Rogue Trader: The Blasphemy of Kanesh

Sister Andromache was born in the depths of a hive city on Augereau, in the Acheron sector. As a child, she began laboring in the hive's massive factories, and had fate not intervened, that would have been where she spent the rest of her life. But when the call went out for volunteers to fight in one of the Imperium's endless wars, she lied about her age and was accepted into an Imperial Guard regiment, and hurriedly shipped to combat.

As a young soldier, she distinguished herself in combat, but it was what she did out of combat that proved more enduring. On the long warp voyage to the front, a preacher had taught her and several other soldiers to read, and she spent countless hours poring over the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer. Impressed by her honest piety, her fellow soldiers asked her to lead them in prayer, and by the time the regiment left the frontline, she had been inducted into the missionary order of St. Electra the Light-bringer as Sister Andromache.

When the war was over, Sister Andromache stayed with the Order of St. Electra as a missionary, spreading the word of the Emperor in the Aradec Confederation and beyond. After a long career, she retired to one of the Order's convents on the shrine world of Termina Anastasiae. She spent many tranquil years at the convent, teaching young missionaries and immersing herself in the monastic life. She developed a strong interest in early Imperial theology, and became a recognized authority on some of the more obscure writings of Malcador the Sigilite.

This is where Sister Andromache's official biography ends. It was subsequently purged from all Imperial records, but can still be read in the Apocrypha of Krast. No-one knows what happened at the convent, but judging from what Andromache wrote, her studies in systematic theology drove her mad. She wrote a tome titled Metaphysica Divina, which was so blasphemously heretical that the first censor who read it went mad and committed suicide, hurling herself over a cliff next to the monastery. Sister Andromache was found in her cell, patiently awaiting her inevitable judgement. In recognition of her long service, she was granted the mercy of being executed before being burned with her book.

The book, however, would not die. Although no copies could possibly have been made before its destruction, on the day after Sister Andromache's pyre, eleven volumes of Metaphysica Divina were inexplicably discovered in the convent's library. Sisters at the convent testified to haunting dreams of Andromache and the dead censor; novices who could not have had access to the book mumbled passages from it in their sleep. Eventually the entire convent was purged, but the abbess in charge had delayed making a full report to her superiors, and some sisters had been able to leave the convent. Although they were subsequently tracked down and executed by the Ordo Hereticus, Sister Andromache's heresy had been allowed to spread. Persistent rumours on Termina Anastasia insist that some sisters of the convent escaped the Inquisition's attentions altogether.

Since then, the Metaphysica Divina has made inexplicable appearances in Imperial libraries. All knowledge of it was once thought to have been suppressed, until an Imperial expedition encountered a volume on the faraway world of Kanesh, leading to the work now being more commonly known as the Blasphemy of Kanesh. Possession of a copy is punishable by death.

**

Fragments from

Metaphysica Divina

or

The Blasphemy of Kanesh

by Sister Andromache the Doomed

**

By setting this quill to parchment, I commit suicide. I forsake my faith, my life and my soul. Yet the clamor in my head will not still, and I fear - I know - that even in death I will not find rest until I unburden my mind. I must write though it is my death.

**

It is not commonly known that the Emperor did not want humanity to worship him as a god. Even though this is an unthinkable blasphemy in our time, and many of the early documents have been redacted, a careful reading of the Theban Debates makes it clear this is what was discussed. Malcador opposed the Cult, but later changed his mind.

**

Why does he not strike me down? Where is the knock at the door? The Emperor must know I am writing this! Why does he permit it?

**

Though we must teach all humanity to abhor the Daemon, we know that we cannot think too deeply on the nature of the Enemy. To collect our thoughts is to invite damnation. Bitterly do I know this now.

Euphrosyne of Galatea teaches us that a Chaos God is a primal emotion, a being of the Immaterium brought to life by our mental energies. This is why we must teach the novices the Balance, but we cannot even hint at the Galatean Euphemisms for the reason why. Because the Enemy comes from us. It is our energies, and our souls, that power them.

**

In one of the tablets of the Euphratian Apocalypse, it is told that Malcador the Sigilite decided to support the Imperial Cult once he realized it would nourish the Emperor. Look at the exact words of the tablet, set it beside certain passages in the Liber Achelieus, and you will never again know a night of restful sleep.

No, I cannot write it.

I am tormented by a dream where the Emperor dances in a deep cave on Terra, building a tower of gold and brass that will make him a god.

My soul is forfeit.

**

In the Tome of St. Patricia, we learn of the death of St. Celestine, and her resurrection. She dies on Forrax - yet she does not die, and walks again. And she is only one of the Living Saints, revered immortal champions of the Emperor.

What does the Book of Proscriptions tell us the ultimate temptation, the greatest boon offered by the Ruinous Powers is? Immortality.

For most of those who turn to Chaos, this prize remains forever out of reach. They die in the service of the daemons, and their deaths are more power to their foul gods.

What of us, who are trained to diligently look for the least spark of the curse of the witch in our charges, and to deliver the cursed to the Black Ships? Do we not likewise feed our god with our faith, and with their deaths? Their sacrifice?

Do we not nourish him?

**

The Immaterium - the Warp - is a hell to us, full of daemons that would rip us to pieces and consume our very souls if they could.

What are we to them?

**

What is the Emperor?

WHAT IS THE EMPEROR?

What do we serve?

[fragments end]

Warhammer 40,000: Ooarai Girls Academy

"We're lucky the school's on a carrier ship."
- Girls und Panzer 1

Vincent van Gogh: Still life (Vase with twelve sunflowers), 1888

**

As my opponents seemed to quite like the idea of tanks, the obvious thing to add to our Imperial army was a Leman Russ battle tank. I wanted to do something a little bit different for the model, though, and this is what I ended up with:

The model is a Panzer IV ausf. D from Warlord Games, and it's excellent; admittedly there were a couple of unsightly lumps of resin, but they were fairly easy to remove, and maybe I don't entirely know what to do with almost any of the metal doohickeys, but I think overall the model is very good and definitely worth its price.

Accompanying the tank is in the image above is a Gestapo officer from Warlord's delightful Guarding the Chateau set, i.e. Herr Flick of the Ordo Hereticus.

I'll admit that the reason I chose a Pz.IV for our Leman Russ was Girls und Panzer. Seeing as how I've done my master's thesis on tanks, I was vaguely aware that it existed, and I encountered the full absurdity of the manga when buying a goon a tank-related present. So when browsing 1/56 scale tanks online, I ended up buying the Pz.IV ausf. D that the protagonists use in their tankery exercises in the first manga.

Of course, one thing leads to another. I originally intended to have just a single Leman Russ named Ooarai Girls Academy. However, because it would be advantageous from a rules standpoint to field an entire spearhead detachment of tanks, it seems like it might be a decent idea to collect three more Ooarai tanks, one of them an HQ tank. So I googled for a female tank commander miniature - only to find that something called Company B sells not only Ooarai decals but also anime tank commanders. So obviously I ordered some.

Here's the Ooarai Girls Academy Panzer IV, then, with proper markings and everything:

The running gear was painted Vallejo Gunmetal Grey, and given a wash of Smoke and Black Glaze. The hull color is German Grey.

**

One of the most delightful and senseless absurdities of Girls und Panzer is that for some reason that completely escapes me, all of the tankery high schools are based on aircraft carriers. With Japanese entertainment, I find one just has to accept some things. This does, however, make a Warhammer 40,000 conversion remarkably easy from a fluff standpoint. Clearly the 40k Ooarai Girls Academy is an arm of the Schola Progenium that trains orphan girls into Imperial Guard tank crews on a giant starship. It makes as much sense as anything else.

Because the Ooarai tanks will eventually form their own detachment, they'll benefit from a regimental doctrine. Clearly the best doctrine for a detachment of Leman Russes is Tallarn. So if anyone finds 28mm models of Japanese schoolgirls dressed like they're in the Afrika Korps, let me know!

Char B1 bis

This Warlord Char B1 bis represents the Public Morals Committee tank. As it's the obvious candidate to be a Commissar Tank if someone wants to field one at some point, it needed a commander from Company B; I assembled this as a French tank in all other respects, but accommodating the commander in the turret required the German hatch as opposed to the original French cupola.

Here's the finished article with a Commissar tank stripe.

Pz.38(t) ausf. B

Next up: the student council tank, a Pz.38(t) from Warlord. For 40k purposes, I want this to be the HQ tank. Because a Tank Commander has a BS of 3+, it seems compulsory to take sponson weapons here, but they really interfere with the Girls und Panzer aesthetic. The solution? Magnets.

Those are plasma cannons from the Sentinel kit; they look a little big on an actual 28mm vehicle, but then everything smaller would just look like a plasma gun.

Here's the unpainted tank without plasma cannons:

And here with.

I think it painted up all right.

And the plasma guns are delightfully easy to attach and detach.

This is such a cute little tank!

M3 Lee

Finally, the volleyball team. Compared to the other tanks, the M3 is the size of a house.

**

I had also ordered a Renault FT 17 from Warlord ages ago, and as part of this project, I painted it up in Ooarai colors as well.

Finally, since we were buying World War II vehicles, how could we resist a Salamander Recon Tank from the Imperial Armor index, represented by a Warlord Games Sd.kfz 222, i.e. Lieutenant Grüber's little tank from 'Allo 'Allo.

**

I've said this before, but I'll say it again: I really like Warlord vehicles! These little tanks were a lot of fun to paint.

Let's Read Tolkien 81: The Grey Havens

The clearing up certainly needed a lot of work, but it took less time than Sam had feared.

The victorious hobbits liberate Sharkey's prisoners, including Lobelia and Fredegar Bolger, and get to work fixing the Shire. All of the horrible modern buildings are destroyed, and Sam puts Galadriel's gift to use replanting trees. Everything is great, there's a bumper crop at the next harvest, Sam gets married and everything. Frodo, though, still suffers from his wounds, and eventually the time comes: Frodo and Sam ride out to meet Elrond, Galadriel and Bilbo, on their way to the Grey Havens. There, Frodo and Bilbo get on a boat with the elves and Gandalf. Merry and Pippin show up just in time to say goodbye, and the ship sets sail over the Sea to Valinor. The three hobbits left behind head back home, and the novel ends with Sam arriving home to his family.

**

So, Sharkey is gone, and the Shire can be restored to how it was always meant to be. You might think this would be a moment for some reflection on how things work there, given that an enterprising tobacco merchant managed to accidentally transform it from a minarchist utopia to Mordor on the Brandywine in what, two years, but no, everything will go back to exactly how it was. Remember, making things better is Sarumanism.

The restoration of the Shire is maybe where the analogy to the world wars is clearest. Tolkien finished the Lord of the Rings after the war, and after Labour won the 1945 elections with a landslide, getting a clear mandate to build a new society. It wasn't just Britain; we now know that the time after the Second World War would become the Great Acceleration, ushering in the most profound period of change in the history of mankind. So there's a sense, at least looking back, in which the rebuilding of the Shire is a fantasy alternative to what actually happened after the Second World War: in reality, the factories, airbases and hospitals weren't knocked down and replaced with an agrarian utopia, but it's easy to believe that Tolkien wished they had been.

The Shire, of course, was never a utopia for everyone. This time, it's Frodo who doesn't fit in, underlined by one of Tolkien's most direct biblical references: "Frodo dropped quietly out of all the doings of the Shire, and Sam was pained to notice how little honour he had in his own country."

But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
- Mark 6:4

Apart from prophethood, Frodo is troubled by his wounds, especially the Morgul-knife at Weathertop, but also by the after-effects of the Ring. You'll need to read the appendices to find this out, but in fact, even Sam doesn't live happily ever after in the Shire: eventually he, too, takes to the Havens as the last Ringbearer. The last event in the history of the Fellowship is when Legolas and Gimli eventually cross the Sundering Seas to arrive in Valinor, presumably to be greeted by "Legolas what the fuck" when the dwarf disembarks. Somehow it makes me happy that the end of the story is three hobbits and a dwarf hanging out in elf Valhalla.

**

So, here we are: I started this whole thing in November 2013, made it as far as the Lord of the Rings in May 2016, and now it's finished. It's been quite a project. I'd like to thank my three regular readers and especially my regular commentator! The first offline consequence of all this will hopefully be a lecture on Tolkien and the heresies of the early church, to be delivered at the Helsinki Adult Education Center when circumstances permit. I might also try to publish a little something; we'll see. But it's been a real pleasure doing this.

Do I have some kind of final verdict on the Lord of the Rings? I don't know. It's still almost certainly one of the best-selling novels of all time, and the horrible movies supposedly based on it have cemented its status in popular culture to such an extent that it feels like it doesn't matter what I think of it. I hope I've been succesful in demonstrating that the Lord of the Rings is more complicated and more interesting than the strawman it's so often made into, and how understanding at least a little bit about Tolkien's theology sheds some light on quite a few things about it that I feel are otherwise misunderstood.

Other than that, I don't really have any grand conclusions to offer. Personally, I think the theology is complete nonsense, and some parts of the Lord of the Rings quite objectionable on many grounds. I also first read it at a sensitive age, and while I could certainly do without some of it, the world Tolkien created, and the compelling story he set in it, have been a major inspiration in my life and continue to be. I use that inspiration to try to do my part to make the world a better place for everyone. Sarumanism, Tolkien would say, which is frankly reactionary garbage. Tolkien's stories inspire me to do work which is directly contrary to the ideals he held. Make of that what you will, I guess.

Next time: well, let's see. I'm taking a break for a bit, but I think I might then do something completely different.

Thank you for reading!

CKII: Therefore I am against thee

Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia.

- Ezekiel 29:10

Now that Crusader Kings III is here, I guess I'd better finish what I'm doing in the previous one! When we left off last time, the Abbasid empire fairly dominated the Crusader Kings II map. Soon enough, that would change. The Muslim expansion into Francia had riled up the Catholics so much that they invented crusades, and soon enough, they launched their most ambitious one yet: a crusade for Egypt.

They tried this several times in real life and it never worked out at all. To be honest, I didn't really expect this to turn out a smashing success either, but at least it would distract the Abbasids and maybe let us profit. As we did.

I was pleasantly surprised when we managed to grab some land off the Muhallabids; and frankly shocked when the Crusade succeeded.

The Muhallabids never recovered from the loss of Egypt, and their empire went the way of the Abbadids.

While a Christian Egypt is a tremendously good thing for us, there is one downside: forming the empire of Abyssinia is only possible if you hold the kingdom of Egypt, and the last thing I want to do is go to war against our new Frankish friends. This is why we have the Charlemagne DLC: it lets us form a custom empire when we hold three kingdom titles. I was already King of Abyssinia and Nubia; with the Muslims in complete disarray, the third kingdom title I grabbed was Yemen.

With Crusader Egypt to the north and a scatter of independent chiefdoms to the east, the Abyssinian Empire was secure, and started expanding. Soon enough, we made inroads into Central Africa and reached the Persian Gulf.

**

And that was where I left things for quite a while, maybe for good. Like I said, Crusader Kings III is now out, so this feels like as good a time as any for some possibly closing thoughts on number II.

I talked about some of the shortcomings of the game earlier, mainly about the combat system and the lack of any meaningful diplomacy, and I stand by that. In my Ethiopian game, it's just been disappointing that I can't really have any proper interactions with the Byzantines or Crusader Egypt. It was an interesting challenge to get my realm established and fight off the Muslim holy wars, but I guess the problem becomes that once you've built up your blob, the game is no longer all that interesting. Especially since it's rare to get real opportunities to expand your realm outside of warfare, and war really boils down to the side that has more soldiers winning.

To sort of paraphrase Bilbo Baggins, though, I like this game a lot more than I think it deserves, and it's mostly because of the stories it generates. I'm never going to forget mad aunt Siobhan destroying her dynasty, or blowing up the heroic Duke of Semien in a manure explosion. So yeah, when Crusader Kings II is good, it's really good; when it's not, it's kinda boring. I've definitely enjoyed myself.

Let's Read Tolkien 80: The Scouring of the Shire

It was after nightfall when, wet and tired, the travellers came at last to the Brandywine, and they found the way barred.

The four hobbit heroes arrive at the Brandywine bridge, where they find hobbit shiriffs guarding the gate, with instructions to not let anyone in. When Merry and Pippin break in anyway, they meet none other than Bill Ferny of Bree, now stationed at the gate as a sort of duty thug. They drive him off, but it turns out that the whole Shire is now under new management: there are ugly new brick buildings, rules and regulations and Men bullying hobbits under the direction of the mysterious "Sharkey". Sure enough, a larger party of shiriffs shows up the next morning to arrest Frodo and company and take them to Hobbiton. Since it's where they were going anyway, the four hobbits set off.

Frodo and company proceed to defy the Men, mobilize hundreds of armed hobbits into an insurrection by basically just showing up, and then Merry leads an ambush and pitched battle against Sharkey's men. It's a little bit like one of those computer role-playing games where everyone was apparently just standing around doing nothing until the player character shows up and says a couple of fairly anodyne things, and all of a sudden everything changes.

After the battle, the hobbits advance on Sharkey's lair in Bag End, and find him to be none other than Saruman, with Gríma still at his heels. Saruman more or less admits to having fucked up the Shire out of spite, and Frodo tells him to piss off. As Saruman is leaving, he tries to stab Frodo, and then humiliates Gríma Wormtongue badly enough that Wormtongue murders him, and is shot by the hobbits.

**

I always thought Frodo's sudden sense of revelation at meeting Saruman ("A sudden light broke on Frodo. "Sharkey!" he cried.") was odd; earlier, it's Frodo who explains to the others that Lotho isn't behind the evil in the Shire, but a victim of Saruman - and just a few pages later, he's shocked to meet the same Saruman. Christopher Tolkien's History of the Lord of the Rings sheds some light on this: in the original conception of the chapter, Sharkey wasn't Saruman at all, but rather a more anodyne chief ruffian (Christopher Tolkien, The History of the Lord of the Rings, part 4: Sauron Defeated, HarperCollins 2002, p. 94). In this context, Frodo's surprise is understandable: he was expecting another footpad from Isengard.

The trouble is, though, that once the narrative was changed so that Sharkey is Saruman, the hobbits' encounter with him in Many Partings becomes strongly foreshadowing, and it's no longer at all clear why Frodo, having divined that Lotho was in trouble rather than making it, should ever have expected Sharkey to be anyone else. I mean Gandalf pretty much tells them outright in the previous chapter that it's Saruman.

As a whole, the Scouring of the Shire is one of the parts of the book most open to interpretation through what Tolkien's presumed political views are. In my opinion, we should start with his theology: machines and technology are bad. Letters, 75:

There is the tragedy and despair of all machinery laid bare. Unlike art which is content to create a new secondary world in the mind, it attempts to actualize desire, and so to create power in this World; and this cannot really be done with any real satisfaction. Labour-saving machinery only creates endless and worse labour. And in addition to this fundamental disability of a creature, is added the Fall, which makes our devices not only fail of their desire but turn to new and horrible evil. So we come inevitably from Daedalus and Icarus to the Giant Bomber. It is not an advance in wisdom!

This is what I described a long time ago as Tolkien's conservative anarchism: 

Letters, 66:

Life in camp seems not to have changed at all, and what makes it so exasperating is the fact that all its worse features are unnecessary, and due to human stupidity which (as "planners" refuse to see) is always magnified indefinitely by "organization". [...] However it is, humans being what they are, quite inevitable, and the only cure (short of universal Conversion) is not to have wars - nor planning, nor organization, nor regimentation.

If only Tolkien had dedicated at least a little bit of effort into imagining what a fantasy society without planning and organization would be like, we'd remember him as one of the great anarchist authors of all time. Alas, his anarchism is like the faux libertarianism of 21st-century conservatives: I must be "free" to keep my privilege and property. Somehow, Aragorn's monarchy doesn't represent regimentation, but gatherers and sharers do; Sharkey's rules and notices get cheerfully torn down, but not King Elessar's. What's supposedly a rebellion against authority is really a royalist rising; the hobbits invoke the king several times.

Apart from rules and regulations, the other great offense of Sharkey is industrialization, mostly described in bleak terms as shoddily constructed buildings, littering and just random, pointless vandalism.

The great chimney rose up before them; and as they drew near the old village across the Water, through rows of new mean houses along each side of the road, they saw the new mill in all its frowning and dirty ugliness: a great brick building straddling the stream, which it fouled with a steaming and stinking outflow.

First of all, I'm not even sure what the "new mill" is; based on Tom Cotton's description, it's a mill in the sense of grinding grain, but somehow it apparently produces water pollution. I don't know how you make it do that. But if you think about how central the Industrial Revolution is to British and English nationalism, this is Tolkien being a political radical: industry and what's ordinarily thought of as progress is, in fact, bad. The trouble is that he can't actually bring himself to make an argument about this, or even demonstrate any kind of logic for why this would be. The trouble with Sharkey's dudes isn't so much that they build things, it's that they seem to do everything maliciously and badly.

The only real way Saruman's despoiling of the Shire makes any sense is if it was originally part of his imitation of Mordor; he, too, wanted a subject realm to make into a miserable hell like Mordor, which then only accelerates when it turns into vengeance against Frodo and company. But then that undermines the industrialization/socialism analogy.

So if you take Tolkien at his word, the Scouring represents modernity and "progress" in general, and how it inevitably turns into destructive Sarumanism because a lady ate a fruit once. If you look at what he's actually written, the only kind of social change that's bad is one that threatens middle-class comforts. In Tolkien's world, descent from a strange lady born in Doriath is a valid basis for a system of government. "He was great once, of a noble kind that we should not dare raise our hands against," says Frodo of Saruman, after the latter stabbed him. This, and the royalism, is the closest Tolkien comes to the kind of authoritarianism many of his critics associate him with.

To sum up, then, the Scouring isn't an analogy of socialism or Britain's post-war Labour government -- directly; it's ludicrous to pretend that the Gatherers and Sharers aren't a swipe at the left -- or for that matter an analogy of how terrible industrialization was. It's a theological exposition of how fallen humanity can't improve its lot. Whether that makes any sense or is at all succesful is left to the reader.

Another interesting divide is made between Bilbo and Frodo, who are fabulously wealthy by Shire standards, and Lotho Baggins. Bilbo made his money adventuring, and apparently that's just fine by everyone. Lotho, however, makes it by selling pipeweed to Saruman for a profit. He then invests those profits into buying properties and businesses, which is apparently bad, and eventually leads to Men coming around and taking over the Shire, not to mention Lotho's murder. So I guess the question is whether the problem was Lotho acquiring his wealth by despicable commercial means, or investing it. Maybe it was both.

Overall, I feel like the Scouring is a sort of microcosm of Tolkien's work. Yes, the Shire is a minarchist rural utopia, now threatened by a caricature of modernizing socialists - and it isn't. The four hobbits are heroes returning from great deeds abroad who will now set things right in their own country - and they're not, because one of them is now a devoted pacifist who left his wargear behind on the slopes of Mount Doom. It's a very Boy's Own Adventure lark, where even the mean old lady gets a round of applause for having been mean to the bad guys, and at the same time it's a tragedy. I still feel that this creative tension is key to Tolkien's success, and it's definitely present here.

**

Next time: a boat trip.

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.

**

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.

**

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.