Dark empire discussion

[Parallo]

The Dark Empire lacks the power level of the RW Roman Empire now, but what would they do once they managed to build up a very powerful military, several political connections and a large intelligence and covert ops network?

We have those.

Claiming your organization has the equivalent power of a Roman Empire without any fact to back it up is a little of godmodding, isn't it?
How many cities were controlled by Rome? How large is the Dark Empie army? This is a real overestimation, still the Dark Empire obviously has the potential for achieving that in the future.

We have a powerful military and a large intelligence and covert ops network. I never said we were as powerful as the Roman empire.

[Garris Shrike]

Actually, I havent seen any of those either. Maybe I just arnt paying attention.

[Nurahk]

Dark Empire is a hidden guild, IIA is a hidden guild...

The only guild you can notice is the Imperial Trades, stick around the blacksmiths and you will surely notice them.

[zanzibar]

The Dark Empire lacks the power level of the RW Roman Empire now, but what would they do once they managed to build up a very powerful military, several political connections and a large intelligence and covert ops network?

Should the Dark Empire enter a time of war, there are many outside of the guild who will answer its call to battle.

[lordraleigh]

Should the Dark Empire enter a time of war, there are many outside of the guild who will answer its call to battle.

Because of what?

Lots of trias to recruit mercenaries?

A huge association of traditionalists all over Yliakum?

Massive popularity among the people?

A web of alliances to make others fight for them?

[zanzibar]

Because of what?

Old loyalties and common ideology.

Lots of trias to recruit mercenaries?

Uh... that doesn't work very well.

A huge association of traditionalists all over Yliakum?

Traditionalists?  What does traditionalism have to do with anything?

Massive popularity among the people?

In part.

A web of alliances to make others fight for them?

People only do what they want to do.

[lordraleigh]

Traditionalists?  What does traditionalism have to do with anything?

The concept Honor is most of times connected with traditional values, and can be classified as well as a traditional value.

Loyalty, Honor and Virtue usually implies in an organization that values traditions.

----
*Add

IC-wise where would the Dark Empire popularity come from? Do they run or support some kind of NGO or altruistic project for organization marketing purposes? Or is it because many of their members aided into bashing the "Obvious Evil" types?

[zanzibar]

IC-wise where would the Dark Empire popularity come from? Do they run or support some kind of NGO or altruistic project for organization marketing purposes? Or is it because many of their members aided into bashing the "Obvious Evil" types?

I think the Dark Empire's primary attraction is good, charismatic leadership.  The philosophy of the guild is another point of attraction for people.

[Garile]

The concept Honor is most of times connected with traditional values, and can be classified as well as a traditional value.

Loyalty, Honor and Virtue usually implies in an organization that values traditions.

Loyalty, Honor and Virtue? I don't see why this would be traditional at all. It even makes me think of the Napolean revolution among other things and really can't say they hung onto "old traditions"

Obviously in our current society these may seem linked to tradition seeing they aren't "hot" words anymore, but really every generation has their own meaning of these words and so "old traditions" is more I think your view of the words colored by the movies perhaps then that the words themself imply such.

[lordraleigh]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor

for women, according to Dr Johnson, honour is synonymous with "chastity".

"Honour" in the case of females is frequently related, historically, to sexuality: preservation of "honour" equated primarily to maintenance of virginity of unattached women and to the exclusive monogamy of the remainder. One can speculate that feminism has changed some linguistic usage in this respect. Conceptions of honour vary widely between cultures; in some cultures, honour killings of (mostly female) members of one's own family are considered justified if the individuals have "defiled the family's honour" by marrying against the family's wishes, or even by being the victims of rape. These honour killings are generally seen in the West as a way of men using the culture of honour to control female sexuality

Napoleon motto was "Freedom, Equality and Fraternity" from what I remember.

Loyalty is pretty neutral and not necessarily linked to the "conservative X progressist" spectrum, Virtue also is a very neutral concept in those regards, but as for Honor(or Honour), well the cultural aspects related to it are conservative as demonstrated by the quotations from Wikipedia.

[zanzibar]

I despise the positivist approach to things like this.  Definitions of things like loyalty and honour are entirely subjective and audience based.


Even when talking about things in a historical perspective, different people had different ideas so you can't conjure up some objective definition that covers all the ground.  For instance, the "honour" of a woman in ancient times if it was connected to virginity would be more synomonous with "value" or "desirableness".  This is because back then, women were more commonly seen as commodities and objects.  If a woman was not a virgin, it would be more difficult to marry her off, and therefore her value decreased.  In order to encourage women to protect their virginity - and I'm using the term "woman" loosely here because it used to be that girls would marry at age 12 to 14 at the latest, 16 and you're an old maid - social pressure was used to help keep then in line.  If they do something to make themselves less valuable to their men, they would suffer social consequences.  Such things then took on a life of their own.


And yeah, this is all old news to you, but the positivist approach is still being used...

[Sangwa]

The Dark Empire is an Empire (organization/alliance if you want mechy terms) with high ambitions that doesn't hide its true purpose of controlling as much as they are able to. However nothing indicates that this goal will be pursued through vicious methods. In fact, if you judge the Empire for what it is now, you could determine that our actions have been positive. We've provided aid many times against evils found both in Hydlaa and Oja.

The Empire's virtues are the Empire's virtues. They are obviously meant to guide ourselves so that we can make the best of the Empire. It's normal that people outside could feel intimidated or suspicious about these, since we are growing to prove them as very efficient. Still, only those who're thinking of standing in our way should feel such doubts. And currently our way has been merely progressing and aiding wherever we can.

[Garile]

Napoleon motto was "Freedom, Equality and Fraternity" from what I remember.

I said it reminded me of that not that their motto was those exact words allthough I think that motto shows already why "Loyalty, Honor and Virtue" wouldn't sound wrong at all coming from Napoleons mouth and at the same time that the meaning changes over time. If I tell you that I feel you are honorable I in no way mean you are a traditionalist. If I say you have no honor I most definately don't mean to say you are someone who is for a new movement.

[Garris Shrike]

Dark Empire is a hidden guild, IIA is a hidden guild...

The only guild you can notice is the Imperial Trades, stick around the blacksmiths and you will surely notice them.

Ahh. This would explain why I can't see them. Is there a "main" HQ guild that controls them all, am i just being dumb and not noticing it? oh well.

[Lomerandin]

Well... Interesting discussion, once it starts off. The concept of Honour, as I see it, differs enourmously according to which culture and time period you are referring to. Honour to a Roman (or rather "virtus") is quite different to a medieval knight's Honour (Arthurian ideal). And Machiavelli's Virtue (or "virtu") could barely qualify as Honour.

But I have one thing to set strait.

Napoleon motto was "Freedom, Equality and Fraternity" from what I remember.

As a matter of fact, Napoleon Bonaparte didn't have much to do with the 1789-1793 French Revolution. What he did do was establish a Consulate after Robespierre's reign of Terror, before being crowned Emperor of the French (and getting involved in world politics to a certain degree, such as invading Prussia and all that ). And initially, France's new motto was "Liberty, Equality", since it is said the revolutionnaires weren't too keen to being fraternal with the monarchists, who were still powerful (heck, they reinstored a king during the 19th century). "Fraternity" was added under the IIIrd Republic (1848-1940).

Anyway...