The Game

The Pawn Who is The King :

Guardians pose as prisoners,

but none would be intimidated by me.

The Rook :

They know you're a prisoner?

The Pawn Who is The King :

Only other prisoners would obey me.

The Rook :

So you've found a way to identify.

The Pawn Who is The King :

One has to know who one can rely on.

Second Boy: 

One of the figures in some of the epics, like the "Faerie Queene," is the dwarf who accompanies Una and the Redcrosse Knight where the idea for Angelo Muscat come from?

McGoohan: 

Oh. I don't know. 

Where did that come from?

Second Boy: 

Is there a literary image...

McGoohan: 

No, I certainly never thought of one. 

There were all sorts of interpretations to little Angelo. He's a very sweet man and...a very, very sweet man. 

It's this sort of...there should be something also--sinister about him. 

I mean, there was always the possibility that he might be No. 1. 

See, I don't know if anyone...do you pick up that at all? 

I don't know, but that...because he was such a good friend and always by the side of No. 6, that there was...should have been an implication that perhaps he was a sinister character, and particularly in the last episode, when he goes...he's the one that goes out with No. 6 and they go into the...

Maybe he's over No. 1 somewhere...you know they have so...they have stars, superstars, and what are they gonna call them next? Comets? 

So what...maybe he's a comet or something, little...little Angelo. 

So there should be that remaining sinister thing about it.

White King :

Sir, you play a fine game.

Yes...

White King :

- Shall we walk?

Why not? Lead on.

Why do you use people?

White King :

It satisfies the desire for power

It's the only opportunity here.

White King :

Depends which side you're on.

- I'm on my side.

White King :

Aren't we all?

White King :

You must be new.

Most of us join The Enemy.

White King :

Have you?

- Let's talk about the game.

- Why do both sides look alike?

- How do I know black from white?

- Well?

By their disposition. You soon know who's for you or against you.

I don't follow you.

- It's psychology, as in life - you judge by attitudes.

People don't need uniforms.

Why complicate it?

White King :

To keep your mind alert.

What use is that here?

Let's walk.

Why do you keep your mind alert?

White King :

Now? Hmm... from habit.

Just to defy them.

Too old. Too old.

For what?

White King :

Escape.

- You had a plan?

White King :

Everybody does, but they all fail.

Why?

White King :

It's like The Game. 

You have to distinguish between black and white.

- You're following me.

- Oh!

- When do you plan to escape?

- How do you know I was going to?

- Everybody plans to. I'll help.

- Help who?

I like you. If it's a good plan,

I'll escape with you.

- I've helped people's plans.

- But you're still here.

- None of them succeeded.

- Coincidence(!)

I can tell you what not to try.

- How do I know I can trust you?

- That's a risk you have to take.

Not me.






- What have I done?
- Why did you run?

- I don't know!
- A sign of resistance.

- No!
- The will to escape.

No! I didn't think!

- It was instinctive?
- Y... yes. No! Oh, anything you say.

- Your thoughts interest me.
- What do you mean?

Come with me.

(Panting)

Why should you hide?

How long have you been here?

A month... A year...
Don't you know?

- Do you still hope?
- Hope? To die. Nothing else.

- Death is an escape?
- One day I'll die and beat you all!

- Why were you brought here?
- You don't need to ask.

I'm asking.

I invented a new defence system.

- Go on.
- But I've confessed it all before.

- Try again.
- It would have ensured peace.

- Treason?
- Perhaps.

They let the plans get stolen anyway.

You think that's funny?

Yes. All this to safeguard secrets,

then some fool gets his bag swiped.

- You had nothing to do with it?
- I'd die happy if I had.

I didn't mean that.
Leave me alone!

You still have an independent mind.
There are very few of us left.

You're wrong!

- Us?
- I'm a prisoner, too.

Oh, I've been caught that way before.

- It's a fact.
- Then why the inquisition?

- To make sure you're what I need.
- For what?

We'll talk again.

(Phone)

Yes?

Sir, Number Six is getting
friendly with the Rook.

Switch me into vision.

By my manner,
you assumed I was a guardian.

- That's true.
- I knew you were a prisoner.

Audio.

He should have moved
the King's Knight.

But Bishop takes Knight.

Queen takes Bishop - checkmate.

Seems all right.

You want a watch kept?

Yes...

No. Just a minute.

- Doctor?
- Yes, Number Two?

Are you confident about
the rehabilitation treatment?

On the Rook?
He's now properly integrated.

- You heard that?
- Yes.

The Rook will teach Number Six
there's no point in rebelling.

Guardians pose as prisoners,
but none would be intimidated by me.

- They know you're a prisoner?
- Only other prisoners would obey me.

So you've found a way to identify.

One has to know who one can rely on.

- What is the plan?
- First things first.

Let's find our reliable men.

- I'd like a word with you.
- You'll have to wait.

All right, forget it.

Guardian.

What do you think?

- Something wrong, sir?
- Did you paint this?

Yes. If it's not satisfactory...

- Yes?
- I'll do it again.

No, I'm satisfied. Are you?

- Yes.
- Carry on, 42. We'll be in touch.

Very good, sir.

- Yes, gentlemen?
- We'd like to inspect your books.

- Never been done before!
- There's always a first time.

Well, er, I think you'll find everything in order.

Mr. World

“I’m Proud of The Lawsuit.”

I Am Off to Die With Odin, The Old Bastard.

“Odin

The highest and the oldest of all the gods is Odin.

Odin knows many secrets. He gave an eye for wisdom. More than that, for knowledge of runes, and for power, he sacrificed himself to himself.

He hung from the world-tree, Yggdrasil, hung there for nine nights. His side was pierced by the point of a spear, which wounded him gravely. The winds clutched at him, buffeted his body as it hung. Nothing did he eat for nine days or nine nights, nothing did he drink. He was cold, in agony, and on the point of death when his sacrifice bore dark fruit: in the ecstasy of his agony he looked down, and the runes were revealed to him. He knew them, and understood them and their power. The rope broke then, and he fell, screaming, from the tree.

Now he understood magic. Now the world was his to control.

Odin has many names. He is the All-Father, The Lord of The Slain, The Gallows God. He is the God of Cargoes and of Prisoners. He is called Grimnir and Third. He has different names in every country (for he is worshipped in different forms and in many tongues, but it is always Odin they worship).

He travels from place to place in disguise, to see The World as People see it. When He walks among Us, he does so as a tall man, wearing a cloak and hat.

He has two ravens, whom he calls Huginn and Muninn, which mean “thought” and “memory.” These birds fly back and forth across the world, seeking news and bringing Odin all the Knowledge of Things. They perch on his shoulders and whisper into his ears.

When he sits on his high throne at Hlidskjalf, he observes All Things, wherever they may be. Nothing can be hidden from Him.

He brought War into The World: battles are begun by throwing a spear at the hostile army, dedicating the battle and its deaths to Odin. If you survive in battle, it is with Odin’s grace, and if you fall it is because he has betrayed you.

If you fall bravely in war the Valkyries, beautiful battle-maidens who collect the souls of the noble dead, will take you and bring you to the hall known as Valhalla. He will be waiting for you in Valhalla, and there you will drink and fight and feast and battle, with Odin as your leader.

The Underground Subversive Rebel Sunglasses Cult

”Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. 

Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. 

I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside This World. 

And yet, I ask you — 

‘Is not an Alien Force already among us?’

President Ronald Regan

Address to United Nations General Assembly 

21 September 1987

I got a Male, Caucasian

Doesn’t Appear to Be Armed

Wearing Sunglasses

They Say He Wears Make-Up

The Aztec God Xipe Totec can be identified by his Mask 

and Suit of Flayed Human Skin.

His Native Land is The Place of The UnFleshed.

The Circle is Now Complete — 

The Ancient Kryptonian Prophecy is Fullfilled : 

The Son Becomes The Father, 

and 

The Father, The Son.

The Higher, The Fewer

The Trickster Preceeds The Saviour, 

The Penguin Preceeds The Joker

....and Then : 

The Return of The Joker

FaceCrime

And Then, The Shapeshifting Began....

And Then, The Shapeshifting Began —

"Hi, Mom — this is your son, Mark Bingham.

You Do Believe Me, Don't You Mom...?"

Loki

by Neil Gaiman

Loki is very handsome. He is plausible, convincing, likable, and far and away the most wily, subtle, and shrewd of all the inhabitants of Asgard. It is a pity, then, that there is so much darkness inside him: so much anger, so much envy, so much lust.

Loki is the son of Laufey, who was also known as Nal, or needle, because she was slim and beautiful and sharp. His father was said to be Farbauti, a giant; his name means “he who strikes dangerous blows,” and Farbauti was as dangerous as his name.

Loki walks in the sky with shoes that fly, and he can transform his shape so he looks like other people, or change into animal form, but his real weapon is his mind. He is more cunning, subtler, trickier than any god or giant. Not even Odin is as cunning as Loki.

Loki is Odin’s blood brother. 

The other gods do not know when Loki came to Asgard, or how. 

He is Thor’s friend and Thor’s betrayer. 

He is tolerated by the gods, perhaps because his stratagems and plans save them as often as they get them into trouble.

Loki makes The World more interesting but less safe. 

He is The Father of Monsters, 

The Author of Woes, 

The Sly God.

Loki drinks too much, and he cannot guard his words or his thoughts or his deeds when he drinks. 

Loki and his children will be there for Ragnarok, The End of Everything, and it will not be on the side of the gods of Asgard that they will fight.”

The Hypertime of Back to The Future

"How does it work? Off the central timeline we just left. Events of importance often cause divergent “tributaries” to branch off the main timestream. 

But what’s astounding is there’s far more to it than that. On occasion, these tributaries return—sometimes feeding back into the central timeline, other times overlapping it briefly before charting an entirely new course. 

An old friend is suddenly recalled after years of being forgotten. 

A scrap of history becomes misremembered, even reinvented in the common wisdom. 

There are hazards to Hypertime, of course.... 

Artifacts carried into differing hypertimelines dangerously break down the barriers between kingdoms... but you’ll learn more about that in the months and years to come. "

 

— (Rip Hunter, The Kingdom #2, 1999)

One reassuring thing is that, despite the fears of some, the timestream seems capable of absorbing paradoxes.  

“Some would have you believe that time is a house of cards, and that if you remove one card, the house collapses. 

The physics of time, however, allow for another possibility: remove that same card, and the house rebuilds itself— but never to its original form” 

— (Chronos #9, 1998).

BRUCE BANNER: [Disgusted] 

First of all, that's horrible...

RHODEY: 

It's Thanos.

BRUCE BANNER: 

...And secondly, Time doesn't work that way. 

Changing The Past doesn't change The Future.

SCOTT LANG: 

Look, we go back, we get the stones before Thanos gets them... 

Thanos doesn't have the stones. Problem solved.

CLINT BARTON: 

Bingo.

NEBULA: 

That's not How it Works.

CLINT BARTON: 

Well, that's what I heard.

BRUCE BANNER: 

What? By who? 

Who told you that?

RHODEY:

 [counting with his fingers] 

Star Trek, 

Does not apply to Capt. Benjamin Sisko/Gabriel Bell,

Emissary of The Prophets,

or The Prophets of Bajor themselves —

It is Not Linear.

Terminator

Terminator actually exploits a Deterministic Bootstrap Paradox.

TimeCop

Time After Time -

Nobody Travels into The Past in Time After Time — 

Jack The Ripper travels into The Present, pursed by  H.G. Wells

SCOTT LANG: 

Quantum Leap -

 This is, in fact, exactly how Time Travel in Quantum Leap works — it's the entire premise for the whole show :

It's The Observer Effect — 

You Change The Result by Measuring It.

The only reason Dr. Sam Beckett is able to make The Journey of crossing his own timeline, be an actor in events of The Past and change established history is because he has no memory of history, as a consequence of making The Journey.

That's also the reason why his range of travel is restricted to The Past within his own lifetime - he is not actually travelling history to change it, he is re-visiting events in Living Memory, making new memories and Remembering it Differently.

He is only able to do this, because he has completely forgotten The Past — or, at least, is far-from certain he is remembering it correctly

Meanwhile, Al, "The Observer" either does remember the original history, or is able to access it's records via Ziggy The Computer's Database — he is able to project an image of himself into the Memories of The Collective Unconscious to communicate information (in the form of stochastic Quantum Probabilities) to Sam, whilst being unable to directly affect any change himself)

It is significant that when Sam is able to recall memories of History or his past life, he invariably misremembers them, until 'corrected' by Al, who remembers Sam 'accurately'.

Sam initially misremembers Ziggy as being the 'Little Guy, with The Bad Breath.' But no, that's Gouschi, as Al correctly informs him.

Sam then misremembers Ziggy as being the Male Personality of the Quantum AI Supercomputer controlling Project Quantum Leap, for the next 3 Years — 

Al never corrects him.

Ziggy is Male — until he swaps places with Al, arrives back home at his Point of Origin and Ziggy has become a female supercomputer (programmed with Barbara Steisand's ego).

And Sam is now a married man. 

Which he wasn't before.

He returns to find himself released into The Present,

Facing Mirror Images that are finally his own,

And driven by manifest necessity to rescue his friend from History.

His only bride in this endeavour is Donna (neé Elisi), 

A Science-WorkWife from His Own Field,

Who appears in the form of a Woman everybody else can See and Hear —

And so, Dr. Becket found himself, married to his former long-lost sweetheart, 

whose life he successfully turned around in one of his earliest leaps, somehow happily married to him despite having previously having jilted two former financés at The Altar, with Sam being the second and latter of the two-time loser schucks she went and made them look ridiculous....

RHODEY: 

A Wrinkle in Time, 

Somewhere in Time -

Where Christopher Reeve travels into The Past via Deep Trance Hypnosis.

SCOTT LANG: 

Hot Tub Time Machine -

The Theory of Time Travel in Hot Tub Time Machine actually plays to The Bootstrap Predestination Paradox — 

You can visit The Past to create The Present, but you cannot create any outcome that hasn't always been True.

RHODEY: 

Hot Tub Time Machine. 

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. 

Again, Bill and Ted can cross their own timeline to create their present circumstance, but they can also generate future events and consequences simply by an Act of Will, through sincere intent — 

'Once I and My Friend Have Succeeded and Triumphed,

I Will Go Back in Time After Now to Steal My Dad's Keys, 

Therefore I Know Where They Are 

and So Once I Collect Them, I Shall Have Them'

Small wonder it is then, that the people of the society of Rufus' era come to regard William S. (Hey, I only just noticed that one! —) and Theodore Logan as Nietzschan Superman —

Thus Spake Zarathustra : —

'No Way...!'

Basically, any movie that deals with time travel.

SCOTT LANG: 

Die Hard? No, it's not one...

Now, There's a line to be pondered-over for decades to come, if ever I saw one....

If I was to speculate at this point, I would maybe suggest that Scott suggests this because he is remembering the line 

'How Can The Same Shit Happen to The Same Guy Twice?'

Now, that's just a guess — and I am a good guesser, generally.

But I am certainly not prepared to commit myself emotionally to any answer on this, and definitely not at this stage, at a point so early into The Game —

Time May Tell — it usually does.

RHODEY: 

This is known.

BRUCE BANNER: 

I don't know why everyone believes that, but that isn't True. 

Think about it: If you travel to The Past, 

that past becomes Your Future. 

And your former Present becomes The Past. 

Which can't now be changed by Your New Future...

NEBULA: 

Exactly.

SCOTT LANG: 

So... Back To The Future's a bunch of bullshit..?

Well, Back to The Future Part II certainly isn't — and  nor mostly is Back to The Future Part III, which is also fine, because it involves journeying into History beyond Living Memory (which is precisely what Dr. Sam Beckett is unable to do — 

except for that one time when he was flung back into The Civil War, into his Family History, by swapping places with his own ancestor.)

So, how is it that Marty and Doc Brown are able to interact and commune across time in safety so relatively freely in 1955, and interact with Marty's closest blood relatives and immediate antecedents, whilst avoiding many of the most serious hazards (unless you happen to be a Pine Tree, of course), and have those interactions affect stable and lasting change in The Present?

Rather alarmingly, it appears to have much to do with suffering concussive head trauma —

Marty Mc.Fly gets knocked unconscious a lot....

Almost all of the major characters do, at some point or another, whether by means of Chloroform, gut-rot whiskey, the Doc's Delta-Wave sleep inducer, a bolt of lightning, getting chased by a bear over a cliff.....

But if you pay careful attention, almost any change in temporal location for Marty is usually either accompanied by, or swiftly followed by a severe blow to the head, which renders him completely unconscious for several hours — almost every character comments upon this, but Doc Brown's initial encounter with Marty in 1955 and all of his subsequent interactions occur beginning on the day he slipped, standing on the wet edge of his toilet and cracked his head against the sink, whereafter he first conceived of the Flux Capacitor as a vision in his unconscious stupor. 

This is initially speculated to be the cause for his apparent failure to remember the subsequent events of November 5-12th 1955 whilst Marty stayed with him, and failure to prepare for What is to Come, in spite of giving him privileged access to and future knowledge of the finished and completed time vehicle he hasn't built yet.

Of course, as we all know, it eventually transpires that he does remember them (although whether or not he did before, and all along is somewhat open to debate, given the evidence of Lone/Twin Pines Mall), and the Doc's freedom and capacity to choose a New Future for himself ultimately hinges solely on his decision to trust his friend, and have faith in Marty's love and affection for him, irrespective of the fact that he is a friend who has not yet actually met yet, in a strictly linear sense of the causalities involved.

Just for good measure, at the start of Back to The Future III, now that things have become really complicated causally with respect to Doc Brown's memories, he throws in the additional piece of speculation, whilst Journaling about the previous evening's successful time experiment, that the consequence of having electromagnetic flux (fluxing), when having been stood directly next to a bolt of lightning striking a copper cable (with quite a considerable jolt of that old 1.21-JgW. likely having passed through his body) had erased part of his memory and induced a degree of retrograde amnesia of the past week's event — which is all very sound scientifically..... 

Magnetic Pulses of relatively minute flux density, directed towards the frontal cortex and cerebellum are proven to produce (or rather, induce) profound subjective sensory and perceptual synesthesia, and can most certainly block formation of new memories, and even erase, re-contextualise or re-write existing memories, both recent and long-term. 

Hollywood Ending

Stories are Truer than The Truth.

....with a Hollywood Ending.

“Why do we hate those guys [The Police] when we put them there?

Why do we hate ourselves for creating this society?

Why are so many people in America obsessed with Marilyn Manson; corpses; dead people; misery; John Wayne Gacy… John Wayne Gacy’s a fucking prick. Y’know, he killed a few people and did some shitty paintings. What’s that? Why should we be engaged with that? And yet that has become.. what, “Apocalypse Culture“?

Where do we go from there, that isn’t that? Where do we go that isn’t playing with our own shite?

The Answer… back to the individual.

If the individual doesn’t work – if Patrick McGoohan was wrong; Number 6 was wrong to stand on that beach screaming “I am not a number, I am a free man!” – what do we have left?

Because ultimately the guy who’s not a number and not a free man experiences neurosis, the longer he goes down that path. I’m sure there’s a bunch of people here, like me, who eventually… you’ve worked your way through this stuff; you’ve read the books, you’ve done this shit; you’ve taken the drugs; you’ve been there, you’ve seen it. We’ve all experienced enlightenment in little bits. You know it’s out there; you know this stuff is True: the consensus doesn’t explain our lives. 

But what does?”

Let Me Tell You a Story.....

I, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, am here setting forth my history, that time may not draw the color from what man has brought into being, nor those great and wonderful deeds manifested by both the Greeks and the barbarians, fail of their report, and together, with all of this, the reason why they fought one another.

"Don't you remember what I said about The Truth? 

Stories are Truer than The Truth."

It turns out “Jest” doesn’t mean “Joke” —

A Jester is a disguised Bard passing for a Fool.

It turns out “Jest” means “narrative” — or “history”, or “ideology”, or “WorldView”.

" And I want to quote for you, to you, from the oldest history book in Western Civilisation. 

Not just because it’s a book, but I think this is a point one can make about any history course, it doesn’t matter what the subject is. 

It can be Social History, Political History, Intellectual History, any history. 

It can be the History of Ancient Rome, it could be Post-1945 United States, it could be any history. 

But any history course ought to do the two things that Herodotus named in the opening sentence of the oldest history book we have. 

This is Herodotus, The History. 

Isn’t it great when you’re writing the first book, what are you going to call it? The History! 

No subtitles, nothing fancy, just — 

“I, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, am here setting forth my history, that time may not draw the color from what man has brought into being, nor those great and wonderful deeds manifested by both the Greeks and the barbarians, fail of their report, and together, with all of this, the reason why they fought one another.”

I don’t know how closely you listened to that, but what has Herodotus just said? He’s basically said history is two things. 

It’s The Story, it’s the color, it’s the great deeds, it’s the narrative that takes you somewhere; 

But it’s also The Reason Why, it’s also the explanations. 

That’s what history does. It’s supposed to do both of those things. 

Some of us are more into the analysis, and we’re not so fond of Story. 

Some of us just love stories and don’t care about the analysis — 

“oh, stop giving me all that interpretation, just tell me the good story again.” 

This is what goes on, of course, out in public history all the time: 

“just tell us the old stories and just sing us the old songs, make us feel good again. 

Stop interpreting, you historians, and worst of all, stop revising.” 

You notice how that word ‘revision’ has crept into our political culture? 

When politicians don’t like the arguments of people who disagree with them they accuse them of being revisionist historians. 

It was even a poll-tested word for a while when Condoleezza Rice was using it. 

“Revisionist, revisionist.” 

As though all history isn’t revisionist.

My favorite story about revisionism is my buddy, Eric Foner, was on a talk show once. 

About 1992. He was on one of those shouting talk shows with Lynne Cheney, who at that — Dick Cheney’s wife — who was then head of the NEH. 

And this was a time — you won’t remember this — we were having this national brouhaha over what were called National History Standards. 

And Lynne Cheney, if you remember, a real critic of these National History Standards. She didn’t particularly like some of the ideas that the historians were coming up with. 

So on this talk show — it was Firing Line where you get two people on and they just shout at each other for an hour, or a half hour, and the producers love it. 

And Foner is pretty good at rapid fire coming back, he’s pretty good at it. 

Anyway they had this set-to and she kept accusing him and other historians of being “revisionist.” 

And Eric says the next morning he got a phone call from a reporter at Newsweek and she said, 

“Professor Foner, when did all this revisionism begin?” 

And Foner said, 

“Probably with Herodotus.” 

And the Newsweek reporter said, 

“Do you have his phone number...?” 

Never underestimate the ignorance of the American people.

 H.L. Mencken