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Let's Read Fitzpatrick's War (The Only Steampunk with Rights)
- Thread starter DragonCobolt
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- SPOILERS Sci-Fi
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- let's read
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
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Kinda funny that the merchant marine and victualing ships get to be the age of sail British Navy (a proud tradition of nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash) in the absence of the official Yukon Confederate Navy or whatever, I guess we just have to assume that Yukon also intensely censures how much crossover there is as institutions between IT lifers and impressed YCN crews and random privateers during major naval campaigns 
Coyote Niff
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Ah, so here's where I'd be likely to end up...
Let's hope our unpleasant young Sturmbahnfuhrer "walks into a minefield" whilst on patrol. I know these types of characters are strictly necessary in mil-hist/sci-fi when dealing with dystopia, as most every nasty govt. has a secret police, but they always make my skin itch.
Soviet Air Force and paratroops did the same in their Afghan War-tapping and drinking the alcohol-based antifreeze in their bombers and choppers' turbine engines while off duty at Bagram. Just goes to show art imitates life, I guess.
Here's a question-Judson has established that the Blinking Stars are a constellation of analog comms satellites-their name comes from the fact they literally "blink" to transmit information through visual and IR to ground installations equipped to receive them. What's stopping the Yukon's opponents from cracking this manual code? Something tells me the Yukon Navy's about to start "losing" ships and planes soon...
This is a nice moment, showing that small commonalities like faith, even one produced through colonialism, can lead to breaking down those same bigotries and divisions created by imperial power. However, I must also blast it with the Anti-Retroculture JDAM Strike for mentioning the Book of Common Prayer, which the author of Victoria was weirdly obsessed with.
I have to cut off this reaction comment here for reasons of travel, but I've got many thoughts about Fitzian India, the Hypees, and more. Thanks to @DragonCobolt for bringing this fascinating work to life for us all on the webscreen!
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See I wouldn't blink at it, but maybe it's just because I grew up Episcopalian. The Book of Common Prayer is a fixture of both Anglicanism and its offshoot Episcopalianism - the latter is in some ways the closest America has to a state religion, at least as far as liberal New Englanders get.
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
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- Wichita, Kansas
Though Episcopalianism itself here probably only survives as like, the Armenian Apostolic Church of the surviving remnants of the "Yengees", those insular communities of dubious pre-Yukon stock that each insist on calling themselves "Fermonteers" and "Mainiacks" and claiming that while they are noble and just allies of the Yukon settlers and governor-general, every other village is in fact full of dirty sly Yengee bastards.
The United Yukon Church of Proper Christianity(tm) is giving off major like, High Tory Anglicanism vibes, as through a couple of post-apocalypse centuries of development from being originally like the Nazi state church organization of Protestantism into specifically fascist Protestantism, non-denominational mostly political white supremacy morphing into bitter and intense sectarianism. Maybe a dash of Mormonism too?
The United Yukon Church of Proper Christianity(tm) is giving off major like, High Tory Anglicanism vibes, as through a couple of post-apocalypse centuries of development from being originally like the Nazi state church organization of Protestantism into specifically fascist Protestantism, non-denominational mostly political white supremacy morphing into bitter and intense sectarianism. Maybe a dash of Mormonism too?
Coyote Niff
the most transbian obligate scavenger on the 'net!
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Ah, that explains it-I'm a filthy Papist so I assumed that when the Episcopalians broke with the Church after the revolution, the BCP went with the Anglicans back to Blighty, and that the use of it in Victoria was just intentional Empire/RETVRN stanning. Thanks for the explainer! As @bookwyrm says, this Yukon version of the Anglican faith seems very Know-Nothing, with both Jews and Catholics seen as internal dissenters to be either looked down as "infidels" or destroyed as threats, especially as the Confederacy seems to draw a hard line between "Catholic" and "Christian" in their social structure just as the Brits did during and after Cromwell.
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Sadly, they say that the Timmermen change the codes often. While they don't go into the details, we know enough put it together: The Timmermen have computers and electrical systems. So, they can crack any enemy code pathetically easy, and they can make a mechanical code machine like the Enigma machine that the other side can't crack, because if the Chinese try and build a computer (and we KNOW they have the schematics, they're not stupid and their government is stated as being still communist, which means that they managed to retain cohesion and continuity through the Storm Times which is...impressive) then the Timmermen turn on their Storm Machines and slag it.
Bummer
The author dosen't really go into much detail on exactly what the UYC actually believes and what the differences are between it and, say, Catholicism which I think is probably the best call if you're not a theologian.
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CHAPTER SIX: Jackboots, Jackhammers and Junipers
- Pronouns
- He/Him
We begin with a loving description of both the landscape of Lumi and the desert that the Yukon are going to be work on, and the tribal people that they've hired en mass to help around the base - the Rabari
Despite not understanding how modern medicine works (the crew pay them in gold and in malaria vaccine and some Rabari eat all of the vaccine pills at once rather than, like, just one), they seem like a lovely people and Bruce almost immediately becomes quite fond of the Rabari children. They talk to him while he works despite not knowing English and he gives them apples and dried apricots and mangles their names and he mangles their names and...the Colonel's wife notices this and takes him aside.
...I'm not breaking out the maximum oof meme for this because I do try and use that to undercut the darkness and bleakness of the scenes in this book, but I think this is actually really important and kind of one of the central themes of the books: Empire requires blood. Bruce isn't able - either due to his soul or his eyes - to turn away from that fact, even if he's not brave enough to try and change it. He listens to Mary McConnell...and then immediately goes back to feeding the children. He pretends to go out to talk to Rabari chieftains for organizational efforts and instead gives his every spare ration to the children. He spends money on baubles and toys for them, he carves them toys and it's fucking heartbreaking.
Do you think Judson was watching the news when he was writing this early draft, back in 2004, 2003?
Do you think he was watching the grainy green screens of night-vision camera footage, of the crosshatching anti-aircraft fire, and the distant rumbling of explosives?
I was in elementary school at the time, but I still remember a deep sense of something having gone wrong. I had always been taught about how war is wrong and you should avoid it - but then we were in not one war, but two wars, and I genuinely didn't understand why we were in Iraq. Now, part of that was because I was twelve.
But looking back, I can feel curses laying on my head.
Anyway, the next few pages are just pure miliwank engineering exposition which is YET ANOTHER way that this book is the good version of Draka. I remember @Geckonator's horrified expression when she recounted the absolutely bugfuck Draka battlefield engineering. Contrast this with the relatively reasonable (at least, to me) depiction of Yukons building airbases: Triangular in shape, with interlocking runways, biomass storage tanks, hangers, all built to basically run through one (1) war then be left to rot. And it's really cool and interesting to read about - the prose remains breezy and characterful, without becoming dry. And unlike Draka, there are REALISTIC problems like cost overruns and needing to beg your boss for more money!
But...
Like...I should quote some of those descriptions so the army nerds can admire it.
The second base is set up in the Rajmahal Hills, like this.
There's more descriptions of how this crime is followed up on - runways packed into these hills, islands in the river turned into fortresses (islands that, a footnote states, are still called Hood Island after General Hood, even 150 years later.)
Zimmerman compliments Bruce on his good work. Bruce, at the time, was confused by how Zimmerman could be impressed by engineering, as he doesn't know a compass from a slide rule. Old Bruce, though, recognizes: Evil men know evil men. Bruce clings to the fiction that he's displacing a few thousand people to save millions more.
But...we know he's not going to save anyone. Is he?
Bruce also gets letters from Buck Pularski, keeping him up to date on the other Basilies. Valette has become a Colonel (a COLONEL!? THAT DIPSHIT!?), Hood has hit Lt. General and was training a special task force in "Deseret Province." Shelley has hit captain (like Bruce) and is mustered out of the army on half pay and is now assuming his father's seat in the senate. Davis has been set to flying an experimental plane (uh oh!) Stein has ALSO hit colonel and is working with Hood. O'Brian meanwhile has become a member of the quartermaster core.
Mason begged for a post and Fitz was like, "Ahaha, no."
We learn that Fitz has also hired a man, a scientest, to work on a special project: Richtaslav Aranov! He's an aviation specialist and wouldn't you know it!
A, to quote Lord Coronet Fitzpatrick, filthy Slav is building the plane to replace the Florin, which itself, is a Chinese plane. it's almost like, uh, white supremacy is fucking stupid. We also learn that Aranov is a disgraced Timmerman - he was exiled from the order for trying to steal technology, but Fitzpatrick's family had the lawsuit suppressed. Which is a curious thing: we already know that Timmermen will use people from odd places, like...Charlotte is technically one of their agents, and Dr. Murrey seems to be angling to use Bruce somehow...very strange. Put a pin in that.
The, two days after Christmas, on 2418...a man arrives at the base.
Brigadier General Roland McArthur Strijdom - a man that Professor Von Buren says is not mentioned in the official history, nor in any other papers at the time...but...a man of that name did graduate from the War Academy at roughly the right time for this event to take place - drives up to the base with a batman, in a fucking rage: "Traitors! Blackguard traitors!" He's been to Batan, to the Philippines (hi Andi!!!!!!!!! ...I have a friend in the Philippines), to Babuyan and to India and in each site, he's found a bunch of Yukons, with money that seems to have come from nowhere, with supplies delivered illegally, using the Blinking Stars without permission, building airbases that Lord Coronet Fitzpatrick doesn't want.
Zimmerman smiles, says, "Oh, I can explain, follow me," then walks the general and his batman out and shoots them both in the head with a pistol, then casually asks Bruce and Colonel McConnell to bury them both.
"You shot a general!" McConnell is more shocked than angry, just completely stunned. "I'll have you hanged for that!"
As a note, those are textual ellipsis, I'm not editing around long and irrelevant text. Zimmerman just talks like a fucking creep.
Thirteen days later, the newspaper arrives.
CONSUL SLAIN!
Yes! Two Romani assassins, with Chinese assault rifles and cyanide tipped bullets somehow managed to slip through Lord Coronet FItzpatrick's security and gun down him, his entire general staff, and Meg Sweeny. These two assassins were then tracked down, caught and shot dead by Buck Pularksi, who just arrived on the scene. The assassins, by the way? Share a surname with the Romani who taught Charlotte how to read palms - meaning that they're people who worked at the Lion's Den tavern - a place Fitz frequented regularly.
Fitz takes his father's body on procession, giving speeches which are recorded here - they're fascist bombast about how no singular individual actually matters and the Yukon are eternal and their enemies will rue the day they slew the Consul. The senate (pushed by Shelley) immediately elects Fitz though, curiously, the esteemed Lord Dade, who was the only other likely candidate for the senate to choose was found dead after falling down his stairs by one Lt. Buck Pulaski.
Hurm.
The Confederacy waits with baited breath to see what their new Consul will do. The airbases are almost finished. And Bruce gets a letter.
So, uh, can anyone else hear the intense, scathing contempt for America's reaction to 9/11 in this passage or is it just audible to me?
This chapter was...pretty fucking heavy, I have to admit. I genuinely kind of started to tear up writing some of the things down - the vivid pictures of people, innocent people, being displaced by rifle butts and paper hits just as hard now, maybe harder, now that I've grown up a lot more. I read this book first time when I was sixteen or seventeen, and I remember goggling over the military bases and the cool engineering shoptalk. Oh, and, of course, getting intensely worried about Charlotte's safety DESPITE THE BOOK ACTIVELY TELLING ME that she ends up marrying Bruce and they live happily ever after with a massive family.
Which, honestly, either means I was a dumb kid or the book's just very well written.
But now, as an adult, the military stuff...actually remains pretty cool and interesting, but the bitter, condemnatory tone of the displacement scenes hits way harder. It's why I started making this thread, honestly. And it's why I find this book so impressive, even decades later: It genuinely lets you have your cake and eat it.
Because the Four Points War is a few chapters off - and it is going to be full of shit military SF people love to read.
And you're going to hate every single second of it.
FOOTNOTE TIME!
FOOTNOTE 1: Professor Von Buren states that this entire chapter is one big slander - the Indians, as everyone knows, built the bases themselves! The Yukon just assisted. Duh!
FOOTNOTE 2: Oh, hey. Fitzpatrick owns a bank. He was given the Medowland Bank of Eastport by his uncle, LORD DREADNAUGHT VENTURE WATSON. What a fucking name.
FOOTNOTE 5: Fitz refers to his summer palace as Boeotia, since classical Greece had a place called Boeotia and its boring as shit because he's like if a Statue Head Avatar was a human being and was given access to the USAF.
FOOTNOTE 12: A big shocking moment is that Fitz's mother is allowed into the senate floor for his coronation. She's the third Yukon woman to be allowed on the senate floor in its entire history. Girlbossing and so on.
COMING UP NEXT: Fitzpatrick's marriage, reforms, and the departure of Zimmerman (he gets promoted and leaves, not killed, I'm sorry)
Despite not understanding how modern medicine works (the crew pay them in gold and in malaria vaccine and some Rabari eat all of the vaccine pills at once rather than, like, just one), they seem like a lovely people and Bruce almost immediately becomes quite fond of the Rabari children. They talk to him while he works despite not knowing English and he gives them apples and dried apricots and mangles their names and he mangles their names and...the Colonel's wife notices this and takes him aside.
Bruce's Narration said:
...I'm not breaking out the maximum oof meme for this because I do try and use that to undercut the darkness and bleakness of the scenes in this book, but I think this is actually really important and kind of one of the central themes of the books: Empire requires blood. Bruce isn't able - either due to his soul or his eyes - to turn away from that fact, even if he's not brave enough to try and change it. He listens to Mary McConnell...and then immediately goes back to feeding the children. He pretends to go out to talk to Rabari chieftains for organizational efforts and instead gives his every spare ration to the children. He spends money on baubles and toys for them, he carves them toys and it's fucking heartbreaking.
Bruce's Narration said:
Do you think Judson was watching the news when he was writing this early draft, back in 2004, 2003?
Do you think he was watching the grainy green screens of night-vision camera footage, of the crosshatching anti-aircraft fire, and the distant rumbling of explosives?
I was in elementary school at the time, but I still remember a deep sense of something having gone wrong. I had always been taught about how war is wrong and you should avoid it - but then we were in not one war, but two wars, and I genuinely didn't understand why we were in Iraq. Now, part of that was because I was twelve.
But looking back, I can feel curses laying on my head.
Anyway, the next few pages are just pure miliwank engineering exposition which is YET ANOTHER way that this book is the good version of Draka. I remember @Geckonator's horrified expression when she recounted the absolutely bugfuck Draka battlefield engineering. Contrast this with the relatively reasonable (at least, to me) depiction of Yukons building airbases: Triangular in shape, with interlocking runways, biomass storage tanks, hangers, all built to basically run through one (1) war then be left to rot. And it's really cool and interesting to read about - the prose remains breezy and characterful, without becoming dry. And unlike Draka, there are REALISTIC problems like cost overruns and needing to beg your boss for more money!
But...
Like...I should quote some of those descriptions so the army nerds can admire it.
Bruce's Narration said:
The second base is set up in the Rajmahal Hills, like this.
There's more descriptions of how this crime is followed up on - runways packed into these hills, islands in the river turned into fortresses (islands that, a footnote states, are still called Hood Island after General Hood, even 150 years later.)
Zimmerman compliments Bruce on his good work. Bruce, at the time, was confused by how Zimmerman could be impressed by engineering, as he doesn't know a compass from a slide rule. Old Bruce, though, recognizes: Evil men know evil men. Bruce clings to the fiction that he's displacing a few thousand people to save millions more.
But...we know he's not going to save anyone. Is he?
Bruce also gets letters from Buck Pularski, keeping him up to date on the other Basilies. Valette has become a Colonel (a COLONEL!? THAT DIPSHIT!?), Hood has hit Lt. General and was training a special task force in "Deseret Province." Shelley has hit captain (like Bruce) and is mustered out of the army on half pay and is now assuming his father's seat in the senate. Davis has been set to flying an experimental plane (uh oh!) Stein has ALSO hit colonel and is working with Hood. O'Brian meanwhile has become a member of the quartermaster core.
Mason begged for a post and Fitz was like, "Ahaha, no."
We learn that Fitz has also hired a man, a scientest, to work on a special project: Richtaslav Aranov! He's an aviation specialist and wouldn't you know it!
A, to quote Lord Coronet Fitzpatrick, filthy Slav is building the plane to replace the Florin, which itself, is a Chinese plane. it's almost like, uh, white supremacy is fucking stupid. We also learn that Aranov is a disgraced Timmerman - he was exiled from the order for trying to steal technology, but Fitzpatrick's family had the lawsuit suppressed. Which is a curious thing: we already know that Timmermen will use people from odd places, like...Charlotte is technically one of their agents, and Dr. Murrey seems to be angling to use Bruce somehow...very strange. Put a pin in that.
The, two days after Christmas, on 2418...a man arrives at the base.
Brigadier General Roland McArthur Strijdom - a man that Professor Von Buren says is not mentioned in the official history, nor in any other papers at the time...but...a man of that name did graduate from the War Academy at roughly the right time for this event to take place - drives up to the base with a batman, in a fucking rage: "Traitors! Blackguard traitors!" He's been to Batan, to the Philippines (hi Andi!!!!!!!!! ...I have a friend in the Philippines), to Babuyan and to India and in each site, he's found a bunch of Yukons, with money that seems to have come from nowhere, with supplies delivered illegally, using the Blinking Stars without permission, building airbases that Lord Coronet Fitzpatrick doesn't want.
Zimmerman smiles, says, "Oh, I can explain, follow me," then walks the general and his batman out and shoots them both in the head with a pistol, then casually asks Bruce and Colonel McConnell to bury them both.
"You shot a general!" McConnell is more shocked than angry, just completely stunned. "I'll have you hanged for that!"
Bruce's Narration said:
As a note, those are textual ellipsis, I'm not editing around long and irrelevant text. Zimmerman just talks like a fucking creep.
Thirteen days later, the newspaper arrives.
CONSUL SLAIN!
Yes! Two Romani assassins, with Chinese assault rifles and cyanide tipped bullets somehow managed to slip through Lord Coronet FItzpatrick's security and gun down him, his entire general staff, and Meg Sweeny. These two assassins were then tracked down, caught and shot dead by Buck Pularksi, who just arrived on the scene. The assassins, by the way? Share a surname with the Romani who taught Charlotte how to read palms - meaning that they're people who worked at the Lion's Den tavern - a place Fitz frequented regularly.
Fitz takes his father's body on procession, giving speeches which are recorded here - they're fascist bombast about how no singular individual actually matters and the Yukon are eternal and their enemies will rue the day they slew the Consul. The senate (pushed by Shelley) immediately elects Fitz though, curiously, the esteemed Lord Dade, who was the only other likely candidate for the senate to choose was found dead after falling down his stairs by one Lt. Buck Pulaski.
Hurm.
The Confederacy waits with baited breath to see what their new Consul will do. The airbases are almost finished. And Bruce gets a letter.
Bruce's Narration said:
So, uh, can anyone else hear the intense, scathing contempt for America's reaction to 9/11 in this passage or is it just audible to me?
This chapter was...pretty fucking heavy, I have to admit. I genuinely kind of started to tear up writing some of the things down - the vivid pictures of people, innocent people, being displaced by rifle butts and paper hits just as hard now, maybe harder, now that I've grown up a lot more. I read this book first time when I was sixteen or seventeen, and I remember goggling over the military bases and the cool engineering shoptalk. Oh, and, of course, getting intensely worried about Charlotte's safety DESPITE THE BOOK ACTIVELY TELLING ME that she ends up marrying Bruce and they live happily ever after with a massive family.
Which, honestly, either means I was a dumb kid or the book's just very well written.
But now, as an adult, the military stuff...actually remains pretty cool and interesting, but the bitter, condemnatory tone of the displacement scenes hits way harder. It's why I started making this thread, honestly. And it's why I find this book so impressive, even decades later: It genuinely lets you have your cake and eat it.
Because the Four Points War is a few chapters off - and it is going to be full of shit military SF people love to read.
And you're going to hate every single second of it.
FOOTNOTE TIME!
FOOTNOTE 1: Professor Von Buren states that this entire chapter is one big slander - the Indians, as everyone knows, built the bases themselves! The Yukon just assisted. Duh!
FOOTNOTE 2: Oh, hey. Fitzpatrick owns a bank. He was given the Medowland Bank of Eastport by his uncle, LORD DREADNAUGHT VENTURE WATSON. What a fucking name.
FOOTNOTE 5: Fitz refers to his summer palace as Boeotia, since classical Greece had a place called Boeotia and its boring as shit because he's like if a Statue Head Avatar was a human being and was given access to the USAF.
FOOTNOTE 12: A big shocking moment is that Fitz's mother is allowed into the senate floor for his coronation. She's the third Yukon woman to be allowed on the senate floor in its entire history. Girlbossing and so on.
COMING UP NEXT: Fitzpatrick's marriage, reforms, and the departure of Zimmerman (he gets promoted and leaves, not killed, I'm sorry)
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's just nice to see a book go 'these guys are bad and you should, actually, detest them for the things they are doing in the name of pointless colonialism' instead of 'these guys are bad but aren't their fictional tanks fucking sick as hell, look how slick their uniforms are, they're the heores here, really'.
Coyote Niff
the most transbian obligate scavenger on the 'net!
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This passage really hits because I know plenty of folks who came back from Afghanistan who had disturbingly similar experiences, and now they have to watch all those people get chewed up by the new Emirate government. I'm not going to go into detail beyond that because obviously it's a thorny subject. But this part of the book Gets It.
This whole passage is fascinating because it's like a dark mirror of Wake Island airbase in WWII–structures carved out of the earth for warfare, but built right on top of people's homes, lives, and sacred sites rather than an uninhabited stretch. The average American mil-hist nerd probably knows something of the island-hopping campaigns of the Pacific and the legitimately impressive engineering work that was done there, making this an excellent way for Judson to make sure his point is hammered home; the characters may look and talk Victorian British, but this part of their warmongering is all-American. Just like @DragonCobolt said; this book knows its targets, and is of its time.
(Note: there were also Seabee airbases that were built on inhabited islands and atolls, and there's a worthwhile conversation to be had there about land rights, colonialism, neo-imperialism, and more-see the Marshall Islands land disputes on Kwajalein, still ongoing.)
Wouldn't be a military without some politicking well-connected dipshit failing upwards!!
I would love to have a detailed TO&E of the Yukon Air Force, purely because I believe reading throughhi their strategic and tactical air platforms and doctrine would give me Marker Sickness.
takeherbehindthechemicalshellandshoother.jpeg. Nothing to see here folks. Honestly, the degree of coverup here-such that the only record of this dead man's career is a footnote of his graduation and Bruce's private notes, is horrific. Pure INGSOC.
NO BUCK!! YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS!!!!
So not only does Fitz have the power and desire to kill his own dad, but also anyone underneath him who threatens those plans. Maybe I'm not understanding, but what's his motivation? Is it literally just "I want to be Alexander the Great and my fascist desires are so all-consuming that I am willing to attempt to bypass all obstacles, including family?" Or is Fitz, as the narrative seems to be setting up, the ultimate patsy of the Timmerman movement? Because where I stand right now, and maybe it's because this is an LR and I'm missing context, it feels like Fitz jumped with both feet from being a UKIP college freshman to being the most lethal RETVRN-head o of all time, able to get the support of his already-fascist society's most reactionary elements to support his charge for power, power that his family already has hereditary access to that is unlikely to be challenged. Clearly it's not just "world dominion", because the Yukon effectively have that via their technological hegemony. Is this war really just a pointless fascist crusade against the only remaining polities that don't believe in their nightmare creed? If so, it's completely fitting to the setting, but also horribly bleak T-T.
I'll make the argument that the Yukon Air Force is not the modern USAF-it's the WWII-era Royal and US Pacific Air Forces, the poor bastards whose command staffs were addicted to nighttime incendiary area bombing at the expense of actually winning the war.
That's right! You've activated my trap card! This was a "fuck Curtis LeMay, Bomber Harris, et al" thread all along!!!!!!!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I am skimming around and may have lost some of the detail, so THUS FAR, Fitz seems to be of the opinion that the Confederacy is the best country in the world, that the world has no true boarders, and that the glorious Yukon deserve to rule and the world would benefit from a new world civilization that he heads.
…also he really really really wants to be Alexander the Great.
Though, he was also taught from youth to adulthood by one Dr Murray as a private tutor. Hmm…
To be fair, I think the only reason they don't use drones is cause they don't have drones. Also, I was curious about your India/Hypee thoughts!
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
At least Alexander like, was personally there all dressed up in eagle feathers and golden armor personally stabbing dudes to take his father's throne, and then go on his murder world tour, he may have been a crazy little warmongering shit, but he was one that had already won wars by the time he assumed the throne. So far at least this coming great war, while full of steampunk and military nerd goodness and quiet well masterminded, seems to noticeably be missing the now Consul Fitzpatrick in such a capacity. And likewise of the others who deliberately modeled themselves on Murder Alex, when Caesar launched his own private illegal war you bet your ass he was right there directing the campaigns to plunder and enslave Gaul, and hell Napoleon fucking lived for the smell of canon smoke, and rose up the ranks without the princely blood of Alexander or even Caesar kinda.
For the building up to the war so far, Fitz as Alexander is kinda a bit underwhelming and a tad artificial, actually? More then anything I'd honestly peg Fitz as closer to another Alexander wannabe actually, Charles XIII of Sweden, this insane last hurrah of the absolutist Swedish empire from a teenager who overturned his regency and kept winning victory after victory against all his many enemies in the Great Northern War until he won his way to destroying his army and being decisively crushed by Tsarist Russia in Poltava, explosively setting the modern borders of Sweden as Sweden without its Baltic empire, ending his dynasty in the place of his sister's husband, and bringing to a close the Swedish tradition of autocratic general-kings like Gustavus Adolphus and ushering in a long age of noble liberty and parliamentary supremacy until the Napoleonic wars.
Likewise I can very much see Fitz becoming this legendary icon of kinda the last of the Fitzpatricks, as he wins and wins until he actually might transformationally lose hard or I dunno win past any need for the Timmermen and secret police and such, taking the world down with him, and leaving behind a much more calcified Yukon more content in just grinding on with their vile engine of white supremacy and patriarchy and everything, the whole thing of Fitz's ambitions of embodying the world-spirit of utterly unchecked and unrestrained Victorian-ism kinda dying with him.
For the building up to the war so far, Fitz as Alexander is kinda a bit underwhelming and a tad artificial, actually? More then anything I'd honestly peg Fitz as closer to another Alexander wannabe actually, Charles XIII of Sweden, this insane last hurrah of the absolutist Swedish empire from a teenager who overturned his regency and kept winning victory after victory against all his many enemies in the Great Northern War until he won his way to destroying his army and being decisively crushed by Tsarist Russia in Poltava, explosively setting the modern borders of Sweden as Sweden without its Baltic empire, ending his dynasty in the place of his sister's husband, and bringing to a close the Swedish tradition of autocratic general-kings like Gustavus Adolphus and ushering in a long age of noble liberty and parliamentary supremacy until the Napoleonic wars.
Likewise I can very much see Fitz becoming this legendary icon of kinda the last of the Fitzpatricks, as he wins and wins until he actually might transformationally lose hard or I dunno win past any need for the Timmermen and secret police and such, taking the world down with him, and leaving behind a much more calcified Yukon more content in just grinding on with their vile engine of white supremacy and patriarchy and everything, the whole thing of Fitz's ambitions of embodying the world-spirit of utterly unchecked and unrestrained Victorian-ism kinda dying with him.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm genuinely not sure if this is because this Lets Read is slipping around a lot of the tiny scenes of character interactions and details that the book has (cause it's a big chonky book), how much of this is an actual flaw with the book (cause some characters are very flatly - Valette, Shelley, O'Brian, Mason...most of the B-Dogs actually are pretty flat), and how much of this is...well, there's a big act three finale twist that recontextualizes a lot and REALLY drives home back to how I started this out: Oh I'll show you some fucking steampunk...
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This chapter is a great example of how people involved in the imperial project actually have to tamp down on their empathy and better human natures. Our Bruce is really not meant for this.
CHAPTER SEVEN: Fitz, the Hurricane
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chapter Seven opens with Fitzpatrick the Younger exploding into the Consulship by immediately disbanding the S.A - and thus, Zimmerman has no cause to be on the base in India and Colonel McConnell kicks him out without waiting for the zeppelin to arrive to take him back: "Go to Calcutta and get a ship home you piece of shit" is basically the summation of his dialog, and as Zimmerman leaves with his "disturbing smirk", Bruce runs out and throws him some extra money to help him on his way...but not out of kindness. Bruce is still thinking of promotion and knows Zimmerman has a direct like to Fitz.
"You're smarter than I thought you were," Zimmerman says, as he drives off...and immediately joins the House Karls, an even more fascist secret police that Fitz IMMEDIATELY founds (though we're not informed of their existence for several chapters, I just...didn't want you to think that removing the S.A was actually a good thing. Fitz just wanted to chuck out all the ones that weren't loyal to him specifically, then rehire the ones who were loyal to him, while also getting big browny points with the army and navy, who fucking hate the S.A.)
I mean, I'm no expert politician, but that sounds pretty slick to me.
Still, Fitz immediately kicks in the door to the senate and passes a bunch of new reforms thanks to his contacts. They are interesting - and when I lay them out, you may see his overall goal...and why it's strange why he's getting less pushback to this from the Timmerman than you'd expect, considering the obvious amount of secretive control they have over Yukon society.
*to quote Professor Von Buren "These amendments only allow legitimate speech and assembly. No sane Yukon would want his fellow citizens to assemble in order to ferment rebellion or to commit crime or other immoral acts.
These whirlwind reforms hit the Yukon entrenched leadership like a sledgehammer to the face. The commoners like them too much for the Lords to complain and Fitz has nabbed a lot of the mechanisms that the Lords might use to make their displeasure known - he controls the I.T which is hugely profitable (and more so now) and a huge swath of the army is either directly or indirectly loyal to him. With the pseudo-freedom of speech, assembly and religion promised by the last reforms, a bunch of people like him a lot. There are still some voices of discontent but they're all either ignored...or don't get to the presses.
While not stated yet, later on, it's VERY clear that "freedom of speech" is like...yeah, sure, you're allowed to say anything you want, but the press is still owned by liege lords who are loyal to or scared of Fitzpatrick, so how much does your freedom to say what you want actually matter if you try and use a larger medium to say it...and can't?
Which, like...
Mood! Big mood!
Bruce, watching this all from India, starts to wonder: Have we gone from being a Confederacy to an empire?
Professor Von Buren with a footnote: "Another example of Bruce's complete lack of shame. Empire is a word no serious student of Yukon would ever use. When speaking of the Confederacy benign reach throughout the world, imperium is as strong a name as any reasonable person would offer.
Honestly, I think both Bruce and the Professor are wrong: You were an Empire starting in 2081, dude.
On the base, the religious revivals sparks not just Catholic priests and Jewish rabbis going from unofficial to official. It also triggers a flowering of other religious sects: A sergeant becomes a Protestant reverend, a Lieutenant who went to seminary before the army starts a "apostatic community" - more and more, until the U.Y.C becomes rather sad and emptied out by comparison. And of course, all these religious movements owe their loyalty to Fitz for giving them their chance to flower in the sun. However, you will notice something!
Religious freedom?
Every single one of these is a Christian offshoot or Jewish. There's no Muslims, no atheists, no Buddhists, no Hindus. It's more pluralistic than the Yukon. But...that's not saying much. Hence my cheeky asterisk!
Still, between the social changes, the bases in the Raajmahal hills do get finished - but there are some Chinese soldiers who get captured, tortured and executed by the Indian army - this disgusts Colonel McConnell...but mostly because seeing the corpses is gross. This moral outrage is going to seem really fucking galling in future chapters, put a pin in it. Observation planes do fly by overhead sometime and it's quite clear that the "People's Friend" of China, Lao Ping, is very aware of the airbases. We also learn that the Chinese soldiers are called Revolutionary Guardsmen - and from these names, we can infer that (though the Yukon never call them this), the Chinese are still SOME form of communist. Good for them!
Like, I'm not sure how workable a 1 billion civilization of communism sans telecommunication is. But we can hope for the best.
Back on the home front and at the base, there is a curious change in female fashion that Bruce remarks on: Since Fitz took over, there's a big Roman craze and so, Yukon dress starts trending towards the toga-esque, and these young ladies in rather filmy outfits would show up to political rallies, get all excited and cheer - and since there's a bunch of cute ladies there in more revealing outfits, a bunch of young men show up as well, leading to a feedback loop. So, Yukon society is getting more political (since before, politics was just seen as something the Lords wile away their time with and not super important for common folk) and more...not quite liberal, but definitely more "energetic" like a kind of will to power, if you wish.
Will these transformations last? Where will they go?
We'll have to wait and see.
Still, Bruce has finished the bases in time so he's back to America to report in - and possibly more. Kit Alison advises Bruce to "not marry the girl Lord Fitzpatrick picks out for you unless you believe you can love her", to which Bruce is like, "Wait, forgotten Charlotte already?" and the wives hem and haw and just send him off with a hug. They seem to think Fitz will marry him off to someone special and I think it's entirely because of the new energy of a can-do Consul ruling by near decree combined with how good a job Bruce did on the bases. Bruce flies back in an airship, which is a family run little jobby with the father and wife piloting and catering while their kids provide drinks, play Chopan on the piano in the resting area, and clean such and such. Bruce reflects that, according to the great philosopher Robert Holmes Smuts (a fictional Yukon philisopher), the Yukon do three things well: Farm, Fight and Never Forget Their History which is like, come on, that's not even an aliteration, SMUTS.
Bruce adds to this a fourth: They travel well. Every time he's on a train, airship or steamship, he's comfy and happy, so that's nice.
And while on this airship he reads in the papers!
Lord Fitzpatrick has been married! SPecifically NOT to an Aussie (as the wives had hoped) but rather to Joan Hellen...DeShay. Footnotes say they dropped the "De" from their name in 2424 to sound more traditionally Yukon. That would make them the...Shay. As in the DESTIBLE SHAY REGIME!
Alarming!
So, Bruce arrives at the Fitz estate, shakes hands with Buck, gets hugs and accolades, and...then notices that while the estates (located in Ohio) are very nice, they also look "like a hunting lodge" without any sign of feminine touches or a wife's hand in anything. He asks Buck about it and Buck's like, "Ssssssssooooooooooo about that...don't talk about Lady Joan. She's with her family in Atlanta. Don't bring her up. Please."
Bruce is like, "???"
Professor Von Buren's footnote reveals that, according to Mason's redacted memoirs, Fitzpatrick was...sexually unusual and that she fled the house after two weeks of relationships. Now, this is never elaborated on at all. Is he impotent? Have a weird fetish? Is he gay? He might just be gay. But sadly, Yukon society is so systemically fucked from top to bottom that we're never going to know. What we do learn, though, is that while the greater DeShay family are as much a bunch of backstabbing, greedy gits eager for power and wealth as the rest of the upper ranks of Yukon society, Joan herself seems...genuinely quite nice.
Bruce is taken to Fitzpatrick's office, where he seems like the same energetic, driving man that Bruce knew at college - just now, his orders are obeyed, not theorized. He's dressing down an officer whose airbases are behind schedule compared to Bruce's and among the normal list of problems that even Bruce ran into (cost overruns, restive natives, trying to be secret about it makes it really hard to build miles and miles of runway) he has another issue: someone is stealing his shit. Apparently, this the third theft from the logistics train this year. Hmm. Put a pin in that.
I should make a stickied pinboard, shouldn't i?
Once Bruce and Fitz are alone (with Buck, of course, looming in the corner), Fitz reminds him to call him Fitz, and he shall call him Robert, for they are close friends. Or should he say...MAJOR ROBERT!? Boom! Promotion!
Old Bruce, looking back on this, compares it to how sex workers are given baubles by their Johns. Unlike them, he notes, I was able to delude myself about what this bauble meant. Also, unlike sex workers, you're helping to kill millions of people, Bruce. There's that too. Still, Fitz sends him off with a letter of introduction to meet...Fitz's mother. It seems that she wants to get an eye on Bruce - and considering how Buck has referred to her in prior chapters as "thinking Fitz will make her Empress of the whole world" and "having a darkness in her, like Fitz" then I think that it's reasonable to assume that Fitz's mother is at least partially responsible for the coup. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that she probably pushed for the murder.
Like, the motive falls cleanly into place if you think of Fitz and his mother as co-conspirators: While Fitz has less need to kill to grab power, Lady Fitzpatrick ABSOLUTELY has a reason to kill that fat, arrogant bastard she was married too. Food for thought!
On the way out, Buck and Bruce see Doctor Aranov (he doesn't have much of an accent), and Buck remarks that his new planes are quite something. Then Bruce spots something that stops him stone cold dead.
Bruce and Buck take a moment to admire the garden - it was Lady Joan's place. Buck is...so obviously in love with Lady Joan in a courtly way that even Bruce notices. Buck diverts the conversation to ask about tigers in India - but Bruce didn't get a chance to see any. Buck seems sad about that: "It's a shame to go to India and not see the tigers..." He's also sure there's going to be a war - and drops one last hint: Stay away from Mason. It seems Mason is in such deep trouble now that if he were a commoner, he'd be hanged already.
(The footnote says that Mason "relates to small boys in the manner similar to the way Socrates related to his male students" but "never discussed philosophy with the boys he imported from Mexico.")
I'm...kinda iffy on this branch of Mason's debauchery. I think him being a hypocritical slovenly bastard is good, even him being a pedophile - like, that's a sadly common abuse of power, even in our modern day. The specific queerness of it leans too close to Baron Harkonen for my tastes, doubly so when the rest of the book lacks any specifically queer characters. 2005 never felt more distant than right now, I think.
Buck also warns Bruce: You won't like Fitz's mom when you meet her, not the first time. Then the next time, you will like her even less.
As Bruce goes to leave, he's ambushed by Mason - desperate, haggered, deeply overweight, Mason begs him: "Does your Lord have any unwed daughters? Sisters? Aunts? Grandmothers? I'm not picky! I'll pay for their hand in marriage!" See, if you don't get married by 25 in Yukon society, you are legally disinherited and don't get any of the lands and property. Bruce kinda goes, "Oh, uh, hey, wow, here's my Bus!" and jumps onto a bus heading in literally the opposite direction he was planning to go.
He's off to the train station.
And off to see Lady Bathsheba Ruth Fitzpatrick and, maybe, learn why he's...like that.
FOOTNOTE TIME!
FOOTNOTE 2: The Law Lords (their supreme court, I think) were all replaced with toadies to Fitz at the time of the big reforms, and Professor Von Buren says, "Well, ACTUALLY, they volunteered to step down!" yeah, all six! At the same time! Remarkable timing!
FOOTNOTE 5 & 6: A single priest does speak out against the harm being done to the United Yukon Church by Fitzpatrick's edicts. HE goes on a hunger strike and declares Fitz to be the "second antichrist" - the first being Bartholomew Iz. The official histories do mention this incident, but claim the priest was "mentally unstable."
FOOTNOTE 10: The roman craze got started in part by a new book called Cincinnatus, Coriolanus and Scipio Africanus by James Dawson Valmer, a professor...and, interesting? He's a...liege of Fitzpatrick! What a weird coincidence! It's...it's almost like freedom of the press doesn't actually matter in a society where one person owns a printing press and distribution system and the other person owns jack fucking shit.
FOOTNOTE 15: in 2424 Fitzpatrick changes the name of Boeotia Estate to Pallas, the capital of Alexander the Great. is there a term for Greece Weeb? Geeb? ...oh right, it's fascist!
FOOTNOTE 19: There's an ageless Yukon in-joke where you say that you "Lack Credentials" that Buck uses when asked if he's a romantic.
FOOTNOTE 20: Mason offering to buy a wife is a genuine actual felony, lol.
COMING UP NEXT: The entrance of the LOVE TRIANGLE! Lady Fitzpatrick Tempts Bruce with a woman she has trained for a year to be his wife! Can Bruce resist this vile temptation!? Is his and Charlotte's romance doomed!?
"You're smarter than I thought you were," Zimmerman says, as he drives off...and immediately joins the House Karls, an even more fascist secret police that Fitz IMMEDIATELY founds (though we're not informed of their existence for several chapters, I just...didn't want you to think that removing the S.A was actually a good thing. Fitz just wanted to chuck out all the ones that weren't loyal to him specifically, then rehire the ones who were loyal to him, while also getting big browny points with the army and navy, who fucking hate the S.A.)
I mean, I'm no expert politician, but that sounds pretty slick to me.
Still, Fitz immediately kicks in the door to the senate and passes a bunch of new reforms thanks to his contacts. They are interesting - and when I lay them out, you may see his overall goal...and why it's strange why he's getting less pushback to this from the Timmerman than you'd expect, considering the obvious amount of secretive control they have over Yukon society.
- Lift restriction on the I.T to allow unlimited trade with the outside world. (As he has often spoken that there should be no separation between Yukon and the rest of the world - so the rest of the world can enjoy Yukon supremacy - this trade brings that in. It also pays for all his big goals since he owns a lot of the I.T.)
- Grants 2 million acres of frontier land in North America and Australia to veterans, and builds irrigation to turn them into new farms for homesteaders. (Hey, a colonial project that the military will love, which gets their loyalty even stronger.)
- New wartime taxes - big on the lords, lighter on the common people, entirely unconstitutional but he, uh, SUSPENDS THE CONSTITUTION due to unprecidented wartime states. (Patriot act noises)
- While he doesn't end third child taxes, he makes it clear he's not gonna actually persecute anyone (almost like he needs a big population explosion of white babies or something)
- Passes laws guaranteeing freedom of speech*, assembly*, and religion*
*to quote Professor Von Buren "These amendments only allow legitimate speech and assembly. No sane Yukon would want his fellow citizens to assemble in order to ferment rebellion or to commit crime or other immoral acts.
These whirlwind reforms hit the Yukon entrenched leadership like a sledgehammer to the face. The commoners like them too much for the Lords to complain and Fitz has nabbed a lot of the mechanisms that the Lords might use to make their displeasure known - he controls the I.T which is hugely profitable (and more so now) and a huge swath of the army is either directly or indirectly loyal to him. With the pseudo-freedom of speech, assembly and religion promised by the last reforms, a bunch of people like him a lot. There are still some voices of discontent but they're all either ignored...or don't get to the presses.
While not stated yet, later on, it's VERY clear that "freedom of speech" is like...yeah, sure, you're allowed to say anything you want, but the press is still owned by liege lords who are loyal to or scared of Fitzpatrick, so how much does your freedom to say what you want actually matter if you try and use a larger medium to say it...and can't?
Which, like...
Mood! Big mood!
Bruce, watching this all from India, starts to wonder: Have we gone from being a Confederacy to an empire?
Professor Von Buren with a footnote: "Another example of Bruce's complete lack of shame. Empire is a word no serious student of Yukon would ever use. When speaking of the Confederacy benign reach throughout the world, imperium is as strong a name as any reasonable person would offer.
Honestly, I think both Bruce and the Professor are wrong: You were an Empire starting in 2081, dude.
On the base, the religious revivals sparks not just Catholic priests and Jewish rabbis going from unofficial to official. It also triggers a flowering of other religious sects: A sergeant becomes a Protestant reverend, a Lieutenant who went to seminary before the army starts a "apostatic community" - more and more, until the U.Y.C becomes rather sad and emptied out by comparison. And of course, all these religious movements owe their loyalty to Fitz for giving them their chance to flower in the sun. However, you will notice something!
Religious freedom?
Every single one of these is a Christian offshoot or Jewish. There's no Muslims, no atheists, no Buddhists, no Hindus. It's more pluralistic than the Yukon. But...that's not saying much. Hence my cheeky asterisk!
Still, between the social changes, the bases in the Raajmahal hills do get finished - but there are some Chinese soldiers who get captured, tortured and executed by the Indian army - this disgusts Colonel McConnell...but mostly because seeing the corpses is gross. This moral outrage is going to seem really fucking galling in future chapters, put a pin in it. Observation planes do fly by overhead sometime and it's quite clear that the "People's Friend" of China, Lao Ping, is very aware of the airbases. We also learn that the Chinese soldiers are called Revolutionary Guardsmen - and from these names, we can infer that (though the Yukon never call them this), the Chinese are still SOME form of communist. Good for them!
Like, I'm not sure how workable a 1 billion civilization of communism sans telecommunication is. But we can hope for the best.
Back on the home front and at the base, there is a curious change in female fashion that Bruce remarks on: Since Fitz took over, there's a big Roman craze and so, Yukon dress starts trending towards the toga-esque, and these young ladies in rather filmy outfits would show up to political rallies, get all excited and cheer - and since there's a bunch of cute ladies there in more revealing outfits, a bunch of young men show up as well, leading to a feedback loop. So, Yukon society is getting more political (since before, politics was just seen as something the Lords wile away their time with and not super important for common folk) and more...not quite liberal, but definitely more "energetic" like a kind of will to power, if you wish.
Will these transformations last? Where will they go?
We'll have to wait and see.
Still, Bruce has finished the bases in time so he's back to America to report in - and possibly more. Kit Alison advises Bruce to "not marry the girl Lord Fitzpatrick picks out for you unless you believe you can love her", to which Bruce is like, "Wait, forgotten Charlotte already?" and the wives hem and haw and just send him off with a hug. They seem to think Fitz will marry him off to someone special and I think it's entirely because of the new energy of a can-do Consul ruling by near decree combined with how good a job Bruce did on the bases. Bruce flies back in an airship, which is a family run little jobby with the father and wife piloting and catering while their kids provide drinks, play Chopan on the piano in the resting area, and clean such and such. Bruce reflects that, according to the great philosopher Robert Holmes Smuts (a fictional Yukon philisopher), the Yukon do three things well: Farm, Fight and Never Forget Their History which is like, come on, that's not even an aliteration, SMUTS.
Bruce adds to this a fourth: They travel well. Every time he's on a train, airship or steamship, he's comfy and happy, so that's nice.
And while on this airship he reads in the papers!
Lord Fitzpatrick has been married! SPecifically NOT to an Aussie (as the wives had hoped) but rather to Joan Hellen...DeShay. Footnotes say they dropped the "De" from their name in 2424 to sound more traditionally Yukon. That would make them the...Shay. As in the DESTIBLE SHAY REGIME!
Alarming!
So, Bruce arrives at the Fitz estate, shakes hands with Buck, gets hugs and accolades, and...then notices that while the estates (located in Ohio) are very nice, they also look "like a hunting lodge" without any sign of feminine touches or a wife's hand in anything. He asks Buck about it and Buck's like, "Ssssssssooooooooooo about that...don't talk about Lady Joan. She's with her family in Atlanta. Don't bring her up. Please."
Bruce is like, "???"
Professor Von Buren's footnote reveals that, according to Mason's redacted memoirs, Fitzpatrick was...sexually unusual and that she fled the house after two weeks of relationships. Now, this is never elaborated on at all. Is he impotent? Have a weird fetish? Is he gay? He might just be gay. But sadly, Yukon society is so systemically fucked from top to bottom that we're never going to know. What we do learn, though, is that while the greater DeShay family are as much a bunch of backstabbing, greedy gits eager for power and wealth as the rest of the upper ranks of Yukon society, Joan herself seems...genuinely quite nice.
Bruce is taken to Fitzpatrick's office, where he seems like the same energetic, driving man that Bruce knew at college - just now, his orders are obeyed, not theorized. He's dressing down an officer whose airbases are behind schedule compared to Bruce's and among the normal list of problems that even Bruce ran into (cost overruns, restive natives, trying to be secret about it makes it really hard to build miles and miles of runway) he has another issue: someone is stealing his shit. Apparently, this the third theft from the logistics train this year. Hmm. Put a pin in that.
I should make a stickied pinboard, shouldn't i?
Once Bruce and Fitz are alone (with Buck, of course, looming in the corner), Fitz reminds him to call him Fitz, and he shall call him Robert, for they are close friends. Or should he say...MAJOR ROBERT!? Boom! Promotion!
Old Bruce, looking back on this, compares it to how sex workers are given baubles by their Johns. Unlike them, he notes, I was able to delude myself about what this bauble meant. Also, unlike sex workers, you're helping to kill millions of people, Bruce. There's that too. Still, Fitz sends him off with a letter of introduction to meet...Fitz's mother. It seems that she wants to get an eye on Bruce - and considering how Buck has referred to her in prior chapters as "thinking Fitz will make her Empress of the whole world" and "having a darkness in her, like Fitz" then I think that it's reasonable to assume that Fitz's mother is at least partially responsible for the coup. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that she probably pushed for the murder.
Like, the motive falls cleanly into place if you think of Fitz and his mother as co-conspirators: While Fitz has less need to kill to grab power, Lady Fitzpatrick ABSOLUTELY has a reason to kill that fat, arrogant bastard she was married too. Food for thought!
On the way out, Buck and Bruce see Doctor Aranov (he doesn't have much of an accent), and Buck remarks that his new planes are quite something. Then Bruce spots something that stops him stone cold dead.
Bruce's Narration said:
Bruce and Buck take a moment to admire the garden - it was Lady Joan's place. Buck is...so obviously in love with Lady Joan in a courtly way that even Bruce notices. Buck diverts the conversation to ask about tigers in India - but Bruce didn't get a chance to see any. Buck seems sad about that: "It's a shame to go to India and not see the tigers..." He's also sure there's going to be a war - and drops one last hint: Stay away from Mason. It seems Mason is in such deep trouble now that if he were a commoner, he'd be hanged already.
(The footnote says that Mason "relates to small boys in the manner similar to the way Socrates related to his male students" but "never discussed philosophy with the boys he imported from Mexico.")
I'm...kinda iffy on this branch of Mason's debauchery. I think him being a hypocritical slovenly bastard is good, even him being a pedophile - like, that's a sadly common abuse of power, even in our modern day. The specific queerness of it leans too close to Baron Harkonen for my tastes, doubly so when the rest of the book lacks any specifically queer characters. 2005 never felt more distant than right now, I think.
Buck also warns Bruce: You won't like Fitz's mom when you meet her, not the first time. Then the next time, you will like her even less.
Bruce's Narration said:
As Bruce goes to leave, he's ambushed by Mason - desperate, haggered, deeply overweight, Mason begs him: "Does your Lord have any unwed daughters? Sisters? Aunts? Grandmothers? I'm not picky! I'll pay for their hand in marriage!" See, if you don't get married by 25 in Yukon society, you are legally disinherited and don't get any of the lands and property. Bruce kinda goes, "Oh, uh, hey, wow, here's my Bus!" and jumps onto a bus heading in literally the opposite direction he was planning to go.
He's off to the train station.
And off to see Lady Bathsheba Ruth Fitzpatrick and, maybe, learn why he's...like that.
FOOTNOTE TIME!
FOOTNOTE 2: The Law Lords (their supreme court, I think) were all replaced with toadies to Fitz at the time of the big reforms, and Professor Von Buren says, "Well, ACTUALLY, they volunteered to step down!" yeah, all six! At the same time! Remarkable timing!
FOOTNOTE 5 & 6: A single priest does speak out against the harm being done to the United Yukon Church by Fitzpatrick's edicts. HE goes on a hunger strike and declares Fitz to be the "second antichrist" - the first being Bartholomew Iz. The official histories do mention this incident, but claim the priest was "mentally unstable."
FOOTNOTE 10: The roman craze got started in part by a new book called Cincinnatus, Coriolanus and Scipio Africanus by James Dawson Valmer, a professor...and, interesting? He's a...liege of Fitzpatrick! What a weird coincidence! It's...it's almost like freedom of the press doesn't actually matter in a society where one person owns a printing press and distribution system and the other person owns jack fucking shit.
FOOTNOTE 15: in 2424 Fitzpatrick changes the name of Boeotia Estate to Pallas, the capital of Alexander the Great. is there a term for Greece Weeb? Geeb? ...oh right, it's fascist!
FOOTNOTE 19: There's an ageless Yukon in-joke where you say that you "Lack Credentials" that Buck uses when asked if he's a romantic.
FOOTNOTE 20: Mason offering to buy a wife is a genuine actual felony, lol.
COMING UP NEXT: The entrance of the LOVE TRIANGLE! Lady Fitzpatrick Tempts Bruce with a woman she has trained for a year to be his wife! Can Bruce resist this vile temptation!? Is his and Charlotte's romance doomed!?
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
'no-one would call it an Empire, they'd call it imperium, which is Latin for Empire so it's all fine!'
God, this book really nails the fucking bend-over-backwards self-justification of empire. It even gets the whole post-imperial eliding of gruesome facts to try and avoid feeling guilty over your atrocities bit right.
God, this book really nails the fucking bend-over-backwards self-justification of empire. It even gets the whole post-imperial eliding of gruesome facts to try and avoid feeling guilty over your atrocities bit right.
An 'apostatic community' sounds like it could be atheist. Unless it's actually 'apostolic community'.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
please tell me this is how it's printed in the text please tell me this is not an autocorrect please
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Karls, yes!
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So, is this a reference or joke I'm not getting, lol? (I'm avery dumb)
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Huscarls/huskarls were the bodyguard of important folk in Anglo-Saxon England/Scandinavia, and there were probably variations on the word for similar groups across Northern Europe; calling them House Karls just makes it sound like it's a bunch of dudes called Karl who hang around in your house.
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