On Tue, 15 Jul 2003, Philip Hart wrote: > > >On Tue, 15 Jul 2003, David Silberstein wrote: > >> On Tue, 15 Jul 2003, Philip Hart wrote: > >> >Or does the Orb have plain old Total-Information-Awareness powers? > >> I got the impression from /Orca/ that there are things that the >> Empress can do with the Orb which she is constrained from doing >> for political reasons (i.e., doing so will piss off the House(s) >> involved (which will cause stress and turmoil, and interfere with >> trade)). > >I missed this in _Orca_ - any idea where? > Specifically, in the conversation between Kiera (as Third-Chart-Master-Areik) & Side-Captain Vonnith. Vonnith: "The Empress? Using the Orb? She wouldn't! She's a /Phoenix/!" Kiera: "She hasn't yet, and she may not, but it would be the obvious next step, wouldn't it?" [snip] Vonnith: "No one has done that since the seventh Jhereg Reign, and you know what happened then!" Now, it is kinda murky *what* the Orb could be (or was) used for that would cause that kind of consternation, but the only conclusion I can draw is that it (a) it's powerful and nasty and (b) it Simply Isn't Done because there are political consequences to being powerful and nasty. Hmm. If the Orb can track anyone, why was the location of the Baroness Kaluma unknown in tPG?