Malkioni and Miscellanery.

From: Alex Ferguson <alex_at_dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 95 20:50:49 GMT


I ruthlessly (Greg|Sandy) Sandy:
> >Consider the following Official Sentence, of which one S. Petersen
> >is the legal co-author:
> >"Goats are considered unclean, and never eaten, nor rarely
> >tolerated."

> When did I say _that_?

Note my careful phrasing of the "attribution". It's in G:G, book 3.

> >Sandy explains that he's a minority of a minority of a minority.
> Huh? No, no. If you're talking about the LDS thing, I _am_ LDS.

Ah, as you were. Misparse.

> Alex
> >I don't think the (very evident) polytheism of Jonatela, the Serpent
> >Kings, or the Stygians are part of the same developmental limb at
> >all.

> The "developmental limb" being proposed here is no more than
> a non-knowledge of the Invisible God before the Second Age.

It was a bit of a hopelessly vague term, but what I meant was the "orthodox" beliefs of the first age. Or at least the majority consensus, or whatever actually existed. Those which Nick claims the God Learners "reformed" (as opposed those they just squished out of existence). I don't think this was anything like as polytheistic as the Jonatings, the Serpent Kings, or the Stygians, so a "pre-God Learner" explanation for such isn't really necessary, or sufficient. I'm sure they managed to think up their heresies all (or mostly all) by themselves.

> Carmania was driven out of its
> old territory in the Second Age, but it was a First Age organization.

Or is it? This is what I was driving at. I'm personally not sure to what extent Carmanian beliefs arrived in Peloria full-formed, and to what extent they were developed and modified by local contingencies. Of course, this whole area is being Gregged and Nicked even as we speak, so I suspect that theorising on current evidence is semipointless.

> These God Learner derived sects consist
> of: the modern Rokari, the modern Hrestoli, the Castle Coasters, and
> the Sedalpists.

Are you sure about the Beermats? Wouldn't they claim to be earlier? Though the Mandy Rice-Davis doctrine probably applies.

> You see, my contention is that in the First Age, the
> so-called "Creator" was only a sort of First Cause -- a
> non-personalized, "maybe it was the Celestial Court" sort of vague
> thing that no one really cared about. Actual philosophy was
> behavior-based, not god-based -- if we behave in the right manner,
> we'll achieve heaven.

This was probably more true, pre-Hrestol.

> I have not as yet determined whether Dara Happa itself
> actually has a local defense force. At the moment I'm leaning towards
> the theory that it does not, and instead simply funds the Heartland
> Corps and Imperial Bodyguard for use elsewhere.

I find it unlikely that every man jack recruited in the Heartlands is an Elite Troop, and that there're all posted to the frontier. Even if this makes sense militarily, there's almost certainly a social need to get the nobility and their lackeys off their collective rears and doing something, if not useful, then at least relatively harmless.

> The idea being that
> if an enemy gets to the Heartland, a separate local defense group
> there won't help much anyway.

The number of times the Heartlands have been invaded suggests it would be a tad unwise to have a Thin Red Line defence, with no fallback. More likely, to extend the Red Empire metaphor, they have a Paranoid, Over-Defence contingency for surprise attacks, and are prepared to Trade Land for Time, etc.

[Explantion of why anyone should get to be a Hero, but giving birth should be _much_ trickier]

Eh? Shurely shome mishtake.

[bunch of deleted Charx1% rules delete, to spare Sandy's blushes. By Sandy, of course. ;-)]
> >Come to that the Test of Holiness is obviously woefully
> >under-sensitive in this respect. Need I go on?

> Huh? It's just POWx3, right? How is this unsensitive? If
> you're a righteous-living POW 18 guy, you have a 54% chance. If
> you're a sodden POW 10, you only get 30%. That's a significantly
> higher chance, seems to me.

Nothing like as sensitive as "18 POW -- 100% chance"; "10 POW -- 0% chance", which, although pretty extreme, would be more reasonable. At least if, as I believe, you actually do need a high(ish) POW to be an (effective) priest.

Rest of this discussion is hereby moved off line, where some of its silly aspects (Maxims of the Famous Games Designers) will be quietly ignored in any case, one hopes.

Nick Brooke tangentially addresses my point:
> > One of the most "unrealistic" (and unsurprisingly, gameable) parts of
> > the Council was that so many people were not only invited, but given
> > voting rights.

> This is a God Learner Construct (and .: a Good Thing, naturally)! I think on
> further analysis you would find that almost all the bishops with votes could
> claim direct succession from a bishop who voted in the God Learner Fifth
> Ecclesiastical Council

Oh yeah, I don't doubt that. What's harder to see is in whose _political_ interests it is to draw up the invites and votes the way they were. Notslor is the main wildcard here, we seem to agree, but it's probably artificial to suppose that an old geezer in a loincloth who's avout to explode could really square circles this big. Like, "Will the real Bishop of Neleos please stand up", etc.

BTW Nick, using .: to mean "therefore" is typographically _horrible_, in my equilateral-biased view. Right up there with 84-column lines. If you're so hot on Logic, and cutting down typing, why not use "=>"?

Failing to pick up my gauntlet about his hidden agenda, Nick resorts to Mere Facts:
> But I wouldn't have thought we'd need to significantly antedate the
> Big One from the known God Learner dates: after all, there's quite a
> gap between the years 675 (Return to Rightness Movement begins in
> Jrustela) and 734 (Return to Rightness Crusade completes liberation
> of Seshnela).

So, you reckon we can all add "675: Invisible God discovered" to our historical diaries? This may work, I don't know; I'll add it to the petard file, and see how deft your footwork proves in future.

David Dunham disagrees with one of my observations by restating it:
> And Basmati rice isn't particularly yellow; there's probably added turmeric
> or saffron.

It isn't even remotely yellow. That'd be why I said "they could add saffron".

Not that I'd much object to a yellow form a rice. After all, the Kralori and Happan varieties probably should be less closely related than their "analogues". Having the similar types all the way from Glamour to the East Isles might be questionable, given the distance, not to say the gaps.

Alex.


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