Probably a dumb suggestion/idea but ...

I think it was the same location [again, Himself said something about this], but the inhabitants were all command crew. It wouldn't have been until after Chihiro built the temple that colonists were brought in to run the bureaucracy centred on it. And I'm not sure how much of that was Chihiro implementing Langhorne's original intention early and how much was his own design.

DMcCunney wrote:

Louis R wrote:IIRC, Himself has said that there wasn't anybody around to watch. Zion exists because of the Temple.

Hmmm. I missed that. Thanks.

It would remove a potential complication.

The Zion Enclave existed, but that woiuldn't be the same thing, or in the same location.
______
Dennis

Kizarvexis wrote:
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.

What software or data file do you know that can only be downloaded once? Downloading is essentially copying from one memory location to another. We don't know that the Key is Write Once memory. It's perfectly possible that the file could be downloaded, action taken and then the updated version rewritten to the Key. Even if it is Write Once, why can't it be Read Many. Subsequent activations wouldn't know, from the key, what they had done before, but that's what all the computers under the Temple are for.

I know the vision said the key could only be used once. If it was telling the truth, I don't think the restriction has anything to do with the read/write characteristics of the Key or whatever it loads into. I think it's much more likely that using the Key would so change the social and religious matrix on Safehold that a second use would be inappropriate. For example, if it does dump the personality of an archangel into a VR which then takes charge, nothing would ever be the same again.

Randomiser wrote:

Kizarvexis wrote:
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.

What software or data file do you know that can only be downloaded once? Downloading is essentially copying from one memory location to another. We don't know that the Key is Write Once memory. It's perfectly possible that the file could be downloaded, action taken and then the updated version rewritten to the Key. Even if it is Write Once, why can't it be Read Many. Subsequent activations wouldn't know, from the key, what they had done before, but that's what all the computers under the Temple are for.

I know the vision said the key could only be used once. If it was telling the truth, I don't think the restriction has anything to do with the read/write characteristics of the Key or whatever it loads into. I think it's much more likely that using the Key would so change the social and religious matrix on Safehold that a second use would be inappropriate. For example, if it does dump the personality of an archangel into a VR which then takes charge, nothing would ever be the same again.

Only download once..many things with quantum entanglements The read process destroys the memory, perhaps alternatively as a hardware feature.

DMcCunney wrote:

Louis R wrote:IIRC, Himself has said that there wasn't anybody around to watch. Zion exists because of the Temple.

Hmmm. I missed that. Thanks.

It would remove a potential complication.

The Zion Enclave existed, but that woiuldn't be the same thing, or in the same location.

Louis R wrote:I think it was the same location [again, Himself said something about this], but the inhabitants were all command crew. It wouldn't have been until after Chihiro built the temple that colonists were brought in to run the bureaucracy centred on it. And I'm not sure how much of that was Chihiro implementing Langhorne's original intention early and how much was his own design.

Hmmmm.

Well, okay. According to Safehold legend, the Temple was built on the site where Langhorne's HQ was before Kau Yung nuked it, and the location was in part emphasizing the triumph of the Church over the minions of Shan Wei. ("Her follower Kau Yung destroyed Langhorne's original headquarters, but we have raised something much larger and grander to replace it!"

The Zion Enclave would have been in the same general area, but I don't see colonists and command crew living side by side.

An interesting question would be the rate of population growth. The colonists were encouraged to be fruitful and multiply, so a city founded as essentially an adjunct to the Temple would get residents in reasonably short order.

I have no idea how much of that was Langhorne's original plan and how much was Chihiro's modification either.

I suspect at least some of it was Langhorne. Given winter conditions in Zion, it's a dandy place for angels who won't care about the climate as an Olympus like abode, physically on Safehold but largely inaccessible by mere mortals. But in that case, why have one of the original colonist enclaves where Adams and Eves awoke there at all? If the goal was maximum survival of awakened colonists, you would expect better climate to be a selector on where to put them.

Zion was the original seat of government for the planet, and would remain the spiritual center after the command crew were gone, so I suspect there was an expectation that at some point colonists would need to live there, if only to provide clergy and support services for Mother Church.

But I do sometime wonder precisely where remaining Archangels and Angels actually lived as colonist population of Zion increased. I don't see command crew and colonists mixing socially.
______
Dennis

That's the point: Zion was built, like Alexandria, to be one of the two high-tech settlements for the command crew. Originally, there were no colonists closer than [probably] Lakeview. While I have no doubt that some of them were invited from time to time to see the dog-and-pony show Langhorne and Bedard put on for them, there was no need for them to reside in Zion.

If I'm reading the FAQ correctly, Langhorne had no intention of placing the Church under human control for at least a couple of centuries. His 'angels' performed the functions eventually assigned to the vicarate, and what isn't clear is whether he ever appointed any Vicars, or even established the office as one humans would eventually achieve, and whether he intended that once humans were in charge their headquarters would be in Zion.

First Kau-yung and then the WAtF winnowed the angelic ranks so severely that Chihiro couldn't run the planet without the Council being put in place way early and the COGA we see is very much his creation. Well, his and the various Vicars who have been mucking about with it ever since. Sometimes with the best of intentions, sometimes not. The Temple is directly his work, the Zion that's grown around it the indirect result of that.

DMcCunney wrote:

Louis R wrote:I think it was the same location [again, Himself said something about this], but the inhabitants were all command crew. It wouldn't have been until after Chihiro built the temple that colonists were brought in to run the bureaucracy centred on it. And I'm not sure how much of that was Chihiro implementing Langhorne's original intention early and how much was his own design.

Hmmmm.

Well, okay. According to Safehold legend, the Temple was built on the site where Langhorne's HQ was before Kau Yung nuked it, and the location was in part emphasizing the triumph of the Church over the minions of Shan Wei. ("Her follower Kau Yung destroyed Langhorne's original headquarters, but we have raised something much larger and grander to replace it!"

The Zion Enclave would have been in the same general area, but I don't see colonists and command crew living side by side.

An interesting question would be the rate of population growth. The colonists were encouraged to be fruitful and multiply, so a city founded as essentially an adjunct to the Temple would get residents in reasonably short order.

I have no idea how much of that was Langhorne's original plan and how much was Chihiro's modification either.

I suspect at least some of it was Langhorne. Given winter conditions in Zion, it's a dandy place for angels who won't care about the climate as an Olympus like abode, physically on Safehold but largely inaccessible by mere mortals. But in that case, why have one of the original colonist enclaves where Adams and Eves awoke there at all? If the goal was maximum survival of awakened colonists, you would expect better climate to be a selector on where to put them.

Zion was the original seat of government for the planet, and would remain the spiritual center after the command crew were gone, so I suspect there was an expectation that at some point colonists would need to live there, if only to provide clergy and support services for Mother Church.

But I do sometime wonder precisely where remaining Archangels and Angels actually lived as colonist population of Zion increased. I don't see command crew and colonists mixing socially.
______
Dennis