>>> The EWF was not a pyramid scheme. It did not exhibit any >>> features of a pyramid scheme and was no more fraudulent than >>> Kralorela. >> Yes it was - the outlying provinces were drained of magic, and all of that piled up in the draconic heartlands.
> Source for the outlying provinces being drained of magic?
Worship (gift of magical energies) that was redistributed to the core lands, i.e. without return to the lower ranks of the pyramid, other than the empty promise that they would become part of the draconic society, too. Read: when there are new conquests with forced conversion to power such luxury.
> And even if true, this just means heavy taxation which is not
> by definition a pyramid scheme.
That's a totally separate point that can be argued - I would say that cleptocracies are a form of pyramid scheme, and that even moderate degrees of corruption in any government form lead to cleptocracies.
Nuff said on this topic - if your disagreement is just with the term pyramid scheme, discussion closed.
>>> It is when the money stops coming in that pyramid >>> scheme collapses whereas with the EWF, it was betrayed by the >>> Dragonewts. >> The "money" stopped coming in when the outer provinces were lost, due to agents like Alakoring or the Sairdites.
> Alakoring was killed in 940 ST. The EWF by that time had lost Dara
> Happa and other places. Despite the lack of money coming in, they > still had enough for a great counteroffensive that took them to the
> gates of Alkoth in 947 ST. The EWF then lasted another hundred
> years before the Dragonewts killed them. That is not by any
> definition a collapse of a pyramid scheme.
Since you deny the existence of the Dragon Dream (the magical effect that transformed Kerofinela into a draconic place, with draconic crops and husbandry, and which resembles the effect that creates a dragonewt city but increased to a whole region), any cogent argument using terms like energy balance for this effect and the dragonewt purpose of furthering their cause to progress towards true dragonhood would be lost effort.
IMO, the dragonewts tolerated the human antics as long as they profited from this and participated in the magical economy boost. When the economy was shaken, more and more energy was drawn from the prestige project "let's move toward dragonhood" and spent on crises trying to stabilize the currency, and when the dragonewt rating dropped below A, their pension fonds called up their insurance deal with the Blue Moon assassins and ended all mass draconic magics by humans.
>> As a result, the understanding with the dragonewts that extended the Draconic Dream across all the heartlands of the EWF was betrayed, and the newts retaliated. It is purely racial loyalty that pictures the EWF leadership as victims of the betrayal rather than as perpretators who found their justice.
> The Draconic Dream is your interpretation, okay?
If you disagree with that concept, discussion closed.
> Secondly the Inhuman King decided that his
> secrets weren't being used properly - nothing about any
> betrayal of the alliance which seems to me to ascribe rather human
> motivations onto the Dragonewts.
Different wording, same meaning.
> Secondly racial loyalty is quite a loaded charge to be throwing
> around. You don't have any evidence that the EWF leadership
> weren't blameless
In doubt for the convicted? The History of the Heortling Peoples suggests that Orlaront's methodology to achieve dragonhood was approved by the newts and other dragonkind, elsewhere Godunya doesn't gainsay that method, either.
Not so for the means of the cabal around Burin, Drang, Lorenk... and Dragon Sun Emperor.
> and you fail to consider a third possibility,
> hinted at in King of Sartar.
> The Dragon Emperor of humans was confronted by an evil spirit
> called utuma who slew him.
> King of Sartar p188.
That'd draconic damage control towards a leak in their collective magic - enforced or premature utuma usually creates broken draconic creatures like dinosaurs when practiced by dragonewts. Subjecting the human dragonfriend leadership to them probably resulted in banishment to a draconic hell and subsequent dissolution of the tattered remains without reaching the Ultimate. Even Ingolf fared better.
> I can't say outright whether the EWF was right, wrong or a mixture
> of both. What I do feel is that
> a) labelling the EWF failures involves making a value
> judgement which isn't present in the sources
Almost all the sources on the EWF are value judgements, and few are positive.
> and doesn't seem to me to add anything to our understanding of
> draconism or the EWF,
it doesn't help that there were lots of different movements labeling themselves as draconism. Godunya (who was there for the fun, teaching, meditating, possibly even studying with local schools) labelled the EWF as failures.
b) pyramid scheme: all payment and promise, no rewards on the lowest tiers of the hierarchy - the EWF is a sufficient fit of this definition for me.
> c) there seems to me to be an assumption that the EWF weren't true
> draconists because they were defeated by their enemies.
EWF armies and individual leaders were defeated by their enemies - this fact doesn't have anything to do with the validity of their draconic mysticism, I agree.
The EWF lost the support to maintain their draconic ecology in Dragon Pass - this is what I read in the few texts dealing with this. (We have exactly one official source about draconic grains and husbandry.)
The EWF magic was destroyed (or as you put it, betrayed) by their teachers.
> There the EWF was destroyed is not evidence that it was a
> failure or even untrue to its draconic heritage.
That all their magics were erased does appear to be linked to the disaffection of their draconic partners.
I don't recall any conflict between two draconic enemies ending in the destruction of one of them in Glorantha. The conflict between the newts and the later EWF appears to be the only recorded instance.
> All that can be said is that the meaning of its end is counched
> in metaphysics.
Counched? I might requote this last sentence as interpretation of that sentence...
Powered by hypermail