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piratejournal2013-12-07 09:06 am
justicereigns) wrote in piratejournal2013-12-07 09:06 am
Entry tags:
[Voice]
All Shepherds, meet on deck for tea time and discussions.
Keimi check in as soon as you can.
And yes, we're getting low on coffee, and cigars. I'll survive, [No, he won't.] but I still refuse to switch to tea.
For all you pirates out there, what did you lot do before you came here? Occupations, careers, whatever. I need to know what freedom you're fighting for, let's just say.
Keimi check in as soon as you can.
And yes, we're getting low on coffee, and cigars. I'll survive, [No, he won't.] but I still refuse to switch to tea.
For all you pirates out there, what did you lot do before you came here? Occupations, careers, whatever. I need to know what freedom you're fighting for, let's just say.
no subject
Alchemy is a science that involves taking something and creating it into something else, at the very basic level. It can be raw material such as rock and turning it into a sculpture, or the metal molecules in the ground and fashioning it into a weapon, or you can use it to repair things that are broken, such as pieces of a shattered plate.
Primarily the military uses alchemy for weaponizing the alchemist, so to gain certification you must prove useful. Alchemists tend to be specialized so in the military there are a wide variety of talents, and all of them are given officer status, a research budget and a great deal of leeway when it comes to alchemic projects.
My own affinity was with metals, creating weapons, walls, that sort of thing with the materials found in the ground or walls...wherever. That in itself may not be that impressive, but I was twelve at the time of my certification and I took on a project that was of interest to the higher ups. I was searching for the Philosopher's Stone.
no subject
It sounds familiar to some of the things in my world. [UNFORTUNATELY.]
Should I ask about the Philosopher's Stone?
no subject
You can. It's a stone that's born from desperation, or so the legend goes. You have to be pretty desperate to want it, considering. As I found out the way you get it involves the sacrifice of human life. It wasn't a price I was willing to pay, but I learned a lot about it in the process. Things get really complicated beyond that.
no subject
How complicated?
no subject
About as complicated as you can expect when you fall backwards into a military conspiracy about four hundred years old.
The legend of the Stone says that four hundred years ago, a city who was working hard to attain it vanished in a single night. This is true, because what the one behind it did was have a transmutation circle built around the city and the stone was created by sacrificing the lives of the people there. All that remains of Xerxes are the few ruins left standing in the desert, and the very few descendants. I'm sure there are many more indirect descendants, but beyond that I can't be sure.
Not long after that our country, Amestris was founded.
no subject
And the circle and stone?
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Homunculus is the man who founded Amestris, and it began as a small country, quite far from Xerxes, but in the years to come it expanded its boarders until it became a formidable country in its own right.
As for Van Hohenheim, he went to Xing for awhile and taught alchemy there, and then traveled to Amestris. He was my father. I know, bits and pieces about it, I wasn't really listening because I don't care. If you ever meet my brother, he could tell you more about his life then I can.
no subject
And there's no way to return the lost lives either I take it?
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Had the bodies still been there, then there was a way to reverse it at the time it was done, and had Hohenheim known that then, he probably would have. He didn't know much then, and having the stone allowed him to live essentially an immortal life.
I did warn you, it got extremely complicated.
no subject
It might be complicated, but I wouldn't call it out of my understanding yet, either.
You mentioned the Father used it for further alchemy and like, can you elaborate on that? I assume he had had to cover up how Amestris came into being, and likely used its creation to further those goals?
no subject
Well aside from founding a country by essentially standing out on a piece of land and saying 'mine', it expanded from there. Not only did he use it for the creation and the subsequent wars that created Amestris, but he used the Philosopher's Stone under the very ground and he was blocking the full use of abilities by alchemists. Almost no one would have known that, but a man in Ishval figured out that the natural energy that alchemists use was being choked off from something.
Amestris has pretty much been at war, nearly constantly. Mostly because in expanding its boarders, it was annexing towns and areas where people lived but they didn't have a country. At least, in the East. In the North, West and South they were taking land from their neighbours. It's not even just civil war, of all things. We have no allies, or friendly neighbours at all. It wasn't a priority.
What he also did was create that alchemy circle to make the stone, under the entire country. Part of that requires blood to be spilled in certain places, which is where every single recent conflict has happened. The idea was to turn the fifty million people living in Amestris into the Stone. So the government was actively working against the people, under the surface.
Mind you the surface wasn't that much better. It's a country ruled by one man with an army. You can imagine the kind of treatment some of the people received.
no subject
And everyone just went along with it?