Well, this is quickly turning into the battle of wits from the Princess Bride:
You know a real spy won’t act like this, so Breden is innocent. But Breden knows that you know that, so they are suspect. But you know Breden knows you know that, so that ploy won’t work. But Breden knows you know they know, so that act will work because you don’t think it will work. But-- And this way madness lies.
This is a sort of a logic puzzle, and currently you do not have sufficient information to form a conclusive proof. Didactic logic can only take you so far, and there’s no real course of action that is entirely beneficial to you. In fact, even if you had undeniable proof about the spy’s identity, the dilemma would not end there - Should you expose them and risk being vulnerable to a new and unknown spy, or do you keep your enemies close and try minimizing the damage they can cause?
And relying on double agents is always a gamble - anyone who switched loyalties once can do it twice.
Or it could be that Breden is a real spy, just not for the Hegemony, which would make the Laconniers the most obvious party to plant her in our rebellion or even to foment the rebellion, which became our rebellion in order for them to “test the waters”. If she is a real spy for the Laconniers she was likely previously a house helot for one of the noble families supporting them and was treated a lot better there than we were by the Keriatou.
If our rebellion both survives and continues to enjoy some measure of success past chapter four and into the second game there may well be a lot more Laconniers coming out of the woodwork and the disturbing part is that if they do their likely superior preparation, organization and numbers may well allow them to seize a big part of the momentum that should have been ours perhaps even to the point where “shudders” my poor mc may indeed be forced to “ally” with them against the Hegemony.
Sure, but if we want to wind against the Hegemony we will almost certainly be forced to risk a big gamble now and then, particularly if we don’t want to compromise our vision and ideals too much.
Hey, is it ever explained if Breden trained their rhetoric or if they’re just a naturally charismatic person?
Well, that’s an interesting theory you have there. I wouldn’t rule it out.
Oh, that would be nice, I think.
Speaking of which, is there anything Bleys can do for us now, when we’re in Whendward? It seems to me that the major use of a Telone is organizing stuff and taking taxes and the like. Which seems more useful for running a big army or a set of taxes when we take Shayard.
Well that depends on how you look at it now doesn’t it? If you’re at least upper-middle class then a hereditary monarchy might not seem like such a bad thing on the other hand if you’re a “serf” or peasant at the bottom of the scale, like my mc is in the Hegemony then replacing the social structures of the Hegemony where upwards mobility is completely disallowed for helots with one that still significantly limits your opportunities for social advancement by birth alone doesn’t seem like such an attractive proposition.
Furthermore my mc has good reason the believe the Laconniers or any other “noble” dominated future government would never allow him to be anything more then a “freedman” day-labourer or sharecropper at best, otherwise it’s right back into serfdom or helotry and in all cases it means giving up what he loves most (books and magic and when we get further into the game probably shaving and bathing every day) and labouring like a farm-animal again.
That is if they don’t turn him over to the new Shayardene Inquisition to be slowly tortured to death for use of Goety and multiple counts of “heresy” in the first place.
You are forgotten the evil noble horses and his hatred from oiled sexy athletes.
But seriously he could suffer some early traumas like i had with fairies and Paladins that make me hate goodies and sweet stories
There’s a difference between me and my mc’s (besides the fact that 9 out of 10 of my mc’s are far more handsome, smart, tall and talented than I could ever dream of being), I went to an “elite” highschool, remember (as the scholarship charity case, but still) even so I did learn how to ride horses to the point where I’m a fan of equestrian eventing and the Equestrian events at the Olympic Games. My shall we say “complex” real-life relationship with the elites and upper-classes of society was formed there.
For my mc however horses and the guys who love to ride them have always represented nothing more than misery and oppression. Particularly since the one positive experience he thought he had with the local “nobility” turned out to have been nothing more then a cruel joke.
Help you fence a lot of your stuff. ID Horion for you, if your MC needs any help with that (and if Bleys likes you).
I think it’s just plausible that the solidarity that holds the helot community together inclines the majority of the helot outlaws to accept B&R’s accounts. The habits of mind that allow you to live together as a village are in some ways very different from the habits of mind that undergird a successful rebellion. As you find out with your Dad if you’re a helot, there’s a high burden of proof for naming someone a traitor. If there weren’t, in an environment like the Hegemony, community between helots would barely be possible at all.
Still they must be highly suspicious of outsiders and collaborators. They are born into and live their entire lives in something like a concentration camp just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Reliably informing on your fellow helots must be one of the few sure ways to keep yourself out of the Harrower until old age…
Like Havie said, with Bleys’ help you can basically fence all the loot from the Architelone raid in one go, whereas without him you’re forced to sell it in bits and pieces over time. That alone makes him extremely useful (or rather, it will when the thing with selling mules is eventually balanced). His extensive knowledge of trade and Hegemonic tax procedure with also almost certainly come in handy down the line.
Was I lying though? You are still dancing around the fact that the helot you insist is a traitor was about to be harrowed by the Hegemony.
Ah, that’s news to me. Makes sense though. Also explains why my noble MCs Zvad always reccomends a lower number of spies than my helot MC gets reccomended.
I’m guessing it’s something stat-based then, as I said I never got such an option. I’ll have to stick with spying.
Uhhh… yeah… I was pretty convinced that Breden couldn’t possibly be a spy before but I never romanced her so never got that. I’m going to have to intentionally trigger that conversation now to get more details on that.
Nonsense. Any spy that puts avoiding suspision before pushing their agenda or doing real spywork is an excepionally poor spy, and by all accounts the kryptasts of the Hegemony are far from poor at their jobs. The comment bellow yours made by Jackrabbit illustrates a line of thinking called WIFOM. Google it if you are interested in where the term came from but the important point is that such a line of thinking is not going to lead to any useful results, no matter whether Breden is a spy or not.
She could still be a Laconnier spy, meaning that she likely is a former house helot of a Laconnier sympathizing family and still sent out to “test the waters” before they risk a rebellion themselves.
Therefore, aside from helping start our own rebellion she may have the secondary duty to ensure we either “ally” with the Laconniers or otherwise at least don’t overtake them, should they decide to launch their own rebellion again.
I know what it is, we have television here too, “wine in front of me”, I even watched the both Cary Elwes and Chris Sarandon were very cute in it, thank you.
It is however an easy trap to fall into particularly for a rebel leader who is already starting to get a bit paranoid.
That assumes that their agenda isn’t to make the rebellion “as large as they can” before the Hegemony comes to stamp us out. We’ll know more if we survive the onslaught.
It also assumes that Breden is in fact faithfully executing their orders, they may either be taking a gamble on us or else deliberately allowing us to get in a position to threaten their bosses directly so (s)he can try to extract the maximum amount of concessions from either of us. After all if Breden is a Kryptast they were stuck with a very rotten and uncomfortable assignment.
I’ve never seen the movie and that isn’t what I was reffering to. I also have no idea where you live, but am not suprised that you have television since you obviously have internet.
That doesn’t really prove anything. You aren’t accounting for the possibility that Breden could have been considered a disposable asset. In that case there isn’t anything keeping the Hegemony from executing Breden to tie up loose ends.
Has anyone noticed that they know who you are even before you’ve met? And then the fact that they run away as soon as anyone even so much as challenges them? The conflicting excuses for why they didn’t speak out at the Harrowing? That’s not being in here for the long run, that’s a short-term asset trying desperately not to die or be killed by both sides after they’ve done what they were meant to do; gotten the ball rolling, so to speak.
I’ll get back to you after I have this conversation with Breden for myself, as vertigo has justifiably been a bit sparse on details.
Fair enough, let me clarify my stance then. The event I speak of doesn’t disprove Breden being a traitor, it only disproves Breden being a kryptast (kryptasts being incredibly valueable) and furthermore although it hasn’t been proven that Breden is not a traitor of some sort, I believe insufficent evidence has been presented to believe that they are (pending my investigation of the thing Vertigo brought up, this being the first time I heard of it)
