Jerome:
<< When the text mentioned millions of people all over the world, dreaming
thanks to the Zistorite faith, I thought of millions of people stuck in
front of
their TV sets>>
I love this image - before the machine was destroyed they were all a bunch of couch potato/internet addict type people mindlessly enjoying mechano/mechanical dreams.
David Dunham:
<< Sadly, none of these ideas sound quite right.>>
I agree, that was my reason for asking the question. I couldn't quite work it out.
<<Peter's ideas are better, though perhaps too complex. And I disagree that they'd be useless outside the Mahcine City: they invaded Esrolia and founded the Machine City, after all.>>
I feel Peter's ideas a slanted toward "modern" day Zistorism (if such a thing exists) rather than the exciting new religion of the New Knews before it really got "heavy". I wanted the character to have the chance to be enthusiastic about the Brave New World of Zistor.
<<BTW, I assume your game is during the reign of Ilotos, 901-919?>>
No, it is seventy years earlier - 831. The player wrote a 100word narrative, without knowing much about Glorantha (in the second age at least) that cried out for curious mechanical devices, so I suggested Zistorism. So, possibly a bit too early, but the Machine City was started in 740 according to some sources, and the KoS story implies that the Zistori Philosophy had been around for a while before it really got going.
Gian:
<< Dreaming, in this contest, reminds me of Cthulhian dreams: bad
visions of something that is horrible but fascinating and that both
charms and twists the minds and actions of the Zistorites.>>
But they get pleasure from it. Or perhaps cannot stand the real world when they do not have it
Peter:
<<What need would a sorcerous philosophy from a land of atheists
have of theistic magic?>>
I agree with Peter here, but would add that we know that Zistorism spread to theist Esrolia and somehow went wrong. That somehow, sometime Zistor became a god. I know this is from an Orlanthi POV but it is an interesting idea to speculate that the Zistori Philosophers got it right, while the theists who later worshiped the Machine God got it all wrong and caused the disaster that followed. This would be well after my game, so it is not too important.
Peter:
<< The Orlanthi viewed it as having dreams. But since the Orlanthi
also believe the Malkioni are soulless, I'm not overly concerned
with my proposal not exactly corresponding to what is in KoS.>>
Again, I agree, the story is obviously biased and probably inaccurate, so bits that do not correspond can be gleefully discarded.
Changing Peter's excellent Morlocks to TV producers, and thereby stretching that analogy, we get:
"Other TV channels produce game shows and soap operas for the humans of the modern world in order to enslave them with vile entertainment for their sponsors. The slaves toil in vast factories by day and at night, their very dreams are compelled to work for the consumer driven economy. The TV Producers are unable to dream themselves for they lost that portion of humanity when they took the job."
Keith Nellist
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