My Life In Fandom: Oh, Isekai

AniTwitter is a cesspit, and I can summarize it with Isekai.

Most recent releases in this genre are of the "loser goes to Not-D&D world and wins all the things without trying", with some wisely playing this as comedy and parody. The problem is that turning a genre into a factory for Loser Copefic (i.e. Gamma Male fantasies, like Rothfuss's Kingkiller novels) attracts losers, and that's bad for business in the long run, something that can quickly go cancerous if left unchecked.

Meanwhile, when reminded that Isekai includes the following, those used to Loser Copefic shows lose their shit due to (a) anime that isn't post-2000 CG and (b) not Loser Copefic.

Yes, each one of those classic mecha series is also Isekai. The protagonist(s) are ordinary contemporary (Japanese) people who are taken (without dying) to a fantasy world where they become fantastic heroes (heroines), even if they are not mecha pilots (e.g. Hitomi in Escaflowne). They aren't the only Isekai to come out in the '80s and '90s, and not even the most famous; Inuyasha likely is.

This genre needs a disruption, and by that I mean a restoration and renewal of the prior good examples as well as original works in that spirit.

Fortunately, the Pulp Revolution has your back. Israel's greatest science fiction author Yakov Merkin has you covered with his original work, Light Unto Another World. I'm playing around with an idea--want to do something with a priest as my hero figure--and I expect there are others. In the meanwhile, we'll be happy to pass on current Isekai that isn't Copefic (e.g. GATE), and some of the comedy takes really are funny because they know this is Copefic and do the whole Agree & Amplify thing--think of it as a form of Malicious Compliance with loser fantasy expectations--to take the piss out of it.

And believe me, if there is a single LN genre we in the West can step into and disrupt to good effect it's Isekai. Make it great again. Remind our friends how it's done.

Campaign Update: Still at 70%. Three more Build-a-Mech backers can easily push this over the top. I'll be on Geek Gab tomorrow to discuss "Hounds of Nimrod", so see you all in the chat, and hopefully I can talk more about Stretch Goals because we'll have hit goal by then.

Signal Boost: "The Pulp Mindset"

Friend of the Retreat J.D. Cowen has a new release out today, The Pulp Mindset.

To quote his description:

Out with the Old, in with the NewPub

Nobody reads anymore. In an age where audiences consume more art than ever before, books have remained irrelevant to the ever-changing West. Nothing seems to change this unavoidable reality. The industry is over.

Or is it?

A new frontier has opened where anything goes! We live in a pulp landscape now, a place where the past and present comes together to create a better future. In this book you will learn just what this NewPub world is, how to adapt to it, and change the way you think about everything.

The Rules Have Changed!

You can do anything! The Pulp Mindset will help you adapt to this crazy climate and become the best artist you can be. Read on and join the revolution!

It's not so much a change as a return. The days of the Pulps were a time of fast writing, fast publication--even with the lag-time that magazine production then entailed, we are still light-speed fast--and that meant a laser-like focus on craftsmanship, acumen, and satisfying what the audience demands of a given magazine. This was a day of widespread social acceptance via a diverse marketplace of pulps, from stories on sports heroes to salacious takes of rakish air aces flying mercenary missions between the World Wars while avoiding the dangers found in the fast femme fatales such locales attracted and so much more. Then John Campbell came along and wrecked it for Muh Literary Respectabilitiy (and more) because Reasons.

That time's returned thanks to Amazon breaking OldPub's hold, a hold it first got thanks to Campbell, on genre fiction in particular and especially the fantastic adventures of science fiction and the cautionary morality plays of horror. Now the enterprising author needs no agent or editor playing Commissar to get on the shelves. He can go directly to his audience and satisfy their wants, and the result is a new explosion of entertainment-focused fiction that OldPub increasingly abandoned in favor of gaslighting propaganda pushes. The ongoing collapse tells the tale, as does the continued campaign to corrupt Amazon as OldPub was generations ago.

This is a fantastic time to be a writer if you're not one of those feted by OldPub, which is almost all authors wanting to actually entertain an audience instead of grind Good Boy points with people who hate them. JD's new book is all about how to get into the mindset needed to not just survive in this wild and energetic frontier, but to thrive within it and make it work for you. After that, there's some very practical things to do--starting with writing the books--but being in the right headspace makes all of this easier to make real. JD's not going to steer you wrong. His post on this is quite the read; if you're still on the fence, read his post and then decide to buy his book or not. Even if you decide not to join the party, you can still enjoy the wealth of new entertainment available and support those of us making it. Speaking of which...

Campaign Update: We're now at 70% to goal. Another Build-a-Mech Perk got claimed, so only three remain. Five Character Illustration slots and the Back Cover option also remain, with a new Perk coming when we meet the goal. Come over here to back "Hounds of Nimrod" and make it happen.

The Business: Even Darlings Have A Limit

Rothfuss got outed as another Martin-tier procrastinator by his editor today. He ain't the only one.

'Kingkiller Chronicle' Editor Believes Author Hasn't Written Anything for Years https://t.co/SLM3CAGEXd

— LJ Ramones (@LjRamones) July 29, 2020

This is a major problem with OldPub authors. Scalzi's been hammered for it. Scott Lynch got nailed for it. Years-long delays that fuck up publication schedules and hurt both the actual target for OldPub authors (the publishers) and the purported target (the readers) accordingly are too common, and sadly not even for reasons one could excuse if there were measurable results to offset them. (e.g. Vox Day's delays on finishing the final version of A Sea of Skulls due to all the side-projects eating up his time)

Not that some of these don't have legit causes--I'm privy to a few, and no I won't explain what they are; they can do so if they like--but what it too often comes down to is that they just don't want to and would rather do something else. The result is playing the game of seeming to do something when you're not, instead of unfucking your process to make you want to do it.

And this add up, as it's a problem across OldPub, translating into Indie gaining ground on OldPub and starting to overtake it due to sheer frequency of output. Readers want to read, and if Bob doesn't deliver in a timely manner then his readers quit him in favor of Dick who does. Sucks to be Bob, but that's the game and it's no good to complain about it; you do what it takes to win or you get the fuck out.

And yes, even for OldPub darlings, there is a limit. Patty-boy's reaching his, and being on the shitstick end of the Progressive Stack means that limit is less than he thinks. If he doesn't get his ass in gear soon, he'll find out just how fast he gets hit with an excuse to cancel him and that's that for the man who brought forth Kvothe upon the world.

Somehow I doubt most readers would notice, or care. They're having too much fun plowing through the ever-increasing availability of stuff they want to read that NewPub puts out at Pulp Speed.

*ahem*

Campaign Update: Now at 57% to goal. One Character Illustration slot claimed. The chance to design the back cover remains, as do four Build-a-Mech slots and several book appearance Perks. You can get your here.

My Life In Fandom: The Containment Plan For Anime In Anglophonia Confirmed

I said that if they can't poz anime then they will try to contain it. The chokepoint will be distribution and localization. Hero Hei shows this to be the plan.

TLDR: Head of such a company is a Death Cultist and seeks to converge anime to serve the Cult, or to choke it off if he can't.

When we talk about the Death Cult taking control of the culture, this includes the private elements whose business is to select winners and losers via whom they chose to promote and distribute to the population that they claim to serve. It's much like how it went down in OldPub, and I would not be surprised if the psychological profiles as well as life histories of people like this soyboi executive mirror those of the wreckers of the Pulps and the OldPub publishers before them.

I am now actively promoting the adoption of having English-subtitled releases on home video, as well as English-translated manga, be solely done through Southeast Asia. This is how the last three console releases for Super Robot Wars went, and each game was a huge hit abroad as well as at home in Japan. The cost is paying import prices as well as shipping times, but the benefit is shutting down SJW influence.

Yes, this means getting lazy casuals to stop being dub-only cucks and start learning how to handle subtitles, but this is home video; hit the damned pause button until your reading and comprehension speeds catch up. Or learn Japanese. I don't care.

And no, this is not a final solution. This is just a macro-level display of "Don't give money to people who hate you." and the Western anime industry hates its customers as much if not more than OldPub hates its customers (or, increasingly, how badly tabletop and videogame publishers hate their customers).

The point of promoting such a move is to get the Western--specifically the Anglophone part, as I'm unaware if it's bad for Spanish, French, etc.--business to collapse. Consider it akin to doing a controlled burn to form a firebreak big enough that an out-of-control inferno can't leap the gap and keep going. (It wouldn't hurt if we did bother to learn the language, but that's for another post.)

There's more to winning back the culture than just burning out the Cultists and doing controlled burns on institutions too far gone. We have to build and support replacements, and we have to support alternatives that are not yet afflicted. Sentai Filmworks, so far, has been a reasonable alternative for buying physical copies; sure it ain't dirt cheap, but that's mostly the licensing fee you're paying for, especially if you're sensible and go for the subtitled versions.

And yes, that also includes original creations. You say you want clean escapist entertainment? Put your money where your mouth is and buy it. You not only have to clear out the zombies, you have to replace the dead with the living and nurture the new life so that it grows into strong and tall properties that you and your descendants can enjoy for long after those who made them are gone. Don't just be a zombie-like consumer; you too have to take responsibility for making the culture you want to see.

Campaign Update: Still just shy of halfway to goal. There's a half-time update on the campaign page today, and folks who backed or are following it will be emailed that update. The big take-away is that I'll be on Geek Gab this weekend to talk about "Hounds of Nimrod" and to promote the campaign.

The Culture: You Know This Would Work If Kanye Could Deliver

If only this were remotely possible.

You all know that this would get Kanye the win against anyone but Trump, and even force Trump to actually work hard to get re-election. (Count on Trump to go G-Gundam in response.)

h/t to SauceElf on Twitter for the meme. Great start to the week.

My Life As A Writer: Superversive Appearance Tonight

I will be on the Superversive Podcast tonight with Ben Wheeler to talk about anime, "Hounds of Nimrod", and so on. Since that usually runs concurrently with the Metro City Boys, I'll not be active in MCB chat tonight. Should be about 6:30 Central Time. I'll put in a link when I have it.

And yes, for your convenience, here again is the Indiegogo link. Still struggling to get to our goal, so please spread the word and remember to tell folks that they can get Reavers digitally for free if they put in for a digital or physical copy of "Hounds" so they don't have to worry about catching up.

My Life In Fandom: "The Penultimate Men" On The Gab Today

The Gab had the authors of The Penultimate Men today on the show. (Also at Amazon, by the way.)

The authors--Neal Durando, Schuyler Hernstrom, Jeffro Johnson, Jon Mollison--come on the show today to talk about their book and what it's about. The Description doesn't do it justice: "The age from which they spring has nearly drawn to a close. Yet some noble work remains to be done before the end. They come on, knowing that anything left undone, any chance let slide cannot be paid forward. Their game bags are heavy with a wealth meant to nourish the reader through the leanest of times. Four tales of a once-and-future apocalypse. Two meditations to challenge you to play harder in an already hard world. Introduced by Misha Burnett. Some say they are other than human; they are the penultimate men."

Most fantasy today is degenerate, being that it is a derivation of people playing Dungeons & Dragons wrong, and they'd been getting it wrong for about as long as I've lived due to not being in touch with either the literary or the ludological foundations of the game and arrogantly omitting or replacing what they did not comprehend. It's no surprise therefore to find that real D&D is very much a skirmish-scale wargame that leans heavily on liminality to reduce the workload to something appropriate for a hobby, or that every popular expression of fantasy world-wide is itself a memetic child of playing the game wrong.

"Going back" is increasingly the rational response to our current insanity. This includes in things seemingly trivial like tabletop RPGs, which have exerted such an outsized global influence on popular culture for the whole of my lifetime, because by returning back the way you came you can find the value in the things so foolishly discarded and thus fix the errors made. Over time this too cascades out as more people see that and make the connections, but by then you're looking at 50-100 years and that has its own problems.

But that is what needs to happen. It needs to happen in literature, in gaming, etc. because we've screwed up and only by backing up can we unfuck ourselves. Once repaired and restored, we can--hopefully--resume our previous positive path. I'll talk about this some when I appear on Geek Gab to talk about "Hound of Nimrod" next week, and I hope you'll tune in then, by which I hope the campaign will have hit its goal.

By the way, there are two new Perks: Character Illustrations and Design The Back Cover. You'll find them on the Perk section at the campaign page. Remember that there are no Stretch Goals until we hit the goal.

Narrative Warfare: The Illusion of Legitimacy

Friend of the Retreat, and the leading Hispanic voice in Science Fiction, Jon del Arroz just cut this video.

The problem is a question of legitimacy, and when it comes to entertainment most people still see Big Corporate IP (be it Hollywood or its counterparts in videogames, comics, or novels) as legitimate and everything outside of it as wrong. Even if they hate the current regime, even if they close their wallets and don't spend time or money on it, they still refuse to accept anything but Big Corporate IP as legitimate cultural output so their present revolt is really "Stop making it suck and I'll come back".

In short, they're so long conditioned to want Big Brand that if you don't create something that seems to be a rising Big Brand then you get no traction. FanTube is one of the most obvious examples of this psychology in action; Doomcock, Nerdrotic, Spacedock, etc. are all about Big Brand and nothing else. (Yes, for many, even anime is outside the pale, and that's just as Big Brand.)

The Death Cult, having run the Pop Cult as a front, knows that this is how it works and they have done their very best for most of a century to gaslight the population into associating entertainment and creativity with their cultist depravity. The normie responses to Jesse Kelly's question demonstrate just how effective this has been. While it is good that more high-profile center-right people are finally recognizing the need to get on the cultural level of things, it's going to be a while before they get it.

Until those wanting to solve the problem find a way to break that legitimacy wall, the problem will persist.

Campaign Update: 48% to goal and two new Perks added: Character Illustrations and Design the Back Cover. You can find more here.

My Life As A Gamer: Darktide, or "Left 4 Heresy"

Microsoft did their not-E3 event today. Of all the games revealed, this one caught my eye.

Let me sum this up: it's a 40K skin on Left 4 Dead, just like Vermintide is the Fantasy reskin.

You're playing Inquisitorial acolytes sent to investigate a Hive World that went dark. Four man team. Reveal shows an advanced Nurgle incursion, which is how we get the very obvious L4D reskin observation. Fast zombies as base mobs, with Special Undead being various Champion-level units. Those Lasguns you see won't be little more than flashlights; we'll see them pop mobs like balloons as the lore indicates they do, and I expect the plasma gun to be fantastic-but-risky in a way you won't see in Space Marine or Deathwing. Expect grenades to appear, and we'll see if Corruption is a mechanic or not.

We shouldn't be surprised at this. 40K does need a steady tide of videogame releases to act as a funnel into the tabletop hobby and maintain brand awareness outside of the core customer base, just as Fantasy does, and I'm not the only one to have expected something like this since the first Vermintide release. I'm just glad that they did it, and I hope that what they did was focus on execution and polish since they clearly didn't bother to spend time on premise or structure- this is as simple a premise as it gets, and copying L4D's structure is practically free.

I hope we see some gameplay soon, and that the inevitable PC release--XBox, remember--doesn't have punishing requirements.

P.S.: Campaign remains at 45% to goal as of this post. Spread the word, especially the participation Perks, and where you can back it. Remember that catching up is included if you go in for a book; you get "Reavers" digitally automatically. More revealed once we hit the goal.

Narrative Warfare: What You Can Do About Twitter's Censorship

Neon Revolt published a new article. It contained an actionable item, to flood the Department of Justice regarding Twitter censorship. You can find the link to that DOJ page here. Please follow up on that. To quote NR himself:

All my readers should take a moment to message the DOJ and remind them of their imperative to protect free speech online, and remove section 230 protections from Twitter now that it is clearly engaging in mass censorship on a scale never before seen online, and to such an extent that it’s now become a danger to our national discourse to ignore it

Now some of you will click through and balk at NR's talk about #QAnon. I will restate my position: I don't care if it's a LARP or not, and I don't care because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because it is a psychological operation. Psyops are weaponized Rhetoric, Rhetoric is not Dialectic. Don't mistake corkscrews for drills, no matter how similar they may seem, because they don't do the same thing. Why? For the same reason that the complaint about #QAnon is erroneous: it's irrelevant to the point at hand.

The point at hand is performing useful, concrete action about Twitter's violation of Section 230 of the DCMA. Flood the DOJ with complaints, especially if they all look and read more or less alike, and the Feds will get the hint and move on it; the fiercer the flood, the faster the action. It's not like Trump isn't looking for excuses to hammer Twitter as it is, so do the God-Emperor a solid and give him one.

Jack--along with Big Tech elsewhere--wants to shape the online narrative against Trump. By banning #QAnon, despite the Streisand Effect, he is doing this. Most anons aren't going to be so quick to just ban-evade and resume on a new alt; these are Boomers and other not-so-savvy folks when it comes to social media and computer technology- we're talking the endest of end users, so Jack's calculations on the net effect of a ban are not without reason. The surest way to punish him is to get Fed heat back on his ass as fast as can be done, and that's by mass complaints to the DOJ followed by the FCC. I've done my part. It's your turn.

Campaign Update: We are now at 45% towards our goal over at Indiegogo. Again, more Perks and the first Stretch Goals unlock once we hit our goal. You can back it here.

My Life In Fandom: Razorfist's Shadowcast Talks New Shadow Projects

While I await the Indiegogo campaign to meet its goal--back it here--today I'm again bringing Razorfist's Shadow podcast to your attention. Shorter episode today, talking about new novels and other media adaptations.

Owner Conde Nast has not known how to bring The Shadow back to his former domination of popular culture for decades, with the '1994 film being the last serious attempt and the more recent comics runs being more of a "do this to keep awareness up" thing more than anything else. That this is now happening indicates that the corporation had a changeover in its halls that includes plans to make another attempt to return to mainstream awareness.

The press release already indicates that this new effort is irredeemably pozzed. If Razorfist isn't enthusiastic about it, then I'm not either.

I also concur that the next wave of cape films are done. The zeitgeist has shifted, the business has changed, and the time to rotate capes off the front burner has come. What will replace them? I don't know, other than it won't be any other go-to options; Mouse Wars is a joke, Fake Trek is a joke, Wick's ran his run (but action films generally have not; it just takes a production willing able to distinguish itself as Wick did), Westerns remain unappealing, Fantasy just rotated out (Witcher notwithstanding), and the mainstream industry remains too pozzed to do anything but launch failboats.

In short, we're looking at a category-wide collapse. I concur with Razorfist that the only sure success to be had is with an iconic hero with utter moral certainty, and that means presenting The Shadow exactly as he is in the pulps, such that it exposes Watchman's Rorshach as the hollow and degenerate mockery that he is. I also concur that The Shadow needs to remain in his time of the 1930s, where the veterans of the Great War are now the generation moving into positions of power and authority while their elders are the aging remnant of Victoria and Edward's era that died with said war.

We'll see how this plays out soon enough. In the meantime, we should concentrate on creating and pushing out own original works. The campaign to help me get "Hounds of Nimrod" out the door is above, and I would appreciate it if you could support it.

Narrative Warfare: It's Extortion Disguised As Restitution

Dragon-award winner Brian Niemeier lays out the Reparations Scam. It started here on Twitter, and I'm reproducing it here w/ some editing for context.

OK. A lot of folks are missing the real tactic behind calls for reparations & falling right into the Left's trap. I'll explain this one more time, so read carefully.

The Left dominates the culture. They maintain their dominance by controlling the moral high ground. They retain the moral high ground by holding public morality plays where they invite Conservatives in the crowd to come up on stage and play the pre-scripted villain role.

Demands for reparations are really casting calls for Conservatives to don the black hat in the Left's morality play. They fully expect you to reject reparations & launch into indignant economic arguments. They count on it. It's the rhetorical equivalent of donning devil horns.

Remember: the Left is a death cult. A cult can exist just fine w/o a god, but it absolutely needs a devil. These cultists define themselves in opposition to "Nazis-their faith's version of demons. Calling out, denouncing & inflicting suffering on "Nazis" informs their identity.

So when they say, "We need reparations to heal the sin of racism," & you say, "Come pry the $$ from my cold dead hand," all you're doing is giving them a target to rally around & affirm their identity.

But if you say, "OK, how much to stamp 'PAID IN FULL' on America's debt of slavery?" It throws a wrench in the works. They have a script you're expected to follow, & when you don't, they have no response. It ruins their ritual.

If you're lucky, they'll say, "Money can't atone for the sin of racism!" Then YOU take the moral high ground & point out that they're bad-faith actors. Think rhetorical & moral, not dialectical & economic.

This is how it's done. Reparations assumes 2-way negotiation. (e.g. "I'll give you reparations if you give me abolishing abortion") If we don't get to ask for stuff, it's not reparation, it's a danegeld.

Some of you still don't get it. I'm not seriously suggesting paying reparations. None of this is literal. It is rhetorical. The point is to: 1) Stop playing the Left's game by the Left's rules and 2) show normies that calls for reparations are bad-faith demands for tribute.

We can count on it being Danegeld, i.e. tribute, which is a fancy way of saying "extortion" because the threat of violence is implied as punishment for refusing payment.

Why can we count on it being extortion? Because we're already seeing the violence being deployed, and the consistent narrative thread is that the violence stops if payment is made. That's how SJWs extort concessions from corporations (with the aide of fellow cultists on the inside), and now they're doing the same to local and regional governments in the United States.

The moral preening may or may not be sincere, but that doesn't matter. What matters is breaking the narrative that this is a sincere negotiation, which is why calling the bluff is required. The play is to expose this as gangsterism, as extortion, AS CRIMINAL ACTIVITY, and strip away the moral standing of the party demanding tribute.

Hence you play into it, make a conditional acceptance and a counter-offer. Make them out themselves as criminals, and point this out to the normies watching. Once their stolen moral station is gone, make certain the observers get it and then call it a win; on the off-chance that they actually show that they committed extortion or know of it having been done, drop a dime on them to the Feds.

And if they also go about appropriating Christian morality in their preening, hit 'em with the Witch Test.

P.S.: The Indiegogo campaign for finishing "Hounds of Nimrod" is at 39% towards its goal. Several premium perks such as Build-a-Mech remain, and more will unlock--along with Stretch Goals--once we hit our goal. You can go here to back the campaign so I can hire Brian to edit the manuscript and get it done.

Narrative Warfare: Games Workshop Is Nurgle Spawn Now

The fight has come to 40K. Of course they started by targeting one of the more vocal folks, Arch Warhammer. Using yet another claim--reminiscent of when they went after M.C.A. Hogarth over her use of "Space Marine" in her Spots series--they hammered Arch legally after he critized the SJW attack that is "Warhammer is for everyone!" (except those that do not bend the knee to the Death Cult, of course). Arch isn't taking this like a bitch, and the rather moderate comeback he's put forth--to email Games Workshop's Customer Service inbox with a maliciously compliant complaint that "everyone" means "everyone" and not "only Death Cultists"--has fellow travelers furious and furiously scramling to give cover.

That allied media have to go on the attack against a man who's only fault is trying to be David Attenbourough and failing should be all you need to know to see that such a simple scheme is effective. Contrary to popular belief, the presence of a well-coordinated email campaign with verifiable unique accounts sending the exact same email message is taken seriously by private and public organizations because it indicates a disciplined organization ready and willing to act in unison on an objective; if that disciplined group consistently states a grievance coupled with a course of action for non-compliance for resolving this grievance, that gets taken seriously and shit gets done accordingly.

(How do I know this? Political staffers talk when relaxed; it's been known well before email became so easy Grandma could do it, when this was done with postcards. The same folks also do public relations for corporations when not in public service.)

That's why this is having its effect. Arch is complaining that they are excluding him, and therefore violating their own policy, so they must include him to comply. Either they back down and he wins, or they move the goal posts and he wins. But that's not enough; as with all converged corporations, this happens when the revenue remains strong but those in control have come complacent and weak so the parasites set in. Remember that it's "Get Woke, Go Broke", and the latter part means damaging revenue in some manner. In short, put Games Workshop on the list of companies that hate you- and we know what not to do now, don't we?

Now that GW has launched 9th Edition for 40K, this is the perfect time to close your wallet and never render the heretics another penny. Don't buy the miniatures. Don't buy the paints. Don't buy the scenery. Don't buy the books digitally at all or their associated applications. Don't buy print products new. Render unto them not a single cent.

However, I do not suggest that you stop playing the game. Merely by using figures other than the official ones, painted by means other than official pants, on scenery not that sold by GW, but merely using the rules published by them you can maintain a presence in the scene that allows others to see that they don't have to comply on either end to participate in both parts of the hobby--both the playing of the game as well as the building and painting of the miniatures and terrain--and instead focus on the escapist fun that formerly was the focus of the company and not the increasing corruption towards the heresy of the SJW Death Cult.

You want Warhammer to be what it was? You know what to do with heretics, and GW is now overrun with heresy.

P.S.: The campaign for "Hounds of Nimrod" is at 39% as of this post. Four Build-a-Mech slots remain, and other premium Perks are available. Backing for a book includes getting a digital copy of "Reavers of the Void". You can go to the Indiegogo page here, so please back the campaign now so I can hire my editor and finish this job.

My Life In Fandom: The Gab On "Butcher's Peace:

The Gab is back with an episode about Jim Butcher's newest release in the Dresden Files series.

See you in the chat!

P.S.: The campaign is at 38% now, with only four Build-a-Mech slots remaining. You can back the campaign to get "Hounds of Nimrod" over the line here.

My Life In Fandom: The Weebs See It Coming For Them

Appabend gets it.

What he misapprehends is that the normies he's on about are controlled by the Death Cult, and that he--and the weebs--are captured by the Pop Cult, which is the feeder to the Death Cult. At the very least, it would be beneficial to read SJWs Always Lie, SJWs Always Double-Down, and Corporate Cancer before going much further because it shows what the problem is and how to deal with it until you're in a position to excise it from your organization. They also need to hear that they too should abide by "Don't give money to people who hate you".

I told them years ago that the SJWs would come for them. They didn't listen. Now it's coming for what they care about, and the reaction is as expected. I have a message for them.

The ride never ends. Just enjoy the fight and know that there are some of who know how to win and do- and you will have to get over your programming to do so. At least Appabend took the time to point out that (a) alternatives exist and (b) we ought to support them while we can.

Related: The campaign for "Hounds of Nimrod" is now at 24% towards it goal. Once we meet it, Stretch Goals and new Perks are revealed. You can go here to back it today.

Narrative Warfare: The Cult Doesn't Like It

Ghost of Tsushima is out now. In case you missed it, it's this:

Yep, a game set during the Mongol invasion of Japan. Gameplay is very reminiscent of the well-regarded Breath of the Wild for the Nintendo Switch blended with the more recent Assassin's Creed games. Yes, playing in Japanese with subtitles is an option, as is playing in Black & White for the Full Kurosawa effect.

This has the Death Cult in games mad, especially when Japanese outlets have been positive about this game. The meme below summarizes aptly.

Hero Hei has another take.

Proof that, as yet, gamers care about quality of play over everything else.

Yes, this makes the Death Cult mad. Now the recent attacks by SJWs in companies like Amazon upon Japanese media make sense, as they rightly perceive Japan as a threat to their power, and this Western game--as much a latter-day "Oriental Adventures" take on the traditional adventure fantasy rooted in the struggle of a Fighting Man as anything else--is such a violation of the Cult's dogma that they have to lash out at it and those praising it just to assuage their amygdala.

Why? Because the game doesn't push the poz. That's it. It's not Cult propaganda. The Cult will not tolerate media that isn't their propaganda. They have to wholly own the culture, or no one will.

On that note, my Indiegogo campaign is at 21% as of this post to its goal. I took create culture that isn't Death Cult propaganda, and I'd appreciate your help in getting my newest work across the finish line. You can back it here.

Narrative Warfare: Razorfist & the Death of Gun Control in the US

The Excellence of Elocution cut a video on one of the best things to come out of Corona-chan's World Tour and Antifa's rioting: the death of gun control in the U.S.

He's right. Thanks to all of the rioting caught on camera and streamed live world-wide for all to see and hear, from multiple points of view, Gun Control is dead in the United States and all of the gun seizures and prosecutions that have come in the wake thereof has forced the true reason for pushing it to be made crystal clear: to render the targets for the mob to be unable to defend themselves, either from the mob or from their fellow travelers in government.

For years to come, every savvy pro-gun actor will point to these riots and say "This is why gun control is wrong". They will point to the refusal--not failure, REFUSAL--of mayors and governors to do their sworn duties (Why are they not rotting in jail cells?) and put down these riots when they happened, or to provide for the common defense of citizens and their property therein, but instead do all in their power to let these riots happen and do their damage.

And then, of course, blame the police for it all.

Then some--like Minnesota Governor Tim Walz--have the gall to request Federal aid to rebuild. (This was refused, thankfully.) Other officials have punished those who used their firearms to defend themselves and their property from hostile rioters and looters; these officials should be punished for their willful abuse of power and support for terrorists, even if it is only by being removed from office (and thus power), hopefully by spending decades on Death Row in a Federal prison.

And the anti-gun organizations? Right on cue, they're double-down on the dumb and going anti-cop. That's going to go over well in Normieville, now that the social proof for the poz is gone.

You can't rely on mainstream media at all, and even most alternative media is just as bad so it too must be discarded as well as commentators that rely on them. That's why you get so much useless bitching on the Right; they rely on media outlets that push bullshit and lies to get clicks and ad views, and that's the benign end of that cancer that ends with blackpilling. That means that those outlets will gaslight like mad about gun control; it's all bullshit, so do like you do the opinions of those with pronouns in their bios:

Gun control is dead. Go forth and clear away the ashes so a new culture can grow in its place.

Which requires supporting those who are making that culture, as I am. My current Indiegogo campaign for Book Two of Star Knight, "Hounds of Nimrod", is at 20% as of this post; the Build-a-Mech, Be In A Book, and Die In A Book Perks are all available and more options unlock once we hit that goal. Be part of Galactic Christendom today and go back it.

My Life As A Writer: Goofed Out Of Excitement

I omitted a written summary of "Hounds". Oops.

We pick up where "Reavers" left off, with our story's focus shifting to Earth and her solar system. Countess Gabriela Robin is in hiding, but she's threatening to go to Earth to speak of her experience at New Edinburgh to the Court of Stars and thus directly threaten the master villain of that raid: Count Vikuun Qis.

Qis calls upon a new figure, Master Nimrod, to hunt her down before she can expose him. To ensure this succeeds, Qis throws Red Eyes and his pirates at the Solar Guard to keep them busy. The two strategies are meant to converge when Nimrod delivers Gabriela to the pirates to fulfill his promise to their mutual benefactor: the Architect.

The action and intrigue goes from Ganymede to Rome, and from ship-to-ship down to man-to-man, as both villain and hero attempt to outwit as well as outfight each other to determine the fate of the Songbird of Second Salisbury.

This means we're also going to seeing more of the people, places, and things of Galactic Christendom than before. Some of them I've posted about previously--see the Star Knight Lore tab--and others I'll talk about as the campaign progresses. As for the campaign, we're at 15% towards our goal as of this post, and hit 10% before 12 hours passed since launch. That's a good start, and as soon as the goal is hit new Perks unlock.

My Life As A Writer: "Hounds of Nimrod" Campaign Is Live!

The campaign to bring Book Two across the finish line is now live at Indiegogo.

My Life As A Gamer: You're Some Game That I Used To Know

This past week the World of Warcraft devs did the rounds with key streamers as the Alpha period for the upcoming expansion comes to its close and the Beta phase begins. One of the best and most consistently accurate commentors, Preach, cut a video that dispensed with the sophistry of the dev interviews--especially by the lead--and cut to the chase: they are doubling-down on the disastrous, degenerate design decisions yet again.

This is not a team of noobs. This isn't Mark Kern's team. This isn't 2004. It's 16 years later, and they keep repeating all of the mistakes that long-timers like Preach warned them about years ago. They have access to uncountable terrabytes of data, gathered in real time, showing the specific and exact effects of their decisions upon users on top of all of the archives of gameplay footage from livestreams and videos. They have no excuse for not knowing what they've done.

They know that whatever the top 1% of players figures out is necessary to get shit done becomes the norms that everyone else has to conform to in order to participate while a given piece of content is relevant, and yet they continue to abuse this leadership cadre like children on Epstein's private pedo palace. They know that they can't balance vital gameplay elements, but they keep lying about it and throwing false choices anyway. They keep lying--and given their years of demonstrated incompetence, it is lying--about how they know what they're doing, when it's crystal clear that they're cargo cultists who're so far gone that they don't even know why they keep doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.

There is a point where incompetence in and of itself crosses over into malice, and I think that line passed a few years ago. Me being a stubborn son of a bitch, I don't want to quit when I should. Well, this is me saying that I've had enough. This game wasn't fun for the last two years. It isn't looking to be fun anytime soon. I'm not renewing my game time when it expires; I'm quitting, uninstalling both Retail and Classic, and I won't be back unless and until the game becomes fun again- and that's not happening so long as the current regime, both at Blizzard and its parent company, are in place. I may pop up with D3, but that's all you'll see of me in Battlenet so long as this is the case. Yes, this also means I've abandoning WOW streams/channels; if I quit, it's all or nothing.

I don't give money to people who hate me. I won't give my time either. And, as with incompetence becoming malice, so does contempt become hatred- and I've felt that contempt for a long time now. My Steam backlog will get that attention instead.

My Life In Fandom: The Gab Talks Hamilton

After taking the last weekend off, Daddy Warpig and Dorrinal are back with Geek Gab this week to talk Hamilton (the musical) and more. See you in the chat.

My Life As A Gamer: Nintendo Direct Today

In case you missed it, Nintendo had a direct event today. YouTube was one of the places they streamed it live. They deleted it after the fact, but the games covered were big titles for core fan (Paper Mario) and those who love pet battling (Bakugan).

If that's your thing, rejoice.

My Life As A Gamer: Wokesters Of the Coast Signal Yet Again

Lawyer Nick Rekieta sums it up rather succinctly.

If you see black people as orcs: you are the problem

If you impose present impressions on things made decades ago: you are the problem

If you think fantasy worlds must be commentary on contemporary social issues: you are the problem

Escapism is escapehttps://t.co/zHWBJrXH1b

— Rekieta Media (@RekietaMedia) July 9, 2020

In other words, WOTC's being pozzed again.

Do not give money to people who hate you. Do not buy WOTC's products new. Not for D&D. Not for Magic. Not at all. Buy used if you must, but otherwise give your money to those making their own versions of the game (legal thanks to the Open Game License making D&D open source 20 years ago). What would those be? A short list includes:

• Adventurer, Conqueror, King
• Lion & Dragon
• Dark Dungeons
• OSRIC
• Swords & Wizardry
• Basic Fantasy
• Labyrinth Lord

Yes, you can buy new copies of older editions (e.g. D&D Cyclopedia) but that money goes to WOTC's coffers (after the merchant takes their cut) so I advise against it. Talk to Harlock for digital copies, otherwise buy used ones if you can; don't buy new physical ones unless you have no other choice. (Of course, that's where the SJWs want to take this, so that you have to give them your money.)

And, of course, you can just bookmark the d20 System Reference document and tinker your way to the D&D you want if you'd rather spend time than money. That's assuming you bother with some form of Official D&D at all; there are other fantasy alternatives--Palladium, for example--that are close enough that you can get folks to play that otherwise balk at not-D&D.

My Life As A Writer: Warfare In Galactic Christendom

Given what the settlement and development patterns are, warfare follows an equally predictable pattern of expression. This is because the objective is to capture existing holdings intact, rather than to just destroy them outright, so that constrains what means may be employed significantly. Manpower must be deployed and expended on both sides, which means that vast fleets need to be built and maintained, crews and marines recruited and trained, with all of the economics involved in establishing and hardening those logistical trains.

It also means that serious warfare of the sort known within Galactic Christendom, as in real life, as Total War is rare and serious. Such occasions are usually tied to the Church calling for a crusade, and there hasn't been any such event in living memory by the time of the dawn of the 4th Millenium. That's because Total War involves planet-killing weapons and techniques, from something as simple as fleets towing and launching asteroids at a target planet until its surface is ashes and dust to as awe-inspiring as moon-sized space stations being given Faster Than Light engines and equipped with planet-destroying weapon systems or weaponized solar systems wherein the star's output can be utilized as a cosmic super weapon.

The result is that warfare is mostly naval. Even if resistance on the ground or on the inside of a station is difficult, if time permits the defending population can be besieged and starved out, and if the invaders did their job then they have local supremacy such that the defenders have no realistic expectation of relief arriving in time. For planetary invasions, this process can take longer depending on how well-prepared defenders are; if the defenders can avoid orbital bombardment and maintain logistics, they can withstand an englobement and compel the invaders to attack their hard points while they resort to guerilla-style actions to wear invaders down in the manner of the historic Fabian Strategy.

The wars of recent years have been more constrained than this, being border skirmishes, pirate-hunting campaigns, and counter-insurgency campaigns with all of the shifts in methods and means one expects in such circumstances. Military procurements and practices have shifted accordingly, resulting in some degree of complacency and a rise in resorting to tournaments of wargames to satisfy the desires of militaries to maintain readiness.

The unfortunate consequence of a long period of relative peace has to been create an illusion of military expertise covering a complacency that would be shattered by the first actor to act contrary to, and in defiance of, this present paradigm with brutal and decisive military action. At the dawn of the 4th Millenium, that time had arrived, and from a quarter none expected. The raid on New Edinburgh was the Proof of Concept. The actions on and near Earth was the gut-check. The Siege of Second Salisbury was the watershed event, and of all the warfare that followed none hammered this home like the Siege of New Vienna.

My Life As A Writer: Trade In Galactic Christendom

Galactic Christendom is interstellar feudalism. That doesn't mean interstellar trade doesn't happen. It does mean that current global economic norms do not apply. There is no production intended for export. What trade does exist is when production in excess of local economic needs is sent out to other systems. To prevent a recurrence of things like the East India Trade Company and today's mega-corporations, the Church insists upon usury being banned and each nation and kingdom maintaining self-sufficiency. Given the reality of interstellar exploration, colonization, and settlement this is not as hard to push and maintain as one might think.

The other thing that the Church is unbending about is that economic activity not become an idol to itself, but remain a tool used to fulfill Man's duties and nothing more, and as such it is not unheard of for Church officials to put an Interdict on the houses of a concern due to succumbing to greed and avarice in the manner of past examples- and woe to those who attempt to bribe their way around such a sanction. The Church remembers why Luther nailed those thesis, even if most alive do not.

Money in Galactic Christendom is actual real money--gold and silver coin--with local mints stamping local coin for use in local commerce. Interstellar coin usually is accepted for value depending upon purity and weight alone, and most domains make exchanging foreign coin to local coin easy for travelers going through established transit hubs. Interstellar trade, due to the major logistics hurdle involved, deals mostly in Money of Account and settles physical asset transfers on a frequency determined by treaty; annual is most common, but semi-annual or quarterly settlements occur for closer trade partners. Annual account settlements usually go through Earth as a matter of convenience. Resuming their historical role, the Church charges the Templars with the role of safeguarding this financial system's integrity- down to physically guarding the asset shipments.

Piracy in space and on the seas of planets remains a problem, as does banditry on land, inhibiting trade. It remains an issue because unscrupulous rulers and ambitious players use them as deniable assets against their enemies, so there is often covert assistance of some sort for any successful reaver, but these criminal enterprises rarely go beyond a small area of operation due to these outside ties constraining their operations.

That changed with Red Eyes, but that's what the books are for.

My Life As A Writer: What a Mature System Looks Like In Galactic Christendom

Galactic Christendom is a star-faring civilization. This means not only that Mankind has spread to planets beyond our own solar system, but that each settled system becomes a very dense network of planetside habitats (surface and subsurface), orbital habitats, and space stations in every possible Lagrange point in that system. Let's look at what that means in practice.

Using the home of Mankind--Terra--as an example of a mature system development, let's start with the settlement locations. Each planet is saturated with orbital facilities in addition to its planetside settlements and developments. Most of them use the O'Neill cylinder style popularized by Mobile Suit Gundam and Babylon 5, and they are built not as single entities but in large clusters arranged to facilitate mutual defense from hazards both natural and otherwise. These are not small stations. Each can hold a standing population of over a few million and transient populations of nearly as many. (Most of these are pilgrims, merchants, or out-system nobles visiting estates in the system.)

Due to the large number of celestial bodies with interacting orbits in the system--moons, planets, and the Sun itself--there is a massive number of Lagrange points wherein yet more space station clusters can be constructed and sustained due to the stability of the gravitational forces therein. Frontier systems usually focus on saturating the primary planet's points before spreading out (e.g. New Edinburgh), while mature ones will have hundreds of space colonies at every point. Over time some of these points, being so remote from the rest, either become nests of political or religious trouble or are staked out by officials specifically to prevent that from happening.

This vast, spread-out population within a solar system would not hold together with a unified sense of identity if it were not for the speed of both transit and information. The latter allows localities to maintain connections with the wider system community, and thereby through to even larger polities. The former means that travel in-system isn't so far that it becomes nigh-impossible to respond to local emergencies in a timely manner.

This is because a logical consequence of mapping out these Lagrange point systems is that savvy and skilled navigators can quickly navigate the fastest routes, some sticking to safe means and the more hot-blooded resorting to far more dangerous--but faster--means to get from here to there.

The last big population presence in-system is in the asteroid belts of the system, especially the mega-belt between Mars and Jupiter. Here is where asteroid-based colonies, using techniques originally pioneered for settling Earth's moon, are the norm. By the 4th Millenium, even these enjoy the benefit of artificial gravity and so don't resort to the same means that the cylinder-styled colonies do. The sizes vary, and rarely do you get one so large as to make a million-strong population viable, but that of a village or a small town are found in this belt and in the asteroid clusters elsewhere in-system.

You will find these settlement patterns repeated throughout Galactic Christendom, and the result is a predictable flow of traffic between points therein. Therefore most of the actual space of a solar system is rendered irrelevant; as there is nothing there to exploit, and nothing to conceal your presence, there is no reason to be there. The practical star-farer, therefore, conceives of systems only in terms of points of interests and distance between them.

And as for the common man, unless his is a family whose trade requires travel or he's either on campaign or pilgrimage, "far away" means "across the system" and "that place I'd like to go someday" would be interstellar in scope and scale.

The Culture: On NewRetroWave

The folks over at NewRetroWave put together a mix of new stuff that lasts over an hour. Throw this on and see what you think.

The reason I mention NRW is that they're picking up the same challenge that the Old School Renaissance and the Pulp Revolution has: to make new culture in the spirit of what came before without mindlessly recreating the exact same thing- flaws and all. The results speak for themselves, and like Metal there are variations in the mix that result in different flavors of the style picking up distinct sub-labels; if you like this at all you'll soon find which one best fits your tastes.

And, as with similar movements in other media niches, it is wise to be aware of them and spread awareness of them to others. The beneficial effects of simply informing a public that will not go out of their way to solve their dissatisfaction with the mainstream--just look at FanTube--cannot be overstated. While there may not be a stampede away from what no longer serves them, that's not necessary. If a large enough percentage siphons off to be noticed, that itself is a major victory.

That's right. We're not looking to convert 100%; that comes when the Preference Cascade leads to a Collapse. We're looking at getting to the 3% that kicks that cascade off, the threshold for posing a real and viable threat, which at 5% starts the cascade rolling in earnest.

The enemy ain't going to tell folks about alternatives to what it controls. That's on us. Time to do our fellows a favor, and in doing so help ourselves.

My Life In Fandom: Tabletop Time For Galaxy's Edge

Some time ago there was word that there was more to Cole & Anspach's "Galaxy's Edge" than books. Recently they started live-streaming game sessions of a tabletop RPG that they're working with. Below was streamed today.

This is not a YouTube exclusive. I know they stream to Facebook also, and likely a few other platforms.

Happy Independence Day, my fellow Americans. Grill some burgers, enjoy the fireworks, and be grateful to all those who came before us because soon enough we'll have to cut some checks to pay the upkeep so our descendants still have both a nation and a country.

Narrative Warfare: Kern Talks Narrative Warfare

Collected from Mark Kern's Twitter feed, posted the other day.

What’s coming is like nothing you’ve seen before.

Americans who have never lived overseas, been through revolutions, wars, or coups simply cannot imagine. The world is always on the brink of evil and evil does exist. It can manifest here too.

In the past few years, tactics have been slowly tested and normalized. One is the human moderation of trend lists and the rise of algortyhms and AI to selectively show what people see. 5 years ago I was told this was a myth, that trends were never touched by humans. Now we know.

Then they tested shadowbanning and view suppression. Again, we were told this was a myth and conspiracy. Today it’s openly discussed as part of business. It was normalized.

They tested deplatforming with Alex Jones, an obvious target that nearly everyone could be convinced was banworthy and unpersonable. In the past year, it’s not even questioned by mainstream media when much milder personalities are deplatformed.

Then they tested their new tool with monetization. Payment providers discovered that they could normalize this too. Starting with concepts like “gun vendors” and now targeting people and their families on a personal level (see Gab’s founder).

Then they went after the major independent news and blog sites. First they fact checked them. When that became normal, they moved to complete delisting in search and then outright bans from social media. This too, was normalized.

Then they went after video channels, testing their censorship on the obvious targets people might agree with banning. Now, as of the past couple of days, they are demonetizing huge swaths of the YouTube commenter genre. This is happening today.

Today, no reasons are given for bans or suspensions. There is no appeal, no accountability. It started small, with test cases, and expanded as they discovered people were unable to mount an effective defensive. The reasons are secret. And it’s getting worse.

Every tweet I make I am careful. I’ve never spent so much time finding roundabout ways or euphemisms to critique power. The media isn’t speaking truth to power. They are all the same, with the same talking points. The ones allowed to be promulgated.

Things are happening on an uprecendemted global scale. The frog has been boiling for five years. It was a huge mistake for this administration to ignore the global lockdown on free speech and communication. It will cost them.

This isn’t a left VS right issue. It’s not a culture war issue. The culture war is a pretense, a distraction. This is about power.

He's right about this being about power.

The rest is the context for seizing, holding, and expanding that power. The reason for resorting to Narrative Warfare to do this is that most people don't even perceive this as a form of warfare, so they don't fight back well if at all and thus the enemy wins by default. It is only after the win that the targets even wonder what happened, after it's far too late, and are confused as to why.

But this isn't the normal state of affairs for the enemy. Enough of us do perceive Narrative Warfare to start getting the word out to others, and enough of them have been willing to heed us that there is resistance to this campaign. So far it's not been enough to defeat it, but it has been enough to buy time, and time is needed to show others yet that this is indeed going on. As more people accept that we are telling them the truth, and comprehend the threat they face, it becomes a race against time on both sides. We've got to get enough people aware and resisting to stop them; they have to push through their power grab before a critical mass arises that can and will stop them.

And no blackpills here. This is happening.

Make no mistake, this is a war of competing and mutually-hostile narratives going on. Before they attack the statues, before they cause the riots, before they sabotage the economy, before they attack the government, they assault and defile the mythical narratives that unite us as a nation and a polity. This is the basis for warfare, and all the talk of logistics and strategy and tactics pale in comparison to the narratives that make their use viable because narrative translates to morale first and discipline second.

Remember that a narrative can be true and it can be fact. Narrative is applied Rhetoric, and Rhetoric can be true as well as factual. Narrative persuades by using myth to tell a people about itself to itself about its world and its place in it; this is Rhetoric, not Dialectic, because it deals in emotions (as myth commonly does) to connect a people to its continuity--to sustain its roots--and this is why severing that connection is such a devastating blow.

And this is what Kern's getting at here above. All of the social media censorship, ultimately, is about seizing control over the ability to spin narratives and assault nations accordingly by getting them to believe whatever it is that suits those that want control over them.

That is Narrative Warfare.

So defend your stories and storytellers.

Narrative Warfare: How The Weak Mob Attack on D&D Revealed A Method

First the Fake Gamers that Don't Play D&D demanded that orcs be changed. Now they're after Oriental Adventures. The Pundit explains.

It's fucking retarded, but we're talking about the SJW Death Cultists in tabletop RPGs so that comes with the territory.

As the reactions to this attempt reveals, what's going on here is not what it seems. We're seeing something stupid as can be going on. However, when you compare this to other similar stunts that nonetheless led to SJWs getting their way there is a pattern revealed- a pattern we see in government and major corporations.

• Get SJWs into shot-calling positions within a target organization.
• Have external SJW pressure actors gin up an outrage against the organization.
• Insiders point to pressure actors to silence internal enemies and push through SJW convergence actions.
• Purge internal enemies after victory is cemented.

Make no mistake. This is exactly what Wizards of the Coast is doing to justify their convergence actions and purge internal dissenters. The reason the attacks are weak is due to the nature of the tabletop RPG medium, and not due to any specific strength of the brand or the corporation. We see this exact pattern used in other entertainment media, and once you see it there you'll see this being the way SJW Death Cult convergence is pushed in government at all levels.

It's an old scheme. It's old because it works, but only until--like any magician's trick--you see how it's done.

Share the trick. Show the people how this works. Watch its efficacy disappear in a puff of smoke.

Narrative Warfare: It's Fine Until Mayor Karen Is Inconvenienced

Most people will not deal with a problem until it directly affects them or something they care about. This includes incompetents in government, as Seattle found out.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan issued a Proclamation of Civil Emergency regarding the East Precinct and Cal Anderson Park area today. The order declared the gathering in this area as an “unlawful assembly” requiring immediate action from city agencies, including the Seattle Police Department.

Why? Because they came to her house and menaced her therein. Direct and immediate affect confirmed. Seattle's mayor is a blowhard Karen and needs to be removed immediately, along with the rest of the city government; the bitch-fight between the mayor and one of the council using the insurrectionists as proxies is another data point in favor of those wanting to repeal the 19th Amendment.

And the people of Seattle need to see that elections--especially local ones--have real and immediate consequences. They did this to themselves, so they have to fix it.

This is the reason for why the God-Emperor didn't call out the military and unilaterally clean things up himself, but instead remind the local officials that this is--by law--their problem so they have to fix it. Sure, Trump would help but only if directly and formally requested through channels. That's how American Federalism actually works, and its abuse by the enemy for so long is why people are confounded by it all- including folks who ought to know better (so either they're idiots or they're grifters).

Yes, there's another way to get that long-term solution, but Trump isn't the man to do it; the man the Dems say he is, on the other hand, would have already stacked their corpses to the skies by now to thunderous applause. (That man exists, by the way, but he's nowhere near government.) Then he'd be well on his way to permanently solving the problem and making it impossible to ever happen again.