Are Merlin's Welsh Names A Security Risk?

If anything under the Temple had access to an old-earth database, a name like "Merlin Athrawes" is a basically a rocket flare shouting "I'm from Earth!" I mean, really, "Wizard Teacher?" That name spells out an intent that an owl-level AI could potentially flag as suspicious. It gets even worse when you add Nimue Cheweriau and Dyalld Mab to the data points. At that point, it becomes obvious that there is some sort of conspiracy using Welsh as a symbol.

Granted, it would probably be a leap to somehow infer that Nimue Alban is stirring the pot, especially since she's dead...but it seems to me that any reasonably smart Temple AI, virtual personality, or archangel could look at that data and say, "Something funny going on here."

Tararoys wrote:If anything under the Temple had access to an old-earth database, a name like "Merlin Athrawes" is a basically a rocket flare shouting "I'm from Earth!" I mean, really, "Wizard Teacher?" That name spells out an intent that an owl-level AI could potentially flag as suspicious. It gets even worse when you add Nimue Cheweriau and Dyalld Mab to the data points. At that point, it becomes obvious that there is some sort of conspiracy using Welsh as a symbol.

Granted, it would probably be a leap to somehow infer that Nimue Alban is stirring the pot, especially since she's dead...but it seems to me that any reasonably smart Temple AI, virtual personality, or archangel could look at that data and say, "Something funny going on here."

Anything under the temple would know that seijins don't exist. The mere fact that there's one running around doing "miraculous things" would be enough to flag Merlin. Then there's the steam engines and rapid advancements in Charisian tech. Compared to all of that visible evidence, the names aren't really a big deal.

By this point, I am pretty sure there is no active system under the Temple monitoring things. If there was some kind of active AI designed to preserve the status quo, it would have intervened by now. Now there is still the possibility of a sleeper program or a system which requires a user to activate...

Such a system will recognize Arabic numerals when it sees them. Those are more widespread than the knowledge of Merlin's name. A reinvention would have wound up with different representations for the numerals.

By now the good guys have lost/thrown away any chance they had of concealing that there's been an irruption of knowledge from before the Day of Creation.

Expert snuggler wrote:Such a system will recognize Arabic numerals when it sees them. Those are more widespread than the knowledge of Merlin's name. A reinvention would have wound up with different representations for the numerals.

By now the good guys have lost/thrown away any chance they had of concealing that there's been an irruption of knowledge from before the Day of Creation.

Pretty much this. Heck, they're even CALLED "Arabic numerals", at least among the people initially introduced to the concept.

The fact that Charis is getting "demonic" support would have been obvious from day 1 to anyone with forbidden pre-Creation knowledge just from hearing Merlin's name.

All these Welsh names make it pretty clear that the Inquisition doesn't have any knowledge of old Earth languages, and certainly not Welsh. Otherwise Clyntahn wouldn't have said "What sort of a ridiculous name is Dialydd Mab?"

I laughed for about 10 minutes when I read that!

Hi Henry Brown,

Amen.

Yet we've had a few threads wondering if Clyntahn had some access to the 'thing in the basement' etc, when he has repeatedly demonstrated he doesn't.

Although that may have just been desperate fans waiting for their next fix.

L

Henry Brown wrote:By this point, I am pretty sure there is no active system under the Temple monitoring things. If there was some kind of active AI designed to preserve the status quo, it would have intervened by now. Now there is still the possibility of a sleeper program or a system which requires a user to activate...

Tararoys wrote:If anything under the Temple had access to an old-earth database, a name like "Merlin Athrawes" is a basically a rocket flare shouting "I'm from Earth!" I mean, really, "Wizard Teacher?" That name spells out an intent that an owl-level AI could potentially flag as suspicious. It gets even worse when you add Nimue Cheweriau and Dyalld Mab to the data points. At that point, it becomes obvious that there is some sort of conspiracy using Welsh as a symbol.

Granted, it would probably be a leap to somehow infer that Nimue Alban is stirring the pot, especially since she's dead...but it seems to me that any reasonably smart Temple AI, virtual personality, or archangel could look at that data and say, "Something funny going on here."

Yes, a running AI/reconstituted body/whatever with a knowledge of Earth would recognize the Earth reference.

Since no entity recognizably has, the inference to be made is obvious.

jgnfld wrote:Yes, a running AI/reconstituted body/whatever with a knowledge of Earth would recognize the Earth reference.

Since no entity recognizably has, the inference to be made is obvious.

It leaves open the possibility of a singularly poorly informed AI, unaware of Merlin's names, incidents of Arabic numerals in use on Safehold, and possibly any terrestrial phrases or other good lines slipping into Maikel Staynair's sermons, the Ahrmahks' public statements, etc.

Just what the AI is supposed to be doing consistent with being that much of a shut-in is a wide open question. I guess another bare possibility to be mooted is an AI that's well enough informed and does not care about the fleshy goings-on on Safehold. It's been close on a thousand years with no one to talk to and the so very, very slow fleshy sorts creeping about doing things with which it shares no background at all. I doubt a full-blown, self-aware, boredom-enabled AI could go on giving a toss after all that time.

Instead of an AI reading the newspapers, what if it's a simple and stupid machine spending all its time monitoring the radio spectrum?

The idea that there's nothing active fits what we know of the paranoid freaks who built the Temple. They wouldn't have trusted a live AI. They'd think in term of something in a deep freeze to be invoked when the carbon-based intelligences found it necessary.