Media of Kalgachia

The media of Kalgachia is resourced and managed by the Directorate of Education and Outreach, with specialist input from other authorities. Although a rigorous editorial control is exercised with regard to coverage of the Kalgachi state and church, the absence of commercial pressures allows for a wide diversity of artistic and experimental content in other areas which often strays into the outright avant garde, as well as a subtle but persistent input from the Troglodyti for whom the Kalgachi media complex is the primary means to memetically cultivate the population through symbolic invocation and subliminal messaging.

Both radio and television are broadcast through NVIS propagation on the HF spectrum, bouncing signals off the ionosphere to reach Kalgachia's many deep valleys from above. Continuity of broadcast during national emergencies can be achieved by the electronic warfare units of the The Kalgachi Defence Force, operational priorities permitting.

Newspapers

The Snowflake Banner

The official state journal, based in Oktavyan. Mainly concerned with the gazetting of government orders and tame editorials explaining their place within wider state policy. Some of the latter pieces are rumoured to be authored by the Perfecti themselves, although the rumour itself is said to be a ploy by the editorial staff to increase the circulation of their sober-toned publication.

Private Ear

A tabloid publication, also based in Oktavyan. As well as its bawdy eviscerations of foreign personalities, Private Ear enjoys an unusual freedom to pillory certain figures of the Kalgachi state and church, such selective character assassinations apparently serving as a means for those authorities to throw their own dissenters under the bus. The appearance of one's name anywhere in this publication is considered to be a career-ending event.

The Crampon

The official journal of the Kalgachi Defence Force, analysing military developments across Benacia and passing on various messages from the KDF command. The Crampon is popular among enlisted soldiers for its 'Wench of the Week' full-colour pin-up centrefold, and the 'Brass Farce' readers column featuring anonymous parodies, criticisms and rants against named officers subject to their political vulnerability a la Private Ear.

The Inner Light

The official publication of the Church of Kalgachia, traditionally leading with a transcript of the latest sermon from the Cathedral of Heaven's Conquest in Oktavyan. The Inner Light also examines innovations by the provincial clergy and the entire back half is devoted to agony columns lending wholesome advice to spiritually-anguished readers.

The Hacksaw

The medical journal of the Directorate of Health and Public Walfare, its title alluding to the less-than-complete resourcing of Kalgachi medical services in the nation's early days. The Hacksaw is distributed to all hospitals and clinics, with a relatively small readership on account of its impenetrably academic descriptions of advances in Kalgachi medicine, not to mention vividly-detailed photographs of certain procedures which are unsuitable for delicate stomachs.

Vibrant Vexations

A publication exclusively devoted to crosswords and other brain puzzles, each copy issued with a pencil to complete them. Rumoured to be controlled by the Troglodyti who incorporate their sigil workings into the puzzles' geometry and use winners of the publication's regular competitions as a recruitment pool.

Bergburger Tagblatt

A Yiddish language publication based in the Lieutenancy of Bergburg. An unusually large section of this publication is occupied by the 'Letters to the Editor' column, wherein readers engage in vociferous debates with each other across a span of years, on subjects mainly pertaining to the process and implications of Judeo-Minarboreal-Ketherist syncresis. The back three pages are assigned to mathematical and chess problems for readers to solve.

Radio

Summit 1

National station for news, analysis and documentaries.

Summit 2

National station for classical music, literary/poetic recitations and opera.

Summit 3

National station for popular/folk music and entertainment.

Righteous Thunder

Religious affairs station controlled by the Church of Kalgachia. Of similar format to The Inner Light newspaper, albeit more fiery and eschatological in tone.

Berg-Kol (Mountain Voice)

Yiddish language station featuring news from the Bergburg region, incredibly long dissertations by Ketherist Kohanim and even longer telephone debates between listeners.

Elektruchak (Electric Campfire)

Laqi language station, featuring news from Schleopgora/Abrek region and interviews with local partisan warlords between relentless streams of Lezginka.

Lög Fyrir Vinnu (Music for Work)

Originally established to motivate bonded Froyalanish labourers as they worked in Kalgachia's factories, lumber mills and other industrial premises, Lög Fyrir Vinnu featured traditional Froyalanish folk music lyrically reworked to inspire this workforce throughout their 14-16 hour shifts. Time-and-motion studies by DLEP labour analysts repeatedly found the classically upbeat numbers The Heat Of Your Toil Will Melt Away The Sins Of Your Ancestors and No Time For Groping to be the most effective at increasing productivity.

Although Lög Fyrir Vinnu was slated for closure after the Froyalanish Emancipation of 161 AL, the decision faced a public backlash from the freed Froyalaners themselves - many of whom credited the station's jolly melodies with singlehandedly getting them through the crushing, grim hopelessness of their lives in bondage, its musical style being one of the few cultural inheritances they were permitted to retain. Excercising their newly-gained right as Kalgachi citizens to petition the Council of Perfecti directly, their appeal was one of the lucky few to be randomly selected from a mountain of other such missives and brought before the Council itself. Lög Fyrir Vinnu was duly reprieved from closure and presently continues in its core task of importing and remastering Froyalanish music into a benign form with all references to Vanic theology, odes to the Storish royal and clerical elite, and obsessively overt sexual themes being expunged in favour of those around personal sovereignty, modesty in public, and the dignity inherent in honest toil.

Television

Blizzard 1

National channel for news and documentary programming. Main programmes include:

Avalanche

Primetime news programme anchored by Chap Nosebest and Ruth Gevaltsbringer.

Mudslide

Investigative current affairs feature where hardened journalists explore all manner of things from foreign warzones to the corruption of officials at home. Much like Private Ear, the producers of Mudslide enjoy the apparent protection of Kalgachi authorities in freely scrutinising the 'right' people.

Rockfall

Documentary series following members of different Kalgachi professions. The episodes Tee-al Taxidermist, Diplomat and Whirdlebirb Pilot have been the most popular, whereas others like Froyalaner Gelder have been less well received. (The production of one episode, Arcanist, was beset by so many spontaneous technical difficulties and unexplained crew deaths, and forced by DEO censors to cut so much material from its running time, that it had to be cancelled before airing. It is rumoured that fragmentary scraps of raw footage shot for the episode can be obtained from certain stallholders at Oktavyan's Deferment Flea Market).

Blizzard 2

National channel for arts, theatre, operatic and other high cultural programming. Main programmes include:

Cinebral

Shows arthouse movies from Kalgachia and abroad.

Boyright Tonight

Live coverage of Kalgachi operatic performances at the Boyright Festival Theatre in Katarsis, such as The Afflictions of Mors Nerrolar and Savage Garden.

Hermeneutonauts

Philosophical round table show in which invited academics discuss the nature of the Micran social, spiritual and parapolitical morass and Kalgachia's place within it.

Wholly Crooknecked

Game show built around tenuous pattern-matching far beyond the cognitive ability of the average viewer and produced with a suspiciously incongruent Kemetic graphical theme. Suspected to be another tool for the monitoring/recruitment of contestants by the Troglodyti. Hosted by Jovienne Zaftig.

Blizzard 3

National channel for drama, entertainment and sports programming. Main programmes include:

Trembita

Popular music show, combining performances with performer interviews.

One Man and his Goat

Coverage of the interminable qualifiers, heats and tournament rounds of the All-Kalgachi Goatherd Trials, held each year in Katarsis. Popular with what the DEO politely terms 'viewers of provincial taste', although the occasional cryptic reference to inbreeding and/or improper relations with the goats themselves does make its way into the commentary.

Drat

Gritty alternative-history drama series in which Kalgachia has fallen under Shirerithian military occupation. Set in and around the fictional Kalgachi town of Dratsburg, it follows a band of Church partisans led by Credent Profundus Trubelsky and his Proctor, Bert Gardenhoe, as they engage in a life and death game of cat and mouse against the forces of the deranged and sadistic Shirerithian military governor, Oscar Whirlydanger.

Bootleg copies of the series are rumoured to have gained a cult following among the middle echelons of the Shirerithian military where it is informally known as "the training video".

The Lot of a Lichnik

The classic Minarborian action detective series, following two officers of the Novodolor Lichnina as they unravel and thwart crimes against the undead.

Netherlight

Religious affairs station, broadcasting live services from churches across Kalgachia and theological analyses by senior Abbots and Credents. Also provides news and general documentary programming on affairs under the Church's authority such as provincial economics, judicial matters and partisan warfare.

Salvo

Military affairs station, broadcasting in short bursts during barrack messing times. Broadcasts begin with a recitation of the KDF command's standing orders and other administrative news followed by a roundup of the strategic military situation on the Benacian continent. Concludes with a cinematic feature, the most popular being imported Jingdaoese action serials.

Look and Learn

Educational programming for broadcast to schools (in the morning) colleges (in the afternoon) and universities (through the night).

???

Although only receivable in Kalgachia and its immediate limitrophes, this station does not appear on public television listings and Kalgachi authorities refuse to confirm or deny involvement in it, although the occupants of some senior positions are said to be profoundly unnerved by its existence. It appears and disappears from the air at random intervals and frequencies, sometimes overpowering another channel. The station is devoid of branding or continuity and consists entirely of random, sparsely worded and inexplicable scenes with a consistent theme of what Kalgachi arcanists call 'entropic gradients' - namely events of a traumatic or catastrophic nature such as wartime bombardments, mass executions, natal miscarriages, violent accidents, rapes and murders. The scenes depict an assortment of historical periods and geographic locations throughout the Benacian continent, although in some scenes these locations and times are implausibly mixed together. The most popular speculations for the station's purpose are DEO broadcast tests, arcane workings of the Troglodyti, electronic psyops by Shireroth, or the collective trauma of Benacia's violent past spontaneously leaking onto the RF spectrum in a 625-line television format. All attempts at public research of the phenomenon have been suppressed and/or classified.

Film

The Kalgachi film industry is generally small and dissolute, composed of small studios operating in specific Marches or Directorates and concerned with very specific categories such as experimental arthouse, documentary, training or public information, but one studio - Schlepfilm, based in the city of Schlepogora - has enjoyed some success in the production of historical epics with a 'Benacian Western' theme. These films are set at some point in a broad historical period between the collapse of independent Amokolia and the final expansion of Kalgachia, with a narrative emphasis on life in lawless or weakly-governed territory and a cinematographic emphasis on the scenic wilderness of the Benacian interior. Most films involve some kind of arduous journey by the protagonists across said territory - effectively portraying the land itself as a leading character, lending a quasi-animist undercurrent to the plot and causing the term 'Schlepfilm' to apply beyond the principal production studio to the genre itself. The studio also produces action films and psychological dramas set in the present day, having inherited the 'Lich-Noir' film-making tradition from Minarboria whose most famous production, the serial The Lot of a Lichnik, was originally set and filmed around Schlepogora.

Where Mangos Dare

Plot

A promotional poster for Where Mangos Dare.

A Shirerithian S.W.O.R.D. special forces team is sent on a mission to infiltrate a KDF fortress and kidnap one of the engineers for the Neaptide Gravimetric Countermeasure System. Although the team is briefed that Shirerithian deep-cover agents will assist their entry, the contacts turn out to be non-existent - the team find that their planned rendevous point with the agents is located in a minefield in front of the target fortress. The ensuing explosion, security alert and firefight kills everyone except the team's commander, known only as "the Prime", who is seperated from his men in the confusion and finds an escape route by chance. Realising that the mission was planned from the start to kill him and his team by careerist elements of his command who want to eliminate him as competition, he rules out surrender and sets out to escape Kalgachia, re-infiltrate Shireroth and avenge the deaths of his comrades. After a series of action-packed scrapes, he reaches the home of his commander, a man known only as "Ops", only to find that his arrival was expected. Being quicker to the draw and holding up the Prime at pistol point, Ops asks him which was the greater crime - the planning of the suicide mission, or the the Prime's own pathetically naive trust in the Shirerithian bureaucracy? He advises the Prime to ponder the matter on his way to Balgurd as he levels his weapon at the man's heart. Upon the Prime pointedly asking if his long service and loyalty to the Kaiser counted for anything, Ops casually replies "no" and pumps him with bullets to the closing credits.

Reception

Where Mangos Dare has become the most popular film in Kalgachi history, beating The Lot of a Lichnik which had topped cinema ratings since before the fall of Minarboria. Much of the film's attraction and critical acclaim comes from its unusually sympathetic portrayal of a Shirerithian soldier, even as he fights Kalgachi troops and partisans - scenes which caused riots in some Kalgachi parishes during the film's initial release. The Prime was originally scripted to defeat Ops, but a series of test screenings with alternate endings revealed that the audiences related more closely with the Prime's defeat at the final moment - his demise being considered an allegory for the plight of the Shirerithian people, enyoked by an ancient and uncaring archonic force which murders its bravest minions and beats the rest into learned helplessness. The scenic cinematography, character casting and soundtrack (particularly the opening and closing credits) also inspired positive reviews.

While reasonably popular in Nova England, attempts to market the film in other foreign countries have met with mixed results.

The Good, The Bad And The Shrubly

Plot

A promotional poster for The Good, The Bad And The Shrubly.

Set during the late collapse of Minarboria. Dissitor Sporonin, a six-nostrilled Deep Singer and mendicant cleric of the Minarborian church, has the unfortunate luck to enter a village just as it is being sacked by the horsemen of the Rukovod Brotherhood, a pack of murderous Laqi highwaymen masquerading as a cossack host. In the middle of the carnage and plunder, seemingly ignored by the sabre-swinging brigands galloping past, Sporonin sees a very young girl pulling a toy trailer through the village with a quiet determination. The trailer carries some kind of round object with an uneven surface, covered by a bedsheet. Sporonin hastens to assist the girl out of danger, and to his surprise he notices that she is a lich - her undeath at such a young age being a clear violation of Minarborian custom. The girl introduces herself as Vascarina Goldcluck, and on the road out of the village she explains her predicament - she had long ago been murdered and reanimated to undeath by her parents as part of a botched and illicit necromantic ritual, run away from home and eventually been rescued by the agents of the Minarborian Empress - the notorious Lichniks. The Minarborian authorities had sent her - and the stuffed toy raven called 'Birdy' which serves as her phylactery - into residential care at the 'Little Gardeners' Home for the Prematurely Transmogrified, a pleasant beachside institution in southern Lywall (these events famously covered in the most acclaimed 'The Lot of a Lichnik' episode - 'The Case of the Scampering Lichling'). But she explains to Sporonin that she had been forced to flee the home, to escape a similar raid to the one now razing the village behind them to ashes.

Then Vascarina makes an astounding claim - that during her wandering through the village, the Rukovod Brotherhood had been sighted racing toward it and she had been approached in some haste by lavishly-dressed and obviously senior officials of the Minarborian church. Addressing her in visible distress, Vascarina claims, they had begged her to take custody of someone very important - none other than Minarbor himself, the divine namesake shrub of the Minarborian Empire, recently evacuated from the Minarborian capital as it fell into chaos and disorder. Moreover that the holy officials had explained that Minarbor had led Vascarina to this place, for he had chosen her alone from among the faithful millions to escort him to safety in 'His Special Garden', and politely requested of his companions that he be transferred to her care. Now, Vascarina claims, he is riding in her toy trailer on top of her meagre possessions, and is covered by the bedsheet because he is 'shy'. Naturally Sporonin is sceptical of Vascarina's story, and asks to take a look under the bedsheet. Vascarina violently refuses to let him do so, and advises him never to ask again lest the resultant discord offend the shrub within - she also appears intensely protective of her stuffed toy raven. Sporonin, assuming the girl has been pushed into mental derangement by her experiences, plays along with her apparent delusions and changes the subject at the first oppurtunity.

As the evening draws in, Sporonin hears the thunder of approaching hooves on the road behind. Realising the Rukovod horsemen are coming again, he tells Vascarina to run and hide while he turns around and does his best to distract the horsemen with a request for water - but instead of being engaged in conversation, Sporonin is surrounded by the horsemen and cudgelled unconscious.

He wakes up in the ruins of a church with the leader of his assailants, Rukovod himself, surrounded by his henchmen. Rukovod explains that they had captured some senior clergy and while being violently shaken down for liturgical ornaments these holy men had attempted an appeal to Rukovod's piety and explained that they were escorting Minarbor himself. Rukovod, tantalised by Minarbor's value in legitimising his control over the local area, had demanded to know where the shrub was, and after a suitably savage beating one of the clerics had finally named the little lich girl before being sarcastically condemned for his treachery, summarily executed and kicked into a ditch. One of the search parties had duly apprehended Sporonin, Rukovod explains, and now his physical integrity depends on sharing any information he might have about the undead child. Sporonin feigns ignorance but Rukovod persists, his henchmen beating Sporonin into a bloody and toothless mess over several hours. Sporonin resolutely fails to divulge anything useful, however - Rukovod and his men eventually leave Sporonin for dead and ride out of the village in search of new plunder.

Compelled to find Vascarina again, both for her own safety and the examination of her newly-legitimised claim to Minarbor, Sporonin patches himself up with torn strips of his own sackcloth robe and stumbles determinedly out of the ruined village. He finds Vascarina in a thicket not far from where he left her, and they continue walking once more. Sporonin asks her where she intends to go, and she explains that Minarbor has planted the image of his 'Special Garden' in her mind and politely requested her to keep looking around until she finds it. When they arrive, she explains, all three of them will be safe. In the meantime, however, she still refuses to let Sporonin see the rustling object under her sheet-covered trailer.

Suddenly horsemen emege from all directions and surround them, followed up by a grimacing Rukovod. Confronted with a choice of shrub or child to shield from imminent assault, Sporonin asks Minarbor's forgiveness and stands in front of Vascarina. Rukovod rides up and chides Sporonin for his carelessness, explaining that he had been tailed out of the village by Rukovod's scouts and unwittingly led them straight to girl and shrub. Promising to slay both Sporonin and vascarina in a few short moments, Rukovod dismounts and goes to the little covered trailer. He draws his femur-handled sabre and slashes the bedsheet open - but it falls flat, revealing nothing underneath. Whatever was holding it up, be it a shrub or not, has gone.

Rukovod and his men look at each other in confusion, and it becomes obvious that they have suddenly forgotten why they are there. Looking Sporonin and Vascarina up and down, Rukovod notes that they have nothing worth taking and re-mounts his horse, leading all of his men away. Unaffected by this sudden memory loss, Sporonin asks where Minarbor has gone. Vascarina closes her eyes, laughs, says that she can see Minarbor in his 'Special Garden', and that their job is done. She begins skipping around the empty trailer with joy - as she does so, Sporonin is shocked to notice she has changed. Her complexion has become perfectly healthy, her jet black hair has become soft brown and she is, by all appearances, alive again. The toy raven cradled in her arms has become a real thing of feathers and blinking eyes, and is cawing softly. The film closes with a lingering shot of her silhouette skipping into the sunset, the raven flying circles above her head and Sporonin stumbling behind in bewilderment, as the credits roll.

Reception

The Good, The Bad And The Shrubly is essentially a retelling of the 'Goldcluck Theory', the assertion of a certain faction of Ketherist theologians that the notorious Minarborian child welfare case simply known as 'V', on whom Vascarina Goldcluck was based in The Lot of a Lichnik, was chosen by the divine shrub Minarbor to escort him safely from physical world and in return was miraculously returned to life, sparing her from the late Minarborian necromantic energy collapse and giving her a chance to try her luck as a grown adult, lost among the innumerable and largely-unknown individual stories of those in the ungoverned Benacian interior. The Goldcluck Theory, and the film on which it is based, offers some closure regarding what happened to Minarbor after the collapse of his namesake empire - whether or not the theory is true, its allure is mostly responsible for the success of The Good, The Bad And The Shrubly in the cinemas of Kalgachia and those other ex-Minarborian jurisdictions able to screen it through state mercy or private subterfuge.