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Codex
A.K.A., the F.A.Q.
1. The Sidious-Palpatine Estrogen Brigade? What is that?
2. Why?
3. What about copyright infringement?
4. What about the adult nature of some of the fan fiction?
5. What's the history behind this website?
6. O.K., so who designed it? Who's in charge?
7. Are men welcome?
8. How do I join?
9. Are there any rules?
10. What other Estrogen Brigades are there?
11. Are Sidious and Palpatine the same person?
Any more questions?
1. The Sidious-Palpatine Estrogen Brigade? What is that?
2. Why?
3. What about copyright infringement?
4. What about the adult nature of some of the fan fiction?
5. What's the history behind this website?
6. O.K., so who designed it? Who's in charge?
7. Are men welcome?
8. How do I join?
9. Are there any rules?
10. What other Estrogen Brigades are there?
11. Are Sidious and Palpatine the same person?
This is a fan-run website. We are completely unofficial.
This is an Estrogen Brigade.
An Estrogen Brigade is a cluster of people, mostly women, who share an attraction towards
a character and/or an actor. We group together to form friendships, exchange the
minutes of our obsession hobby, and create a gestalt intent on
world-domination, in our particular case.
In other words, this is us: women who are attracted by the
Dark Side of the Force, by Darth Sidious, by Palpatine. This is what we have in common.
On other pages on this site (see the index just above), you can find out who Darth Sidious
and Palpatine are. They are our focus. This Brigade is dedicated to them. To him. (Oh,
just see #11 for the grammatical nightmare...)
Ian McDiarmid is the actor who portrays them in the Star Wars movies. Therefore, by
association and because he is a talented actor and too-often overlooked within fandom,
this Brigade is also dedicated to him. You will find much information about his career
here, although there might be a slant towards his filmography, since information about
his theatre work is more difficult to research.
The definition of a fan:
Function: noun
Etymology: probably short for fanatic
Date: 1682
1 : an enthusiastic devotee (as of a sport or a performing art) usually as a spectator
2 : an ardent admirer or enthusiast (as of a celebrity or a pursuit) <science-fiction
fans>
(Source: Merriam-Webster.)
Another etymological source for the term is
fancier. We merely
take the fancy a step further, or sideways. We subvert the cultural icon a little. As to why
we fancy this villain, this Sith Master, this evil Emperor, well, each one of us has her own
reasons... Lust. Admiration. Identification. Kink. Love. Power. He's not just a villain,
he's the villain. The Phantom Menace. The Puppet-Master. The Emperor. Do
we really need a better reason? Look for more details in the Shrine
section when it's ready.
This is an opportunity for us to express our desires, to channel our creativity, to revisit
modern popular mythology and reinterpret it, reinvent it. This is an chance to have fun, to
indulge in some escapism, to add spice to our lives. We are hereby seizing this occasion.
We're not making any money from this site. If anything, we are contributing
to Lucasfilm's profit margin, in more than one way. We've spent our money on Star Wars
paraphernalia. We've paid to see the movies several times. Have we not given enough?
And is this site not, after a fashion, one great and free advertisement for their
benefit?
None of us will claim to own the characters and ideas of the Star Wars universe in the
legal sense. We don't. What we own are our own imaginings, our art and our writings. The
images, soundfiles and other media reproductions available here are not meant to deprive
Lucasfilm or George Lucas or anyone else, but to promote and enrich the world of Star
Wars.
In the humble opinion of the webmistress of this site, anyone who would sue for copyright
infringement would be an utter fool.
This is an Estrogen Brigade. The very name of it is hormonal. We're not
a children's fan club. Get used to it, or stop frequenting this website.
There's a warning at the entrance. Don't start whinging if you failed heed to it. You should
have the sense to decide whether or not it is wise for you to be here.
We're having fun. Don't spoil it for us by behaving irresponsibly.
Oh, it's a long story. :o)
Let's just say that the webmistress puts the blame on Siubhan (of the Sith Academy) for opening her eyes to a
sexual appreciation of Darth Sidious, but will take full responsibility for what her
own dirty mind came up with thereafter.
It just turned out that she wasn't alone. Others shared her interest. (Ya gotta luv the
Internet.) So she decided to build a website instead of remaining a one-woman Estrogen
Brigade.
Darth Cleo (Nicole), the webmistress of the Darth Maul
Estrogen Brigade, kindly provided the webspace and the technical support required to
make it happen. We wouldn't be online if it weren't for her. Merci, Cléo.
All this was done and is maintained by Ide Cyan and in her primitive and peculiar idiosyncratic manner she writes all the HTML herself instead of using a webspinner. She
will continue to do so (blessed be copy-paste) until the website's proportions begin to
overwhelm her. She cobbles together the content as best she can. She's quite proud to say
that the filmography she has written for Ian McDiarmid is more extensive than the one in the
Internet Movie Database. She started this Brigade and she's talking about herself
in the third person here, so that might give you an inkling of the type of person she
is... ;-)
You can e-mail her with a click of the mouse. She also
has a vanity website on another server, but since it hasn't been updated since July she's
too ashamed to link to it right now.
If you plan on stealing her code, please have the decency to put some effort into
refurbishing it and making it look a little different, okiday? A little originality won't
kill you.
Well... do they lust after Palpatine too? Do they agree to submit to our gynarchy? If
they're queer, great! Enjoy the slash. Write some more and send it in! If they're
straight, they'd better not come here looking for a harem. Respect us, we'll respect you.
This, and it bears repeating, is an Estrogen Brigade, not a boys' club. If you
can understand that, we can welcome you. We have no use for contempt or pity. If
that's all you can demonstrate, boo-hoo. Shoo! Out! We don't need you, cupcake.
Just log on into the chat room. (If no-one is in #speb, hop over to #dmeb18, where the
crowds usually hangs out.) Talk. Post on the message board. E-mail us.
Give us a reason to start a mailing list & fill up the Shrine section.
12 November 1999 : We have a mailing
list now!
Do you think there should be? Is there something you'd like to see clearly stated that
isn't already? Drop us a line to let us know. Otherwise,
trust the Force. It will guide you. :-)
Oh, there are many, many of them. Cleo is compiling a list of the Star Wars-related ones
here. You might already be familiar with the David Duchovny
Estrogen Brigade by name. There are Testosterone Brigades too, like Gillian Anderson's.
If you're looking for an Estrogen Brigade devoted to someone in particular and you can't
find anything, start your own!
They are both played by Ian McDiarmid.
Rick McCallum, the producer
of Episode I, says they're the same. Quoting:
"Ian [McDiarmid] is the Phantom Menace. He's not the Emperor yet in The Phantom Menace,
but he is a Sith Lord. He's also Darth Sidious. That's Ian in the robe."
(Source: entertainian.com - The
Wire.)
The Official Star Wars site itself says that Senator Palpatine is the man who will
proclaim himself Emperor and rule the galaxy. That isn't exactly like saying that he is Darth Sidious, but considering that Darth Sidious is a Sith and a Dark Side
Force-user and that the Emperor was also a Dark Side Force-user in Return of the Jedi, that
there can only be two Sith at a time, that the balcony on which Darth Maul and Darth Sidious
talked is identical to the balcony for Senator Palpatine's apartments, and all of the other
clues and instances of foreshadowing in The Phantom Menace, it would be
rather far-fetched to believe that they're not the same.
However, George Lucas has the final word on all this and he likes surprises. This is what
we have from the horse's mouth, as it were, at this point:
"Darth Sidious takes over the Republic, turns it into an empire and controls
everything"
-- George Lucas, USA
Today, May 20, 1999
We shall simply have to wait until Episodes II & III for all the fun he'll get out of doing
exactly that, and the fun we will have watching him do it.
E-mail us and ask them.