(SPOILERS) The reasons for the Archangel's return

Larry wrote:(snip)
What if the OBS actually points, not inward but outward. Or if it points inwards was only supposed to be used as a doomsday device to kill as many Gbaba as possible after everything but the temple had fallen. After all didn't Merlin say (at some point in the text) that the temple was built more solidly than some planetary defense centers he had seen? Certainly much more strongly than mere human resistance would require. Maybe the point was to devastate the planet killing all the Gbaba that were there and leaving only a few chosen children alive in the temple. The command crew were thinking in religious terms so perhaps a Noah's ark scenario?
(snip)
Larry

That's interesting theory, but there are few things that don't fit in, at least for me. First of all, Merlin scanned/scouted with drones/generally looked at the OBS and I believe Nimue, being navy officer, would notice if it was pointing in other direction than it's supposed to.

Second, the "Noah's ark" concept might not really work. Consider the fact that there are no women in the CoGA structures and the only women that would be in the Temple in case of Gbaba attack would be a couple of servants (and perhaps some mistresses, but this particular thing wasn't supposed to happen). If the Temple truly was conceived as some sort of "Noah's ark" from which the humanity might start over, then this would result in massive imbalance between men and women, and this would be a Bad Thing. Moreover, there's no textev of any fields or cattle pens or anything like this in the Temple, meaning that anybody hiding from Gbaba - who would probably not leave when seeing the Temple still standing, so the "siege" would take some time - would starve in short order.

So while this theory is certainly fascinating, I'd say no.

On the subject of the religious beliefs of Langhorn and his followers. I think Langhorn probably didn't have much in the way of religious beliefs. He may or may not have been an atheist, he may or may not have been a theist(he had to be one or the other it is impossible not to be). However, he may have been an apathetic theist(or atheist) who didn't have much in the way of concrete beliefs. This is the state of most religious people. If you doubt me look at polls of how much people know about the tenets of 'their' religions. So he probably took a very fuzzy base, of say the three omi god(all powerful, all knowing, all loving) and his technophobia(there is evidence in text of this) and combined it with a belief that he knew best(didn't have to be narcissism, just had to think he was a competent person and be in the most senior position of power) and made up his own religion.

However, I would be derelict in my duty to intellectual honesty if I didn't point out that some religious people have been know to lie and act in complete contradiction to their stated beliefs and that the religions of today are vastly different from the religions of a few centuries ago. To give a prime example. Many slave holders in the American south held that the bible endorses slavery. However today many Christians would contend that it does not or that we have learned how to better understand the bible and now we know better, the reasoning behind the switch in position is irrelevant. The point is that the beliefs of a religious group completely changed. Langhorn could also have beliefs completely different from people today. I would further point out that Langhorn could have believed that god didn't care about the specifics of belief as long as people believed in him(See Maikel Staynair's own beliefs) and thought that god would be okay with a false religion as long as there was good intent and people were seeking him/her/it(God).

However, I also think RFC may have intentionally not made a point about Langhorn's personal beliefs. So maybe RFC has left the question open and without an actual answer.


With regards to technological stasis. please review human history. Humans, have had long periods of time lacking any improvement in technology or even a reversion. See early middle ages(Dark ages) in Europe or the first twenty thousand of years of the history of Homo Sapiens where I know of no technological improvements.(I'm using a 100,000 years ago origin point) I think Langhorn left Safehold to much of a base to start with(cities, common language, numbers, and a technology level far above subsistence) but it wasn't completely insane.

On the actual subject of this thread I must point out what the return cannot be.

1: An end to Lanhorn's plan(ie a reversion to a plan like Shan-Wei's). This would make almost everything that Merlin has done pointless and all the lives lost pointless. The improved quality of life to the population in the mean time would be good, but the basis for the entire war is gone.(Minor exception, this could be the case if the PICA, AI or whatever is destroyed as a demon by the temple loyalist(or would have been))

2: The first of several visits. You simply cannot have a continual pattern of new visitations over tens of thousands of years as was suggested earlier. Things would break down and any AI or PICA could go insane because of the cumulative time even if the didn't spend to much time on any one visit(They couldn't wipe the memory because they would need to know what they did the last time they cam back)

3: A single 'Angel's' plan. The 'return' would require a lot of infrastructure to pull off. If nothing else it would require room inside the temple, which could be maintained closed off from the 'humans' for centuries. This would require the collusion of many people involved in the rebuilding of the temple at the very least.

4: Pointless. RFC won't make the 'return' a side note that is skipped over and just gets mentioned latter as "Oh that happened and nothing much changed". That would be an utter waste of ink.

What the 'return' must be.

1: Important(already covered)

2: In some way deal with the bombardment system. That or there must be something inside the temple that can help with that. This is because OWL has determined that nothing they have right now can deal with that and the books aren't going to end with "It's just too bad were stuck with steam power because if we go any further we will be rendered down in many little pieces".

What it might be:

1: Actual biological return. Merlin had a thought that 'they' might have been insane enough to trust the cryo systems to do that. See Wylsynn's original reveal.

2: Schueler, I think that Schueler(PICA, AI(Like Nahrmahn) or cryo) could actually be coming back. Alternatively it could be the Commodore's friend(Who would almost have to be someone met after the Alexandrian Enclave fell and so wouldn't agree completely with Shan-Wei, and could have friends of his own). Note on this. This wouldn't break the first must not be as it could be two things. One someone(Schueler or otherwise) halfway between Langhorn and Shan-Wei or a weak return. Where the returnees don't have a lot of reasourses.

3: A check up to make sure that the plan worked even with the problem of the Commodore's nuke.(Has already been mention in this thread)

What it actually is:

Nothing we have thought of. The almighty author is much more creative than us and a much better writer so he almost certainly has something planned which is better than anything we think of. Not that it isn't fun to speculate.

Notes:
n7axw
People go crazy around large round numbers. See Y2K or the year 1000. You don't need any thousand year return to like round numbers for significant dates. Also it could just be because it was a round number. What should they have chosen the year 1234? If they were coming back sometime around then, then the millennium is a good date to choose.

captinjoehenry
The Langhorn followers won? I thought we only knew that Shan-Wei's followers were killed. Not what faction out of those who weren't her followers was victorious.

Larry
No. the Gbaba might just bombard Safehold from orbit. They don't need to land and they also might stay in system for a few decades to make sure the job really did get done right. Also the temple doesn't have the space to hold enough people to repopulate Safehold. Eight million wasn't a number pulled out of a hat. You need a large population to survive. Especially if you have had a genetic bottle neck in the recent past(Recent meaning tens of thousands of years). Also Merlin can crack the temple armor. It would just kill everyone in Zion so the Gbaba with real warships could definitely do it.


Final note: In the second paragraph I mention the bible's position on slavery. As I have been involve in some debates about certain aspects of religion on this forum I feel I must state that I am not stating what I think the bible does or does not say about slavery. I am only using that example to illustrate a change in the beliefs of a religious group which most people should know about. I could have used something about the trinity or Jesus's divinity, but that would be rather obscure and people might not get the point.

Dilandu's question is a valid one from an objective point of view.

And I think the answer lies in human nature which DW got scarily right unfortunately.

From what we know about the Langhorne faction they - like many humans - did not think 100% objectively. They thought they were right but what they really did was make what they had somehow rationalized themselves into believing into their ideology and more and more tuning out all counterveiling arguments.
That's what I think everyone of us observes RL too happening everywhere and all the time. People have some valid argument which rationalizes what they WANT to be the truth, then ignore everything else and go overboard with their belief.

I could point out a ton of examples but then this post would have to be moved to the politics subforum.

What's even crazier is that the planned return shows that the Langhornites in fact somehow deep down did know they couldn't be right. But had made themselves believe they were right anyway! 'We don't want to be wrong so we cannot be wrong. Just return to check on things and make it work.'

As Christian Morgenstern once famously put it: "Was nicht sein kann das nicht sein darf." (loosely: what isn't allowed to happen can not happen.)

EDIT: clarified the Morgenstern quote

Larry wrote:You know I keep thinking about that and I wonder. Was there any reason for Schuler or the others to think that it would actually be the technologists that would be the ultimate threat to the church? That wasn't actually the boogeyman that was the focus of their trauma. The actual boogeyman that they would have been most paranoid about would be the one that they had been running from all their life, the one that had destroyed Earth and killed everyone. The one they were ultimately afraid was the greatest threat to the church. What if the OBS actually points, not inward but outward. Or if it points inwards was only supposed to be used as a doomsday device to kill as many Gbaba as possible after everything but the temple had fallen. After all didn't Merlin say (at some point in the text) that the temple was built more solidly than some planetary defense centers he had seen? Certainly much more strongly than mere human resistance would require. Maybe the point was to devastate the planet killing all the Gbaba that were there and leaving only a few chosen children alive in the temple. The command crew were thinking in religious terms so perhaps a Noah's ark scenario? We know that it's the Charisians that are threatening but what if it was aliens that the Archangels were actually paranoid about and not renegade technophiles, which the church would be more than adequate to deal with in the minds of Langhorne, et al. What if beneath the temple are concealed terraforming banks intended to repopulate a planet after a Gbaba strike. Just a thought I had as I asked myself what paranoia the Command crew would really have been worried about.

Larry

That seems unlikely. The Gbaba do not invade or colonize the planets they attack. They strike from orbit and destroy the populations. The Rakurai would not be able to kill Gbaba on the planet because there wouldn't be any.

In addition, the Rakurai is specifically mentioned in the Writ as the punishment of God against disobedience. The Writ describes the Rakurai as a threat against people, not against demons from space.

SWM wrote:

OrlandoNative wrote:
I didn't say you did. However, the novels to this point clearly point to an "awakening". Assuming they aren't off on some relativistic, slower than light speed journey (which would be hard if they're allegedly located somewhere under the Temple complex); that pretty much leaves cryonic suspension - unless they, too, are PICA's.

You are fairly new to this forum. In the past we have come up with half a dozen possible mechanisms to explain the Return. It does not have to be cryogenics. Also, there is absolutely no evidence that "they're allegedly located somewhere under the Temple complex". That is entirely speculation by posters on this forum. We don't know where the returning Angels are coming from.

However, while the story line doesn't explicitly say one way or the other, I can't see where there would have been a *need* to "hide" Nimue's PICA from the inventory if PICA's were available in abundance in the breakaway fleet. They would have been too useful, and I'm reasonably sure that many could have been destroyed by various accidents in the course of terraforming an entire new planet. Just because the person whose personality they were programmed with was no longer alive wouldn't have changed the fact that the artificial personality in the PICA wouldn't have wanted to help out as much as possible.

Also, given Dr Proctor's programming skills, if there had been an abundance of available PICA's, the "fallen" could have utilized reprogrammed PICA's to overcome the rest of the Archangels, since allegedly they didn't have anyone capable of doing the same in reverse.

We know for absolute fact that there were no other PICAs aboard the breakaway fleet. In fact, PICAs were specifically prohibited. Nimue's PICA was the only one, and it snuck through the rules as personal baggage. David has said there were no others. However, we know that the Archangels had all the resources and instructions to build a new PICA. In addition, building a new PICA from scratch without the built-in time limit is a whole lot easier than reprogramming an existing PICA. It would not require someone of Dr. Proctor's skills to modify the design.

Actually, I've been reading various forums for some time. I've only recently decided to post on them, though.

On the subject of the Return, there really aren't all that many logical options. Either they're on Safehold, somewhere, or not. However, if they are not using some sort of stasis, which the only available noted form is the cryonic suspension, then they'd almost have to be on some craft moving at relativistic velocities in order to make up the "time difference". That poses a couple of problems. (1) An object like that wouldn't likely be considered "natural" if detected, so it would stand out like a sore thumb to any Ghaba scouts. (2) It would have to be screened in some way, since even hitting *dust* at relativistic velocities would create havoc with any possible "battle steel" hull.

If they are on Safehold, where is the most logical place? They would want somewhere where they are not likely to be found in 1000 years. That could only mean somewhere people wouldn't go; or, if they did, wouldn't dig or build at themselves. The only real place for that is either under the Temple, or possibly perhaps some sort of undersea habitat, though I doubt anyone in stasis would really consider the latter. Too much could go wrong.

As for the PICA's, we really don't *know* that the Archangels as a whole had the knowledge to make one. According to OWL, that knowledge wasn't in his databanks, the ones at Alexandria were destroyed by the bombardment, and it's never said that the information was in them to begin with. And they were probably the most complete on the planet, since those in charge of the terraforming were most likely to have as complete a copy of all human knowledge (just in case they needed it in their operations) than anyone else.

Even Dr. Proctor had to analyze and examine the PICA that was available to him (as noted in LAMA) in order to devise a modification. If he had the actual specifications ahead of time, I suspect he could have just either reprogrammed it without affecting the rest of the PICA functions to remove the "10-day-clock" if it was in software, or else removed/replaced the hardware if it was not. That didn't happen, however.

We also don't know that Nimue's PICA was the only one originally on Safehold. We only know that it was left behind with the breakaway ships when she moved to a warship. I can't remember a single note, anywhere, where it says it was the *only* one. As I noted in a previous post, PICA's logically would be *very* useful in modifying a potentially hostile environment to something usable by humans, and one of the stated original uses of PICA's *was* to do things that would have been dangerous for a human to attempt, so it seems unreasonable that none were included in the breakaway fleet, especially since they had no idea exactly where they would go or what they would find when they got there.

SWM wrote:

Larry wrote:You know I keep thinking about that and I wonder. Was there any reason for Schuler or the others to think that it would actually be the technologists that would be the ultimate threat to the church? That wasn't actually the boogeyman that was the focus of their trauma. The actual boogeyman that they would have been most paranoid about would be the one that they had been running from all their life, the one that had destroyed Earth and killed everyone. The one they were ultimately afraid was the greatest threat to the church. What if the OBS actually points, not inward but outward. Or if it points inwards was only supposed to be used as a doomsday device to kill as many Gbaba as possible after everything but the temple had fallen. After all didn't Merlin say (at some point in the text) that the temple was built more solidly than some planetary defense centers he had seen? Certainly much more strongly than mere human resistance would require. Maybe the point was to devastate the planet killing all the Gbaba that were there and leaving only a few chosen children alive in the temple. The command crew were thinking in religious terms so perhaps a Noah's ark scenario? We know that it's the Charisians that are threatening but what if it was aliens that the Archangels were actually paranoid about and not renegade technophiles, which the church would be more than adequate to deal with in the minds of Langhorne, et al. What if beneath the temple are concealed terraforming banks intended to repopulate a planet after a Gbaba strike. Just a thought I had as I asked myself what paranoia the Command crew would really have been worried about.

Larry

That seems unlikely. The Gbaba do not invade or colonize the planets they attack. They strike from orbit and destroy the populations. The Rakurai would not be able to kill Gbaba on the planet because there wouldn't be any.

In addition, the Rakurai is specifically mentioned in the Writ as the punishment of God against disobedience. The Writ describes the Rakurai as a threat against people, not against demons from space.

I have to agree with SWM. An "orbital bombardment platform" is only effective against targets on the ground. Since the Ghaba in first book used relativistic velocity missles to attack the first Federation planet they encountered, it's unlikely they'd ever do more than scout the planet afterwards. Probably without even landing. Rocks in space are just basically meteors. Any space traveling race would have the means to detect and avoid them.

Mmmm... as for Schuler, we really don't know much about him, and what we *do* know is somewhat contradictory. We have his recordings that were passed down in the Wylsynn family, and his book of the Writ, and unless he suffered some sort of multiple personality disorder it's hard to reconcile the two.

As far as threats to the Church (and the anti-technology plan of Langhorne and Beddard it was supposed to keep in place), it's pretty obvious that the only real danger to their plan came from inventors and experimenters. People who were curious enough, and with the skills necessary, to "push the envelope".

As for the orbital bombardment platform itself, we don't have any really good information on it. We don't know it has any kind of "sentry" functions other than those protecting itself from what it probably mostly considers "cosmic debris"; though it's been *speculated* it might have sensors to detect certain kinds of energy discharges. It might not even differentiate between a rock and a missile; just destroys anything that approaches if it doesn't give a correct recognition signal. However, since it's obviously a non-natural, technological artifact, it's not something one would expect to be left in orbit for any Ghaba scouts passing through the system to notice. I might suspect that the reason it's still there might just be because after commander Pei nuked the original Zion, there may not have been any way to get rid of it. After all, the best effective orbit would be a high polar one - high to make it difficult to attack from the ground and remove the chance of atmospheric braking and burnup, and polar since it would eventually pass within direct line-of-sight of every point on the planet without needing fuel to modify it's orbit to reach any target. If the remaining Archangels had only atmospheric skimmers left after the incident, they'd have no way to get to it and destroy or de-orbit it. Especially if everyone who might have known a self-destruct code (if indeed the platform had one) perished in the blast or it's effects.

thanatos wrote:Possible Spoilers:

With all that in mind, we must approach the millennial visit as the winners of the War Against the Fallen would have approached it. In point of fact, they could see two major problems with the plan once the command crew finally died off. The first would be deviations from the plan. Given the medieval nature of Safeholdian society, large scale disruptions and changes would not occur. Remember that they are not living in the fast pace world we live in and even in that in which our parents and grandparents lived. Things change slowly in non-industrialized societies and the natural aversion to any changes that might disrupt the status quo would go a long way towards combating the limited number of bright, innovative people who might be willing to aggressively explore new possibilities. Add to that the fact that most of the perceivable universe is readily explained to Safeholdians via the Holy Writ itself, thus further discouraging the drive towards exploration and understanding of the natural world. Yet deviations are still likely to occur over a prolonged period of time, especially when the original social matrix had been unbalanced by Commodore Pei's vest pocket nuke and the subsequent years of warfare. Therefore, 1,000 years seems like a reasonable amount of time for such checks and corrections, especially given Merlin's theory about the presence of other PICAs under the temple who are bound by the 10-day shutdown limit.

But the second, and frankly more terrifying (to Chihiro and Schueler at least), problem would be the possibility that they hadn't found all of the missing technology and that Shan-wei's supporters were simply hiding some of it and waiting for conditions to improve to reveal themselves and start the war again (this time without any "angels" to assist the church). And as the most recent snippet indicate, they had servitors that returned to the "Dawn Star" (a possible orbital depot for various armed vehicles) along with the OBS. Given what Merlin has said to Nynian, it is entirely possible that whoever remains under the temple would prefer not to use the Big Guns (the OBS) unless they had no other choice. Yet armed vehicles and smaller scale kinetic strikes would still require human authorization (of humans who understand the technology) and dealing with any technology that remained in the hands of any remaining Shan-wei loyalists would require a "divine intervention". And it is not inconceivable that Chihiro and Schueler would assume that any such "delayed attack" would have to be launched with everything that's left (assuming they were very thorough in cleaning out whatever technology that remained). This therefore, might explain the purpose of the Key as well, since the Wylsynns were told it could only be used once at mother church's most desperate hour of need.

Mmmm... it's a "static" society that doesn't change (quickly), not necessarily a "non-industrial" one. After all, the Middle Ages was, basically, "non-industrial"; and the end of that was less than 1000 years ago, and look where we are today. And the society created on Safehold is not all that much different from that of about 400-500 years ago at most. Maybe even less.

What you need is more like a "caste" system - similar to India's a few hundred years ago - without external influences. Then you might have a chance. But for some reason, Langhorne and Beddard didn't really emulate that.

As for an "orbital depot", there's really no evidence of that. Like I noted in another post, leaving artifacts of an obviously technical origin in orbit where they would be open to detection by any Ghaba scout entering the system really makes no sense if one is looking to *hide*. Even if there were other planets in the system and you actually left it orbiting one of *them*. You would want the system to be as pristine and natural looking as possible; so they'd have no reason suspect any need for a thorough search. After all, they allegedly sent the spacecraft into the sun in order to destroy them in such a way as to leave no debris to be detected should Ghaba scouts go by.

Highjohn wrote:On the subject of the religious beliefs of Langhorn and his followers. I think Langhorn probably didn't have much in the way of religious beliefs. He may or may not have been an atheist, he may or may not have been a theist(he had to be one or the other it is impossible not to be). However, he may have been an apathetic theist(or atheist) who didn't have much in the way of concrete beliefs. This is the state of most religious people. If you doubt me look at polls of how much people know about the tenets of 'their' religions. So he probably took a very fuzzy base, of say the three omi god(all powerful, all knowing, all loving) and his technophobia(there is evidence in text of this) and combined it with a belief that he knew best(didn't have to be narcissism, just had to think he was a competent person and be in the most senior position of power) and made up his own religion.

He may have just been agnostic.

Highjohn wrote:However, I would be derelict in my duty to intellectual honesty if I didn't point out that some religious people have been know to lie and act in complete contradiction to their stated beliefs and that the religions of today are vastly different from the religions of a few centuries ago. To give a prime example. Many slave holders in the American south held that the bible endorses slavery. However today many Christians would contend that it does not or that we have learned how to better understand the bible and now we know better, the reasoning behind the switch in position is irrelevant. The point is that the beliefs of a religious group completely changed. Langhorn could also have beliefs completely different from people today. I would further point out that Langhorn could have believed that god didn't care about the specifics of belief as long as people believed in him(See Maikel Staynair's own beliefs) and thought that god would be okay with a false religion as long as there was good intent and people were seeking him/her/it(God).

Mmm... on the question of slavery, the Bible, taken as a whole, can be interpreted either way. One could also infer that while there's a commandment against killing, what we would now consider to basically be genocide is ok. For almost every absolute in the Bible, one can find another account in it where that's been ignored for some "reason".

Highjohn wrote:With regards to technological stasis. please review human history. Humans, have had long periods of time lacking any improvement in technology or even a reversion. See early middle ages(Dark ages) in Europe or the first twenty thousand of years of the history of Homo Sapiens where I know of no technological improvements.(I'm using a 100,000 years ago origin point) I think Langhorn left Safehold to much of a base to start with(cities, common language, numbers, and a technology level far above subsistence) but it wasn't completely insane.

It's true there have been periods of time where technology hasn't progressed *much* in some particular part of the world. However, the "Middle Ages" basically applied to Europe. The rest of the world wasn't really affected the same way. And even so, the Middle Ages lasted far less than 1000 years. I will grant that it took early homo sapiens a long time to begin to develop any signs of technology, but in that case they were starting, literally, from scratch. No society or civilization since that period has had that handicap.

Highjohn wrote:On the actual subject of this thread I must point out what the return cannot be.

1: An end to Lanhorn's plan(ie a reversion to a plan like Shan-Wei's). This would make almost everything that Merlin has done pointless and all the lives lost pointless. The improved quality of life to the population in the mean time would be good, but the basis for the entire war is gone.(Minor exception, this could be the case if the PICA, AI or whatever is destroyed as a demon by the temple loyalist(or would have been))

Why not? We have absolutely *NO* data on the "Return"; other than the limited amount Paityr knows. How many times have different groups (unknown to each other) worked to similar goals? Or at cross purposes? For all we know, the "Real" Schuler may not have been in complete agreement with Langhorne and the rest. Maybe especially after the destruction of Alexandria and Zion. We don't know. While I agree it would be a somewhat bitter humor to find out that the "Return" was just another check on Langhorne's original plan, it doesn't mean it couldn't be.

Highjohn wrote:2: The first of several visits. You simply cannot have a continual pattern of new visitations over tens of thousands of years as was suggested earlier. Things would break down and any AI or PICA could go insane because of the cumulative time even if the didn't spend to much time on any one visit(They couldn't wipe the memory because they would need to know what they did the last time they cam back)

Well, several visits could have been the original plan. There's no reason something similar to a smaller version of "Nimue's Cave" couldn't be under the Temple. It's not like anyone is going to dig under it, after all. One would think that such a facility would also house nanotech repair capabilities. True, anyone who awakened might have to stay awake long enough for the repair to complete, but I don't really see anyone awakening for just an hour or two anyway.

Highjohn wrote:3: A single 'Angel's' plan. The 'return' would require a lot of infrastructure to pull off. If nothing else it would require room inside the temple, which could be maintained closed off from the 'humans' for centuries. This would require the collusion of many people involved in the rebuilding of the temple at the very least.

Mmmm... while it's true that many folks in total might be involved, that doesn't mean they'd know the "whole picture". What they'd been *told* the construction was for might not be the truth. While I suspect a large part of the rebuilding of Zion and the Temple was done (or at least overseen) by the remaining Archangels, that doesn't mean that all the "grunt labor" knew what was actually going on. After all, if your "God" says to build a wall or dig a hole, how many folks are really going to ask "Why?"

Highjohn wrote:4: Pointless. RFC won't make the 'return' a side note that is skipped over and just gets mentioned latter as "Oh that happened and nothing much changed". That would be an utter waste of ink.

Sheer speculation. We don't even know if the books will go as far as the Return, even though it's not far (historically speaking) in the future. For all we know, the EoC may win prior to the Return; and the story line ends. Or maybe even if the Return was intended to interfere with Langhorne and Beddard's plans, it may have envisioned an entire different direction from that of Merlin and Commodore Pei. That could start a whole new direction of sagas. Or maybe RFC is intending to go all the way to humans reclaiming and improving all the technology they've lost and finally defeating for all time the Ghaba menace. Anything could happen. That's the whole point of science fiction, after all, LOL.

Highjohn wrote:What the 'return' must be.

1: Important(already covered)

2: In some way deal with the bombardment system. That or there must be something inside the temple that can help with that. This is because OWL has determined that nothing they have right now can deal with that and the books aren't going to end with "It's just too bad were stuck with steam power because if we go any further we will be rendered down in many little pieces".

Why? The capabilities of the bombardment platform are merely speculative. It could be totally harmless to the planet without human intervention, even if it protects itself from "space junk". If so, there's no reason to mess with it. It *could* be an issue, or not. The story line could go either way. Plenty of stories have what appear to be major incidents at a particular point in time that become mere footnotes towards the end. They are important as *background*, but not to the end, per se.

Highjohn wrote:What it might be:

1: Actual biological return. Merlin had a thought that 'they' might have been insane enough to trust the cryo systems to do that. See Wylsynn's original reveal.

It's possible, but how likely? 1000 years vs the maximum tested 100? One would have to be extremely lucky.

Highjohn wrote:2: Schueler, I think that Schueler(PICA, AI(Like Nahrmahn) or cryo) could actually be coming back. Alternatively it could be the Commodore's friend(Who would almost have to be someone met after the Alexandrian Enclave fell and so wouldn't agree completely with Shan-Wei, and could have friends of his own). Note on this. This wouldn't break the first must not be as it could be two things. One someone(Schueler or otherwise) halfway between Langhorn and Shan-Wei or a weak return. Where the returnees don't have a lot of reasourses.

Whomever it might be, it's likely to be more than one. Since it's mentioned as the "Archangels" - plural - return. What might make the plot interesting is if it were a few with different agendas. Maybe even some sabotage that allows some to reawaken but not all of them.

Highjohn wrote:3: A check up to make sure that the plan worked even with the problem of the Commodore's nuke.(Has already been mention in this thread)

This is what probably most of the readers assume to be the case. If so, not all that imaginative.

Highjohn wrote:What it actually is:

Nothing we have thought of. The almighty author is much more creative than us and a much better writer so he almost certainly has something planned which is better than anything we think of. Not that it isn't fun to speculate.

Well, we've covered quite a few possibilities. It could be some mixing and matching. Or, yes, maybe something entirely different. After all, the Ghaba could just stumble over them a year before the Return, and wipe them all out. Not exactly the ending we might expect or want, but, then again, that's sort of up to the author, isn't it?

Highjohn wrote:Final note: In the second paragraph I mention the bible's position on slavery. As I have been involve in some debates about certain aspects of religion on this forum I feel I must state that I am not stating what I think the bible does or does not say about slavery. I am only using that example to illustrate a change in the beliefs of a religious group which most people should know about. I could have used something about the trinity or Jesus's divinity, but that would be rather obscure and people might not get the point.

Actually, I'm not convinced beliefs have changed. I'm sure one could still find some people, somewhere, that would re-instate slavery (of some sort, not necessarily racially based) in a heartbeat *if* they thought they could. Even people with religious beliefs. Luckily there are enough of us who feel differently to so far keep that from happening.

OrlandoNative wrote:As for the PICA's, we really don't *know* that the Archangels as a whole had the knowledge to make one. According to OWL, that knowledge wasn't in his databanks, the ones at Alexandria were destroyed by the bombardment, and it's never said that the information was in them to begin with. And they were probably the most complete on the planet, since those in charge of the terraforming were most likely to have as complete a copy of all human knowledge (just in case they needed it in their operations) than anyone else.

Yes, we do know that they had the knowledge to make a new PICA. They had an entire automated manufacturing plant aboard the Hamilcar, and they had a complete database of Terran technology which could be reproduced in that manufacturing plant. OWL did not have the knowledge to make a PICA because OWL was a tactical computer, not a manufacturing computer. Dr. Proctor had to examine the PICA because he could not access the database without alerting Langhorne to what he was up to.

We also don't know that Nimue's PICA was the only one originally on Safehold. We only know that it was left behind with the breakaway ships when she moved to a warship. I can't remember a single note, anywhere, where it says it was the *only* one. As I noted in a previous post, PICA's logically would be *very* useful in modifying a potentially hostile environment to something usable by humans, and one of the stated original uses of PICA's *was* to do things that would have been dangerous for a human to attempt, so it seems unreasonable that none were included in the breakaway fleet, especially since they had no idea exactly where they would go or what they would find when they got there.

We actually can be quite sure that Nimue was the only PICA originally on Safehold. In a posting by RFC (viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6072&p=155902&hilit=pica#p155902), he said:

runsforcelery wrote:The mission planners were pretty darned fanatical about what was and what was not to be permitted on the surface of Safehold for the colonists in general. They had made a conscious decision at an early point that PICAs and virtual reality-bound AIs would not be part of that mix.

and

runsforcelery wrote:Langhorne probably could have requested that a PICA or PICAs be assigned to the command crew. He didn't want one. None of the original command crew — with the exception of the Peis and their small handful of fellow conspirators — wanted PICAs, to be honest.

So we can be quite sure that when Safehold was established, Nimue was the only PICA on the planet. We can't be sure that no other PICAs were built later, but we can be sure there were none at the beginning.

OrlandoNative wrote:On the subject of the Return, there really aren't all that many logical options. Either they're on Safehold, somewhere, or not. However, if they are not using some sort of stasis, which the only available noted form is the cryonic suspension, then they'd almost have to be on some craft moving at relativistic velocities in order to make up the "time difference". That poses a couple of problems. (1) An object like that wouldn't likely be considered "natural" if detected, so it would stand out like a sore thumb to any Ghaba scouts. (2) It would have to be screened in some way, since even hitting *dust* at relativistic velocities would create havoc with any possible "battle steel" hull.

If they are on Safehold, where is the most logical place? They would want somewhere where they are not likely to be found in 1000 years. That could only mean somewhere people wouldn't go; or, if they did, wouldn't dig or build at themselves. The only real place for that is either under the Temple, or possibly perhaps some sort of undersea habitat, though I doubt anyone in stasis would really consider the latter. Too much could go wrong.

Here is a somewhat longer list of possible mechanisms for The Return:
cryogenics
PICA
virtual reality avatar
AI
relativistic time dilation
a purely recorded message (a la Hari Seldon in the Foundation trilogy)
Imposters--a secret cabal passing down the knowledge across generations, with orders (which they may not even have read yet) to present themselves as Archangels at some future time

As for an alternative location for where they would be coming from, how about the Hamilcar? All we know about the fate of the Hamilcar is that it still existed at the end of the War of the Fallen, and it is not visible in orbit now. It could be hidden elsewhere in the Safehold star system. The Hamilcar is as logical a place to keep the Archangels safe as the Temple.

Now, I'm not saying that any of these alternatives are more likely than your assumption of cryogenics under the Temple. All I'm saying is that you are focusing too much on that one possibility, based on a mere assumption. You stated that the archangels were in cryogenic suspension and that they were under the temple, as if this was established fact. You need to keep other possibilities open.