Re: OU/NAC- Hawaii? Re: Achmaenid Persian Empire

On Fri, 16 Apr 1999, Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote:
 
> So far I've seen nothing (with the _possible_ exception of the USA
> implosion) in the Tuffleyverse nearly as unlikely as what I've
> experienced in my own lifetime so far. 

No kidding. The unhappy fact is that history makes poor fiction...My
favorite two examples:

1. The original Kamikaze, the 'Divine Wind', a storm that conveniently
wrecks the entire Mongol invading fleet, thus preventing a massive
invasion and ground war in Japan. Throw this into a fictional history,
and
people are going to accuse you of just copping out - no final
cataclysmic
battles, no incredible feats of arms, nada.

2. The collapse of the USSR/Eastern Bloc. Imagine this as fiction:
"We've
got this big huge quasi-empire. Controls a significant percentage of the
globe through various means direct and indirect, has a big military, is
seen as a Real Threat. Then it seems to suddenly come apart, so that
within a single decade all it's component bits have gone their own way,
and a number of those component bits have further devolved into even
smaller bits." Lousy fiction, right? No clash of mighty armies,
not even a lot of fighting inside this quasi-empire, except in outlying
and isolated regions. The critics would pan it...

(The collapse of the Eastern Bloc/USSR is more complex than I've made it
seem. Still, the point holds...)

I suppose we shouldn't come down on people who hide Americans in deep
space or resurrect the Byzantine Empire...imagine what we'd say to
someone
who invented a giant 'space storm' to wreck an opponent's invading
fleets!

Brian (burger00@camosun.bc.ca)			-DS2/SG2/FR!/HOTT-
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