002.

[sangsues]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Etienne Guerinet Beaumanoir
RECIPIENT: everyone (sorry)
WHAT: whats all this
WHEN: post-proposal etc
WHERE: the walliest kirk
NOTES: Orlesians

( A quiet clearing of the throat; one can naturally assume it is a very beautiful clearing of the throat, done by a very beautiful man. )

This matter of the phylacteries for rifters… it seems sensible. If they are such a valuable resource to the Inquisition, the closing of rifts, and so on, being able to find said resource if a rival power were to try and overpower them and abscond with them makes sense, I think. For their own safety, for our own safety. If Corypheus and his forces were, for example, to make an attack on a party closing a rift and kidnap those rifters for nefarious purposes, it would be better for all if we were able to find them as quickly as possible. The phylacteries are an established way of doing just this, no?

By all means, if you wish to see the world end, protest. Even if this is not your world, though, I think we can all agree that you are currently in it. It’s fate is not entirely irrelevant to you.

Comments

[faithlikeaseed]

A tracking device that could be removed or disabled or dropped--something they could rescind on their own, without having to take it back from someone else and destroy it. That sort of voluntary, serah.

There's much more to a phylactery than simply knowing where a mage is.

[sangsues]

What if it were identified by and then removed or disabled or dropped by their attackers?

As you say. Could you explain them to me?

[faithlikeaseed]

I'd rate the potential for failure at the hands of our enemies as less of a risk than the one for abuse. [At the hands of their enemies or otherwise.]

They're blood magic, for one, and ought not even be considered on those grounds. [He's sensitive about this.] For another, a spell cast on a phylactery hits the mage it's bound to.

[koteletten]

Surely the Inquisition may be trusted to cast on phylacteries only if their subject has become a danger, as is the typical use.

[faithlikeaseed]

I'd sincerely hope the Inquisition may be trusted, ser. [His tone says as much. The words are very careful.] But that leaves open how "endangering others" might be defined. And does not address the issue of how much havoc a single infiltrator might wreak with the rifters if she should get in among their phylacteries.

[koteletten]

The Inquisition safeguards many persons and secrets against infiltrators. There are things more dangerous and valuable in the vaults than a handful of phylacteries.

And what of the havoc a single rifter might wreak? They have greater and stranger powers than anything seen before; who knows what damage just one might do, and we left with no means to stop them.

[faithlikeaseed]

True enough, [were they speaking in person, he'd tip out a hand: conceded.] But is that reason to make more of them that might be used against Inquisition personnel?

I've been led to understand that magebane and a templar's abilities are both as effective against rifters as they are against we mages. That's hardly "no means".

And while their powers might be strange indeed, I've not heard of one who's done more damage than an abomination might--but then I've not been with the Inquisition so long, nor am I completely versed in the history of rifters. Do you know of one so dangerous?

[koteletten]

Should we stop collecting useful artifacts on the mere chance that one might someday be stolen and used by our enemies?

I have read reports of rifters posessed turning abomination and others of at least one presently among their ranks who threatened to open new rifts of it pleased her. But no comprehensive investigation has ever been made into the nature or extent of their powers, nor of their vulnerability to ours. It was not permitted lest it offend their delicate sensibilities.

[faithlikeaseed]

There's a considerable difference in acquiring something that's already there, lying about, and making something anew that's designed to be used against members of the Inquisition. Even if only should they become a danger.

Then perhaps a first step might be to negotiate such investigations with them, rather than claiming them stronger and more dangerous than any native mage on slim evidence. It was a native shardbearer who actually succeeded in opening a rift, not a rifter, after all.

[Though given the volume at which rifters themselves are claiming just that... Maker bless them all.]

[koteletten]

[ precisely ]

They have been eager to say so themselves, serah; I only take them at their word that they have powers that will easily overmatch our own. I believe in response to this very message there are those making wild insinuations about the catastrophes that shall befall us if we but try.

But you raise a good point, perhaps natives with anchors ought also to be made phylacteries.

[faithlikeaseed]

[He has his deep sigh about that before turning on the crystal to record a response. yup.]

You do have me there, ser. And I can hardly argue we ought to take them at face value and trust their intentions when they align with our own, but pretend all the rest of this isn't as sincere. [A sound of cloth on cloth as he rubs at his face.] Though many of them have also admitted that being on Thedas curtails the extremes of their power; they may be unaware of how much.

Practically, that can't work, unless the shard's changed the magicless among them to be more like mages. And it remains blood magic, either way.