From: Peter Metcalfe (P.Metcalfe@student.canterbury.ac.nz)
Date: Tue 16 Jan 1996 - 13:08:36 EET
Joerg Baumgartner:
==================
Takes a query of mine about religious toleration in the Eastern Roman
Empire and tries to blow it up into a major quarrel. *sigh*. Not
content with that he leaps on the great sophistication debate on
Sandy's side...
>and the Lunars
>are on the fast track to replace culture with decadence all over Peloria
>(not that their precedessors weren't prone to this as well).
I should like to remind Joerg that the Romans are commonly assumed
to have gone decadent by the Late Republic. Since that time it
managed to survive at least a further five hundred years in the west
and managed to make some material improvements in that time.
Furthermore Culture and Decadence are not mutually exclusive.
Sandy Petersen:
===============
bangs away at the anvil with a hammer. :)
He serendiptously manages to capture the essense of the debate:
> But the Second Age tended to have higher technology, better
>education, more powerful magic, more complex philosophies, and much
>larger social structures than the Third.
More Powerful Magic: Yes. Although I maintain it is more a case
Higher Technology: No. We do have instances of Third Age technological
of squandering the resources they had then rather than sophistication.
The God Learners power was through the enslavement of dieties, whereas
the Gods are now 'immunized' against that sort of thing. The Great
Dragon of the EWF is now beyond the reach of any starting Dragon Mage.
progression. Loskalmi Plate Armour is one. The Lunars have settled the
Astronomical Questions that have plagued generations. Dormal managed to
Open the Oceans which had hitherto stumped every Second Age Empire. The
Yggites invented the longship. The Cultivation of Maize. The Great Battle
Barges of the Kralori. Moonboats.
Better Education: For the populace as a whole, Yes.
More Complex Philosophies: I am iffy on this. My feeling is that
some of the philosophies of the Second Age Empires are known but the
understanding of them is limited (akin to a monk of the middle ages
studying the Socratic Dialogues say).
Larger Social Structures: Yes.
Now for some specific points:
[re: Nysalor's glory]
>>All we have is Lunar Mythologizing and Illumination.
> And to the contrary we have only your inane Darwinistic
>rantings. The only hard evidence we have suggests that Nysalor's
>empire was superior at the transmission of ideas (it spread further,
>faster than the Lunar ideal) and was at least as complex socially.
Heaps of Material Achievements 'We don't know exactly what Nysalor did.
Manages to deal with Chaos Capital is now a Chaos Pit.
and innovations. None of the changes were concrete...'
Glorantha Book p18
successfully.
I still think the evidence points to the Lunar Empire being better
than Nysalor's Bright Empire.
> No one has said that the Age of Empire is impossible of
>replication (though unlikely). The fact that the Lunar Empire would
>be able to hold its own in the Second Age only points up the huge
>gulf between that age and our own. In the Third Age there are but
>two vast Empires of any import -- the Lunars, and the Kralori. And
>the Kralori have been around since the dawn, so only one (1) Empire
>has arisen in this whole age, with no signs of any others
>forthcoming; as compared to 8 great Empires in the 2nd Age, plus
>probably at least a half-dozen smaller ones.
Mere size isn't everything. No nation today dominates the shores of
the Mediterraneran Sea as opposed to the Romans who made it Mare
Nostrum (Our Sea) 2000 years ago. No nation today unifies Asia to
the extent that the Mongols did. No nation today rules an Empire
the size of Victorian Britain's. Are they products of a greater
age where all was grand and glorious?
>>Dara Happa didn't succumb to the EWF without a fight and it took
>>them twenty years to do so.
> Dara Happa has long been an adherent of the idea that the
>ancients were stronger than the moderns. This would merely reinforce
>this attitude.
[Looks at the Red Moon] You sure about that? The ancients were the
Empire of Murharzarma or the Anaxial Dynasty which were extant in the
storm age. Not the comparitively recent Second Age Dara Happans which
would be considered *Modern*.
>>Look at Argrath ressurecting much of the magics of the EWF. Look
>>what it did for him! He never even got as far as Alkoth in all his
>>wars!
> Yup. See how much better the real EWF was? He only had some
>of their "brute force magics" as you put it, not the philosophy and
>structure.
And the Philosophy and Structure are unattainable? Surely Argrath's
Orlanthi as time went by would have become more sophisticated with
their handling of Draconic Magics?
>>> Sez who? The God Learners used automatons, mandrakes,
>>>homunculi, and other constructs to perform dull everyday tasks.
>>And every single farm had these marvellous contraptions?
> Correct, at least IMO, and in their central lands.
Now did the lands include Loskalm proper, Tanisor and Safelster (all
which survived the catalysm without too much damage)? There is no
mention of Ludditism when Seshnela sunk.
[The Six legged Empire]
>>It seems to me that the Empire was based on Coercion. Simply
>>saying 'Might is Right' does not auger well for a society's social
>>sophistication
> Saying Might Makes Right makes a society evil, not
>unsophisticated and crude. Higher culture and moral culture have
>nothing in common. Shaka's Zulus were more highly cultured than the
>tribes he overran, but 'twas still a malign empire. Stalinist Russia
>was certainly better-educated and more advanced than the Tsarist
>serf-state, but in evil it equalled or (IMO) surpassed the former.
What I meant was that the Six Legged Empire relied on their _magic_
to support their Philosophy of 'Might is Right'. In doing so, they
stunted normal human social interactions. In this, they were akin
to the Cult of Silence and the Kingdom of War in being an anti-culture.
While the rulers were highly intelligent and ruled an advanced state,
they were little more than spoiled sociopaths lording it over a servile
population. The Zulus and Stalin's Russia had to rely on other things
than just plain fear to get society to work (Custom and Bureacracy
respectively). Contrast this with the Six Legged Empire, where a ruler
merely gave an Order and their slaves would try and filful it to the
best of their ability.
- --Peter Metcalfe
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