Just finished reading Shards and Hidden Years. Very good stories and most of the artwork was wonderful. Wish I hadn't had a hiatus of 15 years of reading fantasy comics and such. The Shards period was very well done, too. The buildings, most of the clothing, mannerisms, field plate and plate mail armor and other items were about 1500 or just prior to the start of the Renaissance. A couple of comments, though: most of what we were shown in Shards was medieval, but there were some anachronisms. Mild, very high carbon steel (rustable and brittle) would have been the best armoring and metal available (except presumably what Two Edge could produce) but all of the metal looks like modern 18/8 chromium nickel 300 series stainless steel, something not available until the late 1800s. Too, many of the clothing styles, such as those shown with Shuna's first rebel council were reminiscent of mid to late 1800s and the fabrics (such as the cotton broadcloth that some looked to be made of) to produce them wouldn't have been available without the mechanization available around 1830 or 1840 or so.
- August 9, 2009 6:57 am
- ·
- ·
- Report
Great that you found back to EQ, Nabuquduriuzhur. Welcome to the Scroll!
About the inconsistencies in tecniques and clothing you pointed out - don't for get that this is Abode and not Earth.
1. Developement would be similar, but not neccesarily identical.
2. One Eartnh more than one invention was made early - and forgotten - and made again decades or centuries later. Who knows where we would have been if Asian and Arabian knowledge had met and mingled with European culture earlier - getting used insted of condamned.
3. I remember a discussion about the "high-tecnology" earlier. It was supposed that Two-Edge's interference might had an general effect on tecnical success.
About the inconsistencies in tecniques and clothing you pointed out - don't for get that this is Abode and not Earth.
1. Developement would be similar, but not neccesarily identical.
2. One Eartnh more than one invention was made early - and forgotten - and made again decades or centuries later. Who knows where we would have been if Asian and Arabian knowledge had met and mingled with European culture earlier - getting used insted of condamned.
3. I remember a discussion about the "high-tecnology" earlier. It was supposed that Two-Edge's interference might had an general effect on tecnical success.
Many thanks to cometduster and Jeedai for the great Embala pictures!
Many thanks to Moonmoss for the beautiful Merbala in my avatar
Indeed: we don't know what "year" it is according to the humans, but it's 20 thousand and some "after arrival" of the elves. In that time, they've gone from being barely tool users, to having the influence of TwoEdge's mad designs.
I would hazard a guess that the rest of their world isn't nearly as advanced as the Citadel is, note well that even during Shuna's long life, there were still utterly primative peoples who had barely contacted *each other* let alone anything like the elves.
So we get a sharp division - the haves and the have nots, so it makes sense that there are lots of different 'eras' similar to earth's here.
When things really get rolling in Rogue's Curse, a couple hundred years later, now THAT is a fun era. :D
I would hazard a guess that the rest of their world isn't nearly as advanced as the Citadel is, note well that even during Shuna's long life, there were still utterly primative peoples who had barely contacted *each other* let alone anything like the elves.
So we get a sharp division - the haves and the have nots, so it makes sense that there are lots of different 'eras' similar to earth's here.
When things really get rolling in Rogue's Curse, a couple hundred years later, now THAT is a fun era. :D
Visit the Otherforest, get made into an elf! Ask me how!
To me, Citadel resembles more closely a Renaissance with remainders of medieval culture, than true Middle Ages and Rogue's Curse seems to mix some medievalisms and Renaissance characteristics, to a resolutely Western American nineteenth century. Those may be less due to accidental anachronisms, than to deliberate attempts to make Abode different-from-yet-similar to Earth. Also, on Earth we still have coexisting civilizations (Bushmen, Aborigines, Bedouins, etc. haven't disappeared)
One cannot carry the torch of truth without singeing someone's beard (Goerg Christoph Lichtenberg)
True. Very good points.
Spot on about the different tech levels in different places and times. We didn't surpass Rome's understanding of the prevention of communicable disease until the 1880s and didn't implement most of it until 1900 or so. It's jarring to think that the Legions understood the importance of field sanitation better than the Union Army of the Civil War, for example, and thus didn't have epidemics of dysentary, cholera, etc. At the same time, though, the Romans never tumbled to knowledge the the lead plumbing in their villas was making their gentry nuts.
The old idea of the anthropologists that man's culture's evolved across the Earth has been pretty well discredited. The moment a people discovers agriculture, POOF, mathematics, the wheel, basic metallurgy and similar things follow.
Ancient Ur is a great example. A school was unearthed in the 1950s that had multiplication and division tables, parts of speech including nouns and verb declension. Reading, writing and math. Ur, Sumerian and Elamite tablets have been found with business records that wouldn't be much out of place today.
Even our time reckoning goes back to Sumer's base 60 numerical system. 5th millenium B.C.
Spot on about the different tech levels in different places and times. We didn't surpass Rome's understanding of the prevention of communicable disease until the 1880s and didn't implement most of it until 1900 or so. It's jarring to think that the Legions understood the importance of field sanitation better than the Union Army of the Civil War, for example, and thus didn't have epidemics of dysentary, cholera, etc. At the same time, though, the Romans never tumbled to knowledge the the lead plumbing in their villas was making their gentry nuts.
The old idea of the anthropologists that man's culture's evolved across the Earth has been pretty well discredited. The moment a people discovers agriculture, POOF, mathematics, the wheel, basic metallurgy and similar things follow.
Ancient Ur is a great example. A school was unearthed in the 1950s that had multiplication and division tables, parts of speech including nouns and verb declension. Reading, writing and math. Ur, Sumerian and Elamite tablets have been found with business records that wouldn't be much out of place today.
Even our time reckoning goes back to Sumer's base 60 numerical system. 5th millenium B.C.
Wasn't one of the very earliest of any civilized recorded writing, a tax account? :D
Visit the Otherforest, get made into an elf! Ask me how!
Most early writing consisted of storage records for the wealthy/the King.
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 11:27 am.