#noninterference

[healerinchief]

If everyone minded their own business, what kind of world would we live in?

[quietwingsinthesky]

most of those are jokes but not the one about dean going slowly insane in heaven as he realizes no one he’s talking to is real and his pseudo-son he once tried to lock in a box to keep everyone safe has now locked him in a slightly nicer box where he can talk to his Fake Mom and Fake Dad and Fake Brother all he wants, and jack even lets him think he’s escaped sometimes and made it to different universes just for fun. i want to say none of this is malicious on jack’s part, and i’m sure he believes that and that he’s being a good and kind god who doesn’t even let dean feel pain and erases his memories whenever he gets too stressed in his tiny heaven enclosure, but also. it’s a little cruel, pulling wings off of flies and all, but not evil, only the sudden overwhelming realization that he can control everything all the time in the hands of a three year old who learned all of his morality from the man he’s inadvertently torturing with paradise.

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

Why is it that the Infinity Knights, who profess to noninterference in other worlds’ affairs

are content to allow the Inspector to go about mucking around in history (and the future) without calling them out on their activities (at least until someone from the far future demands an internal investigation into the Inspector’s behaviour)?

[atopfourthwall]

Full disclosure, I just want to push your Trek nerd button, since your love of the franchise is infectious. In your opinion, what are some of the best and worst examples of the characters following the Prime Directive? Both you and SF Debris talk about the PD and why it exists but also about how some episodes very badly misuse or misunderstand it.

Of FOLLOWING the Prime Directive? Harder to see that because often the Prime Directive is used for the characters to do stupid things. However, the Klingon Civil War is a good example of them following it - while politically they ASSUME that the Duras family has Romulan aid, the civil war IS an internal struggle until the Romulans are officially involved. Thus the blockade to expose Romulan support was a better use of their time, and potentially more life-saving, than if they had openly aided Gowron with military support. Worst example... well, we have plenty to work with. Maybe "Homeward," where Worf's brother has a plan to save a single village from a planetary extinction and Picard not only says no but later when they're watching the planet die he's all "Yeah, this sucks but noninterference is more important." I can understand them not being able to save the planet (I can't recall if there was a way to stop it, pretty sure there wasn't), I can understand the moral dilemma of "Who are we to pick one village to survive while EVERYONE else dies?" But to then say no to the plan to save as many lives as they can JUST because their culture might change and then being like "Yep, this was the right thing to do!" Horse shit. Only reason I'm not counting Enterprise's "Dear Doctor" is because while they invoke the future Prime Directive with their bullshit, it's not official policy in Starfleet - just a very, very bad decision on the part of Phlox and Archer, with it being the character-ruining moment of Phlox for me. But if we did count it, then yes - Dear Doctor is the worst for its failure to understand genetics, evolution, and ethics in general. Horrible, horrible episode.

[corallapis]

again iiwrdwftgu* the time lords' moral axis would totally revolve around noninterference/interference. dr. who on trial would try to talk abt the deaths of lesser species and they'd be like irrelevant Did You Interfere? ok execution. he'd complain to other time lords how evil the master is and they'd be like what are you talking about you're both the exact same amount of evil. bc you Interfere.

*if i was rebuilding doctor who from the ground up.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Zack Beauchamp at Vox:

When I was researching my book on anti-democratic politics, I found a striking pattern in modern incarnations of it — that these movements, almost uniformly, claim their most aggressive anti-democratic policies are actually defenses of democracy. While Donald Trump worked to overturn the 2020 election, for example, he insisted that he wasn’t trying to steal an election — but rather to “stop the steal” Joe Biden had already pulled off. When Trump returned to power this year, I expected to see the same rhetorical maneuver deployed to justify his inevitable power grabs. And indeed, many of Trump’s Day 1 executive orders did exactly this. Take, for example, Trump’s revival of Schedule F — a move that, in theory, could allow Trump to fire tens of thousands of nonpartisan civil servants and replace them with MAGA cronies. Such a move would be a serious threat to democracy, in that it would consolidate key powers of state in the executive’s hands in a manner that proved crucial to the rise of elected authoritarians like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Yet in the text of the order, Trump sells the move as a vindication of democratic principles. Because the president and vice president are the only executive branch members “elected and directly accountable to the people,” they must be able to assert greater control over civil servants “to restore accountability to the career civil service.” The same is true of other executive orders that might aid in Trump’s efforts to consolidate power. An executive order on “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship” does not provide any concrete protections against abusive surveillance or internet control practices. It does, however, order the attorney general to set up an inquiry into Biden administration policies that could serve as a pretext to harass and dismiss federal employees who don’t share Trump politics. An order claiming to combat the “weaponization” of the federal government similarly does very little to prevent Trump from, for example, ordering the attorney general to investigate his political enemies or the IRS to audit them. In fact, it lays the groundwork for two separate probes into Biden administration policies that could end up targeting both federal employees and private citizens.

[...] Going forward, Trump will almost assuredly not do anything as blatant as abolishing elections. Instead, every move will be given a democratic defense, every power grab described as a victory for the American people against the “deep state.” The aim is to make the reality of the situation into just another partisan debate, where Trump says one thing while Democrats (and the media) say another. The erosion of core democratic principles, like separation of powers and political noninterference with government functions, will appear to many like a perfectly normal part of democracy. [...]

The global spread of American-style authoritarianism

As democracy became ideologically dominant around the world, similar practices became popular globally. Today, its most sophisticated practitioners are elected executives who have worked to take down democracy from within — people such as Orbán, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Narendra Modi. Orbán describes his political project, which in reality is the construction of an authoritarian kleptocracy, as an attempt to wrest back control of Hungarian democracy from Eurocrats in Brussels — with specific tactics, like restricting LGBT speech on television, being sold as an extension of the Hungarian people’s will. When Netanyahu attempted to impose political controls on Israel’s judiciary in 2023, removing the sole formally independent check on his majority’s power, he argued that he was merely reasserting the people’s control over unelected branches.

Fascist-in-Chief’s democracy-eroding EOs serve a purpose: baselessly claim to protect democracy while simultaneously undercut democracy.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The “Ekumen” or “League of all Worlds” celebrates difference, values noninterference, and allows for free travel and open encounters between peoples. And although Le Guin distanced herself from the series title Hainish Cycle, there are beats, pulses, and returns here. Earth itself ends up reverting to sparsely populated wilderness at least twice during the centuries of her future history, and there are hints that it all may happen again and again. Like Clarke’s Imperial Earth and O’Neill’s 2081, space travel does allow the flexibility to let the home planet go a bit feral now and then. But there is a strange paradox here: in Le Guin’s work, there is no single path from any kind of “primitive” existence to “civilization,” no overriding destiny or teleology—only tendencies. Le Guin’s planetary imagination depends on xenophilia, not xenophobia, and the never-ending differences between peoples that she makes everywhere depend, in turn, on the environments in which the different peoples find themselves.

Fred Scharmen, Space Forces: A Critical History of Life in Outer Space

[talonabraxas]

“Even if the aliens are short, dour, and sexually obsessed—if they’re here, I want to know about them...

Or perhaps they are here, but in hiding because of some Lex Galactica , some ethic of noninterference with emerging civilizations. We can imagine them, curious and dispassionate, observing us, as we would watch a bacterial culture in a dish of agar, to determine whether this year again, we manage to avoid self-destruction.”

― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Revelation mendezmendez @mendezmendezart

[bluefox4]

I knew I was watching something incredible and important. And I knew this union of six time lines, one Andalite and five human, was the entire point of the Ellimist's "noninterference." p. 314

And a book series was born.

So basically, the Ellimist is picking and choosing what stays the same from Elfangor's timeline and what to get rid of. Elfangor needs to be in space, so into space he goes. Chapman needs to be on Earth but with no memories so he goes there. An Animorph needs to be born from a union of human and Andalite so that stays.

I know that human is Tobias already. There is no way to avoid that spoiler if you have a passing knowledge of Animorphs. But before the reveal I could see people questioning which of the boys was Elfangor's son. Not sure how much questioning there was though.

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

Lore notes: Fractures

‘A tangle of corrupt biodata in possession of the matrix’ → a) biodata can be corrupted, and it seems that multiple bits of it can be woven together (‘a tangle’), b) i wonder how one actually gains complete control of the matrix, i suppose it would be easier to do that if you were already a part of it like pandora was

‘Rightfully appointed president’ → now this could just be a matter of using a different word to mean the same thing, but they did say that romana had been elected in the last audio (at least i think it was the last one)

‘Our sacred capitol’ → back at it with the religious undertones to the everything of time lord society

‘The peaceful standing of our planet in universal affairs’ → this line is interesting to me given just how many references there have been to past wars with gallifrey and how tense some of the alliances seem with the other temporal powers

‘Older levels of the capitol’ → now does this mean the vaults, or is there older parts that weren’t necessarily once the old city, but are just older parts of the current capitol that people don’t use anymore (something something they just keep (or kept, idk what they’re doing now) building up and abandoned the lower levels and/or left those to be occupied by the people seen as less important in society, i mean we do see here that they lack back up power)

‘Psychic virus’ → a thing that exists i guess

Also interesting to me that they seem to have just had the infrastructure necessary (bombs and such) to start a war despite the above mentioned ‘peaceful standing’ and general noninterference policy that was in place until recently

‘At least seven trans temporal galactic powers’ → we do hear about more of them existing in other audios, but there really are more temporal powers than i would have expected, like this is just referring to the ones that have students on gallifrey, in other aspects of the doctor who universe we typically see time lords as being portrayed as pretty one of a kind when it comes to having time travel capabilities on a scale like they do, and yes they definitely seem to have more power than the other temporal powers by  virtue of having had more time to establish themselves, but i’d still love some more details on the other temporal powers and how they go about interacting with the universe

‘Observations of the entire universe, kept so diligently for millions of years’ → what was in the archives, that romana destroyed

Artron forum has some connection to the tardises (is what allows them to work?)

It is possible to scramble the imprimaturs and ground all of the tardises

‘Omnimedia linkups’ → do i actually know what these are, no not really, but it seems like a way of connecting to the news, communications, and/or time lord internet

‘I can’t believe i’m playing field operative again after all these centuries’ → cia coordinator doesn’t have to go on field missions, but he hasn’t been coordinator for all that long, so this must also apply to other ranks within the cia as well, i wonder by what rank you get to opt out of field missions

‘Artron energy is found in time lords minds, it helps to power a tardis. Tradition dictates that the people gather here periodically to meet, exchange views…as they talk their artron energy is painlessly[?] absorbed by receptors in the walls, and routed through to the berthing bays’ → explanation of the artron forum

‘Reduced to using ancient percussion grenades’ → so a) these are old weapons that they just had stashed for whatever reason and b) the time lords have been manufacturing more advanced weapons (for what purpose though is the question)

Artron forum on level 720

maelstrom cloisters → where romana’s base of operations for the war is (she refers to them as ‘these ruins’ and they seem to be below the capitol), also ‘few time lords are aware of them’ and they are close to the outlands

‘Narvins [eye/i][?] link to the capitol systems’ → i’d assume this is eye, based on what we’ve seen in earlier audios, but if he’s using his eyes to get into systems, then why also have codes that can be given away, unless they are used for different systems

Romana’s parents using the outlands as a threat (‘behave yourself or we’ll leave you in the outlands’) → wonder how commonly used that is, also everytime they mention children or parents it makes me wonder what the state of childcare is on this version of gallifrey, what is it like to grow up there (i mean just from the mention of parents we can assume it’s different to the lungbarrow version (not that that’s going to stop me from shoving looms in there), but we do also get the houses (though the familial relations seem to be more along the lines of how humans see them, parents, uncles, siblings, there are cousins mentioned, but it’s probably cousins in the traditional sense, though that one time war audio does make it seem like that could be the way you refer to others in your house/chapter, but that audio is a long way away, so this is probably a discussion better had when we get there), so it’s not entirely different)

‘Skimmers, they’re as obsolete as the bombs’ → given just how old time lord society is and how long an average time lord lives i really wonder how old these things are to be talked about like this, it’s also interesting to me that even though they are this old they still seem to work, technology that’s built to last i guess

‘Well they must be the last ones on gallifrey’ → clearly they are not used anymore, nor it seems have they been used in a long time

The anomaly vault is outside of the capitol

Anomaly vault is dangerous to organic life, so it is typically entered by remotely controlled droids

‘Long ago as the vortisaur flies’ → time lord saying i guess

Vault contents protected from outside reality (well, more outside reality is protected from the contents of the vault)

‘The outer labyrinth and the pazithi cloisters’ ‘pazithi? A regal area’ ‘oh, long since in decline’ → not much to say here, just noting the fact of different areas having different reputations, and those reputations changing over time

‘Have both skimmers followed with the visualizer’ → visualizer something analogous to a security camera?

‘Gallifrey’s oldest landmarks’ → referring to the things destroyed in the war, guessing this includes the artron forum then, again with things being built to last if structures that are still used are also some of the oldest landmarks (and also there are places that pandora recognizes, given she’s from the earlier days of gallifrey)

‘I’ve never been outside’ → i think this is the second (?) time we’ve encountered a time lord who has never left the citadel, i wonder how common of an occurrence that is

Skimmer is able to drive itself

‘There is technology that can help you see again’ → can cure blindness on gallifrey (implants, regenerating the damaged tissue, something more like hearing aids (as in you can take it on and off)?) (also makes me wonder how they go about dealing with disability on gallifrey, if they have technology to deal with it, that means that regeneration isn’t always seen as the solution)

Political commentator and presidential advisor → both jobs that you can have on gallifrey

‘Election vidcasts’ → my current struggle here is are they differentiating between elections and appointments or are they pretty much the same thing (or is it some secret third thing where someone is appointed and then the high council votes on whether or not to approve that appointment)

‘Brought down president [???] high council single handed’ ‘his own weakness did that five centuries ago’ → you know gallifrey doesn’t really feel like the place that would have political reporters that would be able to bring down administrations (given how we typically see the president talked about), but yet we’ve seen a few examples of this (also mostly including the second quote for some semblance of a timeline, this would have been just before to just around the time romana was a child)

Though there is the whole thing with the timelords rewriting history (whether literally or just the narrative of it) (which does seem to be what they’re using him for here) to make their truth the truth, which probably plays into this somehow

‘Gallifrey was so strong then, so single minded’ → used to be less infighting it seems (that or darkel doing a ‘back in the good old days’ thing here)

Referring to gallifrey with ‘her’ → anthropomorphization of the planet, gallifrey is not just a place that the time lords live, but an entity in of itself

‘In even the oldest and most crumbling parts of the capitol’ → interesting how they refer to it as sacred in earlier parts of this episode, but still there are parts of it that are neglected and allowed to become run down

‘We must foster lions, not sheep’ → so they know what those animals are then

‘Expansionist drivel’ → in response to darkel talking about gallifrey becoming a universal power, i wonder what the different political groups on gallifrey are among the general public, like what does your average gallifreyan or time lord think about time lord politics

‘Clean in the chest, pierced both hearts’ → this may just be a case of there were no sound effects (or that i missed them) to indicate that she stabbed this guy twice, but i was under the impression that she only stabbed that guy once so how was she able to get both his hearts

The other time lords (not on romana’s side) refering to leela as ‘it’ → interesting look at the lack of respect or even personhood she’s given by some, since we rarely get to see the full extent because they’re usually in formal settings and/or around romana so i would think more people would be hesitant to show their true feelings about her, but now they they’re against her openly it doesn’t matter is they show that they don’t see her as a person

Anomaly vault is underground

Vault usually accessed by droid, but people can go in it

‘It’s programmed to adapt, to accommodate fresh content

Seems to be accessed through transmitting inside rather than a door

‘Sector 3301’ → gallifrey divided into sectors i guess, wonder how they have that worked out, it think it’s be cool to see a labled map or something

Also i wonder if the medical station in the outlands was established because of the war, or was there before that (i also just wonder in general what life in the outlands is like, who lives there, how dense is the population out there, what access to resources do they have, stuff like that)

‘Is there any other settlement in that area’ → implies that there are other settlements in the outlands

Chancellery guard uniform ceremonial → this is probably in other parts of my notes, but redundancy can be useful

‘Dangerous things, isolated from the timelines to preserve the structure of the universe. I know of robots that built themselves, a whole clutch of objects propelled through time by zigma energy, and wynter’s tardis of course’ → things that are in the anomaly vault

There’s also a moon in there

Anomaly vault seems to be bigger on the inside

The vault also seems to have systems that are able to function pretty independently and maintain/make choices about where things are to be stored (something something sentient time lord technology

‘It’s controlled through telepathic circuits

I can’t tell if it’s just the way the actor says the name, or if elbon does have a last name, we do encounter a few time lords that have a first and last name instead of one big long one later in the series, but i think he might be the first one (i wonder if that’s a trend among particular houses or chapters, or if it’s just sort of a random thing, my guess would be certain houses do it)

‘Coordinator narvin of your high council’ → okay, so in previous episodes it seems that the high council has just been made up of the president and a handful of cardinals, but then there’s stuff like this, and we also hear about a supreme council, though usually only in reference to the president's title, so is it a case of like councils within councils or something

‘A member of the high council should be good for a spot of sponsorship’ → the implication here being that narvin would be able to pay for some of elbon’s costs of running a medical station, which makes me wonder how well his job pays

They keep making references to the gallifreyan economy, but never enough to really get all that many details out of it and i really want to know how their economy functions

I guess i should put here that doctor is a job you can have on gallifrey, since they’re currently at a medical station talking to a doctor (elbon) (well he also calls himself a medic, wonder if that’s anything of a meaningful distinction, or if they can be used interchangeably here)

I wonder just how different it would be to treat a human rather than a time lord, we know that they have some obvious differences, but they are still both humanoid species

Cia coordinator has access to every restricted file in the capitol and all technology

If narvin’s access codes here are related to his eye scan, how is he able to just give that to elbon

Dermamites → regenerate skin

Medigel → counteracts infection

Artron energy blast is harmful to other species, but can be absorbed by time lords with ‘no ill effects’

There are definitely things to be said here, but at the moment all i’ve got is what the fuck is up with aesino, did they create her or find her somewhere, and why is she hooked up to wynter’s tardis

Narvin describes her as a tool

Apparently she is a specially engineered assassin

Ocular probe → camera used for vidscasts

‘An underground tunnel, it’s why i set up here’ → so that was there before elbon set up his medical station, which begs the question why there was an underground tunnel there in the first place (mining? transport? a secret third thing?)

Sentience in the vault that help contain the anomalies

Romana has become anomalous because pandora stole her first body, but i wonder does that also make pandora a paradox now

‘It doesn’t think at all’ → despite it being referred to at the sentience, would it not have to think for that (something something time lords filling their planet with living technology then refusing to acknowledge that it is actually alive)

Unprotected exposure to the time vortex will pull a person apart

Academy has a security wing

[seriousfic]

My Spider-Verse: Across The Spider-Mans hot take is... we're really supposed to care about one particular police captain that any given Spider-Man personally likes? When there's a nigh-infinite amount of dying people that a multiversal do-gooding organization could be helping?

Like, if even one universe has discovered a cure for cancer, why aren't they exporting that to every other universe? Or cold fusion technology? What if there's a universe that's controlled by the Nazis or Al Qaeda? Shouldn't this army of Spider-Men be overthrowing them?

Usually there's some sort of noninterference policy to explain why these multiversal organizations don't do that, which I don't have a problem with, because otherwise every fictional world would just turn into the Star Trek utopia future and that's only so much fun to read about. So I get it. Same reason the Avengers can't use time travel to solve every problem and save literally every civilian in danger.

But if the theme of Spider-Verse is that such a noninterference policy, as championed by Miguel O'Hara, is actually evil...

Then, well... isn't it at least a little selfish for Miles to obsess over someone he personally cares about instead of the billions of cancer patients who he doesn't know, but that could really use a cure?

[gotyouanyway]

halfway through the apocalypse element now not really following the plot but taking a LOT of notes on this political era of gallifrey. the president fighting for romana but really wanting to refuse aliens asylum on grounds of noninterference. relationships with the other temporal powers. vansell's cia being almost comically evil

[saintmaudes]

The most sophisticated statement on monuments—though initially not the most influential—came from Europe’s leading multicultural empire. The Austrian state appointed Alois Riegl, a lawyer-philosopher-curator in Vienna, to draft legislation on historic preservation. In his theoretical preface from 1903, “The Modern Cult of Monuments,” Riegl suggested that the state, through monument care, could inspire the kind of social cohesion formerly supplied by the Church. The “religion” of monuments (Denkmalkult) went beyond Heimat, beyond ethnonationalism, to someplace transcendent.

Riegl assigned pluralistic meanings to monuments: the intentional “commemorative value” from the past, a subjective “historical value” legible to the educated, and an “age value” accessible to all. Of these, Riegl considered age value the most modern, visual, direct, and emotional. Because anything could get old, any landscape feature—including the vernacular, the unintentional, the organic—could become an index of time, thus gaining memorial value.

In modernity, a condition of newness, the worth of age was the aura of becoming and passing. From the contemplation of temporariness came wisdom and reverence—an ethical education. Riegl wrote in near-religious terms about the redeeming power of decay. The temporal was the spiritual. He looked forward to a future age of altruism when societies protected all timeful things, not just the rarest and oldest. He thought the age threshold for legal registration should be sixty years rather than a century or a millennium. Caring for a building corresponded to respecting a tree: letting it age slowly through noninterference. Riegl imagined a secular sacred landscape permanently graced by long-term cycles of impermanence

—Jared Farmer, Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees

[bereft-of-frogs]

since it is the last Sunday of Acolyte theorizing and I don't want to go get ready for the work week, here are my collected remaining questions / mysteries, thoughts, and whether I think they're likely to be solved in the finale, left up to interpretation, or saved for next season:

Is Qimir a Sith? Was he really once a Jedi? How old is he? How did he discover the cortosis mine? Who was the master who 'threw him away'? Likely Resolution: Saved for Season 2. I think most of the Sith stuff will be reserved for a season 2, if they get one. Allegedly his character was really only supposed to appear in season 2 but they moved some things up, so I'm comfortable saying most of the Sith stuff will end up being the 4-5 mysteries left on the table for future exploration.

How did Mae survive the fall? What has she been doing for 16 years, aside from training with Qimir? Likely Resolution: Solved in Finale. Confident this one will at least get a sentence or two explanation. Now that we've seen that Sol really does think Mae is dead, I can't imagine he won't ask how tf she survived.

What happened to Koril? What's she been up to? Likely Resolution: Solved in Finale, related to above. Honestly, I'm pretty convinced at this point that Koril survived, saved and raised Mae, until Mae decided to go make a deal with the Sith for additional training. Not sure we're going to get details but I'm pretty sure she'll at least show up.

Why did Mae think Osha was dead? Likely Resolution: Probably left to interpretation. But also I bet she was told Osha was dead either by Koril in the same way that Obi-Wan told Luke Anakin was dead in the OT (dead to them, beyond help), or to keep her focused on her training and her anti-Jedi mission.

How did Aniseya create the girls, and why was Koril so afraid of the Jedi finding out? Likely Resolution: Possibly left vague or for season 2, if it's Sith related. We know it definitely had something to do with the vergence, it was mostly Aniseya's doing, and Koril was very afraid of the Jedi finding out. My theories on this are either 1) it was a deal with the Sith. The Sith want to create life and they collaborate on an experiment with Aniseya. We know from other media and also confirmed by Indara/the Council's insistence on noninterference, that the Jedi don't actually care about other Force sects in the galaxy...with one big exception. Koril might be afraid they're about to uncover something that takes the vibe from 'live and let live' to a much more serious conflict. The Sith presumably would also be pretty pissed if the coven blew a thousand years of secrecy. And 2) the coven might be possessive of the vergence, if it's giving them power, and not want the Order to discover it so they could keep it for themselves. A bit weaker, but the coven might not realize the Jedi already suspect the vergence exists.

What IS the vergence? Likely Resolution: Maybe mentioned? Maybe not? I don't know I just really liked people speculating that the vergence is BOTH the Bunta tree and the spooky dark hole, would fit into the dyadic themes.

What are the origins of the Brendok coven and what did they do to get themselves exiled? Likely Resolution: Unresolved. There's the slightest chance they'd tie this explanation to what Aniseya did to create the girls but I bet they're not going to want to lock themselves into an explanation and will leave it up to interpretation. I'm not sure I even have theories, I could see it going a whole bunch of ways. People are going to come up with their own headcanons probably.

Why is Vernestra so afraid of a Senatorial audit? Likely Resolution: Left for season 2 / Hinted at. I think they might mention it a little bit, but I wouldn't be surprised if they leave it up in the air. Honestly, I sort of hope they do, personally I think it would be wise, because that would allow the books to wrap up and give us a better picture of Vernestra's position at the end of the Nihil crisis. I have my own book-related theories as to why she's so suspicious of the Senate (given where Temptation of the Force left off, I think the Senate is going to sell the Jedi out to work with Marchion Ro for the cure to the blight. This would also dig into her issues with Elzar, since he's the main liaison to the Senate and they've got a lot of unresolved issues. Feeling decent about it ending well though, he still hasn't given her Stellan's lightsaber and that feels like something that would happen at the resolution of their issues). I also would buy that she's starting to see into the future, maybe this is the new topic of her hyperspace visions, and is reluctant to let them be drawn in politically (all her 'something to turn the tide' stuff suggests she's sensing the growing darkness).

Did Indara know Mae was alive / how did Torbin know Mae was alive? Likely Resolution: Left up to interpretation. *Also technically includes 'Did Kelnacca know Mae was alive?' but we just have so little to go off of with that one, we do at least have Indara and Torbin's reactions to Mae. Up until the second flashback, I would have phrased this 'how did they both know Mae was alive' but I am no longer convinced that Indara did. It's possible Indara had no idea until she saw the mark on Mae's forehead and was just doing some very quick panic processing, which could have contributed to turning the tide of the fight. She's no longer focused, Mae can use the dirty trick with the bartender to catch her out. Obviously Torbin knew before Mae actually showed up (he calls her by the correct name, confirmed via CCs ), but they don't specify how long he's known. His 'I've been waiting for you, Mae' could mean he's known from the start and been waiting for 16 years. It could mean the 10 of the Barash Vow, maybe something happens and he finds out which contributes to his decision to take the Vow. But I've always had on my theory list that he'd seen Indara's death in the Force and that's how he knew Mae was alive and probably coming for him next. I think they'll probably leave this one up to us, considering the 3 murdered Jedi's narratives aren't really front and center, I think that ambiguity was just to add to the mystery around the flashback.

How did Torbin make master so quickly? Likely resolution: this is barely a question. This just keeps coming up on Reddit, especially from people who are still convinced 'to become a master you have to graduate an apprentice to knighthood' is hard canon. (Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't even remember where that comes from, but I'm fairly certain you don't need to have had an apprentice to be elevated to master. Or else Anakin's anger at not being elevated in RotS doesn't really make sense, if he knows he hasn't fulfilled an essential requirement, and Elzar's elevation is a big plot point in the books and he doesn't ever mention an apprentice, nor does Avar.) My personal headcanon is 'overcompensation and burnout.' Becomes an overachiever to try to make up for what happens. Given that they lied, the Order sees nothing but a model Jedi, and keeps rewarding that behavior while he tries to hide the cracks, until it all catches up to him. Alternatively, he's not 'really' a master, and it's just parlance, or there's some sort of ceremonial elevation for special circumstances like the Barash Vow. Nonissue, it's just come up a couple times.

Why did Osha leave the Order? + Why did Indara advocate for her to leave? Likely resolution: might be mentioned, might be left on the 'because I failed' line. I made a longer post about this one, but there are a few possibilities. I don't think they're going to explain it, just allow the audience to believe it was about not being able to let go of her anger at Mae, but if it ends up being my weird 'push-pull, when one twin gains power the other loses it' theory, they might address it.

WHAT AM I MISSING? Any final questions left on the table? Send them to me! I have had so much fun theorizing, I only wish this was longer. I keep joking that in a better timeline there's a 12 episode version of this show but it is not actually that much of a joke lol, it would have really been something if it had been allowed to develop the characters a little deeper and let some things breathe over a longer season.

My final prediction still stands: Sol is going down for training Mae, the deaths of the team of Khofar, and at this point probably the Brendok coven as well, since it's going to look like he took out Indara, Torbin, and Kelnacca to keep them quiet. And sorry, I highly doubt he's going to live out the finale. I think he's going to have a final confrontation with the twins, and Osha is going to kill him in an emotionally charged moment. If he was alive to provide testimony, that's problematic for the Sith, but dead he makes an extremely convenient scapegoat. Bazil has also seen a LOT of things out of context on board the ship leaving Khofar, I think his testimony could be damning. Sol's done a bunch of suspicious things, like when he didn't include himself on the list of targets during the meeting, failing to apprehend Mae, (seemingly to Vernestra) lying about Mae's death, Kelnacca didn't seem to put up a fight suggesting he may have known his attacker, turned off his transponder and disobeyed an order to remain, etc etc.

This is the solution to the riddle 'how to kill a Jedi without a weapon', destroying their legacy. Or, the riddle could have multiple solutions, it could also refer to Osha going full Sith. My only issue with the 'Sol is framed' theory is that there seems from leaks to be a formal funeral, which wouldn't necessarily happen if they thought Sol was a rogue Jedi or Sith. But possibly the Order will keep up Sol's good name for outsiders, and this is just what convinces the Council that there still aren't any real Sith out there. Funeral could also possibly be a collective one for everyone else who died.

I think Qimir and Osha are for sure going to live, I'm slightly on the fence about Mae but I'm leaning toward 'also survive'. I am 100% (ok I'll keep it at 90%) sure Koril is alive and shows up at some point. Leaks say there are a couple significant cameos, I'm guessing Sith pulled from Legends books or long-lived High Council members.

Will add on if anything comes to me in the next couple days but it's been nice theorizing with you all! I don't know what I'm going to do after this, wait for Tears of the Nameless to come out. Or, I guess, think about something else? Crazy.

[t0ast-ghost]

I couldn’t Adam and Eve it’s S2 Episode 5 (The Apple).

Carry on:

- Bones beams down and immediately goes over to Spock and Jim

- Evil fucking plants.. this is the second time there’s been evil fucking plants

- The name Hendorff sounds familiar (edit: it’s cause the AOS movies)

- Poor Scotty… he just wants to take a walk

- SPOCK SAVING KIRK

- Ohhh that’s interesting that McCoy’s “potions” (hypos) affect Spock and make his stomach hurt

- Jim is so worried “Do you know how much Starfleet has invested in you?” “122200-” “never mind.”

- “Not a cloud in the sky.” Yeah but the sky is red

- and three… three red shirts dead

- McCoy trying to comfort Kirk then Spock comforting him is soooo

- OMG KYLE

- Vaal is supposed to be a representation of God isn’t he- okay never mind that’s a giant lizard head made out of stone

- Spock got Boinnnged

- “Oh, love. The touching. Vaal has forbidden it.” “Well, there goes paradise.” McCoy. Sir.

- WHYRE THEY LAUGHING AT SPOCK?!? I too fail to see what they find so amusing

- “Perhaps it is paradise after all.” Jim they’re gonna start sacrificing people, you jinxed it

- ANOTHER MACHINE?!?

- McCoy joins Spock and Kirk hiding in the bushes just to get into a fight with Spock

- I love Spock and McCoy’s philosophical arguments (flirting)

- Why’re they making Spock explain sex.

- Pavel Chekov staying in paradise means no kissing

- “The Noninterference Directive.” Picard would have said the prime directive

- Kirk just fucking throwing Spock over his shoulder

- That ending was disturbing. I didn’t like their laughter. Guess I just hate joy now.

- *Kirk walking the halls of the enterprise* *Sounds of Spock and McCoy arguing can be heard*

- WHY DO THEY CIRCLE HIM LIKE THAT

Okie dokie, bye now!

Masterpost

Episode written by Max Ehrlich

[awindandtruthliveblog]

[Wind and Truth: Interlude 4]

It seems Taravangian is no longer getting smart/dumb days. He is divided always.

Ooh, maybe Cultivation is also on Nohadon's side of freedom of movement. 16 (or, the remaining) planets with gods, living in harmony. Hopefully not Discord.

Missing shards? Valor, we don't have much on, but the other one... Whimsy? For whimsical purposes?

Oh maybe he'll do the smart/compassionate thing on purpose? Or at random? Could end up being essentially a noninterference, if he's just doing whatever.

And we're not even seeing Shallan and crew next part!