Broadband Message
Target ID: Flagship Oblivion
Comm ID: Ska Ralla
:BEGIN TRANSMISSION:
The very fact that you found me is impressive. However, that means nothing. I can run far from you, quickly. The power of the jump gates are at my disposal. I pity that you would waste your time trying to find me. However, I applaud your efforts. Bravo! Try finding me again. I think somewhere warm would be nice. Say, a dead-end system that is currently flooded with alpha, beta and gamma radiation? I hope to see you there!
Yours,
Doctor Artifice
Cybernetic Geneticist
Message to: Producer, "Galaxy Gab!"
Flimsy to: Suzette and Brendan
Comm ID: [ELF]Fishin' Fool
Hey, Kids!
I'm buying out your slot this afternoon. Take the day off! 20 Million Credits have been transferred to GNN's main Advertising account. I've also transferred a Mil into each of your accounts. Have fun!
The following Audio burst will be repeated on endless loop for the duration of your show. I tried to do my best "Bard" imitation. Hope you like it. Mal.
And now folks, direct from our Illuminati friends at "Appendix Gimmel", we bring you,
Grummet!
Every society actually passes through the five stages of Verwirrung, or chaos; Zweitracht, or discord; Unordnung, or confusion; Beamtenherrschaft, or bureaucracy; and Grummet, or aftermath. Sometimes, to make comparison with the exoteric Hegel-Marx system more pointed, the esoteric Illuminati system is defined as: Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis, Parenthesis, and Paralysis. The public Hegel-Marx triad is also called the tricycle, and the arcane latter two stages are called the bicycle; one of the first secrets revealed to every illuminatus Minore is "After the tricycle it comes always the bicycle." (The Uluminati are rather prone toward literal translations from Weishaupt's German.)
The age of Grummet begins with an upsurge of magicians, hoaxers, Yippies, Kabouters, shamans, clowns, and other Eristic forces. The relevant I Ching hexagram is 59, Huan, dispersion and dissolution. The gentle wind above the deep water is the Chinese reading of the image, with associations of loss of ego, separation from the group, and "going out" in general. Yin lines dominate all but the top of the hexagram; the forces leading to a new Verwir-rung stage are pushing upward toward release. This is also called Paralysis by the Illuminati, because, objectively, nothing much is happening; subjectively, of course, the preparations for the new cycle are working unconsciously.
The mystic number is 5, union of male (3) with female (2) and final resolution of conflict between Verwirrung and Zweitracht.
The governing Tarot trump is number 6, the Lovers, in which the woman looks upward at the angel (Eris, the bio-gram) and the man looks at the woman (the logogram, yang, reaches synthesis with biogram, yin, only through reconciliation with the female). Hence, the upsurge of feminism in such periods, together with a renewed emphasis on clans, tribes, and communes.
Typical Virgos manifesting Grummet traits are Charlie Parker, Antonin Artaud, Louis Lingg, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Grandma Moses, Lodovico Ariosto, Greta Garbo, Hedy Lamarr, and Goethe and Tolstoy (who manifested strong yin values while never quite getting reconciled with the women in their own lives. Tolstoy, however, as the classic dropout, is an archetypal Grummet persona and almost completed the Sufi course of "quit this world, quit the next world, quit quitting!").
After Grummet, of course, authority has collapsed entirely, and the biogram stands on equal footing with the logogram. Hodge and Podge being once again in dynamic balance, a new Verwirrung period begins, and the cycle repeats.
Since Weishaupt dreamed this schema up while he was under the influence of several hallucinogenic drugs, one should regard it with some skepticism. It is certainly not true in every detail, and there is no theoretical or empirical demonstration that each of the five ages must always have 73 permutations. The fact that Grummet-Virgo personalities (and all other of the five personality types) are born in all ages, even if they come to dominance in their appropriate epochs, leaves many mysteries still unsolved. In short, all that a sober scholar can say of the Illuminati theory of history is that it makes at least as much sense as the exoteric Marx-Hegel, Spengler, Toynbee, and Sorokin theories.
The A:.A:., who regard all Illuminati theories as false projections onto the external world of inner spiritual processes, are particularly skeptical about this one, since it involves several false correlations between the I Ching and the Tarot, the Zodiac, etc.
Finally, it should be noted that of all the people Hagbard employed as resonance for the vibes used against the Saure family in Ingolstadt, only Lady Velkor, Danny Pricefixer, and George Dorn were not Virgos. Hagbard evidently believed that the Illuminati magical links work when Illuminati activities are occurring in a given areaand, hence, virtually all of "his" people at the festival were Virgos and thereby linked with the Grummet/Huan-59/Trump 6 chain of astrological associations. On the other hand, the presence of three non-Virgos shows Hagbard's pragmatic approach and his refusal to be ruled even by so exact a science as astrology.*
Today, on the seventeenth of February, the first reported incident involving the man known as Doctor Artifice has been reported. The heinous man of 'science' broke through a Liberty Navy blockade, destroying the three battleships, nine cruisers, and countless other ships of varying size. There were no escape pods found at the scene when reinforcements arrived.
However, a few hundred kilometers away from the blockade, fifteen corpses were found in Nomad Brain cases. Each one had been surgically-grafted to robotic augmentations, such as having entire limbs replaced, or eyeballs. The strangest part was that the coroner on board the Battleship Kentucky said that they were all technically alive, but that they were in a vegetative state, much like that of a coma patient. All fifteen were declared dead this morning.
All attempts to find Doctor Artifice have gone awry, it seems. There has been talk between the major governments that a combined attack could produce a favorable outcome, although the Heads of Bretonian and Kusari Governments were unwilling to give any forces to the coalition if the other was; they would not work together. Rheinland and Liberty forces have been seen flying together in formations, although our sources within the Liberty Government tell us that nothing has been finalized.
The last known trajectory of the Ska Ralla, as it entered a jump hole of its own creation (says an eyewitness, Captain Lucas Martel of the Gas Miners Guild) pointed the Ska Ralla towards the Omega systems, albeit which one is still unknown.
A general advisory against going to any of the Omega systems has been issued by all four governments. At the few known jump holes and jump gates leading into any of the Omega systems, automated outposts have been placed, which issue the general warning and give information to alternative routes around the systems. These outposts are also equipped with radio-and-visual recording devices, so any pilot who enters or exits will be known. Should he or she go missing, Government forces will know why.
In other news, Galaxy Gab has gone off the air, much to the approval of many viewers.
This is Hugh Crane reporting from our Network headquarters in Cambridge. We have received reports from as far north as Trafalgar, and as far east as Friestadt, of massive computer malfunctions and shutdowns, apparently from an unknown virus. The source of the virus has not been pinpointed exactly, But seems to have been transmitted through a private communication system known as "FnordNet". The system, once owned by multibillionaire Reginald Waverly and the mysterious Church of Eris Esoteric has also sufferred the same fate. Government Agencies and Commercial Entities have ordered complete shutdowns of critical data and communication systems until the virus can be studied and counteracted.
We have also had reports of a massive fireball seen by observers on Freistadt Station. For a live report, we go now to Tad Thorpwhistle on the scene. Tad?
"Yes, Hugh! not 15 minutes ago, a very large body was seen to pass over almost directly above the Station, traveling at a great rate of speed. First sightings reported only a dark spot against the starfields, with a soft glow emanating from the trailing side of the body!"
Well, Tad, except for the size then, and the speed of the thing, what was so spectacular?
"Hugh, observers a few moments later reported that searing flame had erupted from beneath the planetoid! One viewer likened it to a thousand rockets all launching at once! The glare from the planetoid was enough to close down the protective shielding on some of the station viewports.
"At last reports, the gigantic fireball/planet seemed to be lowering into the "southwest".
Amazing, Tad. Thanks for that report from the field! We have crews alerted in the Omega 47 and Omega 49 systems to keep us abreast of any more sightings of this strange object.