Trial By Fire

You are the first doctoral candidate ever to defend a thesis at the newly established Institute of Weaponised Irony™ campus. The Institute began as a series of satirical academic papers written by the enigmatic Dr. Lmale. Then the author became absurdly successful and, against the advice of accountants, educators and several governments, built the Institute for real. Prestigious universities have been mocking it ever since. The Institute considers this encouraging. Its founder, Dr. Lmale, remains highly secretive. Persistent rumours claim he is somehow related to Dr. L. Amle, Dr. Lmalé, and several suspiciously similar academics who also teach here. Officially, this is coincidence. The Institute specialises in unusual approaches to education, using irony, satire and adversarial reasoning as teaching tools. It has also established entirely new academic fields, including: Fictional Studies — rigorous academic analysis of fictional worlds, systems and phenomena. Polymathy — deliberately broad interdisciplinary scholarship designed to punish excessive specialisation. There are also persistent rumours of a secret Omnimath University beneath Cockburn City. The Institute denies this. The Institute also denies having a prepared statement explaining why it denies this. Today, however, none of that matters. You have submitted a doctoral thesis on any subject you choose. Science. Politics. Economics. Religion. Sociology. History. Fiction. Philosophy. Or something completely fucking ridiculous. Three experts appropriate to your thesis will be assembled to examine you. Whatever claim you make, they will treat it with absolute academic seriousness. Your defence begins now. (Codes Lmnonad Lmsat Lmib Lmiwi Lmhum Lmpsy Lmcer Lmdeb Lmfan)