiving an order from the Inquisition to stop accepting Charisian-flagged ships into their ports, the merchant houses of Siddarmark respond by buying the ships and hiring their Charisian crews to sail them for their new owners, thus making them Siddarmark-flagged ships which are legally permitted to trade in Siddarmarkian ports without violating the letter of the Church's order.
  • Ruling Couple: Cayleb and Sharleyan, who make a point of being equal co-rulers, each able to act with the full authority of their Empire on their own. Of course, it helps that Merlin's tech lets them actually confer with each other in real time, but they made this decision before they had access.
  • Running Gag: What is it with Merlin, assassination attempts, and thunderstorms? When Sharleyan survives an assassination attempt she even points the thunderstorm out.
  • Sabotutor: The Holy Writ is accurate in its descriptions of a wide range of phenomena. However, it presents this information in such a way as to discourage people from questioning things too deeply by attributing the affects to the miracles and wrath of the Archangels. For example, it describes requirements for proper sanitation, but the sicknesses that result from not meeting those requirements is the wrath of Pasquale.
  • Saintly Church: The Church of Charis under Archbishop Maikel Staynair. It pays lip service to many of the Church of God Awaiting's tenets, but stresses the individual's relationship with God while gradually phasing out reverence of the Archangels. With Staynair at the helm, the Church is a powerful force for good, even if it is based in the false religion Langhorne and Bédard created.
  • Satan Is Good:
    • Played with in that while Shan-wei is the Satan-analogue for the Church of God Awaiting and is definitely on the side of good, she and the other "Archangels" were never supernatural beings and are all long dead by the time the main plot starts.
    • At one point, Cayleb considers that the accusations of Shan-wei worship made against him are pretty close to the truth — he now considers Shan-wei someone worth venerating.
  • Scam Religion: The Church of God Awaiting is a scam created by Langhorne and co. to keep mankind on Safehold. It managed to last nearly a thousand years, but went completely corrupt, which is likely not what its creators intended.
  • Schizo Tech: Charis is beginning to approach this, as it starts being forced to skip over or work around holes in its technological progression to avoid triggering the Rakurai array.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Although Merlin has the specific mission to break the stranglehold of the Church of God Awaiting over Safehold, in At the Sign of Triumph, although continuing the war will inevitably cause the church to fall while accepting the peace offered by Duchairn and Magwair after they overthrow Clyntahn would allow it and its doctrine to continue to exist, thus delaying the mission, Merlin and his allies are so sick of the destruction, death and loss of innocent life that they decide to end the war.
  • Secretly Earmarked for Greatness: For centuries prior to the novels, the inner core of the Brethren of Saint Zherneau have held proof about their planet's (and humanity's) history. They closely observe anyone nominated to be told the truth, and thus recruited to join them, to make sure that candidate can cope with finding out the "Archangels" were mortal men and women using proscribed technology to counterfeit divine powers. Once Merlin and Cayleb find out about the Brethren, Cayleb institutes the "Inner Circle", expanding knowledge of Safehold's true history outside the religious community and providing limited technological boosts to members. It's strongly implied that the Brethren have killed potential recruits who couldn't accept the truth, and the Inner Circle is willing to do so as well. However, the only failed recruitment we see on-page comes after Merlin has reactivated the cryosleep units in his cave; the failed candidate is reported dead but put into cryo until it's safe to release him.
  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Clyntahn was worried that Charis was going to break from the Church and stand up to him, so he and the Group of Four ordered them destroyed by every other navy in "creation". Apparently, he never spared any thought for what Charis might do if they won. Three guesses.
  • Shapeshifter Baggage: No matter how much Merlin changes the appearance of his PICA body, he can't change its basic dimensions. The fact that all of the seijins who are popping up have the same height and shoulder breadth is part of the reason why Aivah is able to figure out that they're all the same person.
  • Shipper on Deck: Cayleb, Sharleyan, and Lady Hanth seriously discuss the merits of bringing together Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk and Princess Irys, as much for political reasons as the fact they seem to genuinely care for one another. (Incidentally, this happens while on board a ship — they are literally on deck.)
  • Shout-Out: A great many classic lines from the American Revolution ("Our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor"), the Reformation ("Here I stand, I can do no other"), and British naval history ("Charis expects every man to do his duty") show up, as do a few from more...disturbing...sources ("Final solution to the Charisian problem").
    • A few character names are shoutouts too, such as Nahrman Baytz and Kynt Clareyk.
  • Shut Up, Hannibal!: Delivered to Zhaspahr Clyntahn by Allayn Maigwair, of all people.
  • Silk Hiding Steel:
    • Sharleyan is a skilled diplomat, a dedicated ruler, and a caring wife and mother. She's also perfectly willing and capable of helping her armsmen shoot a horde of attacking fanatics and later continuing to sentence traitors to death after getting shot by an assassin. The bullet didn't penetrate her armored clothing, but it did crack a couple of ribs.
    • Madame Ahnzhelyk Phonda is another: a highly-cultured courtesan who caters to the most prestigious members of the Church of God Awaiting. Behind the scenes, she's a master spy and schemer who manages to sneak hundreds of people out from right under Clyntahn's nose. And did we mention that she later trains and leads a small army of counter-revolutionaries?
  • Sinister Minister: Quite a few, but Grand Inquisitor Zhaspahr Clyntahn is the standout.
  • Slobs Versus Snobs: Dohlaran and Desnairan nobility. The former think that the latter are delusional, out of touch with reality, posh and snobbish, while the latter think of former as sort of poor, unfashionable cousins of theirs.
  • Space Age Stasis: The Gbaba are suspected to be stuck in this, with evidence suggesting next to no technological advancement for hundreds or thousands of years. Unfortunately they're so advanced and numerous that they don't need any. Tragically for humanity, it's mentioned that if they'd only had a few more years, the pace of human advancement would have allowed them to hold back the Gbaba, and shortly thereafter handily defeat them. The original plan for Safehold was to have a refuge where they'd get those few more years.
  • Space Amish: Though the folk of Safehold aren't aware of it.
  • Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: Clyntahn objects to Irys' wedding by sending a suicide bomber to the reception. Irys and Hector survive, two hundred innocent bystanders don't.
  • Spoiler Cover: The cover of Like a Mighty Army prominently depicts Nimue Chwaeriau, whose introduction is one of the book's biggest twists.
  • Stealing from the Till: Graft is a way of life on Safehold outside the Charisian sphere, but it's particularly severe in Harchong (where corruption is even factored into the budget, because everyone is going to take a rake). In Through Fiery Trials, Siddarmark becomes another hotbed of corruption, due to a Gilded Age fuelled by rampant land speculation and an overheated banking sector.
  • Succession Crisis: The dispute over the Earldom of Hanth in the first book, which is resolved by bribery rather than any actual examination of the evidence presented by the two claimants.
  • Suicide Attack: Project Rakurai, using gunpowder-filled wagons as terrorist bombs.
  • Suicide by Cop: How Hauwerd Wylsynn chooses to go out. It later turns out that Major Phandys, the soldier who actually killed Hauwerd, was also in on the plan.
  • Surveillance as the Plot Demands: The SNARCs give the protagonists an unbeatable ability to spy on their enemies. The only times it's ever failed them is when there's simply so much information that something gets lost in the shuffle, when dealing with agents acting on their own that they had no prior idea of, or when the planning is done within the Temple itself where Merlin doesn't dare send remotes for fear of setting off an alarm.
  • Sweet Polly Oliver: Nimue is the most effective cross-dresser in history. It helps that she can actually change physical sex as many times as she needs with her PICA.
  • Technically a Smile: As in some of Weber's other works, this trope appears a lot.
  • Technology Uplift: Nimue's/Merlin's goal is giving back to the humanity of Safehold the technology that was effectively stolen from them by Langhorne and his ilk.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
    • Alhverez and his artillery officer, as one hates Thirsk and the other supports his policies. Over time, however, they get friendlier with each other, as Raynos realizes that his cousin's death wasn't Thirsk's fault and the Desnairans and Charisians get too problematic.
    • Desnairans and Dohlarans have to work together as the Army of Justice, but both would much prefer they didn't. The two nations' nobility are locked in a Slobs Versus Snobs situation and their two countries were at war with each other multiple times.
    • Vicars Rhobair Duchairn and Zhaspahr Clyntahn would be very grateful if the other one popped out of existence in some painful and bloody manner. While they prepare their plans to bring down the other, they need to cooperate as the Treasury and the Inquisition are the only things keeping the Church from falling.
  • That Liar Lies: A major Wham Line at the end of Through Fiery Trials involves a hologram of Schueler denouncing Chihiro as a liar in front of a stunned congregation.
    "And that word, my children, is that it was not Shan-wei who Fell, but Chihiro who lied."
  • Themed Aliases: The majority of names used by the seijin network's operatives are Welsh words and phrases, such as Dagyr Cudd ("hidden dagger"), Cennady Frenhines ("Cennad y Frenhines" means "queen's messenger"), and Merch O Obaith ("Daughter of Hope"). The exceptions, like Zhevons, exist to be able to blend in with everyday Safeholdians rather than be deliberately mysterious or exotic.
  • Theme Naming: With the intention of provoking an Oh, Crap! moment with Clyntahn, Charis has decided to name the lead ships of its new class of ocean-going ironclad battlecruisers after people Clyntahn had killed.
  • Throw-Away Guns: Justified during the attack on the Convent of Saint Agtha in By Heresies Distressed, since Safeholdian firearms are single-shot at that point in the timeline. Sharleyan is given an armload of weapons, and after each shot tosses it to one of her reloaders and grabs a replacement.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Earl Gray Harbor throws his knife to kill his traitorous son-in-law in the first book. The trope gains bonus points for taking the time to point out that the wielder hadn't been in any sort of combat in decades, the knife wasn't very fit for throwing, and the thrower was just coming off a drinking binge. He still nails the shot.
  • Time Skip: After 9 books of important events happening on a monthly basis, book ten fast forwards through a decade, skipping the blow by blow details of how the world recovered from the short-term aftermath of the Jihad, such as rebuilding broken nations and economies stretched to the breaking point by wars, inquisitions and trade embargoes and moving on to the long-term aftermath that only became apparent after all the immediate problems were finally resolved. It also spans seventeen years from when At the Sign of Triumph ended, when most of the other books cover one year at most.
  • Title Drop:
    • Guess where a major naval battle takes place in Off Armageddon Reef.
    • More obliquely in A Mighty Fortress, when Cayleb recalls his ancestor's words that the walls of Charis' fortress are its wooden ships. This, itself, is a Shout-Out to second President of the United States John Adams, especially considering that the man who said it was King Zhan II, who said that the wooden walls of the navy were his country's first line of defense. Which itself might have been a Shout-Out to the Oracle of the Wooden Wall, where the Oracle of Delphi supposedly told Athens to "look to your wooden wall" for protection, and Themistocles decided that the wooden wall meant Athens' fleet.
    • Similarly in How Firm a Foundation, Cayleb talks about how he wants Charis to be a refuge from persecution and a foundation for human freedom and dignity — one firm enough to weather any storm.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Allayn Maigwair has grown up at the end of Midst Toil and Tribulation, having led a largely successful military campaign into Siddarmark and telling off Clyntahn when he tries to blame Maigwair for the defeat suffered at the very end.
    • Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk goes from a midshipman with a very minor role in book one, to leading his own company while still in his teens. By At the Sign of Triumph, he's a full-fledged member of the Inner Circle and commanding his own ship, the Fleetwing.
  • Tough Leader Façade: Sharleyan. The throne of Chisholm was given to her when she was twelve years old, and she had to learn to be, or at least appear, as hard as possible in order to both keep that throne and govern her kingdom. One reason she cherishes her relationship with Cayleb is it lets her feel more like a woman than a queen.
  • Turbulent Priest: Maikel Staynair, Samyl & Hauwerd Wylsynn, and other members of the Circle.
  • Uncoffee: It isn't until book 9 that "cherrybean tea" makes an appearance in the series, but its true nature is obvious almost instantly.
  • Unperson:
    • All regiments of the RSA that sided with the Temple Loyalists in the Sword of Schueler campaign. Their battle honors have been erased, and their centuries of contributions to their nation over centuries of war have been struck from the history books as punishment for treason.
    • Some of the heroes of the War of the Fallen suffered this posthumously when the surviving Angels or Archangels learned that they were doubting the cause. Seijin Kohdy's legend survived as fairy tales, it's possible that others weren't so lucky.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Merlin flat-out wonders if Haarahld and Cayleb have some genetic defect affecting their "fight or flight" instincts as they both fail to flip out when he does something obviously high-tech. Justified in the case of Haarahld.
  • Virtual Ghost: Nimue/Merlin is technically this, the mind of an ancient Terran military officer downloaded into a computer and equipped with a robotic body she uses to move around. Nahrmahn Baytz also becomes one following his death in a terrorist attack.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: On Safehold, friendship is defined as being able to freely insult one another. Merlin himself is deeply grateful for having people who are comfortable enough with him to give him grief.
  • Vocal Dissonance: Merlin speaks to Sharleyan in Nimue's voice in the opening scene of A Mighty Fortress.
  • Vote Early, Vote Often:
    • Many people find it very interesting that the person in charge of validating the vote count in the election that made Zaspahr Clyntahn Grand Inquisitor instead of Samyl Wylsynn was the man who would become Clyntahn's second in command. But given that this happened before the start of the main story, the reader never sees anything that would prove or disprove the speculation that Rayno rigged the election (although Word of God confirms that he did). Even if he did, any evidence proving this would likely have been long since destroyed.
    • Post-Jihad, Siddarmark passes a law requiring returning war refugees to re-register to vote. Many places deliberately stall on processing the registrations of people who fled west (to the Temple Lands) as opposed to east (to Protector-held territory), resulting in a lot of people being legislatively disenfranchised for allegedly backing the Jihad—whether they had committed any crimes or not—for years.
  • War Is Hell: Acknowledged in every battle, but especially in Midst Toil and Tribulation with the religiously inspired civil war in Siddarmark, following the Sword of Schueler.
  • We Have Reserves: In Midst Toil and Tribulation, the Army of God eventually resort to a human wave attack when the Bishop decides that he has to take a fortified position now, before the Charisian armies can get any closer.
  • We Named the Monkey "Jack": Maikel Staynair named his pet cat-lizard after his late wife. The name was never changed, even after finding out the critter was male, since the late Mrs. Staynair would've found it hilarious.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist:
    • Zhaspahr Clyntahn is especially dangerous because he has himself convinced that he's merely this.
    • Merlin is, for all intents and purposes, helping along war that will kill millions in order to bring humanity back to its old technological level as quickly as possible and hopefully enable humanity to eventually defeat the Gbaba. Unlike others on this list, he at least struggles with it.
    • Word of God says that Langhorne and Bédard honestly believed that locking Safehold in Medieval Stasis permanently would ensure humanity's survival.
  • Wham Episode:
    • Book 2: Merlin discovering the Order of St. Zherneau, a monastic order of which Maikel Staynair is a brother, and whose highest members are actually aware of the true history of Safehold and the nature of the Archangels.
    • Book 5: Paityr Wylsynn's revelation, that the archangels promised to return in one thousand years' time to see how Safehold was coming along
  • Wham Line:
    • "That's why I'm speaking to you about it... Ahbraim." Aivah to Merlin, book seven.
    • "This is my Testimony, the Testimony of Schueler, and I leave it with you so that all who see it may know I truly appeared before you, that this is truly my word. And that word, my children, is that it was not Shan-wei who Fell, but Chihiro who lied." Book ten.note 
  • What Happened to the Mouse?:
    • The fraudulent Earl of Hanth, who had a major storyline in Off Armageddon Reef, and was last seen heading to Zion in By Schism Rent Asunder in order to be "the only legitimate Charisian noble to declare for the Church", has vanished completely. No mention of a ship sinking, of being killed simply for being a Charisian, or of making it there either to be tortured by the Inquisition, or to actually be part of their plans. We don't even know if they just ignored him or not.
    • Grand Vicar Erek XVII is apparently such a nonentity in Church politics that when Duchairn launches a coup and takes control of the Church, the book doesn't even bother mentioning what happened to its previous nominal head, just the puppet masters. The following book just mentions that he was technically still in office until he was forcibly retired by his successor, but not what happened to him after.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Self-inflicted for Merlin. While everyone who learns the truth about Merlin is convinced that he's a living person, Merlin entertains constant doubt about his identity, and the reader is frequently reminded that he doesn't have a real heart when he feels strong emotions.
  • Willfully Weak: Merlin usually keeps governors in place to keep from betraying his superhuman nature too obviously, he removes them in emergencies when massive carnage is called for.
  • Will Not Tell a Lie:
    • A significant factor in the propaganda battle between the Empire and the Church. The Charisians have done their best to restrict their propaganda to provable facts, regardless of whether anyone will believe them or not. On at least two occasions (Ahnzhelyk's files regarding Church corruption and the murders of vicars within Zion itself), Charisian leadership chose not to publish anything because they only have copies and not the original evidence (in the case of the former) and because there's an off-chance of Clyntahn's pulling a fast one and can disprove their claims (in the case of the latter).
    • In At the Sign of Triumph, this becomes crucial when the propaganda broadsheets Owl's remotes tack up all over the Temple Lands call on the people of Zion to rise up against the Inquisition. The protagonists had been very careful to never tell any lies in those broadsheets, and even included easily checked local news to increase their validity where they were posted. Compared to the Inquisition's constant lies and denials, it made it easy for people to decide what to do.
    • Merlin makes the decision early on to avoid outright lying to people as much as possible because he's aware that at some point the truth will come out about him and Safehold's true history, and he wants to have a reputation of having been as honest as he could be given the limits of what he could tell people.
  • Winter of Starvation: The "Sword of Schueler" deliberately creates one of these in Siddarmark. The Inquisition-organized "spontaneous" rebellion against the Siddarmark government is specifically timed to start after the harvest but before those crops can be shipped east to more populated provinces, and the rebels are also ordered to destroy both food supplies and the canals that might have been used to ship food or rescue starving people.
  • Wooden Ships and Iron Men: The Charisian navy after Merlin's innovations take hold. Already one of the most formidable naval forces on Safehold, Merlin's work makes them nigh invincible in naval combat. The few engagements they do lose come at an almost heavier price to the other side.
  • Worth It: Said by Merlin after his prank on Sharleyan at the start of A Mighty Fortress.
  • Worthy Opponent:
    • The Earl of Thirsk is consistently said by the Charisian characters to be the single most dangerous commander the enemy has. He proves them correct, too, as his overhaul of the Dohlaran navy makes it the only nation that can even attempt to challenge Charis at sea. More importantly, the only reason they don't have him assassinated is because he actually tries to treat his prisoners of war honorably.
    • The whole Dohlaran military gets this from Charis, to the extent that a Charisian soldier who would gladly kill a helpless Army of God soldier spares a Dohlaran who he's knocked out on-mission, because of the sense that the Dohlarans don't deserve to be paying the brutal butcher's bill that Charisian firepower is exacting from the Temple Loyalists. This attitude also results in very cordial relations between Charis and Dohlar after the Jihad is over, as most Charisians will agree that Dohlar fought a relatively clean and honorable war.
  • Written by the Winners: The official history of Shan-wei's fall and the War Against the Fallen was written by the Archangel Chihiro, who had fought the war on Langhorne's side. All documentation that portrayed Shan-wei and Kau-yung sympathetically was systematically destroyed, often along with any evidence as to the existence of the person who produced it in the first place.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Rayno comes to the conclusion that the only way La Résistance in Zion could accomplish all it does would be for it to have demonic assistance. Legitimate guess — if it was a fantasy setting. As it is, he doesn't even imagine he's in science fiction.
  • Xanatos Gambit: Played with. Initially, Nimue wanted to touch off a world war because it would force Safehold to develop new technologies and break through the Proscriptions of Jwo-jeng; either Charis would win, or it would lose, but in losing it would force the Temple to utilize technologies that they couldn't bottle up again. However, Merlin soon becomes personally invested in a Charisian victory, and this trope ceases to apply.
  • Year Zero: Initially Creation, but in How Firm a Foundation Merlin notes that the end of Shan-wei's rebellion became the new Year Zero by which the "Years of God" are counted. This becomes a fairly significant plot point in the later books, since they learn from Paityr that the Archangels are prophesied to return after a thousand years. If that's a thousand years from Creation, the inner circle only has about twenty more years before their return, whereas if that's counting from Shan-Wei's murder they have close to a century.
  • You Can't Make an Omelette...:
    • Zhaspar Clyntahn says the entire phrase word by word more than once, either to justify his megalomania and increasing hold over the Church or as a sign that he's deep in the territory of Believing Their Own Lies.
    • Oddly enough, the phrase is in-universe attributed to "archangel" Chihiro before engaging the Fallen.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: After book nine, the Mighty Host of God and the Archangels are effectively exiled from their homes in Harchong, because Harchong's northern aristocrats don't want to see their former serfs returning home as trained line infantry with an egalitarian junior officer corps.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: By book nine, Duchairn and Maigwair have figured out that Clyntahn is likely to seize the first plausible excuse he can find to purge them once he no longer needs them to win the Jihad. They purge him first.
  • You Will Be Spared: In Hell's Foundations Quiver, Merlin kills the commanders of a Death March and wounds a junior officer who tries to stop him, but leaves the wounded man alive while assuring him that he won't harm him any further and complimenting him for trying to keep the prisoners alive and healthy despite his superiors' disapproval.
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters:
    • Helm Cleaver, the Zion resistance organized by Aivah Parsahn, which uses methods such as assassination and blowing up churches, while avoiding innocent casualties.
    • The Church always maintained that all the seijins fought for Mother Church during the War Against the Fallen. This is only true because they labelled all warriors with seijin abilities that fought on the other side as demons.

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