I will note that 'no one is above the law' is a very modern concept. The Empire is a feudal hellhole and the law is mostly what the local strongman says it is with precedent playing a weak second fiddle. If you know the right people you can certainly be 'above the law'. Just about the only people who are interested in changing that are certain sects of Verenans who worship the concept of law.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
I will note that 'no one is above the law' is a very modern concept. The Empire is a feudal hellhole and the law is mostly what the local strongman says it is with precedent playing a weak second fiddle. If you know the right people you can certainly be 'above the law'. Just about the only people who are interested in changing that are certain sects of Verenans who worship the concept of law.
Sorry, I should have clarified. Forbidding us from studying waystones is an oversight of A7. Waystones falling under the jurisdiction of A7 is fine.
[x] Imperial Dispensation
Don't have the time to give a big review (or edit my Waystone notes) today. But.
There is a saying 'someone don't need to be smarter then you for you to fall for their tricks, they just need to be smarter then you though they were.'
And while the situation is not quite Mathy 'tricking him' Hatalath definitely went into this meeting not expecting Mathy know as much as she did, and so made some blunders he would have not made if he took her seriously from the start.
Mathy not only now knows that he is holding out on something (everyone is to so extent), but now she knows that 'where is the magic for knightland going?' Is were to put the political/social screws if she needs to.
Don't have the time to give a big review (or edit my Waystone notes) today. But.
There is a saying 'someone don't need to be smarter then you for you to fall for their tricks, they just need to be smarter then you though they were.'
And while the situation is not quite Mathy 'tricking him' Hatalath definitely went into this meeting not expecting Mathy know as much as she did, and so made some blunders he would have not made if he took her seriously from the start.
Mathy not only now knows that he is holding out on something (everyone is to so extent), but now she knows that 'where is the magic for knightland going?' Is were to put the political/social screws if she needs to.
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Bit of a digression, but the modern development is more the notion of equality under the law. The concept of everyone being subjected to the rule of law, even if in an uneven manner is considerably older, by many centuries.
The Royal Power, as well as the Entire Body of the People, should be Subject to the Majesty of the Law
-Visigothic Code of Recesvintus, Book 2, Title 1, Item 2. From the year 654.
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So a dispensation from the Colleges (whether MP or SP) is less a suspension of the law, and more "We are aware of these actions, and have judged them to be in accordance to the spirit of the law". And if you want to touch them, you either have to show that the actions went beyond the remit given to them by the Colleges (in which case you also have to race the magister vigilante to execution if they find merit), or you have to show your judgement of the suitability of the research is better than the head wizards, which isn't something they can take lying down. Such a dispensation, could not, however, allow going into the blatantly forbidden. He can't just go, "Mathilde, you're so special, you get to do bad magic". I imagine anything active would be quite dicey. Building, not just studying a waystone that deliberately creates dhar would be such a thing.
On the other hand, the Emperor could, in principle, allow someone to freely do bad magic. In most cases, it would just require a huge amount of political capital, and face pushback from just about anyone. But if we ever get that far, we might have to revisit that topic.
Of course, 'building waystones' and 'permission to do dark magic' are two entierly different things. And if we can actually do it, getting permission to actually do so won't be hard. Not to mention, we've already contracted someone to do the building, and they're elves. So that permission would be to be less reliant on them.
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consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
Does anyone outside of certain oathsworn lunatic nautilus engineers and their dawi zharr counterparts actually know that water pressure isn't a constant? The empirical effects of higher altitude on boiling temperature is known, but does it follow that the reasons behind it are understood?
I wouldn't expect an immediately applicable result barring a super crit, but anything that can potentially advance knowledge of Wind behaviours without starting with actively poking one or more Winds could be useful.
Or it could amount to less than nothing. Such is life and dice rolls.
- Location
- Utrecht
Considering that Mathilde was able to find pretty detailed information about how currents behave, I'm pretty sure the way the way water pressure works isn't a secret.
And regarding the winds: we could take a look at the room of utter neutrality. Isn't that a wind free environment, with no wind but the ones Mathilde calls up?
We could have a small model built, with removable wards, so we can see the behaviour of the winds interacting with a "vacuum".
Although, now that i think about it, rather than "Nature abhors a vacuum", a more fitting desciption for the behaviour of the chaotic winds would be "if I fits, I sits"
Between theory and practice there is an ocean so vast you could fit a black ark in there. Feudalism is bound by personal oaths not abstract law.
- Location
- Earth
IIRC Boney did say that legalism isn't really a thing yet, and that doing things that are perfectly within the letter of the law but go against the original intent would still be counted as us breaking the law, regardless of how many technicalities we use to defend ourselves. And if the person passing the judgement has a different interpretation of the law than the person who wrote it...
Basically, I think right now written laws are just general guidelines, and the exact details of what constitutes a crime and how severe the punishment is is really a matter of how the local ruler is feeling and how much sociopolitical leverage the accused has to defend themselves with.
Basically, I think right now written laws are just general guidelines, and the exact details of what constitutes a crime and how severe the punishment is is really a matter of how the local ruler is feeling and how much sociopolitical leverage the accused has to defend themselves with.
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[X] College Dispensation
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
Is powerful - check
Walks around shirtless - check
Has connections to The Far East - check
Makes friends out of enemies - check
Is Dragomas a shonen protagonist?
Given that the only Waystone model we know of so far involves a Dhar machine I think it is fair to say we will need elves to make it, since they are the only ones who can safely touch the Dhar to make it part of the enchantment
Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
He also turns into a dragon.
- Location
- United States
[X] College Dispensation
Thats the thing. To what knowledge the minister/emperor can judge us ok or not to proceed.
He must ask Dragomas, and in this case he will ask in... all 7 of the collage head? Or make decision himself?
Your right, but as the only thing holding a group of over powered magic users is the articles and the lawful consequences of their action.. i would think obidience to the law (and how far you can bent them) is second nature to them.
Its not just us, its the impact of the wizarding world at large.
- Location
- France
The final title should be a MATHILDE acronym.
SMH.
- Location
- Earth
I'm pretty sure just Dragomas is enough, and Dragomas himself would have no need to tell anyone else since he's just being consulted.
All in all the reason I am still voting College is that I do not think it is worth the expenditure of political capital. I mean even if Dragonas would for some reason say 'no you cannot study how Dhar threading works' we can still leave that up to the elves and do other things. I cannot see a realistic case were he just shuts it all down, not without a lot of bad actors and even more bad luck which we would I think have a chance to mitigate
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
Having a direct line to the emperor is a big political stick to wield in any upcoming squabbles, and putting that on the table now means we don't have to prove it's not a bluff later.
Seriously, the emperor is signing off on this either way. The only question is how many hoops we want to jump through before it's on his desk.
I'd like to have "I speak for the emperor" more than I want "I'm a dutiful rule follower". The second implies that we can be manipulated by being presented with rules, and the first implies we will roll over anything that tries to make themselves an obstacle.
Seriously, the emperor is signing off on this either way. The only question is how many hoops we want to jump through before it's on his desk.
I'd like to have "I speak for the emperor" more than I want "I'm a dutiful rule follower". The second implies that we can be manipulated by being presented with rules, and the first implies we will roll over anything that tries to make themselves an obstacle.
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I expect that the Emperor will ok it because of Hedi, But will want something for going around the proper paperwork for her.
From his point of view, this will be him doing his wife's friend a favour by even talking to her, and then doing mathy a favour to avoid the tricky parts of something she could do the proper way: so no favour owned for the first part(meeting and listening to mathy), but a favour owned for signing the paper instead of just telling to get it the proper way.
From his point of view, this will be him doing his wife's friend a favour by even talking to her, and then doing mathy a favour to avoid the tricky parts of something she could do the proper way: so no favour owned for the first part(meeting and listening to mathy), but a favour owned for signing the paper instead of just telling to get it the proper way.
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SakSak
Unbound
- Location
- The Cold Wastes of the North
[X] College Dispensation
I just think that if we bypass the proper procedure, it automatically implies we have something to hide from the Colleges in the minds of those already predisposed to dislike the Colleges. It also opens the whole relationship with the Empress and future Emperor thing to some hefty criticism from anti-magic people - if we went over the heads of the colleges to study something that requires dispensation, what else have we done over the colleges or outside of their view?
Maybe it will become a problem, maybe Alric will throw obstacles to have time to play politics, whatever. That will be on Alric and he'll need to burn even more political capital, and we can probably call on official assistance to have it handled if it comes down to that. To me this sounds like a lesser headache than the ones potentially possible in going directly to the Emperor.
Proceeding without official approval however, is a complete non-starter for me. It basically declares all Empire mages involved as potential rogue agents in need of at least some light inquisiting if it ever comes to light that we so much as suspected the dhar aspects and after the open discussion, the other mages will clue in shortly if they haven't already.
I just think that if we bypass the proper procedure, it automatically implies we have something to hide from the Colleges in the minds of those already predisposed to dislike the Colleges. It also opens the whole relationship with the Empress and future Emperor thing to some hefty criticism from anti-magic people - if we went over the heads of the colleges to study something that requires dispensation, what else have we done over the colleges or outside of their view?
Maybe it will become a problem, maybe Alric will throw obstacles to have time to play politics, whatever. That will be on Alric and he'll need to burn even more political capital, and we can probably call on official assistance to have it handled if it comes down to that. To me this sounds like a lesser headache than the ones potentially possible in going directly to the Emperor.
Proceeding without official approval however, is a complete non-starter for me. It basically declares all Empire mages involved as potential rogue agents in need of at least some light inquisiting if it ever comes to light that we so much as suspected the dhar aspects and after the open discussion, the other mages will clue in shortly if they haven't already.