Potential Spoiler - Last Chapter - Din between factions

PMike wrote:I'm wondering if Chihiro destroyed the original SSK enclave in a "rakurai-like" manner but didn't use the OBS. The idea I had was that Chihiro still controlled substantial power (maybe Hamilcar) but that Schueler had taken control of, maybe "hacked", the OBS software. Mutually assured destruction and therefore stalemate.

Interesting thought, but unlikely.

We know the original SSK abbey was destroyed by what Nynian thought was the last Rakurai strike. Something else might have done it, but what would that have been?

We don't know the exact timeline on this stuff, but my guess is at least some of the lesser Angels were still around, waiting for folks with personal knowledge and memories to die so they can edit document like the Testimonies to remove potentially conflicting info and make sure it all adheres to the party line. If they were loyal to Chihiro (highly likely), and had OBS control (also likely), I can see Chihiro saying "While you're at it, drop a rock on the Abbey of the Snows because Kohdy didn't work out as a Seijin and we don't want any evidence he really existed still around." Chihiro might already have departed.

Along those lines, there was a thread a while back where a poster was postulating a virtual pit fight between Archangels tucked away in VR units trying to eliminate each other. I couldn't see it. There is a difference between being crazy enough to want to, and being able to do it. I just didn't see the majority of Archangels still alive being able to carry on that sort of combat. (And IIRC, RFC commented elsewhere that when the War Against the Fallen began, most of them had no idea what was happening and were trying to keep their heads down and out of the line of fire while they found out. They were scientists and technologists, not warriors.)

Consider the War Against the Fallen. We known the Fallen were primarily former navy and marine personnel who had served under Commodore Pei in the military squadron escorting the colony fleet. In other words, people trained to fight. A major reason for Chihiro recruiting Seijins from the colonists was not enough folks trained to fight among the Angels loyal to him. I'm pretty sure Seijin Kohdy wasn't the only one who had been in the military before being selected to be a colonist, and got accepted to be a Seijin and had memories selectively reactivated precisley because of his skill set.

We don't know much about Schueler's background, though Chihiro apparently thought he could straw boss the Seijins. But the sort of hacking required to gain control of the OBS would be quite sophisticated. If Schueler had someone as good as Proctor helping him, it might have happened. But I don't believe Schueler himself had the ability, and recruiting any other Angels with computer skills gets really risky. What if they are in Chihiro's pocket and tell him Schueler wanted help in getting control of the OBS? If I'm Schueler, I'll think very hard about who I ask for help.

OTOH, since I am an Archangel, and I haven't publicly broken with Chihiro, I still have access to various stuff aside from the OBS. In particular, I can have a tomb constructed in "my" Episcopate to hold my mortal remains, a Cathedral raised over it, and the ability to tuck some tech gadgets away beneath it. I may not even be the only Archangel with a stored personality tucked away in a VR unit somewhere. We are told Chihiro and Schueler "departed in glory" after the War Against the Fallen, but where to and how isn't mentioned. (I raised that question of RFC at a con and said "Departed to where? Unless there is something major you haven't told us yet, the only places to be are on Safehold or aboard a colony ship.." He said we would find out where the others wound up and what happened to them, but didn't go any farther.
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Dennis

I don't think you need to guess. IIRC, Nynian says so, and in any case no lesser being than an angel would order the disbandment of a sisterhood created under the auspices, and probably at the direction, of the Archangels. In fact, I think that the basis of the Superior's refusal to disband was the authority that created her Order in the first place. Although, the steps she took first show she clearly understood the price of her refusal. That also indicates that the person being defied was an angel.

DMcCunney wrote:

PMike wrote:I'm wondering if Chihiro destroyed the original SSK enclave in a "rakurai-like" manner but didn't use the OBS. The idea I had was that Chihiro still controlled substantial power (maybe Hamilcar) but that Schueler had taken control of, maybe "hacked", the OBS software. Mutually assured destruction and therefore stalemate.

Interesting thought, but unlikely.

We know the original SSK abbey was destroyed by what Nynian thought was the last Rakurai strike. Something else might have done it, but what would that have been?

We don't know the exact timeline on this stuff, but my guess is at least some of the lesser Angels were still around, waiting for folks with personal knowledge and memories to die so they can edit document like the Testimonies to remove potentially conflicting info and make sure it all adheres to the party line. If they were loyal to Chihiro (highly likely), and had OBS control (also likely), I can see Chihiro saying "While you're at it, drop a rock on the Abbey of the Snows because Kohdy didn't work out as a Seijin and we don't want any evidence he really existed still around." Chihiro might already have departed.

< snip >
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Dennis

Peter2 wrote:I'm with C4 on this.

The spoken message in Schueler's Temple cannot be a canned message unless RFC has squirreled away somewhere a Safehold version of Hari Seldon – which I consider unlikely. RFC likes to play tricks with our expectations, but he also plays fair, and there has been no hint of any such capability anywhere. For this latter reason, I would also give 3rd party intervention a low probability.

I think it is also unlikely that the communication bombshell is a spoof by the Owl/Nahrman/Merlin axis. There will have to be a fair amount of factual detail in Schueler's book, and noboby knows yet what is contained in the Thing Under The Temple. If there are factual inconsistencies between Schueler's book and what turns up in there, there are going to have to be efforts to explain these away, which will lead to further inconsistencies, and at some point the whole tissue of fabrications will fall apart. The sky will then metaphorically turn black with chickens coming home to roost, and the probable outcome won't be good for anybody. I strongly suspect that Merlin and Co. are fully aware of this.

Therefore I would back an AI/VR personality of some description. Who, what and where it is, I have no idea.
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Not really, the Visitation is specifically vague in what it says that it could easily be pre-recorded based upon a good guess, you don't need to be Hari Seldon to know that Safehold would likely experience a religious war in the past 900 years.

DMcCunney wrote: We are told Chihiro and Schueler "departed in glory" after the War Against the Fallen, but where to and how isn't mentioned.

Personally, I'd always assumed that was the standard Safehold euphemism for an angelic or archangelic death. Their theology stated that the angels' bodies would eventually wear out, and the immortal soul inside would depart Safehold and return to God at that point.

I read Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People for a college course, and anyone who Bede counted as a good guy "passed from life into life" instead of "died". Compared to that euphemism, "departed in glory" is almost direct.

SCC wrote:

Peter2 wrote:I'm with C4 on this.

The spoken message in Schueler's Temple cannot be a canned message unless RFC has squirreled away somewhere a Safehold version of Hari Seldon – which I consider unlikely. RFC likes to play tricks with our expectations, but he also plays fair, and there has been no hint of any such capability anywhere. For this latter reason, I would also give 3rd party intervention a low probability.

I think it is also unlikely that the communication bombshell is a spoof by the Owl/Nahrman/Merlin axis. There will have to be a fair amount of factual detail in Schueler's book, and noboby knows yet what is contained in the Thing Under The Temple. If there are factual inconsistencies between Schueler's book and what turns up in there, there are going to have to be efforts to explain these away, which will lead to further inconsistencies, and at some point the whole tissue of fabrications will fall apart. The sky will then metaphorically turn black with chickens coming home to roost, and the probable outcome won't be good for anybody. I strongly suspect that Merlin and Co. are fully aware of this.

Therefore I would back an AI/VR personality of some description. Who, what and where it is, I have no idea.
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Not really, the Visitation is specifically vague in what it says that it could easily be pre-recorded based upon a good guess, you don't need to be Hari Seldon to know that Safehold would likely experience a religious war in the past 900 years.

I'm not sure you're right here. I agree with you that a religious war would become more likely as the Church hierarchy became more powerful, according to Lord Acton's quote that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". I also agree with you that, according to the information that we have at this moment (i.e. what Schueler's image said), it could be based on a good guess.

My point is that there is Schueler's Book out there, and at this moment we have no idea what is in it. Unless the contents of the Book are limited to a 900-year-old whinge about Chihiro's misdeeds and Shan-Wei's good intentions, I suspect that it would take an unreasonably good guess for there to be no inconsistencies after getting on for a millennium. IMO, a simple guess is unlikely to be good enough.
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SCC wrote:Not really, the Visitation is specifically vague in what it says that it could easily be pre-recorded based upon a good guess, you don't need to be Hari Seldon to know that Safehold would likely experience a religious war in the past 900 years.

Per Textev, no other entity had *ever* permanently removed Inquisitors in job lots like Charis and Duchairn did, so I think its fairly safe to say that there were never any challenges to the Inquisition to *force* it to self-reflect.

In our current societies, go back a century or two and you get multiple thousands of years of bloodbaths and torture in a large number of cultures. Genocide, mass murderers, and such weren't uncommon, torture (on a small scale) an accepted part of the Way Things Were. So why would a society in which torture was a Godly Requirement come to view it as immoral? The only reason Safehold turned against it was because of the extreme abuses of it Clyntan did: and it was pretty clear that he was the *first* to do anything like that on that scale. Had the "Visitation" happened as little as 30 years earlier (say the day before Nimue woke in the Cave), the Inquisitors would be going..... "Huh? What are you talking about?"

And then there's the language used: The Visitation clearly had adjusted for the language shift. Now, an AI or a VR personality could do that shift, no sweat. But I doubt a canned recording would be able to do that, unless it had something more powerful behind it.... and then we are into AI territory again.

So while its possible Schueller might have done something like that... The language is wrong.... and if the Visitation had happened at any time from Creation to 20 ish years ago, your "good guess" would have been drastically wrong.

Cheers!
C4.

Louis R wrote:I don't think you need to guess. IIRC, Nynian says so, and in any case no lesser being than an angel would order the disbandment of a sisterhood created under the auspices, and probably at the direction, of the Archangels. In fact, I think that the basis of the Superior's refusal to disband was the authority that created her Order in the first place. Although, the steps she took first show she clearly understood the price of her refusal. That also indicates that the person being defied was an angel.

I concur.

What is not carved in granite was the exact manner in which the Abbey of the Snows was destroyed. Nynian called it the last Rakurai strike. Of course, that was the history preserved by her Order. Whether it was actually a rock dropped by the OBS has been a point of discussion, as something else might have done it. Personally, I think it was an OBS strike. Someone who could control the OBS from the Temple was almost certainly still around to do it.

As for who authorized it, I think that pretty much has to be an Archangel, with Chihiro as the most likely candidate. I don't see the lesser Angels as having the authority to do that on their own volition.

It certainly wouldn't have been a mortal, even if they were a Vicar (or even Grand Vicar) of the CoGA.
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Dennis

Julia Minor wrote:

DMcCunney wrote: We are told Chihiro and Schueler "departed in glory" after the War Against the Fallen, but where to and how isn't mentioned.

Personally, I'd always assumed that was the standard Safehold euphemism for an angelic or archangelic death. Their theology stated that the angels' bodies would eventually wear out, and the immortal soul inside would depart Safehold and return to God at that point.

Agreed. They had a convenient cover story for the fact that their physical bodies would age, but not as rapidly as the people they dealt with.

But TFT was the first place where an Archangel dying and leaving behind a body has been mentioned in the series. I did wonder all along how angelic death would be handled. Would they die "on camera", or tell the faithful when they knew death was imminent that they would soon depart their bodies to return to God and they were saying goodbye, but discretely go elsewhere rather than expire in front of the faithful.

If what happened with Schueler was standard practice, there are likely other cathedrals housing tombs were the mortal remains of an Archangel are interred.

I read Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People for a college course, and anyone who Bede counted as a good guy "passed from life into life" instead of "died". Compared to that euphemism, "departed in glory" is almost direct.

That's a good point, and you may be right.
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Dennis

Any angels who were the last surviving 'loyal' command crew would certainly have the authority to do whatever they wished, as at that point _they_ were the ones in charge. It's likely that Chihiro left a list of loose ends he wanted snipped off, but he wouldn't have gotten them all, if only because it didn't become apparent they were loose before his passing. And do you want to bet that the last survivor or two would be able to resist a little meddling of their own after waiting so long? Maybe one of them was fond of Mulla Nasreddin stories and decided to turn them into Seijin Khody stories.

Anyway, I expect that Chihiro's last imperative was something along the lines of "do whatever is needed to make sure our narrative is the only narrative out there. And don't forget to lock the door behind you when you leave!"

DMcCunney wrote:
What is not carved in granite was the exact manner in which the Abbey of the Snows was destroyed. Nynian called it the last Rakurai strike. Of course, that was the history preserved by her Order. Whether it was actually a rock dropped by the OBS has been a point of discussion, as something else might have done it. Personally, I think it was an OBS strike. Someone who could control the OBS from the Temple was almost certainly still around to do it.

As for who authorized it, I think that pretty much has to be an Archangel, with Chihiro as the most likely candidate. I don't see the lesser Angels as having the authority to do that on their own volition.

It certainly wouldn't have been a mortal, even if they were a Vicar (or even Grand Vicar) of the CoGA.
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Dennis

SCC wrote:

Peter2 wrote:Therefore I would back an AI/VR personality of some description. Who, what and where it is, I have no idea..

Not really, the Visitation is specifically vague in what it says that it could easily be pre-recorded based upon a good guess, you don't need to be Hari Seldon to know that Safehold would likely experience a religious war in the past 900 years.

I wouldn't.

Schueler's apparition says "“Terrible, evil deeds were done in my name. Deeds any godly person must renounce as the foul perversion they were. Enough time has passed for you to recognize that truth, to grapple with it and realize that even though terrible things were done in my name, it was never with my approval.”

If this was a recording made 900 years ago, what things would those be? That would be the period of the War Against the Fallen, and no such actions were documented. If Schueler made that recording 900 years ago, even if he foresaw the possibility of a religious war, I don't see him assuming horrors done in his name that he should assure the faithful were not his idea.

The key will be the Testimony of Schueler the apparition leaves behind. Schueler further says "“This is my Testimony,” the Archangel said. “The Testimony of Schueler, and I leave it with you so that all who see it may know I truly appeared before you, that this is truly my word. And that word, my children,” he said while Samsyn trembled before him, “is that it was not Shan-wei who Fell, but Chihiro who lied.”

Schueler's apparition states that Shan Wei did not Fall, and that Chihiro lied. He is explicitly saying that the Holy Writ in not inerrant, and at least parts of it simply aren't true.

The Testimony of Schueler will contain his proofs of those assertions, and the people they need to be proved to are the Vicarate in the Temple. Those assertions are the last things the Vicarate will want to believe. Any proofs provided will have to be things they must take seriously and cannot simply dismiss as plots by Shan Wei.

Why proofs might those be?

That question is the main reason I don't see the whole thing as a sneaky IC trick. They have the technology to produce the apparition and the book. They don't have that sort of proofs, and they know they don't.

The sort of proofs needed will be what the Fallen who defeated Kohdy provided to him when he said Chihiro had turned to evil. Kohdy didn't record what they were - only that they shook him enough to make him go to Zion and talk to Schueler about it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Kohdy did speak to Schueler, what he said made Schueler look more closely at what Chihiro was up to, and that this is ultimately a result. We might even have Schueler's account of his meeting with Kohdy in Zion before he was killed.
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Dennis