Safehold astronomy

runsforcelery wrote:
The Holy Writ uses Ptolemey's deferents, epicycles, and equants but with the Writ supplying the "official" distances to the other system bodies in order to ensure that all the epicycles work out to the same distance as the sun's apparent orbit around Safehold. The other planets aren't planets like Safehold; instead, they are worlds which might have become other homes for Man, as Safehold did, if only Shan-wei hadn't fallen and led the rebellion against God's plan. Had Shan-wei not rebelled, those additional inhabited worlds would have orbited in Safehold's heavens against the magnificent backdrop of the stars forever.

keylime314 wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:
The Holy Writ uses Ptolemey's deferents, epicycles, and equants but with the Writ supplying the "official" distances to the other system bodies in order to ensure that all the epicycles work out to the same distance as the sun's apparent orbit around Safehold. The other planets aren't planets like Safehold; instead, they are worlds which might have become other homes for Man, as Safehold did, if only Shan-wei hadn't fallen and led the rebellion against God's plan. Had Shan-wei not rebelled, those additional inhabited worlds would have orbited in Safehold's heavens against the magnificent backdrop of the stars forever.

Out of curiosity, was this added to the Writ during or after the War of the Fallen? That bit of theology doesn't make much sense if it was put in before Langhorne died.

DrakBibliophile wrote:David Weber has already said that there was a version of the Writ written prior to the "Day of Creation" and a version of the Writ written after the "War against the Fallen".

keylime314 wrote:Out of curiosity, was this added to the Writ during or after the War of the Fallen? That bit of theology doesn't make much sense if it was put in before Langhorne died.

keylime314 wrote:

DrakBibliophile wrote:David Weber has already said that there was a version of the Writ written prior to the "Day of Creation" and a version of the Writ written after the "War against the Fallen".

I know, I was more interested in whether the Ptolemaic theory had been added later by someone else, or if the theological argument was the only thing added on. Having the Ptolemaic theory added on later would represent and interesting break with Langhorne's plan from the surviving command staff.

runsforcelery wrote:The Holy Writ uses Ptolemey's deferents, epicycles, and equants but with the Writ supplying the "official" distances to the other system bodies in order to ensure that all the epicycles work out to the same distance as the sun's apparent orbit around Safehold. The other planets aren't planets like Safehold; instead, they are worlds which might have become other homes for Man, as Safehold did, if only Shan-wei hadn't fallen and led the rebellion against God's plan. Had Shan-wei not rebelled, those additional inhabited worlds would have orbited in Safehold's heavens against the magnificent backdrop of the stars forever.

As for the apparent motion of the stars, that, too, is a deliberate gift from God, a vast tapestry set to change forever in Safehold's heavens.

No telescope which can be fabricated without first violating the Proscriptions is going to disprove any of the above. People asking the right questions even without telescopes could undoubtedly unravel it, but first they'd have to have a reason to ask the questions in the first place. The model they have works; this is a society which absolutely accepts the accuracy of the Writ and all of the firsthand accounts left by 8,000,000 Adams and Eves; and there is very little likelihood that anyone would ask those questions under those circumstances. There is even less likelihood that he would ask them twice once the Inqusition had a word with him.

The system isn't perfect or infallible, but, then, Langhorne's entire plan assumed a degree of infallibility that was inherently unobtainable. It is pretty well thought out, however, and the Church was instituted as the checking mechanism intended to keep his intellectual dykes from sprouting leaks.

DrakBibliophile wrote:The part were it is said that the other planets in the Safehold system were intended to be settled by mortals but Shan-wei's Fall ruined that part of Langhorne's plans is likely an addition.

evilauthor wrote:

DrakBibliophile wrote:The part were it is said that the other planets in the Safehold system were intended to be settled by mortals but Shan-wei's Fall ruined that part of Langhorne's plans is likely an addition.

[s]Wait... as far as I know, this part is pure fanon speculation and isn't in the story AT ALL, nor has Weber ever mentioned any such thing in his out-of-story infodumps.

Yay! The Safehold fandom has matured to the point that we're now confusing fan theories with what's actually canon![/s]

Edit:
Wait, never mind. Just saw the out-of-story-infodump.

Still, I haven't seen anything in-story that even hinted at other worlds would have been colonized by man if not for Shan-Wei's rebellion. Simply getting to them would have required flight which is one of the things Safehold humanity is prohibited from doing.

evilauthor wrote:

DrakBibliophile wrote:The part were it is said that the other planets in the Safehold system were intended to be settled by mortals but Shan-wei's Fall ruined that part of Langhorne's plans is likely an addition.

[s]Wait... as far as I know, this part is pure fanon speculation and isn't in the story AT ALL, nor has Weber ever mentioned any such thing in his out-of-story infodumps.

Yay! The Safehold fandom has matured to the point that we're now confusing fan theories with what's actually canon![/s]

Edit:
Wait, never mind. Just saw the out-of-story-infodump.

Still, I haven't seen anything in-story that even hinted at other worlds would have been colonized by man if not for Shan-Wei's rebellion. Simply getting to them would have required flight which is one of the things Safehold humanity is prohibited from doing.

DrakBibliophile wrote:The Ptolemaic system had to be part of the Writ from the beginning or Merlin would have mentally commented on the change.

The part were it is said that the other planets in the Safehold system were intended to be settled by mortals but Shan-wei's Fall ruined that part of Langhorne's plans is likely an addition.

My guess is that the original Writ said that those worlds would be settled by mortals "when the time is right".

Theemile wrote:

DrakBibliophile wrote:The Ptolemaic system had to be part of the Writ from the beginning or Merlin would have mentally commented on the change.

The part were it is said that the other planets in the Safehold system were intended to be settled by mortals but Shan-wei's Fall ruined that part of Langhorne's plans is likely an addition.

My guess is that the original Writ said that those worlds would be settled by mortals "when the time is right".

Drak, you threw me for a second when you said "Merlin would have commented on the change." But the more I thought of it you are right....

We actually have a discrepency here. Merlin/Owl would have had a copy of the Writ and any other books loaded into memory BEFORE Kunyang left his parting message. Waking up and reading the current Writ, Merlin SHOULD be easily able to see any of the parts written, edited and redacted after the War of the Fallen. Yet, we've never really seen it. Merlin should be able to look at the Writ and see it as we would see a red-lined word Document in markup mode. But I've alwasy got the impression that Merlin's discussions on the additions were part of a discovery process, not a comparsion of the 125 copy and the 897 copy.