faderiftooc | FADE RIFT: CIVIL WAR

On the last day of Wintermarch, a rift opened in Skyhold. Cassandra was in the Emprise at the time, but once she returns to Skyhold at the end of February/Guardian she will be investigating - questioning Sina when she's strong enough to be questioned, as well as the Rifters involved in closing the Rift. You can read about some of the planned reactions to the rift here, but the next part of this plot will be kicked off by Cassandra's interrogation of Galadriel.

This conversation (forward dated to the beginning of Drakonis/March) does not go well. While Cassandra's other investigations determined that Sina opened the rift by mistake, Galadriel both strongly implies that she - and perhaps other rifters - may have the ability to open rifts purposefully, and refuses to promise not to personally do so.

As a result, Cassandra does the only thing she feels she can do to keep Skyhold safe: she takes Galadriel's belongings (including her staff) and orders her imprisoned in the dungeons.

After imprisoning Galadriel, Cassandra will be going to the other advisors to report to them. She will also be insisting upon a closer investigation of the rifters. Thus far, there has been no formal preliminary interview of rifters as they come through the rift, or any attempt to keep track of who they are, where they come from, or where their loyalties might lie. Galadriel refusing to swear any loyalty to the Inquisition, even something as reasonable as 'I promise I won't open a rift intentionally', and the possibility that she has magical abilities beyond anything anyone's seen in Thedas, has shaken Cassandra badly, and she takes her responsibility of keeping the Inquisition secure very seriously.

THUS:

Cassandra will be implementing the following (to the best of her ability):

- She will be conducting a thorough investigation of all rifters, to determine what magical or other abilities they have. She will attempt to secure an oath of loyalty to the Inquisition from each of them.
- Templar guards will be assigned to all rifter mages until further notice.
- She will call for a halt of all magic performed by rifter mages until either a) they swear an oath of loyalty to the inquisition or b) she determines that they cannot or will not open additional rifts.
- She will also call for some kind of supervision by Inquisition soldiers for rifters leaving Skyhold, to ensure that they a) don't do anything they shouldn't be doing and b) actually return to Skyhold.
- She will be attempting to institute some kind of formalized interview/vetting process to new rifters as they appear in Thedas, and keeping a roster of all rifters.

Cassandra's main opposition in her efforts will be Leliana. Leliana believes strongly in Rights and Freedom for all, and will strongly oppose any restriction on rifter freedom or rights. Her concern lies with protecting groups that have been historically been discriminated against - notably elves and mages. She is vehement in her convictions that shardbearers or rifters should not suffer the same injustices, and will be strongly opposed to any institutional discrimination against rifters. Leliana has already publicly expressed her opinions (well, sort of) via sending crystal and in conversation with Inquisition members. Her views are likely known through the Chantry, should your character have any contacts there, so she has a history For The Cause, so to speak.

Galadriel, unlike the advisors, considers the rifters, as a whole, to be apart from the Inquisition. They are neither involved in, nor party to any of the political or social problems in Thedas. They cannot be held accountable for what local mages do, nor should they, and she refuses to swear any oaths to a human military organization. ~~She is 15,000 years old; she doesn't have to put up with this shit.~~

Following her incarceration, Galadriel will:

- Refuse to acknowledge the authority of the Inquisition, particularly in matters of those from other worlds, and vocally encourage other rifters to do the same.
- Begin studying the mark very seriously in an effort to understand its magic and learn if intentionally conjuring a rift is possible/what the rifts actually are and how they behave.
- Begin testing the limits and effects of the mark and recruiting as many other rifters (and native mages who offer to assist) as she can to aid her.
- Magically assist any rifters in evading their assigned guards at any time.
- Seek artifacts of power in Thedas to help secure her own and other rifters' safety and freedom.

Since Cassandra views Galadriel (and therefore, perhaps other rifters) as potential threats to the Inquisition and its people themselves, this has become an Inquisition matter and therefore supersedes the authority of either the Mage Council or the Templar Order. They are free to make suggestions on how things should be handled, offer recommendations, or vehemently protest, but any votes that the Mages or Templars take or decisions they make as a group will not be recognized as binding to the Inquisition. Galadriel's insistence that the Mage Council does not speak for her, and the fact that there are no representatives of rifters on the Council, will also weaken the Council's influence here.

This is not to say that your characters must or even should quietly fall in line! There are a few sides to take here, and there is no clear-cut "right" or "wrong" - Cassandra, Leliana and Galadriel all have legitimate justifications for their actions and positions. Your character can:

- Stand behind Cassandra, placing the safety of the Inquisition and the people of Thedas first. The rifters have sworn no oath of loyalty to the Inquisition. We don't know what they might be able to do, and at least one of them is being very open about the fact that she has no intention of swearing loyalty to anyone, and fully intends to continue researching rifts in an attempt to open more. Cullen will be backing Cassandra; he understands the importance of freedom to mages (and has seen firsthand what can happen when the restrictions placed on them are too great), but he also cautions that anyone with such power needs to have some sort of check.

- Stand behind Leliana, placing the freedom and rights of individuals first. The rifters appeared here against their will, and (Galadriel aside) are completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Many of them have already proven their loyalty to the Inquisition through their actions in closing rifts and fighting Corypheus' forces. It would be wrong to restrict their freedoms or actions in any way. Josephine will be backing Leliana; while she doesn't feel as strongly about this as Leliana does, she doesn't think this treatment of rifters is in line with the Inquisition's goals.

- Stand behind Galadriel, who believes that rifters are not obligated to help the Inquisition and that local laws and regulations regarding magic, including the Mage Council's decisions, do not apply to them. They are free to help if they choose, but they shouldn't be forced to assist anyone, especially not people who regard them with such immediate distrust. In addition, no one knows much about the rifts. They could be a doorway back home or a symptom of another problem. We may even be completely misunderstanding what they are and how they work. Galadriel will study them whether she is 'allowed' to or not and will not be recognizing the authority of the Inquisition, the Mage Council, or anyone else. She will advocate exclusively for rifters (mages and non-mages alike) and will prioritize their interests above all others.

This will affect, to some extent, the entire Inquisition, especially the rifters. However, we don't want to restrict anyone's characters against the players' will! If you're interested in Cassandra being highly suspicious of your character and keeping them under watch/limiting their movements and activities, fantastic - I am totally willing to play that out. If not, there are a few ways to get around this and continue with whatever activities your characters have planned:

- option 1: complete opt-out: Per the mods, some Rifters have already signed on officially with the Inquisition and are listed in its official rolls though til now this has almost entirely been handwaved and there is no OOC list. If your rifter character is already committed to the Inquisition, comment to say so! OR, Leliana has already quietly investigated your character and determined that they are not a threat (either because they cannot or would not do anything that would cause harm to the Inquisition). While it's not required, Bella has set up a form that it might be helpful to fill out regarding what Leliana knows about your character. (Cassandra will still want an oath of loyalty from these characters if she can get them - this can be agreed to OOC - but if this is really a problem and Leliana vouches strongly enough for your character, she can be persuaded to back down.)

- option 2: limited consequences: Cassandra can investigate your character herself and determine that they do not pose a threat and can be trusted with some degree of freedom (she will probably require an oath of loyalty). This will be a lot harder than getting Leliana to vouch for them - Cassandra's much more suspicious of rifters than Leliana, and much less concerned about personal freedoms! But it is possible. Please let me know if you're uncomfortable with any restrictions and what you want your character to still be able to do (perform magic, leave Skyhold, etc.) and we will work it out. This may require a little bit of work, especially if your character is a powerful rifter mage or if Cassandra has other reasons to be suspicious of them.

- option 3: beat the system: have your rifter character take advantage of Galadriel's willingness to assist them in evading their guards and continue to do magic/leave Skyhold as usual (this can be done without your character necessarily endorsing Galadriel's take on the matter).

Ideally, however, we would love to generate a lot of in-character conflict with this plot. All sides of the argument are extremely polarizing and nobody is right or wrong, so taking a stance can be an interesting way to generate new CR! How it will end and the long-term consequences will depend on how it plays out, but it has the potential to get into a lot of unanswered questions concerning civil rights in Thedas. The more actual consequences this has, and the more people get invested in the different sides, the more nuanced and interesting it will end up being! Please join in, the more the merrier!

IMPORTANT NOTE: As mentioned above, Cassandra will be concerned about the possibility of rifters running off or not returning to Skyhold after missions in other parts of Thedas, hence her attempting to press templar/other guards onto any rifters leaving Skyhold. While there has always been a measure of supervision and more recently a push to join, the Inquisition has never officially or unofficially imprisoned Rifters or prevented them from leaving Skyhold if they wished until this point. However, there is an IC mechanism involving the anchor shards designed (by the mods) to make it so that shardholders can't just run off into Thedas never to be seen again. Since no rifter has yet attempted to run away, this "anchor leash" has not yet been discovered, either by rifters or by Inquisition leadership.

If your character decides that all this is BS and does try running away, please contact the mods for more information rather than making up for yourself how the leash works or when it is triggered. It's important that the mods construct it in a certain way in order to allow shardholders to be involved in mission-related travel.

Questions/suggestions/planning (including how this all fits in with concurrent plots, such as the current templar ongoings) are welcome below!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Checks and balances while also taking into account that nobody shard-bearing has so far actively worked against the Inquisition.

Malcolm, as a paranoid Seeker, doesn't like the idea of rifters, though due to the Herald he doesn't mind shards. He thinks, like mages and templars, keeping an eye on things, having people to especially eyeball shard-bearing mages, is totally in line with shit that they (and the mage council and the templar order) already do on a smaller scale. He thinks there's a potential for things going awry. And no, Galadriel, suggesting you'll do whatever you want including opening rifts all willy and nilly does not help. Suggesting everyone must have freedom at all times is a nice ideal, Leliana, but it's too idealistic when it involves people and powers beyond current understanding.

That said, a good number of rifters have either sworn loyalty or have done enough for the Inquisition to be in good graces. Others are quiet and don't actively wreck their shit. And the rest of the shard-bearers (of which Sina is) are their own kin and countrymen. They're all also the only known way of closing rifts. And rifters in particular have no ties to these lands, social statuses, politics, and events unfolding, nor should they be forced to care about something they don't understand or otherwise know nothing about.

There has got to be a compromise here, some kind of grey middle ground.

I'd love to see Malcolm try to mitigate this whole disaster by searching for a compromise/middle ground, honestly I would, it seems like an approach that would be super interesting in the long run. A moderate stance will be really fascinating, but a hard position to hold and defend in the long run. There are a lot of general fundamental misunderstandings that sit at the core of this conflict and resolving them will be an ordeal.

Galadriel, for instance, comes from a place that doesn't have any military force with a structure like the Inquisition. She's never encountered a police force or policing like the templars and her military, especially, is run in a completely foreign fashion to that of Thedas. She's extremely wary of being asked to swear oaths (not historically a good idea in Arda) and she basically views everyone around her as kindergardeners trying to put her in time out.

She'd be a hard sell on compromise, particularly considering that she's prideful and Cassandra and she got off on a terrible foot, but it could be done.

I'm not sure what middle ground exists or where they could find said compromise, (I expect that will be the end result of this plot after a long stretch of conflict,) so if Malcolm wants to really devote himself to finding that he is more than welcome to do so!

If you want to figure out what we can thread or what points would help this along, I'm always available for discussing it on plurk or via PM (even here is totally okay), but I know a lot of this is going to be unpredictable at first because of IC reactions and conversations.

I just realized I missed the opportunity to call it a gandalf the grey middle ground.

But yes I fully intend for this to...crash and burn, but gdi someone is going to try and fight for something slightly more diplomatic and moderate than...any of the available options. It's going to be an uphill battle. On ice. In a sharknado. It's pride vs pride vs pride vs (etc) in a royal rumble smackdown.

And I'm sure getting the 'leaders' together to talk things out is only going to result in flipped tables. A lot of them. That shit looks expensive and old, guys. Could we not.

But it's definitely something it's seeming like he's going to pursue, unless Cassandra sways him to her side. (Nobody else is likely TO sway him, not as much as Cassandra.) Given the rifts (ha) between the sides, if the advisors would like to elect some sort of emergency council of its own? To hear the sides and try and hash things out and even make executive decisions on the matter? Given all the advisors right now are split down the middle and not going to compromise, at least rn and on the surface. Aaand someone suggested the idea on my plurk that someone like a Seeker could be placed as some kind of head of a coordinated effort to research the shards, the rift, and rift magic.

(Not positions he would actively seek out, and if he might suggest them, he would do so without submitting his name into consideration. But I'm just laying down ideas, mostly as they come to me or as I see them, should he bring them up, or should anyone else want to take them and run with them.)

Well the problem with electing a council is that this is already a debate about bounds of the Inquisition's authority. Before some IC development matures this situation into something solid, there's no reason to expect that an IC council attempting to arbitrate this disagreement would be given any more clout than the Inquisition already holds.

Basically Galadriel won't trust anyone locally to decide this for her because, in her mind, they're all children. Until she has some reason to listen to them and overcome this bias, there's no particular configuration of authority figures that will sway her into giving in and permitting arbitration.

I think it's not a bad idea, honestly, but perhaps a bit premature. We're not to the stage where that would be an option, just yet, and I'm not sure how this will progress once it begins so I can't guarantee any one approach would really work to get us there, if that makes sense?

Hello Malcolm, the Grey Wardens would like to calmly ask that we find a way through this through compromise and diplomacy so we can find a way to get things back on track. This is Bethany. She's very charming, intelligent, and she talks a good moderate game. She'll be helping you.

Just to chime in to emphasize with what Bubbles said - there likely is a compromise or a 'moderate' stance and the point of this plot is for everyone to work through their particular fears, biases, kneejerk responses, and miscommunications to find it. I don't know what that compromise is but we'll have to find one, eventually, for the Inquisition to continue on and for Cassandra and Leliana to work together again.

I think playing through this plot and seeing where it goes and where character's loyalties end up will both be more fun and more satisfying than everyone trying to figure out what their character's reaction will be ahead of time and post their entire argument here. I know we've already discussed Malcolm and Cassandra hashing things out IC and I'm really looking forward to that - I'd really encourage everyone reading this to hold off judgement, especially if you're unsure how your character will react, until some of the IC logs go up. Keep in mind that your character's mind may change along the way, and that they may not even ever get the whole picture.

/imagines things not working out
/imagines cass and leli eternally putting pointy objects to each others' throats
/sealclaps

no yeah I hear that, it's just sometimes good to lay down some general groundwork to start from and dangle some possible threads of where things could go. It'd be great to see if someone could actually sway Malcolm to their side, though he is himself a stubborn jackass like everyone else here. I'm soooo excited to see the actual events unfold and can this plot start now right now plz

FADE RIFT: CIVIL WAR

Team Moderate

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Team Moderate

Re: Team Moderate

Re: Team Moderate