Nimue

phillies wrote:Time to modernization: centuries.

If you don't believe me, look at our own planet, the less well-to-do parts, and progress over the last 50 years.

Not that I can be *completely* certain, you understand, but I'm pretty sure we haven't had a Federation AI with a complete tech bible, including all background research, theory, and practical application up through interstellar drives and PICA level miniaturization helping us along for the last 50 years either. And if we had, I'd feel completely comfortable surmising that we'd be a LOT further along than we are now.

I love your optimism. But about a century and a half after Darwin and all the scientific advances since, a majority of Americans still believe in a six day creation. Why would Safehold be different?

Of course there will be... millions of them. But not a majority. The CoGAs strength is in the visible miracles and testimonies of the original colonists. There are actual pictures of the archangels in the temple. That level of 'realness' makes the church far more powerful than any pure-faith real-world religion, but it also represents a 180 degree break point in that they can be factually demonstrated to be non-divine. The biggest issue being the archangels themselves. Give us a Schuler or equivalent coming back and it'll fall apart spectacularly.

For everyone? No, not even close. Millions will never lose their faith. Even several generations on, there will still be CoGA adherents. Even more, though, I'd predict an acute crisis of faith that would lead to a huge panoply of splinter faiths/cults springing up practically overnight. But with the prescriptions gone and the Rakurai disabled you could roll out an aggressive basic educational program that would take 3-4 generations (80-100 years) to begin to reach Federation levels globally. If the second generation after the fall of the CoGA could get broad NEAT implementation in, say, 50% of the population, then uplift would happen even quicker.

NervousEnergy wrote:(SNIP)

For everyone? No, not even close. Millions will never lose their faith. Even several generations on, there will still be CoGA adherents. Even more, though, I'd predict an acute crisis of faith that would lead to a huge panoply of splinter faiths/cults springing up practically overnight. But with the prescriptions gone and the Rakurai disabled you could roll out an aggressive basic educational program that would take 3-4 generations (80-100 years) to begin to reach Federation levels globally. If the second generation after the fall of the CoGA could get broad NEAT implementation in, say, 50% of the population, then uplift would happen even quicker.

Wasn't there a recent challenge in the US, from religious parties, that wanted "Intelligent Design" taught at the same time as Evolution - as both are "equally valid theories" (/sarcasm).

As Don said, even 150 years after Darwin, people still chose their religious beliefs over scientific theory.


After all, this is a Catch-22 situation - to reject the CoGA, you need an education, but you cannot get the education without rejecting the CoGA.


(I think that is why DW is going to finish this series in a book or two, and then pick the story up again in a new series some time down the track when they meet the Gbaba again. The interval between the series is to allow enough of the population to lose their belief and accept Federation technology.)

Arol wrote:Nimues' appearance does offer an intriguing method of segueing from one epoch of Safehold to another.
F.ex. At the end of this post-CoG epoche, a war weary, guilt ridden Merlin with the last of his old friends (his Round Table!) passed away, asks a fully capable Nimue to terminate his existence so he can join his friends,(without damage to the PICA?)
Maybe even upload a new “virgin” version of Nimue in Merlins old shell.
Second guessing authors is fun but also an exercise in futility.
But I guess that DW will in the fullnesssss of timeeeee and over the passage of years, answer all our questions

It has occurred to my tha Merlin could record his friends periodically so they could "go live with Naman (sp)" in the fullness of time. Steve Stirling wrote a book where monarchs and consorts were recorded for consultation purposes. Their acceptance of the new monarch and consort was the climax of the coronation ceremony.

On a related metter, doctors need to be recruited so children young enough for the NEAT process can get preliminary matters taken care of. To expand on that, they have the leadership pretty well taken care of and maybe the time to recruit operatives has come.

As we saw with Nahrmahn, Merlin can't "record his friends" without killing them.

The procedure would have been fatal to Nahrmahn even if it didn't succeed.

Note, it has also been established that Nahrmahn isn't "complete".

As for NEAT's, we lack information about the process of implanting them.

We know that Merlin can't give his adult friends NEATs but we lack information on how easy it would be to implant NEATs in new-borns.

Merlin and OWL may not have the resources available to do so and even if they have the resources, it may not be possible to do so under current Safehold conditions.

As for the Stirling story, that was almost "magical" technology likely more advanced than Weber's Federation technology.

Earldrygulch wrote:
It has occurred to my tha Merlin could record his friends periodically so they could "go live with Naman (sp)" in the fullness of time. Steve Stirling wrote a book where monarchs and consorts were recorded for consultation purposes. Their acceptance of the new monarch and consort was the climax of the coronation ceremony.

On a related metter, doctors need to be recruited so children young enough for the NEAT process can get preliminary matters taken care of. To expand on that, they have the leadership pretty well taken care of and maybe the time to recruit operatives has come.

As to US educational comparisons, we were talking about implementing a good, universal public education system weren't we? One parents would be happy their kids were going to?

Which raises interesting issues; Given the Gbaba we do need Safehold wide coordination of effort and resources for all sorts of things, establishing and funding a decent education system being the first of them. Unfortunately, the only body with the reach and finance to do so is the church. That raises tactical and moral issues about when to do "the great reveal". It might be tempting to take over the church, CoC becomes CoS, dispense away key elements of the Proscriptions and use it to set up the new education system first. There are obvious dangers in that, but these feuding, national, secular leaders are not all going to get with the plan any time soon.

MWadwell wrote:

NervousEnergy wrote:(SNIP)

For everyone? No, not even close. Millions will never lose their faith. Even several generations on, there will still be CoGA adherents. Even more, though, I'd predict an acute crisis of faith that would lead to a huge panoply of splinter faiths/cults springing up practically overnight. But with the prescriptions gone and the Rakurai disabled you could roll out an aggressive basic educational program that would take 3-4 generations (80-100 years) to begin to reach Federation levels globally. If the second generation after the fall of the CoGA could get broad NEAT implementation in, say, 50% of the population, then uplift would happen even quicker.

Wasn't there a recent challenge in the US, from religious parties, that wanted "Intelligent Design" taught at the same time as Evolution - as both are "equally valid theories" (/sarcasm).

As Don said, even 150 years after Darwin, people still chose their religious beliefs over scientific theory.


After all, this is a Catch-22 situation - to reject the CoGA, you need an education, but you cannot get the education without rejecting the CoGA.


(I think that is why DW is going to finish this series in a book or two, and then pick the story up again in a new series some time down the track when they meet the Gbaba again. The interval between the series is to allow enough of the population to lose their belief and accept Federation technology.)

Dont want to dwell in politics, but US situation is very unusual among educated parts of the population of Earth.
Higher level of education implies usually either stronger atheism views or less fundamentalist creeds. Not so much in the USA.

Religion strict adherence and education (eg earth age) are rather incompatible and in most countries it is solved by letting the creed elvove to a much less intransigeant mainstream view and the more closed churches are forced to withdraw from that debate.
Many educated persons keep strong religious faith without letting it interfere with science. In fact in many cases it can be the religious orders that provide scientist cores (eg the catholic church after Galileo, Confucianism and Budhism).

Why it was diferent in the US I dont know, but the Church of Charis has the potential of a creed that can coexist easily with more scientific views.

A church provide, beside basic faith, a moral code and ethic, and as such basis for law. that role still need to be fullfilled.

alj_sf wrote:Dont want to dwell in politics, but US situation is very unusual among educated parts of the population of Earth.

Yes, exactly. There are things we can know through logic, facts, and reproduced processes, and things we can only theorize about. If the educated population all have the same beliefs about theories that can't be proven, then there has been brain washing going on. The key to detecting this are "Everyone knows", "Scientist say", and "I feel". This why the Greeks KNOW that they shouldn't have to pay back loans made by Germany.

Education diversity is good to the extent that causes an unemotional evaluation of what we actually know, and what we just believe and why.

I wonder... If NEATs are integrated at birth why wasn't a certain heir and princess given them. By now Norman must have had time to do the research...

IIRC Norman was still alive and breathing when that princess was born.

I suspect that Merlin couldn't have implanted the necessary interfaces at the time of her birth without plenty of questions being asked.

purduephotog wrote:I wonder... If NEATs are integrated at birth why wasn't a certain heir and princess given them. By now Norman must have had time to do the research...

=2014/06/29=
I believe we have NO terxtev one way or
the other that Sharley's daughter did
or did not have the interfaces implanted.

If I remember correctly, before Irys and
Hector were wounded, there was no evidence
that they had been inoculated with the
nano-tech to protect them.

So, absence of test evidence is no
guarantee that nothing was done.

We all have much evidence showing
just how SNEAKY RFC can be.

??Comments??

R
.

DrakBibliophile wrote:IIRC Norman was still alive and breathing when that princess was born.

I suspect that Merlin couldn't have implanted the necessary interfaces at the time of her birth without plenty of questions being asked.

purduephotog wrote:I wonder... If NEATs are integrated at birth why wasn't a certain heir and princess given them. By now Norman must have had time to do the research...