Annotated 32-12
“I just love having all these human friends!” was Flo’s idea, and it encapsulates Clair at this point in her development. She’s a xenophile and an enthusiastic tourist, with enough youthful arrogance to think she already understands humans better than they do. But hey, at least she wants to make friends, and she and Hollister do come bearing gifts, so if E-Merl and Rachel have to encounter some condescension, this is probably the best kind they could get. “Humans are so freakin’ cute” is the sky elf version of “wood elves are flower-kissers and young sky elves love their ale!”
But it appears that last stereotype has some basis in reality, at least where Hollister’s concerned. We know little about sky elf table customs beyond the tendency to conjure their food and drink, but it’s possible that they’re teetotalers or at least ascetic enough that this is the first time Hollister’s had the opportunity to get drunk. I imagine most of them care a fair amount about what might impair their spellcasting.
E-Merl quietly levels up. The limits to the bangle that Hollister spells out were necessary because the ability to generate any portal, anywhere, under any circumstance would bump E-Merl into rivaling Frigg or Fr’Nj as the most powerful of our characters, which would’ve disrupted our plans to put him through the wringer. But we were feeling the need to get more fast-traveling done as the series approached its final third, and having the sky elves do all of it for the Peacemakers seemed to pull too much focus off our main characters.
Hmm, I guess I have to take back my comment about Hollister not being the type to get drunk!
The limit on the bangle also fits with the sort-of-a-game-world aspect of Arkherra. That’s a very game-balance element, especially if it comes with a cooldown.
We have very dangerous daily use tools that are often not handled with the responsibility and care we should, and thus, are illegal to use under the influence. Something as simple as a car.
Now imagine being able to conjure fireballs and arcane storms and portals to who-the-flying-heck-knows-where.
I’d conjure alcohol out of existence from the whole society myself for fear of risking someone summoning a world-ending elder god because he was drunk and wanted a Double Decker from Tak’o B-Ell at 4AM.
To be fair, if one of the spells was “sober me up”, I’d actually *try* alcohol in a context outside of communion wine. Which, relatively speaking, I’d much prefer plain grape juice to, but I suppose compulsory sacrament recipients can’t be choosers.
I’m of the opinion that your sobriety has little to do with the decisions you make, either before or after consuming alcoholic inebriants, save for how well-informed those decisions are and the degree of aptitude you can muster in executing them. They don’t seem to otherwise interfere with an individual’s motive structure, in my admittedly limited experience. Matters of law regarding inebriants are easily reduced to superstitious, pseudoscientific, or otherwise flawed understandings of the effect they have on a person, or a willingness to propagandize and thus spread such beliefs for dubious reasons – coupled with public outrage in some circumstances to maximize receptiveness to such messaging.
To be equally fair, though, there are plenty of other kinds of inebriants, some that actually possess the qualities that appear to be mistakenly attributed to alcohol, and I’d expect at least a few magical ones in the case where sufficiently sophisticated magic is available. So I’m willing to imagine the scenario you’ve presented, entirely decoupled from its original proposed cause, as that kind of world-ending stupidity hardly needs *some* individuals to be “under the influence” for it to occur.
The problem is alcohol does a couple of very different things. It “impairs judgement” by lowering inhibitions, which is why someone would take that 4AM trip to Tak’o B-Ell. But then it also physically impairs people. Extended reaction time is the main issue for driving drunk, and is very real. The typical loss of balance might just be an extension of the reaction time issue, as the various microcorrections we make to continue standing begin to lag.
Anyway, I wish I was a teetotaller. People should probably *try* alcohol to better understand it, and a lot of people seem content to drink in moderation, but I have a problem. I’m just glad it doesn’t make me act evil or anything, mostly just cringe.
humans are so adorable, we even say “ow” when we *see something else* /that is not a living thing/ “get hurt.”
I’d say you’re essentially right: Drugs don’t change someone’s motivations, just their mental and emotional state. No amount of alcohol will make you to go out and cause trouble if the sober version of you didn’t already have a desire to do just that (but didn’t dare to). So the risk is really people acting out what they’ve always wanted to, while being under the influence.
Alcohol makes people clumsy, easily irritated and more likely to overestimate their abilities, and that is already pretty close to the worst of the bunch. The worst behaviour in people I’ve seen is with cocain plus alcohol (plus loud parties) — but people who become unbearable in that state are also not my friends when they’re sober. Most other drugs don’t make people more destructive or aggressive. They might see funny stuff, or fall asleep, try to hug everyone, or some other weird things. Those things may also not be incredibly convenient for their environment, and may be dangerous to themselves, but it does not invert anyone’s moral compass or such. Any problematic consequences can be further reduced if the people who take a substance and those in their environment know what to expect and prepare accordingly.
That goes for alcohol as much as nicotine or any other drug. Assuming the GA world follows the principle that “bigger” spells require more concentration and ability, it’d be hard to imagine anyone accidentally summoning a world-ending elder god unless they wanted to, could already easily do it when sober but couldn’t find the courage without a drink or five. Or if they were so amazingly OP that summoning that elder god is something they could do by accident. But any universe that contains such people would either also contain people who could banish that god again, or it wouldn’t live long because someone would (either accidentally or on purpose) summon an elder god sooner or later anyway. If the existence of your plane depends on nobody ever dialing the wrong number, alcohol should be the least of your worries.
The only exception to this are of course secondary crimes committed to obtain drugs, which are a direct result of them being illegal to obtain. Which in turn means that removing those substances from the world in order to prevent magic users from using and doing dangerous stuff by accident, might trigger those same people to do things, intentionally, that might cause a lot more harm.