Book 2 – Page 86

[0beron]

re: Lady Sylvia AKA Sylvia the Royal: All units of a Royal Side are Royal. Only Commanders can carry the Royal special, but being Royal is more than a special, it's an inherent part of being on that Side. Sylvia was promoted to Warlord. Even though she was popped as a Stabber, she was a Commander popped by and working for a Royal side. That makes her Royal.

Soooooooo wrong. Royalty/Nobility IS a "special" that makes units better. That is all there is to it. The haughty attitude comes with it, but the stat buff and accompanying "holier than thou" attitude only go to commander units. Wanda for example is referred to as Lady, despite the fact that we KNOW she is not Royal.

[drachefly]

True, but it's not an unreasonable speculation that the term is overloaded to also mean this.

[0beron]

I disagree....nowhere is it even remotely implied that a side being Royal makes all it's units Royal/Noble. Such units are POPPED that way, so the idea that units could become Noble at a later point is ridiculous, it would make the Royalty thing less significant if anyone could become Royal regardless of where/how they popped.

[Housellama]

I disagree....nowhere is it even remotely implied that a side being Royal makes all it's units Royal/Noble. Such units are POPPED that way, so the idea that units could become Noble at a later point is ridiculous, it would make the Royalty thing less significant if anyone could become Royal regardless of where/how they popped.

I'm not sure whether you're missing a crucial point, or ignoring it. I'm not saying that any unit can become Royal. You can't become Royal. Either you were popped by a Royal Side or you weren't. What I am saying is that a unit can gain the Royal special under a very specific set of circumstances.

For the purposes of this example, I'm going to ignore the in-world semantic difference between Royal units and Noble units. It has been clearly established that the only difference between Royal and Noble is the location that they were popped. We have seen no other mechanical difference between them. Therefore, here Royal is used to speak of any unit popped by a Royal Side regardless of location.

What we know is that there is there are Royal Sides. We also know that Royal Sides pop units are referred to as Royal. We also have assumed that there is a Royal special. So far, we only have seen Commanders on Royal Sides with the Royal special. We have also never seen a Royal Commander that does not have the Royal special. A logical conclusion that can be drawn from this data is this: Commanders popped by and working for Royal Sides necessarily have the Royal special.

Now we apply this logic to Sylvia. Royal Commanders necessarily have the Royal special if they were popped by and are working for a Royal Side. Sylvia was popped by a Royal Side. Sylvia was promoted to Commander by a Royal Side. QED, Sylvia has the Royal Special.

What she was popped as doesn't matter as long as she was popped by a Royal Side and she was promoted to Commander by a Royal Side.

This conclusion only applies to units popped and promoted by the same Royal Side. There isn't enough data to draw any conclusions about units popped from a Royal Side but promoted by a different Royal Side, nor units not popped by a Royal Side but promoted to Commander by one. As always I am open to revising or scrapping this theory with more data.

[0beron]

I can't believe I forgot this until now, but you're wrong.
Stanley was popped as a Piker on a Royal Side. He was promoted to Warlord....and is not Royal.
BOOM

[DoctorJest]

I can't believe I forgot this until now, but you're wrong.
Stanley was popped as a Piker on a Royal Side. He was promoted to Warlord....and is not Royal.
BOOM

He was a Warlord, a Chief Warlord, and even made an Heir of a Royal side, without being made Royal.

Clearly, royals are popped as a royal, not made, and not all units popped on a Royal Side are themselves Royal.

[BLANDCorporatio]

am I the only one here who actually likes Sylvia's backstory? I like what it reveals about Carneymancy, about the rules and about Sylvia herself.

For one thing, she's not crazy. That always bothered me a little bit. Sylvia always struck me as someone who understood more of what was going on. Her actions (when she wasn't tempting Fate) were logical and well thought out.

I like the whole of your analysis, including the one in the subsequent post, about fates worse than death.

I've still got my misgivings with the whole thing though. The solution offered by this background makes sense, as in, it explains behavior by giving it a rational basis. But behavior isn't always rationally based, and the explanation given diminishes the pluck required to actually take the bold decisions Sylvia routinely takes.

Still, yeah, my feeling's that the 'torch the city' thing was a bit of a tease towards Archer. Nothing like a bit of existential angst to energize underlings, eh.

[Nnelg]

Look, the way I see it is this:

We have two facts to reconcile. On one hand, Lady Sylvia has been called an Ex-Royal. On the other, she has been revealed to have started as a Piker.

So, either we accept Rob has made a mistake, or we come up with an in-universe explanation for why the term "Ex-Royal" could apply to an Ex-Piker.

If we choose to do the latter, there are but two ways to do it. Either a Piker on a Royal side whom has been promoted to Warlord can somehow gain the "Royal" special, or the term "Royal" itself can apply to units who do not have the "Royal" special.

Personally, I think it's the latter. IMO the term "Royal" could easily be equivalent to "Royalist", (as in "Unit on a Royal Side") and given the alternatives I think this is probably the case here.

[bladestorm]

Look, the way I see it is this:

We have two facts to reconcile. On one hand, Lady Sylvia has been called an Ex-Royal. On the other, she has been revealed to have started as a Piker.

So, either we accept Rob has made a mistake, or we come up with an in-universe explanation for why the term "Ex-Royal" could apply to an Ex-Piker.

If we choose to do the latter, there are but two ways to do it. Either a Piker on a Royal side whom has been promoted to Warlord can somehow gain the "Royal" special, or the term "Royal" itself can apply to units who do not have the "Royal" special.

Personally, I think it's the latter. IMO the term "Royal" could easily be equivalent to "Royalist", (as in "Unit on a Royal Side") and given the alternatives I think this is probably the case here.

Or it is part of Jojo's trade. Ten rounds of casting would be about the time it takes to pop a royal heir. Unaroyal had a crazy selection of casters, so if you have a Turnamancer modify the turns needed, further rigged by a Carnymancer, all sorts of boopery could go on. What should have popped a Royal got converted into Sylvia to bring her back from incapacitation.

[Nnelg]

Or it is part of Jojo's trade. Ten rounds of casting would be about the time it takes to pop a royal heir. Unaroyal had a crazy selection of casters, so if you have a Turnamancer modify the turns needed, further rigged by a Carnymancer, all sorts of boopery could go on. What should have popped a Royal got converted into Sylvia to bring her back from incapacitation.

So, are you classifying that as Sylvia gaining the Royal special, then? Or is this just why people would call a unit without the Royal special "Royal"?

[bladestorm]

Or it is part of Jojo's trade. Ten rounds of casting would be about the time it takes to pop a royal heir. Unaroyal had a crazy selection of casters, so if you have a Turnamancer modify the turns needed, further rigged by a Carnymancer, all sorts of boopery could go on. What should have popped a Royal got converted into Sylvia to bring her back from incapacitation.

So, are you classifying that as Sylvia gaining the Royal special, then? Or is this just why people would call a unit without the Royal special "Royal"?

Neither one, since that would imply simply modifying the attributes of a single unit. I am thinking more of merging two different units, splicing the unpopped Royal with the rigged body of an already popped stabber. Gestalt psyche of multiple entities contained in one body. No wonder she is slightly crazed.

"Sylvia understood what the blond Warlord was thinking, what she was trying. As funny as this game was in many ways, inside her there was a former Royal who had been there."

How many other personalities are there inside her head? One for each day of casting?

[Housellama]

I can't believe I forgot this until now, but you're wrong.
Stanley was popped as a Piker on a Royal Side. He was promoted to Warlord....and is not Royal.
BOOM

Damn, I can't believe I forgot that either. Good catch!

Was he actually popped under King Saline, or was he an acquired unit from another Side? I'm too lazy to go back and check right now (it's been a LONG booping day). If he was popped under Saline, then my logic is obviously flawed. If he wasn't, then my logic is still plausible.

Nnelg's explanation is also fairly plausible. That is, the whole point is moot and explained by Erfworlders being loose with their terminology.

Re BLANDCo and Sylvia. I can see where you're coming from about making her actions less heroic. To me, it doesn't. Sylvia has been told she is working with a net, but it's a net she can't see except through actions. It's caught her a few times now, yeah. However, Hume would have a lot to say about that. Just because the net caught me last time doesn't necessarily mean it's going to catch me this time.

Sylvia's smart enough to know that, even if she is crazy. She doesn't take stupid risks, and we can tell that she knows its still a gamble. Even though the game is rigged, you never know if someone else has it rigged better than you do. And that is what Fate does, after all. It may be that everything's happening the way it should, that she was Fated to be caught this time, but down the road there's a splat waiting for her.

[Nnelg]

"Sylvia understood what the blond Warlord was thinking, what she was trying. As funny as this game was in many ways, inside her there was a former Royal who had been there."

I'm pretty sure that's just a poetic way of describing herself before decryption. Jojo would have had to find a way to overcome Duty to have done it the way you say, because sacrificing healthy units -especially a Royal warlord- to save a level one stabber would definitely have been against Queen Bea's wishes.

[drachefly]

Or it is part of Jojo's trade. Ten rounds of casting would be about the time it takes to pop a royal heir. Unaroyal had a crazy selection of casters, so if you have a Turnamancer modify the turns needed, further rigged by a Carnymancer, all sorts of boopery could go on.

Ten turns is not nearly enough for a royal heir, even with turnamancy. We even have some numbers on this, from Jillian's heir construction, right?

[0beron]

Was [Stanley] actually popped under King Saline?
Nnelg's explanation is also fairly plausible. That is, the whole point is moot and explained by Erfworlders being loose with their terminology.

Stanley is of the Plaid Tribe, which Saline was leader of, so I'd assume he was popped there as well since the "tribes" of men are something unrelated to side (Example, Wanda is still of Tribe Crotan)
I agree that Erfworlders are likely just loose with Terminology, hence leading to our confusion before we remember Stanley's origins.

[bladestorm]

Or it is part of Jojo's trade. Ten rounds of casting would be about the time it takes to pop a royal heir. Unaroyal had a crazy selection of casters, so if you have a Turnamancer modify the turns needed, further rigged by a Carnymancer, all sorts of boopery could go on.

Ten turns is not nearly enough for a royal heir, even with turnamancy. We even have some numbers on this, from Jillian's heir construction, right?

From start to finish, probably not. If the process were most of the way through, it would be possible. The ten rounds was just an indicator that the unit sacrificed would take at least that long to pop, so it wasn't a simple trade of a one-round-to-pop level 1 stabber, or a pop-as-many-in-a-turn-as-you-can-pay-for unit.

Ten rounds of juice is also quite a lot for a Carny to spend on something trivial, so whatever he did was BIG. And we already know Queen Bea was miffed at the concept of this experiment, since she didn't allow the Healomancer to spend a relatively trivial amount of juice to heal her earlier.

"Sylvia understood what the blond Warlord was thinking, what she was trying. As funny as this game was in many ways, inside her there was a former Royal who had been there."

I'm pretty sure that's just a poetic way of describing herself before decryption. Jojo would have had to find a way to overcome Duty to have done it the way you say, because sacrificing healthy units -especially a Royal warlord- to save a level one stabber would definitely have been against Queen Bea's wishes.

Besides, Casters have shown time and again to have their own ambitions, and completely willing to not inform their Ruler of such. How much juice has Maggie spent that was not ordered by either Parson or Stanley? Or Bunny spending late-night juice to talk to Ceasar? Delphie? Any predictamancer? Rusty on his foraging mission?

[Nnelg]

Ten rounds of juice is also quite a lot for a Carny to spend on something trivial

Where does it say he used up his entire allotment of juice every turn on Sylvia? Or even 10% of his juice every turn?

In fact, we have good reason to believe that Jojo spent only a minor amount of juice keeping Sylvia alive: if the amount he spent was significant, Queen Bea would have ordered him to stop rather than just express her disapproval.

Besides, Casters have shown time and again to have their own ambitions, and completely willing to not inform their Ruler of such. How much juice has Maggie spent that was not ordered by either Parson or Stanley? Or Bunny spending late-night juice to talk to Ceasar? Delphie? Any predictamancer? Rusty on his foraging mission?

Hm, the Thinkamancers can use juice left over at the end of the turn, we still have no idea how prediction spells (if they are indeed truly spells) actually work, and Faq was just wasting their Shockamancer's juice anyways.

A little free time and juice for personal usage is one thing, secret projects that drain not only the caster's juice, but the kingdom's resources as well are another.

[:-)]

re: Lady Sylvia AKA Sylvia the Royal: All units of a Royal Side are Royal. Only Commanders can carry the Royal special, but being Royal is more than a special, it's an inherent part of being on that Side. Sylvia was promoted to Warlord. Even though she was popped as a Stabber, she was a Commander popped by and working for a Royal side. That makes her Royal.

Soooooooo wrong. Royalty/Nobility IS a "special" that makes units better. That is all there is to it. The haughty attitude comes with it, but the stat buff and accompanying "holier than thou" attitude only go to commander units. Wanda for example is referred to as Lady, despite the fact that we KNOW she is not Royal.

Do tell where did you get to the conclusion that Wanda aint royal when her father is the overlord of her side?

[Nnelg]

Do tell where did you get to the conclusion that Wanda aint royal when her father is the overlord of her side?

Because Goodminton wasn't a Royal side?

Wanda's father was Overlord, not King. That means he isn't Royal.

[drachefly]

In fact, we have good reason to believe that Jojo spent only a minor amount of juice keeping Sylvia alive: if the amount he spent was significant, Queen Bea would have ordered him to stop rather than just express her disapproval.

... unless his work would have been low priority. If they were (momentarily) at peace and not even in negotiations, then it might have been displacing, say, scroll-making, which could be within his discretion.