There is another thread here where kites were mentioned, and in my curiosity, I poked around for records of man-lifting kites being used in warfare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-lifting_kite
In our world, the technology for airplanes and zeppelins pretty much cut kites for observation off at the knees, before they really got anywhere. On Safehold, especially in the Navy, I can see potential for an extreme interest in man-lifting kites.
How do kites have anything to do with Boy Scouts?
Baden Fletcher Smyth Baden-Powell was one of the pioneers of man-lifting kitebuilding. Some of you might recognize the last name.
Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell was his brother, and the founder of the Boy Scouts.
While I am not yet fully caught up in the books yet, I do not recall seeing any evidence of social programs taken from history that the Empire of Charis might benefit from.
The nobility in a society like Safehold's might potentially learn a great deal of what the Scouts teach, but the common folk would not. Their exposure to things military would typically start when they enter the military. Granted, they lived hard lives by our standards, but not military lives.
I would think that the first Safehold resident poking through Owl's records and finding a reference to the Boy Scouts would be stunned by the potential, especially considering their manpower shortages.
Researching man-lifting kites could be how someone stumbles across the boy Boy Scouts, through cross-references of the Baden-Powells like what one finds in modern day Wikipedia.
It's entirely possible that DW might have already introduced something like the Boy Scouts to Safehold, but if he hasn't, I think it would be fun to see the reactions of the main characters to the idea, and how it develops, especially when the idea of Girl Scouts gets brought up.
