zompist bboard

In the count of years I read about the wars of the Iliu and the Ktuvoks and it said that there was a war called the war of the machines.

We can guess they were about equal in weaponry at that time. However Zompist says that the war reduced them to a dark age. The ktuvoks of Erelae remembered metallurgy, but not steam or electric power. The ktuvok empires in Lebiscuri are said to be at stone-age level.

Mornche is right— the ktuvoks don't seem to be good at retaining technological knowledge outside of practical necessities (an actual empire to run or a war to fight).

Why do the ktuvoks seem to be Always Chaotic Evil? The only people who disagree are the Irreanists, but so far everything you've portrayed them doing confirms everyone else. For someone who wrote in the PCK that eeeevil villains are a hoary cliché, you're doing a good job of making the ktuvoks pure evil. Sure, they're actually able to run a country efficiently but it's made clear how dastardly they all are. Azgami secedes because of ktuvoks? They're dirt poor! Karma, bitch! "So Dhekhnam's your enemy?" "-88!" And you might say it's all because from a human POV they are just that horrible, but I've never seen a single example of good ktuvoks. Come on, I know you can write way better than this! Ormant and the Peace Party were realistic if not hilarious.

Well, I don't see them as eeevil; it's the Almean humans (and iliu) who do.

Try the articles on ktuvoks and ktuvok empires in the Almeopedia, which are written a bit more neutrally. Or read Shikhar's life and compare with, say, Phwai's.

It wouldn't be hard to present a ktuvokocentric relation of Dhekhnam's history and worldview. From that viewpoint, the ktuvoks are highly practical and even religious. They think of humans as something like very smart livestock, true, but for that very reason they treat them better than many human rulers do. Even the Sarnaeans (who were taken over with particular brutality) admit that the barbarians were worse.

I dunno, they just always seem to do a lot of the typical evil empire things. I mean, has a ktuvok ever tried to talk with a human on the same level? Ever? Has a ktuvok ever been an international traveler? Maybe you should make a couple of those life-of-this guy bios for some non-humans. Assuming there aren't any for elcari or whatever, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure you have one for a flaid. It would actually be really interesting to see a ktuvok or iliu biography.

I suspect that the high-ranking humans in the ktuvok empires are the real baddies. As long as they can keep buttering up the nampahl they can practically do anything they like.

Ktuvok: What happened to X?
Human chief: Oh, he died of a chill.

Because the ktuvoks stay in their swamps most of the time, a lot can be hidden from them. Probably they are only told what they want to hear.

Rainlander wrote:I dunno, they just always seem to do a lot of the typical evil empire things. I mean, has a ktuvok ever tried to talk with a human on the same level? Ever?

And that's what makes them evil? I also try not to talk to my food - does that make me evil?

yes

this is a really good point though: "I suspect that the high-ranking humans in the ktuvok empires are the real baddies. As long as they can keep buttering up the nampahl they can practically do anything they like." Anyway, the Ktuvoks don't strike me as any worse than plenty of historical earth imperialist adventures. They certainly do look like stereotypical Evil Monsters, which probably has something to do with the eeeevil factor?

yes, the ktuvoks act pretty much just tories, but what makes them evil people rather than people who do evil is that they're a race of obligate tories! this results in a sort of ultratorydom which makes them bad as well as evil.

either they spend their lives huntin', shootin' and fishin', living in that strange hunter-gatherer life of plenty which can be called wealth if you are a barbarian who sees value in nothing but feeding, fighting and fucking OR they assert their natural right to rule over empires of humans, exercise the tory brand of Violence Which Is Not Violence, and so get a *higher* grade of the same.

those are the two, not mutually exclusive, options that appear to be open to the ktuvoks.

they have nothing but contempt for actual civilised humans as seen in their replacement of their customs with ktuvokolatry [at least Anglican Tory Jesus is a white Englishman only by association and royalty-worshipping tribes viewed with bemusement!], appear to have little interest in any sort of positive-sum economics and indeed have a loathing for solidarity of any kind -- it is viewed as a dangerous habit of humans to be stamped out and seems to be crab-bucketed out of any ktuvok with the healthy world-conquering impulses of human regular tories.

in fact, they don't seem so much to be tories [torydom, after all, is a well-tested ideology that fits human nature quite well and is Wrong but Romantic] as anarcho-capitalists or libertarians who, having found out a way for people to live together without coercion [except of people who do not count] and are finally living in utopia, find themselves in a turbulent, yet strangely boring and equilibriated, world of lonely, dehumanised predators . why the anarcho-syndicalist illiu stopped trying to kill these foul slavers millennia ago is beyond me. perhaps they are cowards?

Not bad (though of course I wasn't thinking of Tories per se).

FWIW your analysis would apply more to Munkhâsh, which does approximate the zero-sum ideology you describe. Dhekhnam had to accommodate the increased freedom of the Demoshi; like some modern authoritarians, it's learned that allowing a few selective freedoms (while clamping down heavily on actual dissent) actually cements their rule.

(Not unlike the rulers of New Crobuzon, if you like China Mieville, and he seems right up your alley.)

A Race of Obligate Tories is my new favorite band name.

A bit confusing. You know, I think the ktuvoks are the good guys now!

Rainlander wrote:Has a ktuvok ever been an international traveler? Maybe you should make a couple of those life-of-this guy bios for some non-humans.

I'd enjoy reading something like this.

It would be interesting if the ktuvoks were actually redeemable. The murtanî are, if they're caught young and brought up as elcarî.

Mornche Geddick wrote:It would be interesting if the ktuvoks were actually redeemable. The murtanî are, if they're caught young and brought up as elcarî.

Both are redeemable, but you have to take a non-human point of view.

1. For the murtanî, it seems to be mostly a cultural deviation from Elkarîl standards. We do not know exactly why the murtanî started as they did. As far as I feel it, it's like if they had a Bezu ma-Beon (I am fully aware of what seems to be a mistake here, btw) that succeeded too much and created a society which is mainly trustless because it only relies on fear of the strong (and not mutuality as it is in Elcarin, Uestin and Human societies, mostly speaking). Among both groups you mention, the murtanî are then bigger "sinners", because they basically wanted to destroy another part of their own species.

2. Compare with the ktuvokî. As far as we know, all ktuvokî are as we see them in Dekhnam and Munkhash. Basically, we never saw a "human-like" sociality with a ktuvok. They are acting ktuvokinly, if you understand what I mean.

That is, we are all biased here. You are asking non-Humans to act as Humans. It's entirely reasonable to expect it from Uestî in most ways, because we share pretty much all the behaviors (except for a natural tendency to bathe at least once a day, whenever possible; in humans, not that true...). For Elcarî, they probably have their own standards, and we should go by theirs to evaluate. (A look at the history behind the whole murtanî affair would also be great. We don't have much to go, except from (obviously biased) Elcarin sources. And for the ktuvokî, why would we even expect them to act humanely when they are far far away from being human to start with. It's not just a question of culture here. They have some pretty hard-wired behaviors that are not human in any way, why then should they act as humans. For my part, while they are certainly a threat, they are a threat not as enemies, but a threat as any predator would be. You don't get rid of other predators, though you might want to, but you contain them. But you have to make sure you contain them. And containing a species that is actually a real threat to you is probably a lot harder than any other...

All being said, I'll do my flaid and say :

"The Universe disagrees. I took my side not because it is the right (reasonable) one or the legal (punishmentless) one but because it is the good (healthy) one."

getting rid of predators is what we're really good at, from the first megafauna through to the eradication of wolves, wild boar, bears etc from britain. eradicating predators is v. healthy.

Who said anything about teaching them to be humans? If (after centuries of being smacked down by the other races) the ktuvoks finally learned to choose their mates by some other criterion than wealth, that would count as redemption.

what, how
they're still ktuvoks