Chapter 21, "Preliminary Investigation Report on Another World" (Part 2)
The entire southern half of the Falmat continent is roughly composed of hills, plains and low mountains. Generally speaking, the terrain is not high, the precipitation is moderate, and the climate is mild, making it easier for agricultural development. The coastline of the southern part of the mainland is rugged and winding, with many harbors and harbors, making it suitable for the development of shipping and fishing. In this area, most of the population, cultivated land and cities of the entire continent are concentrated, as well as the main developed civilized areas.
However, the most prosperous area on the Falmat continent is roughly divided into east and west parts by the Romanian Mountains, which run from northwest to southeast and span half of the continent. Although the altitude of this mountain range is not high, the terrain is quite steep and it is not easy to climb over the mountain range, so it still has a certain geographical isolation effect. To the east of the mountains is the largest plain on the continent, which is also the core hinterland of the empire. The imperial capital is located at the westernmost end of this plain. To the west of the mountains, the terrain is more broken and rugged, with more independent or semi-independent vassal states scattered around. Although it is close to the imperial capital, the empire's control over this area is still weak. The Arnus Hill where the "Gate" is located is located at the western foot of the Romanian Mountains.
On several large islands further south of the mainland, the empire has moved the population across the sea and established some colonies. However, the degree of development is very low. The actual control is limited to the ports, and the population is very small. It can be roughly compared to the great voyage on earth. Colonial America in the Early Era.
The northern half of the Falmat continent is relatively desolate, and most of the land is undeveloped, but there are still many cities, ports and intelligent race settlements scattered here and there. However, most of these civilization strongholds are limited to the coast, and the inland areas far away from the coast are generally inaccessible.
Among them, the most significant terrain in the northwest of the continent is a narrow desert, sandwiched between the inland mountains and the humid coastal hills on the north coast of the continent. The local indigenous people call it the "Western Desert". According to previous field investigations by our travelers, the total length of this desert from east to west exceeds 2,000 kilometers, but the average width between north and south is only 100 to 300 kilometers. In the narrowest part of the desert, it is said that it is only more than 20 kilometers from south to north, and it only takes one day to hike across the desert. Even in the wide areas of the desert, there are generally many oases that can supply water and food. Therefore, the "Western Desert" itself is not enough to hinder passenger traffic and trade.
However, because the southern part of the desert is close to the insurmountable and steep mountains, travelers must climb mountains and cross the desert at the same time to reach the other side of the continent. Therefore, this desert, which is not so vast, has still become the western part of the continent. the north-south dividing line.
Directly north of the continent is a steep mountain range covered with snow all year round. The locals call it the "Ice and Snow Mountains". It is the highest place on the entire Falmat continent. It is also the birthplace of many rivers on the continent and is home to a large number of coniferous forests. , also produces many precious medicinal herbs, mineral deposits and animal skins. However, due to the harsh climate, the "Ice and Snow Mountains" are also the most desolate areas on the entire continent, roughly equivalent to Alaska in the eyes of people on earth.
In the northeastern part of the continent, on the east side of the Ice and Snow Mountains, is a vast grassland. Its area is roughly the same as that of the Mongolian grassland. However, the terrain is low and flat, and the northern end of the grassland is directly adjacent to the sea. Therefore, it is far warmer, humid, and richer in water and grass than the Mongolian grassland. , the climate and environment are more similar to those of the undeveloped Polish plains. On this grassland, many powerful nomadic tribes once appeared, and they invaded and plundered from the south many times, posing a huge threat to the civilized city-states and kingdoms in the southern part of the continent. Since the latest nomadic tribe to dominate this grassland is the rabbit tribe among the orcs, and is also called the "Headhunting Rabbit" by the locals, this grassland is also called the "Headhunting Rabbit Grassland", just like the place name of the Mongolian Plateau. The origin is the same.
2. Intelligent Race
Unlike Earth, where only human civilization was born, in addition to humans, there are also civilizations from multiple other intelligent races such as elves, orcs, and dwarves existing on the continent of Falmat. Competition, alliances and melees between various races are the main theme of history on this continent.
However, no matter which intelligent race there is, they are not the natives of the Falmat continent, but are outsiders who moved from many different worlds through the "door" on the Arnus hill. Among them, humans arrived at the Falmat Continent through the "Gate" the latest, but they developed the fastest. Therefore, they came from behind in the fierce and cruel racial competition, and eventually became the hegemonic race that ruled the entire Falmat Continent.
At the same time, these intelligent races from other worlds brought to the Falmat continent a large number of animals and plants from other worlds. Due to its long history, it is impossible to determine which creatures are native to the Falmat continent unless large-scale and long-term archaeological excavations and fossil exploration are carried out.
According to what is known, the humans on the Falmat continent are all white, and there are no yellow or black people. The physical characteristics of the local white people are similar to those of Western Europeans and Northern Europeans. They are tall and have a variety of hair colors. They have been using the same language long before the empire unified the continent. Their clothing, customs, diet, etc. are quite similar to the early Europeans before the Roman Empire. Currently, the advance team has requested their superiors to send linguists to investigate and analyze to confirm whether they are related to the white Europeans on Earth.
In the past few thousand years, humans have become the most powerful race on the Falmat continent, ruling almost all plains suitable for farming, as well as most of the big cities. In terms of numbers, force, and area control, they have overwhelming and absolute advantages over other races.
Elves are also an ancient civilized race living on the continent of Falmat. Common ones include white-skinned high elves, brown-skinned dark elves, and goblins that are only the size of a palm and as delicate as dolls (such goblins bring They have transparent wings and can fly, while the first two have no wings and cannot fly). They have lived in this world longer than humans, and the lifespan of individual elves is as long as a thousand years. However, because on the continent of Falmat, the level of civilization and reproductive capacity of elves are far inferior to humans. Not only is the population of the elves sparse, but they have never established a large country and cannot unite the strength of their own clan - unlike humans , the elves on the Falmat continent do not have the concept of a country, and their highest political system is limited to the tribe. Therefore, in the long-term racial competition, the elves were finally defeated. The surviving elves were forced to flee in various remote areas, forming many elven villages, and gradually switched to human language. They have all nominally surrendered to the empire.
Among the rescued indigenous refugees from another world, there is a young female elf, and the medical team of the advance team is studying her.
There is not much known information about the dwarves on the Falmat continent, and no real dwarves have been seen so far. We only know that most of them live scattered in human cities and countries, and are highly integrated with human society. They usually engage in mining. Metal smelting is his main means of livelihood, he has a bold personality, is addicted to alcohol, etc. In some remote mountainous areas on the Falmat continent, there are also tribes and small autonomous city-states belonging to the dwarves.
On the continent of Falmat, orcs are a very general term that generally refers to all subhumans with mammal and bird characteristics. Common ones include rabbits (head-hunting rabbits), werewolves, foxes, dogs, cats, pig-headed people, winged people, etc. Among the alien natives who have been exiled to the Arnus Hills and taken in by our army, there are a small number of foxes and werewolves, and there are also two compatriots from our country who need to be rescued. Their races have been changed in this world and they have become adults. The priestess of the Headhunting Rabbit Clan. According to the currently known information, the physical appearance and customs of these orcs are very different, and they cannot be regarded as a whole. Even different tribes within the same type of orcs have very different physical characteristics. For example, in the refugee camp in the Arnus Hills, there are werewolves from two different tribes. The former has a wolf head and is basically a large wolf wearing clothes and standing and walking, while the latter is more like a long wolf. An ordinary human with wolf ears and wolf tail. Therefore, although they are both werewolves, the latter who are more like humans generally look down on the former, thinking that they are "vulgar, savage, despicable", etc. - Generally speaking, the more human-like orcs have a higher status, and vice versa, the lower their status. .
In addition, on the Falmat continent, there is also an intelligent life called "Puka", which is similar to the red-skinned "mountain ghost" in Japanese mythology, as well as ogres, goblins and many other ethnic groups. They basically live together with humans and have become an integral part of the civilized society of other worlds.
Generally speaking, since humans dominate the Falmat continent, other intelligent races have been discriminated against and suppressed to varying degrees. However, in general, various ethnic groups can still coexist in harmony, just like the ancient people on Earth. Just like those great multi-ethnic empires. Moreover, on the continent of Falmat, except for a few top-level nobles with stubborn ideas, the lower class people do not value the purity of blood. All kinds of interracial marriages are extremely common, resulting in the birth of many strange mixed-race species. , further increasing the diversity of intelligent races on the continent.
Finally, for some reason, judging from what we have seen so far, the native humans, elves and orcs from other worlds are generally good-looking. Although it cannot be said that all of them are handsome men and beautiful women, there are indeed a lot of handsome ones. In particular, the appearance level of female indigenous civilians is much higher than that of ordinary people in ancient Western societies, and even higher than that of citizens of modern European and American Western countries. It remains to be further verified whether this is a special situation limited to the area near Arnus Hill (rich in beauties), or a common phenomenon across the entire Falmat continent.
3. Industrial and agricultural technology level
According to the concept of social development of the earth, Falmat continent is roughly in the development stage from slavery to feudal country, and there are still a large number of primitive tribes remaining in remote areas. However, due to the different social backgrounds, it seems that such simple appropriation is not possible.
At present, the industrial revolution, large factories and mechanized production have not occurred in the Falmat continent, but the handicraft industry has been highly developed and can weave linen, cotton and woolen cloth, produce a variety of metals and alloys, as well as pottery, glass and porcelain, etc. Construction workers from other worlds also know how to use volcanic ash to make cement, allowing them to build many magnificent buildings. Due to little sailing experience, the shipbuilding industry on the Falmat continent is relatively backward and it is difficult to manufacture large ocean-going ships. However, small sailing ships are also very common in offshore and inland rivers. Generally speaking, the handicraft technology of the Falmat continent is roughly equivalent to the level of Western European countries before the industrial revolution. It lags behind in some aspects and is slightly superior in other aspects.
Human agriculture and animal husbandry on the Falmat continent are very similar to those in ancient Europe. They also use wheat, barley and oats as the main food crops, grow grapes to make wine, rely on olives to press oil, raise cattle, horses, donkeys, etc. to provide livestock power, etc. However, compared with ancient Europe, alien agriculture seems to lack some common crop varieties on earth. For example, there are no radishes on the Falmat continent.
On the other hand, farmers in other worlds have planted many fruits and vegetables that do not exist on earth, and have domesticated large lizards to pull carts and plow fields. However, they do not seem to know how to use pesticides and fertilize, so crop diseases and insect pests are rampant. Agricultural yields were also far lower than on modern Earth.
However, because the Falmat continent is vast and sparsely populated, with a lot of wasteland available for reclamation, the food supply for humans in other worlds is not yet tight.
As for the agricultural production system, the human society on the Falmat continent is similar to that of medieval Europe, with homesteaders and tenant farmers as the mainstay. Although slavery was retained on the continent of Falmat, the use of slaves was not as widespread as in the Roman Empire. Except for some plantations cultivating cash crops, nobles and wealthy people rarely put slaves directly into agricultural production. Instead, they mainly serve people in their mansions, similar to the domestic servants in ancient China.
4. Country and Government
The current Falmat continent is already nominally ruled by a huge country called the "Empire", which has theoretically brought all intelligent races under its rule. This "empire" has no so-called country name or prefix. According to public statements, the reason seems to be that the first emperor once declared: "There is only one sun in the sky, and there can only be one empire on the earth. Why do we need country names to distinguish them?" ”
Since the current emperor Morte II sent troops to destroy the last few city-states and small kingdoms that opposed the empire three years ago, the empire has nominally unified the entire Falmat continent, but this so-called unification has not Still largely a mere formality.
The political system of this empire is roughly equivalent to a mixture of the early Roman Empire and medieval European feudal kingdoms, and is a bit like Japan during the shogunate era. The empire retained remnants of the republican system such as the Senate in the center, similar to the early Roman Empire; at the local level, it implemented a feudal system of noble lords, much like medieval Europe; legally, slavery was still used, but the population of the entire empire There are still many free people.
The emperor of the empire is the supreme ruler, possessing the highest authority and the richest royal territory, but his rights are not unlimited, but are still restricted by the Senate. Under the emperor were feudal noble lords. Each of these noble lords had their own territory, army, law and coinage rights, forming independent small kingdoms. Among them, some lords have the status of senators and are regarded as "inner vassals", while other lords who do not have the status of senators are regarded as "outer vassals". There is a big gap between the two in terms of political status, and they are probably "counted as one of their own." concept. There are also some senators who have no territory and rely entirely on the favor of the emperor or big nobles for their livelihood. They are roughly similar to the favored ministers and court nobles in ancient Europe. Just like medieval Europe on Earth, the political game between emperors, lords and favored ministers was the most important political activity within the empire.
In addition to the direct territory of the empire, there are dozens of autonomous city-states, vassal kingdoms and tribes of varying sizes. Some political systems are also dominated by humans, but there are also many tribes and countries of alien races. Generally speaking, these city-states and vassal states have been defeated and conquered by the empire, but have not been directly annexed. Therefore, they can maintain a certain degree of autonomy for the time being, but are only required to surrender and pay tribute to the empire. Some of these vassal states had such heavy tribute burdens that they were being milked like cows by the empire. However, the tribute burden of other vassal states is very light, or even just a verbal surrender to the empire. For example, the Headhunting Rabbit tribe defeated the imperial expeditionary force and captured the imperial crown prince; it has a large number of scholars and magicians and has a transcendent status. Rendel, the "Knowledge Capital"; as well as several historic religious shrines on the mainland, etc.
It can be seen that the empire's rule over the Falmat continent is still very weak and unstable at present, and the imperial power of the empire is far less majestic and glorious than it appears on the surface. On the entire continent, about two-thirds of the land is only nominally subject to the hegemony of the empire. In fact, it still goes on its own, or is simply a deserted and lawless land. Within the empire, there was no mature political system for ruling a very large centralized country. The emperor's direct territory only accounted for a few percent of the entire continent, and most of the subjects lacked identification with the empire. Noble lords, religious groups, and even academia (magician groups) all pose serious challenges to the supremacy of imperial power and cannot be resolved at all.
The reason why such a clay-footed giant, which was crumbling internally, was able to achieve such brilliant achievements, conquer so many human and foreign countries, and at least nominally unify the Falmat continent, was entirely dependent on military success. Therefore, the overall impression of this country is more similar to a colonial empire like the British Empire, or the short-lived Nazi Third Reich. The only advantage compared to the first two is that Falmat has already had a unified language and writing, but has not awakened nationalist and racist thoughts, thus reducing the imperial government's ruling costs to a certain extent. But for such a large-scale super-state, such a software foundation alone is far from enough.
5. Religion and social customs
Due to the extreme imbalance of social development in various regions, the social customs of the Falmat continent also show a mixed state from primitive society to feudal society. Just taking the form of marriage as an example, monogamy, polygamy, monogamy, polygamy, primitive group marriage and matriarchal clan system coexisted at the same time, and were taken for granted by the indigenous people of Falmat continent. But from the perspective of people on earth, it is really confusing. Because these messy marriage systems do not appear in different regions that are far apart, but often exist among different ethnic groups in a city at the same time.
Then, the customs and habits of various intelligent races on the continent are also very different. Certain behaviors are polite in one race, but represent provocation and insult in another race. The resulting misunderstandings and vendettas can be described as Countless. However, after thousands of years of collision and contact, various races on the Falmat continent have slowly found ways to coexist peacefully, and gradually learned to respect certain habits of other races - no matter how these habits look. How strange it sounds. At least they no longer pick up machetes to kill each other.
In terms of religion, because of the existence of the true god, the Falmat continent practices polytheism. Each god has its own temple and holy place. Among ordinary people, there are devout believers who believe in one god, and there are also some who believe in most gods. Believers who maintain respect and distance. Generally speaking, although there are true gods who can exert great power, due to the long-term coexistence of gods and peaceful competition with each other, the religious atmosphere on the Falmat continent is not as fanatical as that of medieval Europe on earth. Only a few people claim to believe in a certain religion. A god, but also respectful to other gods. Most people just follow the crowd and worship at temples. In their eyes, gods seem to be just super important figures similar to emperors.
6. Magic
It has been confirmed that magic and magicians do exist on the continent of Falmat, as well as priests and divine magic - but in the concept of alien natives, divine magic is also understood as a special kind of magic. In general, the application of magic in other worlds is very wide, from war to life, this kind of supernatural power is needed. However, the magic on the Falmat continent is not universal. The inheritance and exchange of magic rely entirely on oral teaching between masters and apprentices. So far, there is no unified standard for magic on the entire continent, and there is no true magic house. School. Even the so-called "Knowledge City" Rendel is just a "scientific research city" where a large number of magicians gather, not an educational base.
Generally speaking, each magician just uses his free time to teach his apprentices, or recommends his favorite apprentices to go to other familiar magicians to learn some knowledge that they are not good at. Because you must master a lot of other knowledge when learning magic, magicians are often also great scholars and are highly respected by civilians. But most magicians seem to be stubborn nerds who only know how to study ancient books but do not know how to adapt. They are not good at connecting with reality and are quite arrogant and conceited. Therefore, their thinking and stance are seriously out of touch with the real society. Their research It is also difficult to bring any benefits to ordinary people, just like the philosophers and mathematicians of ancient Greece, or the great Confucians of ancient China.
The priests in the temple also master some spells, but generally speaking, they are not considered as powerful as magicians by ordinary people. Moreover, the priests' confidentiality and monopoly on magic-related knowledge are even stricter than that of magicians, and they seem to have no intention of popularizing education.
According to the legends of the local indigenous people, human magic is only superficially learned from elves. The ancient elven wizards are the pinnacle of magic. Legend has it that they can call the wind and rain, summon thunder and lightning, launch earthquakes and tsunamis, and so on. However, the remaining elves in Falmat continent obviously do not have such exaggerated abilities. It remains to be further investigated why the above contradictions and paradoxes occur.
Summary
Although the current investigation of other worlds has just begun, we have already found six types of minerals that are not found on Earth, nine types of plants that are not found on Earth, and 22 types of animals that are not found on Earth. In addition to breakthrough discoveries in natural sciences, the observation and research of different racial civilizations in other worlds is also an exciting social science topic - this will be "alien contact" in the true sense!
It is still not possible to accurately estimate and consider the benefits of exploring other worlds. Perhaps, we can obtain some new energy sources and new crops with huge benefits from this new world, but even if we cannot obtain economic benefits in a short time, there are still It is necessary to further increase investment. Because the impact of many scientific breakthroughs cannot be measured in terms of money, it is necessary to pay tuition just for a certain possibility.
Although the opening time of the "door" is likely to be limited, and the country may not be able to obtain a stable new territory in another world, it is precisely because of this that we need to seize the time and increase investment in this work, and strive to win in the limited time. Achieve the most results within the time period. To this end, it is hoped that the central government can further increase its support for the exploration of other worlds, and at the same time properly handle the global impact it will bring...