ZOMBIE FORUMS

???

Look, the elves managed to fight a racial civil war in which they crashed their population and destroyed every single population center that wasn't an actual bomb-shelter doing double-duty as a city. Don't laugh, those elves in all probability exist. And if the Elven searcher-teams connect the half-elf goddess-theft with the Tsuirakan high council, they stand to be getting marching orders.

What does this have to do with Meji, based on the information they have? The connection to Meji is knowledge the reader has, not the elves.

Are you forgetting the numerous comments Sarine has made concerning the rarity of the rather tiny elven strike force what appeared in Saus? Where is your hypothetical mindless army coming from, dust?

I could go on how that particular piece of speculation was incredibly

Modern elves fit the role of assassins, not soldiers.

There is a smoking gun to be discovered that one of the involved half-elves was a high-council member's granddaughter, panic and paranoia can turn that into a casus belli for anything. Any sort of Elven foriegn policy outside the peregrin's operations was incredibly rare in the old paradigm, needless to say that isn't in effect any more.

Recalling that I was firmly on board with "It's the ka-tet" previous thread. I'm keeping this up because this piece of speculation is pretty plausible and you keep gamer-speak straw-manning it, which rankles me.

If you think about it, there's very little chance the elves have just been sitting on their hands for the past 1000 years or so. They'll have found some way to safeguard their existence, even if it's "weaponz of mass destrukshun".

Sarine left the council in an uproar, and whether or not you think so, it's very unlikely they don't know of Meji's existence. Sarine was sent to hunt down Errants -- I'm sure they know where she was hunting and whom. And they also know she didn't finish the job -- that a half-elf got to the goddess before anything else. If they've even decided to investigate, they'll send more than one lone elf to question Meji, if not outright demand her head on a stake. The Tsuri's (yeah, I shortened it) have been visited by elves regularly throughout their history, and obviously have some mutual respect. If the elves demanded Meji, who would really care? Her mother's a whore, and we haven't even seen her grandfather. Likely, she'd be turned over.

I don't think it's illogical at all to think elves would come for Meji. I just hope she's long gone with Sarine et al by then.

Wait... What?

Her mother is a slut, not a whore. We've seen her grandfather, who carries quite a bit of influence considering the size of their estate and his position on the council. So I fail to see how the elves are going to have an easy time getting her extradited.

It would actually not surprise me if he is already aware something has been happening, and connects it to Meji.

To paraphrase: "This is Tsuirakushiti, no one has a garden in Tsuirakushiti."

Yup. Someone needs to check the baaacckksstorrry!

Just like the the super secret underground dwarven stronghold.

Ok, I may be a little slow, but where is everyone getting the idea that the elves could know where Meji might be from?

Despite having a bunch of rangers walking around looking for half-elfs, they don't know there's an entire city of half-elfs somewhere in the world. Sarine can tell them (and I'm too lazy to check, but I believe this is what happenend from what I remember) that she found and followed a half-elf, and where the thing came from is not something they seem concerned with.

To go from that to them figuring that Meji in particular comes from Tsuirakushiti is a big leap. Sure, once they make the connection they can easily see she's related to a council member. But even then, I'd guess they'd execute the careless ambassador before commiting themselves to a war with a magically advanced city.

Which they likely can't even reach, unless they developed some sort of flying machine, which while possible, would likely be easily shot down. If they could teleport to wherever they wanted to, they wouldn't need teleporting facilities and the rangers wouldn't walk for a day before reaching the city. I might be wrong, I don't exactly remember how the elves arrived in Saus, but Saus does have a gate. I wouldn't be surprised if you could reach any gate from any other gate. I'm calling the teleport thingies gates 'cause I don't remember the actual name.

Also, I wonder how Meji will react to seening Jon & co. back. I'm looking forwards to seeing how Poe handles the interactions between Sara and Meji (wouldn't be surprised if Sara felt some resentment towards Meji, her brother wouldn't look after her and then went around caring for any little girl that appeared?)

Actually, Sarine didn't mention that one half-elf was from Tsuiraku (the less important one) and she was quite surprised to learn Meji hailed from there, so it's highly unlikely elves will make any connection between Meji and Tsuiraku.

Yeah, the best hint they have is that Sarine asked a secretary who the ambassador to Tsuiraku was. Unless the secretary knows Sarine was out hunting Errants, or decides her boss needs to know what Sarine asked about (both unlikely), this bit of information will probably fly under the radar until it's too late to be of any use.

You forgot:

4) One magical, flying kitty (who is probably the most intelligent and rational of the crew).

But they won't be ready to take on the world (who will be out to kill them all) until they get Ian and his goddess on board. What I want to know is how Sarine will persuade him to join them.

So, who gives a shit about Ellis? He's just a construct anyway. He's supposed to follow someone around. It happens to be Jon because that's who she left him with Yeah, right.

Actually, I suspect thet Ellis is created to follow anyone with latent and untrained magic ability (most mage kids). He's following Jon, who is the only one of the bunch that gets problems from transit gate travel. Also, his sister is a time-mage and magic is congenital. Put two and two together to get 5 and a bit. The evidence is stacking up and we've drawn harder conclusions from less.

No, they aren't 'constructed' i think... According to Meji, it's probably due to magic radiation or something like that. And we know the unicorn familiars have a problem with inbreeding.

That Ellis was from a defective product line does not imo imply he was constructed in the same sense as golems, etc. Rather, some kind of breeding program was involved and some mage thought he could cut a few corners too many.

I think Ellis's product line's defect is that they've got the personality of cats. Furry little republicans. Only in it until they either evolve opposable thumbs or somebody invents a can-openner that works without them, and then God help you if you turn your back on them. Trying to sell their 'owner' into child-slavery for some bling strikes me as typical.

In the world of magic, a breeding program is considered a valid means of construction and Familiars are considered 'constructs' otherwise, they wouldn't be chattel. Polymorph magic was probably used to create him somewhere down the line. So what if his IQ was magically jumped up a million percent, he's still a 'construct'.

If being bred and chattel implies that something is constructed, are you claiming that dogs and cats of our world are constructs?

When you construct something, you assemble something from multiple parts. Which would apply for golems, not irradiated pets, whom can at best be said to have 'mutated' under somewhat controlled circumstances.

Well we did construct them through selective breeding, so we assembled them from different parents (and their DNA), but they are still more than just things, they just aren't so 'natural' anymore. The best way of putting it would be 'we shaped them' and I think this more or less goes for familiars too, they're just shaped by magic as much as selective breeding.

Sorry I just can't see Ellis or any natural (born to a mother or test tube) as a construct to me it will always mean something that is built. No one took a leg of that cat, an ear from this one, the brain from that one and built Ellis he was born and bought and presumably has brothers and sisters given cats have litters. I think I started the Elves of Mass Destuction (EMD's) issue but I gave up posting replies after some of the responses I got so I'd suggest you do the same. A familiar depending on the mage is either a valued companion or something along the lines of master slave. Constructs are a different matter for one thing they tend to be unintelligent or possessed of limited intelligence in general.

Yes, actually. That's a pretty good term for it. Even more so if we were to introduce a round of outright pre-natal gene-splicing in latest generations, but what we've got even now certainly fits.

Except nothing indicates that the tsuirakushitii took parts of the DNA of two or more cats and constructed Ellis's DNA. Which is on of the few ways the word "assemble" would make any sense here. Even then you'd have a hard time arguing for Ellis being a construct, rather than just genetically engineered where his DNA is 'constructed'.

There is of course ways in which you can argue that absolutely anything in the world is a construct, but that dilutes the term to a degree where it becomes useless. Let's take f.ex. the word 'magic'. In this forum we use that word in a very strict manner.

"IMO, Jon's guns are magic. Same goes for that cat-ball-gag he bought. Tsuirakushiti levitates through magic, but the greatest magic lies in its distribution of tentacle manga to the world."

When it comes to living things, we already have a pretty firmly ingrained set of vocabulary for describing attributes. A construction by definition requires several parts of something being put together and breeding is used to describe... Breeding, where you modify the condition in the hopes that things will move in the direction you wish.

The organism reproduces by its own violation, and even though the cells construct the body as it grows, those are internal processes. I guess the important part of this is _who_ is doing the construction. When a golem is constructed, it is done by a mage. Who constructs the cat that is bred?