anwi wrote:n7axw wrote:These are all darn good posts, providing good food for thought. Here is my take...
We have a tendency to to think that if we roll over Zion, force a treaty that curbs the power of the Inquisition, mission accomplished.
Nope. All too many folks think the Inquisition is doing just fine and support it. Cutting off the head only decentralizes its power to the local level where it will function much as it always has with popular support in places like Harchong and D
I have to disagree. I sincerely doubt if the Inquisition - Clyntahn style division - is capable of running in decentralized mode. Even if Zion would fall to the EoC, the remainder of the Inquisition would likely establish a Grand Inquisitor-in-Exile as well as a Grand Vicar-in-exile. It's simply to entrenched in their ideological basis to do something else.
But: If the CoGA were to permanently loose Zion, this would shatter the central belief matrix on Safehold; fundamentalist adherents of the "old order" would probably be a small minority (unfortunately starting a terroristic campaign).
With what we know now, I personally don't think that the EoC and its allies can simply roll over the CoGA. If the CoGA does not collapse (not militarily but rather due to internal strife), then a successful revolt against Clyntahn is my preferred outcome. This would bring Duchairn (e.g.) to the helm; he might sue for armistice. And that would end in a cold war like scenario. The CoGA would still maintain ist supremacy in its territories, whereas the CoC would maintain its current role in the other lands.
As much as an armistice will hurt Merlin's plans for the future, it does accomplish several things.
1. It forces the CoGA to acknowledge the CoC as a valid church and an alternate path to God. Break up the monopoly that the CoGA has on religion, and the hearts of men everywhere (who are allowed to hear about it) are suddenly free to question the difference in the two church's doctrines, and to chose for themselves.
2. The CoC will be dealing from a position of
strength! Any armistice will be signed with EoC forces in possession of both the temple and Zion, over Clyntahn's dead body! Literally!
3. The CoGA will be forced to allow CoC congregations everywhere, with full religious tolerance, much as the EoC provides full tolerance for all TLs, as long as they abide by the law. So port cities all over Safehold will have CoC congregations and clergy, preaching a kinder and gentler message. The secular leaders won't like it in Harchong, Desnair, etc. and I expect some martyrs during ugly crackdowns, but the CoGA will officially be in favor of religious tolerance.
4. The Inquisition is despised and feared across the entire planet! The only people who think it's doing a good job are the ones it keeps in power. Your average serf doesn't love the Inquisition, nor does your artificer who has it threatening him and breathing down his neck, the shopkeeper who sells foreign goods, etc. Gutting the organization throughout the CoGA, beginning with its military arm will be required at a minimum, as well as repudiating all inquisitors as outlaws and excommunicating them from the CoGA. Where that doesn't happen, the guns will start blasting away again. After all, a loving God doesn't need the Inquisition and won't force people to believe. That message will appeal to people the planet over, even if they aren't CoC sympathizers.
5. Zion is in the hands of the CoC, and the inner circle is
not going to be willing to give up the temple once it finds (and neutralizes) whatever is in the basement. That is going to be a
huge blow to the prestige and "infallibility" of the CoGA. How can God and the Archangels allow the heretics to triumph and seize the temple? That fact alone will cause a lot of people to give the teachings of the CoC a good, hard look, and they're likely to agree with the CoC regarding the parts of the Writ and the doctrines of the CoGA it has renounced.
Zion under the management of Archbishop Staynair will actually be run the way it's
supposed to be, with the poor fed, the hospitals fully staffed and funded, and winter quarters provided for all.
The CoC will attract the reformists everywhere, but it's also going to attract converts who never
dreamed they'd leave Mother Church. A church governed by love whose priests and nuns dedicate their lives to the service of their fellow man will win when compared to a church run by rigid dogma and fear that enriches the vicarate, enforces the status quo, and ensures the continued preeminence of the and the rich and powerful. (No matter how much reforming Duchairn or someone like him manages to put in place.)
I'm sure others can raise many salient points that didn't occur to me off the top of my head, but these are good enough to further the discussion.
Sadly, I fully expect CoC congregations to be slaughtered here and there in the mainland realms that fear the results of their teachings. (Harchong, Desnair, the Temple Lands.) The Writ
might say something about turning the other cheek, but I doubt even Staynair is going to tell his congregations to take religious bigotry and violence lying down. A schism in the church is a recipe for a religious war - but if it gets out of control, the technologically advanced EoC will intervene and happily kill as many TLs as it takes to get the message across that the CoC
will be tolerated no matter the cost to the upper crust of society in every country. It won't tolerate the existence of the Inquisition and inquisitors will still be killed on sight, but it
will take prisoners. (The armistice will formally dissovle the Inquisition in the CoGA, which makes every inquisitor who continues to serve an outlaw with a death warrant on his head.)
