Deus Vult!

The Magnum Opus enforces God's plan for the Wastes. They are the last of the righteous, and they shall drive the unbelievers before them like scattered ashes. An addition to the scorched earth materials.

Assassination is a form of flattery

The war nerd has a longish piece on assassination as a human resources project. Basically, assassination is your enemy deciding who should be leaving your organization, and from this viewpoint it appears useful to take out your top achievers, while leaving your deadwood and seat warmers in peace. As always, it makes for grim reading and is festooned with images of physics doing her harsh mistress-thing on the human body.

Brecher wrote his piece from the viewpoint of someone organizing assassinations. But what about the prospective victim? If you are a prime asset to your organization, the enemy HR department will send you a pink slip wrapped around a pound of plastique. If you are underperforming, your own organization will punish you - by firing you, exile or court martial. So, basically, this is what you should do as a member of any organization being targeted by this method of attack: Remain in a carefully calibrated state of mediocrity; at least as long as the two ranges of (in)competence inviting censure (from your own organization, or the assassin's) do not overlap. You are not high-profile enough to be taken out, but while you might do a meh-job for your own side, you are not bad enough to be punished.

Redefining the PhD

Germany is in an uproar. The great shining light, the One True Hope, the messiah of conservatism, our one and only defense minister, Karl Theodor von und zu Guttenberg (or KT, as he is known to friends and admirers) seems to have plagiarized large parts of his dissertation. And thus, it seems apt to talk about the institution of the PhD itself, and how it has to change in today's marketplace. In this discussion, I want to show that Guttenberg did nothing wrong. Until he fucked up.

In Germany, the PhD becomes somewhat of a prerequisite at a certain level. A career in higher management is certainly possible without one, but at a certain point you are somehow expected to have one. From this point on, a bit of doublethink is necessary. On one level, the PhD has to mean that its holder has more knowledge about his chosen field than a guy who "just" spent four years studying at uni. People assume that the holder worked for years, studiously, exhaustively, at his thesis, becoming an expert on a tiny field or singular topic to the point of nerdiness. He is a critical thinker and "knows how to do science". Also, he adheres to some code of ethics - no copy/paste, check your sources, that kind of thing. And that he could do it again, because, by now, he has the necessary mindset and methods at his disposal. In GURPS-terms, this definition of the PhD could be represented by a one-point advantage, a perk giving you a tiny reaction bonus with some parts of the general population. You got if for free when you put those eight skill points into Mayan history.

The redefined, career-optimizing PhD has a completely different prerequisites and also says different things about its holder, which are, by the way, much closer to the demands of a position in management.

- You know how to delegate the stuff you can't do yourself: No way you are spending hours and hours over some political or economic topic (let's face it: a career-optimizing PhD probably won't come from other fields). You probably could whip up a dissertation yourself, but then your "real" projects would suffer - or maybe you just can't do it, you couldn't do it at uni when it was just forty pages and now you are completely out of your depth. So you do what any competent manager does and farm the sucker out to some schmuck who knows how to handle this kind of thing.

- You know the right people: Not only do you have the ear of a sympathetic professor who will read the bundle of paper, basically, any bundle of paper, you present to him and declare it a scientific breakthrough, but you also know how to contact a trustworthy and competent ghostwriter. This is where Gutti probably dropped the ball: He knew enough willing professors in Bayreuth alright, but when it came down to slumming, he was not able to find a ghostwriter worth his money. Or maybe he already fumbled in step one: delegating responsibility for things you can't do yourself. If you get your PhD this way, you show that you have one serious rolodex on your desk, and you are who you know, right?

- You have some savoir-faire: You won't just buy a title from some fly-by-night uni in Hungary or Nigeria. You know people in the right unis in Germany or USA, unis with some name-recognition oomph.

- You have some money: A good ghostwriter doesn't come cheap, so the the true poor are excluded. Of course, getting your PhD the hard way also burns resources, but this is more in the vein of money not made, instead of a lump sum spent. A bought PhD shows that you have some wealth to burn for self-fashioning and representation, and that you are eager to spend money on the image you present to the world.

- You are able to live with the doublethink: You are able to balance the old image of the PhD as outlined above with your new shiny PhD, at the same time, without experiencing the conflicts between those two concepts. You are able to work and talk with others being in the same doublethink-space without experiencing unease or moral qualms. Self-explanatory.

- Now you can be blackmailed! If you want to become a member of an exclusive club, this club may also want to have some power over you. So, if at some point in the future, you regret the moral implications of your work, the people who know you best will be able to discredit you as a fraud with the push of a button. Your loyalty is assured, the right people can count on you. This makes you a member of the team, baby!

So there you have it. I think that most attacks on Guttenberg miss the point: He didn't go for an old-fashioned PhD, but for a degree that would further bolster his career and his shot at he chancellorship. Thus, he should not be castigated for plagiarizing or hiring a ghostwriter per se, but rather for not delegating responsibilities or hiring the wrong people for the job. Those are flaws disqualifying him as an apex manager, so I guess that the outcome should be the same.

It's just good business

Matt Taibbi has a another piece in the Rolling Stone. It is now official: The sheepdogs have all gone, there's only wolves left, although some of them wear dog collars some days of the week. I wonder what comes next. We'll probably see bankers openly sodomizing kittens just for the hell of it any day now.

Perfect

Even madmen need a loving home, a place to come back to, a little hole in the wall. Perfect provides, even if its love is deadly. An addition to the scorched earth materials post.

Prepping a meet

How does one have a sit-down with a feral chief who does not want to be met? Ling tells the group that Rupert Ropehands, leader of Refugium’s militia, knows how to contact the HanHan – something that Rupert does not advertise. Maybe talking to him would be a first step, the next would be going to Bozeman with him so that he can facilitate a meeting.

The sunburnt ex-mercenary has already been briefed by Ling when Mal and the others show up at his post in front of Sue Snell’s motel. Wordlessly, he gathers his gear and jumps into the Conquistador. Again, Zed Memphis goes ahead. Mal quizzes Rupert during their drive to Bozeman. Yes, he has had dealings with the HanHan before. It’s always very paranoid, not a real meet, but rather an exchange of barter items with the trading partners keeping out of each others’ sight: “I leave the stuff I want to trade in the front of Bozeman’s old bank, then I leave for two hours. When I return, my stuff is gone and some of their stuff lies there for the taking.” Mal asks “So what are you trading?” “Well, mostly meats and leathers. Sometimes, they leave some tools from the old scrap yard. Much appreciated by Jaxxon and Heidi Platt.” “No, what are you trading?” “Stuff, mostly. Clothing, food, you know, nothing special.” Mal takes his eyes of the road and gives Rupert a quizzical look “At some times, I have also put some rounds of ammo down. Really not enough to bother anyone, and there would be no trade with them if I hadn’t sold something really valuable, and thus no back-channel. Just don’t tell Ling, okay? No reason to upset the old man.” In the back of the jeep, Spinoza, bound and gagged, flanked by Rod and Dan Hawking, stares ahead.

They arrive at noon. Bozeman seems to be HanHan territory: In the Long Ago, it was home to maybe ten thousand peaceful citizens. Now, long steel poles festooned with bones, necklaces of rusty nails and doll’s heads, rammed into the central crossing of the town, proclaim a different kind of inhabitants. Nonetheless, the ruins seem to be deserted. The group sets up a camp, with Dan taking position in an old church tower in the middle of town, tirelessly scanning the wastes surrounding Bozeman. Rupert is quite nervous, stomping around the camp, fiddling with his shotgun, glowering at the dark and overgrown alleys between the ruins.

After a few hours, Dan sees a HanHan leaving Bozeman, but only when the feral is already hundreds of paces away from the town. The man is running, his long strides carrying him towards the west, where the old junkyard lies. Dan curses and calls down from his perch, and the others grin. They have been discovered, and soon the HanHan will return in force to investigate. Time enough to prepare a meeting that calls for three parts diplomacy and one part warfare, with just a dash of ambush. Dan remains in his tower, his new fancy carbine at the ready and his old rifle at his feet, while Zed takes up a position about a hundred meters west from the edge of town, as an advance scout and surprise element. Or even as the one who will get away if it all turns to shit. He digs in. Mal finds himself a nice and cozy hidey hole in Bozeman’s bank, with a good view of the central crossing. He does not want to get too far away from proceedings, partly because he has some things to say, partly because he thinks that Rod might need some close support. At the crossing, amid the metal poles, Rod stands in the open, unarmed, hoping to do some talking, with Rupert being present, but silent - just a friendly, well-known face hovering in the background. Spinoza - the leverage - stays in the jeep, bound and gagged.

Chalice

Chalice is a community slowly withering away, sitting next to an old nuclear reactor that is poisoning its fields, its water and its air. And yet, people stay, waiting for a messiah who will make the reactor's promise of boundless energy come true. An addition to the scorched earth materials post.

Riots in Cairo

Cairo is a war zone - that much you probably know. It's all over the net, and if you want to, you can drown yourself in analysis. But you need the war nerd to point out some obvious stuff. Also, he seems to have regained his respect for humanity, and all it took was a chewed-up cavalry charge. Not for the easily offended.

Edit: No, seriously: German readers will find Don Alphonso's approach very useful

Ling's musings

Again, the prison cafeteria. By now, the place has become somewhat familiar to the explorers, and the monks have become accustomed to them. No one bats an eyelash when they enter the concrete hall with their weapons and armor. Ling sits at his habitual place, as always, food and water are offered before Ling speaks. “To what developments do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Do not tell me you already got your man. That would be very quick – suspiciously so.” Again, Mal speaks for the group “The next best thing actually. It seems that important things have happened during the last years on that junkyard. Strange things, but we got a witness, and we brought him with us so that you can talk to him as well.” And Mal relates the HanHan’s strange story about their new leader – a man with a very unsettling background. He also informs Ling about the fate of a false benefactor the group was hunting. When Mal is done, Ling is silent for a minute, seemingly lost in thought, playing with his food on the plate. Mal, Zed Memphis and Rod the benefactor look on, with some unease. Finally, Mal says “Look, this Ghost Eye guy is probably the key to the false benefactors. He must know something about their plans. The guys and me, we have been thinking. Maybe Ghost Eye quit his old employer to become king. Maybe this is all part of some long-term strategy. Maybe he just went nuts. I personally don’t care if he instructs his people to hunt single travelers – hell, if you travel the roads alone, you deserve anything you get. But we will have to do something about him. Have a look at him, maybe have a talk. Hell, if push comes to shove, I’d be willing to put him down. We can do that.” Ling looks up and smiles “Yes, so many options and possibilities, so many possible mistakes. Key indeed. I’m sure you are burning for action, but I would like to ask you to stay your guns for a day or two. This is too important to be decided by me alone, I will have to talk to many other members of our community. Rupert as well – I think he knows more about the HanHan than he lets on. I would also like to speak to your prisoner. After I have conferred with the others, there might be a lucrative offer concerning this Ghost Eye.” He rises to leave “I must hurry. Please, eat up without me. Just hand over the HanHan to Chaucer at the gate, and make sure that he is secured well.” As he walks away, Rod ponders Ling’s reaction. Refugium has paid mercenaries before to attack the HanHan. Now they have a new leader who is dangerously smart. The benefactors need to know as much as possible about the people mimicking them. If Ling offers Mal Porter half the bullets in Refugium to put out Ghost Eye’s light, the scavvy probably won’t hesitate, and a singular opportunity will be lost forever.

A day passes in Refugium. The explorers lounge about in Sue Snell’s motel while Mal fiddles around the Conquistador. They are surprised when a monk from the jail asks them to accompany him. “Back to the cafeteria” says Mal “that was rather quick.” “Could have been quicker, if you ask me.” Zed grabs his weapons “Lets hear Ling prattle for a bit. God willing he has come to the conclusion that the HanHan need a new chief. What did the kid say? Promotion by ritual combat? Hand to hand? Maybe I should just drive into the middle of the junkyard and challenge the guy. I knocked out the last one in Memphis with two fractures, one pierced eardrum and my blood spilled over three floors of Rome’s Motel. Imagine what I could to the man when I’m healthy and whole.” Rod just grimaces at the bragging. Maybe, if Ling orders Ghost Eye’s death, some subterfuge will be in order, and now Zed Memphis is raring to go in for the glory of it. Once he thought that the benefactor’s lot consisted of succoring the sick and wounded, now everything is so…complicated. His little leather bag of herbs has become awfully light these last weeks.

Ling does not waste time. The men have just taken seats when he starts “Thank you for your patience and your willingness to wait for our opinion on the whole matter. We spent the last day – and night – talking and planning. I had a heart-to-heart with Rupert from the militia. We also talked to young Spinoza. An interesting, if alien mind. A false benefactor rules the HanHan, and they seem to prosper. This is indeed a very important matter. It probably touches upon Refugium’s survival as such. So, while some advocated fast and unambiguous action, we remembered the principles of our founders – our guiding light, if you will.” “That you are bloody pacifists!” Zed interjects “No. Rather, that, how much a man may know, how much he may experience in his lifetime, he will never know enough. Gentlemen, we simply do not know enough. We have to know more about Ghost Eye. Before we take any further steps, for example, his elimination, we need to have the measure of this man, his plans, his motivation. Thus I would ask you to set up a meeting with this Ghost Eye, as intermediaries for us. The HanHan hate us – it is better we stay far away from such a meeting. Rupert told me that he sometimes contacts the HanHan at Bozeman, and we have a young warrior that they – maybe, hopefully – want back. We use that as leverage. That has to be our approach. Talk to the man. Find out who he is. Then we’ll know how to proceed.” Ling sighs “Maybe the HanHan saw the light and are on their way to becoming a helpful influence in our region. I’d hate to call in mercs again.”