8FOLD: Nonfiction # 3, "The New War"

Tom Russell joltcity at gmail.com
Mon Jun 23 14:33:51 PDT 2014


On Sunday, June 22, 2014 1:25:47 PM UTC-4, Andrew Perron wrote:

> ...JEEZ. How the heck do they cooperate long enough to be a giant star empire 
> 
> if they're so *touchy*?
> 
> 
> 
> (Note to self: Expand on this in the Roundup.)

Well-- as is mentioned later and you pick up on below, it might be less that they're touchy or tetchy and more that they wanted an excuse. Or it could be that their culture is quite different and quite alien to our own.

> >     "The public doesn't really get an opinion on this," says Burton
> 
> > with an air of academic bemusement. "This isn't a neighboring country
> 
> > that we can make peace with."
> 
> 
> 
> Ah, yes, the ol' "we have to suspend all forms of government, because clearly, 
> 
> my way is the right way, and nobody should be allowed to argue with it".

I get what you're saying-- and that's an attitude that certainly pops up in, and is unhealthy for, political discourse and self-governance. But that's not really the attitude I was trying to convey here. It's less of a "there's no room for debate on how to fight against this threat of planet-wide extinction, so we have to do it this way" and more "there's no room for debate on whether or not we have to fight against this threat of planet-wide extinction, because the alternate is that extinction".

In real world conflicts (nation-vs.-nation), one side or the other can, and usually should, sue for peace. Public opinion-- anti-war or otherwise-- can and should effect policy changes in a democratic society. What the guy is saying is that in this kind of conflict, where it's not about redrawing borders, payment of restitution, etc., there's nothing to "give" to the other side. You can't sue for peace, and so anti-war protests can't really effect any kind of change. Isolationism, pacifism, they're not options in this case. (Or, I guess, they are options, but the end result is death, so they're not really viable.)

> > Last month, every person on Earth "heard" someone claiming to be
> 
> > Gregory Dingham in their head.
> 
> 
> 
> Ahhhh, is that what happened.

Apparently. :-)

> >     And the cosmic godflood is still cascading towards us, ever-nearer,
> 
> > a threat not only to all life on Earth, but to all life in the
> 
> > universe itself.
> 
> 
> 
> ...did I miss this?

Nope. :-)

You have to bear in mind that the vast majority of what I've written for Eightfold, at least in terms of verbiage, takes place in 2005-2008. So there are some things that are happening in 2014 that I haven't fully developed yet, with yet being the operative word. The godflood is one of those, and when we do see it play out, it shall be "An Epic For Our Times", and it will feature Cosmic Battle Antlers. So this is just a little tease.

Another thing we haven't seen *yet* is the Gorgon-Hotspur Team, though of course we've seen the Gorgon twice now (JOURNEY INTO #3, JOLT CITY # 21) and mentioned a handful of other times. Hotspur has shown up once before, and bonus points if you can name it without googling it... (Honor system, gents and ladles!)

> 
> WOO
> 
> 
> 
> Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, good ending.

Thanks!

==Tom



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