|
|
Post by garyshots on Oct 11, 2022 1:10:20 GMT
It's kind of a bleak and disheartening outcome to see Thessalia suddenly ordering actions of brutal violence on a couple members of FP. Chatelaine Thessalia and The Order of the Weal--I want to like Thessalia more for some reason, despite my unease about her participation in the savagery seen on Zo La Domini. she order it and participate, or did her Babel go rogue? |
|
|
|
Post by garyshots on Oct 11, 2022 1:21:39 GMT
"In men, runs the myth, are the Homeworld's hidden passions outlined: unrestrained by House Protocol."
The Great Houses really are obsessed with humanity, aren't they? Entarodora even references Tarzan. They're like George III in Hamilton.
The jungle children are interesting. Their biodata takes on the characteristics of their adopted homes. Was the Doctor fostered on Earth as a child?
|
|
Bongo50
Little Sibling
Currently reading The Book of the War
Posts: 44
|
Post by Bongo50 on Oct 11, 2022 20:03:50 GMT
It took me a long time to get through these entries and even longer to get round to posting about them so what I can remember from them is somewhat limited. I didn't enjoy these entries as much as previous sections, however. There were lots of details focussing on the Houses and this doesn't really grip me as much as some of the other stuff we've read so far. So this week we read War Predictions: Chatelaine Thessalia, but not War Predictions: The Rivera Manuscript. What about the previous section, just called War Predictions? I don't see it on our schedule. I would also like to know this. doctornolonger, do you know when we do this entry? "Justine's Story" has nothing to do with Cousin Justine, right? None of the dates and details line up. Yet as far as I can tell it's not based on anything in real history the way Hauser's story is, so the choice of name seems noteworthy. I also wondered this. Does anyone more knowledgeable with Faction Paradox know if there was intended to be a link? There wasn't much else that I really remember sticking out to me. The next section looks pretty interesting so I hope that it interests me more. |
|
Mop
Little Sibling
Posts: 10
Preferred Pronouns: He/They
|
Post by Mop on Oct 11, 2022 20:44:23 GMT
So this week we read War Predictions: Chatelaine Thessalia, but not War Predictions: The Rivera Manuscript. What about the previous section, just called War Predictions? I don't see it on our schedule. It's in "Week 17: The History of Posthumanity and The Academician's Story", but it's just listed as "The Rivera Manuscript" (and it's presumably separate from the Appendix section that goes into more detail because "Appendix IV" is listed as a separate item). |
|
|
|
Post by garyshots on Oct 12, 2022 20:53:16 GMT
Doylistically, you can see why it isn't the Ixion loom that's tainted. It's already tainted as per Lungbarrow, though in the Spiral Politic universe it seems that the Other's biodata may have been more widely distributed across various renegades. (Although it's quite appealing to make the Doctor half-vampire.) But it's funny to have the Order of the Weal based in Ixion and then have to bring in a second loom from outside. They could have been based in House Catherion. Clearly the writers want them in Ixion for a reason. I think perhaps we're meant to deduce that the Doctor is another of their loom-experiments, like the Babels.
(And, anachronistically, Thessalia is the Tecteun-figure here.)
"The same event wiped out the most obvious candidates for succession, though persistent rumours suggest at least one survived to turn renegade." Do we ever find out who this was? I must admit that I've yet to read Newton's Sleep.
|
|
PI9090
Cousin
I was loomed this way.
Posts: 91
|
Post by PI9090 on Oct 13, 2022 10:20:41 GMT
The Leathean three cannot be The Master (who is the War King) or the Rani (who trained Humonculette), probably not Romana (who died/disappeared with the destruction of one of the Homeworlds). The Monk would be a safe bet, but he’s very good at running away.  Rallon and Millenia: Dead formerly part of the Celestial Toyroom. Millenia's Watcher remains there. Mortimus/The Monk: Possible. Alive post .L.G.T.W.. Theta Sigma/The Doctor. Koschei/The Master: The War King possibility 1. Vansell: .C.I.A. head. Possible proto Celestis but vapourised in Big Finish, "Neverland". Magnus/The War Chief: The War King Possibility 2. Possible. Regenerated at the end of Timewyrm Exodus. May have been on of the useful renegades Devonire recruited. Ushas/The Rani: Agent trainer. Drax: Possible. May have been permanently killed during the .L.G.T.W.. Jelpax: .A.P.C. Net coordinator then traffic controller. Possible as he may have gone renegade after. This is of course assuming the three renegades are from among the Deca, (the Prydon chapter Academy rebels) and not new original characters such as those that fled Dronid's short alternate Presidency and never returned. Also did they die permanently or regenerate? |
|
|
|
Post by Aristide Twain on Oct 13, 2022 16:32:00 GMT
This is of course assuming the three renegades are from among the Deca, (the Prydon chapter Academy rebels) and not new original characters. Also did they die permanently or regenerate? No offense meant, but I can barely find the words for how much a piece of lore originating with Gary Russell should make us lower our belief that it might connect to a given piece of Mad Norwegian-era FP lore. Have you seen what Miles said about Divided Loyalties back in the day? And in any case the Deca line-up is particularly suspect in a FP context because the War King is very much a flavour of Master who was previously the War Chief, so this "Koschei and Magnus as different people" business is a bit of a roadblock. Also, with regards to trying to figure out where the other Renegades have been other than trapped to create babels: hatch. Lings. Hatchlings! The Spiral Politic is crawling with hatchlings. Father Kreiner hunts them for sports. Just because the Master went on to become the War King doesn't mean a few of him weren't also beheaded by Father Kreiner, and more put to use in the babel project. Maybe one of them even ran to the end of the universe to chameleon-arch himself into a potty professor, who knows… And please, let us not talk of "originals" and "copies". That's the sound philosophical position on the teleporter problem in any case, but it's particularly a non-starter with the Master because a post-TVM Master is necessarily already one whose current body was reloomed. There is no longer an "original". |
|
|
|
Post by garyshots on Oct 13, 2022 18:00:19 GMT
To be honest, I had to look up hatchlings on the wiki. I really liked Interference, but that was several regenerations ago, and paper copies are expensive.
What's the advantage to Mirraflex in selecting "House renegades and errant interventionists" to lobotomise and turn into Babel operators- other than provoking the Doctor (if indeed it's him, which I don't think we can take for granted) into sabotaging the entire campaign? Surely the House Military could supply more qualified candidates? Is the Rani a black belt in Babelian aikido? Does a Babel benefit from being neurolinked to a lobotomised scientist?
What's the point of all this?
The whole absurd scenario only makes sense if we read it as a trap for a certain renegade. Lethean Campaign doesn't say that the renegade escaped after the mercy-killings. And we may note that another renegade usually assumed to be the Doctor is held prisoner as of Notes on the Rivera Manuscript.
|
|
PI9090
Cousin
I was loomed this way.
Posts: 91
|
Post by PI9090 on Oct 16, 2022 0:19:36 GMT
What's the advantage to Mirraflex in selecting "House renegades and errant interventionists" to lobotomise and turn into Babel operators. Does a Babel benefit from being neurolinked to a lobotomised scientist? They thought the Babels could be directed and or even controlled by Timelord mind, (especially the expanded one of a renegade). Also these are renegades that: The Order of the Weal, Devonire, The Master, and the High Council thought were of no use and thus expendable/already widely forgotten. |
|
|
|
Post by doctornolonger on Oct 17, 2022 13:03:25 GMT
So this week we read War Predictions: Chatelaine Thessalia, but not War Predictions: The Rivera Manuscript. What about the previous section, just called War Predictions? I don't see it on our schedule. Great question. "War Predictions" and its subheadings seem to be treated inconsistently throughout The Book, so I'm not surprised that you're right: it's missing. I'll edit the reading order so it's covered in Week 5. |
|
|
|
Post by garyshots on Dec 12, 2022 22:55:14 GMT
I was leafing through Alien Bodies, because I remember literally none of it, as if it had been erased.
It caught my eye that the, er, Black Man says: "Try next door. Try the zombie-men in the House of Lords." I wondered if this was a clue that Octavia's finger hadn't been eaten by disembodied eldritch forces after all. Then I realised that this is the Dalek Invasion of Earth Palace of Westminster, not the Eleven-Day Empire one, and he was probably referring to Robomen as zombie-men because he's, well, Black.
Then I noticed "...the plastic mannequins, three or four hundred of them, each seated in one of the chairs, their faces painted with mad eyes and twisted smiles... Their faces were grotesque, all leers and snarls."
Turn to Catherion. (This is why we're in Week Five.) "The House of Faces, that great hall which the Babel had decorated with the crania of many of its victims, is perhaps the most striking of the images and was made even more macabre by the precise arrangement of animal skulls on the benches opposite (an obvious precursor of the Parliaments of both Faction Paradox and the Celestis, founded many years later)."
There's a connection here, surely? Perhaps it's merely the development of a motif of parliamentary desecration within the dark backward and abysm of Grandfather Loz's mind, but there must be a connection of some sort. I was going to conclude with a glib remark about this being before we were exposed to the horrors of BBC Parliament, but no: "The Parliamentary Channel launched as a cable-exclusive channel on 13 January 1992."
|
|
|
|
Post by garyshots on Jan 7, 2023 0:30:24 GMT
There's a connection here, surely? Perhaps it's merely the development of a motif of parliamentary desecration within the dark backward and abysm of Grandfather Loz's mind, but there must be a connection of some sort. I was going to conclude with a glib remark about this being before we were exposed to the horrors of BBC Parliament, but no: "The Parliamentary Channel launched as a cable-exclusive channel on 13 January 1992."
And then the Last Doctor crashes the Last Parliament towards the end! The man's obsessed. |
|
