|
Server : Apache/2.4.62 System : FreeBSD fbsdweb2.web.rcn.net 14.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE releng/14.1-n267679-10e31f0946d8 GENERIC amd64 User : www ( 80) PHP Version : 8.3.8 Disable Function : NONE Directory : /domains/markrose/ |
Upload File : |
<HTML> <HEAD><TITLE>The Count of Years Commentary: 4 </TITLE></HEAD> <BODY BODY BGCOLOR="#F0F0B8" TEXT="#002200"><IMG Align=Top SRC="ciheader.gif"> <h2><a name="Count"><font color="#803800">The Count of Years Commentary: 4 </font></a> <font size=-1> <a href="ciroma4.htm">[ <i>Text</i> ]</font> </h2> <hr> <font face="Times CE"> <h3><a name="Creation"><font color="#803800">The five wars </a> </font></a></h3> The account of the eight iliu-ktuvok wars derives from the iliū, and has obviously suffered a good deal of abstraction and idealization (e.g. the identical thousand-year length of each war). Nonetheless these were real wars, and from the descriptions we can infer that both sides developed some rather advanced technology. We would have a very different picture of Almea if our access point was the period of these ancient wars. <h4><a name="creation"><font color="#000060">The creation of the ktuvoks</font></a></h4> <i>Amnigō</i> = 'children of Amnās'. V. <i>ktuvok</i> derives from Elkarîl <i>ktuphuq</i><b> </b>'swamp thing'. <p>The <b>ktuvoks</b> are described as having 'Houses' (<i>aurē</i>), the normal word for the dominion of a lord; it shouldn't be inferred that their political organization was anything like that of Cuzei. For a description of ktuvoks and their way of live, see <i>The Biology of Almea</i>. <h4><a name="1."><font color="#000060">1. The war of Nexi </font></a></h4> <i>Nexi </i>means 'starfish'. <p>The demand that the ktuvoks '<b>make right'</b> (<i>eyēvu</i>) their crime follows Cuzeian morality. Crimes are offenses agains the community, and can always be recompensed. The murder of the child was shocking, but the deeper crime is the refusal to negotiate, since this is a definitive rejection of community. <h4><a name="2."><font color="#000060">2. The war of metal </font></a></h4> The catalog of edged weapons is of course those known to the early Cuzeians. 'Darts' (<i>tirū</i>) are needle-like objects, thrown or embedded in a wall to impede climbing; 'stars' (<i>alaldi</i>) are sharp-edged discs thrown at an enemy. <h4><a name="3."><font color="#000060">3. The war of spirit </font></a></h4> It can be seen that the hallucinatory storytelling ability of the iliū has military applications. <h4><a name="4."><font color="#000060">4. The war of fire </font></a></h4> Names: <i>Nîtardis</i> 'smoke bird'; the other names are opaque. <p>It's tempting, isn't it, to read this as a mythologized account of a nuclear war. <p>The <b>Zone of Fire</b> is called the <i>ogonas Obondōsiex</i> 'Obondōsiu's fire' in Cuêzi. This is not the only mythological account that suggests that it is artificial. <p>Ambretāu and Obondōsiu's fire are reflected in the story of Évetel and the Fellrock in the Caďinorian <b><i>Aďivro</b></i><b> </b>(itself compiled from far older Caďinorian sources) There, the iliū distract Škagon and the ktuvoks with singing and magic, and Évetel destroys the Fellrock with magic either learned from the Guardians or derived from the iliu song-- elements which seem to belong to the third war. The account in the Aďivro is evidently a retelling of a portion of the Count of Years-- perhaps the portion which most impressed them, or which seemed most compatible with their own cosmology. (They would be more cold to alternative accounts of the creation of the world or of men.) <h4><a name="5."><font color="#000060">5. The war of machines </font></a></h4> Through the fog of mythology, we can dimly perceive a technology which perhaps outstrips our own. It's uncertain how much of this technology remains; possibly some has been lost, or voluntarily abandoned. <p>Living in a technophilic age, we may find this difficult to understand. Would we ever voluntarily live with more primitive technology? Perhaps we would-- the Amish do, and I've sometimes wondered if, once the technology exists to create self-sufficient space habitats, some human groups might use them to re-create some idealized form of the past. Our minds and bodies, after all, evolved to fit a world very different from modern urban civilization, and the lack of fit causes any number of problems, from epidemics to pollution to totalitarianism. <p>On the other hand, it may be only our own stage of history-- and our own aesthetics-- that create such a strong break with our own past. Massive industrial landscapes already seem a bit old-fashioned. The few cities of the iliū may be all they need for an extremely advanced technology. <hr> </font> <center> <A HREF="ciroma4.htm"><img src="vback.gif" border=0 alt="Back!" title="Back!" width=85 height=66 align=absmiddle></a> <A HREF="virtuver.htm"><img src="homev.gif" border=0 alt="Back to Virtual Verduria" title="Back to Virtual Verduria" width=296 height=132 align=absmiddle></a> <A HREF="comment5.htm"><img src="onward.gif" border=0 alt="Onward!" title="Onward!" width=85 height=66 align=absmiddle></a> </center> </BODY></HTML>