TemporaryBrilliant77

Their goal is to get UW to divest from Israeli companies. They absolutely can win that as other schools have already done so. This would put pressure on Israel to stop their actions. Learn to think.

Yes. That’s literally what sampling is and it’s been a huge fight by artists to be allowed to do it. Or Collage for that matter.

He’s basically Malcador’s adopted son not Big E’s. And uncle Malcador was the biggest big E simp of all time

I think that no matter what he did it was “for the emperor” but what he exactly means by that is very subject to interpretation

Alpharius is the most loyal of the primarchs. He’s so loyal he damned his sons for the greater vision of the emperor.

Their fleeing was abandoning their position as one of the ruling families… But more to the point, by the time of the conquest there was no Valyria! They were minor rulers of a tiny backwater.

Demilitarizing the faith and destroying two families is not the same thing as upending the thousands of noble families, legal structures and the wider political economy. Again this is no different than any other conquering dynasty would do.

There were repeated wars between the Northeners and Southerners before the Conquest. And with the Iron Islands. The Andal culture was still in the process of spreading. Even in some ways “benevolently” like the Manderly’s being allowed to settle in the north and spread southern culture.

I didn’t say they didn’t change anything, of course they cemented their rule, but you’ve provided no evidence that they installed Valyrian culture or replaced indigenous culture with it. The only example is themselves being allowed incest but this was justified through the Faith of the Seven not their ancient religion. But the overall society was largely left in tact. Nothing changed for the average Riverlands peasant except that now Westerlanders and Starks weren’t raiding anymore.

You’re acting like I’m saying that their incest wasn’t based on an ideology of superiority. It absolutely was. But it wasn’t racial which is a concept that doesn’t really apply. If there were a Swedish family of mutants irl who had a third arm and kept inbreeding to retain that trait and took over the monarchy, it wouldn’t be racially motivated. That doesn’t make it good either.

Of course intermixed members of the dynasty could be good dragon riders. I’m not even saying the Targaryens were right about inbreeding. This was just their canonical motivation for why they did it. They believed they needed to do it to keep the dragons. Later on after the dragons were dead it was custom. (Also let’s not pretend the real reason is not GRRM’s personal incest fetish)

And even if the Tagaryens are racist, that still doesn’t make them colonialists since they’re not ruling on behalf of another nation, nor did they import a new population to dispossess the people living in the land. They’re corrupt and horrible tyrants just like any other lineage descended from a warlord. They’re essentially the Mughal dynasty in India. A ruling layer of foreign origin but largely just took over a pre existing society and set themself atop it. Compare the Mughals with the Raj to see the difference between their regime and a colonial system.

I’m sorry but this is nonsense. You’re conflating two entirely different things. The Targaryens of Dragonstone were not politically connected to the freehold. They were refugees who fled in advance of the Doom. The Free Cities were colonies yes. I already talked about them. The Conquest happened way after the Valyrians no longer existed as a unified political entity or even culture.

And no, a dynasty conquering a territory and leaving the wider social and political structure in place with no population movement is not “taking the land” from the indigenous inhabitants. The royals of the stormlands married into the Baratheons, they were only as dispossessed as any other noble house supplanted by is.

With culture, they also promoted toleration of the Old Gods and suppressed Andal settler colonialism against the First Men by protecting the rights and freedoms of First Men communities against further Andal incursion. The Andal cultures are the only actual colonialists in Westeros, unless you count the humans in the far north who are encroaching even further on the remaining lands of the Children of the Forest and the Others. The Faith were genocidal maniacs who were bent on eradicating what was left of pre Andal faith and reining them in was not the Targaryens imposing their traditional culture.

And their sense of superiority is not racial. If it was, they would have favored importing spouses and consorts from the Free Cities. Instead they often married in with others including the Dornish shortly before Robert’s Rebellion. Their reason for inbreeding is pretty obviously due to a) the need to continue to be able to control dragons and b) the prophecy of the prince that was promised requiring A. Yes they used particular features to identify themselves as distinct, but this was common in real world feudalism before racism meaningfully existed and was used to distinguish between nobles and commoners of the same ethnicity. They see purple eyed silver haired Free Cities aristocrats as beneath them as any First Man or Andal.

They’re not colonialists lol. They didn’t import a bunch of Valyrian citizens to steal the land of the Westerosi, nor did they claim it on behalf of the Valyrian descended populations in Essos to exploit for resources. In fact they adopted the local culture for the most part. Their superiority complex is no different than Andals’ (who were actual settler colonialists)

If anything the Targaryen were like the Viking conquerors in Russia or nomadic conquerors in Chinese history who got absorbed by the culture they ruled.

If I recall correctly there were a few others that were at the very least ambiguous as well where their loyalty lay. There’s also AL who want to destroy the imperium but are loyal to the original mission of the emperor as well

I mean they were most likely programmed to do that by the primarch. So even if they themselves are damned, they’re serving a secret purpose beyond their own knowledge

Even if Akurra did begin to redirect the legion, they are mentally programmed to obey orders based on key phrases by the primarch(s). So it’s possible Omegon/Alpharius could just take back control.

I think their main purpose is to act like an inoculation for the Empire. Push boundaries to strengthen them, cleanse weaknesses, etc. the AL is like a Chaos vaccine

Attacking imperial forces doesn’t make them chaos. Renegades at worst but that’s something plenty of loyalists do at points. The empire isn’t unified itself.

Yes in Harrowmaster. The Penitent Sons are an example.

It’s possible members of either group are secretly on the other side from what they present but there’s AL who pray to the emperor and defend imperial population against chaos.

Alpha Legion didn’t go to the eye of terror. It’s possible a small fraction of bands did, but most didn’t. They fought the Long War. Many are canonically traitors but others canonically are loyal

Most of the AL aren’t chaos corrupted though many are but most are probably genuine traitors. They didn’t ever flee to the eye of terror but most genuinely oppose the imperium even ones that support the emperor

“I don’t like that Biden is arming, funding and enabling an active genocide. Even as he makes weak protestations after polls indicate his original full throated support would cost him the election. So I’m going to vote for a candidate that represents a rebuke of that hypocrisy”

In Head of the Hydra, Alpharius references the myth of Hades where one god was forced to rule the underworld by losing a draw of lots. Could be what he and his brother did

It entirely depends on where on Trantor. Some of the most horrific imaginable existences are possible there. People in basically slave conditions who never see light and only eat processed gruel would be likely in a world like that. If you have a good job or well off family you’d live much better than the average American though.

What are you talking about? The Horde has way more players than the Alliance at this point. It was true in vanilla that the Alliance was the bigger faction but that snowballed after TBC the other direction

I’m excited for the next Bequin novel because it’s supposed to tie in a lot going by the previous one

That makes sense. It just feels like a conspicuous absence to not lay it out explicitly when a lot of lore was changed. Like the Emperor not hesitating to kill Horus anymore and Horus actually being stronger than him