[Dragaera] Liberals

[Jerry Friedman via Dragaera]

> From: Scott Schultz via Dragaera <dragaera at lists.dragaera.info>

>>  From: Dragaera [mailto:dragaera-bounces at lists.dragaera.info] On Behalf Of
>>  Jerry Friedman via Dragaera
> 
>>  The recent mentions of social justice at our author's blog have made me
>>  notice that there are no liberals in Dragaera.  Nobody renounces their
> House
>>  and marches with the Teckla, we hear nothing about any wealthy
>>  sympathizers funding Kelly, there's no Eastern Martin Luther King, 
> nobody
>>  says, "Though we must deplore the rioters' methods, the riots are 
> a
> clarion
>>  call for justice that the Empire cannot ignore."  Have I missed 
> something?
>> 
> 
> You have to remember that in Dragaera, there's a time for everything and
> everything in its time. The time for such social revolution is when the
> Teckla is ascendant on the Cycle. 
> 
> The Cycle isn't just a big stone wheel. It's a clock that marks out and 
> to
> large extent controls the temperament of the Empire. Are there wealthy
> widows who run fundraisers to buy blankets and bread for the peasants during
> times of famine and cold? Probably. Are there social renegades to disown
> their own House to join House Teckla as a protest against the injustice of a

> callous Imperial government that descries

(Denies?  If you'll forgive me.)

> the rights of the individual and> keeps the lower classes downtrodden?  Sure, it's possible but the only time
> it's going to be *effective*, producing the prototypical Dr. Martin Luther
> King, Jr. or John Paul Jones or Che Guevera or Vladimir Lenin is when the
> Cycle has turned or is about to turn and the metaphysical time for a Teckla
> Republic has come. 


Certainly, but my question isn't why such things are ineffective.  It's
why we never hear anything about the people that you and I have described.
(And it's been answered--Vlad doesn't run into them.)

> At any other time, such social unrest is doomed to failure. Verra doesn't
> sabotage the budding Teckla Socialists in _Phoenix_ because she wants to
> keep them down. She sabotages them because they are being driven by foreign
> impulses, one could say "unnatural" impulses in terms of what's 
> natural to
> the Dragaeran Empire. (What is heavily implied is that it's a Marxist tract
> that was brought by the original Terran colonists and somehow found by Kelly
> or by someone who passed it to him. Though, come to think of it, it would be
> interesting if "Brust the Author" was not the only contemporary Terran 
> to be communicating with Dragaera.)

That would indeed be interesting.  On the other hand, I suppose I'm a bit late,
but I hadn't thought until now that Brust the Translator might be providing the
Marxist tracts to Kelly.

> Because of their unnatural state of unrest,> they are distracting the Empire at a crucial time and putting it in danger.
> If that danger was not real and present, Verra would likely have left well
> enough alone and the Marxist Revolution would likely have been recorded as
> nothing more than another hunger riot in the annals of Empire history. Those
> darn Easterners, always making trouble.


I think this more than the unnaturalness is the reason.  Kelly's possession
of those documents makes him effective enough for Verra to take seriously,
though.

> Anyway - The point is that it's not a matter of Steve avoiding such social
> lightning rods, it's that it is strictly speaking not possible for it to
> occur in any meaningful way until the time is right for it to occur. This
> isn't a world of free will. It's a world where Dragaerans are ruled by 
> their
> House and their heritage, where the Lords of Judgement rule over the course
> of human events and where the Cycle rules over all. Except for the
> Easterners. To them, Iluvatar gave strange gifts...


:-)

I'm not so sure it's impossible, though.  To a Marxist, the gods and the Cycle
might just be another part of the power structure, which the proletariat
will inevitably overthrow.  If you had to pick a time for that to happen,
it would be a Teckla Reign, but Kelly or his successors might be able to change
that.

> Along these lines, though, there's the question of what life is like in
> Greenaire and Elde Island? It's been rather a long time since I read
> _Phoenix_ but it seems that those people, living unattached to the Orb, are
> not bound up in the fate of the Empire. The term "Dragaeran" as a word 
> to

> describe all "faerie" may be a misnomer.

Both good points.

> It isn't clear that the> "Dragaerans" who live apart from the Empire have Houses or even think 
> of
> themselves in such a fashion. What happens to a Teckla who runs away to
> Greenaire? I think it would be interesting to find out.



I suspect they become normal Greenaereans.

Jerry Friedman