Vegetarianism Within PS, Pros and Cons

[bilbous]

Those huge elevators are magical devices, not purely mechanistic. Jayose may well let you browse his books but he owns the library and makes his living from it, it is not a public library. The typical death sentence kills an innocent animal along with the sentient being so punished, or do you suppose they only hypnotize bad Megaras to send flying into the crystal? Will you start protesting for animal rights and why shouldn't the guards throw you in a dungeon for disrupting public order, force you to subsist on whatever bugs and small animals you find in your cell? None of the laws I have seen allow for you to have any rights at all. their silence on this issue speaks volumes.

[Parallo]

I don't know how I'm meant to respond to that. You seem to think that it must be done in extremes. Either they couldn't care less about animals or they run around making laws to protect them and conserve them. Not all vegetarians belong to PETA! If I had a vegetarian character, which I don't, I wouldn't go around protesting. I'd simply have made a decision based upon my own contemplations. Anyway, even in our own world we had vegetarians in times gone by.

http://www.veg-world.com/articles/famous.htm

[bilbous]

As I said before I have no problem with people wanting to be vegetarians in the game. All I am saying is that to expect something matching one of today's more enlightened society is probably a mistake. I say more enlightened because for the most part only lip service is given by the powers that be to anything that is not directly in their interests. You can say there is free speech and justice for all in the real world  but it is not really true.

[Parallo]

Granted. As I already said, Yliakum is less civalised that todays modern world. All I said was that it is more civalised than medieval times. Thats it. It seems that this is going nowhere so I'll stop posting now.

[Bastet]

Remember -- this also means no wearing of leather armor or other leather items. The exception is death from natural causes.

Here's a RW example of an old-way, leather-clad vegetarian:

OMG WTH BBQ batman! that's a long link address that makes neko's brain hurt because you didn't prevent it from making the page scroll to the right


Eating meat is a relic of the Ice Age. 

Ten thousand years or so ago you could not grow enough edible plants to sustain your tribe, but you could find edible grasses for a herd of four-legged herbivores.  Your flock would harvest the green solar energy and metabolize it into something a human could process, and your Priest would give thanks to your male-chauvinist God(s) of mortal combat, thunder and mountains as you slaughtered the sacrificial lamb.

Skip forward a few thousand years and the ice begins to recede and equatorial zones become habitable by agrarian civilizations.  Priests AND Priestesses make a careful study of the movement of the stars, plants, sun and moon, and develop a reliable system of farming.  Vegetarianism and veganism (and Goddess worship) become part of the spirituality of some tribes (a tradition that is carried on today by Yogis and other holy women and men, and can be traced back though time in the manuscripts of medieval alchemists, kabalists, and other practitioners of the Art).  Five thousand years of relative peace ensues during which the violent conflicts that did break out were non-existential and non-genocidal.

Then come the barbarian hordes out of the still-glacial far north and south, intent on creating a Master Race through genocide, and on stealing from the peaceful agrarians the finer things in life that their own cultures are too stunted to produce.  But that is a story for a different thread.  Perhaps one about the 1940's.

So there is plenty of RW basis for primitive vegetarians.

With all that said, I would not recommend pandering to PETA just yet.  The Ice Age isn't over, its just in the middle of a 15,000 year recession.  Your Great^500 Grand Kids will readjust to a mostly carnivorous lifestyle or face extinction.  Lets hope they haven't devolved the ability to digest animal proteins thanks to certain well-meaning but short-sighted ancestors.

[neko kyouran]

you have 24 hours to explain to me how that post ties in with the PS world, as this is what the thread is about, not RL history.

[Bastet]

There seems to be some folks out there who think that there were no vegetarians in Earth's medieval period.  I observed the expression of opinions that such primitive cultures were not thinking about the ethics involved in making the decision to not eat flesh.  I wanted to show that not only was vegetarianism an established cultural norm during the medieval period, but well before that also.

It would not be out of setting to RP an vegetarian in the medieval-normed world of PS.  There seemed to be some conflict regarding that statement and I wanted to cite evidence in support.

It says its medieval but look at its society. They have a complex political structure and scientists that seem to go way beyond that. Ylikum is a much more civalised society than medieval earth.

This ignores the pockets of "civilized" cultures that were even more civil that most of the 21st century Western world.

The settings dept has placed PS in a medieval period, on Earth during that period, you were lucky if you ate at all let alone have a choice in what to eat.

This was not the case before the series of barbarian pastoralist invasions in BC times, especially in South East Asia.  Remnants of that Golden Age survived into the medieval period, just not so much in Western Europe.

If you think about it, in medieval timeframes they didn't really worry about it. Food is food, if it keeps you alive, you eat it. As an off note, people would need the fats from the meats for their energy

etc...

I am no vegetarian, not to mention no vegan. So I may be wrong, but arent those people blaming the exploiting industry to torture animals, thus denying consume?
If so, hows about that in PS? I never read or heard about it.

etc...

In the stone age people were most likely incapable of the intellectual art of moral philosophy I'd say.

etc...

I just wonder if people in some imaginary original state, slightly comparable with the stone age or so, would have felt mercy as well?

Neolithic = first non-nomadic, agrarian societies = likely first vegetarians

[Unnamed_Source]

This was not the case before the series of barbarian pastoralist invasions in BC times, especially in South East Asia.  Remnants of that Golden Age survived into the medieval period, just not so much in Western Europe.

According to the settings team, PS is set in a EUROPEAN medieval age, whether that it be right after the Roman Collapse or closer to the renaissance, the Settings Dept hasn't stated. The Romans had pulleys and levers so the elevators in Winch aren't that significant as to put the age at which PS is set in. The use of steel in crafting puts the age past the roman collapse as the Romans did not posses furnaces to produce a reliable source of steel, their main metal was iron. We could argue that PS is in the renaissance age rather than medieval, but even less rights were given to the individual and peasantry than in the more chaotic period after the Roman collapse.

Food correlates to possession of land, at least in an agrarian culture. By this I mean, PS has established settlements and walled cities, contrary to a hunter/gather civilization stage. The agrarian use of land restricts the hunter/gather, establishes tightly set  boundaries and thus leading to land possession. So, if you want to keep on arguing, ask the settings team this, who owns the land and who grows the food, as for the moment it's a moot point being that we do not need to eat to survive. But since you all like arguing over the little things, I though I'd add this log to the fire.

Again I don't care what you RP,  as long as it does not effect the settings and over all game. once it crosses that line, guide line have to be set  and usually hard coded in order the have every one adhere to them. If we have different species, and the subject of food comes in to play in the game mechanics, specific dietary needs for each species need to be established as well or we might as well make every one human from the get go.

[Draklar]

Bastet, the stuff you say is cute and all, but it's no evidence that vegetarianism was present in medieval times in any notable degree.

Agriculture allowed people to feed more folks. Folks multiplied. Obvious reasoning shows the diet was then consisting more on plants, not because people were suddenly vegetarians, but because there was more plants than meat. Anyway, as far as Europe goes, vegetarianism could be first associated with the classical period (Greece, Rome, and all that stuff), when philosophical thought began condemning violence towards animals. It began disappearing towards the end of Ancient period and was finally revived to some point during the Renaissance. All the same, until 20th century it remained at low levels.

But that's Earth.
As far as Yliakum goes, unless I see people walking around spreading idea of non-violence towards Trepors and Tefusangs (and people actually avoiding fights with the wild beasts), I see absolutely no basis for vegetarianism in PS.
The way it is now, Tefusangs are commonly hunted down, kikiris bred for food, innocent mounts sometimes suffer when criminals are cast into Azure Sun, and finally stronger animals are used to power up machinery.
Morality towards primitive animals is completely alien to a typical dweller of Yliakum.

[Parallo]

Aleasis Productions

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[/quote]

All the examples you gave have Earth equvilants and yet there is vegetarianism on Earth. Therefore saying that because of that there is no vegetarianism is a non-sequitur. Plus in the real world I'm a vegetarian and I don't make protest so saying that vegetarianism requires protests and demonstrations to exist is too.

[Draklar]

All the examples you gave have Earth equvilants and yet there is vegetarianism on Earth. Therefore saying that because of that there is no vegetarianism is a non-sequitur. Plus in the real world I'm a vegetarian and I don't make protest so saying that vegetarianism requires protests and demonstrations to exist is too.

You're comparing modern and medieval societies, aren't you?

I assume you are capable of pointing out the literature focus (you know, like "memento mori" in medieval times) of modernism either? :P

By the way, you are a vegetarian because the lot of people before you protested against animal maltreatment. If it wasn't for them, the idea would be distant, obscure and hardly followed by anyone. By protesting, those people increased awareness of the human society. Rise of free speech and global information access helped too.

[DaldarWraith]

Well since i have only been back to PS for the past few days after about 2 years out i feel it's about time i go involved and this topic siuts me just fine.

Firstly Vegetarianism in PS is a intresting concept, true it could be tied into either race or religion to bring a new depth to the game. I for one would welcome anything that expanse the game further, and if your going to have vegetarians then would this also allow for pure meat eaters ( Carnivores ) ?
Secondly would a vegtable only diet sustain a charater for as long as meat would ? or would vegetarians have to consume meals more often or in larger quantities as is the case in RL ?
Third and last in my opion both of the human breeds would to the most part be omnivores ( if you need this one cleared up by a reason then i suggest you look at your teeth you have teeth natraully designed for both vegatable and meat).

[Parallo]

By the way, you are a vegetarian because the lot of people before you protested against animal maltreatment.

Actually I think that most protesters are nut jobs and absolute fools. The almost stopped me from being vegetarian

If it wasn't for them, the idea would be distant, obscure and hardly followed by anyone.

That could be true and even if it was it could be followed by some. There are however other modes for the exchange of ideas. String theory is a prevalent theory among scientists but most laymen wouldn't know what it was. The same could be true of the idea of vegetarianism being something tossed about by moral philosophers in a scholarly way unknown to the unintellectuals. Plus look at Buddism's reverence of life. That has been around a long time. Some of them won't cut a cabbage without asking permission from it.

[Draklar]

One way or another. There's still none of it in Yliakum.

[Parallo]

That is a solid argument, I must say