It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, now, but I recently rediscvered a couple of pages that sort of have my interest piqued.
If the E%exuctor was expatriated; where the hell was he sent?
It’s clear he wasn’t sent off-planet; but to expatriate is to leave your country of origin, and what could that mean for an empire that spans star systems? It wouldn’t make sense for him to have just been sent to another region; he was exiled for crimes against the Highbloods, who exhibit power over the entire land dwelling population of the Empire. No matter where he went within Imperial territory, he’d still be within the jurisdiction of the people he wronged.
There is one line, though, that implies maybe he wasn’t actually exiled.
What happened, it seems, is that he actively expatriated himself to escape actual punishment (probably by one of the more conventional Alternian methods, like hanging or forking).
Okay, so that sort of clears up one mystery and opens up another can of grubs entirely. How was cobaltblood Spinneret providing indigo Darkleer with any protection he couldn’t already provide himself? Okay, because she “command[ed] a notoriously deadly fleet of Gam8lignants.” But why does that count as expatriation? Why is her protectorate considered its own nation?
What do we know about the Gamblignants? Well, “In ancient times [they were] deadly marauders with a passion for chance,” but they died off (”because they took too many crazy risks,” apparently, but we know that’s not true). If Mindfang really was the “scourge of land dwellers and sea dwellers alike,“ it may be the case that racial allegiences weren’t so important to them.
We know that the Orphaner’s conflict with them was labelled a “crusade,” but that he never actually does anything to actively get rid of the Gamblignant fleet; he waits for an excuse, then reports them to the relevant authority (the Grand Highblood, king of land dwellers, in this case). And even then, it’s not an out-and-out crusade that they wage against the fleet; they do it ‘legally’. Civil servants “plaster seizure notices on gam8lignant property,“ and then they send a cop to put together a case against the Gamblignants’ queen and ultimately try to execute her.
‘Crusade’ in itself is a pretty loaded turn of phrase; but what about the stuff they actually do? What does it look like?
Yeah. It’s neocolonialism. They don’t exterminate the Gamblignants outright; they ‘respect’ them too much for that. They just claim Gamblignant land as their own, and make up excuses to get rid of their leaders. The fact that the head of prosecution is literally wearing a ‘cross’ as she does this is a pretty potent symbol.
The next we hear of the Gamblignants, they’ve been “decim8ed”. Their land has been taken from them, and we can only presume hundreds of them have been killed in Redglare and Pyralspite’s (read: the government’s) raid/s on the fleet. They didn’t need to actually have Mindfang executed; she was gone long enough for them to make their move.
If it wasn’t clear enough already, the conclusion here is that the Gamblignants are representative of a unique culture - I might even go as far as to say ethnic group - within Alternian society. E%ecutor Darkleer was able to seek refuge within their land because he was in with their leader, and because the Gamblignants were allowed to have their own land on Alternia - just until it stopped being convenient for the government.