As I see it, for a theme to be able to stick around and be successful, it needs to be three things:
- It needs to be based on a commonly recognized cultural trope that is familiar to anyone, whether they've played NS or not, whether they watch certain shows or not, whether they like to read Wikipedia or not, and so on, so it’s easy to catch onto and easy to be involved in.
- It needs to have a lot of already-existing material to draw from and be easily extensible, with plenty of room for going into detail, adapting for new purposes, and no 'dead ends'.
- It needs to be extremely generalized, so that it is easily extensible and familiar to everyone. Each qualifier added on to the description of a theme is another step to making the theme harder to join in on and harder to find ways to use, and each obscure reference added to a theme just to make it historically accurate bogs it down. This is a theme to set a basis for the development of our identity, not an alternate history roleplay. In the past, when we've adopted extremely specific themes, people have gotten bored quickly once they realize they're stuck within narrow bounds and have to make up everything besides the titles.
- It needs to be uncontroversial and inoffensive, regardless of cultural background. This is where we've hit a wall with Christian proposals before. In general, the easiest way to be sure you're uncontroversial is to go farther back in history.
In searching for a long-term theme for Lazarus, to define us for years to come, we should also take cues from the successful and stable themes of the other sinkers, Balder and Osiris. While of course they already had their themes easily set out for themselves in their names in a way that we do not, they've done very well at keeping it general and familiar.
Osiris has an Ancient Egyptian theme. Is it commonly recognized? By all means-- think of how many ancient-Egypt-themed novels there are out there. Pretty much everyone knows what a Pharaoh is. Is it nevertheless a rich trove of material to draw from? Absolutely. And Osiris makes use of it quite well, with all the subforum names-- Temple of Tefnut, Temple of Ma'at, Temple of Bes, Temple of Atum, Temple of Khepri, etc. Is it extremely generalized? Check there, too. Osiris's theme doesn't say it's "ancient Egypt of the lower Nile delta in X thousand BC", it's just "Ancient Egypt". The titles of their offices, Viziers and the Council of Priests and so on, may not be historically accurate, but they're recognizable and simple. And although a modern-Egypt or Caliphate Osiris would have its political problems, Osiris keeps it uncontroversial by keeping it ancient.
Balder does this in the same way. Ancient Nordic is a commonly recognized theme, but Norse mythology is quite complex and a deep well to draw from; and they remain incredibly general— a Nordic cross flag with a Viking-themed military and emojis and Scandinavian monarchical titles. (While I think Balder’s may be a little bit
too low on the culture effort, they certainly have the idea— that you should evoke, not perfectly copy, a culture to develop it as your region’s— down pat.)
So I’d like to propose, for Lazarus, an
Ancient Greek identity. This would hopefully not just be a one-time piece of entertainment, but a lasting element of what Lazarus is as a community. Similar to the way the common theme of China stood between the PRL and the HRL and arguably the governments both before and after those two as well, and the Phoenix has been through all of them, it should stand as a constant element of Lazarus’s identity across governments and coups.
I support an Ancient Greek identity because I believe it fits the characteristics of a theme that will stick. If we go back to my criteria at the beginning, the ones which both Balder and Osiris satisfied:
- Ancient Greece is just as well-known as the Vikings and the Ancient Egyptians, if not more so, in Western literature. Almost everyone knows who Zeus is, even if it’s just from Percy Jackson. And the links from our modern governmental system back to Athenian democracy help increase the familiarity all the more.
- Greek mythology is a well-known cultural mythology with an already-established canon, just like ancient Egyptian or Norse mythology. I’d argue one can even go deeper into Greek mythology than others before the average Westerner stops recognizing it. Theseus and the Minotaur, Odysseus and the sirens, Perseus and Andromeda, Heracles, etc... there’s a lot to work from.
- Like Osiris’ and Balder’s themes, it is quite generalized. Just “Ancient Greek”. The “Ancient” is there, like Osi’s “Ancient Egyptian” and Balder’s “Ancient Norse”, to keep the political and/or religious controversy out of it.
There are a couple of other advantages. No other GCR or major region I can think of has a Hellenistic identity of any sort. It’s a blaring gap for us to fill. (Just like there are no other major Egyptian or Norse regions, notably!) And Ancient Greek does, in fact, have solid connections to our existing identity. The phoenix is a Greek symbol and originated in Ancient Greek culture (to this day, it's the national (mythical) bird of modern Greece). Ancient Greek is about the closest we can get to the origin of "Lazarus" without getting into potentially controversial and offensive territory:
Etymology of "Lazarus": Via Late Latin Lazarus, from Ancient Greek Λάζαρος (Lázaros), the New Testament Greek form of Hebrew אֶלְעָזָר (ʾelʿāzār, literally “God has helped”)
An Ancient Greek theme received substantial and widespread support in our initial discussion on discord as well, to the point that we discussed several possible position names (Basileus, Ecclesia, etc.)
While I personally would most like to see effort put into developing LazCorp, if the region truly feels that it has hit a wall there, I believe it’s important to do a new identity the right way, and so far this proposal has struck me as the one that’s hit all of the criteria.
![[Image: 3cgBDsj.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/3cgBDsj.jpg)
