You can tell a lot about a society (even a fictional one) by their code of morals. What sort of things do they consider taboo, what are their laws like, and what do they consider respectable?
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Harkovast- the forum
The Golta
Golta laws cover the obvious things, stealing, murder etc, but here are some areas where Golta law and morality are a bit different…
Golta put great importance on hard work.
Being lazy is considered highly offensive, almost treasonous (as if everyone was lazy, the Golta Nation would be doomed.)
Making sacrifices for the greater good is also considered very admirable. A true Golta should live a Spartan life style in order to help help preserve the Golta Nations resources. Decadence, selfishness and greed are considered high unpleasent traits.
Golta women dont wear make up and dress in clothes very similar to the men. Decadent women who were no good at hard work would be considered highly unattractive to the Golta!
Golta can get a bit McCarthian in their attitude to dealings with foreigners, especially when comparing people in political office. Being too friendly with the Tolpish is a sure fire way to get forced out of office.
While its technically not illegal to have dealings with foreigners, the Golta legal code has a pretty broad definition for treason!
Hmmm, here's a question I got… it's established that the Golta used magic to create thier weapons, but how far does this innovativeness extend to other fields in technology? While as stated they do not possess universities or dedicated research, there's bound to have been a few innovative oddballs who might have found other uses for thier magic with regards to technology?
Yes, Golta technology magic probably does have other interesting applications, but so far the bulk of Golta study has been geared towards using it for war and weapons.
But being a creative bunch, no doubt some Golta have come up with other curious creations.
Another limiting factor is that Golta value hard work, so any Golta who had time to sit around thinking and tinkering might earn the scorn of his peers for for laziness!
Golta don't leave much free time in their days for contemplation and experimentation would have to be towards practical and immediately applications (like better guns) to get much support from them.
One would have to pity a Golta version of Isaac NEwton or Albert Einstein XD
Smarty Golta: Hmmm… lets see, if we carry the three here and then multiply the exponents… Eureka! I got it! This could revolutionize-!
Other Golta: ARE YOU WASTING TIME WITH THOSE NUMBERS AGAIN!? THERE'S WORK TO BE DONE, *REAL* WORK YOU TOLPISH INSPIRIED NINNY!
Smarty: Yipe! YEssir! *Abandons notes to get back to work*
Advances made in agriculture and industry made growing crops faster and easier, and manufacturing and finishing goods (including weapons or part for weapons) faster, easier, AND cheaper, allowing more time to be spent on military or other nationalistic purposes, or just leaving time for even more work.
Advances in some fields have indeed led to advances in completely other ones, and that still applies to civilian advances leading to military ones.
Its not that the Golta are ludites, they love technology. Its just for advances to be made requires someone to not be doing work and basically just tinkering around on things that may or may not produce any results.
Since the Golta have a siege mentality where only the constant work of all the Golta is keeping their nation alive, this sort of thing seems very frivolous.
While to our modern minds, the idea that research and study are worth while ends in themselves, to most people in Harkovast, they are at best an amusing diversion and at worst a waste of time when important things need doing (like growing food and chopping fire wood.)
Vendetto's conversation between smarty and other Golta is pretty spot on!
It is gratifying that people find the Golta so interesting, they are getting loads of questions. They are a favourite of mine, I must admit. Three cornered hats and muskets are always awesome.
I need to check, but while there is an article about Darsai religion on here, I don't think I ever actually wrote an article about Darsai culture. This must be corrected!
I get that they like technology, but with the sort of technological prowess they have (over the other races around them at least) it's amazing to think that they wouldn't see the potential for applying it elsewhere! With research in other fields they could be really moving forward!
Remember that remark I made on the slings thread about Golta driving in Panzers? That sort of stuff would come in short order (after inventing the autmobile of course).
I'm the sort of fellow who prefers a carburetor over a computer in his car, a wooden stock over polycarbonate on his rifle, and all of my watches are clockwork; but the missed opportunity is just torture :(
The best part about being evil is that you can usually break heads open until people are either too scared of you to say no or they figure you've got the right idea and give you props for your method. No need to worry about all this "unite; stand as one against evil" crap!
Also you can look like an unmitigated bad ass, who unlike the good guys isn't afraid of wearing his enemies earlobes 'round his neck like some creepy piece of jewelry.
What would be interesting would be a one off of some highly advanced (to them, probably 20th century or so) race invading Harkovast. How would the various races react to machine guns, long range artillery, submarines, airplanes, tanks, ect.? I have a feeling some races would be annihilated and unable to cope, and some would take this advance in tech and reverse engineer something like it for their own use.
Well if the senario you are painting is one where invaders with guns show up, ask for nothing, want nothing and just persistantly shoot the population till everyone is dead…then yes, everyone in Harkovast would die…except for the King in the West, the Lel, some of the 14 Evils and wizards of Eldex.
Any of them would wipe the floor with attackers like that.
The concept of science and magic blowing the shit out of each other has been done before I fear.
I've heard of one book series that pits WW1 era tech against a massive magical empire. I can't say I've read the books, but I don't think it was going to end well for the magicy people. I mean, AA gun vs Dragons… AA gun wins.
Then there was that expansion to TA Kingdoms, the Iron Plague, a video game. It was some funny shit, lightning guns and deamons and medieval style people blowing the crap outta each other. That one didn't end particularly badly for anyone, maybe the sciencey ones got the short end of the stick.
If The KITW, 14 evils, Lel, and Wizards of Eldex can take a Katyusha rocket or howitzer round to the face then I think the good guys should be very very worried indeed. If any of them could survive the direct inferno of a hydrogen bomb, as well as radiation after effects, then the good guys should be very very very very worried. Though I personally believe in a well placed sniper round fired without the target's knowledge, only then can you be sure the target won't create some kind of magical barrier. I don't care who you are, I doubt your ability to function without a central nervous system (brains I guess).
Actually, regardless, it sounds like the uber powerful bad guys probably outnumber the good guys. There are at least 15 incredibly dangerous baddies. And only a handful of wizards. Goodness knows about the Lel, good, bad, some good, some bad, etc.
However, only Harkovast knows what the KITW, Wizards, Evils, and Lel can actually do. So he knows best.
In fact, given that the Lel are Steel and Technology they might have howitzers! Or some kind of equivalent. Which is a pretty freaken scary idea. Or sniper rifles. Yeah, that would be messy. Or incredibly clean. Darn it! Now I'm more curious about the Lel!
And even I've dreamed up magic capable of creating the rough equivalent of a nuclear explosion, or the power of it at least. I've also dreamed up things capable of shrugging a hydrogen bomb explosion off with minor annoyance and slight disorientation. If I can do it I bet Hark can.
Have you ever played Arcanum? That was a really good RPG that covered the conflict between technology and magic, nature and industrialization pretty well. They were about even. The mightiest mages could cast spells the equivalent of nukes, or tear open portals to the void, or summon tremendous armies to fight for them and technology could build bombs, guns, robots, and a superweapon against magic… an anti magic cannon. It drained magic from an area.. permanently. No magic would ever be able to be cast there again.
Technology on a magic world would adapt to counter magic, if you think along those lines. Something survives a nuke? There is surely a weakness.. Perhaps some sort of stasis field? Cold? Electricity? Some metal that drains magic? Invention is the mother of necessity, and if you need to kill an 'unkillable' mage, something would be invented to do so. Just because one superweapon won't hurt it doesn't mean it's invulnerable to technology, just that something new needs to be used. Everything has a weakness, except maybe gods.. but even most gods have weaknesses as they are based on humans/whatever creature they are gods of. So yeah… Saying magic is all powerful or technology is unbeatable… both are foolish. I guess that might be what you were getting at? Because giant robots with anti-magic shields would be a problem for wizards, just as a huge demon made of fire would be a problem to science… for a while. A wizard would find some way to indirectly attack, and science would use a fire suppressant or something. Ahh, enough rambling..
I bet the Lel are aliens from space and have super advanced technology.
Never played it, I tend to stick to strategy games actually. Like, you know, chess. I used to play a lot of chess. But I haven't been playing anything recently.
I agree a lot with what you say… but at the same time I maintain that there are times when the lines between technology and magic can become so blurred as to be non-existent. Maybe that's something like what Hark is going for here.
In fact, I think that any sufficiently advanced technology can appear to be magic to someone without the same knowledge. Eye of the Beholder and all that. Take computers for example. If we have no idea how they actually work then we end up essentially with a monkey (us) with a magic box that makes things happen. I think that's a neat approach personally.
And that isn't to say that, in a magic world, "magic" cannot be studied and used in a scientific way. In that video game I mentioned the techie faction still uses mana… except that mana is more a type of fuel for their factories, weapons and tanks rather than something to be used in some arcane ritual.
I agree that magic and tech can be even, or at least on an even footing depending on what tech level we're talking about though.
The problem with this debate is that the terms of it are vry very vague.
Cthonic, what type of attackers are you suggesting?
What do these attackers want?
Are they tryign ot exterminate the whole population? Enslave them? Force the mto surrender? Take their unobtainium?
How many attackers are there? Did they all just appear or did they come down in space ships?
What weapons do they have? Are they attacking with machine guns and tanks? Planes bombing the country side or ust launching nuclear missiles from their space station?
Now the idea is coming up that these "attackers" (who ever and what ever they are) have enouhg time during this "war" to develope neww technology nad tactics to counter what the Harkovast people do. Asside from the point that cant the Harkovast defenders similiarly adapt (using weapons taken from the attackers etc), this seems to be based on a lot of assumptions.
This seems to imply that if they are initially defeated the attackers will be able to retreat to some safe place, regroup (unmolested while doing so) and then return more powerful than ever.
Frankly the attackers would have spears and arrows! With an advantage so massive as to be able to leave and regroup in safety as much as they want, they will eventually win anyway, as there is effectively no way they can lose.
This debate cant really progress properly until you define exactly who and what the attackers are, how many they are, why they are attacking and what they want, and how they got to Harkovast in the first place.
Until those points are clear, the whole debate cant go anywhere.
(Though the KITW would still win. Seriously, missiles and bombs? Pfft!)
The problem with this debate is that the terms of it are vry very vague.Where did they come from? A large, stable interdimensional rift sounds good.
Cthonic, what type of attackers are you suggesting?
What do these attackers want?
Are they tryign ot exterminate the whole population? Enslave them? Force the mto surrender? Take their unobtainium?
How many attackers are there? Did they all just appear or did they come down in space ships?
What weapons do they have? Are they attacking with machine guns and tanks? Planes bombing the country side or ust launching nuclear missiles from their space station?
Now the idea is coming up that these "attackers" (who ever and what ever they are) have enouhg time during this "war" to develope neww technology nad tactics to counter what the Harkovast people do. Asside from the point that cant the Harkovast defenders similiarly adapt (using weapons taken from the attackers etc), this seems to be based on a lot of assumptions.
This seems to imply that if they are initially defeated the attackers will be able to retreat to some safe place, regroup (unmolested while doing so) and then return more powerful than ever.
Frankly the attackers would have spears and arrows! With an advantage so massive as to be able to leave and regroup in safety as much as they want, they will eventually win anyway, as there is effectively no way they can lose.
This debate cant really progress properly until you define exactly who and what the attackers are, how many they are, why they are attacking and what they want, and how they got to Harkovast in the first place.
Until those points are clear, the whole debate cant go anywhere.
(Though the KITW would still win. Seriously, missiles and bombs? Pfft!)
Why are they fighting? To take a sizable amount of land for themselves (meaning at least 1 entire nation) They will offer surrender to the people, to live under their rule. Their form of government is fascist, but fair and not corrupt. The soldiers have modern sensibilities and a code of conduct. THey follow the Geneva convention.
Space Marines from the WH40K universe! Nah, that would be overkill on an extreme scale… Space Marines from that universe would rip through the entire planet like so much cheese, and the Librarians would be more than a match for the mages. The power of the warp is strong, after all.. And if the land forces are beaten, somehow? They would call for an Exterminatus. This will either be a massive bio-bombing (with a powerful virus that utterly destroys living tissue, or void missles that will completely destroy the planet.
Let's say… generic, modern day soldiers that don't send 10 percent of their army to do anything. They only need to send a couple platoons to be effective, with air and tank support. They have cameras on the tanks and planes transmitting to a fairly secure LZ that they will have fortified and have a fair amount of sentries. Teleportation could get past it, but how does teleportation work? Can you teleport to places you have never seen/never been to?
Anyways, a modern army with around 1,000,000 soldiers, counting the men manning the tanks and planes (which would make up about, let's say, 30% of the total) and 10000 civilians doing repairs, paperwork, ect. We are assuming they have a way to get additional ammo/fuel here, I take it?
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