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How passable are the Balkans anyways? Some mountain ranges have all sorts of stories of how treacherously impassable they can be, but it seems like through history people just flow over and around the Balkans like they're nothing.A Bunch of Dorks posted:Computer-generated essays Every time I see one of these, I feel like I've forgotten how to read.
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May 14, 2019 17:14
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The Danube is kind of a big deal in the Balkans.
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May 14, 2019 17:43
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SlothfulCobra posted:How passable are the Balkans anyways? Some mountain ranges have all sorts of stories of how treacherously impassable they can be, but it seems like through history people just flow over and around the Balkans like they're nothing. Peter Heather’s “The Fall of the Roman Empire” has a pretty good section on Balkan topography, in the context of Valens’ Gothic War specifically and why it took the Romans so long to beat an “army” which had no clear strategic goals or system of support. It’s kind of hard to explain his points clearly without a map in front of you but essentially, it’s quite hard to go north-south across the Balkan and Rhodope Mountains on foot, and even harder to go west-east across the Dinaric Alps. There’s only a handful of easy natural paths through the Balkan high country and they all kind of run NW-SE. The Romans had made another couple that went W-E but it was still difficult to move large groups of people around in the face of determined opposition holding the mountain passes. Whoever holds the passes (and there’s not many of any size) controls the flow of people through the Balkan region. Whenever there was not sufficient Roman force concentrated in the Balkans to do this, you see barbarians sweeping through the passes and wrecking poo poo with relative impunity.
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May 14, 2019 17:50
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skasion posted:Peter Heather’s “The Fall of the Roman Empire” has a pretty good section on Balkan topography, in the context of Valens’ Gothic War specifically and why it took the Romans so long to beat an “army” which had no clear strategic goals or system of support. It’s kind of hard to explain his points clearly without a map in front of you but essentially, it’s quite hard to go north-south across the Balkan and Rhodope Mountains on foot, and even harder to go west-east across the Dinaric Alps. There’s only a handful of easy natural paths through the Balkan high country and they all kind of run NW-SE. The Romans had made another couple that went W-E but it was still difficult to move large groups of people around in the face of determined opposition holding the mountain passes. Whoever holds the passes (and there’s not many of any size) controls the flow of people through the Balkan region. Whenever there was not sufficient Roman force concentrated in the Balkans to do this, you see barbarians sweeping through the passes and wrecking poo poo with relative impunity. Another good example is the fate of Nicephorus I against the Bulgars.
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May 14, 2019 18:44
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Jack2142 posted:Another good example is the fate of Nicephorus I against the Bulgars. Good example of skull based winecups and the importance of controlling the Balkan passes.
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May 14, 2019 20:34
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Thank you for the 1491 rec, it’s really good so far! Also mostly very depressing— I’m currently in the “long discussion of how brutal epidemics decimated everyone” section. I guess this is a downside of a lot of information about cultures coming in large part from the people who ended them. E: it’s also just really interesting in general how different this is from what I was taught in high school, pretty much the only time I took classes covering this
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May 15, 2019 05:50
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Tunicate posted:Try putting "The Roman empire fell in the year" as input to talktotransformer. It has some spicy takes. The Roman Empire fell in 14CAD and its rulers were executed. But the Roman emperor Vespasian returned and in a dramatic coup he sent the emperors, Constantine the Great and his father Trajan, to try and restore order. They failed so badly and their successor, Antoninus Pius IX, declared himself emperor of Rome on 25 May 14BC. The reign of Antoninus Pius IX was short-lived. He was killed in 15 March 1521 in a private engagement, leaving a legacy to the new emperor who succeeded him as emperor, Valentinian Pope, as well as the Roman papacy. The rise of the Roman Emperors There was a strong tradition among the Roman political leaders in the first 50 years of the reign. It began with Constantine the Great in 325AD, when he came to rule the Byzantine Empire with his father in Constantinople. But by his fifth year in office his father was dead – Antoninus Pius IX was the last of the emperors of the Empire, his father dead of a gunshot wound to the head.
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May 15, 2019 06:08
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Man I may be able to go to work in Naples for a year starting in January. Get my orders in late June if it’s gonna happen.
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May 15, 2019 06:19
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Mister Olympus posted:The Roman Empire fell in 14CAD and its rulers were executed. But the Roman emperor Vespasian returned and in a dramatic coup he sent the emperors, Constantine the Great and his father Trajan, to try and restore order. They failed so badly and their successor, Antoninus Pius IX, declared himself emperor of Rome on 25 May 14BC. I don't know why but this phrase just made me read the whole thing in the voice of Donald Trump. It sounds like the sort of thing he might say, tbh
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May 15, 2019 10:40
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quote:The Roman empire rose in the year 50 B.C. with the conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean. Rome was a new world power with vast ambitions, and its early history is one of dynastic rivalry between two principal rulers – Pompey the Elder and Severus the Magnificent. Rome was defeated and annexed in 54 B.C. – by Heraclius the son of Tiberius, also a grandson of Julius Caesar, who defeated Heraclius' ally, Marcus Octavius. Although Pompey was deposed by the victorious Octavius in 56, Augustus became emperor and restored the Republic to Rome. In 62, the Roman Legions defeated the Parthians, who were advancing on Rome's western shores. The Romans won the civil war, the war at the Peloponnesus and their victory in the Second Punic War, defeating the enemy at Thermopylae. They defeated Parthian armies and conquered the area south of the Black Sea by the year 106. Makes sense.
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May 15, 2019 10:51
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quote:The Roman Empire fell in the year 52. But in that, and the beginning of the fifth century, there appeared to be very little opposition to any change brought about by the pope. But the people, especially the poor, opposed it and feared that it would soon destroy them.
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May 15, 2019 13:35
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guns for tits posted:I’m learning a lot about Christianity.  well I have seen worse reasons given
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May 15, 2019 13:52
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I won't clog up the thread with them, but I've basically been generating fictional histories of the English Civil War non-stop since yesterday, and it's significantly impinging on my productivity at work.
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May 15, 2019 13:58
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General Albrecht von Wallenstein was responsible for the new policy of increasing German war exports, in order to make the war in Europe more profitable.
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May 15, 2019 22:08
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Came across an interesting article about Pompei's road maintenance. I knew that roads would often become rutted due to cars but i never put much thought about what the Romans did about it. Figured they either did nothing or replaced the stones but it seems one of the process used in Pompei was to pour molten iron into holes/cracks/ruts. Other fillers would also be used such as other stones, broken terracota and/or ceramic pieces. https://amp.livescience.com/65479-ancient-romans-used-molten-iron-street-repair.html?__twitter_impression=true
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May 15, 2019 23:34
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HEY GUNS posted:General Albrecht von Wallenstein was It's official....Talk to Transformer is an Imperialist: "Emperor Ferdinand II was the greatest emperor on earth, an autocrat who ruled with the majesty of a god, and his rule was the biggest political and military achievement in the history of Rome." Also a big supporter of France: "Cardinal Richelieu was not a man to be trifled with; if in this respect he was the opposite of the Pope, he was also superior to the Pope." It also wrote me a short dramatization of what seems to be the run up to the Peace of Prague: quote:"We are afraid, that, with such a rapid and desperate course, with the ruin of the kingdom of Saxony, with the most dangerous obstacles in Germany, the army or the navy will fail, and the enemy will turn from the scene of the battle without an opportunity of defending the country as well as from his country.
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May 16, 2019 01:55
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the AI revolution is here and they're imperialist or gallicanist tradcaths
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May 16, 2019 01:58
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HEY GUNS posted:the AI revolution is here and they're imperialist or gallicanist tradcaths Tell me about it. I just got this.... quote:Martin Luther was executed by hanging, and, after he had died, it took seven days for his body to bleed into the coffin.
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May 16, 2019 02:06
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Hmm.quote:John Calvin was on the bench, playing at right guard. He's a smart guy, I believe, but he'd likely have been the first one called and made the call," the source said. Then there were the defensive linemen. Edit: from an alternate history, or perhaps an alternate present quote:General Albrecht von Wallenstein is an expert in the ancient language literature of the Roman Legionnaire. He is married to Professor Gertrude von Wallenstein-Dreyfus. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 02:15 on May 16, 2019 |
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May 16, 2019 02:10
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quote:History of Japan This kind up with those history books I got at the Yasukuni Shrine.
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May 16, 2019 02:20
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A line from "The Byzantine Empire was...." "The empire included Constantinople. The greatest cities of the empire at its height were Abydos the city of gold; Samos the city of gold; Antioch the city of olive oil; Acre the city of gold." I feel like Antioch just got included because they felt sorry for it.
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May 16, 2019 02:27
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John Calvin: Sometimes You Don't Have To Say Things Out Loud
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May 16, 2019 02:31
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Epicurius posted:A line from "The Byzantine Empire was...." In this universe, olive oil is rarer than gold and therefore more valuable.
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May 16, 2019 02:33
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Don Gato posted:This kind up with those history books I got at the Yasukuni Shrine. Seems to take place in the Frostpunk universe.
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May 16, 2019 02:40
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quote:Jesus was born of a virgin mother that bore him and died, so we now know that there are two wives: the natural birth of Christ gives us two wives (i.e. one man, one woman) of the Father. Hence, the Word is a true wife and heir of the Father. Christ did not want to take the natural birth as an inheritance and was not ready to be a husband and therefore, took his marriage vows in the temple. This is where our faith is. When John married Mary, she was able to be conceived again in her natural state (see John 6:54-57). The Bible does mention a woman of the royal line, and Mary (and Joseph (and his father, and his mother, the angel of truth) and his two wives) are all called "wives." quote:The ancient Egyptians had their own versions of the phrase, too—one that used another word to describe the process: a mourner's bath.
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May 16, 2019 02:44
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Goddammit, I keep reading these as if they were real maybe put them all in italics or something
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May 16, 2019 02:47
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In typography, italic typeface has a special effect. It makes the typeface look very similar to that seen above, but the italic is usually applied separately. Because there is no way for the user to find out if italic is applied or if the italic will be used, the italic becomes a very effective substitute for the old default. A common mistake made by typographers is making typography look too similar to one another. The italic used is too close. When this occurs, both italics are simply added one after the other, making it look bad. We've written about multiple italic versions in the past to combat this practice, but the trend is continuing.
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May 16, 2019 03:06
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Tankgirls?quote:the tankies were finally cornered in the middle of the road. However, before the tankgirls could respond to my command, their entire formation disappeared into the forest. With the tankies completely gone, the other ten tanks, in addition, disappeared from sight. The entire unit collapsed on the field of battle as they realized what had just happened.
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May 16, 2019 03:59
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quote:Publius Quinctilius Varus, where are my books, to whom shall I deliver them, and what is called out to me by others? ol' Gus just wanted a good shitter novel.
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May 16, 2019 04:15
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I was trying to think of what it was like for Roman armies to march across Europe, and comparing it to my personal experiences. Does Europe not have many plants with burrs, stickers, and other various pointy things that'll wreck your legs if you wade through foliage in sandals and no pants? Or alternatively, did armies normally plot their routes through territory that already had enough regular human habitation to have most of the brush regularly cleared anyways? Or as a third option, am I just over-correcting in my brain against the artificiality of regularly-mowed suburban lawns and there are plenty of natural environments that don't involve loads of tall plants sprouting up everywhere to wade through? I know forest floors often seem relatively clean in comparison from trees swallowing up much of the light and using root systems to choke out other competition, but that's not exactly the best for marching either.
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May 16, 2019 04:30
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SlothfulCobra posted:I was trying to think of what it was like for Roman armies to march across Europe, and comparing it to my personal experiences. Does Europe not have many plants with burrs, stickers, and other various pointy things that'll wreck your legs if you wade through foliage in sandals and no pants? There's once in the Gallic Wars where Caesar specifically calls out one tribe's territory as being dense with super-impassable brambles (iirc he suggests they were specifically cultivated to function as defenses)
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May 16, 2019 04:38
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You know, I'd love to see a film about the battle of Teutoberg Forest shot in the style of one of those horror movies where the characters all get messily eliminated one by one. It could really work.
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May 16, 2019 04:46
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Tree Bucket posted:You know, I'd love to see a film about the battle of Teutoberg Forest shot in the style of one of those horror movies where the characters all get messily eliminated one by one. It could really work. wicker man 2
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May 16, 2019 04:55
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SlothfulCobra posted:I was trying to think of what it was like for Roman armies to march across Europe, and comparing it to my personal experiences. Does Europe not have many plants with burrs, stickers, and other various pointy things that'll wreck your legs if you wade through foliage in sandals and no pants? before Columbian contact killed off all the people doing forestkeeping, regular fires kept the forest floors of America clear, to the point where you could ride a horse from the coast to the Rockies (or something like that, I don't recall the exact quote)
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May 16, 2019 05:07
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SlothfulCobra posted:I was trying to think of what it was like for Roman armies to march across Europe, and comparing it to my personal experiences. Does Europe not have many plants with burrs, stickers, and other various pointy things that'll wreck your legs if you wade through foliage in sandals and no pants? I think you are overestimating how much stuff like burrs or stickers actually matter to bare feet. For the majority of human existence people got by with sandals or nothing at all, and today millions still do. Honestly I have no idea how anyone can walk around tropical rain forests without shoes, but lots of people spend their whole lives doing just that. I'm not sure I'd put too much emphasis on the passability of natural environments. Iron age Gaul and Briton were hardly a wilderness, even if there was a lot more forest than today. Instead imagine a checkerboard of forest patches and pasture, cultivated fields and little villages. You don't send armies into uninhabited wildernesses because there's nobody to conquer there. You send armies where people are. Where there are people, there will be fields, and roads, or at least rough trails. The ridgeway is just one example of what would have been many well worn ways crisscrossing continental Europe during pre-Roman times, connecting important settlements and strategic locations. Roman soldiers would have followed these same routes. Tunicate is also right, in a lot of places fire would have been much more common in pre-modern times and reduced crowding in the under-story. In Iberia fire is still common in many regions, and results in open woodland environments.  A pine savanna in southern Spain. in northern Spain forests are often extremely open with only a lush carpet of ferns. On level terrain such environments are easy to walk in. Forests in northern Europe probably would have only burned rarely, but moorlands would have burned regularly, and often with human assistance. Today British managers still sometimes use fire to improve hunting grounds for grouse, and their ancient forebears did the same.  This is an image of Lüneburg Heath in modern Saxony. While this area would have been almost completely forested in the stone age, starting around 5000 years ago the region was gradually turned into a more open heathland used by mobile agro-pastoralists. It has an odd resemblance to Colorado, but while the sparce trees of Colorado are explained by a shortage of water, Luneburg's sandy soils are instead short of the nutrients needed for human crops to thrive. In Roman times you can imagine a lot more European landscapes looking like this one, with farmers slashing and burning new fields every few years and abandoned fields slowing filling in with new trees as they are grazed by the village's flocks. Of course if you're trying to ride across continents this kind of open terrain is almost always broken by dense mats of vegetation around stream beds and water even in arid areas, so its unlikely you could avoid bushwhacking altogether. Squalid fucked around with this message at 06:57 on May 16, 2019 |
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May 16, 2019 06:54
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i spent my whole childhood barefoot because i was an idiot shithead kid and took my shoes off and the only time it sucked was when the bitumen got really hot or i stood on a shattered windshield or something. I can easily see how people did it, I can't do it any more because I'm a shoe wearing adult but i had thick enough callouses to stand on sharp rocks gravel etc and not feel it at all. gently caress I climbed a mountain in thongs when I was 17 and still had thick enough soles at that point that it only kinda hurt when I took them off to do the scrambles I go hiking in shorts and after a while you just stop feeling all the grabby plants. I'll look down and my legs will be scraped and bleeding and I won't know how it happened. If you're a big tough dude used to getting poked at by swords then you probably literally can't feel it. underage at the vape shop fucked around with this message at 09:27 on May 16, 2019 |
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May 16, 2019 09:21
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Goddammit, I keep reading these as if they were real In the last 500 years, the Fourth Stimpire has dominated four systems, which it has united into one starzone, Stimsis. The Fourth Stimpire has origins from the Ten Empire War in which 10 of the United Stimpires revolted against each rules. This revolt eventually led to the Empire of the Nine Suns, with the Fourth Stimpire now its dominant faction. A Third Stimpire led by the Emperor of the Nine Suns and allied with the Empire of the Nine Suns, who were to unite the other systems. Eventually, the Third Stimpire allied itself with the United Stimpires and used the power of its system to overthrow the Empire of the Nine Suns and gain control over its moons. The Fourth Stimpire now rule the planets of the fourth system, Stimsis, with help from the United Stimpires, whose planets are now part of the empire. At its current level, the system is currently an empire of 6 planets. With these changes, the Fourth Stimpire has become an empire unlike any other in its sector.
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May 16, 2019 14:28
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Goddammit, I keep reading these as if they were real think of it as a pop quiz, if you can't separate the real takes from the fake how will you know if it's true? The answer, sadly, is it takes a lot of practice. The fake takes start out very similar until the credits. The fake takes all follow the same story plan, with the main point being the same. The real takes don't follow this pattern at all: some sort of cliffhanger follows and the cut scene begins as the fake takes. There's one problem though: the Fake takes contain many non-sequiturs. We'll talk more about it in the next section, but here's a list of some of the most notable ones: An alien who looks like the Joker shoots two men but the cops just charge in instead. Bart tells an alien he looks like a dog. Then, he tells the police he didn't notice the dog. A cop tries to seduce Lisa.
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May 16, 2019 14:40
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Goddammit, I keep reading these as if they were real What’s all this stuff from? Someone live blogging their CK2 game?
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May 16, 2019 15:17
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e: ^^^^^ it's from that neural net thing that you seed with a prompt and it generates a sorta coherent paragraph of text I don't even wanna imagine how many ticks you would pick up in your day-to-day as a legionnaire. Ugh. I guess the guys at the front of the column would bear the brunt of it.
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May 16, 2019 15:31
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