I judged it best to merge these two subjects because I don’t have much to say on one and too much to say on the other. In fact, the latter subject is probably one of the most difficult opponents to face, even more difficult than the vampires, despite lacking the powers of advanced healing and speed. I’ll just go ahead and say now that the three most difficult creatures I’ve had to deal with—up until a recent incident at a lab that is still ongoing—have been wraiths, modern golems/advanced zombies, and vampires. I mention them in the order of difficulty. Some would argue that werewolves belong in this list, and I would certainly place them forth, but when I say “difficulty,” I’m not necessarily talking about physical and magical strength. That category belongs to the vampires unequivocally. You’ll also note that I’ve not mentioned demons here. This is because demons tend to act as malevolent puppet masters of a sort, and only religious means can be utilized to remove them.

When I say “difficult,” what I mean is the difficulty in locating and removing them. There are a lot of components to neutralizing the problem, and only some of them include violence. Let’s use vampires as an example. Confronting a vampire isn’t as simple as fighting it. One must first identify the species, search for its coffin if it’s of a Vorvolakos variety, get a sense of how many people have been attacked in the town, check for servants, evaluate whether the vampire is a newborn or an elder, try to ascertain a sense of its magical skills should it have any, then, if the coffin is not found, form a plan of attack. As you can see, there are a number of moving parts at work, and the process can be quite difficult. You face a greater number of factors when dealing with wraiths and modern golem/advanced zombies. This is what I mean by difficulty. Perhaps a better word might be complexity.

But before addressing this complex subject, I should begin by getting the modern golem/advanced zombie’s far inferior cousin out of the way. At the time of this writing, the zombie is mercifully falling out of fashion. You’ll probably already know all there is to know about them. They are somewhat varied but not too much. You have your dead zombies. Some move fast, some move slow; in either case, they are basically grunts, or muscle. The more difficult ones will need to be shot in the head, so I would just aim for the head each time. They say such creatures can be created by a virus. I have not seen this myself, but I suppose it is possible. Either way, whether the culprit be a scientist or a wizard, you’ll need to deal with the initial practitioner before considering the case closed. Zombies are either acting as muscle for a wizard-type or a mad scientist has messed up.

However, there is another variant, a living variant, that does need to be mentioned. Voodoo priests and other such wizard knockoffs will sometimes force poor souls to drink an elixir and compel them to action using a trance. But there is an important point to remember here. Most of the time, the potion is really a drug, and the people are very suggestible and very high. There’s nothing supernatural going on. One sure way to tell the difference between a supernatural situation and a drug is to check and see if the zombie is repeating a chant clearly. If they’re just mumbling it, then the chances are the poor soul is just high. But if the zombie is repeating the words with “gusto,” as it were, then you might be dealing with someone who has been magically overwhelmed. But remember, the only way for this sort of thing to work is if the victim already has some remnant of antediluvian talent or if the wizard in question has established a link with the person. Potions don’t work unless this has been done. Without the remnant magic or the link, the potion is just greywater. Also, free will cannot simply be driven from a man. A choice, a surrender, must have been made at some point in order for the potion to have any effect. This doesn’t mean that they necessarily give up their will, but it does mean that they have opened themselves up to demonic activity, or they will have sworn allegiance to a wizard, or some other similar bargain. In short, a prior bargain must be made before a potion can effectively remove the will. However, if things have escalated to the point that the entrapped individual has been reduced to a zombie, then it won’t do you much good to discover the bargain because the poor soul is no longer sentient enough to renounce it. As is so often the case, your primary job will be to remove the practitioner, and the nice thing about zombies is that they tend to deactivate en masse once this is done—that or the high has worn off.

Now on to their more serious counterparts. There is a very good reason for the clunky term. A modern golem/advanced zombie is really a body being used to house a lesser intellect. I would say a human body, but the creatures aren’t always made of flesh and bone. They’ll just mostly resemble a corpse. You’ll recognize the modern golem/advanced zombie as creatures such as the mummy or monsters from slasher films, dream tormentors excluded. The Japanese Onryō is something of a hybrid between a wraith and a modern golem/advanced zombie, but it’s closer to the latter because its physical nature manifests just before an attack. This is something of a complicated exception because the creature is often equivocated with demonic activity, but there is a version of the Onryō that can take a physical form and cause bodily harm, which is to say, the wounds will be visible, not supernatural trauma that is interpreted as a heart attack or stroke.

Now, physical forms are not required to cause bodily harm, as you’ll see should I find the chance to discuss the wraith, but the chief characteristic of the modern golem/advanced zombie is that it does take on a physical form and uses that form to attack its victims.

Such creatures do have limitations, and to understand what they are, we must again return to the subject of links. In this case, the links can be created by cursed ground, cursed treasure, or some connection with the creature in question, the victim, and the practitioner.

But here is where things become . . . complex. Cursed treasure can hold enough energy to manifest the monster. So, in such cases, all you have to do is find the trinket and destroy it. However, cursed ground cannot hold the same amount of energy as a cursed treasure for the same period of time. The reason for this is simple. Animals traverse the cursed ground, water and other elements dilute the energies needed for the curse over time, and human construction, earthquakes, and so on change the topography. In short, magical dilution and environmental alterations will weaken a curse as time goes on.

Again, I am no expert in magical theory, but I’ll attempt to explain the issue with an analogy, or, perhaps, a parallel. When one man interacts with another man, a memory is created. That memory alters the man in a fundamental way. In a sense, man A is categorically a different person after meeting man B. In the case of a link, this distinction marks the man. Now in the case of a stolen treasure, say a coin, the practitioner remembers the coin, and the thief remembers the coin. They have something unifying the two of them. The memory of the coin. A practitioner can use this commonality to create a directed attack. But in the case of cursed land, there are too many minds, even animal minds, traversing that land, and gradual alterations of the land change the nature of the memory. The practitioner sees the land one way; the target sees the land another way. Therefore, the memories are slightly different, and this weakens the connection.

Now entering cursed land can still yield ugly results, but if too much time passes, there isn’t enough of a connection for a directed attack. If the curse is old, demons might torment the victim in the night, or the person might catch a cold, but not much more can happen because modern golems/advanced zombies are instruments of murder. Such exertions of malevolent will require a high amount of energy and a very specific connection or link. So, if the curse is recent, the land might work, but if some time has elapsed—how much will depend on the amount of change the land undergoes—the curse weakens, and something more specific is required.

So, let’s say we have a cursed summer camp. A group of teenagers might encounter some zombified madman because they’ve entered the grounds; however, if one destroys the camp in question, then the topography of that land changes, and the zombified madman no longer has enough of a connection to the land and its memories to manifest.

There isn’t much the practitioner can do to prepare against a major change in the land, but to counter the gradual dilution, the practitioners have begun developing other means to create the needed connections or links. This is the detail slasher films have alarmingly gotten right. They’ll tie the monster to not just the land or some treasure, but also to a weapon or some iconic symbol, say a mask. They’ll also tie the curse to a holiday or to a combination of days. The creature might manifest every time Friday the 13^th falls on Halloween, for example. In these scenarios, both the symbolic tool and the date are required, but even this isn’t enough. There must be a foundational event or memory to hold the whole thing together. This is why they’ll resort to forming a monster around a tragic event that happened in the area, something that the whole town will be aware of. Again, the memory must serve as the foundational link. (Just for clarity, I should add that the golem/zombie is not the soul of the victim or victims involved in the tragedy. It is a lesser intellect and will act as such. This is another distinction between wraiths and modern golems/advanced zombies. This is also why I consider the Onryō the latter category. It is not a human soul, which, in my mind, distinguishes it from a wraith.)

I suppose I should once again qualify that these multiple steps are not needed when the curse is rooted in a treasure because the link is less subject to dilution, but these multiple steps are required for regional land curses. When land is the root source of the curse, or the practitioner is wanting to torment a specific area, they essentially resort to stacking links.

For clarity, here is a list of the four basic links used during these curses.

1. Initial land curse – This is the starting point and end point for the creature’s manifestation. This is also the foundational curse, the base of the whole concoction. Think of a cookie. The land curse is the batter. The other items are the chocolate chips, nuts, etc.

2. Specialized trinket, weapons, mask, and so on – This is the item that gives the creature a unique identity. It’s how the lesser intellect remembers itself, and it’s also how the creature creates links with victims outside the land. If someone spots the creature, they will remember the item, and the creature uses the memory of the item to create a link with the victim, enabling the creature to track additional targets.

3. Cyclical holiday – This can be a holiday, the anniversary of a murder remembered by the community, the date a camp closed, whatever the practitioner wants, provided it is recognized by the town.

4. Unifying memory – This can be the celebration of the holiday or really anything the victims collectively, do either together or separately. You might think of this as the “misdeed” that causes the attack.

This is the most common link stack, but a practitioner can and often does add others. Here, I want to stress that there will always be a practitioner behind such curses. One thing the slasher movies get wrong is that they imply the whole thing is almost an act of nature. It is not. In every case I can think of, a human will is the directing force behind these energies. Unfortunately, in this case, assuming a practitioner will not always help you. These curses are highly complex, and the practitioners will often do something wrong. When that happens, the modern golem/advanced zombie will kill the practitioner before beginning its vile assignment. This is more common than one might expect, and this leaves you with the unenviable task of piecing together the various links after the fact.

And while the land variation of these curses is cyclical, surviving the specified period of time will not save the victim. The purpose behind the symbolic trinket is so the creature can form a link with whoever sees it. The survivor sees the knife, and the monster remembers the knife, and after a violent encounter, that memory is all the creature will need to finish its dark work during the next cycle. Therefore, our victory is imperative, and often hunters will resort to fighting the monsters directly because that is the only way to destroy at least one aspect of the curse, the symbolic trinket. The mask will have to be burned or the knife melted down. This might not end the curse entirely, but it will keep the monster from being as effective, and it will disconnect the link from anyone who has seen the monster as it’s roaming the countryside.

However, as a final note, I will add that these things always begin with a deep-seeded grudge on the part of the practitioner. These types of enchantments take a high amount of negative energy, so things like rage are practically a requirement. This suggests that the practitioner will have some sort of personal connection with the first set of victims, a detail that saved me during one of my cases.

Now, a woman who works with me does have the ability to divine information about these links and how to kill such creatures. But I doubt you’ll come across such a person yourself, so I’ll tell the story of my first modern golem/advanced zombie case.

There was no summer camp, but there was a hay field. Anyone who gathered hay in this field was killed during the harvest moon, which lasts for several nights. A girl seemed to be the primary target of these attacks because, although multiple farmers were killed during the year, the creature accosted her several times. One of the preachers from a local church in the area knew of my company and asked for my help after coaxing the truth out of the girl one Sunday after the service. Her entire family had been killed, and the preacher had been taking care of the girl since she was nearly eighteen and close to finishing school. His sermon that day had been about lying, and this had finally convinced her to tell him what really happened. Six months had passed since the events. The newspapers had chalked the whole thing up to a group of deranged junkies because no one connected the murdered farmers to the field they’d bought some of their hay from. There are multiple cuttings in a season for those who aren’t aware.

This time I was sure to bring a team with me, and we inspected the field and the town records. So far as we could tell, there was no local folklore from which to build a nefarious legend around the new monster. The farmer who owned the field seemed to be a perfectly kind gentleman, and by all accounts there wasn’t a single person who’d had so much as a minor spat with the old man. We were perplexed. It was just a vacant field.

With nothing to go on, we decided the best thing to do was choose our ground for a confrontation. We reasoned that since the girl had been attacked multiple times, the curse was centered around her, and the thing would at least make one run at her before moving on to other targets since she had the strongest link. We chose a location that was about a night’s walking distance for the creature. We reasoned that if we moved further, the thing might content itself by killing the farmers who’d taken hay that next year. If we moved so far that it couldn’t return to its cursed ground before the end of the harvest moon, it would almost certainly stay in the area.

I interviewed the girl multiple times, and she couldn’t think of anyone who had a grudge against her. Again, we were at a loss. There was nothing to do but wait for the creature to arrive, which it did.

The night of the attack, a half-decomposed corpse strode onto the lawn of our chosen fortress. Most of the time, these things tend to be giant brutes who pulverize their victims with overwhelming power. That was not the case with our corpse. It was a slender man in plaid and overhauls. In either hand, he carried hay hooks, which are giant hooks used for catching square bales and tossing them about. This creature opted for speed. The thing’s tactic was to swing those hooks in a wild frenzy, catching its victims and tossing them around. However, it did not get to demonstrate its abilities, for we’d lined the lawn with mines. I’d never tangled with a modern golem/advanced zombie before, but my family’s notes had already told me these things were notoriously hard to kill, and there’s no specific point to hit them. Grounding runes won’t work on them either because the magic is running from a land curse, a symbolic trinket, and links with the victims themselves. You can’t ground something if the magic is already coming from the ground and exists in the air, so to speak. There’s no single current to ground. Furthermore, each rune is tied to a certain kind of current, and these types of curses are so individualized that it would take a new rune altogether to thwart them. A defense rune might’ve worked for the girl, but such runes would only work to protect the victims, not stop the monster from attacking new victims later. There’s really only one way to end the beasts, which is to blow them apart, so that’s what we did. But even this wouldn’t deal with the issue for good. Since the harvest moon runs for several nights, we knew the thing would be back. The best we could do was melt down the hooks, since those were clearly the symbolic trinkets. This would disconnect the link with anyone who’d seen the beast during its walk to our fortress, but it would do nothing for the farmers who’d bought hay from the field, nor the girl.

However, the hay hooks did give me an idea. I returned to the farmer who owned the field and asked if anyone had trespassed on his land or had asked to walk the field for seemingly no reason. The symbolic trinket has to be within proximity of the cursed ground, so I reasoned that the practitioner had buried the hooks somewhere in the field. Providence favored me. A woman in her late fifties had asked to walk in the field because she thought it was pretty the year the first round of attacks took place. Normally, farmers aren’t so welcoming, but this was a very kindly old man. I got a description of the woman, and the farmer told me she had license plates from out of state. I immediately ran to the girl and asked if she had any out-of-state connections that fit this description. She did, an aunt, her mother’s older sister. Then I noticed the locket.

I asked the girl who gave her the locket, and sure enough, it was the aunt. I took the locket and melted it.

There wasn’t time to confront the old woman before the next night, so we drove the girl to the old man’s farmhouse in the hopes of tempting the monster to make another run at her instead of attacking the other farmers who’d bought hay that year. It didn’t work. I did send one of my agents to check the roads and fields in case the creature failed to attack the girl, but the monster must have evaded my agent because, the following morning, several farmers were found dead. I knew then that the aunt had died too. As is typical, the woman didn’t fully understand the incantation, and the monster had turned around and murdered her before residing in that field. The locket was the only link connecting the monster to the girl, a failsafe in case the incantation backfired, which it had. However, the mother and the aunt had had a rather violent falling out, so the girl was never told the news.

With the hooks and locket destroyed and the practitioner dead, the only links left were the cycle and the land itself. The aunt must’ve taken hay from there as well at some point, which must’ve been the memory she’d used to connect the creature to the curse. There wasn’t anything we could do about the lunar cycle, so after discussing the matter with my team, we told the farmer to grow corn in the field instead, at least for the next year. Again, I tried to tell him the truth, but, of course, he refused to believe it, so I had to pay a substantial amount of money for that field of corn. As nice as that old man was, I suspect the corn was overpriced.

The change in crops did enough to the topography that the land curse weakened. There were no attacks when the hay was sold again, and although I imagine the farmers might experience a few restless nights after buying the hay, I haven’t heard of any strange illnesses, so I believe nightmares are the worst the curse can do.

We did have to kill the creature again the last night of the harvest moon, but my team was experienced, and as fast as he was, he couldn’t rival a vampire. We slowed him down with countless rounds of bullets before finishing the job with some hand grenades.

I later learned the reason for the sister’s and aunt’s falling out. The girl was the aunt’s illegitimate daughter, conceived with her sister’s husband. The aunt’s diary told me that she’d asked to take the girl as her child, and the sister had refused. She’d also refused to tell the girl the truth. The aunt had reasoned that if she couldn’t have the daughter, then no one could. I never told the girl these facts. The case was over, and I saw no need.

So, for review, let’s apply the facts of this story to the list I mentioned before.

1. Initial land curse – The hayfield. The aunt and the girl’s parents had taken hay from that field. The similar memory had been sufficient to create the link between the creature and the girl as well as anyone else who’d bought hay from that same location.

2. Specialized trinket – The hay hooks. The odd choice of weapons was sufficient to give the creature a unique identity.

3. Cyclical holiday - The harvest moon. There’s no holiday for hauling hay, so the aunt had chosen a cycle that was symbolic of sowing a harvest to create the connection between the field, the farmers, and the creature.

4. Unifying memory – This would be the act of taking the hay. This was the trigger that unlocked the curse.

5. An additional item – The locket – This was a backup link the aunt used to keep the creature connected to the daughter in case the curse backfired. The girl’s family buying the hay and the locket created two links that gave the girl priority in the monster’s mind.

This is a decent textbook example of a modern golem/advanced zombie case, but please bare in mind that these cases are usually very different from one another when it comes to the precise links used.

Before closing, I want to say that you shouldn’t waste your time digging up the body being used to create the modern golem/advanced zombie. For one thing, there isn’t always a body. Depending on where the magic is coming from, the creature may be made of ectoplasm or some similar substance. But the trinket will always be real. Also, the spirit isn’t returning. It’s a lesser intellect. These cases are always very intricate, and I suspect they will be among the most difficult situations you deal with. They’re not overly common, but they do happen often enough that you’re sure to encounter at least one such creature before the end of your career. I hope this explanation and my story help.

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Retconning the Space Baby

In the previous review, Walter Curnow and Maxim Brajlovsky had boarded and repaired the derelict Discovery. Now it’s Chandra’s turn at bat. His job is to fix HAL, if that’s even possible. Clearly, there’s a little apprehension about attempting to fix a homicidal robot. Of course, since Chandra’s the man who built HAL in the first place, it doesn’t take him long to figure out the problem.

This was one of the few details taken from the first book, and frankly they did a better job describing the issue than Arthur C. Clarke did in the novel. Basically, the United States government had written an order directing HAL to keep the true nature of Discovery’s mission a secret. This order conflicted with the programming Chandra had given HAL, which emphasized directness and honesty with his human coworkers. The result was a sort of programming loop that ended with HAL going crazy and killing all but one of Discovery’s crew. Now, I don’t know how a programming loop is supposed to end with the robot concluding that it should kill the crew, but this explanation was more agreeable, or at least, easier to swallow than Clarke’s, who said that the robot had basically developed a guilty conscience and had decided to kill everyone to cover up his lie. A programming loop that led to aberrant behavior is a little easier to buy than the toaster becoming sentient.

When Chandra finds the hidden order, he also finds Floyd’s message, which Bowman had discovered after turning off HAL, so, naturally, he assumes that Floyd was in on the government’s scheme. Floyd denies Chandra’s accusation and is genuinely angry. This is for good reason. He’d been the government’s scapegoat for the failed mission when really their actions were what led to HAL’s failure. But despite this explanation for HAL’s malfunction, Floyd still doesn’t want to take any chances. He later tells Curnow to install a device that will shut HAL down should he decide to go rogue again. Floyd carries the remote to this device, which is disguised as a red calculator.

There isn’t much time to dwell on this new information because the crew soon discovers the monolith floating nearby. The captain of the Russian ship, Tanya Kirbuk, wants to explore the surface of the monolith, but Floyd, remembering what happened to Bowman, believes this to be a bad idea. Still, everybody listens to the captain, and poor Maxim takes a probe to investigate the strange object. It doesn’t take the monolith long to respond, and its reaction isn’t kind. It creates a sort of green tornado that causes Maxim’s probe to go careening into who knows where—probably a stargate, but the movie never says this—and, at the same time, another ball of energy shoots from the craft.

This is where the movie begins to become a little strange. Not bad. Not incoherent. Just strange. The film is essentially retconning the space baby concept, which I’m all for, but in one respect, this was a mistake because the marketing for the movie makes the space baby a main feature of the film, when really the creepy little thing only shows up for a couple of seconds. I’m certain this annoyed Kubrick fans, but, narratively, this was a smart choice because the baby was a symbol for enlightenment, not anything tangible enough to actually contribute to a story. In other words, there was no way to use the baby because it wasn’t an active character, just a symbol. How’s a writer supposed to give a mere symbol motivations and a task to complete in a plot?

It turns out the ball of light shooting from the monolith is Bowman. He travels to Earth and first sees his wife through a television screen. They have a brief conversation, then he tells her something wonderful is going to happen, although he doesn’t tell her what that wonderful thing is. Then he goes and sees his mother, who is lying on a hospital bed in a coma. I don’t know if the mother dies because she can now rest easy after seeing her son again, or if Bowman kills her because the movie doesn’t say. If Bowman killed her, that would raise a serious plot hole because why would he do this? Perhaps he is being somehow controlled by the aliens, but if the aliens Bowman is now connected to are malicious enough to kill his mother, why are they guiding humanity at all? I guess one might say they’re pro-euthanasia or something, and if that were the case, I’d call the aliens straight up evil. But for whatever reason, the mom dies after interacting with her son for the last time.

In the movie, it is implied, but not clearly explained, that Bowman has been merged with a hive mind. The book elaborates on this point, but in both cases, this is nothing short of a retcon regarding Bowman’s fate. In a sense, one might say merging with a hive mind is a kind of enlightenment, sort of an allegory for becoming one with the universe or something, but that’s not how the first movie and book describe Bowman’s situation. Prior to the sequel, Bowman was enlightened because he had become the Übermensch, a man who can control reality and has no conscience. The movie demonstrated this by having the space baby float over the earth while Thus Spake Zarathustra played in the background. In the book, the space baby launches all the nukes on the planet at once. In that scenario, he wasn’t worried about his wife or his mom. In the sequel, Bowman has been connected to some collective consciousness but is in certain respects still Bowman. Kubrick fans may not have appreciated this, but I did, because it made what happened to Bowman actually function in the story. And it added a decent amount of tension because it’s unclear whether or not Bowman is a hero or a villain until the very end.

After Bowman visits those he holds dear on Earth, he makes another appearance—to Floyd. At first, Bowman speaks through the now functional HAL, but when Floyd remains unconvinced, Bowman manifests in front of him. What’s interesting about this manifestation is that Bowman ages to different points of his life while speaking to Floyd, the last image being the space baby, then Bowman disappears altogether. None of this is explained, but I think what the writers were trying to do was show that Bowman no longer has a body, so his existence is sort of chaotically alternating between different versions of himself. I don’t know, but whatever they were doing, the whole thing was an attempt to retcon what the space baby meant because the baby can no longer be a rebirth analogy since to join a hive mind is to merge into something, not experience a new birth. And normally I would complain about such retconning. I always hate it when one writer tries to alter the meaning of another writer’s work, but Arthur C. Clarke went along with these changes, so what can I really say? The changes function better narratively, and the author approved them, so there’s no cause for complaint.

Bowman’s message to Floyd is simple. The crew needs to leave Jupiter in two days. This presents a problem because Earth’s political situation has finally affected the crew. The Americans have been forced to remain on the now repaired Discovery, and the Russians have been ordered to stay on their own ship because the crew’s two countries are about to go to war. Plus, they don’t have enough fuel to get back if they leave too early. Earth will be too far away from Jupiter’s orbit. Bowman doesn’t care. He insists that Floyd and the others need to leave. So, now Floyd has to convince everybody to get out of Dodge before something “wonderful” happens. I’ll cover what that wonderful thing is in the next review.

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How do I describe what very well might be my home for the next several years? Zoas was a large moon orbiting a gas giant, and this giant was big enough to radiate heat. It wasn’t like a sun since there was no nuclear fusion, so Zoas was warmed by the planet in multiple ways. Again, I am no scientist, but as the Eagle Seven was flying toward the planet with the orange hue, Heath mentioned that there were several rings, much like the rings of Saturn, below the ship. We hadn’t noticed them before because of the tense nature of our prior conversation. Upon mentioning the rings, Heath tilted the craft downward slightly so we could see them.

I’d never heard of such a thing. It looked like we were flying over a sheet of glass, and the planet only appeared twice as large as the sun in Earth’s sky. The rings of this giant were many times larger than those of Saturn, and they merged with the planet’s equator. The whole thing was explained to me, but I hardly understood. The general idea was that the giant was pulling all the debris from this solar system toward itself. The moons, which were about the size of the average terrestrial planet, were being pulled toward the giant as well, but some countervailing force was preventing the larger bodies hovering above the rings from being pulled in as fast as the smaller debris. The end result was that the giant was burning and compressing the rings as the debris was being pulled toward the planet’s core, and this process was somehow creating a variety of glowing gasses that were warm like a vaporous fire and were essentially replacing the smoke. On top of this, the rings below the planets were mostly various forms of liquid, and therefore highly reflective. Basically, the warmth of the gases, the glow from those gasses, and the reflectivity of the rings was producing enough heat to create a permanently temperate climate on each moon, with temperatures ranging from just above freezing—with the exception of the northern poles which dropped below zero—and 70 degrees.

The end result was a mini solar system that looked like a collection of desert planets from afar, thanks to the orange glow produced by the giant’s gases, but these planets were really ideal for most species in the galaxy. The Droguldai got their badly needed orange light, and any other humanoid creature who breathed oxygen could live there as well. I could see why the Delvians and the Droguldai had chosen this system among the outer planets as their base of operations. A part of me also wondered if the confederation had some way of navigating through the rings of debris. If they did, they could launch surprise attacks against the Nordic Empire’s fleet as it flew in.

We landed in a level, vacant field. Once we’d all reached the base of the ship’s ramp, the first thing I noticed was that the grass and leaves were a dark navy blue. Again, it was always hard to tell the true color of things in the bizarre Droguldai light, but I do believe the foliage was all blue. I saw no flowers in the field, so I couldn’t yet say whether or not there were other colors on the planet. Mark led us to a path, but it was wholly unlike anything I’d seen before, and I honestly thought it looked rather dangerous and impractical. Our walkway was made of oval slabs of sandstone, each about four feet wide. There was no mortar connecting one slab to the next, and each rock seemed to have been hammered into the earth, which was a dark, brownish-red color. The slabs were uneven and at times porous, and as we followed the path, I kept waiting for one of us to trip.

No one did, and Mark eventually led us to a small town. On Mary’s planet, the buildings had all been egg shaped, from the tallest skyscraper to the simplest home. I’d come to suspect these buildings were Droguldai by design, and here I believe that suspicion was confirmed because the town was filled with Delvians, and the buildings were of a completely different shape and structure. The easiest way to picture these structures would be to think of a wide lid. Each home was a low, wide, circular cob house with whitewashed walls, much like the ancient humans lived in during medieval times. But instead of a straw roof of some kind, there was a wooden pyramid stacked on top of the structure. The pyramid was about a third of the size of the lower portion of the building, and on the sections of the roof the second story did not cover, there was a wooden railing. Apparently, the Delvians were very fond of balconies. Most of them stood on these flat sections of their roof, either hanging laundry or shouting at one another. I saw a man and a woman yelling back and forth from their homes, wrapped in some in depth conversation while the people on the street below walked between the pair hardly noticing the noise. I heard a lot of laughter, and despite the strange surroundings, I felt instantly comfortable there.

The Delvians themselves all had paper-white skin and charcoal-black hair without exception. As for their body structure, they were mostly around five feet tall but petite. In fact, they bordered on gaunt, and this made them seem much shorter than they actually were. The illusion made Mark, who was already tall by human standards, look like a giant among them. I couldn’t imagine such a frail race standing against the Nordics who easily cleared seven feet in height. Still, they were a very welcoming group. They saw us enter their small town, and many of them greeted us with smiles and nods, though they asked us no questions. I suspected that most of the people in this town knew Mark and understood that we were on an errand. Therefore, it would’ve been rude to delay us. But had we spoken to them first, I felt as if they would not hesitate to invite us into their homes. Every man and woman was dressed as if they were living in the Middle Ages, and it was easy to see where Mark had gotten his medieval-styled armor, but they were by no means poor. Both men and women wore jewels in their hair, hanging from a variety of pendants and clamps. Their tunics, trousers, and dresses were all decorated with golden embroidery, and they were all remarkably clean. Apparently, they took cleanliness very seriously. Though the town was something of a primitive encampment, the human equivalent of living in tents, the ground had been covered with thick wooden boards, save a few gardens in front of some of the houses. They were taking great care not to cake their boots and garments with mud.

“Did the Droguldai terraform this place?” Heath asked Mark. “Judging by the looks of it, your people haven’t been here long.”

“No,” Mark said. He looked at me. “This is your mission.” He pointed to a street further in front of us. “We tried to build you a church. It’s around that corner. Don’t know if we got it right, but, hopefully, it’s close. The people here are going to assist you in your missionary efforts. In fact, they already have. The natives of this planet are still very primitive, hunter and gatherer types.”

“What’s their race?” Helen asked.

“They’re humanoid,” Mark said. “Mostly. We call them Xtylars, but that’s not how they refer to themselves. We’ve only partially translated their language, and their race’s name has been a nuisance. They have a lot of tribes, and the tribes all have different dialects. If we move beyond the equator, we think we’re going to encounter whole new languages and races, just like Earth, but we’re just starting with one tribe, hoping to isolate at least one language pattern to go on. This group we’re working with stands at about four and a half feet tall, has light purple skin, red hair, and spikes on the back.”
“Are they using the spikes to breathe?” Heath asked.

Mark smiled. “Good catch. We think they might be a cousin of the Droguldai. Using external appendages to convert light into oxygen seems to be a foundational feature.”

Heath gave Mark a wry smile of his own. “Old Mad is probably hoping to get her people a race class. That would further distance them from the reptilians without admitting they’re amphibians.”

“You’re right,” Mark said. “But it wasn’t Madulluel. The Droguldai found this race while they were still allied with the Nordics. But they kept the planet secret because they didn’t want to invade a potential cousin.”

“But before that can become official, these people have to speak a common language and be given space tech,” Helen said.

“Which means this mission’s purpose is more than just religious,” Jill said.

“But how is that supposed to work if the Nordics overwhelm you and take the planet?” Cynthia asked.

“We don’t plan on losing,” Mark said. “But even if we did, all the planets in this system have the same race class, and they’re nonstrategic targets.”

“Because of the spears?” I asked.

“Partially,” Mark said. “These people are nowhere close to being a threat, and the planets would only be good for supplies, but the Nordics have plenty of that. The Nordics have judged that these planets are too far out of the way to make the supplies worth it.”

“But Earth is further from the Nordics than here,” Cynthia pointed out.

“Yes, but the Terras system is an intersection point, like a small town between two interstates. That’s why the Venusians were so powerful. The Nordics had to take out the Venusians first, and Earth was easier to live on,” Mark explained. “The outer planets are the outer planets because they’re out of the way.”

“Which is why you’re baiting them,” Jill said.

“Right,” Mark said.

“You going to use the rings?” Heath asked.

Mark laughed. “Don’t get ahead of me.”

We turned onto another street, and at the far end was a church that looked exactly like something out of a painting. I’d only been to Russia a handful of times, but even though I’d lived my whole life in the United Provinces, I still considered the mother country my home, and this little church felt like home. It was a regular, square building with multiple stories and an A-framed roof. It had lots of little rectangular windows, and although the building was made of the same white cob as the Delvians’ homes, in the middle of the structure, there was a proud, round tower with a black onion dome for a roof that even had a little cross on top of it.

I smiled. I couldn’t help myself. “You did just fine,” I told Mark.

I walked ahead of them, approaching the church in a sort of trance. I opened the black door and stepped inside, expecting to see something reminiscent of the protestants. Sure enough, there was no narthex, just a single large sanctuary, but, on the far end, was a dais, and, on it, stood a iconostasis complete with paintings of the saints. The church wasn’t perfect. There were pews, which was completely wrong, but to see an icon stand, something so familiar in the furthest reaches of space, was more than I could describe. I heard the others coming and wiped my eyes. Then I sat down in one of the pews to collect myself.

Mark and the others moved past me and stood in the middle of the sanctuary that was supposed to be a nave. The others looked around the place with mild indifference, but Mark turned to me and said, “I know it’s not perfect, but we tried.”

“It’s more than enough,” I told him. “Thank you.”

“We disagree on a lot,” Mark said. “But I believe God will reward anything done in faith. No matter how this war turns out, I think you’re going to make a difference here.”

“You’re a good man,” I whispered.

Just then, a strange-looking man wearing a monk habit similar to my own stepped out from behind the iconostasis. I was so shocked to see his attire that it took me a moment to notice his purple skin. He looked at Mark and me, uncertain, then he approached us. Mark shook his hand, and I saw that there were fifteen black spikes protruding from his back. The habit had been cut open to accommodate them. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that but supposed it was necessary. The spikes were uneven, some no more than two inches long, others over eight. They did seem to affect the young man’s posture slightly. He hunched but not much.

He turned to me, frowning, and said in very broken English, “I’m sorry, I can’t grow a beard.”

I blinked and fought the urge to laugh because the young man seemed genuinely afraid. “It’s alright,” I said. “What matters is you’re here.”

“This is Cooshda,” Mark said. “He’s going to be helping you with the Xtylars.”

“We’re going to feed them,” Cooshda said, growing excited.

“That’s right,” Mark said. He took Cooshda by the hand and motioned for him to sit in one of the pews across from me. It seemed Mark wanted to explain things himself since the man’s English was so broken. Cooshda sat down without a complaint, and looked at me, both eager and nervous. “Behind the church is a closed in yard with a gate. Cooshda and a team of Delvians have already been to the local tribes in the area, telling them that they can find food here if they grow too hungry. Since the Xtylars are hunters and gatherers, the tribes often fight over land, and somebody ends up losing. We’re hoping the ones who can’t eat will come here for food during the winter, which should start in a few weeks.”

“You’re still learning about them then,” I said.

“Can’t really witness if you can’t speak the language,” Mark said. “We’ve finally got our inside man,” he tilted his head toward Cooshda, “but there’s a lot of work to be done, and you’ll have to work fast.”

“Because of the Nordics,” I said.

Mark nodded. “I don’t think they’ll try anything before dealing with us, but just in case, I’d like to be able to speak their language before the battle kicks off because I want the local tribes inside the fort.”

“Fort?” I asked.

“That’s where we’re going next,” Mark said. “Cooshda will help you get settled when you come back, but first I want you to see the fort. If something happens sooner than expected, it would be better if you knew where to go. Plus, the politics of this whole thing might help with your work as well. You won’t just be dealing with my people. There’s other races helping with the campaign.”

“I was about to say,” Heath said. “Based on everything you’re telling him, it sounds like the Delvians are doing all the work. I thought this was a Droguldai project.”

“The Droguldai are funding the project. But they been contributing in other ways as well.” He shook Cooshda’s hand and turned to the group. “Let’s go. The sooner we reach the fort, the sooner you can get a better handle on things.”

May God grant you peace.

Hieromonk Nicholas Petrov

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Floyd Becomes Functional

Last time, I discussed how this movie was destined to fail, despite not being all that bad. The plot is well structured. There are few, if any, plot holes. The only issue is the dramatic difference in tone and pacing between the first film and the sequel, but if one was not a fan of the first film, they would consider this an improvement. However, I believe fans of 2001 were bound to reject this sequel, and that really is a shame.

The movie begins with Floyd Heywood. In the previous film, Floyd was basically a useless character the audience was forced to follow simply to introduce the monolith on the moon. He was the brief second act’s protagonist, and in my opinion, following him for so long was one of the many things that made 2001 a confusing movie. But now, Floyd has been given his own story, and here is where I’ll take a moment to point out something that I think is important.

Floyd is much more interesting because he’s been given a clear character arc, which also serves as one of the movie’s main story questions. He is a disgraced bureaucrat who was treated as the scapegoat for the failed discovery mission. Floyd doesn’t necessarily want redemption, but he does wish to know what happened, and finding the answer would give him some closure. The story question becomes: Will he get his closure? He does and gets an act of redemption as well. The movie does a good job establishing this through a conversation Floyd had with a Russian bureaucrat, and this makes the film easy to follow.

Making a story easy to follow isn’t just a matter of artistic preference. It’s tied to the suspension of disbelief and an audience member’s investment. Audiences have a story sense, which is built by the media they consume over the years. Typically, an audience won’t be thrown off by a prologue. In the first film, the movie opens up by following a character called Moonwatcher, who is a human-like ancestor. This ape-man learns how to use weapons after encountering the monolith. He reclaims a watering hole using his weapon, and at this point, the audience will be asking, “Okay, what’s next?” Will Moonwatcher take over all the watering holes, or will he be killed by another ape-man who copies his use of weaponry? Now, this story question doesn’t get answered, but it’s forgivable because the best way to offset an audience member’s story sense is by signaling or foreshadowing that something else is going to happen. In 2001’s case, this is done by showing space and the planets right before the opening act. Therefore, when Moonwatcher’s story ends abruptly, the audience thinks, “Okay, that was a prologue. Now here’s the real story.” But Kubrick subverts this by introducing a second act where the main character has no discernible traits and is basically a prop being moved around the setting. So, when Floyd’s story ends and Bowman’s begins, the audience’s story sense is thrown off because they’ve just been treated to two prologues. They’re now likely expecting the story’s POV to shift again at any moment, making them less invested in Bowman, who is 2001’s real protagonist. One prologue is fine. Two was confusing, and both prologues wound up turning into the first and second acts of the entire film.

Kubrick may have been a master filmmaker, but I still consider what he did in 2001 a mistake, and thankfully, 2010 doesn’t replicate his error. We’re introduced to Floyd. His desires are well established, and the audience knows exactly what’s going on.

Floyd speaks with the Russian bureaucrat, and the man asks Floyd to join a mission meant to find out more about the large monolith found near Jupiter and the fate of the Discovery One. Floyd agrees, and another man named Chandra is brought on to fix HAL, Discovery’s AI, if possible. This movie takes place during the Cold War, and Floyd, Chandra, and one other scientist named Curnow will be traveling with the Russians, who have a ship ready but little understanding of America’s technology. So, tensions are high. Floyd and the other two scientists are brought to the ship and put into hibernation. Floyd is then woken up early when the Russian crew encounters something unexpected. At first, the captain of the Russian crew wants to discuss the political situation back on Earth, but Floyd quickly shuts this down and convinces the crew to focus on the mission.

They tell him that they’ve found something unexpected on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. They go to investigate the anomaly, but as they are scanning Europa’s surface, something shoots a ball of energy at them. This ball also acts as an EMP, frying the records they’d so far collected of Europa’s surface, and Floyd concludes that this was a warning shot of some kind. The question is from whom.

The obvious guess is that whatever it is has to be connected to the giant monolith, so they continue their mission as planned. There is a neat scene where the Russian ship slingshots around Jupiter to get to the next moon, and during this scene, Floyd comforts a scared Russian girl. Arthur C. Clarke tried to build a sort of romantic tension between Floyd and the Russian girl after Floyd’s wife decides to divorce him during the mission, but mercifully, the movie stayed away from all this, and Floyd comforting the girl remained a simple act of kindness. I preferred this personally because I get tired of seeing every single interaction between the two sexes turned into a romantic subplot. I appreciated that the scene remained a simple act of humanity.

After the slingshot maneuver, the other two scientists are woken up, and the next task becomes repairing the Discovery. Curnow is responsible for this part of the mission. When they reach the now derelict Discovery, he and another Russian crewmember cross from the Russian ship to the ruined vessel using a handheld device that shoots out bursts of gas to propel them.

This scene was very well done. John Lithgow and Elya Baskin do a marvelous job during this sequence. They reach the ship, and it turns out that Discovery is in good enough shape to return to Earth. The next task will be fixing HAL, and I’ll cover what happens then in the next review.

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Having dealt with the anomalous simple golems, it is now time to turn to their more standard variant. There are other names for such creatures, but we limit ourselves to the term “golems” because we typically deal with the more spiritual varieties of such avatars. As briefly mentioned before, these creatures can take the form of statues, giant clay figures, wooden carvings, full suits of armor, and so on, anything that can be made mobile by a lesser intellect. They are usually used as servants, guards, and goons by magical types. Wizards are most known for utilizing such creatures. Gargoyles would also be considered a type of golem, and their intellects tend to vary from case to case.

I say wizards are most known for using such creatures, but I should also point out that scientists have been known to stumble across the art from time to time, although they are quick to label the art something else lest they should be outed as something other than a materialist. If you’re wondering about a certain monster created by a certain scientist with a prominent name, you are correct. We would classify that monster as a golem, regardless of whether or not a human soul resided within the shell. Although wizards typically instill lesser intellects inside such vessels, there have been documented cases of human souls being found inside them. I’ll address one such case briefly, but first, I want to point out one of the few things known about their construction.

Typically, a golem is comprised of a single element, roughly speaking. Granted, I am being somewhat loose with the term, but, in this context, an element would be wood, clay, metal, and so on. There are exceptions. In one such case, a group of golems was comprised of a combination primarily consisting of silicone and vampire DNA. There are two human souls residing in these golems at present, but the case is still ongoing, so I’ll refrain from commenting further. I will only add that this new variation of golem has raised a number of questions. Could a computer serve as a golem? It was previously thought items with too many moving parts could not serve such a purpose because the various materials would disturb whatever energy the enchanter is utilizing. This has been called into question. For myself, I suspect that the magical addition to the combination, the vampire DNA, is acting as a sort of spiritual conductor, in effect replacing the primary element used in traditional golems. But this is speculation on my part. No one knows at present. There is also the question of whether or not AI is a sort of golem or could become a sort of golem. Granted, the scientists have reached these lesser intellects by other means, but AI can and most likely will serve the same function as the wizards’ golems; that is, AI will serve as a talking and active source of knowledge and protection, provided government censorship and other such limitations won’t stifle it. This suggests that, despite the modern world’s materialistic framework, they may very well be nearing the technological level of their antediluvian ancestors. This, of course, raises another question: will the modern age’s ignorance—its materialist paradigm—insulate it from the spiritual backlash suffered by the antediluvians, or will that ignorance speed up modern man’s destruction? I’ll let you and the Order’s theologians wrestle with such questions.

Before moving on to my experience with golems, I would like to point out that the methods for killing such creatures are too varied to be fully explored here. Suffice it to say that the whole matter will be determined by the construction of the vessel. If the golem is made of wood, burning it to ash may suffice. If it is made of clay, shattering the creature like a jar may suffice. If it’s made of metal, the whole thing might need to be melted down. If such physical methods prove impractical, and they often will, my advice would be to utilize the runes discussed previously. The runes are a grounding magic, so if one of the runes can be attached to the golem, then either the lesser intellect will dissipate, or the bond holding a human soul inside the golem will be severed, and the soul will be allowed to enter eternity. A final note. The spiritual tie to the vessel is very weak when compared to the relationship between the human body and the human soul. This might seem counterintuitive since some golems will be harder to destroy than others, but I shall do my best to explain the matter.

If the spiritual hold of a lesser vessel and a soul were as strong as the silver cord holding the soul to the body, one would expect the wizards to frequently commit murder or suicide. In the case of murder, they would be inclined to kill someone in the hopes of retaining a reliable slave. In the case of suicide, the wizard might attempt to murder himself by transferring his soul into what he hopes to be a permanent vessel. Neither is done because once a human soul is transferred into a golem, the vessel begins to break down at a more rapid rate. The wood rots faster, the clay chips easier, the mud and straw quickly disintegrate. The vessels simply cannot contain whatever comprises a soul for very long. Metal seems to last the longest, which makes sense, but even it will rust and erode more quickly than usual. For this reason, demons, both higher and lower orders, cannot remain in these vessels for very long either, a few months at most. The only exception to this that I’ve seen seems to be the silicone and vampire bodies I mentioned before, and I suspect the vampire DNA is the reason for the vessels’ endurance. Whatever damage is being done to the silicone combination is being offset by the vampiric DNA’s healing factor, which has been diluted but is still present. But again, the case is still ongoing, so I hesitate to say that these vessels have successfully held and retained a human soul. Some wizards in the past did attempt to implant shades/ghosts inside the vessels, but, for reasons unknown, the incantations would not hold. I suspect this is because, although the origins of a shade are unknown, a shade is essentially a programming or event recorded into the very stones—think of a badly scratched CD or record. These phantoms are more like a distorted song than an intellect. They cannot act independently of their environment.

This is why the wizards are compelled to create lesser intellects, minds that are more akin to robots or animals. Anything more begins to destroy the vessel, and this leads me into my story.

There was a town in the hills. A man wrote the Order complaining of missing chickens and other types of smaller livestock. The culprit was not suspected of being any sort of animal, supernatural or otherwise. The culprit had cut several wires during his thefts, and, on the night, several people had spotted a man wrapped in a hooded grey cloak roaming the countryside. They would’ve taken him for a drifter were it not for the fact that this man stood north of eight feet tall, was at least four feet wide, and had forearms that were simply too thick to be considered human.

Naturally, a golem was my first suspect. The only question that remained was whether I was dealing with a lesser intellect or a human soul. Typically, a case like this would suggest that a practitioner of some kind was using a lesser intellect to collect smaller animals for ritualistic sacrifices. The reason being that, for one thing, human souls inside golems are very rare. For another, golems do not need to eat, so why would the creature be collecting farm animals?

However, as has been mentioned so many times before, a practitioner would be involved in either case, so my hunt would begin with the wizard, witch, or “scientist” in question, not the monster. But here, I do need to add a caveat, since it is relevant. If you’re dealing with a single practitioner or even a small group of practitioners, then they don’t necessarily need to meet on public grounds like a cemetery. They can build shrines and such in their homes. However, in this case, my mind immediately turned to the cemeteries, which would suggest a larger group. The reason I felt this way was because I was dealing with a very small town, and word tends to travel fast in such areas. If our golem was stealing the livestock for a ritual, then the chances are high that someone would’ve seen the creature entering a home. Since this wasn’t the case, the local having assumed the golem was a monster eating the livestock, I knew the golem had to be going somewhere private. Therefore, my investigation began with looking for the satanic altars in cemeteries. In this, I was not disappointed. The area where this incident took place was one of those regions with a cluster of very small towns situated close together, each with populations ranging from two to four hundred residents. In such areas, there are normally a variety of smaller cemeteries. Some are well-kept and near one or two of the towns, while others, usually much older, are smaller, far more dilapidated, and practically hidden deep within the backroads of large forests and hollers. As I looked through the various cemeteries, I found the ones near the towns to be neglected, which was a sure sign that there was a smaller back-wood cemetery that was serving as a hub for occultists.

This is one of the more unnerving points when it comes to our work. In larger towns and cities, the cemeteries will invariably show signs of occult activity. There are just that many hobbyists. However, when a well-kept cemetery shows no signs of such activity, it suggests that the area is largely religious and that there is a very tight-knit community of occultists. This community will either be driving in from further out of town, part of a particular cult, or, as was the case here, part of a family with a long-standing occult tradition. This third scenario can be the most dangerous.

Many times, the group is usually comprised of a bunch of experimental kids with only one or two ringleaders who really understand their dark craft. Normally, bringing in another supernatural party—say a vampire I’m particularly fond of—to demonstrate the real dangers of this world will be enough to dissuade the rebellious teenagers. There’s nothing like a vampire turning into a human-bat hybrid to make a gaggle of teens reconsider their rebellion and both find God and reconcile with their parents. Very often the ringleaders will do nothing to counter such measures because, for as knowledgeable as they might be, they will have never seen such a creature in the flesh themselves.

However, when it comes to tight-knit family units, such methods will not be enough. There are often centuries of experience and passion behind their community, and they will just as soon die together as reconsider their ways. They will also be more than happy to murder a lone man with a cane who they happen to find limping through the woods at night.

I found my cemetery higher up in the mountains, quite a ways from the town, but still below the tree line. Really, there were two sites of note. But I disregarded the first after finding a number of beer cans and a few empty bottles of a particular brand of craft beer not found in the town. This told me that the first site was comprised of hobbyists who were driving from further away. It was unlikely that anyone present would possess the knowledge needed to create a golem. Substances like alcohol are only used for specific types of rituals, ones that require working people up into a hedonistic frenzy, but even in such cases, the practitioners are not going to litter for fear of disrupting whatever energies they believe they’re employing. Plus, those who are proficient in such arts are also proficient in cleaning up the scene of the crime. That’s not to say there won’t be signs—there always are—but they won’t be so sloppy as to leave trash. If you see such trash lying around, then it’s a high probability that you’re dealing with hobbyists.

This leads us to the question of what kinds of signs one should look for when scoping an area for occultic activity. Well, very often there are symbols drawn in various places and trampled grass in a particular spot, usually toward the back of the cemetery. Sometimes there will even be dried blood and scattered bones. And, more often than not, there will be a stash of supplies nearby. Nobody wants to be carrying an entire toolbox full of knives and a pagan alter. So, it’s common for the occultists to leave some of their implements under a stump, or buried in a shallow hole, or even hidden in an abandoned shed. If it hasn’t rained, you might even look for remnants of salt or chalk lines. There may also be pieces of abandoned twine and wire and such. You’ll inevitably find some variation of these items and perhaps even more if the area is frequently used.

Having found my suspected altar, the next thing to do was wait for the occultists to perform a ritual. I set up a camera connected to my phone and waited, but, having some idea of their holidays, I knew it would be close to a week before the next available opportunity. This gave me time to retrace the golem’s movements. I did so and quickly realized he was raiding farms running along a particular road. It looked as though he was traveling up and down a specific mountain, raiding one farm per month and moving to the next farm down the road each time. This also led me to suspect that I was dealing with a lesser intellect because the golem seemed to be making no attempts to hide his movements. Therefore, I knew the exact farm he was going to hit when he made his next raid.

Once I’d settled on this prediction, my next step was to narrow down one of three options. Between the nature of the second site and the presence of a golem, I knew I was dealing with an experienced group, but was this group comprised of experienced practitioners from out of town, a local cult, or a family? I began combing through the town records and found my hypothesis. Sure enough, there was a local family that lived off-grid and had a reputation of dabbling in witchcraft. The townspeople seldom spoke of them because no one saw them, save for a town run they made approximately once every six months. The construction of a golem was so outside the town’s frame of reference when it came to matters of witchcraft that they’d failed to make the connection. The farmer who’d reported the incident was already known for being easily spooked. Of course, he lived further up the mountain, so he probably had just cause for being spooked.

Anyway, having contended myself concerning the identity of the practitioners and having some idea of the golem’s route, I decided to wait for the golem’s raid, assuming it would also take place the night of the next ritual. Before conducting my stake out on the farm, I spoke to the farmer who’d first reported the incident. I asked if there were any preachers in the area who would feel comfortable with performing a blessing over the ritual ground once I’d confirmed my theory. He directed me to a preacher, and I made the necessary arrangements. After that, I called the Order. Assuming I was right, I knew the family would need to be dealt with, and, frankly, I wasn’t sure how to handle the matter. It seemed to me a certainty that the family would eventually escalate to more violent forms of magic since they’d already figured out how to construct a golem, but they’d yet to commit any acts of violence. Little did I know, this wasn’t true. For all my research, there was one detail I’d overlooked.

At any rate, the Order agreed to send some armed priests once I’d confirmed that the family was indeed the culprit. Having done that, I made preparations for my stakeout. It’s at this point in the story I suppose I should explain a little more of my skillset since this is the first case I’ve mentioned where I was forced to resort to violence. I won’t say from whom at present, but I have received some training. I am very proficient with throwing knives, and I am a moderate shot. Typically, I wouldn’t handle such a case by myself, but we were stretched for resources at the time, and I thought I had a decent counter for the golem. I won’t mention my plan at present because that will become relevant later. Suffice it to say that during this encounter I was armed with a belt carrying silver throwing knives and a handgun. Normally, I would’ve carried a shotgun because, again, I am a moderate shot, but I knew I would be moving through woods, and I do walk with a cane. Stealth, not speed, was going to be my only real defense, and I reasoned that a shotgun would be a hindrance.

Now, I did have the camera, so I felt no need to watch the cultists. My plan was to follow the golem after he’d made his delivery and confront it in his layer. Things did not work out that way.

After I’d made my preparations, the stakeout went exactly as I’d planned. The golem arrived, stole a few chickens, and began walking back up the mountain, using the road. I followed it, and, eventually, the creature turned off the road, traveling up the hillside through the woods. I was glad to not have carried a shotgun, as the trek was quite difficult with my cane. Soon enough, the golem reached the cemetery, and I found that I was right. The family, about fourteen males, for whom I had photographs, were standing in a loose group around their matriarch, who was standing in the middle of a circle created by salt. I remained hidden behind the tree line and watched the proceedings. The golem was very careful to step over the salt, which I found to be odd, and handed one of the chickens to the matriarch before handing another three birds to some of the other males. Once this was done, the matriarch smiled.

“Very good,” the old woman said. “You may go, Kevin.”

It’s not uncommon for practitioners to name their pets, but the way she said the golem’s name caused me to raise an eyebrow. The golem then began returning to the tree line, and I got a good look at its face. The giant creature was made of orange mountain clay. Rocks and roots protruded from the golem’s body and head. This thing had been poorly constructed. It barely looked like a body at all, but it did have distinct indentations to mark the mouth and eyes. The golem’s face was contorted, and I heard quivering moans as it passed by. As far as I could tell, Kevin was weeping. I was dealing with a human soul. Up to that point, I’d never seen such a thing, and I will admit this took me by surprise. I’d heard such things were possible, but seeing that poor wretched man trapped in that shell was disturbing . . . that’s the only word I have for it.

Kevin did not begin climbing further up the mountain as I’d expected. He began moving back toward the road, and I proceeded to follow him. I had one Bluetooth headphone in my ear so that I could hear the incantation as I followed the golem. This was very foolish, but I’d assumed that the ritual would be something typical. I figured the family would be asking for more power or a good crop or something of the like. If only I’d done a little more research.

As I followed the golem down the mountain, I heard the matriarch begin to chant as she killed the poultry. It was all very tedious until I heard the name of a little girl, and then I heard the Latin word for death. I sucked in a breath. During my time in the town looking over the records, I’d heard someone say that the mayor’s daughter, the same name I was hearing now, was deathly ill. I later learned that the mayor was about to evict the family from their residence. But I did not know this at the time because I had not bothered to ask myself why the cultists were doing the rituals, nor why they’d gone so far as to create a golem to speed their progress and reduce the chances of being caught themselves. After all, no one is going to believe that a giant made of clay stole your chickens. This was arrogance on my part. I’d simply assumed that these hillbillies, if I may use the term to reflect my attitude at the time, were simply power-hungry like most practitioners.

If you find yourself reduced to such desperate violence, you’ve screwed up, and I had. Realizing only then that the various rituals were inflicting an illness on the girl, and this last ritual was meant to complete the process, I raced back up the mountain as best I could. I did make it in time, but barely, and at the last possible moment, I was able to throw one of the silver blades into the pile of salt, breaking the circle and ruining the ritual. I didn’t waste time. My next blade found the matriarch’s heart.

Fourteen to one is not good odds. If I were to have any prayer of survival, I needed to scatter the bunch and create some distance so I could break the group up. I drew the handgun and fired rapidly, hoping to force the remaining family members to take cover behind the tombstones. I wasn’t exactly aiming, but I did manage to kill two of them. Twelve to go. Thirteen if I counted the golem, who was now undoubtedly racing back up the mountain after hearing the shots.

I won’t bore you with the details, but it was a long night of sneaking and waiting. After scattering the group with the initial round of gunshots, I didn’t dare use the weapon further. To do so would’ve alerted the others to my location, and I am certainly not fast. There was no way I could outrun them. However, I will say that I am very good with my knives, and I was able to fell the rest of them with the silver blades, killing them before they could make any noise. But this presented me with another problem, and I suppose now is the time to explain my initial plan.

I’ve mentioned before that hunters often use runes to ground magic. So, I reasoned that if I drew the runes onto some paper and wrapped the sheets of paper around the handles of the knives, I could hit the golem with one of the daggers from a distance and ground out the magic, removing the intellect from the vessel. Well, my first problem was that I was dealing with a human soul, not an intellect, so I didn’t know if the plan would still work. At this point in my career, if it could be called that, I wasn’t sure if the soul’s connection to a vessel was stronger than the connection to an intellect. My second problem was that I’d used all the knives killing the family members. I did have the knife in my cane left, and it did have the needed runes carved into the blade. But I would need time to unscrew the handle, and, as ridiculous as this might sound, by the time I’d removed the family members, I was highly fatigued, so I wasn’t sure I could keep a hold of my cane without the handle. I would have to chance it if the golem found me, but, thankfully, a plan formed in my head.

Again, I am not fast, but I am sure-footed. I felt confident that if I could just relocate the golem, I could remain behind him or, at least, follow his trail long enough for him to grow bored of chasing me and return to his hideout. So far, I’d only heard him a couple of times, but it had been a while, so I decided to return to the cemetery. It took some time to find it, but when I did, I used the remaining bullets in my handgun. I fired into the air and returned to the forest, using the camera to keep an eye on the cemetery until he arrived.

When Kevin showed up, I kept an eye on the camera as I slowly returned to the tree line around the cemetery. The man was making a variety of moaning noises, but he eventually spotted the last remaining chicken, the one the matriarch was about to skewer before I’d skewered her. He picked it up and stroked its head. Then he saw the matriarch’s body and kicked it before starting back up the mountain.

Upon seeing this, I realized the score. I’d been wondering why I had not heard the golem more throughout the night. It turns out he was no longer a willing participant in the family’s doings, even if his body was being compelled.

I followed him up the mountain, and the golem eventually turned into a cave. It was at this moment that I had to take a risk. I knew it would be smarter to unscrew the handle of the cane. I needed the time, but if I did that, then the golem would assume I wanted to fight once he saw the knife in my hand. So, I entered the cave, essentially unarmed.

I found the golem petting his chicken and then placing it with a group of goats and other livestock he’d kept in a makeshift pen. The man wasn’t just taking the livestock for the rituals. He was lonely, which was why he’d begun returning to the farms and stealing some of the creatures to keep as pets. I cleared my throat, and the golem turned to look at me.

I won’t tell you all the details because it was a very long conversation. It turned out that he was one of the sons of the matriarch, and she’d transferred his soul just as he was about to die from an illness he did not mention. As time went on, he became a slave, and when the mayor had threatened to evict the family, the matriarch had hatched her plan. He was a miserable creature.

“I thought I’d get to be with my family forever,” he told me. “But my wife couldn’t stand the sight of me. My children screamed, and I eventually fled up here until Mamma needed me.”

It had been some time since this ritual had taken place, and, seeing the golem in the sunlight, I realized he was falling apart. I don’t know if the man was in pain, but the cracks in his body told me he’d be a pile of dirt in a few months. I knew what was coming next. His captors were dead, and his wife and children hated him, so he asked me to die.

I asked him if he believed in Christianity. He told me that after everything he’d suffered, he couldn’t doubt it. That’s the ironic thing about our world. All this darkness does more to convince people that God exists and Christ is His Son than the world’s greatest apologist. He then said he didn’t believe God would take him. I told him no one was beyond repentance, and honestly I thought the only thing he’d really done wrong was fall ill and steal some livestock. That’s pretty mild in my world. He got saved in that cave; then I took my knife and rammed it into what served as his chest. The knife worked, which was a good thing because I had no idea how I was going to kill him otherwise.

The preacher blessed the cemetery, and the Order relocated the family and blessed their old dwelling. The women and children were not as tied to the rituals. It was mainly the matriarch and her kids. The husband had died years before, and the witchcraft tradition had come from the female line anyway. The livestock were returned, and I thanked the farmer who reported the golem for saving that little girl’s life. Of course, the little girl recovered, and I never bothered to mention the situation to the mayor.

Now, I want to stress that you should always check for motives. Don’t be arrogant and assume. Again, if you’re pushed to a desperate struggle, you’ve screwed up. Find the mistake and don’t repeat it. Golems are pitiful creatures. I’m glad they can’t contain a human soul for long.

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A Good Movie Destined to Fail

This movie actually surprised me. On the whole, I would say it’s pretty good. However, it’s been buried in the annals of cinema, and I think I know why. 2010 is an attempt to make sense of the mystery behind 2001.

The trouble is, 2010 didn’t understand its own audience. For the fans of 2001, the mystery is the point. And for those more devoted to secular causes, the concept of aliens as divine beings is the point. Any attempt to demystify or explain what the aliens were and what they were doing was going to feel underwhelming for anyone who enjoys Stanley Kubrick’s ambiguous aesthetic. But anyone who enjoys a coherent story isn’t going to be able to follow 2010 because they probably wouldn’t have watched 2001. For those who are like me, people who likened 2001 to someone sticking a banana to a wall and calling it art, they would’ve looked at 2010 and thought, “Yes! Clarity!” Anyone who is a fan of Stanley Kubrick would’ve watched 2010 and thought, “Drat! Clarity!”

For this reason, 2010: The Year We Make Contact was destined to fail, despite the accolades it received. Really, it’s nobody’s fault, unless one wishes to blame the studios for wanting to make another cash cow. I suppose someone could say that the studios should’ve seen the movie’s failure coming, but I don’t blame them. I imagine that most people, Kubrick included, didn’t really understand why 2001 was a success in the first place. Perhaps people would’ve put together that fans felt there was a vague sense of “more” floating around the piece, but who could’ve guessed that providing answers to that ambiguity would annoy people more than anything?

This is just my theory because I can’t fathom the complaints about this film. Energy beings and hive minds aren’t that complicated of a concept. And, structurally speaking, the movie is sound. What issues there are can’t be considered plot holes so much as things that are poorly explained but somewhat easy to guess. There are some tonal issues, but, given the circumstances around those issues, even they are somewhat justified.

Narratively speaking, this is a solid film. I wouldn’t call it a personal favorite. It left me feeling a sense of apathy by the end of it, but that’s simply because I don’t find energy aliens and hive minds all that interesting. But other people do. So, it’s not like that’s a problem. It’s a shame because I think this film deserves a little more credit.

As an aside, while reading the sequel novel that went along with this movie, I was surprised to find that Arthur C. Clarke made the choice to actually remove the continuity of his previous novel and used the events of the Kubrick film as the basis for his second book. He included a couple of details from the first novel, but that was it. The movie used Bowman’s final line from the book as well, “It’s full of stars,” but, overall, the first book and the significance of the space baby are ignored. The idea that the space baby represents enlightenment is gone. In fact, the religious reverence for the aliens seems to be wholly removed. Sure, they’re more advanced. Sure, they seem disposed to help humanity, but now, there are mechanics to how the aliens work. The soft magic system used to make the aliens seem divine vanished. I don’t know if Arthur C. Clarke ceased believing that aliens could serve as humanity’s saviors, or if the idea of a benevolent pantheon of ETs wasn’t going to sell in the Eighties, but for whatever reason, the aliens are just aliens now.

Frankly, this made me like the movie more, but I can see how fans of the first film would be ticked, even if they didn’t understand why. There are several factors at play. First, what’s truly interesting about the movie is that even though the continuity is tight, Discovery looks the same, the pods are the same, the actor who played Bowman is the same, it doesn’t feel like a sequel. This is because Kubrick’s ambiguous and ominous aesthetic isn’t present, which only makes sense. There was a different director for this movie, Peter Hyams.

Second—and I don’t mean to dunk on Kubrick, but I guess I have to—this movie actually has a linear plot. The first, second, and third acts are where they’re supposed to be. There is no mindless meandering as ominous music plays and everybody’s left wondering what’s going to happen next for two minutes. The simple fact that the audience doesn’t have a bunch of time to wonder what it all means makes the movie feel like it’s part of a completely different franchise.

I’m not saying I hate Kubrick’s work, but in my opinion, he takes the mystery tactic way too far in the first movie, and the fact that mystery is played to such an extreme in the first film and then not at all in the second creates a wholly different tone.

Thirdly, the surreal and semi-religious elements are what I believe some of the fans of 2001 continued to watch the movie for. They liked the idea of an extraterrestrial pantheon, and telling them, “Nope, these are just aliens,” was a bit of a downer for them. Although, I can’t help but feel a twinge of satisfied spite.

The bottom line is that I think this movie is more of what a science fiction film should be. It depicts the ethereal without sounding like it’s trying to start a religion. And there’s no Nietzsche, which is always a plus. The closest thing to a moral in this film is that humanity will have to learn to get along with the aliens the same way we have to learn to get along with each other, which is fitting considering the Cold War narrative is on the nose with this one. The point is, despite the fact that there are two suns by the end, this movie is much more grounded, which, for some, makes it more forgettable, but honestly, that’s a shame. I’ll continue my thoughts in the next review.

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When we returned to the ship, the meltar was waiting for us inside the hull. We exchanged goodbyes with Hapha and Nella, and we left the mining planet. All of us sat in the cockpit as Heath and Mark began discussing the plan. Like before, Heath took the pilot seat while Jill acted as his co-pilot. Cynthia and I sat together in the back, while Mark and Helen were in the middle row.

“So, you’re going to start shipping meltar to the outer planets,” Heath said. “And you’re going to disguise the missing freight as a slave revolt.”

“We’re going to be explaining a lot of missing freight as slave revolts,” Mark said.

“Mark?” Cynthia asked, sounding even more timid and unsure than usual.

Mark turned and looked back at Cynthia, and, even though he’d only just met her, he seemed to instantly detect that her tone was out of character. A worried frown appeared on his face, but he only said, “Yes.”

“We’re using them,” Cynthia said softly. “I think you believe what you told them, but can’t you see?” They don’t stand a chance.”

“We’re not going to leave them alone,” Mark said. “Shandor is the most valuable mining planet in the Milky Way. We can’t afford to lose it. They just need to hold the Nordics off long enough for us to join the battle.”

“But you just said you plan to arm other planets. You can’t defend them all, so some of them are sacrificial pawns. You’re okay with that?” Helen asked.

“This is war,” Jill said, her eyes fixed in front of her.

“That doesn’t mean we have to become monsters,” Cynthia said firmly.

“Yes. It does,” Jill argued.

“Cynthia,” Mark began.

He took a moment to gauge my reaction as well, but I tried to keep a neutral expression. For my part, I wasn’t sure if one had to become a monster to participate in a war, but I’d seen enough battle to feel great pity for those who’d taken a dark road. I don’t mean the Nordics. Monstrosity seemed to be part of their culture. I was thinking of the men who’d encountered the Nordics’ brutality on Earth and had broken. They’d become despondent and, over time, had brutalized any Nordics they could lay their hands on. And the whole while, I’d thought, “But for the grace of God, there go I.” I meant that both for the violent men and the Nordics who were at their mercy. It was no secret to us on Earth that if we were captured by the alien race, brutality, death, and possible slavery were our fates.

I find it strange that the violence I saw back then did not push me further away from God. I’ve had much more trouble dealing with the life of Heath and his crew. Perhaps it’s because, even if we’d died on Earth, we would’ve died men. But Heath and his crew had been reduced to animals. I imagine Cynthia believed war would return them to a similar state, so she was challenging Mark’s strategy. The Nordics specialized in dehumanization, and the crew was still suffering from their masters’ treatment, even after all this time. Yes. Perhaps that was the issue. Then again, I might be just old and tired.

Mark paused for a moment, as if he were choosing his words very carefully. Then he spoke. “How familiar are you with the Pacific Campaign?”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Cynthia said.

“It’s World War 2,” Helen put in. “One of the old wars on Earth.”

“The planets are like the islands in the Pacific,” Mark said. “Our nations are like the competing fleets. Much of that war was choosing where to put resources. We are in the same boat. The generals have to guess where the Nordics are going to place their pieces, and I must place our pieces to meet them. We are not sacrificing anybody. We are betting that they won’t strike one planet in favor of another. But I will freely admit that we could always be wrong. We’ll do our best to protect everyone, but there are risks.”

“I understand,” Heath said. “You have some special purpose for the meltar, but you also expect a battle over Hapha’s operation. So, you’re going to steal military supplies from several mining planets at once, and you won’t bother to hide your activities when it comes to the meltar because the Nordics are bound to find out about it anyway. Meltar is valuable, which means it’s being watched, so why take measures to hide your activities when they’re bound to be discovered. But you will be more careful with the other mining planets. If the slaves are caught, then the whole thing will be sold as a revolt just like Shandor, but you’d prefer these other operations to remain secret.”

“That’s why you want Nicholas,” Jill said.

I was surprised she used my name, but I said nothing because, honestly, I didn’t mind. It felt like I was finally becoming a part of the crew, but I’m not sure why this mattered to me, since our journey together was nearing its end. Once we reached the outer planets, my mission would begin, and I would no longer have cause to see them.

“Nicholas?” Cynthia asked. She paused, then muttered, “right,” eyeing Mark. “You said you planned to work with him, but you never explained how.”

As she said this, I noticed that she scooted toward me, and I almost winced when she placed her hand on my arm and squeezed. I suppose I would have, normally, but her gaze was fixed on Mark. She seemed suspicious of him, which surprised me. I’d assumed Heath would be. The two men seemed to be ideologically opposed on some level. Helen was a cynic, so I presumed skepticism would be her default. Jill was practical, so I figured she’d remain silent for a time before she signaled her emotions one way or the other. But since Cynthia was so warm to him at the warehouse, I thought she’d do for Mark what she’d done for me: take him in and do her best to make him feel welcome. Instead, she was clutching me like she meant to keep me from a predator.

After thinking about this for a moment, I realized that her initial question must’ve been prompted by what we’d seen on Hapha’s planet. I’d watched those screaming and moaning masses with a sort of awe. It was as if I were watching humanity itself wake up from a long slumber. Cynthia had seen something different. When Mark had taken Nella by the arm and made sure the crowd saw her standing beside him, wearing her white tunic, I had interpreted the maneuver as Mark reminding the crowd of their humanity. Cynthia had only seen a carrot. Nella was meant to entice the crowd with hopes of something they could never really obtain: freedom and restored dignity. In her mind, though she’d said little to nothing on the planet, Hapha was not Madulluel. Madulluel had let her slaves go. Hapha had kept his men, women, and children in bondage. The two alien leaders were not the same. Hapha and Mark were merely using the slaves as cannon fodder. In her mind, they would take as much meltar as they could, make some grand escape under the cover of battle, and leave the slaves to fend for themselves. They were pawns to be sacrificed, and she was afraid something similar was going to happen to me.

“I have many reasons for working with Nicholas,” Mark said.

“Let me guess one of them,” Jill said. “You couldn’t really sell the tunics we just smuggled as aid. If we’d been caught by some Nordic vessel, the most we could do was make up a story on the fly and hope they didn’t discover the weapons. It’s going to be that way each time we travel to one of your targeted planets, right?”

“That’s right,” Mark said.

Jill continued. “But if phase one of your plan is successful, then phase two is where you start gathering momentum. We’ll no longer be taking weapons to slave colonies; we’ll be smuggling military supplies inside provisions for Nicholas’s mission. You won’t be able to tell the Nordics that it’s a Christian camp, at least not for a while. You’ll have to claim that you’re spreading the message of Nordic superiority, and that lie will buy you time. You’ll continue gathering supplies until the lie is revealed, which I suspect will be whenever you decide to spill the beans yourself through some spy.”

“Right so far,” Mark said.

“So, why do you need Nicholas?” Cynthia asked. “He’s not going to pretend to be another religion.”

“He’s going to be dispersing the supplies,” Jill said. “Some of it will be devoted to his mission work, but some of it will be going toward another purpose.”

“You’re hoarding,” Heath said, but he said this so softly that I don’t believe he was really talking to anyone. “Everything you’re doing is a play for time, but why?” He was silent for a few minutes, but Mark did not answer the question. He seemed content to let Heath work the problem out on his own. Finally, Heath almost gasped as he said, “You’re insane.” He turned to Jill, and she nodded. I think he was silently telling her to take control of the ship because she began pressing buttons on the control panel in front of her, while Heath glared at Mark. “You’re baiting the Nordics into a siege. You’ve got something cooking with that meltar. I bet it’s a secret weapon of some kind. The Nordics won’t know why you’ve taken the meltar, but they will realize you’ve taken it. There will be a battle to maintain control of the planet, and I think you plan to let them have the mines back for a time, not permanently but for a while. You need them to think they’ve secured their supplies because you want them looking for where you’ve taken their stuff. You plan to give them that information at the right moment. In fact, you plan to give them multiple bits of information at the right moment to prompt a panicked response. While the meltar operation continues, you’re going to make the supply routes known to the Nordics. You won’t disclose where the supplies is coming from because you want to protect the slaves but also because you want those planets for future supply lines when the Terras Confederation attempts to retake the outer planets. But you will reveal the route itself, and you’re going to tell them where the supplies are going. Then, when the Nordics discover you’re taking the meltar, you’ll let them look around for a while, and when you judge the time is right, you’ll reveal that the mission is a Christian mission, and that will tell the Nordics everything they need to know. You’re stockpiling weapons on the outer planets. They’ll storm the mission in force, and you’ll be waiting for them.”

Mark nodded. “That’s the gist of it.”

“But the mission!” Cynthia cried. “They’ll be slaughtered!”

“I don’t think so,” Mark said. “Not if all goes well.”

“You’re risking civilians in battle,” Cynthia argued. “I thought you were a Christian!”

“I am,” Mark said. “But even if those Christians are killed in battle, that’s still a better fate than the martyrdom the Nordics have prepared for them.” Mark met Cynthia’s eyes, trying to reassure her with a boyish smile. She continued to glare at him, and finally, Mark added, “This is a very complex strategy. You’ve guessed my part in it, mostly. But this is also a joint plan between the Droguldai, Delvians, and Baavi.” He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He didn’t seem to feel guilty, but I got the sense that he was struggling to find a way to better explain the situation. Finally, he said, “If you wish to understand, I have to explain our position more fully.” He looked back and forth between Heath and Cynthia as he spoke. “I’m not sure if you realize it given how distant the battles have been, but the Terras Confederation is almost defeated. Right now, the Confederation has somewhere around ten systems remaining to it, but the Nordic empire surrounds it on three sides. We are almost encircled. Now, neither empire’s fleet is large enough to sufficiently guard their borders, and while the Nordics and their armies do outnumber us considerably, it’s not two to one, and we have some hope since the majority of their systems are not happy about their enslavement. This means if we can begin an invasion of our own, we can expect reinforcements from the planets whose populations have not been completely devolved into greys. So, the further our offensive gets, the larger our army can grow, and it can do so without forcing people into our ranks. That’s the hope anyway. But there is some risk. If the other systems are too depleted, we might not get the help we desire, but that is a future problem.”

“I knew we were losing,” Jill said. “But if things are as bad as you say, then Terras would be out of its mind to reject the Droguldai’s help.”

“They are,” Mark said. “But that is one aspect of this problem I’ll get to shortly. The first thing you need to understand is that since our armies are outnumbered, even if we took the Droguldai’s numbers into consideration, the only way we can defeat the Nordics is in detail, meaning we have to break the Nordics’ fleets up into small enough chunks to beat them one at a time. But we can’t do that if we don’t have some idea where the bulk of the Nordics are.”

“Don’t you have spies for that?” Helen asked.

“Yes. But the battle lines are so spread out, it’s almost impossible to get all the information in one place so each side can track the other side’s locations. Hypothetically, the Nordics could be amassing their fleet in one place to make a mad dash toward Earth, hoping that by taking out the Terras’ capital, the whole confederation would crumble. If this were happening, we would have no way of knowing it. I’m not saying that’s actually on the table; I’m merely stating that’s how scattered and disorganized the information is. Our only hope right now is that the Nordics are facing a similar problem.”

“So, you’re wanting to tick off the Nordics enough to gather their troops so they can crush one location.”

“We also want to signal an invasion,” Mark said. “It’s generally accepted that the outer planets are the most loosely guarded. We want them thinking we’re confident enough to punch a hole in their empire, which I suppose we are since we’re doing it, but the risk is that Earth will be more vulnerable than we’d like. We need the Nordics to react to our invasion rather than planning a counter-invasion and seeing who reaches whose capital first.”

“So, you’re betting that they hate Christianity enough to react to a religious invasion on the outer planets, which would presumably bleed into their empire,” Heath said.

“I don’t think they hate Christianity that much,” Cynthia said.

“They hate it,” Mark said. “But what should scare them is the fact that the Droguldai are actively pushing it. We’re not just leaking that the missions are Christians; we’re leaking that the Christians are backed by the Droguldai. The Droguldai are just as powerful as Earth. They could spread the religion fast if the Terras Confederation provides them enough cover to break into the empire. And if the Nordics can’t sell the idea that they are gods, then the other systems have that much more reason to resist them.”

“Which would also signal that the Droguldai are no longer acting as a neutral party. That too would cause the Nordics to concentrate around the outer planets since that’s where the bulk of the Droguldai’s terraformed trading posts are located,” Jill said.

“Mary’s home,” I muttered.

“That’s right,” Mark said. He went on. “Since the Droguldai’s trading posts are positioned around the outer planets, securing them and the mining planets just inside the Nordic Territory would give us a proper supply line for a long-term invasion, and they should reason that Nicholas’s mission is the hub of that operation. That’s what should cause them to amass at least a portion of their fleet for an attack on the mission, and eventually the majority of their fleet should be focused on the outer planets. Having them clustered in one place will allow us to bait different portions of their fleet to locations of our choosing, and, if God wills it, we will be able to destroy the Nordic army one piece at a time.”

“I’m confused,” Helen said. “If you’ve already got a plan to disguise the smuggling of supplies as slave revolts, why are you putting your eggs in one basket?” Why don’t you just go ahead and disperse the supplies?”

“Because they have to predict where the Nordics are going to go,” Heath said. “That requires telling them where they’re at and making sure they don’t decide to attack some other mission out of spite. All the metlar and all the supplies have to be in one place in order to guarantee that the Nordics show up. Even if they suspect a trap, there won’t be any choice.”

“But that also means you have to win that one battle or everything falls apart,” Jill said. “That’s a huge gambit.”

“Which is why they’ve got some way to use the meltar,” Heath said. “And that’s also why the Droguldai will be there. Earth has refused their help, so they need to make a dramatic entrance once they declare open war against the Nordics. This battle is their declaration. It’s not just about turning me into a war hero. It’s about demonstrating the Droguldai’s loyalty to the Confederation.”

“Right,” Mark said. He looked at me. “There may be one other thing I ask of you depending on how things go, but I’ll wait to speak of it because it may not be required.” He then looked at Cynthia. “Does that help explain matters?”

Cynthia was silent for a time, then she said, “I don’t like it. I understand that you’re going to do your best to protect them, but you’re still using those people as bait, and I don’t see how you’re going to be able to protect anyone once the Nordics arrive.”

Mark smiled. “That’s much easier to explain.”

As if on cue, Heath said, “We’re here.”

We all looked out the window and saw yet another planet with an orange hue.

May God grant you peace.

Hieromonk Nicholas Petrov

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Alas, I find myself in the difficult position of saying that I don’t care for this film. I know that from a technical standpoint, it’s a masterpiece. I know it is regarded as a classic and one of the best in a long list of famous works by Stanley Kubrick. I know there are scenes in this film that are iconic and genre-defining. But I still hated it.

For one thing, I disagree with the philosophy behind it. I don’t think evolution is true, and I certainly don’t think that death is a necessary part of life, let alone a needed step on the way to transcendence. I don’t think technology is the path to enlightenment. I think technology, like superpowers and vampirism, is an amplifier of what is already inside the heart of man, not a path to anything new, just more. So, it’s hard to get invested in a movie that I disagree with in every respect. I can appreciate its technological achievements. I can appreciate the tropes it established. But I can’t align myself with its philosophy on a single point.

Secondly, I’m sorry, but from a narrative standpoint, this movie is a mess. The three-act structure is disproportionate. It spends too little time on act one, too much time on act two, and it doesn’t finish either of the story arcs, refusing to answer vital questions regarding the protagonists. I know it was attempting to answer an overall narrative question in act three—Technology and weaponry are the same, therefore . . .but I felt following the rise or fall of Moonwatcher was important foreshadowing for the rest of the film, and that story question was neglected, which made the first act feel incomplete.

I felt Heywood’s arc was pointless, and I had to find out from the internet whether he lived or died after hearing the Monolith’s signal because I couldn’t see his name on the tiny Discovery monitor later in the film. As silly as it might be, I was so curious about Heywood, I could hardly focus on Bowman, who is supposed to be the movie’s protagonist.

Hal is a brilliant but ultimately unexplored character, and the stargate sequence is entirely too long, filled with symbolism that is almost impossible to suss out. I understand that a movie should make the audience ask questions, but the plot still needs to be clear enough for someone to follow what’s happening.

Thirdly, I think reviewers of this film often conflate depth with conflict. There are competing ideas in this movie, mostly regarding the nature of the aliens. I don’t think Clarke and Kubrick could agree on whether or not the aliens were bad or good or neither, so I think all three possibilities are presented during a film in a bizarre collage of conflicting visuals and musical cues, leaving it up to the audience to decide the Monolith’s meaning and nature. The Monolith brings about great change, but is the change bad or good? Kubrick seems to suggest both in his film, but the book emphatically declares the aliens are humanity’s savior and this change is good, even though this change brings about death. So, the Monolith is presented as both divine and a menace.

On the one hand, eerie music plays every time the Monolith shows up, which would be in line with the idea that the Monolith is a sort of tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but at the same time, there are multiple celestial bodies converging whenever the Monolith appears, implying Clarke’s view that a kind of divine force is at work. This becomes truly confusing at the end when Bowman is trapped in a sort of zoo until he dies, then he’s transformed into a space baby.

On the one hand, there is a death and life narrative going on, but on the other, Kubrick leaves the fate of humanity open-ended as the space baby looks down on earth and Thus Spoke Zarathustra plays in the background, implying the arrival of the Übermensch, triumph, and menace, whereas Clarke has the baby blow up the planet. Does this new life bring about more life, or does it just bring about more death?

If this new life just brings about more death, then what’s the point of transcending, other than getting to be the one to kill people without reprisal? Meet the new boss—Space Baby, same as the old boss—evolution. And if the aliens are twisted enough to trap a human in a zoo, why would they become benevolent enough to allow a mortal man to transcend his humanity? In short, this movie is a mess, and that mess is conflated with depth.

On a positive note, where the movie shines, it shines bright. The scenes between Bowman and Hal are amazing. When Kubrick is sticking to his technology narrative, the movie is strong and consistent. The visuals are also incredible. The acting is solid. The voice of Hal is phenomenal. The whole Discovery sequence with Bowman, Poole, and Hal is as flawless as anyone could reasonably expect.

The main issue comes when Kubrick is trying to address the Monolith. The idea that the Monolith represents the dichotomy of technology is clear and consistent up until the stargate sequence, when the Monolith stops representing knowledge and begins representing a semi-divine power. Once that happens, it becomes impossible to follow what’s happening. One reason for this is, ironically, the mysterious nature of the Monolith. The thing that makes the Monolith iconic is also the thing that makes it inconsistent.

Basically, Kubrick and Clarke knew the aliens built the Monolith, and they knew that the Monolith was a beacon and a test created by the aliens, but the audience wouldn’t know that unless they’d read the book. From the audience’s perspective, this mysterious otherworldly object gave humanity technology and is about to offer something else. The question is what? The answer to that question is enlightenment, transcendence to the next mode of being, but from the audience’s perspective.

The symbol for technological revelation is now standing at the foot of Bowman’s bed after transporting him to who knows where, and, suddenly, Bowman becomes a baby. There’s no reason to connect the Monolith to the transformation beyond a vague idea that it had something to do with it.

But the worst part of this movie is the idea of the Übermensch, especially considering what the baby does in the book. Kubrick’s presentation seems relatively innocent. Technology can lead to greater things, possibly a way to overcome evolution. But Clarke is defining the Übermensch as the ability to kill without remorse or limitation.

I wish I could say I recommend this movie, but I can’t. Kubrick seemed well-meaning enough, but Clarke’s ideology stains the film. In my opinion, it would be best to simply watch the conflict between Hal, Bowman, and Pool, and if a viewer wants to see some marvelous technological achievements, he or she could watch the Heywood act. The rest of the film has a poor message and is really a waste of time, even though it’s a classic.

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For a time, we shall turn our attention to beings that are not always sentient. The subjects we shall cover here are creatures like zombies, advanced zombies/modern golems, traditional golems, simple golems, ghosts/shades, and more.

I’d like to start out with golems because when it comes to these poor creatures, the question of sentience can go either way. I’ll start with the most basic golem first. We call it a Simple Golem, although it doesn’t technically fit the category of golem in other schools of supernatural thought. We consider it a golem because the basic method of creating a simple golem is the same as creating its more advanced counterparts.

A simple golem is an inanimate object that has had a human soul trapped inside it. This is a very sinister and difficult art among the magical classes. The most typical vessel is a clay jar. But the container can be anything provided the right symbols and shapes are applied to the object in question.

Now a couple of notes as to how this is done. First of all, no one can trap a soul after it has died. The summoning arts are the exclusive realm of the demonic. Anything manifesting as the result of a summoning is nothing more than a demon mimicking the dead. Perhaps it is appropriate to have this discussion after discussing the shapeshifters because that is in large part how demons interact with humanity. They are impersonators, and summonings are one of the many ways they deceive.

I bring this up because this means the soul in question must be alive in order to be transferred. The man and woman in question must also have made his or herself vulnerable to the wizard, witch, witch doctor, etc. This black art is an act of murder if the incantation isn’t stopped in time, for once the soul is separated from the physical body, the body dies and the soul cannot reenter it. Note that I dare not say the body will die once the soul leaves its shell. Near-death experiences happen quite often, but there comes a moment—who can say when—when what is called the silver cord is cut, and once that line tethering soul and body is split, there is no rejoining the two unless God intervenes.

An elderly woman, who is now very close to me, was unknowingly hoodwinked into participating in a similar ritual. This had made her vulnerable to the witch doctor in question, and when we confronted him, he attempted to transfer her soul into a clay jar. I had to kill the man before he was finished chanting the spell, and it was a near thing. Killing the magical user in question is the only way I’ve found to stop the transition.

As to what can be done once they are inside the simple golem, I must confess there is very little. First of all, human spirits cannot interact with the simple golem unless the object is designed to be manipulated, which, oftentimes, it isn’t because the chief purpose of these receptacles is to store souls for a ceremony where a demon claims it needs to absorb a certain number of souls for power. This is nonsense, of course. A demon doesn’t eat in the way a man eats, nor can they absorb a will. However, they do feed in a sense. They draw on negative emotion the same way a wizard will pull magic from a demon. That’s the true purpose behind the murders. The demon does not and cannot absorb the soul, but it does wish to absorb the rage of that soul’s family. It also wishes to further isolate the enchanter, drawing him further away from God through a foul deed. And the wretched thing enjoys snuffing out not just a life but also the potentials that life might’ve brought about. From the perspective of the spiritual, death is not merely a crime because the body ceases to be. What is a body? It means little to the demons except as a means to commit more mischief. No. The purpose of murder for the demon is to capture the soul before it can find God and enter the Covenant and to undermine the will of the Almighty. God has a plan for each soul and a thousand potential realities that soul might enjoy, potential good deeds that soul might do. The propensity for evil is there as well, of course, but the demons enjoy snuffing the whole thing out and preventing a reality God has intended. They cannot accomplish this themselves, so they need men and their free will. Therefore, they’re always asking the enchanters in question to commit murder in some form or fashion.

This is also why the demons target children with such ferocity. Children are the closest to God. Children are innocent; therefore, their deaths are a greater perversion. And children have the most potential of any living thing. The demons’ petulant nature lusts for the death of children more than anything else.

Returning to the simple golem, it’s almost impossible to tell whether there is a soul trapped inside it—again, unless the receptacle has been designed to be manipulated. Often times, a family will bring the simple golem to you, and the best thing to do is break it. As usual, there is some debate as to what happens to the soul once the receptacle is broken. Some say the soul is taken immediately to its rightful place; others say it remains trapped in the spirit realm. I have always believed the former, but some maintain the latter, and those that do often try to create a new body for the soul and attempt another ceremony to transfer that soul from the simple golem to a standard golem. This is incredibly foolish.

To explain why, I must first briefly address the nature of golems and their purpose. Some of this might be repeated later, but I feel a need to address this now so that I make myself clear. The shell of a golem is only one part of the entire equation. The other part is creating what most enchanters call a spirit, but what we refer to as a lesser intellect. In a way, the nymphs’ enchantment reduces the women in question to lesser intellects, but that is not strictly speaking the same thing, since the fundamental aspects of what it means to be human are being repressed, which is something quite different from a lesser intellect, which could more accurately be described as a kind of program. It might be able to mimic human behavior, but the fundamental elements of a human are not present.

I will spare you the details of this philosophical nuance, at least for now. My purpose in bringing this up here is to help explain what a golem actually does. Some people will create a mask or a talking object and then, using a variety of means, place a lesser intellect inside the object. The mask or head or whatever will then serve as an advisor. In other cases, they will place one of these intellects inside a statue to serve as a guard. In the earliest traditional cases of golems, a lesser intellect was placed inside a giant, human-shaped, clay statue. Sometimes this was a family protector, sometimes it was a servant, but the lesser intellect was always serving a specific function and didn’t have the same level of sentience as a human. The most that could be said is that they are some form of animal, more akin to a parrot with thumbs than a man.

Now, when it comes to attempting to rescue a soul from a simple jar. My advice would be to break the jar and let the soul meet his or her reward, whatever it may be. But some people believe that the soul will remain trapped in the spirit realm, and family members who are aware of the situation are not too keen on that solution in any case because they do not wish to lose their loved one. So, there have been some attempts by hunters to utilize wizards who have a natural talent. They ask these wizards to make golems and try to transfer the soul or souls in question. There are some issues with this. First of all—my personal friend excluded, of course—I do not trust wizards as a rule. If the wizard knows anything about the soul that has been trapped, then it would be nothing for him to create a lesser intellect to mimic the man or woman to appease the family, and the hunter, knowing nothing about how such rituals are done, would be none the wiser. Secondly, natural talent or not, demons are attracted to the rituals themselves, not just a wizard who has made a pact to utilize their evil. And since this is the case, and since a demon tends to mimic anyway, there is a high likelihood that, even if the transfer could successfully be done, the demon would either kick out the intended soul and impersonate it or join that soul in the same receptacle, forcing the soul to share room and board with a demon. However, in my estimation, the most likely scenario is that the soul cannot make the jump since it has already practically died. I’d say the soul has already gone on to his or her reward, and the creature speaking in the golem, be it a body or a talking mask, is a demon or a lesser intellect meant to trick the family. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I find it unlikely that simple golems are effective at all. I’ve never seen any evidence that makes me believe that a soul could be trapped in a jar. Now, I should temper that by saying that I have seen souls trapped inside more standard golems, but I’ve never seen one of these jars so much as twitch, so for all I know, the ritual is wholly ineffective. For these reasons, I strongly discourage the use of such methods. I shall discuss the standard or traditional golem next time, if the Almighty allows me to do so.

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