Chapter 21 "Preliminary Investigation Report on the Other World" (II)

The southern half of the entire continent of Falmatt is generally a staggered terrain of hills, plains and low mountain ranges, and in general, the terrain is not high, the precipitation is moderate, and the climate is mild, which is relatively easy to carry out agricultural development. Pen ~ fun ~ Ge www.biquge.info the coastline in the southern part of the mainland is rugged and tortuous, and there are many harbors, which are suitable for the development of shipping and fishery. In this region, the vast majority of the continent's population, arable land and cities, as well as the main developed civilizations, are concentrated.

However, this most prosperous area of the continent of Falmatt is roughly divided into east and west by the Romanian mountain range, which runs from northwest to southeast, and spans half the continent. Although the altitude of this mountain range is not high, the terrain is quite steep, and it is not easy to climb over the mountain, so it still has a certain geographical isolation effect. To the east of the mountains is the largest plain on the continent and the core hinterland of the empire, with the imperial capital located at the westernmost point of this plain. To the west of the mountains, the terrain was more fragmented and rugged, scattered with more independent or semi-independent vassal states, and although close to the emperor, the empire's control over the region was still weak. The Arnus hills, where the "Gate" is located, are located in the western foothills of the Romanian mountains.

On several large islands further south of the continent, the Empire had migrated people across the sea and established a number of colonies, but the degree of development was very low, the actual control was limited to the ports, and the population was even smaller, which can be roughly compared to the American colonies in the early Age of Discovery.

The northern half of Falmatt is more inhospitable and largely undeveloped, but there are still scattered cities, ports, and sapient settlements. However, most of these civilization strongholds were confined to the coast, and the inland areas far from the coast were generally inaccessible.

The most striking feature of the northwestern part of the continent is a narrow desert sandwiched between inland mountain ranges and the humid coastal hills of the continent's north coast, which the indigenous people call the "Western Desert". According to our travelers' previous field investigations, the total length of this desert from east to west is more than 2,000 kilometers, but the average width between north and south is only 100 to 300 kilometers. At its narrowest point in the desert, it is said that it is only more than twenty kilometers from south to north, and the trek can cross the desert in just one day. Even in the wider desert areas, there are many oases that can be used to replenish water and food. Therefore, the "Western Desert" alone is not enough to hinder passenger traffic and trade.

However, because the southern part of the desert clings to the impassable and steep mountains, which means that travelers have to climb and cross the desert at the same time to reach the other side of the continent, this not so vast desert still becomes the dividing line between the north and the south of the western part of the continent.

Directly north of the continent is a steep mountain range covered with snow all year round, known locally as the "Ice and Snow Mountains", which is the highest place in the entire Falmatt continent, and is also the source of many rivers on the continent, with a large number of coniferous forests, and many precious medicinal herbs, mineral deposits and animal skins. However, due to the harsh climate, the "Ice and Snow Mountains" are also the most inhospitable areas on the entire continent, roughly equivalent to Alaska in the eyes of earthlings.

In the northeast of the continent, on the east side of the snow-capped mountains, there is a vast grassland, which is roughly the same size as the Mongolian steppe, but the terrain is low and flat, and the northern end of the steppe is directly close to the sea, so it is far warmer and wetter than the Mongolian steppe, rich in water and grass, and the climate and environment are more similar to the undeveloped Polish plain. In this steppe, there have been many powerful nomadic peoples, and many southward invasions and raids, posing a great threat to the civilized city-states and kingdoms in the south of the continent. Because the nomadic tribe that recently dominated this steppe was the rabbit tribe among the orcs, and was also called "headhunter rabbit" by the locals, this steppe is also called "headhunter rabbit steppe", just like the origin of the place name of the Mongolian plateau.

2. The intelligent race

Unlike Earth, where only human civilization was born, in addition to humans, there are also civilizations of multiple intelligent races such as elves, orcs, and dwarves on the continent of Farmatt. Competition, alliances, and scuffles between races are the leitmotif of the continent's history.

However, no matter which intelligent race it is, it is not the natives of the Falmatt continent, but the outsiders who have moved from many different worlds through the "gate" on the hills of Arnous. Among them, human beings arrived on the Fermatt continent through the "gate" the latest, but they developed the fastest, so they came behind in the fierce and cruel racial competition, and finally became the hegemonic race that ruled the entire Farmatt continent.

At the same time, there are also a large number of animals and plants from other worlds that have been brought to the Falmatt continent by these intelligent races from other worlds. Due to its age, it is no longer possible to determine which organisms are native to the continent of Falmatt unless large-scale and long-term archaeological excavations and fossil exploration are carried out.

According to what is known, the humans in Farmatt are all Caucasians, and there are no yellows or blacks. The physical characteristics of the local white people resembled those of Western Europeans and Northern Europeans, they were tall, had a variety of hair colors, and used the same language long before the empire unified the continent. Their clothing, customs, and food are similar to those of early Europeans before the Roman Empire. At present, the advance team has applied to the higher authorities to send linguists to investigate and analyze to confirm whether they are related to the white Europeans of the earth.

In the last few thousand years, humans have become the most powerful race on the continent of Farmatt, dominating almost all of the plains suitable for farming, as well as most of the big cities. In terms of numbers, force, and territory of control, they are all in a crushing absolute advantage over other races.

Elves are also an ancient civilization living on the continent of Falmat, with white-skinned High Elves, brown-skinned Dark Elves, and doll-like goblins the size of a palm (these goblins have transparent wings and can fly). The first two have no wings and can't fly), they have survived in this world for a longer time than humans, and the life span of elves is as long as thousands of years. However, due to the fact that the elves on the continent of Falmatt are far less civilized and reproductive than humans, not only are the populations of the tribes sparse, but they have never established a large state and cannot unite their own forces - unlike humans, the elves on the continent of Falmatt do not have the concept of a state, and their own supreme government is limited to tribes. As a result, the elves were eventually defeated in the long race competition, and the surviving elves were forced to flee to various remote areas, forming many elven villages, and gradually switching to the human language, all of which are now nominally subservient to the Empire.

Among the rescued Otherworldly Indigenous refugees was a young female elf, who was being studied by the advance team's medical team.

There is not much information about the dwarves on the continent of Farmatt, and there are no real dwarves seen so far, only that most of them are scattered in human cities and countries, highly integrated with human society, usually with mining and metal smelting as the main means of livelihood, bold personality, alcoholic and so on. In some remote mountainous areas on the continent of Falmat, there are also dwarven tribes and small autonomous city-states.

On the continent of Farmatt, orcs are a very general term that refers to all subhumans with mammalian and avian characteristics. Common rabbits (headhunters), werewolves, foxes, dogs, cats, pig-headed people, winged people, and so on. Among the natives of the other world who were exiled to the Arnous Mountains and were taken in by our army, there were a small number of fox tribes and werewolves, and then there were two Chinese compatriots who needed to be rescued, who were changed in this world and became priestesses of the headhunter rabbit clan. According to the currently known information, the physical appearance and customs of these orcs vary greatly from each other, and they cannot be considered as a single entity. Even different tribes within the same orc have very different physical characteristics. For example, in the refugee camp in the Arnous hills, there are werewolves from two different tribes, the former with a wolf head and basically a large wolf standing and walking in clothes, and the latter more like ordinary humans with wolf ears and wolf tails. Therefore, although they are all werewolves, the latter, who are more human-like, generally look down on the former, thinking that they are "vulgar, barbaric, despicable", and so on - roughly speaking, the more human-like orcs have a higher status, and vice versa, the lower their status.

In addition, on the continent of Farmatt, there is also an intelligent life called "Puka", which is similar to the red-skinned "mountain ghost" in Japanese mythology, as well as many other races such as ogres and goblins, which basically live with humans and have become an integral part of the otherworldly civilization.

Overall, due to the dominance of humans on the continent of Farmatt, the other intelligent races have been discriminated against and suppressed to varying degrees, but in general, the various races can still live in harmony, just like those multi-ethnic empires on Earth in ancient times. Moreover, on the Falmatt continent, except for a few top-level nobles with stubborn concepts, the lower-class people do not attach importance to the purity of blood, and all kinds of interracial marriages are extremely common, resulting in the birth of many strange hybrids, which further increases the diversity of intelligent races on the continent.

Finally, for some reason, as far as the situation has been seen so far, the appearance of the indigenous humans, elves and orcs in the other world is generally higher, although it cannot be said that all of them are handsome men and beautiful women, but the number of handsome people is indeed quite large. In particular, the appearance level of female indigenous civilians is much higher than that of ordinary people in ancient Western societies, and even higher than that of citizens of Western countries in Europe and the United States on the modern earth. Whether this is a special circumstance confined to the vicinity of the Arnous Hills (abundant in beauty) or a common phenomenon in the entire continent of Farmatt remains to be determined.

Third, the level of industrial and agricultural technology

According to the concept of social development of the earth, the continent of Farmatt is roughly in the development stage from slavery to feudal state, and there are still a large number of primitive tribes left in remote areas. However, due to the very different social backgrounds, it seems that it is not possible to make such a simple appropriation.

At present, there is no industrial revolution, large factories and mechanized production in Farmat, but the handicraft industry is highly developed, which can weave linen, cotton and woollen cloth, produce a variety of metals and alloys, as well as pottery, glass and porcelain, and so on. The construction workers of the other world also knew how to use volcanic ash to make cement, which allowed them to build many magnificent buildings. Due to the lack of seafaring experience, the shipbuilding industry on the Farmatt continent is relatively backward, making it difficult to build large ocean-going vessels, but small sailing boats are already common in offshore and inland waterways. Overall, Farmatt's handicraft technology, roughly on par with the pre-Industrial Revolution of Western European countries, lagged behind in some respects and slightly outperformed in others.

The agriculture and animal husbandry of human beings in Farmatt are very similar to those of ancient Europe, with wheat, barley and oats as the main food crops, cultivating grapes to make wine, relying on olives to extract oil, raising cattle, horses, donkeys, etc. However, compared to ancient Europe, otherworldly agriculture seems to lack some of the most common crop varieties on Earth, such as the absence of turnips on the continent of Farmat.

On the other hand, farmers from other worlds have grown a lot of fruits and vegetables that do not exist on the earth, and domesticated large lizards to pull carts and plough the land, but they do not seem to know how to use pesticides and fertilizers, so the pests and diseases of crops are rampant, and agricultural yields are far lower than those of modern earth.

However, due to the vast and sparsely populated land on the Falmatt continent and the large amount of wasteland that can be cultivated, the food supply of the Otherworldly Humans is not tight for the time being.

As for the agricultural production system, human society on the continent of Farmatt is similar to that of medieval Europe, with yeoman farmers and tenant farmers predominant. Although slavery was preserved on the continent of Falmat, the use of slaves was not as widespread as in the Roman Empire. With the exception of some plantations where cash crops were cultivated, the aristocracy and tycoons seldom put their slaves directly into agricultural production, but mainly served in their mansions, similar to domestic slavery in ancient China.

4. The State and the Form of Government

The current continent of Falmat, which is nominally ruled by a vast state called the "Empire", has theoretically brought all the intelligent races under its rule. There is no such thing as a name or prefix for this "empire", and according to the published version, the reason seems to be that the first emperor declared: "There is only one sun in the sky, and there can only be one empire on the earth, so why should the name of the country be distinguished?" ”

Since the current Emperor Moult II sent troops to destroy the last few opposing city-states and small kingdoms three years ago, the empire has nominally unified the entire continent of Farmatt, but this so-called unity is still largely a mere formality.

The political system of this empire is roughly equivalent to a mixture of the early Roman Empire and the feudal kingdoms of medieval Europe, and it is somewhat like Japan during the shogunate period. The empire retained the remnants of republican institutions such as the Senate in the center, similar to the early Roman Empire; At the local level, the feudal system of noble lords was practiced, much like medieval Europe; Slavery was followed in law, but the population of the empire was still dominated by freemen.

The Emperor of the Empire was the supreme ruler, with the highest authority and the richest royal domains, but his rights were not unlimited, but were still limited by the Senate. Under the emperor were feudal noble lords, each with their own territory, army, law, and coinage, forming small independent kingdoms. Among them, some lords have the status of senators and are regarded as "internal vassals", while some lords do not have the status of senators and are regarded as "outer vassals", and there is a big difference in political status between the two, which is probably the concept of "whether they are counted as their own people". There are also some senators who have no territory and live on the favor of the emperor or the great nobles, roughly similar to the favored vassals and court nobles of ancient Europe. As in medieval Europe on Earth, the political game between emperors, lords, and favored subjects was the most important political activity within the empire.

Outside of the empire's direct territories, there were dozens of autonomous city-states, vassal kingdoms, and tribes of various sizes, some of which were also dominated by humans, but many of which were alien tribes and kingdoms. In general, these city-states and vassals, which had been defeated and conquered by the Empire, but had not yet been directly annexed, were able to maintain some degree of autonomy for the time being, but were only required to submit and pay tribute to the Empire. Some of these vassals were so burdened with tribute that they were being squeezed like cows by the Empire. Other vassals, however, had a very light burden of tribute, or even merely verbal submissions to the Empire, such as defeating the Imperial Expeditionary Force and capturing the Crown Prince's Headhunter tribe; Rendel, the transcendent "capital of knowledge" with a large number of scholars and magicians; as well as several historic religious shrines on the continent, among others.

It can be seen that the empire's rule over the Falmatt continent is still very weak and unstable at present, and the imperial power of the empire is far less majestic and glamorous than it seems. Across the continent, about two-thirds of the land is only nominally subject to the hegemony of the Empire, but in reality remains on its own, or simply outside the law. Within the empire, there was also no mature political system for ruling a super-large centralized state, with only a few percent of the continent under the emperor's direct domain, and most of the subjects lacked a sense of identity with the empire. Noble lords, religious communities, and even academia (magician societies) posed a serious challenge to the supremacy of imperial power, and it was simply impossible to resolve it.

The reason why such a clay-footed giant with crumbling interiors was able to achieve such brilliant feats, conquer so many human and alien countries, and unify the continent of Farmatt, at least nominally, was entirely dependent on military success. As a result, the general impression of the country is more akin to a colonial empire like the British Empire, or a short-lived Nazi Third Reich. The only advantage over the first two is that a unified language and script have long been developed on the continent of Falmatt, but it has not awakened to nationalism and racism, so the cost of rule of the imperial government has been reduced to a certain extent. But for such a large superstate, such a software foundation alone is not enough.

5. Religion and social customs

Due to the extremely uneven social development of various regions, the social customs of the Falmatt continent also present a mixed state from primitive society to feudal society. Taking the form of marriage alone, there are monogamy, polygamy, polyandry and concubinage, primitive group marriages, and matrilineal clan systems coexist, and are accustomed to the natives of Farmat. But in the eyes of earthlings, it is really chaotic. Because these chaotic marriage institutions do not occur in different regions that are far apart, but often exist in different ethnic groups in a city at the same time.

Then, the customs and habits of the various intelligent races on the continent are also very different, and some behaviors are polite in one race, but in another race they represent provocation and insult, and the resulting misunderstandings and vendettas are innumerable. However, after thousands of years of collision and contact, the various races on the continent of Falmatt have slowly found a form of peaceful coexistence, and gradually learned to respect certain habits of other races, no matter how strange these habits may seem. At least they will no longer pick up big knives and slash each other at every turn.

Religiously, because of the existence of a true god, the continent of Falmatt practices polytheism, each god has its own temple and holy place, among the common people, there are devout believers who believe in one god, and there are also pan-believers who maintain respect and distance from most gods. Generally speaking, although there are true gods who can exert great power, due to the long-term coexistence and peaceful competition of gods, the religious atmosphere on the continent of Fermatt is not as fanatical as that of medieval Europe on Earth, and only a few people claim to believe in one god, but also maintain respect for other gods. And most people have the attitude of worshipping the temple when they see the crowd, and in their eyes, the gods seem to be just super-big people who are about the same as the emperor.

6. Magic

It has been confirmed that there are indeed magicians and magicians, as well as priests and magicians on the continent of Farmatt - but in the concept of the Otherworldly natives, magic is also understood as a special kind of magic. Overall, magic has a wide range of applications in the Otherworld, requiring this supernatural power from war to life. However, the magic of the Falmatt continent is not universal, and the inheritance and exchange of magic completely rely on oral teaching between master and apprentice, so far, there is no unified standard for magic on the entire continent, and there is no real magic school. Even the so-called "capital of knowledge" Lendl is nothing more than a "scientific research city" with a large number of magicians, not an educational base.

Generally speaking, each magician only uses his spare time to teach his own apprentices, or recommends his favorite apprentices to other familiar magicians to learn some knowledge that he is not good at. Because there are many other things that must be mastered in order to learn magic, magicians are often also university scholars, and are highly respected by the common people. But most magicians seem to be nerds, who only know how to study ancient books but do not know how to adapt, and are not good at connecting with reality, and are quite arrogant and self-conscious, so their thinking and stance are all seriously out of touch with the real society, and their research is difficult to bring any benefits to ordinary civilians, just like the philosophers and mathematicians of ancient Greece, or the great Confucians of ancient China.

The priests in the temple also possess some spells, but are generally considered by ordinary people to be less powerful than magicians. Moreover, the priest's secrecy and monopoly on spell-related knowledge is even stricter than that of magicians, and it seems that there is no intention of popularizing education at all.

In the legends of the local aborigines, human magic is only the surface of learning from elves, and the ancient elven mages are the pinnacle of magic, and legend has it that they can call for wind and rain, summon thunder and lightning, unleash earthquakes and tsunamis at will, and so on. However, the elves that now exist in various parts of the Falmatt continent obviously do not possess such exaggerated abilities. The reasons for these contradictions and paradoxes remain to be further investigated.

brief summary

Although the investigation of the other world has only just begun, we have already found six minerals that are not found on Earth, nine plants that are not found on Earth, and twenty-two animals that are not found on Earth. In addition to the breakthrough discoveries in the natural sciences, the observation and study of different races and civilizations in other worlds is also an exciting social science topic - this will be "alien contact" in the true sense!

Perhaps, we can obtain some new energy and new crops with huge benefits from this new world, but even if we cannot obtain economic benefits in a short period of time, it is necessary to further increase investment. Because the impact of many scientific breakthroughs cannot be measured by money at all, just for a certain possibility, there is a need to pay for tuition.

Although the time for the "door" to open is likely to be limited, and the country may not be able to obtain a solid new territory in another world, it is precisely because of this that we need to seize the time and increase investment in this work, and strive to achieve the most results in a limited time.

To this end, it is hoped that the central government can further increase its support for the exploration of the other world, and at the same time properly deal with the global impact brought about by it...... (To be continued.) )