294 réponses à ce sujet

[KainD]

I see the point of Drakar123, and I guess I agree. Mages seem better than mundanes and are fit better to rule. Then again mages don't really have to be complete a*sholes about it, you can actually be a ruler that makes the life of people beneath you good, as there were good kings, that had all the power, yet made the life for the nation as a whole good, even if they themselves lived even better than all of the people beneath them.

[Drakar123]

Of course they ran.They started losing their immortality and didn't even consider the humans a threat.They had internal problems to deal with and could have taken care of humans easily but once the people who had all the knowledge started dying they would have been thrown into anarchy.With the old gods teaching the humans blood magic and the elves secluding themselves due to internal problems it's no wonder arlathan fell.And if you are talking about battle prowess they had armies of skilled arcane warriors and a lot of varterals.Their mages studied the arcane arts for thousands of years.Their skill in combat should beat even the disciplined qunari army and should beat it by a very large margin.

Tevinter invented everything even remotely important even after the chantry came into power.The chantry who has every reason to fight blood magic didn't do anything to weaken the power of blood mages while a tevinter magister who had every reason not to invented a counter for every form of mind control.The circles didn't really invent anything significant.Tevinter has kept making discoveries however.A lot of spells are forbidden in circles because they would make dealing with mages impossible for the templars like arcane warrior arts and shapeshifting.

The magisters were not guilible in the least.The old gods have been helping the imperium for thousands of years without fail and the magisters who went to the black city were the most devoted followers of the cult of Dumat.Religious zealots are willing to go very far as it is.You can only imagine what they would do if their god ordered them to do something.Dumat also never did anything against the interests of the imperium and the magisters had no reason not to trust him.


Anyway kainD,I never said I advocate mages being ****s.They would become pretty benevolent rulers eventually once they become like the elves of arlathan.When everyone becoems a mage and lives forever discrimination would end and such a society would be extremelly stable.Arlathan is in my opinion the goal everyone should strive towards.If many lives of mundanes are lost in the process so be it but ultimately the end justifies the means.A mageocracy is a perfect system in a country where everyoen is a mage and is immortal.

Modifié par Drakar123, 17 décembre 2012 - 09:44 .

[The Elder King]

Ah, yes, a perfect society. So your goal is an uthopia that can't be reached? There's no perfect society, or society without discrimination. Even if all people would be mages, new discriminations will be present. That's human nature. Struggle for power will always happen.

And a society completely composed of mages wouldn't necessarily be stable, and Arlathan, as far as we know, wasn't composed by all mages since in this case. We don't even know if it was ruled by mages (it could be, since in dalish society the mages are the leaders). We only know that elves were immortal.
Since in Thedas there never was a society composed by people all mages and immortals (and in the remote case that Arlathan was, humans aren't elves), we can't know that this type of society would work. You're proposing a model, claiming that it would perfectly work, without a single proof or basis to prove your point.
And to male "all people mages", you need some kind of magic to do it. Killing all non-mages, other than condaming mages themselves, since, expecially for elves, the number of mages aren't that great in comparison of the majority of the population, would lead to mage getting killed or locked in the Circles, again. You're overstimating magic's abilities, since the history of Thedas proves that mages aren't invincible. Their powers are enourmous, but they're not invincible.

[KainD]

hhh89 wrote...

Ah, yes, a perfect society. So your goal is an uthopia that can't be reached? There's no perfect society, or society without discrimination. Even if all people would be mages, new discriminations will be present. That's human nature. Struggle for power will always happen.

This is the most sad part, that always has me thinking: "Why even try?"
You are strong enough to get away with it? Well then go kill, and rape, and enslave! It's all human nature! Society doesn't want to to live equal anyway. 

I personally would trust the mages with their freedom in a real life situation, even if I was a mundane, I would take that first step towards a brighter society. Mages that would abuse power deserve the consequances. 
But here's the fun part: People that would not trust mages with their freedom, are no better than the mages that abuse their power and deserve the same consequances. 

People in Thedas don't want to see mages free. This in my eyes makes it morally acceptable for mages to enslave these people. 

Modifié par KainD, 17 décembre 2012 - 10:16 .

[Drakar123]

I never claimed it would be perfect...Only that it would be better then all the other societies we had so far.What was that churchil quote again ?Democracy is the worst system of goverment except all those that had been tried before it.I think that was it.A mageocracy full of immortal mages would be far better then a democracy.

And from what we know all elves were mages in the past.That's what we've been told and there is no reason not to believe it since we have no evidence to tell us otherwise.Discrimination would definitely not exist if everyone lived for thousands of years unless it had actual basis in which case there would be nothing wrong with it.People would be far more knowledgable and wise and since the country is a mageocracy only the people who should be in power will be in power.The reason democracy doesn't work is because people are too stupid for it to work.

And making all people mages is really not that hard.It would take a while but it's possible.The number of mages has been increasing on its own.Mages would just have to start having more kids and eventually mundanes would become extinct.Some way to make mundanes into mages would probably be discovered eventually as well.

[Xilizhra]

And to male "all people mages", you need some kind of magic to do it. Killing all non-mages, other than condaming mages themselves, since, expecially for elves, the number of mages aren't that great in comparison of the majority of the population, would lead to mage getting killed or locked in the Circles, again. You're overstimating magic's abilities, since the history of Thedas proves that mages aren't invincible. Their powers are enourmous, but they're not invincible.

What would solve this problem is to make every new child a mage. It'd be impossible to enslave them all in Circles, after all; they'd have to expand until they were equals to what was left of mundane society anyway, and eventually the mundanes would all die off.

[The Elder King]

Xilizhra wrote...

What would solve this problem is to make every new child a mage. It'd be impossible to enslave them all in Circles, after all; they'd have to expand until they were equals to what was left of mundane society anyway, and eventually the mundanes would all die off.

To make every new child a mage you need some kind of big-divine-type spell, like you would'd need for making all people mages. If they can create those type of spell, or if it's available, it'd make no sense to affect only the child. It'd be slow, and people will notice and try to stop it.
Regardless, what you're suggesting is horrible. To make sure that your side will survive, you're killing the other. By that logic, the templars and the Chantry were right to put mages in Circles. They were assuring their survival. At least with making all mages, you're not killing anyone, or forcing the "non-mages" to be die.
Anyway, unless we're talking about the final DA game, they're not going to make all people mages. They're not going to make a DA game were all characters are mages.

[The Hierophant]

Drakar123 wrote...

Of course they ran.They started losing their immortality and didn't even consider the humans a threat.They had internal problems to deal with and could have taken care of humans easily but once the people who had all the knowledge started dying they would have been thrown into anarchy.With the old gods teaching the humans blood magic and the elves secluding themselves due to internal problems it's no wonder arlathan fell.And if you are talking about battle prowess they had armies of skilled arcane warriors and a lot of varterals.Their mages studied the arcane arts for thousands of years.Their skill in combat should beat even the disciplined qunari army and should beat it by a very large margin.

That's still not indicative of their combat experience/battle history, tactics usage, quality of  training, or their ability at gathering, and deploying  troops for battle.

Tevinter invented everything even remotely important even after the chantry came into power.The chantry who has every reason to fight blood magic didn't do anything to weaken the power of blood mages while a tevinter magister who had every reason not to invented a counter for every form of mind control.The circles didn't really invent anything significant.Tevinter has kept making discoveries however.A lot of spells are forbidden in circles because they would make dealing with mages impossible for the templars like arcane warrior arts and shapeshifting.

They developed the Templars ability to negate magic.

The magisters were not guilible in the least.The old gods have been helping the imperium for thousands of years without fail and the magisters who went to the black city were the most devoted followers of the cult of Dumat.Religious zealots are willing to go very far as it is.You can only imagine what they would do if their god ordered them to do something.Dumat also never did anything against the interests of the imperium and the magisters had no reason not to trust him.

The fact that they followed Dumat and nearly destroyed their empire says otherwise.

Modifié par The Hierophant, 17 décembre 2012 - 10:42 .

[Drakar123]

All that would need to be done is for the veil to disappear.It would happen on it's own eventually even if nobody did anything.And the chantry and the templars are doing humanity a disservice by ensuring their own survival so no they were not right.It is for the greater good that mages be free and in power.Morality should be discarded or changed once it stops serving the greater good.

[Drakar123]

The Hierophant wrote...

Drakar123 wrote...

Of course they ran.They started losing their immortality and didn't even consider the humans a threat.They had internal problems to deal with and could have taken care of humans easily but once the people who had all the knowledge started dying they would have been thrown into anarchy.With the old gods teaching the humans blood magic and the elves secluding themselves due to internal problems it's no wonder arlathan fell.And if you are talking about battle prowess they had armies of skilled arcane warriors and a lot of varterals.Their mages studied the arcane arts for thousands of years.Their skill in combat should beat even the disciplined qunari army and should beat it by a very large margin.

That's still not indicative of their combat experience/battle history, tactics usage, quality of  training, or their ability gathering,  deploying  troops for battle.

Tevinter invented everything even remotely important even after the chantry came into power.The chantry who has every reason to fight blood magic didn't do anything to weaken the power of blood mages while a tevinter magister who had every reason not to invented a counter for every form of mind control.The circles didn't really invent anything significant.Tevinter has kept making discoveries however.A lot of spells are forbidden in circles because they would make dealing with mages impossible for the templars like arcane warrior arts and shapeshifting.

They developed the Templars ability to negate magic.

The magisters were not guilible in the least.The old gods have been helping the imperium for thousands of years without fail and the magisters who went to the black city were the most devoted followers of the cult of Dumat.Religious zealots are willing to go very far as it is.You can only imagine what they would do if their god ordered them to do something.Dumat also never did anything against the interests of the imperium and the magisters had no reason not to trust him.

The fact that they followed Dumat and nearly destroyed their empire says otherwise.

They've been around for thousands of years.They will have magical abilities the likes of which you could not imagine.They had means of teleportation.They lived extremelly long lives and as such should have been better tactitians then any human nation possibly could.The eleves had suerior number,superior firepower and more experience.A lot more experience.If they did not start to lose their immortality the humans of tevinter would have been nothing before the elves.

Templar abilities are usless against blood magic which is the main reason mages are imprisoned in the first place.They are also a waste of resources.All that lyrium would be better used elswhere

The reason they obeyed Dumat is because he helped the found their own empire and has been helping them for thousands of years without ever having done anything not in the interests of the imperium.Everyone worshipepd him as a god and the magisters had no reason not to trust him.Especially people liek Corypheus who were his most devoted followers.How could they have known that doing what they did would have made the darkspawn ?

Modifié par Drakar123, 17 décembre 2012 - 10:43 .

[The Elder King]

Drakar123 wrote...

I never claimed it would be perfect...Only that it would be better then all the other societies we had so far.What was that churchil quote again ?Democracy is the worst system of goverment except all those that had been tried before it.I think that was it.A mageocracy full of immortal mages would be far better then a democracy.

First of all, if all people were mage there wouldn't be a magocracy. Everyone will be mages, so of course mages will rule. But who? How would you define who are going to rule? You're going to fall again either in a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy, or another system. So before saying that this uthopistic magocracy is better than a democracy, tell me how the political system would work.
Beside, I prefer the democracy to the tevinter magocracy.

And from what we know all elves were mages in the past.That's what we've been told and there is no reason not to believe it since we have no evidence to tell us otherwise.Discrimination would definitely not exist if everyone lived for thousands of years unless it had actual basis in which case there would be nothing wrong with it.People would be far more knowledgable and wise and since the country is a mageocracy only the people who should be in power will be in power.The reason democracy doesn't work is because people are too stupid for it to work.

By who? The codex, and the dalish origins (With the tales of Arlathan), talked about immortality, not that all elves were magic. So yes, there's no evidence suggesting this, so you have to find proof about.
Come on, you said that you weren't saying that your model is perfect, and now you say that there'll be no discrimination?

And making all people mages is really not that hard.It would take a while but it's possible.The number of mages has been increasing on its own.Mages would just have to start having more kids and eventually mundanes would become extinct.Some way to make mundanes into mages would probably be discovered eventually as well.

Thousands of years have passed since humans arrived in Thedas, and mages are still the minority.
And mundanes wouldn't become extinct just because mages have kids between them, because mundanes are the majority, and not every mage-mage child is a mage.
And you think that mages would necessary want that. I doubt that the magisters would want that, since it'd mean that everyone will have the power to stand against them.

[BlueMagitek]

Xilizhra wrote...

And to male "all people mages", you need some kind of magic to do it. Killing all non-mages, other than condaming mages themselves, since, expecially for elves, the number of mages aren't that great in comparison of the majority of the population, would lead to mage getting killed or locked in the Circles, again. You're overstimating magic's abilities, since the history of Thedas proves that mages aren't invincible. Their powers are enourmous, but they're not invincible.

What would solve this problem is to make every new child a mage. It'd be impossible to enslave them all in Circles, after all; they'd have to expand until they were equals to what was left of mundane society anyway, and eventually the mundanes would all die off.

Wait, you advocate doing everything possible, even through unnatural means, to save elves, but when presented with another situation you're perfectly fine with allowing, and encouraging, an entire class of people to die off?

[Xilizhra]

To make every new child a mage you need some kind of big-divine-type spell, like you would'd need for making all people mages. If they can create those type of spell, or if it's available, it'd make no sense to affect only the child. It'd be slow, and people will notice and try to stop it.

I'm quite happy to use that variety of spell. And if it's instantaneous, they can do nothing to stop it.

Regardless, what you're suggesting is horrible. To make sure that your side will survive, you're killing the other. By that logic, the templars and the Chantry were right to put mages in Circles. They were assuring their survival. At least with making all mages, you're not killing anyone, or forcing the "non-mages" to be die.

I'm not killing anyone. No person would die by my hand. I was referring to deaths by natural causes.

Anyway, unless we're talking about the final DA game, they're not going to make all people mages. They're not going to make a DA game were all characters are mages.

They might. Warriors and rogues could be "weak" mages, with the mage class being stronger.

[Drakar123]

By mageocracy I meant a society ruled by the most powerful mages.The ones in power would be the most intelligent and powerful mages.A democracy could also work I suppose.It works on paper in our world but not in practice because people are stupid and/or because they don't bother doing research.

It was said by some dalish elves.I recall Marethari mentioning it.It was probably mentioned elsehwere as well.And just because there is no discrimination a society isn't perfect.Do you really think someone who is 10000 years old will spend all his time hating someone else because of a different skin color ?

What magisters and some mages want doesn't matter.It will happen.The number of mages has recently started to rise quite a bit due to the thinning of the veil.As it is it doesn't look like the veil will last much longer.A few hundred years at best or it could even dissappear in the dragon age assuming something happens.Mundanes would stop being the majority eventually.

[The Elder King]

KainD wrote...

hhh89 wrote...

Ah, yes, a perfect society. So your goal is an uthopia that can't be reached? There's no perfect society, or society without discrimination. Even if all people would be mages, new discriminations will be present. That's human nature. Struggle for power will always happen.

This is the most sad part, that always has me thinking: "Why even try?"
You are strong enough to get away with it? Well then go kill, and rape, and enslave! It's all human nature! Society doesn't want to to live equal anyway. 

I personally would trust the mages with their freedom in a real life situation, even if I was a mundane, I would take that first step towards a brighter society. Mages that would abuse power deserve the consequances. 
But here's the fun part: People that would not trust mages with their freedom, are no better than the mages that abuse their power and deserve the same consequances. 

People in Thedas don't want to see mages free. This in my eyes makes it morally acceptable for mages to enslave these people. 

I'm not saying that everyone would act that way. I'm saying that there'll be some people that would act that way. People are different. There'll always be some people that would think of doing bad things, ot using force to achieve their goals. It's not something it could be fixed.
About the bolded part, good. Then the cycle wil continue, with the mundanes that will free themselves and lock again the mages.
As for myself, I don't know which is the best solution for the conflict. What I know is that the former Circle system, with that aumont of rights and freedom, isn't going to work. And that I'll not support the templar's goal of annihilate the mages. But I don't know which would be the best solution. I made a thread about an indipendant Circle system. If you wish, you can read it.

[Drakar123]

Mundanes would not be able to free themselves again.Should another tevinter rise unless they do something stupid and challenge the maker again they will never lose their power.

[The Hierophant]

Drakar123 wrote...

All that would need to be done is for the veil to disappear.It would happen on it's own eventually even if nobody did anything.And the chantry and the templars are doing humanity a disservice by ensuring their own survival so no they were not right.It is for the greater good that mages be free and in power.Morality should be discarded or changed once it stops serving the greater good.

Nope, the last time mages ruled all of Thedas the Darkspawn happened. You post about mages being discriminated against but then suggest a governing system that does just that to the opposite. Also another problem is that you hold mage dominated societies to an ideal when ingame lore, and history timeline, has shown how they've fallen out of power over time, and that there's no guaruntee that the next mageocracy will somehow solve world peace, poverty, and global warming, 

[Drakar123]

That was a very special case.It took divine intervention to bring down tevinter and arlathan.Discriminating against those who are inferior is acceptable.The opposite is not.Neither of these two mageocracies would have ever fallen out of power had the old gods not intervined.

[The Elder King]

Xilizhra wrote...


I'm not killing anyone. No person would die by my hand. I was referring to deaths by natural causes.

You're still forcing people to be mages. You know, unless you're going to solve the demon's problem, mage would still be at riskof possession . And you know, people might not like being always in constant threat.

They might. Warriors and rogues could be "weak" mages, with the mage class being stronger.

Regardless the fact that an AW (or mage-warrior hybrid) isn't necessarily weaker than a full mage, this isn't going to happen, in my opinion. It's as likely as it is that a way to completely destroy magic is going to happen. The change is very low.
Though it it's going to happen, while I think it's stupid, I'll applaud their gut, since they're going to risk a lot with this (and this is the reason why I don't think it's not going to happen, expecially in DA3. The reaction to ME3's ending would be in comparison the most positive reaction a game could have).

Modifié par hhh89, 17 décembre 2012 - 11:07 .

[BlueMagitek]

In fact, Magic has been weakening over time. Mage Hawke could not match Corphy, Mage Warden could not match Flemeth. All of two to three people figured out how to use the mirrors (much less how to create them). The secret of immortality has been lost (but hinted at through Zathy). There's been no major show of power by any mage or group of Mages that matches the attempted trip to the Fade or the sinking of Arlathan. There are maybe a handful of Dreamers in all of Thedas. Heck, even the advancements made by Avernus are through the Taint, which is available to a very small amount of mages and can be used by basically any Grey Warden as well. There's no quest about writing your own powerful Grimoire, it's always about finding or stealing ancient ones (or relatively recent ones written by ancient people).

Meanwhile, technology advances through the Dwarves and Qunari.

[Drakar123]

Possession is not a problem if mages are taught how to properly control demons.Magisters summon demons on an almost daily basis and they don't get possessed.

Destroying magic would make everyone tranquil so that isn't an option.Perhaps making the veil thicker but not destroying the fade.The fade is also not the only source of magic in the world of thedas.Both blood and the taint have their own inherent power so magic would still persist unles syou got rid of blood too and for some reason I do not think that is an option.

[The Elder King]

Drakar123 wrote...

By mageocracy I meant a society ruled by the most powerful mages.The ones in power would be the most intelligent and powerful mages.A democracy could also work I suppose.It works on paper in our world but not in practice because people are stupid and/or because they don't bother doing research.

If the society will be ruled by the most powerful mages, there's surely be conflict. It'd be a strugge for powr.

It was said by some dalish elves.I recall Marethari mentioning it.It was probably mentioned elsehwere as well.And just because there is no discrimination a society isn't perfect.Do you really think someone who is 10000 years old will spend all his time hating someone else because of a different skin color ?

There isn't. I checked it. The didn't talk about all elves possessing magic. Though I admit that both of us could right, since whatever the dalish knew now could not be the exact truth. So I think we'll have to wait. I'm sure they're going to bring Arlathan up in a game.
And Thedas never had much problem with skin color, as far as I recall. The discriminations would be others.
Besides, I'm not saying that the 1000 years old would spend time hating someone else. The younger ones could.
Conflict will be always be present. It's naive to think that being immortal would change that.

What magisters and some mages want doesn't matter.It will happen.The number of mages has recently started to rise quite a bit due to the thinning of the veil.As it is it doesn't look like the veil will last much longer.A few hundred years at best or it could even dissappear in the dragon age assuming something happens.Mundanes would stop being the majority eventually.

In Kirkwall. And there is no confimation that it's because of the Veil (though I'd say it's likely).
Oh, and I repeat, when the Veil would be destroyed we'll be invaded by demons. Good luck repelling them. I'd be more concerned to repair the Veil, if possible.

[Drakar123]

Magic has not become weaker.It has been growing in power due to the weakening of the veil.The reason you don't see such grand feats of magic is because the chantry would never let mages have access to such knowledge and most of it was destroyed or hidden outside of tevinter.

Technology the qunari and the dwarves have is vastly inferior to the magic of old tevinter and ancient arlathan.Dreamers are still born but most die before adulthood because of a lack of proper training according to marethari.

So no magic has not gotten weaker.Knowledge of it has been lost but magic itslef has been growing stronger.Should the qunati ever come close to taking Minrathous I have no doubt the magisters will sacrifice every refugee in it to defeat them.You will see your grand feat of magic then

[Xilizhra]

You're still forcing people to be mages. You know, unless you're going to solve the demon's problem, mage would still be at riskof possession . And you know, people might not like being always in constant threat.

What better way is there to end the conflict between mages and mundanes?

In fact, Magic has been weakening over time. Mage Hawke could not match Corphy, Mage Warden could not match Flemeth. All of two to three people figured out how to use the mirrors (much less how to create them). The secret of immortality has been lost (but hinted at through Zathy). There's been no major show of power by any mage or group of Mages that matches the attempted trip to the Fade or the sinking of Arlathan. There are maybe a handful of Dreamers in all of Thedas. Heck, even the advancements made by Avernus are through the Taint, which is available to a very small amount of mages and can be used by basically any Grey Warden as well. There's no quest about writing your own powerful Grimoire, it's always about finding or stealing ancient ones (or relatively recent ones written by ancient people).

Magic was weakening, but the tide is turning. More mages are being born. The dragons are back. A possible dwarf mage, or something, has appeared. Strong implications have been made for magic washing over the world again.

[The Elder King]

Drakar123 wrote...

Possession is not a problem if mages are taught how to properly control demons.Magisters summon demons on an almost daily basis and they don't get possessed.

Destroying magic would make everyone tranquil so that isn't an option.Perhaps making the veil thicker but not destroying the fade.The fade is also not the only source of magic in the world of thedas.Both blood and the taint have their own inherent power so magic would still persist unles syou got rid of blood too and for some reason I do not think that is an option.

How destroying magic will make everyone tranquil? I'm not talking about a mass spell to make every mage tranquil. I'm talkign about something like cutting off mages from the Fade, as the dwarves aren't connected to the Fade. If you believe that you can make everyone mage, this isn't impossible. And blood magic require the user to know magic, or being related to the taint (and even then, the research was done by a mage. If you have no mage, it's not going to progress furhter). If a person isn't a mage anymore, he can't use magic.
Regardless, I used the destroy magic plan as a comparison. My opinion about this plan and the "everyone mage" plan is the same. It's not goign to happen.
You take this info from your insider source in Bioware? I know well that magisters use demons, but there's nothing about summoning them on almost daily basis and no mage/magister got possessed.