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Re: COGA after current war | |
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by n7axw » Wed Feb 25, 2015 2:27 pm | |
n7axw
Posts: 5997
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These are all darn good posts, providing good food for thought. Here is my take...
We have a tendency to to think that if we roll over Zion, force a treaty that curbs the power of the Inquisition, mission accomplished. Nope. All too many folks think the Inquisition is doing just fine and support it. Cutting off the head only decentralizes its power to the local level where it will function much as it always has with popular support in places like Harchong and Desnair. Local rulers and the Inquisition will be scratching each other's backs, using that deep well of faith to reinforce the current social order, both on the secular and on the spiritual side. What has been accomplished is that Safehold no longer has a world order. In places like the EOC, Siddarmark and Silkiah, the Inquisition is done and won't be tolerated. But for the rest of Safehold, the process will be multigenerational, that is, a very long haul. Think of the current struggle between the forces of modernism and anti-modernism on on earth in our own time. It's been going on for hundreds of years and is still boiling. Safehold has the potential to be much worse. Don When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: COGA after current war | |
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by anwi » Wed Feb 25, 2015 2:52 pm | |
anwi
Posts: 176
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I have to disagree. I sincerely doubt if the Inquisition - Clyntahn style division - is capable of running in decentralized mode. Even if Zion would fall to the EoC, the remainder of the Inquisition would likely establish a Grand Inquisitor-in-Exile as well as a Grand Vicar-in-exile. It's simply to entrenched in their ideological basis to do something else. But: If the CoGA were to permanently loose Zion, this would shatter the central belief matrix on Safehold; fundamentalist adherents of the "old order" would probably be a small minority (unfortunately starting a terroristic campaign). With what we know now, I personally don't think that the EoC and its allies can simply roll over the CoGA. If the CoGA does not collapse (not militarily but rather due to internal strife), then a successful revolt against Clyntahn is my preferred outcome. This would bring Duchairn (e.g.) to the helm; he might sue for armistice. And that would end in a cold war like scenario. The CoGA would still maintain ist supremacy in its territories, whereas the CoC would maintain its current role in the other lands. |
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Re: COGA after current war | |
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by n7axw » Wed Feb 25, 2015 4:12 pm | |
n7axw
Posts: 5997
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Actually prior to the war, the Inquisition was running mostly in decentralized mode. Appointments were made at the top. Major policy decisions were made at the top. But for the most part, implementation had to be left to the intendants to work out the details.It had to be that way if for no other reason than it would be imposible to micromanage an organization as large and widespread as the Inquisition top down. In the new order, deals and accomodations will have to be made locally because the top will no longer be able to impose its will. Actually my own notion of a "preferred outcome" would be modeled after the Russians overrunning Berlin than negotiating a settlement. These people have been every bit as vicious as the Nazis and a "preferred outcome" would be a surrender with gallows and/or headsmen in full view. Don When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: COGA after current war | |
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by McGuiness » Wed Feb 25, 2015 5:12 pm | |
McGuiness
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As much as an armistice will hurt Merlin's plans for the future, it does accomplish several things. 1. It forces the CoGA to acknowledge the CoC as a valid church and an alternate path to God. Break up the monopoly that the CoGA has on religion, and the hearts of men everywhere (who are allowed to hear about it) are suddenly free to question the difference in the two church's doctrines, and to chose for themselves. 2. The CoC will be dealing from a position of strength! Any armistice will be signed with EoC forces in possession of both the temple and Zion, over Clyntahn's dead body! Literally! 3. The CoGA will be forced to allow CoC congregations everywhere, with full religious tolerance, much as the EoC provides full tolerance for all TLs, as long as they abide by the law. So port cities all over Safehold will have CoC congregations and clergy, preaching a kinder and gentler message. The secular leaders won't like it in Harchong, Desnair, etc. and I expect some martyrs during ugly crackdowns, but the CoGA will officially be in favor of religious tolerance. 4. The Inquisition is despised and feared across the entire planet! The only people who think it's doing a good job are the ones it keeps in power. Your average serf doesn't love the Inquisition, nor does your artificer who has it threatening him and breathing down his neck, the shopkeeper who sells foreign goods, etc. Gutting the organization throughout the CoGA, beginning with its military arm will be required at a minimum, as well as repudiating all inquisitors as outlaws and excommunicating them from the CoGA. Where that doesn't happen, the guns will start blasting away again. After all, a loving God doesn't need the Inquisition and won't force people to believe. That message will appeal to people the planet over, even if they aren't CoC sympathizers. 5. Zion is in the hands of the CoC, and the inner circle is not going to be willing to give up the temple once it finds (and neutralizes) whatever is in the basement. That is going to be a huge blow to the prestige and "infallibility" of the CoGA. How can God and the Archangels allow the heretics to triumph and seize the temple? That fact alone will cause a lot of people to give the teachings of the CoC a good, hard look, and they're likely to agree with the CoC regarding the parts of the Writ and the doctrines of the CoGA it has renounced. Zion under the management of Archbishop Staynair will actually be run the way it's supposed to be, with the poor fed, the hospitals fully staffed and funded, and winter quarters provided for all. The CoC will attract the reformists everywhere, but it's also going to attract converts who never dreamed they'd leave Mother Church. A church governed by love whose priests and nuns dedicate their lives to the service of their fellow man will win when compared to a church run by rigid dogma and fear that enriches the vicarate, enforces the status quo, and ensures the continued preeminence of the and the rich and powerful. (No matter how much reforming Duchairn or someone like him manages to put in place.) I'm sure others can raise many salient points that didn't occur to me off the top of my head, but these are good enough to further the discussion. Sadly, I fully expect CoC congregations to be slaughtered here and there in the mainland realms that fear the results of their teachings. (Harchong, Desnair, the Temple Lands.) The Writ might say something about turning the other cheek, but I doubt even Staynair is going to tell his congregations to take religious bigotry and violence lying down. A schism in the church is a recipe for a religious war - but if it gets out of control, the technologically advanced EoC will intervene and happily kill as many TLs as it takes to get the message across that the CoC will be tolerated no matter the cost to the upper crust of society in every country. It won't tolerate the existence of the Inquisition and inquisitors will still be killed on sight, but it will take prisoners. (The armistice will formally dissovle the Inquisition in the CoGA, which makes every inquisitor who continues to serve an outlaw with a death warrant on his head.) "Oh bother", said Pooh as he glanced through the airlock window at the helmet he'd forgotten to wear. |
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Re: COGA after current war | |
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by JeffEngel » Wed Feb 25, 2015 9:50 pm | |
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I'm curious - if you think the CoC can get all this and more in the terms of a mere armistice, what sort of CoGA even remains in this scenario? It doesn't sound like it has the combination of will and capability left to resist any imposition made on it, in which case it's just a matter of listening to the terms dictated to it. |
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Re: COGA after current war | |
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by n7axw » Thu Feb 26, 2015 12:23 am | |
n7axw
Posts: 5997
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I don't think Mac is thinking of an armistice. He's thinking of a surrender. That really is more my line than a negotiated peace. I wish things could be as simple as he implies when dealing with the Inquisition. Cutting the head off the beast in Zion is going to be the easy part. Dealing with it in Desnair is going to be a much more difficult proposition. What it amounts to is that not everybody disagrees with what the Inquisition has done in "fighting heresy." The blasted heretics really had it coming for trying to overthrow God and Langhorne, after all. There is going to be a whole bunch of that kind of thinking out there for a long time. Don When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: COGA after current war | |
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by JeffEngel » Thu Feb 26, 2015 8:39 am | |
JeffEngel
Posts: 2074
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One point about a decentralized Inquisition - it'd be a tool of the local Church, not a central one. A national Church has different theological needs. The first one is justifying itself as a national Church instead of part of a central one, which would mean making heavier weather of the authority of kings than the CoGA has ever yet. The CoC doesn't seem to stress that so much; I think the idea is to slip in the theory that the legitimacy of government rests on the consent of the governed. That works for the EoC and it's going to be entirely satisfying in (Reformist) Siddarmark, but it's going to be another bomb thrown into the Safehold social matrix when someone else clues in on it. Governments and religions on Earth have grown up together, propping one another up, so the moves from a "universal"/imperial church to a national one were available in the theology. Safehold hasn't had the remains of prior relationships between the two to pick and choose bits to support the theory you want. Or at least, not the same wealth of it; the Church's defense of changing things previously to centralized archbishop selection got cherry-picked by Staynair to support the restoration of local archbishop selection. But I don't know that that's got grist for (e.g.) Henry VIII's theory that created the Church of England. So the claims may be a lot more strained, in the case of outright national churches; they may be practically national churches that are theoretically still subject to Zion, but with the Vicarate's role reduced to a rubberstamp; or they may go to an implicit theory of government that really doesn't owe much if anything to the Church and try to conceal or confuse that. What sort of doctrine is the national Inquisition supposed to put forward or condemn there? It'd take a very frank discussion between a king or ministers and the archbishop behind closed doors, followed by a lot of wrangling to come up with some cloak to fling over naked usurpation of Church prerogative. And then the Inquisition - til yesterday, the tool of that prerogative - to make it work. Really, the king and archbishop may do better to round up the Inquisition, nationalize the Church, and just try to run things on some sort of "don't ask, don't tell, but please note that the king is paying all the people with big guns" theory of legitimacy and let doctrine wander within those bounds. (At some level of analysis, that's got a lot of precedent on Earth.) So long as the powers that be get to define "heresy" as what the other guys are preaching and what they are fighting, and no one questions things in detail much or gets worked up over answers, they're golden. That can work in the short term. But it's going to wear thin before too long. You may be able to run it long enough to make a soft landing and a transition to a genuinely popular government, but that would be a very different kettle of fish from the current Empires of Harchong or Desnair. |
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Re: COGA after current war | |
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by PeterZ » Thu Feb 26, 2015 10:49 am | |
PeterZ
Posts: 6432
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The CoGA isn't a church like any Terra has seen. Safehold isn't Terra either. Safehold is a construct built on a foundation of lies. Safehold cosmology isn't guided by a central principle, but by the active wills of several divine beings. The archangels' willfully bestowed gifts/blessings and curses guide most natural/physical laws and the observed reactions. That means there is no foundation for the physical laws as we understand them unless one asserts those principles as true despite the proof the Writ and the Testimonies represent. After all if the archangel changes his mind regarding one particular interaction, the reaction happens differently or not at all. What Terrans might see as randomness, Safeholdians see as divine purpose. That's hardly the basis for the scientific method.
Because of this the nature of the CoGA's relationship to Safeholdians is more akin to the Isrealite prophets than to any Christian organization. The prophets, like the CoGA, guide the people into a better alignment of what God wishes from His creation/people. He created Safehold for a purpose and Safeholdians that do not support that purpose are EVIL. Plain and simple. Defining what that purpose is may be argued just as the Reformers argue with the Loyalists. This fundamental paradigm cannot be argued because God's existence and his purpose are empirically and demonstrably proven. Until that proof is discredited NOTHING will change on Safehold for the vast majority of people. |
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