#danegeld

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When Facebook came for your battery, feudal security failed

When George Hayward was working as a Facebook data-scientist, his bosses ordered him to run a “negative test,” updating Facebook Messenger to deliberately drain users’ batteries, in order to determine how power-hungry various parts of the apps were. Hayward refused, and Facebook fired him, and he sued:

https://nypost.com/2023/01/28/facebook-fires-worker-who-refused-to-do-negative-testing-awsuit/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

Hayward balked because he knew that among the 1.3 billion people who use Messenger, some would be placed in harm’s way if Facebook deliberately drained their batteries — physically stranded, unable to communicate with loved ones experiencing emergencies, or locked out of their identification, payment method, and all the other functions filled by mobile phones.

As Hayward told Kathianne Boniello at the New York Post, “Any data scientist worth his or her salt will know, ‘Don’t hurt people…’ I refused to do this test. It turns out if you tell your boss, ‘No, that’s illegal,’ it doesn’t go over very well.”

Negative testing is standard practice at Facebook, and Hayward was given a document called “How to run thoughtful negative tests” regarding which he said, “I have never seen a more horrible document in my career.”

We don’t know much else, because Hayward’s employment contract included a non-negotiable binding arbitration waiver, which means that he surrendered his right to seek legal redress from his former employer. Instead, his claim will be heard by an arbitrator — that is, a fake corporate judge who is paid by Facebook to decide if Facebook was wrong. Even if he finds in Hayward’s favor — something that arbitrators do far less frequently than real judges do — the judgment, and all the information that led up to it, will be confidential, meaning we won’t get to find out more:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/hot-coffee/#mcgeico

One significant element of this story is that the malicious code was inserted into Facebook’s app. Apps, we’re told, are more secure than real software. Under the “curated computing” model, you forfeit your right to decide what programs run on your devices, and the manufacturer keeps you safe. But in practice, apps are just software, only worse:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/23/peek-a-boo/#attack-helicopter-parenting

Apps are part what Bruce Schneier calls “feudal security.” In this model, we defend ourselves against the bandits who roam the internet by moving into a warlord’s fortress. So long as we do what the warlord tells us to do, his hired mercenaries will keep us safe from the bandits:

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

But in practice, the mercenaries aren’t all that good at their jobs. They let all kinds of badware into the fortress, like the “pig butchering” apps that snuck into the two major mobile app stores:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/pig-butchering-scam-apps-sneak-into-apples-app-store-and-google-play/

It’s not merely that the app stores’ masters make mistakes — it’s that when they screw up, we have no recourse. You can’t switch to an app store that pays closer attention, or that lets you install low-level software that monitors and overrides the apps you download.

Indeed, Apple’s Developer Agreement bans apps that violate other services’ terms of service, and they’ve blocked apps like OG App that block Facebook’s surveillance and other enshittification measures, siding with Facebook against Apple device owners who assert the right to control how they interact with the company:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

When a company insists that you must be rendered helpless as a condition of protecting you, it sets itself up for ghastly failures. Apple’s decision to prevent every one of its Chinese users from overriding its decisions led inevitably and foreseeably to the Chinese government ordering Apple to spy on those users:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/11/foreseeable-consequences/#airdropped

Apple isn’t shy about thwarting Facebook’s business plans, but Apple uses that power selectively — they blocked Facebook from spying on Iphone users (yay!) and Apple covertly spied on its customers in exactly the same way as Facebook, for exactly the same purpose, and lied about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The ultimately, irresolvable problem of Feudal Security is that the warlord’s mercenaries will protect you against anyone — except the warlord who pays them. When Apple or Google or Facebook decides to attack its users, the company’s security experts will bend their efforts to preventing those users from defending themselves, turning the fortress into a prison:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

Feudal security leaves us at the mercy of giant corporations — fallible and just as vulnerable to temptation as any of us. Both binding arbitration and feudal security assume that the benevolent dictator will always be benevolent, and never make a mistake. Time and again, these assumptions are proven to be nonsense.

Image: Anthony Quintano (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Zuckerberg_F8_2018_Keynote_%2841118890174%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A painting depicting the Roman sacking of Jerusalem. The Roman leader's head has been replaced with Mark Zuckerberg's head. The wall has Apple's 'Think Different' wordmark and an Ios 'low battery' icon.]

Next week (Feb 8-17), I'll be in Australia, touring my book *Chokepoint Capitalism* with my co-author, Rebecca Giblin. We'll be in Brisbane on Feb 8, and then we're doing a remote event for NZ on Feb 9. Next is Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. I hope to see you!

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

#pluralistic #manorial security #feudal security #apple #mobile #apps #security through obscurity #binding arbitration #arbitration waivers #transparency #danegeld #surveillance lag

[abeautifulblog]

HISTORY TIME: A FUN* STORY ABOUT VIKINGS

*It's fun if you're a viking, less fun if you're a Saxon.

So at the time of the viking invasion of England (865 AD), there were four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: Northumbria, East Anglia, Mercia, and Wessex. Northumbria went down first, like so --

The Danish army lands with no warning whatsoever at the city of York; they swoop in and take it without a fight, and start fortifying it.

Northumbria was at the time in the middle of a civil war (which presumably the Danes knew about, and were taking deliberate advantage of), but at that, the two rival kings go "aw nuts 😐" and stop fighting each so they can team up to go fight the Danes. They take their armies to York to try to get the vikings out of their city.

The vikings wreck their shit. The Northumbrian army gets absolutely curb-stomped, both kings are killed, and that is the end of independent Northumbria. 💀

Then the Danish army goes to Mercia. They land with no warning whatsoever at the city of Nottingham, swoop in and take it without a fight, and start fortifying it.

The king of Mercia is Burgred; he requests aid from Wessex, and King Aethelred and his brother Alfred oblige. They all take their armies to Nottingham to try to get the vikings out of their city.

…And then Burgred bribes the vikings to go away.

¿🤨?

For lack of any other information about the circumstances surrounding that decision (seriously, we have none -- "no major battles were fought" and then Burgred paid a danegeld, that's all we know), historians kind of unanimously seem to treat this as proof that Burgred was just a massive pussy who was afraid to fight even when he had the joint armies of Mercia and Wessex backing him up.

Table that -- we'll come back to it.

Then the Danish army goes to East Anglia. There was a little bit of warning this time, since they marched overland instead of arriving by boat, but nonetheless, they arrived at the city of Thetford, swooped in and took it without a fight, fortified it, etc. The king of East Anglia was Edmund, he took his army to Thetford to try to get the vikings out of his city, the vikings wrecked his shit, army was curb-stomped, King Edmund was killed, and that was the end of independent East Anglia. 💀

Then the Danish army goes to Wessex. They land with no warning whatsoever at the city of Reading, swoop in and you know the drill by now.

(rofl I swear to god, the history of this period sounds like a broken record 🤣)

King Aethelred and Prince Alfred take their army to Reading to try to get the vikings out of their city -- the vikings wreck their shit, the West Saxon army gets curb-stomped, and if Aethelred and Alfred hadn't managed to escape, that would probably have been the end of independent Wessex. Five months later, Alfred bribes the vikings to go away.

But here's what I find interesting:

When the Northumbrian kings were trying to retake York, the Danish army had emerged from the city and arrayed themselves in front of it, so that the two armies could square up on flat ground. Midway through the battle, the Danish line fell apart, and the vikings broke and ran back toward York, trying to get back behind the safety of the city walls. The Northumbrians managed to push through the gate after them, into the city--

And then the other half of the viking army jumped on them. RIP, Northumbria. 💀

Fast-forward to Reading:

The Danish army emerges from their fortified city to meet Athelred & Alfred's army outside of it.

The West Saxons are like, Gosh, I could have sworn their army was bigger. 🤔 OH WELL, GUESS THAT MEANS WE HAVE THE ADVANTAGE!

……

…………………..

GUYS.

THE VIKINGS HAVE ONE PLAY, BUT YOU NEED TO STOP FALLING FOR IT.

(And then like, four months later they did it again at the Battle of Wilton, and Alfred fell for it again. Seriously.)

We don't know what happened when King Edmund got curb-stomped in East Anglia -- we've got zero information about how exactly that battle went down, whether it was a fake-out retreat that got him too, or whether it was something else. This is because all of our best sources from this period are from Wessex, and they are very invested in making Alfred look good, and comprehensively give no fucks about anyone else.

Meanwhile, my blorbo is Mercian, so I've been having fun playing fanfic with history, and coming up with a story that fits the canon facts but has an unrepentently pro-Mercia bias. And this whole sequence of events really begs the question--

Why is everyone so certain that Burgred made the wrong call at Nottingham?

I mean, to start with, there are no good options when you're besieging your own gd city -- you're either destroying your own infrastructure with a fast siege, or starving your own citizens to death with a slow siege. What, exactly, do these historians think Burgred should have done? There's no winning at that point; just take the L and do what you can to minimize your losses.

As for "no major battles" being fought at the siege of Nottingham………. what part, in any of this story, suggests that engaging with a viking army outside of the city they're occupying is a good idea? Especially when you just saw how they took York?

HO DON'T DO IT. 🤣

#Viking Facts tm #“fighting vikings outside the city” is the “invading Russia in winter” of this period #ETA stand by for a followup post about danegelds

[corallapis]

#like obv referencing danegeld but the fact that it also means castrate/barren... v v good. #and i am Contemplating the Implications. #gallifrey #dw #(from 'the infinity doctors')

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Low-key thought I was beginning a depressive self hate episode but my face frame just got too long and over stimulating. They're short again, I'm fine. 😂

#moaning || personal/business posts #like someone tell me why I started writing more Danegeld axe waiting for my gaslights to process

[natalieironside]

A couple years ago I started blocking every unfamiliar URL that called me dude or bro or something like that and all the transphobic harassment I'd been getting started to trickle off and then just kinda stopped completely. I straight up can't remember the last time I got a transphobic ask or comment directed at me, it's been like a year.

I know correlation doesn't equal causation but I can't help but suspect that maybe Kipling was onto something about the danegeld

[oumaheroes]

Fanfic recs (and other things in general) that give you wanderlust that itches at your brain and wont go away?

Honestly, even focusing on fics only there are too many to count or describe. I'm going to list mostly unfinished/ ongoing/ older ones because I yearn for them deeply, and because I don't think they're as much in fandom consciousness anymore

For modern fics that I have definitely talked about before and scratch the deepest Hetalia itch:

Universal River by@needcake is a constant yearning, I can't lie to you

Danegeld Axe by @historia-vitae-magistras is something I think about a LOT

Can I stay for a Year or Two? by @sunnylolli is a fic that fills a void in my cold dead heart and I love it

Older fics I still think about on a regular basis are:

Snakeskins by LSunnyC/ Sunrunner (*sob*, I can only dream that one day this will update)

Love Amongst the Ruins by Author!Anon (I have guesses about who this was but it was Anon on Kinkmeme and so not confirmed) and I have LOST THE LINK but I have reread this so many times that I know it by heart and still think about it all the damn time

In Sheep's Clothing by Ludwiggle73- hnggggg

Whistle Past the Graveyard by @shachaai (I am very embarassed to acknowledge how often i think about this fic, Shacha i think about it a lot oh my gosh)

Will-o'-the-Wisp by GhostoftheMotif. This fic cannot be explained. It is long. It is old. It might well be a masterpiece

#heroes answers

[myrddin-wylt]

Arthur throughout this fic: I'm a good pious Catholic and Catholics do not believe in, much less practice, magic I'm a good pious Catholic and Catholics do not believe in, much less practice, magic I'm a good pious Catholic--

Mathias: hey man thanks for the Danegeld! I'll see you next summer!

Arthur, already pulling out his mum's druidess gear: I'M A GOOD PIOUS CATHOLIC AND CATHOLICS DON'T BELIEVE OR PRACTICE MAGIC I'M A GOOD PIOUS CATHOLIC--

#arthur vs the church round 2

[tanadrin]

Favorite and least favorite taxes? As in, if you had to rank them (VAT, income, wealth, land value, carbon, corporate, etc etc.)

top to bottom: land value, carbon, financial transaction, inheritance, social security contributions, property/wealth, corporate income, capital gains, pigouvian consumption, income, danegeld, value-added/excise/sales, jizya, corvee.

i start getting real skeptical when it comes to pigouvian consumption taxes on stuff like cigarettes; income taxes are highly implementation-dependent; and VAT/sales tax seem inescapably regressive and terrible.

at the other end of the scale, i am a secret Georgist, and would be happy to see if we could get away with a 100% land value tax as our only form of government revenue.

#or not so secret

[warsofasoiaf]

Do you think that when the Ironborn were powerful, the Greenlands paid them gold so that they wouldn't be raided (an Irongeld if you will)?

Could be. There was the gafol or Danegeld in English history, which would buy off the raiders and pay a stipendery for realm defense. A particularly powerful King of Salt and Rock would probably enforce that protection harshly to maintain his authority.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#history #vikings

[fruityyamenrunner]

The runestone U 241 in Lingsberg, Uppland, Sweden, was raised by the grandchildren of Ulfríkr circa 1050 in commemoration of his twice receiving danegeld in England.

#don't pay it

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Sponsored listings are a ripoff…for sellers

Tonight (November 29), I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

Not all ads are created equally sleazy. The privacy harms from surveillance ads, though real, are often hard to pin down. But there's another kind of ad - or "ad" that picks your pocket every time you use an ecommerce site.

This is the "sponsored listing" ad, which allows merchants to bid to be among the top-ranked items in response to your searches - whether or not their products are a good match for your query. These aren't "ads" in the way that, say, a Facebook ad is an ad. These are more #payola, a form of bribery that's actually a crime (but not when Amazon does it):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola#U.S._investigations_and_aftermath

Amazon is the global champion of payola. It boasts of $31 billion in annual "ad" revenue. That's $31 billion that Amazon sellers have to recoup from you. But Amazon's use of "most favored nation" deals (which requires sellers to offer their lowest prices on Amazon) mean that you don't see those price-hikes because sellers raise their prices everywhere:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Forget Twitter: Amazon search is the poster-child for enshittification, in which Amazon locks you in (for example, with a year's shipping prepaid through Prime) and then you get recommended worse products while sellers make less money and Amazon pockets the difference.

Sellers who don't sell on Amazon are dead in the water, because most US households have Amazon Prime and overwhelmingly, Prime users start their search on Amazon, and, if they find the goods they're seeking. After all, they've prepaid for shipping.

So sellers suck it up and pay a 45-51% Amazon tax and pass it on to us - no matter where we shop. A lot of the junk fees sellers pay are related to Prime and other fulfillment services, but an increasing share of the Amazon tax comes from the need to pay to "advertise," because if they don't buy the top result for searches for their own products, their competitors' ads will push them right off the first page (those competitors spend money on advertising, rather than manufacturing quality).

There's a lot of YOLO/ROFLMAO in those ads: search for "cat beds" and 50% of the first five screens are ads - including ads for dog products, apparently bought by companies adopting a spray-and-pray approach to advertising. Someone selling a quality product still has to outbid all of those garbage sellers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

This is at the root of Amazon's Pricing Paradox: while Amazon can defend itself against regulators by citing sellers whose prices are lower and/or whose quality is higher, it's nearly impossible for shoppers to get those deals. If you click the top result for your search, you will, on average, pay 29% more than you would if you found the best bargain on the site:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

What's more, you can't fix this by simply sorting by price, or by reviews, or some mix of the two. The sleaziest sellers have mastered tricks like changing the number of units they sell so the total price is lower. For example, if batteries are normally sold $10 for a four-pack, a sleazy seller can offer batteries at $9 for three units. A lowest-to-highest price-sort will put this item ahead of a cheaper rival.

Researchers found that getting a good deal at Amazon requires that you make a multifactorial spreadsheet by laboriously copy/pasting multiple details from individual listing pages and then doing sorts that Amazon itself doesn't permit:

https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3645/

There's an exception to this: Amazon and Apple have a cozy, secret arrangement to exclude these "ads" from searches for Apple products. But if you're shopping for anything else, you're SOL:

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11

These payola markets are bad for buyers, and they cost sellers a lot of money, but are they at least good for sellers? A new study from three business-school researchers - Vibhanshu Abhishek, Jiaqi Shi and Mingyu Joo - shows that payola is a very bad deal for good sellers, too:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3896716

After doing a lot of impressive quantitative work, the authors conclude that for good sellers, showing up as a sponsored listing makes buyers trust their products less than if they floated to the top of the results "organically." This means that buying an ad makes your product less attractive than not buying an ad.

The exception is sellers who have bad products - products that wouldn't rise to the top of the results on their own merits. The study finds that if you buy your mediocre product's way to the top of the results, buyers trust it more than they would if they found it buried deep on page eleventy-million, to which its poor reviews, quality or price would normally banish it.

But of course, if you're one of those good sellers, you can't simply opt not to buy an ad, even though seeing it with the little "AD" marker in the thumbnail makes your product less attractive to shoppers. If you don't pay the danegeld, your product will be pushed down by the inferior products whose sellers are only too happy to pay ransom.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/29/aethelred-the-unready/#not-one-penny-for-tribute

#pluralistic #payola #danegeld #amazon #amazons pricing paradox #consumer welfare #ads #search ads #ecommerce #scholarship #empricism

[abeautifulblog]

(Leslie Fish - "Dane-Geld")

ROFL, I love it. 🤣 This is so fuckin catchy, I am beyond delighted that this song exists. Thank you for introducing this to my life, friendo. 🙏

But also: lol Kipling was so full of shit.

And apologies, but you have activated the hyperfixation, soooo...

--

DANEGELDS: WELL, AKSHUALLY---

or

DANEGELDS: I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED!

--

So, I should have been more clear in my last post: there's nothing inherently ¿🤨? about Burgred bribing vikings to go away, despite what the victorians would have you believe. Paying tribute to placate an aggressive foreign power was standard operating procedure in that era -- just one of the occasional costs of doing international politics.

I mean ffs, lol, THIS was the viking invasion of England:

Vikings land in Kent; Wessex pays them a danegeld to go away. Vikings go to East Anglia; East Anglia pays them a danegeld to go away. Vikings go to York; Northumbria tries to fight them and gets curb-stomped. Vikings go to Nottingham; Mercia pays them a danegeld to go away. Vikings go to Thetford; East Anglia tries to fight them and gets curb-stomped. Vikings go to Reading; Wessex gets curb-stomped for a bit and then pays them a danegeld to go away. Vikings go to London; Mercia pays them a danegeld to go away. Vikings go put down a revolt in Northumbria. Vikings go to Torksey; Mercia pays them a danegeld to go away…………….. but this time the vikings don't leave. (cue my fic)

(Really, Kipling? "We never pay anyone danegeld"?? Said no one ever. The mid ninth century is nothing but the Saxons playing hot potato with the vikings.)

The only ¿🤨? part about Nottingham was why Burgred bothered dragging the West Saxons out of bed to help him besiege the city, if he was just going to pay the vikings off without a single fight. Why assemble such a massive coalition army and then not use it? (That's what modern historians give him shit for, not the danegeld itself -- contrast this with how they tend to characterize Alfred's danegeld, that yeah okay sure, he paid one too, but he made the vikings work for it first.) To me, it suggests that either something about the situation at Nottingham changed, that made fighting untenable, or that having the army was the point -- that it was part of Burgred's leverage for encouraging the Danes to take the payout and go, rather than deciding to keep the city like they'd done with York.

The point is, no one was under any illusions that danegelds would buy a permanent peace -- what they bought you was time. If you were genuinely unprepared to fight off a viking invasion, then paying the danegeld was your best option. (Even if it makes later historians big mad that you didn't go heroically stiff-upper-lip yourself into an early grave.) Yes, your economy will take a hit -- danegelds were not ""trifling"" -- but it'll recover faster from a danegeld than it will from having your armies decimated/crops burned/towns looted/peasants carted off into slavery.

Bribing vikings was a reliable way to make them go bother someone else for a few years, while you (theoretically) got your shit together so you'd be better prepared for the next time they circled back round. Paying a danegeld, in and of itself, was not a dumb or lazy or shameful move -- so long as you treated it like the temporary measure that it was, and followed up with stronger steps. Wessex did; they made good use of the time they bought, and consequently they withstood the next round of invasions. Mercia did not, or not good enough anyway, and that's a different story.

But that's not how Kipling and the victorians felt about it -- they fuckin H A A A A A T E D danegelds. 😂 It didn't vibe with the English Exceptionalism that they were attempting to manufacture, a version of history in which the English were a godly-heroic race of brave and brilliant white people who righteously deserved to take over the whole world. Danegelds were a very embarrassing thing to have to explain -- how could their illustrious ancestors have been so spineless that they'd let themselves get shaken down rather than fight? Or so STOOOOPID, because don't they know that "once you have paid him the Danegeld / You never get rid of the Dane"???? (And with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, they could confidently say that paying danegelds had done Mercia and East Anglia no good.) It would have been far more palatable to their sensibilities if the Saxons had believed in death before danegeld.

But that's imposing an ahistorical set of values on the situation. There's nothing in the contemporary sources to indicate that the Saxons attached any particular shame or stigma to paying a tribute -- to the military defeats that had made it necessary, yeah absolutely, but not the payment itself.

In my opinion, what the Saxon kingdoms should be embarrassed about is not the danegelds, but how long it took them to get their shit together and recognize the vikings as a real threat, and then put aside their petty internecine squabbling to deal with it -- too long, for most of them, and too late by the time they did. It's depressingly familiar, to have one's society faced with an existential threat, while the people in power would rather use the opportunity to dunk on their political rivals than do anything about it. 😐

#Viking Facts tm

[reiverreturns]

WIP Tag Game

Tagged by @aeide, thank you!

Rules: In a new post, show the last line you wrote and tag as many people as there are words.

i’m writing in actively writing in two fandoms so here’s a 241 special (and more than one line bc i have zero self control and context is fun)

 AC Valhalla

“Where did you find this?” Vili asks.

“Not found. A so-called gift from King Aelfred in place of our danegeld.” Eivor’s frown crumples into an outright scowl as she stares at the cross in his hands. “He wished me to accept his soft-handed God as my own.”

“I take it he was not pleased to find another heathen beyond saving.“

“The mob chasing me from the walls of Wincestre would evidence that.” 

TGM

“You don’t have to,�� Rooster says for the hundredth time. 

Phoenix huffs a deep, long sigh. She’s stateside, he’s finding his feet in Yokosuka. The first brush of dawn caressing her cheeks is his blackness of night. She switches the phone to the other ear and laces up her boots.

“I know, but I’m doing it anyway, so save me the trouble and tell me where to go.”

 i am nooooot tagging everyone bc of my own inability to follow rules but if you want to @thebahwrites @sereshaws @alethiometry @kasseivor! no pressure!

#thank you for tagging me!! #i honestly have no self control with these one liners though #i'm convinced every sentence i write in isolation is terrible #like more of it helps the situation BUT YOU KNOW #tag games

[historia-vitae-magistras]

The Danegeld Axe

Part Four: Assets

First Installment: Here. Last Installment: Here. Current Installment: You are here! Next Installment: Here.

Author's note: Inspired by the 1950s short story "The Man Who Came Early" by Poul Anderson. This installment of the Viking-time-travel au sees government employees being stupid, Matthew Williams being less stupid and Arthur Kirkland finally snapping.

21st Century Washington DC Diplomatic Security Service

"Does the name Kirkland mean anything to you?"

"Costco brand home goods?" He grinned and slid a cup of shitty coffee to his executive branch counterpart. “Yeah, some aquaintance of my primary asset.”

“He’s your asset’s father, as far as anyone can tell.”

“Is that how they’re related? Huh. Good to know. The name has come up here and there.”

“Didn’t they tell you?”

“They don’t tell me shit. Everyone knows this is a cushy post. Keep the genius on board and try to keep his tinkering budget below world-ending for a couple of years. Do that, get one of the prestige posts overseas. Boom, career made. Jones hasn’t done anything but cooperate since I got here. What else did I need to know?”

“Yeah, well, he’s a well-connected genius. The father is old world money. And I mean old. The kind of money that's been bulking up interest since the crusades.”

"Jesus. Why do you ask?"

"He got wind you were looking for his other kid before he went missing."

“Matthew Williams was old European money? You’re not serious. He did grass with homeless guys in Stanley Park and drove a 78 Chevy. Everyone knows Alfred has got the brains and business sense.”

"As best anyone can tell, Alfred was probably conceived in Kirkland's navy days.”

Corcoran snorted. “Half of Boston is a Fleet Week baby.”

“Not an English fleet week, baby. No one knows. Williams was probably from Halifax or Arctic Command, maybe. No one knows their mother, if she's even the same one. They don’t live like old money, but the Kirklands spend way too much time around Downing Street to be nobodies, though.“

"There are more than one?”

“Three brothers at least. Unconfirmed but suspected sister somewhere in the mix.”

"So?"

"So tread carefully is all I'm saying. You’ve just lost his other kid on the ISS. And he’s bound to find out eventually.”

“I did what?”

British Embassy Washington D.C.

“What did you find?” Arthur sprang to his feet as soon as Matthew passed through the door. He hadn’t even gotten the fucking key out of the door before his father sprung on him.

“Nothing. Not a fucking thing. His place is in its usual state when he’s up there.” Complete chaos. Matt pressed his fingers into his temple, and the executive office and the state department were completely normal. Everything is normal. Nothing looks wrong. No one said anything. Nothing on the computers, nothing in the records.”

"Is your access still that high?”

“Of course not,” Matt snorted. “As far as the US government knows, I’ve been dead for about a year. I just use Alfred’s third set of back-ups.”

“How on earth—”

“Last time I took a northwoods sabbatical.”

“You mean the last time you had a mental breakdown and spent three months in the woods eating possum liver?"

“I prefer racoons thank you, and…” Matthew rubbed the back of his neck, preparing for the backlash. “Well, that was the second to last time.”

“What?” His father’s face was instantly furious and even more worrying, his father was concerned. “Matthew!”

He wasn’t having it. Not today. “I’m fine. I’m not the one missing from this mortal fucking plane. Point is, as far as the US government is concerned, I don’t exist.”

His father’s brain was working, his worry between Matthew standing before him and his firstborn clearly in conflict. Not on his face, never on his face, but Matthew knew what the slight flex of one hand meant. Alfred won. He always won. “And there’s no chance of them noticing? All that you’ve been doing?”

“What do you think?” Matthew snapped as he collapsed in a chair, and as fast as his temper had flared, it was gone. He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled, feeling sick where there’d been a fire a moment ago. “Sorry.”

Arthur approached gently. “You didn’t sense anything?”

“Nothing.” He pressed his palms into his eyes. “Not a fucking thing. I woke up two nights ago feeling like this and it hasn’t changed.” The sick, cold feeling was back. It was like missing organs, or his skin, or half of himself. Maybe more than half of himself.

“You should sleep. You haven’t since I arrived.”

“I can’t sleep! I need answers.”

“We can’t get answers if you collapse on me. And we will get answers.” Matt hadn’t cried so far, but Arthur pushed his hair off his face and tapped him under the jaw in that affectionate ‘chin up, lad’ sort of way, and he couldn’t stop himself. His eyes itched, but he would not cry. Instead, he buried his face in his father’s shoulder, pressing his forehead hard enough to hurt. It was pathetic. He was grown. But he couldn't bring himself to care. Alfred was lost, and his entire body felt so wrong, with only his frosted fields and forests and none of the blast of noise and life that was his brother.

“You know what? Fuck this. I brought your good knife. Let's get answers.”

#the ask box || probis pateo #my writing || cacoethes scribendi #arthur || stone set in the silver sea #matthew || my country is winter #the dangeld axe to grind: the viking age time travel au

[marta-bee]

It occurs to me that some of you have never heard of Michael Longcor, Moonwulf of SCA fame. That’s a gap in your education that must be rectified.

Some other favorites:

Bob’s Dog Obedience and Taxidermy Shop

If I Could Be a Flying Monkey

Chain-Mail Mama

"Pillar of Hell,” “Danegeld” and “A Smuggler’s Song” (fave!) are wonderful, too, and though I’m hesitant to link since the only recordings I can find are bootlegged versions of his CD’s rather than live performances, said CD’s seem to be completely out of print these days. Youtube won’t disappoint if you’re so inclined.

#he's so good and should be listened to at least once by all geeks and geeklets #michael longcor

[thenotsodailywikipedia]

By Unknown author - Myers, Philip Van Ness (1905) [1885] "Growth of Nations" in Mediaeval and Modern History (Revised edition ed.), Boston, New York, Chicago & London: Ginn & Company, pp. p. 218 Retrieved on 12 January 2009., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2979307

CARUCAGE

Carucage was a medieval English land tax based on the size of the taxpayer's estate. It was levied six times: by Richard I in 1194 and 1198, John in 1200, and Henry III in 1217, 1220, and 1224. The taxable value of an estate was initially assessed from the Domesday Book survey, but other methods were later employed, such as valuations based on the sworn testimony of neighbours or the number of plough-teams (example depicted) the taxpayer used. Carucage never raised as much as other taxes, but it helped fund the ransom for Richard's release in 1194, the tax John paid to Philip II of France on land he inherited in that country, and the cost of Henry III's military campaigns in England and continental Europe. The tax was an attempt to secure new sources of revenue when new demands were being made on royal finances. Unlike the older danegeld tax, carucage was an experiment in revenue collection and only levied for specific purposes.

#the daily wikipedia