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sunderedandundone · 2 years ago

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Teaser (UrSkek edition)

Y'all, SilSol was one of the ones just resolutely refusing to give up their origin story to me, but lately they've begun HINTING in its direction and it's just.........kinda fucking weird so far, and I'm trying to make sense out of it.

I mean yeah they were a Musician, because of course they were a Musician. And given that pretty much all UrSkeks can make lovely music just by saying "Good morning, I see your tomatoes are flourishing"...and given that all the magic/high tech among that species makes prolific use of sound and music...and given that the Crystal itself is held to communicate with UrSkek primarily by Singing...well, being a pro Musician among UrSkek IS kind of a big deal. Not just from an artistic or a renown standpoint, but also from a power standpoint. (Really all the professions the Twice-Nine followed had some element of specialized magic/tech skill, but if a Musician were ever to go to the Dark Side -- I HC -- they could do a lot of damage.)

And you'd think that me being a musician too (also pro, but alas, doubtless well short of UrSkek standards), what would naturally spurt out of my brain would be any of a zillion plot arcs I know musicians tend to fall into? But no, no, of course not. Instead, this UrSkek goob is trying to get all boutique with my ass. All boutique with my booty. Telling me that their whole problem with society was they had *too much* insight into it for their own good. And they'd started using that insight to try to actually improve it, suns forbid -- and BY THE WAY the Homeworld Eldest are the biggest bunch of fucking hypocrites to be found in any Realm of the Crystal, and you're looking at a MINIMUM 2 million realms there with over 16 quadrillion sentients, at least within the known vortex network. -_-

This puts SilSol *mostly* into the category of UrSkeks whose Deviance is entirely intentional and freely-chosen, rather than inborn or shaped by some great misfortune. Though I'd have to guess they were always at least a *bit* beyond the norm...perhaps, though, in the way that, had they made other choices, would have brought them to great honor. (UrSkek society tends to be distrustful even of benevolent outliers because of their extremely conformist/communitarian ethos, but they also recognize the social necessity of having the *occasional* benevolent outlier, and when one who unquestionably does do great good comes along, credit will be given as due. At least in retrospect.) Or perhaps they'd just have been put down as an acceptably mild case, what UrSkeks might call an 'eccentric' by their innocent lights. ^^

It's still fuzzy, but I think what happened is that SilSol gradually came to a realization that even though UrSkek society isn't *supposed* to really have power dynamics -- AT ALL -- as in, sure there are ranks and roles and responsibilities and privileges that go with rank and role, but those things are *absolutely not* to have *anything* to do with the occupant's personality or their personal needs -- it totally does have power dynamics. They're just very subtle and deniable, a hidden undercurrent, to the point that most UrSkeks have no trouble rationalizing it away (and indeed, largely not even letting it into frontal consciousness).

SilSol chose not to explain it away, but to investigate it. It's possible this originally arose out of something to do with their work, some 'artistic differences' shit? :-D -- or some ongoing disharmony with a superior. Or they might have taken an interest simply because they also served as conductor sometimes -- and a conductor definitely has to use a combination of technical and people skills to successfully bend an ensemble to their vision for a piece.

It could even be just...something they noticed over time; that hey, there *are* certain UrSkeks who just -- seem to have things go their way more often than other UrSkeks. And it could be they then felt a driving need to understand why such a baseline contradiction should lie at the foundation of their 'perfected' society.

In other words, they...kinda discovered manipulation and hypocrisy? And therein lay their doom.

I think SilSol knew from education or past experience that other, 'lesser' civilizations and worlds have much more visible power relations (both hard and soft). Accordingly, they began consuming a lot of ::lowers voice:: *foreign media* -- just to see more clearly how these "intentional persuasion" and "charisma" and "selective reporting" kind of things work.

...As in, they literally took notes watching other peoples' comedy-dramas/reality shows/election coverage. O_o

Which any UrSkek should know is treacherous ground. There totally ARE UrSkek scholars of foreign things, on Homeworld and in the colonies. There are even, perforce, scholars of conflict. But after all, *they* have the training, the professional practices, the long trine of reflection and self-purification that are considered necessary to undertake that work. It's not supposed to be the kind of thing that Homeworld's angelic master Musicians would expose themselves to -- even Musicians who've consciously figured out that they too exercise 'soft power' whenever they use their art to move an audience. Or a mountain. :-) And who've now resolved that while they're not at all against being moved per se (I mean -- MUSIC), they *would* like to know when it's going on, thank you very much, and *why*. And whether it's always really the right course to go along, and by the way, how do you even decide what's right in a case where you suspect a lot of other people are just going along?? If not by the easiest consensus, how does one judge?

(Side note: Such foreign media is, of course, also kind of exciting. That's another of the many dodgy things about it. Really unwise, especially without proper hazmat so to speak.)

Then things get foggy again. But I know for sure that Professor SoSu -- who was definitely already teaching their Heresy, though it hadn't quiiiiite crossed the bright line over into criminality yet -- would've struck the newly woke SilSol as a superbly charismatic figure exercising a powerful, if often subconscious, influence over others. They also would've noticed that the (often young) UrSkeks who most closely flocked to SoSu were the ones who seemed a little bit.........*sus*. As in, poooossible closet Deviants.

This was no longer necessarily a bad thing, though. In fact, SilSol probably came to fervently believe that UrSkek society *needed* to have a conscious, revolutionary reckoning with all this over-conformity and hypocrisy...whatever growing pains that might cause in the meantime. And that ironically, what amplifying SoSu's message of radical honesty and acceptance really required was an advisor who could wield and explain these arcane 'persuasive' arts -- this 'primitive' wisdom that even the best, most illustrious people of other worlds were not ashamed to use in bringing people to a good cause.

Besides, was SilSol really doing anything in this that they hadn't always done, less directly, with their music? Trying to inspire imagination and compassion in their kith; trying to remind them that even their immortal kind couldn't stay completely untouched by time, joy, and loss, and that very fact might be the ineffable will of the Uni-Verse itself?

And everyone thought THAT was all right. Well, within certain bounds...though now that we bring it up, about those bounds --

SoSu, for their part, was not averse to studying this obscure branch of sociology/psychology, especially not from the academic standpoint -- though they always did caution SilSol against bringing more than the tiniest particle of it into real public discourse. UrSkeks as a species were certainly NOT ready for the full Monty on these things...nor was it probably wise for them to ever become so.

Well, obviously the both of them ended up coloring wayyy outside the lines in spite of the Professor's warning. :-) And I have a pretty good idea of the final 'trigger' incident that got the Twice-Nine banished (it really *was* done with the best of intentions, but an outside, less naive perspective would have no trouble foreseeing why the planet's authorities considered it an absolute deal-breaker). But I still need to work out a few more general things about the trine preceding that incident.

So anyway. Maybe it's not all THAT weird, but it's definitely not what I would have *expected* the likes of SilSol to start dictating to me about their Ages of UrSkekery? Hope to get it more filled out and cleaned up soon, opinions are of course always welcome in the meantime. ^^

***

PS: I've always had some trouble with SilSol just in basic concept. Not with UrSol...not with SkekSil...just with SilSol. :-P This is also very silly, because I've actually lived *some* of their slightly contradictory duality. I'm a lifelong musician who has also spent a bit of (way too much) time in politics. It's been almost all activist politics, but yanno, that IS probably the most comparable to any kind of politics SilSol would've been able to get involved with as an UrSkek anyhow. And as noted above, there is a common element of *persuasion* to the two fields. Not manipulation as it's usually thought of, although it can also be that -- but there is a certain deliberate pushing of audience's emotional buttons when you're a musician or any other kind of creative. You're trying to entertain people or show them meaning, give them happy release or sad catharsis or sweet love-thoughts or buzzing energy, all mostly for its own sake. In politics, at its best, you're trying to inspire people to cooperate towards some shared good goal -- and at worst, you're trying to convince them to uncritically hand you power. Some labor under the delusion (or the unfortunate factual knowledge) that getting the former to happen is going to require the latter. But OTOH sometimes there are people that just, you know, want to be handed power because they like it.

That last wasn't within SilSol's personality, even if it's since taken up a place within SkekSil's -- that's just a little too far outside the UrSkek spectrum for me to consider plausible. But even there, despite some life-history similarities and the fact that I really *can* relate to SilSol on a lot of stuff, there's still just a LOT I really find it hard to get into their head on. Because me personally? I only got into activist politics because I perceived an all-hands-on-deck emergency and didn't see anybody else leaping up to help. I mostly hate the work itself. Mostly. Even in semi-retirement/sabbatical/whatever this is, I still desperately want to just hand the whole damn thing over to someone else who IS personally into this shit, someone who IS a Deviant UrSkek for Great Justice. :-P

But I do think *SilSol* does need to be a bit more naturally curious about and interested in the workings of power, particularly 'soft' power, than I've ever been. Despite the fact that they were doing it all for what they thought a magnificent cause. AND despite the fact that even old SkekSil -- as smug a smipp as they've turned out to be -- still always has Reasons why they want the power they seek, and a fairly clear plan of what they're going to do with it.

(Which is more than can be said for preeeeetty much all the other Skeksis by the period of AoE. Not least, the increasingly decrepit/unhinged/paranoid Emperor. Indeed, petty preening Skeksis do NOT appreciate Chamberlain! ^^ )

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