(SPOILERS) The reasons for the Archangel's return

JeffEngel wrote: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?

I believe he and I do basically agree. PeterZ did make a legitimate point--psychologists do not use the term "clinical insanity", and insanity is only properly defined in legal terms. It would have been better if I used the phrase "kinda messed up."

There is another possibility here. Lanhorne and Bedard concocted a religion that borrows heavily from tha religions of the book; Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In Revelation, Christ returns to rule for a thousand years as the new heavens and new earth are brought to be.

I find myself wondering if Lanhorne, Bedard or perhaps Schuler are into that sort of thing somehow.

Don

I would think that none of them were believers as you or I would define the term - not that I find that entirely surprising within the terms of the scenario - or they wouldn't have tried to pull what they did. Still, I imagine that whoever actually set up the return was sufficiently familiar with millenialism that the 1000 years would seem like a good number to pick. Traditional, you might say.

n7axw wrote:There is another possibility here. Lanhorne and Bedard concocted a religion that borrows heavily from tha religions of the book; Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In Revelation, Christ returns to rule for a thousand years as the new heavens and new earth are brought to be.

I find myself wondering if Lanhorne, Bedard or perhaps Schuler are into that sort of thing somehow.

Don

Louis R wrote:I would think that none of them were believers as you or I would define the term - not that I find that entirely surprising within the terms of the scenario - or they wouldn't have tried to pull what they did. Still, I imagine that whoever actually set up the return was sufficiently familiar with millenialism that the 1000 years would seem like a good number to pick. Traditional, you might say.

n7axw wrote:There is another possibility here. Lanhorne and Bedard concocted a religion that borrows heavily from tha religions of the book; Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In Revelation, Christ returns to rule for a thousand years as the new heavens and new earth are brought to be.

I find myself wondering if Lanhorne, Bedard or perhaps Schuler are into that sort of thing somehow.

Don

I'm not sure why you doubt that any of them were believers. I expect that the Federation experienced a revival in religious devotion during the final years of the Gbaba blockade. And I don't think that religion by itself would be a cause to exclude anyone from the mission.

Then of course, as you say, millennialism is not exclusively limited to religion. I was intrigued by Don's suggestion that it may have played a role (consciously or unconsciously) in deciding the schedule.

SWM wrote:I'm not sure why you doubt that any of them were believers. I expect that the Federation experienced a revival in religious devotion during the final years of the Gbaba blockade. And I don't think that religion by itself would be a cause to exclude anyone from the mission.

Then of course, as you say, millennialism is not exclusively limited to religion. I was intrigued by Don's suggestion that it may have played a role (consciously or unconsciously) in deciding the schedule.

The traditionalism of it may have made a difference, if something around that figure would have been about right for other reasons. If the purpose of the return would have been best served by coming back in 300 or 1700 years, the 1000 year figure wouldn't've carried the day based on sheer traditional appeal.

I do doubt that Langhorne's crew were all that religious, at least directed toward Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. They were making themselves out as Archangels - blasphemy doesn't get much worse than that.

JeffEngel wrote:

SWM wrote:I'm not sure why you doubt that any of them were believers. I expect that the Federation experienced a revival in religious devotion during the final years of the Gbaba blockade. And I don't think that religion by itself would be a cause to exclude anyone from the mission.

Then of course, as you say, millennialism is not exclusively limited to religion. I was intrigued by Don's suggestion that it may have played a role (consciously or unconsciously) in deciding the schedule.

The traditionalism of it may have made a difference, if something around that figure would have been about right for other reasons. If the purpose of the return would have been best served by coming back in 300 or 1700 years, the 1000 year figure wouldn't've carried the day based on sheer traditional appeal.

I do doubt that Langhorne's crew were all that religious, at least directed toward Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. They were making themselves out as Archangels - blasphemy doesn't get much worse than that.

No, they probably weren't very religious, but be careful about betting the rent on that assertion. Religion has served to justify some perfectly deplorable behavior on the part of folks who earnestly believed that what they are doing is God's will. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all been abused by the faithful that way. If you don't believe it, watch the news.

Don

n7axw wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:I do doubt that Langhorne's crew were all that religious, at least directed toward Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. They were making themselves out as Archangels - blasphemy doesn't get much worse than that.

No, they probably weren't very religious, but be careful about betting the rent on that assertion. Religion has served to justify some perfectly deplorable behavior on the part of folks who earnestly believed that what they are doing is God's will. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all been abused by the faithful that way. If you don't believe it, watch the news.

Don

Heck, I'd insist on it in enough contexts. I just don't think they'd be staying that sort of religious and blaspheming against their own religions this massively. At a minimum, they'd be distancing their own identities from these fictional Archangels.

Though I suppose that may have been the case for the lower ranked angels, and maybe some whose identities as Archangels do not match anyone known to Nimue Alban or mentioned by Pei Kau-yung in his wake-up letter for her. That last group even includes Schueler.

n7axw wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:I do doubt that Langhorne's crew were all that religious, at least directed toward Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. They were making themselves out as Archangels - blasphemy doesn't get much worse than that.

No, they probably weren't very religious, but be careful about betting the rent on that assertion. Religion has served to justify some perfectly deplorable behavior on the part of folks who earnestly believed that what they are doing is God's will. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all been abused by the faithful that way. If you don't believe it, watch the news.

Don

Blasphemy is categorically different from generic "perfectly deplorable behavior." It is the perversion and/or denial of Ultimate Truth, which is not really conceptually compatible with being a believer in that Ultimate Truth (though insanity will probably get you there).

A self-described Christian can profess something that a devout Muslim would call blasphemy without putting a dent in his Christianity, assuming it was a point of Ultimate Truth on which the two faiths differ (and vice versa). A self-described Christian *cannot* profess something that a devout *Christian* would call blasphemy without calling his own beliefs into question (and similarly within other faiths).

The only way Langhorne and Bedard could be "devout" members of *any* traditional faith is if they were insane to the point that they thought God had granted them a special dispensation to rewrite the core of their faith and then force the result on every surviving human in existence. (As an aside, I think this approximately describes Clyntahn.)

On the other hand, if Langhorne and Bedard were more or less agnostic, the entire question of blasphemy doesn't arise within the context of their logic. All necessary lies and manipulation are justified by utilitarian/survivalist analysis.

It's possible that some of the more junior members of the command staff might have been devout followers of some traditional faith, but were persuaded/coerced into following along despite that. I could see the Spanish parts of a certain journal working through the crisis of faith this would cause.

SWM wrote: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.

Except it's clearly noted when this subject was first mentioned in the story plot that NO ONE previously had ever been in stasis for more than about 10% of the period mentioned here. Even in the Terran Federation, where one would assume there were sufficient technicians and advanced medical capabilities to at least attempt recovery in case of failure or some other problem.

Going into stasis for 1000 years unmonitored and waking into a society with probably at best 19th or 20th century medical capability smacks of desperation. I suppose they could have something like OWL; but I also suspect the reason why OWL survived until Merlin's "resurrection" was *because* of his "simple minded" capacity in the beginning. OWL would probably not have had enough imagination to handle a medical emergency right off the bat; with Merlin being a PICA, he/she/it didn't have to.

One possibility, though, is that this knowledge of the Archangel's "re-awakening" wasn't "wide spread" within the Temple hierarchy. The Wylsynns knew, but that could have been passed down only within their family line, like the Key and the Stone. We don't know (at least at this point) who was killed and who survived the vest pocket nuke; all we know is that it apparently didn't kill *enough* of the command staff that was committed to Langhorne's and Bedard's modified plan for the surviving part of the human race to enable those who weren't to take over. There's an obvious oddity between the "old" Schuler - the one who gave them the Key and Stone and made the hologram; and the "new" Schuler that allegedly wrote his book for the "Writ". So far that's never been explained. Perhaps he, and a few others, still had doubts, but realized they couldn't be open about them. The best way to hide heresy in any religious hierarchy is to appear "ultra-orthodox" to the rest. Maybe Schuler did that; thus allowing his descendants some control over the Inquistion in the beginning; and possibly also giving him some control over just who might have been put into stasis. If so, then Merlin and the rest of the "heretics" just might find allies in whomever "awakes".

OrlandoNative wrote:

SWM wrote: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.

Except it's clearly noted when this subject was first mentioned in the story plot that NO ONE previously had ever been in stasis for more than about 10% of the period mentioned here. Even in the Terran Federation, where one would assume there were sufficient technicians and advanced medical capabilities to at least attempt recovery in case of failure or some other problem.

I never said that the Archangels were in cryogenic stasis. You are making unwarranted assumptions about the nature of the Return.