A chapter that doesn't fit yet- a lesson in history

...."Does anyone know why Etheris fell so easily?" Lorris was asking. One of the other students, a blonde fellow that at least tried to pay some attention to our instructor, raised his hand. "You just said it was because Culpent had the steam engine," he said.
It annoyed me that none of my classmates seemed to say anything original, just repeating the teachers' words back to them. He wanted us to think for ourselves- we were here to learn.
I frowned at his words, things weren't ever that simple. There was always some underlying thing that caused a fall- like a building. If you put damage to important places within the structure, a good shove of some sort will knock it over. At first appearance, it's simply the fault of whatever shoved, but when you look deeper, you can see that it's really those underlying cracks.
Lorris shook his head. "Part of it," he said. "Anyone know the major reasons?" his eyes raked over the class critically, but no one spoke. His eyes landed on me, and stopped moving. "How about you," he asked me.
"I'd venture a guess, anyway," I started. "Didn't Culpent conquer most of the surrounding territories, first?"
Lorris nodded. "That's correct, Culpent managed to conquer most of its neighbors before it attacked Etheris. But what does that have to do with it?"
The class felt antsy, they were ready to go, restless, like stirring, mindless drones. Lorris ignored the people who weren't paying attention, addressing those of us who were listening to him.
I liked that about Lorris, he answered us with more questions, challenging us to think about the way things were. Anybody can be a teacher, it doesn't take much to recite out of a book. But a good teacher is the one that makes you think, instead of just recite things until you have them memorized. A good teacher makes you want to go out and learn on your own, Find out the why that there is behind everything.
"Etheris probably thought that Culpent wasn't their problem," I said. "They didn't seem to be a threat at first, and by the time Etheris realized that they were, it was too late- Culpent was too strong to stop, and Etheris fell."
Lorris nodded at me. "That's correct, as well," he said. "But those aren't the only reasons. I want everyone to remember what our young friend has said, and on Ondii there will be an in-class essay over the matter. I want all the possible reasons that Etheris fell as easily as it did laid out." He gestured at the door of the classroom, an oak door that didn't fit the gray walls surrounding it. "Dismissed," he said.
I could immediately think of several other reasons that Etheris may have fallen, but I wanted to talk to Lorris about them.
The rest of the class filed out mindlessly, whispering amongst themselves like candles in the wind. I could feel them, a white noise of bees, moving past me.
"Heard... party on Fendii," a big guy that I recognized from my Laws class said.
"Brothers... always through a good party," the blonde fellow who had spoken up earlier said.
"Think... nameless'll come?" I felt the big guy twitch his head at me, but I wasn't facing him, so the sensation brushed over my shoulder and into the emptying classroom.
"Careful... can probably hear us," the other replied.
I pretended not to pay attention, and made my way towards the small, cluttered desk set up at the front of the class. I didn't fit in- as easily as I knew that, so did everyone else, and the talking didn't bug me.
Lorris had expected me to come to the front- He knew that I would just like I knew that he was pleased that I had come to his desk. He looked up from his notebook, closing it and casually pushing it aside, onto a pile of notes and tests from another class.
He had sharp, piercing eyes, the kind of eyes a hawk will stare into your face with, not that I had ever seen a hawk up that close. They were a plain brown, but had such intensity it was very clear that their owner was aware of your existence.
"You listen, unlike most of them," he said. He shook his head ruefully, autumn leaves falling off a tree. "Not many of us learn from the mistakes of the past."
I shrugged. "I don't seem to have a past," I said. "I have to find out why I'm here, what I'm supposed to do. The least I can do is be prepared for whatever it is."
"You'll be prepared if you listen enough," he said. He looked at me, his eyes trying to pin me against the air at my back. "But you had a reason to stay- a question. Not idle chitchat with an old professor."
I nodded. "Yeah. I wanted to learn more about Etheris and Culpent," I said.
His eyes let up their intangible pressure, going somewhere else, looking at things I hadn't seen. He was waiting for me to speak, To ask a question.
"Etheris..." I started, and then came to a stop, organizing the thoughts dancing in my head. "They fell because they didn't act soon enough,but what are some good reasons?"
He shrugged. "Well, what do you have to have to go to war?" He asked me.
I considered a moment. Why would anyone go to war? "A reason, a situation that warrants it," I answered, frowning. "And troops, weapons to supply the troops."
Lorris nodded sagely at me. "Yes, that's right. Many wars have been fought for little or no reason, so that is not necessarily a factor. What do you need for supplies?"
"You have to have money of some sort, resources." I answered.
He nodded again. "No matter what a ruler may claim as his or her reasons for going to war, you can lay a bet, that in many cases, it comes down to resources in some way or other." He frowned to himself, and then added, "many wars may have seemingly been fought for no good reason- There have been cases where one ruler insulted another's family- but even then, there are resources to be gained."
It was my turn to shake my head. "Why don't nations just trade with one another, instead of going to war?"
"Impatience," he answered. "Maybe they want the resources now, or maybe a nation thinks that another one is not giving it a good enough deal on something." He sighed, and it felt hollow. He had asked himself this many times before, as well. "Perhaps trading would be better for the economy of a place in the long term, but people rarely think in the long term. The majority of us only have short term goals, and by the time whatever they've done becomes a problem, it's not their problem anymore."
"I just don't get it," I said. "I don't understand how people can think that way, how they can ignore the mess they're causing on down the road."
Lorris shrugged. "It's the way people are." I knew that he had said that exact line, over and over, to lots of other people.
His eyes got sharp again, and he went back to the subject of Etheris and Culpent. "Etheris had the money to spend, but they didn't want to spend it. That, combined with a reluctance to get into a conflict that they thought didn't concern them..."
"People were dying, and they thought it didn't concern them?" When I thought about it, it felt like this was the way people were. I didn't like it, but it was true.
"If Etheris had declared hostilities on Culpent, their people would have died, perhaps even more people would have died."
"Maybe so," I said, "But maybe by acting sooner, they could have stopped unnecessary deaths. Culpent was in the wrong."
He watched me talk, almost watching my thoughts move from one shape to another. "That's more or less true, but it didn't mean that Culpent was evil, or even wrong. It just means that they did something that we now disagree with." he spread his hands, as if making an offering. "Empires have to grow."
I shook my head. "But not at the expense of those who do nothing," I said. "That's wrong."
"That's our- your- point of view. There isn't really ever true evil in the world- at least not often," he said. "We label things we disagree with as evil, to convince ourselves it's okay to kill someone or conquer some land. If we didn't, would we see a cause in fighting?"
What Lorris was saying was beginning to take a definite form- it was beginning to make a lot of sense to me. If you're able to see the other nation's point of view, if you're able to examine it, and say, "oh, I see why they're doing such-and-such," then it makes it harder to justify any action against them. But he still hadn't explained Etheris.
"So, are you saying that Etheris was right in not doing anything? Was right in letting others die, to save its own people?"
Lorris shook his head vehemently. "Far from it, history definitely says otherwise. If Etheris had acted sooner, it is likely, as you said, that less people would have died. In the end a large number of Etherans died anyway- and if they had done something, they'd still be here. From the Etheran point of view, not doing anything was a bad idea." He shrugged and continued. "It's a hard call, trying to decide when the costs of a war are outweighed by what you gain. Is any system worth dying for? Some people think so- they're willing to die so that Norden will keep its way of life today."
I didn't really see a way in which losing a human life was worth it. "But the average person doesn't want to die for a system," I said.
"That's true. systems change in a war, but your average person isn't affected all that much, over all. they have a different ruler and maybe some new taxes and some old ones taken away, and maybe for a year or two things will be worse. but in the long run, not much changes for ost of us."
I agreed with that- From talking to Saryn and Finder, and seeing the soldiers in Narla, it seemed clear that not much was different for the average person anywhere. People all had their own complaints and ways of doing things, but life wasn't that much different in Norden as it was Culpent today.
"Perhaps a war is worth it if, in the end, you save more people than are lost," Lorris was saying. "Sometimes a way of life is worth fighting for, and sometimes saving enough lives to outweigh the deathtoll is enough." he looked up at me, as if to see if I were still paying attention. "Would you kill one man to save the lives of twenty?" he asked me.
I frowned. "I don't know," I said. I knew Finder probably would- it would be cost effective. Costs and benefits- gains and losses. I supposed that most of life could probably come down to this exact issue.
Lorris nodded as if I had answered the way he had expected me to. "Most of us don't," he said. "If it were a dictator, a dark mage, anything we could label as evil, you might not have a problem. Most of the time it isn't that easy, though."
I looked at Lorris, proffering his own question back to him. "What do you think? would you kill one to save twenty?"
He shrugged- the question was an easy one for him to answer, and he let me know it. "Sure," he said.
I pondered for a moment, and then rephrased it. "What if it was a family member? A loved one?" I asked.
He nodded, grinning. "You've hit on the major problem with that line of thinking. People are selfish, and often don't do things for the greater good."
Everything came together, but there were still small pieces of the puzzle scattered about somewhere for me to find. "So, Etheris wouldn't go to war because they wouldn't have been saving their own people," I said.
"Yeah. In the end it was the wrong decision because they fell anyway."
I frowned. Forgetting the greater good out of selfishness could come back and burn you, but was it always going to be that way?Would forgetting the greater good always cause a problem down the road?
"Now, I'm not saying it was ultimately bad," Lorris was continuing, "because the quality of life in Culpent is probably much better than it would be in Etheris today."
That made some sense as well, but it still didn't answer my question, it just confused it. How far down the road should you look for the greater good? I didn't think I could sacrifice Saryn, Finder, or Lira to save even a hundred people I didn't know. But if it came down to it, it seemed horrible to let more people die.
Lorris had those eyes on me again. "Heard you showed up Jervis the other day," he said.
I shrugged. I didn't think I had showed him up, but I saw how someone would think that. "Not exactly," I said.
He grinned at me widely. "Everyone says that's the way of it," he said. "Good, that's one wizard that's way too set in his ways not to be shown otherwise by a brash young upstart once in a while." He grinned for a moment more, and then the expression seemed to fade into something more serious. "I have something for you," he said. "Had it a long time." He opened a drawer of his desk, and I felt something below my consciousness whisper along the drawer's edge. He reached in to the drawer, removing a book that looked as if it had been printed yesterday. It appeared to be brown leather, and it felt much older than it looked. he held it out to me, my hand reaching for it of it's own volition. If the book had been alive it would have been regarding me, and I could feel the settled stirrings in my head begin to whisper in my thoughts.
"There aren't many of these left," he said. "Not that there were that many to begin with. I've had this copy for a long time, didn't know if I'd ever find anyone who'd be able to understand it."
My hand took the book from him, and I expected a jolt, or a feeling of unease, or any sort of strange feeling to pass from the book to me. Nothing strange happened, it was smooth, felt as if it had been handled many times before. There was no title on the spine or cover, and despite the fact that my mind was convinced it was ancient, it looked brand new.
I immediatley noticed that it didn't have any seams or stitches, the entire book, pages and all, seemed whole. it didn't feel as if it contained any sort of power like the construct in the cave had, but it didn't feel normal, either.
I opened it to the first page which said in an incredibly legible, but plain print, An Introduction to the Field." There was no publication date or author, and the pages were a material slightly dissimilar from paper.
I looked up at Lorris, my mind paying attention to the book in my hands as if it'd bite me while I examined Lorris with my eyes.
"It's as least as old of the fall, and if it's that old, it was most likely written when people then were sitting down and figuring out how things worked. It is the only complete text, hell, the only written text, on how the field works." He grinned at me. "People were terrified of things like this, and with good reason. It's possibly as dangerous as the star focus in the wrong hands. Something tells me- something makes me think that you'll need it before you're done.
Jervis read it, and didn't understand half of what is written in it. He turned it over to me, said it was useless." Lorris snorted. "Have enough field-sense to know otherwise." He met my eyes, his sharp brown eyes seizing at mine. "I read it, too. Some of it is written on theories, and principles, that we don't even teach anymore. I couldn't even understand some of it- but a lot is simple enough. After reading it, I can appreciate why people would have wanted to supress and even destroy things like this."
"Thanks..." I just hoped I could fullfill the duties that the people here seemed to think I could. I didn't understand how they could accept the fact that I had just dropped onto a hilltop somewhere, and say to themselves, He'll do something great. And I didn't understand how I was coming to the same conclusion, either. "Thanks."
Lorris didn't slap me on the back or grin, or chuckle. He just said "don't mention it," like it was nothing.