spoiler:the Church

Absolutely loved the book. The ending was great. However I was disappointed that in reforming the church they kept the Punishent in place. After so many people died so brutally, I was hoping. They would have done away with it.

DianeSilva wrote:Absolutely loved the book. The ending was great. However I was disappointed that in reforming the church they kept the Punishent in place. After so many people died so brutally, I was hoping. They would have done away with it.

I think the point for the next set of books is that Duchairn is unwilling to get rid of anything with a Holy Writ basis. The Punishment is scriptural within the Writ - it's specified in The Book of Schuler. So all he can do is hedge its use around with so many restrictions, it will hopefully never be used again.

I'd say that the only way the COGA can repudiate the Punishment is if either the Thing Under The Basement or The Thing In The Stone turns out to be a VR recording of Schuler's personality - and he proclaims that he never wrote the Book that bears his name.

I will say that I do think the Stone is a VR Schuler - the references to its massive amount of data suggest that it's something like a personality recording. The help he's left for his descendants isn't the ability to send down Rakuri - it's himself, and his knowledge of how to use all the tech in the Temple and the Orbital Platforms, plus his ability to judge what kind of help they really need.

And, maybe, whether it's time to use his 'Archangel' status to let technology back into Safehold.

Bluesqueak wrote:

DianeSilva wrote:Absolutely loved the book. The ending was great. However I was disappointed that in reforming the church they kept the Punishent in place. After so many people died so brutally, I was hoping. They would have done away with it.

I think the point for the next set of books is that Duchairn is unwilling to get rid of anything with a Holy Writ basis. The Punishment is scriptural within the Writ - it's specified in The Book of Schuler. So all he can do is hedge its use around with so many restrictions, it will hopefully never be used again.

I'd say that the only way the COGA can repudiate the Punishment is if either the Thing Under The Basement or The Thing In The Stone turns out to be a VR recording of Schuler's personality - and he proclaims that he never wrote the Book that bears his name.

I will say that I do think the Stone is a VR Schuler - the references to its massive amount of data suggest that it's something like a personality recording. The help he's left for his descendants isn't the ability to send down Rakuri - it's himself, and his knowledge of how to use all the tech in the Temple and the Orbital Platforms, plus his ability to judge what kind of help they really need.

And, maybe, whether it's time to use his 'Archangel' status to let technology back into Safehold.

This seems like an optimistic view of Schueler... more like Father Paityr's hologram than the book that bears his name. But is the "optimistic" view of Schueler willing to relinquish the proscriptions or will he hold them fast and try to turn back the clock?

Don

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n7axw wrote:This seems like an optimistic view of Schueler... more like Father Paityr's hologram than the book that bears his name. But is the "optimistic" view of Schueler willing to relinquish the proscriptions or will he hold them fast and try to turn back the clock?

Don
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Let's consider what we learned from seijin Kohdy, Don.

-Kohdy learned that perhaps Chirhiro, not Langhorne triggered the Rakurai on Alexandria.

-That Shan-wei perhaps was NOT the one who betrayed "God's Plan"

-That Kohdy trusted Shueler's integrity more than any other angelic impersonator.

That leads me to ask why did Shueler make the Sone? I agree that it holds a copy of his personality. Now, if Shueler killed Kohdy, why did he make that personality copy and the message to his offspring?

If Sheuler did NOT kill Kohdy, then we may speculate that Sheuler suspected Chihiro had his own agenda.

My gut tells me the second is more true. That opens the possibility of having 2 virtual personalities of the command crew arguing in the next story arc. Chihiro will awaken as part of what Sheuler warned would happen. Shueler will manifest from the Stone. The two of them would argue about the best course going forward given the mess their CoGA has made of either the original plan or Langhorne's. Toss in Merlin, the CoC and the Reformists and the story arc will be interesting indeed.

THAT would be something to read about!

...Could it be Khody in the Stone?
Possible reasoning.
Schueler wanted a warrior loyal to him to deploy against Chihiro's sub-faction, a warrior he could replicate, so he does a brain-upload on Khody, but something went wrong due to the "reawakened memories" and Khody died in the process.
Schueler intended to make multiple PICAs for his Khodys in order to have a literally superhuman army to enforce the Proscriptions but he died before he could do more than the most basic research on how to duplicate PICAs, leaving Khody "sleeping" in the Stone, awaiting the day when he will be downloaded into a new body ready to serve the Church.

As for why RFC might be tempted to do this? Well, we've heard so much about him in the first arc that it seems possible that RFC was setting the stage for his appearance. Imagine Cody Cortazar with his full memories (Pre- and post-Ark)... how would he react and who would he decide to behold himself to?

Probability rating - somewhere between minimal and Jeremy Corbyn leading Labour to a perfect victory by winning every single seat in the next UK General Election.

translation for Americans: Trump appointing a Clinton to the Supreme Court - AND getting it approved by the Senate

Michael Everett wrote:
< snip >

Probability rating - somewhere between minimal and Jeremy Corbyn leading Labour to a perfect victory by winning every single seat in the next UK General Election.

Louis R wrote:translation for Americans: Trump appointing a Clinton to the Supreme Court - AND getting it approved by the Senate

Actually, that would be at least 2 orders of magnitude more likely than my version.
A better translation would be Trump appointing both Bill and Hillary to the Supreme Court with a supermajority (90%+) vote in both houses.