|
Danhenge posted:Yeah, it is pretty cool. We learn later that Captains of the Line receive a very intentional and explicit education on the history and politics of the Commonweal, including stuff like critical historiography where they're intended to read between the lines of what was written and what actually happened. In one of the more recent books two people (maybe Fire and and somebody else? Honestly can't remember) have a chat about how the common stories about Hammer don't really match the facts they are aware of. Most existing historical accounts were written after the fact, etc. Captains have an enormous amount of personal power and making sure they are both responsible individuals AND that they have the right information to make responsible decisions seems like the explicit goal of their form of office training. That conversation was in AMoGaS between Duckling and Crinoline. (Though that conversation also notes that most people don't do that reading between the lines.)
|
#
¿
Dec 15, 2022 21:22
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 22, 2024 04:57 |
|
|
eke out posted:you're right, looked up that part and it's not gender it's described as more like a rubric to think about how people pick sexual partners (that's presumably more relevant in a deeply post-gender society like the commonweal) We know that Typicals construct a gender binary as creative/supportive; Creeks seem to have at least one axis of gender that maps roughly to masculine/feminine (“Slow’s obligate androsexuality”), and Grue talks about male/female in the context of her relationship with Blossom, but there seem to be additional aspects of gender for Creeks not yet discussed. Blossom and Grue constructing gender as male/female might just be a Regular thing? Though there’s some discussion of Pelorios wanting to ask the male hierarchy in the Creeks, so it might be more broadly understood, or they might have been referring to physical sexual characteristics while Pelorios was still working from the strongly gendered unicorn construction. Or this could all just be the side effects of a writer from our own society trying to drop the gendered implications and making the occasional error, who knows.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 16, 2022 04:43
|
|
|
ulmont posted:So are the standards. But using them that way is hazardous to the health of the standard-captain; the Hard Road seems more, idk, automated?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 31, 2022 08:01
|
|
|
habeasdorkus posted:Pretty much all of the weird titles in the book come from old English. Gerefan (reeve), gesith (companion to a noble, comrade), fylstan (verb for aid, support, help, protect), larhus (school), galdor (magic/spell) etc. If you see something outside your linguistic ken, it's probably old English related. Or French, or Greek, depending. Lots of references to archaic terms from old languages.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 31, 2022 23:35
|
|
|
Or shapeshift (or create an arbitrary form out of the Power) into a form capable of flight. The swamp issue was with the ongoing use of Power being a magnet for predators; flight in your normal shape would obviously require continual power use.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 2, 2023 01:31
|
|
|
ulmont posted:Was it? I found a reference to the Power interfering with Wake's dowsing for the target in the swamp, but no more than that. From the canoe building discussion: “‘Bindings like that are small magic, but still magic. Lots of things out there that attack magic.” Blossom says this as a fact, not as a reason not to try illusory boats.’” … “Anything like that with a tendency to swarm magic, it’d be inconvenient.”
|
|
#
¿
Jan 2, 2023 08:24
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:There's no way to buy a physical copy of these books, is there? i'd like to gift them to people. There is not. GS in the comments on his blog: "If there should be print versions, they would not happen before I got the series completed (which is expected to be three books from now) and felt able to tackle the logistics."
|
|
#
¿
Jan 16, 2023 07:29
|
|
|
Hyphen-ated posted:there's a map here https://www.deviantart.com/cultureulterior/art/Line-military-overview-map-548623672 In fairness to the map author, it took me forever not to think that the Second Commonweal was west of the First; I'm not sure why, but something in my brain just wouldn't accept it. (That said, that map is missing the entirety of the Eastern Waste, which lie between the Creeks and the Folded Hills as far as I can tell, and the placement of Morning Vale in the Creeks instead of the Folded Hills is wrong I think? Lots of other problems, some of which may be due to inconsistency by the author.)
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2023 01:00
|
|
|
habeasdorkus posted:Hmm, I would be somewhat interested in this. Same. I’d think a starting point would just be a shared document that records anywhere that two places are related wrt one another, along with text cites?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2023 07:00
|
|
|
There's also a reference later on, during Kynefrid's test for Independent status, that "he never lost his wish to be mighty" w/r/t Angren; given that gendered language is typically used for intimate partners, that reinforces the "Kynefrid likes the lads" from the wizard school books.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2023 22:06
|
|
|
grassy gnoll posted:Kynefrid's one of the blue folks that has to consume methanol, isn't he? Kynefrid has blue hair, but I don’t think they’re an Elegant (the alcohol-requiring folks); Angren is an Elegant Blue (ethanol-requiring), and at Eugenia’s Independent test, she notes that one of Crane’s students “might be an Elegant”, which suggests Kynefrid is not. (Also Elegant Blues aren’t actually very blue, judging from the relative descriptions of Kynefrid and Angren at Eugenia’s independent ceremony.) Basically I think from what we’ve seen Kynefrid is probably one of the less common types of person in the Commonweal, one that doesn’t belong to any of the clusters.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2023 00:18
|
|
|
There’s more details later, and there are intimations that there are actually even more axes of gender for the Creeks.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2023 02:59
|
|
|
Lead out in cuffs posted:To be fair 1 benefits from (re-)reading after having read the others. It's fun the first time through, but you have a much better idea what's going on after having read the rest. Definitely have them read 1 before going on to 4/5, I’d say, but I think they’d be okay starting at 2. (Or honestly maybe have them read 1, but start at the post-March part, basically treating the creation of the second Commonweal as a prologue to book 2.) As to progress, last update is a comment on his blog from early this year saying “It's finding the time beyond the requirements of necessity to get much writing done that has challenged me this past few years. I would like to believe that situation is improving, but I've thought that before. So, alas, time will tell, and little else might hope to.”
|
|
#
¿
Aug 24, 2023 18:28
|
|
|
Also, while you only have 1-2 talent flavors, that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t *use* other types of Power. Flavors are a description of what comes most naturally, but you can learn beyond your flavor. So while Laurel was an enchanter, they could still use necromancy, life magery, etc. (Also, we do know that Laurel was around when the Peace was established. In AMOGAS, in the chapter written from the viewpoint of the Shape, Ongen states “in the Year of the Peace Established 23” and the Shape notes that was five years after Laurel departed. But Ongen also says that the first Shape wasn’t “of Laurel’s making”, though they might have been involved in its design.)
|
|
#
¿
Aug 25, 2023 17:57
|
|
|
Lead out in cuffs posted:All that said, what the gently caress is a tagmat? ”AMOGAS” posted:“I should like to refute you.” Acraisais salts their tea a second time. “Yet we have accepted precedent for tagmat or coercer talents and controlling influences.” Coercers can command the nervous system of others; entelechs can command reality. By extension, we can guess that tagmats can control thoughts/intellect. There’s some extra backing for this assumption in UOB, where Crow tells Eugenia about what the tagmat flavor is for and says “Order’s youth happened in the memory,” Crow says. “In a time when no one trusted that their thoughts were their own thoughts.”
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2023 05:18
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 22, 2024 04:57 |
|
|
Lead out in cuffs posted:Right, sort of like how some weeds, demons, and creatures like Eustace have minds but no nervous system. A coercer couldn't affect them, but a tagmat could. Ordinarily I'd figure out what Greek/Old English/French word it was intended to be, but "tagma" is a term for a Byzantine military grouping which wouldn't seem to work. (It also now carries the meaning of "order" in the sense of a military honor, but wasn't historically, so I can't imagine that's how Graydon intended it to be read, despite the obvious connection to Order the independent.) So maybe a corruption of something else?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2023 08:39
|
|