Kebri & Verduria

Drydic · Post by **Drydic** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 3:14 pm

Some parallels I hadn't thought of are the Dutch Republic & Portugal. Relatively small in Continental terms, but widely influental on the high seas, with many offshore colonies (Brazil and the Cape Colony per-Napoleon.)

jmcd · Post by **jmcd** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 1:57 pm

There is always the option of a Kebri colony becoming independent, expanding and that eventually becoming the one most powerful country in Almea. Thus, would Kebreni be widely spoken throughout Almea.

Yiuel Raumbesrairc · Post by **Yiuel Raumbesrairc** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 2:04 pm

jmcd wrote:There is always the option of a Kebri colony becoming independent, expanding and that eventually becoming the one most powerful country in Almea. Thus, would Kebreni be widely spoken throughout Almea.

Yet, their best chance would have been in Tellinor, which the Verdurians colonized first. I don't know, however, if Tellinor will be chosen by immigrants. We haven't seen any colonies with cities yet...

Atom · Post by **Atom** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 8:43 pm

What they need to establish a large and powerful colony (if we follow the American/Australian model) would be a large area that has never been exposed to Eralean diseases. I think were only going to found that above the Zone of Fire, although I imagine they'll have their own diseases to give.

Yiuel Raumbesrairc · Post by **Yiuel Raumbesrairc** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 8:50 pm

Atom wrote:I think were only going to found that above the Zone of Fire, although I imagine they'll have their own diseases to give.

So did the Americas : Syphilis is an disease native to the Americas. We just were able to survive them a little more.

mhansen · Post by **mhansen** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 10:09 pm

Does Zomp have any plans to extend the recorded timeline of Almea past ZE 3480?

rotting bones · Post by **rotting bones** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:39 am

You know what Almea needs? More out and out psychos.

Even taking movements like Jippirasti into account, Almeans are entirely too reasonable compared to us earthlings.

Yiuel Raumbesrairc · Post by **Yiuel Raumbesrairc** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:43 am

rotting ham wrote:You know what Almea needs? More out and out psychos.

Even taking movements like Jippirasti into account, Almeans are entirely too reasonable compared to us earthlings.

I'd hardly see most Endajué practitioners described for Xurno as being reasonable. On the contrary, they seem full of prejudice, and are clearly xenophobic in many ways.

But they already have their psychos : Dhekhnam.

rotting bones · Post by **rotting bones** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:20 am

By psycho, I don't mean the fanatical human sacrificing trope or shark-like predators trying to impress females by employing hypnotic powers upon hapless mortals. I mean random, directionless irrationality seemingly running loose, like 3 day long English tests in modern China that practically determine the student's future. Only deeply cynical or utterly unhinged minds usually dream up details like that, so I guess it's alright.

The closest Almean phenomena I can think of at the moment are the Flaids and their nerdy fascination with logarithms and alchemy. Do they have 3 day long Verdurian exams in a modernizing Dekhnam-esque nation? Didn't think so.

^

Yiuel Raumbesrairc · Post by **Yiuel Raumbesrairc** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:43 am

rotting ham wrote:By psycho, I don't mean the fanatical human sacrificing trope or shark-like predators trying to impress their partners by employing hypnotic powers upon hapless mortals. I mean the kind of random, directionless irrationality running loose like 3 day long English tests in modern China that practically determine the student's future. Only deeply cynical or utterly unhinged minds usually dream up details like that, so I guess it's alright. The closest Almean phenomena I can think of at the moment are the Flaids and their nerdy fascination with logarithms and alchemy. Do they have 3 day long Verdurian exams in a modernizing Dekhnam-esque nation? Didn't think so.

Look at the Xurno Bicikes (Academy). You have to study for years before ever thinking of becoming an academician. If that isn't psycho...

But I understand what you mean. However, those tests are a particular interpretation of Confucianism, where merit is the supreme value, and in China, that value was measured by how well people know about Confucius and other Chinese classics. These tests influenced the mindset in East-asian academia, and going to a higher level is always a series of examinations.

We haven't seen any Almean culture that values tests as a way to determine merit. A prerequesite to the mindset you're so surprised by. Until we get that, we won't have test-psychotic people.

rotting bones · Post by **rotting bones** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 2:16 pm

Yiuel wrote:Look at the Xurno Bicikes (Academy). You have to study for years before ever thinking of becoming an academician. If that isn't psycho...

But I understand what you mean. However, those tests are a particular interpretation of Confucianism, where merit is the supreme value, and in China, that value was measured by how well people know about Confucius and other Chinese classics. These tests influenced the mindset in East-asian academia, and going to a higher level is always a series of examinations.

We haven't seen any Almean culture that values tests as a way to determine merit. A prerequesite to the mindset you're so surprised by. Until we get that, we won't have test-psychotic people.

Yes, the great Imperial Examinations. Even Japan, the most chaotic nation of the lot had those in the Heian era. South Korea is still pretty crazy in the education department: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_South_Korea

What I'm getting at is, perhaps Almea needs more inanity stemming from philosophical idealism (plus bizarre reasoning, skewed reasoning, plain stupidity, etc.) besides purely natural processes such as ... sentient shark-like beings taming herds of humans to do their bidding as a fashion statement. I like that too, of course. That may dilute the fantasy element with a faint Earth-like taint though. And if it's not done well enough, we'll have another World of Warcraft on our hands. Needless to say, that possibility is very hard to imagine as far as zompist's work is concerned.

PS. Please excuse my English. I'm still learning. _/\_

- · Post by - » Wed Jul 22, 2009 3:07 pm

I don't think the Confucian examination system really qualifies as "crazy." That system contributed heavily to China's unprecedented efficiency as a "pre-industrial" state, after all.

(The current Chinese mania for English only seems "crazy" from a specific standpoint. China is dead-set and focussing maximum will on modernization, and has proven pretty good at it so far.)

Chinese history does furnish some genuinely crazy episodes, usually having to do with millenarian religion or ideology (the Yellow Turbans, the Taiping Rebellion... Maoism... this is why the formally-but-not-really-Communist government is so twitchy about the Falun Gong). It seems to me Almea has episodes to compare, like the Red Cabal or the reign of Utu and Utu-On.

Post by **zompist** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 3:43 pm

ils wrote:It seems to me Almea has episodes to compare, like the Red Cabal or the reign of Utu and Utu-On.

Sure; there's other groups that might or might not be considered crazy:
* Bezuxau
* the creators of the Jennine Wekipaijua
* the Dark Years cults, such as the Polnekadi
* the magicians

There's plenty of little things that might well strike a terrestrial tourist as crazy... for instance, Verduria, a nearly modern nation, still sacrifices a white bull at the Temple of Enäron every spring. Endajué is a highly rational religion whose most striking expression is a set of festivals that seem to encourage mass hysteria.

Besides, one man's crazy is another man's good sense. As a way of creating an elite, the Confucian examination system was arguably rationality itself compared to European feudalism.

By temperament and principle, I like to find the rationality in things anyway— once you understand what assumptions are being made and what social goals are sought, many seemingly crazy beliefs and practices begin to make sense, at least in their original context.

rotting bones · Post by **rotting bones** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:54 pm

zompist wrote:one man's crazy is another man's good sense.

Sure. By "crazy", I meant things which look extremely weird from the modern pan-global point of view. Religious matters are naturally exempt from such scrutiny. Eg. Here in Bengal, you still hear about priests trying to kidnap small children for human sacrifice. Very very rarely, but it does happen. A lot of people around me structure their lives around astrological calculations and some practice black magic. A popular one is incanting evil mantras over a coin and throwing it into people's verandas. It's believed that the target will suffer whatever misfortune you have in store for him if he spends the coin. A few years ago two youths broke into the tiger's enclosure of the local zoo in order try and to put a garland on the Tiger. They were eaten alive in broad daylight before a huge crowd of onlookers. Why? They thought they'll find good fortune if they'd succeeded. True story. Believe me, I know all about the relative nature of weirdness.

PS. Come to think of it, one of the main reasons you don't see this sort of diversity in the west is due to it's past of overbearing Christian aestheticism. The orient had less of it than us Indians because of different reasons altogether. Ximen Bao for instance. Nevertheless, pre-revolution China did have things like female infanticide as well as infant sacrifice in the form of a TCM remedy. Something to do with bread baked with fresh human blood if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, how much of this stuff do modern Almean nations have? Reasons?

- · Post by - » Wed Jul 22, 2009 7:25 pm

rotting ham wrote:Eg. Here in Bengal, you still hear about priests trying to kidnap small children for human sacrifice. Very very rarely, but it does happen.

This one intrigues me. In North America, there are periodic hysterias about "Satanic Ritual Abuse" that sometimes include stories of human sacrifice (and always include other lurid details), but there's never any evidence to back them up. Are there proven cases of human sacrifice in Bengal?

Dewrad · Post by **Dewrad** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:02 pm

zompist wrote:There's plenty of little things that might well strike a terrestrial tourist as crazy... for instance, Verduria, a nearly modern nation, still sacrifices a white bull at the Temple of Enäron every spring.

I assume I'm in a very small minority in not considering this at all crazy.

Pthagnar · Post by **Pthagnar** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:31 pm

If anything, only sacrificing *one* seems a little smalltime for what's supposed to be Top Nation.

Post by **zompist** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 12:08 am

Heh! I'm referring to the one the king sacrifices, not to the total bull depopulation.

rotting bones · Post by **rotting bones** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 4:28 am

ils wrote:This one intrigues me. In North America, there are periodic hysterias about "Satanic Ritual Abuse" that sometimes include stories of human sacrifice (and always include other lurid details), but there's never any evidence to back them up. Are there proven cases of human sacrifice in Bengal?

There's very little mass hysteria involved for this sort of thing. It's usually quite hush-hush. Only a few months ago, the news reported two priests in a remote village being arrested for human sacrifice. The victim had a fight with the temple about donation money I think. They broke into his house late at night, broke his legs, dragged him into the temple and chopped his head off in front of Kali. Does that count? I don't follow the news much TBH. My mother tells me that about twenty years ago in the town of Siuri in the district of Birbhum, it was heard that a priest had had a vision of the deity developing a thirst for human blood. A few days later, he was seen leading a small child towards the temple. The public went wild and the priest barely escaped with his life. Who knows what really happened?

BTW do you know what /dZO~k/ is? (I hope I got the X-SAMPA right) There are lots of stories, plays and shows about it. In medieval times, rich people used to bury their money in tomb-like cellars to prevent theft. However, it's said that this wasn't enough for some: they wanted spiritual insurance too. That's right. They used to make friends with small children, lure them into the house and shut them in the cellar with the treasure, placing an injunction upon the spirit of the soon-to-be-deceased to kill anyone who tries to take the treasure if he's not a blood relative of the spellcaster. That's it, the chamber now contains a "jo~k-er dhon" or cursed treasure. I remember a radio play about a rich miser who did this to his own grandson by mistake, then went mad with grief when he found out. My mother's family owns an old, dilapidated ruin on their estate which is rumored to house a /dZO~k/. I'm not sure if that's true, but if the Bengali people believe in something, chances are that somebody has attempted it at some point. Case in point: the tiger incident.

Fortunately, modern banking has rendered these techniques obsolete. Westerners these days are lucky that Christians went to the other extreme during the dark ages, prescribing unnaturally harsh punishments for any behavior they considered deviant. The west currently appears to be in a state of limbo, slowly slipping back into supernaturalism. So thank God, Buddha and the others for Dawkins!

Dewrad wrote:I assume I'm in a very small minority in not considering this at all crazy.

Every self-respecting Chinese household used to sacrifice pork, chicken and fish to the god of luck every new year. I don't know if they still do. This is a matter of scale and subjective judgment like zompist says. While it's certainly unusual in the sense that no modern Earth nation has traditions like that, it's also hard to imagine a non-Cristian president of America. And this isn't the type of insanity I'm looking for either, the kind which they say you can't make up from scratch (unless you're Games Workshop). Eg. gladiator fights (Skouras had this), passion plays, incredible levels of superstition, etc:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/rio/index.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/cbu/cbu29.htm

- · Post by - » Sat Jul 25, 2009 11:01 am

rotting ham wrote:BTW do you know what /dZO~k/ is?

I did not. Thank you for that... I think I'm going to have to do some more reading about Bengali religion.

The west currently appears to be in a state of limbo, slowly slipping back into supernaturalism.

Oh, it's not slipping "back" into anything, supernaturalism never goes anywhere. It just changes shapes. Future religions in the West -- this is my pet theory, anyway -- will feature "aliens" instead of angels and demons and celestial super-aliens in the roles of gods (mixed in a stew with Christian and New Age beliefs). We can already see the beginnings of this.

(Not that much of a fan of the New Secularism myself, it would be nice if it went a bit deeper than the contents of the talk.origins FAQ. But whatever...)

rotting bones · Post by **rotting bones** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 1:40 pm

ils wrote:I did not. Thank you for that... I think I'm going to have to do some more reading about Bengali religion.

I doubt you'll find information on black magic which is considered real by it's practitioners over the internet. Indians and Tibetans have never allowed western scholars to openly publish the contents of higher tantric texts. (Apparently Buddhist tantra never involves killing, only meat from natural death, sex, alcohol, etc in moderate amounts

)

ils wrote:Oh, it's not slipping "back" into anything, supernaturalism never goes anywhere. It just changes shapes.

True. I meant swinging back towards supernaturalism of the non-Christian kind, like an infinitesimally slow spring whose tension has been released. (my pet theory) That's not necessarily a bad thing as long as it doesn't reach the opposite extreme with the west ending up like India. Hopefully that will never happen and the different schools of superstition, anti-superstition, theism and atheism will reach some level of equilibrium.* The only things I'm really not a fan of are monopolies, extremeness and burying children.

Anyway, back to topic.

* the center point of which inclines as far away from superstition as possible!

Yiuel Raumbesrairc · Post by **Yiuel Raumbesrairc** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 2:38 pm

ils wrote:Future religions in the West -- this is my pet theory, anyway -- will feature "aliens" instead of angels and demons and celestial super-aliens in the roles of gods (mixed in a stew with Christian and New Age beliefs). We can already see the beginnings of this.

Raël? We are doomed.

schwhatever · Post by **schwhatever** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 4:07 pm

Yiuel wrote:
ils wrote:Future religions in the West -- this is my pet theory, anyway -- will feature "aliens" instead of angels and demons and celestial super-aliens in the roles of gods (mixed in a stew with Christian and New Age beliefs). We can already see the beginnings of this.
Raël? We are doomed.

I think he was referencing Scientology, but yeah. Angles are aliens is... depressing.

Atom · Post by **Atom** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 4:50 pm

Yiuel wrote:Raël? We are doomed.

I just went and did a search on that religion. Its... interesting in a very "humans are odd" way. I'm not really sure what to make of it. I've never even heard of them.

Yiuel Raumbesrairc · Post by **Yiuel Raumbesrairc** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 5:04 pm

Atom wrote:I just went and did a search on that religion. Its... interesting in a very "humans are odd" way. I'm not really sure what to make of it. I've never even heard of them.

I happen to live fairly near to where the main believer lives, and we also speak the same dialect of French. Not that Raelians bother people much, though they are a disgrace in the Catholics' views of Quebec. (But I'm also a disgrace in their eyes, so I don't care their point of view.)

Schwhatever : That may be possible, but to me Aliens instead of Angels rings Raël in my ears. Cultural bias, I suppose.