Dragaera

Cycle Progression

David Silberstein davids at kithrup.com
Mon Mar 15 16:36:43 PST 2004

On Mon, 15 Mar 2004, Philip Hart wrote:

>
>
>On Mon, 15 Mar 2004, David Silberstein wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 14 Mar 2004, Philip Hart wrote:
>
>> >Why throw in a Lyorn, if the council was watching?
>>
>> The Lyorn is presumably unbiased and not corruptable.
>
>Like, say, Shaltre?

<*rolls eyes*> No, like Temma.

The reason Shaltre got away with stuff is that he was a Lyorn, who
do, in fact, have a reputation for being incorruptable.  They wouldn't
have this reputation if more of them were like Shaltre.

Hmm.  Perhaps Shaltre was secretly a Yendi.

>The Lyorn is supposed to watch the event, which consists of someone
>watching a spell being cast and saying Yup or Nope.  The only reason
>a Lyorn would be useful would be to carry the Y or N to the council.
>

Perhaps.  I can also see them using the Lyorn so that the House Lyorn
will record the results in their archives - seperate from House
Dragon, where there might be parties interested in tampering with
them.

>
>> > Why not have an e'Lanya wizard check, too?  Hell, probably several
>> > of the council members could have done it - if say Adron was on the
>> > council.
>
>> Bzzzt!  Adron is the one who will be re-Heired if the gene scan finds
>> mixbreedness.  An e'Lanya would presumably also be biased.
>
>Bzzzt!  Adron wouldn't have put his interests above the truth.

How do *we* know that?  How does the council know that?

>An e'Lanya might have done the same - anyway the line would want
>to confirm the truth.

Again, why involve interested parties?  This is politics going on
here.

>Also, bzzzt! again, because Aliera makes the call that Norathar is a
>Dragon.  She's biased because she doesn't want the throne, _like all
>Dragons_.
>

Yes, and as you point out, she is *biased*.  The gene scan must be
also re-done by non-biased parties.

For the same reason, it doesn't matter if Adron wants the throne or
not.  He's an *interested party*.  As an accomplished sorcerer, he
could skew the results either way, depending on what he secretly
wants.

>
>> >Why not have Sethra do the scan?  She's apolitical and of
>> >unimpeachable integrity.

>> Possibly, possibly.  However, she is the one who brought the matter to
>> the Dragon Council in the first place - I can see procedure being put
>> in place to have as many disinterested parties as possible.

[snip]

>And if I was the greatest expert in magic in the world, I
>think I'd do the scan myself just for practice.


Amusing pararectal notion:  Sethra not doing it herself might be a
hint of her not being purely of one House.  She knows that House
purity is important to the Empire, but she doesn't like to do the work
of enforcing it.


>> The problem was that the Dragon Council did not realize that there was
>> collusion between Baritt, SiG & Sethra Jr.
>
>I think this is an impossible level of conspiracy.  

Three can keep a secret if two are dead.

>Also I find it impossible to imagine that Norathar didn't proceed to
>challenge the SiG and StY to duels-to-the-death. 

When?  When the accusation occurred, she was an *infant*.  Once the
truth came out, didn't she help M & A & V take down tSiG anyway?