Chapter Ninety-One: Development Strategy Study

Although the councillors’ annual salaries and political stipends were not exactly lavish, for Patrick they still amounted to a respectable income. The entire Sunlit Tower was beginning to operate, and it would consume vast sums of money. At the same time, if the development of the Sun Temple was to be accelerated in the years ahead, the surrounding cities would also need to be built up, and greater efforts would have to be devoted to developing the farmland nearby. Even the mountain range beyond, the Marked Sun Mountains, could be counted as land ripe for development.

A few simple administrative reforms could only be called institutional change; what was still needed was to endow the elves within the fief with an entirely new spiritual bearing. Hedonism ran rampant, and there was no sense of duty, no awareness, no drive. In the final analysis, what was lacking was a more uplifting environment, and a proper understanding of learning and knowledge.

These two things, above all, required Patrick to help the elves cultivate within themselves a new inner world. For a long time, the common elven folk and the elven mages who specialized in the school of pleasure had, in certain respects, simply lacked the corresponding capacities. Many mistaken decisions had arisen for that very reason.

The entire decision-making body of the Silvermoon Council had blundered again and again. There was first the mistaken understanding of Orgrim Doomhammer, then the misjudgment of the Scourge’s strength, followed by the two-front war in Ghostlands, with the Scourge attacking Dasm and the trolls of Zul'Aman at the same time. As a result, the vitality and hope of all Quel'Thalas were worn away to nothing.

Then Silvermoon City itself grew frail and exhausted, unable even to deal with the enemy at its own doorstep, and had to rely on the Banshee Queen Sylvanas to send troops in aid. Only when the magisters sent by Silvermoon, such as Ithonis, joined forces with the Forsaken senior executor Marlorn, was Dar'khan, entrenched in Dasm, finally rooted out.

At last, in Outland, the Alliance and the Horde attacked together. The Tempest Keep, the Energy Ship, the Ecological Ship, and the Violet Hold all fell one after another; the forces of the Sunhawk, Sunblade, and Firewing legions were extinguished in succession; and the Sunstrider Legion and the Bloodsworn Guards led by Kael'thas were buried as well in Tempest Keep. With the loss of that Blood Elf king, and of the two strongest battle formations among the blood elves, Silvermoon City lost its final breath of strength and could only become a vassal of the orcs.

In truth, Patrick felt quite sorry for Lor'themar. It was not that he wished to remain invisible, but that he had no opportunity, nor the resources for it. He could only survive by attaching himself to the orcs. The question of the annihilation of his people remained the foremost thought circling in Lor'themar's mind.

Thus, to solve the chronic failings in their patterns of decision-making, they first had to solve the problems of thought itself. This, too, was a problem forged over thousands of years in Silvermoon by a rigid social hierarchy, ignorant hedonism, and the self-important rulers who stood above them all.

Patrick also always felt that the several standing members of the Silvermoon Council were constrained by these same four points. Of course, in a Silvermoon City where the clan reigned supreme, the emergence of such problems was inevitable.

1. Nonprofessional, unlearned authority. 2. Inherited and habitual modes of thinking. 3. The prejudice of the benighted. 4. Foolishness hidden beneath cleverness. 5. Stale conservatism, without foresight or vision.

Every elf in Silvermoon City was immersed in the miracles created by those archmagi: floating structures, arcane towers, energy ascension, and so on. The councillors in high office believed that merely guarding the Sunwell was enough to possess everything. The archmagi of the upper ranks believed that all things could be explained through arcane knowledge. The king, who held the greatest authority of all, believed that Quel'Thalas needed only to abide by ancient tradition.

And so the people beneath inherited the thoughts of those above: everything must be explained through the arcane. Even when dealing with municipal matters, they still tried to seek answers in arcane spells. How ridiculous that was. If you build a good road for commoners and rangers to use, must you not study whether spatial teleportation would be simpler? Arcane power can tear open space and move one through it, but how many elves can truly do that? Alas, the leaders above could not understand.

Knowledge comes before or after, skill varies by trade; that is all.

When those in power lack the corresponding ability in a given field, then they must seek professionals to manage it. The Silvermoon councillors, though lofty in rank and weighty in authority, were plainly amateurs when it came to city administration, public welfare, and the like. This kind of “nonprofessional, unlearned authority, and foolishness hidden beneath cleverness” permeated the upper society of the high elves.

If one could not employ the right people well, or steadily improve one’s own professional competence, how could one govern municipal affairs and the people’s livelihood? By relying on arcane knowledge? Would the arcane tell you the difference between building a road and not building one? Clearly, different problems must be entrusted to different experts.

Likewise, throughout Silvermoon’s history, from the first high clan leaders who crossed the sea and founded the Kingdom of Quel'Thalas on the eastern continent, to His Majesty Anasterian and the chief civic officer of the Silvermoon Council, Seniol Sunwing, which of them was not marked by habitual and inherited thinking, by stale conservatism, by a lack of foresight and vision?

Immersed in the radiance of the Sunwell, they saw only the splendor it brought, as though the high elves needed nothing more than the Sunwell itself. As for the spiritual needs and material needs of the rest of the people, a little allocation of Sunwell energy would suffice. They looked only to their predecessors as models, making no change and no progress, cowering all day within the towers of Silvermoon City.

Yet they had not learned the spirit of the old leaders: to press forward, to blaze new trails, to struggle with all one’s might. After the War of the Ancients ended and the Well of Eternity exploded, the druid regime led by Malfurion was at the height of its power. Faced with the disappearance of magical energy and the oppression of druid rule, the high clans led by Dath'Remar resolutely set out across the sea, and only then did they establish the Kingdom of Quel'Thalas at the far northern reaches of the Eastern Kingdoms.

To Patrick’s mind, Dath'Remar’s fearless and pioneering spirit was worthy of study by every high elf. If the present-day leaders of the Silvermoon Council had been placed in that environment, they might well have done nothing but muddle through, content to drift and unwilling to strive upward.

Moreover, some elves, greedy for pleasure and lost to all restraint, framed their political demands largely around their own interests. They lacked breadth, ambition, and stability. They could not help Patrick’s territory develop more effectively, nor did they possess the practical relevance, adaptability, or universality required for deeper development.

The thinking of these elves, for the most part, was founded upon their own temperament, their hobbies, the education they had received, and the environment in which they lived. They made assumptions from the outset, judging things subjectively and from prejudice, and did not understand the rulers’ grasp of the broader situation. What Patrick sought to guide was the development of the Sun Temple and the Forest of Life, not some alteration made to appease the “prejudice of the benighted.”

How does one attain far sight and clear discernment? By seeking and thinking so deeply that nothing is left untouched; only those with resolve can reach it. One must have both will and strength, and must not allow oneself to grow slack.