The Holy Writ - Something's Bugging Me

IIRC, they are both contentions of Khody's demon buddy, which he recorded in his diary. If so, you'll find them somewhere in the first 100 or so pages of HFQ. Also if so, they are most emphatically things that we do _not_ know. They are, at best, informed speculation reported to us at third hand. At worst, they're the self-serving allegations of somebody who wanted to supplant Chihiro at the head of the Church.

It might be helpful to bear in mind that we don't actually know very much about the position of the Fallen, other than anti-Chihiro, vis-a-vis the Langhorne Plan. It doesn't, however, appear that many, if any, were fundamentally opposed to it. Not to start with, at least.

Randomiser wrote:

DMcCunney wrote:
And we know that Chihiro had been actively conspiring to supplant Langhorne well before Commodore Pei's strike took out he and Bedard.

And we know via RFC that Chihiro was the one who actually ordered the Rakurai strike on the Alexandria Enclave,
Dennis

Dennis can you remind me , with textev, just how we know these two things, Please? I haven't been around much lately, but AFAIR they are both just speculations from the forum.

Randomiser wrote:

DMcCunney wrote:And we know that Chihiro had been actively conspiring to supplant Langhorne well before Commodore Pei's strike took out he and Bedard.

And we know via RFC that Chihiro was the one who actually ordered the Rakurai strike on the Alexandria Enclave,
Dennis

Dennis can you remind me , with textev, just how we know these two things, Please? I haven't been around much lately, but AFAIR they are both just speculations from the forum.

Those particular bits are things mentioned by RFC here, where he makes it pretty plain that Chihiro was rhe real bad guy, and Commodore Pei arguably took out the wrong people when he nuked Langhorne's HQ and took out Langhorne and Bedard.

I'll have to poke around a bit to get the pointers to RFC's posts, but they did appear.
______
Dennis

There's a Grand Vicar now with both deep faith and brains. Could he handle a spiritual retreat to St. Zherneau?

DrakBibliophile wrote:On Point 1, using Roman numerals Safehold math may not be up to the type of calculations that might predict (or not predict) such movement.

On Point 2, the difference between Safeholdian animals and Earth animals (including humans) are obviously noticeable but since Safeholdians have historical records about the existence of the Archangels the explanation of "the Archangels wanted it to be that way" would be perfectly acceptable to most (if not all) Safeholdians.

On Point 3, see answer to Point 2.

On Point 4, names like "neartuna" were given by the Archangels and without knowledge of other languages there's no reason to question the names/words created by the Archangels.

The point of fact is that the Holy Writ knowledge of Safehold is completely practical knowledge. It explains everything a Safeholdian needs to know about what he sees around him.

Nothing the Writ says can seen as false compared to a Safeholdian's experience.

daspletosaurus wrote:Having read all the books, I've noticed that a major plot point is how Merlin & Co. are having so much trouble with the fact everything in the Writ matches readily observable reality, giving them no avenues of attack. I'm having some trouble with that notion. In no particular order:

1) The Writ uses the Ptolemaic model of planetary motion. After almost a millennium, it should start becoming clear that the quality of its predictions is degrading.

2) I'm assuming that due to a spectacular case of convergent evolution native Safehold animals have very similar body chemistry and metabolic pathways to Earth fauna, but they're bound to have spectacularly different anatomy. Like completely different organs.

3) Safehold's fossil record. The fact that there's likely a plentitude of extinct hexapods but not a single extinct tetrapod.

4) Etymology: If you're looking at a neartuna you just caught, you might wonder at some point "What's a tuna, anyway?" Not to mention the fact that English has morphemes from a whole bunch of languages. Basically any word for a concept more sophisticated than "turnip" probably has a Latin or Greek root.

I think there's a whole bunch of threads to pull if you really look. For example, the conversation with Baron Sarmouth should have gone something like, "Dude, if you measure accurately, you'll notice the planets are not moving the way the Writ says they should. Feel free to double-check." Substitute "My Lord" for "Dude".

Perhaps a bit more pragmatically...

Until "recently," if one raised these questions... If one "noticed" these things... One would be "invited to a meeting with the Inquisition for reeducation." Or worse...

Well if somebody made too big a pest of himself by asking those questions, the Inquisition would get involved.

However, I suspect that his peers (or superiors) would get so tired of his questions that they might not wait for the Inquisition to get involved.

WeberFan wrote:

DrakBibliophile wrote:On Point 1, using Roman numerals Safehold math may not be up to the type of calculations that might predict (or not predict) such movement.

On Point 2, the difference between Safeholdian animals and Earth animals (including humans) are obviously noticeable but since Safeholdians have historical records about the existence of the Archangels the explanation of "the Archangels wanted it to be that way" would be perfectly acceptable to most (if not all) Safeholdians.

On Point 3, see answer to Point 2.

On Point 4, names like "neartuna" were given by the Archangels and without knowledge of other languages there's no reason to question the names/words created by the Archangels.

The point of fact is that the Holy Writ knowledge of Safehold is completely practical knowledge. It explains everything a Safeholdian needs to know about what he sees around him.

Nothing the Writ says can seen as false compared to a Safeholdian's experience.

Perhaps a bit more pragmatically...

Until "recently," if one raised these questions... If one "noticed" these things... One would be "invited to a meeting with the Inquisition for reeducation." Or worse...

Randomiser wrote:

DMcCunney wrote:
And we know that Chihiro had been actively conspiring to supplant Langhorne well before Commodore Pei's strike took out he and Bedard.

And we know via RFC that Chihiro was the one who actually ordered the Rakurai strike on the Alexandria Enclave,
Dennis

Dennis can you remind me , with textev, just how we know these two things, Please? I haven't been around much lately, but AFAIR they are both just speculations from the forum.

Ditto.

IIRC, there's a lot of discussion / textev about things that Chihiro might have done, and there's lots of textev that convinced me that Chihiro was NOT a nice person... But (like you Randomiser) I don't recall any direct textev to either point.

And while I'm about it, this whole discussion has motivated me to do some more digging... Being sequestered in purgatory in the Middle East for another week on a business trip as I write this I've got some "spare time" on my hands...

I've dug through both the forum posts as well as MWW's musings at http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/series/Safehold/ but can't come to a firm conclusion about who exactly initiated the Rakurai strike. I confirmed some previous notions (Chihiro being a really, really bad dude), There was a pretty significant power struggle following the detonation of the nuke (apparently with Chihiro coming out on top), and learned some new things (Chihiro was the lead author / editor for the original Writ). But I can't find definitive evidence about Chihiro actively seeking to replace Langhorne. In fact, while it may be true that Chihiro WAS conspiring to do so, Chihiro seems more like a Rayno - a "Chief of Staff" with a finger on the pulse of everything that was happening. But where Rayno was somewhat of a moderating influence on Clyntahn (relatively speaking of course) Chihiro could well have been a corrupting influence on Langhorne... Just my opinion though.

SNERK

I am not certain at all about this, but I recall some doubts that Langhorne ordered the destruction of Alexandria. Now let's assume for a moment that Langhorne didn't order the strike, but Chihiro did.

Commodore Pei gains admittance to see Langhorne and confronts him about the strike. Langehorn states he didn't order it. Commodore Pei doesn't believe him and nukes them all. There is no record of the exchange, nor anyone alive to recount what transpired. Chirhiro and Shueler could have supported any interpretation of the events that transpired. Further assuming Shueler didn't know the truth, Chihiro could have planted enough doubt to pull Shueler along.

Toss in the fact that forces loyal to the Commodore had secreted away sufficient production capacity to almost pull off the revolt. Had they been able to deny Chihiro and Shueler the use of Hamlicar, they would have won. Now, Shueler can believe there was indeed a conspiracy against the command team. He can believe this because it was true, there was not just one but two conspiracies.

By the time Cody comes to Shueler with his concerns, the rebels were pretty much defeated. Shueler either believes he has no options but to accept Chihiro did indeed start this war or is given no option. In either case Chihiro kills Cody and Shueler finds a way to give his descendants the Stone and the Key. Shuler sets his descendants on the mission to keep the CoGA honest and lets them know there will be a Return.

Still not sure what will Return. If it is Chihiro's digital personality, why not leave it there to be ruler after his body dies? If a PICA, again why not leave it? Biological bodies couldn't survive long enough. If it's an AI, why not a digital copy of one of the command crew?

The one scenario I see, is that Shueler got a concession from Chihiro to keep either one or both of their personalities in storage until the Return. Those personalities could have been stored in the Temple or in Hamlicar. If Shueler succeeded in retaining Hamlicar, there is a good chance that he was largely convinced Chihiro's plan was not best for Safehold. If the personalities are stored in the Temple, Sheueler was likely still open to accepting Chihiro's plan.

In any case, I can't wait to start the next story arc.

Really well stated, PeterZ.

On reading your thoughts, I saw parallels with the G04. In this case, Chihiro is the "Clyntahn."

Following the nuke detonation and the elimination of many (if not most) of those in the Temple, Chihiro becomes the de facto emperor and pummels any potential opposition into submission the way Clyntahn did. If it was in fact Chihiro who pushed the button with the rakurai strike, and if the others didn't know or approve (perhaps thinking "There's got to be a better way??") then I think the internal politics would have really fragmented them. When the nuke was detonated, Chihiro - the madman - was left as the only one standing. Why does the image of a broom closet full of angry rattlesnakes keep coming to my head?

SNERK

WeberFan wrote:Really well stated, PeterZ.

On reading your thoughts, I saw parallels with the G04. In this case, Chihiro is the "Clyntahn."

Following the nuke detonation and the elimination of many (if not most) of those in the Temple, Chihiro becomes the de facto emperor and pummels any potential opposition into submission the way Clyntahn did. If it was in fact Chihiro who pushed the button with the rakurai strike, and if the others didn't know or approve (perhaps thinking "There's got to be a better way??") then I think the internal politics would have really fragmented them. When the nuke was detonated, Chihiro - the madman - was left as the only one standing. Why does the image of a broom closet full of angry rattlesnakes keep coming to my head?

Therein lies the irony. I have begun to suspect that Chihiro had imbedded his own Trojan horses within the CoGA. It manifested in the Inquisition. I am not sure what exact form it took, but must have been rooted in a secret data cache available to the Inquisition hierarchy. That data may well justify Clyntahn's behavior by showing just enough examples of Chihiro's behavior to provide a "divine" example. This is pure speculation but does tie to elements of AtSoT.

What may transpire is that revelation of those secret data caches will allow the CoGA hierarchy to be persuaded that the CoGA was indeed a complete lie.