Re: Elves and Ill Bethisad

Hallo!

This thread has grown large, with more than 40 articles so far
(many of them about side subjects, though).  And that on a question
which I thought had been settled years ago.  I now regret having
picked it up again publicly on the list, thus exposing the matter to
people who see things differently.  I see that you have a number of
question for me, which I shall answer below.

First, I apologize for any misunderstandings that might have
happened within this thread.  I never intended to offend anyone.

You asked me to name a pair of things that clash in Ill Bethisad,
and I can name one, right in the heart of it, which has been
a sore point for me from the very beginnings of my involvement
with the project.  It is Andrew's representation of Kemr as
a thoroughly modern, democratic western European country
vs. Padraic's representation of Dunein (allegedly a part of Kemr)
as a quasi-feudal poor country essentially stuck in the ways of
the 19th century.  It is true that modern western European democracies
tend to have rural, conservative, less affluent backwater regions,
but Padraic's Dunein with its lynch mobs is far worse than that.
*Either* Andrew is right - then the Kemrese national government
should support Dunein in a way that it manages to catch up with
the rest of the country, and take measures against lynch mobs,
landlords treating their tenants like livestock, and so on,
and be it mainly because they cannot ignore the votes such programs
could return from a substantial part of the country.  *Or* Padraic
is right - then the Kemrese national government must be very much
unlike a modern democratic government if it allows a part of the
country to suffer such appalling conditions.

I found Andrew's Kemr a fitting environment for my modern-day Elves:
a place as modern as any part of western Europe, but retaining some of
the romanticism often ascribed to the Middle Ages (which the Middle
Ages in fact never had, of course).  My idea of the Elvish province is
that it is prosperous and advanced, with high-tech industry - fine
mechanics, optics, electronics, information technology, renewable
energy technology, biotech, nanotech.  Not sci-fi goosh-wow, but among
the most modern stuff available today.  And a progressive, liberal,
open-minded society with a strong Green Party.  I find it hard to
imagine this being a part of the same polity as a province only a
hundred miles further south where many villages have neither
electricity nor paved streets, and landlords virtually *own* their
tenants.

This contradiction just asked for being cleared up, but nothing
happened.  I expected a word of judgement from Andrew, but it did not
come; thus I decided to withdraw from Ill Bethisad because I could not
stand that incertainty, and interpreted Andrew's non-interference as a
sign that he had "canonicized" Padraic's Dunein.  When I heard soon
later that Andrew himself had retreated from it too, I found myself
vindicated - and proposed to him a "relaunch" of Ill Bethisad,
later to become Dragon & Star.

And no, I never interpreted IB as an attempt towards an utopia where
the sun always shines and everyone is happy all the time.
Of course, any realistic alternative history has its dark side.  But
my perception of IB was (and still is) that it is a less advanced,
right-wing-dominated place, though things are of course not as simple
as that.

You also asked about the Dragon & Star project.  (Sorry, Padraic,
for interpreting your question as a humiliating comment.)  This has
not progressed much beyond the basic premise, which is the existence
of Kemr as envisioned by Andrew, and of the Elves as a part of Kemr.
Both of us concern themselves mainly with other projects.
We haven't decided yet about the part south of the Severn Estuary
(though Andrew once said, "the English can have it"), but Padraic's
Dunein is explicitly *not* part of D&S.  The rest of the world differs
from our timeline only in details, just as much as necessary to make
Kemr and the Elves possible.

Greetings,

Jörg.

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