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Yo~

So I've been kinda thinking that in light of the shit that just went down, maybe I'd sign up with the military. I've got a pretty sweet gig monster hunting, but it just doesn't feel like it has any meaning, you know? I've trained for this shit (the military) pretty much my whole life, so I figure they could use me. I’ve been here for like a year now and I kinda figure that if I was brought here for a reason, this is probably it.

I was just wondering if anyone else here has had much contact with these guys. What are your impressions? Have you signed up already? How's the pay, and do they seem decent to you? Any spectacularly hot babes I should know about?

That's it. That's the message. Thanks for your time.

~Gideon Nav

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Damn, looks like I picked wrong after all.
Why loiter around here when I could be worshipped in the way I deserve??
All jokes aside though, I kinda thought that's how shit worked.
Back home most House citizens aim to end up in the Cohort and serve God.
Like that's what we're meant to do, protect Him and the Houses.
Destroy his enemies who are like, obviously evil.

[Because it's surely that straightforward, right...]

But that made sense.
This is just fucked.

Were you ever on the frontline, where you're from?

The trade-off is that you have to work on a farm and live in a cult. Which might be based on goats. So. Pros and cons.

[ Honestly, the description of Gideon's religion sounds... awful. Julie's familiar with the concept of religion as a metaphor for war, of course -- she can still sing "Onward, Christian Soldiers" from memory. And there's wars between religions, which is similar, maybe. But it sounds more literal, the way Gideon describes it. ]

My religion is less
militant, I guess.
Most religions are, where I come from. Violent ones aren't really very popular anymore. And the fights are between the groups themselves. Mostly Muslims attacking the rest of us.

But god no, I wasn't in the military. My country didn't have mandatory service. I had family members go out there, though.

I mean the baby ones were kinda cute?
But yeeeeaaaah I spent my whole life in a weird, isolated cult right at the edge of the system.
It was time to try something new.

So is your God just not around to be like:
'HEY COOL IT, I DIDN'T ASK YOU TO GO TO WAR!'
Don't worry, I'm already aware that other places seem to have a less hands-on relationship with their deities.
Not that I've ever met the King Undying myself but like, we got a letter from Him once.
Honestly after the shit that went down after that I've got some questions for Him.

And huh.
It's like, one of the biggest possible honours where I'm from.
I think most red-blooded kids dream of getting into the Cohort.
Except the weird ones who want to be librarians or join the Ninth House Cult.

[The enemies of her necromantic God remain theoretical, indistinct. Surely anyone who wants to destroy the Kindly Prince must be the bad guys. The complexities that are becoming apparent in their current situation...this isn't what she imagined it would be like.]

Uhh

[ WE DON'T HAVE TIME TO UNPACK ALL OF THAT. ]

Wait, is your god just like, a guy? A normal guy?
Our God was never physically on Earth. He sometimes spoke to people, and He sent His son once to take on the sin of humans, but He was never like a dude just walking around.
His son, Jesus, was, but Jesus's whole thing is forgiveness. Love thy neighbor, honor thy mother and thy father, turn the other cheek, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. That kind of stuff.
Jesus died to become the ultimate sacrifice, so that humans didn't have to make them for every sin, and then he rose from the dead three days later before he joined God in the Holy Kingdom. That's Easter.
Basically, our "enemy" is the devil, who is God's opposite, sort of? He was once a servant of God, then rebelled and God cast him into Hell. So now he tries to tempt people to sin and turn away from God. It's not a physical fight against the devil or his demons, it's more like a personal duty for every Christian to follow the teachings. I guess you could call it an internal war?
I already know it's confusing for people from other worlds, don't worry about it.

There's other religions but mine, Christianity, is the biggest. Muslims believe in the same God and a lot of the same events and rules, but they don't believe Jesus was the son of God. They follow a prophet named Muhammed [ she does not know the proper spelling ] who was a real regular guy, but he had some fucked up teachings. Mostly that women should be like, subjugated, and that it's "holy" to kill people who don't believe the same thing as them.

Which it's not.

[ Julie is from somewhere extremely rural and Christian. She does not have a particularly deep or nuanced understanding of any other religions. ]

Anyway, it's not an honor for us. Anyone can join the military, as long as they're fit for it. I guess it would be an honor to do specific STUFF in the military? Like guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, maybe. But mostly it's just another career. Pays decent, lots of perks, but you might die, so it's a trade-off.

Define normal I guess?
He's kinda known as the Man who Became God and The God who Became Man.
Fuck knows what that even means.
But like, He was responsible for the Resurrection.
All of us in the Nine Houses exist because of Him.
Everything got wiped out somehow like 10,000 years ago and he brought us back.
Buuuut I'm kinda shaky on the details.
I try to avoid reading books or listening to scripture as much as possible.
But yeah, he's a dude walking around.
And hey, you've got a necro deity too?
Or is like, God the necro and brought Jesus back?

Anyway, that all sounds hella complicated.
Maybe we fight people with other Gods for the King Undying but I don't think so?
I've never even heard of other Gods.
We got your standard worship of God and then the shadow cultists of the Locked Tomb - that's where I unfortunately grew up.
They kind of worship some ice-lolly bimbo in a Tomb who's like, God's greatest enemy or some shit.
But like, worship as in protect the Tomb and make sure it stays closed at all costs.
...I guess this is just as complicated if you're hearing this from the outside, huh?

We're veering kinda off-topic but I gotta ask--
You've got guys guarding some shitty old tomb, too?
Sucks to be them.

Normal, like he's just a human guy. Jesus was human, but not God. But Jesus was also part of God... like I said, it's complicated. And neither of them fuck dead people, what the shit.

[ Julie, someone who is not a practicing Christian anymore, feels a bit like she should pray just for having even thought that sentence. ]

So wait, the only enemy your god has is already locked up and can't do anything? Then who are you fighting?
I can't say I get it. I mean, I know my stuff sounds crazy, but it at least kind of makes sense. Yours sounds more like a dictator than a god.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is more like a memorial than a regular tomb. It's dedicated to all the soldiers in our history who died fighting for the country but their names were lost. The guards are there to protect it from disrespect mostly, I think. It's a huge honor to be one of those guards.

Necromancer not necrophile!
Although I've always kinda suspected that necros get freaky with the bones behind closed doors.
The King Undying was the first and most powerful necromancer.
Like He can literally bring whole worlds back from the dead.
Really bring them back too, not just a soul shackled to a construct or a reanimated but mindless body like most other necros.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure He's a human guy even though He's like over 10,000 years old.
But again, I didn't exactly pay attention during class.

The ice bitch in the Tomb isn't His only enemy.
Just the worst one.
No idea why, though.
And I don't know, if you can't see yours how does He make any sense?
Does He just live really far away or is He kinda invisible or something?
I'll admit I'm no expert, I only know what I know.
And that's that you're meant to serve your God, right?
And it goes both ways.
He protects us, we protect Him.
But He could be a total asswipe for all I know, I'm not denying that.

And the tomb thing sounds kinda boring.
Like guarding the Locked Tomb is reeaaaally fucking boring.
But I'm starting to lose track of how this relates to me joining up with the military now.
I think your point was that the military here isn't like the one I knew back home?
That they'll all just blow the shit out of anyone to get what they want, rather than only taking out the bad guys in the way that the Cohort does?

[Sweet summer child ;;]

We don't need to protect our God. He's omnipotent. I think that's the word. He made everything, and man in His image. He didn't bring anything BACK. There was nothing except Him, and then He created it all.

No offense, but your world sounds real fucked up. Confusing and fucked up.
I mean, my world was fucked up too, don't get me wrong. Just... not because of God.

Yeah, you pretty much got it. Who's good and who's bad is a matter of perspective. The Queen's nuts, but if you look at this from her point of view, it makes sense. She just didn't take any time to prove it or look at other possibilities, but it's not like she attacked for funsies, you know?

I don't know. I'm not trying to defend her, I'm just saying that I don't know if it's the most cut and dry situation.
Mostly, I just trust Reiner less than the Queen, which is saying something because I hate the Queen and think she can't be trusted further than you can throw her.

My world had kings and queen AND politicians like Reiner and the Cities. I know which one does more damage.

I mean, no offence right back at ya but there was nothing before your God?
Where did He come from, then?
Stuff can't just appear out of nowhere.

Seriously though, no offence taken on my part.
I always knew things were kinda fucked up where I'm from.
(Which, FTR, is technically nine worlds-- there's a House based on every planet in our solar system).
Messing around with the dead all day never exactly struck me as wholesome.
I'm not sure I get why you think it's God's fault though?

And I don't know, man.
This really fucking complicates things.
Like it wasn't already really fucking complicated.
I just don't want to sit back and do sweet FA while people are dying, you know?
Back home we had royalty and heads of Houses and shit like that.
Fuck knows they did some extremely dodgy stuff.
But it was all for the betterment of the Nine Houses, always.
We weren't fractured in this way.
It was never all rainbows and sunshine but so far as I know the Houses never tried to blow each other up.

What is it about Reiner that you don't trust?

God is everything. He is the universe, kind of? Like, it was just Him, and then He decided to make everything else. Starting with light.
Like I said, God isn't a guy, He's something bigger. You can't think in terms of Him being a regular being. He's something the human brain can't truly comprehend.
If everything was dead, and your god is just a guy, how was he alive to bring it back?
Shouldn't he have been dead too? Or was he the one who killed it all?

I mean, countries fought each other all the time back home.
There were other planets in the solar system, but none of them had life, as far as we can tell. So we just fought each other.
What's good for one country isn't always good for another. Do the leaders do what's best for their people, or what's best for the whole world? Knowing that maybe those OTHER leaders might choose their own people?
It's tough.

Royalty is born that way. They're already on top, so there's not much to gain.
They just have to keep what they already have, and the best way to do that is to keep the people happy.
But politicians, like Reiner, have everything to gain.
She suspended the election. For "safety". How does that benefit anyone except her?
If she stays in office, she gets money, and power, and she can manipulate things to get more money and power.
Because eventually, she'll be out of office and out of power. So she has to get as much as she can now.
Plus, she trades on fear and hate.
The crown, the council in Solvunn, they just... lead.
But Reiner gets votes talking about how bad magic is, and how the Singularity is dangerous, and how Thorne is so evil.

It's a two-sided problem, but one side is worse, at least to me.
But this system is something I understand.
Monarchies like Thorne didn't exactly exist anymore in my world. But "democracies" like Cadens did, and that's what I lived with.
This is just the devil I know vs the devil I don't.

[She has...so much to think about here. And she hates thinking, thanks a bunch Julie :C]

I'm not even gonna pretend I understand how that works but, hey.
I'm a doer, not a thinker.
And honestly I've never really thought about it before?
I guess because he's like, a top tier necromancer you just can't kill him
He's literally called the King Undying.
But again, I paid attention as little as possible during service.
He surely can't have killed it all though, that makes no fucking sense.
Otherwise why would he have brought us back?

I guess back home the leaders always tried to do what was best for God but like
Also what was best for all the Houses, maybe?
Except the Ninth who did what they thought was best to protect the Tomb.
Like I said though that wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, it was fucked up.
But I guess we're not called heretics for nothing.
I'll be real with you though, we were really cut off from the rest of the Houses on the Ninth so maybe there's a ton of other shit I just don't know about.

I guess that all makes a kind of sense but like,
Surely the point of having all that power is to protect your people?
Especially if you're just gonna lose it in the end anyway when someone else takes over.
Wouldn't you just wanna do what was best for everyone while you could?
Not that I'm discounting what you're saying because let's face it, people can really suck.
Plenty of people are just out for themselves, I get that.
it just seems counterproductive when you're only in power for a little while.
I've gotta ask though, why come here if you think Reiner is potentially more fucked up than the Queen?
Just because it's a system you better understand?

[ Honestly, the answer to that question seems pretty obvious to Julie. ]

He killed it all so's he could bring it back to life and be god of it all.
I mean, I can't say that for sure, since I never been to your world, but it makes sense to me. It ain't easy to become a god. Gotta do the hard work first.

Yeah, I mean I guess in theory, that's how it should work. You do the best for your people and they reward you with trust and votes. But that ain't how it goes in practice.
Let me give you an example:
You get elected to office. For argument, let's say your paycheck is 20,000 gold a year. It's a lot, right?
But, while you're in office, some super fat cat company owner sidles up to you and says, hey, toss my company this government contract, I'll give you another 15,000 gold.
So you think about it, figure that all that matters is the contract gets done, and you get a sweet payday, so you take it.
Your voters never find out. They think you just made a contract, not that you did a backroom deal.
So they vote you back in the next time.
You keep doin' it.
Then, someone comes up to you and says, I want to do this thing that the voters don't want. I'll give you 100,000 gold, and if you get kicked outta office, I'll give you a job that pays 100,000 gold a year.
Win-win for you, right? So you take the deal. If you're knocked outta office, you're still set for life. You've already made a killin' on secret deals, and now you have a job offer that pays four times your current salary.
But it's real hard to vote out an incumbent. REAL hard. So you keep winnin'.
You realize that there's almost no stopping you. So you start pushing your personal values and pet projects, and fuck the voters. Fuck the people. You think you know better than them.
And every time they get close to trying to vote you out, you do shit like pass laws against protests, or make voting hard, or just flat-out cook up a war to cancel the election.

Ta-da, now you have all the money and power you could ever dream of. And people that want those things are more afraid of losing them than anything else.
It's exactly what happened in my country, and we had way more rules to try and prevent it than this place does.
We had a saying in my world. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
But the people most drawn to power are the most easily corrupted.

[Whilst her initial reaction is to dismiss such a seemingly wild take out of hand, it sparks something in her that makes her hesitate. It seems so unlikely that the Kindly Prince could have ever acted in anything other than the wider interests of his people but...how does she know that, really?

And the whole Lyctoral trial thing, asking of them what he asked...well. This is troubling, but somehow she can't just write it off as nonesense.]

That's one hell of a take.
But if I ever get the chance, I've definitely got a few questions for Him.

And seriously, now my brain hurts.
On all counts.
Like, this is getting waaaay too existential for me.
But...I kinda have seen this shit in action.
Not gonna get into details, but the rulers of the Ninth House did some supremely fucked up shit in the name of the greater good.
And when someone does something that fucked up you really have to wonder if it was good they were really thinking about.
You're making a morbid kind of sense.

Fuck, man.
I guess I'm gonna have to think this shit through.

Like I said, it happened in my world. If it hadn't, I don't know that I'd see the signs.
I don't know that I'd even be in Abraxas if it hadn't happened.

Back home, everyone knew that you only joined the military cause there weren't any other good options.
Only a handful of people wanted to really climb ranks and be important generals.
Most folks just needed money and a place to live and like, strict boundaries.
So you enlist out of either determination or desperation. Not just because.
So yeah, I'd say it's worth thinking real hard about.
Are you that determined or desperate?

If you want to help Libertas and the Summoned in Thorne, it's better to work outside that system, I think.

[These are deep, heavy questions. She'd been desperate back on the Ninth, the Cohort had been her only lifeline in an otherwise insane situation - Holy honour or not - and now? How does she feel? Lost and confused and desperate - for once in her life - for someone else to take control. For someone to just tell her what to do. Yet not so lost and desperate that she's cut off from all other options.]

I dunno.
I just know I need to do something.
At first I thought it didn't really matter what was going on here.
Like, it had nothing to do with me.
I could just focus on me and my necro and fuck everything else.
But Harrow's gone.
I don't wanna be the kind of person who just sits back and watches while everything burns.

I'm gonna mull it over.
I just wish it was clearer how else I could help, you know?

I mean, right now, there's a lot you can do to help. You don't need to be in the army to go to Libertas and volunteer.

Trying to do anything that Thorne can see as an attack will just make things worse. If anything, that's what the military's gonna wind up doing.

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to: free cities

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cw julie is very rural and american, forgive her for talking about religion like this

Gideon is totally going to take it at face value

AGAIN FORGIVE HER i feel gross writing this fox news bullshit

oh no, Julie!! also I apologies she did not mean for the conversation to go down like this!!

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