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Black Robe
Sep 12, 2017

Generic Magic User


Also because the Lunars are only loving over their empire, mostly, where the God Learners have the potential to gently caress up the entire world if not the universe.

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NewMars
Mar 10, 2013
Let's not also forget that they were priests, not scientists. Their logical framework was because they literally worshiped logic and their methodology had no relation to empiricism and how it works. They did it the old greek style of sitting around debating until they came to a conclusion that was obviously correct because it's logic was sound. In glorantha this works, but not always or everywhere, acting as their way of exploring the otherworld. The goddess swap was not an experiment, to be frank, that is a misnomer. What it was supposed to be was a manifestation both of the power of their sorcery over the gods and the correctness of their monomythical doctrine in showing that all earth goddesses are one. When it failed they did not adjust, instead they decided that it represented some fundamental fault with the world and carried on. The zisorites who made the robot god, Zistor, were an outgrowth of this sort of thinking: stating that there was a lost rune, purification, that could make the world whole.

And also there's the fact that their founding knowledge was stolen from Arkat, which is why they know a lot about Pelorians, Orlanthi and Trolls and to hell with the rest.

CountryMatters
Apr 8, 2009

IT KEEPS HAPPENING

Black Robe posted:

Also because the Lunars are only loving over their empire, mostly, where the God Learners have the potential to gently caress up the entire world if not the universe.

Ghostlight posted:

The god learners aren't demonised for being imperialists or scientists. They're demonised for being assholes who gently caress up the natural order and bring ruin on others because they think they're smarter than everyone else.

Yeah but the reason the things they did might gently caress up the universe or bring ruin is by authorial fiat. Like this is a setting that has been written where you can go "Hmm, these two cultures have very similar earth goddesses, they may come from myths of the same historical person, or related events" can cause mass famine.
In real life you can look at history to identify that Poseidon and Neptune or the same, or Christianity's God and Allah are the same deity, and it's not actually a big deal even if some fundamentalists would get furious at you for saying that.
I'd be fine with that being a concept for a setting if it wasn't for the additional knowledge that the setting has been made that way because of some sort of vendetta against people the writer knew. Because when you have a whole bunch of cultures doing stuff in your setting that are unambiguously monstrous like slavery, torture, rape and murder, but you reserve most of your scorn for pseudo-scientists who aren't taking primitive cultures 100% seriously and on faith as being real in some metaphysical way...well, it raises some weird questions.

eke out
Feb 24, 2013



CountryMatters posted:

you reserve most of your scorn for pseudo-scientists who aren't taking primitive cultures 100% seriously and on faith as being real in some metaphysical way...well, it raises some weird questions.

pretty sure a bunch of people have already responded to this and you're just ignoring them, considering it's less "not taking primitive cultures 100% seriously" and more "literally destroying the fabric of the universe"

CountryMatters
Apr 8, 2009

IT KEEPS HAPPENING

eke out posted:

pretty sure a bunch of people have already responded to this and you're just ignoring them, considering it's less "not taking primitive cultures 100% seriously" and more "literally destroying the fabric of the universe"

It only destroys the fabric of the universe because it's been written to do so, and I am questioning the motives or intent behind having written the setting in that manner.
It's like when people defend D&D 1e making women weaker because "In this universe women are weaker, that's just the rules of the setting, it doesn't reflect on me personally". The setting didn't emerge fully formed from Zeus's brow, it was created that way by humans.

Triskelli
Sep 27, 2011

I AM A SKELETON
WITH VERY HIGH
STANDARDS


CountryMatters posted:

It only destroys the fabric of the universe because it's been written to do so, and I am questioning the motives or intent behind having written the setting in that manner.
It's like when people defend D&D 1e making women weaker because "In this universe women are weaker, that's just the rules of the setting, it doesn't reflect on me personally". The setting didn't emerge fully formed from Zeus's brow, it was created that way by humans.

You’re the same dude as this aren’t you?

White Coke posted:

In a previous thread (I think it was the previous Six Ages LP) someone was defending the God Learners.

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


The God-Learners found an Orlanthi village that voted on things by throwing their swords into a pile (e.g. put your swords in the left pile if we should plant the barley early, the right pile if we should stick to the original schedule, or whatever). The God-Learners loving hated this, because democracy offended their elitist sensibility. So they stole all the swords and went "aha, now they'll have to get a chief or a king like normal people." The Orlanthi proceeded to make up a new voting method and the God-Learners threw a tantrum.

They also made Robcradle. So, you know.

The God-Learners are justifiably despised for the many, many incredibly evil things they did. They're also despised for doing it incredibly pedantically. A general theory of why the God-Learners suck is about what lead to the God-Learners behaving like such total loving assholes.

Also the Lunars may very well be just as despised in retrospect for poo poo like the Tax Demons, but they're very much a currently active political force and so able to argue their case.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Really, the Godlearners are much more one long, sustained 'gently caress you and your monomyth theory, Joseph Campbell' than anything else. Because again, Stafford was an anthropologist.

KazigluBey
Oct 30, 2011

boner

Triskelli posted:

You’re the same dude as this aren’t you?

I looked it up (page ~700 of the FATAL & Friends 2016-19: Bad Rules and Hidden Jewels, btw, archived) and it's not him. But lol at this weird discussion anyway.


CountryMatters posted:

Yeah but the reason the things they did might gently caress up the universe or bring ruin is by authorial fiat.

Everything in a work of fiction is there by authorial fiat. Why are you getting hung up about this particular detail?

e.: also LOL at comparing God Learners to D&D 1E doing :biotruths:

KazigluBey fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Dec 6, 2019

TwoQuestions
Aug 26, 2011
I understand he also really hated munchkins, which the God Learners were supposed to represent, what with their speedrunning Heroquests and such.

CountryMatters
Apr 8, 2009

IT KEEPS HAPPENING

KazigluBey posted:

I looked it up (page ~700 of the FATAL & Friends 2016-19: Bad Rules and Hidden Jewels, btw, archived) and it's not him. But lol at this weird discussion anyway.


Everything in a work of fiction is there by authorial fiat. Why are you getting hung up about this particular detail?

Because that's what we were talking about? I'm not the only person to have gotten a weird anti-intellectual or creationist vibe from the combination of the God Learners being the only culture in the setting that bears a resemblance to scientists, but also being one of the most evil/immoral cultures.
It's just that every time it comes up most of the responses are "But that's just how the setting is", which is a meaningless rebuttal on the level of "You can't criticize Warhammer if it attracts fascists, because in that setting if you're not a fascist then demons will appear and eat your balls"

TwoQuestions posted:

I understand he also really hated munchkins, which the God Learners were supposed to represent, what with their speedrunning Heroquests and such.

This I can see and would be happy with as an explanation, which also fits with the unrealistic-RPG-party-appears event in KoDP. Particularly for the era this was being written where I imagine rules lawyers and minmaxers and such were a huge pain

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous
While similarity was probably not intentional (though I will say that it was not coincidental), God Learners give me extremely strong vibes of "French slavers in the Carribean experimenting to optimize the lifespan of a slave so that they produce maximum profits in the amount of time they're alive, taking into account the cost of buying a replacement slave when they inevitable die, and finally reaching the, within the scope of the question asked, without any consideration of anything else, correct answer of 5 years, and justifying their horrific actions with a scientific framework as it existed in a genocidally racist society that prized 'logic' and 'reason' over, well..."

my dad fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Dec 6, 2019

KazigluBey
Oct 30, 2011

boner

CountryMatters posted:

Because that's what we were talking about? I'm not the only person to have gotten a weird anti-intellectual or creationist vibe from the combination of the God Learners being the only culture in the setting that bears a resemblance to scientists, but also being one of the most evil/immoral cultures.
It's just that every time it comes up most of the responses are "But that's just how the setting is", which is a meaningless rebuttal on the level of "You can't criticize Warhammer if it attracts fascists, because in that setting if you're not a fascist then demons will appear and eat your balls"

You're conflating actually problematic content with "someone isn't holding my hand and explaining every step of their reasoning so I'm going to assume the least charitable interpretation possible even though plenty of people have given me reasonable interpretations ITT", which is pretty lovely.

Like, do all negative depictions of scientists in media bother you, is that your thing? Do you believe science is sacrosanct and cannot ever be implied to be bad, or for there to be a setting where it is?

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


TwoQuestions posted:

I understand he also really hated munchkins, which the God Learners were supposed to represent, what with their speedrunning Heroquests and such.

This was absolutely the metagame function of the God-Learners. Really all the major empires embody the abuse of one of the main sources of magical power to achieve hubristic (munchkiny) ends: Nysalor was an attempt to game the binding of gods behind time, EWF was a mysticism ponzi scheme to maximize mystical power while minimizing the detachment that naturally follows, and the Middle Sea Empire used God-Learning to effectively use sorcery as an ur-tool to get all the power of divine and shamanic magic as well as sorcery. Lunars are another type of classic cheat, "what if I just invent a new school of magic that gives me all the benefits and none of the weaknesses."

It's really impressive that the fiction and metamechanical arguments flow so well together.

Narsham
Jun 5, 2008

CountryMatters posted:

Yeah but the reason the things they did might gently caress up the universe or bring ruin is by authorial fiat. Like this is a setting that has been written where you can go "Hmm, these two cultures have very similar earth goddesses, they may come from myths of the same historical person, or related events" can cause mass famine.
In real life you can look at history to identify that Poseidon and Neptune or the same, or Christianity's God and Allah are the same deity, and it's not actually a big deal even if some fundamentalists would get furious at you for saying that.
I'd be fine with that being a concept for a setting if it wasn't for the additional knowledge that the setting has been made that way because of some sort of vendetta against people the writer knew. Because when you have a whole bunch of cultures doing stuff in your setting that are unambiguously monstrous like slavery, torture, rape and murder, but you reserve most of your scorn for pseudo-scientists who aren't taking primitive cultures 100% seriously and on faith as being real in some metaphysical way...well, it raises some weird questions.

Even setting aside that Islam sees Allah as the same God as the Judeo-Christian one, you’re missing the point. The Godlearners didn’t merely observe that all Earth goddesses are just a single ur-goddess, edit Wikipedia and call it a day. They forcibly exchanged two cultures’ goddesses. The rough equivalent would be forcing Muslims to practice Judaism while forcing Jews to practice Islam, in order to prove that there’s really no difference at all. I’m sure that would go over well.

Your framing even takes up the explicit subject position Stafford wanted to critique: the anthropological approach that insists on assuming and asserting the superiority of the anthropologist’s own culture and cultural assumptions when investigating other cultures, and that asserts that one can define primitivism or sophistication on the basis of objectivity and not from a subject position clearly defined by one’s own culture. Even the historical account of technological progress rests upon questionable cultural assumptions shaped far more by capitalism than by scientific inquiry.

As for your complaint that the setting delivers precisely the message Stafford designed it to deliver, that’s roughly like complaining that Swift’s A Modest Proposal unfairly asserts that buying and eating Irish babies is wrong instead of objectively proving it.

CountryMatters
Apr 8, 2009

IT KEEPS HAPPENING

KazigluBey posted:

You're conflating actually problematic content with "someone isn't holding my hand and explaining every step of their reasoning so I'm going to assume the least charitable interpretation possible even though plenty of people have given me reasonable interpretations ITT", which is pretty lovely.

Like, do all negative depictions of scientists in media bother you, is that your thing? Do you believe science is sacrosanct and cannot ever be implied to be bad, or for there to be a setting where it is?

I think there's no harm in criticizing or analyzing any form of media, or discussing what the content is supposed to represent. There are reasonable interpretations in this thread which I'm fine with, namely that they're meant to be munchkins or that they are specifically a parody of the monomyth theory.
There are other arguments that come up a lot which I don't agree with, namely:
1) They're meant to be imperialists, not scientists (because I don't see how that follows in the setting when they're not doing any more imperialism than all the other cultures)
2) They're bad because they will damage the universe (which is an in-setting explanation, and has nothing to do with what I'm talking about)

CountryMatters
Apr 8, 2009

IT KEEPS HAPPENING

Narsham posted:

Even setting aside that Islam sees Allah as the same God as the Judeo-Christian one, you’re missing the point. The Godlearners didn’t merely observe that all Earth goddesses are just a single ur-goddess, edit Wikipedia and call it a day. They forcibly exchanged two cultures’ goddesses. The rough equivalent would be forcing Muslims to practice Judaism while forcing Jews to practice Islam, in order to prove that there’s really no difference at all. I’m sure that would go over well.

Your framing even takes up the explicit subject position Stafford wanted to critique: the anthropological approach that insists on assuming and asserting the superiority of the anthropologist’s own culture and cultural assumptions when investigating other cultures, and that asserts that one can define primitivism or sophistication on the basis of objectivity and not from a subject position clearly defined by one’s own culture. Even the historical account of technological progress rests upon questionable cultural assumptions shaped far more by capitalism than by scientific inquiry.

As for your complaint that the setting delivers precisely the message Stafford designed it to deliver, that’s roughly like complaining that Swift’s A Modest Proposal unfairly asserts that buying and eating Irish babies is wrong instead of objectively proving it.

The person who would have gotten mad about that in my example would have been the fundie Christian, as fundamentalists refusing to accept that Muslims worship the same god they do is a real thing. They're also just obviously, blatantly wrong about it, and no amount of "Oh but in their subjective truth maybe they are right, and also maybe fossils really were placed there by the devil" is going to convince me otherwise.

If we're going to go back to saying that actually, yes, the God Learners are scientists, and the setting exists to try and say that western science is just opinion and that actually astrology or Bible Theory is just as valid, then I'm going to disagree with that. I think that would be a harmful message. At the risk of looking like a STEMlord I'm going to say that actually I do think there is a truth to the universe, and that stuff like alternative medicines are just factually wrong.

NewMars
Mar 10, 2013
The whole "damaging the universe" thing also isn't a thing that makes no sense from an allegorical perspective: the colonialists they're based on have done real, lasting harm to humanity the world over. There are texts and places, religions and cultures that have great massive holes in them because of the way they've gone and torn out what bits of them they like and blown up bits they decided were irrelevant. And that's just lovely anthropologists and archaeologists in the real world.

Crazycryodude
Aug 15, 2015

Lets get our X tons of Duranium back!

....Is that still a valid thing to jingoistically blow out of proportion?


Lol Glorantha isn't gonna turn anyone into an astrologist or antivaxxer you insufferable stemlord

NewMars
Mar 10, 2013
And that's not even counting the actual, environmental damage they did. Like holy gently caress so much of the planet is literally on fire right now as part of their legacy.

CountryMatters
Apr 8, 2009

IT KEEPS HAPPENING

Crazycryodude posted:

Lol Glorantha isn't gonna turn anyone into an astrologist or antivaxxer you insufferable stemlord

For the record I don't actually think the setting is supposed to be anti-science or anti-truth. From what other people have said it clearly seems to be against other historical abuses and/or annoying players and I'm happy with that.
If it was anti-science though I don't see what the problem would be with questioning that

KazigluBey
Oct 30, 2011

boner

CountryMatters posted:

2) They're bad because they will damage the universe (which is an in-setting explanation, and has nothing to do with what I'm talking about)

OK, but why do you not agree with this being A Thing in the setting? Why does it bother you? Why does it read badly to you that the God Learners have a tangible negative effect on the setting? How is it any different from any other word-of-God call on how the setting works?

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


CountryMatters posted:

I think there's no harm in criticizing or analyzing any form of media, or discussing what the content is supposed to represent. There are reasonable interpretations in this thread which I'm fine with, namely that they're meant to be munchkins or that they are specifically a parody of the monomyth theory.
There are other arguments that come up a lot which I don't agree with, namely:
1) They're meant to be imperialists, not scientists (because I don't see how that follows in the setting when they're not doing any more imperialism than all the other cultures)
2) They're bad because they will damage the universe (which is an in-setting explanation, and has nothing to do with what I'm talking about)

1 is pretty wrong. The God-Learners were the intellectual arm of The Middle Sea Empire, which was exceptional in its time. To say that Esrolia or the Telmori are equally imperialistic is simply counter factual. There have been so far four polities in Glorantha that are major empires: The Bright Empire, The Empire of Wyrm Friends, The Middle Sea Empire, and The Lunar Empire. All of these are truly exceptional and exceptionally bad. And they all share in common an easy disregard for innocent life in the name of power and frankly convenience. They were each in their own way global catastrophes in a way that is just not a reasonable comparison to the vast majority of the world.

2 I kind of don't understand. It sounds like you don't want to use textual evidence to discuss the text? Could you explain this a little more?

CountryMatters
Apr 8, 2009

IT KEEPS HAPPENING

KazigluBey posted:

OK, but why do you not agree with this being A Thing in the setting? Why does it bother you? Why does it read badly to you that the God Learners have a tangible negative effect on the setting? How is it any different from any other word-of-God call on how the setting works?

I'm really not sure how else I can explain this beyond what I've said. If you're talking about why any setting exists as it is, and you want to discuss the meaning behind why it was written that way, I don't think in-setting events are relevant to that.

Like let's take an obvious example that comes up a lot when discussing other settings. There's something that comes up a lot when talking about fantasy settings that don't have any women characters, or where all the characters are white. The argument on one side is "if you can have dragons in your settings, why can't you have black people?"
The rebuttal to that is "Well in this setting the Empire of Blargh killed off all the black people, so there aren't any black people"
That doesn't make sense as a reply though because the first person is asking why it was written that way in the first place, not what the in-setting justification is.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The key to understanding the in-setting critique is that it's using the fantastical elements to highlight the real way 'lol every culture's myths are basically the same, I can just sit here and tell you why they believe everything they believe without talking to them' damages and erases peoples' histories and is counterproductive to anthropological analysis. So the grain goddesses thing is using a much more dramatic, in-setting thing to highlight that if you did the same thing in the real world, while you might not gently caress the harvests and marriages of everyone, you'd still be wildly misinterpreting the cultures by viewing them from a much-too-broad and detached standpoint without actually talking to them.

Thus, yes, the author has total control of the events and outcomes of their fictional story, but those events and outcomes are used to demonstrate the critique. It isn't that 'they damaged the world' that matters, it's that showing how they damaged the world highlights how these practices do damage and why they're absurd.

KazigluBey
Oct 30, 2011

boner

CountryMatters posted:

I'm really not sure how else I can explain this beyond what I've said. If you're talking about why any setting exists as it is, and you want to discuss the meaning behind why it was written that way, I don't think in-setting events are relevant to that.

Like let's take an obvious example that comes up a lot when discussing other settings. There's something that comes up a lot when talking about fantasy settings that don't have any women characters, or where all the characters are white. The argument on one side is "if you can have dragons in your settings, why can't you have black people?"
The rebuttal to that is "Well in this setting the Empire of Blargh killed off all the black people, so there aren't any black people"
That doesn't make sense as a reply though because the first person is asking why it was written that way in the first place, not what the in-setting justification is.

I really wish you'd stop using these extreme examples as the basis for your argument, because we're not in the same wheelhouse at all between "terrible racial & sexual content" and "fantasy science-wizards gently caress poo poo up".

Like, I'm having trouble taking you seriously because while I agree that in-universe explanations for writers being chuds don't hold water this argument you're having with the thread isn't that at all, and I don't gronk the comparison on any level.

Tulip posted:

2 I kind of don't understand. It sounds like you don't want to use textual evidence to discuss the text? Could you explain this a little more?

CountryMatters
Apr 8, 2009

IT KEEPS HAPPENING

KazigluBey posted:

I really wish you'd stop using these extreme examples as the basis for your argument, because we're not in the same wheelhouse at all between "terrible racial & sexual content" and "fantasy science-wizards gently caress poo poo up".

Like, I'm having trouble taking you seriously because while I agree that in-universe explanations for writers being chuds don't hold water this argument you're having with the thread isn't that at all, and I don't gronk the comparison on any level.

Oh my god I'm not saying it's the exact same as racism or whatever, I'm trying to pick literally any other example argument to explain what I'm talking about and I picked one that everyone's seen come up in forums at least once.

Edit: Ok, I will do my best to pick an example that won't cause any knee-jerk reactions by making people think of chuds or whatever. This is my last attempt and I'll drop it after this because I cannot think of any other ways to try and explain myself

My question focuses on "What are the god learners supposed to represent, and why did the writer include them in the way he did"

If I ask someone "Why do you think they picked teleporters in Star Trek for the standard form of transportation", I would be ok with the following response:

"I think they did it for budget saving reasons, in the original series they couldn't afford model ships and teleporting is just a cheap effect"

The following response, however, doesn't have anything to do with what I asked:

"Because in 2045AD Henrik Teleporterson invented teleporters and installed them in Starfleet ships"

That response is an in-fiction explanation and I'm curious about authorial intent. Similarly if I ask about what the god learners represent, and why they're written as being so evil, "they are a criticism of scientists/imperialists/joseph campbell" are answers, "they will cause a magical apocalypse" is not

CountryMatters fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Dec 6, 2019

GunnerJ
Aug 1, 2005

Do you think this is funny?

NewMars posted:

The zisorites who made the robot god, Zistor,

Oh, I just got the pun. Robot god named "Zistor" likely contains transistors :v:

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


CountryMatters posted:

I'm really not sure how else I can explain this beyond what I've said. If you're talking about why any setting exists as it is, and you want to discuss the meaning behind why it was written that way, I don't think in-setting events are relevant to that.

Like let's take an obvious example that comes up a lot when discussing other settings. There's something that comes up a lot when talking about fantasy settings that don't have any women characters, or where all the characters are white. The argument on one side is "if you can have dragons in your settings, why can't you have black people?"
The rebuttal to that is "Well in this setting the Empire of Blargh killed off all the black people, so there aren't any black people"
That doesn't make sense as a reply though because the first person is asking why it was written that way in the first place, not what the in-setting justification is.

ok so I think you're accusing people of deploying Thermian arguments ("the setting is the way it is because it's the setting" basically). Such arguments are annoying as hell so I get the irritation.

Also I'm gathering that you know the setting mostly through SA threads.

So first, the God-Learners aren't a stand in for all forms of modernist thought. Sorcery in general is about as scientific as the setting bears. The God-Learners aren't really exceptional in terms of being curious or trying to understand the world in terms of base components, lots of Westerners do that. They are exceptional in terms of their willingness to turn a group of non consenting innocents into a magical laboratory. The God-Learners are not "the desire to understand the world" they're "the rationalization of the Tuskegee experiments."

(Which only ended in 1972)

This philosophical stance, the "von Braun did nothing wrong" mentality, is one I hope we're all against in the real world. The God-Learners are not a 1:1 analogue, but I hope that the textual evidence makes clear that they're using a fairly similar logic and behavior but in a fictional fantasy setting.

Now, why do goons criticize them more than the other major imperial projects? Basically it's that, when you read something like the guide to Glorantha, the framework of the objective setting book is kind of oddly over sympathetic to them, and their viewpoint is more seductive to 21st century nerds than say the EWF. It's not that the EWF were nice guys, it's that they're less fascinating because they're less like what most of us nerds encounter, and this also makes it feel less urgent to point out.

Gridlocked
Aug 2, 2014

MR. STUPID MORON
WITH AN UGLY FACE
AND A BIG BUTT
AND HIS BUTT SMELLS
AND HE LIKES TO KISS
HIS OWN BUTT
by Roger Hargreaves

Tulip posted:


They also made Robcradle. So, you know.


I like whoever wrote Robcradle because it is the best analogy for munchkin-ism I've seen. But not your normal power gamer munchkin-ism, no the one where it's that one prick at the table who has read every splatbook like it's the bible and comes to the conclusion that at level 5 they can rules lawyer their way into mass producing expendable enchanted sword golems to win every fight you throw at them between now and whenever their next break-point for a big bullshit set up is.

Yes I did have someone attempt this in my Pathfinder game. They also attempted to mass produce Magic Napalm at level 1.

CountryMatters posted:

I'm going to say that actually I do think there is a truth to the universe, and that stuff like alternative medicines are just factually wrong.

The truth to the universe is I killed the god of the sun, hosed around with time for whimsy and adventure then against the fundamental nature of the universe said I Was Maybe A Bit Wrong and went to get the god of the sun back from the underworld to Not Fix My Own gently caress Up. This happened and just because the sun was still in the sky doesn't mean poo poo.

Gridlocked fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Dec 6, 2019

GunnerJ
Aug 1, 2005

Do you think this is funny?
People have gone into a lot of depth about all the ways the God Learners hosed up, now I want to hear about the all time greatest hits of Bright Empire and EWF fuckups, maybe some for the Lunars too idk.

CountryMatters
Apr 8, 2009

IT KEEPS HAPPENING

Tulip posted:

ok so I think you're accusing people of deploying Thermian arguments ("the setting is the way it is because it's the setting" basically). Such arguments are annoying as hell so I get the irritation.

Also I'm gathering that you know the setting mostly through SA threads.

So first, the God-Learners aren't a stand in for all forms of modernist thought. Sorcery in general is about as scientific as the setting bears. The God-Learners aren't really exceptional in terms of being curious or trying to understand the world in terms of base components, lots of Westerners do that. They are exceptional in terms of their willingness to turn a group of non consenting innocents into a magical laboratory. The God-Learners are not "the desire to understand the world" they're "the rationalization of the Tuskegee experiments."

(Which only ended in 1972)

This philosophical stance, the "von Braun did nothing wrong" mentality, is one I hope we're all against in the real world. The God-Learners are not a 1:1 analogue, but I hope that the textual evidence makes clear that they're using a fairly similar logic and behavior but in a fictional fantasy setting.

Now, why do goons criticize them more than the other major imperial projects? Basically it's that, when you read something like the guide to Glorantha, the framework of the objective setting book is kind of oddly over sympathetic to them, and their viewpoint is more seductive to 21st century nerds than say the EWF. It's not that the EWF were nice guys, it's that they're less fascinating because they're less like what most of us nerds encounter, and this also makes it feel less urgent to point out.

Thanks, I appreciate the explanation. It clarifies a lot of things I wasn't aware of. That makes a lot of sense and I will definitely remember the term Thermian arguments for the future. I was going nuts trying to explain myself there.

KazigluBey
Oct 30, 2011

boner


That example was much better, because while chud crap is inherently questionable (and should always be questioned) "science wizards gently caress poo poo up" isn't, even though as one of your early posts said "well, it raises some weird questions." It doesn't, not really. In-universe answers are probably fine if the question isn't inherently problematic, even if unsatisfying to some. Like OK if you want explicitly meta-textual or authorial reasoning I'm with you, I just don't think it's inherently obvious that's the track to go on from the get go. Not to mention "what the author intended" is like, never something people take at face value anyway when dealing with bad content, which is probably why the earlier examples were dissonant to me.


Neat, cool post.

CountryMatters
Apr 8, 2009

IT KEEPS HAPPENING
I'm suddenly extremely suspicious that Tulip just did the Issaries the Concilliator heroquest in real life to bring peace between the warring thread factions

Capfalcon
Apr 6, 2012

No Boots on the Ground,
Puny Mortals!

CountryMatters posted:

I'm suddenly extremely suspicious that Tulip just did the Issaries the Concilliator heroquest in real life to bring peace between the warring thread factions

As a member of the Trekkie clan, surely you are referring to the star voyage of Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel.

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


CountryMatters posted:

Thanks, I appreciate the explanation. It clarifies a lot of things I wasn't aware of. That makes a lot of sense and I will definitely remember the term Thermian arguments for the future. I was going nuts trying to explain myself there.

I believe this video where the term comes from might help.

GunnerJ posted:

People have gone into a lot of depth about all the ways the God Learners hosed up, now I want to hear about the all time greatest hits of Bright Empire and EWF fuckups, maybe some for the Lunars too idk.

EWF I barely know, and the Bright Empire is very hard to talk about because


Guide To Glorantha, pg128 posted:

Everything disappeared, as prophesied, when the god was killed, leaving only a vague nostalgia and a deep-rooted resentment against the killer.

One of the few concrete records of Nysalor was the actions of his missionaries in the West.

In order to speed up conversion - and why wouldn't you, everything under Nysalor is perfect - his missionaries developed a novel plague that could not be cured by any means except Nysalor. They of course lied about this, behaving as if the plague was exogenous and Nysalor was simply a uniquely powerful healer. Some deception in the name of expanding the peaceful and perfect Bright Empire is perfectly justified, right?

(Cinephiles will notice that this is the plot of one of the best superhero movies, Krrish 3).

Of course when one of Glorantha's rare superheroes declares war on your empire with the claim that your emperor is not good and kind but instead is Gbaji, The Deceiver, getting caught with that massive of a deception does really hurt your cause.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


CountryMatters posted:

I'm suddenly extremely suspicious that Tulip just did the Issaries the Concilliator heroquest in real life to bring peace between the warring thread factions

What kind of barbarian would call on the foreign Ram Gods? Slander!

Gridlocked
Aug 2, 2014

MR. STUPID MORON
WITH AN UGLY FACE
AND A BIG BUTT
AND HIS BUTT SMELLS
AND HE LIKES TO KISS
HIS OWN BUTT
by Roger Hargreaves
For fun can someone with better RuneQuest/HeroQuest chops please post the summation of Robcradel for those who don't know it. Being the video games forum I think everyone who reads it will have a good laugh.

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


wiegieman posted:

What kind of barbarian would call on the foreign Ram Gods? Slander!

Yeah c'mon it's Ekarna Four Trader.

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JanPospisil
Jul 27, 2013

Ask me about Verethragna!
The gently caress happened to this thread?! O_O

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