The Republic of Heaven

When mary is talking to the angels on the cave, is she talking to asll the angels, a random angel or a specific one. Also would it be a visible angel or an invisible one?

i always thought of it as Dust as a body, not necessarily an angel, though we know it is 'cause it told Mary so, but just as like... a formless being. but i think it would have been visible, having known what was going on to tell Mary about it... baruch and balthamos, nearly invisible, weren't officially part of Lord Asriel's team, they were on their way to join it, and following Jopari 'cause they knew he'd be important.

Mabye a very powerful angel, that could somehow affect or control dust to send mary messages in the cave.

maybe dust thought it'd be easier to say they were angels?
yeah I was confused about that part myself.

I think it was just Dust in general, like the Dust that speaks through the alethiometer. It didn't have time to explain the difference between angels and Dust, so it just said it was angels.

I agree with the idea that Dust is a single entity. And since the angels are formed from Dust, when talking to the Dust it would most likely be a consensus of all the 'rebel' angels that are created from Dust.

i've always considered Dust kind of an energy, like light, or heat, or sound... angels are beings of Dust... the more senior-in-rank angels glow... light... ooh... ahh... don't mind me... the whole study of Dust in the books themselves ruins my entire theory anyways.

but there are angels in the worlds of hdm, and angels are beings of Dust.

the only thing angels are made of is Dust... therefore it can truthfully be stated that angels are Dust

hmmm yes
but then why do the angels loyal to the authority want to destroy it if thats what theyre made of?
i havent read the books that recently, but i thought dust was the conscousness of the universe sorta, and the angels were beings of dust...that still doesnt explain why the loyal angels wanted to destryo dust though

they didn't really want to destory Dust, they wanted to control Dust. If you control Dust, you control every living being. As long as there's something out there that can conquer Dust or even effect Dust (knife, love, thought, etc...) then the Kingdom of Heaven can't control it. They've been trying forever mostly to regain the control from before The Fall, but unsuccessfully, though slightly better in Lyra's world because the church has enough influence there to cut daemons and control Dust.

yeah must be control dust because all beings with conciousness (even the authority) needed it to think.

Exactly, the authority can't destroy Dust because he himself if composed of it. But he's sort of a jealous angel, he wants to control it and doesn't want it to be in the hands of humans. He doesn't understand that humans created it, so humans can control it.

the bible does say that the christian god is a jealous god (somewhere)... but that's in reference to people worshipping idols and other gods instead of him (i think)... but it's kind of the same thing... if people don't believe that they no longer need god to get into heaven, there's be less people worshipping him, and then the authority gets all neglected and pissy.

Well put

Which came first: Dust or intelligent beings? Because... don't intelligent beings create it by thinking and wondering and finding out, but aren't they intelligent because of Dust?

this comes back to how the Authority in HDM was not the creator... he is a creation, and thus the product of concious effort, or Dust. but he hates Dust...

how can he hate Dust? He is Dust.

exactly my point. but he doesn't like dust, 'cause it makes people concious enough to figure out that he's not the creator.