Probably a dumb suggestion/idea but ...

...I have to float it anyway.

We have textev that it's possible to have virtual personalities run at faster speed ("hyper-heuristic") compressing time to get research results faster ... and we know that VP's can't run for extended amounts of time, either compressed or normal because of the boredom factor ...

it occured to me it could, and should be possible to run a VR at reduced speed, or even greatly reduced speed to let the world pass by faster ... and by removing the speed control fromthe personality within, it is theoretically possible to place a VP in "suspended animation" until a command sequence is delivered to restore normal functionality.

So here's two things I've been considering:

- The "Archangel Return" could be a command activated (or timer activated) VR system connected to a a technological system ... and even if the command crew didn't have PICA's, just an humanoid android in a monk's habit with a mask and a cowl, remotely controlled by a VP (directly or via SNARC) could be a convincing or viable way to exert control.

- The system below the temple is a VR with a personality in suspension (most likely then Schueler, I'm still not sold on the retcon, I feel Androcles and Frederick Schueler are not the same person, but I can't put my finger on why) that's command activated and has the keys to all the temple's defense system, including the OBS .... and I also highly suspect that the temple is a cover for the Hamilcar or a smaller scale ship for 'remaining faithful' to depart in after which the OBS nukes the world.

OK there's my theories, I got my target pasted on me, ready to be shot to pieces!

These ideas have been brought up in a few formats over the last few years. I didn't go thread hunting but here is what I vaguely recall....

The Hamilcar is most likely NOT under the temple. I believe the general consensus of the group mind was that any spaceship of the Hamilcar's given operation specialty would not be designed to be able to be on a planet. The physics are just against it. Obvious the MWW can do some handwavium or declare that the Hamilcar could withstand entry and exit into a planetary gravity well but he doesn't generally make arbitrary decisions like that.

It's been debated who/what could be under the temple a few times. Some advocated for a PICA or PICA analog as the story and our narrator have stressed that last generation PICAs were not common nor did the fleet have another one squirrelled away. The schematics may have been available to Langhorne and company but we know that OWL and Merlin did not have them. They had to work backward from Merlin to make Nimue.

Merlin has theorized that the temple is indeed a planetary bunker built to an awesome scale, so I sort of wondered what Chiro needed it for. Given the tech available he could have created the temple from different TF tech with it lasting just as long and impervious to anything the Safeholdian people could do it. Or anything nature on Safehold might throw at it.

For all we know Scheuler's VR personality has been in the key running in super speed with a dozen other angel minds creating everything needed to defeat the Gbaba. They'll come out and hand the solution to everyone at the end of the story!

JBNL1972 wrote:...I have to float it anyway.

We have textev that it's possible to have virtual personalities run at faster speed ("hyper-heuristic") compressing time to get research results faster ... and we know that VP's can't run for extended amounts of time, either compressed or normal because of the boredom factor ...

How bored they get depends on what all they have to do. We get the impression the virtual personalities back on Earth as the Gbaba were on the way were anything but bored - they were engaged in frantic research to try to even the odds, as the Gbaba had technological superiority when first encountered by humanity. They might have wished they could execute even faster to give them more time to work. The TF had matched Gbaba capabilities by the time they reached Earth, but faced a crippling disadvantage in numbers. It doesn't matter if your ships are as good as theirs if five to ten more of theirs appear for every one you destroy. (The folks on Safehold, once they are able to resume technological development, must attain clear technological superiority, not simply parity - should they encounter the Gbaba again.)

it occurred to me it could, and should be possible to run a VR at reduced speed, or even greatly reduced speed to let the world pass by faster ... and by removing the speed control fromthe personality within, it is theoretically possible to place a VP in "suspended animation" until a command sequence is delivered to restore normal functionality.

There's no need to reduce the speed at which the virtual personality executes. It can simply go to sleep if there isn't anything pressing to do at the moment and awaken later.

Narhmann and Owl have enough to do that running flat out is the usual state. They have to slow down to communicate with the flesh and blood members of the IC, but hyper-heuristic mode gives them more time to consider the data they are gathering between IC calls, and do various research Merlin never had to to do.

So here's two things I've been considering:

- The "Archangel Return" could be a command activated (or timer activated) VR system connected to a a technological system ... and even if the command crew didn't have PICA's, just an humanoid android in a monk's habit with a mask and a cowl, remotely controlled by a VP (directly or via SNARC) could be a convincing or viable way to exert control.

It's established the command crew didn't have PICAs. They would have been handy during the War Against the Fallen, but plans for making them weren't available. Owl was able to build Nimue's PICA because he had Merlin's to examine and reverse engineer.

I'm not sure the android monk you mention would be doable either, but I don't see a physical avatar as needed. Consider the apparition that appeared in Schuler's cathedral. If they can do that, and control the Temple's systems, I'm sure they can produce a convincing return.

- The system below the temple is a VR with a personality in suspension (most likely then Schueler, I'm still not sold on the retcon, I feel Androcles and Frederick Schueler are not the same person, but I can't put my finger on why) that's command activated and has the keys to all the temple's defense system, including the OBS .... and I also highly suspect that the temple is a cover for the Hamilcar or a smaller scale ship for 'remaining faithful' to depart in after which the OBS nukes the world.

We don't know what is tucked under the Temple, but you can assume a starship won't part of it.

VR units with disembodied Archangel personalities resident strike me as a possibility, but I see no reason for Schueler to be one of them. My money would be on Chihiro.

As for other starships, it's been established that all save Hamilcar were dropped into the local sun. What became of Hamilcar is still up in the air, so to speak. And if one were available, precisely where would the remaining faithful go after the OBS destroys the world? It doesn't sound like there would be enough to establish another colony, and humanity would become extinct. (The IC is betting in its push to industrialize Safehold that no returning Archangel will be crazy enough to do that sort of thing if it does return.)

RFC didn't provide the handy ship diagrams and specs that he did for the Honorverse books, but assume similar scales.

It's a safe bet Hamilcar is huge. It was Langhorne's command ship (and presumably home while enroute and while Safehold was being prepared for the bulk of Langhorne's staff including the other Archangels.) It's also a major industrial node, with facilities to construct pretty much anything needed.

Ships like that don't land on planets, and can't. They are constructed in orbit, and go to orbit at the destination. Stuff that need to get from ship to ground travels by some form of lighter.

OK there's my theories, I got my target pasted on me, ready to be shot to pieces!

See above.
______
Dennis

Thank you for your exhaustive explanations!

I kinda looked at it as if I were one of the Alexandria techies and I wanted to survive what Langhorne was inevitably planning and came up with the slowed-down VR as a means to pass the time ... and the "monk droids" as a means of interacting with people.

JBNL1972 wrote:Thank you for your exhaustive explanations!

You're welcome.

I kinda looked at it as if I were one of the Alexandria techies and I wanted to survive what Langhorne was inevitably planning and came up with the slowed-down VR as a means to pass the time ... and the "monk droids" as a means of interacting with people.

One of the questions is what Shan Wei and company expected.

We know she and Kau Yung were part of a conspiracy against Langhorne, as they knew he would not adhere to Operation Ark's original orders.

Kau Yung was able to stash various gear Merlin would find useful in Nimue's cave, and what was there was in part a matter of what he could remove without Langhorne knowing about it from various ships being discarded and stash in Nimue's cave before they got dumped into the local sun.

Shan Wei retained some gear, like NEATs, in the Alexandria Enclave, along with records of what Safehold really was and where humanity really came from. She used the NEATs to reprogram a few colonists like St. Zhernau and his friends, and stash them elsewhere with orders to keep their heads down. The monastery of St. Zhernau where Merlin was taken by Staynair in OAR has copies of those records, and the senior folks at the abbey are aware of Safehold's real history.

So Kau Yung and Shan Wei did what they could to preserve knowledge for future reference despite Langhorne's goal of suppressing it permanently,but it's clear neither expected the OBS strike that killed Shan Wei and her people and converted the Alexandria Enclave into Armageddon Reef. Their goal seems to have been "stall Langhorne as long as possible and stash stuff elsewhere as much as we can before we finally have to give in and at least appear to comply with his orders."

An analysis run by Owl for Merlin indicates something like 200 discrepancies in the records where colonists were listed as being in a different enclave from the one in which they were originally awakened. Zhernau's folks were originally assigned to the Alexandria Enclave, but the changed records had them in Tellesburg. How Shan Wei managed to massage the records without Langhorne catching it is an unknown, but since Dr. Proctor, the cyberneticist who hacked Nimue's PICA software to permit it to operate beyond the built in 10 day limit and allow Merlin to exist was part of Shan Wei's team, a little discreet hacking seems likely. We do have to wonder what other sleepers Shan Wei might have scattered about. They likely had no lasting effect, but she would think in terms of redundancy.
______
Dennis

It would not be necessary to put the entire ship under the temple... only the computers, which would not be as smart as OWL but would have all sorts of files that might not have been placed in the cave.

Just my 2¢

DMcCunney wrote:

JBNL1972 wrote:...I have to float it anyway.

We have textev that it's possible to have virtual personalities run at faster speed ("hyper-heuristic") compressing time to get research results faster ... and we know that VP's can't run for extended amounts of time, either compressed or normal because of the boredom factor ...

How bored they get depends on what all they have to do. We get the impression the virtual personalities back on Earth as the Gbaba were on the way were anything but bored - they were engaged in frantic research to try to even the odds, as the Gbaba had technological superiority when first encountered by humanity. They might have wished they could execute even faster to give them more time to work. The TF had matched Gbaba capabilities by the time they reached Earth, but faced a crippling disadvantage in numbers. It doesn't matter if your ships are as good as theirs if five to ten more of theirs appear for every one you destroy. (The folks on Safehold, once they are able to resume technological development, must attain clear technological superiority, not simply parity - should they encounter the Gbaba again.)

it occurred to me it could, and should be possible to run a VR at reduced speed, or even greatly reduced speed to let the world pass by faster ... and by removing the speed control fromthe personality within, it is theoretically possible to place a VP in "suspended animation" until a command sequence is delivered to restore normal functionality.

There's no need to reduce the speed at which the virtual personality executes. It can simply go to sleep if there isn't anything pressing to do at the moment and awaken later.

Narhmann and Owl have enough to do that running flat out is the usual state. They have to slow down to communicate with the flesh and blood members of the IC, but hyper-heuristic mode gives them more time to consider the data they are gathering between IC calls, and do various research Merlin never had to to do.

So here's two things I've been considering:

- The "Archangel Return" could be a command activated (or timer activated) VR system connected to a a technological system ... and even if the command crew didn't have PICA's, just an humanoid android in a monk's habit with a mask and a cowl, remotely controlled by a VP (directly or via SNARC) could be a convincing or viable way to exert control.

It's established the command crew didn't have PICAs. They would have been handy during the War Against the Fallen, but plans for making them weren't available. Owl was able to build Nimue's PICA because he had Merlin's to examine and reverse engineer.

I'm not sure the android monk you mention would be doable either, but I don't see a physical avatar as needed. Consider the apparition that appeared in Schuler's cathedral. If they can do that, and control the Temple's systems, I'm sure they can produce a convincing return.

- The system below the temple is a VR with a personality in suspension (most likely then Schueler, I'm still not sold on the retcon, I feel Androcles and Frederick Schueler are not the same person, but I can't put my finger on why) that's command activated and has the keys to all the temple's defense system, including the OBS .... and I also highly suspect that the temple is a cover for the Hamilcar or a smaller scale ship for 'remaining faithful' to depart in after which the OBS nukes the world.

We don't know what is tucked under the Temple, but you can assume a starship won't part of it.

VR units with disembodied Archangel personalities resident strike me as a possibility, but I see no reason for Schueler to be one of them. My money would be on Chihiro.

As for other starships, it's been established that all save Hamilcar were dropped into the local sun. What became of Hamilcar is still up in the air, so to speak. And if one were available, precisely where would the remaining faithful go after the OBS destroys the world? It doesn't sound like there would be enough to establish another colony, and humanity would become extinct. (The IC is betting in its push to industrialize Safehold that no returning Archangel will be crazy enough to do that sort of thing if it does return.)

RFC didn't provide the handy ship diagrams and specs that he did for the Honorverse books, but assume similar scales.

It's a safe bet Hamilcar is huge. It was Langhorne's command ship (and presumably home while enroute and while Safehold was being prepared for the bulk of Langhorne's staff including the other Archangels.) It's also a major industrial node, with facilities to construct pretty much anything needed.

Ships like that don't land on planets, and can't. They are constructed in orbit, and go to orbit at the destination. Stuff that need to get from ship to ground travels by some form of lighter.

OK there's my theories, I got my target pasted on me, ready to be shot to pieces!

See above.
______
Dennis

C. O. Thompson wrote:It would not be necessary to put the entire ship under the temple... only the computers, which would not be as smart as OWL but would have all sorts of files that might not have been placed in the cave.[

What makes you assume systems that smart aren't under the Temple? The occupants of the Temple won't know about them, but there's no reason they couldn't exist. And Hamilcar was a major industrial node. It likely had the ability to make such things. Assuming whoever designed the Temple (Chihiro, or folks working under his direction) thought they were needed, Hamilcar could likely make them, with no need to strip those already part of the ship.

The notion of files not in what Commodore Pei downloaded to Nimue is interesting. At the time, he was still part of the command crew (and Archangel Kau Yung) and his concern was keeping Langhorne from finding out what he was diverting before he dropped ships into the local sun.

My own feeling is that he had access to the full data store provided to Operation Ark before they departed. At that point, why shouldn't he?

There may be stuff not in Commodore Pei's downloads to Nimue that were stored on Hamilcar (and presumably got preserved somewhere in the Temple after it was built, as a replacement for what was lost when Commodore Pei nuked Langhorne's original HQ,) but I don't see why they wouldn't have been available to Commodore Pei.

And we know from TextEv that Owl isn't all that smart, compared to what was possible when he was built. Owl was, after all, a tactical computer built as a fire control system for a warship, and there are limits to what sort of volition the folks handling the design would consider desirable. You want an AI smart enough to compute fire plans appropriate to the tactical situation and execute them, but you don't want it to decide to shoot on its own.

As Owl has developed, I have gotten the distinct impression his current state exceeds the design parameters he was built around, and his level of development might produce "Wait a minute! That shouldn't be possible! comments from the original designers if they could see it.
______
Dennis

DMcCunney wrote:

C. O. Thompson wrote:It would not be necessary to put the entire ship under the temple... only the computers, which would not be as smart as OWL but would have all sorts of files that might not have been placed in the cave.[

What makes you assume systems that smart aren't under the Temple? The occupants of the Temple won't know about them, but there's no reason they couldn't exist. And Hamilcar was a major industrial node. It likely had the ability to make such things. Assuming whoever designed the Temple (Chihiro, or folks working under his direction) thought they were needed, Hamilcar could likely make them, with no need to strip those already part of the ship.

There was a mention by Merlin in the beginning of OAR that he wondered what it would be like to be an artificial intelligence that just sat around for centuries just waiting for a human to give it orders. That always stuck with me and I wondered if that was a tum te tum tum. I would expect that under the Temple is an AI just waiting around for orders. What ever plans it had for acting on whatever it is monitoring, is not working. Since that is the theory that the Inner Circle has and it seems very plausible. It could be as simple as a code word or activation sequence to the Vicarate that was lost to time from an oral tradition. Or that the Command Staff that stayed alive after the Archangels "left", lost contact or possibly broke off contact with the Temple AI.

Kizarvexis wrote:There was a mention by Merlin in the beginning of OAR that he wondered what it would be like to be an artificial intelligence that just sat around for centuries just waiting for a human to give it orders. That always stuck with me and I wondered if that was a tum te tum tum. I would expect that under the Temple is an AI just waiting around for orders. What ever plans it had for acting on whatever it is monitoring, is not working. Since that is the theory that the Inner Circle has and it seems very plausible. It could be as simple as a code word or activation sequence to the Vicarate that was lost to time from an oral tradition. Or that the Command Staff that stayed alive after the Archangels "left", lost contact or possibly broke off contact with the Temple AI.

One of the bits that is maddening for the IC is Paityr's description of the intended use for the Key he was given by his family before he departed for Charis. Owl has examined the Key, and it's a solid mass of molycirc memory with at least one executable file occupying petabytes. But it is encrypted. Owl estimates that if it was encrypted by a top level civilian AI, attempting to access the contents without proper authentication would like trigger security protocols that would destroy it. If the encryption was created by a top level military AI, trying to access the contents without proper authentication would probably destroy him, too.

(And I think it's a safe bet that "proper authentication" will not be a simple password.)

But Paityr was given a vision of a secret place in the Temple, with a recess and a pair of God lights. Enter the space, put the Key in the provided recess, put his hands on the God lights, and call Schueler's holy name and something will respond. It can only be done once, in the time of the Church's true need. What will respond, what it will do, and what the Church's true need would be is unknown.

There's an old theater adage that if you put a gun in a drawer in the first act, it must be taken out and fired in the third act. The above strikes me as a sterling example of a drawer gun, and at some point, Paityr will have cause to do exactly that. It can be thought of as his ultimate purpose on Safehold.

As for the AI mentioned above, I don't see it awake and twiddling its virtual thumbs while it waits. Programs can be placed in sleep states where they are loaded but not executing (and on current systems, many programs spend most of their time in that state.) When it is awakened, no time will have passed for it since it was put into a sleep state. It will know from the systems internal clock how long it has been asleep, and can catch up quickly on what has occurred since it went to sleep, but it won't have consciously experienced the duration.

(And even if it is awake the entire time, going nuts from boredom is a human problem. Whether an AI would have the issue is questionable. It might have things it can do to keep itself occupied while it waits for an assignment.)
______
Dennis

DMcCunney wrote:

Kizarvexis wrote:There was a mention by Merlin in the beginning of OAR that he wondered what it would be like to be an artificial intelligence that just sat around for centuries just waiting for a human to give it orders. That always stuck with me and I wondered if that was a tum te tum tum. I would expect that under the Temple is an AI just waiting around for orders. What ever plans it had for acting on whatever it is monitoring, is not working. Since that is the theory that the Inner Circle has and it seems very plausible. It could be as simple as a code word or activation sequence to the Vicarate that was lost to time from an oral tradition. Or that the Command Staff that stayed alive after the Archangels "left", lost contact or possibly broke off contact with the Temple AI.

One of the bits that is maddening for the IC is Paityr's description of the intended use for the Key he was given by his family before he departed for Charis. Owl has examined the Key, and it's a solid mass of molycirc memory with at least one executable file occupying petabytes. But it is encrypted. Owl estimates that if it was encrypted by a top level civilian AI, attempting to access the contents without proper authentication would like trigger security protocols that would destroy it. If the encryption was created by a top level military AI, trying to access the contents without proper authentication would probably destroy him, too.

(And I think it's a safe bet that "proper authentication" will not be a simple password.)

But Paityr was given a vision of a secret place in the Temple, with a recess and a pair of God lights. Enter the space, put the Key in the provided recess, put his hands on the God lights, and call Schueler's holy name and something will respond. It can only be done once, in the time of the Church's true need. What will respond, what it will do, and what the Church's true need would be is unknown.

There's an old theater adage that if you put a gun in a drawer in the first act, it must be taken out and fired in the third act. The above strikes me as a sterling example of a drawer gun, and at some point, Paityr will have cause to do exactly that. It can be thought of as his ultimate purpose on Safehold.

As for the AI mentioned above, I don't see it awake and twiddling its virtual thumbs while it waits. Programs can be placed in sleep states where they are loaded but not executing (and on current systems, many programs spend most of their time in that state.) When it is awakened, no time will have passed for it since it was put into a sleep state. It will know from the systems internal clock how long it has been asleep, and can catch up quickly on what has occurred since it went to sleep, but it won't have consciously experienced the duration.

(And even if it is awake the entire time, going nuts from boredom is a human problem. Whether an AI would have the issue is questionable. It might have things it can do to keep itself occupied while it waits for an assignment.)
______
Dennis

Yeah, I'm sure the Key will follow Chekhov's rule.

I'm of two minds on whether a Temple AI would sleep. Something has to run the maintenance remotes on the Temple, so it could be one all powerful AI doing that. I'm sure Owl was awake the whole time monitoring and maintaining Nimue's Cave.

But there might be a caretaker AI running the Temple, while the main AI sleeps.

The key has petabytes of info and I wonder if there is a personality stored there, which could be why it can only be used once. Especially, if it downloads into a stored PICA that has not been hacked. It could only be used once because it can only be downloaded once.

P.S. Forgot, if the password was in another language, then it would not be likely to stumbled upon.