#federation theory

[gravitascivics]

SUMMARIZING AN ARGUMENT FOR LIBERATED FEDERALISM, III

This blog has been about answering a question.  That is:  does a federalist perspective, in the form of liberated federalism, provide a legitimate and viable construct for the study of governance and politics in both middle schools (civics) and high schools (U.S. government)?  Federalism, in its more theoretical plain, is concerned with a lot more than structural arrangement among entities such as the US’ central and state governments.  In fact, it offers a whole way of viewing governance and politics.

It is an approach that reflects a congregational style in which the individual entities making up a polity take on a partnership role with the other entities in the arrangement.  With that, each entity has understood duties, responsibilities, and obligations – not necessarily mandated by law – aimed at initiating or sustaining the interests of the federated union.  In short, each is to behave in ways that support those interests even if it means sacrificing self-interests.

To answer the above central question, there are subsidiary questions.  As this and those postings that immediately follow are summary entries, these questions suggested themselves from the concerns of the analysis this blog has presented. They are:  How have the constructs guiding the teaching of American government and civics – since the beginning of the nation – evolved?  What have been the salient consequences of that development?  To what state should the development of a construct lead?  And how can the desirable state come about?

The first two questions reflect the historical aspects of the analysis this blog has, since late 2021, been presenting.  That is an analysis of American governance and politics emanating from the central mental constructs that have guided those activities from the origin of the nation.  That history was summarized through the blog’s postings since that first one of this series, “Dealing with Ideals,” which was posted on December 14, 2021.[1]  It, the historical account, described and explained the evolution of the parochial/traditional federalist perspective and how it morphed into the natural rights perspective.

Included, though, were descriptions of political science theories or models that are associated with each historical period.  The theory of federalism, with a strong component of republican thought, was described utilizing the ideas of Daniel Elazar, Gordon Wood, and Donald Lutz, among others.  Their contributions helped present the general tenets of the federalist/republican view.[2]

When the analysis turned to the natural rights view, the blog shifted in its reliance on political science contributions, to the political systems model – mostly from the work of David Easton – and the structural-functional approach – the work of Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell.  The two models were reviewed as basic disciplinary constructs which have served, under the natural rights era, as foundation for the current teaching of civics in the nation’s schools.

Challenging this dominant view, since the 1960s, has been the Marxian view, critical theory.  That view has softened the Marx influence with what has generally been the ideas of postmodernism.  Here, writings of Paulo Freire, Cleo Cherryholmes, Henry Giroux, and Michael Apple were utilized.  The central message of this approach has been to further a view of equality that it, the construct, holds as a trump value and advocates achieving equal results. 

In essence, it argues that levels of wealth and income should drastically approach equality across the workforce; that there should not be a “have,” as opposed to a “have not,” class of people.  Since no modern society has come close to this ideal, its actual realization – what that would look like – is a mystery.  Consequently, most content inspired by this approach seems to be lodged in describing how unequal or exploitive conditions are, especially in capitalist nations such as the US.

The synthesis, the adoption of liberated federalism to guide civics, contains the compromised position between natural rights and critical theory.  It advocates the re-emergence of federalism as the dominant view but is especially sensitive to the liberty and equality issues that natural rights and critical theory views stress in either their dominance or in their challenge. 

Here, the ideas of Philip Selznick, Amitai Etzioni, and Robert Bellah were central, as well as the cited writers of the federalist view.  As such, ideas and ideals of these contributors had a profound influence in the development of the proposed model, the liberated federalism model.  Stated as a simple assertion:  civics education should be guided by the liberated federalist mental construct.

[1] Interested readers who wish to look up the postings that present the dialectic argument from its beginning, see Robert Gutierrez, “Dealing with Ideals,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics,” December 14, 2021, accessed November 14, 2023, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2021_12_12_archive.html.

[2] These writers should not be considered advocates of parochial/traditional federalism, but of the more generic view of federalism or its ideals.

[bellaciao-ciao-ciao]

Anyone knows what this asshole is trying to do? He’s straight up trying to destroy the US from the inside out and trying to get access into the US treasury’s payment system. Pressuring the previous FAA director to resign after the FAA found that spacex was not prioritising safety enough, then now with all the guardrails removed or fired suddenly a Blackhawk slams into a plane and kills everyone on board? And now he’s saying he wants to work with Boeing to produce the new air force one, what can go wrong? Two companies famous for their products malfunctioning in fatal ways. And he’s getting his smelly hands into every government trying to influence them or their alt right population like the AFD. Anyone someone should look into him but they won’t, he’ll personally make sure of that.

[firstservepercentage]

guys the r/tennis discussions are getting out of hands

[kadextra]

We got the names of more Federation departments to add to the list!! 🎉 here’s all of the ones we know now:

Census Bureau

Design Bureau

Genetics Department

Department of Convivial Condition Observation

Department of Subsistence Monitoring

Department of Permanence Surveillance

Department of System Analysis

now I’m gonna try and break down the new egg ones

“convivial condition” basically means “happiness condition.” remember how with the original eggs at the beginning it was meant to be a test for the parents, where the happiest egg by the end would win them a prize? its changed since then, but the federation has continued to observe the eggs’ happiness levels (like with the cookies) and also use them to observe the happiness of the islanders/keep them in check

“subsistence” means to survive by one’s own support. considering how pomme and tallulah were just left in the wall alone for who knows how long struggling to survive, this makes sense. probably to see how an egg left in a condition like that would develop- this does imply the hope egg, who was also left alone to survive, is the deceased member of that group. and yes these eggs are also probably used to take note of islander ability too

“permanence” is the state of being stable and long-lasting. em sunny and pepito were stuck on hellish purgatory island and lived. their conditions are being monitored as a result, and they are currently being used to “stabilize” all the traumatized parents (especially the ones who had lost an egg before)

system analysis is pretty self-explanatory. analyzing the system of the experiment/island processes, for further development. it’s different from observation, monitoring, and surveillance. though I’m not sure what that means for richas and the unknown egg or why they’re glitching, it’s worrying

[ghostatrandom]

So uuh I was not expecting the amount of support I got from my silly Jaiden idea

I will add more bits about it if I have the time, but I am not consistent! It might take only a day, or 3 weeks if I ever touch upon the subject again (pokemon fans know whats up)

Here I look for an explanation as to why Jaiden fears mr. Duck the most, and my answer is childhood trauma-

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[youphoriaot7]

...oh, holy shit. Did the Federation just give us their experiment plan??

GROUP #0001 - Chayanne, Leonarda, Ramón, Dapper, Bobby, Tílin, JuanaFlippa, Trumpet Department of Convivial Condition Observation

These were the first eggs. The first batch of eight. Put out as a test, a blatant test: can you keep them happy? I wasn't around at the start of the server so I'm going off of a lot of hearsay here, but from the best I can understand the eggs were supposed to be a week or so(??) long experiment to help the two languages of the server come together and spend time with each other. The happiest egg at the end of the week(??) would "win." It was somewhat competitive if I'm remembering right?? That got thrown out the window as the eggs kept running, but initially, it was more like that. (I could be so wrong. Sorry.)

Regardless, "Convivial Condition Observation": breaking this down real quick. Convivial means "(of a person) cheerful and friendly; jovial." Essentially, happiness. Condition being the...condition of either the eggs or the islanders, or both. Observation being the act watching them that the Federation is doing.

"Convivial Condition Observation," or, let's see how well you can keep these eggs happy. And, alternatively/in addition, how happy it keeps you.

GROUP #0002 - Tallulah, Pomme, ______ Department of Subsistence Monitoring

The first thing that stuck out to me with this group was the fact that Tallulah and Pomme were found in very similar ways. Pomme was stuck hidden in the wall, and Tallulah was found hidden in the attic of the adoption center. If the third egg's name really is six blanks, and stands for MEMORY as I'm suspecting it might, then that egg was also hidden—to the point where Cellbit needed coords just to find its adoption center.

"Subsistence Monitoring" breakdown: Subsistence means "the action or fact of maintaining or supporting oneself at a minimum level." Monitoring being the act of observation that the Federation is doing.

"Subsistence Monitoring," or, let's see how well these eggs can take care of themselves without any external help.

GROUP #0003 - Sunny, Pepito, Empanada Department of Permanent Surveillance

This one is a bit alarming, I'm not gonna lie? The clear tie here between the three eggs is that all three were found on Egg Island. The name of the island could possibly have something to do with it? I really don't think I can pin down a definite decision for this answer until we know what the Federation was trying to surveillance.

"Permanent Surveillance," or, let's keep an eye on...something. Egg Island? The islanders?

GROUP #0004 - Richarlyson, ___ __ Department of System Analysis

I'm going to come in straight off the bat and tell you I have no idea what they could be doing in this group. "System Analysis" is incredibly vague, and likely intentionally so.

The best guess I can make is that the system being referred to is...the eggs. If EGG A1 is supposed to fill in the five blanks of the name, then this becomes obvious: the one time we saw this egg, ElQuackity was putting them through a parkour test. A parkour course is generally used to test skills.

...if I wanted to get really headcanon-y: Richarlyson's leg is canonically misdesigned. Running a parkour course with an egg younger than Richas could be the Feds trying to sort out what the issue with Richas' leg is/was.

Additionally, in the really headcanon-y realm, Romero Richas could be a fascinating way to show system malfunction. Just saying.

"System Analysis," or, let's make sure our experiments are working properly.

[pumpacti0n]

"...The Anarchist case against the State is pretty simple to put in Marxist terms. You have your dictatorship of the proletariat. But immediately there's a problem. The state is not, and cannot be the entire class. In order to have a state, you have to put a subset of the class in charge. Call it a vanguard, a party, what have you. Let's assume for a moment that the new party really is comprised of the proletariat and isn't composed of nominally allied intellectuals. Even in this best case scenario what you have is representation, not actual rule by the proletariat as a class.

"Well ok," says the Marxist, "that's not a problem, the representatives will just represent the interests of the class as a whole." But instantly you have a problem, your dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer a dictatorship of the proletariat, it's a dictatorship of the representatives of the class. For the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie this doesn't matter, because the incentives of the state align with theirs and you can be a member of the bourgeoisie while simultaneously holding office, in fact almost all representatives are.

But for the proletariat this is not true at all, the moment a proletarian take(s) control (...) they are no longer part of the class with no property, they have at their command the property of the state. This problem is exacerbated by any attempt to use the state to socialize the economy, the larger the share of the economy administered by the State, the more property the representatives now command.

Those representatives of the proletariat in the State now have their own interests: that of the management of the property of the state, that of the nation state itself, formerly alien to the proletariat as a class.

Furthermore, each passing day isolates the representatives from the proletariat itself. It isolates them physically, it isolates them psychologically, it isolates them in terms of mannerism and expectation.

And so every day the interests of the representatives of the proletariat drift further apart from their representatives until one day the dictatorship of the proletariat vanishes entirely and you're left with the dictatorship of an entirely new class produced by the State.

And this is the BEST case scenario, the one in which the representatives of the class are genuinely attempting to do their job. And then still the form of the state devours the dictatorship of the proletariat, that which was once its content. The state will not wither away because its existence produces new classes with their own functions and interests.

Lenin's State and Revolution demonstrates this problem: it calls for the state to become the landlord of the proletariat. Immediately, in a single instant, the pretense of the State as a special armed body of the class disappears. In its place is a new class of rent connectors whose interests have nothing in common with the proletariat.

This is just how the State works. The proletariat has nothing in common with the tax collector, the landlord, the manager, the planner. All of the functions of the old world absorbed and preserved by the State coalesce into new classes and socialists are left spinning their wheels, trying to abolish two systems, the State and the class system, with an institution (the State) that reproduces both of them.

Even on a theoretical level, even in the world of State and Revolution, where every state employee is paid a worker's salary and nothing more, the State would still produce classes and with it reproduce itself. The only solution to this is to destroy the State entirely and let the class as a whole form the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This is Anarchism. The propertiless masses rule themselves directly and destroy the property relations and the State institutions that comprise the conditions of their own existence as a class, thus ending at long last the nightmare of the class system with the new and radiant dawn of the classless society of communism."

[source]

[royalarchivist]

Were they scared? Did they even have any idea what was going on? Or did A1 know what was going to happen, and were they already resigned to their fate?

[eeriedeceit]

Bad has the same Bottle / Medicine that Elena created in the QSMP stream today! Wonder what this implies…

[ceranovis]

So... the thing that IMMEDIATELY stood out to me in Fit's Dec 30th lore stream was the use of the nocom heatmap:

Like this is the exact version if the heatmap Fit uses in his 2b2t vid about the nocom exploit (which is a wild story in itself, please watch it if you haven't before).

But some musing about how nocom might be connected to the lore (which quickly spiralled into some theories about Madagio, the 2 Cucuruchos, and the eggs):

Nocom was an exploit that tracked players in real time, predict their movements, and allowed remote spying on physical changes to locations. Madagio being drawn in by the remenant signal of that could just be a nod to their interest in finding ways to collect information and why they would find Fit suitable for the job.

HOWEVER-- Nocom was built on a Papermc vulnerability that meant it could also work on other multiplayer servers that run it. While nocom was patched on 2b2t, that doesn't mean other servers have patched the vulnerability & the source code has been released by the creators. So Madagio could have been interested in going to 2b2t to get ahold of nocom to use on Quesadilla island so it could uncover the "secrets [it] must have at all costs"-- their POV when tracking down fit shows entity lines so they clearly have some tracking ability/tool.

Maybe they got the nocom code, but found they couldn't use it yet. It's been mentioned before that Fit tried hack clients on QSMP but they didn't work, and exploits get fixed pretty quickly to keep the server stable. Madagio said the only way onto thr island at the time was the Federation train-- presumably the Federation had thing heavily locked down and Madagio wouldn't be able to enter or run any sort of exploit.

2b2t's nocom was made possible because of social engineering-- Madagio could have hired Fit to collect information so it could find a way to successfully manipulate holes into the Federation's security and get onto the island/run nocom.

In the Dec 21st QSMP Info stream, Dark Cucurucho seems to be looking for something the Federation has hidden, and demands Cucurucho tell him where it is. Maybe Madagio is looking for the same thing? Nocom would theoretically allow someone to find hidden facilities/people anywhere on the server.

Where Dark Cucurucho seems tied to the Nether, and Cucurucho the overworld, its becomes pretty notable that Madagio has Fit go through a giant Ender portal.

Madagio being tied to the End also has some interesting implications if you think about the (ender?) dragon that supposedly inhabited the island & created the eggs. While the federation claimed the dragon left when the wall was blown up, there's no actual evidence it was there at the time. Perhaps Madagio is the dragon.

Fans seem to be interpretting the "i am a god" anagram of Madagio literally, which could fit with the ender dragon being a sort of godly being presiding over the End dimension.

BUT it may not be a literal dragon-- the eggs seem to be some sort of science experiements, so what if the anagram is a reference to a scientist playing god?

Maybe Madagio literally created the eggs from End-realm-DNA or something before fleeing/being kicked off Quesadilla, and the dragon story is just what the Federation made up to explain the eggs without having to bring up Madagio.

Maybe the experiements that led to the eggs were about opening up inter-server travel? Madagio said whatever made it leave Quesadilla also gave it server-hopping powers (powers which seems similar in reach to the Federation's ability to pull people to the island/send workers to other places).

The Federation can block interdimensional travel too-- we saw that with the Nether, which the residents eventually broke through with the train bug, implying hacks/bugs are needed to bypass Federation security.

Dark Cucurucho told Forever it wanted to leave, desired freedom, and that the Federation didn't want it to have that. Maybe the thing Dark is looking for is the thing that Madagio created that allows for interdimensional travel, which the Federation stole.

I think the only non-Federation example of cross-server travel we've seen is with the Watcher/Purgatory, but it may have actually been Dark Cucurucho who enabled that, not the Watcher. Aside from Dark being the one to give the residents their tickets to Purgatory via the dice game, Cucurucho claimed the recent security vulnerabilities were due to Dark, so maybe Dark found an exploit that allowed for limited interdimenisonal travel-- if it's tied to the creation of eggs somehow, maybe that's why there were 3 new eggs found on Egg Island?

The Unknown Egg diary Cellbit found could potentially be connected to Dark Cucurucho leaving & making contact with the Watcher prior to the purgatory arc, given the timing (about a month after the residents broke open the Nether, which may have created a door for Dark to get to the overworld despite Federation security and set things in motion). Maybe Cucurucho sent Cellbit to investigate because it suspected Dark was up to something? Cellbit assumed the egg's fate was the Federation's doing, but why would they send him to investigate it then? Maybe it was Dark making a cheap immitation of the Federation adoption center so it could travel, and then abandoning the egg once it had what it wanted?

Cucurucho also said that Dark didn't understand the potential of the eggs, which could explain why Dark would only be able to achieve limited travel.

[gravitascivics]

VIABILITY OF THE LIBERATED FEDERALISM, IX

Educators who wish to address an area of study, say civics, rely – sometimes without awareness – on some overall explanatory/descriptive view of the subject.  The claim of this blog has been that currently that view for social studies subjects has been the natural rights view.  Academics call it classical liberalism.  The blog has further argued for a change, that instead of the current view, it should be replaced by the construct, liberated federalism.  A good deal of space in this blog has gone into describing and explaining that proposed view.

          At this point, the blog has attempted to present a viability statement that applies Eugene Meehan’s criteria[1] to highlight the construct’s strengths.  After addressing each individual criterion – comprehensiveness, power, precision, consistency/reliability, isomorphism, compatibility, predictability, and control – the blog with the last posting added two more criteria:  abstract level and motivation.  These distinct but related criteria relate more to educators’ daily concerns.

          Abstract level refers to how much of reality is included with some presentation of that reality, and motivation refers to how much the material elicits the interest of the students presented with that reality.  If readers are interested but have not read that posting, readers can look it up at the URL, http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/, September 1, 2023.

That posting also introduced the work of Jerome S. Bruner[2] and Edgar Dale.[3]  This posting will delve more deeply into their contributions.  To begin, Bruner provides a model for the different modes by which information can be communicated and at what minimal ages a person can understand the information presented by the different media modes. 

Generally, as observed by analyzing people’s learning abilities at different age levels, Bruner discovered that the following trend exists:  the youngest (least sophisticated) children understood information in the enactive mode of representation.  That would be children from birth to 1 year of age depending on this mode and refers to an activity of direct experiences. 

For example, teaching a baby to shake a rattle is done by an action activity in which the rattle is placed in the baby's hand and the teacher grasps that hand and shakes it.  This can be described as action learning.  Of course, action learning can be employed with older learners, as with dance lessons.

With some aging, for students who are more sophisticated but still lacking in the higher levels of sophistication, a more abstract mode can be employed.  Bruner calls this intermediate level of abstraction iconic modes of representation (applicable to teaching young children from 1 to 6 years of age).  This teaching uses media that present images of what is to be learned.  “How to” demonstrations or pictures are examples of this mode.  Cooking shows on TV use this mode to teach viewers how to cook specific dishes. 

Last, for the most sophisticated students, the most abstract mode of representation can be used and is what Bruner calls symbolic (potentially applicable to teaching students 7 years of age and above).  These instructional media rely on language.  By depending on language, these informational materials can have the highest degree of applicability to varying aspects of reality – it's the most generalizable information (while lesser abstract media modes need to convey more specific content). 

Language media opens the student to concepts which categorize elements of reality.  For example, the concept, transportation, refers to a wide variety of phenomena which can be grouped to convey meaningful information, as in the sentence, “costs affect the mode of transportation people use.”

On the other hand, the work of Dale addresses the same concern between abstraction and modes of representation, but instead of devising more general modes of representation, he identifies specific media types and activities that instructors can choose.  Dale arranges them hierarchically by listing them within a triangle or pyramid.  That is, he arranges, from bottom to top, an ascending order of abstraction within the prism – the visual depiction of his model is called Dale's Cone of Experience.

If one superimposes Bruner's modes on Dale's listing of media types, it can take the following form:

MOST ABSTRACT – SYMBOLIC

Written text (as in a book)

Spoken word (as in a lecture)

INTERMEDIATE ABSTRACTION – ICONIC

Still pictures (as in a picture portfolio)

Moving pictures (as in a film)

Exhibition (as in a collection of artifacts)

Demonstration (as in a person showing a student how to cook a given dish)

LEAST ABSTRACTION – ENACTIVE

Role-playing (as in a learner pretends to be a person in some social situation, e.g., as a family member when father or mother comes home to announce he/she has lost his/her job)

Simulation (as in playing a game based on a model of some reality, e.g., playing the game Monopoly)

Direct purposeful experience (as in an internship in which student takes on real life responsibilities for a particular job)

Applying all these ideas regarding sophistication, abstraction, and motivation to evaluating federation theory, the question becomes:  how well does the construct allow instructors, curriculum developers, and media developers to match the sophistication of secondary students to civics or government material being taught? 

Here, this blogger will simply state that federation theory does not primarily rely, as most classroom instruction does, on higher levels of abstraction.  That would be the case in either structural descriptions of complex bureaucratic institutions – branches of government, political parties, interest groups, and the like – or behavioral analysis of political variables – such as the correlation between demographic dimensions and particular individuals securing leadership positions in government. 

Most of those classroom sessions utilize lectures or demonstration presentations.  Instead, a curriculum guided by federation theory relies on instruction that focuses on more dynamic aspects of civics and government.  It would guide instruction to, for example, describe contextualized political and governing accounts, elicit students to empathize with political actors dealing with interpersonal human challenges, and/or has students recreate the inter-dynamics of groups in varying degrees of federated associational arrangements. 

By doing so, this approach lends itself to a more humane and less abstract treatment of governance and politics.  While this form of federation theory, liberated federalism, relies on more historical analysis, it is more apt to present less abstract content by conveying stories or narratives.  And it lends itself to relying on cognitive psychology by highlighting how people think, both currently and in the past. 

But that does not preclude the use of more abstract media.  For example, it does not, out of hand, dismiss behavioral studies, but can rely on them when they are applicable and prudent.  In short, the judgment is that this perspective allows for very high degrees of flexibility on the part of instructors, curriculum developers, and media developers to gauge the material and experiences in which students are asked to take part. 

In that federation theory comes closest to following Bruner's advice:  when presenting new content, the overall strategy should be to follow the progression from enactive to iconic to symbolic.  All other things being equal, in order to be effective, less sophisticated students need less abstract content and, therefore, less abstract media modes of instruction should be used.  Conversely, for more sophisticated students, given the content being taught, more abstract media of instruction can and often should be employed.

As for the other elements of motivation, one can ask:  what sounds more motivating?  Are dry abstract descriptions of unfamiliar material more motivating than materials that depict the interactive activities of human encounters?  These latter depictions would be contained in stories of collective entities such as families, workplaces, back room negotiating sessions, war fronts (ones that don't glorify wars but get at the real-life sacrifices war demands), political campaigns, and so on. 

These are the types of content settings that federation theory encourages instructors to use and their students to study.  To say the least, federation theory holds its own in terms of motivation and is best when it comes to matching the sophistication of students and the abstraction levels of the media and content it suggests. 

For a full illustration of this strategy within the confines of a single course – but illustrates the principles contained in this posting – readers are referred to this blogger’s book, Toward a Federated Nation:  Implementing National Civics Standards.[4]  This blog will next turn to the methodology issues in implementing a curriculum based on a liberated federalism model.

[1] Eugene J. Meehan, Contemporary Political Thought:  A Critical Study (Homewood, IL:  Dorsey Press, 1967).

[2]See Saul McIeod, “Jerome Bruner’s Theory of Learning and Cognitive Development” (June 14, 2023), accessed August 31, 2023, URL: Jerome Bruner's Theory of Learning And Cognitive Development - Simply Psychology. The issue was how the material was presented.  And one of the factors determining success was the nature of the media used to present the information.  To this blogger’s understanding, Bruner was not arguing that young students had to mature to learn complicated material.  He was of the mind that any content could be taught to any student regardless of his/her sophistication.  The issue is how the material is presented.

[3] “Edgar Dale,” Wikipedia (n.d.), accessed September 1, 2023, URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Dale.

[4] Robert Gutierrez, Toward a Federated Nation:  Implementing National Civics Standards (Tallahassee, FL:  Gravitas/Civics Books, 2020).  Available through Amazon and other booksellers.

[librarycard]

Omg are you in school to become a librarian? I’ve been considering doing the same, but I’m a little put off by how long the process is 😭 from when I looked it up it said you need a masters. I’m curious what your experience has been so far if you don’t mind my asking?

You do need a masters to be a librarian, which is typically a two year commitment (if you’re full time), I’ll be getting mine in 2.5ish bc i started part time and am transitioning to full time this fall. My MLIS is with an archival studies concentration + digital libraries focus and I find it incredibly rewarding honestly, i got my BA in Public History and worked in Digital Humanities for two years so it was a super natural transition for me. lots of ppl start their MLIS with 0 experience in libraries though and the intro classes are frequently very beginner friendly.

i’m getting my degree online and have evening classes twice or three times a week (one meeting per week per class). I find that library programs are deeply queer even at my deep south institution and are super flexible to your interests and goals. + scholarships are typically easier to get than you think. open up your heart to a beautiful MLIS program

[changeling-ash]

Okay so the new footprints.

I see tracks, the career wildlife biologist in me goes feral and I went on an Identification Spree with my animal tracking guides. So.

First off, it would fit that these are the hind paw prints of a bear. The back paws of a bear are elongated compared to the front, looking slightly more humanoid. That fits with what we believe about Cucurucho being a bear.

(Images: two figures of bear tracks, both showing a short, round front paw and a long, boxy back paw. They have indents where the claws imprint. The first also contrasts the differences between black and grizzly bear tracks.)

However, we can ID further than just bear. What kind of bear is Cucurucho? As you can see above, grizzly bears have a flat top edge, and they have very long claws that jut out very far from the toepad, making very disconnected indents in tracks. They also have wide, bulky feet compared to our other bear species. Black bears, however, have a more rounded top edge, and their claws are much shorter and make indentations close to the toepads. Sometimes tracks will have the claws connected to the toe pad. Which means black bears fit much, much better with the tracks seen in the image.

The prints are a little more slender than the above bear tracks, though that may be because they're on a furry instead of an actual bear lol. More humanoid bear tracks.

Now I can hear you saying: But Cucurucho is white! Shouldn't he be a polar bear? But no. Polar bears often don't leave tracks with claw marks, since the claws are very short and don't brush the ground. Also, polar bear tracks often have fringed edges with brush marks, as they have paws completely covered with fur. None of that there.

However. There is very much a way that Black Bear Cucurucho makes sense. There are white American black bears, and they are not albino, but a mutated recessive trait. A Canadian subspecies, Ursus americanus kermodei. Kermode bears, otherwise known as "spirit bears."

Behold. Cucurucho.

[kadextra]

the Federation is scared of q!Bad omg?? telling all the employees to avoid him, “make no sudden moves,” calm the situation, and RUN if all else fails. that’s crazy??? it’s like they’re treating him as a dangerous creature that’ll snap on them (which to be fair. he kinda is) but the Federation are the ones in power here. yet they are afraid of an islander… ooohhhh.

[northern-loner]

No that theory that everyone was gonna get iced and their memories wiped to join the island reset is driving me mad now. It all ties back seamlessly to the cryo-chamber crew and what we know about their origins. It also explains perfectly why they were being interviewed like they were all going to die, because in all ways except physical, they fucking were. It's also why they cracked down so heavily on any and all attempts to escape, they would need everyone in one place easy to collect & keep track of so they'd be ready for today.

And honestly, if this all turns out to be true, it feels so nice that the islanders were actually able to escape that fate and foil the Federation's plans like that, ironically through the same way that supposedly got them all in this mess in the first place: pushing a shiny red button.

Just. Me when things come full circle. Me when answers are finally found and suddenly everything starts falling into place. Me when devastating fates are narrowly avoided. Me when

[quesidillaislandtakes]

So I wanna talk about the different groups and what I think they mean, because I have different opinions on it compared to others and I think as many opinions on this will put us on the right track.

First, the Department of Convivial Condition Observation. Basically, all of our original eggs (including our deceased ones.) ‘Convivial’ is another word for ‘Friendly’ or ‘Happy.’ Basically their purpose was “Can we keep these eggs in the hands of others and have them be happy and well?” Since half of them died, we got mixed results. So they went onto case two.

Second, the Department of Subsistence monitoring. A lot of people pointed out that all of the eggs were found in hidden locations. Basically ‘how long would they survive without human contact?��� Talulah survived 25 days, Pomme survived 56 days, and ‘Hope’ (The unknown egg) was declared dead after 161 days. (Whether they are actually dead or the federation just thinks they are dead is unknown.)

Third, the Department of Permanence Surveillance. In this group was Pepito, Sunny, and Empanada. It's true they were all found on Egg Island, but I don’t think that's what connects them to ‘Permanence Surveillance.’ I believe the connection is their parents. They were all given to parents who had previously lost an egg. Empanada was given to Jaiden, who lost Bobby. Sunny was given to Charlie, who lost Juanaflippa. And Pepito was given to ElMariana (Juannaflippa,) Roier (Bobby,) and Quackity (Tilin.) They were testing to see if the eggs were the problem or the parents were the problem. They were watching them (Surveillance) and seeing if they died or not (Permanence.)

And finally, the Department of System Analysis. This one stumps me a bit, but I have a couple of theories. Either he (as well as another egg) is used to fight against problems as the system, or they are the problems and the system is the federation. The second one seems more likely. Richas was always seen as ‘The problem child,’ whether it's his chaotic nature or because he lost a leg, in the eyes of the system, he is the one causing the most problems for them. So they are using him as a chaotic factor, Using him to prepare for anything and everything. That's why him and the other egg is glitched in the system, they are trying to analyse and prepare for anything they might do or be or have.

And those are my theories, hope you enjoy ❤️