The closer I got to the tournament grounds, the more crowded the accommodations became. So, bumping into popinjays became unavoidable. If they failed to notice my approach, it was because they mistook me for a servant. Lugging around my own things like a common varlet was something I’d grown accustomed to, but made it harder to convince people that I actually was a knight. That was how the smooth-faced Valayan barged into my chest, and bounced off. An indignant rage burned across his boyish features as he tried to stare me down. I sniffed, unconsciously trying to clear my left nostril. My crooked nose meant it clogged on the regular. I got a noseful of floral scents. Definitely Valayan.
“Do you have any idea who you’ve just run into?” he huffed, his volkssprache marred by the lilting tones of his native lands.
“Nope,” I said. “Kindly stand aside. My armor’s heavy, and I’d like to put it down.” The bundle of plates in question was slung over my right shoulder, and I held it by a loop of leather straps in my fist. My regular possessions were in a bag dangling from my left hand by my side, but did not weigh nearly as much as a jousting harness. A snickering of laughter came from the group clustered about the fireplace to my left. I glanced in that direction and found a crowd cast in much the same mold as the man in front of me. All blond, baby-faced young men arrayed around a singular dark-haired figure who nonetheless shared the same physicality. All were built more towards grace and speed than raw power, though none looked to be weaklings. This laughter incensed the one before me even further.
“See here, you ogre-faced oaf, I will not be spoken to in such a manner. You need to learn how to act before your betters!”
“Better at what?” I asked. “If you’re trying to start a fight, I’d drop you without even having to clear my hands.” He blinked and took half a step back, realizing I wasn’t intimidated by his bluster. Sure, he almost certainly had a raft of titles back in Valay, but we were in the Volkmund, and I was a Free Imperial Knight. I might not have had any lands or much money, but my only overlord was the Emperor. I certainly wasn’t beneath some foreign nobleman who grovelled to a mere King.
“Using what?” he asked in a lighter tone and back in his native language, “Your stench?” He raised a perfumed handkerchief towards his face, but my forehead beat it there. My own face had been struck by more foreheads, fists, elbows, knees, shins, and feet than I could remember. I could take a headbutt from a man my size with little more than a flinch and a curse. He, however, had not been hardened up in such a manner, and crumpled like a dropped sack at my feet.
“I will not be insulted by a pompous ponce!” I belted out in my best imitation of Valayan.
The pack of blond men hopped to their feet and reached for their swords, only to be stalled by a raised hand from their dark-haired leader. The one I’d struck was now using his handkerchief to staunch the flow of blood from his nose. He scrambled to position himself within the protection of his peers. I met the leader’s gaze with my glower.
“You, brute,” he said, “Have struck Comte Antoine de Ganisan, and affronted my eyes and my ears with your face and your butchery of my native tongue.”
“And who, pray tell, are you?”
The question caught the man off-guard, as though he expected me to know without asking. It was Comte de Ganisan who answered.
“You have the honor of speaking to His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Claude of Valay.”
“The proper response to your insults is with steel,” Claude said, “Though it is beneath my dignity to get drawn into a brawl in a lodging house like some commoner.”
I held back my tongue before it spat another quip. Goading him about not having more royal lodgings would not be wise. If his lackeys used their swords, well, there were at least seven of them, and fencing wasn’t my forte.
“From your disposition, I’d say you’re here for the tournament.”
“No better reason to come to this corner of the Empire,” I said, “Besides, that is the only thing that would explain you being here.”
“Quite. We will settle these matters of honor on the lists, where none of us need get closer than lance-reach of you.”
I smirked. “Shame the melee fell out of favor at these tournaments. I could have used a prince’s ransom.”
“If you’re really interested in tradition, I understand that the custom used to be for the loser of a joust to forfeit their harness to the victor. Though I’m not sure I have any use for your bucket of plates, other than watching you grovel to get them back.”
“So, are those your terms?”
“Certainly,” Claude said, taking a sip from a goblet.
* * *
For a landless knight, there were not too many ways of making a living that were befitting the station. The tournament circuit was the most respectable. It was a pastime of princes and potentates, so naturally their prestige rubbed off on the proceedings. But most of the dueling events were beyond my skill to hope to take a prize. The kind of men who won swordsmanship events were wielding blades since they were mere babes. That was a fourteen year head start on me. That left me with the rings and the joust. The rings had a lot of competition, and the joust demanded a lot of kit. So I’d had to scrounge up the coin through bare-knuckle brawls in the ring and brazen bets on the card table. By some accounts, the former was beneath me, but without barding, armor, a horse, and plenty of spare lances, the lists were out of reach. The card table, however, was popular with plenty of people from all walks of life.
“Artur Elster!” Graf Ritterblume said in a joyous tone. I looked up.
“Evening, Lian,” I said. Julian Castor was one of those northern noblemen, overly tall and well-built. I was pretty sure he was only Graf Ritterblume by courtesy rather than holding the title himself. Like Claude’s companions, he was blond. Unlike them, he had rugged features and a square jaw, the kind of face I sometimes wished I had. Julian sat down at the unoccupied seat across from me.
“Doesn’t look like you’re winning,” he said, dropping a stack of coins in front of himself as a sign he wished to be dealt in.
“Not so far,” I said, glancing at the mournful dearth of riches arrayed before me.
“Sir Artur hasn’t been very ambitious in his bets either,” one of the men I’d been gambling with said.
“That’s not what I heard,” the other interjected. I wasn’t even sure of their names. I’d seen their faces at other events, and they were willing to play for stakes I could afford.
“Oh, really?” Julian asked. “Does this mean you really did have a run-in with Prince Claude of Valay?”
“Afraid so. And I nearly broke one of his decorative boys in the process.”
“They’re not so decorative,” the man to my left said.
We bought in to the game, and the cards were dealt. I kept my expression as impassive as I could, despite my sourness over the hand I held.
“The rumor that reached me was something about a challenge in the joust?” Julian said, his tone bearing the inflection of a question. “I thought you didn’t have the harness for that.”
“Just managed to put it all together for this tournament.”
The man to my left discarded a card and got a replacement.
“Artur,” Julian said, “Valayans honor chivalric traditions most highly. They are knights born and bred. You don’t stand a chance against them if this is your first time at the tilt.”
“Too late,” I said, turning in two cards. “Bet’s been made.” The clink of coins as I called the existing bet punctuated the statement.
“So I was wrong, you are reckless,” the man to my right said, betting without exchanging cards. “Shame this’ll be the only time I get to see you joust.” I sneered at him, acting as if dismissive of his assessment.
“Pride will bite you like that.” Julian folded without taking another card.
“Got any advice?” I asked.
“Find a way to back out of the bet.”
“Got any advice on how to knock that prince off his charger, I mean.”
“You don’t have to knock him off,” the man to my left said. “You just have to break all three of your lances against his shield and hope he doesn’t break all of his.”
“A prince of Valay is going to break all of his lances in a joust,” Julian said.
“A tie is as good as a win in terms of not losing your armor,” the man to my right said. He laid down his hand and I threw my cards to the table in disgust.
“Not your day, Artur,” the man to my left said.
* * *
There was nothing quite like the sound of a crowd. Each one was different, and you could tell what they were here for by the sound. This one was bigger than those I’d been in front of for petty bouts. The excitement that roiled off the stands was thrilling as we paraded before the spectators. A cool breeze waved the pennants behind the back benches. Lancers in brilliantly colored panoply played to the crowd or remained stoic as per their wont. I didn’t have the style for a smile to be taken as anything but a baring of teeth, so I stayed stoic. I would have ridden in with my helmet on had protocol permitted. I’d much rather their attention be on the twin magpies on my surcoat than on my features.
The lists were a grand rectangle of sandy soil with a shield-festooned rail running down the center. Stone terraces full of seating rose along all four sides, with the seats growing less posh as you climbed towards the top. The lowest seats were level with the men on horseback, so we could look them in the eyes. These also held the spectators of the highest rank and their retinues.
“Is that an ogre?” an over-curious boy in the front row asked. It was asked in such an innocent tone that I had to laugh.
“No, I am much too short to be an ogre,” I said.
Realizing that I had heard the question, the boy’s governess began sputtering out an apology. I waved it off and rode on, not wanting to break the flow of the procession. Since I still only counted among the knights, I was late in the precedence. Prince Claude was near the front, as befit his royal personage. At a glance, I would be hard pressed to tell there was any iron in his armor. It was edged in gold and the visible plates enameled in blue and green. I had no doubt that gilt and enamel was backed by the best steel his armorers could lay their hands on. His surcoat was a field of blue and green, edged in gold. Upon it was emblazoned a knight upon a rearing horse in gold. Unlike the other contestants of his age, who sought the adoring gazes of the eligible maidens in the audience, Claude was instead surveying the other riders. Sizing up the competition? Despite his boyish features, I knew he would be the more experienced jouster. Julian was right, Valay was cavalry county, and their culture steeped in the mystique of the Chevalier.
But before I had to worry about Prince Claude, I had Comte Antoine to deal with. Before that, the benediction and oath of sportsmanship. At least that was one thing I had no qualms about. I had sworn fair play before Azerion many times before, and readily did so again. The procession resumed, uncoiling the rows of horsemen to file out of the lists. Before it even came around to my turn to start moving, Claude arrived in one of the booths on the front row, seated amongst dignitaries and waiting for his turn to ride. Of course, he had squires and countless grooms to ensure his horse was ready. I had no such entourage, so I’d be in the stables, tending to my mare. Hell, he probably had more than one horse to choose from.
Once free from the attentions of the crowd, I busied myself making sure my horse was in good form. I was pleased to see she was nonplussed by the effect of the noise. Officiants kept those of us in the stable apprised of who was coming up, so we could be sure to have everything in order. I suppose I could have risked some time in the stands, as I knew Claude had opted to let his lackey ride against me first. It was only fair – I had struck Antoine. But I couldn’t remember how many contestants there were before the Comte in the order of precedence, which was what we were scheduling by. It still felt like both an instant and an eternity before the officiants announced that I would be riding next.
My helmet had a beak-like bevor that jutted forward of the sallet to deflect lance strikes away from the face. Unlike a battlefield bevor, it was fixed, to further strengthen it for the joust. Holes for air pierced it only on my right, so that only smooth steel faced my opponent. It had to be fitted precisely to the height of my eyes so that I could see, as the gap was as minimal as the armorers could get away with. It would be an impediment on a real battlefield, but a joust had only one axis of concern. Mounting, I took up my concave shield and first lance before coaxing my horse out of the stables. I found Antoine riding a lap of the lists, coaxing cheers from the audience. His surcoat was banded scarlet and gold, with black bears on each row. His steel was polished to a mirror shine, brilliant in the sunlight. Compared to the vibrant Valayan vestments, my black and white livery was dour and dreary.
I tightened my grip about my lance and let myself be led to the start by the rail. Facing down the line, I pinned my eye on the rows of bears on his shield. They were subtly offset, giving a natural aim point that was not best suited for a solid hit. I picked the snout of one of the beasts and pinned my eyes upon it. That was where I would land my lance.
With a sweep of a signal flag, we spurred our steeds into a gallop and the gap evaporated almost before I could get my lance down. I winced more from my lance tip not reaching its target and skittering off the edge of Antoine’s shield than from the impact of his strike. Charging through the spray of splinters from his lance, I bit back a curse. I was already one point behind. Easing to a stop at the end of the rail, I took up position on the other side facing the way I’d come. I watched and rankled as Antoine dropped what was left of his lance on the pile of broken weapons and accepted a replacement.
Aim for the snout of the bear. Faster on getting the tip in position. There was nothing but pride and standing in the tournament riding on this one. Get it right.
The signal flag fell again and we spurred to a gallop. My lance tip fell sharply and met Antoine’s shield. I saw it shatter, and then I was falling. Not backwards as I’d feared, but forward. I flew over my horse’s head and bounced off the rail, sprawling on my back in the sandy soil.
Blinking a few times at the fluffy clouds, I sat up. Turned about by my spill, I was facing where my horse’s forequarters had plowed into the earth. She was howling hideously, and I saw blood rapidly staining her caparison. Tearing my helmet off, I rushed over to check on her injuries. Despite the steel plates she wore, a wooden lance fragment had pierced her shoulder, and been driven in deeper when she’d tripped. My anger and frustration grew as I saw the colors of the paint – white and black. It was a piece of my own lance.
Hearing hooves on dirt, I looked up to where Antoine loomed over me.
I always enjoy some UCS fiction.
#MeToo. Definitely a fan.
I’m glad people are entertained. That is my main objective.
Interesting, I never knew anything about how jousts were conducted before.
The injured horse is a serious problem.
Especially when the rider only has the one. ?
Good stuff. Thanks UCS!
Thank you.
This is awesome, and I’m ready for more.
Thank you.
Part 2 (the conclusion) is next week, same time on thursday
Perfect lunchtime size. Thanks!
??
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I really enjoyed what I read. Work is challenging today, so I will finish tonight. Thank you for the story!
Hope work gets easier.
Good job USC, the dialog/cards scene is particularly well written,
Thank you.
Great addition to the site! Thanks UCS. Horses and sticks
As I was writing it, I noticed I was dangerously close to the “80s/90s Sports Movie” formula (Underdog gets into trouble with the rich kid team of favorites…). So I had to lean into pride and chivalry more.
Will there be a montage?
I’m not sure how I would do a montage in prose. I mean it’s music and abbreviated visuals, which doesn’t readily translate to text form.
Definitely…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF9qpQmCA0k
You are a gorram tease, UCS!
You stopped just when it was getting good (Its all good, but it was getting really good).
Now you are making me wait until next week?
Good stuff!
Just think, when next week rolls around, you get all new content!
Otherwise it’d be a rerun.
Thanks for posting this, UnCiv. I always enjoy your writing.
Thank you and you’re welcome.
great story
Better than a grate story?
/cheesy joke
Very good stuff. Great cliffhanger; I’m looking forward to the conclusion.
Thanks. I wrote the whole story straight though, and contemplated a single article. But I noticed that this spot made for an excellent break point.
I think .223 is the most common varlet round.
Since they are unarmored, it would work. I’d go with a heavier caliber for the nobility.
I though you wanted to trap them with snares for the pelt.
So, about abortion . . . .
j/k The research and thought you put into these really shows. And not just in that annoying way some writers have, of rattling on about irrelevant details. I like the way you work it in to the story. Its what I hope to do when I get loose of my full time job and try my hand at fiction. Well, a different kind of fiction that much of what I write for work, anyway.
I did a lot of reading up on tournaments related to another book. I then retained the knowledge, so I didn’t have to redo the research when I wrote this.
What’s in your walls?
I thought Artur’s laughter at the child’s… awkward question helped make him a particularly endearing hero. I rather hope those two can encounter one another again. ?
Haven’t written any more yet, just brainstorming. ?
One of the gents I fought with (back in my early days of steel fighting) was also a professional jouster; he got paid to joust in tourneys the world over. I bet he’d dig this (and have loads to say!)
Me? I was a melee guy for sure. Probably would have helped me to be on a horse, but I’m more… suited to the “up close and personal” style. “up close and personal”
Melee can get pretty wild.
Oh yeah it does. Biggest melee I’ve ever been in was ~30 v. 30 in Spain.
Ho-Lee Shee-It! It is violence dialed up to eleventy-nine.
Wisdom from the List: Two-handed weapons can really leave a mark. OTOH, having a 2H weapon means no shield – and if you get tied up or pinned against the rail, all those dudes you’ve been whacking with your halberd come calling.
Are we doing phrasing 😀
Great read, UCS.
Since I don’t read much fiction anymore, these small doses are perfect for me! And well done.
I am curious why he was pleased that his horse was nonplussed by the crowd noise?
This is his first joust, so there hasn’t been much time to acclimate the horse to that type of noise at that scale. If the horse were rendered jittery or nervous, or just put off-kilter by the environment, it would hurt performance when the time came to ride at the opponant.
I see. It’s a literally-literally situation.
nonplussed is both bewildered and unphased.
English overloaded words are wierd.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=nonplussed
Before today I had only ever heard it in the Unphased form.
“Nonplussed” as in unfazed is a North American construction, which IMO might be a natural misunderstanding of “non” by Americans who don’t speak French, which is most of us. It’s a fairly new iteration, like “irregardless”, which is now in the dictionary.
According to Plisade’s link, the unphazed reading is a century old. “Recent” as far as languages go, but older than me.
Okay, let me be a little more forthright. There is absolutely no reason to use “nonplussed” as “unfazed” in jousting times because that is absolutely not what it meant then.
But he is writing in modern english, “translating” from that time and place.
It is common for a word to come to mean its opposite, like literally(2) meaning figuratively.
Fast is another example. IIRC, the original meaning was to be still.
The boat is tied fast to the dock. Why is it tied up? Because it would move swiftly otherwise. So it must be a fast boat.
I’m sorry, Mo, but I don’t accept that argument.
Setting aside the fact that this is in an ongoing fantasy world and not a historical piece, if we were sticking to the language in use at the time jousts were common in real life, we’d have to deal with Shakespearian English or earlier. And in English, nonplussed didn’t mean anything until the 18th century, which is when it joined the English lexicon.
English does the same with “good”, but allow me to present the entirely contextual usage of “good” in Japanese.
(At the cash register)
Cashier: “Would you like to have the chopsticks ?”
Student: “Ah, ii desu “(Oh, that’s fine!) (This student needed chopsticks.)
here are several meanings of “iidesu “(it’s good) in Japanese, including the meaning of refusal. If she wanted to receive chopsticks, what should she have said? In such a case, you can say, “Yes, please.”
・Would you like to use or get a point card?
→ iidesu (it’s okay). (I don’t need it. You don’t need to make it.)
・Would you like to have some milk?
→ iidesu (it’s okay). (No, I don’t need it. You don’t have to give me.)
・Do you need a receipt?
→ iidesu (it’s okay). (No, I don’t need it.)
https://www.japanlivingguide.net/living-in-japan/language/japanese-good-bad/
Yikes, that is confusing…
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/nonplussed
I have had to look that word up more than once, and within recent memory.
I’m never really sure what the hell it means.
Now I know why.
I’ve only heard “nonplus” used to mean “confuse”.
At least nobody’s using it to mean “subtract”.
I was nonplussed over the definition of “nonplussed”. Now that I’ve read its definition, I’m nonplussed about it.
Same here, well, this is the first time I looked it up lately, mostly because I was thinking of the other definition.
Discussions like this are normally so inflammable.
I guess I just read too much “old” stuff because I always thought it was to be so perplexed as to be unsure how to proceed.
So, the horse would be nonplussed either way 😛
I have never seen nonplussed used as an equivalent for unphased.
The next week should be very interesting in regards to the vaccines. Apparently the 80k of pages that dumped yesterday are full of nuggets like Pfizer stating:
“The effects of the COVID-19 vaccine on sperm, a pregnancy, a fetus, or a nursing child are not known”
And that statement was dated October 2021, after the CDC/FDA started pushing it for the just about anyone, including the pregnant.
The government, AD Council and BigParma ran ads stating otherwise. Maybe a copyright editor will get a slap on the wrist for it
Sounds like a job for the Disinformation Governance Board. Wonder which side they’ll take…
I’m getting non-stop propaganda about jabbing your kids. I wonder they’ve done any testing.
News is using “parents are anxiously awaiting the time they can get the vaccines for their youngest”
Yes. They were able to verify that the kids got an “antibody response”
That of course, says nothing about immunity to the disease and the trials weren’t anywhere long enough to establish safety, and they buried at least one case of paralysis, but they got an ANTIBODY RESPONSE.
Don’t you feel confident now?
Moderna not Pfizer, but this, from a vaccine shill:
So garbage level protection against a disease that doesn’t cause serious difficulties for children anyway, but a bunch of nasty side effects and unknowns.
And that’s relative risk reduction. The absolute risk reduction (from COVID itself) is two orders of magnitude lower.
When Moderna first applied to use the “vaccine” in teens, it was rejected due to the myocarditis it caused. Local TV ran a report saying the application was denied because of “a side effect you can get from getting the coronavirus”. Technically true, but deliberately misleading, since that’s not the natural way of reporting things.
I just saw a twitter image of some pieces and I’m torn because I need to file, but I would LOVE to include some of it.
Like the parts about “we have no idea what this will do to pregnant or breastfeeding women” while the military persecutes and throws out women who refused to take it.
The Boats is too goad for these fuckers – both the FDA and Pfizer… (but I repeat myself).
Fucking criminals – all of them.
Did I ready they based all this on like 44 mice trials?
Pretty sure I did.
The remarkable thing is that in spite of the hundreds of thousands of pages of data, there are a number of trials that were handwaved away.
For example:
A September 2020 “Confidential” appendix to the clinical trial studies
Why the hell is any part or analysis of a clinical trial allowed to be confidential once the drug is submitted for approval?
I believe that’s covered by Article F, Section Y, Subsection T, Clause W
Hey, there were
millions of livesbillions of dollars at stake!Meanwhile you can’t fart in California without a cancer study.
Honest question – how the hell do we make these fuckers pay? Not just the Pharma fucks but the rest of the public health mafia, too.
Only one way I can think of and I really don’t want it.
Same here. There is no chance whatsoever that our current system will mete out the deserved consequences.
I expect that if the public begins to truly accept that they and their loved ones were injured by the vaccines, there’s going to be some accountability and it won’t be all under color of law.
Hence why maintaining the media blackout is so incredibly important to them.
I’ve mentioned this several times but I was in the Pfizer Phase III study.
Not only were you not allowed to be a pregnant woman but you were not allowed to be a man trying to get his wife/girlfriend pregnant. Immediate disqualification from the study because they didn’t want to deal with that.
So you can imagine my anger when they told people that there were no known fertility or pregnancy issues. “Motherfuckers, you didn’t study that. We can’t possibly know”.
Isn’t that the norm for most medical trials? Try to use as homogeneous a population as possible (young, white, healthy males) to look for any adverse effects as well as the efficacy of the drug itself?
And nobody wants to get stuck with a thalidomide situation.
The norm appears to be using a population most likely to get you approved and ignore everyone else.
After reading some of Depps texts of the sexual nature towards Heard…thats all I can see when she speaks. I am a terrible human being.
I thinks it’s fairly obvious that the two terrible human beings here are Heard and Depp.
So, last thread RC Dean and last American hero said the French fought well in WW1 and 2.
‘They fought like demons in WWI.’
Eh, compared to who? Their traditional nemesis in the German states performed at a much higher level, mobilized more men and suffered many more fatalities. Yes, they eventually won, but only because they had Russia and England on their side. There no doubt they wouldn’t have said a chance against Germany alone.
As for WW2, the French fought worse than the Polish(who didn’t have the benefit of a single-front war, not any allies), who, as much as I love them, could not be accused of particular martial prowess.
I’m fact due to the idiotic urging of the British and french, the poles hadn’t even fully mobilized. If there was any martial spirit left in France, it certainly died by WW1, but I think it was fairly wounded by then during the Napoleonic era.
Caveat: I am far from an expert on either war.
When I say the French fought well in WWII, I was thinking more unit-level, fighting spirit. It might be more accurate to say they fought hard, but not smart. Their doctrine was outdated, and so they were outmaneuvered and they lost, but they fought. De Gaulle even developed reasonably effective countermeasures for the German blitzkrieg, but by then the war was lost (at least by the French). The stereotype that French troops surrender at the first opportunity is not based in reality. The French lost over 80,000 troops, and left the Luftwaffe so worn down (around a quarter of the Luftwaffe aircraft were lost) that England was able to withstand the air assault during the Battle of Britain.
They didn’t even wear fucking helmets at the start of WWI. Their whole war ethos was a generation or two behind. Without Britain (and plenty of boneheaded German decisions) the war would have been over quickly.
Brave, yes, but they were betrayed by their leadership.
That whole war was a goddamn fiasco.
Nobody wrote helmets at the start of WW1, IIRC, the French were the first in 1915.
Everyone had them in 1915.
… And the French were first.
They didn’t even wear fucking helmets
[insert macv sog photos here]
If there was any martial spirit left in France, it certainly died by WW1
I suggest you review the Battle of Verdun before leaping to that conclusion. The French stuck it out for months in a hellish meat grinder, complete with gas attacks by the Germans, and ultimately prevailed.
I think Tundra has it right – the French problem in both wars was leadership, not fighting spirit.
I’ve read that the French “aristocracy” and ruling elite were alarmed by the socialist, communist, and similar trends within France and were thus inclined to sign to an armistice with Germany. They preferred the Vichy government idea to what might happen to them if the French commies and socialists took over.
That’s part of why they fought the Americans and Brits so hard during operation Torch in Africa, to the total surprise of the US and UK.
The French resistance wasn’t just resisting Germany; they were resisting their own ruling elite.
So we just need to keep Corsicans out of the French brass. Got it.
I meant, died by the end of WW1, my mistake. I’m not talking about individuals or even groups here, but the nation as a whole.
As regards Verdun, it’s not my speciality, but beating an outnumbered opponent isn’t the pinnacle of martial prowess- I’m sure the Germans felt the war was hell too. I’ll admit that WW1 is at least debatable. I don’t think there is any debating WW2. They were weak and easily defeated.
Poor horse.
Great story as usual, UCS! I actually learned a few things, as well.
Thank you!
Choke on this apologia for the credentialed idiots.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/the-experts-had-a-rough-year-we-still-have-to-trust-them/618344/
At no point does Nichols acknowledge that some of the credentialed (and non-credentialed) got it right where the credentialed authorities got it wrong, and that we may be better served by having those who were right handle things and serve some accountability to the dipshits. The Cathedral must be maintained.
If Nichols drops dead from his fifth booster vaccination tomorrow, the world will be a better place.
And here I thought the “reality-based” people had no use for faith.
Serious adults look at results, and determine who they should pay attention to going forward based on that. You can generally fine “experts” on all sides of any serious issue; the question is, which ones do you rely on? What I suspect Nichols is doing is buying into the Narrative’s designation of experts, rather than acting like a serious adult and doing his own evaluation.
Those experts on the other side of the issue can’t be trusted, they don’t follow the narrative.
Just like climate change.
Also, note the stolen base – “expertise”. Is there such a thing? Certainly. But the way he uses the term conflates expertise and experts. And not just experts, but some experts, on one side of an issue. I, for one, have no “faith” in experts who were provably, enormously wrong and caused immense damage.
Doing your own research is stupid, and anti science.
This is completely disingenuous.
There were “experts” whose opinions and recommendations didn’t agree with one another, but open discussion was not encouraged in the least.
Fauci and his ilk (including the loathsome Dr Birx) wanted to shut down the Great Barrington doctors and experts so that there was only one story the public would here.
Pretending to trust the experts when there’s no objective way to tell who’s an expert is just plain silly.
The Medieval Catholic Church was more enlightened.
“in every crisis”
Begs the question. Premise rejected.
Thanks, UCS. Late to the party, just got a break from work. Artur has some problems, how does he survive? Tune in next week…
Good one UCS.
I need to finish up final touches on my next episode and get it submitted.
Really good read UCS. Very immersive and enjoyable, easy (in a good way) reading.
Missing this: ***
Did mess me up, but that is an error on behalf of the reader …
Are you saying I forgot to include a scene break. or that you overlooked the scene breaks?