[SPOILERS] Lost Testament of Schueler

ecortez wrote:I'm inclined to think the mention of Operation Androcles before the Archangel visitation was just a tease to make you think Nahrmahn and Owl might've been behind it. This is so counter to the way the Inner Circle has operated from the beginning that it's hard to believe they'd just chuck their principles out the window. Especially when it seemed like they'd dodged the bullet and now had plenty of time to work with.

The Archangel's planned return is quite a strange thing by itself... Firstly, it is NOT part of Church doctrine, despite Church being named "Church of the God Awaiting". Awaiting what? The Archangel's return would be a simplest explanation, but it is not a part of Church doctrine at all. Schueller left a warning to his descendants by quite secret means, obviously not for general public to know.

Then there is a pretty strange thing about the whole War against the Fallen being basically erased out of Safehold history (even the Brotherhood of Saint Zherneau didnt manage to save this knowledge!) without any apparent reason. After all, Archangels won. Why they should erase their own sucsess againt the "forces of evil"? They even used Rakurai to destroy the Saint Khody tomb as part of said campaign - obviously quite a dangerous trick to perform.

Seems like Archangels by the end of WAF were pretty desperate to hide their long-range goals & plans. Which led to a question: what exactly the goal of their Return? If it was supposed to be just a check-up on planet development, then why so much secrecy? Or maybe... they returned to actually stay, this time as immortal gods, the obedience to whom is heavily imprinted into all planetary population?

Dilandu wrote:SNIP

I must remind again: there is a obvious difference between Langhorne staff and Chichiro staff. The War against the Fallen was not between Shain-Wei and Langhorne fraction, but between Langhorne former loyalists (including much of former military, which was stated to be loyal to old administration) and Chichiro faction.

I thought that they [military Fallen] were described as loyal to Pei-Shan wei specifically - so not exactly Langhorne loyalists - maybe just going along grudgingly with the plan?

Dilandu wrote:Then there is a pretty strange thing about the whole War against the Fallen being basically erased out of Safehold history (even the Brotherhood of Saint Zherneau didnt manage to save this knowledge!) without any apparent reason. After all, Archangels won. Why they should erase their own sucsess againt the "forces of evil"?

Oh there's a description of the War Against the Fallen in the Holy Writ. Like most of its "historical" accounts though, it's not exactly long on accuracy. Plus of course weapons and other technology are described in supernatural terms which further muddles events.

Merlin and the Brethren are left trying to reconstruct the timeline of what really happened based on the bits and pieces of factual information they have and it's pretty spotty. Maybe if someone had an administrator level access code for the Temple's systems they'd find a complete archive in there somewhere.

isaac_newton wrote:I thought that they [military Fallen] were described as loyal to Pei-Shan wei specifically - so not exactly Langhorne loyalists - maybe just going along grudgingly with the plan?

They were described as loyal to commodore Pei Kay-Yung, not doctor Pei Shan-Wei. And, they were loyal to Langhorne at least in therms of civilian control over military. Lets not forget, Langhorne was the rightful head of colonial administration. All military forces were subordinated to him. And the fact, that commodore didn't even consider starting the military coup, indicated that at least the majority of military were loyal to Langhorne.

It was only after both Rakurai strike against Alexandria, and nuclear attack, in which Langhorne and most of his staff perished, the military became dissatisfied with Chichiro subsequent actions, and starts to plan a military coup.

ecortez wrote:
Oh there's a description of the War Against the Fallen in the Holy Writ. Like most of its "historical" accounts though, it's not exactly long on accuracy. Plus of course weapons and other technology are described in supernatural terms which further muddles events.

.

Thats the strange thing - there is no description in Holy Writ. According to the Writ, the War ended with Alexandria strikes. All the years of subsequent fighting were just erased from history.

Dilandu wrote:I must remind again: there is a obvious difference between Langhorne staff and Chichiro staff. The War against the Fallen was not between Shain-Wei and Langhorne fraction, but between Langhorne former loyalists (including much of former military, which was stated to be loyal to old administration) and Chichiro faction.

I thought Chihiro authored the Proscriptions and was a Langhorne ally. That's pretty much true of all the Archangels still venerated by the Church. The rest (those who were against him) are cast as villains. They haven't said, I don't think, who took leadership of the insurgency after Alexandria was destroyed. Both Shan-Wei and Langhorne were dead before the war started but there's still a lot we don't know.

Wasn't the military mostly loyal to Kau-Yung though? Isn't that one of the reasons the administrators had to create the seijins? People like Khody who had military training but didn't remember it, who could become their fighting force against the remaining Federation troops who still had their memories intact?

It did seem a little excessive that they used an orbital strike just to take out the Sisters of Saint Khody. Someone really didn't like them!

Dilandu wrote:Thats the strange thing - there is no description in Holy Writ. According to the Writ, the War ended with Alexandria strikes. All the years of subsequent fighting were just erased from history.

They talk about the War Against the Fallen many times. No one would have any clue what that was if the Writ didn't mention it. I remember one passage quoted early on in the series (don't ask me to find it though) where Langhorne was standing on a mountainside overlooking a battlefield where warriors "loyal to God" had clashed with Shan-Wei's minions and many of them had fallen.

History seems to have been juggled about so that the Rakurai strikes came at the end of the war. Langhorne finally and with great regret unleashed the ultimate power at his command to bring an end to the conflict. After which the treacherous Kau-Yung took his revenge. In reality these two events were the trigger for the war. They were Pearl Harbor rather than Hiroshima, as the Writ presented them. There was no pre-Rakurai fighting. Shan-Wei's side simply refused to recognize Langhorne's authority and wasn't obeying him.

ecortez wrote:
I thought Chihiro authored the Proscriptions and was a Langhorne ally.

He was an ally, but he wasnt the designated colonial administrator. Lets not forget, Langhorne took control over the whole project by direct decision of Operation Ark chief staff, still in Solar System. He was the legitimate leader, to whom the military were loyal as to the last remaining representative of TF civilian government.

Chichiro was only the sucsessor, and probably not even the designated one - just merely the senior among the survivors. There weren't the same kind of loyality to him, as military have to Langhorne.

And, according to Seijin Khody diary, the rebellous military at least suspected, that Chichiro was behind the Alexandria strike - either circumventing or deceiving Langhorne ("Chichiro who lied", remember? ). For them, he was a clear usurper, quite probably - criminal. And let's not forget, that they might NOT know about Commodore nuke. They may suspect that it was CHICHIRO's nuke detonated to get rid of both Langhorne and commodore. If Chichiro was behind Alexandria strike, its actually seems pretty plausible.

Dilandu wrote:The Archangel's planned return is quite a strange thing by itself... Firstly, it is NOT part of Church doctrine, despite Church being named "Church of the God Awaiting". Awaiting what? The Archangel's return would be a simplest explanation, but it is not a part of Church doctrine at all. Schueller left a warning to his descendants by quite secret means, obviously not for general public to know.

I thought that the "Awaiting" part refered to the word preceeding, in short, it is awaiting God's appearance on Safehold and that it was sort of implied that he wouldn't be appearing until the entire world was ready for him to appear.

Dilandu wrote:

ecortez wrote:
I thought Chihiro authored the Proscriptions and was a Langhorne ally.

He was an ally, but he wasnt the designated colonial administrator. Lets not forget, Langhorne took control over the whole project by direct decision of Operation Ark chief staff, still in Solar System. He was the legitimate leader, to whom the military were loyal as to the last remaining representative of TF civilian government.

Chichiro was only the sucsessor, and probably not even the designated one - just merely the senior among the survivors. There weren't the same kind of loyality to him, as military have to Langhorne.

And, according to Seijin Khody diary, the rebellous military at least suspected, that Chichiro was behind the Alexandria strike - either circumventing or deceiving Langhorne ("Chichiro who lied", remember? ). For them, he was a clear usurper, quite probably - criminal. And let's not forget, that they might NOT know about Commodore nuke. They may suspect that it was CHICHIRO's nuke detonated to get rid of both Langhorne and commodore. If Chichiro was behind Alexandria strike, its actually seems pretty plausible.

I've always wondered if Chihiro was the nameless 'lesser Angel' who comes to Lakeview in Off Armageddon Reef. As you say, simply the surviving senior.

The second visit to Lakeview also takes place in the middle of the night, which does rather imply someone's high tailing it out of Dodge until the dust settles - and making sure they have a support base amongst the colonists.