Talk:Bas-Lag

message: I think it is a good idea to split the Known Races section into its own article, since their definitely is enough information to create one and it will take way from the appearance of the article just being a giant list  Deyyaz 16:46, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did the split. The new article needs alphabetisation. Also, I can't for the life of me remember the difference between the cray, wyrmen, grindylows etc. I may have the wrong one in the major races section. - Tredanse 02:20, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Known Races Split

message: Reading through the artical for Bas Lag, I noted that there was a problem locating where New Crobuzon was located on the Rohagni continent.
Stated in the geography section, it mentions that New Crobuzon (NC) lays about 10 miles inland from it's eastern coast.
In the Politics and society section, it states NC to have the rivers Tar, Canker and Gross Tar, 10 miles EAST of the swollen ocean, which places it on the west coast.
As all other locations and cities/towns are mentioned to be south west of NC, (see Iron Council), the dominating suggestion is that NC is on the east coast of Rohagni.
--217.37.204.61 11:57, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Which coast is New Crobuzon ? 

message: The list of characters is currently a little pointless. Maybe the list could be broken up in several ways? Into lists of characters from each book, or possibly into lists of different factions/groupings, such as "Citizens of Armada", "Iron Council", "New Crobuzoners", etc... or even divided by race? (this last one could be done on the races of Bas-Lag page, under each heading. For example, the Khepri section could say, "notable Khepri include..")
Tredanse 03:18, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Significant characters 

message: I had never heard of the idea that Tesh was something separate from The Witchocracy; to me it had always been obvious from reading that The Witchocracy was to Tesh what Parliament was to New Crobuzon. I had to search a bit to find supporting evidence, since these places are always referred to almost always in passing, but I found this from a mayoral speech which makes it fairly clear:
This was not Tesh, nor Troglodopolis, Vadaunk or High Cromlech.
This was not a city ruled by witches; this was not a cthonic burrow; the seasons’ changes did not bring an onslaught of superstitious repression; New Crobuzon did not process its citizenry through zombie factories;
Quite obviously Troglodopolis is an underground city (cthonic burrow) and High Cromlech is the undead city which would put its citizens through "zombie factories". The parallel structure makes it rather obvious that Tesh is the "city ruled by witches" - the Witchocracy.  It's also simpler than the idea that somehow there were two powers in control of the Firewater Straits.75.183.86.60 (talk)
On the official map Mieville released it shows the Witchocracy, also referred to as Shud Zar Myrion Zar Koni, as opposite Tesh on the other side of the Firewater straits. http://outtherebooks.wordpress.com/2014/05/14/here-it-is-the-official-map-of-bas-lag-as-drawn-by-china-mieville/  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.72.41.202 (talk) 04:06, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tesh = Witchocracy 

message: I'm trying to update this page and provide some citations for the information provided wherein, but I am unsure as to where to place them (bit of a newbie to Wikipedia.) The majority of the information I am using is an issue of Dragon Magazine. I'm currently working on the continents section. Should a citation go at the end of every paragraph, or should I add a sentence at the top saying something along the lines of "Most of this information is derived from blahblahblah?" Any help would be greatly appreciated! AwesomeInTheory (talk) 07:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources in the articles 

message: Moving this to the talk page for now, because I don't think it's needed in the article, but the character lists could be incorporated into the book articles.Tredanse (talk) 09:27, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of characters 

message: Just wanted to say that I just have been swamped with work as of late but intend to make some contributions to this page, most likely over the weekend. I know I've sort of dragged on it, but I will get back 'on the wagon' with this soon. AwesomeInTheory (talk) 21:12, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits to article 

message: I'd always thought that Tesh and the Witchocracy were one and the same, and there are many passages in the books that suggest that, but this one contradicts it:
:Thousands of sea miles from Iron Bay to the remote coast, to the foothold that New Crobuzon had established north of Tesh. The militia had to go past Shankell, past seas thick with piasa and pirates, through the Firewater Straits where the Witchocracy backed their Tesh neighbours.
::(Iron Council, Ch. 11, pg. 126 in the UK paperback edition)
Through the miracle of ebooks I can look up anything in each of the books. The word "Tesh" is mentioned 6 times in PSS, "Witchocracy" none. In The Scar, "Tesh" occurs twice, while "Witchocracy" occurs a handful of times in just one passage:
:“The Witchocracy, more ponderously known as Shud zar Myrion zar Koni.” She waved her hands mock-mysteriously. “City of Ratjinn, Hive of the Jet Sorrow—and suchlike. I know what you New Crobuzoners say about it. Very little of which is true.”
Notice Tesh isn't named here.
In Iron Council "Tesh" comes up hundreds of times, while "Witchocracy" only appears thrice: once as quoted previously, where the two are differentiated as "neighbours", but the other two times the Witchocracy and Tesh seem to be analogous.
It's all too confusing and not that important, I just thought since I have the ebooks and I can search text, I would look into this question :)
Tredanse (talk) 12:32, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow. Looks like it's pretty contradictory. But maybe Tesh is a vassal of the The Witchocracy? It could explain how they're separate yet functionally similar. And both happen to be ruled by witches?207.181.213.51 (talk) 03:38, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tesh is the Witchocracy, or is it? 

message: I notice that the Races of Bas-Lag article is still out there on its own a good ten months after (limited) consensus at AfD established that it should be remerged. The earlier consensus to split has presumably then been overturned. Any objections if I have a crack at re-inserting it here? Yunshui (talk) 12:42, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: A draft version of the section to be reinserted is here. Yunshui (talk) 13:18, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Know Races remerge 

message: FFS.  Maybe "superintelligent" was a stretch, but "brilliant" is exactly the word used to describe the male anophelii, and their being kept as captive scholars is the entire point of both the visit by Armada and of the very existence of the colony.  I went back and re-read the relevant section to be precise; citation, The Scar, just like everything in the paragraph.  This is no more "controversial" than anything else in the entire article. -- Mindstalk (talk) 03:04, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anophelii brilliance 

message: I first came to this article looking for info on the llogris, who are more than once mentioned but never described in Iron Council. I failed to find it.
Googling discovers the French-language Wikipedia article, in which they are described as "Une course indécrite. Tout ce qui est connu d'eux est qu'ils ont trois jambes." Machine translated, that's "Undescribed race. All that is known of them is that they have three legs", which may well be accurate but (more surprisingly) is actually grammatical English. However, the reference in Perdido Street Station (as found online in the Polish version at http://fb2.booksgid.com/content/84/china-mieville-dworzec-perdido/114.html as, again, machine translated), ch. 42, is to a homeless llogris who finds the streets unsafe for his 3 legs--which proves only that llogris have at least three legs when whole. (I don't suppose a Remade llogris w/ an added leg is worth contemplating.)
All of which is way too much but w/ too little actual content to put into the article. So I'm dumping it here fWIW. GeorgeTSLC (talk) 19:59, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: As I recall, the llorgis did get a mention in the old Races of Bas-Lag article, before it was merged here (by me, per consensus). It said pretty much exactly the same as the French version. I'm pretty sure Mieville's never gone into detail about them beyond their tripodality, which is why I cut them from the current article: there just isn't enough information, even in the primary text, to warrant inclusion here. Yunshui 雲‍水 21:13, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another (Barely) Known Race: The Llogris 

message: One small correction I would note to the otherwise excellent map: the term used by Mieville is "Cacotopic Stain", not "Cacatopic Strain". Daen (talk) 22:04, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correction to Map