Saurian Societies

[Midnight_Carnival]

As for your campaign idea, does he also say "Come with me if you want to live" or "I'll be back" at any point?

No. He also never uses adjectives, capital letters and or punctuation marks. He makes statements never asking questions. The character was inspired by Winston Churchill; in the beginning of the war before America joined the British were quite scared the Germans would beat them 9 ways from suday (or so the story goes). Chamberlain was bending over backwards for peace with Germany and emotions were running riot (they say).
In all this turmoil, Churchill appeared and made these flat speaches (you should listen to the recordings somewhere), the theroy goes that his lack of enthusiasm or panic inspired the British people.

It also made an ironic contrast becasuse the Orcs are supposed to be hot-blooded and the Saurians cold-blooded, yet in this campaign, you would play as a charasmatic Saurian leader and one of the bad guys would be a cold mechanical Orc.

No need to be sarcastic

Me?

[Turuk]

RIght, fair enough. His terminology just sounds similar to that used in a certain movie series.

Me?

Was there another individual that I was responding to?

[Midnight_Carnival]

I just found the idea that human societies are based around materials interesting.
I thought that societies were based around the abstract ideals, for example I would say that modern western civilisation is currently based on the ideal of "freedom", and before that it was based on the idea of
"progress", before that was "empire"...

This has nothing to do wiht Saruian societies so I'll just shut up.
plainly I'll have to work on my sarcasm before I can post things in the spirit of this forum

It is for fun.

[Turuk]

I just found the idea that human societies are based around materials interesting.
I thought that societies were based around the abstract ideals, for example I would say that modern western civilisation is currently based on the ideal of "freedom", and before that it was based on the idea of
"progress", before that was "empire"...

It is just one way of categorizing civilizations, and there is no right way to do so.

[unsung]

If you want an explation of bronze age vs iron age:
Bronze age socities could work bronze into tools, and weapons, effectivley.
Iron age societies would do this with iron, which was stronger when worked with their more advanced metallurgy/forging techniques. Other things tended to be more advanced as well, but this wasn't always the case.
Modern age is viewed largely as the plastic age. Weapons are plastic, this keyboard is plastic.... I'd be dead before I could type a tiny fraction of the number of things we do with plastic.

Individual cultures are around ideas, but the world at large isn't.
Sparta and athens for example. one was about freedom, and learning.
One was about stabbing people.
Both used bronze.

Oh, and the free exchange of information has been revolutionized by modern technology that is made of plastice, to the point where it is nigh-impossible to censor compared to before. Try and hide a printing press compared to an easily wiped server for an illegal website.

Imagine you are, say, in egypt.
Having a pyramid built era egypt.
Now a bunch of plate armored knights show up, and think you have something of value.
What do you think happens?
They slaughter you, and then either twist your culture to control the survivors, enslave them outright, or kill them off.
Look at the aztecs, or the native american tribes.
try and think of the actual names of the tribes conquered by rome. You usually can't because they were wiped out.
This can be what happened to those saurians. Defeated by better technology*, and wiped out for worshiping the WRONG COLOR BALL IN THE SKY, THOSE HEATHENS.

[thespaceinvader]

Yeah, i'd characterise modern society as silicon age, or information age, personally. Industrial in some countries, still pre-industrial in others.

[Midnight_Carnival]

Sparta and athens for example. one was about freedom, and learning.
One was about stabbing people.
Both used bronze.

Please don't use 300 as the basis for Spartan culture - they had an intersting society... Oh, and when they fought side by side against the Persians or against one another in the Peloponesian war they both had and used iron weapons.

What about the Drakes, they don't even seem to use metal all that much, their weapons are made out of this green stuff (what the hell is it?) I however would not want to go three rounds against a Drake, they'd pull me appart like an overcooked chicken and use my steel sword to pick their teeth with.

[thespaceinvader]

The garish green weapons are GOING in the revamped drakes. They're horrendous. The armour will be a mix of bronze and painted steel, the weapons will be steel.

[Turuk]

Bronze age socities could work bronze into tools, and weapons, effectivley.
Iron age societies would do this with iron, which was stronger when worked with their more advanced metallurgy/forging techniques. Other things tended to be more advanced as well, but this wasn't always the case.

It's important to note that initially, wrought iron was not stronger because they were limited in how much they could purify the iron, and it was prone to rusting. Iron was much more abundant and easily mined, as the tin for bronze was not always easy to come by. It was the advent of steel that saw the end of bronze altogether.

Sparta and athens for example. one was about freedom, and learning.
One was about stabbing people.
Both used bronze.

Please don't use 300 as the basis for Spartan culture - they had an intersting society... Oh, and when they fought side by side against the Persians or against one another in the Peloponesian war they both had and used iron weapons.

Actually, while broken down extremely simply, he made a fair assessment of the general nature of the two cities if you look at their history. Please don't think that every time anyone mentions Sparta they are basing their reference off of a movie.

[thespaceinvader]

If anything, the definition of athenian society is a little too simplistic, compared to the spartan one. Athens was all about learning and freedom except for women, foreigners, slaves, serfs... there were very few people in the cradle of democracy who had any form of democratic rights whatsoever...

[unsung]

So you're telling me that spartan society did not boil down to creating soldiers who lived and died to fight for the state? there may have been more to it, but it seems that was largely what it existed to do.
I'm aware that my summary of athens it too simplistic. But that seems to be what athens thought of itself, and it works for showing that it is/was easier to categories societies by materials than by ideas. If I wanted to go into into detial about ath... I can't finish typing that without laughing, never mind.

[thespaceinvader]

I never said anything of the sort. I just said your definition of Athens was too simplistic - I implied that your version of Sparta was actually more accurate than your version of Athens. Spartan society was brutal.

[unsung]

I was replying to two people at once. Been on opchan too much I guess.

[Midnight_Carnival]

Actually, while broken down extremely simply, he made a fair assessment of the general nature of the two cities if you look at their history. Please don't think that every time anyone mentions Sparta they are basing their reference off of a movie.

Ok, I'll sort of take your word for it, I suppose if you break down modern western society extremely simply it could be seen as all about getting women pregnant and then working them to death...
Oh, and that aledged movie did the Spartans a lot more credit than it did the Persians! I am looking for historical references to mutated giants who behead people with sharpened chicken wings.

So you're telling me that spartan society did not boil down to creating soldiers who lived and died to fight for the state? there may have been more to it, but it seems that was largely what it existed to do.

If you are looking backwards at a dead civilisation you can boil it down (...I would come into contact with those words today when I am trying for the 900000th time to kick my coffee addiction!!) to pretty much whatever you like, depending on your cultural reference.

I can't dispute that Spartan society was militaristic, many would claim American society is today... But Athenocenrticim doesn't mitigate defining a society as "brutal" purely because they kicked Athens in the Peloponesian war.

We have a lot of texts and archeological evidence on which we can base our assesments of the Athenians, we do not have all that much to go on when we talk about (much less make movies about) the Spartans. A lot of what we know about Sparta we know from Athenaian sorces...
Athens left us impressive monuments, granted, but they paid for these by ruthlessly exploiting other members of the Delian League.
Sparta did not leave us an acropolis to look at and say wow. Does that make them Mordor Orcs?

Athens produced a lot of literature, some of which we still have today. It is a logical falacy to presume that because we do not have Spartan literature they were illiterate or stupid. The consensus is that while Athenians prided themselves on their philolophy, Spartans were more interested in rhetoric. The term "laconic" has its origin with Sparta.

The problem with abstract ideals is that people tend to ascribe an arbitraty system of values to them. Athenians had their abstract ideals and Spartans had theirs, Athenians liked one form of democracy and aspired to one form of perfection (expressed in their philosophy by Plato [who ironically was quite taken with Sparta]). Spartans had a slightly different form of democracy (no, it wasn't just the best fighter telling everybody what to do) and aspired to a different form of perfection. While Athenian ideals were removed from everyday life, intangible and unreachable, Spartans tried to bring their ideals into their life. They put a great deal of value in thier ideals of racial purity, they had this whole "master race" thing going before it was cool to have "master race" thing going. We do not ascribe to those ideals and judge them accordingly....

Oh, and I know you are going to ask me for my soruces, I'll get them, I do study ancient cultures after all, but be ready with your own when you do.

-thank you, I'll listen on the radio.

[Turuk]

Ok, I'll sort of take your word for it, I suppose if you break down modern western society extremely simply it could be seen as all about getting women pregnant and then working them to death...

What? Comments like these are why no one tends to take your points seriously at all, as you refuse to admit that anyone else might raise a valid point and then proceed to dismiss it anyways by being flippant about the subject.