No we weren't. The basis of all of this was whether the Rathori would have "evolved" to the point of massed formations of archers. You said that this was inevitable given that the people they raid would have developed an impregnable defensive system based on forts, quick response heavy cavalry and lookout points on every hilltop.
What I'm saying is that this is not as clearcut as you think. If, as it seems likely to me, the Rathori raids are a bunch of hunters off to do a quick bit of stealing rather than large-scale invasions as you seem to postulate. Then they are small-scale irritations causing property damage and loss in the outlying areas but not neccesarily great loss of life. Yes, a couple of outlying hamlets might band together and reinforce each other and try to come to each others help. That is a far cry from fortified villages and quick response heavy cavalry. If the raids are more of an irritation on the large scale then they do not require a large-scale and unbalanced response.
Thus there seems no real need to invoke such a dramatic change of the status quo as to say that the Rathori are suddenly getting together in large formations which is contrary to what a hunter-gatherer society would normally do.
So, essentially, I reject the contention that there is sufficient pressure to cause the Rathori to undergo such a significant cultural change just so that you can have large regiments of Rathori longbowmen in your WRG-style Carmanian army-lists. A few Rathori as scouts or, at a strech, skirmishers, yes.
> >They are using a calculus different from one that only looks at
> >the most immediate threat (for example). It is precisely this "logic"
> >that is meant when, for example, Loskalm will lose to the Kingdom of War
> >if it defeats them militarily if they do so by becoming what they most
> >despise. Sometimes a "devolution" (sic - whatever the hell that might
> >be?) is a winning strategy. It all depends on the bigger picture.
>
> Yes it does. I agree. Saying that, the options one has in fighting the KoW
> is to either win, or be dead. Given that choice, I think any sane society
> would chose to survive, rather than die, even at a terrible social cost. Our
> heirarchy of needs places survival first, or at least it does to most people.
> Some people place other factors first, such as religion etc but that is not
> the rule.
Zoria, for example, seems to have found another way. They've not been crushed utterly.
In a world like Glorantha it is not neccesarily the best course to fight fire with fire. The world was not saved from Chaos simply by pounding the hell out of it, but by the lightbringer's quest (or a major spell, or Yelm's overwhelming purity, etc)
> I think that they are bear people, it doesn't mean that they are bears. If
> we followed that logic, then their raids would be a couple of guys wandering
> into Arrolia to root through the garbage and molest a couple of camp sites
> and could be scared away by some pots and pans clashing in the wind on the
> terrace...They are people who use the bear spirits. RW totemic people do not
> act exaclty like their animal totems, they still think and act like humans on
> the whole. Humans are a gregarious race and I think that comes first. Those
> Rathori who were more bear than human would be less social yes, but they
> would be rare and talked of in awed tones.
The society of the totemic has a significant effect on the human society. I'm not saying that they behave completely like bears, but there is a significant effect. They hibernated for goodness sake. They will certainly be less prone to gather in large groups than, for example, the uncolings or the pralori or even the Telmori. So, yes, their raids are more like a few hunters opportunistically looking for easy targets and a bit of quick loot rather that large numbers of warriors swooping down on fortified settlements to burn and pillage like the vikings.
> They have no one else to turn to. They have to defend themselves. There is
> no govt other than them to do it. I think that most peacful people will
> resort to war if they are presented no alternative. The only alternative the
> Arrolians have is to fight to stop raids or pay tribute, either way they are
> at war.
You have a very different perception of what a rathori raid is like from me. Hell, even the Orlanthi don't normally do the type of intense continuous and destructive raiding that you believe the Rathori do.
> >I do belive that you have worked out the military logistics of the empire
> >in painstaking detail. I also believe that the phrase "the problems of a
> >culture beset by long spells of peace in its military evolution" is fairly
> >frightening. A culture _beset_by_long_spells_of_peace_? Lieber Gott!
> >Um, isn't this when cultures make their most significant (non-military)
> >advances? Forgive me if this particular phraseolgy doen't make me feel
> >all that much better.
>
> It is also the time when all cultures beset by peace weaken their defences
> and strategic capability to such a degree that they are inevitably caught
> short when the next inevitable war comes along. The peace dividend is just
> peachy as long as everyone likes it. Unfortunately history has proved time
> and again that not everyone buys it, some simply see it as an opportunity.
> If you like I could quote you a book worth of examples of military
> unpreparedness because everyone thought there would be no more war (after all
> who would get involved in such an insane thing? they reason).
>
> Besides, in many ways wars are when a culture makes its strongest advances.
> Did Lenin not say that war is the engine of state?
Ok, we have a fundamental difference here and I don't think this would be a terribly productive line of discussion.
> Highly responsibe? Military elite? I would hardly call the ability to have
> a warning system (a guy standing on a hill with a horn) and the capability of
> going to the aid of ones neighbours, something even primitive socieites can
> manage, to be highly developed. Its simply common sense stuff
>
> I suppose the Arrolians you imagine simply stand around gawking while they
> are being looted. Look suprised while their women get raped and their kids
> carted off to thralldom and while the Rathori raiders kill them. I suppose
> when one of them suggests taking up arms to defeat the raiders, he is shouted
> down on the grounds that such unprovoked violence on the raiders would merely
> encourage more and they shoudl be left alone to do their thing because, after
> all, we must look at them from a relativistic point of view and realise that
> they are people too.
Indeed - there are small-scale skirmishes. Any person will guard their home and family, and even help their neighbour. I just don't believe that the Rathori threat is sufficient for them to have significantly changed their social structure from what was said in G:CotHW.
> Bollocks. I've gamed with you Dave, I know fine well you'd be the first to
> be cutting their balls off with a big spear. So tell me, how do you think
> they Arrolians cope with the raids? What do they do? I know how I see it
> but I'm damned if I can get the details of it from you or the others who
> think they simple turn the other cheek.
It's called roleplaying. Playing a non-psycopathic Alkothi would have been significantly out of character!
Ok, I'll spell out my thesis very simply. I don't believe that the Rathori raid en masse and lay waste to large swathes of the country-side. There are small raids - a few hunters looking for some easy loot. These are not a sufficient threat and economic drain that they require a disproportionate response in the form of forts, a standing heavy cavalry quick-response force and fundamental changes to the society. This also means that there is not the huge pressure on the Rathori to escalate their raiding style by forming uncaracteristic mass formations and forces.
Yes, neighbours will help each other and there might be the occasional small skirmish. Raids would generally be a small number of rathori sneaking up on a unsuspecting house or hamlet and either grabbing what they could before being chased away or scaring the inhabitants and grabbing things and then getting away before the inhabitants return with their neighbours.
So, now do you see where we're comming from?
Yak
- --
Dave Pearton
pearton_at_u.washington.edu
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"Its habit of getting up late you'll agree
That it carries too far, when I say
That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea,
And dines on the following day.
The Hunting of the Snark, Lewis Carroll
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