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so ought I to just abandon the section by section bit and skip just to the CK playing point?

I feel a little foolish now, coming up with these lecture slices when I'm admittedly not as well versed as a lot of you guys are in history. :(
 
Nah, it's ok, dude. Consider any historical inaccuracies to be part of the alternate world that leads into CK.
 
Jestor: ...Why was I doing this again?

IIRC, he was taking a couple of Advil because he had a headache ! ! ;)

excellent update ! ! :cool:
 
Take Rocketman's advice, or do something like:

The professor's voice droned on ... England, yadda yadda, Normans, yadda yadda, Gloucestershire, blah blah, modern-day Kent, blah blah ... but all I could think of was that gorgeous girl, sitting next to me underneath a dogwood in the middle of a lush green quiet landscape, with a creek flowing nearby ... and she looked at me and smiled knowingly, her cheeks blushing, and said, "I've always thought ... that the first time I ever make love, I want to do it outside, under the eternal blue sky..."

:D
 
Hajji Giray I said:
Take Rocketman's advice, or do something like:

The professor's voice droned on ... England, yadda yadda, Normans, yadda yadda, Gloucestershire, blah blah, modern-day Kent, blah blah ... but all I could think of was that gorgeous girl, sitting next to me underneath a dogwood in the middle of a lush green quiet landscape, with a creek flowing nearby ... and she looked at me and smiled knowingly, her cheeks blushing, and said, "I've always thought ... that the first time I ever make love, I want to do it outside, under the eternal blue sky..."

:D

Or,

Hurr, hurr, I'd like to invade her England with my Willy, hurr, hurr.

Mine's more realistic. *nod*
 
Rocketman said:
Or,

Hurr, hurr, I'd like to invade her England with my Willy, hurr, hurr.

Mine's more realistic. *nod*
Since we seem to be getting less subtle:

*Jestor leaps on the table and rips his shirt off* "Vassalize THIS!"









...maybe not
 
:) Parallel stories are coming along fine.

If you've never seen it, you might enjoy If on a winter's night a traveller by Italo Calvino. Best. Parallelstories. Evar.

There's a pretty girl in it, too, come to think of it. Maybe it's just part of the genre...

with just one weakness...

I do hope this will be reappearing. Or at least clarified in a footnote. ;)

...based on the feedback I get concerning each lecture from you guys.

Is this simply in character text? or will this become intAARactive?

Julius Caesar was the first notable Roman to make contact with the island

Here I always thought Jules fell on his face at Dover. Apparently it was at Adrumetum in Africa. Still, funny that Willie did the same thing when he landed. Who says nobody ever learned something useful from history?

ChefRagu said:
During the Roman period, the Scots were in Ulster.

Considering how sketchy our history is, they could have started migrating well into the Roman period. (Dal Riada) In any case, it's a perfectly valid way of describing the Picts and any Irish who might be allied or trading with them in the Western Isles.

EDIT:
ChefRagu said:
Buhbuhbuh...

Considering how sketchy our history is, they could have started migrating well into the Roman period. (Dal Riada) In any case, it's a perfectly valid way of describing the Picts and any Irish who might be allied or trading with them in the Western Isles. :p


Any historical mistakesare likelyto be intentional.

Genius! :D

Jes, go with this idea and totally ignore the nitpicking. :) It's better with the historical gloss. I love the ancient crusty map projection, too. Practically feel the paper flaking off in my hand.

j.
 
Last edited:
Incidentally...

Boudicca pic ran across during my "research:"



Sicut Gallia! Sicut Gallia! Illa vobis in tres partes divenda est! Sicut Gallia!

j.
 
The Scots of Dal Riada took their land from the British kingdom of Strathclyde. It's pretty clear that they were fleeing Ireland and had lost a power struggle with the U Neill's though they had weakened the U Neills authority by taking the Liafail, Stone of Destiny, from Tara with them.

It's a common mistake to assume the Scots have always been in the land that bears their name and trhe Professor is looking, in my opinion, to see who will fall into the trap.

You're right Llywelyn, in that jestor should tell the story as he chooses knowing that these traps that the Professor sets will be highlighted by others, so he does not have to.
 
So many great comments. Thanks, guys! I'll tackle them one by one.

Chief Ragusa: Thanks for the historical information. I'll certainly make note of it. Your explanation about mistakes being intentional is a good one and I agree with the point about the specific story. The good history classes I've had, the instructor has shaped the history to a specific story to highlight points he/she feels most relevant. Another thing to keep in mind, I imagine, would be that this particular course is a Gen Ed course and as such, there'll be quite a bit of glossing going on since this is being taught largely to non-History majors. :)

Rocketman: Another excellent way of putting it. I'll still try and be historically accurate as possible, but will now not feel so paranoid about inaccuracies that crop up.

GhostWriter: :D Beaut of an answer and thanks!

Hajji Gray I: I've had people tell me I should write bodice-rippers, so that'd fit :D

Rocketman & Hajji Gray I: Or even a satire of a bodice ripper

phargle: Full speed ahead I shall, then! Glad you find it interesting. -I'm- finding it interesting myself as I do the research for each particular update.

J. Passepartout :D Oh they're just simultaneously invoking and parodying a specific literary tradition. But go along I will!

Llywelyn: *writes that title down*. Well, parallel structured narratives is simply a particular plot framework rather than a true genre. And sometimes, as in the case of foils, the parallelism within the story need not be the overarching tale. But that's in my opinion. :)

Concerning the "one weakness", you bring up something I'd considered doing with this story and your comment has me firmly decided to introduce that particular sphere at some point. Yes, I'm being deliberately cryptic :D

intAARactive. :) My original intention was a specific region, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it'd be fun to have it be intAARactive. What I haven't decided is to then stick with that dynasty the entire way through or hop from family to family, region to region. The CK part is a long ways off yet, so I've time to think about it.

There's lots of fun little stories from history. One of my favorites is the one where Napoleon gets his followers together and is standing outside the French government getting ready to take over... and he freezes. Gets cold feet, second doubts, etc. So then Lucien has to take charge, sweep in with the troops and complete the coup. The rest, as they say, is.. history. :D

I'll continue with the historical gloss. Not only is it accurate to do so given the gen ed setting, it's really, really fun to write. I liked the ancient map bit, too.

Llywelyn: Nice pic!

Chief Ragusa: Interesting idea. I like the concept of the professor being clever and setting up traps for people.

By the way, if people would like to continue nitpicking and pointing out historical inaccuracies as they undoubtedly will in the lecture sections, they can certainly feel free to do so. :) Not only is it a learning exercise for me, too, but it's giving me some other ideas for this AAR as well.

I'm going to be out of town from this afternoon until Monday due to family circumstances and I won't have net access. I'll try to get in an update between now and when I leave (As a frame of reference it's 9 am right now here. I have a History of the English Language class from 10-11 and will be leaving around 3 pm).

Addendum: Wow, I put in too many smilies! It didn't want to let me post this first. :D
 
I was really glad when Friday came along. I had just History and that was it, even though the class was beginning to lose some of its appeal. I mean, when you've got a girl as gorgeous as that acting like some sort of ice princess and the class being too early as it was, well let's just say my motivation was going downhill fast. Why not just drop it and take a different section in my last semester, I suggested to myself.

That was before she walked in wearing a white sweater that snuggled each and every inch of her body. I mean, it was so close-fitting, it was like the angora was her skin. The denim skirt I only half-noticed from my position in the fourth row. After being shot down Wednesday, I'd needed to back up and reconsider things. She, of course, sat in the second row.

As I tuned out the pre-class chatter around me, I started compiling a list of mental notes. Judging from her clothes the first three classes, she really liked white and blue and her tastes ran more to the preppy side of things, today's denim aside. She also seemed to be a pretty serious student type, from how furiously she'd taken notes and how intensely she'd stared at the hairy goat we had for a professor. Oh and let's not forget the glacial glare from Wednesday either, I reminded myself.

It was a sketch, an outline of just a few faint lines, but it was a beginning.

My thoughts were interrupted by Morengay's tromping up to the lectern and beginning the day's lecture.

"Last time, we looked at the history of Britain from prehistoric times until the end of the Roman occupation that we'll say occurred in the early to mid 400s, as the Roman legions left around 407, but some Roman-British hung around for a while, though by this time a lot of them had fled to other parts of Europe, most notably the region in France today known as Brittany, a name it acquired as a direct result of this Roman-British emigration. I also mentioned last time that by 600 the Saxons were in charge, but that's a bit of an oversimplification."

He paused to put a map on the overhead.

513px-Britain_peoples_circa_600.png


"As you can see from this map, there were quite a lot of ethnic groups running around Britain after the Romans left town. That's because whenever you have a situation where the champ hangs it up, the contenders left over are going to be fighting it out for the title. The Saxons, as I said last time, were a Germanic tribe, from present-day northern Germany specifically. The Angles arrived from what is today southern Denmark and the two groups more or less divided the bulk of the old Roman territory between themselves as you'll see from this next map."

The prof changed images and I found myself getting vaguely interested against my own will. Maybe my brothers were right about this guy being a good storyteller.

572px-British_isles_802.jpg


"Although this map is about two hundred years after the previous one, it does a good job of illustrating my point that the Angles and the Saxons dominated the former Roman dominion during that period. As a side note, the Britons you saw in the southwest tip are not the old Roman-British, but are in fact the indigenious peoples of the island before the Romans arrived. That's also the place where many people believe a guy you may have heard of named King Arthur was based. I'm not going to be going into Arthur, it's just an aside. If you're interested, you can research the possible historicity of Arthur for your paper later this semester.

Getting back to my original point, because the Angles and the Saxons controlled the bulk of the island and because they were so close to one another, the term Anglo-Saxon has frequently been used to describe the period and the peoples. But it's important to remember that these in fact were two very distinct and separate cultural groups.

Now, as you may have already guessed from the second map, no one kingdom managed to occupy Roman Britain's boundaries. They simply weren't strong enough. Instead, you had at least seven major kingdoms duking it out, all in hopes of uniting Roman Britain. They were Northumbria, which, by the way, was actually a union of two smaller kingdoms called Bernicia and Deira, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex and Wessex."

Prof Morengay pointed out each of the kingdoms in turn in the silent, darkened room with his pen.

"There were more kingdoms than that and of course you have the Picts and the Scots up north, but for our purposes, there were the seven major kingdoms. The Irish we'll get to another time.

Throughout most of the 600s, Northumbria looked like the ones who'd come out on top. In fact, in 655, the Northumbrian king at the time, Oswiu, killed the Mercian king, Penda at the Battle of Winwaed, leading to Oswiu's annexation of Mercia into Northumbria. Quite a lot of territory if you put the two kingdoms together.

Unfortunately for the Northumbrians, they were only able to hold on to Mercia for a few years, as the slain Penda's son became the inspiration for a lot of revenge stories by rising up in rebellion against the hated invaders and driving the Northumbrians out. Things got even worse for Northumbria towards the end of the 600s, when the Picts came along and kicked their butts in a major battle that resulted in the Northumbrian's king getting killed. You basically didn't want to be king during this time period. You had too good a chance of getting killed in battle as these guys illustrate."

The class chuckled and for once I didn't roll my eyes.

"So with Northumbria out of the picture, I'm sure it's no surprise to you to learn that Mercia was the next kingdom to assume a position of influence and power, especially after a guy named Offa became king in the mid 700s. Offa was really smart and quickly set about conquering some of the smaller kingdoms around him. Sussex fell under his control in 771, Kent acknowledged him as its superior in roughly the same time period, though Offa did allow subordinate kings to rule as what we might call governors, and portions of Wessex also came under Offa's influence in the 780s. East Anglia came into Offa's possession towards the end of the eight century as well, following the murder of Aethelbert, the previous king of that territory. There's some speculation that Offa ordered Aethelbert killed so that he could consolidate power over East Anglia, but nothing has been proven conclusively concerning that event.

He also was shrewd in his British diplomatic affairs, marrying his daughters off to the West Saxon and Northumbrian overlords to establish alliances. As another sign of his power, currency minted with his image was used as the monetary standard throughout the territory he controlled and even throughout many of the other kingdoms in the old Roman Britian.

Unfortunately, he was not perfect in his unification efforts. The Scots and the Picts remained unconquered, as did the Welsh in Wales to the west, whom Offa was never able to conclusively defeat. But he did a very wise thing after he realized he wasn't going to be able to finish the Welsh off once and for all. Taking a page from the Roman imperial playbook, he had a wall built on the Mercian-Welsh border called Offa's Dyke, his answer to Hadrian's Wall in the north from the Roman days.

So why wasn't Offa's successor able to build on what he started, eventually unifying all of the former Roman domain, or even the island completely? Three reasons, ladies and gentlemen.

First, his son and chosen successor died five months after taking the throne. Second, the West Saxons, who populated the kingdom of Wessex, started growing in power. Third, and the biggest reason, were a bunch of hairy warrior guys that made the Picts, Scots, and Welsh look like schoolboys in comparison.

These were men's men.

They were... the Vikings.

I'll stop here and we'll pick up on Monday with the Viking era."

Amidst the shuffling and scraping of books, papers, chairs, coats, and shoes that followed, Morengay held his hands up and raised his voice.

"One more thing. Since we're falling behind schedule already, I may simply change things so that we're conclusively ending in the mid 1400s. I would much rather you have a broader understanding of the basis for European history in several geographic reasons as opposed to just rushing our way through centuries of history to try and catch up with the present without understanding the basis for and connections to and between various events and people. That's all. Have a great weekend!"

We exploded out into the hall, all of us, excited to finally have the tedium of the school week over with. Even the girl dashed off quickly to wherever it was she was going.

I thought about trying to catch her and make conversation, but changed my mind. There'd be time throughout the semester for that and besides, chatting up a girl is best done during the week or at a party.

And History class was no party.
 
Offa's breakthrough came after he was able to secure London and establish diplomatic relations with the Continent. The Mercians did not have the numbers to rule all of the island and they ran into Egbert of Wessex:

King Egbert of Wessex (also spelled Ecgberht or Ecgbryh), sometimes known as Egbert the Saxon, helped make Wessex such a powerful kingdom that England was eventually unified around it. Because he was accepted as king in Essex, Kent, Surrey and Sussex and for a time also managed to conquer Mercia, he has been called "the first king of all England."

In 789, the West Saxon king Beorhtric and the Mercian king Offa drove Egbert into exile, and he may have spent some time at the court of Charlemagne. A few years later he returned to Britain, where his subsequent activities for the next decade remain a mystery. In 802, he succeeded Beorhtric as king of Wessex and removed the kingdom from the Mercian confederation, establishing himself as an independent ruler.

In 825, Egbert defeated the Mercian king Beornwulf at the Battle of Ellendune. This victory altered the balance of power in England, raising the power of Wessex at the expense of Mercia. Four years later he would conquer Mercia, but in 830 he lost it to Wiglaf. Still, Egbert's power base was unrivaled in England during his lifetime, and in 829 he was proclaimed "Bretwalda," ruler of all Britain.
[ http://historymedren.about.com/library/who/blwwegbert.htm ]
 
Jestor said:
I found myself getting vaguely interested against my own will. Maybe my brothers were right about this guy being a good storyteller.

I think that has less to do with it than some of the subliminal advertizing.

a union of two smaller kingdoms called Bernicia and Deira, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex and Wessex.

As Beavis is reported to have said to The Butthead (op. cit.), "Heheh.
He said Middlesex."

the possible historicity of Arthur

:mad:

Remember Badon Hill! :hates us some Anglo-Saxons:

You had too good a chance of getting killed in battle

I had a game once where something like ten generations of the Capetian kings of France fell in battle in a row. That said, KIA is hardly the worst fate during the period: well into the Norman invasion, the standard Welsh treatment for traitors (ie, relatives who lost a battle against you) was blinding + castration. :eek:
 
This guy's even worse than I am. I may have needed the advice of the OT forum to close the deal, but even I managed to "chat up" (as you silly foreigners say) the hot girl in my class.

<shakes head in dissapointment>
 
Deaghaidh said:
I may have needed the advice of the OT forum

Link? :D

Or is it inaccessible at the moment because of the eu3 n00bs? :rofl:
 
Llywelyn said:
Link? :D

Or is it inaccessible at the moment because of the eu3 n00bs? :rofl:

It's in my sig, but banished into the nether with the rest of OT
 
This is no joke.

When I first read this thread, I didn't even know it was an AAR at all. I thought it was you forgetting OT didn't exist! That was how good your writing was. It's only when I went to page two, I realised that it was CK ;) . The situation in my school is that in most lessons in my group, I have this EXTREMELY ugly girl. If you want me to go in detail, just PM me :D
 
Jestor, glad to see you writing again. I'm interested in seeing where this goes, very creative. I majored in history and political science. Girls in poli sci were better looking in my experience.