Is that a map of the part of the American remnant including DC?
Is that a map of the part of the American remnant including DC?
The second I saw a picture of the LA Celebrity Center I had to go for it as the residence of the Free Zone President. Though LA City Hall is definitely a contender.What do you guys think makes the most sense for the Free Zone's Presidential palace - the Celebrity Center, Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, Gold Base (some way outside of LA), or some other non-Scientologist locale in LA or elsewhere in Socal?
Keep in mind of course that the it wouldn't be the same building - even if some remnant remains of the original building (unlikely), it would have been totally rebuilt in new style a thousand years henceThe second I saw a picture of the LA Celebrity Center I had to go for it as the residence of the Free Zone President. Though LA City Hall is definitely a contender.
I'm thinking that they'd attempt to rebuild a replica of the old Celebrity Center but that the new building only really has a passing resemblance to it. Since the so-called Free Zone is held in the President's tight grip, I'd say it's very likely that they salvaged what remains of the city hall to build his Presidential Palace. Along with anything of value still in LA. The building would likely resemble a medieval palace.Keep in mind of course that the it wouldn't be the same building - even if some remnant remains of the original building (unlikely), it would have been totally rebuilt in new style a thousand years hence
Gold Base is surprisingly not terrible on water supplies, close to the Santa Ana and San Jacinto courses. One could have it be a monastic complex or a shrine city like Qom or Mashhad. Then again, Qom and Mashhad are really quite big and economically important (to say nothing of Karbala and Najaf), so whether it's the capital or not I'd say depends on how favored/important the coast-folk are to the state. Maybe if inland ranchers are more important for the state, providing the ruling dynasty or military elite, then Gold Base eats the remains of San Jacinto and takes LA's place as well.What do you guys think makes the most sense for the Free Zone's Presidential palace - the Celebrity Center, Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, Gold Base (some way outside of LA), or some other non-Scientologist locale in LA or elsewhere in Socal?
Here's a thought, since I was initially got on this subject because I was thinking about the subject of Californian labyrinths. My essential thought is that they were supposed to be cultic representations of the passage through the OT levels, both through the course of millions of years and in this lifetime, proceeding towards the highest OT levels. At the outer ring of the labyrinth are entombed more distant and less powerful officials (but of course still significant or influential enough to earn some place in the complex), and at the center the sovereign himself is entombed. I was trying to think of a location for the Great Labyrinth of LA, and assumed that it would be tied directly to the palace complex.Gold Base is surprisingly not terrible on water supplies, close to the Santa Ana and San Jacinto courses. One could have it be a monastic complex or a shrine city like Qom or Mashhad. Then again, Qom and Mashhad are really quite big and economically important (to say nothing of Karbala and Najaf), so whether it's the capital or not I'd say depends on how favored/important the coast-folk are to the state. Maybe if inland ranchers are more important for the state, providing the ruling dynasty or military elite, then Gold Base eats the remains of San Jacinto and takes LA's place as well.
Personally I think Gold Base could inherit some of the imagery of Old Testament Jerusalem, while the coastal LA remains are easier to cast as barbarous Philistines (I get that the Scientologists aren't Christian but replacing the previously dominant religion may require assimilating some of its more potent images, including that of a righteous few with HQ in a location of timeless importance, crowned by an eternal temple that nonetheless goes through phases, seizing a promised territory against a seemingly superior unbelieving foe).
Another thing is that even for medieval states that didn't have a coastal city as their capital, it was at least on an easy river to reach from the coast (Paris on the Seine, London on the Thames); you'd probably need a man-made canal to make a similar connection between Gold Base/San Jacinto and LA, although I don't know if the rivers are even big enough for, say, transport-barges without significant dredging anyways. The whole thing might constitute a big dynasty-defining project and the Free Zone may have more robust local institutions relative to neighbors for decades more because of it (center provides resources but locals are better at tracking data on geography and available labor).
EDIT: Another thing to consider is that as Gold Base as we know it is a hierarchical place, Scientologist governance could evolve in the style of the Mesopotamian city-states: as temple bureaucracies. Doesn't mean the capital has to stay there but even reduced to ruins it might keep some significance.
Ooh, I like this. Maybe if building upward is easier than digging down (or if you need something to do with the excess dirt) parts of the labyrinth could form these kinds of exposed ridges on the land, made of rammed earth and maybe topped with brick. There's Chinese walls from the Neolithic that survive today-- burying people under or inside the walls could (if the coffin's strong enough) give a person an everlasting gravesite at a relatively cheap cost, compared to something like the New Mexican pyramids. And maybe the floor plans of the structure actually mirror the street plan of LA or some section of it, so you get this City-of-the-Dead effect where the deserving get to live in an even better version of the best place on earth.My essential thought is that they were supposed to be cultic representations of the passage through the OT levels, both through the course of millions of years and in this lifetime, proceeding towards the highest OT levels. At the outer ring of the labyrinth are entombed more distant and less powerful officials (but of course still significant or influential enough to earn some place in the complex), and at the center the sovereign himself is entombed. I was trying to think of a location for the Great Labyrinth of LA, and assumed that it would be tied directly to the palace complex.
I like this idea, though technically wouldn't it violate the traditional concept of a labyrinth since technically they're meant to be pretty regular and repetitious routes, with only one way inn and only one direction to follow? Wandering through a maze isn't particuarly meditative afterall, and doesn't give the impression of a clear procession towards some kind of spiritual center/point of ascension.And maybe the floor plans of the structure actually mirror the street plan of LA or some section of it, so you get this City-of-the-Dead effect where the deserving get to live in an even better version of the best place on earth.
I agree, one of the more important spiritual sites in a country filled to overflowing with holy sites.Gold Base could always be kept significant by setting up monastic educational institutions and astronomical observatories on nearby Mt. San Jacinto, and these could support each other pretty easily (plus Scientology's love for astronomy might go beyond mere calendar-making). Both of these will draw pilgrims and donations, to put up nice buildings and such. Even if it's not the capital I wouldn't be too worried about it, I think a thriving city could still be set up there.
Possible alternative - labyrinths serve the same function as towers of silence, being semi-elevated positions. Though I do like the idea of mountains, and I don't see any way to preserve both ideas simultaneously. On the one hand, labyrinths would be more prestigious since they would be the tombs of the rich and powerful so you could have a divide where the rich are cremated on labyrinths and the poor go to the mountains, but the mountains are obviously closer to the stars and logistically the greater cost of getting someone up there and moving the ashes down would be inherently pretigious.EDIT: It's actually an open question as to whether Scientologists would prefer burial or cremation-- looking it up seems to indicate that there's arguments for cremation since the body is a prison, but it's not an explicit rule. It might become a rule in Medieval America as the communities around Gold Base look for a way to set themselves apart from/look down on their neighbors. In that case, I'm thinking cremation on a mountaintop, the closest possible place to the stars (or at least an artificial mountaintop like the Zoroastrian Towers of Silence) might be seen as a good way to go-- and the challenge of bringing piles of fragrant wood to mountain tops, and keeping the fire going on a cold windy peak, picking a day when it won't snow or rain, etc. makes sure only a few get to enjoy the best version of the experience. In that way the San Gabriel Mountains kind of become the Ganges of Scientologist California, just a mountain range instead of a river with several massive cities on it (and therefore way more isolated and exclusive, as befits Scientology). Meanwhile the labyrinths store lead urns of the ashes and/or stone statues of the departed-- even if the body's a prison Scientology values the idea of power over the physical earth, so reshaping the earth and placing something of yours as a tag of ownership could play into that.
Great. Scientologists and Eco-Buddhists would probably take note of their mutual reverence for high mountains.Furthermore, Northern California can also play with this holy-mountain idea-- almost every Indian religion puts special attention on Mount Kailash in Tibet, and for Hindus it's specifically Shiva's earthly residence (so no human is allowed to climb it). The Sierra Nevada has Mount Whitney, which could be portrayed as so tall that it actually constitutes a lower extreme of heaven (so humans that try to climb it with their stinky no-good physical bodies are cursed to fall down its slopes as dead, frozen husks). Northern California gets to have its own geographical pair of (lowland capital) - (highland spiritual center), and even after the loss of LA/Gold Base/the San Gabriels to the Free Zone they could build up a separate image of legitimacy as the "guardians of Heaven's [Mt. Whitney's] Foothills."
Here's a thought, since I was initially got on this subject because I was thinking about the subject of Californian labyrinths. My essential thought is that they were supposed to be cultic representations of the passage through the OT levels, both through the course of millions of years and in this lifetime, proceeding towards the highest OT levels. At the outer ring of the labyrinth are entombed more distant and less powerful officials (but of course still significant or influential enough to earn some place in the complex), and at the center the sovereign himself is entombed. I was trying to think of a location for the Great Labyrinth of LA, and assumed that it would be tied directly to the palace complex.
I actually haven't seen pictures of the labyrinths you mean until now-- I was thinking they'd be something more mazelike but I guess that's only the Greek-myth one, the LA ones are more meditative.On the one hand, labyrinths would be more prestigious since they would be the tombs of the rich and powerful so you could have a divide where the rich are cremated on labyrinths and the poor go to the mountains, but the mountains are obviously closer to the stars and logistically the greater cost of getting someone up there and moving the ashes down would be inherently pretigious.
Actually, doing a little cursory research, it seems like you're more in the right - my impression was that the original Minoan religious symbol was the single-path labyrinth, which was later reinterpreted by the Greeks to be a confusing maze, but it seems like the single-path depiction of the Labyrinth is actually fairly late and the maze depiction may have been the original intention.I actually haven't seen pictures of the labyrinths you mean until now-- I was thinking they'd be something more mazelike but I guess that's only the Greek-myth one, the LA ones are more meditative.
Way of the dodo. All books are painstakingly copied by hand, the two largest centers of book making are the Willamette valley and Buffalo.So is the Printing Press still around or did it go the way of gunpowder? Funnily enough I can still see people reading The Hobbit and A Song of Ice and Fire.
Ah, so they've been reduced to the same situation as the 1300s Byzantines. What irony.A series of impromptu trenches, watchtowers, and fences were erected from the Black Forest south of Jabal al-Kasil, followed the Fountain Creek to Pueblo, and finally down to the walls of the Wet Mountains. Over time these defenses were expanded and elaborated upon by the tremendous skills of Kulurudan engineers until they formed mighty walls - the Great Walls of Kuluradu are, to this day, one of the great wonders of Medieval America. Behind them are vast stretches of cultivated land that have assured a relatively high population for the core of the Caliphate. Luckily, they don't have to be used that often: Osamabad has been able to pay off allies among the Cowboys to make sure that things seldom get to the point where the walls are used. There have been a few occasions where the outer walls were breached and havoc was wreaked on the farmlands, but the walls of Osamabad itself have never been breached.
I'll get around to itwhy aren't you guys threadmarking stuff anymore?
Castle RockWhat city is Jabal al-Kasil
The update was great