***Major Spoiler*** The ending scene of Through Fiery Trials

Bruno

You don't think RFC reads this, or knows what we might expect, and do sneaky stuff to make it entertaining?
He's put in LOTS of possibilities and he's quite capable of carefully foreshadowing some twist, slight or large...or not at all
Quite looking forward to see what way things go

Bruno Behrends wrote:

Zagri wrote:
In Chapter 1 Nahrmann tells Merlin:

“It’s going to be bad enough without our injecting religion back into the mess by attacking Church doctrine in the middle of it,” he repeated, and chuckled mirthlessly. “Besides, the one thing we absolutely can’t afford is to reopen that whole can of worms about demonic influence on Charisian innovation.”
“Which only leaves the nefarious, unscrupulous, underhanded ‘Nahrmahn Plan.’”

Short of dropping 100, 000 copies each of the Bible, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the US Declaration of Independence, and the Safehold colonial charter conveniently at the front door of the Temple, can you envisage a more direct attack on Church doctrine than faking an archangelic visitation and a new book of scripture?

This kind of mis-conclusion comes from taking something out of context and then trying to use it as a clue. Read the whole chapter and especially the text following (and explaining) the part you cite!

On the follwing pages in the same chapter it is explained that the part you cite above is about the Inner Circle's strategy during the 15-year period from the beginning of the book until the year 915! (the first of the possible 'Archangel return' dates.)

And no: I am not making this up. In fact this point is explicitly made in that same chapter:

'So assuming the earlier return date ( the year 915 that is, exlanation by me), the inner circle had fifteen years to spread Charis-style industrialization as broadly as possible around the planet. ... Nothing could be allowed to interfere with that process, and that was the reason, more even than the staggering potential casualties of a renewed Jihad, why any headlong assault on the Church of God Awating's fundamental doctrine had to be avoided ... or at least postponed. ..."

There you have it: They avoid - or more specifically postpone - a direct assault on church doctrine only during the 15-year period until the first possible 'archangel' return date.

The text goes on:

If 915 came and went without any angelic reappearance, they'd have another eighty-five years to work on doctrinal revolutions."

They plan to work on doctrinal revolutions! But only after the year 915 has passed without angelic reappearance.

Now look at the timeline for the last two chapters:

The year 915 passes without angelic reappearance. After it has passed Cayleb and Sharleyan (in the second-to-last chapter of the book) authorize what they call 'the final phase of the Nahrmahn plan' in february 916.

So the timeline fits exactly to the setup of the plan from chapter one.

And look at the name of the plan: We know the 'spreading of industrialization' plan was phase 1 of the Nahrmahn plan. We can - indeed we must - conclude that the 'final phase' of the Nahrmahn plan has to be something other besides continuing industrialization. That's because it would not make sense to have two phases of the plan if both phases were the same.

So the 'final phase' is something else. Something new.

And we get told in that second-to-last chapter of the book that said 'final phase' begins with an operation that is codenamed 'Operation Androcles'. Since Androcles is Schueler's first name we have reason to assume that the 'final phase' of the Nahrmahn plan may have something to do with Schueler. (Even more so because DW felt the necessity to hit us over the head with Schueler's first name by repeatedly mentioning it earlier in the book.)

And lo and behold: in the final chapter, one month after Cayleb and Sharleyan give the authorization the Schueler apparition does appear.

It all fits.

I have reads the whole chapter. It does not fit. In particular the Nahrmann Plan is presented as an alternative to a doctrinal attack. We have a paragraph describing a doctrinal attack. And then what follows?

“Which only leaves the nefarious, unscrupulous, underhanded ‘Nahrmahn Plan.’”

Moreover, back in OAR we have another passage that goes into much greater detail:

Chapter VIII
Coupled with the literally inhuman capabilities built into Merlin's PICA, not to mention the other bits and pieces of advanced technology Kau-yung and Shan-wei had been able to hide away, he could easily have duplicated any feat the "angels" had ever performed.
But Nimue had rejected that possibility almost immediately. Not only had she been instantly and instinctively revolted by the notion of following in Langhorne's and Bédard's footsteps, but there'd been more practical objections, as well. Sooner or later, she was going to have to tell someone the truth, which was precisely the reason Merlin had never told an outright lie. Continuing to avoid lies was going to become both easier and harder, he suspected, but when the time came that the truth had to be openly revealed, he could not afford to have told a single lie of his own. Not if he wanted whoever it was to believe him when he told them of the far greater lie which had been perpetrated upon their entire planet for so many hundreds of years.
Even more to the point, simply replacing one superstition, one false religion, with another would never accomplish the task to which Nimue Alban had set her hand. "Decrees from God," to be obeyed without question, wouldn't engender the widespread independent, inquiring mind-set and attitudes which would be required in the decades and centuries to come. And the appearance of an "angel" preaching a doctrine fundamentally at odds with that of the Church and the Writ could not help but raise all sorts of accusations of demonic origin. Which, in turn, would almost certainly lead to the religious war she'd feared was inevitable anyway, but hoped to at least minimize and hold off for a generation or two.

That is a major ethical commitment. It is what makes Merlin different from Langhorne. For Merlin to abandon that ethical commitment and start making angels appear and having them issue 'Decrees from God' would require a little more than what you have cited, which in any case does not say what you think its says.

Operation Androcles is identified as the second stage of the Nahrmann Plan and the Nahrmann Plan is specifically mentioned as different from a doctrinal attack of the kind Merlin rejected back at the start of the series and by which he was 'instinctively revolted'.

While it's possible the IC would abandon the proscription against fabricating miracles, I find it unlikely they'd do so without a whole lot of arguing about it. It's not what's in the book that dis-inclines me to believe the IC was behind the Visitation, it's what's not in the book.

Zagri wrote:
That is a major ethical commitment. It is what makes Merlin different from Langhorne. For Merlin to abandon that ethical commitment and start making angels appear and having them issue 'Decrees from God' would require a little more than what you have cited, which in any case does not say what you think its says.

Operation Androcles is identified as the second stage of the Nahrmann Plan and the Nahrmann Plan is specifically mentioned as different from a doctrinal attack of the kind Merlin rejected back at the start of the series and by which he was 'instinctively revolted'.

Lots of things changed since that first book and Merlin made other earlier claims that didn't apply as circumstances changed (telling Cayleb that he may never be able to tell him the full story, telling Cayleb that it's unlikely anyone will be able to fly openly on Safehold in their lifetime etc), not to speak of evolving from non-interfering in the process of dispatching the Charisian prisoners to the Temple to using "magic" (nanites) to kill everyone in an Inquisition prison.

The jihad happened anyway, atrocities in millions and deaths in possibly tens of millions due to war, famine and later revolution happened too and Safehold is a much-changed world now, ripe for doctrinal evolution so to speak.

Also CoGA has been shattered and it's now rebuilding in a gentler way which is of course mostly good, but it has side effects (like not be able to attack the Temple with regular troops and not having the Church as a moderating factor in world politics anymore), so a peaceful doctrinal revolution is for once conceivable and at least imho the step from having acknowledged separate churches to questioning the Archangels is narrower and easier to make than the step from the infallible monolithic "literal word of the archangels" church to the Church of Charis and the similar ones that are now appearing in various countries.

So I am fairly sure that the ending is Operation Androcles, though bringing a Safeholdian Alignment in play (which was my theory before TFT) as a new credible antagonist for the Inner Circle (though now Siddarmark will make a clear such, so I rate it as much less likely) could be another possibility - though it raises a lot of issues (how do they spy on the IC, why announce themselves now, why this way...)

I think it is obvious that the Schueler apparition is clearly based on contemporary events (language, text) and highly likely it is based on the knowledge of the IC planning their operation Androcles (which clearly uses something related to Schueler to challenge the doctrine of CoGA from all the text evidence we have), so if the IC didn't do it (still my bet it is IC), it must be some group that knows the truth, has some tech capability and spies (or tech spying) in the IC, but is not affiliated with the official Archangel story/Temple and is less powerful than the IC; again possible, but less likely imho

noblehunter wrote:While it's possible the IC would abandon the proscription against fabricating miracles, I find it unlikely they'd do so without a whole lot of arguing about it. It's not what's in the book that dis-inclines me to believe the IC was behind the Visitation, it's what's not in the book.

Also what's in the book suggests Operation Androcles will belittle in some humorous way. I don't see that happening with a full on visitation of an archangel. Whatever is in the Book of Schueler requires that it is from Schueler in order for it to be believed. Hard to ridicule an archangel and still have his book believed as truth.

Heck, even if the IC planned on having the Book disbelieved, in disbelieving Safehold would attribute the entire affair to Shan-wei. How else can a fake visitation from an archangel be done but with Shan-wei's assistance? That doesn't sound like the Operation Androcles Merlin and Nahrmahn alluded to in the text.

The only way that the visitation was Operation Androcles is if Nahrmahn changed plans and went for something not humorous. Then there was very little to indicate that in the text. Anyway you look at it, there was not enough in the text nor what text there was appropriate to support this Visitation as Operation Androcles.

I sure hope we don't have to wait 2 years for the sequel to this.

cnrd22 wrote:I think it is obvious that the Schueler apparition is clearly based on contemporary events (language, text) and highly likely it is based on the knowledge of the IC planning their operation Androcles (which clearly uses something related to Schueler to challenge the doctrine of CoGA from all the text evidence we have), so if the IC didn't do it (still my bet it is IC), it must be some group that knows the truth, has some tech capability and spies (or tech spying) in the IC, but is not affiliated with the official Archangel story/Temple and is less powerful than the IC; again possible, but less likely imho

That's part of the reason I don't think Schueler's appearance is a contrivance of the Inner Circle.

We don't yet know what is in the Testimony of Schueler, but it's pretty obviously his side of the story. That will involve events from the Creation through the War Against the Fallen and after the IC have only fragmentary knowledge of. There might actually be more verifiable records in the Temple. What the IC thinks it knows comes from Commodore Pei's downloads to Nimue's PICA. We know Chihiro's people built the OBS aboard Hamilcar, and deployed it just before it was used to keep Pie from doing anything about it, and that Chihiro pulled the trigger. Pei didn't, assumed Langhorne gave the order, and nuked him, Bedard, and a lot of their staff in retaliation. So what the IC thinks it knows is incomplete, and the IC is becoming aware it is. (And Pei's downloads predate the War Against the Fallen, which didn't begin till a couple of years after the OBS strike that turned the Alexandria Enclave into Armageddon Reef. Gotta wonder hard who began and led that.)

And Schueler explicitly claimed Shan-Wei wasn't the fount of all evil and that Chihiro lied. That claim will tie Mother Church in knots when the Vicarate hears of it. On the one hand, the reflex response will be "That's not true! It can't be true!" But if it isn't, what did appear in Schuler's church in the Episcopate named after him, make that claim, and then leave behind a book of the same make as the master copy of the Holy Writ in the Temple?

The IC might have been able to do it, but Mother Church doesn't know that. Its choices are that it was Schueler in miraculous visitation on the day commemorating his soul's departure from his mortal physical body to return to Heaven and be with God, or that it was a demonic visitation. The latter might be even worse than the former from Mother Church's perspective.

But if it was Schueler and he can document Chihiro's lies, the very inerrancy of the Holy Writ is open to question. At bare minimum, trust in anything the Book of Chihiro says nosedives,and if Mother Church knows Chihiro was the editor, so to speak, that put the various Books that make up the Writ together in it's final form, what else might he have changed?

I see various Vicars scurrying around like wyvverns without heads after they hear the story.

But fundamentally, what the IC doesn't know (and knows it doesn't know) will leave them very cautious about any tales they might spin. As another poster pointed out, they have always been careful to not lie. Spin tales out of whole cloth and the likelihood something you say will be false and branded a lie approaches unity. I just don't see the IC going that far.

We don't know what Narhmann's Operation Androcles is, save that it would make the Schueler commonly depicted go ballistic, but I don't think the divine manifestation is it.
______
Dennis

Ya know, Himself is undoubtably in danger of hurting something from laughing too hard while reading the back and forth comments here!

A few threads back,(don’t have the reference but we were discussing the non-Amazon preview) ppl were speculating abt this; perhaps it was from a 3rd, previously unknown group. RFC seemed quite enthusiastic about this speculation and stated something to the effect of:

“A possible 3rd group? Who are they and what could their motives possibly be...”

There’s a lot of room to wonder here and this chapter definitely did its job to get us wanting the next book!

DMcCunney wrote:

cnrd22 wrote:I think it is obvious that the Schueler apparition is clearly based on contemporary events (language, text) and highly likely it is based on the knowledge of the IC planning their operation Androcles (which clearly uses something related to Schueler to challenge the doctrine of CoGA from all the text evidence we have), so if the IC didn't do it (still my bet it is IC), it must be some group that knows the truth, has some tech capability and spies (or tech spying) in the IC, but is not affiliated with the official Archangel story/Temple and is less powerful than the IC; again possible, but less likely imho

That's part of the reason I don't think Schueler's appearance is a contrivance of the Inner Circle.

We don't yet know what is in the Testimony of Schueler, but it's pretty obviously his side of the story. That will involve events from the Creation through the War Against the Fallen and after the IC have only fragmentary knowledge of. There might actually be more verifiable records in the Temple. What the IC thinks it knows comes from Commodore Pei's downloads to Nimue's PICA. We know Chihiro's people built the OBS aboard Hamilcar, and deployed it just before it was used to keep Pie from doing anything about it, and that Chihiro pulled the trigger. Pei didn't, assumed Langhorne gave the order, and nuked him, Bedard, and a lot of their staff in retaliation. So what the IC thinks it knows is incomplete, and the IC is becoming aware it is. (And Pei's downloads predate the War Against the Fallen, which didn't begin till a couple of years after the OBS strike that turned the Alexandria Enclave into Armageddon Reef. Gotta wonder hard who began and led that.)

And Schueler explicitly claimed Shan-Wei wasn't the fount of all evil and that Chihiro lied. That claim will tie Mother Church in knots when the Vicarate hears of it. On the one hand, the reflex response will be "That's not true! It can't be true!" But if it isn't, what did appear in Schuler's church in the Episcopate named after him, make that claim, and then leave behind a book of the same make as the master copy of the Holy Writ in the Temple?

The IC might have been able to do it, but Mother Church doesn't know that. Its choices are that it was Schueler in miraculous visitation on the day commemorating his soul's departure from his mortal physical body to return to Heaven and be with God, or that it was a demonic visitation. The latter might be even worse than the former from Mother Church's perspective.

But if it was Schueler and he can document Chihiro's lies, the very inerrancy of the Holy Writ is open to question. At bare minimum, trust in anything the Book of Chihiro says nosedives,and if Mother Church knows Chihiro was the editor, so to speak, that put the various Books that make up the Writ together in it's final form, what else might he have changed?

I see various Vicars scurrying around like wyvverns without heads after they hear the story.

But fundamentally, what the IC doesn't know (and knows it doesn't know) will leave them very cautious about any tales they might spin. As another poster pointed out, they have always been careful to not lie. Spin tales out of whole cloth and the likelihood something you say will be false and branded a lie approaches unity. I just don't see the IC going that far.

We don't know what Narhmann's Operation Androcles is, save that it would make the Schueler commonly depicted go ballistic, but I don't think the divine manifestation is it.
______
Dennis

You know, that gets me thinking... I'm going to start a new thread about this...

Speculation about what might be written inside the "Lost Testimony of Schueler" , and, of course, who might plausibly have written each proposed version, and how...

While I’m not ready to say without a doubt that the Schuler apparition is part of the Narhman Plan or an actual move by Schuler of contrition, I’ll say that it would be a hugely risky move for IC, dangerous in both the short and long term. This is besides the fact that it would be a outright and complete fabrication. Using complete lies to counter complete lies is a strategy for failure, imho. The Temple is still reeling from heavy blows to its credibility it suffered in the Jihad. The IC making a move like this would create a serious schism in the Church and likely cause many to question what else might be fake or false. As with any schism, there will be a violent backlash, thinking about religious schism in our world today, we are still dealing with the results of schism from over 1000 years ago. I feel that there are more effective means to erode the faith in the tenants of the Church, then a massive Gauntlet Drop like this. They still have 80 years and think about that…80 years to prepare is immense amount of time. With the resources at Merlin’s disposal, I don’t see why they can take out the OBS, which is basically the loaded gun to any plans of modernization. Attacking that and taking out the boogie man would prove the falsehood far better than usurping the belief system in this manner. I don’t understand why they don’t basically turn Niume’s Cave into a NORAD type of location impenetrable by the OBS and start mass scale conversion to Federation level of technology and capability. The OBS is a relatively primitive system as compare to what the Federation was capable of. In 80 years, they could basically raise a cadre of millions with complete Federation level capability so that when the Archangels return, they are simply not able to compete. It’s hard to say you are some Deity when Joe down the Street has better Tech than you.

Hiruu wrote:
[snip]

They still have 80 years and think about that…80 years to prepare is immense amount of time. With the resources at Merlin’s disposal, I don’t see why they can take out the OBS, which is basically the loaded gun to any plans of modernization. Attacking that and taking out the boogie man would prove the falsehood far better than usurping the belief system in this manner. I don’t understand why they don’t basically turn Niume’s Cave into a NORAD type of location impenetrable by the OBS and start mass scale conversion to Federation level of technology and capability.
[snip]

Look - whether you see why they can't take out the OBS or not is immaterial (whether I see it or not is immaterial too ). In the books it is made clear that they can't take out the OBS. That's one of the fundamentals of this drama: The 'easy shortcut' does not exist. Which makes the whole complex story possible in the first place.

If DW had instead wanted to write a story with a simple military solution he would have.
But apparently he wanted a story in which the characters are forced to use other, more longterm and underhanded ways to resolve the conflict.