Faith of the Fallen.

[jasoncyrus]

True also, but an army without a leader is like shooting ducks in a barrel. You'd just need to pull the crushed glass trick again ( but in a much larger deployment) and poof, ruined army.

 

[Merteg]

True also, but an army without a leader is like shooting ducks in a barrel. You'd just need to pull the crushed glass trick again ( but in a much larger deployment) and poof, ruined army.

They have said Jagang could be replaced fairly easily.

I suppose the crushed glass trick could work pretty well, but it would take a while to do it on a scale large enough to make a big dent in the Imperial Order.

 

[jasoncyrus]

Indeed, although a similar effect could be attained with powdered/shredded metal.

 

[Merteg]

Indeed, although a similar effect could be attained with powdered/shredded metal.

To a higher or lesser degree, do you think?

 

[jasoncyrus]

it would depend on the metal really.

A harder metal like cast iron, if it could be effectively blown would have a superior shredding effect due to its brittle nature, thus would have more jagged edges to ruin tissue.

If it was something toxic like lead then, though it may not shred very well, it would definately poison. Whether said poison would be fatal or simply make troops incredibl ill is the question.

I hear aluminium powder can cause respitory failure, dont quote me on that one though.

 

[Merteg]

it would depend on the metal really.

A harder metal like cast iron, if it could be effectively blown would have a superior shredding effect due to its brittle nature, thus would have more jagged edges to ruin tissue.

If it was something toxic like lead then, though it may not shred very well, it would definately poison. Whether said poison would be fatal or simply make troops incredibl ill is the question.

I hear aluminium powder can cause respitory failure, dont quote me on that one though.

I see. It seems this thread is slowing down. How sad.

 

[jasoncyrus]

Well it is 3:32am in the UK....people in the us are probaby having dinner atm or going out to the bar etc or w/e. They arn't true geeks like us =(

 

[Merteg]

Awwww, how true.

Heh.

 

[Alex_P]

have you read the books? many empires in the books were not won by battle but were seduced just as you say.

Between excerpts, Goodkind's writing about the books, and his fans' writing about the books, I can say with confidence that I'm not really missing much by avoiding the several-thousand-page series.

Especially since Faith of the Fallen is basically The Fountainhead. And I've read Zamyatin's We, which is the far-more-thoughtful (and far shorter -- no need to drag stuff out for five hundred pages) prototype for most books about why regimented socialist utopias are bad. It's the book that people who rip off Rand are secretly ripping off without any idea that they're doing it.

-- Alex

 

[MusicalFreedom]

MY WORDS EARLIER

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Don't drink and post, kids.

 

[SamuelT]

Liked the series, but the Order was a bit overdone. Not everyone of the hundred thousand in the Old World want to live under them. But everyone seemed so willing. It would never hold for that long.

<---Look! Pictures!

have you read the books? there were three types of people in the old world.

-people who wanted change
-people who didn't
-people who wanted change but hated themselves for it because they thought it made them evil.

the first lot wanted change but were kept in check by the second group, and the third group kept themselves in check because they thought nothing good would come of it. this would have lasted a loooooong time but! It was Richard that opened the eyes of the third group and combined them with the first to over-throw the second. if that makes any sense.

Of course I read the book. But it's odd that it kept this long. A dictatorship that surpressive could never hold for that long, even with the magical help of the Gifted. An enitre group of the populace would rise, and causing civil war. But this wasn't shown, the people all lived beneath the order's banner.

I don't want to argue about this, alright? Just leave it at that.

 

[captainwillies]

Liked the series, but the Order was a bit overdone. Not everyone of the hundred thousand in the Old World want to live under them. But everyone seemed so willing. It would never hold for that long.

<---Look! Pictures!

have you read the books? there were three types of people in the old world.

-people who wanted change
-people who didn't
-people who wanted change but hated themselves for it because they thought it made them evil.

the first lot wanted change but were kept in check by the second group, and the third group kept themselves in check because they thought nothing good would come of it. this would have lasted a loooooong time but! It was Richard that opened the eyes of the third group and combined them with the first to over-throw the second. if that makes any sense.

Of course I read the book. But it's odd that it kept this long. A dictatorship that surpressive could never hold for that long, even with the magical help of the Gifted. An enitre group of the populace would rise, and causing civil war. But this wasn't shown, the people all lived beneath the order's banner.

I don't want to argue about this, alright? Just leave it at that.

ok i wont argue ill just say that techniqually they did end up rioting in the end didn't they. now lets leave it at that.

 

[Merteg]

have you read the books? many empires in the books were not won by battle but were seduced just as you say.

Between excerpts, Goodkind's writing about the books, and his fans' writing about the books, I can say with confidence that I'm not really missing much by avoiding the several-thousand-page series.

Especially since Faith of the Fallen is basically The Fountainhead. And I've read Zamyatin's We, which is the far-more-thoughtful (and far shorter -- no need to drag stuff out for five hundred pages) prototype for most books about why regimented socialist utopias are bad. It's the book that people who rip off Rand are secretly ripping off without any idea that they're doing it.

-- Alex

I'd say Faith of the Fallen is more than that.

The other books are very good, I would be surprised if you read them and didn't like them a little.

 

[Alex_P]

I would be surprised if you read them and didn't like them a little.

I wouldn't. The typical fantasy novel is already an overlong book full of poor diction, weak characterization, and unimaginative plot -- I know, I read a lot of them as a kid, -- but when you combine the usual failings of a fantasy novel with self-congratulatory black-and-white moralizing(*), masturbatory hero-worship, evil chickens, and yeards, you've absolutely guaranteed that I'm not going to enjoy it.

-- Alex
__________
* - Ahem. "Armed only with their hatred for moral clarity". That really says it all.

 

[Alex_P]

um, that's kinda what America is coming to. basically, the society in the book was based off Stalin's USSR.

The kind of welfare-state-love-in mentality that y'all are describing isn't the driving force behind the Stalinist state. At its most basic, Stalinism is about nationalism and revenge -- the revenge of a poor laboring class against the society that enserfed and abused it (which rages wildly out-of-control because the proletariat itself was complicit in its own exploitation, so minorities within the proletariat are easily recast as collaborators). The leveling imposed by Stalinism has nothing to do with charity; those who don't or can't work aren't "rewarded" by social programs, they're punished as counter-revolutionary criminals or left to starve on their own devices.

And it's certainly not something you can dispel with a pretty statute. I mean, shit, here's your statue on display as a symbol of communism at the 1937 World's Fair [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kolkhoznitsa.jpg] -- it's even got that kind of Objectivist-approved realist/art-deco thing going on.

-- Alex

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

Skeleton, As an Objectivist, I have to disagree with what you said, I think that if hard working, more intelligent members of society were put at a lower priority that stupid, lazy members, society would be not very pleasent.

As an objectivist, I agree. As a human being, I don't believe anyone should be given the power to determine the worth of entire human beings. No one has the right to possess such power, and it WILL corrupt. Not that it can, but that it will. There is not a single incident in history to my knowledge where anyone has been given the power to determine the worth of several thousand human beings and everything turned out well.