Voyages of discovery? (spoilers for all RotE books)

[Farseer]

Just a minor point of interest - Robin was saying in her newsgroup (if I understood her correctly! I hope I did) that she based the pirate isles on the real life history of Australia. Yay us!
She's referring to our convict past (yes I know most of us aren't descended from convicts!) but I'm not 100% sure if she means the pirate isles as they were at the start of Liveships (ie convicts = pirates) or at the end of Liveships (convicts = mix of pirates and ex-slaves).
I guess she might be referring mainly to the slaves, as they are people who have 'gained freedom'. Although the slaves aren't necessarily law-breakers, but pirates are, so maybe it's the mix thing!

Anyhoo, interesting that our history sparked that.

I think I have expanded on this elsewhere but, since I've recently directed others here, thought I'd come back and clarify this point in this space...

As far as I can gather, it is actually the original Bingtowners and Rain Wilders who mirror the Australian 'convict past'. In this, Jamaillia is to Bingtown and the Rain Wilds as England is to Australia and, in place of the Satrapy, we have the British Empire/Government. The majority of those who were originally sent to Bingtown were banished there after having committed crimes in Jamaillia, such as was the case of [[Jathan Carrock]] and his family in 'Homecoming'. The Cursed Shores were settled in the same vein as how Australia came to be settled after English criminals were banished to the Great South Land...an entire continent/country surrounded by sea makes for a perfect prison one must admit! The same could be said of the Cursed Shores and the Rain Wilds.

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^ Entirely off topic but, as it was the Dutch who 'discovered' The Great South Land/New Holland/Terra Australis/Australia *first* but chose not to settle it, and instead the British who claimed it much later and then settled a penal colony here, I came > < this close to being a Dutch person who could have been the among the first in the world to read the RWC books instead of among the English-speaking last! Blast you William Dampier and James Cook!