: Or we could just get this thread to be seven hundred and
: seventy-seven posts long...
Yeah! Quick, let's start a platform war! Ataris suck! Commodore 64's kick a$$.
: I'd forgotten about Amber. Which is funny, since I pretty
: much live in an application named after it.
I'll never forget about Amber, since I wrote a high-school essay claiming that Toni Morrison's Sula was completely ripped off from the Amber series...
: 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.
But they're both captain-level, basically controlling a couple dozen warriors. Where are the guys who, say, control the entire component of the Legion in the Forest Heart area? (I know, you wouldn't traditionally see such high-level officers on the battlefield; still, it's strange that they're never mentioned in text.) And I doubt that a lack of veterans would make it impossible for officers to be recruited; they'd just tend to be not-very-warlike types more interested in money and status than in battle, as Cruniac himself seemed to be originally. BTW, officers aren't trained by sergeants, are they? I thought they go straight into officer school or whatnot, so that as soon as they have *any* rank they outrank sergeants. This would be especially true in the medievalish Myth setting, where young nobles going into the army would automatically have a fairly high rank.
: Hmm... well, let me think about it... HAH! Personally, I
: see Alric as an obsessive micro-manager, but that's
: just me.
Ah, you see everyone as an obsessive micro-manager. Really, isn't Alric pretty vague on most counts? "Go into the catacombs and bring back the Ibis Crown." "Go kill Shiver." The only times he has really specific orders are when he's fighting alongside you on the battlefield, and he's sorta required to give them then--your morale wouldn't be very high if your lord and liege was standing next to you going, "Um, so we need to take this hill or something. Figure out a plan and go get it!"
: 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?)
But this just proves my point (Ooh! Ooh! Got you!). Yes, you would think that the Heron Guard would work closely with Connacht. But this only makes it more important that we don't have any text-based indication that they *were* close to him. How's that for a nasty sentence? Connacht must have been *especially* unwilling to use them, otherwise they'd always be seen fighting alongside him because, as you say, he was the Emperor.
And yes, he wasn't the legal heir to the throne or anything, though I'm not sure if there was a legal heir or not--maybe the former emperor had no kids, or maybe the Cath Bruig rules of succession aren't based on blood relations. Anyway, according to GURPS Connacht "ascended the throne by popular acclaim" after the previous emperor died.
: 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.
Hey, you can't call the Heron Guard disciplined and non-chaos-loving! In your last post you were arguing that Connacht's working with them was a point against my theory, because they *were* chaotic! No fair! :-P
Why would Alric need to be Emperor at all, if all he wanted was political power? The Cath Bruig, and its people, no longer exist. All he has to do is declare that the Province now owns all the territory formerly owned by the Cath Bruig. There'd be no Bruig left to complain, and I don't think the Heron Guard would raise a fuss. They were pretty resigned to the end of the empire. IMO, Alric declared himself emperor simply because he wanted the Heron Guard back and because he liked the Cath Bruig, which after all was founded during a (according to me) chaotic Light period.
: 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.
Conversely, magic's better than berserks, when there's a lot of it. :-)
As to your Connacht-reenactment--we'll agree to disagree, shall we?
: 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.
Well, I think he uses it when it's *extremely* convenient. He doesn't tie his shoes with magic or anything, but when he has a chance to one-shot-kill the Cath Bruig, the single largest force opposing him, or when he's being charged by fifty zerks and a very angry Avatara, it'd be pretty dumb not to unload some high-power sorcery on their butts. I agree with you that the Myrk standard thing was indicative of his increasingly uncontrollable prejudices, though in my theory it would be his general hatred of chaos that was becoming more and more distinct, augmenting his specific hatred of Myrks.
: I'll tell my Mom!
Ya snot-nosed 29-year-old kid...
: 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.
: I can't remember what that was in response to, but I'm
: glad all the same. ;)
And now I can't remember what *you're* responding to, but I'm glad you're glad. :-)
: 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.
Well, there you go--a chaos-born guy shaped by life in an orderly era, with characteristics of both.
I can call Newt Gingrich purely evil, and do, every day...
: 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.
Pfhor! Pfhor! So you have a PC, then?
: 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.
See up above for my comments on Alric's fighting style. I'd add that usually, when he appears, it means things are desperate, as they certainly are in "Gate of Storms" and "White Falls"--the enemy's about to kill everyone and there's no time to do anything but fight or flight. So you can hardly blame the layout of battles on those levels on Alric; he doesn't really have a choice.
: So then the actual drama is between Life and Death...
: ooh, my head hurts. Go back to that thing about chaos
: and order!
Oh, be a man. It's fantasy! Balance has to be an issue!
: 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.
This is so; however, I'd say that the Greeks, though they generally championed order, were in fact a whole lot more chaotic than the Romans ever were. Constant skirmishes between city-states, governments rarely lasting more than a few years, no two thinkers ever coming up with the same philosophy...the Greeks yearned for order because they saw so little of it. Which was, perhaps, true of the Age of Reason.
: 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.
Perhaps Myth III will take place in "the Age of Stuff, which is several thousand years after the Sword Age, or several hundred years, or something. There's some evil guys and some good guys, and they're pissed off at each other and are planning to fight, or else are fighting already. I forget." Think of the discussions we could have!
: 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).
No, no, you don't understand. This was when wolf technology was at its peak. Wolf-powered mills, sitting wolves used as inclined planes, wolves standing on stones used as levers, ropes thrown over the backs of wolves to make pulleys, wireless communication wolves with fax capability...
--SiliconDream
