Talk:Players

Playful name for Tata

The Players created a new name for Tata when they conquered it and joined it to Dreamland. The name was something like mipatatatatai. However, it likely is not exactly this, because this was based on an error: the Late Andanese word for child is not */pata/ but puta, and it is imperative that pata appears in the name. Possible solutions are:

1. Using /pata/ to mean "hammer", saying it is a variant of /vata/. This is unsatisfactory, hwoever, as it would just mean "land of the ruling hammers of Tata" or some suvch thing.
2. Using hupatatatatai instead, and saying that /hupa/ is L Andanese for "nation, country". This rebracketing would likely shift the /tata/ leftward one syllable, and leave the remaining /tatai/ undefined. this would require reading the /h/ as either an /f/ or an /š/ in Babakiam. However, this does not solve the problem of the party name itself: there must be a word in Andanese to translate Bābākiam pata "play", or else the name of the party will need to become a compound. And if /pata/ exists in Andanese, it would be unlikely for it to not appear in a name like /hupatatatatai/.
3. Using the preexisting prefix pa- that denotes articles of clothing, even if there is no commonly referred to clothing called /pata/ (the Players were not interested in fancy clothes).

Note that the word kitatai means "spear", and that the root of this is tatai. Even so, this may not help, as the morpheme tata, the proper name of the state, would be likely to also appear.

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Rasparism was a philosophy created during the Halasala government detailing the best way for an aggressive minority population to dominate a submissive host population both economically and militarily. In Tata, most Raspara considered the Dreamers their ideal host population, because they were historical enemies.

However, the Raspara party in Anzan was much stronger than the Raspara party in Tata, and the Raspara in Anzan preferred instead to dominate the majority population of Anzan, which called itself the Swamp Kids. The Tataan Rasparists had always admired the Swamp Kids, and had misgivings about abusing the very people they considered their closest allies. They consented, however, to start abusing the Swamp Kids given that Rasparism always stressed that the health of the host nation must be protected in order to ensure the continued dominance of the ruling class. Thus, even though the Raspara would abuse the Swamp Kids, they would ensure that enough Swamp Kids survived to be a perpetual majority in their nation.

The Raspara rejected calls for an all-Raspara nation both because Raspara philosophers preferred to rule over an alien people and because the Rasparists in Tata wanted to take advantage of the enormous land area of Anzan and figured that they could have this land available to them only if Tata and Anzan were run by the same people. They thus actually wished that Anzan would invade their nation, and promised the Swamp Kids that if they chose to invade, the Raspara would collaborate with the Swamp Kids and betray the Players, and even after that, would allow the Swamp Kids to rule over them.

At this time, after 25 years of attending schools run by the Raspara, most Swamp Kids were blind to the idea that the Raspara party existed solely to abuse them, and considered the Tataan Raspara's offer of an alliance to be genuine, even though the Swamp Kids disliked the Raspara. Privately, however, the Tataan Raspara knew that they were in a weak position, since Tata's ruling Play party did not let openly pro-Raspara people own dangerous weapons. Some Raspara in Tata hoped that they could instead simply move to Anzan themselves and not need to fight a war.

The Raspara considered Anzan, not Tata, to be their home, even though they knew that the Swamp Kids did not want them there. The Raspara religion centered around worship of a goddess associated with death and abortion, and they considered killing humans to be acceptable. The Raspara wanted to live amongst the Swamp Kids so that the Swamp Kids could treat them to a more luxurious lifestyle. But few of them were willing to launch a hostile invasion of Swampy territory because they knew that both the Swamp Kids and the Players would turn against them. Nevertheless, some Raspara did move into the Swamp Kids' territory in Anzan.

Cold-Play relations

Viva la vida! Khemehekis (talk) 10:33, 16 October 2021 (PDT)

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Restoration of child labor

Because of the high birthrate, the Play population soon again consisted mostly of children. The population was now growing so fast that Players living in some parts of the empire were not getting enough food, because they were eating it faster than it could be sent to them. There were no more slaves to capture, and the native Players now vastly outnumbered them anyway. The Rasparas decided to introduce child labor yet again. As soon as young Play children could tell yes from no, they left the nursery and went to work on plantations and in factory prisons where all of their food and clothing were made.

But the Raspara still felt some sympathy for the Player workers, as they saw themselves as on the same side in a fight against their common enemy, the Dreamers.

Although the Raspara overseers allowed the Players to play whenever they wished, there was still a lot of work that needed to be done. The Players were told that they were allowed to do anything they wished that would help themselves, but they were told that bad habits would cause them to be hurt and, if necessary, killed. By no means was the work given to the Players impossible to complete, except for those who were disabled, but Players who could not or would not do the work they were assigned lived in fear of the many frightening punishments for Players who played too much. Many of these involved crushing the children, as the Raspara knew that this type of punishment could not be turned back on them.

The Player economy was still low on resources and hungry for land despite the enormous size of their empire. The Raspara began sending Player explorers to Tarwas to settle the southern third of the nation.

But after this flurry of activity in the early 4140s, the Play party seemed to quiet down somewhat and go back to focusing on their own country. Their population growth had been stunted by the Massacre of 4141, which allowed their economic growth to speed up. Since their whole economy was directed toward the military, this meant that their military was rapidly becoming more powerful.

Minor revolts against the Raspara

Where other nations weren't helping to cut down the Empire's flowerlike growth, it was the Players' own misplaced leadership that ruined their ancestors' plans. It came to seem that AlphaLeap's parting words of hatred were correct after all. The Rasparas relied on a complicated political machine to keep their workers in line. Political battles over problems such as the increasing abuse of Players by their Raspara leaders gradually eroded the ability of the Rasparas to control their subjects, and at times they again lost control over small areas of the Anchor Empire (which included Tata at this time). The Rasparas were aware of these signs of decay in their nation, but they were already doing their best to prevent a total rupture of their government.

Adding to the problem was the fact that they were still overwhelmingly outnumbered by Players, and the fact that most of these Players were very stubborn and yet very gullible people, who would listen to and obey orders from people who promised to solve their many problems. Even some Rasparas began to defect from their party and form independent political organizations within the Empire intending to overthrow the mainstream Raspara government. But most of the new rebels were ex-Players, who were better at gaining trust from other Players than were Rasparas.