(hypothetical) What would you ask Dave Nilsen?

[MJD]

Zeppelins are indeed cool. I have only a vague grasp of what the rest of Erik's post was about, but, umm, yeah. I think.

Some of us may remember: "Who will be Lincoln to Norris' Washington?" and what ensued thereafter. One more reason to dislike attempts to make our game fit the historical precedents we map onto its events.

Of course, the stories we have read and the history we have learned will influence what we make up. But declaring that you've found the parallel that *everyhthing must fit* is just plain daft. The setting has its own logic (and quirks). It will decelop accoriding to those, not a mapping of your pet chunk of history.

 

[Hyphen]

Originally posted by David Freakin' Nilsen:
What kind of cookie?

Depends on the ruleset.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"History repeats itself. First as tragedy then as farce." Karl Marx

 

[jchurchill]

Or the famous Churchill quote: `History is simply one da*ned thing after another.'"
=================================================
I believe Henry James said that first.

The grandfather of all this is of course George Santayana --

Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them."

So note that he does not say that history repeats itself so much as people ignorant of history do repeat the mistakes of the past...[no names mentioned outside of political pulpit --- and no joke references to a certain president ]

Bad historians do tend to repeat themselves --
[no names but the intials Steve Ambrose may mean something to some of you...]

re historical analogies and models in Traveller --
They can be very useful for creating societies and situations but if taken too far they then they tend to become literal minded and heavy handed.

One observation re Mr. Nilsen and Survival margin and even I think the RSB:

In Survival Margin Strephon had apparently been reading Sandburg's Life of Lincoln because Strephon mutters bits and pieces of the Gettysburg Address several times.

Forgive me but I did smirk at this. Why?

It seems very US-centric. Would an Emperor in the 57th century really remember one leader of one nation on one planet out of 1100 worlds? Especially a nation that might have lasted only 300 years? Why not muse over the meanings of Thutmose III's Thebes Address?

Traveller was written by Americans and for Americans mostly and Americans generally tend to know and revere US history and not much else. Americans tend to forget that we are not the center of the universe and that shock of shocks - the US of A. may very well not last forever.

One hopes that the many cultural and intellectual achievements of the US -- the hot dog, the situation comedy, and napalm -- will last until the 57th century but one can never be sure.

 

[jchurchill]

History does not repeat itself. The historians repeat one another.
Max Beerbohm
-------------------------------------------
According to History News Network -- Max said it.

ps: I like this one too:

A country without a memory is a country of madmen.
George Santayana

 

[kaladorn]

Thanks for the quote help.

My sig (on my gmail account) reads something to the effect "We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization". That in itself is moderately humorous. But what's even more amazing is that the speaker was none other than Voltaire.

My interest in the history related quotes stems from knowing several amateur historians, a history major with a BA (Hist) and a focus on Napoleonic and Medieval History (some WW2 as well), and another history major (BA (Hist), MA (War Studies from Royal Military College)) who is a big WW2 Eastern Front, Ancient Rome, and Medieval nut. So jabs at historians always give me some fresh ammo! (since I'm a tech-geek)

Merci muchly.

 

[jchurchill]

"So jabs at historians always give me some fresh ammo! (since I'm a tech-geek)"

Kaladorn,

Here's a whole page of jabs -- some excellent and some silly:

http://hnn.us/articles/1328.html

ps: I'm amazed that no one has contested my limiting the contributions of the US to world civilization to just three things...I deliberately omitted cheese flavored dog food just to prompt serious debate....

 

[Jeffr0]

Whatever one might think of Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address is brilliant.

I just noticed that it deftly recapitulates both the Preamble to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Thanks for pointing this out, secretagent.

 

[RandyT0001]

And the notable phrase:

"Those who don't learn jump physics shouldn't become jump drive engineers."

Uban Esstabari, professor of Jump Drive Engineering at the University of Ala-atar on Capitol.

Maybe we ought to redirect the topic back to questions for Dave?

 

[fredofmars]

Originally posted by kaladorn:

<snip>Ultimately, if we say 'age of sail in space', that gives some idea (in a very compact way) of some of the characteristics of the situation. It isn't a complete rendering, nor entirely accurate, but it can quickly convey a basic flavour.<snip>

Though the animated movie "Treasure Planet" managed to give an almost complete rendering of 'age of saile in space' even though it kind of missed little things like space being a vacuum.

 

[Elliot]

Or the famous Churchill quote: `History is simply one da*ned thing after another.'"
=================================================
I believe Henry James said that first.


Actually I think it was Arnold Toynbee paraphrasing Elbert Hubbard

Secret Agent - you also forgot the Oreo (and the Dead Kennedys for that matter)

 

[jchurchill]

"Actually I think it was Arnold Toynbee paraphrasing Elbert Hubbard"

Yes, you are right. Quick research confirms that.
Good catch.

"Secret Agent - you also forgot the Oreo (and the Dead Kennedys for that matter)"

"Whatever one might think of Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address is brilliant."

Absolutely. That the author produced such a brilliant bit of concise and moving writing suggests that Lincoln was if nothing else a very smart man.

 

[jchurchill]

Maybe we ought to redirect the topic back to questions for Dave?
===============================================
Good point.

So Dave Freakin Nilsen, what was with Strephon and his mumbling the Gettysburg Address bits? The last emperor of the 3rd Imperium as a believer in government by the people and for the people? It just doesn't seem to fit. Or was this a last minute revelation to him?

Why would Strephon remember Lincoln in the midst of the Imperial civil war rather than say Ollie Cromwell, Sun Yat Sen, Franco or even Commissioner Zargbol of the Vogon Empire?

[Obviously for dramatic purposes the purchasers of Survival margin and TNE were much more likely to recognize a very famous quote by Lincoln and it does give Strephon some likeability points by making him less of an Imperial aristo douchebag and more like Honest Abe. But then why not have him assassinated after healing the 3rd Imperium while attending a performance of "Our Vargr Cousin" at the Edsel Theatre. Too obvious?]

 

[kaladorn]

Originally posted by secretagent:
I'm amazed that no one has contested my limiting the contributions of the US to world civilization to just three things...I deliberately omitted cheese flavored dog food just to prompt serious debate....

1. Sounds like a Random Static thread
2. I'm a Canadian... I'm afraid if I speak up on these matters, I'm likely to get invaded (Cue Kent Brockman: "....and I for one welcome our alien masters....")
3. Three things... seemed a bit generous to me, but what the heck, it is Xmas, n'est-ce pas?
4. How do you score negative contributions like Survivor, WWE/WWF, lawn tractor racing, etc?

 

[LKW]

Originally posted by Casey:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by LKW:
[qb]I don't remember. I want to say Mark Twain or Will Rogers, but I'm just not sure. Perhaps someone with the time and google-fu can help you?

Apologies for the threadjack.

some possibles:

History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other.--Philip Guedalla (1889--1944), "Supers and Supermen."

History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot. - Mark Twain
</font>[/QUOTE]It would appear mine was a paraphrase and amalgamation of these two.

 

[LKW]

Originally posted by MJD:
Of course, the stories we have read and the history we have learned will influence what we make up. But declaring that you've found the parallel that *everyhthing must fit* is just plain daft.

I agree. I'll go so far as to say that I have never, in my nearly 30 years in the RPG business, heard of a designer who mapped events to a historical prototype, in the manner of OK, Strephon is Lincoln, and Dulinor is John W. Booth, and Glip Dfyny is George Gordon Meade . . . " I understand the Honor Harrington series does this for the Napoleonic wars, but that's not an RPG. I suppose there may be those that do . . . I'm not acquainted with every RPG writer in the world.

I know many RPG designers and authors often use history as an analogy, or a kind of verbal shorthand to describe a situation, in that "This is like the 30 Years War . . . " or "This is kind of like the Zulu Wars mixed with the Campaign against the Sioux in 1876 . . . " I don't think this is the same thing.

 

[LKW]

Originally posted by kaladorn:
2. I'm a Canadian... I'm afraid if I speak up on these matters, I'm likely to get invaded.

Invade Canada? Are you nuts! Canada is 3 for 3 against the USA . . . the last three times we invaded, we got our clocks cleaned (granted, the first time was when we were still British, but that still counts).

The plan now is to absorb you culturally and economically. And that isn't going too well either!

 

[Falkayn]

On the off-topic quote topic: I find WikiQuote a great source of quotes. None of these history ones appeared there, although I do rather like:

"I do not believe that civilizations have to die because civilization is not an organism. It is a product of wills."
- Arnold J. Toynbee

 

[Cymew]

Since I suspected that I, as a Swede, was as likely to be invaded as Kaladorn, I now find Loren's revelations about Canada illuminating.

Is there a Swedish plan as well?

 

[Elliot]

Americans should learn that the key to the assimilation of Canada is to say 'aye' (ryhmes with hay) at the end of every sentence and to produce any word ending with -out (as in about) as -oot in a quasi Scottish accent (see South Park movie for key).

That way the Canadians wouldn't know the difference.

(at least that's what I tell my Grandfather who came to England from Winipeg to fly bomber planes in 1941 - he doesn't agree and tells me 'Yank always cheat at cards', so I guess I might wrong after all)