by Max Barry

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Sacred sequoia trees

Do not misunderstand, we did not think of it as an insult, but we are most accustomed to misunderstandings about us. For thousands of years humans have assumed we are like dead things. More recently as some humans have come to know we are sapient, it has been very rare for humans to think of us without comparing us to what they know: animal behavior and their own behavior. This is a natural error to make. Most humans still do not believe trees can be sapient, so they still imagine that we are mindless inferior life forms. But if we are to live here in harmony together we need to find opportunities to explain what we really are like. It is one of our goals that the humans of this region, like the humans of our original home where we have many friends, will come to understand us better so we can establish friendships here too.

As for ourselves we too need to learn. We are still learning that humans have need for subtle shades of meaning in speech. If we gave the impression we were offended or angry we apologize. Among our own kind, emotional meaning in speech such as humor or anger or sadness are indicated by grammatical inflections that cannot be duplicated in human speech. Because of this our natural manner of speech is stern without seeming at all confrontational or harsh. We still forget sometimes that our natural speech forms must not be directed to humans without softening. Humans can do things like smile, frown wink, and so on. We can do none of those things with our bark. We still forget these differences sometimes, but we are learning and will be more careful as we improve.

Most important to us is that you have welcomed us among you, and we have this opportunity to exchange our cultures to enrich one another. We hope this explanation will clear away any difficulty.

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Sequoia trees I have longed to ask you something. As you know fire exclusion by man in the Sierra Nevadas has created a terrible situation where fires burn hotter and larger than they have for a very long time. When possible we (man) try to correct this through prescribed fire (burning under prescribed weather conditions over a controlled area) however this is not possible in many areas or over nearly enough acres a year (due to air quality issues, safety issues etc.) How do you feel about selective logging of generally smaller trees to restore forests to structures consistent with frequent fire regimes. I know logging must be naturally unpleasant for you but can you understand why we do it today?

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

To the most admirable nations and peoples of Forest:

we would like to extend our respectful greetings to all of you.
We have just moved to this remarkable region, leaving the crowded Pacific. We see that the nations of this region are civilized, wise, thoughtful, and nature-loving, and we hope that we will find here a peaceful abode where we will be able to pursue our meditations and self-improvement.

Please accept our most humble and admiring respects.

Welcome to Forest Archenomia! Please make yourself at home. There are many leagues of peaceful and quite forest for you here, disturbed only by the occasional gurgle of a stream or singing of a bird.

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Where is everyone? Has everyone been in the woods?

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Oh no just college classes started, but I have some free time right now. Welcome Archenomia! Have a long prosperous and peaceful stay at Forest.

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Yeah senior year of high school started and XC practice everyday. But don't don't worry, I still stop by at the regional HQ a few times a week!

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Sacred sequoia trees

@Ransium: thank you for your sensitive way of asking that question. We realize that humans feel the need to manage your environment and control what happens in it, but perhaps it would be best if we explained by turning the situation around so you may see it as we do. We apologize if our frankness seems harsh; it is our way, and all the more necessary because human language is not easy for us to use. We mean the deepest respect for you. We apologize also because an answer clear to you will be long.

First, consider that we lived for hundreds of thousands of years when all humans did was pass through our forests to hunt and gather, and were content to use the corpses of our people from the ground. We lived in harmony with all nature, and even the occasional human error had little impact on us. All our real trouble began when humans decided we needed to be "managed". The situation you describe in Sierra Nevada is human-made and human-sustained for so long that now, it is not possible for humans to see how to step away and stop interfering, because they realize at last that they have altered things to the point where they have made the environment, which had functioned without them for eons, dependent on humans to protect it from what humans had already done.

In effect, human interference has continued so long that if humans finally learn to stop trying to "tame" nature, there will be a terrible price to pay. But humans will not pay it. We non-humans will. Even we cannot see an easy way to reverse the domestication of nature that humans have imposed on nature wherever they are able to be close to it. This is why we chose to make nations for ourselves. We do not hate humans, but we realize that humans simply cannot see the danger they are to us when they try to tidy us up and make us more pleasing, more productive or more amenable to them and their ways. Speaking for ourselves and other trees, we observe that it is a human characteristic to turn us and our smaller relatives into food, ornaments, tools and recreation. Houseplants and gardens, big and small, if you will. This is harmful to us and our culture.

Second, your question. We see what this question means in human terms: it is to you a practical solution to a problem. Now let us consider it from our own terms. To do this let us ask the question back to you. How would you feel about if we trees selectively culled human children and adolescents to manage problems like disease, poor behavior, youth crime, trauma that cannot be adequately treated, and so forth? You see Ransium, what you call "generally smaller trees", we call our children. Like you, we would do anything to protect our young from harm. There is one difference: because our consciousness is shared, not only is the concept your singular pronouns like "I" and "me" alien to us, but so are your singular possessives like "my" and "mine". Where you humans are able to see your own young one and feel his or her joy or pain in your heart, but not feel as intimately the joy or pain of a stranger's young one, we do not distinguish. Each sapling is the "child" of every tree. Last week, the sapling of a tree in my root-nation, many leagues from here, fell prey to injury and died. Many of us here in this nation could not have claimed immediate association with that sapling in the way humans can say "I knew him", yet all of us here are saddened by that loss as if it were, to use the human concept of individuation, "our own" sapling. The grief of its parent flows through each of us, even other saplings. Thus we learn the reality of belonging as soon as our roots pierce the soil and suck water from the good earth.

You see, it is our own sapling. We do not even have the luxury of thinking in our worst moment, "at least it only happened to some stranger's child and not to mine". It always happens to "our own" child, "our own" parent, "our own" sibling, "our own" friend. But when it happens by the natural processes it does not wound us so much. We live and feel in harmony with nature. We understand that we all will lose loved ones and we all will die, and then we all will feed those who live on. What causes us pain is when we know a death was the outcome of foolishness, ignorance, cruelty, disdain. When we see humans butchering our young because they think it is a good thing, it grieves us, and angers us. Because we choose not to be angry with our fellow-creatures, we create nations where we can live without human interference however well-meaning, and we actively prevent humans from coming among us unless we know them and trust them.

I trust you will understand our feelings. We have been honest to answer, as you have been honest to ask. We took no offense because it is only through such things that we may one day understand one another. We thank you.

Gil zardon, Frieden-und Freudenland, Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and 1 otherMcClandia Doge 2

I'm actually really glad I read that, it gives me something to think about. Ideas...

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Sacred sequoia trees

We began by apologizing that it would be so long, Fijonia. It is difficult to express some of these things because we are so different and see things so differently from one another. But it is agreed among the sentient trees that we want very much to help find some way to end the conflict of priorities and values between the civilization of humans and the civilizations of other living things, and the only way to do that is by increasing understanding of one another. We believe that as long as humans look at our wood and needles and bark and cones, and think "resource" and "recreation", and do not know we are sentient and have our own civilization, they will not realize the true significance of what they do. We hope this does not greatly inconvenience the humans of the region.

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

I hesitate to respond to you Sacred Sequoia Trees only because when two sides are both passionate about an issue, but believe opposite sides of the issue, it is rare that either side convinces the other, and often that feelings are hurt. In the past on this board I've mentioned that, in real life, I work for the US Forest Service as a forester in the Sierra Nevada's. From your perspective, I am a tree butcher. However, I want to make clear why I do what I do and that it is not from "foolishness, ignorance, cruelty, disdain"

I feel that you do not give Native American's (man before 'land managers') enough credit - or perhaps enough infamy - for their actions. They were managing the forest just as we do to, only more effectively. They started fires exceedingly often because these fires favored plants they wanted to eat and created open conditions that made it east to hunt game. They planted plants - including trees - that they favored because they were good food sources. As near as I can tell, they treated the Sierra Nevadas as their vast edible garden. In fact, and only you could tell us if we are right or wrong, one theory humans have as to why there are very scattered Sequoia Groves north of the river we call the Kings all the way to the lake we call the Tahoe, is that Native American's planted them there. From my perspective, they were managing forests every bit as much as man is today, the only difference is they were managing the forest in sustainable fashion. So when early man set a fire that crept through the understory and burned and killed small trees was that unnatural? Was that less of a loss to you than when modern man kills the same sort of trees with chainsaws. I don't want to be flippant, but I have trouble seeing the difference.

I think we both agree there are no good choices today. We also both agree land management is what got us to this point in the first place, and don't think I don't see the irony in advocating land management to solve past land management. However, if man is to step back now and "let nature take it's course" many, many trees will die. Small trees, medium trees, large trees, it matters not. Though Sequoias may be larger and more fire resistant than any other tree in the Sierra Nevada, I fear not even you will be spared. It will be several of your generations until things become normal again, especially when one takes into account soil loss. The impacts to humans would be severe as well. This sort of cataclysm would not be natural but rather the result of nature's reaction to 100 years of a certain brand of human management.

However, it need not be so, through humans letting some natural fires burn, setting fires under prescribed conditions, and selective cutting down trees we can avoid this, and create conditions similar to those that you and your brethren have prospered in for thousands of year. At this point, it seems to me most trees die unnatural deaths. I see large trees succumbing to competition from many small shade tolerant trees which would not have been there were there not fire suppression. I see large patches of trees dying from bark beetles which are natural but driven to higher levels because of the stressed trees due to competition from fire suppression. And I see thousands of acres of trees dying due to fires which would not have burned as large or hot were it not for previous fire suppression. How can one view any of these deaths as natural, or even more natural than getting cut down by a chainsaw? If a chainsaw can be used as a scalpel to remove the problematic trees rather than the hacksaw nature wields in response to human influence, why is this problematic?

I have one last point, which I suspect we will have the least to agree upon, and perhaps many in Forest will not see eye to eye with me on. The day humans stop viewing trees as resource is the day humans begin to march to extinction. Humans, unlike trees, need to use other life to survive. The most obvious example is we use other life as our food source, but their are many other ways we have to use life for our survival. Humans could do better in using resources in a more efficient, less wasteful way, without question. However, no matter how efficient we use our resources, in the end we will require more resources. This means we need renewable resources. Most building materials require huge amounts of processing and are non-renewable. Wood on the other hand can be processed with comparative efficiency and is a renewable resource. The day we humans reject renewable resources for non-renewable is the day we begin to march to our collective graves. Similarly, I feel that the harvest of wood at unsustainable levels is an equally effective recipe for the doom of humanity. Also, I think its great that humans have set aside some areas to not experience resource extraction of any kind, but this cannot be everywhere, or we will not survive as a species.

Please do not mistake my passion for this subject as a lack of respect for you Sequoias or what you represent. I respect you and your opinions deeply, whether I agree with them or not. I hope you can take the words I have written without offense, just as I have tried to take your words without offense. Like you, I am simply trying to be honest.

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Sacred sequoia trees

Ransium, we thank you for your thoughtful and honest response. It is just such discussion as we have now that offers some hope for our species and the rest of the life on our world in the future, and we take no offense. For what it is worth, we do not see you as a tree butcher, but as one who would try to protect us from tree butchers. We may consider some of you misguided, but we find no malice in you. And we recognize that those of you who do your job are trapped, as we are, in the present situation that cannot simply be reversed without great cost to us all, and especially to us trees. It is what we believe some humans call "catch 22". We prefer to think of it as an asymmetrical flow of events in time and space. Having gone in one direction for so long, we can no longer turn around without consequences. We believe that for the most part, Forest Rangers and the like are trying to make the best of a bad situation. Our biggest problem is with those who look at us and see dollars instead of trees. You raise interesting points. From our perspective many of them highlight the central dilemma of asymmetrical events.

It is true that the Native Americans managed forests, but not as modern Americans do. We assume they did not understand us well, but they still managed to do some things that were beneficial for us while avoiding things that genuinely were harmful. Even their practice of fire setting happened to be good for us, contributing to our life cycle and eliminating perils from the environment, as you no doubt know. They were usually careful in doing this, and their attitude towards us often differed from the modern one. That is not to say we had no trouble with them. Often they were ignorant of what they did. The difference was, they were seldom foolish and never disdainful or casual about their actions.

We too have stories among our people that the First Americans helped our people to spread beyond barriers of nature, and there is no reason to doubt this. Their management of us was, in your word, sustainable. It sustained us and them without as much unnecessary loss as we have suffered in more recent times at the hands of the civilized humans. We do not take it personally; we realize that the humans who harmed us in recent centuries were of a kind that also sought to exterminate their fellow-humans during that same period, for reasons even more senseless than their disregard for our well-being. And we acknowledge the rise in recent times of humans who are trying to understand better how to live side by side with all nature.

Let us take up one point you make, when you ask, "Was that less of a loss to you than when modern man kills the same sort of trees with chainsaws. I don't want to be flippant, but I have trouble seeing the difference." It does not seem flippant, but perhaps it does reveal something at the heart of the disagreement between humans and us. Let us reply with a question that may illuminate this. We believe it is true that in human history, even recent history, your doctors practiced medicine in ways you now know are not good. We have been told that sometimes the methods those doctors used may even have killed instead of cured. Supposing it is your child the doctor killed while doing everything that his imperfect knowledge dictates. Would you feel the same kind of pain, the same sense of pointless loss and waste of life, the same sense of being robbed of dignity and personal value, as you would feel if that same man had entered your house for no reason and slit your child's throat? Or if he drove his auto while intoxicated and crushed your child, perhaps without even realized that he struck anyone? It is hard for us to make a better analogy because it is rare now for humans to regard one another with the kind of disrespect and disregard that they have for us even today. How many humans do you know that would consider the possibility that the wanton killing of a tree snuffs out a mind, a personality, and creates a wave of grief and loss that ripples over tens and even hundreds of miles? How many would even converse with us as you are doing?

We believe we have tried to explain, though we will have done it badly, that we do not shy away from the natural cycles of life and death. For us all that is, is part of nature. So we see no inherent unnaturalness in the actions of humans. For us, the unnaturalness comes when humans choose not merely to interact with nature but to subdue it, to tame it, to make it over into their own likeness. This is why we are able to distinguish between the actions of First Americans, the management maniacs, and those of today like yourself who are trying to make the best of things for all concerned. First People made use of us without trying to bend us against our own nature, while the nature tamers sought to make us into something that was against our own nature even when they could not thing of any way to make use of us. Those of most recent times are trying to understand what has happened and what the result is, and seem to want to make it better although they see that we are entrapped by the unintended consequences of past exploitation. Your summary of the "cataclysm" that would result from trying to turn time back on itself is what we believe too, and as we said, the price will be terrible but it will not be the human perpetrators of this folly who will pay it. The solution is as you suggest, more complicated and difficult. This is made worse because we see it with such different eyes.

We also agree with your description of the problems of total fire suppression. Our real problem is with careless campers, arsonists, and the kind of fires set for managing a forest that do not take into account the specific trees being exposed to fire. There were fires before there were humans, else we could not have thrived as we did. Native Americans were not as primitive in this regard as modern humans like to think, so "good" fire management is not impossible. And yes, we pay a price now, from parasites and disease, for this ban. But this too is a problem compounded by other aspects of human over-management. Do you humans not say "it is easier to get into a war than to get out?" This also applies to playing god over nature, but more so.

Incidentally, it a human perspective that sees us as "competing" with shade tolerant trees and the like. Our view of existence is, for lack of a better word, intimate. So for us, we find the humans' assault on our people more intolerable because as they assault us, they refuse to acknowledge us - like European men of the last century hanging African men while thinking and speaking of them as "animals" or less than human in some other way. But we find it most intolerable of all that the humans who assault us will not look us in the eye. When we do what you call "competing" with other trees, in fact we are in a kind of dance, where the music is played by nature and we each act according to our natural ways while looking into one another's being. There is a bigger picture to these processes than humans realize. From our conversations with other humans, we have not found many human concepts that even can hold what these things mean to us.

Look at every creature except humans. If you could see them as we do you would know that even though this beast might use that beast or that plant for food, it is an intimate act. Each act of tearing and biting is done, not with cold pretense that the food is something less oneself, but also not with anger or hatred or violence against the being that is food. It is an intimacy that says "I know you and I acknowledge that we share life. According to my nature, I seek to eat your life, even as you become my food according to your nature. In this we maintain harmony". It is not even conscious thought, it just is so. And in this way, even if some disease were destroying our bark as we speak to you, we would know it to be acting out of the sharing of life with us. If we died from this, we would know there was no malice, just the following of our respective natures in the intimate unity of life we share. It is an ebbing and flowing of being, a stability that arises from the constant flux of things. And we long have suspected that humans seek to control it, to restrict it, because it makes them feel uncomfortable. Meanwhile their attempts to manage it not only destroy us in the end, they offend us at the root of existence because they deny the intimacy that should exist between us all. That denial is in fact a denial of our being and the significance of our existence.

Another way for us to say this is that nature's hacksaw is less precise than your chainsaw, but it is also less demeaning than your chainsaw.

Regarding your final point, Ransium, you rightly say we will not agree, but we can see the force of your argument. From your point of view it cannot be easy to think differently. We would say to you that we see a difference between taking the shells of our already dead ones to use for furniture or houses and killing our living in order to use their shells. We also "use" other life forms, as do all living things. Things that die on our forest floors become fertilizer for us; it has been thus for millennia. That is a far cry from us killing humans to turn them into fertilizer, something we prefer not to do. So how would you feel and think if we said that we trees need to use other life forms including humans as a resource? And what if we said it with the clear implication that we would not necessarily wait until humans died off of their own accord, but we would need to kill living humans to meet our needs, or else we would not survive as a species?
Such things are easily said. They are more difficult to hear. Even the one who said them may not always think about what he says clearly enough to understand what it would be like to be on the receiving end.

Ransium, rest assured we are not offended. We are glad for the opportunity to discuss these matters with open-minded humans in honesty and without hostility.

We thank you.

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Sequoia Trees, it seems to me that we have much more to agree upon then disagree upon. And I am happy for this. I will say that I think you under estimate modern mans grasp off trees. There is only one ancient sequoia grove on our district but is one of the most pleasant places on the forest. When ever I'm driving through that area during lunch time I always stop and take lunch in the grove. There is a part of the grove with a cement path for human visitors and I always like to listen to other visitors conversations. Numerous times I've heard other visitors mutter something along the lines of there is an eerie sort of knowledge and power in the old sequoias. It's difficult to not appreciate the power of that grove.

I will continue to do my best to work in manner fits the demands of society but is still respectful to the life I 'manage'. It is a difficult line to walk but I will try my hardest. Although not my primary job, I sometimes am the person who marks trees to cut with paint. It is a difficult job and one that no one takes lightly. I want you to know I think hard about every tree I mark. Your perspective is fascinating to me and I will try to remember the things you've said.

As to the question of tree management for resource extraction; beyond overcoming the present crisis in the Sierra's I have no strong idea as to what management that should be like. Frankly I think it is really something I will never encounter in my career. You are quite right, once you've entered forest management, it is very hard to exit management, and I can tell you that besides the forest being a long way from being sustainable, human society and the Forest Service have a long way to go till we can get to sustainable forest management at an ecosystem level as well.

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Sacred sequoia trees

It heartens us to hear your attitude towards our brethren, and of course we know of humans who have genuine respect and even affection for us. We thank you for your efforts and your openness to us and our kin. If more humans can learn to understand what you have expressed, and if there can be more efforts between our peoples to communicate like this, perhaps the future is not hopeless after all.

Our elders in Sequoia forests were right; it was good that we have come to live here among you.

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Larry: Aww man Darry look der sign done down right there
Darry: Wat that sign done say der Larry?
Larry: It be sayin we smart folk
Darry: Boy dem peoples down der at that officies sure got that there right they did
Larry: Boy der Darry you shure do be right by sayin that there
Darry: Maybe we shuld right down this here conversin that we havin
Larry: U shure got that there right you do I newed that was that smart you were
Darry: Boy Larry U shure got that der right you did.

(Word smartest citizens? You betcha! Go us)

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

So does anyone have any opinion on starting an embassy with underground economy? I'm leading toward yes, because they seem nature related and I don't have a strong reason not too...

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Yes, it seems a good idea, go for it.

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Normally I'm not the most active WA delegate, however, the current legislation is on a controversial subject and strongly worded, so I feel like I should be involved. I have voted against the resolution not because I am against legalizing prostitution, prostitution is legal in Ransium. However, I feel that it is not right for the legalization of prostitution to be mandated upon all WA member nations, not to mention any future WA nations. On such controversial topics where societal morals are heavily involved I would prefer to give all member nations sovereignty.

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Welcome Amazon Rain Forest, I think you'll find yourself right at home in Forest.

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

I hope you don't mind the company of some orcs to hide in the forest a bit?

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

Many things lurk in Forest I'm sure devilish orcs can too...

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

I've changed our regional flag to a picture my friend took in the Sierra's, what do you all think, keep it or change it back? Anyone have picture they'd rather use?

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

personally I liked the old one, that's just me though, I say change it back.

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

home

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

The region of Ponsatomy has approached the fair region of forest to construct an embassy. After some research it appears the Ponsatomy is very likely a region of about 40 puppets with maybe 2 independent nations. This sort of freaks me out a bit, so I think we should not construct an embassy with Ponsatomy. What do ya'll think?

Fijonia I was a little bit sick of the old flag if I get a chance in the next few weeks I'll try to draw a flag that I (and hopefully everyone else) likes better than the old one. However, I still have the old one stored so if that doesn't pan out we can switch it back for sure.

Ventus aeternam, Canaltia, and McClandia Doge 2

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