Official HFQ Snippet #25

SCC wrote:Where is the evidence that Hamilcar was put into a cometary orbit?

Ed130 The Vanguard wrote:For one it doesn't appear to be in orbit around Safehold, Owl's sensor sweep might have picked it up and none of the native have twigged with "hey this 'dawn star' sounds like (insert name here) which travels the heavens."

It either is in an extreme orbit around the sun or was dropped into it like the rest of the fleet.

n7axw wrote:This is a deduction, not evidence. I will admit that it is a possibility, but it is also a pretty strong possibility that it was dropped into the local sun as per the original plan.

Don

There is also the possibility that whoever stashed it took a page from Kau-yung and Shan-wei's faction's plan to stash a couple ships powered down in the asteroid belt. Assuming, of course, that Hamilcar survives, which I think it probably does in some fashion.

Bruno Behrends: wrote

I now have to seriously question whether the Archangels really were absolutely confident that they had found all remnants of modern technology that the 'Fallen' had gotten their hands on at the end of the war.

I now think it likely that the Archangels/Church could not have this absolute confidence. Which means that they may have put more safeguards in place against a recurrence of the high tech 'infestation'.

In this light it is a very good thing that Merlin and Owl habitually operated their high tech equipment so stealthily.

If I'm Merlin, I having Owl design "super" battle steel undies. I'm also going to want better weapons than sword and pistol. The "Thing in the Basement" "suddenly" has the potential to destroy Merlin -and Nimue -and the whole Charis experiment. (I had sort of dismissed that fear.)

I'm really pleased that Runs For added a line from the next chapter-makes it lots less jarring when he changes locals.

This... is... INCREDIBLE!

Great thanks to you, RFC, for so much new information! This new data surely could turn a lot of assumptions upside down.

P.S. So, it seems that the main malignant turned to be Chichiro, and the War Against The Fallens was, actually, the military coup in attempt to prevent the Chichiro's takeover of the civilian goverment. Quite interesting.

tootall wrote:
If I'm Merlin, I having Owl design "super" battle steel undies. I'm also going to want better weapons than sword and pistol. The "Thing in the Basement" "suddenly" has the potential to destroy Merlin -and Nimue -and the whole Charis experiment. (I had sort of dismissed that fear.)

But what weapon they could produce, that would not need a superior industry or a large ammount of energy to mantain? Also, this weapons should be as low-tech as possible.

I could only think about gun-type nuclear bombs, build without any electrical components.

ericth wrote:I just had a nasty suspicion dawn on me. What if Commodore Pei's "undisclosed military hardware" wasnt a nuke, but something like a pistol. Something that he could kill Langhorne and friends with, but leave himself alive to attempt to wrest control back. In this scenario the nuke could have come from Chichiro, as a way to clear things for his own ascendance to power, and it was a conicidence that the commodore (who was also on a target of that nuke) planned his own action at that same meeting.

It seems that the situation is much more complicated. If the Chichiro, not Langhorne was behind the actual attack on the Alexandria, then Commodore Pei probably was called to the administration center by Langhorne in attempt to calculate the actual culprit - or consolidate powers against Chichiro.

I started to think, that quite probably, there were TWO nukes in the administration building this time. One, taken by the Commodore against Langhorne, and the second (which probably actually detonated) planted by the Chichiro. It seems like perfect opportunity to get rid of both civilian and military leaders and take the power.

After all, if the Chichiro was behing that all, he have a lot to fear from the possible contact of Langhorne and Commodore. If the commodore discovered, that Langhorne wasn't the one, who do that, then both Pei and Langhrone would threw every avaliable resources to find WHO done that. And they have a lot more power, than Chichiro this time.

Random thoughts

Could the Mayor who defeated Khody be the same one as in the start of OAR?

Could Schueler have been helping the fallen and have had his name associated with the book (of Schueler) only after his death?

Sorry for my English,hope is understandable...

I think the most juicy news is that there is still more hardware available somewhere on the planet. We know somewhere in the Serie the Gbaba will return,(author dixit) and I asked myself if Merlin had to live 200yr minimum to be there to fight again. Having a (perhaps) working spaceship that can produce high tech components would reduce the Savehold problem to a teological one, which can be solved with the death of a generation and the raise of a new one well educated. After all, if the temple lost the war,it is prove that is the will of God to change time. Plus a generation whose fathers fight (and win) an enemy so overpowering in term of man and resource would have more hope of winning an enemy like the Gbaba.

Iorwerth wrote:Random thoughts

Could the Mayor who defeated Khody be the same one as in the start of OAR?

Could Schueler have been helping the fallen and have had his name associated with the book (of Schueler) only after his death?

It can be assumed that Schueler survived the War Against the Fallen by virtue of the Key he gave to the Wylsynn family and the message it contained, along with the usage instructions.

As a result, it is unlikely that Schueler died before the Book of Schueler was written.

Assuming Schueler is the Schueler of the Key, not the Schueler of the Book, I think he is likely to have been one of those who believed that Langhorne was right, or at least, not wrong, whereas Chihiro appears to have been one of the ones who went along with Langhorne's scheme out of personal gain/interest in the power they would have. However, by the time Schueler figured out what was really going on, it was too late to openly stop Chihiro, and so all he could do was to work discretely to mitigate the damage, and possibly to take steps to subtly coopt or counter Chihiro's plans. Schueler may become disillusioned, but realized it was too late to affect short term changes to what was going to happen, and he could only lay the groundwork for changes to happen much later, that all he could do was to make long term plans.

Ed130 The Vanguard wrote:

SCC wrote:Where is the evidence that Hamilcar was put into a cometary orbit?

For one it doesn't appear to be in orbit around Safehold, Owl's sensor sweep might have picked it up and none of the native have twigged with "hey this 'dawn star' sounds like (insert name here) which travels the heavens."

It either is in an extreme orbit around the sun or was dropped into it like the rest of the fleet.

I think one of the earlier books mentions that the original plan included parking Hamilcar in the orbit of one of the outer planets, to both give the reborn space-going forces a boost and to serve as a yardstick for the technology level of the time.

Iorwerth wrote:Random thoughts

Could the Mayor who defeated Khody be the same one as in the start of OAR?

The problem here is that the mayor in question was Timothy Harrison, an Adam who was labelled by Clyntahn (at the time of Operation Rakurai) as one of the greatest heroes from the War Against The Fallen.

Kytheros wrote:

Iorwerth wrote:Could Schueler have been helping the fallen and have had his name associated with the book (of Schueler) only after his death?

It can be assumed that Schueler survived the War Against the Fallen by virtue of the Key he gave to the Wylsynn family and the message it contained, along with the usage instructions.

As a result, it is unlikely that Schueler died before the Book of Schueler was written.

Assuming Schueler is the Schueler of the Key, not the Schueler of the Book, I think he is likely to have been one of those who believed that Langhorne was right, or at least, not wrong, whereas Chihiro appears to have been one of the ones who went along with Langhorne's scheme out of personal gain/interest in the power they would have. However, by the time Schueler figured out what was really going on, it was too late to openly stop Chihiro, and so all he could do was to work discretely to mitigate the damage, and possibly to take steps to subtly coopt or counter Chihiro's plans. Schueler may become disillusioned, but realized it was too late to affect short term changes to what was going to happen, and he could only lay the groundwork for changes to happen much later, that all he could do was to make long term plans.

That the Schueler of the Key and the Schueler of the Book are different individuals has long appeared to be the consensus both here and among the Inner Circle.

That the Scheuler of the Key survived the WAtF is quite likely, as you say.

However, we cannot assume that the Schueler of the Key DID survive long enough to write the Book.

With our latest discovery about Chihiro, there is now scope for speculation that Chihiro may have attributed the Book to Schueler out of spite for a fallen enemy. It seems more like the work of a vindictive psychopath such as the one now emerging in the shape of Chihiro.

Could Schueler have stashed the Key with his family as a reaction to what he saw coming? I think that you have a point there.

All that I can add here is that it was Schueler who said that the Archangels would return in a thousand years, whereas we are being led (by the snippet) in the direction of it being Chihiro doing the returning.