#uru'baen

[yessica--haircut]

The Inheritance Cycle

The Varden: We need to get into a place unnoticed.

Jeod:

[lords-of-the-empire]

Why oh why is Galbatorix such a fucking mega-chad?

[lords-of-the-empire]

Some thoughts on warfare in Alagaesia

While it’s a cool detail that swords in Alagaesia come to a narrower point during the books than before since armour is better and more advanced that it used to be, it’s a bit odd how we don’t see the other changes this brought about IRL - the growing use of maces and warhammers, pole-arms like crowsbeaks poleaxes and especially halberds, and increasing use of crossbows, for example, or heavier and heavier cavalry.

At least it’s another reason for Islanzadi (and probably other elves) to rock scale armour rather than plate - it’s what they have and what they’re familiar/trained/comfortable with, and since they have the highest percentage of magicians of all races they’re probably all warded to hell and back. If, say, elves are expected to arm and ward themselves (either on a individual basis or as a household/family) you might see wealthier elves fighting in the front while poorer elves stick to the flanks and rear as skirmishers, kind of how the Legions of the old Roman republic used to fight. It’d also add another dimension to Arya accepting Eragon’s wards even though she’s more competent - it’s a gesture of friendship and reconciliation. The problem with this idea is that we know the elves don’t fight in formation, but it could be the sort of thing that just happens - if you don’t have good kit and you can’t use magic to make up the difference, odds are you won’t be so keen on closing with a roaring Kull - certainly not if there are already dozens or hundreds of other elves that can do it much more safely. If this is anything close to accurate, I’d have loved a scene where some Varden character, or maybe Arya, sounds the alarm because they think the Empire is bringing in reinforcements - there’s some commentary on how sloppy their formations are and how it’s a good sign that Galbatorix is scraping the bottom of the barrel, only to be revealed that they’re elves who have looted and repurposed imperial plate armour. Depending on the phrasing you could even foreshadow how fucked they were when Galbatorix’ and Uru’baen’s  magical defences started messing with the Ancient Language and stripped everyone of their wards.

I don’t recall if Islanzadi (who’s basically the only elf I’m going off lmao) used a shield with her spear, but I imagine it’d mostly be popular with ward-less elves to protect against enemy projectiles like arrows or javelins. Wards to the same thing but better since you don’t have to use an unwieldy shield and have both hands free, and since they aren’t in formation or even trained to fight to support each other, it’d be a bit of a waste to lug around a shield.

... If the dwarves have goat cavalry, does that mean that they can make a cavalry charge up a city wall? Depending on how the walls are built and if the feldunost can get their footing, but it’d really have been a cool scene to include.

It would also have been neat if we’d been show either party consistently using their dragons to harass supply lines - the Varden are already ignoring or burning fields of crops everytime they take a city, so you could really build up the whole starvation thing - maybe the Varden have to slow down and double back, as Feinster or Belatona or whatever starts suffering from food riots?

Please, feel free to add your own thoughts to this!

[lords-of-the-empire]

Turns out the movie “Hero” with Jet Li works as inspiration for IC AUs where the rebellion against and invasion of the Empire failed and there’s a new character who managed to get an audience with the Black King by killing his most dangerous enemies.

Eragon would be Broken Sword, Arya would be Snow, Galbatorix would the the founder of the Qin Dynasty.

[lords-of-the-empire]

For someone who gets offended when Roran manhandles her then takes an arrow to the neck, I sure do like Othiara the elf

[the8thsphynx]

(RP INTRODUCTION BETWEEN WISESOOTHSAYER AND I)

~There was a plume of blinding light from within the mountain of a castle. The light had broken through the roof and made a beacon straight into the heavens, illuminating the smoggy sky with a sickly shade of red.

~All of the chaos that had ensued throughout the city had paused to look to the light. For a moment, there was complete silence. The whole town was in a horrific lull that even the deadliest of Galbatorix's soldiers had succumbed to. Generals, soldiers, magicians, werecats, Urgals, elves, and all manner of beings from both sides looked to the beacon like it was cardinal smoke electing a Pope.

~The silence came to a halt as an escalating roar flew down from the castle and into the streets, bringing with it a wind that tore the leaves off the trees and leveled at least two miles worth of land and houses. The Urgals and heavily armoured soldiers far from the castle could keep to their feet, but many others were either knocked down or thrown far back. Oromis, however, had gathered up enough strength to throw himself, and safely cradle Glaedr's eldunari, to the ground as soon as he saw the beacon of magic... this was the fall of Vroengard all over again.

~Oromis had kept Glaedr's eldunari with him while Eragon, Saphira, and the others stormed the castle. He had joined the dwarves and his own kin on the back flank of the city's final battle, Glaedr hanging in a pouch by his side and keeping all senses where Oromis could not see. Once Oromis had looked to the sky when the roof of the castle tore open, he knew that only one thing could have come from Saphira and Eragon's confrontation with Glabatorix, Murtagh, Shruikan, and Thorn.

~Once the initial shock of the blast faded, Oromis jumped to his feet and began making a sprint to the castle, vaulting over debris and skirting by fallen soldiers, throwing out both his mind and voice to the Varden's forces to move to the castle.

~With one last strain of his vocal chords and mind the elf called out, "ARYA! ERAGON! SAPHIRA!"

Angela, are you READY?!

[jeaniefranklins]

The sordid tale of Uru'baen/Deus Ex Machina

When I was about fourteen or fifteen, I was a member of Anti-Shurtugal, which was- I won't mince words- a hate site for the Eragon series. I didn't have any especial feelings about the books either way, but I enjoyed the critical discussions that went on, and the general community. In the early days, it was great. I made a lot of friends. I'm still friends with some of them.

The woman who started the site, Hackslayer, got- well I don't know exactly what she got. Got tired of it, I guess. She didn't like the forums (where I hung out) so she decided that the answer was to create a new forum- Dog-Eared- and only let people in if they sent her an application and she decided they were worthwhile members of the community. Dog-Eared had a strict policy of no arguments, which meant that any thread where the debate got heated would be shut down, no questions asked. I sent an application and was accepted in, but I never really became part of the community there; what was the point, if you couldn't debate? That was half the point of the original Anti-Shurtugal. The forums originally attached to the site were renamed Uru'baen and allowed to remain up. But without the attachment to A-S, activity started to die down. The old regulars, myself included, were still posting, but there was no new blood coming in. For awhile it looked like the place would just wither away.

Then the Dog-Eared thread happened.

As you can imagine, the idea of a forum where the administrator got to decide if you were worthy or not wasn't without controversy. Some people were pissed that they couldn't get in. Others were accepted, but still fundamentally disagreed with the place. One of the Uru'baen members, Box, started a thread on U'B to basically complain about Dog-Eared. It garnered a lot of traffic, to the extent of- iirc- thirteen pages. And then Hackslayer's friend/co-mod, Calfslayer, took a gander at U'B and saw the thread. And shit a brick.

I logged on to the forums one morning to find that they weren't there anymore. The page had turned a solid neon pink, and at the top was a picture (non-graphic) of a giant, dead boar. I had no idea what was going on. No one else did, either. Gradually, we began to piece it together- Calfslayer had been so upset about the Dog-Eared thread that she had essentially nuked Uru'baen from orbit. Threads, posts user accounts- boom. Gone. I found out about all this through Livejournal, where I was friends with some of the U'B members. We set up a new forum, designed to be about writing, and called it Deus Ex Machina. One of the people who'd helped set it up, Winged, contacted me and asked if I wanted to be an administrator- I'd modded at the old U'B forums, and I was a member of the old guard by that point. I was flattered. I accepted. I was about sixteen at the time.

I should mention at this point that Uru'baen- like all communities- had its trolls. The two I remember in most vivid detail were Paladin and Syrith. Both were, I believe, 4chan members; they certainly adhered to a lot of their beliefs. I remember in one thread, about the Last Airbender movie, Syrith posted "you wouldn't be complaining about it if Aang was played by a n*gger." Stuff like that. We tried banning them, but they just created new usernames and came back. They'd lie low for a little while, start stirring shit again, and get banned. Repeat ad nauseam. By that point, they were almost an institution.

When we started Deus Ex Machina, they got worse. A lot worse. The racist stuff I mentioned upthread hadn't happened on U'B- mostly they'd stuck to derailing threads and mocking posts, but they escalated radically on DEM. They started insulting members- personally. They especially hated the administrators, believing that they had "free speech," i.e. the ability to do and say whatever they pleased. They started to gain followers. People I had known, respected, and liked on U'B were falling into this pattern of nasty insults and bullying. On U'B, we'd mostly dismissed it as shit-stirring, but this was impossible to dismiss. Fights were breaking out all over the place. We were having to shut down threads as they devolved into all-out flamewars. In desperation, the administrators agreed on a policy of no swearing- we thought that, if nothing else, it might cut down on the inflammatory language. It did not. Not only that, but the cries of "censorship!" got louder and louder- from all quarters. I was the one who posted the thread announcing this new rule, so I caught quite a bit of the flack. I distinctly remember being called a "fucking Nazi bitch-" not by Paladin or Syrith, but by someone, Tej, I had been friends with back on U'B. Tempers kept flaring. For me, it came to a head in a thread where an argument broke out. We also had a policy of shutting down threads that had devolved into fighting, so that was what I did. One of the participants flipped the hell out, announced that he was leaving the forums never to return, and would miss everyone "except for cunty, as I will refer to her." I don't think I need to explain who "cunty" was.

This was bad enough. What was worse, for me, was the people stepping in to say that the poster who'd called me a cunt was being treated unfairly, and that they too were leaving in protest. I remember one poster saying that he believed the poster had been treated unfairly because he'd clearly been angry (ya think?) and yet no one had tried to talk him down or "hear his side of the story." In the midst of all this, Winged- who was still the head admin- decided that the best thing to do was remove my administrator privileges. Without telling me. I just logged on one day and discovered that not only were my admin privileges gone with no explanation, I'd been locked out of the private admin forum, where we went to discuss policies or to get away from the main forum drama.

This was the last straw for me, and led to my being kept home from school because I was sobbing hysterically and wouldn't tell my parents why. For my own peace of mind, I took a leave of absence from the forums- I couldn't stand being there, where so many people had made it clear that either they didn't like me, or they liked other people enough to overlook their calling me slurs. It's not a time in my life I enjoy looking back on.

I did return a few weeks later, but the nastiness continued. I don't remember exactly when I left- sometime in 2008, I think- but I just didn't want to deal with it anymore. I'd had some good times and made some good friends, but visiting the forums had become a chore for me. I just couldn't keep it up. I don't know what happened after I left- I assume from what I heard from other members that activity sort of slowed- but I'd mostly put it out of my mind until I got a message from the Facebook group (we'd set it up to keep in touch IRL) from a member- the one who'd defended the guy calling me a cunt, actually- saying that he'd restored all the old threads, and did anyone want to take a look?

No. No, I did not.

[thequietdragon]

One does not simply walk into Urû'baen