A forest that was not there yesterday

[unprophesied_of_ages]

The Lord Ruler is in his palace, when he sees a sight he hasn't seen in centuries. Trees, sunlight...is he hallucinating? The fact that there's a forest in his living room isn't the surprising part. The fact that there's a forest on his planet is. As soon as he walks through the door to where his living room isn't, it's definitely not a hallucination.

His stores of Allomantic metals abruptly disappear. They're still physically there, but the power is completely gone. He immediately turns to go back, only to see more forest.

At least his Feruchemy still works—he can tell because he's still alive—but that won't last him forever. He only has so much stored youth, and without both sets of abilities he can't replenish it. He hasn't been in so much danger since the beheading that one time. Returning to Scadrial is the highest and currently only priority. If spontaneous forests are a thing, he needs to find someone who can explain them and more importantly how to get back.

The next few hours are spent walking in an essentially randomly chosen direction, with the sun to his right. He's quite certain that suns are supposed to be moving across the sky, but that's not a pressing emergency. He already knew he wasn't on his own planet when he saw proper trees and plants instead of ash-covered monstrosities. Whenever he calls out, nobody responds. If it's an empty spontaneous forest, he's probably doomed.

After some time, he hears his stomach growl. He hasn't seen much that looks edible, but possibly that's just because he's not used to real plants. Berries. Berries used to exist. Those berries look tasty, and if they're poisonous it's not like he needs to worry about it. As always, he has a truly ridiculous amount of stored health in his gold jewelry. Tapping gold just in case, he eats a handful.

Comments

[imeanforever]

"I don't think you're going to get very far with this argument. I understand the concept of deterrence. That is not the gap we have here."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Oh, I don't expect to convince you of that. Just that there exist non-evil reasons for me believing it.

If it's opening them up to arbitrary torture that's the problem—and I agree that's a problem—how strongly would you object to actually killing people like Yellow? Especially if, since I don't know whether or not this is the case, every few executions may make a human as immortal as a fairy."

[imeanforever]

"I expect that I can figure out immortality without having to kill any fairies via sorcery alone. Yellow is not a good person, but he does other things with his time than unremitting evil and could be prevented from the evil via methods short of execution - or even turning him into a frog. You're not a particularly good person either, as far as I can tell, aren't you glad I don't want to kill you for it?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Of course I am.
In the time until you figure out immortality, how many would die? I can find people worth three of Yellow. I could probably even do it by choosing at random. If the same were true of me and killing three like me would let you save one of them, then I would be able to understand why you might want to kill me for it.

Please do keep in mind, I'm already kind of immortal. I'm not just motivated by selfishness here."

[imeanforever]

"I am considering this tradeoff. It should not form the basis of a primary solution. It should not be the first idea. Not least because mishandling Yellow, in particular, in any way would be a disaster for both of us."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"That is a fair point. We could of course be far away if necessary.

It was my first idea, or close to it, because it's a much more available option for me than for you just based on our worlds' histories, and I don't have quite as strong of an assumption as you do that it's impossible.

If I were to abolish the death penalty here, I could mitigate the negative consequences. More and more visible law enforcement, I suppose, like with the replacement for the Soothing."

[imeanforever]

"It's possible part of the - misunderstanding we are having - is that I am not familiar with large centralized populations in which nobody can simply order anyone else to stop whatever obnoxious thing they are doing. What kinds of crimes are we talking about here, besides trying to assassinate you?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Trying to kill people who aren't me is the big one. Treason. Rape. Even theft, sometimes. Most crime comes with lower penalties, of course."

[imeanforever]

"What constitutes treason?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Trying to overthrow the government. It hasn't come up in a long time, mostly because of the perception of omnipotence. I was expecting it to be theft I'd have to explain."

[imeanforever]

"Do explain why you kill people for it, but you didn't have to tell me what it is."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Yes, that's what I meant.
Probably much of the difference is because here, people can buy and sell food safely. A big effect of that is that people are much more dependent on property than they seem to be in Fairyland. If highwaymen make a road too dangerous to use, there's someone depending on each shipment that doesn't make it through. Maybe it's food, or maybe it's something that a merchant is depending on. This matters more as cities get bigger and order gets more important.
Stealing the tools of a man's trade used to be a capital crime in many places for similar reasons, on the theory that it's making it impossible for him to earn a living.

Not every theft is considered the same of course. A starving thief who takes a loaf of bread is obviously treated more leniently than someone who breaks into a home using magic."

[imeanforever]

"...Why does it matter if they use magic?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Part of it is because in a case that could otherwise go either way, executing someone with magic allows it to be given to someone else later. The rest of it is because if a Mistborn decides to commit a crime, the victim has about as much chance of stopping them as if they had an army at their back. Is that not true of sorcery?"

[imeanforever]

"It can be, but anybody can learn sorcery. Albeit at the cost of being a more appealing vassal."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"You can't fake not having it?" It wouldn't work for most Allomancers, but only because there's specific and relatively common magic for detecting it.
"Anyway, if Fairyland had a decent legal system that differentiated between levels of crime, it'd make sense to say crimes are worse when they involve sorcery. For some of the same reasons it would be worse if it involved a deadly weapon. If there were any in Fairyland. I need better analogies."

[imeanforever]

"We could try. There are ways to guess, though, and of course if you do any magic where someone notices... Anyway. Why do people commit these crimes? I have no experience with motives for murder, although I guess I could analogize it to turning someone into a frog, which is a pretty long-term neutralization. Why do you have starving people who have to steal bread? What motivates burglars, what are they taking? There is - no need to explain motives for rape."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"We rarely have people starving. That was an ad hoc example of the least heinous theft I could think of.
Burglars don't usually have specific things they're taking; they're more commonly after anything that looks valuable enough to re-sell. If they've been hired by someone else it's probably about harming the target without actually harming them. The other reason it's considered worse is that there's an assumption that people ought to be safe in their own homes. Breaking into most other places would be less bad.
Murders might be about politics, revenge, an inheritance, a dispute over romance, or maybe they just strongly don't like the person. Motives are pretty varied for that one."

[imeanforever]

"We could solve this problem very neatly with me putting fey juice of some kind in the water supply and then having me tell people in large batches not to commit crimes. I am principally against vassalization for the potential for abuse and I expect myself not to abuse it. This might better wait for long-term handling of both fairies who know my name."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"That is a fantastic idea. Would it go faster if I nationalize all wheat fields and then officially sign the land over to you? That might actually be something I can't get away with, but it'd be simpler than dosing every water supply and be certain to get everyone."

[imeanforever]

"I admittedly am clearly underinformed about the mortal world, because I'm certain every book I've ever read says sorcery shouldn't work in it, but I don't think that would work unless the plant was also a fey species or I'm hand-feeding those involved. I would also want to think very carefully about the wording of the orders first, since amending them for all the recipients would probably be excruciating."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Can you do mass sorcery to make the plants more productive? That'd have to give you a claim on it. And I can make some suggestions. These crops were designed for this world, but not perfectly, so it would also be a favor to everyone.

Careful orders goes without saying, but I doubt you'll be hasty on that point."

[imeanforever]

"Sorcery takes time," (she elects not to clarify that this is time to become familiar with the surroundings and target rather than time to cast the spell) "but yes, I can improve plants and it should at least help. I'm not sure if this legal signing thing will contribute, though. The concept is fairly irrelevant in Fairyland - one owns a place by keeping other fairies out of it or using it a lot while not subordinate to someone else in so doing or by idiosyncratic forms of magical claim."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"About how much time? If it's long, the water could still be better. It'd just have to be redosed every however often whereas wheat is self-perpetuating.
If there's no reason it should follow mortal property law, I think I'll forgo finding something big enough to bribe every landowner in the empire. It might matter when we move to Fairyland, though, so I'd like to test it on a smaller scale."

[imeanforever]

"It depends on a lot of factors. Minutes to hours, generally; for particularly dramatic results I may need weeks of prep time, although I can multitask."