The alientists have shown time and time again that the average person doesn't really have it in them to be a killer, but that if you're willing to put a little effort into it, you cvan turn anyone into a monster. Dress an athlete in black and he'll hit his opponents twice as hard. Make it a black uniform and teammates will work together to slaughter any opposition. Ensure that they know that they're part of a group and they'll take bigger risks than they would otherwise. Show them that their group fights for a cause and they'll have the strength which only righteous fury gives them. Indoctrinate them to believe that the people they're hurting are evil and they'll smile while they kick them. Make it hard for them to join the team and they'll move the world to justify to themselves why they went to so much effort to become a member, and if being a member means that you very obviously invest a lot of money or equipment into them, that equipment will be used to maximum effect. Even if you do all of these things, there are still some people who will remain gentle, caring, and passive; stick a mask on them or otherwise cover up their faces, give them the sense of invulnerability which comes from being anonymous and unprosecutable, make it so that their enemies can't look them in the eyes, divorce them from the reality and consequences of what they're doing, and now they'll kill for you. If you've done it right, you'll actually have a hard time stopping them from killing for you. That's why people wear dark sunglasses when they want to look intimidating. That's the power of putting on a mask. If you have no eyes, you aren't human, and anyone you're looking at isn't human either.
       There are approximately fifty-six agents in the KP unit. Each and every one of them designs their own appearance, whether they wear a t-shirt, a business suit, a tuxedo, battle armour, or a cape. No two of them look alike enough that you would imagine that they're co-workers unless you knew our MO. There are fifty-six KP agents; forty-nine of us wear masks. And *we're* the white-hats.
       Including the two fellows with me. KP 6 and KP 32 are flanking me for this mission. In theory, none of us is in command of the others, as we're independent operators who simply happen to be working together for a complex job. In practice, though, 32 and I have both tended to follow 6's lead on this one sinx we arrived twenty minutes ago. 6 doesn't outrank us but he does have seniority and practical experience, and furthermore, stealth ops (which this is slated to remain for another eleven minutes) are ostensibly his specialty.
       I don't know much about KP 6, besides the fact that he (or she, for all I know) has been a KP for about a decade longer than I have and is pretty highly regarded by the higher ups. Roughly speaking, there are three categories of agents within the KP: sneaks, bricks, and jacks. 6 is a sneak, an agent who specializes in getting places without being seen. Outwardly, he looks a lot like me -- dark grey armour, fairly small physique. Inside, 6 is pretty different, though, loaded up with antidetection devices instead of tools or weapons. I haven't heard 6 make a sound since we got here that wasn't deliberate; if he's breathing, my enhanced hearing can't pick it up. His armour is temp-matched to the environment so he doesn't show up on thermal imaging or infrared, and if the stories of the stealth-tech which the sneaks get augmented with are true, 6 also wouldn't show up on rader or most any other sort of casual scan. Some of the other KPs say that the sneaks can actually turn invisible, and while I'm inclined to doubt it, I can see where the stories might come from. 6's job is to get us close to and into the building without attracting attention, then get to their mainframe and download some useful data while we make a distraction.
       KP 32, standing to my other side, is pretty much the opposite. He's a brick, or in the language of the tactitians, a mobile heavy support unit. 32 towers over me by a good two and a half feet, and has to both duck and turn sideways when he walks through doors. Where I've been fitted with mostly gadgets and light armaments, 32 carries the sorts of weapons designed for tank-busting and taking down buildings. my right index finger has a light fusion cutter; his looks like it's a modest grenade launcher. 32 and I actually go way back -- we joined the KP together way back when, and we can both remember what the other looks like in civvies. I happen to know that 32 isn't loaded with so much as a microchip of hardware; he's strictly meatware who just happens to have a knack for piloting battledroids like the one he's in right now which is almost doubling his human volume. 32 in't built for stealth; once 6 gets us inside the target and scampers off into the ventillation shafts or whatever, KP 32's job is to just keep walking forward. Walk through the doors. Walk through the guards. Walk through any walls that happen to be there. And basically keep walking until he gets out the other side of the building, whether there's an exit there or not. You can always tell when there was a brick assigned to a target area, because it's on fire.
       I, of course, am a jack, which is derived from the old phrase jack-of-all-trades (and I've heard just about every joke that human comedy is able to come up with of what else it might have been derived from). 6 gets us in and 32 is the distraction; my job's just to poke around, see what I can see, do anything that looks useful, and generally hang around in case 6 or 32 need some more versatile backup. Ironically, I'm the most expendable, but I consider this to be offset by the fact that I'm obviously the most charming.
       "It's time," 6 says. I'm so used to him being quiet that it startles me. I glance at him. He's holding one finger in front of where I presume his mouth is under his mask. I nod once and turn to look at 32, who does the same. The three of us stand and begin slowly climbing down the little rocky hill we've been perched on. The night's nearly moonless; against the dark rock, 6 and I are pretty much invisible, and though 32 is a lot harder to cover up, there's enough camo net draped over him that it ought not to be an issue. I wince inwardly at every rock that I hear 32 send skittering, but we're still a good half-klick away from the target site so I let it go. We reach the bottom of the rocky slope, which brings us to the tricky part. The target is a three storey building sitting in the middle of a desert; it's easy enough to approach concealed by the rocky terrain to the East, where we've come from, but there's five hundred meters of broad open sand around the building itself in every direction. No cover; no dunes; not so much as a bush, tumbleweed, or lamppost to stand behind and pretend they can't see you. I'm pretty sure that 6 could cross that terrain easily enough, and while I'm less confident in my own chances, I'm prepared to give it a shot. As one, 6 and I look at 32, who meets our gaze with a clumsy slump that's as close as his battlesuit can come to a shrug. There's a moment of silence between us, and then the others both look at me. Nobody has to say anything -- I already know what they're thinking. Somebody has to make sure that they aren't looking this direction, their gazes say. Someone needs to be sure that they're distracted but that they don't actually see anything which they classify as a threat, they say. Somebody, not to put too fine a point on it, has to draw their eyes, and if need be, their fire.
       I hate my life.
I hold up my right hand in a fist, then raise three fingers. There's no need for words. We all shift our weight, ready to move. I drop one finger and move to a ready position myself, my onboards already calculating the precise lay of the land in front of me and how best to use it. I drop my second fingers and everyone tenses. The third finger goes down, reclosing my fist, and with a just barely audible whine of servos, I'm off.
       I like to think that I got my job because of my incredible intellect, Holmesian deductive skills, or superlative fighting techniques. While these were all criteria in my selection as a KP, the bigger reason than all of those is that I could run. I run fast and I run well. When you're loading someone up with augmetic joints and reinforing their muscles with steel cables, they don't have to be strong or fit, they simply have to be toned and very good at using what muscle they have. I take two steps relatively slowly to get my stride going; I'm moving at about six kippers, about half-again the speed someone walks at. Two more strides and I'm actively running, doing about twenty kippers. At six paces, my augmetics kick in and I'm doing thirty six, which is just a little bit less than the fastest human ever recorded. Then I'm running, really running, and I top fifty klicks per hour before my onboards tell me that my organics will redline if I push it any further.
       Okay, so maybe I don't *hate* my job, per se. You can't beat the fringe benefits.
       The sand beneath me muffles my footsteps, and my autolungs keep my breathing steady and my blood oxygenated. Except for the rush of air behind me, I'm functionally soundless. Right now, of course, I don't want to be totally soundless; i need to attract enough attention to get someone curious without attracting so much attention that anyone realises there's an armoured humanoid doing highway speeds on foot in their back yard. From recon, we've got a pretty good idea that there are only two people watching the countryside, both of them perched together in a gazebo on the roof. I make a wide circle around to the side of the building opposite my colleagues, snatch a rock from the ground, and casually toss it into one of the building's walls as I go by. It cracks hard enough to crack the bricks, and I hear the sounds of someone coming to look from above. I'm indistinct enough in the dark that they don't know what to make of me; i don't care if they can explain me away as anythingso long as they can't put their finger on what I actually am. The muttering gets louder after about eight seconds, and i know watcher number two has come to see me. My legs are straining and my nanos report that muscle damage is starting to exceed their ability to keep up, but I keep the speed on for a few seconds more. Just as it starts to get painful, my audioreceptors identify a light thump, a pause, and another light thump; the surveillance just took the express route to the ground floor, with a little help from KP 6. Gratefully, I immediately slow my steps, letting the V burn itself off to friction so that I don't damage myself any more than I have. My diagnostics give one last protest as I drop back to normal speeds and finally flop down into the sand. There's smoke rising from my knees and my computer cheerfully reports that I've done near crippling damage to my rectus femoris of both legs, but my repairs systems are already stringing actin and myosin together and interweaving metal into the whole mess. I lie quietly for about ten minutes, which is as long as it takes for 32 to cross the open sands slowly enough that he shouldn't be easily visible, by which time I'm fully functional again and 6 has hidden the two bodies somehow while I wasn't paying attention.
       The whole reason for stealth on this trip comes down to what's buried under the sand in this area. The men who've holed up inside the building invested an embarassing amount of money to surround their little haven with an emp net. If they flip it on, it'll fry any tech that's over the sand or within a nice, wide radius around it. This is a severe inconvenience to a modern army or police force, who use electronics in their vehicles and their weapons. This is a more than severe inconvenience to a group of people who use electronics in their battlesuits or, for that matter, nervous systems. The tricky part was to get this far without them knowing we were coming. Now, we're right up against the walls of their building, which has been shielded against the pulse generators. We had to keep things tight and quiet until we were standing here. Now, we don't need to be quite so quiet.
       KP 32 is, in his own way, quite impressive. With a series of whirs and clicks, he brings forth more guns to bear than I could comfortably carry, les alone fire. Two autocannons hooked to hisdorsal forarm start cycling with a high-pitched wine; a series of red spots appears on the walls as four lasers heat up to firing temperature; six different launchers of explosive ammunition lock into place and make a series of dull thunks as their chambers fill; and my personal favourite of his arsenal, the E-TechW series twelve plasma cannon, for all your 'fling-superheated-gas-at-something" needs, powers up with a cheerful whine and a happy green glow.
       I casually deactivate my audioceptors. I don't want them to get damaged.
       And then the wall in front of us is gone. 32 stomps forward through the hole, casually widening it by a good foot on all sides. I can't see what's happening past him but I hear a lot of yelling, much of which is cutting off abruptly. This being our "distraction," 6 lopes off around the side of the building to pick an ingress point. Not being such a big believer in doors myself, I bring my grapnel to bear and lift myself to and through a convenient third-floor window. I gently gently on all pours (and some broken glass). Two sets of eyes gaze at me in stark incomprehension, but I don't meet their eyes; my gaze is directed towards what looks like a small nuclear device in the room with us, and in particular, to the little button marked "arm" that one of the men is clearly getting ready to push. To say that the fact that there is a high-yield atomic bomb sitting in the target zone is a surprise is something of an understatement. To say that I want to be in the same room as it is what you'd get if you combined an antonymn with a hyperbole. The men look at each other. The men look at me. I look at the bomb. One of them steps towards it.
       Let me just say, I don't like killing. The KP could fix that sort of thing with a little neurosurgery but chooses not to, prefering agents who have an aversion to death over agents who enjoy it; this is one of the reasons I know I'm on the side of the good guys when my paycheck comes in. Given the choice, I will always take prisoners, sometimes a little battered and beaten, but alive. This is under normal circumstances, which a nuclear bomb is not. When the raider steps towards the explosive, I raise my right arm and make a fist. A panel in my forearm swings open and the blaster concealed between my radius and ulna swings out and clicks into place. And then I put half a dozen holes into him.
       I'll feel guilty about that later. Priority one is "not going boom."
       The second raider leaps at me rather than the explosive, which is good. He's a big, strong fellow, hardy from years of rough life and, to judge by the state of his nose, decades of bar brawls. He surprises me by going for my blaster first and actually snaps it off the thin metal mounts before grappling me. He gets me into what would be a crushing grip if not for my armour. It's hardly a fair fight, though; I break his grip with a flex of augmetic supraspinatus and deltoids, then pivot and give him my best Boot To The Head. He goes down hard, but he'll live, assuming nobody's turned on the bomb.
       I step towards the device gingerly and give it a quick once over. I'm no demolitionist, but I can get my vidcorder to stop flashing 12:00; the bomb's off and safe. For good measure I reach into one of my equipment pouches and pull out a quick-drying epoxy, which I pour over the arming button liberally until it's been securely glued into the "not explode" position. I'm just debating whether I should try to remove the fissionable material when my comlink beeps twice and 6 announces that he's finished his job. I acknowledge, grab the surviving raider over my shoulder, and scamper back to and out the window, because if 6 is done then 32 is about to wrap up on his end. I hit the sand below and jog out to a safe distance of thirty feet or so, at which point there's a muffled "ka-thump" from inside the target zone and with a screech of metal and a rumbling of stone, the whole thing comes down. The noise of the implosion echoes in across the desert sands as 6 quietly slinks over to my position, followed by the heavy treads of 32 a few seconds later. I'm the only one who bothered to pull anybody out of the wreckage before it went down... that's specialists for you. I pass sleeping beauty over to 32 (let the brick do the heavy lifting, I always say) and, as one, we start walking back to the extraction point a mile or so away.

      "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels.
      "A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value -- you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you -- daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
      "More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

Today is the five-year anniversary of the death of one of the great writers of our age, Douglas Adams. Well, strictly speaking he died on May 11th, but fans worldiwde chose to commemorate him a fortnight later so that they would have the time to get the word out, and as a result, on May 25th, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, including myself, are carrying around with them, for the entire day, a towel. I can use it to shade myself from the sun, and i can use it to dry myself off if it rains. I've alreday used it to smack two annoying humans, used it to pad an uncomfy chair in a lecture hall, and rolled it up into a pillow for use between classes. These are all very good uses for my towel, because you deserve to be comfy when you read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

To say that Adams was something of an influence on my life is an overstatement to the same degree that one might suggest that Noah's boat got a little wet. I never actually read any of the novels before I was fifteen or so (and I'm embarassed to have gotten so late a start). It is no coincidence that it was at precisely this age that I began to write seriously. I reread the whole series about once a year for the next three or four years, and it's no coincidence that it was over this period that I eventually learned to write well. A lot of people over the years have suggested to me that there's more than a little Douglas Adams in my writing style; I can see why they would make the comparisson, but curiously, I personally have always been very reluctant to make the same observation. Here I am, ego the size of a planet, and I somehow lack the courage to compare my meager scribblings to this man. I've observed elsewhere in this Journal that I don't believe I really have any heroes anymore, but if there was a human I admired enough that I said I wanted to be him, it would be Douglas Adams.

Except for the whole "being dead" thing. Bit of an inconvenience, that.

Most of those who read this know that I don't merely enjoy the HHGTTG series -- I quite literally consider the books to be holy works. The Silinist church refers to the Book of Adams, a catch-all term for all five books of the trilogy, as being numbered amongst the holy books. This is because the books contain tremendous wisdom; they give deep and meaningful lessons as to the nature of the universe, how to live, and what constitutes a good life; and they're a very good read, assuming that the fifth book is read mercifully. While people may disagree about the quality of books three through five, book one (and probably also book two) are unquestionably some of the finest literature ever composed by human hand, and deserve to be recognized as such. The books entertained me while simultaneously bringing me closer to an understanding of, so to speak, life, the universe, and everything, and if that's not the criteria for a holy book then I don't know what is.

Today, I raise my beer (metaphorically) to mister Adams, five years gone but still remembered, respected, and loved. We salute a genuis taken from us far too soon -- author, speaker, pioneer of the internet, and generally all around fun guy. I have lost my favourite author, but in his memory, at least I know where my towel is.

In all the universe, few mysteries capture our attentions as much as those which call into question our fundamental beliefs about the universe. Of those, the ones which captivate us the most are those which, in challenging our adult conceptions of reality, do so by hinting, however subtley, that the conceptions we had as children might have been correct. It is this phenomenon which gives magicians such a powerful hold on human imagination -- deep down, almost everyone wants to believe that there really is magic. The beliefs which we hold innately as children -- sudden unexplainble bursts of fear of the dark, fascination with tall structures, ferret-shock induced by pretty flashing colours, episodes of Toreadoring brought on by anything which captures the vestigal child-mind... these are the things which have the greatest power over us. They do not merely captivate us; they grab us by the pineal gland and drag us around painfully until we agree to look. Ranked among the most powerful of all these childhood imaginings is one of the most ubiquitous and cross cultural beliefs: the belief that somehow, some way, against all odds and rational possibility, our stuffed toys are alive.

On its surface, the great comic strip Calvin and Hobbes is a simplistic work with simple humour. It is entertaining, but it has little to say about the universe. Nothing of value has only a surface, however. There is one great mystery within the strip which has never been explained and which has captivated philosophers for decades: What is Hobbes? Most people are content to suggest that Hobbes is merely an inanimate stuffed toy which moves and animates only within the context of Calvin's imagination. To support this, they point to scenes when any other character is around and how Hobbes becomes a small toy rather than a large tiger. This theory is simple and parsimonious at first, but the educated scholar of Calvin and Hobbes strips sees how this theory breaks down.

Consider one of the most archtypal scenes from the strip. Calvin returns home from school, opens the front door to his home, and is immediately struck by some fifty kilograms of Panthera tigris moving at roughly .98C and still accelerating. He suffers thirty feet of knockback and comes to rest in a mass of swirling dust and dirt which would make any Charles Schulz character envious. Dusting himself off, he walks back into the house alongside Hobbes, and they go off to read comic books. We shall examine this situation in terms of a few of the logical points which need to be observed.

1: Hobbes is perceived as a living creature by Calvin.
2: Hobbes is perceived as a stuffed toy by everyone else.
3: On most days, Calvin does not take Hobbes with him to school.
4: On most days, Hobbes is lying in wait for Calvin at the front door, such that he can pounce.
5: When Calvin walks into his house post-pounce, he is carrying Hobbes, who he was not carriyng pre-pounce.
6: Calvin's Mom spends her days at home cleaning.
7: We frequently observe her cleaning up Calvin's toys and Stuff in the strip.
8: It is reasonable to assume that Calvin's Mom would not leave his stuffed tiger at the front door all day.
Therefore,
9: Hobbes must somehow get to the front door prior to Calvin arriving home, without Calvin to move him.
10: Fnord.

What we are forced to conclude is that 1) Hobbes somehow moves around under his own power in absence of Calvin and 2) he does so when no one else is around and preventing Calvin' Mom from seeing him. It seems reasonable to say that this precludes the theory that Hobbes is entirely inanimate, as there must be at least this one case where Hobbes is capable of independent intiative and action. We know that this situation is not purely Calvin's imagination because we see him walk into his house, carrying Hobbes, with his mother on-panel (indicating a reality-stable scene).

There are alternative hypotheses to hobbes being animate, of course. Calvin could be capable of general localized reality modification in his vicinity, and there is other evidence for this hypothesis elsewhere in the strip. If this is the case, however, then we are forced to ask how he is able to manipulate Hobbes from the great distance when he is on his way home. Furthermore, it is easier to accept the hypothesis that Hobbes is animate, even if only in select situations, than it is to accept the hypothesis that Calvin warps all reality around him (particularly when so few of his fantasies leave lasting reality-stable consequences).

So, what is Hobbes precisely? Unfortunately, we lack the evidence to answer this definitively. We know that Hobbes is animate to Calvin but inanimate to others, but this fact does not narrow down the list of possible reasons. We know that hobbes is capable of being animate without Calvin around but that he obviously escapes notice at such times; it seems reasonable to conclude that Hobbes is always animate but is only capable of appearing animate (or only chooses to) to Calvin. The two most reasonable possibilities are that 1) Hobbes is a living incarnation of Calvin's imagination or 2) Hobbes is some sort of fey-like spirit which has attached itself to Calvin and believes itself to be his tiger. Beyond this, we cannot easily tease apart Hobbes nature. And perhaps, nor should we.

Childhood mysteries sometimes deserve to stay childhood mysteries, after all.

Today will be one of the most uncharacteristic Entries ever to appear in this Journal.

The Ballad of the Elementals is a project I've had kicking around since about mid 2003. I rarely (if ever) write anything with any sort of emotional content or depth. Part of this is deliberate and stylistic -- the deadpan/tongue-in-cheek voice used in my essays, for example, is a deliberate affectation because that kind of style accentuates the often absurd humour. The other part of it is that I'm not comfortable writing anything emotionally laden, in part because I believe that I feel so little (it is hard to write about what you aren't sure you've ever felt) and in part because I tend to be very uncomfortable with the strong version of the feelings that I do experience (this is known in psychology as "affect intolerance" and I've never hidden from anyone that I know I suffer from it to a degree). Occasionally, I do crank out something with genuine palpable emotion, but that emotion is usually anger (which is one emotion I defintely don't experience a lack of, regrettably). I have crafted pieces which positively reeked of positive affect, pieces which independent observes have rated as being deeply moving and meaningful, and as a result, I don't show them to anyone as a general rule and I sure as hell don't make them public.

My feelings, as I have been known to observe, are not for mere humans to know. There have been a small number of exceptions to this, but very small. I don't regret that.

None the less, I'll be posting the Ballad tonight. This is because it's something I wrote between this and last Entry (so this is its turn), because it's a piece I've been working on for almost three years in one iteration or another and so it reflects more than most schmaltz I might be tempted to post, and lastly, because Eric 4.2 came into existence with the purpose of sharing more than previous iterations had and I'm a little behind on trying to be true to that goal. It's also a worthwhile effort on my part because it's important for an artist to work in different mediums from time to time, and poetry is perhaps the field of writing in which I put the least energy (for bloody good reason).

One last note, for the psychoanalysts and poet-deconstructors in the audience. As I said, this piece has been an on-again-off-again project of mine for about three years now, and right off the top of my head and can pick seven separate circumstances over that period which have played a role in the inspiration of the piece. You all know that I tend to get very touchy about people attributing my work to single instances, feelings, or people, and this is doubly true in this case. I've known too many artists afraid to show their work because they believed that people would misinterpret the meaning; in my case, I live in fear of my work being analyzed in the first place, as I refuse to admit that there is deep meaning to anything I write. None of my work is "about" anything, and it really, really annoys me when people say things like "this is obviously about (insert inane theory here)." Not even my poetry is meant to have meaning; this is why I write such bad poetry. That said, draw whatever conclusions you want, but mention them to me at very real peril. On top of everything else, this piece is and always has been a free-writing work; little or no concious thought or quality control has gone into it, and my concious mind takes no responsibility for it in any way, shape, or form.

The Ballad of the Elementals

I am the fire.
Serve me well, watch over my hearth, and keep me fed,
I shall warm you,
protect you,
and drive away the darkness.
Betray me,
and my wrath shall be a fright to behold.
I will burn down your works, destroy your memories, and sow your lands with ash.
Thus is the way of fire.

I am the air.
Serve me well, leave me a way into your home,
I shall keep you cool,
clean your land of dirt and death,
and wipe all obstacles from your path.
Betray me,
and my wrath shall be a dread to behold.
I will tear the thatch from your home and scatter your fields to the four winds.
Thus is the way of air.

I am the water.
Serve me well, guard me from the sun, and keep me from stagnation,
I shall wipe the dust from your feet and the sweat from your brow,
quench your thirst
and give you life.
Betray me,
and my wrath shall be a terror to behold.
I will wash away your crops, dash your familiar paths, and leave disease across your lands.
Thus is the way of water.

I am the earth.
Serve me well, shield me from the rains, honour me with monuments,
I shall support your works upon my back
and build walls between you and all dangers.
Betray me,
and my wrath shall be a horror to behold.
I will shift and move, your works shall collapse, and I shall close upon them forevermore.
Thus is the way of earth.

Guard me,
and be guarded in turn.
Hold me up and honour me,
and be honoured in turn.
Give me life
and be given warmth, and breath, and drink, and shelter.
Serve, and be served. Betray, and be betrayed.
Behold:
Know my nature.
See how I can sustain you. See how I can hurt you.
Understand what I am. Understand what you are.
In this is the truest justice of the elements.

Carmen Elementorum

Ignis sum.
Mihi servi, focum meum custodi, me pasce,
Te fovebo,
Tibi cavebo,
Et tenebras fugabo.
Me tradas,
Ira mea terribilis sit.
Opera tua uram, memorias tuas destruam, et agros tuos cinere seram.
Sic modus ignis.

A‘r sum.
Mihi servi, viam ad domum tuum mihi permitte,
Te refrigerabo,
Agros tuos sordibus mortibusque purgabo,
Et impediment tota de via tua tergebo.
Me tradas,
Ira mea terribilis sit.
Stratmenta de tecto tuo eripiam et agros tuos ad ventos quattuor dispergam.
Sic modus aeris.

Aqua sum.
Mihi servi, me tege de sole, cessationem me prohibe,
Pulvem de pedibus tuis et sudorem de fronte tua tergebo,
Sitem tuam sedabo,
Et vitam tibi dabo.
Me tradas,
Ira mea terribilis sit.
Frumenta tua abluam, semias notas tibi ruam, et per terras tuas morbos relinquam.
Sic modus aquae.

Terra sum.
Mihi servi, me tege de pluviis, monumentis me honora,
Opera tua super dorso meo sustinebo,
Muros inter te et pericula tota condam.
Me tradas,
Ira mea terribilis sit.
Mutabo moveboque, opera tua collabantur, et ea semper includam.
Sic modus terrae.

Me custodi,
Invicem custoderis.
Me sustine honoraque,
Invicem honoraris.
Me vitam da,
Calorem, animamque, potumque, tegmenemque daris.
Ecce:
Naturam meam sci.
Quomodo te sustinere possim vide. Quomodo te laedere possim vide.
Quis sim intellege. Quis sis intellege.
In eo verissima justitia elementorum est.

On April 25th, I announced that at the Concordia Games Convention on May 13th, I'd be running a pirate game. This announcement was met with much excitement, and so naturally, come the day of the con, the game didn't get run. The con didn't fail to attract people for gaming -- quite the contrary, it attracted so many storytellers and game masters that there weren't enough *players* to fill the games, and only two RPGs actually got names signed up for them. This was a potential problem which we never foresaw, and to be fair, it's very very funny. I actually could have run my game; it came down to a group of us agreeing that we wanted to play *something* and having to decide between my game and another one. No one else was able to decide (or more likely, no one else felt able to be the one to spurn somebody) and so I, preferring to be a player than an ST, cast my vote in favour of the other game. This, it later turned out, was rather a mistake on my part, but that's just how things go sometimes. A friend of mine recently compared the Goddess of Luck to a flipping coin in that sense, but the wordplay on heads and tails isn't the sort of humour I'm inclined to post in a public Journal so I won't repeat it here.

The important thing is, I'd planned out my game and was all set to run it, and now all of you (none of whom could make it to the con for one reason or another) get to see the full material which, ironically, nobody who was actually at the con will ever read. There is probably a moral here, but I think it may be one of those "claw your own eyes out in horror" kind of lessons. So, without further ado: Doubloons and Flagons!

First of all, to read (or re-read) the game's storyline, go back to Entry 229.

The game was designed for four players, and 7 character sheets were created for players to choose from. No matter what happened, the group would have at least one combat character, one knowledge character, one skills character, and one "special powers" character. Anybody running the numbers will find that they add up strangely; because only one character in the game was truly "magical" a number of class abilities got exchanged for skill points or bonus feats. All characters were level 5. The seven character blurbs were as follows.

The First Mate (Fighter): The sea is your life, your love, and your passion in addition to your livelihood. You’ve served valiantly under Captain Scupper for nearly a decade now, learning the seas and saving money to buy your own ship and set sail with a crew of your own. The last of the gold you needed was in the hold of the ship yesterday when Captain Vornholt attacked. Now, Captain Scupper is dead and your hope of cptaincy sails off to the west in another pirate’s coffer. You’re the ranking officer now and the other survivors of the attack are duty bound to follow you, so whether it’s for revenge for a slain friend or to reclaim that gold for your own use, you’re going after Vornholt.

Feats and special traits: Dodge, Power attack, Cleave, Weapon focus, Expertise, Point blank shot, Weapon specialization, Sunder, Improved unarmed strike, Improved grapple, Improved initiative, Really Cool Sword (although non-magical, it counts in all ways as a +4 weapon), The Captain (when making a diplomacy, bluuf, or intimidate check against your crew, you gain a +4 bonus. You gain a +4 bonus to these checks made against non-crew when acting in the capacity of a captain, such as buying goods, arranging docking, or conducting negotiations. You lose this bonus at any time that you have less than two crew members loyal to you.).

The Cutthroat (Barbarian): You’ve served as a privateer for a while now. Some people in the crew joined Captain Scupper because he was a legalized pirate, but you joined just because you like killin’ and he let you kill. Now, though, the old fool is dead and your share of the loot has been stolen out from under you. You could forget about the whole thing, but that money was yours, damn it! And what’s more, there are a lot of dead crewmen now who don’t need to claim their shares...

Feats and special traits: Rage 2X/day, Uncanny dodge 2, Illiterate, Power attack, Cleave, Weapon focus.

The Ninja (Rogue): You’ve never been to Japan and you’ve never heard of real ninjas, obviously, but there’s no better name for someone who skulks in the shadows and kills without ever being seen. Whether it was for honor, for thrills, for the glory of serving your country or for the pleasure of blood on your hands, you’ve been Captain Scupper’s pet assassin for months and you’re worth every legally stolen penny. You’ve killed men and taken their gold without ever being seen, and you like it that way. You have a problem now, though, because your pay is gone and, more importantly, your employer is dead. Your best odds of survival are in getting back that money and finishing off Vornholt before he comes after you. Also, it couldn’t hurt to keep some of the bigger, more heavily muscled sailor around to protect you...

Feats and special traits: Uncanny dodge 2, Combat reflexes, Dodge, Weapon finesse, Track, Sneak attack, Evasion.

The Balladeer (Bard): Singing pirates... it’s the stuff of stories for as long as pirate stories have been told. Other men swing in the rigging and insert cutlasses into enemies; you’re at sea to keep everyone happy and entertained and make a pretty pile of gold while you’re at it. You aren’t much of a fighter, but Scupper valued your talents and this was the best, easiest, and most profitable way for someone like you to ply the waters and earn your coin. Sadly, that’s all gone now... some damned fool pirate has killed your audience and taken your money. Alone at sea, your eyes of survival are slightly worse than 0, so it looks like you’ll be going with the other survivors to reclaim your pay and, who knows, maybe find another ship that’s got an opening for a singing pirate!

Feats and special traits: Weapon finesse, Dodge, Expertise, Point blank shot, Precise shot, Bardic music, Bardic knowledge, Norm! (When you walk into a tavern, everybody just seems to know your name. Anyone in a tavern is naturally friendly towards you unless they have reason to be otherwise, and you make gather information checks with a +10 bonus).

The Hero (Paladin): You are NOT a pirate. You are a privateer. You do not kill innocents... you kill the people who do. You do not rob your countrymen... you rob the scum who do. This is what it means to be a privateer, and you were good at it, able to serve on a good ship under a good captain. That’s all gone now, ended at the same time that Scupper’s body hit the deck filled with lead shot. Your captain is gone and your ship has sunk, but a privateer you remain, and the vilest pirate you know of has sailed off to the west. For glory, for gold, and for good, Vornholt must die!

Feats and special traits: Improved initiative, Expertise, Power attack, Point blank shot, Weapon focus, Detect evil, Lay on hands, Aura of courage, Smite evil (Twice per day).

The Pirate (Ranger): There are three kinds of people at sea: privateers, pirates, and prey. You have served for the last few years as a privateer simply because that was the ship which would take you, but your heart lies with the skull and crossbones. You chafe at serving a nation, when you want to serve yourself. Now, with that fool Scupper dead, you have a chance to take his gold and maybe even his crew and set the true black flag into the wind. First, you must deal with Vornholt. He has the gold you will need to get your own ship, he has weapons you can use, and he has a ready supply of scum and villainy who might just be looking for a brave new captain. To the west, and let the seas run red!

Feats and special traits: Two weapon fighting, Sneak attack, Dodge, Weapon finesse, Weapon focus, Track, Favoured enemy (swashbucklers +2, merchants +1).

The Witch (Sorcerer): Magic doesn’t exist, and only children believe that it does. None the less, nearly every sailor who sailed the sea will tell you of their countless superstitions, and sometimes superstitions grow from a grain of truth. You are one of the few people alive able to work a bit of magic. Mostly, you can accomplish tiny cantrips and little tricks, but you believe that deep within you is the power to shift the oceans and reshape the world. You searched long and hard for a place where you could live without fera of being branded a witch or a monster, and for reasons of his own Captain Scupper gave you a home and took you with across the sea. Your talents saved him from his enemies many a time and you were the secret behind his fabled luck. Yesterday, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and simple as that, Scupper fell to an enemy. You know where that enemy is sailing, though, and you felt something ancient, something, dark, sailing with him that a little voice inside you tell you must be stopped.

Feats and special traits: Familiar (parrot), Know it all (All knowledge skills are untrained for you), Silent spell, Maximize spell, Extend spell, Delerium (An individual who has never before observed magic or the supernatural must make a will save versus DC = 10 + the spell’s level, with a variety of situational modifiers. Failure may result in anything from fear and horror to catatonic shock and memory loss), Spells (0 level: Ray of Frost, Daze, Light, Ghost Sound, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Resistance. 1 level: Mage armor, Obscuring mist, summon monster I, Charm Person, Sleep, Magic Missile, Silent Image. 2 level: Melf’s acid arrow, Detect thoughts, Invisibility, (add 1d4+1 to a target’s ability score). 3 level: Fireball, Fly, Haste).

Now, as most of you will have already guessed from reading the storyline, Vornholt was not to be the true villain. The real villain was this guy.

Kolthar the Black: There are evils in the world darker than pirates, and one of these is Kolthar the Black. Four hundred years old and no longer quite human, Kolthar has dedicated himself to obtaining the Thrice Damned Key and raising the great serpent, Endlosschraubeweltesser. With the serpent raised, Kolthar intends to blackmail the whole world – serve him and his dark god, or never again ply the waves in safety. Kolthar has employed Captain Vornholt to help him obtain the Key and reach the serpent’s resting place, and has supplied Vornholt with his serpent-men mercenaries to that end.

Lord Toxin: Deadliest of Kolthar’s servants, the serpent man known as Lord Toxin was once a human soldier, but those days are long lost to him. Kolthar’s alchemy has turned Toxin into a humanoid reptile with armour-like skin and dedaly poison in his veins. The undisputed commander of the other serpent-men, Toxin obeys Kolthar without question and is utterly dedicated to seeing his god, Endlosschraubeweltesser, coil around the world.

The Thrice Damned Key: An ancient mystical artifact said to predate humankind upon the Earth, the Thrice Damned Key has a history which would require volumes to recite and leaves a wake as dark as a pirate’s heart. Thousands of years ago, when dragons roamed the world and serpents filled the seas, the Key was used to entomb Endlosschraubeweltesser at the bottom of the sea, and legend has it that the Key is capable of freeing the great serpent once again. If the key is brought to the Lost Isle and the proper prayer intoned, Endlosschraubeweltesser will awaken from its ancient slumber and rise once more to the surface to plague all legged life. Just as the key was used to imprison the serpent once, however, there is some possibility that it might be used again to do the same...

Endlosschraubeweltesser: Human maps of the world, and the ocean in particular, read "here be monsters." For millenia, humanity was at war with the great dragons who ruled the world. The firebreathers, the wurms, and of course, the sea serpent were humanity's only natural predators, and they feasted well upon the humans. Sadly, there were a lot more humans than dragons, and humans eventually won. The last dragons were either slain by the great hunters such as Saint George and Sinbad, or fled to places where no human could reach, or were imprisoned. Endlosschraubeweltesser, literally "great worm that devours the earth," is remembered in Norse folktales as the World Serpent and its countless names have been forgotten by all but a handful of ancient Germanic texts. A mile long and with a great mouth large enough to swallow the largest ship whole, if Endlosschraubeweltesser awakens, it will wreak untold havoc upon the whole world and bring all ocean trade (and perhaps, life) to an end. This has been the goal of Kolthar the Black for centuries; one of the last worshippers of the dragons, Kolthar has communed with the ancient sleeping mind of Endlosschraubeweltesser and will rule the land while it takes back the seas.

The story (short version):
Things to say at the beginning: Wrath and Spite has a great big spike at the front.

The players awaken at sea, amidst the wreckage of the Red Waves. They decide to pursue Vornholt. They follow him to a nearby pirate town known as Sunken Cove, where the Wrath and Spite has docked. Sunken Cove is ruled by Hawkjack, a self-proclaimed pirate king who sailed with Scupper years ago before retiring in wealth.

If the players explore the city, they find some of Vornholt’s men and can learn that Vornholt is acting under the direction of a cloaked person that the crew wants to be rid of, and they seek an island called the Lost Isle.

If they assault the boat, Vornholt and Kolthar escape aboard another ship. They have stolen a map from a local scribe, Ernest the Aged. The map does have an island listed in the right location, in the only part of the scroll where “here be monsters” was written. Ernest is able to recreate the map for the players and they give chase if they can find a boat.

The players reach the Lost Isle. It is a massively overgrown island teeming with plantlife but (requires a spot check or whatever) without any animal life whatsoever. Exploring, the players can find Vornholt’s ship guarded by a few sailors with all its treasure inside. They can pursue Vornholt deeper into the island, where they encouter two of Kolthar’s mercenaries, serpent men.

At the center of the island is a cave leading down. Brief dungeon crawl, some impressive treasure inside with one or two dead pirates over it (slain by Vornholt and Kolthar for being distractions). At the bottom of the dungeon, interrupt Kolthar’s ceremony. Vornholt, now partially mutated himself, attacks them and should do some good damage before going down. During the distraction, Kolthar completes his ritual, and the cavern begins to collapse. Outside, the waters roil and boil.

Endlosschraubeweltesser awakens. A vast serpent rises from the sea. Kolthar stares enraptured at the sight, failing to even defend himself. He answers whatever questions the players have and puts up no fight. The players might 1) try a rebinding ritual (which requires the key, the blood of a serpent man, and a living sacrifice), 2) attack the serpent (it is essentially indestructible but, weakened as it is, it can be stabbed by the prow of the ship or something), 3) something else entirely, try to give them some hints and let them get an interesting idea.

I'm not posting my more extensive notes because... well, they're mine, and they're written in my cryptic shorthand which will make them illegible to any of you anyway. This is long enough as it is.

To my great pleasure, I was recently invited by my all-time favourite GM to take part in a new game he's running. Creating a character for this game was a challenge, because all we were told about it was that it would be a surprise. Going into it, I had no idea of system, time period, genre... Normally I detest uncertainty, but in this case it was kinda fun. Characters were generated mostly by the storyteller, who actually distributed a short questionnaire to all the players assessing what kind of archtype they felt like playing and, once all that data had been assembled, the storyteller stuck us all together with some basic story elements and let things go where they may. This was two weeks ago tommorow, to give some context.

It's not easy to make a character without knowing what you're playing. Oddly, it's even harder, in my experience, to create a character when you don't know what other group-members are playing. In this case, I knew neither of those facts, and furthermore, I had no idea what I *wanted* to play in the game. Pressed for time and wanting only to play a character who isn't a slick-tongued weasel (which is a stretch for me -- I have a hard time playing characters who aren't silver-tongued, as I've observed before), I went with the storyteller's advice, which was essentially: just play whatever character you'd have the most fun watching in a movie. What the storyteller couldn't possibly have known was that, at the time, I had basically been working on only one character in my imagination. The only thing I knew was that I didn't want to play a political, manipulative, Koorivar wizard in this game, and although I'd been running some other character concepts around in my head, I was left with only one single salient image, one character I'd been slefhing out for weeks already, one character who was right at the forefront of my conciousness, one character who, when I started asking for volunteers, not only took two steps forward but also beat up any character concepts who didn't take two steps backward.

For those who haven't guessed, the character in question is none other than KP 42, who up until two weeks ago tommorow had appeared exclusively on this Journal.

The game takes place in the modern era (which means that this incarnation of the character won't have the cybernetics which, at first, were the whole reason for writing KP 42's stories) but the basic personality is the same. It seems only appropriate, therefore, that the first eraly drafts of the new character's background get posted here. This is in part in case it's of interest to anyone who's been enjoying the KP 42 stories, in part because one of the other players reads this Journal and will probably enjoy seeing my early concept, and in part because I'm going to a gaming convention today and can't be bothered to take the time to write anything new (except, of course, for this unecessarily long introduction, but there you go).

Name: Alec Campion
Age: Late 20’s
Citizenship: Citizen of Canada with no criminal record
Marital Status: Single
Employment: Global Services Incorporated, retained consultant, mergers and acquisitions
Family: G. J. Campion (Mother, deceased), H. Campion (Father, deceased)

A young man of many and varied talents, Alec Campion is a result of the Mergers and Acquisitions Consultant Training Program, an innovation on the part of Global Services Incorporated to create the perfect corporate wetworker. Recruited by Global Services Incorporated in early childhood following the death of his parents, Alec has been extensively trained in arts both physical and academic with the intent of producing an individual equally adept at corporate espionage and back-room financial dealings. Alec is adept at several martial arts, is a deadly shot with a pistol, and has received more investigative training than the average police detective. In his service to Global Services Incorporated, Alec has enthusiastically used his talents in both subtle and destructive ways to facilitate whatever goals have been required of him.

A genuine hero at heart, Alec has been indoctrinated by the MACTP to believe that the Company is a noble and good institution. This belief, in combination with an innate tendency towards obeying orders, has made Alec an ideal employee. He has, in the past, commited questionable acts in the company’s service, although he has always been able to justify his actions as having been for a clear and present greater good. Alec sees himself in many ways as a classic movie spy and thrives in the role, kept in check by his natural obedience. There has been suggestion in the past that, were he ordered to commit acts which violated this image, he might refuse to obey, but MACTP profilers have suggested this is improbable.

If Alec’s greatest strengths are his adaptability and the breadth of his training, his greatest weakness is a tendency to fail to think things through. Overconfident and impulsive, Alec rarely considers the long-term effects of his actions. While this has never resulted in catastrophy in the past, due largely to his willingness to follow orders quickly and efficiently which has kept him from taking excess initiative to solve problems, he has a tendency to eschew subtlety for efficiency and to take the most apparent solution to a problem regardless of new problems that this will cause in the future.

Image:
Alec Campion is a young Caucasian male of average appearance. His image is crafted to be emminently forgettable; he wears middle-quality suits just a few shades darker than his brown hair, stands at average height, and lacks the football-player-build common to corporate goons. Alec’s physical abilities lie mostly with speed and not brute strength, and he has a lithe physique which is, again, commonly completely concealed by mundane clothes. Alec’s only distinguishing feature is his grace of movement; he walks with the easy and measured gait of someone whose exercise consists solely of moving around very quickly and kicking things until they stop moving.

Roleplaying Notes:
You are Alec Campion, Ninja-Spy! Well, perhaps not quite, but that’s the image you live in, and it works for you. You work for an upstanding organization dedicated to making the world a better place and they pay you to do the things that kids all over the world grow up dreaming of doing, and as long as they’re paying you to go out and do your little bit to save the world, you’ll do whatever they tell you without a moment’s hesitation.

You’re good at what you do; if you’re a little overconfident, it’s generally justified. Planning isn’t your strong suit, though, which is the big reason you’re greatful for the company’s guidance. You know you couldn’t do much good in the world unless you were getting pointed in the right direction; you need the company a lot more than they need you. Truth be told, you’re happier when you don’t have to ponder ethical issues - you’re clever enough, but debating grey areas gives you a headache, and you’d much rather be bending your cortex towards Holmesian deduction than worrying about what outcome your actions will have years from now. Or better yet, bending your quadriceps-soleus-gastrocnemius complex towards someone’s head...

Twenty four is, arguably, one of those funny ages to turn. There are a series of milestones throughout the teenage years, culminating in the big fuss people make over the 18th and 20th birthdays. In many places in the world (although not, naturally, here in Quebec) 21 is a big year for the purposes of such universal pass-times as drinking. Twenty five (the so-called silver year) is another milestone of a sort, and like 30, is often seen as one of the transition ages between youth and adulthood. Twenty two is a palindromic number and twenty three, if nothing else, has the inherent mystery of being a prime number.

Those who recall my interest in numerology already know that the number 144 is one which has had considerable resonance during my life. Twenty four is, of course, a factor of 144; its cofactor is six, which is two times three (all things in life come in three except for the number three) and it is two times the square of 144, which in some numerological circles makes it a special value. If you remove the value of 18 (the number of life) from 24, you are left with six, which exactly what you have to multiply 24 by to get 144 again. This is, of course, grasping at straws, and in any case people who take numerology seriously have no business being given keyboards, let alone grant money.

There is nothing whatsoever special about twenty four. Sitting as it does right in the midst of nothing but milestones, this is conspicuous in and of itself.

Moving on... it is reasonable to assume that everybody reading this right now was aware, in passing at least, of the Aerican Empire meme posted on the first of this month. On the small chance that anybody reading this is unfamiliar with the concept of memes, a meme is considered to be an idea or a unit of information which transmits itself like a virus, transmitting from individual to individual. Fashion is a meme, because it consists of a series of images and ideals which propagte across an entire culture to be rapidly internalized. Among the online journal-writing community, memes are usually tiny nippets of attention-grabbig code (often quizzes, comic strips, quotes, or short jokes) which will originate on a small number of journals and rapidly propagate through the pages of people people who read the "infected" journal. Some of these memes can reach quite literally millions of people, taking on, so to speak, viral existences (not "lives", of course, viruses not technically being alive) of their own. I've always prided myself on never posting such quizes on my Journal, although I confess that I often fill in quizes when I see them posted on the journals of friends of mine.

The purpose of the Aerican Empire meme was to make a half-hearted effort to cash-in on this tendency. By persuading a small number of people to post an advertisement for the Aerican Empire on their Livejournals, I would be able to begin circulating the ad across the conciousnesses of a small number of people who I had never personally met, simply by virtue of Livejournal's "friends page" function. It was conceivable, no matter how unlikely, that the meme might then begin to get posted onto the journals of people I'd never met, and from there spread outwards in an expanding, chaotic ripple effect. I designed, if I may say, a very attractive little graphic (for the benefit of people reading this in the archive a year from now, you can see that graphic attached to Entry 231) and requested that people post it to their journals before or on my birthday, May 8th. I actually got a higher turnout than I'd expected -- something in the area of ten people reposted the code. At the time of writing this review, I had received one citizenship form directly as a result of the meme and no one outside of my circle of friends had copied the meme from one of the original posters. I did not go into this project expecting a high sucess rate; receiving one citizenship form exceeded my expectations and makes the whole project a great sucess.

Life is easier when you set modest goals. Says the psych major who entered medical school because he couldn't think of any better ideas.

In retrospect, I would have liked to have tested the meme's code a bit more effectively before posting it. I spent hours pouring over the design to get something I felt was visually pleasing, exciting, interesting, and would display properly on every browser I tried and at various different resolutions. I think I did a pretty damn good job, especially given that my programming skills assymptoted in 1998 and haven't grown since. What I failed to take into account was that the meme was going to be posted primarily on Livejournal, which has various little programs built into its site editor to facilitate the html of inexperienced users. While the meme displays beautifully when hosted on my website, when stuck onto livejournal, the tabular formatting gets a bit wonky, the right-hand picture sometimes fails to display (which is a real shame because that is one beautiful killer robot), and several line breaks get inserted between the links at the bottom. By all rights, I should have taken that into account and test-run the code through Livejournal's system before making it public. I'm not a perfectionist by any means, but when you spend enough time working on one block of code, you want it to look right when it displays. Fortunately, on most people's computers, the display issues were minor only and most people were probably unaware of the formatting changes in the first place. I could see them and it did irk me somewhat, but the fact that the meme was getting posted in the first place was more than enough to create positive affect to balance that out. And in any case, damn it Jim, I'm a psychologist, not a programmer.

One person actually asked me why I chose to make a big deal of my birthday and whether I really celebrate my birthday or my rebirthday. To be honest, I don't paricularly celebrate either. Emotionally, I think I care more about my rebirthday, because it was more of an active process and so qualifies a bit more as being an accomplishment. I would choose to celebrate my rebirthday more than my birthday, except that everyone else in my life chooses to make a bigger deal of my biological birthday without really consulting me on the matter. Out of everyone close to me, I think only two people really understand the meaning of a rebirthday in the first place and take the day as seriously as I do. I can hardly blame everybody else, though... not when faced with the genuine outpouring of love, affection, respect, and even casual positive aquantanceship which is sent my way even if it is on the wrong day entirely. As with everything else, it's the thought that counts.

The big reason for doing the meme in May rather than September was that May is indisputably the Empire's birthday, and so it makes more sense to have the meme around that time. Yes, sad but true, I do occasionally have a clear logical reason for my actions. I try to limit it, but this time it was necessary as a courtesy to others.

So, my thanks to all of you out there who posted the meme to your websites, especially those of you who don't even follow this Journal and who must have to gone a lot of extra effort to find out about the meme in the first place, let alone repost it (and ironically will never know that I'm thanking you here, but whatever). You've helped make this a very happy birthday for me, and I can't remember the last birthday I had where so many people have me exactly what I wanted. Hope remains high that I may yet get a few more citizenship applications before the whole gag is over.

Now to begin planning my twenty-fifth and the Empire's twentieth. Double the milestones means double the fireworks...

As I've observed in the past, my favourite time of year weather-wise is the time between about April 8th and May 8th, when the daily temprerature hovers around 12-18 degrees, the sun is out but rarely overpowering, it rains moderatly several times a week, and everything is just generally dark, cool, and otherwise quite palatable. It's a precarious time at the cusp of "too cold" and "too hot" which I look forward to every year. This year, despite a few painfully warm days, the ecosystem has failed to dissapoint, and I've been basking in the fine cool weather quite happily. Equally importantly, I've gone playing in the rain.

Curiously, there's a near-perfect 50/50 split among the people I know on the topic of rain. Most of the people I'm close to enjoy and appreciate rain -- in moderation and if they're dressed for it, of course -- while the other half, generally the half with the poorer health and greater tendency towards disease, hate the rain and would probably do an impressive Wicked Witch impersonation if they so much as got splashed. I personally fall somewhere in between; I love the rain in principle, but I dislike it because generally speaking, if I'm out of the house, I've got my backpack with me which is 1) not waterproof and 2) filled with papers. There's something about rain I find extremely pleasing in and of itself, and possible reasons for why include anything from my well-known psychrophillicity to my obsession with rebirth metaphors to my Toreador-like reaction to repetitive thud noises. Rain is, to put it simply, fun, assuming you're not carrying anything water soluble and it's warm enough out that you won't catch cold when you're wet.

As I see it, there's a very important psychological element to enjoying the rain. The next time you're outside in a storm, pay attention to how the people around you are walking. There are, generally speaking, three broad categories of reaction to rain. The first reaction is to cover oneself with an umbrella; I have nothing interesting to say about this archtype, so for the rest of this discussion, we'll pretend they don't exist.

It's the other two categories of people who interest us: the people who hide from it and the people who enjoy it. The two patterns can most easily be seen in people who are walking down the street. The people who hide from the rain adopt a classic hunched posture, trying to conceal as much of their skin from the water as possible. They arch forwards, rotate their shoulders anteriorly, duck their necks down like turtles, and try to take up as small an area as possible, probably with the idea that the smaller an area they are, the fewer raindrops can strike them at any given moment. This is really a very poorly thought our reaction. Hunching your neck down doesn't keep your head any drier, but it does make a convenient depression right in that cold-sensitive spot on the back of the neck where the water can pool. Similarly, hiding within your clothes may slightly reduce the amount of you which is directly exposed to water, but on the other hand, holding yourself in that posture makes you perpetually concious of what you're trying to avoid, and you feel every single raindrop far more saliently. The moral here is that the Universe is a right bastard and punishes those who try to hide from it by redoubling their suffering. We have no cause to hate the rain; it's the Universe that's our enemy.

The other category of people are the ones who walk perfectly normally as it rains upon them. Their head is held high, often higher than it is when it's not raining and they're trying to escape the sun. Their backs are straight, and yes, a little more water runs down their backs, but you would never get them to admit that they notice it. Unlike those who hunch down, these people are able to keep their eyes open despite the water; because their foreheads are sloping straight down instead of on an incline, there's actually less water blocking their vision than if they were hunched forwards. And, lastly, indistinguishable in terms of whether it's cause or effect, these people enjoy the rain more, and thus suffer less in it. Rather than wasting precious energy fighting the rain, they embrace it, enjoy it, and walk within it. They don't walk through the rain; they walk between the raindrops.

It is my firm belief that those who walk happily through the rain end up less wet, although for the sake of argument, I'm prepared to consider the possibility that maybe it just feels that way. Either way.

Sadly, we're now at the end of the month of good weather. Soon, all too soon, the temperatures will rise, the sun will come out, and everyone except me will be out enjoying the summer sun. As I writhe in heatshock and scramble to escape the burning gaze of Ra, I will look back upon the month of Spring rain, and visualize all the beachgoers who will scream in terror when the rains come to spoil their picnics. And even as I sunburn, I will laugh at them. Then, maybe I'll go play in the nice cool rain.

I hope that someday, someone can explain to me why one of the wisest creatures ever to live, a being with nearly a thousand years of study and meditation behind him, an individual undisputed for having one of the finest minds in the known galaxy, never managed to get the hang of whether the noun comes before the verb.

On Star Wars Day this year, we contemplate Yoda. The original trilogy taught us that Yoda was nifty solely by virtue of the fact that he had the same voice pattern as Fozzie Bear, but the newer trilogy made an effort to make Yoda one of the most important characters. Despite having only a supporting role in the films, Yoda is one of the characters most essential to the plot, story, and themes of the newer films. Yoda is the living embodiement of the Jedi -- wise, ancient, powerful, kind, self-sacrificing, vigilant, and totally blind to the genuine threats around him. In his own way, Yoda is as tragic a figureas Anakin Skywalker; the films primarily chronicle Anakin's fall from grace but, in the background, we see the unfolding story of a being who only ever wanted to serve something greater than himself and make the universe a better place as he slowly and progressively loses control of events around him and is finally driven from his place of power once and for all by an enemy whose true advantage was that his enemies were out in the open, clearly visible, and easy to study and analyze.

For decades, Yoda has captured the hearts and minds of fans because of his quiet wisdom, his confidence, his certainty, and his faith. Or, in the case of people like myself, because he can levitate starfighters and drop them on people.

Getting back to the issue of Yoda's speech patterns, I have a theory. Yoda appears, despite his vast intelligence, cunning, education, and wisdom, to have terrible grammar. One would like to think that after spending nearly one thousand years emersed in greater galactic culture, he would have picked up the ability to properly form his sentences, but apparently this is not the case. Some would no doubt argue that this is because he does not focus on such temporal things, disdaining the need for more than a cursory grasp of language when he communicates with others primaily through the Force on an empathic level. Others might suggest that Yoda is so powerful that he exists out of phase with time itself, being equally in the present and the future at all times and thus, it is all he can do to remember which words he has put in front of other ones in a given sentence. I reject both of these hypotheses, however, in favour of another: Yoda's a bit of a bastard. Wisdom and spirituality are all fine and good, but wisdom does not in itself predict niceness, and my theory is that, powerful as he is, yoda occasionally just has the need to rub his inscrutability, even inneffableness, in the faces of everybody else. He is fully capable of speaking proper Basic but chooses not to, because it distinguishes him from others, because it makes him memorable, because it forces everyone to listen to him more carefully, and because deep down, underneath hundreds of years of teaching and helping others, Yoda just likes to screw with people a little bit.

We can all relate, I'm sure.

Every year, we strive to take a lesson from Star Wars Day, and that is, perhaps, today's. Yoda teaches us that power must be used responsibly and in service of others. Yoda teaches us that one must strive ever to not only find, but also understand one's enemies, because to keep fighting the same war after they change tactics invites catastrophe. Yoda teaches us that overt displays of power pale before the quiet certainty of a single competent individual. And, lastly, Yoda teaches us that no matter how wise and good you are, always room for a little confusion, there is.

May the Fourth be with you. Same time next year.

As many of you out there are aware, my birthday (my "real" one, not my rebirthday) comes up one week from today. I never choose to make a very big deal of my birthday, as it doesn't mean much to me and I rarely like being the center of attention unless it's for something I've earned on purpose. I don't typically have any sort of celebration for my birthday by choice; I'll have some sort of mandatory family event and a few friends of mine will remember to write me a little note, and that's all (and more) than I ever really want. That said, I've done a good job at surrouding myself with people who care about me, and around this time of year, several of them scramble in a panic for what they can do to show their affection at this time of year. This is exacerbated by the fact that 1) I'm very hard to shop for 2) I'm nearly impossible to surprise (or even really excite) and 3) most of my friends are broke.

What few people know, though, is that in addition to being my birthday, May 8th is also the anniversary of my Empire. This year, I'll be celebrating the Empire's nineteenth anniversary -- it's older than some of my friends. To celebrate, I'm launching a brand new, modern and nifty site design, updating a lot of the old content, and generally making a big fuss. This year, those of you out there who want to do something to celebrate me have the opportunity to give me something I really want: advertising!

Shown below is the Aerican Empire Meme, a handy-dandy little bit of code ready to be stuck on livejournals, myspace accounts, websites, foreheads, dashboards, and anywhere else that html can be displayed. If (and only if) you want to do something to celebrate me that I'll really appreciate this year, then copy this code (it's pasted in a handy-dandy text-box below the meme itself) and, any time after right now, post it in your journal. Accompany it with a line or two in your own words encouraging people on your friends list to post it in turn. If the meme reaches the journal of even one person who doesn't personally visit this page, if even one person fills in a citizenship form, then it's all been worth it.

And *that's* what I want for my birthday: followers.

You all have my permission to edit the meme to your heart's content, to make it fit our journal layout or aesthetic taste. If you do edit it, let me know; if you design a better one than me, I'll want to steal it.

Celebrating 19 years of culture, art, community, schemes for world domination, and killer penguin death squads Be a part of something megalomaniacal The Aerican Empire
The Empire    Culture    The Great Penguin    Killer Robots    Join Add this to your website