Hallifax and Gaudiguch did in fact spend most of their histories ignoring each other. There's no more 'bloodlust' involved then there was in the underlying conflict of the Great War (or even WWII). This war wasn't started because the Germans 'hated' the French, and the war with Gaudiguch wasn't started because Hallifax 'hated' Gaudiguch. It's a continuing conflict based on an escalation of a status quo between individuals who do not understand each other's point of view. A conflict that either side now has too much invested in (both ideologically and economically, as well as now a history of warfare) to consider simply going over, having tea, and calling it quits.


I disagree, while religious conflicts are a very common reason for waging war (perhaps more so in the past than in the present) there is no basis at all for claiming that religious conflicts are 'more bloody' than non-religious conflicts. In fact, if you look at the top 6 bloodiest wars of all time, only one of them is inherently religious.


Cold War anyone? (And Hallifax and Gaudiguch' political systems are about as mutually-exclusive as it gets, much more so than the Celest/Mag and Seren/Glom conflicts, which are (as we agree) of a completely different nature).


While your view here is a very valid one, that doesn't change the fact that the Gaudiguch/Hallifax conflict is, at heart, political in nature and has very little (if any) religious foundation. In fact, neither state is particularly religious.


These projects were the spark that caused their mutual dislike to flame into all-out war. They're not causative, but they were certainly the catalyst that caused the diplomatic relations during the Taint Wars to go from 'cold' to 'OMGTHEYREATTACKINGOURPLANESANDDESTROYINGOURCIVILIZATION!!!111'.


The spheres and fleshpots don't 'hate' each other because they're not sentient. I'm not actually up to date on the current fleshpot background, but the Spheres are completely different in nature from any other smob in the game (though I am foggy on how much of that is actually released at this point). This also reflects in that Hallifax has no religion or ideologies related to them, they are simply objects on a plane that have their uses. They facilitate their conflict with Gaudiguch, they did not cause it.

To summarise (tl;dr):
While your points and opinions are valid, they do not apply to the Hallifax Gaudiguch conflict, because this struggle is of a completely different nature from all other conflicts in Lusternia. That doesn't mean that the conflict is less real or less bloody, it merely means that the underlying reasons for the conflict are fundemantally different from the other struggles in the world. We did this on purpose, since not everyone likes the same things. If your preference lies in religious conflict, that's what we have Celest vs Magnagora for (and to a slightly lesser extent, Glomdoring vs Serenwilde).

Eh, you totally got Night all wrong.

And ideological differences are not 'minor things'. Just look at what conflict ideology has brought about in our world: Vietnam War, Korean War, Bay of the Pigs, Cuban missile crisis, and the Cold War.

EDIT: Oh gah, got ninja-ed by Elostian's huge post.

It's not that war isn't a possible result of the ideological conflicts; it's not even that war isn't an inevitable result of the ideological conflicts. It's that war isn't the only result of the ideological conflicts, but Lusternia's structure tends to mechanically push us to war not just sometimes but all the time.

Note that the culture system does offer one alternative, but it's so diffuse, slow, and dependent on timing that it's hard to feel like it's really conflict.

Anyone else notice that somebody built the basin so the more liberal societies are on the west half, and the more collectivist societies are on the eastern portion?

I don't think Celest, with its overtones of orthodoxy and historical lineage, really counts as a more liberal society. But there's certainly some interesting physical alignments in both the north-south and east-west directions -- less so since some effort has been put into making Magnagora and Glomdoring less tightly bound than their physical proximity and early ideologies suggested, but even so.

Hallifax, Magnagora, and Glomdoring are all set up geographically the way they are, I imagine, so that it would make sense that Hallifax accidentally the whole taint cloud onto Glomdoring.

I feel like something is missing here.

Nudged, perhaps. Shoved, pushed? What degree of taint cloud rejection are we looking at here?

I think you accidentally the whole joke.

The joke is accidentally.

@Elostian: The fleshpots are the raw materials which Dynara used to make baby Gods out of before spanking them on the butt and sticking them into their creches to grow. They're like giant paint pots, except made of meat.

Quite, I got that much. I mean any additional background that may or may not have been written/designed. But thank you for the explanation.

While I was going to grab some quotes to answer to directly, thought it best (and because somewhat tired ) to just post it all together.

I understand the points made that the rivaly between Hallifax and Gaudiguch is more of a political nature rather then a theological and religious nature, and I can respect this. Yet as someone said (I think Lendren), Lusternia rivalries are all built around the war systems in every way, and the very few cases that are of political and cultural in nature (such as literary awards and such) are not of considered importance and are even shunned.

I would not mind at all if some more forms of political systems and battles were introduced to place philosophies against one another, if anything at least for Gaudiguch and Hallifax. Yet as it stands, rivalries all revolve around enmity and wars/fights in Lusternia (which as said before are about religious reasons). If forms of quests or a system or the like were introduced to place Gaudiguch philosophies and Hallifax philosophies to be against one another, this could be helpful in the matter. Heck it could even maybe replace this entire need to always strike fleshpots vs spheres every week or so (and them being struck by orgs other then gaudiguch and hallifax to boot) in an attempt to damage the other.

As a note, I do believe Gaudiguch does in fact have religious aspects in it, those being of Enlightenment and believing reality is all a dream/illusion that we wish to see and can be shaped by our wills. Hallifax on the other hand has -no- religious aspects, and perhaps that there itself is their religious aspect, the fact that they believe in no faith but science. One would have assumed that Aeonics could have maybe been this aspect for Hallifax...infact im still confused over how Aeonics makes sense for Hallifax....

Also to note, When I mentioned religious based wars being more bloodthirsty and having lasting effects, what I was implying is how in our world, religions always have hatred for those against them or are seen against them, and they do not simply shake hands and forget that fact. If anything in history wars that broke out between religions were continuously fought unless one retreated or one was destroyed.

You realize you just told Elostian, Hallifax's patron god, that there are no religious aspects to Hallifax?

And I stand by it!!

Though really, Order teachings and City's RP are two different things

Religion is the opiate of the masses!

Why worship a god when you can worship a dead guy?

Plus there's a ready-made statue of the dead guy, plus the awesome one at the Matrix with a different long_desc. It's like he was begging us to worship idolize him.

While I did say that, I was mostly quoting and expanding on Shamarah, who said it more concisely.

What if I told you..

The reason Gaudiguch is the way it is--freedom fighting and all, is because of an alternate timeline wherein Hallifax had supremacy over the Basin. When both cities returned to the timestream there was a retrocausality which ultimately led to Gaudiguch having the anarchic culture it does now.


Theories, theories...

I actually really like that theory, and if it were revealed to be true, it would justify the Halli-Gaudi war in a way that the current philosophical conflict doesn't. It wouldn't really justify it retroactively though because even supposing it is the case, nobody knows about it right now.

Anyway, Lusternia is designed around combat to a large extent (although certainly not entirely), and so even if the flavor ought to point us to a non-military form of conflict, the mechanics are always going to push back to some extent. Whether you view that as a good thing depends on what exactly you like about Lusternia. Personally, I think the combat is by far the most fun part of the game, but obviously there are many people who would disagree with me about that!