"Scott Schultz" <scott at cjhunter.com> Sent by: dragaera-bounces at dragaera.info 03/13/06 12:38 PM To <dragaera at dragaera.info> cc Subject RE: Multiple emporers in a reign, revisited >You're correct, as far as I can remember. It's strong evidence, but it's not >conclusive because you can't prove a negative. All you can prove is that You *can* proove a negative, but it's usually tricky, since you have to account for every possible exception. I see no way to prove this particular one, without, as you say, a comprehensive list of every emperor and their reigns. I consider it unlikely, given the almost three-hundred different house reigns that there hasn't been at least a few occurances of a "William Henry Harrison" situaion, where an Emperor dies shortly after taking office, mandating that a successor comes from the same House. But again, we have no proof. >everyone would consider an abberation, I think). As a counterpoint, we don't >even really have a clue what the government is like when there's a Teckla >Republic in power. Nobody's bothered to tell us, and Teckla reigns are all >referred to as The Xth Teckla Republic. It would be silly to conclude that >Teckla Republics have no supreme leader(s) based on this lack of any >reference to them. Same thing for multiple Emperors from a single House. I've been putting together some speculations about the way a Teckla reign works as a background for a fanfic idea I've been mashing out. My conclusions, based on the textev we do have, is that they probably hold elections and have a sort of "president" or "prime minister" with defined terms of office--but this is completely speculative. This theory doesn't conflict with any text evidence that I could find, however. (But neither does saying that the Teckla choose their leader by reading his name in moldy cheese, so I guess this point doesn't carry much weight.) >The telling thing, I think, is that in instances that don't involve war >there always seems to be a decision to be made about whether the Cycle has >actually changed. It would seem that the Orb doesn't always just move to the >next recipient. "Our" Zerika emerged from the Halls carrying the Orb, but >the Council of Lords (or whoever they were) still had to ratify her as the >recognized Emperor. What would the Orb have done if the Council had sided >with Kana instead of Zerika? Would it have stayed with Zerika? Would the >decision of the Council have caused the Cycle to turn? Just how closely tied >are the Cycle and the Throne? Kana's whole last attack was in furtherace of taking the Orb. He presumably thought that he'd be able to hold onto it once the Jenoine's influence had been negated later on. Of course, we don't know if this was a delusion based on his desire for power, or if it was founded on some prior historical circumstance or other "inside info". (Maybe Tri'nagore told him?) I find it interesting that at the end of FHYA, the Orb sought out Adron (the Dragon Heir) not Loudin (the Phoenix Heir) despite the fact that we found out later that the cycle never changed to that of the Dragon. (Despite the fact that Adron was apparently the legitimate Emperor for a few minutes.) Did the cycle change to Dragon, and then get "reset" during the disaster, or the end of the Great Cycle? Did it rotate through the other 16 Houses rapidly during the Interregnum? Or did Adron simply have control of the Orb, despite the fact that the cycle never actually turned away from the Phoenix? Am I missing any other possibilities? Majikjon