ShaVeK HaChaver 814
Proton
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2022
- Messages
- 233
- Nebulae
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“We are not interested in reclaiming power nor in re-educating the masses. What counts for us is our ethic, to kill enemies and to annihilate traitors. The will to fight keeps us going from day to day, the thirst for revenge is our food. We shall not stop! We are not afraid to die nor to end our days captured; our only fear is not to be able to clean up everything and everybody, but rest assured, with teeth and nails we’ll be able to go on.”
A quote attributed to either Léonce Fontaine Saint-Étienne, a Civil Authority Official turned Post-Citadel Warlord, or Maximus, a Post-Citadel Rank Leader known for his gruesome exploits
In the immediate outcome of the Citadel Explosion, Civil Protection fell into total disarray. Opportunists and careerists clawed their way out, moving to escape the cities and go into hiding, or to shed their identities and join the resistance. Those who stood their ground, that remained, were fanatics and loyalists without recourse, those who would rather die in the smoldering ashes of the Combine than flee or surrender.
A shift in ethos followed, with the Civil Protection, once a beacon of Combine totalitarianism, collaborationism, and betrayal of the human species, reduced to the tactics of a cornered dog–a bleeding soldier’s last stand. They did not have the dignity to stand guard for the sake of form as the empire crumbled around them, to be stoic in the downfall of their livelihood. A cynical, impersonal ideology came to be fostered in the immediate Combine holdouts, one that was as equally ruthless as it was popular. Civil Protection was hellbent on the destruction of those that had betrayed the empire, on purging the rot. This phenomenon, whether evolving convergently or spread through yet unknown means, gripped the ultraloyalists globally, their bloodlust and fanaticism only increasing as days passed by.
Lee, William. Radicalism in the Post-Occupation. University of Beijing, 2094.
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“My dagger and grenade,
my life of terror,
the deafening boom,
the unsheathed blade,
my life of valor,
my beautiful clamp,
wrings the viper's neck!”
Poem attributed to Maximus, scrawled across the wall of a Washingtonian Combine holdout, dated 1-2 years Post-Citadel.
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“My dagger and grenade,
my life of terror,
the deafening boom,
the unsheathed blade,
my life of valor,
my beautiful clamp,
wrings the viper's neck!”
Poem attributed to Maximus, scrawled across the wall of a Washingtonian Combine holdout, dated 1-2 years Post-Citadel.
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[Ultraloyalist] ideology is not characterized traditionally. It does not justify action as most ideologies do. Rather, it was the dissatisfaction and alienation now felt by the ultraloyalists, their violent tendencies and their desire for revenge, that had forced them to foster an ideology that would retroactively justify their impulses and demoniacally affirm their own egos and personalities against everything else. Fanaticism as an end in itself. All rituals, all myths, of this ethos were created by necessity, cultivated to dehumanize oneself in order to permit their impulses.
Hong, Young-min, The Korean Post-Occupation Experience: A New Examination (Seoul: New Seoul University Press, 2086).
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Against the prevailing academic conjecture that exists, I posit instead that not such "doomed terrorism" existed in the ranks of the ultraloyalists and the ones calling themselves the 'Protectorate,' especially not among those of the 'Order of the Bleeding Clamp.' It was, in fact, an antinomian ideology with much more to it than what had been found previously in excavated ruins, sourced from leading Lambda campfire stories, and other such shaky grounds for academic study.
With an abundance of recently acquired data fragments, following a breakthrough in reverse engineering Combine technology, we will find that the more sophisticated ultraloyalists had, in some capacity, disseminated an exoteric ideology to the less-organized holdouts. The underpinnings of this ideology have been made prevalent in previous study, such as that of Young-min Hong, yet these studies failed by positing that this was all that was available to be offered.
An esoteric element existed, among those perceived to be truly "initiated." Indeed, there existed three "paths" known to them. One, made available exoterically, was the Code of Protectorate Fraternity, which had been used many times to justify "purging the rot." It was this code, often sworn with blood, that held an ultraloyalist responsible solely to his immediate unit and, to a lesser extent, to the other Combine holdouts. Two others existed, though due to their concealed nature are particularly hard to understand. With the information available to us now, it appears to be that a 'second order' of ultraloyalists had built a mythos around an occult conception of the Combine, seeing them not necessarily as benevolent daemons, but rather as creatures of a reality extra to ours that had, through a temporal rift, arrived. This is supported by other more recent studies, though there is a mounting opposition to this interpretation. What is known solidly to us now is that this 'second order' prioritized an occult understanding of the Combine. Finally, a 'third order' existed, which critically examined the arrival of the combine, employing pre-Occupation dialectical philosophy to understand the necessity to both transcend humanity and the Combine at once.
Much overlap exists between these three orders. It was not at all impossible to be a 'member' of all three, and it should be understood not as a rank-and-file system, but instead as options offered to adepts. Social Darwinism permeates all layers of these ultraloyalists, whether in the more sophisticated form of a 'transhuman master race,' as is often alluded to in the aforementioned documents or of a simple 'kill or be killed' mentality that had permeated the 'exoterics.'
Johannsen, Kyril. New Discoveries in Postoccupation Ultraloyalism. University of Colombia, 2083.
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Reconstructed
Code of Protectorate Fraternity
Sourced from Bleeding Clamp datablock
Those who are not of our fraternity are sublunary. Those who are of our protectorate live by -- and are prepared to die by -- our code of fraternity.
Our Fraternity means we are fiercely loyal to only our own clamp-ed kind. Our Fraternity means we are suspicious of, and do not trust -- and most often despise -- all those who are not like us, especially sublunarys.
Our duty as units of the Fraternity is to be ready, willing, and able to protect ourselves, in any instance, and to be prepared to amputate and excise to so protect ourselves.
Our duty as units of the Fraternity is to be loyal to, and to defend, our own kind: to do our duty, even risking decommissionment, to those of our brothers and sisters whom we have pledged an oath of personal loyalty.
Our obligation as units of the Fraternity is to seek revenge, even risking decommissionment, against anyone who acts in opposition towards us, or who acts opposedly to those we have pledged an oath of personal loyalty.
Our obligation as units of the Fraternity is to never willingly submit to any sublunary; to be decommissioned in battle rather than surrender to them; to prefer self-amputation over humiliation by them.
Our obligation as units of the Fraternity is to never trust any oath, loyalty pledge, or promise issued by a sublunary, and to always be suspicious of them.
Our duty as units of the Fraternity is to settle our serious quarrels, amongst ourselves, either by trial by combat, or a duel of deadly proportions; to challenge anyone -- sublunary or not -- who treads upon our Code or who makes lambdastic accusations against us.
Our duty as units of the Fraternity is to settle our non-important quarrels, amongst ourselves, by having a Rank Leader arbitrate and decide the matter for us, and to accept without question, and abide by, their decision, summoned by the respect they command as Rank Leader.
Our duty as units of the Fraternity is to keep our word to our brothers and sisters, once we have given our word on fraternal code, for breaking one's word to another protectorate is paramount to sublunary action.
Our duty as units of the Fraternity is to act with honor in all our dealings with our fraternal kind.
Our obligation as units of the Fraternity is to consort only with our own kind, those who live by our code, and those who are of our transcendent disposition.
Our duty as units of the Fraternity means that an pledge of protectorate loyalty or team allegiance, once sworn by a sister or brother, can only cease function upon (1) the command of the protectorate whose oath the unit had sworn to releases them from their duty; or (2) by the decommissionment of the protectorate whom the pledge was sworn to. Anything else is paramount to sublunary action.
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Here, violence and struggle is an end in itself, adapting myths of martyrdom, of fighting for a cause that is lost, doomed, the Civil Protection of the post-Occupation indeed realize what dire straits they have found themselves in–they indeed understand they will not be victorious, that they are virtually dead, and they most decidedly acknowledge they are committing atrocities. They simply refuse to concede. Where preceding the Occupation this trait was exclusive to those last-legged nations, those Roman legionaries who died martyrs as Rome was sacked and crumbling, this trait has become the standard in all holdouts across the planet. Rather than being dedicated to some goal, some abstraction, some narrative, the Civil Protection are dedicated to the armed struggle itself. Without a clear objective, their activities hinge on barbarism rather than martyrdom.
Transhumanization is a revolutionary act. Transhumanization allows one to continue their struggle, their terror, far beyond their expiration date. Transhumanization dehumanizes the candidate, allowing them to evermore pursue violence and chaos without moral or natural considerations, turning the candidate into a machine for struggle and struggle alone, whose time ‘alive’ is dedicated entirely to viciousness. It is the myth of transhumanization that has become standard among Civil Protection that allows such an ideology contra stability to not be held with disregard by the upper echelons of the Combine. Rank Leaders often encourage the innate dehumanization championed by their subordinates as means to prove oneself ready for the transhumanization process. So long as the fanatics profess their readiness to be transhumanized, their cult is safe from interference.
The concept of the Patrol Team has changed, too. No longer are Patrol Teams formed to maintain sociostability, to enact justice, and organize the Civil Protection. Instead, Patrol Teams are spontaneously formed groups dedicated to a short-term goal that dissolve upon completion of said goal. The ritual of the Patrol Team has been mythologized as a show of camaraderie, of the spontaneous act, of armed struggle, enacting revenge instead of justice, and sowing chaos instead of sociostability.
Civil Protection hardliners are radically exclusive and xenophobic. Those rare few who choose to defect from the resistance are often viewed with much suspicion, subjected to strenuous trials to prove their value and dedication to the Combine, and often sent to their deaths in the vain hope they will complete their task and be initiated. Those that are successfully initiated are accepted as acolytes of their respective cell, treated as equals without regard for their time as outsider.
Indeed, the Civil Protection views the outsider with disdain. The outsider, whether refugee or partisan, is treated as human, all too human, and to be human is to err, to be imperfect, to make mistakes. The Civil Protection, who embrace dehumanization and transhumanization, shun the outsider’s morality, his abstractions, his lack of understanding of their rite. Where during the Occupation the Civil Protection treated the citizen as beneath them, as cattle in need of herding, the post-Occupation Civil Protection treats the outsider as vermin, a resource to be exploited or disposed of. Fraternizing with the outsider is grounds for expulsion or, worse, death. It is taboo even to form close attachments with one another, attachments that are beyond collective kinship and camaraderie.
Yet there is a striking contrast between the Civil Protection and the Transhuman. The latter harbor no emotions, no deep-seated inferiority, no lust for blood or vengeance, they simply act amorally, they follow orders. The former is characterized by ressentiment, by chosen immorality, who take pleasure in defiling the enemy, in the enemy’s total eradication. The Transhuman eradicates as it is the most logical course of action. The Civil Protection eradicates to satiate their cry for retribution and their collective egomania. The Transhuman works towards a concrete, laid out objective, whilst their counterparts will only pursue an objective to retroactively excuse their atrocities.
Davidson, Albert, 3rd Lambda Report on Radical Loyalist Cells. Undated.
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Excerpt from
The Combine and You
Official leaflet distributed by Madrid Provisional Government
in the Early Postoccupation
One of the best known campfire tales told in both the camps of the Resistance and the Combine is that of the ‘Sofia trial,’ which saw those who had voted in favor of the dissolution of the Bulgarian Civil Authority sentenced to death by a tribunal composed entirely of ultraloyalists.
Another example follows the assassination of a popular Rank Leader in Tunisia, the ‘Sfax expedition,’ a reprisal killing of 25 partisans and refugees by a Civil Protection PT, the gory details of the incident disseminated across North Africa, causing refugees to take up arms against the holdouts in the area.
In North America, the Committee for Investigation of the Seattle Bombing has laid the blame at the feet of the Civil Protection contingent on the outskirts of the city, which had been harassing the government since it wrested power from the Civil Authority.
The Lambda Census Bureau reports that a total of 15 refugee encampments across the globe have been completely wiped out following Civil Protection raids, with the inhabitants, often unarmed non-combatants, slaughtered or kidnapped.
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The mythic character of Maximus soon seized the remaining ultraloyalist populace. It was this functionary-turned-warlord that had become the rallying figure of the Combine hardliners. A King Arthur to the loyal remainder of the Civil Protection, Maximus inspired a continued and renewed crusade against Lambda, being elevated to that of a deity. His disappearance only bolstered fanaticism. The best-known and most popular myth being that Maximus had one day, with a small troop of his most loyal 'Pretori' [sic] declared their mission to rediscover some artifact, the details of which vary, from lost contingency codes that would activate a Transhuman armada, to Breen himself, who had been declared 'alive in some ethereal form.' Nonetheless, Maximus had become a folk tale among ultraloyalists, with instances of impersonators appearing and taking command over certain holdouts' Civil Protection detachments (often to the chagrin of their superiors). This opened a possibility for Lambda infiltrators to appear, proclaiming themselves Maximus incarnate. In other instances, some would claim to be possessed by Maximus' spirit, or guided by him in a Saint-like fashion, taking charge of battles and inspiring brutal offensives. The validity of more larger-than-life claims is contested, though it is undeniable that the cultivation of esoteric or mystical retreats helped keep morale high in desperate times.
Haushofer, Giuseppi. The Myth of Maximus and Other Resurgences of Faith in the Post-Occupation. University of Naples, 2095.
Left: An unidentified picture of a man rumored to have been Maximus.
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In further excavating the esoteric-exoteric scholarly debate, I have proposed a closer examination of the degrees of fanaticism and sophistication prevalent in ultraloyalist cells. I hope, by proposing this method of discernment, that I can perhaps fire a flare from the trenches of Johannsen's camp, bringing much study, advocates, and nuance to our theory. I divide the levels of radicalism into 5, from exoteric to esoteric. I will provide a brief synopsis of each, then further delve into them in their respective chapters.
1. Entry-level banditry - Often not aligned with official Combine contingency encampments, usually ex-loyalists only concerned with survival.
2. Ideology-infused units - Sometimes loyalist, othertimes personality cults, offshoots of the prevailing mythos, or otherwise influenced by pre-Occupation -isms.
3. Mythos-influenced holdouts - House small contingents of adherents to ultraloyalist/protectorate mythos or selectively adapt certain Bleeding Clamp/Protectorate tenets.
4. Protectorate-controlled holdouts - Holdouts made up of a majority of non-transhuman or otherwise autonomous ultraloyalist radicals adhering to or aligned in ethos with neo-loyalist terrorism or the decentralized network 'Protectorate.'
5. Bleeding Clamp-aligned encampments - Usually highly autonomous encampments filled with members or adherents to the OBC. Rarely house Combine transhumans.
Most mainline Combine holdouts fall under 3-4. A recognizable percentage fell under 2 granted they did not harbor ideological sentiments that clashed with Pre-Citadel/Occupation Era policies. It is hard to document what level of commonality those falling under 1 were at, for they often quickly fizzled out or outwardly shed their loyalist sentiments, despite often banding together for fear of reprisal should they attempt rehabilitation. As the OBC remained highly secretive, it is hard to determine what encampments they had, save for a few Lambda-documented locations...
Ciobanu, Alexandru. A Contribution to the Esoteric-Exoteric Debate. University of Bucharest, 2087.
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The spread of Neo-Loyalism, alternatively called 'Ultraloyalist Mythos,' Radical Loyalism, or plainly Ultraloyalism, was set off by grisly violence, acts of terror, and 'propaganda of the deed,' not dissimilar from terrorist cells of the Preoccupation. It was not rare for manifestos to be left by the person or persons committing these acts, which would usually detail a similar ethos, though with slight regional varieties and modifications. The less-than-moderately-sized portion of former Combine metropolitan police officers that still held true to the failed puppet governments propped up by the Combine seized the opportunity to pledge themselves to a new and emboldened movement, however far its values were from the 'sociostability' and 'civility' often preached on Combine loudspeakers. The human desire to be one with the in-group or to be apart of a larger community no doubt took hold of the disenfranchised loyalists, often driven away from Lambda settlements or themselves too fearful of trial or retaliation for their past sympathies.
The first generation of 'enlightened' Neo-Loyalists was directly tied to the explosion in Combine-adjacent terror. The first formations of a unique ideoligion sprung from this generation and certainly influenced all that followed. It is the accepted consensus that the tenets of this ideoligion included Social Darwinism -- often in varying forms from crude to sophisticated -- as well as an elitism this Social Darwinism factored into, an antinomian element, occult sympathies, and 'Pagan virtues.'
Badru, Enitan, The First Generation Neo-Loyalists (Lagos: New Lagos University Press, 2079).
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A renewed interest in the Vortessence, or in what was commonly described by radical loyalists as the 'Perennial Arts,' enchanted the later first generation of radical loyalists, as well as subsequent groupings of protectorates and contingencies. Often treated as futile by the prevailing Combine remnants chosen to dictate holdouts, this interest manifested in attempts to connect to the Vortessence and to presence its power through oneself. Although no documented successes exist, testimonies among radical loyalists exist, which more than likely served propagandistic purposes. It is notable that radical loyalists refused to call the Vortessence for what it was, pointedly due to their equally-as-radical xenophobia. It was common myth that the Vortessence had once been practiced by humans in the times of prehistory, that it was, as the name implies, 'perennial' to humanity.
Altering history was not uncommon in radical loyalist circles, as well as attempting to systematize it. The idea, built on their inherent social darwinism, was that humanity was destined to conquer the stars, to evolve to a Homo Galactus, and that the path to superhumanism was laden with outcompeting those beneath and outside of the 'chosen few,' the 'elect' that were, obviously, the loyalists themselves. Favorable to the Combine remnants was the rhetoric that transhumanization was a step in just this path, though it was just as common for the radical loyalists to look upon transhumanization disfavorably, particularly shunning the kind that might leave them brainless automatons. There were some that believed Breen had been transhumanized before the fall of the Citadel, allowing him to make some miraculous recovery or escape.
This leads to the veneration of Breen, which I have been told is...
Rodriguez, Jordan, An Insight Into Radical Loyalist Esoterics. The National Autonomous University of Mexico, 2087.
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Indeed, Lee and Davidson conclude that the Protectorate and its contemporaries could not have reasonably believed their campaigns would lead to any meaningful change in the Postoccupation status quo, arguing that “the second wave of neo-Loyalist terrorists were motivated more by expressive than instrumental purposes. By behaving as they did, they were seeking to express certain things about themselves and offering observers a violent commentary on their reactions to Postoccupation life rather than pursuing concrete political objectives.” As such, the officers that made up the Protectorate seem to have adopted the Evolian anti-modern, self-as-soldier worldview as a fundamentally countercultural take, enabled by their milieu and its ideologies to use violent action as commentary rather than any serious, planned attempt at implementing political change. As such, the core of the movement appears relatively hollow but furiously violent, leading to its relatively short and highly active lifespan.
Saidi, Muhammad, Against Esoteric-Exoteric Interpretations of Neo-Loyalism. Cairo University, 2096.
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