Skua

The only real way to divide Korea is into Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla. We can call them North, West, and East Korea though

An unorthodox way to correct the geographical travesty of Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe being less than 200 metres from creating the world’s only international quadripoint

They’re still not fully-developed, it’s marbles all the way up as depicted in this documentary from 1997

It’s a shame that it’s not real, it would be a funny counterpart to the UK power grid having to anticipate the half time break in major football games because everyone simultaneously puts the kettle on

While I enjoy a lot of metal and not any bluegrass that I’ve heard, I do sorta get that one. They do share quite a bit in terms of their rhythmic feel, both (depending on your metal subgenre) doing a lot of rapid-fire staccato notes to keep up a really fast pace, and also share some of their roots in Black American music. The timbres of the instruments used the choices of notes are very different of course, but I don’t think that you’re inventing a non-existent similarity

The old Mesopotamian gods were each patrons of a city, and their importance waxed and waned with the strength of that city. Babylon was, for centuries, the single largest city on all Earth. It was the pinnacle of human society’s work, the centre of learning and culture nearly unparalled by all it surveyed. With this strength, so too did Marduk supplant Enlil and become known as the foremost amongst the Annunaki.

Marduk was said to be a temperamental god, quick to anger but willing to forgive. When King Sennacherib brought the might of the Assyrian empire down upon Babylon and pillaged the city, the wrath of Marduk soon found him: his son Arda-Mulissu murdered him. Sennacherib had not, however, acted out of simple hate or bloodlust; he was avenging another son of his. Marduk therefore did not curse all of Assyria nor all of Sennacherib’s plans, as Sennacherib’s chosen heir Esarhaddon - Arda-Mulissu’s younger brother - prevailed in the conflict for the throne. Esarhaddon arranged for enormous restoration works to Babylon and its neighbours, an effort to make right the destruction wrought by his father, and even returned the stolen statue of Marduk. His reign would go on to be incredibly successful, and he even ensured a peaceful succession of his sons to both Assyria and Babylon despite the tumultuous nature of his accession. Marduk’s wrath was great, but so was his capacity for mercy.

The end would come at the hands of an outsider. Babylon declined, but did not die, as Persia rose to dominance. Marduk remained respected and his rituals were observed, but the new imperial masters took their toll. Marduk was not dead, but he and his city were now shells of their former selves. It is perhaps ironic, then, then Marduk would share his fate with that empire. A conqueror from a backwater across the narrow strait to the west arrived, a young man by the name of Alexander whose armies fought with the all the might of Marduk himself when he struck down Tiamat. Alexander’s march took him from Greece to Persia to the distant banks of the Indus, stopped at last only by the revolt of his own soldiers.

It wasn’t long before Marduk’s wrath found Alexander. The young conqueror was warned by Marduk’s people that for him to march west, into the setting sun, would be the death of him. Even now, Marduk offered advice to his foe. They were right, and Alexander lay dead in Babylon at only 32 years old.

At last, though, Marduk could not forgive. His people had been crushed; his prophecy had been ignored; there was no heir of Alexander to heal the wounds. It was at this moment, stripped of his mercy and left only with wrath, that Marduk was no longer Marduk, and so he too died.

Babylon survived Marduk, but it would never again be the colossus that it once was. It would fade over time, its bricks stripped away to build new cities, until it was forgotten.

Marduk’s death left us all a legacy that matched his temperament. Soon, humans identified and began to produce potassium nitrate, or nitre. This remarkable mineral is both life-bringing and life-ending, as it is a foundational component of fertilisers and gunpowder. Thus, even with his death, Marduk brought both wrath and mercy.

To be less flowery for a moment:

• The thing about patron gods is, in broad terms, thought to be true about the Mesopotamian gods. Marduk was basically a nobody until Babylon’s rise to prominence, after which he replaced other gods in extremely important mythical roles due to Babylon’s influence
• The stuff about Sennacherib destroying Babylon, his son murdering him, his two sons fighting over he throne, and the winning younger son rebuilding Babylon all happened. Babylonians at the time are said to have considered Sennacherib’s fate a form of divine retribution
• There is some dispute over the character of Marduk, but we know of prayers praising both his fury and his mercy so I’m going with it
• The earliest mention of nitre that I know of is from 3rd century CE India, but the work in question really was (coincidentally) started roughly when Alexander the Great died. The finished work is a compilation of many other texts, and I do not know if the one mentioning nitre is one of the early ones

Good point! I think I saw the name “Pangaea Proxima” and forgot that they weren’t all variations on that

Numenera is actually (mostly) set on a far future Earth in which the continents have moved to form a new pangaea supercontinent. It’s actually way too far in the future for it to be this one, and there has been a whole bunch of continent-scale terraforming at some point, but still!

The prediction here is that Africa moves westward, squashing the Arabian peninsula into the south coast of the Iranian plateau. The Arabian peninsula becomes the coastline between India and Africa

If I wasn’t being mean about my boss beforehand, I would most definitely start being mean after he subjected me to a polygraph about it

Couldn’t tell you, I’m afraid. I only know about the game because I happened to be in a pub where it was on the TV at the time

Those are the names of the German footballers (soccer) that scored to make probably the worst defeat the Brazilian team has ever suffered

Is it particularly more your fault that things don’t better in Souls games than in any other game in which you are meant to save the world? I think the only difference is that in the Souls ones and others like them, the world is already horrible and needs repaired in some way rather than on the verge of becoming horrible

Interestingly Elden Ring went for quite a different direction. The world is, unquestionably, still an enormous mess that would be horrendous to live in, but they’ve left in far more of the beauty. I particularly like how every so often you hear hostile NPCs playing music or singing if they haven’t spotted you yet, and how there’s a little puzzle side quest about a painter; people are still making art in this ongoing apocalypse. One important allied NPC even actually openly makes an argument that the world is worth preserving if it looks like you’re going for the “destroy everything” ending

Of course the atmosphere and gameplay are still heavy going, both in the Souls trilogy and Elden Ring. I get why that wouldn’t be for everyone. It’s like playable Cormac McCarthy stories, except you can punch your way out of most of the misery if you get it right

Could you talk a little more about the aesthetics thing? I have no intention to pick a fight with you or tell you that your opinion is wrong, I’m just curious because I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that about them before

Also yes the no pausing thing is very frustrating

I am allowed to dislike someone for their actions without there being a written rule about it

I never said you said those things, I’m just saying that those things didn’t have an affect on him.

…cool? I never said the bans were effective, so I don’t understand why you’re responding to me as if I did.

I didn’t say anything about UM somehow influencing the American election either

My problem with UM is that they post disingenuously, evidenced by their refusal to actually engage with the content they post when asked about it

Was this comment meant to be a reply to me? You seem to be arguing with a bunch of things I never said

!politics@lemmy.world had UniversalMonk in the run up to the American election. They have about 15 alts, posted an average of 16 articles a day just on the main account, and would pointedly refuse to engage with any discussion of the actual content of the article in the comments. They were banned for “Indiscriminate posting of duplicate stories from different sources to flood the channel.”

That’s not this community, of course, but I think it is proof enough that it’s not an unreasonable concern for OP to have