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Subject: "Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"     Previous Topic | Next Topic
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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-30-17, 01:50 AM (EDT)
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"Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
 
   LAST EDITED ON Dec-30-17 AT 07:33 PM (EST)
 
Orussian cruiser Декабрьское Сопротивление
Nikolayevsk-on-Amur Naval Station
ORUSSIA
24 May 1946

Lt. Sanya V. Juutilainen-Litvyak
Lt. Eila I. Juutilainen-Litvyak
AEF 501 JFW
Chateau Saint-Ulrich
GALLIA

Comrades--!

Greetings from the end of the Earth, or at least a place from which it can be seen. As you will have noticed, we have a new assignment! Her Majesty the Tsaritsa has seen fit to entrust me with the command of her newest warship, the mighty Dekabr'skoye Soprotivleniye, or December Resistance as our fraternal Allied comrades from Fuso insist on calling him in the Liberions' unmelodic tongue. He is a heavy cruiser of the improved Kirov class, incorporating many new and (I am assured) wondrous advances in warshipbuilding now emerging from the yards of Fuso and Neukarlsland. Alas, I cannot disclose any details of these new marvels of the age to you, as a) they are classified and b) I do not even slightly understand the engineers' explanations of what they do.

We are preparing for his final sea trials now. These are confidently predicted by the engineers to require six to eight weeks, so I expect their completion no later than mid-November. What happens after that, no one can say, although I intend to push hard for assignment to the Northern Fleet. It is long past time we were back in the fight, and I expect I will have been able to make proper sailors out of even the rabble of assorted landsmen and farm girls they've given me by then. Ah, but "rabble" is unfair. They are heartbreakingly unskilled as yet, but diligent, and I would rather have that than the other way around.

Comrade Tiny One is still with me, now leading my new ship's air wing. They are an even rawer bunch than my regular crew--to me they all look like babies, particularly the ones from Fuso--but she is whipping them into shape. Fortunately, we both got plenty of rest waiting out the inevitable delays between reassignment and the yard actually managing to finish the ship. I have included a photograph taken by Katyusha on our visit to her retreat in the wilds of Sakhalin, which the Fusonese call Karafuto, this past spring. Yes, that is what "spring" looks like in Sakhalin, and yes, Katyusha is quite mad, but I cannot grudge her that, seeing how happy she is among her pine trees and her fishing trophies.

Speaking of Comrade Tiny One, she has recently come into possession of the most fascinating document, which purports to have originated from your very own station in Gallia. Comrades, if this is true I have to say I am disappointed not to have heard about it from you first--although I suppose, upon reflection, you are both still far too young to consider it interesting, particularly Aleksandra Vladimirovna. In which case, listen to Grandmother Gangut, youngsters: The day will come, and sooner than you think, when you will find it very interesting indeed. If this remarkable document's provenance is true, and you are acquainted with its author, do not waste the chance. Start now, and you will be ready.

I must go now; there is a terrible commotion below decks, and I fear the fool of a Cossack they have given me for a cook may have done something inadvisable with the steam lines... again... in an effort to simplify his washing-up. May St. Evgeniya give me strength.

Warmest regards,

Gangut

Captain Reva Oktyabrskaya

P.S. Comrade Tiny One wishes to note that she met your Dr. Miyafuji's mother on a recent visit to Yokosuka, and would like you to convey to the doctor her best wishes.

Attachment 1: Photograph of Orussian cruiser Dekabr'skoye Soprotivleniye, under way on propulsion test

Attachment 2: Snapshot of Gangut and Hibiki on shore leave in Karafuto, spring 1946

(illustration by Kashii)


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 [View All] Gryphonadmin Dec-30-17 TOP
  RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Verbena Dec-30-17 1
     RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 drakensis Dec-30-17 2
         RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Mephronmoderator Dec-30-17 3
     RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Peter Eng Dec-30-17 4
     RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Gryphonadmin Dec-30-17 6
         RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Verbena Dec-30-17 7
             RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Gryphonadmin Dec-30-17 8
                 RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Verbena Dec-30-17 9
                     RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 The Traitor Jan-03-18 11
                         RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 jhosmer1 Jan-03-18 12
         RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 MoonEyes Feb-19-18 13
  RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Proginoskes Dec-30-17 5
  RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Star Ranger4 Jan-02-18 10
  RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Gryphonadmin Dec-24-21 14
     RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Droken Dec-24-21 15
         RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Verbena Dec-25-21 16
             RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Gryphonadmin Dec-25-21 17
                 RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 MoonEyes Dec-27-21 18
                     RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Gryphonadmin Dec-27-21 19
                         RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 zwol Dec-28-21 20
                             RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 The Traitor Dec-28-21 21
                                 RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 zwol Dec-28-21 25
                                     RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 StClair Jan-09-22 28
                 RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Vorticity Dec-28-21 22
                     RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Gryphonadmin Dec-28-21 23
                     RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 The Traitor Dec-28-21 24
                         RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 Vorticity Dec-29-21 26
                             RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946 The Traitor Dec-29-21 27

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Verbena
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Dec-30-17, 06:04 AM (EDT)
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1. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #0
 
   Awesome letter! I love these little glimpses into what's going on around the 501st. The creative use of pictures is especially neat in these.

Not sure how I feel about the Zauberschulebuch making its way around the world. I'm pretty sure Gryphon didn't intend for it to leave St-Ulrich, to be honest, and I wonder if a bit of a tightening down isn't called for. Not for the witches to not know, so much, but there are always certain government entities that will inevitably conclude, once they realize the ramifications, that they should be the only ones with this marvelous advance in witch power. And do something very unpleasant to make sure they're the sole beneficiaries.

------
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her


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drakensis
Member since Dec-20-06
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Dec-30-17, 06:30 AM (EDT)
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2. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #1
 
   I'd have to disagree. The only long term counter to such government entities engaging in stupidity is to get the information out and widespread and while I doubt it's Gryphon's main concern I'd expect he'd be perfectly happy to have the lessons being spread - after all, eventually he'll head back to the IPO so he'd hardly want to make himself irreplaceable.

D.


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Mephronmoderator
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Dec-30-17, 08:59 AM (EDT)
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3. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #2
 
   >I'd have to disagree. The only long term counter to such government
>entities engaging in stupidity is to get the information out and
>widespread and while I doubt it's Gryphon's main concern I'd expect
>he'd be perfectly happy to have the lessons being spread - after all,
>eventually he'll head back to the IPO so he'd hardly want to make
>himself irreplaceable.

As Gryph himself said in the commentary here on Fall of Petrograd:

>Most of what he's doing, he's doing not to make himself indispensable,
>but to make the witches' situation better. Hell, in a few cases—e.g., the
>way Zauberschule is set up, his weapons work with 404 Sqdn—he's
>deliberately trying to future-proof things so that they can carry on when
>he's not there any longer.

And if it spreads through the Unofficial Witch Networks, well...

--
Geoff Depew - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lord of Sith Tech Support.
"And Remember! Google is your Friend!!"


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Peter Eng
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Dec-30-17, 11:47 AM (EDT)
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4. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #1
 
   >Awesome letter! I love these little glimpses into what's going on
>around the 501st. The creative use of pictures is especially neat in
>these.
>
>Not sure how I feel about the Zauberschulebuch making its way
>around the world. I'm pretty sure Gryphon didn't intend for it to
>leave St-Ulrich...
>

Oh, I'm sure he did. Maybe not this soon - he might have preferred to send it with teachers, rather than as a document with no flexibility and what may be insufficient detail - but I'm sure he planned for it to get around, if only because he knows how hard it is to keep information boxed up.

In any case, he'll know that it's getting around now, and it doesn't take three hundred years of experience to figure out what to do once information's gone into the wild.

Release copies to everybody.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-30-17, 07:29 PM (EDT)
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6. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #1
 
   >Awesome letter! I love these little glimpses into what's going on
>around the 501st. The creative use of pictures is especially neat in
>these.
>
>Not sure how I feel about the Zauberschulebuch making its way
>around the world. I'm pretty sure Gryphon didn't intend for it to
>leave St-Ulrich

On the contrary, this outcome is exactly as planned. Because:

>there are always certain government entities that will inevitably
>conclude, once they realize the ramifications, that they should be the
>only ones with this marvelous advance in witch power. And do something
>very unpleasant to make sure they're the sole beneficiaries.

There's no way for that to happen if, by the time such persons learn about the movement, it has already spread beyond containing. This way, even if some high-level tool or another decides he wants to, no one will be able to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Especially now that it's reached Orussia. The great Orussian traditions of samizdat and tamizdat, inherited from the bad old days when the thing most Orussian intellectuals principally had to fear was their own government, virtually ensure that the Zauberschulmethod would survive even if powerfully positioned individuals and/or agencies tried to stamp it out. The witches are seizing the means of production. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Verbena
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Dec-30-17, 08:59 PM (EDT)
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7. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #6
 
   Hm, precisely as others pointed out earlier. I think I may have simply underestimated the ability of witches to take advantage of their own subculture and lines of communication, perhaps. Or, you know, egg nog. That might have been part of why I wasn't parsing the ramifications correctly, too.

------
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-30-17, 09:03 PM (EDT)
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8. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #7
 
   >Hm, precisely as others pointed out earlier.

Indeed; I was AFK for much of the day (putting up new light fixtures! SUPER ADULT POWERS), and having arrived after the fact, I just figured I'd make it official. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Verbena
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Dec-30-17, 09:20 PM (EDT)
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9. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #8
 
   >
>Indeed; I was AFK for much of the day (putting up new light fixtures!
>SUPER ADULT POWERS), and having arrived after the fact, I just figured
>I'd make it official. :)

Indeed! I was thinking about it for a few minutes and realized the other reason it wouldn't work out as well. It's hard for a government to explain away trying to contain, or even threaten their own war heroes.

Makes one wonder what life will be like, having witches who still have power their whole lives. Or what if non-witches can touch the Force? It'd be an interesting exercise for the reader.

------
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her


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The Traitor
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Jan-03-18, 01:16 PM (EDT)
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11. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #9
 
   LAST EDITED ON Jan-03-18 AT 01:16 PM (EST)
 
What fascinates me is all the old WW1-era witches who can now come back into the fold with proper Miyafuji engines and a boatload of experience against other threats.

Also, while this thread's still relevant: any chance we can get Lt. Col. Charlotte "Bazooka Charlie" Carpenter, Liberion's foremost jury-rigged Striker-piloting rocketeer, to appear in OWAW? It seems like someone who's mad enough to show up in an EPU production. =]

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

"Y'know, whenever I see this girl in combat", Gryphon thought to himself, "I have an inexplicable urge to tell the Neuroi that justice rains from above. Not the slightest idea why."


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jhosmer1
Member since Jan-11-07
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Jan-03-18, 02:31 PM (EDT)
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12. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #11
 
   >Also, while this thread's still relevant: any chance we can get Lt.
>Col. Charlotte "Bazooka Charlie" Carpenter, Liberion's foremost
>jury-rigged Striker-piloting rocketeer, to appear in OWAW? It seems
>like someone who's mad enough to show up in an EPU production. =]

Well, Sanya and her flugenhammer isn't that different... what's crazy in RL seems to be the norm in Strike Witches.


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MoonEyes
Member since Jun-29-03
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Feb-19-18, 09:13 AM (EDT)
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13. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #6
 
  
>The great Orussian traditions of
>samizdat and tamizdat, inherited from the bad old days
>when the thing most Orussian intellectuals principally had to fear was
>their own government,

Ah, yes. Samizdat. I write it myself, edit it myself, censor it myself, publish it myself, distribute it myself, and spend time in jail for it myself.


...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"


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Proginoskes
Member since Dec-3-09
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Dec-30-17, 12:37 PM (EDT)
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5. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #0
 
   Baba Gangut is wise.


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Star Ranger4
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10. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #0
 
   >I must go now; there is a terrible commotion below decks, and I fear
>the fool of a Cossack they have given me for a cook may have done
>something inadvisable with the steam lines... again... in an effort to
>simplify his washing-up. May St. Evgeniya give me strength.
>
Its these little nods to other events that give me chuckles. Fortunatly for Gangut I dont *THINK* this Kirov is in danger of being irradiated by his antics.

Of COURSE you wernt
expecting it!
No One expects the
FANNISH INQUISITION!

RCW# 86


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-24-21, 06:58 PM (EDT)
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14. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #0
 
   >May St. Evgeniya give me strength.

I was going to go back and note this if nobody picked up on it, but forgot. The saint Gangut refers to here is St. Evgeniya Bjelik, who was canonized by the synod of the Orussian state religion pretty much as its very first order of business once it managed to piece itself back together in the Interim Capital at Yekaterinburg. As well as for her own personal self-sacrifice in ensuring the continued survival of the Orussian state, she is revered as the vicar of all Orussians martyred by the Neuroi onslaught.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Droken
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Dec-24-21, 07:40 PM (EDT)
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15. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #14
 
   Eternal respect for her service and for her sacrifice indeed.

And mad respect to you, sir, for all these sneaky little details that just really make everything about your work so much fun to read.

-Droken

"If at first you don't succeed, bull-
riding is not for you."


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Verbena
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16. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #15
 
   Fully seconded here. I wasn't sure who that was referring to, but I admit that is pretty awesome. Interesting that there's a state religion there, but I know little about how the USSR--or Orussia--actually works.

All I know is I need to go back and reread this series again!


>Eternal respect for her service and for her sacrifice indeed.
>
>And mad respect to you, sir, for all these sneaky little details that
>just really make everything about your work so much fun to read.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-25-21, 05:27 PM (EDT)
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17. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #16
 
   LAST EDITED ON Dec-25-21 AT 05:29 PM (EST)
 
>Interesting that there's a state
>religion there, but I know little about how the USSR--or
>Orussia--actually works.

The USSR had no state religion; in fact, since Marxist-Leninist dialectical materialism was explicitly atheist, the Soviet government strongly discouraged religious observance by its subjects, and spent much of its lifetime actively persecuting organized churches and their adherents.

The Russian Empire under the Tsars, on the other hand, very much did have a state religion, that being Eastern Orthodox Christianity. That ties into the fact that the Tsars considered themselves the heirs of the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Byzantine Empire that followed it ("Tsar", like "Kaiser", is the local-language equivalent of "Caesar"), which in turn stems from modern Russians' (and Belarusians', and Ukrainians') descent from the medieval Kievan Rus' people. Whether other religions were tolerated within the empire mostly depended on little more than the whim of any given Tsar, but Orthodoxy was required of members of the imperial family and generally expected among the upper classes.

In the OWaW universe, where Christianity never became mainstream, Orussian Orthodoxy is presumably rather different from its real-life counterpart, but its church has a lot of the same features and ceremonial functions, including its governing synod, its general hierarchy, and its veneration of saints.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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MoonEyes
Member since Jun-29-03
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Dec-27-21, 03:29 PM (EDT)
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18. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #17
 
   >The USSR had no state religion; in fact, since Marxist-Leninist
>dialectical materialism was explicitly atheist, the Soviet government
>strongly discouraged religious observance by its subjects, and spent
>much of its lifetime actively persecuting organized churches and their
>adherents.

With absolutely NO success whatsoever. The muzhik might fear, or rarely respect, the state and its various arms...but getting them to not venerate god was about as possible as getting them to not breathe.

As an aside, the two ladies that gave name to the venerated Saint, navigators Yevgenia Rudneva and Vera Belik, served in the 588th/46th (Guards) Night Bomber Regiment, known to the Germans as the Night Witches because of the "brooms" they flew. Aall you could hear, if you were lucky, was the wind over the ailerons...and then came the bombs all over the camp and you'd best hope today wasn't your day. They were both awarded Hero of the Soviet Union, posthumously.


...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The
Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-
Covered Balls!"


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-27-21, 04:02 PM (EDT)
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19. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #18
 
   >The muzhik might fear, or
>rarely respect, the state and its various arms...but getting them to
>not venerate god was about as possible as getting them to not breathe.

Which, it must be noted, the Soviet government also did quite a lot of.

The crowning weirdness of the USSR, to my eye, is that Marxism-Leninism is a fundamentally urban, industrial philosophy--Marx's dialectic is explicitly delineated as a struggle pitting the urban working poor against their equally urban bourgeois class enemies--and it somehow contrived to rise to power in what was, at the time, one of the least urban, least industrialized countries in the world. Not Germany, where Marx was from, or England, where he was writing; no. Russia.

The architects of Bolshevism never had any idea what to do about, or with, the rural peasantry, and apart from the gentry and the military officer corps, and a few hundred thousand factory workers and miners in a handful of cities, the Russian Empire contained practically no other demographics. Oh, they tried; they added "and Peasants'" to the names of the "Workers' (Whatever)" organizations (e.g., the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army), they tried (with catastrophic results) to organize farms as if they were factories that made crops, and so forth, but the world of rural agriculture was not part of their philosophical universe, and they never really figured out how to approach it.

I mention this because I reckon Soviet Communism's constant, futile effort to make the common people abandon religion fits right into that picture.

>As an aside, the two ladies that gave name to the venerated Saint,
>navigators Yevgenia Rudneva and Vera Belik, served in the 588th/46th
>(Guards) Night Bomber Regiment, known to the Germans as the Night
>Witches because of the "brooms" they flew.

Indeed. She, Colonel Yegorova, and Zelenko were all named after real-life Soviet pilots from the war (Anna Yegorova was a Sturmovik pilot and Yekaterina Zelenko flew Su-2 fighters), all of whom were Heroes of the Soviet Union (Zelenko posthumously, Yegorova... well... it was complicated).

--G.
-><-
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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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zwol
Member since Feb-24-12
299 posts
Dec-28-21, 01:24 AM (EDT)
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20. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #19
 
   >The crowning weirdness of the USSR, to my eye, is that
>Marxism-Leninism is a fundamentally urban, industrial
>philosophy--Marx's dialectic is explicitly delineated as a struggle
>pitting the urban working poor against their equally urban bourgeois
>class enemies--and it somehow contrived to rise to power in what was,
>at the time, one of the least urban, least industrialized countries in
>the world. Not Germany, where Marx was from, or England, where he was
>writing; no. Russia.

I recall this exact point coming up in my 10th grade world history course, with the teacher claiming that Marx and Engels expected Communism to take off first in Germany, and that it was Lenin, specifically, who figured it ought to be possible to go straight from agrarian feudalism to industrialized communism and skip the intermediate capitalist phase.

I’m inclined to be suspicious of anything so glibly presented, particularly in a high school course, and I’ve never read any of Lenin’s writing. I have read some of Marx and am pretty confident that the part where he wouldn’t have expected Russia to go first is accurate.


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The Traitor
Member since Feb-24-09
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Dec-28-21, 02:23 AM (EDT)
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21. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #20
 
   This is, of course, due to the inherently oppressive nature of vanguardism within revolution and the idea of the "perpetual Transitional Phase" that prevents truly sustainable pacifist anarcho-communism from establishing itself according to Kohrist principles no Gryph what are you doing PUT THE BRICK DOWN I'LL BE GOOD-

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

gryph says if i can find him some art of mozzie and p-38 covered in taramasalata then i get to keep the rest of my bones


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zwol
Member since Feb-24-12
299 posts
Dec-28-21, 09:40 PM (EDT)
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25. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #21
 
   >This is, of course, due to the inherently oppressive nature of
>vanguardism within revolution and the idea of the "perpetual
>Transitional Phase" that prevents truly sustainable pacifist
>anarcho-communism from establishing itself according to Kohrist
>principles

In my semi-educated opinion, this has a lot more to do with why Lenin’s, and, somewhat later, Mao’s version of Communism both went full authoritarian almost immediately, than with why Communism found traction in Russia in the first place.

Thinking about it a bit more since last night, I suspect the latter may have more to do with late-nineteenth century Russian intelligentsia — Chernyshevsky, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy all come to mind — actively looking for a way for Russia to leapfrog, not just catch up to, their competitors to the west in the Great Game. What is to be Done? in particular overtly raises the question “what if we could skip capitalism?”


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StClair
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Jan-09-22, 02:48 AM (EDT)
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28. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #25
 
   LAST EDITED ON Jan-09-22 AT 02:50 AM (EST)
 
From my own limited knowledge/study of Russian history, it seems that it was something of a recurring thing to try to import The Latest Thing from abroad and slap it down on top of the existing country, without any of the supporting infrastructure or even a proper foundation.


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Vorticity
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Dec-28-21, 05:26 PM (EDT)
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22. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #17
 
   >In the OWaW universe, where Christianity never became mainstream,
>Orussian Orthodoxy is presumably rather different from its real-life
>counterpart, but its church has a lot of the same features and
>ceremonial functions, including its governing synod, its general
>hierarchy, and its veneration of saints.

In a world so similar to Earth where Christianity never became mainstream, how does the word orthodox even make sense? All of the other religions for thousands of miles around before Christianity are far more concerned about orthopraxy than orthodoxy. Even Judaism, which definitely has a sense of orthodoxy, is significantly more orthoprax. The others are more about the right rituals to appease the gods/spirits/whatever, and what you actually believe is kind of irrelevant to the process.

Unless... Maybe in the OWaW universe, they're Orthodox Brianists.


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-28-21, 05:37 PM (EDT)
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23. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #22
 
   LAST EDITED ON Dec-28-21 AT 07:51 PM (EST)
 
>>In the OWaW universe, where Christianity never became mainstream,
>>Orussian Orthodoxy is presumably rather different from its real-life
>>counterpart
>
>In a world so similar to Earth where Christianity never became
>mainstream, how does the word orthodox even make sense?

How the heck should I know? It's a ninth-order detail in a setting I only partially designed...

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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The Traitor
Member since Feb-24-09
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Dec-28-21, 08:17 PM (EDT)
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24. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #22
 
   Because marketing, basically. "Orthodox" implies continuation of tradition and being the "real" version of a religion. That's why you get so many damn flavours of Baptist after this or that doctrinal dispute, all of them insisting they're the real Baptists. This'd be true of the Orussian Orthodox religion.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

"this is a fantasy world in which magic child soldiers kill aliens in their underpants. jesus has turned his gaze from this place."


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Vorticity
Member since Feb-6-12
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Dec-29-21, 04:21 AM (EDT)
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26. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #24
 
   Gryphon's answer is legit, but yours is like... Here, have a primer in how polytheistic religions actually worked: Practical Polytheism, Part I: Knowledge

I suppose the better answer to my own question is that some other world religion (yes that's a term) arrived later on that would have invented all of these things like "real version" and "doctrinal disputes". Pre-Christian pagan practice didn't need that, because it was evidence-based -- if praying to Thor in this manner with that sacrifice brought you rain, you must have done the right thing.


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The Traitor
Member since Feb-24-09
1197 posts
Dec-29-21, 05:15 AM (EDT)
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27. "RE: Letter received at St-Ulrich, June 29, 1946"
In response to message #26
 
   Ah. Yeah, I managed to completely misconstrue your initial question. Sorry about that. I was working on the principle that Orussian Orthodoxy was a monotheistic religion similar to Russian Orthodoxy, not indigenous faiths from the area. It's still my fault for misreading the initial post, for which I apologise. I'm not terribly familiar with modern approaches to polytheistic religiosity - my knowledge extends to Mauss and A General Theory Of Magic - so thank you for the link.

The Baltic and Russian pagans - who you describe as pre-Christian but who existed well into the Middle Ages - would potentially be the progenitors of this religion, but frankly I think it's more likely to be a descendant of one of the many, many, many other kinda-sorta-monotheistic cults that sprung up during that period of Classical history. Hermes Trismegistus (which I am likely misspelling) would be my bet. It was surprisingly similar to Christianity in a lot of ways, after all. This would, as Christianity did, syncretize with and steal from and somewhat displace the indigenous religions of the areas in which it took root, whether via natural spread or through missionary work.

Like you said, religious orthodoxy comes from centralized consolidation of power, and the further away you get from that centralized power the more things change to suit local needs and preferences. This is not how the indigenous faiths of the functioned - as you said, you don't need dogma if what you're doing works. I would therefore assert that orthodoxy in a world without Christianity looks exactly the same as it does with it - rigid theology becoming more flexible as it interacts with the realities of temporal life. It gets to the point where something has to give, and there is a schism within the organization, and that's how you get Orussian Orthodoxy as a religious practice. What those doctrinal disputes are is irrelevant; you still end up with "Our way is the One True Path To Salvation, please ignore all the others".

I hope that helps clarify my position and why I said what I did. Again, I apologise for misunderstanding what you were asking.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.


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