"Alas, understanding can come at a steep price. Two hundred of your years ago, my people attempted an alliance with Qual'sais, another powerful nation of our world. As was sometimes customary, our emirate at the time offered the freshly cooked eggs of his wife to the visiting Qual'sai archon. To us, this was a great honor. In some respects, it is like a female sharing herself without the improprieties of out-and-out adultery.
"Unfortunately, the Qual'sai took this to be a grievous insult. To them, the archon had been offered the worst of offal. Naturally, the archon refused, thereby insulting us as well. The alliance promptly collapsed and war broke out, lasting for, I think, nearly eight of your years. Even today, our cultures have little to do with each other. To many of us, they're stomachless plucks. To them, we're– well, considering the company, I shan't repeat it. It's quite vulgar.
"It has been long debated whether the offer was an error in judgment or a deliberate insult. I lean towards the former myself. Emirate Nihaan was more plumage than brains."
Just because something is acceptable to you doesn't mean it'll be acceptable to someone else. It doesn't mean either of you is in the wrong.
An official from a species of alien near-avians considers that prime example of enlightened thought of yours could actually be pure barbarism to someone else. A vignette posted elsewhere now reposted here in case I ever want to find it again.
This is why all civilized governments have an office of protocol. We get to laugh at all the times a government official does not listen to that office.
War is usually started over resources, not insults. Land, fishing rights, oil.
This is why all civilized governments have an office of protocol. We get to laugh at all the times a
As you say, sometimes they just don't listen to the protocol office or the diplomats. Sadly, someone like Trump isn't all that unique.
There probably was more to the situation than just the insult. That the two nations were entering into an alliance and the debate on whether or not it had been a deliberate insult hints the situation might have been more precarious than the story lets on. However, cultural and religious differences have long provided excuses for conflict. The Crusades were little more than land grabs at the expense of Muslims but were marketed as holy wars to liberate the Holy Lands from them "evul" Saracens. Northern Ireland was the victim of some rather bloody-handed politics between people who wanted stay in the UK and people who didn't, but religion got tossed into the mix and made passions hotter. Heck, if you want dumb reasons to go to war, there was one that was started because someone stole a bucket (and no, the bucket was never returned).
However, whatever the other reasons for the war there might have been, I didn't think they were relevant to the point of this story.
As you say, sometimes they just don't listen to the protocol office or the diplomats. Sadly, someon
