My thoughts on I.E.s and G.D.s, No flames or whining about stats, please.. Options

[Cardul]

OK, I just caught up on the flamefest that was another posters thread asking about the ED crossover, and why all the complaints. While reading it, I actually thought about a number of things...

First: Has it ever been explicitly stated how the Immortal Elves became immortal? Or how they stayed active, with enchantments, active during the downcycle? My personal pet theory is that they are not truly immortal. I believe that they live as long as normal elves, but use something to store magic up from mana spikes and such that they can keep their lives going, and use things similar to the Draconic Memory Crystals to basicly force their memories onto someone, after they store them. This is why the Dragons and elves did not like each other. Because the elves essentially used a perversion of Draconic magics, and maybe Allachia's hunting the dragons during the down time was for something needed to maintain the crystals, or, because they were an easy source of Mana during the Downtime...easier to go kill a sleeping dragon then go trying to find a mana spike somewhere, while other IEs used combinations, depending on their inclination and knowledge, of killing dragons, or finding where upwellings could occur, or massive blood sacrifices. I also think they were more likely found at the ears of kings and queens then on the throne. I think the Tirs were set up by the I.E.s because they wanted to return to their remembered greatness, but...well...they were not as great as they thought they were, and what kept/keeps the IE's hanging on is this stubborn refusal to accept or, really, deal with change. It's why Tir Tairngire eneded up getitng its council kicked out and on the run.(And, you know what: if anything says the I.E.s are beatable, that does...Is there a single IE on the current Tir Tairngire Council of Princes? I do not think there is...)

Second: For me, and my GM, we have always seen the IEs and GDs handled a certain way..and that was the plotting, pawn using not very nice people. Where the plots, you might never see them directly, and things were always so layered that you never really knew who you were working for.

Third: Where is the impression that PCs never get to directly be involved in the universe. I know from my GM, for isntance, that the game we are in, eventually, as part of the final act of the story, the PCs are going to be hired to create/encourage the riots, interefere with the police, etc that caused the Emperor to tell one prefecture head in Neo-Tokyo that he could not handle an area, and make it independant.

To illustrate how these all kind of work, a recent run: the PCs were hired by a person claiming to be a representative from Mitsuhama extract a guy from a supposed renraku reception at some conference. While the Runners were doing their infiltration work, and getitng ready to do the extraction, the conference was hit by what looked like a Saeder-Krupp Strike Team(complete with heavily cybered troopers with Miniguns firing flechette rounds into unarmoured business people, an armoured truck with AAA on the roof, and the Helicopter on the roof with two guays with Thuderstruck Gauss Cannons, and one maning a Great Dragon Anti-Tank missile launcher). Personally...I am amazed we managed to survive...However, the thing is, the GM revealed in the news the next day a scene with the Emperor speaking out against the action, and an old man in a formal kimono with silver dragons on it was seated next to the Empress behind the Emperor. The Emperor was speaking out about how horrible it was that Saeder-Krupp saw the need to attack a conference of scientists working to find an effective treatment for AIPS, and that, for now, Saeder-Krupp Assets in The Empire of Japan would now be under tighter scrutiny, and that the Imperial Government will no longer cooperate with them on matters..blah-blah-blah... COuld that have happened without the PCs? Sure...do we know for sure who was behind it? Not at all. Do we suspect that Ryumo might have set something up with the help of Shiawase and the Imperial Japanese Government? You bet your sweet bippy we do!