When Merlin leads the Charge into Zion....

n7axw wrote:A covert op in advance might be made to work, however. IIRC, the door to the basement is obscurely located and hasn't been used in a long time. It probably looks like the entry to a janitor's closet and the current occupants of the Temple are unaware of it.

The Thing in the Basement is probably accessed through entries also used for the Temple's extensive maintenance servitors. In other words - it IS the janitors' closet.

Weird Harold wrote:

Randomiser wrote:It makes it hard to imagine what a human eyeball recce is going to spot that will be useful.

That's pretty much why a "human eyeball" needs to look at the hidden corners and basements for whatever can be found -- or not found, as the case may be.

Currently, the people who know enough to deal with the Temple computer don't know if they're up against AIVAS, Watson, or a Commodore 64. Anything a reconn can tell them will be more than they know now.

Let's see, you want to give someone extensive training in top secret information, so he will know what to look for, then send him into the most secure location the CoGA has, exposing him to the risk of capture and disclosure of all that info, NTM gruesome death by torture, just to mount a totally speculative recce on the off chance that he might, somehow, manage to pick something up? Does that sound to you like the kind of mission Caleb or Merlin would sign off on?

JeffEngel wrote:

n7axw wrote:A covert op in advance might be made to work, however. IIRC, the door to the basement is obscurely located and hasn't been used in a long time. It probably looks like the entry to a janitor's closet and the current occupants of the Temple are unaware of it.

The Thing in the Basement is probably accessed through entries also used for the Temple's extensive maintenance servitors. In other words - it IS the janitors' closet.

Jeff,
I had the same thought. Even though the conference room has the magical lights and Clyntan's wall paper changes... no one seems to have any idea that they might have to fix things nor have I heard that anyone shows special privilege duty in a monitoring room. There was a time or two that someone thought about the rumors that every word spoken was heard but no evidence that the inquisition is currently using that system.

Just go into the temple basement and when the computer asks for a username, enter"admin". Enter the Password "password". Hit enter and you have access.

C. O. Thompson wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:The Thing in the Basement is probably accessed through entries also used for the Temple's extensive maintenance servitors. In other words - it IS the janitors' closet.

Jeff,
I had the same thought. Even though the conference room has the magical lights and Clyntan's wall paper changes... no one seems to have any idea that they might have to fix things nor have I heard that anyone shows special privilege duty in a monitoring room. There was a time or two that someone thought about the rumors that every word spoken was heard but no evidence that the inquisition is currently using that system.

Maintaining the Temple is certainly necessary and certainly beyond the ken of any human beings in it, so yeah, it's got to be the work of servitor machines. What they are like, we don't know, but they don't seem to be large and visible enough to draw much notice or comment - unlike the Pardalian ones.

Given that the Temple was meant to be the unchanging holy site for an eternal religion, it can be presumed to have its own self-sustaining automated maintenance capacity, like the OBS, and presumably local (underneath, almost certainly) and not identical to the one supporting the OBS. (And not the same one or in the same site at least as one we could figure supported Chihiro's side in the War Against the Fallen; the Temple site was probably being decontaminated at the start of the War and wasn't likely secure enough til the very end of it or afterward.)

Quite apart from its use (if any) in neutralizing the OBS, the Temple is a treasure-trove for the recovery of TF technology after the Reveal. It makes me wonder if another of Shan-wei's "arrows" wasn't involved in the decision to build it and the design of it - "Given that we're hoping Langhorne's plan goes off the rails, let's build something our descendants can use to catch back up and go kick Gbaba butt, with the APPROVAL of Chihiro even!" And if there's a journal somewhere detailing how mortal men and women built that thing, written by a bona fide Adam or Eve, it'd be another thing to help sink the CoGA when it comes out.

ancient46 wrote:Just go into the temple basement and when the computer asks for a username, enter"admin". Enter the Password "password". Hit enter and you have access.

It may be on the Angelic Sticky Note in the very hand of Chihiro himself next to the monitor! One of the most holy relics of the Church, it finally gets to do some good.

>And what's a "Temple Roomba"?

What cleans the floors in the Temple?

Jumping to conclusions, it might be a magical servitor rather than a human janitor.

If so, who would keep track of vacuum cleaners the way someone would keep track of Inquisitorial wands? Kidnapping one would be risky, of course.

That was a great point about not being able to reprogram it safely while inside the Temple.

Try this option out. One of Clyntahn's servants goes out for a wild night on the town. He's carrying or wearing his mystical badge of office that causes Clyntahn's front door to open for him. He falls asleep, maybe a little more deeply than a drunk naturally would, and an OWL remote reverse engineers it. If that's not possible, swap it with a duplicate. The duplicate won't work of course. IT will say it's user error. Give the original to Helm Cleaver.

Randomiser wrote:Let's see, you want to give someone extensive training in top secret information, so he will know what to look for, then send him into the most secure location the CoGA has, exposing him to the risk of capture and disclosure of all that info, NTM gruesome death by torture, just to mount a totally speculative recce on the off chance that he might, somehow, manage to pick something up? Does that sound to you like the kind of mission Caleb or Merlin would sign off on?

Why are you so opposed to the idea of training a Safehold Native to recognize and report on TF technology?

It has been stated several times by several people that the investigation does NOT have to be a spy mission and can wait until the Good Guys(tm) have control of the Temple. The Temple Defenses should not react to Safehold natives occupying the Temple, but it would still react to Merlin, Nimue, or SNARCs intruding. They need a Safehold Native with enough knowledge to at least investigate for them In order to know exactly what they're up against. Any information that can be gained is more than they have now.

Weird Harold wrote:

Randomiser wrote:It makes it hard to imagine what a human eyeball recce is going to spot that will be useful.

That's pretty much why a "human eyeball" needs to look at the hidden corners and basements for whatever can be found -- or not found, as the case may be.

Currently, the people who know enough to deal with the Temple computer don't know if they're up against AIVAS, Watson, or a Commodore 64. Anything a reconn can tell them will be more than they know now.

Yeah, they might know more than they do now. But the level of complexity for what they need to know and which an eyeball exam isn't going to tell them is such that my own vote would be to evict the Temple's current residents and then take the time needed to conduct a proper examination rather than face the issue of having to keep the Temple Guard out of your hair at the same time you are trying to figure out what you are dealing with.

Don

Expert snuggler wrote:>And what's a "Temple Roomba"?

What cleans the floors in the Temple?

I seem to recall something about low level priests being ritually trained to use the Holy Floor Buffers or something to keep the Temple Entrance Hall nice and shiny, but I honestly can't remember where I read that and none of my recent rereads have come across that passage.

Besides which, if I were an "Angel" programming the Roombas, I'd only have them come out to do their thing when rooms are unoccupied. It prevents them from tripping people up (and also prevents manual theft to boot).

OTOH, given the kind of nanotech maintenance Merlin comes equipped with, the Temple might be using actual nanotechnology to keep the floors dirt free and shiny. Draconian rules against littering would take care of anything too big for the nanotech to eat in a timely manner.