Reaction to Gbabba reveal

I am willing to bet that just physically having the key inside the temple won't cause the sleeper to awaken. You gotta figure it has spent more then a few days in the temple, it was allegedly in the position of Grand Vicar... uhh... I forget his name, when it was supposedly lost. You would think said Grand Vicar entered the temple (that he lived in) with the thing at least a few times before he went tumbling off his balcony.

But yea, getting Father Paiytr to the temple has to be an end game priority for Merlin.

My guess is its going to be Ducharin and Maigwar accepting Charis's terms. Probably after Maigwar follows Ducharin in a coup against Clynthan.

Direwolf18 wrote:I am willing to bet that just physically having the key inside the temple won't cause the sleeper to awaken. You gotta figure it has spent more then a few days in the temple, it was allegedly in the position of Grand Vicar... uhh... I forget his name, when it was supposedly lost. You would think said Grand Vicar entered the temple (that he lived in) with the thing at least a few times before he went tumbling off his balcony.

But yea, getting Father Paiytr to the temple has to be an end game priority for Merlin.

My guess is its going to be Ducharin and Maigwar accepting Charis's terms. Probably after Maigwar follows Ducharin in a coup against Clynthan.

I disagree with Peter here. Getting into the basement of the Temple is Priority One. IIRC, it's less than 20 years before the 1000 year return. Those sleepers can't be allowed to awaken on their own terms. Confronting them and hopefully destroying them before the can get oriented has to be the mission.

Don

So Merlin enters the Temple viewed as a heretic interloper finds secret passages and the sleeping angels then murders them. That's going to persuade everyone that he is telling the truth about the Gbaba. I don't believe for a second he won't be monitored in his meandering about the Temple. As soon as he pulls tech tricks, the Temple tech will ring alarms.

Bottom line is that Merlin won't be able to destroy the Sleepers unseen. So any attempt to do so will be proof that he serves darkness and by extension Charis serves darkness too. Talk about the Ashes of Victory.

So attacking the Sleeper before they wake isn't without its own risk even if successful. That being the case take it slow and steady and foster the cold war route.

n7axw wrote:

Direwolf18 wrote:I am willing to bet that just physically having the key inside the temple won't cause the sleeper to awaken. You gotta figure it has spent more then a few days in the temple, it was allegedly in the position of Grand Vicar... uhh... I forget his name, when it was supposedly lost. You would think said Grand Vicar entered the temple (that he lived in) with the thing at least a few times before he went tumbling off his balcony.

But yea, getting Father Paiytr to the temple has to be an end game priority for Merlin.

My guess is its going to be Ducharin and Maigwar accepting Charis's terms. Probably after Maigwar follows Ducharin in a coup against Clynthan.

I disagree with Peter here. Getting into the basement of the Temple is Priority One. IIRC, it's less than 20 years before the 1000 year return. Those sleepers can't be allowed to awaken on their own terms. Confronting them and hopefully destroying them before the can get oriented has to be the mission.

Don

To me, Peter, the risk of your perspective is that allowing the sleepers to awake on their own is your apparent assumption that their response to what they find will be benign...

I don't think so. These were the people who were determined, even fanatical about establishing an anti tech society and who will in a heartbeat do whatever it takes to turn back the clock.

I'm not sure how one gets at the sleepers. My original idea was a vest pocket nuke planted in a jamitors closet in a central part of the temple, but someone pointed out that destroying the computer might not be the best way to gain control of OBS.

Perhaps the best way would be to use Father Paityr as mentioned up stream. Take him out to Nimue's cave and train him in the use of modern tech so he would have an idea what he was confronting in temple basement.

Then you either negotiate you way into temple or overwhelm temple with primative weapons and once you have control send Father Paityr to the basement. According to textev, he already knows where the door is.

Maybe have Federation level tech handy once the temple is taken; I don't know.

Don

I actually agree with you, Don. Eliminating the threat the Sleepers represent is vital.

The trouble is that eliminating the Sleepers can't be done secretly. If a nuke is used, Charis gets blamed for blaspheming a divine construct, The Temple. If others know of the Archangles Return, then Charis will be blamed for conspiring with demons to destroy God's emmisaries. If they sneek in a kill the Sleepers, there will be evidence of what was destroyed. That also points to demons attacking God's emissaries. This would effectively destroy Merlin's chance of introducing technology and eliminating the Proscriptions. We don't know how the OBS will respond to either destroying the Temple nor destroying the Sleepers. It might well begin attacking suspected sights of Proscription violations.

Given that risk, it might be less risky for the long term goal to let the Sleppers awaken to a world that has already disseminated technology and innovation. Sure, the Sleepers might destroy most of Safehold to root out the corruption of technology. This would also eliminate Merlin's chances of removing the proscriptions.

We don't know and neither do our heros. One view is that it is better to wait until more information is discovered. Perhaps Aivah will offer some more information that will let them make a more informed decision regarding attacking the Sleepers.

One important point--we don't know that there are sleepers under the Temple.

We have information that the Archangels will return. We don't know how they will return, or where they are currently, or what form they will return in. We know there is something drawing significant power under the Temple, and we know the Key does something under the Temple. It is a plausible assumption that the Key is related to the returning Archangels, but there are other possibilities. And even if the Key is related to the Archangels return, it doesn't mean the Archangels are under the Temple.

So Merlin needs to find out what is actually down there before he decides what to do.

Hi SWM,

Yup, that may the whole point of Aivah's trip, besides meeting her friends.

Calling whatever sleepers can lead to such a false inaccurate view that wrong decisions are almost inevitable.

From what we've read federation cryo has never been rated longer than 300 years and tripling that may take of Merlin's problem all by itself.

OTOH, federation tech seems to be fairly long lasting, so someone might risk it, especially if it was reinforced etc.

Then there's the option the sleepers confess all publicly and convince everyone that Langhorne was crazy so they can start immediately to go after the Gbabba.

Right.

Like RFC's going to make it that easy.

L

SWM wrote:One important point--we don't know that there are sleepers under the Temple.

We have information that the Archangels will return. We don't know how they will return, or where they are currently, or what form they will return in. We know there is something drawing significant power under the Temple, and we know the Key does something under the Temple. It is a plausible assumption that the Key is related to the returning Archangels, but there are other possibilities. And even if the Key is related to the Archangels return, it doesn't mean the Archangels are under the Temple.

So Merlin needs to find out what is actually down there before he decides what to do.

SWM wrote:One important point--we don't know that there are sleepers under the Temple.

We have information that the Archangels will return. We don't know how they will return, or where they are currently, or what form they will return in. We know there is something drawing significant power under the Temple, and we know the Key does something under the Temple. It is a plausible assumption that the Key is related to the returning Archangels, but there are other possibilities. And even if the Key is related to the Archangels return, it doesn't mean the Archangels are under the Temple.

So Merlin needs to find out what is actually down there before he decides what to do.

That is a cogent point. What we do know from textev is that there is a computer in the basement. That strengthens the case for using Father Paityr for the scouting expedition.

I think we can rule out cryo here. The lapse in time would be too much. If I am right, what's left would be AIs. If not under the temple, could they be on that ship that's unaccounted for? The Hamlicar (sp), wasn't it? In that event, I suspect the computer under the Temple would know.

Don

Looking at current events, the idea that the opponents of the EOC will reject technology while trying to attack them is is counter intuitive.

The various Salafist groups fighting against the West, Syria and now Iraq are quite happy to adopt the most modern technologies, including cell phones, the internet, encrypted laptop computers and social media, most of which they would have no idea how to create or understand much beyond the user interface, in order to carry out attacks and carry out PSYOPS against their enemies.

I can totally see elements of the CoGA running an insurgency against the EOC using the most modern equipment and tactics they can steal or adopt, all in the name of erasing the apostates and re establishing the CoGA.

Getting back to the reaction to the reveal. I personally hope for a mass rejection of religion and supernatural belief but having grown up around a creationist community I know it's hard for people to accept evidence. I imagine that many Safeholdians will take up a Amish sort of society. accepting technology as a artifact of the times but deciding they will not use it. I don't doubt there will be a Safehold version of Kirk Cameron or Ray Comfort, but for the most part I hope humanity will be able to accept the evidence and and accept the truth in stride