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When Gaal Dornick was leaving Synnax, everyone knew that she was a mathematician who was going to Sterling University on Trantor (that's why they were avoiding her).

Given, being a mathematician was heretical on Synnax and Seer Church was killing Mathematicians and Gaal Dornick was an acolyte (even bigger betrayal), why did Seer Church allow Gaal Dornick to leave?

Talking about fear from Empire (a jumpship was right at the doorstep), its possibility seems null because prosecution of Mathematicians on Synnax was an open information on Trantor and yet Empire never intervened. Either Empire didn't care or it feared the religion (less likely because this religion didn't have 3 trillion followers like Luminist).

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  • My personal take is it was indeed fear of the Empire. It's one thing to prosecute and kill some random people on your planet (the Empire does not care) and another to kill someone who got a special invitation to visit the capital by the Empire's top University (the Empire would indeed care here). This is only speculation though, hence only a comment.
    – Hans Olo
    Commented Nov 22, 2021 at 17:50
  • @HansOlo that should be changed to an answer. Comments should not be used as short answers
    – Andrey
    Commented Dec 15, 2021 at 18:54

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This is somewhat speculative but there are some clues that the Seer Church does not hold absolute sway over every inhabitant of Synnax; namely, there is at least one specialist in removing prayer stones, which if the Seer Church were an entirely autocratic religious power, might not exist. The implication perhaps being that off-world travel is not necessarily prohibited to Synnaxians, and they may even be permitted to quietly leave the Church (at the very least: to remove their prayer-stones, without which they cannot be "seen" by "the Sleeper").

Notably Gaal is otherwise a member of the Church in good standing, and has been promoted to the position of Acolyte.

Furthermore, it may be the case that an apostate who is willing to permanently exile themselves might be seen as a "problem that has solved itself" from the perspective of the church.

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Alternatively, the Empire didn't care in the past because Synnax's religious affairs were an internal matter that only targetted irrelevant plebs. But, as soon as she accepts a position at a prestigious Imperial university, she becomes a citizen of Trantor and thus a person who matters to the Empire.

We see elements of this with the show's other religious conflict. Empire is perfectly willing to tolerate whatever Luminism gets up to, as long as they admit that the Emperor is the coolest guy with the biggest hat. Once a preacher shows up who does not follow that principle, they intervene

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