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Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2004 6:42 pm
Posts: 3305
Location: West Yorkshire, UK
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| Quote (MaksimSmelchak @ 03 Dec. 2005 (23:12)) | Hi James,
(Snip)
| Quote (wargame_insomniac @ 02 Dec. 2005 (20:15)) | | I meant no disrespect with my comments on the Arab/Israeli background to the Q'Raj Void Protectorate. |
I know and there's no worries.
Sorry if my response sounded too harsh. I just get tired of the tendency of Western sci-fi writers to simply the Arab-Israeli conflict (of which many of them are wholly ignorant) and assume that some new cultural conglomerate will come out of the conflict. For someone with first-hand experience, I find this annoying.
| Quote (wargame_insomniac @ 02 Dec. 2005 (20:15)) | | I might personally disagree with it but ICE have tried to come up with a fictional backgound to SD that doesn't simply assume that they will carry on fighting even far into the fictional future. |
ICE didn't do too badly, but even the name Q'raj gives away that the Jews were added into the background as a token at best. I read the Q'raj book long ago and thought the background story was more than bit far-fetched, which isn't neccessarily a bad thing for sci-fi.
(Snip)
| Quote (wargame_insomniac @ 02 Dec. 2005 (20:15)) | | Anyway I hope no offence taken. |
No worries, You're a mate and pal. 
Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak. |
Hi Maksim
Quite spookily this same issue came up quite separately by someone else on the SD Forum over the weekend. Here is Leland's reply:
<
No, I don't really buy it either. Nice fantasy though>>
Ahem. Dr. Sheldon Greaves, PhD, the author of Q'raj Void Protectoreate, is an *orientalist.* That means he's a more than qualified expert on the ancient Near East, as well as an acknowledged authority on the contemporary Middle East, its religious traditions, politics, and etc.(www.cupim.org). Now throw in the fact that the QVP is set *9,000 years from today,* and you have 9k years to monkey with history in!
So, IMHO the QVPs ethnic, religious, and social diversity is NOT unrealistic if the *current* crop of mutually hostile negihbors were able to avoid annihilating one another long enough for the old animosities to be worked out of the systems of the populace...and looking at history as I have and continue to do...don't bet the farm on it happening...or not!! Human history -especially the Near East/Middle East, is full of surprises (remember Anwar Sadat?)...
The history presented in the QVP House Book is IMO as perfectly plausible as anything else out there in science fiction, IMO probably more so than most. Human religious practices have done all sorts of coniptions, leading to all sorts of mass movements, from the not-so-nice (medieval witch hunts) to the very positive (Civil Rights Movement here in the US), and the downright tragically INSANE (Taiping Rebellion, 19th century China).
IMHO it is NOT outside the realm of the possible, even the plausible, that 9,000 years in the future -if humanity reaches the stars- that something akin to the QVP could very well exist! Hell, even THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK had a planet (Helion Prime) with a diverse Middle Eastern flavor...so IMO Sheldon wasn't off base in his highly imaginative yet well-grounded-in-history tome describing the Q'raj Void Protectorate and its eccentric inhabitants.
Just my two yuan's worth...
Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Content Team
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