>From: "Nick Grant" <gimilkhad_at_clara.co.uk>
>Well, umm, I just wonder what sort of cup we're talking about here. I
>do>wonder, well, to put it bluntly, how furry is this cup?
My pedantic urge is unleashed: many antropologists (I am sure now an
anthropologist by profession will pop up and confute what follows: life is
hard...) believe that any cup/pot/circle or dome in the primitive symbolism
is a reminder of feminine sex.
They equally believe that swords/spears/sticks/flags/totems are symbols for
the masculine sex. Much Freudian, isn't it?
>From: Tim Ellis <tim_at_timellis.demon.co.uk>
>Subject: Re: Fan productions and GS
>In message Fan productions and GS, Richard Develyn writes
> >I think you guys did an LBQ and brought Greg Yelmafford back.
>And you know how no one ever gets quite what they expected out of the
>LBQ don't you...
>(I'm sure Orlanth didn't expect the Compromise, Harmast was so
>disappointed with how Arkat turned out he went back for a second try,
>and Argrath ended up fighting against Sheng...)
ahahahahahah! :-)
>Then earlier today I was thinking "All this Red Emperor debate is just
>like a Giant game of "CREDO" . . . .
bis! bis! :-)
>From: "Nick Brooke" <Nick_Brooke_at_btinternet.com>
>THE SOVIET ANALOGY
>First, and I think everyone agrees with this, the Lunar Empire is of
>itself.>There has never been a culture like this in our world, and no-one
>intends (I>hope) to diminish it by making it a clone of a Real World
>culture.
Ok. I agree.
(snip)
>But why I think a lot of us Brits sympathised with the Lunars from the
>start>was we could see another influence in Greg's mind was the previous
>time the>rugged individualists had been up against the evil Red Empire:
>1776! And in>any Gloranthan film we knew just what nationality of actors
>were going to be>playing the Lunars.
I think a lot of people like the LE for the first reason you (Nick or Chris) posted: beacuse it fits many analogies with the RW and none in the same time. Because it is unique. An epythome of Gloranthan Uniquity.
>But I digress. The Soviet analogy began as a humorous reference to the
>origins of Glorantha but proved useful in a number of ways. The analogy
>works on five levels, which I think makes it rather more useful than a
>(I>hope its was just for argument's sake) "lets use the Incas as a model
>because I know about them"
The Incas model I like more than the Soviet one. Because it is mysterious, exotic, intriguing and ancient. But it's a matter of tastes.
>1: The Soviet Union is an excellent example of an ideological Empire.
>There>have actually been very few of these in the history of the Real
>World. It had an ideology which was particularly its own, shared only by
>its client>states. And it was an ideology which most outsiders viewed with
>very deep>suspicion and usually hostility.
AFAIK, ideology (and religion: BTW, Christians do not wage war over religious disputes, Martin Laurie: the history of ManKind is full of examples in which any Religion is used as an excuse for killing the Others, to divide, to give reasons for conquest, segregation and exploitation. The real engine for war never was religion, ever was human greed! End of the digression) has always backed any empire in history. I don't see any uniqueness in the Soviet Union as an Empire, except that it is a modern one. Using a modern analogy for the Gloranthan world is a mistake, in my own opinion.
>I think "the Lunar Invasion of Tarsh">should have the same gut feeling to
>it that "The Soviet Invasion of>Afghanistan" has, rather than the Sassanid
>invasion of Georgia, the Ummayad>Invasion of Persia. This is one reason why
>I think the Red Army conjures up>the right sort of feelings. It is an army
>with an ideological purpose behind>it.
Ehi, you beat my own favourtite analogy, here! I like the Muslim analogy over all the others (the ancient Muslims, of course)!
(snip here and there)
>2: Most modern people reading about the Lunar Empire will probably see
>nothing wrong in the Lunar Way. It seems a benevolent and reasonable
>ideology.(snipsnipsnip)The Rough Guide to Glamour is just the latest in a
>line of Lunar>Propaganda documents telling us all is for the best in this,
>the best of all>possible Empires, playing on the fact that most of us have
>gamed in Sartar>and Pavis, where we can see just how nice and benevolent
>the Lunars really>are.
The Lunar Way _is_ benevolent and reasonable, AFAIK. And I don't think that the roots of the LE are much more corrupted than, say, the Ancient Roman or Egyptian or Muslim Empire. Again I don't see any necessity to use a modern analogy. It conveys ideas which are incompatible with Glorantha (like modern propaganda or modern parties or modern secret policies which are radically different from their counterparts in the ancient world _and_ in Glorantha). At school I studied that the idea of Persona, of the Individual, began in the Middle Ages, for example. It is difficult to imagine how people thought before the idea of persona arose in the western world. Let's ask to a Japanese, for instance. Our Modern Views are radically different from the Ancient Ways, let alone the Gloranthans. Why use so contemporary and western (despite of its "Russianity") a model?
(snipsnip)
>4: The base cultures of the Soviet Union are luckily ones which we also
>draw>on for our other real world analogies. Russia was part of what
>Obolensky>calls the Byzantine Commonwealth and after the Fall of
>Constantinople Ivan>the Great declared Moscow as the Third Rome.
AFAIK the chief model for Ivan was Paris. The Court of Le Roi Soleil. No way to connect Luis XIV with Glorantha, Rome or Byzantium. Let alone Ivan the Great.
>So, if you want a Soviet take>on the Late Roman Empire, there it is.
What do you mean by that?
>Next there is the huge Moslem aspect>of the Soviet Union. Islam was
>certainly an original part of Greg's thinking>behind the Lunar Empire. Just
>look at the Crescents, the Scimitars, Sultans,>the William Church counter
>illustrations of Tarshites. The History of the>Lunar Empire is pure rise
>of Islam (perhaps filtered through the Dune>Books).
Ehi, I like the Islam Analogy myself, but this is reductive! "The History of the LE is pure rise of Islam"? "Perhaps filtered through the Dune books"? This is Highly Reductive! Chris or Nick, come on! Don't fall over your own steps...
>So, if you want to see Soviet Islam, there it is in Central Asia,
>with a skyline of minarets, crescents, domes and red flags. And so on
>through all the minorities, Soviet Cossacks, Soviet Steppes Nomads,
>Soviet>Shamans. They all existed in our real world for us to compare our
>visions.
Soviet Shamans? You mean like Raspoutin? You are really puzzling, here. I know the Zar Empire did fight against his quota of Steppes Nomads, back in the XVIII and XIX century. But by the arrival of the October Revolutions they were quite dead, weren't they? At least as much dead as the USA RedSkins. Confined in Reserves and kept under the boot.
>Tamberlane the Great must surely be one of the models of Sheng Seleris.
>And>where are his stamping grounds and tomb? The Soviet Union.
Tamerlane in Soviet Union? The Kiev Princedom of Sviatoslav or of Alexsandr Nevskii (which the Mongols did meet under the followers of Genghis Khan, not of Tamerlane) were radically different from the Soviet Union. Why mix the modern with the ancient, I repeat?
>5: Soviet chic. Luckily the visual style of the Soviet Union provides
>enough>red, silver and gold, stars, sickles and so forth to be a ready
>source of>artistic inspiration. I would suggest that this derives from
>Greg's>subconscious idea of the way an evil empire should look like.
Do you really know Greg's subconscious ideas? Great! I don't know mine (and I know it's best for me not knowing them: why is it called subconscious for, then? ;-))!
>The Soviet Paradigm, which works for the reasons above, is a very
>fruitful>source of inspiration. (snisnipsnip) These are very handy mental
>short cuts which I defy>anyone to argue exist if we say the Lunar Empire
>was rather like Archaemenid>Persia or the Assyrian Empire.
"Very Handy Mental Short Cuts"?
mmmhh
Undoubtedly. Yours VHMSC.
Perhaps Greg has other VHMSCs, has not him? I certainly have others. I also
think that if I want to play in Glorantha, I have two sources: the published
materials and the RW _ancient_ history stuff. If I want to play in modern
times, I play at CoC.
Raspoutin as a Prophet of Yog Sothoth makes much more sense to me.
No offence meant to Nick of Chris, of course. Their work is great, but some of their ideas I can't share (and I don't talk about politics!).
Ciao
Gian
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