I wonder if Aururians have some folklore or myths about emus developing humanlike intelligence then coming together to wage battle against and overthrow their human oppressors.
Lands of Red and Gold, Act II
- Thread starter Jared
- Start date
I wonder if Aururians have some folklore or myths about emus developing humanlike intelligence then coming together to wage battle against and overthrow their human oppressors.
For symmetry I'd have thought more of an Atjuntja belief. The Tjibarri would be more likely to try to incorporate the intelligent emus into the Endless Dance than start a war.
Hm.
I was just trying to think of someone other than the Atjuntja or the eastcoasters.
It would be particularly great if some Aururian culture produced a dramatic epic based around the concept of a massive human-emu war which became influential. Sure beats dragons and elves in my book.
E: I'm also thinking on the subject of Plirism in Japan, why would only one form of Plirism which requires personal tutelage be the only kind to send missionaries to Japan? The Nuttana are not a unitary entity, and as such are less likely to have a state religion. I can easily see several other Plirite sects which don't have the same constraining requirements of its laity around in Nuttana. And in light of the doctrinal diversity within Plirism that we've discussed, I am certain there will be a few bloodlines or influential members thereof that are adherents to just such a school of thought who would have the resources to sponsor their own proselytizing mission to Japan. Perhaps that in competition with other Plirites, and I expect that they'll make more headway than people beholden to a lot more strictures.
And in general I think the Plirites will have more success than the Christians did because they can learn from the example of Christian missionaries and avoid all the pitfalls. Principle of which is making sure that the Japanese know that their ultimate goal is not to convert Japan as preliminary to conquering Japan. And obviously the Nuttana would be inherently more capable of not giving off the impression of imperialist ambition than the Spanish, Portuguese, or Dutch.
Learning from the history of discrimination against Christians as well as the political climate which led to that, the Nuttana can instruct the Plirite community to support the Japanese authorities as best they can. The Shogunate was managing a careful balancing act between powerful camps, such as Zen Buddhist temples and clergy, Taoists, certain Confucian schools etc. Because of this the Shogunate favored and adopted Neo-Confucianism (which wasn't religious, but a secular ideology) as an entirely pragmatic measure to better consolidate power, and later on you also see the rise of Kokugaku.
A Plirite community which is mostly loyal would be a Plirite community which persists. The Tokugawa didn't attack Christianity out of dogma, but out of pragmatism. Plirism would be left alone, or would even be favored by the Tokugawa, if Plirites are seen as a source of support. This could even mean supporting the Plirites against attacks by Buddhists, though religious conflicts would be opposed on all terms anyhow. Support of Plirism could be a useful tactic in curtailing the power and influence of Zen monks.
If the Nuttana play their cards just right then Plirism could gain a real and lasting foothold in Japan.
E: I'm also thinking on the subject of Plirism in Japan, why would only one form of Plirism which requires personal tutelage be the only kind to send missionaries to Japan? The Nuttana are not a unitary entity, and as such are less likely to have a state religion. I can easily see several other Plirite sects which don't have the same constraining requirements of its laity around in Nuttana. And in light of the doctrinal diversity within Plirism that we've discussed, I am certain there will be a few bloodlines or influential members thereof that are adherents to just such a school of thought who would have the resources to sponsor their own proselytizing mission to Japan. Perhaps that in competition with other Plirites, and I expect that they'll make more headway than people beholden to a lot more strictures.
And in general I think the Plirites will have more success than the Christians did because they can learn from the example of Christian missionaries and avoid all the pitfalls. Principle of which is making sure that the Japanese know that their ultimate goal is not to convert Japan as preliminary to conquering Japan. And obviously the Nuttana would be inherently more capable of not giving off the impression of imperialist ambition than the Spanish, Portuguese, or Dutch.
Learning from the history of discrimination against Christians as well as the political climate which led to that, the Nuttana can instruct the Plirite community to support the Japanese authorities as best they can. The Shogunate was managing a careful balancing act between powerful camps, such as Zen Buddhist temples and clergy, Taoists, certain Confucian schools etc. Because of this the Shogunate favored and adopted Neo-Confucianism (which wasn't religious, but a secular ideology) as an entirely pragmatic measure to better consolidate power, and later on you also see the rise of Kokugaku.
A Plirite community which is mostly loyal would be a Plirite community which persists. The Tokugawa didn't attack Christianity out of dogma, but out of pragmatism. Plirism would be left alone, or would even be favored by the Tokugawa, if Plirites are seen as a source of support. This could even mean supporting the Plirites against attacks by Buddhists, though religious conflicts would be opposed on all terms anyhow. Support of Plirism could be a useful tactic in curtailing the power and influence of Zen monks.
If the Nuttana play their cards just right then Plirism could gain a real and lasting foothold in Japan.
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Certainly. Having chains of missionaries teaching other is fine. The concern is about written works alone, rather than written works being using in conjunction with personal contact to explain them. Conceivably even that problem could be addressed with suitably crafted pamphlets or the like, but the concern is that the existing main religious tracts (Endless Road and others) might contain too much truth for people to grasp at once.
Oh, Plirism does not face the problem of being tainted by association with a foreign power that might meddle in Japan. That's not the issue. The question is whether by the time Plirism arrives on the scene, the Japanese government focus on preventing foreign influence for its own sake, rather than due to fear of being used as fifth-columnists or the like. If Plirism had arrived around the time Christianity did in OTL, then I think it would probably spread as far or further than Christianity did, without the severe backlash. But it doesn't arrive then. Plirism arrives right when the Japanese government is trying to close out foreign influence entirely, not just Christianity. I'd like to know more about what the Japanese government view was by then before making any definitive decision about Plirite success or otherwise in Japanese missionary activity.
Short answer is monarchy, whether absolute or constitutional. Absolute monarchy developed more strongly in TTL's Europe due to various side-effects of Aururian contact and plagues, particularly in weakening the power of the aristocracy because rents (which were usually fixed) were eroded via inflation, leading centralising monarchs to establish more absolutist regimes.
One other example I can give is that one thread of TTL's nationalism develops from the Congxie, whose lands are divided between several competing states, but they see themselves as part of the same sovereign nation no matter where they live, and no matter who claims the soil.
Bit far ahead of the tale to go into too many details, but this depends on when China reunites, for one thing. It is divided at this point ITTL, between the northern You and the Southern Ming (and maybe another breakaway southern dynasty), with foreigners actually reserving the name China for the Ming state. (This is why ATL China is eventually known as Cathay). If China hasn't reunited yet, then obviously European colonial policy will be much more about trying to play off differences between the two (or three) Chinese states.
It's possible that there will be an Emu War Remembrance Special post at some point...
As I mentioned, I am certain that there are many Plirite schools within the Nuttana alone that would have much different conceptions of what "too much truth" means, and how best to educate those new to the faith. And if they sponsor missions to Japan, they'll likely have a lot more success than those too conservative and slow in their approach.
I think making use of Japanese missionaries almost entirely cuts out the problem of Plirism being seen as meddling foreign influence, also see the previous post I made which was went into more detail on the Shogunate's policy in regards to religion. Also consider that Plirism likely doesn't have any conception of "conversion". Conversion is really an Abrahamic thing, and it's mostly Christianity and Islam which tend to make a big show of peoples' initiation into the faith. In religions like Buddhism, Taoism, and the like, you don't really "convert", you either practice it or you don't. That fact in itself,I think, will guard Plirism against suspicion from the Japanese authorities, with there being no mass conversions or anything of the like as there was with Christianity in Japan.
Are there any ideologies which are concerned with economic organization? Many important revolutions IOTL which overthrew absolutist regimes had major economic reorganizations alongside them. French Revolution is seen as a bourgeois revolution, bringing to power merchants and proto-capitalist petty bourgeois classes into power and overthrowing the aristocratic elite. And obviously socialism and communism which overthrew Russia's Tsar. And these are just revolutions, not reformations. You can't have a revolutionary ideology that doesn't concern itself with economics (or really any ideology, revolutionary or not). What's the economic side of TTL's nationalism?
Then these states (or any one of them) would probably be a lot more open to the outside world than the Qing were. Depending on how much foreign involvement there is in the Chinese reunion, I expect support to be given to the side that's more open to outside powers. Or if both are open to Europeans, then that's clear basis for a proxy war between the great powers who're involved in China.
Speaking of which, what're the Nuttana doing in China?
The issue is that I'm pretty sure that by the time Europeans contacted Aururia, Japan was pretty unavoidably on a track towards Sakoku, if not already having implemented it.
Well, sure, which is why I'm talking about Japanese being used to spread Plirism as opposed to Aururians doing the same (which would not be possible due to Sakoku). The Nuttana already have access to Okinawa to act as a staging ground for that so it's not like they have no path around Japan's restrictions on movement of foreigners.
E: I was wondering about the status of a few possible domesticables ITTL:
Terminalia ferdinandiana, Cochlospermum gillivraei, Syzygium suborbiculare, Austromyrtus dulcis, various Billardiera species, and Pleiogynium timorense.
And to hearken back to a discussion long ago on possible Nuttana trading posts in South America, I think the best possible spot now is Chiloé island. I think it's fair to assume that the area would ITTL be a ways away from any viable level of Spanish power projection. In OTL the Spanish presence in the area was represented by crumbling forts garrisoned by skeleton crews who were incredibly difficult to supply. Add on to this the Aururian Plagues from TTL and I can easily see the Spanish basically writing off all of Chile except for the silver mines (and a more tenuous hold onto the rest of South America, manpower-wise, than OTL). So the Spanish wouldn't have the capacity to oppose a trade post, and might even allow the Nuttana restricted trade with a few colonies, because the situation would be grim enough TTL that trade with an outside nation might stimulate the worse-off colonial economies. In fact, this TL seems likely to be one where the Spanish are more open to cutting back on their extreme protectionist policies in the colonies, at least a little, depending on how hard the Aururian plagues hit them.
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I was thinking of whether iron bacteria can be collected and used to produce iron oxide out of iron-heavy waters and soils in vats. If the bacteria can produce the characteristic ferric oxide heavy slime / sludge in these conditions, then that can be collected to be smelted into usable iron. It would also be a way to recycle unusable scraps of iron as the bacteria would corrode them in time and add them to the sludge output. The problem is the time for this process to happen, it might be too slow to present a possible alternative to other sources of iron ore.
Special request. Could the Aururians perhaps find a less verhose way to express the date sometime in the near futurepast?
Cheers.
Cheers.
Re: Plirite influence in Japan, the issue remains that there's no getting around that Plirism is a foreign religion. The Japanese people know it, and the Japanese government know it. As I've stated above, that doesn't necessarily mean that the Japanese government will oppose it, since most of the factors which inspired fear of Christianity are utterly irrelevant to Plirism. I'm not averse to the idea of exploring the spread of Plirism in ATL Japan. But before making any firm decision I'd like track down a more comprehensive source than Wikipedia about what was the Japanese view of foreign influence was during the sakoku period.
The point about conversion is an interesting one. Plirism sits somewhere between Buddhism and Christianity in terms of how conversion is achieved and displayed. In Buddhist conversions, while there isn't normally as much of an emphasis on a particular conversion ritual, there is often (though not universally) a process such as recital of acceptance of the Triple Gems. For Plirism, as usual it varies on the school. For the purposes of Nangu/Nuttana schools, though, they do have a traditional public affirmation of faith which is recited by someone who wishes to show that they have become a Plirite:
“Ta mal-pa Pliri, ni gapu-pa Bula Gakal-girri marang.” (There is but one Harmony, and only the Sevenfold Path will give it balance.) This was recited by the first Māori king to convert to Plirism, for instance. It's not as ostentatious as a baptism ritual, but it is an expectation, and that may be of note to Japanese authorities. On the other hand, it may not be seen as too different to practices in existing Japanese Buddhism. I think that one could go either way.
Seeing ideologies primarily in economic terms is itself a construct of Karl Marx and his legacy, which is hard to avoid in OTL, but which does not necessarily follow in ATLs. The classification of the French Revolution as a bourgeois revolution, for instance, was an after-the-fact attempted explanation by Karl Marx, rather than representing the views of the people at the time. (And the people of the time were hardly unified in their views either, which allows lots of later interpretations to be drawn).
Which is not to say that ATL ideologies do not have positions on economics, but their ideologies aren't predicated on explaining the world in economic terms. Instead, they look at the world through other lenses, and while these ideologies lead to various consequences for economic decisions and social organisation, their positions on economics depends on how they align with other goals. For instance, in a case where a people consider themselves a sovereign nation but oppressed or exploited, they may have a view on redistribution of wealth or taxation or other such matters. But TTL's nationalism does not have any default position on economics.
For now, both Chinese states are generally more open to trade, though not completely unrestricted trade. In terms of foreign involvement in the eventual Chinese reunion, that depends on the period of the reunification. If it happens any time soon, the European involvement will be minor at best since the Chinese states are rather large enough to dictate their own terms, i.e. they could not really be considered proxy wars, but Chinese wars in which foreign powers have an interest but minimal influence. If the Chinese reunification happens much later, then that might be different.
Trading quite happily, for the most part, in whichever trading ports are open. (I know that there will be trade ports open in both China and Cathay, but have not specified how many and which ones). There are several Aururian goods which are of interest in China, and to a lesser degree the reverse, and the Nuttana have a good share of that trade. They're one of the major intermediaries of the flow of Aururian silver to China, for instance. Ditto for premium kunduri products (a small market in Chinese terms but a lucrative one from the Nuttana perspective). Jeeree, and some Aururian spices are also valued. From the Chinese side of the ledger, silk and porcelain are the two most-valued Chinese goods in Aururia, though the silk trade is starting to face local Aururian competition. Tea is bought by Nuttana traders but mostly for on-selling to Europeans; tea has only a very limited market in Aururia.
Taking these in order:
Terminalia ferdinandiana, one of several species commonly called Kakadu plum, is not domesticated. Its fruit is very tasty and with extremely high Vitamin C levels. Its native range is basically Northern Territory plus northwestern WA. Not a place where any farming peoples are present enough to domesticate it.
Cochlospermum gillivraei, common name kapok, is almost certainly not domesticated. Its roots can be harvested as edible. Its native range does include parts of QLD where the Nuttana live, but they have only recently arrived and would be unlikely to have taken the time to domesticate a tree which is an additional root crop when they have sweet potato and lesser yams filling that niche. What I also find telling is that the species is also found in New Guinea and is not (as far as I know) a major domesticate there.
Syzygium suborbiculare, commonly called the lady apple, is possibly cultivated but not yet fully domesticated. It produces a tasty fruit which is variable size in the wild, and which the Nuttana may have started up cultivation of as a fruit crop. It is relatively flexible in where it grows, which helps, though it has been assessed several times as not being of commercial interest in modern Oz.
Austromyrtus dulcis, commonly called midgem berry, midyim berry or sand berry, is certainly cultivated if not fully domesticated. It is a shrub/small tree native to coastal regions of northern NSW and southern QLD. It is an extremely sweet fruit, with obvious attractions. I've found a few cryptic references online to being difficult to harvest and unsuitable as a commercial fruit in OTL, but other sources say it's quite cultivatable even in southern regions provided that it has some protection from frost. At the very least it will be cultivated from about the *Hunter Valley northward, which is about the limit of serious frosts. Its fruit are relatively small but abundant, and has the useful property that if kept relatively watered it will keep fruiting for over half the year.
For Billardiera, one of the species, B. scandens, with the common name of apple berry, has been briefly touched on in the early days of the TL. It is a coastal fruit species grown since the early days of agriculture moving to the eastern seaboard. It is one of a number of fruit species which are harvested there. Possibly some of the other Billardiera species are grown in the same way.
Pleiogynium timoriense, I doubt that it has had much in the way of domestication. I base this on how it was also present in regions occupied by other agricultural peoples (New Guinea, some Pacific islands) but was not domesticated there. It's not impossible that it was domesticated in Aururia, it seems unlikely.
I haven't forgotten that discussion, just postponed working out the matter until Act III, when the timeline will start to have more focus on the broader world again. (Very deliberately, Act II focuses on the world through Aururian and Aotearoan eyes, so what's happening elsewhere in the world is usually on shown through what's heard in Aururia.)
In general terms, though, Spanish control of South America is mixed because while they have fewer people to rule much of the continent, the populations of the indigenous peoples are reduced by as much or even more. So it's not clear whether their control would be weakened that much. Chiloé had some attractions as a religious outpost for missions, and there may still be an interest in doing that even if general royal power is waning.
If the Nuttana are interested in setting up a trading post for trade to Chile itself, then Chiloé is an attractive station. However, if they are starting up mostly by setting a way-station/ resupply point for the southern circumnavigation route, then Chiloé is probably too far north. So they may start somewhere much further south, and only venture north slowly from there.
This is an intriguing idea, but I have no idea about how quick such processes would be. Bog iron renews over a timescale of centuries, but this would potentially be a faster process than that.
Glad you liked the timeline.
That particular matter's never been revealed directly. There's been one or two hints scattered in bits of the timeline, but the kind which usually only make sense with hindsight. There will be a bit more of a hint in the remaining part of the Hunter sequence when that gets finalised, but it's not directly revealed even there. The nature of their discussion will be revealed before the end of Act II, though.
The smart-arse answer is that the Aururians do have a shorter way to express the dates, just that if I converted that directly it would make very little sense to Europeans. Writing the date as 4.10.382 would be concise, but also extremely uninformative. (That particular date converts to 10 July 1621, incidentally). The longer version of 4.10.382 can be stated as Serpent Day, Cycle of Salt, 382nd Year of Harmony. That's not noticeably longer than the full version of the European date for the same day, which is Saturday, 10th of July, Year of Our Lord 1621.
More seriously, if it's more readable to just put the European dates, I can just use those. I add the other ones for flavour to show how Aururians describe the calendar dates, and then add the European translation for readability. It's easy enough to simply list the European dates.
As an aside, a question I'm still uncertain of is whether all Aururians will ever adopt and/or retain the European calendar for secular purposes. The European calendar spread around the world mostly through colonisation, though even uncolonised nations adopted it eventually - the Chinese being the last to do so, about 1949 if memory serves. ITTL... a directly colonised nation would presumably be forced to switch. If it's one of the other methods of colonisation, such as protectorates/client states, it's not as clear if they would do so. Or if a formerly colonised nation regains its independence, would it want to revert its calendar?
Convenience for interaction with the rest of the world is certainly a factor in favour of switching, though from an Aururian perspective the European calendar is maddening for another reason: the days of the week shift. The Aururian day names are fixed on the calendar because they add non-week days at the end of the calendar. From their point of view, the name of the day also tellsyou its date in the 12-day cycle (e.g. Serpent Day is Day 4, it doesn't shift). Of course, commercial contacts in any world like the modern world would be insanely complex if Aururia or part of Aururia is still running its own calendar. This is something I still need to consider further.
Sorry for the late reply, I've been very busy lately and have been sick recently, but I'm done with studies for the time being and will back to work on the maps and I'll soon send some of the flags I finished.
And I'll ask a related question to that here since it doesn't have any inherent spoilers to it: how much of the Aururian interior (in OTL Queensland) do the Tjarrlinghi control? Since they practice some form of pastoral nomadism on horseback, I imagine they could have a large area of control / influence. Do they control much past the Darling Downs? Would the gemfields that are north of the Darling Downs regions be marked as under their control on a political map?
I think Plirism's foreign provenance is irrelevant considering that the Shogunate didn't persecute religions (or philosophy, ideology etc.) for being foreign necessarily, and indeed, if said religion was of any political or other utility, then it would be taken advantage of or encouraged. As I mentioned previously, Plirism can be used as a counterbalance against the power of the Buddhist clergy in the type of realpolitik political strategy that the Shogunate employed. I'm sure that there are sources for all this other wikipedia (and I'm certain a few good sources are cited on wiki itself). I researched the topic of Christianity in Tokugawa Japan a while back, so I'll see if I can recover any of the sources there, but I am confident that the basic gist of what I've said is accurate.
In fact, read about the Danka system and you can see how the Tokugawa Shogunate used Buddhism to cement their power by making it impossible to easily practice Christianity. The side effect of this system, however, was that Buddhist temples were given too much power and influence. I can easily see Plirism being used similarly to enhance state control over the people and to counter Christianity, as well as keeping the power of Buddhist temples and clergy in check.
Also, many Japanese were disillusioned from the state of Buddhism during the Tokugawa period since it was transformed into what was essentially a tool for political subjugation (like with the aforementioned Danka system). I'm sure that many disillusioned Buddhists would be heavily attracted towards Plirism. Perhaps the Tokugawa would like Plirism to be an option for those who dislike the state of Buddhism who would otherwise have turned to Christianity. Perhaps they could expand the Danka system to include Plirism?
The point about conversion is a small one but not to say an unimportant one. The important matter is that of allegiance, since converting to Christianity usually meant (or was taken to mean) that your allegiance to the powers that be was now secondary to your faith. And that was part of the fear of Christianity in Japan; that its spread was an imperialist endeavour to turn Japanese away from loyalty to their lieges and to the European Christian Church (and Pope).
If Plirism (or the Plirism that spreads to Japan) encouraged loyalty to existing rulers and governmental institutions, or at least didn't encourage subversion of authority, then it would likely be encouraged instead of opposed. The affirmation you mention can't really be taken as much of a challenge to temporal authority as, say, the Muslim Shahada can be.
In that you're clearly stating that the ultimate authority you recognize is God's (and more generally, the authority of religious law and clergy). Most sects of Christianity and Islam allow or even encourage disobedience of authority if it would cause one to sin (or just generally if said authority is not Christian or Muslim). There are exceptions like the Sh'ia, who allow sinful actions and lying about one's faith if need be, which was sometimes the only method by which to survive times of intense persecution.
But in any case, Christianity inherently seems to dismiss all Earthly authority in favour of God's divine authority, and is clear about which power Christians ought to prioritize their devotion to. Mix that in with the fear of European colonial imperialism and it's clear why the Shogunate was so suspicious of Christian conversions.
I disagree that this is inherently a Marxist / Marxian thing since it was done before by other political theorists, but that's not my point. What I mean is that political ideologies as well as revolutions etc. have always had an economic side to them, and Marx was just one of the first to popularize the analysis of politics and history through an economic lens. The French Revolution was not seen at the time as a bourgeois revolution, but regardless it was a product of economic factors. And it's not right to say that the revolutionaries didn't see things in terms of economics either, since they realized that absolutism is a terrible system on economic grounds.
I didn't say that OTL ideologies are predicated on explaining things in economic terms. I meant that political ideologies can't ignore economics, or consider it of no importance, since economics is one of the most important characteristics of human society generally. There is some amount of economic determinism involved in explaining why human society is the way it is. So it is inevitable that when you discuss how things should be (which is what political ideologies are, simply put) that you have to touch on economics heavily. This would the same in TTL and OTL alike.
Nationalism as you describe it sounds less like a political ideology and closer to something like postcolonialism, which is political theory but is far from a workable political programme. It doesn't have a default economic position but does take influence Marxism and other socialist economic theory in its own examination of colonialism and its legacy. But more to the point, postcolonialism is less a political ideology, but a academic theoretical framework for the analysis of history, culture, geopolitics, and more. The impression I get from your description of ATL nationalism is that it sounds more like an analytical theory than a political ideology.
Are the two Chinas more open to European influence? Can there be a Meiji Restoration like modernization of China through greater European influence ITTL? Are there any specific differences to China ITTL which can make Western influence more widespread?
Like tea in Aururia, wouldn't jeeree and kunduri have little demand in China because of local alternatives like tobacco and, as mentioned, tea? Spices without local substitutes might do very well, however.
Kratom might prove very lucrative all across East Asia, since it would be consumed like tea, which is already incredibly popular, and would be basically like a combination of coffee and opium in effect, being a stimulating opioid which would provide pain relief, energize the body, lift the spirits. It could also be made into candy and other confections which would have the flavour and psychoactive effects of kratom. It could also be used to make alcoholic beverages by using it both as a flavouring, and since the active alkaloids can be dissolved in ethanol, as a psychoactive addition as well.
By the way, since the Nuttana would be the ones to popularize kratom ITTL, I imagine that their term for it would be the common one worldwide. "Kratom" is an originally Thai word, and could be Aururianized as "kirattum" or something similar, but I don't know how old that word is or how far back the use of kratom there goes. And since it's likely that the Nuttana discover Mitragyna speciosa in Papua, I'm guessing they'll have their own term for it.
I'm thinking the Nuttana will eventually acquire varieties of Mitragyna speciosa from all across Southeast Asia and breed cultivars that are easier to grow, yield more, have more alkaloid content etc. And all in good time too, I reckon, since Aururians have plenty of experience in breeding small trees as crops (i.e. Wattles). So there would be many different names for different types of kratom, and different nations and peoples would likely prefer different types.
Also, is there any influence from China (and East Asia generally) going back to the Nuttana? It's possible that the Nuttana could end up with a sizable East Asian population (the Nuttana probably even have a Chinatown already) if they encourage migration (since they would have a perennial requirement for more workers). It would be interesting if the Nuttana end up using chopsticks as common cooking and eating utensils, and have rice and noodles (made from yam starch and flavoured with wattleseed, perhaps?) as staple dishes. Would be interesting to see the Nuttana become the most Asianized Aururian culture. Would be more interesting than just Western cultural influence as Aururia moves towards modernity.
E: I also read that Chinese tobacco is a very profitable export to Australia IOTL in the present day, even despite being illegal. In our world It seems that Australia / Aururia is where Chinese goods are exported for massive profits. Even more generally, in our world it is China which manufactures for the world. Perhaps ITTL Aururia or an Aururian state can take up the mantle of global manufacturing hub in more modern times. Given what we know of the state of things at the current point in the TL, could that be possible,
I think the Nuttana can come across it through exploration and bring it back for cultivation, similar to how they have come across kratom. The vitamin C content would make it very useful for maritime use to prevent scurvy. And it's tasty enough, as you mention, to make for a good fruit crop.
And if this distribution map is correct, it can be found closer to the Nuttana:
E: Of course, the Nuttana need not have to stumble upon it by accident, they'd just have to ask any hunter-gatherers around the area about plants that are good for eating. The Kakadu plum was much prized by aboriginals IOTL for being a very healthy fruit (not only vitamin C but antioxidants). Cultivated, it would make a good addition to the Aururian diet. Though I've seen a few unsubstantiated claims that fruits of cultivated trees have reduced vitamin C content.
That would mean that their overall geographic extent of control would have receded a lot with a smaller native population because not only do you need people to rule over in order to control the land, they would also probably move surviving natives closer to where their labour is required, such as mines and plantations. So Spanish control would still be patchwork with a smaller surviving native population.
There would also be far less interest in Chiloé as a missionary base if there are fewer natives to convert, and more importantly, if it's much harder to defend the land, which was pretty hard IOTL already, as I had mentioned previously.
It's likely that Chiloé itself wouldn't be the Patagonian stop on the Nuttana's circumnavigation route, said point would be further South. But Chiloé would be the most important port within Patagonia itself, which the more southernly ports would be dependent on for supplies and such.
I got the idea from the primitive technology youtube channel, specifically the video where he makes a forge and is able to make some iron out of iron bacteria sludge mixed with flux and charcoal. I'm sure that with a more refined process and better equipment Aururians could develop a viable process for iron production using iron bacteria. Are there any areas where this could be developed or could catch on? Places with low iron ore reserves or where mining it is not possible?
I think both European and Aururian calendar systems can be used in different contexts. Like how the Chinese calendar, Islamic calendar, and a few others are retained and used for cultural and religious reasons while the Western calendar is used for everything else.
And lastly (man, this post literally took me hours to type
) are there any Aururian nations which produce standardized military equipment for standard issue? I was thinking the Nuttana and Tjibarr are the two who would be the first in Aururia to do this, and we are near the point in this TL when Europeans started using standardized muskets and swords and had centralized ordinance boards. The Nuttana could have standard issue muskets and swords for naval and land use. On ships they could have a central cache of weapons which would be accessed when required (as was common for European ships) as opposed to every sailor carrying a weapon in person. Since Tjibarr has a larger military force, if not every rank and file soldier can be armed then perhaps the officers can be issued with standard issue sword and firearms. Though I'm not sure if the Tjibarri military (and political system) is one which would pursue this sort of standardization.
It would also depend on how much of a standing army they each have. I can see the Nuttana arming mercenaries with standard issue weaponry (designed according to specific requirements, since e.g. Maori mercenaries would be used to certain types of sword) in order to cut down on costs and to standardize military capabilities. If the mercenaries are armed by the Nuttana themselves, and are paid in regular wages, then they'd probably be a lot more dependable a military force than pure mercenaries would be, since they're something more like auxiliaries (who come pre-trained).
Speaking of mercenaries, I'm thinking that Tjarrlinghi cavalry mercenaries would be in much demand. In fact, I think Tjarrlinghi cavalry could become the basis for a type of cavalry unit (like hussars etc.) distinguished by their weapons and tactics, and not only in Aururia; perhaps some European powers take note of the Tjarrlinghi way of fighting and develop their own cavalry units inspired by them, who are armed and fight like Tjarrlinghi cavalry.
And I'll ask a related question to that here since it doesn't have any inherent spoilers to it: how much of the Aururian interior (in OTL Queensland) do the Tjarrlinghi control? Since they practice some form of pastoral nomadism on horseback, I imagine they could have a large area of control / influence. Do they control much past the Darling Downs? Would the gemfields that are north of the Darling Downs regions be marked as under their control on a political map?
I think Plirism's foreign provenance is irrelevant considering that the Shogunate didn't persecute religions (or philosophy, ideology etc.) for being foreign necessarily, and indeed, if said religion was of any political or other utility, then it would be taken advantage of or encouraged. As I mentioned previously, Plirism can be used as a counterbalance against the power of the Buddhist clergy in the type of realpolitik political strategy that the Shogunate employed. I'm sure that there are sources for all this other wikipedia (and I'm certain a few good sources are cited on wiki itself). I researched the topic of Christianity in Tokugawa Japan a while back, so I'll see if I can recover any of the sources there, but I am confident that the basic gist of what I've said is accurate.
In fact, read about the Danka system and you can see how the Tokugawa Shogunate used Buddhism to cement their power by making it impossible to easily practice Christianity. The side effect of this system, however, was that Buddhist temples were given too much power and influence. I can easily see Plirism being used similarly to enhance state control over the people and to counter Christianity, as well as keeping the power of Buddhist temples and clergy in check.
Also, many Japanese were disillusioned from the state of Buddhism during the Tokugawa period since it was transformed into what was essentially a tool for political subjugation (like with the aforementioned Danka system). I'm sure that many disillusioned Buddhists would be heavily attracted towards Plirism. Perhaps the Tokugawa would like Plirism to be an option for those who dislike the state of Buddhism who would otherwise have turned to Christianity. Perhaps they could expand the Danka system to include Plirism?
The point about conversion is a small one but not to say an unimportant one. The important matter is that of allegiance, since converting to Christianity usually meant (or was taken to mean) that your allegiance to the powers that be was now secondary to your faith. And that was part of the fear of Christianity in Japan; that its spread was an imperialist endeavour to turn Japanese away from loyalty to their lieges and to the European Christian Church (and Pope).
If Plirism (or the Plirism that spreads to Japan) encouraged loyalty to existing rulers and governmental institutions, or at least didn't encourage subversion of authority, then it would likely be encouraged instead of opposed. The affirmation you mention can't really be taken as much of a challenge to temporal authority as, say, the Muslim Shahada can be.
In that you're clearly stating that the ultimate authority you recognize is God's (and more generally, the authority of religious law and clergy). Most sects of Christianity and Islam allow or even encourage disobedience of authority if it would cause one to sin (or just generally if said authority is not Christian or Muslim). There are exceptions like the Sh'ia, who allow sinful actions and lying about one's faith if need be, which was sometimes the only method by which to survive times of intense persecution.
But in any case, Christianity inherently seems to dismiss all Earthly authority in favour of God's divine authority, and is clear about which power Christians ought to prioritize their devotion to. Mix that in with the fear of European colonial imperialism and it's clear why the Shogunate was so suspicious of Christian conversions.
I disagree that this is inherently a Marxist / Marxian thing since it was done before by other political theorists, but that's not my point. What I mean is that political ideologies as well as revolutions etc. have always had an economic side to them, and Marx was just one of the first to popularize the analysis of politics and history through an economic lens. The French Revolution was not seen at the time as a bourgeois revolution, but regardless it was a product of economic factors. And it's not right to say that the revolutionaries didn't see things in terms of economics either, since they realized that absolutism is a terrible system on economic grounds.
I didn't say that OTL ideologies are predicated on explaining things in economic terms. I meant that political ideologies can't ignore economics, or consider it of no importance, since economics is one of the most important characteristics of human society generally. There is some amount of economic determinism involved in explaining why human society is the way it is. So it is inevitable that when you discuss how things should be (which is what political ideologies are, simply put) that you have to touch on economics heavily. This would the same in TTL and OTL alike.
Nationalism as you describe it sounds less like a political ideology and closer to something like postcolonialism, which is political theory but is far from a workable political programme. It doesn't have a default economic position but does take influence Marxism and other socialist economic theory in its own examination of colonialism and its legacy. But more to the point, postcolonialism is less a political ideology, but a academic theoretical framework for the analysis of history, culture, geopolitics, and more. The impression I get from your description of ATL nationalism is that it sounds more like an analytical theory than a political ideology.
Are the two Chinas more open to European influence? Can there be a Meiji Restoration like modernization of China through greater European influence ITTL? Are there any specific differences to China ITTL which can make Western influence more widespread?
Like tea in Aururia, wouldn't jeeree and kunduri have little demand in China because of local alternatives like tobacco and, as mentioned, tea? Spices without local substitutes might do very well, however.
Kratom might prove very lucrative all across East Asia, since it would be consumed like tea, which is already incredibly popular, and would be basically like a combination of coffee and opium in effect, being a stimulating opioid which would provide pain relief, energize the body, lift the spirits. It could also be made into candy and other confections which would have the flavour and psychoactive effects of kratom. It could also be used to make alcoholic beverages by using it both as a flavouring, and since the active alkaloids can be dissolved in ethanol, as a psychoactive addition as well.
By the way, since the Nuttana would be the ones to popularize kratom ITTL, I imagine that their term for it would be the common one worldwide. "Kratom" is an originally Thai word, and could be Aururianized as "kirattum" or something similar, but I don't know how old that word is or how far back the use of kratom there goes. And since it's likely that the Nuttana discover Mitragyna speciosa in Papua, I'm guessing they'll have their own term for it.
I'm thinking the Nuttana will eventually acquire varieties of Mitragyna speciosa from all across Southeast Asia and breed cultivars that are easier to grow, yield more, have more alkaloid content etc. And all in good time too, I reckon, since Aururians have plenty of experience in breeding small trees as crops (i.e. Wattles). So there would be many different names for different types of kratom, and different nations and peoples would likely prefer different types.
Also, is there any influence from China (and East Asia generally) going back to the Nuttana? It's possible that the Nuttana could end up with a sizable East Asian population (the Nuttana probably even have a Chinatown already) if they encourage migration (since they would have a perennial requirement for more workers). It would be interesting if the Nuttana end up using chopsticks as common cooking and eating utensils, and have rice and noodles (made from yam starch and flavoured with wattleseed, perhaps?) as staple dishes. Would be interesting to see the Nuttana become the most Asianized Aururian culture. Would be more interesting than just Western cultural influence as Aururia moves towards modernity.
E: I also read that Chinese tobacco is a very profitable export to Australia IOTL in the present day, even despite being illegal. In our world It seems that Australia / Aururia is where Chinese goods are exported for massive profits. Even more generally, in our world it is China which manufactures for the world. Perhaps ITTL Aururia or an Aururian state can take up the mantle of global manufacturing hub in more modern times. Given what we know of the state of things at the current point in the TL, could that be possible,
I think the Nuttana can come across it through exploration and bring it back for cultivation, similar to how they have come across kratom. The vitamin C content would make it very useful for maritime use to prevent scurvy. And it's tasty enough, as you mention, to make for a good fruit crop.
And if this distribution map is correct, it can be found closer to the Nuttana:
E: Of course, the Nuttana need not have to stumble upon it by accident, they'd just have to ask any hunter-gatherers around the area about plants that are good for eating. The Kakadu plum was much prized by aboriginals IOTL for being a very healthy fruit (not only vitamin C but antioxidants). Cultivated, it would make a good addition to the Aururian diet. Though I've seen a few unsubstantiated claims that fruits of cultivated trees have reduced vitamin C content.
That would mean that their overall geographic extent of control would have receded a lot with a smaller native population because not only do you need people to rule over in order to control the land, they would also probably move surviving natives closer to where their labour is required, such as mines and plantations. So Spanish control would still be patchwork with a smaller surviving native population.
There would also be far less interest in Chiloé as a missionary base if there are fewer natives to convert, and more importantly, if it's much harder to defend the land, which was pretty hard IOTL already, as I had mentioned previously.
It's likely that Chiloé itself wouldn't be the Patagonian stop on the Nuttana's circumnavigation route, said point would be further South. But Chiloé would be the most important port within Patagonia itself, which the more southernly ports would be dependent on for supplies and such.
I got the idea from the primitive technology youtube channel, specifically the video where he makes a forge and is able to make some iron out of iron bacteria sludge mixed with flux and charcoal. I'm sure that with a more refined process and better equipment Aururians could develop a viable process for iron production using iron bacteria. Are there any areas where this could be developed or could catch on? Places with low iron ore reserves or where mining it is not possible?
I think both European and Aururian calendar systems can be used in different contexts. Like how the Chinese calendar, Islamic calendar, and a few others are retained and used for cultural and religious reasons while the Western calendar is used for everything else.
And lastly (man, this post literally took me hours to type
) are there any Aururian nations which produce standardized military equipment for standard issue? I was thinking the Nuttana and Tjibarr are the two who would be the first in Aururia to do this, and we are near the point in this TL when Europeans started using standardized muskets and swords and had centralized ordinance boards. The Nuttana could have standard issue muskets and swords for naval and land use. On ships they could have a central cache of weapons which would be accessed when required (as was common for European ships) as opposed to every sailor carrying a weapon in person. Since Tjibarr has a larger military force, if not every rank and file soldier can be armed then perhaps the officers can be issued with standard issue sword and firearms. Though I'm not sure if the Tjibarri military (and political system) is one which would pursue this sort of standardization.It would also depend on how much of a standing army they each have. I can see the Nuttana arming mercenaries with standard issue weaponry (designed according to specific requirements, since e.g. Maori mercenaries would be used to certain types of sword) in order to cut down on costs and to standardize military capabilities. If the mercenaries are armed by the Nuttana themselves, and are paid in regular wages, then they'd probably be a lot more dependable a military force than pure mercenaries would be, since they're something more like auxiliaries (who come pre-trained).
Speaking of mercenaries, I'm thinking that Tjarrlinghi cavalry mercenaries would be in much demand. In fact, I think Tjarrlinghi cavalry could become the basis for a type of cavalry unit (like hussars etc.) distinguished by their weapons and tactics, and not only in Aururia; perhaps some European powers take note of the Tjarrlinghi way of fighting and develop their own cavalry units inspired by them, who are armed and fight like Tjarrlinghi cavalry.
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Lands of Red and Gold Interlude #12: Elephant In The Room
Lands of Red and Gold Interlude #12: Elephant In The Room
“Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant,
The only harmless great thing.”
- John Donne (1612), The Progress of the Soul, l.381.
* * *
Weemiraga’s Day, Cycle of Copper, 439th Year of Harmony (10.14.439) / 2 September 1678
Near Nerridella [Townsville], Lands of the Six Lords (Nuttana)
The waka [war canoes] glided across the night-darkened seas. The ocean had been kept calm, whether by the benevolence of Tangaroa [god of the sea] or the valiant mana of Irirangi, the great warleader. The stars which adorned Ranginui [sky father] gave some light, but fortunately the moon still hung full and low in the western sky, granting vision to all.
Hare paddled the waka along with his comrades, grateful for the moonlight. On many raids, moving during moonlight risked discovery. Here, it was essential. The Pakanga could not hope to reach all the way to Nerridella undiscovered. This country was too far from what they knew, too foreign. What they needed was to get ashore in safety and then find the best target, be that the city proper or some outlying settlement.
The waka pulled onto the shore before Tama-nui-te-rā [god of the sun] had pushed his fiery presence above the horizon. Without needing instruction, the warriors pulled the waka up over the sand past the highwater mark.
Hare looked around. Most of the ground near the shore was covered by fields of a tall, solid-stalked grass which grew more than half again as tall as a man. A handful of rough-looking huts stood not too far to the south, but other than that there was no sign of human presence.
Irirangi came up from one of the later canoes. He gestured to another warrior. “Pomare, take ten men to those houses. Kill anyone inside. All others, conceal the waka!”
Pomare did not choose Hare amongst his warriors, so he joined his fellows in pulling the waka further up and covering them with this loose long-grass. He did not know what it was, until one of the other Pakanga said, “This is tohu-grass [sugar grass]!”
That motivated the Pakanga nicely. They cut at some of the nearby stalks, using most of them for concealing the waka, then sucking at the rest to extract the sweet juices. Hare took his share gladly. Tohu [sugar] was one of the most esteemed goods, enough that ariki iwi [kings] of the Māori traded slaves for it.
What a land of wealth this is, to have tohu growing freely. Hare could only dream of what further fortunes must be concealed in Nerridella. The prosperity of the Nuttana was legendary. Some of that wealth would be extracted, in whatever way suited the Pakanga best.
Pomare and his warriors returned quickly and reported that there had been only a handful of slaves there, now all dead. No warning would go to the Nuttana from there.
Perhaps we will accomplish greater surprise than I thought. Dawn was just breaking, with the first hint of light off in the east. The greater ships which had towed the waka were well off the horizon, waiting amongst the coral islets, where they would remain until sent for. With the waka now concealed and the locals killed, the Pakanga were not so easily observed. There may have been those who spotted them first, somehow, but with fortune the raiders might find their best target first.
Irirangi gave orders for several groups of scouts to go and search out the nearby lands. He designated a few more warriors to act as sentries nearby, in case some local Nuttana snuck in past the scouts. Again, Hare was unchosen, leaving him to wait and watch with the main group of warriors.
The morning passed as the Pakanga awaited the scouts’ return. Some waited silently, in whatever contemplation suited them. Some regularly inspected their weapons, a ritual as soothing as it was unnecessary. Others talked in low voices, with conversation covering many topics but the most prominent choice being what booty they might loot from the Nuttana.
Around mid-morning, three of the sentries returned from the north. At a run.
“They come!” one said.
Irirangi barked out orders for the Pakanga to assemble. Hare had his musket ready, and he slung his mere [1] by his side. He was close enough to hear the sentries babble out more details about the approaching enemies, claiming that the Nuttana were using spirit powers to float above the tohu-grass.
Hare was in the front rank of Pakanga, which gave him a perfect view of the approaching enemy. The sentries were right: men who seemed to be hovering above the grass. Men, dark-skinned men who looked to be sitting, their legs just below the tips of the grass, and rocking slightly as they floated closer.
A musket barked, followed by a sharper bark from Irirangi to hold fire. The bullet showed no effect on the floating men, but then musket fire often missed. Impossible to say whether that was indeed some spirit protection or just poor aim.
“Ready,” Irirangi said, as the men floated closer.
Hare joined the other Pakanga in preparing a volley. When the order to fire came, he aimed as best he could, and pulled the trigger.
A couple of the floating men fell, vanishing into the grass. The rest kept on their steady pace toward the Pakanga.
“Ready!” Irirangi shouted. Hare joined the others in trying to prepare, but found that fumbled his loading. The eerie spirit powers of these Nuttana were disturbing.
By the time Irirangi gave the order for a second volley, fewer muskets fired. Hare did so a moment later, and others followed. One more floating man fell, but the rest came on.
The fastest of the hovering men emerged from the tohu-grass, revealing the truth. They were not floating, but riding beasts that dwarfed a horse!
Hare had an impression of something grey and massive, with a huge head, large ears, a long arm where its nose should be, and two gleaming white swords emerging from its mouth. The creatures had men atop them, but it was only the beasts which concerned him.
Amidst the shouts of dismay and other exclamations, some of the Pakanga broke ranks and started running away. Hare needed only a moment’s thought to join them. He ran, and felt no shame about doing so. Fleeing men was cowardice, but running from these unworldly creatures was simply sense.
* * *
Venus’s Day, Cycle of Bronze, 424th Year of Harmony (9.5.424) / 16 May 1663
Logging camp on Yimir River [Endeavour River], upriver of Wujal [Cooktown], Lands of the Six Lords (Nuttana)
Quailoi felt as if he were waking from the mother of all rum headaches. His temples ached, indeed, his whole head felt pained. His mouth was drier than the Dead Heart [outback], and his body felt as fatigued as if he had been placed on punitive labour from sunup till sundown.
He tried to piece together the threads of his fraying memory. He recalled fever, aches and coughs, and friends groaning in the darkness. He recalled snippets of speech, of men making their final prayers in expectation of passing, and fevered thoughts which had been terrifying at the time but where the details now slipped away whenever he tried to remember them.
Above all, he felt an overwhelming thirst, which begged to be satiated.
Slowly, forcing movement on his limbs, he sat up. He saw only the inside of his crude tent which normally sheltered four men during sleep. No-one else was within the tent, neither alive nor dead.
Outside, he had vague glimpses of the ruins of the logging camp and other men lying on the ground, either sleeping or dead, but he focused his slow movements on getting to the river. There, he lowered himself slowly and cupped water into his mouth until the worst of the thirst had receded.
With the water revitalising his body, his fatigued mind finally grasped the word which had been buried beneath fever. Plague. Some new outland plague had arrived, striking down everyone in the logging camp.
Quailoi sat beside the riverbank, slowly weaving together his scattered thoughts into a more coherent thread. Some new great-fevered plague had struck down the camp. Everyone must have fallen ill around the same time. He remembered men retiring to different tents before he withdrew to rest. From the glimpses he could see around him, several men had not even made it to the tents.
He saw logs piled into several piles around the camp, most close to the river so that they could be tied together and floated down to the city. He saw men fallen. But he realised, slowly, that all of the elephants had vanished. Forgetting about thirty-odd elephants takes some doing, but the plague had blurred his thoughts from realising it until this moment.
The elephants must have wandered off because of hunger and lack of human attention. Difficult to blame them there. But damnably frustrating since an elephant would have made a handy option for carrying him any distance, when he knew he could not walk far.
With that realisation, his thoughts finally assembled into something resembling a pattern. He needed to do two things. Find if anyone else was left alive and needed what meagre assistance he could give, and find the best way to get back to Wujal. If there was such a way.
Quailoi began the slow, grim but necessary task of searching throughout the camp, and finding out whether the apparently abandoned camp contained only people who were entirely dead, or some who were just mostly dead. The task took considerable time because he still could not move quickly, although in most cases it was immediately obvious that people were dead. Usually he could tell just by smell, for the dead usually emptied their bowels on death, something he had not really appreciated until this moment.
He did not see the full number of fallen men that he would have expected. Perhaps some had departed before the plague consumed them, or had fled into the forest and fallen, or roused earlier than him and still fled. Impossible to say, and it mattered little for now, though it would have been a most disharmonious act to flee before checking whether others survived.
When he had nearly given up hope, he found one other survivor beneath a tent at the far end of the camp. Wenedai. Lying down, motionless save for slight passage of breath, but with life still clinging. Fortunately, there was an empty bowl beside him, which Quailoi took back to the river to fill with water before returning to wake the other man.
Rousing Wenedai to mindfulness took some time and several return trips to the river for further water. Telling him that they were the only survivors of the plague, and obtaining comprehension about that, took even longer.
Quailoi said, “We must return to Wujal, then; no help can we be sure of from closer.”
“Is there any easy way home?”
“One of the log-rafts is still attached to the bank. It will be our best way.” He had spotted it on his last visit to the river.
“I suppose we must use it. Though the elephants are lost. All of the elephants. We cannot retrieve them.”
“To the Blaméd One [2] with the elephants!” Quailoi snapped. “Let them fend for themselves, if they can. Let us get back to Wujal.”
If there are any people left in Wujal. If this Great Death has not claimed them all. That thought, Quailoi dared not utter aloud, for fear that speaking it would make it true.
* * *
From: The Compleat Elephant
Elephants of Aururia
Elephants are such an iconic part of the Aururian fauna today that some people do not realise that they are not, in fact, native to the Third World...
The tale of Aururian elephants begins in the 1640s, when the founding fathers and mothers of the Nuttana were first carving out a new city at Wujal and a trading network which was spreading into Asia. They were keen for labour and especially for timber, but could not easily obtain the workforce they wanted.
With trade links stretching to Sumatra and Southeast Asia, they were aware of the power of elephants, particularly for logging. Possessing what were then extremely novel and thus valuable spices, they had no problems trading for elephants, mostly from Sumatra. Shipping the elephants proved to be more of a challenge, with early efforts resulting in several which were lost in transit, but within a decade they had mastered the practice.
By the late 1650s there were several dozen elephants working in logging camps upriver of Wujal, with a few more in the city itself for assistance working within the growing timberyards. Because the Nuttana preferred to ship smaller elephants, most of these elephants are believed to have been females or adolescent males...
The critical moment for Aururian elephants came in 1663. This was the year when measles, the worst plague ever to strike the Third World, reached the Nuttana lands. Crucially, it reached two logging camps where a considerable number of elephants had been utilised in timber work. The workers in the camp were all struck down at once. Most workers died, and even those who survived were in no condition to see to the elephants. So the elephants saw to themselves, and fled into the forest.
In the aftermath of what they came to call the Great Death, the Nuttana were far too busy to retrieve some wandering elephants. By the time their people had recovered, the elephants had vanished deep into the tropical forests of northern Cape Kumgatu [Cape York Peninsula], and were far too difficult to track down and capture in numbers.
These escapees formed the nucleus of the Aururian pachyderm population. While historical records of the time are understandably vague, it is estimated that around forty or fifty elephants escaped into the forest. Because the importation preference had been for smaller elephants, it is thought that the majority were female. This meant that they bred faster than would have otherwise been expected – for elephants – and their numbers rapidly expanded.
For the first few generations, even the growing number of elephants were still easily able to conceal themselves within Aururia’s northern jungle. The Nuttana left them alone, not completely forgotten, but not something which attracted much interest. It proved to be cheaper for them to import a few more elephants when they needed them, rather than try to hunt down and tame the feral elephants...
While abandoned, the Aururian elephant population did not die out. On the contrary, they continued to thrive, supplemented for several generations by the occasional rogue elephant which escaped from captivity, or a handful of releasees.
Aururian elephants were and are not particularly numerous, but they have become an established part of the fauna in north-eastern Aururia. The early elephants were largely creatures of the deep forest, hiding within the jungles of Cape Kumgatu and only rarely encountering Nuttana. As their numbers grew, they expanded further south into more inhabited areas, including further down the Tohu Coast [3] and into the drier savannahs of the inland north. The modern population is estimated at about 5-6000 animals...
The introduction of elephants has been noted for several ecological effects, particularly in their more long-established range. Notably, the presence of elephants has changed the nature of the flora. What were formerly open woodlands and savannah dominated by Eucalyptus and Acacia species have been replaced by more heavily forested regions dominated by more fire-sensitive flora.
It is hypothesised that the presence of elephants as large grazers and browsers has reduced understorey vegetation which would foster fires, and thus permitted the transition of these ecoregions from open woodland to forest. The extinct megafauna of Aururia may well have had a similar function, since paleontological evidence suggests that Eucalyptus and other fire-tolerant flora have become much more widespread since humans entered Aururia. If this is the case, then the reintroduction of elephants has simply fixed a problem which was originally of human making...
* * *
[1] A mere is a kind of short bladed weapon, sometimes called a short club, which is used mostly for thrusting and jabbing attacks. Historically the most valuable forms of these were made from pounamu (jade/greenstone), while others were made from wood, stone or whale bones. Allohistorically, they are most commonly made from bronze or iron. Musket-carrying Māori warriors use this as a secondary weapon for close-quarter combat.
[2] Quailoi is a Nuttana of Kiyungu heritage, and so naturally invokes the deities of the Kiyungu. The Kiyungu have an unusual system within Aururian mythology where their deities are referred to by a kind of praise-name or title rather than their original names (which are all now lost). The Blaméd One – which can also be rendered “he who must be blamed” – is a deity who is considered their chief troublemaker and source of discomfort in the world.
[3] Tohu Coast is named for its sugar cultivation. The name comes from the Nuttana word for sugar (borrowed in turn from Papuan languages). The Tohu Coast stretches from approximately the tip of Cape York to historical Townsville.
* * *
Thoughts?
“Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant,
The only harmless great thing.”
- John Donne (1612), The Progress of the Soul, l.381.
* * *
Weemiraga’s Day, Cycle of Copper, 439th Year of Harmony (10.14.439) / 2 September 1678
Near Nerridella [Townsville], Lands of the Six Lords (Nuttana)
The waka [war canoes] glided across the night-darkened seas. The ocean had been kept calm, whether by the benevolence of Tangaroa [god of the sea] or the valiant mana of Irirangi, the great warleader. The stars which adorned Ranginui [sky father] gave some light, but fortunately the moon still hung full and low in the western sky, granting vision to all.
Hare paddled the waka along with his comrades, grateful for the moonlight. On many raids, moving during moonlight risked discovery. Here, it was essential. The Pakanga could not hope to reach all the way to Nerridella undiscovered. This country was too far from what they knew, too foreign. What they needed was to get ashore in safety and then find the best target, be that the city proper or some outlying settlement.
The waka pulled onto the shore before Tama-nui-te-rā [god of the sun] had pushed his fiery presence above the horizon. Without needing instruction, the warriors pulled the waka up over the sand past the highwater mark.
Hare looked around. Most of the ground near the shore was covered by fields of a tall, solid-stalked grass which grew more than half again as tall as a man. A handful of rough-looking huts stood not too far to the south, but other than that there was no sign of human presence.
Irirangi came up from one of the later canoes. He gestured to another warrior. “Pomare, take ten men to those houses. Kill anyone inside. All others, conceal the waka!”
Pomare did not choose Hare amongst his warriors, so he joined his fellows in pulling the waka further up and covering them with this loose long-grass. He did not know what it was, until one of the other Pakanga said, “This is tohu-grass [sugar grass]!”
That motivated the Pakanga nicely. They cut at some of the nearby stalks, using most of them for concealing the waka, then sucking at the rest to extract the sweet juices. Hare took his share gladly. Tohu [sugar] was one of the most esteemed goods, enough that ariki iwi [kings] of the Māori traded slaves for it.
What a land of wealth this is, to have tohu growing freely. Hare could only dream of what further fortunes must be concealed in Nerridella. The prosperity of the Nuttana was legendary. Some of that wealth would be extracted, in whatever way suited the Pakanga best.
Pomare and his warriors returned quickly and reported that there had been only a handful of slaves there, now all dead. No warning would go to the Nuttana from there.
Perhaps we will accomplish greater surprise than I thought. Dawn was just breaking, with the first hint of light off in the east. The greater ships which had towed the waka were well off the horizon, waiting amongst the coral islets, where they would remain until sent for. With the waka now concealed and the locals killed, the Pakanga were not so easily observed. There may have been those who spotted them first, somehow, but with fortune the raiders might find their best target first.
Irirangi gave orders for several groups of scouts to go and search out the nearby lands. He designated a few more warriors to act as sentries nearby, in case some local Nuttana snuck in past the scouts. Again, Hare was unchosen, leaving him to wait and watch with the main group of warriors.
The morning passed as the Pakanga awaited the scouts’ return. Some waited silently, in whatever contemplation suited them. Some regularly inspected their weapons, a ritual as soothing as it was unnecessary. Others talked in low voices, with conversation covering many topics but the most prominent choice being what booty they might loot from the Nuttana.
Around mid-morning, three of the sentries returned from the north. At a run.
“They come!” one said.
Irirangi barked out orders for the Pakanga to assemble. Hare had his musket ready, and he slung his mere [1] by his side. He was close enough to hear the sentries babble out more details about the approaching enemies, claiming that the Nuttana were using spirit powers to float above the tohu-grass.
Hare was in the front rank of Pakanga, which gave him a perfect view of the approaching enemy. The sentries were right: men who seemed to be hovering above the grass. Men, dark-skinned men who looked to be sitting, their legs just below the tips of the grass, and rocking slightly as they floated closer.
A musket barked, followed by a sharper bark from Irirangi to hold fire. The bullet showed no effect on the floating men, but then musket fire often missed. Impossible to say whether that was indeed some spirit protection or just poor aim.
“Ready,” Irirangi said, as the men floated closer.
Hare joined the other Pakanga in preparing a volley. When the order to fire came, he aimed as best he could, and pulled the trigger.
A couple of the floating men fell, vanishing into the grass. The rest kept on their steady pace toward the Pakanga.
“Ready!” Irirangi shouted. Hare joined the others in trying to prepare, but found that fumbled his loading. The eerie spirit powers of these Nuttana were disturbing.
By the time Irirangi gave the order for a second volley, fewer muskets fired. Hare did so a moment later, and others followed. One more floating man fell, but the rest came on.
The fastest of the hovering men emerged from the tohu-grass, revealing the truth. They were not floating, but riding beasts that dwarfed a horse!
Hare had an impression of something grey and massive, with a huge head, large ears, a long arm where its nose should be, and two gleaming white swords emerging from its mouth. The creatures had men atop them, but it was only the beasts which concerned him.
Amidst the shouts of dismay and other exclamations, some of the Pakanga broke ranks and started running away. Hare needed only a moment’s thought to join them. He ran, and felt no shame about doing so. Fleeing men was cowardice, but running from these unworldly creatures was simply sense.
* * *
Venus’s Day, Cycle of Bronze, 424th Year of Harmony (9.5.424) / 16 May 1663
Logging camp on Yimir River [Endeavour River], upriver of Wujal [Cooktown], Lands of the Six Lords (Nuttana)
Quailoi felt as if he were waking from the mother of all rum headaches. His temples ached, indeed, his whole head felt pained. His mouth was drier than the Dead Heart [outback], and his body felt as fatigued as if he had been placed on punitive labour from sunup till sundown.
He tried to piece together the threads of his fraying memory. He recalled fever, aches and coughs, and friends groaning in the darkness. He recalled snippets of speech, of men making their final prayers in expectation of passing, and fevered thoughts which had been terrifying at the time but where the details now slipped away whenever he tried to remember them.
Above all, he felt an overwhelming thirst, which begged to be satiated.
Slowly, forcing movement on his limbs, he sat up. He saw only the inside of his crude tent which normally sheltered four men during sleep. No-one else was within the tent, neither alive nor dead.
Outside, he had vague glimpses of the ruins of the logging camp and other men lying on the ground, either sleeping or dead, but he focused his slow movements on getting to the river. There, he lowered himself slowly and cupped water into his mouth until the worst of the thirst had receded.
With the water revitalising his body, his fatigued mind finally grasped the word which had been buried beneath fever. Plague. Some new outland plague had arrived, striking down everyone in the logging camp.
Quailoi sat beside the riverbank, slowly weaving together his scattered thoughts into a more coherent thread. Some new great-fevered plague had struck down the camp. Everyone must have fallen ill around the same time. He remembered men retiring to different tents before he withdrew to rest. From the glimpses he could see around him, several men had not even made it to the tents.
He saw logs piled into several piles around the camp, most close to the river so that they could be tied together and floated down to the city. He saw men fallen. But he realised, slowly, that all of the elephants had vanished. Forgetting about thirty-odd elephants takes some doing, but the plague had blurred his thoughts from realising it until this moment.
The elephants must have wandered off because of hunger and lack of human attention. Difficult to blame them there. But damnably frustrating since an elephant would have made a handy option for carrying him any distance, when he knew he could not walk far.
With that realisation, his thoughts finally assembled into something resembling a pattern. He needed to do two things. Find if anyone else was left alive and needed what meagre assistance he could give, and find the best way to get back to Wujal. If there was such a way.
Quailoi began the slow, grim but necessary task of searching throughout the camp, and finding out whether the apparently abandoned camp contained only people who were entirely dead, or some who were just mostly dead. The task took considerable time because he still could not move quickly, although in most cases it was immediately obvious that people were dead. Usually he could tell just by smell, for the dead usually emptied their bowels on death, something he had not really appreciated until this moment.
He did not see the full number of fallen men that he would have expected. Perhaps some had departed before the plague consumed them, or had fled into the forest and fallen, or roused earlier than him and still fled. Impossible to say, and it mattered little for now, though it would have been a most disharmonious act to flee before checking whether others survived.
When he had nearly given up hope, he found one other survivor beneath a tent at the far end of the camp. Wenedai. Lying down, motionless save for slight passage of breath, but with life still clinging. Fortunately, there was an empty bowl beside him, which Quailoi took back to the river to fill with water before returning to wake the other man.
Rousing Wenedai to mindfulness took some time and several return trips to the river for further water. Telling him that they were the only survivors of the plague, and obtaining comprehension about that, took even longer.
Quailoi said, “We must return to Wujal, then; no help can we be sure of from closer.”
“Is there any easy way home?”
“One of the log-rafts is still attached to the bank. It will be our best way.” He had spotted it on his last visit to the river.
“I suppose we must use it. Though the elephants are lost. All of the elephants. We cannot retrieve them.”
“To the Blaméd One [2] with the elephants!” Quailoi snapped. “Let them fend for themselves, if they can. Let us get back to Wujal.”
If there are any people left in Wujal. If this Great Death has not claimed them all. That thought, Quailoi dared not utter aloud, for fear that speaking it would make it true.
* * *
From: The Compleat Elephant
Elephants of Aururia
Elephants are such an iconic part of the Aururian fauna today that some people do not realise that they are not, in fact, native to the Third World...
The tale of Aururian elephants begins in the 1640s, when the founding fathers and mothers of the Nuttana were first carving out a new city at Wujal and a trading network which was spreading into Asia. They were keen for labour and especially for timber, but could not easily obtain the workforce they wanted.
With trade links stretching to Sumatra and Southeast Asia, they were aware of the power of elephants, particularly for logging. Possessing what were then extremely novel and thus valuable spices, they had no problems trading for elephants, mostly from Sumatra. Shipping the elephants proved to be more of a challenge, with early efforts resulting in several which were lost in transit, but within a decade they had mastered the practice.
By the late 1650s there were several dozen elephants working in logging camps upriver of Wujal, with a few more in the city itself for assistance working within the growing timberyards. Because the Nuttana preferred to ship smaller elephants, most of these elephants are believed to have been females or adolescent males...
The critical moment for Aururian elephants came in 1663. This was the year when measles, the worst plague ever to strike the Third World, reached the Nuttana lands. Crucially, it reached two logging camps where a considerable number of elephants had been utilised in timber work. The workers in the camp were all struck down at once. Most workers died, and even those who survived were in no condition to see to the elephants. So the elephants saw to themselves, and fled into the forest.
In the aftermath of what they came to call the Great Death, the Nuttana were far too busy to retrieve some wandering elephants. By the time their people had recovered, the elephants had vanished deep into the tropical forests of northern Cape Kumgatu [Cape York Peninsula], and were far too difficult to track down and capture in numbers.
These escapees formed the nucleus of the Aururian pachyderm population. While historical records of the time are understandably vague, it is estimated that around forty or fifty elephants escaped into the forest. Because the importation preference had been for smaller elephants, it is thought that the majority were female. This meant that they bred faster than would have otherwise been expected – for elephants – and their numbers rapidly expanded.
For the first few generations, even the growing number of elephants were still easily able to conceal themselves within Aururia’s northern jungle. The Nuttana left them alone, not completely forgotten, but not something which attracted much interest. It proved to be cheaper for them to import a few more elephants when they needed them, rather than try to hunt down and tame the feral elephants...
While abandoned, the Aururian elephant population did not die out. On the contrary, they continued to thrive, supplemented for several generations by the occasional rogue elephant which escaped from captivity, or a handful of releasees.
Aururian elephants were and are not particularly numerous, but they have become an established part of the fauna in north-eastern Aururia. The early elephants were largely creatures of the deep forest, hiding within the jungles of Cape Kumgatu and only rarely encountering Nuttana. As their numbers grew, they expanded further south into more inhabited areas, including further down the Tohu Coast [3] and into the drier savannahs of the inland north. The modern population is estimated at about 5-6000 animals...
The introduction of elephants has been noted for several ecological effects, particularly in their more long-established range. Notably, the presence of elephants has changed the nature of the flora. What were formerly open woodlands and savannah dominated by Eucalyptus and Acacia species have been replaced by more heavily forested regions dominated by more fire-sensitive flora.
It is hypothesised that the presence of elephants as large grazers and browsers has reduced understorey vegetation which would foster fires, and thus permitted the transition of these ecoregions from open woodland to forest. The extinct megafauna of Aururia may well have had a similar function, since paleontological evidence suggests that Eucalyptus and other fire-tolerant flora have become much more widespread since humans entered Aururia. If this is the case, then the reintroduction of elephants has simply fixed a problem which was originally of human making...
* * *
[1] A mere is a kind of short bladed weapon, sometimes called a short club, which is used mostly for thrusting and jabbing attacks. Historically the most valuable forms of these were made from pounamu (jade/greenstone), while others were made from wood, stone or whale bones. Allohistorically, they are most commonly made from bronze or iron. Musket-carrying Māori warriors use this as a secondary weapon for close-quarter combat.
[2] Quailoi is a Nuttana of Kiyungu heritage, and so naturally invokes the deities of the Kiyungu. The Kiyungu have an unusual system within Aururian mythology where their deities are referred to by a kind of praise-name or title rather than their original names (which are all now lost). The Blaméd One – which can also be rendered “he who must be blamed” – is a deity who is considered their chief troublemaker and source of discomfort in the world.
[3] Tohu Coast is named for its sugar cultivation. The name comes from the Nuttana word for sugar (borrowed in turn from Papuan languages). The Tohu Coast stretches from approximately the tip of Cape York to historical Townsville.
* * *
Thoughts?
Elephants are in Australia, war elephants are in Australia.
My life is complete.
My life is complete.