Matthew Hunter wrote: >>Of all the characters in the books Kelly is the one most in need of a >>good slapping. > > > He's not the only candidate, to be sure... > Very true, Vlad on occasion, perhaps. > > He's a well-read, highly-intelligent ideologue. This attitude > tends to breed an inability to consider the flaws in your own > ideas, while exacerbating the flaws in others. > > I think perhaps Kelly understands this -- he knows that he needs > the support of the people in the country, not just the city. And > the people in the country are still existing in a completely > agricultural economic model. They produce surplus, to be sure, > but if they stop producing, they starve. > > As such, initially his goals were limited. Clean up the section > of town he was living in, basically, and acquire enough of a > voice in the Empire to improve the conditions of his people in > small ways. > > But when the "System" (ie, the Jhereg) took offense at this, his > political philosophy forced him to escalate. Note that his > demands didn't change -- investigate the killings, not "let us > rule the empire". But given that he felt the "system" was > opposing him, he had to fight the system, not the individuals. > He is, at least, consistent in his blindness. > I am pretty sure that Kelly at least at one point, stated to Vlad that the ultimate point was to break the cycle. >>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. > > > Little different from the armored nobility in the medieval period > -- except spells are used instead of clumsy, weighty armor. > And they have far more firepower, A knight can only really be expected to kill one peasent at a time, I suspect that Warrior-Wizards are much more desctructive that that. > > > I am not sure if this would be necessary or not, but I would be > very interested in seeing the consequences of success. How does > the cycle keep the rule of the Empire in check? Is it merely a > function of which house can control the Orb? > > > (If everyone ignored the person with the Orb, instead of treating > them as the Emperor, what happens?) > You end up with a lesser sea of chaos :) But seriously, I feel that the manifestation of the cycle in the Halls of judgement reflect events that occur on the Mudane plane, and it is believed that the reverse is true. I kinda think it that in order to destroy the cycle some cataclysmic event must occur in halls of judgement, to relect the changes on the mundane plane. > > Clearly the link can operate in reverse -- consider the ability > of every citizen to petition the Empress directly, and the > consequences of doing so over a trivial matter. > > However, this is a red herring -- 90% of Kelly's forces would not > have such a link or would be unable to derive significant > benefits from it, as far as I can tell. Vlad has a link because > he is Jhereg nobility; it does not appear to be the default for > Easterners. And few Teckla are capable of more than mundane > sorcery. > Actually its stated somewhere that in order to get a link to the orb you have to either join the Tekla or buy a title in the Jehreg. If its not stated explictly its pretty heavily implied that ALL Citizens have a link to the Orb. It just a matter of whether The Emperor can affect more than one person simutaniously. Of course there are ways of severing your link, but that just leaves you with less resources. Even just having a central time server can be very useful in an inserrection. > >>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? > > > I suspect he might, if given the chance, mainly because he would > be too focused on opposing the Empire to carefully consider his > allies. > Yes, or he might decide to start investigating pre-empire sorcery. The Author aslo wrote: > At 04:38 PM 7/17/2002 -0500, Matthew Hunter wrote: > >> Steve, I'm curious how much you agree with Kelly vs Vlad in terms >> of the "movement". > >Interesting question. In brief, I don't hate Kelly nearly as much as >Vlad does, but I do not believe that one can transfer a political system >from one economic structure to another as he is attempting to do. To the >extent that a "Marxist" theory (to be more precise, a scientific approach >to ending class conflict) could ever be valid on Dragaera, it has to occur >organically, and it is Millennia away at best. > > Of course, I might be wrong. > Well thats putting it much better than I did. *sigh*. Andrew.