Re: Elves and Ill Bethisad

Jörg Rhiemeier scripsit:

> I don't have a clear image of what is in IB's Scotland, either.
> I think it is not very different than *here*, except that some
> villages in the west speak Breathanach, or something like that.
True.  IB-Scotland was never as overshadowed by IB-England, as the
personal Union of the Crowns developed into a federation rather than
a full union.  Scots is the official language, although English, Scots
Gaelic, and Breathanach are also spoken there.

> This is actually something I like.  But there should be standards to
> be met, and federalism ought not to be an excuse for leaving entire
> provinces in appalling squalour.
No, it shouldn't, but examine the U.S. state of Missisippi.

> I dimly seem to remember several military takeovers and other
> unpleasantnesses in the news section of Padraic's site.  But that
> might merely be *there*'s equivalent of the Balkan wars.
Wars in the Balkans, the Chinese successor states, and North America have
indeed been among the regrettable features of IB recently.

> >       It just has more dark spots that *here*.
OTOH, there was nothing like the Holocaust, and although one nuclear bomb was
dropped, Great War II wasn't really on the same scale as WW II.  Nor does
IB have a single hegemonic superpower in 2003.  Indeed, even regional power is
mitigated by the tendency (which I think of as the theme of IB as a whole)
for overlapping governmental organizations.  IB is full of condominiums,
swapped cities, unions that cross national boundaries, and so on.

> Certainly; the various European constitutional monarchies (*here*, I
> mean) are testimony of that.  The many monarchies in Ill Bethisad
> might be of a similar kind.
Mostly they are.  I can hardly think of a single absolute monarchy, and
even dictatorships are not that common.  IB is a more traditional place,
for good and evil, than *here*.

> >       Just ask the Jervans.
>
> Whom?
They occupy the High Kingdom of Jervaine, which is Alsace and Moselle and
part of the Black Forest, and speak an independent descendant of Latin,
not closely related to any Romance language, called Jovian.

--
John Cowan                                jcowan@reutershealth.com
At times of peril or dubitation,          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Perform swift circular ambulation,        http://www.reutershealth.com
With loud and high-pitched ululation.

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