Well, the pervasive flaws in how our societies work creates competition, which will inevitably make people conspire against each other. Conspiracy theories are optimistic in that they often single out a single organization as the bad guys, when really what is needed to improve our lives and ensure our race survives as long as possible is drastic universal change in human culture.
Giriath
Karma: 67
I’m aware of what you say. I’m sorry if I didn’t convey that in my previous comment. We won’t solve the problem by simply removing those who are most greedy (they are there, of course, and always have been) from their positions of power, because we too, are greedy. Like you say, humanity has to become more aware and rational, and learn to cooperate, because we all live in symbiosis with each other and everything else in the universe(s). There are still those with a lot of power who for some reason fight against this for monetary gain though. But in the end, they rely on other people to keep their system(s) in place. If people start being rational and think about what they’re being told to do, and how society functions, then they’ll soon find themselves with much less power, no matter how much money they have.
I will certainly study human rationality, but I will also study what technology can do for our future, in projects like ‘The Venus Project’. If I find these things promising and useful, I’ll spread the knowledge of them to the best of my ability.
I don’t have a child and I’m only really close with one family member, but if I had the opportunity to destroy an organization that kills hundreds of thousand of people and probably will kill a whole lot more if left unchecked, then I’d probably do my best no matter how many family members I lose, or I myself die. While fighting them I’d also be doing my best to make sure the system that will replace them will help people instead of kill them.
It’s kind of like how I see today’s society. We’re almost all taught that success is to earn money; and that money is created out of nothing and has a value controlled by the corporations who have the most of it. Because they have so much money, they can control much of the world. Many politicians they have close ties to are funded and become a congressman or even President. They control the law and they control the industry.
They don’t like people who spread this knowledge, but they’re not much of a threat yet as the great majority do as they’re taught and condemn them as crazy conspiracy theorists without getting any information on the topic or giving it a single thought. More of a threat are political leaders who want what is best for their people and start using the country’s resources for them. They get bribed, threatened and scandalized or killed—in that order—if they’re unwilling to be swayed.
Nowadays they just don’t come to power. In countries where such leaders are elected by other politicians they are lumped together with the crazy conspiracy theorists. In countries where the people elect them, we get people like Aung San Suu Kyi who are isolated and ignored for 20 years while the world twirls its thumbs like they can’t do anything.
I’d risk my life to change this system, which is what I believe people will eventually have to do if there is to be any change. It’s the reason we have competition over resources we can make abundant with our technology; war, poverty, starvation etcetera are all results of the system, which thrives on scarcity, not abundance. That’s why we use oil and diamonds for example, because they’re scarce and therefore can be sold at a high price.
Aro probably has more reasons to fear what Addy could do with her knowledge of his past actions and future plans than just his killing Didyme. I hope they find Bella soon. It seems like she would be essential in physically harming Renata, unless someone can injure her from outside her shield’s effect range.
So next chapter we’re on the hunt for Siobhan. I hope she’s not a witch, but rather very good at planning. Or if she does have a gift, it’s sensible and not all too powerful. I wonder what Bella is doing. Maybe she’s doing some planning of her own.
But it shouldn’t affect your enjoyment of the story too much if you have this knowledge via canon, I hope.
Not at all! The thing I enjoy most with suspense stories is trying to figure out what’s going to happen next; especially when they aren’t finished and regularly update, like yours. If I didn’t know this from canon, then I wouldn’t have anything to speculate on. This goes for all stories that at all derive from canon in some form. It’s also fun to see what characteristics authors keep or change, in most characters.
I of course really really like your Bella, even though, in my opinion, she had some trouble balancing her very dangerous ambitions with her sugary-sweet family life, inevitably ending in disaster for both. Although, with the way things were going for the Volturi, it wouldn’t have been long until they swooped in and destroyed that family life to put the family witches in their prison.
I’m very curious about the state of Aro’s witchcraft after recent delves into Adelaide’s memory, too. Did he know about the Quileute tribe before Irina went and told them, or did he have that information stored away but not processed yet? I’m guessing it’s the latter, since he immediately acted when Irina requested their help. Can you provide some insight into that Alicorn, if not publicly then in a private message?
My guess is that he did know, but considering that the Cullen coven believed the gene to be dead (they did, right?), he thought it unimportant at the time. That all changed when Irina proved them very wrong, of course.
I’m not sure if you’ve read Twilight Canon TheOtherDave, but Aro did kill his sister and Marcus’ mate Didyme to prevent Marcus from leaving the coven, which was what Didyme had been wanting to do. I seem to remember this being said in Luminosity or Radiance, too, but maybe my memory errs.
In any case, Marcus is certain to go apeshit if he learns that particular piece of information. I doubt many are loyal to the catatonic man though, especially if Chelsea has been preventively cutting all his relationships—with the exception Aro’s, Caius’ and hers -, in case he should ever learn the truth and rebel. She still loses her ability to see what she’s doing with her ability though, and that may over time damage relations with all the captives who aren’t naturally loyal to them.
Public spoilers! :O
I hope he’s not there on behalf of Aro deeming Elspeth too dangerous. I have no idea why he’d do something like rebel though, but then we haven’t exactly gotten any information on what goes on in the background. I guess it’s also possible Addy developed the necessary heuristic to counteract Chelsea and spread it to Alec who for some reason doesn’t want work for the Volturi and is for some reason now subduing Elspeth?
This is the most exciting we’ve had in a while. I just hope next chapter gives us at least a sliver of hope that things aren’t going to continue to go so well for the Volturi.
The only causes for her reaction at the end of chapter I can come up with are as follows.
1: She’s been hit by Alec, and probably Addy has too.
2: Addy is sending all her memories to Elspeth, making her completely disoriented and “alone” with Addy’s thoughts, that she interprets as her own.
3: Addy is sending her a memory of being hit by Alec, not all her memories.
1 probably means there’s a rebellion for some reason. Or, more likely; Aro has found out about Addy’s sessions with Elspeth and deemed them too dangerous to continue. Alec is there to separate them and perhaps kill Elspeth to eliminate the risk of her spreading a heuristic allowing people to neutralize the effects of Chelsea’s witchcraft very effectively.
2 means we get to see whether Addy really is voluntarily working for the Volturi, or if she was tempted by their powers and later enslaved by Chelsea like everyone else. If she is, then she should have been able to use Magic to neutralize the effects like Elspeth does, but maybe she isn’t able to make that decision herself but would turn sides if Elspeth sends her the same heuristic she would her friends.
3 probably means Addy is testing if a memory of Alec’s power is sufficient enough to keep a person subdued. If it is, then she may decide Elspeth’s witchcraft can’t develop any further and finally deem her uninteresting and not useful.
I hope it’s something close to my second guess, so Elspeth can finally get on with freeing people from this horrible situation. And later the Volturi can hopefully get what’s been a long time coming. Especially Aro, Chelsea and Addy, if she’s a voluntary participant.
Yes, this is probably (and hopefully) what will happen if there’s to be an escape for Elspeth and potential vampires and wolves. I wonder how much Aro knows about Adelaide’s interactions with Elspeth. Her judgement on the risk Elspeth poses may be clouded by her interest in developing the usefulness of a witch’s power, but I doubt Aro has enough interest in that or enough tolerance for Adelaide to permit this huge risk. I think it’s very unlikely that with all his wisdom and experience he wouldn’t realize the risk, if he knew what Adelaide currently knows of Elspeth. If he did, he would probably order her and Jacob killed, immediately.
So I think it’s safe to assume Adelaide hasn’t shared her information on Elspeth with him since she learned of her ability to start behaving like she did before Chelsea affected her relationships, at will. If I remember correctly, we haven’t learned much of Adelaide’s life before she joined the Volturi, and so we can’t know for sure how much of her behavior is caused by the effect Chelsea may have had on her. Perhaps she isn’t loyal to the Volturi by her original values, and now that Chelsea may be concentrating more on Elspeth and the newly seeded witches, those are starting to come through, allowing her to refrain from reporting to Aro.
I imagine Aro would be worried enough to take action if he knew of Chelsea’s continuously failed attempts to keep Elspeth’s values of her relationships in check, too. Maybe she’s too busy being afraid of what he may do if there’s reason to believe her witchcraft isn’t as infallible as previously believed, to consider whether Elspeth can pass the ability onto others or not. Just recently they learned of Bella, who she can’t affect at all, and now Elspeth is, to Chelsea’s knowledge, seemingly somehow able to restore much of her previous values, despite increased maintenance. She’s probably scared out of wits of being deemed dispensable, irrational though it is, as neither Bella or Elspeth has any means to spread their immunities to others, yet.
If Elspeth is to do this, she will have to do it all very quickly at the right opportunity, and before Aro or anyone who would think the risk not worth anything she contributes gains the knowledge Adelaide and Chelsea posses. The Volturi have ways to detect what she is doing or about to do if she takes her time spreading her heuristic; Alice will for example likely see many vampires fleeing or rebelling—unless there are wolves or half-kinds nearby her or the subjects of her visions—when she makes the decision to spread it, or even as a result of her sessions with Adelaide, before she makes the final decision. Alice may however think about this before she informs Aro or anyone else in the Volturi, and decide to avoid doing that and instead flee together with Jasper when the others do, especially if she sees herself and Jasper flee in her initial visions.
It’s true that without certain witches like Adelaide and especially Chelsea, the Volturi would have nowhere near the same amount of power and control they have now. Their witchcraft isn’t so powerful that they got where they are simply because they exist though; they’ve been using them intelligently, and creating situations in which they can be used most effectively, by other means.
There hasn’t yet been, in my opinion, any I-WIN witchcraft that enables a witch to fight with anyone and everyone without caution, or making them unable or unwilling to fight. They’ve all had flaws and counters, and the Volturi are winning because they’ve been doing a good job of covering those for a very long time. They’ve been simultaneously killing off opposition and potential threats—by destroying the people responsible for it, or capturing them and making use of their talents—and painting themselves as good, necessary vampires. All this make Adelaide and Chelsea’s witchcraft more powerful, as both are more useful the more people the Volturi surround themselves with.
They seem to me to never be overly overconfident; they’re always trying to be conscious of their own weaknesses and try to cover them as fast and effectively as possible, while also trying to be as informed of potential threats as possible, so they may use their weaknesses to eliminate the threat they pose as fast and effectively as possible. That’s very rational behavior in a conflict, in my opinion. I also think it’s a very healthy mindset to have in everyday life, because not all threats to your well-being and over all happiness with life has to be an armed person directly threatening yours or your beloveds’ lives; often it’s someone in a position of power who either intently or obliviously negatively affects you and others everyday lives through laws, economy, educational systems, judicial systems, health systems etcetera.
Sadly today’s societies have little to no insight to this problem, beyond those who sit in these positions—who may be corrupt, or ignorant that their actions cause other people harm, and that they can stop this. I believe this is why we live in a world where most condemn those who are different, rather than use reason and both biased and non-biased information to find out if their appearance, what they do and think or where they live mean they are dangerous to ones health and enjoyment of life.
Too much power is put in those in a position to govern others, with no organized reasonable way to discern if what they’re doing make people healthier and happier—which is, to me, the ideal everyone should strive for, along with making sure our race (and second to us; other races) continue to live and be as healthy and happy as possible; something I believe will be severely hindered if our people aren’t consistently educated to apply reason and rationality beyond scientific topics, to social topics.
A few months ago there was a poll in one of Sweden’s biggest online newspapers that asked the readers if they believed the Earth would ever cease to exist or be destroyed, and an astounding majority believed that it wouldn’t. A similar result is achieved if one asks: do you believe humanity will ever be extinct? If we weren’t all so ignorant, but rather rational people using reason to understand each other and the world, I believe all of humanity could live healthier and happier lives, and for many more generations to come than if we continued to be ignorant.
I like that this story is based on rationality and strategy and not my-awesome-control-the-world-witchcraft-is-better-than-yours one uppance, but—after reading the horrible actions of the Volturi from a first person perspective—if, say, Bella suddenly developed the ability to erase all effects of witchcraft on the mind, past and present, in a very large EMP-.like attack—making possible the destruction of the Volturi by the overwhelming mass of unwilling manpower they’ve recruited - , my first reaction would be to cheer.
As it is, I find the likelihood of that or something similar happening very slim. I wouldn’t like such an anticlimax after my first initial reaction to the just demise of the Volturi, either. The Volturi are however looking more and more insurmountable to me, both from outside attack and anything Elspeth can currently do; key word being currently, as her witchcraft may develop in a surprisingly useful way neither she or Adelaide anticipated; Adelaide did say it had much potential for further development, and may even trump Aro’s success in that regard.
I’d like to see Bella again, but with all the witches recaptured (with the exception of the teleporter) and all of them except Edward working for the Volturi, I don’t see what she can do with those remaining of the Cullen family and a few of their known acquaintances, if they are even allied to her still. Maybe she’ll act out of desperation and somehow manage to drop a really big bomb on the Volturi complex, with the hope that it kills as many enemies as possible, while sparing her family and allies. ;)
I really hope all these horrible Volturi characters suffer immensely soon. I’ve said it before but for every one of these chapters it deserves to be said again: most wicked Volturi EVER!
Yes. Like I said below it’s been enough to make me wait for a while until there’s enough updates that I can read straight through to happier times. If I don’t then I feel queasy or enraged for quite a while after I’ve read the days chapter, and those are emotions I’d rather not have for very long. It’s great writing Alicorn, but these recent chapters invoke these strong emotions in me and I’m currently unable to effectively mute them after I’ve read a chapter, so I won’t be ranting here for a while. Maybe I’ll save up enough content to have an extra huge rant, later on. ;)
I’m not sure I want to follow the story every update right now. I get easily upset when things are going downhill in a story, and so it’s easier to read if I know things will eventually turn for the better or at least reach a conclusion. I think I’ll wait a few updates and then read up on what’s happened. This control the Volturi has is especially upsetting now when we have evidence of what our own governments have been doing, unbeknownst to us, and that not much is being done about it even though it’s in the open now.
Then I realized under mind control she would no longer think of any of those people as notable enough to wonder about her reaction to. Which is the really, really creepy part.
Yes it is, which is likely why Chelsea is at the mandatory assembly every single day. That way none of them will have time to feel any inclination to investigate their past life. Instead they’ll be all too busy living their little village life and thinking they’re the good cops when they go out on missions. I imagine they’re filled a lot of bullshit about the people they hunt and the Volturi’s reasons before and during missions, so it makes any potential windows of re-evaluation created by killing and kidnapping people on demand, be as minor as possible so Chelsea has time to do maintenance before they rebel.
Hopefully Elspeth’s witchcraft make her the exception to this routine, which we had small evidence of in this chapter. Thinking of herself as free sounded false to Elspeth, because of it. When she has run out of trivial things to blame for the reaction, she’ll probably use it to figure out why it makes such a statement feel false. I think this means that my previous hypothesis that she can use it not just to remember her love for Bella (who she thought of really hard in attempt to not forget when being Chelsea’d), but to re-evaluate everything she thought and did in her life, because her witchcraft will tell her what is true, and she won’t doubt that.
This means that when she finds a window of opportunity to do this without alerting Chelsea, she could command Jacob to round up his pack and everyone else they can get their hands onto, and get the hell out of Dodge. I’m also quite sure she could tell the villagers what is true about them, the Volturi and the world and her experiences of it, to make it much easier and faster for them to fight against the values created in their minds by Chelsea. That may take more time than it would for Chelsea to sound the alarm though, and if that happened she wouldn’t get another chance.
Well, sure. They suspected that should the Volturi force them to join, she would start brain-frying them into liking their superiors and want to please them. It was later revealed she would do this to any talented vampires the Volturi wanted that they came across, while breaking their ties to outsiders. But this was mentioned maybe once or twice out all four books. Eleazar and Carmen leave the Volturi unhindered, which isn’t really the case in this story. I suspect the choice they were given here was to have severe restrictions on their freedom or be completely altered by Chelsea. I think she may be more powerful in this story, but like I said it wasn’t really discussed in canon.
I agree that Chelsea is terrifying in this story. In canon her gift is rarely ever talked about, and the narrator (Bella) never really experiences it in any way. The effects of Chelsea’s witchcraft have been felt all through late Luminosity and Radiance though, and it’s certainly terrible. I have hope though that those affected can restore much of their previous personality and relationships by way of re-evaluating their memories, and even quicker with help from Elspeth, who is very hard to doubt. If precious friends and lovers have been killed or otherwise lost though, they’ll never be the same.
The Volturi always had the capability of being horrifying in canon Twilight, but because SM was writing it as a love story they had to take a back seat and be very inactive and stupid when present, despite all their experience.
I’m wondering if the other person Elspeth sees when she tries to ‘talk’ to herself is the manifestation of her witchcraft, which simply wants to tell the truth. If so, she should be able to use that to start doubting the way Chelsea has tweaked her to evaluate other people much quicker than if she were to begin re-evaluating her memories; memories that she may not trust with her new values. She has no reason not to trust her witchcraft however, so if she asks it about herself and what she thought of others before being Chelsea’d, she may recover very quickly. Once she’s done this, she may also be able to help the Quileutes recover their original values. If not, then at least she can order Jacob around.
I really enjoyed it too. I’ve never read of a pre-tragedy!Marcus that resembles anything close to what I think he would be like in canon. He’s a very sharp man with a good handle on his power. He just doesn’t have quite the same ambitions as Aro.
All the different personalities of the Volturi coven make me wonder how many arguments there have been about the morality of eating people. I’m sure many were prevented because Chelsea was the very first member in the guard.