Quote from: Brad on February 07, 2024, 06:49:40 AM
Pushing back here a bit...yes to second part. He knew he'd be ostracized for these views, so kept it a secret, sure. But Ahmadinejad is one of the most vocal and prominent Holocaust deniers in the world today and he's not a Nazi, at least so far as I can tell. So is it possible, like others have said, he was just a hardcore Muslim who held these beliefs and aligned himself with people of the same belief?

I get the impression Barker wasn't even a hardcore Muslim as we'd think of it today, not an Islamist, more an Orientalist who thought Islam was cool.

Quote from: Brad on February 07, 2024, 06:49:40 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 07, 2024, 06:08:43 AM
It's pretty clear that working on the board of a Holocaust Denial Pseudo-academic journal for years makes him a Nazi. No one who isn't a Neo-Nazi would be associated with that. He kept it as secret as he could manage, which makes it clear he knew that if the public found out it would destroy his public life, and yet he kept right on doing it at that enormous risk. No one is doing that for shits and giggles.

Pushing back here a bit...yes to second part. He knew he'd be ostracized for these views, so kept it a secret, sure. But Ahmadinejad is one of the most vocal and prominent Holocaust deniers in the world today and he's not a Nazi, at least so far as I can tell. So is it possible, like others have said, he was just a hardcore Muslim who held these beliefs and aligned himself with people of the same belief?

I guess in essence, is the only defining factor of Nazism Holocaust denial? There seems to be a lot more to it than that.

As I already said multiple times, immaterial anyway. Dude is dead and Tekumel doesn't have anything to do with Nazism, so as you already stated we should just see who is publishing it and use that as a metric for support (i.e. spending money).

Ahmedinajad is a Muslim anti-semite, writing in Muslim circles. Your argument is that maybe M.A.R. Barker, being a Muslim convert, was an anti-semite more for religious rather than neo-nazi ideas. The main flaw I see with that as an historian is that as far as I know, no evidence has been uncovered of his supporting MUSLIM Anti-semitic organizations or contributing in any way to that kind of activity, but he clearly did involve himself, for many many years, in Neo-Nazi organizations.

I did already say that I agree that there's no reason why, now that money from it won't go to Barker, that Tekumel can't continue to be printed. I never saw anything political about it, which is why this revelation about Barkers abominable secret activities were such a shock when they came to light.

Quote from: Omega on February 06, 2024, 11:21:50 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 05, 2024, 08:49:26 PM
SHARK - it's not just a book that includes Nazis in it. It is an explicitly pro-Nazi novel.





And again, it isn't just that he wrote this novel for a neonazi publisher. He was also on the editorial board for a Holocaust-denial journal.

Nice try. But the back blub and the art were likely done by the neo-nazi publisher. Not Baker. The book itself is rather not as pro-nazi as I expected to be. That is the problem and what casts doubt on this whole thing. If hes a neo-nazi then why did he not write a real pro-nazi book?

Barker chose to work with that neo-nazi publisher, so even if he didn't write the blurb himself, he chose the people to do the blurb for his book. I'm not sure what you expected from a pro-nazi book. Do you have any suggestion of what real pro-nazi novels are like? When I look at the reviews of it on Goodreads.com, I see these comments:

Quote(five stars) Great read.

Quote(four stars) It was actually a pretty entertaining read and contained a good deal of National-Socialist political theory which went along very nicely. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in race or politics. However, while the beginning and end of the book were fast paced, the long middle section was pretty boring.

Quote(three stars) Really not a bad book. Good fiction; would also be good from someone who is open and learning. It's a little on the weak side philosophically and very weak on the Jewish Problem (sort of makes them out to be just another bad group but not special really). But I will say it had a lot more explanations of political stances (from what I can remember) than some other fiction in it's uncommon/rare genre.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/3684902

So there are people recommending it in a positive sense for those wanting to learn National-Socialist political theory.

Funnily enough, the more the leftists/libtards are whining about Tekumel/Barker, the more I want to play in Tekumel, due to spite if nothing else,
even if I cannot support the man´s personal views.

But to the topic at hand...

Tekumel as a setting itself, that is a tricky question. The Tsolyanu society is clearly rainbow friendly with legions with membership solely of gay men. There are basically a feminist "strong independent woman" type gender status called Aridani, where by a woman can go to a temple and claim a legal status as a male basically, with the male responsibilities connected to it and get a harem of beta males or females. The society allows all kinds of gender/sexual expression fluidity as a norm. Every kind of deviancy is supposedly practised "in some of the temples", and that mean every kind you can think of.

These are one of the reasons why the rainbow community has loved Tekumel so much and have stated their outrage about the Barker´s novel
and have wanted to "separate the art from the artist". Some even basically called for what sounded like stealing the intellectual property of Barker´s (owned by the Foundation, I believe) to "correct" what has been done. These are easy to find from YouTube.

I am not well versed enough about Tekumel to know whether some part of the rainbow stuff are in originally in the first game iteration, though at least the Aridani are, I cannot remember about the rest. I´v read the original Empire of the Petal Throne game book, parts of Sword & Glory and parts of Bethorm, but not Gardasial, Tirikelu etc. though.

To say that Tekumel as a setting has national socialist or antisemitic undertones is one of the most ridiculous things I´v ever heard to be honest, regardless of what kind of values/ideals Barker might have harbored personally.

What comes to UNIgames (current license holder), they are clearly in favor of leftist ideals and have applied to scrap Barker´s name from Bethorm, which was denied by The Tekumel Foundation. Though I can also understand the business side of it where they were scared of getting a "nazi stamp" due to the novel. Then again, Bethorm for example has a character creation chart to generate the gender and sexual preference/deviancy of the player character which itself is seems pretty questionable to me. If it wasn´t such a big deal to them, there would be no need to make such charts to begin with. Some of the UNIgames profits also go to jewish political organization as a "compensation" of Barker´s actions.

The Tekumel Foundation itself is in difficult situation where by they try to retain the legacy of Barker´s, which ever that may be and at the same time not to step on too many toes. I do not know about the ideals of the gentlemen involved, though at least they try look neutral, if that is possible at all in this case.

Quote from: WERDNA on February 05, 2024, 03:22:29 PM
I feel like it should be pointed out that the humanspace empire in the ancient background of Tekumel's lore wasn't presented as particularly moral. In addition to brutally conquering the Ssu, I believe they fought wars against several species they were formerly allied with.

Speaking of which, it looks like the old IX blog that put that Tekumel spin-off pulp sci-fi stuff out is gone.  I at least saved some of the posts off it I tended to refer to as PDF's though.

Quote from: Angry Goblin on February 08, 2024, 03:38:57 AM
Tekumel as a setting itself, that is a tricky question. The Tsolyanu society is clearly rainbow friendly with legions with membership solely of gay men. There are basically a feminist "strong independent woman" type gender status called Aridani, where by a woman can go to a temple and claim a legal status as a male basically, with the male responsibilities connected to it and get a harem of beta males or females. The society allows all kinds of gender/sexual expression fluidity as a norm. Every kind of deviancy is supposedly practised "in some of the temples", and that mean every kind you can think of.

Essentially all of that was lifted from the cultures Barker was copying from. Many, if not most, native American groups have multiple acknowledged genders. Claiming a legal status as a "man" is something that was practiced in a number of Plains Indians groups, where they were otherwise treated more like valuable property. The Dine (Navajo) have four acknowledged genders, and didn't seem to get very perplexed about people coloring outside the lines; sometimes their conception of transgenderism, fluidity, and the like is called a fifth gender. The Spanish missionaries in the Americas were constantly perplexed, amazed, and occasionally enraged by the native peoples' accommodations with what we call homosexuality, transgender, gender non-comformity, etc. If you look globally, many societies with otherwise rigid gender roles come up with "escape hatches" and special roles for people who just won't or can't conform.

Tekumel also draws on Barker's pet interest, India, and in India, the hijra still exists in some form. These were intersex, eunuch, transgender, and other gender non-conforming people with a feminine presentation. They are culturally and legally recognized throughout the region as a third gender. Although their ability to do conventional work is often limited, they do have acknowledged social and ceremonial roles with a positive connotation.

I don't read too much into it ideologically. Barker viewed the Tsolyani patronizingly anyway. As a linguist with some minor interest in history and archaeology, Barker was aware that such variations in gender and sexuality are common throughout the world and throughout history. There are a lot of things he had choices about, that he chose because it made a better game. He decided it was hot and metal was rare, which made the civilization look more like the Mayans and so forth, and also justified putting topless women on every other page. The "woman who assumes the status of a man" concept was useful, because it allowed him both to have harems of subject women, and exotic fighting women who could then have hot hero sex with other women or with men. He had gay warrior fraternties, who knows? Because it amused him, because he was taking a dig at Ernst Rohm, because it was a noteworthy detail to his traveler mind, because it was an interesting parallel to the Theban Band, the Spartans, Athenian pederasty, etc. He was a mid 20th century man in love with late 19th century tourism and colonialism. Very little about his work feels surprising in light of that.  Like a Robert Howard who never grew out of it. That is what I though he WAS, just that, before all the Nazi stuff came out.

As to the question, "How do you feel about the people publishing his work now?" They continued to publish, and promote, the work of a neo-Nazi without letting people know the score. I know my criteria are different from those of the people who keep "the list," but in my mind, riding on someone else's clout, without acknowledging they were a neo-Nazi shirbird, sucks.

Quote from: pawsplay on February 09, 2024, 05:52:03 PM

Quote from: Angry Goblin on February 08, 2024, 03:38:57 AM
Tekumel as a setting itself, that is a tricky question. The Tsolyanu society is clearly rainbow friendly with legions with membership solely of gay men. There are basically a feminist "strong independent woman" type gender status called Aridani, where by a woman can go to a temple and claim a legal status as a male basically, with the male responsibilities connected to it and get a harem of beta males or females. The society allows all kinds of gender/sexual expression fluidity as a norm. Every kind of deviancy is supposedly practised "in some of the temples", and that mean every kind you can think of.

Essentially all of that was lifted from the cultures Barker was copying from. Many, if not most, native American groups have multiple acknowledged genders. Claiming a legal status as a "man" is something that was practiced in a number of Plains Indians groups, where they were otherwise treated more like valuable property. The Dine (Navajo) have four acknowledged genders, and didn't seem to get very perplexed about people coloring outside the lines; sometimes their conception of transgenderism, fluidity, and the like is called a fifth gender. The Spanish missionaries in the Americas were constantly perplexed, amazed, and occasionally enraged by the native peoples' accommodations with what we call homosexuality, transgender, gender non-comformity, etc. If you look globally, many societies with otherwise rigid gender roles come up with "escape hatches" and special roles for people who just won't or can't conform.

Tekumel also draws on Barker's pet interest, India, and in India, the hijra still exists in some form. These were intersex, eunuch, transgender, and other gender non-conforming people with a feminine presentation. They are culturally and legally recognized throughout the region as a third gender. Although their ability to do conventional work is often limited, they do have acknowledged social and ceremonial roles with a positive connotation.

I don't read too much into it ideologically. Barker viewed the Tsolyani patronizingly anyway. As a linguist with some minor interest in history and archaeology, Barker was aware that such variations in gender and sexuality are common throughout the world and throughout history. There are a lot of things he had choices about, that he chose because it made a better game. He decided it was hot and metal was rare, which made the civilization look more like the Mayans and so forth, and also justified putting topless women on every other page. The "woman who assumes the status of a man" concept was useful, because it allowed him both to have harems of subject women, and exotic fighting women who could then have hot hero sex with other women or with men. He had gay warrior fraternties, who knows? Because it amused him, because he was taking a dig at Ernst Rohm, because it was a noteworthy detail to his traveler mind, because it was an interesting parallel to the Theban Band, the Spartans, Athenian pederasty, etc. He was a mid 20th century man in love with late 19th century tourism and colonialism. Very little about his work feels surprising in light of that.  Like a Robert Howard who never grew out of it. That is what I though he WAS, just that, before all the Nazi stuff came out.

As to the question, "How do you feel about the people publishing his work now?" They continued to publish, and promote, the work of a neo-Nazi without letting people know the score. I know my criteria are different from those of the people who keep "the list," but in my mind, riding on someone else's clout, without acknowledging they were a neo-Nazi shirbird, sucks.

Ah yes, the famous Nazi tolerance for gays and other cultures...

He either wasn't one (press X to doubt) or his beliefs aren't in Tekumel and you are a lying twat.

I guess youj're just as mad towards those publishing Mao's little red book right?

Fucking lying twat.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 09, 2024, 06:01:12 PM
Ah yes, the famous Nazi tolerance for gays and other cultures...

Ernst Rohm

Nazis tolerated absolutely anything and everything that was useful to them. Hitler made several of his Jewish-descended acquaintances from the old days, such as his chauffeur and some Wermacht officers, into Honorary Aryans so he could continue to enjoy their friendship and services instead of deporting them. The Japanese were "honorary Aryans." Every last one of them.

So I get you're going for hyperbole, but the Nazis weren't known for their integrity. First and foremost, Nazism is about power, and the first rule of power is that it's greatest if you're allowed to do something, and someone else isn't.

Nazis had no problem with sex tourism in Asia and Africa, I don't know why you think Barker would be any different.

Quote from: pawsplay on February 09, 2024, 05:52:03 PMAs to the question, "How do you feel about the people publishing his work now?" They continued to publish, and promote, the work of a neo-Nazi without letting people know the score. I know my criteria are different from those of the people who keep "the list," but in my mind, riding on someone else's clout, without acknowledging they were a neo-Nazi shirbird, sucks.

I feel the same about scumbags that support domestic terrorists Antifa, and race grifters BLM.

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 09, 2024, 06:35:05 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on February 09, 2024, 05:52:03 PMAs to the question, "How do you feel about the people publishing his work now?" They continued to publish, and promote, the work of a neo-Nazi without letting people know the score. I know my criteria are different from those of the people who keep "the list," but in my mind, riding on someone else's clout, without acknowledging they were a neo-Nazi shirbird, sucks.

I feel the same about scumbags that support domestic terrorists Antifa, and race grifters BLM.

So they should get the same rating?

Quote from: pawsplay on February 09, 2024, 06:45:12 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 09, 2024, 06:35:05 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on February 09, 2024, 05:52:03 PMAs to the question, "How do you feel about the people publishing his work now?" They continued to publish, and promote, the work of a neo-Nazi without letting people know the score. I know my criteria are different from those of the people who keep "the list," but in my mind, riding on someone else's clout, without acknowledging they were a neo-Nazi shirbird, sucks.

I feel the same about scumbags that support domestic terrorists Antifa, and race grifters BLM.

So they should get the same rating?

Rating on what? The Richter scale?

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 09, 2024, 06:52:40 PM
Rating on what? The Richter scale?

(points to thread title)

Quote from: pawsplay on February 09, 2024, 07:06:56 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 09, 2024, 06:52:40 PM
Rating on what? The Richter scale?

(points to thread title)

As people have told you ad nauseum, the setting has nothing to do with Nazism, and none of the sales going to helping Nazism. As opposed to the extant publishers you support, that push and fund dangerous ideologies.

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 09, 2024, 07:36:00 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on February 09, 2024, 07:06:56 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 09, 2024, 06:52:40 PM
Rating on what? The Richter scale?

(points to thread title)

As people have told you ad nauseum, the setting has nothing to do with Nazism, and none of the sales going to helping Nazism. As opposed to the extant publishers you support, that push and fund dangerous ideologies.

Listen, princess, the only publisher I support is me.

Quote from: pawsplay on February 09, 2024, 09:44:56 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 09, 2024, 07:36:00 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on February 09, 2024, 07:06:56 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 09, 2024, 06:52:40 PM
Rating on what? The Richter scale?

(points to thread title)

As people have told you ad nauseum, the setting has nothing to do with Nazism, and none of the sales going to helping Nazism. As opposed to the extant publishers you support, that push and fund dangerous ideologies.

Listen, princess, the only publisher I support is me.

That's good, because no customers do.