[SPOILERS] Re: Ruhsyl Thairis

I have sort of a future plot used for our dearly departed friend, the (former) Duke of Eastshare rather than rotting away in cryo, only to be returned, displaced in time and robbed of his identity.

What would happen if, for some reason like information found in an ancient archival stash or something, it turned out that it was absolutely NECESSARY to use the Key of Schueler? (What that reason would be, I don’t know.). One of the criteria set is that the person who uses it has to be a BELIEVER. THAT is something that is totally contradictory to being on the Inner Circle.

OTOH, you hav an honorable and beloved believer on ice. Payter has him woken up, shows him the Vision of Schueler, explains that he can’t use it because his belief in the Church has been shaken and gives the Key to Ruhsyl saying “Do as your conscience tells you.” A whiff of knock-out gas and he wakes up in a bed in an Inn in the Temple Lands, maybe with a little cosmetic surgery to give him a new identity.

Thoughts? Alternative ideas?

PlaysWithBees wrote:Thoughts?

This thread should have a spoiler tag in the title since it concerns an event from a snippet.

As I've stated before, I think there is a link between the Key and the promise of "divine intervention" if any demons should appear. The surviving "Archangels" were forced to adapt to the changing circumstances of Pei Kau-yung's pocket nuke. They didn't have Bedard's psychological expertise, which explains why the church became so top heavy and why the inquisition became so powerful. They were also forced to create the Seijins as a type of special forces. But the one thing they still had to worry was if they missed some of the Fallen and their "mortal" allies, especially after it is clear now that at least one of their Seijin could be corrupted by doubts and memories of their previous live. So my theory is that the key was designed to deal with whatever threats they could conceive up, based upon the threats they already faced. But they had no way to know about Nimue and her cave nor could they have guessed that Jeremy Knowles would have left a diary that contradicted the testimonies. Indeed, his instruction to only open the vault 450 years later was probably the result of the rigorousness with which the Church purged anything that contradicted the party line. Knowles hoped to avoid having his diary turned over to the Church and his name besmirched as a heretic.

My thoughts on Eastshare were simpler.

Let's face it, there are going to be people on Safehold who couldn't accept the truth about the archangels if Eric Langhorne personally confessed to them. Assuming the inner circle eventually comes up with a way around the Rakurai, what happens to those people?

If we've gotten to that point in the story, presumably we're either post-Return of the Archangels or Merlin and company are no longer concerned about what they might do, so resettling the true believers someplace where they don't have to have dealings with the foul defilers of the Prohibitions isn't the safety concern it might be pre-Return. (Since having a group of faithful followers already stashed someplace safe makes it easier for who/whatever returns to play kill-em-all with everyone else.)

Move Eastshare's cryo capsule there, thaw him out, and give him a starting stake. I'd suggest a briefing on what he slept through, but I don't think he'd believe anything the inner circle told him. They might be able to talk one of the believers into providing a history lesson, though. The guy's got the leadership skills and experience ruling a duchy to help get the believers well established.

thanatos wrote:As I've stated before, I think there is a link between the Key and the promise of "divine intervention" if any demons should appear. The surviving "Archangels" were forced to adapt to the changing circumstances of Pei Kau-yung's pocket nuke. They didn't have Bedard's psychological expertise, which explains why the church became so top heavy and why the inquisition became so powerful. They were also forced to create the Seijins as a type of special forces. But the one thing they still had to worry was if they missed some of the Fallen and their "mortal" allies, especially after it is clear now that at least one of their Seijin could be corrupted by doubts and memories of their previous live. So my theory is that the key was designed to deal with whatever threats they could conceive up, based upon the threats they already faced. But they had no way to know about Nimue and her cave nor could they have guessed that Jeremy Knowles would have left a diary that contradicted the testimonies. Indeed, his instruction to only open the vault 450 years later was probably the result of the rigorousness with which the Church purged anything that contradicted the party line. Knowles hoped to avoid having his diary turned over to the Church and his name besmirched as a heretic.

But they did conceive that the Fallen and their bootleg industrial units might try to make munitions that could take out the Rakurai platforms so built defenses for them accordingly. Any weapon that could penetrate those defenses would require so much infrastructure and lead time that orbital observation is bound to spot the build up and the Rakurai would take care of the rest.

Which is precisely Merlin's problem. There's a passage in At The Sign of Triumph that explicitly spells this out. Given 4 or 5 years of open Federation tech use (ie, no need to hide anything), Merlin would not only be able to take out the Rakurai platforms, he'd be able to build enough military force to laugh off whatever the "returning Archangels" might be able to bring to bear.

And there's the rub. He CAN'T use Federation tech openly because he'd get bombed by the Rakurai before he could get far enough to build something that can take it out. Which is why he's using his current strategy of spreading the industrial revolution as far and wide as possible.

Julia Minor wrote:My thoughts on Eastshare were simpler.

Let's face it, there are going to be people on Safehold who couldn't accept the truth about the archangels if Eric Langhorne personally confessed to them. Assuming the inner circle eventually comes up with a way around the Rakurai, what happens to those people?

It was bound to happen sooner or later that they were going to open their mouths to someone who just couldn't accept it. On one hand they've been bringing people into their little conspiracy for the last ten years or so. On the other hand, they waited until the fighting was over to start approaching those they had...concerns about (Did anyone else get shivers at the idea of Seamount with FedTech?).

Long term, assuming Marlin and friends manage to outright break the Writ, those who refuse to adapt will become increasingly irrelevant in the world. Assuming they continue to exist, well, there are real-world examples in the some Mennonite and (especially) the Amish.

Now, I can't see Merlin and Friends embracing any sort of "kill them, God shall know His own" type of action towards those who retain their faith in Langhorne and the Archangels (whatever replaces the CoGA might, if it's more in the mold of Clyntahn than Duchairn, it's been mentioned a time or two how intolerant humans can be in the name of God). On the other hand, the revelation could be traumatic, widespread, and profound enough that no splinter group has the opportunity to coalesce. I think that's pretty darn unlikely, but it probably isn't impossible.