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Posted on February 1, 2026 by Alvin Plummer

Remember when insane robots destroyed the already-devastated Third Imperium?

Yeah…

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Legend of the Galactic Heroes

Posted on January 31, 2026 by Alvin Plummer

@ZDson3112
Most modern sci-fi and anime doesn’t come close to the scale of advanced future civilizations that older films and anime were trying to explore, and it’s lesser for it.

With the vast sizes of the fleets shown in this video, you’d think that the Legend of Galactic Heroes had multiple quadrillions of population.

Unfortunately, the actual populations of the opposing nations of LoGH are vastly smaller than that of the Third Imperium. Once again, the writers fail to grasp the scale of space.

Galactic Empire: The Galactic Empire is estimated to encompass nearly 70 million inhabited star systems capable of representation within its government, according to lore sources.  This figure reflects the vast scale of the Empire’s territory, which includes numerous colonies, protectorates, and governorships across the galaxy. Some sources suggest the Empire controlled over 200 inhabited systems during the Free Planets Alliance’s invasion, but this represents only a fraction of its total domain. 

Free Planets Alliance (FPA): The FPA is significantly smaller in size and population compared to the Empire. While exact numbers are not specified, it is stated that the FPA occupied over 200 star systems during its invasion of Imperial space.  These systems are sparsely populated, with habitable planets being rare and often hosting only a few million people each. The FPA’s total population is estimated to be around 12–13 billion, compared to the Empire’s 40 billion. 

Note: The numbers vary across sources, and the author, Yoshiki Tanaka, has been noted for inconsistent or unreliable figures. The estimates above are derived from community analysis and official lore, including the Legend of the Galactic Heroes Roleplaying Game and fan discussions. 

Forty billion no doubt sounds like a lot to the Japanese of 1988 – “ten times the population of the world!”

Sixteen trillion (or is it ten trillion?) – the population of the Third Imperium – is a good deal larger. Taking the numbers of MegaTraveller: Rebelion page 27 as my base, the foundation of Imperial Navy strength is the numbered subsector fleet.

Numbered Fleets: The Imperium has about 320 numbered fleets (approximately one for each subsector within the empire). A numbered fleet, depending on its mission, may have between two and 10 squadrons amounting to between 50 and 200 ships. Numbered fleets are commanded by fleet admirals. A numbered fleet may have a descriptor (which does not count as a name) in its designation: for example, the 19th Battle Fleet, the 1st Provisional Fleet, and the 99th Penetration Fleet.

So, picking 100 ships as the average, multiplying that by 320, and we get 32,000 warships total.

Not bad, not bad. At least able to fill up some of those huge fleets displayed in the LoGH anime!

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Year 2100 Futuristic City Ambience

Posted on January 26, 2026 by Alvin Plummer

Well, it’s one luxurious vision of the year 2100.

Useful for Traveller roleplaying inspiration.

In the real world?

Not even the American will be living like this in 2100. I don’t even think Singapore or the UAE will have this kind of wealth.

Maybe certain cities in India, with caste and city border controls.
(Certainly not China or Europe.)

But in any case, I wouldn’t worry about living an opulent future.

A populated future, with lots of children and young adults, would make for a much better form of prosperity for American than lots of gold highlights, green screens, smooth curved lines, and robots.

(Keep the plants, though. They are going to come in handy.)

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Operation Poker Night

Posted on January 23, 2026 by Alvin Plummer

@ARandomTroll
A sci-fi setting that actually respects the world-ending amounts of energy involved with this sort of propulsion?
Angelic glowing spaceship radiators?
Amazing tactical space battles?
Paperclip maximizer hunt?
We will watch your career with great interest.

Perhaps someone, someday, will actually let the implications of everyday cheap FTL drives — and the world-ending levels of energy they imply — actually work themselves out.

If humaniti isn’t nearly sinless and amazingly morally upright by that time, it’s going to get ugly.

(Yeah, that’s the ghost of the Third Imperium, tapping on your shoulder.)

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The 24 Types of Authoritarians

Posted on January 23, 2026 by Alvin Plummer

A useful guide in setting up all sorts of authoritarian leaders: family, aristocratic, ideological, religious…

Image
From Joey DeVilla’s Blog
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Jupiter Replaces Mars

Posted on January 22, 2026 by Alvin Plummer

First Question

So I asked ChatGPT:

If Jupiter replaced Mars, what would the night sky look like at periapsis vis-a-vis earth?

Periapsis = closest point of orbit.

And ChatGPT replied:

Short version: it’d be spectacular but still not “second Moon” level.

Let’s unpack it.

1. Geometry: how close are we talking?

Assume:

  • Jupiter is magically swapped into Mars’s orbit (same path as Mars, just bigger/more massive).
  • We look from Earth at the moment of closest approach, when:
    • “Mars-Jupiter” is at its perihelion (~1.38 AU from the Sun),
    • Earth is at its aphelion (~1.02 AU),
    • and they line up on the same side of the Sun.

That gives a closest Earth–Jupiter distance of roughly:

d ≈ 0.37 AU ≈ 55 million km

(Current real Jupiter at closest is about 4.2 AU away.)

2. How big would it look?

Using Jupiter’s radius (R_J ≈ 69{,}900) km and (d ≈ 0.37) AU:

  • Angular diameter (θ ≈ 0.145°)
  • That’s about 8.7 arcminutes, or ~520 arcseconds

Compare:

  • Moon: ~0.5° ≈ 30 arcminutes
  • Real Jupiter now at best: ~50 arcseconds

So at “Mars’s” periapsis:

  • Jupiter would look about 10–11 times larger in diameter than it ever does now.
  • But still only about one-third the size of the full Moon.

So in the sky you’d see a big cream-striped ball, clearly disc-shaped to the naked eye, but not dominating the sky like the Moon does.

3. How bright would it be?

Brightness scales roughly as 1 / distance².

  • Real closest-approach distance: ~4.2 AU
  • Hypothetical distance: ~0.37 AU
  • Distance ratio: 4.2 / 0.37 ≈ 11.4
  • Brightness factor: (11.4² ≈ 130)

So this “Mars-orbit Jupiter” would be about 130 times brighter than Jupiter at its best today.

Magnitude change:

  • Change in magnitude: (\Delta m = -2.5 \log_{10}(130) ≈ -5.3)
  • Real Jupiter’s brightest: around −2.9 mag
  • Hypothetical: −2.9 − 5.3 ≈ −8.2 mag

Compare:

  • Full Moon: about −12.7 mag
  • Venus at best: about −4.7 mag

So:

  • This Jupiter would be ~3.5 magnitudes brighter than Venus
  • But still ~4.5 magnitudes fainter than the full Moon
  • In brightness terms, that’s ~60× dimmer than the full Moon, but still bright enough to:
    • Cast faint shadows on dark nights
    • Completely outshine any star and the current Venus

4. What would the night sky look like?

At its closest “periapsis vs Earth” moment:

  • You’d see a large, clearly banded planet:
    • About ⅓ the Moon’s apparent diameter
    • Distinct equatorial belts and polar regions visible to the naked eye under good conditions
    • With binoculars, the Great Red Spot would be an obvious oval feature when it’s on the visible side.
  • Galilean moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto):
    • Their distances from Jupiter would scale just like the planet’s apparent size, so they’d be ~11× farther apart on the sky than we see now.
    • They’d also be ~130× brighter than now, so instead of faint points in binoculars, several would be bright “stars” clustering right next to Jupiter, possibly visible to the naked eye as tiny points shifting night to night.
  • Constellations around Mars’s current position:
    • Whenever “Mars-Jupiter” is near opposition, it would be an insanely bright, yellow-white beacon in the same regions of sky where we’re used to seeing Mars wander (e.g., near the zodiac constellations).
    • It would wash out nearby stars and draw your eye the way the Moon does when it’s near a constellation, but less overpowering.
  • Shadows & sky glow:
    • On a moonless night with “Jupiter-at-Mars” high in the sky, it’d be bright enough to give a noticeable planetary twilight around it and weak, sharp shadows.
    • But the rest of the sky would still be much darker than on a full Moon night: the Milky Way would be partially visible away from the planet.

5. Caveats we’re ignoring

Just so we’re clear about the thought-experiment nature:

  • Putting Jupiter’s mass at Mars’s orbit would wreak havoc:
    • Strong perturbations to Earth’s orbit
    • Huge effects on the asteroid belt
    • Long-term instability of the inner solar system
  • The illumination of Jupiter also depends on its cloud properties and phase angle, which I simplified by assuming a “full” configuration (opposition).

But for “what would the night sky look like at closest approach, as seen from Earth?”:

You’d see a brilliant mini-Moon-sized Jupiter, about a third as big as the Moon, more than a hundred times brighter than the Jupiter we know, with its major moons plainly visible as moving points — a dominating, spectacular “super-planet” in the zodiac, but not a second Sun or Moon.

Second Question

How about at the midpoint? And at apoapsis? For these positions, you can simplify the details, and focus on the differences between our current night sky and the hypothetical one (if any). Keep the geometry details, though: they could be useful for a science fiction scenario in the Traveller RPG.

Apoapsis = farthest point of orbit.

And ChatGPT replied:

Nice Traveller premise 😄 Let’s lock in a clean, game-usable picture.

First, quick correction to my earlier answer:
I underestimated how much extra sunlight Jupiter would get in Mars’s orbit.
When you include both:

  • it being much closer to the Sun, and
  • much closer to Earth,

Jupiter-at-Mars can get within a factor of a few of the full Moon’s brightness at closest approach, not 60× dimmer. I’ll use the corrected numbers below.

Assumptions / Geometry

I’ll keep it consistent and simple:

  • Mars’s orbit:
    • Perihelion (q_M \approx 1.381,\text{AU})
    • Aphelion (Q_M \approx 1.666,\text{AU})
    • “Midpoint” radius (r_\text{mid} \approx (q_M + Q_M)/2 \approx 1.524,\text{AU})
  • Earth’s orbit ~1 AU, mildly eccentric:
    • Perihelion (q_E \approx 0.983,\text{AU})
    • Aphelion (Q_E \approx 1.017,\text{AU})

For each case I pick the closest possible Earth–Jupiter separation when they’re lined up on the same side of the Sun.

1. Periapsis recap (for context)

Configuration

  • Jupiter at Mars’s perihelion: (r_J = 1.381,\text{AU})
  • Earth at aphelion: (r_E = 1.017,\text{AU})
  • Same heliocentric longitude (same direction from the Sun)

Distance

[
d_\text{peri} \approx r_J – r_E \approx 1.381 – 1.017 \approx 0.364,\text{AU}
]

Appearance

  • Angular diameter ≈ 0.147° ≈ 8.8 arcminutes
    • Moon ≈ 30 arcmin → Jupiter ≈ 0.3× the Moon’s size
    • ~10× larger in diameter than Jupiter ever appears in our real sky.
  • Brightness
    • About 1900× brighter than Jupiter is now at its best.
    • Apparent magnitude ≈ −11.1 (full Moon ≈ −12.7)
    • That’s ≈ 23% of the full Moon’s brightness.

How this feels vs our real sky

  • On “Jupiter opposition nights,” the planet is:
    • A huge striped disc, a third Moon-size.
    • Bright enough to cast clear shadows and noticeably light up the landscape.
  • The Milky Way is washed out near Jupiter but still visible far from it, unlike a full Moon which whitens the whole sky.

This is your “max drama” case.

2. Midpoint in the orbit

Here I put Jupiter at Mars’s mean distance, and Earth at ~1 AU, lined up for minimum separation.

Configuration

  • Jupiter at (r_J \approx 1.524,\text{AU})
  • Earth at (r_E \approx 1.000,\text{AU}) (rough “average” distance)
  • Same heliocentric longitude.

Distance

[
d_\text{mid} \approx r_J – r_E \approx 1.524 – 1.000 \approx 0.524,\text{AU}
]

Appearance

  • Angular diameter
    • Scaling from peri: size ∝ 1/d
    • ( \theta_\text{mid} \approx \theta_\text{peri} \times \frac{d_\text{peri}}{d_\text{mid}} )
    • ( \theta_\text{mid} \approx 0.147^\circ \times \frac{0.364}{0.524} \approx 0.102^\circ )
    • ≈ 6.1 arcminutes
    • That’s ≈ 0.20× Moon’s size, about 1/5 of the Moon’s diameter.
  • Brightness
    • Compared to today’s Jupiter: ≈ 750× brighter.
    • Magnitude ≈ −10.1.
    • Compared to full Moon: ~9% of Moon’s brightness.

How the midpoint sky differs from ours

Think of it as “halfway between ‘full Moon-lite’ and ‘super Venus’”:

  • To a naked eye used to our solar system:
    • Jupiter becomes a large, unmistakable disc in the sky, not just a bright point.
    • Still visually smaller than the Moon, but much larger than anything else.
  • Light level:
    • On a dark, moonless night, midpoint-Jupiter would:
      • Easily cast faint shadows.
      • Provide enough light to walk around outside comfortably once your eyes adapt.
  • Galilean moons:
    • Still naked-eye visible as tiny moving points clustered around the planet.
    • Their spacing on the sky is ~7× what we see now; they’d be a noticeable little “mini-constellation” next to Jupiter.
  • Impact on constellations:
    • Whenever Jupiter is in a dark part of the zodiac, it will dominate that area the way the Moon can, but less overwhelming.
    • Deep-sky objects near its position (open clusters, faint nebulae) would be hard or impossible to see when it’s up.

For Traveller: “Mid-cycle Jupiter nights” are bright, but not full-Moon bright—great for low-tech night travel and outdoor scenes.

3. Apoapsis (Jupiter at Mars’s farthest point)

Now put Jupiter at Mars’s aphelion, Earth at perihelion, again lined up for minimum distance.

Configuration

  • Jupiter at (r_J = 1.666,\text{AU})
  • Earth at (r_E = 0.983,\text{AU})
  • Same longitude.

Distance

[
d_\text{apo} \approx r_J – r_E \approx 1.666 – 0.983 \approx 0.683,\text{AU}
]

Appearance

  • Angular diameter
    • Scaling again:
    • ( \theta_\text{apo} \approx 0.147^\circ \times \frac{0.364}{0.683} \approx 0.078^\circ )
    • ≈ 4.7 arcminutes
    • That’s ≈ 0.16× Moon’s size, so a bit over 1/6 the Moon’s diameter.
    • Still ~5–6× bigger than Jupiter appears in our real sky.
  • Brightness
    • ≈ 370× brighter than present-day Jupiter.
    • Magnitude ≈ −9.3.
    • ≈ 4–5% of the full Moon’s brightness.

How the apoapsis sky differs from ours

Even at its farthest:

  • To an observer used to our current sky:
    • Jupiter is still the second-brightest regular object (after the Moon), whenever it’s up.
    • Strong, intense “super-Venus” – but with a clearly resolved disc and visible belts to good eyes.
  • Light level:
    • The planet is bright enough that in a really dark location you’d get very faint shadows.
    • Outdoor scenes feel more like “permanent bright Venus light” than true darkness.
  • Galilean moons:
    • Still naked-eye for keen observers under dark skies.
    • Their changing positions would be obvious night-to-night for any semi-astronomer NPC.

In Traveller terms, “Jupiter at apoapsis” nights are visually dramatic but not transformative: the world still mostly feels like our own, just with an absurdly bright, obviously striped wandering planet.

4. Traveller-friendly summary table

For quick reference in your game:

Orbital pointEarth–Jupiter distanceApparent sizevs Moon sizeApprox. magvs Full Moon brightnessVibe vs our sky
Periapsis~0.36 AU8.8 arcmin~0.3×~−11.1~0.23×Huge striped disc, clear shadows, almost full-Moon-lite nights
Midpoint~0.52 AU6.1 arcmin~0.2×~−10.1~0.09×Bright disc, faint shadows, very bright “Jupiter nights”
Apoapsis~0.68 AU4.7 arcmin~0.16×~−9.3~0.04×Super-Venus: still dominates sky, just not night-killing

(Full Moon: ~30 arcmin, ~−12.7 mag, brightness “1.0”.)

If you’d like, next step we can:

Or sketch some religious / cultural impacts for Traveller worlds where a striped almost-Moon regularly roams the zodiac.

Work out how often “Jupiter opposition” happens in this configuration,

Third Question

At periapsis, how would the Galilean moons appear? Would their movement be discernable in a single night? I guess that not all of the moons could be seen at all times.

And ChatGPT replied:

Short answer: at periapsis you’d get a bright bar of “mini-Venuses” strung out around Jupiter, and yes, you’d be able to see them move over the course of one night—especially Io and Europa. And you’re right: you’d never see all four all the time.

I’ll keep it focused on periapsis and Traveller-usable geometry.

Setup reminder

We’re using your earlier scenario:

  • Jupiter sitting in Mars’s orbit, at perihelion
    ( r_J \approx 1.38 ,\text{AU} )
  • Earth at about aphelion
    ( r_E \approx 1.02 ,\text{AU} )
  • Both lined up on the same side of the Sun → closest approach:

[
d_{\text{E–J}} \approx 0.364 ,\text{AU} \approx 5.45 \times 10^7 ,\text{km}
]

At that distance:

  • Jupiter’s angular radius ≈ 4.4 arcmin
  • Jupiter’s angular diameter ≈ 8.8 arcmin (~0.3× the Moon’s diameter)

1. How far from Jupiter would the moons appear?

Using their real orbital radii around Jupiter and that Earth–Jupiter distance, their maximum angular separations from Jupiter’s center come out to:

MoonOrbital radius (km)Max angle from Jupiter’s centerFrom Jupiter’s limbIn Moon diameters*
Io~421,700~0.44° ≈ 26.6′~22′~0.7 Moon widths
Europa~671,100~0.71° ≈ 42.4′~38′~1.3 Moon widths
Ganymede~1,070,400~1.13° ≈ 67.6′~63′~2.1 Moon widths
Callisto~1,882,700~1.98° ≈ 118.9′~115′~4 Moon widths

*Moon apparent diameter ≈ 30′ (arcminutes).

So at max elongation:

  • Io hugs fairly close to Jupiter, less than a Moon’s width from the limb.
  • Callisto can be up to 4 Moon diameters away from Jupiter in the sky – it’s not “right on top of it” anymore, it’s a bright star hanging nearby.

Visually: a short, bright line of points along Jupiter’s equatorial plane, sometimes tightly clustered, sometimes stretched out several degrees.

2. How bright are they?

Scale their brightness from reality:

  • Today, each Galilean moon is roughly mag +4.6 to +5.6 (if you could see it without Jupiter’s glare).
  • In the Mars-orbit periapsis scenario, they get:
    • Much more sunlight (Sun–Jupiter distance from ~5.2 AU → ~1.38 AU)
    • Much closer to Earth (Earth–Jupiter from ~4.2 AU → ~0.36 AU)

Combined, that makes them about 1,900× brighter than now → about 8 magnitudes brighter.

Approximate apparent magnitudes at periapsis:

MoonTypical current magHypothetical mag at periapsis
Io~+5.0~−3.2
Europa~+5.3~−2.9
Ganymede~+4.6~−3.6
Callisto~+5.6~−2.6

So each moon is:

  • Venus-bright or brighter (Venus tops out around −4.7).
  • But Jupiter itself is ~−11.1 in this scenario, almost Moon-bright, so:
    • The moons nearest the planet (Io, Europa) will often be somewhat drowned in Jupiter’s glare when they’re close to the limb.
    • Ganymede and especially Callisto, at 1–2° away, will stand out as brilliant “stars” nearby, trivially naked-eye.

3. Do they move perceptibly in a night?

Yes. And that’s one of the coolest differences from our real sky.

Their real orbital periods:

  • Io: 1.77 days
  • Europa: 3.55 days
  • Ganymede: 7.15 days
  • Callisto: 16.69 days

From our distance at periapsis, their maximum angular speeds across the sky (relative to Jupiter) are about:

MoonMax speed (arcmin per hour)Motion per 6 hoursMotion per 12 hours
Io~4′/h~24′ (~0.8 Moon diam)~48′ (~1.6 Moon diam)
Europa~3′/h~18′ (~0.6 Moon diam)~36′ (~1.2 Moon diam)
Ganymede~2.5′/h~15′ (~0.5 Moon diam)~30′ (~1 Moon diam)
Callisto~1.9′/h~11′ (~0.4 Moon diam)~22′ (~0.7 Moon diam)

(These are near the maximum; the apparent speed varies over the orbit, but this gives the right order of magnitude.)

So for an observer:

  • Over a few hours, you’d clearly see Io and Europa shift position relative to Jupiter and to each other.
  • Over a single long night, Io can go from clearly on one side of Jupiter, through conjunction, to noticeably on the other side.
  • Ganymede and Callisto move more slowly, but if you check at, say, dusk, midnight, and dawn, you’d see them significantly displaced.

For a Traveller game, you can absolutely describe:

“By the time the watch changes, Io has moved from above the planet’s limb to far below it. The crew bet on where it will be by dawn.”

4. Why you can’t see all four all the time

Your guess is spot on. Even in this scenario:

  • The moons’ orbital plane would still be seen almost edge-on from Earth (like now), so you get:
    • Transits: moons crossing in front of Jupiter’s disc.
    • Occultations: moons passing behind the planet.
    • Eclipses: moons going into Jupiter’s shadow.
  • When a moon is:
    • In front of Jupiter: it might be lost against the bright disc (except maybe as a tiny dark dot if you have optics).
    • Behind Jupiter: it’s invisible.
    • In shadow: it disappears—or becomes dramatically fainter—until it emerges again.

Plus the glare factor:

  • Io and Europa are bright but very close to Jupiter geometrically. When they’re near the limb, the planet’s glare may wash them out for the naked eye.
  • Ganymede and Callisto, being farther away, are more reliably visible when they’re not behind or in shadow.

In practice, for your setting:

  • Sometimes you’ll see one or two ultra-bright moons.
  • Sometimes three or four in a line, very dramatic.
  • Sometimes none: all hidden behind, in transit, or simply below the horizon from your location.

Traveller-flavoured summary

On a world like Earth with Jupiter-at-Mars-periapsis:

  • Jupiter is a third-of-a-Moon-sized striped globe, nearly Moon-bright.
  • Around it, up to four Venus-bright “stars” dance in a straight line, spread over as much as 4° of sky.
  • Over the course of a watch (4–6 hours), their positions visibly shift:
    • Io and Europa noticeably slide along the line.
    • Ganymede and Callisto drift more slowly but still perceptibly over a night.
  • On some nights, only one or two are visible; sometimes none; sometimes all four blaze in procession.

Perfect for:

Navigators timing their jumps by “the marching moons”.
Superstitions built around which moon is visible where when Jupiter rises.

Fourth Question

This was my initial question to ChatGPT:

OK, let’s focus on just tone photorealistic image, set in landscape. It should be a nighttime scene, with the moon in the sky as usual. There should be another disk, about one-third of the size of the moon, but with similar brightness. That would be Jupiter. We should be able to see the striped clouds on Jupiter. There should be three bright stars near Jupiter: the Galilean moons.

I had to drop the moons, and I had to fight the AI to get Jupiter smaller than the moon, but the AI image below should be OK as an initial approximation.

Image

That Jupiter is still about 50% of the size of our moon, not 33% as it should be.

And no Galilean moons.

Get a real space/astronomical artist if you really want to see what it looks like!

Posted in Art, Jumpspace Transmission | Leave a comment

Sulla, the End of the Republic, and the End of “Both Sides”

Posted on January 21, 2026 by Alvin Plummer

Brave AI summary:

Here are the key points from the video:

• Sulla’s dictatorship (82 BC) marked a turning point in Roman history when he became the first dictator in over a century with no end date, betraying the Republic’s tradition of temporary emergency powers

• The proscriptions were systematic purges where Sulla’s death squads executed thousands of political opponents without trial, displaying their severed heads in the Forum and confiscating their property

• Sulla’s “reforms” systematically dismantled popular power by stripping tribunes of their legislative and veto powers, eliminating the grain dole, and making the tribunate a political dead-end while expanding Senate authority

• His constitution was deeply unpopular and quickly dismantled – the grain dole was restored in 78 BC, tribunician powers in 75-70 BC, demonstrating the reforms’ lack of legitimacy

• Sulla’s legacy was setting a precedent for military dictatorship rather than saving the Republic – he showed ambitious Romans like Julius Caesar that absolute power could be seized through force

• The video argues against “both sides” narratives, emphasizing that it was consistently popular reformers (the Gracchi, Saturninus) who were murdered by the oligarchy, not the reverse, making Sulla’s violence a reactionary response to social progress

Today, thanks to the Communists, bloodthirsty revolutionary slaughters are tied to the Left.

But it was not always so.

With the aristocratic Sulla, we get a bloodthirsty revolutionary butcher from the Right.

Done supposedly to save the Republic, but actually accelerating it’s destruction.

American Christians would be wise to keep a great distance from both forms of mass murderers.

Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
-- First John 3:13-15, ESV

“You know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

Not if he’s shouting Conservative slogans,
not if he’s shouting Fascist slogans,
not if he’s shouting Communist slogans.

Not even if he’s shouting Christian slogans.

No murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

On Food

From 8:00

But perhaps the most egregious slap in the face  to the average Roman was the abolishing of the  subsidized grain dole that many poor plebeians  had depended on to stave off the threat of  starvation. The elite had always been opposed  to the grain dole because by allowing the roman  poor to achieve a tolerable standard of living,  it weakened their ability to bribe the masses with  their own personal food distribution programs. The  elite wanted Romans to depend on their private  charity instead of a state-backed program,  and thus to be beholden to their influence –  Sulla was happy to eliminate this popular and  successful program, instantly making the lives of  Rome’s poor much more precarious and increasing  the influence of Rome’s nobility.

Be careful about this: the one who feeds you is the one who owns you.

Like many moderns, the speaker prefers the State to own us, rather than individuals.

Not a good call. You can escape or avoid individual masters, but it’s far more difficult to escape or avoid the State.

Especially when it poses as your saviour, your healer, your source of food and shelter.

As well as the Source of the Law.

There are reasons why Christians are only to call Jesus Christ Lord and God, the Source of Our Law.

Why Jesus instructed those who follow him ask our Father in Heaven
– not the State or the Party or the Leader,
– for our daily bread.

Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread,
but he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty.
Proverbs 28:19, ESV
For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
Second Thessalonians 3:10-12, ESV
But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
First Timothy 5:8, ESV

Note that it is natural and right for families to feed and care for their owntheir members, and for charitable organizations to feed the poor.

But there are those who would much rather have the State as our Source of Food, in the Communist style.

The Communists feeds who they wish, and starve who they wish.

And in return, unlike with God or Family or charities, the hungry recipient has no need to say thank you.

“I am ENTITLED to this food!
(When it is available.)”

A great trade if you are a socialist.

Not if you are a Christian.

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Ephesians 4:28, ESV

It’s infinitely wiser for the poor with food to help the poor without food,
than for either to turn to the State or to the wealthy for their daily bread.

Christians are to help each other in their congregations. To bear each other’s burdens.

As compared to the pagan innovation of Roman mystery cults, with lots of mystical experiences and religious ceremonies with a magical priest in charge, commanding all…

… and no real community, no real love.

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1) Rebuilding Community 2) COVID-19, Cancer, and the Wrong Sort of Science

Posted on January 20, 2026 by Alvin Plummer

From the Brownstone Institute

—<Quote begins>—

Time to Rebuild Community

A few months back, Brownstone Institute opened its supper-club model to a wider geography. We had sensed the demand after so many events had sold all tickets. Sure enough, it has taken off. There are now a dozen in operation with more on the way. 

You should attend one. You will find friendship, collegiality, and intellectual stimulation. It’s all about the effort to rebuild community after so many institutions were brutally attacked in the Covid years. Have a look at the map and get your tickets.

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There was more drama last week concerning injury from Covid shots. A major peer-reviewed paper appeared in association with the Covid shot that millions were forced to accept with an increase in cancer. It’s been a taboo topic for years but this paper broke it. The journal was immediately hit with a DDOS attack that took down the site for longer than a week. Brownstone then hosted the paper, served 5,000-plus downloads, and we too were hit. 

This is where we are these days, fighting to air legitimate research in a time when industry has captured large swaths of government and academia. 

Brownstone Institute’s new weekly show has kicked off with major thinkers and doers behind the growing community of resistance. 

More on this appears in the pages of Brownstone Journal. Please see the links below.

Here’s a list of supper clubs coming up. Pick one and go! 

  • On Tuesday, January 20th, the Chicago Supper Club welcomes Jeanne Ives. Get tickets.
  • On Wednesday, January 21st, the West Hartford Supper Club welcomes Renaud Beauchard. Get tickets.
  • On Monday, January 26th, the inaugural Manhattan Supper Club welcomes Lucia Sinatra. Get tickets.
  • On Wednesday, January 28th, the Austin Supper Club welcomes Del Bigtree. Get tickets.
  • On Friday, January 30th, the inaugural Bandera, TX Supper Club features Mollie Engelhart. Get tickets.
  • On Tuesday, February 3rd, the Greater Boston Supper Club welcomes Jeffery Jaxen. Get tickets.
  • On Thursday, February 12th, the inaugural Utah Supper Club welcomes Dr. Kirk Moore. Get tickets.
  • On Wednesday, February 25th, the inaugural Pittsburgh Supper Club welcomes Fr. John Naugle. Get tickets.
  • On Saturday, February 28th, the inaugural St. Cloud, FL Supper Club welcomes Rob Younkins and Nicole C. Scott. Get tickets.
  • On Wednesday, March 18th, the inaugural Pittsboro, NC Supper Club welcomes Dr. Sheila Furey. Get tickets.
  • On Friday and Saturday, August 28th and 29th, Brownstone will host our annual Polyface Retreat at Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia. Save the dates.
  • On Friday and Saturday, November 6th and 7th, Brownstone will host our 6th Annual Conference and Gala. Save the dates.

If you have a speaker suggestion for any of our current or future supper club locations, please contact us at [email protected]. 

If you are interested in being a supper club host in your area, please visit our Supper Club information page here.

Here is some content since our last email.

What Autism Is Not By Sinead Murphy. Appreciation of structures and arrangements requires precisely the same baseline aptitude that is required by appreciation of thoughts and feelings – and it is this baseline aptitude that autistic people lack.

Scott Adams and Intellectual Courage By Jeffrey Tucker. Adams was an early dissident and among the most famous. He showed the way. To make sure that he is not an example for others, reliable ruling-class venues made sure to attempt to humiliate him in death.

Big Law Is Yet Another Problem By Brownstone Institute. There are myriad institutional problems in this country that trace to the manifestations of Leviathan in media, tech, pharma, and other industries among which is the legal profession. They have in common an intractable desire to preserve the administrative status quo.

CDC Quietly Rewrites Its Vaccine–Autism Guidance By Maryanne Demasi. The shift may prove to be one of the most consequential public health developments of the decade, and it suggests that something significant is moving behind the scenes in the federal agencies that once seemed immovable.

Germany’s Latest War on Freedom By James Bovard. There is no censorship here in Germany,” according to Steffen Meyer, a top spokesman for the German government. In reality, Germans have freedom of speech except for ideas that politicians and government contractors and nonprofit activists don’t like.

When Physicians Are Replaced with a Protocol By Joseph Varon. Artificial intelligence has not been licensed to practice medicine. But medicine is being quietly reengineered around systems that do not bear moral weight. We may one day discover that the physician has not been replaced by a machine, but by a protocol.

Trump’s Withdrawal from 66 Organizations By Roger Bate. A global climate, health, or development system that depends on the continuous escalation of crisis narratives is structurally incapable of declaring success. Trump’s decision confronts that reality directly. That, more than the budget line, is what has changed.

Five Years in the Defense of Freedom, Critical Thinking, and Human Dignity By Thomas Harrington. Brownstone is an organization dedicated to the unfiltered observation of the reality that surrounds us. We took note and learned a great deal, always keeping alive our faith in the essential value of freedom and human dignity.

The Week to Start the Revolution By Brownstone Institute. There we have it: three gigantic wins. We’ve learned over five years that the threats to our lives come from strange and often unexpected sources. They can only be defeated with expertise, integrity, and bold action. This is the model that works.

WHO’s New Pandemic Approach: Expediency over Evidence? By REPPARE. Pandemics will happen. The world will benefit from an international health organization that can help coordinate rational responses, whilst also assisting in managing other public health priorities. The WHO risks making the latter worse by abandoning a robust evidence-based approach.

Meritocracy vs. Credentialocracy By Steven Kritz. We need to decouple meritocracy from credentialocracy, and we must return to a state in which meritocracy can flourish. This will require unlearning the progressive garbage that’s replaced critical thinking, and an economic environment that fosters individual initiative.

How a Techno-Optimist Became a Grave Skeptic By Roger Bate. The central question in the AI debate is not just whether machines can be aligned with human values, but whether modern institutions can be trusted to manage uncertainty without amplifying it.

—<Quote ends>—

If you want the peer-reviewed paper on teh Wrong Sort of Science – Covid and Cancer links – go to Oncotarget.

The Daily Mail got some interesting comments and photos out during the outage.

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When the Empire Declines, the Little Client States Fall Fast

Posted on January 19, 2026 by Alvin Plummer

China and Russia

After discussing China’s financial problems, we turn to the less money-side, more gun-side issues with the Russian Empire.

From 8:59

Russia claimed to be the security provider for global authoritarian regimes, but that capacity is visibly declining sharply. This decline reached a critical threshold between 2024 and2025. and the fall of Syria’s Assad regime in December 2024 is the most direct evidence of Russia’s security vacuum. According to intelligence from Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Agency and the Britain intelligence, in the second half of 2024, as pressure increased on the Ukrainian battlefield, especially in Kursk and the Donbas directions, Russia was a force to carryout a major reorganization of their overseas military assets.

How did they reorganize?

First was the withdrawal of key assets. In December 2024, Russian forces started pulling out key ships from the Tartus naval base, including the Admiral Grigorovich, and transferred some air defense systems and combat aircraft from the Hama air base.

Second was the transfer of ground forces. And you could say this part directly led to the fall of the Assad regime because Russian special operations forces that once served as Assad’s imperial guards along with Wagner mercenaries were heavily drawn back home. This left the Syrian government forces without the key air support and the tactical command pillars when facing the lightning offensive from HTS and they collapsed quickly.

After Wagner’s leader Prigozhin was taken out by Putin, the whole Wagner group shrank dramatically. Although in parts of Africa like the Central African Republic, they still keep a small presence under the name Africa Corp. But in Syria or Latin America, their traditional global projection capability has been greatly weakened.

Not only that, the CSTO is starting to hollow out, which is another important sign of Russia’s military pivot declining. The CSTO or Collective Security Treaty Organization is a pact from after theSoviet collapse with seven member states, Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. In 2024, Armenia effectively froze its CSTTO membership, refused to join joint exercise and even refused to sign organizations budget documents, meaning they won’t give a dime.

Second, Tajikistan’s Russians military base is also hollowing out. The 201st military base stationed in Tajikistan is a key anchor for Central Asia security. And now parts of it troops and equipment have been pulled to Ukraine. Facing Russia’s retreat, this also marks the end of Russia’s absolute dominance in Central Asia.

Certainly, this scenario can be rewritten to fit a Traveller framework, with the Imperium or a lesser government/authority in the starring role, and the PCs either being the ones who have to work with a bad pro-Imperial hand, or a strengthening anti-Imperial position.

Vladimir Putin’s regime stability now rests on a single failing security contract in the North Caucasus. The Kremlin relies on Ramzan Kadyrov’s personal army to act as a Praetorian Guard against internal rebellion in Moscow rather than fighting on the front lines in Ukraine. That critical security guarantee is broken following reports that Adam Kadyrov was seriously injured in a car crash in Grozny on January 16, 2026, and flown to Moscow for emergency treatment.

This succession shock lands as separate intelligence indicates Ramzan Kadyrov is in critical condition, pushing the local warlord system from pageantry into panic. A power vacuum in Chechnya creates a binary trap for the Russian Federation. Moscow must either pull internal troops like Rosgvardiya from occupied Ukraine to contain a third Chechen war or risk losing control of its own capital to a security collapse.

Chechen forces working with Ukraine and experienced with Western tech and techniques could cause serious issues for Russia if they return home to fight. But as the video notes, that isn’t the worst of it:

From 1:33

Now for years many people mocked the Kadyrovites, the soldiers of Kadyrov as Tik Tok soldiers. The soldiers who make videos of so-called combat while they never actually show up to battle. But that missed the point. Vladimir Putin doesn’t keep the Chechnyan around so that they can fight inside of Ukraine. He has them there close to Moscow so that they can protect his regime. They are there to fight Russians. They are his practorian guard. Outsiders paid to protect the emperor within the city limits.

Russian conscripts might hesitate to fire on their own people, but Vladimir Putin, he bets that the Chechens will have no problems firing on Russians during an attempted coup. But if Grozny unites, those guards, they won’t stick around Moscow. They will snap back to the Caucuses to defend their own clans and their own territory. A guard that runs home leaves the emperor naked. And we are approaching a turning point that could very well shatter the Russian Federation. So understanding Chechnya is the key to understanding why a single car crash sends tremors through the Kremlin.

When an Empire declines, the little guys fall off fast.

The United States of America

Which isn’t what the Americans are doing.

They are actively pushing the major client states, the Europeans, away. Canada too.

(Not Israel. Not yet.)

I suspect that the Americans are simply taking what they can get — certainly Greenland, probably Canada in a decade or two — before Europe simply implodes and becomes worthless to anyone.

This circles back to the serious ongoing European (and, more drastically, Chinese) problems of a low birth rate, exploding budget issues, and a weak economy.

I suggest that the US is prepping to go it alone.

The Americans have their own serious financial problems: some form of Great Default is pretty much inevitable.

But, unlike Russia or China or various European nations — the UK, France, Germany — the US has a good shot of pushing through the coming hard times fairly intact, without a civil war.

The Americans would be wise to ignore Washington and focus on home: to pray and to work, to strengthen and secure their own communities, towns, families, local networks.

For Americans, the coming hard times cannot be avoided for long, but they can be beaten.

Not so for Russia, or China, or Europe.

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Powder Monkeys

Posted on January 19, 2026 by Alvin Plummer
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Powder monkeys were young boys, typically aged 12 to 14, who served vital roles on warships during the Age of Sail, including major conflicts like the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. Small and nimble, they dashed gunpowder cartridges from the ship’s below-waterline magazine — from r/Damnthatsinteresting

It’s a rough life.
A comment from the thread.

polnikes
Doesn’t look like mortality rates were tracked among young-age positions specifically, but mortality rates on ships at this time were generally quite high and varied significantly depending on the type of voyages. British warships lost, on average, about 1-6% of their crew per year depending on the type of voyages, with those nearer Europe being safer. However some voyages, like campaigns in the West Indies were around 50% from disease alone, or the slave trade which was around 21%.

Most online articles emphasize the danger during combat, but like most warfare at the time the real killer was sickness. Children generally died at higher rates than adults from illness at the time, and we can assume that trend stayed true on ships.

https://www.britishtars.com/2018/05/mortality.html?m=1 https://jmvh.org/article/georgian-naval-warfare-ships-and-medicine-1714-1815/ https://ruor.uottawa.ca/server/api/core/bitstreams/da13f17d-7cd6-4d76-822a-eb22fc92fb8d/content

Yep: until about World War II/Korean War era, disease was the real killer of soldiers and sailors.

Jade_Rewind
Some people ask how they got on board in the first place. The conditions on a warship were brutal and inhumane. But the navy gave them food, lodging and if they survive they became sailors. It’s not much but people starved to death, so it was considered a humane act to take some kids on board. Fucked up times.

Hard days.

MOST Imperial worlds aren’t so hard up. But there are enough worlds below TL 6 (nuclear power, 1950s tech) so powder monkey equivalents are out there, if you know where to look.

Powder monkeys won the Medal of Honour during the American Civil War.

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