Ali the Helering

The British Empire was not a bastion of democracy - it was an Empire of 680 million ruled by the votes of approximately 8 million, most of whom neither knew or cared about the lives of the vast majority. While we introduced the theory of promotion without reference to caste, it was only in theory. Thugee was a term the East India Company used to apply to a number of distinct sects with very different social and religious practises. They appear more and more likely to have been largely an invention of minds fearful of the unknown, and were certainly never regarded as a major threat or problem by the local rulers previously. The hospitals and schools were built to support and produce a class of civil servants to sustain the Raj, not for the vast commonality of the population, and the railways were built for British purposes, not to provide an Indian infrastructure. Don't buy into the 'White Man's Burden' propaganda of Imperialist self-justification, please! It really is a racist nonsense. As for "compare the oppression", it was not I who suggested that Asia suffered less from the epidemic. I fully agree that the Celtic countries have been ground under the English heel, but that doesn't make the Indian Raj any more acceptable. Growing up in Burma? I was two when my parents left for the UK, but listening to my sisters indicated a life of privilege in a country that had yet to experience the full horrors of SLORC and the 'Burmese Road To Socialism'. It is worth remembering that their xenophobia struck at both East and West, leaving the nation isolated and decaying. My sisters played with 'the servants' children', since we had cooks and nannies and house-servants. What a lovely democratic example for the locals.

I was born in Myanmar, which at the time was part of 'British India' so I consider that I have a dog in this fight. The British didn't administer India, we systematically looted it. Their railways were built for the purpose of taking goods to the coast so that the mills of England could churn out goods to sell to the poor benighted souls of the Colonies, America and Europe! They are still trying to unpick the oppressive laws that we bequeathed them. I would have to say that the caste system no more concentrated influenza than did the dire class systems of Europe and north America. Race is a human construct. Its definition and the racism it engenders have varied over time, but remain insidious. I still favour the uz over the eco-terrorists of the forests, but there you go....

Not an easy thing to prove in UK terms, actually. Spanish 'flu is reckoned to have killed 228,000, and at the moment the Government figures for Covid are 136,986, BUT there has been big concern that the Government has narrowed the definition of a 'Covid death' to lessen the impact on public morale. The figure should be significantly higher. As has been said, these issues are worldwide. Either way, one 'excess' death is one too many.

Unfortunately a colleague of mine (a week before UK's first lockdown) said - "Oh, it'll be alright. It won't be as deadly as Spanish 'flu." As though that was the sole measure of concern. Plus the pandemic sure as hell ain't done yet.

all as per Jajagappa, and on one occasion a Yelmite chariot blessed with an obscene number of points of Lokarnan 'Hie Wagon', accelerating it to a yellow blur.

Presumably their equivalent to Occluded would therefore be Smokin', and would require green-face and a yellow suit?

Uz might not use the same framework as humans, with the dark-light polarity. They could just as easily use hot-cold, with the result that an Arkati becomes "Really Cool" or "Chilled".😁

I think this may be why many sci-fi universes tend to resemble the popular portrayals of later 19th century of American history or the legends of medieval England. Government control is tight in a few select places, otherwise forms of feudalism and laissez faire local authority/lack of authority is the norm.

MGF my man, always MGF

4 Rune Point Summon Inigo Montoya

Give them the Mongoose source books. That'll keep them guessing forever🤣

Not sure why this is dumb?

The ancient tome "In Wintertop's Shadow" had unmelting ice....

Both/and, rather than either/or

Surely the POC are the extremist Helerings...😇

Have you spent any time in Georgia?

Or simply the provision of moving targets therefore....

One must never forget the much maligned (& much maligning) Bored of the Rings, whose Prologue 'Concerning Boggies' informs us that "they are fully capable of overpowering creatures half their size when they get the drop on them" and that they stand "somewhere along the evolutionary line that leads from rats to wolverines and eventually to Italians." We ignore the Harvard Lampoon as a Gloranthan canonical source at our peril....

I believe Pratchett would say it sounded quantum...

If the impelling power is directed from the surface of the moon, that could be utterly terrifying during the Blue Streak.

The sources state that it is a reaction to a loss of confidence in the solar spirits of the Celestial Empire, following the defeat at the Nights of Horror. This means that it has achieved its present position in slightly over a century. My guess is that it was always a minor tradition on the steppe, probably inherited from the Hyalorings.

Your Glorantha May Resemble The Real World 😭

Yeah. Always check references before shooting from the hip.

Their methods have changed a little. Not enough for everybody's comfort, but a little. The screaming tends to be caused by intellectually tortuous arguments, not the torture of intellectuals.

Nobody expects the Methodist Inquisition...