Doctor Who and Rome Fic

[redfiona99]

Adipose babies. I want one.

Um... I sense I'm supposed to think more constructive thoughts than that.

I like Donna, I love her Granddad.

I'd like to know why the Adiposians couldn't just have announced their presence through some non-murderous intermediary. I mean, the adipose babies were cute and I can't see humans objecting to what was a win win situation - you lose weight, we repopulate.

Unless it's because humans don't have a warp drive yet. Because the Shadow Proclamation is so going to be the prime directive, just you wait.





I'd forgotten how good Peter Capaldi can be as a good guy. And I assume I don't have to tell people that Phil Davis is good. And the effects weren't too bad (see also the adipose babies, I think they've finally got the hang of what cgi can and can't do). I liked the grand and dramatic Roman music.

I didn't much like the Doctor, because to me there's a huge difference between 'I can't save the city' and walking past people who need your help. And this might just be me, but you just don't do that. Can you imagine any of the other Doctors doing that? Can you imagine Tom Baker or William Hartnell's Doctors going 'but the rules say I can't'? They'd both say 'sod the rules and help', and that's the Doctor I expect, not some weirdo who obeys arbitrary rules.



As for the Rome fic, it's gen, and totally accidental. You see, I was doing some reading up about Claudius and there was a whole section saying how Augustus was the only one who the Pretorian Guard were totally loyal to. And well, I wondered how our favourite cold-fish could ever manage that level of loyalty and well there is now gen Rome fic.

Author: Red Fiona
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, their long dead bones do. The particular iteration of these characters belongs to HBO, with the exception of the narrator, who, unnamed though he is, belongs to me. No money is being made from this.

Rating: G to PG, there's a plot against an emperor but that's about it.
Characters: Octavian, Titus Pullo, various plotters.



The one thing the plotters could not understand was the strange loyalty of Octavian's Praetorian. They were hard-faced men, determined, dangerous, and possibly even valiant, in the right circumstances. They couldn't be threatened, because they couldn't be scared, and they couldn't be bribed, damn Octavian and his ability to pay them an excessive wage that they couldn't afford to match.

Beyond that, there was the problem where there was a good chance that neither tactic would work because of aforementioned strange loyalty. If Octavian were a fighting man, it would at least make sense, but his great victories were all Antony or Agrippa's doing. Some of the men might be loyal to Agrippa, who was, his blind spot concerning his great friend excepted, a good man and fit to inspire said loyalty. Conspiracies before theirs had tried to convince him to stand up to Octavian and claim the Consulship. The conspirators were normally told, politely, no, and were then arrested before they could arrive home. They had decided not to approach Agrippa.

But for some of the others, the Rome-born men, it wasn't Agrippa they stayed loyal to Octavian for, but the legend of the last true man of the Thirteenth Legion. While he watched Octavian's palace, he sometimes saw a man, twisted with age, a snowy white head atop gnarling limbs; he visited Octavian about once a fortnight. This was the famous Titus Pullo, dictator of the Aventine, controller of the Collegia and for reason unknown to this particular plotter (being as he was from Barium and not this degenerate whore-house of a city), it's his patronage of Octavian and not the other way round (people don't notice the plebeians, so they certainly don't notice a half-broken old man who comes to the backdoor of the house) that keeps Octavian's guards so loyal. He asked the Roman patricians that he worked for once, who this Titus Pullo was. They shrugged and asked their other sources, who did their work well. Son of a slave, he crossed the Rubicon with Caesar, dashed about on various campaigns and became, through a series of violent and not entirely clear events, leader of the Aventine Collegia. Not bad for a man who'd been due to die by gladiatorial combat.

Exactly why Rome's excessively moral leader would have anything to do with a convicted murderer was a matter entirely unknown to anyone, but the second half of this particular story about Pullo (it was only one of many, and if even half were true, then the Gods must have loved him) made it clear why the Praetorian Guard loved him. To accept your death at the hands of gladiators without a fight was either ignoble cowardice or bravery of the highest measure, but to fight to defend the name of your legion and for a fellow Legionnaire, a centurion no less, to come to his aid, well it spoke of loyalty and devotion and all the other things that the Guard were supposed to believe in. They believed in a twenty year old story and they kept Octavian’s peace for him.

Which was all well and good, and obviously Pullo was a great man, but it made him another obstacle that would have to be gone through.

Comments

[angstbunny.livejournal.com]

SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK

Oh, I LOVE the idea that Octavian's men are loyal to him because Pullo is loyal to Octavian. I mean, it's a good point. Octavian IS a cold fish, not forged in the heat of battle, more intellectual than warrior. Mostly soldiers respect soldiers, and Octavian is no soldier. But they'd totally respect Pullo. Squeak.

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked. Seriously I was looking up something about Claudius and wiki was saying that historians are baffled as to why they were loyal given that well, he got Agrippa to fight his battles for him, and a lightbulb lit up, because, it had to be Pullo.

And thanks.