Book 2 - Text Updates 053

[Beeskee]

I looked up Oberon on Wikipedia, and found it ironic that William Shakespeare stole it from Les Prouesses et faitz du noble Huon de Bordeaux.

[Turtlewing]

My take on the "lame runner" analogy:

"never bet on the lame runner unless you know you can shoot the healthy one"
translation: don't take a bet that you are likely to loose unless you a sure you're going to be able to cheat.

"betting on the healthy one and shooting the lame one is the best bet"
translation: bet on the sure thing, but also cheat just to be sure.

[drachefly]

It seems quite plausible that someone has been using the name 0beron (with a zero) on forums besides Erfworld, and didn't intentionally 'steal' Oberon's name. Unlike MarbitChow, the name 'Oberon' has nothing to do with Erfworld. Google 'Oberon', and you get 12 MILLION hits.

And there is 42 thousands hits for 0beron.

This is not the first time this name is used.

I hope you meant you were agreeing with MarbitChow, there. This flat statement of fact certainly leaves that up in the air.

[Morni]

But really, do people get upset when two "John Smith"s work in the same office? Do they make one of them change their name? No, they behave like rational individuals and deal with it.

That's why we can use nickname for people

[MarbitChow]

That's why we can use nickname for people

And so, I propose that from now on, we refer to Oberon as "Oberon the Elder", and 0beron as "0beron the Younger". Pliny would be proud.

[Pud]

As I was having trouble keeping the archons straight in my head, I color-coded the archons' speech and gave similar-colored backgrounds to their names in the text. I figured I'd post it here in case it's useful for anyone else, although BBCode does not allow background-colors so I had to change the names to variant colors of the speech.

I also discovered in reading this thread, that the archons are based on a historical television show named "Friends". I suppose familiarity with the show might have helped with keeping the three personalities separate while reading, but I did not have that benefit. It looks like the question of which-archon-is-which in the picture might be solved now, though? Anyway, without further ado:

"What would Charlie do?"

Monica's face scrunched up. "Rachel, you remember when we said weren't going to talk about him any more? Didn't you agree to that?"

"Well, it's worth thinking about," said Rachel. "Right? I mean, he's the ehn- He's the opposing force now."

Phoebe, who was usually quiet when Rachel and Monica squabbled, said softly, "It's okay. I can't say 'enemy,' either."

By order of the Chief Warlord, the Decrypted Archons were scattered around Spacerock's airspace in small stacks, as far apart as possible. The three of them now huddled together over a rampart populated by several stacks of Jetstone archers, giving upskirts on the outskirts to spoil the enemy's aim. If volleys started, their only orders were to stay alive as long as possible. That meant Foolamancy, Shockmancy, or anything else, and pantyshots were about the only shots they could fire right now.

"Yeah, because he's not the enemy," Monica said irritably. "Mistress has an Arkentool, Charlie has an Arkentool, Lord Stanley has an Arkentool, and there's one other. And they'll all come together some turn. So we're all on the same side. That's the way the Titans see it. You want to see it another way? That's you being crazy." She folded her arms.

"Charlie sees it another way," said Rachel.

"Okay, well he's wrong."

Rachel and Phoebe stared at Monica for a very long moment.

Before the Battle for Gobwin Knob, the infallibility of Charlie's wisdom had been the rock upon which all their truths about the world were built. Each of them might be sent off to fight in some battle or spy on some situation they barely understood, but the fact that Charlie knew everything made it okay.

Knowing better than Charlie was a new and uncomfortable feeling.

Rachel cleared her throat. "I know he's wrong. But while he's wrong...he's the opponent. He put us in this situation." She looked down, indicating the approximately five dozen archers directly below their shoes.

"You don't know that," said Phoebe, her voice a distant but defiant whisper.

Rachel shot a look at Phoebe. "Oh please," she snapped. "You're in even more denial than her. The Arkendish's feel was all over that Turnamancy spell."

"I guess." Phoebe looked away, at the enemy tower. It was quivering slightly with the blast of breath from an unseen purple dwagon. Warlord Ossomer hovered near the veranda. Was he parleying with the enemy King again? It looked that way. "It's just like, so different now."

Monica put her hand on Phoebe's arm. "I know, honey."

"Mistress admits she's not great with battle tactics. But there's nobody better than Charlie," said Rachel. "We should be trying to think of what he'd do in our situation. Or what he might do next."

"Mistress says Lord Hamster's better," said Monica, but the doubt in her voice was clear. Rachel just looked at her. "What? He did the dwagon-harvesting thing, that was good." Rachel continued to stare, until Monica looked away, saying, "Okay what could he do? It's not even Charlescomm's turn..."

"It's the Coalition's turn," said Rachel. "And he wants them to win. Their King is going down with that tower, and they have no heir. So the side will just end. He could loan them the money to promote an heir right now."

Phoebe looked at Monica, who frowned. "Charlie doesn't make bad bets. Even with an heir, we'd still wipe out Jetstone eventually. And Charlie doesn't get paid back? Shhyuh. That's a Rule 17 violation."

"'Don't bet on the lame runner, unless you know you can shoot the healthy one.'," quoted Phoebe. She sounded wistful.

"Yeah," said Monica. "When you know a side's going to fall, you don't give them anything. You take what they have left."

Rachel nodded. "Corollary to 17, 'Betting on the healthy runner and shooting the lame one is the better bet.'"

"Maybe he's not ready for Jetstone to fall, though," said Phoebe. "You know? If they go now, all their cities'll go barbarian. But if they retreat, he can milk them dry."

Monica put her hands on her hips and looked at the tower, thoughtfully. "Yeah. That's possible."

Rachel shook her head. "No. I think he thought that spell would work. I don't think he thought Jetstone was going to fall."

Monica suddenly raised her head. "You think maybe he still can shoot the healthy runner?"

There was worried silence, as they looked at one another. "You guys?" whispered Phoebe, "That's us."

Another distant boom rumbled from the direction of the tower, and Rachel stared angrily at its cracking facade. "Could that thing take any longer to fall?"

"I know, right?"



P.S. I have no clue whether the last line should be assigned to Monica or Phoebe, so left it blank. Unless the image is supposed to represent the three of them at the end of the text? In which case, given the Rachel-Monica-Phoebe order that Xorbon posted, it looks like Phoebe said it. Still not sure though.
P.P.S. I enjoyed this perspective of the archons. I hope we see more perspectives like this.
P.P.P.S. Given the previous contents of this thread, and that I had to stop lurking and make an account to post this, I seriously considered registering my account name as "Ober0n".

[joosy]

RE: the 4th Arkentool. Eons ago, way back during book 1 there was a lot of speculation about what the 4th Arkentool was. The most popular theories were the Arkenshovel for Sizemore to attune to or the ArkenSaw just for the pun. (Arkensas (pronounced Arken-saw) is a state in the U.S. for those from other countries or folks educated in Arkensas and other southern states)

[Written_in_waters]

I doubt Stanley would have engineered the hobgobwin betrayal.
I believe the betrayal happened while Stanley was sacking Faq, so it is unlikely that Wanda did it either. She believed Stanley would lose.

Marie is the most likely person. She comes from a peaceful philosopher kingdom. She is likely a true believer. She is a powerful predictamancer. It is not out of the realm of possibility that Marie has engineered everything in an attemp to bring peace to Erf. Marie is the one that convinced Janice that a warlord for peace was even possible.

[joosy]

I doubt Stanley would have engineered the hobgobwin betrayal.
I believe the betrayal happened while Stanley was sacking Faq, so it is unlikely that Wanda did it either. She believed Stanley would lose.

Marie is the most likely person. She comes from a peaceful philosopher kingdom. She is likely a true believer. She is a powerful predictamancer. It is not out of the realm of possibility that Marie has engineered everything in an attemp to bring peace to Erf. Marie is the one that convinced Janice that a warlord for peace was even possible.

That has been posited before but, in his own words, Stanley just left with 15 dwagons. He makes no mention of Sizemore and it is pretty rare to take a caster in the field without permission from the Overlord/King.

I feel there has been enough foreshadowing for us to safely speculate that part of the Arkendish's ability is to influence loyalty (which, as pointed out in Parson's notes, can be influenced by Thinkamancy). When applied to natural allies it can cause them to switch sides or perhaps be neutral.

I still hold to the theory that Charlie is keeping any new Gobwins allies away from Gobwin knob via the influence of the Arkendish.

I also subscribe to the theory that Wanda, using her skills at Thinkamancy, influenced the king to make Stanley heir, then influenced the Hobgobwins and Gobwins to take down King Saline IV. She then engineered an excuse for Stanley and a number of casters (possibly including her) to be absent when things went down so she could have plausible deniability. Wanda is probably the only one who could overcome the whole loyalty/duty issue as she is loyal to Fate magic and is only loyal to her Overlord/King when his interests are aligned with Fate's.

[Beeskee]

It depends on if the outing Stanley spoke of was the one in which he went to capture Faq, or another outing. I'm not sure if it's certain, Stanley mentions to Breadface that he went out but doesn't say what he was doing.

It's frustrating how unclear things are sometimes. It leaves open a lot of room for discussion, but at some point these plot holes will have to be resolved. I always end up wondering if the author is intentionally leaving it vague so that people on the forums finish those parts of the story for him.

[Pud]

I don't think Saline fell when Stanely went after Faq. Per Book 2 Text Update 027 (emphasis mine):

"Now, I was Chief Warlord back then, so I could do whatever I wanted. I told the King I was going off to tame dwagons in the high mountains out west, he didn't care. I headed out with like fifteen of 'em in a couple of stacks. Wanda said Faq was pretty weak, so I figured that'd be enough.

"Wow, was she wrong! Faq had a whole lot of casters, and they had defense spells up the wazoo. I could never have taken that city with fifteen dwagons. Never! I lost more than ten on approach, shot down from the tower."

Contrast that with Sizemore's description of Saline's fall in Book 1 Page 79:

"Stanley took me and a number of other casters out on a special mission one turn."

[Kreistor]

Stanley surely would have mentioned the casters he took, and that he was now Overlord, if the attack on FAQ had been the special mission.

[Oberon]

It seems quite plausible that someone has been using the name 0beron (with a zero) on forums besides Erfworld, and didn't intentionally 'steal' Oberon's name.

I haven't said that I thought it was intentional. I only object to the similarity which makes for difficulty in differentiation.

When you quote, if you change it to "0beron (with a Zero)" or ("L33t) 0beron", you'll have the same effect without being derogatory.

I suppose I could use "0beron, who should be called Ke$ha", perhaps? How is that any less derogatory?

These are the same archons that could have reported to Ansom that Parson was actually a Twoll in disguise

The difference being that Ansom wasn't a member of their side. They owed him nothing that was not paid for. GK, or the other hand, is not only their side but also the side of their new goddess.

[MarbitChow]

I suppose I could use "0beron, who should be called Ke$ha", perhaps? How is that any less derogatory?

Calling someone a thief is clearly an accusation. Assuming 0beron The Younger is male, based on the choice of avatar name, calling him Ke$ha implies that he is not masculine. The fact that both concepts are derogatory or negative is obvious to children ("ex: you throw like a girl / you stole my cookie"); I do not doubt that they are also obvious to you. You're very loquacious. I know that you can find some non-inflammatory way of differentiating 0beron the Younger from yourself when you quote him.

[Oberon]

I know that you can find some non-inflammatory way of differentiating 0beron the Younger from yourself when you quote him.

Mebbe, but it's a pain in the ass. I'd rather not have to add Ke$ha to anyone's name...

[Beeskee]

Oh-beron and Zero-beron.

There. It's settled.

[M.A.D]

As I was having trouble keeping the archons straight in my head, I color-coded the archons' speech and gave similar-colored backgrounds to their names in the text. I figured I'd post it here in case it's useful for anyone else, although BBCode does not allow background-colors so I had to change the names to variant colors of the speech.

I also discovered in reading this thread, that the archons are based on a historical television show named "Friends". I suppose familiarity with the show might have helped with keeping the three personalities separate while reading, but I did not have that benefit. It looks like the question of which-archon-is-which in the picture might be solved now, though? Anyway, without further ado:

Friends was/is not a historical television show. It's a sitcom. Anyway, Rachel is the short-haired one, and Phoebe is the one that looks like she has taken better care for her hair.

P.P.P.S. Given the previous contents of this thread, and that I had to stop lurking and make an account to post this, I seriously considered registering my account name as "Ober0n".

I suppose Beeskee can call you OberZeroN o.O

These are the same archons that could have reported to Ansom that Parson was actually a Twoll in disguise

The difference being that Ansom wasn't a member of their side. They owed him nothing that was not paid for. GK, or the other hand, is not only their side but also the side of their new goddess.

Ah, of course. Charlie's 3rd Corollary. I should have known

[WaterMonkey314]

RE: the 4th Arkentool. Eons ago, way back during book 1 there was a lot of speculation about what the 4th Arkentool was. The most popular theories were the Arkenshovel for Sizemore to attune to or the ArkenSaw just for the pun. (Arkensas (pronounced Arken-saw) is a state in the U.S. for those from other countries or folks educated in Arkensas and other southern states)

It's Arkansas, not Arkensas. And I would personally pronounce it "Arkan-saw", not "Arken-saw."

And speaking as one intimately familiar with these matters (and much more so than I'd like), I'd like to respectfully point out that the non-Southern residents of the United States should not pronounce it "Arr-Kansas."

[Dr Pepper]

What the heck is "Ke$ha"?

[teratorn]

What the heck is "Ke$ha"?

I googled it and there are apparently two porn stars by that name (keisha). Shame on you «Oberon the elder.»

Edit: I though Ke$ha was l33t talk for Keisha, but there really is a singer by that name (?).