On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 1:02 AM,  <xxxxxx@shadowgard.com> wrote:

>> Yeah, GDW pretty much tried to smoosh together "Pride of Lions", "Bonanza"
>>and "Tokugawa-era Samurai" and simplified horribly.

The JTAS 7 article does explicitly refer to "age of war" samurai as a
cultural model.

This may, of course, be a simplification for Terrans, to provide an
approximation that they might find familiar.

> More like an attempt at C J Cherryh's Hani from "Pride of Chanur and
> the sequels.

I had to check, but the first Chanur book came out in 81.  First
reference to Aslan that I could find was a teaser in JTAS 6, and an
article in JTAS 7, which was first quarter 1981.

The article is self-contradictory.

"Landholding Aslan concern themselves exclusively with government, and
the military (as high officers) depending upon their wives and
daughters to handle the everyday affairs of their lives. An upper
class Aslan male has only the sketchiest concept of money and no
inkling at all of how to exist in a technological society.' He could
not survive without someone to manage his affairs and keep him from
bankruptcy. This position is traditionally filled by a wife, although
another female relative can substitute. The ultimate ambition of many
Aslan females (particulary of low classes) is to amass a fortune (so
as to demonstrate their ability to handle money) and marry the highest
class male possible. The greater the fortune she amasses, the higher
class male she can marry."

Couple of paras later, it genders the 29 as male.

"Within the Aslan Hierate, high governmental functions are performed
by a council of twenty-nine clan leaders chosen from amongst the most
powerful clans. "The 29 (asthey are called) have quasi-religious
status and represent the essential unity of the Aslan race. To be
chosen one of "The 29" is the highest honor to which any Aslan can
aspire.

No member of the 29 has authority over another clan, or over the
Hierate as a whole, although each councilor has complete authority
over his clan and its allies, colonies, vassals, and clients. The 29
meet continously on Kuzu to adjudicate inter-clandisputes and decide
matters of group policy. No member of the 29 speaks for the Hierate as
a whole."

I would submit that they cannot both be correct; you cannot run an
empire, much less  continue to negotiate peaceful relations between
the factions, as well as up and down within your own faction, without
a fairly solid grasp of economics and politics.

I would sort of suspect that the upper class males, if they were
really that helpless, would regularly be getting bumped off and
replaced by competent middle class males.

They may not have to balance their own credit accounts, or manage
household finances, but I don't see any way they can be completely
innumerate luddites and still run an empire, unless they are just the
pawns of their household females.

I'm a little stumped as to how wealthy females would court high-SOC males.

I guess that's sort of the reverse of late-medieval life, where
land-rich but money-poor high-SOC aristocracy married their children
to the children of money-rich but lower-SOC wealthy merchants who were
looking to do some social climbing.

It also implies that "second sons" are more a social distinction than
actual birth order, and that the strongest son got to inherit, not
necessarily the oldest:

"Inheritance of a landhold is from father to son. Custom originally
led to fights among sons for the right of heir [sic].   The loser(s)
could become vassals of their brothers or leave and seek a land- hold
of their own. With the development of starflight, these excess or
"second" sons (ihatei) became the vanguard of the Aslan exploration
and conquest of space."

Again, it seems to imply the males cannot all be dumb as a post.

(I'm not sure how the Hani could be self-sustaining either; from what
I recall, there were very few males around, and I sort of got the
impression that there weren't going to be enough to breed replacements
each generation.)

Dan

--

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine
kook." -Alan Morgan