Dragaera

SPOILER for _Dragon_...what's up with Vlad, again?

Mon Feb 17 17:34:26 PST 2003

Gametech wrote:
> 

> 
> I seem to recall in the discussion about getting 'Mr. stole the Jhereg
> treasury' to leave castle black ahead of his plan going something like:
> suggesting they implant the idea that it was a good idea to leave and it
> being voted as being something that Morrolan would mind.
> 
> This to me suggests that it is in fact possible to implant false knowledge
> into someone.
> 
> Also for some reason IIRC Vlad has had his memories tampered with, it's late
> and I'm AFB (they are on the shelf in the other room :P)
> 
> </vague>
> 
> > On the other hand, if the gods judge souls, maybe Sethra just can get
> > a soul-reading analysis from the god who does that.
> 
> Were you suggesting implanting false knowlede into a soul?

No - but I wish I had.  It'd be a neat idea to have the Lords of
Judgement (and potentially the Jenoine) not only know about genetic
engineering but also soul engineering.

Anyways, I was thinking more that if you could convince someone about
the reality of a 'past life', it would make for a way to hide sorcerous
influence even if the subject knows about spells to detect that
influence - after all, the spell isn't compelling them to think
anything, it's just helping them 'recover old memories' - the fact that
memories are rather important in how someone reacts to future situations
doesn't make it a compulsion

Like, odds are that if a Dragaeran Objectivist found himself helping out
Kelly's Teckla, he might be rather peeved at whichever sorceror cast a
spell on him after which he started thinking that Communism really was a
good idea after all.  OTOH, convince the DO that he 'remembers' that the
enemy of the Teckla had also really screwed him over in a past life, and
maybe he'd start thinking that the enemy of my enemy is my friend if
he's a naturally vengeful type in the first place.

More relevantly, I rather wonder how Aliera would have dealt with Vlad
if she just saw him as an Easterner, rather than the reincarnation of a
real Human, who might have been an outcast criminal but was still good
enough to get Kieron the Conqueror to recognize the Jhereg as a
legitimate House.  We know that Sethra was keeping an eye on Vlad from a
young age, and if Sethra was also the one who helped Aliera remember her
past lives....... Shrug - Aliera never seemed to me like someone who
would deal well with having to rethink her prejudices - and she doesn't
seem to think of Easterners as really worth worrying about.

(Problem is, there's Vlad throwing raw chaos around, which is something
only the e'Kieron line of Dragons is supposed to be able to do.  So
either bring in Taltos as descriptive as well as a name, or else it's a
natural talent in Easterners.)

Karen