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What's under the Temple? A new possibility.

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What's under the Temple? A new possibility.
Post by thanatos   » Fri Apr 21, 2017 6:41 pm

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I've been rereading (or re-listening to) HFQ and there's the scene where the Inner Circle discusses St. Khody's diary. Much of the discussion focuses upon the fragmented memories Cody Cortazar was experiencing and how TF technology could erase a traumatic memory and replace it with a less traumatic one. I also remembered Paityr Wylsyn's description of the secret room in the Temple with the alter in which the Key is placed and it includes two places for hands and requires a voice command. I have to wonder what those hand indentations are for? Given how much emphasis was placed on implant interfacing in TF technology, and that memories could be stored on an online cloud server, it is clear that the "Archangels" left the necessary interfaces for the implant-less colonists to operate the parts of the Temple they had access to. Yet why does that alter require hand prints?

Do they serve as genetic scanners that only respond to Wylsyn (and therefore, Schueler) DNA? If so, Schueler had to know it was possible that his descendants might not survive or that any unique genetic markers would eventually disappear from the family. Do they perhaps serve another purpose besides impressing the ignorant masses of its "magic"? Is it possible that the console somehow takes over the body of the individual activating it, implanting the personality of Schueler in him? Obviously Schueler would have to know that the person doing this would not have implants so I guess it's used to confirm that a human being (rather than a PICA or a Gbaba) is actually at the console. And that person becomes a "volunteer" in a "procedure" whereby he receives implants and is then "infused" with the "essence" of the Archangel. He then comes out of the chamber with a glowing halo and starts to talk like Schueler. Its possible that the reason this can't be done more than once with the key is because of the limited technological assets that the command crew had at the time.

Finally, given what we've known about the War Against the Fallen since HFQ, I am more convinced than ever that the surviving command crew had to prepare for the eventuality that they missed some member of the fallen or some hidden technology and needed to prepare for it. It's simply that Merlin has been remarkably cautious about how he uses advanced technology and where he uses it. I think that Chihiro, Schueler and the others might have thought it terms of what they faced in the War Against the Fallen and made the mistake of preparing for the last war rather than the next. Moreover, they may have ignored or discounted the possibility that someone would try to undermine the anti-technology mindset itself, believing that the plan was fool-proof and airtight, just as Langhorne and Bedard comment upon in the conversation Clyntahn was shown.
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Re: What's under the Temple? A new possibility.
Post by DrakBibliophile   » Fri Apr 21, 2017 8:51 pm

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Since Merlin hasn't given his allies "implants", I doubt that the Archangels could give give their allies "implants".

Thus the Archangels couldn't implant somebody and then copy the memories of one of them into that person.

You do bring up a good point, I assumed that the "hand print reader" was to show that the person was a descendant of Schueler.

While there are ways to determine that somebody is a descendant via the male line, there's the question of if this was so important why would Schueler restrict the usage of this room only to his descendants?

thanatos wrote:I've been rereading (or re-listening to) HFQ and there's the scene where the Inner Circle discusses St. Khody's diary. Much of the discussion focuses upon the fragmented memories Cody Cortazar was experiencing and how TF technology could erase a traumatic memory and replace it with a less traumatic one. I also remembered Paityr Wylsyn's description of the secret room in the Temple with the alter in which the Key is placed and it includes two places for hands and requires a voice command. I have to wonder what those hand indentations are for? Given how much emphasis was placed on implant interfacing in TF technology, and that memories could be stored on an online cloud server, it is clear that the "Archangels" left the necessary interfaces for the implant-less colonists to operate the parts of the Temple they had access to. Yet why does that alter require hand prints?

Do they serve as genetic scanners that only respond to Wylsyn (and therefore, Schueler) DNA? If so, Schueler had to know it was possible that his descendants might not survive or that any unique genetic markers would eventually disappear from the family. Do they perhaps serve another purpose besides impressing the ignorant masses of its "magic"? Is it possible that the console somehow takes over the body of the individual activating it, implanting the personality of Schueler in him? Obviously Schueler would have to know that the person doing this would not have implants so I guess it's used to confirm that a human being (rather than a PICA or a Gbaba) is actually at the console. And that person becomes a "volunteer" in a "procedure" whereby he receives implants and is then "infused" with the "essence" of the Archangel. He then comes out of the chamber with a glowing halo and starts to talk like Schueler. Its possible that the reason this can't be done more than once with the key is because of the limited technological assets that the command crew had at the time.

Finally, given what we've known about the War Against the Fallen since HFQ, I am more convinced than ever that the surviving command crew had to prepare for the eventuality that they missed some member of the fallen or some hidden technology and needed to prepare for it. It's simply that Merlin has been remarkably cautious about how he uses advanced technology and where he uses it. I think that Chihiro, Schueler and the others might have thought it terms of what they faced in the War Against the Fallen and made the mistake of preparing for the last war rather than the next. Moreover, they may have ignored or discounted the possibility that someone would try to undermine the anti-technology mindset itself, believing that the plan was fool-proof and airtight, just as Langhorne and Bedard comment upon in the conversation Clyntahn was shown.
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Re: What's under the Temple? A new possibility.
Post by Keith_w   » Sat Apr 22, 2017 8:24 am

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Re: Drak and Thanatos. What if there were no descendants? What if by some mischance the person possessing the knowledge of Schueler and holder of the key were to die without descendants? Or the key itself lost? Perhaps the hand prints were an alternate access to the device?
--
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Re: What's under the Temple? A new possibility.
Post by DrakBibliophile   » Sat Apr 22, 2017 10:25 am

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Good point.

Only the Great and Powerful David Weber knows for sure. :lol:

Keith_w wrote:Re: Drak and Thanatos. What if there were no descendants? What if by some mischance the person possessing the knowledge of Schueler and holder of the key were to die without descendants? Or the key itself lost? Perhaps the hand prints were an alternate access to the device?
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Re: What's under the Temple? A new possibility.
Post by thanatos   » Sat Apr 22, 2017 11:00 am

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Keith_w wrote:Re: Drak and Thanatos. What if there were no descendants? What if by some mischance the person possessing the knowledge of Schueler and holder of the key were to die without descendants? Or the key itself lost? Perhaps the hand prints were an alternate access to the device?


One problem with that: Paityr said that, according to the "vision of Schueler", one needs to place the key and the stone in the alter and place one's hands in the suitable indentations. And Nahrmahn and OWL have analyzed the Key and found a ginormous file in it that they can't access because of the extremely heavy security protocols and fail safes on the Key. That implies that the security "bottleneck" is the Key itself and not the hand prints. The Key cannot be lost.

Also, when you think about it, why give his descendants the Key and a verifier? It would seem that despite the atrocities and horrors Schueler and Chihiro were willing to write into the Writ, the former at least had the foresight to set a check of sorts on the Church itself. If the Wylsyns had been able to maintain their power within the Church, they could use the "Stone of Schueler" to interrogate all of the vicars and archbishops they suspected of corruption and be able to prove that they were guilty (and what they were guilty of) without a shadow of a doubt. My guess is that Schueler was counting on keeping his descendants in power and in a position to both keep the Church clean of corruption and their true mission of securing the anti-technology mindset they worked so hard to instill. But again, it would seem that despite all of the safeguards Langhorne and Bedard, and later Chihiro and Schueler, put in place, they all failed in the end.
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Re: What's under the Temple? A new possibility.
Post by Louis R   » Sat Apr 22, 2017 12:47 pm

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Well, duh!

Not wanting to listen to Shan Wei didn't make them any less delusional. Or less ignorant of the nitty-gritty details of history.

thanatos wrote:< snip > it would seem that despite all of the safeguards Langhorne and Bedard, and later Chihiro and Schueler, put in place, they all failed in the end.
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Re: What's under the Temple? A new possibility.
Post by Louis R   » Sat Apr 22, 2017 1:36 pm

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Implausible, I would say.

a. The humanity of anybody sitting at the console would be taken as given, and even if you felt a need to test it it would be doable [and probably done] before anyone reached the chair and sat down. The Gbaba are unlikely even to enter the Temple rather than slag it; for them the bigger the boom needed, the better, since it saves the bother of targeting the rest of Zion. There _are_ no picas on Safehold - or so Schueler would think. If there had been, he'd have been involved in creating them, and would have used one for this purpose.

b. While Federation technology can overwrite specific memories, there's no evidence that it can overwrite personality - and some to suggest it can't, come to think of it: picas have to be custom fit to the driver and given the broad range of transformations they can go through that's not for physical reasons. It's also very strongly implied that the implants _must_ be inserted in early childhood - directly from the text and from the fact that if it was a low-risk procedure for adults it would have been done by now as there are a good number of people who could have disappeared for the needed time. If it were _moderate_ risk, there are still adults who could be risked, and from whom the plan would have reaped enormous benefits had it succeeded.

thanatos wrote:I've been rereading (or re-listening to) HFQ and there's the scene where the Inner Circle discusses St. Khody's diary. Much of the discussion focuses upon the fragmented memories Cody Cortazar was experiencing and how TF technology could erase a traumatic memory and replace it with a less traumatic one. I also remembered Paityr Wylsyn's description of the secret room in the Temple with the alter in which the Key is placed and it includes two places for hands and requires a voice command. I have to wonder what those hand indentations are for? Given how much emphasis was placed on implant interfacing in TF technology, and that memories could be stored on an online cloud server, it is clear that the "Archangels" left the necessary interfaces for the implant-less colonists to operate the parts of the Temple they had access to. Yet why does that alter require hand prints?

Do they serve as genetic scanners that only respond to Wylsyn (and therefore, Schueler) DNA? If so, Schueler had to know it was possible that his descendants might not survive or that any unique genetic markers would eventually disappear from the family. Do they perhaps serve another purpose besides impressing the ignorant masses of its "magic"? Is it possible that the console somehow takes over the body of the individual activating it, implanting the personality of Schueler in him? Obviously Schueler would have to know that the person doing this would not have implants so I guess it's used to confirm that a human being (rather than a PICA or a Gbaba) is actually at the console. And that person becomes a "volunteer" in a "procedure" whereby he receives implants and is then "infused" with the "essence" of the Archangel. He then comes out of the chamber with a glowing halo and starts to talk like Schueler. Its possible that the reason this can't be done more than once with the key is because of the limited technological assets that the command crew had at the time.

Finally, given what we've known about the War Against the Fallen since HFQ, I am more convinced than ever that the surviving command crew had to prepare for the eventuality that they missed some member of the fallen or some hidden technology and needed to prepare for it. It's simply that Merlin has been remarkably cautious about how he uses advanced technology and where he uses it. I think that Chihiro, Schueler and the others might have thought it terms of what they faced in the War Against the Fallen and made the mistake of preparing for the last war rather than the next. Moreover, they may have ignored or discounted the possibility that someone would try to undermine the anti-technology mindset itself, believing that the plan was fool-proof and airtight, just as Langhorne and Bedard comment upon in the conversation Clyntahn was shown.
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Re: What's under the Temple? A new possibility.
Post by Keith_w   » Sat Apr 22, 2017 4:45 pm

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thanatos wrote:
Keith_w wrote:Re: Drak and Thanatos.


One problem with that: Paityr said that, according to the "vision of Schueler", one needs to place the key and the stone in the alter and place one's hands in the suitable indentations.


It was just a thought, I'm not rereading the series at this time.
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Re: What's under the Temple? A new possibility.
Post by Randomiser   » Sat Apr 22, 2017 6:42 pm

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Louis R wrote:Implausible, I would say.


b. <snip> It's also very strongly implied that the implants _must_ be inserted in early childhood - directly from the text and from the fact that if it was a low-risk procedure for adults it would have been done by now as there are a good number of people who could have disappeared for the needed time. If it were _moderate_ risk, there are still adults who could be risked, and from whom the plan would have reaped enormous benefits had it succeeded.



I disagree. AFAIR all that is said is that in the Federation implants were inserted in early childhood, full stop. There is no comment or speculation on the possibility of adults receiving implants in the text. (Please show quotes if I'm wrong.)

It seems to me to be implied that the risk involved is not of harming the intended recipient, but of detection of 'demonic' interference with the recipient by other Safeholders. Whether this would be in life or on post mortem examination is not clear. After all we don't know what the implants look like - it may not be as crude as a USB socket behind the ear, but we don't know that they are not visible or detectable in some way either. However it is clear that in the early stages, especially, Merlin is enormously aware of the danger of giving any ammunition to the Temple that could support a charge of demonic influence and enormously averse to the risk of doing so.
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Re: What's under the Temple? A new possibility.
Post by shayvaan   » Mon Apr 24, 2017 9:16 pm

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Randomiser wrote:
Louis R wrote:Implausible, I would say.


b. <snip> It's also very strongly implied that the implants _must_ be inserted in early childhood - directly from the text and from the fact that if it was a low-risk procedure for adults it would have been done by now as there are a good number of people who could have disappeared for the needed time. If it were _moderate_ risk, there are still adults who could be risked, and from whom the plan would have reaped enormous benefits had it succeeded.



I disagree. AFAIR all that is said is that in the Federation implants were inserted in early childhood, full stop. There is no comment or speculation on the possibility of adults receiving implants in the text. (Please show quotes if I'm wrong.)

It seems to me to be implied that the risk involved is not of harming the intended recipient, but of detection of 'demonic' interference with the recipient by other Safeholders. Whether this would be in life or on post mortem examination is not clear. After all we don't know what the implants look like - it may not be as crude as a USB socket behind the ear, but we don't know that they are not visible or detectable in some way either. However it is clear that in the early stages, especially, Merlin is enormously aware of the danger of giving any ammunition to the Temple that could support a charge of demonic influence and enormously averse to the risk of doing so.


It is unlikely that the implants are visible, after all Merlin used a medical device to build an emergency set into Narmahn to copy his personality. No one ever mentioned having to hide the body from the Pasqualites to keep them from discovering this (indeed Merlin was the only one who knew this had been done at the time), it they had been visible you would think that Olyvivia would have noticed.
Also there is no textev that there was any physical difference between the Adams and Eves and everyone else, or, for that matter, a defining similarity between them and the "angels."

As for implants being placed in adults- I don't recall this being ever even discussed. The closest thing was when someone (Cayleb, I believe) asked about using a NEAT to educate the inner circle, to which Merlin replied that one had to have implants to use the machine, but never explains why the inner circle couldn't receive implants.

Make of it what you will :roll:

P.S. If I had to guess, I would suspect that the surgery needed to do it SAFELY, would be beyond Owl's capability.
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