[SPOILERS] Lost Testament of Schueler

Personally, I think Chihiro caused the entire murderous disasters

He either pushed Langhorne into the kinetic strike, or did it himself
Then set Kau-Yung up to nuke, or be patsy for nuking the command
This left only Schueler and Chihiro

What if Schueler is the one who knew of Nimue?
and avoided the fatal nuked meeting

And a weird thought occurred to me as to WHY Chihiro might have done it:

In TFT especially, but other books to, it's remarked several times as to WHY the heck were people assigned to the awful settlement of North Harchong?

Could it be that some lingering nationalist or racist thing, be it real or Chihiro's paranoia, made him think his people had been double crossed and given a bad landing settlement deliberately, and that led him to undertake a coup?

Note that CHESHIRE an obviously British name, is one of North Harchong's states
And, Yu-kwau was actually "New york" and was seized violently very early in history by North harchong when such actions should have been prohibited by the Church!

SilverbladeTE wrote:In TFT especially, but other books to, it's remarked several times as to WHY the heck were people assigned to the awful settlement of North Harchong?

They mentioned at one point that China, although a single province on one member world, still had enough influence to get most of its contribution to Operation Ark assigned to one ship and settled in the same area. There was nothing wrong with the land itself. Harchong started out with the same social system and knowledge base as other human settlements. For some reason they backslid. I don't recall the reason for that being described in detail, but they wound up with a deeply corrupt ruling class who may have forced people into servitude simply as a way of breaking their will and putting them in their place.

Unfortunately we're going to have to wait another year at least, probably more like summer of 2020, to find out who delivered that Testimony - Schueler's ghost or one of Owl's remotes - and what's in it. It'll probably be the first or second scene in the next book, where the entire Inner Circle is discussing the matter.

My own feeling is that it probably wasn't them. Even if their backs were against the wall I can't see them going the impersonate-a-god route. Those Schueler recordings (the accessible ones at least) in the Key had a similar tenor to the visitation. He was saying something about how this was not the world they had intended to make, or words to that effect. And it does seem he passed down a heads up through his descendants, the Wylsynn family, to be ready for some kind of Return.

Paityr Wylsynn may end up going to Zion in the wake of this. Who knows? The new Testimony may even contain somewhere the password to unlock the Key, which will then give instructions to whichever one of Schueler's bloodline has possession of it.

SilverbladeTE wrote:In TFT especially, but other books to, it's remarked several times as to WHY the heck were people assigned to the awful settlement of North Harchong?

Could it be that some lingering nationalist or racist thing, be it real or Chihiro's paranoia, made him think his people had been double crossed and given a bad landing settlement deliberately, and that led him to undertake a coup?

Note that CHESHIRE an obviously British name, is one of North Harchong's states
And, Yu-kwau was actually "New york" and was seized violently very early in history by North harchong when such actions should have been prohibited by the Church!

I recall a forum post from RFC that had it that Harchong's expansion (specifically into South Harchong, at least) was a part of the War Against the Fallen or its aftermath. So it wasn't part of the original plan and it either was something the surviving "Archangels" had to accept as part of their war needs or something the Church supported for the same reason or was not able to resist.

As to why settle in North Harchong - a lot of Safehold is cold. If you're not willing to settle any part of northern Haven, you'd not have most of Siddarmark, the Border States, or much of the Temple Lands either. And you'd leave the Raven Lands and much of Chisholm and Trellheim empty on similar grounds. It's easier in places near water that isn't Hsing-Wu's Passage, but that's no great help for most of that chunk of Haven.

Still, most of the population in North Harchong is still apparently in the coastal or southern portions of it, and that's still a vast amount of land. Even inland portions could make for very good living, when you can combine it with human company not out to dehumanize you. (Would any of you not want to live and raise a family in the Chynduk Valley?)

As to why there is even the thin settlement there is in the coldest, most northern bits of North Harchong - well, that may be a matter of the crappiness humans have inflicted on the warmer parts. If you don't want to be a slave or serf or something far too close to it, you need to get to where no one's going to make you that. Getting somewhere with people unwilling to put up with that crap is likely Plan A, and it's how Greentree Island down south gets populated. But that's quite a trip from North Harchong, so here comes Plan B: getting somewhere without the people able and willing to inflicting serfdom on you, such as among a very, very thin population of reindeer herders in the severe north. Godawfully cold places like Zion get occupied out of religious zeal and its subsidiary effects; godawfully cold places like de Castro or the Raven Lands get occupied to get away from jackasses with power.

Now that South Harchong occupied territory is an attack
to annex Greentree island on the agenda or are they solely interested in recovering the North? Greentree
could certainly be a shakedown exercise for the new fleet
that is being built.

TangoLima wrote:Now that South Harchong occupied territory is an attack
to annex Greentree island on the agenda or are they solely interested in recovering the North? Greentree
could certainly be a shakedown exercise for the new fleet
that is being built.

Speaking of Green Tree Island, when will the ICN build a base there. Claw Island has limited water and resources for a truly capable naval support base. As a coaling and logistics way station, its fine. Green Tree has the population to produce enough food to support a truly large naval base. They need that for any sustained effort against South Harchong. Well maybe not need, but certainly use effectively. Any current operations would have to draw from Boisseau. I find the additional independence of another base on Green Tree Island much more comforting for naval logistics.

A base on Greentree would certainly draw attention away from the North. However I think that an invasion would not turn out well for the new Harchong navy.

TangoLima wrote:A base on Greentree would certainly draw attention away from the North. However I think that an invasion would not turn out well for the new Harchong navy.

Agreed. I suspect that when South Harchong develops a navy, it will be in conjunction with the development of navies in Siddermark and Desnair. None of those nations can stand a navy alone against the ICN. They need each other to distract the ICN from focusing only on one of them.

That's why the Green Tree Island's base is important. It cuts down on logistics for operations against South Harchong when the ICN may have to counter both siddermark and Desnair.

In OAR there is a conversation between Langhorne, Shan-wei and Kau-yung:

'“With all due respect, Administrator Langhorne,” Shan-wei said, “I don’t believe your policy does represent a true consensus. I was a member of the Council myself, if you will recall, as were six of my colleagues on the present Alexandria Board. All of us opposed your policy when you first proposed it.”
Which, Kau-yung thought, split the vote eight-to-seven, two short of the supermajority you needed under the colonial charter to modify the templates, didn’t it, Eric? Of course, you’d already gone ahead and done it, which left you with a teeny-tiny problem. That’s why Shan-wei and the others found themselves arbitrarily removed from the Council, wasn’t it?

Weber, David (2011-05-05). Off Armageddon Reef: A Safehold Novel 1 (Kindle Locations 578-583). Pan Macmillan UK. Kindle Edition.

It follows:

1. There was a colonial charter that Langhorne was legally obliged to follow.

2. There was an original set of mental templates imprinted on the colonists that could only be altered with approval by a supermajority of the council..

3. Langhorne violated the charter by changing the templates without first asking the council.

4. Langhorne violated the charter by expelling council members when he did not have the supermajority required by the charter to ratify his actions.

5. Langhorne violated the charter by using force to suppress opposition by the unlawfully expelled council members.

FriarBob wrote:

evilauthor wrote:Given the name "Operation Androcles", given that it was Narhman's operation and that Cayleb authorized it, given that he did so exactly one scene earlier, and given the fact that Androcles was Schueler's first name... given all that, is there ANY realistic chance this isn't a semi-fraud perpetrated by the Inner Circle?

There's confusion here, as I recall Schueler being identified in an earlier volume as Frederik Schueler, not Androcles Schueler. RFC will have to comment on which should be considered canonical and which a typo.
_______
Dennis

DMcCunney wrote:<SNIP>
There's confusion here, as I recall Schueler being identified in an earlier volume as Frederik Schueler, not Androcles Schueler. RFC will have to comment on which should be considered canonical and which a typo.
_______
Dennis

Fredrick is Androcles’ twin brother perhaps???...