Matthew Hunter wrote: -snip- > > Steve, I'm curious how much you agree with Kelly vs Vlad in terms > of the "movement". In particular, Vlad is pretty harsh with some > of his accusations, and there seems to be some truth to his > comments about the "movement" not caring about individuals -- > especially when viewed together with historical implementations > of similar philosophies. > > (Plus, I'd like to share a chuckle at the exchange between > Noish-pa and Vlad: > "What is the word?" > "Friends? Compatriots?" > clearly a reference to "Comrades!") > Is that the cue for my anti-kelly rant? Of all the characters in the books Kelly is the one most in need of a good slapping. Why? Well he is a well read, highly intelligent individual who understands social systems quite well, but for some reason is completely unable to see why his marxist revolution is doomed to failure. Doomed? Yes. Basically for two reasons, they are out resourced, and, more importantly, the do not have a stanglehold on providing the means of production. If it came down to a revolt, I really don't think that Kelly's gang stand a chance. Fundamentally thay lack the magical resources to seriously challenge the current hierarchy. Yes they "Held" south adhrilanka. But when they come up against a Dragon Army, with Sethra, Morrolan , Aliera and a cohort of Athyra battle wizards how long do you give them? Whe have seen in Dragon how nessacary it is to have your own wizards to defend, lest you get slaughtered. And Morralan, Aleria et al are going to be Untouchable by your average Tekla, unless someone takes down there protective spell. It will be like Infrantry armed with swords taking on tanks. On the meta-physical side of things. In order to achieve Kellys stated goal of taking down the cycle he will have to, IMHO, attack on both the mudane and meta-physical levels. ( I belive that he may have to send people through the paths of the dead to physically destroy the cycle there, though this is just conjecture ). Anyway the gods are clearly against him, well at least some of them. Finally, there is Zerika. At the moment, or at least as far as we know, I feel she has prevented a complete slaughter of the rebels, firstly cause it would disrupt the empire far too much and secondly because I don't think she wants to kill a lot of people ( Kelly I believe does not seem to share that concern ). But at the end of the day, if the empire is threatened, she will and she has the orb. This is something that I have often considered. How powerful is the orb. We know that every citizen of Dragaera has a link to the Orb, Vlad uses it to tell the time, and it is also the source of power for sorcery. But the question is if every citizen can access the Ord, can that link operate in reverse, and what exactly can it do? How could that link be used by the establishment to defeat the revolution. Of course they could sever there links to the Orb, but that puts them at a severe disadvantage magically. Secondly, and this is much more interesting, lets look at the social situation in Dragaera it self. We are post Integrum, when magic is at the strongest it has ever been. Sorcerers, even those that aren't particalary good, can teleport them selves arround, a thing that even great wizards did not seemed to achive before, or if they did they weren't telling :). Revivication is possible, something that seems to have been unthought of before. So how does this effect the role of the working class, Tekla and Eastener. In brief , Welcome to the Industrial Revelotion. Even Kelly realises this. We see that people are becoming unemployed, more and more, in the services industry as the Middle/Higher classes choose to use magic rather than servants to do things. So what would happen if there was a revolt. If the crops needed to be delivered or harvested and the traditional suppliers of that labour, refused or weren't there to do it. Would this accellerate the erosion of the working classes traditional roles in society. And also would it generate a lack of trust between classes that could cause the Upper classes to prefer to use magic rather than servants out of distrust, this has happened before ( see TPG ), except without the magic bit, but back then they couldn't replace the Tekla on the farms and in most of the industry, now I believe they can, and in some ways this is already happening. All I can see happening is Kelly accellerating the Teklas displacement >from they traditional occupations in the empire and getting a lot of people dead, unless he creates an alliance with some other, better resourced, external power. The Eastern Kingdoms, maybe, but I can't see Feudal lords being all too keen on Kelly's republic either, after all it might give their subjects ideas. The Jenoine? He wouldn't, would he? Anyways sorry for the long rant, but he profoundly irritates me. Andrew.