(C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Lambuzhao »

Edahsrevlis wrote:
alynnidalar wrote:Uh. That question was asked almost seven years ago.
Just long enough for a farting space whale to reach us.
Perhaps you speak of the Saturn Rukh?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... _cover.jpg

They are another possibbility for a floating/gliding gas-giant life-form. Could it escape Saturnian gravity...dunno. Prolly not. No matter how many Saturnian refried beans are involved. :roll:
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Post by Lambuzhao »

Perhaps something that evolved on a geologically hyper-active 'planet' like the Jovian moon of Io?

The creatures would evolve in the duress of that environment, the successful ones could be jettisoned via Ionian vulcanism. Relatively weak gravity, next to no atmosphere, and immense combo of tidal forces might make such a creature spaceworthy without all the zeppelinesque accoutrements.

Also, the relative proximity of many asteroid-sized sheperd moons and rocklets/iceberglets in the Jovian ring system, not to mention the other Jovian moons, might be just ripe for exospermic seeding in such a way. This takes into account that such a life form would have evolved from thermic extremophile into cool space/non-thermic (cf. other Jovian Moons) icy extremophile.
Such Ionian plume-surfers would certainly be sulphur-metabolism dependants, so perhaps a no-go.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by AlwaysForget »

In the conworld I've begun to work on recently, my pseudo-Europe analogue has never encountered anything comparable to Christianity, so the main religion of the people (to misrepresent their beliefs as a monolith) is polytheistic. One of the common practices of the ancient religion was animal sacrifice of animals such as oxen, pigs, goats, etc. Now, from my reading of Burkert's Greek Religion, animal sacrifice seems to be a community event, with processions of people and ritualism with slaughter followed by the meat meal.

Do you think such a practice would persist into modern or near modern times? I'm guessing my "modern" times in my world would go up to about 1900, but for some reason I cannot see this practice surviving, perhaps my mind is too rooted in our own world, especially European ideas. Does anyone have any input on this?

Sorry if this post is kinda disjointed [:S]
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Post by qwed117 »

AlwaysForget wrote:In the conworld I've begun to work on recently, my pseudo-Europe analogue has never encountered anything comparable to Christianity, so the main religion of the people (to misrepresent their beliefs as a monolith) is polytheistic. One of the common practices of the ancient religion was animal sacrifice of animals such as oxen, pigs, goats, etc. Now, from my reading of Burkert's Greek Religion, animal sacrifice seems to be a community event, with processions of people and ritualism with slaughter followed by the meat meal.

Do you think such a practice would persist into modern or near modern times? I'm guessing my "modern" times in my world would go up to about 1900, but for some reason I cannot see this practice surviving, perhaps my mind is too rooted in our own world, especially European ideas. Does anyone have any input on this?

Sorry if this post is kinda disjointed [:S]
I suspect that some degree of sacrifices would still occur, but I don't think full on animal sacrifice will continue. Then again, we're tainted with a Eurocentric bias. So I can't determine for certain.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by AlwaysForget »

qwed117 wrote:I suspect that some degree of sacrifices would still occur, but I don't think full on animal sacrifice will continue. Then again, we're tainted with a Eurocentric bias. So I can't determine for certain.
That is sort of what I was thinking. I was thinking that traditions such as votive offerings could persist fairly well while sacrifices would only be performed on certain holidays, and conducted only by priests, while votive offerings would become the more widespread practice for the common people in urbanized (thus modernized) areas.

However, doing a short amount or research shows that it certainly does continue, even at extravagant levels [O.O] :

https://archive.fo/mbLM
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Post by Axiem »

As I understand it, Santaría practitioners will do what we would consider "animal sacrifices", even in first-world countries like the United States. However, I can't speak to the details.

Also, it looks like some Jewish practitioners still sacrifice lambs.

I agree with the sentiment that the populace at large would give votive offerings, but the priests of a given deity would do sacrificial offerings.
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Post by elemtilas »

AlwaysForget wrote:In the conworld I've begun to work on recently, my pseudo-Europe analogue has never encountered anything comparable to Christianity, so the main religion of the people (to misrepresent their beliefs as a monolith) is polytheistic. One of the common practices of the ancient religion was animal sacrifice of animals such as oxen, pigs, goats, etc. Now, from my reading of Burkert's Greek Religion, animal sacrifice seems to be a community event, with processions of people and ritualism with slaughter followed by the meat meal.

Do you think such a practice would persist into modern or near modern times? I'm guessing my "modern" times in my world would go up to about 1900, but for some reason I cannot see this practice surviving, perhaps my mind is too rooted in our own world, especially European ideas. Does anyone have any input on this?

Sorry if this post is kinda disjointed [:S]
No worries, I'll answer in like disjointery!

I actually see no reason whatsoever why animal sacrifice with ritual meat meal would disappear. It is a very modern, Christian, mode of thought that you're rooted in there! Nothing wrong with that, but, as you say it can cloud the judgement when it comes to considering some other possibilities.

It is through the very thing eliminated in this society (Christianity) that we even have the idea of religion without blood sacrifice. I think it can be safely argued that many other "modern" ideas we enjoy as normative are nothing more than the logical conclusion of the deep embedding of Christian ideals, philosophy and morality within a broad society.

I would hazard the guess that your modern Europe analog might religiously look a little like India (both would have been descended of ancient IE culture) but without the moderating influences of Christianity or Buddhism. Animal sacrifice would I think still be a common sight.

You might consider looking into Romuva, the revived Pagan religion of Lithuania (and the Baltic region in general) to see what a real Western Pagan religion could be like. Unlike Celtic or Germanic or Hellenic Paganism which all died out relatively early on, Baltic Paganism wasn't overturned until the 14th century, and its memory lingered long enough for it to be reignited in the modern period.

As for persisting into modern times, just look to Spain and Latin America --- the bull fight is I think little more than a very ancient and long evolved ritualised hunt and sacrifice. A spectacle of violence, sure. A morality play of life and death and the insecurity of both, sure. A morality play of Man vs Beast, cunning & skill vs might and raw power, sure. Occurring in a modern city like Madrid, sure. Would something like this evolve in the modern cities of your Europe analogue --- I'd say it's very likely that something of this sort would exist *there*. But with the added sanction of religion and the surrounding architecture of temple and ancient ritual that the modern Sangre has lost through the ages.

And like many modern Spaniards, I really don't think your modern Pagans would fear blood or the spilling of an animal's blood in ritualistic fashion. I don't see a Pagan Europe as being all squeamish Peta types. In this kind of society, Nature is revered (and even worshipped) but more importantly, respected. The Sangre isn't about killing an animal. That's what the slaughterhouse is for.
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Post by qwed117 »

Instead of eating crackers and grape juice at communion, it might be lunchables bologna and milk.
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Post by AlwaysForget »

elemtilas wrote: I actually see no reason whatsoever why animal sacrifice with ritual meat meal would disappear. It is a very modern, Christian, mode of thought that you're rooted in there! Nothing wrong with that, but, as you say it can cloud the judgement when it comes to considering some other possibilities.

It is through the very thing eliminated in this society (Christianity) that we even have the idea of religion without blood sacrifice. I think it can be safely argued that many other "modern" ideas we enjoy as normative are nothing more than the logical conclusion of the deep embedding of Christian ideals, philosophy and morality within a broad society.

I would hazard the guess that your modern Europe analog might religiously look a little like India (both would have been descended of ancient IE culture) but without the moderating influences of Christianity or Buddhism. Animal sacrifice would I think still be a common sight.
Great post and good points, this certaintly gives me a lot to think about. India does seem to be the closest thing religiously to what I am envisioning, with lots of decentralization and locally rooted traditions (in my understanding). It can be difficult sometimes to get out of the Eurocentric mold of conworlding sometimes, as I am sure you are well aware.
Thank you mentioning Romuva, for until the rest of the books I ordered arrive in the mail, most of what I am working with is ancient Greek religion, while my goal is to put a less stereotypical version of polytheism into my work.
qwed117 wrote:Instead of eating crackers and grape juice at communion, it might be lunchables bologna and milk.
[xD]
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Post by qwed117 »

From what Hindu ceremonies I've been at, there isn't really a true sacrifice. It's usually consecration of food and other stuff like that, which are then passed out as prasad. Then again, this is mostly from US ceremonies. I haven't seen a ceremony within India, where they might indeed sacrifice animals, however, from my understanding, Hinduism isn't very keen on killing animals, except for the occasional feast or hunt.

What polytheism is like there is largely similar to pre-Christianity Europe. A family would have a specific deity they're beholden to, a town would have a deity they are beholden to, and most other deities other than the big 3 are largely ignored unless say a famine occurs and you need to pray to them.
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Post by Keenir »

AlwaysForget wrote:In the conworld I've begun to work on recently, my pseudo-Europe analogue has never encountered anything comparable to Christianity, so the main religion of the people (to misrepresent their beliefs as a monolith) is polytheistic. One of the common practices of the ancient religion was animal sacrifice of animals such as oxen, pigs, goats, etc. Now, from my reading of Burkert's Greek Religion, animal sacrifice seems to be a community event, with processions of people and ritualism with slaughter followed by the meat meal.
*nods* Romans did it as well, particularly in the Republic.
Do you think such a practice would persist into modern or near modern times? I'm guessing my "modern" times in my world would go up to about 1900, but for some reason I cannot see this practice surviving, perhaps my mind is too rooted in our own world, especially European ideas.
given how many times Europeans changed their mind on things...(just when Rome thought it was safe to declare the idol debate (with Russia and Byzantium) closed, the newborn Protestants brought it back up again) :)

so its possible that some branches of faith in your pseudoeurope might get rid of the sacrifice (or turn it into symbolic sacrifice*), and then some branches within that revive the old practices - or how they feel the old practice should have been done. Just remember that "nothing changes" is just as dangerous as "everything changes" in the business of altering history. :)

* = either with substitution (eat wafers for meat, or pretend to chew air, etc) or with reduction (a shaving from the meat, rather than a plateful; it can still be a communal meal)
Sorry if this post is kinda disjointed [:S]
makes sense to me.
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Does anyone have any recommendations on how to make county/municipality maps for an area on Earth?
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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All4Ɇn wrote:Does anyone have any recommendations on how to make county/municipality maps for an area on Earth?
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Post by GamerGeek »

I am posting this here because this is an alternate history
In an alternate history where Rome never forms an empire, and Latin never becomes the dominant language of Europe, instead having this happen to Greece and Greek, where non-Hellenic languages use the Hellenic script, would languages with /w/ (or /v) and /h/ use wau and breathing diacritics?
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Post by qwed117 »

GamerGeek wrote:I am posting this here because this is an alternate history
In an alternate history where Rome never forms an empire, and Latin never becomes the dominant language of Europe, instead having this happen to Greece and Greek, where non-Hellenic languages use the Hellenic script, would languages with /w/ and /h/ use wau and breathing diacritics?
[cross] [cross]

They'd use digamma or a descendant of the upsilon, and they would use chi or a derivative, respectively.
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Post by Creyeditor »

GamerGeek wrote:I am posting this here because this is an alternate history
In an alternate history where Rome never forms an empire, and Latin never becomes the dominant language of Europe, instead having this happen to Greece and Greek, where non-Hellenic languages use the Hellenic script, would languages with /w/ (or /v) and /h/ use wau and breathing diacritics?
I recommend looking at Gothic as an example.
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Post by sangi39 »

I'd more or less agree with the above, although it might depend on when various languages started adopting the Greek alphabet.

IIRC, Digamma was more or less gone by the 5th Century BC. It does turn up in older Etruscan texts as a way of representing /w/ and was carried on into Latin to write /f/ (and some have suggested the Runic and Gothic letter Fehu probably comes from some Italic alphabet which used F as well), but by and large it doesn't seem to have carried over into later alphabets. A later adoption would probably lead to languages some derivative of Upsilon as a letter for /w/ (and to go even further it seems Armenian uses "ow" to represent /u/ much in the same way Modern Greek used "ou", as did Early Cyrillic).

In Cyrillic, Greek Beta was modified and used for both /v/ and /b/ with Upsilon only being used to transcribe Greek words.

The Latin letter H derives from Archaic Greek Eta, back when it was still used to represent a consonant /h/ (again, used by Gothic and Runic scripts). In Cyrillic /x/ derived from Chi instead.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

All4Ɇn wrote:Does anyone have any recommendations on how to make county/municipality maps for an area on Earth?
Don't know if this will satisfy.

Counties:
Counties in England, at least, were based on ancient kingdoms, from before the heptarchy.
The famous "seven leagues" of 7-league-boot fame, was about the distance a person could travel on horseback in a day.
So a kingdom in those days was likely to be about seven leagues or 21 statute miles in radius, about the seat of government.
Maybe you could make your counties be nearish to 21-mile-radius circles, or at least not contain any territory more than a day's ride (or conworldish equivalent) from the county seat?

Municipalities:
Constantine reportedly laid out the boundary of New Rome (aka Constantinople aka Byzantium) by marching all around it in a day.
So in those days the biggest defensible city was whose circumference was about as far as a fairly in-shape fairly well-trained soldier could march all the way around on a fair-to-good day.
Maybe your municipalities should have a circumference of about a day's march?
Not sure what a day's march is, in statute miles or nautical miles or kilometers.
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"Mile" comes from Latin for "a thousand paces". If a guy could do a pace every second, he could do 3,600 paces in an hour; so he could march at 3.6 miles per hour.
If we assume he could actually keep that up for 24 hours, he could walk 3.6 * 24 = 86.4 miles a day.
I think that's ridiculously overgenerous in an age where a horse could only take a guy 21 miles in a day.
More likely he could march at an average of 1.8 miles-per-hour for about 10 hours. Maybe he could do 3.6 miles-an-hour every other hour, with an hour of rest every other hour, for ten to twelve hours a day (maybe he wouldn't be expected to march the first hour after sunrise nor the last hour before sunset). (The Roman infantry actually did that.)
Even if he marched only every other day (and the Roman infantry did that), still, if the boundary march were done on one of the days when he was supposed to march, he could make 18 miles in a day.
Let's say a day's march is 18 (statute) miles; then set up your municipalities to fit into areas with a circumference or perimeter of 18 miles (or less).

Subdivisions of municipalities:
In the Viet Nam war, the Viet Cong used a principle from Mao Tse-Tung's book, that the field-headquarters during any operation should be where any soldier/guerrilla could trot to it in half-an-hour (or less).
If, like the Mormon founders of Salt Lake City, you want every neighborhood to be defensible itself in case the city's perimeter were breached, you might want to divide your city into defensible neighborhoods with a radius not greater than a half-hour's fast walk or trot; maybe about 1.8 miles? maybe just 1 mile?
Call those "marques" or "barangays" or whatever the right word is. Maybe "sokes"? Maybe just "districts" or "vicinities" or "neighborhoods"? Maybe "wards" or "precincts"?
Maybe you could arrange that each of them contained at least one hundred (or your conlang's or conculture's equivalent) warriors, able-bodied individuals equipped to fight.
Then you could call them "hundreds" or "centuries" or something like.

IMO it makes sense to have judicial precincts (sokes), voting precincts (wards), and civil-defense precincts, all be the same thing. YMMV.

You might try to make sure that each one was also economically independent for at least a minimum amount of time.
Maybe they would be public-school districts, at least for lower grades (primary school and/or elementary school).
Maybe they'd each have their own retail market-area.
Maybe they'd each have their own water-well.
You'd want them to be able to withstand a siege for a certain minimum amount of time; at least a day, at most a-year-and-a-day, is my guess.
So they should have walls and gates and towers, though they'd probably be much less impressive than those of the city-as-a-whole.

How to draw the maps?
The need to include certain resources, such as water-wells, would influence the locations and even the shapes of the counties, municipalities, and districts.
The need to be able to reach the headquarters or seat-of-government by horseback or on foot in a certain maximum amount of time, would make the physical ease or difficulty of traveling the ambient terrain, have an influence on the shape and the boundaries of the counties and municipalities and districts.
The need to include a minimum number of able-bodied well-equipped residents would also influence the sizes and shapes of the districts, and probably the municipalities, and maybe even the counties.

So I would include roads; other routes (canals or navigable streams or what-have-you -- do your people brachiate? then include aerial paths); sources of potable water; stores of food; stores of other necessities; arsenals (weapons caches, armor storage, etc.); walls, gates, and towers, as well as ladders or stairs for going up and down them; any physical terrain that makes travel or defense easier or harder (e.g. free-fire-zones or dense thorny hedge-rows or moats or woods that can't be run through or rough ground horses can't cross); locations of law-courts and judges' offices; locations of local law-enforcement stations.
Anything else? I'll be plenty surprised if I've thought of everything.
Oh! Restaurants and cafeterias, in case the power goes out or there's a firewood shortage or the water is contaminated or there's a water-shortage or food needs to be rationed or whatever!

Edit: Actually what I've really done is nothing so sensible, or at least nothing so fitting RL history.
I just divided the globe into "nations" or "countries" about 1800 nautical miles east-west by about 900 nautical miles north-south;
divided those into "states" or "provinces" or "regions" about 150 nautical miles east-west by about 75 nautical miles north-south;
then divided those into "counties" or "townships" about 12.5 nautical miles east-west by about 6.25 nautical miles north-south.
Where population density is high, but either transportation technology is low, or communication technology is low, or surveillance technology is low, it might make sense to divide those "counties" or "townships" into yet smaller "patrols" or "beats" or "neighborhoods" or "blocks"; maybe a bit longer east-west than 1 nautical mile, and a bit wider north-south than half a nautical mile.
As you can tell; that makes no attempt to take the terrain into consideration, nor the resources, nor all those other things I mentioned earlier.
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Map-related, but I don't know how I can go about dividing it into nations. The nations are not close enough to warrant the straight line borders that most modern nations have and there are not enough natural borders to divide my lands realistically, as it's impossible for me to draw the thousands or tens of thousands of rivers and that a more realistic map would have.
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Post by elemtilas »

Ahzoh wrote:Map-related, but I don't know how I can go about dividing it into nations. The nations are not close enough to warrant the straight line borders that most modern nations have and there are not enough natural borders to divide my lands realistically, as it's impossible for me to draw the thousands or tens of thousands of rivers and that a more realistic map would have.
If by "they aren't close enough" you mean they don't actually physically have a proper border, then I don't see an issue. On the map, if the countries are all colored in, you could make a striped zone between the two to indicate no clear border or a shifting zone of control. Alternatively, you could use a different kind of border line which would indicate an area of fluid borders.

You don't need to draw thousands of rivers or other features, unless your plan is to make a survey map. Ordinary squiggles along large rivers will do.
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