Re: Rant: Defending Indonesian (was: Re: Newbie says hi)

John Cowan wrote:


>Roger Mills scripsit:
>
>> One can even argue (as they are
>> indeed doing) whether Indonesia has any business being a "country".  But
>> then, why Ghana, why Nauru?  And what is the alternative?
>
>Well, that's one of the themes of Ill Bethisad: overlapping governmental
>organizations.  It's quite common for your local state to belong to several
>different federations, and sometimes federations within federations.
>From the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) standpoint, for example, the mighty
>North American League is just a white extension to their traditional
>Council Fire that sends observers regularly.  France is a bipolar
>country like Belgium here, and Britain is occupied by a confederacy of
>three nations with a lot of internal autonomy.
>
Interesting.  How far back would we have to go in order for SE Asia and/or
the archipelago to have an alternate history?  No European contact? (seems
unlikely)....Use of gunpowder and lethal weapons, so that Indonesians were
able to resist on a better footing? ...China remains as a maritime power in
the region, preventing Eur. intrusions?  (That would be an improvement???)
Some sort of accomodation between Byzantium and Islam, so that trade to the
east was less of an Arab/Indian thing?  Or earlier, direct involvement of
Rome in that trade? (Roman coins at least have turned up in southern Viet
Nam)

Survival of Çrivijaya or one of the later Javanese empires? (I'd go with the
former; otherwise we'd just get a Javanese colonial era-- which is what a
lot of Indonesians think they have now anyway.....)

My impression is that this area is rather a Terra Incognita (ignorata?) in
Ill Bethisad.....This could be a project to occupy my approaching Golden
Years.......I'm sure it's been discussed/posted in the past, but is there a
reliable and relatively complete source for Ill Bethisad history?

Reply