tylik | (no subject)

Anyone interested in playing a game with neural nets? Particularly, in getting them to come up with rousing speeches exhorting us to stand firm and be brave during battle? Have any favorite books, plays, movies, or historical scenes in which such things happen?

I'm looking to put together a collection of rousing speeches before battle, historical or fictional, for Janelle Shane (for neural net knitting fame) to train a neural net on. This insanity will only work if we get enough contributions. The project is described more below - please share!

https://diasp.org/posts/033c43b02ee601377fc4047d7b62795e

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From:

twoeleven

I suspect there will be similarities, because many modern speeches draw from Willy the Shake's St Crispin's Day speech in Henry V. But you might as well add the original to your corpus. :)

There's also an amusing video on YooToob called something like "40 inspiring speeches in two minutes", but I'm a bit busy to search for it now. It's a bunch of clips from, well, inspiring speeches spliced together to produce something like a coherent whole. I'd be very amused to see what a neural net does with it, because IIRC, the result sounds like what a neural net or Markov-chain text generator tends to produce.

From:

tylik

Generically, I'm interested in speeches that reference other speeches, because the more there are common motifs, the more our silicon pals have something to grab onto. So repetition doesn't offend me.

From:

yam

A selection of (transcribed) Cap'n America comic book speeches:

https://www.cbr.com/captain-america-greatest-speeches/

From:

tylik

Eeee! Cap'n!

From:

yam

And some Winston Churchill classics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_was_their_finest_hour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood,_toil,_tears,_and_sweat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_shall_fight_on_the_beaches

From:

tylik

Oh, this is perfect. Those were on my list to try to hunt down.

(I just submitted the protocol for the surgery video article.

And Dr. C is my hero because he's willing to pay the extra to make it open access...

🎶...so far I'm open access all the way...🎶 )

From:

yam

And #5, 8, and 9 on this list of Cap'n Picard speeches I think meet your criteria: https://addictedtostartrek.blogspot.com/2017/11/top-ten-picard-speeches.html

From:

sistawendy

Here's Good Queen Bess's speech to the troops at Tilbury.

From:

tylik

Excellent!

From:

tylik

Oh, I love these.

From:

randomdreams

St. Crispin's Day was my first thought.

From:

randomdreams

Theoden's prep speech at the battle of pelennor fields.
The others I'd suggest have already been suggested.

From:

twoeleven

The president's speech in Independence Day was intended to be like the St. Crispin's Day speech in tone, but not content (first quote on the page). The Shoveller's speech in Mystery Men says "show their scars with pride", a deliberate allusion to "Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,/And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'" (scroll down to mid-page).

Alexander's speech before the battle of the Hydaspes has motifs similar to the St. Crispin's Day speech, even though it's ~2ky earlier: soldiers are free to go, but those who stay will be famous and envied by others. There are of course many translations; the one I linked was just the first complete version I found.

Tariq's speech to his troops has some similar ideas of shared suffering and glory as Alexander's speech. There's a typo in it: "freelv" for "freely".

Another blast from the past: Demosthenes' Third Philippic which inspired the Athenians to resist... ironically, Philip, Alexander's dad. It's pretty long, though, and may need to be cut down.

And last but not least, this page has excerpts from 14 battle speeches. #14 and #16 aren't battle speeches, but #15 is. You should be able to track down the full versions from there.

You're welcome. :)

Edited Date: 2019-03-24 02:13 am (UTC)

From:

twoeleven

...and here's the full version of Patton's speech. The neural net will learn to swear like a longshoreman from that one. :) But it also has themes similar to Henry V's and Alexander's, the notable one being similar appeal to future glory.

Edited Date: 2019-03-24 02:26 am (UTC)

From:

corvi

Oooh, good idea. Aragorn has a short Rousing Speech, too, at the Black Gate.

Sons of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of Men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand! Men of the West!

From:

corvi

Tacitus claimed Boudica's speech before her final battle was:

But now, it is not as a woman descended from noble ancestry, but as one of the people that I am avenging lost freedom, my scourged body, the outraged chastity of my daughters. Roman lust has gone so far that not our very persons, nor even age or virginity, are left unpolluted. But heaven is on the side of a righteous vengeance; a legion which dared to fight has perished; the rest are hiding themselves in their camp, or are thinking anxiously of flight. They will not sustain even the din and the shout of so many thousands, much less our charge and our blows. If you weigh well the strength of the armies, and the causes of the war, you will see that in this battle you must conquer or die. This is a woman's resolve; as for men, they may live and be slaves.

As far as I know, there's no particular reason to take Tacitus' word for it, but it is an example of the genre, and it's nice to have more rousing speeches from women.

Possibly apocryphal as well, Empress Theodora's speech during the Nika riots (according to Procopius, who was hired to write three different biographies of Theodora, two flattering, and one ... much less so):
My lords, the present occasion is too serious to allow me to follow the convention that a woman should not speak in a man’s council. Those whose interests are threatened by extreme danger should think only of the wisest course of action, not of conventions. In my opinion, flight is not the right course, even if it should bring us to safety. It is impossible for a person, having been born into this world, not to die; but for one who has reigned it is intolerable to be a fugitive. May I never be deprived of this purple robe, and may I never see the day when those who meet me do not call me empress. If you wish to save yourself, my lord, there is no difficulty. We are rich; over there is the sea, and yonder are the ships. Yet reflect for a moment whether, when you have once escaped to a place of security, you would not gladly exchange such safety for death. As for me, I agree with the adage that the royal purple is the noblest shroud.

Gene Kranz's memoir reports this rousing speech said to mission control during Apollo 13:
Okay, listen up. When you leave this room, you must leave believing that this crew is coming home. I don't give a damn about the odds and I don't give a damn that we've never done anything like this before. Flight Control will never lose an American in space. You've got to believe, your people have got to believe, that this crew is coming home. Now let's get going!

Edited (fix tags) Date: 2019-03-24 03:15 am (UTC)

From:

randomdreams

I was trying to think of some relevant stuff from roger zelazny, because he was an equally good writer, but he was too existentialist and all his characters' speeches are tinged with irony and self-awareness.