It is already a deadlock, 4 people have voted for it and i will enforce the law whether you like it or not Coldbones.
Private Zargoth,
well, you will be able to enforce stuff when and if you will be an overseer. Until then - it is my call, and I decided to call for the council wisdom.
Dear fellow Senator Neblime,
while council is certainly within its rights to mandate overboard improvements and large scale constructions, it would also be good to consider peasantry opinions, especially if those improvements and constructions are directly involving peasants. Dead or alive. At least we should not snap at them, unless we want to face a large-scale peasant uprising.
Also, is it not time to conclude the dignified burial act voting? It looks like it passed, but we still need an official announcement and publication in the laws section.
Speaking of which, while underground(below aquifer level) catacombs are certainly possible at some point, I still consider them way too much of a hassle to dig for peasantry. And here are my motivations:
1. To make them distinct from the mines we will need to puncture aquifer in at least one more location, which is kind of dangerous enterprise.
2. While we have not extracted valuables from a few levels yet, we cannot be sure that a tomb will not be turned into a new mine.
3. Below aquifer tombs are at a constant risk of submerging in case of even smallish errors.
4. Fell beasts and demons can come at us together with necromancers, can come at us together or in short interval, and we can be at disadvantage fighting our own dead in the narrow hallways of the crypts. (I admit, it is a long shot, but still)
5. King made it perfectly clear that we are to mimic other races' ways of life, and no other race except dwarves bury their dead deep underground. While influential nobles can summon their corrupted power to create dynastic crypts, it should certainly not apply to every single serf.
So it will be 2x2 stone(or maybe brick?) burial tombs at a soil level(20 blocks), capped with a slab for easy mourning access.
Since it looks like we will also have an exhumation ban - we will only need two such tombs for now. I believe I will be able to find enough blocks for that near the mason works.
Dear friends, those of you who relentlessly work on the fortifications designs (you, my friend Dwarf4Explosive, and other dwarves, who, I know, work more secretely),
Please keep in mind that our overall paradigm forbids easily constructable impregnable walls. Walls between towers and gates will be scaleable, even if at low speed and making an attacker exposed. The more fortification experience we will have - the better walls we will be able to design(longer and more dangerous scaling), but it will be a gradual process, and walls will never be totally impregnable and safe.
Please start with a simple defense, suitable for a small hamlet, like maybe a stockade. Then, after some skirmishes - improve it a bit and add some guard posts and small archer platforms. After a few more skirmishes - improve walls a bit further and upgrade platforms to towers. Then rebuild it all from stone... That kind of thing. Gradual and realistic behavior, that does not imply that we have The Wall (The Game of Thrones) surrounding our modest hamlet of, currently, 3 buildings.