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Lead out in cuffs posted:So what's the deal with the whole forum thing of there being multiple Graydons? Like I'm not gonna doxx him here, but the guy isn't hard to find, and what I can gather about him tracks pretty well with the politics and overall content of the Commonweal books. Enough of us independently discovered, liked, and recommended the Commonweal books that at least one goon became convinced Graydon was a goon with multiple sock puppets. EDIT: this guy. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=3554972&pagenumber=863&perpage=40&highlight=graydon#post497086251 ulmont fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Mar 31, 2023 |
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Mar 31, 2023 22:01
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Cardiac is also conservative and presumably doesn't particularly like the underlying politics.
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Mar 31, 2023 22:25
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Oh loving lol. Like, AFAICT Graydon is pretty goony, and I would not be surprised if he had a mostly-inactive forums account from the early 2000s, but just lol at Cardiac's post.
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Apr 1, 2023 00:27
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Like, AFAICT Graydon is pretty goony, and I would not be surprised if he had a mostly-inactive forums account from the early 2000s, but just lol at Cardiac's post. I dunno exactly where Graydon went after r.a.sf.w, but it includes a lot of comments in Brad DeLong's blog. Here's one DeLong hoisted, talking about David Drake's writing in the context of the Odyssey: https://braddelong.substack.com/p/hoisted-from-e-archives-homer-odysseus
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Apr 1, 2023 01:11
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ulmont posted:I dunno exactly where Graydon went after r.a.sf.w, but it includes a lot of comments in Brad DeLong's blog. Lol at the jam comment -- I'm re-reading A Series of Bad Days, and hit a part where it's explained (very indirectly) that anybody making jam had better be able to do enough necromancy to fully inert it, since boiling just isn't enough in post-apocalyptic wizard-world.
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Apr 1, 2023 01:22
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Saunders is also regular at Charlie Stross's blog, and I believe Stross acts as one of his alpha readers (which is pretty neat, since Stross is a solidly successful author). I'm about done with my most recent re-read and am really missing the google group, I have a number of new questions that I'm forgetting as time goes by! Also, man, on my first and second reads of UOB I was definitely too sanguine about Grue's potential long term survival. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Apr 1, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 05:05
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habeasdorkus posted:I'm about done with my most recent re-read and am really missing the google group, I have a number of new questions that I'm forgetting as time goes by!  (in spoiler tags if you want)?
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Apr 1, 2023 05:14
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ulmont posted:I dunno exactly where Graydon went after r.a.sf.w Stross is one of the most active Mastodon users I've found worth following.
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Apr 1, 2023 05:32
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Spoilers for Book 4: One: The Reems folk who are able to summon the Thing That Ate Reems are two armies large, and about 50,000 people. They're chasing 30,000 or so refugees, and the Last Archon escaped inot the swamps below the Edge in the Commonweal. How did that conflict end up happening? DId someone summon the bigger-than-a-Marid as part of the power struggle after the death of the Archon at the hands of Rust in The March North? Did they do it while fighting the Sea People who landed to the north? Did it happen much earlier than that and that's part of why they had so much despair they could make a magical road out of it? Two: If they have this beast that was an actual threat to Blossom, who's got so much natural talent she disproved long held theories about how strong a single person could be and who is as strong now as people who in the past set up global imperium, why aren't they currently ruling over Reems instead of chasing after some foot-sore refugees? Does the pact with the Thing require them to summon it regularly and feed it entire cities at a time? Is the Thing still not enough to beat whatever the Sea People landed up north? Three: Crow got sent to the Second Commonweal by the First Commonweal to give the Second Commonweal a heads up that the Line of the First Commonweal was gearing up to try to solve the Paingyre problem. Shimmer successfully cast Confuse on the Paingyre monsters, but the attack never happened, and the question that both I and the leaders o the Second Commonweal have is "did the First Commonweal get attacked by the Sea People?" Spoilers for Book 5: One: What's up with the City Stater remnant/refugees at the bottom of the Second Valley? They've been milling about there for over 2 years at the time of the battle with the Sea People, and it seems like an unresolved question as to what's going to happen there. They're not offering the City Stater's a place in the Commonweal because the City Stater's invaded and killed 9/10ths of the Cousins, and because the City Staters have slaves. And the Independents are stationed there because the lower Second Valley is unsettled and thus a place that the Independents can go wild if that's where the Sea People return. But that's a long time to have the Goddesses of Victory and Death along with Shadow and Constant and flippin' spend time watching that area, especially since the City Staters themselves aren't powerful enough to overcome the only Commonweal citizen they've seen - and that's Pelorios. So... what happens after the big battle? Two: Shortly before the big battle, Chert says they'd been thinking about how they'd report to the First Commonweal and its Line. The way it sounds, Chert doesn't believe the Second Commonweal abides by the Peace and says "Too much economy gone to militant purposes." Am I reading that right? And is the Second Commonweal's economy really that stressed by raising 7000 or so soldiers out of a population of 600k in the Creeks?
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Apr 1, 2023 05:54
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habeasdorkus posted:Spoilers for Book 4: The costs of raising and maintaining soldiers goes above and beyond the raw economic output of the 7000 soldiers. The soldiers need gear, their gear needs maintenance, resources are expended raising and training the troops, and losses are costs are incurred before enemy action is even considered. The Line being what it is, manufacture and outfitting multiple Standards can be assumed to be more involved and resource-intensive for the general population than just rounding up 1% of the population. This is purely speculative, but the topic gets stressed repeatedly in the later books - the Second Commonweal is walking a tightrope between two existential threats, invaders and starvation. It has to balance the need to push resources into growth and the economy and find replacements for materials and production that was previously handled in the First Commonweal and is no longer accessible, with the need to be able to repel invaders and not be subjugated. Too many resources put into the Line, and the Second Commonweal faces famines as their carefully rationed stockpiles from the split run dry. Insufficient resources put into defense, and the Second Commonweal gets overrun. Except avoiding starvation isn't enough - the worry is that defense costs, and the minimum input into the economy is a slow death if the Second Commonweal doesn't grow faster than the costs associated with defending it. And merely defending the Second Commonweal isn't enough - if attackers are merely fended off and permitted to retreat, they can gather their forces and inflict damage and losses at a time of their own choosing, which can be devastating in a way the Second Commonweal may not be able to defend against or recover from. The later books also subtly go into this a bit more - one of the reasons why the Commonweal does not engage in wars of conquest (and implied to be part of why both Commonweals are able to identify pending invasions far enough in the future to do something about them) is that the act of empire building and performing large magical works in the aid of conquest is extremely visible, sorcerously speaking, and with most nations functioning as a kind of sorcerous pyramid scheme organized by a Bad Guy Sorcerer, attracting attention encourages your neighbors to view you as a threat and attempt to eliminate you and absorb your resources and population in the furtherance of their own power. Most Bad Guy Sorcerers, on discovering that a neighbor state exists, immediately start making plans to conquer them, so the Commonweal has a vested interest in not attracting attention.
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Apr 1, 2023 09:15
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Olesh posted:The Line being what it is, manufacture and outfitting multiple Standards can be assumed to be more involved and resource-intensive for the general population than just rounding up 1% of the population. I considered that, but at one point they they mention that the stable number is 1 in 50 people serving in the Line, and they're going for artillery batteries because they don't have enough people for the necessary brigades. They also take a long time to stand up military formations - It's something like a decade (not décade) since the 1st Battalion was founded by the end of AMoGaS and it would still not be considered ready for service by Old Line standards. The Captain says something like a new brigade not being deemed operationally fit for 20+ years after founding - and since Line enlistments are for 20 years, that's the entire length of their founding troopers careers. I might be underestimating how long that would take to establish without an already existing military tradition and regular formations since there's only 300-400 survivors of TMN and a lot of them don't join the new Line due to PTSD or maiming. But the United States in 1860 didn't exactly have a large standing army, saw I think a majority of it's officer corps turn traitor, and by 1862 had a very capable army. OFC, they did a lot more fighting than the Line did, and didn't have to work out how to use battle standards. The Captain notes to I think Slow or Duckling that they've actually fought more in their service time than most veterans of the original Line between the March and the Fight Below the Edge since the original Commonweal was pretty unmolested until the Iron Bridge collapsed and the hell-things got unleashed. quote:Except avoiding starvation isn't enough - the worry is that defense costs, and the minimum input into the economy is a slow death if the Second Commonweal doesn't grow faster than the costs associated with defending it. Right, various people mention the Commonweal needing to grow pretty quickly (getting from 1m total people at the very start to 4m in a century or so) to be viable. Going for artillery and introducing pointy sticks as a primary part of brigade doctrine is also a lot more costly in materiel than an old style brigade would be. The Commonweal needs to make immigration viable - there were accession procedures in the First Commonweal where tiny sorcerer dominions would decide that joining the Commonweal was a better risk than going it alone on regular basis per the Captain... and Hakarl notes that they wish they'd known that the Commonweal existed and could have been joined just by asking for their entire life - even if they're the only significant talent of the Cousins who survived the Shape of the Peace when presented. OTOH, they have all the Standards they need made - enough for a full army in the Wapentake - and have since Blossom made them all in a big rush with Fire's Team in the first year or so after the second Shape of the Peace was established. And the food issues were sorted and in the rearview mirror because of the work done in connecting Old Lake by canal to the rest of the Commonweal, and the large scale terraforming of the Third Valley. So I'm wondering if Chert believes that the Second Commonweal has given itself over to the rule of sorcerers (or the establishment of slavery of those sorcerers) because of their reliance on independents to do all the above and more (like Tiggy's team of Independent Students creating their fantasy nuke stockpile) in about a dozen years. On the third hand, it's noted that parliament had ended the State of Emergency that had been in effect from the start of the Second Commonweal. quote:And merely defending the Second Commonweal isn't enough - if attackers are merely fended off and permitted to retreat, they can gather their forces and inflict damage and losses at a time of their own choosing, which can be devastating in a way the Second Commonweal may not be able to defend against or recover from. The Line makes the point that the goal isn't Victory, it's Victory and Enough Left In the Tank to Win Next Time Too. Which is why the big fight in AMoGaS ends with a non-nuclear winter from all the megatons of hot red shot used that wipes out the Commonweal's harvest that year and makes the next year's harvest poor. quote:The later books also subtly go into this a bit more - one of the reasons why the Commonweal does not engage in wars of conquest (and implied to be part of why both Commonweals are able to identify pending invasions far enough in the future to do something about them) is that the act of empire building and performing large magical works in the aid of conquest is extremely visible, sorcerously speaking I read that as more the work of Conquest makes you traceable because you you have a connection with the area/people conquered - but yeah the Commonweal would prefer to just seem like a blank spot on the map. Unfortunately, now that they've stomped out Reems several times and two Sea People incursions they're a blank spot on the map that eats armies. fake edit: Oh, and there's one point in Book 5 near the start of the 2nd Battalion's training where someone mentions that Fire and Shadow got ambushed while picnicking - who attacked them? I think I originally assumed this to be when Fire made their unplanned metaphysical tradition but that was several years earlier and they weren't Fire then, they were still Dove. So do we know from whence harked the poor dumbass who took a shot at the Goddess of Victory and her babby entelech consort? fake edit 2: Also, book 5 makes it pretty clear that Duckling at least believes that the Peace does not actually bind Halt, Blossom, Fire, Shadow, Constant, and Dust. And probably Wake. I think the rude and not brave enough Clerk-in-training she talks to at the Tavern is not incorrect to be concerned about that.
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Apr 1, 2023 14:39
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habeasdorkus posted:Two: Shortly before the big battle, Chert says they'd been thinking about how they'd report to the First Commonweal and its Line. The way it sounds, Chert doesn't believe the Second Commonweal abides by the Peace and says "Too much economy gone to militant purposes." Am I reading that right? And is the Second Commonweal's economy really that stressed by raising 7000 or so soldiers out of a population of 600k in the Creeks? Where are you getting 7000 soldiers from? We're told the size of a battalion and brigade several times, and I thought I remember a single brigade being more than that.
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Apr 1, 2023 16:30
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The area the First, Second, and Fifth Battalions are drawn from are strictly the Creeks, and doesn't include the Folded Hills. The heavy line battalions of Creeks have 300 files, which are 8 people each. That's 4800. The Artillery Battalion only have two of its five batteries (Scarlet and Ochre) currently formed, and those batteries have 6 tubes at 7 files per, plus the ~40 files in the Battalion Color Party, for another thousand. So I overcounted by about 1200. e: the old style battalions had 228 files, the new ones are significantly larger and because they're Creeks they have the same output as an old style brigade. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Apr 1, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 16:56
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habeasdorkus posted:Spoilers for Book 4: I am pretty sure the Reems-bigger-than-a-marid thing was already eating Reems some time in the past -- likely before the death of the first Archon at the hands of Rust even before The March North. I think it's implied that it was a summons gone out of control, which might match with it needing to be summoned, but maybe still controlling/compelling its servants while unsummoned? Where was the reference to the Sea People landing up north? I think I forgot about that part. habeasdorkus posted:Three: Crow got sent to the Second Commonweal by the First Commonweal to give the Second Commonweal a heads up that the Line of the First Commonweal was gearing up to try to solve the Paingyre problem. Shimmer successfully cast Confuse on the Paingyre monsters, but the attack never happened, and the question that both I and the leaders o the Second Commonweal have is "did the First Commonweal get attacked by the Sea People?" So I think the ocean, and the Sea People, came from the east more broadly, and mainly from the southeast relative to the Second Commonweal. The First Commonweal is to the northwest, ie in the opposite direction. I suppose it's not impossible that there's geography on the other side of the First Commonweal that would allow the Sea People to invade, but it seems unlikely to me? Still, we have a couple of books to go, so maybe we'll find out... Just a reminder of the semi-dormant mapping project: https://docs.google.com/document/d/122q3T5_dvDPmjUlRs0VUUEBpohe-3rFcpCdhka3b87c/edit habeasdorkus posted:Two: Shortly before the big battle, Chert says they'd been thinking about how they'd report to the First Commonweal and its Line. The way it sounds, Chert doesn't believe the Second Commonweal abides by the Peace and says "Too much economy gone to militant purposes." Am I reading that right? And is the Second Commonweal's economy really that stressed by raising 7000 or so soldiers out of a population of 600k in the Creeks? Yeah it sounds like a lot of this is production of materiel too. I was looking up some historical numbers for armies. The British Army during the Napoleonic Wars peaked at 250K soldiers, from a population of about 10 million (1:40 ratio). But that was from a major colonial power that was harvesting resources from all over the world. Also, while I think that's a good time period for comparable modern technology to the magical technology of the Commonweal world, this doesn't factor in the additional resource strain and inefficiency introduced from having to deal with weeds and critters. Also also, that was a peak during an active continental-scale war. The standing army during the 1800s was more like 90K, which is pretty close to the 7000 Commonweal soldiers out of 600K people. Finally, I am 100% sure Graydon did a ton of research into this, and about 95% certain he has spreadsheets calculating all the army logistics...
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Apr 1, 2023 18:05
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Lead out in cuffs posted:So I think the ocean, and the Sea People, came from the east more broadly, and mainly from the southeast relative to the Second Commonweal. The First Commonweal is to the northwest, ie in the opposite direction. I suppose it's not impossible that there's geography on the other side of the First Commonweal that would allow the Sea People to invade, but it seems unlikely to me? Reems, and so now the Sea People, had an invasion route into the First Commonweal via Meadows Pass.
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Apr 1, 2023 18:21
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Would be pretty funny if the Sea People, tired of getting mulched by the two Commonweals, decide to try a third way in and run straight into the hell-things.
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Apr 1, 2023 18:23
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no idea when the next book comes out but it might legitimately be the fantasy novel i anticipate more than anything else particularly because, if past is any indication, he's going to make a hard turn and it'll be about something radically different than the two extensive military-focused ones we got most recently
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Apr 1, 2023 18:24
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Where was the reference to the Sea People landing up north? I think I forgot about that part. I think it's supposition on the part of the Second Commonweal, who are reasoning that invasions from the sea can come from anywhere there's a suitable landing site.
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Apr 1, 2023 18:30
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eke out posted:no idea when the next book comes out but it might legitimately be the fantasy novel i anticipate more than anything else I think the working title was The Work of the Year and it's set at least in part about 20 years after the big fight with the Sea People. I am also extremely hype for it.
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Apr 1, 2023 18:32
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Oh loving lol. I've been assuming he's at least peripherally around here since, you know, he saw the post here that made him nuke his own forum. Sorry for that again man!
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Apr 1, 2023 18:46
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habeasdorkus posted:Stuff about Chert saying too much is going to the line... I think his primary objection is that whatever goes to the line is not considered "productive", it's essentially lost to the Peace because the line is outside the Peace and is sometimes required to depart the Peace in pursuit of its duty. Chert is just remarking mournfully on how costly it is to maintain the line in the strength that is required to defend the second Commonweal.
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Apr 1, 2023 21:55
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The question of how much of a strain is it really to raise and support the Second Commonweal Line is an interesting one. A file is 8 people, many sources including the same chapter as the following citation. From book 5, A Mist of Grit and Splinters, Chapter D-Day Minus 1321 "An old line platoon is eight files; five platoons and four files color party is a company; Five companies and eight files of Colour Party is a battalion. It's meant to stay over a thousand and twenty-four effective" 8*8*5+4*8=352 in a company 352*5 +8*8 = 1824 in a battalion (3 battalions to a brigade) From book 5, A Mist of Grit and Splinters, Chapter D-Day Minus 1321 "Wapentake platoons are ten files; five platoons and five files is a company. Five Companies and 24 files is a battalion. ... We don't count the full-captain, the part-captains, the sergeant-major or the signaller." 8*10*5 +5*8 = 440 in a company 440*5 + 24*8 = 2392 +8 officers = 2400 From book 4, Under 1 banner, "The line wants two artillery battalions for the First Valley. ... those will be the only full-time formations in the whole of the Folded Hills. Eleven thousand unproductive adults is pressing hard on what the Folded Hills can feed." 11k / 2 = 5500 per artillery battalion (elsewhere Twiggy notes that an artillery battalion is twice the size of a heavy line battalion) Accepting the previously offered standing military size of 3 battalions and 2/5ths of an artillery battalion gives 2400*3 + 2/5*5500 = 9,400. Pretty close  But remember that military units are not just an upfront cost. They must also still be fed, trained, and supplied. So really it's 9,400 + 5,472(low number for Chert's brigade using only 3 "regular" battalions and no heavies or artillery) = ~15k brains-on-focuses soldiers out of a population of 1 million. A civilian to soldiers ratio of 67 : 1 is on the low side, historically speaking. Low in this context means that there's very few civilians compared to soldiers. Depending on how efficient the broader society is, there may or may not still be some slack (i.e. capacity to expand the civilian economy), but probably not much slack. To make matters worse, the soldier numbers we are using are just the numbers for the people in the actual battalions who do the actual fighting. They do not include all of the other people who must make boot clasps, uniforms, drive wagons pulled by brass bulls or other logistics and support activities needed to allow those fighters to not starve and get where they're going. There's a funny bit of military jargon for this ratio: the tooth to tail ratio. Traditionally this ratio varies between 2 & 12 additional people removed from the civilian workforce for every soldier. If we include the minimum logistical tail numbers of 2 support/transport/producers per soldier we get a civilian to soldiers ratio of 22:1. The winning side of the American civil war did so with a 20:1 ratio, and more than 100% losses (peak strength of 0.7 million but over 0.8 million casualties over the course of the war) via the magic of replacing the dead with new recruits. Since the North won their war, that's probably not the lower bound for utmost effort, but the Second Commonweal needs to be growing their civilian population and economy at the same time in order to establish new production line and raw material sources before everything that was built by the first Commonweal wears out so it's definitely nudging the line. Being forced to divert maximum resources to the military is a loss condition since it means a permanent loss in productive capacity that in turn means not being able to sustain the military at the minimum levels for safety. These kinds of numbers are heavily dependent on local conditions and social structures, but there are several passages in the books about how just making all the e.g. brass bulls or boot cleats needed is going to be the labor of years and they do drill in on exact numbers. So overall I think that raising and maintaining the described force structure is both realisticly near the sustainable limits of the second Commonweal and well supported in the book as written. LLSix fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Apr 2, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 22:18
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And of course the Union had the advantage of growth through immigration replacing some of those dead troops. I can't remember which book it was, but the first Commonweal running a total war economy could raise and support 80 brigades for about four years until it collapsed. E: the boot cinches I think are something where it's actually going to save a lot of work on net since they talk about putting all the other collectives out of business. It's also very fortunate that the shot shop is actual quite small for all the finished work it's putting out - but it's still the work of two and a half years to make enough artillery tubes for a battery... but of course that's what gives Acrasius and many others the jibblies subs it's so reliant on Independents. I think a lot of the Commonweal's effort is going into the new gigantic East Bank Refinery, too, that's 4000 people working one massive industrial focus. Which will have both civil and military implications. Same with all the supply disruption after being separated from the First Commonweal. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Apr 2, 2023 |
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Apr 2, 2023 01:14
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eke out posted:no idea when the next book comes out but it might legitimately be the fantasy novel i anticipate more than anything else I'm gonna read the poo poo out of adventures in Halt's cannery.
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Apr 2, 2023 02:27
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grassy gnoll posted:I'm gonna read the poo poo out of adventures in Halt's cannery. This actually sounds like a good basis for a video game.
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Apr 2, 2023 03:17
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Isn't the Stardew Valley creator making a game about a haunted chocolatier? Seems like that could be a starting point.
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Apr 2, 2023 04:22
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I wonder how far along Graydon is on Book 6. Does anyone have any word?
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May 30, 2023 13:38
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habeasdorkus posted:I wonder how far along Graydon is on Book 6. Does anyone have any word? He hasn't posted anything to his blog in ages, and is spending a lot of time on Mastodon. Seems very thoroughly distracted.
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May 30, 2023 15:31
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Slyphic posted:He hasn't posted anything to his blog in ages, and is spending a lot of time on Mastodon. Seems very thoroughly distracted. Where is his mastodon (I see it’s not a reliable way to contact him but just curious)?
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May 30, 2023 21:24
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@graydon@canada.masto.host I see him talking with Charlie Stross pretty frequently since I follow both of them.
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May 30, 2023 21:29
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Well, this answers some questions about his personal politics. And they're very similar to the Commonweal's core beliefs.Graydon Saunders posted:My take is "no slaves" and "everyone or no one". Income and asset caps, democratic institutions absent the corrosive effects of concentrated money, and aggressive and immediate decarbonization are easy to argue from those axioms. That might be enough structural change to permit a prosperous future. Among the tags on the blog post is "egalitarian party working documents" - which I'm pretty sure are his musings on political philosophy/ethics and not actually parts of a party platform. I'm also pretty sure that Saunders is a reliable voter for either the Canadian Greens or NDP, though probably not above voting for a Liberal tactically. I personally think he (and people in general) underestimate the ability of people to have extremely strong disagreements without intentionally lying about their goals or being particularly influenced by open greed.* People disagree on the best way to do things, or on which way cause and effect runs, without any need to infer that one side is seeking aggrandizement or money. And people can be really fuckin' lovely without being extremely motivated by money- when you look at nations with the governments closest to what he's describing, you get some of the Nordic states... which in the case of Denmark has led to extremely loving racist immigration policy and in Sweden has led to the literal neo-nazi party being in a confidence and supply agreement with the governing coalition. Applying those tendencies to the future books of the Commonweal would be interesting. * Which is separate from the gestalt "wanting to protect what I've already got" that affects everyone to some extent or another. Plenty of people who would be aghast at de jure segregation move to the suburbs to send their kids to "better schools" and never consciously think about that incongruity. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Jun 4, 2023 |
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Jun 4, 2023 17:10
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habeasdorkus posted:Well, this answers some questions about his personal politics. And they're very similar to the Commonweal's core beliefs. Neither of your counter-examples meet the "everyone or no one" standard. I think Graydon is aware that his ideals are not easy to live up to and require conscious, sustained effort. He certainly makes that point about the Creeks' extreme efforts to ensure nothing ever happens there frequently enough. Although from the books I wouldn't be surprised if Saunders would find it difficult to argue against an extremely hard-line anti-immigrant stance as long as it disallowed all immigration equally (as opposed to on a racial or other inequitable basis). The Commonweal is generally not eager to accept immigrants except in extremis, and even then requires them to submit to the Shape of Peace... which killed two of the three cousin sorcerors who petitioned to join the Second Commonwealth (source: book 4). LLSix fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Jun 4, 2023 |
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Jun 4, 2023 18:25
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I can't tell if I don't understand the scale of everything in these books or if the author doesn't understand metric. Are creeks supposed to be 10-15 feet tall? He describes at 7 meter canoe being able to be used as a roof to comfortably sleep two, and 7 meters is about 21 ft. All the wildlife seems to be gigantic as well. A 10 foot long duck would be terrifying even if it's not on fire.
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Jul 4, 2023 19:15
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You only get the widest parts of a canoe as shelter, so the useful length is going to be much less than the overall length. Sorcerers have been messing with wildlife for myriads, so there's some really odd ducks out there.
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Jul 4, 2023 19:35
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canoes narrow at the ends quite a lot, and at least the ducks keep the swans off.
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Jul 4, 2023 19:36
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Demon_Corsair posted:I can't tell if I don't understand the scale of everything in these books or if the author doesn't understand metric. I almost get the feeling that the ducks are basically dinosaurs. Just vaguely related to ducks. I'm fact, I can't help but think of a lot of the creatures as being some sort of "sorcerers modified creatures to be more frightens prehistoric, because that is easier than creating a completely new history"
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Jul 4, 2023 19:52
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Yeah I got the impression Ducks were like large bear sized and swans are like T-Rex
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Jul 4, 2023 20:06
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Demon_Corsair posted:I can't tell if I don't understand the scale of everything in these books or if the author doesn't understand metric. I don't think Creeks are 15 feet tall. They are taller than modern humans. Lots of passages describe Creeks viewing adults from other kin-types as being basically the size of young teenagers. So probably somewhere in the 8-10 foot rangeish? And sufficiently muscular that they look a bit squat. Most of the buildings we do get solid dimensions for are built on a heroic scale, but are also described as being magnificently large, so that seems deliberate rather than a misunderstanding.
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Jul 4, 2023 21:52
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We get a number of Creek heights in the books, including Tankard, who's the tallest known Creek past and present. He's just shy of 2.5 meters tall, and just over 8'1". In the March North the Captain notes that your average Creek woman is 1.9 meters tall and ~90-95 kg, or 6'3" and 200-210 lbs. So, basically a foot taller than your average run of our modern human, and heavily built. e: also, the thing about Tankard is that without visual context clues he actually looks kind of short and squat from a distance. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 4, 2023 22:04
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| # ? May 2, 2024 00:23 |
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Demon_Corsair posted:I can't tell if I don't understand the scale of everything in these books or if the author doesn't understand metric. There's a line in book two or three about someone trying to farm ducks, with the correction that it would be more accurately described as ranching.
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Jul 4, 2023 22:20
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