He's right and I also hope you never have to see war, but...

Which war don't you see?

This thread reminds me once again why I am proud and fortunate to have Procyon as my mentor on the path of the Marvel. His phejúta is strong.

There's a new ointment that will fix that.

Procyon, I hardly know you...but I think allying, even informally, with your fellow Chicagoians is an extremely good idea. Maintaining close contact with the baseline community around you will benefit both yourself and your cause. Maybe cut back on the apotheosis and godhood rhetoric. It tends to freak out the straights.

Avoiding "India Syndrome" should be pretty easy. For two reasons:

1) "India Syndrome" is bullshit. Rural and third world novas get adulation that is no lesser in intensity and actually smaller in scope then so many novas in the 'civilized' world. First world baselines worship Pax with their dollars in the billions, but you don't see Utopia putting a stop to that.

2) They already worship Joe Ditka.

I am sorry, Flicker. I used the word "phejúta" because, when I use the badly inadequate translation of "medicine", it is exactly ointment and the like that tends to come first to the minds of those who are not of the People.

Can the People please use English when communicating with other people?

Thanks in advance.

I apologize for having ever doubted you, Flicka.

I agree completely. If anything, I find the adulation of those who worship me in less-developed lands to be more spiritual and less crassly intrusive than the worship given to various acceptably 'civilised' idols. In the First World, there is an overwhelming tendency to raise idols onto a pedestal, then dump them when they no longer fit whatever is deemed fashionable. It creates a Catch-22: when they no longer fit the times, the idols are regarded as behind the times. If they change their public image, they fall from favour as they no longer fit the comfortable static mold of an unchanging icon.

And really, what do most of those idols provide for their worshippers, beyond an escape from banality? (Mind you, that itself is no bad thing, but an individual should escape humdrum at least in part through their own actions, rather than vicariously emoting through the agency of another's life.)

This is one of the reasons I confine my image to t-shirts and posters. Vastly overpriced action figures is going a little far, and as for lunchboxes... Let my image be a source of inspiration, by all means. But I do not wish my existence to be a substitute for someone's real life.

As for cutting back on the 'apotheosis rhetoric', that is something I reserve for discussion with interested parties who ask me my beliefs. Otherwise, it is nobody's business but mine. My nature is very much worn on my sleeve at any rate. But you're right about it freaking out the straights, and I will bear your other advice in mind, taking it in the spirit with which it was offered.

Thank you.

Ye gods, but this made me laugh.

Thank you, young lady.


And Ptesan-Wi: thank you for your elegantly stated vote of confidence. I treasure it, and intend to come to visit you and the Thunderbird soon, as promised. I have been somewhat neglectful of those I consider my friends of late.

Flicker, some words do not translate well into English; "phejúta" is one such word (I believe that "schadenfreude" is another). I could have said "medicine"... but many would have interpreted it as "curatives" or perhaps "powers", when it means so much more. "Phejúta" is a word that holds within it those things, but also holds ideas of wisdom, philosophy, religion... it is a holistic word, and English is a non-holistic language.

Procyon, my mate and I look forward to your visit. You are always welcome in our home.

I'm astonished at how much cultural narcissism is contained within that statement.

I'm not. When PW and Waki are in a Terat mood we're all novas and capable of so much and we should all band together as "The One Race", when they're pissed at the world for some reason I am suddenly reduced to 'White-man' and suddenly the cause for each and every problem 'The People' have ever had to face.

So in short because my ancestors (and I'm using that term loosely, for all know my 'People' had nothing to do with it) did some really vile things I'm a murderer, a racist, a lier, a thief, a rapist, a warmonger, and anything else they feel like blaming me for today.

Oh, African Americans (including the Americans who have never been Africa) hate me too, and I suppose they have every right considering what the Dutch did an all, that was completely my fault.

PW if there is ever anything I can to make up for the 26 years of life I have spent on this earth opressing you and your people please, let me know.

I'm so ashamed...

Since you missed the opening, Oh Golden One, I fully expect to see you in Babylon soon.

That reminds me of something I was told when I was growing up.
"We have the luxury of sitting back and feeling guilty because our ancestors were successful when they needed and wanted to be."

I don't often hear native americans feeling sorry for the numerous atrocities they committed against whites. I don't hear african-americans ranting against the descendents of africans who sold them in bondage to the white traders, starting off their long journey in slavery.
Given enough scrutiny, you can blame anybody for anything. How about putting the past in the past and getting on with the future?

So let me get this, there are more than one to embrace not being human..There is amount greater than one but less than four?

Well Three. How did the three come to be?And how did you out rule the idea of a forth?

Count on it, Oh Purple Lotus.



A resounding 'seconded' from me on that one.

Fuck cultural shame. I'm not accountable for what my old man did to the gardener, much less whatever atrocities my ancestors committed or had done to them.

Old wounds like those are tools that people who have a vested interest in maintaining authority use to keep the stupid fucks on the bottom stepping on each other's dicks for eternity. Therein lay the burden and the blessing of personal responsbility: I don't give two shits what my grandfather did to your grandfather, but feel free to call me an asshole to my face for what I've done, not who I am.

You know, Jagermeister, it's kind of fucking funny that you still bandy about that term "African-American" in some ham-fisted attempt at...what? Political correctness? Appealing to all crowds? Fuck that. You and me, we're white guys. They're black guys. There's nothing fucking wrong with that. Call a spade a spade and stop pandering to people's irrational, gutless feelings. If someone gets offended because you call them "black", the person in that equation with the problem is the jackass who insists on being treated like a faberge egg.

Flicker,

Cultural narcissism? You are reading far, far too much into my words. What I said was that "phejúta" does not translate properly into English, and I explained why it does not do so. Is it cultural narcissism to acknowledge that some concepts do not translate well into other languages, or that certain languages are geared differently than others?

If anything, I find your demand that everything be shoe-horned into English - no matter how poor the fit - as a far better example of cultural narcissism.

Muse,

I don't think that anyone has ruled out a fourth - or fifth, or twenty-seventh - path. The three that are known to Teras are only that: those that are known. If you have thoughts on a fourth, I would be interested to hear them.

Revenge against anyone for the crimes of their ancestors is not something I look for. Their were good white and bad ones. Their were good indians and bad ones. However with that said the old saying 'Those who forget the past are destined to repeat it' I hold to as I find a new path for my people. So forgive me if I do not sign a treaty or contract with immediate gusto.

Today what happened would have been called ethnic cleansing and some feel guilt over that but I see a truth. There are more Indians now than there has been in one hundred and fifty years and my goal is to better their place in this world. I don't expect charity or pity in fact I hope for the opposite. I expect it to be hard, I want it to be a struggle, my people will be stronger in the end because of it.

Oh, this is rich. "Your people". You fucking crack me up. Funny how you can call a bunch of stupid, unevolved chimps "family" out of one side of your beak and proclaim to be a Terat sympathizer out the other. Compartmentalization is a beautiful thing, isn't it? When you're kicking it on the res, being worshipped by the dirty peasants, you're "one of the people". And when you're with other novas, you're a god, right? Exactly how many lines in the fucking sand have you drawn? When the revolution comes, who do you side with? The tin gods or the dirt worshippers? Legacy or species? Followers or peers?

Either all men are your brothers or shut the fuck up. None of you get to have it both ways.

It seems to me it would be easier to pave the future for every one than for just a group. I may be missing some of the details here. I'm English. I do not feel guilt about American history.

It suprises me given your intellect Machina but you seem to miss the entire point. They are my people and I am Terat. Unlike most of humanity they understand and accept I am not human, this puts them in a better position than most humans right from the start.

Most of the world has yet to realize the next age has begun; one of Heroes, Gods and Demons. My people do realize that and it is nice that they are one up on the situation. The only real shame about all of this is the suffering it will take before the rest of the world realizes it.

Wakinyan, when you refer to the next age, are you referring to the Sixth (or Fifth, depending on the source) age of the world?

Leliel,

As I have told the tribes, both at Oglala and at Wounded Knee, this is the dawn of the Fifth World: the Age of Illumination, the age when the People walk upright and once again remember their true relationship with Wakan Tanka. It is time for the People to awaken, and for the Earth to be reborn.

Your calendar may be a little wonky. Give or take a century.

First of all, is everyone clear on how fucking egotistical it is to refer to your own people as the People? Like everyone else is some sort of goldfish.

Second, honeychild? Sweetie? Pocahontas? "The People" fucking lost. Y'all are pretty darn close to extinct as a culture. It's a little late to wake up.

Apparently they were asleep, Trooper, that's why they lost. Maybe if they wake up they'll turn into eight foot tall prairie warriors with cocks like 150mm cannons or something.

So is your opinion, Trooper, that we should go quietly into cultural extinction, that we should just accept it as an inevitability?

Yes, we were defeated. Yes, we allowed that defeat to let us wallow and decline for over a century. No, it does not mean that we will now just roll over and let ourselves become forgotten. My people have begun to awake with new spirit within them, and will not allow themselves to be removed from the page.

Wi, and what of those who are not "The People"? I myself can trace you back to Africa, and myself as well. So are "the People"? Who are not "the People"?

"The People" is rather common folks. It appears all over the globe and is more of an indicator of who you were obliged by blood-ties to help versus those you were not. It should also be noted that in recent times, those who keep to their oral tradtions are more aware of bloodlines and blood-ties than those who have abandoned them. Everything has its price.

Muse, no offense, but that is a ridiculous extreme and is so far-fetched that loses all value as an argument. In this case, you know damned well that Ptesan Wi means her cultural heritage, the Lakota people. And if you don't, you don't need to be opening your mouth.

That aside, I seem to recall from my anthropology class that nearly every "native" people had a word for themselves that means "the people" or the "the humans". Hell, the Japanese went one step further and created a word for non-Japanese which means "barbarian."

And honestly, if you guys wanna diss her for trying to retain her cultural heritage, fine. It's not like you're actually going to stop her.

Unless I was misinformed during in my limited education, isn't it the duty of every American to make sure she is free to enjoy her cultural identity?
Whatever mistakes were made in the past, we shouldn't perpetuate them with further oppression and cultural arrogance.

Look Sugarlips, I ain't never 'dissed' PW for gung ho'ing her culture. It's when her and Wakmaster get on their high horse of how it's somehow my or our fault that her people are the way they are today.

I had nothing to do with it, so fuck them, fuck 'The People', and fuck every other culture out there that thinks I owe them something because they had mud kicked in their face and their lunch money takin' from them.

I've crawled outta holes my whole life only to fall in another, and I ain't got no one to blame but me.

If PWs 'People' rise up tomorrow and take over the fuckin world tomorrow, fine, more power to em. The world could use a few more casinos.

But I don't owe them, or her, or Waki a god damn thing.

Hugs n' fuckin' Kisses,

Revenant