Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
In return, I?d also ask that you stop altering the content of the material I post. It?s extremely irritating. I thought the few subtle hints I dropped would make the point, but apparently, they did not.
I didn't even notice them. Probably because I haven't been editing your posts. Cutting them, yes. Not repeating the attribution over and over again with each new quote, yes (I'll stop that isince it bothers you; I just thought it was superfluous), editing, no. The software is the culprit.
Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
I?d also ask that you cease removing quotation attributions, or if you clip and rearrange, that you add quotation attribution.
Very well. Though I seldom if ever rearrange.
Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
A nation is a nation. Two nations of dissimilar size may be compared to each other if one takes into account the passage of time objectively.
Yes, and when you take the passage of time into account you very often see that the meaning of words and the content of concepts change. You can compare the Roman Republic to the British Empire, and when you do, you note that words like 'duke' and 'emperor' means something else than 'duce' and 'imperator'. You can compare the Senate of Rome with the Senate of the USA and find that the two do not work in the same way.
Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
If one takes the entire milieu of AD 1300 (or AD 1100, or AD 1700, or whatever) vs. IC 0 or IC 1100 or whatever, one must make the comparative adjustment for time.
And when you do, you'll discover that they don't function the same and that some of the words don't mean the same. Surprise!
Originally posted by RainOfSteel:Terra of AD 1300 was an entire milieu with nations, wars, great/vast distances between the nations, long communications times, strikingly similar to a certain nation we all know about in IC 1100 (perhaps strikingly similar to all of Charted Space). The milieu of 3000 years later has gotten bigger . . . but that?s it. It is otherwise largely the same.
Except for all the differences. I have to tell you that I simply can't follow your thought processes here. To me it would be much more implausible if there really was a solid one-for-one correspondence between the OTU of 5646 AD and any part of historical Earth.
Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
Attempting to state that expansion due to 3000 years of advancing time and knowledge make the nobles of the future somehow better or higher on the ?precedence? list is wrong.
And that wasn't what I was doing. I was trying to point out that the sheer scope of the two setting were vastly disparate and arguing that you can't put a direct equivalence between the ruler of a county palatinate of a tiny island kingdom and the ruler of of 30 star systems just because they happen, by accident of history, to have similar-sounding titles. The whole idea is... unsound.
Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
The 3000 year difference must be
?accounted? for. Either the modern nobles must be ?rolled back?, or the ancient nobles must be ?rolled forward? (for the comparison to be seen correctly). That?s why it?s ?comparative?.
But it's not a valid comparison. Sure, there is a correlation between the two positions. But you assume as a basic fact that the correlation is 100%. There is no basis for such an assumption.
Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
I think I see where we differ. I believe there is a major link to the past in the nature and essence of modern Imperial nobility, you do not. Haarumpf!?! What do we do about that?
We could agree to disagree and stop arguing. But that would probably be too easy

.
I do believe that there is a major link to the past. I just don't believe that link is 100%. Just as there is a major link to the past from 'duke' to 'duce' that just isn't 100%.
Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
Hmm. I have this thought running around in my head. I don?t own M0, so I don?t know for sure, but I was a part of many and varied discussions on the TML last year about nobility and the Imperium in general, and blasted if I can?t remember reading something about Cleon locating documents from early Sylea that backed a claim that he was a legitimate descendant (in some manner or other) of the Emperors of the Second Imperium, and therefore the logical choice as Emperor of the Third. Am I smoking crack?
No, that's perfectly true.
Hans