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Post by Kilarin on Sept 20, 2007 9:49:29 GMT -5
If you could live in one of Xaa's worlds, which would it be? And tell us WHY.
And lets include the game worlds as well, since each of them is a story, just in a different format from the books.
And, if you could live in ALL of Xaa's worlds, what would you be in each?
* Hyperborea with it's many different races and interesting places? Dark elves, light elves, dwarves, humans, darklings, elemental witches and hyperboreans interact in a variety of fascinating places. Each race has it's own characteristics, and each place has it's own personality. It's a world rich with magic and conflict, but friendship can be found here as well, and in the most unexpected places.
* Mageworld Shatranj, Super warriors locked in eternal combat on a giant chess board? Would you choose to be a knight, bishop, or even a Virahita? Which side would you choose, black, white, or red? Would you battle with the other side, as destiny as dictated, or will you try and force some new agenda?
* The Muse universe, a gritty near future with the availability of cool bio-engineered muses, tiny people who's purpose in life is to help and inspire you? Close enough to reality to feel real, but with advanced enough technology to give it a hard science fiction bite. Would you rather own a muse, or BE a muse? And what KIND of muse?
* Oerth, furry people in a non-magical fantasy setting with emerging steam-tech technology? Fascinating cultures made even more fascinating by the way their differences (and similarities) interact. Which race would you choose, Mustie?, mouse, rat, cat, horse, or even a snap-snap?
* The "Pandora's Box" universe, high tech sci-fi, with robots and humans intermingled to such a degree that it becomes difficult to tell the difference. A universe where evolution works very strongly on a cultural level, weeding out those that are less fit while cultures with better survival traits thrive. Would you want to be a human, and if so, from Mars or from the Confederation? Would you prefer to be a AI, and if so, what kind? The AI of a spaceship, a bard?, an AI living in a non-humaniod robot body, or in a humanoid robot body? Would you want to be a non-violent AI, or one of the warrior bots? And if so, which kind would you choose? The harsh Iron man/Iron Maidens/Wyrms of earth, or the gentler (yet still deadly) Angels of Mars?
Or would you be in one of Xaa's many OTHER universes? Mage? Duty and Love? The Novus Revolt? Apotheosis?
You tell us!
Again, the questions are,
1: Which Xaa Universe would you prefer to live in MOST, and why
2: What would you prefer to be and do in each Xaa universe that you know?
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Post by Xaa on Sept 23, 2007 13:12:39 GMT -5
An interesting question. I've considered this myself in my idle moments, and found it very difficult to answer. It's easiest for me to eliminate them in terms of what's in their universe that I would NOT like. 12 - The Muse Universe. It takes place in the "real" world, in our future. But, a lot of things that I would not like have taken place, such as the disarmament of the civilian population (and a lot of other things you don't know about yet). So, this would be my least favorite choice. One of the things that's slowing down the next book in that series, in fact, is I'm constantly writing, then having to delete large sections I wrote that end up being nothing but diatribes against what I see as the ills of modern society. I mean, really, I'm trying to write a sci-fi detective story, I don't think the readers are going to want to have to slog through pages of political diatribe to actually have to get to the story parts.  11 - Shatranj. Sorry, but that whole "fight and die/don't fight and be killed" business is rather off-putting, for me. Like most truly fun fantasy worlds, it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. 10 - LoH. I like it, it's a great fantasy world, but I have spent times where I just walk around, and somehow, the whole place depresses me. Deeply. I can't explain why, because I just don't know why. It may be simply because the whole world is merely the dying dream of the hero. I find that the Wizard of Oz world depresses me similarly. When I saw the end of the movie and realized that it was all a dream and Dorothy was stuck in Kansas and would just grow old and die there, I found it immensely depressing. It's why Apotheosis doesn't end with the hero waking up in the hospital and saying 'Gosh, it was all a dream!' I hate that kind of story. 9 - The 'Mage' Universe. Eh. Don't think I'd be happy there. Again, like most fantasy universes, it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. Well, unless I could be an elf. Err... Wait, you all don't know much about how I arranged elven society, do you? Hmmm... Possibly the subject of another book... 8 - The Confederacy of the Pandora's Box series: Yuck. Oh, certainly, they've solved a lot of problems, but they have a long way to go. Yoribun would be nice (see book 6 for a peek at what it will be like), but there are better worlds in their universe to live on, from my perspective. Oh, certainly, societies with lots of internal conflicts make for great storytelling environments. But, I wouldn't really be happy living in the Confederacy. 7 - Oerth. A lovely choice. But, as is revealed in book 5 (which will be coming out fairly soon), humans are NOT pretty to the people of Oerth. Not in the slightest. I'd have to choose a race to be, and I think everyone should already know my choice in that regard. Still, Xaa is just a character. I couldn't become him without abandoning who I am, both physically and mentally - and even if I did, once I became him, I'd suddenly think what a foolish choice that was, as choosing to toss aside everything you are to become an entirely different race on another planet is the kind of choice Xaa would never make. He's got that 'Zen Master' thing goin' on, and to his mind, happiness is obtained by first accepting who and what you are. So, in the end, I'd never really be happy, so Oerth is kind of low on my list. 6 - The 'Third Time's the Charm' universe. Well, that's where we're living now. The story is set in pre 9/11 America, in the late nineties. 5 - The Ship's Cat world, Chiron. Plusses: Live forever in a society of peace. Minuses: The silence. Oh, no, thank you, the tremendous silence of the endless jungle would drive me mad quite shortly. 4 - Apotheosis. Mmmm... No. Nice place to visit, but they've got a ton of work ahead of them and rebuilding an entire world from scratch doesn't sound like it would be fun. 3 - Novus Revolt. An interesting universe, but I can't see as how I would be better off than where I am. Nothing bad about it to turn me away, just nothing that would hook me in. 2 - Mars of the Pandora's Box Universe. I could live there. It would be pretty damn cool. The largest difficulty for me would be fighting off boredom, though. They live in a perfect world of no war, no drugs, no crime, nothing. Yay! But, as I'm not a Stoic and don't have their ethics hammered into my head since I was a child (nor am I anything like John McReady of Book 4, who wasn't a Stoic but had the kind of personality to smoothly adapt to their society), I'd very quickly grow tremendously bored. 1 - Valhalla of the Pandora's Box Universe. Trying to think of disadvantages, here... Let's see... A world of gorgeous women who wear miniskirts as a political statement... The social and political setup, particularly vis-a-vis civil liberties and personal rights versus civic duties and social responsibilities is precisely my ideal (and if you don't mind the 'no booze or drugs' element, much of it is a Libertarian's wet-dream). They still have a few problems to work out, but they WILL work them out, it's just a matter of slow social evolution. Hmmm... No, not finding any disadvantages here, I choose Valhalla. Oh, and if I can be a Vanir and live forever, that would be a major plus, thanks. ;D Let me know when you figure out how to get your trans-dimensional gate working, I'll be your first guinea-pig.  |
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Post by Xaa on Sept 24, 2007 22:07:05 GMT -5
Sorry, Kilarin, I accidentally bombed your post trying to reply to it. Admins have more buttons, and I clicked the wrong button. However, here's what I was trying to post in reply to you: Actually, yes, that's precisely it. There are parts of his world where things are more oppressive, and parts of his world where things are a lot darker, however - as well as parts of the world where things are lighter. These are themes I intend to explore as time goes on. Many people, for that very reason, don't get pets. And, in Alan's world, a muse is basically a pet - both from a social and legal aspect. Yet, at the same time, because they can talk they are psychologically treated as being "little people" by many, if not most. From a literary aspect, what a muse really represents is a simple question: If we could invent artificial intelligence and guarantee that it is basically harmless, how would we as human beings perceive it? Is this our child, is it a pet, or is it a fellow and companion? Or is it something somewhere in between these possibilities? Every day, we get closer and closer to being able to create artificial life. Really, cloning humans is within our grasp, and scientists have already created single-cell organisms from scratch. Creating whole organisms from scratch just isn't that far off as people like to think - and as such, these are issues I think our society needs to ponder now, rather than later. Exactly. Still, in his society, a single man owning a muse is considered the same way we look at a single woman who owns a cat, vis-a-vis their chances of ever getting married, their ability to relate to the opposite sex, etc. And, in both cases, it's not completely true, but there are parts of it that are. Not really, no. Peasant revolutions always fail at this technology level (medieval), simply because the weapons of war require skills to master - skills the Virahita do not have. Peasant revolutions only can succeed once you have firearms. Gunpowder: The Great Equalizer. When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. ~Friedrich Nietzsche. Yep. Kind of like hobbits, but not nearly as annoying and pretentious. ;-) |
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Post by Kilarin on Sept 25, 2007 7:02:24 GMT -5
I had a copy! (I work up most of my posts in a text editor) So this is what I posted BEFORE the previous message. --- Yeah, it's sort of like dystopia light. It's not Mad Max, but the general direction has not been good. The catch here, from my perspective, is that I'm not entirely happy with the general direction of the real world.  Another element of this is that I probably wouldn't like having a real muse. I know that sounds odd, I mean who wouldn't want a muse! But the truth is, I don't think I could handle having someone around me all the time besides my wife and kid. It sometimes gets crowded just with them! I read old books about rich folks in england surrounded by servents and I think, "how could they stand it?" I guess I'm too private of a person. So, I want a muse when I first think about it. Then when I think about it deeper, nope, probably not for me. At least not in reality. In fantasy, where I don't REALLY have to put up with having someone buzzing over my shoulder day in and day out, on yeah! Of course, this objection doesn't really apply to Alan and Elizabeth. Alan doesn't have a wife, and didn't really have one even when he was married. In a very real way, Elizabeth sort of fills that role. She's not a servant really, she's a "life companion". So with you there. Although, if I WERE forced to live in Shatranj, I think I'd want to try being a black Virahata leading a Virahata rebellion. Unless the wizard kings interfere directly, I think they could do it. Well, ok, the odds are stacked WAY against them, but with good planning, a lot of good skill, and some serious good luck, they MIGHT pull it off. They need one knight or bishop who is either cooperative, or, more likely, deliberatly crippled. I know, this sounds cruel, but if I were living under the oppression that the black Virahata were, yes, I'd certainly consider not just killing the overlords, but leaving one of them alive, san legs, to pull ship levers and open doors in exchange for food. The key would be to gather all of the virahata that you could and secure one square further south that was capable of producing food. yeah, easier said than done, this is the weakest part of the plan. BUT, once they have one square cleared, life gets easier. HOPEFULLY most of the ships are AT the square, those docks are secure and can be ignored. For any ships that are on the other side, dissasemble any and all buildings, if they have a stone tower, that would be best, and then use the material to build walls WITHOUT GATES at the end of the dock. Arm all of the Virahata with bows, that would probably give them the best chance. The biggest risk here is lightning bolt. Are virahata incapable of doing magic in Mageworld? I never saw one that expressed that skill. Then, they have to win ONE battle at each unsecured doc, until all of the ships were at that square. A lot of ifs there. But if they COULD get to the point where all ships were at their own square, then unless the wizard kings interefere, they should be safe. Whoo hoo! New Oerth book! I'd pick a Mustie. I like them best by far. They seem the perfect combination of skills, and they understand the importance of FUN! And I simply LOVE their concept of marriage. To quote Merle from "Ayre Of The Last God": I LIKE the stoics of Mars, but I don't want to BE one. Letting my kid be raised by others would be right out. |
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Post by Kilarin on Sept 25, 2007 7:08:47 GMT -5
True, but as bad as their situation is, it would be worth trying.
Very apt quote. How do we fight evil, without becoming it? Especially when the evil is REALLY dark. We begin to think that ANYTHING is justified in order to fight against the evil. And down that path, it can become mighty difficult to distinguish between the two sides. <sigh>
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Post by Xaa on Sept 25, 2007 10:10:14 GMT -5
Very apt quote. How do we fight evil, without becoming it? Especially when the evil is REALLY dark. We begin to think that ANYTHING is justified in order to fight against the evil. And down that path, it can become mighty difficult to distinguish between the two sides. <sigh> Yep. He who fights monsters must take care not to become a monster themselves. And the abyss gazes back pretty damn hard, as well. By the time people get to the end rows in the SP game, they often have no qualms about going through each city as they run across it, slaughtering everyone. It's only when they play MP Black and actually poke around, talking to the other black warriors and the Virahita, that they learn the other side's view - and learn why the virahita on the black side attack white warriors who invade. They don't look at you as being the conquering hero, out to liberate them from opression. They are convinced you're worse than the horrid overseers they already have. Historically, the peasants have always had the power to throw off the ruling class, through sheer numbers if nothing else. Of course, using numbers to win implies that you will throw away lives - likely many lives - to do it. Who bells the cat? The status quo means that you survive, though the quality of that life one lives, to put it bluntly, sucks. Certainly, if they all band together and fight, they could capture a city. Until the Black King says "Hey, you did great - zap, you're all knights and bishops, now get to work." They still need to eat, and the white warriors are still going to come by to kill them. End result - zero sum gain. Conversely, on the white side, their life is pretty good. They aren't beaten or overworked, they don't pay taxes, nothing. All they have to do is keep feeding the warriors that protect them. They live under the constant threat of attack from the blacks, but aside from that, their lives really aren't bad. Revolution, for them, isn't anything they would even consider. And, it's that situation which perpetuated the medieval serf caste so long. So long as the serfs obey, their lives aren't great, but their existence is tolerable. Despite what Sir Walter Scott thought, physical and sexual abuse along the nature of what he mentioned in Ivanhoe simply didn't happen - the 'right of first night' that Scott railed against would, in reality, have been considered a clear-cut case of adultery, and against church doctrines. Any lord who persisted in such practices would very quickly find themselves excommunicated. Nobody was required to serve an excommunicated lord, your right to rule stemmed (under medieval law) from divine sanction. "Dieu Et Mon Droit", as the royal family of England has put it for awhile. Generally speaking, so long as the peasants obeyed and continued producing, they were left to their own devices otherwise, and could live as they saw fit. It's only when they decided to leave the lands or keep more of the produce of the lands to themselves that their rulers got ugly. Legally, the serfs were tied to the lands, and bound to produce for their lord. Break that law, and the punishment was usually severe - often death. Historically, what finally ended the medieval system was three factors acting at the same time. First was the growing "town/merchant" caste. The middle ages was experiencing a slow but steady growth that today we would view as an industrial revolution. Power (in the form of waterpower) was being harnessed to drive machinery - and that machinery was quite advanced. Mill wheels are all we think of today, but that was only the beginning. And all of this labor-saving machinery meant that the amount of capital available in the economy was slowly growing. Meanwhile, as the town/merchant caste didn't really fit inside the traditional "three pillar" system, they were often left to their own devices, so long as they paid their taxes. Many villages were just given a mayor, sherrif (shire-reeve) or burgermiester (town-master) to oversee them, someone who was, himself, a commoner like anyone else. Thereafter, so long as everyone paid their taxes, they were left alone. As such, the town/merchant caste managed to grow a rather large economy. The Fugger banking house, just to name one major economic group within medieval society, had become incredibly wealthy (more wealthy than even the richest king in Europe), and many of the economic innovations they developed (such as the leinhause, what we call a pawnshop) form the foundations of what we consider the modern capitalist economy. The system of banking, savings and loans that the Fuggers, the Medicis and other banking houses had developed formed the basis for a system of banking and loan that the nobility relied upon more and more as time passed, giving the "town/merchant" caste power that only grew as the economy flourished. And as the economy flourished, universities were founded, open to anyone who had the money to attend. This democratized the entire concept of education, taking it out of the realm of the wealthy and privledged and placing it within the reach of anyone who could afford it. And, as knowledge and education spread, people became more worldly, and more able to understand the problems that existed within their own society. Next, you had the black plague. By the time that was done, over a third of Europe was lying dead in the streets. The nobles couldn't simply force the peasants to work under threat of death - there weren't enough peasants left to replace those who they'd have to kill. Of course, this wasn't immediately apparent to many of the ruling caste, they had to learn this the hard way. Several peasant's revolutions broke out which were put down in the classical manner - and thereafter, the lands lay fallow, for simple lack of anyone to farm them. By the end of the 15th century, it had become clear to everyone in charge that the peasants couldn't simply be murdered out of hand when they refused to work. They had to be dealt with, and treated better. This led to several reforms in many nations, guaranteeing rights that peasants simply had never had before. Lastly, you had the Universal Church. By the dawn of the 15th century, it had become clear to most of the nobility and intelligensia of the middle ages that the church had, over the course of centuries, become tremendously corrupt. The Spanish Inquisition was just the tip of the iceberg. Though many viewed inquisations as being necessary to root out heresy, many others viewed the inquisitions as being more evil than necessary - particularly when it was clear that it was tremendously easy to point the inquisition at an enemy, then sit back and watch the fun as they were destroyed by the church. A woman thinks her husband is sleeping around with that shameless little floozy down the street? No problem - call her a witch, the inquisition will kill her. Your neighbor's dog keeps barking and waking you up at odd hours? No problem - call him a witch, and he'll be gone shortly. And in a day and age without television, radio or any other form of substantive distraction other than the occasional travelling minstrel or theater group, a public burning of a witch made for great spectacle and marvellous entertainment. Adding further evidence to the common man's perception of the church being corrupt, church leaders in the middle ages very often were not individuals of great piety who had dedicated their lives to God, but rather were the scions of nobles or wealthy families who simply purchased from the pope a position as an abbot, bishop or archbishop. Such positions themselves were a source of great wealth, as the church owned land and had their own serfs to work it. But, when the priest of your neighborhood church knows more about the bible than the bishop placed over him, it's clear even to the lowest of peasants that something is wrong. And, of course, this doesn't even begin to touch the notion of papal indulgences - a literal "Get Out Of Jail" card for those wealthy enough to purchase it. Donating to the church and purchasing indulgences to obtain forgiveness of sin became more important than simple confession and contrition, simply due to the emphasis placed on them by the church. After all, confession didn't make the church any richer, but selling indulgences did. The sound of Martin Luther's hammer nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Schlosskirche in Wittburg was not the tolling death-knell of the church, as many at the time thought it might be. However, the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation that followed did, in time, radically change the world - and for the better. But, all these three elements were what finally ended the medieval economic and social systems, and allowed the dawn of the Renaissance. By the time of Shakespeare, education was well within the province of the common man - and in many ways, the schooling Shakespeare received was more thorough than what children would receive four hundred years later, in the late 20th century. How many twelve-year-olds do you know who can recite the words of Julius Caesar or Aristotle? Not many, I'm sure - but in Shakespeare's day, these were among the texts they were learning from. So, with the advent of better education, better economic opportunities and the common availability of firearms (gunpowder - the great equalizer), successful peasant revolutions now became possible. And, in fact, they happened a few times. But, in general, the peasants remained where they were, as their lives were slowly, generation by generation, improving. And when the status quo is tolerable, people prefer to maintain the status quo rather than risk a revolution that not only might leave things very much worse off than they were before, but also might lead to a lot of people suddenly getting very, very dead. Instead, most revolutions that occurred in the rennaisance and later were not sparked by the peasants, but rather by the middle classes - the townsfolk. They had better education than the peasants, and their exposure to broader thoughts and ideas left many of them with goals and ideals that seemed to demand revolutionary action. They also had the money to afford better weapons, the numbers to win, and enough idealism to be able to view the possibilty of getting killed as something that would happen to someone else, not them personally. In Mageworld, unfortunately, such a broadly educated, increasingly wealthy and increasingly idealistic middle class just doesn't exist. It can be argued that one is growing in KK8, but even that will take time to develop. Their world is not ready to spawn a revolution on it's own. Thus, overthrowing the status quo and trying to get a better life for everyone is, naturally, the hero's job in the SP game. |
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Post by Kilarin on Sept 26, 2007 12:57:18 GMT -5
Had qualms, but slaughtered all the warriors anyway. I harmed almost no Virahita. The problem, as I see it, is the common one of war. The black warriors are supporting this nightmare of a system. It's like the Germans who worked for Hitler. Most of them were just soldiers, hardly evil incarnate. They participated because they were afraid that if they didn't, they would become the victims themselves. But that doesn't change the fact that they are part of the machine causing the problem. And that machine needed to be broken. If there was a way in Mageworld to take surrender, I MIGHT have been able to deal with the black warriors differently. But even after wandering around as a black warrior myself and talking to all of the poor saps who were stuck in that system, my feelings were still, "this has GOT to stop." And, if you don't wipe the black warriors out, the system will just come right back. Pooka can't control it, not with the small force she has. If Pooka had a huge white army with her, and was confident they could control the black warriors, then sparing as many of them as possible MIGHT have worked. But she doesn't. And she doesn't have any way to filter out the "not so bad" from the "eaten greedily from the dark heart of evil" warriors. We are looking at two different possible ending scenarios: Everyone stays in Shatranj, in which case, if Pooka doesn't wipe the black warriors in the cities out, they go RIGHT back to what they were doing before, Why should they care if the wizard kings are gone, THEY haven't been conquered, and they still outnumber the white. The system continues with very little change. Not acceptable. Everyone goes home, and if Pooka unleashes all of those black warriors on a peaceful and defenseless human population below, she is personally responsible for the horror that follows. VERY not acceptable. There are no NICE solutions. If the DS engine were more advanced, perhaps you could take prisoners and make converts, but as is, I don't see any way out of the moral conundrum other than the wholesale slaughter of every black warrior on the board. The church was very spotty in what it enforced and what it didn't at times, but I don't disagree with the basic point, there is no historical evidence that the 'right of first night' existed anywhere but fiction. Wonderful history lesson on the feudal system, thanks! Indeed. I think this is what happens when ANY religious power becomes a temporal power. Church and State don't mix well. And the abuses and corruptions of the 'Universal Church' is a very good example. Modern Islam is another. I'd also throw the Soviet Union into there, Atheistic Communism was very much a religion. BUT, they DO have an advantage over the medieval serfs. Some of the virahita were not born virahita. Some are demoted knights and bishops. That means there COULD be some virahita with the skills and education needed to help organize (and win) a rebellion. Not good odds, I agree, but better than none. |
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Post by Xaa on Sept 26, 2007 17:41:29 GMT -5
Had qualms, but slaughtered all the warriors anyway. LOL! Or, more commonly, they participated because 1) They didn't know the full extent of the horrors of the system (it's not like the Nazis were giving guided tours of the gas chambers and ovens), and 2) they didn't give a damn what happened to the 'lesser races' to begin with, because the notion of Eugenics was very popular at that time. And I mean that, too. After WW2, educators and historians here in America went on a massive revisionist spree, changing virtually every single history book that fell into the tender little paws of the next generation to suppress the fact that Eugenics was a common notion, and everyone believed that the Aryan Race (or just "white people", or "British-descended White people" or "any white people except for the Irish", etc, etc - it all depended on your personal viewpoint) were the ultimate race. For example, Margaret Sanger is lauded today by liberals and the NOW as being a hero for women, a champion for human rights, etc. But she wasn't. She was a screaming racist who proudly and unabashedly supported the sterilization of all non-white races, and wrote many long and detailed treatises on why allowing "the negro race" full access to free contraceptives, free abortion and free sterilization would be a cheap and easy way to eliminate them from the gene pool. By the end of the 19th century, the Eugenics movement had become a fairly commonplace fixture in Western European and White American thought. It's premise was, put bluntly, when genetically superior people screw other genetically superior people, genetically superior babies result. The notion didn't just pop out of thin air, of course. It was founded in literally millenia of knowledge in western civilization regarding the breeding of animals. Breed stronger, smarter, handsomer animals to each other, and stronger, smarter, handsomer offspring result. Of course, each variety of caucasian that promoted eugenics, whether German or British or WASP-American, always promoted their own race as being the superior of the lot. Hitler and the nazis weren't somehow magically unique when they proposed that the "Aryan Race" was the superior one - Hitler's twist on it was to define the aryan race as being blonde, blue-eyed Germans. Previous definitions were significantly more broad, and based on the knowledge that the "sons of Arayas", as Robert E. Howard called them, were actually not very picky about who they boinked, their only preferences seemed to be young, narrow-nosed and willing. Eugenics appeared everywhere in popular literature prior to WW2. I mentioned REH, but he was really only the tip of the iceberg. All the big fiction writers of his day and earlier used the concept of Eugenics in their fiction, from Burroughs to Verne. It was a hot concept, it was very topical, and many people in the 19th and early 20th centuries discussed the notion openly. Many pogroms were enacted, both in Europe and in the US, to eliminate "undesirables" from the gene pool - particularly those who were mentally or physically disabled, who were pretty easy targets and even those who only paid lip-service to the notion of eugenics could agree it probably wouldn't be smart to allow drooling idiots to reproduce and give birth to more drooling idiots. After all, Christian charity (the 19th century version of what we would call "simple human compassion") required one to care for those whom God had not given the same kind of genetic breaks as the "superior races", but it didn't take a mathematical genius to realize that if you allowed genetic defectives to breed willy-nilly, you ended up with a large population of genetic defectives who would quite likely require more upkeep from the government than Christian charity would permit. And then, we have to look at Anti-Semitism. Anti-semitism was the first cousin of Eugenics, and the two grew up in the same house together. Like Eugenics, anti-semitism became inextricably linked with the Nazis, as though the concept began and ended with them. The truth, however, is that Europe has a long history of anti-semitism that runs all the way back to the days of the Romans, and many of the earliest writings regarding anti-semitism also dealt obliquely with the issue of eugenics. Hitler's rants about the "Jewish Problem" were not unique in his day, politicians in England, France, Spain, Italy and everywhere else were giving similar speeches. Even here in America, notables such as Henry Ford, Joe Kennedy (JFK's dad) and John Rockefeller openly discussed the "jewish problem", and the eventual elimination of the "inferior races." It was a notion in common coinage, and many of these wealthy magnates put their money where their mouths were, supporting the Nazis in Germany when they came to power (including Ford, Kennedy and Rockefeller). Ah, but then, WW2 happened, and at the close of that, the true horror of where this kind of thinking leads you was discovered. Suddenly, eugenics and anti-semitism became bad words. Very bad words. Words so bad that here in the US, literally thousands of grade school and high-school textbooks were changed all across the US. By the dawn of the 1950's, Eugenics simply was not discussed in any public venue anywhere, and anti-semitism was considered anti-American, a hallmark of backwards, narrow-minded and archaic thinking. Eugenics made a slow comback as the 50's progressed, but only in the writings of the occasional Science Fiction author, who would posit a future world where all the nasty bits of a full Eugenics movement had already taken place and were no longer a subject of discussion. Their strong-jawed aryan heroes could sally forth into a galaxy free of any companions of the human persuasion who were of a lesser breed than he, and instead work on eliminating the lesser races born on alien worlds - those with tentacles or googly eyes or other obvious signs of genetic inferiority, who usually formed a monolithic culture of human-hating evil ripe to be blown away by the hero's quick trigger finger. Still, times were changing. Some authors in the 1950's started to present other human races as having their own unique and useful abilities - abilities that came from their own unique genetics. Eric Frank Russel is probably the best example, but he wasn't alone. And our nation itself was changing. Brown v. Board of Education is considered a watershed moment, but it, too, didn't just pop out of nowhere. It was the culmination of literally over a century of thought on the subject, dating back to the writings of the early Abolitionists. But, never forget: The Nazis were NOT coy about their plans to get rid of lesser races, and those who were physically and/or mentally handicapped. Their Eugenics programs were quite public and open, they quite clearly spelled out the costs to the government of supporting the physcially and mentally disabled and how this, in the end, comes right out of the pocket of the taxpayer. They had public sterilization and isolation programs in place long before they decided to build the first death-camp. The largest reason why Hitler and the NSDAP received so much support was because of their postion on "The Jewish Problem", and their blaming of all Germany's ills on a global Jewish conspiracy - a notion also in common coinage at the time, particularly in Europe. While it's easy to excuse the German soldier of WW2 as being ignorant of the death camps simply because virtually all of them truly were, they were not ignorant of the underlying ethics and governmental programs which had led to it. Eugenics and anti-semitism were common notions of the day all across Europe and in America, and nobody in Germany joined the army and fought out of fear persecution, somehow suppressing their conscience regarding the fate of the lesser races. They didn't give a damn about the lesser races - almost nobody did, back then. This only changed after the war was over, a pair of anonymous US soldiers opened that first oven, and an anonymous US Army photographer took a picture of a pile of charred bones. I agree. One of the issues I deal with obliquely in the first four Oerth books is the notion that each "race" on Oerth has it's own advantages and limitations. There is no single race that's superior, and any race subjugating another only cripples themselves in the long run. Conversely, by working together, they can form a larger society that is stronger than any single one of them could form. This is a notion revisited in the 5th book, which you haven't read yet, but you'll get to read sometime soon. The idea of "we are stronger together than as individuals" also shows up in the Pandora's Box series, which also (particularly in the 6th book) discusses the idea that even an "Ubermensch" race has it's own unique problems, and that no particular breed of humanity is really better than any other, because the advance of technology means that eventually, only our ideas will matter. Bear in mind also that those who have eaten greedily from the dark heart of evil often find that it tastes very, very good. Lucas wasn't just talking out his ass when he had his characters describe the "Dark Side" as being seductive. The assumption is the white warriors get released also, and they continue the battle in The Land. In time, Pooka and her allies would, eventually, win. Certainly, there would be a lot of damage done in between times, but that only plays into the moral of the story: Though it may seem like a good idea to eliminate war completely, that idea doesn't always pan out. As the White King explains, they didn't just show up and take over - they were invited to take over. It was only after the true costs were realized that the people of the Eastern Empire revolted, and had to be crushed. There never are, really. All we can do is make the best choices we can, and hope for the best. You may find Cecil Adam's discussion on the subject to be a good read: www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_181.html |
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Post by Kilarin on Sept 28, 2007 10:52:32 GMT -5
Oh so very true. I was considering reading Verne's "Five Weeks in a Balloon" for Librivox. But I was hesitant because I remembered it being rather shockingly racist. So I went back and re-read the first few chapters and, yep, no way I wanted my voice recorded on the internet saying those things. Sir Author Conan Doyle was a gullible, dangerous, and stupid man, but I enjoy the Sherlock Holmes stories. But you just can't read "Sign of the Four" without being hit by how they just considered it natural to portray natives as vicious, animalistic, ugly inferiors. Of course, there were always people who broke out of the mould. I had never read "King's Solomon's Mines" by Haggard. It was available on Librivox so I downloaded it to my mp3 player and listened to it as I drove to work. I was expecting typical attitudes and was shocked to hear at the very beginning of the book Quatermain say:And, besides, am I a gentleman? What is a gentleman? I don't quite know, and yet I have had to do with [Nword] --no, I will scratch out that word "[Nword]," for I do not like it. I've known natives who /are/, and so you will say, Harry, my boy, before you have done with this tale, and I have known mean whites with lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who /are not/.(note: I edited the above quote to use [Nword] instead of the actual N-Word because the built in censor was going to edit it anyway and this was more readable) And not just history books. As a little kid I read "Dr. Doolittle" and enjoyed it quite a bit. Apparently the book I read was the expurgated version, because when I went down to the library and picked them up again many years later, I got the unedited version, and was quite shocked at the racially charged content that hadn't been there when I read it the first time. I feel that the concept of Eugenics was flawed in two ways. First, and the most obvious, that, of course, no one race has a monopoly on intelligence. But second, that, as you point out with the Oerth example, the very CONCEPT was flawed. Even *IF* the Aryan races HAD be superiorly adapted to producing industrialized civilization, it's a serious misunderstanding of the way evolution works to think that having one supremely specialized race is an ADVANTAGE to long term survival. It's not. You need a broad gene pool with lots of different kinds of specialties, because you don't know whats going to change in your environment and what traits will be necessary for survival in the future. That said, I'll now make the nasty mistake of defending Eugenics to a small degree. I DO think there is a problem in modern western civilization. We positively encourage those who are not capable of providing for themselves to reproduce frequently, and raise their children at the expense of those who can support themselves. While at the same time, the more intelligent and capable you are, the less likely you are to reproduce. I'm not convinced that this is a wise plan. This has nothing to do with race, it is a problem that crosses all racial boundaries. Of course, a very valid argument can be made that it has nothing to do with genetics, but is strictly a cultural/educational issue. But culture and education have some evolutionary tendencies as well. Very true, very valid point. I just finished reading a book entitled A Thousand Shall Fall. It's about a Christian in Germany during the war who's faith convinced him that Hitler was evil. But he got swept up into the German War machine anyway. It was ALSO a point of his belief that Christians should not kill, even in war. Of course, Germany didn't HAVE "conscientious objector" status, so he just faked it as best as he could. Including carrying a fake gun so he wouldn't even be tempted to shoot at someone. This was easier for him to get away with because he worked in the unit that built bridges. Now, I don't want to come off sounding like I don't appreciate what Mr. Hasel did. Assuming that the story is accurate (and I have no reason to believe it is not) he was a man of incredible faith and bravery, far more than I have ever exhibited in my life. I'm not so much criticizing him, as just disagreeing with him. Mr. Hasel believes that, 1: Hitler is evil. 2: The German war is unjust and should be stopped. and 3: He should not kill. Here is my problem, as he is bemoaning the horrors of what Hitler is doing to the Russians, he is building the very bridges that are sending troops over the river to kill Russian peasants. Building those military bridges may not be as direct a method of killing as pulling the trigger, but it's still killing. Now, obviously, if he refused to build the bridges, he would be killed. BUT, when his commanders try to make him violate other tenants of his faith, he defies them and would rather face death than to violate his faith. Well and good, but why didn't that also apply to building the bridges? Again, this man was a better and braver man than me by far, but as an armchair philosopher, I disagree with him on this point. Which brings us back to Mageworld. I agree, this attempt to eliminate war was done in a way that was NOT GOOD. BUT, dropping all of those super powered, and mostly super depraved, warriors into the Land to finish the war there seems, unacceptable to me. Especially when Pooka HAS the ability to eliminate them before the drop. Once the Wizard Kings stop cherry picking everyone with any 'elan' out of the land, natural conflict will return. Heck, even among the white warriors there are certainly those I don't trust to be "good", trouble could start pretty soon with some of them. BUT, it's less likely to be an all out war, and the numbers of trouble makers will be much smaller. And so, that's why I took the path that I did in the game. I left pip (no good excuse for that, Pooka couldn't know what I knew, but I did it anyway) and a couple of 'lovers' that couldn't be reached. And I'm certain I missed a VERY few black warriors hiding in a corner here and there. But by the time I was back at the white king to make my final decision, the return from Shatranj would still cause a lot of disruption and trouble, but not the kind of wholesale slaughter that would have happened if we dropped hundreds upon hundreds of black warriors into their midst. Had I done otherwise, I would have felt that I was responsible for what the Black warriors did. I didn't pull the "trigger", but I built the bridge. |
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Post by Xaa on Sept 28, 2007 11:14:12 GMT -5
That said, I'll now make the nasty mistake of defending Eugenics to a small degree. I DO think there is a problem in modern western civilization. We positively encourage those who are not capable of providing for themselves to reproduce frequently, and raise their children at the expense of those who can support themselves. While at the same time, the more intelligent and capable you are, the less likely you are to reproduce. I'm not convinced that this is a wise plan. My problem with it is even simpler - it creates an underclass who are always exploited, either as political symbols whose lives are never improved because they would then cease being political symbols, or as a cheap work force. In the Pandora's Box universe, most mental problems are correctible. Retardation? There's an implant, it boosts your brain-power by helping a child re-wire their brain to function at a normal level. Epilepsy? There's an implant that counteracts it, stabilizing the brain. Grow up a total sociopathic killer anyway? Not a problem - brain-wipe, you're a new man (see book 6). Nearly all physical congenital defects are also correctible, as well, either in utero, or shortly after birth, and all with a single injection. I could go on, but you get the point - genetic problems aren't a problem once you have the technology to fix them. Thus, genetic diversity (I.E. having lots of different races) is important to maintain, simply so that any odd disease here or there that someone turns out to be resistant to can help provide cures for everyone. And all of the technology in the Pandora's Box universe is based on technology we're working on today that has shown it *can* work. In their world, three thousand and some years in the future, technology has resolved all these problems. But, in today's world, this kind of techno-magic remains outside our grasp. I don't have a solution, unfortunately. But, I don't think applying eugenics to eliminate these people from the gene pool is necessarily wise. How many German "Stephen Hawkings" did the nazis put to death? We'll simply never know. As I said, all we can do is make the best decisions we can, and just hope for the best. I think one of the things that makes Mageworld so good is that there is no perfect moral answer. The heroine is not perfect. She commits adultery if you choose the "right" path, and no matter what you do, she ends up killing her own husband in the end Granted, he had been 'recruited' to the black side for the crime of abandoning his wife, but we then have to ask - does he deserve death for this, or merely a stern talking to? So, nobody in Mageworld is a paradigm of virtue or the epitome of evil. Everyone has a reason why they do what they do. Note that "I'm utterly freakin' insane" is counted as a reason. Several of the black warriors fit this category. |
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Post by Kilarin on Oct 2, 2007 11:11:25 GMT -5
Indeed. We know they chased off or killed many significant Jewish Scientist.
A large percentage, I would guess VERY large, of our most productive/intelligent/useful population have risen up from poverty. The problem is NOT eliminating the genes of the poor, the problem is when government encourages poor people to stay poor and actively discourages attempts to climb out of poverty.
My grandfather ran a farm near a reservation in New Mexico. He eventually shut it down because he could no longer hire enough help. He hired Native Americans from the reservation to do much of the work. But then, due to shifts in government rules, they told him they would no longer work. Apparently most of the reservation was living on welfare by then, AND, the rules in place dictated that after they earned a certain amount of money, the welfare check would be cut off. So the options were: Work and get a low wage, OR, don't work, and get an even lower check, but heck, you don't have to work for it! Again, nothing racist here at all. ANY people offered that choice, will generally take the easy way out. Especially when everything in the culture is pushing in that direction.
Our best and brightest often come from poor homes. But we used to encourage people to excel, and it seems that excellence is often discouraged now. <sigh>
Indeed! I wish the DS could have allowed for even wider choices of paths, but one of the most interesting thing about MW was that it made you make choices, and those choices had consequences.
Of course, one of the greatest strengths was that you were involved enough with the characters/world/story that even things that didn't matter in the game came to matter. You worried about the ethics of decisions that made in this fantasy world, because they seemed important to the story. They seemed important to YOU. And that is the sign of a great story teller, you made us CARE about what happened in this world!
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Post by Xaa on Oct 2, 2007 11:52:20 GMT -5
The problem is NOT eliminating the genes of the poor, the problem is when government encourages poor people to stay poor and actively discourages attempts to climb out of poverty. Yep. I could give you a dozen stories pretty much like the one you gave. For those raised under the Welfare State, it's easier to simply remain in the situation they are in than to climb out of it, because any serious attempt to climb out of it leaves them with no supports at all - if they fail, they face utter poverty/starvation with nothing to fall back on. If they do nothing, however, they can get by. People being people, we now have 5th generation welfare recipients. Still, one of the things I mentioned in passing in the 4th Pandora's Box book is that all the human societies they have in their universe all had one singular advantage - they started out from scratch. Knowing the mistakes every other society has made, it's a lot easier to build a new society that avoids these mistakes. You don't have pre-existing problems of class disparities or entrenched poverty to end up becoming a problem you pass on to the next generation. There is no economic or social disparity to start with, because there are no economic or social structures. Given that a handful of people (perhaps as few as two) then construct all the institutions of their society from scratch and the society that follows simply lives in them, the chance that your society will end up stronger and more long-lasting is very good. Of course, the obvious rejoinder is "hey, that never happened in real life, though." But, it has - several times. One prominent example is the Amish. Though they have their problems, for the most part the Amish communities here in the US have a healthy, self-sustaining lifestyle that is relatively free of the problems of crime, drugs, and poverty. Yet, their lifestyle works because they adhere to the principles their founders laid out - principles that made them little different from other religious communities in the 18th century, but now separate their societies from the rest of the world so starkly, they are almost caricatures rather than people. People are people, in the end, and many of the problems of modern society aren't easily rectified simply because the social and political problems we are attempting to deal with are the same social and political problems we inherited from previous generations - who inherited them from generations before them, and so on back to the days of Hammurabi. Thanks. ;D |
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