Krenn wrote:
1. Get safehold used to the neccessity of constant national-scale innovation and development (mostly done)
2. Get safehold used to thinking critically, verifiably, scientifically, skeptically, honestly, and openly about past knowledge, science or commandmants: Well underway, but still mostly limited to the youngest generation of the Charisian empire. the College System and omnipresent ongoing adult education for professionals stills need to be widely distributed to the mainland.
3: avoid another world war, and related massive atrocities. Avoid loss of public faith in basic morality, honesty, fairness, and public trust. - Still uncertain. Things could get ugly if they're not very careful, or if they're unlucky.
4. Get Safeholdans used to the idea of continually updated, new and relevant, evidence and experiments regarding their foundation myths and doctrine. Not really started yet, except in the most preliminary of ways.
5. Get Safeholdans to SERIOUSLY QUESTION certain key elements of Early Safeholdan Religious History, and to widely accept that certain limited elements may, in fact, be wrong, for otherwise doctrinally acceptable reasons.
(Such as, say, "The Punishment of Schueler is actually an editing error. That document was actually recovered from one of Shan-Wei's lairs, misfiled, and mistakenly included in the revised Writ by an overly ambitious junior clerk...We Regret the Error.")
6. Get Safeholdans to start Accepting ACTUAL SCHISM AND HERESY. various small groups of religionists who consistently reliably believe something WAY DIFFERENT from what could ever plausibly be in the Writ. Such as, say, Judaism, Paganism, Universalism, Janeism, Shintoism.... Small minority sects who all right-thinking people think are completely crazy and following pure works of fiction, but the communities are still permited to live isolated, peaceful lives anyway. No stake-burning allowed.
7. Actually gradually get the majority of Safeholdans to slowly accept that their entire religion is, in fact, a work of fiction which happens to have copied some useful spiritual truths.
I kind of disagree with the above starting from point 3 on in the sense that with the CoGa broken in the Jihad there is no more unifying force on Safehold, so the usual Terran history of power politics, incipient nationalism and either looking at Charis (now the one existing Superpower, while The Temple Lands are sort of the second but less powerful one for now) at either mortal enemy (see S Harchong, Desnair and the Zhermo coalition of Siddarmark) or as the friend to be courted (Silkiah, Dohlar, most of North harchong, even the Temple Lands) is now fully asserting itself and barring some massive show of force from the Returned Archangels, religious disputes won't count that much beyond pretexts, so I do not think the Visitation (whether it's IC, Schueler, or a hypothetical Safehold "Alignment") will really impact people that much beyond the Church hierarchy - none of Desnair and S Harchong's rulers struck me as particularly religious beyond their previous fear of the (now neutered) Inquisition (and even that didn't stop the first to pull out Desnair from the Jihad and the second to drag their feet in so many ways), while the Zhermo calition of Siddarmark, as they represent the ugly chauvinistic "Siddarmark First" elements anyway, I think that unless the Archangels personally come and threaten to nuke them to oblivion, they couldn't care less about CoGA and its tribulations.
In particular, another WW will be unavoidable, but it will be one for power and for who will rule Safehold (or at least, who will avoid being ruled by Charis and its allies in a way or another, through treaties, commerce, and the inevitable social revolution rather than outright conquest)
So 4-7 above I think are much less relevant and barring the existence of rakurai, the IC could proclaim tomorrow the truth on Safehold and most people would shrug it off imho; so from that perspective I think that the Schueler apparition will cause turmoil in the Church and its hierarchy, but not really in the people, especially outside the Temple Lands - practically what i suspect the Visitation will do (and where it will backfire for the IC, if as I strongly suspect, they did it), it will split the Temple Lands, maybe even provoke the pretext for the new WW - though I suspect that Siddarmark turning conqueror will do that - and more importantly take away the Temple Lands power from the Charis coalition and make things more ven so to speak for their enemies.