On Tue, 14 Mar 2006, Shawn Burns wrote: > > Trevor Fuhrman wrote: > > > > >>I wonder if anybody has resigned as emperor - either for personal > > >>reasons, or from scandal. And had someone from his House > > take over. > > > > > >That doesn't seem consistent with Morrolan or Aliera. Think > > about how > > >hard they tried to find a suitable Dragon heir replacement. > > Why go to > > >all of that trouble if you could simply resign after taking office? > > > > > > > > Why do we go to all that trouble finding suitable Justices to > > replace existing ones if they can simply resign after taking office? > > > > > > I don't think the point of the post was to speculate that Aliera and > Morrolan went to too much trouble to find a replacement who could resign > (and thereby waste their effort); rather, why go to all that trouble if it > were possible for Morrolan or Aliera to resign? That is, if it is possible > for the Emperor to resign, then Morrolan and Aliera should not waste effort > finding someone else to be the legitimate Heir, since they could just > abdicate. > > But even though I think this is what the original question meant to ask, I > don't think there is any inconsistency in supposing resignation to be > possible AND knowing that Morrolan and Aliera tried to find another Heir. > Maybe neither of them wanted to be Emperor even for a day, or a minute; so > it is not just that they were worried they would be stuck with it forever, > but that they were quite happy doing their own thing and didn't want any > disruptions. This seems perfectly consistent to me. So maybe it is possible > for the Emperor to resign. I thought (not necessarily recalling correctly because I'm at work and haven't read the cycle in a bit) that there was a line about no Dragon wanting to be Emperor, but every Dragon wanting to be Warlord? That it was actually desirable for a Dragon to be #2 rather than #1 on the social pecking order? Also, resigning from a post which you have inherited can be interpreted as a dishonor. Dragons may view being Emperor as a responsibility that they will fulfill if they have to - they just don't necessarily want it. I don't think this dictates conclusively one way or the other if it is considered dishonorable for any Emperor to abdicate. I have a feeling that anything that would result in a dishonorable resignation would be enough to change the cycle, but I don't think there's enough information to judge for certain. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Toby Seltsam | rogue at shore.net -------------------------------------------------------------------------