Newspeak

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From: Nick Brooke (100270.337@CompuServe.COM)
Date: Tue 07 Jun 1994 - 04:49:02 EEST


Hi, all!

David Gadbois quoted the start of one of my favourite folk tales - Loyal to the Group of Seventeen's story from "Citadel of the Autarch". I *love* that series, and the tale is one of the highlights...

Graeme asked:

> While I like this idea, are the Lunars that sophisticated? Even with the
> magic,they are Bronze age culture. And if they tried it, I doubt they
> would have been totally successful, as regional dialects and jargon
> appeared.

Reread the appendix to 1984. The same applied to Ingsoc Newspeak.

Lunar Newspeak is, of course, a long-term project. So is *everything* to do with the Lunar Way. Thinking in mortal lifespans is a waste of Time. For it to ultimately triumph, the Lunar Way will require many cycles of growth and death and rebirth. The Lunar Empire is merely the first of these; its final "destruction" by Argrath (inter alia) is the prelude to rebirth in a wholly different form. This has *always* been Lunar doctrine. So, "Newspeak" these days may be flawed and incomplete, but after a hundred generations or more it will have accomplished its aim.

Of course, the Lunar state language is far less rigid/barren than those of Winston Smith or L2G17. In some ways, it is a reaction against the barren, sterile priestly tongue of old Dara Happa. Lunar calligraphy is beautiful: think of Arabic manuscripts; all those cursive flourishes, compared to the rigidity of a primitive (all-capital) alphabet...

Nils gave us a fragment of Red Tiger's illuminated Kralori mysticism: MORE PLEASE! I loved it!

Gary Newton expostulated:

> "Hey! You can't do that! Everyone knows time travel in Glorantha is
> impossible! It breaks the Compromise!"

Yeah. But does it happen despite that?...

While I dislike bringing what I feel are non-Gloranthan concepts (like time travel, parallel dimensions, genetics, etc.) into my world-view, if there's a good story to be told which uses them, I'd say "Go ahead: tell it!" We've probably "travelled through time" on HeroQuests before now without noticing it, and I'm sure other instances of the Great Compromise "breaking" spring to mind (both Waha and Cacodemon seem to have a loose grasp of its terms).

Unlike some RQ-gurus, I do not feel the need to have a single system that explains everything (whether it be a Unified Gloranthan Theory, a Monomyth, a God Learner Secret, or whatever). I prefer taking the world as it comes. Many reputable sources have claimed Gloranthan time travel to be more-or- less possible, while I've experienced it (or something like) myself. So I tend not to be dogmatic on the subject.

Alex: Carolyn Cherryh's haggis'n'kilts fantasy novel "Faerie in Shadow" translated "Geas" as "Necessity", which seemed to work well enough. A fun book, too, if you can stand cod Scots (better than the real thing...).

> Is there a shrine to Where Did You Get that Sword, Eurmal? Put it Back
> at Once! anywhere in the Barbarian Belt?

If there wasn't before, there are probably a dozen now, this idea being so fine and all.

B Hillesland:

> More information in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra (I'm just kidding
> of course...)

OTOH, why kid? Belief in Man (or Superman) as the Master Race or Apex of Creation seems straightforward enough for the formerly "humanist" West; I was pleased to see Mike Dawson following the same chain of thought wrt Arlaten the Magus in "Strangers in Prax".


Nick

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