Ask Luna #139

From: John

Okay so I am not looking for an in depth analysis on the Light Council bureaucracy no one should be that cruel, but I am curious if you know the basics of how they are structured? Specifically….

1. Are the Keepers/Order of the Star structured like the British police? Are there any specific ranks systems? I remember that Caldera was a Journeyman Keeper and Rain was a Captain of a section, and Nimbus is the Director of Operations but do you know of any other ranks?

2. Do you the basics of how the Light Council is structured, as far as I can tell are they do is plot against each other and mess with Alex. Do you know what the main branches are and what they do?

1. The main ranks go Journeyman, Lieutenant, Captain. Then there are a handful of posts above that (like Director) but I don’t know exactly how they work.

2. That’s WAY more complicated. There’s the Senior Council, and the Junior Council, and their aides, and that’s all fairly straightforward, but once you get past that there’s this huge bureaucracy with different departments with mages in the top slots and adepts/sensitives filling up the rest. I think that the only branches which are mostly staffed with mages are the Keepers and the judiciary – there are just too many posts to be filled for all the others.

From: Brian

1. Do you know how many mages Richard has in his cabal? I believe that there are around 1000 Dark Mages in Great Britain, does he control a sizable percentage of them?

2. Do you think those magical items Richard use as Archon in the Vault are different/advanced versions of Alex’s own force walls and disrupters? They seemed almost like they were multi purpose focuses items but is that even possible? And on a side note do you know what type of magic that disrupters are created from?

3. Okay so this might be a bit of a stretch but do you think Richard’s strange universal magic may be blocking Alex’s divination like the wards in Fountain Reach? There were several times when Alex could not sense Richard when he Archon but only when he was not fully focusing on him and that seemed to be similar to the dampening wards did to Alex’s divination when he was there.

Thanks again and I hope the shop is running well!

1. Actually not that many. I don’t think it was more than 100 at the very most, and that was using a REALLY generous definition. If we’re only counting ones that were seriously committed, it was more like 50, and if we’re only counting ones that wouldn’t desert as soon as things went south, it was more like 20. Honestly, if it weren’t for certain things that will remain nameless, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t need to worry about Richard at all – he’s nearly always way too busy keeping his own troops in line to go after people like us.

2. They sounded pretty similar, yeah. I didn’t get a look at them, so no idea if they were multi-purpose or single-use, but multi-purpose focuses are generally a pain in the ass to craft and use so I doubt it.

3. No, I’ve got my own theory as to that.

From: Sarah

Hi Luna!

I had a question about Alex’s visit to Vihaela’s shadow realm in Bound and I was wondering if you had any insight. When Alex arrived at Vihaela’s place, a voice called out to him saying “Mage Verus.” Was that someone who we’ve already met/who we’ve already heard of? I only ask because Vihaela helped make people into sex-slave doppelgangers when she was a part of White Rose and now I’m felling paranoid.

Thanks!

I wasn’t there, but wasn’t it that kid that Alex met there? Which is already creepy enough.

From: Phillip Taylor

I don’t understand this concept of a “chosen” among dark mages. I mean, the whole practice sounds more like some weird co-dependent long-term servitude which is opposed to this Neitzchean ideal of forming one’s own reality through power. It seems like more dark mages would complete their apprenticeship the way Alex did to remain true to the dark mage ideal – or kill their masters. “Winning” a long-term, co-dependent extended servitude to some, admittedly powerful master who basically controls you for the rest of your life sound like a really sucky deal to me, and I’m not even a dark mage?! True, “chosen” dark mages seem like they’d be the ones who said, at some point, “Thanks for the help, but I’m leaving…” “No, you’re not!” Says the master. “Really?! Ha! Can’t stop me, I’m too powerful!” Apprenticeship over.

Well, there’s a really obvious reason why Dark mages wouldn’t be too keen on the ‘kill your master’ approach to graduating if they’re the master.

But generally, this is one of the big issues Dark mages have. They suck at working together and their retention rate for new recruits is horrible. For all the things I hate about it, the Light apprenticeship programme does at least work. There’s a reason there are more than twice as many Light mages as Dark ones.

From: Kevin

1. Do you think Morden and Richard had a hand in the death order on Alex? I know it seems like it was all Levistus doing, but making him an enemy of the Light Council would fit right into Richard’s plans. Plus they are always trying to convince Alex that the True path is the only way forward for him for whatever reason. I know they most definitely got Anne on the list so why wouldn’t they try with Alex?

2. Do you know anything about how the game Spheres are played? It was the game during the mage event when your adventure with the Fateweaver happened.

1. There’s no way to know for sure, but my bet is that they didn’t bother to get the death order passed because they knew Levistus would do it for them. All they had to do was wait.

2. I’ve never played, but I think it’s basically a more complicated version of Go.

From: Ivyene

Have you ever read a weird fanfiction and thought, “Is THAT what people think about us?” Like when they’re super out of character or acting weird? What do you think of the fanfiction in general?

Not yet. I’ve been tempted, but I’m always afraid the writer’s going to ship me with Alex. Or worse.

From: Dakota

Richard was pretty upset with Onyx for showing up at the raid on the Vault, and the given reason is that it implicated Morden. Why, then, was Alex allowed (and forced) to go? From the Light Council’s perspective, this would also implicate Morden, perhaps even more than Onyx would.

Because of Anne. If Alex hadn’t been there, Anne could have made a break for it once things started going wrong. Having Alex there tied her down.

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1 Response to Ask Luna #139

  1. Kimmy says:

    “I’m always afraid the writer’s going to ship me with Alex”

    Oh, my sweet summer child. No one tell her what ship is actually running rampant on ArchiveOfOurOwn

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