What will be?

[alien space marine]

This new debate idea is about deciding what the future will be like,

What will america be in the future lets say 1000 years from now?


I feel it will sink back into the Ocean and be populated by peace freedom loving whales and Fish of the like.
Americans will be transformed into Fish men called Naga which will under the sea in the comfort of their own Coral beds.

The new America will flex its muscles by spawning hatcheries in every corner of the world. Mount Rush moore and lady Liberty will be giant presidential palaces made for the Naga king and Queen.

Instead of stars we will have starfish on the Flag.

[EdenMaster]

A homocidal robot named Bender, who runs on alcohol as fuel, will attempt to rule something. Exactly what, only time will tell...

[Great Rumbler]

I think in a thousand years we'll be on the same level technologically speaking as Star Trek or Star Wars.

[geoboy]

For some reason, most people see the world in the far future as being worse than it is in its present situation today. I...am one of those people.

I predict another dark age a thousand times greater than the previous one. The cause of it is often pedicted to be a cataclismic event with few survivors, such as nuclear warfare in World War III, earth colliding with a large object from space, and even some predict an alien invasion. (LOL @ EdenMaster's Futurama reference, by the way :D)

Most Likely some humans will survive these events, but much of our earlier culture and knowledge will be lost with time.

[Great Rumbler]

That's too cliche to actually happen.

[Weltall]

I'm an optimist. I think humanity will transcend itself in the next 1000 years, and America will build an empire of the stars.

World War III I do not believe will ever happen, at least, the world's current state is not really one that is susceptable to a massive worldwide conflict. I believe that warfare will continue to be for a very long time as it has been ever since World War II: Localized. The only nations in the world today that have the capacity to wage a world war are incredibly unlikely to.

One of my lifelong dreams is for humanity to conquer space. I hope that begins as soon as possible, for space is truly the final frontier and God only knows what waits for us in it's infinite span. I think that once space exploration becomes a reality, our race will begin a period of advancement the likes of which we've only dreamed about.

The only thing that can stop us is some sort of natural cataclysm. And the more we branch out amongst the stars, the less catastrophic such an event would be. Once humanity is able to leave our homeworld and claim other worlds, we will truly become immortal.

[OB1]

Well said. I definitely agree with you there, Welly.

[A Black Falcon]

The American Empire, like all of the empires before it, will of course fall, but others will rise and I'm sure eventually we will go to other solar systems... I don't think we'll manage to kill ourselves off or set off a new stone age. Its possible, but I doubt it.

[Dark Lord Neo]

hopefully at least one other superpower will rise to offset american power, if not I predict a world that is pretty much destroyed

[EdenMaster]

Everyone has such dire predictions, and most of them include the fall of America. I don't think it'll happen. Certainly, world superpowers can fall (Rome, for instance), but as much as people may not like to believe it, America is not a country that will fall in such a way. If you attack us, we attack back tenfold. People in this country (for the most part) take pride in their nationality. America will survive.

What I would like to see is a Universal Language, where everyone in the world speaks the same language.

[A Black Falcon]

Sorry, but thats insane optimism. Every empire in the history of time has fallen. Every single one.

Now... you are thinking of Rome, and utter destruction. That isn't what the collapse of empire means.

For instance... the British Empire has collapsed. It did it in the mid 20th century. The result? Like all nations that still exist that were once superpowers, it is diminished world strength in the face of newer powers.

Just like all the rest, some time in the future -- possibly hundreds of years, maybe less, but in the future -- that will happen to us too.

Saying "this is the end of history and since we are great now our greatness will last forever" is the height of arrogance and stupidity.

[alien space marine]

There always the possibility we will be startrek, were will be freinds with aliens from all over the place.

But Enstein theory of relativity has never been challenged or proven wrong so to travel beyond the speed of light is still impossible.Even if we found a way of doing it we will have to find a way to survive it.

So far the only way to go to a far away place is throw worm holes which are still desputed and not proven as fact.

But I can see a Lunar and maybe even a Martian colony in this century. What could happen is that like the U.S these colonies will become super powers much like how the U.S started as a brittish colony.

I also see Antartica the last frontier on earth not populated by humans to be terraformed and colonized, As if we can make south pole freindly to humans we can surely make a foreign world like mars hospitable.Its neat all the ideas to transform mars into a earth like planet, one theory is to warm it up with a few nukes.

Another to put gentically engineered plants who can survive the low atmosphere to slowly turn the planet into a breathable atmosphere.We will need to invent artficial gravity as low gravity isnt good for your health as your own muscles will shrink and your immune system will be compremised.

in 20 years we should have a man on mars and maybe even a Lunar outpost, Antartica Colonized.

[Weltall]

There is no empire in history that is anything like the United States. If you read your history, you will notice that the major empires of the world differed incredibly.

For one, America is not really much of an empire. We have few colonies, mostly microscopic pacific islands, and unlike the post-Renaissance empires of Europe, we do not rely on anything from the few colonies we have. If America were to lose her colonies, it would mean almost nothing to us. Many historical empires fell because they controlled too much land, and after awhile were too far overextended to maintain control. That is not a scenario that applies to America. America is not a true land empire, it is an economic empire. The only way that can be damaged is if the world economy were to be severely damaged. To say that's a long shot is an understatement. And the chance of such a thing truly bringing an end to the United States is even longer.

Second, even the most powerful empires of the past had rivals that posed a true threat to their sovereignty. Britain lost almost as much of her empire to the after-effects of World War II as she did in revolution. Rome was obliterated by constant attack from without. America is bordered by friendly nations, which could never hope to pose a military threat, and by two vast oceans. She is defended by weaponry and technology that is still at least a decade ahead of the next best and several decades ahead of most. Almost all of the civilized nations of the world are less advanced than America and at least cordial in relation. Short of a nuclear terrorist attack that consists of thousands of synchronized attacks, there is no way America could fall from the might of others.

That leaves the final factor: Decay from within. That is the only truly feasable way America could ever fall, and I know the liberals are trying their best to accelerate that as they know only dissent can bring down the Great Satan, but I feel that common sense will prevail in the end.

I think it is quite uneducated to assume America will fall because all powerful nations have at some point. America is very unique from all empires before it. I hardly think history ends here, history will never end. I simply believe that America will endure far longer than any nation, and that so far as I can see there is no feasable way America could fall. Of course, anything could happen...

[A Black Falcon]

First... ASM. Why in the world would we 'terraform' Antarctica? Are you forgetting that its on the bottom of the earth, is covered in a permanant ice sheet, and in the best conditions would be extremely inhospitible? No, there is absolutely no reason or way to do that.

The moon... I hope we set up a permanant colony there in not too long, it'd be a important step to going farther beyond the earth.

And Weltall... yes, we are unlike previous empires. We don't have a equal military opponenent anymore, we have economic dominance and a very well funded military... but nothing is absolute.

If America's economy went downhill far enough, and we stretched ourselves too much and got embroiled in too many conflicts, and let other regions gain economic strength as we lose ours -- all very possible things -- we could lose our superpower status.

Do I think we'd dissolve or something? Short of a 'back to the stone age' war, no. But we could become more like all the other ex-empires -- strong, but not number one anymore.

Too much land? Sometimes, but usually it was internal decay, at least for empires that lasted. Rome did fall because of external pressure, but with sufficient internal strength they could have gotten past it. They didn't have that anymore and they gave in.

It won't happen soon, I'd say, but we could lose our strength through decay of economic superiority... what if other regions kept gaining strength and unity? Places like a united Europe or China could very well challenge us economically given the right circumstances... as I said we wouldn't cease to exist, we'd just stop having overwhelming power over everyone.

Yes, right now our economy drives the world and our culture is tops. But both of those are things that as you should know aren't absolutes. As world events happen both of those conditions could change drastically.

We won't lose because of military might. But with a combonation of factors we could, and at some point will, lose our supremacy in the future.

Remember, there are 300 million of us but 1.2 or 1.3 billion Chinese... when that nation becomes a modern society -- it'll take quite a while but it WILL happen in the end -- it would be a very serious threat, for so many reasons...

Or it could be a United Europe that takes worldwide economic supremacy...

And of course there is the UN. Will it gain power? And until then who will provide the forces? Sure, right now we give very few peacekeepers... and because of that we put a major strain on the organization because of how much bigger our military budget is than anyone else's. But if other areas could get their economies on level with ours and ours decayed, as is quite possible, we would lose our 'empire'.


This isn't a very well thought out post, I know, but its about the future and we really don't know what will happen...

All I know is that given that the world will change, a LOT, over the centuries, I'd NEVER bet on any nation keeping power indefinitely. There are far, far too many variables and pitfalls that would stop them to even begin to say that its likely.

Oh yeah, and blaming it on liberals while saying that they hate America is idiotic and completely ridiculous, especially given what this current conservative adminstration is doing to destroy every shred of our international credibility (that is vital to being an empire without an army controlling its 'territory') and destabalize vital parts of the world...

[alien space marine]

The idea behind Antartica is that it is unhospitable and terraforming it or colonizing it in some other fasion will be the testing grounds for planetary colonization.

Antartica is an amazing place , Full of scientific wonders and already has hundreds of people posted at outposts who do call Antartica home already.Did you know if you can detect textonic activity that will lead earthquakes anywhere in the world even Russia or China from Antartica by probing beneath the continent.

It is the best place to star gaze on earth.

The idea for Antartica is to have bio domes with artficial self sustained atmosphere which already exist, As the bio dome in Montreal canada simulates and feel as warm and moist as the amazon when outside the structure it could be dry and cold in winter.

As for the U.S fall it probaily wont happen anytime soon as Rome lasted a long time itself. But while it can be agreed that their is no external force that could bring down the U.S , their still can be political, economic strife and break down from within, Hell the U.S was divided into two at one time in a civil war ,It could happen again,North vs south and west vs east,That sentiment exist both in canada and the U.S.

The islamic empire was once very advanced as it was the one that invented modern Postal service and the first working international banking,They said you could deposit money in a bank in Morroco and then extract it later in Cairo,While europe still didnt get into making the printing press just yet .We always view the arabs as primitive but infact that was not true for a long time untill britain became very powerful the muslimes were on top and thats why the west was threaten by it during the cruisades, Baghdad surprisingly at one time was the most modern city in the world and it was the capital of the late Ottoman empire.

The Ottomans went the same way rome did ,internal strife and over exspansion but of course external threat was more serious for them as the Mongols were a problem and even destroyed ancient Baghdad , the Europeans came during the cruisades and then later from France and Brittain Via Nepoleon and Queen victoria campiagns to conquere the world.

intersting enough, the fall of the ottoman empire in 1918 by the brittish empire has had a major effect on today , As that is Bin Ladins reasons into believing that the west is trying to Conquere and control islam, Bin ladin strikes at the west strongest nation the U.S.A and it wouldnt suprise me if Bin ladins believes he was sent to restore the Ottoman empire.

[Undertow]

To cut down a long, elaborate speach I don't even think humans will exist in the next 1000 years. I'm not being an optimist or a pessimist...I'm being a realist.

[A Black Falcon]

"realist" to say the human race won't exist? Uhh... no way. That's hardly realistic. We've survived many thousands of years so far... I'd certainly imagine we can last another thousand.

After all... not even a thermonuclear war would COMPLETELY extinguish the human race...

Oh, and some scientists do live in Antarctica... but I see no reason for further colonization unless it is as you say practice for other planets... and even then its very different due to its ice terrain and not dirt...

Oh, and yeah, decay and the rise of other parts of the world is the way I'd expect the American Empire to fall just like many before it.

[Undertow]

Originally posted by A Black Falcon
"realist" to say the human race won't exist? Uhh... no way. That's hardly realistic. We've survived many thousands of years so far... I'd certainly imagine we can last another thousand.

Population explosions, bigger and badder weapons to kill ourselves with, and a declining ecosystem all point to: No dice. People 1000 years ago also didn't have the capability to blow themselves up in the blink of an eye.

[Great Rumbler]

Eventually we won't be able to spread any more on the Earth and when that happens we will start spreading to other planets. We will probably already be living on other planets long before the Earth starts to fill up.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, and while its happening slower than is advisable there IS a chance we'll manage to save the earth before totally finishing off the ecosystem... and as for nuclear weapons, we've got to just keep avoiding their use. As we saw so far, it is possible to avoid a major nuclear war...

And of course there is space. By 1000 years from now we'll be much, much farther along with space travel and colonization.

[Great Rumbler]

And besides living on other planets there's also giant space stations or space "colonies".

[N-Man]

ASM, you say a lot of stupid things, and usually I just ignore them, but tonight I'm bored, and to add to that I hate when people distort history.

The islamic empire was once very advanced as it was the one that invented modern Postal service and the first working international banking,They said you could deposit money in a bank in Morroco and then extract it later in Cairo,While europe still didnt get into making the printing press just yet .We always view the arabs as primitive but infact that was not true for a long time untill britain became very powerful the muslimes were on top and thats why the west was threaten by it during the cruisades, Baghdad surprisingly at one time was the most modern city in the world and it was the capital of the late Ottoman empire.

We do not always view the Arabs as primitive, only when they try to blow our shit up for idiotic reasons.

The west was not threatened by anyone during the crusades. I don't know if you read up a bit, but we did most of the threatening during the crusades. They were launched not because the Christian world was being threatened, but rather because of a very large surplus of landless knights searching for something to kill (and land to own, alternatively). These landless nobles were creating quite a bit of instability throughout Europe, thus the Church concocted some bogus reason and sent them to slaughter Arabs. The Emperor of the East Alexius Comnenus had indeed sent a letter asking for help from his western brethren from the incursions of the Seljukid Turks, but this and the fact that these Turks had also began blocking the way for Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem were just used as reasons to unload the Latin world's extra manpower.

I do not know what you call modern, but in terms of impressiveness, neither Baghdad nor any city of the West ever surpassed the great cities of China.

The statement that Baghdad was the capital of the Ottoman Turks is absolutely preposterous, and hints to me that you need to read up on the history of the Ottomans (even a short summary will do), whose power-base never left western Turkey, and whose capital was for the greatest part of their reign, Istanbul. Previously it had been Bursa in Anatolia, then Edirne in Thracia or Rumelia. Sultan Mehmet captured Constantinople from the last Eastern Emperor, Constantine XI the Last, in 1453, and established his capital there, where it stayed until 1918. Istanbul is in fact the English way to pronounce the Turkish "Stamboul" which is a deformation of (Con)stantinopol(is).

The Ottomans went the same way rome did ,internal strife and over exspansion but of course external threat was more serious for them as the Mongols were a problem and even destroyed ancient Baghdad , the Europeans came during the cruisades and then later from France and Brittain Via Nepoleon and Queen victoria campiagns to conquere the world.

The Ottoman clan of Turks was founded during the late 14th century. The crusades came in the 11th, 12th and 13th, and the Mongols during the 13th. The Ottomans never fought either of those opponents; they did fight against what is considered the very last crusade, the crusade of Varna, in which they handed their ass to a mish-mash army of Rumanians, Poles, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Yugoslavs of all kinds and types, Ruthenes as well as a handful of Italian knights. This crusade was very geopolitical in nature and had little religious fervor to it, but rather had a profound mercenary and adventurer influence to it, resembling perhaps more the spirit of the conquistadores of the Renaissance than the deeply religious crusaders of old. Regardless, they got thrashed, and this victory was one of those which would propel the Ottomans to a powerful position in eastern Europe.

I think you place the Ottomans in a much too early time frame, and I again encourage you to read up on them. The Turks were a Renaissance power, not a medieval one. And while they did get dealt blows by Napoleon and the British, you must also look at the weakness of their internal government as well as their very important territorial losses in Europe vs. Austria-Hungary and Russia.

Last, I need to remind you that the Ottomans were Turks. They conquered many different nations and incorporated them quite well, but remains that their Sultans and aristocracy were Turks. Bin Laden is not a Turk. He is not fighting to restore the Ottoman empire. If anything, he is fighting for a concept many Westerners do not seem to grasp, that of the Ummah- the nation of Islam.

[A Black Falcon]

For the less history-inclined, why not give some leeway when they refer to the various Islamic Empires in that region as the 'Ottomans'? Sure, its innacurate and completely wrong, but to me at least the idea came across...

Baghdad was absolutely the capitol of the Islamic world in the middle ages. It was the vital point for many years... the center of Islamic learning. It being sacked by the Mongols dealt a crippling blow to them... they recovered somewhat but it was never quite the same as before the Mongols.

As for the Crusades... 'the Europeans did the threatening'? 'slaughtering Arabs'? That almost sounds like the Crusades were successful... which of course they were not... sure, it was the Crusaders attacking the Middle East, but success-wise they ... didn't do too well ... and in a way the Moslem rulers had goaded Europe by blocking access to Jerusalem.

[N-Man]

...right, sure, let's also refer to every kingdom in Europe as "Germany", and hey, all the Asians are just Chinese anyhow so who cares, right?

Hey, the crusades succeeded as far as their intent was. They got rid of the surplus petty nobles and adventurers, and "liberated" the holy land for a while. Lots of people just say "the crusades failed" without remarking that the Latins stayed in Palestine for nearly two centuries. And you can be damn sure they slaughtered quite a few Arabs. Fulk of Chartres's account of the fall of Jerusalem to Godfroy's crusaders recalls that the Franks were up to their ankles in the blood of massacred Muslims:

"...Some Saracens, Arabs, and Ethiopians took refuge in the tower of David, others fled to the temples of the Lord and of Solomon. A great fight took place in the court and porch of the temples, where they were unable to escape from our gladiators. Many fled to the roof of the temple of Solomon, and were shot with arrows, so that they fell to the ground dead. In this temple almost ten thousand were killed. Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet colored to our ankles with the blood of the slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared."

[A Black Falcon]

Oh, sure, there were Crusader States, but obviously they never got the full stability they needed to become permanant... after the early successes they lost ground steadily to the Muslims who of course returned the favor by massacring Christians...).

Oh, and how about when the sacked Constantinople, an act that the Orthodox church still hasn't forgiven and the Catholics haven't fully said sorry for?

The only real success was decreasing the population of young male Europeans.

[N-Man]

Oh, yes, let's apologize for something our ancestors did eight hundred years ago. That seems to be the "thing" to do these days. If the Orthodox want to hold a grudge it's up to them, but considering the church of Constantinople has something like fifty elderly Hellenes for a congregation, I doubt they can raise much of a ruckus.

Apart from immediate repercussions, the crusades also succeeded in reintroducing the Greek ancients (which had been preserved by the Arabs) to Europe, and giving the Westerners a knack for spices and other shiny things, inspiring traveling missionaries and merchants ala Marco Polo to head east. Eventually, this would all lead to the Renaissance and conquest of the known world by Europe; why, do you ask? Because of the Ottomans. :p

And thus we come full circle, and I'm off to bed. Thanks for the entertainment, you may now resume your intellectual masturbation about the impending doom of America.

[A Black Falcon]

Oh, yes, let's apologize for something our ancestors did eight hundred years ago. That seems to be the "thing" to do these days. If the Orthodox want to hold a grudge it's up to them, but considering the church of Constantinople has something like fifty elderly Hellenes for a congregation, I doubt they can raise much of a ruckus.

You mean Russia, Greece, Serbia, and other nations around there, right? That's not "fifty people"...

Oh, and sure its kind of silly to hold ancient grudges, but lots of groups still do... and to them its still relevant, so you can't just ignore it as stupid.

Apart from immediate repercussions, the crusades also succeeded in reintroducing the Greek ancients (which had been preserved by the Arabs) to Europe, and giving the Westerners a knack for spices and other shiny things, inspiring traveling missionaries and merchants ala Marco Polo to head east. Eventually, this would all lead to the Renaissance and conquest of the known world by Europe; why, do you ask? Because of the Ottomans.

Mostly true. But they were still a military and strategic failure -- even at their greatest extent they never really controlled the region well enough to be secure...

[Dark Lord Neo]

Originally posted by A Black Falcon
The only real success was decreasing the population of young male Europeans.

You can't forget the Magna Carta though, that was a good result of the crusades

[Dark Jaguar]

Random subject change!

The uncertainty principle basically dictates that not even one who is all knowing can EVER know both the position and trajectory of any particle. According to quantum physics, particles are suggestions of position! In fact, if one attempts to use the existing data to insert what must have been both it's position and trajectory into a formula, the answer is ALWAYS wrong when compaired to what really happened. This prooves it can't be knowable to ANY being. As an example, the slot experiment involves firing a specifically aimed particle gun of sorts at a wall and looking at it. It would seem the particles create a vague pattern, not actually ending at all, but going outward and diluting, and in fact are all over the room, even behind the wall. It would seem particles get to "pick" what happens, deciding from all the things they could POSSIBLY do and going through each, and just landing at some result eventually.

This means that there are things God doesn't know, because He can't know them. At least at first it seems that way. However, the true implications according to a few are that in fact, that IS what particles are. Particles ARE just the possible, not the actual, until they are done doing whatever they did. It can't be known because the info doesn't even exist, and never will. What at first seems to defeat omniscience in fact merely defeated the last vestiges of the old world notion of determinism. The stars can't possibly guide us because the universe isn't a determined thing, but containes many TRUE possibilities. We DO have free will.

Your thoughts? I know I'm confused :D.

Oh, I'd highly suggest googling the uncertainty principle before pointing out what I got wrong :D.

[alien space marine]

The cruisades began when Orthodox churched begged the Caholic church for help to ward off the Muslime invasion,The sacking of continople and the end of the byzantine empire was what triggerd it, going back to europe feeling threaten.

As for reducing population while thats what did happen eventually I seriously doubt they would toss off their labour force like that especially if its a time when desease kills off alot of people their gonna need some people left to replace them.

King Saladin beat the cruisaders out twice, he was and still is regarded as a great hero in the middle east.Even Richard the lion heart of england deeply respected him.


back to the primitive thing
,Blowing themselves up was sinful and still is sinful for their own religion, but hate is more important then that isnt it.


Arabs are not primitive Cairo is still a very modern city as well as many others.

[A Black Falcon]

The modern Islamic world is well behind the Christian one. That is obvious... sure they are in some ways modern but in others they are far behind us. You can't dispute that...

[alien space marine]

This isnt judging by extemist as we have are own deadly extremist perhaps even the worse.

Is this comparison culturaly? or technologicaly?

While if you went politicaly it is true, they still do monarchy but it isnt all bad, The King of Jordan seems like a good fellow you could compare to king Arthur or Solomon he is also half american.

While it is true most of these Monarchs are opressive and crueil so are any corrupted phycho who is elected into power like Meslosivch (however you spell his name)

[N-Man]

You mean Russia, Greece, Serbia, and other nations around there, right? That's not "fifty people"...

No, I mean the Church of Constantinople. There is no one united Orthodox church. There's the church of Athens, of Antioch, of Moscow, of Serbia, of Bulgaria, of Jerusalem, of Egypt... and they're all independent of each other. The only one who I suppose could still bear a grudge other than the walking-dead church of Constantinople is the church of Athens, but I don't know if they still claim Istanbul for Greece. Either way, the idea is idiotic and got lost in the 1920s, when Greece was defeated during its invasion of Turkey.

As for ASM, I insist that you do not talk about things you obviously have no idea of.

The Arabs never sacked Constantinople, and certainly didn't end the Byzantine empire. Constantinople fell twice in its history: once by treachery during the fourth crusade in 1204 (to the crusaders) and once in 1453 to Sultan Mehmet of the Ottomans, when the crusades were well over with. The closest it came to falling to the Arabs was during an attack of theirs by the sea; they were repulsed with heavy siege weapons and Greek fire (a powerful weapon likened to napalm, whose exact composure has been lost today; it is thought to have consisted of naphtha [a highly volatile liquid derived from oil], and perhaps saltpeter [gunpowder]).

Alexius Comnenus, the emperor of the East, did call upon the west to help him during the encroachment of the Seljukid Turks, but this was counted by the Church as just another bogus reason to send away their most quarrelsome young men. The Latins certainly didn't feel Europe was "threatened"; whether the schismatic Orthodox or the heathen Muslims controlled Constantinople mattered very little to them. They were both just heretics doomed to burn in the flames of hell. During the very first crusade, the one led by Peter the Hermit and Walter Penniless, the crusaders actually sacked and plundered more Byzantine villages than they did Muslim villages.

As for reducing population while thats what did happen eventually I seriously doubt they would toss off their labour force like that especially if its a time when desease kills off alot of people their gonna need some people left to replace them.

Labour force? Do you think knights work? All knights do is fight and make war. The problem was that the trend for noblemen in those times was for the eldest son to receive his father's land, and the other sons were to simply be given weapons and armour and sent off to wander. By 1099, these wandering knights had become a real problem in that they set off more shit than they fixed; this was increased exponentially by the conversion and settling of the Normans (former Vikings) in southern Italy and France, the Magyars in Hungary, etc. The first official crusade in fact had a very heavy contingent of landless Normans, who were then regarded as the most bloodthirsty warriors of all Europe.

Saladin certainly was a great warrior and did play a great part in the end of the Crusader states, but before he came to being the crusaders dominated Palestine for a century.

Cairo may be a modern city, but it still doesn't come close to the major cities of America and western Europe.

[alien space marine]

Originally posted by N-Man
No, I mean the Church of Constantinople. There is no one united Orthodox church. There's the church of Athens, of Antioch, of Moscow, of Serbia, of Bulgaria, of Jerusalem, of Egypt... and they're all independent of each other. The only one who I suppose could still bear a grudge other than the walking-dead church of Constantinople is the church of Athens, but I don't know if they still claim Istanbul for Greece. Either way, the idea is idiotic and got lost in the 1920s, when Greece was defeated during its invasion of Turkey.

As for ASM, I insist that you do not talk about things you obviously have no idea of.

The Arabs never sacked Constantinople, and certainly didn't end the Byzantine empire. Constantinople fell twice in its history: once by treachery during the fourth crusade in 1204 (to the crusaders) and once in 1453 to Sultan Mehmet of the Ottomans, when the crusades were well over with. The closest it came to falling to the Arabs was during an attack of theirs by the sea; they were repulsed with heavy siege weapons and Greek fire (a powerful weapon likened to napalm, whose exact composure has been lost today; it is thought to have consisted of naphtha [a highly volatile liquid derived from oil], and perhaps saltpeter [gunpowder]).

Alexius Comnenus, the emperor of the East, did call upon the west to help him during the encroachment of the Seljukid Turks, but this was counted by the Church as just another bogus reason to send away their most quarrelsome young men. The Latins certainly didn't feel Europe was "threatened"; whether the schismatic Orthodox or the heathen Muslims controlled Constantinople mattered very little to them. They were both just heretics doomed to burn in the flames of hell. During the very first crusade, the one led by Peter the Hermit and Walter Penniless, the crusaders actually sacked and plundered more Byzantine villages than they did Muslim villages.



Labour force? Do you think knights work? All knights do is fight and make war. The problem was that the trend for noblemen in those times was for the eldest son to receive his father's land, and the other sons were to simply be given weapons and armour and sent off to wander. By 1099, these wandering knights had become a real problem in that they set off more shit than they fixed; this was increased exponentially by the conversion and settling of the Normans (former Vikings) in southern Italy and France, the Magyars in Hungary, etc. The first official crusade in fact had a very heavy contingent of landless Normans, who were then regarded as the most bloodthirsty warriors of all Europe.

Saladin certainly was a great warrior and did play a great part in the end of the Crusader states, but before he came to being the crusaders dominated Palestine for a century.

Cairo may be a modern city, but it still doesn't come close to the major cities of America and western Europe.

The Arabs captured Continople and its prized Cathedral got turned into one of the bigest mosque in the islamic world and still is,Sorry the Turks/Saracens conquered Continople and annexed it.

While sure dumping men may have been a benefit of the war but I think if they were gonna do that conquest and exspansion is what they had in mind and thats what they did.

Knights atleast not upper class ones would have been used to build roads and goverment projects just like the Romans used to do it with their legions.If you think the king gonna just let his men sit around doing nothing in time of peace you need a history lesson yourself, hell we do that today their using soldiers to help the over stretched fire fighters in Brittish columbia canada .

The orthodox churches have different branches.

[OB1]

Continople, huh?

[N-Man]

The Cathedral of Saint Sophia is no longer a mosque. The Muslim symbols were removed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk during the earlier 20th century, and it now serves as a museum. It was indeed captured by the Turks, which are not to be confused with the Arabs, or Saracens. Saracen is the medieval word for Arab.

Build roads. Right. Well, I'm sure one can find an instance of knights participating in public works (not that there was a wealth of those back then) since there wasn't anything like a law that ruled knights to be exempt from working, but this wasn't their main purpose. Knights were not a labour pool to be accessed during public works; those were directed by masons or engineers, and executed by skilled workers in the case of buildings or monuments, and unskilled serfs in the case of simpler things like roads.

You also have to keep in mind that kings in that time had very little control over their knights, especially landless knights as these did not particularly serve any overlord (knights are tied to dukes and kings through their land, not through blood). Also, most of the early crusaders came from places which did not even have kings, such as the Low Countries (modern Belgium and Netherlands, the area between Germany and France which was often quite anarchic and split between various dukes and counts), southern France which was out of the grip of the king of France and ruled by the dukes of Toulouse, as well as Sicily and southern Italy which was ruled by the still-savage Norman dukes. Knights could also set off on crusade precisely because they did not like their overlords; all I'm saying is, kings and lords of all kinds had little influence on what their landless subjects did. They had nothing that tied them to the land, thus nothing that tied them to a kingdom.

This is obviously different from the later crusades, like the third which had Philippe Augustus and Richard Lionheart leading their countries' armies into the middle east, and Saint Louis' crusade (ninth?) to Egypt which was also the same. But by then, the conflict was on: we are no longer talking about what sparked it. The Europeans evidently found other reasons to stay in Palestine once they were in there: like I said, spices, silks and other things which had faded out of European trade since the fall of Rome.

[alien space marine]

Originally posted by N-Man
The Cathedral of Saint Sophia is no longer a mosque. The Muslim symbols were removed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk during the earlier 20th century, and it now serves as a museum. It was indeed captured by the Turks, which are not to be confused with the Arabs, or Saracens. Saracen is the medieval word for Arab.

Build roads. Right. Well, I'm sure one can find an instance of knights participating in public works (not that there was a wealth of those back then) since there wasn't anything like a law that ruled knights to be exempt from working, but this wasn't their main purpose. Knights were not a labour pool to be accessed during public works; those were directed by masons or engineers, and executed by skilled workers in the case of buildings or monuments, and unskilled serfs in the case of simpler things like roads.

You also have to keep in mind that kings in that time had very little control over their knights, especially landless knights as these did not particularly serve any overlord (knights are tied to dukes and kings through their land, not through blood). Also, most of the early crusaders came from places which did not even have kings, such as the Low Countries (modern Belgium and Netherlands, the area between Germany and France which was often quite anarchic and split between various dukes and counts), southern France which was out of the grip of the king of France and ruled by the dukes of Toulouse, as well as Sicily and southern Italy which was ruled by the still-savage Norman dukes. Knights could also set off on crusade precisely because they did not like their overlords; all I'm saying is, kings and lords of all kinds had little influence on what their landless subjects did. They had nothing that tied them to the land, thus nothing that tied them to a kingdom.

This is obviously different from the later crusades, like the third which had Philippe Augustus and Richard Lionheart leading their countries' armies into the middle east, and Saint Louis' crusade (ninth?) to Egypt which was also the same. But by then, the conflict was on: we are no longer talking about what sparked it. The Europeans evidently found other reasons to stay in Palestine once they were in there: like I said, spices, silks and other things which had faded out of European trade since the fall of Rome.

Knights who dont serve a lord or king shouldnt be called knights, They would be conciderd bandits or rougues being called a knight impplies some alliegence to somthing besides money.

Alot of the soldiers that serverd were Serfs, they would have been used to cut wood and prepare supplies for thier armies and lords,Do needy tasks as well as train for combat.

[A Black Falcon]

First... yes, ASM, please stop. It is very painfully obvious that you have no clue whatsoever what you are talking about and it just makes you look more uninformed with every post.

Now...

No, I mean the Church of Constantinople. There is no one united Orthodox church. There's the church of Athens, of Antioch, of Moscow, of Serbia, of Bulgaria, of Jerusalem, of Egypt... and they're all independent of each other. The only one who I suppose could still bear a grudge other than the walking-dead church of Constantinople is the church of Athens, but I don't know if they still claim Istanbul for Greece. Either way, the idea is idiotic and got lost in the 1920s, when Greece was defeated during its invasion of Turkey.

Wow, you really don't follow this stuff at ALL, do you? Sorry, but the whole orthodox world is in some ways united. One of them is that they blame at least in part the Catholics for the fall of their empire. Why? Because of the sack of Constantinople that helped bring down their empire, and how the Catholics completely ignored them in their greatest need when they were being destroyed by the Turks. You know all those historical details but don't know about modern history? Huh?

Sure there are different branches of Orthodoxy but in many ways they are similar and they all have the same roots from the church of Constantinople.

Recently both sides have made some slight overtures, and the Pope even visited an Orthodox nation (a first in an extremely long time, maybe ever), but the Catholics haven't really said sorry and the Orthodox haven't forgiven them for it... its fading a bit, finally, but still quite real.


As for knights... ASM you just don't know any of the historical realities or facts. 'Knight' was a hereditary title that all sons of knights got... and as he said only the oldest one got land. The 'landless knight' class grew greatly as time passed, as you'd expect... and it became a problem, with so many landless nobles with nothing to do.

Oh, and knights serving lords? Huh? Knights were a noble class! A low noble class, sure, but a noble class... its not like in the middle ages it was a thing anyone could achieve -- it wasn't. Only nobles could become knights.

As for the king you really should remember that in the middle ages kings were relatively weak and didn't really have much power over their leige lords, such as landed knights. So obiously they didn't have many options as far as landless knights went. Crusades were one way of getting rid of them...

[alien space marine]

We are confusing "nobles with lowly Soldiers", While Knights were indeed used as a term to describe Noble men", I was perhaps incorrect confusing High class warriors with Low class militia and Footmen. But the word Knight is somtimes used to describe armed forces or men of arms or just plain stinky warriors.
I am sorry for the confusion.

[A Black Falcon]

In medieval Europe Knights were a specific class of people... yes, often warriors, but sometime liege lords as well, or itinerant nobodies with nothing going for them except their title. :)

Now once in a while maybe commoners managed to get knighted but not often and certainly only in war...

[alien space marine]

So essentialy knights are officers or Elites?

[Weltall]

"What will be" has become "What was".

Yet again, when we get off-topic, we do it with unnatural flair

[A Black Falcon]

Normally they were elites. Now I am sure that some kings knighted some lesser people for military service... or some in combat. But most knights got their titles via inheritance and in most places and times I doubt the other way was common...

[N-Man]

Very well, very well, I'm sure some churches still hold some grudge over the fall of Constantinople, but like I said, it's most likely just the Greeks. The Russians had their church founded before the fall of the empire and it's always been the most independent of orthodox churches, and the Serbs, Bulgars, Romanians and whatnot had their churches founded precisely to separate them from the imperial norm. Plus the Copts and Syrians lost contact with the rest of the world after the Arab invasion, etc. etc. etc.

Nevertheless, doubtless some Athenian whackoes still demand an excuse for the sack of Constantinople, just like the Pope giving an excuse for the crusades not long ago, Athens and Sparta signing a peace treaty for some war that had occured in the Nth century BC, and so forth, so many stupid things like that still exist that it really wouldn't surprise me.

Either way, the sack of Constantinople was a stupid idea in the first place. I blame the Italians. It's always the Italians.

[A Black Falcon]

You just underestimate it. I don't know why, but you do. Sure its fading a little bit now, but for a long time it was major... are you trying to DENY that there has been, especially since the sack of Constantinople, a major split between the Orthodox and Catholic churches? Seriously? And you know history?

Sorry, but that's just completely wrong.

Sure, the Greeks care more than the others... but remember, the Greek Orthodox leader is in a way the leader of the Orthodox world, they ARE tied in some ways, and Russia has plenty of reasons to be unhappy that Constantinople fell...

There is still a very real and very, very significant break between the Orthodox religious world and Western Christianity.

http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/inq_rc.htm
http://www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/ne208154.htm

[N-Man]

What the bloody hell are you going on about? I never denied a split between the east and the west! So Weltall was right, you really do twist people's words!

The schism between the western Catholic and eastern Orthodox churches predates the sack of Constantinople. It took place in and around 1058, and had much earlier roots than that (dating back to the times of the emperor Constantius in the 4th century AD). Whereas the fourth crusade doubtless made relations worse than they were, it was not the root of the split between east and west. Catholics regarded the Greeks as hellbound heretics long before the fourth crusade; there was a big deal done about whether images of men and women should be included in Christianity back around that time which caused a big ruckus between both churches; hell, the Catholics and Orthodox churches actually excommunicated each other (all this before 1204). If anything, the relations between both churches are better today than they were between 1054 and 1204.

Would the churches be reunited if the Pope suddenly apologized for the fourth crusade? Certainly not. Their differences are dogmatical (is that a word?). For a reunion of the churches the Pope would have to renounce supremacy and accept that he is only the patriarch of Rome, equal to all the other patriarches. He will never do this. If you don't yet realize why, let me explain: suppose all the history of the Catholic church was wrong, as accepting the Orthodox claims would mean. My family is traditionally Catholic, as are countless others around the world. This would mean that all my ancestors, and all the ancestors of other Catholics, are currently burning in hell for dozens of generations back. To accept this would mean rejection of Catholicism by a great majority of its adherents, unless all those clergymen found a way out like "hey it's okay if the Pope pretended to be an incarnation of St. Peter for the past thousand years which is utmost heresy if found to be untrue (which it in this case would be), your ancestors are for some reason a-ok". This is the problem between the churches, and it's a major one, much more major than any apology over old ghosts and lost land.

[A Black Falcon]

You made strong statements that nobody these days cares about the fall of Constantinople. That is just untrue, as I said. No, you didn't deny a schism, but you essentially denied that anyone cares about said schism anymore... which is obviously wrong...

Because of course it went back way before the fall of Constantinople. That really happened after they were pretty much split... but it inflamed hatreds, especially among the Orthodox, that really have contributed a lot to the continuing refusal of both sides to fully recant their hatreds... so it IS still quite relevant. You denied that!

Oh, and it is precisely because of what you say -- that they have essentially irreconsiliable differences -- that makes either side forgiving the sack of constantinople so, so hard that they still haven't done it 800 years later. :)

[alien space marine]

what happened in Bosnia and kosovo had alot to do with the hatred of Muslimes from orthodoxers ,Constantinoples fall may have played a role in the history of that hatred.

[N-Man]

...you essentially denied that anyone cares about said schism anymore... which is obviously wrong...

Lies.

I denied that the sack of Constantinople played the primary part in creating that schism, and nothing more. And this is the truth.

Oh, and it is precisely because of what you say -- that they have essentially irreconsiliable differences -- that makes either side forgiving the sack of constantinople so, so hard that they still haven't done it 800 years later.

By this reasoning, the Catholic church has more in common with the Muslim world than it does with Orthodoxy, seeing as how the Pope apologized for the crusades. This is obviously untrue, as last I knew the Catholics and Orthodox recognized each other's sacraments as valid and made steps towards cooperation if not unification, whereas the followers of Muhammad are still heathens lost to the Lord. I am thus confirmed in saying that the issue of Constantinople is either forgotten by all or only held by a small (but perhaps vicious, what do I know) party.

[N-Man]

what happened in Bosnia and kosovo had alot to do with the hatred of Muslimes from orthodoxers ,Constantinoples fall may have played a role in the history of that hatred.

Constantinople's fall is the very root of that hatred, indeed: but its fall to the Turks, not to the crusaders. The Ottomans used Constantinople as a diving board into eastern Europe, and the Muslim Bosnians and Albanians are the legacy of their efforts to convert Europe to Islam.