#Unwilling imperial scientist

[calebjorgens2024]

This has promptly started me on further continuing on my own Imperial!Tech AU on top of already having an idea where Royce Hemlock coerces Tech to work for the Empire’s Advanced Science Division. To Hemlock in that idea, turning Tech into an assassin would be a waste, as his enhanced intellect is more important; as a result. Tech would be an unwilling Imperial Scientist up until to the time of the Return of the Jedi; This idea would be loaded with tragic angst regarding Tech encountering this fateful position! And so with that idea, Tech becomes an unwilling Scientist for the empire without the need of a chip and is always on guard as to not let any higher ranked imperial know what he plans to do.

Imperial Tech

[flagellant]

perhaps this is in bad faith, but don't you think it's plausible that ms appleton was just a government food scientist who was sent to japan as sort of U.S. ambassador and given a generic, americanized name? we know that resources were scarce during the war and that many changes had to be made, or simply were made to cut costs, in the production of lots of things at the time. it just makes sense when you break it down that traditional shoyu is time and labour intensive to make but improves the taste of even outright bad dishes. at a time when people were forced to eat whatever food was available to them demand was likely very high to the point of unreasonably outweighing supply. either officials at kikkoman reached out to american food scientists for a solution or they offered one up themselves, given the fact that food science was undergoing a huge international renaissance led by the americans during the 30s, 40s and 50s. americans have a tendency to synthesize food. they also tend to feel strongly about imposing their culture on other countries. it seems more to me like this is a story about the american government taking extra steps to obfuscate the story of how they semi-successfully tried to be the final nail in the coffin of widespread, traditional shoyu production. less like some kind of yakuza conspiracy somehow centred on one woman. just the perspective of someone who's felt compelled to do their own research. it's my opinion that the way you're presenting your findings leaves massive gaps as well as leaps to get over them. i can't speak for the things you haven't shared publicly, obviously, but it feels a lot like you're dancing around the point. good luck to you in your research, regardless of my own feelings.

I think I agree that you're either arguing in bad faith or simply aren't really paying attention to a wider picture here. It's common knowledge that postwar economics in Japan were heavily influenced and remain to this day connected to organized crime and the Yakuza as an old tool of the imperial/noble order. We also know for a fact that the CIA worked with the yakuza during American occupation in order to manipulate political culture and economic structures.

It's also a common conspiracy in Japanese circles (or at least so it appears, and I want to be clear I am not voicing this as more than preexisting theory/belief, so I will not directly source to give complete credibility; consider this as context for why I might be interested in investigating further, just in case) that Empress Michiko and the Seifun Milling Company had close under-the-table connections with America, which would further influence the traditional shoyu brewing culture.

Like, I feel as though if you seem to be aware enough that America's treatment of Japan was one of extreme hostility and cruelty with little-to-no care about the nation or its people, solely using it as a means to enforce American/Western ideals and principles onto an unwilling populace and using violence and illegal organized crime syndicates to fulfill those goals...then why are you acting as though it's sus of me to look at a single woman in 1947 having this much power/control over Japanese-American relations when you have said yourself that shoyu is the single most important ingredient for Japanese food of all time, and only moreso during war rations/scarcity times?

[47burlm]

Trump hits the panic button: Antisemitic attacks on special counsel Jack Smith betray desperation

and you want this man filled with hate to be President again-

As detailed in historian George Fredrickson's landmark book "Racism: A Short History," there is a complex and overlapping relationship between the "religious" antisemitism of the European Middle Ages, the racist and white supremacist project of white-on-black chattel slavery, colonialism, imperialism, and then the Nazism and racial antisemitism of the 20th century. This translates into a type of path dependency, if not inevitable outcome: As the "conservative" movement becomes increasingly racist and white supremacist, it then becomes increasingly antisemitic. 

On this, Halie Soifer wrote in a 2022 essay at Haaretz that:

Where antisemitic hate speech once triggered near-universal and immediate condemnation across the political spectrum, that is no longer the case. Today's rise of antisemitism has been largely met with silence, or worse, an embrace or tacit acceptance by the Republican Party. We saw this after Trump's ominous warning to Jews in mid-October to "get their act together…before it's too late," which not one Republican condemned. Shortly thereafter, Business Insider contacted 38 Republicans, in and out of Congress, to ask why they have been unwilling to publicly reject antisemitism. Their responses included "silence, deflection, and rehashing old statements," generously summarized as "minimal outcry." While extremism may have once been relegated to the fringes of American society, today it has found a political home in the Republican Party.

Racism is not some type of buffet to be picked and chosen from or a value and belief that can be siloed or neatly switched on and off when convenient. In reality, racism is a way of thinking and being in the world that has a profound influence, both consciously and subconsciously, across a range of behaviors. Public opinion research, for instance, has repeatedly shown that white racial resentment heavily influences support for Republican candidates. Moreover, social scientists have also shown that a given white person's feeling of warmth and closeness to Black and brown people is one of the defining factors that influence support for the Democratic Party. The Republican Party and Donald Trump benefit from the opposite dynamic, whereby a white person's hostility and antipathy towards Black and brown people is predictive of support.

[legomocfodder]

More Galaxy of Justice! Someone suggested Booster and Beetle a while back,but I finally got around to them!

Michael Carter: A crew member for a bounty hunter named Booster Gold, Michael was the only survivor after the crew attacked a shipment to the Imperial Maw facility. He was taken prisoner and forced to work on the production line, where he befriended scientist Ted Kord. The two of them planned an escape, where Michael got a hold of Booster’s armor as well as the remains of Booster’s droid SK-337. After escaping the Maw with Ted and Jaime, Michael pretends to be the real Booster Gold, using the title to try and become famous.

SK-337: Nicknamed “Skeets” by Michael, his processing unit survived Booster Gold’s failed attack and was taken by him. He knows that Michael isn’t the original Booster, but helps him keep the secret, knowing Michael’s success is also his success.

Ted Kord: A scientist and technician who was taken to the Maw Installation and was forced to help them develop new technologies. His main project was Stormtrooper armor designed with a rudimentary A.I. to act as a tactician for the wearer, in hopes of evolving into a completely automated trooper. This was one of the first steps toward the Dark Trooper program.

Max Lord: The Assistant Director of the Maw installation, he knew just what buttons to push and what to say to get others to do what he wanted, which the Empire put to use at the Maw.

Jaime Reyes: The first test subject of Kord’s armor, he was an unwilling participant, conscripted into the Empire to be used in the test. Something went wrong with the prototype. The armor’s A.I. bonded with Jaime, and while he could take off most of the armor as needed, the main chest plate was permanently attached with the A.I. constantly speaking to him, usually unprompted.

NSFW blogs do not reblog!

[fatehbaz]

Used to be easier to get online to find some news or academic-ish articles to read about imperial “sacrifice zones”, the legacy of uranium mining on Indigenous land, the nuclear uncanny, and nuclear testing in the South Pacific, before N*tfl!x released that one docuseries, and now many searches with keywords “nuclear” or “radiation poisoning” involve sifting through dozens of headlines like: “Chernobyl fans: You’re not gonna believe the size of this RADIOACTIVE MUSHROOM, must see!” or “Ten other twisted facts about Chernobyl that you WON’T believe!” or “Get ready for another binge-watch sesh y’all: Chernobyl’s giant catfish are real, and this team of American v-tubers is about to pay them a visit!” This alongside Tw!tter disk horse like: “Slavic countries are so weird!” and “Can’t believe the institutional/administrative negligence at Chernobyl, really good that things are different nowadays.”

In these disk horses, yet to see much significant mention of some important Chernobyl-adjacent subjects, like how the largest single release of radioactive poisons on “American” soil happened in Navajo Country in 1979, the same year as the Three Mile Island disaster and exactly 34 years to the day after the first atomic bomb detonation in nearby New Mexico (the “Church Rock” disaster released over 1.3 short tons of uranium and 94 million gallons sulfuric acid-laced tailing solution which poisons Navajo people to this day). Or how pinnacle-of-their-field 20th-century US scientists explicitly bragged about how they used the people of Rongelap (Marshall Islands) as “mice” and unwilling/unknowing human test subjects after dropping a hydrogen bomb near their islands, with no forewarning, and then they didn’t tell the islanders that their babies were being born without skeletons because of radiation poisoning. Or how between 1944 and 1972, the Hanford site in eastern Washington State released over 25 million curies of radioactive poisons in the inland Pacific Northwest, not-entirely-incomparable to the Chernobyl event’s release of 35 to 49 million curies of iodine-131.

Another fun “daily scholarship round-up” activity: Searching for news about environmental history and ancient humans by using keyword “Pleistocene.”

Except, there was a popular book series and HB0 adaptation which co-opted the names of (real-world, actual Pleistocene megafauna creature) dire wolves. And following the January 2021 publishing of some research about the evolution of and relationship between dire wolves and modern gray wolves, recent attempts to read about historical ecology from that epoch result in a flurry of pop-sci headlines like: “G*me of Thr*nes’ terrifying dire wolf was actually a mega-fox!” and “The epic Terror Wolf just got epic-er” and “Beyond G*me of Thr*nes: Life, Sex, and Death Among the Dire Wolves.”

bruh when I typed “Pleistocene” I was trying to read about terrestrial crocodiles in Polynesia, the apple and fig forests of Central Asia, deforestation in ancient China, human relationship with cats, and giant sloths.

[an-mallaithe]

Jezebel

From this point onward, the following will be incorporated as a blogcanon here.

Disclaimer: Obviously I don’t expect any alterations on canon verse threads that are already in the works or have been discussed.

Backstory; (Excerpts direct from the verse bio of @origami-assassin​​)

‘Born to a family renowned for its exceptional skill in the art of infiltration, and assassination, Jezebel lived nearly secluded from the rest of her homeland territory. Jezebel was only six when first the Empire appeared. Men who were as monstrous as the devils imbued into their husks. The family refused them. They would not work or barter with the Empire no matter how much they were offered. It was perhaps a sense of honor among the assassins that kept them so guarded and unwilling. In the end, however, that stubbornness would be their downfall. Work for the Empire, or be crushed under its boot.

Through the destruction of their land and home, Jezebel had hidden herself away from the chaos in a steel container under the floorboards of their house. When she emerged from the debris of her home, she was confronted by a group of soldiers. After some struggle, she was incapacitated; beaten, and forced to submit, before she was taken back to Nefilheim to begin new, more brutal training. She wasn't the only one, though. There were several children who had been picked from the ashes. Many had died. Others gave up, and perished under the strength of the Empire. Jezebel survived.

Various tests were conducted on her to see how she would fare with other enhancements to help strengthen her purpose. When she was in her early teens, they infused her lower left arm with magitek to give her the ability to move around without carrying obvious weapons. She learned to focus the daemonic power to create origami, and store them for later use. It gave her the ability to move in and out of cities and towns without alerting anyone to her purpose.

Jezebel had been prepared for killing since she was young, but not for that. Not like this. It dulled her sense of self, and consciousness for others. It drained her heart leaving it nearly empty of the humanity she so desperately clung to. However, she still had one thing that kept her going. When first she learned to create her origami, she made a crane which, through a long, and painful ritual, was able to receive a tiny fragment of her soul. It gave her a friend, and a part of herself not tainted by the hardships she faced.’

♕  —   In time, what Jezebel would come to learn would be the source of her abilities, greater than any Magitek she could have imagined. By request of the Imperial Chancellor, Ardyn Izunia, Jezebel became a source for other routes of experimentation; a gift, by his perspectives. She would become a conduit for Ardyn’s abilities, much like the Kingsglaive of the Lucian Empire. Her, and only her, would hold the ability to wield similar powers of the Adagium.

Unbeknownst to both Ardyn and Jezebel, the man who had been the one to perform the experiments placed a dampener beneath the surface of the young assassin’s skin. Before learning of this, Ardyn had merely assumed that the connection between the two of them had not been as strong as he had hoped. It was quite the opposite, however, and only after the discovery of the former scientists experiments, would they finally learn the full potential of what Jezebel’s power might be.

Ardyn has grown incredibly protective of Jezebel in the years they have known one another and will stop at nothing to keep her safe-- even against her own protests and monitoring all of her actions closely. In a sense, she’s a glimmer of content in a wretched world, one that makes him feel as though he isn’t as alone as he might feel otherwise. Even he is incapable of understanding if the bond he feels is magically induced or emotional, she is undoubtedly precious to him.

(Jezebel’s blog can be found at: @origami-assassin​​ ; discussion on plots relating to these two is highly encouraged before incorporating.)    

[cantillat-moved]

The Great Cataclysm of Tokyo was the first of a series of global nuclear holocaust, causing the world to become a wasteland populated by demons coming from the Expense. A few decades later, a tectonic plate movement of massive proportions caused the ocean to rush into Tokyo, decimating the area around it. Through political maneuvers, the Messian Church took over the government and converted it to a theocracy, starting the construction of the Center.

Using a huge amount of funding, the Center is built on the former site of the Basilica, to host the future municipal government called “Millenium”.  Outside the self-contained shelters environment, most of the world is rendered uninhabitable thanks to global warming, radioactive contamination and the deterioration of the ozone layer.

In the world overtaken by demons, the Kuzunoha clan – a clan of devil summoners, long-time protectors of Japan – decided it would be more efficient to pool their resources and assist the Temple Knights from the Order of the Messiah in protecting the population. At first, they started helping with the training but soon they joined their numbers and started commanding elite forces.

One of the many to bear the name of the Four Greats, a very distinguished honor in the clan, Raidou Kuzunoha the Fortieth had a strict upbringing because of that: trained from birth to perform the ritual of passage and inherent the name, he discarded his own name and past to serve the people of Japan and protect them as a devil summoner. Praised by his skills, the 40th reached the rank of a tetra-summoner, an undeniable proof of his power.

However, at one point he found out that much of his life was a lie: the Kuzunoha weren’t what they claimed to be and the Messian Faith wasn’t interested in serving people. In fact, slaves working night and day in the factories and experiments in fusing humans and demons against their will was commonplace. Those unwilling to abide by the Center were prosecuted and cast out, deemed unworthy of being saved.

Disgusted by the corruption he was assisting in reinforcing, the 40th became a renegade and started on working on a plan to try creating a new future or at least creating a divergent timeline.

Taking a page from the very same events that lead to the Cataclysm, the 40th decided to take an extreme course of action: to destroy Tokyo long before these events. After all, the Yamato Perpetual Reactor connecting the human world to the Expense was located in the city, so instead of pinpointing all the factors that would lead to the construction of the device he would take care of all possibility, it would ever take place. Besides, if a society like that allowed it to happen, perhaps it didn’t deserve salvation.

Casting away his physical body, he traveled throughout the Akarana Corridor to the past where he possessed a young girl to put his plans into motion. Manipulating a Major General for the Japanese Imperial Army, a man called General Munakata who was long possessed by an evil spirit, the 40th used the other’s Super Soldier Project for his own means whilst supplying the scientists with technology from the far future.

His plans put him at odds with the Raidou Kuzunoha of that era, the Fourteenth. Eventually, the two of them had a fateful showdown with his predecessor emerging victorious and dooming him to become a lost soul, forever unable to go back to his original time.

Raidou Kuzunoha the XL is the real antagonist in Shin Megami Tensei : Devil Summoner - Raidou Kuzunoha VS the Soulless Army for the Playstation 2. It is implied throughout the game that he comes from the Shin Megami Tensei / Shin Megami Tensei II / Shin Megami Tensei Imagine time.

headcanons

metas

[villainship]

SWTOR OC Challenge: Dani - Day 1

[15-day Q&A by @wolfboywarmachine]

Just to confuse all our followers because I didn’t start this at the same time as gf.

1. Prologue. Where was your OC before the class story? How’d they end up on the starter planet?

- Lucianna -

[Human Sith Sorceror]

Cianna is our “canon” inquisitor in our collection, so I��ve kept the pieces of backstory she had. I haven’t selected a specific planet yet, but she was born into slavery on an Imperial world and there she stayed until her power came to light at the very end of her teenage years. As a teenager, she was effectively a maid and occasional unwilling playmate to the small daughter of a very wealthy family. She did not get along well with the seneschal of this estate, and one day when he took things too far she force-pushed him to his death -- much to her own surprise. From there she was ushered off to Korriban.

- Mirnaj’uli’eris -

[Chiss Imperial Operative]

Juli is the “canon” agent for us! I go back and forth on her backstory quite a bit. Lately, I’m leaning towards her parents having raised her on Dromund Kaas in the first place. She has always harboured some resentment towards the larger Empire, given their treatment of non-humans, even though she’s a Chiss and marginally more accepted than some other species. She bore no particular ill will towards the republic either, given that most average people living on the Imperial homeworld are quite removed from the war. Therefore the military didn’t appeal to her, but Imperial Intelligence seemed like a fun way to explore the galaxy on her own terms. Obviously it wasn’t.

None of my other OCs really follow the class stories at all, but prior to the era in which SWTOR takes place...

- Zetnu’ri -

[Twi’lek Smuggler]

Zet was actually my first character on SWTOR and she’s based off of my Edge of the Empire character. I picked up her backstory and dropped it into SWTOR because it works just fine here too. She’s born and raised on Nar Shaddaa by parents who managed to escape slavery. They didn’t have a lot of money, but her home life was very warm and loving. In her late teens and young adulthood, Zet began doing the less dangerous sorts of jobs for the Black Sun - playing lookout, running parcels and messages, and so on. She doesn’t have the vicious mindset one would need to truly advance with the Suns, and she kept her work secret from her parents, knowing they wouldn’t approve. Eventually she started to move goods offworld as well, which is when she learned to smuggle and pilot. The turning point for her was when she discovered the shipping crate she picked up was full of slaves; when she docked, she called it in to the local authorities instead of completing the delivery and disappeared in the chaos. The Suns put out a bounty on her head as a thank you.

- Isaq -

[Mirialan Jedi Guardian]

Isaq is Kirryl’s younger cousin. He would have followed along to Tython a few years behind her, and he eventually falls in love with her padawan, Kira. Anyway... We haven’t settled on a homeworld for them yet, it may well have been Mirial. There were plenty of force users in their family and his childhood wasn’t particularly remarkable, just Very full of their large green family.

- Keran -

[Cyborg Sith Assassin]

Prior to Korriban, Keran was living a life of extreme wealth and privilege!! At least one of his parents was Sith, and both came from wealth themselves. “Home” was likely Dromund Kaas, but I don’t think they were there for more than a couple of months out of the year. His parents took him with them when they had cause to travel and work on other planets. 

- Thalia -

[Mirialan Sith Juggernaut]

Thalia also would have grown up wherever Kirryl and Isaq did, but she’s older than both of them. Her father is very gentle, and her mother was a scientist with an Intense interest in the unknown region. When Thalia was five or six, her mother went on an expedition and never returned. She and her crew were presumed dead, and she and her father were left to mourn alone. He met another woman a few years later, remarried, and then Kirryl was born, making her Thalia’s little half-sister. They had a fairly large family with three parents among them and a handful of siblings, plus extended family, so Thalia spent the rest of her childhood in that busy environment until she was sent to Tython to begin training as a Jedi.

- Marixah -

[Pureblood Sith Marauder]

Marixah doesn’t come into our story until much later, towards the end of TD/Cianna’s class stories. I haven’t given a lot of thought to her pre-Korriban life, but as a force-sensitive pureblood Sith, I’m sure it wasn’t particularly dramatic or difficult. She and her first master were marooned on Eadu (there’s no TOR canon for what that world was like this long before the OT so.... fight me) for years. Her master didn’t survive, in the end, and she was rescued entirely by chance. Upon her return to civilization, TD took her on as an apprentice.

[engine-of-life]

Overview of my two cosmic horror science fiction stories that go hand-in-hand.

Novel — 2014 - 2016 — 65,000 Words — Status: On Hold, First Draft 70%

Ulharr Jump ves Jo achieved one of the highest honors possible: marriage into The Father’s First Family, something millions in the Empire long and dream and strive for but can never hope to achieve. Not long after the happy day, though, he makes a grave mistake and is thrown into a set of circumstances strange and obtuse that only ends with an unwilling ascension into godhood.

Cressfel’s Thirteen (or C13) is the story I wrote for Nanowrimo back in 2014. The main intention of the story is to channel my love for Lovecraftian themes combined with some pretty unsettling body horror. I’m not sure how successful it is. The biggest problem I had was the ending. Not sure when I’ll go back to it.

Novel — 2017 - 2019 — 16,000 Words — Status: Ongoing, First Draft 15%

Ulharr Zabet took him on as her apprentice. The high-born daughter, scientist and inventor, of status far surpassing his own. It was an event that thrust Ghalib suddenly into renown from obscurity, but ensured that he would never again be free from the web of imperial politics. Zabet herself is a mysterious figure with a rebellious agenda, and Ghalib soon finds himself as a pivot point of a brewing conspiracy set to throw their civilization into chaos.

Piece by Piece (aka Piecewise or Death & Gods) is a foil to C13. It covers basically the same time period and events, but from a complementary perspective. I started it to try to problem-solve for issues with C13 and potentially to replace C13. The language is more on the experimental side, and that is the primary reason for my continued investment in it.

[thevividgreenmoss]

...Anyone who knew Eqbal in conditions of struggle knew subliminally that his loyalty and solidarity were unquestionable. He was a genius at sympathy. When he used the pronoun "we," you knew that he spoke and acted as one of us, but never at the expense either of his honesty or of his critical faculties, which reigned supreme. This is why Eqbal came as close to being a really free man as anyone can be. 

This isn't to say that he was indifferent to the problems of others, or blessed in that he didn't have problems of his own. This was very far from true. But he did give one the impression that he was always his own man, always able to think and act clearly for himself and, if asked, for others. His subcontinental origins in Bihar and Lahore steeped him both in the travails of empire and in the many wasteful tragedies of decolonization, of which sectarian hatred and violence, plus separatism and partition, are among the worst. 

Yet retrospective bitterness at what the white man wrought and at what his fellow Indians and Pakistanis did were never part of Eqbal's response. He was always more interested in creativity than in vindictiveness, in originality of spirit and method than in mere radicalism, in generosity and complexity of analysis over the tight neatness of his fellow political scientists. The title of one of his most spirited essays, on Regis Debray, was entitled "Radical but Wrong." 

When I dedicated my book Culture and Imperialism to him, it was because in his activity, life, and thinking Eqbal embodied not just the politics of empire but that whole fabric of experience expressed in human life itself, rather than in economic rules and reductive formulas. What Eqbal understood about the experience of empire was the domination of empire in all its forms, but also the creativity, originality, and vision created in resistance to it. Those words-" creativity, " "originality," "vision"-were central to his attitudes on politics and history.

Among Eqbal's earliest writings on Vietnam was a series of papers on revolutionary warfare which was intended as a refutation of standard American doctrine on the subject. U.S. counterinsurgency experts see in Vietnamese resistance a sort of conspiratorial, technically adept, communist and terrorist uprising, which can be defeated with superior weapons, clear-cut pragmatic doctrines, and the relentless deployment of overwhelming military force. What Eqbal suggested was a different paradigm: the revolutionary guerrilla as someone with a real commitment to justice who has the support of her or his people, and who is willing to sacrifice for the sake of a cause or ideology that has mobilized people. What counterinsurgency doctrine cannot admit is that the native elites whose interests are congruent not with their country's but with those of the United States are not the people to win a revolutionary war. In confronting the arch-theorist of this benighted view-none other than Samuel Huntington-Eqbal. Put it this way:

In underdeveloped countries the quiescence which followed independence is giving way to new disappointments and new demands which are unlikely to be satisfied by a politics of boundary management and selective cooptation-a fact which the United States, much like our ruling elites, is yet unable or unwilling to perceive. There is an increasingly perceptible gap between our need for social transformation and America's insistence on stability, between our impatience for change and America's obsession with order, our move toward revolution and America's belief in the plausibility of achieving reforms under the robber barons of the "third world," our longing for absolute national sovereignty and America's preference for pliable allies, our desire to see our national soil freed of foreign occupation and America's alleged need for military bases.... As the gap widens between our sorrow and America's contentment, so will, perhaps, these dichotomies of our perspectives and our priorities. Unless there is a fundamental redefinition of American interests and goals, our confrontations with the United States will be increasingly antagonistic. In the client states of Asia and Latin America it may even be tragic. In this sense Vietnam may not be so unique. It may be a warning of things to come.

What emerges in these writings is the opposition between conventional and unconventional thought and of course the even deeper opposition between justice and injustice. In his preference for what the unconventional and the just can bring peoples by way of liberation, invigorated culture, and well-being, Eqbal was firm and uncompromising. His distrust for standing armies, frozen bureaucracies, persistent oligarchies allowed no exceptions. Yet at the same time, as he showed in his great essay on Debray, it is not enough to be unconventional if that means having no regard for tradition, for the goods that women and men enjoy, for the great stabilities of human life. Eqbal was shrewd and illusionless enough to realize that overturning societies for the sake of revolution only, without sufficient attention to the fact that human beings also love and create and celebrate and commemorate, is a callous, merely destructive practice that may be radical but is profoundly wrong. 

...No one has more trenchantly summarized the various pathologies of power in the third world than Eqbal in the three summary essays he wrote for Arab Studies Quarterly in 1980 and 1981.9 Once again, unlike many of the second-thoughters and post-Marxists who populate the academic and liberal journals today, Eqbal remained true to the ideals of revolution and truer yet to its unfulfilled promise. To have heard him lecture over the years, passionately and sternly, about militarism in the Arab world, in Pakistan, in Algeria and elsewhere, was to have known the high moral position he took on matters having to do with the sanctity and potential dignity of human life either squandered or abused by strutting dictators or co-opted intellectuals. Creativity, vision, and originality of the kind appreciated by Eqbal in his great friend the Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz are the measure for political life, not the trappings of honor guards, fancy limousines, and enormously bloated and all-powerful bureaucracies. 

The measure is the human being, not the abstract law or the amoral power.

I think it must have been difficult to hold on to such ideals and principles. Most of Eqbal's written work, and indeed his activism, took place in dark times. Not only did he take full stock of the devastations of imperialism and injustice all over the globe, but in particular he more eloquently than anyone else inventoried the particular sadness and low points reached by Islamic cultures and states. Yet even then he managed to remind us that what he mourned is no mere religious or cultural fanaticism, as it is usually misrepresented in the West, but a widespread ecumenical movement. Moreover, though not an Arab himself, Eqbal reminded Arabs that Arabism, far from being a narrow-based nationalism, is quite unique in the history of nationalisms because it tried to connect itself beyond boundaries. It came close to imagining a universal community linked by word and sentiment alone. Anyone who is an Arab in his feelings, in his language and his culture, is an Arab. So a Jew is an Arab. A Christian is an Arab. A Muslim is an Arab. A Kurd is an Arab. I know of no national movement which defined itself so broadly. 

In such a situation and with such a heritage, Eqbal saw the degradation of ideas and values that grip Arabs and Muslims alike. Let me quote him again. This is in the aftermath of the Gulf Way in 1993:

We live in scoundrel times. This is the dark age of Muslim history, the age of surrender and collaboration, punctuated by madness. The decline of our civilization began in the eighteenth century when, in the intellectual embrace of orthodoxy, we skipped the age of enlightenment and the scientific revolution. In the second half of the twentieth century, it has fallen. I have been a lifelong witness to surrender, and imagined so many times-as a boy in 1948, a young man in 1967 ... and approaching middle age in 1982-that finally we have hit rock bottom, that the next time even if we go down we would manage to do so with a modicum of dignity. Fortunately, I did not entertain even so modest an illusion from Saddam Hussein's loudly proclaimed 'mother of battles."

This on the one hand and on the other the multiple degradations of what he once called the fascism and separatis clearly identifiable, seemingly hostile but symbiotically linked trends, in his Pakistan. Former Pakistani prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his family, former president General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, and their coteries plundered the land, demoralized the population. They tried to subdue the country I s insurrectionary constituent cultures and failed, but at the price of more blood and treasure. And everywhere, as throughout the Muslim world, they provoked, if they did not actually cause, the rise of Islamism, which as a secularist Eqbal always deplored. 

But ever the fighter and activist, he did not submit in resignation. He wrote more and more in earnest and in 1994 undertook his grand project of founding a new university in Pakistan-Khaldunia, aptly named after the great Arab historian and founder of sociology, Ibn Khaldun. In this project and his enthusiasm for it, Eqbal was no Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, but like Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci, he took as his motto "Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. This was part of the man's rareness, knowing how to rescue the' best available in a tradition without illusion or melodramatic self-dramatization. For him, Islam, Arabism, and American idealism were treasures to be tapped, despite tyrants like Zia ul-Haq and Henry Kissinger, whose manipulations and cold-blooded policies debase and bring down everything they touch.

Edward Said, Introduction to Eqbal Ahmad’s Confronting Empire

[les8ean]

Well what’s she like and what’s her story?

Nikkin Choper (named after Nick Chopper, the Tinman in Wizard of Oz (I’m trying to keep a theme where all the major characters in this MSPFA are named after fairytale or mythology characters (the purpleblood Seer of Hope is named Kasand Phetam, after the prophet Kassandra)

she's really technologically inclined, and always throws herself entirely into her work, building robots for her army to take back this post-apocalyptic Alternia wasteland from the raiders and bandits that wander it to take care of her hive and keep guard outside, and dreams of the day her scavenger friend will find a mostly-intact Imperial Drone that she can rebuild and reconfigure.After seeing how efficient all her robots were, she started considering the possibilities of cybernetic enhancements. and after doing building some experimental cybernetic prosthetics for unwilling hapless wanderers any travelling trolls who may have stopped by her hive to share resources, she set on to give herself some, taking her leg, hand, and eyes, and replacing them with robotic pieces.she's so pleased with them she often tries to convince her friends to come and let her give them some while they try to convince her to stop mutilating herself. She's VERY excited about the possibilities that SGRUBs alchemizing system has, and is determined to find a way to game the system. She has trouble entrusting others with things she deems important, preferring to either do it herself, or have one of her robots do it. She spends most of her time alone apart from her robots and only really make's friends at all if they come to her hive for some reason

she's kinda the typical mad scientist, believing that the end will always justify the means if it furthers her research or whatever she's working on

[philippmichelreichold]

#review #scifi Space Dreadnoughts by Dave Drake, et al

#review #scifi Space Dreadnoughts by Dave Drake, et al

Space Dreadnoughts is a Military Science Fiction anthology by David Drake, Martin H Greenberg and Charles G Waugh. The contents in order of appearance are: •"Introduction: A quick Look at Battle Fleets" by David Drake •"The Only Thing We Learn" by Cyril M. Kornbluth •"C-Chute" by Isaac Asimov •"Allamagoosa" by Eric Frank Russell (won the Hugo Award for best short story in 1955) •"A Question of Courage" by J. F. Bone •"Superiority" by Arthur C. Clarke •"Hindsight" by Jack Williamson •"The Last Battalion" by David Drake •"Shadow on the Stars" by Algis Budrys •"Time Lag" by Poul Anderson

The first Military Sci Fi story I remember is the Star Trek TOS episode "Balance of Terror," in which Enterprise duels with a Romulan interloper. The military conflict was setting to other conflicts between the crew, the story was full of suspense, and actual battle was a small part of the story. And so it is here.

The book's title is a misnomer. The back cover blurb is misleading-- "Massive and arrogant, they patrol the final war zone-- deep space. All great battleships before them-- . . . are mere toys in comparison." It goes on about "bristling artillery" and "battalions of soldiers." I expected fleet actions involving capital ships. Tactics. Maneuvers. Gunplay. While there are fleet actions and even battleships in some of these stories, they are mere backdrops on a stage where people play out the stories. Truly good Science Fiction involves people, and in all these stories, the people overshadow the military settings that serve only to bring out the characters and whatever lessons there are to be learned from them. All of these stories are well worth reading.

"Introduction: A quick Look at Battle Fleets" Mr Drake's introduction is a wonderful retrospective about the history of the Dreadnought battleships with a mention of two 1950's Astounding essays on the armaments of spaceships-- one by Willy Ley, the other by Malcolm Jameson. If one is going to write stories about ship-to-ship combat, the introduction is a good starting point. But only a starting point. One should definitely read Mahan, and consider the lessons of Taranto and Pearl Harbor. And the US Navy's Harpoon's and Tomahawk's are wonderful arguments in favor of missles over guns. One should also consider the time honored techniques of ramming and boarding actions.

Perhaps the question of guns vs missles is mooted today. Todays real world warships employ both-- including the Iowa class heavy battleships brought out of retirement and refurbished for President Reagan's naval buildup of the 1980's. The arms race has continued in Sci-Fi beyond what could be imagined with a knowledge of 1950's physics. The Ley and Jameson essays were written before fighters raked Formoria, before rail guns, and CTD imploders, before GRASER's, X-ray LASER's and phaser banks, before the Moties bombarded Mote Prime with asteroids, and before Captain Sheridan laid a gigaton on Z'ha'dum.

"The Only Thing We Learn" Kornbluth tells a cautionary tale of faded Imperial glory. The barbarians at the gates will one day have descendants that are as decadent and prissy as the effete and ineffectual empire they deposed and replaced. History blurs and magnifies the epic tales of glory. The details are lost. The character is lost. One day a fresh wave of barbarians sweeps aside succcessors that their ancestors would be ashamed to acknowledge. The reader may decide what relationship if any there is between this story and the quote from Friedrich Hegel. A fun story despite the dire consequences for the past and future losers. In  his column, "Rereading Kornbluth", Robert Silverberg calls The Only Thing We Learn, "a subtle, oblique, elliptical, sardonic piece of work."

"C-Chute" Dr. Asimov wrote this story in 1951. It is a psychodrama set aboard a passenger ship taken as a prize by a race of chlorine breathers in Earth's first intersteller war. Each of the passengers is sketched by Asimov to reveal their several flaws of personality, physicality or character. Each has reasons why he should not exit the cabin via the C-chute, EVA, and enter and retake the control room from outside the ship. The reason for the dubious hero to take the heroic action required to retake the ship is one unlikey to appear in the work of any author but Dr. Asimov.

"Allamagoosa" This story won the 1955 Hugo for best short story. It's a farcical look at officious bureaucracy of the greatest gravity. It's sort of a shaggy dog story, wink, wink. This story in and of itself is worth buying the book for. The build up and so obvious in hindsight ending is fresh enough to be as enjoyable today as it was then.

"A Question of Courage" Sometimes flair and heedless risk taking can be mistaken for true personal courage. When the genuine article appears, there's no mistaking it. Bone craftliy deveops his characters and sets the reader up for the old maidish Captain "Cautious Charley" Chase of Lachesis to reveal his true nature. It is available from Project Gutenberg.

"Superiority" Sir Arthur requires no introduction for this story, a reductio ad absurdum about the principle of Illusory Superiority. Technology and bedazzlment with the latest, most theoretically wonderful advances are no substitutes for common sense and sound military doctrine. Perhaps this should serve as a cautionary tale at a time when Iraqi insurgents hack into our drones. According to Wikipedia, this gem was required reading at West Point. The reader easily empathizes with the narrator and his plight, revealed at the end.

"Hindsight" Jack Williamson has won both the Nebula and the Hugo Awards, and had a career that spanned about seventy years. This story involves temporal mechanics and love, oppression and liberation, and meeting engagements. Incidentally, the guns employed by the Astrach's fleet are of 20-inch caliber and fire four salvos per second. It's a tightly written story, though I think the ending is a little drippy.

"The Last Battalion" Imagine that Hitler did not die in a bunker in Berlin, but escaped via U-Boat to a secret Waffen-SS base in New Swabia. There German scientists built flying saucers from which they reached the moon to to mine aluminum and build more flying saucers. Now imagine them getting into a war with aliens. With things not looking so good, they kidnap a US Senator to let him know what is going on, intending to drag the US into the conflict. Before they can get where they're going with the Senator, the aliens lay a nuke on their Antartic base. They drop the Senator off to find his own way home. He asks them what they will do. Their colonel replies, we are SS-- we will fight.

"Shadow on the Stars" Budrys's Farlans are felinoid aliens who at first blush look like humans in cat suits. But they are, on a closer look, "raving paranoid quote." The paranoia is pathological and eventually fatal for Farla-- any military leader with sufficient ability to be effective cannot be trusted by Farla's rulers, and will be killed at the earliest sign of that fatal disease, military competence. The story is a retrospective, the central character telling how he and Farla came to be in their present straits. It is too late for him to convey the warning against trusting Earth, and to late to avoid the inevitable dissolution of Farla.

I have a problem accepting the plot device Budrys uses to set up the narrative, but otherwise the story is interesting and fun to read. The prose is a bit over decourous and affected, but that brings out the effeteness and pretentiousness of the Farlan culture. At the start, the Farlans are hard-pressed by a barabarian culture, the Vilk, and need a strong, capable leader to drive them back. OF course the strong, capable leaders keep their heads down so has not to find themselves assassinated by the Ministry of Preparedness-- and then comes L'Miranid. A previously unknown reservist, he quickly dominates the Fleet and whips them into shape. Victory follows victory until the Vilk host is driven back, their subject planets pounded to rubble, and a Farlan imposed king seated upon their throne.

The real story action is not fleet engatgements and daring raids, though. The story is related by Henlo, one of those capable leaders who has balanced command of a capital ship wtih avoiding notice by the governmental hunters down of competence. He starts the story as having a clear understanding of Farla's problems and the steps necessary to remedy them, but can't afford to be noticed. He becomes L'Mararind's aid, admirer, vice-admiral, intended assasin and successor, and finally, his unwilling co-conspirator and successor. Unwilling to be assasinated himself, he seizes control of the Farlan government. By this time, the sad (for Farla) truth is known to him, but (I love Latin quotes.) "alea jacta est." This is a fine little story with a lovely twist toward the end.

"Time Lag" Poul Anderson has won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Time Lag is a study in contrasts-- evil, greedy invaders against noble, selfless defenders. Chertkoi is a heavily overpopulated industrial planet, drowning in pollution and resource starved. Vaynamo is pristine, with a population sustainable through resource management. Vayanmo is never the less technologically advanced, with the technology's goal as preservation rather than exploitation. Expolitation is the name of Chertkoi's game. It's people conquer other worlds to fuel the industrial fires that smother their world under a cloud of pollution.

The archetype of the Chertoi is the Admiral commanding the invasion fleet. He is matched against the story's view point character, Elva. Elva is the widow of a Vayanmoan noble and prisoner of the Admiral. He is gross, vulgar and uncouth. She is pretty, cultured and well-mannered. He is a love struck boor, hopelessly smitten by her. She subtly endures his presence to manipulate him so that she an return herself and the other captives to Vayanmo in a portrayal that is believable and sympathetic. The invasion is a leveraged takeover in three stages-- a scouting raid, a strategic strike to destroy what little industry the Vayanmo posses, and a full-scale invasion. The title relativistic time lag (fifteen years) gives the Chertkoi time to build their invasion fleet and the Vaynamo time to prepare their reception.

Image cover art under fair use for the review. Contact publisher for reuse.

My text creative commons 4.0

190417

[shoujoboy-restart]

It is not possible to understand China without understanding race and racism. Specifically, without understanding whiteness.

Yet far too often the conversation around the rise of this new superpower is in predominantly geo-political terms, about authoritarianism versus democracy, about human rights — or whether we will go to war.

But race sits at the heart of it all.

We were reminded this week when China described the AUKUS agreement — between Australia, the UK and the US – as a race-based military bloc of white countries.

China's Ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, says that's how it appears to people in other countries. What he means are non-white countries.

The Chinese Communist Party has a deep racial consciousness. It is there in the reminder to its people never to forget the hundred years of humiliation at the hands of foreign powers — of white powers.

Yes, that humiliation was at the hands of the Japanese, too, but the Japanese themselves cannot be separated from the project of whiteness.

In his book, Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking, scholar Michael Keevak traces how the Chinese stopped being white.

He says in early interaction between Europeans and Asians, the Chinese were actually described as white.

This was before racialised thinking was popularised in the 18th century.

It was then that scientists started to divide the world up into groupings of colour. Colour denoted civilisation. At the top were white Europeans, at the bottom black people and all others, graded on a sliding scale.

Keevak says Asians — including the Chinese and Japanese — began to "darken".

They lost their whiteness, he says, "when it became clear they would remain unwilling to participate in European systems of trade, religion and international relations".

The fall of the Qing Empire in the 19th century hastened a racial reckoning for the Chinese.

This was a dark night of the soul; it would tip China into a century of upheaval, revolution, and violence on an industrial scale.

And it also brought China face-to-face with white power. The Qing Empire was humbled by Britain, a tiny island that now occupied Chinese territory.

Nineteenth-century writer Yan Fu was influenced by European liberal thinkers, such as John Stuart Mill and the father of economics Adam Smith, and saw China's future emulating Western liberalism.

Perhaps the most influential thinker of all, Liang Qichao, also looked to the Western idea of history as a march of progress — and progress meant modernisation.

Liang is known as the godfather of Chinese nationalism whose acolytes included the Chinese Communist revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong.

He coined the phrase "the sick man of Asia" to refer to China's fallen state. He said they were awoken from a thousand-year-long dream.

As Liang embraced Western ideas, he also advocated for the unity of the "yellow race". He used the term "minzu" to describe the people of the nation.

World War I was another reckoning. At the Paris peace talks, China felt abandoned. German-occupied Chinese territory was not handed back to China but to Japan.

The seeds of resentment were sown.

Historian Jerome Ch'en writes: "From 1842 to 1942, China had been treated by the West with distrust, ridicule, and disdain…"

Liang Qichao — who had looked to the West — now turned sour. He was an official observer in Paris, but returned believing that following the West would lead China to catastrophe.

At the same time, the world was warning of the "yellow peril".

Australia had its own whites-only policy, excluding non-white races from the country.

Racial politics was also shaping China's great foe, Japan.

The Japanese derided the Chinese as "yellow". As Michael Keevak points out, Japan saw itself on par with Western powers.

Its imperialism mirrored the imperialism of white colonisers.

In the West, the Japanese were still seen as "coloured people", Keevak says, but "maybe not as yellow as the Chinese".

For the past three centuries, power and whiteness have been synonymous. From the British EmpiChinese leaders have seen their struggle in racial terms. Mao Zedong styled himself as a revolutionary leader of the non-white world.

His military strategies have been adopted by the Viet Cong, the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Deng Xiaoping travelled to Europe as a young man and saw the racial discrimination against Chinese people. His economic revolution was built on beating the West at its own game.

Xi Jinping lectures the West on its own hypocrisy. He is still fighting the Opium Wars against Britain, the fall of the Qing — the great humiliation. His dream is to return China to the apex of global power.

China today is seen as a threat to the West. A threat to the so-called global rules-based order that is itself rooted in a race-based order.

So much of the commentary around China ignores the question of race. So many of the commentators discussing China — predominantly white voices — do not have the racial literacy to begin to understand how race and racism inform China's rise.

In some ways, Xi's China may represent the end of whiteness. Except that the Chinese Communist Party itself mirrors whiteness.

The irony is Xi has also become what he opposes. He is a Han nationalist — his idea of Chinese power is ethnic Han superiority — persecuting non-Han, non-white people in his own country.

If whiteness is power, Xi Jinping is its champion.

The continuation of white power, in darker skin.

I don't fully agree with the sentiment and analogies of the article, but it's mostly about analyzing how white supremacy can affect the politics and strategy of countries attempting rise up against it.

There are parts of it where there needs to be more information, such as how we are defining "persecution of white people", if we defining it by the way china treats other ethinicities and comparing to how they treat white(Caucasian) foreigners, yeah i myelf haven't really heard much news of hate crimes or majir discrimination against Caucasian people.

The way the author wrote can be interpreted as either excusing the Chinese governments treatment of their minorities as somehow being blamed back on white supremacists and whiteness as a political tool instead of his own choices and bigotry at he end of the or looking at the way Chinese government doing a "well since that's how the game is won" and that is hypocritical of Xi to complain about white supremacy while also using methodology and beliefs also used in white supremacy.

The article is very inconclusive and has a weird syntax(if that's the terminology), i've seen better analogies of white supremacy corrupting the politics of other countries and this isn't one of them, i mean he does bring up Xi being supremacist and the fact his tactics are used by terrorist, so not exactly much the average person won't be able to see that it's a critic of him at the end of the day

Strong 4/10 and light 5/10, needs better narrative, more common man approaches and a bit more explaining of differentiating whiteness as a ideology from caucasiry so the reader actually understands is not really a attack on white people as a whole.

@goohlish02 as part Chinese, opinions on this?

?????

[inhumansforever]

Inhuman of The Day

August 1st - Maximus

Maximus Boltagon, the younger son of the former Inhuman king, Agon, and Queen Rynda.  Maximus is the younger brother of Black Bolt had been second in line of succession to the throne of Old Attilan.  Like his brother, Maximus was subjected to the mutagenic properties of the Terrigen Mists while he was still in his mother’s womb.  Rynda’s Inhuman gift entailed the ability to filter substances exposed to her and she used this power to expose her unborn baby to a purified version of the Terrigen disabused of any ancillary particles.  Furthermore, she had the Terrigen concentrate around the developing brain of the fetus.  Rynda and Agon did this in the hopes that it would bestow their son with incredible mental abilities.  

The results of this endowed Maximus with genius level intellect and psychic powers that allowed him to control and manipulate the will of others.  It additionally appears to have effected his cognitive process in ways that are difficult to describe; it may have left Maximus prone to episodes of psychosis and/or may have offered him the ability to perceive time and space in an elevated, extra-linear fashion.  

Throughout his childhood and adolescence, Maximus kept his psychic abilities a secret, allowing his fellow Inhumans to believe Terrigenesis had merely augmented his intellect and nothing else.  

Terrigenesis had no effect on Maximus’ physical form.  Initially, his parents believed that his enhanced intellect was the full extent of his powers.  Maximus kept his psychic abilities a secret and few suspected that he possessed the ability to manipulate the wills of others.  Maximus was something of a cruel, cunning, and ambitious youngster… traits that became more and more pronounced as he grew older.  Maximus’ antisocial features were likely accentuated by the guidance and messages relayed to him by his parents.   Agon and Rynda had exposed their children to ultras-purified Terrigen in-utero in the hopes that doing so would bring about the creation of superior beings.  They imparted this information on their younger son, leading him to feel superior (as well as somewhat contemptuous toward those he perceived as beneath his superiority).  

As a result, Maximus saw himself as better than others and had little  compunction over using his psychic powers to manipulate those around him and promote his own self-interests.

Maximus was a cruel, cunning, and ambitious youngster… traits that became more and more pronounced as he grew older.  Maximus felt himself better than others and he had no compunction over using his psychic powers to manipulate those around him and promote his own self-interests.  

Maximus maintained a particular animosity toward his older Brother, Blackgarr.  The boys’ parents expressed concern over Black Bolt’s destructive powers and Maximus came to believe that he should be the true heir to the throne and that his older brother was unworthy of being first in line of succession.  

With the potentially devastating nature of Black Bolt’s sonic powers, he had to maintain supreme discipline so to not utter a single sound.  And Maximus would constantly goad his brother, trying to provoke Black Bolt into breaking his discipline and in so doing prove his unworthiness to be king.  These attempts were all in vane, a matter that only acted to compound Maximus’ frustration and disdain toward his brother.

There was an additional component to Maximus’ efforts to break his brother’ discipline and provoke him into using his powers.  Maximus’ parents believed that he possessed a higher level to his mental gifts.  They believed that he and his brother were linked and that Maximus needed to be exposed to Black Bolt’s power as a means of unlocking this higher level.  

As part of a scheme to ultimately become the ruler of Attilan, Maximus entered into a secret pact with a group of Kree assassins who disguised themselves as peace emissaries from the Imperial Throne-world of Hala.  Black Bolt discovered his brother’s plot and intervened.  So to stop the assassins from attacking Attilan, Black Bolt uttered a slight sound, causing a massive sonic boom.  The  concussive energy from the blast struck Maximus, severely effecting him.  Tragically, Maximus was extracting his mental control over the Kree pilot controlling the spacecraft.  As such, the pilot of the ship lost control and it crashed into the royal retreat, killing the brothers’ parents.  

It remains somewhat unclear how exactly Maximus was impacted by the exposure to his brother’s powers.  On the surface, it appeared as though the concussive force of being so close to the sonic boom resulted in neurological injury.  It appeared as though this injury impaired Maximus’ capacity for effective impulse control and left him prone to wild delusions and disorganized thinking.  These symptom earned him the moniker, ‘Maximus the Mad.’   Yet the apparent injury did not impair Maximus’s impressive intellect, nor did it curb his ambitious scheming.  

More recently, it was revealed that exposure to Black Bolt’s power did not result in neurological damage, but instead unlocked a higher order to his psychic abilities (as his father had predicted).  Maximus gained the ability to perceive time on an extra-linear level, experiencing his past, presence and distant future all at once, each moment superimposed upon the other.  This heightened level of perception comes to Maximus in waves; at times it afforded him keen insight that greatly aides his intellect; at other times, the visions are overwhelming which has added to his appearance to others as being psychologically ill.  

Maximus was treated by a doctor on Attilan who prescribed him psychotropic medication.  In truth, this medication was actual a placebo that were effective only to the extent that Maximus believed they were working.  At the time, Maximus’ mental difficulties appeared to be wrapped up ion his feelings of guilt over the death of his parents.  Convincing himself that his parents’ death was the fault of his brother offered him clarity and a sense of being at ease.  He suppressed his knowledge of his own complicity in the accident that killed his parents.  Yet the suppression didn’t always work and his feelings of guilt would bubble up to the surface; and this would cause him to become angry, confused and at times incoherent.  

Maximus somehow managed to avoid punishment over his treachery in conspiring with The Kree and he would eventually embark on countless schemes and plots to overthrow his brother and take the crown for himself.  One such endeavor entailed experimentation on the cloned slave caste known as the Alpha Primitives.  Using his mental powers, Maximus coerced three of these Alpha Primitives in entering into the chamber of Terrigenesis.  Exposure to the Terrigen Mists caused the trio to deteriorate and reform a powerful being of raw psychic energy called ‘The Trikon.’    

This Trikon was sent to destroy Black Bolt and his precession.  Black Bolt was unwilling to uses his sonic powers on the monster, knowing that doing so would devastate the surrounding city.  With no other option and all of Attilan at risk, Black Bolt and the other members of The Royal Family were forced to flee the city.  With his adversaries in exile and the Trikon still at his command, Maximus was victorious and assumed the throne as the new emperor of Attilan.  

Yet Maximus proved to be an unpopular king among his people.  Concerned over the calls for the return of Black Bolt, Maximus sent agents to search out his brother so to destroy him.  Maximus also began work on his ‘Atmo-Gun,’ a device that was designed to send a toxin into the atmosphere that would kill all human life on earth.  The Inhumans lived in fear of being discovered by the humans and Maximus believed that extinguishing this threat would finally win him his people’s favor.  

Seeking out his brother ended up being a costly mistake for Maximus.  Black Bolt returned to Attilan accompanied by The Fantastic Four.   Maximus’ schemes were foiled and, following a tremendous battle, Black Bolt took back the crown.  Maximus triggered his Atmo-Gun, but his calculations were flawed and the device did not work.  Spiteful and enraged, Maximus activated a powerful negative zone force field that temporarily isolated Attilan from the outside world.  

The negative zone force field was ultimately deactivated and somehow Maximus managed to flee from Attilan accompanied by his most dedicated minions, relocating to the South American country of Costa Salvador.   Maximus encountered The Incredible Hulk while in South America and tricked the jade behemoth into aiding in his schemes.  Maximus developed a ‘hypno-gun’ that he used to augment his powers of mental manipulation.  The Hulk was eventually able to see through Maximus’ coercion and Maximus was defeated by the combined efforts of Black Bolt and The Hulk.  

Recaptured, Maximus was sentence to solitary confinement on Attilan, placed in a specialized telepathy-neutralizing prison.  Gorgon felt that Maximus’ imprisonment was far too cruel and released him, a kind gesture that proved disastrous.  Modifying his former design for the Hypno-Gun, Maximus created a Hypno-Device which enhanced his powers ten fold, allowing him to control the will of all of Attilan.  Black Bolt was finally able to break free of this Hypno-Device, but doing so ended up devastating a sizable portion of Attilan. 

Some time later, Maximus joined the renegade sect of scientists known as ‘The Enclave.’  The Enclave succeeded in capturing Black Bolt’s fiancé, Medusa.  Maximus also loved Medusa and objected to The Enclaves decision to execute her.  In order to save Medusa, Maximus caused a weapon he was working on to overload and explode.  The Enclave was defeated, yet the explosion left Maximus in a death-like comatose state.  Black Bolt retrieved his brother’s body and had it placed in a specialized stasis chamber within the catacombs of Attilan. 

Following Attilan’s relocation to the Blue Area of The Moon, Maximus finally regained consciousness.  A great deal of psychic energy had built up in Maximus during his coma and he used this energy to force his consciousness into his brother’s body while trapping Black Bolt’s consciousness in Maximus’ body which remained in stasis.  Inhabiting his brother’s body, Maximus ruled Attilan for several months until his schemes were detected and undone by the intervention of The Avengers.  Returned to his rightful body, Maximus was moved to a regular prison cell. 

On several more occasions Maximus used his powers of manipulation to escape his cell and cause trouble only to be defeated time and again.  When Ronan The Accuser took control of Attilan, Maximus attempted to rally the Alpha Primitives into an army to repel the Kree occupying forces.  Ronan was easily able to suppress this army and, as punishment, Ronan used his universal weapon to banish Maximus to The Negative Zone. 

While trapped in The Negative Zone, Maximus became involved in the Annihilation War waged by Annihilus who was seeking to destroy all matter.  Maximus was ultimately able to return to Attilan.  Following two more unsuccessful coups, Maximus was once more imprisoned.  

The mystical sect of Inhuman monks known as ‘The Pacifiers’ placed a mental spell over Maximus, shackling his manipulative powers so to prevent yet another escape.  During the Silent War event, Maximus coerced young Luna to use her own powers to undo this spell.   Once freed, Maximus utilized The Inhumans’ war with he United States Government as a means to once more attain rulership over Attilan.  

This rule lasted until the Secret Invasion event where it was revealed that Super Skrull sleeper agents had infiltrated Attilan.  The citizens rallied behind Queen Medusa in her war against the Skrulls and it resulted in Maximus’ conceding the throne to her leadership.  Maximus served as Medusa’s aid until Black Bolt returned from The Fault and once more became the king of the Inhumans. Some time thereafter Maximus was once again imprisoned.  He was freed by his nephew Ahura and Ahura’s fellow classmates among the Future Foundation (who hoped Maximus would aid them in defeating Doctor Doom).   Maximus actually ended up assisting The FF and was since allowed to live freely on Attilan despite his past crimes.  

It was around this time that Maximus was taken into Black Bolt’s confidence in regards of Black Bolt’s dealings with The Illuminati.   Black Bolt elicited Maximus’ aid in defending against Thanos as well as the threat posed by The Builders.

Maximus assisted Black Bolt in creating the Terrigen Bomb, a device that dispersed the Terrigen Mists into the atmosphere of earth, thus causing all latent Inhumans to transform by way of Terrigenesis.  He also aided the other members of The Illuminati in attempting to fend off the cascading encroachments by alternative realities.  Maximus fell in with an offshoot of The Illuminati called ‘The Cabal,’ which sought to destroy the encroaching alternate realities in a much more violent and destructive fashion.  

At some point after Maximus had joined The Cabal, he turned on Black Bolt and used Black Bolt’s dismay over the approaching end of the world to gain a mental hold over his brother.  Once Maximus had this control over his brother’s will he kept him in this state for weeks while galavanting around New York City.  The Inhuman security officers, Auran and Nur, were dispatched to track Black Bolt down and they finally caught up with Maximus.  Maximus used Black Bolt to kill Auran and escape, but Nur tracked them further and he was finally able to distract Maximus long enough for Black Bolt to break free of the mental control.  Black Bolt seemingly killed Maximus, disintegrating his hands with a whisper and casting him off the side of a cliff. 

Somehow Maximus managed to survive and his hands were in some shape or form regenerated.  He rejoined the Cabal in further dealings with the encroaching alternate realities.  When all appeared lost, The Cabal fled in a specialized craft that could move through realities.  Hurdling through the void, the craft finally came upon Battleworld, the patchwork reality that Dr. Doom had summoned together with the remains of various realities.  The Cabal sought to conquer Battleworld, but were soon discovered by Doom who now possessed godlike powers.  Stephan Strange sent the Cabal to places unknown before Doom could destroy them.  Maximus later showed up as ‘The Prophet’ leading an army of disbelievers who questioned Doom’s godhood.  

Maximus and his forces were destroyed, but the distraction he provided ultimately helped Reed Richards to make his way to the chamber where the Molecule Man kept Battleworld together.   With the Molecule Man’s assistance, Richards was able to reconstitute the 616 universe (an act the effectively resurrected Maximus and many others and returned them all to their former places on earth).

Maximus’ status and whereabout following the Secret Wars event had been unknown.  He recently resurfaced in the pages of Uncanny Inhumans, sought out by Triton.  Triton felt that Tony Stark’s invasion of New Attilan and the abduction of the new Inhuman, Ulysses, had not been properly dealt with by Queen Medusa.  Triton saw it as essential to the Inhumans’ future wellbeing that Stark be properly punished; and thus put forward a more overt deterrent to anyone who might seek to harm New Attilan.  Triton asked Maximus’ assistance.  Maximus agreed and shortly thereafter Stark Tower was destroyed in a massive explosion.

Maximus then tricked Lash and his Tribe of Lor into attacking a Stark Facility, ultimately leading to a full scale conflict between The Inhumans and Iron Man.  In the midst of the ensuing chaos, Maximus freed his fellow Inhuman renegades, The Unspoken and Lineage.

Soon the after, during the X-Men/Inhuman War, Maximus decided to refine a process for creating synthetic Terrigen that would bring about an end of the conflict with The Mutants.  He learned of the ancient recipe for creating artificial Terrigen from a distant relative that Lineage was able to manifest with his powers and then set off on a madcap adventure to collect the various ingredients needed to facilitate the process.  Yet Maximus became distracted near the end when he met the Inhuman technopath, Kludge, and rather than building a machine to create synthetic terrigen, the two instead built an enormous robotic battle suit.  The suit was destroyed by an enraged Unspoken (whom Maximus had earlier betrayed).  In the end, it turns out that the whole matter was simply a lark that Maximus had engaged upon to assuage his boredom.

Maximus was captured by The Inhumans of New Attilan and Queen Medusa determined that they had endured Maximus’ constant scheming and treachery for far too long.  He was charged with a life sentence in a cosmic penitentiary far off in another galaxy.  Furthermore, his name would be struck from the history of his people and he would become an ‘unspoken.’

Yet Maximus still had a trick under his sleeve.  He was able to exert his mental control over his brother, Black Bolt, and hatched a scheme to have his brother take his place in this cosmic prison.  Utilizing his mental abilities and a pair of image inducers, Maximus took Black Bolt’s place and had Black Bolt (appearing to be Maximus) sent off to this mysterious prison (a tale told in the pages of the Black Bolt solo series).  

Shortly there after, Marvel Boy (Noh-Varr) came to New Attilan offering his services in helping the Inhumans discover a new source of Terrigen and thus offer a future to their doomed people.  Still in the guise of Black Bolt, Maximus opted to join the other in venturing to the planet Hala as part of this adventure to discover the secret of Terrigen.  

It wasn’t long before Medusa discovered that Maximus had replaced her one time husband.  Maximus dropped his charade and disengaged his image inducer.  Unfortunately, the nature of the cosmic prison where Black Bolt had been incarcerated, coupled with the matter being stricken from Inhuman history made it impossible to simply retrieve Black Bolt and have Maximus rightfully jailed in his place.  It was ultimately decided that the team would continue in their mission to secure a new source of Terrigen.  Knowing the Maximus possessed an intricate understanding of Terrigen, Medusa decided to keep Maximus with the team in the case that he would prove helpful; insisting that he stay in the proximity of the new Inhuman known as Swain (whose own empathy-affecting powers had the impact of canceling out Maximus’s ability for psychic manipulation).  

The team’s journey ultimately brought them to the World Farm, the home of the cosmic deities known as The Progenitors.  These beings had manipulated the evolution of The Kree in the same fashion as the Kree had created The Inhumans… utilizing the powerful mutagenic substance known as Primagen.  Primagen is an ultra-purified mutagen through which Terrigen is derived.  Exposure to Primagen has the effect of temporarily super-boosting the powers of any Inhuman who comes into contact with it.  

The team was able to acquire a sample of the Primagen, but in so doing provoked the wraith of The Progenitors.  Desperate for a solution to their peril, Medusa allowed Maximus to touch the Primagen hoping that the extreme augmentation of his powers and intellect might facilitate a plan to save themselves and defend Earth from the Progenitors.  Exposure to the Primagen did indeed boost Maximus’ abilities.  It allowed him enhanced clarity so that he could see and understand the entirety of a five thousand year lifespan.  

Maximus’ present and future selves were able to communicate with one another and the elder Maximus showed his younger self a future wherein the Inhumans and all life on Earth was ravaged and destroyed by The Progenitors.   With his newly heightened intellect, Maximus was able to utilize Marvel Boy’s technology to get the team back to earth ahead of The perusing Progenitors. 

In their initial skirmish with these beings, Maximus realized that they were creatures of pure, mechanical logic.  As such they possessed a distinct vulnerability to the illogical aspects of emotion.  In tandem with the Inhuman known as Reader, Maximus devised a plan to engage the Progenitors on a created astral plain where emotion was more powerful analytical logic.  

It seemed a bizarre almost nonsensical strategy, but there was no time to argue the matter and Medusa was ultimately sent into this plain and her feelings of love, compassion and self sacrifice succeeded in overwhelming the mechanical Progenitors’ ability to process and comprehend the experience.  In turn, The Progenitors as a whole decided that earth should be avoided, that any benefit that could be derived from conquering it wasn’t worth the effort required to do so.  Hence the fate the elder Maximus had experienced was avoided and earth was saved.  

Since then, it has appeared that Maximus’ augmented powers has faded and he returned to his former self.  More recently, Maximus appeared to have perished in battle against the Kree and the mysterious being known as Vox.  Although this is not the first time that Maximus has been believed dead and it is very likely that he will return in the not too distant future.  The guy is something of a bad penny… he always shows back up.  

[nonelvis]

2021 Hugo nominees: Best Novelette

Not quite as good a category as Novella, but still pretty consistently good:

”The Inaccessibility of Heaven,” Aliette de Bodard I always enjoy de Bodard’s work, and though I haven’t read any of the Dominion of the Fallen universe in which this story is set, I had no problems following along with the concept: a Paris in which angels dwell, fallen and otherwise, and in which they’re now being murdered. It’s quite well-written; it just didn’t grab me as much as the stories in her Xuya universe do. ”The Pill,” Meg Elison A fat girl, child of a yo-yo dieting fat mother who’s constantly signing up for dodgy weight loss drug trials, is appalled when one of the drugs works, but in the most horrifying way: the fat literally is excreted from people’s bodies, a painful but effective process – at least for most people. For some, the drug simply flat-out kills, but a diet industry based on the drug appears overnight anyway, and eventually, claims the life of the girl’s father. I am a fat girl, the child of a morbidly obese father who died two years ago, partially due to weight-related complications. This story was hugely triggery, to the point where I didn’t finish it, and while Elison’s points about the diet industry were completely on target, I could not stick around to find out how things ended. ”Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super,” A.T. Greenblatt I nominated this story, so it’s safe to say I really like it. Superheroes are ordinary people who suddenly develop powers they can barely control, but learn how to in order to save people, and Sam Wells, a gentle, nervous accountant who can spontaneously combust, wants to join a superhero squad. Greenblatt really has a way with character, and Sam comes through clearly: awkward, eager, doubting his capabilities but unwilling to give up on them if he can make a difference. ”Helicopter Story,” Isabel Fall I skipped this story the first time around because I saw the Twitter drama and decided it was best to stay as far away from it as possible. Many months later, I can read this story and conclude that Fall is a skilled and intriguing writer, but the story doesn’t quite fulfill its stated mission of addressing “the pinkwashing of imperialism and the need for queerness to constantly challenge the powers that want to capture and use us.” Of course, the fact that Fall had to explicitly state that at all is a depressing commentary on what she went through as a result of the story being published — but mostly, this story reads to me like someone questioning her gender, questioning society’s binary and misogynist assumptions about what it means to be a woman, and not fully succeeding at tying military setting and metaphors to the issues she’s exploring. ”Monster,” Naomi Kritzer A scientist travels to a small town in China in search of a former childhood friend who’s grown up to be a serial killer. Through flashbacks, it becomes clear that while they shared the close bond of kindred, socially awkward nerds, there was something seriously wrong with the friend – enough to terrify a girlfriend even if she was the only one who got to see that side of him. I didn’t fully buy the ending only because I felt like Kritzer was missing a key detail or two to help the final events hang together, but it’s still a compelling portrait of an obvious monster, and the similar, subtler traits we all share. ”Two Truths and a Lie,” Sarah Pinsker Pinsker’s work isn’t always to my taste, but I really liked this one. At first, it seems like a story completely devoid of SF: a compulsive liar visits an old friend whose hoarder brother has just died, and in the process of cleaning out his house, discovers tapes of an old local-access TV show in which a creepy man tells bizarre stories while children play beside him. Gradually, it becomes clear that all of the stories have come true, each referring to a different child – including the compulsive liar, who finds a fitting end in a story that never originally applied to her. The final rankings:

”Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super”

”Two Truths and a Lie”

”Monster”

”The Inaccessibility of Heaven”

”Helicopter Story”

”The Pill”

[margdarsanme]

NCERT Class 12 History Chapter 5 Through the Eyes of Travellers Perceptions of Society

NCERT Class 12 History Solutions

Chapter 5 Through the Eyes of Travellers Perceptions of Society

NCERT TEXTBOOK QUESTIONS SOLVED : Q l. Write a note on the Kitab-ul-Hind.

Ans. Kitab-ul-Hind was written by Al-Biruni in 1031. It was considered with India and also known by the name of Tarikh-ul-Hind and Tahqiq-ma-ul-Hind. It was written in Arabic. It is divided into 80 Chapters. They have thrown a detailed light on Hindu religions and philosphy, festivals, customs and tradition, the social and economic as well as political life of the people. In each chapter he adopted a distinctive style and had a question in the beginning. It was followed by a description based on Sanskrit tradition, At last he compare the India culture with other culture. This geometric structure he followed is known for its precision and predictability. The main reason for this structure was Al-Biruni’s mathematical orientation. Q 2. Compare and contrast the perspectives from which Ibn Battuta and Bernier wrote their accounts of their travels in India.

Ans. Both have written them accounts in their different prospectives. While Ibn Battuta describe everything that impressed and excited him because of his novelty, Bernier had followed a different intellectual tradition. He wrote whatever he saw in India. Bernier wanted to pin point the weakness of the Indian society and considered the Mughal India Inferior to European society. In his description Ibn Battuta recorded his observation about new culture, people, believes and values. Q 3. Discuss the picture of urban centres that emerges from Bernier’s accout.

Ans. During the 17th century nearly 15% of population was living in town. This was average proportion of urban population of western Europe. Bernier described Mughal towns as court towns. By it he meant those towns which depended upon the imperial court for their existence and survival. These towns came into existence with the imperial court and declined with the impanel court when they moved to other places. In his travel accounts, Bernier described many big towns and cities such as Delhi, Mathura, Kashmir, Surat, Masulipatnam and Golconda. These gained importance as manufacturing centres, trading towns, and sacred towns. The merchant communities had deep influence in these cities. They remained organised due to their own caste and occupational bodies. These trading groups were known as Mahajans in western India. Their head was called Sheth. In Ahmedabad, the chief of Merchant community was known as nagarsheth. Besides the trading groups, musicians, architects, painters, lawyers, calligraphies, etc. lived in towns. Q 4. Analyse the evidence for slavery provided by Ibn Battuta.

Ans. Battuta has given a detailed description on the practice of slavery prevalent in India. Delhi Sultan-Muhammad bin Tughlaq had a large number of slaves. Most of these slaves were forcibly captured during the aggressions. Many people sold their children as a slave, because of acute poverty. Slaves were also offered as a gift during this time. Battuta when visited him, also brought many horses, camels and slaves for the Sultan to present him. Sultan Muhammad bin Tuglaq, himself had presented two hundred slaves to Nasiruddin a religious preacher.

Nobels are used to keep slave those days. Through these slaves, the Sultan used to get information about the activities of the noble and all other important events of the empire. The woman slaves served as servants in the house of the rich (nobles). These women informed the Sultan about the activities of their masters (i.e., nobles). Most of the slaves used to do domestic works and there was a lot of difference between the status of these slaves and the court slaves. Q 5. What were the elements of the practice of sati that drew the attention of Bernier?

Ans. The practice of sati according to Bernier showed the difference in the treatment of women in western and eastern society. He noticed how a child widow were forcefully burnt screaming on the funeral pyre while many of the older women were resigned their fate. The following elements drew his attention. (i) Under this cruel practices an alive widow was forcibly made to sit on the pyre of her husband. (ii) People had no sympathy for her. (iii) The widow was an unwilling victim of the sati-practice. She was forced to be a Sati. Q 6. Discuss Al-Biruni’s understanding of the caste system.

Ans. Al-Biruni’s description about caste system as he understood. Al-Biruni tried to explain the caste system by looking far parallels in other societies. He described that in ancient Persia, four social categories were recognised. (i) knight and princes. (ii) monks (iii) fire-priests and lawyers; physicians, astronomers, other scientists; (iv) Finally, peasants and artisans. He attempted to suggest that social divisions were not unique to India.

His description of the caste system in India was deeply influenced by his study of Sanskrit texts. According to these texts, the highest castes were the Brahmins as they were created from the head of the Brahmins.

The Kshatriyas were the next caste created from the shoulders and hands of the Brahmin. The Vaishyas and Shudras were created from the thighs and feet of the Brahmin respectively. Thus, he sought to understand the Indian caste system by looking for parallels in other societies. Nothing that ancient Persian society was divided into four categories he realized that social division was not unique to India.

But despite accepting the caste system he was against the notion of pollution. He believed that according to the laws of nature anything which becomes impure ultimately becomes pure again, e.g. the sun clears the air. The concept of social pollution is the bedrock of the caste system. Thus, the caste system was according to him contrary to the laws of nature. He failed to realize that the caste system was not as rigid as portrayed in the Sanskrit texts. Q 7. Do you think Ibn Battuta’s account is useful in arriving at an understanding of life in contemporary urban centres? Give reasons for your answer.

Ans. Battuta’s observation about the cities of India.

(i) According to him, Indian cities had many exciting opportunities and are useful for those who had the necessary drive, skill and resources.

(ii) The Indian cities were prosperous and densely populated.

(iii) These cities had colourful market trading in different kinds of goods.

(iv) Delhi was the largest city of India and had a lot of population. Daultabad was an another important city of India which challenged Delhi in size.

(v) The cities were not only the centre of economic transactions but also the centres of ! social and cultural activities.

(vii) Most of the bazars in the cities had temple and mosques.

(viii) Cities also had fixed places for public performances by dancer, musicians and singer. He found that many towns derived their wealth and prosperity through the appropriation of surplus from villages.

(ix) Indian goods were in great demand in west Asia and South-east Asia. So the artisans and merchants earned huge profit. Q 8. Discuss the extent to which Bernier’s accounts enables historians to reconstruct contemporary rural society.

Ans. Bernier’s assessment about Indian rural society was not correct. It was far away from the truth, but it is not acceptable. There are some truth in his description which are evident from the following facts.

(i) According to his account, mughal empire was the owner of the land and distributed among its nobles. It had a disastrous impact on the society.

(ii) According to him the system of crown of ownership of land was good. It was because, the land holders could not pass on their land to their children. They did not make any long term investment on the land.

(iii) As there was no private property in land, there was not any improvement in the landlord class. This system ruin agriculture and led to opinion of peasants. Bernier’s view regarding Indian society had the following features: (a) The rich people Were in minority. (b) It had the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich, no middle class existed there. (c) All the cities and towns were reined and had contaminated air. Q 9. Read this excerpt from Bernier:

List the crafts mentioned in the passage. Compare these with the descriptions of artisanal activity in the chapter.

Ans. :

I. Names of the crafts mentioned in this passage. In this passage the crafts such as making of muskets and following pieces and making beautiful gold ornaments are mentioned. These products were beautifully made. Bernier was amazed to see these products.

II. Comparison of crafts referred in the passage with the description of artisanal activity in the chapter. (i) In the chapter boat manufacturing and terracottan sculpture and temple architecture has been mentioned. (ii) Art of painting has been referred. (iii) Art of carpet manufacturing has been referred. (iv) Art of dance, music and calligraphy have been referred in the chapter. (v) Description about Rajal Khamos have also been mentioned. Q 10. On an outline map of the world, mark the countries visited by Ibn Battuta. What are the seas that he might have crossed?

Ans. :

Countries visited by Ibn Battuta: (i) Morocco (ii) Mecca (iii) Syria (iv) Iraq (v) Persia (vi) Yamen (vii) Oman (viii) China (ix) India (x) Maldives (xi) Sri Lanka (xii) Sumatra (Indonesia)

Name of Seas: (i) North Atlantic Ocean (ii) South Atlantic Ocean (iii) Indian Ocean (iv) Red Sea (v) Arabian Sea (vi) Bay of Bengal (vii) South China Sea (viii) East China Sea.

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