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Official HFQ Snippet #25

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Re: Official HFQ Snippet #25
Post by bigrunt   » Wed May 20, 2015 11:12 pm

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Would love to know who the "demon" was that bested the sergeant major and what kind of resources he had access to. I also wonder if it is the hamilacar that will return in 1000 years, not something under the temple. Maybe making a FTL trip to slow elapsed time while people inside are in hibernation.
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Re: Official HFQ Snippet #25
Post by DrakBibliophile   » Wed May 20, 2015 11:24 pm

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Safehold theology definitely states that Archangels/Angels had flesh and blood bodies while on Safehold.

Also the Wylsynn family apparently had little problem with the idea that they were descended from Schueler.

So it's obvious that the Safehold view of Archangels/Angels doesn't contain the idea they could not "mate" with mortals because they "lacked" bodies.

Now it is possible that the Archangels were not publicly known to have sexual encounters with "mortals" and we have text evidence that the Safehold Church holds that the Archangels never had sexual encounters with "mortals".

There's no evidence either way on Archangels publicly having sexual encounters with other Archangels.

I suspect that Schueler wasn't the only Archangel/Angel to have had mortal families.

The Wylsynn family is just the only family that we, as readers, know about.

As for the idea that Chihiro blackmailed Schueler, we lack evidence to show that such relations with mortals was forbidden by Langhorne or anybody else.


Isilith wrote:Ummm, Schueler was supposed to be an Archangel, a heavenly being. NOT flesh and blood, not mortal.
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Re: Official HFQ Snippet #25
Post by DrakBibliophile   » Wed May 20, 2015 11:26 pm

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Only David Weber knows about the Hamilacar and he isn't telling. ;)

bigrunt wrote:Would love to know who the "demon" was that bested the sergeant major and what kind of resources he had access to. I also wonder if it is the hamilacar that will return in 1000 years, not something under the temple. Maybe making a FTL trip to slow elapsed time while people inside are in hibernation.
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Re: Official HFQ Snippet #25
Post by n7axw   » Thu May 21, 2015 12:30 am

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DrakBibliophile wrote:Only David Weber knows about the Hamilacar and he isn't telling. ;)

bigrunt wrote:Would love to know who the "demon" was that bested the sergeant major and what kind of resources he had access to. I also wonder if it is the hamilacar that will return in 1000 years, not something under the temple. Maybe making a FTL trip to slow elapsed time while people inside are in hibernation.


David might not be telling, but still, we do know more now after the last two snippets. It's just that what we now know poses an entirely new set of questions.

In a way it becomes a replay of that bit in Revelation about war breaking out in heaven between Satan (the adversary) and his angels and God and his angels.... Imagine that...factionalism in heaven. Goodness, I hope not.

Don
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Re: Official HFQ Snippet #25
Post by evilauthor   » Thu May 21, 2015 1:52 am

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DrakBibliophile wrote:Safehold theology definitely states that Archangels/Angels had flesh and blood bodies while on Safehold.

Also the Wylsynn family apparently had little problem with the idea that they were descended from Schueler.

So it's obvious that the Safehold view of Archangels/Angels doesn't contain the idea they could not "mate" with mortals because they "lacked" bodies.


Maybe not. But IIRC, it has been mentioned that the OFFICIAL Church doctrine is that no one is descended from Angels. Although this may be one of the more winked at or lesser known doctrines.
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Re: Official HFQ Snippet #25
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Thu May 21, 2015 1:55 am

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JeffEngel wrote:Here's a sketch of what may have been Schueler's situation. Let me know if it fails to track anything we know so far.

Schueler was one of the most prominent successor angels and one of Chihiro's most senior allies/associates. Unlike Chihiro, Schueler wasn't out for power and wasn't looking to revise Langhorne's plan as bet he understood it - he just figured the boss had things right or right enough, the Fallen had made a wrong choice with perilous consequences, and Safehold needed saving from them with Chihiro calling the plays.

Along the way, he got a family and seeing Schueler about his doubts got Kohdy killed. I don't think we've got evidence of the timeframe on those, but here are two possibilities:

1 - Schueler had a forbidden family, Chihiro knew about it, and held it over him. That got Kohdy killed, and that may have led to Schuler preparing his family, with tradition, the message, the Key and the Stone, to minimize the damage Chihiro's Church would do. It was all he could do, and the least he could do.

or 2 - Schueler betrayed Kohdy, out of true belief or by accident, but it's still a sort of last straw and the spiritual "taint" got passed on to him. Secretly, he wasn't Chihiro's follower anymore but the War was lost. All that was left for him to do by way of trying to redeem himself was to pass the mission on to a family and give them the tools and the sense of purpose to do it.

Either way, Schueler never publicly parts ways with Chihiro, he's one of the "heroes" of the War, and he gets his name plastered on the sacred guide for changing minds with torture and the example thereof. But meanwhile, he's picked up the torch and passed it on to his family (who else could he trust?) so that the worst excesses Chihiro's Church will invite are opposed.

Um, Do we have any textev that Schueler outlived Kohdy by very long. Is it not possible that Chihiro overheard Kohdy talking to Schueler about his concerns? And then disposed of both of them, and then used Schuler's name to write the book that formed the foundation for the Inquisition.
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Re: Official HFQ Snippet #25
Post by isaac_newton   » Thu May 21, 2015 2:19 am

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n7axw wrote:Well, SNIP

Somebody should be feeling vindicated. The fallen were military personnel who served under Kau-yung... Interesting.

SNIP

The plot thickens...

Don


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Well that improves my record of success by about 2000%
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Re: Official HFQ Snippet #25
Post by Bruno Behrends   » Thu May 21, 2015 2:24 am

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I hope all will go well with the pacemaker!

The additional information we get from this snippet changes my perception of the situation post 'War against the Fallen'.

I now have to seriously question whether the Archangels really were absolutely confident that they had found all remnants of modern technology that the 'Fallen' had gotten their hands on at the end of the war.

In fact I now think it is quite likely that the Archangels/Church could not have this absolute confidence. Which means that they may have put more safeguards in place against a recurrence of the high tech 'infestation' than I assumed.

In this light it is a very good thing that Merlin and Owl habitually operated their high tech equipment so stealthily. Still the scale of those operations - particularly the scale of Owl's SNARC ops - seems to be pretty vast. Which increases the risk of detection. Does the church have a bigger sensor network than we thought it did? And did some church sensor pick up anything yet?

Would the Archangels really have dared to permantently scrap their most important war-production facility - Hamilcar - when they had to seriously entertain the idea that they might have missed another hidden 'Fallen' industrial module?
I think the possibility of Hamilcar's return from the scrapheap has just been substantially increased.

The stashing-away of those 'Fallen' industrial modules which back then probably seemed like a great thing to the 'Fallen' might turn out to inadvertedly pose a serious risk to Nimue's mission now. Because it prepared the Church side for the possibility of just such hidden complexes popping up again sometime.
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Re: Official HFQ Snippet #25
Post by isaac_newton   » Thu May 21, 2015 2:39 am

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JeffEngel wrote:Here's a sketch of what may have been Schueler's situation. Let me know if it fails to track anything we know so far.

Schueler was one of the most prominent successor angels and one of Chihiro's most senior allies/associates. Unlike Chihiro, Schueler wasn't out for power and wasn't looking to revise Langhorne's plan as bet he understood it - he just figured the boss had things right or right enough, the Fallen had made a wrong choice with perilous consequences, and Safehold needed saving from them with Chihiro calling the plays.

Along the way, he got a family and seeing Schueler about his doubts got Kohdy killed. I don't think we've got evidence of the timeframe on those, but here are two possibilities:

1 - Schueler had a forbidden family, Chihiro knew about it, and held it over him. That got Kohdy killed, and that may have led to Schuler preparing his family, with tradition, the message, the Key and the Stone, to minimize the damage Chihiro's Church would do. It was all he could do, and the least he could do.

or 2 - Schueler betrayed Kohdy, out of true belief or by accident, but it's still a sort of last straw and the spiritual "taint" got passed on to him. Secretly, he wasn't Chihiro's follower anymore but the War was lost. All that was left for him to do by way of trying to redeem himself was to pass the mission on to a family and give them the tools and the sense of purpose to do it.

Either way, Schueler never publicly parts ways with Chihiro, he's one of the "heroes" of the War, and he gets his name plastered on the sacred guide for changing minds with torture and the example thereof. But meanwhile, he's picked up the torch and passed it on to his family (who else could he trust?) so that the worst excesses Chihiro's Church will invite are opposed.


I can see a third possibility.

Langhorne has died and his successor Chihiro, especially after the discovery of 'tech transfer' to the fallen, would be on high alert for disloyal behaviour amongst his own staff. What better way to discover this than by bugging [maybe by AI, just as with OWL and Merlin]?

Then Kohdy goes to Schuhler - v suspicious - and he hears what they are discussing. Kohdy is killed and maybe Schuhler is 'translated'. Chihiro then uses Schuhler's reputation to give backing to little things like the strike on the convent, the book of Schuhler etc.

As a random aside, in some ways this reminds me of the russian revolution with Langhorne as Lenin, Chihiro as Stalin and Schuhler as Trotsky :-)

[Edit] I see that fallsfromtrees above had almost exactly the same thought - great minds and all that :-) [/edit]
Last edited by isaac_newton on Thu May 21, 2015 2:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Official HFQ Snippet #25
Post by isaac_newton   » Thu May 21, 2015 2:42 am

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bigrunt wrote:Would love to know who the "demon" was that bested the sergeant major and what kind of resources he had access to. I also wonder if it is the hamilacar that will return in 1000 years, not something under the temple. Maybe making a FTL trip to slow elapsed time while people inside are in hibernation.


I had assumed that they were the same as seijins, i.e. settlers with restored memories.

[Edit] must stop this quick posting... I thought you said what, not who... :oops: [/Edit]

Returning with Chihiro in all his wrath and splendor :-(
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