: And I'm sorry I've snipped this up so much, but I didn't
: want it ending up seven hundred lines long!
Of course--why do that when you could make it seven hundred and seventy-seven?
: Which, of course, suggests Moorcock's sagas... maybe a
: veiled hint in your post name? Elric, champion of
: Chaos, going up against the Lords of Order... hmm...
: you might just be on to something, here!
Really? I'd think of Zelazny, first. But then I think of Zelazny night and day.
: Okay, here's where we start disagreeing. I know you
: aren't arguing for a straight, one-to-one
: correspondence. The fact that Alric never reconvened
: the Nine is a good, strong point. However, I see no
: real evidence of him performing some grand campaign
: reform measure--the Legion remains as stratified in M2
: as it was in M1, an orderly, organized, disciplined
: unit of fighting men with clear lines of rank.
Disagreeing? And we were doing so well so far... :-(
Yes, the lines of rank are clear. But how many ranks are there? We know about warriors; we know about warrior captains; we know about Alric; and that's about it. We never seem to hear about lieutenants, generals, majors, and all the guys who intervene between the man who commands 30 soldiers and the man who rules the West--and of course by getting rid of the Nine, Alric basically abolished the "general" rank. The Nine, remember, acted as regional commanders of the West's forces during the war. This is what I was trying to say in my original post--he establishes a few clear relationships of status and authority so that no one else will be able to establish their own. It seems to me that the Legion operates under the minimum necessary authority to operate effectively at all.
Or, I could just take the easy way out and say that the Legion is well-disciplined because of the Light influence; the expression of A's principle, when colored by goodness and Light, is primarily freedom rather than chaos and anarchy. But I'm sure you won't let me get away with that. :-)
: On the other hand, you have Connacht. Yes, he had
: lieutenants. Beyond that, do we really know how he
: organized his armies? He relied pretty heavily on the
: Heron Guard, who don't seem that well organized. He
: relied VERY heavily on his sorcerors--chaotics, in
: your scheme--and on his artifacts. Could there have
: been a Wolf Age without a Tain? Which leads us to...
: But C seems to rely on them pretty heavily. Yes, we know
: Connacht tried to destroy all the artifacts he could
: find. That's established fact. I've always thought
: that he did this because he looked back on his career
: and saw how much he had depended on them, and didn't
: want to leave them around as temptations for the next
: Leveller. He can't have had a natural antipathy for
: the things or he would never have ordered the Tain's
: construction.
Re: The Heron Guard: I never saw him as relying heavily on them. In fact, I don't remember *any* text (although I could easily have seen and forgotten it) that mentions the Heron Guard fighting alongside Connacht. Alric, on the other hand, worked very closely alongside the Jmen and frequently placed them in de facto control of Legion squads; and the Heron Guard, when they were reinstated, formed the bulk of his personal force. I'd also point out that the Heron Guard were established back in the chaotic Age of Reason.
Re: Magic and Sorcerers: I don't think Connacht had a choice. Like or not, magic's the most powerful force in the Mythworld. You want to take down the Myrkridia, or the Trow, you gotta use magic. I see Connacht as being forced by circumstance to use magic against his greatest foes, then being driven by his innate repulsion to dispose of the artifacts. I don't think it's coincidental that, when Damas couldn't destroy an artifact, he'd hide it somewhere off in the wildnerness. Connacht didn't want the things anywhere near him in Muirthemne.
: You do get a bonus point for the fact that Balor doesn't
: seem to resort to the use of artifacts. How do you
: explain, though, that Balor, a C-type, is such a
: badass magician? Or that he goes so far out of his way
: to recruit the most powerful wizards in living memory?
: Simple expediency would suggest that he did what
: worked, that since his enemies were all Avatara he
: needed all the magical help he could get, but if he's
: all about the order, why would he use so much magic
: himself? I don't exact see mega-lightning as the
: weapon of choice for your anal retentive champion.
Again, I put it all down to expediency. Simply being the Leveller gives him the power to be, should he wish, the greatest sorcerer in the world. He torched the entire Cath Bruig personally because none of his allies could. And really, he didn't use that much magic. Most the undead seem to have been raised by his servants; all he did was create the Myrmidons (again, a skill none of his allies possessed). He would never have had to use the mega-lightning if Alric hadn't done the unexpected and attacked him at his base. At that point, there wasn't an option available other than *some* sort of magical attack. (Even taking them all down hand-to-hand would have required magically-enhanced strength, as Soulblighter had).
: If this were true, wouldn't Balor have come down harder
: on the Fallen Lords for infighting? They lost him the
: war, for Pete's sake. If the Deceiver and the Watcher
: had been required to play nice they would have crushed
: the Legion before it could come through Seven Gates.
Umm...Shut up! Yeah!
Seriously, all I can say to this is that either he didn't know, or he was distracted by events elsewhere. But that's what I'd say even disregarding this theory--no matter what Balor's personality is like, it's still weird that he doesn't mind the infighting among his lieutenants.
Ya got me. :-)
: Meanwhile, Alric is more than happy to detail explicit
: plans. Whether or not the Deceiver follows them is
: another matter, but shouldn't he have gotten a taste
: for discipline while working under Balor (and being
: that he was the greatest Avatara of the Wolf Age,
: whether he fought beside Connacht or not, he was at
: least raised in one of your Authoritarian eras, and
: should have had it drilled into him as a boy).
I see Myrdred as a natural Libertarian (not in the political sense)--remember, he wasn't raised in the Wolf Age, since according to GURPS he was already active in the chaotic Wind Age. Living in an Authoritarian age did indeed influence him, but it influenced him to exploit the advantages of being a Libertarian surrounded by Authoritarians. He's the same sort of guy as Durandal--Durandal loves being unpredictable, but he needs everyone else to be extremely predictable so that he can pull off his little games of manipulation. When he meets true chaos--the W'rkncacnter--he's baffled and terrified. Myrdred wants to be the most chaotic guy around.
: Perversely enough, if you squint right you can say that
: Alric fights orderly since he follows (for the most
: part) the rules of engagement and fights traditional,
: rank and file battles while Connacht fights dirty
: (chaotically) by tricking people. I liked you take on
: it, but it was almost diametrically opposed to what I
: was thinking when I made my observation (isn't this
: fun?).
Indeed. :-) Though I wouldn't say that Alric fights traditional, rank and file battles--Twice Born is about the only one of that sort. It's generally Balor whose armies go forth under the "Walk toward the enemy, then kill them" routine.
: Are you sure about this? I would say that the Dark is
: about as orderly as you can get--either they want
: conquest, which would be to rule the land with an iron
: will, or they want total destruction, which would be
: Entropy, which, as we all know, is perfect order
: because it's the absence of movement altogether.
: Conversely the Light wants either freedom from
: oppression, which you've identified above as falling
: on the chaos side, or eminent domain (the
: freedom-loving form of conquest) which is life
: spreading out of control. A while ago I suggested that
: the Leveller was simply an ecological balancer,
: keeping any given race from getting so numerous and
: powerful that it could wipe out all the others, the
: way the Trow did for so long. It seems to me that in
: this function the Leveller is the ultimate force for
: Order, yet it has always been identified as the primum
: mobile behind the Dark.
Hey, I'm just going with GURPS here. As it represents it, the Dark is much more chaotic than the Light. But you could be right. Mebbe the proper outlook is that the Dark tends toward extremes (neither stasis nor perfect randomized disorder is living), while the Light stays in the middle--life is a balance of chaos and order.
: Some of your points here are brilliant, and I agree we
: have little information about the Age of Reason, but
: it seems to me it must have been a time of increasing
: order. We know even less about the Axe Age but it has
: always seemed to me to be describing a kind of
: pre-history, a stone age culture that was always on
: the run from the Trow. Therefore, the Age of Reason
: was not an enlightenment like the Realworld Age of
: Reason, but more like the Golden Age of Greece or
: Sumeria--a time when civilization as we know it came
: into existence. The reason in question is, I believe,
: the evolution of the human mind from animalistic,
: survival-oriented behavior (which the Trow had no real
: problem with--they were worried about other sentients,
: not chimpanzees) into the kind of cognition that could
: start forming fiefdoms and eventually empires.
Can't argue with that--especially when AN starts in one minute. Sorry! :-)
I would, though, say that the Golden Age of Greece was principally characterized by intellectual freedom.
: Again, I've always thought it was the other way around.
: Okay, according to the cycle it's a dark age, but
: "Wind" suggests to me that this is when the
: great explorers of the Mythworld were born, the ones
: who built tall ships and went looking for new lands to
: conquer.
Perhaps, but it suggests to ME that humanity and their constructs were but dust in the wind, blown hither and thither by the gusts of fate. And my interpretation's more poetic than yours. :-)
As far as I know, all the information we have on humanity in the Wind Age points toward them repeatedly getting their butts kicked--except for Myrdred pinning the Watcher. Is there any evidence in the other direction?
: This one I buy. It was the age when the Cath Bruig, with
: its orderly empire, was at its height. Yes. An age of
: order. I only disagree in thinking that Myrdred's
: manipulations were designed not to take advantage of
: disciplined minds but to protect him from
: undisciplined savages. It's basic colonialistic
: thinking, so as far as I'm concerned, it still fits
: into your scheme.
Good man!
Okay, I gotta hit AN. I'll finish with your comments tonight or tomorrow, k?
Thanks for the feedback!
--SiliconDream
