Archangel motivations

Splitting off from Re: The fate of the Dawn Star and the Archangels

evilauthor wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:I think you're ignoring the Psychology -- i.e. anti-tech bias -- of anyone who would fit that description among "Langhorne's Faithful" (or Chihiro's cronies.)

There's no doubt that Chihiro or one of his cronies could have built a PICA before Hamilcar was disposed of, or even in some hidden tech repository under the Temple, but that would be like the Dalai Lama becoming a jet-set playboy -- possible, but highly improbable.

Yeah, and Stalin completely followed Lenin's vision of Communism, right?

Wait, no he didn't.

Lenin didn't follow Marx's vision of Communism. He couldn't. Marx assumed Communism would arise in a developed industrial economy, like Germany, not an agrarian state like Russia. (And Marx was rather vague about how he expected it to come about.) Lenin had to make up a lot as he went along. And bear in mind that Lenin and Stalin were co-rulers and collaboratorsafter Stalin came on board , so the final effort was a joint venture.

We don't know enough about Chihiro to say he subscribed to Langhorne's EXACT vision or if he was only paying lip service to it to retain power, or something in between.

And of course, Chihiro didn't mind control everyone under him to follow his agenda either or else there wouldn't have been a War of the Fallen. There was quite a bit of cloak and dagger going on among the Command Crew even after you factored Shan-Wei's faction out of it.

Part of the fun here is that we don't know what anyone's motivations were. Archbishop Michael talked about that in an earlier book, when he said we knew what the Archangels had done, but not what they were thinking when they did it. We know what, but not why.

One thing that occurred to me is that our initial impression of Langhorne and Bedard came from Merlin, and he got it from the data dump Commodore Pei left for Nimue when her PICA woke up under Mt. Olympus. The kinetic bombardment system had just converted the Alexandria Enclave into Armageddon Reef, and Commodore Pei announced he was going to a meeting with Langhorne and Bedard, along with the only other person who knew of Nimue's existence, and was taking a pocket nuke along that would leave no survivors.

Merlin got the idea Langhorne was the main bad guy, with Bedard only a step behind.

We've subsequently discovered that Chihiro was apparently maneuvering to supplant Langhorne from rasther before the Alexandria Enclave strike, that it may have been Chihiro who actually ordered the strike on the Alexandria enclave, and that the OBS had been manufactured on Hamilcar in secrecy by Angels loyal to Chihiro, and deployed hours before it was used on the Alexandria Enclave, so Commodore Pei wouldn't be able to intervene.

We've also discovered that the War Against the Fallen didn't take place till two years after the Rakurai strike, and David has mentioned elsewhere that there was a period of confusion as surviving angels and Archangels ducked for cover after Langhorne's administrative center went up in a fireball and everyone tried to figure out what was going on and what to do next. This would have been when Chihiro consolidated his power.

David has also stated that Shan Wei was loyal to Langhorne right up until the Rakurai strike, and was the first victim of the rebellion, and that there was a general agreement among the command crew about the necessity of the CoG. (The original CoG, not the CoGA that resulted after Chihiro took the reins.)

What we thought we knew was the the original plans for Operation Ark back on Earth were for the colony to abjure advanced technology for 300 years, to give the Gbaba time to decide they had exterminated humanity and stop actually looking for tech traces, but that they would need to redevelop technology. We also thought it was Langhorne and Bedard that changed that plan to "abjure technology forever".

We also know there was internal opposition to Langhorne and Bedard from the beginning, witness Commodore Pei musing just before Nimue said goodbye and OA executed Breakaway to sneak past the Gbaba that he was part of a conspiracy against Langhorne and Bedard.

Merlin has been forced to adjust his thinking about Langhorne a bit, and we might need to as well.

One thing that occurred to me was related to the general agreement among the command crew that the CoG was a necessity which David mentioned elsewhere. Langhorne and supporters might have actually agreed on the need to eventually rediscover technology.

Bedard wiping the colonist's memories, the creation of the Holy Writ, and the use of technology by the command crew to appear to be divine beings might have been a misguided attempt to address a fundamental problem. You have a tiny fragment of humanity on an alien terrestrial planet, that has been partially terraformed into a place humanity can live.

Given the difficulties involved in survival, a question becomes "People being people, if they know technology exists, there will be a lotof reasons to want to apply it, simply to survive. How do we make sure the colonists do restrict themselves to wind, water, and muscle power for 300 years?" One way is wipe their memories of technology, create a Holy Writ, appear to be divine beings, and say "God said to!"

It may just be Chihiro that decided the ban on tech should be permanent, and taking out the Alexandria Enclave was intended to make sure the records Shan Wei was preserving to enable technology to be rediscovered were destroyed. It's possible Commodore Pei nuked the wrong bad guys. (When I described the setup to my SO, she said "That's a fundamentalist Christian sort of attitude." She's quite right, in that there are historic examples of believers deciding that calamities were God's punishment for man over reaching himself, dating back to the notion that Eve listened to the serpent and fed Adam fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, and the awareness that produced caused God to toss them out of the Garden of Eden. The idea the Gbaba were God's punishment for man advancing beyond what God wanted is an all too possible notion.)

We know Chihiro had made changes to Langhorne's plans, but we don't know what they were, and we don't know what Langhorne's plans were and how they might have differed from the original orders Langhorne was given when he was named Administrator of Operation Ark.

We also don't know about the Fallen. We know now that they were mostly navy and marine personnel who crewed Commodore Pei's military escorts, and who were turned into a planetary police force and disaster relief crew after their ships were discarded. But we don't know what they wanted, or what they would have done had they won.

I suspect we have a fair bit to learn, and surprises along the way as we discover conditions aren't what we thought they were.
______
Dennis

Pretty good analysis!

Basically, it seems increasingly possible that almost everything that we knew about this era (save for basic facts - Langhorne/Pei conflict, Alexandria destruction and then nculear attack against colony administration) is not what we early supposed.

Without going back to reread things, my impressions are:

1. Chihiro (and perhaps Bedard) pretty much took over. When they started is unknown, but the thought that Chihiro ordered the kinetic strike without Langhorne's knowledge or permission is intriguing;

1a. Langhorne was misguided, and manipulative, but he may not have been cruel. It seems others took things over and rewrote a lot of stuff;

2. I wonder who wrote the Book of Scheuler, and when, and why (that might answer a lot of questions);

3. I keep thinking that Khodi has left some more messages or thoughts where they haven't been found yet;

4. Ditto for Schueler?

5. I think Clyntahn has at least one nasty trick up his sleeve that depends on old technology, but he won't use it unless forced to (a one-shot that might just backfire on him?)

That's enough for now, I think.

XofDallas wrote:Without going back to reread things, my impressions are:

1. Chihiro (and perhaps Bedard) pretty much took over. When they started is unknown, but the thought that Chihiro ordered the kinetic strike without Langhorne's knowledge or permission is intriguing;

Chihiro took over after Commodore's nuclear strike on Langhorne's administrative center, which took out Langhorne and Bedard. Chihiro has been stated as maneuvering to supplant Langhorne from before the Rakurai strike. We don't know the internal organization of the Angels and Archangels, but I suspect his maneuvering was slow and cautious. (At I con I mentioned earlier, I asked David "What was Chihiro back on Earth?" He said he was a senior government administrator and a historian. While David didn't say so, I strongly suspect Chihiro leaned heavily on his government position to get himself posted to Operation Ark, and bureaucratic empire building would likely have been second nature to him.

Pei's destruction of Langhorne and Bedard did him a favor by creating a power vacuum he could fill, and he'd already done spadework. He could then reach out to the surviving command crew and say "I'm in the best position to replace Langhorne, and we need to. Support me!"

If the Fallen were aware it was Chihiro that ordered the strike on the Alexandria Enclave, that may have been a motivator to rise in revolt. They were loyal to Commodore Pei and would have been unhappy. (I think there's a FAQ or other post from David elsewhere to the effect that Chihiro didn't trust Pei or his people to toe the line.)

1a. Langhorne was misguided, and manipulative, but he may not have been cruel. It seems others took things over and rewrote a lot of stuff;

We don't really know what his original orders from Earth were, but with Earth gone, he certainly had nothing standing in the way of changing them.

One question is the source of the internal opposition to Langhorne and Bedard mentioned by Commodore Pei in OAR. I recall a suggestion that those opposed did not feel Langhorne and Bedard could be trusted to actually follow the original plan. Nimue's Cave was created as a backup plan specifically for that case.

2. I wonder who wrote the Book of Scheuler, and when, and why (that might answer a lot of questions);

I mentioned it in an earlier post, but it seems to have passed unnoticed. At a con earlier, David let slip that an upcoming event will the the discovery of "The Gospel of Schueler", which might just be Schueler's take on things. The Church of Charis's initial reaction will be careful neutrality pending verification that Schueler did in fact write it, moving on to "There might be something in this..."

I don't think Schueler wrote the Book with his name on it. The minimal textev makes him stern but not cruel. I suspect Chihiro or someone working for him actually wrote the Book of Schueler, and had all manner of horrific examples from Earth history of cruel and unusual punishments to apply to folks not toeing the party line.

And I suspect the Book of Schueler was added to the Writ by the remaining lesser Angels after Chihiro and Schueler had departed Safehold following the War of the Fallen. I can't imagine Schueler being happy about the Book bearing his name, but he was no longer in a position to change it.

(I mused elsewhere about precisely where Chihiro and Schueler went when they departed in triumph after the War. David stated we'll learn what became of the Archangels at some point, but meanwhile, about the only place they could go was an OA colony vessel, and the only one left at the point was Hamilcar.)

3. I keep thinking that Khodi has left some more messages or thoughts where they haven't been found yet;

Possible, but where might he have left them?

One thing we don't know is Khody's home base. He and his wife are identified as being part of the Zion Enclave, so that was where he lived when he volunteered to become a Seijin. But we don't know if that was where he hung his hat between missions after becoming one.

(I'm also background curious about the "demon" that defeated him in battle, but didn't kill him, and instead provided evidence that made Khody question what side he was on and who the real villains were. Given that Khody had been TF Marine Sergeant Major Cody, unarmed combat instructor and expert swordsman, before becoming part of Operation Ark, whoever beat Khody must have been impressive.)

4. Ditto for Schueler?

See above.

5. I think Clyntahn has at least one nasty trick up his sleeve that depends on old technology, but he won't use it unless forced to (a one-shot that might just backfire on him?)

It's been made pretty clear that the gloves are coming off on Clyntahn's end, as even he is forced to recognize the CoGA is losing the Jihad. The Writ and the Proscriptions will go out the window. But his scarce resource will be time. Even if he tells Duchairn and Magwair "I don't care what you have to do, and I'll sign off on anything you suggest!", there's still the problem that doing it will take time he may not have.

That's enough for now, I think.

We certainly have things to wonder about.
______
Dennis

And expanding a bit on Chihiro, I've wondered if Clyntahn might be Chihiro's spiritual descendant.

There's a chilling interchange between Clyntahn and Rayno where he makes his motives clear. The Writ states God gave man free will. Clyntahn can't argue with the Writ, and agrees God did so.

But Clyntahn is one of the "people are no damn good!" crowd. As far as he's concerned, man is imperfect and steeped in sin, and given choices, will invariably make the wrong ones that lead to damnation. The only way Clyntahn sees to fulfill the Church's mission of safeguarding the spiritual health of Safeholdians is to not permit choice. They may do only what the Church says they can do, think only what the Church says they can think, and believe only what the Church tells them to believe.

If his plans come to fruition, Clyntahn will be absolute ruler of Safehold, supported by the might of the Inquisition. Princes, Kings and Emperors will merely reign, and do so only as long as they please Clyntahn.

And of course, Clyntahn is uniquely qualified to be the one who determines what the Church will permit.

Given the bits and pieces we are discovering about Chihiro, it looks like he was another member of the "people are no damn good!" crowd, and they must be coerced into doing things for their own good, because they can't be trusted to make their own decisions. He might just smile and nod approvingly at what Clyntahn has been up to.
_______
Dennis