#whomst the fuck cares about the logistics

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

my fic: so here are 7 logistical holes you still need to write solutions for/yourself out of me: how about i add 100 more words to the internal monologue of yaz losing her mind instead

[liesmyth]

Who are the Houses fighting, anyway?

Thinking about the Cohort and the Houses’ endless military campaign in TLT. Thematically, I love the idea of John being at war for thousands of years with the descendants of those who betrayed him etc., but in practice, the logistics of the war just... don't make sense.

We know the Houses have been at war for a long time. Thousands of years, an insane amount of time fighting the same war. “Eternal war” could be a plausible scenario between two similarly-sized forces locked in a stalemate, but this hasn’t been shown to be the case. It would maybe be plausible if the Houses were shown to have a super ineffective offence force, but this again isn’t the case.

Troop casualties seem to be relatively common (lots of "went to the Cohort and died” mentioned) but at the same time is a massive fucking deal in HtN that BoE destroyed three ships and took out eighteen thousand people. It throws the entire into disarray and warrants a sudden reassignment of the Emperor’s Guard to the combat front to make up for it. So yes, their conquest strategy relies very heavily on sending in the infantry to die, but not to the point that every battle is a slaughter or those numbers wouldn’t cause that reaction. They seem to be a fairly effective force, and and before canon era they hadn’t lost a ship in a THOUSAND years.

Speaking of conquests. A lot of the fighting “lore” that is mentioned in the series involves ground fighting and planetary conquests, but all of the action that is actually described as having happened in the series was either putting down uprisings or dealing with fringe groups. Blood of Eden are an insurrection movement, not an enemy force, and no inhabited planets are mentioned that are outside House control. They are not a conquering force, they are an occupying force. That we know of.

So who exactly are they fighting? Actually who even is left to fight? Like, at some point, you HAVE to run out of planets to conquer. You HAVE to run out of non-House humans to subdue — and travelling cosmic distances without necromancy is very hard. The FTL ships and their descendants can’t have spread that far; they were strained for resources, jumping blind, and I doubt they had an easy time of it.

Some speculation:

Aliens. Like, I’m sure this is not the case, but everything would make SO much more sense if they were fighting an alien empire the next galaxy over, and the ongoing occupation of BoE planets and Empire building is part of that. I give it a 0% possibility of being true but still. Aliens.

Massive unreliable narrator failure. There IS a space empire next door built by humans but nobody mentions it because it didn’t have tits so Gideon didn’t care and everyone knows anyway.

Plot hole. Even the best authors have ‘em! Let Tamsyn live.

Free square ????

Enigmatic John Quote of the Post:

[Talking about the death of Dominicus if he were to die] I can only hope you’d all be dead already. Oh, there’d still be Cohort ships … hold planets … a scattering of us … but we would be so few, and so many people hate us, and my work is not yet done.

WHOMST, John. Notably, all through HtN he keeps talking about the tattered remains of Blood of Eden slithering out of the shadows, a group of maniacs, died with Wake etc. so I doubt he means them. So. WHO.

[aethernoise]

some stories i want to write

but haven’t (yet)

@autumnslance  @anomaliewrites and @to-the-voiceless all tagged me for this, so after a third tag I decided to finally Perceive the question and attempt an answer. I have tons of ill-defined ideas floating around the uplander braincase at any given time so I tried to narrow down a list of concepts I hope you find interesting. Some highlights are:

- THE OTP IS GETTING MARRIED exactly what it says on the tin. they’re getting really impatient so I have to do something soon. 

- The Fuck-You-Werlyt-Quest Fix-It Fic more of a "save Raubahn and Cid from character assassination while also giving Alyx a chance to say what we're all thinking" type of fix-it, the plot is largely staying the same. Established key points: Alyx confronts Raubahn about Gaius, Alyx punches Gaius (with magic), Cid punches Gaius, Cid calls Nero, ?????, profit.

- Whomst the Fuck is Wolfram Taris & Why Should I Care In just want to write some stories, even just one, about ARR Alyx and my laughably underdeveloped Scion-adjacent scoundrel OC. It may very likely require a replay of ARR to get into that headspace.

- Black Magic, Grief, and You I want to combine and flesh out my previous prompt responses spanning the Heavensward Black Mage quests to create a single narrative... BUT ALSO include bits and pieces from The Shadow of Mhach raid storyline--and if I’m really feeling spicy--culminate in the big arrogant disaster Alyx cooks up in Azys Lla (yes, the one Alphinaud yells at her about). Just one long dramatic pain train.

- The NSFW Ardbert/WoL/Fray Self-Care Sandwich  Listen...this is a challenging thought, but I want to write it so badly. I’ve never written smut involving more than two bodies at once? but what if 2/3 are dubiously corporeal anyway?? Aether makes all things possible. Logistics be damned, the WoL deserves this. I deserve this. 

- A “Beholden” Epilogue I CAN’T BELIEVE EMET SAVED RHODRY’S LIFE A SECOND TIME..... I have yet to play 5.3 MSQ for him but part of the reason I’ve been saving it is to really savor how amazing that moment is going to be with him. I’m definitely writing something, not sure if it will just be a drabble or a whole-ass fic.

- Speaking of Emet-Selch (There’s That Entire Other AU) So there’s this other story I’ve dabbled in with those Emet-POV prompt responses about dancing and drinking and angry kissing against a doorframe (and a bit of unpublished filth).... it feels like something that wants to be a longfic I don’t have energy for. Hopefully, I can strike a compromise with myself somewhere, and tell a whole story without agonizing over not telling enough.

UM I’LL STOP THERE wheezes I don’t know if I should tag anybody, but if it would help your creative process, go ahead and use me as an excuse to blab about your ideas!