**major spoilers** Speculation about a certain document...

Krenn wrote:If I understand you correctly, you're thinking it will mostly take the form of a complete, honest, and understandable history, from the existence of Earth and the Terran Federation, all the way to the Rakurai that fell on Shan Wei, at a minimum? Maybe afterwards, too, through the War of the Fallen and Schueler's eventual death of old age, depending on how much risk the Inner Circle is willing to take about narrating Schueler's alleged life, without possessing reliable records with which to guide them?

Not quite - it will be a short, faith/rhetorical, no real proof, more like a truly inspired sermon text that will touch upon a few points, while its "truth value" will be precisely in the same category that say Archbishop Maikel sermons or Merlin's verifier approved answer to father Paytir about believing in God's Plan for Humans everywhere:

- humans fell once (monsters demons, maybe because they turned away from God etc), but God saved them and had a Plan including bringing them to Safehold to be "reborn", and then like parents with newborn children protecting and nurturing them through CoGA, proscriptions, rules (but without the harsher stuff like Schueler punishment etc) until they are ready to be told the "deeper" truth about the past, the monsters out there

- the Plan went awry when Chihiro lied and manipulated stuff (here there can be additions about how "bright Shan Wei" with the best intentions tried to speed up the process of reborn humanity growing up and Chihiro used that pretext to do the bad deeds and pin it on Shan Wei)

- Now it's time for the Plan to get back on track, so humanity can grow, the Church can reconsider its foundations and get back on track as protectors and nurtures, not punishers, the Proscriptions have to be treated as part of the "deeper" truth, so to be slowly nibbled at (so pretty much all that Charis have been doing gets indirect Archangel approval, while nothing major beyond what's happening has to be done immediately, so the seeds of truth are planted, needed change is bruited, but all can go relatively slowly and carefully still)

Too bad RFC doesn't do chapter epigraphs. We could have actually gotten a decent chunk of the Testimony itself.

Assuming it's actually from Schueler, I think the testimony would provide a reasonably accurate description of the War of the Fallen with a narrative of how Chihiro lied. It would then offer a correction but I'm not sure what that correction would be. Schueler would have come pretty far to repudiate Langhorne's entire plan so I think major revisions to the Proscriptions are unlikely, thought the Punishments will almost certainly be heavily edited.

If Schueler does try to undo the whole plan, it could be primarily a means to communicate with a group like the IC or the Brotherhood or even Nimue herself. It wouldn't be too difficult to use metaphors or allusions which would depend on knowledge of the true history to understand. Or there's a number of ways to encode a more direct message.

cnrd22 wrote:

Krenn wrote:If I understand you correctly, you're thinking it will mostly take the form of a complete, honest, and understandable history, from the existence of Earth and the Terran Federation, all the way to the Rakurai that fell on Shan Wei, at a minimum? Maybe afterwards, too, through the War of the Fallen and Schueler's eventual death of old age, depending on how much risk the Inner Circle is willing to take about narrating Schueler's alleged life, without possessing reliable records with which to guide them?

Not quite - it will be a short, faith/rhetorical, no real proof, more like a truly inspired sermon text that will touch upon a few points, while its "truth value" will be precisely in the same category that say Archbishop Maikel sermons or Merlin's verifier approved answer to father Paytir about believing in God's Plan for Humans everywhere:

- humans fell once (monsters demons, maybe because they turned away from God etc), but God saved them and had a Plan including bringing them to Safehold to be "reborn", and then like parents with newborn children protecting and nurturing them through CoGA, proscriptions, rules (but without the harsher stuff like Schueler punishment etc) until they are ready to be told the "deeper" truth about the past, the monsters out there

- the Plan went awry when Chihiro lied and manipulated stuff (here there can be additions about how "bright Shan Wei" with the best intentions tried to speed up the process of reborn humanity growing up and Chihiro used that pretext to do the bad deeds and pin it on Shan Wei)

- Now it's time for the Plan to get back on track, so humanity can grow, the Church can reconsider its foundations and get back on track as protectors and nurtures, not punishers, the Proscriptions have to be treated as part of the "deeper" truth, so to be slowly nibbled at (so pretty much all that Charis have been doing gets indirect Archangel approval, while nothing major beyond what's happening has to be done immediately, so the seeds of truth are planted, needed change is bruited, but all can go relatively slowly and carefully still)

That's.... plausible, but it would be REALLY hard to write that without also subtly disagreeing with Langhorne on at least some minor doctrinal points.

He would need to rephrase some of the proscriptions as being temporary, rather than fundamental laws of nature, he might have to repudiate the "Safehold as the center of the solar system/universe" astronomical theory, Langhorne's authority to issue fundamental permanent doctrine would presumably be questioned, some of the statements attributed to God directly might need to be questioned, and the implication that everything came into existence at the moment of creation, with nothing pre-existing, would also need to be questioned.

And, of Course, there's the question of whether or not to mention that Chiriro pretty much ghost-wrote all of the orginal writ, as assigned by Langhorne and Bedard.

Schueler could MAYBE finess his way around all that, or limit himself to only making subtle implications of inconsistencies, rather than denouncing anything outright....

But that does raise the question... Why would Schueler want to write such a book at all? If his goal is to call all of Church Doctrine into question, that's a REALLY subtle and unreliable way of doing that, and if his goal is to KEEP the church in existence, it's an even stranger choice...

Would he really have recorded such a message, a thousand years in advance, in defiance of standing policy, just to make a few minor blind adjustments, with no ability to see how people would react to them?

If Schueler had AWOKEN recently, and was now operating as an Active VR personality, that subtle approach might make sense... throw out some feelers, see how people reacted, slowly plan for what his next big move would be, avoid drastic actions until he can better estimate the long-term consequences....

Just as a side-note, some time ago the author David Eddings released the Riven Codex, a collection of extracts of the holy books of the various cultures/religions in the Belgariad/Malloreon series.
I wonder if RFC would do something similar in the form of Extracts Of The Holy Writ/The Highlights Of The Testimonies?

It just occurred to me that we only have Kau Yungs assertion that no one else knew about the PICA. What if Schuler was aware of Nimue existence, and planted this as a way to establish contact? Just a thought

Aside from the question on whether the last chapter of _TFT_ was Schueler (in what ever form) or Operation Androcles, what is the purpose of the Testimony? A statement that Shan-Wei did not fall, but Chihiro lied appears to be part of an all out attack on the entire legitimacy of the Church of God Awaiting. That appears to be a bit audacious, at least without a lot of prep. To begin with, I am certain that any War of the Fallen (or earlier) records that the Temple has had been edited to match the Book of Chihiro. Thus the Testimony is vulnerable to be dismissed as a demonic lie.

In fact, we know that Shan-Wei and Langhorne were in significant disagreement immediately before the destruction of the Alexandria Enclave and she was given an ultimatum to obey Langhorne's decree.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:Aside from the question on whether the last chapter of _TFT_ was Schueler (in what ever form) or Operation Androcles, what is the purpose of the Testimony? A statement that Shan-Wei did not fall, but Chihiro lied appears to be part of an all out attack on the entire legitimacy of the Church of God Awaiting. That appears to be a bit audacious, at least without a lot of prep. To begin with, I am certain that any War of the Fallen (or earlier) records that the Temple has had been edited to match the Book of Chihiro. Thus the Testimony is vulnerable to be dismissed as a demonic lie.

In fact, we know that Shan-Wei and Langhorne were in significant disagreement immediately before the destruction of the Alexandria Enclave and she was given an ultimatum to obey Langhorne's decree.

It's just a theory, at this point.... and I'm not even certain that I LIKE this theory....

But the best I can come up with is that the original Schueler was riding the fence the as a neutral third party.

I think he was willing to trade certain limited favors or concessions with Shan Wei and Kau-Yung, for a variety of reasons. And I think he was just fine with Langhorne's plan to invent a religion and permanently suppress technology.

I think... and I'm guessing here... That Schueler's ONLY PRIORITY is the peaceful, long-term, generic religious existence of Safehold. Sort of like a cross between Unitarian Universalism and pathological Utilitarianism. Schueler's just fine with lying to people, creating an artificial religion from scratch, naming the archangels after certain people if that doesn't obviously harm anyone, making a good-faith effort to keep technology suppressed for as long as possible, enforcing a strict top-down hierarchy led by the church, all those things...

But the one thing he WON'T accept is massive atrocities, ongoing civil wars, widespread nihilism, fatalism, or a lack of personal connections to God, even if those connections are otherwise based on a fictional or artificial religion.

Which means that his only real objections to Langhorne's plan are that it eventually resulted in a civil war with the fallen, that Chiriro added some really sadistic atrocity mandates to the last part of the writ, and that the church senior church hierarchy eventually became openly abusive towards the general populace.

In this scenario, Langhorne's priority was to stop technology by any means. Bedard's priority was to play god with mind control. Chiriro's priority was to hold sadistic personal power and win at all costs. And I think Schueler's priority.... may actually have been to make an 'honest' and 'moral' artificial religion actually work.

If that theory is right... Schueler may have left this message in order to trigger a NON-TECHNOLOGICAL, NON-HERETICAL, actual internally legitimate doctrinal revolution. He may not CARE whether or not technology or critical thought ever actually develops.... He just want's to "fix" the more unpleasant aspects of the Writ. If he leaves behind a message saying that Shan-wei was a minor schismatic heretic who probably could have been brought back into the fold with enough love and kindness, and that Chiriro lied, called down a bombardment, and altered the writ, just so Chiriro could play ruthless god-king for a few hundred years.

I don't... LIKE that theory, but it does seem like a valid third option for explaining what's going on here.

Schueler leaves a purely religious reformation textbook behind. Shan-wei is half-rehabilitated, as "the irritating opposition we should have learned to live with, and maybe could have gently brought back to righteousness, just like you should with your schismatics". Chihiro is cast as the bad guy, the sort of evil manipulative dictator that everyone has to learn to watch out for. The punishment of Schueler is rejected, and some of the other more punitive investigations by the Inquisition are rejected....

But the rest of the document is mostly just as re-iteration of "Love god using whatever logical system makes sense, be polite to your disagreeable neighbors, do the greatest good for the greatest number of people, gentle lies and manipulations are still ok, beware of sadists."

That's one of my theories. I have a few others I'm still working on.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:Aside from the question on whether the last chapter of _TFT_ was Schueler (in what ever form) or Operation Androcles, what is the purpose of the Testimony? A statement that Shan-Wei did not fall, but Chihiro lied appears to be part of an all out attack on the entire legitimacy of the Church of God Awaiting.

Not so much an attack on the legitimacy of the Church of God Awaiting, as an attack on the inerrancy of the Holy Writ, which is not quite the same thing.

If Chihiro was a liar, what sort of faith can be put in the Book of Chihiro, which appears to be the official history of Safehold from Creation through the War Against the Fallen and immediate aftermath. (And Merlin mentions elsewhere a pre-War version of the Writ in Commodore Pei's download that does not have the Books of Chihiro or Schueler in it.)

People will still be inclined to believe in the legitimacy of the Church as Langhorne's creation to safeguard mankind, but the Church already decreed that even Archangels were corruptible and demonized Shan Wei and Proctor as falling into evil and deliberately deviating from God's Plan. That provides precedent for the notion an Archangel might lie and what he said needs to be questioned.

I look forward to scenes in the next book of the Vicarate running around in circles and trying to bite their own non-existent tails when they hear about this. If it's true, a good bit of what they think they know about the Creation and events following it is wrong. Now what do they do? It's a pity Grand Vicar Rhobair didn't live to see this. His take would be of great interest.

For that matter, I wondered how Duchairn would have reacted to the presentation Merlin gives prospective new Inner Circle members. I don't know whether he would have accepted it, but I suspect he might have handled it better than might be expected.)
______
Dennis

DMcCunney wrote:

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:Aside from the question on whether the last chapter of _TFT_ was Schueler (in what ever form) or Operation Androcles, what is the purpose of the Testimony? A statement that Shan-Wei did not fall, but Chihiro lied appears to be part of an all out attack on the entire legitimacy of the Church of God Awaiting.

Not so much an attack on the legitimacy of the Church of God Awaiting, as an attack on the inerrancy of the Holy Writ, which is not quite the same thing.

If Chihiro was a liar, what sort of faith can be put in the Book of Chihiro, which appears to be the official history of Safehold from Creation through the War Against the Fallen and immediate aftermath. (And Merlin mentions elsewhere a pre-War version of the Writ in Commodore Pei's download that does not have the Books of Chihiro or Schueler in it.)

People will still be inclined to believe in the legitimacy of the Church as Langhorne's creation to safeguard mankind, but the Church already decreed that even Archangels were corruptible and demonized Shan Wei and Proctor as falling into evil and deliberately deviating from God's Plan. That provides precedent for the notion an Archangel might lie and what he said needs to be questioned.

I look forward to scenes in the next book of the Vicarate running around in circles and trying to bite their own non-existent tails when they hear about this. If it's true, a good bit of what they think they know about the Creation and events following it is wrong. Now what do they do? It's a pity Grand Vicar Rhobair didn't live to see this. His take would be of great interest.

For that matter, I wondered how Duchairn would have reacted to the presentation Merlin gives prospective new Inner Circle members. I don't know whether he would have accepted it, but I suspect he might have handled it better than might be expected.)
______
Dennis

It's worse than that, though: we also know that Chihiro helped to ghost-write MOST of the writ. if Schueler's Lost Testimony reveals that factoid too, while still encouraging the IDEA of the church... things could get... complicated.

Krenn wrote:

DMcCunney wrote:]If Chihiro was a liar, what sort of faith can be put in the Book of Chihiro, which appears to be the official history of Safehold from Creation through the War Against the Fallen and immediate aftermath. (And Merlin mentions elsewhere a pre-War version of the Writ in Commodore Pei's download that does not have the Books of Chihiro or Schueler in it.)

It's worse than that, though: we also know that Chihiro helped to ghost-write MOST of the writ. if Schueler's Lost Testimony reveals that factoid too, while still encouraging the IDEA of the church... things could get... complicated.

Agreed on complication, but IIRC, Chihiro was essentially the editor of the Holy Writ, not the ghost writer. The final form was theoretically for Langhorne's approval as Administrator, but Langhorne's demise left him with the final say and he could edit as desired. We know the remaining lesser angels were waiting for all of the Adams and Eves to die before purging the Testimonies of anything inconsistent with the party line, and they'd get their orders from Chihiro. What changes Chihiro may have made in the Writ itself we can't know yet (but I suspect the Punishment of Schueler was a Chihiro addition to his Book. It will be fascinating if his Testimony states he didn't write that part, and it was added by Chihiro after the fact without his permission.)

The big fun part is that Schueler's apparition in teh cathedral stated that Shan-Wei was not the source of evil and that Chihiro lied. A question the Testimony would presumably answer is what Schueler claims Chihiro lied about.
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Dennis