Re: [DL] North-South inversion in Deadlands

[Frempath2@netscape.net]

Daniel, 
I would respectfully disagree with a fair amount of your posting.
Comments listed within the text.

g'day
frempath

deadlands@gamerz.net wrote:
>
> The comment raised about the relative "creepiness" in Deadlands of the > Union vs Confederacy in the spiritualist thread actually raises an > interesting tendency in the game:  that of role inversion.  In the real > world, there is a tendency to place the Union totally in right and the 
> Confederacy completely in the wrong in the wrong.  

That depends upon who you hang around with and what revisionist clap-trap they were indoctronized with in their school.

>(Yes, I know I'm oversimplifying 

Absolutly, I agree 100%.

> but I'm doing so to make a point, so I would ask any C.S.A. enthusiasts 
> to kindly forgive me.)  In doing so, people have a tendency to overlook 
> many of the less reputable means the Union employed to secure its > victory, such as the widespread and systematic looting of southern farms > (viz. Sherman's march to the sea.) 

As opposed to the raids made on Unionist proporty by the Confederate forces??  Food is food, both sides needed it and took it where they could find it.  Your example of Sherman's march is famous but poor.  Most of the devastation associated with the march to the sea was revenge upon the Georgians after Andersonville was discovered.  Prior to that the foraging was strong but organized and restrained.  What is also often forgotten was that though the proporty damage was great, there were almost no cases of actions against persons.  If I remember correctly there was 1 rape and that fellow was eliminated by his own company.

>in the name of the abolition of slavery. 

WRONG!!! WRONG!!!! WRONG!!!!!

This was a war to save the Union.  PERIOD.  It was Mr. Lincoln who said that.  Mr. Lincoln also said that to save the Union he would be willing to free all the slaves, leave them all as slaves or free some and leave others in bondage.  The goal was to preserve the Union.  The emancipation proclimation was a strategic move to convince the Europeans that it was about slavery and thus deny the confederacy the recognition and aid from Europe they needed.

> Not only does this imply "the End justifies the means" which is a concept > with which I do not hold, but it also hides the fact that some of the > motivations of abolitionists were not entirely noble.  Conversely, the > South tended to have a much more gentlemanly way of fighting war,

You mean like at Ft. Pillow where they exacuted all of the prisoners??
They gentlemanly way of war your speak of was generally exibited by the West Point graduates toward each other, not one side or the other.

> partly because it was fighting on its home turf most of the time and > > partly because of the more gentil nature of its military leaders.

Again West Pointer, not Confederate.

> The classic example being Robert E. Lee vs. U. S. Grant.

No, the north just finnally found someone who knew that the south was not the target of the war but that Lee and his army was the target.

> In Deadlands, as the "cause" of the Civil War being removed, the North
> is stripped of its nobility of purpose and is thereby left with only its
> relatively ignoble means.  Similarly, the South gains stature by having
> essentially won the Civil War and by doing so by mostly reputable means.

So the north did not win " by mostly reputable means"?

> This inversion of roles is reinforced by modern revisionist views of the
> Civil War, long standing confederate nostalgia as exemplied by movies 
> such as "Gone with the Wind", and, dare I say it, the designers 
> succombing to the common desire to be different.

Nothing wrong with being different. Though a story of the south winning is hardly different for fiction.

> Therefore, we are left with a world in which
> the North has essentially lost the war and all its hypocrisies are left
> for all the word to see.  

Like the hypocracy of a strong central government in a confederacy inwhich states are supposed to weild supreme power?

> Conversely, the South has won and basks in the glory
> of the victor.  And it is the victor who writes the history books.

That they do.  But the learned man looks to what lies behind the propogana of the school history book.

>     My two cents worth.
>           Daniel Gwyn
> 
> "Y si yo vuelvo a nacer, yo los vuelvo a matar.
> Padre no arrepiento, ni me da miedo la eternidad,
> Yo sé que allą en el cielo el ser supremo nos juuzgarą
> Voy a seguir sus pasos, voy a buscarlos al mas allą."
> 
> From "El Preso Numero Nueve (The Ninth Prisoner)" author unknown
> 
> 
> 
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