Pretty sure it's Vampires, on account of how sunny it is
seleucids walking into bactria be like
hindus walking into afghanistan be like (legit their mountain range means 'hindu killer mountains')
also can we talk about the hindu kush mountain range? theres so many cultures there, some even avoided islamization and the larger hindu religion. the Kalash people for example practice a religion that is very similar to ancient Vedic rites. basically its a cryochamber culture
In myth it is notably the role of Indra, his rainbow and his eagle who is shot at, the killing of his father, the killing of the snake or of a demon with many heads, and the central myth of releasing the Sun from an enclosure (by Mandi < Mahān Deva). There are echoes of the Puruṣa myth, and there is the cyclical elevation of Yama Rājan (Imra) to sky god (Witzel 1984: 288 sqq., pace Fussman 1977: 70). Importantly, the division between two groups of deities (Devalog) and their intermarriage (Imra's mother is a 'giant') has been preserved, and this dichotomy is still re-enacted in rituals and festivals, especially the Chaumos. Ritual still is of this type: Among the Kalash it is basically, though not always, temple-less, involving fire, sacred wood, three circumambulations, and the *hotṛ. Some features already have their Vedic, and no longer their Central Asian form (e.g. dragon > snake).
They basically maintained the 'thunder god as leader of the pantheon' that other Indo-European languages have. its very neat to see. they also have festivals around the solstice that involve burning logs (yuletide / yule logs) and hunting. they also have a formal split among their gods, e.g. aesir, vanir, jotuns. or in greek, the titan vs god dichotomy.
my favorite part of their 'yule' :
The men must be divided into two parties: the pure ones have to sing the well-honored songs of the past, but the impure sing wild, passionate, and obscene songs, with an altogether different rhythm. This is accompanied by a 'sex change': men dress as women, women as men (Balumain also is partly seen as female and can change between both forms at will
i just found it impressive how close their religion is to vedic. its been able to stay that way for thousands of years!
hindus walking into afghanistan be like (legit their mountain range means ‘hindu killer mountains’)
Pretty sure the Hindus walking into those mountain ranges were slaves who died of extreme cold and starvation
there were a couple of invasions by hindus when it was buddhist, which i assume is what the name refers to. though i suppose it could be because of timur or something, or the hindus first attempting to repel the muslim invasion of the indus valley
It had different name back when it was Buddhist. "Kush" is a pashto/persian word for slaying. They named the mountain range after the slaves they have killed
o ok yeah just looked it up. some say slaves some say its a reference to the first invasion of the indus valley when a hindu king tried to cross the mountains to counter attack ghazni
Was the USSR the most feared military? I feel like that was always the US
the strongest part of the us armed forces has traditionally been the navy and air force post-war. i think u can make the case that the ussr had the scariest land army
Fair enough. I'm not a military history person, so I'll take your word for it.
It is, but I'm glad to have a friend who knows it. It's like a truck, you don't wanna have one, you want to know someone who has one.
Love the Red Army but it had a long, loooooong list of high profile defeats. But that's what happens when your "empire" isn't invading other countries every five years, combat experience becomes really scarce and the military gets a bit shitty at doing its job.
Depends what you think their job is. No one for example successfully invaded the USSR
unfortunately, the same kinda applies to the pla. i think people on this site actually underestimate the us army, because it has a tendency to play up its weaknesses to grift funding off the government.
Yeah but also the USA also keeps losing to peasant farmers and also hasn't fought an advanced military since the 1940s.
When is the last time ANY of their navy had to worry about literally anything shooting back?
Airforce too for that matter. Nothing effective anyway.
When has a US tank had to worry about much other than RPGs and maaaaaybe wire guided in rare circumstances?
The only people whose experience is somewhat useful is the ground troops.
lmao half of the hardware the us has is only useful given an already large force discrepancy, like its CVs and the A-10. i just don't think its productive to completely dismiss them, I guarantee no military around these days has any clue how to conduct a peer war.
I think a peer war is the only thing the PLA spends its time training for though because it's a real defensive army. Whereas the US army spends its time training for asymmetrical war because it is an imperialist military.
You can't ignore the training time investments and what they prioritise.
i agree, i think theyre probably better than the us army when push comes to shove, I just don't think the gulf is as big as its made out to be and there are still some exploitable weaknesses, rather than the usual df21s will wipe the usn in seconds take
They're going to need to be able to see the US navy to do that and this is why the US wants to advance space war. They want to tip the balance via eliminating the eyes that would do the targeting.
Yeah, but the PLA fighting a defensive war is a different beast. I don't think they're gonna be trying to invade America.
Of course leaving Afghanistan had no effect on the collapse of the British empire or the soviet union
The British for instance having never actually been that strong militarily rather just being very commercially exploitative and generating a vast amount of wealth via the domestic British textiles industry
