[Dragaera] Iorich ***SPOILERS****

[Philip Hart]

On Mon, 11 Jan 2010, Jon%20Lincicum wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Philip Hart" <philiph at slac.stanford.edu>
> To: "SKZB List" <dragaera at dragaera.info>
> Sent: Monday, January 11, 2010 2:33:11 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
> Subject: Re: [Dragaera] Iorich ***SPOILERS****
>
>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, 11 Jan 2010, Alexx Kay wrote:
>>>
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> [snip]
>
>>> All of which makes it a *more effective* object lesson. If someone with
>>> all those advantages can still get shined for crossing the Jhereg, why
>>> would anyone else ever dare to?
>>
>> He's survived for eight years while getting much more powerful. He's
>> providing a bad object lesson right now.
>
> It's only been 8 years. To a Dragaeran, that's hardly any time at all. You could sneeze and miss it.

But on the time-scale of the opportunity, it's long.  Five more eight 
year periods and Vlad's out of their reach for good.  He's likely enough 
to be killed by the Jenoine or by the Left Hand in the meantime that the 
value of their lesson is serious eroded.  He's getting older but he's also 
getting stronger and gaining powerful allies and creating debts, while the 
house is garning enmity and losing their top assassins.

And on the Mellar time-scale - a few days causes the real damage - isn't 
it too late?


>> They're making matters worse by not cutting their losses and making an 
>> example of the next guy.
>
> What makes you think they haven't continued making example of the "next 
> guys" in the iterim?

The unlikelihood that anyone would be dumb enough to go up against the 
organization based on the example of a witchcraft-and-GW wielding 
invisible-to-sorcery intimate friend of the most powerful people in the 
world and chosen tool of the gods.

>
>> Heck,
>> they should just find someone who needs eliminating, frame him (maybe even
>> for Vlad's offenses - e.g., the Imperial rep really asked Vlad for a
>> bribe [like killing a council member] to get standard service then
>> pretended to have gotten roughed up to cover it - to the extent
>> possible), and kill him.
>
> Might work, but in order to pull that off, too many people would have to 
> know the truth, and the more people who know, the more chance there is 
> that one of them will be the next guy to try to screw the House.



>
> Besides, I'm pretty sure the current Council members are taking this 
> pretty personally. Vlad has pissed off pretty much every one of them 
> individually at this point.

This just argues for Vlad taking them out.  You think Mario is happy about 
the Jhereg putting Aliera in jail?


>> If Vlad dies a natural death, they're really screwed.
>
> On that much we can agree.

That has to be part of their calculation then.  It's not like they're 
making any progress - just the opposite.


>> If they call off the fatwa they'll take a hit for a while
>> perhaps, but they're tough enough to defend their position - one
>> incredibly exceptional guy gets away with a breach of custom, ten
>> thought-they-were-exceptional guys don't and then there's no eleventh.
>
> As soon as there is any precedent for *anyone* getting away with it, 
> then there'll be 17 more wise-guys looking to test the limits of just 
> exactly how powerful you have to be to get away with it. And then it 
> will become clear that with a bunch of people trying at once, that you 
> really don't have to be that powerful at all. (This is the logic that 
> the Demon uses in /Jhereg/.)

Why would anyone put that much effort into becoming powerful in order 
to spend the rest of their lives on the run?  It would be much easier 
and lucrative to wipe out the council and install one's friends.  Any 
sufficient motive is going to lead to the bad actions in question 
regardless of response.


> The Jhereg have spent 250,000 years building a reputation as the House 
> you don't dare cross. They can't afford to just let Vlad go. Or at 
> least, the leaders of the House believe this is the case, which amounts 
> to the same thing.

They're risking doing that right now and burning resources - by coming to 
an understanding they can remove the risk and be better prepared in case 
anyone is dumb enough to try to follow Vlad.

And they didn't actually win the last war, did they?  They just showed 
they'd fight incredibly hard, which is all that's needed to be a 
deterrent.


> The alternative is that they'd have to spend far more money and 
> resources instilling a new sense of terror in order to maintain their 
> control than they are spending chasing after Vlad.

I don't see anyone in the Jhereg amassing the skills and strengths to 
put up 1/17th of the struggle Vlad has.


They're also risking a scenario in which Vlad takes out the council and 
puts Mario and Kragar in their place.  That doesn't hurt the Empire 
really, and probably takes care of Vlad's problem during his lifespan.
If Vlad comes to think that's necessary for VN to have a good life, he 
might just go for it.  The council ought to cut its losses before they 
lose everything.