Re: Elves and Ill Bethisad

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@W...>
wrote:

> You asked me to name a pair of things that clash in Ill Bethisad
Jörg, I can see your dilemma.  There are many things in IB
I'd do differently if I were in charge if I were in charge
of it all (which I thankfully ain't), but it's not a big
problem thanks to the fact that our countries are usually
rather independent of each other.  Unless you require a
neighboring country to interact strongly (eg wage war) with
yours, it's rather easy to ein Auge zudrücken when you
don't like what happens other ends of the globe.  In fact,
should the going one day become too wild in IB, you could
extract your nation relatively intact.  ;-)

If you don't like what's happening in Dûnein, how about
relocating your Elves to Scotland?  I'm probably wrong, but
I'm under the impression that Scotland hasn't gotten much
attention from IBers so far.

As for the dreadful situation in Dûnein...  well, unifying
forces are weaker in IB than *here*.  Loose assemblies of
quasi-sovereign states are more common than large unified
bodies.  I could imagine that the provinces of Kemr have
relatively much autonomy, and that the civilized provinces
don't have the constitutional means to change that.

Padraic: What about decoupling Dûnein from Kemr as an
independent country?  Would that mess up too many things?



> 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.
...which I always have a hard time delineating in my own
conculturing efforts.  Thus I'm glad to have other people
taking care of the dark side in IB.  =)



> 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.
I thought even *there*, Europe was full of progressive
democracies.  It just has more dark spots that *here*.
Then again, I'm not all that well informed.  Anyway, the
existance of a King and a nobility does not a backwards
right-wing country make.  Just ask the Jervans.  Their
King is practically devoid of political power, and even
he is elected (albeit by the nobility, which in turn is
little more than organized high society with a politcal
party like any other).  The Commoners are dominated by
left wing parties while the nobles are predominantly
right-wing, leaving a nice stable balance of progressive
and conservative movements in the parliament.



-- Christian Thalmann

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