Aetolian Game News
You're wrong.
Written by: Magister Shachalai
Date: Sunday, September 3rd, 2017
Addressed to: Sciomancer Verrillia, Itzatl Sorceress
Your rebuttal is weak, and your scribe's hand is unsteady.
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The aptly-named 'weak' proof
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First, your 'weak proof' is one that fails to recognize the indirect consequences of Spirit slowly being strangled out of the world. If Spirit ceases to exist in sufficient quantities to support life, we are left with a situation in which there are no further plants; no further animals. This carries obvious economic implications, but the most relevant to our circumstances is that we rely upon living things for our curatives. A situation in which Shadow has replaced, or starved out, existing Spirit in our plane is one in which no further curatives exist.
Moreover, while this change in situation is hypothetically no threat to existing undead and Consanguine, it does rob them of the ability to produce more of themselves. A Shadow world will be frozen and unchanging, and this will produce a necessity - either the Consanguine must derive other means of replenishing the blood they consider vital, or they must rely upon non-Consanguine - that is, the existing and finite number of undead - to replenish it.
These fundamental material circumstances ensure, therefore, that the undead shall be little better than the hunted prey of the Consanguine, all other possible sources of nourishment having been choked out. While it is nevertheless true that the undead can replenish themselves from the Earth itself, and that Shadow, even given its 'greedy' properties, will not eradicate existing Earth at any temporal point within practical reckoning, these circumstances nevertheless remain apocalyptic ones.
A Shadow world would be a finite world, robbed of new life and new individuals, the undead the singular, hunted prey of Consanguine. Blood, in its scarcity, would inevitably be denied to some, creating a class of insane outcast vampires who would be the scourge of those lawless parts of the world not controlled by vampiric tyranny.
This is the future that Sciomancers - all Sciomancers - are creating.
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The other, likewise depressingly weak proof
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Your argument here relies upon the notion that we cannot extrapolate large interactions of phenomena from small ones. I quote:
You have presented some controversial facts without clarifying several
position. While it is true that Shadow 'is capable of destroying and
subsequently replicating elements, particularly spirit' this is not
enough to demonstrate that shadow is a threat any more than any other
aspect of the natural world.
Yet you agree with me, in agreeing with my premises, that the element of Shadow has unique, all-consuming properties. Yet, in spite of this scientific fact, you deny that the existence of more Shadow produces more destruction, more replication, and more elimination of Spirit. This is simple math. Am I given to understand that even the oldest of the Sciomancers does not understand multiplication?
Your wrongness only continues:
The event that is perhaps the largest, wide
scale invocation of shadow is likely the Grand Artifice, since it was
something performed by Severn and Severn is the god of shadow. While we
can argue about whether or not the effects of the Grand Artifice as
positive, we here have a proof that the wide scale use of shadow on the
world does not necessarily produce 'apocalyptic' effects.
So when the Goddess Omei speaks - when She acts - when She bestows Her blessing - is that a dream? Is every action performed by a God necessarily of that God's realm, /solely/ on account of that affiliation? You consider me presumptuous for declaring that a conclusion following from basic extrapolation of observed phenomena is unsound, but here you commit the very same sin, presuming that a metaphysical rearrangement of reality /must/ have followed, not from the transcendent powers of the Gods, but from the physical itself, solely because the God in question is associated with an aspect of that physical existence.
By contrast, the Second War was marked by the rise of the Consanguine and by immense fluctuations between the times of day and night, throwing into imbalance the natural flow of Spirit and Shadow occurring during such times. Given the profound destructive implications of the Second War, it seems prudent to suggest that whatever damage from the Shadow element may have occurred in the latter days of the Ankyreans came about by mortal, rather than Immortal causes.
Incidentally, this might explain why knowledge of the Shadow element was banned and censored by the Order, presuming that it was known to them in the first place; that is my own theory, which I freely acknowledge to be unsupported by historical evidence. In my case, I believe the absence of historical evidence, combined with the general advancement of Ankyrean culture, suggests strict control over knowledge of Shadow.
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'Rejecting' the argument
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Again, your attempt to generalize Shadow doesn't work, because my argument hinges upon Shadow's unique characteristics - its 'greedy' behaviors. Of course our plane wouldn't exist if any element existed in excess, but a little extra Spirit, Water, and Fire isn't going to destabilize our plane. The concern - which I feel as if I am reiterating for the umpteenth time - is that Shadow, uniquely, is possessed of the ability to compound its presence, and that this is observable on small scales and can be extrapolated to the larger ones.
I would recommend you consider the theory of dynamic equilibrium, as advanced in my book; it posits that the reason for our plane's continued existence in this stable form is largely owing to the balance of planar inputs. That is to say, every element enters our plane through natural gates, waxing and waning but nevertheless maintaining a consistent balance. It is the Sciomancer inability to consider this balance and the implications thereof when making use of the element of Shadow - which is, again, unique in its properties - that is the threat.
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Conclusions
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Shadow is a threat to plants, animals, and all living creatures.
Shadow is capable of compounding itself even in small quantities.
Sciomancers channel Shadow into this plane in order to perform many of their spells.
They do so in quantities far exceeding any other force tethered to Shadow.
If the plane is imbalanced such that the living cease to exist, there ceases to be input into the existing stock of Consanguine and Undead.
This creates an apocalyptic circumstance in which Consanguine tyranny and Undead oppression is inevitable, and given the inability for a living stock to emerge from these circumstances, this future is likewise inescapable.
Thank you for trying, Verrillia, but this was pretty bad.
-Shachalai
Penned by my hand on Closday, the 21st of Arios, in the year 468 MA.