Ochalea and ethnography
by Marco DalmonteFor now let's talk again about Ochalea.
You must take into account the facts, not the speculations. From these one can build as many theories as he wants, but we must not discard the facts. As I have highlighted, Ochalea was settled by ALPHATIAN commoners between BC 1000 and BC 600 (most likely). I am not saying they didn't fight, but most certainly they didn't have an all-out war, since there is no mention of this (and a major war of colonisation should have been accounted in the historical data of the empire). More likely the Alphatians settled, fought for some more land until they came to a truce with the native Lupins and Rakasta, who by this time were probably not so numerous.
Alphatians and Ochaleans ARE IDENTICAL in appearance.
Alphatians are different in that they don't pay so much attention to immortals and are not as philosophical as Ochaleans. So the difference stays in the CULTURE not in the RACE (or ETHNICITY) of the people. And the culture is not something that grows spontaneously, it is something that is created on the basis of interaction with a social environment.
So I can say the Chinese culture of Ochalea is the by-product of the unique blending of the original Oriental culture of rakasta and lupins living there AND of the later Alphatian addition. Ochalean tongue is different from Alphatian in both writing and pronunciation, so this is probably due to a strong influence of the pre-existing rakasta-lupin civilisation (who also borrowed something from the Ogre-magi), and the result is nowadays Ochalea.
I don't see why this could be so strange to accept, especially since it takes into consideration every canon source.
You'll probably be more persuaded when I post the whole rakasta timeline ;)
As for the Yasuko tribesmen, bear in mind that we don't know a thing about them (apart from the Japanese-Korean sounding name and their savage attitude). FWWK they could also be rakasta ;)