Trotsky:
> The followers of Buserian, Dara Happan god of astrology and, to a
>lesser extent, scholarship in general. The main centre for his religion is
in
>Yuthuppa, in the north of what is now the Lunar Empire. There is an
>unofficial cult write-up at Wesley Quadros' page, although it uses an
>outdated version of HW.
Yes, and its changed a little since then.
> BTW, I disagree with Martin Laurie's assertion that most Lunar
>bureaucrats are Buseri - though, given that he's Lunar expert and is
writing
>the Lunar Book for HW, such disagreement isn't likely to be of much use!
Hey, there's always room for debate.
>The write-up of Moonson Imperator in Tales struck me as much more on the
mark,
>while Irripi Ontor and Etyries probably have at least as much presence in
the
>Lunar bureaucracy as Buserian does (which is to say, not much). In the
days
>before the Red Goddess Buserian was doubtless an important god of
>bureaucrats, but after 400 years of more appropriate cults for the new
>dynamic being in existence, it makes no sense to me.
Changing from Buserian makes no sense to me, in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of thought. The Lunar faiths have no problems with Buserian as he is pretty inoffensive. His cult does not lead rebellions, it has acknowledged the Goddess in her place as being a Truth and it is admirably suited to its function, more so that Irripi Ontor. The Lunar military _has_ become much more lunarised because it is a focus of rebellions. By controlling the officer corps at the middle levels, the Lunar veneer effectively denied control of the army to the DH bulk, until such a time that the Modern Lunar regiments became a larger and larger portion of the army. My work on the army shows such an evolution over time as the population base of Lunar citizens expanded and the traditions of the army changed incrementally.
Then, what is the role of IO? He is a scholar, not a bureacrat. If you've met a lot of both, you might find that one does not equal the other. Whereas Buseri are tradition bound, fixed and happy with repetitive tasks, the IO sage is a man of mental action in comparison. The categorise and catalogue the ever shifting wonder that is the Empire, they do not _run_ it, they _examine_ it!
For the Buseri we have hours of toil, adding up columns, painfully reprinting the precepts etc, for the IO sage we have field trips to work on their thesis on whether the Emperors spending habits in the area of Flamingo feathers is causing a drop in available food supplies for the Jara and whether less Jara is a bad thing or not, given that they make such damn good mud baths....
The misconception I see here is that the Empire is trying to remove "old" cults and replace them with new ones of Lunar origin. This is a false view IMO as the Lunars do not see Buserian as being outside their pantheon at all, he is part of their big happy family, just like chaos, just like Yelm and just like Carmanian Dualism. They are all inclusive yet they don't include their assets when they are plainly there? This makes no sense to me either.
Martin Laurie
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