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 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.
Higher Technology: No. We do have instances of Third Age technological 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.
hmm.
Lunar Empire: Nysalor Empire: ============= =============== 400 years old and counting. 75 years old and dead. Survived Sheng Seleris. Did not Survive Arkat. Heaps of Material Achievements 'We don't know exactly what Nysalor did. and innovations. None of the changes were concrete...' Glorantha Book p18 Manages to deal with Chaos Capital is now a Chaos Pit.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.
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