Q is for Quisling

April 19, 2014 by Roland Clarke

Q is for Quisling: In the world of Gossamer Steel, the people of The Country (Scandinavia) are betrayed by people they once called friends, but now call Quislings.

A quisling is a person who collaborates with an enemy occupying force. The word originates from the Norwegian war-time leader Vidkun Quisling who was the head of a collaborationist regime in Norway during the Second World War.

The term quisling was coined by the British newspaper The Times in an editorial published on 19 April 1940, entitled “Quislings everywhere”, after the Norwegian Vidkun Quisling, who assisted Nazi Germany as it conquered his own country so that he could rule the collaborationist Norwegian government himself. The Daily Mail picked up the term, and the BBC then brought it into common use internationally. The Times’ editorial asserted: “To writers, the word Quisling is a gift from the gods. If they had been ordered to invent a new word for traitor… they could hardly have hit upon a more brilliant combination of letters. Aurally it contrives to suggest something at once slippery and tortuous.”

[Photo: Quisling [centre] visits the German propaganda companies’ large exhibition ”Soldier and Correspondent” in the National Gallery in Oslo on August 15th 1944. The exhibition was about German war reporters. ~ Courtesy of the Norwegian News Agency, Oslo]

Quisling [centre] visits the German propaganda companies’ large exhibition ”Soldier and Correspondent” in the National Gallery in Oslo on August 15th 1944. The exhibition was about German war reporters. ~ Courtesy of the Norwegian News Agency, Oslo

The term has been used in fiction to describe traitors and collaborators. In Kim Stanley Robinson’s Green Mars, the term is used to describe those early colonists who joined the side of Earth and the transnationals opposing the Martian faction in the conflict of 2061. In the novel World War Z by Max Brooks, quislings are those humans who after having a nervous breakdown have started behaving like zombies, often fooling fellow survivors but never the undead that they try to imitate.

Q is also for Quests, of which some are threads in Gossamer Steel, and for Qulin, a mythical hooved chimerical creature known throughout various East Asian cultures.

PREVIOUS A TO Z POSTS:

A is for Array ~ B is for the Blood-Marked ~ C is for Corylus Avellana ~ D is for Duskweald ~ E is for Energy ~ F is for Feeniks ~ G is for Garuda ~ H is for Herders ~ I is for Ithaka ~ J is for Junk ~ K is for Kitsune ~ L is for Lorelei ~ M is for Mojave ~ N is for Native~ O is for Outcasts ~ P is for Punk

The brainchild of Arlee Bird, at Tossing it Out, the A to Z Challenge is posting every day in April except Sundays (we get those off for good behaviour.) And since there are 26 days, that matches the 26 letters of the alphabet. On April 1, blog about something that begins with the letter “A.” April 2 is “B,” April 3 is “C,” and so on. Please visit other challenge writers.

My theme is ‘The World of Gossamer Steel, the SF-fantasy setting for a series of short stories and novellas that portray the tales behind the MMORPG that is central to my crime novel ‘Wyrm Bait’.

P is for Punk

April 18, 2014 by Roland Clarke

P is for Punk: P should have been all about Punk as in Steampunk, solarpunk, greenpunk, and even elfpunk, which are all part of Gossamer Steel.

But instead…

P is for Positive thinking, Plagued by Pathetic failure to Provide Phonic Provision = Pissed off with Phone-Internet company = BT have told us it will be mid-June before our Phone & internet is installed = Preposterous.

Also P is for PlusNet, a light in our tunnel we hope.

iRetrofone – Steampunk iPhone Handset

PREVIOUS A TO Z POSTS:

O is for Outcasts

April 17, 2014 by Roland Clarke

O is for Outcasts: In the world of Gossamer Steel, some of the Dravidian pirates are classed as outcasts due to their low caste, and yet they become essential to the future of Bhārata (India sub-continent), even though some also see them as outlaws.

An outcast is a person with social stigma or untouchability, who is rejected or ‘cast out’, as from home or society, or in some way excluded, looked down upon, ignored, or ostracised. On the Indian sub-continent the word pariah comes from the Tamil paraiyar, pl. of paraiyan “drummer”. At festivals it was the hereditary duty of members of the largest of the lower castes of southern India – parai is a “large festival drum.” The meaning of pariah was extended to embrace many groups outside the so-called clean caste groups and these low-caste groups, formerly known as “untouchables”, were renamed by the Indian social reformer Mahatma Gandhi as Harijans (children of the god Hari Visnu, or, simply, children of God).

Flag of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an environmental action group against marine poaching and overfishing. ~ by David w ng / Wikipedia

In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute or kill them. Outlawry was thus one of the harshest penalties in the legal system. In the common law of England, a “Writ of Outlawry” deprived the victim of all legal rights of the law, and others could kill him on sight as if he were a wolf or other wild animal. Women were declared “waived” rather than outlawed but it was effectively the same punishment. Outlawry has existed in many countries, from Scandinavia and Germany, to Australia. It has also been used as a political tool, when a regime declares the activities of its opponents illegal, even piratical.

In Gossamer Steel the oppressive Kali Cartel tries to marginalise the Dravidian League by portraying them as pirates, although they are struggling like others for what remains of the Earth.

O is also for Ond, the spiritual energy of The Country’s inhabitants.

PREVIOUS A TO Z POSTS:

N is for Native

April 16, 2014 by Roland Clarke

N is for Native: In the world of Gossamer Steel, the Sámi who are native to The Country – formerly the Nordic countries – are instrumental in re-building the post-apocalyptic world, in alliance with the nomads from Eurasia. In the broader sense of native, there are others, including Dravidians in Bhārata (India sub-continent) that are committed to re-building their birth places.

Native or indigenous? In terms of people the words are interchangeable, although with plants and animals some argue that they are subtly different. Of greater concern is the plight of the native or indigenous people in the face of our industrialised world. As Cultural Survival says, “One of the unfortunate things common to almost all Indigenous Peoples is being under assault—culturally, economically, or physically. In almost every case they suffer all the consequences of extreme marginalization: poverty, lack of government services, shorter lifespans, and poorer health.”

“…Because they look, act, and dress differently from the dominant society, Indigenous Peoples are often discriminated against or seen as less than human… The world’s languages are disappearing at a rate even faster than that of biological diversity, with more than half of the world’s 7,000 predicted to disappear in the next 90 years… Indigenous lands and environments are under assault on every continent. A recent World Wildlife Fund study named the 200 places on earth that have the highest and most fragile biodiversity, and found that 95 percent of them are on Indigenous territories…”

Naga people of Northeast India ~ by rajkumar1220

Called Native, Tribal, First, or Indigenous Peoples, they constitute about 5% of the world’s population, yet account for about 15% of the world’s poor. At least 370 million people worldwide are considered to be indigenous. Most of them live in remote areas of the world. Indigenous peoples are divided into at least 5000 peoples ranging from the forest peoples of the Amazon to the tribal peoples of India – such as the Naga (pictured) – and from the Inuit of the Arctic to the Aborigines in Australia. Indigenous peoples do not necessarily claim to be the only people native to their countries, but in many cases indigenous peoples are indeed “aboriginal” or “native” to the lands they live in, being descendants of those peoples that inhabited a territory prior to colonization or formation of the present state.

N is also for the dryad Ngetal, Norwegian commodity trader Niels Gundersson, the serpent Nagas of Hindu & Buddhist religions, and the ‘Wyrm Bait’ protagonist Norman Silver

PREVIOUS A TO Z POSTS:

Fair deals for the long-term sick

April 14, 2014 by Roland Clarke

Having good friends that care raises our spirits at this difficult time when British Telecom are determined to do nothing.

The Bingergread Cottage

This ls long but I make no apologies, it covers a vital subject and we need you to read it, please. As you all know I am classified as an invalid for various reasons. You also know that I am extremely fortunate to be in France and under the care of our brilliant Health Service

I was very shocked therefore to find that my good friend Roland Clarke, who is in a similar position in the UK, is experiencing some appalling treatment at the hands of BT.

Tell us about the story, Roland.

Roland and Juanita.

At the beginning of January we knew that we were moving house at the end of February, so we contacted BT [British Telecom – who provided our phone & internet] – to arrange the new service. On January 9^th BT gave us an engineer appointment for February 17^th, and for the…

View original post 1,165 more words

L is for Lorelei

April 14, 2014 by Roland Clarke

L is for Lorelei: A Creole from Louisiana, Lorelei Trahan is a protagonist in “Wyrm Bait”, and an avid player of the MMORPG set in the the world of Gossamer Steel.

The Lorelei is a rock on the eastern bank of the Rhine near St. Goarshausen, Germany, which rises some 120 metres above the river. Marking the narrowest part of the river between Switzerland and the North Sea, it is the most famous feature of the Rhine Gorge, a 65 km section of the river between Koblenz and Bingen that was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in June 2002.

Lorelei is also the name of a female water spirit associated with this rock in folklore and in music, art and literature. Similar to mermaids known as Nixe or Nixie, or to the water nymphs in the epic poem Nibelungenlied – called Rhine maidens in Richard Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen – Lorelei has been portrayed as both innocent and seductive.

Rhein maidens warn Siegfried. Originally the image stems from Richard Wagner’s Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods ~ by Arthur Rackham

The Lorelei is related to the Norwegian Nøkken, who are shapeshifting water spirits, who usually appear in human form, as handsome young men. These spirits have appeared in the myths and legends of all Germanic peoples in Europe, although perhaps most known in Norwegian and Scandinavian folklore – and therefore appearing in The Country, the Scandinavian enclave in Gossamer Steel.

L is also for Lyminster in Sussex, England where the English equivalent of the Nøkken lived. However, the English Knucker is depicted as a wyrm or dragon, which terrorized the countryside.

L is also for Doctor Lupero, alias Lupercus, the principal antagonist in Gossamer Steel. And L is for Lewis the law in “Wyrm Bait”.

PREVIOUS A TO Z POSTS:

A is for Array ~ B is for the Blood-Marked ~ C is for Corylus Avellana ~ D is for Duskweald ~ E is for Energy ~ F is for Feeniks ~ G is for Garuda ~ H is for Herders ~ I is for Ithaka ~ J is for Junk ~ K is for Kitsune