On Fri, 20 Jun 2003 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > Jag <agrajag at dragaera.net> writes: > > > Warning, nitpicks ahead! And wrong, at that: > > And we sorta saw a 'normal' transition after the death of > > an Emperor(ess). After Tortaalik's death, the Orb did stop > > and process for a moment to determine who the next Emperor > > should be, and settled on Andron. > > No, the Orb never had a chance to choose anyone. Aliera > tried to claim it in her father's name, but it rejected her > (or maybe that was its first reaction to Adron's spell). > Adron could not be Emperor becuase the cycle hadn't turned > yet. We've talked about this recently - the Orb picks Adron. The Disaster is caused by his spell trying to wrest control of the Orb from the Emperor and give it to himself - but it segevs since he himself is the Emperor, at least in his view and Tazendra's. The ambiguity on this point is beautifully expressed by the variant formal address used by Aerich and the others at the time. The ambiguity arises no doubt from a poor definition of "Emperor" - it means to be the Heir of the House the Cycle points to; it also means to control the Orb, which may temporarily not have the entire overview of the universe that the Cycle has. To wax poetic, it's like what happens when a particle passes through a medium faster than the speed of light in that medium - you get a blue shockwave.