I looked up the actual scene where Rayno explains the contents of the briefcase captured from the Charisian engineer who was murdered in Siddar City.ecortez wrote:I was wondering about his reaction to the steam engine too. He's displayed enough ignorance of (and surprise at) Charisian innovations and weapons that it seems unlikely he's a pre-Safeholdian in PICA form or knows the full truth. But certain Inquisition files and historical records may be available to him, due to his position, which no one else, or only a handful of others, have access to.
For instance the Church may know of the Terran Federation as part of an ancient heresy long since eradicated (or so they think). Clyntahn probably has no clue what an "engine" is or what it's actually used for; but he may recognize the term, along with others like radio, satellite, computer, or hyperdrive, as names of Proscribed devices. He doesn't know what they are. Only that people aren't supposed to have them.
When Rayno mentions the steam engine Clyntahn knows for sure (even if he can't explain how he knows without revealing the Inquisition's most closely-guarded secret files) that Charis is now doing what he's falsely accused them of doing in the past: dabbling in the unclean knowledge of Shan-Wei. Since he's made the accusation already there's little point in making it again. I'm sure that from his point of view though, the ante has just been upped.
"Why, a complete description of the heretics’ new steel-making process, Your Grace,” Rayno said, and nodded at the sudden change in Clyntahn’s expression. “I’m no mechanic myself, so my ability to assess the information is limited. I believe there are some gaps, and I could wish there were more technical drawings to accompany the text. In addition, it deals only with blast furnaces and something called ‘open hearth’ furnaces, not with all the other devices our agents suggest the heretics have employed to increase their productivity so markedly. However,as part of the description of the furnaces, there’s also a discussion of something called a ‘steam engine.’ I’ve found no directions for building one of them, but there’s a lengthy description of the principles upon which they work. I suspect our own mechanics and artificers might be able to create ‘steam engines’ of their own if those principles were shared with them.”
“Schueler,” Clyntahn said very softly. Then he shook himself, hard.
“Tell me more about this ‘steam engine,’” he said.
My first reaction to this scene was that Clyntahn was overwhelmed with the amount of information the CoGA had just captured from Charis, especially the device that had allowed the heretics to propel the ironclads that made the Great Canal Raid.
In retrospect though, how would Clyntahn know what an "engine" was at all? His reaction might well have been in response to the sheer amount of information on how to duplicate the Charisian's technology the Inquisition had just captured, and given the course of the conversation, it was natural for him to ask for more details about the steam engine.
I searched the text of the entire series and found that RFC only uses the term "he shook himself" when the person is musing about something else, then stops his deep, wandering thoughts and brings himself back to the present by shaking himself. Note that Clyntahn shook himself hard! This is the only instance where someone does that. Whatever the term "steam engine" caused him to think about was so captivating or serious that it captured his entire attention to the exclusion of what Rayno was telling him! It took a strong effort to bring his thoughts back to what Rayno was saying.
So what did the term "steam engine" cause Clyntahn to start thinking of? Clearly he was familiar with the term even if the concept wasn't familiar to him. Note that when he asks Rayno to tell him more about it, the term "steam engine" is in parentheses, indicating that he was repeating the name of it carefully to get it right.
It appears that the head of the Inquisition knows more than we thought he did. He may only know the term, or that "engines" are reserved for use by the Archangels. It seems strange that only the head of the Inquisition knows the term though. Does a new Grand Inquisitor get a top secret manual on forbidden technology when he gets the job so he'll know what items are sufficiently high tech that if he hears of them, he should warn something in the basement of the temple that they exist? Does he learn the names of forbidden tech through an ancient hologram with a pronounced shift in pronunciation, which is why Clyntahn said "steam engine" carefully when he asked Rayno to tell him more about it?
Keep in mind, it's unlikely that technology developed independently on Safehold would have the same name as Terran tech. That means that if one of the Terran names of forbidden tech does turn up, it's proof that the knowledge of Shan-Wei is somehow involved - not that he hasn't accused Charis of that already, then approved the very tech he condemned. But this time he'd be right!
I certainly hope that the Grand Inquisitor's secret manual doesn't have instructions on how to wake up something under the temple if one of the forbidden terms shows up...
It bodes ill for our heroes that the bad guys now know what propels the ironclads, but it will be years before the CoGA's artificers can create a working steam engine based on the information they currently have, and they'll make a lot of mistakes along the way, which Howsmyn avoided by passing along hints from OWL. But if "steam engine" is a specific technology that the Grand Inquisitor knows was banned by the archangels, the CoGA won't be building any of them, and the EoC will be accused of dabbling in the black arts of Shan-Wei.
So it appears that the real threat may be that Clyntahn knows more than we thought he did... and may possibly have the means to do something about it.
