@ Salazar and Daomei, I still argue that Mara are a nation. We will not be able to agree on this as we have different undertsandings of what this means. So let's move on.
@Daomei: no culture in human history have ever resembled the Mara. It is only when filtered though the prism of savagery/civlity that any do so, such is in the examples you give or the Yanomamö, who are an anthropological cliche in this regard. The violence of the Other, as in these examples is always a negation of the self. It is filtered and evaluated through the prism of savagery. The Jesuit Fathers and their religious peers wrote volumes on the 'savagery' of the aboriginal peoples of Americas. They decribed the torture rituals of Algonquians and Iroquoian peoples in great detail. But never once did they compare this violence to that of Europe, and the brutal morality plays that were public executions at that time, or of the conquistadors who fed new born babies to their dogs. Savagery/civility are not obective facts or analtyical concepts they are moral weapons of attack.
I just mention this, it is ironic that that you do not mention nation states as resembling the Mara, as it is the the 'complex' societes in our history that have actaully set out to destroy peoples, from small pox infected blankets, missions schools to camps and gas chambers, and weapons of mass murder, genocide is an invention for the 'civilised'.
We may not agree that Mara are a nation but they are a people. Like the Fyros, Matis, Tryker, and Zorai they are an imagined community, homins have a sense of belonging to them. All of them have a shared language, culture, history etc. They all have a political and social structure. The Mara differ from the four civs dramtically but this does not negate the fact that the Mara are a vibrant, living culture. It may be one we as players find abhorant, but judged by its own standards it is a coherent whole! Further, our toons may not see this but it would be hypocrisy as players to lambast the 'savagery' of the Maras and ignore the religious wars of Kara and Kami. The zealots in either camp are no different from the Mara. The mara do not want to kill all. That is hyperbole. The want revenge and to destroy the civs and take over.
The mara are a people. The are not a mob. I think both of you do not really know much about tribal peoples or the history of ethnography of them. Your toons can see them as a ravening mob out to kill all hominkind. A view that mirrors the european curtural myths of the Other that we can trace back to Tacitus and Herodotus, indeed this is good rp. But this discussion is not about what toons think but what the mara actually are. We may not agree that they are a nation, but they are a people. And as cultrual entity that endure over time it is not unreasonable that as members of this culture that mara toons can show solidarity and earn faction points.
@Daomei: no culture in human history have ever resembled the Mara. It is only when filtered though the prism of savagery/civlity that any do so, such is in the examples you give or the Yanomamö, who are an anthropological cliche in this regard. The violence of the Other, as in these examples is always a negation of the self. It is filtered and evaluated through the prism of savagery. The Jesuit Fathers and their religious peers wrote volumes on the 'savagery' of the aboriginal peoples of Americas. They decribed the torture rituals of Algonquians and Iroquoian peoples in great detail. But never once did they compare this violence to that of Europe, and the brutal morality plays that were public executions at that time, or of the conquistadors who fed new born babies to their dogs. Savagery/civility are not obective facts or analtyical concepts they are moral weapons of attack.
I just mention this, it is ironic that that you do not mention nation states as resembling the Mara, as it is the the 'complex' societes in our history that have actaully set out to destroy peoples, from small pox infected blankets, missions schools to camps and gas chambers, and weapons of mass murder, genocide is an invention for the 'civilised'.
We may not agree that Mara are a nation but they are a people. Like the Fyros, Matis, Tryker, and Zorai they are an imagined community, homins have a sense of belonging to them. All of them have a shared language, culture, history etc. They all have a political and social structure. The Mara differ from the four civs dramtically but this does not negate the fact that the Mara are a vibrant, living culture. It may be one we as players find abhorant, but judged by its own standards it is a coherent whole! Further, our toons may not see this but it would be hypocrisy as players to lambast the 'savagery' of the Maras and ignore the religious wars of Kara and Kami. The zealots in either camp are no different from the Mara. The mara do not want to kill all. That is hyperbole. The want revenge and to destroy the civs and take over.
The mara are a people. The are not a mob. I think both of you do not really know much about tribal peoples or the history of ethnography of them. Your toons can see them as a ravening mob out to kill all hominkind. A view that mirrors the european curtural myths of the Other that we can trace back to Tacitus and Herodotus, indeed this is good rp. But this discussion is not about what toons think but what the mara actually are. We may not agree that they are a nation, but they are a people. And as cultrual entity that endure over time it is not unreasonable that as members of this culture that mara toons can show solidarity and earn faction points.
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