DMcCunney wrote:There are folks here who think it's a sneaky IC trick, but I can't agree. The risks are simply too great.... their knowledge of events on Safehold in the earliest days is mostly what was in Commodore Pei's downloads to Nimue, and there are gaps in that knowledge.
Exactly. The one thing Merlin has held to from the very beginning is to
never ever lie, because when the time comes to undo the masquerade in full, he (and by extension the IC)
must be trustworthy. In fact, their trustworthiness must be a legend to rival that of the Archangels'.
In particular, the War Against the Fallen and Chihiro taking over in its wake did not begin till two years after Kau Yung nuked Langhorne's HQ...
Hold on there, pardner. The War didn't begin
in earnest for two years, but that was
not because it wasn't activated. I had to go back and read the first chapters of
OAR to realize that. The "angel" visits Lakeview and starts prepping them for the War (the first Safehold had ever known), giving them the party line that "Archangel Shan-Wei has rebelled against God"... and
then Kau-Yung's nuke goes off.
We as readers don't have much more info than the IC, but we do have that. And it implies that the War was
already on. That's why Kau-Yung moved
immediately to assassinate Langhorne's Council in retaliation. With both command centers turned to mushroom clouds, the surviving crew members had to figure out who was where and on what side.
That's what those two years were about.
We get the impression Schueler was his second-in-command, and was the one who picked up on clues and warned Chihiro something was going on before the War Against the Fallen began.
Schueler eventually became his second, yes, but how did that happen? What do we know of Androcles Schueler, the man behind the Archangel?
But Schueler's brief as an Archangel was Justice
Which is exceedingly useful in justifying the Vision in the Key as well as the Visitation and the Testimony. Schueler seeks justice for Chihiro's lies, and justice for the slandering of Shan-Wei.
Kohdy's diary talks about the Fallen who defeated him claiming Chihiro had been altering Langhorne's Plan... [o]ne thing we don't know is whether he actually got to speak to Schueler before he was killed, and what Schueler's reaction was.
One reaction was
certainly "Chihiro will kill anyone, including his allies, to impose his plans. I had best step carefully." Another thing we don't yet know was the Fallen's agenda. Whay were their motivations, and what would they have done if they'd won?
Remember that while "Shan-Wei has fallen" was promulgated before the nuke, the entire concept and definition of "The Fallen" was set
by Chihiro. Now given what happened to Kohdy, what do you think his definition was? "Shan-Wei's collaborators"? Or "Anyone who voices dissent from my plans"?
(The Fallen who told Kohdy Chihiro was was modifying Langhorne's plan gives the impression they thought Chihiro was going too far, and wanted to return to what Langhorne wanted.)
Exactly. I'm certain the War, which began as a purge of the Alexandrians, became a purge of
all dissent whether they signed onto the Langhorne Plan or not. There were almost certainly more than one set of goals espoused by "the Fallen" (aka the Resistance).
If Chihiro outright lied in his book, everything everyone thought they knew about Safehold history is wrong.
Wrong? No. Most of it's probably still
right, in fact: lies are best hidden within truth. But everything about the entirety of the scriptures of Safehold -- Holy Writ, Commentaries, and Testimonies alike -- must now be suspect. Chihiro could have deleted or changed whatever he pleased.
An interesting question is whether he will also state that Chihiro was the principal author of the Writ, working under Langhorne's direction, and that the Books of other Archangels were at least edited by Chihiro if not actually written by him, so everything in the Writ becomes suspect.
I think that was already partially implied. Chihiro's original spiritual brief was history and recordkeeping; he was the Chief Scribe of the Archangels. Saying that he was the one to take down the words of the other Archangels would fit perfectly into the mythos; and then all one has to say is that he changed things behind the other Archangels' backs.
catfishncod wrote:Shan-Wei & Co. will be rehabilitated as Archangels whose spheres were beyond humanity’s proper knowledge at Creation. Shan-Wei, for instance, can be described more accurately, as God’s handmaiden in crafting Safehold (I.e., Chief terraformer). Proctor is still Archangel of forbidden knowledge; but in this telling, he knows that and obeys “God’s Will” by removing to Alexandria.
The notion that Shan Wei was
not the Mother of Lies and source of evil will be mind-boggling to those who hear it.
It will be equivalent to an authority that can't simply be dismissed out of hand claiming the Bible got it
wrong, Satan was
notthe great enemy of God end embodiment of evil, another angel was the true bad guy, and Satan got blamed for stuff he didn't do.
Look up the Jewish concept of Satan as "adversary" -- i.e., prosecuting attorney, officer of the court, advocate of the counterproposition. Also the Gnostic concept of the Demiurge. And there are direct verses in the Quran contradicting Christian claims to Jesus' divinity, while still supporting his prophethood and even most of the prophecies about him. There's precedent, and Scheuler might use it.
The notion of Proctor as guardian of forbidden knowledge is a neat one. It opens the possibility that there was knowledge humanity simply wasn't ready for, and it wasn't permanently forbidden - it was just being withheld till humanity had grown and matured enough to be capable of properly understanding and using it.
Exactly. The Church teaches that they await the Archangels' return and that the Archangels will restore the Fallen world to a righteous state. If Shan-wei didn't fall, then she and the Alexandrians are again Archangels, and
their messages can be construed as necessary for restoring the world.
And what was Shan-wei's strongest belief? That the colonists not lose their free will, and their ability to
choose whether to stay hidden or face the Gbaba once more. Langhorne's faction, in their PTSD-addled minds, tried to decide for all humanity and for all time. One way to present it would be to describe a Heavenly Debate (i.e., the Administrative Council), "set up by God" as a sort of passion-play about obedience vs. free will, with neither side completely right or wrong. Like this:
12 For God said unto the Archangel Langhorne, "This world of Safehold is for the protection of all; and thus do I give unto thee the charge of protecting My Holy Law; for it shall be a guide and protection for all the people."
13 But then God said unto the Archangel Shan-Wei, "My children are also made in My Image, and even as I have created you and you have created Safehold in My Name, so too shall they seek to create."
14 And God said, "Therefore their minds too are holy, and each must seek their own path to Me. Into your charge I give the protection of choice, and of free will, to find new ways to glorify My name."
15 Then Langhorne said, "Thy ways of choice may lead men and women astray, O Shan-Wei; and some would choose to disobey the Holy Law. I would forbid these choices, to keep God's people protected."
16 And Shan-Wei said to Langhorne, "Nay; for God is greater than even Archangels, and it is He who created mortals and angels alike. There is more in Heaven and Safehold, O Langhorne, than is dreamt of in your philosophy."
17 And God said to Langhorne, "Remember that though My Law is in your keeping, Shan-Wei is the brightest of My Archangels. The Laws and Proscriptions are in your care, for the time of your bodies, and for a time beyond, for the protection of My People.
18 But after that will come another age, and the time of Shan-Wei's light will also come."
19 And Langhorne and Shan-Wei submitted to the Will of God, and were content for a time.
20 But Langhorne and Shan-Wei continued to struggle to understand that Will; and there were many debates between them, according to the Plan of God's Holy Council.
21 Then came Chihiro, master of words and maker of mischief, the Trickster....And one of the questions, given Chihiro stirring the pot after Langhorne died, was how much of what Safehold turned into by the time Nimue awoke in her PICA was the result of the Chihiro Plan.
That's been hanging over us from the beginning, though it wasn't immediately clear that it was Chihiro in the driver's seat. The Church of God Awaiting as we know it wasn't either Shan-Wei's Plan A or Langhorne's Plan B, but Chihiro's Plan C: some of which he might have planned beforehand, but much of which must have been cut-and-paste in response to the events of the War whose aims were to purge all adherents of Plan A and Plan B.
I can't quite see Schueler spilling the beans about where the Adams and Eves really came from and what the Archangels really were. That would simply be too traumatic for all concerned.
Never mind traumatic; it ruins "Archangel" Schueler's authority to say "verily I say unto you" and all that. But you can reveal quite a lot without breaking the Masquerade: such as there being dissent before the War within the general confines of "God's Plan" aka the goal of safeguarding humanity; that the "Fallen" were benign guardians of forbidden knowledge; and that there might be a purpose to such forbidden knowledge beyond tempting fallible humans.
What version of the Plan will Schueler present and advocate? It clearly isn't Chihiro's Plan C. Was he for Langhorne's Plan B? Also unlikely, for he says Shan-Wei didn't Fall. And it can't be the original Plan A, because that requires breaking the Masquerade entirely, and that simply can't be done all in one go. So it's going to be somewhere between Plans A and B... hopefully, some interpretation that lets progress become part of the Divine Plan for Safehold, and allows the IC more freedom in pushing towards enacting the original mission: not just evading, but
beating the Gbaba.
The IC are the heirs of the Plan A faction. The Plan B faction has either been exterminated, or converted to Plan C by Chihiro's wars and lies; the CoGA are the unwitting heirs of the Plan C faction. And now we have Schueler the wild card. Does he have a Plan D? And is it merely the dead hand of his recordings moving.... or is a live AI still able to make new moves?
