Obviously if history has shown us anything, it's that there is never absolute job security for a Roman emperor. Assassination is always possible, to say nothing of fatal illnesses, accidents, etc. But was there still anyone left who had a real chance of openly challenging him and his legions, yet simply decided not to for whatever reason? For example would turning against his commander have been a realistic option for Mucianus?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Five_Emperors
Makes me wonders how much historical inspiration GRRM is using...
Horus Heresy 8: Malevolence -- At the Gates of Hell: the Battle of Signus artwork.
But how this story started? And there were questions in the sub like "Have Sanguinius ever talked with the Emperor?", and we already had a post about The IX Legion before Sanguinius -- they were the most macabre one of the Legions, the Eaters of the Dead.
>The history of the Blood Angels is the history of two very different Legions, one of red-fisted warlords, terrors and scourges feared by allies as well as foes, and the other golden-haloes heroes, icons for a new age and warrior-scholars.
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>The Child of the Desert
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>Few of the young Primarchs, spirited away from the Emperor's side by unknown means, found themselves in conditions that any might describe as fair, and yet among their number Sanguinius was particularly ill-favoured by fortune. He was to come to rest within the distant Baal system, once a thriving hub of Mankind's ancient empires that had since been reduced to a sea of rad-scorched ash and dust by its own folly during Old Night. On the second moon, where Sanguinius was cast adrift, there eked out a fragile remnant of Mankind, a number of warlike tribes that stalked the deserts surviving on the plunder of war and what little could be foraged from the wastes.
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>His earliest days were spent in the deep desert and of them little is known, for Sanguinius did not speak of them. Doubtless he faced hardships that would have felled men full grown, slew creatures that even the desert tribes avoided and survived where the rad-phage of Old Night would cook the flesh of mortals in minutes. It is not known how long his sojourn in the wastes lasted, but by the time he was discovered by one of the many tribes of Baal Secundus he was already a young boy, almost of age by the standards of the tribesmen, and he already bore the wings for which he was renowned. Whether these white wings were born of Baal's influence or the Emperor's design is a secret that only Him on Terra can reveal.
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>Sanguinius was quick to adapt to his new life, as were all his kind, his strength and resilience quickly earning him a place within the ranks of the tribe that had found him, known, as were all the tribes of Baal, as simp
"Back up. He thinks being turned into a llama is a bad thing? Look at him! I mean, the 'before' him. He's just a misproportioned ape! Who wants to look like a primate, they're ridiculous!"
"Well, obviously primates would find some other primates attractive, or else they don't make more primates. Besides, you're one to talk. I've seen the types you go after when you're really hitting the alfalfa stout hard on a night off. 'Ape' would be a serious step up."
"Yeah, yeah, screw you too, like your taste in females is any better than my taste in males. What was it we all told you about your last girlfriend? And did you listen?"
"Hey, I admitted I was wrong about her, that's in the pasโ"
"Yeah, you admitted it after you found out what she was really doing on those 'business trips.' Right from the beginning, dude, Iโ"
"Let's shut up about my exes for a second and focus on this find. I know they looked stupid, but we've learned a lot from the remains of the Ancient Apes. This could be a meaningful glimpse into our evolution, maybe confirm or dash a lot of theories about whether or not they interfered with it."
"Yeah, I don't think so. I mean, it's useful linguistically, we managed to salvage the audio track and that's huge, but the media itself isn't exactly a serious subject matter. We think."
"We think. Sure, that's scientific. Why don't you go ahead and put that into your report, then write a follow-up paper. It'll win all kinds of prizes. 'We think this rare ancient artifact of audiovisual media from a technologically advanced extinct species wasn't about anything serious so let's just not bother studying it."
"Fine. Be sarcastic. After you've watched it for yourself, though, I think you'll agree. We hand it over to the linguists and the anthropologists. Even if it were serious, it doesn't depict a period of high Ancient Ape technology. From some of the symbols used, we think it has a vague connection to some Ape culture that was basically extinct even in the time the media was created."
"You know that already? How? The same infallible intuition that told you it's 'not serious?' Or maybe you were chewing some Crazy Cud to blow off a little steam and got, like, such an amazing idea, dude."
"Tell you what. You stay off my personal habits, I'll stay off your exes. Not that I'd want to get on any of t
... keep reading on reddit โก
Why the amount the Hephthalites were demanding too high to be gotten from any other way? Did Kavadh I have a realistic chance of beating the Byzantines, when the Sassanian Empire had just gone through a succession crises? Couldn't he have targeted one of the weaker polities bordering the Sassanian Empire?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuande_Emperor
Even though he made peace around China, kept taxes low, and gave China time to recover from wars, it was not enough for his critics.
Critics who say his hobby of playing with crickets is some kind of fatal flow. (and they also said he enjoyed his harem too much).
Was that fair? No.
But that's what "critics" do with their freedom.
They don't do anything useful, other than to berate those who do things useful.
They compare productive people to saints, and say, "you are no saint".
then they compare Saints to Gods, and say, "you are no Gods".
Even Confucius is not spared from the critics today, who often say "Confucius was very wrong."
*
I pity the people today who listen to the academic critics. There are no role models, no good left to follow.
If Confucius was wrong, and good Emperors were just idle playboys, then who are we ordinary people to look up to?
Are we all to become like critics, taking honor in belittling good people?
*
And when all good people of character are berated into silence and inaction, there will be no one left for critics to insult, except the really bad people.
And let's just be honest about history: very few critics ever gone very long insulting tyrants, and very few tyrants are concerned about critics.
The Mongol Empire didn't fall apart due to critics.
