Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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Rik
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

Post by Rik »

Yačay256 wrote:I was just wondering what everyone's conreligions and conphilosophies are ...
Herewith, details of the Vreski Warding System.

Basically, the Vreski folk think that life is a punishment from God and the world really is out to get you. The warding system is their means for dodging the bullets.

Enjoy!
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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Do they plan to kill Demiurge too?
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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Micamo wrote:Do they plan to kill Demiurge too?
The Vreski folk do not differentiate between the creator and the demiurge. All they see is the disgrace of mankind in their creator's eyes, and the subsequent punishment they still endure.
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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Well, kill the creator then.
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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Micamo wrote:Well, kill the creator then.
Why?
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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Someone who's dead can't punish them. Unless they accept their punishment and just want their creator to love them again. But in that case they're just Christians.
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

Post by Ossicone »

Micamo wrote:Someone who's dead can't punish them. Unless they accept their punishment and just want their creator to love them again. But in that case they're just Christians.
Or anyone with daddy/mommy issues.
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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Ossicone wrote:Or anyone with daddy/mommy issues.
So Christians then.
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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Micamo wrote:Someone who's dead can't punish them. Unless they accept their punishment and just want their creator to love them again. But in that case they're just Christians.
They're more "half glass empty" folk.

The official religion was mainly a means of controlling the population: "what nasty people we are; we've disappointed our god. Only total obedience and penance will give our souls the chance of earning his love again" - that sort of crap.

Of course the little people, the ones not doing the controlling, looked for angles to help them avoid the worst of the 'punishments', which led to the development of the (officially frowned upon) pop-psychology/pseudo-scientific warding system. When the Vreski Empire collapsed - taking the state religion with it - stories, morality tales, pseudo-science and the warding system was pretty much all that was left for the surviving population.

(By typing this out I'm assuming you're not trolling me for the heck of it ...)
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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Rik wrote:
Micamo wrote:Someone who's dead can't punish them. Unless they accept their punishment and just want their creator to love them again. But in that case they're just Christians.
They're more "half glass empty" folk.

The official religion was mainly a means of controlling the population: "what nasty people we are; we've disappointed our god. Only total obedience and penance will give our souls the chance of earning his love again" - that sort of crap.

Of course the little people, the ones not doing the controlling, looked for angles to help them avoid the worst of the 'punishments', which led to the development of the (officially frowned upon) pop-psychology/pseudo-scientific warding system. When the Vreski Empire collapsed - taking the state religion with it - stories, morality tales, pseudo-science and the warding system was pretty much all that was left for the surviving population.

(By typing this out I'm assuming you're not trolling me for the heck of it ...)
Christianity pulled the same trick back when the church was a big deal. It sounds like, after the state-church apparatus collapsed, the Vreski embraced the superstition rather than rationalism as ours did. Which honestly is more realistic than reality, in a sense. How did the empire collapse?
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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Micamo wrote:Christianity pulled the same trick back when the church was a big deal. It sounds like, after the state-church apparatus collapsed, the Vreski embraced the superstition rather than rationalism as ours did. Which honestly is more realistic than reality, in a sense. How did the empire collapse?
Everything you ever wanted to know about the decline and fall of the Vreski Empire, in one easy web page
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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I read your page, and although you do explain that the empire fell, you didn't really explain why in much detail. Here's what I took from it: After the imperial capital was lost to earthquakes (and presumably lost the government with it) several factions sprung up and tried to grab the reigns all at once. Although Maniko was able to nominally take the role as emperor, he was not able to quell this bloodlust completely which eventually lead to the final stage of the dissolution once the throne was empty once again. But this just doesn't sound right to me.
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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Thank you for taking the time to read the page. It's good to get feedback on my conworld.

The final fall of the Empire starts during Lokiduer's reign, a century after Maniko. At this point in time the Vreski Empire has become a closed-in society with scant trade beyond its borders. Lokiduer's long reign and failure to marry/produce heirs leads to the rise of competing factions - which sets the scene for the civil war to follow. The end result of the civil war is a massive reduction in the population (death, disease, exodus into the interior of the continent), which in turn leads to the abandonment of many settlements and the collapse of much of the agricultural system - without the necessary food, and no viable links beyond the border to support the existing power structures, the Empire fails.

This scenario has possible precedents on Earth (eg Indus Valley civilisation, golden age of the Mayans, etc), but is - I think - much more reasonable on Kalieda, for 2 key reasons:

1. The planet is generally hostile to terrestrial life due to biological/biochemical differences, making human settlements much more fragile - there's more info about this on the art and science of cultivation and related biology web page if you have a spare 15 mins.

2. The whole planet is in the midst of a climate shock as temperatures fall and ice caps form at the poles - though the disaster has less of an impact on the lower lattitudes (the Empire straddles the equator), it still has some effect on local climates and cultivations.

Does this help?
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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Rik wrote:Thank you for taking the time to read the page. It's good to get feedback on my conworld.
No problem!
The final fall of the Empire starts during Lokiduer's reign, a century after Maniko. At this point in time the Vreski Empire has become a closed-in society with scant trade beyond its borders.
Well, this certainly explains a lot then. I cannot even begin to explain how vital a healthy division of labor is for a prosperous society; When the trade goes, all forms of civilized life must go with it. Even partial breakdowns are disastrously harmful.

So what caused the trade breakdowns with outsiders? Climate shift making the usual routes far too treacherous, or the (far more common) political reasons of protectionism?
This scenario has possible precedents on Earth (eg Indus Valley civilisation, golden age of the Mayans, etc), but is - I think - much more reasonable on Kalieda, for 2 key reasons:

1. The planet is generally hostile to terrestrial life due to biological/biochemical differences, making human settlements much more fragile - there's more info about this on the art and science of cultivation and related biology web page if you have a spare 15 mins.

2. The whole planet is in the midst of a climate shock as temperatures fall and ice caps form at the poles - though the disaster has less of an impact on the lower lattitudes (the Empire straddles the equator), it still has some effect on local climates and cultivations.
Did humans evolve on this planet? If so then if Kalieda is so different then they would probably have evolved biological differences to account for this.
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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So what caused the trade breakdowns with outsiders? Climate shift making the usual routes far too treacherous, or the (far more common) political reasons of protectionism?
Cataclysmic climate change is the main driver, but those other Societies that knew of the Second Vreski Empire (mainly the Istrans) had no love for them or their doom-laden state religion.
Did humans evolve on this planet? If so then if Kalieda is so different then they would probably have evolved biological differences to account for this.
Humanity arrived on the planet some 6-8 thousand orbits ago, so no real time for adaptive evolution to kick in. Goats, on the other hand, have adapted nicely - or at least their gut flora has adapted (possibly with the help of some early colonisation bioengineering handwavium stuff). Without the goat handwavium I couldn't work out a way for humanity to survive on the planet and at the same time lose enough of the advanced technology to give me an interesting scenario to play with.
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

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Rik wrote:Cataclysmic climate change is the main driver, but those other Societies that knew of the Second Vreski Empire (mainly the Istrans) had no love for them or their doom-laden state religion.
That doesn't sound very realistic; If there's a buck to be made I doubt most merchants would deny a paying customer for ideological reasons.
Humanity arrived on the planet some 6-8 thousand orbits ago, so no real time for adaptive evolution to kick in. Goats, on the other hand, have adapted nicely - or at least their gut flora has adapted (possibly with the help of some early colonisation bioengineering handwavium stuff). Without the goat handwavium I couldn't work out a way for humanity to survive on the planet and at the same time lose enough of the advanced technology to give me an interesting scenario to play with.
What happened to the colonies to make them lose their technology? Why did nobody else come to help them after the silence? I've done this myself: My hand-wave was what I called "Eco-communes." Special planets terraformed, kept natural, and reserved for those who grow tired of the complications of modern life and long to return to a simpler time. Those people are just dropped off on one of the Eco-communes so they'll leave the rest of us alone. Any attempts to communicate with them from the outside are strictly prohibited. In fact the planets themselves are wrapped in "bubbles" to keep anything unwanted from getting in.
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Re: Religion/Philosophy of Your Conculture(s)

Post by LetoAtreides »

Micamo wrote:What happened to the colonies to make them lose their technology?
Learning about complicated technologies is a hard work, isn't it ? Welfare tends to make people lazy and less likely to study complicated equations. This can make hi-tech societies less stable than sci-fi fans would like them to be.
Special planets terraformed, kept natural, and reserved for those who grow tired of the complications of modern life and long to return to a simpler time.
A good idea.
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