[Dragaera] Unstoppable Force vs Immovable Object

[Scott Schultz]

>And the bodyguards are needed why, given the Orb?

The failure of the orb to protect the Emperor is taken by most to be a sign
that the Cycle has turned. Given a non-zero chance of that happening, I'd
think that most Emperors would prefer not to tempt fate. Certainly in the
post-Tortaalik era, relying solely on the Orb would seem to be a reckless
policy, no matter where the Cycle stands.

As far as that goes, the Orb is an astounding device but it's still
essentially a machine. Witness Vlad's ability to dance around the actual
truth by focusing on the literal truth as he saw it. (For example, the
business of saying 'I thought so-and-so committed suicide', and it being
"true" because, in Vlad's opinion, the guy was asking to die on account of
the problems he was causing Vlad's organization.) 

Vlad knew this weakness of the Orb and exploited it to avoid being
prosecuted. I wonder how many "accidental" Imperial deaths were actually
assassinations that exploited a similar weakness in the Orb's programming
that deals with threats to the health of the Emperor. For instance, Paarfi's
description of the Emperor who was killed by a falling archstone and this
being taken as a sign that the architect who was building said arches ought
to take up the Orb and establish the Vallista reign. With no witnesses to
the event and the Orb being (relatively speaking) new at learning about
threats, our Vallista fellow might have noticed that the Orb wasn't active
about passive threats, like a random piece of falling masonry. As a
Vallista, I'd think he could find a way to rig a keystone such that the
vibrations of the Emperor's passge was enough to cause its collapse. For the
Orb, no harm, no foul, and a lesson learned in how better to protect the
next Emperor.