While We Wait: Part 5

Paladin Hoss: the greatest glitch ever.
 
After thinking on it carefully for 10 minutes, I am sad to say the following list contains all the books I remember I can say I have well and truly read from cover to cover:
  • Harry Potter (series)
  • Guns, Germs, and Steel
  • 1984
  • Animal Farm
  • The Messianic Legacy
  • El Filibusterismo
  • Noli Me Tangere
  • Jonathan Livingston Seagull
I plead the I'm the only one around here with a list as pithy and pitiful--of course, that's going to change, as I'm going on a quest to complete two books and a smaller publications (or every NES piece I encounter from hack-job to novelesque) or two per month for the rest of my life.
 
Good luck. Might want to read the Inheritance Trilogy, or even the Twilight series. It's a little girly, but not bad.

EDIT: Does anyone know a good avatar resizing website that you don't have to pay for that actually works on CFC?

Imageshack only re sizes to 100*75. Sooooo annoying!
 
Sonofa*bleep*!

Does anyone want to play Age of Empires 2 Multiplayer, now? Or at 11 Am EST?
 
I used to play that Justo.
 
Same here. It's pretty good, though (intentionally) primitive.
 
I stopped when I reached the part in that one campaign when there were those orcs in the frozen north. Its boringness rose in proportion to the increase in awesomeness I found in Tetris.
 
I stopped when I reached the part in that one campaign when there were those orcs in the frozen north. Its boringness rose in proportion to the increase in awesomeness I found in Tetris.
Your Tetris has nothing on the minimalist genius what can be seen in Pong.
 
This is a reply to some of the commentary in my NES.

Libertarian ideologies

It is not a point about Jesus, it was a point about the period he lived in.

It just doesn't make sense to have a libertarian nation when you are in an age where everybody is suffering from diseases, famine, hunger etc., and where civilization hasn't developed to a point where it has begun thinking in such humanitarian ways that you do.

And what changed between the early Iron Age and the late Classical period in which Jesus was born? Diseases were still around. Famine was still around. Hunger was certainly still around. We were still stuck in the Malthusian traps; our population was not growing, our people were not any better off. What happened was that the ideology of the elite changed; philosophy of the world changed.

In N3S III, the philosophies of liberty have been around for a long while, at least in the elite. They are not necessarily implemented. The Seshweay have slaves, but they use the language of freedom from their religion. The Farou are simply a highly unstable monarchy which is easily toppled by a people who are all too used to freedom. Neither of these states are really "libertarian", certainly not in the modern conception of the word, and I see no good reason why their existence is illogical.

North King's argument which stated that "What happened on Earth does not matter here, 'cause this isn't Earth" doesn't really make sense either on that note, since we're still human beings.

And guess what, human beings invented the concepts of abolition as well as slavery, of democracy as well as tyranny. The time period in which they arrive might be different, yes, but even then you have a weak argument: the Athenians used the justification of spreading democracy to set up puppet regimes, just as the Spartans did (with oligarchy replacing democracy). Governments beyond count were overthrown in antiquity for being too tyrannical in some sense of the word; it is hardly a modern libertarian ideology that's being expressed here.


Please do listen to what das says btw:

das said:
OOC: You still didn't explain the insistence on liberating the Hu'ut, who are sort of by the wayside, unless, as I already said, you are keen on more or less conquering liberating the world (or at least the Hu'ut) now that you've decided that all people are people. This rhetoric made sense when it was a war against the Sesh Emperor; but this is a different case entirely, don't you think?

There. It simply makes no sense. How the hell have the Farou managed to sustain revolts in the Subal region when robbing the upper class from all their slaves when they were conquered, and how did their 'popular play' spread through the Empire of Hu'ut, sparking slave revolts everywhere? This isn't the Age of Information, and if it was, I still don't have a theatrical tradition.

Dude, if you're going to criticize my modding, do it to my face, instead of posting it in my NES thread and addressing it to someone else.

Subal was an independent city state initially, and never quite like the rest of Hu'ut; it did not have nearly the same size of slaveholding class. Moreover, it was occupied directly by Faroun troops during a war. If there was going to be a revolt, it would have been crushed. The Hu'ut failed to drive the Farou out of said city, and thus the Farou retained their grip on it, and the slaveholding class were permanently deprived of their property. They do not continuously rebel every turn due to the memory of slaves centuries ago, and this is a very weak complaint.

As for a popular play (i.e. popular work of literature): I assume some of the people in the Hu'ut Empire are literate. Perhaps this is a bad assumption. But assuming some are, a suitably tragic and moving tale can lead to a shifting mentality in the slaveowners and those who are both slaves and educated. This would lead to a general shift in opinion against slaveholding, thus prompting slave rebellions.

In any case, it's a highly quotable work in the NES' world, it's not like people carry around manuscripts of it wherever they go. The sentiment spreads.

Furthermore, what does it being the Age of Information have anything to do with anything? Do you think people didn't travel back then? They most certainly did; prior to the modern era, people often spoke more than one language, the educated would travel, and you would certainly have influences from one country to the next. Yes, the Farou are influencing the Hu'ut! If you want your nation to develop in a vacuum, an NES probably isn't the place for it.

Not that it won't probably lead to revolts all the same, though I agree that attributing it to some silly foreign play will be severely and justly frowned upon by the Classics of Marxism-Leninism and the Patriotic Soviet Historical Science. ;)

I submit that the Marxist Leninists have no clue what they are talking about in most things, and that the pure idea of historical materialism is inherently and immensely flawed.

A hyperbole for what? The intention to establish a republic in Hu'ut? The intention to overthrow the present dynasty? The present monarch? The intention to conquer the hell out of the place and call it freedom? The intention to decide that slavery is okay after all as long as it is properly organised, properly applied and kept far away enough from home (and possibly called something else entirely) and turn Hu'ut into a hellhole/cash crop-producing economic colony that will be at the center of moral and practical ideological debates and political powerstruggles in the Union for the next century? :p

Just what are you trying to do here? :p

Did it occur to any of you that Masada's stated justification is not necessarily the sentiment of his people? You may take the player's word on stated government positions, you should not take it as the absolute truth of what is actually going on in the NES.

You may complain all you like about what the Seshweay government says, but do it in character, in diplomacy, and do not use it as a thinly veiled complaint about how the update went. If you think he's playing badly, then exploit his weakness, and kill him in the NES. If you don't think I'm going to be a fair mod and think that I won't reasonably judge the outcome of the battle (essentially, if you think I'm incompetent), why are you in my NES?
 
North King, why would I even care about what happened to Masada and the other easterners in the update? ;) My only concern is an IC statement that, on one hand, seems a bit spurious, and, on the other hand, naturally leads to a fruitful field of inquiry. I see no reason not to ask Masada about it (especially given that he is not opposed to answering), and I fail to see how it belongs here rather than in the thread inasmuch as it helps flesh out the game world (in this case, the cultural and ideological aspects). I think that this issue might rise up again in the future, so would it not be better to keep the discussion in the thread for future use rather than here where it would be drowned out by genuinely off-topic discussions?
 
Yes, but there is no reason why some small scale mining can't be done around it. As long as everything is put back.
You are aware ore mining results in mineral leeching into the water table, right? And you are aware that uranium is radioactive and hazardous in the extreme to human health? And you are aware that the Colorado River is the source of water for 25 million people? And you are aware that several of these mines are under a dozen miles from the canyon? And you are aware that the US Park Service is still cleaning up and monitoring the residue from past uranium mining efforts so they don't poison the river?

Yes? Good, then kindly keep your keen grasp of the situation to yourself, unless you'd be alright with someone pouring a thimble full of mercury into every beverage you drink for the rest of your life (it's a really small amount, it won't hurt much!) because you don't know what the hell you're talking about and your ignorance is stunning and grotesque.

Thank god Obama has lawyers planning out how to reverse this stupidity.
 
North King, why would I even care about what happened to Masada and the other easterners in the update? ;) My only concern is an IC statement that, on one hand, seems a bit spurious, and, on the other hand, naturally leads to a fruitful field of inquiry. I see no reason not to ask Masada about it (especially given that he is not opposed to answering), and I fail to see how it belongs here rather than in the thread inasmuch as it helps flesh out the game world (in this case, the cultural and ideological aspects). I think that this issue might rise up again in the future, so would it not be better to keep the discussion in the thread for future use rather than here where it would be drowned out by genuinely off-topic discussions?

Your asking Masada to justify his actions is not what is raising my ire, it's speculation that this is "unrealistic" which is annoying the living hell out of me. Feel free to continue on about what Masada's government is doing in thread.

However, I do not appreciate having implicit criticism of my modding in the same thread where I am trying to mod. That's what I want in here.
 
Oh come on, it's only a bit of mining for something we could use to help our economy. The Grand Canyon is just a giant ditch and doing a bit of digging won't hurt a hole.

I'm sure the moment we begin mining, all the tourism will fade very quickly. And there are a LOT of hotels, restaurants, and other service industries based around that entire area. Now, uranium mining or just leaving the Grand Canyon alone and helping all those people. What to choose... I don't know what attitudes are like in the Southern Eastern Seaboard, but here on the West Coast, we're PROUD of our natural wonders thank you very much.

Have you even been to the Grand Canyon?
 
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