zompist bboard

Another thread just gave me a thought and made me wonder. Are there ever going to be any descendants of Verdurian, Kebreni, Xurnas, etc.? Zomp said that it's easier to derive a daughter language than a parent one*, so it wouldn't be terribly hard. Easier than Eteodaolesp?, at least. I find the idea very appealing. So, Lord Zompist, have you ever planned on such a project?

* Isn't it interesting how we say daughter, sister, and parent languages? No sons, brothers, siblings, fathers, or mothers.

Another question:

What will the future be like in Almea? I mean when they have our technology?

Julao wrote:Another question:

What will the future be like in Almea? I mean when they have our technology?

And If. They might never get that far, you never know.

Why not?!

Julao wrote:Why not?!

Historical chance. I'm not saying they probably won't. Now taht i think of it, my post was kinda pointless, sorry

oh, weve been responding to each other instantly

Julao wrote:Why not?!

Armageddon! A comet strikes Almea before they get advanced technology!

Rory wrote:

Julao wrote:Why not?!

Armageddon! A comet strikes Almea before they get advanced technology!

...or there's inadequate energy sources, to take a slightly milder view

(ooh, that reminds me: Zomp, how much oil, or coal, or something of the sort, is there on Almea?)

At some point I intend to tackle the story of the confrontation between Verduria and Dhekhnam, which is probably not too far off (in Almean time).

Beyond that-- well, who knows. In a sense it would be fun to have interstellar Verdurians; on the other hand, as I've mentioned before, I have a separate s.f. universe for when I want to touch on more futuristic themes.

Could this be a 'sister thread' of mine called Modern Conworlds?

zompist wrote:At some point I intend to tackle the story of the confrontation between Verduria and Dhekhnam, which is probably not too far off (in Almean time).

you cannot imagine how much i implore you to do this, you know my facination with war and this would be amazing. *gets on hands and knees and begs for this to come true*

CountJordan wrote:Could this be a 'sister thread' of mine called Modern Conworlds?

No, but I can't remember what.

Cevlakohn wrote:

CountJordan wrote:Could this be a 'sister thread' of mine called Modern Conworlds?

No, but I can't remember what.

Huh?

CountJordan wrote:Could this be a 'sister thread' of mine called Modern Conworlds?

Well, they do cover related themes, albeit in somewhat differing fashions.

I do agree that the Verduria-Dhekhnam confrontation holds the potential for an epic tale indeed , although there are other periods in Almea's history that I find interesting as well. In addition, I would love to hear a bit more about Mark's SF universe someday; he did provide a brief description in one of this board's very first threads (right here).

p@,
Glenn

zompist wrote:At some point I intend to tackle the story of the confrontation between Verduria and Dhekhnam, which is probably not too far off (in Almean time).

Your mentioning this made me curious... if Almea's technology is roughly 17-18C, with more advanced linguistics and biology, how is its military technology? Does war involve large quantities of materiel, explosive weapons, and huge massed armies, or is it not that far along yet?

Ihano wrote:

zompist wrote:At some point I intend to tackle the story of the confrontation between Verduria and Dhekhnam, which is probably not too far off (in Almean time).

Your mentioning this made me curious... if Almea's technology is roughly 17-18C, with more advanced linguistics and biology, how is its military technology? Does war involve large quantities of materiel, explosive weapons, and huge massed armies, or is it not that far along yet?

A related question: what is the role of armor in current Verdurian warfare? Since firearms (especially small-scale ones) are still rare and crude, and land warfare is still dominated by "the horse and the sword", armored cavalry might play a larger role than in the comparable period on Earth. On the other hand, Verduria and Dhekhnam already have siege cannon and artillery, and their archery skills are probably pretty good as well (not to mention more basic anti-cavalry tactics such as the use of pikemen), so personal armor may already be somewhat obsolete. Ah, for the days of the Xurnese xaleza, when bold knights with steely discipline and unflinching honor truly ruled the battlefield...

p@,
Glenn

The key here is to remember that the Plain hasn't seen a major war for two centuries. So general technology is like our 18th century, but military technology lags significantly behind. Naval technology is a bit farther along, partly because the last major was was with Kebri, another naval power, and because there's been a continuing need for large, strong ships. This is one reason why there are cannon but no effective small arms. As well, no one's invented smokeless powder, which was instrumental in making guns really useful on the battleground.

On armor, I have to say I don't know. Wasn't plate armor partly invented to resist bullets? The Japanese had better swords than the Europeans, but didn't go to that extreme in armor.

Plate Armor first became widely used during the Middle Ages before the introduction of the gun to Europe in general, its just coincidental that they made the armor so resilient that it is virtually bulletproof. Plate Armor was part of the defense against stronger archery weaponry, I believe.

Glenn Kempf wrote:Ah, for the days of the Xurnese xaleza, when bold knights with steely discipline and unflinching honor truly ruled the battlefield...

Oh, xaleza... I finally get it![/i]

zompist wrote:On armor, I have to say I don't know. Wasn't plate armor partly invented to resist bullets?

Nope It fell out of general use when the bullets got good enough at penetrating it.

The Japanese had better swords than the Europeans, but didn't go to that extreme in armor.

Er, no. The Japanese didn't generally have "better swords" than the Europeans... the Japanese swords are excellent for cutting unprotected flesh, but they're not particularly good against armour. As you note the Japanese didn't go to European extremes in armour designs - probably because the armour they had was good enough against the weapons they used, including their swords!

Medieval European sword types OTOH were generally less excellent (though still quite good) at cutting/slashing attacks, but better at chopping or stabbing through armour... and as a consequence European armours grew stronger to withstand these types of attacks.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Japanese iron ores were rather poor quality. Those famous pattern-welding techniques weren't just a way to make beautiful blades; they were absolutely necessary for making a decent blade out of such crappy raw materials! (This could also be a reason why the Japanese armours looked like they did - it isn't particularly easy to make good armour plate even from high-quality ore.)

Later,

Oerjan

Edit:

I know I had some links somewhere... If you want to learn more about swords, check out
http://www.thehaca.com/essays.htm

Particularly relevant for this post are
http://www.thehaca.com/essays/nobest.htm
and
http://www.thehaca.com/essays/hype.htm

Oerjan wrote:

zompist wrote:On armor, I have to say I don't know. Wasn't plate armor partly invented to resist bullets?

Nope It fell out of general use when the bullets got good enough at penetrating it.

(snip)

Medieval European sword types OTOH were generally less excellent (though still quite good) at cutting/slashing attacks, but better at chopping or stabbing through armour... and as a consequence European armours grew stronger to withstand these types of attacks.

And don't forget the effect of crossbows and long-bows - I think the threat from those played a major role in the repolacement of chain mail by plate mail.
Best regards,
Hans-Werner

zompist wrote:On armor, I have to say I don't know. Wasn't plate armor partly invented to resist bullets? The Japanese had better swords than the Europeans, but didn't go to that extreme in armor.

The big reason plate armor came in was not bullets but arrows, specifically longbows and crossbows. The arrow from a longbow can go through a 3-inch-thick oak slab at several hundred yards; a crossbow doesn't have quite the same stopping power, but it's a heck of a lot easier to train people to use. Chainmail, the armor of choice in the early middle ages, is great against slashing but doesn't do much versus arrow points and stillettos.

Once guns came along, it became less useful to wear armor. This is why people from the Napoleonic wars and forward tend to run around the battlefields in unarmored uniforms; the tradeoff between protection and mobility had swung in the direction of mobility. (Not to mention that the load-bearing arrangements in a lot of early European militaries were so bad that people got tired faster than they would have just carrying the same amount of stuff as a bundle in their arms.)

As for the Japanese, they had better swords...sorta. Japanese swords are great against bare flesh and cloth; one way a new blade was traditionally tested was by trying to cut an oiled rope that hung free from a branch or beam. If it sliced the rope, the blade was sharp enough. But even a little metal can stop a katana cold if it catches it at the right angle. Japanese armor was often made of a bunch of little plates of metal or wood laced together and lacquered (and with the laces all color-coordinated, of course; this is the Japanese :). This was done because a) the Japanese islands are metal-poor and it was cheaper to do it that way than trying to get big hunks of metal together for plate and b) the chances of catching a blade at the right angle were greatly increased.

Which is probably more than you wanted to know. :)

--Neon Fox

Hmm... The assertion about Japanese vs. European swords came from a book by Noel Perrin, which mentioned that a Japanese sword could chop a Spanish sword in half.

zompist wrote:Hmm... The assertion about Japanese vs. European swords came from a book by Noel Perrin, which mentioned that a Japanese sword could chop a Spanish sword in half.

Well, yes. Because the Japanese sword has much better steel in it. But it has to catch the other sword at the correct angle.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all over the Coolness Factor of Japanese swords. :) But the reason the guys in samurai movies do a lot of cross-body slashes is that that's precisely what katana are good at--reasonably shallow slashing. When your opponent is unarmored, this hurts him a hell of a lot. When he's wearing armor, however, the slash tends to cut through the armor and leave the guy underneath relatively unhurt, or at least "injured" rather than "bleeding to death". Katana suck for stabbing and battering through armor, as I think someone mentioned.

I wish I knew a little more about this. I'll have to see if I can get my Japanese-persona SCA buddy to give me some more info.

--Neon Fox

The art of Bushido is designed to defeat the enemy with just one fluid movement--generally the first move in a fight is the last--the fights we see in Samurai movies are rare. Rightly--samurai swords are built for slashing, swords like a bastard sword, long sword, or hell--even a zweihander--are built with a slashing edge but being followed by brute force. A sidelong blow from such a sword would probably breal the Katana, but that's if our western soldier lived long enough to get a blow in.