Pandemic diary: April

So here we are, over a year from my first covid diary. Just a couple of days after my previous post on the subject, the government announced we would be going into a sort-of-lockdown for most of March, and a week later, the municipal elections were postponed until June. The government then wanted to introduce draconian restrictions on movement, including a curfew for some of the worst-affected areas, but their proposed measures were struck down as unconstitutional and pulled. Luckily, toward the end of March cases started receding, and suddenly, barely over a week since the curfew failed to pass, we started talking about opening everything up again. It's enough to give you whiplash.

As you can see from the graph of confirmed infections, we've brought cases down to approximately where they were before we started opening up again in January. Restaurants and suchlike are now opening again. I think you see where this may well be going.

What's getting lost is that there was no reason for either the December or March-April spikes to happen at all. The only reason they did was, frankly, short-sightedness and stupidity, and of course greed. People died for it.

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I've mentioned this before, but what I find quite personally hurtful is that I know people who are ostensibly liberal, maintain they support free speech and deliberative democracy - and also believe I shouldn't be writing any of this, because they're on social media sharing messages that say "unless you're a fully accredited academic expert, shut up". I absolutely agree that the vapid opportunism of the right-wing opposition is shameful and stupid, but at the point where even supposedly progressive people are lumping everyone critical of the government with far-right covid deniers, well, I guess authoritarian technocracy doesn't look so bad to you after all, does it?

We transitioned from this directly to the discourse on the postponed elections, which immediately became more of the same. The extreme right tried to spin moving the elections into some kind of communist plot against democracy, which was ridiculous. Quite a lot of people across the political spectrum, however, were very unhappy with how the move was handled, and the apparently total lack of preparation by the responsible state agencies. This then got the government loyalists to declare that these two criticisms are exactly the same: if you think the state hasn't done everything perfectly, you're a far-right extremist. It's really been something.

So yeah, we're certainly learning a lot about our fellow citizens during this pandemic, and so much of it is so much worse than I would have ever expected. I ended up taking a bit of a break from Twitter because of this bullshit, and I feel much better for it. I understand that people are tired and stressed out, because I am too, but some of this behavior has still been absolutely appalling.

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Anyway I don't have much to say; as I predicted, I'm pretty sure I'll be teaching remotely for the rest of the semester, and I really dislike it. Not being able to see or properly interact with people makes teaching incredibly difficult, and at worst reduces it to a filmed monologue. That's not what I do or want to do. However, the way the employment situation for teachers is, it looks like teaching, whether remotely or in-person, isn't going to be my problem for much longer. There are next to no job openings, and when there are, they're inundated with dozens of applicants. I keep applying for everything I can, and have yet to land a single interview. In several cases, there have been 20-50 people applying for a temporary position of one year, only for the school to give the job to the same person who had it the previous year. So it's hard to see the point of applying at all. The logic seems to be the old classic: you can't get a job because you have no experience, therefore you can't get any experience. I have nothing except a couple of lecture courses to look forward to next fall.

The unavoidable logic seems to be that I need to find another profession. Again. What makes this particularly frustrating is that I keep getting excellent feedback on my teaching. Unfortunately, as in academia, so in teaching it doesn't matter one bit whether or not you're good at your job. I would dearly like to find something where it does matter, but I have no real idea what that could be. Quite frankly, this is all incredibly depressing.

Warhammer 40,000: The Deathwatch

 It is clear that we are fighting a losing battle on Earth. The alien hordes are overwhelming in number. The best we can do is slow down their progress. The only hope for humanity is to tackle the aliens at their source.
- UFO: Enemy Unknown, UFOpedia entry Alien Origins

If I remember correctly, the Deathwatch were invented in 3rd edition as a single squad of Marine xenos-hunters you could include in an Imperial army as a sort of ally. I thought this was very cool since it was a sort of 40k XCOM, and when a copy of Deathwatch: Overkill was available at our friendly local gaming store for a considerable discount, I grabbed it.

I was delighted to find that the Overkill box included a Blood Ravens Librarian; they were the protagonists of the excellent Dawn of War. His name is Jensus Natorian; all of the Overkill marines have names, and as far as I can tell, all of them seem to have come out of the Knights of the Old Republic name generator. Anyway he's our HQ choice. Since I'm figuring this out by 8th edition rules, a Librarian with force sword and bolt pistol works out at 88 points. I'd recently read N.K. Jemisin's amazing Fifth Season, and the model made me think of Alabaster.

The fact that all the Deathwatch marines originally come from some other chapter and still bear that chapter's heraldry is one of the big reasons I wanted to build some Deathwatch models of my own. It gives me a chance to own models representing chapters whose names are bouncing around my head for whatever reason, or that have cool names or shoulder pad designs, in a unit that I could actually conceivably use on the tabletop.

I don't know why they paint the left arms of their armor silver. I choose to believe that in the past, a Johnny Silverhand posergang stopped an alien invasion of Earth, and the association of silver left hands with fighting the xenos has survived into the 41st millenium.

The way I look at it, the models in Overkill make a start for four units. First, there's Ennox Sorrlock (Iron Hands, big Kotor vibe) with his combi-melta, Salamanders Terminator Garran Branatar with a heavy flamer and that power fist-meltagun thing, and Zameon Gydrael (Dark Angels) with a plasma pistol and power sword. Clearly these guys are going to be the core of a devastating short-range shooting and mêlée unit; looking at the codex, I guess that means this is a Malleus kill team. The Dark Angel has the most sergeantlike equipment, so does that mean Malleus kill team Gydrael?

Then there's Vael Donatus, the Smurf with the special boltgun, and Rodricus Grytt (Imperial Fists) with his frag cannon; I'm thinking I'll build a shooty squad around them, maybe a Furor team. I hope Brother Grytt doesn't mind I changed his company.

The two jump pack fellows, Antor Delassio the Blood Angel and Edryc Setorax (Raven Guard), are outfitted for close combat, so I think they need to be in a squad of their own.

Then we have Jetek Suberei, the White Scar on his bike; while you can include bikers in Deathwatch squads, I find the idea absurd, so I'll have to look into a bike squad later.

And, of course, the titular chaplain of the Kill Team! Frankly, I thought he was boring; and besides, we already have a smurf. So I gave the Chaplain a Techno Roider head from Statuesque Miniatures, to make Chaplain Messia of the Scythes of the Emperor, seen here awaiting her jump pack.

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As a bonus, I found an ancient Terminator with lightning claws I'd assembled but not painted back in the day; I stuck him on a bigger base and made him a Jade Paladin. I freehanded the chapter logo and am still in absolute shock over how well it turned out.

Anyway I'm sure I'll build a close combat squad around him at some point!

I was also delighted to find that the Dark Angels veterans box I bought for an entirely different project came with an assault cannon; joined to an ancient metal Deathwing terminator body I had lying around, this combined with a Kromlech power maul to make a Terminator for the Furor team:

I followed the heraldry instructions in the Deathwing supplement to the original Space Hulk and split the shoulder pad between the Deathwing symbol and the Terminator's personal glyph, which I repeated on his leg.

By now I was getting into building Terminators, and decided to dig into the Grey Knights bits I got ages ago to make Captain Phasma, for this Deathwatch Terminator from the Exorcists chapter. They're a Grey Knights successor chapter, after all, so it makes sense they'd have similar equipment! I'm calling that halberd a power axe.

Since the Deathwatch upgrade kits I ordered weren't showing up, I gave both Terminators Grey Knight shoulder pads and painted them silver. It's close enough!

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I was surprised by how much I enjoyed painting Space Marines black, and tried to get my hands on the discontinued Start Collecting Deathwatch box so I could have some more. Unfortunately all the start collecting boxes were sold out, and, of course, Brexit happened: the jump packs and Deathwatch accessory sprue I ordered in January still haven't showed up. So this is everyone from Overkill, and I have to say, I'm quite happy with them! The Deathwatch paint scheme is surprisingly simple and effective.

That was fun! Whenever we get Games Workshop deliveries again, I'm making more Deathwatch dudes.

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Also I made some Warlord Games Judges Anderson while I was at it, so maybe I'll post them here.

I originally got myself a Judge Anderson to use as an Inquisitor with my Custodes, and I didn't really know what to do with the model with the bike, except that it was cool so I built it.

I got a second Anderson for a different project, so I had a biker model left over. What's cooler than a motorbike? A jetbike.

Hey, if we agree that they're Inquisitors, then it kinda fits in with the Deathwatch.

Let's Read Tolkien 79: Homeward Bound

At last the hobbits had their faces turned toward home.

Gandalf and the four hobbits set off from Rivendell for Bree. Frodo has some flashbacks on the way, but they have a comfortable trip to the Prancing Pony. There, they learn from Barliman that Bill Ferny and some of the other suspicious Bree-men tried to take over Bree or something, and were chased out in a fight that left several people dead. Ever since, life in Bree has been more or less miserable, with the Rangers gone and everything. Gandalf and the hobbits reassure him that now that the war is over and there's a king again, everything will be fine again. Barliman has to have it explained to him multiple times that the king is Strider. The hobbits are also told that all is not well in the Shire, and Sam is reunited with Bill the Pony. Finally they take off for the Shire, and Gandalf leaves them at the Old Forest, where he intends to go spend some quality time with Tom Bombadil.

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Let's be honest here: this entire (very short) chapter only exists so that Barliman can be told that Strider is now the king.

This chapter also closes the circle on the morality play of Arnor: in the Council of Elrond, Aragorn called Barliman fat and complained that people like him don't understand how the Rangers keep them safe. Well, now that the dúnedain have taken off to fight in the War of the Ring, the woods around Bree are suddenly infested with wolves, bandits and monsters as if it was Skyrim, and the people of Bree presumably now realize the value of the Rangers. I don't really know what Tolkien was going for with this. Maybe he just thought it was cool. But for a 21st-century reader, the idea that there is a secret network of surveillance and violence keeping you safe and you need to be thankful for it is really kind of sinister.

Finally, I think we should take a moment with Frodo's last words in this chapter.

"Well here we are, just the four of us that started out together," said Merry. "We have left all the rest behind, one after another. It seems almost like a dream that has slowly faded."

"Not to me," said Frodo. "To me it feels more like falling asleep again."

I talked earlier about how the Shire may seem like a perfect rural utopia, but it really isn't to Frodo. Even Bilbo, originally introduced to us as the absolute embodiment of middle-class hobbitness, ends up settling in Rivendell. To the others, returning to the Shire is a Bilbo-like homecoming and a lived-happily-ever-after storybook ending; to Frodo, it isn't. As he puts it to Gandalf, "I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden". More to the point, what will be his place in a society that, like Barliman, has no comprehension whatsoever of what he's gone through? It would be interesting to contrast Frodo's experience with that of World War I veterans - like Tolkien.

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Next time: border formalities.