Literally everyone is way better than the RUAnd yet...the Neutrality Pact are still way better than the RU.
Literally everyone is way better than the RUAnd yet...the Neutrality Pact are still way better than the RU.
He'll probably just take over as writer for Zap Zephyr and maintain a lifelong friendship with Oswald/steady propaganda pipeline in the pulps.Oswald AND Hubbard?? Dear gods what will happen the AFC? WMiT Scientology be like Hubbardism?
He'll probably just take over as writer for Zap Zephyr and maintain a lifelong friendship with Oswald/steady propaganda pipeline in the pulps.
Thinking they spotted easy prey in the form of three gunboats laden with men and supplies, the American ships moved in for the kill, guns blazing. It was, in reality, a trap. Three Brazilian-made battleships (an early contribution from the Eduist government to the Neutral cause) appeared from around a small island and attacked swiftly and without hesitation.
God of War.
Didn't follow the link, but I'm pretty sure that was spam. The block of text is chaff to try and throw off automated filters, and was probably pulled from Google and translated by a script based off of a few keywords in this thread.um
you sure this is the right place for this?
I've been thinking about this-- this, plus the earlier reference by Jansen to Valhalla, seem to imply that a much more nihilistic, militaristic faith is trying to burst out of the AFC's Christian veneer, and that veneer is weakest in the military (whether it be Norse-LARPers like Jansen or the curiously atheistic Dewey). But what if, instead, the "War God" isn't some other deity but merely an aspect of Jehovah? The Quran refers to Allah with epithets reflecting his fundamental characteristics; it's possible that Americans' understanding of God has shifted so much that He is seen as fundamentally... warlike.
God made animals to populate the earth, and yet He made them to fight over food and eat each other for sustenance. He made the angels as powerful-but-subservient entities, instilling them with an unsolvable inner conflict that found expression in Lucifer's revolt. As it is with angels and animals, so it is with men: God slighted Cain, and drove him to murder his brother. God delights in creation, but conflict and violence can be creative too! It can be evolutionary. God doesn't desire a static kingdom, a calm sea in which he can view His own reflection; he wants a storming, churning, whirling world. He desires that the weak may test themselves against the strong, and vice versa. However, He is all-knowing: he knows who the truly strong really are, and he knows the weak will always dash themselves against the rocks in vain. The strong aren't just physically strong, it takes mental strength (intelligence, temperance, other "Better" qualities) to build a strong civilization-- so some morality is still demanded of even the strong, when they are at peace and dealing among each other. But in war against the weak, a war that would be inevitable even if it hadn't been specifically ordained by the Four Books, there is no shame in victory. Victory, at any cost and by any means, is a service to God, and an emulation of his creativity. After all, did God not create the World by driving away the Void?
Didn't follow the link, but I'm pretty sure that was spam. The block of text is chaff to try and throw off automated filters, and was probably pulled from Google and translated by a script based off of a few keywords in this thread.
To say nothing of the libertinism set to spurt out everywhere in the Oswald era. Steele's holding it together through force of personality right now, but I can imagine the orthodox Church (no pun intended) losing out big in the funeral games after his death, especially if the traditionalists try to make a play for power to reverse their declining influence.The AFC feels like it’s about to have a schism. With Lovecraft’s craziness, Norse mythology LARPers, whatever craziness Hubbard will cook up, and the conflict between Church and Party, I feel like some heresies going to form pretty soon. Obviously they won’t get too big, but it could cause some problems for America down the road.
The AFC feels like it’s about to have a schism
I've been thinking about this-- this, plus the earlier reference by Jansen to Valhalla, seem to imply that a much more nihilistic, militaristic faith is trying to burst out of the AFC's Christian veneer, and that veneer is weakest in the military (whether it be Norse-LARPers like Jansen or the curiously atheistic Dewey)
losing out big in the funeral games after his death, especially if the traditionalists try to make a play for power to reverse their declining influence
Even other fascists are better than the RU.Literally everyone is way better than the RU
the collapse of England
Behind the scenes photograph of Charles "Gene Lucas" Oswald during filming of 'Zap Zephyr: The Gorlax Strikes Back'
Perhaps Xenu appears as an evil Martian Infee dictator, who wants to capture and enslave the souls of the Pinnacle Men so that his void-bound race can have real souls? He does something like that in the Scientologist texts, and it seems like the kind of thing Fundamentalist Americans would eat up.
I've been thinking about this-- this, plus the earlier reference by Jansen to Valhalla, seem to imply that a much more nihilistic, militaristic faith is trying to burst out of the AFC's Christian veneer, and that veneer is weakest in the military (whether it be Norse-LARPers like Jansen or the curiously atheistic Dewey). But what if, instead, the "War God" isn't some other deity but merely an aspect of Jehovah? The Quran refers to Allah with epithets reflecting his fundamental characteristics; it's possible that Americans' understanding of God has shifted so much that He is seen as fundamentally... warlike.
God made animals to populate the earth, and yet He made them to fight over food and eat each other for sustenance. He made the angels as powerful-but-subservient entities, instilling them with an unsolvable inner conflict that found expression in Lucifer's revolt. As it is with angels and animals, so it is with men: God slighted Cain, and drove him to murder his brother. God delights in creation, but conflict and violence can be creative too! It can be evolutionary. God doesn't desire a static kingdom, a calm sea in which he can view His own reflection; he wants a storming, churning, whirling world. He desires that the weak may test themselves against the strong, and vice versa. However, He is all-knowing: he knows who the truly strong really are, and he knows the weak will always dash themselves against the rocks in vain. The strong aren't just physically strong, it takes mental strength (intelligence, temperance, other "Better" qualities) to build a strong civilization-- so some morality is still demanded of even the strong, when they are at peace and dealing among each other. But in war against the weak, a war that would be inevitable even if it hadn't been specifically ordained by the Four Books, there is no shame in victory. Victory, at any cost and by any means, is a service to God, and an emulation of his creativity. After all, did God not create the World by driving away the Void?
Oh no, now the doctrine itself speaks of a war-cult."Futhamoah, Snoodorf is key to all of this."
Can't remember if it has been in any official chapters but in my notes Zap's arch-nemesis is named Lord Zeenoo, Grand High Exalted Quasar of the Andromeda Galaxy.
This is brilliant!
For anyone who's interested in further possibilities for war-cults-- the "creative violence" concept was formulated in a broader form by the Futurists, who I've been very interested in as of late. When they say they like violence, what they generally mean is rejection of convention, a hostile and uncompromising denial of established norms. The artist who wants to try a new style never seen before makes a violent break with predecessors. Violence can also be aimed at an "old" worldview-- if virtues like temperance and moderation evolved as a response to scarce resources and limited consumption, then they are unsuited for a society that can actually conceptualize post-scarcity. Industrial society must dare to produce more, and so it must not be satisfied with less. This leads to some fairly disgusting libertinism which I wrote a comment about last week on Look to the West. And of course, if peace keeps society stable and stability leads to stagnation, peace must be ended.
All this brings me to... Red Flood. Even if you haven't played or don't like Hearts of Iron, I guarantee everyone reading this TL is gonna love the story to this HOI4 mod. The lore is that Russia is stronger going into WW1 for a number of reasons (but not that strong, Nicholas II is assassinated by extremists), which causes Germany to focus France and successfully conclude the Schlieffen Plan... but then it gets defeated by Russia and undergoes socialist revolution. Russia and Britain dither but neither is willing to put Western Europe back together; Russia assigns West Prussia and Posen to a new Polish state, organizes a German monarchist government in Prussia, peaces out... and falls into civil war after Tsar Alexei dies with no heirs and the Bolsheviks make their move. So we got a lot of interesting elements: Spartacist Germany, Russia as a coalition of warlords under Kolchak's loose authority with communists regrouping in various wildernesses, Britain as a royalist military junta, but the nation that really sets the mod's tone and influences pretty much all future updates... is France (or as the dev report calls it, F R A N C E). Since WW1 it's seen democratic and authoritarian, left and right, but a new big tent ideology has consolidated power: Accelerationism. Its subfactions have three unique ways of turning France into a dystopian hell:
The man entrusted with mediating between these factions (so the guy you play as) is absolutely insane and I will not explain more, you really gotta see this shit for yourself. And I hope you do, because the mod is both a wild time and tries, in its own way, to shine a spotlight on some of the weird people and thoughts that came out of the 1920s/30s. They made a France that (paraphrasing someone else here) feels as scary and alien as the Revolution of 1793 must have to the European monarchs of the time, and they're trying to figure out unique ways to get other countries looking like that too.
- The Escadron, a WW1-era special forces unit turned Revolutionary Guard Corps, leans into the militaristic, technophile side of Futurism. Centralization of the government, integration of new tech into nearly every economic/political function, expansion of cities to their feasible limits. France should run with the efficiency of a machine or a military unit, and be upgraded to the greatest extent possible. Now all this raises questions about liberty, to which the Escadron reply: Well, you do have liberty. What you don't have... is a self. Selfhood is an obstacle to French progress, so we must evolve past it. We are all Kabbalistic emanations of the Leader, we are literally him-- his mind/essence/will in another body, and you are entitled to all his own liberties so long as you follow all his-- or, your-- plans.
- The Acephale, a secret cabal of businessmen and socialites, fancy themselves a new aristocracy. They justify it with their big-brain theory about how all economies are driven by consumption, and that it's better economically for a few people to make outrageous amounts and blow it all than for a larger amount to earn small and spend small. So-- decentralization, gradual scaling-back of the law to the point where almost nothing is actually illegal. The Futurist angle comes in with how they approach spending-- for them, being a libertine is an imperative. You gotta find new ways to spend, ways that people haven't done (because they're patently immoral) or even thought of (because they're so whacked-out), not just because of the econ-flavored nonsense but because pleasure will guide you to enlightenment... and hey, even if you don't attain that you still got more pleasure. And you gotta find new ways to earn. Cinema is a product. Art is a product. So are drugs, sex workers, guns...
- The Druidists... are the enemy within. They carved out a niche by arguing that physical/spiritual health are avenues for progress too, and so aim to bring Frenchmen closer to nature and to their own long-suppressed Gaulish spirituality. This rapidly escalates into an immense skepticism toward the city and machines as things that enslave man, that demand he apply his labor to abstract and meaningless tasks as his vital essence ebbs away... and then escalates even more into anarcho-primitivism with Celtic characteristics, with Paris burned and the population sent into the country to carve totems and hunt.
You just led me down the most insane and amazing rabbithole I've been down in a while. Thank you good sir. Also, I'd find it hilarious if the Union adopted ideals somewhat similar to the Acephale if Carolina is still its puritanical Southron self.
Yeah the last stand thing is vastly more likely. Unless they just get gassed.I don't think the Pact will be investing too much in cuba to evacuate the Infee slave there beyond shipping them guns to keep the RU and Carolina bogged down and their forces divided. That said, cuba would make an excellent forward base for Pact forces launch mission to the RU mainland from, either bombing runs or dropping special forces and saboteurs throughout Yucatan, Florida, and the southern states