On 9/12/25 13:59, Harold Hale - harold.hale at gmail.com (via tml list)
wrote:
> Usually, but sometimes isolation can cause a schism.  For example, the
> Ethiopian church developed more or less in isolation from the rest of
> Christendom.  The result was something that was at variance on a
> number of issues.  To a lesser extent, the Catholic church in Ireland
> was isolated (thanks to the Vikings) from the rest of Europe and
> things like Easter gradually came to be celebrated on a different
> day.  Some schisms are easily reconciled, others not so much (the one
> between Shiites and Sunni Muslims for example).
>
> There are hints in Children of Earth (set in 1205) of a developing
> schism between the Promethean Gabreelists and the mainstream
> Gabreelists, the Prometheans seeing Gabree-el as being more of a
> Messiah/deity figure and everything she said and did taken as gospel,
> whereas mainstream Gabreelists tend to see her more as a human figure,
> and the essence of her message is what is important.  For her own
> part, she bristled at the idea of being thought of as God or a god,
> and while there were attempts to bring heretics back into the
> mainstream, those were not always successful.  A sort of cult of
> Gabree-el eventually forms on Prometheus, hidden in the shadows,
> avoiding persecution.  After Gabree-el's death (or ascension depending
> on who you talk to...), some of them publicly deny the religious
> leadership of Gabree-el's granddaughter, Shoshanna.  Eventually, the
> story arc had many of the deniers, facing increasing hostility from
> mainstream Terran Republic society, leaving Prometheus for the
> Aldebaran Sector.  The sequel of Children of Earth, set in 1230, has
> adventurers encountering them on the frontier.

Harold,

How would schisms be affected by changing FTL speeds?

Eg (with apologies to Bill Cameron), out past Teapot (Ushuggi 2530), you
end up with the Catholic Church of Arglebargle on Ushuggi 2731, itself
12 pc out from Terra, and a _further_ 14 pc away by trade route (Alpha
Crucis 0340), you end up with the Refounded Catholic Church of
Bargleargle, in addition to the Roman Catholic Church on Terra itself -
established during the J-2 period of the Terran Confederation.  As it's
roughly 3 months round-trip comm time between each adjacent pair of
worlds (Terra-Arglebargle, Arglebargle-Bargleargle), would pre-modern
Terra be a reasonable model for whether/how the three churches schism,
even assuming relatively constant comms?

Would the RCCoB even _send_ someone to vote in the conclave after the
expiry of His Holiness Bloggins, or (as Narilka suggested), they're not
so much "sent on demand" as "posted until replaced", ironically not
unlike the Zhodani Consulate?

Whether the three churches schism or not, how does that change during
the J-3 period of the Terran Confederation, where Arglebargle is now 1
month (and 10 pc) one-way from Terra, and Bargleargle is now 3 weeks
(and 9 pc) one-way from Arglebargle (thus making Terra-Bargleargle 3 and
a half months for round-trip comms rather than the 6 months of the J-2
period)?

Admittedly, the existence of Teapot does butterfly away the Second and
later Imperia, giving the TC a safety valve of expanding to
rimwards/trailing which it didn't have canonically.

Alex