#basically the NC insignia

[wingedblooms]

Marked by Wyrd

Long ago, life blossomed from an iron Cauldron and created the world. The three sacred sister peaks—a reflection of Wyrd (Mother, Cauldron, Fate) herself—may have risen from the ground at this time. Three interconnected pieces of a whole. Regardless of when they rose, they are marked by Wyrd physically and magically. The watery veins of the land, flowing from peak to peak, even smell of iron. These sacred sisters hold the secrets of the land and their people, just as their creator carries secrets of the universe in her dark womb.

After thousands of years, Wyrd Made another triad of blessed sisters (and the one most connected to nature even rose from the ground like a sacred sister peak). Three interconnected pieces of a whole. There are signs from the very beginning that they, too, are marked by Wyrd.

The sisters were born in their mother’s enormous ironwood bed (connecting them to witches as well as the iron womb of Wyrd).

When their fortune changed and they moved to the stone cottage, their father made sure they were protected by ward-markings…or were those Wyrdmarks? (@ultadverb pointed this out to me and it’s been on my mind since.)

Whorls and swirls? That’s exactly how Aelin describes them, too. Definitely Wyrdmarks.

Two of the sisters wore iron bracelets for added protection, and Elain was given an engagement ring made of iron.

Not a coincidence, it seems, as they were reborn in Wyrd’s iron womb.

Instead of iron bracelets, they now wear iron crowns, which are magical links to Wyrd and maybe even her protective powers, like the swirls and whorls of Wyrdmarks on their cottage.

Regardless of how they were Made, all three sisters are blessed by fate Wyrd and reborn with unique powers, maybe even Immortal Light…

To match Rhysand, who is ✨Starborn✨.

The Night Court’s insignia honors this Immortal Light: a triad of stars glow above Ramiel, the heart of their court and perhaps even the world, each spring. Three interconnected pieces of a whole. A beacon of light and life for those with the vision and powers to see it. Where Wyrd, blossoming life, once rested.

As though fated, Feyre and Elain encounter a tapestry of this insignia near solstice. They both hear the story of the weaver who made Hope after she mastered Void. Feyre and Nesta have faced their own grief and created a more hopeful future for themselves. They have both also used that iridescent, living light to help others. Elain will soon face her own demons, maybe even the Void itself. She will face it and find her own strength: a living, colorful bloom of starlight. And maybe once she blossoms with her own hopeful light, her sisters—chosen bearers of Wyrd like their mountainous counterparts—will be there beside her, glowing like starfire.

The heart of the world resting in the palms of their luminescent hands. Three interconnected pieces of a whole. Together.

[riallasheng]

Spectrum Uniforms

Just making a 'Master Post' that I can hopefully link to from my main tumblr page.

This will be the uniform versions and (once I make them) 'character collage' images.

Characters posted in descending rank order, and for characters of the same rank, descending age.

The highest rating in Spectrum is OF-7 (2 star admiral), there is no OF-1 rating or OR-1 rating, and while there are Warrant Officers, there are only two ranks of Warrant Officer.

Only the Officers are Color Coded (and all Officers are Color Coded). The Enlisted aren't color coded, BUT they have fake names, using surnames that are jobs or structures, etc (Smith, Bridge, etc)

FLAG OFFICERS and SENIOR OFFICERS

Spectrum's ranks are set up to be rather opaque / confounding to those outside of Spectrum to a greater or lesser degree as one of the measures of protection for the members of the organization.

The rank / rating insignia are purposefully understated, and there is rank title sharing between of5 & of4 (captain), and of3 & of2 (Lieutenant)

The ranks are also overall unique. While I did change the rank title on Colonel White to Admiral White, that was due to the fact that a Colonel is an of5 essentially world wide, and even if he wasn't REALLY that rank, the fact remains that White would be treated as said rank by everyone he worked with, which actually would cause issues on the regular.

Thus, Colonel White became Admiral White, using Naval ranking rather than Army because White had been Navy prior to Spectrum, AND because doing so had the added bonus of bumping the Captains from of3 up to of5.

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OF-7 Admiral White (2 star Admiral) Sir Charles Grey 2017 - July - 14

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OF-6 Captain Black (actually a Commodore / 1 star Admiral) Conrad Turner 2029 - Mar - 17 (Conrad was the co-founder of Spectrum, and prior to the Mars Mission / the Mysterons, he was the SiC / XO of Spectrum)

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OF-5 Captains

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Captain Grey Iain Holden 2027 - Mar - 4 (nCS and ogCS Grey were so simular to each other that I merged them into a singular character, taking elements from both, although overall ogCS takes presidence)

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Destiny Angel Juliette Pontoin 2030 - Aug - 23 (Destiny is the highest ranked of the Angels. My annual was damaged by a coffee stain, and it wasn't until a few years ago that I found out that'd I'd misread Destiny's birthyear for decades ^^;; I just kept myficverse Destiny with the 'wrong' birth year simply because it's what I'm used to for her)

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Captain Brown Stephen Blackburn 2033 - Jan - 14 (While I originally used Brown's canon name of Alan Stephens, when I switched the TV21 Zero X comics crew with Spectrum characters (Black, Destiny, Brown, Goldenrod), Brown was showing up too often and having his real name used too much and it became too easy to mix him up with Alan Tracy, so I used his surname for his given name, and used the popular fanon surname for his surname)

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Captain Magenta Patrick Donaghue 2034 - May - 17

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Captain Ochre Richard Fraser* 2035 - Feb - 23 (Ochre was not born Richard Fraser, as well as his appearance, he changed his name with Operation Jigsaw. He was born Matthew McClaine, son of Joe McClaine (aka Joe 90) and grandson of Matthew Harding (The Secret Service).

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Captain Saffron Elaine Jenkins 2035 - May - 11 (nCS Captain Ochre, as I merged nCS and ogCS, AND I adored Lady Ochre... I just don't like it when characters that are basically OCs use pre-existing character names... thus, Lady Ochre needed a new Color Code ^^. Her surname was changed to Jenkins as a tip of the hat to Leroy Jenkins, cause she is SO VERY MUCH a Leroy Jenkins type of character XD )

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Captain Blue Adam Svenson 2035 - Aug - 26 (2015 - Aug - 26*) (He was one of the five non-Koala Base personnel who were trapped by the Time Bubble. When all was said and done and the Bubble went down, he was 20 years older, didn't feel safe remaining on active field duty in his 60s, but wanted to remain active in Spectrum and thus took was transfered (alongside Symphony Angel, now Captain Sky) to become base commander of Owl Base, the special ops / secret agent base)

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Captain Scarlet Paul Metcalfe 2035 - Oct - 15

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Captain Olive Mariah Blackburn 2035 - Oct - 15 (My only OC this high a rank, and the ONLY reason she's an of-5 is that I have her as the commander of Koala Base, and she needed to be a high enough rank for that. She's a background / support character, but she was Captain Brown's wife, and is the mother of Starbuck "Buck" Blackburn - the second Captain Brown)

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Captain Brown (jr) Starbuck "Buck" Blackburn 2053 - Oct - 31* (nCS Blue. There was time schennannigins that occurred at Koala Base inbetween S2 (the end of teh ogCS rewrite) and S3 (the start of the nCS rewrite) that had a 'Time Bubble' go up. Inside the Time Bubble, 20 years occur for Koala Base, where-as only 4 years pass outside the Time Bubble. Which results in the son of Captain Brown and Captain Olive to be an adult when the Bubble is eventually defeated / dropped. Buck received full training during the 20 year span, and once all was said and done, he was made a Color Captain - taking up his father's Color Code by his request.

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OF-4 Captain / Command Captain (Commander)

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Doctor Goldenrod Mason Frost 2015 - Jun - 05 (Frost was a member of WARP, serving on the SR3 and then teh Zero X under the command of Conrad Turner | Captain Black and alongside Stephen Blackburn | Captain Brown. He joined Spectrum, taking up the role of lead doctor, after Doctor Fawn died when Cloudbase was destroyed)

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Captain Sky Karen Wainwright 2022 - Jan - 06* (Actually Symphony Angel. She was one of the five non-Koala Base personnel who were trapped by the Time Bubble. When all was said and done and the Bubble went down, she was 20 years older, didn't feel safe remaining a pilot in her 50s, but wanted to remain active in Spectrum and thus took was transfered (alongside Captain Blue) to Owl Base to begin training Special Ops / Spy work)

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Captain Vermilion Chan Kwan 2022 - Jun - 19* (Actually Harmony Angel. She was one of the five non-Koala Base personnel who were trapped by the Time Bubble. When all was said and done and the Bubble went down, she was 20 eyars older, didn't feel safe remaining a pilot in her 50s, but wanted to remain active in Spectrum and thus took over melee combat training on Koala Base from the retiring Captain Hemp)

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Captain Hemp Cuhtahlatah 2031 - Apr - 7 (an OC, she's the melee combat trainer on Koala Base. She was on Koala Base when the Time Bubble occured, and when it went down she decided that - being over 60 years old - she could not safely remain as melee combat trainer, and retired from Spectrum)

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Doctor Fawn Edward Wilkie 2031 - Jul - 10

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Captain Indigo Andrew Macey 2033 - Sept - 01 (He's actually the character Macey from Big Ben Strikes Again. Spectrum checked into him after all was said and done and found that Macey was a weapons designer / builder, and rushed him trhough training to have him help construct the Mysteron Gun

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Captain Turquoise Shaka Dlamini 2041 - Mar - 1 (an oooooolllllllld OC created by myself and a few friends waaaaaay back in the 1980s)

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Symphony Angel Karen Wainwright 2042 - Jan - 06

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Harmony Angel Chan Kwan 2042 - Jun - 19

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Melody Angel Magnolia Jones 2043 - Jan - 10

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Rhapsody Angel Dianne Simms 2043 - Apr - 27 (A small fun thing I've got is that Dianne's older brother is Robert Lyon - born Roger Simms - the spy and good friend of Lady Penelope that showed up in Penny's comics)

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Crescendo Angel Toshi Drake 2049 - Jun - 02 (a merging of the one-off, but quite popular, character from the Angels comic of Toshi and nCS Harmony Angel)

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Rhythm Angel Esther Jones 2054 - Feb - 08* (nCS Melody Angel, she's one of the people born inside the Koala Base Time Bubble, and is the daughter of Melody Angel and Captain Ochre, who were among the five non-Koala Base personnel who were trapped by the Time Bubble)

[sanctamater]

THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A FAIR GAME. ONLY WINNERS AND LOSERS. a cyber.punk au.

in which our lady can never really wash away the blood she's stained her hands with, even fifty years later.

this is also going to be a long one. i will try and divide it up as best i can, but regardless, it will be long.

THE BASICS. NAME: Amelia Comstock; formerly Van Nostrand TITLES AND STYLES: Mrs. [A.] Comstock, Militech's Heart, Militech's Voice of Reason, The Good Lady, Our Lady, Gilded Lady, COO, Boss. OCCUPATION: Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Militech, philanthropist. CLASS: Corpo exec; full Corpo Immunity. Combat Medic. NC ID #: 67-0431-1997 AGE: 80 as of 2077; looks to be in her late 30s thanks to Nanobots and what Amelia will call an excellent night cream. DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: April 31st, 1997, New York City, New York; NUSA (formerly known as the United States of America) MARITAL STATUS: Married to Senator Zachary Hale Comstock; Senator of New York State and leader of the Founder Religion (read: cult) CHILDREN: Elizabeth Comstock (born 2016); whereabouts currently unknown to general public. Her disappearance in 2023 has been the subject of much speculation.

EXTRAS. NOTABLE FEATURES: Notably, a gilded cybernetic neck that has been engraved with art deco lines. It is her largest piece of cyberware that she has installed - having done so after surviving the attempt on her life in 2018, rendering her neck invulnerable to organic damage. It contains an AI replica of her voice; and occasionally will glitch and warp into a robotic voice - think Siri or Alexa. In addition, she has 5 gold tears implanted under her eyes; 2 on her left cheekbone, and 3 on her right. These serve no purpose other than aesthetics; but reference the sorrows of Mary and hold personal meeting as Amelia counts her own sorrows. She has yet to reach 7. Gold cybernetics run up her legs as well - and her left ring finger has been replaced with a golden cybernetic one in place of a wedding band; a 'request' from Zachary. Amelia dresses in severe, black Militech garb - a knee length, long sleeved, high collared black dress that displays a clerical collar. Her uniform usually has gold edging and she wears a ballistic vest outfitted with a glowing, red Militech insignia that doubles as a tracking device, and another insignia next to it of a white cross on a red background, signalling her status as medical personnel.

ON THE CULT. Senator Zachary Hale Comstock (representative of New York state) is the head of an ever growing cult known as ‘The Founder’s Faith’; focusing on colonial America and an attempt to return to ‘true democracy’ and a ‘true America’. The cult decries all forms of cyberware and Media infiltration, and despite the Senator’s ties to Militech that enabled him to become a Senator, the cult is against Militech run government and corp meddling in general. It values a ‘traditional’ lifestyle, and Senator Comstock preaches a return to those values; and promises that should he ever be placed in charge by the grace of God, he will return the NUSA to its glory days no matter the cost. In reality, the cult is a death cult that seeks to destroy the NUSA in its entirety and rebuild anew, with Zachary climbing the ladder higher in a bid to eventually become President - with their daughter Elizabeth following in his footsteps. Zachary embezzles funds and tech from Militech to further this outcome through his wife; and when Amelia realised what she had given entry to after marrying him, she attempted to whistleblow and expose him in front of the board. The Senator attempted to strangle his wife to death, and failed. Now, she lives quietly - and bides her time. 

ON ELIZABETH. Elizabeth would have been, for all intents and purposes, a normal girl had she not been subjected to the experiments of Rosalind and Zachary. As an infant, they attempted to do the impossible: bridge Elizabeth's mind between the here and The Net. Given her age and how malleable she was, the splitting was a success - a first time achievement in history - allowing Elizabeth to exist across two planes at once. Elizabeth can enter the Net without any assistance; ICE poses no issue to her - she can walk through firewalls with ease and encounter rogue AI and daemons without problems; even building and accessing formerly dark and abandoned areas in the Net. This is something that is kept secret - every corpo, gov and gang would attempt to get their hands on on Elizabeth if this were common knowledge - even Amelia does not know; and Elizabeth is guarded by Sentient AI called 'SONGBIRD' from her 'TOWER'; where she has been learning for 50 years, isolated from the world.

ON ROSALIND AND ROBERT. Rosalind Lutece was a premiere scientist and Netrunner in the USA; known for creating excellent AI and advancements in Net infrastructure. She was contracted by Zachary to look in to using and harnessing the Net as a weapon; and what would happen if the Net fell. Assisting her in this was the AI 'ROBERT'; an AI she created based on herself - a brother of sorts. Robert assisted with the experiment upon Elizabeth; but later became sentient, and regretted his involvement. Robert successfully convinced Rosalind to attempt to free Elizabeth in 2035; only to have Rosalind killed by Zachary. Distraught, Robert created a copy of Rosalind as AI - the two are now rogue beings in the net.

TIMELINE: 2013 - 2023

2013

Amelia's father, one of the original board members of Militech, passes suddenly; leaving Amelia both his seat in the board of directors and the family weapons and munitions factory.

Amelia takes to the position with zeal despite her youth; having grown up with Militech executives and been involved in its business since birth - though young, she is well liked and easy to get along with, and quickly becomes a voice of reason. To placate Lundee, who Amelia quickly finds herself in opposition with, she enters Yale early, enrolling into a BA for Political Science, which she aims to complete in 2 years at the age of 18.

2015

Amelia completes her BA. An internal coup is staged and Amelia is taken out of her place in the board by supporters and placed as the COO of Militech; with many hoping to use her as a buffer to Lundee. That's the official memo - but most of the faction know she is young and impressionable, and wish to use Amelia as a puppet COO to advance their own agenda.

Amelia decides to get an MA in Business Studies to complete her education at Yale. She meets Zachary Hale Comstock there; who is preaching his doctrine and dogma around the USA. There, he preached against corpowars and the power of technology; claiming it was a corrupting force, and warned of more and more corpowars in the future. Amelia, wishing for Militech to become more than just a weapons and arms dealer, envisioning them as peacekeeping, non-partisan corporation is enthralled by this, and continues to attend his sermons.

Amelia and Zachary are married in May of 2015; he uses Amelia's influence to jumpstart his political career and increase the range of the cult.

Militech assigns ex-soldier turned bodyguard, Booker DeWitt, to Amelia in the face of unrest. Amelia quickly finds that married life is not what she expected; Zachary is prone to bouts of explosive anger, belittles her, and demands a child from her - claiming that his prophecy to save America involves a child being born of their union. Amelia is under intense pressure to conceive, and confides often in Booker. The two begin an affair.

2016

Elizabeth Comstock is born in early winter, 2016. The labour is a traumatic one for Amelia, who is only 19. There are rumours that Zachary Hale Comstock is not the father; and that Booker DeWitt is.

Zachary Hale Comstock begins to embezzle funds from Militech using Amelia's clearances to fund research with Rosalind Lutece.

The Third Corpo War begins and ends; proving Earth-shattering. Zachary uses this as an opportunity to claim he had prophesied this. The cult continues to grow.

2017

Amelia is moved from New York City to Night City. She takes Elizabeth with her as Zachary has no interest in child-rearing, believing it to be Amelia's sole duty and purpose.

Amelia begins to notice someone is using her credentials and clearance and that her spending accounts do not match up with her own personal records.

2018

Amelia confronts Zachary about his embezzlement after rooting through his office desk on a return trip to New York City. The argument escalates and becomes physical. Zachary attempts to strangle Amelia to death when she threatens to reveal his research to Militech and his embezzlement of their funds. Amelia escapes by gouging out his organic eyes with her nails, and promises to stay quiet. Zachary ensures this by threatening her with Elizabeth being taken from her.

The attack is passed off as an assassination attempt, blaming Lazarus for the hit. Lazarus denies these claims.

Militech releases Booker DeWitt from service after failing to protect Amelia. He becomes a solo in Night City.

2019

Amelia replaces her neck with her now iconic gilded one; and implants two tears on her cheek. One for her attempted murder, and one for her silence.

2020

Elizabeth begins to manifest strange abilities connected to the Net. Rosalind Lutece implies Elizabeth would be an excellent Netrunner should she be allowed to train her. Amelia rebukes this.

2021

Booker and Amelia get back together.

The Fourth Corpo war begins.

2022

Militech and Arasaka become involved in the corpo war after OTEK and CINO come to a standstill; Donald Lundee pushes for more and more covert tactics and strikes against Arasaka in an attempt to push them out from the USA. Amelia and her faction disagree; and the two begin to clash.

Arasaka strikes at Militech's Night City HQ; killing dozens - Amelia escapes, and is later seen providing medical attention to both Militech and Arasaka forces with a dedicated medical team. The image of her doing so endears her to the public.

Zachary Hale Comstock is elected Senator of New York City; there are rumours that Militech interfered with the election to ensure the husband of their COO gained office.

The war continues with cities and countries being reduced to ash. Lundee continues to order strike upon strike; tensions begin to mount as Lundee and Amelia's factions gather strength - only to have both corps nationalised, effectively ending the war.

President Elizabeth Kress reactivates Militech with the goal of ridding Arasaka from the USA's borders. Lundee and Amelia are brought back on board and the war resumes.

Booker and Amelia make plans to leave Night City and flee to a different state, taking Elizabeth with them and starting life anew.

2023

A scream sheet reveals that Booker and Amelia have been having an affair. The fallout is astronomical.

Citing moral failure on Amelia's part, Zachary seizes Elizabeth from Amelia's custody, and places her in 'The Tower' within Night City to be observed by Rosalind Lutece.

Amelia is brought before the Militech board and put on trial for her ties to an anarchist; only saved by her own powerful faction. Lundee gives her one last chance.

Eager to make good on his commission, Lundee devises a plan to end the war once and for all: a bomb to the heart of Arasaka, forever crippling its roots in the USA.

Amelia, eager to regain status in Militech, signs off on the strike against Arasaka with Lundee's blessing. The funds are given to Johnny Silverhand.

On August 23rd, 2023, Johnny Silverhand and Morgan Blackhand lead a strike team into Arasaka tower. The nuclear blast kills 12,000 and killed over 750,000 more. Johnny Silverhand dies in combat.

Amelia, in the aftermath, leads another medical team to provide aid to injured citizens and take the spotlight off of militch.

Amelia gets three tears implanted upon her cheek: one for Elizabeth, one for Night City, and one for Booker. The guilt eats at her - but the corpo war has ended, and Militech and the USA are now one in the same.

2077 INVOLVEMENT

THE JIST: Amelia has been working from Washington, DC since 2023. For the past 50 years, she has stood as a voice of reason within Militech, and has a devoted faction within the corp in addition to the cult. With tensions mounting between Arasaka and Militech again, she has been sent back to Night City to facilitate peace talks.

MISSIONS: In the main narrative of CP77, Amelia is only hinted at returning to the city at first, and does not appear in the narrative until after Alt is contacted in Pacifica.

MY WRATH MAY NOT GO FORTH LIKE FIRE! On a routine cyberpyscho job from Regina, V will have the choice to kill or spare a solo (Booker DeWitt) that has gone off the deep end. Upon sparing him, V will exit to see Militech vans coming to collect the solo from the scene. No agents will answer any questions; but if the player looks, they will see the gleam of a gilded neck from behind one of the tinted windows. 

REPAY NO ONE EVIL FOR EVIL: Amelia will contact V through a Militech fixer offering a small job - stealing back Militech information from an Arasaka counter intel agent. She will pay a bonus for stealth, and deduct pay if caught or if V zeroes any agents, regardless of them being Arasaka or not.

YOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS: Amelia's fixer will contact V again, offering them another job rescuing a Militech officer from Arasaka interrogation. She will reward stealth, and will deduct again if the officer or any Arasaka personnel are killed.

BRING ME THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES! Amelia will then contact V anonymously about 7 in game days after this third mission has passed, offhandedly saying that she has heard of V’s name in Night City and their reputation precedes them; that she has a job for them that pays well, if they’d like to hear it. Amelia will then invite V to her apartment, and introduce herself fully there - away from prying eyes. It is there that Amelia requests a hit on her husband - and NUSA Presidential Candidate; who is in Night City for a debate - Senator Zachary Hale Comstock; saying that this is a job that needs V’s strength, cunning - and, most importantly, V’s kindness.  Note: If V chooses to kill the solo, Amelia will still offer this mission; but she’ll be noticeably distant and instead mention that this hit requires someone who’s a cold blooded killer who doesn’t think, just acts.

There are some catches to this job, however. Security is tight, and stealth is a must: detection would risk the cult martyring Zachary, and it cannot seem anything other than an accident or a suicide - something V will have to choose what to do. On completing this mission successfully, V will be wired 55,000 eddies. Failure to stealth nullifies the job entirely.

HER CHILDREN ARRIVE AND CALL HER BLESSED: Amelia will then contact V and request for V to release Elizabeth to her before Zachary's inner circle gets their hands on Elizabeth; V will have to stealth going through 3 floors of a penthouse in a mega tower in order to get to Elizabeth, and disable the AI Songbird in order to retrieve her and bring her to Amelia. Once Songbird is disabled, Elizabeth will assist V with enemy takedown and quick hacking. Stealth is mandatory - failure to stealth will result in mission failure. Upon driving Elizabeth to Amelia, V is wired 90,000 eddies and is profusely thanked by Amelia.

THE END: At the end of the game, a successful mission will show the cult dissolving without a head; a failure will show the cult instead securing Elizabeth and using them to forge their path. Turning down the mission will show that President Myers has been assassinated, and Zachary Hale Comstock has won the ‘election’. 

If V took Hanako’s deal: Tensions between Arasaka and Militech will continue to rise now that Saburo is effectively immortal.  If V put carried out a strike on Arasaka with Rogue: With Arasaka in tatters, Amelia is able to discuss terms with the rival corp and alleviate the tension somewhat - for now. She becomes the next CEO of Militech and announces a new, brighter future ahead. If V solo'd with Johnny or put a strike with the Aldecaldos: Amelia, Booker, and Elizabeth leave Night City to continue Booker's therapy.

[nigeiadigitalmarketingcompany]

Robert O. Paxton’s “The Five Stages of Fascism”

Digital Elixir Robert O. Paxton’s “The Five Stages of Fascism”

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

The word “fascism” has been much in the news of late. Here is a chart of the year 2019 from Google Trends:

Interestingly, usage is more or less flat until the first spike, when President Trump put tanks on the National Mall for July 4, and then a second, larger spike, when he gave his Greenville, NC speech, and the crowd chanted, of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, “send them back.” Omar reacted as follows:

Rep. Ilhan Omar called President Trump "fascist" and said she fears for people who share her identity, after a crowd at his rally led a "Send her back!" chant about the Somali-American congresswoman https://t.co/zpsZ02qtbS pic.twitter.com/06iZXDT7mY

— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 18, 2019

Omar is a serious person and that’s a serious charge, so it’s worth looking at. Certainly my left/work corner of the Twittersphere was consumed by the word “fascism,” to the extent that RussiaRussiaRussia was drowned out. Notably, however, the two spikes, and the resulting moral panic, were caused by symbols: Tanks on the mall, and a speech. (Interestingly, words about the border, like “concentration camps,” and “fascism” do not spike simultaneously, even though one might expect them to. We’ll see more about symbols in the Appendices.) However, although fascist deliverables often have excellent symbolism — graphic treatments especially — fascism is about more than symbols, although you might not know it from the ruminations of our symbol-manipulating poltical class.

So I thought it would be worthwhile to take a deeper look at the work of Columbia historian Robert O. Paxton, who is a scholar of fascism. Basically, this post will be the notes for the class I wish I had taken with him; Paxton writes as lucidly as another great scholar of fascism, Richard J. Evans, author of The Coming of the Third Reich and two wonderful successor volumes. I’m going to quote great slabs mostly from Paxton’s article “The Five Stages of Fascism” (The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 70, No. 1. Mar., 1998, pp. 1-23), but also from his later book, The Anatomy of Fascism (2004). “Five Stages” is only 24 pages, and easy, so do consider reading it in full, because I’m not really doing it justice; I’m leaving out all the historiography, for example.

And so to Paxton. I’m selecting passages partly when they contain useful ideas I just don’t see in today’s discourse, but mostly to give us tools to assess the current “conjuncture,” as we say.

Fascism and Democracy

From the Five Stages of Fascism, page 3:

The fascist phenomenon was poorly understood at the beginning in part because it was unexpected. Until the end of the nineteenth century, most political thinkers believed that widening the vote would inevitably benefit democracy and socialism. Friedrich Engels, noting the rapid rise of the socialist vote in Germany and France, was sure that time and numbers were on his side. Writing the preface for a new edition in 1895 of Karl Marx’s Class Struggles in France, he declared that “if it continues in this fashion, we will conquer the major part of the middle classes and the peasantry and will become the decisive power.” It took two generations before the Left understood that fascism is, after all, an authentic mass popular enthusiasm and not merely [1] a clever manipulation of populist emotions by the reactionary Right or [2] by capitalism in crisis.

I think most “hot take” analysis by liberals would fall into the bucket labeled [1]; by the left, label [2]. I think the idea that democracy is, as it were, the host body for fascism deserves some thought. Certainly there was no fascism as such until democracy was well advanced.

Fascism: Made in America?

From the Five Stages of Fascism, page 12:

But it is further back in American history that one comes upon the earliest phenomenon that seems functionally related to fascism: the Ku Klux Klan. Just after the Civil War, some former Confederate officers, fearing the vote given to African Americans by the Radical Reconstructionists in 1867, set up a militia to restore an overturned social order. The Klan constituted an alternate civic authority, parallel to the legal state, which, in its founders’ eyes, no longer defended their community’s legitimate interests. In its adoption of a uniform (white robe and hood), as well as its techniques of intimidation and its conviction that violence was justified in the cause of the group’s destiny, the first version of the Klan in the defeated American South was a remarkable preview of the way fascist movements were to function in interwar Europe. It is arguable, at least, that fascism (understood functionally) was born in the late 1860s in the American South.

(As an aside: It’s probably coincidence, but Civil War tactics, especially by the time of the Overland Campaign, were also a “remarkable preview” of World War I. Intuitively, I feel that fascism does not take hold of the body politic without a lot of organic damage, whether in the entrenchments of the Civil War, the trenches of World War I, or — just possibly — the opioid crisis, deaths of despair, and falling life expectancy.) Hitler’s American Model shows that Nazi jurists and lawyers came to America to research Jim Crow, and thought very highly of the legislation; they saw Jim Crow as an example of modernity — how advanced the United States was. Of course, by their lights, Jim Crow was misdirected.

Mutability of Fascism

From the Five Stages of Fascism, page 4:

[Individual cases of fascism] differ in space because each national variant of fascism draws its legitimacy, as we shall see, not from some universal scripture but from what it considers the most authentic elements of its own community identity. Religion, for example, would certainly play a much greater role in an authentic fascism in the United States than in the first European fascisms, which were pagan for contingent historical reasons. They differ in time because of the transformations and accommodations demanded of those movements that seek power.

And page 5:

Fascists deny any legitimacy to universal principles to such a point that they even neglect proselytism. Authentic fascism is not for export. Particular national variants of fascism differ far more profoundly one from another in themes and symbols than do the national variants of the true “isms.” The most conspicuous of these variations, one that leads some to deny the validity of the very concept of generic fascism, concerns the nature of the indispensable enemy: within Mediterranean fascisms, socialists and colonized peoples are more salient enemies than is the Jewry. Drawing their slogans and their symbols from the patriotic repertory of one particular community, fascisms are radically unique in their speech and insignia. They fit badly into any system of universal intellectual principles.

One result of the “Lost Cause” propaganda and the historiography of the Dunning School — William Dunning, ironically enough, professed at Columbia as well — is that the notion that there might already have been an American Fascism (see above) is not available to us. Hence, we often see Nazis (and generally Nazis, not even Mussolini) as the quintessential fascists. The argument can be made that globalization has, in fact, created fascism of export — some in my Twitterverse had no problem believing that Trump was simultaneously a Russian puppet and a fascist — but I just don’t see how that helps fascism to root itself (see below) in any given country, which is a requirement for it to grow.

The Stages of Fascism

From the Five Stages of Fascism, page 11:

But one must compare what is comparable. A regime where fascism exercises power is hardly comparable to a sect of dissident intellectuals. We must distinguish the different stages of fascism in time. It has long been standard to point to the difference between movements and regimes. I believe we can usefully distinguish more stages than that, if we look clearly at the very different sociopolitical processes involved in each stage. I propose to isolate five of them: (1) the initial creation of fascist movements; (2) their rooting as parties in a political system; (3) the acquisition of power; (4) the exercise of power; and, finally, in the longer term, (5) radicalization or entropy.

And stage 2, the importance of parties, pages 12-13:

The second stage—rooting, in which a fascist movement becomes a party capable of acting decisively on the political scene—happens relatively rarely. At this stage, comparison becomes rewarding: one can contrast successes with failures. Success depends on certain relatively precise conditions: the weakness of a liberal state, whose inadequacies seems to condemn the nation to disorder, decline, or humiliation; and political deadlock because the Right, the heir to power but unable to continue to wield it alone, refuses to accept a growing Left as a legitimate governing partner. Some fascist leaders, in their turn, are willing to reposition their movements in alliances with these frightened conservatives, a step that pays handsomely in political power, at the cost of disaffection among some of the early antibourgeois militants.

That underlined portion does seem familar, doesn’t it? However, it’s worth noting that there’s no “seem” to American decline; how is a nation with dropping life expectancy not in decline? It’s also worth noting that “frightened conservatives” doesn’t necessarily equal Republicans; it was not, after all, the Republican Party that painted the anti-semitism target on Ilhan Omar’s back. It’s worth asking, then, whether centrist Democrats would seek a bipartisan alliance against the left.

Fascism Today

Here is Paxton’s first definition of fascism, from the Five Stages of Fascism pages 22-23:

Where is the “fascism minimum” in all this? Has generic fascism evaporated in this analysis? It is by a functional definition of fascism that we can escape from these quandaries. Fascism is a system of political authority and social order intended to reinforce the unity, energy, and purity of communities in which liberal democracy stands accused of producing division and decline. Its complex tensions (political revolution versus social restoration, order versus aggressive expansionism, mass enthusiasm versus civic submission) are hard to understand solely by reading its propaganda. One must observe it in daily operation….

And his second, from The Anatomy of Fascism, page 218:

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim- hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

Speaking as an amateur, I think the two definitions map to each other, and both to the present day (“liberal democracy stands accused” v. “abandons democratic liberties,” but I like the second one much better, because the language is crisper, and is testable. For example, “redemptive violence”: During Reconstruction, the states that came under control of the former Slave Power, a process achieved by great violence, were referred to as “redeemed.”

More from the Five Stages of Fascism, page 23:

Can fascism still exist today, in spite of the humiliating defeat of Hitler and Mussolini, the declining availability of the war option in a nuclear age, the seemingly irreversible globalization of the economy, and the triumph of in- dividualistic consumerism? After ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, the rise of exclusionary nationalisms in postcommunist Eastern Europe, the “skinhead” phenomenon in Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, and Italy, and the election of `

Mirko Tremaglia, a veteran of the Republic of Salo, as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Italian Parliament during the Berlusconi government, it would be hard to answer “no” to that question.

The most interesting cases today, however, are not those that imitate the exotic colored-shirt movements of an earlier generation. New functional equivalents of fascism would probably work best, as George Orwell reminded us, clad in the mainstream patriotic dress of their own place and time. An authentically popular fascism in the United States would be pious and anti-Black; in Western Europe, secular and antisemitic, or more probably, these days, anti-Islamic; in Russia and Eastern Europe, religious, antisemitic, and slavophile. We may legitimately conclude, for example, that the skinheads are functional equivalents of Hitler’s SA and Mussolini’s squadristi: only if important elements of the conservative elite begin to cultivate them as weapons against some internal enemy, such as immigrants.

Rather prescient for 1998, I must say. (And much as I loathe black bloc, it may be that they have their place in making these “functional equivalents” less easy to form.) Nevertheless, we do not have a “mass-based party of committed nationalist militants,” Yet. Paxton goes on:

The right questions to ask of today’s neo- or protofascisms are those appropriate for the second and third stages of the fascist cycle. Are they becoming rooted as parties that represent major interests and feelings and wield major influence on the political scene? [TBD] Is the economic or constitutional system in a state of blockage apparently insoluble by existing authorities? [Yes] Is a rapid political mobilization threatening to escape the control of traditional elites, to the point where they would be tempted to look for tough helpers in order to stay in charge? [TBD] It is by answering those kinds of questions, grounded in a proper historical understanding of the processes at work in past fascisms, and not by checking the color of the shirts or seeking traces of the rhetoric of the national-syndicalist dissidents of the opening of the twentieth century, that we may be able to recognize our own day’s functional equivalents of fascism.

And from Anatomy, page 218:

Fascism exists at the level of Stage One within all democratic countries—not excluding the United States. “Giving up free institutions,” especially the freedoms of unpopular groups, is recurrently attractive to citizens of Western democracies, including some Americans. We know from tracing its path that fascism does not require a spectacular “march” on some capital to take root; seemingly anodyne decisions to tolerate lawless treatment of national “enemies” is enough. Something very close to classical fascism has reached Stage Two in a few deeply troubled societies. Its further progress is not inevitable, however. Further fascist advances toward power depend in part upon the severity of a crisis, but also very largely upon human choices, especially the choices of those holding economic, social, and political power.

Our immune system kills off little cancers all the time; a metastatizing tumor takes a lot of effort to create. Stage One fascisms are little cancers, killed off by a healthy body politic. Stage Two fascisms, without treatment, will metastatize.

Conclusion

I think we’re somewhere in Stage Two: Rooting — or, to be optimistic, Uprooting. I invite the views of readers!

APPENDIX I: “Cosmopolitan”

Stoller tweeted, of a speech by possible Trump 2.0 Josh Hawley:

Liberals are freaking out about these comments, but Hawley is correct. Does anyone doubt Wall Street/Silicon Valley and their weird globalization fetish has harmed the middle class? Beating Hawley is going to require better policy, not better tantrums. https://t.co/yyfbSgBMuK

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 18, 2019

Then ensued the most moralizing and banal Twitter discussion I’ve seen in some time, and that’s saying something. Hawley used the word “cosmopolitican” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry here), which Stoller’s detractors felt proved Hawley was sending an anti-semitic dog whistle, and hence Stoller, in defending him, was an anti-semite too. (Paxton: “not by checking the color of the shirts or seeking traces of the rhetoric….”). To show how useless the entire episode was, I’ll quote The Nation’s Jeet Heer:

All politics is based on a division between friend & foe. A left-wing populist-nationalist can make big business the foe. The right-wing nationalist can't because they accept capitalism & are often financed by wealthy, so their foe is the (cough, cough) cosmopolitan

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) July 20, 2019

Of course, the view that “all politics is based on a division between friend and foe” could be traced right back to Nazi legal theorist Carl Schmitt, whose doctrine that was, and so Heer could be said to be sending an anti-semitic dog whistle. Of course that’s absurd, because context matters. Our symbol manipulating professional friends in the political class would do far better to look at function instead of checking their Index Expurgatorius of words suitable for censure and calling out. Liberals, and the left, have been calling out “dog whistles” for twenty years, at least. It hasn’t gotten them anywhere. Yet still they do it!

Robert O. Paxton’s “The Five Stages of Fascism”

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