First off, I'd like to apologize for going off the radar for so long. I'm presently in grad school, but that doesn't necessarily mean I've been creatively idle, either... I just haven't produced anything that I feel would be presentable or really rewarding here, and I'll admit that illustration has sort of fallen off my schedule and habits. I need to get back into it!

Anyway, that being said, I'd like to kick off the new year with yet another (hopefully) thought and insight-provoking journal! And by that, of course, I mean the actual, subconscious purpose of any journal: The reinforcement of the Self by shouting into humanity.


People constantly talk about compromise, usually in the context that it has somehow become lost or been led astray, or misplaced by the housekeeping staff. Maybe the dog ate it. We all seem to be in a desperate search for compromise as a society to the point where compromise itself has become the object of our dreams, the ideal, the way to overcome all the dire portent looming before us. Of course, like the nearsighted person searching incessantly for a pair of glasses that they are already wearing, compromise hasn't actually left us. We've just managed to trick ourselves into thinking that it's somehow gone missing.

Speaking from the perspective of an American, this compromise thing and it's apparent absence is kind of a thing right now. It's in fashion. People are talking about it, about how they miss it, and even permitting themselves to believe that it will never return. There is even a cottage industry focused around the search for the missing compromise- it's in the news, thereby selling advertisements and generating revenue for someone, somewhere, presumably. Because it's in the news so regularly, it becomes a nice little bit of cash on the side for psychologists, pundits, and those mysterious floating head people who, while disembodied, find great enjoyment out of placing themselves on book covers as though the presence of their beaming faces will sell hardcovers-- and they're right! Or, at least, I think such books must sell, cause I see them in just about every bookstore and I refuse to believe that there is some giant Chinese surplus book-buying factory complex that mulches them into a pulp and recycles them into arsenic-infused toilet tissue that forms the sole economic basis for the trendy book industry.

The question that is invariably being asked is 'where has all the compromise gone?' The answers furnished try to answer this question, and the answers aren't baseless. Some say that the polarization of the electorate is the foundation upon which the polarized Congress is currently built, a vast sea of Gerrymandered congressional districts from sea to shining sea, each one pandering to a clique of wingnuts. Others say that this is a cultural problem and a sort of collective illness based upon generations of grown up babies who have yet to be weaned from entitlements, an entire nation of children incapable of dealing with confrontation in any format other than throwing a tantrum. Most of the answers to this question paint one side or the other of this polarized nation as something childish, if not subhuman-- In the process of trying to answer this question, we have collectively been reduced to an unthinking, irrational force of nature that cannot be refuted. In other words, the compromise is gone now and there's no way to bring it back, as any individual attempt to do so will be swept away by the tidal wave of 'stupid people'.

Of course, this all supposes that everyone is asking the right question to begin with. Anyone familiar with Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has to chuckle a bit at this part, cause they've heard it before. To those who aren't familiar, a hyperintelligent race with access to vast resources builds an extraordinary computer called Deep Thought to answer the question: "What is the secret to life, the universe, and everything?" After millions of years, Deep Thought produces an answer that is both underwhelming and unbelievably disappointing, but chastises its creators by telling them that they should have asked a different question if they wanted a better answer.

First off, if it's not clear by now, compromise never 'left the building' hot on the heels of Elvis. It couldn't leave us even if it wanted to. Supposing again that most democratically elected governments are staffed by human beings and not brain-devouring Dyson vacuum space alien people in disguise, it is also safe to say that compromise is still with us as a primordial part of our psychology. Has our ability to compromise suddenly shriveled up into a laughable cerebral vestige, like T-Rex arms for our mind? No! It's alive and well, and in everyday use. How can I prove this? Anyone who's had to settle for something inferior to what they wanted, but sufficient to meet their basic need threshold, has engaged in compromise-- which is everyone, by the way, down to infants.

Whew. Now that that's out of the way, we can look at the next problem. If compromise is alive and well, why is it treating us so poorly right now? This, I think, is where psychology starts to work against us. Our brains are familiar with compromise- but we don't like to think of it as an ideal. By definition, a compromise is ideal for no one... Yet we are examining it as an ideal solution. This, in my opinion, is precisely the problem our government is butting heads with time and again. Both sides of the political ideology agree- compromise is necessary, vital even, to confronting the major problems facing us. Excellent, now let's get compromising! Sounds great! Wait... you mean I have to give all this up? Hold on, now, I said we should compromise, not bend over, drop our drawers, and hand you the Vaseline!

Guess what. Compromise isn't easy, and even though we think we know how to do it, everyone's got their own idea on how to compromise. The most common and ancient method of compromise is the good old Bargain. For a bargain to work, both parties have to hold something that the other values, and both sides will try to obtain the highest gains possible with the least cost. Pretty basic stuff, right?

Plus, it's not like things can't be bargained in the United States. True, we don't haggle over a head of lettuce or a T-shirt except in the most informal markets, but when it comes to major purchases and deals bargaining happens all the time. Politicians are also familiar with bargaining processes- hell, we specifically put them up their to bargain for the best outcome they can get for our constituencies. Every time Congress arrives at loggerheads, a flurry of bargaining begins. Yet right now, it seems, the mechanisms of bargaining aren't working.

Senators, Congressmen, and the U.S. President himself are all elected to satisfy promises. For Senators and the President, these promises can be pretty broad and flexible, primarily because the constituencies that elect them are (surprise!) broad and flexible. They have enough prestige and power to fall short in some areas and still emerge with a political career.

Congressmen do not have that luxury.

Congressmen in the U.S. have two-year terms, a short mandate by most standards. A surprising number of congressmen and women are not independently wealthy, and their ability to fund a campaign is limited. They can't spread money around everywhere and make all kinds of promises to all kinds of people. Even with generous support from their political party, a Congressperson cannot overwhelm all local opposition with money alone. They cannot ignore the promises they make to their constituents and expect to make a career out of politics. What kind of promises can individual congresspeople make to cement their careers? Generally, it is some kind of federally funded job-generating mechanism-- roads, military bases, prisons, etc.

A Congressman or woman places extreme value on one or two things that usually soak up federal dollars. To lose these things is to lose their careers. To the President, it seems obvious- to cut spending, we need to stop building bridges to nowhere and get rid of shipyards in Utah. To senators, it seems obvious- these projects are a waste of money, and losing the jobs and public support from one or two won't get me kicked out of office. To congressmen and women, however, this bridge to nowhere or this useless shipyard is a vital lynchpin for re-election, and the only way to bargain with such a thing is to replace it with another money sink of more or less equal value.

This cuts to the heart of why compromise isn't working on matters of federal spending, and the intractability of these fights is rubbing off in other areas, painting politicians and even entire parties as being irrational, impossible to work with. The word 'compromise' starts getting thrown around- as an ideal, yes, but also a weapon. It becomes a word that people identify with themselves as a sign of thoughtfulness, understanding, justice, peace, and superior morality-- and people without this ability to compromise, of course, are portrayed as lacking all of those qualities. Compromise becomes the shining beacon of awesomesauce to which all must aspire. Those standing in the way of compromise are irritating social lemmings fixated on suicide. The compromise must hold- clearly. It is what must be done, right?

Wrong. Cue Admiral Akbar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piVnArp9ZE0

Compromise is not the end all, be all objective of politics- not in America, not anywhere. Compromise, by its very nature, is actually pretty disappointing. Never mind that compromise is mediocrity- it's that the human psychology doesn't like to feel like it's losing all the time, or at least engaging in counterproductive activity.

Perhaps, then, what we should be asking of our government right now is not so much what to cut, but how to better spend the same amount of money. We spend a lot of money on prisons, but prisons neither enrich nor grow communities or the nation. We spend a lot of money on road infrastructure when we already know that larger investments in freight infrastructure pay higher dividends than building new roads and lanes every which way. We spend a lot of money on military bases with little or no strategic value when the same money could be spent in the same constituency on actual productive activities. We spend a lot of money on massive schools that unfailingly transform children into statistics and, provided they don't run away, do not teach them how to survive. This is an entrepreneurial nation. People will understand, and maybe even applaud if more dollars are put to work instead of simply sitting around.

Of course, all of this is easier said than done, but it's a start, isn't it? The majority of American voters (and a lot of nonvoters) will put in the hours if it means that they don't feel impotent and hopeless about their future. Politicians would be well served, believe it or not, by abandoning the dream of compromise and converting existing federal funding into production and/or development. It's less like compromise and more like gambling, and while it carries its own serious risks I think it is much more hopeful and effective than asking Congressmen and women to basically sacrifice their political careers, something that they quite understandably will vote against time and time again.

Then again, this could all be nonsense. What do you think?

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8834944/

I admit, I don't think I've ever gotten any fan fiction-- at least, not since the Jewel Vixens days, and I'd be hard-pressed to find any fan fiction on this entire website that quite captures what  Baltar has done.

Now, I should probably confess that I once was a fan fiction writer, and a very enthusiastic one. I owe some of my oldest friends in the fandom to those earliest days, but I also owe some of my narrative abilities to those trial-and-error days hammering away at the keys energetically and sharing work between two or three colleagues whom, we all knew, would probably be the only readers of the work. Without promise of compensation of any kind, with only the passion for the material in mind, we saw good and bad, and we created both good and bad. There was the noteworthy and the cringeworthy, and all of it sits somewhere in the primordial ooze of fan-fiction everywhere.

I promised myself in those days that if I were ever in a position to give accolades to accomplished fans, I would try to at least give better than I had received when I was doing the same thing. After reading Baltar's work, it's the least I can do to try and extend it 15 minutes of fame.

Soldiers Misfortune, though plainly titled, does something I've rarely seen in fan-fiction. In fact, I've rarely even seen it in collaborative fiction. It shows true cooperation between a fan-made character and a canon character. Baltar doesn't go on a grand adventure with another person's character- something I myself have been guilty of. Instead, he sticks with what has been established about Fred and makes small extensions based on as much info about him as he could dig up. He then integrated his own character in a fashion befitting the style of the original, taking into account what is unusual about the comic- history and geopolitical climate- while creating a compelling case for the two characters to ally with each other despite ideological differences.

As you might expect, there's violence, deceit, and double-crossing in an appropriately turbulent time and place, and it does it all without obligatory gay sex. It's taut, lively, and fun, and while I admit a degree of gushing pride from the very act of receiving fan fiction, I can say honestly that if you're a fan of Fred Savage you'll likely enjoy Baltar's work.

Curiously, or perhaps not so curiously, the most popular species in the fandom are carnivores. I suspect that a touch of this affinity for carnivorous animals stems from a couple of human resemblances: binocular vision (we can imagine ourselves seeing the world the same way) and a fascination with aggression as opposed to docility. The power of the status quo also perpetuates this affinity.

Whatever the reasons are, we tend toward carnivorous species in our fiction. This leads to explorations of what everyday life would be like for furries. True, the emphasis of the story is on the characters and their interactions, their struggle, but in between we also look at how things would be different-- for instance, what would chairs be like? A simple question that presents problems for an author to solve.

Most furry settings fall into three categories: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Modern Drama. In the latter two, authors generally explore the idea of how furries would be different by either circumventing the issue or creating a society of peaceful artifices and alternatives to primordial predator/prey interactions. For example, in many science fiction settings food for carnivorous humanoids is synthesized from proteins.

In Sejhat, however, we have a bit of a problem. The Beastfolk are mostly carnivorous, but they do not have the advantages of modern technology to compensate for a lack of meat. Thankfully, they are at least partially omnivorous- bread and fruits are common, desirable parts of their diet... but where a staple foodstuff for humans would be carbohydrate rich food like bread or rice, the Beastfolk sustain themselves primarily with meat. They simply cannot do without it.

This is a serious limitation on their population and society. Consider this: It takes about 10 units of grain to create 1 unit of beef. It takes about 4 units of grain to create 1 unit of pork, and about 2 units of grain to create one unit of poultry, and as little as 1.5 units of grain (or equivalent) to create 1 unit of fish.

This means that a society of carnivores would certainly be interested in crops, but not primarily for personal consumption- a very large part of it would have to be diverted to animal consumption. Humans do generally require a small consumption of meat in order to gain the necessary proteins to prosper, but this is significantly smaller than that which would be required by a man-sized wolf or cat.

Supposing that Beastfolk society transcends a hunter/gatherer stage, it seems to stand to reason that even in relatively modern times a large population would still be involved in the ancient trade of Pastoralism. Given that the setting is akin to the 19th century, however, there simply isn't enough common land to sustain large numbers of people in a nomadic pastoral existence. Thus, I imagine that even different carnivore races would be just as inclined, if not more inclined to adopt organized agriculture. This, in turn, necessitates land and labor management, which in turn is the foundation for a landed nobility.

This seems to fly in the face of the common depiction of Beastfolk in a fantasy setting, where they are displayed as being disorganized and prone to displays of individualism and barbarism as opposed to authoritarianism and an entrenched nobility.

Going back to the grass-roots, let's talk about another problem that all industrialized or industrializing societies have to deal with: Urbanization. Generally speaking, the biggest limitation to urban growth, aside from its food supply, is squalor. We have a good, well-recorded understanding of the squalor problem in growing cities going at least back to the nuisance assizes of London from the 1300s.

Squalor in cities isn't just a matter of dealing with the piss and shit of the citizenry-- it is also dealing with all the animal waste. Living in streets clogged with animal manure is nasty enough, but a persistent problem in large cities was also the problem of offal, namely- what do you do with animal parts that you can't or don't want to use?

This was a big enough problem in London, Paris, and even New York. It's a problem that, in modern times, has only been separated from cities due to improved infrastructure and technology. I imagine that in a Beastfolk city, the riverfront would be an appalling sight of butcher's shops dumping the offal of animal carcasses into the nearest rivers, tinged pink with blood and filth. Combine that with the waste of animals living and traveling within the confines of any city, and you get... well, it's not terribly fantastic, is it?

How would a Beastfolk government deal with this? The people need meat- it's not simply a luxury... Yet they could do without the pollution, the rotting guts sitting on the streets, the dodgy quality control, and the overwhelming odor. Through varying mechanisms, cities in the industrial revolution did ultimately confront and control the squalor problem. Would the mechanisms of the Beastfolk be much different?

Pluck up, folks. I was about to write another journal about money, but I changed my mind!

One of the fixtures of the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in entertainment, is the idea of the duel.

Dueling is a very curious and fairly unique thing. In previous centuries, differences between individuals of high station were generally settled by proxy- through the employment of tournament champions, assassins, armies or all of the above, and the concept of honor was often considered hereditary. In modern times, difficult conflict between individuals are generally settled through arbitration or litigation, law backed by the threat of force. These days, where it exists, honor is simply a part of overall ethics and conduct and not generally upheld as an independent entity as it once was.

Duels were the product of the time, and the reason I think they became so popular in the 18th and 19th centuries was because of the gradual deterioration of hereditary honor and values. It was no longer really practical to say that one's breeding or heritage gave them an automatic moral or intellectual advantage over others, though there are plenty of times when this argument is made. The most common and popular guardian of honor, blood, was losing its power and had to be replaced by something else.

Thus, honor, or the very concept of it, became the property of the individual. How does one become honorable? Through morality, conduct, education, and a certain degree of cultivated arrogance, an individual could distinguish themselves as a cut above that greatest enemy of honor: Common-ness.

It's somewhat telling, and earnest, actually. People who once thought themselves better than the common folk now faced the dreadful notion of becoming them. It's not that different from our modern obsession with the Zombie Apocalypse, the idea that we might, at any moment, become one of THEM... and lose our identity as sovereign individuals.

Thus, scholars, nobles, politicians, industrialists, and just about anyone with a bit of social responsibility set about cultivating a sense of honor. Men especially got up in a lather about this... mainly because women of the time were regrettably a kind of underclass. Honor was something built through a lifetime of connections, education, and conservative use of one's tongue. It could easily be tarnished or smashed by another person disparaging them in the press or spreading rumors around in high society. Imagine that your whole career is predicated on your being 'honorable', when all of a sudden some guy accuses you of sleeping with his wife! The nerve!

So, we have a dilemma. Honor is a fragile and mostly artificial thing, easily pierced by a sharp tongue. How do we prevent this from happening?

We have a duel.

There's a good reason why duelists often speak of how 'honor must be satisfied'. The whole construction of the duel, the whole purpose, is to test the nerve of the two opponents and, when dialogue fails, solve the conflict with a moment or a few moments of violence. The objective of the duel, contrary to popular belief, is not to actually kill one of the disputants and leave honor with the last man standing. Rather, the objective of the duel is to prove just how far the disputants are willing to go to defend the concept of personal honor.

This is part of why duels were primarily fought with one of two types of weapons: Swords or Pistols. Swords are somewhat understandable a choice- they are costly weapons mainly accessible to the wealthy- the kinds of people who fight duels. They are also good dueling weapons for another reason: One can end the duel by drawing blood, and drawing blood with a sword can be done in a non-lethal way. Thus, two guys can agree to cut each other up a little, satisfy their honor, and carry home the scars to prove it.

Pistols are a more curious choice in a duel, but at the same time a practical one. For example, not everyone who wants to duel knows how to wield a sword! Just about anyone, however, can operate a pistol. Another reason pistols were preferred was that they weren't precision weapons by any means. It was plausible, and very common, for duelists to fire pistols at each other at 10 paces and miss each other completely. You might soil your trousers, but there's a good chance you'll escape the duel with your life. On the other hand, the risk of injury and death is very real- a duel with pistols requires quite a bit of bravery. It's a game of chance, rather than skill. Unfortunately, a person struck by a pistol shot is much more likely to die than a person pricked or cut by a sword.

What is the end result of a duel? It can go a number of ways, but it kind of plays out like classic brinksmanship. The ideal outcome is that neither disputant dies or suffers serious injury, allowing the disagreement to be laid to rest, even if it means 'agreeing to disagree'. What also tended to occur, however, was that duels tended to get bloody and continue even after blood was drawn, bringing definitive punishment to one disputant and definitive victory to the other. After all, everyone wants to win, and win big. By taking greater risks and embracing the instinct to 'punish' the other, duelists sometimes put themselves at such risk that both parties suffered injury or died.

The real problem with dueling, and one of the fundamental reasons it had to be done away with, was that it was predicated on the belief that calculated, regulated violence could solve intellectual, moral, or financial disagreements. The very nature of the duel tantalizes people with the ideal of gallant victory for themselves and death or ignominious defeat for the other. The problem is, an act of violence does not actually solve grievances, not even among people who consider themselves noble, moral, or superior. In many cases, disputants would leave the duel with honor satisfied, but their grievances unresolved and dissatisfied. In many cases, the 'winner' still lost- his reputation would remain tarnished, his intellectual standpoint sabotaged. Think of what happened to Aaron Burr's political career after he slew Alexander Hamilton in one of history's most famous duels, as an example.

Yet there is a romantic, almost delightful magnetism to the mechanism of the duel. Keeping its realities out of the picture for the moment, there is appeal in the kind of bravery required to wager one's life in a situation where the prospects of victory were often quite shaky or uncertain. The reason that duels continued long after they were outlawed is because, regardless of the outcome, the victor/survivor of a duel could pretty definitively be called brave. Bravery might not necessarily be equivalent to honor, but so many of our narratives consider them brethren that great value continues to be placed on individuals willing to risk their lives and futures in individual combat. While we are often reminded that such people are not always the greatest role models, the allure, the romance, the perfume of this concept still appeals to us. This obsession with gambling and playing the odds is ancient, human, and unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

So for those of you who believe that honor is dead, don't worry. By the end of this reading, you will have arrived at either of two conclusions: That honor is an artificial construct that never really existed, or that the concept of honor is constantly reshaping and forming in society, yet still orbits around this concept of personal risk and bravery.

Bahhhh! What a silly idea!

Let's face it. There are two kinds of fantasy elves-- the oppressed underclass struggling against development, and the arrogant sadists that fling lightning bolts and arrows at lesser creatures.

Truth be told, the Maenid Empire is closer to the latter than the former.

The struggle, then, is trying to form some personal connection with the Elves and their national problem- or at least enough of a connection that enables something very important in the audience: Empathy.

Empathy is key in storytelling, especially fantasy storytelling. Readers do not know the people and places of the world, and they will never be able to visit them in person. All that remains, then, is to establish some personal connection to the problems the realm and its citizens face.

Thankfully, the Maenid Empire has a problem. A BIG problem. It's not the Republic, not really.... It's the ECONOMY.


Let me brief everyone a bit. Surely few of you have documents for the Realm of Sejhat pertaining to the Elves. To expect that you've read all of them is frankly silly. The Maenid Empire is the most populous and oldest continuous nation-state on the continent, populated almost exclusively by Elves. It is a fairly insular nation that, in its apex, enjoyed vast wealth, culture, and a high standard of living thanks to a monopoly on the sale of Mana, the mysterious substance that is the source of all magic in the realm.

Their miserly use of Mana, however, inadvertently encouraged the other, 'lesser' nations of Sejhat to find alternative sources of energy and set off the industrial revolution. Now the Maenid Empire is clearly past its prime. There is less demand than ever for Mana.

In summary, the gradual decline in the importance of Mana is directly attributed to the decline in the relevance of the Maenid Empire. The Maenids have an entrenched landed aristocracy unwilling to give up their high standard of living. The land is overpopulated, and as money becomes more scarce, the taxes rise for everyone. Somehow, all the wealth and glory of the empire seems to have disappeared, and hope with it.

The Maenid Empire now faces extinction at the hands of a violent, widespread revolution: The Elven Republic. The landscape of once verdant, meticulous cropland and picturesque towns is now a mayhem of warfare, banditry, and destruction. One by one, the aristocrats are being dragged onto the streets by their subjects and grotesquely murdered as revenge for the predicament they are in.

But a question continues to nag everyone from the Emperor himself down to the lowliest peasant rebel. Where did all the money go? What happened to the wealth and opportunity? How can there be so many Elves, but so few jobs?

Emperor Lusitanius II, a mere child at age 19, has some very interesting ideas on how to both save his Empire and his people. He realizes that the Empire must be reformed, and quickly. He has made many enemies among the aristocracy thanks to this very idea. He sees the truth beyond the cries of injustice and inequality. With surprising alacrity and clarity he understands that for peace and prestige to return, the Empire needs money. Fast.

As long as the Maenid Empire remains closed to the world, as long as international commerce is stifled, as long as bandits and blackguards prowl the roads, the Empire is doomed. Yet the Maenid Empire still has tremendous wealth- it has twice as many citizens as any of the other nations on the continent, it has rich land, and it has heritage and pride in abundance. Turning this into money will require something unprecedented in the Maenid Empire's history- it will require a light touch.

It should come as no surprise to most of you guys that I am not very shy or reserved when it comes to the depiction of violence. However, I'm a bit at odds with myself lately over the difficulty I am experiencing simply applying my normal commitment to viscera to the completely different context of violence against innocents. It's been surprisingly difficult, even though I knew it wasn't going to be easy.

I've started to ask questions. Not, "Should I sanitize Fred Savage?", but broader, more philosophical ones like "Does graphic violence enhance or subtract from the entertainment experience?"

Violence against the innocent and those powerless to fight back is worse than just moral wrong- it invokes deep, visceral, almost primordial feelings of discomfort. When we see it in life or art, we do not celebrate it. It commonly evokes revolt, open disgust, yet it is a common enough theme in entertainment that it brings up a question, a refinement of my earlier question:

"Does violence against the powerless provoke us to think and act, or does it desensitize us?"

People periodically throw around opinions that violence in entertainment is to blame for human atrocity, yet human atrocity only exists within a social climate that is created by more than just entertainment. When a real person arrives at the conclusion that it's time to slaughter strangers, I think the vast majority of people react by casting blame beyond the individual and their terrible decision.

Is this right? Western society is almost obsessive about individualism, about the sovereignty of the individual, their thoughts, their agency... Yet without fail, when an individual does something that is apparently mad, our instinct is to blame society- or at least a part of it. So many people of our generation have been raised within a framework of laws, customs, and an entire vocabulary supporting the idea that our individual identities are sacred, yet does this run the risk of alienating us from each other?

Violence is no stranger to either collectivistic or individualistic societies. It's not even exclusive to humans- systemic, calculated violence can be observed in many lifeforms. In decades past, Western society's approach to the problem of violence in art and entertainment was to exclude it, sanitize it, process it, dumb it down. Did this ever result in an actual reduction in violence? If not, does it even matter how violence is depicted in entertainment?

I believe the term for this topic of debate is "the pornography of violence", and... well, it's worth discussing here because a lot of FA's members have to own up to the notion that we're familiar with pornographic culture. We all have sexual fantasies. To some extent, we all have violent fantasies. Society has sexual deviants as well as violent deviants. Does the consumption of pornography - violent or sexual - change our behavior, our outlook? Does it change the way we act?

As usual, lots of questions and no answers... Because especially with this topic I'm of a mindset that everyone has their own personalized answer to each of these.

I periodically hear talk about how modern nation-states, particularly those with a predilection for perceived 'empire building', are doomed to eventually decline and collapse, ushering forth a violent new Dark Age as a result of our ineffectual, corrupt, and amoral ways. Personally, I think this is silly, as is the term 'history repeats itself'. History never truly repeats itself- historical events are the result of a specific context and the attitudes of specific people, filled with variables beyond our understanding that cannot truly be duplicated. This isn't to say that we can't learn from history and try to avoid some of its horrific examples, but for those people wishing for the moment when modern civilization collapses and we can go back to strapping on reenactment plate and mail armor and running around with swords they'll probably be rather disappointed in the non-historical, non-canon manner in which order actually crumbles.

That said, I have to admit, the decline and fall of the Roman Empire is a bit of a weak point in my historical understanding. I have some general ideas of how I think it went wrong, but I could be off. What do other people think?

---

1. Technological and Economic Stagnation

Artificial price controls, the counterfeiting and debasement of Roman currency, and a combination of high taxes & tariffs combined with weak technological innovation set the Empire on a perilous course as early as the first years of the Roman Empire (and the end of the Republic). While Rome controlled sea trade and encouraged land trade with its excellent roads, a general lack of reward & opportunity for suppliers ate away at the fortunes of the Empire. Without a basis of money, security became difficult, and with a lack of security the Empire became increasingly vulnerable to barbarians. In the end, this slow-moving model of decline is accelerated by the increasing boldness of Barbarian peoples.


2. Splitting the Empire

By splitting the Roman Empire into the East and the West, any hope of reforming and reorganizing the Empire as a single, powerful entity vanished. By the simple act of dividing the administration and rule of the Empire into two halves, the Romans started on a path of cultural division, dividing what was once an organized whole into two much weaker states bound together only by paper. This sign of weakness definitively changed the attitude of the Barbarians toward Rome, leading to much bolder affronts. When these affronts were rewarded with success and money, the Barbarian problem only became greater and more widespread.


3: Barbarization

After the Roman Empire spread its territory over such a vast area, it had difficulty integrating the conquered cultures into the Roman identity. Despite the violation of 'Barbarian' culture, the destruction of 'Barbarian' religion, and the usurpation of 'Barbarian' technology and wealth, they were unable to diminish or destroy cultural and racial identities. By reducing barbarians to second-class citizens, they actually provoked more distrust and hatred of Roman culture and discouraged others from adopting it. In the later centuries of the Empire, the Romans became increasingly dependent upon their Barbarian subjects to protect the frontiers of the Empire, yet the people they were arming in order to defend them had little interest in protecting Rome-- they were more interested in protecting themselves. With increasing frequency, whenever Rome proved itself vulnerable former Barbarian 'allies' would attack. Because the Romans were particularly adept at getting Barbarians to bleed for Rome without giving them liberties, opportunities, and security in return, the betrayals were fueled by frustration and oppression.


4: Natural Disaster and Disease

The Roman Empire was the victim of a series of unfortunate events that occurred in uncommon frequency and proximity of each other after the year 100 AD. Plagues, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and drought diminished some populations, scattered others to the corners of the Empire, and wiped a few cities entirely out of existence. Poor environmental management, particularly deforestation and erosion, contributed to desertification and the salinization of irrigation water. Without food security, chaos erupted and fortunes dried up, diminishing the economic base of the Empire. With so much to rebuild and so many refugee crises erupting, the Empire proved incapable of maintaining order and began to suffer convulsions. With this weakness apparent to all, the Empire's many enemies became ever bolder and eventually overwhelmed the Western Roman Empire.


5: Political Blundering and Backstabbing

The Roman Empire collapsed because it showed itself increasingly unable to function as a state. The regular assassinations of Emperors, the political maneuvering, and a high level of corruption in the upper echelons of Roman society contributed to an ineffective administration. Without certainty of leadership, effective central government cannot exist. Without effective central government, localities take over and become increasingly distanced from centralized policy. With this argument, the Roman Empire collapses by gradual decentralization, with smaller territories gaining greater power and individual identities separating from the Imperial government. Localized power, in turn, encouraged more candidates to attempt to rebel and usurp the leadership of the Empire, creating a vicious political cycle of assassination, tyranny, rebellion, and assassination again. Sensing the growing lack of confidence in government by the people as well as a reduced ability for the Empire to defend itself, Barbarians attacked, saw rewards in doing so, and attacked again until all semblance of Roman power disintegrated.


6: The Empire Did Not Collapse-- It Moved

Often overlooked in the collapse of the Roman Empire is the fact that the Eastern Roman Empire, which would become the Byzantine Empire, continued to exist until it finally collapsed in 1461, not with the fall of Constantinople as is most famous but with the fall of Trebizond, the last city that identified itself as part of the Byzantine Empire. Even then, the framework and religion of the Eastern Roman Empire continued to live on in two new nations: the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire-- by framework in the former and faith in the latter. Because of a common perception that the Byzantine Empire represents a non-Western civilization in the fashion of the Roman Empire, its importance is often forgotten and overlooked. In a sense, the Byzantines are not regarded as "Romantic", which is actually quite silly considering that their laws, their military, their economic structure, and their religion were very similar to the Western Roman Empire's in the latter centuries.


7: Reapers

Godlike, sentient alien starships descended from space and blew up the Roman Empire with really noisy exploding laser beams that left only drooling knuckle dragging simpletons in its wake. As a result, smart people didn't happen again for about 500 years-- but the Reapers will be back! It's in the rules!

Hah! Just when you thought you were safe, just when you thought you had a month or two to breathe after the last journal...

WRONG!

Get reading, buster.

---

Do you remember when genetics used to be cool?

Everybody remembers TMNT, where mysterious glowy green science stuff (Mutagen) could radically and instantaneously imbue lowly creatures like turtles and rats and humans with incredible (and often bizarre) characteristics through a radical genetic transformation. People also remember Jurassic Park and Michael Crichton's wondrous adventure into a land populated by long-extinct creatures resuscitated by old dead mosquitoes and more science stuff, and those magic letters: D-N-A. Whatever happened to these happy, youthful days where toying around with genetics like a kitten with a ball of string seemed like such a rip-roaring good time?

Time is what happened. We grew up- at least partly, and so did the field of biotechnology- at least partly.

Suddenly, a fantastical future where we could manipulate genes and transform people and creatures and things not in the slow march of generations, but in one generation or one year or one month isn't all that far away. It's visible, and in some ways it's already here. Suddenly it's not just fun and games-- it's serious business, and it could define the coming decades in really big ways.

Case in point? The controversy over GMOs. What is a GMO? Essentially, a genetically modified organism. It could be fish bred to be pretty and phosphorescent pets, corn engineered to resist pesticides, microbes engineered to produce useful chemicals, the list goes on-- and that's just the stuff that's already with us.

What's the controversy? On the surface, there's the very visible protest crowd with a familiar litany of grievances. GMOs cause cancer, destroy the environment, spread like weeds, destroy cultures, come into your house uninvited, drink all your beer, rape your housepets, and crash on your couch a mumbling, urine-soaked mess. And so on.

But what's really behind the controversy? What makes people so upset? These are the questions I'd like to discuss.

Personally, I believe that GMOs are so controversial because they represent not just an uncertain future, but an ugly present defined by large agribusiness corporations with the power to seize enormous tracts of land armed by their patented GMOs. Because genetically modified crops have patented genes, and because they can reproduce or cross-breed with local species, any future plant that contains a patented gene, by law, becomes the property of whoever created the GMO. This means that if your farm is next to another farm that grows GMOs, you'll be 'illegally' growing GMOs within the space of a year or two and forced into a lot of legal and financial trouble with big agribusiness companies.

On the other hand, GMOs have benefits that can't be ignored. Plants engineered to resist plagues of insects or fungus or weeds translate directly into more food, and more food means one of two things: more food security or more people. We are in the midst of a new Green Revolution, and the reality is that it'll be up to people like us to decide at some point what is or isn't acceptable.

I know. Responsibility sucks, doesn't it?

Let's face it. We've been misled.

This isn't to say we've been lied to, per se. It's just that most English speaking people who have examined or been shown military history have been shown a very specific perspective-- namely, that of curly haired geeks from Sandhurst.

There is an idea that seems to have set in, a perception that has been almost universally accepted as fact, and a key consideration in the strange, arcane transition of militaries from Archery to Musketry. Anyone examining the late renaissance to the early modern period has to factor in the transformation from medieval military structures and technologies to what we usually envision when thinking of the early modern-- muskets, bayonets, and uniforms instead of armor. Explaining this transition is tricky, but because audiences are 'stupid', we're spoon-fed really ridiculous reasons that this change took place. I'm going to try and take these apart right now, to challenge this popular/conventional 'wisdom'. I may not be precisely correct, but by God this idiotic death spiral of ignorance must be contested.

---

Myth #1: Archery fell by the wayside because it took 10 years to train an archer.

Wrong. Where does it say in any actual military documentation that even a professional archer requires 10 years of experience to make a decent showing in combat? The fact of the matter is, the longbow is a weapon with two operational requirements: Strength and Endurance. Precision and speed are completely secondary considerations, especially when you remember that formations of archers would fire volleys to saturate an area with fire, something not requiring years of practice. To be an archer on a battlefield, the key qualities of a soldier were the upper body strength to draw the bow as well as the endurance to possibly draw and hold for a minute or minutes at a time. Developing these qualities does require some conditioning, but many men of the medieval and renaissance eras were already conditioned by the hardship of their lives.

Additionally, this idea that it takes 10 years to develop precision and speed in archery seems completely bogus. An effective trainer and a trainee working with a man-sized target can develop the precision to hit that target at 100 yards with regularity after a week. One week. Combining this skill with rapid and effective reloading takes longer, but if precision is an issue, one week of training is sufficient. Not 10 years. When you consider this, the only real disadvantage of archery over musketry and crossbows is that it takes two weeks to a month to train a group of archers to a degree of competency whereas it might only take 1-2 weeks to train soldiers to become competent crossbowmen or musketeers. This disparity of 1-2 weeks can add up, but it alone doesn't explain the transition from archery to musketry.

---

Myth #2: Bows are better than muskets because they reload more rapidly.

It is absolutely true that bows are faster and easier to reload than muskets, but to suggest that raw rate of fire translates directly to combat effectiveness is quite iffy. History shows that changes in weapon technology occur for highly practical and common-sense reasons. That being the case, there must be a reason that armies began deploying crossbows and muskets in lieu of bows. While part of the embrace of musketry in Europe is attributed to advertising and 'keeping up with the Joneses', at its heart the transformation has practical roots.

A skilled individual archer can fire more rapidly and accurately than a skilled musketeer. However, individual talent tends to be eclipsed by formations in large battles, during which archers and musketeers alike focus on volley fire-- flinging the highest density of fire toward the enemy as possible with limited regard for accuracy. Supposing that a competent formation of archers can loose 17-20 arrows a minute and a competent formation of musketeers can fire 3 shots a minute, the advantage seems to go with the archers.

Then you run into a serious problem: Lethality. These men are here to kill each other, not just to hit each other. A single strike with an arrow through the arm or even the torso can be very painful, but seldom lethal. A strike to the arm or torso by a musket ball, however, is generally fatal. These were big bullets, considerably bigger than those we use today, and they shattered bones and tore apart flesh on impact. Thus, you start to see that the musketeers are not at such a disadvantage after all- they may only be able to fire 3 times a minute and their range may be comparatively short, but they only have to hit their target once to kill them. By contrast, an archer would have to be very lucky or skilled in order to kill their target in one hit. A musketeer wearing armor on his center of mass and head had an even greater chance of closing with a group of archers, and many musketeers of the late renaissance were equipped with armor for this very reason.

---

Myth 3: Guns Killed Chivalry

There's a prevailing myth, particularly among fantasy aficionados, that guns are ugly things that destroyed the age of knights and chivalry in a puff of black powder. To say that muskets did not play a role in the demise of the feudal aristocracy is incorrect, but to exclusively blame the gun misses the point.

So if guns didn't kill chivalry, what did? The answer, and this sounds crazy at first, is the printing press.

Prior to the printing press, everyone in Europe lived and died within 50 miles of where they were born. They thought of themselves as part of a village and they thought of their feudal lords as the source of all worldly power and they thought of the Church as the source of all spiritual power. The transmission of information through literature was closely guarded because books were so precious and expensive. As a result, people were completely oblivious to the concept of a greater world or a nation-state. Their world was a very small place.

The printing press changed that fundamentally. It was first used to disseminate the word of God, but the technology soon found its way into a new role: Defining social groups. Suddenly, everyone was part of this new idea: We're not citizens of the town of Fluffenburg, we are Germans-- part of a vast community that didn't previously exist. By making individuals feel like part of a grand cultural community, you see the rise of a new government concept: the Nation State.

Every indication is that the Nation State is what killed chivalry. People could imagine themselves as part of a massive community, a nation, and they could also imagine this community led by a single powerful monarchy much more potent than their local lords. This simple concept transformed Europe, and eventually led to the demise of the old aristocracy. Muskets could kill armored knights, it's true, but what really killed them was a fall from power brought about by words on paper, and this story echoes everywhere that an information revolution occurred, not just lands with muskets.

---

Myth #4: Longbows trump Crossbows

Much of our contemporary understanding of the longbow's abilities come from two chosen glories: The battles of Crecy and Agincourt, during which English and Welsh longbowmen distinguished themselves against larger numbers of professional French and allied troops. One of those battles, Crecy, involved a duel between Genoese mercenary crossbowmen and the famed longbowmen. The longbowmen won.

These two battles are widely known and contribute towards the 'legend' of the longbow-- namely, the supposed supernatural qualities of the weapon. However, there is no actual evidence to be gained from either battle that the crossbows employed by the French and Genoese were actually inferior to the longbows used by the English. The idea that longbows deliver better range than crossbows is largely myth brought about by the longbow 'legend'. In reality, the draw weight and ballistic performance of Genoese crossbows and English/Welsh longbows was quite close. The Genoese crossbowmen also had a clever defense against enemy archers- a thick wooden shield worn on the back called a Pavise. This protected them as they reloaded and offered cover against the superior rate of fire of the longbow.

The details of these two battles are widely discussed, but it's what happens after these battles that is generally missed. The English lost the 100 years war because the French figured out the weaknesses of the longbow while the Genoese crossbowmen that met with such terrible disaster at Crecy would continue to fight with distinction and skill up until the 1500s, well after black powder weapons became in vogue. This longer view of history indicates that the crossbow, not the longbow played a greater part in military supremacy in continental Europe, but we seldom hear about it because of the British telling of events.

---

Myth #5: (I'm throwing this in for kicks to see how many people make it this far) Guns do not belong in a fantasy universe because of the presence of Magic.

The chief argument is that the power of magic sabotages technological progress. In theory, magic provides a readily available and direct source of power, reducing or eliminating the limitations that force people to innovate and create new technology.

Yet even within this argument there is a ridiculous lapse of logic. If magic exists, why should swords and armor exist? Those are technologies too, right? If magic exists, why are there castles? Shouldn't magic be able to blast castles into molten blobs? Castles are technology too.

Beyond military considerations, what about governments and social structures? What about agriculture? What about commerce? All of those things are technologies. If magic exists as a direct source of power, would it destroy those technologies too?

Every well-regarded fantasy universe makes the limitations of magic clear from the onset for the simple reason that it forces characters and cultures to innovate. This fits neatly into basic concepts of good storytelling: that obstacles will exist or arise that must be overcome with effort. Because magic precludes exertion, it must be limited.

It boggles my mind that many people believe that people continue to use the excuse that the existence of magic denies the existence of technology. It is almost universally used not as a scholarly argument, but as a justification for a personal prejudice against a specific technology. Long story short, if you don't want pocket watches or airships or crossbows or plate armor or guns or any kind of technology, for God's sake stop using this ridiculous excuse to justify your sentiment. Come up with a real, original explanation why these technologies do not exist and at least make an effort to not look like a prejudicial idiot.

Are you an investment banker? A mortgage broker/lender? A hedge fund manager? Maybe the CEO of a multinational bank?

Well, if you're not, the dynamics of the financial pickle we're in may seem pretty mystifying. How did this all happen? How did too many houses destroy the world's economy and put it in such a predicament?

Here on FA we are visually oriented folks. This video may examine the credit crisis in an American context, but the debt/credit problem is playing out in many nations, as we can all observe.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx_L.....feature=relmfu


In the end, like all things related to finance, it is a crisis of trust- trust misplaced, trust betrayed, and trust that must be rebuilt to move on.

Long Live the Trololo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world.....kCV_story.html

Conflict is part of our nature. It is a vital and pressing part of our lives, it permeates our fiction, and it differs widely from person to person or group to group. Conflict can obviously be bad- to most of us, it seems like a bad word, one that evokes emotions of pain, uncertainty, frustration. However, conflict can also be beneficial, reshaping the order of communities, societies, and nations to include the excluded, bring opportunity to the shunned, and overcome limitations.

Don't be fooled by conflict's beneficial potential, however-- there is no such thing as 'peaceful' conflict. They are opposites. One cannot have a conflict without internal uncertainty, frustration, and grievance. How we react to conflict is a means of striving for peace.

So I challenge you to think up a couple of specific conflicts or issues going on right now within the furry fandom, or within groups and interactions related to our culture. This is based on the assumption that if you're here on FA and have access to comments that you are a member of this culture.

A good question is this: Is there even such a thing as a 'furry fandom', or are we simply an amalgam of groups occupying the same server space?

Another: Is there a recurring conflict that you find yourself pulled into repeatedly regarding this culture/society?

From the onset I've tried to think of how players would theoretically take to the field in a battle game between the various belligerents & armies in the Realm of Sejhat. While I initially looked at it from a computer game standpoint, I've had to take a step back to try and think of things more broadly, and now I think I have at least a few core concepts that could be preserved in different gaming scenarios, from pen & paper to miniatures to real-time strategy.

First off, I'll address the matter of deployment. In many tabletop games armies are fully deployed at the onset of battle, in full sight of either player. This means that the full strength of each player is always visible. In contrast, computer strategy games tend to make extensive use of the 'fog of war', which greatly conceals the adversaries' resources from each other. With one, you could argue there is too much tactical awareness and with the other there is too little.

Though I have a few different ideas on certain playable missions and battle scenarios, the one I think holds the most appeal is something of a "Vanguard" system. Each player begins the battle with a limited number of mobile or specialist forces collectively called Vanguards. Whether or not they can see each other is dependent upon the geography- units can see each other from across the battlefield if the space between them is open, but if obstacles are in the way then they are unaware of each other until line of sight is achieved.

Vanguards have three responsibilities-- reconnaissance, preparation, and skirmishing. Firstly, vanguard units endeavor to not only locate the enemy but also point out any peculiarities in the geography, such as boggy areas that could slow units down or vantage points that offer combat bonuses. Second, vanguard units like engineers can exploit areas of the map and prepare them for battle. They can lay traps or set up defenses, but as time is limited they can seldom accomplish both. Finally, vanguard units can attack each other to try and sabotage these early attempts to capture vital ground.

Once a certain amount of time has elapsed or either player's vanguards have been routed, the battle proper begins. The main bodies of the opposing armies arrive, and it is only at this point that the full resources of either army are revealed to either commander. Taking advantage of the preparations made by the vanguard forces, the armies then attempt to obtain victory by one means: the destruction of enemy morale. This is accomplished by disrupting the enemy's command structure, placing the main body of the enemy's army in a physical position where it cannot obtain victory, or destroying enemy troops and formations until their will to fight evaporates.

Some units play like 'rock, paper, scissors', in that they excel against specific enemies but are weak against another, but there are also many units that offer balance for those that prefer versatility over specialization. This is a battle setting similar to the Napoleonic Wars, so the forces available to you will be either Infantry, Artillery, or Cavalry. Sorry, no A-10 strafing runs or Predator strikes!

I had certain special battle modes in mind as well, but overall the Vanguard/Main Force dynamics were what I thought would put an interesting wrinkle in the strategy involved. There is no base building, only the troops of the vanguard and the main forces that arrive thereafter, and there are no mysterious shrouds of magic fog blinding troops from enemies more than 20 feet away from them, though gun smoke can have a very similar effect after several volleys. This makes battle less of an act of accountancy and blind guesswork and more of an act of maneuver, exploitation of the terrain, and the preservation of fighting spirit.

Something recently occurred to me. Despite financing some of the best and most popular games ever made, EA is almost universally loathed by the gaming community.

I admit, I'm not all that fond of it either.

For the uninitiated, EA is the gaming giant behind developers like Maxis, Bioware, Dice, and Crytek. It is famous for franchises like The Sims, Mass Effect, Battlefield, Command and Conquer, FIFA, and Crysis. It is also infamous for taking beloved franchises and ruining them with shoddy sequels, bait and switch schemes, and a notorious Digital Rights Management (DRM) system.

EA makes an easy target. It's one of the biggest forces in the gaming industry, it's greedy, and it's done a lot of damage to a number of beloved titles and creative properties. Even so, it's easy to forget in all of this that EA has made and continues to make good games... if you can ignore the litany of overhyped sequels that are hyped up beyond all reason and invariably fall short of expectations.

For instance, let's take a look at the company that was once Maxis. People who once loved Sim City and The Sims point to the fact that Will Wright, the key creative driving force behind both franchises, is not associated with them anymore and the "Maxis" brand no longer exists. What's easily forgotten in the mass-marketing of Will Wright's genius is that Maxis was in financial ruin before EA entered the picture. EA picked up Maxis and immediately set about the creation of Sim City 3000, an improvement over Sim City 2000 and the key source of financing for what was arguably the biggest phenomenon in gaming history: The Sims. You can justifiably seethe over the endless, addictive stream of 'content packs' thereafter or the slaughter of the Sim City name with "Sim City Societies", but you can't do it without recognizing that Maxis' other great titles wouldn't have been possible without EA.

Now let's take a look at Bioware. Bioware came onto the scene alongside TSR in 1998 with the smash hit, Baldur's Gate, which began a long history of quality RPGs for that company. Despite making a relatively unbroken string of popular and successful games, however, Bioware faced financial trouble with its associate companies, most notably in the case of Interplay and the loss of the Dungeons & Dragons license. When EA became Bioware's holding company, it gave Bioware the financial leverage necessary to push forward two titles: Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins. While the sequel to Dragon Age: Origins was a critical disappointment, the (first) sequel to Mass Effect is something of a legend and a truly beloved game. The games are certainly the work of Bioware, but you can't ignore the fact that EA money was behind them.

The story repeats itself, with EA rescuing developers, coming out with some great games, and then shamelessly milking the creative properties until they dry up. It's certainly sad that EA has made the deaths of the games we love an art form, but it's also easy to forget that these games may not have seen the light of day were it not for the 800-lb gorilla. I still don't like EA, but after considering these things, I do at least give them some respect.

It's interesting to observe that while technology itself has a tendency to move steadily forward with the occasional leap, modernization can either be a slow or an incredibly rapid process depending upon the circumstances. On the one hand, Russia struggled to modernize its nation due to its vastness and its conservative society, but on the other hand Japan transformed from a feudal nation into a modern empire and world power in the space of just 30 years.

The Realm of Sejhat is similarly populated with cultures caught behind the technology curve. I've already imagined a number of struggles and 'growing pains' related directly to this phenomenon, but I was curious to know what you folks wanted to see. Uh, bear in mind that when I say 'modern', I mean it in the context of the realm's Industrial Revolution/Napoleonic setting and not 'modern' in terms of 21st century tech. While I'm sure you'd love to see raptors in F-22 Raptors shooting missile swords at people, I think it would be a little... lore breaking.

A while back I posted a journal called "Old Timey Fightin'- an FAQ", which was a fairly broad profile of social and military trends in the Napoleonic era, trying to demystify the common practices more commonly thought to be strange or insane.

(that journal is here, for the curious --> http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1708056/ )

This is sort of a continuation, if you will, answering more in-depth and precise questions for anyone potentially curious.


Q: I've come across mention of 'lines' versus 'columns'. What are these, exactly, and why are they important?

A: Roughly up until the rise of Napoleon, most nations in Europe (and to a degree, the Americas) fought and marched into battle primarily in battle lines. This was so widespread that the common foot soldiers came to be called 'line infantry'. In brief, a disciplined line of soldiers could present the greatest potential firepower against the enemy without presenting many weak points. Even so, lines had significant weaknesses, most specifically that they could be flanked and broken apart if hit from the sides. Lines were also difficult to maneuver, as hills, marshes, obstacles, trees, and even tall grass could slow down and disorganize an advance. As such, for most of the 17th and 18th centuries line infantry combat in the field was a matter of attempting to turn the enemy's flanks, then attack them.

Napoleon's star rose at about the same time that tactics were changing. Faced with the threat of Revolutionary France and its large armies, France's rivals deployed ever larger forces in the field. To compensate, the French threw more men at the problem as well. This resulted in ever larger armies taking the field. Napoleon took advantage of the situation by using columns to attack, rather than taking time to always form into battle lines. Columns are formations that are generally rectangular in shape, and longer than they are broad. Such concentrations of men could smash through even disciplined lines of battle by weight of their numbers, but like lines columns also had their weaknesses. Columns, being tightly packed rectangles of soldiers, were big targets for artillery and disciplined musketeers. Also, being narrower, columns couldn't match the firepower of lines. Thus, in many situations there were duels between columns and lines, with line infantry struggling to slow down and break apart columns before they could close in and smash through, and columns struggling to close with the enemy as quickly as possible while keeping the formation intact.


Q: How did cavalry beat infantry, and how did infantry protect themselves from cavalry?

A: Cavalry of the period were in most cases very different than the knights of the medieval and renaissance periods. With the exception of elite units like the cuirassiers, most horsemen did not wear armor and relied on speed, surprise, and the weight of the charge to ride down enemy soldiers. Cavaliers often made full use of their speed and impact to tumble enemy battalions, regiments, and even full armies into ruin. Lacking any armor of their own, infantrymen were often at the mercy of enemy cavalry if they arrived intact and struck from behind of in the flanks. Cavalry were also exceptional at silencing enemy artillery crews, disrupting communications, and cutting units off from one another, sowing confusion into the enemy's ranks.

Infantry had two primary answers to cavalry charges: The Bayonet and the Square Formation. Bayonets were not new in the Napoleonic Age. Their purpose was simple: turn every musketeer into a spearman to fight off the cavalry. Though a single soldier with a bayonet was often no match for a horseman with a saber, a group of disciplined men standing shoulder to shoulder, each with a fixed bayonet, would be very difficult for a horseman to overcome. The square formation broke a line of infantry into four sections, then turned them into a square with all guns and bayonets pointed outward. This formation was immobile and purely defensive in nature, but very effective against cavalry because horsemen could neither flank nor attack the rear of such a formation.


Q: Why fight in formations, anyway?

A: It is difficult to comprehend warfare of the Napoleonic Era in the context of modern warfare. Today's emphasis is on small, cohesive, offense-oriented units of men with enormous individual firepower and access to armor, air, and artillery support, meaning that concentrating a lot of men in a small area is a recipe for disaster. At the time, however, the offensive power of the individual soldier was very limited. In order to present the enemy with a credible threat it was necessary to bring many soldiers to battle, and the only way to move those soldiers effectively was in formations.

Formations solve a number of problems. First, the close proximity of so many soldiers improved morale-- the instinct of safety in numbers. Second, formations give forces with large numbers of soldiers combat effectiveness. Third, formations like columns were easier to maneuver quickly over long distances, often along roads, a quality that saved Napoleon himself many times. Fourth, formations prevented ill-discipline-- whether they wanted to or not, many soldiers were trapped within the formation and left with no recourse but to fight. Finally, formations were an important traditional part of martial discipline and war well before the Napoleonic Era, and traditions have a way of being carried on.


Q: What was/is the Corps System?

A: The Corps System revolutionized the way that armies fight, especially in the West. To this day, part of Napoleon's military legacy can be seen in the way that many militaries are organized. But what is it, exactly?

Prior to the Corps System, militaries were organized primarily into regiments, each with its own specialty, usually led by a colonel. A general had the singular authority over a very large number of men and units, but each regiment existed as a separate part and the army would only be functional or complete if all the regiments worked in concert.

An Army Corps, by contrast, divides an army into smaller fighting forces, each with its own infantry, cavalry, and artillery assets. Each Corps had its own general, and while these generals were subordinate to a commander in chief, they had more independence and flexibility than traditional armies. A Corps could defend against superior numbers or contribute its assets toward a major offensive. In a sense, by dividing the army and its authority it became much stronger. While many Corps often had combat specialties, each was capable of reacting and adapting to any given situation at any time. This proved immensely powerful to Napoleon, and many of his greatest victories can be attributed to it.


Q: What was a Grand Battery?

A: Simply put, a Grand Battery was the concentration of an entire army's artillery assets into a single area with the intention of bombarding the everloving crap out of some unfortunate part of the enemy army. Napoleon used this tactic to soften up or blast holes in the enemy army, and it carried its own risks- concentrating all the artillery in one place deprives other units of much-needed artillery support. It was mainly used as an offensive strategy, and it didn't always work- General Robert E. Lee attempted it at the Battle of Gettysburg prior to the ill-fated Pickett's Charge. Despite that one bad example, it was at times an astonishingly effective strategy.


Q: Where does the term "Dragoon" come from?

A: Dragoons were mounted infantrymen that specialized in rapid deployment, and the name comes from the type of musket they originally carried, a shortened muzzle-loader called a 'Dragon'. Dragoons began as soldiers trained in both riding and infantry combat, but gradually became more traditional light cavalry units as the use of firearms by cavaliers became more prevalent. To this day, dragoon units are employed as rapid response forces, though their mounts of choice are generally armored vehicles now.


Q: How did Ambulances and Triage change warfare?

A: Ambulances, combined with field hospitals and the practice of Triage, weren't simply added to armies of the time out of a sense of altruism and humanity, although those are certainly important factors to consider. Though the evolution of Battlefield Medicine was gradual, up until the Napoleonic Wars it was a fairly disorganized affair carried out by volunteers, soldiers, and the local populace. Without a systematic method of saving the wounded or burying the dead, armies were doomed to take many unnecessary casualties even without fighting.

Designated Ambulance drivers/runners were vital in the collection of wounded from the battlefield even in the midst of fighting, and through their rapid responsiveness soldiers could be carried to safety and shelter, greatly increasing their chances of survival. Napoleon's surgeon general, Dominique Jean Larrey, developed the Triage System, the organization of treatment options for various degrees of wounding. By reserving the most intensive care for those with the greatest need for it and categorizing the wounded, many lives were saved and many soldiers returned to duty in good time. Eventually, battlefield medicine became an important facet of all Western militaries for the preservation of troop morale, fighting effectiveness, and public support.


Q: What determined the quality of a fighting unit?

A: Many of the same factors that determine fighting effectiveness today applied equally to soldiers of the Napoleonic Era. The quality of equipment, the quality of food, and the number of effective fighting men vs. invalids in a unit were important factors. In some instances, the quality of weapons made a difference, though most muskets performed roughly equally in combat. Training was vital, but in contrast to classroom smarts, obstacle courses, co-reliance exercises, and tests of leadership the key training utensil of the era was drill. A thoroughly drilled unit could be counted on to competently follow instructions and fire upon the enemy in spite of hellish combat conditions. An individual's personal initiative and attitude were less important than their ability to follow instructions to the letter and without question. This was a habit that proved hard to break when military tactics began to shift towards smaller, cohesive units centered around non-commissioned officers. The quality of officers also had a tremendous effect on fighting effectiveness, and competent, confident commanders were highly sought after in contrast to veteran soldiers. Despite the general focus on higher-echelon leadership, nations did raise 'elite' units whose troops were selected not upon social standing, but combat experience and proven bravery. However, many 'guard' units were in fact decorative and inexperienced units kept well away from actual fighting since they were populated by the children of the nobility and upper-middle classes, and not as effective in combat as one might imagine.

This issue has periodically popped up on the game's forums and message boards, with most TES heads shaking 'no' as they, somewhat justifiably, imagine Dovahkin being some dickhead running around medieval fantasy Sweden with an M4 carbine.

The thing is, as you may have guessed, I don't see what all the fuss is about regarding guns in a fantasy universe. Perhaps its their relative modernity, how the gun changed the way combat is conducted, and so on. Perhaps it's also that they don't have an apparent niche in a fantasy realm-- why use muzzle loaders when flinging a spell is just as viable?

I've already seen some efforts of modders to create muzzle-loaders and muskets for Skyrim, but only as standalone mods without real implementation by NPCs or any kind of integration into the lore of the Elder Scrolls setting.

So here's my idea- for anyone who's played the game and paid attention to the story, you know that there's this great big elephant in the room, something perhaps more disconcerting than even the reappearance of the dragons, and that's the Thalmor. You know, the oppressive high elf regime that has apparent designs on world domination, or at least the conquest of Tamriel and the subjugation of humans.

Less well known is the fact that the Thalmor and the Empire both fought each other to near destruction, and that Hammerfell, land of the Redguards, continued fighting the Thalmor until much later. The Redguards are a proud martial people with a decidedly Oriental bent to their apparel, weaponry, and military tradition not unlike the Moors and Ottomans.

So here's my little way of working firearms into Skyrim. In short, the Redguards needed a weapon to fight the battlemages and armored troops of the Thalmor, and since the Redguards are not keen on magic they'd be an ideal 'fit' for matchlock muskets and arquebuses, which would give a common soldier a real fighting chance against armored troops without requiring training in the arcane arts.

Since the Great War, both the Thalmor and their Imperial/Redguard rivals have been arming up and preparing for the next conflict, one that both sides have every intention of winning. It would be totally unsurprising if the Redguards began mass-producing musketry and that the Nords, who hate both magic and Thalmor almost as much as the Redguards, would want to get their hands on such a weapon.

Here are the problems, and it'd be interesting to hear what potential solutions people might have. Many are purely practical--

1. How would a gun work in game?
I suggest that muzzle-loading firearms have similar ballistics to archery, but far faster and heavier-hitting projectiles that ignore an opponent's armor rating. Unfortunately, the cost of this is that firing the gun even once gives you away to the enemy, denying you the stealth you might otherwise enjoy with a bow.

2. Where would a gun 'fit', and how would it offer advantages over in-game weaponry?
I suggest that guns are used tactically, possibly in support or against hard targets. Like bows, they should be both craftable and upgradable with smithing skills. Successful hits with firearms would train the marksman skill, and marksman skill traits would also apply to muskets.

3. How do you handle ammo?
This is something I'm not so sure about, since we commonly think of bullets as lead and there is no naturally occurring lead in the game. You may have to buy it from merchants or you may have to craft bullets from other materials, each with its own relative 'quality'. Perhaps ebony or orichalcum bullets would offer superior killing power over iron and steel bullets.

4. How would the AI handle the use of muskets?
This is perhaps the trickiest issue to tackle. It is easy to see how the player could exploit the advantages of a musket, but it stands to reason that random AIs should also be similarly armed, since they already use all of the game's other weapons. Existing archers in the game use vantage points and stand more or less still while firing at the player, which gives us a start, but would it be possible to also use the musket as an impromptu close combat weapon, not just nudging people with it but also clubbing them with it? That might give the AI a chance if the player does the obvious thing and close ranks with the musketeer.

5. Who would have muskets?
I suggest that muskets not be found on random lowly NPCs, since they'd most likely be considered 'new' weapons and therefore expensive. Perhaps some of the Imperial Guard, the city militias, high-level bandits, and even the Stormcloaks would have musketeers in the ranks. In the case of the latter, it sounds odd to have Nord traditionalists carrying modern weaponry, but when you think about it they're rebels who might not turn their noses up at a chance to blast a hole in an Imperial legionnaire.

6. What about that reloading?
Thankfully, this is a fantasy setting and not everything has to be completely realistic. It would be judicious to give muskets a lower rate of fire than bows, since they're more powerful, but I doubt many players would have the patience or the lifespan to wait even fifteen seconds while reloading while a bandit tries to carve directions to the nearest smelter into the player's skin with a broadsword. I'd say five to ten seconds would be about right, and reloading could be interrupted in case of close combat.

7. Would having muskets in the Elder Scrolls erase all joy from existence?
I shouldn't have to answer this question, but a lot of people out there behave as though an explosion carrying a ball through a tube somehow magically transforms fantasy into lame. The truth of the matter is that the very embodiment of the Elder Scrolls games has always been giving the player the freedom to choose. If muskets exist in the game, I agree that they shouldn't be so overpowered that they force the player to use them, but at the same time I don't see why they couldn't be implemented in a fun, thoughtful fashion that offers a new set of tricks, tactics, and counter-tactics.

8. Archers have quivers. What would musketeers have?
Well, this might not be a pressing question, but it would be a nice detail. I imagine that a cartridge pouch or bandolier would sit in for a quiver quite nicely, and imagine if they all had different aesthetics like the various arrows-- a Daedric cartridge bandolier, how would that look? Hopefully as badass as the armor...

I'm venting, and when I vent, I ask people rhetorical questions... and usually throw in my two cents on the matter, too. Why am I venting? Well, check my previous post. I've already restarted the project, so I'm taking a quick break to interrogate the spectators.

My question today is this: What, to you, qualifies as offensive sexual behavior, and why? Too often we're confronted with issues like pedophilia, bestiality, rape, incest, and so on and we almost primordially and instantly reject these behaviors without asking ourselves why.


Personally, my issue on the perspective is this: Pedophilia, bestiality, and rape are deplorable, at least in my opinion, because they are clear cases where the recipient of the sexual act cannot or does not provide informed consent. They are either subjected to or tricked into sexual exploitation, and since sex is (supposedly) the most intimate of acts, it is among the highest violations of the individual and the concept of the individual.

If we as a culture are to believe that all people and creatures have an identity, and that these identities are hallowed ground, then we morally bankrupt ourselves when we engage in or endorse acts of sexual violation against the defenseless, voiceless, or powerless. Wresting away a person or an animal's basic dignity for the sake of indulgence and pleasure is thus no less a crime than wresting away a person or animal's life. This explanation may not fully represent the instinctive disgust I have for pedophilia, bestiality, and rape, but it does at least offer some philosophical grounds for how I feel on the issue.

Sexuality is always a touchy subject, and varied, and DEFINITELY intrinsic to the furry fandom. I'd like to hear how you all respond.

Have you ever had that feeling when you just finished an entire project in photoshop, tried to save it, had it crash, and lose every goddamned thing you've been spending your whole day working on?

If not, well... consider yourself luckier than me!

I'm gonna try to start this thing over again. Not much else I can do. Just wanted to give you guys a heads-up that I had art, but the dog ate it.

Well, I MIGHT have to go, depending on my luck. I've been selected for jury duty!

Here's hoping my attendance isn't deemed necessary and I can actually act out on some of my life's plans.

I'm not usually one to play minigames or browser-based distractions, but I heard about this little gem and it caught my eye, so I gave it a try.

It's called "Sweatshop", and it puts you in the shoes of an assembly line manager in a nondescript factory that manufactures cheaply made designer apparel that sells for 80 or 90 times its worth in store. You get to make hiring decisions to try and balance cost, efficiency, and quality.

This starts off easy, but you'll soon understand that there are worse jobs out there than yours!

Unless you don't have a job, in which case you'll discover that there are some jobs that are worse than being unemployed, or even dead.



http://www.playsweatshop.com/

I went to Florida and, inspired by the local ratio of religious institutions to actual living citizens (1:1), I finally got down to making up religions for the realm of Sejhat, all of which are reasonably silly and inaccurate affairs that I'm sure the real, honest-to-goodness god of creation, Sejhat, would get a real kick out of if he hadn't had his unhappy head cut off of his really pissed off body and FedExed to the middle of nowhere.

Still, there's something to be said about religion. It has a way of motivating people, reflecting both individual and social norms, codifying conduct, and generally making an earnest attempt to explain the looniness that is the mortal experience.

There's an installment for each of the four major factions: the Beastfolk, the Dwarves, the Elves, and the Humans. It was great fun trying to create faiths based on racial, social, and historical contexts and may go a long ways toward explaining the dispositions of the races themselves. Personally, I'm kind of torn between the Dwarves and the Beastfolk.

---

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7180552

The Beastfolk faith, called Avism, is a religion with two principal deities of equal power: Hawk and Raven. While Hawk leans towards virtuous behavior and is the guardian of ascended souls, Raven is also benevolent in a more peculiar and creative fashion. The strife of the world is largely explained by the natural conflict and friction of the two, matched by the inherent friction of the Beastfolk- a people at odds with their very nature.

---

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7180590

The Dwarven faith, called Culainism, is something of a hybrid between Celtic and Norse mythologies. They have five predominant gods called Heroes, divine brothers and sisters who don't always agree, but guide and aid the Dwarves in their struggles against their rivals. It is a faith steeped in song, valor, rivalry, unity, and tradition.

---

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7180623

The Elven faith, called simply the Pantheon, is a roughly Greco-Roman inspired panoply of 150 Auspices, demigods of varying power, and their rise to the apex of civilization before falling prey to vanity, distrust, and eventually all-out war. From these flawed, but powerful beings rise the greatest virtues and aspirations of the Elven people.

---

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7180651

The Human faith, called Odem, is inspired by Islam and Zoroastrianism. It is a monotheistic faith that follows Mankind and its offshoots through their cosmic struggle between the mysterious, benevolent power of the Lord and the very embodiment of evil, Nadir, king of oblivion. Intertwined with the rise, fall, and rebirth of the faith is the story of the Prophets, their Disciples, and the rise of the Caliphate as a major world power defined by faith.

---

Individually, I hope that they are compelling and intriguing fake faiths, but together!

Together... they will give you a headache. Read them separately.

http://killscreendaily.com/articles.....s-i-ate-skyrim

Imagine viking adventurer stuffing two cheese wheels into mouth with one hand while killing enemies with an axe with the other.

Hilarious mental imagery ensues.

If 60,000 people camping out in Manhattan has made a statement, it's that people are a bit mad about corporate America right now, maybe even corporate policy worldwide.

Everyone's got an opinion about what's gone rotten. It's a culture of greed, it's a devaluation of the worker, it's a lack of regulation, or it's the sign of a growing schism between company ownership and employees.

Certain individuals have responded by attacking the protesters themselves, calling them Anti-American, lazy, indignant, and selfish in their own right. In my opinion, this only underscores the theory that executives at the highest levels of many corporations are simply out of touch with the average worker. Proposals to tax the wealthy, to muzzle the wealthy, and to force executives to better compensate their workforce also more subtly underscore how we, the average American, may also lack the perspective of the Fortune 500 executive crowd.

I think most people understand that the purpose of business is to provide labor for profit. I think that both executives and workers are in the game to profit, if not to 'win'. There is common ground between workers and executives, but there's a lot of confusion about where things 'all went wrong'. The global economy, as we've heard to death, is ailing and the response to hard times for most companies has been to increase prices, introduce new fees, or reduce risk. This means that people with less money are being asked to pay more, and it's ruffled a lot of feathers, mine included.

It begs the question: What the hell is going on? We expect the leaders of modern business to have an eye for profit, but can't they tell that they're alienating themselves from their consumers? From their foundation?

Of course, I have a theory on what's happened. It's complex, yes, but I'd like to think that it comes down to basic human needs and basic human failings.

This is not some sort of extraterrestrial threat. The CEOs of today's multinationals are not some race of superior space aliens with massive intellect, an incompatible set of values, and some sort of tar-like substance flowing through their veins. I think.

Like us, they seek profit. Like us, they seek a something a little better all the time, and like us they seek to hold on to what they've gained. Like us, they also have a way of forgetting the foundations of their success and placing less value on what they have than what they have yet to obtain.

Arguably, the most successful and massive modern multinational corporations today are Publicly Traded Companies, which welcome investment from just about anyone, rich or poor, with the promise of higher stock values and steady profit. These companies are massive because of the amount of public capital flowing through them-- a Private Company can't match the extraordinary resources of thousands or millions of investors.

But not all is well in Publicly Traded Companies. The desires of the shareholders are voiced, vaguely, by a Board of Directors. Weirdly, the modern Board of Directors (or equivalent) is not actually staffed by employees or executives of the company. They are outsiders, people with big money and lots of capital whose primary interest is a payout, with less of an emphasis on the health or structure of the company they are presiding over.

Boards of Directors have a great deal of power over executive candidacy and compensation. As relative outsiders to the actual operations of the company, it's not uncommon (in fact, it's quite common) to appoint Board members or ex-politicians as the CEO of their respective companies. For anyone who's gotten a shareholder report in the mail before, you're probably familiar with the sense of bewilderment at just how much of everyone's money is going straight to the CEO, along with a very generous and cushy safety net, or 'golden parachute', in case the CEO is forced to resign or the company goes bankrupt.

Since the policy of most Boards of Directors is to hire people from outside the company, almost invariably the CEOs are people without any real anchor in the health of the company they preside over. Their duty is not to the company or the employee, or even the shareholder, but to their own continued existence. They're effectively today's mercenaries, and often have work and interests on the side that distract from, or even directly contradict the aims of the company. Put concisely, they're in it for the pay, not for the long haul.

What impact does this have? Why is CEO loyalty important? Does this have any bearing on the common worker, like you and I?

It does. A CEO without any connectedness with his company ethic or workforce has no incentive to protect them. If he succeeds, he can secure a healthy income for a very long time, and if he fails he is personally insured to walk away from disaster mostly unscathed, or at least with enough money to retire quite comfortably. Without any intimacy with the company he focuses, quite naturally, on himself.

What does this do to the salaried employees and management of the company? What does this say?

For the company loyalist who works hard with the hopes of obtaining that valuable promotion to an executive position, it simply says that the company doesn't value their skills or even their chairs. It transforms the real, loyal management of a company into a separate strata, just a layer of workers beneath the Board of Directors and the CEO. If there is no hope that the company's executives can one day become Board members or CEOs, a definitive ceiling is placed on their careers. Simply put, there is no longer any chance of rising to the top.

So, with demands coming from above and no hope of ever getting there, the company's management and executives also begin to think about themselves. Rising to the company's leadership is no longer important, since it has no real value. The main concern, then, becomes finding ways to profit personally. Loyalty to the company becomes valueless, and by extension loyalty to the workforce is also valueless. The more people that can be found to lay off, the better, since the best hope of compensation upper management has comes in the form of bonuses.

It should come as no surprise under this climate that many of our immediate or district supervisors appear to be unconcerned with the health of the company and the viability of its workforce.

And now we get down to the foundation of the matter, the workforce. The lowly grunt, the local manager, and the shit-shoveler. With the company leadership trying to destroy the company executives, and the company executives trying to gut the workforce, the only real cause for loyalty and hard work most employees have is pure income. Like our bosses and our bosses' bosses, the average employee has little reason to care for the company they work for. They work for the day, for the dollar, and for that nagging, persistent hope that one day they will be valued as human beings, and not simply fleshy tools. We work under 1,000 rules and the fear of punishment, for if we break a rule it is a sign of poor performance, and if we break two rules we'll be thrown on the street. Our motivation to stay is purely monetary. We too are mercenaries, jumping through hoops, wheeling, and dealing for a paycheck and a shot at more money, regardless of cost.

A company that doesn't trust its own employees, its own foundation, cannot succeed in the long term. Standards of conduct, a work ethic, and performance expectations are completely meaningless without loyalty to tie it all together. If there is no loyalty to the company at the top, there can be no loyalty to it at the bottom, and this is why large Public Corporations are eating their own guts in the hopes of staying solvent.

What's the solution to all of this? You can't regulate good business practice. You can't force people to be nice to each other at the threat of a lawsuit. You can't rob Peter to pay Paul. None of these solve the endemic, long-term issues.

What you can do, however, is start to place value on the workforce, and I think one of the best ways to do this is to provide opportunities not just to rise, but to rise all the way to the top. We need more CEOs who rise from within their own companies. We need more executives who rise from the workforce. We need a chance to reach the top, because greed is a powerful, powerful motivator and it can be harnessed for good, not just for ill. We're all a bit greedy on the inside, and the resentment we feel frankly comes from a belief that we will never get what we want, no matter how hard we try. If the economy is to recover, we don't need to attack the rich. We need to go straight to the source. We need to destroy despair, and all of the policies that enable it.

And the winner is: Dress Uniform!

Although I have to admit, this is far from being a unanimous vote. Almost as many people want traditional armor as the dress uniform, so I've already started on one of each! Admittedly, the armor version is a bit cooler IMHO...