310 réponses à ce sujet

[Angrywolves]

So who lives in the dales ?
It's a common practice to genocide or remove the inhabitants of an area and move your own people in. The Orlesians shouldn't be rewarded for doing that in the dales. I won't commit genocide though.

[Dean_the_Young]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Of course, if we want to get to a more applicable analogy, of localized harm without intent or sin, plague carriers are a much better analogy. And quarantine is something we still do today for such people.

I like the plague analogy a lot more, I find the whole sword/gun analogy doesn't work.

It's funny. A number of people instinctively cringe from that analogy and go 'you're calling mages a disease!', until they actually sit through it, realize that they're mis-identifying the analogy parts, and reflect on the history.

Of course, some people still go 'you're calling the mages a disease!' after that, but those people tend not to be too good with analogies more complex than ****s, KKK, or slavery.

[Plaintiff]

Yes, and in the real world the subject of quarantine also often raises debate about civil rights.

Quarantine is also not a particularly good analogy because it can be highly variable, and for most people that ever have to undergo it, it's not more than a minor inconvenience. Typhoid Mary is the exception, not the rule. If individuals were routinely being locked up for the duration of their lives, you can bet people would make a fuss about it. As it is, some people already do.

Australia, due to its unique and delicate ecosystem, has probably the strictest quarantine laws in the world. But even we don't just lock up every single tourist for an indefinite period of time.

Modifié par Plaintiff, 01 décembre 2013 - 10:20 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Morocco Mole wrote...

Disease analogy is much better. I'll have to start using that one from now on.

Just remember that the crux of the analogy is that of a latent disease in remission that could come out under stress. The analogy is pointing to the risk of demonic possession (with abominations being an outbreak that eventually burns out with a body trail) rather than the casual dangers of magic.

People tend to lose sight of the analogy when pre-possession magical abuses are brought up by the presenter. Keeping it to the point, and recognizing that it's not the carrier's fault they hold a potential outbreak within them, is more intuitive than trying to expand it to a magical plague with superpowers that can be abused. Don't even bother taking it that far.

Magic = recessive disease that can emerge due to circumstances beyond carrier's control. Abomination = plague outbreak.

[Sharn01]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

And that would still be totally wrong.

No, it wouldn't.

Thus we reach the crux of the matter, no?

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Of course, if we want to get to a more applicable analogy, of localized harm without intent or sin, plague carriers are a much better analogy. And quarantine is something we still do today for such people.

I like the plague analogy a lot more, I find the whole sword/gun analogy doesn't work.

Its funny that you regularly post that the since some Dalish believe that humans are a plague destroying them by close proximity that makes all dalish horrible people who must be purged from existance, and then turn around and use the the opposite logic to defend a different opinion.

[Dean_the_Young]

Plaintiff wrote...

Yes, and in the real world the subject of quarantine also often raises debate about civil rights.

Quarantine is also not a particularly good analogy because it can be highly variable, and for most people that ever have to undergo it, it's not more than a minor inconvenience. Typhoid Mary is the exception, not the rule. If individuals were routinely being locked up for the duration of their lives, you can bet people would make a fuss about it. As it is, some people already do.

It's only a minor inconvenience now because most quarantine-worthy plagues have either been cured or already burned out. Typhoid Mary is the exception in our world... but not in the Dragon Age setting.

Then again, Civil Rights as such don't exist in the Dragon Age setting either. You'd have a hard time convincing anyone that all peoples are created equal when quite a few have exclusive powers.

Of course, since Typhoid Maries aren't the norm, more people would complain in our world. However, if Typhoid Maries were the norm, more people would also understand the point behind doing so and work to counteract the people who would complain.

Australia, due to its unique and delicate ecosystem, has probably the strictest quarantine laws in the world. But even we don't just lock up every single tourist for an indefinite period of time.

It helps that your tourists don't carry diseases with an analogous danger to an abomination outbreak. Even Australia follows the general maxim of the more severe the potential costs, the stricter the cautionary measures.


Of course, the other solution is that you let outbreaks happen and just convince people to deal with it like a force of nature. No point arguing with forces of nature, after all, no matter how many die, after all. Just like you can convince a population to accept slavery and oppression, you could convince them that abominations are an acceptable part of society, no matter the costs.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 01 décembre 2013 - 10:33 .

[Plaintiff]

Sharn01 wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

And that would still be totally wrong.

No, it wouldn't.

Thus we reach the crux of the matter, no?

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Of course, if we want to get to a more applicable analogy, of localized harm without intent or sin, plague carriers are a much better analogy. And quarantine is something we still do today for such people.

I like the plague analogy a lot more, I find the whole sword/gun analogy doesn't work.

Its funny that you regularly post that the since some Dalish believe that humans are a plague destroying them by close proximity that makes all dalish horrible people who must be purged from existance, and then turn around and use the the opposite logic to defend a different opinion.

That is a very good point. If it turns out the humans genuinely are slowly killing the elves by mere virtue of their presence, will that mean the Dalish attitude towards humans is justified? They are, after all, spreading a sickness that shortens elven lives considerably.

In the interest of fair play, maybe the humans should allow the Dalish to quarantine them for the purposes of further study?

[Dean_the_Young]

Sharn01 wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

And that would still be totally wrong.

No, it wouldn't.

Thus we reach the crux of the matter, no?

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Of course, if we want to get to a more applicable analogy, of localized harm without intent or sin, plague carriers are a much better analogy. And quarantine is something we still do today for such people.

I like the plague analogy a lot more, I find the whole sword/gun analogy doesn't work.

Its funny that you regularly post that the since some Dalish believe that humans are a plague destroying them by close proximity that makes all dalish horrible people who must be purged from existance, and then turn around and use the the opposite logic to defend a different opinion.

Oh ho, someone doesn't understand the analogy!

Quarantine isn't a method for purging carriers from existence. Quarantine is a method for allowing carriers to live even though there are real risks if they were to freely exist amongst non-carriers.

[Sharn01]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Sharn01 wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

And that would still be totally wrong.

No, it wouldn't.

Thus we reach the crux of the matter, no?

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Of course, if we want to get to a more applicable analogy, of localized harm without intent or sin, plague carriers are a much better analogy. And quarantine is something we still do today for such people.

I like the plague analogy a lot more, I find the whole sword/gun analogy doesn't work.

Its funny that you regularly post that the since some Dalish believe that humans are a plague destroying them by close proximity that makes all dalish horrible people who must be purged from existance, and then turn around and use the the opposite logic to defend a different opinion.

Oh ho, someone doesn't understand the analogy!

Quarantine isn't a method for purging carriers from existence. Quarantine is a method for allowing carriers to live even though there are real risks if they were to freely exist amongst non-carriers.

Read back, he posted and has posted several times in the past that the best solution is to kill them all, both for the Dalish and mages.

[Dean_the_Young]

Plaintiff wrote...

Sharn01 wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

And that would still be totally wrong.

No, it wouldn't.

Thus we reach the crux of the matter, no?

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Of course, if we want to get to a more applicable analogy, of localized harm without intent or sin, plague carriers are a much better analogy. And quarantine is something we still do today for such people.

I like the plague analogy a lot more, I find the whole sword/gun analogy doesn't work.

Its funny that you regularly post that the since some Dalish believe that humans are a plague destroying them by close proximity that makes all dalish horrible people who must be purged from existance, and then turn around and use the the opposite logic to defend a different opinion.

That is a very good point. If it turns out the humans genuinely are slowly killing the elves by mere virtue of their presence, will that mean the Dalish attitude towards humans is justified? They are, after all, spreading a sickness that shortens elven lives considerably.

In the interest of fair play, maybe the humans should allow the Dalish to quarantine them for the purposes of further study?

When a condition is prevalent, it becomes the baseline. Even if there ever was an elvish immortality as a natural state of being, and humans were the cause of quickening, at this point Elves would be the equivalent of the bubble boys, who lack the immune system to survive in the environment.

Quarantine might have worked before contact, but at this point the eleves would be better off quarantining themselves... and doing so in a way that doesn't help provoke a war with those around them.

Of course, this all assumes that there was ever any elvish immortality in the first place. In the interest of fair play, the elves should try to have a basis for that before leaping to conclusions about why they lost it.

[Dean_the_Young]

Sharn01 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Sharn01 wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

And that would still be totally wrong.

No, it wouldn't.

Thus we reach the crux of the matter, no?

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Of course, if we want to get to a more applicable analogy, of localized harm without intent or sin, plague carriers are a much better analogy. And quarantine is something we still do today for such people.

I like the plague analogy a lot more, I find the whole sword/gun analogy doesn't work.

Its funny that you regularly post that the since some Dalish believe that humans are a plague destroying them by close proximity that makes all dalish horrible people who must be purged from existance, and then turn around and use the the opposite logic to defend a different opinion.

Oh ho, someone doesn't understand the analogy!

Quarantine isn't a method for purging carriers from existence. Quarantine is a method for allowing carriers to live even though there are real risks if they were to freely exist amongst non-carriers.

Read back, he posted and has posted several times in the past that the best solution is to kill them all, both for the Dalish and mages.

Alas, I'm not in the habit of reaching back to find other peoples quotes for other people. I do see you misrepresenting the analogy at hand, however, so I'll stick to pointing that out and you can dig up the quotes you'd like.

I'll just advise you, though, that Dave is a self-admitted troll who likes to make proposals far more extreme than his actual views when he's not being serious or is dismissive of the audience. When you talk to Dave about the Dalish specifically, you'll find he despises the culture for being close-minded and self-destructive while perpetuating a victim complex that pardons those tendencies. He's quite approving to the prospect of the Dalish reforming themselves, if skeptical that they'd ever do it.

There's also the difference between skepticism of the Dalish claims to a disease, and the analogy to the proven danger of abominations.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 01 décembre 2013 - 10:48 .

[Sharn01]

Morocco Mole wrote...

Because the Dalish stories are based on myth and hearsay. While mages are pretty much factually proven to be dangerous.

It would be a lot easier to judge the dangers of mages if the games where not constantly throwing abominations at us ala the rule of cool.   Logic dictates that possessions must be extremely rare, most mages make it to their harrowing having never encountered a demon, that is 15+ years without any intervention in their lives by a demon, outside of their harrowing most mages probably never encounter a demon again, if possession was a regular occurance there wouldn't be any mages left to worry about.

If the writers really wanted us to take the threat of abominations seriously they would almost never happen, but when they do happen it should be a huge ordeal that is difficult to deal with.  If we actually had valid numbers and believable situations it would be easier to draw the proper level of safeguards needed to defend against the possiblity of it taking place.

Instead we get mages turning into abominations at the drop of a hat, and those abominations being cut down with no more difficulty then some random bandit all for the sake of some extra enemies to slaughter and because it looks oh so neat.

[Fredward]

Quarantine implies necessity. It implies something has to be done. There's no benefits for the people maintaining the quarantine, other than not letting the disease or whatever spread ofc. But that's not what's happening here. The Chantry actively benefits from enslaving the mages. Their entire power base is built off of that slavery. What's more is that this "disease" is not borne from some airborn pathogen, it has a lot more to do with the "victim's" mental state. Would you continue a quarantine if you learned that the stress of that quarantine is exacerbating the outbreak of the disease massively? Almost every single possession we've seen has been instigated by stress, usually this stress comes from the templars or the Circle system.

I'm not so idealistic as to believe no checks and balances need to be in place but when the system that claims to be shielding the general populace from some plague instigates numerous instances of this plague and then points at it and goes "SEE! SEE! We are so needed! AND YOU SHOULD ALL BE GRATEFUL!" there's a problem.

[Plaintiff]

But there are still some deadly, incurable diseases floating around, and we don't require sufferers of those to undergo life-long quarantine. HIV/AIDS, for instance. We take all sorts of other preventative measures, but it keeps spreading, because some individuals can't be trusted to take the proper precautions, and sometimes the precautions fail through no fault of the sufferer.

Should we put all AIDS patients in life-long quarantine?

It helps that your tourists don't carry diseases with an analogous danger to an abomination outbreak. Even Australia follows the general maxim of the more severe the potential costs, the stricter the cautionary measures.

They might, though. We don't check them for that. And they definitely do keep trying to bring in exotic animals and plant matter, and it only takes one mistake to potentially wipe out an entire species of unique flora or fauna. It's already happened multiple times, and the plants and animals don't even need to be diseased to cause incredible havoc. They **** things up just by virtue of having no natural predators to curb their numbers.

And yet you wouldn't believe the number of ignorant people (Americans, mostly) that I've met, in real life and on-line who refuse to believe that their precious housecats are predatory animals that need to be kept in the damn house and supervised properly.

You probably don't count that as "severe", though, because these problems aren't a threat to humans in any way. So maybe the solution is just to stop anyone from visiting Australia at all, and not let anyone leave either. Put the entire world under quarantine.

Modifié par Plaintiff, 01 décembre 2013 - 10:46 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Plaintiff wrote...

But there are still some deadly, incurable diseases floating around, and we don't require sufferers of those to undergo life-long quarantine. HIV/AIDS, for instance. We take all sorts of other preventative measures, but it keeps spreading, because some individuals can't be trusted to take the proper precautions, and sometimes the precautions fail through no fault of the sufferer.

Should we put all AIDS patients in life-long quarantine?

Do AIDS patients present a comparable danger to a community to an abomination outbreak that can destroy a significant settlement in a matter of days without prior warning?

Well, no, and that's the difference between most uncurred diseases today and abominations.  The severity, harm, and risk are much lower with the diseases of today than with magic in the DA setting, which means our necessary risk tolerance levels are much lower. For what quarantine diseases do remain for us, few are particularly enduring- the person will either die in quarantine, or they will demonstrate they aren't a risk for spreading the concern. The basis for letting them go is risk.

It helps that your tourists don't carry diseases with an analogous danger to an abomination outbreak. Even Australia follows the general maxim of the more severe the potential costs, the stricter the cautionary measures.

They might, though. We don't check them for that. And they definitely do keep trying to bring in exotic animals and plant matter, and it only takes one mistake to potentially wipe out an entire species of unique flora or fauna. It's already happened multiple times, and the plants and animals don't even need to be diseased to cause incredible havoc. They **** things up just by virtue of having no natural predators to curb their numbers.

...none of which is analogous to the danger or risk of an abomination outbreak. Infact, continental import quarantines aren't even about containing a known carrier, but trying to identify and turn away carriers before they arrive.

If you get a new invasive species, that sucks, but relatively few humans die from it. Same with species extinctions- it's not desired, but it's not going to brutally murder a small town either. You can attempt to make a case for long-term damages, but it's not an immediate catastrophe like a mage on a bad day can become.

Mage dangers really aren't analogous to the environmental considerations behind import quarantines.

And yet you wouldn't believe the number of ignorant people (Americans, mostly) that I've met, in real life and on-line who refuse to believe that their precious housecats are predatory animals that need to be kept in the damn house and supervised properly.

Or, and not mutually exclusive, you're ignorant about the environment they come from. If outdoor housecats are an established part of their ecosystem, who are you to claim they need to be kept in the damn house and supervised?

You probably don't count that as "severe", though, because these problems aren't a threat to humans in any way. So maybe the solution is just to stop anyone from visiting Australia at all, and not let anyone leave either. Put the entire world under quarantine.

If you believe in environmental stasis. But then, environmental stasis theories ignore that there's no ideal state of nature- mother earth doesn't care if this species or that goes extinct because there is no Mother Earth or higher/collective consciousness. Species were going extinct and invading eachother's habitats long before we came around, and the only barriers to species invasions were geographical happenstance, not deliberate.

The only value in nature is the value you assign to it. Nature doesn't give a ****. Neither do most other people, and Australia doesn't have the desire or the means to create such a quarantine.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 01 décembre 2013 - 11:13 .

[Plaintiff]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

But there are still some deadly, incurable diseases floating around, and we don't require sufferers of those to undergo life-long quarantine. HIV/AIDS, for instance. We take all sorts of other preventative measures, but it keeps spreading, because some individuals can't be trusted to take the proper precautions, and sometimes the precautions fail through no fault of the sufferer.

Should we put all AIDS patients in life-long quarantine?

Do AIDS patients present a comparable danger to a community to an abomination outbreak that can destroy a significant settlement in a matter of days without prior warning?

Well, no, and that's the difference between most uncurred diseases today and abominations.  The severity, harm, and risk are much lower with the diseases of today than with magic in the DA setting, which means our necessary risk tolerance levels are much lower. For what quarantine diseases do remain for us, few are particularly enduring- the person will either die in quarantine, or they will demonstrate they aren't a risk for spreading the concern. The basis for letting them go is risk.

It helps that your tourists don't carry diseases with an analogous danger to an abomination outbreak. Even Australia follows the general maxim of the more severe the potential costs, the stricter the cautionary measures.

They might, though. We don't check them for that. And they definitely do keep trying to bring in exotic animals and plant matter, and it only takes one mistake to potentially wipe out an entire species of unique flora or fauna. It's already happened multiple times, and the plants and animals don't even need to be diseased to cause incredible havoc. They **** things up just by virtue of having no natural predators to curb their numbers.

...none of which is analogous to the danger or risk of an abomination outbreak. Infact, continental import quarantines aren't even about containing a known carrier, but trying to identify and turn away carriers before they arrive.

If you get a new invasive species, that sucks, but relatively few humans die from it. Same with species extinctions- it's not desired, but it's not going to brutally murder a small town either. You can attempt to make a case for long-term damages, but it's not an immediate catastrophe like a mage on a bad day can become.

Mage dangers really aren't analogous to the environmental considerations behind import quarantines.

And yet you wouldn't believe the number of ignorant people (Americans, mostly) that I've met, in real life and on-line who refuse to believe that their precious housecats are predatory animals that need to be kept in the damn house and supervised properly.

Or, and not mutually exclusive, you're ignorant about the environment they come from. If outdoor housecats are an established part of their ecosystem, who are you to claim they need to be kept in the damn house and supervised?

You probably don't count that as "severe", though, because these problems aren't a threat to humans in any way. So maybe the solution is just to stop anyone from visiting Australia at all, and not let anyone leave either. Put the entire world under quarantine.

If you believe in environmental stasis. But then, environmental stasis theories ignore that there's no ideal state of nature- mother earth doesn't care if this species or that goes extinct because there is no Mother Earth or higher/collective consciousness. Species were going extinct and invading eachother's habitats long before we came around, and the only barriers to species invasions were geographical happenstance, not deliberate.

The only value in nature is the value you assign to it. Nature doesn't give a ****. Neither do most other people, and Australia doesn't have the desire or the means to create such a quarantine.

There's no inherent value to human life, either, yet here you are arguing in favour of imprisoning mages for the 'greater good' of society.

Can I assume you're cool with me releasing mages and just not giving a **** if mundanes are cleansed from the face of the continent with a never-ending rain of fire?

Modifié par Plaintiff, 01 décembre 2013 - 11:29 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

Quarantine implies necessity. It implies something has to be done. There's no benefits for the people maintaining the quarantine, other than not letting the disease or whatever spread ofc. But that's not what's happening here.

Yeah... that implication of quarantine to you is a cultural bias
you're carrying, not inherent in the word. Most quarantines today are
about avoiding inconvenience and general precautionary principles rather
than containing actual known diseases.

And I say that as someone trained as a customs inspector substitute.

The Chantry actively benefits from enslaving the mages. Their entire power base is built off of that slavery. What's more is that this "disease" is not borne from some airborn pathogen, it has a lot more to do with the "victim's" mental state. Would you continue a quarantine if you learned that the stress of that quarantine is exacerbating the outbreak of the disease massively? Almost every single possession we've seen has been instigated by stress, usually this stress comes from the templars or the Circle system.

There's a lot of things wrong with this, starting with the first claim and going to the final confusion for blurring specific cause for overarching principle.

Mages are not slaves by conventional or historical definitions of slavery. They are not considered property, they are not forced to work, and the work they do do does not belong to the Chantry.

The powerbase of the Chantry is the common people and governments that believe in and support the Chantry, not the mages. The mages are isolated, politically neutral, and neither an enforcement arm, political support group, or a primary revenue/resource source for the Chantry.

Considering the mage conditions vis-a-vis the rest of Thedas, where stress is even more prevalent and easier to find, not being able to tolerate the stress of a quarantine is an excellent indicator that the individuals with the disease can not be trusted not to start an outbreak outside the quarantine.

Your final point confuses context with cause, which is disappointing since you actually recognize the cause. Stress will not go away with the absencfe of the templars or Circle system- the cause and context will simply be transferred to something else. Family or relationship troubles, economics, crime, governance. Stressors will exist regardless of whether a system to manage them is in place or not.

I'm not so idealistic as to believe no checks and balances need to be in place but when the system that claims to be shielding the general populace from some plague instigates numerous instances of this plague and then points at it and goes "SEE! SEE! We are so needed! AND YOU SHOULD ALL BE GRATEFUL!" there's a problem.

Only if confuse root causes for specific contexts, and so confuse cause and effect. A self-invented problem is different from a problem that focuses on the system created to cope with it. Mage stress is not a problem now because of the Circles- the Circles were created because Mages and mage stress were deemed a problem in the first place, even though there were no Circles. Mage stress, the root problem, predates the circles.

The Circles were meant to contain a problem, not resolve it (because mutually acceptable resolution is, at this point, impossible). The fact that the problem continues to exist does demonstrate a justification for continuing to contain it- it's a similar dynamic faced by security forces in insurgencies. Violence goes up in contested areas, but security forces leaving doesn't actually mean security will go up as well. (Instead, it often means insurgents are the dominant force in an area.)

[Fredward]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

Quarantine implies necessity. It implies something has to be done. There's no benefits for the people maintaining the quarantine, other than not letting the disease or whatever spread ofc. But that's not what's happening here.

Yeah... that implication of quarantine to you is a cultural bias
you're carrying, not inherent in the word. Most quarantines today are
about avoiding inconvenience and general precautionary principles rather
than containing actual known diseases.

And I say that as someone trained as a customs inspector substitute.

If you don't mind I'd like to know what you conisder the main aspects of a quarantine to be. The things needed for it to be considered a quarantine.

Dean_the_Young wrote...
There's a lot of things wrong with this,
starting with the first claim and going to the final confusion for
blurring specific cause for overarching principle.

Mages are not
slaves by conventional or historical definitions of slavery. They are
not considered property, they are not forced to work, and the work they
do do does not belong to the Chantry.

The powerbase of the
Chantry is the common people and governments that believe in and support
the Chantry, not the mages. The mages are isolated, politically
neutral, and neither an enforcement arm, political support group, or a
primary revenue/resource source for the Chantry.

Considering the
mage conditions vis-a-vis the rest of Thedas, where stress is even more
prevalent and easier to find, not being able to tolerate the stress of a
quarantine is an excellent indicator that the individuals with the
disease can not be trusted not to start an outbreak outside the
quarantine.

Your final point confuses context with cause, which
is disappointing since you actually recognize the cause. Stress will not
go away with the absencfe of the templars or Circle system- the cause
and context will simply be transferred to something else. Family or
relationship troubles, economics, crime, governance. Stressors will
exist regardless of whether a system to manage them is in place or not.

They're not considered property but the Chantry claims sole domain over them, by their dictums a mage gets to live or die. What is allowed, what constitutes as "living" is defined by an external source. They don't have to work (besides their training ofc) but their options are so limited by this external source that there is very little else to do. Is it still a choice if the alternative is decades of monotony? Even their fields of potential study are circumscribed. Taking away freedom of choice, or limiting those choices to such a degree is slavery. Or at least it becomes slavery when the beneficiary gains oh-so-much from the relationship.

Anyway lemme explain what I mean when I say the Chantry builds itself on the back of mages: mages are dangerous and need watchers, thus templars, the Chantry's private strongarm, in turn these watchers need something to put them on an equal playing field thus the Chantry's monopoly on lyrium, an extremely provitable venture. So just from their ownership of mages they have moved from a religious organization to a military and economic force, and that definitely gives them a whole lot more sway than they would have had otherwise. Does this kinda thing typically happen in quarantines? Their entire belief system is built on demonizing and fearing mages, that hate and fear is used as capital to expand Chantry influence.

Slavery might not fit the dynamic perfectly, but quarantine definitely doesn't either.

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Only
if confuse root causes for specific contexts, and so confuse cause and
effect. A self-invented problem is different from a problem that focuses
on the system created to cope with it. Mage stress is not a problem now
because of the Circles- the Circles were created because Mages and mage
stress were deemed a problem in the first place, even though there were
no Circles. Mage stress, the root problem, predates the circles.

The
Circles were meant to contain a problem, not resolve it (because
mutually acceptable resolution is, at this point, impossible). The fact
that the problem continues to exist does demonstrate a justification for
continuing to contain it- it's a similar dynamic faced by security
forces in insurgencies. Violence goes up in contested areas, but
security forces leaving doesn't actually mean security will go up as
well. (Instead, it often means insurgents are the dominant force in an
area.)

Why do you think this? Mage stress has never been the kind of problem it is with this system. The Circle system started because a mage run society was too successful, not because their was some abomination plague. Tevinter has been running itself for millenia, never has it sunken into demonic squalor. Mages potentially turning into abominations has never been the primary aim for the Circle system anyway, it was to curb mages potential misuse of their power.

A self-sustaining little circle like this is a temporary solution though. It was never going to work forever. It couldn't have worked forever. It's nonsensical. If your system continues to breed the problem you're trying to stop, or contain that doesn't justify it's continued use - it just means its a bad system.

Morocco Mole wrote...
Dean_The_Young, you are the best poster on BSN

He is rather smart isn't he?

[Reznore57]

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

Anyway lemme explain what I mean when I say the Chantry builds itself on the back of mages: mages are dangerous and need watchers, thus templars, the Chantry's private strongarm, in turn these watchers need something to put them on an equal playing field thus the Chantry's monopoly on lyrium, an extremely provitable venture. So just from their ownership of mages they have moved from a religious organization to a military and economic force, and that definitely gives them a whole lot more sway than they would have had otherwise. Does this kinda thing typically happen in quarantines? Their entire belief system is built on demonizing and fearing mages, that hate and fear is used as capital to expand Chantry influence.

The only people having monopoly over lyrium are the dwarves (they are the only race able to mine the stuff without ending up bleeding from every orifice), they sell it to the Chantry and Tevinter.
So I don't think the Chantry make any benefits , I mean who pays for the templars?
As far as I know it's the Chantry...
It also seems the mages funds their own circles , it's possible they buy the lyrium from The Chantry .
But there's never been any complain about this , so I guess as far as money goes , it was good business for both sides.

Anyway I'd say the Chantry relies a lot on local donations .I think they are dependant on nobles and such...

[Fardreamer]

Angrywolves wrote...

There are other elven threads. Not necessary to start a new one OP and no I don't expect they'll get any breaks.

David Gaider has closed old threads several times when people only wanted to add something to the discussion. Usually by saying something like "Don't necro old threads."

This shows that it's better to just start a new thread whenever you want to talk about something.  

Modifié par Fardreamer, 01 décembre 2013 - 01:20 .

[Thomas Andresen]

The only people having monopoly over lyrium are the dwarves (they are the only race able to mine the stuff without ending up bleeding from every orifice), they sell it to the Chantry and Tevinter.

Actually, that the dwarves only sell lyrium to the Chantry is a decision forced upon them by the Chantry, by which means I do not know. In fact, I don't think there is much known about the lyrium trade other than "the Chantry controls it topside" and "smuggling happens."

But the fact remains that the Chantry has the control of distribution topside(to such an extent that it is indeed a monopoly), and I'd imagine that the Assembly isn't unaware of the fact that there'd be a much larger market if they didn't sell only to the Chantry. Certainly the dwarven general public is aware of it. I don't think the dwarves care enough about mages to sympathise with the Chantry's desire to control lyrium distribution.