PeterZ wrote:Don,
If one takes RFC's recent posts and read them as gentle hints of where the general direction of the story is headed, one might draw some conclusions. The original plan called for a few small, secluded high tech outposts to bootstrap the colony after low tech safety period expired. Langhorne altered those plans. Langhorne's original plan was changed as well as the Writ itself well after Creation. A nasty secession war was fought by people traumatized by the Gbaba war using low tech brainwashed proxies with the survival of the human race at stake.
From that rat's nest of high stakes conflict, I would be shocked if more than a few passionate factions didn't form with their own differing views of where Safehold's future lies. Those factions' leaders were chosen from the brightest of humanity to form the original command crew of Project Ark. That one of these passionate groups survived just as St. Zherneau did would not surprise me a bit. Furthermore, I find that a group begun by someone other than Shan-wei will have a better chance of surviving with their high tech toys, if any survived the wars.
Maybe, but Jeremiah Knowles survived by going to ground and concealing what he really knew, posing as a orthodox teacher with a few harmless looking wrinkles of his own.
There is no reason that someone else couldn't have taken that same path, say, on the mainland with a group over time developing different traditions and ways of self expression who also managed not to call the inquisition's attention to itself. I don't really see that it matters whether it was one of Shanwei's seedlings, a Seijin Khody or someone else entirely. I wouldn't argue that point at all. My speculation is that the covert group exists and that Aivah is a member of a different "inner circle" who has at least a piece of the truth if not the whole thing.
Don