> I can just about get his way of thinking. He's seen enough of the
> real world to understand that logical effect is often an after the
> event rationalisation of what happened.
No, it's an attempt to make the reasons for actions look more impressive than they actually were.
> The repeated economic
> bubbles over the last few centuries show that people's actions are
> often not governed by cause and effect.
Yes, they are. Always. Everyone has a reason for their actions, even if it's a lousy one. Every three-year-old has caught on to the idea that "why?" is always a valid question, and an important one, too.
> You can call it collective insanity if you like.
Collective stupidity, collective ignorance, but it doesn't have to be insanity unless the reasons for their actions were even less impressive than "the voices in my head told me to". "I thought it would make a profit: I was wrong" is more likely.
> Or the more common reason for Gods falling out - that their natures
> are in conflict. Yelm doesn't fall out with Orlanth over any one
> thing. Orlanth must challenge authority, Yelm must resist such
> challenges.
Yes, that works too, and it's still a reason, not a non-reason. Cause: incompatible natures. Or even as stand-alone: Orlanth did X because it was his nature to do X. But if we get "Orlanth painted half his sheep yellow" we then ask "why?", and we need a reason.
>> I'm not sure what ILH1&2 so drastically rewrote about the Lunars.
>You know more about them than I do, but I Nick reckoned it was a
>mess, and I'll believe him. What I mainly noticed was that they
>changed from being a nice comprehensible loose pseudo-Roman analogue
>with overtones from the British Empire and the Soviets to something
>messy and unpronouncable, with no central structure ever given, only
>some non-standard bits around the edges.
> Well the Roman Empire was a mess for most of its history.
Quite possibly, but we were talking about the re-write being a mess in terms of compatibility, not whether or not the thing it was about was a mess.
> The neat
> legions of the school text books lasted a century or two at best.
> The overtones of British Empire are uncontradicted although the
> Soviet analogue has disappeared. I always regarded that as a joke,
> it was too anachronistic.
Anachronistic? Why limit yourself to one area of Earth history? The Soviet analogue didn't depend on tech levels, only on the flaws in human nature and what happens if you get a fundamentally good idea and extend it way past the point where it stops working.
> The bureaucracy is still there, the military bit is called the
> Ordenviru (I can even spell that right these days).
I'm not even trying. What's the point of a new name that not even the people interested in it can spell or pronounce? It's the Lunar Army - I know what that phrase means, and so do my readers/players.
>If I ever want "this is weird and unusual for Lunars" then the new
>stuff has sources for me, but it doesn't cover Lunar normality at all.
> The whole point is that no empire has ever existed with a single set of cultural values.
Who said anything about a single set of cultural values? One standard military unit, with standard uniforms and names. "You turn the corner and see some Lunar soldiers". How do you know that's what they are? They're wearing standard Lunar uniforms, and doing standard Lunar things. You're never going to find out what their cultural values are, you're just going to loose a volley of javelins and then go in with swords.
>> Certainly a big motivator for Lunar actions is the competition
>>between Dara Happa and Tarsh for control of policy.
>
>In the Dragon Pass area at least, yes, very much so. KoS makes that
>very clear.
> And if we are to make sense of that we need to consider the cultural
> differences between them.
Yes.
> It may also be worth considering the other
> conflict the Empire is involved in - against the Pentan nomads. They
> are probably the bigger threat to the Heartlands. When the Emperor
> withdraws support from Tarsh's war against Sartar it is probably
> because the resources are needed in Oraya.
Did that last funny name mean "Pent"?
There's something odd going on with Pent anyway. What's all this about 13 year olds with red hair? Why is anyone interested in their hair colour?
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