We get, rightfully imo, pretty sad and somber and naval-gazey about Discworld and Sir Terry on the 25th of May but I need everyone who might be discovering this series through this annual outpouring of love and sadness that these books are mostly just really fucking funny. Like, they’re heart-wrenching and poignant but really they can only pull that off because they’re also the funniest books ever written. There’s a line near the end of Hogfather that, when I read it, made me feel more deeply connected to, like, the concept of humanity then I ever have before, but the book was only able to deliver that because the rest of it is about what if Santa Claus got kidnapped and a Big Skeleton had to take over his job? It’s a patently ridiculous series but that is absolutely also where it’s power comes from.
The Funniest Possible Star War: an AU where the Kaminoans get wise just a LITTLE earlier.
Like. Instead of waiting until the inhibitor chips are activated and the Empire is already ascendant to realize that the Galactic Empire absolutely will not allow there to be a planet that mass-produces clone armies for the highest bidder, they have this realization BEFORE Order 66 goes out.
AU where the Kaminoan government looks at their position, looks at the likely fallout, and weighs their futures under a Galactic Empire to whom they are a threat that has outlived its usefulness VS a grateful but still slow-moving Republic, with all its factions and legalities intact, its social mores primarily unchanged….its army filled with thinking, feeling men to whom Kamino is their homeworld and who are in control of their free will and thus capable of refusing orders that strike at their own hearts…its main enemy in the form of the Separatist Alliance neutralized but not utterly annihilated, ripe for both sides being played against the middle…
And quietly, about six weeks before Knightfall, without telling anyone, just…..deactivates the chips. Sends out a pulse via comm channel designed to fry or alter them. Remote killswitch. Something like that.
So Palpatine like. He’s WON. He’s TRIUMPHANT. He kills the Jedi strike team, gets Anakin to kill Mace Windu, names his new apprentice Vader, has him swear allegiance, sends him to wipe out the Jedi, goes all “COMMANDER CODEEEE”
“exEcUtE oRDeR SIxtY sIx”
and
nothing
happens.
Cody politely asks for clarification because that’s not a term in the GAR manual, sir, apologies. Long pause. Cody equally politely apologizes and explains that he’s in a pitched battle, sir, but I’m sure the General will contact you when we’ve taken the planet.
[Palpatine voice] “Hwat.”
He hits the next button on his carefully-curated Order 66 contact booklet for the high-priority targets he wants taken out before the general transmission so they don’t get any warning. He sits impatiently through the tinkly elevator music.
“COMMANDER REX EXECUTE ORDER 66″
Rex blinks, explains he’s not familiar with that code, sir, but Rex is a little less polite than Cody due to long-term exposure to Anakin Skywalker, and has the presence of mind to also point out that the Supreme Chancellor isn’t even technically IN the GAR chain of command, he’s a CIVILIAN leader, what’s going on–
Palpatine hangs up on him.
Okay, fine, whatever. Annoying but not unsurpassable, those two were ALWAYS an irritant, their clone commanders must have done something to the chips, it WAS a clone from Skywalker’s battalion who nearly discovered them after all. He’ll take out the rest of the Council and the all-call general transmission will take out the rest of the Order, he can deal with the treacherous 501-B and 212th later–
Shaak Ti’s clone commander asks in abject bewilderment how the Supreme Chancellor even got his personal comm number. He’s not even on duty. It’s 3am. Half the Council’s clones don’t even respond. Those that do just promise to have their Jedi call back about this Order 66 thing when they’re available.
He sends the general transmission with significantly less gravitas than originally planned.
He immediately starts getting confused email notifications.
Unduli sends a TEXT from some random rank-and-file clone’s comms politely reminding him that she was present for the most recent strategy meeting and there was no operation codenamed Order 66, and reminds him coolly to respect the chain of command. Depa Billaba’s commander not only calls back but actually GETS HER ON COMMS to ask if she knows the term. They patch her padawan into the call to puzzle it out. The padawan asks Palpatine what happened to his face. He sits through three full minutes of playful banter before screaming and cutting the line.
Anakin gets downstairs to kick off Knightfall. The 501st blinks at their orders, exchange long looks, agree wholeheartedly, and stun him in the back the moment he turns around before dragging his ass to the Temple medical wing.
Conservatives will be like “Why are you holding me accountable for my bigoted beliefs? Whatever happened to tolerance???”
The response to that is Tolerance Is Not a Moral Precept - it is a peace treaty. It is a contract of cooperation, or at least, of non-interference.
the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in
one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those
willing to abide by its terms. It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.
(Bold added)
Someone who’s actively trying to oppress, belittle, exclude, or harm people based on their identities is not complying with the contract, so there’s no reason to extend its protection to them.
Another(etymological cuz Im Me :p) way to say this: “Civility” doesn’t mean “nice”, it means “the way of citizens”. Citizens live together, and if someone decides they’re too good for “living together” then, well, they can live apart, forcibly shunned and exiled from the “civil” society they hate so much, until they decide different.
Sun Tzu is so fucking funny to me because for his time he was legitimately a brilliant tactician but a bunch of his insight is shit like “if you think you might lose, avoid doing that”, “being outnumbered is bad generally”, and “consider lying.”
My personal favourite is his lengthy lecture on the subject of Supplies Being Very Important I Cannot Stress Enough The Importance Of Protecting Your Supply Lines But Also Supply Lines Are Expensive As Shit So Steal The Enemy’s Supplies At Every Opportunity.
I am an unabashed fan of swords, but it is genuinely tragic how slept on warhammers are as symbolic weapons
Swords in a historical context were analogous to sidearms - built for flexibility of use and ease of transport, as well as taking on the role of a status symbol in a lot of feudal and early-modern societies. They are inextricably tied to notions of heroism in most cultures, yes, but also to concepts and institutions such the nobility, monarchy, and the existence of a wealthy warrior class. The role of a sword as a weapon of choice in fiction, then, serves as a subtextual elevation of the user’s importance; they have been marked out by destiny, the divine, social expectation, circumstance, or any other number of things, as special. Important. Powerful.
Warhammers in the European tradition were a response to advancements in plate armor technology: by the late Middle Ages, plate armor granted such significant protection to those lucky enough to lay their hands on a full suit that they posed an almost insurmountable threat to an unarmored fighter with armed with only a sword, club, or rudimentary spear. Late-medieval full plate is one of the purest symbols of power projection and power preservation in military history—
in fiction, they armor the status and power of the sword, stripped of the romantic and heroic ideals granted to the sword by its storied history.
As a weapon specifically designed to respond to and defeat plate armor, the warhammer can be viewed as its symbolic antithesis: where plate armor embodies the idea of unassailable strength and martial dominance, the warhammer as a weapon evokes the destruction and dismantling of said strength— a weapon designed to pierce, tear apart and sunder the idea that being powerful and being untouchable are synonymous. Where the sword symbolizes elevating a person to power, and plate armor symbolizes power seeking to perpetuate itself, the warhammer symbolizes the leveling of tools and structures that would convince us that power cannot be challenged.
