----- Original Message ----- From: "Melalvai" <melalvai at kemenel.org> To: "Dragaera" <dragaera at dragaera.info> Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 12:53 PM Subject: Re: At the bottom (or top) of the cycle > At 06:48 AM 5/8/2004, Jose Marquez wrote: > > >>>Does society change permanently when Teklas rule? > >> > >>Let's think about this: how many Teckla reigns have there been? And how many > >>time has society been changed permanently? It seems pretty much the same, as > >>far as I can tell. > > How can any of us tell? We've only been exposed to one reign...that of the > Phoenix in this particular cycle. Granted, the actual ruler changed but > that isn't necessarily uncommon. Ask Sethra how many times society has been > changed permanently. I bet she'd laugh. Then, if you shortened the question > by one word ("permanently"), she might deign some such answer as "I lost > count two hundred thousand years ago." I imagine it's more like what our > world has experienced (given that some thousands of years of history were > pre-writing and therefore we know nothing of): widespread injustice giving > way to some equality (for the lucky ones) giving way to more equality > (except for the unlucky ones) giving way to some equality giving way to > widespread injustice. > > So in a way I agree. It doesn't change permanently. But it doesn't stay > "pretty much the same", rather it sways from one extreme to the other. I doubt that... somehow I can't see all the Dragaeran houses ever being "equal" in each others' eyes. I think mostly it's the Teckla on the bottom, the merchant noble houses in the middle, and the noble noble houses on the top of society, regardless of their current position in the cycle. They'll all obey the emperor, unless it's a Teckla, but their roles in society won't change. Rebecca