[SPOILERS] Angel and Archangel deaths

We know the Angels and Archangels were actually the command crew using technology to appear divine to the newly awakened Adams and Eves. We also know they had a cover story, and told the Adams and Eves the bodies they wore were mortal sheaths, that they would depart from and return to God when their work on Safehold was done. I wondered from the beginning how that departure would be handled. (I suspected they might find an excuse to go away somewhere when they knew death was approaching rather than dying in front of the Safeholders.)

I asked RFC at a con how long the trip from Earth to Safehold took, and he said he'd have to check his notes, but that a 40 year period elapsed between when the expedition first made landfall on Safehold and the Adams and Eves were awakened, while the command crew did the initial preparations that made the planet a place humanity could live on.

I was wondering about lifespans, like the fact that the remaining lesser angels were waiting for the last of the Adams and Eves to dies before rewriting the Testimonies and purging any inconsistencies with revealed truths. Given that the Adams and Eves would be young and fit, and the Angels and Archangels might be older (especially if they were awake on the voyage), I wondered about them beginning to die off before the Adams and Eves did.

The answer was that the-anti-aging treatments in the Safehold Universe worked like Prolong in the Honorverse - the initial treatment gave you longer life, but you needed periodic booster shots for full effect. The Adams and Eves had not gotten the booster shots, so they got a roughly 200 year lifespan, but the command crew did, and would be around rather longer. How much longer wasn't specified.

But meanwhile, precisely how would angelic death be handled? The last chapter of Through Fiery Trials was the first place an example was given. The Feast of the Holy Archangel Schueler being held at the Church of the Holy Archangel Schueler commemorated the day on which Schueler's soul departed his worn out mortal body and returned to God, and the Cathedral had been built to house the crypt in which that mortal body was interred.

This would fit with Safehold theology, but it's the first time we've heard about it.

At the same con, I asked RFC about the fact that the histories had Schueler and Chihiro departing after the War Against the Fallen, and said "Departed to where? Unless there's something you haven't told us yet, the only places to be are Safehold or a colony vessel." He said we would learn where the others wound up and what happened to them, which makes me suspect the case of Schueler might be the exception rather than the rule.

We also know the Dawn Star left Safehold's sky. We know that was actually Langhorne's command ship, Hamilcar. Where might it have gone, and who might have been aboard when it did? I don't see it being dropped into the local sun like the rest of Operation Ark's vessels were.
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Dennis

DMcCunney wrote:At the same con, I asked RFC about the fact that the histories had Schueler and Chihiro departing after the War Against the Fallen, and said "Departed to where? Unless there's something you haven't told us yet, the only places to be are Safehold or a colony vessel." He said we would learn where the others wound up and what happened to them, which makes me suspect the case of Schueler might be the exception rather than the rule.

We also know the Dawn Star left Safehold's sky. We know that was actually Langhorne's command ship, Hamilcar. Where might it have gone, and who might have been aboard when it did? I don't see it being dropped into the local sun like the rest of Operation Ark's vessels were.
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Dennis

One probability that was suggested & discussed was that Hamilcar was used as sort-of "time machine" - hyper-jumped far away from Safehold to not drag any attention to the planet, and then accelerated to relativistic velocities. So the Archangels could make use of time dilation effect, and travel 1000 years into the future in only a few years of subjective time at most.

Dilandu wrote:One probability that was suggested & discussed was that Hamilcar was used as sort-of "time machine" - hyper-jumped far away from Safehold to not drag any attention to the planet, and then accelerated to relativistic velocities. So the Archangels could make use of time dilation effect, and travel 1000 years into the future in only a few years of subjective time at most.

Didn't Weber shoot down that theory by saying TF ships couldn't actually get that close to light speed?

Not to mention that any hyperspace travel at all risks being spotted by any other (read: Gbaba) ships traveling in hyperspace close enough to spot them.

I find it far more likely that the Hamilcar was parked somewhere it wouldn't get spotted by accident even by high tech means. The bottom of an ocean for example.

DMcCunney wrote:We know the Angels and Archangels were actually the command crew using technology to appear divine to the newly awakened Adams and Eves. We also know they had a cover story, and told the Adams and Eves the bodies they wore were mortal sheaths, that they would depart from and return to God when their work on Safehold was done. I wondered from the beginning how that departure would be handled. (I suspected they might find an excuse to go away somewhere when they knew death was approaching rather than dying in front of the Safeholders.)

I'm reasonably certain that in this context, "departed" is Safehold-speak for "Died and returned to the right-hand of God"


From Armageddon Reef:

Timothy recognized the angel. It had been almost two years since the last Visitation, and the angel hadn’t changed since his last appearance in Lakeview. He did have the appearance of having aged—slightly, at least—since the first time Timothy had ever seen him, immediately after the Awakening. But then, the Writ said that although the angels and Archangels were immortal, the bodies they had been given to teach and guide God’s people were made of the same stuff as the mortal world. Animated by the surgoi kasai, the “great fire” of God’s Own touch, those bodies would endure longer than any mortal body, just as the bodies of Adams and Eves would endure longer than those of their descendants, but they would age. Indeed, the day would ultimately come when all of the angels—even the Archangels themselves—would be recalled to God’s presence. Timothy knew God Himself had ordained that, yet he was deeply grateful that he himself would have closed his eyes in death before that day arrived.

And from HFQ:

The Sisters of Saint Kohdy were never actually proscribed, but they certainly should have been when Saint Kohdy was purged from The Testimonies. In fact, if I had to guess, the only reason they weren’t proscribed long before that was that the surviving Angels were waiting for the last of the Adams and Eves to die before they acted. It wasn’t that difficult for them to edit The Testimonies, since all the originals were in the Temple’s Grand Library, but according to the Sisterhood’s journals, they’d waited to move against Saint Kohdy’s official memory until none of the people with actual memories of his life were around to question the approved version.”

This was in the period immediately after the Fallen’s final defeat, you understand, after Schueler and Chihiro had departed in victory—the period in which I think the remaining Angels were waiting for the last Adams and Eves to die before purging The Testimonies.

“Not all of the Sisters were prepared to abandon Saint Kohdy, even at Mother Church’s command. They might have accepted the decree if any of the Archangels had issued it, but only the last of the lesser angels remained, and the Mother Abbess had known Kohdy, just as she’d known—had spoken with—both Schueler and Chihiro when she was a very young woman, before their departure. Neither of them had ever cast doubt upon Kohdy’s sanctity, and that was enough for her.

And then, in TFT:

Those familiar thoughts carried him down the nave, through the music, past the pews occupied by the worshipers who’d braved cold and wind and sleet to be here on this high feast day—the Feast of the Holy Schueler, commemorating the joyous day on which the Archangel had returned to his well-deserved rest in the glorious presence of God Himself, leaving behind the worn out mortal body which had housed his soul for so long. That mortal body was buried in the crypt of this very cathedral, which had been raised for the specific purpose of guarding and sanctifying his tomb.

Putting all that together, and it certainly looks like Schueler and Chiriro both died in the final battle against the Fallen, or shortly thereafter.

HOW they died is open to question... killed by the Fallen, died of old injuries, natural old age and stress, euthanized while uploading to VR, killed each other in a fast-draw contest, faked their own death with a cryo-tank... Anything's possible, but I'm reasonably certain that their original bodies are both biologically dead by now.


Also, If I remember correctly... Angels, with continued routine access to federation medical tech and booster shots, had an expected lifespan of around 300. Adams and Eves, with medical nanotech implanted prior to colonization, but no access to boosters, had an expected lifespan of around 200, and mere mortals, the children of Adams and Eves, would have maxed out at about 100.

If we assume that the Archangels were generally older than their subordinate junior angels, Archangels would presumably have died of natural causes a few decades earlier than the last of junior angels did... and it's also possible that all of the Archangels actually killed each other off during the war of the fallen, leaving only junior angels to clean up the mess.

evilauthor wrote:

Dilandu wrote:One probability that was suggested & discussed was that Hamilcar was used as sort-of "time machine" - hyper-jumped far away from Safehold to not drag any attention to the planet, and then accelerated to relativistic velocities. So the Archangels could make use of time dilation effect, and travel 1000 years into the future in only a few years of subjective time at most.

Didn't Weber shoot down that theory by saying TF ships couldn't actually get that close to light speed?

ISTR something about that. The question is how fast you go before time dilation kicks in. (Haven't Looked Stuff Up and don't know offhand.) Since TF ships traveled in hyperspace, normal propulsion was a matter of getting them to where they would jump into hyper.

Not to mention that any hyperspace travel at all risks being spotted by any other (read: Gbaba) ships traveling in hyperspace close enough to spot them.

How close do you have to be in hyperspace to spot another ship? And what is the relationship between distances in normal space and distances in hyperspace?

It's a pretty good bet that OA's route away from Earth was as far in the other direction from the Gbaba as they could get, as fast as they could get there. We know from TextEv the Gbaba had an area of space they occupied and didn't go beyond unless they were doing something like chasing interlopers back where they came from and destroying them, then going back to whatever they were doing before being rudely interrupted.

My bet is "far away in normal space" was "far away in hyperspace, too". The critical difference wasn't the distance, it was how long it took to get from point A to point B. I don't see Gbaba ships in hyperspace being anywhere near where they might detect Hamilcar.

I find it far more likely that the Hamilcar was parked somewhere it wouldn't get spotted by accident even by high tech means. The bottom of an ocean for example.

I don't think it's under a Safehold ocean, though that's an intriguing notion. But Hamilcar would be huge, and not designed to be landed on a planetary surface. That's what shuttles and lighters are for.

There likely are places in the Safehold system where you could park it and have it seen by anyone with the ability to look like another piece of space junk.

Of course, if you don't plan to power it up again and bring it back, why bother parking it?
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Dennis

Krenn wrote:

DMcCunney wrote:We know the Angels and Archangels were actually the command crew using technology to appear divine to the newly awakened Adams and Eves. We also know they had a cover story, and told the Adams and Eves the bodies they wore were mortal sheaths, that they would depart from and return to God when their work on Safehold was done. I wondered from the beginning how that departure would be handled. (I suspected they might find an excuse to go away somewhere when they knew death was approaching rather than dying in front of the Safeholders.)

I'm reasonably certain that in this context, "departed" is Safehold-speak for "Died and returned to the right-hand of God"

Possible, though I tend to doubt it.

<...>

Putting all that together, and it certainly looks like Schueler and Chiriro both died in the final battle against the Fallen, or shortly thereafter.[/quote]Possible, but I doubt it. One question not answered yet was raised by the church ceremony in the last chapter of TFT, specifically commemorating Schueler's souls return to God from his "worn out mortal body" Precisely when did that occur?

HOW they died is open to question... killed by the Fallen, died of old injuries, natural old age and stress, euthanized while uploading to VR, killed each other in a fast-draw contest, faked their own death with a cryo-tank... Anything's possible, but I'm reasonably certain that their original bodies are both biologically dead by now.

Oh, I assume they are. Another question is just how long you can safely keep someone in cryo. Memory is foggy, but ISTR you couldn't do it for a thousand years.

My question wasn't whether their physical bodies were still around. It was precisely where and how they shuffled off this mortal coil, and whether they were on Safehold when they did. I can see Angels and Archangels using high tech methods to depart from Safehold in their physical bodies after informing the mortals they dealt with they were going, with the mortals assuming the souls would depart the bodies but the bodies would not be on Safehold to bury.

Also, If I remember correctly... Angels, with continued routine access to federation medical tech and booster shots, had an expected lifespan of around 300. Adams and Eves, with medical nanotech implanted prior to colonization, but no access to boosters, had an expected lifespan of around 200, and mere mortals, the children of Adams and Eves, would have maxed out at about 100.

If we assume that the Archangels were generally older than their subordinate junior angels, Archangels would presumably have died of natural causes a few decades earlier than the last of junior angels did... and it's also possible that all of the Archangels actually killed each other off during the war of the fallen, leaving only junior angels to clean up the mess.

Agreed that the last of the lesser Angels left to do things like edit the Testimonies got the job because they were younger and would still be around.

I don't think the Archangels killed each other off during the War. Chihiro took out Shan Wei and Proctor in the OBS strike on Armageddon Reef. Commodore Pei took out Langhorne and Bedard when he nuked LAnghore's HQ. It's possible other Archangels were there that day and were caught in the explosion, but I'd expect to have their deaths noted along with Langhorne and Bedard on the histories of the period. The Fallen would were unlikely to have had animus against folks like Hastings, Pasquale, Sondheimh and Truscott. They were targeting Chihiro's minions. (And I think their success in that was why Seijins were recruited.)

I think most of the Archangels weren't combatants and just tried to keep their heads down and out of the lines of fire.
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Dennis

DMcCunney wrote:How close do you have to be in hyperspace to spot another ship? And what is the relationship between distances in normal space and distances in hyperspace?

No idea. But why take the chance?

It's a pretty good bet that OA's route away from Earth was as far in the other direction from the Gbaba as they could get, as fast as they could get there. We know from TextEv the Gbaba had an area of space they occupied and didn't go beyond unless they were doing something like chasing interlopers back where they came from and destroying them, then going back to whatever they were doing before being rudely interrupted.

And the entire "go primitive" strategy was planned in the first place to avoid any Gbaba scouts that might be out looking for any human colonies they originally missed. And the mission planners planned it to be that way for several centuries, ie, longer than the life span of the original command crew.

So sending the Hamilcar into hyperspace has a low but real chance of attracting the very attention of the scouts that the "go primitive" strategy was supposed to hide Safehold from. Why chance it when there's oodles of ways to hide a starship in a system without sending it into hyper space?

Even worse, the management that's hiding the ship believe that there's NO safe time for Safehold to emerge from its "go primitive" stage. Which means they lived in fear of itinerant Gbaba starships might be wandering around in the area. Sending the Hamilcar into hyper would increase Safehold's "footprint", and it'd take only one Gbaba ship randomly passing through the area at the exact wrong moment to give the game away.

evilauthor wrote:

DMcCunney wrote:How close do you have to be in hyperspace to spot another ship? And what is the relationship between distances in normal space and distances in hyperspace?

No idea. But why take the chance?

Depends on what you want to do and why and why you need to do it. Does the reward justify the risk?

It's a pretty good bet that OA's route away from Earth was as far in the other direction from the Gbaba as they could get, as fast as they could get there. We know from TextEv the Gbaba had an area of space they occupied and didn't go beyond unless they were doing something like chasing interlopers back where they came from and destroying them, then going back to whatever they were doing before being rudely interrupted.

And the entire "go primitive" strategy was planned in the first place to avoid any Gbaba scouts that might be out looking for any human colonies they originally missed. And the mission planners planned it to be that way for several centuries, ie, longer than the life span of the original command crew.

Yep. Abjure technology for 300 years to give the GBaba time to conclude they had exterminated humanity and go back to whatever they were doing before we encountered them. It's been well over 300 years at the time the story opens.

(And that plan gives an explanation for Bedard's mind-wiping the colonists. If you remember where you came from and that technology is possible, restricting yourself to wind, water, and muscle for 300 years given the difficulties involved in expanding from the original enclaves and populating the planet using only that will be a challenge. The temptation to bend the rules just a bit to make life easier would be enormous, and the simplest way to insure that doesn't happen is to remove all memory of technology.)

So sending the Hamilcar into hyperspace has a low but real chance of attracting the very attention of the scouts that the "go primitive" strategy was supposed to hide Safehold from. Why chance it when there's oodles of ways to hide a starship in a system without sending it into hyper space?

I concur. I consider it possible Hamilcar could go into hyper safely, but if you're really paranoid about the risks, you just stash it somewhere in powered down state. The question is what are you stashing it away for?. You store stuff instead of throwing it out because you anticipate using it again. What use might that be?

There's TextEv that the original plan was to drop Hamilcar into the local sun like the rest of Operation Ark's vessels, but Chihiro and others were already considering retaining it before the War Against the Fallen broke out.

Even worse, the management that's hiding the ship believe that there's NO safe time for Safehold to emerge from its "go primitive" stage. Which means they lived in fear of itinerant Gbaba starships might be wandering around in the area. Sending the Hamilcar into hyper would increase Safehold's "footprint", and it'd take only one Gbaba ship randomly passing through the area at the exact wrong moment to give the game away.

Agreed. The management on Safehold that emerged had the mindset "Mankind must dive down a hole, pill the hole in after it, and never come out again!".

That's understandable but short-sighted. We know from TextEv we aren't the only species the Gbaba tried to wipe from the face of the galaxy, and who else we've never heard of might be wandering around that haven't encountered the Gbaba but might encounter Safehold in their wanderings?

But whether Hamilcar ever got sent into hyperspace again is a detail. It was in Safehold's skies, and then it wasn't after the War Against the Fallen. What happened to it, and when might we see it again and why?
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Dennis

Hamilcar is under the Temple....that's my bet

Crater left from Kai-Yung whacking Langhorne and Co would make that easier to do lol