Line #9 Headscratchers/TalesOfTheQuestor


1	* Bauxite [[http://sales.riotintoaluminium.com/document_get.aspx?id=199 isn't]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_toxicity poisonous]]. In fact, aluminum is extremely common in the Earth's crust, (third biggest component after oxygen and silicon), and most lifeforms have a high tolerance to it. A stream cutting into a bed of the stuff could not poison the land.
2	** Check again; look up metal poisoning. It's actually become a minor concern with aluminium, as we use it so extensively-- especially in preparing and storing food.
3	*** I did look it up. That second link there goes to "metal toxicity", and [[http://www.emedicine.com/MED/topic113.htm this one]] goes to its reference. Dietary aluminum (even the refined metal) is not a threat to individuals with healthy kidneys and GI tracts, and the ores are generally too chemically stable to release dangerous ions. Which is the reason it's so hard to refine...and why plants that purify it are also hard to believe. Aluminum ''refinery waste'' ("red mud") is pretty nasty, but even there the aluminum content doesn't seem to be the problem.
4	*** Self-correction: aluminum totally can kill ''crops'', if the soil is very acidic (and it did mention that Silver Springs had fairly acid soil). Given the Seven Villages' and in particular Silver Springs' agrarian economy, a permanent crop failure probably would turn the place into a ghost town, and if it can poison plants it could credibly be refined by plants. It wouldn't have spread anywhere else though, since it's as much a matter of native soil chemistry as of actual toxic influx, and the ''people'' still wouldn't be directly injured.
5	**** Aluminum poisoning is [[http://www.arltma.com/Articles/AlumToxDoc.htm still a very real concern.]] Of course it takes a lot of exposure: The implication is that there is a bloody insane level of concentration of bauxite or aluminum oxide or perhaps even pure aluminum(!) buried under Silver Springs.
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7	* The timing of the fae princeling's deal with Fenwyck is off. The period in which the Wild Hunt couldn't happen there would be 100 years (the expiration period, apparently, of "Racconans live here") plus however long the princeling's vilification scheme took, plus however long the Racconans lived there in peace. Yet the old duke made a deal with the princeling 100 years before Quentyn's arrival to avoid the Wild Hunt. Wouldn't the Hunt have been obviously absent for decades by then?
8	** Raconans were driven out before the deal was stuck, due to them being unaffected by the red plague, and when the deal ended, the Unseliegh lord did not know that there was a Raconan in the area, and that rule was not a hard code rule. The lord of the duchy died nor long after he stuck the deal, passing it on to the current duke. He only held onto the deal for a short amount of time himself, leaving the hunt absent for the most the decades.
9	*** Lady Absinthe says specifically that Dolan made the deal in order to keep himself amused while the land's protection lapsed. That same protection should have meant that there would be no Hunt for the old duke to need to avoid.
10	*** Leaving aside that Dolan would probably enjoy being paid not to do something he wasn't allowed to do anyway, he wasn't ''required'' to wait the hundred years after the Racconans left -- he did it just to be sure. Immortal beings play the long game.
11	* What's the eighth logic gate rune? Since seven of the runes are the same as the standard sigils for the seven basic logic gates, I'm not going to list them, simply that the triangle with no circle at the top [[http://www.rhjunior.com/eng/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/npc00230.png here]] doesn't seem to have a parallel among the and, or, xor, nor, etc. gates. Is it some kind of "proceed as previous" gate? Because I don't see why they would need a new one, since it should be either a standard pre-existing connecting rune or completely unnecessary.
12	** My guess would be that it's a three-state gate, and RH just forgot the side input.
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14	* The Expansionist party's platform is basically politically screwed to hell and back. The problem is so is the Free Trader's. As of recently the bauxite plants growing aluminium, Antilla's metal shortage has been effectively solved. Sure its pretty much all just aluminium but that is a very versatile metal, and the fact there was bauxite poisoning at all is because the Raccoonans had access to Bauxite but couldn't figure out how to process the damn stuff. So with now access to plentiful new metal for interior trading and resource... what real push is there to trade with the outsider kingdoms at all? Think about it, the Racoonans literally have everything, they have virtually a monopoly on magic and the means to artificially generate more lux to use as they see fit, they have approximately ALL the advanced education regarding the energy source and its use (if there is any academy outside the mistwall with advanced knowledge on lux, it doubtlessly doesn't hold a candle) they have advanced science that is ages ahead of everyone else, they even have gunpowder based weaponry (which means some alchemist had a fluke before anyone else's alchemist had a fluke, and lets be honest, knowing all their other boons they almost certainly have better firearms than renaissance Europe did so its going to mean the armour of the soldiers of any other kingdom won't be able to stop a bullet like they were well capable of well into the shot and pike era of warfare in real life. They still have plenty of land, are in NO danger of starvation or famine, they control the weather in their region to maintain a constant Spring/Summer, they have much better medical care and technology and there only real economic incentive to trade has been snuffed by an extremely lucky biomancer, its not a perfect solution to the metal crisis but its enough to stifle any talk of interacting with the outside world for centuries because at the end of the day, what do the neighbouring kingdoms have that the Racoonans could possibly want? At this point gold and other metals would just be a nice luxury to have until some alchemist finds a way to transmute aluminium into other kinds of metal. I think Ralph wrote himself into a corner here.
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Context Headscratchers / TalesOfTheQuestor