adsii1970

That’s the best kind of recognition - the kind that sneaks up unaware!

10/10 I see you everywhere, mostly the games.

The KSP forum moderator's team presents the Threads of the Month May 2023 Edition Okay, okay, many of the students who hang out in my office during my office hours on campus are shocked that I am a big science fiction geek. So, when I saw that I could delay the Threads of the Month release to correspond with May 4th... I had to do it (although, in full disclosure, I think the Jedi are way over-rated. I am more of a fan of the Sith! ). Instructions on using the TOTM images: If your thread has been selected as a TOTM, you can copy the image's link above, go to the area of the forum you want to place it, then paste the link. When the image appears, press the <CONTROL> button and right click on your mouse. A menu will drop down and offer you the option to edit the picture. You can resize it - the first number can be changed as large or small as you want it. Eventually I will be adding these images to the thread I've created as a repository. For those out there who like the nerdy parts of the TOTM: To continue what I started in May 2021, I began keeping some forum statistics to respond to those claiming the forum was dying. In April, there were 501 new forum accounts (a decrease of 795, or down 38.67% from March). Out of the new forum members that joined last month, there were 24 who were active and participating in the forum. This conversion means 4.79% of the new users who registered their accounts are now contributing members of our community! (This is a decrease from March; 7.79% of the new members became active and contributing members). If you’re interested in seeing the new members of our forum, you can click here! Now, without further delay, I present to you the threads of the month for May: Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features a thread (or threads) that, while not directly Kerbal Space Program related, may be a creative work, fan-fiction, or other presentation related to the game. There were no nominations for this category for this month. Forum Member Created Challenges and Missions: This category contains missions and challenges created by you, the members of our gaming community. Many excellent missions and challenges threads are created that expand our fun with the game and press our skills, creativity, and sometimes, luck beyond what we get accustomed to. Let’s face it, we all have our go-to design basics and even our go-to vehicles we like to use. So sometimes, a good challenge can cause us to think of another way to achieve our goals. One of the good things about the challenges is for now, most of the basic challenges that feature the stock KSP (original) planets can be attempted in KSP2! So, until there are more updates and we are further along in the development map, there's no need to have two separate categories for challenges (but I am sure it will happen one day). Anyhow, about this nomination - we all like a good challenge that causes us to think outside of the box. And this one will cause you to do just that! The challenge, as described by @damerell as: So, if you are waiting for the next patch for KSP2 to drop and you want something to do in the original KSP, then why not give this challenge a try? Oh, and always, be sure to share some screenshots of your craft! Game Support/Game Mod of the Month: This category features either help with the game (stock or modded) or mods that add quality-of-life game play improvements to Kerbal Space Program. Usually, when a mod is nominated, I download and install it into one of my many games and give it a spin. However, this past month has been a bit of a blur for me. So, we will just have to take the word of those of you who nominated this month's mod. Brought to us by the hard work of @UltraJohn, this mod is described in the OP as: While the average KSP player may not have a use for the mod, it might have a use within the modding community. So, if you are interested in seeing if you can give KSP a more personalized touch with your mod, then this might be what you're looking for. General community threads of the month: This category features a thread that adds to the community and doesn’t fit the game support/game mod categories. There are times that a thread is nominated that contains a tool a forum member has put a lot of work into that we all think, "Wow, that's a really great thing they did for the community!" And with this nomination, that's one of the cases here. In this thread by @nyius, that's just what we have! It's a hosting site for all of our KSP2 creations! @nyius introduces this site as: Please note, as a member of the moderation team, it is not our policy to endorse any one craft site over another. But as a function of the Thread of the Month, we are simply bringing awareness to the forum community this site does exist. So, if you have a favorite go-to craft you're ready to share with the community OR you want to download someone else's creation (of triumph or Kerbal doom), then why not visit this thread and check out the links! Cinematic-based Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features a video or other form of cinematic of a Kerbal mission report using in-game video recorded game play. Note: This has changed. Instead of awarding this to a thread, this is a *post of the month* since most new cinematic works are being posted in a single thread. We have a lot of great content creators but because they've been posting their mission reports as videos in a single thread, most of their work goes unnoticed by the general forum audience. Hopefully, with this change in the category to a Post of the Month (POTM), this will highlight the great work done by these deserving content creators. Other threads that contain cinematic posts will also be featured in this category, too. Yes, folks, that's right. An overhauled image just for the cinematic posts! There's a lot of great content creators who are deserving of this recognition since we were made aware of the thread, Post Your Cinematics Here! (Cinematic Enthusiasts) by @HatBat. Although the thread did receive TOTM previously, it was felt that it wasn't enough for those of you who have shared your great creations featuring our favorite Kerbalnauts. Instead of of it being a TOTM, I've changed it into a CPOTM - a Cinematic Post of the Month. For this month's CPOTM, we'd like to recognize the work of @Oraldo revak in this amazing cinematic found here: Sometimes the forum software will get a little glitchy and an exact post may be a little hard to find, especially when it is buried in a longer thread. In case this happens, here's @Oraldo revak's cinematic presentation: If you happen to encounter other cinematics you feel are worthy of being recognized as this category's post of the month, please nominate them! You can use the same instructions to nominate a post containing a video as you would use to nominate a thread. Honorable mentions: Sometimes it’s a challenge to choose which threads are going to receive the honor of being selected as the Thread of the Month for our five categories. We get so many good nominations each month to choose from, but we limit it to one for each type. Threads nominated but not selected as a thread of the month become honorable mentions. The honorable mentions for this month are: There were no nominations for this category for this month. The honorable mentions for this month may not have made the Thread of The Month, but if you think they might be worthy of another opportunity, please renominate it! Congratulations to all the winners of the Thread of the Month! We want to thank our forum members, @AlamoVampire, @Klapaucius, @Nazalassa, and the members of the moderation team and staff who nominated this month’s contenders. Thank you so much for helping us identify noteworthy threads and bringing their awareness to our forum community. We’d appreciate your continued help in the future. The odds and ends: TO NOMINATE A THREAD FOR CONSIDERATION: If you find a thread you feel should be considered for next month’s thread of the month, then use the “report comment” feature (the three dots on the upper right corner of the comment box) to report the comment. Please put in the text field of the report post “Nomination for thread of the month,” and we will do the rest! You can always nominate more than one thread, too. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOES INTO THE DECISION WHEN CONSIDERING THE TOTM: Wonder no more! This helpful guide is to help you understand what we use to help determine what makes a thread a really good thread and one that becomes a thread of the month/cinematic post of the month winner. It's everything you want or didn't want to know and includes some helpful tips. And the last word this post: I'd like to thank a few people who continue to trust me enough to continue to support and allow me to contribute to the forum. I'd like to thank the Lead Moderator, @Vanamonde for bringing me on as a moderator, a decision that I'm sure has had moments where he often wonders why he did it. I'd also like to thank @Ghostii_Space and @PD_Dakota , our community managers and @Nerdy_Mike, the KSP Franchise Community Lead, for tolerating me and allowing me to continue to serve our Kerbal Space Program forum community through the monthly Threads of the Month post. In case you missed last month’s threads of the month, you can click here.

Quite right; and I did know that. Problem is I am responding to these between grading exams, handling administrative duties (ugh, I am in my last 16 days of being a division bean bag ), a migraine, and trying to dodge phone calls from book representatives, students wanting to ask questions about the fall semester classes I am teaching (both undergraduate and graduate classes) and preparing a new undergraduate course for the spring semester over Chinese history and this past month, I have been working on gathering resources on -- you guessed it, a seminar class on the Zhou Dynasty. So, I kinda have Zhou on the brain this week. But with more Orientalism has always been the traditional view. There were some really nifty things going on in the eastern part of the empire before Constantine undid Diocletian's division that simply did not exist in the west. However, Constantine was far more eastern oriented than he was Western Roman Empire oriented, as is obvious by his moving the capital of the empire further to the east to - Constantinople. But later, when the empire later split again along the old east/west line, the west was already in free-fall shortly after. Part of the decline was in the way Diocletian did his original split... Um, I am a professional historian. It's what I do. And I also say that what Europe experienced when the western Roman Empire collapsed (Rome was sacked) was NOT anywhere near what should be considered as a "Dark Age." There are plenty of written records, artwork, religious writings, and so forth that gives us a very accurate account of what happened from the fall of Rome to the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. The misnomer comes from the European Enlightenment Era writers who considered it as the "Dark Ages" because of the stranglehold the Roman Catholic Church/Holy See had over philosophy, education, and science - anything not of the divine and sacred is satanic at worst, apostate at best. The term, "heretic" was used to silence all critique of the Church and its teachings for over a thousand years, hence the term "Dark Ages." And that's where it comes from - so, by the strictest academic sense, it is not an accurate nor academic description of the period of time between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance. Call it the Medieval Era, the Post-Classical Period, or even the "Middle Ages." But the "Dark Ages" it simply isn't. It is a gross simplification at best. And a highly inaccurate one at that. Um, no. I've been studying history a while. And this is not correct. Mass production didn't begin to happen until the late Eighteenth Century, C.E. and the arrival of the machine age and the arrival of the powered machine. We do see "mechanical production" - a different concept, as early as the early Seventeenth Century C.E. and while it was in development a bit earlier, the beginnings of a new resistance, the trade guild to counter mechanical production, with the belief that machine production could never replace the quality of the craftsman. But remember, we are not talking about industry using the same terms between those two centuries - one still relied on animal or human powered machines, the other has graduated to water powered and steam driven machines. Using the incorrect definition of "Dark Ages" is dangerous, even in this application. One could say that the American Amish are causing the U.S. to be in the "Dark Ages" since they still use Eighteenth Century technology in agriculture, woodworking and carpentry, and even construction. Or one could say that since there are still nomadic peoples living in Siberia, that Russia is still a hunter-gatherer society, which either classification would be a false dichotomy. This is why using the correct terminology to describe eras and the use of correct terms is so important in any academic field of study. Oh, and by the way, handcrafted goods are still available worldwide today from all over the world. And there is not one civilization in a "Dark Age." But I do believe a Dark Age is coming because of our over-reliance on technology.

This is why serious historians and archeologists will always point to a proto-civilization. Nothing comes from nothing. Something always develops out of something. Even if it is a simpler form of something. I do believe we have to consider parallel development when we get into the ancient era. The development of the bow and arrow, battle axe, and other weapons of war bear witness to this. Also, agricultural tools, too. Common tools all designed for the same purpose, regardless of the civilization that designs them will have a similar look and design (rule of functionality). For fun, we can apply it to space exploration. If we do find life on another world, and since they will have some sort of agriculture, a plow will look like a plow we have here - and depending on their level of development, it may resemble one of the ones we have in our past or in current use - or may be something futuristic. But its basic design - we will recognize it as a plow. But even parallel development can only go so far. At some point, at their earliest point, all civilizations, like their languages, come from a common ancestor. Oral history passed down from one generation to the next. Who knows, at some point in time, there may have been various species of dinosaurs or other large reptile species alive in pre-civilization cultures where stories have been passed down over time. Oral histories are passed down and each generation will add stuff to it over time to highlight different aspects to the story they deem important or to make it more relevant to the generation hearing it. Soon, *poof* it wasn't thousands of years ago, it was grandpa who fought the fire breathing dragon... I have more theories on the dragon myths of the Europe/China/India/Japan, but yeah. I'll just leave it at that. Yes, the Zulu also have a form of this and was discovered by accident in the 1960s or 1970s, if I recall correctly. The problem is if we cannot translate it we have no idea what it means. I am not saying it to be mean, but we don't. Same thing with the Zulu mats and blankets. All we know is the colors have meaning. The style of knots and weaves have meaning. But other than that? Nothing. It's the same with the Inca and Mayan figure carvings, Linear A, and about a dozen other ancient writing samples out there. When a civilization collapses, no one tells us how to decipher their writing. And we lose so much information on who they were, what they believed, and what made them who they were. And sadly, with everything going digital today, if something wiped out the Internet, how much of human civilization would be gone forever today? Future generations would not know much about us. Writing is, by far, the most effective form of tangible communication because it requires less space to maintain. Sure, books and scrolls take up space. But look how things have evolved. This forum is a testimony of how far written communication has gone in 6,000 years of written and recorded human history. Thank you for making my point, @kerbiloid. But the reason it is different than the "Dark Ages" you were referring to is there is literally NO WRITTEN OR RECORDED history except for what we know from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and a few other remaining Greek literature samples and some other artworks about this era. That's it. NADA for all but the last 300-year period of that part of Greek history. The European history you are referring to has a lot of written documentation about it - so, it's not so dark.

Disagree totally. The transition from ancient to classical was not a sharp break but a gradual transition. China transitioned long before the Mesopotamian/Egyptian/Mediterranean region. And the "iron age" happened at different times and cannot be used as a defining moment of the dark ages since there are many dark ages all through history - nearly every civilization cluster group has them. Iron also appears in use at different times and at different regions of the world, depending on technological development. For example, the North American Indians were still not quite an iron age society when the first early modern Europeans (Vikings) landed in northern Canada and Maine in 1000 CE. By the time of Jamestown, some 600 years later, the Europeans had progressed to gunpowder while the American Indian was still barely in the iron age. Also, Alexander the Great's empire and military was already using iron and some early forms of a near-steel iron by the time of his death. His father, Phillip of Macedon, his entire army were using iron swords which is why his army was able to unite Greece. Clearly not the "Middle Ages/Dark Ages" you are referring to, so yeah. And the term, "Dark Ages" as defining the death of the western half of the Roman Empire is a misnomer as well. Academically, it can be called the Post-Classical period or the Medieval Period. But it wasn't dark. Scholasticism was on the rise - both through the newly founded Roman Catholic Church and through the various non-affiliated monastic learning centers where a great emphasis was placed on literacy and preserving science and knowledge of the past. It's where the modern concept of education and science originated was this era. Unfortunately, subsequent popes and other Roman Catholic leaders would force scholasticism to offer two separate schools... and then we really get fun stuff happening.

I owed you an answer, @Vanamonde , and am sorry about the delay. And to be honest, not only did the Romans, the Persians, and the Mongolians, and... So, in a short answer, yes, it is endemic to empires of the time. Large, land-based empires, even today, require technology, an investment in wealth, communication, and good logistics. Sure, it is easy to claim land as yours. But you have to be able to defend your claim, supply your troops, equip your troops with superior weapons, and have extremely quick communications to assess the ever-changing situation on the ground. Occupation of hostile lands require it. This simply isn't possible in the ancient, classical, or post-classical eras. It's barely possible now and look at all the problems that still exist today... Every civilization that tried to hold a large span empire have troubles with uprisings. Logistics and communication within such a large geographical area were the two biggest problems. Alexander the Great had the least amount of problems, but even he had problems with uprisings. His solution was the same as every other; crush uprisings with extreme brutality and leave only a handful of survivors to spread word. The Romans excelled at this. But the problem is the Roman Empire covered a lot more territory than any other empire did before it - and it did this with extremely brutality. If you do not have the loyalty of the citizenry on your side, history shows that an occupying force is always doomed to fail. Alexander the Great (also known as Alexander the Greek) would always place Greek officials loyal to him as government officials in conquered and occupied lands. And of course, those officials would bring their families and servants - all Greek - with them. While he did encourage intermarriage with the locals, he didn't realize this large infusing of Greek with local peoples would actually aid his empire. Unfortunately, this one aspect would be something Rome and Romans would not do. Although they would adopt this occupation strategy, they would remain separate - purely Roman - and not integrate into local populations. Nor would they bring in Roman servants, but use locals as slave servants - another rub against the people in the lands where Romans were occupying. To touch on something you said, Rome was known for its intense brutality for not only warfare against its enemies, but against any of its territories where a rebellion took place. Remember, Rome, at its height, had the best trained and equipped army the world had ever seen. The only army that came close to the discipline, training, and equipment would have been Zhou China. Had these two empires ever decided to clash, it would have been epic. Rome was not just content to raze a city. No, they would carry off entire populations into slavery (55,000 Carthaginians can vouch for this fact), they would salt fields (places in Tunisia still cannot grow anything thanks to this Roman practice). The Roman Empire always had multiple problems when it came to foreign relations - it never met an outside entity it could not distrust. If the Romans knew the Inca existed, they would have sent a flotilla over the Atlantic to fight them. There is anecdotal evidence that Rome was nearly ready to press even further to the east and northward before various factions within its own Senate and army began the power struggle that put it and Caesar on a collision course that would alter history. If a rebellion took place within one of its conquered territories, Roman authority could become really got bad, Romans would just crucify people, often seen as the most barbaric practice available - about four meters apart, on a single pole, and along both sides of the road for all going along the road to the razed city as a "friendly reminder" never to rebel against the authority of Rome. Over time, this makes anyone who has been repressed and occupied by Rome an ally against Rome. Rome knew this,

Um, you missed a post... And yes. It's part of my job. And it is why I listed it among the other civilization clusters as posted.

Exactly. I believe there are a lot more people playing KSP2 than the 10% Steam reports...

That's really a shot in the dark if you are using Steam to track it. Steam only tracks KSP2 or KSP(original) if launched through the launcher. If you bypass the launcher, as I do, it does not count your time in-game nor does it count your game time in the publisher-reported game statistics. This thread is based on the number of Steam users who are using the KSP2 launcher to begin the game (and it's reporting tool through Steam) because it has no way of knowing how many of us who are playing KSP2 bypassing launching the game through Steam and the T2/PD launcher by going to the .exe file and launching from there.

For now. But I have faith in our community.

@Dunas Only Moon - Dagnabbit! Now look at what you've gone and made me do, share a link with some family friendly replacement words, gee willikers! https://www.tennessean.com/story/life/entertainment/12th/2019/07/19/50-curse-words-alternatives/1673915001/#:~:text=Shake up conversations%2C expand your vocabulary and elevate,cow! 8 Poo on a stick! More items Actually, pay me no mind, I am just trying to be funny. It's been a long time since I've not had a migraine in a 24 hour period, so I am feeling a little

Worse than that. Kensucky.

Ongoing assignment since they change frequently. I own other titles that are T2 that are not PD (and thusly) far different than the one that is specific to KSP and KSP2. Always read the fine print and never assume that you know what it says and means. And never assume it is a universal because the main publisher is the same. It's not universal... Always. Ever drive on the roads around here? If the potholes don't get you, the morons texting while driving will! A desire to give back to a community that I dearly enjoy being a member of - although there are times it is rather trying. This...

A new chapter is coming soon since the Spring 2023 semester has now ended. I am so sorry about the delay.

As long as you don't discuss Grease II, you'll be fine. That movie stunk!

The Greeks (if you are not going to consider the ancient precursor Greeks of the Minoans and the Mycenaeans, are a Classical era civilization, not an ancient era civilization, for the sake of studying world history/civilization. It's not that I am trying to make light of your comment, there is a classification system used in the study of civilizations. Since the mid-twentieth century (CE), this system has undergone tremendous revision as it has become widely recognized that not all civilizations transitioned from the ancient era to the classical era around the same time. In fact, there are still cultures today that one could easily classify as a post-classical society rather than a post-modern society or post-industrial society, whichever term you choose to use. Ancient Greece in the form of both the Minoans and the Mycenaeans on Crete was very modern in its mid-ancient era. But the sad thing is we also do not know much about them because of the way Crete has been built and rebuilt over the years. The Minoans collapsed after a series of natural disasters and an invasion by the Mycenaeans. And the Mycenaeans took over and adopted much of what the inoans were already doing. What we do know has mostly been discovered by accident or what has been preserved from other smaller islands where we know the two civilizations had other settlements also. However, when both of these civilizations entered their Dark Age, it lasted for a while - the only evidence we have of what happened then is the writings of Homer and a few other surviving Greek tragedies and plays that are based on mythology. So, unlike their Mesopotamian, Hindi, and Chinese counterparts, their dark age was lengthy and a lot of their development was lost. When it reemerges around 480(ish) BCE, it is a latecomer into the Classical Era. The good thing about the arrival of the Classical early Greeks and the later Hellenistic Greeks are they wrote everything down. We have extensive records from them. There is a wealth of materials from the Classical era Greeks and what they accomplish during an eight hundred year period is amazing - economic theory, science, math, medical science, and the like. But it is not considered as one of the core cradles of civilization. As far as the pre-ancient cultures and even ancient societies go, they are relatively latecomers compared to Mesopotamia, the Indus River Valley, the Norte Chico, and Jiahu civilizations. Nah, not hardly. Rome just happened to arrive in the Classical Age when it was already underway! Within the Mediterranean world, one could argue Phillip of Macedon was probably Greece's first Greek Classical era ruler. China entered it's Classical era as the Zhou Dynasty rose to power - about 500 years before the Mediterranean world did! Rome was, for all practical purposes, Greece III, to "borrow" your numbering system, don't overlook the huge difference between the Greeks before and during/after Alexander the Great. His Greece is radically different because of his love of everything Persian and that's how we end up with the Hellenistic era. So, I'll refer to Alexander's Hellenistic Greece as being Greece II. Rome was becoming increasingly "Oriental" - throughout its expansion. It began early into adopting a lot of Alexander the Great's Hellenistic Greek cultural traits as its own, it adopted the Greek religion, economic systems, and philosophy. But the Romans are the anti-thesis of development of everything except warfare. They had to be because of the internal and external threats faced by Rome. There were already a large number of Greeks on the Italian peninsula, so the Greek culture was adopted into the developing Roman identity. There's also a good blending of the Etruscan civilization, an early civilization that was already on the Italian peninsula when Rome began. Rome was great about incorporating every idea it encountered that it considered as superior to its own, incorporating it into its own culture, and making it Roman. But every civilization does it, but Rome was superior because it had to adopt quickly to survive. No. The merchant class and higher classes (the aristocracy and old landed wealthy) had no desire to industrialize. The Italian peninsula was wealthy in agricultural products high in demand - grapes, olives, fish, and other crops high in demand on the international markets of the day. It also had large quantities of marble, tin, and copper - quick sources of wealth without having to rely on even the most rudimentary industry of the day. Plus, whatever could not be made in any large quantities on the Italian peninsula could be readily imported from other places within the Mediterranean basin by either land or sea trade routes. So, no, Rome had no need or desire for the development of industry even to the modest scale that even Alexander's Greece had. The often overlooked factor for the large amount of agricultural wealth on the Italian peninsula is the later empire had at the end of the first century, BCE, was close to 2 million slaves working on Roman farms and orchards. This made Rome's agricultural exports cheaper even in the most remotest marketplaces in the region. Rome's lack of vision for the development of even modest industry meant that it would have to resort on taxation -- heavy taxation -- to bear the cost of empire by the time the empire was in its last four hundred years (about 20 CE to the collapse of the western empire). Not quite. While the collapse of the Western Roman Empire did bring chaos to central and western Europe, Eastern Europe and Russia fared better without the baggage of Rome until 1453 and Constantinople fell. However, Rome was far from being the cradle of a stabilizing force in central and western Europe. Because of the harshness of the Roman government and the cruelty of the Roman military on the peoples of conquered and subjugated lands, there were often uprisings, discontentment, and other disruptions of Pax Romana that had to be dealt with. The disarray of the Middle Ages came as a result of a conversation we cannot have on the forum since it does involve the alliance/marriage of the Holy Roman Empire and the Holy Roman See (The Roman Catholic Church).

It's like leaving a bad Yelp review of a restaurant when you've never eaten there yourself!

I mentioned this... You may have forgotten, but I didn't. As @Vanamonde pointed out, I do this within what I do for a living. Yes, but it is pretty standardized (core central set of characters by this point in its history). The interesting thing is what caused/facilitated its development? History shows us in every other technological development there is always a forerunner. We just didn't come up with cell phones that are palm-sized over night. There is a series of innovations since the invention of the telephone that has led up to what we have now. Why would the written language - the single most important innovation ever - be any different? It is still mixed worldwide. Using this logic, one could say that any modern nation is still not "modernized" since no nation is completely urban. Japan's modernization happened a lot faster than any western European nation. History shows that. The only thing that slowed Japan's economic and industrial development down was the impact of scarcity of raw resources and what I call the "geographical lottery." This geographical lottery is why Japan and Russia soon found itself fighting over Chinese Manchuria and the Russian area surrounding Port Arthur. For the Russians, it was because of the need for a warm water Pacific port (extremely simplified by their primary reason). For the Japanese, it was for a stronghold into Manchuria and the access to raw materials - something the Japanese islands do not have an abundant supply of (coal, iron ore, chromium, nickel, copper, etc). Scarcity is not something that helps industrialized nations - but that's not a topic for ancient history since the Twentieth Century can hardly be called ancient. However, what Japan did in the short 300 year span from its Ancient age to its Classical age is still remarkable - they did it in half the time of the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans, a third of the time of the Chinese, and well, they outlasted the Celts. There are a lot of reasons why the ancient Japanese did outlast a lot of their contemporaries, such as the European Celts, the various Goths, and others. Sure, the Goths and Celts were absorbed into other cultures, but the isolation of the Japanese islands worked in Japan's favor for a while. And in the ancient world, isolation could either strengthen or destroy a civilization.

Hello and welcome to the forum! Please be sure to share some screen shots of your creations, @BettyLarson!

Yes, this was done as a way to contact the ancestors, but not all the pieces were destroyed by fire. This is why there are so many examples of both oracle and dragon bones available along the early Huang He River settlements (Yellow River settlements for those of you outside China - this is the cradle of the earliest Chinese civilizations). But once again, it was these religions before Confucianism/Buddhism/Jainism and other late coming ancient belief systems appeared within the region. As wise men or shaman (those who were able to determine the will of the ancestors and interpret the dragon bones and oracle bones) passed their knowledge to the next generation, it is believed their symbols became standardized over time - how long, we do not know. But how they began (the precursor or proto-writing) we do not know this either. What we do know from the archeology is there is a standard set of symbols that appear in the historical record nearly the same time as a standardized set of writing appears in every other civilization cluster around the same time. Remember, there is no widespread literacy in any place in the world except for the Minoan/Mycenaean civilization of the late Ancient Era - but only because their system of writing was extremely easy to learn and was based on consonant sounds rather than concepts or syllables as most of the other ancient world systems were. Both what would develop in the Indus Valley and in the Huang He were unique - a written language concept that was a universal within its region - the symbol meant the same in every dialect of the spoken language family, no matter how remote. That didn't happen anywhere else as languages developed. Again, another puzzle to the development of language patterns. Religion is the key here - in nearly every civilization cluster (except for what's happening in South America because we literally have no idea thanks to the Spanish of the 1500s and 1600s) is written language development, commerce, and religion are tied directly. Here's why: Clerics develop a written language to record the oral religious history, the dos and don'ts, and other aspects of their religion to preserve for future generations of clerics and priests. Clerics begin preserving oral traditions of the deities, their interactions with humankind, etc. They train the next generation according to those writings. The kings and nobility see the value of "written records" for taxation purposes, begin recording marketplace revenue - remember, marketplaces were owned by the "government" - or the ruling family. Remember, running an empire is expensive and competitive. Merchants begin seeing the benefit of record keeping for transactions with other merchants and in trade. (Most non-religious writing samples are trade receipts). And the rest, as they say, is history. The presumption is China probably did not follow any differently than the Ancient Indians, Mesopotamian civilizations, or anyone else.

But even these appear from nowhere in the archaeological record. There's no precursory development of them. Same thing with the pre-Sanskrit Hindi written language, Linear A, and the Egyptian forerunner to hieroglyphics. That's what's intriguing. In full disclosure, and since you do mention the evolutionary process of divinary symbology, this is much the same as expected with the rest of the civilization clusters - the development of the written language and religion are not only tied, they are intertwined. A few years back, I spent an entire summer semester teaching an undergraduate course on Mesopotamian cultures and spent a lot of it in literature and religious systems. Had three students that were constantly mad; two over how I rejected their views of religion and theology (an extremely hot and contested topic) and the third was upset because I refused to deviate from the "standard" Mesopotamian view of human social order (for the most part, Mesopotamian civilizations did not care about race; slavery was not about race. It was about debts a person owed or if they had been conquered). But what puzzled them most of all were the ties between religion and science, religion and government, religion and the marketplace... they had a hard time understanding the many faces of ancient religion and why it was so important to ancient peoples everywhere. Yes. From about 1860 to 1900, Japan did what took Great Britain nearly 200 years to do - to become a modern industrial power. The Russo-Japanese War was a disaster for the Russians and an awakening of the Imperial Japanese might. I hate the movie because it is NOT historically accurate as the U.S. did not play a role in it, but The Last Samurai was accurate in its portrayal of the Satsuma Rebellion (1877) between the Imperial Japanese Army and the last of the traditional Samurai. Did not steal anything. They did as any other civilization did, they adapted an idea they liked from another civilization, simplified it, and made it Japanese. The Koreans, who are also descendants of the Chinese, did the same thing. Cultural appropriation has been happening since the most ancient of times. It has never been regarded as being evil or wrong until the post modern era. And not everything from the post-modern era is necessarily a good thing. If cultural appropriation was evil, there'd be no pizza, no spaghetti with meatballs or marinara sauce, or many other international favorites. Our world's global culture (the similarities we all share) is quite literally a hodgepodge of mixed-mashed cultural appropriations at its best.

Yeah, I just hope I haven't killed the thread. I am interested in the philosophical discussion - as in why that around 3200 BCE does every single civilization cluster (Mesopotamia, Crete, Egypt, China, Indus River Valley, and South America) does written language, even if we still cannot translate it today suddenly appear out of nowhere without any trace of a written proto-language?

Yeah, be careful with those kinds of things, though. The problem is there is not any one "aha" thing we can say with certainty. I have no cultural dog in the fight, for lack of a better explanation, but the Indus, while important, is NOT the oldest civilization in the world. As a side note, there are two types of civilizations - simple and complex. None of these, at this state of development, can be considered as complex because NONE have a written language at this time. What they all do have is a distinct form of pottery, architecture, trade medium, trade goods, agriculture, and religion/legends/systems of belief. 3350 BCE is roughly the founding of the earliest dynasty of Egypt, based on archaeology and the appearance of pictoglyphs alone.* Stepped pyramids do not appear until around 3500 BCE. 3300 BCE is the rough era date given for the Indus Valley Civilization. It is widely accepted by nearly every scholar. 3500 BCE is the rough era date given for the Norte Chico Civilization. These folks were building stepped pyramids at the same time of the Egyptians and were located in what is now Peru/Argentina (South America). (6300 BEC) 5000 BCE The date I go with is the one not in parenthesis. It's the rough era date given for the beginning of the Mesopotamian civilization where a distinct culture and language first appears. (7000 BCE) 5000 BCE The date I go with is the one not in parenthesis. It's the rough era date given for the beginning of the Jiahu civilization. Writing does appear about 3200 BCE, about the same time it appears in both Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus Valley. Cannot explain why writing appears in three major population clusters near the same moment in world history, but it does. I have spent considerable time studying the ancient world and reject the parenthesis dates because ONE PIECE of pottery or "dragon bones" as certain researchers claim is insufficient evidence to base the early start date of an entire civilization on. Unfortunately, there is a lot at stake when it comes to sense of civilization bragging rights. Considering that the Hindi Indians have the longest unchanged cultural heritage since 3300 BCE is no small feat in human affairs. And it is something I point out in every semester of world civilization.