Just don’t ask one to carry anything you don’t expect them to steal.
I mean, says who? That’s what you’d like to see, that doesn’t mean it should be that way. As Kat pointed out, the Cataclysm was…well a Cataclysm. We have no idea what the state of the Hordes zones are since then, if they have recovered or not. We also have no idea about the size Hordes population and therefor the size of their needs. So we can’t say what SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be the case.
I always thought the complaints about this were odd. Like, the garrisons were meant to reflect the two different aesthetic fantasies of the factions. If people wanted disney land castles, they can play Alliance. Horde has an entirely different fantasy.
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I would argue that after the events of BFA the Horde is in a much stronger position with the addition of the Nightborn, Highmountain Tauren, and Zandalari. This gives them control of a large swath of resource rich territory in the form of Suramar, Highmountain, and (at least) Zuldazar.
Each area containing large swaths of the materials the Horde needs. From Farmland, Mining, Fishing, Meat, and Wood as well as established population centers, some of the oldest in Azeroth to draw upon.
Even if the Horde was broke from the war, they have a much larger economic base to draw upon that was not previously available to them in the form of multiple ports, resource rich territory, and multiple new marketplaces and luxury goods to move around.
Not to mention that Suramar must have some means of making magical food or crops as the entire city full of elves, and a pretty densely populated one at that, was able to survive off of a sealed environment for 10,000 years with no notable farmland, and a single winery. (And be sufficiently nutritious to allow them to keep such healthy forms)
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A common feature of almost all Sci-fi/Fantasy societies whether t hey be Warcraft or Star Trek is that they don’t bear close examination.
Save the catgirls.
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Maybe that is more reflective on your reading list than your generalization.
It’s more reflective on the fact that most authors aren’t interested in exploring those background aspects when they have nothing to do with the story in question or will take deliberate shortcuts at the expense of consistency.
I have a VERY long reading list.
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I could see coffers heavily spent, in that all wars are highly expensive in more than just coin, though that was to be expected.
Which I suppose works for the upcoming narrative, in that both the Alliance and the Horde have little else to swing with and the Scourge come out to play.
In what non-fictional story has an author’s story passed your close examination test if you only had the story to follow up on regarding that society?
You mean fictional don’t you? Non-fiction stories don’t have to invent an economic system. The real world already has them running. As for fictional stories I only pass judgement on economic systems that are made part of the story has been done in more than a few Trek stories good, bad, and mediocre.
In TOS, Spock would quote the exact credit cost of Kirk and Spock’s training as they’re about to engage in another of Kirk’s “sure-fail” schemes according to Spock’s calculations. It was humorous and fit exactly with the American-style capitalist type of society that TOS depicted Earth and the Federation (and the bulk of the universe) to be operating in.
In TNG, the Federation (or at least Earth) is stated to be in a money-free society. I judge it badly because it’s inconsistent. Beverly Crusher charges cloth purchases to the Enterprise’s account in the pilot episode, and in another she complains about the price she paid for a Vulcan harp. The statement of the Federation economy serves no more as either set up for a Picard speech or to put Riker in an embarrassing situation when he’s asked for a bribe.
And then there’s DS9 where everything is about latinum, latinum, latinum, whose value for strips moves up and down faster than a skyscraper’s high-speed elevator.
Babylon 5 on the other hand held to a high level of consistency with it’s economics… including the economic realities faced by the station when it broke away from Earth control.
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No I mean non-fiction.
And yes they do unless you use outside material that would explore all the complexities of that society.
You expect a story book to not only deliver you a story but also deliver complex societal backgrounds that would stand up to scrutiny.
Then I don’t understand why you’re asking that question since fiction is all we discuss here. If I’m reading a book or paper about stellar dynamics, I’m not interested in hearing how much the telescopes cost.
On the other hand one of my frequently re-read books is “Collapse” a case study of several instances of societal collapse and dysfunction from the fall of Rapa Nui (Easter Island to us gringos) to the failure of the Viking colonisation in North America, the collapse of the Mayan empire and the factors involved and how they relate. In those books economics and ecology play important factors.
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Because you singled out fiction when non-fiction would run into the same problem unless you used outside material and knowledge to fill in the holes.
The holes are only an issue when said economics is used as a contingent part of the storyline. Trek is probably the worst offender in that area.
And you seem to determine to ignore my point that I’m not concerned about economics in non-fiction OR fiction unless it’s relevant. If it’s an article about Covid-19 or world trade it’s most certainly relevant. If it’s about the discovery of another moon of Jupiter, I could not care less.
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Are you applying the same knowledge that you have in RL to judge Trek like you would a non-fiction story book?
We could always use RL history and facts to fill in the holes that the book doesnt bother going into.
I judge Trek (and any other fantasy or science fiction) by it’s consistency and versimilitude. Trek fails frequently at consistency even within it’s own series. And lately authors seem to ignore versmilitude in order to shortcut to get a story across in the fastest time possible. For example in Star Trek: Picard we’re told that the attack on the Utopia shipping yards set the entire planetary atmosphere on fire and IT’S STILL BURNING 14 YEARS LATER! What were the Martian colonists breathing all this time? The hydrogen used in airships like the Hindenberg? That’s an example of both scientific consistency and versimilutde being thrown under the bus to shortcut lazy story telling. And what’s truly appalling about the state of modern education is that hardly anyone else seems to have noticed.
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I never got into Trek so I can’t comment.
But from your initial post I got the impression that fictional works cannot stand up to scrutiny if analyzed when non-fictional books would not either if judged by the same standards.
Non-fiction enjoys the fact that there are millions of books out there that would fill-in any hole the author left out due to irrelevance or common sense.
I don’t need a whole history lesson in several domains to read a book about a kid in a gang in Chicago versus cotton being important trade commodity in a fantasy world.
Because I can use outside knowledge I have and make those connections. Whether the book is fictional or not.
Do you think Warcraft has either of these qualities lmao
You don’t understand my point at all. So let me try to break it down for you. If you give me a story, I will judge every element in it. If your story revolves around economics, I will judge how that economics is presented. Key word here… REVOLVES. Someone buying a pack of gum on the way to a court case does not call attention to it’s price unless the price itself is a story factor. if 20 strips of gold pressed latinum buys retirement in one story but not a baseball in another, I will call the inconsistency to account. If your planet’s ENTIRE atmosphere goes up in flames because of a few phaser beams fired at a shipyard, I will ask… what the hell were you breathing?
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If you’re talking about judging the economics of non-fictional books, then by virtue of them being non-fiction, that’s simply the history of actual economics, which it would probably take all of 5 minutes to look up.
The only way you could mess this up is to have a book set at some point in the past and not recognize that the value of a dollar has changed, so having a kid buy a pack of bubble gum for $2.28 in 1935 would be an eye-popping amount, rather than a normal amount for gum to cost in 2020.
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Ok I understand your point then.
I would be of the same opinion, its kind of like in Cataclysm we talked about food/wood needs of the Horde but suddenly its not a factor anymore even though the situation in Kalimdor for the Horde remains largely the same especially where food is concerned.
That’s what I was raising issue with. A story book should prioritize their own story rather than bore me with the intricacies of some trade resource when I am more interested in character interaction and plot development.
Whether its fiction or not; As long as it is consistent and somewhat accurate then it’s ok.
Plenty more ways than that and not just economic either but yeah that would be a huge issue that breaks immersion.