2010-09-30: They're asking for help.

[runic]

Just in case: Am I the only one who think that the force feld they are talking about could be not from the elves, but from Ianilis, just to prevent the elves to be able to run away and/or receive reenforcement/help ?

yeah that was what I was trying to get at

[SkArcher]

Ian Victorious: "My people of Santuariel need a new, more worthy home. Hmm, the city meant for half-elves should do nicely."

Frankly, Tsuiraku would probably love to get their hands on the half-elves. Tsuiraku has the knowledge to help alleviate their symptoms most effectively, and the half-elves do make powerful mages.

[jackfrost]

What I don't get is why Tsuiraku thinks they have a dog in this fight, other than to conduct very careful reconnaissance. They're about to send a rescue mission to "help" a people that they were just about at war with four hours earlier. How do they even know which side they're on in that battle? Yes, the plot of the comic demands it , but one would really think that fact finding would go on first.

Knowledge, technology, survival (no one said that once he wipe the elf/magical race, Ian will not go for the next most magical population, didn't he started by wiping the most solide magical concentration/construct a.k.a. Luminosita) (sure WE know he isn't after them, but this is a acceptation risque consideration as far as THEY know)


Just in case: Am I the only one who think that the force feld they are talking about could be not from the elves, but from Ianilis, just to prevent the elves to be able to run away and/or receive reenforcement/help ?

Maybe I'm missing something, but are we sure that the mission will be to help the elves at all? Just because they are receiving a request for help doesn't mean they are going there to help...

Ian only wiped out Luminosita when it tried to get in his way and attacked him. Chances are very good that if it hadn't, it would still be around... given his known history, its not likely that he will attack them... although how much they know of Ian, we don't know.

I thought that Ian had created the force field was a given, lol. He doesn't want anyone to escape his wrath or his minions, after all.

[thanatos7]

Tsuiraku's "generosity" of sending relief forces probably hinges on the possibility of looting untold millennium of elvish magic artifacts and lore... did I say looting, I meant confiscating in order to better "aid" the elves in their plight. Sending in Jon's team might do nicely to draw fire while the rest of the teams move in on their objectives.

[Forrest]

I figured Tsuiraku was interested in involving themselves in this not for love of the Elves but for fear of Ian.

Say it's the middle of the Cold War in real-life Earth history. The US, the USSR, and China are all busy rattling their sabers at each other (not a perfect analogy, but lets say the USSR and China were less ideologically aligned than in reality) when suddenly some obscure (lets say) Pacific Islander nobody's ever heard of, who somehow picked up a Martian death ray or something, drops out of the sky and turns Moscow into a smoking hole in the ground, with enough force that people in Los Angeles have to deal with the aftershocks. "HOLY SHIT!" everybody in the goddamn world says in response.

Soon thereafter, in the middle of a heated phone call between Washington and Beijing, the doomsday clock at 11:58, suddenly communication is lost on the Beijing end of the line, followed by repeated radio calls for help against the guy who wiped Moscow off the map. Now, the US under normal circumstances would be happy to sit back and watch their enemies fail, except... Jesus Christ, who the hell is this guy erasing whole cities from existence and who is he going to hit next? We'd better do something about this terrorist before he decides we're next.

[ChunLing]

Yes, all of that...aaannd this may not be the best time in the world to be harboring an elf.

I have no idea whether it would even have been possible for Ian to dispel Luminosita without the thing having been summoned, but that situation does point up some important weaknesses in the above analogy.

It's not like Moscow were vaporized, but more like the Soviet nuclear arsenal were to be destroyed. And it's not like some Pacific Islander is going after the Chinese, but more like he's an exiled Tibetan or something.

In other words, there is no serious excuse for wondering what Ian's up too or thinking that he would come after Tsuiraku for no apparent reason, the Tsuirakuens already have a fairly good idea what Ian's beef is. But, like I said, the better they understand this situation the less they want to have any elves (or Meji, for slightly different reasons) in their city right now.

On the other hand, the secret elven city is almost certainly the number one repository of advanced magical artifacts in the world (excepting the no longer as super-secret rest homes of Anilis and Senilis, which are currently closed). The Tsuirakuens don't need to know that a bunch of wacky time-ninjas are planning to loot the place to figure out that it would be a good idea to keep an eye on what happens there in the aftermath of Ianilis' attack.

[wrog]

but lets say the USSR and China were less ideologically aligned than in reality

um, apropos of nothing in particular, but you do know that the USSR and China were basically at each others' throats from about 1960 onwards, right? There were some border skirmishes in the late 60s that could easily have been the start of WWIII if things had gone slightly differently (...I think it's Kissinger's memoirs that have the story of Breshnev calling up Nixon in 1969 with something like, "Hi, we're thinking about nuking China. Wanna join in?" at which point Nixon decided that perhaps a trip to Beijing was in order...)

[Forrest]

but lets say the USSR and China were less ideologically aligned than in reality

um, apropos of nothing in particular, but you do know that the USSR and China were basically at each others' throats from about 1960 onwards, right? There were some border skirmishes in the late 60s that could easily have been the start of WWIII if things had gone slightly differently (...I think it's Kissinger's memoirs that have the story of Breshnev calling up Nixon in 1969 with something like, "Hi, we're thinking about nuking China. Wanna join in?" at which point Nixon decided that perhaps a trip to Beijing was in order...)

Yes, I am aware that the USSR and China as entities in themselves were not exactly best of friends. But they were on the same side of the major bifurcation of the world at the time: they were both communist countries, rather than capitalist countries. If a Martian-Death-Ray-powered-Random-Guy were to vaporize Moscow and Beijing, the US could very well just think "Hey, someone's offing commies for us. Right on, Random Guy!"

The Elves and the Veracians have no such ideological (or for that matter racial or other such) link to each other, so picking them as targets casts a much stronger "this guy could attack anybody!" light.

[Alberich]

In other words, there is no serious excuse for wondering what Ian's up too or thinking that he would come after Tsuiraku for no apparent reason, the Tsuirakuens already have a fairly good idea what Ian's beef is.

Well, as Jackfrost commented about the Veracians, they don't know him as well as we readers do - in fact, the smartest thing for Tsuiraku is to get some intel on him from people who know him, which is exactly what they're doing now. If all you have is "he's a half-elf with godlike power," you might understand why job #1 might be obliterating the elves, but who's to say job #2 isn't, "finding a nice comfortable city-state all my very own to take over"? (Not without knowing him anyway.)

'course, even if they get to know him, they might see him as a bigger threat than you're thinking. To some extent before he got empowered, and to a great extent afterwards, he's shown a willingness to do extremely dangerous and high-powered things without putting a lot of thought into them beforehand. So one day a radical fringe Tsuiraku movement sends a spokesman to tell him how the city is being exploited by the greedy fat-cat bosses in their black airships...and maybe he decides to overthrow the order first, and find out how true that was after...

By contrast, the elves themselves really don't have a strategic interest contrary to Tsuiraku's, at least not that I can see, and don't have a reason to threaten them. (The elves aren't going to need additional Lebensraum, given the whole "small, stagnant population" thing.) So they might prefer a world with the elves and without Ian, versus the contrary position. And it might therefore be in their best interests to help the elves against Ian, or at least preserve the elves and their elfin magic to help against Ian later, versus facing him alone someday. (I'm not saying I expect them to get the chance to make that call before the climactic scene works itself out...just how they may see their interests.)

[mindstalk]

There's also... we don't know how democratic Tsuiraku is, unless I'm forgetting Poe-data, but we do know elves still command some awe and glamour among the people. (Cf. Sarine's fatigue the reactions she got, as she told Meji's mom's servant). Whether out of fear of future reaction upon discovery, or their own attitudes, the leaders might view the extinction of the elves with more than clinical realpolitik. The elves haven't been good or active *allies*, but they're sort of an allied civilization. And *elves*. And a species, if often an annoying one. Between genocidal individual of unknown personality, and the elves, I think it's natural for them to side with the elves, for these reasons and the ones given upthread.