Conversation · Steban, the Student Communist

"Would you mind? We've got group business to take care of."

"That means go home, gendarme."

"You know," the young man looks up at you as you enter, "if you wanted to borrow my jacket, you could've just asked..."

It looks better on you, anyway. He never had the shoulders for it.

"But no matter. What's on your mind?"

"What exactly are you two doing here?"

"In the most general sense, I would say we're cultivating revolutionary consciousness."

"Yes, that's probably the best way to describe it."

"But more specifically, we're running a reading group, the most rigorous and theoretically advanced materialist reading group in Martinaise."

"Comrade Steban is a great discussion leader. One of the best at the university."

It's obvious they take this 'group' of theirs extremely seriously. Whatever you do, don't compare it to a common book club.

YAWWWWN! Can you imagine anything duller than a bunch of binoclards yanking each others' knobs?

"Sounds just like a regular book club."

"It's really nothing like that." The young man scoffs. "A book club is a place for talking about the plot points of bourgeois social novels and sipping effervescent cocktails."

Extremely different from discussing the aesthetic merits of avant-garde literature while quaffing a fine Mirovan red, eh, Art Cop?

"That doesn't sound so bad," the lieutenant says. "In any case, it's healthier than certain other after-hours pursuits I've seen officers engage in." He gives you a pointed look.

“Kim, can we arrest these kids for truancy?”

"They’re not primary school delinquents, they’re university students. Attendance isn't compulsory. Besides, we’re not the skip squad."

The Counter-Truancy Task Force (or 'skip squad') is the division of the RCM that drives around in wagons looking for delinquent minors. It's generally considered a punitive assignment for under-performing officers.

"I didn't realise they taught radical Mazovian theory in the universities."

"Ha! As though you can call that pablum teaching."

"One thing you learn quickly at university is that you're not going to find a real education in any lecture hall or discussion seminar."

"We're post-attendance, basically."

"Exactly. The only worthwhile part of the so-called École normale de Revachol is the library. That's where we've made our greatest critical strides."

"Okay, so what does your reading group actually read?"

"We study all the foundational texts of Mazovian theory, of course. Just last week we finished the second volume of Puncher and Wattmann's 'Innocence of Capital'..."

"Truly extraordinary."

"And before that we spent six weeks on 'State and Plasm'..."

For some reason the word plasm catches in your ear like a piece of old wax.

Uh oh, you can feel your attention span rapidly deteriorating...

Force yourself to keep listening.

"We've also read Wertmüller's 'The Mega-Structure of History,' and before that, 'Reál and Reality'..."

Communist theorists love puns, in case that wasn't obvious.

"Abelard's 'Un Pays Infernal'..."

"The original Fizdale translation, not that watered-down revisionist garbage."

These two deserve the Order of Honour for Bullshitting. There's no way they've actually read all this stuff.

"Obviously." He snorts.

"But, of course, our special emphasis is on the theories of Ignus Nilsen and his followers, especially the infra-materialists."

One of Kras Mazov's closest associates, Ignus Nilsen was a leading political and military figure in the Antecentennial Revolution.

Why do you always leave out the good parts? Tell him how he got his true name, right now!

Oh, right. During the disastrous retreat from Graad to Samara, Nilsen personally ordered up to 12,000 prisoners of war impaled on sharpened spruce trees in the Samaran backcountry. Thereafter his opponents began referring to him as the 'Apocalyptic Shrike'.

Today, Nilsen's reputation has waned in most parts of the developed world, with the exception of the People's Republic of Samara (SRV), where he is recognized as a founding father. His political philosophy is a variant of Mazovianism called Nilsenist-Mazovianism.

"Comrade Nilsen, father of the SRV." (Raise your fist.)

The young man raises his fist in reply and gives you a curt nod.

"He also happens to be the greatest communist theorist after Mazov himself. It was Nilsen who first postulated the existence of ideological plasm, which forms the basis of infra-materialist theory."

Those words again! You've got to find out what this infra-materialist stuff is all about.

Whatever it is, one thing's perfectly clear: These young students have a much deeper understanding of communism than you do...

You could learn a thing or two from them, if you can convince them you're one of them.

The young man sighs. His companion looks about furtively.

'Plasm', huh? Sounds like a hell of a drug. You might wanna ask about it.

"Isn't he the guy who had all those prisoners impaled on spruce trees?"

"This gendarme talks just like a moralist. They love getting on their high horses about so-called 'war crimes'."

The young man grimaces. It seems he's less than 100% comfortable with war crimes.

"Ignus Nilsen? He's not so popular these days, is he?"

"Only because certain moralists and their ideological lap dogs pretend to object to his more maximalist tactics... as though they've never committed any so-called 'war crimes'."

"Wait, who are these infra-materialists?"

"You're not familiar with them? It's... pretty advanced stuff. You may not be ready for it yet, gendarme." The two young men exchange skeptical side-glances.

"Okay, but then who's this 'Ignus Nilsen' guy?"

"Only Kras Mazov's most trusted lieutenant, the Evangelist of the Revolution, and the founding father of the People's Republic of Samara."

It's hard to overstate how unimpressed he is that you've never heard of this world-historical individual.