Imperial Anthem?

[otherles]

Just some thoughts, I'm doing this for the screenplay project:


Arise! Ye children of Terra!
Arise! Ye children of Vland!
Arise! Ye children of Sylea!
Let us, now, make our stand!

Drive back the darkness!
Drive back the night!
Renew our civilization!
For all intelligent life!

Our Emperor, luminous and gallant!
Will lead us in our fight!
We shall restore the Grand Imperium!
And end the longest night!

Drive back the darkness!
Drive back the night!
Renew our civilization!
For all intelligent life!

(Note the reference to Norris' speech as quoted on
page 53 of SURVIVAL MARGIN.)

 

[stofsk]

Very cool, I like.

 

[Maladominus]

I like it, Les.

It covers three dear homeworlds of Humaniti within the Third Imperium --- Terra, Sylea, and Vland. And it recalls the very founding of the Third Imperium, from the Sylean Federation's expansion... and the triumph over the nasty Long Night.

It's good as it is. If I were to make any minor changes, the only thing is that a reference to Cleon might be a nice touch. After all, Cleon is the founder of the empire. He is like the "George Washington of the Third Imperium".

Then again, it's not very necessary to recall the name of the Founder of the Empire. After all, the American National Anthem does not mention the name of George Washington, etc.

 

[rogermccarthy]

Tune?

The 'Arise!' made me think of the Internationale but can't make that long third verse fit.

In a similar vein how about an adaptation of the anthem of the USSR:

Indissoluble union of planets and peoples
Guided by faith in our future above
Living in freedom, working together
United and peaceful our Imperium stands!

Cleon our emperor!
Immortal liberator!
Saviour of peoples!
Banisher of night! (x2)

original tune at http://www.soviet-empire.com/audio/ussr_national_anthem_1977_red_army_choir.mp3

(unabashedly stolen from by Chris Gidlow's and Nick Brooke's Gloranthan Songbook http://www.etyries.com/songbook/newlunar.htm)

 

[otherles]

I did think about using the Hymn of the Soviet Union as the basis of the Anthem of the Third Imperium. And then write in a scene where someone (probably a Zhodani) makes a snarky comment about the anthem being based on a Hymn to a mass-murdering psychopath. (Some folks just love to feel superior.)

 

[rogermccarthy]

There's also a lot of potential to make other verses interminably list worlds, races, sectors, emperors, battles, services etc (rather as the original USSR anthem referenced both Stalin and Lenin, the great patriotic war, fields, factories etc):

Terra, Sylea, Vland and Seurrat,
Geonee, Vegans, Answerin and Droyne
All sophonts united, living in freedom
Equal and honoured - together we stand!

Arbellatra renewer,
Paolo defender....

Ilelish, Massilia, Corridor and Gateway....

Our Navy victorious, sword of our peoples
Armies ever watchful the shield of our lands...

(I'm crap at this but hopefully you get the general idea).

I imagine the tune would also lend itself well to scurrilous verses mumbled half under their breath by the discontented at the compulsory emperor's day parades.

 

[otherles]

Originally posted by alte:
There's also a lot of potential to make other verses interminably list worlds, races, sectors, emperors, battles, services etc (rather as the original USSR anthem referenced both Stalin and Lenin, the great patriotic war, fields, factories etc):

Terra, Sylea, Vland and Seurrat,
Geonee, Vegans, Answerin and Droyne
All sophonts united, living in freedom
Equal and honoured - together we stand!

Arbellatra renewer,
Paolo defender....

Ilelish, Massilia, Corridor and Gateway....

Our Navy victorious, sword of our peoples
Armies ever watchful the shield of our lands...

(I'm crap at this but hopefully you get the general idea).

I imagine the tune would also lend itself well to scurrilous verses mumbled half under their breath by the discontented at the compulsory emperor's day parades.

I do get it. But as this is for the screenplay project I would have to pass on it. I can definately say that part of the target audience (myself included) would have a basic ideological problem with using The Hymn of the Soviet Union.

Thus it is simply not an option.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by The Other Les:
I do get it. But as this is for the screenplay project I would have to pass on it. I can definately say that part of the target audience (myself included) would have a basic ideological problem with using The Hymn of the Soviet Union.

Thus it is simply not an option.

I wouldn't want it to be based on the anthem of any RL terran nation anyway; this will cause people to associate the Imperium with these nations and not se it as a wholly different polity staning on its own. And, besides, the Imperium won't pick a Terran anthem anyway - especially since they try to show themselve as a successor to both the Ziru Sirka and the Rule of Man, not the Rule of Man alone.

The Solomani, on the other hand, who worship their Terran heritage, would possibly pick an old Terran tune for their anthem and write their own words for it. It woud probably be a military tune - I was thinking about the Battle Hymm of the Republic with all its glorious connotations to the North American Civil War and to the Second World War.

 

[Whipsnade]

Les,

Seeing as the Imperium changed the colors of it's flag so that a piddling minor race could see it, I really don't think that an Imperial anthem would have something as precise as lyrics.

A tune that could be transposed in scale as necessary to impact on the widest variety of sound-sensing organs probably, but no lyrics.

The various Imperial uniformed services might have 'fight songs' with lyrics, but that's something else entirely.

Also, do we really need more politically motivated films? People like Moore, Stone, Verhoeven, Esterhaz, and the rest are so tiresome. It doesn't matter which end of the spectrum they squat on, watching someone grind an axe for 2 hours gets boring.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
The Solomani, on the other hand, who worship their Terran heritage, would possibly pick an old Terran tune for their anthem and write their own words for it. It woud probably be a military tune - I was thinking about the Battle Hymm of the Republic with all its glorious connotations to the North American Civil War and to the Second World War.

IMTU it's Beethoven's Ode To Joy. I never decided on specific lyrics, but there's lots of military imagery (like the US anthem).

 

[otherles]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Les,

Seeing as the Imperium changed the colors of it's flag so that a piddling minor race could see it, I really don't think that an Imperial anthem would have something as precise as lyrics.

A tune that could be transposed in scale as necessary to impact on the widest variety of sound-sensing organs probably, but no lyrics.

The various Imperial uniformed services might have 'fight songs' with lyrics, but that's something else entirely.

Also, do we really need more politically motivated films? People like Moore, Stone, Verhoeven, Esterhaz, and the rest are so tiresome. It doesn't matter which end of the spectrum they squat on, watching someone grind an axe for 2 hours gets boring.


Have fun,
Bill

If I had to pitch the script to an actual producer in one sentence it would go like this:

"It's about people dealing with the consequences of their past actions, in space."

The Imperial Anthem serves as part of a shared flashback (ohhhh, psions) to a happier time.

 CUT TO:

INT. MORNING - OFFICER FAMILY QUARTERS - NEAR WINDOW

Seated near a window, Dennis is wearing his dirtside blues and is having breakfast with his MOTHER. Mother is confined to a wheelchair and cannot speak in the normal mode. She has to communicate psionically with others. A normal
eavesdropper would only hear Dennis’ side of the
conversation.

Mother makes a face as if she were asking a question.

DENNIS

I thought I saw Lisa this morning.

Mother makes a face as if she were asking another question.

DENNIS

Yes, I would like to believe that.

Mother makes a face as if she were making an adverse comment about someone else.

DENNIS

Minnie? Actually, I did sleep with her.

Once.

Mother makes a face as if she were shocked to hear that.

DENNIS

Mom, everybody has slept with Minnie,
except Norris of course.

Mother, still shocked, makes a face as if she were asking a question.

DENNIS

Well, if you must know, it was the night
before I took off for Officer Candidate
School. I haven’t seen her since.

Dennis and Mother continue to eat in silence.

A bugle is being blown in the distance outside the building.

CUT TO:

EXT. MORNING

The bugle continues to be played as the black and gold banner of the Third Imperium is being raised on a flagpole. When the flag reaches the top the pole an Imperial Marine band begins to play the Anthem of the Third Imperium.

CUT TO:

INT. OFFICER FAMILY QUARTERS - NEAR WINDOW

Mother makes a face as if she were asking a question.

DENNIS

Yes, I do remember.

CUT TO:

INT. NIGHT - AUDITORIUM

A Seven-year old Dennis and his twin brother HARRY are part of a children’s choir singing the Anthem of the Third Imperium.

CHILDREN’S CHOIR

Arise! Ye children of Terra!
Arise! Ye children of Vland!
Arise! Ye children of Sylea!
Let us, now, make our stand!

Drive back the darkness!
Drive back the night!
Renew our civilization!
For all intelligent life!

Our Emperor, luminous and gallant!
Will lead us in our fight!
We shall restore the Grand Imperium!
And end the longest night!

Drive back the darkness!
Drive back the night!
Renew our civilization!
For all intelligent life!

The parents of the children’s choir are in the audience.

Mother is in perfect health and is wearing the dress uniform of a lieutenant commander of the Imperial Navy. Dennis and Harry’s FATHER is sitting next to her in civilian attire.

CUT TO:

INT. HEADQUARTERS, IMPERIAL NAVY INTELLIGENCE

The script essentially examines part of the backstory to FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES. We get to see why Uncle Dennie has so many issues with his life and where he picked up some of his attitudes and habits.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Frankly, IMTU I merely said, "and they play the Imperial Anthem, troops stand from seats and salute, the more patriotic civilians cover their heart(s) with hand/ psuedopod, and fin.."

and drive on with the rest of the game. Never thought to bend words to it myself.

Like 001-XXXX, Holiday/ Empire day--it just was. None of my players ever asked me for the words.

Just my .000000025Mcr
Have at it!

 

[rogermccarthy]

So....

You offer up an anthem that is clearly based on the Internationale.

This reminds me of the rather funny and clever Gloranthan songbook which adapts popular and not-so-popular songs to an RPG setting and which includes a rousing version of the Internationale ('the imperiale').

So I am inspired to offer up a version of the USSR national anthem suitably reworded.

You then say in one post you had exactly the same idea and then in another post that you have a basic ideological problem wth the anthem of soviet union (as most sensible people do).

But

a) we're talking about an imaginary 56th century here

b) your own anthem is based on the Internationale which was also the official anthem of the
USSR until it was replaced in 1943!

Thus if the 1943+ soviet anthem is ideologically unacceptable shouldn't the 1943- anthem be equally so?

In addition while I suspect very few modern Americans would recognise either tune these days, for those few who do, the Internationale would probably sound even more incongruous as the anthem of a 56th century interstellar feudal empire than the 1943 anthem of the USSR would.

If you are going too worry about these things it is probably better to assume that while the Imperium does have an anthem it has no lyrics and followed the example of the European Union which adopted a lyric-free version of Beethoven's Ode to Joy as its anthem in 1985 'Without words, in the universal language of music, this anthem expresses the ideals of freedom, peace and solidarity for which Europe stands'.

 

[otherles]

Originally posted by alte:
So....

You offer up an anthem that is clearly based on the Internationale.

Actually I used a different tune, which is still in my head at the moment.

I have other plans for the Internationale, as a drinking song for the Navy OCS students:

Arise, ye childen of the trust fund!
Arise, ye parasites!
Go forth and plunder the productive!
And slaughter the innocent!

It's the sort of thing one would expect in an explicitly capitalist empire.

 

[rogermccarthy]

Being a simple soul I just assumed anything that starts 'Arise ye...' must have something to do with the Internationale.

But obviously not....

 

[otherles]

I did toy with the idea for a moment...

 

[Maladominus]

If the Imperium's anthem is based on the Internationale or an American patriotic anthem.... then maybe the Solomani Confederation can also sing their anthem based on the Nazi Germany anthem of the Horst Wessel Lied?


Mal <---- playing devil's advocate now =)

 

[otherles]

Thoughtcrime!

Citizen Mal, report to the re-education center! Immediately!

 

[Liam Devlin]

Actually Maladominous ,

Nazi Germany 's national anthem...wasn't it Deutschland Uber Alles ? Which IIRC is sung to the tune of 'Onward Christian Soldiers' .

Just checking the facts...

The anti-Semite Horst Wessel Lied was the Nazi Party's song--not the nation's song.

 

[otherles]

My understanding was that Deutschland Uber Alles was originally the anthem of those folks who sought to establish a single German socialist republic over the kingdoms, duchies, and principalities that made up pre-imperial Germany. Thus, "Germany over all."

Deutschland Uber Alles wasn't adopted as the national anthem until the establishment of the Weimar Republic. And the NSDAP, being a bunch of socialists themselves, weren't going to change it.