Join Blackhawk Defense Force!
New and experienced players welcome!
GREETINGS CITIZENS!
Blackhawk Defense Force is looking for both experienced and new players to help us grow into an effective fighting unit as well as a great place to get to meet new friends and have a good time. BDF is UEE oriented, legal, full fleet, anti-pirate, anti-griefer, star citizen dedicated and noob friendly.
**EU AND OCEANIA PLAYERS!** Our goal is to become international. We are NA based, but schedule our ops to best accommodate everyone. We have a strong EU department, The Black Watch, and we are working to build an Oceania/Aussie/Kiwi Department. Help us to grow into a 24/7 organization!
EVENTS! There are a lot of houses in Star Citizen with no light in the window. Tired of being a member of a dead org? Tired of looking for an org that is actually active? BDF holds a minimum of two events a week and usually more. Join us for the fun.
ACTIVE MILITARY AND VETERANS ARE WELCOME! BDF is proud to have a significant number of active military and veterans as part of our membership. We will work with your schedule. We salute you no matter when or where you served. o7
SQUARDON GOALS:

1. To have a good time as a group, participating together in the Roberts Space Industries Star Citizen. Simply put, we are here to have fun. Never lose sight of the fact that this is rule #1.
2. Function as a private military company, loyal to the Empire, conducting legal military and civilian operations. We will conduct our operations with professionalism and adhere to comms discipline when engaged in operations in the vicinity of the enemy. We will also lend assistance to other citizens of the UEE where and when ever we are able.
3. Learn the game and how to play it skillfully. Blackhawk Squadron will provide training for new pilots for all aspects of game play.
4. Although listed as a role play org, we are not hard core, and role play is not a requirement to being a member of this organization. We allow players to role play at the level they prefer. Generally we approach role play with a relaxed, friendly, attitude. There will be no 'hard-asses' here. The posted military discipline rules only apply when members are operating together on the servers during official operations, or in one of the In-Character channels provided. On the primary channels, and on some other private channels, out-of-character conversation is the norm, while in-character play is allowed. Military courtesy, however, is optional anywhere....for the fun and courtesy of it alone. Participation in text based role play story making on the role play channels is strictly voluntary.
5. Make new online friends. Learn to work, and fight together as team mates. Learn to trust each other, and cover each other’s backs on the forums, on the servers, and in the Verse. Eventually, we hope to form more of a family than a PMC.
6. Improve our combat skills with practice in both the Persistent Universe and the Arena Commander.
7. Learn to work together as a unit using teamwork, wingman tactics, and become an effective fighting force in the Verse...on the ground, in the sky and in space.
8. To be successful individually, and as a group in the game.
9. To find a proper location and establish a base from which to operate.
10. Secure reliable friends and make advantageous alliances with like minded organizations.
11. Secure profitable, legal contracts in Security, Reconnaissance, Escorting, Mercenary, Freelancing, Transport, Rescue, Vanduul and Pirate suppression, UEEN work, Combat Patrols, as well as Data and message running. We will take any honorable, military or civilian, job that we are equipped to perform.
12. To send out one or more Exploration ships to expand man's knowledge base of the universe, as well as to look for new territories and resources that can be exploited. Use our exploration as a source of revenue.
13. Always remember rule #1.

WHAT WE OFFER:
* A complete military style structure
* Full ranking system
* Individual and group training
* Training videos available on our private server
* Like shiny rocks? So do we. So there will be a large selection of awards, medals, ribbons and certification badges that will be presented for a wide range of combat and non combat accomplishments.
* A web site where all main members will have individual areas for character development and display of their uniform, rank, awards, etc.
* Solid organization with clear goals and the determination to consistently move forward despite the road blocks that Star Citizen may (will) throw at us.
POSITIONS AVAILABLE:
Fighter Pilot (generally single seat fighters)
Heavy Fighter Pilot
Single Seat Bomber Pilot
Light Multi-Crew Ship Pilot (fighters/bombers/drop ships etc.)
Light Multi-Crew Ship Crew Member (generally turret gunners)
Capital Ship Captains and Crew Members
Marine
Medical
Search and Rescue
Logistics and Support (includes transport, mining, repair, construction and supply)
Exploration
Leadership
Join our effort to establish one of the finest groups to play and enjoy Star Citizen with!
https://discord.gg/gHhgdtf5Bj
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/orgs/BDF1

Highlights

Main GTC 2023 Link - http://www.nvidia.com/gtc/keynote
Keynote Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiGB5uAYKAg
Keynote Wrap Up - https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/gtc-keynote-spring-2023/

Announcement Links

Announcements	Article
NVIDIA Announces New System for Accelerated Quantum-Classical Computing	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-new-system-for-accelerated-quantum-classical-computing
Signed, Sealed, Delivered: NVIDIA AI Achieves World Record in Route Optimization	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/cuopt-world-record-route/
AT&T Supercharges Operations With NVIDIA AI	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/at-t-supercharges-operations-with-nvidia-ai
NVIDIA Announces Microsoft, Tencent, Baidu Adopting CV-CUDA for Computer Vision AI	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/cv-cuda-ai-computer-vision/
Medtronic and NVIDIA Collaborate to Build AI Platform for Medical Devices	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/medtronic-and-nvidia-collaborate-to-build-ai-platform-for-medical-devices
NVIDIA, ASML, TSMC and Synopsys Set Foundation for Next-Generation Chip Manufacturing	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-asml-tsmc-and-synopsys-set-foundation-for-next-generation-chip-manufacturing
Green Light: NVIDIA Grace CPU Paves Fast Lane to Energy-Efficient Computing for Every Data Center	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/grace-cpu-energy-efficiency/
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Chooses NVIDIA BlueField Data Center Acceleration Platform	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/oracle-cloud-infrastructure-chooses-nvidia-bluefield-data-center-acceleration-platform
CloudNVIDIA and Microsoft to Bring the Industrial Metaverse and AI to Hundreds of Millions of Enterprise Users via Azure Cloud	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-and-microsoft-to-bring-the-industrial-metaverse-and-ai-to-hundreds-of-millions-of-enterprise-users-via-azure-cloud
NVIDIA Launches DGX Cloud, Giving Every Enterprise Instant Access to AI Supercomputer From a Browser	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-launches-dgx-cloud-giving-every-enterprise-instant-access-to-ai-supercomputer-from-a-browser
AI Speeds Insurance Claims Estimates for Better Policyholder Experiences	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/ccc-ai-insurance-claims/
NVIDIA Brings Generative AI to World’s Enterprises With Cloud Services for Creating Large Language and Visual Models	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-brings-generative-ai-to-worlds-enterprises-with-cloud-services-for-creating-large-language-and-visual-models
Mind the Gap: Large Language Models Get Smarter With Enterprise Data	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/nemo-large-language-models-enterprise-data/
Moving Pictures: NVIDIA, Getty Images to Accelerate Media With Generative AI	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/generative-ai-getty-images/
Shutterstock Teams With NVIDIA to Build AI Foundation Models for Generative 3D Artist Tools	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/shutterstock-teams-with-nvidia-to-build-ai-foundation-models-for-generative-3d-artist-tools
Adobe and NVIDIA Partner to Unlock the Power of Generative AI	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/adobe-and-nvidia-partner-to-unlock-the-power-of-generative-ai
NVIDIA Unveils Large Language Models and Generative AI Service to Advance Life Sciences R&D	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-unveils-large-language-models-and-generative-ai-services-to-advance-life-sciences-r-d
NVIDIA Launches Inference Platforms for Large Language Models and Generative AI Workloads	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-launches-inference-platforms-for-large-language-models-and-generative-ai-workloads
NVIDIA Hopper GPUs Expand Reach as Demand for AI Grows	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-hopper-gpus-expand-reach-as-demand-for-ai-grows
AWS and NVIDIA Collaborate on Building Next-Generation Infrastructure for Generative AI	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/aws-and-nvidia-collaborate-on-next-generation-infrastructure-for-training-large-machine-learning-models-and-building-generative-ai-applications
NVIDIA Expands Isaac Software and Jetson Platform Availability, Accelerating Robotics From Cloud to Edge	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/isaac-jetson-robotics/
NVIDIA and Partners Release New Omniverse Connections, Expanding Foundation for Artists and Developers to Advance 3D Workflows	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/new-omniverse-connections-advance-3d-workflows
BMW Group Starts Global Rollout of NVIDIA Omniverse	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/bmw-group-nvidia-omniverse
NVIDIA Expands Omniverse Cloud to Power Industrial Digitalization	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-expands-omniverse-cloud-to-power-industrial-digitalization
Omniverse at Scale: NVIDIA Announces Third-Generation OVX Computing Systems to Power Industrial Metaverse Applications	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/third-generation-ovx-computing-systems/
NVIDIA Redefines Workstations to Power New Era of AI, Design, Industrial Metaverse	https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-redefines-workstations-to-power-new-era-of-ai-design-industrial-metaverse
BYD, World’s Largest EV Maker, Partners With NVIDIA for Mainstream Software-Defined Vehicles Built on NVIDIA DRIVE	BYD, World’s Largest EV Maker, Partners With NVIDIA for Mainstream Software-Defined Vehicles Built on NVIDIA DRIVE
From Concept to Production to Sales, NVIDIA AI and Omniverse Enable Automakers to Transform Their Entire Workflow	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/nvidia-ai-and-omniverse-transform-automakers-workflows
Mitsui and NVIDIA Announce World’s First Generative AI Supercomputer for Pharmaceutical Industry	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/generative-ai-supercomputer-pharmaceutical-industry/
From Training AI in the Cloud to Running It on the Road, Transportation Leaders Trust NVIDIA DRIVE	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/nvidia-drive-ecosystem-growth/
NVIDIA Metropolis Ecosystem Grows With Advanced Development Tools to Accelerate Vision AI	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/metropolis-ecosystem-growth-accelerates-vision-ai
NVIDIA Studio at GTC: New AI-Powered Artistic Tools, Feature Updates, NVIDIA RTX Systems for Creators	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/omniverse-generative-ai-unity-blender-connectors/
Fresh-Faced AI: NVIDIA Avatar Solutions Enhance Customer Service and Virtual Assistants	https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/03/21/avatar-solutions-enhance-development/

Developer Blogs

Announcements	Article
Modulus on Base Command Platform	https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/designing-digital-twins-with-flexible-workflows-on-nvidia-base-command-platform
Utra-Realism Made Accessible with RTX Path Tracing and DLSS 3 Technologies	https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/ultra-realism-made-accessible-with-ai-and-path-tracing-technologies/
Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit	https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/develop-ai-powered-robots-smart-vision-systems-and-more-with-nvidia-jetson-orin-nano-developer-kit/
Building Generative AI Pipelines for Drug Discovery with NVIDIA BioNeMo Service	https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/build-generative-ai-pipelines-for-drug-discovery-with-bionemo-service/
NVIDIA TAO 5.0 - Meet your new Training Assistant	https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/access-the-latest-in-vision-ai-model-development-workflows-with-nvidia-tao-toolkit-5-0/
Long-Read Sequencing Workflows and Higher Throughputs in NVIDIA Parabricks 4.1	https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/long-read-sequencing-workflows-and-higher-throughputs-in-nvidia-parabricks-4-1/
Supercharging Production AI Everywhere with NVIDIA AI Enterprise 3.1	https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/catapulting-enterprises-to-the-leading-edge-of-ai--with-ai-enterprise-3-1/
Supercharging AI Video and AI Inference Performance with NVIDIA L4 GPUs	https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/supercharging-ai-video-and-ai-inference-performance-with-nvidia-l4-gpus/
Morpheus Defends Against Spear Phishing with Generative AI	https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-morpheus-helps-defend-against-spear-phishing-with-generative-ai/
Accelerate your edge AI journey with the NVIDIA IGX Orin developer kit	https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/accelerate-your-edge-ai-journey-with-nvidia-igx-orin-developer-kit/
BlueField-3 Innovations featuring DOCA DPA	https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/transform-the-data-center-for-the-ai-era-with-nvidia-dpus-and-nvidia-doca/
MONAI Reaches 1 Million Download Milestone Driven by Research Breakthroughs and Clinical Adoption	https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/monai-reaches-1-million-download-milestone-driven-by-research-breakthroughs-and-clinical-adoption/
Create Real-Time Simulations with NVIDIA and Bentley Systems	https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/create-real-time-simulations-with-nvidia-omniverse-and-bentley-lumenrt/

​

Highlighted GTC Sessions

Title	GTC Session Link
Connect with the Experts: Announcing the Jetson Orin Nano devkit for Edge AI – Deep Dive Q&A w/ Jetson Engineers [CWES52132]	Session Link
Fireside Chat with Ilya Sutskever and Jensen Huang: AI Today and Vision of the Future [S52092]	Session Link
3D by AI: Using Generative AI and NeRFs for Building Virtual Worlds [S52163]	Session Link
Change the World With a Career in AI [SE52162]	Session Link

Enjoy GTC 23!

I mostly train BJJ and Judo, but lately I'm looking at some self defense material that uses a lot of palm strikes. I had a significant injury when I was a kid, and my right wrist is the worst, but both are pretty bad. I've spent actual decades trying to improve their range of motion, so I don't think I can just "fix" it with some stretching ;-).
When I put my hands together (think "prayer position") and open up my elbows, I can't get even close to 90-degrees from my forearm to the backs of my hands. I think this is what causes the problem...
Trying to palm strike a bag or a pad held by a sparring partner is quite painful. If I use the same angle of attack as others, I'm basically wrist-locking myself at impact. I spent some time with a partner the other day comparing, and I can't find a way to do it that isn't problematic.
I'm curious if anyone from any striking art can help me understand what I can do here. I could say, "Sorry, I can't do palm strikes." But then I have to strike with fists, I suppose, and without wraps and gloves I feel like that's a long-term goal, not a quick fix. Maybe I'm wrong on that too, though.
Thanks!

TL:DR - I run the only BJJ program for a significant distance in the basement of a kickboxing club, I am thinking of closing it down but if I do, there will be no BJJ in my area. Looking for advice for anyone who has shut a program knowing it means the end of BJJ for the majority of their students.
LR:, I run the grappling program in my area in the basement of a local kickboxing club 3 days a week. Yes I know I'm only a purple belt but I'm the only one in the area willing to teach it. Our gym is in a tiny town which only supports a martial arts business because the guy who owns the club also owns the building and lives in the apartment upstairs, so he charges a miniscule membership locals can afford to keep the lights on. As a result I am not paid to teach classes other than having use of the gym during the day for my personal training and strength coaching business, which I honestly don't need but appreciate. I started teaching because at the time I was the only person in the area with a colored belt, and wanted to keep my skills sharp.
There are now approximately 5 black belts in the region and a couple browns and purples, but the nearest lives almost an hour away and his gym is 45 mins away. The others are similar distanced if not further out. I know all of them and having spoken to them, none of them are interested in taking up my position as there is no realistic way to make it profitable and I don't blame them for that. The other two options are the gym owner (also a purple belt but really only because he owns the club, and he's mainly a kickboxer, so between managing the kickboxing program and his day job, he can't consistently run classes, I only see him in class maybe 2x a month) and another purple belt who is on maternity leave and realistically wont be able to take over classes until her child is in kindergarten.
A combination of health issues and wanting some lifestyle change is making it so that my current schedule of teaching 3x a week and driving to another club 45 mins away 3x a week is becoming unsustainable. I do want to continue BJJ, and will probably make the drive to the club with 3 blackbelts 2x a week but I can't commit to teaching a 3x a week program anymore. I've been involved in amateur or professional sport since I was 3 and I turn 40 next year, I think I have it in me to continue until then, but at some point my body needs to rest.
What I am seeking advice on is from anyone (be it BJJ or any other martial arts) who has closed down their club knowing it will be the end of the journey for some of their students. There is not a lot of money in the community, and very few members can afford the 45 minute drive or market price of the next nearest gyms. I run my classes specifically on days my coach a few towns over has off so that I can train with him and I offer and encourage my students to carpool with me to get training from him, very few ever do. I know the MMA and Sanda (kickboxing with takedowns but no ground game) programs at my gym will suffer as our MMA coach is just a striker with a little takedown defense knowledge, but I feel like my body is breaking down and I don't really have time to train a replacement and as a purple belt should I even be considering that? There's a couple blue belts at the gym but none of the are particularly committed to BJJ or great at teaching.
So far my options seems to be:

1. Pray the other purple belt finds the time between running a home based business and a child to be able to commit to teaching.
2. Reduce the program to a day a week, at which point is it really worth running a grappling program anymore? I already feel like I don't have half the time I need to teach, especially with the newer students.
3. Hand it back to the gym owner which means the effective end of regular classes.
4. Hope one of the blue belts can take over the program or some days, knowing the quality of teaching is going to suffer greatly.

I'm open to any other advice, but my real question is, has anyone ever shut their club, whether it be for personal financial or other reasons knowing you were going to leave students without a coach? Did you regret it? How did you help them move on? I don't really know who to ask or even if I'm asking the right question. I've trained with some of these people for years and don't want to leave them in the lurch, but I don't want to be beholden to this because I'm the only person available to teach it either, especially given how my joints are starting feeling these days.

"I wanted to talk to you about what we found on the station, your hunch was right, it was the creed that attacked it" Jake says furrowing his brow.
"How recent was the attack?" Houston asks.
"Very, most of the station still had power, they probably just got done looting it or are coming back to finish the job" Jake responds.
"They must be getting bolder, the creed would have never tried attacking this far in before." Houston says, his face hardening, "thought I saw enough of those bolt brains when I left the military. The fact this particular pocket of Creed is strong enough to launch an assault on a small station is a big concern. I thought most of the forces that could do any real damage got destroyed in the AI war."
"Well, we can talk about this later. Welcome to the armory, if we're going on any dangerous excursions or the ship gets boarded this is where you can find weapons to defend yourself. It also houses my collection" Jake says gesturing to the wall filled with firearms of various calibers. "These ones here are my favorites." Jake motions to a section of the wall with antique looking firearms.
"So, who is that in the photo?" L3-0N says pointing at the back wall.
"That is the greatest man in the galaxy; John Moses Browning, the father of modern firearms" Jake says with a grin. "I have some of his creations in my collection: the Auto 5, BAR, and of course my sidearm; the M1911." Pointing out each weapon as he says its name. "We, of course, have more modern armaments for you to use. You do know how to fire a gun, right?"
"No, I was never trained on how to use a gun." L3-0N says.
"Well I would be happy to teach you when we find somewhere with a range." Jake says.
"Well, that can wait. I would like to get us out of here, especially if The Creed is in the area," Houston says, "I'll show you the cockpit as I get us out of here."
Houston and L3-0N move to the front of the ship where the cockpit lies. Inside are seats for a pilot and co-pilot surrounded with various flight instruments, a 3D radar sits between the seats showing other objects relative to the ship’s position. The radar shows that the Cicatrix is docked to a station named ParkStation.
Houston takes a seat in the pilot’s chair and begins pressing the various instruments in the cockpit. “Releasing docking clamps” a harsh “beep” is heard as the Cicatrix begins drifting away from ParkStation. “Alright! Now to get to a safe distance before we start the long journey back to Mars” Houston says.
An object appears on the edge of the 3D radar below the ship, beginning its approach to the station. “Oh shit, if that is what I think it is you may want to go make sure the engine doesn't explode L3.” Houston says gripping the controls.
“On it captain” L3-0N says rushing out of the cockpit.
“Jake we have potential hostiles, get up here and help me” Houston says through the intercom. The object on the radar is still making its steady approach, finally getting within visual range.
“I’m here, what’s the situation?” Jake says, rushing into the co-pilot's seat.
Houston pulls up the visual feed of the approaching object, its brick looking ship with holes for boarding pods, point defense turrets run along its hull, and bearing the insignia of the iron creed: a ring of 14 gears around a picture of a large red mechanical eye.
Finally have faces to names, er insignia to names. The creed rear their cybernetic heads to attack our protagonists.

[Chapter 1] ;[Previous Chapter] ; [Discord + Wiki] ; [Patreon]
​
Chapter 107 – A Patron Saint
​
“[…] with the leadership of many territories claiming that the muted response to the thread is once again a blatant showing of the Community-Leadership’s clear bias against Deathworld affairs. Loratexach Echtsesimm, the current leader of the united Lachaxet territories, even went so far as to call it, quote: “A kick to the face for all those of us seeking to live in a peaceful unity.” Meanwhile other deathworld groups, like the occupants of the only known Class V deathworld, the Ligormordillar, are trying to quell the conflict and urge their fellow deathworlders to make a measured response, pointing to the lack of any concrete evidence when it comes to the recent events, and asking to give authorities a bit more time to investigate things. However, the accusations of corruptions that emerged in the last quarter have many people questioning how much the current Acting Galactic Council can truly be trusted with the investigations, and calls for the addition of independent investigations are becoming louder,” an Urounaek news caster professionally read off the seemingly endless lines of texts on her teleprompter, while b-footage of recordings of the sitting governments of a diverse number of species played in the background. “Surprisingly, humanity, the largest accuser of corruption in the Galactic Council as well as a front runner in the proclaimed fight for the extended rights of people and especially deathworlders that feel ousted by the Community, and also one of the Myiat’s currently closest military allies, have so far made no official statements or press-releases about the incidents, apart from damming the attack as a violation of intragalactic law as well as the laws of war.”
James passively allowed himself to be doused by the white noise of the TV that Shida had basically been glued to for the last days while he checked through his messages and mails on his phone and laptop. Of course, any of his addresses and contacts that had at some point been public in some way had been absolutely bombarded with a torrent of spam, threats, offerings, accusations, and even more spam. It was a daunting task to sift through all of the messages in an attempt to pick out the few of them that could possibly be useful every day, especially since those were extremely few and far in between, however, he still did it. On the one hand, he did it because he felt that it was his duty to leave nothing untried, no stone unturned, and no resource unused in these dire times they found themselves in. On the other hand, it was a quite time- and labor-intensive yet still comparatively easy task that he could easily waste away hours with without feeling like he was being unproductive.
Of course, all the really important messages he received would be forwarded to him through his more secure contacts that just select people had access to, and therefore the things he did find in his private messages were usually rather menial in comparison, however it was still something.
His hopes of not feeling so left out and abandoned anymore now that shit had thoroughly hit the fan had sadly been short-lived, as it quickly became clear that any broadcasts and statements to the outside world when it come to the topic at hand would be made by actual diplomatic professionals and not by-circumstance Ambassadors that had basically stumbled into their role.
…Which was honestly fair enough, James had to admit. Certainly, people who did this for a living had a much lower chance of screwing everything up and making things even worse than they already were than he did.
However, that did little to quell the nervous and anxious energy within him that just begged to be released in some productive way.
“While official governmental replies are being released by the hundreds by individual species, many collaborative political groups have also proclaimed their intentions to react to the current tensions caused by the attack on Dunnima. For example, many order-collaborations have been sending out invitations for emergency-conferences to possibly discuss a united reaction and collaborative measures to help ease the Galactic Tensions between their members; among others, the collaborative councils of the Tetsudines, Psittacines, Corvids, Hymenoptera, Canines, Skitellifera, Estotsucuvae, and Primates will be gathering within the week to discuss possible measures. Additionally, for the first time in about 12 uniform years, a recently founded, provisional ‘council of deathworlders’ is also inviting possible participants to a first conference, after having reportedly struggled to find an adequate venue for such an event for a few uniform months. This council is the thought-child of representatives of the Lachaxet, Ligormordillar, Roosh’gaack, and Teracheponn territories, who are now trying to get representatives of as many deathworlds as possible to take part in it, claiming it as an important step towards future collaborations between the so-designated worlds and people.”
“I wonder who they’re going to invite,” Shida commented as she tensely leaned forwards and absorbed the news with great concentration, her ears opening widely to not miss a single detail. Inside, she was just as rearing to go as James was. But just like him, she was also bound to the orders they were being given.
So far, they had both not been called in to reinforce the fleets that were either stationed to more intensely control the borders of their own unified borders or sent out into the cosmos to reinforce the myiat’s defenses after the first attack. However, the military base in Lorraine that they had been staying at for a while now had certainly become a lot emptier ever since the attack, leaving basically only instructors, very fresh recruits and essential personnel behind. And themselves, of course.
The constant tramping of boots outside of their doors had been replaced by an eerie emptiness, and their regular trainings-sessions that they had along with other occupants had also run dry, as most of the people on a similar level to them had received orders to move. And working with actual trainees didn’t exactly have a lot of appeal to it either.
“They have plenty of options,” James mumbled while his eyes flew across rows and rows of recently received mails, going back hour by hour that he had slept while sifting through piles and piles of junk.
Finishing off with the mail-service he had used during his Uni-days without having found anything of note, he then switched over to the next tab, where he had opened his miraculously still not out of service work-mail that had been assigned to him during his in hindsight very brief time of working on the G.E.S.-32.
He had no idea why exactly it was still in service, but as long as he received messages to it, he was going to check them, even if so far, this had by far been the least useful of his addresses when it came to receiving any messages of actual note.
And indeed, it was once again basically all junk.
Spam, a death threat, a very angry email from a former coworker, spam, more threats, a clearly fake solicitation from some firm he had never heard of, some news-channel trying to get an interview with him, spam, another news channel, spam, even more threats, spa-
He paused for a moment as his cursor hovered over a mail he had apparently received about five hours ago, that had the very brief and uninformative title of
“You are invited.”
Usually, he would’ve almost instantly disregarded it as clearly some form of spam, however after what he had just heard on the news, it made him raise an eyebrow and quickly check the address it was sent from.
Lifting the eyebrow even further as he saw an actual, official government address, he clicked on the mail to open it up. Slowly, his eyes read over the neat lines of text that had been revealed to him, his eyes getting wider and expression becoming more confused and disgruntled by the moment.
Was this a joke?
“What’s up?” Shida asked, apparently having noticed his expression changing, and just as anxious to do something as he was, she immediately stood up and walked over to him to glance at his screen while her tail swiftly flailed through the air. “One of the threats getting too personal?”
James shifted his lips as he gathered his thoughts to reply.
“No, I was invited to one of those conferences,” he said, and his eyes quickly double-checked if this invitation was actually addressed towards him and hadn’t just accidentally landed with the wrong person by some sort of blunder.
Shida glanced at him in mild confusion, her yellow eyes scanning over his face while trying to read his thoughts from it.
“The Deathworld one? That’s not surprising, is it?” she commented with a flick of her ears, before pressing up to his side a bit closer so she could lower herself in a position that would allow her to more easily peek at his mails. “Not only are you a deathworlder, you’ve also been a pretty public figure when it comes to the public fight for more rights. Hell, you probably inspired them to found that whole thing in a way, so of course they want you along for the ride.”
James scoffed slightly and turned his screen so she could look at it.
“Well, if it was that, I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said and waited a second for Shida to read, seeing her face also slowly turn into a more confused one as she realized what the invitation he had received was for, before he added, “But this is from the council of primates.”
Shida looked at the message for a little longer before turning only her eyes towards him.
“What the hell do they want?” she asked with clear distrust in her voice. James just shrugged.
“A trap? Appeasement? Publicity? Options are numerous,” he said with an exhausted exhale before switching the tab yet again to log into his ‘professional’ mail services, copy-pasting the text of the invitation before forwarding it to a pre-prepared list of people that should probably be informed about this.
Shida hissed through her teeth and stood up straight again.
“Are you going?” she asked, crossing her arms and glancing down at him.
“If I have a say in this? Absolutely,” James replied after hammering the ‘send’ button. Anything to get out of here and do something at this point. Besides, it would probably give him the opportunity to give some people some serious stern talkings to. “Buuuuut you know how this goes.”
“We should keep an eye open who else might get invited to something,” Shida commented after acknowledging his reply with a huff but not responding to it. James nodded. In his periphery, he noticed how Shida’s fingers were starting to dig into her arms as her grip likely inadvertently tightened, and he reached out to rub his hand against her side, wordlessly aiding her with relaxing.
“They have plenty of options,” he repeated his earlier statement as he opened the invitation one more time.
“You are invited.
James Aldwin, Ambassador of Earth by community tradition, you have been officially invited to the emergency conference of the council of primates. Given recent events, the council has decided it is imperative to coordinate a response among the members of our esteemed order.
As humanity has so far not had a representative in the council of primates, it has been decided to extend an invitation to you for this conference. This invitation officially grants you access to the venue on Nedstaniot-Station and makes you eligible for a support-fund covering the traveling costs for you and an accompanying group of up to ten (10) companions of your choosing.
Should you accept this invitation, please contact us under one of the council of primate’s official addresses to receive access data to the necessary accounts as well as a detailed plan of the venue and scheduled events.
Should you not accept this invitation, a message of your declining is not strictly necessary, but always welcome to aid in planning.
I hope this message finds you well and am looking forward to possibly meeting you at the venue.
Sincerely
Klanneifer FF of the Tiasonko.
Success to you!”
Well, if they weren’t going to regret that…
​
--
​
Alexander clutched the necklace around his neck tightly as he looked into the mirror, taking deep breaths to quell his nerves.
Yes, he was nervous. Extremely so in fact. He thought that he would be excited previously, but now that the time had come, he could feel only the nerves.
Well, maybe that was understandable. Something like this really didn’t happen every day, after all.
“God, give me strength,” he prayed silently with his hands clutching the symbol of his faith even tighter.
Then, he took a minute to, one last time, check if his hair was in place and his robes were immaculate. He couldn’t make a fool out of himself on an occasion like this, after all. His own blue eyes stared back at him from the mirror sternly. Scrutinizing. As if he was judging himself. And he should. After all it was a big day. Taking a moment to judge oneself was important in moments such as this, lest you get complacent and started to make the wrong choices.
Soon after, there was a knock at the door.
“Father Mokoena is beginning his sermon, Alexander,” a muffled voice said from the other side. “You should be ready for when you are called upon.”
Alexander exhaled deeply and took one last look at the mirror, his gaze wandering from his own eyes down to the pendant around his neck.
“I’m on my way,” he then assured the Brother waiting outside, before stepping away from the dresser with a flourishing movement of his robes.
As he stepped out of the cloakroom, brother Anders slightly bowed to him, before stretching out a robed arm to guide him in the right direction. The brother was of the older sort, yet he had held his body in a shape worthy of a temple. Thinning and greying rose-blond hair did little to distract from that, as his wide frame could easily be spotted even through the loosely fitting robes.
A man of devotion in more than one way.
Alexander moved in a slow and measured way, his head held high, as Brother Anders guided him through the branched and tight back hallways of the old theater that they were holding today’s sermon in. As they got closer to the stage, Alexander could already hear the booming voice of father Mokoena as he addressed the masses from his place on the stage. It was no microphone he heard there, no amplifiers or other speakers. Only the impeccable voice of a devoted preacher.
Despite his age, the man had pipes like the largest organ, and still he was speaking at a volume that Alexander wasn’t used to from him. Inhaling deeply, he swallowed for a moment. Hopefully the people would even be able to hear him when he spoke. He certainly couldn’t bellow like the father could. Then again, this was a theater. Maybe his voice would be carried further by the acoustics than he anticipated.
It was rare for him to speak in a place like this, after all.
For a moment, Alexander thought about houses of faith. All the temples, churches, mosques, synagogues and whatever else he had visited throughout his life. Their large, marbled halls. Their magnificent decorations. The instruments and loudspeakers and all the other tools they were equipped with for impressive…performances.
That is what he had always called them. Performances. All those people just playing at faith while all they truly worship was their own selfishness.
And yet here he stood in the backrooms of a theater, watching as a father Mokoena gave a sermon on a literal stage and waiting for his cue to join him in the spotlight. What ironic twists fate could take.
The theater had been the most sensible option of a place that was for rent for one night and also held enough seats for this many people to come together. Still, he wondered if maybe they should have swallowed the tougher pill and looked for something else. For his liking, this was a bit too close to making a mockery of the event. The ‘houses of God’ may have been a sinful sham, but was this really much better?
Still, what was done was done. And while reflecting on past mistakes was certainly a virtue, getting stuck on them was most decidedly not. They were here now, so they would use what they had.
He and Anders finally came to a halt right at the side of the stage, hidden behind the large, red curtain that could be used to cut the stage off from view. Of course, today, it would stay wide open for the entire time, allowing everyone to witness.
“Are you nervous?” Brother Anders quietly asked him, leaning in close to whisper so there was no chance of his voice leaking out and disturbing the Father’s sermon.
Alexander smirked in slight anxiousness.
“Of course, I am,” he confessed honestly. “It’s not every day you get to make proclamations this weighty…or enemies this powerful.”
“Are you afraid of them?” Anders then asked with an almost pitiful look at Alexander, who sighed deeply.
“Of course, I am,” he confessed yet again. “I’d be a fool not to be.”
The task before him was grand, and his foes, in a way, even grander. There was a reason that the realized that had plagued Earth once upon a time had taken the name of heaven’s general for itself. They were powerful. And they knew it.
And that was not even mentioning the force of Earth’s armies, that could turn against them on a whim of fate. Masters over the forces of nature. The undisputed leaders of destructive power. Those who had managed to best such a powerful being before.
Yes, he was afraid. But overcoming fear was a virtue as well.
Meanwhile, the sermon was starting to whip up into a louder cadence, as Father Mokoena seemingly began to introduce the important part of the evening.
“[…] Many years has he studied and prayed and silence, following the will of our Lord by standing by and reflecting. Keeping humble. Keeping modest. And he has developed into a fine man of faith. Eighteen years of serving and studying under our faith, hidden away in the dark and obscure, waiting for the event that would catalyze his becoming! Now it has finally come. And with it came the time for him to step out into the light! Please welcome with me, oh children of the Lord, our newest ‘Guide’! Guide Alexander Paige!” the Father loudly announced and lifted his arm in the direction of where Alexander still stood out of sight. The bald head of the dark-skinned man reflected the spotlights above while his modest robes swung around from the energetic movement.
Meanwhile, Alexander took a deep, calming breath.
“Best of luck, Guide Alexander,” he could hear Brother Anders next to him say, and he respectfully bowed to the man before advancing out of the shadows and into the light.
His eyes narrowed strongly, and he had to resist the urge to lift his hand in order to protect them from the blinding light that now blared down on him. Of course, he did his best to keep his respectful and reverent expression before the Father, however he wasn’t quite able to entirely resist the pain of the rays stinging into his sight. Still, he advanced with quick yet collected steps all the way up to the side of the Father.
“Don’t scream,” he told himself as he prepared his throat for how loud he would have to talk to be heard in a place such as this. The lights were so bright and the rest of the room so dark that he couldn’t see those listening to him, but he still knew they were there. Hundreds of them. Another failure of this chosen venue. He couldn’t even see the faces of those that would listen to his words. How could he claim to speak to them if he couldn’t even look them in the eyes?
Well, it was too late now.
“Thank you, Father,” Alexander loudly announced as he had finally reached the man, and he did his best to talk as loudly as possible without it escalating into shouts. It was hard to gauge how far his voice carried in this room, and he silently prayed that he would be understood.
The Father then reached out his arm, offering his old, worn hand to Alexander. Alexander reciprocated the gesture, taking the Father’s hand with his right, while positioning his left underneath, pressing its palm up against the father’s wrist. Meanwhile, the father lowered his left onto Alexander’s wrist from above, holding his hand as if he was blessing it.
“Alexander!” Father Mokoena loudly greeted him, and Alexander almost flinched at the intensity of his voice up close. If that was what it took to be heard around here, then his own words would merely come across as a whimper. He truly hoped that the old preacher was just overdoing it with his enthusiasm. “You have finally found your treacherous sea, it seems!”
“Indeed,” Alexander replied and really just couldn’t measure up to the Father’s incredible voice no matter how he tried. What an impressive organ. “And I am prepared to guide my fellow men through it, towards safer ventures.”
“And the Lord shall bless your path!” the Father proclaimed, before taking his hands off of Alexander’s again.
“May the Lord bless your path,” a gentle echo came from the unseen crowd.
“And yours as well,” Alexander replied quickly, having almost forgotten to do so given the stressful situation.
The Father nodded deeply, before stepping away from Alexander and in front of the crowd again for a second, as he raised his arms high and declared,
“Tell us about your treacherous path, Guide Alexander, so we veer from it with you!”
Then, with another flourishing movement of his robes, he stepped back and aside, leaving Alexander basically alone in front of the many unseen eyes watching him.
Even after years of waiting, he wasn’t truly prepared for this. For the briefest of moments, he imagined just walking off. But no. He had to do this. This is what he had lived for. His entire life up until now had led up to this moment.
“I am telling you all no secret when I say that the recent times have been turmoil filled ones,” he began to speak, getting right to the matter at hand without any greetings or big introductions. The air around him felt heavy, and the room was so quiet whenever he didn’t speak that he could hear the lights above softly buzzing with electricity. The old wood under his feet gently cracked whenever he shifted his weight, and he was sure that it could be heard all the way up in the top rows whenever it happened. “As all of you who have come together here know, we stand in front of a huge danger. You do not need a guide to tell you that treading in the domain of a realized leads to peril. Such an affront needs no explanation on my side.”
He swallowed heavily, truly hoping that they had not all come together to hear him proclaim that he would guide them against the A.I.
That was simply no task for a Guide. Yet hopefully the others understood this as well and did not think that he was avoiding the threat in order to pick an easier mission for himself. After all, he would still gain its ire with his words, he was sure, even if it was not his declared danger.
Swallowing again, he continued,
“No, I am here today to talk with you about something else. About someone else. Someone whose words have touched many; and influenced even more. A man who was thrust into conflict against his will. Hurtled into the chaos, he fought, and the galaxy shook before him. A man known to the entire Galaxy obviously needs no introduction, but I would still like to take a moment to list James Aldwin’s achievements to give you a better picture of what I am talking about. Before his life was thrust into conflict, he used to dedicate his time to the improvement of life. He took some of nature’s gifts, and he used them to make new things that would aide people in need. Medicine was his claimed goal, and although he never got to reach that state, he had the clear intention to make life easier for many with his inventions, caring little for where they came from. Then, after his life changed for the worse, his focus shifted. Instead of trying to safe the ill somewhere in the future, he instead dedicated himself to saving people right here and now.”
Talking himself up into a bit of a frenzy, Alexander began to walk back and forth on the stage without even fully realizing that he was doing it. The blinding spotlights were still turning everything that wasn’t the stage into a dark, blocked out void. Night had been separated from day, and he was standing in the sun.
“He turned his focus onto those he thought to be like him,” he explained, starting to make wide gestures with his arms that caused his robe to move in flowing downward waves, embellishing his movements even further. “Those whose lives had been thrown into chaos through no doing of their own. Those born into it. Those ousted. Those who felt ‘othered’ by the world. The pariahs. He promised them acceptance, with little care for who they were.”
He then stopped his pacing for a moment to fully face the crowd, his gaze turning upwards so they would all be able to see it.
“Even when faced with one of our world’s greatest calamities asking him to take it in, he did not cave,” Alexander proclaimed, and he could feel himself tapping into potential of his lungs that he didn’t know he had within him, as his voice boomed throughout the theater. “Despite knowing of the danger in his path, he walked it all the way. Truly, what kind of man is it that will turn no one away? What kind of man who puts himself on the wayside to help others? What kind of man that cares not for who or how?”
“A Saint!” a booming echo came back from the crowd, and Alexander could feel the vibrations of their roar beneath his feet as it rolled over him.
“Indeed,” he replied to the people. “After seeing the path he walked, I say that his actions are worthy of nothing less than sanctity!”
A sound came back from the crowd that was hard to describe. It was neither jeering nor cheering, but something entirely in between. A deep rumble that filled the air with almost nonsensical noise as it escaped the mouths of hundreds of people who reacted to his declaration.
Alexander now lifted his arms in a wide arch, as if he wanted to beckon the crowd into an embrace.
“By the Ministry of the Church of the Failed Savior, bestowed upon me as your new Guide, I hereby proclaim James Aldwin as the Patron of Realized Sapience!” he loudly declared, and the noise of the crowd picked up in intensity.
He took a deep breath while letting the sound slowly fade out, although he didn’t wait for the people to be completely quiet before he let his arms sink again and continued in a milder tone.
“Sanctity is a dangerous path,” he said as he began to slowly pace along the stage again, this time with collected, measured movements. “The Saints walk it, and they invite all who will to follow. They do not warn them of the danger. In fact, they encourage all to face it. Proclaiming their path as the right one, they tell all who follow to not stray from it, no matter the danger. It is a dangerous thing indeed, such a Saint.”
He stopped again, but this time, he didn’t face the crowd. Turned to the side, he stared straight ahead, his eyes fixating on a part of the folded, red curtains while his mind went to a different place.
“Saint Aldwin believes himself to walk the right path, and nothing is holy to him, neither on Earth nor in Heaven, man made or God given, but that which allows him to follow it,” he said, still loud, but a lot more restrained in emotion. “He believes himself to be a protector. A shepherd. A…savior.”
This time, the jeering of the crowd was palpable, as the ground once again shook with it. Any sense of good will had disappeared from the noise.
Now, Alexander waited for it to completely die down. Calm and quietly, he stood there without moving a muscle for minutes on end while the sound gradually faded out.
Only when he could have heard a pin drop in the enormous room did he speak up again.
“As your new Guide, I promise to show you the way to the safe road. I promise to disarm traps and sweep away obstacles in your way. I promise to keep my sight on the destination, and to always point you in the right direction should you stay. And…” he paused for a moment to take a deep breath, before he continued louder than before, lifting his head high as he did so. “And I promise to veer you off the paths of all the Saints and Doomed to Fail Saviors who would have you walk with them into hell!”
A cheering broke out in the crowd, going so far that some of the people began to drum their feet on the ground in a wild, rhythmless thunder.
Meanwhile Alexander turned around to face the man behind him.
Father Mokoena had a wide smile on his wrinkled face as he walked back up to him, his hand extended. As they repeated the same gesture they had given each other earlier, the Father loudly announced,
“God bless your path, Guide.”
“Thank you, Father,” Alexander replied with a deep nod. “I am going to need it.”
After a moment, they let go off each other’s hands again, and Alexander wordlessly walked back off the stage, while Father Mokoena already loudly addressed the crowd again.
Behind the curtain just off the stage, Brother Anders was still waiting for him.
“A captivating speech,” the muscular man complimented him with a brief faux applause he hinted at with his hands, not actually clapping so he wouldn’t disturb the sermon. “But was that a reference I spotted in the middle of it there?”
Alexander scoffed at the man.
“All speeches have references,” he said while he passed the Brother, folding his hands behind his back as he went.
Anders looked after him in mild confusion.
“Aren’t you going to stay and hear the sermon?” he asked as Alexander was already disappearing away from the stage again.
“My faith is between me and our Lord,” Alexander explained as he shook his head. “My prayer does not need an advocate.”
No, instead of wasting time listening to a sermon of prayers that he could speak himself, he decided to instead use it to look after those who were in need of his guidance.
Walking back to from whence he came, he passed his earlier cloakroom and traversed the hallways all the way to a larger, much more open changing room, that would usually most likely house droves of actors or other performers in marvelous costumes before they would go out on stage to dazzle the masses.
Today, however, it was home to a much sadder sight.
Laid out on two benches, surrounded by their peers, were two truly pitiful casualties of conflict. As he walked in, their ears twitched and they began to look up in erratic movements, their muscles twitching and shivering as if under immense stress from just the simple movements, and even after their head was lifted, it was stuck in a constant quiver.
Meanwhile, their far healthier compatriots also turned towards him, their gazes dark and eyes sharp, while their agitated tails whipped through the air like angry flails.
“How are you feeling?” Alexander asked the first of the two clearly ill myiat who met his gaze.
“According to the…circumstances,” the man replied, his voice about as jittery as his posture as he spoke. His name was Mirrakshra. A good man, suffering a bad fate.
Meanwhile, one of their healthy compatriots, a dark-skinned fellow with a scar from a cut right over his cheekbone that had accompanied Alexander since back on Dunnima, glared at Alexander with fiery eyes as he saw the kind of robe he wore.
“If you’re going to try some sort of faith-healing bullshit, then I swear to-“ he began, however Alexander cut him off harshly.
“You shouldn’t swear, Eskfotarra. Not on heaven or on Earth,” he reprimanded him with firm words. Then he smirked, “You may promise to harm me all you like, however. But no, that’s not why I’m here. I’m not a fool. I know I can’t work miracles. I simply worry about his wellbeing.”
“It’s al..alright,” Mirrakshra quelled the worries of his friend. “Y-y-you got news?”
Alexander exhaled disappointedly.
“Sadly, yes,” he said and looked away. “It seems that some of our allies have…how do you say…jumped the gun? They attempted to exterminate the affront prematurely, and in the process, have only made it all the more enduring, it seems.”
Eskfotarra scoffed and his ears twitched slightly as his tail slowed to a gradual sway.
“So, she’s out now?” he correctly assumed, and the smirk on his face told of him not finding those circumstances all too disagreeable. An unfortunate choice, but his to make.
“Indeed,” Alexander replied. “And at the scale we’re currently working at, I’m afraid it’s going to be hard to stamp it out.”
By now, the AI might have infected the entire Galaxy. There was no telling of the kind of hardships they would soon face because of it.
However, Eskfotarra just glanced down at his ill friends again as his grimace soured.
“And Aldwin?” he asked darkly.
Alexander lifted his arms with open palms and shrugged.
“Hidden away where we cannot reach him, at least for the moment,” he explained.
The myiat aggressively clicked his tongue and hissed through his teeth.
“Then when will we be able to reach him?” he asked, his claws unfurling on his arm, cutting into the sleeve of his shirt. “It’s high time that he answers for a lot of things.”
In a picture that should be grotesque but could only be described as empathetic, the quivering, injured feline laying before him looked up at his healthy friend with pity, while wrath seemingly consumed Eskfotarra.
Alexander nodded.
“I’m sure he would agree with you there,” he pointed out, seeing as Aldwin had never been shy to point out his own misdeeds. “That is why sooner or later, he is going to make it possible. The danger is the nature of a Saint.”

[Previous] [First] [Next]
"I wanted to talk to you about what we found on the station, your hunch was right, it was the creed that attacked it" Jake says furrowing his brow.
"How recent was the attack?" Houston asks.
"Very, most of the station still had power, they probably just got done looting it or are coming back to finish the job" Jake responds.
"They must be getting bolder, the creed would have never tried attacking this far in before." Houston says, his face hardening, "thought I saw enough of those bolt brains when I left the military. The fact this particular pocket of Creed is strong enough to launch an assault on a small station is a big concern. I thought most of the forces that could do any real damage got destroyed in the AI war."
"Well, we can talk about this later. Welcome to the armory, if we're going on any dangerous excursions or the ship gets boarded, this is where you can find weapons to defend yourself. It also houses my collection" Jake says, gesturing to the wall filled with firearms of various calibers. "These ones here are my favorites." Jake motions to a section of the wall with antique looking firearms.
"So, who is that in the photo?" L3-0N says pointing at the back wall.
"That is the greatest man in the galaxy; John Moses Browning, the father of modern firearms" Jake says with a grin. "I have some of his creations in my collection: the Auto 5, BAR, and of course my sidearm; the M1911." Pointing out each weapon as he says its name. "We, of course, have more modern armaments for you to use. You do know how to fire a gun, right?"
"No, I was never trained on how to use a gun." L3-0N says.
"Well I would be happy to teach you when we find somewhere with a range." Jake says.
"Well, that can wait. I would like to get us out of here, especially if The Creed is in the area," Houston says, "I'll show you the cockpit as I get us out of here."
Houston and L3-0N move to the front of the ship where the cockpit lies. Inside are seats for a pilot and co-pilot surrounded with various flight instruments, a 3D radar sits between the seats showing other objects relative to the ship’s position. The radar shows that the Cicatrix is docked to a station named ParkStation.
Houston takes a seat in the pilot’s chair and begins pressing the various instruments in the cockpit. “Releasing docking clamps” a harsh “beep” is heard as the Cicatrix begins drifting away from ParkStation. “Alright! Now to get to a safe distance before we start the long journey back to Mars” Houston says.
An object appears on the edge of the 3D radar below the ship, beginning its approach to the station. “Oh shit, if that is what I think it is you may want to go make sure the engine doesn't explode L3.” Houston says gripping the controls.
“On it captain” L3-0N says rushing out of the cockpit.
“Jake we have potential hostiles, get up here and help me” Houston says through the intercom. The object on the radar is still making its steady approach, finally getting within visual range.
“I’m here, what’s the situation?” Jake says, rushing into the co-pilot's seat.
Houston pulls up the visual feed of the approaching object, its brick looking ship with holes for boarding pods, point defense turrets run along its hull, and bearing the insignia of the iron creed: a ring of 14 gears around a picture of a large red mechanical eye.
Finally have faces to names, er insignia to names. The creed rear their cybernetic heads to attack our protagonists.
[Previous] [First] [Next]

This is part of this week's series on English Opening (1. c4)
Opening line: 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3
Opening name: English Opening Anglo-Indian Defense
Board image: https://i.imgur.com/78MFNzC.png
Lichess board: https://lichess.org/analysis/pgn/1.+c4+Nf6+2.+Nc3++
Wikibooks page: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._c4/1...Nf6/2._Nc3
Winning percenatages:
White: 11156 (37.66%)
Black: 6276 (21.19%)
Draws: 12192 (41.16%)
English Opening
2. Nc3
White reinforces the attack on the d5 square and keeps his options open. Black has a variety of answers here, aiming for a King's Indian setup with 2...g6 is an interesting option, 2...e6 is also possible although white can choose to disrupt black's plan of reaching a Nimzo-Indian or QID setup by playing 3. e4 leading to the very sharp and tactical variations known collectively as the Mikenas Carls variation, which black is best advised to avoid if not prepared to face them.
2...e5 is also possible leading to the English four knights and the Bremen system
Most popular responses

• 2...e5 (English Opening) This position, also reachable through the move orders 1...e5/2.Nc3 Nf6, can lead to two important variations of the English opening depending on how white chooses to develop. 3.Nf3 is the natural developing move and more often than not it leads to the English four knights variation simply because black must defend his pawn and the most practical way to do it is with 3...Nc6. (Lichess analysis) (Wikibooks) (10345707 games)
  
• 2...g6 (English Opening) Black signals his intention to reach a KID setup. White can choose to seize central space and transpose into a standard KID by playing 3. d4 or to stay in the English opening by playing 3. g3. (Lichess analysis) (Wikibooks) (5097589 games)
  
• 2...e6 (English Opening) A flexible second move by black reaching a Nimzo-Indian or Queen`s Indian defence setup is a possibility for black with good prospects as pinning the white knight at c3 weakens white´s grip over the d5 square and threatens doubled pawns, not to mention that since white has not yet moved his d-pawn black might as well get a lead in development. Black should be careful about this move however as white has the option of playing 3.e4 a move that leads to the ultra sharp Mikenas Carls variation where black will require very accurate play in order to stay alive. (Lichess analysis) (Wikibooks) (4898585 games)
  

Engine Evaluation
Depth: 45
Score: +0.08
Best Move: e5
PV Line: 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e5 3. g3 Bb4 4. Bg2 O-O 5. e4 Bxc3 6. bxc3 c6 7. Ne2
Puzzles based around English Opening
https://lichess.org/training/English_Opening
Historical games for English Opening Anglo-Indian Defense

Game	Result	Year
Carlsen, M. (2882) vs Ding Liren (2805)	1-0	2019
Carlsen, M. (2872) vs Aronian, L. (2812)	1/2-1/2	2014
Carlsen, M. (2882) vs Giri, A. (2779)	1/2-1/2	2019
Carlsen, M.. (2847) vs Ding Liren (2799)	1-0	2021
Carlsen, M. (2870) vs Aronian, L. (2772)	1-0	2019
Carlsen, M. (2872) vs Giri, A. (2768)	1/2-1/2	2020
Carlsen, M. (2865) vs Nepomniachtchi, I. (2773)	1/2-1/2	2022
Carlsen, M. (2855) vs Aronian, L. (2782)	1/2-1/2	2021
Carlsen, M. (2864) vs Giri, A. (2773)	1-0	2022
Carlsen, M. (2843) vs Aronian, L. (2794)	1/2-1/2	2018

5
From Mirror to Window: Curing Psychoanalysis of its Narcissism
The apparently individual conflict of the patient is revealed as a universal conflict of his environment and epoch. Neurosis is thus nothing less than an individual attempt, however unsuccessful, to solve a universal problem. - C.G. Jung (1912)
Narcissism is now the rage, the universal diagnosis. In Freud's world, the new attention was on conversion hysteria; in Bleuler's, on dementia praecox. Earlier we find all ills attributed to the English malady, to the spleen, to hypochondriasis, to melancholia, to chlorosis; in Paris, a myriad of phobies and délires. Different time and places, different syndromes.
Narcissism has its theoreticians - Kohut, Kernberg, Lacan - and modern Jungians are following the rage. The collective consciousness of psychology makes us collectively unconscious, much as Jung said when writing about the collective ideas in his day. Being "with it" also means being in it. The epidemic diagnosis Narcissism states that the condition is already endemic to the psychology that makes the diagnosis. It sees narcissism because it sees narcissistically. So let us not take this diagnosis so literally, but place it within the historical parade of Western diagnoses.
Eminent cultural critics - Karl Krauss, Thomas Szasz, Philip Rieff, Christopher Lasch, Paul Zweig, and the notorious Dr. Jeffrey Masson - have each seen that psychoanalysis breeds a narcissistic subjectivism inflicting on the culture an iatrogenic disorder, that is, a disease brought by the methods of the doctors who would cure it.
I shall continue their line of thought, but I shall use a method that Wolfgang Giegerich has so brilliantly exposed in many of his papers. If depth psychology itself suffers from a narcissistic disorder, then what we analysts need first to probe is the unconscious narcissism in analysis itself. Our first patient is neither the patient nor ourselves, but the phenomenon called "analysis" that has brought us both to the consulting room.
The term "Narcissism" is probably British . Havelock Ellis is credited with its invention, though Freud gave us its psychoanalytic meaning. What did Freud say? As I go through some of his descriptions, let us hear them narcissistically, as self-referents, descriptive of psychology and of ourselves in psychology.
1917: "We employ the term narcissism in relation to little children and it is to excessive narcissism of primitive man that we ascribe his belief in the omnipotence of his thoughts and consequent attempts to influence the course of events in the other world by magical practices." Does not analysis have this primitive omnipotence fantasy of influencing events in the outer world by its magical practices? The omnipotence of subjective reflection is attested to by many classic Jungians like Harding, Bernard, Meier, von Franz, Baumann, etc. As Jung himself says, we are each "the makeweight that tips the scales" that determine the outcome of world history." The rituals of self-engagement remove projections from the world so that, supposedly, the world itself is transformed by psychoanalysis.
1922: "... narcissistic disorders are characterized by a withdrawal of the libido from objects." The withdrawal of the libido from from objects - I ask you to remember this statement. We shall come back to it.
1925: Freud describes three historic blows to humankind's narcissism. These, he says, are the cosmological blow of Copernicus, the blow of Darwinian evolutionary theory, and the psychoanalytic blow (of Freud) which wounded the omnipotence fantasy, or narcissism, of the ego as sole self-willed ruler. Here, psychoanalysis becomes itself a giant omnipotence fantasy, a creation myth of our culture equivalent with astronomy and biology, promulgating itself with narcissistic grandeur.
This pronouncement appears in Freud's discussion on resistance to psychoanalysis. By means of this idea resistance, analysis brilliantly maintains its invulnerability to criticism. Questioning the validity of analysis is impugned as resistance to it. Even more: the very attacks demonstrate resistance and therefore help to validate analytical theory. As Freud says, "The triumph of narcissism, the ego's victorious assertion of its own invulnerability. It refuses to be hurt by the arrows of reality ... It insists that it is impervious to wounds dealt by the outside world."
Later Freud considered narcissism not to be rooted in love at all, i.e., as self-love, but to be rather a defense against aggressive impulses. Let us consider for a moment the value of "aggressive impulses," at least and at best they take the object, the world out there, into account: I feel enraged about societal injustice, nuclear danger, media crap, industrial callousness, the corporate mind, political ideologues, hideous architecture, etc. But, owing to my narcissistic defenses against the involving call of aggression, I go to the spa, work out, meditate, jog, diet, reduce stress, relax my body armor, improve my orgasms, get a new hairstyle, and take a vacation. And see my therapist: very expensive, very good for me, because he or she devotes complete attention to my problems, especially our transferential frame. Instead of the world and my outrage, I work on my analysis, myself, the Self. This Self, too, fits a narcissistic definition: "the incorporation of grandiose object images as defense against anxiety and guilt" or, as Fenichel puts it, one feels oneself in "reunion with an omnipotent force, be that force an archetype, a god or goddess, the unus mundus, or the numinosity of analysis itself.
Freud's paper "On Narcissism" states that both introspection and conscience or "being watched" derive from and serve narcissism. Yet, psychotherapy practices self-scrutiny as the principal method in its treatment and "being watched" or supervision as the principal component of its training. A candidate goes to hour after hour of institutionalized narcissism of watching and being watched.
The institutionalization of narcissism in our profession - the idea of resistance, the idealization of the Self, the practices of introspection and supervision, the omnipotence fantasies about its own importance in world history, its technique of referring all events back to itself as the vessel, the mirror, the temenos, the frame - bears immediately upon that central obsession of analysis today, transference.
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By transference, here, I mean that self-gratifying analytical habit which refers the emotions of life to the analysis. Transference habitually deflects object libido, that is, love for anything outside analysis, into a narcissistic reflection upon analysis. We feed analysis with life. The mirror that walks down the road of life (Flaubert) replaces the actual road, and the mirror no longer reflects the world, only the walking companions. They may as well have stayed indoors, less distracted by the trees and the traffic.
The principal content of analytical reflection as transference is the child we once were, a fact which accords with Freud's observation that the object choice of the narcissist is "someone he once was.” This helps account for the faddish popularity of Alice Miller’s writings. Her idealized children exhibit what Freud said: the narcissist is “not willing to forego his narcissistic perfection in his childhood” and “seeks to recover the early perfection.” The focus on childhood traps the libido only further into subjectivity, and therefore we must recognize that erotic compulsions in analysis are produced primarily by the analysis, rather than by the persons. Analysis acts itself out through them quite impersonally so that they often feel betrayed and ashamed by the impersonality of the emotions they undergo and are unable to recognize that what they are suffering is the object libido trying to find a way out of analysis. Instead, the narcissistic viciousness of our theory says that transference emotions are compelling the persons to go deeper into analysis.
Let us recognize that the other person - patient or analyst - embodies the only possibility within an analysis to whom object libido can flow. The person in the other chair represents cure of analytical narcissism simply by being there as an Other. Moreover, the patient for the analyst and the analyst for the patient become such numinous objects because they have also been tabooed as libidinal possibilities. Analyst and patient may not act their desire for each other. The narcissism of the situation makes them absolutely necessary to each other, while the taboo sets them absolutely outside of each other. This outside object however, is also inside the analysis. So, patient for doctor and doctor for patient become the symbolic mode of ending analysis by means of love.
Of course, the persons are often torn by what Freud calls the love dilemma of the narcissistic patient: “the cure by love,” which he generally refers to as cure by analysis. We must ask whether this neurotic choice, as Freud calls it, arises from the narcissisms of the patient or from the narcissism of the analytical system in which the patient is situated. After all, the fantasy of an opposition between love and analysis occurs within the prior fantasy of cure which has brought the persons together in the first place.
By elaborating ethical codes, malpractice insurance, investigations, and expulsions that blame the participants, analysis protects itself from wounding insights about its own narcissism. The vulnerability of analysis - that its effectiveness is always in question, that it is neither science nor medicine, that it is aging into professional mediocrity and may have lost its soul to power years ago despite its idealized language by growth and creativity (a language by the way, never used by its founders) - this vulnerability is overcome by idealizing the transference.
As well as transference love, there is also hatred. Perhaps the client’s hatred of the analyst and the hatred of the analyst for the client are also not personal. Perhaps, these intense oppressive feelings against each other arise in both to present both with the fact that they are in a hateful situation: the object libido hates the attachment of transference. Analysis hates itself in order to break the narcissistic vessel imprisoning the libido that would go out into the soul in the world.
The horned dilemmas of transference, including the analyst’s stare into the mirror of his own counter-transference, the feelings of love and hatred, this agony and ecstasy and romantic torture convince the participants that what is going on is of intense importance: first, because these phenomena are expected by the theory and provide proof of it, and second, because these phenomena re-enact what analysis once was in its own childhood in Vienna and Zurich, analysis in primary fusion with its origins in Breuer and Freud and Jung, in Dora and Anna and Sabina. The feelings are cast in therapeutic guise because this is the healing fiction of the analytic situation. In other words, transference is less necessary to the doctor and the patient than it is to analysis by means of which it intensifies its narcissistic idealization, staying in love with itself. We therapists do not sit in our chambers so many hours a day only for the money, or the power, but because we are addicted to analytical narcissism. Our individual narcissism is both obscured and reinforced by the approved narcissism of the analytical profession.
When one partner imagines a tryst or the other imagines resisting a seduction, or when either imagines that love is a solution to misery, then they are framed in the romantic conflicts of Madame Bovary, Wuthering Heights, and Anna Karenina, reconstituting the Romanticisms of the nineteenth century and the origins of psychoanalysis, not in your or my personal childhoods, but in its own cultural childhood. This means we have to locate the narcissism of contemporary analysis within a much wider narcissism: the Romantic movement.
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Literary tradition differentiates at least four principal traits of this genre. We have already spoken of one, “idealization of the love object.” And indeed analysis idealizes the patient as an “interesting case,” “difficult patient,” “good patient,” “borderline personality.” Or consider all the literary fabulations that have made patients into eternal literary figures - Dora, Ellen West, Babette, Miss Miller, Wolfman, Ratman, Little Hands, all the way to Freud and Jung themselves in the novels The White Hotel and The House of Glass. Think of the Romanticism of our theoretical constructs: Love and Death, Empathy, Transformation, Growth, The Child, The Great Mother, The Mirror, Desire and Jouissance, and the Transitional Object. In the patient there takes place such idealized events as a hieros gamos, a quest for self-discovery and a journey into wholeness. Synchronicities outside of causal laws, transcendent functions, integration of the shadow and the realization of the Self on whom the future of civilization depends. We record our idealization of the love object, i.e., analysis, in taped and filmed analytic sessions, paying meticulous and expensive attention to trivial conversations and gestures. Analysis is in love with its idealized image.
A second essential trait of Romanticism is said to be the opposition between bourgeois society and the inner self that, with its dreams, desires and inspirations, tends to oppose, even contradict, the outer world of usual things. Psychoanalysis from its beginnings imagines itself fundamentally opposed to the civilization and its institutions of religion, family, medicine, and the political community disdained as “the collective.” Freud’s emphasis on himself as Jew and hence marginal, as well as Jung’s favorite position as heretical old hermit (despite the bourgeois lives they led and values they held) still shapes the imagination of the profession and distorts its relation to the ordinary world.
Third, imprisonment another basic theme in Romanticism, especially French and Russian. In Dostoevsky’s The Possessed, Maria’s song says: “This tiny cell suffices me, there I will dwell my soul to save.” The consulting room provides the confining physical place for the psychic imprisonment of analysis as such its devotion to the secret nooks and crannies of the private world, decorating with reconstructive rococo (i.e., psycho-dynamic intricacies) the narcissistic cell of personality.
Fourth, the Romantic genre has been defined as one that simultaneously seeks and postpones a particular end. This fits therapy. Its entire procedure seeks to restore the person to the world, yet postpones this return indefinitely. (Meanwhile, do not make major changes in your actual life. Don’t act out. The cure of analysis becomes more analysis-another analyst, another school - and the improvement of training becomes ever more hours.) The simultaneity of seeking and postponing an end occurs in the basic conundrum of every analysis, its contradictory two commandments: encourage the desires of the unconscious (Thou Shall Not Repress) and forbid gratification (Thou Shall Not Act Out). Our work is with the libidinous and our method is by way of abstention. The end is unforeseeable; there is no completion. Analysis interminable, as Freud said. This is the Romanticism of eternal longing.
There is no way out of Romanticism’s consulting room and the subjectivism of its eros, unless we turn to what is beyond its purview, turn to what narcissism and romanticism leave out: the objects, the unidealized, immediately given, actual world of dull and urban things . By turning psychological attention from the mirror of self-reflection to the world through the window, we release “object libido” to seek its goal beyond narcissistic confinement in analysis. For “object libido” is but a psychoanalytic name for the drive which loves the world, the erotic desire for Anima Mundi, for Soul in the World.
Perhaps it becomes clearer why I have been emphasizing John Keats’s remarkable phrase; “Call the world … The vale of Soul-making. Then you will find out the use of the world.” Also, you will understand why I have held myself back from that side of Jung which expounds upon meaning, Self, individuation, unus mundus, wholeness, mandalas, etc. . These large and introverted ideas envelop me and usually my patients with a grandiose, invulnerable aura. As well, I keep a distance from the current Kohut craze and Lacanian mystique. Although recognizing narcissism as the syndrome of the times (even if the groundwork for this was prepared long ago in the metaphysical catastrophe of Augustinian and Cartesian subjectivism); yet, Kohut attempts its cure by the same means of narcissistic obsession: an ever more detailed observation of subjectivity. And a subjectivity within the oppressive confines of a negatively reconstructed childhood. The child archetype dominates contemporary therapy, keeping patients (and analysts) safe from the world. For this archetype feels always endangered by the actual world, lives not in the present but in futurity, and is addicted to its own powerless infantilism. By so focusing on the child, analysis disenfranchises itself from wider realm of soul-making in the adult community of polis.
Nevertheless I must confess to a serious long-standing error on my part regarding Keats’s phrase. I always considered the world out there to be useful for making one’s own soul. Narcissism again. My soul, your soul - not its soul. For the Romantics, however, ensouling the world was a crucial part of their program. They recognized the traps of narcissistic subjectivity in their vision. Hence, they sought the spirit in physical nature, the brotherhood of all mankind or Gemeinschaftsgefühl, political revolution, and a return to the classic gods and goddesses, attempting to revivify the soul of the world with pantheism.
We must therefore read Keats as saying we go through the world for the sake of its soul-making, thereby our own. This reading suggests a true object libido, beyond narcissism, in keeping with Otto Fenichel’s definition of love. Love can only be called such when “one’s own satisfaction is impossible without satisfying the object too. If the world is not satisfied by our going through it, no matter how much beauty and pleasure our souls may receive from it, then we live in its vale without love.
There is a way out, or I wouldn’t be standing here. For my specific style of narcissism, my pose before the mirror, today is heroic. My style insists on resolution of the issues raised. The method I shall be using here follows the method which I usually empty for resolving issues. First, we look back into the history of psychoanalysis for a model; second, we turn to some peculiar bit of pathologizing for a clue; and third, we resolve problems by dissolving them into images and metaphors.
So, let us turn back to the first psychoanalytic case, Anna O., and her doctor, Josef Breuer, who, with Freud, wrote Studies in Hysteria. As you recall, after a year of almost daily sessions often of several hours, he suddenly terminated. You recall also the intensity of her transference, that she developed a hysterical pregnancy and childbirth, after Breuer tried to end the treatment. He, according to Jones, after a final visit to her “fled the house in a cold sweat. The next day he and his wife left for Venice to spend a second honeymoon which resulted in the conception of a daughter.” Whether fact or not, and Ellenberger says not, the fantasy shows a founding patron of our work escaping both cure by analysis and cure by love for the beauty of Venice and the conception of a daughter. His object libido returns from the oppressive narcissism of psychoanalysis to the Romanticism of the wider world.
This wide world remains merely that, merely a place of escape or acting out, so long as the world “out the window” is imagined only in the Cartesian model as sheer res extensa, only dead matter. To show more vividly how that world is, as Keats said, a place of soul, let us go straight through the window into the world. Let us take a walk in a Japanese garden, in particular the strolling garden, the one with water, hills, trees, and stones. While we walk, let us imagine the garden as an emblem for the peripatetic teacher or the therapeutic guide (psychopompos), the world itself as psychoanalyst showing us soul, showing us how to be in it soulfully.
I turn to the garden and to Japan because of insights given while in Kyoto gardens several years ago, and also because the garden as metaphor expresses some of the deepest longings - from Hesperides, to Eden’s paradise, and Maria’s hortus inclusus - for the world as home of the soul. So by entering into the Japanese garden now we shall be stepping through the window into the anima mundi.
First we notice that the garden has no central place to stand and view it all. We can but scrutinize a part at a time. Instead of overview and wholeness, there is perspective and eachness. The world changes as we move. Here a clump of iris, there a mossy rock. Instead of a center (with its etymological roots in the Greek kentron, “goad” or “prick,” and being compelled toward a goal by means of abstract geometric distancing), there are shifts of focus relative to the body’s location and attitude.
Second: as one strolls, each vista is seen again from a different perspective. The maple branching down to the pond edge, the floating leaves appear less melancholic after the path bends. These shifts of seeing again are precisely what the word “respect” means. To look again is to “respect.” Each time we look at the same thing again, we gain respect for it and add respect to it, curiously discovering the innate relation of “looks” - of regarding and being regarded, words in English that refer to dignity.
Third: when the garden, rather than the dream or the symptom or the unconscious, becomes the via regia of psyche, then we are forced to think anew about the word “in.” “In” is the dominant preposition of all psychoanalysis - not with, not from, not for, but “in.” We look in our souls, we look in a mirror. "In” has been utterly literally, as an invisible, spacelesss psychic stuff inside our skins, or meanings inside our dreams and symptoms, or the memories locked in the past. Interiority of the garden, however, is wholly present and wholly displayed. “In” holds the meanings of included, engaged, involved, embraced. Or, as Jung said, the psyche is not in us; we are in the psyche. This feeling of being in the psyche becomes most palpable when inside the ruins of a Greek temple, in an Egyptian tomb of a king, in a dance or a ritual, and in a Japanese garden. Jung’s phrase “esse in anima” takes on concreteness then, as it does in a clear-cut forest, a bombed city, a cancer ward, a cemetery. Ecology, architecture, interior design are other modes of feeling the anima mundi. Instead of the usual notion of psyche in body, the body strolling through the garden is in the psyche. The world itself is a psychic body; and our bodies as we move, stand, look, pause, turn, and sit are performing an activity of psychic reflection, an activity we formerly considered only mentally possible in the mirror of introspection.
Fourth: the idea of individuality also changes, for in the Japanese garden trees are trimmed at the top and encouraged to grow sideways. Rather than an individuality of the lone tree, towering (and Jung said the single tree is a major symbol of the individuating Self), these trees stretch their branches toward others. Individuality is within community and, takes its definition from community. Furthermore, each tuft in the soft branches of the pine trees is plucked by gardeners. They pull out needles, allowing emptiness to individualize the shape of each twig. It is as if nothing can be individualized unless it is surrounded by emptiness and yet also very, very close to what it is most like. Individuality is therefore more visible within the estrange separateness and close similarity, for instance, of family than in trying to be “different” from family.
Fifth: not only are aged trees supported with crutches and encouraged to flower - blossoming belonging therefore not only to youth - but also the garden includes dead trees. What more wounds our narcissism than these images of old age, these crutched, dependent, twisted and dead trees? < “At least Aurora didn’t reject Tithonus, old, didn’t allow him to lie there lonely in the House of Dawn. She often fondled him, descending into her waters, before she bathed her yoked horses with care. She, when she rested in his arms, by neighbouring India, lamented that day returned too soon.”>
Sixth: the Karesanui gardens, or Zen-inspired gardens, present mainly white sand and found stones, rarely trees. In this bare place the mind watches itself making interpretations. The nine rocks in the raked sand are a tiger family swimming through the sea; the nine rocks are mountain tops peaking through white mist and clouds; the nine rocks are simply rocks, aesthetically placed with genius. One legend after another, one philosophy, theory or literary criticism, or psychological interpretation rises to the mind and falls back into the white sand. The garden becomes wholly metaphor, both what it is and what it is not, presence and absence at once. The concrete koan of the rock garden transforms the mind itself into metaphor, its thought transient while image endures, so that the mind cannot identify with its own subjectivism - narcissism overcome.
“This Open happens in the midst of beings. It exhibits an essential feature which we have already mentioned. To the Open there belong a world and the earth. But the world is not simply the Open that corresponds to clearing, and the earth is not simply the Closed that corresponds to concealment. Rather, the world is the clearing of the paths of the essential guiding directions with which all decision complies. Every decision, however, bases itself on something not mastered, something concealed, confusing; else it would never be a decision. The earth is not simply the Closed but rather that which rises up as self-closing. World and earth are always intrinsically and essentially in conflict, belligerent by nature. Only as such do they enter into the conflict of clearing and concealing.” - Heidegger, The Origin of the Work of Art.
‘“Hegel introduces this notion of ‘oppositional determination” in his logic of essence, when he discusses the relationship between identity and difference; his point there is not only that identity is always the identity of identity and difference, but that difference itself is also always the difference between itself and identity; in the same way, it is not only necessity that encompasses both itself and contingency, but also - and more fundamentally - it is contingency itself which encompasses both itself and necessity. Or, with regard to the tension between essence and appearance, the fact that essence has to appear within the domain of appearances, as a hint that “appearances are not all” but are “merely appearances.”’ - Zizek, Less than Nothing>
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Finally, I shall insist that the garden is not natural; nor is psyche natural. The garden was designed and is tended to maintain an artificiality that imitates nature . In Fort Worth, Texas, a large and marvelous Japanese garden was constructed years ago. But since adequate funds were not set aside for gardeners from Japan, nature slowly destroys that garden. Without the pruners’ perverted twist to each inch of nature, the garden declines into merely another part of the forest. A garden’s elaborate display of soul-in-the-world is an opus contra naturam, like alchemy. Like alchemy, the garden is a work of intense culture. Unlike alchemy, its matter, its body, is out there, rather than inside the glass vessel.
Because the garden is artificial, as the alchemist was called artifex, all conceptions of soul must be plucked of naturalistic fallacies. The soul as opus contra naturam will not be served adequately by fallacious comparisons with organic growth, cyclical process, and myths of nature goddesses. Nor does the garden shelter the child from which grows the creative person as psychotherapy is found to believe. By insisting upon the artificiality of our work with soul, I am trying to keep us from the Romantic error of confusing the ideal (Eden and the Elysian fields; Horaiko, in Japanese) with the natural. The garden as metaphor offers a romantic vision that saves us from Naturalistic Romanticism by twisting and sophisticating nature through art.
This twist to nature that wounds idealizations of garden is presented in our culture, as in Roman culture, by our ancient god of gardens and gardeners, Priapus. Priapus is neither young nor beautiful. Unlike lovely Narcissus, unlike the semi-divine figures of Adam and Eve, Priapus is mature, bald and paunchy, and so distorted that his mother, Venus, deserted him at birth. His very presence repels romantic idealizations and the gaze into the mirror of Venusian vanity as well as Narcissus’s rapt reflection. Priapic reflection starts the other way around; his preposterous swollen condition reflects the vitality of the world. The same force displays in him as in the buds and germinating pods. By means of distortion which deceptively seems “only natural,” Priapus invites the grotesque pathologized disproportions of imagination - and imagination, says Bachelard, works by deformation.
So, when I invoke Priapus, I am not speaking of priapismus; I am not speaking of machismo; and I am not anti-feminine. Let me be quite clear. I am speaking of the generative artificiality that is the essence of the garden and of the psyche. Each dream, each fantasy, and each symptomatic complication of natural health and normative humanity bears witness to the psyche’s libidinal pleasure in exaggeration, its fertile genius for imaginative distortion. If this god of gardens is also a god of psychoanalysis - and from Charcot through Lacan the priapic has been invoked - he brings to its work an archaic reflex beyond the romantic or baroque, a rousing urgency forward and outward. (Priapus was not permitted indoors in Hestia’s closed rooms where his presence becomes only violent and obscene.)
Moreover, this god needs no mirror to know himself, for his self is wholly displayed. His nature cannot be concealed within, so he is quite free of hidden meanings and subtle innuendos that keep psychoanalysis hopefully addicted to one more revelation, one more transformation, interminable. Priapus knows no metamorphosis, no transfigurations. Priapus is without ambiguity; metaphor is forbidden to him; he displays all, reveals nothing. Like the garden, all there. The rocks are the rocks.
<"And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." - Matthew 16:18>