On Tue, 14 Mar 2006, Scott Schultz wrote: > > Not a safe basis for speculation. Zerika had pressing matters to deal > > with and needed to be diplomatic. I imagine she could have just > > started brain-frying the Heirs of Houses who opposed her if need be. > > On the contrary; being Emperor means that you ALWAYS have pressing matters > to deal with and you ALWAYS need to be diplomatic. That's kind of the point. No - one example being the next transition, if Paarfi's to be believed. Sometimes you storm the palace, take the Orb, and that's obviously that. > Being the rightful heir to the Throne doesn't mean squat if the people you > ostensibly rule choose not to be ruled by you. If you've got the Orb, they'll come to you whether they like it or not, esp. since the Cycle will have changed, unless the whole setup is rubegoldbergian. > I think, in my own mind anyway, that I'm leaning towards a model where > the Empires is not tied to the Cycle. Rather, they attempt to live in > synch with the Cycle as best they can because doing so provides the > greatest benefits to its citizens and it establishes a mystical/moral > basis for periodic changes in government. I'm rather skeptical the whole machinery could work for 200k years without the Plot controlling things. > > No, X could be ahead of the Cycle. [...] > > Well, yes, it's conceivable that an Emperor could handoff the Orb early. I'm > not sure how that's relevant to anything but I'll concede the possibility. You clipped the argument I was rebutting - you asserted that the Orb has no Cycle detector, and said a Cycle change preceded all [interHouse] handovers. The point was to distinguish exactly what "emperor" means. > Emperor X wants to retire and decides the Cycle has turned, when it in fact > has not. > X hands off to Y, who is happy to be Emperor peacefully and accepts. Here the Cycle catches up, or Zerika is a worse programmer than I am. > Y's administration runs the Empire into the ground because the Empire is now > metaphysically out-of-sync with the Cycle. > Y-prime decides that Y has to be removed for the good of the Empire. > Y-prime successfully removes Y and assumes the Throne in his stead. > The Cycle turns ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ But there's no reason to think it would in your theory. Maybe everything is out of joint until we get back all the way around to House X. > > > If Adron had waited, allowing Loudin to assume the Throne, then he > > > would have been tacitly admitting that the Cycle had not turned. > > > > No. You just asserted the Orb has no Cycle detector - a switch would > > mean nothing. The Cycle presumably doesn't care who in the House is > > Emperor under the multi-emperor hypothesis. > > > > Errr, again, I don't see the relevance. Well. > If the Orb accepts its owner and the Council of Princes accepts the > holder as Emperor then, perforce, the Cycle has turned. You forgot it being Skyday, and the wind being in the north-west, and the Nunxsutawney Norska seeing its shadow. > The real question is, "Why was Loudin able to 'make a grab for the Throne' > in the first place?" I think the real question is, Was Aliera yanking Vlad's chain, or was Vlad yanking ours, or is the historical stuff in _J_ just uncanonical at this point given its problems?