Page 134: For Science!

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Werra
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by Werra »

icekatze wrote: Nobody here really thinks that when Genghis Khan raped and pillaged his way across Asia, he spared women because he was deeply concerned with their inalienable human rights, do they?
Now I want to see Outsider with Genghis Khan instead of Jardin.

Krulle
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by Krulle »

boldilocks wrote:
entity2636 wrote:And by the way, historically and up until rather recently women in the western world (and still very much so in the third world) were considered inferior to men in every aspect, incapable by nature of decision making, prohibited from owning property, run a business, vote, you name it, even not "having rights towards their own body". The men did protect them, take second billing in times of danger, but women were little more than property, in extreme cases treated as livestock. I think it is good that this is a thing of the past in large parts of the world and hopefully the rest will follow.
In no point in western history have women been considered inferior to men in every aspect. I suppose you could say that male spartans considered women "inferior" and therefore only fit to run the government and industry while the "important" work of being in the army was for the men, but that's a strange definition of inferior.

Also, I'm not sure where women have been unable to own property or run businesses in western history, or where they were ever considered property/livestock in any way that men were not also considered property/livestock.
Until recently (1958), married women in (the federal republic of [western]) Germany needed their husband's permission to work, and he could give a notice for her work without her agreement, and it was binding.
Until late in the middle ages, women in Germany were not allowed to own grounds, thus could not inherit the hous of their late husband. The grounds were inherited to the sons(and sons only!), and usually the oldest son had to take the responsibility for his mother as well. (some cities had laws allowing "free women" to inherit from their husband without a caretaker, but the "free" was very limited. Often required that no son was born to her husband yet (neither by her or by a previous woman), and that she herself was born within this city and a full citizen of this city (e.g. Bad Reichenhall had this, still valid around 1730, likely also later). Otherwise her son, or one of his previous sons, or one of his brothers, or nephews, inherited, and she became dependent on his goodwill to be allowed to stay in the house, to spend money, whatever....
If the heir was mean, he just shoved her off into a cloister. With a gift of money, these cloisters became rich...

Where do you think this does not imply women were not treated equal?
Vote for Outsider on TWC: Image
charred steppes, borders of territories: page 59,
jump-map of local stars: page 121, larger map in Loroi: page 118,
System view Leido Crossroads: page 123, after the battle page 195

boldilocks
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by boldilocks »

icekatze wrote:Nobody here really thinks that when Genghis Khan raped and pillaged his way across Asia, he spared women because he was deeply concerned with their inalienable human rights, do they?
I don't think anyone would accuse Genghis Khan of being overly concerned with human rights.

boldilocks
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by boldilocks »

Krulle wrote:Where do you think this does not imply women were not treated equal?
I think it is interesting how you have spun a yarn of vicious treatment of women (mainly conjectural) only to end with this bizarre accusation "how dare you stand and say that women have not been treated unequally", when I have made no statement of the sort. I think this is another modern bias where you are thinking of inheritance laws in terms of modern ideas of individual persons rather than continuous multi-generational dynasties, and are basing your story of total female oppression at the hands of dastardly men on that skewed view.

Your view of women in history requires women to have been docile cows, and men to be inexplicably cruel, until around the mid-20th century.

I also find your conception of cloisters as some place where you ship the old bag off to once you take over the farm to be rather simplistic, considering they were some of the most prestigious, wealthy and politically connected organizations in medieval europe, institutions that had the ears of emperors and popes, and had to be exclusively headed by women. (That is, as long as a cloister allowed women, men could not head them.)

entity2636
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by entity2636 »

boldilocks wrote:Your view of women in history requires women to have been docile cows, and men to be inexplicably cruel, until around the mid-20th century
History itself proves that that was indeed the case, but not by choice of said women. It was the norm back then, a norm that was put into every child's mind from day one. And as a woman you could not protest your condition because you had virtually no rights and no judicial protection. Punishment for not serving husband often involved corporeal punishment (beating, mutilation, stoning, burning on the stake or trial by drowning if you were labeled a witch, etc.) and it took until the 20th century for someone to ask - hold on, this isn't really right, is it? Those born in slavery can't grasp the concept of freedom and quite often can't even grasp the concept of slavery.

Same is the case with the loroi and their education system, only it's pretty much industrialized - children are brought up by state caretakers, assessed by state specialists, sorted into a caste and telepathically educated (implanted with knowledge or basically programmed) according to that caste's needs and requirements and nothing more and nothing less.

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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by boldilocks »

entity2636 wrote:
boldilocks wrote:Your view of women in history requires women to have been docile cows, and men to be inexplicably cruel, until around the mid-20th century
History itself proves that that was indeed the case, but not by choice of said women.
History proves the exact opposite.
entity2636 wrote:It was the norm back then, a norm that was put into every child's mind from day one.
Nope. Casual violence was a norm, but casual violence against women by men as opposed to causal violence against men by men or against men by women or against women by women was not particularly a norm.
entity2636 wrote:And as a woman you could not protest your condition because you had virtually no rights and no judicial protection.
As a woman you could protest your condition as much as anyone else could protest their position and had virtually the same rights and largely superior judicial protection. (As in some cases husbands would be liable for the crimes of their wives.)
entity2636 wrote:Punishment for not serving husband often involved corporeal punishment (beating, mutilation, stoning, burning on the stake or trial by drowning if you were labeled a witch, etc.)
In what medieval european region was refusal to "serve" your husband punished by "drowning because you're a witch"? I am not aware of mutilation, stoning or burning at the stake being a legal punishment anywhere in europe. And beatings were not punishment reserved exclusively for women, but indeed dished out to men (husbands of adulterous women would be bound, put back to front on an ass, and paraded through town while townspeople beat him with sticks, in some jurisdictions, for example) and children as well, so this is hardly indicative of female oppression so much as a cavalier attitude towards instructive violence overall.
entity2636 wrote:and it took until the 20th century for someone to ask - hold on, this isn't really right, is it? Those born in slavery can't grasp the concept of freedom and quite often can't even grasp the concept of slavery.
Ask any slave in history if they're aware that they're a slave, and I expect the answers will be far more unambiguous than you're implying.

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Corpsman_of_Krieg
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by Corpsman_of_Krieg »

I am not a mod, nor do I intend to pretend to be one; I do however think that this discussion, robust and interesting as it has been thus far, should probably transition to a separate thread, as the original intent has been lost in the organic development of the subject.

Cheers on the disagreement; unless I missed something it seems like things have remained quite civil, which is refreshing.

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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by Username »

Indeed, funny how these things happen. Been a while since a thread got this derailed though. :lol:

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Arioch
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by Arioch »

The individual page discussion threads have a limited lifespan, so I'm inclined to let them run off-topic, within reason.

entity2636
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by entity2636 »

boldilocks wrote:In what medieval european region was refusal to "serve" your husband punished by "drowning because you're a witch"? I am not aware of mutilation, stoning or burning at the stake being a legal punishment anywhere in europe.
I admit that these two last examples of punishment are not directly relevant for not serving the husband, rather I listed them as general forms of excessive corporeal punishment for women for what we see now as benign and unimportant things. I wrote that one late, tired and in a hurry and in retrospect it could be seen as incorrect examples. One would be labeled a witch if a woman was self educated in sciences deemed heretical by the church, practiced traditional medicine, was unmarried, had an unpleasant character or was a pain in the @ss of someone important, etc.

But Corpsman, Username and Arioch are right, this has derailed far enough and I will stop it right here.

@Arioch - best way of pulling the attention away from derailing a thread is to drop something fresh for the readers to take apart, like a new teaser frame of the next page ;) Got anything new and shiny for us, or shall we wait until Monday (hopefully) for the next page?

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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by boldilocks »

entity2636 wrote:I admit that these two last examples of punishment are not directly relevant for not serving the husband, rather I listed them as general forms of excessive corporeal punishment for women for what we see now as benign and unimportant things.
They were not "excessive corporeal punishment for women". They were "excessive corporeal punishments" (by modern standards.), usually for witchcraft or heresy. (At least in the european middle ages.)
entity2636 wrote:I wrote that one late, tired and in a hurry and in retrospect it could be seen as incorrect examples. One would be labeled a witch if a woman was self educated in sciences deemed heretical by the church, practiced traditional medicine, was unmarried, had an unpleasant character or was a pain in the @ss of someone important, etc.
Where are you getting this from? There were plenty of educated women in the european middle ages. The education of children in their early years was usually left to their mothers (at least in the wealthier families where education was both an option and expected.) The women who ended up in cloisters were in effect brought into an existence of theological and philosophical (and quite a lot of political) learning.

Even your statement in regards to witches indicates an extremely gendered view of witches. Both men and women were burned at the stake for being witches, which makes it a non-gendered punishment.

entity2636 wrote:But Corpsman, Username and Arioch are right, this has derailed far enough and I will stop it right here.

@Arioch - best way of pulling the attention away from derailing a thread is to drop something fresh for the readers to take apart, like a new teaser frame of the next page ;) Got anything new and shiny for us, or shall we wait until Monday (hopefully) for the next page?
Yeah, probably best to let it drop here, and I too will raise my call that the only way to solve this vendetta between me and you is MOAR CONTENT. Otherwise, we might end up burning eachother at the stake. Could Arioch live with that on his conscience?

novius
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by novius »

boldilocks wrote:Yeah, probably best to let it drop here, and I too will raise my call that the only way to solve this vendetta between me and you is MOAR CONTENT. Otherwise, we might end up burning eachother at the stake. Could Arioch live with that on his conscience?
There'll be coming something soon, either way. Either it would be a new page coming Monday, or I have an idea for a writing prompt which needs a little refinement... :)

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CrimsonFALKE
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by CrimsonFALKE »

I want to ask directly did Fireblade permanently do something to Alex's mind? A lasting impact emotionally or mentally.

novius
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by novius »

CrimsonFALKE wrote:I want to ask directly did Fireblade permanently do something to Alex's mind? A lasting impact emotionally or mentally.
Alex noticed her attempt at mental contact right from the very start, even before he recognized it as such. That should disprove the notion that he somehow got sensitized to her presence.

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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by Arent »

Back on topic:

Since Alex could sense Fireblade even without touching Beryl (Page 18), does the touching have any impact? Maybe that he can sense Fireblade farther away? Before she was just some meters apart from him, now he can sense her in another part of the shuttle.

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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by entity2636 »

There's one important piece of information missing. We do not know whether on Page 18, where Alex saw the light that we now know is the human brain's interpretation of a mental signature, Fireblade was touching him or not.

As I'm writing this, I initially thought that Fireblade must have been touching Alex and trying to communicate. The more I think about it, the more it feels to me that on Page 18 she was in fact not touching him, but was trying to contact him telepathically.

I think so because at first Alex didn't "see" anything, then he noticed a flickering light which then grew larger, brighter. He then felt heat, got scared and woke up. On Page 28 where Fireblade is angry, holding her palm against his forehead and is trying to break into his mind with force, he instantly sees her silhouette which then "explodes" into a field of light and heat. Then Alex passes out.

Now Alex is touching Beryl and I would wager a guess that his brain is using her as sort of an antenna or amplifier. It also starts with a small glowing sphere of light that grew into Fireblade's silhouette as Alex took more time, focused and looked into it. Touch greatly amplifies telepathy but Beryl is a rather weak telepath, at least compared to Fireblade and Tempo and Fireblade is also probably not trying to actively contact Alex at this moment. That's why it took him time, focusing and Beryl's help to start seeing the most powerful telepath nearby, plus the only one who wears a psi amp.

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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by Arent »

entity2636 wrote:That's why it took him time, focusing and Beryl's help to start seeing the most powerful telepath nearby, plus the only one who wears a psi amp.
That's more or less also my interpretation.

By the way, congratulations to Arioch for breaking the 1000$ per page! Obviously, people love your comic! And I have to agree.

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Werra
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by Werra »

It will be interesting to see what happens if (when) Alex gets skin to skin contact with Tempo. I'm personally hoping the team ends up on Black Razor. Then we might know if Alex only senses Fireblade or other Teidar as well, by which I mean Smug Captain.

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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by CrimsonFALKE »

novius wrote:
CrimsonFALKE wrote:I want to ask directly did Fireblade permanently do something to Alex's mind? A lasting impact emotionally or mentally.
Alex noticed her attempt at mental contact right from the very start, even before he recognized it as such. That should disprove the notion that he somehow got sensitized to her presence.
I am asking if she has made a barrier that is what blocks out Beryl from his mind.

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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by icekatze »

hi hi
novius wrote:Alex noticed her attempt at mental contact right from the very start, even before he recognized it as such. That should disprove the notion that he somehow got sensitized to her presence.
We don't know if Fireblade was probing Alex's mind prior to regaining consciousness. It is possible that she was, and that she left a mark on his mind. Telepathy is plenty mysterious anyways.

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