: Of course--why do that when you could make it seven
: hundred and seventy-seven?
Or we could just get this thread to be seven hundred and seventy-seven posts long...
: Really? I'd think of Zelazny, first. But then I think of
: Zelazny night and day.
I'd forgotten about Amber. Which is funny, since I pretty much live in an application named after it.
: Disagreeing? And we were doing so well so far... :-(
Ah, but you knew it wouldn't last...
: 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.
I've always thought that this had more to do with the fact that there was a lack of officer-type material to go around. After sixty years of farming, there ain't a lot of veterans left to be sergeants. We do know about Cruniac and Garrick, though. There are ranks among the warriors, they just all get KIKd pretty early on.
: 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. :-)
Hmm... well, let me think about it... HAH! Personally, I see Alric as an obsessive micro-manager, but that's just me.
: 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.
I think it's pretty safe to say that Connacht had the Heron Guard on his side. They'd do it for Muirthemne if not for the man himself (who, I seem to remember reading somewhere, wasn't an official Emperor but took the crown for himself the way Alric did--or is that just my brain firing randomly?)
Hmm. I still don't know. Why would Alric want to be Emperor if he represented freedom? Why not hold a popular election (which of course he would win) and make himself President? You can argue that the concept of democracy doesn't exist yet in the Mythworld but it still seems like Kings are more into freedom than Emperors, relatively speaking. I think he picked the HG as his personal force for political reasons, not because they're chaos-lovin' fools. They seem far too disciplined and straight-laced for that. He wanted power over his common man, he needed the Ibis Crown to get it, he needed to be Emperor to get the Crown, so of course he would suck up to the Heron Guard, who are the only folks left capable of ratifying his claim to succession.
: 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 make some good points here but I still don't see Connacht shying away from magic. Magic is powerful, yes, but berserks are still better when you have a lot of them. Even dispersal dreams can't stop a good military commander, magic or no. The only real unstoppable magic we've ever seen is Balor's destruction of Muirthemne--kind of fishy, no? Personally, and I know you won't like this one, I feel Connacht used all the magic he could get his hands on, he loved the stuff, rolled around in artifacts all day long and then one day Eight Lords Leaping came to him and said, "hey, Boss, I just figured it all out--some day soon you're gonna turn evil and try to kill everybody!". At which point Connacht, with a big dopy look of fear on his face and with bits of the Tain stuck in his hair (from rolling around on it, of course) said, "quick, Damas, get this stuff out of here--I don't want to use it against decent, hard-working folk like you when all of a sudden I get a hankerin' for some evil!"
Well, something like that, anyway.
: 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).
We don't really know how Balor fought when he wasn't onscreen. We know--kinda--that he bent a lot of people to his will. Sounds like magic to me. We know he made it rain dwarf heads. Again, sounds like magic. We know he used the single most powerful spell anyone has ever heard of--well, if he didn't like magic, he seems to use it whenever it gets convenient, y'know? In the other half of this response to your response I suggest that as Levellers age their prejudices get more distinct--hence his absolutely stoopid move against the Myrk standard (yes, it was stoopid, he knew that Alric was baiting him and he swallowed the hook like a flounder). You'd think he would use less magic as the Leveller than he did as the Hero.
: Umm...Shut up! Yeah!
I'll tell my Mom!
: 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.
He had to know. How could you miss something like that? They weren't exactly subtle about it. And regardless of how strong the link was, there was some kind of will-bending going on. Myrdred was a big time good guy. Unless you want to start throwing around speculation (like I do in my scenario--whoops!) you have to assume Balor had some kind of power over him--even if it was just fear. Balor had a personal interest in both the Watcher and the Deceiver. He pulled one out of a mountain hard enough to tear his arm off, and he really, really wanted to recruit the other one. Their rivalry, we suspect, is older than the hills, and Balor must have known that...
Yer right, it's just weird.
: Ya got me. :-)
I can't remember what that was in response to, but I'm glad all the same. ;)
: 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.
I tend to think that Myrdred's overall effect is to increase chaos, but that for himself he has a definite, orderly agenda which he sets about completing by his own rules. I suppose you can't call someone purely chaotic any more than you can call them purely evil.
Heck, how am I supposed to find the time to play Marathon when you keep posting these incredible theories here? I've gotten through about three levels of Marathon 2. As a result, my only response to your parallels is this: Ptht! Which is the sound a Pth'for or whatever makes when it tries to give the raspberry, MB.
: 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.
Don't forget when he killed Balor, or his exodus from Madrigal or his landing at White Falls or the Forge or pretty much any level he participates in. Just because the player finds a better way to win doesn't mean that Alric doesn't set up his guys to walk right into it. I know, that's petty, but he does tend to fight pitched battles where Connacht apparently used sneak attacks. Yes, most of the battles he fights in aren't the traditional type but they also aren't the kind of "Hold up this Tain thing and see what happens" types, either. The really unusual battles in M2 are all lead by the Deceiver. I guess we could argue this point for a while, but that being said I just realized I have no idea how Connacht set up his troops. Balor seemed to like pitched battles, too, which is now going to bother me for days.
: 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.
So then the actual drama is between Life and Death... ooh, my head hurts. Go back to that thing about chaos and order!
: 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.
In an intensely stratified society. The intellectuals all belonged to one very limited class which valued intellectualism. Everybody else was essentially a slave and wasn't expected to be able to think past counting on their fingers. If you look at the political freedom under the Roman Empire, which didn't value intellectual excess much at all, the Greeks look like a bunch of control freaks.
: 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. :-)
Ah, but what is more poetic than adventure on the high seas? The thrill of discovery, the agony of scurvy... hmm. Why don't we just call it the Age of That Other Thing that Was Like, Y'know? It would be easier to speculate, then.
: 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?
Not that I know of. I was just basing it on the idea that the names of the ages related to the ruling technology (Wolf Age being an obvious exception--unless this was the time when the Bre'Unor learned to talk to wolves. Sorry. I know that Connacht was called the Wolf. I was just trying to make a funny).
: Good man!
I do my best. :)
: Okay, I gotta hit AN. I'll finish with your comments
: tonight or tomorrow, k?
: Thanks for the feedback!
You're welcome!
: --SiliconDream
