Clyntahn using the Key of Schueler.

phillies wrote:At some point it will occur to Clyntahn that all these seijin come from the Mountains of Light, which are therefore in need of a thoroughgoing military occupation.

I don't think they are going to find a cave miles beneath the mountains hidden with Foundation technology. Clyntahn is welcome to send a force to the Mountains of Light--they can sit and suffer on the glaciers but won't get much done except survive, if they are lucky.

No, that was the Stone of Schueler that the Church knew about and thought was lost.

keylime314 wrote:

DrakBibliophile wrote:Also IIRC Father Paityr said that his father suspected that others knew about their key.

Actually, I think he said that the church thought the Key had been lost after the assassination of one of his ancestors. So it's common knowledge that his family once had a relic, but it's not common knowledge that they still do.

I certainly find it hightly plausible that there could have been other keys distributed. Perhaps there was one that descended through the Daughters of Schueler as well as the sons.

Well, IIRC the Wylsynn family never calls themselves "Sons of Schueler" and for all we know the Wylsynns may be descended from a daughter of Frederick Schueler.

Seriously, it would be possible for a secret artifact to be handed down from daughter to daughter but if there is a sacred mission associated with the artifact, then passing through the male line might be better.

For one thing, power within the Safehold Church lays in the hands of the male clergy thus the people involved in the sacred mission would have to mostly men.

While women can strongly influence their husbands and sons, IMO the sacred mission would require the husbands/sons to have full knowledge about the artifact and the mission.

Another aspect is that daughters leave their family to marry into another family.

Thus a mother who has involved her husband and sons in the sacred mission would be required (by Angelic instructions) to pass the artifact to her daughter who would have to start over "recruiting" her husband into the sacred mission.

IMO it would be easier for a family to pass on the artifact and knowledge of the sacred mission to the sons of the family.

For that matter, even in the Wylsynn family, the artifact & knowledge of the sacred mission might have passed from uncle to nephew instead of from father to son.

With the daughters of a family marrying into other families, it might be more difficult for an aunt to pass on the artifact & knowledge of the mission to a niece.

Hank Plantagenet wrote:I certainly find it hightly plausible that there could have been other keys distributed. Perhaps there was one that descended through the Daughters of Schueler as well as the sons.

DrakBibliophile wrote:Well, IIRC the Wylsynn family never calls themselves "Sons of Schueler" and for all we know the Wylsynns may be descended from a daughter of Frederick Schueler.

Seriously, it would be possible for a secret artifact to be handed down from daughter to daughter but if there is a sacred mission associated with the artifact, then passing through the male line might be better.

<snip>

With the daughters of a family marrying into other families, it might be more difficult for an aunt to pass on the artifact & knowledge of the mission to a niece.

Well, perhaps the term "Daughters of Schueler" can be more figurative than literal. There could be a secret sisterhood that over the years has recruited disaffected women and told them "Hey, you know, we weren't always powerless. There once was a society that treated men and women as equals."

What better recruit would there be than a young lady, kicked out of the powerful vicar's family and denied her heritage, and forced into prostitution to make her way in the world? Yes, Anzhelique/Aivah/Nynian.

Yes, a sisterhood like that would be possible and people have suspected that Aivah is part of a secret organization.

Hank Plantagenet wrote:

DrakBibliophile wrote:Well, IIRC the Wylsynn family never calls themselves "Sons of Schueler" and for all we know the Wylsynns may be descended from a daughter of Frederick Schueler.

Seriously, it would be possible for a secret artifact to be handed down from daughter to daughter but if there is a sacred mission associated with the artifact, then passing through the male line might be better.

<snip>

With the daughters of a family marrying into other families, it might be more difficult for an aunt to pass on the artifact & knowledge of the mission to a niece.

Well, perhaps the term "Daughters of Schueler" can be more figurative than literal. There could be a secret sisterhood that over the years has recruited disaffected women and told them "Hey, you know, we weren't always powerless. There once was a society that treated men and women as equals."

What better recruit would there be than a young lady, kicked out of the powerful vicar's family and denied her heritage, and forced into prostitution to make her way in the world? Yes, Anzhelique/Aivah/Nynian.

SWM wrote:

AirTech wrote:The other complication is that it is currently sitting in Nimue's cave having been examined by OWL...
The Rakurai may have a little trouble finding it...

I don't think they are going to find a cave miles beneath the mountains hidden with Foundation technology. Clyntahn is welcome to send a force to the Mountains of Light--they can sit and suffer on the glaciers but won't get much done except survive, if they are lucky.

Since Mt. Olympus is over 40,000 feet tall and packed with iron ore, and Nimue's cave is buried over 7 1/2 miles underneath it, (12,000 meters for you metric folks as quoted from AMF) even the Terran Federation's high tech scanners couldn't find it.

Note also that the only entrance to it is a portal that's camouflaged and under OWL's control, and it appears to be located in the side of a very high cliff, which makes it almost impossible to reach. It's highly probable that the portal is made of battle steel, which even the Rakurai couldn't penetrate. The inside of the tunnel is as reflective as a mirror, so it's clear that it's lined with battle steel, so the entire discussion of blowing a hole to get inside is moot.

Let's assume the CoGA could blow a hole around the portal and got inside the tunnel. Then they face the daunting problem that it's miles long and the atmosphere inside it is pure nitrogen. There's no oxygen to breathe, so until enough oxygen makes its way from the outside into the HUGE tunnel, it's a death trap. If OWL keeps blowing more nitrogen into the tunnel so that there's a wind blowing out, no one will EVER be able to survive inside it until SCUBA tanks are invented.

Unfortunately for the bad guys, the process of electrolysis needed to separate the oxygen to fill an oxygen tank violates the Proscriptions in the absolute worst way - it requires the use of electricity, which is reserved for the sole use of the Archangels. Remember that lightning is Langhorne's way of reminding Safehold of that fact. (Yes, I'm sure there are many other ways to create oxygen, I'm just noting the one we were taught about in school.)

The inner chamber of the cave is over a thousand yards across and can be sealed from the tunnel which indicates that the cave is also lined with battle steel. That would indicate a probable set of blast doors and the Terran Federation's equivalent of an airlock to get inside the cavern. You could fill the ENTIRE tunnel with gunpowder and blow it up, (assuming oxygen could reach all the powder to make ignition possible) and it would simply act like a cannon many miles long! Useful in destroying whatever it's pointing at, but it wouldn't even scratch the blast doors or the tunnel's interior!

Suffice it to say, nobody who Merlin and OWL don't want to visit Nimue's cave is ever going to get inside it given Safehold's current tech level and the Proscriptions preventing the development of the technology needed to survive inside it. So the Key of Schueler is absolutely safe from the bad guys as long as it remains inside.

Of course it might come in handy when Charis decides to capture the Temple, since all that unidentified data stored inside it must be meant to be used somewhere...

McGuiness wrote:You could fill the ENTIRE tunnel with gunpowder and blow it up, (assuming oxygen could reach all the powder to make ignition possible) and it would simply act like a cannon many miles long!

This is the best proposal for how to get rid of the Rakurai ever.

"(assuming oxygen could reach all the powder to make ignition possible)"
*****
The Sodium Nitrate is the oxidizer, no free oxygen is need for the explosive reaction.

Steve

DrakBibliophile wrote:Well, IIRC the Wylsynn family never calls themselves "Sons of Schueler" and for all we know the Wylsynns may be descended from a daughter of Frederick Schueler.

Seriously, it would be possible for a secret artifact to be handed down from daughter to daughter but if there is a sacred mission associated with the artifact, then passing through the male line might be better.

For one thing, power within the Safehold Church lays in the hands of the male clergy thus the people involved in the sacred mission would have to mostly men.

While women can strongly influence their husbands and sons, IMO the sacred mission would require the husbands/sons to have full knowledge about the artifact and the mission.

Another aspect is that daughters leave their family to marry into another family.

Thus a mother who has involved her husband and sons in the sacred mission would be required (by Angelic instructions) to pass the artifact to her daughter who would have to start over "recruiting" her husband into the sacred mission.

IMO it would be easier for a family to pass on the artifact and knowledge of the sacred mission to the sons of the family.

For that matter, even in the Wylsynn family, the artifact & knowledge of the sacred mission might have passed from uncle to nephew instead of from father to son.

With the daughters of a family marrying into other families, it might be more difficult for an aunt to pass on the artifact & knowledge of the mission to a niece.

Hank Plantagenet wrote:I certainly find it hightly plausible that there could have been other keys distributed. Perhaps there was one that descended through the Daughters of Schueler as well as the sons.

It does make sense for the keys to pass down through the male side, but sometimes there is no male heir. In which case the key must travel through a female to her son. Hopefully anyone smart enough to create the keys would also be smart enough to allow for that possibility when developing the family traditions of how the key should be passed on.