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Here is the second review of the book of Bruce Lincoln Religion, empire, and torture: the case of Achaemenian Persia, with a postscript on Abu Ghraib, this time a very critical one by a “New Achaemenid Historian”. The text is a long one, but it deserves to be read, although I have to say that I have some major objections to it. I have not reproduced its notes, except one which refers to Herodotus’ complex attitudes toward the Persians. But I give of course the link on which this review can be found in its entirety. I will present some thoughts of mine on this debate in a separate post.

“ORIENTALISM, POSTCOLONIALISM, AND THE ACHAEMENID EMPIRE: MEDITATIONS ON BRUCE LINCOLN’S RELIGION, EMPIRE, AND TORTURE 1

HENRY P. COLBURN

Benedetto Croce’s dictum that all history is contemporary history is nowhere better exemplified than in Bruce Lincoln’s 2007 book, Religion, empire, and torture: the case of Achaemenian Persia, with a postscript on Abu Ghraib. This book, despite its foregrounding of an ancient empire, is by Lincoln’s own admission the product of his “anguish and outrage concerning the American imperial adventure in Iraq’.2 But rather than criticizing American actions directly, he does so through an extended case study of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Though Lincoln’s main thesis merits much consideration, this case study is the focus of the present paper, because of the severe methodological flaws that inform it, and their potentially insidious consequences. Indeed, their insidiousness is made all the more worrisome because of the book’s largely uncritical reception. The ten Anglophone reviews known to me appear in a wide range of scholarly journals, many serving academic specialties far outside of classics, ancient history, and Near Eastern studies, and only two of them even recognize some of the methodological issues.3 Even more troubling, this book was the recipient of the 2007 Frank Moore Cross Award given by the American Schools of Oriental Research.4 This organization’s endorsement of such a misinformed and biased study demonstrates that despite the efforts of scholars in the field of Achaemenid studies, outdated and inappropriate ideas about the empire still persist among well informed and well meaning scholars of antiquity. This paper, then, is a series of meditations on Religion, empire, and torture, intended to elucidate ancient and modern perceptions of the empire, beginning with the methodological flaws that underlie Lincoln’s account, but also including the roles played by orientalism and postcolonialism in Achaemenid historiography. The purposes of this exercise are not only to show what is problematic about Lincoln’s book, but to identify the underlying causes of its problems, and to understand how such problems can be prevented in the future.

Religion and torture

The bulk of Lincoln’s book is dedicated to a structuralist reading of Achaemenid royal inscriptions.5 In itself this approach is interesting for its novelty, but it is based on the implicit and unproven assumption that the Achaemenids were Zoroastrians. Lincoln claims in the book’s preface that ‘it is relatively inconsequential whether we regard the imperial religion as Zoroastrian in a strict and narrow sense ... or more broadly as Mazdaean’, but this claim belies a heavy reliance on later, specifically Zoroastrian religious texts.6 He uses these texts as parallels to his interpretations of Achaemenid ideology, many of which would otherwise have nothing else to recommend them. For example, he bookends his fifth chapter (‘Microcosms, Wonders, Paradise’) with references to the Zoroastrian creation myths and Pahlavi texts as a means of interpreting, among other things, Achaemenid paradeisoi. He concludes that ‘the paradises that the Achaemenians built on earth were meant to offer a foretaste of the delights awaiting the righteous after death and at history’s end’.7 This function is nowhere attested in any contemporary source, and is derived solely from comparisons with much later Zoroastrian material. It also ignores the extensive scholarship on the various secular functions of paradeisoi.8 Thus, despite his claim to be uncommitted on the point, Lincoln’s argument relies to a significant degree on the Achaemenids being Zoroastrian after all, specifically in a manner consistent with much later Zoroastrianism; otherwise his frequent quotation of these texts serves no meaningful purpose. This view, however, is not universally accepted by scholars of the Achaemenid Empire, and requires supporting on Lincoln’s part.

The question as to whether or not the Achaemenids were Zoroastrians is a vexed one.9 The only direct link between the Achaemenids and Zoroastrianism is the name of the god Auramazda, who is featured in the Achaemenid royal inscriptions. The name is related linguistically to the name of Ahura Mazda, the foremost Zoroastrian god, where it means ‘Wise Lord’. In the past this has been sufficient for many scholars to assume that the Achaemenids were Zoroastrian in a manner familiar to later practice and belief, but this notion is no longer widely accepted on account of the frailties of this link. No Zoroastriantext dates earlier than the Sasanian period (i.e. third to seventh centuries CE), when the Avesta was written, and some of the texts to which Lincoln refers were written even later, in the ninth century. Moreover, the language of the Avesta (Avestan) is an eastern Iranian dialect, meaning that the content of the Avesta is also spatially removed from the Achaemenid homeland in Fars in southwestern Iran. The date of the original composition of these texts varies considerably, and is contingent to some degree on the dates of the lifetime of Zarathustra himself, about which there is also little scholarly consensus. Thus, the use of Zoroastrian texts as evidence for, or illustrations of, Achaemenid religious belief requires continuity from the fifth and fourth centuries BCE down to the third century CE at the earliest. As has been noted, this continuity has been accepted easily by some scholars, most notably Mary Boyce, who has placed particular emphasis on the unbroken continuity of Zoroastrian tradition from the time of Zoroaster to the present, but as a scholarly premise it is difficult to accept uncritically10.

This difficulty is compounded by the significant quantity of evidence for Achaemenid religion that is decidedly not Zoroastrian in nature. Foremost among this are the references in the Persepolis Fortification Archive to the provisioning of cults of a wide variety of deities, including Elamite and other Iranian gods, as well as the Mesopotamian god Adad. In a recent study of these texts, Wouter Henkelman has argued convincingly that this pantheon accurately reflects the religion of the Achaemenid Persians.11 Moreover, the provisions allocated to the cult of the Elamite god Humban are significantly greater than those for that of Auramazda. In light of this evidence it is quite difficult to regard Achaemenid religion as monotheistic, let alone exclusively Zoroastrian. Likewise, without recourse to later Zoroastrian texts the Achaemenid imperial inscriptions do not actually reflect any identifiable tenet of Zoroastrianism.12 Indeed, the only contemporary references to Zarathustra himself are Greek ones.13 The end result is that there are more questions than answers about Achaemenid religion, and these uncertainties are reflected in much of the recent scholarship on religion in the empire.14 Lincoln cannot unequivocally link Achaemenid religious ideology with Zoroastrian practice and belief without assuming centuries of unchanged continuity between them, and this assumption can no longer be made without some justification.

Lincoln’s evidence for torture on the part of the Achaemenids is more problematic.The crux of his sixth chapter, with the melodramatic title ‘the Dark Side of Paradise’, is a pair of passages from Plutarch’s Life of Artaxerxes describing the gruesome deaths of a Persian soldier named Mithradates and an unnamed Carian, both for claiming the credit for killing the would-be usurper Cyrus.15 These passages are derived from the Persica written by Ctesias of Cnidus, a Greek doctor who spent time at the courts of Darius II and Artaxerxes II in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BCE.16 His Persica is now lost, but it is preserved in an epitome by Photius and by references to it in other authors, primarily Nicolaus of Damascus, Diodorus Siculus, and Plutarch.17 In addition to these two incidents, Ctesias also describes the death of the eunuch Masabates, whom Queen Parysatis ordered to be flayed alive for mutilating the corpse of her son Cyrus, and he alludes to the torture and gruesome deaths of several other individuals at the hands of Achaemenid royalty.18 These references to torture form the lynchpin of two important aspects of Lincoln’s argument, namely the use of especially elaborate and grisly forms of torture as public spectacles in the Achaemenid Empire, and the failings of the empire in the fourth century BCE that necessitated their use. But, as will be shown below, in his discussion of Achaemenid torture Lincoln has not interrogated his sources sufficiently, with the result that he draws his conclusions on the basis of a distorted, outmoded, and prejudiced view of the empire.

Outside of Ctesias the only evidence for any torture of this kind is provided by the Bisitun Inscription, Herodotus, and Valerius Maximus.19 Valerius may be dismissed altogether, as his work dates to the first century CE, and is quite confused about Achaemenid history. Herodotus does refer to instances of gruesome executions or other corporal punishments meted out by Achaemenid kings, but they are much less cruel and unusual than those referred to by Ctesias. They are also, as Robert Rollinger has noted, attested in other Near Eastern textual sources, albeit ones from the second and earlier first millennium BCE, whereas most of those mentioned by Ctesias do not appear in any other source.20 In fact torture is not attested in Near Eastern legal texts until the later Hellenistic period, when the use of a ‘rack of interrogation’ appears.21 The mutilation of Smerdis on the orders of Cambyses, specifically the removal of his ears, was probably a Greek invention, and it has been argued that the mutilation of Masistes’ wife on the orders of Amestris actually predates the historical personages involved and originated in earlier oral tradition, the nuances of which were unclear to Herodotus by the time he encountered the story.22 Certainly there are literary features to this story that need to be given their due weight before it can be read as a straightforward historical account. Finally, in Darius’ monumental trilingual inscription at Bisitun there are references to the mutilation and execution of only two of the nine rebel leaders, and it is worth noting that these are cases of high treason, which in most societies carry a penalty of the utmost severity.23 The Assyrians, for example, treated rebels in a similar manner, and in mediaeval and early modern England traitors were typically hanged, drawn, and quartered, or executed publicly in some other grisly manner.24 This does not pardon such actions on the part of Darius by any means, but it does indicate that his treatment of the rebel leaders was not exceptionally extreme by contemporary standards.

Thus Lincoln relies almost entirely on Ctesias for the elaborate and outlandish tortures that figure in his argument. This is troubling because Ctesias is not a straightforward historical source by any means. In antiquity he enjoyed a poor reputation as a historian; Plutarch, for example, accused him of being a self-aggrandizing liar.25 Many modern historians have shared this view. Felix Jacoby regarded his work as Skandalgeschichte and Arnaldo Momigliano (snidely) remarked ‘There is excitement in reading Ctesias. One never knows when he will tell the truth for a change’.26 Recent attempts to revive his reputation have emphasized the literary rather than historical merits of Ctesias’ work, suggesting it was meant to be novelistic rather than historical.27 The reason for this opprobrium is his lurid, trivial, and often fantastical subject matter and, insome cases, unfavourable comparisons with Herodotus. Certainly there are some real howlers in the Persica, such as his statement that the battle of Plataea preceded the one at Salamis, but there are also instances in which his information is accurate even in its details, such as in his description of the struggle for the throne between Sogdianus and Darius II, in which many of the actors named by Ctesias are also attested in contemporary Babylonian documents.28 The luridness of his subject matter may have as much to do with the nature of royal courts, or more precisely with the sorts of stories told about royal courts. In a study of the early Principate Jeremy Paterson notes ‘there is no single correct account of the court: there are many narratives from many points of view, all of which have validity’.29 To wit, in the absence of an authoritative version various stories of this sort are invariably told about any royal court. Furthermore, nearly all of the material from Ctesias is preserved only in the extracts chosen by his epitomizers, especially Plutarch and Photius, whose interests affected their choices and thus the overall impression of the nature and content of Ctesias’ work.30 At any rate, regardless of the ancient or modern opinions of Ctesias’ merits as a historian, it is clear that his work cannot be read literally as a straightforward historical account that faithfully and accurately reproduces the events, including instances of torture, and personalities of the Achaemenid court in the early fourth century.

There is a further potential source of distortion in Ctesias’ account of the Achaemenid court which needs to be identified. Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, in an important deconstruction of Ctesias’ text, makes an interesting observation: his Persica contains one of the earliest conceptualizations of a stereotyped and essentialized Orient, in particular an effeminate Orient, constructed in specific contrast to the Greek world.31 The acts of savagery carried out by various Achaemenid royal women demonstrate the baseness of the Persians, and the fact that women rather than men are taking actions such as these indicate that gender roles, as seen in the Greek perspective, are reversed in the Achaemenid court. It is not the first such conceptualization, and it fits a pattern of Greek (particularly Athenian) self-definition versus a barbarian ‘other’, which gained significant currency after the Persian Wars and is especially vivid in Aeschylus’ Persians.32 As such it tells us more about the Greeks and Ctesias than it does about the Persians. Ctesias’ work exhibits two tropes that are particularly characteristic of this proto-orientalism, namely a focus on the inherent savagery of the Persians (as exemplified by the incidents of torture he reports) and a view that after the time of Darius I, the empire entered a state of irreversible decline brought on by decadence.33 Even if his work was informed by firsthand experience, Ctesias still belonged to a Greek intellectual milieu (the Persica was composed after his return to Cnidus), and this milieu also informed how he viewed the Persians and what he wrote about them for a Greek audience.34 Moreover, as Edward Said pointed out, many of the modern orientalist authors based their written work on periods of residency in the East, but this residency did not necessarily alter or mitigate their authorial biases, and in many cases may have contributed to them.35 And even if Ctesias’ portrayal of the decadence of the court of Artaxerxes II was informed by the negative propaganda of his brother, as has been suggested, Ctesias’ willingness to believe it says as much about his own perceptions of the Persians as it does about the actual conditions at Persepolis or Susa.36

Both of these proto-orientalist tropes play important roles in Lincoln’s argument: the role of savagery is already clear in his discussion of torture, but decline is important too, since, as he states in his denouement, in later periods the empire found it ‘increasinglydifficult to contain the contradiction between its discourse and its practice’.37 In other words, the empire’s decline is tantamount to the pursuit of paradise being stalled indefinitely, and according to Lincoln this leads to acts of enormous barbarity, such as the treatment of Mithradates. But not only is this equation not necessarily accurate (there is, as Kozuh observes in his review, always some contradiction between an empire’s discourse and its practice),38 it is based on a literary trope informed by ancient Greek cultural bias rather than on historical evidence. In fact, the trope of a great founding ruler whose legacy is progressively ruined by his lesser successors is a somewhat common one in the ancient world, as exemplified by the kingdom of Israel under David, Solomon, and Rehoboam respectively, and by the Julio-Claudians and the Flavians in Rome. As such its appearance in Ctesias’ Persica is yet one more reason why this author needs to be treated with caution as a historical source.

It is important to emphasize here that none of this discussion should be taken to suggest that torture was unheard of or even uncommon in the Achaemenid Empire. Even if the references to torture in Ctesias are uncertain, violence of various sorts surely must have occurred. But this is equally true of all empires, especially in antiquity. One need not look far to find instances of savagery in the Roman Empire, many of which were even sanctioned by Roman law.39 That is not at issue here. Rather, the issue is whether or not the Achaemenid Empire was characterized by an extraordinary level of savagery and gruesomeness in its punishments. This characterization is necessary to Lincoln’s argument, but it relies on the historicity of Ctesias’ account of incidents of torture, and given the difficulties surrounding the interpretation of Ctesias’ work outlined above, this historicity cannot be compellingly established. It is certainly appropriate to be sceptical about the human capacity for cruelty, but there is also good reason to be sceptical about Greek representations of the Persians

Lincoln’s discussion of the Achaemenid Empire relies on the assumptions that the Achaemenids were Zoroastrian and that Ctesias’ accounts of Achaemenid torture can be understood in a straightforward and literal manner. Neither of these are assumptions that scholars of the Achaemenid Empire can make unequivocally, nor do they. The consequence of their use is that Lincoln depicts the Achaemenid Empire as immutable and savage, with its noble beginnings quickly subverted by decadence and decline. This impression is at best outmoded, and at worst insidious, because these two assumptions resurrect orientalist stereotypes that scholars of the empire have long worked to overcome. Indeed, immutability and barbarity are two of the characteristics of orientalism identified by Edward Said in his famous critique, and Lincoln’s use of them, however unwitting, implicates him in an orientalist agenda.

Orientalism

The study of the role of orientalism in ancient history and historiography may be something of a tired subject for many students of antiquity, but Lincoln’s book demonstrates clearly its continuing relevance for contemporary scholarship, especially scholarship on the Achaemenid Empire. In Said’s own words, orientalism is ‘the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient – dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient’.40 This is not the place to reexamine this multifaceted and highly controversial concept in any detail, but its salient characteristics are straightforward enough. Put simply, orientalism accentuates the differences between East and West while emphasizing the civilized, dynamic nature of the West in contrast to the savage, decadent, and static nature of the East. Said argued that this contrast is socially constructed rather than inherent, andt hat its purpose has been to naturalize, justify, and explain the West’s domination of the East. It informs a broad range of Western thought about the East, including academic study and artistic representation, and the ethnic stereotypes and prejudices generated by it find their way, often unintentionally, into a wide variety of media and venues. Criticism of Said’s thesis has been vehement and varied. In addition to cataloguing his historical errors this criticism contends that Said made undiscriminating use of literary evidence, that he was unable to demonstrate a chronological link between European imperialism and orientalism, that he essentialized the West in the same manner as, he argued, that the West had essentialized the Orient, and that his personal agenda clouded his objectivity.41 But none of this criticism actually counters Said’s thesis in any meaningful way, and though many of his critics have cited various counterexamples, they represent exceptions rathert han disproof. Likewise, claims that orientalism has been ‘overcome’ are equally invalid,even if orientalist stereotyping in its broadest form is now generally frowned upon.42 For example, Jack Goody has recently broached a similar topic in a study of what he perceives as the systematic attribution of historically significant innovations to periods of European history exclusively.43 The result, he argues, is a teleological approach to history whereby Europe’s ascendancy is depicted as the result of a natural and inevitable progression.Though he does not refer to this as orientalism per se its effect is largely the same.

Said associated orientalism with the advent of European overseas colonization, but he also noted that it had antecedents in classical antiquity.44 Most notable is Aeschylus’ Persians, first produced in 472 BCE, not long after the Persian Wars. Taking her lead from Said, Edith Hall has demonstrated that Aeschylus’ portrayal of the Persians is one ofthe first examples of a sort of proto-orientalism.45 Aeschylus depicts the Persians as slavish, decadent, and emotional in stark contrast to the free and rational Greeks. Hall argues that this depiction is the construction of an ‘other’ that serves Greek self-identification rather than accurately reflecting the lived reality of the Persians themselves. Because the Persians is tragedy rather than history this stereotyping may not raise many eyebrows, but it was not written in a vacuum and presumably had some resonance with its audience.46 Indeed, given that Athenian playwrights competed for awards it is not unreasonable to expect that the content of these plays was at least partly congruent with prevailing popular opinion. Moreover, in subsequent years historians such as Ctesias exhibited these same proto-orientalist tendencies in describing the Persians. The epilogue to Xenophon’s Cyropaedia is a good example of this.47 In this section the author (whomay or may not be Xenophon himself) describes how far the Persians have declined as a people and an empire since the heyday of Cyrus the Great. Likewise, the Hippocratic treatise On Airs, Waters, and Places includes a discussion of the reasons for the ‘mental flabbiness’ and ‘cowardice’ of the Asiatic; they are attributed partly to climate and partly to the despotic form of their government.48 Aristotle expresses a similar sentiment in his Politics.49 More recently Rachel Kousser has argued that the Periclean reconstruction of the Athenian Acropolis drew heavily on the stereotype of oriental savagery in its decorative programme.50 Contemporary prejudices such as these were then incorporated into the works of later writers like Plutarch, and thus permeate the Greek sources for the Achaemenid Empire.51 [Note 51: Herodotus’ view of the Persians is considerably more complex than this. At times he seems to reflect this sort of prejudice, and at others he expresses clear admiration for the Persians. This is not the proper venue to considerthe matter in detail; for a recent, succinct overview see E. S. Gruen, ‘Herodotus and Persia’, in E. S. Gruen (ed.),Cultural identity in the ancient Mediterranean (Los Angeles 2011) 67-85]

The proto-orientalist prejudices of the Greeks have informed modern scholarship on the Achaemenids because until recently Greek sources were the primary evidence used for the study of the empire. Although Near Eastern sources such as the Bisitun Inscription and the Persepolis Archives have provided some counterweight to the Greek sources they provide evidence of a very different kind, and in the case of the latter they have only become available for study recently. Thus, throughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries Achaemenid history was written from a Hellenocentric viewpoint.52 Scholars from Grote and Rawlinson onwards made use of these Greek sources without recognizing the prejudices inherent in them, and as a result these prejudices became part of modern historical narratives of the empire.53 It is important to note here that the orientalism of these modern scholars was not caused by ancient prejudices; one of the key points of Said’s argument is that the conceptions of East and West are contemporary social constructions rather than timeless categories. Rather, because these scholars were operating within the milieu of modern orientalism, they found the ancient prejudice to be in line with their own ideas about the differences between East and West. As Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg put it, ‘it is rather a case where two tendencies, the undefined but implicit “Orientalism” of the fourth century Greek literature and the prevalent mental attitudes of Europe-centrism in the 19th century mutually reinforce each other’.54 Though Said’s critique was originally aimed at scholars of the mediaeval and modern Middle East, it has had clear applicability to those studying the Achaemenid Empire as well. Lincoln’s book is a case in point: he recognizes explicitly the bias inherent in many of the Greek sources, yet he ends up reproducing that same bias himself.55

It is worth noting here that the role played by classics in the formation, validation, and maintenance of European colonialism, especially in the nineteenth century, has also affected significantly modern scholarly views of Achaemenid imperialism. Just as orientalism served to naturalize Western domination of the East, classics privileged the study of Greece and Rome, both of which engaged in colonization and imperialism of various sorts, making them exemplars for contemporary states and empires.56 European (and American) colonizers saw themselves as the successors to the Greeks and Romans, not only culturally and linguistically, but also politically. But, because of the ancient and modern prejudices articulated above, the Achaemenid Empire was rarely viewed as exemplary in this manner. It was sometimes viewed as a great empire in comparison with a decadent and corrupt modern Iranian shahdom, and, although the figure of Cyrus the Great was much admired at various points in time, this admiration was due as much to the reception of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia in Renaissance Italy and later periods as it was to any aspect of the historical figure.57 This preference for Greco-Roman imperialism resulted in the creation of a double standard that persists even in some modern scholarship, according to which this classical imperialism can be a sign of achievement, whereas Achaemenid imperialism is necessarily oppressive and loathsome. For example, Lincoln and other scholars have no compunctions about describing Achaemenid torture in gruesome detail, despite the unreliable nature of the evidence for it.58 At the same time the most egregious act of Athenian imperialism, the slaughter to a man of the Melians in 416/15 BCE, has elicited bewilderment and confusion on the part of many classicists, and in at least one (somewhat disturbing) case even an apology for Athenian behaviour.59 Nor is this double standard exclusive to the field of classical studies. Egyptologists have long regarded Egyptian imperial expansion in the New Kingdom with interest and favour; at the same time their attitudes towards the period of Achaemenid rule in Egypt range from hostile to dismissive. Studies of this period tend to take the somewhat contradictory view that on the one hand this rule was oppressive and harsh, and that all Egyptians with few exceptions (who are labelled ‘collaborators’, a distinctly pejorative and largely anachronistic term) were ready to revolt at a moment’s notice, and, on the other, that the Egyptians were largely unaffected by it.60 These views are not completely mutually exclusive, but they do require some effort to reconcile, and the evidence for each is generally scant and circular. Moreover, it has been pointed out that Egyptologists typically only date material remains to the Achaemenid period if compelled to do so by epigraphic evidence.61 This tendency in turn furthers notions about the oppressive yet ephemeral nature of Achaemenid imperialism in Egypt. This Egypto-centrism is informed by the same factors that create similar distortions in the work of classicists.

The end result of this historical political baggage is that orientalist stereotypes continue to underlie many studies of the Achaemenid Empire, of which Lincoln’s is a prime example.The persistence of these stereotypes demonstrates the continuing relevance and importance of orientalism as an interpretive framework for Achaemenid historiography. As has been noted above, orientalism cannot be overcome; it can only be recognized in such a way that its impact on the study of the empire can be understood and mitigated as well as possible. But given that such biases exist in both ancient and modern scholarship on the empire (despite recent apologies for both) they will never actually disappear.62 The paradox of Lincoln’s book is that his objective is clearly anti-imperial and postcolonial in nature, yet in making his point, which is to condemn modern American imperialism, he ends up reifying the orientalist stereotypes that inform such imperialism. He makes the Achaemenids out to be oriental savages whose religious ideology contributed to their savagery. In essence he puts orientalism in the service of postcolonialism. This paradox suggests that it was not at all Lincoln’s goal to bolster and reiterate these stereotypes, but he has nevertheless done so, and in doing so has undermined the thesis of his book (since his depiction of the Persians is unsettlingly analogous to certain representations of the targets of American military activity).63 He has also undermined some thirty years of scholarship on the Achaemenid Empire by scholars who have worked assiduously to counter these stereotypes.

Postcolonialism

The tension between orientalist stereotyping and the postcolonial critique of imperialism that characterizes Lincoln’s book demonstrates a fundamental paradox in the study of the Achaemenid Empire. On the one hand the work of Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg and the other participants in the Achaemenid History Workshops in the 1980s to overcome orientalist prejudices in previous scholarship were (in most cases implicitly) postcolonial in nature.64 After all, Said’s critique of orientalism is one of the founding texts of academic postcolonialism.65 On the other hand, one of the recent intellectual currents in the study of Roman imperialism is the recognition that such imperialism was potentially traumatic and harmful to the subjects of the empire, an approach in keeping with postcolonial thought.66 Both of these positions are important for the study of the empire (and for all non-European empires). The question, then, is how we might study the Achaemenid Empire in a manner that rehabilitates it in the face of the biases of previous and current scholarship but at the same time recognizes the potentially harmful effects of imperialism. One answer to this question is that, since earlier modern scholarship on the empire emphasized its oppressive and despotic nature, such postcolonial concerns have already been addressed. To some degree this is the approach taken implicitly in Lincoln’s book.67 It is, however, inadequate, because it is based as much on bias as on any sort of evidence. As such it does both a disservice to the Achaemenids themselves, and to the subjects of the empire, since it misrepresents the experiences of both.

A second answer is to recognize that Achaemenid imperialism was experienced differently by everyone in the empire. David Mattingly refers to the ‘discrepant experiences’ of people living throughout the Roman Empire, arguing that ‘we need to break free from the tendency to see the colonial world as one of rulers and ruled (Romans and natives) and explore the full spectrum of discrepancy between these binary oppositions’.68 In the simplest terms this means that the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in any colonial situation do not necessarily divide evenly along ethnic, national, or racial lines. Sometimes there were tangible benefits to being part of an empire, such as the economic growth in Roman North Africa, and sometimes the experience of the colonisers was not a positive one, ranging from the disastrous, such as at Isandlwana or in the Teutoberg Forest, to the pathetic, as encapsulated by George Orwell’s experience as a police officer in Burma and recounted in his classic essay ‘Shooting an elephant’.69 This distinction between winners and losers was not a fixed one. These statuses were no doubt changeable according to circumstances, and were at times anyway constructed actively to achieve specific goals.

This approach can be illustrated by some examples from Egypt during the period of Achaemenid rule there (c. 525-404 BCE, Manetho’s 27th Dynasty). Perhaps the most famous example of an Egyptian winner is Udjahorresnet, known from his naophorous statue in the Vatican and his shaft tomb at Abusir. In the autobiographical inscription on his statue he lists his various positions under the Saite pharaohs, namely naval commander of some kind, and under the successive Achaemenid rulers, primarily chief physician.70 He also claims to have composed the royal titulary for Cambyses, to have been resident at the court of Darius for a time, and to have received gold ornaments as marks of royal favour (and there are bracelets of Achaemenid type on the statue’s wrists). If this biography is accurate, Udjahorresnet seems to have been quite successful as a result of Achaemenid rule. After serving both Cambyses and Darius he returned to his hometown of Sais a man of great local importance. Yet it is interesting to note that in this same inscription he refers to how he saved the people of Sais from ‘the very great disaster, which befell the entire land. There was not its like in this land’. This disaster is typically interpreted as being Cambyses’ invasion. If so, Udjahorresnet’s inscription is a good example of the range of discrepant experiences in Achaemenid Egypt: some people, like Udjahorresnet, had access to new opportunities, while others simply endured the trauma of invasion and conquest. Udjahorresnet’s assistance to the people of Sais suggests he had (or was at least cognisant of) both experiences. Similarly, there were clear beneficiaries of Achaemenid imperialism amongst the residents of Ayn Manawir in the Kharga Oasis. The town was founded on a previously uninhabited site in the first half of the fifth century BCE. Its establishment was made possible by the construction of a system of qanats, an Iranian irrigation technology whose spread is typically associated with the expansion of the Achaemenid Empire. The temple’s archives still await full publication, but preliminary research suggests a thriving local economy, one with sufficient links to the Mediterranean that some transactions were recorded using a Greek rather than anEgyptian weight standard for silver.71 Yet at the same time it is important to note that these oases of the western desert served as places of exile throughout Egyptian history.72 It is not known whether these farmers were pioneers in search of new opportunities in the oasis or deportees forcibly relocated from the Nile Valley, but some of them, either the farmers themselves or the priests at the temple, did benefit from Egypt’s new position as a part of the Achaemenid Empire.

It is also important to recognize that imperialism is not necessary for oppression and other unpleasant situations to exist. In the case of Egypt this is nicely illustrated by the so-called Petition of Petiese, a Demotic document found at El-Hibeh. In it the elderly priest Petiese relates the abuses he suffered at the hands of his fellow priests and the failure oft he royal bureaucracy in Memphis to take action on his behalf.73 The date of this narration is 513 BCE,i.e. during the period of Achaemenid rule, but the events he relates all occurred during the preceding native Egyptian Saite dynasty. The historicity of this document is difficult to assess, since it includes various literary features, including hymns. But it was found with other, non-literary documents that refer to other members of Petiese’s family; thus presumably it makes reference to actual people, if not actual events.74 The ostensible purpose of the document is to record the abuses against Petiese so that he could attempt once again to seek redress for them from the court at Memphis, this time from the Achaemenid satrap. This suggests that the document’s author, whether it was Petiese himself or an unknown writer, found it plausible that the Achaemenid rulers of Egypt would be receptive to such an appeal. Or perhaps he observed no meaningful difference between the administrators and bureaucrats of the 26th Dynasty and those of the 27th. At any rate the abuses suffered by Petiese in P. Ryl. Dem. 9 are indicative of the power imbalances that exist in all places and times. We need to be wary of painting too rosy a picture of any political system or institution, whether it is the result of foreign imperialism or native rule.

A third answer is to place the empire in a broader comparative perspective. This helps to elucidate implicit assumptions about the nature of the empire by setting them up in comparison with better known examples and identifying commensurable aspects. For example, in a forthcoming study I develop an estimate for communication speed in the Achaemenid Empire based on comparative data from the American Pony Express.75 This estimate suggests that under ideal conditions communication was notably faster in the Achaemenid Empire than in the Roman. Communication speed can be used as a proxy for interconnectivity, and as such is an important precursor for understanding the potential impact of Achaemenid rule on local populations. If, for example, the empire was highly decentralized its ability to exploit and oppress its subjects was presumably limited. In this respect comparison with other empires such as Rome provides an important benchmarkwhich can be used to develop parameters for understanding the nature of the Achaemenid Empire. Another example is provided by the recent Cambridge economic history of theGreco-Roman world . In the chapter on the Achaemenid Empire, an estimate of 8% is given for the tax rate in Mesopotamia. This estimate is tenuous, but it nevertheless permits comparison with other empires. In the same volume a tax rate of about 10% is suggested for the Roman Empire, a rate which scholars agree must have been low so as to not compete too much with private rents.76 If it was indeed the case that the tax rate was lower in the Achaemenid than in the Roman Empire, the assumption that the former was oppressive (at least financially) requires reassessment. These numbers are of course very much subject to debate, but the point is that, so long as their intellectual underpinnings are made explicit, estimates of this sort can help undermine orientalist stereotyping, and also provide a sound basis for considering how oppressive or lenient any particular empire may have been.

These three answers are only suggestions about how to accommodate postcolonial concerns in Achaemenid historiography. Their purpose is not only to help avoid the problems presented by Lincoln’s book, but also to put the study of the empire more in line with the scholarship on other ancient empires, most notably Rome. In doing so we need to be careful not to obscure the empire’s uniqueness. Its ideology of inclusion was a clear departure from that of earlier Near Eastern empires, and though the degree to which this ideology aligned with actual conditions is unclear it is important that the possibility that this was a different sort of empire should not be ruled out a priori. But it is clear that the application of postcolonial theory to the study of the Achaemenid Empire has the potential to be profitable and stimulating, and Lincoln’s book is a clear example of why it needs to be done, and why it needs to be done judiciously.

Contemporary history

As Lincoln himself admits, his book is really about recent American activities in Iraq.77 The extended discussion of the Achaemenid Empire is only meant to be a lengthy ancient case study that illustrates Lincoln’s real point, which is the subject of the postscript on Abu Ghraib. This raises the question of how the past can and should be used to comment on the present. This is, of course, an enormous topic, and its treatment here cannot consist of anything more than personal reflections; it has no pretensions to comprehensiveness. But it is nevertheless worth considering the role of contemporary events in the study of antiquity, since such events so clearly informed the writing of this book. On the one hand, Lincoln’s premise that a historical case study can have important resonances for the present is an important one. Few students of ancient history (I assume) would contend that the past is entirely irrelevant to the present, even if there are major differences between them. But studies that make that relevance explicit are often regarded as unsettling or unreliable, because the author’s apparent scholarly objectivity has been compromised in favour of an ulterior motive. To my mind the view that the past should never be utilized to comment on the present is a decidedly naïve one. First, it already happens all the time, often on the part of people who are not experts in the relevant field. Secondly, the concep tof scholarly objectivity is not a straightforward one. It relies on a Rankean notion of historical objectivity, one that is increasingly criticized as untenable and unrealistic.78 A sa result scholars need to be up front about what informs any particular study, regardless of whether the goal of that study is to make a point about the past or about the present. Indeed, in many respects scholars who do use the past to comment on the present are much more transparent in this way. Certainly this is the case in Lincoln’s book; his frankness about his agenda makes the ideas, preconceptions, and motives that inform his work clear for the reader. To some degree I am even grateful to him for pointing out in so public a venue the continuing importance of the subject of my own research. The sheer variety of journals in which this book was reviewed demonstrates how much it resonated with people across a broad spectrum of academic subfields, and even if the book itself is problematic, Lincoln’s attempt to show the importance of the past for the present, not to mention his condemnation of American torture in Iraq, is highly praiseworthy.

But there is (to commandeer the title of one of Lincoln’s chapters) a ‘dark side of paradise’. Since the contemporary is (by definition) fleeting, there is an added onus on scholars using the past to comment on the present to do so in a manner that is intellectually robust and methodologically transparent. This is because once the topical parts of such a study become outdated all that remains is the discussion of the past. In Lincoln’s case once the incidents of Abu Ghraib are no longer so vividly fixed in the public consciousness, only his flawed discussion of the Achaemenid Empire will leave a lasting impression with most readers. For example, one reviewer claims: ‘but it would be far too easy to dismiss Lincoln’s strategy of using Achaemenian [sic] Persia as a strawman to disguise a critical analysis of the foreign policy of the Bush administration. Fort his would not do justice to the insightful discussion of Achaemenian religious politics that Lincoln unfolds’.79 This remark exemplifies perfectly the danger posed by this book, even for bona fide academics specializing in adjacent fields, let alone for general readers. Lincoln’s book is especially problematic because it requires a savage, decadent, and declining Achaemenid Empire in order to make its point about America, one which is simply not supported by the evidence he musters. Yet it is this vision of the empire that will be this book’s legacy. In the end Religion, empire, and torture, despite the power and relevance of its thesis for the present, does a disservice to the past and to the future.

University of Michigan”

Source: https://www.academia.edu/1032274/Orientalism_Postcolonialism_and_the_Achaemenid_Empire_Meditations_on_Bruce_Lincolns_Religion_Empire_and_Torture

Henry Colburn earned a PhD in Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Michigan and holds a M.A. in Classics, from the University of Colorado and a M.A. (Hons.) in Classics, from the University of St. Andrews. His research focuses on the art and archaeology of ancient Iran, and on the regions of the Near East, Eastern Mediterranean, and Central Asia that interacted with Iran prior to the advent of Islam. His interests range from seals, coins and drinking vessels to questions of historiography, identity, and globalization. He has held fellowships at the Harvard Art Museums, the Getty Research Institute and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and teaching positions at the University of California, Irvine and the University of Southern California. He currently serves on the advisory committee for the reinstallation of the Ancient Near Eastern galleries at the Met, and he is also a research associate of the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan.

His first book, Archaeology of Empire in Achaemenid Egypt, was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2020. His current projects include the publication of the seals of the Persepolis Fortification Archive, excavated by Ernst Herzfeld in 1931, and a study of a 19thcentury illustrated Persian manuscript in the Metropolitan Museum of Art recording Louise de la Marinierre’s (1781-1840) journey to visit Achaemenid and Sasanian sites in Fars in the 1830s.

Source: https://cooper.edu/academics/people/henry-colburn-0

#persian empire #abu ghraib #bruce lincoln #henry colburn #herodotus

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richmond-rex · 3 years

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I’m currently listening to Anne Boleyn: 500 Years of Lies by Hayley Nolan on Audible, and I’m trying hard to like it because it has really good information discrediting some of the beliefs surrounding Anne; but I have to admit that it’s grating me to hear the author stating that the Tudors were “usurpers” and that they were preventing a “more rightful heir” from gaining the throne. I almost screamed in frustration when she blamed H8’s sociopathy on Margaret Beaufort and especially Henry VII, using that one source claiming that H7 once tried to kill H8 in a fit of rage as firm evidence of a miserable childhood (ignoring all evidence stating otherwise); because of course having an overprotective parent (which is all H7 was) is going to cause you to grow up with no conscience. Also is it true that H8 was given absolutely no training in monarchy and came to the throne completely uneducated in that regard, I find that incredibly hard to believe regarding H7.

Hello! First of all, there's so much to unpack here. I think we have to go step by step. A big disclaimer is that I have not read Nolan’s book, so I’m only considering what you told me here. Secondly, I will not be addressing any claims against Margaret Beaufort because, frankly, what did that woman ever do be accused of that — the same Margaret Beaufort who 'of marvayllous gentyleness she was unto all folks' , and who 'unkind she would be unto no creature'? Are we talking about the same Margaret? We know one of her old servants, Henry Parker, was talking about his 'godly mistress the Lady Margaret’ to her great-granddaughter Mary well into the mid-1500s, and we know the time Margaret reprimanded a dean in Christ's College for beating one of his pupils (crying ‘gently, gently!’). I don’t see how she could be considered the origin of anyone’s sociopathy, but I also dislike the term — antisocial personality disorder is a medical condition and I doubt we could ever diagnose Henry VIII with that or anyone else who died five hundred years ago for that matter. The rest of my answer is under the cut!

Well, now for the rest: I wouldn't say all of the Tudors were usurpers. Henry VII very much was one, as he did unseat England's king at the time of his invasion though that hardly makes him worse than other 15th-century English kings (as I've talked here, Henry IV was a usurper, Edward IV was a usurper, Richard III was a usurper — hell, William the Conqueror had been a usurper four centuries earlier). None of Henry VII's successors would have been usurpers, though (unless we should say every English king after William the Conqueror was a usurper, I guess?). Especially if you consider that they were also the natural successors of the Yorkist line via their descent from Edward IV's eldest daughter and heir, Elizabeth of York. I have no idea who Nolan could be referring to as the 'more rightful heir': the de la Poles, the descendants of Edward IV's sister? The Poles, the descendants of Edward IV's brother? Even if you go by Yorkist descent alone (which not everyone in England regarded as the most legitimate), who would have had a better claim in England than Henry VIII, the son of Edward IV's surviving heir and the son of England's most recent conqueror, Henry VII?

As for Henry VIII's miserable childhood, I don’t think there is evidence of that. We know Henry was well-educated; his father made sure to appoint tutors who taught him in the arts, classics, music, dancing, discourse, courtiership and theological disputation. We also know that Henry VII was personally involved with his sons' education, whilst his wife Elizabeth was involved with their daughters'. It is true that Henry VIII was not initially prepared for kingship but once his brother Arthur had died his father began preparing him for his future office. In July 1504 Prince Henry officially moved into his father's household where it seems Henry VII tutored him personally in some subjects. In August of that same year, the Duke of Estrada, a Spanish ambassador, wrote that 'Formerly the King did not like to take the Prince of Wales with him, in order not to interrupt his studies [...] But it is not only from love that the King takes the Prince with him; he wishes to improve him. Certainly there could be no better school in the world than the society of such a father as Henry VII. He is so wise and so attentive to everything; nothing escapes his attention'. So you can see that Henry VIII was assisted and had at least five years to prepare for the office of kingship, which is more than Henry VII himself ever had.

Lastly, it's clear that Henry VII loved his son. The same ambassador, Duke Estrada, also said in his dispatch: 'It is quite wonderful how much the King likes the Prince of Wales'. There are several entries in Henry VII's privy purse accounts describing items and stuff he bought to his younger son, always referring to him as 'My Lord Harry'. For all we know, Henry VII saw much more of his second son than he ever saw of Prince Arthur who lived in Ludlow, away from court. There is that anecdote about the time Henry VII knighted Prince Henry when he was only three years old: during the ceremony the king picked up his young son and placed him on a table for all to see — a gesture possibly made out of love, fondness, and/or delight in his youngest, though we can only speculate. Henry VII seems to have been determined not to expose his remaining son to danger in the same way that Arthur had been, and some of his more overprotective measures (like the setting of the Prince's apartments, accessible only by way of his own) can be understood as born out of paternal concern, all things considered. The rumours that the Calais garrison was not willing to crown Prince Henry in the event of his death were certainly of great concern to Henry VII.

To sum up, there is evidence that Henry VII did love and care for his son Henry. No doubt their relationship may have been strained at times thanks to Henry VII’s overprotective measures, but it’s also true the king let his son shine on many occasions in his place, denoting both affection and trust. Henry Pole's claim, made in 1538, that the king ‘had no affection nor fancy unto’ his heir should be seen in its proper context: one in which his brother, Reginal Pole, was involved in an ideological campaign against Henry VIII — the message was that not even Henry VIII's own father had loved him. I cannot say if Henry Pole actually said those words (anyone with more expertise please feel free to correct me) or if those were brought up as charges against him, but they do belong in the realm of (real or invented) seditious language. I tried to find the claim that Henry VII once tried to kill his son over a fit of rage in the dispatches sent by Fuensalida (allegedly the one who made that claim according to Hutchinson’s Young Henry), but the only thing I could find was something akin to court gossip, saying Henry VII treated everyone badly for a time (including his son) and spent three hours every night with his eyes closed but not sleeping...... which is??

(Here I should comment that Fuensalida not only disliked Henry VII but he was also several times denied access to the king and the Prince of Wales on account of what the English most likely considered to be his rude behaviour. He is also the one who said the Prince was kept closeted away like a girl, not realising that he was specifically denied access to the Prince — perhaps not without reason, seeing how Ferdinand had instructed him in winning the Prince over to their cause. Fuensalida was, of course, only serving the interests of his king, but his skills in diplomacy are somewhat unusual. Even Catherine of Aragon would later complain about Fuensalida’s behaviour).

In any case, I cannot speak about Nolan’s book as I have not read it but I wouldn’t be surprised if the author makes some unsubstantiated claims, considering the book was not peer-reviewed. That’s exactly how many pop history books work and why it’s hard to hold them to high standards. I hope this answer is not a big rambling mess, but really there were so many things to address, I didn’t even know where to begin. Thanks for the ask, anon! 🌹x

#anon #ask #henry vii #henry viii #margaret beaufort

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vaalthus · 3 years

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Remthalas Theory/Sort of Analysis: The All-Seeing Idiot God, The Dreaming Chaos, The Path of Omniscience. Oh and like potential Lore Spoilers maybe.

With the conclusion of the Reckoning War, and having bared witnessed to Remthalas’ actions, I believe we have a better idea of what our aquatic Dreamfarer desires and intends not only for themselves but for the inhabitants of Lore as well.

We already know that Remthalas believes that the only way to achieve freedom, to dream, is to not be shackled. To not live out the dreams or whims of others. Unfortunately, this boils down to the lesson Remthalas got out of the idea is that people should not tie themselves down by basic laws or morals people tend to follow. Otherwise, the endless possibilities provided by true freedom are not possible.

This a concept that he has clearly taken to his very core given how angrily or impulsively he’ll react should he feel someone is ordering him around or someone else shirking their freedom in his point of view as demonstrated when he rebuked Notha twice for commanding him and when he killed Mr. Nameless/Twinkles.

So that’s it then, right? Remthalas is just an anarchist drunk on freedom? Wanting all of Lore to break their shackles and live out their own dreams never minding once of those around them, right? Well yes, but there is I think a bit more going on here.

I found a few things concerning about Remthalas in our fight with either Notha or Uaanta. One, is that he found the Avatars more interesting in their reduced orb state. Secondly, he didn’t appear to want to destroy them. Thirdly, is that regardless of who we chose to side with, Rem finds us interesting either way. Fourth, and most concerning is that he only found Uaanta truly fascinating if she merged with the Avatars. Lastly, and most revealing was his desire to see all the events unfold regardless of what the outcome was and then simply bounce when a conclusion was reached.

The reason why I find him being able to see Uaanta as a truly fascinating player in this conflict is to be some cause for concern is that being ‘interesting’ to Remthalas seems to, at first, amount to being someone that can bring about his idea of freedom, freedom from the balance the Avatars imposed. Characters like the Hero and I imagine Notha when he first met her and was introduced to her ideology. However, if this is the case, why find Uaanta interesting? She after all plans to shepherd away the very entities responsible for the very concept that resulted in his abandonment and have shackled so many others and their dreams. Why find someone who still intends to be devoted to the Avatars to be a person of interest then? Are they not still choosing to wear their shackles? To ignore their own dreams in the favor of the dreams of others.

The answer I think is simple. In the end, it was just less about Remthalas serving his ultimate plan and Remthalas wanting a show. Remthalas has always long been aware of our capacity to come out on top over our opponents, including his own fellow members. Why would he suspect there was any possibility we would lose to our dear friend or even Notha? He didn’t because he knew we would win, but how can he enjoy the play if all the actors aren’t putting in effort for their roles. After all, are you satisfied by the just the ending of a movie or the passionate performances that it took to get there?

You see I believe Remthalas revealed what he plans for us and Lore all the way back when we first met in the Ex Somniis Fabula or The Story of Dreams quest. In his introduction, Remthalas posits the question of whether he’d be able to alter reality if the entities only referred to as “They” dreamed instead of just slumbering. With quite the determined, if not a bit demented, expression on his face I might add. There’s also one other feature to this and it’s the fact that Remthalas points out that we’re in his dream, or perhaps more accurately his dream space, and that it’s basically just a blank white box. (There are also the blue glowing circles on his robes that could symbolize having multiple eyes to see which are only visible when he’s in his dream form, but it could also just represent Kathool’s eyes so who knows) This is ultimately his domain and by the looks of it he can bring anyone into it and determine what is experienced within this tiny space. What the viewer sees could amount to anything but what they ultimately stand is just the box, the blank canvas. Here, Remthalas controls reality, what goes on in the ‘bigger picture’ so to speak. Here, Remthalas is as close to a god as anyone else that can control their own dreams.

What I’m getting at here is that Remthalas doesn’t just want freedom he wants to see possibilities and the process it takes to getting to an outcome. What he wants is to dream and for everyone else to be the actors in his never-ending play of entertainment. To see the big picture change from one point to the other. These are details that I think were touched on when he mentioned that he enjoyed the dreams of children because of their ability to imagine possibilities to fill in gaps left behind by a world they are still very new to. Or when he appeared genuinely disheartened at the idea that he was not at rest. Or when he finds dreams to be not interesting enough when pointing out that Voyna can only ever dream of dragons due to her trauma with them. Or even when we fought him in the dream to save Sally and he noted that our dream was “Fierce, but one dimensional” Or the rather basic nature, in comparison to whatever else he wanted to show us, of Notha’s backstory and memories.

What he wants is for Lore to be his dream. To fit all of existence in that little box of his and to watch things go wild. Which is why I called him ‘Idiot God’ because if true then Remthalas is basically trying to become Azathoth, the Blind-Idiot God from the Lovecraftian Mythos who created the entire universe in that series by simply dreaming, and who will kill it if he ever wakes up. A character/concept I still believe was being referenced when Remthalas asked what would happen if “they” woke up and questioned if the world would stop existing if “they” did. However, unlike Azathoth, Remthalas intends to be aware of all that happens when he finally dreams.

Azathoth is not the only eldritch god that Rem appears to share similarities with and to be honest it the one that makes him perhaps the most untrustworthy. The god I’m referring to of course is Nyarlathotep: The Crawling Chaos, The Dweller in Darkness, The Haunter of the Dark. These are just a few titles of Nyarlathotep, but I believe they would fit Remthalas for the similarities they share with the Outer God. For one thing is how both Remthalas and Nyarlathotep communicate through dreams to any of their unaware victims and pass on information that might shatter their world view. Furthermore, much like Nyarlathotep, Remthalas seems take more enjoyment in the dreams of others being messed with in a way that is typically nightmarish in nature. The most important similarity here of course is that both entities are more driven by spreading chaos and madness through people as opposed to their utter annihilation like other eldritch gods such as Cthulu. The reason for this is because in the case of both characters, I believe in Rem’s case anyway, their enemies isn’t so much other people but rather boredom, in addition to their own stagnation.

An interesting contrast I just thought about between them however is how Nyarlathotep and Remthalas spread chaos. As mentioned, Nyarlathotep does so through dreams by revealing, in typical Lovecraftian cosmic horror fashion, how utterly pointless the lives of his victims are in the face of the sheer overwhelming forces at play in the infinite and unknown universe and how they should just succumb to madness and/or become one of his followers, to amuse himself. Remthalas kind of does something similar when he suggests that morals and the lives people are currently living don’t hold much weight in the face of the grander schemes and roles of the Avatars.

However, unlike Nyarla, Remthalas would do this so that others cast off their rules, still to amuse himself with the chaos that would thrive from that but in his view, they’d be getting something out of it. A sort of “You and everything you’ve known don’t matter so succumb to despair and madness and entertain me” vs “You and everything you’ve known don’t really matter so do what you want and entertain me” Chaos vs Chaos but different philosophies on how to get it.

The connections that can be drawn to other well known eldritch entities does make me wonder if when we see Remthalas next he might be trying to elevate his power on the material plane to that of the Primordials (Kathool, Uthuluc (probably not Uthuluc out of all of them to be honest), The Witness, Sciuridaehotep, the latter of which is just a Nyarlathotep reference) or is somehow going to get them involved in some way when his plans really start to get under way. If he does somehow involve Kathool in what he intends to pull off I imagine we might see Aquella again given that she’s supposed to overwatch his bedtime and I think it would fit to have a water take on another that was devoted to Kathool. I’d suspect she, or potentially another water elf, could reveal more of in-depth info on Remthalas’ servitude to the Avatars and later Kathool.

This brings us to the question of course of how exactly Rem plans to pull this all off. Obviously, we fit into those plans. However, with what just happened with the Avatars now being out of the picture and Myalos also being out of commission, what’s the next step? Where does he take us from there? The answer goes back to those “They” entities being referenced. Remthalas has brought them up, but he wasn’t the only one I believe. Celeritas mentioned them once when Sinnoncence made his move. I believe, I’m certain, that our dear Big Daddy named dropped them for us a long time ago.

The one and only Aequilibria, the true gods of existence who are said to be slumbering even now. How Remthalas intends on exerting power over these beings is unknowable, but it would appear the best time to do so before they awake once more.

Which brings us to the Hero and the interest Rem has taken in them. It is clear the main reason that Remthalas has taken an interest in us is because of how capable we were in comparison to Uaanta at the time he was scouting us both out. We are an invested tool…and yet. I cannot help but wonder if Remthalas continued engrossment of us isn’t just because he knows we’ll be useful to his plans but also because Remthalas is straight up looking for a plus one when his plan would be theoretically completed. He did offer us to see where the currents of existence could take us.

After all, why look at and enjoy multiple paintings in a vacuum or go to the movies by yourself when you can have someone watch it all with you. Then again, as I mentioned earlier, he could simply be viewing us as just another tool to pull off his plans and that is join the others later once everything falls in place

All of what I stated is more speculation than anything but if any of it’s true then we are in for a ride.

#dragonfable #Remthalas #primordials #Aequilibria #Watch everything I just said be uber wrong #Blind idiot God #Crawling Chaos #Lovecraft parallels #Was MrNameless trapping everyone in a tiny dimension he controlled foreshadowing to what Remthalas plans?#Dreamfarer #The never ending dream #If Remthalas does attempt to use the Aequilibria then perhaps we won't even see him again for awhile.#The eyes Mason what do they mean!?!?!?!?#It's made of fear and nightmares y'all #What if Remthalas tries to do his thing and Sciuridaehotep straight up tells him No #Boom crisis averted #Remthalas is our villian #But he couldn't care at all about using Draco #What forces are at work here #More to a prophecy #He refuses to respect Lock and Key because they can not entertain his dreams #Tools can only follow a patter in his eyes #And that's boring #Same thing with Myalos #Uaanta did something new #Aquella return?#The dreams were dark #df lore #df spoilers #I am now imagining Remthalas sitting on a couch and watching people run around screaming through a window because he moved a stone

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nietp · 3 years

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The AI behind Bots of New York: Who will monitor the governments monitoring AI?

If you've ever been intrigued by Bots of New York, and specifically by the texts it generates, or if you were ever skeptical these texts were actually generated by a bot, it's worth looking up the model this bot is using, GPT-2, released in 2019.

Bots of New York was the first Facebook bot to use that model for text-generation, and unlike most bots we were familiar with until then, the text it generates is complex and creates a coherent, believable narrative, just weird enough to be intriguing. Though Bots of New York is looking for texts that always sound funny or chaotic, GPT-2 can generate more believable text: "people find GPT-2 synthetic text samples almost as convincing (72% in one cohort judged the articles to be credible) as real articles from the New York Times (83%)". The release of GPT-2 raised ethical issues and its creators, Open AI, published regular updates on their choices, doubts, and findings. What's especially interesting is that the concern that GPT-2 would be used for propaganda was raised from the start, which should have made the creators especially wary of collaboration with governmental organizations and of governmental use of GPT-2 in general, especially since Facebook had already publicly admitted at the time that its platform has been exploited by governments to manipulate public opinion and it has only been further confirmed since then. Instead, Open AI doubled down on the necessity to work with governments, encouraging them to introduce penalties and monitor AI-use, specifically for what they call "extremist" ideologies which include "white supremacy, Marxism, jihadist Islamism, and anarchism". We'll come back to that later, but first, this is an excerpt of what the creators of GPT-2, Open AI, released on February 14, 2019 when they made part of that model open-source:

Our model, called GPT-2 (a successor to GPT), was trained simply to predict the next word in 40GB of Internet text. Due to our concerns about malicious applications of the technology, we are not releasing the trained model. As an experiment in responsible disclosure, we are instead releasing a much smaller model for researchers to experiment with, as well as a technical paper.

GPT-2 is a large transformer-based language model with 1.5 billion parameters, trained on a dataset of 8 million web pages. GPT-2 is trained with a simple objective: predict the next word, given all of the previous words within some text. The diversity of the dataset causes this simple goal to contain naturally occurring demonstrations of many tasks across diverse domains. [...]

[O]ur model is capable of generating samples from a variety of prompts that feel close to human quality and show coherence over a page or more of text. [...] [The] samples have substantial policy implications: large language models are becoming increasingly easy to steer towards scalable, customized, coherent text generation, which in turn could be used in a number of beneficial as well as malicious ways. [...] On other language tasks like question answering, reading comprehension, summarization, and translation, we are able to get surprising results without any fine-tuning of our models, simply by prompting the trained model in the right way (see below for examples of how we do this), though we do still fall short of state-of-the-art for specialized systems.

[...] GPT-2 achieves state-of-the-art scores on a variety of domain-specific language modeling tasks. Our model is not trained on any of the data specific to any of these tasks and is only evaluated on them as a final test; this is known as the “zero-shot” setting. GPT-2 outperforms models trained on domain-specific datasets (e.g. Wikipedia, news, books) when evaluated on those same datasets. [...]

Policy Implications

Large, general language models could have significant societal impacts, and also have many near-term applications. We can anticipate how systems like GPT-2 could be used to create:

AI writing assistants

More capable dialogue agents

Unsupervised translation between languages

Better speech recognition systems

We can also imagine the application of these models for malicious purposes, including the following (or other applications we can’t yet anticipate):

Generate misleading news articles

Impersonate others online

Automate the production of abusive or faked content to post on social media

Automate the production of spam/phishing content

These findings, combined with earlier results on synthetic imagery, audio, and video, imply that technologies are reducing the cost of generating fake content and waging disinformation campaigns. The public at large will need to become more skeptical of text they find online, just as the “deep fakes” phenomenon calls for more skepticism about images.[3]

Politicians may want to consider introducing penalties for the misuse of such systems, as some have proposed for deep fakes.

Today, malicious actors—some of which are political in nature—have already begun to target the shared online commons, using things like “robotic tools, fake accounts and dedicated teams to troll individuals with hateful commentary or smears that make them afraid to speak, or difficult to be heard or believed”. We should consider how research into the generation of synthetic images, videos, audio, and text may further combine to unlock new as-yet-unanticipated capabilities for these actors, and should seek to create better technical and non-technical countermeasures. Furthermore, the underlying technical innovations inherent to these systems are core to fundamental artificial intelligence research, so it is not possible to control research in these domains without slowing down the progress of AI as a whole.

Release Strategy

Due to concerns about large language models being used to generate deceptive, biased, or abusive language at scale, we are only releasing a much smaller version of GPT-2 along with sampling code. We are not releasing the dataset, training code, or GPT-2 model weights. Nearly a year ago we wrote in the OpenAI Charter: “we expect that safety and security concerns will reduce our traditional publishing in the future, while increasing the importance of sharing safety, policy, and standards research,” and we see this current work as potentially representing the early beginnings of such concerns, which we expect may grow over time. This decision, as well as our discussion of it, is an experiment: while we are not sure that it is the right decision today, we believe that the AI community will eventually need to tackle the issue of publication norms in a thoughtful way in certain research areas. Other disciplines such as biotechnology and cybersecurity have long had active debates about responsible publication in cases with clear misuse potential, and we hope that our experiment will serve as a case study for more nuanced discussions of model and code release decisions in the AI community.

We are aware that some researchers have the technical capacity to reproduce and open source our results. We believe our release strategy limits the initial set of organizations who may choose to do this, and gives the AI community more time to have a discussion about the implications of such systems.

We also think governments should consider expanding or commencing initiatives to more systematically monitor the societal impact and diffusion of AI technologies, and to measure the progression in the capabilities of such systems. If pursued, these efforts could yield a better evidence base for decisions by AI labs and governments regarding publication decisions and AI policy more broadly.

In June 2019, OpenAI testified in Congress about the implications of synthetic media, including a discussion of synthetic text in an Open Hearing on Deepfakes and AI. 6 months after the release of the small 124M model, they released the 774 million parameter GPT-2 language model (so still not the full-size GPT-2 model) and some observations made in the meantime:

Humans can be convinced by synthetic text. Research from our research partners Sarah Kreps and Miles McCain at Cornell published in Foreign Affairs says people find GPT-2 synthetic text samples almost as convincing (72% in one cohort judged the articles to be credible) as real articles from the New York Times (83%).[2] Additionally, research from AI2/UW has shown that news written by a system called “GROVER” can be more plausible than human-written propaganda. These research results make us generally more cautious about releasing language models.

[...] Detection isn’t simple. In practice, we expect detectors to need to detect a significant fraction of generations with very few false positives. Malicious actors may use a variety of sampling techniques (including rejection sampling) or fine-tune models to evade detection methods. A deployed system likely needs to be highly accurate (99.9%–99.99%) on a variety of generations. Our research suggests that current ML-based methods only achieve low to mid–90s accuracy, and that fine-tuning the language models decreases accuracy further. There are promising paths forward (see especially those advocated by the developers of “GROVER”) but it’s a genuinely difficult research problem. We believe that statistical detection of text needs to be supplemented with human judgment and metadata related to the text in order to effectively combat misuse of language models.

In November 5, 2019, the largest 1.5B-parameter model was released by Open AI, though in the meantime NVIDIA Research trained a larger 8.3 billion parameter GPT-2 model. With that came a list of findings, including this:

[...] GPT-2 can be fine-tuned for misuse. Our partners at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies’ Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC) found that extremist groups can use GPT-2 for misuse, specifically by fine-tuning GPT-2 models on four ideological positions: white supremacy, Marxism, jihadist Islamism, and anarchism. CTEC demonstrated that it’s possible to create models that can generate synthetic propaganda for these ideologies. They also show that, despite having low detection accuracy on synthetic outputs, ML-based detection methods can give experts reasonable suspicion that an actor is generating synthetic text.

The Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism is not a governmental organization as such but their research "informs private, government, and multilateral institutional understanding of and responses to terrorism threats". Until 2018, the current director, Jason Blazakis, served as the Director of the Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office, Bureau of Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State. Blazakis was "responsible for directing efforts to designate countries, organizations, and individuals as terrorists, also known as State Sponsors of Terrorism, Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and Specially Designated Global Terrorists". Before that, he held positions in the Department of State’s Political-Military Affairs, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Intelligence and Research Bureaus. Until 2016, the director of the CTEC (then called MonTREP) was Brigadier General Russell D. Howard, a "retired Special Forces officer with thirty-seven years of military service, more than twenty of which were spent in some type of counter-terrorist capacity". The CTEC also partners with a "Master in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies" at the Middlebury Institute, which also partners with the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), giving students access to courses with the Department of National Security Affairs and Department of Defense Analysis. The Master's webpage describes this partnership as follows: "You will learn in a military environment, gaining new perspectives on international security issues and expanding your professional network through NPS faculty and students. This opportunity is only available to U.S. citizens." The curriculum includes a wide array of courses such as "Global Jihadism", "Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Policy", "Terrorism in Southeast Asia", etc. The Middlebury Institute also offers a Terrorism Studies Certificate with courses such as Terrorism and Media in the Arab World, Militant Islamic Movements, Eco-radicalism, State Terrorism, Global Jihadism, Apocalyptic Millenarianism, Terror and Counterterrorism in Africa, Terrorism in South Asia, Terrorism in Southeast Asia, Islam, Islamism, and Politics in Central Asia. The CTEC also partnered with a startup called Spectrum Labs to develop an AI detecting "extremist messaging" in non-English languages, starting with Portuguese and Spanish, and the CTEC "lead research into Brazilian and Latin American extremist movements and trends" (I wonder why they're focusing on these specific countries?). Although Blazakis teaches a seminar on the "Radical Right", there is no mention of white supremacy, far-right ideology or neo-nazism anywhere in the curriculum available on the website. But weirdly enough, when the CTEC trained a local journalist on "how to search for online extremists tied to a certain geographic region", the local extremists they found were a neo-nazi highschooler whose "goal is to become a U.S. Air Force pilot", whose "preferred authors are George Lincoln Rockwell, Julius Evola, Benito Mussolini and Machiavelli" and has "just started reading Mein Kampf", and more damningly, Dave Overton, "an associate professor of warfare of the Naval War College who teaches at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey": the same Naval school the institute the CTEC is attached to partners with. "At least once, Overton promoted the #plandemic conspiracy theory, which serves to undermine public health efforts aimed at sopping Covid-19. He also amplifies dangerous rhetoric by using hashtags #EnemyOfThePeople to attack the press. But his primary issue of concern appears to be the exoneration of Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser."

Though Open AI was right in raising ethical concerns about the release of GPT-2, considering it can generate fake articles, comments, and social media content at a dangerous speed and in a way that's very hard to detect for AI and for humans, it ended up looking for support in these ethical decisions from those who would most profit of it as a propaganda tool. Though online propaganda against socialism and communism can be laughably unconvincing these days, as we've seen with the thousands of identical tweets supporting a coup in Venezuela and more recently Cuba, it wouldn't take a lot of effort to make it much more complex and believable.

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tbehartoo · 3 years

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Bursting Bubbles

My piece for @thedjwifizine that can be found here. It's full of great art and stories. Check it out!

...

Nino looked up into the scowling face of his favorite seatmate.

“Here you go, Bubbles,” she said as she thrust a mango bubble tea into his hand. “One special of the day from The Boba Bar.” Her other hand slapped a small card onto his sheet music. “And here’s your other three week’s worth of drinks.”

“Aw, Alya you didn’t have to do this,” he held up the card. “This,” he grinned as he took his first sip of the drink, “you definitely needed to do.”

“Well you won the bet fair and square,” Alya huffed as she plopped down into her seat. “You really could find a way to get a harpsichord to sound rockin' when you DJ’ed Kim’s house party.”

“Scoops, I’m surprised you could doubt me,” Nino held a hand to his heart. “It’s like you’ve forgotten that music is my life.” He grumbled toward the music piece he’d been assigned, “It’s not like I’ve spent nearly three grueling years learning this European centered musical theory or anything.” Looking at her smirk he added, “Or that I’d hardly be the first person to experiment with combining old instruments to new music.” He thought for a moment before adding, “Or old music to new instruments.”

The next week it was Nino placing a gift card on Alya’s notepad.

“Your payment for getting me those sources for my music history essay, m’lady,” he said as he bowed to her.

“Nino, what-” she asked as she looked at the card “-what is this?”

Nino felt his face warm up, but he sent a shy smile in her direction as he sat down. “You were saying, the other day, that it’s been forever since you had a mani-pedi, but that they weren’t in your budget at the moment so I figured I’d get one for you as thanks for saving my bacon. I didn’t have time to track down those translations of medieval manuscripts for that Music Development in the Dark Ages assignment, but you did it without my asking.” He grinned at her, “You really took some pressure off of me and I appreciate it.”

She looked at him, back at the card, and back at Nino.

“I don’t remember saying that,” she murmured.

“You were picking at your nails because the color was coming off and said that you’d need to see if Marinette was free for a girl’s night so you could get her to do your nails again,” he said as he started to root around in his bag.

“That was two- three weeks ago?” she said, thinking out loud. She looked at him, but he was obviously avoiding her gaze. “I can’t believe you remembered that.”

His head tucked between his shoulders, a turtle pulling into its shell.

“It was easy to remember,” he said. “You had that sparkly red polish. It really drew in the eye. I remember thinking that you had the perfect hands for playing the piano right before you said it.” He quickly looked away again.

Alya was quiet for a moment before smiling up at him.

“That seems like a really nice compliment coming from a musician like yourself,” she reassured him. She looked back at the card. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this place.”

“It’s, uh, one of the local beautician schools,” he told her. “You were right about mani-pedis being a bit pricy, but my cousin is going there to learn to cut hair, and she said the girls in the nail class are crazy talented and eager to get someone not a relative to paint on, and it only costs about a fourth of what the pros charge.” He shrugged. “This way you can have like half a dozen manicures for the price of one.”

Alya lunged at him and caught him in a tight hug.

“Thank you thank you thank you!” she cried before releasing him. “This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“Miss Cesaire, if you are quite done groping Mister Lahiffe I’d like to start the class,” the voice of Doctor Agreste cut through the lecture hall and every head snapped toward them.

Alya’s face was nearly as warm and red as his own.

“Yes, sir,” she squeaked as she pulled her arms back to her side.

“Now if we may?” the professor’s curt voice took control of the class.

“Groping,” Nino mumbled. “He calls one little hug groping.” He pulled out a composition that Madame Mendeleiev had assigned just that morning. “I’d like to show him groping.”

He was startled out of his grumbling when Alya whispered, “Me, too.”

Only three more weeks and I’m out of this class and I never have to see this man’s stupid face again, Nino thought to himself. At least after today it’s just student presentations before the final.

They had finally reached the Contemporary Era and the man was butchering even the easiest movements! And don’t get him started on the composers. He’d wasted over half the lecture trying to explain that Richard Wagner wasn’t really an antisemite, but that Nazi sympathizers, mainly Adolf himself, just liked his music so much and thought it expressed National Ideals perfectly! The man wasn’t even a composer in Contemporary times!

And that just served to take time away from some real pioneers of the era like Laura Anne Karpman whose music can be found literally anywhere. Or what about Meredith Monk who includes operas amongst her compositions, since Doctor Agreste seemed to be hung up over Wagner’s damn Ring Cycle. Of course he didn’t mention Yihan Chen the brilliant Chinese pianist and composer. And though the man would fawn and dote on child prodigies like Wolfgang Mozart all day, he wouldn’t give the time of day to “Bluejay” Greenberg who could hear several compositions in his head at the same time and then be able to write them with minimal correction.

Just, UGH!

Nino was done with this entitled little man and the racist ideology he’s attempting to spread about. He was certainly spreading something, but it smelled more like fertilizer than anything else to Nino’s mind.

He could tell that Alya was concerned about his agitation, he’d been clenching his pencil so hard he heard it crack, but he refused to look in her direction. She had a great talent for sniffing out these kinds of things and if he looked at her right now, he’d probably see his frustration reflected on her face and do something dumb- like start an uprising in the middle of class. He really couldn't afford to take this class again.

As soon as they were out the doors Alya started ranting about how it was obvious that Doctor Agreste didn’t even bother to check Wikipedia for sources. She made her opinion known that the good doctor didn’t like the era because more people were included in writing and performing it rather than just white, Western-European men who were either wealthy or had wealthy patrons. And stopped mid rant.

Nino looked at her and watched as Alya got an idea. By the look on her face it was a genius idea: an Evil and Genius idea if the cackle was anything to go by.

“Whatever you’re planning, I’m in,” he declared.

“I haven’t even told you my idea yet.”

“I can tell by your expression alone that it’s going to be the best idea ever,” he said with a smirk. “So want to let me in on our plan?”

She explained her idea and Nino’s eyes lit up.

“Oh, that man is going to regret crossing paths with us,” he chuckled. “Can you come over tonight? I’ve got plenty of stuff we’d need for the music portion of the presentation.”

She shook her head. “I need at least one day to fact-check my notes and another to find accurate sources. Are you busy Saturday?”

Nino thought for a moment. “I’m free in the morning, but I have a wedding I’m playing for in the evening.”

“Okay that gives me a little more time for research.” She smiled up at him. “So, Saturday morning we’ll meet up to pull things together?”

Nino nodded in agreement.

“Great,” she said, “That’ll give us Sunday to type up the report and Monday to practice for our presentation on Tuesday.”

“Tell me the truth, Alya,” Nino looked at her, “Is this too much? Are we crazy to put together a spite presentation in one weekend? At the end of the semester?” He brushed a bit of her hair out of her face and tucked it carefully behind her ear. “You already have so much to do for all your other classes. I don’t want this to be something that stresses you out or makes you do something that hurts you.”

Alya reached up and patted his cheek before replying.

“Nino this is going to be so much fun that I doubt I’ll even notice how much work it is,” she grinned at him fully. “I might pull an allnighter here or there, but I promise you that I’m taking care to not do too much. I wouldn’t have suggested this if I didn’t think we could do it.”

He held her gaze for a moment then sighed.

“Okay, let’s ruin this man’s whole career.”

She laughed loud and pulled him toward the school’s cafe. Obviously this called for copious amounts of snacks and his precious bubble tea.

Tuesday dawned bright and clear. A perfect day to teach about the subtleties of Contemporary music while simultaneously displaying the ignorance and prejudice of the most hated music teacher on campus. Nino sipped at his Thai tea with coffee pudding as he contemplated Alya’s plan of attack. It was a nice simple plan, but it needed something. Seeing a familiar outline hurrying across campus brought a smile to his face. The final nail in Doctor Agreste’s coffin just made itself known. He hurried across the quad to see if he could catch up with Madame before she reached her office.

An hour later he stood at the podium inserting the thumb drive into the computer for the projector.

“Good morning everyone,” Alya began. “As you all know we’ve had to jump over and through many musical ages and movements. That meant we had to skim through a lot of really interesting information. Nino and I decided to do a little bit of music through the ages for the Contemporary Era for you all. Now, get ready to get funky!”

That was his cue. He started the Powerpoint and Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” began to blast from the room’s speakers while Elmer Fudd stabbed a spear into the ground singing, “Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit!”

“Welcome to Neoromanticism,” he called to those present.

The presentation went off without a hitch. Madame Mendeleiev had managed to slip in before their presentation and had stayed to the end of class. It was with great delight that Nino watched the Dean of the Music Department approach Doctor Agreste and congratulate him on the quality of his students’ final presentations. She even approached Alya and complemented her on the amount of research she’d done to be ready for the day. Then she turned to him.

“An adequate presentation, Nino,” she said with no trace of humor in her words. “Your compilation was a little heavy on the electronic music and light on the serialism, but I suppose that’s only to be expected with where your interests lie,” she paused, “and in light of the time constraints.”

He gulped and nodded his head. He knew she’d pick up on that.

“Please, send me a copy of your presentation at your earliest convenience.”

His eyes snapped up from the floor to meet hers. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining the slight upturn to the corners of her mouth or not, so he chose not to comment on it.

“I think I might incorporate it into my opening lecture next semester,” she remarked so offhandedly that Nino was sure he was hearing things. “It’ll be an excellent introduction to modern music for the freshmen.” She nodded to him before moving off to catch professor Agreste on his way out the door.

Alya was grinning from ear to ear and practically vibrating where she stood. He turned to her and had a fraction of a second to brace for impact as she’d thrown herself in his direction. Her arms were around his waist as she pulled him into a hug. He returned the hug with matching enthusiasm.

“We did so good!” she squealed.

He looked down into her grinning face and returned the smile.

“Hell yeah, we did,” he replied. “This calls for a celebration.” It was only then that he realized he still had his arms around her shoulders. Then again she was still holding on to him. He pulled back but kept hold of her hands. “I know you have another class in an hour, but do you want to go get boba to celebrate?”

She smirked up at him. “Only if you’ll let me treat you to dinner at Sabine’s tonight.” She looked to the side as she added, “And then we could go check out that concert in the park you mentioned yesterday.”

His mouth suddenly went dry. That sounded a lot like an actual date. Like a real date with this girl he knew he’d started crushing on some time this semester. What else could he do?

“Sounds great, but you have to let me bring pizza and dessert to our study date on Thursday night.”

Her laugh sent a tingle down his spine. “It’s a date!”

#miraculous ladybug #djwifi #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #alya x nino #thedjwifizine #my writing

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crimsonfluidessence · 3 years

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Prompt 25: Silver Lining

Just another day, like any other. Esredes was on his walk to work, and in a particular mood. His mind was wandering once more as he passed the Vault, to fantasies that faded far beyond reality. Imagine if the Warrior hadn't interfered until Nidhogg reared his ugly head. Imagine if Ysayle had killed the Archbishop, before he could take on his own transformation, and the two of them had dealt with Nidhogg. Esredes hadn't trusted Ishgard's people enough, perhaps even less than Ysayle herself. He was fully mentally prepared for having to subjugate Ishgard to get it to listen to them. But perhaps, as things had turned out, not nearly as many would have needed subjugation. Perhaps he wouldn't need to help manage a fragile, in chaos city-state that had been taken over, especially when so many of his own had nothing even close to management skills, perhaps a proper parley would've been possible. And yet, Esredes pulled himself back to reality and reminded himself, that was never quite the case. Peace had been agreed to, and that was it. Himself and all of his were only here on Ishgard's terms or else, and the rest simply had to be dealt with. Still he went through his days in anticipation of being fired for shining progressives who repeated his ideologies on Ishgard's side, or of his house burning down when he got home. Ah, what would life have been like if he wasn't a failure who couldn't match up to idiotic children with goddess powers? It was a question he asked himself here and there, swirling around with all the others, and in his head, timelines began to split off, mirrors into other worlds for him to glance into. In one, he saw himself back with his family in Thanalan. He lived under a new identity and kept quiet and to himself, always afraid of the Ishgardian government finding him out. He worked a simple job that had him feeling nothing, and though he hoped to earn his parents' forgiveness through it, things didn't really change. Esredes looked away from the mirror and towards the approaching door to his office, and opened it and went inside. He greeted the receptionist as always, then greeted Heilyn and Ferrant, quipped with Heilyn about the fact he would never brush his damn hair properly and it looked like ass or something stupid like that. Work went steady today- Esredes cozied himself up with a cup of white tea and busied himself writing some in depth notes on Dragon Blood observations to use as a reference. With how many people he had encountered here and there who would do any amount of dubious things to obtain such information, the casual scrawl on the paper gave no indication of awareness of this. Just another day, just another paper amongst many, cloaked in the tranquility of absurdity. Another mirror opened in Esredes' head as he worked. In this one, Esredes had gone through with one of his fleeting ideas and fled to the Far East when Ishgard rejoined the Alliance, and oh my, was he lost. Completely out of his depth, he had to fight off multiple people trying to mug him in Kugane until someone watched his latest skirmish and approached him. "You're good with a sword," the man said as Esredes shrunk back and kept his hand wrapped around its handle. "How would you like an opportunity to put it to the test?" And so Esredes watched himself hesitantly agree after sixty and a half questions to work for a Kugane lord as a bodyguard. It was a place to stay and decent pay, to stand around and observe everyone like a hawk. He got to know some people around the home and the streets of Kugane who looked upon him with respect, yet caught himself glancing over the sea even on a good day and remembering everything he left completely behind. Esredes got up to refill his tea, and the mirror closed. Soon after, Heilyn called him over to the office across the hall, and surprised him with a sweater- knit entirely by him in that periwinkle blue reminiscent of Shiva. So that he had more than one sweater, Heilyn said. Esredes smiled and thanked the man back, giving him a soft hug of gratitude. Ferrant was also his usual cheerful self today, asking after if Esredes was feeling all right and letting him know he appreciated him. All very routine, yet he never tired of it. At lunch hour, he had an appointment of the strangest sort, so he retrieved his coat and exited the building and made his way down to the Firmament. Esredes was in a little bit of hot water recently, having chased down a double agent to his people and getting in trouble after he was arrested for the act of vigilantism- as if that was the worst thing he had done while back in the city. And yet the head Inquisitor on the chase wrote to him and invited him out to lunch with his friend who also got involved with the chase. To know them both as a person, she claimed. He was completely lost as to the motivation, but Esredes could tell she was an Inquisitor who had an actual soul, a normal person's thought process. So he accepted and went on a picnic. She served arancini, an imitation recipe from the Far East. Elouan took most of the conversation as Esredes anticipated, and he didn't have to do much work as he listened to her and her bodyguard talk about how much they want to visit the Far East, and Elouan filled them in on his own travels. What a nice and unexpected little bubble in the veil of absurdity. Another mirror manifested during the picnic, and Esredes saw himself with his knees curled up, sitting on the ground in a pathetically tiny cell, and from the expression on his face alone, clearly having lost his mind. He flinched and ignored the mirror after his initial glance, focusing his attention on Elouan's babbling exclusively. When everything wrapped up and he returned for the second half of work, Esredes made a few discreet calls in his office to the network about arrangements for later. A little outing with an actually human Inquisitor was nice, but the man knew what he was, and there was always work to do. He took a break in the middle to move over to the Blue Room for an appointment. Clover's ward Teagan had begun seeing him in the past couple months, a woman rescued from life in a fighting ring in Ul'dah who was still perpetually trying to learn and adjust to life beyond. They always had good discussions, even after he put her to looking into the water. This time, to teach her about Ishgardian culture, he had ended up going into his own story up until everything fell. "How did you do it? Turn it around, I mean? It must have been hard, pulling yourself out of that... how did you manage?" She asked him after that. Esredes had to pause a moment to think about his answer. "I had to take it a day at a time. The other members of the camp were not unsupportive. They were concerned, they wish they knew what to say or do, but I was completely unreachable. So, for one thing, I'm someone who doesn't believe in meeting your death unless you have to. It's more productive to die so someone else lives than to simply off yourself. So every day, it was get from start to finish. There was a routine. Do your tasks, break for meals, read in your tent, avoid talking to anyone any longer than you had to. Keep doing this, and eventually you would either die, or something would happen that you were waiting for. Just, something to happen. It was all I really had besides keeping in mind my family- what if I missed something happening? Eventually, I realized these people were that, people. Who cared. Who did not want to kill me for being a knight as I thought. And I decided that, while I could've fled to Thanalan and tried to live as a normal person, I wanted to stay and make a difference, even a small one. Help people in my situation to be saved and survive, not perish to Ishgard, even if there was no chance of making a bigger difference by that point. And when Ysayle entered the picture, that changed everything, and the rest is history." "I think I can understand that... I, for one, am glad the sun continued to rise for you...that you were able to find reasons to keep going, ways to help people." She gave a small smile. "I bet you've made plenty of differences with all the folks you've helped along your journey. Cause it's not just the big ones that matter, yeah?""Well, had I not been concerned about the small child who was alone in the woods, we wouldn't be here, so yes. And that's what I enjoy about doing this on the side nowadays- the pleasure of seeing it affect individual people in real time. The way I ended up discussing it with another client, is you have to figure out the way to get out of the room. You're in a room, and you can get out and see what's beyond it, but you're just not ready to yet, you find yourself unable. Once you can manage to get out of the room and see what's beyond it, everything becomes a little easier." Teagan tilted her head at this. "A... room? So... you finding the drive to help others helped you open your 'room'?" "It helped me get out of it, yes. I realized I still had something to do and people cared. People really helped a lot, even though I was pushing them away. Just knowing they wanted me to feel better and believed in me as a person.... after everything else fell through, it was all I had." She nodded and smiled a little. "I'm glad you were able to find the door, and that you had people there to help you find the knob." She paused for a brief moment. "... Thank you for sharing your story with me, Esredes. It's been really eye-opening." And so the session concluded, and soon Esredes was back out into the world. First half of the day was over, and then it was time for the second. There was not a formal meeting happening with his people tonight, but instead a get together of sorts at Vette's more recently acquired mansion she had made into a space for all of them to convene safely. Esredes went to and from everybody, making sure everyone was doing well, holding conversations and watching everyone enjoy themselves with a faint smile on his face. He stepped into the bathroom at one point to do his business, and washed his hands after. He was confused why there was a second bathroom mirror for a moment until it began to show him another reality. Esredes stepped back from the sink and put a hand against the wall to his left, the other going over his heart. Reflected back at him in the mirror was a collection of all the people he knew and loved close together, with himself standing further away on the platform and forced to stare at them. A mass public execution. Esredes rushed out of the bathroom and slammed the door shut, pressing his entire body against the door and breathing in and out, in and out. It's not real. It's not real. "Esredes?" Came a gentle voice, as Vette approached the man. She had most definitely felt the spike in distress from the aetherial bond they shared. She asked about how he was doing and put a soft hand to his cheek. "I'm all right, really." Esredes said. "I just had... an unexpected wave of fear come over me." Vette was always in tune with how he felt. She helped him calm down the rest of the way, and then lead him back to the gathering. The anxiety soon faded, and replaced by it, a warm feeling heated the blood inside him. For the rest of the evening, Esredes continued to engage with his family, waves of laughter and elation surging and falling in with the tide. He only hoped that the droplets of gratitude leaking from his fingertips and voice washed over everyone attending like a cool rain on a summer's day, for as he closed his eyes and let each droplet of noise from their voices and words hit him, everything stood right into place where it belonged.

--- @thecalmnessandthestorms / @heartofthefury Heilyn, Ferrant, Sartorius (unnamed mention) @eternal-finis Lieuvanne (unnamed mention) @shieldbcund Elouan @punches-and-cream-puffs Teagan @syerraffxiv Vette

#in action #writing #ffxivwrite2021 #heilyn #ferrant #sartorius #lieuvanne #elouan #Olivette #post hw #teagan #screenshots #Ysayle

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

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Florida has just become the first state in the Union to mandate that high school students learn about the crimes of communism. The subject is indeed very important, and too little known. The problem is that the new legislation, like other recent Florida measures, itself recalls certain evils of communism.

As of this coming school year, high school students who wish to graduate from a Florida school must pass a class in U.S. government that includes "comparative discussion of political ideologies, such as communism and totalitarianism, that conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy essential to the founding principles of the United States."

Any high school teacher is going to sigh at the awkward circularity of the "principles essential to the principles" formulation. As Orwell tried to remind us in "Politics and the English Language," though, vague formulations demand our critical attention. This weird phrasing serves a sinister purpose, one that becomes clear later in the law. The point is that the United States is to be defined as free and democratic, regardless of what Americans or their legislators actually do. American is free and democratic because of a miraculous investiture from the past. Complacency is therefore patriotic, and criticism is not.

The law presents "totalitarianism" as an ideology. Totalitarianism is not an ideology, so Florida teachers are henceforth legally required to teach nonsense. To be sure, one can find historical figures who referred to themselves as "totalitarian" in a positive sense, but in general the term has been used as analysis and critique. In use for about a century now, "totalitarianism" has generally been used as a category that brings together regimes with very different ideologies, drawing attention to underlying similarities.

As such, totalitarianism can also be a tool for self-critique, since it draws attention to political temptations that make different systems possible. The most important book about totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt, presents Nazism and Stalinism as possibilities within modern politics. When in Origins of Totalitarianism Arendt wrote about conspiracy theories, she was writing not only about Nazi and Soviet practices, but also about a human failing. When she wrote about narratives where we are always right and they are always wrong, where we are always innocent and they are always guilty, she was describing a universal risk. When she wrote of people who were simultaneously gullible and cynical, for whom “everything was possible and nothing was true,” she got uncomfortably close to contemporary American reality.

By defining totalitarianism as a foreign ideology to be contrasted with American principles, Florida legislators have denied students not just the knowledge of what the term actually means, but also the possibility to appeal to a rich body of thought that might help them to avoid risks to freedom and democracy.

Unlike totalitarianism, communism is an ideology. Its ideological character is visible in its approach to the past: communists transformed history, an open search for fact and endless discussion of interpretation, into History, an official story in which one's own country was the center of world liberation regardless of what its leaders did. The party was always right, even if what the party said and did was unpredictable and self-contradictory. The most important communist party still in power, the Chinese, takes this line today. To question the revolution or the inevitability of the system is to fall prey to "historical nihilism." In April 2018, a Chinese memory law accordingly made it a crime to question the heroism of past leaders. What we have is good and right because we inherited it from glorious dead revolutionaries, and we must not question what the government tells us about our glorious dead revolutionaries.

We have our own official story of revolution. The Florida board of education has recently forbidden teachers from defining American history "as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence." That narrow formulation rules out most of reality but crams in a good dose of mysticism. Nothing is ever entirely new, and nations arise from many sources aside from principles. The board of education’s claim is political rather than historical: Everything good comes from the past, and we must not question what the government tells us about its righteousness. If there is only one story, and you have to tell it, that is not history but History. The point is not that the American Revolution is the same thing as the Chinese Revolution. The point is that we are treating it the same way, describing it in dogmatic terms that we enforce in memory law. And that is deeply worrying.

The same spirit is in evidence in that Florida communist law. Deep in the past, it instructs us, is where we find freedom and democracy. Freedom is not something to be struggled for by individuals now, but magically "inherited from prior generations." That phrase should give pause to anyone who cares about freedom. If you seriously think that freedom is something that you can inherit, like a sofa or a stamp collection, you are not going to be free for long.

In the law's logic, democracy is not actually allowing people to vote, but some silent tradition that somehow exists whether or not real Americans can vote in reality. Despite what actually happened between the eighteenth century and now (slavery, let's say, or voter suppression), we must close our minds to everything but those mythical "principles essential to the principles." The facts give way to an underlying logic, impossible to articulate, that demonstrates that my country is better.

The Florida communism law requires that someone (it is hard, given the awkward phrasing, to say who) must "curate oral history resources." The curation will involve the selection "first-person accounts of victims of other nations' governing philosophies who can compare those philosophies with those of the United States." There is something humiliating about turning real people into poster children for American exceptionalism. Refugees from other countries past and present have individual and complex stories, which cannot usually be reduced to tales of American superiority. Edith P., a Holocaust survivor, speaks of waiting for hours every day in front of the American embassy, which denied her family a visa. American schoolchildren read about Anne Frank, but no one tells them that her father applied for an American visa. Leon Bass was an African American soldier who saw a German concentration camp. He had something comparative to say about "governing philosophies," but it would not survive curation.

America today is not an especially free country. Our own non-governmental organization Freedom House, relying on our own preferred notions of freedom (civil and political rights) ranks us in fifty-eighth place. In other words, it would theoretically be possible (and it would certainly be valuable) for the Florida board of education to solicit testimonies from people from fifty-seven other countries where people live more freely than here, who could explain why they have not moved to the United States. They could compare their countries' "governing philosophies" with that of the United States (favorably, unfavorably, who knows: they are free people). But we know that this will not happen. Such an application of the Florida communism law is unthinkable, because the Florida communism law is not about freedom. It is about repeating that America is the best country in the world.

Self-absorption is not anti-communism. Anti-communism would entail listening to history rather than History, and educating individuals who can make up their own minds. You don't get freedom from the flock.

Another familiar communist trick can be found in a recent directive by the Florida board of education. The trick has to do with leveraging victory in the Second World War. Beginning in the late 1960s, a certain version of the Second World War became an important part of communist ideology. In the Soviet Union, and also in today's Russia, any wrong done by the system was explained away by the fact that the Red Army had defeated the Germans. The fact that Nazis were evil made the Soviets good. The fact of having resisted the Nazis made one's own system unassailable. This communist technique has now, uncannily, resurfaced in official Florida pedagogy.

In the recent school board directive, we learn that "examples of theories that distort historical events and are inconsistent with State Board approved standards include the denial or minimization of the Holocaust, and the teaching of Critical Race Theory, meaning the theory that racism is not merely the product of prejudice, but that racism is embedded in American society and its legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white persons." This repeats the Soviet (and Russian) logic. We don't deny German crimes, and therefore we are innocent of any crimes ourselves. Indeed, anyone who suggests that we look at our own history: well, they are like Holocaust deniers!

Another sad resemblance concerns voting. Freedom involves educating people about the past as it was so that they can make up their own minds about what the future should be. Democracy involves giving people the vote in the meantime. The Soviet Union held elections, but they were ritualistic and fake. When Soviet power extended across eastern Europe after the Second World War, local communist parties rigged elections. Thus authentic anti-communists would make sure that their own elections were not rigged, and that all citizens could take part. But the Florida communism law was passed in circumstances that suggest a lively interest in making voting more difficult. In 2019, the Florida legislature enacted pay-to-vote legislation that effectively disenfranchised people that Floridians, in a referendum, had voted to enfranchise the year before. The Florida communism law came into effect this 1 July, hard on the heels of a new Florida voter suppression law.

I have spent decades teaching and writing about communism, and I certainly think that young people should know about communist systems and their policies of mass killing. But declarations of superiority do not amount to a pedagogy, nor to an anti-communism worthy of the name. The content of the Florida communism law, and the Florida voter suppression law, and the board of education directive on race, do not suggest that Florida lawmakers and administrators have learned much about what was wrong with communism.

These measures reveal American weaknesses that make American tyranny more likely.

* * * * *

When I went to High School in Florida [many decades ago] all Seniors had to take a class called “Americanism vs Communism.” As I recall, most students slept through the class. I thought that it was insulting propaganda - using an inadequate text that was filled with poorly written boilerplate and boring poorly made films. If the right wing wants to inflict propaganda on teenagers it should invest in decent writers and film makers. They are very poor in the literacy department. I was 16 at the time and unsophisticated but I could still tell that what i was being taught was a waste of my time.

#political #articles #Timothy Snyder #history #communism #Florida

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kjack89 · 4 years

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AITA

My bestie’s latest quarantine hobby is trolling through AITA on reddit and sending me ones she thinks will make me mad, so. I got inspired.

E/R, modern AU.

The sun was bright and the mood, all things considered, was high, as the crowd gathered by the river in preparation for the march downtown to call for defunding the police. Black Lives Matter was leading the protest, and Enjolras had volunteered Les Amis to serve as support and allies in whatever way they could, which mostly meant making sure folks were wearing masks and that no one decided to try something stupid with the cops.

“Good crowd,” Courfeyrac remarked, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet as he glanced around before looking back at Enjolras. “As much as I’m sure it’s killing you that they’re only calling for defunding and not abolition.”

“Yeah, well, not even a year ago, no one was talking about defunding the police,” Enjolras pointed out, a little sourly, adjusting his mask, which was emblazoned with WHITE SILENCE IS VIOLENCE. “I’ll take what progress I can get.”

Courfeyrac smirked. “You sound practically moderate.”

Enjolras scowled. “Take that back, or—”

His threat was cut off by the arrival of Joly, Bossuet and Grantaire. It was hard to tell by the masks all three wore, but Enjolras was pretty sure that all three were grinning, and judging by the way Bossuet was swaying, just slightly, it wasn’t just because they were in a good mood.

“I’ll take it you three decided to hit up a brunch spot on your way here?” Enjolras asked, even more sourly than before.

“A man has to eat,” Joly said innocently, which would have gone over much more believably had he not giggled at the end.

“Besides, we only ordered one drink,” Bossuet assured him.

Enjolras pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let me guess,” he said dryly, “you each ordered a bottomless mimosa.” He didn’t wait for any of them to confirm it. “And how many refills of said drink did you also order?”

Joly and Bossuet looked at each other and laughed, and Grantaire pulled his mask down to grin lazily at Enjolras. “Let me put it this way,” he said, “more than one and less than ten.” He paused. “Probably. I did lose track after about seven.”

Snickering, Joly and Bossuet headed over to join the rest of Les Amis, but when Grantaire made to follow, Enjolras blocked him, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “You’re drunk,” he said accusingly, and Grantaire’s grinned widened.

“Well, I’m sure as shit not sober.”

“Put your mask back on,” Enjolras ordered, less concerned for himself, as Grantaire was part of his quarantine bubble, and more for everyone else milling around before the march started. Especially any journalists who might love to get a shot of BLM protesters breaking the mask mandate. “And go home, Grantaire.”

Grantaire slowly pulled his mask back up over his mouth and nose, smoothing it into place before looking at Enjolras plaintively, all trace of humor vanishing from his expression. “Let me stay here,” he said, his voice soft, and not just from the cotton that covered his mouth.

Enjolras shook his head, well aware that even if Grantaire might suddenly sound sober, he wasn’t. “Go home,” he repeated. “The last thing we need is your drunk ass picking a fight with the cops or something worse and turning this whole thing into a riot instead of the peaceful protest its organizers intended.”

“What, you think I’m incapable of going two or three hours without starting a brawl?” Grantaire asked, incredulous.

Enjolras arched an eyebrow. “I think you’re incapable of a great many things.”

Grantaire’s lip curled. “Like believing, thinking, willing, living and dying?”

“Only you seem to think you’re incapable of dying,” Enjolras said quietly, before repeating, one more time, “Go home.”

But Grantaire shook his head, taking a step toward him. “If you’re so worried about it, then send Bahorel home, too!” he insisted. “Send home Joly and Bossuet who are just as drunk as I am. Or else let me stay.”

“No.”

Enjolras said the word calmly, but Grantaire recoiled as if he had shorted. “And why not?”

“Because I trust them!” Enjolras burst, his temper getting the better of him, and he scrubbed a hand across his face before adding, what he hoped was a calmer way, “I trust them to actually listen to my instructions and keep themselves out of trouble.”

But something in Grantaire’s face clouded as soon as Enjolras had said that he trusted them, and Enjolras had a bad feeling that he hadn’t really listened to the last part. “Right,” Grantaire said, a little dully, already turning away. “Well. I’ll see you later, I guess.”

“Grantaire,” Enjolras sighed, reaching out to catch his arm, but Grantaire shrugged him off, wandering towards the river, the hunch of his shoulders the only indication that he had any care in the world. Enjolras stared after him for a long moment, his expression troubled.

----------

Four days later, Grantaire rolled over in bed when his phone buzzed. He picked it up off his nightstand, saw that it was a text from Enjolras, and immediately tossed it down again, groaning.

He hadn’t talked to Enjolras since that morning of the BLM protest, and at this rate, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to. Not when he knew that Enjolras didn’t trust him.

Joly would tell him he was being dramatic, and Bossuet would tell him to just text Enjolras and apologize and move on, and since Grantaire wanted to hear neither of those things, he also wasn’t talking to Joly or Bossuet.

Instead, he rolled over onto his stomach, grabbing his phone and stubbornly ignoring the text message from Enjolras still sitting, unread, in his messages. Instead, he clicked on twitter, figuring if he was going to sulk, he might as well sulk while reading about someone else’s misery.

A half hour later, Grantaire had scrolled through what felt like half of twitter before he stumbled upon a random tweet that linked to an ‘Am I the Asshole?’ post on the subreddit of the same name, and he glanced at the clock before deciding he had enough time to waste a couple of hours on a whole new level of misery.

He might’ve kept scrolling for hours, when he stumbled upon an AITA post that was surprisingly familiar.

Suspiciously familiar.

Like he had lived it.

He hesitated for only a moment before clicking on the post.

Posted by u/RadianceoftheFuture 8 hours ago AITA for kicking my friend out of a protest?

So I (25M) was attending a BLM protest the other day with the social justice organization I run. One of my friends, who we’ll call ‘R” (28M), showed up drunk and, IMO, looking to start a fight. This was the last thing I wanted, since we were there to be good allies, and starting fights or inciting a riot as white folks who will get away with it ain’t it. So naturally, I told him to go home.

Now here’s where I may be the asshole. R started arguing with me, and pointed out that some our other friends who were also there were also drunk, and one of our other friends who was there has a history of starting fights, so he asked me why I wasn’t making them leave. I told him it was because I trusted them.

Which is true, but not exactly how I wanted to word it, and I could tell that he was hurt by the implication that I didn’t trust him. And I do trust him, but I also didn’t want to spend the entire time worried about him. Anyway, he left, and he hasn’t talked to me since. If I’m the asshole, I want to apologize so that we can go back to being friends, and even if I wasn’t, I still want to figure out a way for us to talk again. I miss him. So tell me, AITA?

Grantaire stared at his phone, torn between something warm spreading in his chest at the fact that Enjolras cared enough to ask anonymous strangers on the internet about this, and freaking out because Enjolras had posted about their disagreement on the internet.

The man had only two speeds, it seemed, and somehow, Grantaire always ended up dealing with Enjolras on the highest speed.

Numbly, and mostly in an attempt to gather his thoughts, Grantaire scrolled through the comments on the post, unsurprised to see a decent mix of judgements from the redditors. More than expected YTAs (you’re the asshole), plus a number of NTAs (not the asshole), and, predominantly, a smattering of NAH (no assholes here).

Halfway down the page, he paused, realizing that the person who had written the post had responded to a question.

u/oldcoats_oldfriends - 7 hours ago INFO: why do you trust your other friends and not R?

u/RadianceoftheFuture - 6 hours ago Because R has a history of getting himself in trouble, whether by running his mouth off when he shouldn’t or picking fights with guys twice his side, and the trouble he gets into tends to happen after he’s been drinking. So when you put the two together, I was worried he’d do something stupid and get himself locked up or worse. And since keeping an eye on the rest of the protest was important, I knew I couldn’t afford to be distracted by also keeping an eye on him.

And for the record, I trust R with a lot. He’s not as ideological as a lot of us, doesn’t even have a lot of the same beliefs, but I know he would never do anything to hurt the cause, or me. Of course, he might not HELP the Cause, or me, but still. I’ve never once doubted that R would take a bullet for me, if it came to that. I would just never in a million years want him to.

Grantaire swallowed, hard. Of course he would take a bullet for Enjolras, or more, but it had never occurred to him that knowing that might make Enjolras worried. Worried that Grantaire would do something stupid.

If only the man knew that Grantaire worried about Enjolras in exactly the same way.

Hesitating for only a moment, he decided to leave a comment of his own.

u/MyFullGlass1832 - 1 minute ago NAH. Sure your friend shouldn’t have been drunk and you were right to kick him out, but drinking doesn’t make him an asshole (though not talking to you might). I am curious why you would have been worried about him. He’s a grown man and not your responsibility.

He quickly closed out of reddit, not wanting to do something stupid and refresh until Enjolras responded, but he only half-paid attention to the tweets he scrolled past, glancing at the clock to see if it was still pathetic for him to check for a response.

But to his shock, when he finally gave in and checked forty-five minutes later, Enjolras had answered, and something in Grantaire’s stomach twisted to know that he was still checking the thread, still seeking a resolution.

u/RadianceoftheFuture - 39 minutes ago Maybe ‘worried about’ is the wrong term, but he’s my friend. I didn’t want him to get hurt, or worse, because he was drunk. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten hurt on my watch, and everytime it happens, it’s awful. And not just because he won’t shut up about it for the next six months - I always feel so guilty, like I should’ve been protecting him. I know that’s not realistic, so the very least I can do is send him home when I think he’s liable to hurt himself. That way I can sleep at night knowing I did what I could.

The breath caught in Grantaire’s throat, and his chest felt tight, especially as he read the follow up comments.

u/valiant.artisan - 34 minutes ago INFO: Are you and R gay?

u/tremble_b4apoppy - 26 minutes ago Dude you may be in love with R.

u/timidinrepose - 21 minutes ago OMG this is the sweetest thing I’ve read all day.

u/Lymantria_dispar - 12 minutes ago. Pretty sure this might go a little beyond just friendship. Either way, I’m glad you care about your friend, and even though you weren’t TA, you should call him and explain why you told him to go home.

Grantaire couldn’t seem to stop his stupid smile as he stared at the computer, and this time, he didn’t hesitate, opening his text chain with Enjolras without reading any of Enjolras’s previous texts. He didn’t need to read them know.

NTA.

He sent the text and held his breath, wondering if Enjolras would acknowledge it, immediately, or try to play it cool. His one word answer indicate the former: Sorry?

But Grantaire wasn’t nearly as willing to play it coy. Not anymore. Your AITA post. I’m giving you my judgment. NTA.

In his mind, he could see Enjolras blush, that same way he did when he was frustrated, two spots of color rising high in his cheek as he stared at Grantaire. You saw that?

Even in his mind, it was a beautiful sight. Yeah

Then you should know, I agree with the majority opinion.

The image of Enjolras blushing disappeared, leaving Grantaire blinking at his phone, his brow furrowed as he tried to think of what the majority option would have been. Oh?

NAH.

Grantaire grinned, but before he could respond, Enjolras texted, Want to come over? I think I owe you an explanation in person.

I thought you’d never ask.

----------

u/ RadianceoftheFuture - 45 minutes ago UPDATE: AITA for kicking my friend out of a protest?

(Original.)

Thank you all very much for your feedback in the original post. There were a variety of perspectives on this, but some of the comments on the original post made me realize that I may in fact feel something more than friendship towards R, and it’s a good thing I figured it out, because he found the post, and even commented on it without me knowing! Anyway, we talked, I explained how I felt, and it turns out R’s had a thing for me pretty much since he’s known me. Anyway, we’re dating now, and while this isn’t exactly going to solve my problem of worrying about him, I also think he’ll be on somewhat better behavior now. For my sake at least.

We still have a lot to work on together, but we’re moving in the right direction. And to think, I probably never would’ve figured it out if it weren’t for reddit, of all the websites.

u/MyFullGlass1832 - 3 minutes ago WIBTA for hijacking my boyfriend’s reddit post to tell him that I love him?

u/ RadianceoftheFuture - 2 minutes ago YTA for sitting literally two feet away from me and responding to a reddit post when we could be doing something far more exciting.

u/MyFullGlass1832 - 1 minute ago ...good point.

#enjolras x grantaire #exr #enjoltaire #enjolras #grantaire #les miserables #fanfiction #modern au #reddit au #that pained me to type #anyway #developing relationship

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96thdayofrage · 3 years

Text

The push prompted a series of sweeping apologies and broad action plans, shifting the goalposts for what would be expected of corporations in their relatively new status as “corporate citizens.”

Nearly a year later, many major corporations have assumed a similar posture following Chauvin’s conviction on murder charges, reminding the American public of their purported commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Amid mounting evidence that many police departments routinely display both implicit bias and outright racism, reports show that corporate America continues to pour millions of dollars into the police.

One way corporations funnel money into law enforcement is through police foundations. As nonprofits, police foundations allow police departments to raise unregulated slush funds from undisclosed sources, generally meaning corporations or private foundations associated with wealthy families or individuals. Police have historically used this money to expense weaponry and special equipment that is not covered by their municipal budgets.

“Police foundations are really good at hiding what they’re actually spending their money on,” Arisha Hatch, vice president of Color of Change, told Salon. “These foundations exist completely off the books.”

According to Nonprofit Quarterly, there are about 251 police foundations across the U.S. A report last year by the government watchdog LittleSis found that a whole host of well-known corporations have been intimately involved with police foundations throughout the nation.

One notable example is AT&T. Last year, Sludge found that AT&T was “an active donor” to the Seattle Police Foundation, which according to IRS filings amassed more than $1.5 million in contributions and grants in 2019 alone. Gothamist reported in 2019 that AT&T made an appearance as a “deep-pocketed donor” at the New York City Police Foundation, which collected $9.2 million in contributions and grants over the fiscal year ending in June 2019. Because these foundations are not subject to typical IRS disclosure laws, neither of them reported how that money were spent.

AT&T is also a “Platinum Partner” of the National Sheriffs’ Association, a pro-police lobbying group that fights to preserve the 1033 Military Surplus Program, a government-run initiative that distributes surplus military-grade weaponry and supplies to police departments throughout the nation. In order to become a Platinum Partner, a corporation must donate at least $15,000.

Asked about the company’s relationship with law enforcement, an AT&T spokesperson told Salon that the company supports “many civil rights organizations” and is “working with them to redefine the relationship between law enforcement and those they serve to advance equitable justice for all Americans.”

Kevin Walby, an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Winnipeg, told Salon that any company that makes strong rhetorical commitments to racial equality should not donate to police foundations at all, saying that in doing so, “they are actually backstopping very racist policing practices.”

Target is another corporate giant with deep ties to the police. On Tuesday, Target CEO Brian Cornell postponed a speaking event in anticipation of Chauvin’s verdict, later telling his employees in an internal memo: “The murder of George Floyd last Memorial Day felt like a turning point for our country. The solidarity and stand against racism since then have been unlike anything I’ve experienced. Like outraged people everywhere, I had an overwhelming hope that today’s verdict would provide real accountability. Anything short of that would have shaken my faith that our country had truly turned a corner.”

One might assume such concern for racial justice would translate to the company’s spending habits. However, according to government watchdog LittleSis and Sludge, the Minnesota-based retail giant has donated to at least nine police foundations since 2015, including those in Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles. Back in 2014, Target quietly donated $200,000 to the Los Angeles Police Foundation so that its affiliate department could gain early access to surveillance software engineered by Palantir, a company accused of whitewashing systemic racism with its supposed data-driven solutions to policing. Target has also supplied thousands of dollars in grant money to various law enforcement agencies throughout the country. The company reported that by 2011, it had given “Public Safety Grants” to over 4,000 law enforcement agencies. In that same year alone, Target said it had distributed more than $3 million in grants to “law enforcement and emergency management organizations.”

A Target spokesperson declined to provide more recent figures on grant money. The company also declined to clarify whether its relationships with police foundations remain active, instead providing the following statement: “We also believe that team members and guests should feel safe in their engagements with law enforcement. We support holistic changes in policing that advance more equitable, community-centric policing that is grounded in innovative law enforcement reform best practices.”

Numerous tech giants, including Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, also support the police in ways outlined above. Amazon, for example, which claimed to “stand with [its] Black employees, customers, and partners” following Chauvin’s verdict, has supported the police in a variety of different ways. In 2019, the tech giant reportedly donated up to $9,999 to the Seattle Police Foundation. A company representative told Salon that the company has not donated to the Seattle Police Foundation within the last two years. Salon was unable to confirm this, since the foundation reportedly scrubbed all information pertaining to its corporate sponsors shortly after LittleSis released its report.

Additionally, Amazon board member Indra Nooyi serves as a trustee on the board of the New York City Police Foundation, according to digitally archived information on the foundation’s website from last year.

Meanwhile, AmazonSmile, the company’s charity initiative — which allows Amazon to donate 0.5% of proceeds from a sale to the buyer’s chosen charity — has helped pass along donations from customers to numerous police foundations, including those in Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and Cleveland. (This relationship has been publicly advertised via Twitter.)

A company representative said that Amazon defers to guidance from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Southern Poverty Law Center on what organizations meet AmazonSmile’s eligibility requirements. These requirements state that eligible organizations cannot “engage in, support, encourage, or promote … intolerance, discrimination or discriminatory practices based on race.” Just this year, however, the SPLC published a feature calling racial bias in policing a “national security threat.”

Neither the Seattle Police Foundation nor New York City Police Foundation responded to Salon’s request for comment.

Coffeehouse giant Starbucks has visibly attempted to go above and beyond in demonstrating its commitment to racial justice. Last year, at the height of the racial unrest following George Floyd’s death, the coffee chain said it would distribute 250,000 shirts bearing the “Black Lives Matter” slogan to employees, flouting its existing ban on any apparel that “advocate for a political, religious or personal issue,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Just this year, Starbucks invested $100 million in “small business growth and community development projects in BIPOC neighborhoods.”

Following the Chauvin verdict, Starbucks the company released a statement from CEO Kevin Johnson, which read in part:

Today’s jury verdict in the murder trial of ex-police officer Derek Chauvin will not soothe the intense grief, fatigue and frustration so many of our Black and African American partners are feeling. Let me say clearly to you: We see you. We hear you. And you are not alone. Your Starbucks family hurts with you … We will be here for our partners in the Twin Cities and for each and every BIPOC Starbucks partner as we try to understand the systemic wrongs that lead to inequality.

One might argue these “systemic wrongs” have been exhibited by the Seattle Police Department. In a 2019 “Use of Force” report released by the Seattle Police, the department revealed that it used force against Black residents at a disproportionately higher rate than white residents. According to the report, more than 31 percent of cases of police force used against males involved Black males, even though they make up around 7 percent of the city’s population. A subsequent “Disparity Review” that year found that residents of color were frisked at higher rates than white residents, even though white people were statistically more likely to be carrying a weapon, and that Seattle officers drew their guns in encounters with residents of color at a higher rate than with white residents.

In that same year, Starbucks donated two grants totaling $15,000 to promote “implicit bias training” within the Seattle police and help the department host its “2019 banquet gala,” a spokesperson told Salon. The company also “contributed $25,000 to the New York City Police Foundation to help provide protective equipment such as masks, gloves and hand sanitizer, and coordinated the delivery of meals to precincts.” The representative did not say whether there were any accountability mechanisms in place to ensure the money was used appropriately, but did note that the company does “not currently have any funding with the Seattle Police Foundation.”

When corporations like Target and Starbucks give money to police foundations, it not only presents an ideological contradiction; it also presents a conflict of interest within the department itself, noted Walby, of the University of Winnipeg. “We only hear about donations” to police “when corporations want to celebrate them,” he said. “They want that halo effect. However, there are lots of instances in which the transfers and purchases aren’t made public. It’s an even bigger problem if they’re spending it on money that pertains to the corporation.”

In 2014, for instance, the Los Angeles Daily News reported that the Los Angeles Police Foundation received $84,000 in donations from stun-gun maker TASER International (now known as Axon) prior to TASER’s contract with the LAPD. In another case, Motorola, a donor to the New York Police Foundation, was later awarded several NYPD contracts, as reported by Politico in 2017. “There’s a real potential for private influence in public policing through police foundations,” Walby said. “It’s appropriate to call this money dark money. Because we can’t really see this money going in. We can’t really see this money going out.”

As the negative impact of police violence and criminalization becomes increasingly apparent in communities of color, Walby and Hatch argued, continuing to donate to police undermines corporations’ claims to awakened social consciousness. “Police departments across this country have plenty of money,” Hatch said. “They are well-resourced in a way that undermines other programs that could lead to safer and healthier communities.”

“Any money for police reform just enhances the power base of police as an institution,” Walby said. “The institution can’t change conduct that is institutionalized. The funds should be given directly to community and social development groups, groups that actually have a chance of creating something like equality in our world.”

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3pirouette · 3 years

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Fic: The Honey Trap (9/?)

Title: The Honey Trap

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Peggy’d lost count. She wasn’t sure if she was a double or triple agent at this point, and in the end, it didn’t matter. What mattered was getting out of this alive.

A/N: I'm giving you another chapter this weekend because I can. I've got a significant portion of the Epilogue written, and just a chapter or two to fill in the middle, so we're looking at about 12 in total. I'll post as they're written, but no promises on when.

I'm VERY curious to see what you all think about this chapter. We've just had angst, angst, angst up until now, and now? Well, it's a little bit of a departure, and I hope you like it.

Chapter 9: Infiltrating the Lap of Luxury

Three Days Later

Peggy was nauseous. The red and black. The banners. The eagles and swastikas. The double lightning bolts.

They were everywhere.

Just three days in Berlin had reminded her who, and what, they were fighting for. If the concerned well-to-do Nazis of London had confused her, this had shocked her right back to reality.

Wallace had given her practically no notice that they were leaving, to the point where she’d wondered if either or both of them had been found out and they needed to run. She’d had barely enough time to throw the essentials in a bag and finish the letter.

Since they’d started with the letters, she’d had one half written, waiting in the false bottom of one of the drawers in her apartment for her to fill in days, times, and places. She knew one day they’d have to make a hasty retreat, and that came far faster than she had been prepared for.

He’d been manic, not because they’d been found out, but because he’d been offered something he couldn’t pass up: face time with the men who were running everything. They’d been invited to the heart of Berlin for a party, and then to accompany a high-ranking scientist to the Alps.

None of that had made it into her letter.

She was sharing a hotel room with Wallace, and the Agent who had escorted them to Berlin was residing right next door. She wasn’t sure if he was there to keep them safe or to keep tabs on them, but she wasn’t going to press it either way. She played appropriately lovelorn on the plane over the channel, then slowly warmed back up to Wallace. By the time they’d made it to the hotel she was holding his hand and chatting about how excited she was to be invited to such a thing.

Peggy wasn’t sure what Wallace was anymore, where his allegiance fell, or what he expected her to behave as, but she was along for the ride, and that meant keeping him happy.

She still made him sleep on the couch.

In the morning, the symbols all around her were brighter and more apparent, and the charade was harder to keep up. Wallace paraded her around office buildings and at dinners with men whose names she’d only heard about in official communiques. It seemed the information he thought he was stealing from her had made him somewhat infamous, and they didn’t seem to understand, thankfully, that she’d led them into several ambushes at this point.

She found it baffling and sickening, but she let them believe they’d lured her over to their ideology, that she was no longer interested in serving the Allied Powers as they’d done nothing for her.

She had once chance to pass on all she knew. One communique. She hoped they were ready.

~*~

Dugan stood just outside the hotel, pulling down on his deerstalker cap to stay hidden in the twilight. He’d shaved his moustache, to which they’d all laughed, and dyed his hair a glaring blonde, even though he was keeping it hidden under his cap.

There were precious few they trusted for this, and even fewer who could walk into the heart of Germany and potentially not be recognized by either the SS or Wallace. Dugan somehow fit that bill. He worried that he was too early, but being too late might compromise the drop. He stopped and rubbed his knee, feigning pain to buy himself some time. Eyes were everywhere, and they didn’t hesitate to report suspicious people under such a regime.

Peggy was due any minute. Any second.

And there she was.

Laughing.

Dugan looked up, surprised, to see her laughing and smiling with Wallace, dressed to the nines complete with heels and a fur stole and the ever harder and harder to get silk stockings.

She was walking towards him on her way out of the hotel, and the only acknowledgement he got was the casual flicker of her eyes as she neared, the same she’d give any passing pedestrian.

Just a few steps away she stumbled and then stopped, Wallace concerned for her as they both looked down at the ground. “Are you all right, Maggie?”

Peggy stood and smiled, shrugging. “New shoes. I haven’t had a pair of proper dancing shoes in so long I think I must have forgotten how to wear them!” Her tone was light, and she kept Wallace’s eyes at hers with her smile, but Dugan was looking at her feet, where Peggy slipped her toes from her heel and dropped a small slip of paper on the ground before slipping her foot back in again. She kicked her foot up towards Wallace and wiggled her toes. “Should be good to go, dear. To dinner?”

He nodded and set them moving again. “Yes, quite right. Perhaps you should wear your new ones for the party tomorrow when we get back tonight, wouldn’t want you stumbling in that company.”

Dugan waited until they passed, playing up on the rubbing of his knee, and then started limping lightly forward, towards the scrap of paper on the ground. He stopped again, shoe stepping directly on it, and rubbed his knee, before walking away with only the tiniest glance back to tell him that the paper was stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

A block later, he stopped, picked it from his shoe, and continued on his way.

~*~

Stave, Bucky, and Dum Dum hovered over the paper, slowly decoding it by flashlight in their tiny tent in the middle of the German forest.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Dum Dum laughed. “How does she think we’re going to do that?”

“We clean up good!” Bucky retorted.

“Yeah,” Steve started, throwing the pencil down and slumping, “but I don’t blend in so well with a crowd here.”

“Well, I’m going. Where do I get my hands on a suit?” Dugan smiled. “You know what kinda women are at these parties?”

“Yeah, Nazis.” Barnes retorted, shaking his head.

“Ok, well, you’re not wrong there.” He shrugged. “I just miss going to parties, and beautiful women all dressedto the nines there.”

Dugan and Barnes shared a moment of agreement before Bucky focused them back on the mission. “And how do you plan on getting in?” Barnes asked cheekily. “We just going to walk in the front door?”

Steve rubbed his face. “It’s going to be guarded, there will be invitations… no. There’s no way we get in the front door play acting like we’re guests without being made.”

“So what?” Dugan asked, reading over the note again. He pointed at the most important detail: “Must get Zola at Black Tie tomorrow night. Last Chance before Alps.” He shrugged. “Maybe it would be easier to try to get him while he’s going over the Alps to the Hydra base.”

Bucky shook his head. “I mean, potentially less guards on one of those trains, but some of those tracks are treacherous. They’re lucky the trains make it through. One wrong move there, we’re not just captured, we’re dead.”

“So what? We go in as the caterers?” Dugan laughed. “I already shaved my moustache for this, I’m up for a good disguise.”

“It’s a mansion, right?” Steve asked, trying to be positive. “Maybe we just need to…” He took a moment, his head twisting and turning as he thought of and discarded ideas. He stopped, throwing his hands out to the side. “I got nothing.”

Barnes just punched him on the shoulder good naturedly. “You know, you’re lucky you’ve got Peggy to do all the heavy lifting in this relationship.”

Steve hung his head, smiling. “Don’t I know it.”

~*~

Peggy did her best to smile, but was still sickened by the excess. She’d seen the state of the German forces, of the men in the field and the men they captured.

It was always revolting to see how the men who ran the wars, but never experienced them, lived.

Champaign. Caviar. Grand dinners and ballrooms full of music and dancing. The war hadn’t touched these people. They hadn’t watched friends and family die. After listening to them, she guessed most of them had probably profited off the backs of the boys in the trenches.

For every man with a gun, the real monster was a faceless man in an office calling his shots.

She hated to admit she enjoyed the luxury of a hot bath, of the silk stockings she hadn’t had in months, of a new green silk dress that hugged her curves and didn’t smell like mothballs, of shoes that fit and hadn’t ever seen a patch of mud. She felt guilty every minute, preening and putting on make-up and rolling her hair just right so that she wouldn’t stand out. The guilt had nearly overwhelmed her, but she had a job to do, and she could deal with the emotional toll of this later.

By the way everyone looked when they walked into the mansion, she and Wallace stood out. Their novelty dimmed, however, as they were slowly introduced around the room. Once they were no longer strangers, they were no longer a unique oddity to be admired or a threat to be monitored. Wallace worked hard to get in front of the generals, in front of the men with the most medals and the stiffest backs in the room, to get some facetime with the people that could get him closer to whatever his goal was.

She only had one goal: Arnim Zola.

He was Schmidt’s right-hand man, and he was vulnerable tonight.

She had three different plans, depending on how the boys were able to make it in. She guessed they weren’t walking in the front door, as the security was heavy and nearly every man in the room wore the swastika on his arm and carried a gun with him. She only hoped they could follow her lead, or she could pick up whatever plan they’d come up with quickly to avoid a disaster.

Step one: meet Zola.

Peggy let Richard pull her around the ballroom for a while, smiling and nodding on his arm, keeping quiet as they traded stories and allegiances. She kept Zola in her sights throughout the night, taking note that he was often alone, and easily flustered. She smiled, realizing that his cheeks reddened every time he talked to a beautiful woman.

Peggy made her excuses and stepped out of the ballroom for a breath of fresh air. She’d hoped she’d be able to make contact with the boys but they weren’t anywhere to be found near or around the small, empty balcony. She took the moment to compose herself, and waited until the doctor was situated between her and Wallace so it wouldn’t look like she’d avoided Wallace, but rather ran into the doctor by mistake.

And run into him she did, literally, bumping his shoulder as she moved past him, covering her face and putting on her apologies before feigning recognition. “I’m sorry, are you Doctor Zola?”

He almost chocked on a sip of his Champaign. He looked her up and down, and Peggy smiled even wider, knowing that her care in dressing had done its job. “Yes,” he choked out as he regained his composure. “And who might you be?”

Peggy put her hand in his and let him kiss the back of it, forcing a blush by imagining Steve. “Oh, me? I’m nobody. But I just couldn’t help but overhear your name whispered here and there, and to have the chance to meet you!” She giggled and shrugged. “Though I am quite sorry for bumping into you.”

“Oh, no matter, my dear. But for such a beautiful creature, I must have a name.” He was earnest, and she almost, almost felt bad for what she was about to do.

“Maggie,” she replied softly, not feeling bad at all as she remembered the thousands of men that had died because of him.

He smiled, not letting go of her hand, and she smiled right back.

~*~

Bucky did not like hiding in the closet outside of the bathroom, but he did it because there was really no other choice than to sit there and wait for Peggy. They’d managed to sneak their way in through the basement early this morning through a drainage ditch, and Steve and Dugan were hiding on the floor below them in a root cellar.

The fact that Bucky was the only one small enough to fit in the dumbwaiter to get between floors was the only reason it was him and not Steve up here. He tried not to swear as yet another woman passed him that wasn’t Peggy.

“One click if you can hear me, Buck.” Steve’s voice came through his comm. It was tinny and buzzed incessantly, but the earpiece radios Stark had made them were far, far better than the bulky blocks they’d carried in the field up until now. Bucky clicked the talk button on the small box on his belt and waited for Steve to continue. “Dugan and I have managed to get our hands on some SS uniforms.”

Bucky clicked twice, acknowledging that he understood. Barnes wondered if they’d knocked people out and stolen their clothes, or if they’d simply found the wash.

He stopped, all thoughts gone out of his head when he saw Carter turn down the small hall, slowly moving towards the bathroom and seemingly absent mindedly turning door knobs.

He waited until she stepped into the small bathroom then slipped in behind her.

“Well, it’s about—” Peggy stopped, putting her hand over her mouth to stop from screaming. “You’re not Steve.”

Barnes shrugged. “He didn’t fit in the dumbwaiter.”

“I’m not going to even ask,” she sighed, sitting her hip against the sink and stepping out of her heels to rub her feet. “We have a small window of time. I’m going to get Zola into the office one hallway down. Do you know it?”

“Yeah,” Bucky nodded.

“I’ll incapacitate him, then you three are up, alright? He should be out for several hours, at least, but please be careful. If you jostle him enough, he will wake up.”

“Wake up?” Barnes asked.

“Wake up,” she confirmed. She looked him over, the black fatigues out of place in the resplendent bathroom. “Do you think you can handle that?”

Barnes smirked at her, “You think we can’t?”

Peggy sighed and smiled. “If I didn’t miss you so much, I’d hit you.” She moved to walk past him then stopped, serious. “One more thing, and you mustn’t forget.”

~*~

Bucky unfurled himself from the dumbwaiter, misjudging the distance and falling to the floor in a heap. “God, I hate that.”

“What happened? How is she?” Steve peppered him with questions as he helped him stand, looking awful Aryan with his blonde hair and blue eyes and the red band brandished across his arm. Dugan, too, fit in just a little too well in the suit now that he’d bleached his hair.

Bucky took them in as he stood, trying to shake the earie feeling seeing them in the uniforms of the enemy. “She’s fine. We’ve got about fifteen minutes to get to the office down the hall from the bathroom. We should be able to take the back stairs.” Bucky had done the interior recon early in the morning, slipping through and learning the layout when the residents inside had all been sleeping. “You got one of those for me?”

Steve handed him a pile. “They should fit.”

Bucky stripped and put the new clothes on, stopping as he buttoned up the jacket. “She- shit.” Bucky looked at Steve, lips pursed tight as he shook his head. “She told me not to forget something.”

“And you forgot it?” Dugan asked, incredulous.

“I mean, it wasn’t that important.” He moved back to buttoning himself into the jacket. “Come on, she’s waiting on us.”

~*~

Peggy rounded the table, pretending to be infinitely interested in the little metal figures that told a story of Aryan supremacy. “I find it all very fascinating, Doctor Zola.”

He smirked, downing the rest of his Champaign. “As I thought you might, fraulein.”

She stepped up to him, close, and played with the edge of his collar. “It’s so hard to find a man of substance these days,” she whispered, letting her nail run down over the buttons on his shirt.

“Ah, my dear, we are all involved in bringing glory to our cause!” He proudly exclaimed, watching her hand and then looking up into her eyes. “I might say, it is… refreshing to have a woman find interest in the matters of the mind. Usually, they are interested in more… superficial things.”

Peggy turned them so he was looking away from the door. She’d left it cracked, and could see shadows. She couldn’t take the chance that it wasn’t Steve and the boys, so she made her move. “Ah, yes, well, I am not one of those women.”

She leaned down and kissed him, lips pressed tight to his, for long seconds. He was surprised at first, but began to participate wholeheartedly once the initial surprise passed, gripping her tight with small, sweaty hands that roamed. She counted in her head, and Peggy pulled back as soon as she’d made sure it had been long enough, smiling at his fluster. “You see, I’m a different kind of woman all together.”

He started to reply, but found he couldn’t. Slowly, Peggy lowered him to the floor as his eyes fluttered shut.

She looked up, feigning surprise as the door opened. She’d been ready to call out, concerned that the Doctor had passed out on her from too much to drink when she saw the uniforms, but smiled when she saw the face attached. “Right on time, men.”

“Damn, Peggy,” Dugan whispered. “You are good at getting things done!”

“Are you okay?” Steve asked, stepping over Zola and helping her to stand.

“I’m fine. A little disgusted at the revelry, but fine.” She looked around, watching as Barnes and Dugan lifted the doctor, slinging his arms around their necks. “You’ll be able to get him out?”

“We’ve got a truck waiting half a click south just outside a sewer.” Barnes whispered. “Won’t be pleasant, but we’ve got it.”

“You have to ask him about this Swiss base, Steve.” She held his hands tight and pleaded with him. “They have something there, something related to those energy weapons Howard’s been studying. I don’t know what it is, but it’s big. And it has to be stopped.”

“You do it,” Steve whispered fiercely. “Come with us.”

She shook her head. “We both disappear and that’s a target on us all. Besides, I’m headed to the Alps tomorrow, the base the day after.” She gave him a small, nervous smile. “I don’t know how, but Wallace has arranged an audience with Schmidt.”

“Then here,” Steve shoved a small square in her hand. “Beacon. Turn it on tomorrow. Howard says it should last three days. We’ll track you.”

“Come on, buddy, we gotta go,” Barnes whispered. “Party’s breaking up and they’re gonna find us.”

Without warning Steve grabbed her and kissed her. Peggy pushed him away to his confusion.

“Barnes!” She half yelled, half whispered, shooting daggers over Steve’s shoulder at the man.

“What—” Steve could barely get the word out before he fell to the ground, eyes blinking shut.

“That’s why you didn’t want him to kiss you?!” Barnes looked at her and almost dropped Zola. “You gotta say stuff like that, Carter! I thought you just didn’t want to be messin’ around while on a mission!”

She dropped to her knees and started gently hitting Steve’s cheek. “Yes, Barnes, I didn’t want to be ‘messin’ around’ on a mission, especially when I have knock out lipstick on, you dolt!” She took a deep breath. “Get Zola out, Steve’ll be around in a minute or so and I’ll send him after you.”

“Are you—” Dugan started to question her, but her stern look stopped him. He and Barnes hiked Zola higher and with a glance, moved him out into the empty hallway.

“How much you want to bet he’s done that before?” Dugan whispered as they moved.

“Oh, I’m sure that idiot has done that before.” Bucky paused, hiking the small man higher over his shoulder. “How do you think she knows how long it’ll take him to wake up?”

“Good point.”

#Steggy Fic #Steggy #3P's Fic

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arcticdementor · 3 years

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Some rambling, poorly-organized thoughts on state structures

On the recent nationalism and nations discussion, I don't want to give the wrong impression of my views, lest I seem like some sort of dedicated supporter of homogenous ethnostates.

After all, I've repeatedly said that it seems like practically nobody actually believes in Westphalian sovereignty anymore.

I get that nationalism creates a lot of problems, particularly in the wake of the breakup — or especially, carving up by outsiders — of a multiethnic, multicultural empire. The nigh-impossibility of fitting political borders to the human geography (thus usually leading the human geography to be forcibly transformed to match the political borders instead).

I mean, just earlier this month, when reading about the "highest" High German dialects, I wiki-walked my way into reading about the mess that was post WWI South Tyrol — a mess created by Woodrow Wilson's hard-on for "national self-determination" (and ignorance of the actual demography) — how one guy (Ettore Tolomei) created Italian place names to replace all the Austrian ones, and how its (Austro-Bavarian) German-speaking majority eventually faced the choice of either forced Italianization under the Fascists or relocation to Nazi Germany.

Or this recent thread at the Motte about the history of the Balkans from a couple of natives thereof, with, again, plenty of blame for Woodrow Wilson's dismantlement of the Habsburg domains.

Plus, I've seen plenty of people, left and right, argue that much of the problems of the Middle East are due to how the Western powers, and particularly Britain, carved up the failing Ottoman Empire (and yes, for many of the left-leaning ones, the creation of the modern state of Israel is at or near the top of that list).

One can also see all the messes in the former Soviet Union — Moldova, Transnistria, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, the Donets Basin, Nagorno-Karabakh, et cetera — as a similar "breakup of an empire" mess.

On the other hand, though, I also recall people once arguing that one of the major harms European colonialism inflicted upon Africa in "the scramble" was carving out territories and drawing up borders willy-nilly, without concern for the existing ethnic, linguistic, and cultural groupings — causing some groups who identified as one people to be split apart in some cases, and in others causing differing groups with historical animosities to be forced together. And further, that "fixing" this would involve African nations reorganizing themselves along ethno-religio-cultural-linguistic lines. (I have a further aside on this I may write-up later.)

And multi-ethnic empires have their own issues. Sure, some have allowed the constituent ethnic groups a fair amount of autonomy, such as the Ottoman "millet" system. But others, not so much — look at what happened to Gaulish and the other continental Celtic languages under Roman rule; or "Hanification" in China.

In multi-ethnic empires, there's always one central, ruling ethicity — usually the one that founded it. And there's a general extractive flow of wealth from the periphery to the core, and from subject peoples to the ruling people (when this flow reverses, and the ostensible rulers are instead paying the other peoples, is often when the Empire begins failing — note that it was the Turkish national movement that ultimately overthrew the Sultan). Plus, said rulers often play the subject peoples against each other.

In short, nationalist states have some problems, empires have some different problems.

Someone in one of the reply chains also made reference to Medieval kingdoms; particularly, to the idea that a ruler was "King of France" — because that's where the bulk of the territory he held was located — rather than "King of the French" — ruler of a specific people. The kind of thing that led to situations like the Spanish Netherlands, Norman Sicily, the King of England also being the Elector of Hanover, the kings of Sweden and Poland each claiming to be the rightful monarch of both territories, and so on.

Despite that, there's much to favor in such a thing. But, as so many people keep reminding me when I bring up my monarchist views, this was the product of a number of specific preconditions. First, the utter disintegration of the western Roman Empire, leaving mostly just hyper-local identities — particularly once the Germanic migrations stopped, and the Franks and Goths assimilated to their local subjects.

Second, that the kings, particularly at the start of any given dynasty, and even sometimes well into the Early Modern period, were basically warlords — I recall reading one historian refer to Gustavus Adolphus as "the worst kind of sociopath," and another argue that the life story of Henry VII is, in its broad strokes, basically the same as any number of Latin American dictators. Look at Clovis I, Harald Hardrata, or William the Conqueror, or…

Third, this state of affairs was also a product of the comparative weakness of those kings. Because, for quite some time, pretty much any local baron who owned a castle was a power to be reckoned with, and kings were often more "first among equals" with these lords — see King John, the Magna Carta, the Barons' War, and so on. This was a product of the military technologies of the time; effective war-fighting was by highly-trained, heavily-equipped elite cavalry — knights — who were expensive… but not so expensive that local lords couldn't afford to maintain an effective retinue of them. Defensive fortifications like castles were highly effective, and slow and costly to besiege.

Then cannons and early firearms came along, which actually served to centralize power — kings were able to use them to take more power and authority from the aristocracy, leading to the replacement of decentralized feudal structures with royal absolutism (and a growing central bureaucracy to run and manage said centralized government). Then later firearms made the average commoner with little training into an effective war-fighter — thus "the Age of the Gun" and resulting democratization of the centralized state.

I'll admit, it's hard to see a pathway back to that sort of mid-level balance — where neither the numbers of the common masses nor the deep pockets of a centralized state provide much advantage in war over a localized petty elite. The "Age of the Gun" may have ended, but our current military modes (with multi-million-dollar equipment) again favor the centralized state — either a nation-state or an empire — over both local authority and the common citizen. Some argue that 4th-generation warfare might see a return of "people power" (though I have my doubts); and I've seen others debate how expensive effective autonomous weapons of a coming "Age of the Drone" might prove, and thus what scale of political organization it favors.

Then there's the city-state, which has even more local autonomy, and which seems to be in many ways a preferable manner of organization. But the problem there, is that they almost always run afoul of the economies of scale in war-fighting. There's a reason those feudal barons, for all their power, ended up pledging fealty to one king or another, and even in the modern era, unless you either have somehow obtained WMDs with an effective long-distance delivery system, or are under the protective aegis of a larger polity with such, a lone city-state is just too easy to push around militarily, if not de-facto conquer.

Sure, Nick Land argued that while nuclear-tipped ICBMs will remain out of reach for microstates, we can expect city-states to proliferate again once DNA technologies mean they can have a WMD deterrent in the form of "$1000 smallpox" or other bioweapons. I don't suppose I have to tell you, particularly now, why having hundreds of labs around the world manufacturing and storing virulent and deadly man-made plagues does not sound like a good idea to me.

Going all the way back to Westphalia, again, I'd like to note that the key principle there was not anything about nationalism directly, but about religion — ending the generations of bloody post-Reformation wars with the "truce" principle of cuius regio, eius religio. That the religion of each state was the business of its government and its government only, and that it's no longer a ruler's place to intervene in a neighboring ruler's territory to rescue the souls of his subjects from vile heresy with fire and sword.

There's a certain echo of this in the proposals of certain libertarian, ex-libertarian, and libertarian-adjacent left-wing people of a loose confederation of microstates wherein, in an example of exit-over-voice, people are free to relocate so as to sort themselves on ideological (compare to religious) lines. Friedman's seasteads, Yarvin's "patchwork," and Alexander's "archipelago" all come to mind as core examples. But these have a number of issues. First, the ways in which they presuppose a level of mobility, of ability and willingness to relocate, that I find unrealistic to expect from much of the population. I note here that it seems to be a very specific sort of person who recommends this sort of solution.

Second, it very much requires a Westphalian live-and-let-live, what happens in the patch next door is none of my business no matter how wrong I believe it to be, attitude. But replace "one true faith" with "universal human rights" and saving souls from heresy with "humanitarian intervention," and we see that, like I said before, such a spirit is quite dead — "all it takes for evil to triumph…", "an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere", et cetera. Like we saw with Libya, unless you have the WMD-MAD means to prevent it, expect the superpower to enact "regime change" on you if your way of life somehow offends their particular "universal" orthodoxy.

TL;DR: nation-state, empire, feudal kingdom, city-states, patchwork — it's trade-offs all around.

#nationalism #empire #peace of westphalia #nation-state #feudalism #dark ages #fall of rome #ottoman empire #africa #cuius regio eius religio #long #effortposting #rambling

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2ofswords · 4 years

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Phi talks factions, ruling families, and endings yet again

After long long last I finished my talk about the factions! So let’s talk about them! There is some discourse about it on here and most of it is really interesting and I wanted to throw my own takes into the mix.

Also, will put this in the very beginning: This essay is very long and hinges on a lot of analysation of very broad topics of the game. It is very possible that I make mistakes in it. I would be delighted to know about them and engage in discussion, but please stay friendly. I tried my best to research and to stay analytical, but I am firstly human and secondly human with a memory that can fail me.

Anyway without further ado: Let’s begin the faction talk!

Prologue: Personal sympathy

This is supposed to be more of an analysation about how the factions work in my opinion. It is not supposed to be an explanation why my favourite faction is the Best™. Still, my opinions will obviously influence my own analysis. So for the sake of levelling the playing field and not even trying to play coy about it – or in case you were curious what my personal opinions are – I will start by listing my own opinions about the factions, the families and the endings.

I consider myself a Utopian but also have a soft spot for the Humble ideology. I just really like progress, I am an idealist who thinks striving for a perfect situation has value (even if I do not believe in practical perfection) and I just really like the Kains’ visions okay? Not their executions, mind you, but their visions. (I am just really really obsessed with magic that involves time and space as a concept…) And I think the concept of human potential is one of the most hopeful and important ones to society and trying to get more out of being a human being is just an important concept to me. But I also think the personal responsibility is really important and interesting and the thought about individuality vs. society is something that needs to be discussed, so the humbles are just really interesting to me and I sympathise with a lot going on there as well. Not that much of a Termite person though. Sorry

Concerning the endings: If I would be in a position to choose any ending for the town, I would choose the Termite Ending. I would just be really unhappy about it… But it is the only ending that doesn’t involve any direct sacrifice of life and I value that the most, even if I think the trade-off is still pretty devastating. I am still a Utopian, but potential lives in people. The ending I consider second best is actually the Utopian one and by process of elimination I like the Humble ending the least. You will probably learn why this is the case when we get to talk about the endings, so I am saving my argument for later. If it is about how much I like the endings from a narrative perspective: I am a passionate fan of the Utopian ending even though that is very frustrating since I see it in a rather… peculiar way, I think. I also love the Humble ending a lot and it just has the most personal tragedy and a lot to think about. The Termite ending… eh. It serves its purpose and is necessary but not really pleasing in analysis. Or if it is, it’s still a bit frustrating to talk about. It is very useful for writing fanfiction though. ^^

I don’t really have a favourite ruling family. I think the Saburovs are the most sympathetic, but I am also fascinated by the Kains. My favourite members are Victor and Capella.

Okay? Cool, now that we got that out of the way let’s start with the actual faction talk.

Part 1: What the factions are (and what they aren’t)

The factions are categories that are very broad and not very concrete. It is probably a good idea to talk about what they are first, before we make any statements about them. So, let us start how I look at them and what the factions stand for, before debating the rest.

Firstly: The factions are a part of classic Pathologic. From what I can tell and remember, they haven’t been mentioned in Pathologic 2 at all. Of course, we can see the struggle of different worldviews there as well, but the split cast of important NPCs is not mandatory in any shape anymore and in fact Artemy is now responsible for everyone in town. While the politics between the ruling families are mentioned and the Kains as well as the Olgimskys still share their beliefs, neither the term “bound” not “faction” is introduced in the game. However that might be because we are starting with the Haruspex as our protagonist. The factions are a bit more important in the other two routes of classic Pathologic after all. The Bachelor being concerned with its politics and the Changeling with its ideology itself. So the terms might be introduced later. For now, their conflict may be a part of Patho 2 and certain aspects can be definitely seen, but they aren’t present yet. So we are mostly talking about Classic Pathologic here.

The factions are introduced in two different ways. First and foremost, they are three different ideologies that are present in the town and by definition in the entire story. It is also told, that the whole town is split into these factions and that roughly one third of the town each belongs to either faction. It is also explained, that the factions are purely made by the ideology and that people of different gender, heritage, age and class can align with different factions. (Which means that they aren’t equivalent to the different parts of town that are at least roughly divided by social status). There is also a philosophical level that strengthens the ideological importance each faction holds, but in this essay, I will focus on the ideological part and how it affects society. That means there is another layer that we won’t be touching today, but believe me, we have enough to do as it is.

The other aspect of the factions is the bound of each healer. All of the bound collectively are described as “Simons friends” at least in the Bachelor route and all of them are now split into the three factions. The name “bound” however is to be taken literally. The characters are part of the agenda each faction follows, however, that doesn’t necessarily mean, that the person one hundred percent shares the ideology of the faction! Most of them do, but it is important to keep in mind that peoples belief-systems still vary and the aligning criteria is the importance to the goal of said faction and not necessarily their own way of thinking. People’s mindset and beliefs can vary after all and some of them even have dynamic arcs (tbh Most of them have). The other way around people can be not a part of the bound of a faction and still share their beliefs. This will be important later! For the Utopians the specific bound criteria is “people who have the potential to overstep human boundaries in any way or form”. They are needed for the creation and upholding of the Utopia as it is imagined. Its goal is in some way after all to create something that oversteps the boundaries of what should be humanly possible. For the termites… well… it’s children. It’s all about the children, it is the children who are able to carry the town in the future. And for the humbles it is the sinners, whose souls are rotten to the core (I guess…). That isn’t only because the Humbles just really like sinners but they are directly needed for Clara’s solution and the Humble’s ideology of willing self-sacrifice in order to maintain society.

Okay. But what are the factions? What do they believe in?

Let’s start with the Utopians, because their whole schtick is kind of in the name. This faction is all about the potential of humanity and striving to create perfection. This is happening with the awareness that such a feat is at least deemed impossible. So, their goal is the defeat – or the power to overcome depending on who you ask – of the nature that prevents them from this kind of progress not being achievable. They value this progress and the possibility to overcome those odds over personal as well as societal comfort and justify it with the belief, that said growth would benefit society in the long run. That being said, not every Utopian thinks this strive for growth needs to be shared by everyone, though a society collectively working towards breaking limits as a whole is preferred. (An example would be Maria's explanation of the town, stating that mundane human life is very much necessary to sustain a Utopia). The Utopians are prone to brash decisions, since part of their ideology is that they are necessary to disrupt the status quo and change – even enforced one – is needed to get rid of complacency and provoke new development of the unforeseen (which is very much needed since we are working against “nature” (the literal one as well as the nature of fate and possibility). Their drawbacks are that brashness and the disregard of comfort. Their potential elitism is shown by their value of humans who try to disrupt the status quo and their adamant protection of people who can move society as “more important” and thus worthy of more protection. (However it is noteworthy that a lot of this thinking was introduced by Georgiy in Pathologic 2 and Marble Nest. I still think it is a legitimate drawback but much less used in P1, where the factions are a thing.) This doesn’t necessarily relate to elitism of an elite class (it can though!) but more so to academic elitism. On the other hand, they have the drive to move things forward, they literally are the builder of society and developers of indescribable magic.

The Termites can be considered the opposite of the Utopians. I have struggled to put a definitive description of them for quite some time because they are the group whose representatives have vastly different ways of thinking. Anyways, I have seen the Termite ideology being described as “preservation” by RagnarRox in “Pathologic 2 is an underrated masterpiece” and I think, that fits amazingly. It is about protection and regaining a status quo where everyone can live their daily lives content and as it was before. The children are supposed to be leading the town into the future, but especially in Patho 1 this is more about taking what the past has already shaped and using this as a guide instead of implementing new ideas and philosophies as the utopians and the humbles do (for better and for worse). If we look at how Capella describes her vision of the town, we can also see that it is about togetherness and comfort. Which makes sense if it is the antithesis of the utopian dream. It doesn’t sacrifice progress just because it wants to but because it endangers people’s comfort and personal safety. Disrupting the status quo can lead to catastrophe and make people unhappy, therefore it should be avoided. People should serve the community but that also means not committing to self-fulfilment that can endanger this togetherness. Khan needing to give up on his own ambitions to serve Capella’s vision of the town might be a good example for that. While there is this bond of togetherness there is also the need for leadership. Again, preservation and comfort are highly valued with the Termites and it is established by a leadership that is supposed to act as gentle but firm guidance. With the children being the bound, there is a strong emphasis on parenthood and again Capella – as the white mistress and the termite's leader – is accepted as taking the leadership together with Khan who are ruling together with love as well as fierceness. Artemy also has his journey of establishing leadership within the kin and dethroning the person who is unfit for the role. It is implementing change but to restore balance and only inside the already established rules. I would say it fits more as a case of rightful leadership that still stems from the menkhu families and Artemy proves himself while using his father’s lessons and notes. And the kids themselves are fated to lead the town itself as the chosen ones that Capella implored Isidor to protect, and set its rules, so that there are the boundaries to keep a way of living established while not needing to change this status quo and what hopefully is a harmonic way of interaction between people. So. Now that we have established what the Termites are, I think with this specific faction it is still important to also name what they aren’t. Firstly: The Termites are an ideology of the town’s future. They aren’t the kids club. Yes, all the Termites are kids, but as mentioned before the factions in themselves are a third of the population with varying members who believe the Termites to have the best solution for the town at hand. There are other members (and I will later talk about the Olgimskys and big Vlad specifically as representatives of the Termite ideology) but the kids are the bound because they are specifically needed to set this new order that they want to established. I would argue that some of the kids have principles that are more adjacent to other ideologies. The obvious one would be Khan who has goals that do not align with his family but similar dreams and more radical ideals about overthrowing the status quo. But Grace also seems to be more of a humble, focusing on caring about others and being quite selfless and self-sacrificing in her care for the dead. That means, the kids fill an important role but we have the strange conundrum that most of this factions bound isn’t together because of their ideology. I will try to take them into account still, but if you see me focusing on Capella and Artemy, this is one of the reasons. There aren’t that many people who clearly speak about the Termite’s vision. The Termites also aren’t the Kin. They are connected to each other but again, the Kin is a specific part of the town which the ideology clearly avoids. (And parts of the Kin are not part of the town and actually stand in opposition to it. Moreso in Patho 2 but with the conflict of the herb gatherers we catch a glimpse of that.) And the children are also representatives of different parts of the town and not of the Kin. The Kin are obviously linked to the towns ancient tradition and preserving their traditions honourably is Artemy’s specific journey. Still, they aren’t the same and with both Aspity and Oyun we have characters who are Kin and also part of a different faction.

Speaking of the Humbles. What’s up with them?

The Humbles also have a name that speaks for itself: It is based around the main idea of being humble. There are different consequences of this main core. The first and in my opinion most important one revolves around responsibility and self-sacrifice. The Humbles expect the individual to sacrifice part of themselves for the whole. I mean… that is quite literally what the ending is about. As with the Termites there is a togetherness but this one doesn’t revolve around looking out for each other (at least not specifically) but about looking at oneself and what you could and should do for society to work best. It puts responsibility not on a collective and its leaders but on yourself and needs you to ask what you did right, what you did wrong and how to take consequences for your own actions. This includes a chance for redemption as well as condemnation. For the purpose of evaluating yourself in contrast to society it is also about self-reflection. You need to look at yourself and at your deeds constantly and this analysation and the realization that you can and will fail as well as that you as a human being have your own limits you cannot and should not cross are what lead to humbleness in the first place. Yulia as a sinner, whose very sin is shaping the very ideology and establishing her ideals over the self. This brings us to the second pillar of the humble ideology: fatalism. It is also to see yourself in context of a greater scheme and accepting these very boundaries. Fulfilling your duty in the way the universe demands of you and seeing yourself unavoidably as a puzzle piece of said force is a big deal for a lot of the Humbles. Yulia is the prime example. Lara actively dislikes her fatalism but still follows her father’s footsteps in her attempt to assassinate Block. Aspity moves in the constriction of the Kin and her fate while still being the one who advocates most for change. The Saburovs are all about law and order albeit in different ways. Oyun cannot do what is entrusted to him which causes his horrible deeds in the first place, because he cannot accept at first that he is not fit for the position (or as the words of a humble: not destined for it). And Clara is struggling with what her fate imposes on her and her very being while trying to control her circumstances as well as the fate of the people entrusted to her. It all is about analysing but also about abiding to the whims of fate and facing the consequences of acting either against it, failing it or resorting to violence against society to fulfil it in the first place.

As you may see, all of these categories are rather broad. Of course, they are, they are made to encompass very different views of the world from different characters. When Victor speaks about working towards overcoming bounds he sure as hell means something different than Andrey. Hell, Dankovsky has no idea what Georgiy is talking about half the time! Lara and Yulia are both Humbles, yet Lara explicitly states that she hates the way Yulia weaves her fatalism in her ideology about the self. And well… the Termites are a very special case regarding the factions in general, being more of a symbol of their ideology than its actual believers. So let's get to the meat of this whole post. We now have a grasp on what the factions are about, but… why? Why are they in the game, what are they trying to say?

Part 2: Presentation of the factions and the ruling families

Well… after making an incredibly long introduction, let’s stop talking around the bush. Here is my conclusion about the game’s stance of the factions: … … I am sorry to conclude, that all of them suck. All of them. They are the worst and none of them are worthwhile in themselves. I am sorry.

Okay, okay, okay. Obviously, they are not only terrible. They have their upsides and all of their ideals are rather beautiful. Making potential become a reality is great! So is comfort and stability, we all could sure as hell use some of that! And the principle of giving something of yourself into society, taking responsibility and the ability to care into consideration… boy is that a good idea! But still… the factions suck. And that is an inherent aspect of them just because they are ideologies. And very unsubtle and uncompromising ideologies at that. To quote novel author Dorothy Sayers “The first thing a principle does is killing somebody.” A principle, if it is used without reflection, always has destructive potential. Even if it is the principle to save as many lives as possible. Put into the wrong dilemma, it will kill. (A single glance at the healer’s path’s is enough to confirm that.) And all three factions have some really potentially bad implications exactly because their ideology is so vastly applicable. It isn’t only about emergency situations, but a lifestyle that regards one way of setting priorities as absolute. Of course, that on its own must go horribly wrong! Leave one single way of thought unattended and it will guide you into fucking catastrophe!

I think the easiest way to highlight this theory and the best prove of the game’s acknowledgement of this line of thought is to take a look at the ruling families. The fact that there are three of them is no coincidence. All three families do not only represent one of the factions but also the destructive extreme this faction can develop.

Let’s start with the Kains again, because their case is the most obvious one and the theme of Utopia and thus uncompromising perfection that has a destructive force is in the fucking title of the game. And creating a project that causes the plague in the first place, forcing the Kin to dig the very hole that tears into the heart of the earth – which they sure as hell did not agree with! – conducting human experiments with their buildings and manipulating the situation so that the Polyhedron gets saved even sacrificing the town for its sake… yeah these are some pretty shitty things to do and they all relate to the Utopian ideal and their strive for development, progress and forming humanity as well as society. And sacrificing everything in order to elevate progress is… obviously a bad idea, especially if it involves using people who never consented to such a sacrifice in the first place! With only development – social as well as personal – in mind the scope of said sacrifice cannot be measured at all, leading to devaluing peoples well-being. It is a horrible thing that harms a lot of people and the strict enforcement of the Kains bring a lot of harm to the town. This damage doesn’t only turn against the town but also has a self-destructive tendency. The self-sacrifice that is demanded to keep the spirit of Simon and Nina is eating the entire family alive. Their strict family loyalties seem to have driven Khan off in the first place (though since his role is “The Termite of the Kains” and he holds a strange middle ground I think he is kind of excluded from the “most extreme faction”-stance). Victor and Georgiy are losing their own identity and eventually their life for the sake of a soul that they consider of higher status than them. And Maria loses her own self to become the next mistress and lead what is left of the town into a new age, which Victor laments as her father because he is literally losing his daughter! The family – even if they “win” the whole town conflict – is actively falling apart and is completely fractured if not destroyed in the end. Not only is the sacrifice the town has to endure obviously morally unacceptable but the disregard of comfort in favour of a greater cause is inherently self-destructive. Which leaves the question: Who is this Utopia even build for, who benefits from it, if everything but it is sacrificed? So yeah, what the Kains are doing and especially the way they are using the Utopian dream in its purest form is absolutely and incredibly flawed.

Sooo… what are our alternatives? How about the Saburovs? They are righteous and they care about people! I mean… yeah. They do! Buuuuut… their handling of the situation is also very… debatable to put it nicely. Let’s start with the obvious: putting everyone in prison who seems mildly suspicious while a highly contagious plague is ravages the town is just… horrible. It is a prolonged and cruel death sentence to many people either desperate or innocent. And yes, he himself did it with the utmost desire to protect society as a whole from the criminals and organized street violence but… surprise, that is what the humble ideology is about! Judging the individual according to sin without taking circumstances into account is one of the extremes the Humble-ideology has. You should stay put and work towards the common good and acting against that should be judged harshly!! If taken to an extreme it disregards personal circumstances and even a human approach towards the individual. And even if it hits innocents, the few have to take personal sacrifice for the many. Giving your life to uphold stability should be considered a good thing… right? Of course, the faulty leader should also be held responsible… So the judge becomes the judged and the executor of the ideology is destroying himself. Again, we witness the ideology's self-destructive aspect when taken to the extreme. Judgement and assigning responsibility for overstepping with no account on the human situation, looking out for the other individual or questioning where established boundaries should be pushed, will lead to draconian law where the single human being doesn’t matter in the first place! And that… doesn’t sound like a society one wants to live in, does it?Katerina has her own case of judging people albeit in a religious way. Her view splits the world into the sinners and the righteous and sentences the former to death while the others will survive what she is seeing as the plague's judgement. Do I have to elaborate why this is a bad take and why judging people to death based on being a sinner is… just awful? Especially when we look at the humbles and how some of them may have done some shit but definitely not something that warrants death. (Yulia and Rubin being examples, but I also think Lara shouldn’t like… be judged with death. Well, truth to be told I think nobody should be judged with death… Ever.) So seeing the Changeling’s power as a saintly sign is… bad not only on a societal level but also bad because pressuring a teenager like that is just a the worst. Which brings us the Humble’s second point and the one that Katerina personifies as well: Personal responsibility. The Humble ideology isn’t only about sacrificing the individual and applying judgement but also about self-reflection and taking responsibility. Which sounds really good but can be devastating when taken too far. Which brings us to Katerina’s journey of becoming a mistress and her devastating experience of trying to fit into a role that was expected of her to fill. Desperately trying to fulfil a fate that seems to be yours can destroy you. Her despair of not fulfilling as a mistress as well as a wife (in her own terms) are honestly soul wrenching and tragic. And it is an example where letting go of personal duty and seeing to oneself would have been for the best.

Okay so the Saburovs establish a society that seems awful to live in and also actively destroy themselves (they also die with their ending, something they share with the Kains). Which leaves us with… the Olgimskys. And yeah… I think we all agree that they couldn’t exactly be called a beacon of goodness in the world… The way the bull enterprise is handled is exploitative to say the least, dividing the town and enabling even more racism and class distinction. But what does that have to do with the Termites? After all, only Capella is part of the bound. Which is true but the Termite bound is also the children bound and I would dare to argue that the Olgymskys are unassigned because they represent the ruling families of the Termites but cannot apply as their bounds because of age reasons. Capella is pretty much the head of the Termites, the way Maria and Clara or Katerina are the mistresses of the other ideologies and Big Vlad… well Big Vlad is what the other ruling families are to the other factions. The best reason to stay away from it. (And I could make a point about young Vlad but to not stretch this too much, I will keep it short. Let’s just say that he has a dynamic role in the factions and more or less grows to be a Utopian and is not even really acknowledged at the Bachelor Route. I would put him in the same category as Khan and say that the Kains in themselves still are connected to the Utopian ideology. There are some really interesting parallels between Khan and Young Vlad btw. Both have strong parental issues and feel confined in their role, both appear in the letter about the Bachelor’s and the Haruspexe’s decision as a hopeful addition that isn’t fixed… I am pretty sure there is something to say about that, but this essay is not the right place for it.) There are two main themes with the Termites that are very present in the Olgimskys: stagnation and oppression. I think how the Olgimskys are specifically oppressive and moreso than the other families is pretty self-explanatory. They do not want to bind people to the law or their ideas but to themselves and especially big Vlad is very keen on ruling the town and leading its people directly and forcefully. (And while Capella is obviously the kinder part of the family, she too shares this sentiment. Her alliance with Khan is to align the two families but also to gather force with his dogheads and establish rulership.) They want to be obeyed without question or an established guidebook that gives specific reason to their judgement. But why is this specifically a problem the Termite ideology faces? Well the Termites are about ensuring peoples comfort and life and they do this for any cost. One thing this entails, is saving people from their own ambitions and forming them according to this belief. (Again, Capella’s alliance with Khan and how she sees it is a nice example). They are establishing that humanity should remain in their natural ways, complacent so to speak, while a few chosen individuals lead the town and its people. (The Termites are supposed to do this in the future that is why they need to survive in the first place.) And if we drive this belief and this “ruling as family” ideology, we arrive at Big Vlad’s doorstep. He is the father, he will take care so exactly obey to his wishes without question. Preserve the system that allows you comfort without overstepping your boundaries. Preservation of a system also means preservation of the ruling system without further questions. (And I will remind you that Forman Oyun gets overthrown because the place is not rightfully his and he sucks because of this and the right order gets restored with the right ruling family watching over the Abattoir upholding their alliance with the Olgimskys even if it is now Capella.) In its extreme the Termite ideology can lead to oppression on the guise of guidance and questioning this is not only almost impossible but only allowed to the few people already chosen as the leading caste. (Also if you want to have another look at the connection between preservation and oppression, have a look at “The Void” or “Turgor” and its Brothers which is another game by Ice Pick Lodge. Their whole stick is preserving their realm by oppressing the sisters. The Void seems to reference similar themes in general and can kind of seen as the game’s antithesis… But I digress and just wanted to recommend the game. It’s good!) Why the other problem – stagnation – is a part of preservation is easy to see, but how does it afflict the Olgimskys? Well, firstly it is a big theme in the infight the family has and the conflict that tears the Vlads apart. While Young Vlad wants to follow his legacy, he doesn’t want to follow the exact ways leading to the family breaking apart. Vlads stubbornness and his unwillingness to rectify old mistakes and… I don’t know… open the Termitary is also part of this. Closing it – while done by Young Vlad – is done to preserve the status of the town and deny the plague and its changes to society for as long as possible. A plan that is very, very costly in the long run betraying the Olgimsky’s own duty to ensure their peoples life and safety in the first place! Again, the ideology eats itself.

Of course, only talking about the most extreme and negative example isn’t entirely fair. And I think there is worth in every faction. They obviously aren’t all bad and the ruling families are twisting and radicalizing what could be a good idea. So… was this whole talk about the ruling families just some intellectual pastime that proves how the rulers are shitty but the factions in themselves aren’t? Do they only kind of suck? Or can we actually find the games stance of this radicalization and how each faction alone could affect the town negatively on a larger scale?

Part 3: The endings of the game

So let’s talk about the endings, since they are literally established as the “successful” outcome for each of the factions. And with that I mean that the fate of the town is decided in favour of one of the factions, eradicating the others and their own hopes and ambitions in return. Best it is seen with the Utopians and the Termites, whose dreams are mutual exclusive by the destruction of the town or the Polyhedron alone. But if we consider that the ending also establishes a new way of living in town and a certain social system, we can see the same with the Humbles. (We can also see this if we think of the Humbles goal as a means to restore the town at its best in favour of personal sacrifice, which still doesn’t happen in the other endings, since part of the town gets destroyed.) For the factions, the plague also brings a chance to shift the power dynamics of a town to their direction and this is referenced by several characters trying to make use of this situation or at least struggling to maintain their power. (The ruling families are again the worst offenders of this. The Kains try to guide the Bachelor to their cause from the very beginning and a lot more deliberate in the second half. The rulers’ unwillingness to even acknowledge the plague, Saburovs’ abuse of administrative power, the way Katerina urges Clara to convert townsfolk, Capella’s alliance with the Haruspex… I can go on, but I think we have talked enough about the ruling families.) Long story short: The endings are distinctly aligned with one side of the power struggle. (By the way this isn’t necessarily the endgoal the healers are striving for. I think it is apparent by now, that I align the factions more with the ruling families rather than the healers, because the healers’ first priority is getting the plague problem solved one way or the other and there are different motives for their solutions. Also they can choose a different healers opinion so they aren’t like… one hundred percent absolutely bound by their ending even if they still align with it. But I digress yet again.) So, they – as the “win” of each faction – are a good way to see how they would hold up on themselves and without the other factions interfering. I will analyse the sacrifice they put on the town as well as the society they are striving to build up (since this is what the factions are about. Changing society). Will one of them hold up and present us with a good solution?

I will not even try to create suspense. We all know, I think that they don't. They all bear sacrifices in contrast to what we had before that make the situation actively worse. A video that sums it up better than I can is SulMatul’s “Heroism in Futility; Pathologic, The Void and the Hero Narrative”. The video is really good in general but it also makes a point of pointing out, that Pathologic as well as the void do not offer a standard “good end” where the hero saves the day, because every possible solution is tainted in one way or another. The heroism Pathologic shows (as well as “The Void”) is struggling against a doomed cause and a hopeless situation despite the odds and not about becoming victorious in it. The Artbook of Pathologic 1 states as much, describing the whole scenario of the game as a trap, where the problem is that every ending can be seen as a victory as well as a failure. So, we have some strong sources but still: Let us look at the endings again and see, if my thesis holds up, that it is the ideology of the factions and the remaining of one in each ending that amplifies the problem the town will face after the catastrophe.

We’ll start with the Utopians, yet again. I think they make the most immediate impression and are easiest to describe. Because, you know… destroying a town and killing the sick is really fucking bad. (Though I feel sometimes it’s forgotten that the healthy get “vaccinated” (immunised for some hours) and evacuated before. It’s not about eradicating all townsfolk. And if I would be a true hypocrite I could be like “Do you find any infected districts and sick people on day 12 that you can’t heal, huh?” But that would be… quite ridiculous and I’m sure the sacrifice of the sick is very much intended here. Let’s just assume that it does kill the sick.) It seems hardly worth it and it very much represents the harshness of the Utopians. So, let’s see how it applies to the ideology. The ending for the most part sacrifices life and comfort for humanities progress. This is what the protection of the Polyhedron is about. The Utopians are not protecting it because they find it kind of pretty and it also is not a preservation of something culturally cool (which would be more the Termite way of thinking) because the usage of it is supposed to vary after the end of the story. (The children are leaving the tower so that the soul of Simon can be housed in the building.) But it is supposed to make the impossible possible and ensure humanities triumph over nature, break boundaries and create new impossible ideas. The visions of the new town Peter describes, tell us as much. It is not only about a building but about a new order, where the impossible is created and where the amount of energy is a crucial aspect of the vision. So, if we weight the different solutions against each other from out outside player perspective, we can see how tied the concept of the solution is to the Utopian idea. We already have a very steep sacrifice for the Utopian ideology here. The other aspect of the Utopian ending establishes this “creation through destruction” mantra that the Utopian ideology can impose in a different light: The Utopian end focuses on eradicating the plague. Which is… actually a good thing for once but still tied to the themes of the Utopians and making their involvement in it stronger. If we look at the Utopian end from a cold analytical perspective, it is literally destroying the playing board creating a tabula rasa, to start this whole town project again. (Or at least that is what our mistress Maria alludes to and who is in charge after the whole ending?…) Which is a very radical use of what the Utopians are about, carry out your vision rash, immediate and drastic and if it doesn’t work, then leave it behind and try again (the stairways to heaven tell a similar story). Which ultimately leads to a sacrifice that is way too big because the losses aren’t supposed to be considered at all.

So what about the counter thesis? If the Utopian ending is so bad, then the termite ending must be the solution. Well… it solves some problems. Mostly people not dying. Which definitely is a really good thing! But it also comes with its own drawbacks. Namely the destruction of the Polyhedron first and foremost. Which you know… doesn’t seem like that important… It's just some building. Until we reapply the meaning of eradicating the chance to work for the impossible – which the Utopian ideology enables – and a strive to triumph over nature and improve humanity as a whole. Then it suddenly becomes a huge deal. Destroying the Polyhedron is not only about destroying some cool architecture project of some very bored capital graduates (even though this is sure a thing we are doing) but about preventing humanity's progress. We are saving life but we are also preventing the chance to develop a system where humanity can grow, develop new amazing and helpful things and might even reject their mortality as a whole. And even if the last part sounds kind of insane, please consider, that Pathologic is still very much set in a world where magic and miracles exist. We rely on the magic the earth provides in both other routes, see the prophecies of the mistresses and the theatre, visit a talking rat prophet and we can see the magic of the Polyhedron when we visit it as the Bachelor on day nine and of course in the secret ending. Acting like the ambitions as well as the magic of the Utopians is completely unreachable and should be outright rejected, undermines the cost the Termite ending takes to ensure their own victory. So I would argue that there is at least the possibility of the development of humankind and progress into new developments that can help people in general that get destroyed to ensure the lives of the sick as well as the old rules of the town. And that is definitely a costly exchange! This also brings me to an argument that I hear a lot and also want to deny here: “But if the town exists, more towers and miracles can be build again so its not really that great of a loss.” And while this can hold true for the very similar Diurnal ending (if we are really nice and not deny every form of magic, which is kind of the point of that ending… but I digress), the ending in favour of the Termites negates this. Firstly, it explicitly invents a “town of men” where this strive for destroying nature should be prevented. Secondly… the whole underground fluid thing still isn’t really fixed… because that is what gets saved by the Haruspex this is his goal. Which allows for the Panacea but also means that the plague and the traditions that cause the infection aren’t actually off the table. If we would create another Polyhedron the plague would appear again. The old ways of the town are hardly questioned, and they actually cannot be – at least in a way that implies substantial progress over nature – because the laws that get re-establishes actively prevent exactly this. The thread of the plague isn’t gone completely – even if certainly postponed because of the Polyhedrons removal. And that resources run out and the knowledge gets obscured is shown how littler there even is knows about Isidor's earlier experiments. So, we are either creating a word, where humanities progress is distinctly stopped or we create a situation in which the same mistakes that will cause the plague aren’t prevented at all and humanities mistake will repeat themselves. We created a situation, where movement is not possible and actually actively prevented.

The third one – the Humble ending – establishes a balance where both structures can be preserved but movement is still possible. Which first sounds like all is good and the life of only a handful of people could be worth the cost, if we outweigh them against the systematic costs the other endings provide… right? Well… apart from peoples life’s never being a “cost”… this only can hold true if we cannot find a societal problem with this. And we can. Again, with all endings we can see the broad ideologies coming into play and so the very problem of the endings are, that they follow the factions rules so exclusively and absolute. The Utopian end sacrificing life and comfort for progress and vision, the Termite end sacrificing progress and vision for comfort and life and the humble end… what does the Humble Ending do? Well the Humble end saves the precarious balance between the Town and the Polyhedron but at the cost of personal sacrifice. While all aspects of the town may exist the same is true for the plague that gets neither destroyed nor subdued but instead is still active and handled by constantly applying a cure. A cure made out of the humans blood of those who sacrifice themselves for sustaining this very system. Which does mean we will need constant human sacrifice to sustain this system at all. And since a town and a societal system should last for quite some time and there is no other solution in sight to deal with the plague without firing a shot after all… we are facing a plethora of problems. Firstly: If we assume that for some reason the Changeling – or at least her miracles – are now as immortal as Simon was and she will not suddenly disappear leaving us with no one to even make the cure that we need, then what happens if the sinners we have chosen at the end of the game run out? And if we assume that the town will not like disappear after some years – which shouldn’t be the goal at all! – that will happen eventually. Who gets chosen and for what reason? I remind you again, that this is not a personal thing that people can do if they want, there is a societal need for people to die, it is integrated into the very system of the town. So how do we decide that? Are we just sentencing people to “cleanse themselves by human sacrifice” and just choose the worst criminals? That can be faulty and – again – the death penalty is something that we shouldn’t apply to society! Do we accept a willing sacrifices? Great, now that sounds like important and innocent life being taken for all the wrong reasons and can also hit someone who suffers from suicidal depression! Do we hope that our dear mistress continues her burden and selects who should die next.? That sounds like a horrible fate for Clara and also like a very unjust system. But sentencing someone to death because of a systematic need sounds incredibly unjust in the first place! Plus… you know with a highly contagious and deadly plague sometimes roaming the town, a cure doesn’t mean that nobody will die because of the plague. There still is a high lethality, personal reasons to obscure things and just a frightening time limit. Not to mention that the sandplague hurts before it kills so the pain aspect and the fear of the disease is still lingering. It sure is better then everyone contracting it and dying and the cure is a solution but… not exactly to every aspect of the disease, especially when we do not have the means to subdue it, that we have in the other two endings.

I hope that I was able to show that the endings might solve the catastrophe at hand, but all of them with a cost so huge that the specific solution can become debatable. Defeating the plague for good while saving the possibility to proceed further is really amazing, but destroying the entire old structure and killing the sick is a horrible tradeoff. Subduing the disease is definitely good, but at the cost of destroying the potential to enhance future life or even save more people in the long run and with integrating the enablement of repeating the same old mistakes doesn’t sound like a complete solution and more like turning the wheel and waiting for it to reappear at the same side (or you know… stopping it from turning all together). Preserving the town as well as its wonders is absolutely miraculous but allowing the plague to partake in this new system and requiring human sacrifice as a societal solution is a pretty dystopian thought. Again, the Artbook of classic Pathologic describes the whole scenario and its solutions as a trap. And it is! Because there is no right answer, we have to choose what we apply as a necessary evil and this is all we can do. There is no good ending we can find.

Conclusion: The meaning of “Utopia”

So where does that leave us? And what does that have to do with the factions? Remember the quote I used at the beginning of my argument? “The first thing a principle does is killing somebody.” And we can see the effect of this with every of the factions. The rashness and costly sacrifice of the Utopian ideals is seen by the way the Kains’ act and the loss of live the Utopian solution provides. The Termites disregard of progress and the oppression that is its result can see in the way the Olgymskiys’ handle its people as well as the sacrifice of the Termite ending. The Humbles enforcement of punishment and their harsh self-reflection influences the Saburovs’ judgement and leads to their solution at the cost of constant human sacrifice in the end.

So… does this mean that there is no hope? Should we assume that all of these solutions and ideas suck and leave this whole essay this depressed? That would be a shame and also missing the mark of what Pathologic is about. It is a tragedy, that much is true, but it is definitely not without hope and humanity. Because all the examples I use have one thing in common: They are examples of the radicalization of each faction and in its sole survival against the other factions. A principle on its own might kill. But that is why there shouldn’t be only one principle. Clara is right when she reminds the other two healers that killing one part of the town of is still killing. That there is a balance that must be uphold and we can see this balance in other characters. We can see Notkin’s idealism that is still rooted in earthly matters and a deep care for his people. We can see Eva’s kindness being born of idealism combined with her will to give herself away to other people (although this also gets taken too far in the end). And there is beauty in all three ideas. Fighting against impossible odds, caring for what is right and should be maintained, watching ourselves to help your surroundings… all of this is good! And all of these things hold solutions for the other factions. When striving for progress we need to watch our own wellbeing and the negative consequences of our actions. When preserving what is old, we have to see what should be changed, where chances for progress are and we also need to look at ourselves and not only the concept we want to preserve. Looking at our own sins and self-reflection is important, but so is our own comfort and our own goals, even if they might seem outlandish at first. By applying the different ideologies on top the one we hold dear, we can balance them out.

The best ways the ideology work – the real utopia – is a balance of all three ideologies together. That means that the best state of the town is what we witness in the beginning of the game (even if I would never call that perfect either! The exportation of the kin shows as much!) But debating and changing through the reflection of all three ideologies is in my opinion how society can be driven to it’s best. Progression is useless without looking out for each other and keeping what works and helps. Preservation leads to oppression and stagnation if self-expression is forbidden. Responsibility and duty are needed but can lead to condemnation and self-destruction if it isn’t balanced out. But comfort while allowing progress. Duty while allowing self-expression. That is what can only be archived through active dialogue. This is, why this game is a trap. This is why every ending falls apart: Because we have to choose. Every end is a victory, but it also is a failure. Something has to be destroyed. And even a miracle can only work on the back of its people. But this choice is the exact reason why. Being only allowed to follow one of the factions by radicalizing all three of them at the end of the game we are not allowed to make a decision that could benefit everyone. And this is – at the end of it all – the tragedy of Pathologic.

#Pathologic #Pathologic factions #Spoiler warning #ending discussion #I sure hope you enjoy this essay!

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