Please make us whole again.
This was a reoccurring phrase spoken in my favourite videogame of 2008, “Dead Space.”
In this wonderfully crafted science-fiction horror story, those on board the Ishimura mining facility that have not undergone horrific physical transformations, seem insistent on this concept of “making us whole again.”
I have thought long and hard about this phrase during and after the game..but first, “the during.”
In the game, the Ishimura (the oldest and largest “planet refiner” of its kind) is affected by an alien relic buried deep within the surface of a planet undergoing the massive routine mining operation. The parallels with today’s “oil refining” and the resulting crisis is well reflected, as the process involves planets being mined down to nothing, causing major gravitational disruptions and apparently (as it is read in news articles scattered throughout the ship) leading to the disarray and eventual destruction of entire systems.
But back to the relic. This is the cause of the Ishimura’s horrific demise. Alien in origin, this relic, referred to as “The Marker” by its founders, has caused the Ishimura’s inhabitants to become mentally unstable, paranoid, violent, and eventually, physically transformed into vicious creatures bent on the destruction of those who have not undergone the transformation themselves.
The ship’s residents are violently transformed into aggressive and destructive monsters. Mindless and vicious, these creatures haunt the cold dark halls of the industrial behemoth dooming all on board to inevitably crash into the planet below. This planet, apparently rich in many heavy rocky materials, now bears the scar of a giant crater hemispheres wide. “Looks like they already popped the cork,” says one of the crew on board the repair ship sent to answer the distress call.
“Make us whole again.”
It is my belief that the entire story can be summarized by this one phrase. I believe this relic gives voice to that which has none. In other words, the relic’s apparent purpose is to protect the Universe and its heavenly bodies from the threat of intelligence.
This is a beautiful concept in my opinion. A story about the horrors attributed to mindless consumption and disruption. Growth and expansion without maturity is not progress, it is viral consumption. And in the intelligent mind of the natural world, the monstrosities that now haunt the Ishimura are not transformations, but monstrous reflections of what humanity has become, as seen from the viewpoint of the natural Universe.
Interestingly, those who have found a way to survive the infected seem to share the idea and goal that by returning the relic and the materials stolen from the planet in question they themselves will be “whole again.” This shared consciousness seems to be the result of the relic…but in the spirit of well-crafted science fiction, the relic stands as a wonderful metaphor for the Universe’s natural and often terrifying silent intelligence.
This brings me to this concept of “becoming whole.”
In my last few blog entries, I have expressed my interest in the patterns of progression and deterioration in the Universe through stories such as the formation of the Moon, and natural mathematical re occurrences such as the fractal tree/branch theory.
All of these ideas are in response to an idea I’ve been becoming more and more passionate about during the past year or so. In reading about the birth and fate of matter in the Universe, I have come to realize that all struggles and adventures in the Universe come from a Universal goal to become whole again. First atoms, then stars, then planets, then us. The Universe can become whole again…it’ll just be VERY hard to predict how that’s gonna happen and what our role in this reunification will be.
First of all, there must be just as many destructions as creations. And everything must have a chance to find its place. Even the most beautiful coupling cannot last forever. The only thing that is forever is transition. Change.
That being said, death is not the end.
Simply another chance to start over.
A transition of material at its most fundamental level.
So if chaos and destruction are necessary, there can be only one logical conclusion.
Nothing is unwarranted or meaningless. Everything has its place.
Lies, defeat, loss, violence, mutation, even the anomalous rebellion of each.
All things are necessary transitions leading to a possible unification of all things.
So why are we capable of such destruction?
Well…first of all lets set some rules.
Ok. Just one rule actually.
We are not exceptional.
Everything that we recognize as life and familiar, is an expression and manifestation of the Universe.
Its physics, its chemistry, its mathematics, and its history.
When the source of the Big Bang expanded into the cosmos, it wasn’t simply energy that was spread into the void.
It was passion.
Desire.
Fear and anger.
The heroic.
The villainous.
The cowardly and the courageous.
It was war.
It was peace.
Everything that ever was and ever will be began at that moment.
And in that moment, the spiritual was physical.
As was the emotional.
Segregation is only a means to self reflect upon the whole.
It, like art, is a lie used to reveal the truth.
This is the purpose of the human mind.
This is the challenge of intelligence.
Not to become removed from reality.
But to become in tuned with it. To act as a Universal looking glass.
We have a long way before we can accept that which threatens our current state of affairs.
We have a long way to go before we can accept death and momentary loss.
But that is why we are here.
To make sense of things.
To enjoy our moment in the sun and dare to question it.
Dare to examine it.
And dare to make it whole again.
- Adrian B.
This was a reoccurring phrase spoken in my favourite videogame of 2008, “Dead Space.”
In this wonderfully crafted science-fiction horror story, those on board the Ishimura mining facility that have not undergone horrific physical transformations, seem insistent on this concept of “making us whole again.”
I have thought long and hard about this phrase during and after the game..but first, “the during.”
In the game, the Ishimura (the oldest and largest “planet refiner” of its kind) is affected by an alien relic buried deep within the surface of a planet undergoing the massive routine mining operation. The parallels with today’s “oil refining” and the resulting crisis is well reflected, as the process involves planets being mined down to nothing, causing major gravitational disruptions and apparently (as it is read in news articles scattered throughout the ship) leading to the disarray and eventual destruction of entire systems.
But back to the relic. This is the cause of the Ishimura’s horrific demise. Alien in origin, this relic, referred to as “The Marker” by its founders, has caused the Ishimura’s inhabitants to become mentally unstable, paranoid, violent, and eventually, physically transformed into vicious creatures bent on the destruction of those who have not undergone the transformation themselves.
The ship’s residents are violently transformed into aggressive and destructive monsters. Mindless and vicious, these creatures haunt the cold dark halls of the industrial behemoth dooming all on board to inevitably crash into the planet below. This planet, apparently rich in many heavy rocky materials, now bears the scar of a giant crater hemispheres wide. “Looks like they already popped the cork,” says one of the crew on board the repair ship sent to answer the distress call.
“Make us whole again.”
It is my belief that the entire story can be summarized by this one phrase. I believe this relic gives voice to that which has none. In other words, the relic’s apparent purpose is to protect the Universe and its heavenly bodies from the threat of intelligence.
This is a beautiful concept in my opinion. A story about the horrors attributed to mindless consumption and disruption. Growth and expansion without maturity is not progress, it is viral consumption. And in the intelligent mind of the natural world, the monstrosities that now haunt the Ishimura are not transformations, but monstrous reflections of what humanity has become, as seen from the viewpoint of the natural Universe.
Interestingly, those who have found a way to survive the infected seem to share the idea and goal that by returning the relic and the materials stolen from the planet in question they themselves will be “whole again.” This shared consciousness seems to be the result of the relic…but in the spirit of well-crafted science fiction, the relic stands as a wonderful metaphor for the Universe’s natural and often terrifying silent intelligence.
This brings me to this concept of “becoming whole.”
In my last few blog entries, I have expressed my interest in the patterns of progression and deterioration in the Universe through stories such as the formation of the Moon, and natural mathematical re occurrences such as the fractal tree/branch theory.
All of these ideas are in response to an idea I’ve been becoming more and more passionate about during the past year or so. In reading about the birth and fate of matter in the Universe, I have come to realize that all struggles and adventures in the Universe come from a Universal goal to become whole again. First atoms, then stars, then planets, then us. The Universe can become whole again…it’ll just be VERY hard to predict how that’s gonna happen and what our role in this reunification will be.
First of all, there must be just as many destructions as creations. And everything must have a chance to find its place. Even the most beautiful coupling cannot last forever. The only thing that is forever is transition. Change.
That being said, death is not the end.
Simply another chance to start over.
A transition of material at its most fundamental level.
So if chaos and destruction are necessary, there can be only one logical conclusion.
Nothing is unwarranted or meaningless. Everything has its place.
Lies, defeat, loss, violence, mutation, even the anomalous rebellion of each.
All things are necessary transitions leading to a possible unification of all things.
So why are we capable of such destruction?
Well…first of all lets set some rules.
Ok. Just one rule actually.
We are not exceptional.
Everything that we recognize as life and familiar, is an expression and manifestation of the Universe.
Its physics, its chemistry, its mathematics, and its history.
When the source of the Big Bang expanded into the cosmos, it wasn’t simply energy that was spread into the void.
It was passion.
Desire.
Fear and anger.
The heroic.
The villainous.
The cowardly and the courageous.
It was war.
It was peace.
Everything that ever was and ever will be began at that moment.
And in that moment, the spiritual was physical.
As was the emotional.
Segregation is only a means to self reflect upon the whole.
It, like art, is a lie used to reveal the truth.
This is the purpose of the human mind.
This is the challenge of intelligence.
Not to become removed from reality.
But to become in tuned with it. To act as a Universal looking glass.
We have a long way before we can accept that which threatens our current state of affairs.
We have a long way to go before we can accept death and momentary loss.
But that is why we are here.
To make sense of things.
To enjoy our moment in the sun and dare to question it.
Dare to examine it.
And dare to make it whole again.
- Adrian B.
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