dissidents and stuff

From: joelsona_at_superman.cig.mot.com
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 08:11:40 -0600

Peter Metcalfe:
>Is this the same lunar empire which is suppressing the White Moon
>heretics and has made membership of the Order of Kerestus a capital
>offence (cf Fortunate Succession)? As for the liberal notion of
>suppressing the dissidents only after they start causing trouble
>is like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted IMHO.

1. The White Moonies are staging rebellions, hardly a minor case of social unrest. b) the Order of Kerestus made the mistake of annoying Moonson. Their disdanding is the result of an Imperial fit of pique, the beauracracy in this case is doing what their boss told them to. The point is, minor dissidents are not a problem. But you don't have to wait until the White Moonies are in open rebellion to do something either. Try using a gray scale instead of black and white. When the dissidents become annoying enough, somebody starts doing something about it; when they are 'annoying enough' is a relative matter. Let's not just assume that all free-thinkers are summarily squashed on sight.

>Dissident philosophies do not have the same benefit of the divine
>inspiration of the Goddess and the centuries of accumulated
>practical experience. Thus they are logically inferior and
>the widespread knowledge of such will inevitably cause massive
>social disturbances.

Bosh; your most dangerous dissident is an Illuminated beaurocrat who (unfortunately) had a brainstorm, or some such. For a western example, look at Rokar. Anyone want to say he didn't have Divine Inspiration? He was burned at the stake, and later on there were Rokari Crusades! (I know this is sort of mix and match, to use a western example, but it's the best I can come with off the cuff.)

>> Terrible example, actually. The Char'Un performed the Skyburn
>>when the Red Emperor cheated them into accepting an Elf Forest as a land
>>grant. I can't recall any reference offhand that suggests the Empire
>>helped the Char'Un....

>But the question asked was on combined rune magic use rather than
>specifically Lunar examples as such.

The SkyBurn is a singular event, poorly duplicted. This is, IMO, a HeroQuest sort of thing; more like Harmast performing an LBQ, than a bunch of priests getting together and performing a repeatable mass-magic.

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Andrew Joelson                            joelsona_at_superman.cig.mot.com  -|-

aka Rupert von Harl; Cults of Seven Mothers, Yanafal Tarnils and Humakt |  "Contradiction? No, I always did tend to kill chaos creatures anyway" /

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