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[The Cosmopolite]

I am not really sure to whom you are ascribing some of the views you challenge but as I don't really hold them I'm going to assume it is not me. I did make a passing remark about the Caldari which was an unfortunate artefact of the way the previous thread had developed. I myself don't believe anyone who takes a serious stance on the background really thinks that X faction are Y real-world nation/empire/state in space. I've seen lots of complaints over the years to the effect that such-and-such snippet of news or CCP story direction or what-have-you portrays X faction as Y real-world nation/empire/state in space but I must say that it's usually been said by people who are, if I can be polite, a little over-wrought.

I entirely agree about the distinction between inspiration and imitation.

I was struck by GoGo dismissing in a rather casual manner the fact that the Amarr Empire have, essentially, electors. As if that's a minor matter. In my view it is not and here is why: in the HRE, as in the Amarr Empire, the fact of being an Elector (in Am Emp 'Heir') became one's, as it were, 'true rank' whatever one's theoretical ranking in the nobility of the empire might otherwise have been. In fact, as in the Amarr Empire, it was a mixture of tradition and power politics and the secular electors were hereditary nobles of the HRE controlling important territories at the time the practice was codified by the Pope. In the Amarr Empire, five powerful nobles, holding high office in the Empire, became the heirs. We don't of course know anything like as much what the detail of the matter may have been.

In many respects the two setups are quite different though. I just think a case for inspiration can be made out.

Same really with the Byzantine element. Here I think the important feature is the central role of the Emperor in the state religion of the Amarr Empire. While the theology is complicated at times, let's take the simple and not I think inaccurate point: the Byzantines regarded their Emperor as a representative of Christ (which is, crudely, to say God - and yes I know they had all sorts of theological views about Christ over the centuries but let's keep it simple). Sound familiar? See, to me this is why the Amarr Empire is more like the Eastern Empire than the Western. In the West, from one way of looking at it Church and State start to divide one from another fairly quickly. This is really because, in essence, the State (ie. the Western Empire) collapses and fragments while the Church fluourishes. This is much less the case in the Eastern Empire which maintains the Eastern church as the state religion. (While, I know, there being an extraordinary plethora of variants of Christianity within the Eastern Empire and there's a paradox which I suspect is to do with the confidence that being the state religion may give a church so it doesn't necessarily feel the need to go around stamping out competing sects but this is to digress [and also to generalise terribly about an empire that was around for about 1,000 years after the Western Empire fell].)

But again it's an inspiration.

So you have, on the one hand the rather Byzantine absolutism, religious role and indeed semi-devinity of the Amarr Emperor combined with a structure of empire and governance that is loosely-speaking more akin to that of the Holy Roman Empire. Which together with other inspirations (and Persia* and Pharoanic Egypt are in there somewhere too for my money [though not, I think, the pre-1865 Deep South ]) and some original notions and combinations, you get the Amarr Empire.

This is purely as I see it and it is entirely possible it is no more than a working back on my part and all hot air.

The main point is we are talking about an archetype of the state and instances of that archetype. The Amarr Empire is an instance of the Imperial archetype of the state (I mean the actual Imperial archetype which has as the basic essentials an empire governed by an emperor, not some loose-talk about a western capitalist democracy being 'imperialist' because it projects a lot of power). As such, you can project onto it a lot of things from other instances of the Imperial archetype of the state, and some may be real inspirations for it and some may turn out to be deep IC influences on it and some may just be hot air.

Doesn't really get us very far on what the actual IC Amarr cultural roots are, now that I think about it. Ah well.

Cosmo

* Persia is an interesting case, especially given the rather Persian-sounding names sprinkled through the Amarr background. I think all Amarr buffs have noticed that there is zero reference to Christ or a clear Christ-like figure in any PF material (the latter is more arguable than the former - but I actually think one can assert that Christ isn't in the theology any more, if he ever was, except possibly as a prophet). We know the Amarr religion is a monotheistic religion. It has prophets. It has apostles contemporary and historical (which means nothing in terms of evidence of Christ in the doctrine). It has saints (same again). It has a devil figure (possibly more than one but the PF is a bit unclear on it). It seems to me it could perfectly possibly be akin to Islam, or even Zoroastrianism, in some respects.

PS. Incidentally, looking over the origins of this thread split, I saw someone repeat what is most certainly a myth about an aspect of Roman architecture. I shall just gently point that out and let it rest at that.

PPS. Actually, my generalising about an empire that was around for about 1,100 years and which went through so many changes reminded me of another point. Amarr Empire's been around for an extraordinary length of time (too long) and had its changes and in one respect that reminds me of the Byzantine Empire. But that's pretty definitely a projection on my part. (Or could it be the background devs looking around for an empire that had longevity and seeing what they could find to use?  )

[Rodj Blake]

There's plenty of time for stuff to change between now and the time of Eve, so I think that it's not neccessarily helpful to say that the Amarr are based on this or that RL entity.

It's almost certainly inspired by a whole load of sources from ancient Rome to modern-day Iran, but when you mix them all up you get an entirely different beast.

[GoGo Yubari]

Modern day Iran? No, just no. Show me the evidence, please.

As for Cosmo's posts, some good points in there... but no evidence of inspiration except at the most basic Imperial archetype level. There is a difference between 1) the designer coming up with stuff and there being parallels found by readers to many things in history and 2) the designer being provably influenced by some sources in his work and those links being unearthed. It's not the same thing at all and from one we can infer things we can't from the other.

Of course everyone's work and writings will be inspired to some extent by all the things he or she knows. So whatever historical knowledge someone has, any fictional worlds built by this person will probably be inspired to some extent by that knowledge, if only on an unconscious level. But in digging at the canon to build a better understanding of how these entities are, that sort of generic, unconscious influence isn't really all that useful. We want to find the ideas that the designer wrote in, not gain an understanding of his psyche.

There is also a difference in 1) trying to understand the sources as written and 2) using our own ideas to develop things further. The point with 2) is that we should try to be influenced by the same kind of things as the original author, which is of course why people are making statements of "Amarr is inspired by Byzantium". Because they want to apply ideas inspired by that, but in the absence of evidence that they were indeed inspired by that we should at least be more careful in bringing in new influences.

I think the evidence for any of those listed sources being inspirations are very weak indeed. However, I'm starting to repeat my points and we can just agree to disagree. I'll just emphasize that in my view there is no reason to look at or copy ideas from the Byzantines, Persians and HRE for the undefined black spots of the canon for the Amarr Empire nor in an attempt to understand its workings, because there is no evidence to suggest this is necessary.

Apologies for being such a nazi about this, but I feel it is exceedingly important if we are to understand the Amarr (or any instance of the PF) as originally written. if that's not really important for someone, well... all right then. So much for the meta conversation, though.

As for no Christ figure in the Amarr religion, that is indeed interesting. It does seem to me that the Emperor plays a very slightly similar intercessor-to-the-divine role to whom every person should place his faith in. I do wonder about the highest echelon of Amarrian nobility though who are likely to look at the Emperor in a very different light (ie. as the highest achievable position in their power politics)... sometimes I wonder if the religion is less personally relevant and more politically minded to them as a means to power and of control over the populace. At least I think this should be a more commonly occurring character type than it is (than again, players primarily choose an Amarrian to play a religious zealot so perhaps it is not surprising).

[Kybernetes Moros]

I do wonder about the highest echelon of Amarrian nobility though who are likely to look at the Emperor in a very different light (ie. as the highest achievable position in their power politics)... sometimes I wonder if the religion is less personally relevant and more politically minded to them as a means to power and of control over the populace. At least I think this should be a more commonly occurring character type than it is (than again, players primarily choose an Amarrian to play a religious zealot so perhaps it is not surprising).

What I have worked with so far is that the higher up the Imperial hierarchy one goes, the more frequent the exploitation or manipulation of the faith as a means of social control becomes and the emperorship does indeed become more often seen as the 'highest achievable position in their power politics', to use your words, instead of this deified representative of the Amarr god.

That is not, however, to say that the Amarr nobility are largely non-religious. While there will of course be those who care nothing for the Amarr religion beyond what they can use it to get for themselves, it seems feasible to me that the majority of them are faithful -- they just interpret it all in a slightly different way given the social and political position they find themselves in.

(Of course, this could all be contradicted entirely by some piece of PF that I've not read -- in which case, ignore me entirely.)

[lallara zhuul]

What I found interesting (and frustrating) was the retcon of the Khanid race staying on Athra with the Udorians and the True Amarr without being assimilated into the True Amarrian bloodline.

Personally I find that there are two things that affect the current Amarrian culture and how I perceive it as a player.

History of Athra.
The original culture brought in by the settlers.

As we know there was three known groups of settlers on Athra.

Amarrians.
Udorians.
Khanid.

At some point there was a war between the True Amarrians and the Udorians.
Udorians had better technology.
Amarrians won.

Khanid were Reclaimed by the Amarrians, but since they had been cooperating with the Amarrians since day one on Athra only a few of them had to endure slavery.

To me it paints a picture of the Amarrians starting the Reclaiming on Athra, taking in the Khanid and after a prolonged war enslaving the Udorians.
(Which has a strange connotation, if Amarrians enslave a group of people, they will be integrated into the Amarrian culture quite completely. Unlike the Khanid (and later Ammatar) that stayed as a separate entity within the Empire.)

Sani Sabik came around at some point, was taken care of.

Takhmahl came around at some point.

Empire went to space.

Takhmahl was kicked out.

Lou has a good timeline about the whole thing.

Then the culture of the Amarrians.

I think its quite pointless to argue the fact if the religion is based on the orthodox church or catholic church, both are pretty much the same, there are just a few rituals that are different. Of course there are a lot of nuances in the internal politics how the church is run and whatnot but they're pretty much the same because they are based on the same thing.

As a player I take what is in common with the different sects and go from there.

Both have the Holy Trinity, emphasis is just a bit different.

The Empire has the Son of the Trinity as the Emperor.

Both have the concept of penance, the Orthodox just believe more in the mercy of God than the Catholics.

To me in the Amarrian culture the concept of penance comes forward in all levels of the Amarrian society.

Be it from the sanctity of the flesh of the Emperor and Heirs, Reclaiming, slavery or just the hierarchical order of the whole Empire.

I see the Empire has been created as a extension of God.

Therefore by serving the Empire you do penance.
Those that has served the Empire longest, Heirs and by extension Emperor, have done most penance, therefore being closest to God.
From this you get a hierarchy of purity/racism in the whole Empire which hops from the Heirs and the nobility down to True Amarrians, Udorians, Khanid, Ni-Kunni, Ealurians and whomever CCP decides to retcon into the mix in the future.

Then the slavery bit.
Slaves do penance unwillingly because they would choose not to do penance, therefore turning away from God, damning themselves to Hell for all eternity, so they will not have free will until they choose the right thing by themselves.

Unfortunately I have things to do, places to be, so I will leave it at this for now.

[The Cosmopolite]

GoGo, I wrote a screed but I ended up feeling that we are actually at cross-purposes. I still have the screed. I may post it after a bit more thought. I'd like to see what others say about your views. I think they are in some respects striking and I possibly misunderstand them.

Cosmo

[Seriphyn]

Thinking of what Casiella has said about myself associating factions with RL nations, I don't think there is a need to attribute the Amarr to any RL culture. They are developed enough, with a crapload of lore and fiction, that it's unnecessary.

[Casiella]

Thinking of what Casiella has said about myself associating factions with RL nations, I don't think there is a need to attribute the Amarr to any RL culture. They are developed enough, with a crapload of lore and fiction, that it's unnecessary.

I love you, man.

[Lillith Blackheart]

Thinking of what Casiella has said about myself associating factions with RL nations, I don't think there is a need to attribute the Amarr to any RL culture. They are developed enough, with a crapload of lore and fiction, that it's unnecessary.

It can't be helped. Humans are beings of pattern recognition. We understand based on comparison and contrast. As I said earlier, the problem isn't in the comparison, it's in the bias attributed by attempting to use modern day and personal systems of ideals and societal rules as the basis of the comparison.

That's where you fall into a trap. Objectivity v Subjectivity.

[Mithfindel]

The apparent lack of a Christ figure is one notable difference from any form of Christianity. Another one is the apparent lack of sacraments - specifically the Eucharist. Also there are several notable things in the timeline. First, the Amarr are not the Unified Catholic Church (which in itself might be a New Age offshoot of Christianity - or an offshoot of the Church of the SubGenius, for all we know). They belong to a group called Conformists, which is a part of the Church. They settled on a planet, amongst others, and even then showed ambition for power by taking over the place, to lose power (and be kicked out, so possibly lose power violently) two hundred years later. Their exodus lasts for 1100 years - when they possibly splinter up. One of their leaders - but not their only leader - is Dano Gheinok, or Gheinok the First for "modern" Amarr. Eleven years after they have landed on Amarr, Gheinok has apparently gained control of the group and proclaims himself Prophet. For 61 more years the Conformists flock to Gheinok, before the EVE Gate collapses.

Now, this is possibly a big claim, but:

     "And they stood before Him,
    bathed in His light.
    Yet their eyes were blind,
    Their hearts rebellious,
    And their minds refused the Lord.
    Darkness descended upon them,
    Spreading inside their minds,
    And the flames of the Lord died within them.
    Yet one flame remained,
    And within this flame, the Lord found faith renewed.
    Casting the others into obscurity,
    The Lord turned to the one"
    - The Scriptures, Gheinok the First 1:3

    "And the Lord spoke to him from the heavens,
    Described to him his holy purpose,
    Bestowed upon him the wisdom,
    Of Gods holy embrace."
    - The Scriptures, Gheinok the First 2:8

    "And so it was,
    That Gheinok led his people on the great exodus,
    To the land of our Salvation,
    To the land of God,
    To the land of his Chosen,
    To Athra."
    - The Scriptures, Gheinok the First 1:32

    "By His light, and His will"
    - The Scriptures, Gheinok the First, 12:32

Dano Gheinok is the Messiah. The Amarr aren't waiting for the Christ to come back, because he has already came back and led them to the Holy Land. It is AD 8000. The Communion isn't needed to get in touch with the Christ, because Dano Gheinok is out there, you can just travel to Dam-Torsad, or Aerui, or where ever he's staying and talk with him face to face. That is, if the growing theocracy lets you.

Now, that was then. There is some problems with meeting the Messiah in person, including the fact that Gheinok died. He might have lived hundreds of years, basically until his implants and/or the medical tech broke down. Those times are lost in the darkness of the history, but lots of people still stayed faithful through the Dark Age. The legends and the stories mutated over the ages. Until finally, the Amarr started to rise to new dawn, and Amash-Akura became Emperor. (I'd bet this happened roughly 8000 years after Gheinok died, just for symbolism.) Of course, not everyone accepted the new Emperor, but he fought. His political opponents were named heretics and followers of the Deceiver, and then the Empire was born. Not the modern Empire, though. More akin to old Judaism - they had endured the exile from the Paradise of Soekheviti, but finally they were led to the Promised Land of Amarr. They had endured the Dark Age, but finally defeated the heathens and heretics and claimed the land for their own. However, now everything was again well. It is around AD17000.

Three thousand years after the "Mayan Empire" was founded, technologically advanced people arrive from the Sea and make demands to the Emperor. The Amarr aren't overcame, though, and it might be that at first, there's no war, either - but it is clear that the Promised Land isn't the Paradise the people have believed. There's people elsewhere, and they're better off than the God's Chosen! This is the starting point for the modern Amarr Empire. They aren't having a hurry - they probably start to explore the planet, acquire advanced technology which they reverse engineer and possibly even improve, until finally - possibly with the help of the Khanid - they start the Reclaiming. That is why the Khanid wouldn't be enslaved. They weren't first encountered by an Empire looking to conquer anything it met. They were encountered by an Empire looking for allies to take down the Top Dog in the planet. It is now around AD 20000.

The next five hundred years, the Amarr conquer the entire planet. Udorian states first, then other nations - unknown nations, those Khanid nations who were not willing to join them, and possibly attempts to brake away from the Empire. (It is noteworthy that the Minmatar reach a global culture before the Amarr.) Their technology has likely reached the current real-world level or surpassed it. Within the next seven hundred years they explore the nearby starsystems, culminating in the building of the Amarr-Hedion stargate in 21290. At this point, they likely start to receive radio transmissions from other nascent civilizations, ultimately leading into conquering the Ealurians less than 150 years laters. The connection to the Holy Land, however, is starting to crack. The old dogma doesn't fit.

The Empire at this point is rather damn big. Likely there were many civilizations to the galactic east - Takhmal, Ealur and others, since the Empire seemed to have first stretched there. The City of God is built around the same time as the conquest - Reclaiming - of the first non-Athran civilization. Elevated by recent conquests, the Emperor (Zaragram II Ardishapur) proclaims himself God, and we know how well that ends. Apostles come to power once again. Possibly even try to return to the Holy Land type of think, but four hundred years later the Apostles lose power again - only a few generation changes in power for long-lived Holders (even if there must be several generations of noble sons between generations who are actually in power unless the Amarr have very good doctors to keep the old Holder's pecker going).

With the nobles - the military and industrial elite - back in charge again, the Amarr continue to expand their Empire. It is noteworthy that before Amarr-Minmatar first contact, the Minmatar have been in space for almost a thousand years according the current timeline. The Amarr must've been able to record the gravimetric activity caused by their gates. Perhaps they've been careful for this reason, since Pator isn't that far from the City of God, the old center of their Empire. However, they go to the entirely different direction and take Aridia (and likely, Kor-Azor). Ni-Kunni are Reclaimed around the same time as the Amarr start to raid the Minmatar. In the next 125 years, the Minmatar are weakened enough - and the Amarr are sure enough that they know exactly what the Minmatar have - that Amarr take over the superiority in the three systems. And here comes an important retcon I just noticed: In the new timeline, Amarr don't conquer all of Minmatar, as previous timelines suggested. They conquer only Matar in 22480.

Since then, it is likely that the Minmatar rebels nick all kinds of stuff from their Amarr masters and expand before the Amarr catch up with them and conquer their worlds one after one. The timeline has lots of errors, of course - for example, the Amarr apparently invent jump drives after Khanid secedes (so apparently early Amarr titans could use jumpgates, or then Khanid warped his titan between systems). The Amarr likely meet the Gallente first - possibly because the Minmatar are just trying to hide from Amarr, but Amarr might be still looking for more civilizations to take over. The Gallente eventually learn of the Minmatar and start to help them to cover their flank. Minmatar have, at this point, spread over their current-day territory, though Amarr control the most of it. The Minmatar have a huge covert buildup of military strength - the Elders and Shakor would be very, very jealous (and that time, they didn't need to keep it secret from the Gallente, either) - culminating into the open rebellion, where the Amarr - used to attack not defend, and bombard planets not fight for space superiority - lose.

I got a bit rambly, but the main point is that even if the Amarr faith had at one point have been Christianity, it has had several important changes over the years - Soekheviti as the Promised Land, exodus, diaspora, Athra as the promised land, Messiah Dano Gheinok, the Dark Age, Amarr (continent) as a Promised Land, Udorian contact and rapid adaptation to new technology, and finally the Age of Reclaiming. And then, finally, stepping into the stars. Until the new Reclaiming, the Mad Emperor, brief period of Apostle rule, and then the modern Amarr Empire. That's at least ten events that must have brought at least Reformation-level changes to the faith.

[Invelious]

Just a side note here on something I noticed. The Amarr Empire eradicated(to current knowledge) the Takmahl faith and its followers. One would consider this a major event, wiping out a religous group of people who lived within Amarr boarders freely. Yet there is no mention of it in the official Amarr timeline http://www.eveonline.com/races/amarr_timeline.asp

Any reasons for this? Ideas?

[Mithfindel]

Likely the four COSMOS races are implemented later than the original timeline was mentioned, and then they were just forgotten when the retcon project started to fix things.

Also, as a note, the Amarr Succession sounds a lot about how Arabic tribes selected their Emirs and thus, the way the Caliph was selected after the previous one had died.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate#Electing_or_appointing_a_Caliph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliph#Succession_and_Recognition

[Invelious]

Likely the four COSMOS races are implemented later than the original timeline was mentioned, and then they were just forgotten when the retcon project started to fix things.

Also, as a note, the Amarr Succession sounds a lot about how Arabic tribes selected their Emirs and thus, the way the Caliph was selected after the previous one had died.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate#Electing_or_appointing_a_Caliph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliph#Succession_and_Recognition

Sorry, can you elaborate on the "retcon" project, is this a CCP thing, I'm still fairly new to all of this in sense.

[Horatius Caul]

Likely the four COSMOS races are implemented later than the original timeline was mentioned, and then they were just forgotten when the retcon project started to fix things.

Also, as a note, the Amarr Succession sounds a lot about how Arabic tribes selected their Emirs and thus, the way the Caliph was selected after the previous one had died.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate#Electing_or_appointing_a_Caliph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliph#Succession_and_Recognition

Sorry, can you elaborate on the "retcon" project, is this a CCP thing, I'm still fairly new to all of this in sense.

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1069891

[Invelious]

So, they "fixed" all of that to reflect on what Tony G did, is this correct?