[Dara Happan/Lunar magic superiority to Orlanthi]
> Peter Metcalfe, though, is unconvinced. He objects to my Roman analogy
>because the Romans had better technology, a larger population base, better
>organisation and so on. This was exactly _my_ point.
No, I didn't! *You* said the Romans had these 'advantages' whereas I pointed out that the Carthaginians and the Hellenistic Empires *also* had them.
>The Lunars are also
>better in these areas, and it has nothing to do with the _quality_ of their
>magic.
It has heaps to do with their magic. The Carmanians and Sheng Seleris both had a larger population base, a better military etc when they were defeated by the Lunars. So how come they were defeated?
> The point I was making was that the magic of all cultures is inherently
>equal. No matter who you are, one point of magic is one point of magic.
So the bolt-action rifle and an automatic rifle are equal because they fire the same sort of bullet? I know which one *I* prefer.
> My original point was that because all magic is equally potent in
>principle, regardless of what culture the caster comes from, you can't use
>the 'power' of magic to determine who is 'right' about mythic history.
On the contrary, You can quite easily make such arguments. You may not be able to make an argument to convince Sir Skeptic but many cultures in the real world and in glorantha *do* make such arguments.
>An
>analogy: In the RW we use science to guage the nature of the world. I'm a
>scientist, of sorts, but this doesn't mean I'd last very long if someone
>went rampaging through my lab with a machine-gun. Does this mean that a
>machine-gun is a more technologically advanced piece of equipment than
>any of the stuff in the lab?
Compare like with like. The machine gun is a product of your scientist's culture whereas those cultures which did not have scientists generally do not have machine guns. A more apt comparison would be the machine gun equipped soldier sent to fight a Zulu.
You may well object here that mere superiority in military magic does not translate into overall superiority in magic and I would agree. The Kingdom of War is the most obvious example. However the Lunar Empire is not solely a military culture and those insights which have made the Empire supreme within its sphere of influence are likely to have been adapted by the civilian side of the Lunar Empire.
Stephen P Martin:
>Peter -- your examples all use _Lunar_ Magic, not _Dara Happan_ Magic.
>Dara Happan magic is no better than anyone else's I agree, but Lunar
>magic is another story altogether.
I disagree in that the Lunar College of Magic has two units namely the Spell Archers and the Comet Seers. The Spell Archers is full of aristocratic Dara Happans according to _Tarsh_War_ whereas the Comet Seers appear to be related to the Buserium of Yuthuppa. (It seems to me that the Spell Archers would have had as their divine patron, Yelm the Archer. Were they at the battle of Pennel Fords?). Saying that the Dara Happan magic is no better than anyone else's implies that people like Tatius the Bright are Lunar magicians which seems on the face of it hard to accept.
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