SPOILER- Thank you so very much RFC for AtSoT!-SPOILER

Hi Evil Author,

The balloons Duchairn was reminiscing about had an aeronaught aboard, but ran out of fuel too quickly to be useful, just like the early Montgolfier balloons, etc.

L

evilauthor wrote:*quote="Bluesqueak"*[quote="evilauthor"]

But still, this is the kind of innovation that he had to have planned from the very beginning. So he SHOULD have included mention of hot air balloons even in passing in one of the earlier books. Possibly even in the very FIRST book.*quote*

Actually, Haraald mentions in the first book that it would be wonderful to see someone fly. In Book 3, Cayleb is described as the first Safeholdian to fly in well over eight centuries. So it seems that either RFC planned them as a new invention - and then realised that wouldn't fly (I'll get me coat) or they're a late idea that needed a bit of retrospective continuity adding.

The alternative is that they weren't mentioned because Merlin didn't know Safehold had balloons.

From the way the characters talk, while hot air balloons are known, hot air balloons big enough to lift a human being hasn't been done before.

You'll note that the Church side kept thinking that Charis' balloons should be impossible because "there's no smoke" to indicate a heat source. Which means they're thinking wood or coal fires are the only sources of hot air for balloons since they don't know about Charis' use of natural gas.

So how big an open wood or coal fire do you think would be necessary to lift a balloon big enough to carry a man into the air? I'm thinking big enough that a balloon couldn't possibly carry one and still have room or weight left for the man.

And if I'm wrong and such things have been done in real life (which it may very well have), SAFEHOLD might never have done such a thing before given how the Inquisition discourages innovation for most of its history.[/quote]

dobriennm wrote:

Keith_w wrote:
We don't know that they were secret computer files - they could have been paper files, copied and recopied endlessly by inquisitor scribes for 8 centuries.

We ABSOLUTELY know they are computer files since Clyntahn thinks

"He'd seen images like it in the Temple, in the Inquisitions secret records..."

and "the Angel Langhorne said, and it was the Archangels's voice. He knew it was, because unlike Shan-Wei's, he'd heard it before."

We absolutely don't know that. We absolutely know that the Temple is filled with miraculous things, pictures that change, doors that lock and unlock with a button floors that clean themselves. The images Clyntahn has seen and heard could be holographic projections in his office of the same sort that projects from the Schuler Key. It doesn't mean that the inquisition has access to computer files of any sort.

The thing that I am surprised about is how the temple boys didn't seem to do anything with the steam engine information they received. As I recall, when the information from the stolen briefcase arrived in Zion, Rayno told Clyntahn about the items in it, including the steam engine, to which Clyntahn said "Tell me about this steam engine" (if I recall correctly). But that was it for steam engines as far as the Inquisition was concerned.

Keith_w wrote:The thing that I am surprised about is how the temple boys didn't seem to do anything with the steam engine information they received. As I recall, when the information from the stolen briefcase arrived in Zion, Rayno told Clyntahn about the items in it, including the steam engine, to which Clyntahn said "Tell me about this steam engine" (if I recall correctly). But that was it for steam engines as far as the Inquisition was concerned.

They simply didn't have enough time. They captured not a blueprints, but the general description "how to make one". They need time and resources to make one that could actually work - and more time to understood how to use it. So, IMHO, they probably already have working prototypes, but (because they worked as honest peoples, without OWL-esque cheating) they just started to use them in industry.

Keith_w wrote:
We absolutely don't know that. We absolutely know that the Temple is filled with miraculous things, pictures that change, doors that lock and unlock with a button floors that clean themselves. The images Clyntahn has seen and heard could be holographic projections in his office of the same sort that projects from the Schuler Key. It doesn't mean that the inquisition has access to computer files of any sort.

Well, what Clyntahn had seen in the Inquisition's secret records aren't the 'paper files' you started off talking about, are they?

I suppose it depends on what you understand by 'computer files'. In what sense are digital images and sound retrieved from solid state storage for later display not computer files? (Assuming that the stuff the Inquisition has got is like the Wyllsyns' key, as you suggest) You could argue that a video DVD doesn't have 'computer files' on it but you sure aren't going to view them without some device that contains significant processing power. On the other hand, I don't think that anyone is saying that the textev, so far, suggests that the Inquisition has access to a general purpose computer and the ability to create or modify more general types of file.

Also, clearly, the sound and images Clyntahn had heard before did nothing to disturb his world-view and may just have been a pep-talk corresponding to the one Scheuler left behind. Why they are kept secret is an interesting question. Could just be an inconvenient and immovable viewing location, or they may reflect the different organisation of the church in the early days which the Inquisition didn't want to draw public attention to, or there might be some more interesting reason ....

So now we know what's under the Temple... a 17 mile long tunnel that ends up in a vineyard... Wouldn't it have been more fun to have it end up in a wine celler with a wine vat... glasses included, of course!

Don

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What we know:
-Secret entrance to the Temple known only to select inquisitors and now the Inner Circle.
-Many inquisitors including all those the reader is certain know about the tunnel are dead.
-The Inquisition has been changed and the power and KNOWLEDGE thoroughly decentralized.
-A great deal of knowledge may well have been lost.
-It is possible only the Inner circle know about the tunnel now.
-Inquisition archives include electronic media files with all sorts of file footage of the Command Crew.
-OWL has similar files on a broader range of topics depicting a broader range of characters.
-The new Inquisitor Board and Adjutant will have an opportunity to inspect all those files.
-They will view the information and approach the experience without the Inquisitions indoctrinated POV.
-This information is very likely to be disseminated more broadly than it had been under the Inquisition of old.
-There is a chance that the experience of viewing the "Angels" and "Archangels" will be disseminated MUCH more thoroughly indeed.

What we may conclude:
It follows then that the Command Crew may be discredited in the eyes of those that will have viewed the file footage just as Clyntahn was made to understand the Truth. It also follows that should they need to get Father Paityr into the secret room, they now have an access route.

PeterZ wrote:What we know:
-Secret entrance to the Temple known only to select inquisitors and now the Inner Circle.
-Many inquisitors including all those the reader is certain know about the tunnel are dead.
-The Inquisition has been changed and the power and KNOWLEDGE thoroughly decentralized.
-A great deal of knowledge may well have been lost.
-It is possible only the Inner circle know about the tunnel now.
-Inquisition archives include electronic media files with all sorts of file footage of the Command Crew.
-OWL has similar files on a broader range of topics depicting a broader range of characters.
-The new Inquisitor Board and Adjutant will have an opportunity to inspect all those files.
-They will view the information and approach the experience without the Inquisitions indoctrinated POV.
-This information is very likely to be disseminated more broadly than it had been under the Inquisition of old.
-There is a chance that the experience of viewing the "Angels" and "Archangels" will be disseminated MUCH more thoroughly indeed.

What we may conclude:
It follows then that the Command Crew may be discredited in the eyes of those that will have viewed the file footage just as Clyntahn was made to understand the Truth. It also follows that should they need to get Father Paityr into the secret room, they now have an access route.

Agree with what we know, but there is some chance the location and method of accessing the secret files may be among the lost knowledge.

What you conclude is possible, of course, but I don't think it is likely. Anything the Command Crew left for the Church is probably highly vetted and designed to reinforce the myth; it certainly didn't disturb Clyntahn's worldview.

Unless you positively want to activate the Key, Father Paityr is the last person you want in the secret chapel. (We don't know, but I suspect that there may be a genetic lock built into those hand-prints so that only a Wyllsyn can operate it.) The operating instructions say that help will be given, but not that it will be under the caller's control. If there is anything (semi) sentient waiting anywhere, using the Key is likely to activate it.

Randomiser wrote:Agree with what we know, but there is some chance the location and method of accessing the secret files may be among the lost knowledge.

What you conclude is possible, of course, but I don't think it is likely. Anything the Command Crew left for the Church is probably highly vetted and designed to reinforce the myth; it certainly didn't disturb Clyntahn's worldview.

Unless you positively want to activate the Key, Father Paityr is the last person you want in the secret chapel. (We don't know, but I suspect that there may be a genetic lock built into those hand-prints so that only a Wyllsyn can operate it.) The operating instructions say that help will be given, but not that it will be under the caller's control. If there is anything (semi) sentient waiting anywhere, using the Key is likely to activate it.

That these possibilities are on the menu is enough. RFC will use the full menu to craft another wonderful story.

My point wasn't that the Temple held file footage to cause the command Crew to be discredited. It was that the existing file footage in the Temple would corroborate additional files OWL would make available just as he/it did for Clyntahn. It wasn't the temple files that swayed, Clyntahn, but the Temple files' corroborating influence convinced Clyntahn that OWLs file footage was accurate and true. That corroboration wouldn't be definitive and so each viewer had to use faith to help him/her choose, just as Clyntahn did in the end.

Using the Key may not be in the cards, but the secret entrance serves to enable its use should RFC choose to tell the story that way.

Realize that we the reader now have information (that there are videos in the temple) that the inner circle do not. Clinton did not communicate that he had seen Langhorn before....