Re: Lunars and their Empire

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_yeats.ucc.ie>
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 19:16:11 +0100 (BST)


Philipp Grawe has:

> Another question
> - The Lunars accept chaos. Does this mean that Broos and Scorpion Men walk
> the streets of Glamour and other cities ? Does it mean that chaos features
> are the latest fashion accessory in Glamour this season ? I mean, Broos are
> still disease ridden, and still stink. If I was a Lunar citizen, I'd be
> tempted to take the opinion that chaos or not, Red Goddess or not, I _still_
> don't like them.

You're certainly not under any obligation to _like_ them; essentially Lunar 'acceptance' of chaos amounts to the recognition that every being has a place in the universe, and that every being can be redeemed and healed by the Goddess. Doesn't mean that some of them aren't exceedingly unpleasant in the meantime...

The other axis in this 'acceptance of chaos' is that Orlanthi see as Chaotic things that are very much a fundamental part of Pelorian religious life -- like Nysalorean mysticism, most notably.

To some extent 'chaos' is still something of a foreign concept to the Empire. To a hard-core Dara Happan, storm, darkness, and chaos are just 'shades of grey' on the moral and cosmological spectrum, not qualitatively different in the sort of way the Orlanthi see them. But of course, the modern empire _includes_ Orlanthi, and worse yet, those infuriatingly I-feel-your-pain 'Lunar High Imperial' types who insist on integrating all these different understandings of the cosmos, not matter how contradictory. One might imagine the archetypal Lunar missionary listening patiently to a ranting tribesman, and saying: Tes, sure, if you wish to call that Chaos, then that's Perfectly Valid, but let me explain why it's necessary to Accept that...

Oh yeah, and there are small details like the Bat. ;-)

> Perhaps life is a bit different and more conservative in
> the provinces, compared to the capital ?

The capital is definitely the exception, in a number of ways. When one thinks of the 'decadent romans' stereotype of the Lunars, it's very much more applicable to Glamour than to _either_ the Provinces or to the rest of the Heartlands, each part of which has its own brand of Conservatism (doubtless including the warm beer and tax-cuts sorts, someplace), overlaid with a dash or a dollop of High Imperial Veneer, to taste...

Cheers,
Alex.


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