[Dragaera] Some speculation on Spellbreaker

[Philip Hart]

On Tue, 30 Sep 2008, Jon Lincicum wrote:

>
> -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 29 Sep 2008, Kenneth Gorelick wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Sep 29, 2008, at 5:28 PM, Jon Lincicum wrote:
>
>> We know that amorphia is not amenable to standard scientific study - the
>> researcher needs allele x to communicate with it?  One has to become
>> personally familiar with it?
>>
>> And note its tendency to eat everything in sight.
>
> the centuries. Surely the Jenoine, with the power of gods, would be able 
> to accomplish similar feats in a shorter amount of time?

This was refuted later in my comment.


>> Also note our lack of evidence that the Jenoine are particulary smart -
>> except maybe at jhereg brain programming.
>
> Possible. Just doesn't seem to jive very well with the threat that 
> everyone (Verra, Barlan, Sethra, Aliera, et al) seems to think they pose 
> to Dragaera.

Sure it does.  They are in their physical beings almost impossible to kill
by conventional methods.  They have mastery over technologies that e.g. 
Sethra knows zilch about.

If Paarfi is to be believed, it's entirely possible to be highly dangerous
and dumb.


>>>> I think it's far more likely that the very first amorphia on Dragaera was
>>>> created by Vera
>>
>> This seems rather unlikely to me - maybe the first free amorphia.  I'm
>> pretty sure we've heard that the J knew about amorphia (else the story
>> from their perspective is that Verra et al. managed to kill their
>> colony, and their success with the river is astonishing), and are
>> interested in Dragaera for its sake.
>
> I am not recalling any direct evidence that amorphia existed prior to 
> the rebellion of Verra and the other servants. This would certainly 
> settle the point if there is any.

Aliera says that the J were studying Chaos before the rebellion.  That's
in _Jhereg_, in a conversation that may not be entirely canonical.


> It's clear in Issola that a large part 
> of their interest in Dragaera NOW is the presence of amorphia, but I 
> don't think it's ever said that that's why they went there originally.

The "reason they went there" thing is just you arguing with yourself,
afaict.  Hence "non sequitur".


> and control--so if they come across something as tremendously powerful 
> as amorphia, why are they going to waste their time modifying ephemeral 
> lifeforms for their measley psychic powers, and not concentrate full 
> time on studying/controlling/harnessing the amorphia?

Some people are biologists.  Some people are physicists.  The Jenoine seem
to have a lot of time available to them - I don't see any either/or.


>>> Per Issola, you are exactly correct. From p. 37 of my hardcover edition,
>>> "...Verra and a few others, who sabotaged [the Jenoines'] work, who created
>>> the Great Sea of Amorphia, who unleashed upon the world that which we call
>>> sorcery..."
>>
>> This works rather against the claim than for it - "sabotage" suggests that
>> Verra killed the containment system in the J amorphia lab more than "Verra
>> put an amorphia bomb in the J biologists' mess tent".
>
> I see no way to settle this point with available evidence. Both theories 
> are certainly possible.

My version uses "sabotage" sensibly.  Yours requires V & friends coming up
with an entirely new technology, not testing it, and using it to do 
something they probably had many other ways of doing given their access.


> I would point out that Verra might be the progenitor of the Kieron-esque 
> ability to create amorphia through sheer force of will.

Plausible.


> This could well be where the first amorphia on Dragaera came from, and 
> her "sabotage" consisted of dissolving some critical but unrelated piece 
> of Jenoine machinery into a puddle of metamorphic goo.

"One Monday morning Verra is staring at the critical gene generation unit,
without which the J couldn't carry on their work until the spare could 
be brought on line next Thursday.  She really hated the unit, having 
patched it with 100k years of duct tape.  And now she was going to have 
to reframzize the druplepan for the 17**3 time this millenium.  All of a 
sudden she discovered  the ability to create raw chaos, and nearly 
destroyed the world."

This would make the whole rebellion an accident.  "Sabotage" is kind of 
funny in that context.