On Fri, 20 Jun 2003, Alexx S Kay wrote: > If Adron *was* (however briefly) emperor, that would seem to indicate that > the Cycle actually went *backwards* during the Disaster, which is quite > unprecedented. Of course, so was the entire situation leading up to the > Disaster, so one could certainly argue the other way. I've complained about this before, but now it seems to me that the Orb is be a local agent of the Cycle capable of getting out ahead of the boss. So in _Taltos_, looking at what I envision as a big pie chart, do Vlad et al. see the Phoenix slice centered vertically? Or does the Cycle grind slowly and exceedingly small, in which case they have some (if nothing else extremely economically useful) information - when the Dragons will take power.