Hallo!

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 23:10:52 -0000,
Christian Thalmann <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> --- In [log in to unmask], 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.

Well, countries interact quite a lot during their history.

>       In fact,
> should the going one day become too wild in IB, you could
> extract your nation relatively intact.  ;-)

Which I did.  And considered the issue settled ever since then,
though I always wished things in Ill Bethisad had never developed in
such a direction as to make this ultimate step necessary.
I made the mistake of pointing out *publicly* why I wouldn't return to
Ill Bethisad when John Cowan invited me to come back, and that fell
onto Padraic's feet, so now the debate has started over again.

> 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.

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.

> 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.

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.

>      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?

I think that such a change would benefit Kemr.

> > 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.  =)

Yes, I too find it difficult to design a "downside" into my favourite
conculture.  For example, the image of football[1] hooligans smashing
shop windows while waving the Evenstar Flag[2] seems wrong to me.

[1] Football as it is understood in Britain, i.e., soccer.

[2] The "Evenstar Flag" is the national flag of the yet-unnamed
    Elvish province: a blue flag with a white 8-pointed star.

> > 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.

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.

>       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.

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.

>       Just ask the Jervans.

Whom?

Greetings,

Jörg.