Catty:
Well, f'example, the Church of Senica was always pretty big on healing. They'd have had priests and priestesses out among village communities and so on. Not in every village, definitely not, but...not a bad regional saturation. That goes...a fair way, as an equiv to medical care. A lot of these village priests found themselves rebooted into doctors, post-Deon.
(As an aside, this does mean that...since she still wears the robes and regalia of a priestess, Zastra is well-treated and respected wherever she goes in the Elven nations. People are polite to her. People remember. It annoys Deon a little, though.)
Sirrocco:
But it's quite likely that within a relatively short time, post-shift, a lot of these newly educated and...'liberated' lower classes are going to, well, have pent-up resentment boil over. Especiall now that they've got better economic opportunities. Literacy. Knowledge.
Though it depends on whether there was much resentment and oppression in the first place.
It's not exactly a universal thing. I'm picturing relatively peaceful transitions for the Dwarven Clans, for instance. Perhaps some strife for the Orcs, since they've always been a rowdy bunch - but the former Chief-of-Chiefs, now President General, would have been able to crush any coup attempts relatively quickly. On the other hand... yeah, I can see trouble for some communities further down the line, post-shift, especially a lot of the Elven areas.
Deon himself would be a fair shot with a rifle, but not handguns. Different skill set.
Magic in this world is concentrated more on the individual, rather than physical constructs, see? It's not impossible to make a magical artifact, but it's rather tricky to make one that's self-sustaining, one that can function without the user having to think very hard at it.
This isn't to say that such artifacts don't exist. But they're relatively rare. What did exist hasn't been erased by the shift. So yeah, they're still out there.
Infrastructure in terms of information and knowledge... well, magical lore in the Order Nations was always concentrated largely in the hands of a few specific organisations. The Church of Senica, the Knights of Valin, the Blackrobes, and so on.
I think the Chaos territories would have a rather more liberal view with regards to magic... that is to say, they didn't have groups of wizards and priests jealously guarding secrets in quite the way the Order folks had. Not so big on organisation. So they have a lot more local mystics, tribal shamans, and so on... but due to that lack of cohesive governing bodies for magic, as it were, the study of magic in the Chaos nations isn't as advanced.
I imagine the collected knowledge of the Order nations' magical scholars isn't lost, and some of the magical orders may still exist. Those who were in and around cities might find themselves reorganised or wiped out... the Church of Senica suffered a fair bit. The Knights of Valin found themselves rebooted into soldiers in a modern army. I should note that this...wasn't exactly to Deon's advantage, because it now means there's an underground freedom-fighter/terrorist (depending on who you ask) movement that...
a) has magic, and...
b) also modern weapons and training
On the other hand, there's the Blackrobes. They were a sort of quasi-monastic mage group that weren't actually associated with any religion - they still exist in unchanged form, partially because most of them stayed away from towns and cities, partially because Deon actually liked them.
drakensis:
Especially since...well, magical lore was never really a hidden thing in the Chaos nations. Now they're online, you're going to see shamans and suchlike setting up discussion forums that people over in the old Order nations can read as well. Then there's going to be rogue mages from the Order nations who start leaking stuff on the 'net ... and ones, as you've suggested, who might wanna start teaching college classes on the subject. Yeah. Heh.
-- Acyl
Quote:I think this would vary from region to region. There'd be relatively less turmoil among the dwarves, for instance, and goblins. The orcs would have a short period of extreme chaos, and then settle down relatively quick. The various elven nations, I'm not sure on.
if 1% of the people rebel against the new world order it's definitly noticable, if 5% rebel soceity will be strained near the breaking point.
Quote:Yes, that's an issue. Though not as big an issue as it could be...average life expectancy in Tianan was higher than the technology and development level would otherwise indicate. This is mostly due to the presence of magic. While I've noted that magical knowledge was restricted (at least in the Order nations, Chaos is different - more later), the...
This makes me think of another interesting case, what happened to the drinking age? What about the people who where married at 15 and now are running a farm? Did they suddenly start going to college or what? Imagine our world where most 15 year olds are married and have a kid already or one on the way.
Well, f'example, the Church of Senica was always pretty big on healing. They'd have had priests and priestesses out among village communities and so on. Not in every village, definitely not, but...not a bad regional saturation. That goes...a fair way, as an equiv to medical care. A lot of these village priests found themselves rebooted into doctors, post-Deon.
(As an aside, this does mean that...since she still wears the robes and regalia of a priestess, Zastra is well-treated and respected wherever she goes in the Elven nations. People are polite to her. People remember. It annoys Deon a little, though.)
Quote:There's a lot of blue collar or relatively low-wage support and service jobs that a society needs. However, it's possible some - probably those already closer to cities - found themselves upgraded to middle class. And as time progresses post-shift, the middle class is only going to grow, as is the general pattern for urban society.
As for people mostly keeping their old jobs, 90% of the farmers are not farmers anymore so what jobs did they wind up with?
Quote:I think ultimately it would depend, a bit, on the identity of the sailors involved, and how they saw themselves. Like I said, some privateers would have found themselves part of new navies, and so on. Some, tho, might have remained pirates... some might promptly go AWOL, which might be interesting if they'd been shifted into a modern destroyer crew or something.
What about Privateers with more than one letter of marquee?
Quote:Probably converted to members of modern intelligence services - which raises a whole other set of issues, yeah.
What about spies? How did they fare in the transition?
Quote:Um. Hm. I don't know. I had decided that there isn't cohesive air travel yet ... the first planes and so on are only beginning to get of the ground. Literally. Much less space travel and space technologies. But there may well be satellites already up there as part of the reboot, and let's just hope none of them break down before we get our act together and can replace 'em. I have no idea how a satellite would orbit a flat world, though, if I choose to use that idea... =)
You mentioned the world being flat are there any satelites? They are critical for modern communications and military operations, and lets not forget the applications of GPS.
Sirrocco:
Quote:Yeah. The Elven Empire is a bit of a special case, since the Revolution, as it were, was built in as part of the worldshift ... Deon actually went and replaced the government in the transition. Well, more correctly, he 'shifted the Priesthood and Nobility out of power. I think he kept the surviving Elven royal family as constitutional monarchs - though largely because the royals didn't piss him off as much, and they were already figureheads in the old empire. He didn't intervene directly elsewhere, though ... so local Barons ended up as Mayors, Chieftains as Presidents, and so on.
...the old leaders (who are frequently *aslo* the new leaders) will have built up a whole *lot* of resentment, held in check only by "there's nothing we can do about it." Once you take *that* away...
But it's quite likely that within a relatively short time, post-shift, a lot of these newly educated and...'liberated' lower classes are going to, well, have pent-up resentment boil over. Especiall now that they've got better economic opportunities. Literacy. Knowledge.
Though it depends on whether there was much resentment and oppression in the first place.
It's not exactly a universal thing. I'm picturing relatively peaceful transitions for the Dwarven Clans, for instance. Perhaps some strife for the Orcs, since they've always been a rowdy bunch - but the former Chief-of-Chiefs, now President General, would have been able to crush any coup attempts relatively quickly. On the other hand... yeah, I can see trouble for some communities further down the line, post-shift, especially a lot of the Elven areas.
Quote:Within reason, to a degree - yes. I hadn't considered that, but given his personality and general beliefs...yeah, he'd be in favour of private firearm ownership. Especially when it's practical - and it is, he knows a fantasy countryside isn't exactly a safe place. I'm not sure he explicitly included this as a clause when he changed the world... but it'd have slipped in, certainly.
Also, does Deon believe in the Second Amendment? Did large numbers of those previously oppressed farmers wake up suddenly owning rifles and shotguns?
Deon himself would be a fair shot with a rifle, but not handguns. Different skill set.
Quote:Well, no, there wasn't much magical infrastructure. Well. When I think 'infrastructure', I consider big magical artifacts, giant crystals floating around, that kind of thing ... and there was never much of that.
Incidentally, what did Deon do to the preexisting *magical* infrastructure? (was there such a thing?) What about any ancient tomes of magical lore/focusing crystals or whatever?
Magic in this world is concentrated more on the individual, rather than physical constructs, see? It's not impossible to make a magical artifact, but it's rather tricky to make one that's self-sustaining, one that can function without the user having to think very hard at it.
This isn't to say that such artifacts don't exist. But they're relatively rare. What did exist hasn't been erased by the shift. So yeah, they're still out there.
Infrastructure in terms of information and knowledge... well, magical lore in the Order Nations was always concentrated largely in the hands of a few specific organisations. The Church of Senica, the Knights of Valin, the Blackrobes, and so on.
I think the Chaos territories would have a rather more liberal view with regards to magic... that is to say, they didn't have groups of wizards and priests jealously guarding secrets in quite the way the Order folks had. Not so big on organisation. So they have a lot more local mystics, tribal shamans, and so on... but due to that lack of cohesive governing bodies for magic, as it were, the study of magic in the Chaos nations isn't as advanced.
I imagine the collected knowledge of the Order nations' magical scholars isn't lost, and some of the magical orders may still exist. Those who were in and around cities might find themselves reorganised or wiped out... the Church of Senica suffered a fair bit. The Knights of Valin found themselves rebooted into soldiers in a modern army. I should note that this...wasn't exactly to Deon's advantage, because it now means there's an underground freedom-fighter/terrorist (depending on who you ask) movement that...
a) has magic, and...
b) also modern weapons and training
On the other hand, there's the Blackrobes. They were a sort of quasi-monastic mage group that weren't actually associated with any religion - they still exist in unchanged form, partially because most of them stayed away from towns and cities, partially because Deon actually liked them.
drakensis:
Quote:That is...interesting. I hadn't realised that. Under the new world order, as it were... with modern communications, literacy, and the freaking INTERNET, it's going to be damn near impossible to keep a lid on the magical secrets.
Information is power and there's a lot going on. So what's happened at the universities that sprang up everywhere? Are there courses about magic, and if so then who is picketing them as obsolete and who just doesn't want the secrets to get out.
Especially since...well, magical lore was never really a hidden thing in the Chaos nations. Now they're online, you're going to see shamans and suchlike setting up discussion forums that people over in the old Order nations can read as well. Then there's going to be rogue mages from the Order nations who start leaking stuff on the 'net ... and ones, as you've suggested, who might wanna start teaching college classes on the subject. Yeah. Heh.
-- Acyl