Author: Erik

Travel: Water

Erik

160516junkTraveling over land is familiar. Many of us do it every day (even if we don’t do it as part of an army or with pack animals), but travel over water, though vital to the modern economy, isn’t part of daily life for most of us. Sometimes, though, the characters in your stories or games need to ride a raft downriver, strike out across the ocean in an outrigger canoe, or hoist the sails of a ship of the line. In this installment of the travel series, we look at types of pre-industrial water transport, the speeds and distances ships can travel, how much cargo ships can carry, and what it takes to make a successful voyage over water.

Speed

Ship speeds are conventionally measured in knots, equivalent to 1 nautical mile (1.151 statute miles or 1.852 km) per hour. 1 km/h is equal to 0.54 knots. In this post, I have given all speeds in terms of km/h for consistency with the other travel posts.

Types of transport

There are many different types of watercraft, from one-person rafts to massive cargo ships, but one essential way of distinguishing them is by means of propulsion. Pre-modern vessels had four basic options for propulsion: current, wind, paddles/oars, or draft.

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Stave Churches

Erik

When we think of ancient architecture, we tend to think of stone and brick: the pyramids of Egypt, the amphitheatres of Rome, the Great Wall of China, the temples of the Aztecs and Maya. These are structures that have endured. We have many fewer models of wooden architecture from the distant past, even though wood—cheaper, lighter, and easier to work that stone or brick—was what most people built with in many parts of the world. Wooden buildings burn, rot, or just fall down if not maintained. Good examples of wooden buildings from more than a few centuries ago are very hard to find. One set of buildings that help fill that gap are the stave churches of Norway.

Heddal stave church, photograph by Micha L. Rieser via Wikimeida (Heddal, Norway; 13th c.)
Heddal stave church, photograph by Micha L. Rieser via Wikimeida (Heddal, Norway; 13th c.)

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Who’s That Guy?

Erik2 Comments

In the course of my life, I’ve become aware that I experience mild face blindness. It’s nothing I’ve ever been diagnosed with and it isn’t severe enough for me to seek any kind treatment for, I just know that, compared with other people, I have trouble recognizing faces that I haven’t seen a lot of. I mostly identify people by their hair, their clothing and movements, and, especially, their voices. In day-to-day life it’s not much of a problem. (Learning a hundred new students every semester is a challenge, but I have the advantage of getting to take attendance at the start of every class.) When it bothers me the most is in entertainment.

When there are multiple characters with similar appearances, I tend to get them mixed up. (Especially middle-aged white men, since they’re all over the place.) I also have trouble recognizing people we’ve seen before in different settings.

160505buckyFor example, there’s a moment in Captain America: The Winter Soldier when the Winter Soldier’s mask comes off revealing that it’s the Captain’s best friend and fellow soldier Bucky Barnes. It’s a powerful moment and a shocking reveal, but the first time I saw the movie, I had no idea who that guy was. Even having seen the first Captain America movie, and having Bucky reintroduced via the museum exhibit/infodump earlier in Winter Soldier, I didn’t know who I was looking at on screen. As the movie went on, it became clear to me that the Winter Soldier was someone Captain Rogers knew from his past, an old friend, but I still couldn’t connect the character with Bucky. (Cap said his name, but it went by too fast for me to catch.) It wasn’t until I rewatched the movie on DVD that I finally realized who the Winter Soldier was. Even today, looking at the two characters on screen, I can’t visually tell that they’re the same person.

It’s an odd way to watch movies and television, knowing that there is information up there on the screen that I can’t interpret. I’m lucky to have a co-geek to turn to and ask: “Who is that guy?” One of the many pleasures of being married to someone who loves nerdy stuff as much as I do!

We’re off to see Captain America: Civil War on opening night tonight. It looks like there’s going to be a lot of familiar faces in this movie. I might even recognize some of them.

Images: Bucky Barnes via tvtropes; Winter Soldier via playbuzz

In Character is an occasional feature looking at some of our favorite characters from written works and media to see what drives them, what makes them work, and what makes us love them so much.

Unreal Elwynn Forest

Erik

Elwynn Forest is the starting zone for humans in World of Warcraft, a sun-dappled wood with little villages and outposts. Like a lot of other players, I have fond memories of leveling up some of my first characters through Elwynn. Here are a couple of screenshots from in game of what the area looks like.

160502inn160502farmNow, feast your eyes on Daniel L’s gorgeous and detailed reconstruction of the zone using the Unreal Engine 4:

Elwynn Forest in Unreal 4: Update 2 by Daniel L

Post edited for formatting

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

Quotes: Archers String Their Bows Only When They Need Them

Erik

This was how Amasis managed the affairs of the Egyptians: from dawn until midday he handled all the matters that were brought before him; the rest of the day he gave over to drinking and joking with his companions.

His advisers, being vexed by his behavior, admonished him: “Majesty, it is not right that you should behave so foolishly. You should be seated on your august throne throughout the day conducting affairs of state. Thus the Egyptians would be certain that they are ruled by a great man and you would have a better reputation. What you do now is not at all kingly.”

But he replied: “Archers string their bows only when they need them. If they were kept strung all the time, bows would snap and be of no use when needed. It is the same with people: if you try to be serious all the time and not allow yourself a share of relaxation, you will surely either go insane or fall dead of a stroke. Knowing this, I take both business and leisure in turn.”

– Herodotus, The Histories 2.173

 

The Egyptian king Amasis, as reported by Herodotus, giving some good advice about making time for yourself.

The Trouble With Primary Sources

Erik2 Comments

160425hoplitePrimary sources are great. They are essential. Without them, we would know vastly less about history than we do.

Because primary sources are so essential to our knowledge of history, it is easy to make the mistake of taking them too much at their word. Primary sources are like every other piece of writing: limited by the author’s perspective and subject to scrutiny and challenge. The trouble isn’t even just that primary sources can be wrong (although they can), but that the really interesting questions rarely have just one right answer. The answer we get from one primary source may be incomplete, even if it’s not wrong.

For example, suppose you’re writing a story about an ancient Greek who ran away from a battle. What would his fellow Greeks think of him? What would he think of himself? With a little research you might come across this fragment of a poem by Tyrtaeus:

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How We Got Here, or A Field Guide to World History

Erik

The term world history may send your mind spinning back to high school, but world history is an important genre of historical study. It means history that is not bounded by the past of one nation or people. It is the story of how we got here as a whole, enmeshed world, not just as discrete national or ethnic groups. If you’re researching historical topics that connect different peoples together, you’re looking for world history. (World history is related to but not the same as universal history, which is a history of the entire world; world history may be selective about what parts of the world it covers, as long as it isn’t limited by national/cultural boundaries. Yes, it’s confusing.)

There are many different approaches to world history, however, and which one you want to look for depends on what you need. Here’s a brief spotter’s guide to some of the main varieties of world history you’ll find in the scholarship, how to recognize them, and what you might want to go to them for as a writer. These are not the only varieties of world history out there, but knowing these types will help you sort through the sources you will come across in your research.

160418giraffe

1. Interconnected History

Or: “Whoa, This Stuff Is All Connected And Stuff, Man”

Historical events don’t happen in a vacuum. Cultures communicate and trade with each other. People travel, taking goods and ideas with them. Interconnected History is about tracing these lines of communication and commerce and discovering how events in one part of the world affected other parts.

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Making Food in the Wild

Erik

Here’s a look at how we made yesterday’s Food in the Wild.

The menu

  • Pan-braised game hens with root vegetables
  • Leaf and herb salad
  • Blackberries with mint leaves

erikchef1Our heroes were in too much of a hurry to do any good eating in the wild between Bree and Rivendell, but we’ve tried to imagine what a ranger might have been able to cook up in better times. Strider mentions four different kinds of wild food: berries, roots, herbs, and game, and we’ve used a little of each in this meal. (1.11)

Dinner4 Main

The main course is pan-braised game hens. It is the only dish that needs cooking and can be cooked in a shallow pan over a campfire. We used commercially raised game hens and farmed roots for our version, but wild-caught birds and carefully dug wild root vegetables would also do. We also used farmed greens and blackberries, but there are many wild-growing plants whose young leaves can be eaten (the full-grown leaves of most edible wild plants, in contrast to their cultivated cousins, are too tough or bitter to be eaten raw, but may still be useful for cooking). Wild blackberries are common in many forested areas—and they seem to be especially common in Middle Earth, as Bilbo frequently wishes for blackberries while traveling and the Prancing Pony offers a blackberry tart (H4, H6, 1.9)

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Recommended Reading: Medea

Erik1 Comment

160407MedeaOne of the hallmarks of modern storytelling is toying with the conventions of a genre. Familiar stories get retold with surprising twists and the tropes that everyone can see coming are turned upside-down and inside-out. It’s not just a modern game, though. Older stories can be just as cunning with their twists. When I’m trying to think about how to do something different with a familiar tale, one of the examples I look back to is Euripides’ tragedy Medea.

Medea is one of the classics of ancient Greek theatre. There are plenty of good translations available and it’s not hard to get your hands on one. If you’re looking for an online edition, here are a few. I discussed the play before in comparison to Star Wars, so I won’t bore you with summarizing the whole plot again (check the link if you want a quick reminder). Rather, I want to talk about two interesting things Euripides does with the story.

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