TheKingleMingle

Did he have his name written down on something?

Or is that what the people who dug him up thousands of years later decided to name him?

And how TF does he even have a fanbase?

Ötzi is a 5300-ish year old mummy, found in the Ötztal Alps in Italy (hence his name). While the earliest form of writing was emerging from Sumer at the time, Ötzi likely came from a civilisation with no writing system.

Ötzi has a fanbase because frankly he's absolutely fascinating. For a long time he was the oldest tattooed person ever discovered (in 2018 older Egyptian mummies were discovered), with 61 tattoos, a series of lines and crosses, primarily on his joints. These tattoos were likely an early form of acupuncture since he had worn joints that likely caused him pain.

The amount we've been able to study and understand about Ötzi is incredible, and he has offered us an incredible view of the European Copper Age. He was 45. He was 5"3. He was around 50kgs. We know what his final meal was, how he dressed, where he came from and how he travelled to the Ötztal region (through pollen in his lungs). We know he was involved in copper smelting (high levels of copper and arsenic in his hair). He could still have 19 descendants alive today. We know he was sick three times in the last six months before he died. We know he had whipworms. We know he was lactose intolerant.

We know he was murdered. Not killed by a stranger, or robbed. He was murdered by someone, and it was probably personal, and he did not know it was coming. He bled out, from an arrow to the back, and nobody helped him.

His last meal was elaborate. He was not on the run, or in a hurry to get away. He was not chased up those mountains. Where was he going? Why was he being followed? His body was not looted. He was a wealthy man, for his time. He had good quality clothes, shoes that people have reconstructed and hiked up the mountain in (and found surprisingly comfortable, apparently).

Weapons, too. He was found with a copper axe, a knife, arrows and an unfinished bow, baskets and medicines. These were all valuable possessions. People were not so rich back then that they could easily discard items like this- so why were they left to rot on the mountain with him? Was the fact they'd been touched by Ötzi really so repugnant to whoever was on that mountain?

There are at least 4 other people's blood on his gear. On the knife. On the arrows. The arrow that they shot him with was left in his back but the shaft was removed.

We know so much about Ötzi. We know everything about his finals hours- except for everything about Ötzi. We do not know who he was, we do not know his name, and we do not know why he was killed. His murderers stand in the shadows and will never come out into the light.

because i do fundamentally believe everyone should have the right to die when they want.

'fragging' is the colloquialism for troops attacking their superiors in the vietnam war (not just officers, but just as often NCOs or even just peers they disliked). it was called that because it would typically be done with fragmentation grenade, but not usually during a battle or anything. that wasn't exactly very reliable, plus it didn't exactly leave you with an isolated target

rather, it was the use of fragmentation grenades *on base*; your classic fragging consisted of rolling a fragmentation grenade under the door into the latrines at night after your target went in. this was enabled by the fact that firebases (the typical field base used by americans in the vietnam war) would have crates of fragmentation grenades easily accessible, as the response to hearing something rattle against the barbed wire at night was to simply throw a grenade at it and wait until morning to see if you got anything rather than risk being lured out. so it was a very good anonymous tool for assassinations.

the scale and fear of fragging had an enormous cultural effect on the united states. in the military, it contributed to degrading morale and a variety of programs to counter it, including the first-ever anonymous tip phone line for soldiers to complain about officers. the realization that soldiers would simply kill their superiors if pushed seriously degraded effectiveness in a war where the primary tactic was to go out into the bush and deliberately pick fights. its a huge part of why the US military switched to a volunteer model.

when stories of fragging made it home, it was an immense culture shock for midcentury america, and cemented itself into the news and media. through the 70s and 80s, there was a *lot* of US media about the Vietnam War. the stuff in the 70s was largely extremely critical and extremely cynical, largely made by people who opposed the war, but in the reagan era you saw an uptick in war action movies which... while not typically set in the Vietnam War, were largely concerned with refighting and 'winning' it in the narrative, creating big, stupid action movies like the rambo sequels

this sort of dumbass action movies, along with heavy metal and the satanic panic, heavily influence early first person shooter games. Kevin Cloud, one of the artists on the original Doom, used 'frag' as a term to distinguish killing players from killing Doom's monsters. Doom was built as a single player game first, a cooperative game second, and a multiplayer versus game third, so the language of 'you fragged X' was ported from the cooperative game (where it was used to indicate you'd killed a friendly, idiot) into the multiplayer deathmatch.

from there, it made it to Quake and Unreal, the big arena shooters of the late 90s, and remained the term pretty much until all First Person Shooters were subsumed into the increasingly military-propaganda-y Call of Duty games post Modern Warfare. i have no proof of this, but i suspect it was a term that CoD wanted nothing to do with as they became increasingly reliant on connections to the military-industrial complex, so the term was carefully kept out of marketing and slowly killed it among gamers.

CHAPTER 1

“It sucks that I understand Time Cube and as such cannot avoid becoming a genocidal dictator,” young Paul Atreides said to himself. “For me. Moral complexity is such a burden.”

CHAPTER 2

anything for you darling

CHAPTER 1

“The fact that I will commit unspeakable genocide and lead a holy war across the galaxy is very bad,” said young Paul Atreides. “For me.”

“I too feel morally conflicted by my role in a ruthless eugenics program,” admitted his mother, the Lady Jessica. “Does that make me a bad mother? Who can say….”

At that moment the Duke Leto Atreides returned home from a grueling day churning out propaganda to convince his troops that he was worth dying for. His regal face was lined with deep moral complexities. “It’s tough when you’re me and everybody wants to fuck you so so bad,” he said. “But that’s the price I must pay for the future well-being of my ancestral house.” He sighed, deep and melancholy. When was the last time he’d thrown around the old pigskin with his boy? Would he ever get the chance again…?

That’s fully-manual ascetic space feudalism for you, he thought libertarianally.

Paul looked around the room and was struck by the sudden and horrific realization that he was the smartest person to ever live, and that even his own loving mother and father could never hope to understand Time Cube.

But that’s a problem for another day, Paul decided, not for the last time.

CHAPTER 2

“It’s a beautiful day to be grossnasty, don’t you think?” said the Baron Harkonnen homosexually as he surveyed the ravaged landscape beyond the window. Acid rain pelted against the glass and melted the flesh off the shrieking peasants below.

“Sure. Whatever,” said Feyd-Rautha, not looking up from his sketchbook, upon which he had scrawled the words ‘I love killing and maiming’ in large bubble letters.

“A-h-h,” said the Baron. “That was a trick question: every day is a beautiful day for being grossnasty. You must learn this lesson well, nephew, if you ever hope to get anywhere in life. Piter, what are you doing over there with that huge and evil brain of yours?”

The mentat violated the Hays Code six times in the few seconds it took him to reply. “I’m calculating a mathematically perfect slur for orphans,” he said in a gay voice. “Just as you requested.”

some evidence, at least, that the nothlit plan only applied to the Earth-based yeerks.

Various human governments: "Well we need SOMEONE capable of taking, abducting if you will, humans and returning them to Earth."

The Skrit Na, about to make the deal of a lifetime:

And I was just like. Meetings where a bunch of people send their AIs to meet and then send them summaries? If no people need to be at the meeting, why is there a fucking meeting? This is Email With Extra Steps. If all that's happening in the meeting is people reporting a bit of information, that can just be a report. All this does is admit that you don't actually need the meetings. You don't need to have robot-only meetings you can just cancel the whole thing.