That depends on the definition of "interference," which really we haven't discussed yet.
My definition of "interference" (based on what I think is reasonable, not backed up by actual text in canon or anything -- Serf's Parma for now) is that "interference" is something that changes mundane society in a noticeable way. Such as picking sides in a conflict, or just playing two sides against each other until they get in a fight. A magus joining the faculty of a university would not count as interference IMHO. A magus financing the founding of a new university would (regardless of where the money came from).
Could you try formulating that into an alternative saga Code form? ie would the text of the Code change, how would you write the accompanying explanations? If interference is no longer dependant on the 'thereby bring harm on my sodales' then you would need to drop that from the wording of the law or players like me would still think that the 'thereby' is a conditional that protects magi who are subtle about it.
Could you formulate that in a way that isn't at odds with the canon history of the order getting involved in both the crusades in the middle east and the reconquista in the spain as there's no way such history can get 'retconned' out, being in pretty much every edition? There are many other instances of such picking sides in conflict that are smaller and easier to drop from a saga, but the very nature of the Iberian and and Levant tribunals would be changed otherwise.
Interference is fine, so long as you don't thereby bring ruin upon your sodales. Financing a university is just fine as long as
A) no one realize you are a magus, and
B) even if they do, as long as it doesn't cause conflict or jelousy or any other major repercussion, and
C) even if you do cause ruin, if no one liked the guy you ruined and you are popular, you can get the case dismissed or maybe with a minor fine
But Andrew's arguing for a Code without the 'thereby' and somethings being crimes regardless of the impact on your fellow mages, so I'm interested in how he would formulate that.
To put it simply, just let the text read, "I will not interfere in the affairs of mundanes, lest I bring ruin upon my sodales." By now I am aware that the word "thereby" in the "mudanes" clause means to many people something totally different than the words "lest I" in relation to demon and faerie clauses.
In fact I never saw a big difference between "and thereby" and "lest I." I think that difference is in the eye of the beholder. Quite frankly, I think the reason the Code says "and thereby" in one place and "lest I" in the other two is that it reads better if you don't repeat "lest I" 3 times.
I would point out that I am arguing about what the Code means (to me), not about how well magi follow it. My position is that participating in the Reconquista is against the spirit of the Code. This is not the first time the Code has been flouted: the Schism War was an out-and-out breakdown of the Code, and the Normandy Crisis was a more recent situation where Hermetic conflict rose above what the Code allows.
I think we both agree that the Code means what the Tribunals say it means, unless and until the Grand Tribunal steps in. So I would simply say that the Iberian and Levant Tribunals are dominated by magi who want to fight the infidels. They make some (possibly flimsy) argument that they're really fighting infidel wizards, and the mundane casualties are the wizards' lackeys and/or collateral damage, and oh by the way don't forget "the enemies of the Order are my enemies." Then they put it up for a vote and the Tribunal collectively says, "yeah we buy that argument, go to it."
In short I do not think the Order would look a lot different in my world than in yours. It's just that in my world, "I didn't leave any evidence" would not be an admissible defense. The amount of covert activity magi are willing to engage in is potentially less in my world because they know they can get in trouble for it.
The difference is that in my world, the Grand Tribunal has the option to step in and say that fighting in the Cursades endangers the Order by getting magi embroiled in mundane affairs. What I don't like about the strict interpretation of "thereby" is that I feel it ties the Tribunal's hands even if a magus is interfering in mundanes in a very major way, but carefully covering his tracks.
Also in my world, the focus of debate at Tribunal shifts from "could he have got caught" to "does that count as interference." I think the latter is easier to decide and to enforce.
Actually no difference for me, lest or thereby are both conditionals, and if you put a conditional in the Code's text then I would interpret the conditional as binding on whether an offence had been performed. The difference in the laws on demons, fae and mundanes is in the word at the beginning. Demons cannot be dealt with and the conditional is endangering souls which together is pretty much NEVER deal with demons, only kill them. Fae cannot be molested and the conditional is endangering sodales, molested is explained in the text that the magi has to be pretty much out of control provoking them to attack magi in return before there will be charges. Interfering with mundanes is the contentious one because the word interfere is so broad, it could be taken to mean something as little as walking into a town with the blatant gift, but the conditional there means that as long as no other magi suffers for your actions it is not a breach.
Why? What part of interfering with mundanes is breached by a solitary magi joining in the war and using absolutely no visible magic to assist his side in the fighting? My position on the reconquista is that too many magi were involved, that the magic they used was getting too blatant, attracting attention on the Order from the mundanes and that magi were assisting both sides so they were fighting each other, as well as hedge magicians who were also involved. The same applies to the Crusades, it got messy, there was negative impact on the Order, that is forbidden.
Both were fighting internal to the Order and came about because the Code has only the minimum of rules for the lives of magi. Where reasons for conflicts exist that the Code does not cover get settled by Wizard's War that can get out of hand.
But in canon for both those tribunal there are Wizards of the Order who support the other side, and making the muslim's enemies of the Order is a huge step which would lead to the marching of dozens of magi. If the Order refuses even to name Demons enemies of the Order for fear of provoking them, would they really make Muslims an enemy?
I'm still seeing huge amount of changes you would need to make to the Order as described in the sourcebooks, mostly small changes, but lots and lots of them. But then I still consider the sourcebooks from 3rd and 4th edition to be valid unless overridden by a more recent book, especially as Atlas have said Tribunal books will not be rereleased, so they remain canon.
Does in my world too, but that's because of the blowback from crusading magi is too high, so using magic blatantly to assist is forbidden.
Then each tribunal ends up interpreting interference differently as they choose, and magi who commit lots of murders and get caught leaving lots of mundane blowback are not prosecuted because their allies in Tribunal successfully argue that mundane society was not altered in any way overall by the murders other than pissing them off. Which is why if interference is a crime then you really need to rewrite the Code section to explain what that interference means.
No need to. These were arguably crimes, but they were never prosecuted, or the prosecutions failed politically at Tribunal, establishing precedent which made future prosecutions unlikely, for a while at least. Its no different from the process which produced the Guardians of the Forest ruling in the Rhine, or the outrageous lack of protection for mundane property in Normandy.
I think what changed is that the Code is now approached as a working social institution, and the Order as (mostly) law-abiding (or at least pretending to be).
In previous editions - notably those produced by White Wolf - the Code was presented as petty, unworkable, evil, an impediment to what you wanted (or needed) to do, enforced by Quaesitors who were universally corrupt, vicious, and cruel. And the predominant assumption was that characters (PC or NPC) would just ignore it. Many adventures have a point where in order to continue, you have to seriously break the Code. That's both a product of the attitudes of the people who wrote that material (look at their other games), and of the gaming culture at the time (which pretty much assumed sociopathy, no matter what you were playing. My favourite example is Traveller, which assumed PCs would engage in serious criminal behaviour - bank robbery, B&E, kidnapping, smuggling, even murder - in almost every adventure. And that was a game where most of the time you played intersteller truckers).
But the problem form a setting POV is that that's not a stable social structure. If the Code is widely ignored and universally held in contempt, there's no order, and no Order. In order for the Order to have survived for its canonical 400-odd years, the Code has to at least kindof work, that magi have to be able to live within it without too much trouble, and that most at least pay lip-service to it (oh, and that most magi aren't sociopaths).
Fortunately, the written Code - which hasn't AIUI actually changed - can be reinterpreted to make this possible. And the result is a settign with an interesting culture, rather than a perpetual teenage scream.
What we aim for in the books is a plausibly workable but imperfect social institution. "Plausibly workable" because otherwise suspension of disbelief will suffer, and "imperfect", because you get more stories out of that. The various approaches to mundane interference in tribunal books are a result of the world having changed since the Code was written; you just can't practically hide from the mundanes in Normandy.
There are real world examples of this sort of thing. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution renounces the possession of any armed forces, and the right to collective self-defence. Nevertheless, they have the Self-Defense Forces. http://www.mod.go.jp/asdf/english/index.html No, they aren't armed forces, definitely not. When they were deployed in Iraq, they had to be guarded by troops from other countries, because they weren't allowed to shoot, even if shot at. They can't be sent to anywhere there's a war.
None of the interpretations of "interfere with mundanes" are anything like as tortured as the interpretation of Article 9, and they make for good stories.
Well yes, your position is very clear. It's perfectly playable, well substantiated by precedents in the source books. I interpret the language differently: that the conditional is basically flowery wording to explain to the benighted hedgies who are going to swear this Oath why interfering with mundanes, dealing with demons, and molesting the fae might possibly be a problem for the rest of the Order.
As David points out, if the sourcebooks came out and said "the Code means exactly such-and-such" with no room for ambiguity or player interpretation then that would make Ars Magica a less interesting game.
Responding to these remarks in reverse order: sure, your interpretation that the Crusades and Reconquista were declared off-limits because magic was getting too blatant is fine. It makes a lot of sense that the Order would step in if that happened.
As to your first point, you seem to be operating on the assumption that use of magic has something to do with whether the Code applies. I am mystified by that. When you're putting so much weight on the exact wording of the Oath, I am puzzled as to how you can be reading into it words that are not there. It doesn't say "I will not be seen using magic to interfere with mundanes," it says "I will not interfere with mundanes." There is plenty of room for different interpretations of what "interfere" means and your interpretation is as good as any other. I do think it relies on an implicit assumption, but a sensible one that has a basis in the sourcebooks. For my part, I totally disagree that visible magic is a prerequisite for interference. (In spite of the fact that there are factions in the Rhine Tribunal who argue exactly that).
I look at it from the point of view of magi who just want to live in a tower and play around with vis in the lab all day. To them, mundanes are unpredictable and illogical people. The can fly into a violent frenzy and form pitchfork-wielding mobs with scant provocation. Their primary occupation is raising and equipping armies (that's the function of the manor system IMO) to slaughter each other and ravage the countryside. For the Order to exist surrounded by such a horde of maniacs, it has to tread carefully. For some other magus to go out and get involved in their mania potentially endangers the Order in a hundred ways. Yes the mundanes might realize that magi are interfering in their slaughtering and ravaging and form the aforementioned pitchfork-wielding mob. But the blowback can take many other forms. For instance say a magus influences mundanes so that the slaughtering and ravaging happens in Lincolnshire instead of in Warwickshire. Good news for Warwickshire Covenant but not so good for the guys whose vis sources are in Lincolnshire .
That is just the tip of the iceberg. A somewhat more savvy magus will also realize there is a darned good chance that a magus who gets too cozy with mundanes will end up getting manipulated by them. Why do we always assume the mundanes are the victims? Treachery, after all, is the profession of the noble class, and the merchant class is not any better. Who knows what ulterior motives the mundanes might have: maybe they want the secret of Parma Magica for their court hedgies, or maybe they think they can sow discord within the Order of Hermes and sway magi to rebellion. There are plenty of magi in Houses Tytalus and Jerbiton who would understand this risk perfectly well. (As an aside I think it would be fun to play a Tytalus sincerely arguing for stricter interpretation of the "mundane interference" clause because dealing the the snake pit of "mundane affairs" cannot be entrusted to amateurs.)
So, to put it simply, enlisting in an army and fighting alongside mundanes may not be OK for the same reason that in real life doing experiments with radioactive materials in your basement is not OK. What you're doing has inherent risks, and you may think you have them all under control, but the authorities don't just trust you to know what you're doing and not endanger anyone else.
I was kind of meaning that the amount of 'interfering with mundanes' that one magi can do without magic is negligible if they are pretending to be a normal mundane and using no more power than any other fool with a sword.
It was based on your suggestion that the code could interpret 'interfering with mundanes' by the amount of change to mortal society. My premise was that magi could probably involve themselves in all sorts of activities without risk of charge as long as they kept their magic secret, and as long as they make sure they only play a quiet role. Make no waves as it were.
I think the thresholds between "permitted," "permitted, but frowned upon," "Low Crime," and "High Crime" would depend (under my interpretation of the Code) mostly on how much difference the magus made to mundane affairs. So for example if the magus helped work behind the scenes to arrange a major political marriage, even if he didn't let anyone know he was a magus and even if the royal families didn't know he was involved (worked through intermediates and so on), that would still be a High Crime in my opinion.
To answer your specific question, fighting in a war without using magic would probably still not be OK in my world. Yes the magus would not be affecting the outcome there but there is still a huge risk. It's highly unlikely a magus would have the self-restraint to avoid using overt magic in a life-of-death situation. Life-or-death situations are likely to arise in war. Then, if the magus did use magic, that would be likely to come to the attention of his commanding officer and there would be a huge mess.
Now, a magus providing material support to a war, say for example by selling (mundane) weapons, would be OK in my view as long as he did it impartially and on a small scale.
Your world, your rules. I am not about to tell you how you should play your game. All I am saying here is that you should realize that this is a minority view. It directly undermines the spirit of House Flambeau (then again, understanding your PoV does explain certain questions i have pondered for a while now).
How do you provide "impartial" support for a war? Supply both sides equally? That makes no sense to me. Perhaps you could clarify?
In my world, it is perfectly fine to fight in war without using magic. It is also okay to fight in war using magic in a subtle way. It is also okay to fight in war using blatant magic as long as you leave no witnesses alive.
Which brings me to Trentus of Flambeau
In my saga, I retconned Trentus somewhat. I gave him the "Judged Unfairly" Flaw. In otherwords, he still has the exact same reputation and history as he did in ArM4. But my ArM5 version has a magus who means well and is actually trying to do the right thing, he just comes off very poorly to others. So he has a reputation as a merciless and murderous hothead, when actually he is just a hothead trying to be a hero.
(as an aside, I personally believe the Reconquista to be the morally right thing; not because of any animosity towards Islam, but rather because I believe in the right of an indiginous people to reclaim land stolen from them (and yes, if a bunch of Cherokee started throwing fireballs in order to reclaim their land on the east coast of the US, I would admit that they would be morally correct)).
As an aside, I think that Article 9 is morally wrong. People have a fundamental right to protect themselves and to shoot back if shot at. I think that Article 9 was imposed upon them out of vindictiveness. It is obsolete. It has been 65 years sice the end of that war, and we have forged a successful and lasting peace with Japan. Time to let old wounds heal. I mean, Germany is allowed to have a fully functional armed forces. Why not Japan?
I think this could cast light on the Code, so a brief digression into Japanese politics.
Article 9 forbids armed forces and self defence. However, the body that decides whether something counts as either is the Japanese Supreme Court, which is made up of Japanese people living in Japan. They have decided that one of the most technologically advanced militaries in the world does not constitute a military, and if North Korea tried to invade, you can be sure that they would decide that whatever actions the SDF took did not count as self defence.
On the other hand, the supreme court is made up of judges, not politicians. Sending an armed force to invade South Korea and calling it "self defence" would not fly, and the government knows it. Every time the Japanese SDF gets involved in something, the rules of engagement are carefully drawn to make it possible to claim that it's not a war. That, obviously, limits what the government can do. It can't invade Iraq to look for weapons of mass destruction, for example.
There are a lot of people in Japan who like this situation. There is a genuine stream of pacifism in Japan, and it's very strong. Thus, even though they know that the SDF violates the constitution quite blatantly, they don't want it abolished (most of them), but they also don't want the constitution changed. As long as the government has to be able to pretend that it isn't doing anything military, it can't do anything worrying in that department.
The mundane interference clause in the Code could be the same. Everyone knows that it happens, and Tribunals will find absurd excuses to rule that something wasn't interference (There were no living witnesses! The princess was happy!) if they think an action was reasonable. However, the need to be able to find some excuse means that magi have to hold back, and keep their interference subtle, or deniable, or not magical, or something. The need to be able to pretend that you aren't interfering acts as an effective brake on interference, even if everyone knows that there's a lot of it going on.
Incidentally, I find it amusing now when the US complains about Japan's failure to help out in military adventures. Shouldn't have put that clause in their constitution, then, should you?
By "impartial" support for the war I meant you do it without regard to who the combatants are or why they are fighting. So you supply the same quantity of arms at the same price to one side as you would the other, and if the other side offers you a better deal then you take it.
In Ordo Nobilis (which is no longer canonical) there is some commentary I am too lazy to look up, which IIRC says that covenants usually negotiate land deals where they pay cash instead of supplying feudal levies. (that is OK in my view) Now suppose in the course of the war the territory in which the covenant stands changes hands. The magi then negotiate with the new claimant of the land to retain their possession of it, and end up paying the new occupant. That's impartial support for a war.
My impression of medieval warfare is that people changed sides a lot more readily than a modern person can really wrap his brain around. This sort of behavior would not be totally unexpected.
I don't understand how this directly undermines the spirit of House Flambeau. The spirit of House Flambeau IMO is to aggressively seek out and defeat the enemies of the Order. Insofar as the Order agrees on who its enemies are, fighting those enemies by definition is not "interfering in the affairs of mundanes."
I'm not saying it's against the Code to fight in a war. I'm saying it's against the Code to participate in a war between mundanes. Whether the magi fighting in the Reconquista are in compliance with the Code depends almost entirely on the nature of their opponents. If what the Iberian Flambeaux say is true -- that the Moors are mixing sahirs freely in among their mundane armies -- then you can make a darned good case to me that the "mundane interference" clause doesn't apply. (You can also make a case that they're endangering the Order, but that's beside the point for now.)
In fact I will go one step further. If there were a group of bandits robbing travelers on a road that leads to the covenant, then the covenant would be justified in getting rid of them by any means necessary, blatant magic or no. As soon as the mundanes start messing with the Order directly, it's not "affairs of mundanes" any more, it's affairs of the Order of Hermes. An army lays siege to your covenant? Go ahead and defend yourself.
Two things bother me about the opposing interpretation of the Code, that you can do anything you want to mundanes as long as you don't get caught. First, it seems awfully close to "might makes right" and I think it's a slippery slope that leads to magi becoming the shadowy masterminds who rule Mythic Europe through subterfuge and terror. Second, I don't think the Order would just give magi free rein to engage in covert ops that have a huge potential for blowback. Archmage Maximus of Bonisagus would not trust some upstart Tytalus three years past his Gauntlet to go start playing some "game" with the thrones of Europe. That's like living in an apartment building next to a neighbor who practices fire-eating in his living room.
That sounds like immoral war profiteering to me. If one is going to āsupportā a war, it should be because they honestly agree with and support the side they are supporting.
I disagree. I call that paying your rent and minding your own business.
I disagree with you about the modern perspective. This sort of thing happens all the time. Case in point: Afghanistan. The US used to support the very same extremists we are now fighting against, simply because the Soviet Union was trying to do the same thing we are trying to do now. Pakistan has been playing opposing forces off against one another this entire decade. And Africa is, well, it is a huge confusing mess.
I donāt want to rehash old conflicts. I am referring to the original vision of House Flambeau, not the revised version. I mean to say that, now that I understand your personal philosophy better, I understand the motivations behind your changes.
I actually took an alternate route. Sahirs are fine because they joined the Order and are Umayyads. In 1220, Umayyad tend to side with Christians against the Almohades. For example, in 1223 the Moslem ruler of Valencia forges an alliance with the king of Castile. Almohades are radical fundamentalists, and they donāt care at all for Sahirs. I use Berber Marabouts as the enemy hedgies in Iberia.
And I would argue that is not against the code to participate in a war between mundanes. It is against the code to get caught and implicate the Oder in your activities.
So then, what if I consider the whole of Iberia to be the ancestral homeland of my magical tradition?
Unfortunately, in the middle ages, might does make right. I donāt see the same slippery slope, because there are not enough magi on any one side to upset the balance of power. I view magi as susceptible to manipulation as any other human institution, and sometimes it s the mundanes doing the manipulating. Charlemagne, for example, may have very well enabled the growth of the early order because it fit his political needs and goals at the time.
On a personal level, I agree fully. However think the Order would disapprove of "supporting" a war (in the sense that you mean) for any reason.
So I think the disagreement here is about semantics, what the word "support" means. I don't think it's central to the topic.
That's probably a better way to put it. So yes, in my view the Order does not object if you pay your taxes and mind your own business.
I guess I didn't qualify the statement about the modern perspective sufficiently. You're quite right, there are parts of the world where shifting allegiances are commonplace. Mythic Europe is IMO like those places. I have the sense that you enjoy talking about real-world politics and world affairs: I do, too, but let's take that discussion off this forum and stick to Ars Magica here. 8)
It's possible that people might take that remark the wrong way, so I feel a need to respond to it. I didn't take offence. I do want to underscore that I didn't modify House Flambeau to make it into what I wanted it to be. I modified it to try to broaden its appeal. That was colored of course by my preferences. I don't want people to get the idea that ArM authors go rewrite canon willy-nilly because they have a personal axe to grind. The editor would never allow that, for one thing. And my sense of the professionalism of the authors with whom I've worked is that they would never consider it. I am pretty convinced that the authors are committed to making the game better in any way they can think of, and if that can be done by conforming to old canon rather than revising it, they prefer to conform.
Anyway, I don't think you were actually suggesting I broke House Flambeau for some personal agenda. I just felt a need to stand up for Atlas Games, its authors, and my editor in case any readers drew the wrong conclusion from your remarks.
I'm not really comfortable discussing my personal philosophy in reference to my work, at least not in a public forum.
Depends. Are the new occupants suppressing your ability to do magic?
I don't know. How many does it take? A couple of Rego Mentem spells in the right place, a touch of invisibility, and Curse of the Unportended Plague ... whether magi can significantly steer the course of mundane affairs is really a separate debate. One's opinions on the "magi vs. mundanes" debate heavily colors one's opinions on the "mundane interference" issue, though.
There I agree with you exactly.
Interesting. I don't remember (serf's parma) whether the part I wrote about Flambeau visiting the court of Charlemagne made it into the published version of HoH:TL, or got cut during the editing process. Anyway I imagined a lot more than I ever wrote, anyway. Charlmagne and Flambeau could have been pals. 8)
I agree with your second point, and will add, instead of the first, that defining things as "legal unless you get caught" just feels sleezy to me.
"No, Mr. St. Michael Sir, magus Ignatius did not act within the Code when he burned done the Vatican. ... Well, yes, he was within his right to burn it down, and kill the pope and everyone, sure - but he wasn't in his right to get caught, see! So, now that you angels know about this, it's clearly illegal and the Order can't be held responsible for this renegade's action. We'd March him ourselves, if you already didn't, you know, skewer him. ... Wait, what's with the flaming sword bit? If told you, he was a renegade! A ren... Gulp. Oh well, I always wanted to break the Lunar Limit..."
That said, I think there is room here for both interpretations, and that in practice tribunals should decide according to saga needs and verisimilitude. I think an SG would be wise to set the tribunal as a bit traditional, frowning on "dangerous" or "blatant" interference, while allowing enough free-spirits and neutrals to make a change in policy possible should the covenant wish to pursue it. This keeps maximum story potential.
This is where I disagree. I think even magi, and medieval folk, knew the difference between might and right. And I think magi are way overpowered so that the "few" that exist can actually have tremendous effects on the setting, far more than is reasonable from the setting's flavor text IMO.
It seems to me both systems of judging whether or not 'mundane interference' have flaws. You object to the case where magi can meddle, and kill so long as they are not caught and their actions were clever and careful enough not to bring any blowback onto other magi. But what you suggest in return is that magi can declare that mundanes are interfering with them and so they can do anything they like to defend their interests. Anything they like being wiping out an army laying siege to their castle. That for me is a problem, many covenants are meant to be set up as castles or manors ruling over land holdings, such holdings would be sieged in any normal warfare between sides where an opposing army is entering the territory.
Say the castle holding of Triamore covenant is besieged by the forces of Luxembourg invading Brabant, and in the canon saga Luxembourg cannot invade Brabant without first dealing with Triamore as they are in the way. They go blatant wiping out Luxembourgs armies, then the Count of Luxembourg becomes their sworn enemy and begins retaliating in other ways like setting the church on them, blockading travel north, sending raiders to attack their lands more subtly. He also believes that the Order has become his enemy and not only harasses other magi with covenants near his territory, but encourages his allies in the King of France to harass magi and pleads to the Holy Roman Emperor for justice against the 'evil warlocks'. Do the magi then have the right to remove a ruling Count who has become their enemy from his throne? From what you seem to be saying, yes they can, and they can do it openly, but that in my opinion would only bring more hatred and trouble down on every other magi in the Order.
Throwing your weight around without regard to the blowback, just because what is happening is within your covenants 'legitimate interests' would damage to the Order as a whole in a huge way.
So yes, in my view the Order does not object if you pay your taxes and mind your own business.