> 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. Huh. That's a good handwave that hadn't previously occured to me. Thanks! > 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. The "grinding slow" (nice image, btw), seems mythologically "right" to me. You are correct that that could convey valuable information -- but not many beings are in a position to access that info :-) (And it wouldn't be exact in any case -- the speed is clearly subject to significant variation.) Alexx Alexx Kay Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employers alexx at world.std.com http://world.std.com/~alexx "I've heard it said that all of our human perceptions might be seen as our individual windows on the Universe. The magician is consciously attempting to alter his or her window's width or its angle, so as to get a different view of the landscape outside. The schizophrenic, on the other hand, has had his or her window kicked in by some great big astral skinhead in eighteen-hole Doctor Marten's boots." -- Alan Moore in correspondence with Dave Sim about _From Hell_