Suppose it is more direct than that. Suppose the Temple was designed to respond to people with a NEAT interface. Every original colonist and crew member had them. Stories of the Temple's ability to show what is happening was passed down from generation to generation but the knowledge to activate it has been lost. Sure other interface devices are possible, but those types of interfaces have been restricted.
Now suppose that one of the losing factions remembers that fact. Further suppose that they have access to a NEAT and a medicomp. This hypothetical group locates itself in an Abby focussing on raising orphans and educating children. Suppose that some of the orphans they raise get NEAT interfaces implanted. Suppose that these folks can communicate with data downloads rather than broadcast messages. An innocuous looking device is passed along from agent to agent and the tranmission happens upon physical contact. The energy signature may well be slight enough to be easily shielded. This system would have been very secure and useful in the War Against the Fallen.
Such a group could well be able to take control of the systems in Zion or just sneak in and out easily. Perhaps that group could sneak in and pull out data from the computers in the Temple from one of many reasonable public places. Perhaps even more private places if Clyntahn's proclivities with courtesans was indicative of general behaviour within the Temple.
The biggest issues I see is the implanting of the interface. The text in BSRA suggests that only new borns can recieve them. This was not definitively stated, but merely implied. Suppose there is a great deal of wiggle room in when the implants may be implanted. If school aged children can recieve the interface, then Aivah might well have a NEAT interface. Aivah and all her operators might well have them. Also consider that their poison suicide containers might have nanos designed to breakdown NEAT interfaces as they kill the agent.
Aivah's organization then is as long lived as Cayleb and the other innercircle members are now. They have been around for centuries maintaining their network. Until recently (last 40-50 years) they have not seen the reason to act, but now they do. Not sure what their underlying motives might be, but I doubt they are Shan-wei's seedlings although they could be.
PalmerSperry wrote:BarryKirk wrote:Perhaps, she is a descendent of one of the archangels that has access to some TF tech..
This
might be possible, more specifically the access to TF tech.
Aivah had, and continues to have, access to a large amount of information that a decent Grand Inquisitor would want. Now it could have come from the Wylsynns, but an alternative idea has come to me.
At one point during LAMA Maigwair thinks about a rumour that the Inquisition could listen to conversations anywhere in the temple, but he largely discounts it because Clyntahn would've killed far more people.
Now consider that
if such a system did exist it would need some way of interacting with with people who truly believe in the Proscriptions, but whom are prepared to accept certain "magical" features of the Temple (the magic seats, the perfect temperature etc). So maybe the Temple is laced with monitoring systems which feed into a reasonably smart expert system (i.e. not a true AI, just something that can spot keywords in communication and the like).
But that leaves it needing a way of communicating with the humans, maybe something similar to the original communicator units Merlin gave Cayleb and Sharleyan? A holographic (non-specific) angel who reveals truths about the misdeeds of the Vicars (and staffs) would probably be believed? (There'd need to be instructions relating to recharging it.)
Now supposed that the reason Clyntahn hasn't killed off even more people in the Tempe is that he doesn't have the remote, Aivah does? That would leave questions as to how come Owl hasn't spotted the either the remote of the transmissions to it, not to mention how Aivah "acquired it" (Ahem!) of course.
(Nb: I'm not suggesting she has access to it as a communicator to/from Zion, merely that she performs the proper ritual and an angel appears and recites the latest summary.)
