Background

Warhammer 40k is the worlds most popular tabletop miniatures wargame and attracts over 9000 nerds every year to empty their wallets buying overpriced figures. The Horus Heresy (HH) is a time period set in the 10,000 years before Warhammer 40k, thus it is called 30k for short. It was supposed to be about the good times before the galaxy turned to shit and war all the time, but when they decided to write 500 books about the HH it all sounded suspiciously similar to the grimdarkness of 40k.

If you don't know anything about this series I want you to read every word on this page and then click every link. I will explain no further because you're not entitled to my emotional labor sweaty. (https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Horus_Heresy)

Now that the final book is out and the Horus Heresy is over let's see what the fa/tg/uys on a mongolian basket weaving forum think.

Now that the most epic novel series in history has ended, what do you think about it? What is your general opinion of the Horus Heresy?

I think it's based because it made fat stacks of cash caring about anything besides profit motive is for lorestrags

Kind of underwhelming, but that's more or less what I was expecting it to be.

fpbp

It should have remained an uncertain vaguely defined mythic past. The demystification of the Horus Heresy is the single most damaging thing GW has done to the setting since its inception. And all that damage, just for a hundred books of daddy issue shlock. Jesus Christ.

Elaborating on what happened in Horus Heresy ruined the whole mood of the HH setting. Horus Heresy should've been the tales of epic battles and conflicting myths that historians had to argue on which ones were the truths. It should've been the Epic of Gilgamesh of 40k, but instead we got fricking capeshit into it.

Nerds screw everything by insisting every loose thread or unclarified apocrypha get a spin off series running twleve seasons minimum with a breakfast cereal.

(also I think they have 40k funkopops )

>frick there's so many contradictory accounts of who runs into the throne room, plus we have our pet characters we want to shove in there too

>what the frick are we going to do

>how about we have all of them conga line in?

>genius, print it!

It's hilariously stupid

I read the first half dozen and a couple of others. I might read a few more of the ones that cover actually significant events rather than just treading water. Eventually. Perpetuals are still r-slurred.

They ruined more than they add, but I do enjoy the odd novels here and there. I just wish they'd lean more into the vagueness of it all, like having conflicting information between novels and characters, just to make it less a canon novel and more in-universe records of the events. Also >>91714956 is correct, Perpetual is an r-slured concept.

In case you're wondering a perpetual is an author invention where they thought inserting random human OCs that are totes immortal, and come back from the dead in a setting about constant war and dying, would be super cool and not dampen the setting or their heroic sacrifices at all.

(I haven't read these books so don't ask me to elaborate on my smugposting about someone else smugposting)

In the end, was there some nameless soldier torn to shreds by Horus in front of the Emprah or not? I don't care enough to read 500 pages.

More or less. He's a perpetual, so he's got a lot more experience with a guardsmen (which understandably pisses a lot of people off) but he is ultimately just a guy armed with a lasgun and his balls.

>Originally just a marine

>Fans take the idea and make it of a normal relatively unremarkable dude, the whole point being that its not anyone important, just a normal man standing there.

>It becomes incredibly popular, to the point where you have to remind people its not the origional story

>BL takes the idea and missed the entire point by making him a perpetual, some immortal (for no reason) super hero that they inserted for no reason

Gosh, this was all a huge mistake.

The single worst thing about the series is making the setting revolve around highlander knockoffs, who have no relevance to anything outside their novels, except to be OC donut steals for the authors to mouth off with. Even though the emperor, pre-history, and arguably primarchs should have remained mysterious and ambiguous, the lore of the perpetuals sucks in its own right even prior to considering how much else they shut the door on and devalue.

For the zoomers in the audience

this is a good point. Perpetuals are such a spectacularely tone-deaf and useless addition that it feels like a shitpost. They could not have made the feeling of the setting more awkwardly inconsistent if they had decided that every 200th person born in the Imperium has a big dildo growing out of their forehead but up till now nobody has mentioned them - now though, read all about Inquisitor dildohead and make your own dildohead space marine chapter and didn't you know that Dante has a dildo growing out of his forehead under his mask?

dildoman is living rent free

The lore speculations as to what he was were more interesting than being told that he was just one of many randomly born highlanders who overlevelled and bit off more than he could chew in PVP with the chaos gods, because he was too toxically masculine to listen to the "earth mother" and the whiny narcissist perpetuals who critically sabotaged him.

bc he was too to listen to and

Plus perpetuals are fricking dumb. Throw that shit in the trash. Emps should have been the last of the Men of Gold trying desperately to right the sinking ship after the DAoT. He gained huge psychic power by devouring the Sigilittes of which he spares Malcador because he defected. This allows him to be seen both as "the best of humanity" seeing as the men of gold were the best. A "shaman gestalt" if you see the Sigilittes as shaman. & a powerful relic of the DAoT in being the last truly powerful figure of that time. In my headcanon this is the best way to bring it all together. You don't need to agree with me

this is not the worst idea I've heard, and I've read a lot of trash opinions on /tg/

>Erebus

>The anathame

>Changing the ending

There were so many problems but these are probably the greatest ones. Black Library comes out looking so fricking mid from this series. Forget the promise of a golden, nigh-mythical age of which so much has been forgotten. Forget the promise of legendary demigods encompassing all the greatness and good of mankind falling into the rank madness of Chaos in payment for their sins, for they are just playthings of a single super-plotter who walks around with evil tattooed on his face.

Erebus and the Anathame being the prime cause weakened the entire Horus Heresy because it instantly made readers ask why couldn't someone have just realized he was a fricking sus mofo and knifed him before he did anything with the magic McGuffin. It was so damaging that they had to damage control and go "nononono, Horus was already turning on the Emperor and his brothers before this! It's not because some mook with a knife tainted him!" when, of course, that's literally how they portrayed it. And Erebus just conveniently shows up everywhere to serve as the prime motivator

Erebus and the Anathame basically read like the authors thought the audience would be too stupid to understand resentment, jealousy, ambition, and pride driving the most powerful of warlords to rise up against their father, so BL decided that they needed a real antagonist and a magic item to make plot happen at the start of the series.

Speak your truth King

In the original (real) 40k background, Horus is an obvious Lucifer figure who takes half the angels with him instead of a third because it's a grimmer, darker, edgier setting. He was the best of the Emperor's Primarchs but comes to believe he can run things better than the Emperor himself and so turns on him. This fits with him continuing the crusade, doing all the work as far as he can see, yet being told to just turn over everything he has conquered to his father. Why? Having seen all he has seen, met the corruption of chaos on the fringes beyond mankind, being the best warlord he knows of, trusted by his men, why not conquer the Imperium for himself?

All the headcannonn the authors madeup about the Emperor making a webway is meant to explain the question the original story begged

>what is the Emperor busy with that's more important than the crusade? Why can't he keep leading on the frontline? Is he just lazy?

but it replaces one problem with another

>why couldn't the Emperor simply tell the primarchs what he was up to?

>or get someone like Pertubo or Dorn or Ferrus to help him build faster

>why the need for secrecy from his own?

"perpetuals" one of the worst concepts introduced by the bad writers. There are multiple earlier explanations of the Emperor's origin which are better. Rick Priestly's unofficial headcanon (as it was supposed to be a mystery allowing the player to create his own story) was the Emperor was an AI from the Dark Age of Tech who needed psychic souls to run. The reason it seemed so callous was because it did completely lack sympathy. It led for mankind to survive at all costs with no consideration given the suffering of an individual imperial serf. Like Caesar's ideal for the Legion in FNV.

Another superior origin for the Emperor from earlier was a bunch of shaman, noticing how daemons born of human emotions were getting more powerful, and starting to eat them thereby empowering themselves and preventing psykers from reincarnating, performed a ritual of group-suicide, whereby they all merged in the warp to make 1 super-psyer, more powerful than any of the daemons, and reincarnate as this ubermensch.

Also, here's some gay redditors talking about the book: https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1ad2xca/just_finished_end_and_the_death_vol_iii_and_now?sort=controversial

People spoiling it: https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1ac2nzm/the_end_and_the_death_vol_iii_spoilers_summary?sort=controversial

People complaining they can't buy the book: https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1ac2nzm/the_end_and_the_death_vol_iii_spoilers_summary?sort=controversial

@jannys please do the sneedful and pin this effortpost

Daniel, 22, Lubbock TX

His other half overrode the financially savvy asian half

Self-rated - 6/10

Personal Life:

• "Barely 22"

• Why'd you go in to the debt?timestamp

  • "Well it's a long process"

• Went to a trade school, Universal technical institute

  • Automotive, certified in Volvos

• Friend encouraged him to come on the show, doesn't watch the show himself

• "Last year I got myself into a predicament"

  • "I moved out by myself and I was paying so much in rent I didn't really think it through so last year was a year where I really struggled and this year is a year where I really tried to step it up"

Career:

• A Volvo technician

• 52'000 a year pre-taxes

• Lives in Lubbock for his job

Expenses/Debts:

• Credit Card - $1'628

  • Not spending on it while paying it off, made $200 payment (way more than minimum)

  • 35% interest, talked them down to 18%

  • "I honestly don't remember how I got so high up in debt, I think I did pay off some student I think I paid off a class and it really set me behind and then I used my credit card to get a car"

    • Put the downpayment on the card

• Collections (1) - $972

  • Medical Debt

  • When he was living in Arizona, not working at the time, wasn't feeling well

  • Two years ago, not something that will repeat

  • Wants to pay credit card off before this

  • "They can't report medical debt on your credit if it's less than $500?"

  • Tried to negotiate but failed, only tried once

  • Been in collections since last year?

• Student Loans (4) - $12'000

  • Federal but he thought they were private

  • Around a $150 minimum payment

• Maco debt toolbox? timestamp

  • 18% interest rate

  • Toolbox itself was 6'500

  • Owes 9'500

  • Minimum monthly is $180

  • There's something weird later on where he thinks it shows up differently on his credit report timestamp

  • Missed a payment at some point?

• Car Loans (2) - $30'638

  • "I have two cards, I'm thinking about getting a third, a Tesla"

  • "Well you save on gas, yuh know, it's always nice to have three cars"

  • "I have one car, the other ones from my mom, it wouldn't hurt to get another one... it's always an investment"

  • "My mom needed a car so I bought her a car under my credit"

    • "She's in a financial situation as well"

  • Sion IM 2016

    • 19'000

    • "I'm pretty sure it's overpriced... it's just my mom really needed a car"

    • Put down $2'000

    • 13% interest

    • "That's the cheapest they had on the lot" "I was in a tight schedule with work"

    • 72 months

    • "Well at the end of it I'm not really paying for it, Mr.. pushes up glasses Hammer, my mom is" timestamp

      • The plan is once she buys a house she will buy the car off him with her credit?

  • Ford Focus 2019

    • 11'703 remaining

    • 103k miles

    • 2 for one deal with the other car

    • He's not sure about the term or the interest rate

    • 9'000 downpayment?

    • $312 minimum payment

    • 24.39% interest

• Trashes In n out and Red Robin timestamp

Savings/Retirement:

• High Yield Savings with Amex:

  • $866 => $1'066

  • 4% interest

• Investment Account

  • All part of the Acorns

  • $200 in one

  • $300 in another

  • No match

Budgeting Conversation:

• Under contract at job, can't leave until it's over, Feb of next year, plans to move back home after timestamp

• Putting money into a "Christmas Fund" at work

• Doesn't pay renter's insurance timestamp

  • Apartment is under his roommate's insurance?

  • Not on the lease, "they didn't approve me" (because of the collections)

  • 

Community interaction and engagement is central to Bungie and our games. For years, we've invited creators and other members of the community to confidential summits to provide feedback on the future of Destiny. This is a beloved part of the process, but relies heavily on trust.

— Destiny 2 Team (@Destiny2Team) April 14, 2023

If you are unfamiliar with Destiny 2, it is Bungie Studios' second best franchise ever (out of two). It's like World of Warcraft meets Call of Duty except instead play as solders, you're space wizards.

The median Destiny player has like 3000 hours logged in, proving that g*mers are subhumans who deserve less than nothing.

Earlier in March, there were some leaks of new weapons which are basically same as old ones, and some "exotic" armor pieces (which everyone has) would get like 5% worse: https://twitter.com/Bungie_Leaks/status/1637247451882225666

Today, Bungie made a surprise Tweet sounding like a BPD foid with all that "you breached my trust" and "I won't have s*x (secret summits) with you (streamers) until I can trust u again": https://twitter.com/Destiny2Team/status/1646967503690813441

Coincidentally, around the same time, a big Destiny streamer called Ekuegan made vague and ominous tweets - also sounding like a BPD foid - of basically "YOU'RE not breaking up with ME, I'M breaking up with YOU!!" He ended up 🔒ing the replies like a b-word.

https://twitter.com/Ekuegan/status/1647254421514928129

Good morning. I don’t think enough about people that have wronged me or situations that have wronged me. I have gotten to a place where I am happy with who I am in life. I personally know the truth , I know who I am and I’m happy knowing it. Only god can judge me

Meditation ❤️

Complete with self-harm too!(?)

https://twitter.com/Ekuegan/status/1647297350652788738

Punching bag or not, I’ll be here . Time to experience new games .

https://twitter.com/Ekuegan/status/1647307333226352640

Blessing in Disguise. I see the real ones

Cue Liana "Hippy" Ruppert, a beloved community manager for Bungo and actual BPD foid. She went on to tweet how this deeply affected her and proceeded to argue in her replies:

https://twitter.com/DirtyEffinHippy/status/1646972800949944320

Sometimes this job hurts. I don’t think people realize how attached to folks we are. As a human, not employee: when that trust is betrayed, it hurts. Same thing when I was a talent manager: it’s hard when you genuinely care. And we do. Please don’t abuse that trust.

We want you to succeed. I’ve seen so many creators lose entire brands because of one decision. If you’re under NDA, no matter the nature, HONOR that. Don’t show your friends, no matter how much you think you can trust them. VALUE yourself, because you’re amazing.

One last thing: we have people that handle this. Please do not try to seek out leakers, attack them, or seek to harm. Let our teams handle these things, it’s part of the job. Your job is to be amazing, be kind, drink water, and absolutely pwn as a Guardian 🤙🏼

She also made a 26-minute long video on this shit

She also got ratioed in her own replies lol

Reddit reacts:

New tweets coming from the Destiny 2 Team twitter suggest the leaker was a community member who leaked info from a community summit (🔒d by jannies)

Paul Tassi, who somehow gets employed by Forbes to write about this one video game, wrote an article on it.

https://twitter.com/PaulTassi/status/1647283010868314115

This is not a witch hunt, this is reporting. He is the one Bungie has accused of being the leaker. He denies it. Please read the article

Forbes: "The Alleged ‘Destiny 2’ Leaker Is A Well-Known Streamer, And He Denies It Was Him"

Here's a bit of the article:

In a DM conversation with me on Friday night, Ekuegan confirmed that he has been accused of being the source of the leak by Bungie. Ekuegan is a high-profile Destiny 2 streamer and YouTuber who is famous for having run over 6,000 Grandmaster Nightfalls.

Each Grandmaster Nightfall takes ~20 mins to 1:30 to complete. There are 8760 hours in a year.

Some of this might be wrong, but I think I got most of the interesting points. Dude's dug himself a pit and there's not going to be any good way out of it, I think. It's split up based on the timestamps in his description

00:00 Does he even know how much money he makes?

• Weird stuff at the beginning where he doesn't want to show his eyes, location or age.

• Works at a tesla factory

• Financial situation is "pretty wonky"

06:11 Tax fraud?

• Left last job because he didn't want to get vaxxed

• Didn't waste money paying taxes on the interim job

08:49 Weird expenses?

• Two credit cards

• $358 in road tolls, includes late fees? He stalled them to the point of being threatened with court?

10:11 You have NO MONEY!!!

• $3049 in, $5000 out

• "I've been... you could say... investing"

• "I used to budget" "I've maxed all my credit cards" "I used to have thousands money in my savings. All those thousands absolutely gone." "I had to close my savings, in fact I didn't close it myself, the bank just completely deleted it."

11:43 Rent is 60% of his income

• "Undisciplinary actions on a mutual basis when it comes to sharing rent, for sure"

  • His former roommate (family member, brother) ditched him and left him with the lease

• Back and forth about whether the roommate is in fact fricking him over by leaving him with the rent bill

  • The answer seems to be a Yes but apparently it's consensual

• Lease ends in a few months

17:53 You have NO MONEY!!! p2

19:53 Going massively into debt for a dream

• Big money spent on audio equipment, paying in installments

• Learning audio engineering

• Just finished paying off a second(?) $1200 subwoofer

• Splurged a little on audio software plugins

• "I've had chances to make money but I did not at the time receive money"

  • He refused payment because he wasn't satisfied with the quality of his own product

• Believes he will make a thousandfold return on investment

  • Has sunk at least 20k into this

26:33 150% utilization on credit cards!!!!

31:54 DebtCHAOS

• One is over $5400 and the other is $2697

• $1700 over his credit limit, they're still letting him purchase on it

  • $129 interest on that in November? Not sure I heard this right

• "Once I learned I could [spend over the credit card limit] it kinda just set this mentality that I could just do it and then pay it off"

• $6 under the credit limit on the other one

• Got declined on a $1 purchase

• 0% interest until early spring on Credit Card 2

• Been recently building up hardware collection, started out on software but moved onto hardware

34:00 Hidden car debt....

• Car loan

  • More than 60% paid off

  • 4% rate

  • Cosign on the initial purchase, refinanced under his own

  • 2018 Chevy

35:31 Do you even have a financial future at this point?

29:50 Are you willing to sacrifice at all?!

• Mostly backstory stuff

• Had some health problems during the moving job which made him quit

• Been cutting back on fast food

41:51 Clean up this MESS

44:03 Rent is 60% of his income p2

• roughly 1900 on rent on a roughly 50k income? Not certain I heard this one right

• Long defense of the brother because the brother has helped him out bigly in the past?

50:22 Broke forever...

52:35 Hammer Financial Score

It reminds me of Howard Stern’s question to me. ‘Tell me, governor, what happens to us when we die?’ I said, ‘Nothing. You’re 6 feet under. Anyone that tells you something else is a f—ing liar.’

I said, ‘We don’t know what happens with the soul and all this spiritual stuff that I’m not an expert in, but I know that the body as we see each other now, we will never see each other again like that.

*snip

The former California Gov. said he had lost about 15 friends from back in his bodybuilding days in the last two decades and the tragic reality of our finite time on earth forced him to shift his perspective on the possibility of an afterlife.

“When people talk about, ‘I will see them again in heaven,’ it sounds so good, but the reality is that we won’t see each other again after we’re gone. That’s the sad part. I know people feel comfortable with death, but I don’t,'” he said.

Do note that Arnie never said anything about Jesus or Christians, he just said he doesn't believe in heaven.

---

Choice comments:

FOOL!! You "seek the guidance of a higher power" BUT REFUSE to BELIEVE IN THE SCRIPTURES!!! WHO MADE the HUMAN BODY? You were an "accident"? The brain? All an accident? The eye?? All an accident? The right amount of oxygen for humans to breathe in the atmosphere? All an accident?? Earth rotates around sun at best distance from it. All an accident?? Where is the person with 3 eyes or 2 noses or ears in front, if evolution is random?????? Does not exist!!!!! GET YOUR HEAD ON STRAIGHT.

---

You're at Judgement Day and there's Pelosi, kneeling at the left-hand side of the Lorde, whispering in his ear.

You ok?

---

How is spending eternity with your relatives you couldn't stand to be around on Thanksgiving Heaven? rofl. Think about it. Or praising Jesus for a zillion years every day? yeah real fun.

you've never been truly loved, have you? but you can have that experience with your Creator. It is up to you though

Could you please work out your daddy issues in private, peepeey? Could you please stop taking out your hatred for him on God? Thanks.

---

If you bothered to read more, you'd know that is simply not a fact. Though believe what you want! :) The only people stopping you are the nutjob Lefties, Woketards, and Communists. (uh...btw...I'm a staunch Conservative...and I don't believe there is a god)

You may have some conservative views, but you are not a conservative. You just displayed the fact you have nothing to conserve, Cheung. And there are at LEAST twelve historical figures who wrote about Jesus' life and work. Were they ALL lying, and YOU are the one telling the truth? Not ONE honest historian still denies the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, knucklehead. There is simply too much evidence to deny that.

---

Also the Bible has predicted perfectly what has taken shape here in America and around the world on text that are over 2,000 years old.

---

It must have been such a miserable life for Arnold pretending to be a Republican while living like a Democrat. Democrats bring you misery.

While he lives there still remains hope for him.

---

Living a full life, experiences and faith have displayed to me there is a God, there is life after death and eternity in either Heaven or Heck. Choose wisely because there is no do-overs

Perhaps you should choose better. You follow a false god. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when you stand before the gods. Why take the chance? Because wow if you are wrong you will be tormented by the gods for all eternity.

>being a LARPagan

---

The closest I can come to believing in heck is listening to a democrat.

---

"There is no afterlife and “anyone that tells you something else is a f—ing liar.” You know who else said this? HITLER!

and billions of others with shedloads of common sense

So Hitler has common sense, just like you?

---

And now we see him for the proud elitist socialist he really is. They believe in nothing and neither should anyone else. Hope doesn't exist, now shut up and suffer, peasants.

New Snappy quote dropped.

---

The saddest words that will be heard (over and over again) on Judgement Day: “But Lord, I THOUGHT…” They “thought.” They “thought” God didn’t exist, nor Heaven, nor Heck. They “thought” that things that their conscience clearly told them were wrong, were right. They “thought” that science had all of the answers. They “thought” they could be their own god…

---

Next: Arnold declares himself to be God. Because, to be able to assert 100% certainty that there is no Heaven, no Heck, and no God, you would have to be, well… God. Think about it for a moment…

"Donald Trump on Wednesday proudly quoted a messenger who said he was “the second coming of God,” and he described himself as “the chosen one,” looking up at the sky."

Anything the WP says, I automatically take with a grain of salt, given their track record for CIA inspired BS. Anyway, IF he said it , he’s wrong too. The job of Supreme Deity is already filled, and He can’t be fired from the position…

There's a video of him saying it on that link I gave. Nice quote about the Deity!

He’s also known to say things like that to troll the media that he knows hates him. The same way rockstars say completely outlandish things sometimes, when they’re messing with or annoyed by an interviewer…

Drumpf is the AntiChrist.

---

i hope thats true, i can be happy never seeing or hearing from you forever. why cant you start now arnold and do us all a favor.

wow. you want this man to not exist because you disagree with him on some trivial issue? wow

Since when did Herr Muscle Brain fashion himself a philosopher and theologian?

---

and when he is in heck just 1 second begging for a drop of water it will be too late eternity is for ever.

Yes & AMEN

any proof of claim you idiot ?

TURN or BURN

I got a good chuckle out of that exchange

---

Funny though how they worship lucifer who was created by GOD! But there's nothing after

---

He is free to believe what he likes, he will get dose of reality when he dies, just like every other naysayer that has ever lived

Sorry, “belief” is not evidence.

talk to people that deal with the dying and the dead... they'll give you plenty of evidence.

No such evidence exists. Try again.

the fact you only choose to listen to those you already agree with is the height of ignorance. talking to someone who has experienced something so earth shattering as to change absolutely everything about themselves overnight is more than just evidence... it's proof, imo. takes months to years to brainwash someone into believing something... now explain how one experience can change a person instantly... I'll wait

Sorry, it’s your claim that evidence come from the “dead and dying” and “…he will get a dose of reality when he dies.” The burden of proof is on your shoulders to support your claim with verifiable, independent, objective evidence. Otherwise, you’re just deceived by your own confirmation bias. I can wait.

I see you're a typical lefty dingleberry that lies to make their case... care to not lie, and try again, becky?

---

needs to move to a deserted island with Greata A life ill spent, he is hoping for oblivion.

Imagine the conversations between those two. Makes my skin crawl. Arnie: I’m here to pump you up. Greta: How dare you?!?

Boomer humor

---

Arnold is a product of commie hollywood so no one would expect him to believe in The Lord, Jesus Christ, GOD. Arnold's actions during his life show that he is a dark path kind of guy.

---

He doesn't know but he knows? Arnold is confused, he might have the Biden Flu.

---

The bible is a fantasy book and certainly teaches you some positive emotions and thoughts but thats about it. Its like a bed time book story.

Boy are you going to be surprised. I applaud your bravery. God will not be mocked.

---

Arnold Schwarzenegger..........FAILED TO HIDE HIS NAZI OVERTONES!!!

---

He’s correct. Define death please. I’m waiting…

You define death since you believe there is no afterlife. I’m waiting…

---

Nobody knows with certainty and anybody claiming they know the truth is a fool. For all we know there can be some third option nobody ever mentioned that happens

World-renowned theologian Justin has spoken. And the kid has decided once and for all that we can't know. We should just give up. With that amount of certainty in his uncertainty, who are WE to disagree???

---

Oblivion awaits us all..Deal with it!

Only if your a democrat!

---

The rest of the comments are just fundie that boil down to "Say Christ is king right now!" or "If God isn't real then how come my church says otherwise?"

TL;DR A lot of people got mad at me for posting wholesome Bible verses on /r/Christianity

Prolouge

This story begins with /r/RoeVWadeCelebration. Now, I have a general rule when trolling to never argue for things I actually agree with, and I lean slightly pro-life on the issue of abortion (I'm more of a centrist, but I think pro-choice people have terrible arguments. Like I get it you are losing "freedom", but that is entirely tangential to the problem at hand ). However, I couldn't resist a good opportunity to troll redditors, so I decided to try Christmaxxing (more on that on my other post). I had been meaning to try it, but had never gotten around to it. (trolling rightoids is too much fun)

I had some good fun trolling /r/RoeVWadeCelebration's resident lolcows, but I wanted to bring more actual Christposters into the fold (dramamaxxing), so I went to the most logical place to find Pro-Life Christposters - /r/Christianity. Boy was I wrong.

The Absurd Nature of /r/Christianity

the front page of /r/Christianity, on 5/15

Even a cursory glance at /r/Christianity will reveal that there is something very bizarre going on. Firstly, pretty much everything posted there has a rather liberal bias (compared to "normal" conservative Christianity). In fact, it seems almost apologetic for being Christian. And, more importantly, a decent chunk of posters aren't even Christians!

im beginning to notice something

So, what's going on? Well, based on my observations, /r/Christianity has three distinct groups of people that browse it.

1. The Atheist Agitators : These people browse /r/Christianity in an attempt to debunk the lies of religion. Obviously, the vast, vast majority of redditors are atheists, so it makes sense that we would have a decent-sized population of them. They also get a lot of upvotes for the same reason.

2. The Malleable (((Methodists))) : These are liberal Christians. They aren't very numerous in the real world, but on a site that is as predominantly liberal as reddit, they are the largest group, by far. (Technically, they aren't all methodists, there are other denominations that are fairly liberal, like the Universalists, and people that don't go to church). These guys make a big show about being better than your average Christians because they have New Good Opinions™ rather than Old Bad Opinions™. Since the itself Bible is fairly problematic, a lot of them don't believe the Bible is accurate.

3. The Conservative Christians : These are the sorts of people that you'd meet if you went into most churches in America. However, reddit isn't kind to these people, being both "conservative" and "christian". Therefore, they don't generally use reddit, so they have a small population on /r/Christianity.

Because reddit is democratic, the "normal" Conservatives are pushed into a corner, while the rest circlejerk about how bad they are.

There's also something to be said about the mod team. /r/Christianity has a mod bio for their jannies, and my "biased" count shows there being 4 atheists, 7 methodist/liberal, and 9 "normal" jannies. So, the libs outnumber the cons by 2. As you would expect, the liberal Christians do be liberal:

I was raised Southern Baptist. In college, I went through a major deconstruction of my faith. The Episcopal Church is now where I call home! In the past, I’ve held Evangelical, Calvinist, and charismatic theological views. During that deconstruction, I was curious in Death of God theologies, Christian atheism, and other radical theologies. Now, my theology is again creedally orthodox, and highly influenced by liberation theology and contextual theologies, such as Black, disability, and queer theologies.

I live in Washington, D.C. with my wonderful husband of two years, and work in affordable housing. In my free time, I’m usually reading, running, or watching Netflix. Star Trek TNG was the most formative show of my childhood, but nowadays you can catch me on my fifth watch-through of The Office.

Even the "cons" aren't nessisarily even that conservative (I lumped my denominations that I consider to be more biblically focused together as "conservatives")

He plays electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, and synthesizers in church. He is also pursuing, part time, an MA degree for Worship Arts + Pastoral Counseling. He is a Libertarian NeverTrumper. MBTI: ENTJ. DiSC: C/D.

oh yeah, a lot of them list their Myers-Briggs lol

The Plan

Given the fact that they were so liberal, but it was still technically a Christian subreddit, I saw the opportunity to begin causing a little bit of mischief. Now, obviously the Bible is problematic in and of itself, with verses that condemn homosexuality and sexual immorality but that is so passé. That's ragebait and rightoid. Instead, I would post wholesome bible verses that have a somewhat prolife bent, and wait for people to get mad at the literal bible on /r/Christianity. I did this for six days.

Day 1: The Crusade Begins

My first post was 🤗"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made" Psalm 139:13-14 👶. This one got 37 comments, and a respectable 69% upvote ratio. Despite the fact that this was posted to rile up leftoids, a decent chunk of the commenters were actually positive. Of the four top level comments, only one was challenging me. (Don't worry, things will heat up soon)

I did get a couple of bites, however. My first customer was a "gay christian"

our debate didn't last, however, it did spawn a WORDSWORDSWORDS debate between a conservative and him, so I count that as a win. My next customer was cumberlandbanjo, saying this "isn't the debate of the day"

wtf dude, you can't just post bible verses on /r/Christianity

Day 2: Nothing happens

This was a boring day. I only got three comments and they were all positive. 🤗 "You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. You have granted me life and steadfast love." Job 10:11-12 👶🧵

Day 3: Enter McClanky

Day three was my first big hit. The vast majority of comments were seething. More importantly, our two biggest lolcows make their first appearances - McClanky and TeHeBasil.

TeHeBasil

First, TeHeBasil. TeHeBasil is an atheist, but more importantly he can never leave a conversation without getting the last word, which I stan hardcore. Our first conversation just kept going...

notice that he calls me rude. this is what you call foreshadowing.

...and going...

...and going...

...and going.

The funny thing about tehebasil is that he is super entitled, and gets very easily "annoyed". "ITS PEOPLE LIKE YOU WHO DROVE ME AWAY FROM THE CHURCH" ok so? you're already out of the church, why would I care? lol

McClanky

TeHeBasil isn't my favorite lolcow, however. My favorite lolcow is McClanky. McClanky is a moderator, and a bit of an butt. Our first confrontation began with him posting a verse I had seen multiple times (lmk if any of you christcels know a good comeback for this, this is like the third time I've seen it)

Ahh yes, God finds everything so precious that He helped create a potion that, at the least made a women incapable of having another child, or, at the most, made her miscarry. Very precious indeed.

“‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse.19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curs—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”

🤰🧴💀🧟‍♂️👼👿

clearly mcclanky had been aware of my emoji-posting, and had probably been stalking me lol. So I asked him.

mcclanky why do you dislike bible verses so much? 🤔 you keep coming into these threads to troll me 😭 i don't understand why 😭😭😭alright have a blessed day, peace

I dislike your annoying use of emojis 🤢. You also seem to not understand that this is a subreddit for discussion🙈. Your posting things related to hot-button issues😱. Don't expect people to kiss your feet🤮 and praise your intelligence🤓 for posting a verse with emojis💤.

ok. 🤷‍♂️ well i will keep doing what i am doing, bc jesus said that i would face persecution

if you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they keep my word, they will also keep yours

i hope you find peace, mclanky. ✌ have a blessed day

This isn't persecution. That is a pretty egotistical thing to say in relation to people who are actually being persecuted. You just don't have people agreeing with you.

"i hope you find peace, mclanky."

I appreciate it, but I found it a long time ago.

neighbor, you're questioning, how tf you gonna say you have peace?

Naturally TeHeBasil pops into the thread and begins doing what he does.

"ok. 🤷‍♂️ well i will keep doing what i am doing, bc jesus said that i would face persecution"

That's such a sad state of mind. Where you think you're doing a good or right thing because someone else said others wouldn't like it.

I mean, come on.

id rather trust jesus 👆 than mcclanky 🤷‍♂️ alright have a blessed day

Another funny comment comes from a self-described atheist

Also the way this person says have a blessed day peace, like normally I have no problem but the way this person is using it sounds like they are trying to end the conversation, like why bother posting on a social site if you are basically ignoring everyone?

One more thing. You'll never guess what religious group McClanky has ties to

oh jesus im really starting to notice things

Day 4: My Big Break

On day four, for whatever reason, my post exploded, and I got a TON of seethe, at a whopping 269 comments. It was also one of the weakest verses, because it was taken mostly out of context, lol. that probably boosted it.

The trouble with emojis

My favorite part of day four was the fact that so many people began seething about my usage of emojis. The top comment, gilded and sitting at 170 updoots, claims it is a red flag. So, naturally, I asked why

These emojis are a 🚩

Yeah, excessive use of emojis always causes alarms for me

what alarms does it cause? genuinely curious alright have a blessed day, peace

here's reddit explaining the emoji question

Reminds me of MLM girl bosses

say you hate women without saying you hate women

It reads like a facebook post made by a karen / "girlboss" kind of person lol.

why is it always karen? 🤔 really makes you think.

Why do you think emojis would be a good thing? Would you ever put that in anything important that you were writing? A resume? An obituary? A legal document?

the internet is serious business.

Emojis generally aren’t welcome on Reddit

That sentence is two words too long.

somebody call /r/emojipolice 🚨

For me its indicative of lazy writing. The person often can't be bothered with capitalization, punctuation, they often don't know subtle differences of words, they don't know how to write for brevity or emotional impact. Just “word bites”. But the most important one is that lazy writing often comes with lazy thinking. Use of emojis isn't a guarantee of any of these issues, I’ve just noticed a correlation.

ah so you think that a person who uses emojis is "dumb" for lack of a better word? 🧠well ill be the first to admit im not an einstien lol. ⚛ im just a normal guy that wants to praise jesus... 👆 anyways i think ill keep using emojis for now 😁 alright have a blessed day, peace

Not at all. Said nothing about intelligence or lack of it, but rather laziness when it comes to writing. You aren't bothering to capitalize or use punctuation correctly, but because you're too lazy to put in the effort. I don't blame you though, I think it's a problem created by social media where capturing a simple essence of an idea and the poster's emotional response in a visual way is far more “rewarded” in these social apps, than actually deeply thinking about a topic and putting in the effort to clearly communicate your ideas.

It has nothing to do with intelligence, but effort and expectation. You claim you're “just a normal guy” so are you claiming normal people can't learn to write, punctuate and use grammar correctly? I disagree. It's not that hard to do. We teach it in elementary school. If you never learned it, that's a failing of the school system. Again, not a measure of intelligence.

Lastly, you jumping to the conclusion I’m claiming you're “dumb” is a good example of a similar problem, not taking the time to fully read and comprehend. It seems like something which comes from having a ton of social interactions on sites like twitter where short emotive comments are of more value than in-depth analysis.

im just a normal guy who wants to praise jesus 🤷‍♂️ i really dont see what the big deal is😕anyways, have a blessed day, peace

this guy is super smart

Day of the Mop

McClanky appeared once again, and acted like an absolute butt. So, I had to ask the obvious question

God knew us before our birth 👆 he had plans before us before we even came out of the womb 👶 he knew us even before there was time ⌚which means that all babies are precious💎and so are you😀alright have a blessed day, peace

That ☠ was a bunch of word salad 🥗 that did not answer 😐 anything that I said 🥸. This verse 🙄 does nothing but say God 🤲🏿 is omnipresent.

so? 🤔 it proves that God has a plan for all people 🤼 check this out

11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

alright have a blessed day, peace

God 🤲🏿 has 👉 a 🧞‍♂️ plan 🛩 for 4️⃣ people 👾 who 🦉were 👈 going 🏃‍♀️💨 to 2️⃣ be 🐝 born👶not ⛔ those 👪 who 🦉 were 👈 going 🏃‍♀️💨 to 2️⃣ be 🐝 aborted 👼 or 🚣‍♂️ miscarried 😇.

you sound kind of angry mcclanky 😭idk why you are so mean 😭 it doesn't matter, ill just keep praising jesus 👆 alright, have ablessed day, peace

Your inability to actually try to have a discussion on a subreddit dedicated to having discussions is weird.

i only posted a bible verse 😭😭😭i thought this was the /r/Christianity subreddit🤔im not on /r/atheism , go there lol 🤣 anyways have a blessed day, peace

Please do not tell me or other users to go somewhere else. That is a discourse violation. You are welcome to post on this forum, but we expect users to have good-faith conversations.

😂😂😂 this is a discourse violation 😂😂😂

I did a poll a while back asking what I should write about. Surprisingly "my old boomer times" won by a large margin. So I present you with a history of MUDs, the thinking man's multiplayer game.

Telnet

Back in the 1800s (yes, that's how far back I'm going) Americans invented all kinds of awesome things: telephones, machine guns, movie cameras, record players. Two of these devices, the typewriter and the telegraph, were combined into something even more powerful. The keyboard of one typewriter sent electrical signals to control a typewriter at a distant location. This was known as teletype. It's how big organizations like militaries and multinational corporations sent data for about a century.

Teletype Model 33.

Eventually Americans invented even more cool stuff like mainframe computers capable of doing time sharing. This meant they could respond almost instantly. You could connect a teletype to the computer but that was suboptimal as the teletype couldn't print as fast as the computer could think. So the printer was replaced with a video screen, and now you had a dumb terminal. It could show text on a screen and accept text input but that was about it. These came into use in the 1970s among big organizations that could afford to pay for the luxury.

A DEC VT100 terminal. This is the standard terminal that's emulated in software.

Another revolution quickly followed in the 1980s with microcomputers, little computers so cheap that an individual person could own one. These were not very powerful at first but they were smart enough to pretend they were a dumb terminal and connect to mainframe. It's a computer emulating a terminal emulating a teletype.

Telnet being used for something more serious.

Why waste your time with this history lesson? It's important to understand the environment we're dealing with here. The Telnet protocol that you use to connect to a MUD is all about text. The technical details of how it gets from one place to another are more advanced, but in the end it's just alphanumeric characters going in and out like a machine from the 1800s.

Gaymers Rise Up

As universities got mainframes capable of time sharing, computer games soon followed. Among the most revolutionary was 1976's Colossal Cave Adventure. The player explores a cave system made up of a network of rooms. Each room has a text description and it can have items in it for the player to pick up. The player gives commands by simply typing in what they want to do. Many more games following this formula followed and the text adventure genre was born.

Don't get eaten by a grue.

Zork was among the most popular of these new games. Some nerd at the University of Essex loved to play a version of it called Dungeon. In 1978 he decided to make a multiplayer game based on it, which he naturally called Multi User Dungeon, and the MUD was born. In 1980 the university was connected to the internet, exposing MUD to the whole world.

UNIX Nerds Emerge

The roots of the MUD genre were now firmly planted but it would be many years before it bloomed. There were a number of technical obstacles which made it prohibitively expensive for all but a lucky few to play MUDs. The internet was only available at a few dozen universities and major computer companies, most of which frowned on using it for monkey business like playing games. By the late 1980s there were several MUDs running on commercial networks like CompuServe and AOL but these charged obscene amounts for connection time. Microcomputers like the PC became available but were still far too expensive for an ordinary family to get just to play games. A modem had to be purchased separately and these were incredibly slow and expensive as well.

Remember how to calculate your THAC0.

Despite these challenges, the 1980s saw great progress. A new nerd monoculture was sprouting in America and Europe, one that would prove to be fertile ground for the emergence of MUDs. The UNIX operating system and C language were taking over university computer science programs replacing a hodgepodge of weird proprietary systems. This made it much easier to share code, which would be crucial in the golden age of MUDs. There was compatibility in culture as well. Every nerd liked The Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons.

Explosion

Ultimately MUDs would explode in popularity not because of some revolutionary idea from a creative genius but simply because computers got better and cheaper over the years. By 1995 you could get a Windows PC with a modem for a reasonable price. The fiber optic backbone of the internet was laid and in the early 1990s the government allowed it to be used for commercial purposes. University computers became powerful enough that running a MUD wasn't too big a drain on resources.

Around 1990 a few free (as in Richard Stallman eating something off his foot and calling it "GNU") MUDs appear. Most MUDs in the future are descendants of these, especially the enormously influential DikuMUD. However there are also all kinds of MUDs with their own unique codebase, some of them quite bizarre like one based on LISP. The most enduring are true labors of love, often based in a university computer science department and passed down from one class of students to the next.

A map of the city of Midgaard. DikuMUDs generally kept the same layout.

Some MUDs were for roleplaying. You were expected to stay in character pretending you were an elf or a Romulan or something. As shameful and embarrassing as it was to engage in this type of behavior, it had a charm. You were essentially cooperating with the other players to write a story in real time. If nothing else, you could learn how to write quickly under time pressure. Some of these artsy-fartsy type MUDs let you create your own areas and even program them. It was kind of like Second Life except without graphics or Bardfinn. With no graphics and such a simple user interface it was easy to add whatever gameplay mechanics you could think of.

But most were simple hack and slash affairs. You go out to an area appropriate for your level, preferably in a group, and hunt for mobs. When you find one you type something like "kill orc" and enter combat, taking turns attacking each other. Occasionally you "kick" or "cast magic missile" or whatever your class' special power is. When you kill it you get xp, gold, and maybe equipment. This should sound very familiar to you. MUDs were inspired by D&D and in turn became the basis of MMOs. EverQuest, the first MMO to achieve mainstream success, ripped off DikuMUD to a large extent.

Legacy

The golden age of MUDs lasted until around 2000. During this period they were really the only game in town. There were multiplayer FPSs and RTSs but nothing that gave you a similar experience. On a 56k modem it took a few seconds just to download a jpeg. Internet connections were much less stable, frequently cutting out for a second or two. So text still made sense as the medium for a multiplayer game.

Then MMOs arrived like Spanish conquistadors, bringing ruin for our civilization. Better PCs and better communications technology like DSL finally allowed the dream of a "graphical MUD" to come true. These were the shiny new thing. Why read walls of text written by some random 20 Finnish nerd boy when you could be looking at 3D graphics instead? If you had any normie friends they would be playing WoW, not words words words. Of course some MUDs have survived and are still thriving today, but the age when there were a thousand running at a time with all kinds of creative new ideas is over.

You can't compete with graphics like this.

So why do I lament the passing of this era? Is it just nostalgia for a time when ska ruled and action movies had real stunts? No. It's more. That was a time when we were free. Free to express yourself. Free to make your own world. Free to implement any crazy gameplay system you wanted. Free to be a Romulan. Jolan 'tru, dramanauts.

There's still hope for @Zenzic @COMMUNISTHOMOGROYPER @RACISTFEMBOYGROYPERV3 @MarseyIsMyWaifu (or carp pls pin) and the manlet haters !chuds !besties !groyperethnostate !incels

Let's start with the fact that he has his own https://groomercord.gg/PAXaSfs32b and a manifesto after a short comparison to @Shreddedmanlet

https://redd.it/os3imf6azsza1.jpg

My prerfences for obese woman developed when I was a kid watching 600 pound life, after witnessing and seeing countless obese woman and shower scenes, one day a particular woman on the show was giving a monolgue, and I remember getting an erection while seeing her. Little later on it developed to googling obese woman fetish videos on YouTube and watching it, and enjoying it without knowing why. Then I started to understand I was attracted to it, and I fully realized I was attracted to big woman. I never even maturbated until was nearly a senior in high school, and by then was already attracted to obese woman Weird thing is while I'm sexually attracted to obese woman, I'm romantically attracted to any woman regardless of size (as long as they aren't black). My reason for not being attracted to black woman romantically is cause I was raised and born in a white area with mostly white people, so my mind is basically a white guy with preferences a white person would have, which means attraction to white woman. However even though I'm only romantically attracted to white woman, I'm sexually attracted to any race a woman is as long as she is obese.

So let's see how his night out with a redditor went

I thought you were talking to a new girl? Like you said in your previous post? So why are you going bar hopping, and expecting makeouts? Asking for genuine curiosity

Nah she's just a friend I barhopped with last night

Friend". Bro she straight up said you were kind of a peepee on Groomercord. She said you were awkward and yelled thug max. You also took her drinks.

I joked about thugmaxxing when I first met she said rest of the night I was normal. And I asked for permission, and the final drink of the night I paid for

can't be all bad if he's chivalrous. The redditor in question self doxed and posted in the thread as /u/cold-salamander5798 with gems such as

https://tinder.com/@deena22 I don’t have trouble getting matches just would like some constructive feedback :) for reference I am a woman who swipes on women! Thanks! My bio says “masters student pursuing AT super easygoing and down for anything. Ask me why I’m deathly scared of bees”.

Which led to the interesting insight that /u/p_yth has been using AI to change his hairstyle and as many filters as a mid foid on TikTok.

They’re fake. He photoshopped all those hairstyles.

He's also not above wearing sexy high heels to overcome @Shreddedmanlet s limitations

I lookmaxed and even put on shoe lifts that make me 5'7 to 6'2. And while it midly gave me some success, it's not enough to make the claim that woman are picky over dudes that are under 6 foot. Honesty if a woman vibes with a dude and/or finds him attractive, he's not gonna care if he's short unless he's literally 5'2 lol

Let's take one last look at him, surely he's an ogre, and it's not just his personality/needing a shower and some weights, right?

Got rejected by a bunch of woman I've seen on Tinder last night at a bar side party, its crazy how many women in a row reject me, you couldn't do this on purpose, and I'm confident as heck with woman. Eventually, I gave up and wandered into this PC gaming center where I guess society wants me to be](https://old.reddit.com/r/Tinder/comments/13hczf3/got_rejected_by_a_bunch_of_woman_ive_seen_on?sort=controversial)

Assorted gems to scroll through for the interested reader

r/AskReddit - What religion are women most likely to be interested in dating you, or are more obligated to not care about looks?

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r/Tinder - Just applied my tattoo, gonna go clubbing again for the first time in two weeks

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How I lost my virginity two years ago

Back in January 2021 I was pissed about being a virgin, so I mass messaged a bunch of woman on a fat fetish dating app until one responded. The reason why I use the term "casual encounter" is cause that's she had on her profile in her "preferences" section. It was some chick in her early 30s, i was 21, and she apparently had been through a bad breakup and was really hurting inside looking for some quick s*x. She lived alone with a couple cats as well, really chill chick but she ghosted me after the s*x. It was a good experience tho, I stuffed her with food and a 2 liter of soda during the experience as well. But honestly my favorite part was after the s*x when i was just cuddling with her on the couch watching tv. I thought it was going to be a relationship afterwards and I was living on cloud 9 for a couple days after that, but sadly it turned out she had no interest in seeing me afterwards. I'm happy tho I can't call myself a virgin anymore cause I remember for the longest time being depressed I was still a virgin. Since then I've had s*x once more, and I hope to be able to increase that to once a week once i master thugmaxxing in the club, cause right now I'm able to consistently make out and dance with random woman at the club, but not actually able to take them home with me and have s*x

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In finale, we all stan for a truecel

How do you come up with ideas for these posts please teach me because this is some quality trolling

It's because it's geniune and I'm not trolling. You could fill a yellowbook with the amount of woman who rejected me. If I got a dollar for every time I got rejected I'd be a millionare. Everyone's said to me if I put the work I do into getting a gf into something productive I could probably cure diseases or solve world hunger

Yo dramatards get a load of this guy.

If you don't know wtf Zaire is, and have never heard of it, don't worry, it doesn't exist anymore. Today it's known as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Existing from 1965 to 1997, The country was a one-party totalitarian military dictatorship, run by Mobutu Sese Seko.

This dude in the funny hat:

And his name was pretty self serving - his full name was like something out of Game of Thrones: Mobutu Sese Seko Koko Ngbendu wa za Banga (meaning; All-powerful warrior, who because of endurance and an inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake)

Zaire formed as a military dictatorship under Mobutu, after a bloody coup, which was preceded by Belgium having given the nation its independence. The history is way too complicated and long and boring, so all we need to focus on is that Mobutu was basically the Mugabe of the Congo, he was power hungry, batshit insane and, had no scruples and had no idea how to financially run a nation.

Mobutu led one of the most enduring dictatorships in Africa and amassed a personal fortune estimated to be over US$5 billion by selling his nation's rich natural resources while the people lived in poverty.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120520151428/http://articles.cnn.com/1997-09-07/world/9709_07_mobutu.wrap_1_joseph-desire-mobutu-zaires-mobutu-sese-seko-after

Mobutu's rule earned a reputation as one of the world's foremost examples of kleptocracy and nepotism. Close relatives and fellow members of the Ngbandi tribe were awarded high positions in the military and government.

https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5793&context=etd

Mobutu was the subject of one of the most pervasive personality cults of the twentieth century. The evening newscast opened with an image of him descending through clouds like a god. His portraits were hung in many public places, and government officials wore lapel pins bearing his portrait. He held such titles as "Father of the Nation", "Messiah", "Guide of the Revolution", "Helmsman", "Founder", "Savior of the People", and "Supreme Combatant".

Coins were printed with his face on them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/09/14/mobutu-and-me/4a01f2c8-996a-4d0e-93d1-66be2694e144

He had batshit policies. He attempted to purge the country of all Belgian cultural influences, and maintained an anti-communist stance to gain positive international support.

---

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/world/africa/051797zaire-mobutu.html

====(from the NYT article)

"Mobutu has been called one of the world's wealthiest heads of state, a brutal dictator, an inveterate meddler in the affairs of neighbors and a colossal ego. His style, at once bold and vainglorious, was for an entire generation the very model of an African autocrat.

Resplendent in his signature leopard-skin cap and carved wooden scepter topped with an eagle, Mobutu -- through his canny courtship of Western support, destabilization of his neighbors, systematic corruption and grandiose economic schemes -- left Zaire teetering on the brink of economic collapse. His cult of personality rose to such heights that for weeks at a time, Zaire's official press was forbidden to mention the name of any other Zairian than the president himself."

"Mobutu almost singlehandedly invented Zaire, even giving the country its name in replacement of the colonial name, Congo. But his personal appetite for luxury and wealth spawned a system of official corruption so rapacious that he leaves behind a country in ruin, where revenue from lucrative mines has been squandered or squirreled away in foreign bank accounts.

Life in a vast country deprived of roads, health care, electricity, telephones and often education has reverted to a brutishness not known since the 1940's."

====(end)

Also we have our CIA buddies to thank for putting this lunatic in power, as he was one of the only anti-communists with a power base during the rough political instability of 1960-1965, when the Belgians gave the Congo its independence.

"Although he has always denied it, many scholars believe that Mobutu helped organize the 1961 execution of Lumumba at the urging of the CIA. During the early independence years, the CIA called most of the shots in Zaire. Nonetheless, in those early years, Mobutu often frustrated his CIA handlers." Nooooooooooooooo cries the CIA fricktards, you're supposed to do what WE say and be a bulwark against the Red Menace!!!

And Mobutu is like haha human-rights go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Thank you CIA and Burgerland very cooooool, you fricktards

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Mobutu was known for his opulent lifestyle. He cruised on the Congo on his yacht Kamanyola. In Gbadolite, a remote outpost in Zaire, he erected a palace, the "Versailles of the jungle"

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/feb/10/where-concorde-once-flew-the-story-of-president-mobutus-african-versailles

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Lol this article has more specifics of the stupid isolated runway.

https://www.motorpunk.co.uk/out-and-about/mobutu-and-the-concorde

"3200m long runway in a mud hut village that had no roads. He also built a palace, a hydro-electric dam and a Coca-Cola bottling plant. His choice of car (remembering that MotorPunk is mostly a motoring magazine) was, predictably, the Mercedes-Benz 600."

"In the 1980s Mobutu flew by Concorde to Paris for some shopping and schmoozing of François Mitterrand, and on another occasion, even flew the Zaire schoolboys choir to a gig in France in it. To those African schoolboys, in fact, any schoolboy, a trip on Concorde must have seemed other-worldly. Mobutu courted Reagan who over-indulged him in a bid to keep Communism at bay in turbulent times in central Africa. "

"So thirsty was Concorde that it used two tons of fuel just to taxi. Getting it in and out of central Africa safely was no easy task. There are no records of who built Mobutu's now knackered airport but Concorde needs a runway of just over 3000m and Gbadolite had 3200m. Very little room for error."

But The fricking Gbadolite runway was even more r-slurred than just that - it was so isolated from civilization, that every trip to his Congo palace risked stranding the fricking airplane there!

"An Air France Concorde, chartered by Mobutu to take him and his entourage shopping in Paris in the 1980s, had to land here. There wasn't much of a Plan B, either. There were very few runways long enough to accommodate Concorde at that time, the distance from Paris to Zaire being even longer than Concorde's regular route to the USA. It would have had, on arrival at Gbadolite, only 1000km of fuel left in the tanks. A diversion to the paved runway at Brazzaville, for example, would have been 1143km. Landing somewhere nearer would have been possible but getting it airborne again; a nigh-on impossibility. There was a real risk that this Concorde could have ended up as the most spectacular ornament in the grounds of Mobutu's folly. As out of place in the jungle as a Swedish Monarch with a fistful of taxpayers Krona in a knocking shop."

Lmoa