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[skybreak]

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Wasn't Zola a prisoner of Terebithia/Grandmama last time we saw her?
So either:
This attack was put into motion before Zola went to Paris, or
It is being run by a different instance of Lucrezia, and/or
Zola escaped from Terebithia

Comments

[kelkyag]

Or Terebithia has a hand in this.

[skybreak]

Hmmm, Violetta tells us that Terebithia hates Lucrezia:
https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20160504
So I would have thought that unlikely (unless Lu or the Geisters managed to turn her into a revenant).

[kelkyag]

That's been asserted, yes. But Terebithia may also think she can put Zola to some use.

Also, does Terebithia -- does *anyone* other than Zola and various Lucrezias -- know that there's a copy of Lucrezia in Zola's head?

Not ruling out Terebithia being wasped, either. I don't know if Tarvek would've offered her his wasp-preventative, or if she would've taken it.

[kelkyag]

does *anyone* other than Zola and various Lucrezias
On reflection, Albia and/or her agents may know if they've interrogated the Lucrezia copy that was extracted from Agatha's head, and Agatha might know if that bit of data happened to leak to her from the resident Lucrezia (which happened some, but possibly mostly in Lucrezia-directed ways, as with the impulse to release the Muse of Time).

[turbobeholder]

Someone had Zola prepared for this sort of thing. Presumably the Order's Sparks, since she isn't one. Using juicy insider knowledge of renegade high-ranked Geisterdamen.
Now those in the know would assume that since Zola commands Geisters, either she is a Lucrezia, or impersonates one (which requires more insider knowledge).
At this point she could as well report shining success of the operation (whether it was so or not, of course). Not doing so would be far more suspicious.
While compliance does not remove suspicions completely, they can at least have those who know her take a look and decide the mannerisms and attitudes are 100% Zola. Unless some form of non-destructive analysis of what goes on in her brain is an option.

[turbobeholder]

It's probably true. Terebithia always hated Lucrezia and still does. Why not.
However, she doesn't seem to mind usurping Lucrezia's power and using her assets — like Zola's plot in Paris with Geisters and enslavers.

[marycatelli]

Or time travel was involved.

[madfilkentist]

They aren't talking about how the attacking force cut through hundreds of miles of Europa like warm butter. It has something big going for it, whatever it is.

[jbwoodford]

I think they alluded to it, though: it has more to do with the organizational structure of the Wulfenbach empire than the opposition's capabilities. In Gil's absence, there's no one to manage the defenses, and the various individual polities are being defeated in detail.

[madfilkentist]

In a single day, the Polar Lords reached the Carpathian foothills, taking multiple major cities along the way. That goes far beyond mere military superiority. It's something so powerful that the defending forces might as well not have been there.

[jbwoodford]

A million troops is a lot, though.

OTOH, I suspect that the Foglios may not have realized the *really* impressive thing about that. Google Maps says that the distance from Saint Petersburg to the Carpathian Mountains is a little under 1800 km. At a guess, the Polar Lords (given the name) are centered somewhere north of Saint Petersburg, in Finland or Scandinavia. The logistics of moving that many troops that fast--even if they're essentially air-dropping independent battalions on Riga, Minsk, Vilnius, etc.--is somewhere beyond impressive, and the characters don't even ask how they're deploying so quickly.

[turbobeholder]

Maybe two days, but yes, it's fast.
However, Lucrezia's involvement is suspected exactly because the "defending" forces don't perform half as well as expected from them.
If true, they are just running on a carpet laid out in advance, so don't need to send time and effort on major battles, or even on securing the "conquered" places. Maybe crush some oddball groups that successfully resisted takeover and try to fight rather than hide and wait for Wulfenbach. There cannot be many of those, and since they must have been targeted by intelligence and saboteurs beforehand, this part can be made a lot easier than it should be, too.

[turbobeholder]

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