> > I always felt that Tatius has been portrayed as an
> > overly cautious
> > idiot. Doesn't it say in KOS that after his
> > appointment all Lunar
> > military successes stop? Do we reckon that Tatius is
> > hampered by his
> > fear of the political repercussions of committing
> > his phalanxes and
> > thus stops making decisons and fails in his
> > leadership, or is he
> > simply incompetent in the use of the Lunar army? Is
> > he perhaps a
> > slightly tragic figure who has been given a poisoned
> > chalice by
> > backstabbing politicians in Glamour, jealous of his
> > rising star?
>
> Tatius as I understand him is a very intelligent and
> ruthless politician, with a clear understanding of the
> magical/mythical nature of the siege and next to no
> interest in the military side except as a means to an
> end. He's trying to kill Orlanth. Having Orlanth tied
> to WW, and then destroying WW, is a good method. But
> that does mean that the destruction has to be done
> with the right ceremonies and on the right day.... so
> when the lower ranks wonder if he's even trying to win
> the siege as fast as possible, they're right to do so.
> He isn't. He's trying to encourage the defenders to
> use as much Orlanthi magic as possible, to make it all
> the more certain that when WW goes, so does Orlanth.
That's a really good dramatic concept. I have seen first hand the kind of politics (not to mention helmet throwing tantrums) that occur in the military when a certain concept or plan gets approved over another. When this concept is the brainchild of a particular branch of the military which then gets given influence or command over another, it makes for all sorts of division, backstabbing and confusion. Sorry to keep doing this, but if you think of Eisenhower in WW2 giving preference to Montgomery's Market Garden instead of Patton's plan, and for largely political reasons, you get the idea of how wrong things can go.
Does anyone know if the College of Magic was deemed senior to the Heartland Corps/Cavalry Corps? If I remember WBRM you have the Imperial Bodyguard at the top of the military pecking order, but I'd often envisaged the CoM to be almost a support arm, so to speak. We can imagine the outrage amongst traditional military figures if suddenly the CoM was placed in overall charge of such an important task? Surely there's something on the Lunar order of battle somewhere. Is it in Tarsh War?
> On the Orlanthi side, Broyan catches on reasonably
> fast to the magical side of things, Kallyr a bit
> later, and again, they don't spread the idea. What
> they do, we decided, is take the logic a step further.
> The question isn't whether WW will fall, it's how. And
> it isn't whether Orlanth will die, it's how. So they
> deliberately escalate the whole thing, trying to be
> sure that when Orlanth vanishes, he's gone down a
> mythic path controlled by them, not by the Lunars,
> from which they can bring him back. Again, this can
> lead to what look like rather odd bits of strategy.
Love it!
Stu
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