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EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => CCP Public Library => Topic started by: Seriphyn on 20 May 2010, 08:23
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And now for something completely different...
I've often debated whether or not it is ye olde Garoun Empire or the earlier Amarr Empire that were more stylized after Greco-Roman influence...in favour of the Gallente...
- NPC names: Federation Praktor Centurion, Federation Praktor Legionarius, Federation Praktor Praetoria, Federation Nauclarius (Byzantine marine) etc.
- Ship names: Thanatos, Moros, Hyperion etc.
I do believe the old Bestower had Greek characters on it, but mostly I think the Greco-Roman thing for the Amarr is mostly player-driven (PIE Inc. etc.), with the exception of that city on Mekhios, or something. But :gonzales: right? :P
Hell, even the Caldari had a unit called "Templis Dragonaurs", so who knows...
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There's hodge-podgery afoot, no doubt about it. I've always seen the Middle Eastern and Crusader influences in the Amarr as stronger than anything Roman or Greek, and your point about the names of GalNav NPC ships and Gallente ship class names is a strong one.
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The Amarrians came from a "Unified Catholic Church" colony, which I interpret to mean the unification of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox tradition, rather than Greco-Roman in a cultural sense (though at some point obviously some overlap exists).
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I always saw Gallente as some sort of Babylonian modern culture. Code of Laws, power of the people and certain "cultural domination" characteristics all relate to it.
However in the way the Gallente are painted, they protray more "romantic" attributes mixed with the concept of Knights and Kings of Middle Age Europe.
All thrown into a modern-era Democracy.
I don't think there is much greco-roman influence besides ship names and other descriptions in-game.
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I'm still not sure why it can't be both. The Roman Empire did basically create the Western world, after all.
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I always saw Gallente as some sort of Babylonian modern culture. Code of Laws, power of the people and certain "cultural domination" characteristics all relate to it.
However in the way the Gallente are painted, they protray more "romantic" attributes mixed with the concept of Knights and Kings of Middle Age Europe.
Maybe you're forgetting about the Crusades. ;) The Knights and Kings of Middle Age Europe were all over the idea of Cultural Domination, or fighting against what they perceived as same.
I've always kicked the idea around that "Old Modern" Gallente culture (that is early spaceflight/pre-interstellar communications) was the result of a history like this:
* The settlers from Tau Ceti had already established a number of small settlements in favorable locations before the EVE-Gate went kaboom.
* Post-kaboom, some of these settlements perished when their occupants couldn't adapt to dealing with life without modern amenities. Others merged -- it may have been possible that there was a Babel analogue at one point before disagreements or a natural disaster caused that 'megasettlement' to disintegrate and the inhabitants to disperse.
* Over time, city-states emerged (think post-Roman Empire Continental Europe). They were initially wholly self-sufficient, but eventually they began to trade with one another for goods they couldn't source locally.
* Some nitwit ... er, Rouvenor, the likely unfriendly neighborhood Gallentean Charlemagne equivalent ... decided with the support of some of the more powerful city-states that it'd be a great idea to create a Holy Roman Empire. Er, Empire called Garoun. People who argued "did you learn nothing from our Babel analogue?" got sacked and pillaged or saw that their neighbors got sacked and pillaged1 and STFUed.
* Centuries down the road, some of the nobility within the Empire decided they were better off without a freaking Emperor. They realized that they were screwed if they tried to take on the Emperor and his favored nobles just with their own house guards (assuming the right to have large standing armies had been restricted post-Empire to those nobles who were willing to sack and pillage other ones for the Emperor), so they decided to do something novel: they incited the common people to revolt right along with them.2
* Once the dust and falling heads settled, things didn't go back to normal. The rebel nobles were faced with dealing with a common people who'd realized their own power and wanted a seat at the ruling table. Thus, democracy -- more or less -- began for the Gallente.
1 Bruno, one of these days, you should ICly ask Zag about his family history. :P
2 And I recommend you never talk to Celeste ICly about her family history.
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1 Bruno, one of these days, you should ICly ask Zag about his family history. :P
2 And I recommend you never talk to Celeste ICly about her family history.
:eek: i guess i'll check on that.
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I would certainly say both have some Greco-Roman influence - though (as I think has been mentioned) since all of western culture has some greco-roman influence, it may just be second or third hand.
Angel Cartel also has some roman influence. A little hard to tell if it goes past some of the NPC names, or not. Pax Cartel?
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I think both the Amarr and the Gallente have quite a bit of Earth influence, and that that's as specific as you can possibly get.
We live in an increasingly globalized society as it is - it's going to mix together into a single cultural soup well before we start colonizing space in earnest.
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Globalization isn't the same as homogeneity though. It is quite possible that different cultural threads come by ways we might not expect, but they might well be recognizable to us in at least part of their journey to making up an Eve culture.
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Not strict homogeneity, no, but historical and mythological references that have their roots in the ancient past are already spread all over the world. Scratch the surface of today's society, and you'll find traces of Greco-Roman influence everywhere. As well as Asian, Hebrew, ancient Egyptian (which for its part mutually influenced and was influenced by the Greek and Roman cultures), even African, native American and Celtic stuff. And so on and so forth. And it's only going to mix together further as more third world countries industrialize.
The point isn't that the influences are going to be unrecognizable. The point is that everyone's going to exhibit them. It's just as feasible for the Minmatar to exhibit a Greco-Roman heritage as it is for the Amarr to do so.
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The problem with these influences is that they are being applied to societies that were restarted. I'm not sure if it would be possible for the pre-spacefaring civilizations of the EVE Dark Age to have influenced each other...though another overlap between Gallente/Amarr is how the Amarrian fighter is called "Praetor" and FedNav NPCs also have the "Praktor" prefix.
Another interesting point to bring up are the Gallente ship names...
- Ishtar (Assyrian/Babylonian counterpart to Sumerian god)
- Ishkur (Sumerian name for a god in Assyrian/Babylonian pantheon)
- Utu (Sumerian mythology god)
- Sin (god of the moon in Mesopotamian mythos)
- Anshar (Akkadian god)
It's very possible that the Garoun Empire, in this case, was an amalgation of High Western Europe, Greco-Roman and Mesopotamian culture.
In the alternative, it could be that the Mannar are the Mesopotamians of EVE...
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I think it is the thousands of years on earth and near surroundings before the whole Evegate thing where cultural exchange would have been taking place.
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The problem with these influences is that they are being applied to societies that were restarted. I'm not sure if it would be possible for the pre-spacefaring civilizations of the EVE Dark Age to have influenced each other...though another overlap between Gallente/Amarr is how the Amarrian fighter is called "Praetor" and FedNav NPCs also have the "Praktor" prefix.
Another interesting point to bring up are the Gallente ship names...
- Ishtar (Assyrian/Babylonian counterpart to Sumerian god)
- Ishkur (Sumerian name for a god in Assyrian/Babylonian pantheon)
- Utu (Sumerian mythology god)
- Sin (god of the moon in Mesopotamian mythos)
- Anshar (Akkadian god)
It's very possible that the Garoun Empire, in this case, was an amalgation of High Western Europe, Greco-Roman and Mesopotamian culture.
In the alternative, it could be that the Mannar are the Mesopotamians of EVE...
Or the ship names could have just been picked out of a history record and used because a) they sounded cool and b) they were 'culturally neutral'. And why would Federation ship designers want to use something 'culturally neutral'? Lessee.
* Gallenteans might get snippy that ships (some of which were already designed after icons from their culture, ref: the Nyx) weren't named after their historical figures?
* Mannar might get snippy that Gallentean newscasters routinely butchered the names of the ships named after their heroes?
* Intaki might not be comfortable with having their cultural icons or their language used to describe warships?
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I think Vieve makes a pretty good point. Public opinion is more an issue for the fed than for pretty much any other faction, I'd think.
Maybe it is traditional to name things after religious figures so old that no-one knows anymore what they are beyond 'religious figures'.
Maybe one of the senators on their military appropriations committee is a super-ancient religions buff and the manufacturers are pandering to him or her. :P
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I would like to think that Gallente ship names are actually based off their old gods, if they had any...Garoun had a concept of it...
Armor of Rouvenor states the "mythical hero-king" and a "temporal paradise". IC, Seriphyn says "Gods" instead of "God"...so who knows...
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Uhm, yeah. I believe the Gallente did have at least one god -- "Lady Fortune", which is mentioned in some Federation agent texts.
And, hey, we've got nothing out there that says what deities the Mannar worship. Who knows? Maybe they're techno-animists. They could worship ships!
p.s. Would you believe I typed "deities" as "Deteis" about ten times before I got my brain around the correct spelling?
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p.s. Would you believe I typed "deities" as "Deteis" about ten times before I got my brain around the correct spelling?
I'll just stay away from that one. :D
I would love to see some PF about anyone with a polytheistic religion. Sort of a different discussion though, I guess.
If you look at the Loki, where they explain the way the word is used now, you can see where there might be big changes over time, and CCP recognizes that to some degree.