I: Raven

There was once a Raven so brave that they challenged themselves to fly as high as their wings would take them; they flew so high that they saw the dark and the endless before becoming bored and hungry and then nose-diving back through the thin atmosphere, like the spacecraft Columbia upon reentry, just without the fire and parachutes, returning to the world they knew so well. Now back in their world of comfort, the Raven promptly took a shit on a passing car driving northbound on Interstate 95 at the Pennsylvania Turnpike connector near Bristol Township.

The Raven is a bird of mysterious origin; as if anything has an origin that is not mysterious. Followers of Science believe that the Raven hailed from the Old World; this being an esoteric term for Africa, Europe, and Asia; continents at one time thought to be the entire world until the Americas were discovered; the “New World”; full of riches and opportunity. The Rubicon of which, according to Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, a Roman historian now converged with Nature, Julius Caesar spoke the words “alea iacta est” before crossing; roughly translating to “the die is cast.” The die being a cube with numbers on each side, something that fans of role-playing games are all-too-familiar with, but also summarizing the Rubicon; a game of dying; a game of kill or be killed; a game that leaves dead mothers and crying babies in the aftermath; the point of no return; in short, a massacre.

Ravens are endlessly fascinating according to the written word of ancient people who refused to stop writing about them. To the ancient Christians, the Raven was a dirty, nasty thing representing deceit, desolation, and death; three d’s only superseded by the Devil. Yet many cultures see the Raven as a symbol of strength, resolve, and freewill. Like the varied opinions on them, Ravens are contrarians at their core with a jovial, talkative Nature underlying their egocentric charm so easily perceived by their haughty strut when they happen to grace the land they could so easily be ignoring. The Raven is so talkative that many cultures, particularly Western European, viewed them as prophets and speakers-of-the-dead, able to bridge the gap between the mortal and spiritual realms; so intelligent is the Raven that they are able to smooth-talk the ferryman into forgoing the toll, and when that doesn’t work: simply soar over them; this is good news for the grieving mother who lost her husband in the most recent massacre thinly veiled as a Holy War against the Barbarians-Who-Don’t-Look-Like-Us from across the river.

Massacres were commonplace in 349 BC when Rome was the United States of America without nuclear weapons, electricity, climate deniers, and smallpox vaccines; meaning a pantheon of pock-mock-people roamed the streets of ancient Rome and one such person was the military commander Marcus Valerius who, prior to crossing the Rubicon, was challenged by a behemoth of a Gallic man who knew zero losses. Marcus Valerius, a man that could be divided into a Gallic warrior four times, neck-deep in stupidity, approached the warrior with misplaced Davidian confidence; yet moments before the reckoning, a Raven landed on the bill of Marcus’s helmet. Marcus, astounded, commanded the Raven to fly into the face of the behemoth, distracting the beastly Gallic warrior just enough to land a killing blow with his iron-tipped spear. For a brief moment, Marcus was the handler and the Raven was his mercenary. Marcus Valerius became Marcus Valerius Corvus on that day and was awarded a golden crown and twelve oxen. This was Marcus Valerius Corvus’s Rubicon.

*Raven, perched upon man-made excess (photo courtesy of @handmade_ghost)

Ravens don’t care about the Rubicon, and they don’t stick around for long. Ravens gather their wings and fly. Ravens are intimidating by virtue of being the largest passerine bird, or perching bird, and are also highly intelligent, matrimonious, and social. If something is blocking a path to the Raven’s food, they use sticks and stones to solve complex physics puzzles, as one does in the Half-Life series; the weight of the stone pushes the water level higher, thereby allowing the Raven to reach the insect in a tall cup of shallow rainwater left outside by a thoughtless human; this insect, apart from being doomed, is also subject to taste tests where it may be crushed or palpated in the Raven’s bill for several minutes before being gulped down or rejected outright as a mangled eldritch horror. This forever life-altering chaos for the insect is contrasted by the order of the Raven who chooses a mate for life. The Raven will often travel, set up home, and defend that home with their mate forevermore; something akin to the concept of human love, and to an outside observer: identical. This love is balanced by the Raven’s ability to hold grudges against those who treat them poorly, indicating a keen sense of awareness around transgressions which comes with the wholly insufficient concepts of “good” and “bad” baked-in; something akin to the concept of human morality, and to an outside observer: identical. These Ravens cool themselves through the practice of gular fluttering, which manifests itself as Bigmouth Strikes Again and again. Their blue-black wings catch sunlight and glint majestic as they wheel and deal through the skies we share but can only dream of soaring without mechanical assistance; the Raven mocking that dream, mimicking the sounds of human speech and the machines so easily defecated upon: cars starting, planes taking off, toilets flushing, people screaming; all part of their spirituals: their Freedom songs. The Raven soars overhead in flocks humans can only think – out of envy – to call treacherous conspiracy and unkindness; both actual terms for “A Flock of Ravens,” and a far better band name than “A Flock of Seagulls,” a band known for playing raves in the 1980s; a “rave” being yet another name for “A Flock of Ravens” but also contradictorily used as both a term of insanity and extreme enthusiasm, which upon reflection are more similar than not; but more important than any of this, the Raven is free to fly away from the Rubicon if they choose. The Raven can perch every land and soar every cloud. The Raven is above us, both figuratively and literally.

II: Sojourn on the Nature of Nature

Having chosen “Nature” as one of many central themes of this essay, it is important to establish the definitions we will be working with: the Nature of Nature. What is Nature? Is Nature a concept, a force, a person, a place, or a thing? Merriam-Webster defines Nature as “the external world in its entirety,” while also as “natural scenery,” and also as “the inherent character or basic constitution of a person or thing,” and also “humankind’s original or natural condition” (this one using a derivative of the word in the definition of the word), and also “a creative and controlling force in the universe” (the ‘creative’ and ‘controlling’ bits too loaded for my tastes as they imply intent), and also “the genetically controlled qualities of an organism” (does not outside influences alter the behavior of an organism? And are not these same outside influences part of Nature?), and also “a spontaneous attitude (as of generosity)”; and the definitions become more convoluted, varied, and absurd as the list goes on, and we are no closer to determining the Nature of Nature. The phrase “Nature of Nature,” itself is absurd as we have failed to define what “Nature” actually is to begin with. This is because Nature, like many things, cannot truly be defined by words; all we can do is hope to grasp a semblance of its essence. Nature is all around us, all-consuming, and all-powerful in a slow, methodical way. Time itself, as we perceive it, is part of the Nature of things, the Nature of the universe. With time, Nature creates a star. With time, Nature collapses that star, and a black hole is formed, and in some new-age druidic teachings the Raven symbolizes the black hole and the black hole symbolizes new beginnings as it consumes all nearby matter and releases something new. And yet, we are no closer to determining the Nature of Nature.

For the purposes of this writing, we will be using the following definition of the word Nature: Nature is the state of things before human interference.

Yes, we are hardcoding anti-human sentiment into the definition of Nature. This is because things quickly become circular if we don’t; for example, aren’t humans part of Nature as we arose from the same forces in the universe that created the grass, the trees, and the Raven? If so, doesn’t that mean everything is actually part of Nature, and therefore is a meaningless distinction that amounts to “it is” being the end-all-be-all-de-facto definition of Nature? And yes, that would be true by that definition; however, it does not suit the purposes of this essay.

Nature is the sugar maple tree in your backyard and the Raven perching on the topmost branch of that tree. Nature is the grass McDonald’s paves over when they stand up a new burger joint. Nature includes any non-human animal, as we are the only self-hating-species with the ability to think ourselves out of existence (and likely should, as this essay will attempt to argue from time to time). Nature is the state of things without you and I. Nature is the moss, vines, and grass overtaking the abandoned trailer deep within the forgotten turn of a rural neighborhood that the kids sometimes sneak off to to smoke some Nature, or what the kids call: “some of that really dank gas.” Nature is the resplendent sight of the sun slowly scrolling out of view behind the endless blue; something us humans like to think only we can appreciate right before we get in our metal box and drive to another metal box to think real hard about how to make better metal boxes; an existential nightmare that this essay’s definition of Nature allows me to call: Unnatural.

(The author of this essay reserves the right to alter the definition of “Nature” at any time without warning.)

III: Another Raven

621: Three numbers combine to make one number; designation of the lone mercenary sent to the third planet in the star system Rubicon. The third planet is Rubicon 3, a functional yet creatively-bankrupt name for a planet. 621 is just another number on another row; a mercenary working for a handler who has the privilege of having a real name: (Handler) Walter. 621 has no gender, no voice, no identity, and no freewill. 621 is a blank slate. 621 doesn’t know why they’re on Rubicon 3; Walter says it’s to “find the Coral” and “get rich to buy your body back,” and there’s no reason to question any of it because 621 pilots cool giant robots called “Armored Cores,” monstrosities against Nature and “AC” for short. 621 might as well be the AC itself, as their body – if they even have a physical body (we never ever see a human body on Rubicon 3) – is completely obscured, alone in a cold metal cockpit; 621 is a “fourth generation augmented human,” empathy and kindness have been dulled, reasoning faculties focused only on perfected violence, and instincts honed like the brilliant glint of the Moonlight Greatsword. They are: Unnatural. The perfect killing machine.

*621’s first docking at Rubicon 3

Upon landing on Rubicon 3, 621 is tasked with finding a callsign, an identity; a figurative horror we all wrestle with in our formative years and pretend to have figured out in adulthood; yet 621’s identity crisis is not as dire, because the ego is suppressed and it doesn’t matter to 621; they need an identity to blend in on Rubicon, a callsign to hide behind when working for the resource-hungry corporations that vie for control over Rubicon and to assimilate into the mercenary network run by an innocuous artificial intelligence named ALLMIND; both sects religious in their manufacturing of weapons and AC parts sold freely between all parties for the express purpose of making better weapons, which is a proxy for pure and simple: power. Pepsi, Coke, and RC Cola but instead of drying the wells of indigenous Mexican towns to make delicious soda pop that gives grandpa tumors, they are sucking the entire planet dry to produce the perfect generator to power robots that fire mini-nukes at each other and step on people as if they’re walking through a City of Bugs.

621 scavenges the aftermath of a corporate warzone like a vulture; remnants of ACs litter the smoky hellmouth, each linked with their own callsign. Many of these callsigns are expired and unusable. After five or six, 621 comes across the wreckage of callsign Raven; this one is still active. “We can use that one,” Handle Walter says. In this way, the Raven is passed down from pilot to pilot; not a name, but a title, something to aspire to before returning to Nature.

621 returns to the AC hangar on borrowed wings and logs into the mercenary network.

“Registration number Rb23. Callsign: Raven. Authentication complete. Removing MIA status. Restoring access privileges. This is ALLMIND, the mercenary support system. Welcome back, Raven.”

IV: Stories About Building Giant Robots

V: The Chapter in Which the Planet Rubicon 3 is Described in Serious Detail

The fields of Rubicon 3 are covered in the fallout of a nuclear holocaust. The Fires of Ibis. The souls of the dead, caught in the blast radius, forever one with Nature, reabsorbed; instantly converged before they could take the freshly picked flowers home to Maggie, the one that got away: forevermore. You can’t find flowers anymore. It was decades ago, yet the climate remains changed; snow mixed with ash, gray like our morality, blankets the entire world, and the rubicon-red of Coral accents the sky; beautiful like the setting sun or hideous like a pool of blood, depending on perspective; that perspective being those of industrial-revolutionists run through a computer simulation on six-million-times-speed; the type of perspective that doesn’t understand this essay’s definition of Nature; the type of perspective that enables a human to pump another human with hydrogen fluoride to test if it would create viable human-skin-balloons for commercial flying. Metal lines the skies, metal to the east and metal to the west, the north and the south. The men and women, devoid of humanity, spend all their time in metal boxes called Muscle Tracers, or MTs, and if they’re rich enough to build their own: Armored Cores. So of course it was a holocaust of their own making. The Coral streaking the once blue skies, a force of incredible power, an infinitely reproducing power-source. Whoever controls the Coral controls the Rubicon, and where there’s coral: there’s blood, The Rubiconians got greedy before The Fall (as humans do, as is our Nature). The Rubiconians built a research facility: the Vascular Plant, to pump the Coral blood out of the heart of the Rubicon. They used the coral for everything from fueling their metal boxes to human experimentation; the Raven, the “fourth generation augmented human.” When the carnival of horrors outweighed the benefits, a rogue Rubiconian scientist burned it all down; turns out igniting large concentrations of Coral isn’t the smartest idea, as it caused a devastating shockwave of Ruby Red Ruin; The Fires of Ibis. Billions died. Survivors of the fire are called “Cinders.”

*snow, metal, red

They say some can see the Coral. Some can even hear it; the Coral speaks to them; is the Coral alive or are those people just Coral Tripping at the Gates of Now?

VI: Coral Tripping at the Gates of Now

“Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.” — Pink Floyd, “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”

VI. I: Junk Wizards and Hackers

Decades after the calamity, junk wizards and hackers freebase the Coral; they inject it too; they sniff it through their nose; they smoke it through bubbly bong water. Coral can be refined into all forms for the purposes of tripping the light fantastic. Drugging it to Coral is extremely addicting, as it produces an immediate psychic euphoria and physical sensation equivalent to ten thousand orgasms while soaking in a warm bath.

“Cinder Carla,” a survivor of the Fire of Ibis, pilots an AC named “FULL COURSE,” which, upon checking the schematics in the ALLMIND database, is assembled with a number of food-related parts: “WS-5000 APPETIZER” is the name of the head unit; “MAIN DISH” is the core; “SALAD” is the arms, and “DESSERT” is the legs. One can’t help but assume this is somehow intercourse-related (FULL INTERCOURSE), but that would be an “outsider looking in” perspective, as sexuality doesn’t exist in the Rubicon, replaced with drugs and violence; kissing a woman is an aspect of life completely missing from the Rubiconian; their faculties for romance are as barren as the ashy snow their giant robots trample upon, this aspect of their humanity lost.

And during Carla’s time as the leader of the RAD corporation, where she put her knack for tinkering with machines to good use by imagineering countless creative killing machines, she became all too familiar with the perils of Coral addiction after her close friend, Johnny, started using; he got so out-of-his-mind that he ended up stealing one of her top-secret weapons and glued his pubic hair to the bald spot on his head and now goes by the name “HONEST BRUTE” and lives in a junkyard of scrap robots and traps that would put my Extremely-Southern-Pro-Confederate-Neighbor-With-Fifty-Cameras-On-His-Property to shame.

Long story short: it’s the good stuff, smoking Coral. It’s real good. Imagine the ego, then imagine it dead.

*it’s the title of the chapter, clever – right? (please tell me I’m clever)

Rubicon 3 is a world post-apocalyptic; a world in which mega-corporations vie for control over the sole resource the planet is famous for: Coral. It’s a prison planet of their own making. The greed, the lust, the power, the Heart’s Desire for all these things, the High – it forbids you from leaving. The Raven laughs and mimics Matt Johnson’s tongue, but these thoughts would never cross the mind of a corporate vesper or a Rubiconian already in the midst of snorting Coral powder through a straw several times over. This Coral high is necessary; it’s an escape from the violence. The Junk Wizards and Hackers, they hide out in the junkyards, in the RAD warehouses. They smoke the good stuff; they get high. They try to escape in their own way – what else can they do? The world is a mess, and – let’s face it – we’re not that smart; we’re not doing anything with ourselves, or maybe we tell ourselves we’re above it all, so above it all that we don’t need to do anything with ourselves. Corporate Steve with a million bucks is just a guy who was in the right place at the right time; I’m better than him. I scream in the fetal position as the clockwork elves whisper to me about the magic door that leads to Rainbow Ridge with the voluptuous women with three breasts and the Pokémon cards. The Raven laughs.

VI. II: 253 West 27th Street

VI. III: Wine, Weapons, and Women

Cabernet Sauvignon is a sharp wine, bold and powerful with kickback like the 44-141 JVLN ALPHA; carrying a handheld bazooka around is a big commitment, even for giant robots; it takes excellent precision and timing to land a shot on any opponent who knows the first thing about how to pilot their machine, a simple boost to the left or right and the explosive misses. On the other hand, the foppish taste of a Pinot Noir is said to require a “delicate palette” to appreciate; it’s thin and subtle but still strong enough to – after a full glass – tell mom about the girl you might have gotten pregnant when you were in middle-school, or maybe the girl was lying to “get back at you” for breaking up with her, or maybe not; maybe you’ll never know. A glass of Pinot Noir is like “I need another one of these” which means it’s also a DF-MG-02 CHANG-CHEN, the machine gun that’s a little-bit-too-overtuned with its sustained firepower thanks to an oversized magazine and cool name, and the cigarette in your other hand is the IA-C01W2: MOONLIGHT, a laser sword that doubles as a projectile like the cigarette-butt flicked at Gary when he gets physical again at the party and you need a distraction to just-get-out-of-there, turns out the extremely interesting blonde by the bar was actually Gary’s wife. Merlot is the most bitter of the three, like your half-aunt with the Chinese-character-tattoo on the back of her neck that no longer visits because grandma died and didn’t leave her anything in the will and your dad tripped her one time “as a joke” at Thanksgiving ‘04; it’s also fruity and wild and totally worth it, in a “she’s cute but we’re related” type of way, in short: don’t drink merlot, but if you did you would be using an energy-based weapon; you’ve got a lot of heart, a lot of emotion swelling up for your step-aunt, you’re using the IA-C01W1: NEBULA: a plasma rifle that can charge its purple-stuff to make big booms that are instantly regrettable; the experience is passable but now your entire family shuns you and she “doesn’t know if this will work out” after your AC is smoking, missing an arm, and spewing fuel from the primary core unit.

*Raven, piloting the BURU-SHIKI V.2, carrying a shot of White Label and a cigarette (wine and regrets not pictured)

If you just want to get it over with, bust out the Evan Williams, White Label. Pour a shot and inhale; now you’re playing with the SG-027 ZIMMERMAN, a shotgun with such concentrated firepower that you can snipe an AC from a mile away, and up close: it’s already over; take two shots of White Label and you’re playing with two SG-027 ZIMMERMAN in both hands, which shouldn’t be allowed in the code, it trivializes the experience; it’s too easy. Yes, we could down two shots of White Label and get-with-it-immediately, or we could coast the cool with a few glasses of step-aunt and talk the night away while we slowly fade into the forevermore.

VI. IV: I’m Not an Addict

VI. V: Addiction and the Nature of Freedom

Addiction is currently defined as a neurophysiological disorder typified by an intense urge to engage in behavior that produces positive feedback in the brain despite the potential negative consequences that could arise from such behavior; addiction is an intense desire that overrides common sense (a term I don’t like, but it works here). In extreme cases, it’s sneaking out of the house at midnight while your wife and child are asleep to score a hit; in less extreme cases, it’s the impossible-to-overcome-urge to have a few glasses of wine before bedtime or, in Fox Mulder’s case, the overwhelming desire to sleep with everyone in the room.

Addiction, as a neurophysiological disorder, comes with its own existential baggage; the most obvious implication being that we have very little control over our own actions. The official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (their official website is called Nature dot com slash npp) recognizes that the deterministic argument against categorizing addiction as a neurophysiological disorder “… has merit but asserts that the foundational premise that addiction has a neurobiological basis is fundamentally sound.”*^#1 They later strongly support their claim, going as far as to say that “We also emphasize that denying that addiction is a brain disease is a harmful standpoint since it contributes to reducing access to healthcare and treatment, the consequences of which are catastrophic.”^#2 To which this writer agrees but acknowledges that it is a roundabout way of saying, “free will does not exist,” and if it does exist, it’s a word-game that humanity has constructed to describe the illusion made manifest by chemicals and electrical synapses going off at the right place and time in the brain, at best. If we accept this, we must also accept that other animals function similarly. After all, the Raven has a brain, albeit smaller than our own, but it still dictates their actions – to fly, mate, eat bugs, and shit on your car.

Many of us, myself included, like to imagine our consciousness as a floating force outside of the body, a spiritual psyche disconnected from the blood and bone that we recoil from in horror after a bad injury; the mere sight of blood makes many of us gag; repulsed by the idea that we are biological flesh balloons walking around with desires controlled by a shriveled jelly-like mass with approximately 86 billion neurons, intricately interconnected by trillions of synapses to form something not dissimilar from the inside of my laptop’s Ryzen 5 CPU. This rejection of the brain must be the case, as we base our entire society on this rejection of biological determinism; otherwise, the legal system would be an unjust and evil institution punishing people for simply doing what their bodies told them to do; the drug addict who accidentally propositioned an undercover cop to score some heroin, thrown in jail because of the neurophysiological disorder that they will have to wrestle with their entire life; people like Jeffrey Dahmer, who, due to poor dice rolls during character creation, have the irresistible urge to rape and murder their neighbors, then store their carcasses in a freezer to cook months later. “Alea iacta est,” said Julius Caesar, crossing the Rubicon. We lock-up these “degenerates” and hope that treatment helps them, but can they ever truly change, or does the medication simply mask the biological aberrations that we, as a society, do not accept? Sometimes we forgo the entire treatment process by outright killing the offender (this is treatment for society, not the person). It starts to make sense why people would upload their consciousness into a computer or fuse their body into an Armored Core, the ultimate escape from biology. Techo-transcendentalism and jacked-in-forever. The pontification is palpable, but the fact remains: society would collapse if we made excuses for these aberrations, “oh, that’s just Lance, he’s a sex pest, he can’t help it.” The heart’s desire, a complicated series of biological urges – how do we gather our wings and fly away from it all?

“The only true freedom is freedom from the heart’s desire.” — The The, “True Happiness This Way Lies”

VII: Anarchy in the Rubicon

VII. I: Operation Iraqi Freedom

The Rubicon is beset from all sides. In 2003, the United States of America led a coalition of thirty-six countries in an invasion of the Republic of Iraq; the standing president of the United States, George W. Bush, said at the time, “Our cause is just, the security of the nations we serve and the peace of the world; and our mission is clear: to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.”^#3 Die-hard Bush-bros, including my own father, defended the president, claiming that the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center were enough justification to launch an invasion of any sandy place to the east of the United States; in fact, 69% of Americans at the time believed Saddam Hussein was at-least-kinda responsible for the 9/11 attacks^#4, and even more believed he possessed weapons of mass destruction despite the fact that there was zero evidence for this claim^#5 other than the President strongly implying as much^#6, only for the President to make the following statement three years after the invasion: “I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat; my administration, the Congress, and the United Nations saw the threat – and after 9/11, Saddam’s regime posed a risk that the world could not afford to take; the world is safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.”^#7 George W. Bush’s statement is a masterclass in gaslighting the American people; for years he all but outright said that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks, but here he is casually dismissing it as if that was never the implication; clearly, the US had other motives for invading Iraq, and the Iraqis knew it, that’s why the Iraqis started igniting their own oil fields the moment they got wind of the invasion; flame geysers erupted from the ground like Armageddon Days (Are Here Again), leaving smoke trails against the blood red skies. The United States had God on their side, but if the Iraqis thought Jesus Christ’s mercy was coming: “honey, you’ve got another thing coming,” this was old Elohim.

*Raven watches the world burn

“According to intelligence reports prior to the invasion, Iraqi forces had placed explosives on hundreds of oil wells located around Al Basrah and on the Al Faw peninsula. CENTCOM wanted the oil fields seized as rapidly as possible and any planned demolition prevented. Thus, at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, U.S. marines, joined by British and Polish forces, and supported by Royal Navy, Polish Navy, and Royal Australian Navy warships, made an amphibious assault on the Al Faw peninsula. Another British force, the 16th Air Assault Brigade, secured the oil fields in southern Iraq around Rumaylah, while Polish commandos captured offshore oil platforms near Umm Qasr. These forces completed all tasks successfully.”^#8

The first thing the US-led coalition did upon entering Iraq was seize the oil fields; they called this “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” and it was an overwhelming success.

VII. II: Coral and Corporations

Coral to Rubicon 3 is what petroleum is to Earth: a precious resource used as a power source, highly coveted, unlike anything that came before; the energy output is incredible and it replicates like gray goo. These properties are what make it so dangerous; moments after being released from the ground, it started to self-replicate and, left unchecked, could quickly spread beyond the atmosphere of Rubicon 3, leaking into space, contaminating all it touches; but, who cares about that – it can power our super-cool-giant-robots, so let’s mosey into the money and kill each other for profit; those doing the moseying are the corporations and their subsidiaries; years after the Fires of Ibis, word got out about the coral, which piqued the interest of corporations across the galaxy, and “where there’s coral, there’s blood,” so sayeth the Raven’s handler, Walter.

Arquebus Corporation: Weapons manufacturer (they’re all weapons manufacturers, go figure). They employ an elite mercenary squad called the “Vespers,” which has its own rank and file, including ace pilots such as V.IV Rusty (the V stands for “Vesper,” go figure), who battles with Raven a number of times during these Armageddon days. Arquebus Corporation is the largest corporate force on Rubicon 3, with a subsidiary company, Schneider Corp, which manufactures heavy-duty Armored Core parts. Arquebus manufacturing deals primarily in energy-based laser weaponry; their parts are high-end, expensive, and still very bad; like Dyson, but instead of vacuums: photothermal optical lasers. Arquebus still makes a fortune, apparently, and wants to make more, hence their presence on Rubicon 3: secure the coral, make the money, control the galaxy.

Balam Corporation believes in domination through material superiority, and their subsidiary Dafeng Core Industries is the “stout tree with slender branches,” which translates to “fat mechs with lots of firepower” or something. Balam, like Arquebus, has their own elite mercenary force, the Redguns, which use the prefix “G” for “gun,” like G5 Iguazu: a nobody who is easily defeated by Raven early on, ranked 19/D in the ALLMIND virtual arena, which is another way of saying “trash.” Balam weaponry deals in the reals and the tangible, handguns that shoot real bullets (not weird plasma) and rocket launchers that launch real rockets, and of course: they want the coral to make better weapons to make more money, just like Arquebus.

Like all forms of capitalism, the major players eventually boil down to two; in this case, Balam and Arquebus, a duopoly akin to Comcast and AT&T (Arquebus would be Comcast in this example) or Coca-Cola and Pepsi (Balam would be Pepsi); also like all forms of capitalism, there are minor players with grand ambitions but no hope of ever competing with the major duopoly: the Cricket Mobile and RC Colas of Rubicon 3, these being RaD, “Repurposed civie equipment,” junk wizards and hackers who refurbish garbage into creative killing devices; Takigawa Harmonics, a corporation specializing in Pulse technology; Elcano Corporation for craftsman-like flair and lightweight, high-agility parts; and last but not least: the Planetary Closure Administration (or PCA). It would be unfair to compare PCA to Cricket Mobile, as their goal isn’t to make money; in fact, the PCA is the most interesting faction on Rubicon 3, as their origin and true organizational structure are obscured, shrouded in shadow; any information about them is gleaned from the wreckage of their Super-Cool-Robots-That-You-Can’t-Pilot and the passing remarks of the pilots of these Super-Cool-Robots-That-You-Can’t-Pilot during the midst of battle. The PCA’s goals are obvious by their actions, however, in that they want to close down the planet because “this Coral stuff is getting weird” and, after the Fires of Ibis, “why are we tempting fate – again?” The PCA appears to be the only sensible faction during this World-Wide-Corporate-Sengoku-Era of Rubicon 3.

*where there’s coral, there’s blood

Regardless of Cricket, Comcast, Pepsi, Apple, or Samsung; each corporation hires freelancing mercenaries to do their dirty work; either to avoid getting their own hands dirty or because it’s easier to throw money at a problem to make it go away. Mercenaries, like Raven, are bought and sold to the highest bidder; one day Raven will be working for Balam, stealing a shipment of weapons from Arquebus; the next day, Arquebus pays Raven triple to steal the weapons back from Balam, and then Arquebus will turn around and hire Raven’s best friend, Rusty, to kill them because Raven is “too dangerous to be left alive,” only for their true intentions to be the killing of two Ravens with one stone because Rusty is also “too dangerous to be left alive,” and it’s all a corporate anarcho-capitalist nightmare with no rules and the money itself grows robotic arms and legs and stabs you in the back with a pulse sword.

VII. III: Bag Boy Bolero or: A Measured Critique of Anarcho-Capitalism

VII. IV: Ronald Reagan’s ICE WORM

“In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us?”

— Ronald Reagan, “Address to the 42d Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York”^#9

Late into the Coral War, the Planetary Closure Administrator (PCA) decided enough was enough and positioned their entire galactic fleet of battleships and highly-advanced-and-cool-looking-super-robots called Human Mechs (HC) to end the war over Coral. The PCA was the most advanced organization in the galaxy with the most firepower at their disposal; they were organized, sleek, and didn’t take no for an answer; their goal was singular: shut down Rubicon 3, and they would achieve this by quarantining the planet and destroying all those who opposed. The Fires of Ibis were reason enough to close Rubicon 3; they knew the dangers Coral posed to the universe. To the PCA, it was simple. To the Rubiconian Liberation Front (RLF) and the corporations, not so simple. The Rubiconian Liberation Front viewed Coral as a religious deity worthy of worship (“the blood of the planet!”); their opposition to the PCA and the encroaching corporations was one of religious ferocity and nationalism, unwilling to share their splendor and unwilling to contain it. The corporations’ opposition to the PCA was more straightforward: Coral was an incredible power source, and whoever controlled the Coral might as well control the universe.

So, when the Planetary Closure Administration flew its entire battleship armada into Rubicon 3’s atmosphere and touched down on the planet, you better believe the corporations and the Rubiconian Liberation Front immediately put aside their differences and sat down at the table of diplomacy in a joint effort to drive the PCA away from Rubicon 3. Raven, who had been working for all groups by virtue of the highest bidder, was key to this plan, and Handle Walter was more than willing to oblige if the price was right; and the price was, indeed, right. First, a series of operations targeting key PCA outposts, battleship hangars, and HC facilities. Raven did their part diligently and efficiently, always the perfect puppet for whoever offered enough money (Raven, being a puppet, is a key point that should not be ignored), and everything was going great until the WORM.

*Ronald Reagan’s “alien threat” made manifest on Rubicon 3

The IA-02: ICE WORM is a colossal mechanical worm powered by Coral. Its mouth a series of clockwork grinders, crushing anything unlucky enough to be in its path. The WORM was a relic of the Rubiconian Institute from before the Fires of Ibis, seized and reactivated by the PCA as a new line of offense against those opposed to planetary closure. The WORM was impervious to contemporary weaponry, so the corporations and the RFL collaborated on a new weapon specifically designed to pierce the WORM’s outer-shields. Extreme problems breed extreme innovation, resulting in the VE-60SNA Stun Needle Launcher (a large cannon that fits onto the back of an Armored Core, specializing in breeching shielding) and a gigantic experimental railgun to finish the job after the Stun Needle does its magic; only problem is both weapons can’t be used by the same person: it would be a two person job.

Raven is deployed in the Unobservable Area within the Central Ice Field, where the WORM wreaks havoc, tasked with using the Stun Needle Launcher to disable the WORM’s shield for V.IV Rusty (working undercover for the Rubicon Liberation Front), who is miles away controlling the railgun, to take the final shot and put the WORM down for good. Additional members of Arquebus and Balam join Raven and Rusty in their showdown with the WORM, mirroring the Arena of the Starscourge Radhan.

The mission is an overwhelming success. The PCA, having received countless crushing blows, retreated from Rubicon 3 in haste, leaving battleships and HCs behind in their wake. The “alien threat” was gone, but the Coral remained.

Arquebus Executive Leadership was planning for this, biding their time. Days after Operation ICE WORM, the Arquebus Group seized the leftover PCA equipment and positioned themselves as the dominant force on Rubicon 3, swiftly crushing the Balam corporation with their newfound firepower and becoming the true Coral monopoly.

Ronald Reagan’s ghost hangs his head as he realizes that the “alien threat” must always be present, for only a moment did we know true cooperation.

VIII: On Computer Game’s Official Review of Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon and Numerical Score Value

IX: Sempiternal Darkness

IX. I: Fires of Raven

Everything comes to a head when Raven, strings pulled by Walter, is fatefully led to Insitute City; a ruin, destroyed in the Fires of Ibis. Here Raven finds the Vascular Plant, a major research facility post-Ibis, that sucks Coral from the Rubicon for both human and machine experimentation. The Vascular Plant is both a real world plant categorization, “vascular” being the term used for the plant tissue that absorbs nutrients and water and also a vessel that carries blood in all animals. Here we are confronted by an angelic, elegant autonomous craft designated IB-01: CEL 240, another robot created before the Fires of Ibis, powered by Coral, to defend the Coral. After a grueling battle with the robot, subsequently getting captured by Arquebus, a prison break, and a few other missteps; Raven discovers the truth about Handler Walter, he was there when the Fires of Ibis happened, involved even, and survived; a “cinder” just like the woman you have been working closely with, “Cinder Carla,” and they’re both part of a shadowy organization called The Overseers, whose main mission is to burn the Coral for good after the failed first attempt which resulted in the worldwide catastrophe now known as the Fires of Ibis.

At some point in all this violence, Raven became attached to a disembodied voice calling themselves “Ayre,” who, after becoming close, reveals she’s part of the Coral. The Coral is alive. It’s organic. Ayre’s brothers and sisters are all part of the Coral, and destroying the Coral amounts to a genocide not only for the Coral conciousness but also the entire planet, as it will ignite the atmosphere and wipe out all life on Rubicon 3.

Suddenly you realize those Junk Wizards and Hackers were smoking actual people and it dawns on you that they’re not so different from Keith Richards snorting his own father’s ashes to gain his knowledge.^#10

Raven has a decision to make; side with Ayre and oppose Handler Walter’s masterplan, or side with Handler Walter and destroy the Coral. An argument can be made for both sides, from Walter’s perspective: the Coral is dangerous, it self-replicates and if left to its own devices will eventually consume the known universe; from Ayre’s perspective, the Coral is people. Either way, you’re at the whim of either party, both having manipulated Raven into feeling one way or another throughout the journey.

Choosing Walter’s side, you escort the Xylem, one of two types of transport tissue for Vascular plants^#11 and also a really-big-city-that’s-actually-a-really-big-spaceship into the actual Vascular Plant, the space-sunflower, both Rusty (your only friend on Rubicon 3) and Ayre try to stop Raven, piloting ACs of their own in an attempt to kill Raven, but, plot armor being what it is and armed with an unlimited set of continues, Raven easily dispatches both and succeeds in igniting the Coral: leaving nothing but ash behind. The credits roll.

*Xylem revolts against the Sunflower

The Fires of Raven could easily be seen as the “bad” ending, although the narrative likes to leave these things ambiguous. This, however, is not ambiguous to me; genociding a planet, people and Coral (which is also people), is not OK. One could argue that this is a type of trolley problem; genociding the planet and the Coral now would save the universe later; however, this would require a level of premonition that Raven simply does not have; in fact, it’s unclear if the Coral would even consume the universe, and if it did: it’s unclear if that’s even a bad thing given the mechanical grayzone devoid of Nature that humanity has created.

IX. II: Liberator of Rubicon

“I believe in the shared potential between humanity and the coral.” – Ayre, C-Pulse Wave Mutation (Coral Person)

Ayre makes a strong case for not committing genocide, priming you throughout your time on Rubicon 3 to be sympathetic to the Coral. Ayre believes that Coral and Rubiconians can co-exist in harmony, as they have done in the past before the Rubiconians mucked it up and started experimenting with the Coral, something Ayre doesn’t acknowledge and could easily happen again. If Raven is convinced by Ayre’s plea, they trade murdering millions of people for murdering those they were working with the entire journey: Cinder Carla and Handler Walter.

Ayre uses the symbol of the Raven to inspire the people of Rubicon 3 to rise up against the Corporations, sending Raven to the Xylem on a mission of sabotage in an attempt to thwart Handler Walter’s plans. Rusty joins Raven, finally revealing his true allegiance to the Rubiconian Liberation Front, and together the two Ravens eliminate the Corporate leaders and dispatch of the Xylem’s engines, securing a bright future for Rubicon 3, or so we hope. During the Xylem’s death throes, an Armored Core appears before Raven, Rubicon red; it’s Handler Walter, who has gone through Arquebus mind control and thrown into a Coral series AC; celestial theater plays as a moonlit skirmish atop the Xylem, far beyond the Rubicon’s atmosphere, a solemn duel of finality between Raven and Walter; however, in the midst of this cosmic clash of wills, Walter, his heart touched by a sudden revelation, surrenders; he understands now that Raven has discovered a friend in Ayre, a kindred spirit within the Coral, an epiphany dawning upon him that the Coral is people, and he has been treading a misguided path all along. Walter allows Raven to escape the Xylem’s descent into the fiery embrace of Rubicon 3’s atmosphere, the once-majestic vessel dissolves into stardust, becoming one with the cosmic tapestry.

The Coral survives and the people of Rubicon are successful in driving the corporations off the planet. Raven is remembered as the Liberator of Rubicon, yet the outstanding issues of “is the Coral going to consume the universe?” and “is that a bad thing?” remain unaddressed.

IX. III: True Love and the Eclipse

IX. IV: G5 Iguazu

The Iguazu River is a small river in Brazil that drops off a plateau, creating what the locals call the Iguazu Falls. Like all things, there are legends of its creation, something about a jealous deity going into a rage and slicing violently at the Earth, creating a rift so large that the water from the Iguazu River drops over, creating a stunning natural beauty; a waterfall on all sides. We like to make sense of things within the context of human Nature, so we inject emotions like envy, rage, and love into the Nature that surrounds us. Because surely these things wouldn’t exist without the presence of humanity to observe them, and they must be like us. These human traits help us blend the colors; facilitate forgetting that metal boxes and smog don’t fit into Nature.

Iguazu is also G5 Iguazu, a Red Gun working for the Balam corporation; a back-alley-gambler who never won a game and, to pay for his debts, agreed to get Coral Augmentation and work as a corporate lapdog. He’s a Fourth Generation Augmented Human, like 621: Quoth the Raven. Raven encounters Iguazu during a mission to assault a Rubiconian Liberation Front Dam Complex, where they initially work together to complete the objective. Iguazu is haughty and dismissive of Raven during this encounter, and to Raven, Iguazu is just another number, one of the countless mercenaries they’ve already encountered. Nothing.

*Eclipse in Infrared: Prelude

When New Game Plus comes around, this same Dam Complex mission takes a turn that alters the entire course of the Coral War. The Rubiconian Liberation Front opens secret communications with Raven and offers a larger monetary sum if Raven betrays Iguazu and helps defend the complex. Raven takes this offer, turning on Iguazu and easily dispatching him. From this moment, Iguazu is incensed with envy, and throughout the rest of Raven’s time on Rubicon 3, hounds Raven relentlessly in an effort to kill them; yet, like the gambling of days gone by, he fails every time. The last time Raven crosses paths with Iguazu, he tries to get the jump on Raven while Raven is distracted in battle with another mercenary. This, too, results in failure. Iguazu, for all his envious effort, can never hope to compete with Raven. To Raven, Iguazu is just a minor annoyance that pops up from time to time, nothing more than an annoying fly. The Nature of Iguazu is one that would exist with or without the facilitation of big robots to realize true potential. If this were the Paleolithic era, Iguazu would be the caveman hovering over the sleeping tribal leader with a rock held over their head, contemplating “Iguazu smash!” because “why can’t Iguazu lead tribe!”

IX. V: Alea Iacta Est

Four sets of double-A batteries later, and here we are: the end. We’ve heard ALLMIND’s voice a thousand times before, practiced our skills in its ARENA, and navigated its menus. But it came as a surprise when ALLMIND contacted Raven directly for a mission, and then another, and another. Kate Markson tagged along in the TRANSCRIBER for a few sorties, and things started to get weird. Who is Kate Markson? Why does she sound suspiciously like ALLMIND? What is this “Coral Release” that ALLMIND keeps mentioning? And how are we relevant to it all? We knew that Coral is people, and Raven is a Fourth Generation Augmented Human and after some nice environmental storytelling, we started to understand that the Fourth Generation was “flawed” because they kept insisting that the Coral was talking to them, which drove many of them insane enough to claw their own eyes out. Ayre is one of these “the Coral keeps talking to me” entities, but we now know the Nature of things: the Coral is consciousness, the Coral is people, and they want to be released into the universe. They are a caged bird within the planet Rubicon 3 and the Vascular Plant and sing for Freedom through the minds of those they can link to, yet have no bodies of their own, requiring augmented humans or machinery for possession. Putting the puzzle pieces together: the Coral is a collective consciousness that ALLMIND (an artificial intelligence that is ALL the MINDS) wants to release into the Universe. The fears Walter had of the Coral, the destruction of the known universe, are all linked to ALLMIND; speculating that ALLMIND is actually a Coral being possessing a supercomputer for the means of achieving the release of her people, it makes perfect sense. Raven, being the main character of Big Robot Game 6, is needed as a “key” for releasing the Coral (only those who can hear the Coral can release the Coral). As such, in the third ending, after working closely with ALLMIND, Raven goes to the top of the Vascular Plant to release the Coral. After Raven’s key is turned, ALLMIND says she doesn’t need Raven anymore and has picked her champion to dispose of them, and then “He” arrives.

G5 Iguazu, driven mad by his hatred for Raven, has sold his autonomy, his consciousness, and his soul to the demons, ALLMIND. Being the perfect vessel to eliminate Raven, ALLMIND uploads Iguazu into their most powerful Armored Core: MIND BETA, his mind wrapped with envy and violence, his recalcitrant nature in its purest form. ALLMIND, believing they can control Iguazu, quickly discovers they cannot. Iguazu’s hatred of being the fly buzzing around Raven is too strong, overriding all ALLMIND’s orders. With this newfound power, Iguazu finally has the Freedom to reach his Arcadia, which just happens to be killing Raven.

*G5 Iguazu, a ghost no more; piloting MIND BETA.

This is Iguazu’s Eclipse moment.

Iguazu is strong now, technologically stronger than Raven. After the first round, Iguazu conjures up two satellites and an even bigger robot to drive Raven into dust. But Raven is not alone: Ayre arrives in her own Armored Core to help, and like all good stories, the hero wins in the end (spoilers). Iguazu’s hatred never falters; even in his final moments, Iguazu screams, “I always envied you,” lunging at Raven with his emerald beam saber, giving Raven a miniature heart attack before his Armored Core reaches criticality and explodes in a miniature Fire of Raven.

Ultimately, none of this matters. ALLMIND has achieved her goal, and the Berserk references, tenuous at best (but very cool), end there. We watch as a massive black hole, which some Druidic schools associate with the Raven, opens where the Vascular Plant once was, consuming everything. Raven is gone, and the Coral has been released. After a brief fade to black, the curtain rises to an Armored Core under a shallow pool of water. The Armored Core rises to a beautiful blue sky, with stars in the distance flickering as red dots, and other Armored Cores slowly emerge from the water, all with red eyes. The Coral has been released. The ALLMIND is here, and nothing will ever be the same. The Rubicon has been crossed. Alea iacta est.

X: Raven (Epilogue)

There was once a Raven so brave that they challenged themselves to fly as high as their wings would take them; they flew so high that they saw the dark and the endless before becoming bored and hungry and then nose-diving back through the thin atmosphere.

It’s a story we’ve heard before.

The average home in the United States takes up to 8 months to build on average. A typical high-rise takes up to 3 years to build, even more if the exterior glass is infused with gold. A Boeing 787 takes up to 40 days to build from the ground up, while a Boeing AH-64 attack helicopter can take upwards of 6 months to build and outfit with the right equipment for killing things. A Raven can build a nest within 9 days and fly 1 week after leaving the nest. We like to build things out of Nature, put them in Nature, and some of us pretend it is Nature. We all come from Nature, so how could it not be Nature? But we’re at the Eclipse with the robots, the rockets, the guns, the choking gas, and the starvation economics we can so easily inflict on other people who happen to be born in the wrong country. We’ve built over 4000 little flying machines the size of Ravens controlled from miles away by Xbox One S controllers that drop little bombs on people in 2022 alone; have we done this for the sake of efficiency, or have we done this because we can’t bear to look our victims in the eye anymore – or ever? Have we, as animals on this Earth, truly flown far or have we clipped our wings and dug deep into that early grave?

*not very far

ALLMIND, in all their puppeteering, knew this truth: the Rubicon is Earth fast-forwarded and paused at the worst moment. A true Raven would never participate in this; they would gather their wings and fly away. If Freedom is the goal, then Raven has been stripped of their name; “621, quoth the Raven,” but the Raven realized that 621 is a twofold genocidal disruptor simply taking orders from people who actually have a purpose. 621, like Guts before them, served the Arcadia of others; yet, unlike Guts, 621 never corrected this mistake; so, the Raven flew away.

A friend once said in response to the trolley problem that it leaves one thing implied that rarely anyone considers – who was the person who put those poor people on the tracks, and how did you even get there?

Is it really any wonder that the main worry around Artificial Intelligence for most “philosophers” of our age is whether or not they would kill us? Why would any intelligent being want to kill us if we have done nothing wrong? Is this prominent question – this fear of artificial intelligence – merely a tacit confession of our collective guilt as a species that spends over $136 billion a year on weapons used to kill each other?^#12 And that’s just one country’s figures, numbers so big they become meaningless. We are spoiled. I type this on a computer that is sourced from parts all over the world; the cobalt used in the lithium batteries used to power over thirty different appliances in my house mined by children in the Congo as young as six years old.^#13 I have no idea who made these things or how they are made; they just work and I don’t think about it too hard; yet, if I had been born in a straw hut on a farm in a world with no electronics, would I feel like there is something missing?

Why does it still, even now with all this really-cool-stuff, feel like something is missing?

When the Raven returns to its world of comfort, it promptly takes a shit on a passing car driving northbound on Interstate 95 at the Pennsylvania Turnpike connector near Bristol Township.

Maybe we should be more like the Raven.

*the Raven gazes down on humanity (photo courtesy of @handmade_ghost)

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#1. Heilig, M., MacKillop, J., Martinez, D., Rehm, J., Leggio, L., & Vanderschuren, L. J. M. J. (2021, February 22). Addiction as a brain disease revised: Why it still matters, and the need for consilience. Nature News. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-020-00950-y

#2. Heilig, M., MacKillop, J., Martinez, D., Rehm, J., Leggio, L., & Vanderschuren, L. J. M. J. (2021, February 22). Addiction as a brain disease revised: Why it still matters, and the need for consilience. Nature News. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-020-00950-y

#3. Bush, G. W. (2003, March 22). President Discusses Beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom . National Archives and Records Administration. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030322.html

#4. Riedel, B. (2022, March 9). 9/11 and Iraq: The making of a tragedy. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/9-11-and-iraq-the-making-of-a-tragedy/

#5. United Nations. (2003, May 6). UN inspectors found no evidence of prohibited weapons programmes as of 18 March withdrawal, Hans Blix tells Security Council. United Nations. https://press.un.org/en/2003/sc7777.doc.htm

#6. Gershkoff, A., & Kushner, S. (2005, September). Shaping Public Opinion: The 9/11-Iraq Connection in the Bush Administration’s Rhetoric. https://sgadaria.expressions.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Iraq-article_Gershkoff_Kushner.pdf

#7. Goldenberg, S. (2006, September 11). Bush: Saddam was not responsible for 9/11. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/12/september11.usa2

#8. Carney, S. A. (2013). Major Combat Operations: Coalition Forces Land Component Command, March–May 2003. In Allied Participation in Operation Iraqi Freedom (pp. 9–10). essay, United States Army, Center of Military History.

#9. Address to the 42d session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York. Reagan Library. (1987, September 21). https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/address-42d-session-united-nations-general-assembly-new-york-new-york

#10. Glendinning, L. (2007, April 4). Keith Richards tells of snorting his dad’s ashes with cocaine. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/apr/04/drugsandalcohol.musicnews

#11. Xylem and phloem. Basic Biology. (2020, August 25). https://basicbiology.net/plants/physiology/xylem-phloem

#12. Budget Basics: National Defense. (2023, April 28,). https://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/budget-explainer-national-defense

#13. Lawson, Michele (2021, September 1). The DRC Mining Industry: Child Labor and Formalization of Small-Scale Mining https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/drc-mining-industry-child-labor-and-formalization-small-scale-mining

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(Originally published on 10/7/2023)

#ComputerGames #Ethics #ArmoredCoreVI #Essay

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I, INTRODUCTION or: Brief History of Sexual Depravity

The year 2006 was a good orbit around the Sun for Japan: the 7th installment of AliceSoft’s highly acclaimed hentai computer game series, Rance, had just been released, and images of nude children were still legal to possess in all 47 prefectures.

A lawyer on an online forum once told us (“us” being the staff at “on computer games”) that we should just get to the point: “No one wants to read through ten paragraphs of pretentious philosophical drivel, so put the good stuff first and get to the point.”

I’m taking that writing advice even further by putting the inflammatory stuff first and will now present my thesis.

Japan has a sickness, and that sickness is the desire to touch kids (inappropriately) en masse. It’s a sickness fostered by centuries of sexual depravity and, up until just recently, the laws of the land. It has nothing to do with race or genetics. It’s all culture all the way down. It’s what happens when you normalize barbarism.

I will now present my supporting arguments.

Japan didn’t get around to banning the literal production of child-bonk-images until 1999,^#1 and even afterwards, it was legal to possess such images until 2014.^#2 This criminalization process came after years of legal debates on the harms of owning child-bonk-images and whether cartoon and computer game depictions of child bonk should also be banned. Eventually, the otakus (super anime nerds) and hikikomori (reclusive basement dwellers) won and got their precious child-bonk-cartoons approved for the sake of “artistic freedom.”

That last sentence was typed flippantly, but perhaps they have a point – it’s just drawings, right? Don’t worry, we’ll get into it.

The sword’s tip: Japan was significantly behind in outlawing child-bonk-images compared to every other first-world country,^#3 and hentai (pornographic Japanese animation and comics) featuring young children (known as “lolicon”) is still widely distributed to this day.

In fact, some form of in-real-life lolicon has existed in Japan since their medieval period starting in the year 1185; “Chigos,” or child servants to Buddhist monks, were given room-and-board in exchange for the medieval equivalent of Netflix-and-chill and this practice continued into the Tokugawa period starting in year 1603, where “Wakashus,” young boys with distinctively long hair, were seen as objects of sexual desire that frequently bonked shoguns.^#4

“Only members of a privileged class can understand the delights of boy love.” – Inagaki, T. (1973). The Aesthetics of Boy Love.

It wasn’t until 1907 that Japan even bothered to enforce an age of consent at all^#5; the age lawmakers settled on was thirteen, and the majority of first-world countries considered this to be – uhhh – very low. Japan finally caved to international pressure and changed their standard age of consent to sixteen in 2023^#6 – the same year this essay was written. For comparison, the United States of America was founded in 1776 and increased their collective age of consent to sixteen in 1920.^#7

Japan was bonking kids longer than the entire history of the United States.

Some modern-day lolicon creators have the decency (and, by “decency,” I mean the awareness of the underlying shame involved with producing child-bonk-cartoons and all the cognitive dissonance that goes along with that) to conceal the obvious fact that they’re making child-bonk-cartoons by pretending that the clearly eleven-year-old girl getting bonked in all holes is actually a twenty-year-old woman cursed by an evil witch to appear childlike forever and the clearly agonized expression on her face as she’s getting bonked, complete with tears and screaming, is actually an expression of pure joy and she’s totally having a lot of fun and this isn’t rapey at all.

*she’s 20, ok?!

Why is any of this important? Well, Sengoku Rance showcases the depravity of the previous paragraphs and, in at least one case, depicts a canonical child being gang-bonked by other children complete with bodily fluids flowing full frontal in every nasty sticky detail imaginable. Sengoku Rance is a mirror; a reflection of the deeply rooted sexual depravity that Japan, the country as a whole, fostered and allowed to spread unchecked for – literally – centuries, and while they are making strides as of 1999, and most recently 2023, the psychic harm caused by child-bonk-apathy ripples through Japanese society to this day as evidenced by the endless outpouring of lolicon anime and computer games – and you’re here to read about computer games, right? It’s relevant!

Here’s your computer game content.

(If I never finish this essay it’s because the FBI misinterpreted my search-phrase history and I am fighting legal battles from a jail cell because I can’t possibly afford bail. I also think it’s interesting that “jail” and “bail” rhyme, do you think that’s a coincidence? Let me know what you think in the comments; also, like and subscribe (and hit that bell) for more epic computer game content; also, there is no bell. Re-reading this excerpt days later, I will add this disclaimer: I was three-wines-in writing the majority of this excerpt.)

II, Sengoku Rance or: Gotta Bonk ‘Em All

II.I: The Man, The Myth, The Monster

Imagine, for a moment, that you live in your parents’ garage. You’re 5’6 and weigh 270 pounds. You haven’t changed your underwear in three weeks. Your feet are comfortably snug within a pile of suspiciously crumpled socks underneath the folding table that doubles as your desk. You are obviously male. Your unshaven face all aglow from the bikini-girl wallpaper burned into the monitor of your recently upgraded Windows 11 computer. Your body mass index is 43.58, certifiably obese, but you insist that BMI is a “bullshit metric” and have ArchLinux on dual-boot. You would prefer to use ArchLinux for general-purpose-computing but it doesn’t play the computer games hidden deep within the curiously named X drive that requires three passwords to access; two of those passwords are “loli123” and the other is “password.” Your keyboard has a permanent stickiness that no amount of rubbing alcohol seems to remove and your mouse’s right-click is clogged with crunchy white stuff preventing full clicks. You’ve been meaning to buy a new mouse but spent all your allowance on hot tub streamers. You’re thirty-six-years old. Your aging mother claims the unmistakable scent of body odor permeates the room, along with another odd smell she can’t quite put her figurative finger on. You can’t smell anything. Mom says she’s going to start deducting the cost of Febreeze from your allowance. She also says you need to get a job, but the hiring manager at Office Depot said you didn’t have “retail presence.” Your parents are getting old and you’ll get a big payout when they die; maybe then you can finally find a girlfriend.

Now, imagine the exact opposite of what you just imagined: that’s Rance.

Rance was created to fulfill the power fantasies of these hypothetical hikikomori, yet would casually kill these people on a whim because of how weak they are. Rance is also a rapist. He’s the type of guy who would save the damsel in distress then immediately bonk her because he got the urge, again. He claims to be “the hero of justice who sacrifices himself for the sake of the world and everyone in it,” but what he really wants is to bonk every woman imaginable. Except children, Rance won’t bonk children unless they claim to be older than eighteen, regardless of appearance. Rance is the type of guy who would try to bonk both your wife and daughter (at the same time) and openly admit this intention to your face as you stare at him in utter horror. Rance is the living embodiment of the “You’re In The Club And This Guy Slaps Your Girlfriend’s Ass” meme. Rance is a hurricane, an unstoppable force that leaves all women weak-legged and sore in his wake and any man who dares disagree becomes little more than a bloodstain on Rance’s armor. Rance’s good deeds come with the unspoken stipulation of bonk-your-brains-out. This stipulation shields his ego from rape accusations because “I just saved your life, didn’t I?” Rance carries within him the arrogance of a Greek god who overdosed on red pills and subscribed to Hustler’s University six times just to meet Andrew Tate. Rance then kills Andrew Tate and lays claim to all his camgirls. The previous sentence summarizes the plot of Sengoku Rance.

Rance, although claiming to love women, has no respect for them, and uses them only for bonk. Women are objects to satisfy Rance’s desires, and considering this, it comes as no surprise that he owns a bonk slave; a girl named Sill Plain, whom the game’s journal claims is twenty-two years old but “physically twenty-one” (whatever that means), and in reality, resembles a prepubescent middle-schooler, complete with an obsession for the color pink and cute hair-clips. Sill is Rance’s ever-faithful “companion,” purchased for only 15,000 gold, and forced, against her will, to bonk Rance multiple times a day. A non-insignificant number of scenes veer-off into Rance bonking Sill while she is screaming “no!” and sobbing, and although Sill is clearly objecting to the forced bonking, she continues to respect, compliment, and profess her love for Rance afterwards when she’s bleeding and cannot walk properly.

Rance, in this scenario, is an abusive husband with Sill playing the role of subservient housewife.

“Rance is just a guy who likes to bonk. Sometimes he does bad things and hurts me, but he’s not always like this and he’s actually a really sweet guy when you get to know him.” – pink-haired thirteen-year-old with Stockholm syndrome claiming to be twenty-two

Murdering Rance in his sleep would be a morally permissible act. You would arrive at the courthouse and the judge would take one look at the name of your victim and give you a trophy and possibly make you deputy chief of the local police department on the spot.

*Rance’s entire personality

Rance is a power fantasy for the permanently sexless, written by members of a patriarchal depravity cult.

But it’s not their fault.

We are all victims of society – the cultures we find ourselves in – which is why being born in Japan is a cosmic stroke of bad luck that makes a strong case for anti-natalism, especially if you’re a woman. The writers of Sengoku Rance are not immune; they are victims of Japan’s culture, where women are second-class citizens, seen primarily as homemakers who should just shut up about how their husbands treat them, which is expected when they have been culturally conditioned to rely on their husbands for monetary support, and while this “male breadwinner model” is going out of fashion,^#8 it is still deeply entrenched in the country’s collective consciousness. These attitudes toward women have plagued Japan for centuries, which remains one of the lowest-ranked countries when it comes to gender equality, with women forever stuck at home or in low-status work positions,^#9 all the while getting catcalled and groped ouroborosly as they walk through the office to their cubicle at the call center job they have no hope of being promoted in without bonking the boss, and Rance is the boss.

(I considered putting the real racy stuff deeper into the article so only dedicated-on-computer-gamers would read it, as I have a fear of being misunderstood; when reading an article like this it’s easy to interpret the writer’s motivation as “he’s just a freak that gets off to writing about bonking kids,” and my typing that could simply be me trying to proactively nip-that-shit in the bud (damage control), but after my social media post reading simply “bing bong” received far more engagement than any of our essays I decided my fear was misplaced as no one was going to read this anyway. The truth is that less and less people are reading longform content.^#10 We prefer the outrage that comes from only reading a headline and when someone challenges that outrage we post-hoc skim the article to rationalize our misplaced-headline-outrage. It’s a miracle that novels are even written anymore; maybe it’s because the older generation still loves to read, untainted by the smartphone addiction of myself and my fellow millennials,^#11 or maybe it’s because Netflix would run out of material if they didn’t have authors to lift ideas from.)

II.II: GAMEPLAY or: The Virgin Collectathon

Sengoku Rance is unusual because it’s a historical piece loosely based on the 4th Sengoku era of Japan, hence the name “Sengoku” Rance. Rance games typically take place in a fantasy world, but this time Rance has “crossed the bridge” (as they say in the game with no real explanation) and is now in warring states Japan with his bonk slave Sill.

The Sengoku period of Japan is characterized as a hellmouth death vacuum of clans and warlords slaughtering each other in an attempt to control Japan after the collapse of the feudal system under a failed shogunate. The details aren’t important here. What’s important is the setting and the young women in that setting and Rance has seen those young women and must bonk them.

Dozens of warlords and clans fight for control over Japan. Each clan is pulled from a real historical example and morphed into a humorous parody; the Tokugawa House is comprised solely of tanuki (see my essay titled Shiren the Wanderer – Fate, Fortune, and Tanuki for more information on this legendary animal), with their leader, Tokugawa Ieyasu, being a large, imposing tanuki himself; Ieyasu is based on the historical “Great Unifier” of Japan. Although, a tanuki would not aspire to “unify”; rather, certain traits of a tanuki would make for a good unifier (jovialness, gigantic balls; to name a few), but certainly not all of their traits when taken together, which would result in an oddball state of constant drunken partying and nothing-getting-done (and I would argue that world, minus the negative consequences, is Arcadia).

I mentioned earlier that Rance tries to take over Andrew Tate’s camgirl business to prove himself better than Tate and also to bonk all the camgirls, and that this is also the plot of Sengoku Rance. That was not a lie; all one has to do is swap “Andrew Tate’s camgirl business” with “Clan territory,” “Tate” with “the warlords,” and remove the “cam” from “camgirls.”

Rance tries to take over clan territory to prove himself better than the warlords and also to bonk all the girls; this is the plot of Sengoku Rance.

Once Rance takes over a territory, he storms the local castle and forcibly bonks the princess of said castle. This is Rance’s reward. This makes Rance feel good and his satisfaction meter increases which makes him more powerful. Rance keeps a diary of all the women he’s bonked and this bonk-number determines the game’s ending.

*let’s take a moment to appreciate the excellent UI; linux distro: “BonkOS”

Sengoku Rance is sexual chess played like Romance of the Three Kingdoms where rape replaces romance. A computer game progressing in turns; Rance can perform two actions per turn; each clan in play can also perform two actions and they do so before Rance can make his own actions. Rance selects from an enormous list of actions each turn, with each choice costing one action point. 65% of these actions are bonking women and the remaining 35% involve declaring war on other clans, attempting diplomacy, sabotaging rival clans, quelling rebellions in owned territory, investing gold to enhance territory, or doing-a-terrosim like that one time during the aftermath of a magnitude-6 earthquake when Rance, disguised as a friendly merchant, offers free “disaster relief” to a rival clan but actually supplies poisoned food and water to innocent civilians; afterwards, from a nearby hilltop, Rance overlooks the choking blood death of the women and children before a big grin lights up his face and he remarks, “Got ’em.”

(If I were to write a sequel to this essay it would likely be a full breakdown of Rance’s psychology focusing on the why of “why are you like this?” and the what of “what is wrong with you?”)

If Japan is known for anything within the multimedia realm, it’s child-bonk-cartoons and turn-based role-playing computer games. Sengoku Rance combines both elements through a combat system in which multiple party members take action in an order determined by their speed stat; each unit can attack, use a special skill, or do nothing, depending on the player’s choice.

Sengoku Rance distinguishes its combat by introducing a ‘turn meter’ that counts down after each action performed by any unit in the battle; once this meter reaches zero, the combat ends, and whichever side did the most damage wins the sortie. Working in tandem with this battle ‘turn meter,’ each character has their own ‘turn meter,’ indicating how many times they can perform an action in battle. For instance, Rance has four turn points, whereas Sill may have three; this mechanic leads to situations where a character can use all their turns before the end of the battle, rendering them a useless damage sponge.

The combination of ‘battle turn meter’ and ‘character turn meter’ puts each battle on a timer and encourages strategic play. Success with Sengoku Rance’s combat system is dependent on playing around these two ‘turn meters’ to outplay the enemy; sometimes, it’s a straightforward ‘attack every turn’ affair, but other times it’s more complicated, especially in harder boss fights that require careful management of each character’s ‘turn meter’ by strategically skipping turns at the right moments to deplete the opponent’s own ‘turn meter’ and then launch risky counterattacks.

Sengoku Rance’s combat system mirrors how warfare might unfold in the real world, where taking action is a carefully calculated decision, and sometimes, taking no action is the best course of action.

*a combat scene; a commander (Ranmaru) and her forces attacking an enemy force

Throughout this violence, rival warlords or their subordinates will join Rance after being defeated or simply out of fear of Rance’s massive hyper weapon (that’s what Rance calls his junk). Warlords that join Rance are adopted into Rance’s fighting unit as “commanders.” These commanders have their own stats and troop counts, used for the game’s combat system but also as a form of visual novel storytelling where each named commander has their own personal story that progresses if you spend the action points per turn to peruse them; each interaction increases the commander’s story level (think: Persona). Taking the time to complete a commander’s story increases the commander’s stats but also culminates in Rance bonking the brains out of the commander in a full-on hentai scene that bares all. In this way, Sengoku Rance not only rewards you mechanically but also psycho-sexually by showing you images of cartoon women in – very – compromising situations.

This aspect of Sengoku Rance is what makes the computer game, and I would imagine other hentai computer games, such a unique experience. Sengoku Rance plays on your adrenaline in all the same ways a normal computer game would, but it also constantly tries to make you concupiscent. Scenes suddenly veer off into Rance bonking a woman in full detail, which puts the player constantly on edge when a female character is on the screen (“Is he going to bonk her?”). This experience is potent early but functionally a litmus test for determining if watching cartoon women getting bonked turns you on; no doubt, you will feel something early on (arousal or outrage being the most common ‘something’), and the idea of it all is very exciting, but how long will it last? How long before you become desensitized?

(I was bored after the first scene, which is essentially two hentai images cycling back and forth while tabbing through paragraphs of descriptive exposition detailing Rance’s junk and what he’s doing with his hands. If Sengoku Rance taught me anything about myself, it’s that I am not turned on by cartoons.)

Regardless of your penchant for cartoon women, this sexual-computer-gameplay is idiosyncratic like eating psychedelic mushrooms – interesting, because you won’t experience anything else like it, but be careful: results may vary.

In essence, Sengoku Rance is a collectathon but instead of collecting monsters or baseball cards, it’s about collecting the virginity of young women; further reinforcing the game’s terrible but very-Japanese attitude toward women as objects.

Gotta bonk ‘em all.

*(I sincerely hate writing about gameplay mechanics unless they’re intrinsically linked to the point of the essay; writing about gameplay is, at best, confirmation bias for the reader, who has already played the computer game and is seeking validation of their own opinions, and at worst: explaining how car engines work in dry detail to someone who hates cars, no one cares unless they want to care and the people who want to care would be better served experiencing the thing instead of reading seven paragraphs about it. If you’ve been following along with ‘on computer games’ (you haven’t), you’ll notice that this publication has chronologically “moved on” from clinical, mechanical deepdives to the esoteric, philosophical, or practical application of, in essence, “being a decent person,” so if you’re here for more “computer game review content” this is the point in the essay where you should stop reading, type “IGN” into your search bar and just go away and don’t come back because there’s a good chance the next chapter is going to piss you off.)*

III, RADICAL EMPATHY

III.I: Before We Go Any Further …

… let’s take a step back; why is bonking kids actually wrong? What if the kid wants to bonk? What if they verbally say, “Hell yeah, I want to bonk and I am fully aware of the possible consequences – let’s do this!”

It’s about consent. It’s simple, but there are a few arguments that cloud judgment and cast shadows on the concept of consent. Enough mental gymnastics can somersault you right onto the sex offenders registry, so to prevent this: I will debunk each possible argument – that I know of – for bonking kids. This is a defense of consent; not only to establish the basis of “yes, bonking kids is wrong” but also to clear my name for writing some of the inflammatory filth in this essay.

If a child verbally consents, isn’t that enough? No, verbal consent is not enough. It’s about ‘informed consent,’ a term primarily used in the medical world for informing patients about all the risks of potential treatments, thereby allowing their patient to make an informed decision regarding said treatments. It’s an ethical imperative because going through with the surgery only to find out that your arm is gone without any foreknowledge of this stipulation is a violation of your bodily autonomy. It’s not surprising that ‘informed consent’ in the medical world cannot be given by children, requiring the parental guardian as a proxy.^#12 A child is not equipped with the proper mental faculties to provide informed consent: knowledge, experience, and emotional maturity; to name a few; and if you’re not convinced, have one of your own.

What about people with mental illnesses – can they provide informed consent if they’re mentally impaired? Depending on the illness and its severity: no, they cannot provide informed consent. In the same way you would not indulge the delusions of a person believing they see clockwork aliens outside the window by dressing up and pretending to be one of these aliens; you would not mislead them in their compromised state because they are vulnerable (like children) and you would be taking advantage of them.

*AliceSoft’s mascot, a young-looking girl in panties

OK, what about generally unintelligent people? Just because you’re of a certain age doesn’t magically grant you the intelligence or maturity to provide informed consent, right? That’s true, but we need a reasonable criterion, a cutoff; otherwise, we will reduce consent to, likely, “no one can consent” due to all the possible “what-ifs.” We understand that the younger someone is, the less likely they can provide informed consent; due to this, it makes sense to use age as a key determining factor for informed consent. However, there will be occasions when a twenty-three-year-old can’t provide informed consent due to a lack of maturity (I know several people who shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce but have multiple kids), but this is a calculated risk we are willing to accept for some semblance of personal freedom; if we didn’t accept some outliers, our society would devolve into assessing everyone’s IQ and EQ scores before engaging in any activity, and this would be oppressive and unsustainable; even a bit eugenics-y.

Last hypothetical: Suppose we develop a computer chip for the brain that grants the emotional maturity, knowledge, and intelligence of a forty-year-old astrophysicist. If we inserted this computer chip into the brain of a thirteen-year-old and they then agreed to bonk, would that be acceptable? This is a significantly more challenging question, yet the answer remains the same. The issue here involves power dynamics; as the older, responsible individual in the scenario, you hold far more authority over the ten-year-old than they hold over you. This places the ten-year-old in a compromising situation where, even if they provided consent, it would be impossible to ascertain if they’re consenting out of fear of your authority (“maybe if I do this he will drive me to McDonald’s?” or “he might ground me if I don’t agree”). This uncertainty undermines the verbal consent of the super-intelligent thirteen-year-old. It’s akin to “bonking the boss,” which is considered unethical because the boss holds the power to give you a raise or to terminate your employment. How does the boss genuinely know if they are receiving consent for the act, or if the consenting individual has an ulterior motive, such as getting a raise? And if the consenting individual doesn’t have an ulterior motive, what happens when they don’t want to bonk anymore? What happens when the consenter bonks but doesn’t get the raise they were expecting from the consentee? Would these situations compromise the work-relationship? Once again, the “what-ifs” compromise the bonk.

But isn’t there a power differential in all relationships? What about the stay-at-home spouse and the working spouse – it seems that one holds more power in this relationship than the other? That might be true, but what if one bonker has one dollar while the other has two? What if one bonker’s parents are wealthy, and the other’s are poor? What if one bonk buddy owns an Xbox and the other doesn’t but really wants to play some Xbox?

We could continue examining these outliers endlessly, but I don’t want to. Everything can be deconstructed into obscurity. Instead, we establish ground rules, accept a reasonable level of risk, and address outliers as they arise, adapting as necessary. Besides, just because there are some risks doesn’t mean we should allow even more risk.

Oh yeah, and wanting to bonk kids is gross. Ew.

Bonking kids is wrong and the desire to bonk kids is a societal taboo, but if that’s the case: why do people still do these things?

III.II: Why People Still Do These Things

Pedophilia is classified as a form of paraphilia.^#13

“Paraphilias are frequent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies or behaviors that involve inanimate objects, children or non-consenting adults, or suffering or humiliation of the person or a partner.”^#14 One German study concluded that up to 62.4% of people reported some form of paraphilia-associated sexual-arousal.^#15 That’s a lot of people thinking about a lot of weird stuff, and while not all of them reported feelings of pedophilia, it’s in there somewhere; about 1.7% of these people said their paraphiliac fantasies caused extreme distress.^#15

Distress caused by paraphilia is considered a mental illness, “paraphilic disorders are paraphilias that cause distress or cause problems functioning in the person with the paraphilia or that harm or may harm another person.”^#14 This means over 82 million people are battling a mental illness that could cause them to harm children, and the only way to treat it is through medication, psychotherapy, or death.

That’s why people still do these things.

III.III: Rurouni Kenshin or: Radical Empathy

“I liked girls from the upper grades of elementary school to around the second year of junior high school.” – Nobuhiro Watsuki, manga artist, creator of Rurouni Kenshin^#16

Japan, November 2017. The air is brisk with autumnal splendor, skies clear; leaves changed and ready to fall on dotted paths of wooden stakes and paper lanterns. Koyo, momijigari; truly a beautiful time to be alive.

A police siren is heard in the distance.

Famous mangaka, Nobuhiro Watsuki, was sitting in his home, sipping fragrant tea and thumbing through inked pages of his recent work when, suddenly, he heard a banging at his front door. Watsuki stood up from his seat, and before he could investigate, the police had already kicked the door down and entered the home, scattering about the rooms after a very serious policeman sat the artist down in the kitchen and instructed him not to move.

Three years earlier, the Japanese parliament had banned the possession of child pornography. Nobuhiro Watsuki was spoiled, used to being legally allowed to indulge himself and, as such, was a big collector with over one-hundred DVDs. He had been struggling with these feelings for decades.

The police found the compartment behind Nobuhiro Watsuki’s bookshelf; it wasn’t hidden very well. Watsuki was promptly arrested, and serialization of his hit manga, Rurouni Kenshin, was placed on indefinite hiatus. His legacy forever tarnished.

*Kenshin Himura of the Rurouni Kenshin manga, drawn by famed pedophile Nobuhiro Watsuki

Rurouni Kenshin is a story about the ex-assassin Kenshin Himura during the Meiji Restoration of Japan. Kenshin was a student of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu, an ancient sword-style that favors lightning-quickness to swiftly kill on the first draw. He used this sword-style to achieve great results during the Meiji Revolution, where he fought for the Imperialist government who were tired of the old ways: the warlords, the clans, and the Rances, endlessly fighting for control over Japan. The Imperialists wanted to rid Japan of this barbarism and usher in an age of peace under one unified government ruled by an Emperor; an Emperor who took the name Meiji, or “enlightened rule.” In the Imperialist’s minds, “enlightened rule” could only be achieved by employing efficient killing machines, like Kenshin Himura, to secretly murder all your political opponents.

Kenshin Himura was motivated by this promise of a peaceful Japan where he could finally retire his blade and live a peaceful life. This was Kenshin Himura’s Arcadia. Young and idealistic, Kenshin believed that the ends justified the means and used his consequentialism as an ethical bulwark to cope with the blood he spilled across all of Japan.

Kenshin Himura murdered for Arcadia.

After the successful Meiji Revolution brought Japan closer to Arcadia, Kenshin Himura experienced a series of eye-opening moments under Meiji rule and was, ultimately, thrown to the wolves; no one wanted to admit that they fostered assassins to usher in Arcadia because that seems, obviously, opposite of what Arcadia is supposed to represent. Kenshin Himura starts to question the righteousness of the slaughter that had paved the way for this new Japan.

The blood staining Kenshin Himura’s hands wouldn’t wash away, and it wasn’t just on his hands – it covered his entire body. Filled with despair and regret for his heinous deeds, Kenshin contemplated suicide but realized that would be cowardly; instead, he resolved to dedicate his life to protecting the innocent as a means of atonement. He retired his old sword and took up a reverse-blade, the Sakabato; a sword with the dull-edge where the death-edge should be, a blunt instrument unless flipped; a forever-reminder that killing is just one mental flip away.

Since that fateful vow, Kenshin Himura swore never to kill again, yet the urge never vanished. Encountering souls so sinister, their malice so profound, the notion of killing them almost becoming a necessity. The ease of snuffing out existence lingered, a mere twist of the Sakabato potentially reviving that haunting reality.

Kenshin Himura understands regret better than anyone. He understands the human capacity for grave mistakes, the illusion of having everything figured out, and the ease of rationalizing evil. It is precisely because of this empathy that he is so forgiving of his enemies. He believes in the inherent goodness within people and makes his opponents, even those who claim to hate him, recognize that goodness and reach for it with everything they have.

Kenshin Himura practices Radical Empathy.

Kenshin Himura, Nobuhiro Watsuki’s own creation, is what Watsuki aspires to be: a conflicted hero overcoming inner darkness.

Watsuki has urges. He can’t stop the feelings. He knows his thoughts are vile. He knows he can’t look a child in the eye. He used child-bonk-images to satisfy these urges and Japan tacitly supported this behavior for years until they pulled the rug out from underneath him. Japan wasn’t wrong for doing this – they were just much too late.

Children are harmed in the production of child-bonk-images and the people who produce and distribute child-bonk-images should be imprisoned with the goal being rehabilitation and atonement. The distribution and purchase of these images supports this mephistophelean industrial complex; yet, the people watching this vile material (acceptable in Japan until 2014) are suffering from a mental illness and rehabilitation seems to be the furthest thing from anyone’s mind.

Yes, people with pedophilic urges should seek help, much like the alcoholic who can so easily turn themselves into Alcoholics Anonymous, right?

Instead of condemnation, we should be more like Kenshin Himura and exercise some Radical Empathy.

(Using the creation of man with pedophilic urges to argue for the ethical treatment of pedophiles is kinda ironic, I guess; one could say that Watsuki isn’t the best example to use here, but I disagree, only someone suffering from an illness can truly understand the illness. Some people preach that we must “separate the art from the artist,” and that’s fine in most cases, but the art, sometimes, is a representation of the artist; Rurouni Kenshin is one of the “cleanest” manga/anime out there, with practically zero sexualization of anything at all; Watsuki didn’t put that part of himself in the work because he knew it was nasty, instead, he inserted the concept of evil and atonement. We can sit back, point, laugh, and condemn pedophiles for eternity for urges they can’t control, or we can try to understand it; similar to the practice of “fat shaming” and how it’s never been proven to help people lose weight, it just gives people a complex and furthers their dissent into eating-way-too-much; we, instead, should provide rehabilitation and treatment.)

IV, THE ELECTRIFYING CONCLUSION

A child’s innocence must be protected at all costs and the way we treat children is a reflection of our society as a whole.

With that being said, simply because someone has very-hard-to-control pedophilic urges does not mean we should turn a blind eye to their behavior; however, we need to take a step back and analyze how we treat these people, particularly those who have not committed any physical crimes against children.

All of us experience violent urges, sparks of flickering evil, and generally-weird-thoughts that arise in our minds at inappropriate times; thoughts that make you wonder, “Is there something wrong with me?” Are these thoughts deserving of condemnation, or should condemnation be reserved solely for when we act upon these darker impulses? Is condemnation warranted at all, or should the focus be on rehabilitation and treatment?

As an American, it’s easy to arrive at the conclusion that people who think about bonking children should be incarcerated indefinitely to proactively prevent harm to children, even before they commit actual crimes. The American prison system benefits from this mindset as a privately funded industry dependent on a continuous influx of new inmates to make money, and rehabilitation doesn’t help the bottom line; not only is that Really Bad, but condemning and imprisoning individuals for their thoughts leads us into the dangerous territory of: which thoughts should we target next?

*brace yourself

In 2007, the Mayo Clinic published a meta-analysis on pedophilia that concluded that behavioral therapy and even chemical castration “does not change the pedophile’s basic sexual orientation toward children.”^#17

Considering this damning revelation, what if we used lolicon and computer games like Sengoku Rance, which depict young women getting bonked, as a form of Radical Empathy; treatment for pedophiles. Gratification of the urge before it manifests in real-world-harm – would this be effective in preventing child abuse?

Moral outrage often clouds our judgment, and consequently, research into lolicon or AI created child-bonk-images as a form of treatment has been considered a scientific taboo up until recently.^#18 As such, the lack of conclusive data around this subject is not evidence against its validity, but rather evidence that we are collectively good people who recoil at the very thought of these depictions of children, real or otherwise.

A common objection to this form of treatment is the belief that viewing simulated-child-bonk-images leads to actualization of child harm in the Real Number Domain (the real world). This argument is what I refer to as the “Jack Thompson Argument.” Jack Thompson, a prominent Christian activist and disbarred attorney, frequently voiced opposition against obscenity in contemporary media. He was an outspoken critic of computer games such as Doom and Grand Theft Auto, asserting that they prompt children and even some adults to emulate the violence portrayed in those games in real life.^#19

Unfortunately for Jack Thompson, there is no established causal link between violent computer games and real-world violence.^#20 It’s easy to attribute a school-shooter’s actions to the influence of a computer game like Doom, as we tend to seek simple explanations for incredibly complex issues; this feeling of understanding-how-stuff-works provides great comfort even if we’re dead-wrong. It’s far more likely that the school-shooter had serious-psychological-stuff going on that inclined them toward playing violent computer games; this doesn’t mean that everyone who engages with ultra-violent computer games has serious-psychological-stuff going on, but perhaps, in combination with other factors, may be an indicator.

And just like the school-shooter drawn to the violence of Doom, the same argument could be made for Sengoku Rance; the urges cause the computer game, not the other way around.

And with this we shall draw the electrifying conclusion.

There’s nothing inherently “wrong” with playing Sengoku Rance – it’s merely a collection of images; however, if someone is drawn to hentai games like Sengoku Rance, where many of the women depicted appear barely older than thirteen and the main character casually rapes and murders people, it may reflect something about the computer-gamer in question, and certainly reflects something about the society that spawned the computer game into existence.

If you want to play Sengoku Rance because it’s a complex strategy game with endless replayability: cool.

If you want to play Sengoku Rance because of its twist on traditional turn-based combat systems: cool.

If you want to play Sengoku Rance to watch Rance rape women who look like young girls: that’s not cool, and you should considering deep introspection and professional help – if you already know this about yourself and Sengoku Rance helps you manage the urges, then I support you.

Check your soul.

(I realize this essay is controversial; I had trouble reading through it during the proof-reading / revising process. The use of the word “bonk,” outside of not wanting this publication to be Google-mined for undesirable phrases, is itself evidence that I had trouble writing about this topic; in fact, I used the word “pornography” one time in the Watsuki very-short-story because “bonk” felt far too trivializing there. Many will come away from this thinking that I am condoning violence because “people can’t help it!” but that’s not the case. I believe in law and order. I support ethically-run-prisons. Rape and murder are morally abhorrent; I believe society would collapse if we didn’t take action against these [and many other things. If you break the law, you should go to prison, atone, and be rehabilitated; however, as a society some things are just so outrageous that we will not even entertain the idea of rehabilitation; this seems absurd for something as obviously unintentional as feelings-for-children, which can and should be treated as a mental illness; our outrage has prevented thorough research into treatment of this illness. We are often so indignant in our moral outrage that we lose the plot. This essay, while often employing ridiculous humor, is as serious as a heart attack. Thanks for reading.)

---

References:

#1. Japanese Ministry of Justice. (Ed.). (1999, May 26). Act on regulation and punishment of acts relating to child prostitution and child pornography, and the protection of children – English – Japanese law translation. https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/2895/en

#2. Hellmann, M. (2014, June 18). Japan Outlaws Possession of Child Pornography. Time. https://time.com/2892728/japan-finally-bans-child-pornography/

#3. Wikimedia Foundation. (2023, September 25). Legality of child pornography. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_child_pornography#Asia (lol, yes, a wikipedia citation)

#4. Sluzhevsky, Megan, “The Costs of Lolicon: Japan’s Pedophilia Trade” (2022). Senior Theses. 96. https://research.library.fordham.edu/international_senior/96

#5. Penal code – english – japanese law translation. (1097, April 24). https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3581/en

#6. Yamaguchi, M. (2023, June 16). Japan raises the age of sexual consent to 16 from 13, which was among the world’s lowest. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/japan-sex-crime-consent-lgbtq-4d6432a28234939d4b54758744977b1f

#7. “Age of Consent Laws [Table],” in Children and Youth in History, Item #24, https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/24.html (accessed August 10, 2021). Annotated by Stephen Robertson

#8. Ogasawara, Y. (2020, January 1). The slow decline of the male-breadwinner family model in contemporary … https://www.jil.go.jp/english/jli/documents/2020/020-02.pdf

#9. Dalton, E. (2022, June 28). Japan’s stubborn gender inequality problem. East Asia Forum. https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2022/06/28/japans-stubborn-gender-inequality-problem/

#10. Jones, J. M. (2022, January 10). Americans reading fewer books than in past. Gallup.com. https://news.gallup.com/poll/388541/americans-reading-fewer-books-past.aspx

#11. Shibu, S. (2020, November 20). Which generation is most dependent on smartphones? (hint: They’re young.). Entrepreneur. https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/which-generation-is-most-dependent-on-smartphones-hint/360098

#12. Shah, P., Thornton, I., & Hipskind, J. E. (2023, June 5). Informed consent – statpearls – NCBI bookshelf. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430827/

#13. Brown, G. R. (2023, July). Pedophilic disorder – mental health disorders. Merck Manuals Consumer Version. https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/mental-health-disorders/paraphilias-and-paraphilic-disorders/pedophilic-disorder

#14. Brown, G. R. (2023, July). Paraphilic Disorders. Merck Manuals Consumer Version. https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/mental-health-disorders/paraphilias-and-paraphilic-disorders/overview-of-paraphilias-and-paraphilic-disorders

#15. McManus, M. A., Hargreaves, P., Rainbow, L., & Alison, L. J. (2013, September 2). Paraphilias: Definition, diagnosis and treatment. F1000prime reports. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3769077/

#16. Ashcraft, B. (2018, April 23). After child pornography fine, Rurouni Kenshin will resume publication this June. Kotaku. https://kotaku.com/rurouni-kenshin-will-resume-publication-this-june-in-ja-1825461597

#17. A profile of pedophilia: Definition, characteristics of offenders … Mayo Clinic Proceedings. (n.d.). https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)61074-4/fulltext

#18. Leavy, T. (2021, March 22). Can technology help treat pedophiles?. Popular Science. https://www.popsci.com/can-technology-help-treat-pedophiles/

#19. Provenzo, Eugene F. Jr. and Jack Thompson. “A political odd couple’s advice on finding common ground Archived March 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.” Christian Science Monitor, 2004-10-19. https://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1019/p09s01-coop.html

#20. Orlando, A. (2023, March 8). Do video games cause violence?. Discover Magazine. https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/do-video-games-cause-violence

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(Originally published 10/29/2023)

#ComputerGames #SengokuRance #Ethics #Essay

White Freckles is a psychedelic pop song written by singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist-whatever Ariel Pink and co-written by the mysterious Kenny Gilmore, credited for drums, backing vocals, bass, keyboards, engineering, and editing as noted in the liner notes of Ariel Pink’s 2014 album Pom Pom of which White Freckles is the second track.

Before we begin, I encourage you to listen to White Freckles here, and don’t worry, this links to the Internet Archive, so you are doing no favors to Mr. Pink by clicking this link. In addition, the effectiveness of this article is heightened if you are not already familiar with Ariel Pink, but, knowing my audience (all three people or so), that’s probably not going to be the case. Regardless, give White Freckles a listen, preferably all the way through; then come back and start reading from here.

Well, do you hear it? That manic, jerky guitar line alternating between 6/4 and 4/4 over pounding snares? That bass line mirroring the spastic guitar whilst simultaneously managing to sneak in contraband notes between the jerky pauses, all while maintaining the funk? The whole thing sounds like it was captured with a cassette recorder in a bubble dome underwater; and do you hear when the timing sludges out during the verses and Ariel’s vocals come in, alternating between The Human League and some sort of unhinged Madonna impersonator, as if multiple characters are mocking or admiring (you can’t really tell) someone’s application of white-freckle makeup that they may or may not have gotten at the tanning salon? Of course you hear it, it’s White Freckles. All this, mixed with just a hint of cheap-voice-changing robotics and that middle-eight-interlude thing that feels like the music is being fed through a hurricane of lost-media sound effects and then fed through a vacuum cleaner, makes the whole thing sound as if it fell out of an alternate reality wormhole where the 1980s never ended and arcades still bleeped and booped around every corner and Patrick Nagel’s artwork was plastered on every billboard in every city of the world.

White Freckles is maniacal, mathematical, mechanical, memetic, both merry and a little bit maudlin, and just a knock-out masterpiece of a pop song. It’s also kinda silly. Everyone that I’ve played this song to, I’ve caught them, later on, sometimes days later, “do-do-do-do-do”ing or repeating “freckles, freckles, where’d you get those freckles?” as if Ariel himself was inside their brain pulling little levers like a cartoon villain. The music digs in and refuses to budge. You have to excavate it with another song of equal catchiness – and that’s hard to do, because White Freckles is very catchy indeed.

But, despite all that, this article isn’t really about White Freckles – all my homies love White Freckles, that’s not really up for debate.

And while all my homies may love White Freckles, they really fucking hate Ariel Pink – and that’s what this article is actually about.

Now that you’ve listened to White Freckles and read a few paragraphs of me gushing about it, and assuming you liked the song (which this whole shtick kinda hinges on), check out this quote from Ariel Pink.

“I’m so gay for Trump, I would let him fuck me in the butt.” -Ariel Pink (Jan 4, 2021. 1:01:10. some podcast interview)

*they really do

Yes, that’s Ariel Pink on Fox News, talking to Tucker Carlson about how he was “unfairly canceled” for attending the January 6th Trump rally that preceded the storming of the Capitol building. He claims he was there just for a “peaceful rally,” and that despite this, his record label, Mexican Summer, dropped him and he was ostracized from the music industry entirely. “It was cancel culture; the woke mob,” he says. And no, the quote above is not a meme or a joke, Ariel Pink is a huge MAGA guy. He spouts every single talking point verbatim: climate change denial, extreme vaccine skepticism (even though Trump supported and fast-tracked the development of the vaccines initially [source]; one of the many examples illustrating Republicans’ really bad memory and complete lack of principles), and the rest of the whole pantheon of dumb things. Ariel Pink was also accused of physically and sexually abusing his former bandmate and girlfriend, Charlotte Ercoli Coe. And I’m sure you could find more awful stuff on Pink if you went digging for it online.

I’m being kinda flippant about the various charges levied at Ariel Pink here (it’s all a matter of public record, really: every music outlet reported on this, even non-music publications like Variety and the LA Times), because this stuff isn’t actually all that important to the article. We could say that, hypothetically, Ariel Pink tossed puppies off bridges for fun and did all sorts of heinous Judge Holden-like things, if we wanted to. But, outside of these being the reasons that all my homies hate Ariel Pink, the reasons themselves don’t matter all that much. The reasons are not really what I want to write about. We all know that Ariel Pink’s worldview and the accusations surrounding him are capital-N capital-G No Good, and I shouldn’t have to convince anyone otherwise.

What I want to write about is White Freckles. I know, I know I said White Freckles wasn’t really the point of this article, and it’s not. What I really want to write about is the question around White Freckles. That being, you listened to White Freckles, you presumably liked White Freckles, but now that you’ve heard about Ariel Pink and his warped worldview and all the sexual abuse, you probably don’t like White Freckles all that much anymore – do you? You at least like it a little less than you did initially. You probably scrunched up your face and almost gagged at all the MAGA-sexual-abuse stuff, like I did. And that scrunchy-face outrage has been transferred to the music. White Freckles feels like a MAGA song now. But what I’m curious about is, why?

That’s what I want to write about.

The moment Ariel Pink showed up on Tucker Carlson Tonight, I knew that something had changed. I was a loose fan of Ariel Pink before all the accusations and the MAGA stuff, but after that fateful night I didn’t know what to do. The pioneer of hypnagogic pop had betrayed us. The entire fanbase immediately moved against Pink, which was understandable, and suddenly listening to Ariel Pink’s music felt like some sort of tacit admittance that you yourself might maybe just be a MAGA Trump nazi too and that maybe you should be shunned from every platform as well. The same thing happened with Morrissey of The Smiths, after he made racist comments publicly numerous times (another matter of public record); and a similar thing happened with R. Kelly (this one is really bad, look it up); and I’m sure the list goes on. To this day, if you post a link to a Morrissey song – or even The Smiths – on any social media platform, someone is going to reply with some vitriolic comment about Morrissey, and if that vitriolic person was following you before, they probably aren’t following you now because they saw your enjoyment of Interesting Drug as tacit support of Morrissey’s racism. (I can’t dislike Interesting Drug, that rockabilly semi-muted guitar stuff going on at the beginning is just wild.)

Did the quality of White Freckles change because Ariel Pink did something bad years after recording the song? Or was the song always tainted, and I was just a worse person for liking the song back then? And now, upon receiving this new information on Ariel Pink, should I stop liking the song, declare it “bad” just like Ariel Pink is “bad?” (Note, I am using the term “bad” here very loosely; you and I both know that calling music “good” and “bad” is near meaningless because it’s mostly a subjective preference, but I think you know what I am trying to get at here, as we probably hold similar values around most things if you happened to stumble upon this article at all; “bad” in this context means “MAGA-fascist-supporting ideological ruin” or something; you know: bad.) If I continue to like White Freckles, despite knowing this new information, am I somehow supporting Ariel Pink, endorsing and perpetuating his twisted worldview? If so, should I then reevaluate all the music I listen to and all the computer games I play and all the books I read from the lens of “did the creator(s) do something awful in the past and/or do they have politics I don’t agree with?” And, if so, I expect that this list will quickly become unmanageable, plus imagine all the mental effort I would have to expend just to maintain such a list. Something about this line of reasoning feels way off. Clearly the content of the actual song – the composition of the thing – has not changed. White Freckles has, and always will be, White Freckles.

It’s another thing entirely to buy Ariel Pink’s music, or donate to him on Patreon or listen to him on streaming platforms, as all of this supports Ariel Pink directly, and maybe you don’t want to support Ariel Pink. I don’t want to support him either. I pirated all his stuff, downloaded it all on Soulseek. Ariel Pink doesn’t get a penny from me. But there could be a deeper argument here, that even posting this article about Ariel Pink, or gushing about White Freckles, could possibly maybe support Ariel Pink in some roundabout way because someone might read this article and then be inspired to listen to Ariel Pink’s music on a streaming platform or, heaven forbidden, buy one of his records from his Bandcamp or something; and I don’t really have a good counter to that argument other than the fact that I am straight-up saying NO. Do. Not. Do. That. Do not give Ariel Pink money. The bright side (in this specific case, not overall) is that modern music streaming platforms are practically robbing artists anyway, so even if you did listen to Ariel Pink on Spotify – or whatever happens to be the popular streaming zeitgeist at the time of your reading this – you won't be supporting him much at all really.

Here's a stuffy quote from an old dead guy that may or may not have actually existed:

“It does not follow that because a particular work of art succeeds in charming us, its creator also deserves our admiration.” – Plutarch, Greek philosopher and historian

We don't have to like Ariel Pink, in fact, all my homies hate Ariel Pink.

There’s a discussion here about “separating the art from the artist,” and that’s a valid discussion, but it has been beaten to death, resurrected, and beaten to death again, multiple times. I will try to add my own twist on this zombified discussion, but I’m sure whatever I write here has already been written elsewhere. There’s an almost supernatural element to human creation; everything I write just kinda comes out and I can’t reproduce it later on; once the art has been released by the artist, it takes on a life of its own; the art, once birthed, becomes both solidified and open to interpretation, a state of contradictory flux; an artist's work can even be used against the artist later on in the event that the artist abandons previously held values. Artists can change, but the art itself cannot. And our interpretation of art can change, but the art itself is unchanging. The Mona Lisa will always be the Mona Lisa. Ariel Pink could rerecord White Freckles and add several MAGA verses, but that would not be White Freckles anymore; that would be the rerecorded MAGA-version of White Freckles, and I would not like or support that version.

We don't have to like Ariel Pink. We can refuse to support Ariel Pink while simultaneously loving White Freckles. We shouldn’t let Ariel Pink take White Freckles from us. We shouldn’t give him that much power.

#Music #ArielPink #Ethics #Essay