“- is it? How?”

“If the Crusade had collapsed and Mendev had a civil war and lost containment of the Wound. Which could have happened, if any of us had been a bit more careless.”

“Surely Iomedae would do something.”

“ - if Iomedae intervenes to stop a hundred thousand people dying, then probably ninety nine thousand people die, somewhere else, because now She can’t afford to fix it.

…I do think we may have come close to a situation where She intervened, and if that had happened the report would be even more annoyed.”

With respect to the analysis under "5., Person A failed to provide his team with proper equipment or magical support for venturing into the Abyss.", the Crusade concurs that this was a substantial operational failure and plans to add an operational planning stage that can catch similar mistaken assumptions about the operating environment. The Crusade disputes that the failure to direct A1 to prepare Mass Planar Adaptation changed operating conditions at the moment of the incident: Mass Planar Adaptation, available to A1 alone among those engaged in operations on 8 Abadius, lasts 11 hours when cast by A1 and covers 11 persons, of the 21 involved in the operation. Had A1 prepared two Mass Planar Adaptations, they would have expired four hours before the incident. A1 lacks sufficient spell access to have prepared four, and preparing two or three would have entailed some risk of failing to achieve operational objectives due to the loss of other critically necessary sixth circle spells. Arranging a loan of a metamagic rod of Extend Spell, in addition to directing A1 to prepare two of Mass Planar Adaptation, in addition to replacing AI's lost capabilities with two to three scrolls of Heal, would have changed the operating conditions at the moment of the incident, at an expense to the Crusade not obviously warranted in the absence of reason to anticipate an incident.

The Crusade seconds recommendation 9, "Officers of Lastwall taking on missions in the Abyss should be briefed as to the distortionary mental effects of that plane", and offers access to the Midnight Fane, presently clear of demons, for the use of any allied polity seeking to give their officers experience with operating in the Abyss or otherwise subject to subtle mental distortion, as well as anyone conducting research which could make it clearer how to prioritize Planar Adaptation relative to other spells in challenging operational environments.

With respect to the analysis under 10(c), "Person A successfully noticed appropriate nervousness about the planned events of 8 Abadius on multiple occasions; He should in the future be more willing to act on similar nervousness," the Crusade disputes that this is effective as a general recommendation and observes that the incident can be interpreted as simultaneously an occasion of insufficient paranoia and caution (about the possibility of assassination from Mendevian leadership) and excessive paranoia and caution (about the possibility of same from Lastwall leadership); the overall directional recommendation is ambiguous. 

The Crusade notes that the fatigue experienced by the involved parties in this incident was not an unfortunate coincidence but a deliberate product of PB’s decisions to time a confrontation with A for a moment where A was weakened by the fight against the Abyss and less able to resist the use of force. As a result, any effort to improve fatigue-related operational planning may have simply caused PB to choose a different time or venue for the confrontation where A was relevantly impaired, and PB may have in operational planning on 7 Abadius deliberately steered planning towards plans where A and those under his command would be fatigued. 

Relatedly, with respect to the analysis of psychological factors contributing to suboptimal decisionmaking, the Crusade notes that being unexpectedly ordered to one’s death by one’s allies is a distracting state in which decisionmaking is frequently suboptimal. The Crusade proposes conducting training specifically around responding appropriately to sudden apparent betrayals, which call for a different set of responses than either sudden ambushes by known enemies or other high-stakes diplomacy. The Crusade intends to add, to its own emergency response and ambush training, scenarios involving illegal orders, dominated allies, and betrayals by allies, and is willing to host such training for other interested parties.

The Crusade proposes that the discouragement of communication with Iomedae outside of Lastwall-controlled channels, instead of emphasizing appropriate training and measures for reducing question redundancy, contributed to an operating environment in which the leadership of Mendev and the Fifth Mendevian Crusade despite being nominally guided by Iomedae did not contemplate seeking Her advice on important matters, such that it was notable to no one that PB had made no such determination about her plans to send the Knight-Commander on a mission to the Abyss, or for that matter about her plans to appoint the Knight-Commander to his role.

The Crusade proposes that Iomedae should evaluate a policy of denying spells to empowered servants of Hers in fragile good standing, as a method of communicating disapproval less expensive to correct, and with fewer broad social implications, than renouncing them, and that (if such a policy would sometimes be worth the cost) the possibility - and how to interpret it - be widely communicated. 

Marit has the supplemental to Aarind two days later. He lingers while the latter reads it, because he knows he's at least a little bit making trouble issuing recommendations to Iomedae in the reports for her church and he wants to know how much trouble.

Aarind reads through the supplemental. "Ah, you have recommendations…" he says, trailing off as he reaches that section. "That's…unorthodox. Um.  I - suppose it's not against policy, incident reports can make recommendations for anyone… You know, you could just make this one directly, I imagine, it doesn't have to go through Lastwall."

Oh, he doesn’t say, we’re not on speaking terms right now. "I have a copy without that recommendation if you are more comfortable submitting that one."

"I am expected to submit any supplementals exactly as I received them and to provide no input into their composition. If you provide me the copy without that recommendation I will submit both."

"You know, she spent a significant fraction of her time making suggestions to Aroden. He made use of many of them."

He's not sure what to say to that except that obviously that's different because she's Iomedae. He manages a noncommittal "As you say."

(And what made her Iomedae? The habit of issuing recommendations to the gods! …among other things, admittedly.) "That's all," he says.

"Should I also be expecting a supplemental from Seelah?"

"She found the format pretty difficult to pick up. Maybe next time we cause an international crisis, when she's had more practice with it."

"We try not to get too much practice writing these." He sighs. "Alas, our mortal failings."

I want to read the one on getting Arazni kidnapped by Geb, he would say, but he's obviously already pushed too far today. "Fortune follow you," he says instead.

"And you."

"All right people, we've fucked up here. We handled Mendev badly, got a bunch of paladins pointing swords at each other, and probably very nearly cost the Goddess the biggest miracle of the past forty years. Possibly the only thing that saved us from that were the timely interventions of Persons A3 and A4, neither of whom is affiliated with Lastwall or the Goddess in any way, and the former of whom I'm informed is a child."

"Does anyone disagree with this analysis?"

"...A child? What was a child doing on an operation in the Abyss?"

"She's a powerful spellcaster, in Knight-Commander 'Aspex's' adventuring party. I gather he cannot afford to be picky about age, after filtering for competence and not being a Baphomet cultist, and even if he were she is technically older than any of us. Elf."

"Jan, I feel like that analysis is skipping over some important details - "

"You've all read the report. I do not need to get into the details. Do you disagree with the main thrust of my analysis?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Very well. What do we think of the supplemental - tabling the last item for now."

"Mostly sound. A little defensive regarding 10-c, but he's right that the recommendation is ambiguous. For the formal recommendation, I suggest we find the politest possible way to say 'It's a wonder Galfrey hasn't fallen, don't trust her but you can trust us.' "