#Locke's theory of government

[blueheartbookclub]

"A Foundation of Modern Political Thought: A Review of John Locke's Second Treatise of Government"

John Locke's "Second Treatise of Government" stands as a cornerstone of modern political philosophy, presenting a compelling argument for the principles of natural rights, social contract theory, and limited government. Written against the backdrop of political upheaval in 17th-century England, Locke's treatise remains as relevant and influential today as it was upon its publication.

At the heart of Locke's work lies the concept of natural rights, wherein he asserts that all individuals are born with inherent rights to life, liberty, and property. Locke argues that these rights are not granted by governments but are instead derived from the natural state of humanity. Through logical reasoning and appeals to natural law, Locke lays the groundwork for the assertion of individual rights as fundamental to the legitimacy of government.

Central to Locke's political theory is the notion of the social contract, wherein individuals voluntarily enter into a political community to secure their rights and promote their common interests. According to Locke, legitimate government arises from the consent of the governed, and its authority is derived from its ability to protect the rights of its citizens. This contract between rulers and the ruled establishes the basis for legitimate political authority and provides a framework for assessing the legitimacy of governmental actions.

Locke's treatise also advocates for the principle of limited government, arguing that the powers of government should be strictly defined and circumscribed to prevent tyranny and abuse of authority. He contends that governments exist to serve the interests of the people and should be subject to checks and balances to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of a few. Locke's advocacy for a separation of powers and the rule of law laid the groundwork for modern democratic governance and constitutionalism.

Moreover, Locke's emphasis on the right to revolution remains a contentious and influential aspect of his political philosophy. He argues that when governments fail to fulfill their obligations to protect the rights of citizens, individuals have the right to resist and overthrow oppressive regimes. This revolutionary doctrine has inspired movements for political reform and self-determination throughout history, serving as a rallying cry for those seeking to challenge unjust authority.

In conclusion, John Locke's "Second Treatise of Government" is a seminal work that continues to shape the discourse on political theory and governance. Through his eloquent prose and rigorous argumentation, Locke presents a compelling vision of a just and legitimate political order grounded in the principles of natural rights, social contract, and limited government. His ideas have left an indelible mark on the development of liberal democracy and remain essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the foundations of modern political thought.

John Locke's "Second Treatise of Government" is available in Amazon in paperback 12.99$ and hardcover 19.99$ editions.

Number of pages: 181

Language: English

Rating: 9/10                                           

Link of the book!

Review By: King's Cat

[blueheartbooks]

"A Foundation of Modern Political Thought: A Review of John Locke's Second Treatise of Government"

John Locke's "Second Treatise of Government" stands as a cornerstone of modern political philosophy, presenting a compelling argument for the principles of natural rights, social contract theory, and limited government. Written against the backdrop of political upheaval in 17th-century England, Locke's treatise remains as relevant and influential today as it was upon its publication.

At the heart of Locke's work lies the concept of natural rights, wherein he asserts that all individuals are born with inherent rights to life, liberty, and property. Locke argues that these rights are not granted by governments but are instead derived from the natural state of humanity. Through logical reasoning and appeals to natural law, Locke lays the groundwork for the assertion of individual rights as fundamental to the legitimacy of government.

Central to Locke's political theory is the notion of the social contract, wherein individuals voluntarily enter into a political community to secure their rights and promote their common interests. According to Locke, legitimate government arises from the consent of the governed, and its authority is derived from its ability to protect the rights of its citizens. This contract between rulers and the ruled establishes the basis for legitimate political authority and provides a framework for assessing the legitimacy of governmental actions.

Locke's treatise also advocates for the principle of limited government, arguing that the powers of government should be strictly defined and circumscribed to prevent tyranny and abuse of authority. He contends that governments exist to serve the interests of the people and should be subject to checks and balances to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of a few. Locke's advocacy for a separation of powers and the rule of law laid the groundwork for modern democratic governance and constitutionalism.

Moreover, Locke's emphasis on the right to revolution remains a contentious and influential aspect of his political philosophy. He argues that when governments fail to fulfill their obligations to protect the rights of citizens, individuals have the right to resist and overthrow oppressive regimes. This revolutionary doctrine has inspired movements for political reform and self-determination throughout history, serving as a rallying cry for those seeking to challenge unjust authority.

In conclusion, John Locke's "Second Treatise of Government" is a seminal work that continues to shape the discourse on political theory and governance. Through his eloquent prose and rigorous argumentation, Locke presents a compelling vision of a just and legitimate political order grounded in the principles of natural rights, social contract, and limited government. His ideas have left an indelible mark on the development of liberal democracy and remain essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the foundations of modern political thought.

John Locke's "Second Treatise of Government" is available in Amazon in paperback 12.99$ and hardcover 19.99$ editions.

Number of pages: 181

Language: English

Rating: 9/10                                           

Link of the book!

Review By: King's Cat

[good-beanswrites]

Where is Milgram?

I'm working on a fic, and I know a few of the theories about Milgram's actual building/location that have been passed around, but could you reblog with/send me your ideas on how the prison is physically set up in relation to the world? I want to write something encompassing a range of possibilities, not just my own headcanons. Any kind of theory -- with or without evidence, with or without every little detail worked out, just whatever you've been picturing or would like to see when the project ends :3

(Even if my fic doesn't pan out, I'll post the collection of theories I get for anyone else's research purposes👍)

[sunnymused]

I got called Markiplier because of my "extensive knowledge about fnaf lore" at work today, and then like 15 minutes later my coworker goes "actually you're jerma985"

[foxgonyoom]

Yo remember this guy?

What if they’re how the main cast fix Wukong’s scroll piece?

Like so far I’ve been thinking that they’re the villain behind the scenes, the one pulling the strings to follow through with some master plan, and I still think they’re gonna turn out to be evil and who’s manipulating events.

But they’re also our only possible lead on how the gang are going to fix Wukong’s scroll piece, mainly because they seem to have some sort of knowledge of the scroll, having been able to access it. Thus, they might be someone that the main cast goes to in order to fix Wukong’s scroll piece. That, or they pop up out of the shadows offering their aid.

But yeah it definitely seems like they’re gonna be the way that the gang mend Wukong’s scroll piece so they can free him again.

[omegaphilosophia]

The Implicit Contract in Social Contract Theory

Social contract theory is a foundational concept in political philosophy that explores the origin and legitimacy of political authority and the rights and duties of individuals within a society. At the heart of social contract theory is the idea of an implicit contract between individuals and the state. This implicit contract outlines the mutual obligations and expectations that form the basis of a stable and just society.

Key Elements of the Social Contract

State of Nature:

Social contract theorists often begin with a hypothetical "state of nature," a pre-political condition where individuals exist without an established government or social order. The state of nature is used to illustrate the problems and challenges that lead individuals to form a social contract.

Mutual Agreement:

The social contract is an agreement among individuals to create and recognize a governing authority. This agreement is often seen as implicit, meaning it is not an actual historical event but a theoretical construct that explains the origin of political society.

Surrender of Certain Freedoms:

Individuals agree to surrender some of their natural freedoms and submit to the authority of the state in exchange for protection and the benefits of organized society. This surrender is necessary to achieve security, order, and the enforcement of laws.

Protection of Rights:

In return for their submission, individuals expect the state to protect their remaining rights, such as the rights to life, liberty, and property. The state’s primary role is to ensure the safety and well-being of its citizens.

Legitimacy of Authority:

The legitimacy of political authority is derived from the consent of the governed. The state's power is justified because it is based on the collective agreement of individuals to form a government that serves their interests.

Major Theorists and Their Views

Thomas Hobbes:

In his work "Leviathan," Hobbes describes the state of nature as a condition of perpetual conflict and insecurity, where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." To escape this, individuals collectively agree to create a powerful sovereign authority to enforce peace and prevent chaos. The social contract, in Hobbes' view, involves individuals giving up all their rights to the sovereign in exchange for security.

John Locke:

Locke's version of the social contract, as outlined in "Two Treatises of Government," presents a more optimistic view of the state of nature, where individuals possess natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Locke argues that individuals consent to form a government primarily to protect these rights. If the government fails to protect these rights or becomes tyrannical, individuals have the right to revolt and establish a new government.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

In "The Social Contract," Rousseau argues that the state of nature was a peaceful and harmonious condition but became corrupt with the advent of private property. Rousseau's social contract aims to restore freedom and equality by creating a collective "general will" that represents the common interests of all individuals. The government’s role is to implement the general will, and individuals must adhere to it for the common good.

Implications of the Social Contract

Rights and Duties:

The social contract establishes the rights and duties of both individuals and the state. Individuals are expected to obey the laws and contribute to the common good, while the state is obligated to protect the rights and interests of its citizens.

Political Obligation:

The concept of political obligation arises from the social contract. Individuals have a moral and legal duty to obey the laws and support the government because they have consented to its authority.

Legitimacy and Justice:

The legitimacy of a government is based on its adherence to the terms of the social contract. A just government is one that respects and protects the rights of individuals, fulfills its obligations, and operates with the consent of the governed.

Revolution and Reform:

If a government fails to uphold its end of the social contract, individuals have the right to seek reform or, in extreme cases, to overthrow the government. This principle underpins many democratic movements and revolutions throughout history.

The implicit contract between individuals and the state in social contract theory provides a powerful framework for understanding the foundations of political authority and the relationship between citizens and their government. By exploring the mutual obligations and expectations that form the basis of this contract, social contract theory offers insights into the principles of justice, legitimacy, and the rights and duties that sustain a stable and just society.

[jinjeriffic]

DCxDP Prophecy Universe Part 5

Part 4

After collecting their bags from the library lockers Jazz led him down the hallway until she found a small, unlocked, empty classroom. The room was barren except for desks and a whiteboard. I guess they don’t bother locking it if there’s nothing worth stealing.

Jazz sat her messenger bag down on the teacher’s desk and pulled a whiteboard marker out of a side pocket.

“Right,” Jazz began, “I don’t know how much you know about ecto-entities and since, as you said, the reports on them tend to be pretty biased, I’m just going to start from scratch. Sounds good?” she rambled.

Tim hopped up onto the front row desk and tried his best to look like an attentive teacher’s pet.

“Yes, Ms Fenton,” he said cheekily.

Jazz gave him an amused look.

“Careful Mr Taylor, or you’ll end up in detention,” she said lightly. She turned to the whiteboard and gathered her thoughts for a moment, then wrote ECTO-ENTITIES in large block letters, “Many people refer to all ecto-entities as ghosts, but this is actually a misnomer. Ghosts as most people think of them, i.e. the restless spirits of the dead, are only a small subset of the ectoplasmic population. There’s plenty of them that were never human to begin with,” higher up on the board, she wrote INFINITE REALMS, “Ecto-entities originate from a parallel dimension to ours, which is called the Infinite Realms by its inhabitants. Though my parents refer to it as the Ghost Zone, that name is woefully inadequate.” Jazz paused and glanced at him.

“Kinda like foreigners renaming places instead of using the one in the native language, gotcha,” Tim nodded. They had dealt with alternate realities before, so this wasn’t completely out of left field. He would go along with it for now. Jazz gave him a small smile.

“That’s right!” she said and tapped the whiteboard, “Now, the Infinite Realms and our dimension are closely interconnected, like two sides of the same coin. Large scale damage to one would cause similar devastation on the opposite side and vice versa,” she gave him a serious look.

“Which makes the hostile attitude of the paranormal research community rather worrying,” Tim mused, “If someone did something stupid the blowback would hit us too,” If he wasn’t trained to read people he would have missed the slight tightening around Jazz’s eyes.

“That’s the theory anyway. And it’s not like the US government ever dropped bombs on people just to see what would happen,” she chirped with false cheeriness.

There’s a story there, Tim thought, and not the kind you would find in a history book. What the hell has been going on?

“I’m guessing getting access to the Infinite Realms isn’t as easy as calling an Uber though,” he joked.

“You’d be surprised,” Jazz said wryly, receiving a raised eyebrow in response, “there are places where the barrier between worlds is naturally thin, allowing temporary rifts to form more easily, but they can pop up pretty much anywhere in the world. It’s what allows ecto-entities to enter our dimension. It’s also not unheard of for humans to stumble into the Realms either, though they’re lucky to return at all,” she twirled the marker between her fingers, “Time doesn’t seem to work the same way in the Realms as it does here. Just in case you ever come across one, make sure to leave through the same portal you entered. Otherwise you might find yourself stranded in the Middle Ages, or far in the future with everyone you know and love long dead.”

Tim had to fight to keep down a wince. The whole Bruce Lost In Time Debacle was still an emotional scar for the family, they really didn’t need a repeat performance.

“Duly noted.”

“Some entities are able to open and close rifts at will,” Jazz continued, unfazed by Tim’s dry tone, ”though that ability seems to be pretty rare. It probably requires an unusual level of power or incursions would be much more common.”

“That would explain the little disappearing trick Damian’s delivery guy pulled,” Jason murmured through Tim’s earpiece, “But does that mean we’re dealing with a fucking super ghost?”

Tim gave a thoughtful hum and drummed his fingers against the edge of the desk.

“Do you think humans could open a portal to the Realms?”

Jazz gave him a wry smile.

“You just summed up the bulk of my parents’ research over the last two decades. They managed to build a functioning portal about two years ago.”

Tim choked. Jason swore.

“What?! But that’s-! How is that not all over the news?!” Tim sputtered. Jazz just sighed.

“My parents have been ranting about ghosts since they were in college,” she said wearily, ”Most of the scientific community had written them off as crackpots years ago. It doesn’t help that large concentrations of ectoplasm generate some kind of interference that messes with recording equipment. Short of kidnapping the naysayers and shoving them bodily through the Fenton Ghost Portal it’s hard to prove anything. And thankfully even my parents aren’t that crazy,” she finished with an eye roll.

Tim buried his face in his hands. An interdimensional portal. What the fuck. He thought back on everything Jazz had told him so far.

“What’s ectoplasm?”

“You’ve been paying attention!” she smiled and added some notes to the whiteboard, “Ectoplasm is the basic building block of everything in the Infinite Realms, and by extension ecto-entities. Hence the name. It’s the equivalent of matter in our dimension; atoms, protons, quarks, etcetera. I’m not a physicist, so I can’t tell you exactly how it works, but that’s why ecto-entities are able to interact with our physical world in such fascinating ways. Flight, intangibility and invisibility are all common abilities for them.”

“Wow, what a fucking security nightmare. B is gonna freak,” Jason groused. Tim tuned him out to focus on Jazz’s continued explanation.

“My parents have been experimenting with using ectoplasm for power generation, but it’s proven extremely volatile. It seems like it’s affected by things like belief and emotion which is absolutely fascinating,” she said with a gleam in her eye, “not to mention its effects on organic tissue. Have you ever had your dinner come to life and try to eat you?”

Tim had a sudden, horrible suspicion.

“Can’t say that I have,” he managed to squeeze out past the lump in his throat, “Um… Jazz, what does ectoplasm look like?”

“Well that depends on what it’s been affected and shaped by but in its raw form it looks like a bright green, glowing liquid,” she tilted her head, “Why do you ask?”

Over the comms, Jason made a sound like someone had kicked him in the crotch.

“Lazarus water?! Is she talking about the fucking pits?!” he choked out.

Tim made a valiant effort to keep his own reaction in check.

“Oh, just wondering how I’ll recognize a ghost- er, ecto-entity when I see one,” he lied with fake casualness, “You mentioned something about powers?”

“Yes! All the entities we’ve encountered so far have exhibited powers which are common to their species, as well as additional powers that seem to depend on the individual core. I’ve theorized that powers develop as a response to stress related to either their Obsession or death trauma…” Jazz trailed off, “aaaaaand I’ve lost you.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, I know I have a tendency to ramble,” she said sheepishly and considered the bullet points she had written so far, “Let me backtrack a bit. Not all ecto-entities are ghosts. There’s personifications of concepts, which I theorize are formed through the collective consciousness of living beings. They are entities which represent Hope or Justice or-”

“Time?” Tim interjected. Jazz gave him a calculating look.

“...sure. They are among the most powerful entities and have powers related to what they represent. I suspect they may have even been worshipped as gods at some point. You definitely wouldn’t want to mess with them,” at Tim’s nod, she continued, “There’s also the Neverborn, which are formed when ecto-entities choose to reproduce. They are entirely of the Infinite Realms, and thus were never ‘born’ into our world.”

“Ghosts can have children?” he said, surprised.

“Yes, although I’ve never been able to get the details on how it works. They don’t like to discuss it with outsiders. And considering they can look like dragons or disembodied floating eyeballs I’m not sure I’d want to know the exact mechanics,” she joked.

“I’m sure there’s plenty of people who’d disagree with you on that,” Tim muttered, then paused. “Wait, dragons?”

Jazz waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. The point is that there’s way more to the other side than most people realize. There’s probably lots of things I’ve never even heard of. It’s quite exciting, really!”

Tim worried about it. A lot. Jason had also gone suspiciously quiet.

“So, ghosts are just the tip of the iceberg?” Tim hedged.

“Exactly. What sets them apart from other ecto-entities is that they are usually created upon the death of someone or something from our dimension, which gives them motivation to come back here,” Jazz added more notes and arrows to the whiteboard. “All entities have something they call a core; think of it as their central organ or brain. It houses their consciousness, and its nature affects what powers they get. There’s all kinds of elemental cores like fire and water, but also more esoteric ones like shadow or technology. An ecto-entity’s body is composed of ectoplasm and moulded by their core. Their physical form is malleable and heavily based on their self-perception. With experience they can change shape to suit their needs.”

Tim mentally added shapeshifting to the growing list of powers to worry about. So far it sounded a lot like a Martian’s.

“So can ecto-entities grow and age?”

“It depends. The Neverborn usually do, but a lot of ghosts have a bit of a Peter Pan thing going on where they don’t want to. They are often ‘stuck’ at the age they were when they died, physically and mentally. Though there’s always exceptions.”

Tim hummed thoughtfully. Something had been bothering him since ghosts had first entered the equation.

“Jazz, if ghosts don’t age or die, why aren’t they all over the place? Even if rifts are rare, shouldn’t there be hundreds of thousands of years worth of dead folks wandering the Earth?”

She gave him a sad smile.

“I never said ghosts couldn’t die, Adam,” she said carefully, ”And not everyone who dies comes back as a ghost. The ones who do typically have some unfinished business holding them back. Like an obsession they never got to fulfill, or a loved one they are watching over. Once they are done, they are free to move on to whatever Afterlife awaits them,” she sighed and crossed her arms, “It also takes a lot of energy for a ghost to do anything in our world. I think a majority of them never hit that level, or can’t keep it up for any significant amount of time. It’s also part of the reason my parents are so biased against them.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Think about it. Most ecto-entities are just like regular people, going about their business and keeping their heads down. The ones who are both motivated to cross into our world, powerful enough to manifest and tend to make themselves known are the troublemakers. It would be like an alien looking at the population of Belle Reve and concluding that the majority of humans must be super villains! It’s sample bias.”

Tim bit his lip. This all sounded worryingly plausible, which would mean a literal world of trouble about to come down on their heads. Fuck, just what we needed.

“You mentioned that ghosts can die. I assume you don’t mean from old age, right?” he queried. Jazz looked at him wearily.

“You’d be right. If an ecto-entity’s core is too badly damaged, they will cease to exist,” she said cautiously, “It doesn’t help that ghosts tend to maintain a strength based social hierarchy and are fiercely protective of their territory. Ecto-entities usually have a lair within the Infinite Realms, and those who cross over to our dimension often establish a haunt to call their own. Any intruders would be met with violence,” she sighed and rubbed her forehead, “My parents have also been developing weapons to fight ghosts with… varying degrees of success. A lot of their tech runs on ectoplasm which makes it pretty temperamental.”

Seeing Jazz’s obvious discomfort with the topic, Tim decided to switch tracks.

“Is there any way to tell for sure if my brother came back as a ghost?”

Relieved at the change, Jazz made a see-sawing motion with her hand.

“Kind of? My parents tried for ages to build a ghost detector but they never got it to work quite right. Too much ambient ectoplasm in Amity I guess,” she shrugged as if that statement wasn’t extremely worrying. “You could always grab a ouija board or something and try asking. Just… don’t ask a ghost about their death. It’s a major trauma for most of them and there’s no better way to send them into a frothing rage. If they volunteer the information that’s one thing, but to ask about it is like the social faux pas among ecto-entities.”

Tim nodded and made a mental note to get his hands on some Fenton tech. He had a feeling it was going to be a long week for him.

Jason and Tim didn’t speak until they were safely back in the car. Tim was mentally composing the report they would have to make to Bruce. He was not looking forward to his reaction.

“So,” Jason began with fake casualness, “an interdimensional portal in Illinois.”

“Yep.”

“Creatures made of fucking Lazarus Water.”

“Sounds like it.”

“And we still don’t know if our mystery meta is Bruce’s dead kid or not.”

Tim groaned.

“It all adds up though, doesn’t it? The camera glitching, the powers, the portal…”

“And that damned prophecy. The personification of Time, huh?”

Tim pinched his nose to stave off the growing headache. They contemplated the fucked up situation they had stumbled into in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Jason sighed and started up the engine.

“Rock-paper-scissors for who has to tell B?”

Part 6

[hurdy-girly]

Bruce sat in front of the bat computer, pinching the bridge of his nose. A dead end.

Again.

He’d been on this case for weeks now. He’d found a hundred leads, and every one had led to less answers and more questions. He could probably make a sweater with all the grey hairs he’d been getting, and his hairdresser could probably buy a bike off of the dye costs alone.

He was the greatest detective in the world. And yet he had no clue who this guy was.

He really only had his instincts to thank for him noticing Tim approaching. If it weren’t for his frankly absurd levels of over preparation over the years he would have jumped out of his seat when the boy leaned over him to squint at the screen.

“Hey B.”

Tim sat down next to him. His body language was relaxed and casual, but Bruce didn’t miss the glint of concern in his eyes.

“Hey Tim.”

Bruce opened a new folder. All of them were starting to look the same.

“…this case is giving you a lot of trouble, huh?” Tim looked at the screen, glancing over the text. Bruce had missed so many dinners that he was pretty sure Alfred was going to drug him to drag him to the one tonight. He wasn’t surprised his children had picked up on it, too. “Do you need a second opinion?”

Bruce bristled a bit before meeting Tim’s eye. But Tim was just concerned. Not judgmental.

Bruce wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to his kids being that gracious with him. Or with anyone being like that.

“…it may be helpful.” Tim seemed surprised at Bruce’s admission. “Especially because all of this happened while I was… gone.”

“Oh.” Tim grew silent. The two had discussed the events and effects of Bruce’s disappearance into the time stream before, but it was still a tough topic between them. Between everyone. “…so. What’s the deal?”

Bruce sighed, pulling up his original files. “While I was gone, this person appeared. His case would be unalarming, but… this guy was everywhere. Tens of countries, none of them legally, all within the span of a few months. He ended up on several government wanted lists. He seemed to be everywhere. So many organizations locked onto him, but he just… kept getting away. No one could track him down, and… I’m starting to think I can’t either.”

Tim frowned, scooting closer to the screen. “And we didn’t look into this guy sooner?”

Bruce shook his head. “He seemed to slip through the cracks. But this guy… he got places no one should have been. My current working theory is that he’s a meta, or some sort of magical entity. I’m considering sending John some of this to get his opinion.”

Tim blinked. “That bad, huh? What’s this guy’s name?”

Bruce sighed. “I’m not sure. There were a couple I found, and I’m not sure if any of them are even the true name. There was one that got noted down a bit more often than the rest.”

Bruce pulled up his first document.

“Alvin Draper.”

Tim fell very quiet.

Bruce looked over at him. A bit of worry hit him. Had Tim met this guy before? Why hadn’t he said anything? Was everything alright?

Who was this guy?

“Okay, B? I’m gonna hold your hand while I say this.”

[lunamugetsu]

I see a lot of people going with the idea that if Danny were to be captured and tortured by the GIW, that the main people that would find him are Young Justice, Teen Titans or the Justice League main heroes.

So I raise you this idea.

The one who finds the GIW facility that's keeping Danny prisoner is The Question. The resident faceless conspiracy theorist hero that works for the Justice League. (the one I'm thinking of is the guy from Justice League Unlimited. The one that got together with Huntress. You can imagine this with the Renee Montoya version if you want, but I'm just thinking of the guy Question)

Now hear me out. The Question is known for having crazy conspiracy theories and in the the cartoon, Supergirl asks Green Arrow why they have the Question on the roster for the Justice League since he has such crazy theories, he must be insane. And Green Arrow replies with that some of his theories have actually turned out to be true.

So couple that with how The Question gets crazy theories and he does investigate them on his own time. It wouldn't be a stretch that he finds out that there's an obscure government agency that he instantly starts getting suspicious of as there's very rarely any documentation he can find about it. But what hammers his suspicions in is the obscene amount of money that's being pumped into that agency and a serious of facilities that somehow exist and yet also do not exist but he knows it's real because some of them required a humongous power grid to be able to have the facility function.

The Question starts investigating the facilities. Going undercover finding obscure ways to get into the building. He gets in finds a super secure, heavily fortified area that he could tell where most of the energy is being powered to keep locked. He finds the lab areas where he can see the autopsy tables all with machinery that are definitely raise some eyebrows. He starts downloading information about the facility from their servers and finds that the codes to unlock the area that was blocked to him before.

He goes to investigate that area and low and behold, who does he see but an imprisoned Danny who has clearly been tortured. The Question would then go "well I'm breaking him out" and just does an impromptu jail break and takes the kid which sounds the alarm. They're getting the heck out of there. The Question contacts the Justice League gets him and the kid to the Watchtower.

Later on Danny is staying with the Question, because Danny need a place to stay and he's cool with the faceless dude that saved him from his prison. The dude is like super chill with all of the stuff he talks about and actively listening to everything he talked about. Even adding comments of his own like

"I knew it! Lunch Ladies are connected with creation of the mystery meat! And they're funded by the government so they can use it as a brain control weapon to control the future generation!"

or

"The politicians of today could possibly be possessed by the ghosts of the past. They're unwilling to relinquish any power they possessed even in the afterlife!"

Plus, Danny's like completely cool with making food and cleaning up after Question. Because one, the food doesn't come to life and try to attack him like it does at home. And two, the man keeps all of his conspiracy stuff pretty organized so there was hardly anything for Danny to clean up. And sure the guy has a weird lifestyle with things such as brushing his teeth with baking soda because he says fluoride is used by the government to be able to see the people better from their satellites. Or that he'll look through everybody's garbage and would sometimes drag Danny with him to help, which he later learns is a great way to gather information about someone. And having conversations with the dude is kind of creepy when he can't see the dude's face, but he gets used to it and then starts practicing his shape shifting to see freak out the other heroes when they see he has no face.

Meanwhile The Question would have moments while working where he's like "Wait! Did I feed the kid this morning?" also Huntress is there because she doesn't trust her boyfriend at keeping a human being alive, even if they are half dead.

[burlowbeanie]

Locked Tomb Timeline, as far as I can tell

This is a long one, and a bit of a mess. I'll be making other posts about the fun date coincidences and my speculations about their implications, but I figured I should give some of the actual evidence in one solid chonky post so I can link to it and don't need to repeat myself later on.

(BD = before death of the earth; AR = after resurrection; BM = before millennium, AM = after millennium)

Unspecified Pre-Death of the earth: Foundation of Canaan house/the facility that Jod et al used for the cryogenic experiments. Establishment of Kuiper installation, Uranus platform, Mars installation w/ room for 5 million, the Lucifer Telescope, and fusion batteries (Ntn 14, Ntn 74, Ntn 189)

----------------------------------

Now! Some pre-resurrection numbers!

Before 2 BD: C-- sides with the crew (Ntn 13)

1 BD: Governments shift away from the cyrogenics plan (Ntn 13)

0 BD: Jod destroys the world

------------------------------------

Now, the most unclear section of the timeline: the resurrection and its immediate aftermath.

Augustine, from Htn 176: “Alfred and I were there early enough to found the Koniortos Court on the Fifth, but Lyctors like Cyth wouldn’t be born for years and years, and she spent her whole life suffering Seventh House woo-woo theories regarding the value of hereditary cancer … whereas Mercy is the oldest lag except for me, and she was out hammering at the Eighth House before the paint was even dry on the Resurrection.”

The resurrection occurs a few weeks after the death of the earth (Ntn 396). Then things get a bit hazy. We know the approximate order of the resurrections of the original ten disciples, but not how far apart they were staggered - was it minutes? Months? Years?

Similarly, Cyrus/Val and Anastasia/Samael are implied to have showed up before Cytherea/Loveday, when Cytherea was almost 30 years old. Both cavaliers have last names associated with their house, which suggests that either the third and ninth were established enough to at least have a small population by the time that they went to Canaan House, or that they took those names/were given those names later on.

Cytherea-as-Dulcinea says that she "dreamed of being a 9th nun" at age 13, and it's unclear if she's speaking as herself or as Dulcinea or how much she was lying as either persona (Gtn 104). Thus, we don't know if the ninth house was established by the time she went to Canaan House, though it seems like the sort of hint that both Cytherea and Muir would have had a fun time dropping.

Thus, while it is possible/seems probably many/most of the houses were established by the time that any of the newer disciples showed up, especially Cytherea, that is unconfirmed. However, it took until at least 30 years after the resurrection, probably more, for all 16 of the disciples to gather.

A rough order of events during this time, some of which may overlap:

Original disciples resurrected

New disciples arrive

Lyctors ascend; Anastasia fails

Alecto is put in the tomb and Cassiopeia dies

The lyctors and Jod flee to the Mithraeum, leaving the system

Particular questions that remain and would help clarify things:

Were Anastasia, Samael, Cyrus, Valancy, and Loveday born or resurrected? It seems like Cytherea was likely born.

When did Anastasia have a child and found the tombkeeper line?

When did Pyrrha (or G1deon!Pyrrha) paint a nursury? Was it the same time she visited Anastasia "before she got settled" (Ntn 85)? Was Anastasia's child the birth she assisted at (Ntn 121)?

When was the ninth founded? When was the prison installation founded? Was there anything on the ninth before Anastasia was told to prepare for Alecto's imprisonment? Samael seems to have been born or resurrected after the ninth was founded, unless he was given his name later?

-------------------

After resurrection: Actual Numbers. Once we get like 100-200 years out from the resurrection, things start to get clearer. Not clear, but clearer.

100 AR: God names himself Gaius (Htn 521). Is this when Cytherea ascends, since she is given credit for the "naming oneself after one's cavalier" thing? Or was that some God bullshit?

200 AR: Alecto put in tomb (Htn 478)

4000 AR: source gram comes from sixth house to BOE (Htn 529)

5000 AR: BOE comes to the attention of jod and the lyctors; they may have existed beforehand but been unable to find the houses/be found (Htn 154). Augustine begins questioning the purpose of the empire (Htn 483).

Moving into the thousand years before the events of the series:

9000 AR/ 1000 BM: Matthias Nonius lives (Gtn 53)

750-700 BM: New Rho contract drawn up (Ntn 206)

519ish BM: beginning planning of dios apate major (Htn 474)

300 BM: Cyth gets angry (Gtn 402). Last contact between second and first houses (Gtn 456).

100 BM: Jod leaves the Mithraeum (Htn 81).

80 BM: Jod joins the Erebos (Htn 81)

40-39 BM: G1deon starts to really annoy Augustine, who speaking in 1 AM states: “He has caused me more pain over these last scant forty years than I dare to admit" (Htn 268). I think Wake makes the most sense as an explanation for this, though it's off by about five years.

34 BM: Wake reinvigorates BOE (Htn 154). Ortus born? That’s a fun coincidence that means nothing.

30 BM: Mercy thinks Jod should have returned to the Mithraeum then (Htn 81).

25-24 BM: BOE finds out about resurrection beasts (Htn 275) because Wake talks to G1deon (Ntn 155)

21 BM: G1 begins his (final) pursuit of wake (Htn 469)

Sometime after 300 BM, most likely 20 BM, Cytherea teaches BOE about steles and obelisks (Ntn 155)

20 BM approximately, presumably, could be earlier: Augustine and Mercy talk to BOE. BOE gets accurate fleet schematics for the first time in a hundred years and eventually the location of the mithraeum, though those were probably earlier with Cytherea and two decades later with Cytherea!Wake respectively (Ntn 155)

19 BM: Isaac’s dad killed by terrorists on [redacted], presumably BOE (Gtn 459). Mercy and Augustine are “talking” (Htn 87); Dios apate major. Mercy sees Cytherea for the last time and Cytherea laughs so much she insults Mercy (Htn 120), which is an understandable response given that Mercy may have described the dios apate major plan and/or requested her involvement. Mercy sees Sarpedon as a young soldier (about 20 years PM; close enough and matches up with dios apate) (Htn 81).

19–18 BM: Wake dies (Htn 88). Gideon born. Creche massacre.

17 BM: Harrow born.

14 BM Gideon’s first escape attempt (Gtn 24)

13 BM: Gideon is not a necromancer confirmed (Gtn 24)

10 BM: Augustine sees Cytherea for the last time (Htn 120). Wake’s bones get put on rotation (Htn 476).

9-8 BM: Harrow is suicidal. Harrow opens the tomb. Harrow hears/sees the body. Onset of psychosis. Unclear in what order (Htn 49, 247).

7 BM: (Harrow is still suicidal but sees the body?). Harrow and Gideon fight (Htn 477). Gideon sees Harrow opening the tomb. Her parents kill themselves. Gideon gets nightmares about being in the tomb (Gtn 202).

5 BM: Harrow starts puppeting (?girl wtf?? What was going on in the intervening two years???) (Gtn 348). Last ninth house chaplains and adepts are lost in action (Htn 81).

2 BM: Gideon enters Drearburgh for the last time

1 BM: Number 7 estimated five years from the Mithraeum (Htn 125).

0 BM, with rough approximates:

Month 1-3: prepping for Canaan house

Month 4: Canaan house

Month 5: harrow throws up; Camilla nonverbal

Canaan house recovery missions from the emperor and BOE — what the fuck. Who got there first. How and why did they miss the other people. Seems like BOE got there, intentionally left H and I but took G’s body??????????

Month 6: Harrow and Ianthe arrive on the Mithraeum

Month 8: Harrow kills her 13th planet with Mercy. It’s desert and triple-sunned. Wake makes posthumous contact with BOE (Ntn 155).

Month 9-10: When Judith says she begins writing her report; she’s with BOE on a wooded double(potentially triple?)-sunned planet. At one point several weeks (or months?) later Mercy shows up. According to Judith, that is. Judith honey I might need to recuse your testimony for somehow being more of an unreliable narrator than the lobotomized traumatized psychotic unmedicated half-dead triple-haunted 201-souled Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Then I could bump this back to month 8 which would make more sense.

Month 10: Harrow catches G1d!Pyrrah with Cytherea!Wake

Between Month 10 and Month 12: Harrow turns 18. Harrow discovers G1d can drain thanergy. Harrow makes soup. Harrow makes Ianthe’s arm. Dios apate minor.

Month 12: Harrow finds Cam and Pal on a wooded planet and sees Judith. Judith tries to warn Harrow about Mercy’s involvement.

Mercy ditches her for unspecified business. I suspect this is when she meets with We Suffer? Was this when she heals Judith?

1 AM

Month 2: death of the emperor. Quick undeath of the emperor. Nona born(?)

Month 5: Station Red-As-Blood abandoned (Ntn 152). The demons show up on Antioch (Ntn 448).

Month (6?): Nona gets a job (Ntn 41).

Month 7: nona gets shot, cam/pal fusion reveal (Ntn 105 through the end of the chapter)

Month 8: events of Ntn

[kick-a-long]

Trying to have a little fun. As a Jew I’m locked out of most conspiracy theories. I want back in.

Im partial to lizard people but I think mermen has a real shot.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

America's largest hospital chain has an algorithmic death panel

It’s not that conservatives aren’t sometimes right — it’s that even when they’re right, they’re highly selective about it. Take the hoary chestnut that “incentives matter,” trotted out to deny humane benefits to poor people on the grounds that “free money” makes people “workshy.”

There’s a whole body of conservative economic orthodoxy, Public Choice Theory, that concerns itself with the motives of callow, easily corrupted regulators, legislators and civil servants, and how they might be tempted to distort markets.

But the same people who obsess over our fallible public institutions are convinced that private institutions will never yield to temptation, because the fear of competition keeps temptation at bay. It’s this belief that leads the right to embrace monopolies as “efficient”: “A company’s dominance is evidence of its quality. Customers flock to it, and competitors fail to lure them away, therefore monopolies are the public’s best friend.”

But this only makes sense if you don’t understand how monopolies can prevent competitors. Think of Uber, lighting $31b of its investors’ cash on fire, losing 41 cents on every dollar it brought in, in a bid to drive out competitors and make public transit seem like a bad investment.

Or think of Big Tech, locking up whole swathes of your life inside their silos, so that changing mobile OSes means abandoning your iMessage contacts; or changing social media platforms means abandoning your friends, or blocking Google surveillance means losing your email address, or breaking up with Amazon means losing all your ebooks and audiobooks:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

Businesspeople understand the risks of competition, which is why they seek to extinguish it. The harder it is for your customers to leave — because of a lack of competitors or because of lock-in — the worse you can treat them without risking their departure. This is the core of enshittification: a company that is neither disciplined by competition nor regulation can abuse its customers and suppliers over long timescales without losing either:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

It’s not that public institutions can’t betray they public interest. It’s just that public institutions can be made democratically accountable, rather than financially accountable. When a company betrays you, you can only punish it by “voting with your wallet.” In that system, the people with the fattest wallets get the most votes.

When public institutions fail you, you can vote with your ballot. Admittedly, that doesn’t always work, but one of the major predictors of whether it will work is how big and concentrated the private sector is. Regulatory capture isn’t automatic: it’s what you get when companies are bigger than governments.

If you want small governments, in other words, you need small companies. Even if you think the only role for the state is in enforcing contracts, the state needs to be more powerful than the companies issuing those contracts. The bigger the companies are, the bigger the government has to be:

https://doctorow.medium.com/regulatory-capture-59b2013e2526

Companies can suborn the government to help them abuse the public, but whether public institutions can resist them is more a matter of how powerful those companies are than how fallible a public servant is. Our plutocratic, monopolized, unequal society is the worst of both worlds. Because companies are so big, they abuse us with impunity — and they are able to suborn the state to help them do it:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B

This is the dimension that’s so often missing from the discussion of why Americans pay more for healthcare to get worse outcomes from health-care workers who labor under worse conditions than their cousins abroad. Yes, the government can abet this, as when it lets privatizers into the Medicare system to loot it and maim its patients:

https://prospect.org/health/2023-08-01-patient-zero-tom-scully/

But the answer to this isn’t more privatization. Remember Sarah Palin’s scare-stories about how government health care would have “death panels” where unaccountable officials decided whether your life was worth saving?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26195604/

The reason “death panels” resounded so thoroughly — and stuck around through the years — is that we all understand, at some deep level, that health care will always be rationed. When you show up at the Emergency Room, they have to triage you. Even if you’re in unbearable agony, you might have to wait, and wait, and wait, because other people (even people who arrive after you do) have it worse.

In America, health care is mostly rationed based on your ability to pay. Emergency room triage is one of the only truly meritocratic institutions in the American health system, where your treatment is based on urgency, not cash. Of course, you can buy your way out of that too, with concierge doctors. And the ER system itself has been infested with Private Equity parasites:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/17/the-doctor-will-fleece-you-now/#pe-in-full-effect

Wealth-based health-care rationing is bad enough, but when it’s combined with the public purse, a bad system becomes a nightmare. Take hospice care: private equity funds have rolled up huge numbers of hospices across the USA and turned them into rigged — and lethal — games:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

Medicare will pay a hospice $203-$1,462 to care for a dying person, amounting to $22.4b/year in public funds transfered to the private sector. Incentives matter: the less a hospice does for their patients, the more profits they reap. And the private hospice system is administered with the lightest of touches: at the $203/day level, a private hospice has no mandatory duties to their patients.

You can set up a California hospice for the price of a $3,000 filing fee (which is mostly optional, since it’s never checked). You will have a facility inspection, but don’t worry, there’s no followup to make sure you remediate any failing elements. And no one at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services tracks complaints.

So PE-owned hospices pressure largely healthy people to go into “hospice care” — from home. Then they do nothing for them, including continuing whatever medical care they were depending on. After the patient generates $32,000 in billings for the PE company, they hit the cap and are “live discharged” and must go through a bureaucratic nightmare to re-establish their Medicare eligibility, because once you go into hospice, Medicare assumes you are dying and halts your care.

PE-owned hospices bribe doctors to refer patients to them. Sometimes, these sham hospices deliberately induce overdoses in their patients in a bid to make it look like they’re actually in the business of caring for the dying. Incentives matter:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/12/05/how-hospice-became-a-for-profit-hustle

Now, hospice care — and its relative, palliative care — is a crucial part of any humane medical system. In his essential book, Being Mortal, Atul Gawande describes how end-of-life care that centers a dying person’s priorities can make death a dignified and even satisfying process for the patient and their loved ones:

https://atulgawande.com/book/being-mortal/

But that dignity comes from a patient-centered approach, not a profit-centered one. Doctors are required to put their patients’ interests first, and while they sometimes fail at this (everyone is fallible), the professionalization of medicine, through which doctors were held to ethical standards ahead of monetary considerations, proved remarkable durable.

Partly that was because doctors generally worked for themselves — or for other doctors. In most states, it is illegal for medical practices to be owned by non-MDs, and historically, only a small fraction of doctors worked for hospitals, subject to administration by businesspeople rather than medical professionals.

But that was radically altered by the entry of private equity into the medical system, with the attending waves of consolidation that saw local hospitals merged into massive national chains, and private practices scooped up and turned into profit-maximizers, not health-maximizers:

https://prospect.org/health/2023-08-02-qa-corporate-medicine-destroys-doctors/

Today, doctors are being proletarianized, joining the ranks of nurses, physicians’ assistants and other health workers. In 2012, 60% of practices were doctor-owned and only 5.6% of docs worked for hospitals. Today, that’s up by 1,000%, with 52.1% of docs working for hospitals, mostly giant corporate chains:

https://prospect.org/health/2023-08-04-when-mds-go-union/

The paperclip-maximizing, grandparent-devouring transhuman colony organism that calls itself a Private Equity fund is endlessly inventive in finding ways to increase its profits by harming the rest of us. It’s not just hospices — it’s also palliative care.

Writing for NBC News, Gretchen Morgenson describes how HCA Healthcare — the nation’s largest hospital chain — outsourced its death panels to IBM Watson, whose algorithmic determinations override MDs’ judgment to send patients to palliative care, withdrawing their care and leaving them to die:

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/doctors-say-hca-hospitals-push-patients-hospice-care-rcna81599

Incentives matter. When HCA hospitals send patients to die somewhere else to die, it jukes their stats, reducing the average length of stay for patients, a key metric used by HCA that has the twin benefits of making the hospital seem like a place where people get well quickly, while freeing up beds for more profitable patients.

Goodhart’s Law holds that “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Give an MBA within HCA a metric (“get patients out of bed quicker”) and they will find a way to hit that metric (“send patients off to die somewhere else, even if their doctors think they could recover”):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

Incentives matter! Any corporate measure immediately becomes a target. Tell Warners to decrease costs, and they will turn around and declare the writers’ strike to be a $100m “cost savings,” despite the fact that this “savings” comes from ceasing production on the shows that will bring in all of next year’s revenue:

https://deadline.com/2023/08/warner-bros-discovery-david-zaslav-gunnar-wiedenfels-strikes-1235453950/

Incentivize a company to eat its seed-corn and it will chow down.

Only one of HCA’s doctors was willing to go on record about its death panels: Ghasan Tabel of Riverside Community Hospital (motto: “Above all else, we are committed to the care and improvement of human life”). Tabel sued Riverside after the hospital retaliated against him when he refused to follow the algorithm’s orders to send his patients for palliative care.

Tabel is the only doc on record willing to discuss this, but 26 other doctors talked to Morgenson on background about the practice, asking for anonymity out of fear of retaliation from the nation’s largest hospital chain, a “Wall Street darling” with $5.6b in earnings in 2022.

HCA already has a reputation as a slaughterhouse that puts profits before patients, with “severe understaffing”:

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/workers-us-hospital-giant-hca-say-puts-profits-patient-care-rcna64122

and rotting, undermaintained facililties:

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/roaches-operating-room-hca-hospital-florida-rcna69563

But while cutting staff and leaving hospitals to crumble are inarguable malpractice, the palliative care scam is harder to pin down. By using “AI” to decide when patients are beyond help, HCA can employ empiricism-washing, declaring the matter to be the factual — and unquestionable — conclusion of a mathematical process, not mere profit-seeking:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/26/dictators-dilemma/ggarbage-in-garbage-out-garbage-back-in

But this empirical facewash evaporates when confronted with whistleblower accounts of hospital administrators who have no medical credentials berating doctors for a “missed hospice opportunity” when a physician opts to keep a patient under their care despite the algorithm’s determination.

This is the true “AI Safety” risk. It’s not that a chatbot will become sentient and take over the world — it’s that the original artificial lifeform, the limited liability company, will use “AI” to accelerate its murderous shell-game until we can’t spot the trick:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/10/in-the-dumps-2/

The risk is real. A 2020 study in the Journal of Healthcare Management concluded that the cash incentives for shipping patients to palliatve care “may induce deceiving changes in mortality reporting in several high-volume hospital diagnoses”:

https://journals.lww.com/jhmonline/Fulltext/2020/04000/The_Association_of_Increasing_Hospice_Use_With.7.aspx

Incentives matter. In a private market, it’s always more profitable to deny care than to provide it, and any metric we bolt onto that system to prevent cheating will immediately become a target. For-profit healthcare is an oxymoron, a prelude to death panels that will kill you for a nickel.

Morgenson is an incisive commentator on for-profit looting. Her recent book These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs — and Wrecks — America (co-written with Joshua Rosner) is a must-read:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/05/any-metric-becomes-a-target/#hca

[Image ID: An industrial meat-grinder. A sick man, propped up with pillows, is being carried up its conveyor towards its hopper. Ground meat comes out of the other end. It bears the logo of HCA healthcare. A pool of blood spreads out below it.]

Image: Seydelmann (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GW300_1.jpg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[himehomu]

While we all are pretty much aware that this is Madoka's concept art outfit finally being used for her new Magical Girl design, there seems to be a lock and some chains around her ribcage. The first thing I thought about was the metaphor “hearts are wild creatures, that's why our ribs are cages” which is meant to illustrate that the heart cannot be governed, that it will go anyway it wants, that it is uncontainable, hence the “wild creature” title, and the heart being a “wild creature”, needs to be encased, limited, caged, hence the “rib cage”. This could symbolize a lot in terms of Madoka's character, but one of my theories is that Madoka's memories of every loop where Homura fought for her and never gave up, the realization that someone like Madoka, whom has never seen herself as worthy of anything, let alone love, unless she was helping or being of use to someome else, actually had someone all this time who's loved her for who she is, not what she can do for others, the clarity of “oh. this is the love letter I've always wanted,” the reciprocation of Homura's love that transcends time and space, all of that is locked away with the final memory wipe at the end of Rebellion. Maybe the metaphorical key to unlocking it is her finally regaining all of those memories, all of that love. Of course, she'd have to regain her godhood to do so. My second theory is that maybe this is meant to symbolize Madoka's ultimate sacrifice being locked away both as a means to keep her alive as a human and as a means to spare Homura anymore grief; maybe eventually Homura's acceptance of her death and acknowledgement of her grief will be the symbolical key to unlocking Madokami... which unfortunately will kickstart the inevitable battle between God and the Devil.

[1000sunnygo]

Ope ope fruit speculations

so I just found this post:

It's too late to participate in the discussion there, but I want to add a small information that seems to get lost in translation.

Ope ope no Mi's ultimate surgery is "Eternal Youth" (不老), not "Immortality" (不死).

Aren't they used interchangeably? Well, Oda did something curious in Volume 107:

In the magazine edition, Blackbeard asked Law if he (the fruit) could make him both eternally young and immortal - as seen in the left image (不老不死) . IIIRC it was the only time when "Immortality" was added to explain Law's power. But Oda removed the "Immortal" bit in the volume version of the same panel, it was corrected only to eternally young (不老) as previously said during Dressrosa.

Maybe it means Imu isn't unkillable and Law doesn't have to sacrifice himself to reverse the surgery? The "reverse" effect isn't supposed to work in the first place, given Hancock's explanation that her paramecia power is irreversible once the original user dies. It'd be strange if the rule changes from one fruit to another:

Makes me wonder why powers like Hobby-Hobby which keeps the user young don't have the "Eternal Youth" effect. It seems Doffy collected the hobby fruit for a similar research on Eternal Youth, but then learned about its limitations.

How does a natural death occur in One Piece anyway? Is it heavily related to soul rather than one's physical self? A person's soul stays within a body for a specific duration (the natural lifespan), then leaves regardless of the physical condition of the person. If the soul is empowered with revive revive fruit, it can revitalize the body regardless of the corpse's condition (Brook). Since Law is able to swap personalities, it's possible that that Ope ope is able to "operate on" the soul. Eternal Youth surgery could simultaneously sustain a human body and keep the soul trapped within the body forever (which Sugar's fruit can't do), and thus a person gains indefinite lifespan.

I subscribe to the theory that the Elders (who have the ability to immediately heal) had never been humans and their ability isn't the result of ope ope surgery. They could be an extension of Imu's own, unknown devil fruit ability that let him create five puppet figures to run the government. Or they're real demons who would cease to exist once their original summoner (Imu) is killed. Imu, the so-called immortal human, keeps himself safe in a locked room where he cant be harmed, so he can exist forever.

The theory that it's Lili's (eternally young) body Imu is currently residing in makes some sense too, maybe he now has a muse for Vivi and wants to be swapped into her body.

Whichever case it is, Ope ope is definitely involved.

It's possible that a reason the govt allowed Law to become a shichibukai was to regain their access to Ope ope. It'd be ridiculous for the govt to not to collect Law's lineage factor to replicate the 5 billion bounty worth of power. It's very likely that vegapunk was able to replicate the "soul swapping" power of it, so rn Law's original fruit isn't highly sought after as it once was. The govt can still exploit ope ope powers, but they don't need Law to do so.

I don't think they've made his seraphim, it was a long term and expensive project. But how wild it'd be if Doffy's seraphim is revealed to have the Ope ope ability, operating with Law's lineage factor?

I should sleep lol

[pippytmi]

kacy au + a prompt from this list: "this is the first time I’m living on my own and my parents decided to spontaneously drop by in a few hours to see how I’m doing pls let me borrow some cleaning supplies and food so that my parents will believe I’m a functioning, responsible adult who totally cleans and doesn’t just have condiments and eggs in my fridge AU”

////////

“Hey! Hi, you’re—you're 8C, right?”

Kate nearly drops her bag at the sudden voice and its proximity, entirely unused to any kind of attention whatsoever. Embarrassingly, her first response is to reach for a gun that isn’t there, succeeding only in pulling out her keys as a makeshift weapon.

“Whoa,” the stranger before Kate says, raising both hands up. She looks vaguely familiar, dark eyes and curly hair and a short enough stature that Kate presumes she won’t be a real threat. “Is that a…key? No offense, but I don't think that would stab very well.” She squints up at Kate suddenly, almost like she’s trying to figure her out. “Please don't test that theory.”

Kate can only hurriedly lower said keys, feels her cheeks burn under the scrutiny. “Sorry,” she says. “I guess I’m a little jumpy.”

“It’s all good, I totally get it,” the stranger says cheerfully. “There’s not really a welcoming committee around these parts.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Kate asks slowly, cautiously on guard once more. She had first moved into this apartment two months ago, so it’s a little late for a welcome-to-the-neighborhood kind of thing.

“It could be,” the woman says, and she holds out her hand. “I’m Lucy. You might know me better as 12B, I’m the one always throwing empty bottles at the landlord’s head.”

Kate just stares back, accepting the handshake a beat later than socially acceptable. “I…didn’t know anyone did that, actually.”

“Oh it’s fine,” Lucy’s quick to reassure her. “He hasn’t found out it’s me.”

“Okay.” Kate is still very, very confused as to what Lucy of 12B (who throws water bottles at people) could possibly want. Or why she has decided to introduce herself in such a strange manner.

“Sorry to bug you," Lucy says, “but you’re kind of my last hope. I’ve been trying to find one friendly neighbor in this shithole, and so far, everyone has been shutting their doors in my face. You’re kind of on another level since you tried to shank me, but I am completely willing to forget that if you can let me borrow some stuff.”

“I didn’t try to…” Kate trails off as Lucy gazes up at her with such a hopeful expression that her resolve immediately weakens. “What kind of stuff?”

“Nothing major,” Lucy says. “Long story short, my parents decided to drop in on me, and I basically have nothing in my place. Any chance you can lend me some cleaning supplies? And maybe some groceries? I will one hundred percent pay you back. I just need them to think I’m an actual functioning human being.”

“I guess I can see what I have,” Kate says reluctantly, gripping her groceries a little tighter to her chest. “Come in, I’ll get you everything you need.”

This is probably a bad idea. Scratch that—it is definitely a bad idea, and Curtis will actually kill her for this, but Kate invites this literal stranger into her (government-assigned) home and leaves Lucy alone in order to briefly dash into her room and lock up the gun kept in the bottom of her purse.

Lucy, at the very least, stays firmly in the living room where Kate left her, though her eyes obviously wander around the room. “I like the color,” she says, gesturing to Kate’s couch. “Funky.”

Kate grimaces. “It was the only one they had,” she says of that neon-green monstrosity.

“Well, I think it’s really cool,” Lucy says. With Kate back, she seems emboldened, takes a turn about the room with a curious half-smile. “Your place seems smaller than mine. How much are you paying? Because if it’s the same as mine, I can totally get the landlord with a bottle for you.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Kate says. “Um, I think I should have everything you need in the kitchen.” She ushers Lucy right over, gestures to the fridge and says, “You can pick whatever you want for food. I’ll get the cleaning supplies from under the sink.” Still on edge, she crouches down to retrieve everything while watching Lucy out of the corner of her eye.

If Lucy can feel Kate staring, she doesn’t show it; she happily accepts the invitation to rummage through the fridge, clanking of bottles and rustling of bags audible. Finally, Kate focuses on the task at hand, and packs the basics into a plastic bag: bleach, window cleaner, Lysol.

“Okay, this might be more unbelievable than having nothing in my house,” Lucy suddenly declares. “Do you have anything good to eat?”

Kate lifts her head. “What?”

“This is all health food and green juice, 8C,” Lucy says. Pauses. “Oh fuck. I never asked for your name.”

Honestly, Kate forgot she hadn’t, either. “It’s—”

“I really hope you’re not a serial killer,” Lucy continues, as if Kate isn’t even in the room and she is just musing aloud. “That probably should’ve been my first question. Can we start over? Here. 8C, are you a serial killer?”

Kate blinks. “No,” she says. “But I also don’t think serial killers would tell you if they were.”

“Fair enough,” Lucy says, and peculiarly enough, she doesn’t seem threatened at all by the possibility. Obviously she is not afraid to be in unfamiliar situations with unfamiliar people, and Kate wonders if she should rethink her assumption that Lucy is not a threat. “So what’s your name, then?”

“...Kate.”

“Kate,” Lucy repeats. “Hm. It’s not what I was expecting, but it fits.” With that information, she just turns around and…continues going through Kate’s fridge. “Are you single?”

Kate coughs. “W-what?”

“Single people always have those sad frozen meals, at least,” Lucy says. “I do too, normally, but I haven’t hit the grocery store in a while.” She opens the freezer and actually whoops at the sight of Marie Callender's finest. “Jackpot! I will take these off your hands.”

“And your parents will…be fine with that?” Kate decides that, overall, she is utterly confused by Lucy the neighbor from 12B. There's no other possible way to put it.

“Oh not at all, but it is what they expect,” Lucy says. “I’ll take some of your health foods too, I guess. Let them think I’m trying to stop bad habits.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear with a self-conscious laugh. “I mean, only if that’s fine with you.”

And something about that moment where Lucy becomes a little awkward—when she bashfully looks down at her feet, then looks back up at Kate from underneath her long eyelashes—it endears Kate completely. At the very least, it makes her relax, stomach twisting in itself in a tell-tale weakness for pretty girls in trouble. “Sure,” she says. “Do your parents like wine? You can take a bottle, I have a few.”

“I would never turn down wine,” Lucy says, brightening. “I don’t even care that I don’t have wine glasses. We can drink out of paper cups for all I care.”

Kate opens the liquor cabinet to make her selection: a nice red that had been a gift from her mother. (She’ll just have to email her later and say she loved it when her mother asks.) “I would offer to lend you some, but I also don’t have wine glasses,” she finds herself saying, then immediately regrets it, because Lucy obviously expects an explanation and all Kate seems to be able to do is make a fool out of herself today.

“Are you also a connoisseur of paper cups? Kate from 8C, I think we’re going to be friends,” Lucy says easily, and Kate’s lips twitch from the effort of biting back a smile.

“I actually like to drink wine out of mason jars,” Kate says. “I know it’s a little weird…”

Lucy has absolutely no qualms about smiling, and her smile lights up her whole face in a way Kate can’t look away from. “I think that’s cute,” she says, and Kate’s face burns so hot she knows that her status as this building’s number one gay disaster is 100% secured.

“Here,” Kate barely remembers to blurt out, handing off the wine bottle. “And let me get you a bag for the food too.”

After everything has been successfully squared away, Lucy is left with three large bags that will definitely require more than one trip. “Thank you,” she says. “Seriously. You’ve saved my life and I promise I will replace everything I’ve stolen today.”

“It’s no problem,” Kate says. “Do you need help taking it to your place?”

Lucy feigns a double-take, mouth falling open in an exaggerated gasp. “Already trying to invite yourself over? Wow, 8C. At least buy a girl dinner first.”

Kate’s mouth inevitably twists into that damned smile anyway. “Is that not what the frozen meals are? Technically, I did buy them.”

“Touché,” Lucy says, biting her lip. “You are…surprising.” She snags the smaller of the bags which contains the cleaning supplies, then swings it over her shoulder. “Alright, you can walk me home. But no funny business.”

“Okay,” Kate says with a laugh, taking the last two bags herself.

“But,” Lucy says as they walk outside, “you officially have a rain check.”

“For dinner?” Despite the circumstances of Kate’s arrival here—despite the looming undercover op that is about to consume her life—she feels light. Hopeful, even.

Lucy throws a wink over her shoulder. “For the funny business,” she says, all but skipping in the direction of her apartment.

Kate, meanwhile, freezes in place. Nevermind about Lucy being a threat to her life—she’s just going to be a threat to Kate's sanity.

(Which…may or may not be a bad thing. It’s to be determined, at any rate). 

[racefortheironthrone]

BOE, the Messenger(s), and the Trillionaires

Introduction

I’ve been doing a re-read of the Locked Tomb - although technically it’s a re-listen, because I like the audiobooks - and I stumbled across a particular passage that hadn’t stuck in my memory before that made me rethink my understanding of the origin of Blood of Eden. Ever since Harrow the Ninth and especially since Nona the Ninth, there’s been this common interpretation that the BOE are descendants of the trillionaires who abandoned Earth and that’s why John is at war with them. I’m not so sure that’s true any more. 

Here’s why. In Nona, when the whole business with Crown/Corona infiltrating the barracks kicks off, there’s an interesting exchange between Camilla and We Suffer about the Oversight Committee that includes this statement:

“Hect, what you must understand about Blood of Eden is that we own things in common, we share responsibilities and resources in common. She could have moved these resources at will...but I must make one move at a time. And above all, I must place the safety of...Blood of Eden’s continuity...even above the mission.” (Emphasis mine.)

This took me aback somewhat, because the emphasis on militant communal ownership doesn’t really fit with the idea of “descendants of trillionaires.” I suppose one could say that it’s been ten thousand years, cultures change and drift over time...except that, as I’ll get into later, the BOE seems very very insistent on cultural preservation, so it would be a bit out-of-character if they changed that stance on this one particular issue. 

And that’s what made me think: what if the BOE aren’t the descendants of the trillionaires? What if they’re the descendants of the non-trillionaires on the FTL ships?

East of Eden: A Theory About What Happened After the FTL Ships Jumped

So here’s the question that’s been percolating in my mind: once you’re out in space, why keep listening to the trillionaires, especially about the vital question of who owns the precious resources brought from Eden and who gets to decide happens next? There would probably be some residual cultural deference to the visionary disruptors, but the traditional answers of property law backed up by the state or men with guns paid to enforce the orders of the capitalists kind of break down when you consider that:

In John’s chapters (and verses) in Nona, we get an account of what happened leading up to and during the Resurrection: according to John, the trillionaires pulled a con job on the planet with their FTL ships, pretending that a fleet of twelve ships, each carrying a few thousand people (made up of “hand-picked guys” and “two hundred nominated people”), was merely the first wave of a planetary evacuation. As Mercymorn and others worked out, there were no future waves, no plan to come back and pick up more, the trillionaires had liquidated their cash and financial assets in favor of buying up material resources they’d need in space, and everyone else was being left for dead.

These twelve ships (possibly minus one, it’s not clear whether John managed to destroy the one he grabbed before it jumped) and the 20-odd thousand people on them must be the ancestors of exo-humanity as it exists in the myriadic year. But we know that of those 20-odd thousand people, only a “half-dozen” were the trillionaires. Everyone else was staff they’d selected to do the work of planetary colonization, plus a tiny group of people chosen by the governments of Earth Eden. 

other than 200 randos who are likely to be recruited from the ranks of elected officials and upper management bureaucracy rather than Special Forces, the forces of the state are not only light-years away but also just got eaten by John Gaius.

it’s a bit harder to pull off the Jay Gould method when you’ve turned all of your cash into raw materials, there’s nowhere to spend cash in space, and it doesn’t take long for men with guns in that scenario to decide that the resources belong to them actually, because they have the guns. 

While we know that some form of a market economy exists on New Rho and the other exo-planets, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of an oligarchical ruling class based on ownership of capital. Rather, we see a state of anarchy where there is no hegemonic entity but duelling centers of power. This suggests to me that the trillionaires’ power did not last very long after human settlement outside the solar system, possibly due to a (potentially bloodless) revolution in which the only surviving members of humanity just decided not to listen to six old (white) men and took their shit in order to survive.

In that scenario, I could see it being the case that the collective memory of communal ownership of property in the midst of a crisis could linger among a certain sub-population and provide the origin for this aspect of BOE’s internal culture. 

So where did BOE come from?

Well, in large part it emerged as an organic response to John Gaius’ imperialist campaign against exo-humanity. As I noted elsewhere, John’s revenge against those who abandoned Earth in her hour of need is essentially a re-enactment of colonialism - the Cohort shows up with their overwhelming military might, forces the local population into subjugation with unequal treaties, imposes its language and customs, destroys the natural environment in a drive for short-term resource extraction, and then forces people into an endless cycle of being resettled on reservations over and over again - which makes a certain sick sense, in that it’s probably the worst thing that a Kiwi of Maori heritage could think of doing to their enemies. 

He even goes to the extent of modelling the Cohort uniforms on 19th century British Army uniforms with the colors reversed, and coming up with his own gloss on the Christianity that was imposed on indigenous populations in the name of “civilizing” them. This campaign is only mystifying to outside observers like Augustine and Coronabeth because they don’t have the cultural context to know what John’s up to (in no small part because he’s used his necromantic powers and political position in order to suppress all knowledge of that context). 

And thus, it’s not that surprising that John’s imperialism provoked anti-colonial resistance: when his Empire made contact with exo-humanity, to the extent that anyone still remembered him, it was as the horrific necromantic cult leader who murdered the ten billion and destroyed Eden, and now he’s come to finish the job in the name of collective punishment for the sins of six dead men, and by the way he’s bringing death and the defilement of the dead and the destruction of everything you’ve ever built with him. There probably have been dozens and hundreds of resistance movements - some local, some planetary, some multi-planetary - that rose up and got crushed over thousands of years. 

So what makes BOE different from all other resistance movements?

The Messenger(s)

I want to go back a few thousand years and talk about what happened when the FTL ships managed to escape the solar system. While interplanetary colonization would always be an incredibly stressful experience even without a revolution, the fact that all of this was happening in the wake of John nuking Earth and killing the ten billion, then devouring the solar system, and their narrow escape from his wrothful grasp would have added an entirely different level of terror to the event - but also a new sense of responsibility. 

Because - regardless of whether people on the FTL ships knew about the trillionaires’ supposed plan to abandon humanity on Earth or believed John’s accusations - they were now the sole survivors of humanity, the carriers of all culture and history. The ao3 author Griselda_Gimpel has a really good series of fics imagining the development of exo-humanity from the FTL ships onwards, and in one scene they mention the enormous sense of cultural loss that people on those ships would have felt when they realized that the internet was gone forever. 

And this got me thinking: what if some nerds on those ships had that kind of profound reaction and decided to preserve as much of Earth’s heritage as possible? How would you do that with limited access to computer storage and humanity potentially scattering across multiple planets, and knowledge being lost forever with the march of time as the original settler generation died off and was replaced by new generations born outside the solar system? I think the answer is:

Oral tradition. See, one of the things that fans of the series have been talking about for a while is the implications of the myriadic duration of the Empire, what that would have done to language and culture in the Nine Houses and among BOE, how is it that people can still be speaking the same language or reading the same writing as from the time of the Resurrection, let alone remember memes and cultural references from the 21st century? This is a fair reaction from a Western perspective - after all, ten thousand years ago would be roughly 8000 BCE or smack dab in the Early Neolithic. Surely it would have been impossible for the memory of Earth to have survived that long. 

But, as people have said, Tamsyn Muir is writing a very Kiwi series. And one of the things that is very distinctive about the culture of Aotearoa is the oral traditions of the Maori and Pasifika cultures more generally. While Maori oral histories go back to the 13th century CE when Aotearoa was settled, Australian Aboriginal oral tradition goes back as far as potentially 30,000-40,000 years. Oral tradition is not perfectly reliable, it undergoes drift and change over time, it can experience loss and disruption (from colonization, for example), but it can endure across millennia. 

My theory is that these nerds on the FTL ships or their descendants dedicated themselves to the mission of cultural preservation through oral tradition, and thus the Messengers were born. And at some point, the Messengers met up with Blood of Eden and explained that John Gaius’ colonial campaign wasn’t just an unjustified act of aggression and imperialism, but an act of cultural genocide stretching back 10,000 years:

“I charge you with...the utter disintegration of institutions political and social, languages, cultures, religions, all niceties and personal liberties of the nations, by use of-”

“...they’re dead words--a human chain reaching back ten thousand years...how did they feel?” (Harrow the Ninth)

Somewhere around this point, then, BOE took as its mission the preservation of the Messengers, which is why they are given BOE bodyguards, why discharging a weapon in their presence is grounds for execution, and why they are both deeply respected and honored by BOE but kept away from sensitive missions and not necessarily kept in the loop on critical intel. 

Why AIM is “They”

This part of my theory suggested an explanation for why AIM is called “they” by Blood of Eden, and why Palamedes Sextus sensed a necromantic implant when they “stumbled” into AIM at the school. We know that the Sixth House has been in contact with Blood of Eden for a very long time, and that Cassiopeia was not only responsible for the Sixth’s “break clause” but also was BOE’s “Source Gram.”

My theory is that Cassiopeia and the Sixth, being a bunch of librarian nerds obsessed with the preservation of cultural knowledge, would never have been entirely comfortable with taking John Gaius’ word for what happened during the Resurrection and what life was like on pre-Resurrection Earth. The natural place to look for an alternate source of documentation would be exo-humanity, and I think she/they went looking clandestinely and came across the Messengers and BOE. Somehow, they avoided killing each other and came to a modus vivendi.

I think part of this modus vivendi was an offer by Cassiopeia/the Sixth to provide the Messengers with an improved means of preserving their oral tradition: namely, a necromantic implant that would preserve the ghosts of dead Messengers and let them communicate with their successors, ensuring that the oral tradition could be passed down perfectly from generation to generation. After all, not only are the Sixth House spirit magicians, but they are specialist psychometricians who know better than anyone else how to pull information about and from the past from material objects, and it was Doctor Sex who gave Palamedes the idea for preserving revenant spirits after death by giving them a physical anchor. 

Hence, AIM is they because they are a collective “human chain” of all the Messengers who came before them - they have the voices of hundreds of cultural preservations in their heads, telling them of all that was lost with the fall of Eden. No wonder they want to play school teacher and be “she” for a while. 

Conclusion

TLDR: BOE aren’t trillionaires, they’re commie terrorists with a fetish for cultural preservation. So I guess this makes the whole war a case of leftist infighting, considered in the long run?