From Hell's Gate:
“I’m sure there are people back home in Sharona you wouldn’t exactly be proud to be associated with, Jathmar. Maybe not anyone as bad as the Mythalans, but I can’t imagine your people are that different from ours, Talent or no. Unfortunately, we Ransarans and Andarans had no choice but to include Mythal in the Union. Partly, because whether we like them or not they do live on the same planet we do, which I suppose gives them at least some inherent right to share in the exploitation of the portals. But, frankly, mostly because when the first portal appeared on Arcana, it sparked the most terrible war in our history. The weapons that were developed were devastating, so terrible we barely managed to stop short of our own complete destruction.”
Jathmar and Shaylar froze, their faces suddenly tight with fear.
“Andara and Ransar realized the situation was about to spin totally out of control,” Gadrial continued grimly. “We proposed the creation of the Union as a world-government to ensure that every Arcanan nation had the same opportunities to profit from the existence of the portals, and the Andarans supported us strongly. It was only our united front which forced Mythal to accept the proposal, and the Mythalans held out for a much greater degree of local autonomy – essentially the protection of their own social system within their own territory – than any of the rest of us wanted to give them. Unfortunately, they’d been the leading researchers for the weapons which had been used in the Portal Wars. They had more of them, and better ones, than the rest of us, and they refused to destroy them unless we accepted their terms in that regard.”
Shaylar’s face was white as she absorbed the implications of magical weapons capable of destroying an entire planet’s civilization. Jathmar looked equally horrified, and Gadrial faced them squarely.
“I know what you’re afraid of, and I don’t blame you. But I will tell you there are severe limitations on even the most deadly weapon, when it’s applied to inter-universal warfare. For one thing, no spell can be cast through a portal, so you’d still have to physically assault each portal and establish a bridgehead on the other side before you could deploy any sorcerous weapon. That wasn’t a factor in the Portal Wars, because they were fought entirely on Arcana, over who’d end up with possession of the portal in the first place.
“For a second thing, those weapons were outlawed two hundred years ago. As part of the Union Accords, all signatories were required to destroy all weapons of mass destruction and the spellware and research which had supported them. Several other particularly nasty spells were outlawed at the same time, and an inspection process was set up to ensure that there were no holdouts and that no one was doing fresh research in the proscribed areas.”
“But if things get nasty enough, your people could always change the law, couldn’t they?”
“Yes, Jathmar, we could,” Gadrial said very, very quietly. “And the people most likely to push for doing just that are going to be the Mythalans. They’re xenophobic to an almost crippling degree, even with their fellow Arcanans. I don’t even want to think about how they’re going to react when they find out about your people. Especially,” she smiled wanly, “because they’re going to think they’re looking at an entire worldwide civilization of Ransarans.”
Shaylar and Jathmar looked at one another, and Gadrial leaned forward in her chair to take Shaylar’s hand. Shaylar’s eyes stung with tears as she realized the other woman was deliberately giving her the opportunity to read her emotions, her honesty.
“The Andarans and Ransarans would never stand for the resurrection of those hideous weapons,” she said flatly. “Not unless your people were foolish enough to convince us that our only other alternative was our own complete destruction. From what I’ve seen of the two of you, I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. I can’t promise that, obviously, but I truly, truly believe it.”
If Sharona smashes them back to Hell's Gate or beyond before they can get more forces forward, anyone that can get past the "they're stupid barbarians because they have no magic" mindset will get very worried. Possibly worried enough to resurrect those spells.
And despite what Gadrial said, the knowledge of those spells
hasn't been lost. Mul Gurthak thought that in HHNF:
The technique mul Gurthak had used to implant them required someone with a Gift vastly stronger than the one anyone outside the Council of Twelve knew mul Gurthak possessed. It also happened to have been proscribed, along with all other mind-ripping spellware, at the time the Union of Arcana was formally ratified. Unfortunately for the demands of the pious Ransaran reformers, the Council of Twelve had already been in existence for centuries at that time, and the Councilors had taken steps to preserve the knowledge which so many others – including so many shakira, who ought to have known better – had been prepared to simply throw away.
So if Mythal does take over, the war could get much nastier very quickly.
phillies wrote:There was I thought a reference that Arcana ended up with a planetary government in order to avoid destroying civilization. Clearly we have not seen the weapons, say the unstoppable death plague, the continental disintegrator spell, whatever, that create this threat. Besides, the Sharonans did something that will cripple them very middle in the middle run, namely they responded (for no obvious reason) by trying to create a world government.