hated characters

[Ronald Dukarski]

David, your two cents just drew interest, it's up to about a nickel now. But, I did forget Timon promised Tor he wouldn't do anything with Ali until the situation was all settled. And considering all of the above I can't see it happening either. But now with David and Ziggy on our side, the Trice-huggers are growing and on the move. Trice, Trice, Trice! (And the crowd goes wild...)

[MarciaA]

Hey! I never said I hate Trice!

[RedWolfeXR]

[Ronald Dukarski]

Hey Red, if I may call you that, (I'm lazy that way) not really sure what world building issues are causing a problem for you, but as far as social structure goes I've always thought that Green' s meddling with genetic and psychological programming had pretty much stabilized any un-workability issues for this world. At least that's how I justified it. I know that in our world, we would certainly have a problem. But any way, happy to have you aboard.

[RedWolfeXR]

[Ronald Dukarski]

All true, Red, Dale has indicated several times that there was a shortage of noble candidates, mostly male,from time to time concerning marriage. If Dale had gone for lengthy back story, he probably could clear up most of your points. But that is one of the traits Dale has that I find interesting: he expects us to jump in and either accept or at least not question the story line. There are not several paragraphs or pages of set up or backstory you find with some other authors. Dale encourages us to jump in the deep end and get wet. If explanation is needed he allows it to filter in during the telling of the story. I enjoy the concise writing style, it flows so smoothly it's hard to find a convenient stopping point. I guess that's why I (in hindsight) might cut him some slack as far as congruency goes. I once nit-picked about time zone differences; he showed I hadn't noticed a certain passage. I felt really embarrassed. All I can say is I'm glad he doesn't clutter up a perfectly good story line with a bunch of unneeded backstory filler and just gives us good action filled sci/fi/fantasy/dystopic/whatever-you-call-it.

[PS Power]

Red:

Just taking from in story material here (there is a lot more that exists only in my head, but that wouldn't be fair to use right now. Unless... are yo a Jedi?).



1. There are about three thousand nobles that have any sort of title, so that number spread over 35 counties, makes for... 85.71 nobles per County. While sitting noble (Baron's, count's and Duke's as well as their female counterparts.) make up about eleven potions per county, with some having more and some less, each had titled relatives. For instance one of the Gala's relates that he's a Baron Twenty-seven or some such, at on point. That indicates a pretty big extended family, but most in Noram don't go that big at all.

The real total of "bloodline nobles", those bit tall, genetically modified ones, make up between 20,000 and 50,000 more or less.

The genetic modifications keep the line pretty clear, but genetic and epi-genetic errors have crept in over time. The common line is actually nearly pure, and doesn't have many genetic illnesses at all.

So, strictly speaking, there is a lot less of a problem for the inbred (and they are that!) nobles of Noram to worry about marrying a cousin than say, you or I. There simply aren't as many things that can go wrong.

It's in there, though spread out through several books, as part of the world.

2. They have some large predators, but fewer types than we have now. Bears, and large cats mainly. They don't often bother people, since it isn't needed. There's some random mentioning of those things. The most dangerous animals to humans are wild boar and deer. (Deer kill more people each year in the U.S. than any other animal. Just a fun fact.)

They work cooperatively on the local level to deal with such things.

3. Bandits. You know, you must have missed it, but Builder Guides family is made up of bandits... That a few characters that don't travel the normal routes and who all have good shields aren't bothered by them much... Well, that isn't a problem with the world at all, just what you imagine isn't there. Wrongly, in this case. They have loads of people, even commoners, that will steal.

4. Which leads us to armies and the commoners in them. They're there. What we've seen, in the main, are elite forces. In Tiera's second book the conscripts aren't being taken from the halls of the nobles. Like all such forces they tend to take their officers from the highest social ranks.

5. Merchants are basically the unmodified remnant population, making up about 20% of the whole thing. They tend to fill a lot of the elite military ranks. Most Counties, including their barons, have about 1-2 percent of their population under arms.

In modern combat positions, commoners tend to be used as cannon fodders, since they don't fight well against nobles, tending to freeze. What about that makes you think that the nobles wouldn't' use them that way? They don't see them as important at all, unless they have a lot of "other" blood in their ancestry.



6. The early transportation did suck! But it's a double edged sword, as I think the future will show.

Right now it's still really pretty slow, world wide. Only an elite few have the best transportation methods at their disposal.

Still, large empires used to work, with horses and wagons. It just took longer. Without a major outside threat, there is little chance of really losing things. So the fate of Rome or the Mongol Empire aren't valid examples.


Oh, I just notice that last bit: Austra and the old wars. The magics of Noram, even pre-Tor, were enough to beat the military weapons of Austra on the battle field, and Noram's navy didn't have a lot of ships at the best of times. When attacked by air, Noram simply lost. The only time they could win was when Austra tried to actually come in to fight. The long transport times is why the King's army is decentralized. The can also call on all local forces which means a lot of marching, but that works too, it's just slower. Think Revolutionary war, for examples there.

Plus, Austra was working with restrictions as to how many weapons they could have and what kind, as enforced by Brown. In other words, the playing field was a lot more even than what you might be thinking. Managed aggressions, meant to keep people distracted and busy.

[MarciaA]

I think I'll add that bit on the website tomorrow. Interesting!

Okay, added it tonight.

[RedWolfeXR]

bah, had a long reply posted and the login timed out, erasing it when I tried to send. (one of the flaw of ubbs, its not the first time)

Thanks for the additional info, Dale. I still feel a bit doubtful about running a full continental kingdom with footsoldiers and carriages. Post flight, yes. Even footsoldiers with communication might manage.

My reading method on this series was unusual even for me. Bought the entire series over the weekend, and it probably would have gone better to have read it as it was published. (I have read most of your stuff besides YA and Infected) I read Tor1-3 pretty much straight through over 2 days, I tend to fully submerge into a book if I can -- and I probably do a lot more analysis than most readers in that mode. I ran out of time and was reading the rest between calls at work and afterwork, so couldn't dive as deeply and skimmed through the rest of Tor4-6... honestly Tor wasn't doing much for me, probably burnout. I gathered enough to move into Timon1 and Tiera1 and then tor7, and then skimmed though the rest of the books. <g> Then actually read Timon 2 and 3 completely, followed by Tiera 3. (still need to read Tiera 2 and parts of Tor 1-6.. )

So what happens when merchants (essentially the root species) breed with either of the subspecies? It would seem to me that the Nobles almost HAVE to be a dual recessive gene or fairly infertile outside their subspecies. Commoners probably the same or the merchants would have dissapeared into the subspecies after 2000 years. I can see where Cordes would have made the commoner traits VERY dominant though. That way they stayed a servant subspecies. It still looks like they are starting to fade a little bit. I suspect they are going to get a magical rework to help them fade more... if simple interbreeding with the rest of the world doesn't solve it. there doesn't seem to be any realy prejudice between the other continents so it should go pretty fast. Grey really doomed her subspecies though, unless the women can interbreed - though they have that reduced sex drive. The men don't sound like they can be corrected, Lara Grey being who she was in genetics.

I gather the kings lands are fairly larger than most, since he has to maintain a larger army and I can't see him being in a position to demand high taxes and levies from the other nobles.

I still don't have a ton of respect for Richard though. (part of that may WELL be that Green wanted a very tall malleable king...) Tiera may have been a (little) bit hotheaded, but she was definitly done over.

Being a bit romantic I found it a nice change to have to set aside my usual mindset. This big group of immortals are mostly friends and have a lot of cross-ties. I still think the social manners should have been more "natural" and not so forced on a 2000 year old social system. Thats VERY static... Ali's comments about being easy, Maria losing her mind at Tor (especially as she turned out) regardless of anything she "felt" for Rolph.

I am really looking forward to a more adult Timon, especially since Trice won't let him separate/isolate himself in analysis. (and yes, I CAN relate)

Well, out of time, as much as I can reconstruct at the moment.

[RedWolfeXR]

Oh, and don't think I am being THAT critical, I can't help analyzing. I lost like 4 days there, and a lot of that skimming was the result of running out of time but being too deep in the metastory to be willing to wait for another long stretch of uninterrupted time to see how it ended.

I do feel like the society (or at least our viewpoint of it) morphed a bit after the first two books. Tiera adapted quite quickly once she understood the rules, however. (laughing.. I can just hear Dale saying "hold STILL, $%#% it!")