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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 8, 2019 22:27:19 GMT
I just wanna say what an awesome idea this is. The Queen by day and crime fighter by night would sell so many comics.
Seems to me if you are going to have a secret country that has managed to stay hidden up until the 21st century your only options are super deep in the ocean or under the ice in Antarctica. I suppose the 19th century concept of a hollow earth might work too. If that's too extreme it could be a massive underground cavern. Maybe a race that took to living underground during the last great ice age and never had an interest in coming back to the surface.
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Post by Harkovast on Jan 8, 2019 23:29:47 GMT
that can have illusions or force fields that hide them. If they are remote enough their advanced tech/magic/the power of Odin will hide them.
They need to be remote, but not totally isolated.
Like the out back of austrailia.
They could be complete unknown or they could be like wakanda where people know abotu them but dont know they are bad ass.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 9, 2019 0:39:04 GMT
I still like Canada. There's so much vast nothing up there you could hide anything, especially if you had some tech tech help.
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Post by Harkovast on Jan 9, 2019 1:32:57 GMT
Should it be magic or technology? And should the people there be humans?
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Post by zaealix on Jan 9, 2019 4:48:46 GMT
Creating a nation...So an idea I happened to have recently was this: In King Authur stories, there's the holy grail and it's great. What does it do that makes it so great? Uhhh somehting about a feast? not being particularly content with that explaination, I thought: What if the Grail, I dunno, basically ensured prosperity for whatever Kingdom could hold it so long as they acted according to it's code of conduct? Thus, Laws of chivalry and whatnot. And yanno, on top of that extra bennies for things like being the King, or being a Knight, and whatnot. Does this work for a starting point?
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 9, 2019 4:49:16 GMT
Hmmm... magic tech?
Maybe they should be Sasquatch (Bigfoot).
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 9, 2019 4:58:02 GMT
I think the grail typically provided sustenance or long (eternal?) life to who possesses it. The Spear of Longinus (Spear of Destiny) typically provided nationwide prosperity, or possibly military might, depends on who you ask.
If we set it in Canada it might be better to use American legends instead of European ones. Fountain of Youth and such.
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Post by Canuovea on Jan 9, 2019 5:28:29 GMT
There are plenty of stories that have culturally "backward" nations that are technologically advanced. I don't see how this is unrealistic. China was super despotic for quite some time and was the most advanced civilization on the planet for much of it. Or at least one of them, certainly they came up with a lot of shit associated with modernity. Paper, the Compass, Gunpowder, etc. The Islamic world was, well, pretty damn not democratic and it did pretty great for a while (until things went horribly wrong, but still...).
Then again, I guess it is pretty easy to say: "Hey, we're right, so that's the only way to be great, you've gotta be like us otherwise there is no way you could feasibly be technologically (or otherwise) advanced." It is a fairly common attitude, historically speaking, and also a fairly dangerous one. "How can you improve upon perfection?" is a sentiment that tends to result in disaster. Also, "for your own good, you've gotta be like me" is another sentiment that has historically led to disaster.
Black Panther has an advanced civilization that hasn't embraced the European model to become so and I don't see how this is a problem. Its a story, and if that is where suspension of disbelief breaks you've gotta hear about this one story with talking animal people! Not that I want to live in Wakanda, I'm quite keen on my own culture and freedoms thank you very much, but living like me isn't necessary to be a good guy in a story.
Canada is a secret country in the North, you only see the outward front of it. It's like Wakanda in the sense that everyone knows Canada/Wakanda exists, but not the full extent of it.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 9, 2019 6:33:26 GMT
Canada is a secret country in the North, you only see the outward front of it. It's like Wakanda in the sense that everyone knows Canada/Wakanda exists, but not the full extent of it.
Stop hoarding all the vibranium!
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Post by Harkovast on Jan 9, 2019 13:51:29 GMT
Canuovea they were advanced AT THE TIME. Compared ot other nations at the time, that were even more regressive, they were the advanced ones. In the same way, when mohamad wrote laws about cutting off hands and womens testimony being worth less than a womans, it was progress at the time. It was codified rules everyone agreed on with set punishments, not just what the despot felt like at the time. Compared to a tyrant who does what ever he feels like, evne barbaric laws are an improvement.
But failure to advance socially causes you to fail to progress in other areas. If any of those ancient cultures popped up again today, evne if they had our technology, they would not be able to compete with our speed of advvancment. Respect for rigths, free movemnet of ideas etc would give us too many advantages.
At least thats what I think!
I wil lhave some secret nation ideas when I get back later today...
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Post by Harkovast on Jan 9, 2019 18:20:05 GMT
The idea of some kind of avalon where they keep the holy grail is cool. Imagine if it was in the welsh countryside but its hidden with magic so without magic spells you cant access it. That would be funny that its so near to civilisation.
The only problem is that...that suggests the secret people would be knights with swords. I'm not keen on super heroes with swords cause super heroes shouldn't kill people! Very important!
The idea of a secret of colony of sasquatch in canada is kinda fun. That's potentially really weird.
An idea they said on Red Letter Media that I thoguht was interesting was someone in the isolated fantasy world who starts advocating to take over the outside world saying the outsiders are evil, cause pollution etc...but really they are secretly corrupted by the vices o the outside world. They wnat to take over the outside so they can get unlimited access to greasey cheeseburgers, booze, drugs and rock and roll.
All the spiritual enlightenment of the secret society can't scratch that itch!
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Post by StyxD on Jan 9, 2019 21:54:56 GMT
That all being said, doesn't Europe actually have a Wakanda? I thought Switzerland counted as an isolated society that was somehow better than everyone around it? I mean, if you ask the Swiss at least. Now, Switzerland is pretty awesome, but all of its power comes from outside. They don't have any precious resources or anything of that sort, the mostly offer the rest of the word a neutral and secure safe box. And the rest of the world likes the service - even the great house Kim of North Korea. So in a way, they're reverse of Wakanda: no resources but profiting from contact with all other world powers. I'm skeptical that a country that is culturally backward would also be scientifically advanced. In the real world its the democracies and open societies that advance. The idea that a country with no trade, a totalitarian government nad lots of superstition would be MORE advanced than liberal democracies just doesn't seem credible to me. To be honest most of human advancement happened in non-open, non-democratic societies. Neither does democracy guarantee progress, lest we forget that Socrates was voted to be executed, and currently it seems that more and more democratic states elect governments that more or less openly deny science in favour of feel-good volkist-like narratives. Most people don't care about science or actively oppose it due to superstition, totalitarian government or not. It seems to me that for the most part progress depends on whether or not people in power (or just plain old rich people) want to fund scientists. And Wakanda's dynasty had a strong incentive to do just that because of vibranium. I tell you what would fix a lot...if the king wasn't such an absolute monarch. I want some checks and balances! In the movie Killmonger gets to be king and immediately says hes goign to start a war with basically the entire planet. Some kind of tribal council maybe? That the king has to okay his stuff by? It's probably the strongest argument, since this is the weakest point of monarchies. Sometimes, the king is just stupid or delusional but everyone has to listen to him anyway. It seems almost a miracle more than vibranium that through all of Wakanda's history the throne wasn't even once ascended by a egotistical kid who decided to take over the world for fun. But failure to advance socially causes you to fail to progress in other areas. If any of those ancient cultures popped up again today, evne if they had our technology, they would not be able to compete with our speed of advvancment. Respect for rigths, free movemnet of ideas etc would give us too many advantages. I think you're confusing social advancement with scientific advancement. Luckily, Civilization 6 clarified things by splitting them into two separate research trees. I'm not sure how social liberalism is tied to scientific progress. In the 1930s, not that long ago, the world was already for the most part technologically the same as the one we have now, but we would probably found it shockingly prejudiced! I mean, Alan Turing has pretty much (among others) laid foundation under modern computing, then killed himself because of how society persecuted him. So clearly the advancement didn't go in lockstep. The one thing that has changed very significantly from that time - aside from quantitative changes - is mass media. And now they seem to be setting us back both scientifically and socially! Also, for a time the USSR was soundly beating USA in the space race, so clearly they didn't lack scientific talent and funding. And ultimately the soviet block fell not because NATO used some super-tech, or because people were so longing for USA-brand freedom but because they were longing for USA-brand goodies! And soviet-brand communism turned out to be an economical disaster that could only prop itself up for so long. In fact, non-ideological despotisms can be actually more helpful for scientific advancement than democracies. As I've said, people usually don't give a shit about science unless it produces something fun for them (we could have stopped global warming but instead we made the smartphone), and monarchs… well, sometimes they can, if only because it makes them look cool. Again, we saw it in the Islamic Renaissance or Western Enlightenment. Ideological despotism, on the other hand, can hinder science greatly at least in some areas. Like when USSR rejected the evolution theory because it was too "capitalistic". But you don't really need to be non-democratic for that either, as populists demonstrate. Sorry for this long rant… this forum seems to be my primary place for discussing politics! An idea they said on Red Letter Media that I thoguht was interesting was someone in the isolated fantasy world who starts advocating to take over the outside world saying the outsiders are evil, cause pollution etc...but really they are secretly corrupted by the vices o the outside world. They wnat to take over the outside so they can get unlimited access to greasey cheeseburgers, booze, drugs and rock and roll. All the spiritual enlightenment of the secret society can't scratch that itch! That could actually be a pretty great and sad story! I think the best place for a secret country would be some island on the Southern Ocean. Hardly anyone goes there and there's nothing there, so it's fairly easy to hide. You know where I expect there's a super secret evil civilization? Canada. I mean, most Canadians live within 100 miles of the US boarder. What the hell are they afraid of up there? It would make a great prequel for Song of Ice and Fire. Westeros is actually Mexico, and USA all fell to the frost monsters because Trump built the Wall on the wrong side of the country. To go back to the Star Wars topic for a moment, I found something funny today. The author of the original Russian Bot study saw the media coverage of it and was not amused.
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Post by Canuovea on Jan 9, 2019 22:02:49 GMT
That all being said, Hark, I'm kinda sick of superheroes not using swords and not killing people if necessary. But it is easy to deal with if you've got magic. Just say the swords swipe through someone and puts them in a kind of magical stasis, preventing the use of that part of their body but not killing them.
That's what Switzerland wants you to think, StyxD. But I agree about your take on history. Social "progress" and technological progress are very different beasts.
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Post by Harkovast on Jan 9, 2019 22:17:44 GMT
nooo a sword that doesn't kill them is even worse! That's like a horrible half way house!
How can you be sick of super heroes not killing poeple? In movies these days superheroes kill freaking everyone! Marvel heroes stack up more corpses then Hotline miami (they just distract you from the slaughter by having no blood and saying snarky lines a lot.)
regarding advanced cultures in the 1930s....again, its relative. Compared to (for example) Russia under the Tsar, with serf peasants, communists was socially way more advanced. Note that you can be more advanced and still be horrible. The nazis were culturaly very advacned. They had organisation and laws nad all that stuff. So did the communists. Compared to, for example, a medieval king who could basically do what ever he wanted, they were were much more well defined.
They were obviously way more corrupt and dysfunctional than a modern western society, but they were light years ahead of what had come before.
The idea that government wants to invest in science = better science doesn't seem to tell the whole story to me.
In a country where the leader has absolute power and can kill who ever annoys him...are you going to be the scientist who tells him things he doesn't want to hear? Or are you going to find that the science just so happens to line up wiht all the kings opinions and get a fat promotion?
Also you need respect for personal nad intellectual property to encourage advancement. if the king, or some other ruling noble cna just take your shit off you, you aren't going to bother making new things.
I think there is an element of chicken and egg here, as your culture getting more advanced means the poeple are more educated and so would be less likely to tolerate their oppressive leaders.
It seems like all the conditions that would help a society advance quickly (respecting intellectual property, free exchange of ideas, interaction with other cultures) would be the things an oppressive autocratic society would produce less of. The king just ordering more science isn't going to fix those cultural short commings (though I admit, he might just rub vibranium on the sicentists and make them all smarter.)
I guess in summation, you can be corrupt nad dysfunctional and still advanced, but those are barriers that will make you less advanced than you might have been otherwise (the communists pretended genetics didn't exist for years becuase it didn't fit with their world view, for example.)
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Post by StyxD on Jan 9, 2019 23:11:21 GMT
Compared to (for example) Russia under the Tsar, with serf peasants, communists was socially way more advanced. Were they, though? Materially, it seems that little changed then. Instead of being bound to the nobles, the peasants were now bound to state-owned farms. Nominally it was their communal property, in practice the government took everything they produced and dealt supplies to them as it saw fit. Instead of being dependant on whims of local despots, they now had one centralized despot. And boy, was Stalin ever a capricious man… I mean, Ukrainians didn't like being under monarchic rule very much. But they weren't dying of hunger in masses either. The nazis were culturaly very advacned. They had organisation and laws nad all that stuff. So did the communists. Compared to, for example, a medieval king who could basically do what ever he wanted, they were were much more well defined. Really? They were more advanced because they came around after advancements were made in the age of kings. Also, keep in mind: - Totalitarian governments have laws that bind everyone, but they mean nothing. They're applied completely at the will of the government. It's no different than a king and his court. - As far as governing style is concerned, medieval kings could have well been more "checked and balanced" than Enlightenment-age kings. Because as technology and communication advanced, so was it more logistically possible to centrally control everything. The concept of absolute monarch had its heyday in 1600s-1700s, and first European secret police institutions arose in that era. In a country where the leader has absolute power and can kill who ever annoys him...are you going to be the scientist who tells him things he doesn't want to hear? Or are you going to find that the science just so happens to line up wiht all the kings opinions and get a fat promotion? But science doesn't say that humans must overthrow monarchy. So long as it doesn't disprove the king's right to rule, whatever it is, then that's probably okay. Yeah, it depends if the king feels strongly about something - but then again, in democracy it depends on what the people feel strongly about. Also you need respect for personal nad intellectual property to encourage advancement. if the king, or some other ruling noble cna just take your shit off you, you aren't going to bother making new things. But if the king is paying you to do science, you're already compensated. Meanwhile, capitalism (where scientists retain intellectual properties) has its own death knell on science, as it's only willing to finance only what someone - usually selfishly - wants to buy. Again - it's partly why we can't stop global warming. I mean, Edison spent at least as much energy inventing appliances of electricity as he spent sabotaging people who could overshadow him. I guess in summation, you can be corrupt nad dysfunctional and still advanced, but those are barriers that will make you less advanced than you might have been otherwise (the communists pretended genetics didn't exist for years becuase it didn't fit with their world view, for example.) Obviously, authoritarisms provide a lot of obstacles for advancement. But so does democracy! And they aren't the same kind of obstacles, often. It seems presumptuous to say that it's natural that democracy will have scientific progress and monarchy will not. Yeah, open-mindedness is required for advancement, but it does not depend wholly on governmental style. I mean, in theory democracy assumes that it will produce results that will benefit all the rationally-acting citizens. But in practice this is not true at all!
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