#thats what im gonna call you i cant tell if thats actually a parakeet or not

[bonesandthebees]

thoughts about the future of "the stars and their children", and future paths:

i'm unsure what philza's play is here for the fate of tommy and wilbur. at present, my hypothesis is that he's trying to antagonize wilbur to force him to learn how to play politics; this is a form of training in and of itself. i do not think he currently cares for his best interests, especially since wilbur is the spare and has tommy's ear, so dividing them would make it easier to influence tommy

gaining familial connections to crimeboys is probably the best way for emerald duo to gain political control over the planet; it's much easier to convince someone to make [x] decision if they've got warm ties to you, etc etc. unsure if the antarctic empire is a hegemonic one (like the delian league, or the early roman republic), but even if antarctica doesn't directly influence Eldingvegr's politics, it has a sizable amount of control over it

furthermore, it would make ruling much more palatable to Eldingvegr's citizens. tommy is presumably very well liked, and therefore that goodwill might extend to any of his psuedo family members.

actually in hindsight the antarctic empire is definitely hegemonic. mantle strikes me as a vassal state like the british raj lmao. it produces water (and fuel + oxygen for deep space travel; hydrogen and oxygen gas) and jack else so it's probably very profitable

the main cast is correct. tommy and wilbur do not have much leverage as philza's guests, and as political players in general. should crimeboys solicit emerald!duo's help in taking back their planet, that leaves a natural power vacuum for their benefactors to jump back in. i'm also curious as to why *themis* isn't kicking up more of a fuss—are they having internal conflict? have they decided to wash their hands of the situation for fear of entangling with the essempi or with antarctica? etc etc. tommy could make a plea for their assistance -> play up blood ties and sovereignty, and use the threat of themis's displeasure to convince philza to back off, but 50/50 on whether that'll work

crimeboys's main disadvantage is their lack of information; emeraldduo can throttle what they receive and how they get it, especially if it's offworld news. on the flip side, they're getting more intel on the dynamics of the antarctic empire by being in that palace lol

their other main disadvantage is wilbur's cratering mental stability

this is also speculation but imo one of their biggest advantages is time. the longer they wait, the more time dream has to ship blaziphane (100% i've misspelled that lmao), which makes emeraldduo jittery and forces them to play hardball with crimeboys to get them on board, or go all-in with an invasion to take the blaziphane trade back

and i don't think i need to mention that military campaigns are costly in terms of man-power and money esp as dream is probably not a pushover

anyway, thank you for letting me talk on your blog! looking forward to see what happens next :D -🦜

ooo interesting hypothesis ;) as always I don't comment on theories but again, interesting!

yeah you see the main reason philza and technoblade are still negotiating with tommy and wilbur is precisely bc they dont want to deal with the fallout of the population hating them if some random strangers took over. having tommy, the royal heir, on their side or possibly even having a familial connection to them would certainly help make the situation more palatable

also yeah I'd say hegemonic definitely isn't wrong. I'd say most of the planets under AE's rule are vassal states in some way or another, but the level of control AE exerts over the planets highly varies just depending on the individual planet. the thing is, schlatt is pretty content to let phil and techno have final say on a lot of things regarding mantle, and it IS a very profitable planet for them to have under their control. but even if schlatt wasn't okay with that control, mantle really didn't have a lot of power on its own prior to joining the Empire, so the situation would've ended up the same anyway. in comparison, phil exerts far less control on kinoko, primarily because kinoko was a fairly powerful planet on its own prior to becoming part of the empire, so they still have quite a bit of their own standing

i'm hesitant to compare any of the planets under antarctic rule to real world examples like the british raj mostly because so many real world examples like that were heavily rooted in racism and/or white supremacy and the idea that western culture was the 'civilized' culture, whereas stars is sci fi space fiction about block men. I just don't want to risk people thinking i'm trying to put real world things like that in a positive light, or think i'm not portraying those kind of power dynamics accurately and making them out to be better than they were, because that's not what i'm trying to portray. i'm just trying to write complicated space politics yknow?? that's just a disclaimer i wanted to put out there

themis will eventually be brought up again! though I will say, it's been mentioned a few times by a few characters that themis doesn't seem to care a whole lot for tommy and wilbur, so keep that in mind :)

the thing is, even though you're right and emerald duo have access to more off planet information that tommy and wilbur don't, pretty much no one in the galaxy outside of Essempi knows wtf is going on on Eldingvegr rn. the planet has essentially been cut off from everyone else, so emduo really doesn't have a whole lot more info on Eldingvegr than tommy and wilbur do atm

hm, while I see the logic, just curious why phil and techno would need to try and get moving before dream ships out the blaziphane? it's not as if they can't just get more blaziphane after they take Eldingvegr over. there's not really a race against that I'd say. it's not like there's one singular shipment of blaziphane for the rest of time. it's a continuous source that they regularly send shipments out for

oh yeah military campaigns are very costly, so taking Eldingvegr back won't be a walk in the park

tysm for the thoughts!! love hearing what you guys think!