*SPOILERS* in TFT, Has anyone considered the following....

I think its been pretty firmly established that the Inner Circle is in a position of weakness against the resources the "Archangels" could bring to bear. Someone who enjoys that sort of superiority doesn't do subtle well and will almost always operate heavy handedly. Think about the kinetic strike on Alexandria for example. Pei Shan-wei was openly defying Langhorne and he in turn (or perhaps Chihiro) bombarded her and 4 out of 5 villages in the vicinity from orbit. He didn't arrange a quiet assassination or made her death look like natural causes. In the War Against the Fallen, Chihiro and Schueler were forced to operate more circumspectly since they were facing guerrilla warfare for the hearts and minds of the regular people (and they couldn't simply bomb every fallen village from orbit). And afterwards they set up a very top-heavy religious government for the planet, with a very unsubtle punishment for blasphemy and apostasy.

So I don't think for a second that all these deaths some nefarious plot by the "Archangels" waking up. Thirsk, Tymahn Qwentyn, Stohnahr, Cahnyr and Duchairn weren't exactly spring chickens even during the Jihad (compared with Cayleb, Sharleyan, Irys and Hektor who were children or little more than teenagers at the start of the series) and lived through very stressful times. So death by natural causes before they even reached 70 local years over 15 years is not even statistically suspect. And history is filled with such examples of the old guard dying and the younger people being forced to take up power.

Yet what's happening in Siddarmark is a repeat of what happened to Germany after WWI and the Great Depression, with Charisians substituting as the scapegoats for everyone's economic ills (the way Jews, Gypsies and other "non-Aryans" did for the Nazis). At the same time, Siddarmark would still need time to recover enough financially to engage in the sort of military build-up Germany did in the 1930s to pose a real threat to its neighbors and while it's larger than Germany in both area and population, it would be hard pressed to find allies in a bid to take over Safehold. Desnair and South Harchong have found each other more suitable for the time being and are unlikely to join forces with Siddarmark. Any actual fighting is likely to occur in Silkiah and the Border States and may be East Harchong in such a scenario and Silkiah's security is still guaranteed by Charis with Dohlar probably added if they replace Siddarmark in the Great Canal Project. And if TFT is any indication, the next book is likely to occur over a sufficiently long period to allow many of these developments to come to a head, along with the consequences of the Last Testimony of Schueler.

thanatos wrote:I think its been pretty firmly established that the Inner Circle is in a position of weakness against the resources the "Archangels" could bring to bear. Someone who enjoys that sort of superiority doesn't do subtle well and will almost always operate heavy handedly. Think about the kinetic strike on Alexandria for example. Pei Shan-wei was openly defying Langhorne and he in turn (or perhaps Chihiro) bombarded her and 4 out of 5 villages in the vicinity from orbit. He didn't arrange a quiet assassination or made her death look like natural causes. In the War Against the Fallen, Chihiro and Schueler were forced to operate more circumspectly since they were facing guerrilla warfare for the hearts and minds of the regular people (and they couldn't simply bomb every fallen village from orbit). And afterwards they set up a very top-heavy religious government for the planet, with a very unsubtle punishment for blasphemy and apostasy.

On the other hand, if an Archangel HAD woken up recently... IN THEORY, if the original doctrinal plan had held up, the church, the proscriptions, and the cultural biases against change SHOULD have held up on their own.

The hypothetical plan for any awakening archangels presumably SHOULD have been that the Archangels could just quietly check the most recent reports, make sure everything was running according to plan, and then go back to sleep without bothering anyone.

if the Archangels wake up, and realize that this is NOT true, and that things are clearly NOT going according to plan, their real problem at that point is cultural... they have to assume that since a "bigger-hammer" solution clearly didn't succesfully freeze the entire culture of safehold 900 years ago, that a "bigger hammer" probably won't successfully freeze the entire culture NOW, either. And presumably, the archangels have to go back to sleep eventually...

In that situation, I can see why a VR archangel might prefer to test the ground very carefully, and start out by experimenting with some very minor and undetectable changes. Because the real problem is cultural: they have to change EVERYONE'S minds, and they have to know HOW to change everyone's minds, and they have to identify EXACTLY when, where, and why, those minds started to go astray, and most of the big, flashy solutions would just ruin the forensic evidence showing what went wrong..

I don't REALLY think that a VR persona has been active ALL this time, nor do I think that one woke up several years early... and I don't really think that anyone in the most recent book was assassinated by such a persona...

But I just might believe that a VR persona woke up at the 1000-year mark, and then invested several months in quiet surveying before trying the Lost Testimony of Schueler gambit. And I might believe that this same VR persona might eventually begin quietly assassinating certain people, too.

Krenn wrote:

thanatos wrote:I think its been pretty firmly established that the Inner Circle is in a position of weakness against the resources the "Archangels" could bring to bear. Someone who enjoys that sort of superiority doesn't do subtle well and will almost always operate heavy handedly. Think about the kinetic strike on Alexandria for example. Pei Shan-wei was openly defying Langhorne and he in turn (or perhaps Chihiro) bombarded her and 4 out of 5 villages in the vicinity from orbit. He didn't arrange a quiet assassination or made her death look like natural causes. In the War Against the Fallen, Chihiro and Schueler were forced to operate more circumspectly since they were facing guerrilla warfare for the hearts and minds of the regular people (and they couldn't simply bomb every fallen village from orbit). And afterwards they set up a very top-heavy religious government for the planet, with a very unsubtle punishment for blasphemy and apostasy.

On the other hand, if an Archangel HAD woken up recently... IN THEORY, if the original doctrinal plan had held up, the church, the proscriptions, and the cultural biases against change SHOULD have held up on their own.

The hypothetical plan for any awakening archangels presumably SHOULD have been that the Archangels could just quietly check the most recent reports, make sure everything was running according to plan, and then go back to sleep without bothering anyone.

if the Archangels wake up, and realize that this is NOT true, and that things are clearly NOT going according to plan, their real problem at that point is cultural... they have to assume that since a "bigger-hammer" solution clearly didn't succesfully freeze the entire culture of safehold 900 years ago, that a "bigger hammer" probably won't successfully freeze the entire culture NOW, either. And presumably, the archangels have to go back to sleep eventually...

In that situation, I can see why a VR archangel might prefer to test the ground very carefully, and start out by experimenting with some very minor and undetectable changes. Because the real problem is cultural: they have to change EVERYONE'S minds, and they have to know HOW to change everyone's minds, and they have to identify EXACTLY when, where, and why, those minds started to go astray, and most of the big, flashy solutions would just ruin the forensic evidence showing what went wrong..

I don't REALLY think that a VR persona has been active ALL this time, nor do I think that one woke up several years early... and I don't really think that anyone in the most recent book was assassinated by such a persona...

But I just might believe that a VR persona woke up at the 1000-year mark, and then invested several months in quiet surveying before trying the Lost Testimony of Schueler gambit. And I might believe that this same VR persona might eventually begin quietly assassinating certain people, too.

What you describe is the same dilemma Nimue Alban had faced when she first awoke in OAR and a VR personality of (presumably) Schueler trying to correct course against a massive deviation from his (or rather, Chihiro's) plan. Yet that still doesn't quite fit with what we the readers know of Schueler's and Chihiro's rule. Remember that the real shift in the Church began after Kau-yung assassinated Langhorne, Bedard and their cronies, leaving Chihiro and Schueler to control the church (rather than simply guide it). And it's equally clear that Bedard's death and the lack of her psychological expertise, forced them to institute the top-heavy church, with an emphasis on coercion and enforcement. Moreover, as OWL postulates in OAR, they had to take steps to protect themselves from "disloyal" members of the military forces assigned to Safehold, something that was confirmed in HFQ when they translated Cody Cortazar's diary. And Staynair himself says in BSRA that the Brethren of Saint Zhernau opted not to reveal his diary because they did not believe the Church would settle for simply killing them and disappearing the evidence. That much of Langhorne's and Schueler's intolerance and "thoroughness" lingered in the Inquisition, even then. So I just can't see why a VR personality would operate so circumspectly, get his foot through the door so to speak before the Inner Circle unleashed whatever Stage 2 of the Nahrmahn Plan really is. Moreover, they waited until after the end of the 1,000th year since the creation to put it into effect, which also begs the question why Schueler promised an angelic return in 1,000 years and then waited 1,001 years.