The Median myth

Two decades ago Karen Radner floated a key thesis about the "Medes" - Madayë in Aramaic - down to the late 600s BC. The Assyrians never quite could tell that the hillfolk were coalescing into some "Median Empire". Skip ahead a few centuries and Herodotus has all manner of lore to relate about these "great kings". Most of these Medes overlap the Babylonians, starting with breakaway king Nabopolassar. But the Babylonians say much less of these hillmen than will the Greeks. They do know some latter leaders: Kashtariti, Umakištar, finally Ištumegu.

Theories of "secondary state formation" may apply here. Alongside the Romans, "tribal confederations" along the Rhine and Danube limes start taking on the character of kingdoms; we may say the same for the later Arabs between Iran and the Rhomania. I'm thinking here especially of the Libyans who enlisted "Sea Peoples" against the house of Ptah at Memphis. Nabopolassar, here, struck a deal with "Medes". These weren't his granddaddy's dirty hill bandits anymore. Copilot leans toward a real kingdom at Ecbatana/Hamadan.

We last hear from these Iranian plateaux in the "Nabonidus chronicle", recording a war between an "Ištumegu" (Iranic v->m in this script) and a Cyrus. Cyrus won, so got to relay his genealogy, that he was the grandson of a man with an Elamite name - which name he also took. Cyrus' ancestral lands were important, but not the heartland of the Medes. So who was *R̥štivaigah? - apart from a man perhaps more Iranian than the Cyruses.

The Greeks record elsewhere that "Astyages" also came from a dynasty of sorts. His father Cyaxares fought the Lydians until "the eclipse of Thales" today marked 28 May 585 BC (usually). This name is widely distributed, showing up even in Phrygian, albeit a common name for Medes. Nabopolassar commanded his Medes under their headman "Umakištar" who must correspond to Herodotus' Cyaxares.

Later Darius must contend with the family of Cyaxares, rebelling against him from the east. One was Fravartish "Phraortes" the Mede, who took the name Khshathrita when he got crowned; this regal name is known in Babylon ("Kashtariti") where, interestingly, Herodotus' Fravartish is not. Another pretended Cyaxarid was one Tritantaechmes of Sagartia; we should take him less seriously.

Herodotus got his data from Darius' successors, mainly Artaxerxes Longhand. Of course these successors were steeped in Darius' lore; Artaxerxes is going to be succeeded by Ochus who'll call himself the new Darius.

I propose here that Fravartish remembered that Cyrus had posed as the Assyrians' heir. Fravartish invented a legendary past around Kashtariti and Cyaxares, those great liberators of the Medes therefrom. Darius, reconquering his usurping lying ass, left-alone that particular fib. Darius would give them the Cyrus they deserved, putting down this upstart neoAstyages "this time as farce". Meanwhile the Persians as a whole could inherit the glory of the Medes, again; which Fravartish had lately made more glorious.

As evidence for Herodotus taking his Median lore from this filter, I bring his name for Cyaxares' father. He relates nothing like "Kastrites" but instead delivers "Phraortes" - close the truename of the late Kashtariti usurper, but a false name for the history-book.

Hand, shown

Beale:

Intelligent Genetic Manipulation. We have no idea by whom. But I suspect all the recent alien disclosure stuff is because it is fairly obvious that the genetic record is going to prove that the human species, at the very least, was constructed. With a few more advancements in genetic science, we may even be able to figure out more or less when it happened.

I've unbolded the silly. We've more-or-less been over this. But in light of new findings let's return to this vomit:

When humans emerged from Africa, and for that matter when contemporary humans in Africa emerged into other African environments, the environment hit us but hard. We couldn't control how to handle the coronavirus, nor the malarial parasite. So it was, until came the Late Glacial Maximum, or "Mesolithic", or whatever you call the slip from the general suck of the Pleistocene into 24kBC's full-on Ice Age. Selection was natural. Over hundreds of thousands of years, sometimes supplemented by distant relatives who had been out there for millions.

By that point humans of all sorts still hadn't domesticated any of our neighbouring animals. Well okay: so Alpha (2018). That movie hasn't much been deboonked. Maybe some coëxistence happened with scavenging wolves in the 30skBC. Don't care.

It's in the Neolithic we start seeing goats, sheep, oxen, donkeys, llamas. Again: this isn't the poast to pick apart millennia. Just to point out that, after the Ice Age, a slew of animals got selected - by intelligence. Our intelligence.

It would be a surprise if we hadn't intelligently designed ourselves as well. We had the smarts to pick friendly sheep; why not friendly farmers. To a Sumerian king, a farmer is just another beast of burden.

Or, for Beale... a Cahokian or Chaco Canyon king.

Ebrahimi progress

A subset of the VASIMR process is the Ebrahimi, alfvén recombination. This is being evaluated in the lab. I'd not say "tested" yet.

They can get 10-20 km/s upstream. This scales with the strength of the magnetic field, for which they got good tests up to 9 kV. Thrust in turn correlates with plasma density which their equipment kept low, 1-3e-6 kg/m³; and with the velocity-squared of the exhaust; and with the area of the plasma column cross section. It has so far transpired that their speedy upstream velocities suffer interference, and that they want a bigger lab but they would say that.

Keep in mind the very physics are still young and may involve Navier-Stokes.

VASIMR update

As long as we are looking in on orbital manoeuvres for low-mass craft, and/or entheppy drives: let's check in on VASIMR. Especially if we are getting space actuators.

The main practical uses thus-far have been high-isp high-efficiency trips. That's the outer system. Like far out: Eris, for one. This blog was considering gradual spin-up of space stations before humans set foot in them; heaven knows we all have time before they get there. Teased was also a human Martian visit in 39 days, which demands 200 MW[e] (if they want that cargo, I'd add: several roggets). I don't think such missions rate high on the priority-lists, given that what I'd linked came out 2011.

The company testing VASIMR is Ad Astra. Looking around the news, reporters are aware of Ad Astra's existence to itself and to the space community at large. Because the power they need is high, they need nukes. If we go back to 2024 they had a deal with SpaceNukes. At higher voltages in megawatt realms, Ebrahimi will surely follow. I think at that point, a thruster-customer may as well use fusion. Although, if either's customers stick to stationkeeping Venus in the hectawatt range, they might all get by with solar.

From Ad Astra I smell the scent of Howe. Company going quiet 2025-6.

VASIMR is clearly not a bad tech. I suspect it might have been a premature tech.

Leviathan evaluation

Some people earlier this decade assembled to propose Leviathan to NASA: Venus Aerobot for Low-altitude and Surface Explorations. Surprised they didn't call it the "valasé"; "vaflasé" might have sounded too Welsh. 22 pages, 50+ appendices.

They've figured that the tech mostly already existed 2021-5, excepting the one-way Starship for chassis. The stats on th'ship matter, so they've had to leave those parameters blank. SpaceX has had a working model of the one-way since late last July (with heat shield!), so Leviathan might want to run one more pass through the text.

The aerobot alone is 30 tonnes. They want also 17 tonnes of methane and a 20 t drop-tank. With the other material, all rounds up to 75 t. For propulsion purposes, Leviathan adds the standard Starship fuel tank, all six Raptor 3 Vacs, and all the other equipment once in orbit. Google AI estimates 120-160 tonnes here. I've told it to use the high end because Venus needs heat shields.

The Levvies expect refueling in LEO. Google thinks 400 t should do it; if so, that means four additional Starship there-and-backs. SpaceX hasn't yet offered that service. As long as we are dreaming of nice-to-have space infrastructure: someone else can compete here. The delta-V to get into a Venus Hohmann is the expensive part of the trip, because Venus can aerobrake. Starship, remember, comes with excellent heat-shield.

Over our sister planet the aerobot floats between "-2 km and 4 km". The -2, I think, means they can dip over the plains and not just over Alpha / Beta Regiones. Dunno about Maxwell, which rises, what, 10 km; nor even "continent" Aphrodite. So they're swimming through not just hot high-pressure CO₂ but supercritical.

As to how it floats, they've picked Project Loon's architecture with an internal titanium-foil "bladder". Methane is the lifting gas.

They need 6-7 kWe power, so are requesting a 10 kWe reactor. For that they're begging NASA - and not, say, SpaceNukes. Mostly because this has been a focus of NASA research over the five years the Leviathan project wrote the paper. If they won't let explorers raise a reactor into LEO, I'd hook a wind farm to the lee side of Maxwell, to charge any surface missions thence. And charge the Leviathan... to use it. Heh heh heh.

Two other essential pieces of tech: a lander, also NASA which in this case it may have to be; and Ingenium's refrigerator.

Unlike LEO or our moon, or asteroids, or even maybe Deimos: we cannot expect this planet to return treasures for investors. This project is for exploration. So they want a grant: NIAC-1. They justify it by comparison with the Martian rovers and Ingenuity-soon-Skyfall. Nerds tune in to watch this stuff, they say.

It should be permitted to say that Charlie Kirk sucked

This blog has never argued for the assassination of Charles Kirk, and certainly not for celebrating the "Kirkversary". The culprit - and Tyler Robinson's trial is I think pointing to the correct culprit - deserves justice. Those online pundits muddying the waters deserve... banning (Beale is right about one thing, that "free speech" is unworkable; I'd ban him too). I will further remind that I left the Catholic Church over their preference for Gaza over Kirk.

This is where readers can smell a "but" incoming. I don't want to say "but". So, I'll say - "that said":

I didn't ever think much of the man. I thought TPUSA was malign from the start, like Campus Crusade back in the day. I pegged Kirk as a Quaker Nationalist, which half-baked ideology (which it is - both) I disapprove. If you pressed 2009ish Yarvin on it, he'd disapprove too. Mencius Moldbug would dig him out and hang him, with ... Locke, to paraphrase; Cromwell on the rope next-over.

As to Kirk in life, Richard Hanania has lately poasted a dossier of various stances he'd took, which, he Considers, Harmful - to the body politic. As is well known, you cannot cancel Herr Hoste. So they're trying to cancel Sohrab Ahmari, for agreeing with Hanania.

I cannot read all of Hanani-Hoste's paywalled article like Ahmari can. Here and there one can read the odd snippet. Like that Kirk supported Carlson past the point Carlson was worthy of this (which is how Carlson got to speak at the funeral, which funeral I virtually-attended instead of Communion With Gaza). Or like that Kirk supported "Stop the Steal". This blog did not support StS. I thought some states were stole, in fact, but not such as would have made the difference, and that Team Trump had lost the room by the end of the week.

Because I haven't (because: can't) read Hanania, I can't judge all he wrote. I can judge only what I can read, which here range from "true" to "honest arguments can be brought". There also exist Kirk's vaccine comments.

So whatever. Ahmari can say what he wants, and shouldn't apologise. As to "Captive Dreamer", Yarvin, whoever else: if you want us to treat Kirk as some icon like Steinem or King, then I'll start mocking Kirk like I've mocked those eminently mockable American Saints.

Some opinions on early Islam

Joel Hayward, who had joined the jund, in 2022 put his book Warrior Prophet through "Claritas" Press. For some reason Catholic-coded institutions seem to love supporting apostates. Anyway I haven't read it; it isn't apologetic like Esposito's, it seems more honest like the works of Juan Cole and Jonathan Rape-Rape Brown. In 2021 I'd poasted a roundup of modern consensus around the maghazi; maybe some of that is in Hayward's book.

From late 2023 as you know I'd moved more toward the preMuhammadan era of Near Eastern Araby. So I might not get to Hayward's work anytime soon. That much isn't a reflection of my views on Hayward, who for all I know has good reason for embracing the faith of the surat al-anfal and of its supposed author. He can try convincing me later.

For more evenhanded takes, rather than "Hellz ya he kilt 'em Khaibar JAHOODS!": Razib is recommending Kyle Orton who runs a 'stack of his own. Adomnán's hadith from Arculf, the Islamic understanding of religio... basic Ibn Warraq stuff from circa 2000 before the towering day.

Relevant to this blog might be the milieu of Late Antiquity. That would track more with IQSA 2015. I was writing Tidings of Flame around the time of Orton's poast.

PS. Happy New Year.