Dragaera

Vlad and the Orb

erik at debill.org erik at debill.org
Mon Aug 23 14:45:36 PDT 2004

On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 01:15:19PM -0700, David Silberstein wrote:
> >  If your standard practice is to intimidate Teckla into
> >confessing, 
> 
> Do you really think that intimidating Teckla is standard practice
> in settling cases?  Well, maybe during Jhereg reigns.
>
> But remember, they have access to an (alleged) lie detector.  All
> the Teckla has to do to verify his alibi is state it under the Orb.

I doubt that they can use the orb all that often.  If one Teckla
accuses the other of stealing, I doubt they'll bring in the orb.  If
two Dragons get in a fight and one dies, I doubt they'll bring in the
orb unless they're very powerful Dragons.  There are just too many
people and crimes to take up Orb time with them all.

Besides, having a "lie detector" is more likely to make you lazy.
Hell, existing (modern, real world) lie detectors are more about
intimidation than actual science.


> Also, while most nobles might not care, there's a whole House for
> whom justice and the miscarriage thereof is of paramount extreme
> interest:  The Iorich.

This may be so.  However, remember that this is also a culture where
it is accepted practice for nobles who disagree to hire armies of
mercenaries and fight wars, and it isn't considered unjust to have
normal folks fighting Sethra Lavode over a paternity suit.  Once you
accept trial by combat as a way to settle disputes things get very
very different, at least in my mind.


> >you'll probably be a fish out of water in court with an educated
> >suspect and a bunch of high nobles breathing down your neck.
> 
> Yes, and if one noble accuses another?  Do you think Vlad is the
> first noble to stand trial?  Do you really think that sloppy style
> of interrogations would wash when the accusing party could hear how
> easy his opponent was getting off?

None of the books have ever implied anything like our modern system of
direct examination, cross examination, re-direct and re-cross.  Even
most countries in the world don't allow for that.  Being able to
depend on a fair trial is really pretty darn rare, and seems to be a
trait more likely to show up in democracies than other forms of
government.  I don't get the impression they really have it.

If their justice system was fair, Vlad wouldn't be forced to accept a
beating at the hands of the Phoenix guard.  He would be able to defend
himself and then get acquitted on the grounds that he was defending
himself.

Given the distaste that so many have for Jhereg, would it be
surprising if their best legal minds didn't want to touch a Jhereg
case?  Just two Jhereg scum offing each other.  Nothing interesting
for the scholars and no glory for the rest of the folks.  Even if the
very best of them could tie Vlad into knots, this is just the sort of
case that would get delegated to the least competent underlings.


> >I get the feeling that a lot of things in Dragaera are more
> >primitive than we give them credit for, just because Vlad comes
> >across as relatively educated and sophisticated.
> 
> Yet the opposite can also be argued:  That after 200,000 years of
> nearly continuous history, they'd have hammered out the really
> basic rules of both interrogation and jurisprudence.
> 
> Especially since they have the Iorich, who are actively interested
> in that sort of thing.

I get the impression their society is (at the time of Vlad) starting
to come out of the Dark Ages and move into the Renaissance.  Their
progress in the sciences seems to be fundamentally different than
ours.

Give any of the great scientists 2000 years to investigate things and
you'd have really amazing things going on.  In fact, you can tell how
advanced a scientific discipline is by the average ages of people
winning Nobel Prizes.  In some disciplines, if you don't win one by
the time you're 35 you're never going to.  In others you don't do it
before your 40's or 50's (e.g. physics vs chemistry).  We've come that
far in only 200-300 years of actual science.  A 2000 year lifespan
would allow for individuals to learn an incredible amount of stuff in
their lifetime and then be able to build on it.  If they know of the
scientific method and are driven like we are, you'd expect them to be
enjoying the proverbial flying cars by now.

So, since they seem to make scientific advancements much more slowly
then we do, and even after having a country for 200k years their legal
system is positively primitive (different justice for different
people, legalized discrimination, widespread bribery and organized
crime with no real push to fight it), I really don't see anything
weird in them not having highly developed interrogation techniques.


-- 
Well I'm walking through the sand
In the desert of my mind
And I don't remember what it was
That I came here to find
  -- Sister Machine Gun "Alone"