Bluesqueak wrote:It does seem slightly odd that an Archangel manages to die 600 miles outside Zion, conveniently far from the Temple sensors, when the War Against The Fallen is theoretically over - at least, no one mentioned 'fell in battle' in the Cathedral scenelet.
We don't actually know when and where Schueler shuffled off this mortal coil. The cathedral in the Episcopate named after him was built to house the tomb where his body was interred, but isn't necessarily the place where he expired.
I was fascinated by the existence of his tomb. We know the Angels and Archangels had the cover story of being pure spirits who were given bodies by God when they were assigned to prepare Safehold for human habitation, and they explicitly stated those bodies would wear out and that they would appear to age, though more slowly than the mortals they interacted with. I wondered precisely how their deaths would be handled. Would they die in front of the colonists, or retire elsewhere when death approached and not expire in public?
The Feast of Schueler commemorated that the day in which Schueler's soul returned to God, leaving behind the "worn out mortal body which had housed his soul for so long." That gives the impression the body was that of an old man.
We don't know how old Schueler was when he became part of the command crew for Operation Ark. We do know that preparing Safehold for the colonists to be awakened took 40 years. We don't really know how long after the colonists were awakened that the OBS attack on the Alexandria Enclave took place, followed by Kau Yung's retaliatory strike on Langhorne's HQ. We know courtesy of Kohdy's diary that the War Against the Fallen didn't break out till two years after the destruction of Langhorne's HQ, and that it lasted about 6 years. How old was Schueler when he was involved in the War Against the Fallen? How much longer did he live after that conflict was concluded? (And what all was he doing after that?)
Schueler is the first Archangel we have heard about returning to God and leaving a mortal body behind, interred in a tomb with a church raised over it to house the tomb.
I do have to wonder about the other Archangels, and precisely how their departure was handled. (I am especially curious about Chihiro.)
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Dennis