Conservatism, the law and the climate crisis

In this blog post, I will argue that our failure to understand conservatism as an ideology is putting the survival of humanity in peril.

**

In the morning on August 8th, 2022, the FBI raided former president Donald Trump's Florida mansion. This prompted fury among Republicans, who portrayed a police raid against a senior politician as a terrible violation of norms.

As legal commentator and blogger David Allen Green points out, these are the same people who called for Hillary Clinton to be not only investigated but imprisoned. As Green has it:

The only explanation for the two stances is hyper-partisanship.

And like many hyper-partisans, he has invoked constitutional arguments of first principle when it suits his cause, but does not apply them the same way against his cause.

I have a great deal of respect for David Allen Green as a commentator, but on this subject I believe he is entirely wrong.

The "two stances" here are that a) Hillary Clinton must be investigated and prosecuted for suspected crimes related to official documents, and b) Donald Trump must not be investigated and prosecuted for suspected crimes related to official documents. Looking at the matter this way, there appears to be an obvious hypocrisy. But this is not the only possible explanation at all.

In 2018, US composer Frank Wilhoit posted an excellent description of conservatism:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

If we take this description of conservatism as a guide, we see that there is no contradiction or hypocrisy. To US Republicans, Trump belongs to the in-group and Clinton to an out-group.

In their worldview, the law protects Trump, but does not bind him: in his press release on the raid, Trump was indignant that his safe had been broken into. In the conservative worldview, his property must be protected, but cannot be investigated.

Conversely, Clinton must be bound by the law and is not to be afforded any of its protections. After all, the chant was never "investigate her", it was always "lock her up". Trump routinely referred to her as a criminal. Investigating Trump for a crime is unacceptable, but Clinton is not even granted the due process of an investigation.

If we accept Wilhoit's definition of conservatism, the Republican response to the Mar-a-Lago raid is consistent and perfectly understandable. Speaking as a historian, it has greater explanatory power. Republicans do not hold two contradictory opinions - two stances - but rather one.

On our side of the Atlantic, the day before the raid on Mar-a-Lago, British Conservative MP Nadine Dorries described a parliamentary inquiry into outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson's conduct as a "witch-hunt" and a "kangaroo court", and demanded Tory MPs refuse to participate in it. She is hardly the only British Conservative politician who seems to likewise believe that Johnson is above both law and parliamentary scrutiny.

To ascribe behavior like this to a general "hyper-partisanship" is, in my opinion, a poor explanation. It fails to account for the fact that this is not a bipartisan phenomenon, but rather a conservative one. There is no comparable movement on the left demanding their political leaders be above the law.

**

This confusion is only one example of a broader trend. For whatever reason, large parts of the media and the liberal commentariat do not treat conservatism as a political ideology with its own particular history. Instead, they largely accept conservatives' own formulations of their ideology at face value, and ignore the history of conservatism. There is also a marked reluctance to question conservatives in ways that representatives of other political ideologies are questioned.

As a political movement, conservatism was born as a reaction to the French Revolution. The guiding ideal of the revolution was enshrined in the motto "liberty, equality, fraternity". The conservative mission was to oppose this. US political scientist Corey Robin and others have defined conservatism as an ideology that defends an unequal, hierarchical society. If conservatism is seen in this historical context, the reason why they subscribe to the worldview described by Wilhoit is clear. Equality before the law is incompatible with the idea of hierarchy.

It's instructive to look at the history of the idea of the rule of law. The rule of law and the German Rechtsstaat are liberal concepts, formulated in opposition to conservative hierarchies. In the English-speaking world, the idea of the rule of law was conceived as a criticism of the idea of the divine right of kings. The American Revolution was fought, according to its proponents, on these principles: that even kings should be subject to law.

The American and French revolutions are the origin of the modern idea of human rights. Conservatives everywhere have consistently opposed these rights. Of course, they routinely misrepresent this history. The idea that the political right was ever in any sense liberal was an artifact of the cold war, where human rights were a useful rhetorical weapon against the Soviet Union. After the Soviet bloc collapsed, conservative parties in the west have been progressively abandoning the idea of human rights, to the point where entire conservative parties are represented by authoritarians like Trump and Johnson.

Both Trump and Johnson are thoroughly illiberal politicians. They do not accept, indeed do not even seem to understand, the idea that there should be any limit to their powers, or that they should be accountable to anyone. Both gleefully attack any institutions that they deem hostile to their ambitions. Trump instigated a coup attempt against the US Senate; Johnson has consistently fought parliamentary oversight and even blatantly lied to the Queen. While they flagrantly break the law, they fulminate about law and order.

To conservatives, there is no contradiction, because to them, law and order means using state violence to enforce social hierarchy. It does not mean, and never has meant, rule of law.

If we imagine conservatism as the defence if established structures, both Johnson and Trump seem profoundly unconservative. Some right-wingers have argued that they are not, in fact, conservatives at all. This is not very persuasive, because in both their countries, the conservative parties wholeheartedly support these disgraced leaders. Clearly, to most US and British conservatives, these men represent their values.

Those values are privilege and hierarchy. Both Johnson and Trump come from immensely privileged backgrounds. Neither has ever done a day of honest work in their lives, let alone actually earned a living - supposedly conservative values. They constantly break the norms they claim to uphold, and this barely dents their popularity with their supporters. Again, this is because conservatives do not believe they should be bound by these norms, but rather that others should. They are the in-group, we are the out-group.

It's worth noting that the backlash against Johnson only began after he started lying to his own supporters. He remains very popular among members of his party.

To conservatives, the impunity with which Johnson and Trump break laws and conventions demonstrates their superiority. It "triggers the libs" by making the hierarchy of society visible. Johnson can violate lockdown regulations without penalty, while others are fined. To conservatives, this is as it should be.

**

If we conceive of conservatism in terms of hierarchy and privilege, it becomes obvious why conservative parties are so fanatically opposed to fighting the climate crisis.

The conservative worldview is based on the idea that the privileged in society are entitled to do what they want. Rules and regulations are for other people. Even to supposed law-and-order conservatives, the idea of the law being enforced on them is an abomination.

Twenty-first century conservatism reflects the values of individualism and fossil capitalism. Regardless of their station in life, conservatives tend to believe that they are the ones who create value for the economy, and therefore to society. They believe this entitles them to a privileged position in it. In fossil capitalism, this means they must be allowed to consume more than others. Any restriction of their consumption is a restriction of their privilege, which amounts to a denial of their superior position in the hierarchy. Therefore it is unacceptable.

This is why things like private car ownership, flying and eating meat have become fetishes of right-wing policy with such astonishing speed. Conservatives believe they are entitled to these things as marks of their superiority over others.

If we believe conservative rhetoric about the importance of responsibility, the common good, future generations and so on, it is impossible to explain why conservatives are everywhere at the forefront of the fight against environmental protections. They talk about responsibility and preservation, and defend limitless consumption and destruction. When we realize that this rhetoric of responsibility is only ever mobilized to oppose policies that would lead to a more equal society, conservative policy is much more coherent. Throughout, they are defending their privilege.

**

Whether it be Donald Trump's assault on the US political system or the infinitely more serious matter of the climate crisis, we are consistently failing to see conservatism as an ideology of hierarchy and privilege. This means that for the most part, conservative policies and attitudes are not seen as what they are, and are not effectively critiqued. Instead, the media largely pretends conservatives share the same values as the rest of the population, and treats clear indications to the contrary as some kind of errors of thought, rather than manifestations of their values.

When it comes to environmental policy, this reluctance to engage with conservatism as an ideology provides a smokescreen for their obstructionism and sabotage. By opposing policies that are necessary to control the climate crisis, conservatives are literally destroying our planet. And they are doing it to sate their unlimited greed.

We have to stop them.

Here I Stand by email: Turn 5 (1536-1539) - French Diplomacy

Welcome to Turn 5 of our massive game of Here I Stand by email! Turn 4 is here, and this is how things stood when it ended:

Diplomatic situation:

The Ottomans are at war with the Papacy

The Habsburgs are at war with England

The Habsburgs are at war with the Protestants

The Papacy is at war with the Protestants

The Hapsburgs are allied with Hungary-Bohemia

France is allied with Genoa

France is allied with Scotland

The Papacy is allied with Venice

Victory points:

England 13

Protestants 16

Hapsburgs 19

France 20

Ottomans 20

Papacy 20

Protestant spaces: 20

(victory points Papacy 9 - Protestants 6)

Electorates: 5 Protestant, 1 Catholic

Protestant English home spaces: 1 (0 VP)

Cards removed from the game:

Luther's 95 Theses

Peasants' War

Barbary Pirates

Defender of the Faith

Clement VII

Paul III

Marburg Colloquy

Michael Servetus

Calvin Expelled

Augsburg Confession

Julia Gonzaga

Schmalkaldic League

Explorers removed: Narváez (-1)

We start, as always, with the card draw phase. All the naval units destroyed last turn are returned to their owners and can be rebuilt, and the reformer Calvin returns to Geneva from exile. 

The Reformation continues: as a result of Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn last turn, the English Reformation is now on. The reformer Cranmer appears in London, flipping it Protestant and giving England their first Protestant Home Spaces VP, for a total of 14. Cranmer also joins the game as a debater, along with Coverdale and Latimer. The papal ranks are reinforced by Carafa and Pole, and a total of ten new cards are added to the deck, including the mandatory event Society of Jesus, Copernicus and the Spanish Inquisition.

Before dealing cards, we work out New World riches for the Habsburgs and French. The Spanish roll a seven for their colony in Cuba, which ends up as a result of 8 due to Plantations, so they get a card, and another card from their Aztec conquests; the French get a card from Charlesbourg Royal.

So the total cards everyone starts the turn with are as follows:

Ottomans: dealt 5, kept 2, total 8

Hapsburgs: 7, 2, 10

English: 4, 1, 6

French: 6, 1, 8

Papacy: 5, 1, 8

Protestants: 5, 1, 7

**

And then it's time for the diplomacy phase. The negotiation segment had to be extended when one player's laptop screen broke, but eventually, after some exchanges of diplomatic missives, I got things started by announcing an Ottoman alliance with France. The Habsburgs also announce an alliance with France, and grant them a card draw! England then announces an alliance with France, because of course they do, at the price of one French mercenary unit transferred to their control, as well as an alliance with the Protestants.

For their part, the French confirm the Ottoman and Habsburg alliances, as well as the Habsburg card draw, and announce an alliance with the Vatican! France loans the Genoan naval squadron and Andrea Doria, and transfers four units of mercenaries, all to the Papacy, and in exchange the Pope cedes Florence to the French. The alliance with England is declined. The Vatican confirm the agreement, and the Protestants confirm their alliance with England. France now leads with 22 VP!

The Habsburgs decline to sue for peace with England, and declare war on the Ottomans; the French cap off a very succesful diplomacy phase by declaring war on the English. We're running out of diplomatic counters!

The Habsburgs pay for their declaration of war with Mercenaries Demand Pay, and France with A Mighty Fortress. The French then play Venetian Informant for the third time in the game, this time looking at the English hand.

I spring deploy Suleiman and three Ottoman regulars to Buda, and the Habsburgs decline to deploy. Henry VIII travels to Calais with three mercenaries and two regulars, and the French deploy Francis, Montmorency, four regulars and four mercenaries to Boulogne. The Papacy finishes spring deployment by sending four mercenaries to Ancona.

**

The Ottomans start the action phase with John Zápolya, meaning I now have an army of eleven regulars at Buda. The Habsburgs retaliate by recruiting two regulars at Vienna with City State Rebels, and England plays Janissaries Rebel for command points to deploy their fleet: two squadrons from Bristol to the Irish Sea, two squadrons from Calais to the Channel and a squadron from London to the North Sea. Following this, Brandon and his army march from Antwerp to Calais.

France plays their home card and rolls on the château table with maximum bonuses, but rolls a 2, so they draw one card and go up to 23 VP. The Papacy plays Pirate Haven for 3 CP, deploying their fleets from Venice and Rome and burning books in German. Utilizing Tetzel's bonus to add 1 CP to the St. Peter's track, the Vatican returns Strasbourg to Catholicism but strikes out in Münster. The Protestants play Unsanitary Camp as an event in Vienna, causing the Habsburgs to lose four regulars.

As the Ottomans, I play Dissolution of the Monasteries for command points. My fleet in Coron moves to the Aegean and Barbarossa's navy in Corfu deploys into the Ionian Sea. The papal fleet in the Adriatic Sea successfully intercepts; in the ensuing combat, I roll 11 dice and score 3 hits, sinking one Venetian squadron, and the Papal fleet gets five hits with six dice, destroying both my squadrons and a corsair. Barbarossa withdraws into the Aegean, and I use the remaining command points to build my last fleet at Coron and take control of Szegedin.

The Habsburgs play Calvin's Institutes for command points, building a regular in Prague and Innsbrück, as well as a mercenary in Vienna. England play their home card, Six Wives of Henry VIII, and the roll on the marriage chart is a 5: Edward is born sickly, and England gets 5 VP, catapulting them to a total of 19. Further, since Edward's mother was Anne of Cleves, both the English and the Protestants draw a card.

The French play Affair of the Placards for command points, moving their fleet in Marseille to sea and marching the two regulars in Genoa to Florence. The Vatican plays Book of Common Prayer, moving their fleet in Ancona to the Adriatic and building St. Peter's. The Protestants play Zwingli Dons Armour for command points: Philip of Hesse besieges the electorate of Trier, the Protestant regular in Brandenburg marches to Wittenberg, and Tyndale finishes translating the New Testament into English, generating six reformation attempts in the English language zone. Staggeringly, every single one of them succeeds, equalizing the Protestants and the Papacy at 17 VP each and taking England to 22!

On my impulse, I play Erasmus for command points, and engage the Venetian fleet in the Ionian Sea again. This time, after failed papal interception and avoid battle attempts, we're victorious, but only sink one of the two enemy fleets; the survivors retreat to the Adriatic. Barbarossa pursues them, and we finally destroy the rest of the Venetian navy for the loss of another corsair. A third naval move regroups my fleet in the Ionian.

The Habsburgs play Pilgrimage of Grace for command points, continuing an impressive streak of religious events not played as events, to recruit a mercenary in Innsbruck and send an explorer to the New World. England plays the mandatory event Imperial Coronation, which has no effect as Charles V is in Vienna, and marches their army from Calais to Boulogne. The French choose to avoid battle and retreat to Boulogne, but they fail. In the field battle, both armies manage to score a grand total of three hits, which means both sides lose three mercenaries, the French defenders win, and the English retreat back to Calais. They use their other command point to recruit a mercenary there.

For their part, the French play War in Persia for CP, withdrawing their army from Boulogne to Paris, sending Montmorency and two mercenaries to Rouen, and recruiting a Scottish regular in Glasgow. The pope plays Unpaid Mercenaries and uses the command points to build St. Peter's, which gets them their fourth St. Peter's victory point for a total of 18 VP. The Protestants retaliate with Mercenaries Bribed, starting a debate in German against the only committed Papal debater, Tetzel. The Protestant debater is Melanchton, and he absolutely destroys his opponent: the Protestants win by four hits to none, meaning Tetzel is disgraced and four German-speaking locations convert to Protestantism. The Protestants flip Regensburg, Salzburg, Innsbrück and Linz, and all this swings the victory points their way: the Papacy now has 16 VP and the Protestants 20.

The Ottomans play Gout for command points, attempting piracy in the Ionian Sea. We score one hit, and the Habsburgs award us a piracy VP, for a total of 21 VP. On the Habsburg impulse, it turns out that none of us were expecting the Spanish Inquisition.

There are no Protestant Spanish-language spaces (are there ever?), but the Habsburgs make the English discard Fountain of Youth and draw a card for themselves. The debate ends up being Carafa against Luther himself, and the Catholics win it by one hit, converting Worms. This again changes the victory points, putting the Papacy at 17 and the Protestants at 19. Incensed at losing a card, the English play Shipbuilding for command points, recruiting a mercenary at Calais and then marching their entire army in Calais to Brussels; the Habsburg garrison withdraws into the fortifications.

At this point France plays Swiss Mercenaries as a response, placing one in Florence and three in Carlisle, followed by Scots Raid.

France builds a Scottish regular in Glasgow, and marches the stack of five units there to Carlisle. The English decline to intercept, so the Scots march on to York and launch their assault. Neither side scores any hits, so now the siege is on. They then use the command points from the event to send an explorer to the New World.

The Papacy plays Leipzig Debate, nominating Eck as their attacker and targeting an uncommitted German debater. It ends up being Eck versus Karlstadt again, and the hits are 3-0 to the Papal side. That means Karlstadt is burned at the stake! The Papacy flips Nürnberg, Regensburg and Leipzig; they gain 1 VP from this and 1 VP from Karlstadt, going up to 19 VP, while the Protestants drop to 18.

For their part, the Protestants play Master of Italy. Since France controls Milan, Florence and Genoa, they go up to 24 VP! The Protestants use the command points to storm Trier, unsuccesfully, and move a regular from Augsburg to Worms. I play Revolt in Egypt for command points, move Barbarossa's fleet to the Adriatic and piratize the Papacy there. We score one hit, netting one piracy VP for a total of 22.

Meanwhile, the Habsburgs go on the offensive! They play Gabelle Revolt for one CP and march Charles, the Duke of Alva and their entire stack in Vienna to Pressburg. Suleiman attempts an intercept with the Ottoman stack in Buda and succeeds. The battle of Pressburg is a tremendous slaughter, with the Ottomans losing five regulars and the Habsburgs seven units. The Habsburg survivors retreat to Vienna.

The English play Machiavelli: the Prince for command points, and storm Brussels: both sides lose one mercenary and the siege continues. They also send one of their regulars from Edinburgh to besiege Stirling, and the French mercenary at Glasgow fails to intercept them. This cuts the French line of communication to York. The other English regular at Edinburgh then attacks the French mercenaries at Glasgow, but neither side scores any hits and the English retreat back to Edinburgh. France then plays Treachery! and conquers York! The French now have 26 victory points, which means the game will end this turn unless someone drops them back below 25.

The Pope plays Rough Wooing for command points, sending Andrea Doria and the Genoan fleet into the Barbary Coast and building St. Peter's for two CP. The Protestants play Trace Italienne to initiate a debate in the German language zone. The matchup ends up being Büllinger versus Eck, so the Protestants swap in Luther and draw a card with Here I Stand. The first round ends in a tie, and in the second round, Campeggio beats Oekolampedius by two hits, flipping Kassel and Lübeck.

For my part, I play my home card to place four regulars in Istanbul. With France past the victory threshold, there's not a lot I can do except hope that there's a next turn and I can have a shot at winning this. On that note, the Habsburgs play Andrea Doria as an event: both they and the Papacy draw a card, but luckily I lose none of my piracy VPs.

With only one card left, there's nothing England can do to evict the French from York, and they skip their impulse. France plays Colonial Governor / Native Uprising for command points, recruiting a mercenary in St. Dizier and returning their ships in the Gulf of Lion to Marseille. The Pope plays Knights of St. John for command points to finish building St. Peter's, taking them to 20 VP. The Protestants play Katherine Bora to start translating the New Testament into French.

As the Ottomans, the French victory seems inevitable at this point, so I pass. The Habsburgs play Philip of Hesse's Bigamy as an event, forcing the Protestants to either discard a random card or remove the bigamist from play. They discard Surprise Attack. England skips their impulse, and so does France. The Papacy plays Papal Bull, excommunicating Zwingli and choosing to debate an uncommitted Protestant in German. Aleander faces Oecolampadius, and wins by one hit to none. With Aleander's special ability, that means Salzburg and Kassel flip Catholic. The Protestants and Ottomans skip their impulses, and the Habsburgs play their home card for command points. They recruit four mercenaries in Vienna, and Charles again leads his forces to Pressburg. In the ensuing battle, all four mercenaries are lost for three Ottoman casualties, and the Habsburgs withdraw back to Vienna. England and France skip their impulses, and the Papacy plays Mercenaries Grow Restless to recruit a regular in Rome. Then everyone skips, ending the action phase.

Because it was obvious the game would end this turn, we skipped the winter phase and went straight on to the New World. The Habsburg and French explorers ended up being Roberval and Magellan, and while Roberval returned empty-handed, Magellan completed a succesful circumnavigation! This earned the Habsburgs 1 VP for the Pacific Straits and 3 for the circumnavigation, catapulting them into second place. It's not enough to change the outcome, though, and the game ends in a French victory.

Here's the final score:

Protestants 17

England 20

Papacy 21

Ottomans 22

Hapsburgs 23

France 26

**

We got Turn 5 started on May 14th 2021, and the diplomacy phase ended on June 22nd. The action phase kicked off on July 20th, and ran for the rest of the year and then some. Prince Edward was born on August 30th, and Tyndale published his New Testament on September 22nd. Karlstadt was burned on December 20th, and York fell on the first of February 2022. By the time Zwingli was excommunicated, the turn had taken a full year. The action phase and the game ended on Monday, the 11th of July: two years, three months and some days since Luther's 95 Theses hit the table on March 22nd 2020.

**

Well, that was certainly an epic experience in the proper sense of the word. As one of our players put it to me, the delay between sending out your "orders" and finding out what happened made for a real feeling of grand strategy. I'm delighted we performed this experiment, and want to thank everyone who participated.

I have to say I still have mixed feelings about this last turn. I'm not taking anything away from the French player: they saw a shot at a win, and combined some very skilful diplomacy with getting everything out of the cards they were dealt to take it. So I consider this an absolutely deserved win. It did involve running some considerable risks, though. There were several cards that could have derailed the French win completely: any of the cards affecting mercenaries would have been difficult for the thinly stretched French to deal with, and something like Diplomatic Marriage, City State Rebels or Andrea Doria could have knocked out a key, leaving them short of the 25 VP needed for the win.

The thing is, nearly all of those cards were in play this turn, and none of them were used against the French, even when it became clear that they were winning. We've played Munchkin, where as soon as someone starts pulling ahead, everybody piles on them; this was somehow exactly the opposite experience. With my cards and board position, there was very little I could do except hope there would be a sixth turn, where I think all of us would have had a shot at the win. Several players could have done something to stop the French. The Habsburgs could have dropped France below 25 VP and put themselves in a position to win with a successful circumnavigation - which, we know with hindsight, they would have got. The play of Andrea Doria against my Ottomans, as opposed to deactivating Genoa, amounted to throwing the game to the French. I still don't quite know how I feel about that.

Having said that, I'm reasonably happy with my strategy. My experience in our first game was that if the Ottomans come out swinging, everyone else will mobilize against them, and I wanted to avoid that. What's perhaps slightly boring about the Ottomans, purely in an abstract strategy game sense, is that you've got very few options other than fighting the Habsburgs. I tried fighting the Papacy, and I don't mind telling you I was unpleasantly surprised by Venetian Alliance! I was unlucky on some key naval combat rolls, otherwise I think I might have done better in the Mediterranean. I was also quite lucky on my piracy rolls, and managed to grab Julia Gonzaga as well. I feel that if there had been one more turn, I'd have had a pretty good shot at winning, but it wasn't to be.

**

So, now that that's done, I've put in a P500 order for Virgin Queen. Again, I want to thank everyone who took part; we'll be back.

Let's Read Tolkien 89: Vae Victis 17-19

Silence fell.

Haladdin has just received his mission to save Middle-earth, and he's still talking to the Nazgúl Sharya-Rana about it. I swear this is a four-chapter infodump. In these chapters, the Nazgúl is giving Haladdin information about how to destroy the Mirror, without telling him how to destroy the Mirror. Because of what Sharya-Rana obscurely calls "the rules of the game", he can't tell Haladdin what to do, but he has to lead him on until he supoosedly figures it out on his own. It's never explained why this has to be done, and frankly, it's tiresome.

It doesn't help that both the things they talk about and the language they use are relentlessly anachronistic. For instance, Haladdin at one point nonchalantly sums up the palantír and magic mirror as a "two-key system", as if it was obvious that a medic in the Mordorian army would know what it was. At first, I quite liked the idea of an alternative take on the Nazgûl, but again the strongest impression these chapters convey is that the author was very impressed with how clever he was being. For my part, I honestly cannot be bothered to sum it all up. The end result is that the "Nazgúl" tells Haladdin that the Mirror is in Lórien, there is a palantír in Dol Guldur, and Haladdin has to use the palantír and the volcano of Orodruin to destroy the Mirror. He could literally just have said that. There's no point in spinning it out into a huge, annoying didactic dialogue. Sharya-Rana then gives Haladdin his ring, and dies. Haladdin is now a Nazgúl, I guess, except with no magical abilities whatsoever.

Haladdin's companions now wake up, and he tells them what happened. Chapter 19 consists entirely of their discussion, and Haladdin trying to come up with a plan. There are several problems: getting into Lórien seems impossible, and the Mirror is too heavy to move. Eventually, Haladdin hits on an idea: based on what Sharya-Rana told him, they can use a palantír to transmit the fire of Orodruin to the Mirror. Again, the Nazgúl practically told him to do this, but for some reason we're never given, supposedly couldn't tell him this. It's stupid.

Anyway, now they have a plan, sort of, and they head for Ithilien, where Tangorn intends to introduce them to Faramir.

**

Next time: part 2!

Epic: Let's Build some Adeptus Titanicus terrain

The Panau Tourist Office has denied reports that massacres, chaos and factional fighting have affected the tourism industry this year. Tourist deaths this month reached 750, but ministers played down the figures, saying that the sinking of the cruiseliner "Happy Days" distorted the figures. An average mortality rate of 50 tourists a month is quite acceptable in this day and age, our glorious leader confirmed.

 - Radio Panau

One of the things that made me get into Adeptus Titanicus was the idea of building Epic-scale terrain. I admit that this may seem backwards to some people, but I really like building terrain. I was very disappointed when my 15mm collecting plans fell through, mostly because I was looking forward to building a miniature service station!

Now that I have Titanicus, though, I have a great excuse to build some even tinier terrain pieces. I thoroughly enjoyed my first ever game: the Battle of Bitter Tower was fought over improvised terrain, and as it turned out, all of the terrain we deployed ended up being tactically or symbolically significant. Below, in the foreground you can see Del Monte Tower, which my Princeps Seniores spent several turns hiding behind.

I feel like a good starting point would be to make a proper version of Del Monte Tower; namely, a honking big fuel silo. Earlier, I invested in this lovely little Titanicus terrain kit:

It has all kinds of super adorable little bits and bobs, and I've added a selection of the fuel pipes to a cocoa tin to make what I maintain looks very much like a big as heck fuel tank. My flatmate cut me a circle of sturdy cardboard to serve as a base.

Here's the pipe, and because it's physically impossible to extract the correct amount of green stuff for anything, an entirely superfluous crater.

Then it's just a simple matter of covering the cardboard base with PVA glue and Noch Z-scale ballast.

And we're ready to do some spray-painting.

Then it's a simple matter of painting the whole thing in Vallejo Light Gray, with some select bits in Gunmetal, and applying the Panau Oil colors of red and white. I've played too much Just Cause 2 to be able to paint a giant fuel silo any other way.

Then it's time to paint the base in Iraqi Sand and we're done!

**

Now that I'm building fuel infrastructure and I've been playing around with the Manufactorum Imperialis kit, the next thing I'm making is definitely a tank farm. I remember bombing them in Microprose's F-117A Stealth Fighter when I was very young, and I can't really think of many things more Panau than huge, explosive fuel tanks.

I tried to place the tanks so that Knights could move around them, but Titans would find it difficult. They're glued onto a piece of MDF board.

I then covered the whole thing in Noch ballast, which I'm really starting to like.

After a whole bunch of Iraqi Sand paint, we have ourselves a terrain piece.

**

The thing with the Manufactorum Imperialis kit is, though, that while it contains lots of cute little things, most of the terrain you can make out of it is just too tiny for Titanicus purposes. So I'm setting it aside for the moment; I do have some ideas for what to do with the rest of it. So now we're going to do some proper scratchbuilding.

Since I had earlier decided to go with Vallejo Iraqi Sand as my base color, and I've now embarked on this Panau terrain project, I think it's time to draw the appropriate conclusions and say that our battles are taking place on the Imperial desert world of Lautan Lama.

One of the most succesful pieces of improvised terrain we used in our first game was my copy of the Black Book of Communism, i.e. Communism Peak.

I feel like the most appropriate way to translate this into a Panauan desert would be to make a mesa about the same size. Also, Sunny Mesa is my favorite landmark in Alpha Centauri. I'm calling it Dataran Tinggi Komunis. As luck would have it, we had a long piece of Ikea cardboard lying around that was almost the exact width of my Black Book.

Three layers of it made a stack almost exacly the height of the book: in other words, the perfect base structure for Dataran Tinggi Komunis.

I need the edges to sort of flare out from the top of the plateau, so I'm mounting this whole thing on a base cut out of 2mm thick cardboard.

I tried making one of the short edges out of Milliput, and while I think I may have applied it unnecessarily thickly, I think it worked out all right.

That exhausted my previous supply of Milliput, and the only kind my hobby store had was terracotta, so that was what I made the other three sides out of. It's superior to regular Milliput in that it doesn't look like marzipan, so you don't have to resist the temptation to eat it.

While I was working on Communism Plateau, I also made some destroyed Titan markers. I stuck one of the extra Warhound carapaces and half a head on a properly sized base, and made a crater on another one out of Milliput.

I'm quite pleased with the end result!

Once the edges of Dataran Tinggi Komunis were filled in, it was a fairly simple matter of plugging any remaining gaps with filler and gluing ballast to the top and the base.

I used the leftover Milliput to make a Reaver-sized crater.

After spraypainting, the plateau looked more or less like a fucked up cream cake.

I then applied some Vallejo Snow texture to the sides with an old, coarse paintbrush, with up and down strokes to create a pattern and hide the cracks between the bits of Milliput. I'm really happy with the result!

I painted the vertical bits Tan Earth and the flat surfaces Iraqi Sand, and gave some of the more textured bits of the walls a drybrush of the same.

I'm very happy!

**

Finally, to store my Titanicus paraphrenalia neatly and securely, I of course turned to Feldherr.

I simply love their raster foam; it's perfect for holding Titan weapons and even the little plastic doodads for the command terminals. I now have a Feldherr Minus bag that keeps all my extra weapons safe, and there's still plenty of room for more.

**

So, here we are: I've built some proper terrain to replace the books and cans and whatnot we used the first time around. I can't wait to see it in action!

Let's Read Tolkien 88: Vae Victis 15-16

The Nazgúl!

No, we still can't have more than one kind of diacritic. The person Haladdin finds sitting by the fire is, indeed, a Nazgûl. He introduces himself as Sharya-Rana, a famous mathematician and theologian from ages past, who is now a ring-wraith. Of course, on this Middle-earth, that means something entirely different: these "Nazgúl" are protectors of the scientific civilization of Mordor. This Nazgûl interrogates Haladdin about some of the choices he's made, during the war and before it, and tells him that he's the perfect person for their plans because he's so completely irrational that the enemy won't be able to predict his actions.

That's chapter 15; chapter 16 is a huge infodump on how magic works in Middle-earth, and frankly, it's boring. The gist of it is that there are two parallel universes, a magical one and a mundane one. The two worlds are connected, and anyone from Middle-earth who's been to the magic world is a wizard. The Nazgúl are one bunch of wizards and the White Council another. The Mirror (as in of Galadriel) connects the two worlds. The elves are trying to turn Middle-earth into another magical world, where nothing ever changes. This is why they had to destroy the scientific civilization of Mordor. The White wizards have given the Mirror to the elves, so now Haladdin has to save Middle-earth by destroying the Mirror.

**

So the central idea here is that Haladdin is the right guy for the job because he's so impossibly irrational. I'm now going to complain, because this annoys me. The idea that someone being so irrational and unpredictable is a strength is an ancient trope, and it's almost always a really stupid one.

It's used succesfully several times in the original Star Trek - mostly on machines, where the specific premise is that they can't handle human irrationality, or on half-Vulcan chess players who one suspects are more invested in demonstrating their superior logic than actually being good at the game. The most satisfying chess experience of my life was against an engineering student who insisted that their superior grasp of mathematics and logic meant they must be much better than me at chess. They walked into a variant of the fool's mate because they didn't actually know how to play chess.

When it comes to more complicated human endeavours, the idea that sheer unpredictability is an asset becomes a whole lot more difficult. As a strategy, it isn't great. So-called madman theory has been tried and the results aren't exactly overwhelming. Even in poker, the idea that it's good to be unpredictable has certain limits. Yes, you want to play poker in a way where your opponents find you difficult to read. If you play 100% consistently, you'll never win any money because no-one will ever bet against you. But if you constantly play irrationally, you'll inevitably lose money in the long run because you're playing against the odds. The rational approach to something like poker or indeed strategy is to use your resources in the way that gets you the best return on your investment. It's worth investing some resources in confusing your opponent occasionally by doing some irrational things, but too much will bankrupt the whole operation. If sheer unpredictability was a virtue, armies would have officers rolling dice and reading tea leaves as standard procedure. Most of the time, going about a task irrationally and unpredictably is just going to mean doing it badly.

As a military strategy, it reminds one of the adage apparently contained in the Mordor field manual: never do what the enemy expects. This is trite at the best of times, and at worst turns into an endless spiral of second-guessing: what if the enemy expects you to do what they don't expect? This was put forward as a strategy by British self-appointed great military thinker B.H. Liddell Hart as "the strategy of indirect approach", which has been criticized on exactly the same grounds: if you always take the indirect way, it then becomes the direct way. An example of Liddell Hart's indirect approach is the allied Mediterranean offensive in the Second World War, which was a gigantic waste of time, resources and lives to strike at the "soft underbelly" of the Axis, and ended up achieving pretty much nothing in terms of the actual war against Germany. And this, in the end, is the main point: it's never enough to be unpredictable. You also have to be able to do something effective that your enemy can't easily counter.

The other problem with this scenario is that none of the "totally irrational" things Haladdin does are really particularly irrational at all. He makes wartime decisions that are less than totally cold-blooded; he joins the military during a war due to peer pressure and to impress his fiance. If this is hopelessly irrational, I don't know whose behavior the "Nazgúl" model of rationality can expect to predict.

If you want a fictional example of doing something that the enemy would think is so insane it never even occurs to them someone would try it, and that they therefore don't take effective action to stop, what comes to mind is sending a hobbit to throw the enemy's ring of power into a volcano. So I don't know, this feels the same as the author's very clever socio-economic reimagining of the War of the Ring that actually makes no sense whatsoever: it's like he's trying so hard to be very clever and subvert Tolkien's story, and he ends up with basically the same thing but worse.

However! The plot is advancing, and for that we are grateful.

**

Next time: more wraith-exposition.

Warhammer 40,000: Let's Paint Brood Brothers

Some time ago, I was lucky enough to snag a 2016 Deathwatch: Overkill box at half price at our friendly local games store. I already painted the Deathwatch marines in it, and since I was thinking about trying Kill Team at the time, I made a Kill Team.

The models are four old Genestealers, on the old small bases, and the two purestrains from the Overkill box on the large base were to be the specialists; an Acolyte Iconward from the Neophyte Hybrids box I bought to get my Chaos Cultists a heavy stubber; and the Aberrant and Neophyte Leader are from Overkill, the latter enhanced with a Statuesque bionic head.

Looking at the galaxy map, one of the hive fleets making their way into the galaxy in Segmentum Obscurus is Hive Fleet Moloch, which obviously appeals to me as a theologian, and also has a brilliant paint scheme. I've gone for Scarlet and Black Grey as the main colors, with Ivory washed with Smoky Ink for the claws. I gave the Genestealers and the Aberrant coats of Satin Varnish, and it worked brilliantly. The Neophytes are wearing Flat Yellow, Blue Violet and Black; I've tried to make them look like they really are rebel miners or whatever, so their clothes aren't very military or indeed low-visibility at all.

Of course, with the pandemic, I still haven't had a chance to actually do anything with any of these models, and a whole new Kill Team edition has since come out anyway. But it got me started!

**

I was entertained to find the good old webber in the Genestealer Cult arsenal; anything that harks back to 2nd edition makes me feel warm and fuzzy. The trouble with the webber is that I've got the models to make two Neophyte squads, but there aren't any webbers in Deathwatch: Overkill, and there was only one in the Neophyte Hybrid box. So I made an impromptu conversion by chopping a flamer and web pistol into bits and calling it a webber:

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The model is completed by a Statuesque female beret head.

**

I played around with different army list ideas for 40k, and one thing that quickly became obvious was that we could use some help in the anti-tank department, but we were going to need it on the cheap. So a Brood Brothers detachment from the Imperial Guard could fill that gap pretty nicely. I got started with a Company Commander:

The model is from Anvil's Hazmat Operatives set, and based on a character of mine in one of the Saints Row games, who spent almost the entire game in a hazmat suit, leading to some absolutely hilarious cutscenes. I'm very happy to immortalize that memory in this model.

Since it's anti-tank I want, I made a Leman Russ Annihilator turret by following this example; i.e. I sawed off two lascannons from the Imperial Guard heavy weapons team sprue, and glued them onto the Exterminator twin autocannon mount. Here's the result:

And the finished object, which, incidentally, is the first Leman Russ I've ever built in 28mm!

It is just the cutest little tank. I feel like the turret worked out pretty decently!

Here's the finished article.

I also made an Ambot in Genestealer Cult colors! I don't know what to do with it, but I was converting three Ambots to Mutilators and had one left over, so I thought why not.

I mean it fits the theme and aesthetic of the army perfectly and is a brilliant model, so I really think there should be rules for Genestealer Cult Ambots.

**

Finally, rounding out this very random collection of Genestealer Cultists and whatnot is a Jackal Alphus. I had a Lawmaster left over from Warlord's Judge Anderson, so I put a Necromunda Palanite Enforcer on it and gave her a Statuesque veteran head.

I'm simply delighted with how the model worked out!

**

So here's a totally random collection of Genestealer Cult models I've painted, some of which I quite like. I'll make an army of them one of these days. Maybe 12th edition...