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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MoogleEmpMog" data-source="post: 1703197" data-attributes="member: 22882">Eberron's medievalism aside, saying that it's impossible to retain 'absolutist' philosophies following as cataclysmic an event as the First World War ignores historical evidence.The vast majority of the human population outside Europe, and a majority outside of France and perhaps Austria, Germany and England, did maintain absolutist philosophies following WW1.Aside from isolated (and often self-proclaimed) intellectuals who competed with their eugenicist, Christian Progressive, communist, socialist, ultra-capitalist, proto-libertarian and other radical counterparts for the hearts and minds of the relatively small elite college-attending population, the United States remained absolutist through the 1920s.  Much of the country remained in the thrall of (absolutist) Wilsionian democratic evangelism during that period, and (absolutist) religious faith remained a prime mover in American life.  The Great Depression did far more to dampen these sentiments than WW1.Most of Asia, independent Asia Minor and Africa either retained or established (absolutist) monarchial governments.  Imperial Japan became one of the world’s great powers in the aftermath of WW1, while the Middle East experienced relative prosperity under the equally relative stability of its early Hashemite and Saudi monarchies.Much of Europe, including almost all of the Scandinavian and Mediterranean countries, followed a similar course between WW1 and WW2.  The major war powers split about evenly between (absolutist) extreme nationalism and (relativist) extreme internationalism.  Austrian culture disintegrated after losing its stable monarchy, laying the stages for its absorption into Nazi Germany, but like England, Austria retained a significant minority of nationalists loyal to its own (absolutist) history and cultural identity.  Germany, of course, experienced a huge growth of nationalism that merged with eugenics, class warfare and neo-pagan culture to form the National Socialist movement.  France clearly distanced itself from nationalistic trappings, and became a hotbed of many of the nihilistic movements Nisarg describes - many of whom, incidentally, were backed either knowingly or not by the Soviet Union, which hoped to weaken the nations of Europe by doing so.And the Soviet Union itself?  It and its widening circle of client states espoused a different form of absolutism, but a form all the same.  Certainly their power increased in the aftermath of WW1.That’s ignoring the cataclysmic events of prior conflicts – and their non-relativist aftermaths.  The Taiping Rebellion in China killed more people than WW1… but left the (absolutist) Chinese empire intact for some time afterwards.  The 30 Years War impacted Europe’s population more than WW1, and tore apart the religious unity of Christendom in the process… yet Europe remained almost monolithically monarchial and religiously absolutist for centuries afterwards.As for technology, well, firearms and mercantilism did kill European feudalism... and ushered in the modern era of absolute monarchy.  If anything, the emphasis on air power in WW1, with its accompanying force multiplication of lone, highly trained elites, would have pushed Germany and Austria back in the direction of feudalism, had France, England and the United States not dismantled those previous successful and stable monarchies.  Same with Russia if the Czarist government had not been duped by England and France into serving as a punching bag for Germany, an ideological ally.Korvaire’s reaction to the Last War isn’t entirely clear from the Eberron world book, but at a glance it appears to be a far more historically ‘normal’ one than France, England, Austria and Germany’s reactions to WW1.That Eberron is medieval is open to debate.  That its social order is at the very least as plausible as that of most fantasy worlds appears obvious.  Which is doubly a credit to Keith Baker and his team when you consider that they weren't focusing on the creation of a realistic world.</blockquote>

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