Meta: State of the Writer

So, I won’t reiterate the sad and rage-inducing story of the past few weeks, since I’ve done that in enough places and for enough times already. If by chance you haven’t seen it, you can find it on the Discourse here, forwarded along from Patreon.

Anyway.

While we don’t expect to get any of our stuff back (a) soon, or (b) in working order, good fortune and the generosity of kind friends has allowed us to start getting the most important parts of our network back up and running, and we’ve managed to restore our offsite backups from Azure, so that’s the main thing, although since full cleanup (“…I have my notes, now I just need to install the nodes to host the Kubernetes cluster to run the wiki stack to display them…”) not to mention fixing the damage done to house and home will still take some time, it’s not back to normal operation yet. But since I am posting some ‘verse-related things already, you can see that we’re a lot closer.

(On a related note, I don’t yet have posting access to the Discourse, since I was using 2FA with it and both my security key and the hardware running my authenticator app were among the items we lost. I’m talking to the hosters about it, and hope to have that back soon, but in the meantime I ask for your patience with regard to responding to your posts.)


On another note, as it happened, when the Feds so rudely interrupted our normal television-watching cycle, we were in the middle of Star Trek: Discovery, and not having our media server serving media any more, decided that the easiest thing to do was to switch to just marathoning that.

This was a good decision.

I’m going to embrace the controversy here, and take a moment to say that Discovery is probably the best Star Trek we’ve seen, bar none. In particular, from where we were – the very end of season two, on through seasons three and four – was exactly what I needed to be watching in our time of crisis and trial. Because when your real-life party has just been crashed by what amount to exemplars of the opposite, hope, and faith, and people finding the inner strength to rise above and be the best versions of themselves, and successfully navigating your way through – and finding the path to ending – the dark times surrounding you through your ideals and principles, and not by immediately tossing them aside like all too much so-called “gritty” fiction has its characters doing, is just everything you need.

In fact, one of the major reasons I call it the best of the Treks is because it is precisely when the world has gone to shit around you that it is both hardest and most important to cling to those ideals and principles that define you, and your response to that challenge that most defines you, and it does a brilliant job of showing it.

(Also Stamets and Culber and the rest of their found family are absolutely goddamned adorable and I will brook no dissent on this. But I digress.)

tl;dr I approve this. Add it to the semi-canonical Media Of Which The Imperials Would Approve list, too.

Also, just to bring some canon into this post:

“If there is to be a rapprochement between us and the Republic – and such a thing is, I think we must all concede, profoundly to be desired – I can think of no better basis than this: that they, like we, are a civilization that holds principle above expedience.”

– Talaïs Oravedra, Imperial Diplomatic Corps

On a final thought, before I move along; back at the start of the month, I had a conversation on Twitter with one of y’all (readers, that is) concerning a resisted urge to write a fanfic where they tried to pull that kind of no-knock raid crap on an Imperial citizen-shareholder. (“Because it would probably star a Sargas, and that’s not *quite* called for, objectively speaking.”)

To which I had to admit to having restrained a few vengeful thoughts along such lines myself, authorially. (It would be cathartic, at least, although also almost certainly dreadful crap which I would burn before anyone else got to read it.) It would also be very easy to conceive. Not like you’d even need a Sargas.

I mean, you probably can’t throw a rock without finding someone who thinks using an extra microgram of antimatter to power her bug-out transmitter is about right for visiting some places, and using terror tactics on someone with a spite charge that size is its own punishment.

I mean, I started writing for various reasons, but a big one is that I wanted to inspire people. I wanted to show them a realized dream of a better world, one where people listen to their better angels, not their worst impulses.

I can’t as yet. It’s too close.

But I want to write the story of how this sort of thing would be handled there. Where enforcing the law is a sacred trust that demands the nation’s best. Where everyone is treated with honor, and respect, and dignity, and kindness.

Even the very worst. Just because it’s the right thing to do, the civilized, decent, good thing to do, at whatever cost. In a world, in short, in which listening to our worst selves and calling it pragmatism hasn’t turned protection and service into a goddamned punchline.

Recommendation: Starmoth

In this episode of “the author recommends other less known universes”, I’d like to point up CMDR Isilanka’s Starmoth setting as worthy of the attention and interest of Eldraeverse readers. From its own introduction page, it is described as:

Once upon a time, humankind thought it was on the doorstep of the stars. Then, the thermo-industrial age came to a brutal collapse as the ravages of the anthropocene took old. For five hundred years the world ignored what lay beyond the atmosphere. For three hundred years reigned the Low Age. And then we turned to the stars again.

Starmoth is a post-apocalyptic, post-capitalistic, interstellar setting where semi-realistic spacecraft coexist with unknowable alien ruins, open-source FTL devices and colourful, vibrant societies. It is meant to be a tribute to science fiction focusing on a sense of wonder, as well as evoking nostalgia for a time that could have been.

For myself, I should like to point up some fascinating worldbuilding in social and exosocial areas in particular, which will definitely repay the attentive reader. I look forward with great interest to seeing how it continues to develop.

A book of short stories from this universe is available (name your own price) here; and the main website for the Starmoth universe is here.

Author on Authority

This is a little meta to begin with, but please do indulge me, for we will get there. It all started this morning when I happened to read this little piece of not-even-wrongitude:

Authority by consent is no authority at all, like I say. Unless you can force people to listen to you, they won’t obey commands unless they agree with them. And if they won’t obey commands unless they agree with them, you’re ultimately not leading anything, you’re a mouthpiece spouting what they want to hear.

Hold onto your togas, kids, we’re off to Rome, and we’re going to learn exactly what authority is by examining auctoritas. Your free clue is that it is precisely not what the above quotation claims it to be.

(Obviously, the Romans did have the concept of forcing people to listen to you and do what they’re told. That one wasn’t auctoritas, though. That was imperium, which is where the strapping lads [the lictors] with the bundle of sticks and an axe – yes, that one – would proceed to do the needful unto anyone who didn’t get with your program. This equipment and the chaps carrying it were a warning – who you were not, for the most part, allowed to go without – to everyone that you were allowed to deal out corporal and capital punishment.)

Auctoritas, from whence our authority (and also, point of curiosity, “author”) had approximately buggerall to do with the ability to force people to listen and obey, because the whole point of having auctoritas is that you don’t need to.

Let me quote Bret Devereaux’s excellent blog here:

Roman political speech, meanwhile, is full of words to express authority without violence. Most obviously is the word auctoritas, from which we get authority. J.E. Lendon (in Empire of Honor: The Art of Government in the Roman World (1997)), expresses the complex interaction whereby the past performance of virtus (‘strength, worth, bravery, excellence, skill, capacity,’ which might be military, but it might also by virtus demonstrated in civilian fields like speaking, writing, court-room excellence, etc) produced honor which in turn invested an individual with dignitas (‘worth, merit’), a legitimate claim to certain forms of deferential behavior from others (including peers; two individuals both with dignitas might owe mutual deference to each other). Such an individual, when acting or especially speaking was said to have gravitas (‘weight’), an effort by the Romans to describe the feeling of emotional pressure that the dignitas of such a person demanded; a person speaking who had dignitas must be listened to seriously and respected, even if disagreed with in the end. An individual with tremendous honor might be described as having a super-charged dignitas such that not merely was some polite but serious deference, but active compliance, such was the force of their considerable honor; this was called auctoritas. As documented by Carlin Barton (in Roman Honor: Fire in the Bones (2001)), the Romans felt these weights keenly and have a robust language describing the emotional impact such feelings had.

Note that there is no necessary violence here. These things cannot be enforced through violence, they are emotional responses that the Romans report having (because their culture has conditioned them to have them) in the presence of individuals with dignitas. And such dignitas might also not be connected to violence. Cicero clearly at points in his career commanded such deference and he was at best an indifferent soldier. Instead, it was his excellence in speaking and his clear service to the Republic that commanded such respect. Other individuals might command particular auctoritas because of their role as priests, their reputation for piety or wisdom, or their history of service to the community. And of course beyond that were bonds of family, religion, social group, and so on.

In ‘verse terms, now, while the correspondences aren’t absolutely perfect, what we are talking about is korás (“coercion”), the power to make people do what you want by threatening them (or more directly), versus argyr (“worth, merit”), and in the specific case of governance coronargyr (“sovereign’s merit”), that authority sufficient to lead the people to confer upon one the Imperial Mandate, that contract which gives one the power to rule.

(Most governances do try to make use of the latter as well as the former, even though/when the latter is the ultimate basis of their power, inasmuch as it’s very hard to have enough jackboots to keep everyone’s face stomped forever, and so not having to trot them out all the time is most convenient.)

The Empire, of course, is an extreme case of ruling, insofar as it is possible, only by coronargyr and banishing korás to solely those few responsive purposes laid out in the Fundamental Contract, on which it has no monopoly. This is something of a necessity when your citizens are (a) functionally unintimidatable, and (b) respect little except competence/virtue/excellence/awesomeness, which they respect greatly. You can’t drive people (i.e., what that initial quote thinks “leading” is) like that with any hope of long-term success; only lead them, and that by being so bloody good at it that people want to follow you.

Start thinking that they should follow you because of who you are, not what you can do, and you’ll swiftly find yourself here.

So, to sum up the thesis of this post:

  • A Society of Consent, like the Empire but also like any other number of actual-anarchist societies, does not have korás / coercion.
  • What it does have is argyr, or auctoritas. In fact, it has a lot of it, probably more than societies that are able to take the quick shortcut of substituting the former for the latter when it gets difficult.
  • Many of the most terribad arguments against consensual societies are assuming that opposing/eliminating the former necessarily means opposing/eliminating the latter, which it doesn’t. A gun is not an argument, but an argument isn’t a gun, either.

Cultural Crossovers #21: Captain Marvel

As before.

  • Someone with blue blood? Finally! How natural!
  • The Kree homeworld, eh? Thought they were blue-skinned, too.
  • Well, that’s an interesting approach to warrior philosophy.
  • Oh, that kind of Supreme Intelligence.
  • Ah, shapeshifting infiltrators.
  • We do have to wonder about what is going on with the Skrulls, given that what we know so far about the Kree suggests that they are kinda dicks.
  • Empowering implant, or restraining bolt?
  • So, some of them are blue-skinned. Hm. Eumelanin-deficient subspecies. Seems oddly familiar.
  • Impressive shapeshifting. Terrible authentication codes.
  • See what I mean? Terrible authentication codes.
  • …wait, you’re a Terran?
  • No, the audience is at least as confused.
  • Interesting form of memory extraction.
  • Yeah, that’s pretty much the first thing they teach you to watch in espatier school.
  • Although they really should cover how not to make re-entry, too. That said, it takes one hell of a personal force-field not to have left a rather bigger crater than that.
  • Well, your night report is gonna be interesting.
  • Nice technical education, too.
  • Well, hello, young-looking Coulson and primordial Fury.
  • I love a subtle undercover mission.
  • Wait, so did you go back to not acronymizing yourselves at some point?
  • “Not on the periodic table?” Seriously?
  • Someone’s memory blocking techniques need work. See, this is why you don’t use that as a substitute for memory erasure, and preferably filling in the gaps.
  • Are you wondering yet where your stock of Terran lore comes from? I presume they didn’t cover that in Kree school?
  • You’re gonna have a very confusing family.
  • Aw, they’re bonding.
  • Nice kitty. Nice, not at all suspicious, kitty.
  • So, a Kree researcher building something on Earth. I wonder what the Kree is for “stone knives and bearskins”.
  • Oh, my. Now that’s an interesting picture, isn’t it?
  • See, cold, rational judgment at this point would also conclude that that guy’s lying like a weasel.
  • Always that good, huh, Coulson.
  • Ah, Ronan. Just popping in to remind us of the dick factor.
  • Always good to have a memory cascade in a box lying around.
  • With just a little deception, then.
  • That was actually an astonishingly nice landing.
  • Oh, of course it is. Who else would it be?
  • Wait. All you need to do to get your ridiculous quantities of mojo is blow up a drive core near yourself? Shit, we’d be blowing them up every week. (Insert chorus of “That’s Not How Any Of This Works.”)
  • Yeah, that sounds like the Accusers. Based on the example we’ve seen, anyway.
  • Kid, we like you. You’ve got a good future.
  • Ah, yes, the curse of the shapeshifter. Taking requests.
  • Always secure your cat before leaving the atmosphere.
  • Hello, spaceship. Miracle you didn’t run into anything up there.
  • Oh, that explains it. It’s that “core”… wait, is that where that’s supposed to be right now? Guess Howard Stark was behind that project at some level?
  • Awww.
  • That’s a cute name for brainwashing.
  • Hard to fight inside someone else’s virtuality.
  • Now that, on the other hand…
  • …especially since that is a restraining bolt…
  • …and the “Supreme Intelligence” appears to lack quite a lot by way of actual supremacy.
  • Well, that’s one way to encase an Infinity Stone. Damn lucky you didn’t accidentally a flerken’ god, though.
  • Yes, very good kitty.
  • Not so good kitty. Unless…
  • …damn, he’s good at that.
  • Nice flying!
  • Who needs a plane when you have incredible cosmic power, right?
  • Also: evidently the (yellow) mind stone in the scepter empowers people with blue-themed mojo, while the (blue) space stone empowers people with yellow-themed mojo. Does that seem right to you?
  • They’re not ballistic warheads if they have engines, guys. Sorry, but no.
  • And they’re severely outmatched. May I suggest the tactical maneuver known as Running The Fuck Away While You Still Have Ships Left?
  • “Or not.”
  • And that would be why Fury never tells the eye story.
  • So, one reversed-order pager incluing.
  • Ah, yes, the so-briefly “Protector Initiative”. Ha!
  • …meanwhile, back in the aftermath, and y’all really should have seen her coming.

The Order of Defenders

A reader pointed out on this Discord that this

(go read it there)

has a vaguely eldraeic flavor.

Which it does. Not something a direct analog to which would exist *there* , mind you, inasmuch as defending yourself and civilization is something written right into the Imperial Charter, Section III, Article V: “Responsibilities of the Citizen-Shareholder”1. But the underlying sentiment, that certainly does.

(And the technarchs have their equivalent of the Ritual of the Iron Ring, too, as do many others. One of these days, I should trot out, for example, the plutarch version.

No-one has forgotten or denigrated the memetic power of ceremony in this ‘verse. What else, indeed, is the Logarchy of Protocol, Ritual, and Symbology for, or the entire profession of symposiarchs?)

And if you were wondering if the lay orders of Barrascán have appropriate ceremonial along these lines, well yes, they do.


  1. Well, that, and you aren’t going to find anyone prepared to tolerate being described as “the weak”.

Cultural Crossovers #19: Avengers: Infinity War

In which TF is thoroughly W’d.

  • This piece of history is really sucking for the Asgardians. Culled twice? (Or three times, by the end.)
  • EBONY MAW, YOU POMPOUS ASS!
  • Oh, Loki. Don’t ever change.
  • Well, that’s a new experience for the Hulk, and I don’t think he cares for it very much.
  • And Heimdall of Asgard dies well.
  • Well, shit. Loki might actually be really dead this time. Never expected to be saying that.
  • And that’s some nice targeting for a dying god.
  • Aw, those crazy kids got back together. Excellent. Shame about the interruption.
  • Man, it would be nice if our universe came with a bunch of convenient ontotech keys. As long as they were in the right hands. Namely, ours.
  • Good cape.
  • What the hell is that, a giant flying cyclotron?
  • Great distraction, kid. Completely indistinguishable from genuine panic. And great cameo.
  • Pompous ass and dumb muscle. Nice pair.
  • Damn, Thanos gave the big guy PTSD.
  • Now that’s some fancy suitage. Pretty sure you can’t actually make one even with our tech, but still. Unless that’s vibranium, maybe.
  • Spider-Man has evidently has time to get used to Starkplanations.
  • Best cape!
  • Ah, that new suit smell. Nice crazy-prep.
  • Light-lag: sucks.
  • Man, we love these guys.
  • Not sure you have god wipers.
  • Drax has quite the man-crush, there.
  • Well, that’s a hell of a thing to bond over. Such magnificent dysfunction.
  • He decimated Xandar? Damn. We liked that place.
  • Nidavellir sounds interesting. Let’s go there. The audience is very much with Rocket, here —
  • Well, okay, except that last bit.
  • It can speak! (Not the mind stone; that we were expecting. The one-man brute squad.)
  • You have a beard now.
  • And Team Freedom And The Right Thing continue to kick ass. Were we expecting any less? We were not.
  • This, presumably, is the culling of Gamora’s homeworld.
  • So, literally killing half the population.
  • That’s a hell of a thing to ask. Even more of one to have to ask.
  • Drax, the Destroyer of Moments.
  • Also, Tivan, what in the universe could you possibly sell an Infinity Stone for?
  • And there I was expecting Drax to play the role of Leroy Jenkins.
  • That was too quick.
  • The reality stone. Right.
  • Okay. That was both messy and awesome.
  • Damn. All that for nothing.
  • And this Ross continues to prioritize being an asshat over, well, reality. Fortunately, Rhodey knows that.
  • Thank you, Cap, for continuing to be the voice of ethics.
  • Shuri built you a new arm! Can’t wait to see how this one performs.
  • I’m guessing you missed hearing about the whole Dormammu incident?
  • Makes perfect sense to us. Also, you have the same chronic hero syndrome as your mentor, there.
  • Beautiful. And the perfect end for said pompous ass.
  • Well, it is a Strange name.
  • Welcome to the team. Everyone else’s induction was about that short, too.
  • Seriously, that’s your motivation? DO YOU KNOW HOW BIG THE UNIVERSE IS? AND WITH THE SIX STONES YOU’RE LOOKING FOR, COULDN’T YOU DOUBLE THE SIZE OF THE UNIVERSE ANYWAY? OR AT LEAST THE AMOUNT OF RESOURCES?
  • AND YOU KNOW WITH POPULATION GROWTH YOU’LL HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN?
  • YOU’RE INSANE.
  • …and that looks really uncomfortable.
  • Thanos shows that he does know the one way to make torture work.
  • Nidavellir sounds like one hell of a forge.
  • We understand your motivation, Thor. Just hope you have something left when it runs out.
  • You collecting body parts again?
  • Well, okay, it was one hell of a forge.
  • 3/4 of a ship isn’t so bad.
  • “Blanket of death”.
  • Mr. Lord is his father…. oh, wait.
  • I’m guessing scrying gambit. Yep, scrying gambit.
  • Those are poor odds. Or a certainty, depending on how you look at it.
  • …okay, how did you get there?
  • Which raises the question: just how sapient/sophont are the stones? Other than mind, obviously.
  • So, the soul stone has a test that guarantees only deeply terrible people can take it. Seems poorly designed.
  • Well, shit.
  • Nice kinetic barrier. Couldn’t do better ourselves.
  • Well, I guess they probably would have some spares.
  • Jump-starting a neutron star. Impressive. Also, what the hell are the dwarves made of?
  • Put Banner in the Hulkbuster suit. Cute.
  • Nice to see T’Challa and M’Baku getting along so well now.
  • Ah, the infamous Inhuman Wave Attack.
  • A bold move, and did Thanos teach any of his minions tactical acumen?
  • (Guess he’s helping to reduce overpopulation by ensuring as many of his own armies die as possible.)
  • Okay, what the hell is Thor made of? Flesh-phase neutronium?
  • The axe is Groot.
  • The audience wonders how the Bifrost is still working when its generator presumably got all blowed up with Asgard.
  • Still a grand opening move.
  • This not-plan is going remarkably well.
  • …until then. Quill, dammit. We understand, but damn it.
  • You just threw a moon at them. A friggin’ moon.
  • Dual-wielding a raccoon. That should go on the resume. But watch your arm.
  • Heh.
  • And I shall call you Excessive Wheelbots.
  • Well, Okoye, that would be why.
  • Some of those armored war rhinos seem like they’d be useful about now.
  • You won’t like him when he’s angry, either.
  • …and now you’re throwing singularities.
  • That is probably the greatest honor a human has ever received.
  • This, presumably, is the one path out.
  • Okay, that’s a really nice starship-killing axe.
  • …did he just turn Bruce into a half-fossil?
  • How impressive is it that the Scarlet Witch is able to significantly hold back Thanos while simultaneously destroying an Infinity Stone? All of impressive, we say.
  • Horrible as it is for those people who have already had to make the worst possible heroic sacrifice and have it be for nothing, having it actually reversed right in front of your eyes manages to out-horrible it.
  • (Worse, in-‘verse, because this might actually be a possible kind of causal weapon.)
  • Oh, gods. So close.
  • And Peter dies thinking he failed. Thanos needs to die twice for that alone.
  • (Huh. How did Bruce get out of being half-phased into solid rock?)
  • Hope that pager calls someone… you might have been better off calling most of a movie ago. Did no-one keep Fury up to date?
  • “THANOS WILL RETURN”. Well he’d better. He’s got a hell of a lot of red in everyone’s ledger.

…really, they’re not gonna want to make the audience wait too long for Endgame, ’cause the audience is all heated up and baying for ol’ purple-chin’s blood. Now it’s personal.

(Which is to say, they are a passionate race, and they have an understanding of the proper protocol for heroic sacrifices, which is to get together, hunt down whoever was responsible for ’em, and get medieval on their ass. And they’ve been following these folks through their triumphs and tragedies for eighteen movies now.

Damn right it’s personal.)

Cultural Crossovers #18: Black Panther

Okay. A quick preamble.

This is going to be a really hard one for the Imperial audience to understand. Not because it’s not an awesome movie, or anything, but simply because they have absolutely no cultural context for the background – and there’s only so much gnostic overlays can do.

(For those who are haven’t been keeping detailed track of the cultural background elements, here’s your quick summary of the main divergence points in their history:

  • Well, for one thing, there was considerably less phenotypic divergence to go from, because of the limited initial population, slowed divergence, and a couple of bottlenecks, so while people could talk about the six original eldrae races, the two that came later, and the further divergence of cladism, it was never quite so immediately apparent. Which I mention not to explain a lack of racism, but rather to point out why the racial distinctions we make are so non-obvious to them
  • …but even that isn’t particularly relevant, since no-one got around to inventing hierarchical moral racism. At least part of that is down to the various different sets of instincts we’ve addressed in a whole lot of places (starting here) and in particular being too individualist to really grok group identitarianism and associated status games; as for the rest —
  • — well, let’s just say that the civilization whose unofficial motto was always “slavers, die!” never found any particular need to develop copious justificatory bullshit for treating people as property.
  • Colony, and its derivatives, don’t have the same contextual meaning. (See here for more.) A colony is founded out of nothing; if there were people there already, it ain’t a colony, not in Eldraeic.
  • And even if you do get around that problem by translating “colonizer” into traän-rianqármoníë daráv (“conqueror”), you then face the secondary problem that Earth-style colonialism is not how the Consolidation worked. (You can tell that because, y’know, all Earth’s empires fell, and most of them – especially in the “colonial” era – didn’t work very well for the owners even when they were up and running.) There were no metropole-periphery distinctions, no subject peoples versus ruling ones, no mercantilist exploitation (free trade, rather, which enriches everyone – just as planned). Admissions were preferred to forcible annexations, and even forcible annexations became peers with all other constituent nations. And history, naturally, proceeded very differently…
  • The sort of ugly urban ghetto of poverty and its associated vices that Earth cultures like to shove people in to oppress them doesn’t exist there, either. Partly for reasons as given here, but also because of things like the Citizen’s Dividend, eleemosynary organizations, and because the Empire has a pretty firm grasp on its economics and the shit you don’t do if, like the Empire, you hate poor people and wish to solve this problem by enabling them to self-upgrade into rich people.

)

So as you read through the point-by-point below, the thing you need to remember is that – with the possible exception of anyone who’s taken the official Exploratory Service “Barbarians Gonna Barbar: Here’s How” course – while the audience may love this movie, they don’t really get this movie. Earth-style racism doesn’t have anywhere to fit within their cultural context. It just reads like humans decided to arbitrarily pick a subset of themselves to be giant dicks to just because, and who the hell does that?

Who, indeed.

So, anyway, here we go:

  • Vibranium has lots of interesting properties, evidently. But, hey, so does our orichalcium.
  • This, we presume, is not Wakanda.
  • Is that a… glowy lip barcode? Interesting ID mechanism.
  • The Third Directorate approves of your spying on your spies.
  • One of the poorest countries in the world? Oh, this is quite the cover-up, we can tell already.
  • How to get an Imperial audience to stand, cheer, and root for you from then on: introduce yourselves by whacking a bunch of slaving assholes while being awesome.
  • And now we go straight from “my, that’s a gorgeous landscape” to “ah, this is where Earth has been hiding its real advanced civilization all along”.
  • Given the interesting properties of vibranium, one would think someone would have noticed what that was made of. Or at least that it was made of something unusual.
  • Between the post-poisoning conversation and the “spreading out the crime scene”, these guys are into some cold shit.
  • Ooh, cyborg.
  • (For anyone who might have the wrong idea of what the hyper-civilized Imperials might think of the ritual-combat succession and so forth, they have a great deal of respect for a culture that preserves its traditions and authenticity during its advancement, rather than getting all bland as many less respectable cultures do. And they have some interesting succession mechanisms of their own. And, y’know, it’s easily interpreted as a kind of consensual governance mechanism.)
  • ((I’m just going to take a moment to add to my preamble that this was something the Empire positively encouraged during the Consolidation, because having many diverse parts and cultures to draw from was one of the major factors that made the whole effort worthwhile.))
  • Can’t say they’re going to think much of M’Baku’s ideas, but they certainly respect his willingness to put himself on the line for them. And both his and T’Challa’s actions at the end of the fight.
  • There is going to be, I foresee, much speculation about the Ancestral Plane and its relationship with vibranium’s other properties. And that sky. (Comparisons to the Ocean of Souls included.)
  • T’Chaka delivers very good advice. Very hard, indeed.
  • Case in point: both Nakia and W’Kabi are making exceptionally good points.
  • Presumably someone like Klaue is where Howard Stark got the vibranium for Cap’s shield? That seems like something that’ll come back to bite later.
  • Shuri has best lab. And terrible best taste in puns.
  • Nanofabric, bead-tech, a sand table based on utility sand, vector control (!). Awesomeness.
  • It’s a little early in the movie to contemplate sequels, but honestly, at this point the audience is hoping for an entire movie titled Shuri, Tony, and Bruce Do Science To Things. Throw in Hank too, maybe.
  • Oh, gods, it’s a Ross.
  • Well, aren’t you charmingly eccentric.
  • Kicking that much ass in a formal dress, it’s easy to see how Okoye got to the top of the Dora Milaje.
  • Oh, that’s what’s in the arm.
  • A vibranium car. With, presumably, vibranium-infused glass windows. And with that remote-driving system — hell, you could just remote-drive it through anything you didn’t want to be there.
  • Guessing that arm-tool is Wakandan in origin, since it seems able to blast vibranium (a presumably specialized task). And picking up all the pieces of the vibranium ex-car is going to be a hell of a job for some Wakandan-on-the-ground.
  • Diplomacy, I believe, is not her business.
  • Called it!
  • Okay, this Ross may be all right. Also, those kimoyo beads are even cooler than we thought.
  • W’Kabi, you know there’s a difference between “not trying” and “not succeeding”, right?
  • So, between your collection of kill-scars and your expendable girlfriend, we’re guessing you’re a serial asshole. And with that ring, that’s some bad news.
  • Oh, gods, you’re the kid. Who your father just abandoned there. In a “civilization” which is starting to sound like a very unpleasant place. Although we’re guessing “your people” doesn’t mean Wakandan expatriates for assorted reasons, and this is where we’re failing to grok, per preamble…
  • And now we know what Everett Ross’s “have I just been abducted by aliens?” face looks like.
  • Look at all the pretty maglevs!
  • So, the CIA took someone whose “people” – at least on the maternal side – their parent civilization was oppressing the hell out of, and trained them in breaking civilizations. How did that possibly seem like a good idea?
  • Wait, this idiot planet is oppressing people based on melanin levels!? What the hell!? (There are probably not enough emphasis italics in the world to express the strength of this reaction, given that despite all the really dumb-assed things in the galaxy that they’re aware of, this one is even dumber.)
  • …and assuming the facts are as presented, N’Jadaka does have a point. A very good point. But even if his strategy would succeed perfectly, he’s about the least suited person in the world to carry it out.
  • Oh, shit. There is no limit to how badly this could go.
  • One also has to wonder what N’Jobu would have thought of his son’s actions, given how destructive they seem likely to be for Wakanda.
  • …yeah, you’re definitely going to work out as king. Guess that civ-breaking training stuck. On the other hand, especially given how easily the keepers gave in, we frankly disbelieve that that was all of the Heart-Shaped Herb.
  • “And their children”. Oh, the irony. Real seeker of justice you are.
  • M’Baku, you enormous troll!
  • With the note that his subsequent actions only increase our respect for his strength and honor, as well as his enormous trollishness.
  • Assuming, that is, that you want the world to think of you as the architects of a bloodbath everlasting.
  • Really, W’Kabi? Really?
  • …although those shield-cloaks are really cool. Paging a kinetic barrier designer to the engineering courtesy phone.
  • Is that… an armored war-rhino?
  • (On a personal note I really want that sand table.)
  • One day people may figure out that beating on the Black Panther only makes him stronger, but it is not this day.
  • Yeah, that’s your motivations made plain, all right, pretty words notwithstanding.
  • We think that is called battle trolling.
  • Everett is best Ross.
  • Although despite his brokenness, his crimes, and his plan to unleash horrors in revenge, the audience does feel sympathy for N’Jadaka’s tragedy in the end, especially after those dying words. (And, it is very fair to say, considerably less for the entire rest of the planet which allowed the horrors that broke him to happen.) And for the greatness that could have been, had they not thrown him away as a child.
  • And is thus cheering for T’Challa’s new outreach policy.
  • (The similarities here with their own difficulties with trying to do good in the rest of the Worlds, and the problems of trying to do it by force, do not escape anyone.)
  • Ooh, you’re going to feel really dumb for asking that, French guy. As is only right and proper, because as questions go, it was neither courteous nor wise.
  • …and evidently they figured out how to fix Bucky a lot faster than anyone thought. Cover-up wins again!

So. Yes. The audience loved the movie, and Wakanda, and our protagonists, very much.

But, by damn, has their opinion of the rest of Earth (formed, you will recall, essentially from the previous MCU movies) dropped more’n a few points.

Cultural Crossovers #17: Thor: Ragnarok

In which there is an apocalypse.

  • Man, that’s a lot of chains.
  • Well, you’re an unlikely flaming chap. But I guess if there are ice giants, there should be fire giants.
  • Thor, you’ve been hanging out with Tony Snark too much.
  • Oh, you shouldn’t have said that. Keep your special hat secret.
  • We approve this music choice.
  • Well, Asgard’s standards in gatekeepers have gone all to hell.
  • …even by ontotech standards, Mjolnir is hax.
  • Don’t think their standards in Viking-inspiring women are doing so well, either.
  • Oh, Loki. Evidently you gave up completely on subtlety and subtlety-adjacent things when you kinged yourself.
  • Awwww. But you two were so cute! And no Jane means no more Darcy, Best Intern Ever!
  • Well, isn’t that… Strange.
  • Implication: Asgard also has wizards. Of course, Earth also had wizards all along.
  • Loki is having a really bad day.
  • And Odin seems to be enjoying his retirement.
  • Well, this introduction is going well.
  • Mew-mew! Noooo!
  • Hm. Bifrost is also a place. Interesting. And one you can be thrown out of mid-transit.
  • Well, shit. We’ve seen those guys fight, and so… implications unpleasant.
  • Is that… a planet-sized landfill? With wormholes dropping garbage out of the sky? But… but… (economists have meltdown)
  • (I mean, I suppose it could be natural, but there had to be something better to use it for.)
  • Guessing these folks got landfilled too, at some point.
  • A very drunk Asgardian?
  • Not bad “going through them” for someone that drunk. “Blowing through them”, one might say.
  • And so passes the last of the Warriors Three. (Hm. I wonder where Sif is right now.)
  • Ah. So, they have a sideline in slave gladiators. Delightful planet, this Sakaar.
  • (Oh, right, where the paper people come from.)
  • Of course Loki would turn up there.
  • This one is laid back for a gladiator. Insert obligatory stoned pun here.
  • One might think slaughtering the entirety of Asgard’s military forces would be something of a self-own for the new queen…
  • (And this is why historical revisionism is problematic.)
  • …oh. A giant army of the mostly dead. And giant wolf!
  • (Awww, puppy.)
  • The hammer is his… hammer. Yep. Just his hammer.
  • Okay, so if there was this elite force of women warriors, what was that whole deal back in Thor about Sif being one?
  • Tough crowd.
  • Oh, that’s where you ended up.
  • Not sure he likes that name.
  • Like he said, god of thunder…
  • puny god of thunder. And Loki gloats, of course…
  • …or not. Someone’s feeling their elemental associations today.
  • Es. 10 says Heimdall is running the resista —
  • — thank you.
  • Evidently extended runtime is good for Hulk. And he’s got himself a life now.
  • And a robust sense of humor. And, ooh, a statue.
  • Ah, Heimdall has an exit. Guess when you can see everything in the universe, you pick up on all the back doors.
  • Nice escape. Well, right up until the Quinjet got Hulked, and the Hulk got dehulked.
  • Man, how bad must two years worth of Hulk-hangover be.
  • “Melt-stick,” seriously?
  • The Valkyrie rode pegasai. Okay, let’s revise the mythologae recreation list.
  • “You’ve been on a planet before.” Heh.
  • And soon it will be three.
  • Well, except for Hulkfest Carnivale whatever-local-year-this-is.
  • Worst impromptu name ever.
  • The “Devil’s Anus”? Apt. And dreadfully entendric.
  • You have a terrible job, Grand Master’s chief minion.
  • That is a terrible strategy, but that’s a really nice ship.
  • That, on the other hand, was a very nice strategy. If a mite dickish.
  • …something about a black light…
  • That would be a fairly odd thing to have a doctorate in.
  • Maybe not a gun, but it’ll do.
  • Awwww, puppy.
  • One would think they’d have better methods of interrogation on Asgard, but maybe Hela gets her kicks this way.
  • A very convenient wormhole, indeed.
  • And Thor teaches us all how to do provoke and confront.
  • DON’T SHOOT THE — well, okay, guess you have to.
  • Well, that wasn’t the plan.
  • Just you and your undead slaves, eh, Hela?
  • Welp, Loki and an opportunity to be theatrical. Should’ve called it.
  • Big-ass lightning bolts speak louder than words.
  • This is the best fightin’ music ever.
  • Alas, poor Fenris. You deserved a better mistress.
  • (But, hell, no-one else even wounded the Hulk. Ever.)
  • Even unavoidable sacrifices suck.
  • And Skurge of Asgard, at the last, dies well.
  • Bloody hell. He wasn’t kidding about being mountain-sized.
  • The audience also hates this prophecy. Civilizations should not fall. That is literally the opposite of the proper course of events.
  • Hulk is disappoint. Biggest challenge yet.
  • Korg, your timing is just the worst.
  • Well, won’t Earth be surprised to receive a sudden shipful of Asgardians? (Especially those Asatru whose worldview wasn’t already beaten all to hell in the last few years.)
  • …assuming that leaves anyone alive, that is.
  • And what’s about to couldn’t happen to a nicer planetary slavemaster.

Cultural Crossovers #16: Spider-Man: Homecoming

Does whatever a spider can…

  • Guess we’re going to have to assume some sort of introductory foo, here. Otherwise no-one’ll know who Spider-Man is, in medias res and all. Apart from what we saw in Civil War.
  • Well, lady, you just lost all our sympathy. You don’t stiff someone on a contract.
  • Yeah, those are some pretty nice things.
  • Ah, quick recap.
  • Nice self-awareness there, Tony.
  • Yeah, waiting on the call sure does suck.
  • Seriously, a dick pun is the best you can do?
  • You need some sort of changing room. Really.
  • Also, more work, maybe.
  • Nice toys, boys. We can’t exactly approve of what y’all opening guys are doing, but still, you don’t stiff people on contracts.
  • Man, you broke the Death Star.
  • LARB.
  • Free pudding, yay! Hopefully not made from larb.
  • Although those would all be really cool powers. And they’re good questions. Should work on those.
  • Okay, how did they get Cap to make those videos?
  • Ah, the perks of Avenger-hood.
  • Okay, score one for the stunner-fist.
  • Oh, your boss is not going to be happy you lost that.
  • Your power-set is really very poorly adapted to suburbia.
  • Nice parachute feature. Needs some beta-testing.
  • Ooh, remote-control suits. Nice.
  • Also nice reference. Shame no-one has the background knowledge to get it.
  • “The Shocker”? Well, I suppose it’s slightly better than Taserface…
  • Seriously, you’ve got to remember which gun is which.
  • I applaud your lair-logic.
  • So, what do strontium, barium, and vibranium have in common?
  • “Training Wheels Protocol”? Seriously, Tony, that’s a name that almost demands that someone turn it off, and you had to know that Peter’d go looking. Maybe “Prevent Your Head From Exploding Protocol; Do Not Disable”? At least then he’d have to read the code first.
  • Really, ammo selection should be her job, or what’s a suit AI for?
  • I’ll take one of those portable doors.
  • At least it’s not a radioactive energy core.
  • Dear lift-lady: Less reassurance, more action.
  • Now that’s an awesome drone.
  • Someone throw that guy out of the elevator and let the reasonable people be rescued.
  • Well, that kinda-sorta worked.
  • “Man-Spider”? Come on, guys, get it together.
  • Seriously, WHO GOT CAP TO MAKE THESE VIDEOS?
  • …these protocol names really aren’t getting any better.
  • And seriously, Peter, get Karen to read you the instructions first.
  • Okay, someone needs to have a word or two with you about collateral budgets.
  • And, oh yeah, how even not fancy space guns can fire through wrapping.
  • …so close.
  • Ooh, a swarm of shovebots. We like.
  • Desperation. It’s a hell of a drug.
  • Man, harsh. Although it’s not like Tony doesn’t have a good point. Several of them. From experience.
  • Ah, young love. At least you’re getting good advice on this one.
  • …oh, my. This will work out badly.
  • Although credit to him, offering a life for a life.
  • At least he didn’t ask for your pants, dude.
  • Glad someone’s having a good time. In the chair.
  • Although Peter is definitely right that y’all should do more listening.
  • Is that self-repairing? I don’t think that’s self-repairing.
  • Good strategy. Much overkill. Smart. Not good enough, certainly, but still smart.
  • And there it is. (We were noticing your heroic quality all along. Glad you caught up with us.)
  • Pretty sure ‘retroreflector’ is not the term, there.
  • Is that really a case of arc reactors?
  • You can’t believe that worked?
  • …now that. Damn. That was an awesome landing.
  • It’s over. You know it, you know there’s nothing to be gained, and you’ve been an honorable enemy thus far. Don’t —
  • — do that.
  • Nice note.
  • Yeah, you’ve got to secure the bathroom first.
  • No, that may be your worst analogy ever, and it’s up against some damn stiff competition.
  • ..we hope you’re going to give him Karen back. They were really bonding.
  • Awwww. We’re all so happy for you crazy kids.
  • Ah, you did! Excellent.
  • Oops. (And, man, are we going to be disappointed not to see how that conversation ended before we see Spider-Man again in Infinity War.)
  • Well done, sir.
  • …you’re just trolling us now, aren’t you?

Writer Crisis

Well, our server just died today. This is a mite awkward for us here, gentle readers, since if it doesn’t work, our network doesn’t work, and if our network doesn’t work, neither of us – writing, software developing, any kind of freelancing – can do any of our work work that pays the bills.

One hates to bleg, even if it is ethical, but needs must when the power company breaks your stuff, and so:

Please help, and if you can’t donate, please reshare. We don’t need very much to get back up and running, so even the tiniest bit helps.

Cultural Crossovers #15: Guardians of the Galaxy 2

Yay, it’s these guys again!

  • Quill’s parents, we presume. Along with a very large violation of ecological safety practices.
  • Well, that’s a weird way of assembling planets into a megastructure. Wonder what the point is, apart from saying “we can make gravity our bitch?” Although that kind of is a point.
  • Ah, Rocket. Your adventurer-fu is strong. And, hey, you never know when another dance-off might be needed.
  • Well, that’s a whole pile of ugly.
  • Groot: Still adorable. Still trolling Drax. We approve. The space-rat riding is new, but we agree with that too.
  • Drax: still insane.
  • You guys sure love gold, huh?
  • Well, hello, Nebula.
  • Rocket, while we agree with your assessment, you’ve got to have a —
  • Okay, I’m pretty sure doing a “bit of both” wasn’t supposed to be at the same time.
  • Wow, you’re not just understanding but actually constructing metaphors now?
  • Well, that’s an interesting way to control your space fleet. Do they keep the high scores somewhere?
  • Quantum asteroids? Unlikely, but cool concept.
  • Drax: even insaner.
  • You have interesting-looking jump points.
  • $10 says Drax wants another go.
  • …called it.
  • At least it waited until you were done crashing to fall off.
  • Well, that’s a remarkably nondescriptive name.
  • Hey, it’s Yondu!
  • Hm. Ravagers have a code, mythos, a notion of exile. Hmm. Tell us more, plz.
  • Oooh. Nice nano-make-shit spray. Or nano-make-ship spray, in this case.
  • Cool-lookin’ egg-ship.
  • Drax, I don’t think that was a secret to anyone.
  • Oh, this ambush will not go well, if I know Rocket.
  • Yeah, I know Rocket. And the soundtrack makes it.
  • …but then there’s Yondu and his knife missile.
  • Wow, some of these guys came out of the shallow end of the gene pool.
  • Oh, Kraglin. Bad call.
  • Nice-looking planet, Ego. Presumably very much a product of ecopoesis, gravity being what it is.
  • Well, small g, maybe, but you’ve built a hell of a temple-museum to yourself. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
  • Yeah, that does look like mutiny. Traditional spacings and all.
  • Isn’t ‘metaphorical’ a bit too large a word for you, Taserface?
  • Taserface.
  • Quite the sense of revenge you’ve got there, huh, Nebula.
  • Sniff. Playing catch with the light-ball is all kinds of touching. But the other shoe has to be dropping any moment.
  • And that seems likely to be it.
  • “Too adorable to kill”, really?
  • Shit, he’s a champion asshole.
  • Not very clear on this, Groot – which is odd considering your language skills elsewhere. But evidently he picked up on Rocket’s love of body parts.
  • Now that’s a much better call.
  • Damn, but Yondu’s good with that thing. That’s friggin’ war-poetry, right there.
  • Oh, now that’s just showing off.
  • Love the incendiary mode. And that’s an impressive – if an expensive – use of a modular ship.
  • Y’know, it generally helps to speak of unspoken things. We find. As a rule.
  • And Gamora, as expected, cuts the matter to the heart.
  • Man, that ship gets crashed a lot.
  • Okay, how the hell is she even holding that gun? Damn thing must be made of spinmetal and aerogel.
  • Thanos has a lot to answer for.
  • Hey, making weird shit sounds good. Actually, it seems like a much better use of divinity than Ego’s starting to preach.
  • (Also, Mantis and Drax are adorable and bizarre.)
  • …that is a lot of corpses. And seeing as Ego is the entire damn planet and is keeping them inside him, dear gods, is that creepifying.
  • Now that was a heart-to-heart.
  • Oh, holy crapballs, you’re a class II hegemonizing swarm.
  • Beyond such things as friends? Killing the woman you loved so you wouldn’t be distracted by her? You are the worst god ever. And considering the competition for that slot…
  • Well, given that you want to turn everything in the universe into you, it’s not like he’d have been spending the next thousand years as anything else anyway.
  • Any chance you assembled a planet-killer bomb from that guy’s eye, Rocket? Would be handy about now.
  • Yeah, it’s actually quite surprising that you don’t have a lot more issues.
  • Hell, if you need that thing to get in, I’m impressed with the security of the Bank of A’askavaria. Beautifully flexible, though.
  • It’s cute that the Sovereign go to the trouble of projecting their faces on the AKVs they’re piloting just so you can see who’s killing you.
  • Or, y’know, you could just improvise a planet-cracker on the spot. That’s cool. Hey, can we hire you?
  • Oh, god, everyone’s going to die.
  • Drax: still a troll.
  • Good gods, what was powering that arm? Was it designed so you could tear it off and throw it as a grenade? (I mean, knowing Thanos, yes, but still.)
  • Also, that entire planet has a terrible case of resting bitch face.
  • Um, a sane, decent, loving one?
  • If you two are all there is, what else is he going to do for fun?
  • Pretty sure he can. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s obligatory. Bugger destiny anyway.
  • Just about any of the infinity of possible meanings. You’re a heggie swarm. Boring and meaningless are among the top concepts associated with heggie swarms.
  • And by some miracle, Groot doesn’t kill everyone.
  • (I wish the people in this hypothetical theater would get all the nuances of the Pac-Man joke.)
  • Not sure Star-Lord is ever going to be just like everybody else. He’s got you out-awesomed for a start, Mister Celestial.
  • The audience rises and salutes Yondu’s final sacrifice. If they could, they’d vote him into Valhalla unanimously.
  • And are delighted that the Ravagers agree.
  • Oops.
  • Okay, are those guys getting a spin-off of their own in which they steal some shit? Please?
  • More rigidity of the stick up his butt, too?
  • (Probably lacking most of the context for teenage Groot too, alas.)

A Modest Recommendation

I’ve been enjoying reading this webcomic a whole lot recently:

Grrl Power is a comic about a crazy nerdette that becomes a superheroine. Humor, action, cheesecake, beefcake, ‘splosions, and maybe some drama. Possibly ninjas.

…for all those reasons, plus recent SFnal elements, and that our protagonist’s brain seems to work in disturbingly similar ways to the brains resident at Chez Author.

And thus I recommend it to you, Eldraeverse readers, because I suspect it would also suit your taste.

Cultural Crossovers #14: Doctor Strange

A quick pre-note: while suspension of disbelief is needed to believe in magic, of course, it’s not an unfamiliar context to the audience. The eldrae have a fine old hermetic tradition of their own, even if it’s regarded these days mostly as philosophy and “how we scienced before we learned how to science”.

Sadly, however, that both doctor and wizard mean “wise man”, in a sense, will be a little lost: long-term readers will remember that *there* doctor is a purely medical title, and the learned in other fields are generally titled academician.

  • This folding of space is exceedingly impressive. Especially since everything isn’t collapsing.
  • Doctor Strange, we presume.
  • My, someone has an ego. (Not that that’s a bad thing when you can so obviously back it up.)
  • Well, okay, maybe that’s going a little far. Also, “Strange Technique”? Snerk.
  • Avoiding a challenge, Mr. Ego? Makes your perfect record a little meaningless, no?
  • …and that would be the world taking your valxíjir from you.
  • That avoidance bites back.
  • I’m not sure that’s mania so much as a very familiar kind of despair. And yet, that’s still no excuse for such discourtesy.
  • Always at the far end of the world, the wisdom is.
  • Hiding in plain sight, I see. Promising.
  • (Only some of the audience have the cosmopolitan experience to understand why it’s odd that the Ancient One doesn’t look ancient, because…. well, all the Ancient Ones they’ve met look like that.)
  • You know, much as the audience might be inclined to agree with him, being punched right out of your body should really be awfully convincing. Even without the free trip through the Realm of Forms.
  • …or maybe the Realm of Hands. What the hell, other plane?
  • Ancient Snark from the Ancient One. Also, seriously, you show him the true nature of the universe and then throw him out? That’s a real dick move.
  • Wi-Fi, indeed. Heh. Although the audience is unlikely to understand the whole Magic vs. Science trope this is playing off.
  • Especially since the Ancient One’s spells-as-programs metaphor is exactly how they’d be inclined to think about magic anyway.
  • “No knowledge is forbidden, only certain practices.” Ooh, we like you.
  • Okay, as a general rule of thumb, rituals that make your eyes all charred-looking are probably not from the puppies and rainbows side of the force.
  • The “sling ring”? I mean, the device is nifty enough, but it needs a much cooler name.
  • Yeah, control by surrender doesn’t make much sense to these guys, either. Harmony vs. Discipline trope, and all that.
  • No educational methods quite as effective as the ones ending “or death” anywhere, I see.
  • Didn’t take you long to figure that out. But really, the one on his desk? That’s just trolling.
  • A mirror dimension? That’s awfully convenient – artificial, we suspect.
  • One does wonder who exactly the Living Tribunal are.
  • Ah, the shiny green pupil of the Eye of Agamotto. No-one’s in any doubt whatsoever as to what that is.
  • Oooh, time rewinding. We want one. Well, actually, we want quite a lot, because Just Think of the Potential Applications.
  • …ah, yes, “don’t screw around with time”. That’s a universal everywhere. Alas.
  • Extradimensional invasions, parasite universes. Gotcha.
  • Yeah, that’s something that could have done with a little explanation up front. Maybe one of those cute sayings about great power and great responsibility?
  • Hey, you don’t need to look surprised. You have the Ring of Everywhere-Going, and all.
  • …best windows ever. (The Claves in the audience grin smugly.)
  • Got to love the old infinite passage trick.
  • Man, I hope that wasn’t expensive.
  • Best cloak!
  • Nice portable prison.
  • Also, Kaecilius, I like your ambition and your distaste for time and death, but someone should really have explained to you the charred-face thing and the fundamental problem with borrowing power from extradimensional assholes.
  • See, he gets it! Easy principle, right?
  • Still best cloak!
  • And now for an astral asskicking. Astkicking?
  • From remote viewing to remote electrocution. I bet that application wasn’t in the library.
  • Well, your world’s been thoroughly upended. Was the bigger revelation that the world works completely differently, or that Strange grew up?
  • You know, people with the powers to alter natural law defending natural law per se is remarkably ironic, inasmuch as complete devotion to that principle would require doing absolutely nothing.
  • The architects in the audience really, really want to be able to fold space like this. Such possibilities!
  • (Also, is there really only one Dark Dimension? Or is Dormammu just kind of Spell-My-Name-With-A-The pretentious.)
  • Well, her method evidently sucks less than theirs.
  • …the audience hisses. Their lives have plenty of meaning without the prospect of death hanging over them, thank you so very much.
  • Awww. Best cloak really is best cloak.
  • Steal centuries of life from a giant abomination? Not the worst deed ever.
  • Always nice to see a too late arrival from time-to-time. Especially when there’s a convenient rewinder.
  • Heh. Stuck in a fish tank as time unwinds. What an embarrassing way to go.
  • Listen to Wong. Wong understands the rules of ethical singularities.
  • A time loop to trap a timeless being? Strange, you magnificent bastard!
  • …and getting killed over and over again how many thousand times? Dammit, man, we have to offer a standing salute to your collection of moon-sized orichalcum balls!
  • Yeah, they really should inscribe those the other way around.
  • Oh, for frak’s sake, Mordo, the whole damn planet was about to get eaten. How could there possibly be a bill larger than that?
  • Called it!
  • Well, hello. So, there weren’t wizards on Midgard before? (And, even more importantly, Asgard doesn’t have self-refilling steins?)
  • You walking away makes you undutiful. Going around taking away everyone else’s powers, starting with those which allow such unnatural acts as walking? There aren’t words for how much that makes you suck.
  • And what’s wrong with the world is that not enough people subscribe to the naturalistic fallacy? You cosmic jackass.

 

Cultural Crossovers #10: Guardians of the Galaxy

Oh, this should be fun —

  • As we’ve said before, mortality sucks. And being the grandfather who loses his daughter and grandson in the same moment sucks unimaginably.
  • Those who remember the very first trope-a-day will know why one might have to explain the whole alien abduction thing to this audience.
  • Well, look who’s rockin’ the adventurer archetype, complete with hint of xia. (Imperial culture loves this archetype so hard, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that the audience will be rooting for Star-Lord from now on.)
  • We have artifact sign!
  • Oh, yeah. Nice ship, nice gadgetry, this is how this shit is done!
  • …oops.
  • Well, aren’t you an interesting lot.
  • So, looks like the Kree go heavily in for the big, dark, and gloomy architecture.
  • …also for the unnecessarily repulsive bathing habits.
  • Well, hello. You seem more interesting than the average bounty hunter.
  • (Also, is everyone else a hominin in this universe? Wut.)
  • Even the one from a completely different tree, heh, of life. At least in body plan.
  • Yeah, it’s amazing how many adventurer circles meet that way.
  • Prick, indeed.
  • And are described that way.
  • Xandarian prisons would appear to be about as bad as the audience expects. And have no respect for private property! Bastards.
  • Let’s see: a wanderer, the hand-crafted pawn of an insane Power, a prototype uplift, and a tree. Oh, and Broody McEngravedPants. Yeah, sounds about right.
  • Looks like he earned that name honestly, judging by the reactions.
  • Nice even-with-translation difficulties, there.
  • Someone wants to speak to the organ-grinder. I don’t think he’ll enjoy it.
  • Ah, it’s going to be one of those plans.
  • I love an enthusiast with a gun taller than they are.
  • The things that make up a chap’s reputation. My, oh my.
  • Okay, even by the audience’s local standards, this is a brilliant escape plan. Although it raises some questions about the maximum-security prison’s security.
  • Yeah, some things are important.
  • …or an enthusiast for blowing up moons. Love those too.
  • And eww. Even without black light. Especially since the audience can see in UV.
  • Is that arrow a knife missile? Shiny.
  • Well, that’s novel. And creepy. And faintly disgusting. Squishier than we would usually expect ancient Powers to be.
  • Aww, Groot.
  • Okay, someone’s going to have to explain that reference.
  • All the love for the phrase “pelvic sorcery”. Three logotects submit a new word to the Conclave by morning.
  • We might like you if you weren’t such an asshole to your staff, or perhaps we should say slaves.
  • Well, that’s some suitably terrifying ultimately-paleo paleotechnology.
  • And this is the pragmatic reason that you shouldn’t have slaves.
  • (Also, what the heck did that do to the other Infinity Stone you have lying around there?)
  • That’s a good reason.
  • Drax, never get drunk again, ‘kay?
  • And for him, it was Tuesday.
  • You like that plan, huh? RAMMING FTW.
  • Well, that’s definitely a basis for a relationship…
  • Hell of a play, Quill. The audience applauds, anticipating the follow-up gambit.
  • Groot, thoracic surgeon?
  • Oooh, someone’s caught ambition.
  • Oh, gods, this meeting. Just… this meeting. But especially the moment that it ends with.
  • …and then Rocket.
  • Wait, wasn’t that a metaphor?
  • What is it with you and other people’s body parts? On second thoughts, don’t answer that.
  • Hell, “Not 100% a dick” is a pretty apt description of the entire adventuring profession. Certainly as viewed from the outside.
  • (Sadly, the dick message will require cultural translation. As will Kevin Bacon.)
  • Now, that’s a neat trick, but I think the audience might question the practicality of turning your mobile defense into an immobile shield, especially when the enemy has mobile units of their own,
  • Ah, Drax. Tact is something else that your culture missed out on, isn’t it?
  • …you do grok friendship, though.
  • Oh, yeah, that’s a knife missile!
  • Urgh. Macrotech cybernetics are ugly when self-repairing.
  • Evidently, he has reserves. And Saal, you’re kinda racist towards the one saving your city’s ass right now. Well, okay, part of it.
  • Keep working on it, Drax, you’ll get there.
  • And that’s why you don’t bring Sakaarans to a Groot fight.
  • Well, damn.
  • Aww, Groot. Is this theater dusty? I’ll call someone to clean the filters… in a minute…
  • And Star-Lord wins the furthest-beyond-left-field improvised plan award, this and possibly all years.
  • Yes, that you most certainly are.
  • Well, now, isn’t that interesting?
  • Looks like Drax has also caught some ambition. I hope it ends better.
  • Also, good for the Nova Corps in actually, unlike maybe 99% of similar organizations, having some gratitude.
  • Oh, don’t troll the poor man. Well, too much.
  • Grootling!

Oh, yeah. Despite the pop-cultural references – spoken and visual – needing a gnostic overlay or two to make sense, this one fills theaters for months, easy. The audience loves it. The fan community starts building stuff from it. The soundtrack inspires musicians to the sincerest form of flattery. Just about perfect, in fact.

So that went well.

Cultural Crossovers #9: Captain America – The Winter Soldier

Once more into the cinema, dear friends, once more:

  • Captain America continues to be awesome.
  • He don’t need no steenkin’ parachute, although why the vibranium ain’t glowing is a mystery.
  • Ah, multitasking. Always room for a banter thread.
  • And this is why concealed mission objectives are a bad idea unless you’re concealing them from yourself with a conditional-release trigger. Even for compartmentalization purposes.
  • Heli-cruisers, is it?
  • Ah, the idealist versus the pragmatist. The audience sides with the idealist. (The sentinels in the audience sigh softly.)
  • Oh, that reunion. It could make a stone weep, and we all still hate mortality.
  • Hiding things from yourself, Fury, or something sinister going on?
  • Nice car. Smart. Just the thing for a nice day out in hostile territory.
  • …not quite good enough, but damn close.
  • The Winter Soldier, I presume?
  • Well, that’s a nice trick, Mister Cyborg.
  • Oh, he is so not dead.
  • And, Pierce, this is possibly the most obvious frame job since they hung the Mona Lisa.
  • Son, you don’t have enough STRIKE units. The whole of SHIELD doesn’t have enough STRIKE units.
  • And, as usual, the Council of Holographic People is being played like an organ-grinder’s… organ. The Imperial Security Executive is deeply unimpressed.
  • Nice moves – and you schmucks call yourselves a tac team?
  • YOU UPLOADED A MIND-STATE WITH THAT!? (in a bunker? with a box of scraps?)
  • Oh, you cunning bastards. When working with a population of kneelers, anyway.
  • (And how the hell was Fury blind to this all these years? This is why the Imperial Service has three, count ’em, three, Departments of Impropriety.)
  • “I shoot my housekeeper to demonstrate how unnecessarily evil I am!”
  • Oh, it’s Senator Asshat being… well, yeah, exactly what we’d expect.
  • And that’s how one conducts an interrogation. Also, really nice jetpackoskeleton.
  • Ah, proleptic algorithms. Nice tech, lots of useful applications, shame about the grotesque abuse of it here.
  • Well, shit. How did you end up there? And then?
  • Excellent timing, Agent Hill.
  • Oh, Rumlow, don’t you know that the traditional cliché is to make the prisoners dig their own graves?
  • Called it.
  • Ah, more freezing, after a run through the brain laundry. That makes sense.
  • Please note: the tech in your laundry also sucks.
  • …and yeah, seriously, when you’re this compromised, you BURN IT TO THE GROUND. And then shoot the ashes into the sun. And then blow up the sun.
  • Good impromptu speech, that.
  • And glorious moment-stepping!
  • And then, sudden transparency. Everyone in the audience who doesn’t secretly work for the Fifth Directorate applauds. So does everyone who does, because, y’know, secrecy.
  • “Order only comes through pain”? Man, HYDRA are all about the fucked-up mottos.
  • Well, this is a spectacular mess.
  • Nice catch!
  • And after their respective multiple high-risk plays, the entire audience would be more than delighted to go into battle alongside either Cap or Black Widow. Any day of the week.
  • Well, that’s a hell of a loose end to tie up.
  • …and there are some idiots playing with the scepter of mindfucking. That’s going to work out well.

Also doesn’t take much cultural explanation, same as the last one in this sub-series, except for two really big details:

One, how did you get a supposedly non-evil organization to think that Project Insight doing preemptive executions was a good idea (don’t tell us, pragmatism – which is why we don’t like pragmatists around here); and

Two, how in all the blazes of nucleonic eggbeating fornication did, I repeat myself, Fury let SHIELD get that compromised? I mean, there’s suspension of disbelief, but based on previous films and characterization, we’re not supposed to think of him as hilariously incompetent, so…

Wut?

 

Cultural Crossovers #8: Thor – The Dark World

Straight on with it:

  • Well, they don’t look much like pre-stellar ignition creatures, but we’ll roll with it. (Anyway, wouldn’t they be Hot Ones in that case, not Cold Ones?)
  • …using a K does not make words extra-special. Just ask the Krell, the K’kree, the Kazon…
  • Don’t Seal the Evil in a Can! That trick never works!
  • Ah, Loki. Snarking in the face of death.
  • …Thor? Have you been listening to your brother?
  • THEY HAVE A CAVE TROLL.
  • This audience would point out that yes, Odin has a point about relationships between the short-lived and the long. But also that there is a cure for that, and if they haven’t figured it out yet, why the heck not?
  • Ah, Darcy, never stop being you.
  • Someone’s suffering some aftereffects of being brain-stirred with a scepter, methinks.
  • Welp, something’s plaited space-time like a much-used handkerchief. Wacky fun with metric engineering?
  • That’s a mite impressive.
  • Evidently you can explode more than once.
  • Holy shit, indeed. Bifrost is a delightfully showy method of interstellar travel. And your reaction, Jane, is simply adorable. The scientists squee and proclaim you one of their own.
  • Yes, “soul forge” is definitely a more poetic name. Our science team agree, although the description of what it does is… odd.
  • Rather civilized dungeons, Asgard has.
  • Interesting cosmology. One presumes that the Nine Realms are themselves an artificial construct.
  • There is perhaps something to be said about what one ought to bring to a battlecruiser fight.
  • Given some earlier comments about woman warriors, it’s good to see that the Queen of Asgard is appropriately badass. And tricksy.
  • …and dead. Shit.
  • A worthy funeral.
  • Lecturing the nuthouse. A sorry end for a great mind and someone who got drunk with a god.
  • Ah, Loki. You may not be a troll, but you’re definitely a troll.
  • Nice flying… for a vehicle you’ve never seen before.
  • Hell, a man takes that many pills, no wonder he’s crazy.
  • Nidavellir: it’s a miserable place.
  • Loki, damn it.
  • Let me rephrase that: Damn, Loki!
  • Oh, well played with that grenade.
  • Is there anyone in this audience who believes that Loki actually just died? Signs point to no.
  • You may have found a body, but the audience still doesn’t believe it.
  • Given that Mjolnir can lay down the smack on someone wielding the functional equivalent – or actuality – of an Infinity Stone, Asgardian weapons technology is really quite impressive.
  • And, hell, where are they gonna run to, anyway? Might as well get a good video on the off-chance the universe survives.
  • Welcome to Vanaheim, gentlemen. Hope they have airfields.
  • Excellent rising to the occasion, intern’s intern.
  • …kinda hope we get to visit Muspellheim sometime. It looks interesting, what we can see through the big ol’ skyhole.
  • Rendered ‘armless. Ho, ho, ho.
  • …aww, the fighter pilots didn’t get to stay in Vanaheim long enough for any mead. I hear it’s excellent.
  • Oh, Loki, you magnificent bastard! (And one wonders what he did with Odin?)
  • And he’s back! Good thing too, bilge snipe and all.

Anyway. Perfect movie for this audience – modulo some serious suspending of science disbelief – complete with perfect demi-villain. Couldn’t be better.