: This will have to be quick, I'm afraid--I'm off to the
: mountains for the weekend in about three hours. Your
: arguments are so compelling, however, I feel the need
: to reply.
So I have two days to plan my next attack, eh? Well, I think I'll...dash of
: Good point, although it seems to me they would have had
: to give over some control. If the RAF in World War II
: had been airlifting food to the Nazis instead of
: bombing them, I imagine the Allied Supreme Commander
: (who was an American) would have at least strongly
: suggested that they stop.
Naturally, but that's a far cry from telling them what to wear.
: Which do you prefer, a turtleneck or a henweigh?
Actually, I prefer a...uh...donkey...uh...I give up.
: I lack the time to fight for my honor. Nooooooooo!
There, there. I'm sure you will grow strong in the mountains, and return to do battle with renewed rhetorical vigor.
: They do, however, go into length about the conditions of
: life around Seven Gates and the Stair of Grief, which
: might have been a good point to put in, "but at
: least we have food, since our valiant Culinary
: Thaumaturges have shown true heroism in drumming up
: sixty gallons of soy sauce."
Again, he didn't mention that they'd procured food by any mundane means either. In fact, his silence on the matter might indicate that the food was made by magic; if it had to be procured through mundane means there probably would have been a shortage (or at least difficulties) given the terrible weather and waist-deep snow, which he would have had reason to write about. The fact that he writes nothing suggests that the weather didn't impact food production in the slightest, which means MAGIC!
: We'll get to this...
: Again, it hinges on your definition of devout. I've read
: some accounts of the Crusaders from the Islamic
: perspective which marvelled at the fluid morality of
: the Christians, how they could rape and pillage
: saracen cities and think they were doing God's work.
: Zeal and ethics are very strange bedfellows...
Granted. But my original argument was that the Legionnaires were trained to be ethical, not zealous.
: All my mouthparts are flexible, thank you very much.
: "Would you like to see my flame arrow?" has to
: be a better pickup line than, "I can block
: anything if I see it coming," too.
Hey! I just checked and that guy she's hanging on is a Warrior, not a Bowman! Aww, now we have to think of a whole new set of double entendres.
: Sorry, I'm a vegetarian.
A vegetarian? And you expect your prayers to carry any weight? Haven't you learned from Cain?
: Sure, okay... female in that non-corporeal alien entity
: way. Ooh, baby, let me see your soul fly up in the
: air...
I assume that Fetch are called female because their species can reproduce (at least in their own dimension) and the Fetch we see are the ones which do the lion's share of growing and caring for the young. At least, that's the only meaningful definition of "female" I know of that doesn't rely on physical or genetic attributes. Well, that and they wear skirts.
: It's an arrangement that's never really been tested in
: recent armies, and my heart really isn't in it anyway
: (I'm a big fan of gender equality, and I suspect the
: arguments against fraternization are based on
: ingrained sexism), so I'm dropping this one.
: Ah, but for most ancient armies camp followers weren't
: illicit or covert but actually encouraged by the top
: brass. It was one of the major inducements.
But for many ancient armies, soldier-to-soldier fraternization was also encouraged by the top brass. And (you knew I'd say this), the Legion wouldn't need to bait soldiers with the promise of a whore a day if they're able to conscribe.
: And my argument wasn't so much for a mobile gang of camp
: followers as it was for the health problems associated
: with the army services industry.
So we can just let this lead into the disease discussion, then.
: It would make me turn around and run the other way,
: definitely. They must have some kind of defensive
: capability or they wouldn't last long enough to
: graduate the Culinary Thaumaturge Institute, I'll give
: you that.
The way I'm thinking, these guys learn 2 or 3 "create nasty-but-nutritious army food" spells, 2 or 3 "create/wash clothing spells," a telepathic communication spell or two, and then some very basic defense/offense spells, like low-powered fireballs and stuff. They'd be about as powerful as Warlocks, but not nearly so combat-oriented.
Really, I think a lot of people would prefer to be all-arounders like this than pure battlemages like the Warlocks. It's all very well to be able to atomize a dozen attackers, but for most of your life it's a lot more handy to be able to keep yourself fed, clean, clothed and able to communicate over long distances wherever you may be.
: Hey, what's that over there? No, really, keep looking,
: you'll see it.
I'm looking. It's a water tower.
: Again, this kind of top-heavy economy will work in a
: situation where you have massive social controls over
: the larger population--for a while. It can't last,
: however. The threat of being turned into a catfish is
: relatively small. The threat of having soldiers come
: into your blacksmith shop and taking all the swords
: you spent six months crafting is very high. This was
: of crucial importance in the Revolutionary War--the
: reason popular support fell in behind Washington was
: not because people believed he was their only hope,
: but because the British were just taking what they
: wanted and being really slimy about it.
I still think the threat of being eaten by a Krid or enslaved by Shade is big enough to make all the other ones look very, very inconsequential. And who knows but that the Myth citizens get clear and palpable rewards for their generosity--as you say, it may be institutionalized that the more a village gives to the army, the more diligently the army protects it.
: We're not really disagreeing, here. Conscription, which
: is a universal peacetime draft, tends to get your
: population in shape, provides a police force, and
: keeps teenagers from getting into too much trouble.
: All well and good. A wartime universal draft is a
: problem because suddenly those same teenagers aren't
: picking up trash along the highway--they are suddenly
: the heroes upon whom the very lives of the populace
: depend. It's largely the same people, but they
: responsibilities go up about a hundred notches.
: Therefore, dregs.
Well, it seems to me that we're disagreeing. Maybe I'm still not using the right terminology. GURPS tells us that the draft isn't universal; they only recruit the most promising kids, not the ones who need to be kept out of trouble. So I'm thinking of the Legionnaires as those with the most talent for heroics, while you're (I think) thinking of them as those with the least talent for anything else. These will naturally lead to different predictions of Legion behavior.
: How about my mustache? :) (and no, I don't have one).
Actually, I have no hair on my head except eyebrows at the moment, so I'll let you off the hook.
: We're pretty much in agreement here, though I tend to
: think the war crimes of ancient armies were more a
: question of human nature than training, and therefore
: Mythworld armies, even with a good and solid cause to
: fight for, would still succumb to them from time to
: time.
And I agree.
: I was largely basing that on the journal writer's
: implication. I think the whole political commander to
: brave hero transformation was meant to show the
: quality of the warriors at your disposal, so I don't
: imagine he ever acted in an incompetent way, people
: just expected him to.
I think the journal writer in particular was showing his own naivete and lack of experience. He didn't know what a good commander looks like, and he couldn't (at first) see past his instinctive dislike of Cruniac to recognize his essential greatness.
: Pork which half your army refuses to eat, chicken which
: is an endangered species, and hawk which are
: apparently so hard to catch that the Tutorial narrator
: is amazed by your good shot if one of your bowmen
: actually gets one. What are these people actually
: eating? Turnips?
The Zerks raise sheep for haggis, of course, and must be eternally grateful to Vista for introducing their most valuable food animal into the Mythworld; they also fish. And no, they don't eat turnips; they eat *a* turnip. They're about half done.
: I've already done a whirlwind. This time I've got a ghol
: that grows to three times normal size and a dwarf
: mortar who goes up instead of down. Maybe the food
: wizards just take what food you have and make it
: expand mightily...
Nifty! Can you use an alpha-tester?
: Agreed.
: Agreed.
: I'm sorry, were we agreeing on something again, or
: arguing about something again?
You decide. I'll agree.
: Again, cogent and valuable points all. My problem was
: never with the idea that magic would shape society,
: merely that it would make the army incredibly
: vulnerable and therefore couldn't be totally relied
: on. Magic seems unpredictable at best and therefore
: using it to completely support and buttress one's
: society sounds like an invitation to disaster.
Is it so unpredictable? The spells we see in-game are more reliable, in general, than the technology. Dwarf bottles misfire, axes break, but fireballs are forever. Remember, magic's been employed and researched in the Mythworld longer than, say, iron. They've got a lot of the kinks out by now.
: And if I may also take a page from comic books, the
: reason why Superman never got around to curing hunger
: or building the electric car was that he was too busy
: fighting Lex Luthor. The balance of power meant that
: all his time was spent finding new and better ways to
: fight. I would imagine much the same can be said of
: the Mythworld. All the magic we've seen is either
: destructive or healing. I know, I know, why would they
: put food magic in a game that doesn't worry about
: resource building, but I think there may be more to it
: than that. The scholomance and the Avataras and the
: Culinary Thaumaturge Institute are going to be so busy
: practicing ways to kill thrall that they won't have a
: chance to improve the ham whirlwind dream.
But we know this isn't true. Half the reason no other mage respects Warlocks is that they specialize so much in combat magic. Almost every other type of wizard wields a wide variety of spells. We don't see these, of course, because in combat the important spells are the ones that heal your friends and hurt your enemies, but GURPS does tell us they're there.
And Superman should organize his time better. :-) (Of course, by now we've had endless story arcs where he thinks about doing something really major--like altering global weather patterns--and always decides that he doesn't have the "right" to do something like that. Pshaw.)
: Of course, my argument is directed at simplifying the
: issue while yours tends towards complexity, and given
: the way this world works I'd say I'm holding the short
: end of that staff of magic.
Hey, I think "It all runs by magic" is about as simple as you can get...
: Wellington, who wishes he had time for a snappy comeback
I can wait. Don't get eaten by a raccoon, now.
--SiliconDream
