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!

[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!

['thul]

instead you have a convicted ancestry?

[londonlassie]

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.

Well, she got the corrupt, sending-the-country-down-the-pan-through-greed-and-ineffectiveness Satrap bang on the mark in that case

Oh, the lucky Dutch!

[fool-ish]

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.

---

^ 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!

Aww poor James Cook! I go say hello to Cap'n Cook every time I go to Whitby and commiserate with him about the seagulls constantly 'evacuating' onto his head and shoulders!

[Lady Persephone]

It is a bit strange that dragons do appear to only live in this part of the world. But I agree that it seems they DO, otherwise surely the apparent virtual extinction wouldn't have happened.
Why they don't range further? Maybe they actually cannot undertake such a long flight over open ocean. I get the impression it's a LONG way over water to the areas we haven't heard about yet.
Otherwise, it could be the memory stone requirement that you mentioned. I wouldn't be surprised it if only occurs in this area. Heheh I hope Robin Hobb doesn't explain the intergalactic origins of memory stone... gives me bad memories of the later books of sara douglass in the Axis series.....

Yeah I am not sure why the liveships seem to be able to go as far as Jamailla but there seems to be a big cutoff right there. What's on the south side of Jamailla? I may have missed something but it never seems to be mentioned.

Oh also, I am not discounting the possibility that Gernia exists in the RoTE world!!! I never considered it, as it 'seems' a very different world. But there's nothing stopping it really, as there seems to be no contact between the RoTE world and whatever exists way over the ocean.

Chade *has* discovered gunpowder at least.....

*slowly creeps in*  Forgive me if this is something that's already been discussed in a later post as I've only read up to this point so far in this thread, but your mention of the following is something that has peaked my curiosity throughout my reading of the books: "Otherwise, it could be the memory stone requirement that you mentioned. I wouldn't be surprised it if only occurs in this area. Heheh I hope Robin Hobb doesn't explain the intergalactic origins of memory stone."  Didn't someone mention a legend of there being memory stone in the ocean on the other side of Others' Island which is why ships seemed to disappear when they went that way?  I have an inkling that there could in fact be a huge piece of memory stone somewhere on the far side of the vast ocean, beyond Clerres, beyond that Southern continent that I don't think we ever got a name for that Beloved hails from, that could lead 'off world'.  Has this ever been discussed?  Could it be that travel between the worlds of Gernia and The Realm of the Elderlings could be a very real possibility?     I've not read the Soldier Son trilogy but the fact that the memory stone has such magical properties, and we don't know everything there is to know about the Skill and its celestial origins . . travel off world could in fact be a reality that Hobb hasn't touched on . . yet.