My own thoughts on the issue: I think it's highly likely that the Rathori and the Char Un do come into conflict, what with people being people (and bears being bears, and especially, with Chars being Un). And since the Char Un are the more 'technologically advanced' and 'materially rich' of the two (talk about tuppence-ha'penny looking down on tu'ppence...), then if there's any econimic benefit (and perhaps, economic motive) for this conflict, it'd be in direction of favouring the former. (Just to add a bit of Material Determinism to lower the quality of the debate further.) However, I don't think that'd really drive the conflict, and nor do I think it would be on a very systematic or well-organised basis, so the term 'raid' may or may not be appropriate depending on your mental image of such. Nothing so orderly as an Orlanthi 'cattle raid', at least. (2.5p vs 2p, again...)
The root cause of such conflict I see as being in a sense an ecological one. The Rathori can only exist as they do in forest, and the Char Uns only on open plains. And as it happens, over and above any casual tree-felling that might normally be the limit of such a conflict, both sides have 'form' when it comes to rather more drastic forms of ecological conflict... But let's not digress there, for now. At any rate, conflict is almost inevitable around the margins of the forest, and regardless which of the two one thinks is the 'Ardest, almost certainly there will exist a point of at least temporary equilibrium at which it can 'manage' itself, since it's equal folly for the nomads to go deep into the forest as it is for the rathori to stroll around the steppe, jeering at passing cavalry formations.
Martin L:
> Yes, and this happens. The Orlanthi were once shamanistic millenia ago and
> then history happened and now they are theists! This will likely happen to
> the Rathori too. However, the change is gradual and insidious and I think
> that even conservative cultures change under the pressures of the outside
> world. They'd still call themselves Rathori, even if they weren't the same
> as their grandfathers.
This may indeed be happening to the Rathori at large; but the sort of relatively sudden, 'you lot go stand over there and fire arrows at that lot there' development that's also been talked about in this thread (and indeed, the last time we talked about this...) is rather different, much more akin to emmigration and more or less wholesale assimilation.
> 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...
Well, you perhaps jest, but not a million miles away from the size of it, I reckon. If the Char Un venture close to the forest, the Rathori sneak out at night to opportunistically make off with their pickinick bask-- eh, their metal arrow heads, unattended horseflesh, or whatever, or perhaps on a (only slightly) more organised basis, carry out 'reprisal raids' if they've tampering with the local eco-system. ('Woodsman, woodsman, spare that tr-- rrowr!')
> They are people who use the bear spirits.
They don't 'use' them, they emulate, nay, _are_ them.
> RW totemic people do not act exaclty like their animal totems, they
> still think and act like humans on the whole.
The term 'totemic' may be misleading here, since at leats in my mind it conjures up a mode of 'animism' (broad church, these days) more characteristic of frex, the Praxians.
> Humans are a gregarious race and I think that comes first.
Depends how 'first' you have in mind. Clearly Rathori are more 'socialised' than yer actual four-legged bears (or, than say tiger hsunchen...), but broadly speaking I think one can say that they're a darn sight less 'gregarious' than any given non-primitives you might compare them too, and that broadly, the tendancies of their totem animal and the particular hsunchen correlate pretty well.
> It is also the time when all cultures beset by peace
As stipulated in opening comments, I'm saying nothing. ;-)
> Besides, in many ways wars are when a culture makes its strongest advances.
> Did Lenin not say that war is the engine of state?
Lenin said a lot of things, mind you.
In re the Arrolians, which I've largely snipped I know... But I'm not sure I follow what you're saying -- the Arrolians are 'defended to the teeth' out of the necessity of fending off their many enemies, such as the Rathori who are are mercilessly and unremittingly not raiding them?
Personally I like the idea of a peacenik, egalitarian, under-militarised Arrolia if nothing else to contrast with the Lunar Empire, which frankly, isn't. (Understatement of the year, from what I gather...)
Cheers,
Alex.
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