HQ Snippet #21 3-27-15

PeterZ wrote:

n7axw wrote:
We have our differences on how the way the war should end, Peter. But one way or the other, the Jihad which was intended to destroy Charis and crush Siddarmark has failed and the Temple is facing utter ruin. Reality intrudes on theology which has assumed that God was on the Temple's side and the dream of a united Safehold under the Temple is gone.

Don

We actually don't disagree on how the war should end. We disagree on how the war is likely to end. Even if my analysis of CoGA theology is accurate, Clyntahn can survive and move the plot in your preferred direction.

I really don't disagree with your analysis of the theology, Peter. I think that you are over estimating the power of the theology once it's idols are proven to have feet of clay as the COGA is overthrown, proven to be the Babylonian harlot abandoned by God, to use biblical imagry. The fatal flaw in that theology without even factoring in the massive fraud it conceals is its triumphialism which assumes that because the Temple is representing God, it can't lose.

The problem with this, as with all triumphialistic theologies, is what happens when "God's side" does indeed lose. Reality intrudes. Now what? Usually that theology's advocates don't handle questions like that very well.

Don

I don't believe I am over estimating that at all. Because it is certain God created the CoGA. He is perfect. His creation is perfect. Man is imperfect. Where God cannot fail, man can.

The theology will invariably point to the men of the CoGA as having failed, not the Church He created. Because the alternative is that God did indeed create a monstrosity. If an omniscient God created such a vile institution He is not worth following.

Of the two options, the former is easier to accept but more than a few will conclude the latter. I agree the CoGA will not be universally accepted as enshrined by the Writ. It will still represent the vast majority of Safehold.

n7axw wrote:
I really don't disagree with your analysis of the theology, Peter. I think that you are over estimating the power of the theology once it's idols are proven to have feet of clay as the COGA is overthrown, proven to be the Babylonian harlot abandoned by God, to use biblical imagry. The fatal flaw in that theology without even factoring in the massive fraud it conceals is its triumphialism which assumes that because the Temple is representing God, it can't lose.

The problem with this, as with all triumphialistic theologies, is what happens when "God's side" does indeed lose. Reality intrudes. Now what? Usually that theology's advocates don't handle questions like that very well.

Don

PeterZ wrote:I don't believe I am over estimating that at all. Because it is certain God created the CoGA. He is perfect. His creation is perfect. Man is imperfect. Where God cannot fail, man can.

The theology will invariably point to the men of the CoGA as having failed, not the Church He created. Because the alternative is that God did indeed create a monstrosity. If an omniscient God created such a vile institution He is not worth following.

Of the two options, the former is easier to accept but more than a few will conclude the latter. I agree the CoGA will not be universally accepted as enshrined by the Writ. It will still represent the vast majority of Safehold.

Actually, the Archangels, who are known to be imperfect, created the Church of God Awaiting. They said they did it at God's direction, but did they get it right? Some irony in that POV, anyway.

I think that when the surviving CoGA soldiers return home, and relate what they have seen and what they have done, they will see the CoGA and the Archangels in a whole new light. And not such a good one.

If there are competing faiths, such as the CoC, I think that people may start to think about alternatives. And the CoC's emphasis on one's personal relationship with God may well be a lot more attractive than working though imperfect Priests.

-- Bob G

BobG wrote:

PeterZ wrote:I don't believe I am over estimating that at all. Because it is certain God created the CoGA. He is perfect. His creation is perfect. Man is imperfect. Where God cannot fail, man can.

The theology will invariably point to the men of the CoGA as having failed, not the Church He created. Because the alternative is that God did indeed create a monstrosity. If an omniscient God created such a vile institution He is not worth following.

Of the two options, the former is easier to accept but more than a few will conclude the latter. I agree the CoGA will not be universally accepted as enshrined by the Writ. It will still represent the vast majority of Safehold.

Actually, the Archangels, who are known to be imperfect, created the Church of God Awaiting. They said they did it at God's direction, but did they get it right? Some irony in that POV, anyway.

I think that when the surviving CoGA soldiers return home, and relate what they have seen and what they have done, they will see the CoGA and the Archangels in a whole new light. And not such a good one.

If there are competing faiths, such as the CoC, I think that people may start to think about alternatives. And the CoC's emphasis on one's personal relationship with God may well be a lot more attractive than working though imperfect Priests.

-- Bob G

Right. If the CoGA - as it has ended up in the Year of God Awaiting 897 - is clearly not keeping God's approval, there remain a lot of options for resolving the difficulty:
1 - The CoGA remains utterly in the right, and so long as one believer somewhere in hiding in Harchong still believes, this is all a test.
2 - The CoGA went wrong in the hands of men - God's perfect gift was squandered.
3 - The CoGA went wrong in the hands of Archangels (pick one or more) - God's perfect gift was lost in transmission through their error and/or sin.
4 - The Writ, in its account transmitted by Archangels, was wrong, and the CoGA never was God's perfect gift. Maybe it was an imperfect gift of imperfect but benevolent Archangels; maybe it was wrecked with the Fall and the Writ covered that up, who knows.
5 - The Writ was even more wrong than that - watch this space for further revelation.

(1) represents sheer fanaticism. I don't think that's unknown on Safehold, or anywhere else, but it's by no means universal either.

(2) or (3) leave reformation of the Church as a live option, but also leave how much reform, of what sort, entirely open. The Church of Charis would be one entirely valid option. There would be very little in the Writ - essentially just the "historical" account of creation and all the real-world-confirmable instructions of Pasquale, Truscott, Sondheim, et al - that would be fixed. It's choose-your-own-theology for the rest.

(4) and (5) open up the Writ accounts to direct questioning, rather than more-or-less radical reinterpretation. If you read the Writ so that the Church is inherently, irrevocably perfect and you notice that the Church is a monster, then you're committed to supposing the Writ is in error. Just because of that conclusion, I doubt many people will accept both premises, but if you suppose the Writ does not assure a forever perfect Church, you've got to account for how it went wrong. If you accept archangelic fallibility - which is the Writ account of how Shan-wei went bad already - then the door is open for Langhorne, Bedard, Schueler, Chihoro, and the rest to be wrong or mistaken too.

At that point, the Writ itself justifies taking its claims as potentially in error and it's time to consider them in the light of all evidence available. That's a big and disturbing change, but it's not quite a logic bomb that ends all rational thought.

JeffEngel wrote:Right. If the CoGA - as it has ended up in the Year of God Awaiting 897 - is clearly not keeping God's approval, there remain a lot of options for resolving the difficulty:
1 - The CoGA remains utterly in the right, and so long as one believer somewhere in hiding in Harchong still believes, this is all a test.
2 - The CoGA went wrong in the hands of men - God's perfect gift was squandered.
3 - The CoGA went wrong in the hands of Archangels (pick one or more) - God's perfect gift was lost in transmission through their error and/or sin.
4 - The Writ, in its account transmitted by Archangels, was wrong, and the CoGA never was God's perfect gift. Maybe it was an imperfect gift of imperfect but benevolent Archangels; maybe it was wrecked with the Fall and the Writ covered that up, who knows.
5 - The Writ was even more wrong than that - watch this space for further revelation.

(1) represents sheer fanaticism. I don't think that's unknown on Safehold, or anywhere else, but it's by no means universal either.

(2) or (3) leave reformation of the Church as a live option, but also leave how much reform, of what sort, entirely open. The Church of Charis would be one entirely valid option. There would be very little in the Writ - essentially just the "historical" account of creation and all the real-world-confirmable instructions of Pasquale, Truscott, Sondheim, et al - that would be fixed. It's choose-your-own-theology for the rest.

(4) and (5) open up the Writ accounts to direct questioning, rather than more-or-less radical reinterpretation. If you read the Writ so that the Church is inherently, irrevocably perfect and you notice that the Church is a monster, then you're committed to supposing the Writ is in error. Just because of that conclusion, I doubt many people will accept both premises, but if you suppose the Writ does not assure a forever perfect Church, you've got to account for how it went wrong. If you accept archangelic fallibility - which is the Writ account of how Shan-wei went bad already - then the door is open for Langhorne, Bedard, Schueler, Chihoro, and the rest to be wrong or mistaken too.

At that point, the Writ itself justifies taking its claims as potentially in error and it's time to consider them in the light of all evidence available. That's a big and disturbing change, but it's not quite a logic bomb that ends all rational thought.

In order for these discussions to be meaningful, they have to happen all across Safehold. Absent the Inquisition's stranglehold on defining heresy, these conversations can happen. That suggests the two absolutely essential changes to the CoGA the Allies must demand as preconditions of any negotiated peace is the segregation of power for addressing heresy out of the Inquisition's hands and the establishment of the forum to address these doctrinal questions arising from the most recent jihad.

Everything else is icing on the cake. Restitution for the harm done to Siddermark will likely be paid to Siddermark and Charis. Those are political and easy for the CoGA to grant. Having the doctrinal debate with the CoGA unencumbered with concerns about the Inquisition interfering is priceless for the ultimate success of Merlin's goals.

PeterZ wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:At that point, the Writ itself justifies taking its claims as potentially in error and it's time to consider them in the light of all evidence available. That's a big and disturbing change, but it's not quite a logic bomb that ends all rational thought.

In order for these discussions to be meaningful, they have to happen all across Safehold. Absent the Inquisition's stranglehold on defining heresy, these conversations can happen. That suggests the two absolutely essential changes to the CoGA the Allies must demand as preconditions of any negotiated peace is the segregation of power for addressing heresy out of the Inquisition's hands and the establishment of the forum to address these doctrinal questions arising from the most recent jihad.

Everything else is icing on the cake. Restitution for the harm done to Siddermark will likely be paid to Siddermark and Charis. Those are political and easy for the CoGA to grant. Having the doctrinal debate with the CoGA unencumbered with concerns about the Inquisition interfering is priceless for the ultimate success of Merlin's goals.

I'm not sure that restitution will be easy except in theological terms, since it's not a theological matter at all. The Church likes its funds, and it hasn't got much of a revenue stream or assets left on that scale. It's going to take a lot of heat from the speculators it "sold" heretic properties to when Charis and Siddarmark don't recognize those sales. Protestantism in England got a lot of traction from people who bought seized Catholic property and would have lost it in a long-term Catholic restoration.

But aside from that, I do think that a defanged Inquisition and recognition that theology is open for debate represent minimal Allied terms, but that kind of admission of potential error and loss of internal power will mean an inevitable revolution within the CoGA. The current leaders of that Church, even Duchairn, may not recognize what would result as the Church they have been trying to save at all.

UMMM Spoiler alert (Although if your reading a snippet thread, that really seems redundant.)


I've been reading the post string with interest. All the back and forth of will the church be reformed, does Clyntahn get the axe, etc.
I think your all wrong.
I think our friendly neighborhood author is about to throw a curve ball right across the plate.
I think that the winter campaign is going to be phenomenally successful, just as it has looked like it will be till now, but at some point there are going to be two things that happen back in the Empire of Charis. One the Delthak works suffer a major catastrophe (Industrial accident or Rakurai strike, take your pick) causing a major supply crisis and two, the Chisholmian nobility organize a better than average coop attempt against the empire forcing a major diversion of forces intended for the front. I expect this to happen at just the wrong moment for our intrepid hero's and requiring the entire offensive to have to fall back on the mountains and the passes, with a band of scorched earth between them and the Army of God. I think that the story will strongly imply that increasing industry in Siddarmark (and elsewhere)will allow stabilization on the front, and the limited production of the new rifles and ammunition that occurred before the massive industrial disaster killed the assembly lines, will stave off complete disaster. I believe that the EoC forces will causes major damage to the Host of God so that it can't exploit the opportunity, and I believe that the purge of the nobility in Chisholm will leave the Empress free to begin a rapid expansion, with appropriate industrial safeguards in place, in Chisholm. I even think this will allow for expansion opportunities in Corisande as well. So at the end of the next book I think we'll be with a stabilized Siddarmark frontier along the Major mountain ranges and Shiloh, South March, Cliff Peak, Glacierheart, Midhold, Mountaincross,and Northland provinces solidly back in the Alliance hands. New Northhold, Ice March, and Hildermoss provinces essentially no mans lands where a complete lack of logistics support is making it hard for everyone to cross and constant raids by dragoons that both sides will have by then. Tarikah province firmly in church hands and Westmarch province a divided land with both sides in a trench warfare state. Multiple slowly developing new industrial centers (with no single point of failure like the Delthak works represents)bringing industrial capacity back up to were it can allow Charis to reopen the war, and coincidentally stifling the whining about Charis being the only people benefiting and welding everyone into a tighter internal alliance, and the whole development effort being paid for by the newly discovered silver deposits on Silverload.
And I think that David is going to leave it there for a bit while he catches his other series up. I've come to suspect that he really needs to write about some of the other stuff for a while and needs a good pause point. He has cranked out several in a row on this for us, but that's left some of the other series sort of treading water. I have zero evidence for this, and I'll be the first to admit it, but I can't shake the feeling that he and the missus could use a vacation [you know, cruise ship, Bahamas, long tall glasses of adult beverages with umbrellas in them, or maybe a cruise around the Italian peninsula with a visit to old and exotic locations of quaint and picturesque nature and real Neapolitan pizza. Some of you bibliophiles must take one, once in a while] and he's probably feeling like he needs to move some of the other series forward. I think there are several hints that he has, Cheshire Cat style, dropped that a reversal in fortune is coming, just because things are going WAY too well for the alliance, and he wants to bring balance to the force. I can't prove it... but every alarm bell is ringing in my head that an uh-oh moment is coming.
Oh and I think that Clyntahn is going to off Duchairn first, then make him a martyr and proclaim Charis did it.

Larry
(That kettle of fish ought to set some of you off!)
(And lets face it, at the rate the man has been cranking out books for you lot - and me too, since I'm buying them and posting here too - he and the wife eminently deserve a vacation!)

Larry wrote:UMMM Spoiler alert (Although if your reading a snippet thread, that really seems redundant.)


I've been reading the post string with interest. All the back and forth of will the church be reformed, does Clyntahn get the axe, etc.
I think your all wrong.
I think our friendly neighborhood author is about to throw a curve ball right across the plate.
I think that the winter campaign is going to be phenomenally successful, just as it has looked like it will be till now, but at some point there are going to be two things that happen back in the Empire of Charis. One the Delthak works suffer a major catastrophe (Industrial accident or Rakurai strike, take your pick) causing a major supply crisis and two, the Chisholmian nobility organize a better than average coop attempt against the empire forcing a major diversion of forces intended for the front. I expect this to happen at just the wrong moment for our intrepid hero's and requiring the entire offensive to have to fall back on the mountains and the passes, with a band of scorched earth between them and the Army of God. I think that the story will strongly imply that increasing industry in Siddarmark (and elsewhere)will allow stabilization on the front, and the limited production of the new rifles and ammunition that occurred before the massive industrial disaster killed the assembly lines, will stave off complete disaster. I believe that the EoC forces will causes major damage to the Host of God so that it can't exploit the opportunity, and I believe that the purge of the nobility in Chisholm will leave the Empress free to begin a rapid expansion, with appropriate industrial safeguards in place, in Chisholm. I even think this will allow for expansion opportunities in Corisande as well. So at the end of the next book I think we'll be with a stabilized Siddarmark frontier along the Major mountain ranges and Shiloh, South March, Cliff Peak, Glacierheart, Midhold, Mountaincross,and Northland provinces solidly back in the Alliance hands. New Northhold, Ice March, and Hildermoss provinces essentially no mans lands where a complete lack of logistics support is making it hard for everyone to cross and constant raids by dragoons that both sides will have by then. Tarikah province firmly in church hands and Westmarch province a divided land with both sides in a trench warfare state. Multiple slowly developing new industrial centers (with no single point of failure like the Delthak works represents)bringing industrial capacity back up to were it can allow Charis to reopen the war, and coincidentally stifling the whining about Charis being the only people benefiting and welding everyone into a tighter internal alliance, and the whole development effort being paid for by the newly discovered silver deposits on Silverload.
And I think that David is going to leave it there for a bit while he catches his other series up. I've come to suspect that he really needs to write about some of the other stuff for a while and needs a good pause point. He has cranked out several in a row on this for us, but that's left some of the other series sort of treading water. I have zero evidence for this, and I'll be the first to admit it, but I can't shake the feeling that he and the missus could use a vacation [you know, cruise ship, Bahamas, long tall glasses of adult beverages with umbrellas in them, or maybe a cruise around the Italian peninsula with a visit to old and exotic locations of quaint and picturesque nature and real Neapolitan pizza. Some of you bibliophiles must take one, once in a while] and he's probably feeling like he needs to move some of the other series forward. I think there are several hints that he has, Cheshire Cat style, dropped that a reversal in fortune is coming, just because things are going WAY too well for the alliance, and he wants to bring balance to the force. I can't prove it... but every alarm bell is ringing in my head that an uh-oh moment is coming.
Oh and I think that Clyntahn is going to off Duchairn first, then make him a martyr and proclaim Charis did it.

Larry
(That kettle of fish ought to set some of you off!)
(And lets face it, at the rate the man has been cranking out books for you lot - and me too, since I'm buying them and posting here too - he and the wife eminently deserve a vacation!)

Being wrong is the risk of speculating... if there were no risk, it wouldn't be any fun... so speculate away. Who knows at this point..you might be right!

Don

JeffEngel wrote:Clyntahn and Duchairn in the Group of Four really realize it's a whole new world. Clyntahn is re-fighting the War of the Fallen, casting himself as Langhorne, soaking Safehold in blood to appease his God.

One slight correction - Clyntahn thinks that he is God, or that whatever he wants is what God wants, so there's no discernible difference.

I'd really like to see the look on his face when he arrives in Hell and finds Langhorne and company waiting for him...

McGuiness wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Clyntahn and Duchairn in the Group of Four really realize it's a whole new world. Clyntahn is re-fighting the War of the Fallen, casting himself as Langhorne, soaking Safehold in blood to appease his God.

One slight correction - Clyntahn thinks that he is God, or that whatever he wants is what God wants, so there's no discernible difference.

I'd really like to see the look on his face when he arrives in Hell and finds Langhorne and company waiting for him...

Or looking across the abyss and seeing Shan-wei in Paradise...

Don