A Progress and a Process

In my building of these webpages, much time and thought went into the design and layout of the information found within, not to mention research, long hours spent pouring over historical facts, biological facts, botanical facts, etc. Because of my love of Gor, I wanted to share this world with others. Frequently these pages will be updated as my research yields me more and more information. These pages are created to provide a general informational base to those who have no access to the books.

In life we have to make choices and decisions that unfortunately will not please everyone, and absolutely will upset at least one or two, and downright piss off at least one. If a friend is lost because of a choice or decision you have made, well, then that person was not truly a friend. Friends don't quit. Certainly true friends, and family, often see different views on things and many times will fight, will not like each other, but true friends and family still feel that bond of love deep inside, and are never lost. True friends will listen to all sides, but never will they take sides, even when shown "facts." Because, with everything in life, every story has not one side, nor two sides, nor even three or four, but countless sides and countless facts…

With regards to my pages, rather than allying myself with one home, I have found contentment in working on these pages non-committally, providing an informational base to those who have no access to the books. These pages were started back in early 1991 when I lived in my very first Gorean home and have slowly grown over the years and will continue to grow. For anyone to try to lay claim to my many years of work is simply wrong. Additionally, I have used my work to help a few rooms get started, as well as helping with laying foundations for rules and the like. However, I will never again ally my pages with a singular home, for many reasons.

A few years ago, I came across a post that had not seen until sometime later. I had left MTC for personal reasons and no longer read the message boards concerning this decision after reading all too many hurtful accusations and declarations, and thusly, I had no interest in the opinions of anyone, my life was mine and not anyone else's. Too, I wasn't online but a rare moment or two and then only to work on specific projects or to do research. This post was on the slave chore board, and the person stated that at first he was going to wish me the best, but upon reflection he decided not to because, "how dare I take away the MTC webpages especially since I stated that I loved MTC." Had I seen that post then, I would have responded to it as follows:

"First, I shall say, simply that the webpages were not actually removed, but had been simply relocated. I had been doing some overhauling of my domain, and I wanted better organization, since I was planning an expansion of my Fantasy area, adding pages dedicated to my other loves of this particular genre of literature. However, before I had the chance to notify of the URL changes, I received a phone call that fateful morning which precipitated the need for an abrupt departure, an event I kept absolutely and totally to myself due to its very sensitive nature; something to this day none still know.

However, that same day, circumstances led to me lock those pages and the question of why is rather simple, for two basic reasons.

Reason One — it's called Business. Webpage development and design is what I do; I have paid the taxes, the fees, the licensing, to enjoy owning my own home-based business. I use websites that I have created to show to prospective clients, depending on the type of site they are hoping to create (i.e., business sites see business sites I have developed, political see political, personal see personal), therefore the content of the site reflected on my sense of design and creativity. Also, the MTC website was being hosted free of charge on my business domain, with an unlimited growth potential; no worries of bandwidth or space limitations. However, there was no viable way for prism, Ragnar, or anyone else to maintain the website. To allow anyone access, was to allow anyone access to my entire domain and the files therein.

Although certain content of the pages were "owned" by MTC, most of it was not. On my own time, I spent thousands of hours of research, free of charge. I spent my own money to register copyrights for my own descriptions, etc. Most of the content were from my own personal pages and research that I had done long before MTC came along. So, what of the content "owned" by MTC? This brings us to Reason Two.

Reason Two encompasses human emotions — love, hate, anger, betrayal — as well as virtues, such as ethics. I had, in fact, already been preparing for the possibility for my needing to take a leave of absence for health reasons, and had created an alternate MTC site that housed those files "owned" by MTC — wagon information, member information, etc., as well as basic information to keep the camp going. I had never intended to leave MTC with nothing and had only intended on a several-month leave of absence. After the phone call on that fateful morning, circumstances of real-time life allowed me no time to send an e-mail to Ragnar with a brief explanation of the who, what, where, why, how, along with detailed information on where to find the website, the password and other account information, which I had intended to do after my post. I was at work, and therefore had to deal with urgent matters at hand there being that I'm the executive paralegal.

I still remember the accusations flying of how I was deleting posts from the wall, yadda, yadda, of which I could quite easily prove the timeframe would have made it impossible unless I were in two places at once. When I finally had a moment's breath and sat down again at my desk, I found, lo and behold, that vicious post from Ragnar, and that my leaving was hereby made permanent. After reading that post, I had lost all feelings of being generous and responsible to a camp I no longer recognized, and instead was filled only with the feelings — love, hate, anger, betrayal… the love I felt was trashed, the hate of such trashing, the anger of accusations and suppositions, and the intense feelings of betrayal by those I cared about, as well as the ethics of not being given the chance for an explanation of what was truly going on via the privacy of e-mail. Just to name a few.

The realization that a true friend wasn't, the words spoken so vicious with the admission that the webpages were in fact the only reason I was being "allowed to stay" hurt so profoundly deep, however it was the immature baiting to get me to participate in the "battle of showing logs and e-mails" in which I had alledgedly spoken vicious, nasty, bad things about everyone in camp that became the deciding factor. I had far more important things to concern myself with than with such a ridiculous venture, and it certainly would not have done anyone any good other than perhaps an ego boost. Unless one wishes to fork out the big bucks to have e-mails authenticated to be considered legal evidence in a court of law, then there is no one in the world that can say any e-mail is "exact" and that it has not been altered or that it has simply been created to look real. The same is true for logs.

Yes, I love MTC, but sadly, the MTC I left behind was not the MTC I had helped build, the MTC which I dedicated many hours to building a website for.

Since that time, Ragnar and I had spoken and I have returned to MTC, however, not in the capacity of webdesigner or trainer. This left me free to write my pages in my own way, keeping in the realism of Gor without having to sugarcoat specific areas, especially that which pertained to free women.

I laid out the pages in ways in which anyone looking up specific information could find it easily enough. I deviated many times from my original lay-up which I still do on paper incidentally; I'm an old-school graphics designer.

I am quite sure that I will "step on toes" along the way, bruise egos perhaps, and be the brunt of conversation about these pages. I care not. I purchased the books and if I am a bit cynical at times regarding the content of the books, it is my right as a reader. Though, as I have said before, John Norman is not the greatest writer out there, his books have deeply reached my soul and heart.

I know there will be those that will make commentary on why I put information of "Earth" things, such as the heteira, photos of kantharos' and hydria, etc. Basically, most people have no clue what a kantharos or a hydra or a kylix is, yet John Norman utilizes these in his books. As he states in his books, much of the culture on Gor was brought there long ago in the Voyages of Acquisition. Therefore, it could be assumed that such things would be very near to what they would be on Gor — especially since his descriptions match very closely with the descriptions of those objects that I found in my research. This information is provided in my pages as a visual aid only.

And I'm sure one of the many questions and comments will be: Why did I put the Kur, the Priest-Kings, the Spider People and the Urt People under the section entitled "Other Peoples" rather than under the section with the other Beasts of Gor. In the words of the great Priest-King, Misk, the Kur, the Spider People and the Priest-Kings are all rational beings; they think, they plan, they organize. This makes them less of a beast and more as a human being, who are also, as Misk puts it, "rational beings." The Urt People? Well, they are human beings. Or rather, sort of human beings; shells of humanity still left inside of them.

Quite simply, "One can never know their home truly, without knowing their home truly."

 

 

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Special Note

Because of the differences in publishing the books, depending upon whether published in the U.S. or Europe, depending upon whether a first publishing or a Masquerade Books release, page numbers will often vary. All of my quotes are from original, first-printing U.S. publications (see The Books page for a listing of publishers and dates) with the exception of the following books:

  • Tarnsman of Gor (2nd Printing, Balantine)
  • Outlaw of Gor (11th Printing, Balantine)
  • Priest-Kings of Gor (2nd Printing, Balantine)
  • Assassin of Gor (10th Printing, Balantine)
  • Raiders of Gor (15th Printing, Balantine)
  • Captive of Gor (3rd Printing, Balantine)

Disclaimer

These pages are not written for any specific home, but rather as informational pages for those not able to get ahold of the books and read them yourself. Opinions and commentaries are strictly my own personal views, therefore, if you don't like what you are reading — then don't. The information in these pages is realistic to what is found within the books. Many sites have added information, assuming the existences of certain products and practices, such as willowbark and agrimony for healing, and travel to earth and back for the collection of goods. I've explored the books, the flora, the fauna, and the beasts, and have compiled from those mentioned, the probabilities of certain practices, and what vegetation mentioned in the books is suitable for healing purposes, as well as given practicalities to other sorts of roleplaying assumptions.