Official Safehold Speculation Thread

How long before the bitter religious divisions go away enough to unify against the Gbaba?

Centuries, if Earth history is a guide.

Expert snuggler wrote:How long before the bitter religious divisions go away enough to unify against the Gbaba?

Centuries, if Earth history is a guide.

I expect it will be a much shorter time frame, probably 30-50 years.
Earth has many disparate cultures and religions, many of which are incompatible or mutually hostile. Safehold has a primary culture, with minor modifications, and a unified religion. Yes, there is schism relating to issues of dogma, but they worship the same god. If the schism can be accepted by both sides, the world can move forward in a unified culture into a brave new world.

Expert snuggler wrote:How long before the bitter religious divisions go away enough to unify against the Gbaba?

Centuries, if Earth history is a guide.

The schism will be much less of a concern when you finally break the lies underpinning the religious beliefs on either side of it. The Writ's specificity is going to do more than anything else to undermine the religion. It's hard to maintain the validity of the religion when those specifics are proven false on a daily basis. The Writ's pretty clear about what happens to anyone stupid enough to profane Langhorne's Rakurai and/or violate the Proscriptions. Loyalists could decry the changes as Shan-wei's work, spread by demons like Merlin (and after the Reveal, that's going to be an alarmingly accurate description of Merlin), but that doesn't work either because the Writ guarantees a divine response.

Every miracle ever performed by the Archangels can be explained. All of the miraculous relics can be explained, and more importantly, duplicated. The same goes for the Writ's miraculous explanations: everything Langhorne and Bedard stuffed inside it to prevent a scientific mindset can be explained fully beyond just "God did it." The stoves the Delthak Works are building alone go a long way to explain the Temple's miraculous central heating. Safeholdians might lack many of the concepts behind those explanations, but the basics of an industrial mindset are enough support at least a rudimentary explanation.

And while there are going to be a lot of reasons to try and ignore the Reveal, there's also going to be an incentive to accept it once those that do start to see a significant increase in their quality of life. It's hard to believe that God wants your baby to die a miserable death when better antibiotics and medical procedures are available in the hospitals.

Will there be more militant factions? Most certainly, if only because of cognitive dissonance: admitting to yourself that your involvement in the Sword of Schueler and the atrocities you committed were in the name of a lie is something a lot of people are going to have every incentive to avoid admitting. It won't be an easy transition, but it won't take centuries, either. And as far as the more militant factions are concerned, the EoC will have access to modern TF tech that they'll be able to start using openly. They won't use it to oppress people, but they'll certainly be able to use it to nip things in the bud before they get too violent.

Expert snuggler wrote:How long before the bitter religious divisions go away enough to unify against the Gbaba?

Centuries, if Earth history is a guide.

eldrwyrm wrote:I expect it will be a much shorter time frame, probably 30-50 years.
Earth has many disparate cultures and religions, many of which are incompatible or mutually hostile. Safehold has a primary culture, with minor modifications, and a unified religion. Yes, there is schism relating to issues of dogma, but they worship the same god. If the schism can be accepted by both sides, the world can move forward in a unified culture into a brave new world.

I'd agree with Wyrm in this case, insofar as to a shorter time-span. It's also gonna have to involve Merlin's plan for individual people under Church control, as well as more individuals in the Allied member states, to think for themselves. This would of course cause more division, but at the same time, aid in creating a planet more aimed toward surviving an future Gbaba encounter.

There must have been careful tracking of all personality recordings from the command crew.

I'm being careful to avoid a spoiler here, but could someone have stored an upload from, let's say, a re-programmed Adam for later use? That huge file in the Key might be the personality of, say, some trusted servant or advisor of Schueler's. For example, an Adam who got erased from the records after his mortal form died.

1. There are high-tech energy sources in the Temple that are unaccounted for.
2. They haven't been used yet.
3. Conclusion: they are not under the control of the Go4.
4. They've never been mentioned in a Go4 meeting.
5. Conclusion: they're secret from the Go4.
6. Whoever installed them was paranoid in the conventional sense and maybe even clinically.
7. It would be hard for Schueler to have put them in without someone knowing.
8. Conclusion: there are non-Schueler surprises under the Temple, not controlled by the Key.
9. It's consistent with human nature if they've been forgotten and nobody in the Temple knows how to use them or even that they exist.
10. (9) would be boring story telling.
11. If someone does know about them, it would have to be someone the paranoids could imagine as their successor.
12. Who's the nominal head of the Church of God Awaiting, again? Who would control freaks allow to have that kind of power, except the person at the top of the hierarchy?
13. Is there some "In case of emergency break glass" in the Grand Vicar's secret chambers? Something that each Grand Vicar is told to keep secret from everyone else?
14. He hasn't used it.
15. Conclusion: he's being told that victory is just around the corner and he's not worried enough to do anything drastic. Or he's an idiot, that would explain it too.
16. There's no textev I can remember that he's an idiot. He's a weakling when it comes to power politics but that's not the same thing at all.

Expertsnuggler: three nits.

1) We don't know that the energy sources are "high tech"; that sort of depends on your definition of high tech. We only know that they are strong energy sources, presumably electrical.

2) and 14) We don't know that they haven't been used yet. We only know that we have not seen them used. A better statement would be that either they have not been used, or their use did not produce visible evidence outside the Temple.

8) They don't have to be non-Schueler surprises; they could be Schueler surprises that the other Archangels knew about, or thought they knew about.

None of these nits really change your chain of logic, though. I pretty much agree with you up to (9). I don't really think that anyone in the Temple has special contact with the power under the Temple. But the Grand Vicar makes more sense than Clyntahn, who has been proposed in the past as being in contact with the power below the Temple.

Well taken points, all of them!

One thing that came to my mind last night, particularly as we near to the release date for HFQ (And I'm not reading anything that could be spoil the plot for me, nor do I want to know anything that could spoil it) is that what would happen if Merlin, during a visit to Zion, in an unwittingly fashion, prematurely activated all of- or even only part of- the material under the Temple? What would we see happen as a result?

Another thought that accompanied this one is that in another arc of a Merlin-to-Zion trip is that, instead of activating material under the Temple, he found sort of records left by Langhorne and Bedard, or even got some glimpse of what might be beneath the Temple.

Bluestrike2 wrote:
(SNIP)

And while there are going to be a lot of reasons to try and ignore the Reveal, there's also going to be an incentive to accept it once those that do start to see a significant increase in their quality of life. It's hard to believe that God wants your baby to die a miserable death when better antibiotics and medical procedures are available in the hospitals.

(SNIP)

Sadly, I think you're being too optimistic on this point. Just look at the present: already babies HAVE died because their parents refused to allow them to be vaccinated, or resorted to prayer healing, instead of availing themselves of modern medical procedures.

Religion-induced idiocy is ageless.