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ospreyeamon · 7 months

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some heads are not fit to wear the crown

Houses Ulgo and Rist’s assassination of Price Gaul and Queen Silara Panteer is one of those decisions where – though murder is wrong, though it triggered great strife – I absolutely understand why they did it. Ulgo and Rist removed what they viewed as dangerously incompetent leadership because they believed it was necessary to protect Alderaan.

The Galactic Republic agreed to sign the Treaty of Coruscant because they lost the Great Galactic War. The Imperial fleet had succeeded in occupying Coruscant’s skies, giving them the ability to launch an orbital bombardment at will, while the Republic lacked the means to dislodge them. Imperial troops had taken the Galactic Senate hostage and killed the Supreme Chancellor. Because the Empire had already been winning the war even before they seized the capital to use as a bargaining chip, the Sith Emperor was the one to set the terms of the frosty peace.

The Treaty of Coruscant was a shockingly good deal for the Republic under the circumstances (which is why many in the Empire were so resentful of it). The only territory the Empire demanded they cede which the Empire had not already occupied or was actively contesting was seven uninhabited star systems, when the Republic did not expect to be able to hold most of those fronts. The Empire had Republic representatives followed around by droids to monitor their adherence to the Treaty, but did not demand any Republic citizens be handed over to stand trial in the Empire for crimes real or invented. Crucially, Empire set no caps on the Republic’s ship building or military expenditure and extracted no economic reparations.

Those like Gaul Panteer, Leontyne Saresh and Elin Garza who publicly decried the Treaty, saying that the Republic should have kept fighting rather than accept peace with the Empire, were in denial about the political reality of the situation. At that time, the Republic had no prospect of being able to swing the tide of the war to put themselves in a stronger position in the peace negotiations. If the Republic had refused to ratify the Treaty the Empire could have levelled its capital, killing billions and decapitating institutions like the SIS headquartered on the planet. The only meaningful blow the Republic was dealt by the Treaty of Coruscant was to its pride.

Bouris Ulgo hated the Sith Empire, but he wasn’t an idiot. The Treaty of Coruscant, humiliating though it may have been, gave the Republic the perfect opportunity to rearm itself in the breathing space provided by the Cold War. The Republic was bigger than the Empire – bigger economy, bigger population – so given the opportunity they could out produce and out recruit the Empire. If the Republic was patient, then they could have their vengeance and victory.

But being protected by the Treaty of Coruscant long enough to rearm required remaining part of the Galactic Republic, because the Empire made the Treaty with the Republic. The moment Alderaan seceded, it was no longer protected by the Empire’s promise to withdraw, and the Imperial Military could launch a second invasion without breaking the Treaty. And why wouldn’t the Sith Empire invade Alderaan? What else did all their forces ordered to break off the attacks on Coruscant and other Republic worlds have to do? Gaul Panteer’s very loud and public removal Alderaan from the Republic must have looked like an open invitation for the Empire to come and conquer some beautiful new camping sites.

And for what? Was Gaul Panteer arrogant enough to believe Alderaan so important that he could manipulate the Republic into abandoning the Treaty of Coruscant? Was he so myopic that he imagined he could sit on Alderaan feeling self-righteous with no consequences he hadn’t considered in the heat of the moment? Did he think that he could leverage Alderaan’s status as a Core Founder to extract concessions from the Republic to undo the cessation and stop opposing the Treaty – is that what his secret negotiations with the Republic were about?

Declaring the secession was an act of short-sighted rage. Failing to walk it back was self-absorbed irresponsibly. He placed his people in the firing line of a second invasion without so much as a warning, let alone a consultation.

Gaul Panteer was Alderaan’s senator, not Alderaan’s head of state. He wasn’t the elected monarch, just the reigning Queen’s heir. The decision to take Alderaan out of the Republic never should have been his to make; the question should have been decided by Queen Silara and the aristocratic assembly at the Elysium (and, if Alderaan were actually a democracy during this period, a general referendum).

This raises the question of why Queen Silara didn’t countermand her son’s declaration of secession. Maybe Gaul inherited his lack of strategic acumen from Silara. Maybe she disagreed with the secession, but decided that it was more important to avoid undermining the son she had appointed senator than to keep Alderaan in the Republic; that risk of House Panteer losing face took precedence over the risk of the planet being invaded. Or maybe Queen Silara, who suddenly fell ill upon her son’s return from Coruscant, lost control over the situation because Gaul took advantage of her poor health to usurp her authority.

Whatever the reasons, House Panteer was not doing a good job of fulfilling one of the most ancient traditional functions of any monarchy: making sure your lands won’t be conquered by an external power. Alderaan’s other great noble houses were not doing a good job of encouraging House Panteer to take their job more seriously. Probably the Elysium was already bogged down in the gridlock which would later prevent them from electing Queen Silara’s successor.

Bouris Ulgo was the head of the Alderaani military, its planetary defence force. It was his job to protect Alderaan from invasion. Gaul Panteer had made that job impossible. House Rist, infamous as spies as well as assassins, agreed with his assessment. Possibly the Rists had gotten wind of the Imperial Diplomatic Services overtures to House Thul.

Bouris Ulgo was a soldier, who had killed many times before in defence of his homeworld. Everyone and their pet Thranta on Alderaan seems to know the Rists are assassins; the nobility tolerating a house of assassins among their number implies a tactic approval of the occasional convenient murder.

To protect Alderaan, Ulgo and Rist decided, Gaul and Silara Panteer had to die. Only by killing them could they instigate the election of a new monarch – a monarch who would return Alderaan to the safety of the Republic before the Empire could take advantage.

According to his lore entry, Bouris Ulgo didn’t return to Alderaan after the Treaty with any ambitions of becoming king. I suspect he came back to see to the wellbeing of his lands and his vassals as he hadn’t been able to after the Battle of Alderaan, to keep an experienced eye on the planet’s defences during Panteer’s foolishness, expecting to soon leave again to assist in the Republic’s preparations for the anticipated second war. While some sources say he intended to usurp House Panteer, if that were true it would have made far more sense from him to announce the imposition of martial law and declare himself king immediately after the Panteers’ assassination while loudly denouncing the murders as obviously the work of the Sith Empire, not wait until it was clear that the election of Queen Silara’s successor had ground to a holt because of the assembly’s bickering and House Thul had appeared, plainly planning on letting the Empire in by the back door.

To me, Bouris Ulgo is a deeply tragic figure because his assessment that he alone of the heads of the Great Houses cared more for the good of Alderaan than petty politics was correct. Unfortunately, he was a military man with a military mindset who lacked the skill at political manipulation to achieve his desired goal of returning Alderaan to the Republic, falling back to military tactics inappropriate to the problem he was attempting to fix out of desperation. It feels unfair that Ulgo should be saddled with blame for the civil war over Panteer, when Gaul Panteer’s decision to secede was the pivotal domino in the chain of events which resulted in Alderaan becoming the stage for an Imperial-Republic proxy war.

It really says something about House Panteer that in their planetary missions they accept both factions’ solicitations of alliance and can be swayed to either side. Organa or Thul, Republic or Empire, Jedi or Sith – one is as good as the other if vengeance on Bouris Ulgo will be reaped.

Gaul Panteer claimed such outrage that the Republic conceded to a frankly beneficial peace with the Sith Empire that he took Alderaan out of the Republic, drastically increasing the odds the Sith Empire would launch another attack on the planet. The surviving members of House Panteer claim such outrage that the heads of their house were assassinated because they put the planet in incredible danger that they are willing to support the Thul puppets of that same Sith Empire Gaul Panteer deemed it unacceptable to compromise with, even at the cost of billions of lives. House Panteer’s effective foreign policy is that the last attacker to have assaulted Castle Panteer is the devil who must be destroyed, regardless of the potential cost to Alderaan. Truly, some heads are not fit to wear the crown.

#Meanwhile in a Galaxy Far Far Away #swtor meta #Bouris Ulgo #Gaul Panteer #Alderaani Civil War #Great Galactic Cold War #House Ulgo #House Panteer #House Rist #Silara Panteer #the Treaty of Coruscant #star wars the old republic

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txttletale · 1 year

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hello!! came across you recently and read a bunch of your posts, and I’m really impressed with the way you always keep focus on how [x subject] relates to material reality and action/goals. if you don’t mind answering, I was wondering what kind of actions (besides debating/critique, which is what I’m able to see from Social Media Site) do modern day communists do to build revolution? I’m sure this varies wildly, but it’s hard for me to imagine when imperial power is so strong. thanks!

yeah, so obviously--as you said--this varies. there's no universal answer to this one, because what tactics are effective and possible for a revolutionary organization vary immensely. like, there are places in the world right now where people are still fighting protracted people's wars--the EZLN in mexico, Naxalites in india, and the NPA in the phillippines, etc.

assuming, however, that you're talking about an imperial-core or a semiperipheral perspective--there are a lot of things that communist organizations can do. obviously, revolution isn't in the cards for the near future, any basic analysis shows that very conclusively. the main things that communist organizations can do in these circumstances is build class consciousness.

now, a lot of groups think that this means simply 'disseminating critique and newspapers', but i think that's an un-marxist understanding of class consciousness. you cannot persuade the working class into going from zero to revolutionary, no matter how effective your propaganda. you have to help people organize and help them fight for causes--people are only going to believe in the possiblity of mass action if they live class struggle, if they get actual experience of engaging in political struggle and making real change in the world.

alright, so what does that look like? first of all, it doesn't look like supporting bourgeois parliamentary parties. they are a black hole that sucks up working class organization and uses it to sustain a cottage industry of wealthy legislators, lobbyists and consultants.

things that i've personally seen happen include:

giving out free food/hygiene products/other necessities

contributing to and organizing mutual aid networks

rebuilding and renovating defunct community buildings

counterprotesting fascists trying to intimidate refugees

mobbing immigration police to prevent deportations

showing up to picket lines and anti-austerity/solidarity protests

scanning and uploading previously unavailable socialist writing

establishing and aiding copwatch networks

and to be clear--these are tactics! they are not an end goal--they are not part of the world we ultimately want to see--doing these things does not take us along a path to socialism. there is the difference between participating in reformist struggles as a tactic for building class consciousness and being reformist--the latter means seeing these things as ends, doing them with the belief that they can be permament solutions--the former means seeing this things as means, things people can get involved in and gain a genuine and personal understanding of class struggle.

ultimately i think the #1 job of any serious revolutionary organization is to build class consciousness and solidarity. and while i do think that leafleting and stickering and putting out pamphlets and newspapers and essays and yes, even silly little posts on my silly blog, can play a small role in that--ultimately most people will not become communists unless they see communists making real change in the world around them.

(addendum: in addition to all this, many revolutionary communist organizations often also do the sort of thing that it's not advisable to talk about online)

#ask #marxism #0.000% of communism has been built but it doesn't mean we don't have to try

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gwendolynlerman · 8 months

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Deutschribing Germany

Landmarks

Germany is the third country in the world with the highest number of World Heritage Sites: fifty-one in total, of which forty-eight are cultural and three are natural.

Aachen Cathedral

The Aachen Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is one of the oldest cathedrals in Europe and was consecrated in 805. Emperor Charlemagne was buried there.

The cathedral has two distinct architectural styles and small portions of a third. The core is Carolingian-Romanesque, the choir was constructed in the Gothic style, and the area around the throne is Ottonian.

Abbey and Altenmünster of Lorsch

The Lorsch Abbey is a former imperial abbey in Lorsch, Hesse. It was founded in 764 and was one of the most renowned monasteries of the Carolingian Empire. Although in a ruined state nowadays, its remains are among the most important pre-Romanesque-Carolingian style.

The abbey combines the Roman triumphal arch (arch-shaped passageways and half-columns) with the vernacular Teutonic heritage (baseless triangles of the blind arcade and polychromatic masonry).

Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe

The Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe is a transnational serial nature site that includes forests in Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Ukraine.

It encompasses 94 forests of European beech, which in many cases have grown without interference since the last ice age. Those in Germany are located in Brandenburg, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Thuringia.

Archaeological Border complex of Hedeby and the Danevirke

Hedeby was an important Danish Viking Age trading settlement between the 8th and 11th centuries, now in Busdorf, Schleswig-Holstein. It was rediscovered in the late 19th century.

The Danevirke or Danework is a system of Danish fortifications in Schleswig-Holstein initiated in 650 and expanded during the Viking Age and High Middle Ages.

Bauhaus and its Sites in Weimar, Dessau and Bernau

Bauhaus and its Sites in Weimar, Thurngia; Dessau-Roßlau, Saxony-Anhalt, and Bernau bei Berlin, Brandenburg, comprises six separate sites associated with the Bauhaus art school, which was in operation between 1919 and 1933.

The buildings are fundamental representatives of Classical Modernism and Art Nouveau. Some of them were built as social housing, others operated as schools, and the rest of them were residential buildings.

Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe

Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe is a landscape park in Kassel, Hesse. It is the largest European hillside park and the second-largest park on a hill slope in the world. Construction began in 1689 and lasted 150 years.

The park has Baroque buildings and unique fountains and water features. At the summit stands the Hercules monument, a 40-meter-high pyramid with an 8.5 meter bronze statue of Hercules.

Berlin Modernist Housing Estates

The Berlin Modernist Housing Estates site comprises six separate subsidized housing estates in Berlin. It dates from the Weimar Republic (1919-1933).

The estates are examples of the building reform movement that contributed to improving housing and living conditions of people and also provide exceptional examples of new urban and architectural typologies, as well as technical and aesthetic innovations.

Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey

The Princely Abbey of Corvey is a former Benedictine abbey consecrated in 844 and located in Höxter, North Rhine-Westphalia. It was one of the self-ruling princely abbeys of the Holy Roman Empire.

An example of Carolingian architecture, it is the oldest surviving example of a westwork, whose inside contains the only known wall paintings of ancient mythology with Christian interpretation in Carolingian times.

Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at Brühl

The Ausgustusburg and Falkenlust Palaces form a historical building complex in Brühl, North Rhine-Westphalia. The buildings are connected by the spacious gardens of the Schlosspark.

Built in the early 18th century, the palaces and gardens are masterpieces of early Rococo architecture. They are now used as a venue for concerts.

Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura

The Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura are a collection of six caves in the Swabian Alps, in Baden-Württemberg, which were used by Ice Age humans for shelter about 33,000 to 43,000 years ago.

Within the caves were found the oldest non-stationary works of human art in the form of carved animal and humanoid figurines, in addition to the oldest musical instruments ever found.

Classical Weimar

Classical Weimar consists of eleven sites in and around Weimar, Thuringia. The city was a cultural center of the Enlightenment during the 18th and 19th centuries, where many notable writers and philosophers, including Christoph Martin Wieland, Friedrich Schiller, John Gottfried Herder, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, lived and participated in the Weimar Classicism movement.

It includes the church of St. Peter and Paul, Duchess Anna Amalia Library, Goethe's house, Herders residence, the historical cemetery, Park an der Ilm, Schiller's house, Schloss Belvedere, Schloss Ettersburg, Schloss Weimar, Tiefurt House, Wilhelm-Ernst-Gymnasium, and Wittumspalais.

Collegiate Church, Castle, and Old Town of Quedlinburg

Quedlinburg was an influential and prosperous trading center during the early Middles Ages and a center of influence under the Ottonian dynasty.

Quedlinburg Abbey was a house of secular canonesses in Quedlinburg, Saxony-Anhalt. It was founded in 936 on the initiative of Saint Mathilda, the widow of King Henry the Fowler, as his memorial. The castle, abbey, church, and surrounding buildings are masterpieces of Romanesque architecture.

Cologne Cathedral

The Cologne Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia. Construction began in 1248 but was halted in 1560; the cathedral was not completed until 1880.

It is a renowned monument of Gothic architecture and the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe, with the second-tallest spires. It is also the third-tallest church in the world.

Darmstadt Artists' Colony Mathildenhöhe

The Darmstadt Artists' Colony refers to a group of Jugendstil artists as well as to the buildings in Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt, Hesse, where the artists lived in the 19th and 20th centuries.

They were financed by patrons and worked together with other members of the group with similar artistic tastes.

Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region

The Ore Mountains—Erzgebirge in German and Krušnohoří in Czech—lie along the Czech-German border in Bohemia and Saxony, respectively, and the site is shared between the Czech Republic and Germany.

The region was the setting of the earliest stages of the early transformation of mining and metallurgy from a craft to a large-scale industry. As a result, mining directly shaped the landscape and the habitats of plants and animals.

Fagus Factory in Alfeld

The Fagus Factory is a shoe last factory in Alfeld on the Leine, Lower Saxony. It is an important example of early modern architecture.

The factory was commissioned by Carl Benscheidt, who wanted a radical structure that expressed the company's break from the past. It was built between 1911 and 1913.

Frontiers of the Roman Empire

Limes is the term used to refer to the Germanic border defense or delimiting system marking the borders of the Roman Empire and separating the empire from the unsubdued Germanic tribes between the years 83 and 260.

The Limes Germanicus are the fortifications that bounded the ancient Roman provinces of Germania Inferior, Germania Superior, and Raetia, in modern-day southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia and southwestern and southern Germany. Their total length was 568 km, and they included sixty forts and 900 watchtowers.

Frontiers of the Roman Empire in Bavaria

The Danubian Limes refers to the Roman military frontier along the Danube in Bavaria, as well as Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia.

The border was reinforced with watchtowers, legion camps, and forts built around the first century. A Roman road, the Danube Way, was laid along the limes.

Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz

The Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm is a cultural landscape between Dessau and Wörlitz in Saxony-Anhalt. It was created in the late 18th century and is one of the largest English parks in continental Europe.

It was designated as a world heritage site because of its exceptional landscape design and testimony to the ideals of the Enlightenment Age.

Great Spa Towns of Europe

The Great Spa Towns of Europe is a transnational site that includes eleven spa towns across several European countries, namely, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

Those in Germany are Bad Ems, Rhineland-Palatinate; Baden-Baden, Baden-Württemberg, and Bad Kissingen, Bavaria. All the spa towns were developed around natural mineral water springs.

Hanseatic City of Lübeck

The Hanseatic City of Lübeck, located in Schleswig-Holstein, is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast. It was founded before 819 by Polabian Slavs and became the cradle and capital city of the Hanseatic League.

Nicknamed the "City of Seven Towers", its historic old town includes five Protestant churches with seven towers: the Lübeck Cathedral, St. Giles's, St. Jacob's, St. Mary's, and St. Peter's, as well as the Burgkloster, the Koberg site, the town hall, and the market square.

Historic Centers of Stralsund and Wismar

The Hanseatic City of Stralsund is located in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and is the oldest city in Pomerania. The Strelasund Crossing connects the city with Rügen, the largest island of Germany. Its old town was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside Wismar because of its Brick Gothic buildings and importance in the Hanseatic League.

The Hanseatic City of Wismar is also located in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Its historical old town includes the churches of St. George's, St. Mary's, and St. Nicholas's.

Luther Memorials in Eisleben and Wittenberg

Eisleben, in Saxony-Anhalt, was the hometown of Martin Luther, and he even preached his last sermon and died there. His Birth and Death houses are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The town was first mentioned in the late 10th century.

Wittenberg is also famous for its close connection with Luther, as he lived in the Augustinian monastery. It was also one of the most powerful cities in the Holy Roman Empire as the seat of the Elector of Saxony.

Margravial Opera House Bayreuth

The Margravial Opera House is a Baroque opera house in Bayreuth, Bavaria. It was constructed according to the plans designed by the French architect who built the court of Hohenzollern margrave Frederick of Brandenburg-Bayreuth.

The façade was inspired by the Place Vendôme in Paris and has large Corinthian columns. A balustrade is stretched across the façade, with sculptures of Apollo, Minerva, and six Muses placed atop.

Maulbronn Monastery Complex

The Maulbronn Monastery is a former Cistercian abbey and ecclesiastical state in Maulbronn, Baden-Württemberg.

Founded in 1147, the complex is surrounded by turreted walls and a tower gate. Today it houses the town hall and a police station. The monastery contains an Evangelical seminary and a boarding school.

Messel Pit Fossil Site

The Messel pit is a quarry near Messel, in Hesse. Before it fell into disuse, bituminous shale was mined there. Besides its mineral significance, it also has significant geological and scientific importance due to the abundance of well-preserved fossils and diversity of plants and animals found there.

The site almost became a landfill, but strong local resistance stopped these plans and the site was declared a World Heritage Site. Since then, discoveries about the early evolution of mammals and birds are still being made.

Mines of Rammelsberg, Historic Town of Goslar and Upper Harz Water Management System

The Rammelsberg is a mountain south of Goslar, Lower Saxony, where an important silver, copper, and lead mine is located. Before its closure in 1988, it was the only mine still working continuously for over 1,000 years.

Goslar's political importance for the Holy Roman Empire and its testimony to the history of ore mining contributed to making them a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Upper Harz Water Regale is a system of dams, reservoirs, and ditches built between the 16th and 19th centuries to store the water that drove the water wheels of the mines, including those in Rammelsberg.

Monastic Island of Reichenau

The Reichenau Island is located in Lake Constance, Baden-Württemberg. It is connected to the mainland by a causeway and a low road bridge.

In 724, the first monastery was built on the island, and Reichenau became an influential religious, cultural, and intellectual center. The Reichenau Abbey was one of the most significant monasteries in the Frankish Empire.

Museum Island, Berlin

The Museum Island in Berlin is a museum complex on the northern part of the Spree Island. It was built between 1830 and 1930 by order of the Prussian kings.

The island consists of the Altes Museum (old museum), Neues Museum (new museum), Alte Nationalgalerie (old national gallery), the Bode-Museum, and the Pergammonmuseum, as well as the Berlin Cathedral.

Muskauer Park/Park Mużakowski

The Muskau Park—Muskauer Park in German and Park Mużakowski in Polish—is a landscape park in Upper Lusatia, a region between Germany (Saxony) and Poland.

The site forms the largest English gardens in Central Europe and was laid out from 1815 onward. Its utopian design incorporates both native plants and the nearby town.

Naumburg Cathedral

The Naumburg Cathedral is located in Saxony-Anhalt. It dates from the 13th century and is a renowned landmark of the German Romanesque.

The west choir, the donor portrait statues of the twelve founders, and the rood screen are significant early Gothic monuments.

Old Town of Regensburg with Stadtamhof

Regensburg, in Bavaria, was an imperial Roman river fort and the political, economic, and cultural center of the surrounding region.

Its medieval center was made a World Heritage Site because of its well-preserved architecture, being the biggest medieval city north of the Alps, and historical importance for assemblies during the Holy Roman Empire.

Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin

The Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin site is a group of palace complexes and landscaped gardens in the Havelland region around Berlin and Potsdam.

Among others, the site includes the Palace and Park of Sanssouci, Neuer Garten (New Garden), Marmorpalais (Marble Palace), Cecilienhof Palace, Glienicke Palace, Park Glienicke, Nikolskoe log house, Pfaueninsel (Peacock Island), and Jagdschloß Glienicke (Glienicke hunting lodge).

Pilgrimage Church of Wies

The Pilgrimage Church of Wies is an oval Rococo church located in the foothills of the Alps in the town of Steingaden, Bavaria. It was built in the late 1740s by the Zimmermann brothers after a miracle allegedly happened there.

In 1738, tears were seen on a wooden figure of Christ at the Column. This resulted in a pilgrimage rush to see the sculpture, which led to the construction of a small chapel to house the statue. The chapel was soon expanded due to the large number of pilgrims it attracted.

Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps

The prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps are a series of prehistoric stilt houses settlements in the Alps built between 5,000 and 500 BCE on the edges of lakes, rivers, or wetlands.

The UNESCO site includes 111 dwellings in Switzerland (56), Italy (19), Germany (18), France (11), Austria (5), and Slovenia (2). Excavations conducted at some of the sites have yielded important evidence regarding prehistoric life.

Roman Monuments, Cathedral of St. Peter and Church of Our Lady in Trier

The Roman Monuments, Cathedral of St. Peter and Church of Our Lady in Trier, Rhineland-Palatinate, demonstrate the political, economic, and historical importance of Trier in the Roman Empire.

The site includes the Aula Palatina, Barbara Baths, Church of Our Lady, High Cathedral of Saint Peter, Igel Column, Imperial Baths, Moselle Bridge, and Porta Nigra.

ShUM cities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz

The ShUM cities site refers to three Jewish communities in Rhineland-Palatinate: Shpira (Speyer), Warmaisa (Worms), and Magenza (Mainz). They were cultural centers of Jewish scholarship and of great importance for Ashkenazi Judaism.

Speyer contains some of the oldest and best-preserved Jewish buildings in its Jewish courtyard, while Worms has the oldest surviving in situ cemetery in Europe. Unfortunately, the city of Mainz, like many other places around the world, was the site of persecution and massacres against Jewish people.

Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District

The Speicherstadt ("City of Warehouses") and Kontorhaus District are located in Hamburg. The Speicherstadt, where buildings stand on oak-pile foundations, is the largest warehouse district in the world. An example of Neo-Gothic and modernist architecture, the district was built as a free zone to transfer goods without paying customs.

The Kontorhaus District is the southeastern part of the old town. It is characterized by large office buildings in the style of Brick Expressionism. The area is densely built-up with many narrow alleys.

Speyer Cathedral

The Imperial Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption and St. Stephen is located in Speyer, Rhineland-Palatinate. The cathedral was built in the 11th century and features a triple-aisled vaulted basilica of red sandstone.

It is the largest Romanesque church in the world and is the burial site of several Salian, Hohenstaufen, and Habsburg emperors and kings.

St. Mary's Cathedral and St. Michael's Church at Hildesheim

The Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary is a medieval Roman Catholic cathedral in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony. It was built between 1010 and 1020 in the Romanesque style.

The Church of St. Michael is an early-Romanesque church in Hildesheim. Built in the 11th century, it is now a shared church, the main church being Lutheran and the crypt being Roman Catholic.

The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement

The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier site consists of seventeen Modernist buildings in three continents by architect Le Corbusier.

The Weissenhof Estate is a housing estate in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, and one of Le Corbusier's designs. It was built for an exhibition to showcase modern architecture's aspiration to provide cheap, simple, efficient, and good-quality housing.

Town Hall and Roland on the Marketplace of Bremen

The Bremen City Hall is one of the most important examples of Brick Gothic and Weser Renaissance architecture in Europe. Built in the 15th century, it is located on the market square.

Directly in front of it is the statue of Roland, which depicts the paladin of the first Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne and hero of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. It was erected in 1404 and the oldest surviving example.

Town of Bamberg

Bamberg is a town in Bavaria that dates back to the 9th century. It was a key link with the Slavs, especially those of Pomerania and Poland, and was briefly the center of the Holy Roman Empire.

Its medieval streets and buildings and historical significance were behind its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Upper Middle Rhine Valley

The Upper Middle Rhine Valley or Rhine Gorge is a 65 km section of the Rhine between Koblenz and Rüdesheim in Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse.

The rocks that form the landscape were laid down during the Paleozoic era and are known as Rhenish Facies, a type of fossil-bearing sedimentary rock mainly consisting of slate.

Völklingen Ironworks

The Völklingen Ironworks is a former blast-furnace complex in Völklingen, Saarland. Pig or crude iron production occurred at the site between 1882 and 1986.

It is one of the few intact ironworks surviving in Europe and North America and a testimony to ferrous metallurgy and the Industrial Revolution.

Wadden Sea

The Wadden Sea is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea, which borders Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein.

It lies between northwestern continental Europe and the low-lying Frisian Islands, forming a shallow body of water with tidal flats and wetlands. The site has a high biological diversity and is an important area for breeding and migrating birds.

Wartburg Castle

The Wartburg is a medieval castle in Eisenach, Thuringia. It was the home of St. Elisabeth of Hungary and the place where Martin Luther translated the New Testament.

The castle's structures date from the 12th through 15th centuries, but the interior only goes back to the 19th century. It was an important inspiration for the Neuschwanstein Castle.

Water Management System of Augsburg

The Water Management System of Augsburg is located in the city of Augsburg, Bavaria, which is one of Germany's oldest cities, founded by the Romans.

The city's water management system has unique medieval canals and water towers and is testimony to the development of hydraulic engineering.

Würzburg Residence with the Court Gardens and Residence Square

The Würzburg Residence is a palace in Würzburg, Bavaria, whose interiors are masterworks of Baroque and Rococo architecture and art, including the largest fresco in the world.

Built in the 18th century, the residence includes large gardens in the Baroque and English garden styles.

Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex

The Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex is a former industrial site in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia. The first mine was founded in 1847 and the last one closed in 1986.

The two parts of the site ranked among the largest of their kinds in Europe and were built in the New Objectivity style.

#langblr #german

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is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not · 14 days

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🟣 What are your top 3 favorite planets you have visited, if you have visited multiple worlds?

🔫 If you can fight in non-vehicular combat, what weapons do you favor?

⚪ What was the first vehicle (BattleMech, Battle Armor, AeroSpace Fighter, combat vehicle, etc) that you piloted?

💚 What do techs usually complain about with your piloting?

-Dieter Marten-Steiner, Lord-Adjutant of House Marten-Steiner, Regent of Mertangard.

Hello, Dieter, it is a pleasure to hear from you. In answer to your questions, I have prepared the following responses. I may have been slightly long winded, but I have been in SLDF meetings about miniutae all morning, and needed something to pass the time, quiaff?

🟣 = I must say Terra, quiaff? Even after all it has gone through over the milennia since humankind began to leave the cradle, Terra remains a pristine jewel of a world. I have spent months traveling, going to see everything I could. I have visited the original Seven Wonders, the Eight Wonders of the Hegemony, stood in St. Peter's Square, seen Jerusalem, Mecca, Tokyo, Las Vegas, New York, Paris, and of course Unity City.

Even the rest of the system is full of wonders, from the Belt to Mars, the O'Neill Stations, and even the newly repaired Venusian terraformers. There are days I am struck once more by the revelation that I live now on Terra, her soil under my talons, breathing the air that spawned our species. And the views from my estate on Puget Sound are perhaps the most beautiful of all.

For my second choice, and this may be anathema to some of my other Clan fellows, but... it must be a tie between Solaris VII, Hardcore, and Canopus IV. All of them worlds of pure human pleasure, greed, and excess, and there is something striking about all of them.

For my third choice, I would say Coromodir. It is nearly as beautiful as Terra itself, and ruled by one of the few noble houses I have encountered in my life whom genuinely care for their people. And it was the site of the Fusiliers' great triumph, that propelled us to fame (and perhaps infamy, to some).

🔫 = I have trained extensively in infantry combat. All Clan warriors train in the basics of infantry combat and melee fighting. It was part of my regular between-deployment training with the Fusiliers - they had several Canopian ex-Ebon Magistrate commandos, a DEST commando, and (eventually) an ex-Manei Domini Banshee Delta to learn from. I am thus skilled with many infantry weapons, martial arts styles, and melee weapons. We even learned zero-G and underwater combat techniques.

As for what I presently carry: I have a JàrnFòlk-modified Sternsnacht Claymore ultra-heavy pistol as my sidearm. It fires 14mm tungsten-core armor-piercing explosive incendiary rounds, from a custom made 8-round extended magazine. It is a beautiful work of art, with platinum damascening, engraving in falcon-feather patterns, imperial jade inlays, and wood from Strana Mechty itself, which forms the exquisitely carved grips. I have used it to kill megasaurs, armored Elementals, and Blakist Zombie infantry alike. I have timed my draw and, even with the Claymore's somewhat excessive weight, have won quite a few formal fast-draw pistol competitions.

I also routinely carry a specially-made Clan Vibrosword. Unlike most straight-bladed models, mine uses a katana-style blade - the exact blade once gifted by my ancestor Turkina to my other ancestor, Elizabeth Hazen, during the DeChavalier Massacre - and yes, in a sense this means I have two genemothers. If you ever have occasion to visit Terra, I can show you the sacred talon-marks on the blade...

In my 'Mech, I carry two additional weapons. All SLDF 'Mechs with sufficient cockpit space will carry a Mauser & Grey Model 980SL pulse laser assault rifle - an upgraded and lightened version of the old SLDF issue Mauser 960, upgraded to Clantech standards, and using a variant of ER Pulse Laser tech from Clan Wolf. The ejection seat kit in all SLDF 'Mechs will also carry a Mauser & Grey built Model 995 "Enhanced" Gauss SMG. The Nest currently hoIds the prototypes for both weapons.

And of course, I have my talons when all else fails. Each of them has long since been upgraded, using a version of the Carbon-Fiber Reinforcement process common among Capellan nobles.

⚪ = the first 'Mech I ever piloted was a Hunchback IIC during my belated Trial of Position. I found it a lovely and responsive machine, the balance provided by the twin Ultra AC/20s compared well to the later Inner Sphere Hunchbacks I would pilot. I scored three kills, and nearly a fourth, in that machine. I made certain after that to ensure its targeting systems were salvaged - call it superstition, but they felt lucky, quiaff? I have had those very same targeting systems installed into every 'Mech I have subsequently piloted. They currently provide the Nest with her targeting data, linked into the Targeting Computer.

💚 = in my younger days, complaints of my pushing the machines to their limit were common. Even in my time in Turkina Keshik, then Khan Yvonne Hazen themself had to counsel me to be gentler with the machines. In my later years, the techs have begun complaining about how much time I spend tinkering with and adjusting the 'Mechs. This is where the "Old Bird's Nest" got her nickname, quiaff?

#battletech #mechwarrior #battletech ask game

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potteresque-ire · 2 years

Text

The Big Politics Meta

0. Introduction; content notes and warning >> 1. The Boring Overview: 3rd Time is the Charm? 2. The Political Legacy of 2/27: A Hypothesis 3. Case Report of a Traffic Robbery, Committed October, 2020 4. Two Stories about a State-approved, Top Traffic Star 5. Afterthought: The Big Environment

(Below the Cut — 1. The Boring Overview: 3rd Time is the Charm?)

It’s October, the month that can leave a mark in Chinese history.

Starting on the 9th is the so-called 兩會 (”Two meetings”) — the 7th Plenary Session of the 19th Chinese Communist Party Central Committee (七中全會), and the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (第二十次全國代表大會). By the end of the month, the world will know whether President Xi will enter his 3rd 5-year term as the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, and by officially breaking the previously established term limits, also become China’s next potential Dictator-for-Life.

The outcome is, of course, highly significant to all Chinese people, but it’s significant too for this little corner of ours. After all, our turtledom of overseas Gg and Dd fans have also felt the effects of President Xi’s ideology. The genre (Dangai) that has brought us together has been axed under President Xi’s governance, and we rarely see our favourite stars showing their idol roots anymore, with all the restrictions on hair color and earrings and traffic etc. Readers who have followed this blog (❤️), you’ve seen me talk (rant) about the various marks President Xi has left in c-ent over the last 10 years: how the industry has been steadily less about entertainment and more about being the propaganda apparatus for the Chinese government; everyone being tasked to being promoters of core socialist values (including paparazzis) and the ever elusive, hard-to-define 公序良俗 public order and good customs, and punished heavily, and / or in ways unfit to their misdeeds, when the celebrities among them fail. TV stations have been reprimanded by the government for being “too entertaining”, and forced to “restructure” their popular, entertaining shows. Beloved genres of little use to propaganda, from Dangai to time travel to imperial court drama to horror to romance, have had their creative spaces drastically slashed by censorship rules, if not destroyed altogether.

A Hong Kong news site made this infographic about the punishment of entertainment celebrities between 2001 to 2021, and the type of controversy (legal/political/moral/not-own-fault) that led to their punishment. The y-axis represents the severity of the punishment, from not at all (top) to very severe (bottom). The x-axis represents the year. Each dot represents a celebrity, and the color of the dot, the type of controversy surrounding the celebrity. I put a box around GG’s name: his controversy was “not-own-fault” (purple). The number of celebrities being punished, and the severity of their punishments, both increased significantly in the President Xi era (2012-2021). (Source)

Even dramas that boost the image of the government have had an increasingly difficult time passing the content audit — Being a Hero, for example, has a very much delayed broadcast (the series was filmed in 2020); its marketing was also lacklustre compared to other series of the same summer period and, critically, being of a genre that traditionally fare much better in viewership when co-broadcast on TV (i.e., air simultaneously on one of the TV satellite stations, or on CCTV), BaH chose to air without such a TV co-broadcast. While it can never be confirmed, the rumoured cause has to do with BaH’s story touching on drugs, undercover, officials involved in crime — all of which had once been acceptable topics but were, in the summer of 2022, considered sensitive. The series’ marketing being arguably unprepared was because, allegedly, BaH aired just days after it had got its net broadcast license. It didn’t co-broadcast on TV because TV broadcast requires an additional license with even stricter content requirements, and to wait for such a license to get approved may mean the series will never meet its audience, should the content restrictions tighten even further as they have the last several years.

President Xi’s fingerprints are, really, already everywhere in our fandom.

And whether he will continue to be the General Secretary, the President and China’s Paramount Leader, whether his “New Era” ideology will continue to dictate the country’s political narrative, will have an effect on to-be-aired projects by Gg and Dd too.

Example: Gg’s Where Dreams Begin, which is about the “Reform and Opening Up” 改革開放 era of the 1980s and 1990s：

This era has become a political-sensitive issue. It has been for a while, but it has become even more sensitive in the months leading up to the National Congress.

“Reform and Opening Up” has become a bit synonymous with … “No More Xi”.

The background is this: with the strict Zero-COVID policy that limited the flow of goods, people and money, and the heavy-handed crackdown of multiple big, lucrative industries in China over the last few years, China’s economy hasn’t been doing well. This is the kind of not-doing-well that almost everyone can feel the effects of: it isn’t limited to, for example, the housing market, or the stock market. It is people failing to receive income, while seeing no decrease in their daily expenditures. People in lockdown are often unable to reach their jobs; they have increasingly been required to pay for the compulsory quarantine and DNA testing — because the provinces, which are supposed to pay for the central government for these services, are out of money themselves. People who are lucky enough to keep their jobs often have their pay slashed, or delayed for months. There have already been several instances of banks freezing their clients’ accounts, denying withdrawal requests.

In July, holders of frozen deposit accounts protested in front of a bank in Zhengzhou, Henan. They were eventually beaten up by “unidentified men” (Source and Video), who had nonetheless been seen to have arrived at the scene with the police. Earlier on, many of the account holders had found their Health Code — the government-issued, mandatory COVID pass on their cell phone — turning red without reason. A red Health Code bars its holder from travelling anywhere.

Enter “Reform and Opening Up”, referring to the direction of the country envisioned, and then executed by the Paramount Leader after Chairman Mao, Chairman Deng Xiaoping 鄧小平, to savage the economy destroyed during the Mao years.

Dissenters of Xi have been missing, and asking for the return of “Reform and Opening Up”. The era was marked by, among other things, China’s mass privatisation — ie, the government loosening its control on the economy…

... along with all areas of life, including speech, including entertainment. I recently introduced the Taiwanese singer 鄧麗君 Teresa Teng, the singer of Dd’s Mid-Autumn BGM, 但願人長久, who became super popular in China during the 1980s. Despite disliking her, the government didn’t ban her, nor did it punish the people for liking her.

According to its screenwriter, 蘆葦 Lu Wei, Farewell My Concubine got its approval for release in 1993 from Chairman Deng himself. The production company had already been reprimanded by the Ministry of Culture and the Department of Propaganda for making the film, and its head, made to write a letter of repentance, when investors submitted a copy of the film to Chairman Deng via his daughter. Chairman Deng watched the film and approved it, saying that it only required minor modifications (Source).

(The relative political freedom of “Reform and Opening Up” came to an end in June 1989, when the People’s Liberation Army opened fire at the protesting students on Tiananmen Square. Even though Deng was more open-minded than Mao, mobilised, passionate youth with a unified cause also proved to be too much for him. The Chinese Communist Party got their power, consolidated their power via youth movement and knows what the latter can do, is suspicious and frankly, terrified of it.)

(This is a very important point to remember. As a preview, this attitude likely explains the Qing Lang “Clear & Bright” Campaign, the current crackdown of fan culture, and “traffic”.)

(Fans are mobilised youth with a unified cause of supporting an IP. A genre. A hobby.)

(A star.)

President Xi is widely believed to be not a fan of “Reform and Opening Up”. After all, Chairman Deng was clear about his policies’ aim of 撥亂反正 righting the chaos from — ie. the mistakes of — Chairman Mao. President Xi, meanwhile, has imitated Mao in multiple ways, reframed Mao’s mistakes as something more benign — The Cultural Revolution, for example, has been reworded as a “difficult exploration”. President Xi also, critically, removed the most important safeguard Chairman Deng put in place to prevent another Chairman Mao from happening again — the 10-year term limit on the General Secretary, the head of the CCP post.

If President Xi doesn’t like “Reform and Opening Up”, then why does this term, this era still matter? China isn’t a democracy; the voices of dissenters among the general population hardly mean a thing — this Spring, we have seen 26 million people in China’s most affluent city wishing to leave their homes to buy food, to buy medicine, and given the deaf ear for two months (The Shanghai Lockdown). Who has been talking about “Reform and Opening Up” that have the ears of c-pol watchers perked up?

The answer: the premier 李克强 Li Keqiang, the Number 2 Man of China after President Xi.

Premier Li has repeatedly mentioned “Reform and Opening Up” in his public appearances over the past few months; an economist by training, he has insisted that that it is necessary for the country’s development. Does it mean his boss, President Xi, is actually more okay with “Reform and Opening Up” than he appeared to be? President Xi has never really talked about “Reform and Opening Up” himself — the narrative from his recent speeches has been focused on the great victory against COVID and the West, and on the “Two Establishes and Two Safeguards (兩個確立, 兩個維護) — which is about, essentially “Obey No One but Xi, Obey No Party but the Chinese Communist Party” (Really).

Are President Xi and Premier Li merely playing a strange version “Good Cop, Bad Cop”, with President Xi playing the nationalistic hand and Premier Li, the pragmatic hand? But then, it makes little sense that the clip of Premier Li’s August visit to Shen Zhen, in which he said China’s Opening Up must continue because 黄河長江不倒流 — “The Yellow River and Yangtze River don’t flow backwards”, i.e., we can’t go back to the past — was censored on Weixin. Premier Li had also, intentionally or not, embarrassed President Xi before. While the propaganda machine had been on full blast touting President Xi’s eradication of poverty in 2020, Premier Li, as the head of 國務院 State Council, the chief administrative authority (i.e., it does the stats and numbers), went on record to say 0.6 billion people in the country — more than 40% of the population — had an income of < 1000 RMB (140 USD) a month.

(The poverty line for China’s median income, by OECD’s standard, is 1148 RMB a month. In 2019, China introduced its own standard of 333 RMB a month.)

(There are two ways of eradicating something: eradicate it, or change its definition.)

This, to many political watchers, signals that President Xi’s ascension to Dictator-for-Life may not be as smooth, as sure as it appears to be. How much support, or opposition has President Xi met behind the scenes?

Is Premier Li a collaborator, or dissenter of the President? Is he a contender for some, or all of President Xi’s official titles come the National Congress? But Premier Li has never been truly politically powerful; before this year, his public appearances were few and far between. He, and the so-called 團派 “League Faction” he represents, has had their influence significantly diminished during the Xi era. 團派 “League Faction”, BTW, broadly refers to the politicians who’ve risen up the ranks of the party via the Communist Youth League 共青團, who are mostly of ordinary, “plebian” background and joined the league as most university-educated youth of the country have, and worked their way up. This is in contrast to the so-called Princeling faction, which President Xi is a member of, who are made up of descendants of powerful Chinese political figures.

Something that has long baffled c-pol analysts: The Xi family were victims of the Cultural Revolution. Here, President Xi’s father, 習仲勳 Xi Zhongxun (wearing the placard) was being publicly denounced by his fellow comrades as being an “anti-Communist”. Xi Zhongxun would be absolved in the Deng era and become an advocate of “Reform and Opening Up”, and introduce its policies to the city of Guangzhou. (Source)

Premier Li may not the only person possibly not standing on President Xi’s side. Inside Zhongnanhai 中南海, the headquarters, the … palace of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing (it is really in a former imperial garden), there are the Elders — the power men who once served in the government but have now retired — who participate in the workings of the government via convos behind close doors and who, traditionally, have a say of who gets to be China’s next Paramount Leader. 宋平 Song Ping, an Elder and one of Communist China’s founding fathers (he’s 105 year old), also said, recently and allegedly, that “Reform and Opening Up” is a must for China.

Allegedly, because the video isn’t available to the public. Allegedly, because Song had made the statement during a semi-private event, and the statement was, allegedly, edited out of the video.

Even if Song had made that statement, how much his words — or the words of any Elder — still weigh in 2022 is unknown.

For those who’d like to have an entertaining look at how Elders influence the election of Chinese leaders, the movie Election by 杜琪峰 Johnnie To is a good choice. The movie famously used the election of Hong Kong mafia leaders as an analogy of how the process worked.

This is power struggle, Chinese style. It’s the opposite of the loud, incessant, (annoying) shouts of ‘I’m Good and They’re Bad’ in the pre-election months in the United States. Every piece of info comes with more questions than message, more smoke than view. China’s social media is eerily peaceful these days, Weibo hot search being filled with light topics — often from entertainment when just after the rapid succession of celebrity cancellation in the summer of 2021, hot search had been off limits to tags related to entertainment for a while. Outside the hot search, netizens have found their posts restricted in traffic (ie. cannot be reblogged), their images turning into more broken links in a seemingly random manner. While such methods to prevent information spread has always been around, they are usually not employed so widely, so indiscriminately. Nonetheless, with the counter-methods Chinese netizens have developed over the years to avoid triggering the censorship filters, rumours, some of them wild, continue to fly under this guise of peace — the latest, as some may have seen on Twitter, is about a military coup and President Xi being under house arrest (it has been proven false; this article went into detail about the elements that hinted on the rumour’s falseness). This isn’t something one can see in Weibo posts at all, however, not even a netizen or two just wondering: I’ve heard this ... something. Is it true?

When the power struggle in China does make noise, it often does so under the guise of something else. Support of Zero-COVID policy is now understood by the politically aware to be synonymous to support of President Xi’s brand of ideology. Even the less politically sensitive among Chinese netizens have become largely aware that Zero-COVID is now a political movement, that the wellbeing of them as citizens of China may matter less than the political purpose it serves.

An anti-COVID banner, which said: “Coronavirus isn’t scary, as long as everyone listens to the Party” (Source)

Last month, there was a major accident involving a bus carrying people out of the city of Guiyang for quarantine, resulting in at least 27 fatalities. The thing is … all passengers were not only COVID negative, they had been under lockdown in their homes for the previous two weeks, ie. the chance of them having been a close contact of a positive case was essentially zero. But the local authorities had decided to move them out of the city anyway — the government-issued deadline for reaching a zero case count for the city was coming in two days. The people were therefore smuggled out of the city overnight, using a highway that was usually closed those hours because it was unsafe to use in the dark. Making this trip even more dangerous was the condition on the bus, which was also specified by the government: the driver and passengers were all to wear the white, stuffy PPE suits, the driver was to wear a N95 mask as well and the air conditioning must be turned off, the windows must be closed at all times and there could be no eating or drinking on the bus, as there would be no restroom breaks for anyone. Only the driver knew where the bus was heading and the trips were often hours long — this one was expected to take four.

The bus often turns into a steaming sauna room under these conditions; heat exhaustion is common among the passengers by the time they reach their quarantine locale.

And the drivers had complained about not being to see well with their mask, the steam and the heat. The night hours also mean they are often tired, and the food + drink + bathroom bans mean they can be even more uncomfortable while having to drive.

Accidents like this one were ... a matter of time.

And all of this, all of the discomfort and suffering and lives lost, only because the local authorities needed to report a victory against a virus on a certain day to the central government. The COVID virus, these little spheres of RNA with some spikes for decor, are now treated like a human army on the battlefield, an opposing force that can be crushed in a certain, pre-scheduled battle. Those in the country who wished for a scientific approach to the virus, the most famous among them Dr 張文宏 Zhang Wenhong, also called China’s Dr Fauci by some, were censored and attacked by pro-Xi, nationalistic netizens. Dr Zhang was called a traitor, a blind follower of Western beliefs.

(He was called similar names when he had suggested children to have egg and milk, ie protein, for breakfast, instead of the traditional, 100% carbohydrate Chinese congee).

The Guiyang bus accident was attention catching enough to make the hot search for a day. At first, it was described as an accident involving a tour bus. It was only later, when the truth spread and public opinion could no longer be contained, that the tour bus’s purpose was made clear. The local authorities apologised, signalling the end of discussion of the matter and the hot search was removed. The smuggling of people for zero COVID counts continued.

Whispers, despaired and anxious, also continued, by people not tagging their posts to avoid triggering censorship filter. We’re all on the same bus, these netizens said. They understood what had happened to that bus of passengers could happen to any of them — Guiyang was far from the only place that smuggled people out to reach the zero case goal, and even without the smuggling, the bus ride to quarantine in broad daylight was little different. It headed to the unknown for the passengers, where conditions could be frightfully poor, where they would be left there for an unknown number of days.

All they needed was one tiny, invisible COVID viral particle to intrude their community.

Disease-prevention personnels, colloquially called 大白 Big White because of the PPE they wear, guarding against the escape of travellers trapped in the airport of Xishuangbanna when the city went into sudden lockdown on 2022/10/04. Angry travellers confronted them, asking why they were pointing their guns at their own people (Video). Big White can be medical personnels, police or other officers under the uniform.

Does it mean these lamenters are dissenters of Xi? Not at all. The propaganda has portrayed COVID as a fearful, deathly virus (and it is one, especially in its early days), and most of them do not wish for their country to emulate the (evil) Western countries and let the virus loose, let the people die. They are willing to do what they can to prevent the virus from spreading — it’s just that what they have to do now terrifies them.

Anyways …

Just as support of the Zero-COVID policy is now understood to be synonymous to support of President Xi, support of “Reform and Opening Up” is now understood to be, if not anti-, then, at least skeptical of President Xi and his ideology, the direction the country is heading under his leadership. To prefer “Reform and Opening Up” means to prefer a focus on the ailing economy; and to cure the the ails, the Zero-COVID policy, President Xi’s pride, has to be the first to go.

Eventually, President Xi’s Maoist tendencies have to go as well. Because of China’s development during the “Reform and Opening Up” era and its subsequent decades, “Reform and Opening Up” also carries the implicit meaning of opening up the country’s economy to the rest of the world, of forging foreign cooperations in general, which is in contrast to President Xi’s “Warrior Wolf” style hostility towards the West, and his encouragement of “internal circulation” — expansion of the role of the domestic market to Chinese economy — that has been taken to mean shutting the doors to international economy and community.

This is how “Reform and Opening Up” has become a politically-sensitive term.

And when “Reform and Opening Up” becomes a politically-sensitive term, so do media projects about the era, such as Where Dreams Begin. Where Dreams Begin will likely be all right —this February, one of the companies producing the series announced that it had been chosen as a sponsored project of the Beijing branch of NRTA. 楊夏 Yang Xia, the producer of Where Dreams Begin (and The Untamed), was not only spotted at the 11th Congress of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles (CFLAC) in December 2021, but carrying a title (中國電視藝術家協會新文藝組織和新文藝群體工作委員會副秘書長) that hinted she had connections at the right places. This was, after all, a conference that President Xi attended and spoke:

President Xi, speaking at the 11th Congress of the CFLAC, 2021. (Source, including the full text of his speech, which touched on the moral requirements of the arts community. No concrete guidelines were given; the prose was largely rhetoric.)

Still, the content of Where Dreams Begin will likely be scrutinised by auditors again right before airing. 獻禮劇, the special genre of TV and film that not only had a propaganda element, but is devoted to the glorification of the government and CCP must, in particular, be current with the message the government intends to spread. We may have seen another example of this very, very recently:

On 2022/09/27, the Chinese military officially “upgraded” the categorisation of its first homemade stealth fighter jet, J-20, from 4th generation to 5th generation. It also confirmed J-20′s deployment to the Taiwan Strait. In the media, the categorisation of the fighter jet had been divided between 4th and 5th generation, with the 4th generation categorisation still found in a state media social media post as late as May 2022. Such an official categorisation change, a demonstration of China’s prowess in military technology, would have to be immediately reflected in propaganda projects depicting the J-20, including the movie Born to Fly, which was originally scheduled to premiere on the same day.

The airing time of propaganda films and series are, therefore, necessarily affected by the political climate, by the choice of Paramount Leader whose ideology decides the appropriate message to spread. If the Paramount Leader continues to exhibit touchiness about “Reform and Opening Up”, for example, then, having a drama about “Reform and Opening Up” airing and hanging out on hot search may not be the best idea.

Best to wait till he looks away.

While I am at this, I should clear up this something that may be confusing. Perhaps some of you have noticed that I’ve used the term “Paramount Leader”, instead of President, or General Secretary, the latter being the post he may be getting his third term for. Is Xi being the General Secretary for the 3rd term equivalent to his continuing to be the Paramount Leader? What, exactly, is the Paramount Leader?

Hmm. I’d say, there’s a … 99.9% chance that General Secretary = President = Paramount Leader. It isn’t a rule though. Hence, the not-100%. Meanwhile, unlike the Presidency, the Paramount Leader is not an actual position one can hold. Rather, the Paramount Leader is the person recognised, by implicit understanding, to be the person who’s really calling the shots.

Xi’s official titles are President (中華人民共和國主席), General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (中國共產黨中央委員會總書記), and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party (中國共產黨中央軍事委員會主席). Of the three titles, “President” is actually least prestigious, with the least numbers of actual duties and many of which are ceremonial. “President”, moreover, has always been occupied by whoever is serving as the head of the Chinese Communist Party (ie, the General Secretary), and the Commander-in-Chief of the People’s Liberation Army (ie, the Chairman of the CAC), even though no laws dictate that it must be that way.

In other words, the General Secretary and Chairman titles are where the power really is. This is why President Xi’s being potentially the General Secretary for life is such a big deal.

From the recently published, succinct guide on the National Congress by BBC: a recommended read.

This also means, hypothetically, that it is possible for Xi to remain General Secretary but lose control over the military and along with it, the Presidency and Paramount Leadership — and this has been the scenario anti-Xi people have hoped for. The General Secretary failing to be the Paramount Leader has, in a way, happened in the past. There was actually a leader between Chairman Mao and Chairman Deng, 華國鋒 Hua Guofeng, who held the highest offices (including the head of the CCP and Commander in Chief) between 1976 and 1981. However, his leadership was mostly seen as the continuation of Mao’s in the first two years, and afterwards, Deng usurped his power and became the de facto Paramount Leader.

So, Hua was a “he-is-but-not-really” Paramount Leader, despite holding the equivalent title of the General Secretary.

Deng would demonstrate another way to be the de facto Paramount Leader after he officially retired in 1990. His influence would remain larger than his successor, 江澤民 Jiang Zemin, until when he finally, truly retired in 1994. With that, he showed that a Paramount Leader can even be a regular citizen; between the years of 1990-1994, Hong Kongers pointed out the absurdity of this by calling (former) Chairman Deng 鄧普通 Ordinary Deng.

Along this line of thought, a not-100%-impossible, reverse scenario of Xi keeping his titles but losing his Paramount Leadership would be his installing a puppet, stepping down from all his positions, and remaining the de facto Paramount Leader.

Anything is possible in the country when a person, a party is above the laws.

Complicated, isn’t it? Hence, October 2022 is a time for observation. Even if President Xi held on to all his titles, political analysts and also, people who must stay current with the government’s message — including those who work in propaganda, including c-ent — will be watching for clues to how much power he actually retains. Aside for looking for evident changes in his policies such as Zero-COVID, other things to watch for include, for example, what positions will his close associates win or lose? Where will these positions be won or lost? Positions in the four direct-administrated municipalities 直轄市 — Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing — are prestigious; those in poor provinces like Guizhou, not so much. Will President Xi get to place more of his people in the nice places? If so, he will be considered the true winner of this round of political struggle. If not, how ugly will their downfall be and who will be the people taking over the lost positions? Will they belong to the League Faction? The Jiang-BigTech Faction? Princelings? How many times will Xi’s name get mentioned on the front page of People’s Daily? In Xinhua News? Where on the front page? On top and at the center? At one of the bottom corners?

It’s ridiculous, I know. It’s incredibly exhausting too. But then, this is China, and there are often no better, more reliable sources of information.

* Phew *. Okay, enough of these title things. Now, I think I can finally get to what I intended to talk about when I started this meta (* facepalms at all the words above *) … something more relevant to us turtles, a question that is more likely to be on our minds. It’s understandable why c-ent is being so watchful now, why investors and companies and cast and crew have to expect their projects being affected by the news, the decisions coming this month. But why are certain stars — all right, let’s be specific here — Gg and Dd so … quiet?

As turtles, we have double the number of favourite stars, both being so beloved and beautiful and ... we’re supposed to have double birthdays with double the amount of equally popular and easy-on-the-eyes material to celebrate. We should have double the joy and fun. And yet, both birthdays this year were so … quiet.

It’s difficult to not feel a little let down, isn’t it?

Other stars … we’ve watched them, and they’ve laid low too — compared to 10, even 5 years ago everyone has laid low (Weibo 10 years ago was WILD compared to today). But they have still been more active. And those who also have birthdays this October, this close to the two meetings, still celebrated. This time of this year being politically sensitive doesn’t seem to adequately explain the so-quietness of our boys.

Then, what is it?

What is it they have, or they carry, and other stars don’t?

#pie metas

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mariacallous · 2 months

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In August 1958, Charles de Gaulle, who had just returned to power in France, set off on a tour of his country’s sub-Saharan African colonies. His purpose was to present them with a plan to join France in a new kind of “community.” Paris would continue to control what it called “state services,” which included defense, monetary matters, customs, as well as media and communications. A new quasi-limited autonomy, meanwhile, would more or less allow African countries to manage their domestic affairs and to carry the costs, once largely borne, by France of doing so.

De Gaulle presented the novel scheme under a veneer of magnanimity. Via a planned referendum, its African possessions would be given the liberty to accept or reject his community. This offer did not come without a warning though. There would be no debate, only an up or down vote, and any colony that rejected the proposition would face secession from France “with all its consequences.”

It was not long before the world learned what this meant in practice. When de Gaulle visited Guinea the following month, that colony’s leader, Ahmed Sékou Touré, spoke defiantly to a crowd as the French statesman looked on. “We do not and never shall renounce our legitimate right to independence,” he said. This angered De Gaulle, who canceled a planned dinner with Touré that night and disinvited him to fly together on his presidential plane to nearby Senegal the next day. Yet these were but the merest hints of the consequences to come.

After de Gaulle had returned home to Paris, he ordered the immediate withdrawal of the thousands of the French civil servants who had made the colony’s bureaucracy run and staffed its clinics and schools. And before they flew home, many of the French workers engaged in an orgy of petty destructiveness, smashing furniture, trashing official records, breaking equipment, and even shattering lightbulbs.

What happened back then in Guinea is one of most famous episodes in an inglorious history of French colonial rule and domination over large parts of West and Central Africa, but it is only a single chapter in a very long story. Guinea is a better place than most to begin a discussion of this topic because in the 1880s and 1890s, the era of rapid French imperial expansion in the region, it was the site of a fierce campaign by Paris to subdue local political rulers, seize control over gold and other natural resources, and extend France’s authority over new territories.

The most famous of these leaders was a man named Samory Touré, who ruled over a polity called the Wassoulou Empire. Its core was in the Guinea highlands, and to France’s great frustration, it sometimes fielded armies numbering as many as 35,000 soldiers. When his empire was finally subdued just before the close of the century, Touré was exiled to an island in Gabon, a faraway equatorial colony (now country), where he died.

France is of course not the only European country to have ruled over Africans, but its history is unique for its persistence, its geographic spread, and its adaptability. A struggle for independence in Algeria, then a large North African French settler colony, brought down France’s Fourth Republic and threatened a civil war in the heart of Europe in 1958, the same year as de Gaulle’s sub-Saharan tour. That is because of the fantastical claim by the rebellious French general, Raoul Salan, that Algeria was actually a physical part, or geographical extension of France. “The Mediterranean traverses France the way the Seine traverses Paris,” Salan claimed.

In the wake of events in Guinea and Algeria, when other Black African figures began to push for more autonomy than de Gaulle had envisioned, or worse, for outright independence, bad things tended to happen to them. A little remembered anti-colonialist figure from Cameroon named Félix-Roland Moumié, for example, was assassinated by French agents whose actions anticipated the dark methods of Vladimir Putin. They poisoned him with radioactive thallium in Geneva in 1960.

More than 60 years later, there is a remarkable uprising against French influence underway in the Sahel, one of the African regions where French domination has been most thorough over the decades. One after another, the leaders of three states in this semi-arid region—Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali—have spoken out against French sway in West Africa and moved to reduce or eliminate the presence of French soldiers, corporations, and diplomats in their countries. In doing so, they have blamed Paris for a host of problems, ranging from a long-running but ineffective and often disruptive French-led campaign to contain the spread of Islamic insurgencies in the Sahel, to interference in their domestic politics, to profiteering from starkly unequal economic ties.

In stiff rebuffs of France, these three landlocked countries, which rank among the poorest in the world, have sometimes welcomed a larger role for Russia, both in helping bolster their internal security and in the extraction of mineral wealth like the gold and uranium in their soils. And with Russia (as with France for so long) these two things often go together.

They have also hinted at ending cooperation with France on controlling the northward flow of African migration across the Sahara toward Europe. And they have been discussing exiting a long-standing monetary union and currency, the CFA franc, which was created by France prior to independence mostly as a way of sustaining French exports in the region. African critics of the CFA franc have long said that it perpetuates French domination, in part through its historic requirement that member countries of the union deposit their foreign reserves with the French treasury. The three states are even discussing establishing a new Sahelian currency to replace the CFA.

The military president of Niger, Abdourahmane Tchiani, has called for France to pay damages to longtime African client states like his for years of what he has likened to looting. In Burkina Faso, next door, another military leader, Ibrahim Traoré, has vowed never to allow his country to be dominated by Europeans again.

In so strongly calling into question relations with France, these three Sahelian countries have captured the imagination of millions of Africans living in other former French colonies and beyond, including in wealthier coastal states, whose official relations with France so far have not been seriously disrupted. To the clear chagrin of French President Emmanuel Macron, though, this has come to feel increasingly like a major reckoning.

Some in France have long seen this coming. In an interview in 2007, his last year in power, former French President Jacques Chirac said as much. “Don’t forget one thing, and that is that a large portion of the money that we have in our purses comes precisely from the exploitation of Africa over the centuries … So we need a little measure of good sense, I didn’t say generosity, but good sense, and justice to render to Africans, I would say, what we took from them. This is necessary if we want to avoid the most severe turmoil and difficulty, with all of the political consequences that this will bring in the near future.”

In fairness to France, with all there is to criticize, its entire legacy in sub-Saharan Africa has not been uniformly abysmal. France once oversaw the construction of large infrastructure projects in its African colonies and clients—major ports, railroads, and highways. Part of the current anger toward this former colonial power is that it has largely exited this business, ceding the realm of big projects to China.

A few of France’s former colonies, Ivory Coast in particular, are well developed by the standards of the region. Even the much-criticized CFA franc has not been thoroughly bereft of benefits, hence its staying power. The relationship with France, and through Paris, with the European Union, has long kept the CFA convertible and relatively stable, if typically overvalued—affecting the balance of trade by making these countries exports expensive and imports, notably from the Eurozone, cheaper.

Surveying Africa below the Sahara in its entirety, though, it is hard to avoid the impression that France’s former colonies generally trail their former British colony counterparts in economic development, in democratic governance, and in political stability. And this is no paean to British colonial rule or influence, which gradually dissipated after independence.

But even if one wishes to take the most benign view of colonialism and capitalism in Africa, it is hard to argue that France has done nearly enough to help foster development in its former possessions or usher them more fully into the global economy. And to some extent, this stands to reason. France, at best, is a medium-size country with a matching economy. These attributes stand in disproportionate relation to Paris’s grand and long-standing ambition of buttressing its own stature in the world by clinging to the reins of neocolonial power in the continent to the south. Africa’s galloping demographic growth makes the absurdity of this mismatch more evident by the year.

On one level, the ongoing uprising against Paris in the Sahel can be understood as a cynical ploy using populism to sustain the political power of military elites in states that have been flirting with failure for years. But there is something much more interesting going on.

There is another challenge being posed by the leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger that is likely to be far more impactful over time: they are challenging other African countries—both French and English speaking—to tear down the barriers that cripplingly divide them. More than a century ago, Europe “broke” the continent by subdividing it into cookie cutter-shaped countries, many of them small and landlocked.

Deeper African unity and federation is a dream with a surprisingly long pedigree. This was the cry of African intellectuals like J.E. Casely Hayford, in the former Gold Coast, now Ghana, early in the 20th century. More famously, it was also the obsession of Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah. Less well-remembered, this was also the cause of Barthélemy Boganda, the early leader of the Central African Republic, who hoped to federate French-speaking countries in that part of the continent under a proposed United States of Latin Africa.

What remains certain today is that a start toward the greater prosperity and well-being that all Africans yearn for will only come when these divides are eradicated, and outsiders can’t do this for them. Anger towards France is only useful if it becomes a catalyst for greater agency by Africans, who build their own regional currencies, construct their own regional rail and highways, and constitute political and economic unions that exist on more than paper.

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haastal · 11 months

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a starter for @axisoftherebellion

Coruscant.

She usually stayed away from the Core Worlds, as Imperial troops still felt a need to pick fights with Mandalorians. Though they had rained ruin upon Mandalore, forced the survivors into hiding, it was still a reputation builder to state that one had bested a Mandalorian. Usually the younger troops, who'd been raised on the fattened teat of Imperial propaganda. Luckily for them, it didn't take much to deter them from chasing that glory.

The taxi droid babbled about sites she should see while in the great capitol of the Empire, but Aahni ignored it. She didn't need, nor want, the stroll down memory lane. To see what the Empire had done since its takeover felt to her like looking over a defiled grave.

The taxi eased to a stop, door swinging upwards as the droid announced their arrival. Aahni picked up her rifle and stepped out of the vehicle, slinging her weapon over a shoulder as she passed a credit chip over the sensor to pay the droid. As the taxi drifted away, she examined the exterior of the shop.

Even when she trained at the Temple, she would not have belonged in an area like this. There was an air of wealth and prestige, a cleanliness beyond the norm. Glass glittered, metal gleamed, even the air that filtered through her helmet smelled different. Some of the patrons on the other shops' platforms stopped to stare at her, but she paid them no further attention.

As she passed through the shop's glass doors, the dark-haired woman tending a floral arrangement stopped to stare. She recovered quickly enough, a polite smile appearing. The Mandalorian cut her off before she could speak a greeting.

"I come to see Master Rael." Aahni had been assured that if anyone on the planet had access to Mandalorian relics, Luthen Rael would be at the top of the list.

#axisoftherebellion #world in my eyes ✦✦ i-iii

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missmayhemvr · 4 months

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something i wanna do this year because ive been thinking deeply about this for a year already is prove that black and indigenous communities arent as poor as portrayed but actually just set up to be exactly like colonized countries and by that i mean sites of intense economic exploitation and extraction and i want to prove that gentrification is just the logics of settler colonialism being applied internally and is also being applied to a significant portion of the global south nations particularly Jamaica and parts of south east asia. as well as the methodology of this process being a key goal of the bretton woods systems after the failures of colonization of direct open colonialism and settler colonialism in asia and africa.

i think i could explain my key points that i would have to prove and show a connection of(tbh most of the points have been proved as separate phenomenon). i think the hard part of this would be proving intent and that predominately black cities and neighborhoods are made into isolated economic zones to the same or similar degree. i think i can prove the isolation by working forward from the mid 1800s and through the examination of a couple reservation economies and the economies of greenwood and tulsa prior to their destruction and also compare the logics of that to the destruction of the economic systems of india and asia. the settler colonial aspect of gentrification is something i honestly believe that any black or hispanic person in the us can speak to very easily, showcasing the numbers i think ill use new york and chicago and atlanta, i should also be able to clearly show that communities of color are primarily affected by this. the bretton woods part is gonna be fucking tough idk how ima start that portion but im likely going to rely on the work of nkrumah and other revolutionary leaders who wrote about the methods of imperialism following WW2.

i wanna do this because i think having this written out on a space like tumblr could actually get those that are lacking to understand why revolutionaries from palestine to turtle island say that its all one struggle and why they say "no one is free till we are all free". its been proven a hundred and one ways that militarily the imperialist learn from each other militarily and work with each other to bomb and destroy and conquer. now its important to understand why they work so hard to keep much of the world ordered the exact way they do economically and why they try so desperately to prevent china from helping the global south from industrializing. and hopefully showcase some of the ways the internal blow back by the imperial core nations is going to intensify until we dismantle the whole system down to the foundation.

wish me luck and if you have a resource i should see, please send it. or even add it to this.

#politics #black liberation #colonization #indigenous liberation #the colonized #world of the oppressed

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an-actual-brick · 9 months

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Ash - God of Lighting AU

OKAY so this is going to be a REALLY long one so bare with me here! This whole brain blast was brought to you by "Samudrartha" from the new Star Rail update so blame Mihoyo for this. ALSO this is basically a pure power-fantasy AU, so there will not be much nuance here, I apologize :p

[CW: Gore]

SO, to start, some background for this AU and also just a summary of Ash's story up unto this divergence:

Hephaxus-3 was a frigid wasteland of a planet before being discovered by Ghemenga Heavy Industries, but its vast stores Hephaistium Aluminide saw the planet quickly explode into a glistening metropolis of trade. Glistening towers of glass sprouted up and out of fields of technicolor blooms; imported from the far corners of the imperium. All the while an indigo sky unfolded from sky-scraping terraforming towers, bringing artificial rains and endless fields of green to the once frozen rock.

And while the surface was burgeoning with wealth, a fearless and stoic mining colony greased the gears of the economy just below the surface. Travelers likened stepping into the Underground to visiting a new world entirely. Sprawling caverns and crevasses - hollowed out by goliath mining rigs - were bright as daylight, lit head to toe with LCD banners. The miners of Hephaxus-3 were born of a different breed of toughness; coming from long lines of some of Ghemenga’s bravest souls, the planet was colonized with workers possessed of a superhuman grit. To be expected, as it was well known amongst Ghemenga home world citizens that those volunteering to ship off to Hephaxus must be gluttons for punishment, and have more than a few screws loose.

But this prosperity was short lived. The sudden glut of HepAlide within the galactic economy rocketed Ghemenga to the top of imperial stocks, and the shareholders smelled blood. Soon, they were demanding double the output, longer hours, relaxed safety precautions, all while wages stagnated. A strike was imminent, but Ghemenga wouldn’t see their precious supply lines cut. When Ghemenga responded with scabs and brass, war exploded between the Overland & the Underground. Mining machines were fashioned into weapons, but even the hardened Undergrounders were no match for the paramilitary forces of Ghemenga. Soon, mining teams of scabs, guarded by military police, were being regularly ambushed by the guerilla band of Hephaxian miners. The cities of the underground gradually began to take sides. Some servicing the Overlanders, others the guerillas, and most treacherous of all - the lawless, neutral “Breaker” towns.

Ash was raised in one such town to three guerilla parents, and in her entire life she has known nothing but conflict. However, just like her progenitors before her, she takes these challenges in stride, making something of a personal game out of gambling and bashing in Ghemenga scab skulls. Never preferring to stay in one place long, Ash roams the vast tunnels of the underground looking for trouble wherever she can find it.

However, the very nature of this world is about to be shaken to its core. As an extraordinary measure, the Ghemenga corporation decides to send in a warship outfitted with a warhead of yet unseen destructive power to glass the mines of Hephaxus-3 and start anew. The guerilla "punks" of the mines intercept news of the weapons arrival, and mount a sabotage of the weapon - detonating it in orbit, and sacrificing themselves in the process.

With this explosion, the unthinkable happens; The raw energy of the detonation creates a temporary instability in the fabric of reality at the site, allowing for the convergence of three lay-lines, and the opening of a magic well. In the preceding days, the power spilling fourth from the well begins to manifest, sowing chaos in a population for whom magic was but the realm of fairy tails.

Ghemenga's already tenuous grasp on the colony begins to slip as its residents begin to experiment with their newfound ability. For some, its as pedestrian as being able to light candles with the tip of a finger, while others find themselves possessed of altogether much more destructive power. In response, the corporations full might is brought to bear against the colony. The more powerful mages are bought, and the weaker are culled. Guerilla operators suddenly find themselves on the back foot and loosing numbers rapidly.

Amongst this chaos, Ash has found herself suddenly struck with blindingly painful migraines. Each one worse than the last, she is constantly fighting them back to put up a fight, but her crew is begging to feel the effects of a crippled team mate.

Okay! Now that you're all caught up, let me present to you; Ash becoming the god of lightning! (Ash and her crew of punks find themselves outnumbered by a Ghemenga enforcer ambush deep in the HepAlide tunnels of Hephaxus-3)

That familiar pain shot through her neck again, crashing into her head like a bullet. Ash screamed, her consitution pushed to its breaking point. Her grip relented, dropping her wrench to the ground with a thunk.

"Stop..."

She heard her own voice call out in her mind. A plead.

"Stop."

This time, more stern. A command. The pain cascaded once again, and she collapsed to her knees. Alix called out to her, the punk's hammer tangled in blows with an enforcer. "Ash! You've got to get up! Ash- augh! c-cmon!" She stammered, taking a blow to the back of her knees from another enforcer at her flank. On her hands and knees, her eyes filled with tears from pain. Turning her head, she glanced as an enforcer's pile punker drove itself through Timarin's spine. Blood exploded from his mouth with a wordless plea.

"Stop this."

The voice commanded again. But her voice didn't sound fully her own.

Her captain called out from behind her, "We must retreat! Get everyone back to the trackloader! Get back n-" A bullet caught his throat, the viscera of his neck spilling onto his lieutennant. The poor boy's eyes froze wide, and his shock was cut short as an explosion from behind shot a rod of steel through his torso; The trackloader had been destroyed by enforcer anti-tank munitions.

Alix called again, "Ash, please! W-we have to go now! Come on, I can't loose you here!"

Another shot of pain. Vomit spilled from Ash's mouth, a shrill scream mixing with her hot bile. Purple arcs shot across her eye lids. Crumpled now on her side, she managed to witness Alix's attempt to reach her, only to be stopped by a pile bunker through her chest. Alix's blood wet Ash's jacket.

"You have to STOP FIGHTING"

A crackle of energy ran though Ash's spine. She began to cry hysterically.

"STOP. FIGHTING."

The voice was now fully not her own, but bellowed with an impossibly deep masculine baritone.

An enforcer approached her limp body. Soaked in blood and bile, she raised a hammer to end the punk's pitiful suffering.

"YOU MUST. LET. G-"

"GO" Ash screamed, emptying her lungs as she laid in the mud. Sparks arced up her spine. Her limbs crackled with light. Her eyes bleached blank. As the hammer came down on her head, the enforcer was thrown back; As if striking an explosive, and incredible wave of energy repelled the hammer with force great enough to break the enforcer's spine.

A loud hum began to echo through the mine, and Ash's body began to rise into the air, lifting her limp figure upright. Her veins began to glow, as if molten steel were coursing through them. The glow spread from the arteries in her heart and neck, until her body resembled kintsugi. The rubble and refuse around her began to levitate as well. Small pebbles, broken weapons, charred shrapnel, all now orbited her rising silhouette like satellites. White hot electricity arced from her fingertips to the ground below, creating a storm of dust around her.

The clash on the ground slowed as intense light filled the tunnel. Some enforcers dropped their weapons in disbelief, but one, unbothered by the events, drove his pile bunker through another desperate, fleeing punk. Ash's gaze remained stalwart, and yet, the enforcer found himself suddenly bound, and rising into the air like the rocks around her. She clawed at her neck, but within a split moment, the blood in her body heated to a boil, and with one final scream, her flesh melted to the floor. The enforcers began to open fire, a storm of bullets arcing towards the floating visage. Yet, the bullets found themselves frozen in air, suspended, vibrating, and still spinning. Soon, their lead was slung back into their barrels, grievously wounding some enforcers, and slaughtering others.

The chorus of sparks continues to grow and spread outwards from her glowing body, and the hair of those nearby began to stand on end, only to singe the very next moment. Arcs crackled up the walls of the tunnel, and the power to the nearby buildings shorted as the local wiring was melted into slag. Before long, all of the heartbeats in the area had silenced - friend and foe alike.

Just as the power had reached its crescendo, it ceased all at once. Ash fell back down to the muddy tunnel floor below with a crack, drawing one shrill breath, before her body succumbed to its exhaustion, and she fell into a transient sleep.

Aaaaand, that's all for now! Not sure If I wanna do more with this AU, though if I ever have the patience for it, I feel like it would make for a really cool animation. Anyways, if you managed to read this far, you are fucking dope! Thanks for your patience, whether you liked it or thought it was lame :p

also, stream Samudrartha :)

#cw: gore #oc

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ospreyeamon · 2 years

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underestimation & disillusionment

It’s interesting just how badly the Jedi Order underestimates the danger posed by the Sith Emperor up until Forged Alliances. The fact that his former subjects have collectively turned on Vitiate before he devours Ziost is also interesting. I think these two things are connected, the disillusionment and underestimation fed by the same spring – Vitiate’s conduct during the Great Galactic War and the negotiation of the Treaty of Coruscant.

In the early days of the Sith Empire Vitiate was far more actively involved in expanding and running his little fiefdom. Partly because he had not yet grown bored, partly because abandoning the old empire had meant abandoning the old empire’s industrial base so it was necessary to throw his weight behind the early conquests to ensure they were successful. Over time he became bored and disgruntled that the Sith kept on trying to ferret out his secrets and overthrow him (like he wasn’t actively perpetuating the Sith Backstab Sith culture), spending less time tending to them and more focusing on his shiny new plaything on Zakuul. Eventually, Vitiate decided to perform another life-devouring ritual on a grander scale; a cold war between his unfavourite empire and the Galactic Republic would be convenient circumstances to lay the groundwork in so he initiated the invasion of the Republic. Having the Jedi focused on him personally or the Empire properly breaking Republic would be inconvenient, so he does nothing to help the Empire win.

The Sith and other Imperials know Vitiate is a singularly powerful warrior. They know he is capable of bringing an army to its knees, of ploughing through Republic forces to win glorious victories for his empire. But he doesn’t! Vitiate doesn’t take any active role in the Great Galactic War; all the victories won are won by other people, all the risks taken are taken by other people, all the loses suffered are suffered by other people. He sits the whole thing out until the hour of the Empire’s greatest triumph, when he swoops in to ruin everything.

And the Jedi see that too. But the conclusion the Jedi draw is that the Emperor can’t do these things rather than he won’t. After all, the Sith Empire is an autocratic state with an autocratic state’s massive propaganda machine. What are the odds that its leader is actually an immortal capable of feats no other Force-adept can match, as opposed to a guy who just says he is?

From the Republic’s perspective, the Emperor is probably staying out of the war because his overblown reputation won’t stand up if he ever suffers an actual loss to them. That could also be why he calls for peace negotiations; it’s dangerous for him that members of his Dark Council keep on winning personal victories while he has none.

Despite what people in the Senate like Leontyne Saresh and Gaul Panteer believed, the Treaty of Coruscant was a lucky break for the Republic. Even though its conditions were not strictly in their favour – because that’s what happens when you head to the negotiating table while losing the war – in the long run in worked out much better for them than for the Empire. The fact that the imperial military was able to sack Coruscant and hold the Senate and planet at large hostage during the talks proves that the imperial military would have been able to raise the buildings hosting the Republic’s political, bureaucratic, and military organs down to sea level, so if the war had continued that is exactly what they would have done. It still wouldn’t have been enough to knock the Republic completely out of the war, but if the Empire could hit Coruscant and Alderaan the other core worlds – the shipyards on Kuat and Corellia for example – were also now within striking range. That’s not even getting into the monumental loss of life that would have occurred; Darth Malgus wanted to intentionally target civilian sites like hospitals on Coruscant, repayment for the three-hundred years Korriban suffered orbital bombardment.

The Empire had the Republic over a barrel and could have demanded more. Should have demanded more, really. With politicians like Saresh echoing Supreme Chancellor Pultimo’s rhetoric sanctioning the war of genocide against the old empire and their own behaviour during the war having also escalated the violence to those heights, what the Empire needed out of the Treaty of Coruscant was to ensure that the Republic could not build up the military strength to become a serious threat to them again. They needed to force the Republic to disband part of its current navy and impose caps on the number of new warships being built.

Instead, all we hear the Empire getting out of the Treaty is the Republic acknowledging the planets the Empire successfully occupied during the Great Galactic War as imperial territory and placing some observers in the Republic to monitor their compliance. That’s not really anything at all because the Empire had already conquered those planets.

There are no economic or military sanctions. The Republic spends ten years rebuilding their forces until they are ready to go to war again in a stronger position than they were at the start of the Great Galactic War. The Sith no longer have the element of surprise.

A great many people in the Empire can see this and are furious about it. It’s at this time conspiracy theories about the Dark Council having secretly usurped Vitiate and locked him away in a storage closet somewhere begin circulating, because surely surely their beloved Emperor would never do this to his people.

After another ten years of distracted silence – with Vitiate’s attention eaten by matters other than steering the Empire through this precarious period – the life-devouring ritual is attempted only to be thwarted by Lord Scourge and the Jedi Knight. In the aftermath of the Voice’s death, a few Sith take advantage of the vulnerability of Vitiate’s followers – and discover from them that Vitiate has just tried to destroy the galaxy. The galaxy which includes the Empire; the Empire which includes them.

Clearly, something needs to be done. However, to kill Vitiate they need to find him and, embarrassingly, it appears that the Dark Council has lost track of their head of state. Revealing what they know too early will just alert Vitiate to what they are planning and perhaps not everyone on the Council can be trusted. Vitiate has many spies and a long history of rooting out conspiracies against him. So what the Sith do they do in secret until secrecy serves them no longer.

#Meanwhile in a Galaxy Far Far Away #star wars meta #swtor meta #Darth Vitiate #the sith emperor #the Treaty of Coruscant #the Great Galactic War #the sith empire #Galactic Cold War #star wars the old republic

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