Liam Connell
@liamconnell.bsky.social
Independent Scholar, Researcher & Policy Advisor. Australasian, he/him.
One of the buggers about academic social media is the occasional pain of realising that you’re not seventeen and you can’t just sit in first year courses happily geeking out any more. This sounds amazing.
November 3, 2025 at 5:15 AM
One of the buggers about academic social media is the occasional pain of realising that you’re not seventeen and you can’t just sit in first year courses happily geeking out any more. This sounds amazing.
It’s also quite funny that if you wanted an actual British liberal of that time to use as a bogey, Lloyd-George is right there. A sleazy, corrupt, imperialist, autocratic schemer who cosies up to fascism in his late career and was actually PM… but knowing that would mean actually reading history.
October 24, 2025 at 1:02 AM
It’s also quite funny that if you wanted an actual British liberal of that time to use as a bogey, Lloyd-George is right there. A sleazy, corrupt, imperialist, autocratic schemer who cosies up to fascism in his late career and was actually PM… but knowing that would mean actually reading history.
Fun fact - the first time a New Zealand prime minister met a US President, New Zealand threatened the US with war unless America withdrew from Hawaii.
Telling the story later, the PM complained that when he told the British government this ‘they laughed’
Telling the story later, the PM complained that when he told the British government this ‘they laughed’
October 23, 2025 at 2:10 AM
Fun fact - the first time a New Zealand prime minister met a US President, New Zealand threatened the US with war unless America withdrew from Hawaii.
Telling the story later, the PM complained that when he told the British government this ‘they laughed’
Telling the story later, the PM complained that when he told the British government this ‘they laughed’
Paul Kennedy did a great book on this which is fittingly called ‘The Samoan Tangle’ with a fun subplot of the British desperately trying to get out of Samoa and being worried that they’ll be drawn into chaos by tiny NZ!
October 23, 2025 at 2:08 AM
Paul Kennedy did a great book on this which is fittingly called ‘The Samoan Tangle’ with a fun subplot of the British desperately trying to get out of Samoa and being worried that they’ll be drawn into chaos by tiny NZ!
Similarly, the first playthrough of DA2 is a Greek tragedy where your choices inevitably lead to the destruction of the family and city you've tried to save. Then you play it again, and see that no, it's all forcing you to the same endgame. That's the only way to design the game, but it's still dull
October 18, 2025 at 6:15 AM
Similarly, the first playthrough of DA2 is a Greek tragedy where your choices inevitably lead to the destruction of the family and city you've tried to save. Then you play it again, and see that no, it's all forcing you to the same endgame. That's the only way to design the game, but it's still dull
To an extent, but I think that a lot of great social art requires the courage to have elements that play against the artist's instincts; cf. the industrial accident which crushes a manual worker, just after the corporate presentation on automation, as if to ask is killing jobs or people the same?
October 16, 2025 at 11:57 PM
To an extent, but I think that a lot of great social art requires the courage to have elements that play against the artist's instincts; cf. the industrial accident which crushes a manual worker, just after the corporate presentation on automation, as if to ask is killing jobs or people the same?
You might also enjoy Edward Foxall, a white establishment liberal and Japanophile who bodies Pauline Hanson a century before her rise.
October 14, 2025 at 9:21 PM
You might also enjoy Edward Foxall, a white establishment liberal and Japanophile who bodies Pauline Hanson a century before her rise.
It’s a much more interesting time and place than people think, says man who did PhD on that time and place. Also check out Choie Sew Hoy of NZ, who set up a lasting merchant family. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles...
Charles Sew Hoy - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
October 14, 2025 at 9:07 PM
It’s a much more interesting time and place than people think, says man who did PhD on that time and place. Also check out Choie Sew Hoy of NZ, who set up a lasting merchant family. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles...
Reposted by Liam Connell
Why do you feel the need to believe you were born in Babylon? What do you get out of it, emotionally?
October 12, 2025 at 12:12 AM
Why do you feel the need to believe you were born in Babylon? What do you get out of it, emotionally?
I think there’s also a perverse incentive in the attention economy for politicians to ignore the dull, workaday policy stuff that’s most think tank output in favour of BOLD NEW IDEAS. That makes people recalibrate what they’re pitching, which hollows out the broader work…
October 8, 2025 at 12:33 PM
I think there’s also a perverse incentive in the attention economy for politicians to ignore the dull, workaday policy stuff that’s most think tank output in favour of BOLD NEW IDEAS. That makes people recalibrate what they’re pitching, which hollows out the broader work…
I do think it's striking how they want an absolutist monarchy, but they also don't want to engage in the kind of state building that people like Richelieu and Olivares had to do to centralise power.
October 7, 2025 at 11:08 PM
I do think it's striking how they want an absolutist monarchy, but they also don't want to engage in the kind of state building that people like Richelieu and Olivares had to do to centralise power.
I was going to ask you about this actually: I was reading that Mary Renault left 1950s Britain for the Cape because it was an easier cultural climate to be a queer writer, which rather surprised me. Is there any context for that?
October 5, 2025 at 1:13 AM
I was going to ask you about this actually: I was reading that Mary Renault left 1950s Britain for the Cape because it was an easier cultural climate to be a queer writer, which rather surprised me. Is there any context for that?
The two most interesting recent TW games are Three Kingdoms and Attila, both of which break with the tendency to pile on advantages for the player. A WRE campaign in Attila is bloody hard! You simply can't get enough men to everywhere you need them. Now, everything gives you more features.
September 30, 2025 at 5:23 AM
The two most interesting recent TW games are Three Kingdoms and Attila, both of which break with the tendency to pile on advantages for the player. A WRE campaign in Attila is bloody hard! You simply can't get enough men to everywhere you need them. Now, everything gives you more features.
This is true, but their actual campaign in Serbia was was brutal and marked by atrocities.
September 26, 2025 at 1:03 AM
This is true, but their actual campaign in Serbia was was brutal and marked by atrocities.
Italians are a neat study of imagined hierarchies. In 1891, the largest mass lynching in US history. In 20thC Oz, their migration was a challenge to White Australia. By 2025, Albo doesn't code as ethnic. Italians are cultural sophisticates and desirable.
Ofc, legally they're always white....
Ofc, legally they're always white....
September 26, 2025 at 12:46 AM
Italians are a neat study of imagined hierarchies. In 1891, the largest mass lynching in US history. In 20thC Oz, their migration was a challenge to White Australia. By 2025, Albo doesn't code as ethnic. Italians are cultural sophisticates and desirable.
Ofc, legally they're always white....
Ofc, legally they're always white....
Which so much less interesting than the idea that the Skaven are corrupters even of Chaos - as Kieron Gillen mused here. Skaven in Brettonia mimic chivalry, but are cowards. Merchant clans in Marienburg, etc. And you could absolutely have a gonzo take on an Abbey of the Redwall somewhere...
On Skaven In Age Of Sigmar
Back from holiday, and have spent the morning assembling my last few Plague Monks for my Khornate army. As good a time as any to hammer out my own particular background for Skaven in my Age of Sigmar....
web.archive.org
September 24, 2025 at 3:07 AM
Which so much less interesting than the idea that the Skaven are corrupters even of Chaos - as Kieron Gillen mused here. Skaven in Brettonia mimic chivalry, but are cowards. Merchant clans in Marienburg, etc. And you could absolutely have a gonzo take on an Abbey of the Redwall somewhere...
I’d fracture the underempire completely, and let you play with new regional cultures. Hell, in Cathay beastmen seem to be partly integrated, so the idea of one Skaven clan (in wigs and frock coats) occasionally showing up to demand recognition as an actual trade partner could be fun.
September 24, 2025 at 2:55 AM
I’d fracture the underempire completely, and let you play with new regional cultures. Hell, in Cathay beastmen seem to be partly integrated, so the idea of one Skaven clan (in wigs and frock coats) occasionally showing up to demand recognition as an actual trade partner could be fun.
The Old World was always at its best when the horror was leavened with humour and also, dare I say it, humanism. The fact that the Moot exists and functions and thrives makes the setting more interesting!
September 24, 2025 at 2:52 AM
The Old World was always at its best when the horror was leavened with humour and also, dare I say it, humanism. The fact that the Moot exists and functions and thrives makes the setting more interesting!
Early Modern Skaven could be enormously fun; dark parodies of the enlightenment. I’m picturing a print empire in the Underempire, a republic of letters where the philosophes feed each other to monsters.
September 24, 2025 at 2:49 AM
Early Modern Skaven could be enormously fun; dark parodies of the enlightenment. I’m picturing a print empire in the Underempire, a republic of letters where the philosophes feed each other to monsters.
There's a lot of fun to be had with a WHFB take on a Garibaldi character and the War of Tilean Reunification.
I'd also advise: don't sleep on the Dawi-Zharr. Disregard the demographic decline, they're natural foils for this sort of Early Modern setting, much more than traditional chaos.
I'd also advise: don't sleep on the Dawi-Zharr. Disregard the demographic decline, they're natural foils for this sort of Early Modern setting, much more than traditional chaos.
September 24, 2025 at 2:22 AM
There's a lot of fun to be had with a WHFB take on a Garibaldi character and the War of Tilean Reunification.
I'd also advise: don't sleep on the Dawi-Zharr. Disregard the demographic decline, they're natural foils for this sort of Early Modern setting, much more than traditional chaos.
I'd also advise: don't sleep on the Dawi-Zharr. Disregard the demographic decline, they're natural foils for this sort of Early Modern setting, much more than traditional chaos.
Sold.
I've really no objection to GW deciding to move on from WHFB, but destroying the entire setting seems mean spirited. The Old World is great for precisely the reason that it has room to grow and change and (gasp!) even improve! I mean, very rarely, but still!
I've really no objection to GW deciding to move on from WHFB, but destroying the entire setting seems mean spirited. The Old World is great for precisely the reason that it has room to grow and change and (gasp!) even improve! I mean, very rarely, but still!
September 22, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Sold.
I've really no objection to GW deciding to move on from WHFB, but destroying the entire setting seems mean spirited. The Old World is great for precisely the reason that it has room to grow and change and (gasp!) even improve! I mean, very rarely, but still!
I've really no objection to GW deciding to move on from WHFB, but destroying the entire setting seems mean spirited. The Old World is great for precisely the reason that it has room to grow and change and (gasp!) even improve! I mean, very rarely, but still!