2008 réponses à ce sujet

[Xilizhra]

It does, and more often than you might think. But that needn't be the base of it all. If common sense, or altruism, or fidelity, or honor, or all other noble qualities will not suffice than let self-interest fill the gap. On a purely practical level, mages are useful to a great number of people in a great many ways. Integrate mages into society and they will always have their supporters, sensible or no.

Maybe, but I have little trust in the national governments.

I take issue with that bolded word. Should only doctors make laws about medicine? Should only carpenters and masons should write building codes? Should only soldiers decide when to go to war?

The business of soldiers is strategy and tactics, not politics, and the decision to enter war is primarily a political one, so not the third one. For the first and second, their input would be greatly appreciated and might be considered necessary, but they're still different from magic because anyone can perceive them and, in theory, understand matters involving them. Nonmages don't seem to be able to do this with magic.

[General User]

Xilizhra wrote...

It does, and more often than you might think. But that needn't be the base of it all. If common sense, or altruism, or fidelity, or honor, or all other noble qualities will not suffice than let self-interest fill the gap. On a purely practical level, mages are useful to a great number of people in a great many ways. Integrate mages into society and they will always have their supporters, sensible or no.

Maybe, but I have little trust in the national governments.

A healthy instinct and a most wise sentiment.

Xilizhra wrote...

I take issue with that bolded word. Should only doctors make laws about medicine? Should only carpenters and masons should write building codes? Should only soldiers decide when to go to war?

The business of soldiers is strategy and tactics, not politics, and the decision to enter war is primarily a political one, so not the third one. For the first and second, their input would be greatly appreciated and might be considered necessary, but they're still different from magic because anyone can perceive them and, in theory, understand matters involving them. Nonmages don't seem to be able to do this with magic.

Balderdash!  Nonmages are perfectly capable of understanding (even at a very advanced level) the theories and principles of magic.   Case in point, Dagna of Orzammar.

[Xilizhra]

Balderdash! Nonmages are perfectly capable of understanding (even at a very advanced level) the theories and principles of magic. Case in point, Dagna of Orzammar.

Well, dwarves have the advantage of being able to look closely at lyrium and enchantments without dying, and the whole "song of the Stone" thing may give them heightened perception of certain magical things as well. But perhaps you have a point...

[EmperorSahlertz]

Xilizhra wrote...

Balderdash! Nonmages are perfectly capable of understanding (even at a very advanced level) the theories and principles of magic. Case in point, Dagna of Orzammar.

Well, dwarves have the advantage of being able to look closely at lyrium and enchantments without dying, and the whole "song of the Stone" thing may give them heightened perception of certain magical things as well. But perhaps you have a point...

Dwarves' go crazy from lyrium exposure aswell. Their only advantage is a natural resistance to lyrium ore, which upon contact, makes all other races go crazy, and outright kills Mages. 

[CrimsonZephyr]

Xilizhra wrote...
No. This would undermine the Circle's independence, and I trust national governments barely more than I trust the Chantry.
I support Circle independence because I believe those who can't perceive magic have no business making policy decisions regarding magic because they're fundamentally less qualified.

The Circle will never have true independence because they lack the infrastructure to run an economy by themselves and lack any sort of unifying culture to form a nation state. How would they get food? Who would farm it? Who would raise livestock? Who would build towns? Who would be in charge of government? Of police work? How would you pay for all of this? Through magical services? Hardly - getting enchanted armor might be a money-maker, but there's a point at which the market would be saturated by their products. Also, healing and soldiering would earn money, but it would divert manpower from the infrastructure building the mages need. Even if they manage to balance money and manpower, their "nation" would be so weak and infantile, they would be unable to actually make such demands of other nations.

[GavrielKay]

CrimsonZephyr wrote...
The Circle will never have true independence because they lack the infrastructure to run an economy by themselves and lack any sort of unifying culture to form a nation state. How would they get food? Who would farm it? Who would raise livestock? Who would build towns? Who would be in charge of government? Of police work? How would you pay for all of this? Through magical services? Hardly - getting enchanted armor might be a money-maker, but there's a point at which the market would be saturated by their products. Also, healing and soldiering would earn money, but it would divert manpower from the infrastructure building the mages need. Even if they manage to balance money and manpower, their "nation" would be so weak and infantile, they would be unable to actually make such demands of other nations.

I think you went a bit overboard here.  The original post was about having the mages be independent like the merchant guild, not like a nation state.

[CrimsonZephyr]

GavrielKay wrote...

CrimsonZephyr wrote...
The Circle will never have true independence because they lack the infrastructure to run an economy by themselves and lack any sort of unifying culture to form a nation state. How would they get food? Who would farm it? Who would raise livestock? Who would build towns? Who would be in charge of government? Of police work? How would you pay for all of this? Through magical services? Hardly - getting enchanted armor might be a money-maker, but there's a point at which the market would be saturated by their products. Also, healing and soldiering would earn money, but it would divert manpower from the infrastructure building the mages need. Even if they manage to balance money and manpower, their "nation" would be so weak and infantile, they would be unable to actually make such demands of other nations.

I think you went a bit overboard here.  The original post was about having the mages be independent like the merchant guild, not like a nation state.

Xil was talking about laws. That sort of thing isn't set by a guild, they're set by governments.

[dragonflight288]

It's a heated issue, no doubt about it. But my personal opinion is to focus on one step at a time.

Going back to the analogy used a couple pages back.

(Slavery)                                                        (Basic Rights)                                                       (Magical Oppression)
I------------------^--------------------------------------------^----------------------------------------------------------------------I
             (Where we are)                            (Where we should be)

What we currently have is a system where a mage is recognized and is kidnapped by the templars from a loving family, or abandoned by a family prejudice against magic because of a religious belief. The Chantry blames mages of Tevinter for the rise of Darkspawn, and there's a grain of truth to their story (and the timeline of what the Chantry is completely off if Corypheus is anything to go by.) But there is no evidence that suggests the Magisters were the first darkspawn, merely the first Awakened darkspawn. The Architect and his disciples couldn't hear the call of the Old Gods, so it's most likely that the Magisters can't either. Yet the darkspawn dig constantly towards the call of the Old Gods, so awakened darkspawn like the magisters aren't the problem.

But I digress. Back to the system. Because of this religious belief, children are forcibly separated from their families. And if they ever have children, are forcibly removed from them about 99% of the time. Only in extreme circumstances is a mage given permission by the Chantry to leave the tower and have a family. Wilhelm fought in the war against Orlais and earned that right, and then went on to serve the Arl Redcliff. When he wasn't spelunking.

But when I think of the Mage origin, Gregoire is complaining that a grand total of seven mages were allowed on the war front. He thought that was too many. But in the final battle, we have the support of a couple hundred mages in the war because we helped them (should we choose to) save the mages during Uldred's abomination rebellion.

If only seven mages are allowed to fight at Ostagar, the front lines of the Blight, how many mages are ever given a chance to earn the right to risk their life and get permission to have a family of their own? Not very many. In fact, I suspect most of the seven mages wouldn't survive as, well, there are only seven. And when Uldred offered an idea in contrast to the beacon, sparing more lives in the process, the Grand Cleric completely shot the idea down before he could voice it, simply because of his status as a mage.

So mages are not generally allowed to fight in wars, except in limited numbers, not allowed to offer ideas to save lives during strategy meetings, and are not allowed to have families of their own.

After 1000 years, the religious zealotry will not go away. It's far too rooted in the founding of the Chantry and people's fear of magic. The Chantry won't allow mages any say in anything of their choosing. And when the Divine was willing to work with the Mages, the Lord High Seeker thought that she wasn't hardcore enough against mages and led a rebellion against the Chantry to slaughter ALL mages for the actions they [i[may[/i] commit. Had absolutely nothing to do with what they as a group had done.

My view is if a mage is allowed to serve in towns as healers, have the right to fight as soldiers in the army as healers or even ranged fighters for their individual countries, and the right to have families of their own, so long as they check in with a group of templar-trained police forces loyal only to the crown once a week or a couple times a month, then that would be a significant improvement on its own.

Mages would still have to go to the Circle and learn magic, but if given a few dang rights that the rest of the Thedas takes for granted and removing the Templars power over mages that Alrik exercised or Meredith allowed her templars to exercise, then there wouldn't even be a problem.

Minus the nutcases on both sides. Templars do have the best training for dealing with out of control abominations and blood mages after all, so they are needed in that regard. And fighting the mage criminals who are power hungry, much like any non-mage with too much ambition.

Modifié par dragonflight288, 23 février 2012 - 05:30 .

[Rifneno]

General User wrote...

I take issue with that bolded word. Should only doctors make laws about medicine? Should only carpenters and masons should write building codes? Should only soldiers decide when to go to war?

Yes, yes, and no but they should decide how the war is fought (counting high ranking military such as generals and admirals as soldiers). Who do you think wrote building codes? What, do you actually think Senator Yachthappy knows the intricacies of what is and isn't safe when building? Seriously?! I'm sure an elected offical rubber stamped it, but you can bet your ass someone that went to school in the field wrote it. Ditto for medicine. A thousand times ditto for medicine. You must not have seen the flaming bag of failure that has resulted from politicians and various government officials making decisions about computer technologies they don't understand. There is actually a whole group of people out there who make a living by slipping vague copyrights past the government officials and then licensing the "technology" to companies that have been using it for years. Every major browser has paid millions to one guy because they let him copyright an idea that basically amounted to "web pages do stuff when you load them." So should laymen make legal decisions about things they don't understand? I'm gonna go with "no". I'd rather not see the next blight wipe out all sentient races because some royal court found out about the joining, declared it blood magic, and had the Gray Wardens disbanded.

Xilizhra wrote...

Well, dwarves have the advantage of being able to look closely at lyrium and enchantments without dying, and the whole "song of the Stone" thing may give them heightened perception of certain magical things as well. But perhaps you have a point...

No, he doesn't. Dagna is a special case, to put it mildly. Dwarves bring something unique to the table and she's the first dwarf in hundreds of years to want sit at that table. Her aside, who's an expert on magic that isn't a mage? Templars I suppose, but letting them decide what's okay is what got us here in the first place. Aside from that I'm drawing a blank. Which makes ssense. People rarely spend years becoming an expert on something they can't do.

dragonflight288 wrote...

But when I think of the Mage origin, Gregoire is complaining that a grand total of seven mages were allowed on the war front. He thought that was too many. But in the final battle, we have the support of a couple hundred mages in the war because we helped them (should we choose to) save the mages during Uldred's abomination rebellion.

LOL. I forgot about that. That's solid gold. Especially since Gregoire is always highlighted as a model templar (the model templar is Keran BTW, since he walked out on Meredith Manson's little family reunion, but I disgress). The Archdemon thanks you for your service, Chantry. Me, not so much. They purge elves, don't they?

[TEWR]

Rifneno wrote...

It doesn't take blood magic to have a good idea what's going on inside Leliana's head. Assuming she hasn't been taking any life advice from dead weeds. Again.

....

Badgers badgers badgers badgers badgers....

[CrimsonZephyr]

Rifneno wrote...

General User wrote...

I take issue with that bolded word. Should only doctors make laws about medicine? Should only carpenters and masons should write building codes? Should only soldiers decide when to go to war?

So should laymen make legal decisions about things they don't understand? I'm gonna go with "no". I'd rather not see the next blight wipe out all sentient races because some royal court found out about the joining, declared it blood magic, and had the Gray Wardens disbanded.

Mages would likely write laws incredibly skewed in their favor with plenty of loopholes to abuse if they were given sole right to determine which laws to write and therefore which laws to follow.

Also, the Grey Wardens could easily, on the other hand, be a vehicle for Tevinter magisters to infiltrate the government and militaries of foreign nations, subvert them with mind control, and bring them back under Imperial control, simply because "they accept all." Remember that the intentions of blood mages are rarely pure, and those who even allow them to get a word in edgewise before - or without killing them risk losing their mind and their freedom to them.

Modifié par CrimsonZephyr, 23 février 2012 - 07:42 .

[Rifneno]

CrimsonZephyr wrote...

Mages would likely write laws incredibly skewed in their favor with plenty of loopholes to abuse if they were given sole right to determine which laws to write and therefore which laws to follow.

Oh. Right. I forgot, the mages just want to rule the world. Hey, we have a black president, is it legal now to "pop a cap" in someone? Man, stereotyping sure is fun!

Also, the Grey Wardens could easily, on the other hand, be a vehicle for Tevinter magisters to infiltrate the government and militaries of foreign nations, subvert them with mind control, and bring them back under Imperial control, simply because "they accept all." Remember that the intentions of blood mages are rarely pure, and those who even allow them to get a word in edgewise before - or without killing them risk losing their mind and their freedom to them.

Hang on while I get a microphone. Can you repeat that in Senator McCarthy's voice?

[General User]

Rifneno wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
I still, however, believe that only mages should be able to make laws about magic.

General User wrote...
I take issue with that bolded word. Should only doctors make laws about medicine?  Should only carpenters and masons should write building codes?  Should only soldiers decide when to go to war?

Yes, yes, and no but they should decide how the war is fought (counting high ranking military such as generals and admirals as soldiers). Who do you think wrote building codes? What, do you actually think Senator Yachthappy knows the intricacies of what is and isn't safe when building? Seriously?! I'm sure an elected offical rubber stamped it, but you can bet your ass someone that went to school in the field wrote it. Ditto for medicine. A thousand times ditto for medicine. You must not have seen the flaming bag of failure that has resulted from politicians and various government officials making decisions about computer technologies they don't understand. There is actually a whole group of people out there who make a living by slipping vague copyrights past the government officials and then licensing the "technology" to companies that have been using it for years. Every major browser has paid millions to one guy because they let him copyright an idea that basically amounted to "web pages do stuff when you load them." So should laymen make legal decisions about things they don't understand? I'm gonna go with "no". I'd rather not see the next blight wipe out all sentient races because some royal court found out about the joining, declared it blood magic, and had the Gray Wardens disbanded.

A thorough and passionate response to an argument no one made.  You did see that it was the word "only" that I took exception to, right?  I included the relevant quotes so you could check 'em out.

No, he doesn't. Dagna is a special case, to put it mildly. Dwarves bring something unique to the table and she's the first dwarf in hundreds of years to want sit at that table. Her aside, who's an expert on magic that isn't a mage? Templars I suppose, but letting them decide what's okay is what got us here in the first place. Aside from that I'm drawing a blank. Which makes ssense. People rarely spend years becoming an expert on something they can't do.

Correct. Hundreds to thousands of non-mages from all over Thedas have become experts on magic.

And again, I never said anything about letting Templars decide anything.  I advocate for a system of nationalized Circles under the control of those nations respective rulers.

Modifié par General User, 23 février 2012 - 01:13 .

[Xilizhra]

Mages would likely write laws incredibly skewed in their favor with plenty of loopholes to abuse if they were given sole right to determine which laws to write and therefore which laws to follow.

Mages are neither a hive-minded organism nor the Mafia. And even if they made it legal to, say, fling fireballs around randomly in the middle of a town, murder/manslaughter would still be illegal so it wouldn't make a difference anyway. The only possible issue would come from mind control, but even in Tevinter blood magic isn't legal (the laws against it don't ever seem to be enforced, of course), and I don't believe any ruler would legalize something that might lead to him/herself becoming someone else's puppet.

Correct. Hundreds to thousands of non-mages from all over Thedas have become experts on magic.

Over the course of thousands of years, maybe.

And again, I never said anything about letting Templars decide anything. I advocate for a system of nationalized Circles under the control of those nations respective rulers.

Why is this preferable to legally independent Circles?

[General User]

Xilizhra wrote...

And again, I never said anything about letting Templars decide anything. I advocate for a system of nationalized Circles under the control of those nations respective rulers.

Why is this preferable to legally independent Circles?

National Circles are preferable to entirely independent Circles in that it keeps mages as an active component of the society they arose from.  Also there are varying degrees of autonomy and independence.  Duchies for example, can be very large, powerful and independent.  I think the Dragon Age equivilent is a Teynir.

[Rifneno]

General User wrote...

A thorough and passionate response to an argument no one made. You did see that it was the word "only" that I took exception to, right? I included the relevant quotes so you could check 'em out.

I know what you said, and I stand by what I said. Because...

Correct. Hundreds to thousands of non-mages from all over Thedas have become experts on magic.

You and I clearly have very different definitions of "expert." Magic for Thedas is a tad bit more complex than the system of selecting upgrades from a list after enough killing that we get as video game players. You know that, right? After centuries of study, we're still finding ancient artifacts that violate the "fundamental laws of magic". No, there are not hundreds or thousands of non-mages that are experts. There's Dagna.

[Xilizhra]

General User wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

And again, I never said anything about letting Templars decide anything. I advocate for a system of nationalized Circles under the control of those nations respective rulers.

Why is this preferable to legally independent Circles?

National Circles are preferable to entirely independent Circles in that it keeps mages as an active component of the society they arose from.  Also there are varying degrees of autonomy and independence.  Duchies for example, can be very large, powerful and independent.  I think the Dragon Age equivilent is a Teynir.

So you'd accept mages having political power over nonmages?

[General User]

Xilizhra wrote...

General User wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

And again, I never said anything about letting Templars decide anything. I advocate for a system of nationalized Circles under the control of those nations respective rulers.

Why is this preferable to legally independent Circles?

National Circles are preferable to entirely independent Circles in that it keeps mages as an active component of the society they arose from.  Also there are varying degrees of autonomy and independence.  Duchies for example, can be very large, powerful and independent.  I think the Dragon Age equivilent is a Teynir.

So you'd accept mages having political power over nonmages?

Absolutely.  Why wouldn't I?

[Xilizhra]

Few people need a reason.

[Cody]

CrimsonZephyr wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
No. This would undermine the Circle's independence, and I trust national governments barely more than I trust the Chantry.
I support Circle independence because I believe those who can't perceive magic have no business making policy decisions regarding magic because they're fundamentally less qualified.

The Circle will never have true independence because they lack the infrastructure to run an economy by themselves and lack any sort of unifying culture to form a nation state. How would they get food? Who would farm it? Who would raise livestock? Who would build towns? Who would be in charge of government? Of police work? How would you pay for all of this? Through magical services? Hardly - getting enchanted armor might be a money-maker, but there's a point at which the market would be saturated by their products. Also, healing and soldiering would earn money, but it would divert manpower from the infrastructure building the mages need. Even if they manage to balance money and manpower, their "nation" would be so weak and infantile, they would be unable to actually make such demands of other nations.

Tevinter seems to be doing just fine. All things considered. While constantly fighting a bit of a war with the Qunari. A technologicly superior society.

[CrimsonZephyr]

Rifneno wrote...

CrimsonZephyr wrote...

Mages would likely write laws incredibly skewed in their favor with plenty of loopholes to abuse if they were given sole right to determine which laws to write and therefore which laws to follow.

Oh. Right. I forgot, the mages just want to rule the world. Hey, we have a black president, is it legal now to "pop a cap" in someone? Man, stereotyping sure is fun!

Completely different example. Barack Obama is one man and laws are made by an assembly of many different people in the United States (mostly white men, but even then, there's variance). Obama could never say "with this law, it's legal for black people to 'pop a cap in your ass' because most people would object.

We're talking about mages, as a single power bloc, unilaterally enacting laws for themselves to follow. You don't think that's a recipe for massive amounts of corruption? Keep in mind that I'm skeptical of Templars being able to honestly follow any rules that only they set for themselves, for exactly the same reason.

CodyMelch wrote...

CrimsonZephyr wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
No. This would undermine the Circle's independence, and I trust national governments barely more than I trust the Chantry.
I
support Circle independence because I believe those who can't perceive
magic have no business making policy decisions regarding magic because
they're fundamentally less qualified.

The Circle will
never have true independence because they lack the infrastructure to run
an economy by themselves and lack any sort of unifying culture to form a
nation state. How would they get food? Who would farm it? Who would
raise livestock? Who would build towns? Who would be in charge of
government? Of police work? How would you pay for all of this? Through
magical services? Hardly - getting enchanted armor might be a
money-maker, but there's a point at which the market would be saturated
by their products. Also, healing and soldiering would earn money, but it
would divert manpower from the infrastructure building the mages need.
Even if they manage to balance money and manpower, their "nation" would
be so weak and infantile, they would be unable to actually make such
demands of other nations.

Tevinter seems to be doing
just fine. All things considered. While constantly fighting a bit of a
war with the Qunari. A technologicly superior society.

Tevinter really, really isn't a positive example, considering it is a society run off of pure evil.

Modifié par CrimsonZephyr, 23 février 2012 - 03:53 .

[EmperorSahlertz]

CrimsonZephyr wrote...

Rifneno wrote...

CrimsonZephyr wrote...

Mages would likely write laws incredibly skewed in their favor with plenty of loopholes to abuse if they were given sole right to determine which laws to write and therefore which laws to follow.

Oh. Right. I forgot, the mages just want to rule the world. Hey, we have a black president, is it legal now to "pop a cap" in someone? Man, stereotyping sure is fun!

Completely different example. Barack Obama is one man and laws are made by an assembly of many different people in the United States (mostly white men, but even then, there's variance). Obama could never say "with this law, it's legal for black people to 'pop a cap in your ass' because most people would object.

We're talking about mages, as a single power bloc, unilaterally enacting laws for themselves to follow. You don't think that's a recipe for massive amounts of corruption? Keep in mind that I'm skeptical of Templars being able to honestly follow any rules that only they set for themselves, for exactly the same reason.

You have to remember that mages cannot, will not and will never be able to do any wrong. And would certainly never abuse a situation already vastly in their favor, to further own goals. If the mages were able to set the laws they should follow, they would truly and wholly make it so that the laws was truly best for all of mankind, and not just the mages. That is: The mage way.

[Xilizhra]

We're talking about mages, as a single power bloc, unilaterally enacting laws for themselves to follow. You don't think that's a recipe for massive amounts of corruption? Keep in mind that I'm skeptical of Templars being able to honestly follow any rules that only they set for themselves, for exactly the same reason.

Not quite. They're enacting laws relating specifically to magic use, not how to treat other people.

[EmperorSahlertz]

Xilizhra wrote...

We're talking about mages, as a single power bloc, unilaterally enacting laws for themselves to follow. You don't think that's a recipe for massive amounts of corruption? Keep in mind that I'm skeptical of Templars being able to honestly follow any rules that only they set for themselves, for exactly the same reason.

Not quite. They're enacting laws relating specifically to magic use, not how to treat other people.

Laws regarding proper conduct in warfare, are not made by soldiers.

[Xilizhra]

Another apples and oranges comparison. But what laws about magic use would you want nonmages to make anyway?