(SPOILERS) The reasons for the Archangel's return

Let's talk about the planned Archangels Return in some other terms. For what reason they should return? It's generally assumed, that Archangels should return to observe the situation and make sure that the doctrine is holding.

But it make no sense!

The main point of Langhorne-Bedard theory was that the societal matrix could be permanently self-sustaining. If the matrix would shift or crumble, then the whole theory was meaningless, and there is no point in "fixing" it. And also, for "observe-and-fix" method of operation, the half-millenial gap is far too big; anything could happened.

So, for what reason the Archangels need to return? I'm inclied to assume, that the reason of their millenial return is to observe the situation - and see who was right, Langhorne (that the matrix would be permanent) or Shan-Wei (that the matrix would crumble). After all, they have the future of humankind on a stake; if there was at least a one-tenth percent probability that Shan-Wei was, actually, right after all, then the Langhorne scheme would became a deadly trap, that in future would again place humanity totally unprepared in front of Gbaba.

That is my opinion, regarding the Return; it's main reason is not to "fix the Church", but to observe and decide - should the Langhorne scheme work, or should the original "Ark" doctrine be implemented?

That was the plan. The plan changed when Langhorne and a good chunk of his supporters got nuked. The plan could no longer count on having Langhorne and company hanging around for a century tweaking the plan and addressing weak points.

Not only that, it was also Langhorne's plan. Who knows what his successors had rattling around in their heads. Knowing that Shan Wei tried to subvert the plan, and the War of the Fallen proving that there were still those who tried to carry on, worried the surviving command staff to build a safeguard in case they missed something (which, clearly, they did).

A reasonable argument.

Here is an alternative. Suppose that whatever means the Archangels are using to "return" only lets them return once or twice, total. You are correct that a shorter return schedule would let them guide the development of Safehold better. But if they can only do it once or twice, they might decide that they can't afford the short time schedule. If they come back in 300 years, how can they be sure that things will be all right in 1000 years? They might decide to schedule it for a reasonably long period of time, so that they have a longer time-base to correct over.

One other important thing to remember. We are not talking about the Archangels leaving things sit without guidance for 1000 years. There were still Archangels living 600 or 700 years ago. So the time frame is shorter than you are probably assuming.

Potato wrote:That was the plan. The plan changed when Langhorne and a good chunk of his supporters got nuked. The plan could no longer count on having Langhorne and company hanging around for a century tweaking the plan and addressing weak points.

Not only that, it was also Langhorne's plan. Who knows what his successors had rattling around in their heads. Knowing that Shan Wei tried to subvert the plan, and the War of the Fallen proving that there were still those who tried to carry on, worried the surviving command staff to build a safeguard in case they missed something (which, clearly, they did).

I think you're dead on about the change in plans and assumptions with Kau-yung's nuke, and, for that matter, the succession war that followed.

But still - why a thousand year schedule for the check? It seems a very long period. One explanation may be that whatever is checking has a limited period of operation - unfrozen Archangel, AI that may go crackers, unhacked PICA - and it's meant as a compromise to allow many brief checks for many thousands of years - essentially, keeping the hand on the wheel in brief intervals as long as they can. (Oooh look, SWM's got similar ideas.)

Another alternative. Suppose that the surviving Archangels who scheduled the Return are fully convinced that Langhorne's plan will work. In that case, they might assume that after 1000 years, there will only be minor tweaks to be made to put things back on course. 1000 years might seem to be a perfectly reasonable time-scale for corrections if you truly think you can control the outbreak of technology as thoroughly as Langhorne believed. While we think that it is too long, and history has shown that to be true, the Archangels may not have thought so.

Another thing to consider. Langhorne intended technology to be held static essentially forever. Suppose the Archangels wanted to check on things over the course of, say 100,000 years! In that case, checking in every thousand years or so at the beginning seems like a perfectly reasonable thing.

One last thing to consider. We already discussed in another thread the possibility that essentially every citizen of the Federation was clinically insane, to one degree or another. What seems logical to us is not necessarily going to be obvious to them. Try putting your mind into the head of someone who believes that you can block the development of technology for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. It's not exactly sane.

SWM wrote:One last thing to consider. We already discussed in another thread the possibility that essentially every citizen of the Federation was clinically insane, to one degree or another. What seems logical to us is not necessarily going to be obvious to them. Try putting your mind into the head of someone who believes that you can block the development of technology for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. It's not exactly sane.

My only quibble is that insanity is not a clinical term but a legal one. Could they all have had serious neuroses which would have influenced their decisions? Certainly. Were they all incapable distinguishing right from wrong? Certainly not. Those definitions might have been warped by their neuroses, but each of those pre-mind wiped colonists would have been classified as legally sane before they were accepted as colonists. I also suspect that those colonists would have been selected from the most sane of the Terran Federation's population. That is not to say they would have been considered the least free of neuroses of any pre-Gbaba population.

PeterZ wrote:

SWM wrote:One last thing to consider. We already discussed in another thread the possibility that essentially every citizen of the Federation was clinically insane, to one degree or another. What seems logical to us is not necessarily going to be obvious to them. Try putting your mind into the head of someone who believes that you can block the development of technology for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. It's not exactly sane.

My only quibble is that insanity is not a clinical term but a legal one. Could they all have had serious neuroses which would have influenced their decisions? Certainly. Were they all incapable distinguishing right from wrong? Certainly not. Those definitions might have been warped by their neuroses, but each of those pre-mind wiped colonists would have been classified as legally sane before they were accepted as colonists. I also suspect that those colonists would have been selected from the most sane of the Terran Federation's population. That is not to say they would have been considered the least free of neuroses of any pre-Gbaba population.

Counter-quibble Clinical insanity is a term in common use. I was not suggesting that they were incapable of distinguishing right from wrong (legal insanity). I was very careful to specify clinical insanity. I agree with the distinction you are making, though. Clinical insanity is not a term used by the professionals.

SWM wrote:

PeterZ wrote:My only quibble is that insanity is not a clinical term but a legal one. Could they all have had serious neuroses which would have influenced their decisions? Certainly. Were they all incapable distinguishing right from wrong? Certainly not. Those definitions might have been warped by their neuroses, but each of those pre-mind wiped colonists would have been classified as legally sane before they were accepted as colonists. I also suspect that those colonists would have been selected from the most sane of the Terran Federation's population. That is not to say they would have been considered the least free of neuroses of any pre-Gbaba population.

Counter-quibble Insanity is also a clinical term. I was not suggesting that they were incapable of distinguishing right from wrong (legal insanity). I was very careful to specify clinical insanity. I agree with the distinction you are making.

If the quibbling and counter-quibbling aren't productive, perhaps we can agree that very many people in the Terran Federation were - putting this as untechnically as can be - kinda messed up?