Spoilers - Thoughts concerning the revelations of St Kody

thanatos wrote:Based on what was revealed in HFQ regarding St. Kohdy and the War Against the Fallen, as well as things that were established in OAR, the War Against the Fallen was essentially a guerrilla campaign, launched against the command crew from a position of inferiority. We now know that it was two years after the destruction of Alexandria and the first command HQ, that the war began which gave the "Fallen" at least some time to prepare. Had Schueler not figured out what was happening - the industrial capacity was being diverted elsewhere for an unknown reason - they might have been able to launch a coup quickly and eliminate the command crew and seize control of Hamilcar. Since they were found out, the rebels had to rely on guerrilla tactics. And at the heart of any such campaign is the struggle over the hearts and minds of the population. They had to hide among the civilian population (that had to be willing to give them shelter) because they knew the command crew would not dare wipe out entire enclaves just to get at two or three rebels. After all, there were only 8 million colonists originally and they were trying to save the human race (not slowly self-destruct).

So we know there was passive resistance at least initially. We also know that the military units under Kau-Yung has served as the planetary police force. So what happens when a lot of trained military personnel, who serve as the police force, decide to rebel against the planetary civil authority? Aside from putting well trained troops against the government, it also creates quite a hole in that government's ability to enforce the law. The Seijin were the command crew's response to this problem and to the passive resistance from the colonists. They were not only the "mortal interface" between the "archangels" and the colonists, they also stepped into the law enforcement roles that had become vacant due to so many defections (and it was probably the way in which they won back the trust of the colonists). Under such conditions, the rebels eventually lost.

Yet there is still that cryptic mention in the Holy Writ about "angelic intervention" in the event of the appearance of demons. There is also the measures Schueler took - the Verifier, the "Key" and his message to his descendants. The biggest threat Schueler and Chihiro had to fear was that they missed a few rebels and one or two industrial modules. They would therefore need to take precautions for such a situation. I doubt they even conceived of the possibility that a PICA was hidden underground and set to activate only 750 T-years after Alexandria - which where I feel the series is going. That and the fact that if and when the "archangels" do return, they will be faced with a radically different situation than the one they faced during the War Against the Fallen.

By the time of their supposed return, Merlin & Co. will have had 25 years to prepare. That's two and a half decades of spreading out Charis' industrial capacity throughout the empire (Housmyn built the Delthak Works in around 5 years) and beyond, graduate an entire generation of children without Schuelerite priests dictating the curriculum, increase the size of the Inner Circle, build additional royal collages, establish a far more righteous church throughout the empire and encourage a mindset (among most Charisians at least) that if the archangels side with the repressive Church of God Awaiting they will reject the archangels. Obviously Merlin would have preferred to have at least a century to work with (and for the old orthodox generation to die out) but he doesn't have that. Yet if the "archangels" awaken and attempt to use the same tactics they used in the War Against the Fallen, they will find a far less pliant population, no available candidates from which to create new "Seijins" who would fight from them, and be forced to consider using the OBS far more than they would have 900 years before. Yet the wholesale massacre of all of Old Charis, while spectacular, would likely fail at getting the people they really wanted to kill and turn the population as a whole against them. And without Seijins to serve as "mortal conduits to the divine", it would be hard to explain why every temple loyalist in Cherayth (for example) had to die just to eliminate the "true sinners".

ChronicRder wrote:I've often wondered about how many relics were left over from the WotF. I found it particularly fortuitous that the last stand of the rebels was in modern-day Harchong, the most loyal and fanatical supporters of the Church today and not in the Tellesburg. The shifted entirely northward and ended in the Church's front yard. Very nice and tidy.

That said, there's a continent on Safehold that hasn't been touched by this war. In fact, it is scarcely mentioned at all throughout the series and that makes me suspicious. What's up with Trellheim?

Trellheim is the only place left that is left for a final string in Kau-yung's bow to be strung. It has a marginal population and didn't really see any action in either the WofT or the current HWoC/Jihad. That would make it the perfect place for an Alexandrian bolthole as much as it would be convenient for the Hamilcar to be hidden on the dark side of the moon as a just in case scenario.

Expert snuggler wrote:What happens if Clyntahn starts to suspect Harchong?

Expert snuggler wrote:If he starts purging Harchong it will upset the corrupt people's gravy train and undermine his support.

ChronicRder wrote:

Expert snuggler wrote:If he starts purging Harchong it will upset the corrupt people's gravy train and undermine his support.

His support is eroding by the day. People no longer truly fear him as they're starting to listen to Duchairn and Magwair. The situation is that tenuous, even with the Harchong armies coming forward that even they can't leave their collective heads stuck that far up their collective arses anymore. Though I do my best to not attribute to maliciousness what I can attribute to simple blind luck. They were bound to see the light eventually--even just a single ray coming over the horizon.

Back to the topic at hand, the thread is about St Kody after all, I wonder how many of the other Seijins were neural re-socialized (brainwashed for those not familiar with Starcraft jargon) noncoms or other military personnel. In an anthology for the series it would make for interesting reading in terms of raw or inherent talent and other resources available to either side during the first war. Be a lot easier to put it all into perspective.
Also, during the mind rewiring the surviving Langhornites did on their Seijins, I'm surprised the AIs on board the OBS and Hamilcar didn't overwrite the procedure for safety reasons...as Nimue and Merlin pointed out in the Cave. Those would've been the same AIs that the Commodore and Dr Pei used en route to Safehold, yes? I find it hard to believe they wouldn't have put fail-safes into the AIs coding to prevent the Langhornites from screwing people up even more than they were already planning to do, if not already doing.