[L'oric]

wareonia, on Jan 12 2009, 05:51 AM, said:

Where does it say they can be deranked without being killed? Tool defeats two of them (i forget their numbers or names) without killing them and it makes no mention of him being granted a number/rank and the two are still mentioned after the fights by their previous rank

Also they dont seem to be the type of people to submit without a fight, i think this only applies to other races they meet.

I cant really see number 3 being scared of number 20 enough to bow out without a fight.

Even if you disgard rank they seem up for a fight just to see who would win, they are the most war like race i've ever read about. Their entire society is just geared for war. Life must be exciting growing up there.

The two Tool defeats have no rank. They were initiates..young teenagers with promise most likely, especially if yoiu consider how good they were. So he would not get mask for defeating them. Mok is probably on par with the 2nd and first IMO. Now its just wait and see if SE or ICE share my opinion or not.
Sincerely, L'oric

[wareonia]

I'm sure it mentions them having a rank, i would need a quick look at the book to be certain but i do remember something about them having ranks.

[Mcflury]

wareonia, on Jan 12 2009, 05:01 PM, said:

I'm not sure why but i hope number 1 is female. I think a crazily fast super swordswoman where she doesn't seem to move hardly at all but people just die around her, a shift of her foot a shadow of a silver blur and 3 people die.

I think that would go down well.

Sounds like Dancer in a fucked up fight Well, except that Dancer isn't female of course.

On the abroad thing I brought up: I didn't really mean that the whole Seguleh system would get complicated if some Seguleh goes abroad and starts cheating or something. I meant that if one can get a rank without a kill, it means the other Seguleh must be able to update their rank continuously (because if some rankless dude defeats but doesn't kill seguleh fifth for instance, then that dude would become seguleh fifth, but former-seguleh fifth would now be seguleh sixth and all other seguleh would have to move down a rank, making sure that the seguleh who was abroad (who wouldn't know of this fight since he obviously doesn't have constant access to the seguleh forum or newsletter) his rank becomes inaccurate)

Now this has led me to believe the following rules concerning Seguleh Ranks:

- a Seguleh of lower rank (or no rank) must not necesairly accept a challenge from a higher ranked seguleh. (I am unsure about the other way around, but I do believe that if seguleh 6 challenges seguleh 5, seguleh 5 must fight. (keep in account seguleh have a strong honour code and so seguleh 6 won't challenge seguleh 5 when he has the biggest fever ever or something, since defeating him then would just be dishonourable... or less honourable))
- for a person (who doesn't have a seguleh rank yet) to get into the seguleh ranks a battle must be fought with someone who does have a seguleh rank on life or death. So no "you're on the ground, you lost; first blood drawn, you lost"-mumbojumbo. If both opponent's hearts are still beating the fight is obviously not finished yet.
- when two seguleh (or people who have seguleh ranks) fight each other it doesn't necesairly have to happen on life or death terms. When both opponents survive the fight the ranks are just swapped.
- when somebody returns from a trip abroad and claims he now has a certain seguleh rank since he, on one of his trips, killed the seguleh with that rank there are two options: you believe him, or you don't believe him. If you don't believe him, you challenge him. The resulting fight will proof the liar and the one who told the truth.

And last but not least, a very secret seguleh law:
- The answer to the question "Who's your dady?" is always "Seguleh First".

Do note that my rules are not certainties, they're just how I believe the Seguleh do things (because that's how I would do things) based on what we know from the books.

[Mcflury]

wareonia, on Jan 12 2009, 05:23 PM, said:

I'm sure it mentions them having a rank, i would need a quick look at the book to be certain but i do remember something about them having ranks.

Yes, I also do believe they had ranks.

And I doubt Mok is as good as Seguleh second or Seguleh first... Sure, Mok is good... but not WTFpWNED-good. I mean, you can still see him move... surely Seguleh first moves faster than light

[Aptorian]

Mcflury, on Jan 12 2009, 05:30 PM, said:

And I doubt Mok is as good as Seguleh second or Seguleh first... Sure, Mok is good... but not WTFpWNED-good. I mean, you can still see him move... surely Seguleh first moves faster than light

"You can still see him move"... What a weird argument. I can move my hands and arms quicker than you can see. It's a question of fast reflexes you have and how fast your eye catches movement.

Mok was becomming a threat to the first on seguleh island, that is why he and the two others were sent to the panion domin. He wasn't supposed to come back.

He kicked Tools ass without Tool getting a move in. The guy is a blinding killing machine.

[wareonia]

i think i like your rules there Mcflury they bring order to my troubled mind.

[L'oric]

Lets put the issue of Ranks and the Three Seguleh from MOI to a gently glide if not a complete rest.

pg.129 American Paperback edition
"How many years since your birth, Senu?" The T'lan Imass asked.
"Fourteen, Master Stoneblade. I am Eleventh Level Initiate.

I could not find How old his brother Therule is or what is rank is but he is described as follows.

Pg' 36 Same edition
"Both were a match to their companions height and build, and similarly armed; the difference between each was evident only in their masks. Where Senu's enamelled face-covering was crowded with dark-stained patterns, such decoration diminished successively in the other two examples. One was only slightly less marked than Senu's..."

So unless they rank to a considerably high number of marks then Therule is another Initiate Level or maybe master level if they have such.

Now the question becomes is Senu really only 14 years old? Do they count age differently? If he is only 14 then he is either mature for his age (he is mistaken for a man) or Mok and Therule are almost as young. Perhaps only a few years apart. Scary!

Sincerely
L'oric

[wareonia]

I stand corrected, well done i think it's safe to say that has now been cleared up. Job done.

[Severian]

There can be many details but i think it must be like that;

first, ranking system must be limited to certain number of levels for example say there may be only 20 levels.. because there are thousands of seguleh and there must be a big computer system to hold each to a different rank so its impossible

there are fighting schools training seguleh then they pass a test and if they are worty enough they get level 20 and there are many seguleh who share same level between 20-10 then in time they challenge with themselves, after level 10 to 1 there is only one occupant of rank and if 5th wants to challenge he must challenge 4 not 3 if he wins he will be 4th and loser will be 5th so they must climb the ladder one by one..

[Mcflury]

Severian, on Jan 22 2009, 03:05 PM, said:

There can be many details but i think it must be like that;

first, ranking system must be limited to certain number of levels for example say there may be only 20 levels.. because there are thousands of seguleh and there must be a big computer system to hold each to a different rank so its impossible

there are fighting schools training seguleh then they pass a test and if they are worty enough they get level 20 and there are many seguleh who share same level between 20-10 then in time they challenge with themselves, after level 10 to 1 there is only one occupant of rank and if 5th wants to challenge he must challenge 4 not 3 if he wins he will be 4th and loser will be 5th so they must climb the ladder one by one..

Well... keep on reading the books and you'll find out more about these Seguleh Ranks. Most info is found in RotCG about Seguleh society.

A few pointers(spoilered them in case you want to find them out yourself):

Spoiler

- Only 1000 Seguleh have ranks, noted down in the Agathii (list of 1000 main Seguleh)
- Seguleh don't use computers (just pointing it out )
- Seguleh 50 is, in theory, allowed to challenge Seguleh 2 (he'd just get beaten incredibly hard most likely)
- Seguleh do not necesairly earn ranks by killing someone of higher rank, there are certain competitions with judges in which they fight, but that can be ended after like three exchanges of blows with the swords. The judge will then declare the winner, doubting the judge's decision is a bad idea.

[wareonia]

I agree with them only being able to move up 1 rank at a time it's the best way to do it. Plus it's backed up by lady envy telling the story about when rake visited the island. I'm sure she said they challanged him in turn untill he got to 7 then he got the fack out of there. I assume if he stayed '6' would have been next and so on and so forth.

[Mcflury]

wareonia, on Jan 23 2009, 12:32 PM, said:

I agree with them only being able to move up 1 rank at a time it's the best way to do it. Plus it's backed up by lady envy telling the story about when rake visited the island. I'm sure she said they challanged him in turn untill he got to 7 then he got the fack out of there. I assume if he stayed '6' would have been next and so on and so forth.

Yes, but that's because Rake let the Seguleh challenge him. Rake could have actually also just have walked up to Seguleh 1 and challenged that one, win or lose. Of course, it's safest to always challenge the dude just above your rank, that way you'll never be too much out of your league.

[Karnadas]

I got the impression from reading the section where Senu states his age and the thing about the black-masked initiates killing Pannion Priests, that only the higher ranks would have one occupant. Then again, maybe there are a set of ranks for each "initiate level", but the only ranks worth bragging about are the top-level ones...

[Seguleh 1st]

btw about the idea of a lower ranked seg not having to fight if a higher ranked challenges him, i just think why should he? its pretty clear that you only rise up further if you challenge ones higher than you, so why fight with someone lower?

Seg 1st, doesn't challenge Mok for example

[Mcflury]

Seguleh 1st, on Jan 28 2009, 08:33 PM, said:

btw about the idea of a lower ranked seg not having to fight if a higher ranked challenges him, i just think why should he? its pretty clear that you only rise up further if you challenge ones higher than you, so why fight with someone lower?

Seg 1st, doesn't challenge Mok for example

Well, why should they? I refer to RotCG (obviously spoiler here from aforementioned book)

Spoiler

Iron Bars gets challenged by a pretty high Seguleh just after he got into the Agathii. Why? Because the Seguleh still wanted their slaves and water, and wanted to trick IB into fighting (a fight he would obviously lose) and by doing so get what they wanted all along.

I never said it would happen frequent, that a higher ranked Seguleh challenges a lower ranked one, but it might occur. (but of course, there is indeed little to none to gain with it for the highest ranked Seguleh)

[FistOFun]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it but it could be a matter of there are multiple people for each rank with the exception of say the top 5 or 10.

If there are a couple hundred black faces (those new initiates) then it would make sense to catagorise people by skill rather than having a 500 different ranks, with no real impression as to how the skill level may change between each rank.

So for instance lets say you had a standard basis of skill set as how many Malazans you can kill.
20th can kill 2
19th can kill 4 etc etc.

If you had 500 rank positions not only would it be hard to actually read rank but would also be impossible to tell the actual skill level of someone outside of a general hand wavey way.
Is the 256 actually good enough to beat 2 Malazans or just one.

I would also asume the rank system is not just a matter of skill but also intelligence. The Seguleh seem to have a strict code which should be adhered to and learnt. You don't wish for an amazing fighter who has no idea how to lead an army to be 1st or worse yet 0th. Generally the higher the number the better the fighter however I also get the impression that at certain levels you must also prove your worth. Also I believe you can not challange anyone too far outside of your level. So a 20th can not fight the 3rd as it would mean he spent all his time fighting off young hopefuls.

[D'rek]

FistOFun, on 12 October 2009 - 11:11 AM, said:

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it but it could be a matter of there are multiple people for each rank with the exception of say the top 5 or 10.

If there are a couple hundred black faces (those new initiates) then it would make sense to catagorise people by skill rather than having a 500 different ranks, with no real impression as to how the skill level may change between each rank.

So for instance lets say you had a standard basis of skill set as how many Malazans you can kill.
20th can kill 2
19th can kill 4 etc etc.

If you had 500 rank positions not only would it be hard to actually read rank but would also be impossible to tell the actual skill level of someone outside of a general hand wavey way.
Is the 256 actually good enough to beat 2 Malazans or just one.

I would also asume the rank system is not just a matter of skill but also intelligence. The Seguleh seem to have a strict code which should be adhered to and learnt. You don't wish for an amazing fighter who has no idea how to lead an army to be 1st or worse yet 0th. Generally the higher the number the better the fighter however I also get the impression that at certain levels you must also prove your worth. Also I believe you can not challange anyone too far outside of your level. So a 20th can not fight the 3rd as it would mean he spent all his time fighting off young hopefuls.

While there's no absolute confirmation of it, most people concur that, as you say, the lower levels are generalized levels where young fighters are still learning and just palced in general categories, such as #th-level-Initiate. We don't know how high the numbering goes for the single-person ranks, though - considering there are at the very least hundreds of Seguleh in the lower levels, the individual ranks could go as high as into the hundreds as well, for all we know.

As for challenging someone way above your level, why not? If the 99th challenges the 2nd, well either the 99th deserves to be that high and wins, in which case why go the waste of having the 97 seguleh in between all get killed pointlessly? Conversely, if the 99th deserves to be 99th, it would not be a very long battle regardless so wouldn't disrupt the 2nd's day very much. Presumably Seguleh are smart enough not to idiotically get themselves killed all the time by challenging people better then they are, so I really don't see it as being a problem if they could challenge anyone.

[FistOFun]

I think there would at the least be catagories of challanging someone X levels above you. If for little more than the premise that young upstarts who could become decent warriors are not cut down before their prime. I would recon a warrior would need to continually prove himself rather than a single victory which he would have to do by working his way up. Saying that Rake reached Seventh within his short visit however thats could very much be dependant not only on whom he but how many.

Though thinking on it, yeh your right a proper Seguleh would probably be smart enough not to waste his life with such a challange till he felt good and ready. Its the kind of thing that might not be law but might be considered bad manners if nothing else.

[Red King]

If i remember correctly, I believe you have to be near someones rank to even approch them for a challenge. I think Toc says something about how he couldn't challenge any of them even if he wanted to because he was too lowly ranked when it came to the Seguleh society. So, I think it wouldn't be possible for the 20th to challenge the 7th until he reach the 10th or a bit higher up. At least, that is what I think Toc was talking about when he was inbetween fights with the the 11th and the 5th (is that what his rank was?)

- Ultor

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

First Sword Ultor, on 16 March 2010 - 06:44 AM, said:

If i remember correctly, I believe you have to be near someones rank to even approch them for a challenge. I think Toc says something about how he couldn't challenge any of them even if he wanted to because he was too lowly ranked when it came to the Seguleh society. So, I think it wouldn't be possible for the 20th to challenge the 7th until he reach the 10th or a bit higher up. At least, that is what I think Toc was talking about when he was inbetween fights with the the 11th and the 5th (is that what his rank was?)

- Ultor

Do you mean Tool instead of Toc? And Mok was the 3rd. We aren't exactly sure what Senule and Thurule were, but they didn't seem to have a specific rank, but were part of a level of initiates. The Eleventh and the Fourteenth I believe. I disagree with your thoughts about challenges though, I'm pretty sure you can challenge anyone at any time. Tool just wasn't interested in fighting Mok until he saw him in action and realized he actually was damn good. Mok didn't start paying attention to Tool until he thoroughly destroyed his brother in the duel using only the flat of his blade. If the incident with the K'ell Hunters had happened earlier it would have probably sped up the duel.