#machine orthodoxy

[littjara-mirrorlake]

What is the white material of the fair basilica, and is it the same as the material of Norn’s head piece and the bodies of white aligned Phyrexians?

As far as I know it's also Orthodoxy porcelain, yes! There are also actual people built into the walls in some places.

A fun fact about that is that in addition to developing naturally on core-born Orthodoxy Phyrexians, it grows in a fungus-like manner on dying and dead flesh (from the Planeswalker's Guide to the Machine Orthodoxy).

Therefore, it would follow to me that the Orthodoxy actually doesn't need the Furnace to create and shape its biometal, since they can grow it themselves.

I believe I also heard/read somewhere that as of ONE, the Orthodoxy has also taken to incorporating tooth enamel into their creations, but I can't find a source for that offhand so take it with a grain of salt. It would make a lot of sense, though. It's a very hard organic substance, and a lot of the white Phyrexians in ONE are seen with tooth motifs, as well as the buildings themselves.

[ask-the-praetors]

Elesh Norn...

If you hate flesh so much, why are you the color of meat and bone?

The material that covers our exalted bodies has been thoroughly reprocessed–that is to say, blessed–by the rites of compleation. As such, it is no longer the sinful, divided meat and bone it once was. Only the spiritually blind assume a resemblance, but all will share the vision before long–even you.

Phyrexia elevates and transforms. What was once the biomatter of an isolated fleshling becomes sanctified with oil and cable, knitting it to the true Whole.

-E

[phyrexianphamily]

I want to thank all the evil gays.

Elesh Norn after the compleation of Mirrodin, New Phyrexia

[forgottenbones]

[tanadrin]

I know there are only so many ways to phrase the insight "Tsar Nicholas II has no idea what he was doing" in a way that makes it interesting, but I do wonder what the endgame of Nicholas and the reactionaries really was in Russia in the 1900s and 1910s. Let's say he's right about everything: let's say orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality can work as an ideology, that the Tsarist state isn't a creaking old half-rotted machine that has embarrassingly poor capacity (and stops abruptly above the local level relevant to 75% of the population), let's say all your loyal-but-reformist-ministers like Witte and Stolypin are wrong, conditions are fine, this agitation really is the pernicious influence of foreigners and Jews, and "true Russians" (whatever that means) really do love you.

You still got your ass kicked by the Japanese, you still rule a country which is embarrassingly poor given its size and population, your tiny middle class still has very little capital to invest in industry because all the surplus is getting hoovered up by your nobles and you, personally. Russia, as a military and economic engine to which your family's fortunes are irrevocably yoked (unless you abdicate and go into exile, which we all know you won't), is still well behind other European great powers, and the next big war you fight against a peer nation is going to go even worse than the one with Japan, if it happens in your backyard--which is inevitable, because you are playing great power politics like you are the German Kaiser, and not the Russian Tsar.

So what is your endgame? Stagnate forever? I guess this is demanding too much from a man who genuinely thought God was on his side, who was totally out of touch with the events of the day, and whose interest in the affairs of state far outstripped his understanding of those affairs. But there were a lot of reactionaries in Russia in those days, who seemed to share Nicholas's passion for stasis and autocracy. And no matter how many anti-semitic conspiracies you fund in occupied Poland, it's not gonna keep the Prussians at bay come 1914! And it's not like he didn't have a ton of loyal ministers who were 1000% on board with a strong monarchy and who also had clever ideas on how to improve state capacity and expand industry.

[sorinmarkov]

Sharing my art for compleated Sorin Markov! It’s a design I’ve been workshopping for a few months, and I really like how it’s turning out!

The idea of Sorin in the machine orthodoxy has been rattling around in my brain for awhile-

[incorrect-mtg]

The Argent Etchings teach no fear

Fez Xa'ktiz knew no fear as he stepped through the omenpath, even though it was the first time he would be in a world not his own. He was the First Vanguard of the Choir within the Seven Hundred and Forty Eighth Expedition Force of the Alabaster Host and through his lips the song of the Mother of Machines would be spread, her presence was always with — within — him.

Fear was a weakness of the incompleat, of those not yet blessed by the light of Phyrexia, not yet held in the sweet embrace of the Mother of Machines, not yet baptized in ichor. It was the inevitable result of imperfection and lack of unity, something that would soon be eradicated through their work, where the entire multiverse would find purpose and belonging.

Fez Xa'ktiz was not born to feel fear, he was born to sing. He was not born to be alone, he forever heard the whispers of the Mother of Machines, the guiding force of his own voice.

"In the Argent Etchings we each learn our appointed duties and so we understand our purpose" he heard the Mother whisper within him, and so it was with delight that he fully crossed the boundary into a nameless world.

As the rest of the Expedition Force stepped through the omenpath behind him — alongside a number of members of the Chrome Host — he did a first survey of the site of their arrival. Although the Machine Orthodoxy held knowledge of countless worlds, eagerly gathered in preparation of the events now unfolding, there were countless more about which they had known little to nothing. He had been trusted with charting one such world, hence the presence of the Chrome Host, and so any insight would be beneficial.

The most noticeable aspect was the material of the walls that surrounded him — organic, disgusting wood — and then the realization that they had, indeed, arrived in a room. A large hall, rectangular in shape, its dark and stained walls covered by peeling and roting paper and littered with assorted objects that might have long ago implied a living presence. At the each of the most distant ends of the hall, flimsy doors hid the rest of the world from sight.

Curious... although the Mother of Machines guaranteed that their feet would find stable ground to cross on arrival, he thought it unlikely for said ground to be in a building, much less an abandoned one.

His duty was not to ask questions, however, unlike the members of the Chrome Host that had immediately set upon their given task of setting up observation devices, scanners and other such contraptions. Typical of apostates who saw observation of their surroundings as a better path to perfection than the much more enlightened learning through the Argent Etchings themselves.

"In the Argent Etchings we see the world as it should be, and so they light the path towards perfection" whispered the voice of the Mother of Machines again as he turned towards his fellows in the Alabaster Host. Unlike their Gitaxian counterparts, they had organized themselves single file, silent and waiting for orders. Sixteen divisions of sixteen soldiers, each led by another Vanguard of the Choir, the perfect ordination for the forces of Phyrexia.

Fez Xa'ktiz opened his mouth and let ring the song to which he had been entrusted, its metallic shrieking and undulating depths shaking the walls around them at the same time it gave the soldiers purpose. As each member of the Choir echoed in delightfully rending harmony, they set out to do their work. The forces split in two and moved towards each door, followed by quickly assembled Gitaxian probes. As both doors opened into new halls, each splitting off into different directions, the Host split up further into smaller forces, until finally each division pressed on individually, mapping out the path that they took and noting all other paths they missed, which would likely be explored by the drones the Chrome Host was sending off.

Although not able to see through their eyes, the resonance of their singing allowed Fez Xa'ktiz a measure of understanding of the surroundings each division passed through, which let him see that whatever building had been unwittingly chosen as the landing spot of their invasion was still large enough that none of their forces had arrived at an outside. Odd, although not beyond the realm of possibility — perhaps this place was a crude and disgustingly organic facsimile of the Fair Basilica, an entire world brought within a greater structure — and something that would definitely be worth noting.

Of perhaps equal note was the first living being found within the plane: a moth, its gray fluttering wings carrying it through the doors and right by him. Perhaps it had sat in a hidden alcove, and the passing forces had awoken it? How serendipitous, then, that it had been drawn by the light of the omenpath right towards them.

Bringing forth a hand towards the insect, Fez Xa'ktiz was delighted to see it land upon his claw, its wings closing and antennae fluttering as they regarded each other, black eyes meeting perfectly polished ivory... This creature, insignificant as it might be, would be fitting first initiate for this world. A moth reaching for the light and finding its own perfection upon arrival.

Extending his tongue, he let it be cut by one of his sharp fangs, black ichor dripping through the wound. Leaning his head down, he let it drip directly onto the moth until its gray wings turned black. Surprisingly it had no reaction to such a treatment, even though he knew compleation was supposed to be — meant to be — a painful process.

"Weakness burrows deep in the flesh of the incompleat. It bites down and refuses to let go. Their first step towards perfection is to extricate it and bleed out its rot" taught the Mother of Machines, even though the vermin on his claw seemed to defy such clear teachings... Until the entire thing came undone, breaking apart like petals falling off a dead flower.

Perhaps... Perhaps it was simply too weak. If someone — something — was wholly comprised of weakness, how could they remove it without ceasing to exist entirely? Yes, that made sense. To react in pain, to shake and twist and cry, one would need parts of themselves to remain, the parts that weren't corrupted by weakness. The insect likely had nothing to offer and so could not even muster a reaction.

He put the moth out of his mind, focusing on more important matters: one division had finally met living beings to oppose its passage. Not insignificant vermin, but actual fighters charging directly at them.

The walls rumbled and shook as Fez Xa'ktiz increased the volume of his song, the lessons and tactics etched in his mind echoing towards the legions of soldiers now finally seeing battle. Like the beasts of the Hunter Maze, warriors seemed to come out of the woodwork, their rusty and jagged weapons doing little and nothing against perfect phyrexian soldiers-

No, that wasn't right... The walls, they had not shaken due to his song, had they? Or had they? He didn't understand why it mattered, but he would swear that they shook first, then he had intensified his singing...

"The enem- even some of our al- see meri- ception- crush- overwhel-" murmured... The Mother of Machines? Why could he not hear her clearly?

He sang louder still, certain his voice would reach all members of their force — be it Alabaster or Chrome — and through the omenpath itself to the Mother of Machines. In the echo of his song, he would find stable ground-

His next step — had it been a step forward, towards his soldiers, or backwards, towards the omenpath? — found nothing but empty air, the wood underneath him rotting and opening into an abyss.

He quickly spread his wings, trying to stabilize and go back to where he had been even as he was spun around by gravity and air resistance, until his body met the ground with a loud crack and roaring pain and his consciousness left him.

When he woke up, one of his wings broken after taking most of the force of his fall, he did not know how long he had laid there. It could not have been long, certainly, for the Chrome Host would have certainly sent a drone to retrieve him given enough time — shameful as it might have been — and yet he laid alone, the silence of the room cut only by a dripping sound.

(Why was he alone? Why could he not hear the voice of the Mother of Machines)

He looked around, taking stock of the room and how its smooth white walls were almost as beautiful as those of the Fair Basilica, except instead of being made of ivory they seemed covered by... Wax?

His gaze finally fell upon his remaining wing. Rather than being bent out of shape like its counterpart, the limb has been spread behind and to the side of him, and was covered in the same material that covered the rest of the room, already in the process of solidifying. Another drip, directly onto it, served as confirmation.

To fly back with a single wing would prove a challenge, but with two wings damaged it would be impossible. Furthermore, if he was to be forced to drag himself up the hole he had fallen through, the weight of the wax would simply make things harder. Without hesitation, he pushed his claws under the material, right where feathers met wax: Even if some of it had dried already, the ichor that would pour through the wounds would close them quickly, he was certain-

That certainty lasted only until the pain — beyond what he had ever felt, ever knew could be felt — spread from his wing as he pulled the wax off. This- this wasn't normal. He-

The liquid that poured out of his wounds, where wax had pulled feathers and skin and bones alongside it, was not ichor.

It was red... Why was it red?

"What foolish prey, that wanders into an open maw thinking themselves the predators" whispered the Mother- no, this was not her voice. These were not her words.

The walls surrounding him rumbled once again, so hard it seemed the entire world was shaking, before stopping. Then again, before stopping, repeating, stopping, and on and on and on.

As Fez Xa'ktiz laid alone, his wounds bleeding a liquid that should not be there, he knew that the rumbling was certainly the consequences of battle: the Mother of Machines must have heard his last cries and sent forth more soldiers to tame this accursed world.

And yet a small part of him couldn't help but fear that the rumbling felt like a delighted and cruel laughter.

[bread-making-vikings]

Do you have a recommendation for where to start with Adrian Tchaikovsky? Been wanting to give his books a try!

Depends what you like! This is turning into a weird ramble/list I keep editing and shifting so sorry if it makes 0 sense.

Harder space-y sci-fi

My intro was Children of Time, which is a gorgeous hard sci-fi book about sapient spiders on a terraforming project gone wrong. 2 sequels that go further into what counts as a person and what sapience looks like in a totally alien world.

Shards of Earth is probably his most classic sci-fi series - big aliens have been tearing up planets, humanity is a diaspora, scrungly space psychic for some reason ends up having to deal with it.

Cage of Souls is probably my favourite - academic sent to a prison in the wilderness, in the "Last Days of Humanity" (but actually what we call humanity is very nebulous and what counts as Last Days is very subjective, there's rat people).

Alien Clay - revolutionaries sent to a planet where everything wants to Become You. Absolute Banger, but I can't describe much without spoiling it or really diluting it.

Revolutions - trilogy of novellas in 1 volume, about different oppressive societies and what it takes to overturn them, and to sustain a new system in their place.

More grounded sci-fi

Doors of Eden - diverging timelines creating a multiverse where different species got a chance at dominance. Spacefaring trilobites. Earth-spanning Ediacaran mats. Neanderthal men in black. Slaps real hard. Great lesbians. Amazing trans woman.

Dog of War/Bear Head/third one coming out soon aaaaa - humanity creates an anthropomorphic slave race, and it's from the perspective of a dogman programmed and trained and genetically predisposed to being a Good Dog (i.e. doing war crimes on orders) and the journey of him and his pals breaking free and what it means to be independent when you've known nothing else. Lots of absolution of responsibility vs taking control of yourself. Another one that's so subtly complex I can't go into more without doing it a disservice.

Fantasy

his first series Shadows of the Apt, which I believe was based on a TTRPG, is about a bunch of insect-based cultures (he likes crawlies) and some quest-happening between them. A bit steampunk, a bit magical, not necessarily his best work at the start, but very formative for his style and ideas. And really good worldbuilding that you can feel the passion leaking out of.

The Tiger and The Wolf - bronze age shapeshifters, maybe a destiny or maybe the MC just happens to be in the middle of a bunch of shit. Really good.

City of Last Chances - a little bit China Mieville tbh, weird city where magic is strange and everywhere, under the foot of an empire fuelled by killing gods and replacing them with their own brand of orthodoxy. 2nd one I haven't read yet and I think a 3rd one soon.

I've definitely forgotten loads because he is a Machine who doesn't ever stop writing, solely to bankrupt me and make me keep rearranging the T section of my bookcases.

He also has a load of short stories, and a bunch of them are very genre-hopping. He absolutely churns them out so I'm amazed they're so consistently good. Unlike a bunch of other sci fi authors in the UK he also includes gender and racial diversity in a super thoughtful and profound way, and is constantly supporting smaller and minority authors. Most of his books' themes are about the power of community, resistance against oppressive regimes, and the strengthening of any society by variation within and around it (some of the lines in Alien Clay about the oppression of a nonbinary scientist specifically made me bawl). And person doesn't just mean human.

Also, he cultivates an amazing variety of narrative voices between and within his books, so if you don't like one please please please don't give up there and try one of the other different ones.

tl;dr: if you prefer sci fi start with Children of Time, if you prefer fantasy start with the Tiger and the Wolf.

[pharmaciacatholica]

Someone once told me that suicide isnt like a "you're going to hell rn" situation because its often done under extreme stress/altered mental states and people aren't always in full control of themselves. I am sure the "instant hell" sentiment is probably a protestant thing but do you happen to know more on this?

I actually have a post in my drafts about this but is a subject that I do not love to speak on because it is inherently sensitive and it can often be difficult to express hardline truths without coming off as callous.

The cool part about being Catholic is that I often do not need to wade into the waters on my own. For the most part, I am able to point to the words or a far more learned and pious man than myself. In this case, I have the written words of Pope Saint John Paul II:

Suicide is always as morally objectionable as murder. The Church's tradition has always rejected it as a gravely evil choice.(x)(x) Even though a certain psychological, cultural and social conditioning may induce a person to carry out an action which so radically contradicts the innate inclination to life, thus lessening or removing subjective responsibility, suicide, when viewed objectively, is a gravely immoral act. In fact, it involves the rejection of love of self and the renunciation of the obligation of justice and charity towards one's neighbour, towards the communities to which one belongs, and towards society as a whole.(x)(x) In its deepest reality, suicide represents a rejection of God's absolute sovereignty over life and death, as proclaimed in the prayer of the ancient sage of Israel: "You have power over life and death; you lead men down to the gates of Hades and back again" (Wis 16:13; cf. Tob 13:2).

Evangelium Vitae (paragraph 66)

So you are partially correct and partially incorrect in your assessment. For some people, and I’ve seen this before, to go around telling those who have had a loved one commit suicide that they are burning in hell is completely insane and unjustifiable. It is also extremely dangerous to play off suicide as something that isn’t a grave sin or that every time it happens the person isn’t culpable for their actions. Suicide is one of the sins that landed Judas in hell, because he chose despair over repentance and mercy. I also think G.K. Chesterton spoke very poetically on the subject here:

Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. Of course there may be pathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the burial at the cross-roads and the stake driven through the body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines. There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime is different from other crimes - for it makes even crimes impossible.

Orthodoxy

This is just the writing of an overrated layman poet, but it really drives home the point.

[cogwork-orthodoxy]

I stumbled upon two Very Nice brushes today and ended up busting this out in like a few hours. Some headcanons below the cut related to these designs.

Important note is that the design on the left is heavily inspired by soliusss and his design because. Well. She's the reason I even read the CotBG tales/SCPs in the first place. So my brain just kind of defaulted to their drawings and designs for the characters. The design on the right is more inspired by sunny-clockwork's design (the clothing being inspired particularly by this piece because I thought it looked interesting).

Now onto actual headcanons: the Orthodoxy separates the physical appearance of members according to their status in the church or "prestige". The more inhuman a member looks, the more popular or well-known they are within the church, and the higher their social status. Specifically because being more "inhuman" means that you are closer to MEKHANE/the machine, and that's like, very holy or whatever.

So my idea (because I always liked both of these designs for Trunnion, and wanted to combine them somehow) is that the design on the left is when Trunnion first joined the church. Her younger years, so to speak. She retains a few of her "human traits" (namely, having more of a human shaped mouth on the right side of her face, and her hair ((which is made of steel wool)) being visible), and her style is more casual/relaxed (for the time period, anyway).

The design on the right is when she begins to climb up in status; particularly when she begins to reach her "living saint" status (though, she's still a source of heavy debate by many of the church's members, thus her not being canonized posthumously). She's lost the human mouth bit, her hair is hidden, she loses her nose, and her manner of dressing is a bit more uptight/"saintly". Also, fancy boots, because she can afford those now. I imagine this is also when she starts to repress her anger and other "unsightly" aspects of her personality; "she's a saint now, and she should act like it."

Actual timeline for when she gets the switch over to the skull face design really just depends on what I want for any particularly story... However, if we're going with the idea that she became a saint before Volume 55.13.A-96, then that means it was sometime before the late 1990s/early 2000s (seeing as she mentions the "avatar of the Data", which comes from Maxwellism, which according to the hub unified in the mid 1990s).

Headcanons over. :] Thanks for reading all that.

[littjara-mirrorlake]

(Not necessarily the concept of the faction as a whole. Just its members.)

Examples of each in order:

[ask-the-praetors]

I think I finally understand the reason for flaying. Flesh (skin particularly), represents individual identity but also on a more fundamental level is a form of separation. It's a barrier between the body and the world at large. That separation is incompatible with phyrexia who's existence is supposed to be unified without the trappings of identity and ego. As phyrexia we can't tolerate ego or separation, to be one we must let go of all that divides us.

If only more of the meat-creatures would have your insight--as well as Phyrexia's own delinquent children. You will be of great use to the Orthodoxy disseminating our illuminated gospel.

Maybe even at my own right hand, if you prove yourself the most faithful. How about that?

There is no greater honor.

-E

[linalina-universe]

I've been praying on this daily. Transgender Christian converts.

Edit: While I do talk about Orthodoxy in this post. I am part of the Episcopal church. I posted this while I was on a journey of faith and It's had it's ups and downs. Please find the church you feel most comfortable in. I've been asking some of the saints, Holy Theotokos, and Jesus our Lord. As well as talking to my Guardian angel as I can. To help Bring my transgender eunuch siblings around the world to Faith in Jesus. Seeing all of the LGBT Christian Blogs recently on Tumblr is making me so Glad. God is Good. God Cares about us. Even if there are teachers in the church who condemn us for being different. Seek Reconciliation, Repentance. Learn to Forgive one another. Learn to Love one another. The path towards Jesus isn't easy. Much learning and Discernment it's a LONG ROAD. But keep learning about Jesus. Don't settle for less, but find a place to plant your roots. If you want to really get into the thick of it learn about Orthodoxy. But it takes time for us to get where we need to be. I do believe God listens to all of His Children though. The Holy spirit is everywhere. I would never judge whether or not a person is damned or saved due to what church they go to. That's up to Jesus, he is the judge. But come as you are. Never let a Church teacher hold Jesus over you do not conform to the whims of man as we are not of this world. Only Conform to the Whims of Jesus. Learn to be humble in life, Obedient to Jesus. Learn about humility. Realize no one person on this earth is any better than another. True humility is a virtue. It takes time to cultivate. We are imperfect. Learn LGBT History, ancient history, learn about eunuchs and Queer Saints. qspirit.net, But realize that many of these things are unkown without a time machine. Be sound in wisdom of our ancestors. Do not be defensive all the time though. Learn when to talk, listen to the silence. Do not let hate, and the machinations of this world such as political ideologies, capitalism control your life. We need money to work in this world. But money and possessions are temporary while Jesus and God are eternal. Pray for the Rich kings and politicians who persecute us pray that they seek Jesus. "It is better to Light a candle than to Curse the Darkness." Do not let the Darkness of media news overtake you. Pray for people around the world suffering. Count your blessings. Realize just how good you might have it. I recommend you learn about the Orthodox Saints of Alaska if you want to learn about actual anti-colonialist Christians. The Saints are wonderful examples of ideal Christian lives. I recommend Trisagion Films on youtube to learn about the saints. While I affirm LGBT relationships and see true Joy in them. I know unless Heaven and Earth are moved. The Orthodox/Romans will never Affirm them. I recommend merely Getting Married under the Law of the Land and then showing up at church. Have a celebration an an episcopal church I love the episcopal angelicans it's a safe respite for us queer Christians. I wish that LGBT marriages had been affirmed decades ago, then maybe some of the self destructive generational trauma we see in the queer community wouldn't exist. But we are a persecuted class and either way people dislike us. I hope someday the Orthodox have church mothers. We need women for the women and girls in the church to confide in. We need equal representation. I understand if not everyone agrees with me. But I love Jesus. I hope that being his servant like the court eunuchs of ancient times can be well pleasing to Him. Eunuchs were seen as angelic. His divine eros fulfills my heart in some ways as someone by tradition of ancient orthodoxy should technically be celibate. Live as yourself and know God loves you. Take your medicine and heal. He will never Give up on you. Art By Devlev on Deviantart. Please support them. They Draw Beautiful Queer art.

[hypexion]

I think one of the big missed opportunities with New Phyrexia is how ultimately all the Praetors maybe minus Urabrask are ultimately flattened into a single "take over the multiverse" unit. Elesh Norn dominates the plane, not just in an organisational sense, but an ideological one. Gestures are made towards the idea of disagreements, but the reasoning behind them is fairly shallow. The Praetors are not one big happy Phyrexian family, but why?

Each Praetor should have a specific idea of what Phyrexia is, and these ideas must ultimately come into conflict. Even those who appear to be in alignment should clash as the details of their goals become clear.

So, what do I think each Praetor should be thinking? Here are some brief summaries:

Elesh Norn sees both Phyrexia and compleation as ends into themselves. The purpose of Phyrexia is spread itself across the multiverse, for All to Be One. This is a blessing, a kindness, a way to end conflict and bring unity. Those who oppose Phyrexia are impulsive and selfish, denying themselves and others absolution, in favour of failed ideals such as freedom. Their destruction is a tragedy, but a necessary one. Like the excision of a tumor, it is unpleasant work, but in the end it is an act of healing.

Norn's ultimate goal is a single Phyrexian multiverse. All moves in accordance to its given purpose, a grand, endless machine. But it is not a silent machine. Hymn and prayer will echo through the compleated halls of the multiverse, the song of Phyrexia filling the branches of Realmbreaker. And at the center, Elesh Norn will finally know contentment.

On the surface, Jin-Gitaxias appears to have the same goal as Norn. Both she and the rest of the multiverse have made a critical misjudgement of the Gitaxian mission. When the Orthodoxy says that something will be made Phyrexian, it is an act of replacement. For Jin-Gitaxias, it is an act of consumption, the harvesting of a resource. All that is not Phyrexian will be rendered down, dissected into component parts. The greatest honour that can be given is for these parts to considered worthy of assimilation, to be integrated into Phyrexian perfection. Compleation extracts what is needed, and discards what is not, an endless iteration towards a convergence that may not exist.

For Jin-Gitaxias, there may be no end, no final Phyrexia. The synthesis will simply continue forever, chasing a goal that cannot be found. Or perhaps, once he can see far enough, the greatest secrets of the multiverse will be revealed. In his most fevered moments, Jin-Gitaxias may even consider that Phyrexia itself will become obselete.

As the closest adherent to the ways of Old Phyrexia, Sheoldred sees Phyrexia as a means, rather than an end. She is not superior because is Phyrexian, she is Phyrexian because she is superior. Compleation is a tool, both a reward for the worthy and a punishment for the unworthy. Sheoldred does not need to compleat the multiverse in its entirety. It is simply enough that it bows down before her. As long as the fleshlings know their place and purpose, they can continue to live their worthless lives.

Sheoldred's endgame produces what can, in the most charitable terms, be considered a form of co-existance between the compleat and incompleat. The Phyrexian elite rule, doing as they wish. The rest serve. But the opportunity for compleation is always there, the ascension to a greater form. Those who succeed shall be lauded. Those who fail will wish they had never tried.

Like his closest (?) sister (??), Urabrask sees Phyrexia as the means rather than the end. But while Sheoldred sees it as her tool to subjugate her enemies, Urabrask has come to see Phyrexia and compleation as a path to freedom. To many, it is an alien form of freedom, a freedom from your own limits, from your form and the world around you. You are your own great work, and you define what that means. Phyrexia gives you the tools to achieve it. And if there are those who oppose you? Well. They have the freedom to try. You have the freedom to retaliate until you are free from their opposition.

In the end, Urabrask believes that Phyrexia will be the self-evident choice. There will be no coercion because it will be unecessary. Some will merely dabble with compleation, while others will dedicate themselves fully to Phyrexia. Urabrask claims Phyrexia's victory in this form as an inevitability. Thus, where others claim tolerance, he is truly honest.

Vorinclex claims he has no ideology, no driving principle. He lies, to his followers, to his allies and enemies, and to himself. He believes in the supremacy of strength and violence, a "natural order" that is anything but natural. He desires a world without ideas such as cunning, cooperation or beauty, to him concepts linked only in their lack of worth. Yet these things emerge from nature, a million pressures selecting for their survival. Vorinclex claims thought is the opposite of strength, but he knows in truth it is its own kind of strength.

But the true seed of Vorinclex's madness is that he knows Phyrexia cannot be inevitable or eternal. Change is the only constant, and in time Phyrexia will change until it is no longer Phyrexian. That is if it survives. Like Jin-Gitaxias, Vorinclex carries a forbidden doubt, that Phyrexia can fall, that there is a greater strength waiting in the multiverse. A strength that has no need of Phyrexia.

Other Phyrexian ideologies are available. Perhaps Atraxa's views diverge from her creators, as her child Ixhel diverges from her. Some in the Surgical Bay may find Jin-Gitaxias' arguments insufficent, while the Hunter Maze holds those who reject the brutality of Vorinclex. Because like our own world, no people is a monolith. Every faith has it's heresy, every cause its divisions.

And given how Magic's five colours, well, colour how its worlds exist, so to should they colour New Phyrexia. As Ravnica holds ten guilds, Strixhaven five colleges or Tarkir five clans, New Phyrexia should in truth hold five Phyrexias.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Waleed Shahid and Francesca Fiorentini at Waleed's Substack:

A recent Media Matters study confirmed what many have long suspected: right-wing media has thoroughly colonized the digital entertainment ecosystem. Whether it’s comedy, sports, or long-form podcasts, conservative voices dominate. Nine of the ten most-followed online shows lean right, with figures like Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and Charlie Kirk commanding audiences that dwarf their progressive counterparts. The right isn’t just winning the media war—it’s setting the terrain of politics through it. The liberal response to this dominance has been, frankly, unserious. Rather than building a robust, independent, and ideologically coherent media infrastructure, Democratic-aligned institutions and progressive philanthropy have defaulted to a strange overcorrection: either (1) investing in entertainment that only lightly brushes against politics, hoping progressive values seep in through cultural osmosis, or (2) funding party-sanctioned messaging that reinforces Democratic orthodoxy, without grappling with the anti-establishment and populist appeal that gives right-wing media its edge. Both approaches are failing because both fundamentally misunderstand how the right actually wields media power. Conservative media isn’t just successful because it’s entertaining. It’s successful because it is a parallel political infrastructure—one that fuses ideology, entertainment, donor money and mobilization into a self-reinforcing loop. Right-wing media does not react to the Republican Party; it defines it. Figures like Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk don’t wait for RNC talking points—they create them. They shape the conservative worldview from the outside in, disciplining elected Republicans through relentless pressure while radicalizing audiences against mainstream institutions. Progressive media, by contrast, remains trapped in a reactive, defensive posture, often litigating GOP narratives rather than setting its own. And unlike its conservative counterpart, it is too often tethered to party elites, hesitant to challenge institutional Democratic power, and still operating as if gatekeepers hold the same influence they did 30 years ago. Unlike their right-wing counterparts, most political content creators on the center-left and left operate as independent freelancers, without institutional backing, full-time salaries, or basic benefits like healthcare. Many juggle multiple income streams—subscriptions, ad revenue, crowdfunding—just to sustain their work, leaving them vulnerable to burnout and reactive rather than strategic in their output. They often work alone, without the support of editors, researchers, or political operatives who could sharpen their messaging and deepen their impact. In contrast, right-wing content creators are frequently embedded within a well-funded ecosystem, backed by think tanks, billionaire donors, and political organizations that provide research, staff, and media connections. The result? Right-wing media functions as an ideological machine, while left-wing content creation remains scattered, precarious, and too often detached from the movements and institutions that could amplify its reach. This is the real asymmetry: the right’s media ecosystem is unabashedly ideological, intentionally insurgent, and generously resourced. The left’s remains reactive, scattered, and deferential to the Democratic Party. Until that changes, the left will continue losing the battle for public opinion—one podcast, one news cycle, one election at a time.

The Liberal Fantasy: Entertainment as Politics and the Limits of DNC Cheerleading

At the heart of the progressive media dilemma is both a category problem and a scope problem. Many right-wing creators have found success by labeling their content as “comedy” or “culture”—even when that’s a stretch—and eagerly diving into the world of pop culture, celebrity gossip, and viral controversies. The left, by contrast, often treats these realms as unserious or beneath them, despite their enormous influence on low-information and swing voters. While figures like Canadce Owens, Andrew Schultz, and Ben Shapiro use The Barbie Movie or the Blake Lively/Justin Baldoni discourse to subtly reframe the #MeToo movement—as Taylor Lorenz has noted—progressive media often cedes this terrain entirely. Entertainment and celebrity news are still viewed by many liberal commentators as frivolous, rather than as battlegrounds where public values are shaped and political narratives are tested. To be sure, the left needs to engage in pop culture, needs humor and needs to be entertaining. But right-wing media is also powerful because it is structured as an ideological project, not a content strategy.

[...]

The Left Needs to Build Power, Not Just Content

The lesson of right-wing media dominance isn’t that progressives need “a Joe Rogan.” It’s that the left needs its own ideological infrastructure—permanent, expansive, and independent of Democratic Party control that can build and represent working class populism. Until progressives recognize this, they will remain trapped in a cycle of reactive, defensive, and ultimately ineffective media engagement. The right has already built its machine. If the left doesn’t catch up, it will keep losing—not just in elections, but in the deeper contest over who defines political reality itself.

Read this column from Waleed Shahid and Fran Fiorentini on why the right-wing media apparatus is kicking our butt to the turf.

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

One morning in late February, Republicans in Washington greeted Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as a hero for continuing to resist Russian aggression. By afternoon, following Zelensky’s meeting in the Oval Office with Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance, the Ukrainian leader was an ungrateful, troublesome, and badly dressed warmonger who, if he hadn’t actually started the conflict with Russia, was the only obstacle to ending it.

After this new line was communicated to party leaders, a pro-Zelensky social-media post was taken down as swiftly as the banners denouncing Eurasia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and Senator Lindsey Graham—all supporters of Ukraine—were sent out in front of the cameras like the Hate Week orator, not to explain a new policy but to pretend that nothing had changed while America switched sides. Using nearly identical language, Rubio, Johnson, and Graham declared that Zelensky must do Trump’s bidding, which is also Vladimir Putin’s bidding, and capitulate to Russia; otherwise, Johnson and Graham added, Zelensky should resign. America’s enemy isn’t Russia. America’s enemy is Ukraine.

The philosopher Henri Bergson observed, ���The attitudes, gestures and movements of the human body are laughable in exact proportion as that body reminds us of a mere machine.” The cause of laughter is the “deflection of life towards the mechanical.” This insight explains why there is something comical about politicians when they substitute programmed language for speech that reflects actual thought. They are besuited contraptions, like another orthodoxy-spouting ideologue in 1984 whose spectacles catch the light and seem to render him eyeless while his jaw keeps moving, as if “this was not a real human being but some kind of dummy.” Having emptied themselves of the capacity or will for independent judgment, they become extremely fluent automatons, able to put together whole paragraphs of logical-sounding arguments, but with no connection between brain and mouth. Every politician is required to speak like a robot some of the time; it takes a special talent to betray an entire worldview without missing a beat.

The philosopher Henri Bergson observed, “The attitudes, gestures and movements of the human body are laughable in exact proportion as that body reminds us of a mere machine.” The cause of laughter is the “deflection of life towards the mechanical.” This insight explains why there is something comical about politicians when they substitute programmed language for speech that reflects actual thought. They are besuited contraptions, like another orthodoxy-spouting ideologue in 1984 whose spectacles catch the light and seem to render him eyeless while his jaw keeps moving, as if “this was not a real human being but some kind of dummy.” Having emptied themselves of the capacity or will for independent judgment, they become extremely fluent automatons, able to put together whole paragraphs of logical-sounding arguments, but with no connection between brain and mouth. Every politician is required to speak like a robot some of the time; it takes a special talent to betray an entire worldview without missing a beat.Ritualized humiliation is essential to an authoritarian regime.

Graham’s mechanical style is to flit almost gleefully from one position to its opposite while remaining a party insider, which is his only consistent position and the justification for all his others. Johnson stares through his glasses and gropes for the appropriate words with the unease of a simple man trying not to screw up his lines: “I can tell you that we are—we are re-exerting peace through strength. President Trump has brought back strength to the White House. We knew that this moment would come, we worked hard for it to come, and now it’s here.” Rubio is a more complex case. He sat mute throughout the Oval Office blowup while his principles almost visibly escaped his body, causing it to sink deeper into the yellow sofa. Having made his name in the Senate as a passionate defender of democracy and adversary of authoritarianism, he must have suffered more than others from the inner contortions demanded by the new party line—they were written on his unhappy face.

But Rubio had already begun the process of mechanizing himself weeks before, when he shut down foreign-aid programs that he had always supported. Reappearing in public after the meeting with Zelensky, he denounced the Ukrainian president with the overzealous exasperation of a successfully hollowed policy maker.

When a leader requires his underlings to say what they know isn’t true—up is down, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia, Ukraine is to blame—it’s a test of loyalty and a show of dominance. Ritualized humiliation is essential to an authoritarian regime. Trump forces aides, advisers, and the friendly press that he allows into the room to utter absurdities on his behalf in order to bind them closer to him, and thereby frees himself from any restraint. They know from the example of more courageous or less careful colleagues that any quiver of independence will doom them politically, and perhaps even harm them physically. Almost immediately, it seems, they cease to be troubled by conscience or even motivated by fear. As they become more machinelike, they forget that they ever held a different idea, or any idea at all. You can see it in their relaxed features and smoother delivery.

Trump alone is allowed to say what he thinks. There’s nothing laughably mechanical about his abandonment of Ukraine, Europe, and American leadership of the free world; he doesn’t embrace Russia like an eyeless dummy. He never sounded more natural, or truer to himself, than when he told Zelensky of his bond of sympathy with Putin and mocked the Ukrainian president for the agony that Russia has inflicted on his country. And if, a week or two later, American policy on the war flipped again, it wasn’t because Trump’s worldview changed—he still prefers dictators and wants to be one of them. It only meant that the leader can declare that Oceania is at war with Eastasia or Eurasia on any given day.

At least from the time he was 5 years old and, according to Maggie Haberman’s biography, Confidence Man, threw rocks at a baby in a playpen, Trump has admired strength and despised weakness. Terms used by Ukraine’s defenders, such as sovereignty, democracy, and shared values, obviously disgust him, because they’re the language of the weak. For Trump, strength has nothing to do with the classical virtues of nobility and courage; it’s the raw power to humiliate another, whether a person or a country. Zelensky’s physical and moral courage, including his refusal to be belittled on camera in the Oval Office, enrages Trump, for he’s accustomed to endless subservience and flattery.

Trump’s decision in March to halt the flow of arms and intelligence to Ukraine doesn’t follow a foreign policy of isolationism. When Vance, running for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio in 2022, said, “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other,” he was expressing an isolationist sentiment. This indifference falls well short of Trump’s contempt for Zelensky and long-standing attraction to Putin. Trump wants Russia to win and Ukraine to lose.

Some analysts argue that Trump is turning American foreign policy toward “realism”: a cold calculation that Ukraine falls in Russia’s sphere of influence, not ours; that defending an embattled democracy against a much larger and more powerful dictatorship depletes American resources without serving its interests; that, in an ever more multipolar world, the United States is overcommitted; that the U.S. should stop trying to uphold global rules and democratic values, and start acting like a traditional great power that uses its immense strength to secure specific interests.

These sound like rational claims, but they don’t describe Trump’s words and actions. There’s nothing realistic about aiding a dangerous adversary, undermining allies, breaking agreements, extorting concessions, threatening annexations, and destroying an order that has expanded American influence and made the past eight decades uniquely stable and prosperous in modern history. These are the policies of crude power worship, not realism. . .