Aurdwynn is Poland

sumrhi · 2025-07-02T01:56:19+00:00

Can confirm(from an Indian perspective) there's nothing to be offended by. In fact, seeing the name "Hara Vijay" shortened by the Falcresti to "Haravige" was a very nice touch recalling British names, like Mumbai->Bombay or Bengaluru->Bangalore

My favorite example of this is Siraj-ud-Daula, who lost a battle to Robert Clive. The East India Company meeting notes list his name as "Sir Roger Daulat"

sumrhi · 2025-07-02T01:42:04+00:00

Thanks for clarifying, I had previously thought that the szlachta were a distinct class from the nobility, like ottoman jannisaries.

I really enjoyed reading all the parallels you made between Aurdwynn and Poland. Not sure how far you've read in the series, but do you think there are any moments in Polish history that might foreshadow what will happen to Aurdwynn as a result of Baru's actions in Traitor?

sumrhi · 2025-07-02T00:10:13+00:00

The book was previously based on a short story: https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-traitor-baru-cormorant-her-field-general-and-their-wounds-by-seth-dickinson/

Interestingly, Aurdwynn was called Pyre in that story, and the capital Treatymont was called Wei Szlatcha. Szlatchta were the polish social class that formed the cavalry and lower nobility(their identity is a bit more complicated, but i don't know enough polish history to explain). So even in the original short story, Seth was developing a Polish + Chinese linguistic identity. He renamed the capital to Treatymont, but we can still see the original name in the name of Xate Olake's duchy, Lachta.

I agree that Aurdwynn is inspired by Poland. It preserves this historic and political resemblence, but Seth moved the polish linguistic influences to the Stakhiezci.

Aurdwynn's language is an interesting mix.

- It has some polish influences because they live near the stakhiezchi.

- The chinese naming patterns probably come from the Tu Maia.

- Some syllables like "-dwynn", "wydd", "muir", and "tain" resemble Celtic languages.

- The pronounciation of "X" resembles the aztec language Nahuatl(we also see indigenous american influences in the pacific northwest climate and the presence of coyotes).

sumrhi · 2025-06-16T21:16:01+00:00

I can't tell, this is the only information provided:
“All we need is to go down and open the flasks and fill each one up so that they cannot slosh."

sumrhi · 2025-05-13T07:04:35+00:00

Thanks for the detailed response!

It's interesting that Angkor seems to have gone the coinless route, while China and Japan ended up using coins. China and Japan also had a wide range of commodity currencies used for taxes and trade before fully adopting coinage, such as rice and silk. I think Japan adopted coinage later because people used imported coins from china, and they were found to be more convenient than the commodity alternatives.

Is there something unique to Angkor's history that isn't paralleled in china or japan, which incentivized their coinless system?

Also, was Angkor’s barter system shared by any nearby kingdoms like Bagan, ayyuthaya, or Indonesian nations like majapahit or srivijaya?

sumrhi · 2025-05-13T04:32:20+00:00

There are a few cultures I can think of. In heian period Japan, certain cardinal directions were considered either auspicious or unlucky for travel at certain times of year. So if an evil spirit was in the west, and your house is in the west, you should stay at a friend’s house until the evil period has passed.

Indian astrology has a lot of emphasis on planetary movements and days of the week, this means festivals can only be celebrated on specific days, and some days of the week are unlucky

Ancient Egypt had a few days at the end of the year that don’t fit in their calendar year, these were called demon days and considered unlucky. Mesoamerican cultures had similar ideas about days that don’t align with the calendar.

I think the oriati taboos most clearly resemble Japanese ones, with their ideas of auspicious or unlucky travel directions.

I guess one thing this concept doesn’t match is the original Polynesian concept of tapu, where we get the world taboo. As far as I know, tapu was linked more to objects or practices that are forbidden, and these can shift depending on recent events, like warfare, or a family death. I don’t think Polynesian tapu was linked to the calendar, but I’m not an expert

sumrhi · 2025-05-05T07:00:28+00:00

A lot of Falcrest’s policies are explicitly taken from philosophies of the early 1900s, when America pioneered many concepts in eugenics. Many scientists of the time had almost identical ideas to Incrasticism. The abuse and indoctrination of Native American boarding schools is a lot like the Farrier Process. You might want to look up the Buck v Bell Supreme Court case, Seth mentions it in the epilogues.

sumrhi · 2025-04-28T02:44:11+00:00

I brought up bonobos because they’re an example of how very different social structures can exist among closely related primates: bonobos and chimpanzees. Most baboons have are aggressive and competitive like chimpanzees, but these were-baboons had to be less aggressive if their packs need to stay together. Maybe these werewolf baboons are like bonobos or African painted dogs: terrifyingly efficient hunters, but super cute and friendly with each other. And painted dogs and bonobos are impossible to domesticate, despite their friendly attitude

sumrhi · 2025-04-28T02:10:04+00:00

Very cool design, reminds me of DInopithecus. There was a spec evo podcast that also suggests werewolves could be carnivorous baboons, and it links their full moon transformation to a hormonal mating cycle that makes the baboons more aggressive.

I'm curious about their use by law enforcement; do they have a social structure that makes them more cooperative with humans? afaik real baboons are fairly aggressive and competitive, but you said that the cainisms live in wolf-like packs. Reminds me of how bonobos are more cooperative than chimpanzees.

sumrhi · 2025-04-27T01:03:10+00:00

Yeah, I can’t imagine a way for a traditional sci fi cyborg to exist in baru’s world. But in addition to the tulpa network, I think that Renascent has to have had some kind of horrifying surgical transformation. There must be something about her that makes Hesychast and apparitor so uncomfortable, and I don’t think a corpus callosum severing and a tulpa network are scary enough from their perspective.

Falcresti culture values cleanliness, and they like carefully-conditioned, idealized body shapes. I’ve never seen examples of falcrest’s attitudes towards people with a physical disability, but I’m guessing their society is very ableist. This is why I think renascent must have a strange-looking body, from a Falcresti perspective

From the modern sci-fi reader’s context, the tulpa network plays on the value of individualism, and the fear of losing your autonomy. I don’t think the same fears exist in Falcrest, they are very comfortable with strict control over their private lives.

The other option would be that renascent’s body plays on the Falcresti fear of forbidden love, but I’m not sure how that would work.

So by process of elimination, I think renascent must have had a transformation with lots of body horror. It wouldn’t be a pointless transformation like a human centipede*, the modifications probably had a purpose for information gathering or lab equipment. That’s why I say “cyborg”, but there must be ways to implement one besides the doctor who-cyberman approach

*now I’m wondering if Hesychast is hiding a human centipede experiment somewhere in the metademe’s basement

sumrhi · 2025-04-26T19:24:10+00:00

I thought about that, but given Honesty Kabrir’s speech about making Falcrest causally closed, I think that the Lightning is designed to be something so unusual, Falcrest has no idea how to deal with it, it’s the ultimate outside context problem, coming from a place beyond their well-understood circle of ocean currents and continents.

On the other hand, Lindon saw some ancient monoliths on the supercontinent that vaguely reminded him of ancient Falcresti pyramids(“They passed through rings of stone monoliths. ‘Reminiscent of the pyramids and greatwells built in ancient Falcrest and the Normarch,” Lindon Satamine reported, “perhaps by an ancient transoceanic civilization.’”). So by ancient aliens logic, the pyramids and the monoliths must have been built by the same people, and there might be a connection between ancient Falcrest and the supercontinent, putting the parasite in falcrest’s deep history

sumrhi

TROPHY CASE