On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 11:31:10AM +0800, Andrew Bailey <andrew at networkharmoni.com.au> wrote: > Matthew Hunter wrote: > >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. Ultimately? Sure. But not anytime soon, and I think not in Kelly's lifetime (as an Easterner). > >>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. Indeed. > >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. I agree; all citizens do. But few Teckla can use it, and Easterners may not have it at all (with a few exceptions), thus making its loss rather less of a sacrifice. > 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. Well, if it's a choice between immolation on the Emperor's schedule, and doing without a central time server... > >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. Assuming he would even know of it, I suspect his ideology would prevent him from depending on it. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org)