Re: A sense of scale

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_KJGtyq5O-0sIDqHKu06mQTgMZS6NLD1q42hyloQQM2-MnPKJSMjuZp8M-U6Nebwgbi7>
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:06:22 +1300

On 11/11/2011 4:15 AM, jorganos wrote:
> Luckily for them, the founders already went through all their material development, leaving them in a set stage of material culture since the Paleolithic. All the inventions to be made had been made during the Third Action, by the entities of the Third Action. The multiplication of the Fourth Action meant to bring these perfect tools into less perfect environments and achieve perfection there (until the resistance grew harder and harder).
>
> With this mindset, innovations are to be avoided.
>
> Iron could be obtained from the Mostali by the time the iron crucible was established, and possibly meant that the Horali were continuously upgraded to iron equipment shaped exactly like their previous bronze equipment.
>
> This much for cultural development among the orthodox Brithini. Westerners become interesting only when they fall from Brithini orthodoxy, i.e. when they leave Danmalastan (or later, Brithos).
>

To me this is a wrongheaded way of looking at things.

The ancient gloranthans are not ordinary humans huffing paint in the caves. They are creatures of magic. Their history is one of exploration of the material world combined with an inexplicable decline in the cosmos and themselves. The material innovation in their lives are attempts to the shortcomings in their lives that were once hidden but have become serious.

For example the earliest Danmalastani could live by thought alone. They had no need of writing or even farming for they could think of whatever they wanted (ie a full belly) and it would be. Later they could not do this and their explorations in magic is an attempt to recapture that earlier state.

There is no such thing as Brithini Orthodoxy in mythical times. Brithos is a fortress of learning during the Great Darkness, its rigid traditions a product of the dearly won lessons of desperate survival. Before Brithos was the Storm Age Republic of Zerendel, a society that was as vibrant as Dara Happa or the Vingkotlings.

--Peter Metcalfe