Nahrmahn's opening round

DirkF wrote:There is something that is much easier to use as an opening round, and much harder to ignore.

"Check your own language:
If a tree is nearly an oak (nearoak), then what is an oak?
If a fish is nearly a tuna (neartuna), then what is a tuna?
If an animal is called spider-monkey (two words, not one), then what is a spider and what is a monkey?
Comparative naming works only if you have something to compare to, another place before Safehold. Those names where given by those who still remembered what was before but gave an oath to never tell those that were made to forget"

The opening round doesn't need to be impressive - but it needs to be something that can't easily be ignored or explained away.
Add a few pictures of earth that were "misteriously found" somewhere and you'll have something that strikes at the heart of the writ without even breaking the proscriptions.
Because once it is clear that there was something before creation that was just hidden to be forgotten, then you can ask a lot of other questions...

Doubt it, because 'nearoak', 'neartuna' etc can be explained Platonically. 'The nearoak just isn't as good as the perfect heavenly oak that the Archangels knew, because it will die.'

Remember that even the Sisters of St Khody argued about whether the Adams and Eves were physically somewhere else or only their souls were somewhere else. And they knew that the Testimonies, at least, had been altered.

It's possible that Narhman's opening round is simply the Wylsynn's hologram of Schueler. That 'Lost Testament of Schueler' would start up questions about the inerrancy of the Writ; what the Schueler in the 'mystic' recording (and there are similar recordings in the Temple) says doesn't really agree with the Book of Schueler. It would also raise questions - that might chime with the Sisterhood's claim that they know the Testimonies were edited - about why Schueler felt he had to leave a secret set of instructions for the Wylsynns.

And of course, the 'opening round' might be something Narhmann's discovered in his researches that we the reader don't yet know.

Like that little episode where we discovered the previously unmentioned fact that Safehold knew all about hot-air balloons. After we were blindsided by the introduction of hydrogen balloons.

Bluesqueak wrote:It's possible that Narhman's opening round is simply the Wylsynn's hologram of Schueler. That 'Lost Testament of Schueler' would start up questions about the inerrancy of the Writ; what the Schueler in the 'mystic' recording (and there are similar recordings in the Temple) says doesn't really agree with the Book of Schueler. It would also raise questions - that might chime with the Sisterhood's claim that they know the Testimonies were edited - about why Schueler felt he had to leave a secret set of instructions for the Wylsynns.

I don't think the existence of those recordings is common, or even public, knowledge. For that matter, the Wylsynn's mystical lie detector is considered lost, and the existence of the Stone is a family secret. And while we don't know how many (if any) other 'relics' the Langhorne&Co. left lying around, they are probably rare and half-mythical at best. That would make distributing it...problematical at best.

I had cause to reread OAR recently, and in Commodore Pei's briefing to Nimue he mentions one other person knowing of her existence. Since he did his little breakaway from the rest of the Alexandria group that implies he either told someone about her, or that there was more than one person infiltrating Langhorne and they met up, or...something I haven't thought of yet.

It's implied, not stated, that the meeting they were going to have with Langhorne was his suicide run. But I'm not sure that two suicide bombers makes more sense than one when the bomb involved happens to be a nuke. That means there's one person who knew about Nimue's PICA who (maybe) shouldn't have running around with Pei and who (may) have been alive post-nuking of Langhorne. Who then did...stuff for reasons?

(I haven't quite decided where I'm going with this thought, but I think it may be important, irrelevant, or quite possible both.)

Kael Posavatz wrote:

Bluesqueak wrote:It's possible that Narhman's opening round is simply the Wylsynn's hologram of Schueler. That 'Lost Testament of Schueler' would start up questions about the inerrancy of the Writ; what the Schueler in the 'mystic' recording (and there are similar recordings in the Temple) says doesn't really agree with the Book of Schueler. It would also raise questions - that might chime with the Sisterhood's claim that they know the Testimonies were edited - about why Schueler felt he had to leave a secret set of instructions for the Wylsynns.

I don't think the existence of those recordings is common, or even public, knowledge. For that matter, the Wylsynn's mystical lie detector is considered lost, and the existence of the Stone is a family secret. And while we don't know how many (if any) other 'relics' the Langhorne&Co. left lying around, they are probably rare and half-mythical at best. That would make distributing it...problematical at best.

I had cause to reread OAR recently, and in Commodore Pei's briefing to Nimue he mentions one other person knowing of her existence. Since he did his little breakaway from the rest of the Alexandria group that implies he either told someone about her, or that there was more than one person infiltrating Langhorne and they met up, or...something I haven't thought of yet.

It's implied, not stated, that the meeting they were going to have with Langhorne was his suicide run. But I'm not sure that two suicide bombers makes more sense than one when the bomb involved happens to be a nuke. That means there's one person who knew about Nimue's PICA who (maybe) shouldn't have running around with Pei and who (may) have been alive post-nuking of Langhorne. Who then did...stuff for reasons?

(I haven't quite decided where I'm going with this thought, but I think it may be important, irrelevant, or quite possible both.)

I don't think the knowledge is public; however, the change in the personnel at the top of the COGA means that they're much more likely to honestly admit that they also have similar 'miraculous' recordings of the actual archangels. We know they do, because Clyntahn knows Langhorne and Bedard's faces and voices.

The nuke is one of those things which demonstrates RFC's characterisation of all the original Command Crew as being only half-sane; all suffering from intense PTSD and making decisions that were ... extreme.

At the moment I'm going for Schueler as a 'belly of the beast' equivalent of Duchairn. His testament to the Wylsynn family is written very carefully indeed; it would fit as the words of someone who knows they've lost this war and now have to ask their family to mitigate the aftereffects.

But I think we can presume that St Jerneau and St Khody weren't the only saints who left groups with records that contradict the Official Writ. It's whether the other groups survived to Merlin's day.

Bluesqueak wrote:
But I think we can presume that St Jerneau and St Khody weren't the only saints who left groups with records that contradict the Official Writ. It's whether the other groups survived to Merlin's day.

Or maybe just whether they've left, uh, 'influences' that survived to modern day. That pesky Republic had to come from somewhere and they even call it a 'republic.' (Interesting that particular term survived, is it not?)

Seriously though, the more I think about the Command Crew and the War of the Fallen, the more I think of ASoIF and Game of Thrones. Potentially fewer marriages, but everyone is plotting something, and there's a deranged cult, and a horrific threat out of nowhere that wants to exterminate all life... I mean, the location scouts even found a place with dragons.

Continuing to publish the Charis newspaper throughout the other side's lands comes to mind as a first shot.

Regarding the animals: It seems that anything with the modifier "lizard" refers to a critter that has 6 limbs, so "Cat lizard" isn't a contradiction, it simply means that the critters known as "cat" have 6 legs, whereas "dog" is a beast with only 4 limbs. Thus, the language there isn't a problem. "Nearoak" can be, unless there's also "oaks"

NHBL wrote: "Nearoak" can be, unless there's also "oaks"

There's titan oaks. If there's any visible similarities between nearoaks and titan oaks, the "near-" prefix is easily justifiable.

And the Church has an even easier response to anyone commenting about the names -- "the Archangels cataloged all the plants and animals here, and gave similar beings/plants similar names". Whether that catalog really exists or not is irrelevant; the Inquisition was clearly corrupt well before OAR, and they'd be the ones providing the answer. Since travel times are so slow on Safehold, if the village priest tells you there's a plant called a "palm" on some other continent and your local "nearpalm" was named for its similarity to the "palm", you really can't easily go check on that yourself.

NHBL wrote:Regarding the animals: It seems that anything with the modifier "lizard" refers to a critter that has 6 limbs, so "Cat lizard" isn't a contradiction, it simply means that the critters known as "cat" have 6 legs, whereas "dog" is a beast with only 4 limbs. Thus, the language there isn't a problem. "Nearoak" can be, unless there's also "oaks"

Are there also real cats?

phillies wrote:

NHBL wrote:Regarding the animals: It seems that anything with the modifier "lizard" refers to a critter that has 6 limbs, so "Cat lizard" isn't a contradiction, it simply means that the critters known as "cat" have 6 legs, whereas "dog" is a beast with only 4 limbs. Thus, the language there isn't a problem. "Nearoak" can be, unless there's also "oaks"

Are there also real cats?

They've never been mentioned, and their place as pet seems to have been taken by the cat-lizard.

I'm struggling to think what their ecological purpose would be on a last-ditch survival mission. Are there dogs? [Edit: gosh, yes, of course there are dogs. Keelhaul, of course] If not, we can assume that only the domesticated food/transport animals were assigned space. [Edit: dogs probably survived because they were considered for 'guard/retrieve' rather than pets].

Hamsters survived because Shan-Wei used her own personal baggage allotment to bring them along.