My Crown

This week's post is a counterpoint to a few previous posts by the Navigator. Namely, his post from last week about taking some indigenous history courses and learning about colonialism. And secondly, a post from a while back about making your own coat of arms. 

Being stuck in my Lazy Boy for the last few weeks has allowed me to delve into a few deep internet rabbit holes, as you can imagine. One of those rabbit holes has been watching videos about Crown jewels. But not just the British Crown jewels. The crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, the Vatican and other European countries. In fact, I've also learned that many of the trappings of crowns come from Arabic sources.

And so to that end, today's post is me setting out my requirements for my crown. Because the way I've been sitting around in my chair lately, I feel like a king on his throne. Plus all the gout. 

Modernity

One of the things you learn about crowns is that while many of them are ancient and have deep, deep history, a lot of them are made brand new for the coronation of the new Regent. And other Royals get crowns too. Maybe one of the best illustrations of this is the Coronet of Prince Charles, which was designed in the '60s when Charles was crowned Prince of Wales. When King Edward VIII went into exile after abdicating the throne, he took the traditional Coronet used to Crown the Prince of Wales with him. So it necessitated a new Coronet to be made. If you go check out pictures of the Coronet of Prince Charles, you'll see how very 1960s it is. It's undeniable.

So to that end, I want my own Crown to be very modern. I know by the time of Futurama, rings are very retro, but maybe they aren't quite so retro now and could be part of my crown. The papal tiara famously has three crowns on it. To upstage everyone else, I want four rings on my crown. 

Base materials. 

Of course, crowns have been traditionally made with gold and occasionally with silver. The state Crown of the United Kingdom also includes platinum, as does the Coronet of Charles. But we are living in the 2020s, so I need even more spectacular and rare metals in my crown, like titanium or purple gold. 

There are also a lot of modern metal treatments that could look really cool on the crown. You can anodize aluminum to almost any colour these days, which would also keep the crown light. I've also watched a little bit about bluing steel, which looks gorgeous when done correctly. So maybe some elements of blued steel or anodized aluminum could make the crown really pop.

The stones

One of the most famous parts of any crown and one of the greatest contributors to the weight of a crown is the stones placed in the crown. 

The stones in any crown, of course, are beautiful but often have stories as well. It's not like they just dug up a bunch of new stones to make a new Crown. They're handed down. They are stolen, and sometimes they are gifted, such as the Star of Africa stones in the state Crown of the UK. So here are some of the stones that I would like in my crown. 

Lab-grown scientific stones. Sticking with the theme of modernity, I would like to have some of the spectacular lab-grown stones used to create gems for lasers included in my crown. Some of them are fabulously fluorescent and gorgeous. I would like to include a good number of these in my crown. 

Black opal. I have a minor obsession with opals. It came from another internet deep dive sometime in the past. Not this most recent round of illness. But they are the most spectacular stones, reflecting the entire rainbow. But black opals are just a step above. They're so gorgeous. In fact, some are black opal with just purple and blue colouring in them, and I would love several very large opals set in my Crown. 

Stolen stones. Of course, no Crown is complete without something stolen from someone else. I'm not sure whom I'm going to steal a stone from, but with technocrats being the real power holders of today, perhaps I could steal a stone from Jeff Bezos or steal from Drake. But usually they're stolen from someone of lesser caste. So maybe I need to steal it from some hippie chick with a crystal shop.

Gift stones. Many crowns also include stones gifted by other Royals, by the parliament or by the people (mostly rich people) to the Regent. Since this blog only has one reader, it is falling to that reader to provide me with that gift stone. Better get saving, Andrew. 

Other elements 

Relics 

Famously, the crown of the Holy Roman Empire includes a steel ring on the inside that is storied to have been wrought from one of the nails used to hang Christ on the cross. I don't have access to any Holy relics of that type, but once I ascend to the crown, I'm sure that some of these relics will become available. For my part, I believe that I would like a part wrought from a fork used to try and eat the Flying Spaghetti Monster as part of the relics of my crown.

Fur

Many crowns are trimmed with fur along the bottom to make them more comfortable, and I would say even more stylish. It looks like ermine is the animal usually used to trim crowns. But I don't think that's going to do it for me. Now. This isn't a statement on veganism. I'm not saying that it should be faux fur. No, not at all. 

It's been revealed recently that scientists are very close to being able to clone a woolly mammoth from DNA found in rocks or other fossils. I don't know how soft a woolly mammoth is, but lining my crown with mammoth fur would be pretty spectacular. Or maybe there is another extinct animal that we can bring back from extinction that has much softer fur. Or hell. It's 2026. Maybe we can just make our own DNA for our own new animal with the softest fur ever, kill that bastard and line my crown with his fur.

Step it up a bit 

As long as we're leaning into modernity, why do we have to stick with precious metals and precious stones to make up the crown? This thing could be fully lit up and even have a smoke machine built in using modern techniques. 

Obviously we're going to want to include some LEDs in this. But I'm not trying to be garish. I don't want some RGB rainbow pattern coming off the top of my head. This isn't a gaming keyboard. No, no, we're going to be a little more classy than that. Maybe we can mount some LEDs behind the gems so that they shine out. 

And would it kill you to include a few lasers? As soon as I'm crowned, I want 400,000 lumens of laser light blasting off the top of my head. 

Considerations

There are a few things to consider when creating the crown to discuss as well.

Weight 

Crowns are famously quite heavy. It's not just the gold and the silver. The stones themselves are, well, stones, so crowns can be very heavy, and it's even been said you can't even look down without the crown pulling your head down. With my recent shoulder and neck issues. This is going to be of Paramount concern. Hence why I think we need to consider the use of some aluminum in this and maybe some lighter stones.

Payment 

I don't know how to pay for this thing. It seems in the past that the royal families would order this using their own wealth, which is typically very significant or by conning the parliament or government that they work with to pay for it. Again, I don't have access to a parliament or vast familial wealth, so I'll have to steal it from a technocrat. It's fine. They have plenty.

So there you have it, the requirements for my crown. Of course, this doesn't make up a full set of crown jewels. There's no sceptre or sword. No fancy Crown clothing. But I need to start somewhere, and I think I should start with a crown. Because that's a totally reasonable thing to want. I should maybe have my medicine reviewed with my doctor sometime soon.

What Crown Jewel would you like? What would you put in your crown?