From: Graeme A Lindsell (graeme.lindsell@anu.edu.au)
Date: Fri 12 Nov 1993 - 18:28:25 EET
Joerg writes:
>Then why feed them to Chaos Horrors like the bat? I know of no incident
>where Sartarite captives of war were enslaved and carried off to work the
>fields of Lunar Heartland.
In KoS it says that all the defenders of Boldhome either escaped or were captured or sold into slavery (P124, in the CHDP I think).
One of the Theyalan's major complaints about the Dara Happans is the practice of slavery. That, along with the Lunars Roman parallels make the idea of them practicing large scale agricultural slavery seem very natural to me.
Collapsing Empires:
>Without temporal order:
>Alexander the Great's empire, the Romans in Britain (North of Hadrian's
>Wall), several short-lived empires in Asia Minor before the Persians took
>over, Theoderich's Goths in Italy, Attila the Hun's empire, Outremer,
>Geiserich and the Vandals in Carthago, Cnut the Great's English-Norwegian-
>Danish kingdom, mythical Arthur Pendragon's Britain, the late Mayan civil
>war, Mesopotamia after the fall of the Assyrs ...
>And I doubt I know much more than you.
Well you do, since I don't know anything about half of these. Those I do know about don't seem to fit my question, which I should have phrased better: "what (earthly) empires have easily conquered an area only to be expelled and the conquered themselves by that area within 50 years?" The collapsing empires you mention seem to be those which collapsed of their own accord, with perhaps some outside pressure.
Is this what really happened in Peloria? We know about the White Moonies, that the Pentans are beginning to raid the Redlands, that there are prophecies of invasion when Charg is released from the Ban. In my view what happened to the Empire was that it was attacked from all sides, and that a large proportion of it's citizens were not interested in fighting: I can see many Illuminates joining the White Moonies just out of self interest, given what we're told of Illumination's solipsistic viewpoint. A man with the view "I am the centre of everything, and no rules apply to me" doesn't make a good soldier IMO. Especially the psychos that come from accidental illumination. This is probably where most of the missing Heartland counters went in Nick's summary.
On the Mostali:
>Smell and taste tend to be underdeveloped - ever tried dwarfen food?
Ever tried dogfood? Just because we don't like the taste doesn't mean another species doesn't
I have to side with Nick on Gloranthan scenarios: if we don't get them with RQ products, where do we get them?
Nick
>Final Q: should the Lunar Empire have been expanding in the Seventh Wane?
I'm not sure it was. I think it was Tarsh that was expanding: perhaps the "latifundiae" were starting to have a real impact on Tarsh, perhaps just ambition and a desire to match their overlords. When most of Tarsh's army becomes Dragon food, it can no longer defend itself, and the Emperor feels obliged to step in.
>This has led to my hypothesis (which may be in print somewhere) that the
>Lunar Empire is a means and not an end in itself. It exists in order to
>establish the conditions that will enable the largest possible number of
>Gloranthans to become Illuminated into the Light of the Lunar Way. With
This sounds very likely. (Do I get the feeling you don't like the Empire much? :-)). See my comments about Illuminated soliers above: I think the Empire's aim is a self defeating one.
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