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Potential Spoiler - Last Chapter - Din between factions

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Re: Potential Spoiler - Last Chapter - Din between factions
Post by thanatos   » Sun Feb 17, 2019 8:14 pm

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dwileye13 wrote::!:
I was expecting RFC to throw a kracken into the swimming pool at the end of the book.

IMHO, What is coming is a Schueler & Shan-Wei factional respite.

We can say the IC and (perhaps unwittingly their allies) are supporting the Shan-Wei efforts to guide Safehold closer to an original plan for Humanity's development into an effective adversary for the Gbaba... contrary to Langhorne & Bedard's subversive alterations to the original plans.

The destruction of Alexandria and the nuking of L & B at the staff meeting left a huge vacuum of leadership. We can assume Chihiro grabbed the reins of power with Schueler in support. The subsequent 'War against the Fallen' decimated lesser Angels, Sejins and perhaps Archangels. Leadership thusly becoming more vacuous.

I want to believe that Chihiro was responsible for Khody's demise and later the destruction of his original shrine by a kinetic strike. That could have upset Schueler enough that he recorded the message for his descendants and set up the Mutinous Message delivered at his Temple at the end of TFT.
That message specifically stated;

For know this, this world has indeed strayed far afield from the plan for which your forefathers and your foremothers, the Adams and the Eves who left you The Testimonies, were brought forth upon it.

If Khody was correct in his view of Schueler as the Archangel he could trust and being an honorable divine being, then that Testimony of Schueler should be quite subversive to the COGA.
What resources could he have left or assets of knowledge to groups like Sisters of St. Khody or others.

Thanks RFC for the Kracken


RFC has commented that the distance of the Cathedral of Schueler from the Temple at the end of TFT should be an indication of the true origin of the visitation. Indeed, there are too many things that are off about it to have been Schueler's work. Any such message would have to be delivered in the Temple to get both maximum coverage and legitimacy. So why not there? Are we really to believe that Schueler did not have access to the same systems as Chihiro? Or that Chihiro had ultimately distrusted Schueler despite his discovery of resistance efforts by the military personal who were loyal to Pei Kau-yung? And why on the 1,001st year since the "Creation" rather than the 1000th? And why only in one cathedral with 400 people in attendance rather than major cathedrals all around the planet? This feels too much like what the Inner Circle was cooking up.
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Re: Potential Spoiler - Last Chapter - Din between factions
Post by Isilith   » Mon Feb 18, 2019 8:47 am

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kaid wrote:

True but when you have the scene right before it with owl and narhman giggling about getting the green light to start operation androcles and talking about having information from the verifier about schuler such as his speech and appearance and then seques to a miraculous appearance by schuler it seems unlikely that this was not operation androcles in action.


What you mean is you have fallen, again, into RFC's trap of letting you assume you see what isn't really there. You are tying two separate textev events into one, despite there not being textev to do that.

This is one of RFC's favorite tactics, and everyone keeps ignoring that.
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Re: Potential Spoiler - Last Chapter - Din between factions
Post by Isilith   » Mon Feb 18, 2019 8:47 am

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kaid wrote:

True but when you have the scene right before it with owl and narhman giggling about getting the green light to start operation androcles and talking about having information from the verifier about schuler such as his speech and appearance and then seques to a miraculous appearance by schuler it seems unlikely that this was not operation androcles in action.


What you mean is you have fallen, again, into RFC's trap of letting you assume you see what isn't really there. You are tying two separate textev events into one, despite there not being textev to do that.

This is one of RFC's favorite tactics, and everyone keeps ignoring that.
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Re: Potential Spoiler - Last Chapter - Din between factions
Post by dwileye13   » Mon Feb 18, 2019 7:42 pm

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Isilith wrote:
kaid wrote:

True but when you have the scene right before it with owl and narhman giggling about getting the green light to start operation androcles and talking about having information from the verifier about schuler such as his speech and appearance and then seques to a miraculous appearance by schuler it seems unlikely that this was not operation androcles in action.


What you mean is you have fallen, again, into RFC's trap of letting you assume you see what isn't really there. You are tying two separate textev events into one, despite there not being textev to do that.

This is one of RFC's favorite tactics, and everyone keeps ignoring that.


RFC is giggling in a corner of his office most likely with a bit of drooling and rolling of the eyes. He love all the conjecture and sparring. All good fun
I am not young enough to know everything!
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Re: Potential Spoiler - Last Chapter - Din between factions
Post by noblehunter   » Tue Feb 19, 2019 11:31 am

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dwileye13 wrote:RFC is giggling in a corner of his office most likely with a bit of drooling and rolling of the eyes. He love all the conjecture and sparring. All good fun


Even better from his point of view is that it's multi-layered. Casual readers will be freaking out about the Visitation just on a surface level, serious readers are focused on the implications of the Visitation. And we're here arguing with completely insufficient data about who caused it. There's something for everybody to be excited about. He's probably cackling with glee (if he's the cackling sort).
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Re: Potential Spoiler - Last Chapter - Din between factions
Post by captinjoehenry   » Tue Feb 19, 2019 12:40 pm

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I would point out that with Schuler being opposed to Chiro he would almost have to set up any second coming that is against Chiro somewhere far away from the Temple as Chiro would have more or less full control of the Temple meaning anything setup against him in the Temple being massively risky for being discovered.
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Re: Potential Spoiler - Last Chapter - Din between factions
Post by Randomiser   » Mon Feb 25, 2019 7:15 am

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thanatos wrote:
RFC has commented that the distance of the Cathedral of Schueler from the Temple at the end of TFT should be an indication of the true origin of the visitation. Indeed, there are too many things that are off about it to have been Schueler's work. Any such message would have to be delivered in the Temple to get both maximum coverage and legitimacy. So why not there? Are we really to believe that Schueler did not have access to the same systems as Chihiro? Or that Chihiro had ultimately distrusted Schueler despite his discovery of resistance efforts by the military personal who were loyal to Pei Kau-yung? And why on the 1,001st year since the "Creation" rather than the 1000th? And why only in one cathedral with 400 people in attendance rather than major cathedrals all around the planet? This feels too much like what the Inner Circle was cooking up.


Very probably Schueler had access to the same systems as Chihiro in the Temple, or to put it anther way, Chihiro had access to the same systems as Scheuler in the Temple. In other words, desirable as it might have been, hiding anything in the Temple systems would have been a big security risk for Scheuler, one he didn't have to take. Hiding a projector and a book in one church through 1000 years of building maintenance just might have been possible. Doing the same in hundreds of churches all over Safehold? Not so much. (In fact, thinking about that, the projector may well be a SNARC equivalent which has been hidden with the book somewhere 'quieter' and only moved itself into position for this presentation. Again it would be much easier to 'lose' one such from inventory, especially during a war, than doing so with lots of them.)
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Re: Potential Spoiler - Last Chapter - Din between factions
Post by SDZald   » Thu Feb 28, 2019 12:53 pm

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I don't know for certain but I do not believe this is part of Operation Androcles for a couple of reasons.

The first is, as I mentioned in another post, why would the IC use the order of Schueler to drop this bomb? After all their order has been disbanded by the CoGA, is widely held responsible for the world war and the root of corruption inside the CoGA. Most people would just think "here we go again those power hungry people are just trying to get their power back." They have NO credibility, the IC would have used a different Order to deliver that message to.

The second reason is Merlin has been VERY careful not to outright lie through out the entire series, with the logic that if he is caught in any kind of serious lie how could he expect anyone to believe him when it came to the Gaba?

Besides if you really wanted to start putting doubt into peoples minds it would be much easier to have Owl print up and distribute Broadsheets throughout the world asking a few simple questions. Are we sure the "good guys" won the battle of the Fallen? If the Bad guys had won than how could we trust ANYTHING, to include the Writ itself that comes from them?
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Re: Potential Spoiler - Last Chapter - Din between factions
Post by DMcCunney   » Thu Feb 28, 2019 7:31 pm

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SDZald wrote:I don't know for certain but I do not believe this is part of Operation Androcles for a couple of reasons.
I agree it isn't, but for different reasons.
The first is, as I mentioned in another post, why would the IC use the order of Schueler to drop this bomb? After all their order has been disbanded by the CoGA, is widely held responsible for the world war and the root of corruption inside the CoGA. Most people would just think "here we go again those power hungry people are just trying to get their power back." They have NO credibility, the IC would have used a different Order to deliver that message to.
I don't believe the Order of Schueler was disbanded. I don't see Grand Vicar Rhobair going quite that far. Schueler was an Archangel. (And for similar reasons, Rhobair did not simply drop the Punishment of Schueler the way the Church of Charis did. That would have meant rewriting the Writ from his viewpoint, and that was farther than he was prepared to go. He settled for hedging it with enough qualifications and conditions that it would be unlikely to ever again be administered, but it still existed as part of the Writ.)

He did remove ecclesiastical courts from the Order of Schueler's jurisdiction and handed them back to the Order of Langhorne where they had been previously. He also divested them of a lot of their real estate, put many on trial for actions during the Jihad or simply defrocked them, and the entire order took a massive credibility hit after so many of the members enthusiastically supported Clyntahn's atrocities during the Jihad. In the aftermath of the Jihad, Schuelerites could probably expect to be firmly snubbed by other Orders as not fit to associate with.

The order still exists, but its power, wealth, and influence has been greatly reduced.
The second reason is Merlin has been VERY careful not to outright lie through out the entire series, with the logic that if he is caught in any kind of serious lie how could he expect anyone to believe him when it came to the Gbaba?

Besides if you really wanted to start putting doubt into peoples minds it would be much easier to have Owl print up and distribute Broadsheets throughout the world asking a few simple questions. Are we sure the "good guys" won the battle of the Fallen? If the Bad guys had won than how could we trust ANYTHING, to include the Writ itself that comes from them?
And that's part of the reason I don't see Schueler's manifestation in his cathedral on the day of the Feast of the Holy Schueler as a sneaky IC trick.

He stated to the gathered faithful that Shan Wei did not Fall, but was destroyed by the true betrayer of God's plan for Safehold for refusing to turn away from the great charge that brought her to Safehold, and that Chihiro lied.

The Testimony of Schueler will contain the proofs for those assertions. Given what the IC actually "knows", what proof could they provide that would not simply be be dismissed as a plot by Shan Wei? The IC's actual knowledge comes from sources they can't reveal and stops pretty much at the point just before Kau Yung nuked Langhorne's HQ. The intended audience for the Testimony will be the Vicarate in the Temple. The last thing that body will want to do is believe those assertions, so any evidence presented to prove them will have to be extremely powerful and things that have to be taken seriously. I simply don't believe the IC has that sort of evidence.

Anything that might constitute evidence that must be taken seriously and cannot be simply dismissed out of hand is likely to be found in the period after the destruction of Langhorne's HQ when the Temple was raised thorough the ending of the War Against the Fallen. The only records the IC has of that are in Kohdy's diary. He indicated the War Against the Fallen did not break out till about two years after the destruction of Langhorne's HQ. The Sisters of St. Kohdy knew that because they'd read the English parts of hid diary, but the rest of Safehold thought it commenced right after the destruction of Langhorne's HQ.

Kohdy recorded that he was defeated in battle by one of the Fallen, and instead of killing him, the Fallen in question provided evidence Kohdy could not just dismiss that Chihiro had turned to evil and was modifying Langhorne's plan. Kohdy didn't write down what it was - only that it shook him enough to make him wonder what side he was on and go to Zion and talk to Schueler. He was killed in Zion, and the IC suspects it was because he was a threat to Chihiro, but we don't know whether the actually spoke to Schueler. The sort of evidence the Fallen presented to Kohdy would be what the IC would need to put into the Testimony, but they don't have it.

I think Kohdy did speak to Schueler, and Schueler's appearance in his cathedral is a long delayed consequence.
______
Dennis
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Re: Potential Spoiler - Last Chapter - Din between factions
Post by wingfield   » Fri Mar 01, 2019 7:57 am

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DMcCunney wrote:And that's part of the reason I don't see Schueler's manifestation in his cathedral on the day of the Feast of the Holy Schueler as a sneaky IC trick.

He stated to the gathered faithful that Shan Wei did not Fall, but was destroyed by the true betrayer of God's plan for Safehold for refusing to turn away from the great charge that brought her to Safehold, and that Chihiro lied.

The Testimony of Schueler will contain the proofs for those assertions. Given what the IC actually "knows", what proof could they provide that would not simply be be dismissed as a plot by Shan Wei? The IC's actual knowledge comes from sources they can't reveal and stops pretty much at the point just before Kau Yung nuked Langhorne's HQ. The intended audience for the Testimony will be the Vicarate in the Temple. The last thing that body will want to do is believe those assertions, so any evidence presented to prove them will have to be extremely powerful and things that have to be taken seriously. I simply don't believe the IC has that sort of evidence.

Anything that might constitute evidence that must be taken seriously and cannot be simply dismissed out of hand is likely to be found in the period after the destruction of Langhorne's HQ when the Temple was raised thorough the ending of the War Against the Fallen. The only records the IC has of that are in Kohdy's diary. He indicated the War Against the Fallen did not break out till about two years after the destruction of Langhorne's HQ. The Sisters of St. Kohdy knew that because they'd read the English parts of hid diary, but the rest of Safehold thought it commenced right after the destruction of Langhorne's HQ.

Kohdy recorded that he was defeated in battle by one of the Fallen, and instead of killing him, the Fallen in question provided evidence Kohdy could not just dismiss that Chihiro had turned to evil and was modifying Langhorne's plan. Kohdy didn't write down what it was - only that it shook him enough to make him wonder what side he was on and go to Zion and talk to Schueler. He was killed in Zion, and the IC suspects it was because he was a threat to Chihiro, but we don't know whether the actually spoke to Schueler. The sort of evidence the Fallen presented to Kohdy would be what the IC would need to put into the Testimony, but they don't have it.

I think Kohdy did speak to Schueler, and Schueler's appearance in his cathedral is a long delayed consequence.
______
Dennis

Dennis

I am substantially in agreement with you that the apparition of Schueler in the final scene of TFT is not the handiwork of the Inner Circle but I remain uncertain as to what it actually is.

My take on the final two scenes in TFT is that they are wholly unrelated. They just happen to sit together. Most of the series contains sequential scenes having very little to do with each other. They simply rotate the settings for the developing story.

I see the scene with the Inner Circle, where discussion moved from the progression of developing a “steam powered planetary industrial infrastructure” to something else to be initiated “in the meantime”, namely Operation Androcles, is the real cliff hanger from TFT. Obviously something big from the Inner Circle is in the wings.

However, I believe that the separate scene with the apparition of Schueler is merely the teaser for the start of the next book. There will clearly be plenty of fun resulting from that and the newly delivered Testimony of Schueler, interspersed with the continuing and accelerating technological development.

What makes me certain that the two scenes are distinct from each other is what you have said on several occasions concerning a statement made by the author at a con in April 2016. You reported on a hint of “the discovery of something called ‘the gospel of Schueler’ - a document of some sort arguably written by Schueler giving his perspective on things. The initial reaction of the Church of Charis will be careful neutrality, pending verifiable proof it was written by Schueler, sliding over into "There may be something in this..."

No one has ever challenged you on these reports, including the author. I see the final scene of TFT as simply the commencement of this new element of the story arc.

Where we all remain confused is what else could have triggered the apparition. You have suggested that “Schueler's appearance in his cathedral is a long delayed consequence” of Khody speaking to Schueler. I don’t know enough to jump this far. However, the heavy hints from the author in two messages on January 30 of this year referred to “a certain journal which came into the IC's possession courtesy of a certain nonexistent order of nuns” and asked us to consider “why the Sisters of St. Khody never made a single appearance in TFT”.

Then I found a question from Expert snuggler on October 28, 2015, thus: “The diary at the SSK is on miraculously age-proof paper. Any chance that other such books from the same era have survived?” The author replied within 45 minutes, saying “And you expect me to answer this because . . . ?”.

Very interesting!

I know that we have never had any direct translation of any of the Spanish parts of St Khody’s Diary and I suspect that this is something that we will have to be very patient about.

The only other reference that comes to mind is one from one of the information posts (June 22, 2011), where we learned that “the separate Book of Chihiro as the individual word of Chihiro as an archangel rather than as the author of the rest of the Writ and (more especially) as the history of Shan-wei's Rebellion had been added” to the Writ was not necessarily the only part that had been added.

The author also stated that “All of the "history" of the Fall, on the other hand, is contained in the Book of Chihiro, although he (or someone; tum-te-tum-te-tum) went back and edited most of the existing books to reflect the "rebellion" and to incorporate some passages especially into the Book of Langhorne to make it seem that he had at least some pre-knowledge of what was likely to happen but hoped that he was wrong and that none of the other archangels would actually fall into evil in the end after all.”

Note the author’s code for “wait and see” included in that last quote. I think that all of the above quotes are part of the “soup” in which we must flounder around in our speculations!

It is most probably something to do with St Khody but we have too little to go on in taking this any further.

[Edited for some formatting]
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