Monday, 31 May 2021

BROTHER SUN : Fight The Future


 If We stop breathing, 
We Die —

If We stop fighting Our Enemies, 
THE WORLD Will Die.

So Point The Finger,
Say,No More!

Where it Touches :
UltraWar!
  


...As he goes to touch the now dead tube and pull it from Scully's mouth, 

a violent shaking takes over The Ship, 

a reaction to The Vaccine's •unwanted• intrusion. )


Cut to Old Smokey in a room full of equipment and monitors. 

A Man is seated in front of a monitor showing a graph of some kind.


MAN LOOKING AT GRAPH: 

There is 

A CONTAMINANT 

in The System!


Cancer Man looks at The Graph in HORROR.


CSM: 

Mulder has 

The Vaccine!


 "Survival is The Ultimate Ideology."

Your Father wisely refused to believe this.


END GAME 
     ACCESS CODE>

     CONFIDENTIAL 
     DECEMBER 22, 2012 
     "THE DATE SET FOR MOBILIZATION OF ALIEN FORCES CULMINATES IN THE COMPLETE ... 
     .. OF CIVILIAN AND MILITARY ... 
     .. WAS FIRST RECORDED BY ... 
     .. DANIEL M. MILLER UPON ... 
     .. -IGENCE IN ROSWELL, N.M., I- ... 
     .. -ONTACT WITH ALIEN FORCES ...
     .. MILITARY OFFICIALS ARE INSTRUCTED 
     .. FOLLOW EMERGENCY PROTOC- ... 
     .. -RUCTIONS. IT IS ANTICIPATED... 
     .. -MENT WILL BE DESTROYED ... 
     .. RESULTING IN THE TRANS- ... 
     .. THE FEDERAL EMERGENCY ...


SCENE 18 

WASHINGTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL


(DOGGETT is leaving a hospital room. He looks back through the window. MULDER and SCULLY approaching the corridor.)


SCULLY: 

Agent Doggett.


DOGGETT: 

Is this it? 


(pointing towards SCULLY's abdomen)


(MULDER and SCULLY look at each other, smiling.)


SCULLY: 

No. No.


MULDER: 

We just came by to visit 

Agent Harrison.


SCULLY: 

How is she?


DOGGETT: 

She's on the same anti-venom treatment I got. 

Her eyesight's pretty much back, the doctors say she's gonna be fine physically.


SCULLY: 

Skinner said she won't be returning to the X-Files.


DOGGETT: 

That was her choice. 

So it's gonna be me for a while.


(SCULLY looks thoughtful.)


MULDER: 

I want to return something to you that I think you deserve to keep.


DOGGETT: 

I appreciate the gesture but if it's all the same to you, 

there's someone else who should have it.


(Cut to HARRISON, smiling, holding the Apollo medallion.)


HARRISON: 

No way. This means, 

I can't tell you what this means to me.


(MULDER looks a little awkward.)


HARRISON: 

Can I ask you something?


(SCULLY looks impassive, perhaps not sure what's coming.)


MULDER: 

Sure.


HARRISON: 

When you went to Antarctica to save Agent Scully from being taken by that spaceship and you ran out of gas in your Sno-cat. 


How did you get back?



(SCULLY looks enquiringly at MULDER, 

who is looking perplexed. 


Throughout the following dialogue, 

MULDER and SCULLY talk across each other


SCULLY is being Scientific, 

MULDER is being MULDER, 

HARRISON is enjoying the banter. 


The whole scene is *very* enjoyable to watch.)


SCULLY: 

Um, well, first of all

it was never (coughs

actually proven that it was 

A Spaceship ...


MULDER: 

It wasn't?


SCULLY: 

Well, no, What Happened Was 

that we fell off of something that ...


MULDER: 

Something?


SCULLY: 

... that rose out of The Ice.



MULDER: 

Well what do you think that was?



SCULLY: 

Well, I don't know What it Was. 

But we never got, 

we didn't actually get to 

see A Spaceship.


MULDER: 

I can't believe that you're saying 

it's not A Spaceship.


SCULLY: 

Well, it couldn't have been A Spaceship.


MULDER: 

‘Course it was A Spaceship!


SCULLY: 

Well, we don't know it was A Spaceship. 

But you don't have A Picture of it or anything.


MULDER: 

You know it was a spaceship. 

You saw it.


SCULLY: 

No, no, no, no, remember, 

I was unconscious 

and when I woke up 

there was no spaceship.



MULDER: 

Now, come on, Scully. 

It was A Spaceship.


SCULLY: 

Mulder, n-n-n-no.


SCULLY: 

And you were frozen, and I hugged you .... 


(Their voices trail off.)


( Camera pans out to corridor. DOGGETT is standing looking in as MULDER and SCULLY continue their debate. He looks sad and walks away down the corridor. Alone. )


[THE END] 





Back to Mulder. 

The cryopod hallway he's in begins to fill with steam 

as it shoots out from the floor and ceiling. 


Mulder turns back to Scully and sees her move. 


He grabs the tube and begins to drag it out of her throat. 


Once it's all removed, and it's a long sucker, 

so it takes a sec or two, Mulder stares at her, 

waiting for A Sign of some kind.


MULDER: 

Breathe! Scully, can you breathe?!


Scully begins to cough, 

spitting out what's left of the slimy goo. 


Finally she starts breathing on her own, 

gasping for each sweet taste of oxygen. 


She tries to speak and barely manages a weak ..


SCULLY: 

Cold ... I'm cold.


MULDER: 

I'm going to get you Out of There.


He starts to whack away at the ice with a metallic cylinder next to him, 

probably shaken loose by the rocking and rolling 

The Ship is still experiencing.


Cut to the graph/monitor room, sparks flying from various machines as the men are tossed like ragdolls. 

It's time to give up The Ship, boys.


CSM: 

Abandon your posts! 

Evacuate!


Cancer Man walks towards one of the ladders the men are now scrambling down. Another man stops and says ..


MAN: 

What's happened?!


CSM:

It's all gone to hell!


MAN: 

But, what about Mulder?!


CSM: 

He'll never make it!


Cut back to Mulder as he gently lifts 

a naked Scully out of the cryopod, 

her body glistening with goo, 

and lays her down on the floor. 


Next we see him carrying her. 


She's now wearing some of Mulder's clothing, 

right down to a pair of boots, 

don't ask me where THEY came from! 


He reaches the bottom of a metallic shaft, 

sunlight beaming down upon them.


Cut to outside as an alarm sounds and men race out from the domes, running for the various Sno-Cats. 


Cancer Man gets into one, his mouth dangling open in shock as it "all falls apart". 


The vehicles drive off.



Back to Mulder and Scully as he drags her up a ladder. 

Far below them, the defrosting has begun and water drips down the walls.



From above, we see the Sno-Cats leaving, one passing within inches of the top of a shaft leading to our heroes.


Cut to inside where Mulder and Scully have found a momentary resting place. 


Scully is coughing and weak. 


Mulder urges her on.


MULDER: 

We gotta keep moving. 

Come on!



SCULLY: 

I can't.


MULDER: 

Yeah, you can.



Mulder picks her up and carries her in a fireman's lift, over his shoulders. 


He walks down a row of crypods, all ominously dripping with water from the defrosting ice. 


He spots a vent.


MULDER: 

Scully, reach up and grab that vent!



Suddenly, he spots movement in one of the pods. 


The creatures within have begun to stir. 


The vaccine has affected the whole structure, as the bodies were all obviously attached to the one creature.


MULDER: 

Scully, grab the vent! 

(no response

Scully?



He looks at her face on his shoulder, she's passed out. 


Mulder slides her off his shoulders, placing her on the floor and checks for a pulse. 


The creatures nearby, still encased in the swiftly melting ice are now violently thrashing about and emitting their high-pitched screams. 


With one eye on the creatures and one eye on Scully, 

Mulder begins performing a mean version of CPR.


MULDER: 

Please, breathe. 

Breathe ... breathe .... BREATHE!


(Scully begins to cough and splutter as she regains consciousness.)


MULDER: 

Breathe in, breathe in, breathe!


She begins to try and Speak, 

he has to place his ear almost on her mouth to hear.


SCULLY: 

I had you big time.



She smiles at him. 


No time for jokes, Scully, the aliens are coming! 


As Mulder pulls her to her feet, the ice-encased cryopods around them start to crack open as the creatures within begin to break free. 


He holds her up to the vent above her.


MULDER: 

Grab the vent. 

Pull! PULL!


Scully grabs the vent and pulls herself up. 


Mulder starts to climb up. 


One of the aliens breaks the pod and reaches out with its hand for Mulder. 


It grabs Mulder's leg. 


Scully stops and turns his head.


SCULLY: 

Mulder!


MULDER: 

Keep moving, Scully!



Mulder kicks it away and pulls himself up. They both climb through the tunnel, Mulder yelling encouragement from behind.


MULDER: 

Go! Go! Come on!


He keeps checking behind him as the alien screams continue, looking for any which may be chasing them. The light at the end of the proverbial tunnel gets brighter as they climb on.


MULDER: 

Almost there, keep going!


They pull themselves up to where Mulder first stopped after he fell through the ice, a slight turn in the vent. 


Just as Mulder clears the turn, an alien lashes out from behind but is cut off by the twist in the tunnel. 


They step over the part where Mulder first fell all the way down and make their way out the hole he originally made. 


Scully falls onto the snow, exhausted and Mulder perches next to her on one knee. 


He hears a sound and looks around for the origin. 


It's the ice ... 

it's cracking under their feet! 


He grabs Scully and throws one of her arms over his shoulder as they begin to run away. 


He stops for some ungodly reason and looks back seeing vents of steam starting to shoot out of the ice. 


They begin to run again as the ice begins cracking and falling away causing a huge crater to form. 


Suddenly the crater overtakes them and they disappear into the hole, but next we see them shoot into the air and slide off of the surface of the rising ship. 


They land on the edge of the crater. 


Mulder watches the spaceship as it flies overhead, his face glows with a heart-melting grin of childlike wonder and awe. 


Scully's face is turned towards the snow, too tired to move

as Mulder says, almost along with the audience ...


MULDER: 

Scully, ya gotta see this! Scully!


It's quiet, it's barely a mutter above a whisper, 

but we hear ...


SCULLY: 

I see it.


Spent from exhaustion, Mulder drops his head into the snow. 


Scully, finding the strength God gave 20 hearty men, 

scoots her body over to cover him from the freezing cold. 


She lifts his into her arms and cradles him as the camera pans back to show 

two lone figures perched 

alone on the edge of the bottomless crater 

left by the departing spaceship


Cut to Washington and don't start with me on 

How They Got Out of The Antarctic, 

there was extra gas can in the Sno-Cat, 

I don't know!



Saturday, 29 May 2021

The Sixth Segment

 

 
Don’t Give up....

You Mustn’t Give Up....”

MULDER:

Scully? Why would he say that - 

"Don't give up"? 

Why would he say such a thing to you?


SCULLY:

I think that was clearly meant for you, Mulder.


MULDER:

He didn't say it to me. 

He said it to you


If Father Joe were The Devil, why would he say 

the opposite of what The Devil might say


Maybe that's The Answer. 

The Larger Answer.


SCULLY

What do you mean?


MULDER

Don't give up.






Personality as Hierarchy — 

and Capacity for Transformation

 

  How, then, is the personality that balances respect for social institutions and, equally, creative transformation to be understood? It is not so easy to determine, given the complexity of the problem. 

 

For that reason, we turn to stories

 

Stories provide us with a broad template. They outline a pattern specific enough to be of tremendous value, if we can imitate it, but general enough (unlike a particular rule or set of rules) to apply even to new situations. 

 

In stories, we capture observations of the ideal personality. 

 

We tell tales about success and failure in adventure and romance

 

Across our narrative universes, success moves us forward to what is better, to the promised land; failure dooms us, and those who become entangled with us, to the abyss. 

 

The Good moves us upward and ahead, and Evil drags us backward and down. 

 

Great stories are about characters in action, and so they mirror the unconscious structures and processes that help us translate the intransigent world of facts into the sustainable, functional, reciprocal social world of values.*

 

  The properly embodied hierarchy of values — including the value of conservatism and its twin, creative transformation — finds its expression as a personality, in narrative — an ideal personality. Every hierarchy has something at its pinnacle. 

 

It is for this reason that a story, which is a description of the action of a personality, has A Hero (and even if that someone is The Antihero, it does not matter : The Antihero serves the function of identifying The Hero through contrast, as The Hero is what The Antihero is most decidedly not). 

 

The Hero is The Individual at The Peak, The Victor, The Champion, The Wit, The Eventually Successful and DeservingUnderdog, The Speaker of Truth Under Perilous Circumstances, and more

 






[Cyberlab

(The Chess Board is in place.

Mr. CLEVER : 
There. That was easy. 
The Game has just started.
Doctor, why is there NO record of You 
ANYWHERE in the databanks of 
The Cyberiad? 

Oh, you're good.

Oh, you've been eliminating 
Yourself from History. 

You know you could 
be reconstructed by 
The HOLE YOU’VE LEFT.





[Ten Forward]

(Data is about to speak, then changes his mind) 

 

WORF:

Wait. What is it, Commander? 

 

DATA:

I am sorry to bother you,

but I have a question of a personal nature.

 

Do you have a moment? 

 

WORF:

...A Moment.

 
DATA:

I have heard you mention that you once experienced A Vision.

 

 

WORF:

Yes. When I was young my adoptive parents

arranged for me to partake in 

The Rite of MajQa. 

 

DATA:

I understand it involves deep meditation

in the lava caves of No'Mat.

 

That prolonged exposure to the heat

induces a hallucinatory effect. 

 

WORF:

Why are you asking me about this? 

 

 

DATA:

I have recently had an unusual experience,

which might be described as A Vision. 

 

WORF:

What happened? 

 

 

DATA:

An accident in Engineering shut down my cognitive functions

for a short period of time, 

yet I seemed to remain conscious.

 

I saw My Father. 

 

WORF:

You are very fortunate.

That is a powerful vision. 

 

 

DATA:

If it was A Vision,

I do not know how to proceed. 

 

WORF:

You must find its Meaning.

If it has anything to do with Your Father, 

you must learn all you can about it.

 

In the Klingon MajQa ritual,

there is nothing more important

than receiving a revelation 

about Your Father.

 

Your Father is a Part of You, always.

Learning about him 

teaches you about yourself.

 

That is why no matter

Where He Is or What He Has Done,

you must find him. 

 

DATA:

....but I am not looking for My Father(?) 

 

WORF:

.....Yes, of course.

 

Do not stop until you have

The Answer

 

DATA :

Thank you, Worf.

 

 

We know what it looks like -- 

We can make one.

 

 

[Zeos computer room]

 

(M.E.N.T.A.L.I.S. is a wreck of molten plastic.)

 

DOCTOR:

That was close.

 

ROMANA:

How did they manage to miss?

 

DOCTOR:

They weren't aiming at me,

they were aiming at that, the control centre,

like a scorpion stinging itself to death.

As soon as it sensed I was trying to interfere with the sequence,

it destroyed its own control centre.

 

It's mindless now,

clicking toward oblivion.

 

How long, K9?

 

K9:

Damage renders data unavailable.

 

DOCTOR:

(Thinks….)

The TARDIS!

 

ROMANA:

Come on, K9!

 

(They run for their lives.)

 

[Marshal's module]

 

PILOT: 

Within range, sir.


MARSHAL: 

Go in closer. As close as you dare.

(The Doctor, Romana and K9 enter the Shadow's lair and enter The TARDIS.)

 

[TARDIS]

 

The Doctor enters with 

Five of The Six Pieces of The Key to Time.

DOCTOR

Here, take a look at this.

ROMANA: 

Ah, you put the five pieces together. Good.

DOCTOR: 

Have you got the tracer?

ROMANA: 

Yes.

DOCTOR: 

Lock it in. Lock it.

 

ROMANA: 

Now what?

 

DOCTOR: 

Well, it was just an idea -- 

I thought if we had Five-Sixths 

of the pieces it might give us 

some power —

Obviously Guardian Technology 

doesn't work that way.


ROMANA: 

If only we had The Sixth Piece.


DOCTOR: 

Yeah — !!

Or a Sixth Piece...!!


ROMANA: 

What do you mean?


Pointing --


DOCTOR: 

What do you see there?


ROMANA: 

A Gap.


DOCTOR: 

Exactly. A GAP —  

The exact shape of The Sixth Piece.

 

ROMANA: 

Oh!

 

DOCTOR: 

We know what it looks like —

We can make one.

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

The Necessity of Balance

 

  Because doing what others do and have always done so often works, and because, sometimes, radical action can produce success beyond measure, the conservative and the creative attitudes and actions constantly propagate themselves. 

 

A functional social institution — a hierarchy devoted to producing something of value, beyond the mere insurance of its own survival — can utilize the conservative types to carefully implement processes of tried-and-true value, and the creative, liberal types to determine how what is old and out of date might be replaced by something new and more valuable. 

 

The balance between conservatism and originality might therefore be properly struck, socially, by bringing the two types of persons together. But someone must determine how best to do that, and that requires a wisdom that transcends mere temperamental proclivity. 


Because the traits associated with creativity, on the one hand, and comfort with the status quo, on the other, tend to be mutually exclusive, it is difficult to find a single person who has balanced both properly, who is therefore comfortable working with each type, and who can attend, in an unbiased manner, to the necessity for capitalizing on the respective forms of talent and proclivity. But the development of that ability can at least begin with an expansion of conscious wisdom: the articulated realization that conservatism is good (with a set of associated dangers), and that creative transformation—even of the radical sort—is also good (with a set of associated dangers). 


Learning this deeply—truly appreciating the need for both viewpoints—means at least the possibility of valuing what truly diverse people have to offer, and of being able to recognize when the balance has swung too far in one direction. 


The same is true of the knowledge of the shadow side of both. To manage complex affairs properly, it is necessary to be cold enough in vision to separate the power hungry and self-serving pseudoadvocate of the status quo from the genuine conservative; and the self-deceptive, irresponsible rebel without a cause from the truly creative. And to manage this means to separate those factors within the confines of one’s own soul, as well as among other people.

 

  And how might this be accomplished? First, we might come to understand consciously that these two modes of being are integrally interdependent. One cannot truly exist without the other, although they exist in genuine tension. This means, first, for example, that discipline—subordination to the status quo, in one form or another—needs to be understood as a necessary precursor to creative transformation, rather than its enemy. Thus, just as the hierarchy of assumptions that make up the structure that organizes society and individual perceptions is shaped by, and integrally dependent on, restrictions, so too is creative transformation. It must strain against limits. It has no use and cannot be called forth unless it is struggling against something. 

 

It is for this reason that The Great Genie, The Granter of Wishes — God, in a microcosm — is archetypally trapped in the tiny confines of a lamp and subject, as well, to the will of The Lamp’s current holder. Genie — genius — is the combination of possibility and potential, and extreme constraint.

 

  Limitations, constraints, arbitrary boundaries — rules, dread rules, themselves — therefore not only ensure social harmony and psychological stability, they make the creativity that renews order possible. What lurks, therefore, under the explicitly stated desire for complete freedom — as expressed, say, by the anarchist, or the nihilist — is not a positive desire, striving for enhanced creative expression, as in the romanticized caricature of the artist. It is instead a negative desire — a desire for the complete absence of responsibility, which is simply not commensurate with genuine freedom. 

 

This is the lie of objections to the rules. 

 

But “Down with Responsibility” does not make for a compelling slogan — being sufficiently narcissistic to negate itself self-evidently — while the corresponding “Down with the Rules” can be dressed up like a heroic corpse.

 

  Alongside the wisdom of true conservatism is the danger that the status quo might become corrupt and its corruption self-servingly exploited. Alongside the brilliance of creative endeavor is the false heroism of the resentful ideologue, who wears the clothes of the original rebel while undeservedly claiming the upper moral hand and rejecting all genuine responsibility. Intelligent and cautious conservatism and careful and incisive change keep the world in order. 

 

But each has its dark aspect, and it is crucial, once this has been realized, to pose the question to yourself: 

Are you the real thing, or its opposite? 

 

And the answer is, inevitably, that you are some of both — and perhaps far more of what is shadowy than you might like to realize. 

 

That is all part of understanding the complexity we each carry within us.