DAY 617
As some of you have noticed, I am not much of a talker, but I just wanted to mention that if anyone wants to join a barefoot running group, meet me at 0430 tomorrow at the Harvard Bridge, on the Cambridge side.
Reply from LTC Tristan Lyons, Day 619:
Well, everyone, maybe this isn’t much of a surprise, but response has been muted to Felix’s “dawn barefoot running” group. Heavy spring rains, darkness, and muddy conditions have been cited as an excuse. I just wanted to remind everyone that when you are Sent, you arrive naked—which means barefoot. Your feet are probably larger than average for the DTAP, so stealing shoes isn’t as easy as people make it sound. And we do prefer nighttime arrivals because there’s less chance of being noticed. Participation in Felix’s dawn barefoot running group is a breeze by comparison, and will help you develop skills, grow calluses, and build up a tolerance to pain that will serve you well when sprinting away from an unsecured DTAP (or, worse yet, getting clear of a possible Diachronic Shear event). Cardio: it’s not just for knights!
DODO MEMORANDUM
CRITICAL UPGRADE TO JOB TITLES
BY MACY STOLL, MBA
POSTED Day 629
As those of you in management positions are already aware, it is essential that we move over to ISO 9000 compliant job titles for all current and future DODO staff. It is beyond the scope of this memo to enumerate all of the benefits that will accrue to DODO (and, by extension, the taxpayers) as a result of organization-wide ISO 9000 compliance, but those of you who are curious can find plenty of information about it on the non-classified Internet.
Making this especially urgent is that we are getting pushback from concerned parties in the Trapezoid about having a staff member whose job title is “witch.” The word simply looks bad when it shows up in a spreadsheet or official report. Moreover, since it is gender-specific, it is a violation of our Diversity Policy (or at least it will be when that policy is written!).
It’s time to nip this in the bud, since it will only become that much worse when/if we recruit more staff to perform the same function.
After lengthy consultations with Dr. Oda and others, we have settled on a new job title, which has been fast-tracked through the Policy on Official Jargon and Acronym Coinage. That title is . . . (drum roll) . . . MUON, for Multiple-Universe Operations Navigator. We believe that this acronym encapsulates the essential functions and duties of this all-important role without any of the backward and sexist connotations that have raised hackles within the Trapezoid.
Later on we may establish additional gradations such as Junior MUON, Senior MUON, etc. but for now this is unnecessary as we only have one of them on payroll.
This title applies only to paid staff members living in our timeline. Terms such as KCW may still be employed when referring to individuals in past or alternate timelines.
Exchange of posts by DODO staff on
“Recruiting” ODIN channel
Post from LTC Tristan Lyons, Day 630:
I’ve been reading Stokes’s After Action Reports on Chira’s Blachernae Palace DEDE, and I want to start a conversation about Varangian Guards. For those of you who might not be up to speed on context, these are fighting men from Scandinavian or other Northern European countries who were recruited to serve as palace guards and elite troops by the Byzantine Empire. I had read of them in history books, so I knew of their existence, but reading these After Action Reports really drives home how pervasive their presence was in Constantinople circa 1200. Best of all, they tend to show up in important places like the Imperial Palace and key fortifications like the Galata Tower, city gates, etc.
Why is this of interest to DODO? Well, it’s no secret that we are having difficulty recruiting DOers capable of blending in in 1200 Constantinople. The required combination of physical appearance, cultural literacy, and language fluency needed to “pass” in that DTAP is difficult to pull off—occasional miracle recruits like Chira notwithstanding.
The ubiquitous presence of Varangian Guards suggests a different strategy, at least for male DOers: don’t worry about trying to pass as a native Byzantine. Instead, hide in plain sight. We can recruit DOers who can pass for Northern Europeans, then Send them back and look for ways to infiltrate them into Varangian Guard units. Their lack of fluency in the Greek language, ignorance of contemporary customs and etiquette, etc. then becomes a natural fit with their cover story.
This strategy presents two main challenges that I can think of:
1. We don’t know much about how the Varangian Guards were actually recruited. If we’re lucky, there’s a sort of labor market in this DTAP, such that big, healthy-looking Northern European males who show up in town with no past history or connections can get recruited into these units without going through the Byzantine equivalent of a background check. Now that Chira is finished with the kalonji-seed DEDEs and has established some familiarity with Constantinople, maybe we can Send her on some scouting missions to learn more about how this works.
2. Even if it works for a DOer to show up in Constantinople from parts unknown, with no connections or background, he’s not going to be able to pass for a Varangian Guard unless he speaks the language. Leading to the question: What is the language that these guys speak, and where can we learn it? Stokes?
Reply from Dr. Melisande Stokes, Day 630:
Tristan, the Varangian Guards were drawn from all over Scandinavia, Northern Europe, and Britain over a span of centuries, so it depends. In our era (1203) the majority were speaking Anglo-Saxon. But some of the ones Chira encountered were apparently speaking Norman, which is a transitional dialect, not a stable language as we normally think of it. As you probably know, the Vikings invaded France, were bought off with Normandy, settled there, then used it as a base for invading Britain and many other places. The most bad-ass Normans crossed the Channel with William the Conqueror; the ones that stayed behind in Normandy spawned the generations who mostly enjoyed jousting and courtly love, etc. . . . This + Normans and Anglo-Saxons obviously detesting each other = surprising to find Normans in the 1203 Anglo-Saxon-centric Varangian Guards. But actually, we can use it to our advantage: