#council records

[sparatus]

heyoooo I saw some tags on a post you shared that said something about how the batarian resistance was born, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on a batarian resistance because I also want to do a batarian resistance, but I've been having trouble noodling out what that looks like.

okay attempt two at answering this cause my computer decided to restart itself last time and i got mad and didn't want to retype everything lol

obviously i'm going to start with saying the vast majority of my batarian work is in my no-reapers au exponential differentiation, especially blood in the water where the two deuteragonists working with shepard are second in command of the resistance tarvok shad'derah and his friend and close ally of the resistance gurji taeja, and we're also poised right at the start of the hegemony plotline in in the land of giants and the resistance will be pretty involved in upcoming chapters (and are already there, please come read it i have essays). moving on.

the short answer is... there is no short answer. it's complicated. the hegemony, per canon, is a strict caste-based, totalitarian oligarchy with complete control over every aspect of life underneath them. you can't work with batarians without addressing the hegemony somehow. there's going to be a lot of messy politics, and wildly varying opinions towards the resistance (there's going to be a lot of people who think it's not worth fighting! let them kill themselves off! why are you going to so much effort!), and very heavy topics that need a lot of care to portray sensitively. the hegemony is very clearly based on very real regimes that killed a lot of people and left a lot of lasting damage. a lot of where i started looking at batarians with a sympathetic lens is from talking to a friend of mine who lives in brazil and saw a lot of their own experiences reflected in the batarians, and quite a few other regimes there are still people alive who remember living under them are obvious inspiration for bioware as well (stalinist ussr is the most obvious, but there's definitely aspects of mussolini's italy and north korea as well, to name a few). accordingly, i've been doing my best to approach the topic sensitively; literally the most important thing i can stress with working with batarians is do your research. there's an awful lot of nuance to consider, and boiling it down to basic "good guy rebels vs evil government" does it a serious disservice.

that out of the way, let's get into it after the cut. i'm going to preface this with a disclaimer that a lot of this is my own work and i am not comfortable with others using it without permission. nothing against you personally i just have some bad experiences with people "taking inspiration" from me and literally just lifting my shit whole-cloth without asking me and only crediting me in a separate place away from the actual fic, lol. so anything with specific names or timelines or just anything that's me speculating and not found in canon is not free to use, kthx.

anyway.

in order to write a resistance against the hegemony, you have to start with actually writing the hegemony. yeah i know i know nobody wants to put too much effort into the slaver assholes, but it's important. and we do actually have some canon details about how the hegemony functions, so Reading The Wiki actually a pretty good place to start! based on what (admittedly not a lot) we know about the hegemony, they're a totalitarian oligarchy where the richest rule. you can potentially buy your way to a higher caste if you make enough money, but it's very difficult, and they're incredibly cutthroat. basically, life under the hegemony is very every man for himself.

this is to the upper castes' advantage! aggressive enforcement of the status quo by the higher-ups, using fear and violence as weapons, not only works very well to oppress the lower castes, but it also encourages people to turn on each other and rat each other out. you're unlikely to find a lot of camaraderie among average batarians - if anyone could turn you in to the cops, you're not gonna trust anybody, and that's gonna go a long way to keeping people under the upper castes' thumbs. we can even reasonably infer that family members are encouraged to report on each other - it's happened irl! it's super useful! nobody trusts each other, everyone's afraid of surveillance, nobody is safe. building up any sort of resistance movement is going to be incredibly difficult anywhere the hegemony can listen.

further, it's canon that the hegemony very tightly controls the flow of information in and out of their borders, and that includes information about the other species and life outside the hegemony. keeping the population ignorant makes them easier to control, after all. this is a known and very common tactic in authoritarian regimes. the common batarian living within hegemony borders believes that their way of life is best, this is how things are meant to be, and all the aliens are lesser beings and basically savages, so it's best to just listen to the hegemony and do as you're told and never ever leave :) why would you want to leave when this is the best possible life for you :) most batarians aren't going to be aware that there's anything wrong with the dystopian horror they're living in, because it's all they've ever known and all they can know. so odds of the lower castes all realizing they're being oppressed and agreeing "fuck that" together are uhhh slim to none, to say the least. this shit goes very deep, and the hegemony has been in place for centuries, so they've had a lot of time to root themselves in the populace's collective heads as Good And Correct And The Only Way To Live.

so, okay, let's leave the hegemony. easy right? wrong. sure, omega has no rules, but that means you're unlikely to find a lot of help if the hegemony decides to drag your ass back. you're still going to have to stay vigilant for spies and trackers and unfriendly tech, assuming they're not going to just up and kill you (which is probably more likely, even - out in terminus, nobody looks twice at somebody getting ganked, but a kidnapping will draw more attention, and then you've got martyrs, and nobody wants those). outside hegemony space, you're going to run into two main flavors of batarian:

batarians who were born under the hegemony, but no longer live there. these can be divided further into batarians who are still loyal to the hegemony for one reason or another (money, habit, blackmail), and those who have cut ties. either they managed to escape somehow, they were let go willingly and decided never to go back, or somebody else took them out of hegemony space.

batarians who were not. these will then be divided into those who still work with the hegemony (we know they pay good, after all) and those who want nothing to do with them.

of those four groups, you're going to have to make a hell of a pitch to get allies for any budding resistance movement - the hegemony are seen as an omnipresent evil in terminus, but one you can live with as long as you don't do anything stupid. keep your head down, or take their money even, and you'll probably be okay. they're a big damn government with a wide territory and lots of guns, and we know canonically that they have a lot of tech and stuff that they don't even share with the rest of the galaxy because they're paranoid and selfish, so "just stay out of their way" is going to be a very, very popular method of dealing with them.

oh, and remember what i said about hegemony info diets? yeah. culture shock once you're out is gonna be a bitch. we're talking near-catatonia levels of existential crisis here.

"what about the citadel," you may ask. great question! fair point! we can in fact reasonably infer that the vast majority of citadel species, with the exception of the asari with their """indentured servitude""" and possibly the hanar depending on how far down the rabbit hole of the hanar-drell relationship you feel like going down with me, are very anti-slavery and would support going against the hegemony! except, unfortunately, it's more complicated than that, because the batarians were the fourth species to reach the citadel, can be inferred to have been the "peacekeepers" of the galaxy prior to the uplifting of the krogan (yes i have textbooks of batarian history no we're not getting into it right now go read bitw), and in general are a big damn nuisance that the council don't want to risk war with right at the moment. "but there's more of them then there are of the hegemony!" yeah and you know how many of them are actually capable of war? the turians. das it. until the alliance start getting in slapfights with the hegemony, the turians are the only species really capable of waging war to any meaningful extent, and supporting the resistance in any way, even just allowing them to Exist on the citadel, would cause a lot of trouble for the council that they simply aren't able to deal with while the batarians still have their embassy on the station. remember what i said about politics? yeah you came and asked tumblr user sparatus about this there's so much xenopolitics involved in why the hegemony haven't been wiped off the map yet i made this field up but it's my passion--

ahem. does this sound like more effort than it's worth yet? good. that's the point.

in short: getting any sort of resistance movement going with any degree of traction is going to be incredibly difficult. there's very few places to run, getting recruits who are at least mostly sane will be like pulling teeth, and you're basically on your own. it's even fair to assume that resistance movements have happened in the past and failed. the hegemony are large and in charge, and yeah sure they're falling down on themselves and a shadow of their former selves but that makes them more dangerous because, as we can see in canon, that pride makes them aggressive and very determined not to show weakness or let anyone know how bad things are getting. taking them down is an uphill battle in the blinding snow and brother, the resistance are a beat-up rear-wheel drive with no snow tires and a faulty fuel injector.

no, i don't make metaphors that make sense. i write about political intrigue and the comics characters, it's obscure bullshit or bust over here.

obviously that's not all to say a resistance movement is impossible. i have one myself, hi how ya doin read my fic. that's all just set up. to write a resistance movement against a massive, well-entrenched regime like the hegemony, you first have to have a good, solid idea of what they're resisting against, and all the factors getting in their way. it's hard! it's difficult! it's true to how these things tend to work out in real life!

here's how i have things set up for my own work (again, keep in mind this work is not free to use):

the hegemony's fall from grace following their defeat by the rachni and their job as the main military might being usurped by the krogan and later turians has led to infighting and cannibalizing each other. as conditions steadily declined and the bad parts of the bad system got worse, what was previously a sustainable dystopia spiraled downwards into a ticking timebomb. the conclave (the "senate" which is now effectively no longer elected running everything, the top caste) is inbred to hell and back, because you can't possibly marry outside your caste, and the question of nonviability is becoming a when, not an if.

the arrival of the alliance and the council's apparent "favoritism" (read: not simply letting the hegemony have their way, because no you're both breaking laws actually please just shut up and sit down for mediation) has destabilized their standing in galactic society, causing their retreat further into isolation. this is making everything worse. things fall apart.

some senators within the conclave, particularly senators shahok khor'berran and morem kednelok, have recognized the hegemony is barrelling towards its breaking point and are looking for reform.

morvarn taryn, a cop in dasrak (the capital city, btw i will always be salty bioware didn't even give khar'shan a CANON CAPITAL CITY), has always struggled with having more empathy than a man of his caste is supposed to have. this gets him in trouble when dealing with a krogan slave that keeps breaking confinement, wragg, because damn that poor guy's really fucked up huh. (this also gets into alien slavery and that whole quagmire, but that's a different essay), but he doesn't really actually question the regime fully until a friend of his, air force lieutenant tarvok shad'derah, comes by the bar one day clearly in pain, and morvarn convinces him to come to his apartment for treatment and finds tarvok and his squad have been subjected to sapient experimentation without anaesthesia and the wounds have been left exposed.

the shad'derahs are a prominent family line due to their ancestor rothok being the second spectre in history and a close friend of gurji beelo. further, as a military officer tarvok is roughly the same caste as morvarn, and they both should be spared from this kind of treatment. the fact that even their middle-tier caste isn't enough to keep them from being seen as tools and objects radicalizes morvarn, but he doesn't realize it yet.

he brings his concerns to a close friend. friend happens to be senator shahok, who sees an opportunity and agrees with morvarn that either things need to change, or the hegemony will fall, and perhaps it needs to for their own survival as a species.

several months pass, with much thinking and discussing of what to do. tarvok disagrees that anything needs to change, and insists this is just the way things are, but morvarn's compassion sticks with him until a fateful mission rattles him, and the hegemony's plan to subject his younger brother thrajul to the same treatment he's had convinces him it's time to leave.

shit happens, blah blah blah, morvarn and tarvok end up fleeing khar'shan with a small group of supporters and also non-supporters who have no other choice but to go with. they run to omega and spend a few months trying to sort themselves out before deciding to keep trying to rescue friends and family from the hegemony.

this evolves into other batarians seeking their help getting their own loved ones out, raiding slavers, deep-cover missions, etc etc, until they're actually a proper resistance movement. they even make non-batarian friends, including gurji taeja, beelo's descendant who has a familial loyalty to the shad'derahs because salarians have like a whole thing about that.

there is no true plan for taking down the conclave, because how the fuck are they supposed to do that

and that's how exdiff and the whole x57 and resulting hegemony plotline tie in, because x57 kicks off the hegemony gearing up for war properly and once [REDACTED] then well the hegemony's the only problem left to deal with and hey look there's this whole group of guys with very intimate knowledge of what to do with them and some guys on the inside,

i have a fic planned for the actual downfall it's called carrion men and i am GOING to outline it next year so maybe i can get started writing it for camp nano or proper nano

..... oh my god this is so much. i am so sorry to anybody whose phone this fucking destroys trying to load it. but also not really. my m.e. big bang fic was an entire treatise of political intrigue and speculation on potential asari supremacy conspiracy, you don't come to me for concise answers on xenopolitical things. anyway hello i have put a completely normal and reasonable amount of work into the hegemony and the resistance and batarians in general

[bandcampsnoop]

6/4/24.

I've bought a few things through Green Noise Records over the years. But I notice and/or read Marty Winch's weekly missives religiously. Marty is an international punk savant and I trust his opinion/taste completely.

So, when I saw an email announcing Coffin Pricks "Semi-Perfect Crimes" I immediately opened a Bandcamp tab and started listening. Apparently this Chicago based band was a staple in the early 2010s. "Group Home Haircut" immediately made me think of Eddy Current Suppression Ring at their best. Funny, I literally just perused the Bandcamp notes and see that Mikey Young mastered all this last September.

This also recalls the work of current bands like Guardian Singles.

This is released by Council Records - a prolific Chicago label.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 313

You know what? Snake Danny. But not just any snake! Space naga. The world serpent, but literal- a moving galaxy, comets caught in the wakes of his movement, stars nestled between his scales. He’s like a giant cosmic LBM, wandering throughout time and space while he learns how to be an Ancient. 

He’s having fun! Learning so much and it’s a great way to chill for the weekends… er, or whenever he is seeing as sometimes Clockwork sends him off to not break a timeline or something. Who knows or cares, he was in space! 

Sometimes Tucker and Sam joined too, and honestly it’s all so much fun- especially now that they can make their own portals! C’mon he wants to check on this cool dimension he visited a while ago! 

[pastadoughie]

helo creechers

[minecraftbookshelf]

At this point the only thing keeping me from adding other characters from mcyters into this world is the fact that it would, eventually bring me to the point of "Xornoth and Scott's little sibling, Aimsey" and at that point there is no salvaging the original storyline.

It's a whole separate au that I'll have to come back to after this one is more or less done

[daincrediblegg]

every day I look at that one gif of Valery bashfully smiling and every day I lose the fight to fucking keep it together because it’s literally the cutest fucking thing to ever happen in the history of television and you can’t change my mind

[outeremissary]

Happy 2e Kingmaker GMing Saturday I think one of my players forgot Tristian is canonically a man

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Scotland Yard could be called in to investigate an alleged breach of the Princess of Wales’s private medical data.

The world-renowned London Clinic in Marylebone where the Princess of Wales underwent abdominal surgery in January, launched an investigation amid allegations staff attempted to access her private medical records.

After The Mirror’s world exclusive was picked up around the world this week, sources have said tonight that “up to three people” could be involved in the alleged accessing of Catherine’s medical records.

In a further bombshell, it can be revealed that the alleged breach took place after the future queen was discharged from hospital on January 29, as social media exploded with outlandish and hurtful conspiracy theories relating to her surgery.

Sources said the criminal investigation, described as “unprecedented” and now being run by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), could run alongside an additional probe by the Metropolitan Police.

Accessing someone’s medical records without cause or consent can be a criminal offence.

If the ICO investigates and finds evidence that medical records were accessed illegally, it can take action, including prosecuting and fining the person responsible in court.

The development came amid a new statement from the CEO of the The London Clinic, who said:

“There is no place at our hospital for those who intentionally breach the trust of any of our patients or colleagues.”

A source said:

“This is such a unique case that a police investigation could run alongside one by the Information Commissioner's Office.

The IOC will deal with anything as a criminal matter, which could end up in a Magistrate’s Court, but if there were further claims of wrongdoing such as a conspiracy to distribute illegally accessed information, then that could be a matter for the police.”

Scotland Yard has also been urged to launch an immediate investigation, alongside the IOC probe, over fears of a potential royal blackmail plot.

Dai Davies, the former chief superintendent and head of the royal protection unit, said:

“Anyone accused of this most serious breach of trust should be interviewed under caution at the earliest opportunity.

The implications for the royal family are far and wide, and there must be a full probe by Scotland Yard to determine if any further crimes have been committed.”

The Met Police said it had not yet received a referral, but Health Minister Maria Caulfield said today that she understood “police have been asked to look at it.”

Speaking to Sky News, she said it was "pretty serious stuff to be accessing notes that you don't have permission to."

She added:

"I say this as someone who's still on the nursing register, that the rules are very, very clear for all patients.

That unless you're looking after that patient, or they've given you their consent, you should not be looking at patients' notes.

So there are rules in place and the Information Commissioner can levy fines, that can be prosecutions, your regulator.

So as a nurse, my regulator would be the NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council), can take enforcement action….and can strike you off the register if the breach is serious enough.

So there are particularly hefty implications if you are looking at notes for medical records that you should not be looking at."

Asked if the police should look into the matter, she said: "My understanding is that police have been asked to look at it - whether they take action is a matter for them.”

Fears that the King’s private medical information had also been compromised were dismissed tonight, after Charles spent three nights at the hospital during the same period as the Princess of Wales after undergoing an operation for an enlarged prostate.

Sources confirmed bosses at the hospital had informed Buckingham Palace that the alleged breach being probed did not involve the monarch.

Charles and Catherine were discharged separately just hours apart on January 29.

The King was subsequently diagnosed with “a form of cancer,” announced by Buckingham Palace on February 5.

Senior bosses at the hospital notified the IOC within 72 hours of the alleged breach of Kate’s records, in accordance with the watchdog’s guidelines.

Despite global speculation over the nature of the princess’s surgery, which has sparked wild conspiracy theories across social media and international news outlets, Kensington Palace has gone to great lengths to protect her privacy.

The palace said when Catherine was admitted that she would spend two weeks in hospital and not return to royal duties until after Easter as she continued her recovery at home.

Sources suggested the princess may decide to join the royal family on a scheduled walk to church on Easter Sunday, but no decision had yet been taken.

As the crisis intensified today following The Mirror’s revelations, Al Russell, the CEO at The London Clinic, added:

“Everyone at The London Clinic is acutely aware of our individual, professional, ethical and legal duties with regards to patient confidentiality.

We take enormous pride in the outstanding care and discretion we aim to deliver for all our patients that put their trust in us every day.

We have systems in place to monitor management of patient information and, in the case of any breach, all appropriate investigatory, regulatory and disciplinary steps will be taken.”

The General Medical Council (GMC), which regulates doctors, also said patients must have confidence that their personal information is protected "at all times."

A spokesman for the Prime Minister said:

“Clearly there are strict rules on patient data that must be followed. I think we all want to get behind the Princess of Wales and Prince of Wales and we wish her the speediest of recoveries.”

[goldkirk]

.

[80sheaven]

Paul Weller on the front cover of Record Mirror (Feb 1987)

[wamnak]

The Style Council “My Ever Changing Moods” 1984

How can this be 40 years old already? The US version of their first album. As a massive fan of The Jam I’ve never really completely warmed to Paul Weller’s seemingly abrupt shift in sound. Of course in retrospect it wasn’t really that abrupt… that last year of The Jam there was weird shift in sound, it’s just that nobody (even his band mates) expected him to disband the group and start a new band in a more soulful and jazzy direction. This sounded much better today than I remembered it. Of course “A Solid Bond In Your Heart” is killer (though I like The Jam’s version better).

[technicalthinker]

CONSPIRACY THEORY TIME FOR SONIC PRIME S3'S PACING ISSUES+ MISSING 8TH EPISODE

Maybe they had another final act planned for s3, taking place after the big fight against Nine in the Grim (for example fighting the council), but they ended up cutting/rewriting it. So instead they expanded on the battle to pad out the season but still had to cut a whole episode. Thats why we only got 7 episodes.

Alternatively they had to cut an episode bc of outside forces - couldnt do the ending they wanted, fluffed up the middle instead. Maybe it happened late enough in the production so they couldn't do massive rewrites.

[luuxxart]

TUMBLR BLOG | COMICFURY

[is-this-my-blood]

gabriel doing really mundane things like cooking for himself and fucking up so bad because hes never tried/had to be mortal before so its infuriating (<- instead of dealing with emotions he just Gets Mad). hes never had to fail or be wrong so learning how to accept that Yeah you make mistakes (going hand in hand with minos/sisyphus) and fuck up. and maybe youll punch a hole or four in the wall over time but its ok because you're Trying ok?

[theminecraftbee]

alright anyway i am calm now. i am watching joe take down the bdubs withers he never explained in order to replace them with rentheking shrines instead. he’s not saying this is to make bdubs feel bad. however,

[crescentcrowd]

Location: Council Headquarters Closed For: The Council & The Hunter ( @cantfightmoonlightlight @moonglowmagic @nicocastillo @readbentweenthelines )

⁺✦.° ☾ °.✦⁺

For the past year, the citizens of Lunar Cove had been terrorized by some faceless adversary that had taunted them, taking the lives of everyone in leadership and leaving the town floundering. On Valentine's day, they made their biggest strike yet, a year after the first attack. For the first time in that year, Bea felt like they might have gotten the upperhand, despite having been kidnapped with a small portion of the population of their town, no one on their side had died. Of the hunters, only one remained, and she was being restrained in a soundproof room on the other side of the building while the Council best decided how to handle the situation. "I think we should probably make a game plan before we get in there. Maybe we make a list of all the things we want answered before we head in, so we know what information to aim for?" There was also the matter of what to do with the captive after the interrogation, but Bea didn't want to think about that just yet. "Do any of you have experience in... interrogation?" she asked uncertainly.