#‘no one is allowed to die on my watch’ is like a central tenet of Batman

[cologona]

The mistake Bruce makes in UTRH is one he’s well known for- it’s hubris. As experienced a vigilante as Batman is, as clever and strong and resourceful.. he isn’t God. Sometimes the risks he takes to win perfectly wont work out, and it’s worth asking at what point is taking the risk itself a moral wrong rather than a right?

The shock value of UTRH’s ending is very important to me. Imho not only does the finale need to be a tragedy, it needs to make the reader recoil. Judd Winick didn’t know if Jason was going to be kept around or allowed to die when he wrote the story, so in lieu of there being any consequences for Batman’s decisions in-universe (that’s just not how the comics work) the impact has to be on the reader.

And well. We’re currently 3 reboots and counting past UTRH where it’s not even canon anymore, Bruce has done plenty of other wacky shit, and yet this batarang is still a primary topic when it comes to Jason-Bruce dynamics. It’s fantastic.

The Batarang-Incident with Jason and Bruce honestly shows just how much DC writers hold shock value over proper characterization.

You mean to tell me that an experienced vigilante would choose to disarm a person with a gun by injuring them (and thus risking the chance of them pulling the trigger due to shock), instead of getting the gun away from them in the first place?

And you mean to tell me that this experienced vigilante (who has also been shown using his Batarangs to disarm gunmen by destroying their guns multiple times before) would take one look at the person who he considered a son — despite all of their recent fights — and risk a possibly fatal wound ?

Yeah, it's not adding up.

[alittlewhump]

Unbidden - Act 5, chapter 3

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Content warnings: fantasy religion, death mention

Morgan's golem eventually warned him of people approaching. He didn't need to look to guess it would be Blaise and Icharion. It had not been an especially dignified departure. Blaise would have questions, and would have dragged him along with her to satisfy the sentry. Morgan took a steadying breath and raised his head. This conversation might as well happen now. He made a cursory effort to wipe the tears from his cheeks, not that it would make it any less obvious that he'd been weeping.

Icharion was the first to speak once they had rounded the corner and spotted him. "It was cruel of Master Ordan to lie to you as he did," he said stiffly. That didn't sound right at all. Morgan hadn't known Icharion especially well, but he hadn't been one for that sort of reflection. It was the sort of sentiment he would expect from Blaise, though. He glanced over and saw her watching him intently.

"We both know that cruelty was not the Master's intention," he said, addressing Icharion. "And we both know he was in the right."

Icharion exhaled. "I told you," he said to Blaise. She elbowed him.

"There's nothing right about what he did. Don't sell yourself short," she said to Morgan. "You've gotten so much stronger since we met. Just look at everything we've done together."

"That has nothing to do with it," Morgan replied.

"I told her, she wouldn't listen-" Icharion was silenced by another elbow to the ribs.

"Explain it to me, then," Blaise said, crouching in front of Morgan to look him in the face. "Because it sounds like this Ordan just sent you out to die without even telling you what you did to deserve it, and I really don't understand how the two of you seem to think that's justified."

"You know we don't perceive death the same way you do," Morgan reminded her. She nodded grudgingly. "Master Ordan's primary concern is the maintenance of our Order. Our numbers are few enough, but even a small tree can benefit from pruning its weakest branches." That had been one of the master's favourite metaphors. He'd usually used it in the context of seeking out weakness within oneself, but it seemed apt enough here too.

"Yeah, that's pretty much what he said, but you aren't weak." Her voice was rising, the frustration clear on her face.

"I am weak in the ways that matter to the Order," Morgan explained. The heat of shame prickled at his neck. He had no desire to enumerate his failings to her here, in front of someone who could verify the precise degree of his inadequacy. But Blaise was a force to be reckoned with, and he couldn't let her focus her anger on the Order. They were important, even if he was not, so he tried to explain. He started reluctantly with the most fundamental issue, the lowest bar he'd failed to surpass.

"In order to uphold the Balance, we must be objective in our judgment. And we cannot do that if we are beholden to emotions. It's some of our most basic and essential training, and I have never been able to master it properly." He could hear the bitterness creeping into his voice, feel the familiar weight curling in his gut. Even now he was failing.

"So, let me get this straight. You have feelings, like a regular person, and for some reason you think that's so bad you deserve to die for it." Blaise cocked an eyebrow at him. "It's not like that's something you can just turn off."

"I should be able to. It's one of our central tenets. We must be able to separate ourselves from our emotions so we can remain clear-headed. I truly thought I had myself under control when I set out, but... oh." He trailed off as the pieces finally clicked into place, tracing an unmistakable pattern back to its origin. It had felt like it had finally started getting easier by the time he'd left on his quest. The doubt he'd had in himself had been erased by the Master's assurance that he was ready. And he had found it to be possible, if not exactly easy, right up to a very specific point.

Proper control had been impossible ever since the fight against Andariel. Whose venom had caused a lasting change in his sense of pain, lingering even after all physical traces of the wound were gone. Permanent, Jamella had said. And Cain had also mentioned that Andariel could cause emotional sensitivity. So this, too, would be permanent. A heavy feeling settled over Morgan, coming to rest behind his ribs. The rest of his shortcomings were insignificant in comparison to this. There was no hope of redemption. It would take years more dedicated training to overcome this weakness, if it was even possible. And he had nowhere to train, no mentor to correct him when he inevitably strayed. He couldn't return to the Order, not after the story Ordan had woven. Icharion's reaction would be amplified a hundredfold. Why had he-

"Speak, Morgan. You're inside your own head." Icharion's voice was not unkind, but Blaise shot him a dirty look.

"I was clearly mistaken. I just don't understand why Master Ordan lied about the request," Morgan said, voice so low it was nearly a whisper. "He only had to ask. I would have gone willingly." If the goal had simply been to remove him, that could have easily been accomplished in a number of simpler ways. Everything else made sense. Morgan looked up at Icharion, half hoping to find an answer, half dreading what it might be.

"Politics, most likely. Any expulsion from within the Necropolis must be approved by the council, and Jostan is too troubled by our numbers to let anyone go, no matter the reason. No one would have believed you decided to go of your own volition, and Ordan has too many eyes on him to stage a convincing accident."

"Ah." Morgan looked back down. That explanation made sense enough, he supposed. He had simply been so intolerable, so far from adequate that it had forced the Master's hand. The man was fiercely loyal to the brotherhood, if rather unyielding in his views. His decisions were unswayable, and clearly he'd decided - he'd seen - that there could be no place for someone as weak as Morgan in the priesthood, no matter how earnest his devotion.

"Hang on," Blaise said, "when you talk about 'going', do you actually mean-"

"Dying, yes," Icharion interrupted. "It is an honour to lay down one's life in service to the Order." It was an honour he would never know, Morgan realized suddenly. That twisted like a knife.

"You're really not convincing me that any of this is okay," Blaise said.

"You don't need to believe the truth," Icharion replied. "It will be true all the same, with or without your approval."

"Blaise," Morgan said quickly, "wait." She looked ready to explode, glaring murderously at Icharion. Morgan tried to find the right words, ones she might take heed of. "Master Ordan was right. I cannot serve the Order of Rathma. I am not capable of meeting their standards. He saw that and acted in their best interest because that is his duty. The only fault here is mine. I should have seen it too." Should have recognized the truth and gone long ago, saved them all the trouble.

"That's stupid. The whole time I've known you, everything you've done has been in the name of the Balance. I've watched you work yourself nearly to death for it, and you're telling me that's not good enough? Bullshit."

"I've no doubt his intentions are pure," Icharion said with surprising gentleness, "but effort alone cannot overcome inability. Not all people are capable of all things. Few are suited to our work, fewer still are able to carry it out."

"Bullshit," Blaise repeated, but it was quieter this time. "That's not fair."

"It is important work," Morgan said. "It cannot be entrusted to those unfit to do it."

"And you really believe that includes you? Even after all the shit you've been through for it? After how hard you've worked?"

"I do." Morgan closed his eyes against the surge of emotions that swelled up at the finality of that admission. He had no choice but to accept the truth. It was nothing new, after all. Hardly the first time his best efforts had proven to be insufficient. That didn't do much to soften the blow. At least his ineptitude was likely to have prevented him from doing any real damage to anything in his efforts, he thought dully.

"I could witness your departure," Icharion offered after a time, breaking the silence. "We are far from home. The rules would allow it." It was an unexpected gesture, permitted but not necessary by the laws of the Order. Morgan studied his face for a moment. He found nothing; of course Icharion could make himself unreadable, like a priest ought to be able to do. There was an undeniable thread of kindness in the offer, though. At least it could be done properly. That would be a small comfort.

"I would appreciate that very much," Morgan said, getting to his feet. Blaise sprang up as well as Icharion drew his sword.

"Whoa, whoa, hang on a second here. Somebody tell me what's happening. I'm not going to let-"

"It's not that kind of departure," Icharion interrupted her. "Sit back down." Blaise bristled.

"It's just a ceremony," Morgan reassured her. "An oath. Nobody dies." She seemed slightly mollified but did not sit down, instead crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes. She would let them proceed, then.

Morgan fished out a vial of oil from his chest pocket. Uncorking it, he pinched the tip of Icharion's proffered blade with his thumb and forefinger and squeezed several drops of blood in to mingle with the oil. Then he poured out the contents in a rough circle around himself. The circle glowed faintly as he imbued it with intent. He had never seen this particular ceremony, but the steps were as familiar as all the others he'd ever committed to memory.

"On my heart's blood I swear I shall never again interfere in the Order of Rathma, nor in the affairs of the dead." The words left a heavy feeling in his chest, but it was a little better than the jagged hurt that already sat there.

"On your heart's blood it is witnessed," Icharion replied, "and so are you bound." He traced a line under the circle with the bloodied tip of his blade. It drew in the light from the circle, which faded to nothing as he dismissed the magic with his free hand. Morgan wiped his fingers on the hem of his shirt.

"Thank you for that," he said quietly. Icharion nodded an acknowledgement as Morgan handed over the rest of his ceremonial oils. He no longer had a use for them. A thick, protective numbness was starting to settle in, blunting the world's edges.

"So that's it? You're just... done?" Blaise hadn't moved, still regarding them suspiciously.

"It is a very straightforward oath," Icharion pointed out as he wiped his blade clean and returned it to its sheath.

"Oh, fuck off."

"I will continue to do my part in the effort against Baal," Morgan clarified, the words feeling far away and hazy. "But on my own behalf, now. I think I'd like to join you in battle tomorrow." He could still work toward a purpose, still make himself useful. He needed that. To hold him together.

Blaise slung an arm around his shoulders. "I'll be glad to have you by my side." Morgan leaned into her gratefully. "And I think the barbarians are going to like your golems. If you're still..." she broke off, glancing over at the one still standing watch.

"He cannot raise the dead, but the earth is still fair game," Icharion confirmed. "Now if you're quite finished, I'm going back inside." He turned and left without further comment.

"You should go back with him," Morgan said. He pulled away from Blaise, but her hand lingered on his shoulder.

"Hey," she said softly, "are you... okay? I mean, fuck, obviously not, this is... I know the Order is important to you. Can I help? Somehow?" Once again, she was looking at him with earnest concern. He should have felt something about that, probably, but the numbness was there instead.

"I don't know," Morgan replied. "I'm going to finish checking the wall for damage," he found himself saying, "and then I think I'm going to meditate." Being fully rested would be a good idea. He'd been getting so much sleep recently, he didn't need any more and he certainly didn't want to risk the nightmares. But he found he didn't want to be conscious either. Though the specific techniques had been developed by the Order, the act of meditation was hardly exclusive to them. It wouldn't interfere with anything. He could still have that little peace, at least.

Blaise squeezed him gently. "Think about eating something too." That was probably also a good idea, but less appealing. He nodded anyway. "I'll leave you to it, then," she said, then followed Icharion's path back toward the gates.

There was still more to do, Morgan reminded himself as he walked slowly around the wall. Tyrael had bidden them to slay Baal. He still had a purpose, for now. Between that and the numbness, it was enough to propel him through the rest of the day's actions. His body patched a few more damaged spots in the wall, and put some food into itself, and found a bed to lay itself in, and then it rested as his mind drifted in meditation, carefully focused on absolutely nothing at all.

[razieltwelve]

Thunder and Paperwork (RWBY AU Snippet)

Note: This is a followup to I Am Become Death.

X     X     X

Death was in the middle of an intriguing conversation about the myths and legends surrounding the ancient origins of the Grimm on Remnant when a vast mushroom cloud began to rise on the horizon. The fact that the mushroom cloud was wreathed in lightning and radiating divine power like a beacon left in her little doubt as to whom was responsible.

“What is that?” Weiss shrieked, leaping to her feet and pointing out the window. The mushroom cloud had expanded, turning the entire western sky into a sea of ash and lightning.

Death took a moment to savour Weiss’s expression. Her Weiss had often had the exact same expression, usually after Zwei had done something obnoxious. “I think I know who is responsible.” She turned to regard Team JNPR who had arrived not long ago. “I think it would be a good idea for us - all of us - to go meet her.”

“Uh… that’s pretty far away,” Ruby said, before adding. “Which means that mushroom cloud is pretty big.”

“She could crack a planet in half if she felt like it.” Death raised one eyebrow. “And do you not think I could reach that place in an instant if I wished to? I am Death. I have overseen the passage of countless aeons. I have walked the roads to eternity and beyond. I am privy to knowledge that would shatter the minds of lesser gods, never mind mortals. I can get us there in an instant if I wished to.”

Yang rolled her eyes. “You know, you really do like being dramatic, don’t you?”

Death shrugged. “When you get to my age, it’s the simple things in life that keep you going.” She raised one hand and prepared to snap her fingers.

“Wait!” Yang shouted. “You’re not about to kill us, are you?”

Death chuckled. “While I could indeed kill everyone in this room with a snap of my fingers, I’m not about to do that.” She snapped her fingers. “Anyway, here we are.”

They had reappeared in the midst of a vast wasteland of blasted, melting rock that seemed to go on forever. Huge clouds of dust and debris billowed outward, and tendrils of electricity crackled through the air. Naturally, the first thing Team RWBY and Team JNPR did was run for shelter.

“Oh…” Death sighed. “That’s right. Mortals.” She snapped her fingers again. “There. I’ve granted you some measure of power to enhance your durability so that you don’t die while we’re here.” She paused. “Although you might want to watch where you’re stepping. Nora has a tendency to be a little destructive.” She gestured, and the melting rock around them instantly cooled into a shimmering, glass-like material. “If you see a volcano, stay away from it.”

“Nora?” Nora perked up. “There’s a goddess version of me?”

Death smiled indulgently at the redhead. “Why, yes, there is. In fact, she is one of my oldest and dearest friends even if she can be quite troublesome.” She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “She’s actually responsible for more accidental smitings than any other god.”

Ren sighed. “So… you’re saying she goes overboard and blasts things without necessarily thinking it through?”

“That is a fine way of putting it.” Death stepped neatly to one side as a bolt of lightning struck the ground where she’d been standing, revealing a taller version of Nora. Much like Death, this Nora radiated divine majesty and power. Electricity crackled over her form, and she wielded an immense hammer with the sort of casual ease that spoke volumes about her strength.

“Aw… you dodged,” Goddess Nora whined. “I was just trying to be friendly.”

“You were going to tackle me with enough force to pulverise a mountain.”

Goddess Nora stuck out her tongue. “As if that would have actually hurt you.” Her gaze swept over the group. “So… we’re stuck in another world somehow with different versions of ourselves and… oh.” She pointed. “They have a Ren here.”

Nora - normal Nora - immediately grabbed Ren. “My Ren!”

“Hah!” Goddess Nora threw her head back and laughed. “Your Ren? I approve! Never share your Ren! I never did.” She winked and vanished, only to reappear beside Nora. “Although… I do have a few suggestions about what you could do with your Ren…”

Goddess Nora had barely started speaking when Yang hastily put her hands over Ruby’s ears as everyone else except Death turned varying shades of red. Even Blake, acknowledge connoisseur of smut and filthy literature, could scarcely believe what she was hearing - even as she took mental notes.

“Is that even possible?” Nora squeaked.

Goddess Nora struck a pose. “On my name as Nora, Goddess of Storms, Smiting Things, and General Awesomeness, I swear that as long as you’re flexible enough and he’s got the stamina, it’s not only possible but also extremely pleasurable and definitely repeatable. Why, my Ren could go for hours.”

Nora turned to Ren. “I’m going to up my flexibility training. You need to improve your stamina.”

Ren’s mouth opened and closed. “…”

“Anyway,” Goddess Nora said. “Why are there Grimm here? Didn’t we throw them into the Abyss aeons ago? I mean… I killed the ones I saw, but I can sense many more of them on this world.” She paused. “And what world is this?”

“This world is called Remnant, and I am still working to understand how we arrived here,” Death replied.

“Hmmm…” Goddess Nora pointed. “Look! They’ve got a Weiss here too!” She nudged Death and gave her a grin “Are you going to claim this one too?”

“Hey!” Ruby jabbed one finger at Goddess Nora. “Don’t tell her to claim my Weiss!”

“Your Weiss?” Weiss shrieked. “Since when am I your Weiss?”

“Give it two years tops,” Death muttered.

“What?” Weiss squawked. “What?”

“She seems kind of more squawky than your Weiss,” Goddess Nora said. “A bit crabbier too.”

“I am not crabby!” Weiss blurted.

“There must be a breach,” Death said to Goddess Nora, calmly reaching out with one hand to prevent Weiss from getting any closer to Goddess Nora. “Somehow, they’re getting from the Abyss to this world. However, I haven’t been able to locate the breach, and using my powers to do so could be… unfortunate. I could break their universe.”

“Which would be bad,” Yang pointed out. “Very, very bad.”

Death gave her a bland look. “Even if your universe imploded, I would be fine.”

“I would probably be fine,” Goddess Nora said. “And if I got worried, I’d just grab Death’s leg and I’d be okay.”

Yang’s face twitched and she seemed to be strongly considering standing next to Death just in case the universe imploded in the next ten seconds.

“What we need,” Death said. “Is a god who specialises in systems and order. They would have powers more suited to identifying the breach since it would stick out to them like a sore thumb.”

“Systems and order?” Goddess Nora frowned. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Glynda anywhere, have you?”

“No.” Death turned to Ruby. “In the meantime, perhaps we should go speak to that headmaster of yours. He sounds as though he would know more about the origins of the Grimm.”

X     X     X

In a certain bandit camp…

Weiss, Goddess of Bureaucracy, was feeling particularly crabby. She had been in the middle of approving more gods to watch over mortals since the recent outbreak of plague had thinned their numbers somewhat when she had suddenly reappeared in an unfamiliar world. To make matters worse, a bunch of bandits had the sheer audacity to point their weapons at her.

“Are you pointing a sword at me?” Weiss asked. “Do you even know who I am?”

The leader of the bandits, a woman with dark hair and crimson eyes, laughed. “Do you know who I am?” She smirked. “You must be out of your mind, Schnee, if you don’t know who I am.”

“Schnee?” Weiss pushed her chair away from her desk - both of which had made the trip with her - and stood to her full height. “It is very clear that you do not know whom you speak to, mortal. Allow me to educate you.” Her power flared and mountains of books fell from the sky, crushing the majority of the bandits. “I am Weiss, Goddess of Bureaucracy. You know those laws the gods are supposed to follow? I wrote them. You know those laws that mortals have to live by? I wrote those too. And you know that paperwork everyone has to fill out for everything? I devised it.”

The bandit leader gaped at her crushed comrades and took a slow step back. A huge stone tablet with one of the central tenets of Divine Law thundered into the ground behind her before vast chains made of glowing light and forged into the words of yet more laws bounds her to the stone. “What… are you?”

“You must be deaf as well as stupid.” Weiss rolled her eyes. “Honestly, banditry? What kind of career is that. All you do is make you make trouble.” More bandits rushed at her only be strangled to death by seemingly unbreakable sheets of paper. Weiss scowled. “Hmph… don’t think you’re getting off so lightly.” As the bandits’ souls rose from their bodies, they were confronted by pile after pile of paperwork that needed to be filled out in triplicate. “You don’t get to go to the afterlife until you finish filling those out, and don’t even think of trying to flee. You can’t go anywhere - at all - until you’re finished.”

“What… the…”

“Since you’re the leader of this… band of idiots,” Weiss said. “I suspect you know more about this world than them. Tell me everything, like why Grimm from the Abyss are here.” She smiled thinly. “Or stay quiet.” She raised one hand and more paperwork appeared. “And I can have you filling out paperwork for the next ten million years.”

X     X     X

Author’s Notes

I think it’s worth pointing out here that Death and Goddess Nora come from the same AU. However, Bureaucracy Weiss comes from a different AU. The bandit leader is, of course, Raven who for once in her life cannot escape paperwork.

You can find me on fanfiction.net, AO3, and Amazon.

[frauzet]

Thoughts on Imperial Society

Canon is more than a bit woolly on Imperial society, and during writing I often wonder how things are supposed to work. 

The SWTOR Encyclopedia states several points that seem to be somewhat contradictory:

“Mandatory service demands, that all Imperial citizens pledge themselves to the Imperial war machine. Many enlist with the military, while others become engineers, serve as intelligence analysts, or join the Ministry of Logistics to manage the vast demands of the Empire.”

“Compulsory military service is one of the central tenets of Imperial society. Those who are not Force-sensitive are auomatically enlisted as soon as they become adults, and remain in the Empire’s service until retirement or when death or disability renders them unable to contribute.”

“The Empire is ruled, protected, and supported by three pillars of government. The Ministry of War oversees military efforts, the Ministry of Logistics ensures the civilty of the vast Imperial society, and the Ministry of Intelligence watches for threats both in and outside its borders.”

So everybody belongs to the military, but then there have to be people that don’t?

Trying to think of ways an all military Empire might work started to give me a headache. I checked the Wikipedia entry for Ramstein Air Base, because that seemed like a good example for an all military environment.  

“Ramstein AB is part of the Kaiserslautern Military Community (KMC), where more than 54,000 American service members and more than 5,400 US civilian employees live and work. U.S. organizations in the KMC also employ the services of more than 6,200 German workers. Air Force units in the KMC alone employ almost 9,800 military members, bringing with them nearly 11,100 family members. There are more than 16,200 military, U.S. civilian and U.S. contractors assigned to Ramstein AB alone.“

Besides 54,000 military members we have 11,600 civilian workers, and a lot of family members. (The 11,100 are for the 9,800Air Force members alone, if I interpret that right.) These numbers do not account for the German infrastructure used by military members in the surrounding regions, nor the supplies and funding needed from home. So how many more civilians does it actually take to keep this base running?

In the Empire, too, someone has to work to feed the military, someone has to produce ressources for equipment, build equipment, or come up with a lot of credits to buy these things elsewhere. This is where the Ministry of Logistics comes into play. According to the encyclopedia, its job is to guarantee the health of the Empire’s economy, to keep the population well fed and supplied with the tools necessary to serve. The ministry manages trade routes, mining operations, and agricultural worlds. It delivers resources and supplies to the military, manages a non-military transportation system, operates civilian shuttles and speeders, the space stations, and galactic trading hubs. The ministry oversees the nationalized industries. And it oversees the Empire’s slave population. “Logistic officers see that cruelty toward slaves is balanced with encouragement and reward, thus minimizing revolts and maximizing efficiency.”

Either the Empire needs the major part of its population to be slaves, or there are some unaccounted parts of the population that do the work, that’s overseen and managed by Logistics. If all the work was done by droids, why would the Empire even need slaves? Who are these civilians, whose shuttles and speeders need to be managed, besides Imperial children and retired military members? Visitors from outside the Empire? Maybe there is a hirarchy in the Emprie similar to that in ancient Rome. Sith and Imperial citizens are at the top. Slaves hold the lowest position in the hirarchy. But inbetween there are parts of the population that are neither slave nor Imperial. Not all inhabitants of conquered worlds are made slaves, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense for Corellian politicians to work with the Empire. 

So in my headcanon there are Sith, Imperial citizens, citizens, and slaves. A slave can be freed to become a citizen. Because of exceptional service a citizen can be granted Imperial citizenship. Imperial citizens can marry citizens. Their children are automatically Imperial citizens. Since slaves can’t enter legal contracts, slaves can’t be officially married. Children of slaves are slaves. Treason and other serious crimes result in the loss of Imperial citizenship and citizenship. 

 The ratios between these groups differ on various planest. I assume the number of Sith is highest on Korriban and other worlds with Sith academies, also on Dromund Kaas. There will be much more Imperial citizens on Dromund Kaas than citizens, while on more recently conquered worlds the citizens are the majority. So far I haven’t found any additional sources that give me a tangible idea on the overall ratios that would be needed to make the Empire work. For now I’ll go with ~50% Imperial citizens, ~30% citizens, ~20% slaves, and a neglectable percentage of Sith. 

A war that spans several decades takes its toll not only on resources but also on population numbers. The Empire wouldn’t be the first fascist regime to encourage its citizens to have many children. I assume the birth rate would easily be twice as high as ours. Because in case of Imperial citizens not seldom both parents still are on active duty, the Empire needs a lot of facilities to take care of and educate its children. Many children visit boarding schools. To assure proper indoctrination of the young, teachers and higher ranking personnel are Imperial. Handpicked promising children of selected citizens are also allowed to enter Imperial boarding schools and become Imperial citizens after proving their worth to the Empire. Any Force-sensitive in the Empire, no matter who their parents are, has to enter the Sith Academy to become Sith or die trying.

For Imperial citizens and citizens, except citizens from recently conquered worlds, military service is mandatory. Everyone of them, men and women, receive basic training. Imperial citizens, according to their proficiency, afterwards either enlist with the military, or join the Ministry of Logistics, or the Ministry of Intelligence. Again I am unsure what ratios would make the most sense. Operatives for Imperial Intelligence often are recruited and assigned to special academies while still at a young age. Some are even bred for their job, like Watcher Two. They skip mandatory basic training in favor of more specialized Intelligence training.  After basic training most citizens return to their work supervised by the Ministry of Logistics. Exceptional candidates are chosen for service within the military, with the option to rise in the ranks and become an Imperial citizen. Higher ranks are reserved for Imperial citizens. Similar options present themselves for citizens working for Logistics, where for instance scientists may gain Imperial citizenship and a leading role in research after achieving a major breakthrough.

Bloodlines are very important in the Empire, especially for families with Force-sensitive members. Family is highly valued, and marriage is a valuable institution, adultery frowned upon. Having many children is highly respected. Those who can’t have children of their own are encouraged to adopt children from the growing number of war orphans. While lineage matters in order to arrange for favorable marriages, it doesn’t matter in service to the Empire. As the encyclopedia states, “There is no advancement through wealth or manipulation and no honor or influence is granted by birth alone--save for those attuned to the force, who then become Sith. Those who serve well, advance. Those who fail gain nothing.” Of course it’s nonetheless safe to assume that being born into a high ranking family affords privileges that are able to give you a considerable headstart.

I have a lot of questions left, but this is enough trying to sort my thoughts for one post. I hope I managed to make them somewhat readable and understandable.  Thanks for bearing with me. Additional input, constructive criticism, and discussions are welcome. I may take some time to respond, though.

[eddiejpoplar]

The 2019 BMW 3 Series Is a Proper 3 Series Again

FARO, Portugal — Look for the squiggliest line on the navigation screen, and then go there. It’s a great system for finding a road worthy of testing a new sports car—a road where you can prod and poke a vehicle into revealing its strengths and weaknesses. The car on this day is the seventh generation of BMW’s most important sedan, the 3 Series.

Considering this car’s historical pertinence, the road itself is doubly important. The nav-system squiggle reveals itself in real life as a single lane of asphalt gouged into a mountainside. It is open to two-way traffic but offers few pullouts and zero guardrails; a poorly placed tire will drop you into the abyss.

The four-cylinder 330i sails up the switchbacks and quickly demonstrates that worries about misplaced wheels are unnecessary. The chassis is surpassingly easy to aim, even in tight spaces. There’s lightness to it, something the previous generation lacked. Not that the footprint is smaller, as the car has grown slightly in all proportions except weight. But it’s easy to find a satisfying rhythm through undulating turns.

More than a few pundits and purists have found the traditional joys of the 3 Series less present in recent years. The sports-sedan recipe BMW perfected and which every other automaker benchmarked—call it the E30 spirit—became muddled with conflicting demands: more tech, more comfort, and more performance. Call it mission creep. Or BMW bloat.

After two days driving around southern Portugal in the 330i and a brief racetrack foray in the M340i xDrive, we can say the 2019 BMW 3 Series has rounded a different type of corner. This is a sedan freed—mostly, anyhow. And this is fortunate timing: As demand for non-CUVs plummets, even longstanding sedans have to earn their keep, lest they go the way of Cadillac’s CTS/ATS and almost all of Ford’s four-door cars. The SUVs from BMW and every other maker are lurking, waiting for a slip-up so they can gobble more market share.

The 330i will be first out of the gate, coming to the U.S. as a 2019 model in March. Though it has more standard features, pricing remains the same: $40,250 for rear-wheel drive, and $42,250 for the xDrive. The $56,000 M340i xDrive will follow in the spring.

For this new generation 3 Series, dubbed G20 in BMW-speak, its maker reworked the 330i’s four-cylinder, gaining 7 horsepower for a new total of 258 and bumping torque by 37 lb-ft to 295. The M340i’s twin-scroll single-turbocharger straight-six got a similar tweaking, with 62 more hp and 39 more lb-ft of torque raising output to 374 hp and 369 lb-ft.

While BMW also redesigned the exterior and interior, and piled onto the list of digital and semi-autonomous features (we’ll come to that in a moment), company engineers say the most central tenets of the new 3 are the retuned suspension, and the calibrations between hardware and software systems. “Getting everything to work together more beautifully,” as one described.

Plying the 330i on Portugal’s open expressways and along backroads, those elements indeed come through brightly. The engine is plucky enough to make short, hard passes, but this is an automobile that likes momentum. It is tangibly lighter than the outgoing model, losing 121 pounds in some configurations; official curb weight is 3,583 pounds. Driving hard into corners, brushing the brakes, and then adding in light throttle around the apex is a treat and settles the car down nicely for the next turn.

The suspension, which includes hydraulic dampers on base models and stiffer bushings, results in greater fluidity but less of the bounce, chop, and harshness found with some of the outgoing 3 Series’s setups. Negotiating a roundabout is a telling exercise. In cases where you’re exiting straight across the other side, you can enter quickly, throw the car right to cut the half circle, and then flick the wheel sharply to the left to send it straight again. The BMW deftly handles these swift directional changes with no slough or front-end push. Zing! (The cars we drove rode on either Michelin Pilot Sport or Pilot Sport 4S rubber and thus had plenty of grip; the former are more comfortable.)

The revised turbo four never feels overly wound even when flogging it in low gears, and there’s little of the previous engine’s harsh vibrations. Torque is modest, but it’s a happy four-banger; even the sound from inside the cockpit is punchy, settling into a mid-range bass in Sport Plus mode.

And while there’s no way to bring to the present BMW’s magical steering feel from the days of hydraulic systems, this generation’s electrically assisted steering is neither overweighed nor rubbery. There’s a measure of feedback, and it allows you to position the car exactly where you want it. The narrow A-pillars help in this regard, too, while the greenhouse feels airy and the seating position is a pleasure.

All that makes a thin strip of mountain road far more fun than in any other present-day BMW other than the M2. Tires sing on the asphalt as my passenger looks out the side window down to the tops of trees far below. A manual gearbox might have made it better, but forget it: There are “no manual transmission plans at this time,” says a BMW rep. Happily we never meet an oncoming vehicle, which would have resulted in an uncomfortable and pucker-inducing reversing maneuver.

The path eventually tees into a wider, two-lane road. At the top of the mountain we come to a hard stop. A collection of milk cows and goats amble down the road, driven by a sour-faced herder. The goats split around the sedan, twisted horns just underneath our window sills. If they are impressed by the new exterior design, they give no indication.

They might not be the only ones who are a bit underwhelmed. The 3 Series’s head-on perspective is best, with a taut, creased hood that’s fronted by a double-kidney grille that actually folds back up along the roof. It’s three dimensional, but takes up less real estate than the average modern grille, lending it a focused appeal. The double headlights, available in standard LEDs or adaptive LEDs with a laser feature, are long and narrow and get a cool little kink in their bottom edge.

The 330i looks pleasant enough car in profile, but its shape is perhaps best described as benign. Inside, the interior is pleasantly reworked in philosophy and materials. Remember that BMW “luxury” plastic coating the dash in previous models? The stuff where all hope and delight went to die? Well, it’s still plastic, but in a far more pleasant and handsome treatment. And BMW generally reduced the level of superfluous design, resulting in cabin aesthetics that are far less busy and which flow more harmoniously.

Still, if you hoped for actual simplicity, and imagined German engineers could display forbearance and dump unnecessary tech, well, despair now. Many of the most annoying elements in BMW’s upmarket models are all still found here. The nonsensical shifter is one example; it makes you look down to figure out what gear you’re in. At one point, I watched my co-driver push the lever all the way up into reverse and prepare to exit the car.

Our test models also came with the gesture controls introduced on the 7 Series. This parlor trick allows you to turn on music or adjust volume by using Bollywood-dance-like hand motions in the space near the dash. The problem is that, if you’re a hand talker, unwanted music can suddenly—and very loudly—fill the cabin. When this was mentioned to an engineer, he shrugged and said in a very German Engineer Way, “You need to learn to control your body motions.” Conversely, our stance remains that a luxury vehicle should conform to its passengers’ desires, not vice versa.

BMW also proudly touts the new Intelligent Personal Assistant, its name for the advanced voice controls. You can adjust temperature and set locations on the navigation system. But the system will also answer questions for you. For instance, as per BMW press materials, one question you might ask is, “How does the High Beam Assistant work?” (We suspect nobody will ask that question, phrased that way, ever.) You start things off with, “Hey, BMW” or similar, and then hope for an Amazon Alexa–level of humanlike back-and-forth. What you will get instead is a stilted, robotic voice summoned from the cloud that will very occasionally respond in the way that you hoped. BMW promised it will be improved eventually via a remote software upgrade, but in the meantime you might find yourself most often suggesting, “Hey, BMW, can you contact me when your personal assistant isn’t super annoying?”

There is a spate of semi-autonomous features, including a nifty trick that will automatically reverse the car from a parking space the exact same way you drove in, and which also includes the ability to drive hands-off for long periods of time in highway situations. However, it didn’t work in Europe, so we weren’t able to test it.

There was yet another bright spot on the horizon: laps at the Portimão racetrack in the M340i xDrive. The prototype cars were not road legal, and they were still in camouflage livery. Still, it gives us an idea of the driving dynamics when pushed with vigor. The M340i gets an M Sport suspension and electronically controlled M Sport rear differential. Our test cars had 19-inch Michelins. Following behind ex-Formula 1 and current BMW Motorsport driver Timo Glock with the car set to Sport Plus with traction controls loosened, the 340 shows great willingness to pivot, allowing just enough lateral play. The front-end grip is tenacious and still offers lots of feel despite also receiving power from the all-wheel-drive system, a neat accomplishment.

Coming into one of the track’s slowest turns, which leads to an uphill, we slow way down and turn in early, and then give a wallop of gas just past the apex. The rear swings around neatly, pointing the nose in the direction we want, and the front wheels pull us out of the slide. It never feels less than controlled, but it is thrilling.

One of our favorite bits of the track is a long, sweeping downhill that leads toward the front straight. It is off camber and unsettles cars with an uncomfortable combination of overworked front tires, higher speeds, and shifting weight. “This corner was built to drift!” Glock shouts over the radio, and then he does exactly that in his M2 Competition pace car, leaving a plume of smoke in his wake.

The M340i’s front end shows its willing to hang onto the correct driving line, but the nature of the car telegraphs something else. I’m no Timo Glock, but the BMW is willing to play. And so we whirl the wheel just a bit, add in a bit of gas, and hang on. Because the 3 Series really is a sedan that’s free once again.

2019 BMW 330i Specifications

ON SALE March PRICE $40,250 (base) ENGINE 2.0L DOHC 16-valve turbocharged I-4; 258 hp @ 6,500 rpm, 295 lb-ft @ 1,550 rpm TRANSMISSION 8-speed automatic LAYOUT 4-door, 4-passenger, front-engine RWD sedan EPA MILEAGE N/A L x W x H 185.3 x 71.9 x 56.7 in WHEELBASE 112.2 in WEIGHT 3,583 lb 0-60 MPH 5.6 sec (est) TOP SPEED 155 mph

IFTTT

[jesusvasser]

The 2019 BMW 3 Series Is a Proper 3 Series Again

FARO, Portugal — Look for the squiggliest line on the navigation screen, and then go there. It’s a great system for finding a road worthy of testing a new sports car—a road where you can prod and poke a vehicle into revealing its strengths and weaknesses. The car on this day is the seventh generation of BMW’s most important sedan, the 3 Series.

Considering this car’s historical pertinence, the road itself is doubly important. The nav-system squiggle reveals itself in real life as a single lane of asphalt gouged into a mountainside. It is open to two-way traffic but offers few pullouts and zero guardrails; a poorly placed tire will drop you into the abyss.

The four-cylinder 330i sails up the switchbacks and quickly demonstrates that worries about misplaced wheels are unnecessary. The chassis is surpassingly easy to aim, even in tight spaces. There’s lightness to it, something the previous generation lacked. Not that the footprint is smaller, as the car has grown slightly in all proportions except weight. But it’s easy to find a satisfying rhythm through undulating turns.

More than a few pundits and purists have found the traditional joys of the 3 Series less present in recent years. The sports-sedan recipe BMW perfected and which every other automaker benchmarked—call it the E30 spirit—became muddled with conflicting demands: more tech, more comfort, and more performance. Call it mission creep. Or BMW bloat.

After two days driving around southern Portugal in the 330i and a brief racetrack foray in the M340i xDrive, we can say the 2019 BMW 3 Series has rounded a different type of corner. This is a sedan freed—mostly, anyhow. And this is fortunate timing: As demand for non-CUVs plummets, even longstanding sedans have to earn their keep, lest they go the way of Cadillac’s CTS/ATS and almost all of Ford’s four-door cars. The SUVs from BMW and every other maker are lurking, waiting for a slip-up so they can gobble more market share.

The 330i will be first out of the gate, coming to the U.S. as a 2019 model in March. Though it has more standard features, pricing remains the same: $40,250 for rear-wheel drive, and $42,250 for the xDrive. The $56,000 M340i xDrive will follow in the spring.

For this new generation 3 Series, dubbed G20 in BMW-speak, its maker reworked the 330i’s four-cylinder, gaining 7 horsepower for a new total of 258 and bumping torque by 37 lb-ft to 295. The M340i’s twin-scroll single-turbocharger straight-six got a similar tweaking, with 62 more hp and 39 more lb-ft of torque raising output to 374 hp and 369 lb-ft.

While BMW also redesigned the exterior and interior, and piled onto the list of digital and semi-autonomous features (we’ll come to that in a moment), company engineers say the most central tenets of the new 3 are the retuned suspension, and the calibrations between hardware and software systems. “Getting everything to work together more beautifully,” as one described.

Plying the 330i on Portugal’s open expressways and along backroads, those elements indeed come through brightly. The engine is plucky enough to make short, hard passes, but this is an automobile that likes momentum. It is tangibly lighter than the outgoing model, losing 121 pounds in some configurations; official curb weight is 3,583 pounds. Driving hard into corners, brushing the brakes, and then adding in light throttle around the apex is a treat and settles the car down nicely for the next turn.

The suspension, which includes hydraulic dampers on base models and stiffer bushings, results in greater fluidity but less of the bounce, chop, and harshness found with some of the outgoing 3 Series’s setups. Negotiating a roundabout is a telling exercise. In cases where you’re exiting straight across the other side, you can enter quickly, throw the car right to cut the half circle, and then flick the wheel sharply to the left to send it straight again. The BMW deftly handles these swift directional changes with no slough or front-end push. Zing! (The cars we drove rode on either Michelin Pilot Sport or Pilot Sport 4S rubber and thus had plenty of grip; the former are more comfortable.)

The revised turbo four never feels overly wound even when flogging it in low gears, and there’s little of the previous engine’s harsh vibrations. Torque is modest, but it’s a happy four-banger; even the sound from inside the cockpit is punchy, settling into a mid-range bass in Sport Plus mode.

And while there’s no way to bring to the present BMW’s magical steering feel from the days of hydraulic systems, this generation’s electrically assisted steering is neither overweighed nor rubbery. There’s a measure of feedback, and it allows you to position the car exactly where you want it. The narrow A-pillars help in this regard, too, while the greenhouse feels airy and the seating position is a pleasure.

All that makes a thin strip of mountain road far more fun than in any other present-day BMW other than the M2. Tires sing on the asphalt as my passenger looks out the side window down to the tops of trees far below. A manual gearbox might have made it better, but forget it: There are “no manual transmission plans at this time,” says a BMW rep. Happily we never meet an oncoming vehicle, which would have resulted in an uncomfortable and pucker-inducing reversing maneuver.

The path eventually tees into a wider, two-lane road. At the top of the mountain we come to a hard stop. A collection of milk cows and goats amble down the road, driven by a sour-faced herder. The goats split around the sedan, twisted horns just underneath our window sills. If they are impressed by the new exterior design, they give no indication.

They might not be the only ones who are a bit underwhelmed. The 3 Series’s head-on perspective is best, with a taut, creased hood that’s fronted by a double-kidney grille that actually folds back up along the roof. It’s three dimensional, but takes up less real estate than the average modern grille, lending it a focused appeal. The double headlights, available in standard LEDs or adaptive LEDs with a laser feature, are long and narrow and get a cool little kink in their bottom edge.

The 330i looks pleasant enough car in profile, but its shape is perhaps best described as benign. Inside, the interior is pleasantly reworked in philosophy and materials. Remember that BMW “luxury” plastic coating the dash in previous models? The stuff where all hope and delight went to die? Well, it’s still plastic, but in a far more pleasant and handsome treatment. And BMW generally reduced the level of superfluous design, resulting in cabin aesthetics that are far less busy and which flow more harmoniously.

Still, if you hoped for actual simplicity, and imagined German engineers could display forbearance and dump unnecessary tech, well, despair now. Many of the most annoying elements in BMW’s upmarket models are all still found here. The nonsensical shifter is one example; it makes you look down to figure out what gear you’re in. At one point, I watched my co-driver push the lever all the way up into reverse and prepare to exit the car.

Our test models also came with the gesture controls introduced on the 7 Series. This parlor trick allows you to turn on music or adjust volume by using Bollywood-dance-like hand motions in the space near the dash. The problem is that, if you’re a hand talker, unwanted music can suddenly—and very loudly—fill the cabin. When this was mentioned to an engineer, he shrugged and said in a very German Engineer Way, “You need to learn to control your body motions.” Conversely, our stance remains that a luxury vehicle should conform to its passengers’ desires, not vice versa.

BMW also proudly touts the new Intelligent Personal Assistant, its name for the advanced voice controls. You can adjust temperature and set locations on the navigation system. But the system will also answer questions for you. For instance, as per BMW press materials, one question you might ask is, “How does the High Beam Assistant work?” (We suspect nobody will ask that question, phrased that way, ever.) You start things off with, “Hey, BMW” or similar, and then hope for an Amazon Alexa–level of humanlike back-and-forth. What you will get instead is a stilted, robotic voice summoned from the cloud that will very occasionally respond in the way that you hoped. BMW promised it will be improved eventually via a remote software upgrade, but in the meantime you might find yourself most often suggesting, “Hey, BMW, can you contact me when your personal assistant isn’t super annoying?”

There is a spate of semi-autonomous features, including a nifty trick that will automatically reverse the car from a parking space the exact same way you drove in, and which also includes the ability to drive hands-off for long periods of time in highway situations. However, it didn’t work in Europe, so we weren’t able to test it.

There was yet another bright spot on the horizon: laps at the Portimão racetrack in the M340i xDrive. The prototype cars were not road legal, and they were still in camouflage livery. Still, it gives us an idea of the driving dynamics when pushed with vigor. The M340i gets an M Sport suspension and electronically controlled M Sport rear differential. Our test cars had 19-inch Michelins. Following behind ex-Formula 1 and current BMW Motorsport driver Timo Glock with the car set to Sport Plus with traction controls loosened, the 340 shows great willingness to pivot, allowing just enough lateral play. The front-end grip is tenacious and still offers lots of feel despite also receiving power from the all-wheel-drive system, a neat accomplishment.

Coming into one of the track’s slowest turns, which leads to an uphill, we slow way down and turn in early, and then give a wallop of gas just past the apex. The rear swings around neatly, pointing the nose in the direction we want, and the front wheels pull us out of the slide. It never feels less than controlled, but it is thrilling.

One of our favorite bits of the track is a long, sweeping downhill that leads toward the front straight. It is off camber and unsettles cars with an uncomfortable combination of overworked front tires, higher speeds, and shifting weight. “This corner was built to drift!” Glock shouts over the radio, and then he does exactly that in his M2 Competition pace car, leaving a plume of smoke in his wake.

The M340i’s front end shows its willing to hang onto the correct driving line, but the nature of the car telegraphs something else. I’m no Timo Glock, but the BMW is willing to play. And so we whirl the wheel just a bit, add in a bit of gas, and hang on. Because the 3 Series really is a sedan that’s free once again.

2019 BMW 330i Specifications

ON SALE March PRICE $40,250 (base) ENGINE 2.0L DOHC 16-valve turbocharged I-4; 258 hp @ 6,500 rpm, 295 lb-ft @ 1,550 rpm TRANSMISSION 8-speed automatic LAYOUT 4-door, 4-passenger, front-engine RWD sedan EPA MILEAGE N/A L x W x H 185.3 x 71.9 x 56.7 in WHEELBASE 112.2 in WEIGHT 3,583 lb 0-60 MPH 5.6 sec (est) TOP SPEED 155 mph

IFTTT

[tune-collective]

Boys Meet World: Love Finally Finds Japandroids on Life-Affirming 'Near to the Wild Heart of Life' (Critic's Take)

Boys Meet World: Love Finally Finds Japandroids on Life-Affirming 'Near to the Wild Heart of Life' (Critic's Take)

Everyone who attempts to hang on the highs of adolescence longer than traditionally deemed acceptable is ultimately forced to face the very scary question: When does this stop being romantic and start to just be kind of sad? No one’s self-ascribed glory days last forever, and the only thing more heartbreaking than giving up on your ideals and dreams too early is holding onto them for far too long. Eventually, you take one wrong look in the mirror, or in the faces of the similarly minded people you surround yourself with, and suddenly everything you knew to be right and true in the world seems to flip — from there, it’s pretty tough to ever get all the way back. And at that point, you just hope that there’s still something else out there beyond fire’s highway.

Vancouver power duo Japandroids, who release their long-awaited third album Near to the Wild Heart of Life today (Jan. 27), have been one of the world’s most exciting rock bands for nearly a decade now, largely because their music has always teetered on the precipice of this moment. They were never that young, at least as we knew ’em — by 2009 debut album Post Nothing, Brian King and David Prowse were already about a half-decade out of college, though they still thrashed and threw down like a couple of undergrads. Even then, the weariness was setting in: “We used to dream/ Now we worry about dying,” went the chorus to breakout crit-hit “Young Hearts Spark Fire.”

The true thrill came from how Japandroids acknowledged the sun setting on their youth, but still raged against the light’s dying like true believers in rock’s power to grant immortality. And the stakes doubled for 2012’s highly acclaimed Celebration Rock, recorded in the duo’s late 20s after ulcer scares nearly robbed King of a lot more than his innocence. The album was a triumph, more fearful and more resolute than ever, shot through with a now-or-never urgency that made for emotional and instrumental catharsis more explosive than the firework sounds that opened and closed the LP.

The worldview of Japandroids before Wild Heart was based on obvious and agreeable central tenets: going out, drinking, smoking, yelling. But most of all, it was based on devotion to one another: The rush of Post-Nothing and Celebration Rock tapped into the quintessentially young feeling of your group of friends — maybe just one friend in particular — being your entire world, of everything being “We” by default, of any other way of life being virtually unimaginable. Because they played as a guitar-and-drums duo uninterested in roster expansion, because so many vocals were delivered in unison, and because pronouns were more often plural than singular, the sense of solidarity was absolutely intoxicating for two albums.

But the longer Japandroids took to return for LP3, the less the formula seemed repeatable for a third time — could Brian and Dave, now solidly in their 30s, really spend a third LP seeking teenage kicks and have it feel more inspiring than depressing? Or would there finally have to be something else?

Near to the Wild Heart of Life arrives with that something else in tow — the duo has found love, in a place that wasn’t nearly as hopeless as they might’ve feared. Which isn’t to say that Japandroids’ first two albums were heartless by any stretch, but they mostly treated opposite-sex interaction as an adolescent combination of fantasy and curiosity, something to be talked up (“We run the gauntlet, must get to France/ So we can French kiss some French girls”) more often than actually achieved.

Celebration Rock‘s “Younger Us” was inarguably the duo’s greatest love song to date, and it was of course an ode to each other, with the kind of pinpointed moments of true friendship (“Remember that time when you were already in bed/ Said ‘Fuck it,’ got up to drink with me instead?”) to make you waste a whole night digging for dumb college photos on Facebook. But the “pain from an old wound” element of the nostalgia in “Younger Us” pulls no punches; the song’s emotional wallop comes from its open admission that those days of peak fraternity are now firmly in the rearview, and only getting farther away.

From the first track of Wild Heart, it’s clear that Japandroids’ world has expanded beyond one another. The title-track opener is a narrative that posits itself as a sort of origin story for the band itself, telling the tale in wide, apocryphal pen strokes of how King left his hometown to conquer the world and “make some ears ring with the sound of my singing.”

But break the song down by verse and it reads as the story of how King learned to move beyond Prowse and his old life, with his “best friend” instructing him “You can’t condemn your love/ To linger here and die,” and ultimately getting his buddy “all fired up/ to go far away.” (Indeed, in real life, King moved from Vancouver to Toronto before the album’s recording.) Then in the second verse, the singer receives further encouragement and a kiss “like a chorus” from a female bartender, and in the third and final verse, he’s visited by an ambiguous apparition (“My body broke out in a sweat/ From seeing you in dreams”) that seems to be prepping him for that something even bigger than friendships and hookups.

The majority of the ensuing album finds King embracing that thing called love — the more conventionally romantic kind — in a way seen only in flashes through the duo’s first two albums. “Be the beast, but free what burdens me/ And I’ll love you ‘cause you love me/ All life long, till I’m gone,” he sings on “True Love and a Free Life of Free Will,” an eternal commitment echoed in second-side centerpiece “Morning to Midnight” (“But if you’ll hide me and heal me in your sanctuary/ I’ll stay forever”), statements from a place in too deep to remember what life was like on the outside.

Wild Heart‘s most seemingly inconsequential track, the swirling two-minute interlude “I’m Sorry (For Not Finding You Sooner)” unfolds as the key to maybe the whole album, as King follows the titular apology with the explanation: “I was looking for you all my life.” Of course it’s not literally true, it just feels that way when you’ve found the person that finally allows your entire life to make sense, and you can’t help but look back in frustration on all the time you wasted beforehand.

It’s not just the lyrics that offer a newfound sense of contentedness and spiritual calm, either. The group’s production has flattened significantly from the first two albums, no longer allowing King’s guitars or Prowse’s drums to froth over the top like a beer poured from the tap without caution. The tempos have slowed, too — the title track still blisters and “North East South West” makes you want to grab a hockey stick and rush the ice like the third Sedin twin, but the majority of the album is more early U2 than early Replacements, more open plains than dingy basement. Even the chant-along vocals have chilled, with the howled “OH OH OH OH-OH-OH”s and twenty-two syllable “WOAHHH-AH-OHHH”s from their previous album replaced with Gallagher Bros-like “Yeahhhhhh, yeahhhhhh“s and ghostly “Sha la la la la la“s. The result remains thrilling, but it’s a different kind of excitement — with lower peaks but a wider base, less heart-stopping but also less ephemeral.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3KtKAySDBs

On Celebration Rock, the duo began the album asking themselves “Don’t we have anything to live for?,” answering the question: “Of course we do, but until that comes true — we’re drinking / and we’re still smoking.” Now, on Wild Heart emotional climax “No Known Drink or Drug,” they’re testifying that neither of those titular vices “could ever hold a candle to your love” — not so much an open repudiation of those cheaper early thrills as an unapologetic acknowledgement that they’ve since located a better deal. The considerable power of Near to the Wild Heart of Life is in its explicit presentation of Japandroids as living proof that those who fear the story of their adult lives will end up as one long ellipsis can still have chapters, even entire books to go. True love and a free life of free will can make the nights of wine and roses last forever.

Source: Billboard

http://tunecollective.com/2017/01/28/boys-meet-world-love-finally-finds-japandroids-on-life-affirming-near-to-the-wild-heart-of-life-critics-take/