#Xerxes

[thatsbelievable]

[ballpitbee]

THE 'GOOD GUYS' OF STREETLAMP <3

[toixxy]

Drew my MHR and MHW hunters (I am physically incapable of not maining hammer)

[xinesthetic]

Been like a year. It was about damn time I draw him again

[grokebaby]

He had to fight the tears of rage, his heart beat like a drum

For with the wife of his best friend he'd spent his final night of freedom

[Sequel piece to This]

[askvectorprime]

What are the universal streams of Earthspark and Transformers One? With the Shrouding preventing the TransTech from plotting the multiverse, it falls on us fans to do so instead. That brings up a couple of questions. What exactly is the exact, precise definition of a universal cluster which we can use to checklist all future media to determine whether it’s a new cluster or not? You previously designated Cyberverse as Khathos cluster. All three use evergreen. Are they the same cluster?

Dear Continuity Codifier,

As you note, the actions of my brother Nexus have greatly limited the Transcendent Technomorphs' ability to map the universe. Since the Shroud fell, Axiom Nexus had only been able to concretely identify four new "pillar realities"; while consensus has labelled one of the four as Primax 623.14 Gamma, the other three—temporarily classified as 818.27 Alpha, 1122.11 Alpha, and 924.20 Delta—have yet to be conclusively named. As you say, stream 818.27 Alpha has tentatively been classified as part of the Khathos cluster; however, there are still many who argue it belongs as part of the Primax or Uniend clusters. Universe 1122.11 Alpha has been similarly argued to be part of the Primax, Uniend or Khathos clusters; among those who consider it to be part of its own cluster, proposed names include Gaius, Pentis, Ninmah, Onogo, and Dheghom. As for stream 924.20 Delta—well, it was detected so recently that there is nowhere near consensus on its placement or classification, with some scientists proposing it to be part of the Tyran cluster thanks to their near-identical levels of Lorenz-Ω electromagnetic force.

Of course, as I've mentioned before, the academic discourse surrounding universal streams is far from settled. In fact, in the aftermath of the Shroud, a significant corpus has come to believe that the terminology of "universal clusters", while once useful, has become redundant now that there are barely a Prime's dozen reality streams to keep track of. Some have proposed adopting the "spacetime" system of Cloud World to more precisely pinpoint spatio-temporal coordinates within these realities, while others have suggested entirely new systems that would "lump" universes together more broadly—though, of course, each of these approaches introduces its own difficulties that make me doubt that the current paradigm will be abandoned any time soon. The universal stream system may not be perfect, but it is functional, and I have my doubts that any replacement would have benefits outweighing the difficulties in completely overhauling the system from the ground up.

Ah, but I digress. You wanted to know how universal clusters are determined? Well, as I have illustrated, that is a complex and highly subjective process. Generally, TransTech scientists will log a reality stream's most fundamental traits—ranging from macro-scale aspects such as a high level of WY-att interference waves, to micro-scale details like the presence or absence of the AllSpark—and compare them to other, similar realities, grouping them by their most common shared traits. Thus, a reality in which the Mini-Cons were central to the Cybertronians' war, the power of Primus manifests through Cyber Keys, and the planet Xerxes is at least five parsecs off-course from impact with the Omicron Rift might be classed as part of the Aurex Cluster, and so on. These heuristics might strike you as rather arbitrary, and indeed there are one or two outspoken researchers to have come out of Axiom Nexus’ organic population, who are increasingly vocal in their criticism of the TransTechs’ classification system for its cybercentric framing of reality.

Ultimately, I think you are correct: it is up to you, not we Transformers, to determine how to categorize the multiverse in the way you find most useful. Surely you would be better served by a taxonomy that reflects more human-relevant concerns—perhaps distinguishing realities by whether or not the Federation of Western Europe was founded, or the number of Earth's moons?

[pedroam-bang]

300: Rise Of An Empire (2014)

[fmascreencaps]

[agbpaints]

Valkyrie Galaxy is one of the Rasalhague Dominion's most prestigious aerospace formations. Originally formed as the close defense lines for Clan Ghost Bear's warship fleet, in the modern era they are tasked with protecting Rasalhague and other key strategic worlds. In general only the best new pilots or very decorated veterans are assigned to its clusters.

The Xerxes is the Hunchback IIC of the skies- originally built by Clan Smike Jaguar but having proliferated to all Clan militaries, the 85 ton aerospace fighter mounts two leviathan Ultra AC/20s and a pair of ER Large Lasers, along with a truly mammoth carrying capacity for bombs and other externally mounted ordinance. The fighter has extremely poor heat management and very thin armor, but it generally only requires a single pass to totally obliterate a target.

Mmm tasty tasty countershading

[qs63]

Was Xerxes an isolationist-ethnostate? Why?

This may sound like a weird question but it's something that has been bothering me for a while. Whenever we see Xerxes everyone pretty much looks the same. Golden hair, golden eyes, light skin. We know there was a Xing-Xerxes-Amestris train and caravans of Xing merchants back then. Still we don't see a single non-Xerxian in the flashbacks or within Father's and Hohenheim's philosopher stones. 

This has led me to believe that Xerxes' must have been an isolationist-ethnostate. Here is my reasoning:

Neither Amestris nor Xing had alchemy before Father and Hohenheim taught them, and in present FMA alchemy is rare enough that only Amestris has military use of it. Meanwhile, Xerxes is presented as having alchemy knowledge that even present Amestris lacks. That must mean Xerxes' discovered Alchemy, somehow, and kept that knowledge for themselves alone. That could explain why there isn't a single foreigner in the flashbacks. People from the "lesser" nations must have been forbidden entrance in order to keep the secrets of Alchemy safe.

This also explains why we see the Xing merchants that save Hohenheim walking so far away from Xerxes, even though there was a train connecting both nations. It's entirely possible the trains were only to carry precious cargo from the subjugated nations into Xerxes, who would have many needs considering they live in a desert. This would also explain why the train line was completely neglected after Xerxes fall. If it was Xerxes running it (perhaps with alchemy) and only for their own benefit neither Amestris nor Xing would have the means nor want to keep it running. 

Lastly, considering how lunatic King Xerxes seemed, him being deadly afraid of anyone else getting the knowledge of alchemy sounds perfectly on brand for him.

[invizz]

any pandora heart fans around?? 👀 i cant find people who read and love it as much as i doooo 😭

[thatsbelievable]

[ballpitbee]

OH my god I never posted Xerxes. Hes a corner store shop keeper in Streetlamp

[silversailormoan]

Want to write a FMAB fanfic so bad (but I have skill issues when it comes to plotty fics) where one of the souls inside Hohenheim is the crown prince of Xerxes and he's very determined. Determined for what exactly even he doesn't know– since it's not like he can bring his people back– but he's determined all the same. Determined to not stay with Hohenheim, maybe. Determined to go and do something, maybe.

Whatever the motivation, he manages to slip by and get into Ed's body instead during some innocuous event or the other. Maybe Hohenheim was showing the boys alchemy, maybe he was doing alchemy and the boys sneaked up on him, either way, Ed was touching him or the array or somehow, he ended up in little Ed's body.

Fascinating how this'd change the story with Ed having another soul whispering to him. He still ignores his every warning and does human transmutation. Prince/soul is pissed off because to him, the brothers are the only remaining Xerxians and his foolishness nearly made that number go to zero. The soul whispering stories of Xerxes to keep Ed company while he heals from his surgery. It's fascinating, but all Ed can focus on is the grief, the bitterness in his voice.

(it's a thousand fold of what he felt when he lost his mother, and he sees where the soul was coming from when he got angry at them. just a little.)

The soul giving Ed little helpful nudges here and there when it comes to manners. Ed's still Ed, but he'd had The Voice with him as long as he can remember and sometimes it's hard to know where Ed ends and Prince begins. Sometimes he's just a little more graceful. Sometimes his hands shake, overwhelmed by waves of anger for people he didn't know and a country beyond his time. Ed is honest, brash, and sincere, but Prince gives him careful nudges here and there, knows how to manipulate and when they're being manipulated.

(both of them don't mind when mustang does it. but ed doesn't want to play in the political game either, so he reigns in prince before the soul goes overboard with his strategizing and reminds him of why they're here.)

Ed learning about the whole dirty backstory of what happened to Xerxes in the most flippant of conversations, because while prince tells him a lot about the country itself, he deems Ed too young to know the ugly truth.

(and tries desperately to convince himself that it's not because he's terrified of sharing the knowledge. that it's not because he's too jaded and hateful to trust this one child that he has seen grow before his very eyes. that he's not scared of the power this kid can and has wielded, that he wonders how far he'd go for his little brother.)

The Soul never expects it to come out from a half bitter joke about how Ed's probably the last crown prince of Xerxes now, Ed snarking back with a reminder that he's just a soul that hitched a ride and Ed's a separate person, thank you very much. He never expected the discussion to develop from just fooling around to a full blown argument about how "you need to accept that your country is gone and let go of the past" (he thinks it's rich, coming from Edward Elric) and "stop running away from your roots (Ed sparks up at that, because he'd always be Trisha's son, first. No amount of Hohenheim's blood can change that). It's their second big argument other than the human transmutation one, and somehow this leads to The Soul finally opening up about what exactly happened in Xerxes.

He doesn't know anything other than what he's put together after listening in to Hohenheim talk for all those centuries, and it's the ignorance that chafes at him more than anything, but he tells the child everything he knows. (He tries to end it with a joke about technically Hohenheim staged a coup against the royal family and won, so Ed would be the last crown prince–and that's what he originally meant anyway– but judging by the kid's pale face and faraway eyes, he doubts Ed heard him.)

They both have a shared dark humor though, and one time Ed ended up laughing for ten minutes straight when it hit him that he has a body-less soul and a soul-less body with him, and he can't help either. (It's not a good laugh.)

Just,,,, so many possibilities

[xinesthetic]

Celebrating Vnc's return by drawing Pandora Hearts

[grokebaby]

He knew that it would cost him dear, yet did he dare not say

Where he had been that fateful night, secret it must stay