@Maou

Please,

I

can't

read

your

post.

Please

use

paragraphs.


Not as extremly as I did here, but please at least some.
Was anything in that Wall of Text an response for me?
If yes, I'll try to read it again...

I was beginning to think Maou was Oorstemothian and trying to overwhelm us by encoding all his messages in giant walls of text.

It seems like something an Oorstemothian would do.

I'm not sure if you got this, in the written translation, but listening to them speak requires a huge amount of concentration on understanding them. Particularly given the accents....sheesh...

I would like to see you speak in a simple cipher with small print and lots of color...

of course, verbally, does lots of color mean you'd be using "colorful language" i.e. swearing a lot?

Yes, but my point remains...my text to speech program can't translate that.

What does it sound like?

I'm not much of a written word person, that's why I hired a ghost writer...and at the rate he's typing up book 2, he really must be a ghost...apparently takes lots of concentration to move each of the keys on the keyboard ectoplasmically or telekinetically or whatever it is ghosts do.

The biggest problem demons have with writing is that paper dries out very very fast in the Abyss due to the heat and gets brittle

Plus there are random acts of flame throwing, exploding gas balls...in all not a really conducive place for books and parchment.

Now, the advent of m-books, (mirror-books) has helped, but to write in that, you have to use a speech to text spell, so it's more like dictation than writing.

Antefalken's writings are done in Astlan.


Actually, the various Exadors have published numerous texts, dissertations and research notes, again in Astlan.

There were writings by Ramses....so when demons write it's mainly in Astlan or some other plane of man.

The topics are about what you'd expect, sex and violence things going boom. A number of demons have sold scripts to Michael Bay.

Also lots of HBO...well...OK, that and Cinemax After Dark....

Oh! It must be these demons who write those horrible books and make those horrible movies. Demons are just horrible out to give us horrible experiences. Some of the books just makes me wanna projectile vomit sometimes. Uhhh!

There are more of those horrible writers in every genre.

Technology in Astlan and Abyss is very much incoherent at most times.

Jenn's diary for example had surprised me, for such a person to have one and used for such mundane writing, the book must have been affordable. There is also a hint that it is mass produced. That just indicates a rather high bookmaking technology.

The image in the welcome page is full of this inconsistencies:

--The wine glasses is of modern style. Old glasses are ornate and heavy.

--The candles looks like modern paraffin wax candles. Such advanced chemistry there. They must have known about petroleum and petroleum refinement.

--High heels?

--The bricks is rather non medieval. Most uses stones in those times.

--The books on the shelves is rather modern. They all have the mass produced look in them.

--The parquet floor. It just speaks so unMedieval.

--The carpet has a modern pattern and such a large carpet isn't really likely to be made in those times.

--The cushions pattern is again modern.

These are just a few of them.

I was also bemused at the number of technologies found in the Abyss. The steel and concrete and glass skyscrapers is one of them. Where do they get the materials for them? The knowhow on how to build one?

The escalators and moving sidewalk also surprised me. I assume they are magic, but then you mentioned they are plain old science. Wow, how do they make one. The technology for them isn't really that simple you know. The early form of escalators for example are death traps and tend to break.

Im not that surprised by elevators. It is a rather old technology and the concept is rather simple.

The cars are another astonishment. They are again complex devices. How are demons able to create a working one? Where do they get fuel?

Now the computers, that is just preposterous. They must have stolen them rather than make them. I just can't see how they are able to make even those old vacuum tube ones.

Really there are a lot of inconsistencies in the book. Still, they are relatively minor and I could ignore them. But there is a danger that they become so absurd.

The inconsistencies are not actually inconsistencies.

As you point out, things are consistently inconsistent.

The Abyss in particular is supposed to be full of anachronisms. In particular, demons don't really "build" anything.

They STEAL things, they have been pillaging the rest of the multi-verse for millenia. The demon princes and archdemons can open Demonic Gateways to other planes and have their minions drive truckloads of stuff through.

Very little is actually "made" in the Abyss. Although quite a bit is "created" via various more magical mechanisms. For example the cars run on Sorcehol. A synthetic ethyl-alcohol created by demon sorcerors (hydromancers, aquamancers--various Water Elementalist demons)

Also, remember how Antfalken notes that the appearance of the Courts changes frequently? Don't assume that everything Tom or others report seeing there is exactly what it seems. There are real things, facade things and illusions. Remember, Demons are about showmanship, perceptions, smoke, mirrors, LIES...appearance is everything, reality is second best. It's not what is real that matters, it's what people believe that matters.

Because for demons, belief can shape reality.


As far as Astlan:

1) No pictures/images are canonical only the writing is; so if pictures seem inconsistent that is the Author Guy's poor artistic skills.

2) However, Astlan is supposed to be very technologically advanced, the same as Earth; they just have different technology.

Do NOT make the mistake of assuming Astlan is medieval Europe etc. It's very definitely not. Remember, these guys (Lenamare) have nukes, or something similar. Medicine and healing is far far more advanced in Astlan than on Earth today. While not widely used by non mana-wielders, they do have instant long distance communication in the forms of mirrors, crystal balls, dreamspeaking and all sorts of other methods.

They have sailing ships, flying ships, magic carpets, teleportation, runic gateways and dragons (and other creatures) for long distance travel.

Also, remember wizards have access to other planes of existence as well. They can't go as far as Earth, but they can steal ideas from other planes. Also, there are demons from far out planes visiting Astlan and introducing ideas and concepts, and masquerading as humans. They will often import ideas from their home realm to make themselves comfortable and Astlanian's will steal it.

Book binding is extremely advanced. It has to be because that's how they have distributed spells for centuries.

I've mentioned this before, where does Lenamare get the money for his expensive research? His school?

He gets it by inventing spells, patenting them and selling them. Check out the various committees of the Council, you'll note there is a patent committee.

They have really good patent laws in Astlan. Most nations or groups have pretty good trade laws and intellectual property laws, all of which foster innovation, trade and growth.

So in short...you are supposed to see lots of inconsistencies, because that's just how Astlan really is.

Edited by user Thursday, July 24, 2014 2:22:44 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I would have to completely disagree with rationalized away.

It is all a very intentional and when factoring in economics, quite logical and realistic.

First though: I want to point out that you are also failing to integrate the other races, some of which are very old, and who do trade with the humans.

Gnomes, Elves and Dwarves in particular. Very highly skilled craftsmen, with fairly stable cultures for long periods of time. Different races develop different things, some they sell, some secrets they reveal, others they keep for themselves. It's a question of production capacity, time and money.
In particular fine metal work, glass work, jewelry etc. These guys produce lots of really great stuff, but they live in relative isolation from most humans, or at least their production facilities are. They produce this stuff for themselves, and their excess they trade/sell. The rich in the rest of the world get access to these high quality products, the poor do not. Acquisition and distribution of said merchandise is a huge issue on top of production capacity and excess stock.

Inconsistencies with who has what/old and new are easily understood in terms of trade. Astlan is not a utopia, there is a very real level of income/power inequality, and because travel and transportation is not democratized, the geographical scale on which this inequality persists is much shorter.

Those who have magic, have a lot of luxuries and "high magic tech" those without, can lead relatively primitive lives, very similar to medieval Europe.
Thus you see some huge differences like the ones you describe. There are very high tech things, but production and distribution are not democratized.

Most of Astlan is still feudal. In many ways it is an Ayn Rand paradise.

If you must compare to Earth, a better example might be the third world today. People in many countries don't have indoor plumbing, but they can tweet and use twitter/facebook via cell phone, while squatting over a hole in the ground, and they don't have TV in their homes but can go to a bar in town to watch the world cup on satellite TV.

Book making, book binding ehh...all comes down to making and reproducing books. Very easy to do with Sorcery and Alchemy. The actual hardest part is paper production, but that as you recall has been done on Earth for a couple thousand years. Some people do have movable type printing presses but it's not that critical when you have mimeograph/xerox like capabilities.

Plate armor, chainmail etc are pretty good when you have magic to back them up and your primary weapons are swords etc. And I point out that Talarius's plate armor is basically a space suit. It works very well against flame weapons and lots of other attacks (and is currently keeping him alive in the Abyss)

I don't quite get your argument there, though, I have to admit. Have you looked at how modern soldiers dress? They wear a ton of armor, plate armor with Kevlar (similar purpose to chainmail) they just put clothes on the outside of the plates and the plates aren't usually metal. Look at modern SWAT teams in large cities.

And yes, I can compare magical healing to surgical stitches. I did in my last post. Here's the thing, if you have something that works very well (magical healing) traditional surgical techniques will be very primitive because there is no need to improve them. Stitching and normal medicine are only used when there is no priestly or magical healing around. Only poor people in backwaters need it etc. So therefore there won't be a lot of advances in the science/techniques.

This is actually true for a lot of things in Astlan. Many things still seem backwater to you, because due to the existence of magic, those with access to it can use magic to do what they need done, there is no real incentive to advance more mundane things that the poor/magic poor people could use since the rich have a better solution at hand.

And when stuff trickles down to the poorer people? Why build land line phone infrastructure, just give people cheap cell phones to keep them happy. Sure 2G/3G Internet on a cell phone isn't good, particularly for a computer, but without the land line structure for towers, it takes time to ramp 4G up. And even then those people aren't going to get fiber optic speed ever. However, for now, they can marginally interact with the rest of the world.

The economic logic above is what leads to what you term as inconsistencies. Poor/selfish trade policies, no democratized transportation, isolated mass production centers/culture centers and a way for the oligarchs to get what they want with magic that they control and only "trickling down" some magic to others

I also think I did say that the cars really only function in the courts where the temperatures about half that of the rest of the Abyss? So alcohol is not a problem

You are hitting it on the head with the demons though. Think Mad Max, they don't have the structure to make things, they steal, fix, jerry-rig etc. So it's all a hodge podge. And they don't share without getting something in return.

Tizzy, Rosver

I think the two of you have some fundamental disconnect on what are inconsistencies vs what is "just the way things are"

The point I would argue is this: there are supposed to be some big inconsistencies and hodge podges in the book.

The Abyss is definitely supposed to be illogical and ramshacke and anachronistic. But Astlan is supposed to be similar.

It's a very mixed up universe for the simple fact that if you introduce magic to a "real" medieval world, weird shit suddenly starts happening.

Traditional fantasy is extremely unrealistic, unless the magic is extremely scarce, civilization will not follow anything close to the path it did on Earth and you won't have a "classic fantasy world" after a very short while.

A Song of Ice and Fire is a place where magic makes about the most sense for a medieval world. Because it's very rare/very hard to do.

When you have a magic rich world in a fantasy book, it will literally turn the economy of the medieval world upside down, and all bets are off, things won't follow the path that they did on Earth. There will be all sorts of incongruities and discrepancies.

It will flood the economy, turn manufacturing, distribution, everything upside down, it will create chaos.

As Tizzy argues, it's not that different than suddenly introducing all the "magic" of 21st century technology and capitalism on Africa, the middle East and eastern Europe/Russia.

You are going to find very odd things and odd combinations for a wide variety of reasons.

This is something that I intended to try and demonstrate. Is it a perfect demonstration, and is it always 100% consistent no. But then this book has been written/edited/reedited over a very very long period of time which sort of makes it hard to keep everything completely consistent.

And my apologies to Tizzy as this doesn't make much sense to you, since, being a character in the book, you just think it's "how things are" and so try to explain it based on your personal experience, when sometimes the problem is my fault.