On Mul magickers and selective breeding ability.

[gfair]

According to the Helpfile on Muls, "Mul magick-users no longer exist due to careful breeding techniques."

http://armageddon.org/help/view/Muls

This premise is tantalizing, but no city-state would stop at just Muls. First they would start off with who they can control, namely all slaves.  The city state that didn't discover this technique would almost certainly buy it and buy breeding stock as well, to start breeding magic-immune slaves as well.

And this would spread - first to all slaves, then to the lesser populations like HGs, Dwarves, Half-elves; the populations in the cities that can be controlled / contained mostly.  Later, I can see the cities trying to breed this out of every single citizen.  They'd start tattooing the magic-immune and favouring them with the bulk of the wealth of the state, you'd have a second status tier beyond just caste, affecting every caste: the magic-immune, and the magic-at-risk, a new untouchable caste that would start to experience socio-economic prejudice.

Firstly, this would be an epic plotline, and this isn't a suggestion that the policy on Mul magickers be changed at all, but fundamentally no magick-fearing society would stop at just Muls, so my thinking on this is that either the states should start implementing this policy, or another explanation be provided; as it is now, this capability going un-exploited on a larger scale is an unsustainable premise, given the massive potential it has.

[BuNutzCola]

In the north, perhaps. In the south, there's an actual method to the madness. Sure, you could dismantle all of your nuclear bombs. Or merely stockpile them best you can. There might be leaks here and there, causing a little havoc, but when you need to, you can fuck shit up.

[Marauder Moe]

Neither Allanak nor Tuluk stopped at muls.  Allanak marked and enslaved every magicker they could find.  Tuluk killed every magicker they could find.

[Nyr]

That's an interesting view.

Some points to consider:

• City-states could indeed stop there (at least as far as breeding goes).  The breeding techniques would only be applicable to the actual slaving Houses, and both city-states (as a whole) have more to do than to consider how to make their populations not be magickers.
• It could be conjectured that Allanak actually likes having magickers on a leash.  Fear magickers, sure, but fear the people that have them on a leash more.
• Bred to not have magickal potential (even if you explain it away as IC propaganda) is not the same as being bred to be immune to magick.
• The city-states do not have a vested interest in enslaving the entire populace by force and then throwing them into breeding programs so that they don't beget magickers.  Maybe one or two nobles/templars have this idea (or similar ones), but it doesn't seem like it'd be viable.  The common rabble is useful for other reasons.  They might be ruled with an iron fist (or an iron fist covered by a soft glove).  They might be oppressed overtly and in subtle ways.  But...I dunno, this seems a bit much to expect a city-state to do.  It really seems a lot easier to kill, exile, or leash magickers (and to additionally persecute those that associate with them).
• On an OOC level, might it be enough to have an untouchable class--people who actually are magickers?

[Bushranger]

Also consider how Muls are created. It's not simply a matter of a dwarf and a human having sex it is more complicated than that which with multiple stages that need to be carefully managed which is why (I'm sure Nyr will correct me if I'm wrong) Borsail, Kassix and Winrothol are the only source of Muls. When every stage of what is already a long and complicated process to breed something which can only be bred in such a way is managed so minutely it is easier to find out what to tweak in the process to eliminate Magick potential. It might be something so convoluted as when you add a certain exotic herb to the mixture of herbs and oils that are taken daily by the dwarf parent, mixed with the special exercises the human parent does while inhaling a certain rare incense for at least a year prior to intercourse and then the midwife delivering the Mul must perform a certain action at a certain point in the birthing.

For a commodity as valuable as a Mul such expenses and precision can be seen as worthwhile as killing them when they manifest wastes thousands of 'sid spent on breeding costs and training alone not to mention that this needs to be spent again on another to fulfill the sale and the time this will take! For less valuable slaves who can, and often do, reproduce with a variety of partners in a variety of positions and often to excess it is much more fiscally responsible and statistically accurate to just kill the 'gicker spawn the first time they manifest than use difficult and expensive breeding techniques on them which might be worthless anyway since they had a quick kank in the pantry with the scullery slave when they went to fetch more wine nine months ago and the baby is a magicker anyway.

[Marauder Moe]

Really, though, this is probably one of those things that, for the sake of immersion, you just shouldn't look too closely at.  The rule is no more magicker muls.  The reason/explanation is unimportant.

[James de Monet]

Beyond that, even, I think making definitive statements about anything based solely on the docs is treacherous. Not because they aren't accurate, but remember that the docs are told from the point of view of history (ie What Happened) and Common Knowledge (and occasionally, as in this case, Uncommon Knowledge), but they almost never tell you What Really Happened (aka the Truth), and they definitely never tell you What Actually, Really Happened (aka the kind of truth you bind up and stuff in the incinerator). Etc, etc. I think you see the point.

Armageddon, like real life, is based on a stratified model of causality and fact. The deeper you get, the darker it gets. I love this game! 

[Twilight]

The black moon is made out of all the unborn mul magicker potentials.

Two mysteries, one answer.

Remember, if they actually accomplished this with breeding, its actually the breeding of the human/dwarf breeding stock that they accomplished it on.  So if you bred a mul from the general population, in theory it would have magickal potential.  That is, if the imms hadn't decided that there would never be another mul magicker.  So maybe it would have potential, but no mul would be born a magicker.

[Dakota]

I think the OPs post is pretty amazing.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

Remember also that dwarves are "almost" immune to magick, which might play into their potential as father slave stock with regards to mul nongickness, even though yeah, Nyr is right, immunity to magick is not the same as being unable to be a 'gicker.

[Barsook]

I think the OPs post is pretty amazing.

[Morrolan]

Unless the technique is something that has to be applied after birth, at birth, to each mul?

In other words, it isn't that the bloodline is being cleansed...it's that you will never, ever, ever meet a magicker mul, because of something that changed in the way they were bred.

[gfair]

• City-states could indeed stop there (at least as far as breeding goes).  The breeding techniques would only be applicable to the actual slaving Houses, and both city-states (as a whole) have more to do than to consider how to make their populations not be magickers.
• It could be conjectured that Allanak actually likes having magickers on a leash.  Fear magickers, sure, but fear the people that have them on a leash more.
• Bred to not have magickal potential (even if you explain it away as IC propaganda) is not the same as being bred to be immune to magick.
• The city-states do not have a vested interest in enslaving the entire populace by force and then throwing them into breeding programs so that they don't beget magickers.  Maybe one or two nobles/templars have this idea (or similar ones), but it doesn't seem like it'd be viable.  The common rabble is useful for other reasons.  They might be ruled with an iron fist (or an iron fist covered by a soft glove).  They might be oppressed overtly and in subtle ways.  But...I dunno, this seems a bit much to expect a city-state to do.  It really seems a lot easier to kill, exile, or leash magickers (and to additionally persecute those that associate with them).
• On an OOC level, might it be enough to have an untouchable class--people who actually are magickers?

• City states could certainly stop at breeding Muls, I'll grant that (and correct on the magic-immune part; meant to say they can't be magickers). They operate dictatorships and what they say goes, and those that disagree are put to the sword. Which is why I think they wouldn't stop there. It's not as if magickers of any sort are to be taken lightly, though, so why just Muls?


• Fearing the city that has a magicker population: yes, but there are more fearful things in Allanak than Magickers for would-be conquerors. Magickers aren't controlled, they aren't targeted, they have the same rights as citizens, including being able to chicken out. What I would fear about Nak is Tek and his Templarate. The presence of magickers reduces the fear the populace has for the templarate by creating a second, less predictable thing to fear.  It's not Templars lobbing fballs in the night. Other city states try to nullify magic by putting magickers to the sword, but that's not a certainty that the next Krathi or crazy wind witch isn't lurking in the warrens.  The only way to be sure is to breed them out.
• Regarding whole-state slavery and breeding programs: We do know states can force breeding policies on even the free populace (One child policy). This is what was being suggested, for sure, not whole-state slavery,
• Is one untouchable caste enough? Good question, my perspective might be biased.  But a veneer of prejudice across all casts might just add a level of intrigue. "Lord Borsale is of the... impure... line of the family."

[BleakOne]

Allanak doesn't have the reasources or inclination to control the breeding habits of hundreds of thousands of commoners. Also, since a mul-mother dies at birth, and muls are sterile, no two muls would be directly related to each other. There's probably some super-sekrit, expensive-as-all-getout technique involved that prevents magickal muls.

[Twilight]

Unless the technique is something that has to be applied after birth, at birth, to each mul?

In other words, it isn't that the bloodline is being cleansed...it's that you will never, ever, ever meet a magicker mul, because of something that changed in the way they were bred.

Breeding is the conception part, not the birthing part.  Its just what the word means, and I took the docs at their word.  Even if you take it to mean the entire process of culling and generational selection, it still comes down to the conception part.

[gfair]

Allanak doesn't have the reasources or inclination to control the breeding habits of hundreds of thousands of commoners. Also, since a mul-mother dies at birth, and muls are sterile, no two muls would be directly related to each other. There's probably some super-sekrit, expensive-as-all-getout technique involved that prevents magickal muls.

Sure they do.  It's not an easy task, but it can be done. It would take between 10 to 20 officials to view every newborn in Allanak, and slightly less for Tuluk in perpetuity. Some Houses have hundreds of people in their employ, it's certainly possible that this can be done.

Why? It's "the cure for magick".  Magick is feared almost the entire world over, there's no chance the cure would be limited to such a small, race-specific population. Firstly, you would have every Noble house and sycophant clamouring to have their family trees bred-out of magick; we've seen this exact behaviour in the real world, with royalty locking away family members that behave in ways that would tarnish their reputations.

The "Forgotten Royal"
http://www.britannia.com/history/biographies/princejohn.html

I can imagine that many if not all slave owners would refuse to buy anything but bred-out slaves.  Magickers are the WMDs of Zalanthas, their fear makes them perceived as extremely risky to even talk to.  To be a slave owner who's slave has an episode causing damage, only to find out the slave is a magicker, is to risk the financial and physical health of the slave owner, too. They would insist on this unique quality once it became commercially available.

So while I accept the premise that Muls can't be magickers, I don't accept the possibility that "the cure" could be contained, there would be so much money available for these breeding secrets that somebody would sell them sooner or later (if they weren't spied out).

Perhaps we could simply re-write the story. For example, the documents have this to say about Dwarves: "Some composition of their bodies and minds tends to make dwarves highly resistant to magick of all kinds".  Perhaps this resistance is amplified and mutated to such an extent that there has never been a single Mul capable of magick. History doesn't record any famous Mul magickers, so I think we're in the clear to say this. I can accept a nature argument, but not a nurture argument.

[catchall]

Its just what the word means...

Oh, semantic hairsplitting.  So unhelpful, and so inevitably wrong. The word has been used in a much broader sense than that for over a thousand years, since the very earliest recordings of its use to the present day.  It is also patently obvious that it's used in that (far more common) broader sense in the Armageddon documentation.

That is all.

[James de Monet]

So while I accept the premise that Muls can't be magickers, I don't accept the possibility that "the cure" could be contained, there would be so much money available for these breeding secrets that somebody would sell them sooner or later (if they weren't spied out).

Perhaps we could simply re-write the story. For example, the documents have this to say about Dwarves: "Some composition of their bodies and minds tends to make dwarves highly resistant to magick of all kinds".  Perhaps this resistance is amplified and mutated to such an extent that there has never been a single Mul capable of magick. History doesn't record any famous Mul magickers, so I think we're in the clear to  say this. I can accept a nature argument, but not a nurture argument.

I am mystified by your position. In a world with inexplicable dragons, spontaneously appearing celestial objects, creatures so truly colossal they couldn't possibly be kept fed in a desert, and hyper-advanced powers of telepathy, you refuse to accept their premised stance on eugenics?  

I understand your argument, but I do not understand why you would choose this as the point you "cannot accept" about the game world.


Edited for clarity and snarkiness.

[BleakOne]

Allanak doesn't have the reasources or inclination to control the breeding habits of hundreds of thousands of commoners. Also, since a mul-mother dies at birth, and muls are sterile, no two muls would be directly related to each other. There's probably some super-sekrit, expensive-as-all-getout technique involved that prevents magickal muls.

Sure they do.  It's not an easy task, but it can be done. It would take between 10 to 20 officials to view every newborn in Allanak, and slightly less for Tuluk in perpetuity. Some Houses have hundreds of people in their employ, it's certainly possible that this can be done.

Yes, but the 'cure for magick' is not simply viewing and murdering each newborn who has detectable magickal taint on them. Magick can manifest later in life, and before that it must be all but undetectable, seeing as how any means of detection, apparently, fail. Otherwise Tuluk would have worked out a way to detect and exterminate all magickers from their ranks long ago.

There's no doubt Noble Houses would be execptionally strict with their own 'purity', but even under such extreme scrutiny they are not entirely, 100% free of 'gickers, defilers and mindbenders (to my knowledge).

Although I must admit, the 'muls have amplified dwarven magick resistance' line is actually a very elegant solution. I approve.

[AreteX]

Muls are created in a controlled enough environment to do something like this, but remember Jurassic Park my friends.  Life will find a way!

The general populace cannot be controlled to the extent that Mul creation is and it would be almost impossible to stamp out gickery from everyone.  Even if a city-state got rid of their entire populations gickery genes or however it works some tribal might sneak into the city and start a new lineage of gicker prone bastards running around making other gicker prone bastards.  I just don't see how it would be possible.

[Case]

Ignoring the fact muls are magickally or scientifically or psionically bred, there's low numbers of them. Handfuls of them. They're expensive and hard to make. Magickers are pretty damned rare in Zalanthas. It's not even statistically likely muls will be magickers.

For all we know, the black moon's appearance has stopped muls developing any elementalism.

It seems odd, I feel, to go on about grand plots for Zalanthan eugenics because the one PC race that is effectively made in a lab cannot manifest such powers any more. In the Known, Luirs, Cenyr, Red Storm and some tribes do not outlaw elementalism, Tuluk only began killing them after they destroyed Tuluk one time and Allanak's authorities actively permit them and encourage them to use magick (why else have practice spaces and temples and a magicker culture and quarter?). Some, especially water mages, provide the resources and support to the broken world that is sorely needed. I do not think any significant government or council in the Known wants to eliminate elementalism. They do, in all cases, want to control it and contain it.

[Fujikoma]

I think it would be hilarious if eventually some crazy event gave every non-magicker access to a single, low level, random spell which never branches... The fallout would be insane. Never gonna happen, though.

If they had the inclination to breed out such tendencies, or the resources, they'd probably also wipe out breeds as well, because why stop with gickers?

[Nyr]

City states could certainly stop at breeding Muls, I'll grant that (and correct on the magic-immune part; meant to say they can't be magickers). They operate dictatorships and what they say goes, and those that disagree are put to the sword. Which is why I think they wouldn't stop there. It's not as if magickers of any sort are to be taken lightly, though, so why just Muls?

Because it's profitable to sell muls (they are expensive and provide a profit to the houses that breed them).  One would probably want to ensure that the mul sold is not going to suddenly turn into not just a raging death machine, but a raging death machine with magick.  It is not made clear how this is done or whether this is true (obviously if it is propaganda, it works).

Fearing the city that has a magicker population: yes, but there are more fearful things in Allanak than Magickers for would-be conquerors. Magickers aren't controlled, they aren't targeted, they have the same rights as citizens, including being able to chicken out. What I would fear about Nak is Tek and his Templarate. The presence of magickers reduces the fear the populace has for the templarate by creating a second, less predictable thing to fear.  It's not Templars lobbing fballs in the night. Other city states try to nullify magic by putting magickers to the sword, but that's not a certainty that the next Krathi or crazy wind witch isn't lurking in the warrens.  The only way to be sure is to breed them out.

Well, I'll have to go down the list here.  I didn't mean "fear the city with a magicker population," but "fear the people that are able to leash magickers."  Tuluk just exiles/kills them.  Allanak puts a gem on them.  Would-be conquerors?  No one has tried to conquer Allanak since Thrain Ironsword, and since Tektolnes is still Tektolnes, I think we can agree that didn't go well for him.  Magickers aren't controlled?  They have gems in Allanak.  How many gemmed magickers have you seen that weren't controlled?  Magickers have the same rights as citizens?  Citizens have no rights; magickers have fewer.  Magickers can chicken out?  I'm sure the gemmed population will be relieved to hear that.    The presence of magickers reduces the fear of the templarate?  I dunno, I think people can be scared of multiple things at once (back to point one:  it's pretty scary that someone can control magickers--see this link for some details and "speculation").  There's only one other city-state, and that city-state does have a reputation for killing magickers.  Sure, they might want to breed them out, but the logistics involved are enormous and frankly a bit unnecessary (having a credible threat -- magickers -- does mean that the templarate has a bogeyman apart from their own generated fear).

Regarding whole-state slavery and breeding programs: We do know states can force breeding policies on even the free populace (One child policy). This is what was being suggested, for sure, not whole-state slavery.

We still get back to no one knowing whether or not this is slaving house propaganda or not.

Is one untouchable caste enough? Good question, my perspective might be biased.  But a veneer of prejudice across all casts might just add a level of intrigue. "Lord Borsale is of the... impure... line of the family."

Lord Borsail in this case is in the top 1% of the top 1% of Zalanthan society.  He can pretty much have people killed if he wants.  He shits in crockery more expensive than the average Zalanthan's yearly wages.  Commoners aspire to be him and know they will never, ever, ever be a highborn.  In this world you've described, even if there was some technique or easy way to determine whether someone would be a magicker or would breed magickers (there is not, but continuing anyway), wouldn't the noble houses already be in the category of people that would never breed magickers?  If there was some way to do that, wouldn't nobles be the first ones to ensure they don't have rogue magicker stuff pop up in their ranks?

There's already a lot of prejudice (a thin veneer or a big whopping swath of it) across the game.
Racial prejudice -- elves can expect to work for a grand total of one merchant house; no one else would trust them anywhere near anything they could steal, because they will steal.  Elves suck.  Half-elves are seen as icky and also are typically prohibited from hire in most organizations (if they're noticeably breeds).  Half-giants are deemed too stupid to give duties more complicated than "guard this" or "do what this guy says."  Dwarves have a glass ceiling in almost every organization (if they can even get into it in the first place).
Prejudice against magickers -- People are superstitious about them.  They don't know much about them, for the most part--they're just feared and hated in many cases.  Allanak gems them.  Tuluk kills them (or the magickers themselves self-deport).
Prejudice against tribals -- not as easy to see, but it's there, too.

Adding one more thing to have conflict over when we have all of this other stuff that is far more well-founded just doesn't seem necessary.

This is all based on one section of the documentation concerning one bred race.  It is fun to speculate about possibilities, but in the end, it is speculation over one sentence.

OOCly it was added there because we codedly prohibit mul magickers now (special apps might be a possibility, but even after CGP implementation, this will mean restriction to the low tiers of elementalism).  We used to allow them in a de facto fashion through special apps and the like but players with 7 karma were not codedly prevented from creating mul magickers.  It was deemed a balance issue and coded into place to restrict.

ICly, most people would have no idea how this is accomplished.  It could be as simple as propaganda that isn't true--they just squelch rumors to the contrary and kill all aberrations.  It could be a very complicated procedure involving eugenics and magick.  It could be so prohibitively difficult to do that it really is only viable in cases where the profitability of the end transaction (the sale of a mul) outweighs the difficulty and cost of doing whatever it is that is done.

[Molten Heart]

I was under the impression mul elementalists were still possible through special application. [edit]Just read the helpfile, guess I was wrong.  There goes a handful of ideas.[/edit]

[Nyr]

I was under the impression mul elementalists were still possible through special application.

They are possible through special application, yes.