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Weekly roundup 1/18
🕑 Added 2026-01-18 17:37:43 +0000 UTCTangent Time
Thanks to everyone who commented on last week's poll! It can often be difficult to put into words some of the story concepts I'm thinking about, but you all had a lot of fantastic things to say, so thanks!
Today's tangent is brought to you by Tacitus, the ancient Roman historian. When I was reading his "Histories," one of the things that struck me was how he described some of the conspiracies. With the Roman Empire unstable, tons of people thought "hey, being emperor sounds pretty sweet. Why not me?" So a tactic he describes is that one of those aspiring emperors would get a core group of supporters, then, essentially, use information warfare. By declaring a general emperor in the middle of an army camp and making it seem like the guy already had widespread support (and quickly killing any opposition), a small group of tightly organized people could gain the tacit support of a bunch of unorganized soldiers, who were often paralyzed by their lack of information. If they acted against this new emperor and were as badly outnumbered as they feared, they'd be killed. So widespread "better to stay quiet and just go along with it," benefits the conspirators, who then solidify their power. It struck me as remarkably similar to certain historical CIA tactics in South America I'd read about in more recent history books where a coordinated media push among an organized group overwhelms and paralyzes much larger (but less organized) populations. That is to say, information warfare, but the 70 AD version. All that reading is what helped inspire the Palendurio Conspiracy in this series.
Going back to Tacitus, it's also very funny to be reading along, getting into the swing of things, wondering what happens next, and then the book just ends with "Aaaand the rest of this book has been lost to time. Sorry!"
Here's the chapters that got released this week:
Extra-Advanced Tier
Chapter 281
Chapter 282
Advanced Tier
Chapter 271
Chapter 272
Comments
Andreas Kristensen
Interesting tangent with great significance both historically and today
