Peter Larsen wrote:
>
> Jeff Kyer says:
>
> >"To save Arrolaint, we had to destroy it." In extremis, the
> Brithini
> >tend to draw on any resource availble, regardless of the
> consequences.
> >That's why some of their forlorn little colonies are such miserable
> >places. Once they'd tapped out all the renewable resources, they sort
>
> >of strip-mined the intangibles like Hope, Color, Imagination (not
> >necessary to the lower castes, of course) and so forth.
>
> Yikes! Tapping is rather worse than I had imagined. "We tapped
> the Warmth
> out of the Sun; who thought it would get used up so quickly?"
I could be exaggerating the case. But I seem to recall that the explanation for Arrolaint being such a grey and dismal land (it actually IS gray) was due to the profound amount of tapping the Zzaburi preformed to keep the God-Learners/Dark Empire/Seneshelans/Whomever out.
Once you've tapped out all the easily used sources of energy (prisoners, criminals, 'volunteers', animals, spirits, talking rocks and whatnot) you have to start in on the more difficult stuff.
> >The Talars (rulers) seem to be more concerned with defending their
> >immortal lives and those of the people under their care (Farmers,
> >Soldiers, Zaburri) at what seems any price than ethics or aesthetics.
>
> I'm sure it seams reasonable to them....
>
When all you have is your life, and that life can go on forever, I think its _very_ reasonable.
Jeff
Powered by hypermail