SPIRIT WALKER - CHAPTER 16 SPOILERS

[boballab]

Remember Kyven's reaction when he woke up in an Arcan's body inside a slave cage? Just think what some Loremaster would go through. One minute he's human, bamm the next he wakes up in an Arcan body with a slave collar, getting ready to be sold. I can see it now as he is being hauled away

"I'm Human I tell you!"

"Sure you are Animal, you just forgot to shave this morning"

[furry_wolf2001b]

Remember Kyven's reaction when he woke up in an Arcan's body inside a slave cage? Just think what some Loremaster would go through. One minute he's human, bamm the next he wakes up in an Arcan body with a slave collar, getting ready to be sold. I can see it now as he is being hauled away

"I'm Human I tell you!"

"Sure you are Animal, you just forgot to shave this morning"

Still i cant see -why-.
Escape is always a possibility, and as we have seen humans can understand that some one has been changed.
So why would kyven and co make arcans that may spy on them.
I doubt the lore masters would make arcan spy's, but it is a possibility perhaps IF they realize a need for em.

As for punishment, death or imprisonment is both more safe and reveals less if there are an escape or such.
Now if a death sentence are made on a human by kyven and co then tricking the human so the shadowfox can take the needed part is another thing altogether.

It is a bit strange that it is the humans always dies, but the shadowfox has shown she can overcome that bit.
Or is it both animal/monster and human dies and one is able to be resurrected? :-/

[boballab]

Still i cant see -why-.
Escape is always a possibility, and as we have seen humans can understand that some one has been changed.
So why would kyven and co make arcans that may spy on them.
I doubt the lore masters would make arcan spy's, but it is a possibility perhaps IF they realize a need for em.

As for punishment, death or imprisonment is both more safe and reveals less if there are an escape or such.
Now if a death sentence are made on a human by kyven and co then tricking the human so the shadowfox can take the needed part is another thing altogether.

It is a bit strange that it is the humans always dies, but the shadowfox has shown she can overcome that bit.
Or is it both animal/monster and human dies and one is able to be resurrected? :-/

First the Shadowfox didn't over come it she told Kyven straight out she killed him to make him an Arcan.

You? I had to change the original process, but the end result was the same. It still required you to sacrifice your humanity, though. The night I created you, Shaman, I literally killed you. You had to die for the transformation to be complete.

I think we will find out in the end the Shadowfox held out the possibility of being human again as nothing more then a lie. When the first Arcans were made the Humanity was ripped from the Human and placed in the Animal, the Animal then transforms into the Arcan if I got the procedure right. When Kyven was made Arcan the Shadowfox ripped the humanity from him killing his human body the Animal portion was provided by the Shadowfox herself similar to how she made the Shadowfox monsters. In essence Kyven doesn't have a human body to go to anymore and he is partially the child of the SHadowfox just as the Shadowfox Monsters are.

I am the spirit of the shadow fox, and it was by my will that the shadow foxes came to be in the world.

Second the only humans that know that Kyven wasn't always a Arcan is Toby, Danna, Timble and Virren. Toby basically accepts what he has been told but Danna, Timble and Virren knew Kyven as a human. Remember Danna is an investigator with an edetic memory that allowed her to reach the conclusion she did for Timble and Virren just his knoweledge would sway them. For anyone else he's just another Arcan, maybe a little crazy for thinking he was once human. So for any Loremaster, Loreguard, slaver or other lowlife that Kyven kills he can use that Humanity once he learns how to do it. Remember the first Arcans were made by Alchemy not by a spirit and anything Alchemy can do a Shaman can, he doesn't need the Shadowfox to do it for him.

Third remember how Kyven was treated by humans? What would happen to a changed Loremaster placed in a mouse Arcans body? He/she wouldn't have Kyven's advantages to escape in strength, speed and shadow powers. He wouldn't be a shaman and be able to drain a crystal on a slave collar. What better punishment then to take someone like that and turn them into the very thing they repressed and have them up on the Auction block being eyed by a furrier?

[Mysterious]

A brutal but just punishment should Kyven do it. Personally I would just kill them afterwards. I'm not into cruelty.

Personally I'm wondering about the safeguards, if there are any, protecting the Loremaster Citadel. I'm not to sure if there are?

I think originally any protection that the Loremasters would have put to protect themselves using Crystals would have been against humans in the beginning as they would have been the only viable threat against them. With the coming of the Shaman the protections would have been beefed up for Arcans as well.

Kyv could just easily drain those crystals but that means blatant attack and I'm sure the Loremasters would easily pick this up. In the city using Shamanism would be easy and would not pick up undue notice in the general buzz (I think?). Getting inside the citadel without tripping the wires, so to speak, and using Shamanism inside will be the a critical factor. The key critical factor will most likely be his Shadowfox abilities as this can be his ace up his sleeve. It's a complete unknown.


Mysterious

[expedient]

boballab, the article “The Truth About Dogs” was interesting, thank you. The link goes to the last page of five, for those others that read it.

I’m not sure though if you think that I’m asserting that inbreeding doesn’t happen, I’m not. I picked up on the copy machine metaphor because that is not how sexual reproduction works. Asexual reproduction, such as that performed by an amoeba, works by cells copying themselves, and though small mutations occur they are not introduced into the rest of the population. As to degradation, well simple creatures like these have been extremely stable for millions of years.

Cell division in larger organisms is not dissimilar to asexual reproduction and mutations happen here too. Sometimes they have no appreciable difference, sometimes the cells are better or left inert and others lead to abnormal masses of tissue or even cancers.

Sexual reproduction doesn’t copy it combines compatible cells. The advantages of sexual reproduction is that mutations can be spread throughout a population as haploid cells are contributed from two sources. This allows swifter adaptation and change to occur. It can also stabilise a mutated line. There are also a few error preventatives in the mating process, cell division and gestation itself.

From the article page 4:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199907/dog-genetics/4

Today, when an unscientific embrace of "biodiversity" is almost as common as the unscientific embrace of "racial purity" was a century ago, inbreeding is often portrayed as an unmitigated evil. But that is almost as much an oversimplification as the uncritical embrace of purity for purity's sake was. Inbreeding has in fact been a vital technique in the development of virtually every strain of plant and animal useful to agriculture, and it is the only way to rapidly develop a line that will consistently produce certain desirable characteristics. This is at heart a consequence of the biological fact that chromosomes come in pairs; one is inherited from each parent. Closely related individuals—brothers and sisters, parents and offspring—are more likely to carry the same genes. So a mating between two closely related individuals increases the likelihood that the offspring will wind up with the same gene for a given trait on both chromosomes—a state called homozygosity. An organism that is heterozygous for a given trait—that is, has different versions of the gene on each chromosome—may look the same as one that is homozygous, but it will not pass that trait to its offspring as consistently. In the classic human example, both a homozygous individual and a heterozygous one can have brown eyes, though the latter has one gene for brown eyes and one for blue eyes. Brown is "dominant" in this case. But the "recessive" (blue) genes carried by two heterozygous individuals may combine in reproduction to produce offspring who are homozygous for the recessive trait and who will thus be different in appearance—a person with two blue genes has blue eyes. With a homozygous mating, though, what you see is what you get. No matter which of each parent's pair of chromosomes gets passed on to the offspring, the result is the same. In other words, homozygotes breed "true to type" for the traits they have been selected for.

But since closely related individuals have a lot of other genes in common too, inbreeding also increases the chances that any genes for undesirable recessive traits carried at other sites on the genome will combine to produce trouble. Inbred faults in domestic animals tend to be recessive because genetic diseases caused by dominant traits are quickly weeded out in a breeding program: eliminate from the breeding population all the animals that manifest such a disease, and you eliminate the genes for that disease from the entire breeding population. (It takes but a single dominant gene to cause a dominant disease, so there are no "silent" carriers of such genes.) But genetic diseases that show up only in an animal homozygous for a recessive trait can be carried silently for generations. Only when two carriers happen to mate will the disease appear.

Inbreeding itself if not bad. It’s just when there is a disadvantageous mutation it’s harder to get rid of and can lead to immediately apparent results.

Even here though we are already oversimplifying. Genetic traits come from small variations from many different parts, not just simple “pairing”. By reducing a complex issue into condensed statements we introduce inconsistencies.

Yes, inbreeding can exacerbate genetic issues. However, new species can start with a single pairing.

Over time mutations occur to the genetic material. These changes may be good, bad or indifferent.

Small populations are systemic of populations approaching extinction. Small populations with a genetic advantage over others in the same species can come to be the dominant subspecies over time.

Life is full of paradoxes. Just because one thing is “true” it doesn’t mean its opposite isn’t also true. Reducing complex problems into simple concepts is much of the basis of language, and engineering, to great advantage in improving our understanding of the world.

Take an glider, reducing air resistance improves performance, yet the wing exploits differences in air flow to generate lift. Then in the real world foils (pun intended) have to be introduced to combat flows and eddies of air over the aerodynamic surfaces. There are three levels contrary engineering efforts going on. Genetics is vastly more complex.

[expedient]

The key critical factor will most likely be his Shadowfox abilities as this can be his ace up his sleeve. It's a complete unknown.

I think you could be right. They may have some means of detecting any use of spirit energy, crystal or shamanic, and that would put Kyven in immediate danger. The shadow powers come from within and may offer better protection from discovery.

[boballab]

The Loreguard could detect Shaman powers, but only when they were actively used. They also couldn’t distinguish them from when mana crystals were in active use, and he also learned that not all Loreguard carried such devices

If they use no Alchemy devices but that detector that Danna used, when meeting Kyven for the first time, in the black keep they could certainly detect any active shaman powers. Since we know that the Loremasters don't allow Arcans in the Black Keep and are paranoid about shaman I would say that would be a good bet. So I go with ya that it will take his Shadow powers to sneak in since his illusions would trip the detector.

[Elsh]

If they use no Alchemy devices but that detector that Danna used, when meeting Kyven for the first time, in the black keep they could certainly detect any active shaman powers. Since we know that the Loremasters don't allow Arcans in the Black Keep and are paranoid about shaman I would say that would be a good bet. So I go with ya that it will take his Shadow powers to sneak in since his illusions would trip the detector.

I'm not sure that's true. Has there been some clarification on the difference between active versus passive powers, if any? I'd imagine that it would suck to be a loremaster if every single crystal driven device made the alarm go off (collars for example are always on). If passive objects/spells can elude the detector that might give his illusions some latitude.

(Pardon my rant and poor sentence structure, I'm writing while excited about this and procrastinating from a project that's due tomorrow.) Have we confirmed that illusions don't affect all the senses? If the sensor emits a noise to signal that a device is in use, Kyven can use his silence spell. If the sensor emits a light, Kyven can craft an illusion to counter that, etc, etc. It would take work yes, but I'm not entirely convinced that the detector presents a significant or insurmountable problem. The loremaster detection mechanisms have to be flexible enough to accept the fact that they use crystal based devices as a regular part of their work.

Also think of all the crystal based devices that kyven can emulate as needing, and needing to keep on all the time. Maybe he was weak legs and can barely walk, were it not for belt/braces that strengthen his legs, etc, etc....

[Mizriath]

After reading it again, I must say the transformation into an Arcan needs to rob a human of his humanity. It is an alchemical process.

But is it the human part as in the soul + the dna structure + the intelligence -- or is it something else. My mind can read the words but the concept still baffles me.

Because if Kyven is to be human again, any other human will do to kill it and robbed it of its humanity. By this concept, it has nothing to do with the soul or intelligence.. dna is just well dna.... so what is that humanity that disappears and transfers. A soul when transferred will bring the character, intelligence and memories.

But strangely it is only half of the humanity that is being transferred. Kyven and Umbra arcans actually shares half the humanity part in being an arcan.

As i understand from the character and change of Umbra, it need not be an instantaneous process but can be transferred later on.

So I am still grappling with the concept although I am accepting it at face value. Hopefully, Fel will unravel the mysteries further in the stories..

[boballab]

They don't have to worry about collars in the Black keep since no Arcans are allowed in the Black keep. However that does tell us that there is a maximum range that the detectors work or they would pick up the collars out in the city of Avannar. I think they probably got those detectors set up like metal detectors at airports. Once past the entrances and maybe a high secure area they wouldn't detect anything anymore.

A sign at the foot of the bridge explained why, for it read Final Warning! No Arcans Permitted. Any Arcan Found On The Island Will Be Terminated With No Reparation To The Owner. Arcans weren’t allowed on the island, which Kyven found, unusual. Why forbid Arcans when the Loremasters saw Arcans as laborers and slaves? Shaman. Of course. They were afraid of Shaman.

This means any Arcan that steps foot on the bridge leading to the island the Black keep sits on is killed by the Loreguard. Now as to Kyven's Illusions I think the detector detects spirit energy so it would pick up an illusion. Now Kyven probably could use a spell to blanket a warning using the silence spell but why go to that effort to sneak in. He can swim over to a deserted spot at night, dry off, melt into the shadows, climb the wall (remember shadowfox's are climbers by nature) and sneak in a window. Then away from any detectors use an Illusion to look like one of the Loremasters.

After going back and rereading that section at the entrance to the Black Keep there was a detachment of 10 Loreguard disarming anyone entering. Which means they are doing a pat search for weapons so his illusion would have to be so real as to mask his fur, another spell to mask the alarm it just seems easier to use his Shadowpowers for a little B&E.

[hoppy]

After reading it again, I must say the transformation into an Arcan needs to rob a human of his humanity. It is an alchemical process.

But is it the human part as in the soul + the dna structure + the intelligence -- or is it something else. My mind can read the words but the concept still baffles me.

Because if Kyven is to be human again, any other human will do to kill it and robbed it of its humanity. By this concept, it has nothing to do with the soul or intelligence.. dna is just well dna.... so what is that humanity that disappears and transfers. A soul when transferred will bring the character, intelligence and memories.

But strangely it is only half of the humanity that is being transferred. Kyven and Umbra arcans actually shares half the humanity part in being an arcan.

As i understand from the character and change of Umbra, it need not be an instantaneous process but can be transferred later on.

So I am still grappling with the concept although I am accepting it at face value. Hopefully, Fel will unravel the mysteries further in the stories..

Hey, somebody that is on the same page as me!(even if I'm not sure I like the company:roll:) The original process was probably pretty crude--very Manhattan projectish.
We don't know what the process or the essence transfered was. It is magic--it is abstract--it deals with ideas--it does not follow conventional(physical) rules. Even when The Shadow Fox says "died" it could have meant "ceased to exist as the being he was." Everything said about it is to general in nature to get specific on the topic other than as speculation. The Shadow Fox is being vague about it, because Kyven does not need the information. Probably the only reason she told him that was so he would realize that the process was not as simple as he thought and understand why she was taking so long to transform him back and blunt his anger toward her. Well, also so that he can be on the watch for likely subjects to use.

I think we will find out in the end the Shadowfox held out the possibility of being human again as nothing more then a lie. When the first Arcans were made the Humanity was ripped from the Human and placed in the Animal, the Animal then transforms into the Arcan if I got the procedure right. When Kyven was made Arcan the Shadowfox ripped the humanity from him killing his human body the Animal portion was provided by the Shadowfox herself similar to how she made the Shadowfox monsters. In essence Kyven doesn't have a human body to go to anymore and he is partially the child of the SHadowfox just as the Shadowfox Monsters are.

She said he could. We have allot of evidence that to the spirits agreements are binding. By saying that she was in effect promising that he could go back to being human. So by lying would be breaking her agreement with him. Now on another level, even if she could have lied or she weaseled, she has her reputation to consider, if she wants another shaman or needs something from other spirits, she needs to treat her shaman well. Well as in not harming him, not using him up, and not causing him to rebel against her.

[miraborn]

A lot of the comments I've seen here regarding the use of Humans to make Arcans seem to forget one element: The human used is destroyed and no part of the human remains in the Arcan. There are no memory remnants, no "I was once human now I'm not" thoughts. The new being is All Arcan.

Understand, my Shaman, it takes two to create an Arcan; the animal and the human, and the nature of the creation required that the human be willing—or at least not struggle during the process. But what those humans were not told was that they would not be the end result. The animal became the Arcan, Shaman. The human only served to sacrifice himself to grant his humanity to the animal. The human died, and the animal was changed. Those ancient scientists deceived their population in the most horrible ways imaginable, never telling their sacrificial lambs that volunteering for the project would kill them, only saying that they would be the Arcans that resulted

If the Loremasters somehow figure out / have figured out how to perform the change, then their "test subjects" will not have any inkling that they were once human . . . rather they _might_ remember that they were once animal, but even that is debatable.

-M

[boballab]

After all, she was a spirit of guile and deceit, and her Shaman was not exempted from her nature. If her Shaman could not appreciate that fact, he would be in for a rude awakening. She would deceive him when it suited her purposes.

It is not wise to agree to pay a price without knowing the price, she warned. I could take anything, even your very life, and yet you agree blindly.
“But I trust you, fox,” he told her calmly. “You’ve watched over me most of my life. I trust you.”
That is of no moment. I could have merely been baiting you into just such a thing. You have no inkling of what I could do to you, human, what payment I could exact, which would make you beg for death. I may be doing that very thing right now, she noted dryly. I am, after all, a spirit of guile and deceit. And yet you will blindly take any offer I give?

“You granted me whatever price I wished of you. And so I take your humanity as my price.

But never let it be said that I would take all from you, for you would gain little wisdom in death. As I have taken, so have I given in return. Use my gift wisely

Okay first the only thing Binding in that aggreement is that Kyven would pay any price the Shadowfox deemed acceptable for her aid. The Shadowfox is the one that gets to decide the payment and even warns him that she is allowed to kill him. She also tells him to his face and in her own musings shows she will outright lie to him. The give and take in it was she helped the ferrets and gave him Shadowpowers in exchange for his humnaity. What that means that humanity no longer belongs to Kyven it is now the property of the Shadowfox to be used as she sees fit.
second reputation: Her reputation is a spirit of Guile and Deceit so lying to her shaman or anyone else would only further her reputation.

Your totem is the shadow fox, and her energy is blue. She is a deceiver, a trickster, a being of stealth and guile.

As to the Transformation the Shadowfox didn't say one way or the other what happened to memories or anything else, she said the human died and the Arcan came from the animal. Since the Arcans are smarter then animals we can infer that intelligence is transfered in the process but little else. Kyvens was different at the moment of death the Shadowfox used his body and infused him with a part of herself.

She opened her jaws once more, just as the light of his life wavered, baring teeth glowing with her power. She sank them into his neck, a killing blow, but instead of darkening his light, they instead caused it to blaze forth with renewed vigor. Life flushed through him, but it was life that burned into his flesh, infusing him with the fox’s own life energies.
And it changed him.

So its possible that she might be able to change him back but she would need someone to give her their humanity that she could use to switch her life energies with in Kyven, basically going through the whole death bit again.

OH Gawd I just had a thought and if Fel is doing this it is sneaky as hell. For anyone that has never seen the Anime Full Metal Alchemist there is the first rule of Alchemy and it works basically the same as the Spirits give and take. It is the law of equivalent exchange, you must give something of equal value to get something. I wonder if that was the blunder of the Ancients.

[hoppy]

[snip]
Okay first the only thing Binding in that aggreement is that Kyven would pay any price the Shadowfox deemed acceptable for her aid. The Shadowfox is the one that gets to decide the payment and even warns him that she is allowed to kill him. She also tells him to his face and in her own musings shows she will outright lie to him. The give and take in it was she helped the ferrets and gave him Shadowpowers in exchange for his humnaity. What that means that humanity no longer belongs to Kyven it is now the property of the Shadowfox to be used as she sees fit.
{snip]

Let me say it another way, for some reason spirits cannot break agreements and she has never lied to him that I can see. Therefor, I infer that words have power over them. So, they may be incapable by their very natures of saying something false.
If her saying that he could be changed back does not bind her to keep that option open. Then yes, she has a blank check with her agreement, but he is her shaman and how she treats him will affect how others treat her. If she abuses him then shaman and spirits may drive harder bargains because because she is seen as less of an ally, some day a shaman she attempts recruit may decide not to come. If he finds out that she can't turn him back or does not intend to. Maybe he decides not to serve her any more. So she is now the spirit that drove away her shaman through abusing his naive trust shortly into his walk. I think killing him for this would make things worse. If she coerces him and he tells people exactly why he is doing things. She may be able to do things, but we can do allot of things that we don't to. Also remember most arcans are former slaves.

[dellstart]

[snip]
Okay first the only thing Binding in that aggreement is that Kyven would pay any price the Shadowfox deemed acceptable for her aid. The Shadowfox is the one that gets to decide the payment and even warns him that she is allowed to kill him. She also tells him to his face and in her own musings shows she will outright lie to him. The give and take in it was she helped the ferrets and gave him Shadowpowers in exchange for his humnaity. What that means that humanity no longer belongs to Kyven it is now the property of the Shadowfox to be used as she sees fit.
{snip]

Let me say it another way, for some reason spirits cannot break agreements and she has never lied to him that I can see. Therefor, I infer that words have power over them. So, they may be incapable by their very natures of saying something false.
If her saying that he could be changed back does not bind her to keep that option open. Then yes, she has a blank check with her agreement, but he is her shaman and how she treats him will affect how others treat her. If she abuses him then shaman and spirits may drive harder bargains because because she is seen as less of an ally, some day a shaman she attempts recruit may decide not to come. If he finds out that she can't turn him back or does not intend to. Maybe he decides not to serve her any more. So she is now the spirit that drove away her shaman through abusing his naive trust shortly into his walk. I think killing him for this would make things worse. If she coerces him and he tells people exactly why he is doing things. She may be able to do things, but we can do allot of things that we don't to. Also remember most arcans are former slaves.

I guess, even in Arcan world , company morale and productivity counts for something.
Good point.