BloodHenge wrote:Also, a lot of secrets could be "need to know", and if something isn't relevant at the moment (like the magic potato), only one person on the Council needs to know. If it becomes an issue during his term, he tells everyone. Otherwise, he tells his replacement when she takes office.
Yeah, but the point is, you may stop
needing to know when you leave office, but you don't stop
knowing. There is no brain bleach that removes the memory of the thing you needed to know on assuming the position. And that only gets more vexing when the "he tells everyone" moment arrives, because the ones he tells don't get brain bleach either.
This is actually a real-world problem of some significance that is going to be getting worse now that a lot of Baby Boomers who had security clearances are starting to retire. I had a job that definitely involved a fair bit of "need to know" stuff, and when I retired, the "outbrief" included a promise not to talk to the press or anyone else about that NTK material. Needless to say, I have complied with that outbrief, but it's awfully easy to screw up, particularly since the rules as to what material is need-to-know are cast in jello and may change at any time. So a situation is starting to develop where lots of old goats like me
do know some of the NTK stuff, but aren't in a position to talk about it, while their younger replacements are coming in and following NTK. This becomes a real problem when those with NTK start having to reach outside their immediate community, analogous to the "he tells everyone" scenario above. The newcomers don't know who else knows about related subjects that are also NTK, where years of dealing with each other have helped the retirees with that problem -- but we can't tell them, since we're retired and don't have the NTK any more. It's a real problem in the national-security world, and it could only be worse for the elves, unless one's term on the council lasts for thousands of years -- which Skena has implied is not the case.