After the war (or sooner)--electricity, Rakuri, and spoilers

Expert snuggler wrote:A telegraph has way lower latency than a semaphore chain and is weather-independent. Those are compelling advantages for military use.

By "early", do you mean prior to vacuum tubes? Radio's compelling but does require amplifiers.

Telegraphs are strategic, field telephones are tactical, and they're golden too.

The hullabaloo is already happening and Clyntahn has overplayed his hand. His enemies have nothing to lose if they outrage him further, except maybe their internal cohesion. At this point I wouldn't bet either way about how the Charisian on the street would react.

In response to your last sentence, I'd be willing to place my own wager. Apart from the possibility of risking a OBS strike for violating the prohibition on electricity, the Charisian would react very poorly. The cultural taboo established by how explicit the prohibition is would mean that the political risk of moving ahead with electricity would be almost the same as a rakurai strike.

Bottom line: A whole lot more effort has to be made in discrediting both the Writ and the COGA than has happened so far before electricity an be a concrete possibility..

Don

Here's a compelling use: medical x-rays.

Expert snuggler wrote:A telegraph has way lower latency than a semaphore chain and is weather-independent. Those are compelling advantages for military use.

By "early", do you mean prior to vacuum tubes? Radio's compelling but does require amplifiers.

Telegraphs are strategic, field telephones are tactical, and they're golden too.

The hullabaloo is already happening and Clyntahn has overplayed his hand. His enemies have nothing to lose if they outrage him further, except maybe their internal cohesion. At this point I wouldn't bet either way about how the Charisian on the street would react.

That misses evilauthor's point, I feel. The real issue is why anyone would be tinkering with electricity in the first place. The Writ's injunctions are ironclad, so what motivation would anyone have for messing with electricity when they're incredibly ignorant of its capabilities? It's a question of how would anyone know to build a telegraph to begin with?

Duckk wrote:

Expert snuggler wrote:A telegraph has way lower latency than a semaphore chain and is weather-independent. Those are compelling advantages for military use.

By "early", do you mean prior to vacuum tubes? Radio's compelling but does require amplifiers.

Telegraphs are strategic, field telephones are tactical, and they're golden too.

The hullabaloo is already happening and Clyntahn has overplayed his hand. His enemies have nothing to lose if they outrage him further, except maybe their internal cohesion. At this point I wouldn't bet either way about how the Charisian on the street would react.

That misses evilauthor's point, I feel. The real issue is why anyone would be tinkering with electricity in the first place. The Writ's injunctions are ironclad, so what motivation would anyone have for messing with electricity when they're incredibly ignorant of its capabilities? It's a question of how would anyone know to build a telegraph to begin with?

Let alone know what medical x-rays even were

Oh, OK. I'd read it as "What's worth the hassle" rather than "What would anyone discover at first that's worthwhile".

(Insert the quote from Faraday when asked what use his electrical experiments were).

The Royal College isn't starting blind, though, and Howsmynn knows how useful electricity would be in his factories.

The Jihad would be in a worse position. Curiosity wouldn't be enough motive to start rationalizing away the Proscriptions. They wouldn't know where the experiments could lead.

Unless ...

What if some of the people working at cross purposes during the founding of the Temple thought their successors might need some electric technology in some dire emergency? Leaving behind a hidden chapter of Writ, the Book of Exceptions?

Expert snuggler wrote:Oh, OK. I'd read it as "What's worth the hassle" rather than "What would anyone discover at first that's worthwhile".

(Insert the quote from Faraday when asked what use his electrical experiments were).

The Royal College isn't starting blind, though, and Howsmynn knows how useful electricity would be in his factories.

Yes, but they're also not going to introduce electricity until they get the okay from political experts. And I wasn't talking about them anyway.

I was talking about the hypothetical people on "the other side" who would break the Proscriptions to introduce war winning technology. Such technology doesn't exist unless "the other side" already knows about pre-Safehold tech. Except the discussed scenario was about people who DON'T know about pre-Safehold tech.

The Jihad would be in a worse position. Curiosity wouldn't be enough motive to start rationalizing away the Proscriptions. They wouldn't know where the experiments could lead.

Unless ...

What if some of the people working at cross purposes during the founding of the Temple thought their successors might need some electric technology in some dire emergency? Leaving behind a hidden chapter of Writ, the Book of Exceptions?

Would be immediately declared non-Canon by everyone and their brother? And that's assuming anyone even believes it actually originates with any legit divine authority.

The problem with "secret" laws, treaties, holy texts, etc etc, whatever, is that they have no force if the people responsible for enforcing and following them DON'T KNOW THEY EXIST.

Also, Seijin Cody's journal and Jeremiah Knowles journal are both EXACTLY this kind of secret Book. And the keepers of both all know that they'd be declared heretical text and denounced as Shan-Wei's deceptions if they ever tried to publicly publish them.

Even if it were in a vault in the Temple Grand Library?

If Clyntahn says "But THAT application isn't REALLY electricity", who will dare contradict him?

Expert snuggler wrote:Even if it were in a vault in the Temple Grand Library?

If Clyntahn says "But THAT application isn't REALLY electricity", who will dare contradict him?

I know it's not the sort of thing people really want to believe, accept, and remember, but Clyntahn is the truest believer on Safehold. He's got faith - utter, perfect faith. There really, definitely is a God, and He really, definitely has a plan as articulated in the Writ as understood by one Zhaspyr Clyntahn. If you reject God's plan, you're going down - eventually. If you're doing God's work God's way - as understood by Clyntahn, of course - you may die but you're set for eternity.

Clyntahn is going to compromise a preferred understanding of the Proscriptions all he has to to preserve the core of the Writ, the Proscriptions, and God's plan for Safehold - including, particularly, the authority of one Zhaspyr Clyntahn, who is perhaps the only man on Safehold who really gets it.

But profaning the Rakurai is the sort of thing that would mark him down as abandoning God's plan himself. He's assured of victory by God so long as he sticks to God's plan; he's damned like the rest of he falls short that way.

(Granted, "faith" is a wiggly concept. If you like it, you probably - I dearly hope! - have a notion of it such that Clyntahn's is an abomination, a perversion, not a fine example. But if you're not taking seriously that Clyntahn genuinely believes God is on his side and has genuine, non-negotiable, substantive requirements of him.) (Sadly, they don't include prohibitions of lying, corruption, murder, torture, genocide....)

JeffEngel wrote:

Expert snuggler wrote:Even if it were in a vault in the Temple Grand Library?

If Clyntahn says "But THAT application isn't REALLY electricity", who will dare contradict him?

I know it's not the sort of thing people really want to believe, accept, and remember, but Clyntahn is the truest believer on Safehold. He's got faith - utter, perfect faith. There really, definitely is a God, and He really, definitely has a plan as articulated in the Writ as understood by one Zhaspyr Clyntahn. If you reject God's plan, you're going down - eventually. If you're doing God's work God's way - as understood by Clyntahn, of course - you may die but you're set for eternity.

Clyntahn is going to compromise a preferred understanding of the Proscriptions all he has to to preserve the core of the Writ, the Proscriptions, and God's plan for Safehold - including, particularly, the authority of one Zhaspyr Clyntahn, who is perhaps the only man on Safehold who really gets it.

But profaning the Rakurai is the sort of thing that would mark him down as abandoning God's plan himself. He's assured of victory by God so long as he sticks to God's plan; he's damned like the rest of he falls short that way.

(Granted, "faith" is a wiggly concept. If you like it, you probably - I dearly hope! - have a notion of it such that Clyntahn's is an abomination, a perversion, not a fine example. But if you're not taking seriously that Clyntahn genuinely believes God is on his side and has genuine, non-negotiable, substantive requirements of him.) (Sadly, they don't include prohibitions of lying, corruption, murder, torture, genocide....)

Unfortunately, all through our history there have been all too many people with Clyntahn's kind of faith. Any victory is a sign you're doing God's will, any defeat, you're faith wasn't strong enough. When you combine that kind of faith with ego, and a lust for power, then you can end up with a Clyntahn.