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What are good examples of supposed-to-be-competent sci fi military that go really over the top on dress uniforms? We are primed culturally to read austere uniform as == professional and disciplined, no? There's 40k at least.
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Jan 16, 2018 18:37
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aphid_licker posted:What are good examples of supposed-to-be-competent sci fi military that go really over the top on dress uniforms? We are primed culturally to read austere uniform as == professional and disciplined, no? There's 40k at least. Take your pick of the "We want to be Horatio Hornblower IN SPACE!" genre - Honor Harrington, Midshipman's Hope, etc. Space navies usually mean ridiculous dress uniforms.
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Jan 16, 2018 18:42
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Starship troopers has an entire chapter on how he learns to sew in his dress jacket, and how big of a deal it is.
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Jan 16, 2018 18:50
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Cythereal posted:Take your pick of the "We want to be Horatio Hornblower IN SPACE!" genre - Honor Harrington, Midshipman's Hope, etc. Space navies usually mean ridiculous dress uniforms. Are any of these any good? I tried the first book of the RCN series but couldn’t get into it. I know you’re not supposed to judge books by their cover but With the Lightning’s threw me off. I’m phone posting, but google it, it’s worth it
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Jan 16, 2018 18:53
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Fangz posted:Did Sparta write its own history? To what extent could our memory of them be influenced by fetishism of them by other greeks? I found this comment by a historian really interesting on the subject of where Spartan fetishism came from.
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Jan 16, 2018 18:56
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Ainsley McTree posted:Related to that, why did armies wear white uniforms during the musket days (or others; musket Times is all I’m familiar with)? Synthetic dye wasn't invented until the late 19th century so until then you're using natural dye and that's more expensive than just giving you troops some undyed stuff. World powers could obviously afford to grow the plants necessary to dye their stuff or buy what they wanted. Dye is a pretty interesting thing in general. Purple is the color of royalty because it used to be, to make purple dye, you needed to kill these specific snails so they'd secrete some juice, and each one was only good for a drop or two of dye. You'd need literally tens of thousands of them to dye a cape or whatever. Also they apparently smelled loving awful. Jamwad Hilder fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Jan 16, 2018 |
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Jan 16, 2018 18:58
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Ainsley McTree posted:Are any of these any good? I tried the first book of the RCN series but couldn’t get into it. I know you’re not supposed to judge books by their cover but With the Lightning’s threw me off. I’m phone posting, but google it, it’s worth it They're written by guys who think the Royal Navy during the 17th and 18th centuries was really awesome, so take that as you will. I've read several since I'm a librarian and have ready access to free books, but by now they've all kinda blurred together in my mind. There's only so many stories to tell about Iron Men On
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Jan 16, 2018 19:00
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Now that Total War: Three Kingdoms has been announced, does anyone have some good sources on the frontier armies of the Eastern Han dynasty, and how they compared/transitioned into the armies of Wei, Wu, and Shu?
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Jan 16, 2018 19:07
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Cythereal posted:They're written by guys who think the Royal Navy during the 17th and 18th centuries was really awesome, so take that as you will. I've read several since I'm a librarian and have ready access to free books, but by now they've all kinda blurred together in my mind. There's only so many stories to tell about Iron Men On Maybe I’ll just stick with Aubrey-maturin
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Jan 16, 2018 19:12
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Ainsley McTree posted:Maybe I’ll just stick with Aubrey-maturin Reading about history so much has left me with a distinct "Man, gently caress imperialism with a rusty jackhammer" mentality, so I nowadays steer clear of that entire genre whether it's in space or at sea. Same reason I tend to give steampunk a hard pass.
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Jan 16, 2018 19:14
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Ainsley McTree posted:Are any of these any good? I tried the first book of the RCN series but couldn’t get into it. I know you’re not supposed to judge books by their cover but With the Lightning’s threw me off. I’m phone posting, but google it, it’s worth it I remember trying to get into the RCN stuff and quitting early when it was obvious that it was trying to be Aubrey/Maturin in space, but without the depth. golden bubble posted:Now that Total War: Three Kingdoms has been announced, does anyone have some good sources on the frontier armies of the Eastern Han dynasty, and how they compared/transitioned into the armies of Wei, Wu, and Shu? Rafe de Crespigny has you covered. Edit: Cythereal posted:Reading about history so much has left me with a distinct "Man, gently caress imperialism with a rusty jackhammer" mentality, so I nowadays steer clear of that entire genre whether it's in space or at sea. Same reason I tend to give steampunk a hard pass. Aubrey/Maturin is pretty good, though, in that it's scrupulous with its historical attitudes that clearly belong to the past - one example that sticks out is a conversation where somebody goes "Surely even you won't deny that the king is the font of all honor?" "No, of course not." Less idolization of the past and more a window into it. Tomn fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jan 16, 2018 |
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Jan 16, 2018 19:16
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spectralent posted:I was thinking, are there any guys or organisations from history that are kind of "pre-fascist"? Obviously, to be fascist you need some cultural understandings of race and nationalism that're real, and access to propoganda tools that might not have existed or might not have been appreciated, among other differences I can think of, but are there any leaders from older periods who sound a lot like socially transformative leaders with a boner for romantic violence or whatever? Or are they just all generally so violent it gets lost as noise? Marinetti but he became fascist later
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Jan 16, 2018 19:23
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Tomn posted:Aubrey/Maturin is pretty good, though, in that it's scrupulous with its historical attitudes that clearly belong to the past - one example that sticks out is a conversation where somebody goes "Surely even you won't deny that the king is the font of all honor?" "No, of course not." Less idolization of the past and more a window into it. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jan 16, 2018 |
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Jan 16, 2018 19:25
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Victor Hutchinson's POW Diary Tuesday January 16th, 1945 Weather shocking. I seldom stray from the mess. Working steadily for exams. News improves every day and spirits of the camp are very light.
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Jan 16, 2018 19:28
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Epicurius posted:We don't have any surviving Spartan histories. The closest we have is Xenophon, who included a copy of Sparta's constitution in his works. Unfortunately Xenophon was incredibly biased and was an extreme spartophile who changed his citizenship to Sparta and had his children raised as Spartans. Thucydides had a pretty balanced view when reporting about the Spartans during the Peloponnesian war though. Also fun fact regarding Sparta and Persia. Without the help of the Persian Navy and their nigh unlimited money funding the Athenians would have crushed them despite Athens' several disasters in Sicily.
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Jan 16, 2018 19:32
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Comrade Gorbash posted:There's a lot to critique about Aubrey/Maturin in terms of historicity and politics, but I have always respected it for at least not pretending the protagonists - and the British Empire in general - What's the issue with the historicity, out of curiosity?
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Jan 16, 2018 19:33
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Tomn posted:What's the issue with the historicity, out of curiosity? Generally speaking O'Brian is really good about historical accuracy, particularly with technical details, and especially as an author of fiction. He has to come down on one side or the other of historical debates just to keep the story going in many cases. And that's fine, if something a reader needs to keep in mind. He does however occasionally throw in anachronistic elements to add color to a scene, and the particular choices he makes often reflect the fact we know how history turns out. It's always a struggle when looking at history to remember we have the benefit of hindsight and not over-attribute intention to the actions of historical persons, for good or ill. The narratives O'Brian constructs can sometimes fall into a bit of a just-so structure, with things laid out in ways that look logical and follow the catalog of events, that ultimately creates a false impression about how and why historical figures behaved the way they did. In the realm of historical fiction, it's a relatively minor sin. But it's even more important to keep in mind since everything around it is at a higher than normal quality level.
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Jan 16, 2018 19:58
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spiky butthole posted:The entirety of Cornwall was lead and tin deposits which were mined up until recent history. Same with coal, iron ore and other resources which were conducive to the industrial revolution. It still is. The mines are all mostly closed except for one?
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Jan 16, 2018 20:42
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Sharing with the thread a short term paper I wrote on aspects of the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925, also known as the Druze Revolt. In the spirit of JUST POST. The Great Syrian Revolt of 1925 represented one of the first sparks of Arab nationalism. In the revolt, disparate groups, separated by ethnic, religious, socioeconomic, and class differences, banded together against the common oppressor of France. Nationalists were able to elevate a provincial insurgency into a full blow revolt across Syria. As the revolt spread from the small and provincial Jabal Druze to ignite the entire country, its leaders grappled with the organization of rival groups in the face of a colonial empire. In this sense, the rebellion formed the catalyst of the Arab nationalist identity. The brutality and destruction wrought by the revolt and its suppression gave way to a stronger sense of independence and unity within the Syrian people that would reflect itself in coming generations. The Sykes-Picot agreement of 1915 effectively stabbed the leaders of the Arab Revolt in the back. The Entente of Great Britain and France drew arbitrary lines denoting imperial control over the Levant, once ruled by the Ottoman Empire (McHugo, 2015). The end of far Ottoman rule, the destruction of a world war, the hope for a generation of Arabs was crushed instantaneously and single-handedly by the imposition of authority by the colonial empires of France and Great Britain. The brief existence of the Kingdom of Syria, based upon Arab national unity and independence, under the leadership of King Faisal had allowed Syrians to briefly flirt with a cohesive concept of a nation (Khoury, 1987). Syria was thrust into statehood, somewhat by its own accord, but moreso by the whims of mustachioed and armchaired diplomats thousands of kilometers away. The head on confrontation between the French and their subjects exacerbated the divide present between the imperialists and the imperiled. Interwar Syria was defined by its division, whether economic, ethnic, or religious. It is difficult to find exact demographic data, so a variety of data from the interwar years will be utilized. This data primarily comes from Philip Khoury’s work Syria and the French Mandate, published in 1987. In 1945, the population of Syria was almost 3 million people. Of this, 3% of the population was Druze, around 12% of the population was Alawite, around 5% was Greek Orthodox, 4.2% was Armenian, and 1.2% was Jewish (Khoury, 1987). Compared to a majority population of Sunni muslims (almost 70%), these minorities had no political leverage outside of their enclaves. France applied its colonial tactics from the Maghreb and Southeast Asia to Syria by treating minorities with a privileged status. The French encouraged Alawites, Armenians, and Circassians to join its colonial military and administration, while maintaining a puppet government made up of notable elite (Provence, 2005). In addition to these populations, a number of nomadic tribes and other groups travelled the Syrian desert, estimated at between three and four hundred thousand in 1943 (Khoury, 1987). These tribes would act as dealmakers, bandits, and sometimes rebel leaders during the revolt. Tribal loyalties underlied the network of personal and patronistic loyalties that created the social underpinnings of Syrian society. One characteristic of this society was the notable class, which had gradually turned into absentee landlords, capitalizing on the agricultural rural populations (McHugo, 2011). The urban population was concentrated largely within the four population centers of Aleppo, Damascus, Homs, and Hama. These four cities together made up nearly 80 percent of Syria’s urban population during the French Mandate (in 1932) (Khoury, 1987). There existed a balance between the rural and urban population of Syria. Although nationalist sentiment was largely based in the urban centers with their intellectual and upper classes, it existed too in the rural regions which fed the cities. Michael Provence notes that the Hourani grain trade with Damascus-based merchants served as a nexus for the revolt (Provence, 2005). The Houran in particular was significant to the revolt because of its proximity and linkage to the Jabal Druze, where the revolt began. The Druze are a religious sect deriving from Ismaili Islam. The religion is known for its esoteric beliefs, and its believers have repeatedly been victims of religious persecution over the centuries. During the French Mandate, Druze made up around 3% of the country’s population, but were primarily situated in Hawran and Jabal Druze. The Jabal Druze, located in Southern Syria, is a volcanic plateau. The economy was based on grain, wholly dependent on precipitation. Its capital, Suwayda, had a population of just 6000 in 1932 (Khoury, 1987). The Druze were forced to migrate there following a war with the Maronite Christians in Lebanon, who were backed by the French and Ottoman Empire. This forced migration created a deep loathing within many Druze for both groups. This animosity led to Druze autonomy during the Ottoman period, but French rule led to a drawing back of this autonomy in favor of liberal policies designed to develop the countryside. While the Druze were not taxed by French mandatory authorities, it was governed by an elected council and governor, under French military supervision. Overarching this development was French contempt for the Druze. They saw the Druze as “warlike feudal mountaineers”, whose culture required fundamental change to meet that of the paternalistic and liberal French (Provence, 2005). The French were not necessarily wrong. Druze society based itself on a patronage clan system, dominated by several families. The divide between these several families set the stage for revolution. Oppression combined itself with the ambition of rival families to remove the al-Atrash family from the reins of power. When Selim al-Atrash resigned from the governorship, he was replaced with a French officer until an election could be held. This officer was recalled and replaced with another, more zealous French officer, Captain Carbillet. The French importation of policy from Morocco and Algeria advocated exploiting existing divisions between minorities and the majority to curtail organized challenge and facilitate colonial rule (Provence, 2005). Carbillet mitigated these policies by including economic reforms designed to bring prosperity to Syria’s people. This primarily focused on public works such as roads and canals, largely no use to the rural population. Since the Druze, thanks to their autonomy, were not taxed by the French colonial government, Carbillet used conscripted labor instead. These “reforms” were implemented with the intention of “breaking the back of the ‘Druze feudal society’. Reforms included punitive measures such as forcing Jabal community leaders, and even religious shaykhs, to break stones in their villages as punishment for noncooperation with the mandate reform program” (Provence, 2005). The Druze attempted to send leaders to speak with General Sarrail, the High Commissioner of the French Mandate in the Levant, in protest of a lack of an election for Druze governor in place of Carbillet. He refused to meet with them, or acknowledge that they were there. When tried again, the leaders were arrested. Sultan al-Atrash immediately called for a revolt, and led the Druze to act against the French. The revolt quickly accelerated as the Druze shot down a French reconnaissance plane and blew rail lines. Several defeats of French relief columns by the Druze created an impetus for the revolt to spread outside of the small mountain region (Khoury, 1987). In particular, the rout of the Michaud column, which left the French with 600 dead and 400 wounded, led to the replacement of General Michaud with General Maurice Gamelin as General of the French Army of the Levant (Provence, 2005). The French came to Syria in the face of an angered populace. James Gelvin notes the amount of young men ready to insurect the Kingdom of Syria once it had conceded to France’s demands. These young men, fired up by newspapers declaring “young Syria will never submit to old France”. Many of these men died facing the French at Khan Maysalun, but their ideals remained (Gelvin, 1998). The Druze revolt threw fuel onto the tinderbox smoldering within the cities of Syria. Arab nationalists, led by the People’s Party, organized against the French. Many in Syria had no love for the French or their policies. Severe drought coupled with high inflation had sent prices of foodstuff skyrocketing. The French raised the land tax by 87.5%, causing much resentment amongst the notable class (Khoury, 1987). Those within Damascus who were connected to the Hawran and Druze through the grain trade, such as Nasib al-Bakri, provided the revolt with the legitimacy that only the urban upper and middle classes could bring (Provence, 2005). The Revolt spread through Damascus, but was unable to capture the High Commissioner in the Azm Palace. Other insurrections began in Hama and Aleppo, but were brutally put down through aerial and artillery bombardment of rebel-held areas. This brutality and disregard for civilian life or prosperity characterized the suppression of the rebellion by the French (Khoury, 1987). The notable fear of the bombardment of cities such as Damascus and Hama coupled itself with the burning and pillaging of “rebel” villages to drive the population into fear of the French. However, this led to a notable desire to maintain the stability of their wealth and life rather than support the revolution. In Hama, notables negotiated with the rebels in order for them to leave the city and avoid more bombardment. In Damascus, notables paid the French ransom to save the city (Khoury, 1987). Initially, the brutality was reason enough for General Sarrail to be replaced with another High Commissioner, journalist Henry de Jouvenel. Jouvenel did not take a different approach to the rebellion, declaring he would give “peace for those who wish peace, and war for those who wish war” (Provence, 2005). However, an attempt at elections immediately broke down after discord of who should be president of the puppet government reared its head. Despite overtures, France’s status as a colonial empire meant there was a “slow and inexorable reassertion of government control” (Provence, 2005). Offensives in the spring of 1926 reasserted government control over the countryside, then the Damascus suburbs, and finally the supply bases and oases of the rebels. Despite the offensives, Jouvenel constantly sought a diplomatic solution, resigning when the French government refused to accept any but a military victory (Khoury, 1987). By 1927, the rebellion had fizzled out. Rebel leaders were forced to flee across the border into Transjordan and Iraq, where many of them stayed until being granted amnesty in later years. Arab nationalism, as it relates to Syria, was in part forged by the revolt and its French suppression. From the rhetoric utilized by the revolt leaders, to the various and disparate groups that joined together to face the French oppressors, an emphasis on Arab nationalism is felt. The revolt is noteworthy in particular because of its humble beginnings in the Jabal Druze. A small, compact, and persecuted minority spawned a revolt that spread across a region defined by its ethnic, religious, and class divisions. Furthermore, the revolt was distinctly secular in nature. Mosques and masjids served as important meeting points, but the revolt involved Sunnis, Shia, Druze, and at times even Jews and Christians (Provence, 2005). Some minorities stayed out of the revolt, such as the Alawites, while others, such as the Turks, Circassians, and Armenians, were willing and active participants in the pillaging and burning of rebel sympathizing villages of farmers and peasants. This is significant because the notion of Arab nationalism was one confined to the urban upper and middle classes of Syrian society. Even before the French mandate, the transformations that took place in the cities of Syria, where new jobs in engineering and the civil service offered newfound prosperity, did not reflect themselves in the labors of agricultural societies outside of cities (Gelvin, 1998). This newfound middle strata of Syrian society recognized this division and organized itself alongside it. According to James Gelvin, the discourse of these groups reflected a shared understanding that there were those “fit to rule” among the notables and middle class, and the population “fit only to be ruled” . The intentions of this self-declared ruling class were noble, but disguised itself in an elitism that failed to reflect the realities of life outside the city (Gelvin, 1998). For the masses, filial, tribal, religious, clan, and village ties remained stronger than this nascent concept of nationalism. Yet the masses are the ones who unfortunately would suffer the most. The rhetoric of rebel leaders gave credence to the notion of Arab nationalism during the Great Syrian Revolt. Leaders such as Sultan al-Atrash, the most prominent leader of the revolt, would declare: “Villagers of Ghuta and Marj: Greetings and God’s blessings upon you. You know from our written manifestos that our revolution is a national movement for a sacred cause: the liberation of our cherish homeland from the clutches of the enemy colonizer” (Provence, 2005). Abd al-Rahman Shahbandar, the leader of the nationalist People’s Party in Damascus, worked closely with Sultan al-Atrash to facilitate the revolt within the capital. Arab nationalists such as Nasib al-Bakri, who was chef de cabinet in Faisal’s government, came from a family of prominent Sunni grain merchants and acted as chief liaison to the Jabal Druze (Khoury, 1987). The Druze recognized the need to create alliances with groups outside the Jabal, and repeatedly sought out men such as al-Bakri to give their insurrection legitimacy, while in turn giving Arab nationalism greater breadth and force within Syria. These alliances cut across regional, class, and religious lines. In a September of 1925 proclamation from the Jabal Druze, the leadership of the revolt declared in favor of Syrian unity and independence. There was no mention of revolt based on religious grounds, but instead only on the desire for the component parts of Syria to form one nation (Khoury, 1987). This proclamation followed Sultan al-Atrash’s aborted attack on Damascus, before which a circular he signed harkened back to Syria’s ancestors: “Syrians, remember your forefathers, your history, your heroes, your martyrs, and your national honor… To arms! Let us realize our national aspirations and sacred hopes” (Provence, 2005). And as important as the rhetoric of the revolution is the leader. Although Sultan al-Atrash was a shaykh, he did not represent an urban notable or modernly educated Syrian of the middle strata. In many ways, he did not represent the traditional elite that ruled Syria during this time. Because of this, he was a strong and legitimate hero for Syrians to rally alongside. Arab nationalism was able to play a strong role in the Great Syrian Revolt because of the unique oppressor. The white, western, and Catholic France contrasted the culture and values of Syria. The fact that France, an origin of the establishment of the Rights of Man, was the oppressor, was repeated in the literature and speeches of the revolt leaders and nationalists, side-by-side with their cries for a national struggle (Provence, 2005). In particular, the reference in Sultan al-Atrash’s August 23rd manifesto to Damascus to a lack of a Syrian governor for Druze instead of a French one, highlights the self-determinism thematically inherent within the revolt’s ideological underpinning. The French are blamed for their colonial policy of selective division. The false barriers erected by this policy are chastised as the erosion of rights are highlighted simultaneously (Provence, 2005). French ineptitude, hypocrisy, and a failure of policy together created the conditions for the Syrian revolt to spread from a localized and compact minority into a grand revolt across Syria. The Great Syrian Revolt represented the peak point of Syrian effort against French colonial oppression. It also represented a critical point in the birth of Arab nationalism. Up until this point, Arab nationalism had no clear consciousness or history except as a burgeoning ideology stemming from a failed Ottoman state. The resurrection of Arab nationalism helped bring together groups that had persecuted and hated each other for generations. This revolt, because of its drawing in of various groups, acted as an ideological foundation upon which groups such as the National Bloc and Ba’ath Party would build their power and voice. References Gelvin, J. (1998). Divided loyalties: nationalism and mass politics in Syria at the close of empire. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press Khoury, P. S. (1987). Syria and the french mandate: the politics of arab nationalism, 1920-1945. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ Press. McHugo, J. (2015). Syria: a history of the last hundred years. New York: The New Press. Provence, M. (2005). The great Syrian revolt and the rise of Arab nationalism. Austin: University of Texas Press.
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Jan 16, 2018 21:03
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Cythereal posted:They're written by guys who think the Royal Navy during the 17th and 18th centuries was really awesome, so take that as you will. I've read several since I'm a librarian and have ready access to free books, but by now they've all kinda blurred together in my mind. There's only so many stories to tell about Iron Men On Weber is also incredibly unsubtle at times with his naming and politics. Liberals are Just The Worst and will sell out everyone and give away the hard fought military victory. The main enemy for a while in on Nuveau Paris, has a Committee of Public Safety, and their leader for a while was Robert S. Pierre with an Oscar Saint-Just supporting him. Oh and there was a group that tried to overthrow said CPS that was known as the Levelers...
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Jan 16, 2018 21:12
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aren't levellers / diggers english though
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Jan 16, 2018 21:25
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:aren't levellers / diggers english though
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Jan 16, 2018 21:27
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Let's not cloud the strawmanning of opposing political ideologies with facts here. also predating CPS by like, over one hundred years
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Jan 16, 2018 21:47
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Weber is to literature as Burger King is to food. I know it's unhealthy and I shouldn't, but sometimes I really want to.
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Jan 16, 2018 22:01
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Bad sci-fi is my guilty pleasure.KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:also predating CPS by like, over one hundred years You are putting FAAAAAAAR too much thought into this.
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Jan 16, 2018 22:07
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I read a review of Weber's books that said that the plots were predictable and the characters were wooden, but that the missiles in the books have deep and satisfying histories and inner lives. I also got chewed out by David Weber for being an idiot on his official forum. I had been reading the Safehold books. The plot was basically, Earth used to be a stellar empire, then they ran into the Gbara, these xenophobic aliens, who stomped earth flat and wiped us out. The only exception was this hidden colony that Earth had set up when they knew they were going to lose the war. The idea was, they'd hide and rebuild in secret. Unfortunately for that plan, the colony administrator decided to create a religion that was basically Catholicism that banned advanced technology because he was afraid that electromagnetic waves would alert the Gbara who would wipe them out. So, jump to the present, where this young king is starting to realize that technological advancement can make him rich. Meanwhile, this dissident from the old ruling council, who's now a robot, still believes in the old dream, and she teams up with the king to advance tech, even though that puts them at odds with the church. It's basically a series about the Reformation/30 years war, if, instead of complaining about indulgences, Martin Luther complained about the lack of steam engines. So, I wrote on the forum something like, "Didn't the leaders of that old council have a point? If imperial Earth with all these planets and resources didn't have a chance against the Gbara, what chance does one little planet have? They'll start building their factories, the aliens will detect the electromagnetism, and kill everybody. It might suck to be stuck in the Renaissance forever, but at least humanity will survive. " You would think I had suggested he kill his cat. He ranted about how if I had paid attention, I clearly would have known that after the Gbara show up, they leave and don't come back (this was never mentioned), and even if the administrators had a good idea at the beginning, they clearly never intended fed for the Church to be corrupt. (Neither the reformist king or the robot seemed to care about the church being corrupt).
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Jan 16, 2018 22:10
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Epicurius posted:I read a review of Weber's books that said that the plots were predictable and the characters were wooden, but that the missiles in the books have deep and satisfying histories and inner lives. While I agree that Safehold is a guilty pleasure, the church being corrupt is a major, major theme of the series. The chief inquisitor, a guy named Clinton (classy), is basically Donald Trump.
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Jan 16, 2018 22:13
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Epicurius posted:I read a review of Weber's books that said that the plots were predictable and the characters were wooden, but that the missiles in the books have deep and satisfying histories and inner lives.
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Jan 16, 2018 22:19
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Cythereal posted:While I agree that Safehold is a guilty pleasure, the church being corrupt is a major, major theme of the series. The chief inquisitor, a guy named Clinton (classy), is basically Donald Trump. It is, but most of the reformers aren't fighting about that, if I remember right. Like, they'll say, "Oh, the church is so corrupt and that's terrible", but it seems like they are more upset they can't use sextants or something. The other fun thing about the books is that, while church forces commit all sorts of atrocities and massacres, reformists never do. Never at all.
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Jan 16, 2018 22:19
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Epicurius posted:The other fun thing about the books is that, while church forces commit all sorts of atrocities and massacres, reformists never do. Never at all.
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Jan 16, 2018 22:20
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HEY GUNS posted:protestantism: Not Even Once I wanted to post something like "Oh, I get it. This is a Protestant Reformation analogue, except this time the Protestants are the good guys?", but it would have made his Methodist head explode.
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Jan 16, 2018 22:25
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Epicurius posted:I wanted to post something like "Oh, I get it. This is a Protestant Reformation analogue, except this time the Protestants are the good guys?", but it would have made his Methodist head explode.
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Jan 16, 2018 22:26
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Epicurius posted:You would think I had suggested he kill his cat. He ranted about how if I had paid attention, I clearly would have known that after the Gbara show up, they leave and don't come back (this was never mentioned), and even if the administrators had a good idea at the beginning, they clearly never intended fed for the Church to be corrupt. (Neither the reformist king or the robot seemed to care about the church being corrupt). That's impressive. I assumed that the whole setup to safehold was a deliberate cultural experiment to create a human civilization capable of defeating the Gbara now that humanity knows they are out there. Basically the Gbara genocide any and all alien species they come across through sheer numbers, but have (apparently) stopped all free thought in their society to the point that they don't develop anymore. So defeating them is a matter of developing superior weapons and technology without setting off the genocide signal. I forget what the last book I read was, but it involved the Robot getting PTSD and ironclads tear-assing around canal systems in the neo-roman empire
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Jan 16, 2018 22:30
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Taerkar posted:Liberals are Just The Worst and will sell out everyone and give away the hard fought military victory. That's more than a slight strawmanning of what I've read of his. Besides the fact that most of the major villains of the Honorverse are far-right by our standards (as one example - the "hard fought military victory" was essentially thrown away by aristocrats trying to avoid giving the people more power, who obtained most of their support via blackmail; and the war was restarted by an unscrupulous politician trying to collapse a newly-restored republic), most of his use of terms like "Liberal" and "Conservative" don't map to the way modern RW politics use the terms. It isn't helped by the way the book's narration is from the viewpoint of the current POV character. There's a fancy term for this, but I can't quite come up with it. Weber's critics focus too much on claiming "the antagonist nation has a welfare system! That must mean he thinks all forms of welfare are evil!!!" than they do on actually analyzing the text. That's not to say there is no bias, or that some of the critics don't have a point. Just that a huge percentage are based on an extremely shallow reading of the work. Taerkar posted:The main enemy for a while in on Nuveau Paris, has a Committee of Public Safety, and their leader for a while was Robert S. Pierre with an Oscar Saint-Just supporting him. Oh and there was a group that tried to overthrow said CPS that was known as the Levelers... That's deliberate. The Honor Harrington (note the initials) series started out as "Horatio Hornblower IN SPACE!"
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Jan 16, 2018 22:34
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One of the early books even has Honor enjoying a Hornblower book.
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Jan 16, 2018 22:42
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The thing about Weber is he's an honest to god monarchist. I know he claims to be something else, but it's painfully clear that a classically liberal constitutional monarchy that leans more towards the monarchy side of things is what he sees as the best form of governance. Monarchists of that variety think leftists are annoying and bad, but they really can't stand the far right, who they tend to see as selfish climbers abandoning their social obligations. It seems weird because it's not typically encountered in modern politics, but it's consistent and coherent. When he has a leftist that's an out and out villain, they're hypocrites. The other bad guy leftists are at worst dupes or willfully obtuse. It's the far right that are the real monsters.
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Jan 16, 2018 22:44
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Comrade Gorbash posted:The thing about Weber is he's an honest to god monarchist. I know he claims to be something else, but it's painfully clear that a constitutional monarchy that leans more towards the monarchy side of things is what he sees as the best form of governance. Monarchists think leftists are annoying and bad, but they really can't stand the far right, who they tend to see as selfish climbers abandoning their social obligations. It seems weird because it's not typically encountered in modern politics, but it's consistent and coherent. When he has a leftist that's an out and out villain, they're hypocrites. The other bad guy leftists are at worst dupes or willfully obtuse. It's the far right that are the real monsters. theory checks out: source, am monarchist, hate nazis HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Jan 17, 2018 |
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Jan 16, 2018 22:46
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Comrade Gorbash posted:The thing about Weber is he's an honest to god monarchist. I know he claims to be something else, but it's painfully clear that a classically liberal constitutional monarchy that leans more towards the monarchy side of things is what he sees as the best form of governance. Monarchists of that variety think leftists are annoying and bad, but they really can't stand the far right, who they tend to see as selfish climbers abandoning their social obligations. It seems weird because it's not typically encountered in modern politics, but it's consistent and coherent. When he has a leftist that's an out and out villain, they're hypocrites. The other bad guy leftists are at worst dupes or willfully obtuse. It's the far right that are the real monsters. Quite succinctly put. That is a pretty good analysis, although I'm not aware of Weber ever denying his monarchist ideas.
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Jan 16, 2018 22:48
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Your description of this series doesn’t lead me to believe that I’ll enjoy it, yet it oddly compels me to read it
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Jan 16, 2018 22:53
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Ainsley McTree posted:Your description of this series doesn’t lead me to believe that I’ll enjoy it, yet it oddly compels me to read it
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Jan 16, 2018 22:54
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