#nemik’s manifesto

[colleybri]

Cassian

“There will be times when the struggle seems impossible…”

‘Nemik. I never knew I would need you like I do now. Your words comfort and inspire. I’m your ideal reader.

Alone and unsure, but I cannot let despair stop me anymore. Or hope to win and walk away. While there’s life in my body and hope in my soul…

…I must try.

Bix, helping me, paid the price. Hers: my biggest debt. I can’t just leave her there.

Tomorrow… I will try.

If, somehow, I live? Rescue her? Win?

I will go on trying.

Winning might mean no walking away at all. I accept that.

I will still try.’

Brasso

“I’ll look after Maarva. You look after yourself.”

“It’s too late for that.”

‘Maarva, on her last morning, had said to me - “Now for a personal message. You’re the one to deliver it. No holoimage needed. You’ll do it right. With a hug. He’ll need that, you know.”

She was right about the hug, and I could feel how tense with pain and regret Cass was. He’d been fighting with himself as much as with those Imperial bastards.

I delivered the words precisely. He was moved but looked somehow… like he knew most of it already. I think he knew he’s already an unstoppable force for good. Well. I certainly couldn’t stop him.’

[idkbishsss]

I’m rewatching Andor, and I think that the message is to try and to listen.

Nemik says to try in his manifesto, along with everything else. I think a lot of what he say can applies to the rebels and what they do in Andor. But try and listen can be applied to everything.

Even for Dedra. The empire thinks so highly of themselves that don’t try or listen. But Dedra is, she’s trying to figure it out. Same with Syril, he’s trying to figure everything out.

In the prison? There is one way out. But to get out you have to try. Trying to get out is the one way out. Since nobody is listening, it’s easier to find that way out then when they start to listen.

People are constantly trying to get rid of the empire in Andor. Constantly singling and listening. And now the empire is starting to do the same.

That’s just how I see it.

[shetheyshenanigans]

ANOTHER THING ABOUT ANDOR

during the prison break Cassian shorts out the floor by causing a leak in the water pipe, thereby taking away the Empires power to kill them with electricity. Due to a leak.

And what does Nemik’s Manifesto say?

“Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks, it is brittle.”

All the awards to Andor. All of them.

[ednav]

YES. Once again, it’s the people from below. The small acts.

Remember this: Try.

I know people are seeing the post credit scene and lamenting that Cassian and Melshi were forced to build the very weapon that will kill them (which is true and I am definitely also 'people') but... it also confirmation that the prison escape directly impacted the development of the Death Star.

Like, we know that turning off the facility meant that Narkina 5 couldn't be fully operational for months, and the loss of 5000 prisoners who were all assembling large numbers of pieces a day... all of that had to hurt the production schedule, not to mention any further damage from Melshi or Cassian's testimonies reaching people inside and out of the prison system.

How long did it delay production? We don't know - it could have been weeks or months, or even just hours. But knowing how little time the Rebellion has once they learn of the Death Star's existence, and how the Empire was closing in, even before then - Jyn and team escape Jedha with the message and means to destroy the superweapon by literal seconds - I just feel like it counted.

The Death Star will one day kill both Cassian and Melshi, but they, and 5000 other men, also bought precious time for the Rebellion. Just enough time to get the plans off Scarif. Just enough time for some desert farmer boy to make the crucial shot.

[lena-hills]

I realized something about Nemik's manifesto and the whole Andor/Rogue One debate about the line "I've been in this fight since I was six years old."

Because, by Nemik's philosophy, every act against the Empire and against fascist control makes you part of the Rebellion. "There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward."

Cassian has been fighting the Empire through theft, self-defense, childhood attempts for vengeance, long before Andor starts, and it makes sense that looking back he would count all of it.

[ireallyamabear]

There will be times

when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try.

[cassiansrebels]

❝You're my ideal reader.❞

💭 nemik's manifesto: the trail of political consciousness

[justvala]

...And then there will be one too many

[catchingfire2013]

andor was such a good show... just miles ahead in quality compared to every other star wars TV show

[colleybri]

“Look how nicely that’s cleaned up. People don’t look down the way they should, they don’t look past the rust. But not us, eh?.. eyes open, possibilities everywhere!” (Clem Andor)

“Your father would be proud of you” (Cassian’s last words to Jyn in Rogue One)

Memory can be painful. But sometimes those memories come at exactly the right time, and our fathers live again.

“I’m sorry that I never did call you “Dad” while you were alive.

Perhaps if your name had started with the same letters it would have been easier for me. Perhaps you were a little jealous when, while I was learning your language, I said “Ma” and you and she had realised about the coincidence for the first time. She had laughed and looked delighted, and I had smiled. So had you, but a little sadly, I thought.

But I used your name with the exact same love. And in time you became to me the figure I thought I had lost forever: my father. My Dad. 

I’m sorry, too, that I haven’t thought about you often enough in the way that I would have preferred to. What I mean is - I thought about you a lot. Every day. But always with the association of what happened to you. And to me. Your memory had always brought me pain, because even when I remembered you alive I also saw you dead. Cold, stiff and dusted with frost. The rope, creaking. And I always tasted the acid bile of my grief and my horror and my pain, retched into my mouth, burning me so badly that I would always swallow it back down so it could churn and boil below, contained as much as I could contain it. 

See? Even now, though I’m not much good usually with fancy language, the horror is apparently more vivid to me than the joy of remembering you. When I let it overpower me again. 

But I’m changing that. I’ve already started, I think. 

You see, a few months ago I was asked to do something brave. I was going to be paid for it, but the danger was clear to me from the scale of the job. It turned out to be even worse. But before I knew that … I chose to be you. I chose your name. I thought I could make you live again, a little, through me. 

I know you told me, before you died, that it was “not our fight”. I love and respect you enough to tell you that you were wrong. I knew it then, deep down, and I know it even more now. Then, I fought in the only way I knew how to. With just my rage and sense of justice -  and a stupid stick. And I paid the price for all that so bitterly that I went on to convince myself that you had been right, and that the fight wasn't ours and was something to avoid. 

But you can’t avoid this. You just can’t ignore it. Because if you ignore it, it doesn’t go away. It just gets worse. We have let it get worse and worse and it’s almost too late to do anything about it. Almost, but not quite. 

I learned this lesson for myself. I can’t ignore what is happening, not anymore. 

When I first used your name - borrowed you - I was like you: a man who didn’t want to fight, but one who grew to love and respect his new family members. So I ended up wanting to fight for them. 

And just as you had welcomed me into your life and your heart despite your early misgivings, so too I learned to love, and to care for others outside of my own circle. I didn’t want to give up on them. I grew to care. 

So you might not have approved, at first, of what I chose to do but I think that in the end you would have been proud of what I did. And what you did too, living on in your name, as part of me. 

I was so proud to have you with me. 

And I had you with me again, earlier tonight. I came here for Ma's funeral. Though I can’t mourn her yet. There's too much raw pain - I can hardly stand to think about it all, can hardly stand to think about her. All I can think about is how I left her. How I had only just missed her. So I went straight to you, for comfort, perhaps in the knowledge that I can now properly mourn you. And this time, the memory came bright and pure and hopeful. I didn’t see your body and I didn’t think of the pain. I thought of you, whole. A simple happy memory from simple happy times. It made me sad, of course, but I smiled anyway. You had lived again for me, and this time through a loving memory. But also one with a lesson. It’s like you were trying to speak to me, having me remember that particular moment. I am pretty good, I am discovering, at learning. You would be proud of me, I think, if you could see how adaptable I am becoming. Practically, but also in terms of understanding and acting on … I suppose I should call them: deeper messages. 

I cleaned up nicely, I think. People didn’t look past my rust. But there is still a lot of good in me. Iron. Pure Ferrix iron. I am dissolving away my rust in new resolve. You see, I need to be put to use again. I have salvaged myself from the yard, been repurposed as a weapon. I have been welded together with my need for freedom and justice. I have been oiled with new resolve. And I have been fuelled with love.

I don’t know how effective I will be though, as this weapon, against such a huge and solid fortress of hate and oppression. Just like Nemik describes - I’m alone, unsure and I feel dwarfed. I have lived and loved and lost so much. 

Bix. Tomorrow, I am going to die, probably, trying to save her - even though maybe there's nothing left to save except her honour and her memory. I will fight for her because I love her, and I owe her so much that I could never hope to pay off my debt - except like this. I don’t think I valued love enough until I accepted once again how hard it is to lose it. But also because if I don’t try, I will have failed in this fight before I have even properly started. 

If I live, if I succeed, I think I will go on fighting. I think I have found the man I really am. Either way, I don’t want to go back to who I was in these years since I lost you. I like the new me better. Because I respect him. Because he reminds me of you, at your best. I will keep my eyes open. I will look for possibilities everywhere. 

I think I have a choice, now. If I hide or run again, none of this will go away. And nothing that I have done will matter. I have to fight. I have to save those I love. Those I have left. Those who are still alive, but also the the memory of those I have lost. You. Ma. Kerri. My first parents. Nemik. Kino. All the others. But I also simply have to try to stop allowing others, who I don’t even know, to be forced to feel the same pain that I have - of this injustice, this tyranny, this hate. I have to help bring the Empire down or die trying. That’s something I know beyond doubt that I can do: I can try.

I will try. 

I know you always loved me. Maybe now you can be proud of me too. As I can be proud of you. 

I love you, Dad. And I’m so proud to be your son.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56405944

[mungus]

[squirrelno2]

Thinking about nemik's manifesto and the line "one single thing will break the siege" because like

Where star wars consistently falls short for me is the individualist approach, the heroic narrative of one or two good guys against one or two bad guys, but Andor takes that and reframes it - not a hero stepping in, but people who are part of a whole tipping scales. The ability of a single person or act to change the world isn't because that one person or act is The Best, better than everyone else who's come before and tried other things. It's because so many people tried for so long. It's just the moment where the weight tips into being too heavy for the empire to keep a grip on

Like. Luke may be a Jedi but he's just a guy with some skills doing what he can. He just happens to be in a position with more influence than most (on the force, but also he can catch Vader's attention without getting instantly force choked) who's come in at a time where things are already shifting. He doesn't know how much has gone into this rebellion but he manages to honour it anyway. I'm fine actually

[bluntblade]

I hope we see characters reading or quoting Nemik's manifesto in future stories set deeper into the Galactic Civil War and even the First Order Invasion. Like, it's the night before a battle and you see some Rebels gathered around a fire, and you just catch enough words being read out to recognise it. I just think it would be neat and touching.

[imperial-evolution]

Okay but thinking about Nemik's manifesto again and just. Like everything Nemik says, it is spoken with such conviction and clarity of thought. Everything is measured and passionate, spoken from a place of observation and deep understanding.

But most importantly it is spoken with such compassion. It is reassuring and kind and it's focus on the little man and an individual's capacity for action is so important. Nemik understands what it is to be hopeless and afraid (he can't sleep so he writes instead) and he will never shame any member of the rebellion for those feelings.

It is a kind piece of writing, first and foremost. It is hopeful and forgiving. And that is what makes the rebellion so fundamentally different to the Empire.

I just!!! Brrrr!!!!

[punkofop]

I think the case for Andor being the most subversive Star Wars text lies not in the righteous framing of anti-imperial and anti-fascist violence, but in Nemik's use of "Try" in his manifesto. In one a scene from The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda is training Luke to use the Force and tells him to levitate his X-Wing from the bottom of a swamp. To this, Luke, still in his head-empty himbo era, says he'll "try." Yoda, in one of the most oft-quoted lines from the original trilogy, replies:

Now, I can't speak to this concept's importance to Force-use, but as political praxis it leaves much to be desired. To not try is to inhibit one's ability to affect change on the world--exactly what a state-sanctioned order of priest cops would want, but that's another post. Go listen to A More Civilized Age for more on that. 

I think Nemik's call to "Try" is a core theme in Andor, just as "Hope" was core to Rogue One (both texts use the metaphor of a spark to light the fire). There are key differences between these texts, however, and these differences reflect a larger ideological rift between Andor and most other Star Wars properties. 

Hope is something abstract and immaterial and, like the Force, it is in short supply among subjects of empire (both real and in Star Wars). While they may require Hope to sustain them past a certain point, revolutions are not built on Hope, they are built on the righteous anger of people who will not take it anymore. Let's take a look at an absolute banger line in Andor:

It's easy for the dead to tell you to fight, and maybe it's true, maybe fighting is useless. Perhaps it's too late. But I'll tell you this, if I could do it again, I'd wake up early and be fighting these bastards from the start.

Are these hopeful words?

No! Maarva isn't calling on her community to fight because she has believes that they can defeat the Empire, she wants them to fight because that's what you do when the fascists come to town. It's a desperate, almost defeatist (revolutionary defeatist...? wait, no that's something else), call to action devoid of any real forethought. She's telling them to try, to act, regardless of whether some magical force will help guarantee their success a la the original trilogy.

Andor is filled with desperate people striking out at the Empire in small ways, knowing they may fail: the Aldhani crew on their suicide mission, Brasso protecting B2 and then braining that trooper with Maarva's brick, Wilmon building his bomb, Kino committing to the breakout knowing he can't swim from a prison he knows is surrounded by water.

It is these individual acts that build into pockets and then networks of solidarity, enabling disparate communities to carry out anti-imperial praxis from anywhere, whether that be mutual aid, sabotage, theft, or militant attacks. This is how revolution begins. As Nemik writes:

It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.

...

Remember this. Try."

Whether you're Separatists, Neo-Republicans (dni), Ghorman Front, Partisan Alliance, Sectorists, Human Cultists (gross), Galaxy Partitionists, to do, you must try.

You may not succeed, but you must try.

In summary, Luke should have punted that little goblin into the swamp.

[listening-to-thunder]

Andor quotes | Phone wallpaper sized.