What if it wasn't Kau-Yung's vest nuke?

fallsfromtrees wrote:

Duckk wrote:Pei's final message specifically called out "Langhorne and the Administrative Council" as the target of his suicide run. Turning your supposed potential ally into radioactive ash is pretty indicative of what Pei's actual feelings towards Langhorne were.

OTOH, we don't know what transpired at the meeting. If Langhorne opens with "Chihiro gone crazy - he ordered a strike on Alexandria" might well have caused Kau Yung to have reconsidered, and then Chihiro nukes them both. It's the kind of plot twist RFC likes.

The only problem is that allegedly Chihiro survived to eventually take over. Even if one supposes he had a nuke hidden somewhere near the meeting site, he couldn't have actually attended, or he'd have been toast along with Langhorne.

Langhorne may have been many things, but stupid wasn't one of them. If Chihiro had whacked Alexandria on his own, against Langhorne's wishes, I doubt Langhorne would have gotten anywhere *near* him until he was apprehended and searched; just in case he *did* have something like that in mind. Langhorne liked followers, rather than equals.

Remember, Commodore Pei never let himself stand out from more than minor disagreement, if that. If he had, I doubt the opportunity for *him* to nuke an administrative meeting would have presented itself.

In any case, it's pretty much useless speculation at this point. There were probably no firsthand accounts of what happened at that meeting that could possibly surface *now*. If RFC had covered that portion of Safehold history in a more detailed manner, rather than skipping most of it, things might be different. But even if there are surviving Archangels in stasis that might revive in a few years, none of them probably know for sure exactly what happened.

I doubt Pei himself left any obvious tracks, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he had ordered the remaining military forces under his command to stay away from the meeting site - after all, I doubt he'd have wanted them killed needlessly, and possibly even had the hopes that they might join a resistance movement. But their "non presence" alone could have easily pointed to him as the likely "guilty party"; even if no proof were actually found.

RogueWarrior wrote:

SWM wrote:I understood what you were saying, but I still don't see how it affects anything.

It might help with an implementation of a secular (religiously neutral) society upon the reveal that the current WRIT is garbage invented by a madman. Chihiro becomes the get-out-of-jail-free card.

Think outside of the box!!

I don't see how it would be possible to demonstrate this one way or another. The principals to whatever event happened nearly a thousand years ago are long dead. We know that Kau-yung marched into that meeting with a vest pocket nuke and every intent of using it and that there was at least some confusion about who did what to whom at the time.

As far as a secular society is concerned, I suspect that you are considerably under-estimating the power of faith to prevail no matter what the evidence to the contrary. Decisively defeating the Temple to conclusively demonstrate that God is not on the COGA's side will do far more to shake up Safehold's faith than an argument over obscure events in the distant past that cannot be settled one way or the other anyway.

Don

RogueWarrior wrote:

SWM wrote:I understood what you were saying, but I still don't see how it affects anything.

It might help with an implementation of a secular (religiously neutral) society upon the reveal that the current WRIT is garbage invented by a madman. Chihiro becomes the get-out-of-jail-free card.

Think outside of the box!!

But there's no need to claim that Chihiro was a madman. Langhorne was a madman, too! It doesn't matter whether it was Chihiro or Langhorne that ordered the attack on Shan-Wei. Whoever did it was insane. We already know that the overall plan for Safehold was Langhorne's. Pinning the OBS attack on Chihiro does not make convincing the population any easier. And Langhorne was most definitely insane.