Alchemic Power Of Thor

Alchemic Power Of Thor

          Outline for a Comic Book

“Alchemic Power Of Thor” is a pet imaginary project of mine. It is a Mighty Thor comic, explaining and advocating the thorium reactor.

Thor and Loki descend into the Underworld, and visit the Five-Sided Temple. There they meet with the death-god Pluto and with Ares, the Lord of War. On the agenda; which type of alchemic power reactor for Ares? Thor’s liquid-fluoride-thorium reactor, or Pluto’s light-water plutonium reactor?

Thor and Pluto present tutorials about their reactors, brightly illustrated in comic-book colors. Ares is only mildly interested in the greater efficiency of Thor’s reactor, and the greater abundance of thorium over uranium; he is intrigued by extracting precious rhodium from Thor’s reactor waste; he is much intrigued by extracting weapons plutonium from Pluto’s reactor-waste. Naive Thor gaffes badly by bragging that his reactor is useless for making bombs.

And as for the rest of the alchemic waste (100000 years deadly for Pluto’s reactor, 300 years deadly for Thor’s, Thor’s reactor can burn Pluto’s alchemic waste) Ares cares not one little bit. Ares chooses Pluto’s reactor.

Defeated, Thor and Loki leave the Underworld; but tricky Loki tells saddened Thor to cheer up; for when Loki tells the news to the people of Midgard, they praise Thor. The Midgardians say that the War-Lord’s rejection of Thor’s reactor is for them an endorsement!

All hail mighty Thor!

Magic for the People!

         Magic for the People!

        

         Consider these three fictional worlds: Harry Potter, Star Wars and Avatar, the Last Airbender. In each of these worlds there is efficacious magic, wielded by a genetic elite; and in each of these worlds those elite magicians constantly bicker, and the common folk just have to take it.

         I object! And I counter-propose that, in each of these worlds, the common folk shall scientifically investigate magic, deduce its nature and principles, and invent technologies to duplicate or surpass the powers of the magicians. Magic for the People!

         Obviously most of the magicians would oppose this move; but a few renegade magicians would side with the common folk for reasons of their own. This creates conflict, which is always good for story-telling.

         In the Harry Potter world, Hermoine is the logical candidate for scientific revolutionary. She knows both Muggle and Wizard worlds; she knows how science works; she sees how little the wizards know of their own magic; and she has no stake in the wizard-world power structure. When she does actual science on their magic, the wizards will feel disquiet, and rightly so; for as soon as Hermoine figures out how to give Muggles magic, then she’ll go on global TV.

         Star Wars has already set the stage for the democratization of the Force; for it is now canon that Force powers depend upon having midichlorians. If it’s as simple and material as that, then let there be midichlorians for all! It’s a simple matter of medical technology. Of course neither Jedi nor Sith would take kindly to common folk doing Force tricks; only a real rebel would dare take on them both.

         Avatar, the Last Airbender, also has openings to the democritization of magic. The Avatar can take bending away from people; perhaps he or she can give it to people.

         In all of these stories there is the technical problem of what pseudo-scientific explanation to give for the magic. I recommend an elliptical approach; the viewers and reader don’t really want your pseudo-science, unless you can make it interesting. The trouble  is that your lone imagination is no match for the marvels of the real universe; so perhaps your magic-science should simply be an imitation or parody of known physical law. Or you can imitate traditional magics; Voudon or some such; and there are modern analyses of traditional magics, such as the Law of Contagion and the Law of Similarity. What you should show is the scientific process; the questioning and errors and experiment and error-correction; as compared to the dogmatism of the magicians.

         In all these stories the conflict is built in. Our heroes are sages, rebels and explorers, up against secrecy, ignorance and power.

No magical battles, please; we should establish early on that a machine gun beats a light saber.

         In the end, the people win; perhaps in the form of a non-magician successfully winning a magical contest. Power to the People!

Saga Of The Spook Duke

         Saga Of The Spook Duke

         Outline of a fantasy historical play in 3 acts

         Act One. Enter Edward de Vere, 17^th Earl of Oxford. He is cultured, well-travelled, well-spoken and imaginative. His Queen summons him to her secret service. Intrigue follows; espionage, secrets, lies, exposures, reversals, betrayals, swordfights and the knife in the back. In the end Elizabeth the First deprives him of title, lands, name, identity… but not life. He becomes a genuine ‘spook’; not merely a spy, but truly a restless spirit, neither alive nor dead. And what made the Virgin Queen grant so grim a reward, and the Earl accept it? I propose illicit love. His clever tongue got him into trouble, and then halfway out.

         Act Two. The Spook Duke (yes, he’s an Earl, but Spook Duke rhymes) takes to dreaming, having nought else to while away the tedious days and year of his half-life. He dreams of the life he used to have; and what a tale he tells! But he cannot speak in forthright journalistic prose, for the ever-watchful Queen would punish indiscretion with true death. Instead he retreats to poetic drama. And even so, what use unpublished playwrighting? Enter Wm. Shakespeare, impresario, manager of the Globe Theater. He offers a deal; “I provide actors, sets, costumes, audience and my signature; you, O Spook Duke, provide the one thing I lack; Genius.” And why does the forlorn Spook Duke accept the humble role of ghostwriter? What but illicit love? The genius is bisexual and grateful, the impresario opportunistic; such liasons are not unknown in the theater world.

         Act Three. Time passes, as does life. Eventually the Bard dies, both his body (Wm. Shakespeare) and his soul (the Spook Duke). The Bard is laid to rest, a tombstone erected at the gravesite; and on the headstone are the words, “curs’d be he who moves these bones.” Does the grave have something to hide? Could it be that the coffin holds not one skeleton, but two? But who would dare defy the Bard’s curse, just to check a literary theory?

         The curse is on “he who moves these bones.”  I propose this ending, fit for a Queen; the gravediggers and forensic scientists who unearth the coffin are women!

Xe

        Xe

I write today about the mercenary war criminal gang formerly known as Blackwater but later called Xe.

          Xe?! When I first heard that I thought, those Bushites are a literary gift that keep on giving! Found poetry this pungent begs to be co-opted for satirical literary use; so what over-the-top fantasy entity or place should be named Xe? Obviously evil. Perhaps a part of the underworld, for mercs, frauds and war criminals? Or an evil spirit of that name, reponsible for those crimes? Or maybe a ruthless meddling space-alien Grey? Xe might be the name of an accursed palace, or a falling tyrant's doomed bunker.

          Let me put it all together, in this precis:


          XE

          Xe is a ruthless meddling saucer-riding space-alien Grey; a mercenary, fraud and war criminal, running a gang of the same. "Xe" is in fact a pronoun in xir language, denoting the third (transmission, or apex) sex in xir biology. The fact that Xe was referring to xirself as a pronoun indicates Xe's alienation.

          Part of Xir MO is psychic terrorism. Xe derives the power of xir telepathic assaults from the flaws in xir own personality, which grow with each success. Soon Xe is quite mad, as is the entire Xe enterprise. Soon their plans collapse, and Xe and xir closest associates take refuge in xir super-bunker; an underground arcology also named Xe.

          But vengeance pursues them, and lays seige on the underlord's planet with asteroid strikes. In the final megaseconds Xe goes raving mad, ordering into battle spacefleets long vaporized, ranting loudly of the incompetence of underlings and the ingratitude of the masses. Just before the arcology falls, Xe teeks xir own brains out.


          There, I've written it! Xe, indeed!