Guilded Age

brasca1

May 2, 2018, 1:04 am | # | Reply

Well it would certainly provide work for all the sign makers. They’ve had steady employment what with all the previous renaming of Gastonia.

And apparently some of the orcs are getting something out of this revolution.

Versen

May 2, 2018, 1:13 am | # | Reply

Im glad someone that of the Orcs.

I think the cheese industry of Newlight shall be booming (but very sweet nonetheless)

Beroli

May 2, 2018, 2:09 pm | # | Reply

Indeed, I didn’t give the (non-Gobligno) councilors enough credit.

Just_IDD

May 2, 2018, 1:14 am | # | Reply

Actually I wonder what Gravedust is doing here because wasn’t he with the savasi hiking through the mountains? Color me confused.

Jason

May 2, 2018, 1:20 am | # | Reply

This is all a flashback. Gravedust is writing about it in his journal.
- Kennerly
  
  May 2, 2018, 9:27 am | # | Reply
  
  And remember the sky elves’ portals.
- Cortizo
  
  May 2, 2018, 9:29 am | # | Reply
  
  Or, you know, they have access to a sky elf who knows how tonopen portals.
- insomniac
  
  May 3, 2018, 12:28 am | # | Reply
  
  Gravy specified that the Savasi didn’t portal back to their ancestral homeland. They walked.
  - Andreas Geisler
    
    May 3, 2018, 4:05 am | # | Reply
    
    Yeees? But once there, the sky elves can open a portal to there, by which the Savasi councilman can carry out this part of his duties…
- Mr Ak
  
  May 3, 2018, 5:27 am | # | Reply
  
  I think that might have been a transition, not a continuing flashback? Just because they say the Savasi have the Solates, which implies that they’ve settled.

Jason

May 2, 2018, 1:21 am | # | Reply

And that, my friends, is why nationalism sucks. Byron is wise.

Dave

May 2, 2018, 1:53 am | # | Reply

Why do Harky and Groff look so shocked in the last panel?

Devlerbat

May 2, 2018, 1:55 am | # | Reply

Because they don’t want to change the name?
Blatherskite

May 2, 2018, 2:09 am | # | Reply

Well, Harky is shocked because he was dead, and has apparently been Gravedusted back to life.
Ved

May 2, 2018, 12:08 pm | # | Reply

They actual have racial prejudices. While they’re okay for peace between races, humans are filthy and should be isolated to ghettos, lest the other races catch their rapacious lust for conquest and bloodshed.
Gabi

May 2, 2018, 5:16 pm | # | Reply

Uh… That’s not Harky.
- Dave
  
  May 2, 2018, 10:53 pm | # | Reply
  
  You’re right, he’s Penk. My fault, I jumped on the first name to fall out of my brain.
Bloodvork

May 3, 2018, 7:44 am | # | Reply

Groff’s mind is fucking blown.

Mujaki

May 2, 2018, 3:04 am | # | Reply

Yeah, everybody knows Coral starts with a Sea!

Angel

May 3, 2018, 2:34 pm | # | Reply

ARGH! XD What is with this Fandom and PUNS?!

James Rye

May 2, 2018, 6:31 am | # | Reply

Renaming the taken capital city of human realm “Humans are shit”- SAVAGE!!! xD

Draxynnic

May 2, 2018, 6:34 am | # | Reply

It’s actually an interesting question. On the one hand, Byron is right. On the other hand, Gondalessa also has a point – the other races have their ‘homeland’, while humans apparently don’t.

The ultimate solution is probably to have a general rule that there are NO regions in the coalition’s territory that are exclusive to a particular race. However, each race gets a region that is considered ‘theirs’ to govern, within certain constraints – for instance, they can set the laws in their territory, as long as they’re not inherently discriminatory.

So, for instance, the wood elves would be considered to have Bial Vezk as their homeland, and can set laws there to ensure that the forest is properly respected, but members of other races can visit or live there as long as they follow the laws.

Rolan7

May 2, 2018, 9:22 am | # | Reply

I’m glad someone else appreciated Gondolesa’s point. Byron’s choice almost seems like an overreaction, full-on immersion therapy. But maybe the humans in this setting need that. I wouldn’t be surprised if giving them a refuge just led to “Gastonia will rise again!” movements.

I like your idea, though, that all people should be welcome in the others’ homelands. That’s almost fair, it’s less than what the other races are demanding of humanity.
TxGator

May 2, 2018, 9:32 am | # | Reply

The war has just ended. I suspect that there will be more intermingling of habitations once things cool down.

Hopefully humans aren’t banned from living in those other regions. Maybe a human could choose to live among the savasi, even if his neighbors frown upon it.
- The Gorram Batguy
  
  May 2, 2018, 11:34 am | # | Reply
  
  Allowing a human to live among the Savasi or the Gnomes would be a tall order. He’d really need to rise to the challenge.
  - Lirazel
    
    May 2, 2018, 11:27 pm | # | Reply
    
    But the results could be so uplifting!
    - TxGator
      
      May 3, 2018, 9:18 am | # | Reply
      
      True. I just hope no one’s expectations fall a bit short. ;-)
      - HandwashBigpan
        
        May 3, 2018, 12:51 pm | # | Reply
        
        Such a double standard would be the height of stupidity!
        
        Draxynnic
        
        May 4, 2018, 6:06 am | # | Reply
        
        Are you saying it would dwarf all of the stupidity that came before?
Ved

May 2, 2018, 12:12 pm | # | Reply

That’s really one of those weird in-between laws where you’re “technically” integrated but, in practice, not really.

If you’re going all the way, may as well go all the way instead of bogging down policy for the next several generations and then having you constituency start bitching about how “nothing changes.”

No reason you can’t ultimately say that there’s no exclusionary policy in any of the other zones period, beyond the usual passport travel stuff.
- Ved
  
  May 2, 2018, 12:14 pm | # | Reply
  
  Sure Bial Vezk is the Wood Elf homeland. And no doubt that heritage and cultural legacy will be preserved. But at least a part of it should turn into an obnoxious tourist town for visiting humans using their steampunk picture capturing machines and for sampling the Gastonified “local cuisine.” Because their palates are much too dainty and sensitive to stomach the real stuff.
  - Draxynnic
    
    May 4, 2018, 6:13 am | # | Reply
    
    And if the wood elves don’t want that obnoxious tourist town, then they can pass laws to block that?
- Draxynnic
  
  May 4, 2018, 6:09 am | # | Reply
  
  Being partway is somewhat the point: It’s a compromise. It allows each of the races in question to retain the feeling that their culture and homeland is protected, while still encouraging integration.
Nightsbridge

May 3, 2018, 6:39 pm | # | Reply

You’re right that humans, lacking in any ancestral homeland to call their own, sort of have the short end of the stick. But they are also the ancestral oppressors of . . . Everyone. This is an important step to take in order to keep it from backsliding. Half measures would simply allow for the old sentiments to fester and rise up later.

Obviously, it would be best if the other homelands opened themselves up in a similar way, or it would eventually lead to an imbalance of power which could set everything askew.

One way to make it work anyone, is to make sure Newlight becomes a sovereign land, beholden to no other force. Integrated does not necessarily mean they are beholden to the will other other nations, after all, merely that many kinds of people live within their borders. All the same, I hope the other leaders take this as inspiration to open up their own borders in a similar way. I imagine Syr’ji will, at the very least.
- Draxynnic
  
  May 4, 2018, 6:16 am | # | Reply
  
  It’s a bit of a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ scenario. You don’t want the next generation feeling resentful that they’re being punished for what their ancestors did. Heck, this seems to be a case where even the current generation is being punished for what a small group of conspirators did.
TomTomy

May 3, 2018, 8:19 pm | # | Reply

The way I see it, humans are the most advanced race besides gnomes. Goblins have some tech, but there doesn’t seem to be a learning structure. I believe human entrepreneurship will make it so that while they don’t have a closed homeland, they’ll become everybody’s merchants and diplomats, interested in every market, using whatever economic opportunity to replace the military expansion they gave up. At least that’s the human fantasy archetype and I don’t see why it would not apply here. They would “infiltrate” every other culture but would risk “weakening” theirs

Chris

May 2, 2018, 9:21 am | # | Reply

Well… it won’t work. When Billy accidentally bumps into Mighty JoJo The Terrible at school and customs clearly dictate that either Billy accept a fight to the death or server JoJo for all eternity, because customs dictate so, things just aren’t going to go well.

Intertwining different faces and colors of similar or same cultures is one thing. Mixing cultures and expecting acceptance and understanding always leads to poor Billy being horribly, horribly maimed, or enslaved, or suddenly a hero King (story dependent).

Hammerhead knew this long ago and that is why they are not here.

TxGator

May 2, 2018, 9:37 am | # | Reply

Won’t work? I don’t know about that.

It certainly won’t be easy. There will be many trials this new society will have to face. But it can happen. Time does eventually heal most wounds. And people do adapt.
- Eric
  
  May 2, 2018, 3:24 pm | # | Reply
  
  Exactly. And people are VERY good at adapting.
  
  Humanity is not the strongest, fastest, toughest, or in any other way the most able species on the planet. And don’t get too excited by our intelligence, we as a species make a point of proving every day that we aren’t as smart as we like to think we are. But what we are is extremely adaptable (most all of our ‘racial’ differences are actually nothing more than genetic adaptations over a long period of time to the local environment), and when we can’t adapt we develop technology to help us adapt. It’s why we can live in almost every habitat on the planet (currently excepting under water, and a few other particularly extreme locations), few other life forms can claim the same.
  
  One of the things that I’ve heard and seen is the idea that someone couldn’t live in certain circumstances, but people do. What at one point seems impossible, becomes the norm before too long. That isn’t to say that the adaptation is easy, it isn’t, but it happens, and once its occurred its no longer a big deal.
  
  In the case of two cultures integrating, usually the two meet somewhere in the middle, and any of the more extreme elements of either get removed as unacceptable. Yes people get offended at first, but people tend to find the thing that is so important to their culture that it can never be given up, isn’t really all that important. Culture is just shit we start doing because we wanted to, or because we got in the habit of it, and can be changed when it needs to be.
  - tlhonmey
    
    May 3, 2018, 2:24 pm | # | Reply
    
    We’re the most able species on the planet at being intelligent and manipulating objects. We also happen to be the best long-distance runners. Other species are faster over a few miles, but stretch it out to fifty miles or more and a well-conditioned human will still be jogging along when the others have collapsed from exhaustion. The only ones that do better are some of our domestic animals, and then only when they have one of us along poking high-energy food and extra water down their throats at regular intervals.
Ved

May 2, 2018, 12:20 pm | # | Reply

Which is why you ban said honor duels.

Oh, people WILL break that law no doubt. But what else are laws for. I think you’re far overstating just how much blood will be running in the streets. Co-existence sort of does mean that there are new rules they’re just going to have to accept as a new norm.

Also, duels were usually less lethal than people expect historically, as most were to first blood or had participants so armored up that you have recorded duels of people tying “on the strength of the armor.” There were also other legal things like banning thrusting in duels. (Or unwritten rules where you’d both deliberately miss the pistol shot.)

As it turns out, the powers-that-be had an incentive to legislate against having their young men kill each other. Mostly, you just want it to be a piece of theater where both duelists prove that they’re willing to fight for their honor yadda yadda.
- tlhonmey
  
  May 3, 2018, 2:39 pm | # | Reply
  
  Banning duels may reduce the incidence of hot-tempered people fighting to the death over random arguments, but it also probably increases the murder rate. When you ban duels, then if you have an enemy you dislike so much that you really want to kill them regardless of potential consequences, the penalty for calling them out and fighting them openly is (the penalty for fighting a duel + the penalty for murder) * it being nearly certain that you will be caught, whereas the penalty for shooting them in the back from a dark alleyway is the penalty for murder * a relatively low probability of getting caught.
  
  Whereas, if duels are legal, there’s a large incentive to issue an open challenge (which may be accepted or refused) because that removes potential penalties for killing the person, leaving only the risk of dying in the fight. If the duel is refused, then there’s a strong disincentive to murder the person later due to the public challenge making you a prime suspect.
  
  From the studies I’ve seen on the subject, if you compare cities in the Old West where dueling was permitted with similarly-sized cities on the “civilized” east coast in the same time period where dueling was banned you find that the overall rate of violent death was about the same, but that in the west open combat was the norm and murder was a rarity while in the east murder was the norm and open combat was a rarity.
  
  So I guess it depends on how much you want to be able to hide the fact that some of your citizens want to kill each other by having it happen in back alleys late at night rather than at high noon in the local arena…

Eric

May 2, 2018, 3:06 pm | # | Reply

Syr’ng is absolutely correct, we see this in the real world. In cosmopolitan cities with many different peoples living together, the fear of ‘the other’ dwindles because we see the other every day and realize they are really not that different from us. That isn’t to say there are no racists in such places – there is *always* someone determined to blame their problems on someone who looks different from them (even if that difference is only hair colour) – but it is much less of a problem.

On the other hand, take a more homogeneous place – often rural, but you find it in some cities as well – where the overwhelming majority (in excess of 80 or 90 percent) is of one race and culture (doesn’t matter what race and culture, you can look at strife anywhere in the world to see that) and you see that they are far less welcoming and open to other peoples. They tolerate the minorities in their area, but only as long as those minorities ‘know their place’.

Of course integration is not simple, and is best done gradually – and there will be a fit when someone realizes “in X years we will be a minority in our own country!” (a particularly ironic comment in a colonized nation) but by then many people will start to have the opinion of “so what?” as they realize that its the other people’s country too, not just of one group.

Of course in this case I think all the groups should learn to integrate. I see no reason to think that humans have a monopoly on racism, that gnomes, elves, and others can be just as big of a-holes.

TachyonCode

May 2, 2018, 9:15 pm | # | Reply

I’m from one of those cosmopolitan cities. It isn’t so much that we’ve achieved integration as we’ve developed the ability to conduct our own business – while, at bare minimum, ignoring everyone else. I feel as if it would be arrogant to hope for more, but maybe that’s just me.

I suspect, however, that the problem I see as inherent in this kind of society can be attributed to overpopulation and crowding, and not so much to racial distrust. People in these places don’t necessarily need each other; they tend, from what I’ve seen, to operate completely independent of one another, and it’s still a frustration when they actually have to interact with the other peoples living in their proximity.

There is a difficulty in communication, a lack of conscious knowledge of how to conduct oneself with others, or in other words, difficulty imagining what might be considered a faux pas or respectful behavior. The most appropriate gesture that comes to mind when passing someone on the street, for example, is a subtle glance and nod to acknowledge someone else’s presence, followed by moving on.

That’s as opposed to saying “good evening” or “good morning” or “hello” as you pass, mind you, because of course that’s reserved for people you personally know who “speak your language”.

I think this may be something that puts residents of rural areas off when they visit large cities; I don’t see the same gestures or mannerisms where I’m living now, even in a slightly cosmopolitan suburban area. But that’s a tangent.

–

That main difficulty in communication, actually, is one of the things I wished Guilded Age had addressed more in-depth. I’m hoping the creators can find a way to deal with something like this in a later work, because it really interests me personally: focusing on a pluralistic civilization where an integrated culture (or really any substantial culture at all) does not exist in such places, because there’s no explicit cause or motivation for it to.

I’ve seen the concept arise, for example, in certain anime, in the past. But no really explicit treatment of how to deal with, navigate, and improve the problems inherent in it.
- TachyonCode
  
  May 3, 2018, 3:21 pm | # | Reply
  
  Oh, and I should probably also add – the neighborhood in which I live, specifically, has been shown to have over 80 *common* spoken languages/variations in it, per a local census.
  
  And all of those people live, work, and do business in the area, mostly with others of their own subculture (unless bilingual individuals and are taken into account), unless circumstances (i.e. wanting an ethnic specialty food item or something) force them to do otherwise.
Angel

May 3, 2018, 2:39 pm | # | Reply

Well let’s put it this way: Canadians are still suffering from Cultural Divide because of the Language Barrier. We’re supposed to be Bilingual right? Well that was only started in 1983- 35 years ago. and unfortunately most English Canadians aren’t exposed enough to French (Unless you go to emmersion school but that’s a whole new ball game) and a Lot of people in Quebec are actively SHUNNING people who don’t speak french very well/at all. Technicallly New Brunswick is the only fully Bilingual province in the Country but…

Well if we’re not all on Speaking Terms we’re not going to get very are Don’t you think?
- SotiCoto
  
  August 6, 2019, 10:39 am | # | Reply
  
  The ideal solution would be just having one derivative language with all known concepts included in it… and doing away with all the old languages.
  
  But entropy being entropy and people being people, they can’t be bothered to actually engineer language… preferring to just let it all degenerate into txt-spk and a thousand slang words for anal sex. Communication would break down entirely if there wasn’t some faint selective pressure for it to exist… in whatever barely functional form.
SotiCoto

August 6, 2019, 10:35 am | # | Reply

Yes, mixing different people together is the solution (hur hur) to the us-vs-them divide… though it seems pretty obvious to me that forcing the issue is just going to make its own problems.

And obviously people generally don’t want to be a minority in their own country because they don’t want to be a minority anywhere. Which is to say they don’t want their own team to be at a strategic disadvantage to the opposition… because when it comes down to it, everyone is in opposition in various contexts, especially when the society is large and full of strangers, and if they’re going to be surrounded by strangers, they’d rather be surrounded by strangers they have things in common with.

But hey… unless someone starts implementing rules forbidding monoracial couples or whatever… then chances are people will keep trying to segregate themselves.

Psolo Ghoti

May 2, 2018, 5:10 pm | # | Reply

Hovertext: that might actually work.

Sweet home Hewmansarschet
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet home Hewmansarschet
Lord, I’m coming home to you

Sergei Alderman

May 2, 2018, 6:46 pm | # | Reply

We should maybe give that a try…

Lirazel

May 2, 2018, 11:30 pm | # | Reply

And now I REALLY want to see that free Orc commune!

Andreas Geisler

May 3, 2018, 4:11 am | # | Reply

End scene : cut to free orc commune.
Panorama of various survival activities by various orcs.
Track to strappy orc youngling, sneaking out to explore the nearby ruins.
There to stumble upon, some very strange-looking spectacles, made from a material somewhat like tortoiseshell, but ebon in color… with an ever-so-faint purple glow.

FoolishOwl

May 3, 2018, 12:41 pm | # | Reply

Byron said, “No more humans-only districts”. As in, they’ve existed before. Given what we know of Gastonia, we’d have to assume that’s a bad historic model to draw upon; you’d end up with the humans who most disliked their loss of privilege all gathered together in one place. That’s a counter-revolution in the making.

Beroli

May 3, 2018, 6:34 pm | # | Reply

Byron said, “No more humans-only districts”. As in, they’ve existed before.

Well, yes. It was the case before the war ended, with the good districts being humans-only, remember?

jast

May 4, 2018, 7:01 am | # | Reply

Thanks Byron. You just made ground for a gastonian Hitler to come in next 20 years by making humans feel loosers and privileging other races.

Sporf

May 11, 2018, 2:21 am | # | Reply

Only if humans aren’t allowed in the other homelands. He’s trying for a more Roman I decoration I believe.

Chapter 50 – Page 17

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