Maximilian Wilson <wilson.max at gmail.com> 01/18/06 10:26 AM To "Jon_Lincicum at stream.com" <Jon_Lincicum at stream.com> cc SKZB List <dragaera at dragaera.info>, dragaera-bounces at dragaera.info Subject Re: High Tech vs. the Orb (some Issola spoilage) >Intercepted *and* decrypted. We're not dealing with WWII technology here. Even WWII had encryption (The Enigma Machine was a type of encryption, for example). It was just encryption that was breakable once computers were invented to decipher the keys. Can sorcery be used to decipher complicated mathematical problems? I'll be a Hawk could tell you. "P" vs "NP". Who wins? ;-) Of course, a simple clairvoyance spell used to listen in to your enemies' strategy meetings makes radio encryption basically worthless, anyway. >> The only reason Blackwand and Pathfinder didn't immediately dispatch the >> Jenoine in /Issola/ is because they had developed their own >> Orb-equivilent, and were therefore using sorcery to defend themselves, so >> this doesn't really count as "technology countering sorcery", it was >> sorcery countering sorcery. It was only at that point that the Jenoine's >> stun-gun technology became the deciding factor. > >I was actually thinking of the battle at the end, before the Jenoine >re-established their link to the amorphia. I recall that it was stated >in the text that the Jenoine wouldn't be able to use sorcery before >recovering the link, which means the initial defense was conducted >using other means. It didn't seem to make things any easier on the >Lords of Judgment. They had lost their link to the Lesser Sea of Amorphia. They had *not* lost their link to their own chunk of trellanstone, or to all the amorphia they had already "gathered" into their own "place". Hence, this was still sorcery they were using for defense, even at this point in the story. That could be an important point to bear in mind for future stories, the Jenoine now have some finite amount of amorphia in their possesion, and a trellanstone to channel it through. This obviously makes Godslayer a much more important tool to have for the defense of Dragaera, considering it's the only thing we've seen that can effectively fight a Jenoine armed with sorcery. Vlad may have to "correct" the oversight that left the Jenoine in control of their amorphia at some point. >Yes, but that's a separate point. (I'd add: "Project Thor vs. Sethra >Lavode, who wins?") Now *that's* a story I'd like to see. ;-) >> >I'm not sure why the Jenoine want access to amorphia so badly, but >> >they're obviously much more capable with it than Dragaerans are, >> >judging from events in /Issola/. Taking on Jenoine with only >> >technology would make me much more nervous than taking on a bunch of >> >Teckla conscripts with a few Dzur mixed in. >> >> Well, how many of the Dzur are sorcerers? ;-) > >That was my point. Even trained sorcerers seem to be far less >competent with sorcery than Jenoine are. Well, in their brute-force use of sorcery the Jenoine are at least very powerful. They do tend to come across as especially unsubtle (i.e. stupid) users of sorcery. I'm not sure how well this impression is justified, however. Majikjon