OTHER CONTINENT
Where do all those blue-skins originate?
Why, from across the Turquoise Sea.
Time for some more imagineering.
Today we are purposefully doing Cultural Appropriation.
Humanity is diverse and at this time in history is increasingly interconnected. Multicultural influence is inevitable. I do not believe detrimental or disrespectful to any tradition or people. We can marvel and glory in it all. We all come from Planet Earth. The worst thing we can do is to ignore and forget about one of our many traditions. Where I come from our mythology and histories are all about our being a melting pot, distilling and renewing itself perpetually.
Real World History had mixed European, Africans and Chinese colonise the Americas. Evidence of African colony with the Olmec heads. Evidence of 40 massive Chinese ship-cities sunk off the coast of South America. Evidence of Scandinavians settling at NewFoundLand bringing their water-rescue dogs of the same name with them. All prior to Columbus. After which, Spanish, Portuguese, French, English, built their empires while West Africans built the railroads, gave us Voodoo and the Blues, while Chinese built the railroads and did the laundry according to the popular stereotypes in Wild West lore.
All of this despite an indigenous population already living there.
What would have happened if instead of those groups, it had been different non-American cultures settling the Americas? How would that have changed what it has become?
Who do we have who are interesting? Too many to list although a few do stand out. Let’s keep this simple and one-step-at-a-time.
ARABIA
By far the most exciting possibility is from Arabia and Arabian Nights. This covers everything from Assyria, Babylon, Damascus, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Old Testament of the Bible, Mecca the centre of the Islamic world, the events depicted in Lawrence of Arabia, Jalal Uddin Rumi, everything Sheharazade from the 1001 Nights, Djin, flying carpets, well-endowed Moors, a Sultanate, deserts and flat-topped adobe dwellings occasionally with mushtamal (the Fremen word for Water Garden).
That is a lot of inspiration to draw from. The importance of storytelling and music. Polytheistic Pagan religion. Monotheistic Abrahamic religion. Maths, Science, Astronomy. Ancient city-state empires rising and falling, the Sultanate.
Not the Arab world as it is now. I do not want to introduce modern Petro-Oil wealth because the technology level of WWWW is purposefully mid-19th century. We have the steam-engine for trains which go no faster than 40kmph. Gunpowder for guns, matches and dynamite. Mechanically we have the printing press for postcards, posters, newspapers and books. We have hand-cranked meat-grinders since 1842 thanks to Karl Drais so sausages are on the menu.
Alembics also known as Stills used to make liquor, perfume, plant essences, incense and other high grade oils exist which I intend to expand on here more than we have done in the real world if at all possible. That already is an Arabic invention since the Bronze Age, copper Alembics are far superior than iron ones not in terms of yield but quality because the metal affects the oils.
We do not have electricity nor do we have plastic and acrylic paints. We do have clay which means also probably ceramic. We have glass. The Other Continent is a desert, they have sand, they have glass.
I want to return to the identified core themes for a moment. To directly compare it with European history and culture. The importance of storytelling and music. Polytheistic Pagan religion. Monotheistic Abrahamic religion. Maths, Science, Astronomy. Ancient city-state empires rising and falling, feudalism and Democracy.
With absolute respect for the uniqueness of the different cultures, we can see how many points are the same so as to be universal. The differences when we list it like this are that Europe transitioned from religious rule and monarchy to feudalism and democracy while Arabia did not transition from religious rule and monarchy to feudalism and democracy.
GREECE
The origin of Democracy. Originally envisaged as The Rule By The People where everybody could have equal voice. Now throughout Europe we use the word differently, to describe what is in effect not a democracy. The argument it is delusional to do this is ignored.
Democracy: “A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. Control of an organization or group by the majority of its members.” Oxford Dictionary
“Democracy is a system of government in which state power is vested in the people or the general population of a state. According to the United Nations, democracy "provides an environment that respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, and in which the freely expressed will of people is exercised." Wikipedia
The impact of Ancient and Classical Greece in the form of Philosophy resultant in Democracy in Europe has as we have seen become the major difference between Arabia and Europe even despite so many similarities and affinities.
Democracy also stands ‘the West’ apart from the Communist nations (Russia China Cuba Vietnam Laos and North Korea). These are all nations which the democratic West has a major issue with their social policies. They do not technically have Communism either but rather, totalitarian dictatorships.
The difference between Communism and Socialism is according to Karl Marx, that;
Socialism is “a transitional system in which the working class controls the government and economy yet still pays people according to how long, hard, or well they work” where in “fully realized Communism, society has no class divisions or government or personal property.”
https://www.britannica.com/question/How-is-communism-different-from-socialism
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
Karl Marx, 1818-1883. Which puts him alive during the Wild West era. Awesome.
What we discover in the cashless society of the indigenous Indians of WWWW is they are already living the dream.
What we also discover is that the Western definition of Democracy describes exactly the same thing as its definition of Communism. The clause is around ‘eligible members’ and ‘elected representatives’ which entirely undermines the stated purpose of both Democracy and Communism as being an equality where everyone has equal voice. In practise both forms of governance are benign totalitarian dictatorships.
Meanwhile in Arabia we still have Religion and Monarchy running the show.
Is that any better?
Is that effectively any different?
THE OTHER CONTINENT
Outside of our indigenous tribal Indians, the Other Continent of WWWW is described as a totalitarian dictatorship. Everybody who escapes it is happy to become a colonial pioneer expanding a rather more libertarian and comparatively lawless culture into the Jungle continent.
What is the Other Continent like?
Arabian Nights. Sultanate and Religious Orthodoxy.
To make the game world interesting we need contrasts between the factions.
The Indians are true communism. Living in harmony with nature, the spirits of nature and the spirit world of the ancestors. Living in harmony with each other. Except they don’t always, as we shall see, the noble savage is primal, tribal, their oral histories full of bloody battles between the tribes albeit by now largely resolved to the point of sports rather than warfare. Sports involving non-violent combat based on historic methods. The replacement of stone-age weapons with rubber versions of the same for Live-Action-Role-Playing wearing character masks from the cultural pantheon. Ritual dance and enactments of rites of passage ceremonies such as communal orgies to bond the tribe.
The Settlers are socialist but are libertines. The closest to true democracy; ‘Every person for themself, within a framework of exploitive capitalism.’ They are usury-based. They are hedonistic, emotionally volatile and reactive, often impulse-driven by their primal, animal natures, addictions and greedy desire. It is how they are manipulable. Understanding of this is how they become manipulative.
The Other Continent is orthodox dictatorship. A religious monarchy. A simple form of the Other Continents religion has spilled over to the New World in form of the Preachers, missionaries of the watered-down church of the monotheism which has segregated itself from the Sultanates divine rulership by positing the original teachings were not intended as messianic worship of the living Sultan as God incarnate on Earth but rather were intended to teach how every individual is the living embodiment of self-aware divinity in the Creation. The New Church identifies the Jungle as the Primal Garden which the holy book identifies as having long ago been lost to the desert. The possibility that the current monarch actually is the Messiah is of great debate although on the mainland it is sacrilegious and blasphemous to question it and carries a death penalty not for the person in question but for the rest of their family.
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For the Other Continent click here
For Cultural Development click here
For History & Future click here
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