btw, the violinist in tmp 4? he's probably james smithson, of "founder of the smithsonian institute" fame
so what do we know about our violinist? he grew up in alnwick abbey, he was illegitimate and had legitimate full siblings, a father "certain of his celestial significance", and he has a nephew to whom he leaves his violin
and smithson? well, his father restored alnwick abbey in the 1750s, which was in ruins up until then. smithson was the only illegitimate child of any of the dukes there in the 1700s, which is when the statement is set
smithson also left his estate to his nephew after his death, with the condition that his fortune would establish the smithsonian institute if his nephew died without any children.
here's a point of divergence, however. in our timeline, smithson was a chemist and mineralogist. in tmagp's timeline, he was a violinist. however, as u/New_Helicopter836 pointed out to me on reddit, when smithson's body was disinterred by andrew graham bell, his right little finger was such that it suggests he played "the harpsichord, the piano, or a stringed instrument such as a violin"
looking at smithson's life, he left for university in 1782, so it's likely that tmagp 4 is set around the same time. it might be a bit earlier since the royal court orchestra moved from mannheim to munich in 1778 (putting smithson at about 13), it might be another point of divergence, or smithson is describing it this way to call back to its earlier significance. i'm not sure, but it's weird either way.
all that said, i'm not terribly sure why smithson describes his father (sir hugh smithson/percy, duke of northumberland) as "certain of his celestial significance", especially when the only other time he says celestial is to describe the violin's music. the user i mentioned before found that sir hugh, a major patron of architectural projects, had an observatory built, but i find smithson's language too specific. is his father an avatar too? mannheim is only a bit north of schwartzwald, after all, and this is about thirty years before tmag 23 where albrecht writes to jonah magnus.
let's look a little at smithson's bequest to found the smithsonian institute in the first place. smithson asked for it to be "an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men". the magnus institute, notably, is described in the arg as a place of education, and it was founded in 1818. although smithson died in 1829 and his nephew in 1835, the original smithsonian (the columbian institute) was granted a charter by the us government in 1818.
the letter is strangely absent of any names for the violinist or his family, and i can't help but wonder if this is why. and if it is because this is smithson - is this related to why the magnus institute exists instead of the magnus archives? the smithsonian, before it was renamed, was originally granted a charter by the us govt in 1818 - the same year that the magnus institute was founded in tmagp.
this is set 30 years before we know anything of jonah magnus, at least in tmag, so is it possible that he persuaded smithson to fund his educational institute focusing on the supernatural? the changed course of smithson's life from scientist to supernatural violinist would certainly be conducive for that, not least to mention the strange absence of his fortune from his letter to his nephew.
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Gender neutral pronouns in a language that doesn't have them (German edition)
So, the post about how anglicised queer discussions are possessed me to look up the most "common" gender neutral neopronoun that has been invented in German: Xier
Common is in quotation marks because outside of queer circles, you'll be hard pressed finding anyone who even knows about it.
German is a gendered language; being gender neutral is next to impossible. Either you move to the generic masculine version, or a more new-ish female version. Either way you're either assigning yourself a male or female grammatical gender which when talking about people is also a gender signifier.
So you, a queer person, would like to NOT be referred to as either male or female. So your options are:
a) suck it up
b) put xier in bio
Ok, queer person. You selected option b). Now you're faced with the newest issue: People don't know how to use your pronoun. "Ah, just put 'xier/xies'! Just like the English speakers." A quiet part of your mind screams.
You put "xier/xies" down.
Personal and Possessive Pronouns. Easy.
Ah, wait we're still missing the relative pronoun. Something which is also gendered in German.
You add "dier". Easy. Relative pronoun acquired.
Xier/Dier/Xies
"Why are there three?" A confused anglophone might ask.
"Where is the rest?" Another German asks. Where is the rest of the grammar. You can't use only the first case in a sentence....
We're still missing the other 3 grammatical cases.
Xier/Dier/Xies
Xieser/Dies/Xiese
Xiem/Diem/Xiesem
Xien/Dien/Xieses
There we go. All cases and all pronoun types. But possessive pronouns are dependent on the gender of the thing being possessed. Great. 3 more grammar forms per case for possessive pronouns.
And we need another one. What if we're talking about another gender neutral person? Neuter (usually) isn't used to refer to people...
In the end, if you want to include everything, you end up with this
Just tell them your pronouns.
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Fallout 4 Alternate Timeline
Because @datura-tea asked about my tags on this post, and I already have it sitting in my wips folder, I thought I'd post my alternate timeline of events for Fallout 4! It always bothered me that the Commonwealth is still so underdeveloped while the West Coast has trains and a working electical grid. So I tried to come up with a coherent narrative of how it could have backslid into its current state.
Timeline under the readmore because it is, not short.
2077: The Great War occurs. The surviving students and faculty of CIT take refuge in the institute’s underground particle-physics labs, locking the rest of the wasteland out. They live in fear of being discovered by other survivors and raided for their tech, making them paranoid and isolationist.
2097: Building on prewar research, CIT survivors complete development of their Mass Relay teleportation device. Dubbing themselves simply as The Institute, they fully wall themselves off from the surface world and embark on an ambitious plan of underground expansion, scavenging what they need from the surface.
2131: The Institute develops gen-1 synths to act as surface operatives, mostly removing the need for Institute personnel to go to the surface. Now mostly insulated from violence, the Institute much more callous and combative towards surface dwellers.
2163: The Institute isolates samples of FEV from the air, and begins a program of carefully controlled mutation. The resulting supermutants are found lacking, and the program is put on hold.
2176: The Commonwealth People's Government is formed from several prominent settlements. The new nation takes steps to protect its people from the Institute’s aggressive scavenging methods, earning its ire. Though the institute takes steps to try and destabilize the CPG, their new gen-2 synths prove insufficient for the task.
2177: Reactivating their FEV program, the Institute begin producing supermutants from kidnapped wastelanders and releasing them into the commonwealth with the intent to destabilize the CPG. Through careful false-flag attacks using disguised synths, they manage to spark a state of war between the mutants and surface humans that will last for more than a century.
2180: The newly formed Commonwealth Minutemen, a volunteer citizen’s militia created by the CPG, help drive off the initial wave of supermutants from central Boston.
2180-2224: Tensions between the Institute and CPG continue to escalate. Though the efforts of the Institute’s FEV project hampers the young nation’s expansion, the supermutants are too disorganized and scattered to topple the government. Faced with an increasingly cohesive and rapidly developing CPG, the Institute begins work on its Gen-3 synth infiltrator project.
2225: The Institute discovers information on Vault 111. Preparations are made for an expedition to recover a pristine pre-war genetic code from one of the pre-war vault dwellers in cryostasis.
2227: The part where they murder your spouse and steal your kid happens.
2229: An early model synth infiltrator "malfunctions" in downtown Diamond city, exposing the existence of Gen-3 synths to the world. The cause of the malfunction is never found, though escaped synths often claim that it was an intentional suicide-by-cop.
2230: Realizing the security threat posed by the new Gen-3 synths, mid-ranking members of the CPG's nascent spy corps founds the town of Covenant over top of an abandoned tunnel network. Posing as a new settlement, almost no one outside the project know its true purpose: the town is actually a front for researching a method to discern humans from Gen-3 synths.
2233: The Institute begins its infiltration of the CPG using upgraded Gen-3 synths, killing & replacing key individuals at all levels of power. Though paranoia about synths continues to build, most fail to anticipate just how far the tech has advanced.
2235: The Institute finalizes development of an advanced model of Gen-4 synth, dubbed Coursers. Incorporating FEV and cybernetic enhancements, Coursers form an elite corps of assassins that eliminate anyone who learns about the Institute’s plans.
(Side note: I think coursers should have been so much weirder)
2237: Having completed their infiltration of the CPG, the Institute kicks off their plan to topple the CPG.
August 4: The Executive Chair of the CPG council, Robert Gray, is assassinated by his secretary in broad daylight. During the assassination and subsequent arrest, the secretary loudly declares that the Chair has been replaced by an Institute Synth.
August 12: Scandal breaks out as evidence of massive financial corruption is leaked to the public. Protests occur across the commonwealth as the full scope becomes clear.
August 26: A special election is held, and voters elect minister of transportation Patricia Weiss as Chair. She delivers a hawkish election speech warning the Institute to back down.
September 10: A portion of the CPG stages a coup, using claims of mass election fraud as justification amid mass public unrest. They capture most of the CPG council members, and declare them traitors to the people of the commonwealth. Weiss escapes and sets up a government-in-exile out of Quincy with the remaining CPG military. She issues a two week ultimatum to the coup’s leaders, demanding that they release the counselors and surrender.
September 20: Before the date of the ultimatum passes, the CPG council is executed via mass firing squad in the CPG council chambers. Public dissent boils over into active civil war. The Minutemen quickly declare neutrality, but their attempts to protect outlying settlements are hampered by the widespread violence and lack of volunteers.
October 30: Under the guise of a ceasefire negotiation, the coup regime arrests Weiss. She is put through a kangaroo court and hanged as a synth infiltrator, to the shock of the public.
November: Multiple settlements withdraw from the CPG as the violence escalates, Bunker Hill and Goodneighbor first among them. The CPG civil war begins to peter out as both sides lose support, and numerous CPG military units defect to become raiders in search of pay.
December: Loyalist forces gain the upper hand, begin a reign of terror style purge of the remaining CPG officials, and declare the coup defeated. Weakened by the withdrawal of numerous settlements in reaction to the violence of the purge, the Loyalist government promptly collapses. Remnants of the rebel CPG forces attempt to declare a new government out of University Point, but fail to attract any major settlements.
2238: The CPG totally collapses. The remnants of its military forces, both loyalist and rebel, defect to the gunners en masse; many, disillusioned with military life, become raiders. Only the Minutemen command staff, operating out of Fort Independence, remain cohesive.
The collapse of the CPG ushers in an era of violence lasting decades as raider warlords exploit the chaos to carve the Commonwealth up into bandit fiefdoms.
Rumors begin to circulate that several of the key players of the CPG’s collapse were secretly synths. In truth, the entire chain of events was planned to a T, and leaders on all sides had been replaced. Only the Minutemen were overlooked, being seen by the Institute as just ragtag volunteers.
Several synth infiltrators defect from the Institute, seeking a way to free themselves and their peers. The organization they found will eventually grow into the Railroad.
Covenant, its secrecy miraculously intact, becomes radicalized by the fall of the CPG. Their methods become more desperate and more barbaric as time goes on.
2240's: The Minutemen begin rebuilding support for the CPG among the populace, striking back against the raider warlords and defending settlements from their depredations.
2250: Supermutant attacks increase sharply as the Institute releases more and more mutants onto the surface in an attempt to stop the Minutemen from reforming the CPG.
2274: After weathering two decades of freaquent supermutant attacks, Fort Independence finally falls at the hand of a mirelurk queen; unknown to anyone on the surface, this was the work of the Institute, who used their advanced signals technology to drive the creature into a frenzy.
2282: General Becker dies, leaving the Minutemen leaderless. The militia quickly declines, becoming disorganized and factional; raiders quickly exploit the chaos.
2285: Disgusted by his role in the Institute’s FEV program, Doctor Brian Virgil sabotages the program, mutates himself, and escapes into the glowing sea with the accumulated research. Distraught by the sudden lack of new reinforcements, the commonwealth mutants face an extinction crisis. Many begin to question their way of life, among them a mutant named Strong.
2288: The Sole Survivor wakes up.
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