The Tribunal can come out any way for political reasons but Alicia should have Wizard war after wizard war declared on her. As JL said on page one, House Guernicus would go to great lengths to eliminate her. I would assume they have far more political might than Alicia? You can not have people killing Quaesitor who is performing an investigation against them for a high crime.
I have yet to find the part where gaining a AC is considered a high crime. I see lots of things listed as Deprivation of Magical power but getting an AC is not one of them.
Not knowing the laws of other countries as it concerns something like this I have a very hard time believing that , in America, you could walk into a room with a police detective( that was invited in to look around) holding something that may hurt you and then shoot them dead is going to go anywhere but prison. And that is the key for the analogies. It is an official investigator performing their duty.
That's been one of my points all along. Taking an arcane connection is not an "immediate and deadly threat" that justifies killing.
The Gravis case that ezzelino keeps quoting is over 3 centuries old (A.D. 884), rendered during a period of the Order where things were much more violent. Yes, it would certainly be brought forward by the defendant. But there are other more recent rulings that can also be brought forward by the accusation that would justify Alicia being Marched.
He also seems to ignore most of the "Investigation Immunity" section in HoH:TL (p.62), which mentions (third paragprah) that a Quaesitor is granted limited immunity as long as he is engaged in a justified investigation and is reasonable in the scope of his magical inquiry. It also states (fith paragraph) that if a magus feels that a Quaesitor has used a minor transgression or baseless allegation to excuse an extensive intrusion into his affairs, he will have to convince the Tribunal of this.
(ezzelino, I used the third person to refer to you not out of disrespect, but rather because I was answering jebrick's post and it seemed more organic that way.)
jebrick: Credit goes to Arthur for that, I'm not going to claim it, just saying I concur with Arthur's assessment.
This smacks of a bit of story jujitsu to allow Alisha to live. I mean, sometimes it is necessary a character does something unexpected, and acts recklessly at the urging of the player and the SG doesn't want to outright kill the character, or gives the character a (second?) chance to save their skin. In this case, the jujitsu has left a greatly diminished Quaesitor group. I recognize that there was a potential claim of cronyism, but unless there has been a history of cronyism within the Order by Quaesitors, this should not be presumed. Consider that every member of House Guernicus has Hermetic Prestige. It's a fair point to say it's a worthless house virtues, and in this instance, it certainly was. His standing as a Quaesitor was certainly diminished. And thereby the standings of all Quaesitores.
I'm also troubled that we were at first told to ignore the text in HP, which I did[sup]1[/sup], but in this case it is ultimately that understanding that some Tribunals (might) consider taking an AC a crime in and of itself. If that's a basis for Hermetic Law in your saga, then we should know that in order to make an informed decision, and the debate on whether or it is a crime is moot in this instance.
Ezzelino:
So if we take it as a given that taking an AC is crime in your saga, why would Carolus do such a thing? What is his motivation? He should certainly know that taking an AC is a crime. He should certainly know that while investigating a diabolist one must be beyond reproach. Saying he made a mistake is an understatement. It was monumentally stupid on a multitude of levels that I have trouble believing. At least give him a Reckless and Overconfident flaw, and provide that information to us along with the setting information. That we come to different conclusions about the merits of this case is because we don't have all of the facts as you understand them.
[sup]1[/sup] Whether I believe that it's reasonable or make sense is besides the point. The point is that my basis for determining guilt or innocence had a very deliberate piece of information withheld from me, and I was explicitly told to ignore it, almost as if it were a jury instruction to ignore a piece of evidence.
Having read the previous arguments, I find I am not swayed. They seem to boil down to two points, first that taking an AC is deprivation of power, and that possessing an AC is a clear and present danger on the level of pointing a loaded gun at your head.
For the first, the proponents of AC=deprivation of power have not demonstrated any actual loss of power. Previous posters have listed what the Code defines as loss of power, and this is not one of them. Another argument made supporting AC=loss of power is that it is a reduction in defenses, but they are conflating a potential action with a realized action. At no time were Alicia's defenses lowered by even a single point. Carolus had the POTENTIAL to do so, but never took any action that actually damaged her defenses. Arguing loss of power fails the litmus test because Carolus did not make any action that actually reduced her defenses, even if such an action would fall under deprivation of power.
Second, the loaded gun is a false analogy. A far more accurate one would be a loaded gun holstered on Carolus' belt (the AC was in his pouch, remember?) A person carrying an AC is not making any threat to anybody. The Tribunal should have asked Alicia the TeFo of the spell Carolus was actually casting using the AC (casting = pointing the gun at your head). When she was unable to articulate any actual threat Carolus made, she should have been Marched. Her entire argument is based entirely on her being afraid of an action that never existed.
Alicia killed Carolus because she was afraid and panicked, murdering Carolus for an action he never committed. She is a disgrace to her Parens and should be dealt with severely, lest some conniving Tytalus use the now existing precendent in the Peripheral code to commit other murders!
Which is a story seed in itself: is this story jujutsu an indication that the power and prestige of the Quaesitores is falling apart in this tribunal, where a Quaesitor can be murdered and the murderer get off with a wrist slap?
Canonically, the Rhine has degenerated to the point where Quaesitores can be driven from the Tribunal by threat of Wizard's War and cannot count on winning a case even when the law is crystal-clear. Maybe the failure of the Tribunal to severely punish Alicia is a sign that the PCs' Tribunal is going that way too.
I guess I have several questions/comments (in no particular order) :
If the AC in question was on the person of Carolus, would the Intellego spell need to penetrate his Parma to detect it? If it does, that sounds like scrying on a magus.
Where is "loss of Talisman" listed as a valid punishment? I don't see it on the list in HoH:TL, is there a peripheral code ruling printed someplace that uses it, and if so where does it fit on the severity list? Would it make more sense if the talisman in question needed to be harvested by a Verditius magus with the Reforging mystery, with the recovered vis (less a fee or with the magus paying an addtional fee for the re-forging, of course!) either going to the tribunal coffers or being subsequently used as part of an "investing items" punishment?
Wouldn't a PeVi spell to speed up the decay of/destroy the AC have been more appropriate? Also, as an aside, under your interpretation of ACs and magical power, the destruction of any AC someone has obtained becomes a Hermetic crime (you're depriving them of their power), so protecting yourself by destroying any ACs to you in possession of another magus is punishable, isn't it? What about the Secret Name ritual in House Bjornaer? Since it destroys all ACs to a person, are the magus and his mystagogue guilty of a crime for each AC destroyed that is possessed by another?
Why didn't Alicia take better precautions with Certamen in the first place?!? She had the option to pick one of the Arts and veto the first choice of the other - avoiding the ReCo combination should have been pretty easy and any Hermetic Magus should be aware of the consequences of any TeFo may open them to. She also had the option of conceding before unconsciousness, preventing the bypassing spell, but didn't. That might sound more like poor judgement on her part than culpability on his to at least some magi.
There's a public certamen duel at Tribunal. ReCo, as it happens. Both magi push the duel until one is unconscious. The losing maga is known to be proud of her magnificent head of hair, so the winner casts a ReCo variant of a sheep shearing spell on her, depilating her. Now there is still a pile of hair there - what happens if magi or their familiars pick up a lock? Apprentices? Redcaps? Mundanes, whether they are guests or servants? A faerie or magic creature, whether guest, bound to the area or witness for a case? What if one of the non-magi gives/sells locks of hair s/he obtained to magi?
If I was a magus at the tribunal, I would have voted or and/or agitated for her execution. I mean, I do tend to be pretty liberal. But never ever before this day have I ever thought nor heard anyone claim that claiming an AC is in any way a violation. And I am still unconvinced. She deserved to be executed.
On checking, it isn't. I may be remembering old edition material, or maybe misremembering old edition material. In either case, Talsiman loss is not a punishment listed in TL.
use the now existing precendent in the Peripheral code to commit other murders!