----- Original Message -----
From: Hans Abbadon
To: Ravenblack-blood@yahoogroups.co.uk
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 9:14 AM
Subject: Re: [Ravenblack-blood] Re: Another recruit for the winning team!
In a message dated 7/29/03 8:02:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
josbornesmith*yahoo.co.uk writes:
> Good vampires, bad vampires at
> the end of the day we are all just
> parasites, draining the lifeblood both physically and
> metaphorically out of this city.
An excellent point.
I am reminded of a quotation from the Skeptic's Dictionary.
"Even so, the basic truth is depressing: for anything to live, something or
someone else must die. Whether this truth sets you free or not depends, I
suppose, on your place at or on the dinner table. Since we are deep into metaphors,
we may as well note here that the vampire has become a metaphor for those who
define and create themselves by destroying others. People whose lives center
on destroying other people's lives by disempowering them, who reduce their
victims to dependent subjects to be lorded over--"
(http://skepdic.com/vampires.html)
For the Dynasty to live, other forms of clan alliance must die. If the
Dynasty is fatallly flawed, or cannot be sustained once there is nothing but
newcomers and humans on which slake its thirst, then die it will, but until it does
it can be nothing but what it is--the most powerful and best organized system
in the City. It may not be perfect, but it is far better than any of the
alternatives. It cannot be what it is not any more than any individual vampire
can be human again, regardless of whatever vestiges of concience and moreality
remain.
Each vampire is linked inextricably to its bloodline--sires to childer and
back up the tree. Each bloodline is but a microcosm of a clan, a clan in its
own right, or a member of a larger clan. The Capadocian Dynasty does not
destroy clans, it unites them so that they may become greater and stronger without
having to squander endless resources on survival. Does the fact that it has a
single Prince or Emperor negate the clear and obvious benefits to clans who
choose to join the Dynasty?
And remember that it is a choice....of course, to choose not to join is to
choose to whither and die on the vine just as any plant from the daylight world
would lose needed vitality if it chose to be removed from the rays of the sun.
So far as I have seen not joining the Dynasty is this type of lingering
death...to attack the Dynasty brings upon a quicker resolution to the evolutionary
question--and Cap becomes a gardener with a skilled hand, tending to the
removal of a weed which threatens the rose.
"This cultural link between vampirism and the quest for immortality seems to
have been subordinated in literature and film, where other themes, such as
blood for blood's sake, fear for fear's sake, or entrance into the realm of the
occult, seem to dominate."
(ibid)
This selection from the Skeptic's Dictionary puts in plain language for me
why the Capadocian Dynasty has an appeal. I am of the older ilk, and to me
vampirism is a means of immortality. These other themes to me remain
suborninate--for what is bloodlust, the ability to inspire fear, the powers of the occult
without the platform of infinite survival on which to lay them for
consumption? For me, the expression of "join or die" is not a threat, but an offering of
a gift...the gift of survival, and only a fool would not choose the path with
the greatest gaurentee of continuing to exist.
The Capadocian Dynasty has never said "join or we will kill you" but rather,
attack us and we will destroy you. Join us we will protect you. Why,
understanding that, would anyone choose to remain in the barbaric wilds where smaller
clans and individual rogues may prey upon you at will?
An alliance of outside clans to defeat the Capadocian Dynasty is as absurd as
the Confederate States of America requiring themselves to form exactly the
same kind of centralized government they were at war against in order to protect
their rights to remain individual and un-united.
Madness.
What would you do if you succeeded in destroying the Dynasty? Would your
alliance of "free clans" dissolve or would you instead need to stay together in
order to protect yourselves from the fractured clans of the former dynasty who
would seek revenge and a return to power? In the end you would become exactly
what you fight against and everything would be the same, except the name of
the Emperor would not be Capadocious. It might be yours, it might be your
neighbor's, but it WOULD be someone.
At least, that is how it all appears to this citizen.
Hans Abbadon
a recent addition to the Capadocian Dynasty
"The Blood is the Life, but the Bloodline is the Power."