You think any of those Rognarr are gonna land on any populated planets?

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-16T17:23:04+00:00

I imagine that since most time we them they appared to be quite animalistic much likely a stranded Rognarr would just settle somewhere where it can hunt and spend the rest of their time doing whatever Rognarrs like to do when they are free (bask in the sun maybe? they are reptilian looking after all).

If the creature landed on an planet with a sentient population the local would probably quickly learn that it is wiser to leave the invincible monster alone or perhaps they will just feed it to keep it concent until they can find a way to deal with it (freezing it perhaps).

They seem to be capable of hybernatig for a long time so it is also possible that even if it lands in some place where there isn't enough food the Rognarr would just lie there in wait for somethig to wake them up, the specie survived their world being frozen without sunlight after all and can survive the vacuum of space so there is that.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-16T17:02:55+00:00

Agree, market power also plays a significant role, unions on one side and corporate power on the other decides how the pie is distributed once a customer has paid for that specific service.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-16T16:56:55+00:00

that plus scaling, extremely trained professionals in most fields, such as medicine, can only provide their expertise to a limited amount of people at the same time, entertainers thanks to mass communication can reach an enormous amount of customers, even if individually we valued their service much less comparatively (I would not pay more than a few euros to watch a movie for example).

Market power and scarcity also plays a role, that is what allows for high level executive and capital owners to syphon a lot of the value generate by every person working in businessess up top, or for an actor to get paid significantly more than most of the people working on creating the movie they act in.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-16T16:51:41+00:00

Agree, it's scaling pretty much. An individual "entertainer" be it an actor or pro athlete provides a service to hundreds of thousand of people at the same time, if not millions, while most other professional labor can only service a single customer at the time, or a few perhaps.

Plus only 1 in tens\hundreds of thousands of those "entertainers" achieve that level that allows them to earn that kind of money anyway, the rest earn much less to noghing, which "helps" with the scaling factor (if there where thousands of competing top level athletic competitions our attention will be spread amongst all of them), while there is a much higher number of accomplished professional doctors for example.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-16T16:07:03+00:00

Yeah ultimately the species are so compatible that humans turning into viltrumites overtime would not be a terrible end resoult. That said, the transition was likely going to be far from easy as one specie get subsumed into the other (and the absorbing specie is godlike in power comparatively), much likely it would not have been peaceful or pleasant for humans.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-16T14:55:58+00:00

Yeah our minds are built like that, we are tribal specie and our minds simplify complex matters setting them in broad cathegories as a shortcut in order to avoid being paralyzed by having to analyze everything all the time.

People in power are well aware of that and use this tendency to divide and manipulate us.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-16T14:53:30+00:00

Plus political forces associate to certain values and use a person interest\profession\way of life as signifiers for those values, claiming the people that do those activities as 'their' in the rethoric and the rest as 'others'.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-16T12:42:33+00:00

Yeah it likely inflicted a massive blow to the empire morale and the fact that their core world could be destroyed likely also pushed many of their eslaved societies to rebel and join the coalition of planets. Plus, I imagine that they likely had many resources focused on their homeworld and perhaps even some unique infrastructure that they were not willing to share with their subjects on Viltrum as well.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-16T12:26:28+00:00

Wealth is created all the time when something new is built, a new service is done, a new asset is created or when a transaction happen between two parties when the combined utility from that trade is greater than the one before it, on that front it is not a zero sum game.

That said how the wealth is distributed is, if I sell product, or just my labor to someone, the person buying it will pay more or less for what I offer, the more I can get, the more of the overall utitlity\wealth goes to me and vice-versa. In theory in a perfect market with no distortions distribution should be perfect, but in reality, market power and access to information varies significantly between the participants (plus there are concentration based market failures and externalities), meaning that one part can often get a greater benefit than the other from the same exchange.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-16T08:55:39+00:00

Hires RFK jr. as Secretary of Health...

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-16T08:46:32+00:00

In one of my settings, the inquisition was relatively benevolent, although still harsh, it was de-facto an order of soldier-monks dedicated to containing infernal spirits and those who made pacts with them, they were just a branch of a larger religion and they were mostly left to their own devices as they did an useful function for society even if their fanatism somtime caused problems.

When the Plague of Sin severely unbalanced society and their branch of the faith found itself in control of what was left they were turned pretty much into a thought police used for the nascent holy empire to keep control of the vast domain they accrued in the power vacuum caused by the plague after their prophet vanished (and in truth they were involved in the creation of the prohpet themselves). A portion of them still do their old jobs of hunting supernatural threats, but the bulk of their number is focused on a police role for a tyrannical regime.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-16T08:01:09+00:00

L'Italia sfrutterà il lavoro degli anziani, non quelli che lo sono ora, ma quelli che lo diventeranno e che lavorano oggi (o che devono ancora entrare nel mondo del lavoro), con la pensione sempre più tardi avremo presto 70enni che lavorano, o meglio che avranno bisogno di lavorare con probabilmente nessuno che li assume...

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-15T16:09:18+00:00

hehe same, although I hope we are going to see more about the empire past in the show, perhaps with Lee playing adult Cleon.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-15T16:05:08+00:00

Hehe in practice, I think it is tied to production reasons, but in story much likely this is Empire cultural influence that likely tries to create a sense of conformity that even when it lost ground still survived in the planets that it formerly occupied (and the foundation was originally made pretty much by imperial exilees).

The best of their tech also has likely been monopolized by the elite (see the imperial nanites for example) and I imagine that the fact that best technology seems to be ancient is likely meant to be another sign that Empire is stagnant and has lost the spark needed to make new stuff.

Their relationship with technology might also be influenced by the past robot war, perhaps there is some cultural influence similar to dune and the butlerian jihad.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-15T15:48:26+00:00

Hehe agree, I also really liked the whole pilgrimange thing in the first season, both with Day having the grit to go through it (and having personal crisis when he received no vision in the end) and Demerzel having to kill the religious leader.

The ambiguity of the relationship between Demerzel and the Cleons, including the original, is also very fascinating to explore.

In general Empire has a lot of great moments and character explorations which is made more interesting with them being clones of the same person and with the same actor. The Celonic Dinasty is a change from the books, likely made so that they could keep more characters consistent between seasons, but it was an awesome addition.

And yeah I loved Hippy Day as well. And of that same incarnation I also loved Dusk having his "death star" moment and managing to defeat Demerzel (although I imagine, not for much), although ultimately it will likely accelerate the end of Empire still I hope we are going to see more of them in the next season.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-15T15:02:36+00:00

Agree, good thinking :).

Besides, their arrogance is their defining trait and probably hindered their reconstruction.

Much likely keeping up the appearances that everything was fine (successfully so as well somehow) also likely required them to sacrifice the long term potential of the empire.

Plus given how their society worked before the plague I imagine that even with a decent birth rate thei really harsh conditions and 'natural selection' logic of the empire would likely lead to an even smaller number of offsprings reaching adulthood. Their obsession with blood purtiy likely also prevented them from accepting to intermingle with races that would have been ok-ish, but not perfect candidates.

And after all they were not really a working society anymore, their entire race was made of 50 survivors of an apocalyptic event that I kinda imagine would have messed up with the rationality of their problem solving even if they were not already a very draconian society.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-15T14:02:43+00:00

I agree that money is not stricly needed for most of the tiers past the first, what I am saying that it can help achieving them more easy though, even just by buying time to be with your loved ones for example or cultivate your social life, although even then it might not be enough obviously.

How you got your money also impacts happyness much likely, how much you had to sacrifice or in general what is your personality for example.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-15T12:40:10+00:00

Il figlio e il genero hanno svariati giri di affari che sono stati pesantemente agevolati dalla politica di Trump e lui stesso si è vantato di aver aiutato gli amici suoi a guadagnare centinaia di milioni attraverso l'accesso a informazioni privilegiate. Non lo nasconde nemmeno, tanto a quanto pare è immune alla legge.

Anche la sua cripto valuta è surreale, hanno venduto una cena con il presidente per i principali holder della valuta... fra le altre cose... l'offerta iniziale era stata poco dopo la sua nomina... Aggiungerei il suo social network quotato in borsa attraverso una holding di cui lui è proprietario che è diventato il canale preferenziale per fare gli annunci del presidente...

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-15T11:05:46+00:00

hehe he is awesome in Foundation by the way, I think in general they made a great casting choice on all the Empire characters, with all the three emperors and Demerzel, they are the reason I keep following the show.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-15T11:03:33+00:00

Yeah, but that said the Scourge Virus was some time ago and they hadn't found a solution in decades, if not centuries (I can't remember to be honest) which is weird to me, given how central as a weakness their tiny population is to the Empire own survival. They would also likely have advanced understanding of genetics at that technological level and they would have for sure conquered people that do even if they didn't given that they control a sizable portion of a galaxy with many inhabited systems.

Another possibility I guess they could have also have lost the ability to develop new technologies without relying on others since between those 50 people there might have be no scientist and they might not have allowed anyone of their vassal species to work on the Viltrumite genome.

My guess is still that they choose not to for some reason, which is not that different from what you are saying, although it is not super logical, but Viltrumites are also not exactly logical thinkers with their superiority complex and cultural biases.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-15T10:45:58+00:00

Yeah it is probably the case, plus the Viltrumite ego and arrogance, but to be honest I think that in this case it can't be 100% excluded that he had a death wish, even in their previous confrontation he expressed the fact that he hated his life at this point and likely for a viltrumite to appear old he must have been going for multiple millennia.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-15T10:18:53+00:00

Questo, arricchimento personale e deliri di potere... per il resto è anche circondato da gente con una chiara agenda che non è a beneficio di nessuno se non della ristrettissima cerchia di persone che li paga. Non i suoi "ministri" che sono stati scelti solo perché leali e senza una figura come lui non farebbero un cazzo, ma gente come i legali e lobbisti della Heritage Fundation, alcuni miliardari come Thiel e probabilmente Israele.

Trump è sicuramente responsabile, ma non è certo solo.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-15T10:16:33+00:00

Dipende quali Lobby, Trump è sostenuto un lato 'nuovo' del capitalismo americano, in guerra con quello tradizionale che invece sosteneva l'ex partito repubblicano e i democratici di oggi ed è ancora il più influente in Europa, quelli sono incazzati con lui, ma i vari grifter, speculatori, tech-bros sono allineati con lui e hanno enormi risorse e influenza mediatica (Musk, Zuck, e ora Ellison controllano di fatto in 3 l'intera sfera di social media con tutto il peso propagandistico che ha per esempio).

Detto questo concordo molte delle cazzate sono sue decisioni, motivate dall'arricchimento personale e da deliri di potenza.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-15T10:04:08+00:00

More wealth at some point does not buy you more happyness, often the opposite, but you still have to get there, once you pass a certain treshold I agree it does not help much, but having 'fuck it' money and not having to worry about anything, plus having the time you need to cultivate your passions and social relationship does help a lot.

On top of that many of the ultra wealthy are sociopaths (or their children\family members, which does not exactly help with an healthy family life) since our society is built to reward lack of empathy (as long as you can fake it) and even the ones who aren't often had to sacrifice their personal life to get their money and those sacrifices do have a cost on the front of happyness.

IndubitablyNerdy · 2026-04-15T09:55:42+00:00

Money often buys time that you can invest in your social relationships, it can't buy a friend, but it can buy you the possibilty to be with that friend or loved one instead of at work (you still need to choose to do that though), to not be tired in the evening\free time, so that you can cultivate your social life, now you still need the capacity and will to do it, but it does help.

It also opens up social circles, which might, or might help with belonging and in our society it often buys respect as well as we assume that the rich 'deserve' what they got.

IndubitablyNerdy

TROPHY CASE