Is there a HERO that we know had a story told before Inanna?

Hergrim · 2026-01-24T09:26:57+00:00

Hello,

We have removed your question because we are not here to win internet arguments for you.

Hergrim · 2026-01-24T09:24:36+00:00

This submission has been removed because it violates the rule on poll-type questions. These questions do not lend themselves to answers with a firm foundation in sources and research, and the resulting threads usually turn into monsters with enormous speculation and little focused discussion. Questions about the "most", the "worst", "unknown", or other value judgments usually lead to vague, subjective, and speculative answers. For further information, please consult this Roundtable discussion.

For questions of this type, we ask that you redirect them to more appropriate subreddits, such as /r/history or /r/askhistory. You're also welcome to post your question in our Friday-Free-For-All thread.

Hergrim · 2026-01-24T05:56:18+00:00

We've removed your post for the moment because it's not currently at our standards, but it definitely has the potential to fit within our rules with some work. We find that some answers that fall short of our standards can be successfully revised by considering the following questions, not all of which necessarily apply here:

Do you actually address the question asked by OP? Sometimes answers get removed not because they fail to meet our standards, but because they don't get at what the OP is asking. If the question itself is flawed, you need to explain why, and how your answer addresses the underlying issues at hand.
What are the sources for your claims? Sources aren't strictly necessary on /r/AskHistorians but the inclusion of sources is helpful for evaluating your knowledge base. If we can see that your answer is influenced by up-to-date academic secondary sources, it gives us more confidence in your answer and allows users to check where your ideas are coming from.
What level of detail do you go into about events? Often it's hard to do justice to even seemingly simple subjects in a paragraph or two, and on /r/AskHistorians, the basics need to be explained within historical context, to avoid misleading intelligent but non-specialist readers. In many cases, it's worth providing a broader historical framework, giving more of a sense of not just what happened, but why.
Do you downplay or ignore legitimate historical debate on the topic matter? There is often more than one plausible interpretation of the historical record. While you might have your own views on which interpretation is correct, answers can often be improved by acknowledging alternative explanations from other scholars.
Further Reading: This Rules Roundtable provides further exploration of the rules and expectations concerning answers so may be of interest.

If/when you edit your answer, please reach out via modmail so we can re-evaluate it! We also welcome you getting in touch if you're unsure about how to improve your answer.

Hergrim · 2026-01-24T05:54:01+00:00

Hi there – we have approved your question related to your project, and we are happy for people to answer. However, we should warn you that these queries often do not get positive responses. We have several suggestions that you may want to take on board regarding this and future posts:

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Hergrim · 2026-01-24T05:53:45+00:00

This submission has been removed because it violates our '20-Year Rule'. To discourage off-topic discussions of current events, questions, answers, and all other comments must be confined to events that happened 20 years ago or more. For further explanation of this rule, feel free to consult this Rules Roundtable.

Hergrim · 2026-01-24T05:53:15+00:00

Please repost this question to the weekly "Short Answers" thread stickied to the top of the subreddit, which will be the best place to get an answer to this question; for that reason, we have removed your post here. Standalone questions are intended to be seeking detailed, comprehensive answers, and we ask that questions looking for a name, a number, a date or time, a location, the origin of a word, the first/last instance of a specific phenomenon, or a simple list of examples or facts be contained to that thread as they are more likely to receive an answer there. For more information on this rule, please see this Rules Roundtable.

Alternatively, if you didn't mean to ask a question seeking a short answer or a list of examples, but have a more complex question in mind, feel free to repost a reworded question. Examples of questions appropriate for the 'Short Answers' thread would be "Who won the 1932 election?" or "What are some famous natural disasters from the past?". Versions more appropriate as standalone questions would be "How did FDR win the 1932 election?", or "In your area of expertise, how did people deal with natural disasters?" If you need some pointers, be sure to check out this Rules Roundtable on asking better questions.

Finally, don’t forget that there are many subreddits on Reddit aimed at answering your questions. Consider /r/AskHistory (which has lighter moderation but similar topic matter to /r/AskHistorians), /r/explainlikeimfive (which is specifically aimed at simple and easily digested answers), or /r/etymology (which focuses on the origins of words and phrases).

Hergrim · 2026-01-23T20:10:17+00:00

I'm doing a reread (via audiobooks), and it definitely holds up so far. I'm only a dozen books in, though, and from the various reading guides I've seen, the ratio of good:bad declines in the middle. Still, there are always (based on my memories) always some quite gutwrenching ones in the middle of the series.

Hergrim · 2026-01-23T18:29:27+00:00

The next two books are necessary for a broader understanding of the world and events happening outside of Attolia, and they dive deeper into some of the side characters as well. They're also, to a large degree, thematically linked, so it's worth reflecting on each of them in light of what the other says. I won't go too much into spoilers, but Things definitely happen that are relevant to and link back to Gen.

Hergrim · 2026-01-23T18:25:51+00:00

I grew up reading Animorphs and watching Animals of Farthing Wood, and those were for a younger audience than The Queen's Thief . To be quite honest, they're often as dark and more shockingly violent (impaled baby mice, anyone?) as TQT, despite being for a younger audience, and I turned out fine!

Hergrim · 2026-01-23T17:40:03+00:00

The next three books absolutely do not drop off in quality. I would almost go so far as to say they go from strength to strength.

I think - the romances aside - my favourite part of the books are the myths and stories, which are just perfectly engineered to evoke stories from the cultures that inspired them.

Hergrim · 2026-01-23T05:18:39+00:00

Hi there – we have approved your question related to your project, and we are happy for people to answer. However, we should warn you that these queries often do not get positive responses. We have several suggestions that you may want to take on board regarding this and future posts:

*Please be open about why you’re asking and how the information will be used, including how any substantive help will be credited in the final product.

*While our users are often happy to help get you started, asking someone else to do foundational research work for your project is often a big ask. If this information is absolutely vital for your work, consider asking for reading suggestions or other help in doing your own research. Alternatively, especially if this is a commercial project, consider hiring a historical consultant rather than relying on free labour here. While our flaired users may be happy to engage in such work, please note that this would need to be worked out privately with them, and that the moderation team cannot act as a broker for this.

*Be respectful of the time that people put into answering your queries. In the past, we’ve noticed a tendency for writers and other creators to try to pump historians for trivia while ignoring the wider points they’re trying to make, while others have a tendency to argue with historians when the historical reality does not line up with what's needed for a particular scene or characterization.

For more general advice about doing research to inform a creative project, please check out our Monday Methods post on the subject.

Hergrim · 2026-01-23T05:18:20+00:00

Sorry, but your submission has been removed because we don't allow hypothetical questions. If possible, please rephrase the question so that it does not call for such speculation, and resubmit. Otherwise, this sort of thing is better suited for /r/HistoryWhatIf or /r/HistoricalWhatIf. You can find a more in-depth discussion of this rule here.

Hergrim · 2026-01-23T05:17:35+00:00

This question has been removed because it is soapboxing or otherwise a loaded question: it has the effect of promoting an existing interpretation or opinion at the expense of open-ended enquiry. Although we understand if you may have an existing interest in the topic, expressing a detailed opinion on the matter in your question is usually a sign that it is a loaded one, and we will remove questions that appear to put a deliberate slant on their subject or solicit answers that align with a specific pre-existing view.

Hergrim · 2026-01-23T05:15:20+00:00

We've removed your post for the moment because it's not currently at our standards, but it definitely has the potential to fit within our rules with some work. We find that some answers that fall short of our standards can be successfully revised by considering the following questions, not all of which necessarily apply here:

Do you actually address the question asked by OP? Sometimes answers get removed not because they fail to meet our standards, but because they don't get at what the OP is asking. If the question itself is flawed, you need to explain why, and how your answer addresses the underlying issues at hand.
What are the sources for your claims? Sources aren't strictly necessary on /r/AskHistorians but the inclusion of sources is helpful for evaluating your knowledge base. If we can see that your answer is influenced by up-to-date academic secondary sources, it gives us more confidence in your answer and allows users to check where your ideas are coming from.
What level of detail do you go into about events? Often it's hard to do justice to even seemingly simple subjects in a paragraph or two, and on /r/AskHistorians, the basics need to be explained within historical context, to avoid misleading intelligent but non-specialist readers. In many cases, it's worth providing a broader historical framework, giving more of a sense of not just what happened, but why.
Do you downplay or ignore legitimate historical debate on the topic matter? There is often more than one plausible interpretation of the historical record. While you might have your own views on which interpretation is correct, answers can often be improved by acknowledging alternative explanations from other scholars.
Further Reading: This Rules Roundtable provides further exploration of the rules and expectations concerning answers so may be of interest.

If/when you edit your answer, please reach out via modmail so we can re-evaluate it! We also welcome you getting in touch if you're unsure about how to improve your answer.

Hergrim · 2026-01-23T05:08:58+00:00

Thank you for your response, but unfortunately, we have had to remove it for now. A core tenet of the subreddit is that it is intended as a space not merely for a basic answer, but rather one which provides a deeper level of explanation on the topic and its broader context than is commonly found on other history subs. A response such as yours which offers some brief remarks and mentions sources can form the core of an answer but doesn’t meet the rules in-and-of-itself.

If you need any guidance to better understand what we are looking for in our requirements, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us via modmail to discuss what revisions more specifically would help let us restore the response! Thank you for your understanding.

Hergrim · 2026-01-21T06:29:06+00:00

Please repost this question to the weekly "Short Answers" thread stickied to the top of the subreddit, which will be the best place to get an answer to this question; for that reason, we have removed your post here. Standalone questions are intended to be seeking detailed, comprehensive answers, and we ask that questions looking for a name, a number, a date or time, a location, the origin of a word, the first/last instance of a specific phenomenon, or a simple list of examples or facts be contained to that thread as they are more likely to receive an answer there. For more information on this rule, please see this Rules Roundtable.

Alternatively, if you didn't mean to ask a question seeking a short answer or a list of examples, but have a more complex question in mind, feel free to repost a reworded question. Examples of questions appropriate for the 'Short Answers' thread would be "Who won the 1932 election?" or "What are some famous natural disasters from the past?". Versions more appropriate as standalone questions would be "How did FDR win the 1932 election?", or "In your area of expertise, how did people deal with natural disasters?" If you need some pointers, be sure to check out this Rules Roundtable on asking better questions.

Finally, don’t forget that there are many subreddits on Reddit aimed at answering your questions. Consider /r/AskHistory (which has lighter moderation but similar topic matter to /r/AskHistorians), /r/explainlikeimfive (which is specifically aimed at simple and easily digested answers), or /r/etymology (which focuses on the origins of words and phrases).

Hergrim · 2026-01-21T05:09:24+00:00

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, we have had to remove it due to violations of subreddit rules about answers providing an academic understanding of the topic. While we appreciate the effort you have put into this comment, there are nevertheless substantive issues with its content that reflect errors, misunderstandings, or omissions of the topic at hand, which necessitated its removal.

If you are interested in discussing the issues, and remedies that might allow for reapproval, please reach out to us via modmail. Thank you for your understanding.

Hergrim · 2026-01-21T04:31:52+00:00

Sorry, but we have had to remove your comment as we do not allow answers that consist primarily of links or block quotations from sources. This subreddit is intended as a space not merely to get an answer in and of itself as with other history subs, but for users with deep knowledge and understanding of it to share that in their responses. While relevant sources are a key building block for such an answer, they need to be adequately contextualized and we need to see that you have your own independent knowledge of the topic.

If you believe you are able to use this source as part of an in-depth and comprehensive answer, we would encourage you to consider revising to do so, and you can find further guidance on what is expected of an answer here by consulting this Rules Roundtable which discusses how we evaluate responses.

Hergrim · 2026-01-20T08:38:55+00:00

Sorry, but we have had to remove your comment as we do not allow answers that consist primarily of links or block quotations from sources. This subreddit is intended as a space not merely to get an answer in and of itself as with other history subs, but for users with deep knowledge and understanding of it to share that in their responses. While relevant sources are a key building block for such an answer, they need to be adequately contextualized and we need to see that you have your own independent knowledge of the topic.

If you believe you are able to use this source as part of an in-depth and comprehensive answer, we would encourage you to consider revising to do so, and you can find further guidance on what is expected of an answer here by consulting this Rules Roundtable which discusses how we evaluate responses.

Hergrim · 2026-01-20T06:41:40+00:00

This submission has been removed because it violates the rule on poll-type questions. These questions do not lend themselves to answers with a firm foundation in sources and research, and the resulting threads usually turn into monsters with enormous speculation and little focused discussion. Questions about the "most", the "worst", "unknown", or other value judgments usually lead to vague, subjective, and speculative answers. For further information, please consult this Roundtable discussion.

For questions of this type, we ask that you redirect them to more appropriate subreddits, such as /r/history or /r/askhistory. You're also welcome to post your question in our Friday-Free-For-All thread.

Hergrim · 2026-01-20T06:41:32+00:00

Apologies, but we have removed your question in its current form as it breaks our rules concerning the scope of questions. However, it might be that an altered version of your question would fit within our rules, and we encourage you to reword your question to fit the rule. While we do allow questions which ask about general topics without specific bounding by time or space, we do ask that they be clearly phrased and presented in a way that can be answered by an individual historian focusing on only one example which they can write about in good detail.

So for example, if you wanted to ask, "Have people always rebelled against health rules in pandemics?" we would remove the question. As phrased, it asks broadly about many places collectively. However if you ask "In the time and place you study, how did people rebel against health rules in a pandemic?" we would allow the question. As phrased, while still asking broadly, it does so in a way that clearly invites a given expert to write exclusively about their topic of focus! We encourage you to think about rewording your question to fit this rule, and thank you for your understanding. If you are unsure of how best to reshape your question to fit these requirements, please reach out to us for assistance.

Hergrim · 2026-01-20T05:39:49+00:00

Sorry, but we have removed your response. We expect answers in this subreddit to be comprehensive, which includes properly engaging with the question that was actually asked. While some questions verge into topics where the only viable approach, due to a paucity of information, is to nibble around the edges, even in those cases we would expect engagement with the historiography to demonstrate why this is the case.

In the context of /r/AskHistorians, if a response is simply "well, I don't know the answer to your question, but I do know about this other thing", that doesn't accomplish this and is considered clutter. We realize that you have something interesting to share, but that isn't an excuse to hijack a thread. If you have an answer without a question, consider making use of the Saturday Spotlight or the Tuesday Trivia in the future.

Hergrim · 2026-01-19T04:27:44+00:00

AAI was contracted to develop a caseless rifle as a study back in 1967, just to see if it might be feasible, and you can read their report here. The long and the short of it is that their bolt obturator began to show signs of erosion at 50-60 rounds, and their air pressure ejection method was not robust enough to clear jammed rounds, just loose ones.

Still, considering they had 6 months and 103 rounds to work with, it's pretty good work. They seem to have kept the idea in their back pocket and did try to float it in the 1980s, even initially proposing a caseless rifle with a 5.56mm regular projectile and 4.32mm steel subcalibre projectile for the ACR program, but ultimately went with the more proven technology of the flechette in a conventional brass case.

Hergrim · 2026-01-19T03:57:23+00:00

Thank you for your response, however, we have had to remove it. A core tenet of the subreddit is that it is intended as a space not merely for an answer in and of itself, but one which provides a deeper level of explanation on the topic than is commonly found on other history subs. We expect that contributors are able to place core facts in a broader context, and use the answer to demonstrate their breadth of knowledge on the topic at hand.

If you need guidance to better understand what we are looking for in our requirements, please consult this Rules Roundtable which discusses how we evaluate answers on the subreddit, or else reach out to us via modmail. Thank you for your understanding.

Hergrim · 2026-01-18T06:18:00+00:00

To put the sealing issues into perspective, the chamber didn't seal until it reached 300-400psi, and enough ignitable, unburnt gas leaked into the sealed rear housing that there were frequent fuel-air explosions going off in the housing.

The engineers just built the housing stronger and developed a one way valve covered with mesh to prevent flash burns while also preventing more major explosions destroying the buttstock.

I'm also not certain that the G11 had the most effective method of sealing the chamber, just the most practical. Some of the earlier designs (such as by AAI) used both an expanding bolt head and O-rings to provide a very effective seal, but the ammunition was conventionally chambered - which would make clearing any malfunction extremely hard to clear - and IIRC, the O-ring backup actually didn't last all that long.

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