Apparent conflict between book 1 and book 3

In "By Heresies Distressed",
“Ancient tradition said the Archangel Langhorne himself had sat in council with his fellows in this very chamber, and its magnificent wall mosaics and the enormous, beautifully detailed map of the world—four times a man’s height—inlaid into one wall certainly supported the tradition”.

In "Off Armagedon Reef",
“The Temple of God and City of Zion were evidence enough of that, she thought grimly, for neither had existed prior to Shan-wei’s murder.”

My question is, if Kau-Yung killed Langhorne and his council with a nuke before the temple was built, how could they have sat in that chamber?

Obviously, tradition was wrong.

SeaKaptain wrote:In "By Heresies Distressed",
“Ancient tradition said the Archangel Langhorne himself had sat in council with his fellows in this very chamber, and its magnificent wall mosaics and the enormous, beautifully detailed map of the world—four times a man’s height—inlaid into one wall certainly supported the tradition”.

In "Off Armagedon Reef",
“The Temple of God and City of Zion were evidence enough of that, she thought grimly, for neither had existed prior to Shan-wei’s murder.”

My question is, if Kau-Yung killed Langhorne and his council with a nuke before the temple was built, how could they have sat in that chamber?

I'll try my hand at answering this one.

From what information that has come to light in the most recent books it is now clear that many "traditions" promulgated by the CoGA were in fact lies or changes to the truth f what happened. Sejin Khody's death, the fact that there is no record of him on the testimonies, and the addition of the Books of Chohiro and Scheuler to the writ make it clear that tradition is likely wrong in this case since Langhorne died before the Temple was built.

I'm not even certain that Scheuler was the author of the book he is credited with. Personally I could see Chohiro killing Scheuler and Khody when Khody brought his concerns to "the Archangel he trusted most". He could have written the Book of Scheuler as a thumb in the eye of a man he didn't like.

BrightSoul wrote:I'm not even certain that Scheuler was the author of the book he is credited with. Personally I could see Chohiro killing Scheuler and Khody when Khody brought his concerns to "the Archangel he trusted most". He could have written the Book of Scheuler as a thumb in the eye of a man he didn't like.

There are some reasons to make Scheuler's authorship of the book named for him suspect, but a "take that" motivation on Chihiro's part doesn't seem psychologically sound to me. One of the premises behind the motivation is the idea that the contents of the Book of Scheuler are horribly evil, and inserting them into 'Holy Writ' is a despicable act--after all, that's the brush you'd be using to tar Scheuler's reputation. But if you believe that, *why would you do exactly that in the first place?*

*Whoever* authored the Book of Scheuler must have believed on some level that they were doing the right thing, or at least something that was justified by circumstance. I could see Chihiro writing the Book and including it in 'Holy Writ' as something he thought was necessary but distasteful, and naming it for Scheuler to dodge a potential smudge on his own reputation, but I don't see defamation of Scheuler as a logical primary motivation.

SeaKaptain wrote:In "By Heresies Distressed",
“Ancient tradition said the Archangel Langhorne himself had sat in council with his fellows in this very chamber, and its magnificent wall mosaics and the enormous, beautifully detailed map of the world—four times a man’s height—inlaid into one wall certainly supported the tradition”.

In "Off Armagedon Reef",
“The Temple of God and City of Zion were evidence enough of that, she thought grimly, for neither had existed prior to Shan-wei’s murder.”

My question is, if Kau-Yung killed Langhorne and his council with a nuke before the temple was built, how could they have sat in that chamber?

RFC has already commented upon this point. The original plan, while Langhorne and Bedard were still alive, was to have only minimal "divine" intervention while allowing the human societies to develop organically and with greater independence. That plan went out the window once Kau-Yung nuked them and most of their co-conspirators. They didn't have the manpower (and the command crew was already small relative to the other 8 million original colonists) to reign with a gentle grip. And while the original HQ (AKA Temple) was supposed to be a barely accessible "olympus", the new Temple was very accessible and the few remaining "archangels" had to get involved more directly with affairs. Moreover, RFC commented that the surviving command crew were not above using holograms of the fallen Langhorne and Bedard (as ghostly figures of the archangels from beyond the mortal realm) to solidify their divinity in the eyes of the ignorant populace.

CSB wrote:
*Whoever* authored the Book of Scheuler must have believed on some level that they were doing the right thing, or at least something that was justified by circumstance. I could see Chihiro writing the Book and including it in 'Holy Writ' as something he thought was necessary but distasteful, and naming it for Scheuler to dodge a potential smudge on his own reputation, but I don't see defamation of Scheuler as a logical primary motivation.

Judging by what we've seen of the Inquisition, I doubt whoever wrote/added the Book of Scheuler found it "distasteful". No one but a fanatical psychopath would normally come up with something like that. Even in the Roman circus's; at least death was relatively quick compared to that meted out by the Inquisition.

OrlandoNative wrote:Judging by what we've seen of the Inquisition, I doubt whoever wrote/added the Book of Scheuler found it "distasteful". No one but a fanatical psychopath would normally come up with something like that. Even in the Roman circus's; at least death was relatively quick compared to that meted out by the Inquisition.

The impression I get is that whoever wrote the Book of Schueler just looked up the history books for the worst punishments ever conceived of and just threw them in with no real understanding what they meant. Sure, he had an INTELLECTUAL understanding of them, but not an emotional understanding. He just wanted the scariest punishments imaginable to "scare everyone straight" without ever expecting to see them used. It likely never occurred to him that anyone would want to implement the Punishments on a mass scale without going through the trial process to make sure the recipients deserved them.

evilauthor wrote:

The impression I get is that whoever wrote the Book of Schueler just looked up the history books for the worst punishments ever conceived of and just threw them in with no real understanding what they meant. Sure, he had an INTELLECTUAL understanding of them, but not an emotional understanding. He just wanted the scariest punishments imaginable to "scare everyone straight" without ever expecting to see them used. It likely never occurred to him that anyone would want to implement the Punishments on a mass scale without going through the trial process to make sure the recipients deserved them.

Then he didn't read the history books very well. 'Hanging Drawing and Quartering' with the added refinements as described in the Punishment, was standard punishment for Treason at one time in England. That is clearly what was intended in the BoS, that this punishment was for treason against God and the Archangels. Sadly, the English authorities and public took a lively interest in using and seeing it from time to time. I'm not sure if the RL Inquisition went beyond burning at the stake, but they were certainly enthusiastic users of 'The Question' for extracting confessions and retractions from 'heretics', all for the good of their immortal souls, of course.

Amazing how far off the topic the responders have gone in order to discuss their own pet subjects rather than the one I started.....

SeaKaptain wrote:Amazing how far off the topic the responders have gone in order to discuss their own pet subjects rather than the one I started.....

Actually not surprising considering the dearth of new information and the imminent arrival of ATSoT.

Plus, when someone quotes/references RFC on the topic, it's usually the definitive answer (unless one is so crass as to say "show me" the exact RFC quote/reference). Thus, there's nothing else to say except to wander off on your own favorite topic to continue some dialog.