HFQ Offical Snippet #4

pokermind Sir,

Thank you for the welcome.


Ash

[quote="lyonheart"]Hi Drak,



I suspect feudalism took root during the war of the fallen, despite the Adams and Eves still being alive, if so the fact the surviving archangels dud nothing to stop or reverse it is rather telling in my opinion.

L




Hello,
I got the impression that society had already got male dominated before the Nuke that killed off the Archangels.

Its been a while since I read the book But I am sure it was in OAR ... the scene between an Adam called Thomas , a father Michael and a angel that witnessed the light from the Nuke....
The build up of that scene gave me the impression that the women were homemakers and the men made the decisions. Women may have been had there own rights and wealth but men seemed to be in power.

Currently there are no women vicars etc.



the weird thing is that by the time safehold was settled society was so an advanced, why did they let gender bias in?

why did they not allow any female vicars in? Also how come there were no female head of house, or ruler of a land? How or Why did Bedard let this happen?


after 900 years you have one surviving queen on safehold.


(

ashie wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Hi Drak,



I suspect feudalism took root during the war of the fallen, despite the Adams and Eves still being alive, if so the fact the surviving archangels dud nothing to stop or reverse it is rather telling in my opinion.

L




Hello,
I got the impression that society had already got male dominated before the Nuke that killed off the Archangels.

Its been a while since I read the book But I am sure it was in OAR ... the scene between an Adam called Thomas , a father Michael and a angel that witnessed the light from the Nuke....
The build up of that scene gave me the impression that the women were homemakers and the men made the decisions. Women may have been had there own rights and wealth but men seemed to be in power.

Currently there are no women vicars etc.



the weird thing is that by the time safehold was settled society was so an advanced, why did they let gender bias in?

why did they not allow any female vicars in? Also how come there were no female head of house, or ruler of a land? How or Why did Bedard let this happen?


after 900 years you have one surviving queen on safehold.


(

Muscle-powered civilizations are always male-dominated. The relatively high levels of nutrition and health care enforced by the Order of Pasquale would have lessened this effect compared to the feudal civilizations of Earth's history, since Safehold would have a *much* lower incidence of death in childbirth, and therefore somewhat less cultural pressure to protect women at all costs, but when muscle is what's required to get things done, what matters is how many men you have.

Given 'the leading role of the church', Safehold was always going to be the kind of society where 'some animals are more equal than others' And since the church everyone was taught to revere was organised from the first as a hierarchy of individuals (there are other ways to organise churches) that was almost bound to be reflected in civil society. Taking into account the different bell curves of physical strength and aggressiveness that apply to men and women, Safehold was bound to be a patriarchy.

Randomiser wrote:Given 'the leading role of the church', Safehold was always going to be the kind of society where 'some animals are more equal than others' And since the church everyone was taught to revere was organised from the first as a hierarchy of individuals (there are other ways to organise churches) that was almost bound to be reflected in civil society. Taking into account the different bell curves of physical strength and aggressiveness that apply to men and women, Safehold was bound to be a patriarchy.

I completely agree.
It was logical, inescapable and absolutely unsustainable in one of MWW’s universes.

runsforcelery wrote:(snip)
“We can’t read some of it,” she admitted. “It’s not written in any language we can understand. According to the part of the journal we can read, Seijin Kohdy wrote that part of it in something called ‘Español.’
(snip)
“I don’t know that for certain, because he never explaned his reasoning in the portions of the journal we can read. Until I encountered that ‘Español’ of his, it had never occurred to me another language might even exist! And however reasonable it may’ve seemed to him at the time, his decision to use it means even the Sisterhood’s members are divided on at least a few points.”
(snip)

One thing I'm wondering about: Is Aivah testing Merlin with the Spanish sections? I know it has been argued that on Safehold with a one language for all setting actually deciphering a foreign language is very difficult.
There are however some countervailing factors: To the extent that the CoGA allows higher education, it'll be along the lines of medieval universities: theology, law, rhetoric, and the arts. For the first three, you need a good foundation in grammar, so that discipline should be known.
Regarding Spanish, there's a lot of words with common stems in English (the one being derived from Latin, the other having a hefty dose of old French and medieval Latin). Then, 23rd century Spanish should have quite a bit of loan words from an universal English language. If you have centuries for solving that puzzle, lots of source material complete with context and sound grammatical knowledge, you should be able to do a lot more than just come up with a blank. At least that's my experience with Spanish as a foreign language. I'm surprise how much I can figure out even without a dictionary at hand, especially if it's not everyday live but rather more technical. The assumptions rest of course on Khody writing only in Spanish and not also using a cipher...
I grant that the Sisterhood won't have a perfect translation ready, and there'll be quite a bit of uncertainty, but they should have at least some ideas of what Khody is writing about.
Now, if Merlin is a seijin, he should be able to produce something which is consistent with what the Sisterhood has figured out. If he's not, he'll come up with something else, probably.
Thus I figure she's setting up a test for Merlin here.

While the Sisters are not aware of foreign languages, they do know about codes. A word to word substitution code, from real words into hashed letters, is certainly something that someone would consider. I used this as a plot element in The One World, with the complication that the invaders spoke and wrote in several different languages, in an unrelated syllabic alphabet, and for some time there are no polylingual speakers available to introduce the notion that you can learn to speak and think in a second language. However, the Sisters of Saint Khody may well not have enough text to work out what is going on.

Alternatively, the Sisters know exactly what the "code" is, have a translation of some segment, and have put up a trap for Merlin.

anwi wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:(snip)
“We can’t read some of it,” she admitted. “It’s not written in any language we can understand. According to the part of the journal we can read, Seijin Kohdy wrote that part of it in something called ‘Español.’
(snip)
“I don’t know that for certain, because he never explaned his reasoning in the portions of the journal we can read. Until I encountered that ‘Español’ of his, it had never occurred to me another language might even exist! And however reasonable it may’ve seemed to him at the time, his decision to use it means even the Sisterhood’s members are divided on at least a few points.”
(snip)

One thing I'm wondering about: Is Aivah testing Merlin with the Spanish sections? I know it has been argued that on Safehold with a one language for all setting actually deciphering a foreign language is very difficult.
There are however some countervailing factors: To the extent that the CoGA allows higher education, it'll be along the lines of medieval universities: theology, law, rhetoric, and the arts. For the first three, you need a good foundation in grammar, so that discipline should be known.
Regarding Spanish, there's a lot of words with common stems in English (the one being derived from Latin, the other having a hefty dose of old French and medieval Latin). Then, 23rd century Spanish should have quite a bit of loan words from an universal English language. If you have centuries for solving that puzzle, lots of source material complete with context and sound grammatical knowledge, you should be able to do a lot more than just come up with a blank. At least that's my experience with Spanish as a foreign language. I'm surprise how much I can figure out even without a dictionary at hand, especially if it's not everyday live but rather more technical. The assumptions rest of course on Khody writing only in Spanish and not also using a cipher...
I grant that the Sisterhood won't have a perfect translation ready, and there'll be quite a bit of uncertainty, but they should have at least some ideas of what Khody is writing about.
Now, if Merlin is a seijin, he should be able to produce something which is consistent with what the Sisterhood has figured out. If he's not, he'll come up with something else, probably.
Thus I figure she's setting up a test for Merlin here.

It's only a trap for Merlin if he is less than honest with the sisters about the journal says, which would be a first for Merlin.

That, of course, assumes that Nynian is of a mind to set a trap to start with which seems inconsistent with what we know of her character.

Don

phillies wrote:While the Sisters are not aware of foreign languages, they do know about codes. (snip)
However, the Sisters of Saint Khody may well not have enough text to work out what is going on.

Alternatively, the Sisters know exactly what the "code" is, have a translation of some segment, and have put up a trap for Merlin.

Aivah specifically mentions that the last few months of the diary are entirely in Spanish, while before it was intermingled (providing context). Thus, the amount of text should be sufficient if the Sisterhood were to actually try it.
As to codes: If the Spanish sections were written in a cipher as well as in Spanish, I don't see they'd have realistic chances of cracking that code. If it's "only" Spanish, then deciphering the text has lots of commonalities to cracking a code...
Then, it is an interesting question why Aivah would set up a test. Could be some info in the Spanish sections. I mean, she's basically confirmed she knows about Chihiro loyalist seijins and loyalists to other angels or fallen angels. She's convinced that Merlin is a seijin. Why does she assume that he's working for the good ones? Moreover, if she has some grasp of the Spanish sections, might be she's not even on the Chihiro loyalist side. Testing for that one might be a motive...
OTOH: Si Aivah realmente no sabe nada acerca la secciones en español, podemos discutir si hemos cogida el autor con las manos rojas. Y RFC no lo gusta.

evilauthor wrote:

PeterZ wrote:You are understating the situation. Safehold has English grammar but a complete mish-mash of language sources for the vocabulary and likely phoneitics. That mish-mash suggests language has very few guiding rules to a native Safeholdian English speaker.

Actually, I'd put that mish mash down to English continuing to "borrow" vocabulary from other languages between the now and right up to the day the last Archangel who knew another language died.

English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, hits them over the head and goes through their pockets for loose words and phrases.