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[Xilizhra]

There are ways to protect mages from demons without having the Chantry imprison them. And while protecting mages from demons is the role of the Circle, protecting mundanes in general is the role of nations; they should have access to their own templar training and distribute them as guards in population centers as they see fit.

[Enshaid]

There are ways to protect mages from demons without having the Chantry imprison them. And while protecting mages from demons is the role of the Circle, protecting mundanes in general is the role of nations; they should have access to their own templar training and distribute them as guards in population centers as they see fit.

Agreed. I think part of the reason abominations cause so much damage in the first place is that secular governments have no infrastructure in place to police them, and the templars spend a disproportionate amount of resources on mages who haven't done anything yet.

[Nocte ad Mortem]

It's not dark. It's realistic.

The differences between mages and mundanes aren't superficial

Furthermore, even the most benevolent and well-meaning mages can destroy your entire town EVEN WHEN THEY DO NOT WANT IT. (Connor)

What perverse and immoral mages can do ti truly terrifying (Baroness)

 

With that in mind, any attempt for mages and mundanes to live together *WILL* result in casualties. And how one deals with them?

 

Well the Dalish and Chasind just accept abominations and mage-related deaths like a fact of life. Like a flood or avalanche. Didn't do them much good, given the last two dalish clans we have seen. Furthermore, such a stance/culture is impossible to apply to otehr parts of TheDas.

 

On an individual level, you can befriend a mage and feel no fear(But that is no guarantee he won't rip of your face tomorrow)

And that line of thinking can't be applied to the masses.

"If I can do/think X, then everyone can" is on a superficial level valid, but in reality NEVER works.

I don't believe it's strictly realistic. People are capable of being good and charitable, even the majority of people. It's, in my opinion, deeply cynical and pessimistic. But, to be honest, there's no way for either of us to offer any objective proof to what the nature of sentient creatures of varied races is. So, I think we may be hitting a wall on this one.

 

Mages are a danger to themselves and others, which is why they need comprehensive training and why law enforcement needs to be aware of the dangers. Keeping those combating the danger to a minimum and disallowing mages to be a part of the force isn't necessarily helping the issue. It's definitely not eliminating it. At this point, it's actually doing basically nothing, since the system fully collapsed. 

[Nocte ad Mortem]

Except, word of god (Gaider) states lyrium is needed for Templar abilities: DAO changed it as a gameplay vs lore issue.

Where was that stated? I know the wiki doesn't say it's necessary, but that it increases effectiveness. I'm not saying you're lying or wrong, but I'd be interested to see the quote.

[Lotion Soronarr]

- I was given the impression that phylacteries allowed you to hunt down specific mages, not mages in general. So the fact that mages are spread around everywhere shouldn't be a problem.

 

- As for the rest: templars. They're a preexisting army designed to hunt mages so I think they'd function quite nicely as a sort of magic law enforcement.

 

- Oh really? Plachytries do not help you prevent a village getting slaughtered. They can help you hunt down an abomination or a mage, but this is TheDas. Travel is slow, news travel slow.

By the time words reaches you that mage abomination Frederik destroyed the village of Fostering and by the time your hunting force gets there, he will be long gone. Probably burning down another village. If the abomination keeps moving it will be a long time before your force catches it and by that time not one, but several villages may burn.
 

 

- There aren't enough templars to police mages out in the open.

 

 

 

- I'm aware people could get hurt by a mage that chooses to abuse their power, just as they could be murdered by a run-of-the-mill lunatic. However, it only seems reasonable that mages be punished after they've committed a crime just like everyone else.

 

- Besides, with the whole mage-templar war thing happening now I'm not sure if it can be argued anymore that the Circle as is saves the most lives, since there seems to be a lot of collateral in these mage rebellions. Collateral that might be avoided if they had more freedoms to begin with.

 

- Segregation isn't a punishment, so stop treating it as such.

Mages committing a crime is technically treated with a trial and punishment that exist separate of the segregation.
 

- 1 mage rebellion in 1000 years has more collateral damage then all the damage mages did in that same period?

 

 

 

- Instead of a small population of lyrium addicted, Chantry controlled Templars, all guards would undergo training in magical combative fields. Enchantments on weapons and armor could also be widely distributed relating to magical combat. Mages could also be able to volunteer to combat criminal mages.

 

- It should be strongly noted, lyrium is NOT required for all Templar techniques. Ingesting lyrium boost effectiveness of the techniques and to magic resistance, but it's not required at base.

 

 - It's noted on the Dragon Age wiki and through several sources that the Chantry encourages this addiction, in part, to have a tighter leash on their Templars. They have a vested interest in making it look as necessary as possible

 

 

- Templars need lyrium. Lyrium is expensive and there's never enough of it to go around. Turning all guards into templars is impossible.

Handing everyone anti-mage weaponry is also impossible. Where are you going to get the funds for all those weapons and armor? Who is gonna make them in such quantities? How effective would they be?

Aditionally, using mages to police mages is a problem because you might end up fighting two abominations instead of one.

 

- WoG disagrees with you. Alistairs claim in DA:O is incorrect, as lyrium is needed.

 

- several sources? That would be Allistairs thoughts of the matter, which are highly subjective. Not to mention that after the retcon, and him using lyrium, that thought probably isn't valid anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

[Enshaid]

- Segregation isn't a punishment, so stop treating it as such.

 

Err no comment.

[Nocte ad Mortem]

Can any of you guys link the quote that lyrium is needed? I'd still like to see the context. 

[Lulupab]

Can any of you guys link the quote that lyrium is needed? I'd still like to see the context. 

 

TUK: The Templar abilities, are they--despite the Chantry's protestations--a form of magic?

 

DG: I would say that they are magic, they derive from lyrium, which is magic. The tricky thing there is that the Chantry is awfully hypocritical when it comes to magic, in that there are sorts of magic that they will use. Actually I should take that back, it's not necessarily that they're hypocritical, they don't have anything against magic itself. Magic can be useful, they know the mages are useful. It's the elements of possession and blood magic, all the forbidden magic where things get really dicey. Even if Templar magic was recognized as spellcasting, it's not innate to the Templars, if they just stopped taking lyrium eventually they would lose the ability. Although as Alistair proves, they can use the ability for a long time afterwards. I think part of that was just the requirements of gameplay, for us to have a specialization as well, so some of that story doesn't quite match up with the gameplay, and I think eventually we'd like to work the lyrium requirement back into the gameplay as well. Regardless the magic the Templars use doesn't involve mind control, it's not forbidden magic, there's nothing about it--especially since it can only against mages--there's nothing about it that would make the Chantry step in and go "Wow, that's bad." But then we're talking about a Chantry that also has phylacteries in every Circle, which is a type of blood magic, so there's definitely an element of hypocrisy there.

 

http://swooping-is-b...om/1286233.html

[Nocte ad Mortem]

That's interesting. If the templars can cast spells just by ingesting lyrium, I wonder what stops others from being able to become magic by doing the same. It seems like we would see other people using it for this purpose to more dubious means. Sure, there's the addiction, but people become addicted to certain substances for less.

[Dean_the_Young]

That's interesting. If the templars can cast spells just by ingesting lyrium, I wonder what stops others from being able to become magic by doing the same. It seems like we would see other people using it for this purpose to more dubious means. Sure, there's the addiction, but people become addicted to certain substances for less.

 

I don't think you can really think of it as spell casting: more like empowered abilities. We know lyrium can bestow various magic effects, ie runes, but there's no indication that Templars can use it  to, say, make a fireball. It's not a replacement for being a mage.

[Xilizhra]

I don't think you can really think of it as spell casting: more like empowered abilities. We know lyrium can bestow various magic effects, ie runes, but there's no indication that Templars can use it  to, say, make a fireball. It's not a replacement for being a mage.

They can, however, create harmful energy blasts around them that can harm nonmages as well as mages.

[Nocte ad Mortem]

I don't think you can really think of it as spell casting: more like empowered abilities. We know lyrium can bestow various magic effects, ie runes, but there's no indication that Templars can use it  to, say, make a fireball. It's not a replacement for being a mage.

The quote seems to think whether it is spellcasting or not is debatable, but it seems suspect as to whether it could ONLY serve to imbue the user with dispelling and countering techniques. This is obviously the line of development the Chantry would favor, but it seems at least questionable whether it would be the only one. 

[Dean_the_Young]

 

Dean made a great post establishing an coherent analysis of why the Circle system exists and what it's goals are. If any system you replace it with doesn't cover all 4 goals as well, then it fails.

 

 

That's not quite true. Any system that doesn't cover the 4 goals of the current Circle system would fail by the standards of the current Circle system. It can completely pass by its own standards of what constitutes a success.

 

Take the goals of preventing the rise of a mage elite or preventing/mitigating magical harm to the mundanes as much as possible. These... really aren't goals everyone necessarily has.

 

For the rise of a mage oligarchy, simple indifference or outright approval can do. Being a social darwinist, apathetic about a disproportionately powerful minority group, or simply indifferent about which oligarchy is on top in a given society are all valid (if not necessarily moral) grounds for not caring about the rise of a mageocracy one way or another. The Circle system's goal, which focuses on preventing the rise of one that can be bad, isn't a universal priority: some people might be willing to accept a bad one to also allow a good one, or a mixed one.

 

Or, the other main pillar, proactive preventative measures. That's a goal- but some people don't particularly care or prioritize that. They can be satisfied with reactive measures after harm has been caused, and simply accepting the preventable as inevitable: the analogy of viewing mage harms (deliberate or not) as a natural disaster, a regular and unexceptional occurrence, is relevant. For someone who doesn't think that the human costs are that big a deal, or at least that potential future costs are not greater than immediate costs now, the fact that a cost can be prevented doesn't mean it needs to be. A real world analogy would be gun rights groups in the US: anti-gun groups can point at countries with fewer guns and fewer violent deaths as an argument that removing guns would save lives, but gun rights groups don't particularly care and are unconvinced for a variety of other reasons.

 

 

So a system that doesn't fulfill the goals of the Circle system doesn't automatically fail- that will depend on what it's own goals are.

 

But what a system does need is to have goals that are compatible enough with the interests of people associated with it- mages and mundane. The current system is in turmoil because the goals of the systems and the goals of the mages have diverged: that the system has gotten more restrictive, what mage collective wants has shifted, and so on. But a future system that has goals that don't mesh well with the participants, both mages and mundanes both, will also have the same conflict. If safeguards for the mundanes become viewed as insufficient, as too reactive and not enough preventative (via deterance or other means), any pro-mage system can likewise be cast down: it might take another thousand years of its own, or a hundred, or ten, but a mundane revolt against a system seen as overly pro-mage can just as easily put the mages back into the Circles, or worse.

 

There is no end to history, after all. The Mage rebellion can change the status quo, but nothing that occurs will make a permanent new status quo. It's only a matter of how enduring a new system could be: how much support it has, how well it can keep itself from being corrupted, and how well it can resist challenges to its implementation.

[Dean_the_Young]

They can, however, create harmful energy blasts around them that can harm nonmages as well as mages.

 

Gameplay versus lore, Xil-
 

 

Regardless the magic the Templars use doesn't involve mind control, it's not forbidden magic, there's nothing about it--especially since it can only against mages--there's nothing about it that would make the Chantry step in and go "Wow, that's bad."

 

[Lotion Soronarr]

I don't believe it's strictly realistic. People are capable of being good and charitable, even the majority of people. It's, in my opinion, deeply cynical and pessimistic.

 

Except being good and charitable has little to do with the issue at hand.

It's all fine and dandy until that friendly mage down the street turns abomination and eats little Suzy and Billy.

And that's when gool ol' survival instinct kicks in

 

 

Mages are a danger to themselves and others, which is why they need comprehensive training and why law enforcement needs to be aware of the dangers. Keeping those combating the danger to a minimum and disallowing mages to be a part of the force isn't necessarily helping the issue. It's definitely not eliminating it. At this point, it's actually doing basically nothing, since the system fully collapsed.

 

Where do you get this idea that the Chantry keeps templar numbers low?

Templars are eagerly recruiting - the problem is that the training is hard, requires dedication and willingness to sacrifice. Not many are suited for the job and not many are ready to devote their lives to it.

And even if there was a endless supply of candidates, the amount of lyrium isn't infinite. You are are not going to waste it on just anyone, especially since it's in such high demand that there's never enough of it.

 

Mages being part of the force itself...raises some issues.

[Dean_the_Young]

Err no comment.

 

It's completely true, though- segregation can exist for reasons entirely aside from punishment. At its core it's simply enforced separation- the reasons can come from illogical to completely sensible and moral. Segregation isn't just the American buzzword of 'bigoted racial prejudice.'

 

Keeping convicted prisoners in jails and out of wider society is segregation. Keeping people with contagious diseases away from healthy people is segregation. Anti-interventionists who oppose imperialism and interference from powerful societies and weaker societies are promoting segregation. Keeping children away from bad influences and molesters is segregation. Keeping non-union workers out of a union shop is segregation.

 

Segregation is setting people apart from other people. Generally this is done because it's perceived as important to not let the groups in question interact for the good of one or both of them. It's the context and reasoning, not the segregation itself, that would determine if it's even immoral, let alone a punishment.

[Xilizhra]

Gameplay versus lore, Xil-
 

Or DG flubbed his comment if he forgot that Holy Smite hits everyone. I think I shall ask him about that power directly for clarification.

[Dean_the_Young]

The quote seems to think whether it is spellcasting or not is debatable, but it seems suspect as to whether it could ONLY serve to imbue the user with dispelling and countering techniques. This is obviously the line of development the Chantry would favor, but it seems at least questionable whether it would be the only one. 

I think I misspoke. Lyrium can empower different abilities in different ways (as seen via runes, lyrium tatoos, etc.)- that's not being questioned. There's just no indication that the Templar method can empower the Templars in any other way than their own Templar abilities.

[Dean_the_Young]

Or DG flubbed his comment if he forgot that Holy Smite hits everyone. I think I shall ask him about that power directly for clarification.

 

Is there any instance of Holy Smite hitting everyone outside of gameplay that would indicate a flub in the lore?

[Lulupab]

Or DG flubbed his comment if he forgot that Holy Smite hits everyone. I think I shall ask him about that power directly for clarification.

 

No Templar has ever cast holy smite in lore or cut scenes. Only in the game, it only exists to make it templar spec less useless. In DA2 holy smite was the only good one which made Templar spec useless as a whole. Berserker and Reaver were FAR better.

 

That said in the game holy smite costed like all of Warrior's stamina, its cots was as equal of all activate one hand shield skills. You could either use 5 warrior skills or only holy smite. Its easy to conclude even if Templars can cast holy smite its very draining and they can't spam it.

[Xilizhra]

Is there any instance of Holy Smite hitting everyone outside of gameplay that would indicate a flub in the lore?

To my knowledge, Holy Smite has never been used outside of gameplay; I think the only templar power that ever has was Silence, which Meredith used on that one Saarebas.

[Lulupab]

To my knowledge, Holy Smite has never been used outside of gameplay; I think the only templar power that ever has was Silence, which Meredith used on that one Saarebas.

 

She was in melee range right? Se kinda interupted him.

[KaiserShep]

Or DG flubbed his comment if he forgot that Holy Smite hits everyone. I think I shall ask him about that power directly for clarification.

 

Don't forget that cleansing ability. Like, what the hell did my Warden eat to unlock it? I think Alistair's been putting lyrium in her coffee.

[Master Warder Z_]

To my knowledge, Holy Smite has never been used outside of gameplay; I think the only templar power that ever has was Silence, which Meredith used on that one Saarebas.

 

The thing looked so confused before it was beheaded.

 

Very amusing.

[Lulupab]

Don't forget that cleansing ability. Like, what the hell did my Warden eat to unlock it? I think Alistair's been putting lyrium in her coffee.

 

LOL I know right? At least in DA2 its clearly indicated in spec description that Hawke gets enough Lyrium from smugglers to to enable him/her to use Templar abilities.