The Great Tree

[BladeLakem]

I had this thought. Is it just me, or does the history of D'ni seem significantly...monolithic?

I mean, it could be that the DRC is just finding the history as preserved by the D'ni government at the time of the Fall, but for a culture that's been around for 10,000 years, there isn't a lot of variation. The only real mention of it I've seen is in the mention of religious sects. However, even that seemed pretty cursory.

Even though D'ni is a relatively small population with long lives and a cultural predilection for xenophobia, I'd think with as much contact they must have had with other cultures, some of it would have snuck in, especially for as long as they've been around.

Do I seem off base?

[Cycreim]

Oh no, I totally agree. I suspect, though, that it's because we haven't seen very much of D'ni cultural movements. I think we'll see a lot of variation in D'ni artwork, which we haven't seen a lot of as well.
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KI: 34353

[Professor Askew]

Yes, I think most of it is due to the fact that that kind of information hasn't been released yet...or is unknown. Look how the language has been studied and learned and taught and puzzled over. Can you imagine what would happen if different religious sects were introduced? Wow. I'm betting that's an area that won't be delved into in any great detail...except in an historic context...if at all.
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Professor Daniel Askew - Securing our reality from the machinations of the Station Masters.

[Saxy]

Yet another reason why the GT should fight for the free exploration of D'ni! Huzzah!
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Not all who wander are lost... (MJ fixed my sig!)
KI: 38931

[Tomala]

[Lord Chaos]

It might be due to the environment. Because the weather never changes in the Cavern, perhaps there's no real need for rapid development. Some human anthropologists think that northern Europe ended up dominating our world because weather forced them to develp technology.. and once tech gets going it's hard to stop.

So, in 10K years, the D'ni built four burrowing machines and their supporting technology, but we don't know many details. They also had rock sounding equipment and highly tuned senses for what rock was like. (This leads to asking why they managed to miss the fact that the Great Shaft was quite near a volcano, which would seem like a really bad place to dig).

They were a conservative bunch, turned inward, solving prolbems as they came up. No real need to be otherwise, I guess... until Ti'Ana came in and shone a light into some corners that were pretty dirty.

Edit: spelling. Middle-aged eyes, low contrast, small type.

[CuzinJohn]

The D'Ni certainly had some sort of faith, in that they repeatedly refer to "The Maker".

I've come to learn over the course of life that "faith" and "religion" are not necessarily the same thing.
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KI 182798

Science is how you talk about the universe with words that bind it to a common reality.
Magic is how you talk to the universe with words that it cannot ignore.

[janaba1]

[Cycreim]

How many of you have read through the books in the hall of kings? There's some really fascinating stuff in there about D'ni culture over a long period of time. It doesn't really give you the zeitgeist, but it gives you, at a glance, what things were like at one point in time or another.
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KI: 34353

[Professor Askew]

I must admit, I had not read through all of them (but most of them). But, it's an obvious source of much knowledge. I believe they are all posted somewhere. DPWR?
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Professor Daniel Askew - Securing our reality from the machinations of the Station Masters.

[Daedalus]

Based on what we know so far, the main reason for this is probably because all history between the kings and The Fall is currently missing. Much of Ae'gura was constructed during the kingdom era, so this would explain the lack of recent history being prevalent so far in Uru. There's about 2000 years of D'ni history we haven't seen... Most new construction took place in the City Proper and beyond. There's still plenty we have yet to see...

They were following an ideal, and they all had the same religion, granted with its radicals as well. The city holds countless reminders of this. When you build your city in stone, it doesn't leave much room for architectural changes without completely clearing an area, something I'm sure the D'ni were in no hurry to do.

Chances are that much of D'ni art was influenced by the cultures of other ages, but regardless of how D'ni wanted to remain faithful to their beginnings, there was still rampant pride which probably forced inward development rather than the the adoption of different cultures. We also see examples of this with how "D'ni blood" was so highly regarded throughout D'ni. It was frowned upon for a citizen to be and act anything other than D'ni.

I read through all of the books again recently. Lots of juicy stuff in there.

[BladeLakem]

There are lots of good bits in there, yeah. They do mention, in one of them, that several thousand different religious groups were registered with the government at one time in the history.

It just reads to me as having only one thread to it, which triggers my biggest pet peeve in a lot of fantasy and scifi - the monolithic alien culture.

I'm certain that a lot of it (from an IC perspective) is that it's easier to find info about the official recorded history, which would have a monolithic feel. And from a practical perspective, you can only write so much detail (and that sort of detail may have nothing to do with the sort of story Cyan is trying to tell in Uru).

*shrug*

[Cycreim]

Hey Blade, check this guy out: King Hinash
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KI: 34353

[BladeLakem]

Yeah, I've read that. I'll be interesting to see if more of that ever gets explored.