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provide her with this extra room: since in due course of time she will stand in need of it for the company she expects.
And in process of time it is called into use. When the spring sun begins to melt the snow outside, the bear becomes a mother, and a brace of little white cubs make their appearance, each about as big as a rabbit.
The mother does not immediately lead them forth from their snowy chamber; but continues to suckle them there until they are of the size of Arctic foxes, and ready to take the road. Then she makes an effort, breaks through the icy crust that forms the dome of her dwelling, and commences her journey towards the sea.
There are times when the snow around her has become so firmly caked, that, with her strength exhausted by the suckling of her cubs, the bear is unable to break through it. In a case of this kind, she is compelled to remain in an involuntary durance—until the sun gradually melts the ice around her and sets her free. Then she issues from her prolonged imprisonment, only the shadow of her former self, and scarce able to keep her feet.
The Northern Indians and Eskimos capture hundreds of these hybernating bears every season—taking both them and their cubs at the same time. They find the retreat in various ways: sometimes by their dogs scraping to get into it, and sometimes by observing the white hoar that hangs over a little hole which the warmth of the bear's breath has kept open in the snow.
The hunters, having ascertained the exact position of the animal's body, either dig from above, and spear the old she in her bed; or they make a tunnel in a horizontal direction, and, getting a noose around the head or one of the paws of the bear, drag her forth in that way.
To give an account of the many interesting habits peculiar to the polar bear—with others which this species shares in common with the Bruin family—would require a volume to itself. These habits are well described by many writers of veracity,—such as Lyon, Hearne, Richardson, and a long array of other Arctic explorers. It is therefore unnecessary to dwell on them here—where we have only space to narrate an adventure which occurred to our young bear-hunters, while procuring the skin of this interesting quadruped.
They had been for some days on the lookout for a white bear; and had made several excursions from the Port—going as far as the mouth of the Seal river, which runs into Hudson's Bay a little farther to the north. On all these excursions they had been unsuccessful; for, although they had several times come upon the track of the bears, and had even seen them at a distance, they were unable in a single instance to get within shot. The difficulty arose from the level nature of the ground, and its being quite destitute of trees or other cover, under which they might approach the animals. The country around Fort Churchill is of this character—and indeed along the whole western shore of Hudson's Bay, where the soil is a low alluviom, without either rocks or hills. This formation runs landward for about a hundred miles—constituting a strip of marshy soil, which separates the sea from a parallel limestone formation further inward. Then succeed the primitive rocks, which cover a large interior tract of country, known as the “Barren Grounds.”
It is only on the low belt adjoining the coast that the polar bear is found; but the females range quite across to the skirts of the woods which cover the limestone formation. Our hunters therefore knew that either upon the shore itself, or upon the low alluvial tract adjoining it, they would have to search for their game; and to this district they confined their search.
On the fifth day they made a more extended excursion towards the interior. It was now the season of midsummer, when the old males range up the banks of the streams: partly with the design of catching a few freshwater fish, partly to nibble at the sweet berries, but above all to meet the females, who just then, with their half-grown cubs, come coyly seaward to meet their old friends of the previous year, and introduce their offspring to their fathers, who up to this hour have not set eyes on them.
On the present excursion our hunters were more fortunate than before: since they not only witnessed a reunion of this sort, but succeeded in making a capture of the whole family,—father, mother, and cubs.
They had on this occasion gone up the Churchill river, and were ascending a branch stream that runs into the latter, some miles above the fort. Their mode of travelling was in a birch-bark canoe: for horses are almost unknown in the territory of the Hudson's Bay Company, excepting in those parts of it that consist of prairie. Throughout most of this region the only means of travelling is by canoes and boats, which are managed by men who follow it as a calling, and who are styled “voyageurs.” They are nearly all of Canadian origin—many of them half-breeds, and extremely skilful in the navigation of the lakes and rivers of this untrodden wilderness. Of course most of them are in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company; and when not actually engaged in “voyaging” do a little hunting and trapping on their own account.
Two of these voyageurs—kindly furnished by the chief factor at the fort—propelled the canoe which carried our young hunters; so that with Pouchskin there were five men in the little craft. This was nothing, however, as birch-bark canoes are used in the Territory of a much larger kind—some that will even carry tons of merchandise and a great many men. Along the bank of the stream into which they had now entered grew a selvage of willows—here and there forming leafy thickets that were impenetrable to the eye; but in other places standing so thinly, that the plains beyond them could be seen out of the canoe.
It was a likely enough place for white bears to be found in—especially at this season, when, as already stated, the old males go inland to meet the females, as well as to indulge in a little vegetable diet, after having confined themselves all the rest of the year to fish and seal-flesh. The voyageurs said that there were many bulbous roots growing in those low meadows of which the bears are very fond; and also larvae of certain insects, found in heaps, like anthills—which by Bruin are esteemed a delicacy of the rarest kind.
For this reason our hunters were regarding the land on both sides of the stream, occasionally standing up in the canoe to reconnoitre over the tops of the willows, or peering through them where they grew thinly. While passing opposite one of the breaks in the willow-grove, a spectacle came before their eyes that caused them to order the canoe to be stopped, and the voyageurs to rest on their oars.
Alexis, who had been upon the lookout, at first did not know what to make of the spectacle: so odd was the grouping of the figures that composed it. He could see a large number of animals of quadrupedal form, but of different colours. Some were nearly white, others brown or reddish-brown, and several were quite black. All appeared to have long shaggy hair, cocked ears, and large bushy tails. They were not standing at rest, but moving about—now running rapidly from point to point, now leaping up in the air, while some were rushing round in circles! In all there appeared to be thirty or forty of them; and they covered a space of ground about as large as a drawing-room floor.
There was a slight haze or mist hanging over the meadow, which hindered Alexis from having a clear view of these animals; and, through the magnifying influence of this sort of atmosphere, they appeared as large as young oxen. Their form, however, was very different from these; and from their pointed ears, long muzzles, and full bunching tails, Alexis could think of nothing else to compare them to but wolves. Their varied colours signified nothing: since in these northern lands there are wolves of many varieties from white to black; and wolves they really were—only magnified by the mist into gigantic proportions.
Alexis had not viewed them long before perceiving that they were not all wolves. In their midst was an animal of a very different kind— much larger than any of them; but what sort of a creature it was the young hunter could not make out.
Ivan, who had risen to his feet, was equally puzzled to tell.
It appeared as large as half a dozen of the wolves rolled up into one, and was whiter than the whitest of them; but it looked as if it had a hunch upon its back; and altogether more like a shapeless mass of white bristly hair than a regularly-formed quadruped. It must be an animal, however, as its motions testified; for it was seen to be turning round and round, and at intervals darting forward a pace or two, as if working its way in the direction of the river.
Whatever the animal was, it soon became clear that it was battling with the wolves that surrounded it; and this accounted for the singular movements that these last were making, as well as for their fierce barking and growling that, in confused chorus, filled the air. At intervals, and still louder, could be heard a different sort of cry— shrill and plaintive, like the hinny of a mule—and evidently proceeding not from the wolves, but from the huge white animal which they were assailing.
The voyageurs at once recognised the cry.
“A bear!—a sea bear!” exclaimed both together.
One of them stood up, and looked over the plain.
“Yes,” said he, confirming his first assertion. “An old she it is, surrounded by wolves. Ha! it's her cubs they're after! Voila, messieurs! She's got one of them on her back. Enfant de garce, how the old beldam keeps them at bay! She's fighting her way to the water!”
Guided by the words of the voyageur, our hunters now perceived clearly enough that the white object appearing over the backs of the wolves was neither more nor less than a large bear; and that which they had taken for a hunch upon its shoulders was another bear—a young one, stretched out at full length along the back of its mother, and clinging there, with its forearms clasped around her neck.
It was evident, also, as the voyageur had said, that the old she was endeavouring to work her way towards the river—in hopes, no doubt, of retreating to the water, where she knew the wolves would not dare to follow her. This was evidently her design: for, while they stood watching, she advanced several yards of ground in the direction of the stream.
Notwithstanding the fierce eagerness with which the wolves kept up the attack, they were observing considerable caution in the conflict. They had good reason: since before their eyes was an example of what they might expect, if they came to very close quarters. Upon the ground over which the fight had been raging, three or four of their number were seen lying apparently dead—while others were limping around, or sneaked off with whining cries, licking the wounds they had received from the long claws of their powerful adversary.
It was rather an odd circumstance for the wolves to have thus attacked a polar bear—an antagonist of which they stand in the utmost dread. The thing, however, was explained by one of the voyageurs; who said that the bear in question was a weak one—half-famished, perhaps, and feeble from having suckled her young; and it was the cubs, and not the old bear herself, that the wolves were after—thinking to separate these from their mother, and so destroy and devour them. Perhaps one of them had been eaten up already: since only one could be seen; and there are always two cubs in a litter.
Our young hunters did not think of staying longer to watch the strange encounter. Their sole idea was to get possession of the bear and her cub; and with this intent they ordered the voyageurs to paddle close up to the shore and land them. As soon as the canoe touched the bank, both leaped out; and, followed by Pouchskin, proceeded towards the scene of the conflict,—the voyageurs remaining in the canoe.
The party had not gone more than a dozen steps from the water's edge, when a new object coming under their eyes caused them to halt. This was another quadruped that at that moment was seen dashing out from the willows, and rushing onward towards the scene of the strife. There was no mistaking the character of the creature. Our hunters saw at a glance that it was a large white bear—much larger than the one surrounded by the wolves. It was, in fact, the male; who, wandering in the thicket of willows—or, more likely, lying there asleep—had not till that moment been aware of what was going on, or that his wife and children were in such deadly danger. Perhaps it was the noise that had awaked him; and he was just in the act of hastening forward to the rescue.
With a shuffling gallop he glided over the plain—as fast as a horse could have gone; and in a few seconds he was close up to the scene of the conflict—to which his presence put an end right on the instant. The wolves, seeing him rush open-mouthed towards them, one and all bolted off; and ran at full speed over the plain, their long tails streaming out behind them. Those that were wounded, however, could not get clear so easily; and the enraged bear, charging upon these, rushed from one to the other, knocking the breath out of each as he came up to it, with a single “pat” of his heavy paws.
In less than ten seconds the ground was quite cleared of the ravenous wolves. Only the dead ones remained on it; while the others, having got off to a safe distance, halted in straggling groups; and, with their tails drooping upon the grass, stood gazing back with looks of melancholy disappointment.
Bruin, meanwhile, having settled his affair with the wounded wolves, ran up to his mate; and, throwing his paws around her neck, appeared to congratulate her upon her escape! And now did our hunters perceive that there were two cubs instead of one—that which still clung fast upon the mother's back, and another which was seen under her belly, and which she had been equally protecting against the crowd of assailants that surrounded her.
Both the little fellows—about as large as foxes they were—now perceived that they were out of a danger—which, no doubt, they had perfectly comprehended. That upon the shoulders of the dam leaped down to the earth; while the other crawled out “from under;” and both coming together began tumbling about over the grass, and rolling over one another in play, the parents watching with interest their uncouth gambols.
Notwithstanding the well-known ferocity of these animals, there was something so tender in the spectacle, that our hunters hesitated about advancing. Alexis, in particular, whose disposition was a shade more gentle than that of his companions, felt certain qualms of compassion, as he looked upon this exhibition of feelings and affections that appeared almost human. Ivan was even touched; and certainly neither he nor his brother would have slain these creatures out of mere wanton sport. They would not have thought of such a thing under ordinary circumstances; and it was only from the necessity they were under of procuring the skin that they thought of it at all. Perhaps they would even have passed this group; and taken their chances of finding another, that might make a less powerful appeal to their compassion; but in this they were overruled by Pouchskin. The old grenadier was afflicted by no such tender sentiments; and throwing aside all scruple, before his young masters could interfere to prevent him, he advanced a few paces forward, and discharged his fusil, broadside at the biggest of the bears.
Whether he hit the bear or not, was not then known. Certain it was that he in no way crippled the animal; for, as soon as the smoke had cleared out of his eyes, he saw the huge quadruped part from the side of his mate, and come charging down upon him.
Pouchskin hesitated for a moment whether to withstand the attack, and had drawn his knife to be ready; but the formidable appearance of the antagonist, his immense size, and fierce aspect, admonished Pouchskin that in this case discretion might be the better part of valour, and he yielded to the suggestion. Indeed, the two voyageurs in the canoe were already shouting to all three to run for it—warning them of the danger they were in by the most earnest speech and gesture.
Ivan and Alexis stood their ground till Pouchskin had returned to where they were, and then both fired upon the bear. They may have hit him or not; but the huge monster showed no sign, and only appeared to charge forward the faster.
All three together now ran for the boat. It was their only refuge; for had it been a trial of speed, and much ground to go over, the bear would certainly have overtaken them; and a few wipes from his paw would have ended the life of one or the other—perhaps of the whole trio.
It was fortunate they had the boat to flee to: else Pouchskin's imprudence, in provoking the bear, might have led to a fatal termination.
Quick as their legs could carry them they made for the canoe; and one after the other leaped into it. Without even waiting for them to seat themselves, the two voyageurs pushed off from the bank, suddenly shooting the craft out into the middle of the stream.
But this did not stay the pursuit of the infuriated bear, nor even delay him for a moment.
On reaching the bank, he did not make halt; but, launching out, sprang down with a plunge upon the water. Then, stretching his body at full length, he swam direct after the canoe.
The craft had been turned head down the stream; and, what with the help of the current and the impulse of the oars, it swept onward with arrow-like rapidity. But for all that it soon became apparent that the bear was gaining upon it—his broad paws enabling him to swim with the velocity of a fish—while every now and then he rose above the surface, and bounded forward to a distance of several feet through the air!
The voyageurs plied their paddles with all their skill and energy; there was the dread of death to stimulate them to the utmost exertion of their strength. They knew well, that, if the bear should succeed in coming up with the canoe, he would either mount into it, and drive all of them into the water; or, what was more probable, he would upset the craft, and spill the whole party out of it. In either case, there would be the danger of coming in contact with his claws; and that, they knew, was the danger of death itself.
The hunters were all three busy reloading their guns; and getting ready to fire before the enemy should be up to them.
They were not in time, however. With the motion of the boat, and the constrained attitudes in which it placed them, the loading was a slow process; and, before any of the three had a bullet down, the bear was close astern. Only Ivan had a barrel loaded; and this, unfortunately, was with small shot, which he had been keeping for waterfowl. He fired it, nevertheless, right into the teeth of the pursuer; but, instead of stopping him, it only increased his rage, and roused him to make still greater efforts to overtake the canoe.
Pouchskin, in despair, threw down his gun, and seized upon an axe, that by good luck had been brought in the boat. With this firmly grasped in his hands, and kneeling in the stern, he waited the approach of the infuriated swimmer.
The bear had got close up to the boat—in fact was within the length of his own body of touching it. Believing himself now near enough, he made one of his prodigious bounds, and launched himself forward. His sharp claws rattled against the birch-bark, tearing a large flake from the craft. Had this not given way, his hold would have been complete; and the boat would, in all likelihood, have been dragged, stern foremost, under water. But the failure of his clutch brought the head of the monster once more on a level with the surface; and before he could raise it to make a second spring, the great wedge of steel descended upon his crown, and went crashing through his skull.
Almost in the same instant, he was seen to turn over in the water; his limbs moved only with a spasmodic action; he gave a feeble kick or two with his long hind legs; and then his carcass floated along the surface, like a mass of white foam.
It was soon secured, and drawn out upon the bank—for the purpose of being stripped of its snow-white robe.
Our young hunters would have been contented to have left the others alone—neither the female nor her cubs being required by them. But the voyageurs—who were desirous of obtaining the skins of all three on their own account—proposed returning to effect their destruction; and in this proposal they were backed by Pouchskin, who had a natural antipathy to all bears.
It ended in the killing of the dam, and the capturing of her cubs alive; for, encumbered as the old she was with her offspring, she was soon overtaken, and fell an easy victim to the volley of bullets that were poured into her from all sides at once.
With the skins of the old bears, and the cubs tied in the bottom of the canoe, our hunters started back down stream; but they had scarce parted from the place, before the ravenous wolves returned—not only to devour the carcases of the bears, but also those of their own comrades that had fallen in the encounter!
The “Barren Ground bear” was next to be sought for; but to reach the haunts of this animal, a long and toilsome journey must be made. That tract of the Hudson's Bay territory known as the “Barren Grounds,” extends from the shores of the Arctic Sea as far south as the latitude of the Churchill river; bounded eastward by Hudson's Bay itself, and westward by a chain of lakes, of which the Great Slave and Athapescow are the principal.
This immense territory is almost unexplored to the present hour. Even the Hudson's Bay trappers have a very imperfect knowledge of it. It has been crossed in one or two places, and skirted by exploring parties, but it is still almost a terra ignota, except to the four or five tribes of Indians who dwell around its borders, and the Esquimaux, who venture a little way into it along the coast of the Arctic Sea.
Before proceeding to hunt the Barren Ground bear, let us say a word about his species. By writers, both old and modern, he has been variously classed. Even the ablest naturalist who has written about him is puzzled as to his species. We speak of Sir John Richardson, the companion of the lamented Franklin, and himself one of the great men of the earth. Sir John first regarded this bear, though very doubtfully, as a variety of the ursus americanus, or American black bear. Later observations influenced him to change this opinion; and again with modest doubtfulness—characteristic of the man—he suggests his being a variety of the ursus arctos.
We shall make bold to affirm that he is a variety of neither; but a distinct species of bear.
We shall give our reasons—and first, as to his distinctness from the ursus americanus. He is not like the latter, either in colour, shape of body, bulk, profile, physiognomy, length of feet or tail. In all these respects he bears a greater resemblance to the ursus arctos, or even to his nearer neighbour, the grizzly ( ursus ferox). He differs from both these, however, in other points—as will presently be seen. Again, he is of a fiercer disposition than the black bear, and more dangerous to the hunter—almost as much so as the grizzly, and quite as much as the brown. Moreover, he dwells in a country in which the black bear could not make his home. To the existence of the latter, the forest is essential; and he is never found far out of it. It is not the higher latitude that keeps him out of the Barren Grounds, but the absence of timber. This is proved by the fact of his being found quits as far northward as any part of the Barren Grounds, but where the limestone formation favours the growth of trees; whereas, among the primitive rocks to the north of Nelson river, the black bear does not exist—the very region that appears most favourable to the existence of the Barren Ground species—who cares not for trees, and cannot climb them.
Still another material difference may be pointed out. The black bear, in his normal state, is altogether frugivorous—a true vegetable feeder. The other is carnivorous and piscivorous—at one season killing and eating marmots and mice, at another frequenting the sea coast and subsisting upon fish. In a word, the two bears are as unlike as may be—they are distinct species.
To compare the Barren Ground bear with the ursus arctos. The former is certainly much more like this species, than he is to the ursus americanus; but again we encounter notable points of difference; and were it not for a certain resemblance in colour, it is possible the two kinds would never have been brought into comparison. It is easy, however, to prove them also distinct species—by simply observing that their habits are altogether unlike. The ursus arctos is a tree-climbing wood bear: the Barren Ground species is not. The former prefers a vegetable diet—the latter likes better fish, flesh, and insects—though he will also fill his stomach with a farrago of vegetable matters.
But to say nothing of the very different habits of the two animals, there is a yellowish tinge over the fur of the American species, that is not observed in the brown bears of European countries—except, perhaps, in those of the Pyrenees—and at certain seasons this tinge turns so pale, as to give a whitish appearance to the animal: hence, by the Indians, they are often termed “white bears.”
It is, besides, altogether improbable, that the brown bear of Europe should turn up in the “Barren Grounds” of the Hudson's Bay territory—an isolated, treeless tract—quite unlike his habitat in the Old World; and to which no line of migration could be traced with much probability. We might suppose such a migration through Siberia and Russian America; and certainly there is some probability in this view: for although it has been hitherto stated that the Barren Ground bear is only found within the limits of the peculiar district so called, it is very certain that his range extends beyond these boundaries. The brown bear of Russian America and the Aleutian Islands appears to be identical with this species; and there is a suspicion, that the brown species of Kamschatka is no other than the Barren Ground bear of the Hudson's Bay. The fishing habits of the former go some ways towards an identification of the two species—at the same time separating both from the ursus arctos of Scandinavia.
It needs hardly to be argued, that the Barren Ground bear is quite a distinct animal from the grizzly though writers have often confounded them. They are different in size and colour. Though the grizzly is sometimes brown, it is always with a mixture of white tipped hairs; but the most essential distinction is to be found in the greater ferocity of the latter, and his far longer and more curving claws. Many other points might be mentioned—showing them to be animals of two separate species—besides, their range is altogether distinct.
The Barren Ground bear, then, is not the ursus arctos, americanus, or ferox. What then? Has he received no specific name from the naturalists? Not yet. Alexis, however, bestowed one upon him. He named him after the man who has given the clearest account of his country and his habits; and whom Alexis deemed most worthy of the honour. In his journal we find the record. There it is written, that the Barren Ground bear is the ursus Richardsonii.
To seek the haunts of this new species of bear, I have said that our hunters would have a long journey to make—even so far as the Great Slave Lake—for although the Barren Grounds extend many degrees to the south of this water, the ursus Richardsonii; rarely wanders to a lower latitude. Upon the shores of the Slave Lake, however, they would be certain to encounter him; and thither they repaired.
They were fortunate in the time of the year. The annual “brigade” of boats belonging to the Great Fur Company was just setting out from York Factory, for Norway House on Lake Winnipeg; and thence a division of it would proceed to the posts still further northward—on Lake Athapescow and the waters of the Mackenzie River—passing through the Slave Lake itself. Their object, of course, in their annual journey is to distribute at the fur stations, the goods, brought from England by the Company's ships, and in return bring back the peltries collected throughout the winter.
With the brigade, then, went our hunters; and after enduring, in common with the others, the hardships and perils incidental to such a long inland voyage, they at length found themselves at the point of their destination—Fort Resolution, on the Great Slave Lake, near the mouth of the river bearing the same appellation. The canoe of an Indian fisherman—of which there are many dwelling around the shores of this great inland sea—was soon pressed into service; and with the fisherman (who of course was a hunter also) for their guide and companion, they could make convenient excursions along the shores of the lake, land whenever they pleased, and search for Bruin in the localities where he was most likely to be encountered. In this they were assisted by their hired guide; who was not long in putting them upon the trail of a bear. In fact, in the very first excursion which they made, one of the true breed was discovered and captured.
The circumstances attending his capture were of no very particular interest; but as they illustrate one of the habits of this species, we shall give them as recorded in the journal of Alexis.
They were paddling gently along the shore—through water that was as calm as a pond—when, at a great distance ahead of them, the Indian observed a slight rippling upon the surface, and pointed it out. It was not caused by the wind; for there was not a breath stirring at the time; and it was not like the whitish curl which a breeze casts upon the surface of water. It resembled more a series of little wavelets, such as proceed from a stone plunged into a deep pool, or from a disturbance of the water caused by the movements of some animal. The Indian said that it was a bear: though there was no bear, nor any living thing in sight!
As the canoe moved nearer, our hunters perceived that there was an indentation on the shore—a little creek or bay out of which the ripples were proceeding. The guide knew that there was such a bay; and believed that the bear would be found somewhere within it, swimming about in the water.
The hunters did not stay to inquire the reason why Bruin should be thus bathing himself? There was no time: for just at that instant the Indian beached his canoe; and desired them all to disembark and follow such further instructions as he might give them. Without hesitation they accepted his invitation; resolved to act according to his counsel.
The Indian, after making his boat fast, took the route inland, followed by the other three. After going some three or four hundred yards, he turned to the left, and conducted the party around the shore of the bay—which trended in a semicircular or horse-shoe shape. He did not take all of them around; but only one, whom he stationed on the opposite side. This was Pouchskin. Ivan he had already placed on the nearer side, and Alexis at the bottom—so that they were thus set at the three angles of a triangle, nearly equilateral.
On assigning to each of them his station, the Indian further instructed them to creep forward among the bushes—which still separated them from the water—and to do so without making any noise, till they should hear a “whoop” from himself. This would be the signal for them to show themselves around the edge of the bay—in the water of which the Indian hunter was confident a bear was bathing himself. He himself returned to his canoe.
Agreeably to his instructions, the three hunters crawled forward—each on his own line of approach, and all observing the greatest caution and silence. As soon as their eyes rested upon the water, they perceived the correctness of the Indian's conjecture. A bear there was, sure enough!
They saw only his head; but this was sufficient for Bruin's identification: since no similar cranium could have been encountered in such a place.
As the Indian had apprised them, the bear was swimming about in the bay; but for what purpose it was at first difficult to make out. To their astonishment, he swam with his mouth wide open—so that they could see the interior of his great encarmined palate, while his long tongue flapped out at intervals, and appeared to sweep the surface of the water. At intervals, too, he was seen to close his mouth—the huge jaws coming together with a “clap-clap,” the noise of which could be heard echoing far over the lake!
He did not go long in one course; but ever and anon kept turning himself, and quartering the bay in every direction.
It was a long time before the spectators could find any explanation of these odd manoeuvres on the part of the bear. They might have fancied he was merely taking a cool bath to refresh himself: for the day was exceedingly hot, and the air was filled with mosquitoes—as our hunters had already learnt to their great discomfort. It might have been to get rid of these tormentors that Bruin had submerged his body in the water; and so Pouchskin concluded, and also Ivan—though both were puzzled by the odd behaviour of the bear, in swimming open-mouthed, and at intervals snapping his jaws as he did. Alexis, however, was a better reasoner; and soon discovered the why and the wherefore of these mysterious demonstrations. Alexis saw that the surface of the water was thickly coated with something; and, on scrutinising it more closely, he made out this something to be a swarm of insects. There appeared to be more than one species of them—two indeed there were—both about the size of ordinary gadflies; but altogether different from each other in colour and habits. One was a sort of water-beetle that swam near the surface; while the other was a winged insect that occasionally rose into the air, but more generally crawled along the water—making short runs from place to place, then stopping a moment, and then darting on again. The whole surface of the bay—and even out for some distance into the lake—fairly swarmed with these creatures; and it was in pursuit of them that Bruin was whisking his tongue so rapidly about, and bringing his jaws together in such sonorous concussion. The animal was simply indulging in a favourite meal—which in summer is furnished him not only on the shores of the Great Slave Lake, but most of the smaller lakes throughout the Barren Grounds.
Alexis had scarce finished making the observation, when a loud “whoop” was heard from the direction of the lake; and almost at the same instant the canoe of the Indian was seen shooting through the water, right for the entrance of the bay!
Obedient to the signal, the three hunters rushed out from their cover, and ran forward upon the beech—each holding his gun in readiness to fire. The bear, seeing himself thus suddenly and unexpectedly surrounded, at once gave over his fly-trapping; but, irresolute in which direction to retreat, he turned round and round in the water, first swimming a bit one way and then another. At length, rearing himself high
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≡ Menu
SETI: Project Argus and the Long Stare
I think you’ll find Jon Lomberg’s new essay in Slate as interesting as I do. We Need a World Cup for SETI uses a familiar figure at many sports events — the guy in the stands holding up a Biblical reference on a poster — to dig into a far more interesting issue. How does one go about maximizing visibility? The guy with the sign knows how to do it and if we think about his methods, we can better understand SETI.
For as we think about radio and optical SETI, we’re usually looking for signals that have been intentionally sent. Here we run into the particularly tricky business of trying to understand the thinking of an alien being, but there are certain principles that may apply to any civilization trying to send out a beacon-like message. The message needs to be short, cheap, easy to find, and in a place where it’s likely to be seen. So what kind of beacon is this going to be?
We’ve discussed ‘Benford beacons’ in these pages before (see, among others in the archive, Detecting a ‘Funeral Pyre’ Beacon). A beacon announcing little more than ‘We Are Here’ could be used to attract the attention of any receiving culture, after which we (the receivers) would apply our resources to looking harder at the source. But from the standpoint of efficiency and economy, a brief, bright beacon is best. James and Gregory Benford have addressed the matter in two key papers cited at the end of this essay. Let me quote a brief bit of one:
The Benfords bring useful synergies to bear on the matter. Jim is a plasma physicist — he knows all about beaming — while Greg is both physicist and science fiction author, a man who has speculated for decades on the workings of extraterrestrial civilizations. Jim’s son Dominic, also active in the beacon work, is a physicist at NASA GSFC. Beacons like the Benfords are suggesting are different from the kind of directed beacon SETI has long looked for, one that demands intense focus on stars in the hopes of finding continually broadcasting signals. A Benford beacon puts out a signal we would perceive as intermittent, a brief pulse.
Image: What kind of signal to look for amidst 200 billion stars? Credit: Center for Planetary Science.
The Long Stare
You can see that this puts the premium on what SETI people call ‘dwell times,’ i.e., the time we look at a particular target. In his Slate essay, Lomberg points out that there is a major timing issue here. Just how long would a beacon like this take before it repeated?
If you ever detect a possible beacon, you have to remain on target long enough for it to repeat—and who knows how long you have to wait? For an ancient and long-lived society, with perspectives far longer than our 10,000-year civilization, that might be a long time. Their notion of patience might be very different from ours. They’re aliens, after all. Of one thing I am sure: Any brief, potentially artificial signal should be closely watched for a repeat. A new approach to SETI could involve unbroken observation of some of the special directions on the sky.
Given that open question, we still need to maximize the possibilities, and I think Lomberg is right in emphasizing a strategy of constant listening. How to do this? Paul Shuch, the canny and deeply dedicated executive director of the SETI League, has long advocated getting away from what he calls ‘soda straw’ SETI, in which we perform a deep study of a target for only a short period of time before moving on. Instead, Shuch backs attempts like Project Argus, the SETI League’s microwave SETI effort aimed at providing continuous, full-sky coverage.
The notion here is to deploy and coordinate about 5000 small radio telescopes around the world, an attempt to provide continuous monitoring of the sky in real time. A station for Project Argus is not a huge dish but an amateur installation fully capable of detecting a Benford beacon’s transient signal if it should occur. In terms of cost, such a site has more in common with amateur radio than with Arecibo-style astronomy. It could be built for no more than a few thousand dollars and, depending on the builder, perhaps for less.
Image: H. Paul Shuch, N6TX, uses the SETI Horn of Plenty antenna for portable operations when away from his Project Argus station FN11lh. The horn, which fits in the back of a minivan, is ideal for classroom demonstrations, exhibiting +20 dBi of gain at 1.4 GHz. Credit: SETI League.
And yes, the famous “Wow Signal,” a one-off detection via Ohio State’s Big Ear radio telescope in 1977, does seem to fit the model of a Benford beacon, in being powerful, brief, and never seen again. How should we look for the next “Wow Signal”? Science fiction author David Brin backs the Project Argus idea in The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and Whether to Send “Messages” (METI):
Clearly SETI would benefit from a supplementary system that covers the Earth, searching continuously and broadly for pings that are sent by ETCs narrowly. That system would be ready to detect and pounce upon any new Wow Signals and automatically net-notify larger telescopes to zoom quickly on the source. Not a competitor with classic SETI, this second layer could serve as an ideal alert-generating system, filling a glaring deficit in the current approach.
An Expanded Project Argus
In Greek mythology, Argus was a giant whose epithet “all seeing” (panoptes) spawned depictions of him with multiple eyes. Argus always had a few eyes open, thus becoming the perfect watchman. Can we find a way to maximize the potential of Project Argus?
For while the endeavor is loaded with promise and benefits from the skills and energies of people like Shuch, it has been unable to reach anything like the needed 5000 stations for continuous coverage. This is why a comment by the above-quoted David Brin on a SETI-oriented mailing list recently caught my eye. Brin notes that even as ‘soda straw’ SETI continues, we have the option of energizing the Project Argus idea. We already see wealthy people like Paul Allen and Yuri Milner becoming deeply involved in SETI. What if we could find a similar figure to create a Project Argus kit?
The idea here would be to take the building of a home receiving station for SETI out of the realm of sophisticated electronic technology and into into a turn-key kit that could be purchased for several hundred dollars and simply attached to a basic backyard dish. Like SETI@Home, a Web-based collection system could be used to track the ongoing datastream. A global system for transient detections like this is the kind of network that could find a Benford beacon.
Image: My friend Mike Gingell, KN4BS, shows off his two dishes, 12 and 10 feet in diameter, used for radio astronomy, satellite TV, and of course SETI. I’m sorry to say that Mike passed away last year, but he remained fascinated by SETI prospects until the end. Credit: Mike Gingell / SETI League.
We need to keep an eye on the possibilities that can emerge from private funding and the work of skilled amateur radio astronomers. But we also need to grow the numbers of those who have the means to participate. An updated version of Project Argus could supplement and extend the original, taking what began as a superb idea for engineers working with home equipment into the realm of everyday users with a yen to use digital tools to explore SETI’s possibilities. Make the kit cheap enough and straightforward to operate and the transient detection system we need emerges, an approach to SETI that widens our capabilities even as traditional SETI continues.
The papers are Benford, “Messaging with Cost Optimized Interstellar Beacons,” Astrobiology Vol. 10(5) (June, 2010), pp. 475-490 (preprint) and “Searching for Cost Optimized Interstellar Beacons,” Astrobiology Vol. 10(5) (June, 2010), pp. 491-498 (preprint). Paul Shuch’s Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: SETI Past, Present, and Future (Springer, 2011) is an essential resource on SETI issues.
Comments on this entry are closed.
• DCM December 14, 2015, 12:44
Listening is one thing, but getting their attention is dangerous. Listening is also cheaper.
There’s another odd assumption at work in much of the speculation here, which is that technological development follows the same trajectory as ours.
I remember, for example, reading an article that mentioned all the ingredients to invent photography existed before the American revolution but successful, repeated, carefully documented experiments weren’t done till the 1820s.
Photography and the telegraph were used in the US civil war, along with various precursors of machine guns and aerial surveillance but armies still charged and fought on horseback using swords when they couldn’t reload their single shot small arms.
People are so amazed by wet cell batteries from the 800s AD that they easily believe aliens brought them rather than that people discovered them just was they were later rediscovered after being lost because they were guild trade secrets.
We could receive faint radio signals from somebody whose technology otherwise resembles Julius Caesar’s….
• NS December 14, 2015, 12:47
Another “Argus”, this one at Ohio State University:
Unfortunately, the scientists involved have moved on and the project appears to have been on hold for several years now.
• Tom Mazanec December 14, 2015, 13:27
As well as “WOW!” were the signals mentioned in Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” and TYC 1220-91-1.
• Larry Kennedy December 14, 2015, 14:13
Sounds like one of the best thought out ideas for SETI in a while.
• Charlie December 14, 2015, 14:16
WHAT ?! Wet cell batteries were around in the 800 A.D. ? Where did you get that piece of information, I’d be very interested
• Joy December 14, 2015, 14:37
For a dark vision on why METI is a really bad idea – check out “The Three-Body Problem” by Cixin Liu. Both that extraordinary book and the sequel, “The Dark Forest” are now available in paperback English translations. (I imagine the final act of the trilogy wil be published shortly.) Like all SF, it contains rubbish science. But the storytelling is first rate. My highest recommendation!
PS: On a time scale of millions of years, our nearest neighbour star system likely is chaotic. Proxima is probably near the apastron of a very long period cometary orbit and may very well come screaming through the centre of the A-B binary every million years or so. However, as mass Proxima <<A or B, the central stars are probably only slightly perturbed by each encounter.
• Alex Tolley December 14, 2015, 14:38
It seems to me that if you want to attract attention, you would be better off transmitting at wavelengths that do not require special equipment, i.e. optically. Then you have 7 billion potential receivers and a the possibility of receiving the signal regardless of technological development. Imagine if a star brightened every century or so from antiquity. That would signal modern astronomers to start observing that star as soon as their equipment was suitable.
BTW, that doesn’t stop you from transmitting at other wavelengths too, but the “beacon” to attract attention should be easily observable by simple eyes.
• Tom Baty December 14, 2015, 14:49
@ Charlie….There are several articles on the “Baghdad battery” on the internet. Here is one of them.You can Google the others if you want more info.
• Kappy December 14, 2015, 14:56
@Alex Tolley: That makes the assumption that an intelligent species will have eyes that detect the same wavelengths as we do. I would think the evolution of eyes would be dependent on the atmosphere and their star’s output. Isn’t it possible that some ETI has eyes that see in other frequencies than we do?
• Tom Baty December 14, 2015, 14:56
Incidentally I am not a believer in ancient astronauts…… So I think the Baghdad battery was developed by some clever people from long ago. Interesting!!
• lepton December 14, 2015, 16:16
If we really want to get attention (not a good idea IMHO), we can build big SPSes. Not only they give us energy, defend planet from rongue astroids, launch sail probes, but also act as billboard to announce our presence.
• Alex Tolley December 14, 2015, 17:31
@kappy. Terrestrial life can see from UV to IR, although we mammals are more limited. Where light is absent, animals revert to using pressure waves, detected by ears or other body sensors.
We can rule out long wavelengths of EM radiation as the size of the organ increases to unmanageable limits (think radar dishes). So unless teh life is like those huge Jupiter floaters in Clarke’s fiction, radio wave sight won’t work. In teh other dirrection, it is very hard to focus X-rays or gamma rays, which are also so energetic that they destroy organic matter. They also won’t penetrate an atmosphere. So they cannot be used. So practically, the UV to IR range is required to be used to evolve practical sight organs which must focus the rays for good vision. Obviously pressure waves cannot be transmitted directly through vacuum, so they make no sense. I hope this isn’t too much like a “just so” story.
Therefore visible light makes most sense when signaling to other intelligent, planetary bound life forms.
• Andrew Palfreyman December 14, 2015, 18:24
Orbiting an optical mask around the sun in various planes is a step towards omnidirectionality. The general idea is to use a mask big enough to provide a recognisably intelligent pattern of holes and a good enough signal to noise ratio. It’s completely passive of course, and requires no station keeping maintenance.
• V. L. Teofilo December 14, 2015, 18:38
Deja Vu all over again. This has been discussed before on Centauri. Again the probability of Com with another ETI at the same level of technology is quite small . see http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.0011
• Daniel Suggs December 14, 2015, 22:02
@Alex Tolley Perhaps, instead of visible, or radio waves, might they use some sort of energy vortex to form patterns in fields? Maybe we need to be looking at crop circles seriously?
• Joe G December 15, 2015, 0:04
Can anyone recommend a receiver design that uses readily available components? Im thinking something relatively easy to fabricate that could feed a signal into a pc for processing and filtering.
Not to date myself, but, I have a couple of ancient radio astronomy books that feature schematics that use vacuum tubes… Not that antique radios wouldn’t be interesting to build, but there has to be cheaper, better way to listen for alien Top 40 radio…
• DCM December 15, 2015, 5:36
‘Charlie December 14, 2015 at 14:16
I don’t remember when they were discovered but it was fairly recent. They are from Iraq and were used for electroplating. I can confidently say that aliens didn’t bring the technology, which is relatively simple and needn’t be understood in terms of modern theory to work any more than paint requires modern chemical knowledge to work.
Probably assembling the apparatus was a trade secret of some guild, discovered by observation, and lost when members died as a result of some invasion like the Mongol massacre of Baghdad in the 1200s.
• Mike Fidler December 15, 2015, 6:00
One idea that has not been discussed that may make a big difference is that we may be trying to communicate with long lived beings. We are on the verge of understanding the process of ageing and the ability to create parts of the body from your own stem cells, so living possibly hundreds or maybe thousands of years? How would that change our view on intersteller travel and communicating with other civilizations if we could become immortal? Where would all these beings be, without consuming the whole universe. The huge number of red dwarfs with their erratic flares would fit the bill, trillion year lifetime, signaling via something like
Andrew Palfreyman concept but via a natural flare mecanism, created by the immortals in that system! Sounds like it would make a great SciFi too!
• ljk December 15, 2015, 10:12
And speaking of inoperative Ohio SETI projects, the Big Ear radio telescope – the one which detected the (in)famous Wow! Signal of 1977 – was torn down in 1997 by Ohio State University to make way for condos and a golf course.
• Frank Smith December 15, 2015, 10:54
@ Joe G
Rather than build-it-yourself, I’d recommend a software designed radio like the new SDRPlay. SDRPlay software designed receiver. It receives to 2 GHz.
Apache Labs amateur radio transceivers offer a radio astronomy option, but you’d need a transverter to get to UHF. <a href=" https://apache-labs.com/cart.php"
Frank Smith, WS1MH
• Ron S December 15, 2015, 11:03
Start here, especially the second half of the article:
I’m not directly involved with SDR technology though I use it every day. It’s pretty straight-forward with off the shelf hardware and open source software. But, as they say, some assembly required. It’s not for the faint of heart.
You may be better off waiting for the SETI League to come up with their turn key kit. There is a lot involved if the receiving system is going to actually be useful. The trickiest part is the DSP (demodulating, searching, etc.) that uses the received data. After all, no one really knows what we’re looking for. It’s difficult enough even if you do know.
• Dani Eder December 15, 2015, 14:10
One possibility is we are looking *from* the wrong place: Earth. Most of you are familiar with gravitational lensing. Stars like the Sun focus incoming photons at 500-1000 AU radius. If you place a transmitter at Alpha Centauri, in the position aimed at our Sun, the beam is made parallel by that star’s gravity. In turn our Sun would refocus the parallel beam to a point. You can get a usable signal with immensely less power than an omnidirectional transmitter, or even a large dish. Besides the power savings, the aliens would know anyone in a position to detect the signal has reached some level of space travel.
Of course, we are not yet in such a position. Our farthest probe is ~130 AU, which isn’t far enough, and it is not directed at the focus from any particular star. In order to test this idea, we would need to send probes to the various foci of nearby stars (or one probe that can maneuver a lot), with wideband receivers, because we have no idea what frequency the transmitter might use.
For all we know there is an interstellar Internet chattering away across the Galaxy, using stars as amplifiers and repeaters. Even using a star to focus a beam, it would not be perfectly parallel. So every so often you want pick up the signal, amplify it, and send it on to the next star.
• ljk December 15, 2015, 14:30
The most important question about SETI / METI is to ask WHY someone would want to transmit into the galaxy? There are reasons, as I listed in my article I link to next, but even an advanced species who does not need to worry about resources and money still needs a reason.
And perhaps it is because I am a member of a species that rarely seems to do anything for anyone out of purely altruistic reasons, I have a lot of trouble with the idea Carl Sagan often espoused that ETI would beam the equivalent of the Encyclopedia Galactica across the stars merely to uplift other species so we could all be one big happy family. Rich and powerful humans residing on Earth seldom share their power and wealth, not without ensuring they get a lot back in return. They also don’t like to make themselves vulnerable in the same way that states with nuclear weapons don’t just share that knowledge with just anyone.
You might reply that the idea listed in the article is just about a beacon designed by scientists who are naturally curious to see who else resides in the Milky Way. Perhaps. However note that on this world many people object to METI out of fear of attracting malevolent species and many science projects in general are designed to make a profit and thus only get their financial support first and foremost for those reasons. Or there is a political motive such as with Project Apollo: If it were not for the Cold War, it is more than likely we would still be wondering when someone would one day see a human being walk on the Moon.
• ljk December 15, 2015, 14:38
ETI might use supernovae as galactic attention getters. Perhaps those who monitor for SN (along with every other kind of astronomer) might also want to do a little SETI in the process.
• ljk December 15, 2015, 14:47
And how deeply are we really thinking about the whole SETI enterprise anyway? It still remains dominated by the radio realm going back to 1959 and even earlier if you count the 1924 radio searches for Martians.
Scientists still tend to think the ones who might conduct METI will be fellow scientists. Maybe, if they have more clout that human society often gives.
See here:
And there are alien beacons in our galaxy sending pings, really keep in mind that they are either very naive and trusting of others, or they have very little to worry about shouting into the forest.
Some more food for thought:
• Coacervate December 15, 2015, 16:51
Am I missing something? This is probably a negative on my part that I do not intend…but whenever I look for scholarly data on SETI results over the purported “50 years of SETI”, what I find are the miniscule OZMA, Phoenix and “WoW” signal. The list is a bit longer but where are the data from the long-running programs. Shouldn’t there be more analysis on those millions of hits from the Arecibo data? What about Hat Creek, Argus …how long have these projects been running?
It would be just as important to the science to publish the results of listening programs. These may not have the journalistic appeal of a WoW signal, they will however serve as the basis of another window on space.
• ljk December 15, 2015, 18:57
Just because many humans are afraid of the unknown, or think we are not advanced enough, or cannot look or think past their immediate surroundings, does not mean that the rest of the Universe isn’t going to come calling some day.
We need to be ready and aware as possible for a variety of scenarios, because hiding is not much of an option for a species with over seven billion members and rising and a slowly but surely expanding technological footprint.
• Larry Kennedy December 15, 2015, 19:47
@ ljk
I still hold that we have a very large argument against predators roaming the galaxy. If they are doing so, then why aren’t they here?
• DCM December 15, 2015, 21:20
“Tom Baty December 14, 2015 at 14:56
And you are right.
Note that when Western and Chinese people contacted less technologically advanced groups that while it’s true they gave them trinkets and gadgets to amuse them they also took note of politics. Thus they may have armed and trained some groups to carry out long standing feuds to weaken all of them militarily and economically for easier conquest.
They may have imparted what they considered superior religious beliefs, but these too were to make them weaker and to gain allies.
We can’t really imagine what they’d be like. Consider the original “Day The Earth Stood Still”. No superior wisdom was imparted, though that’s supposed to be the message. The aliens demonstrated greater military power to an Earth caught up in the Cold War and said they’d kill everybody if we didn’t do what they said.
Would aliens actually try to impart superior wisdom, assuming they even had such a concept? Not hardly. They’d have their own motives humans might never grasp except through objective study.
Listen to the stars, send no messages, and develop Mars and artificial biospheres in space.
• ljk December 16, 2015, 10:01
Larry Kennedy said on December 15, 2015 at 19:47:
There are about 400 billion star systems in the Milky Way galaxy. It has been determined that most if not all of them have planets, which in turn means belts of comets and planetoids as well. It is probably safe to assume that many of them are unoccupied by at least complex life.
If you were a starfaring ETI, would you not prefer to mine resources from systems where there are no intelligent natives, even primitive ones, if for no other reason that you don’t want the hassle? Even then, if such an ETI wanted to start mining our comet and planetoid belts, what could humanity do at present to stop them even if we did notice, other than to stand their with our mouths open first then panic in general.
• Steven White December 19, 2015, 16:22
Flawed assumptions and human bias abound here in this statement. Short? Why not very long? A better chance of catching someone listening who is NOT afraid to answer back in time. Cheap? The most egregious assumption of all. That of assuming to have ANY idea of what kind of economic system ANY alien species might have, if it even has a system we would see as “Economic.” And that could even involve political, philosophical even religious factors we would have still LESS of a clue about.
Easy to find and in a place likely to be seen? Not at all. Hard as heck to find and well hidden, since this would help to determine how advanced an alien contacting civilization might be, if advanced enough AND clever enough to even know where to look. That way, they could weed out populations where, say, about a quarter of the public still thinks their sun orbits their planet and the whole universe was made in a few days for their benefit.
In short we don’t know where and how to look and listen, bogged down by our own human conceptions.
• Alex Tolley December 19, 2015, 18:00
It would make no rational sense to have an expensive (i.e. high resource use) system that was devilishly hard to find. Cheap and hard, yes. Expensive and easy, yes.
While it is easy to say that aliens might think very differently from us, resulting in very different social organizations, we can say that unless they have an organized social system they won’t be very advanced, and part of that advanced state will tend to use optimizing solutions that include cost optimization.
If you want to talk to non-technological squid, that is a different matter.
• Eniac December 20, 2015, 13:56
Wikipedia has (among other things) this to say about the Baghdad Battery: “This interpretation is generally rejected today.” and “… does not know a single archaeologist who believed that these were batteries.”
Please let us not use this forum to try and fan the flames of hyperspeculative UFO myths like this one.
• Eniac December 20, 2015, 14:03
It makes no sense to mine resources at a system if you are not going to live there. And almost all of the time in the last 4 billion years, there would have been no intelligent natives on Earth, so no hassle.
Right. But more likely this would have happened a billion years in our past, before we were here, and the ETI would still be living here. We would be them.
• Dana Andrews December 20, 2015, 14:42
I’m afraid there is so many transmitters in orbit around earth, that false signals will happen every few minutes. Maybe a dedicated listening post at the Earth-Sun L2 point would be better served.
• Eniac December 21, 2015, 0:55
Dana Andrews: On the other hand, when you have a lot of receivers working together, it becomes possible to distinguish very well between local and remote origin of a signal, as long as it is picked up by more than one receiver.
An object in Earth orbit, for example, would only be picked up by receivers close to its current orbital position, and from a large variety of directions. A galactic signal, on the other hand, could be picked up by all receivers on the signal-facing hemisphere, and come from the exact same direction, everywhere.
• Alexey Borisenko January 9, 2016, 13:13
Why not using H-alpha ultra-narrowband signalling? It will be much cheaper for transmissions over interstellar distances.
Transmitter power requirement proportional to fourth power of L/D (L/D= wavelength/diameter, which is also angular resolution)
Compare currently state-of-the-art L/D values:
Radiotelescope: L/D about 1e-3
Optical telescope: L/D about 1e-7
Total power effect: 1e+16!!!
Yes, there are many other factors, but it is very unlikely that anything other can overcome this 16-order difference.
Why exactly H-alpha wavelength? It is obviously, well recognizible by any civilization in the universe as most prominent spectral hole of typical star, which is very convenient for interstellar communications.
• ljk January 11, 2016, 12:52
Was the famous Wow! Signal caused by comets from this Sol system:
• ljk January 20, 2016, 18:46
When you send a METI and you don’t know the recipient’s native tongue (or even if they have tongues or use them for communication), always start with science, particularly in picture format:
• ljk February 5, 2016, 14:10
From exile to eminence: How the alien hunters conquered astronomy
Jill Tarter tells Ars how technology and discovery have primed the search for life.
by Eric Berger – Feb 5, 2016 at 10:34 am EST
When Jill Tarter first began to look for aliens, she drew looks askance from her friends and colleagues. The perception was “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a subject like this?” she recalled in an interview with Ars. Tarter, now 72, would go on to rise above that perception, becoming a leading figure at the SETI Institute. And the astronomer played by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact, which was largely based on Tarter, would further bolster her reputation.
She and her fellow searchers haven’t found E.T. yet, but they have become respected members of the scientific community. These days, when NASA plots future explorations of Mars or ice-covered moons in the outer solar system, they’re driven by the search for microbial life. And with the discovery of billions of planets in the Milky Way, no one snickers any more at the idea of sniffing atmospheres around other worlds for biosignatures.
The search for aliens has become respectable because it no longer is a philosophical or religious matter to ask if we are alone. During Tarter’s lifetime, scientists and engineers have developed the tools and technology to finally probe this question in a meaningful way.
“When I first started in this field, we were coming off the bad science done by Percival Lowell and Martian canals,” Tarter said. “It made the field odoriferous.” [Yeah, it was all Lowell’s fault.]
Lowell, an American businessman and astronomer, popularized the idea that the long, somewhat linear features seen on Mars were canals. This influence pervaded the public mind through the middle of the 20th century and featured in science fiction works by both Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury. But then NASA probes to Mars, beginning in 1964 with Mariner 4, found a cold, barren, and likely dead world. Many scientists began to dismiss the notion of aliens.
Full article here:
• ljk February 17, 2016, 12:17
Just like in The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, it’s asking the right question that counts:
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Re: Rush's Characters (new: Oat Redux)
A more forum-friendly PL 8 variant of Oat. Now uses the Density Increase power from Power Profiles: Size & Mass, has fewer possible stages of density, and is generally cleaned-up.
Skinny scrapper with increased density
PL 8 (120pp)
Real Name: Lynn Gates
Occupation: None (odd jobs)
Personality: ESFP, "The Entertainer"
Height: 5ft. 8in. Weight: 150lbs.
Hair: Brown Eyes: Brown
Age: 22 Sex: M
NOTE: This profile shows Oat with his typical 3 ranks of his Density Increase active (and a corresponding 3 ranks of Mobility Increase,) for a +10 bonus to attack and defenses, with a Damage rank of 6 and a +6 Toughness bonus. Please refer to his Power Specifics for details on how his bonuses can shift.
Strength 0 (+3), Stamina 0 (+3), Agility 2 (+2), Dexterity 0 (+0)
Fighting 2 (+2), Intellect 0 (+0), Awareness 1 (+1), Presence 2 (+2)
Animal Empathy, Assessment, Chokehold, Contacts, Diehard, Equipment 2 (Motorcycle), Great Endurance, Improved Grab, Improved Hold, Improvised Tools, Interpose, Takedown
Athletics 2 (+2), Close Combat: Brawling 2 (+10), Deception 2 (+4), Expertise: Streetwise 8 (+8), Insight 4 (+5), Intimidation 4 (+6), Investigation 3 (+3), Perception 5 (+6), Persuasion 4 (+6), Sleight of Hand 3 (+3), Stealth 1 (+3), Vehicles 4 (+6) - 42 ranks total
Close Combat: Brawling applies to Unarmed attacks as well as Charges and Slams
Mass Control (Array) - 30pp + 5pp in AEs and Dynamic AEs
Energy Release (Blast 12)
Light, Heat, Kinetic, Penetrating 6
AE: Energy Release (Explosion) (Damage 6)
Light, Heat, Kinetic; Burst Area 2, Penetrating 6
DAE: Density Increase 6
Custom: +1 Strike per rank (+1p/r), Custom: +1 Impervious Protection per rank (+2p/r)
DAE: Mobility Increase 3 (Linked Effects)
+2 Parry per rank, +2 Dodge per rank, +2 Close Combat: Brawling per rank
Matter-to-Mass Absorption 6 (Linked Effects) - 20pp
Damage 6 - 7pp
Reach 1 (melee)
Weaken 6 - 13pp
Affects Toughness, Resisted by Fortitude; Affects Objects, Reach 1 (melee)
Density Sense (Senses 4) - 4pp
Detect: Material Density, Acute, Counters Concealment (Material Structuring)
Personal Mass Stability (Immunity 1) - 1pp
Rare Descriptor: Mass/Density
Initiative +2
Energy Release +0 (DC 27 max)
Energy Release (Explosion) (Burst Area) (DC 21)
Unarmed (incl. Strike) +10 (DC 21)
Grab +2 (DC 18)
Throw +0 (DC 18)
Dodge 2 (+10)
Parry 2 (+10)
Toughness (+6)
Fortitude 3 (+6)
Will 5 (+6)
Abilities 14 + Advantages 13 + Skills 21 + Powers 60 + Defenses 12 = 120
Oat started as a good-hearted but fierce, trouble-making kid, growing up in an orphanage and gaining his nickname due to his smallish size. He discovered his powers in elementary school, and began to use them discretely both to cause trouble and help friends and others in need. It wasn't until being collared by a superhero as an adult that he was told there was another way: to join them and help others without breaking the law. The idea appealed to him, and while he's still something of an outsider to mainstream culture, he does his part as the density-increasing superhero, Oat.
Oat is barely a typical superhero. He usually joins the fray with whatever he's wearing at the time--typically jeans, work boots, a sleeveless t-shirt, and possibly his leather jacket. His identity is public, but with no living relatives (and an underprivileged neighborhood that supports him) it's not usually an issue.
While his skill set is limited, Oat helps other heroes out quite a bit with his knowledge of the local underground culture. During fights with villains, he typically only gains as much mass as needed to deliver damage, keeping careful note of where he's standing when he does. When straight punches won't do, sometimes tossing nearby vehicles at the enemy does. He's not even above just putting foes in a chokehold, and letting them wake up later in a jail cell.
Reputation: Convict
Oat is a two-time convicted felon, and has also been in trouble with the law as a juvenile. Granted, these were mostly thefts, all non-violent, usually to help out others in dire need. And, he's served his time. But not everyone seems to care about that.
Reputation: Scrapper
While Oat can be surprisingly generous, lives with a degree of honor, and doesn't have much of a temper, he is well-known to like a good scrap, and to be more physical than most in general.
Power Loss: Limited Strength
The Strength bonus Oat gets from Density Increase cannot be applied to any skills, or to jumping/leaping.
Disability: Swimming
Whenever Oat has any ranks of his Density Increase active, he is unable to swim.
Disability: Footing
As Oat activates more ranks of his Density Increase, he starts to face issues in finding suitable footing. While his running speed slows a bit, there can even be issues beyond that. With 4 ranks of his power active, stepping onto normal dirt/earth causes him to sink, albeit slowly enough that constant motion can keep him from sinking too far. At 5 ranks, this occurs with brick, and at 6 with concrete... plus stepping onto dirt at that density has him fall through it as if he had stepped off a cliff (this rank effectively requires Oat be standing on steel or the like to have secure footing.)
Collateral Damage
Oat's power requires him to disintegrate nearby matter, converting it into energy to store as mass, and he can only shed his mass through sudden energy releases. When massive enough, he can damage the surrounding environment just by walking on it. Generally, Oat is a fairly destructive hero by most standards.
Oat can disintegrate nearby matter, which is instantly converted to energy and stored within each of his cells as additional mass (visually, picture an alter-user from the s-CRY-ed anime destroying matter to summon their familiar.) Each time he successfully does damage with his Matter-to-Mass Absorption power, he automatically activates one or more ranks in his Mass Increase power. This is effectively a 1-to-1 rank exchange; for example, he can activate 3 ranks of Density Increase with a successful 3 ranks of damage from Matter-to-Mass Absorption, etc. He could then activate one more rank by successfully causing one more rank of damage with Matter-to-Mass Absorption. This is the only way Oat can activate ranks of Density Increase. Note that use of Matter-to-Mass Absorption is limited to no more ranks than he has ranks of Density Increase left to activate.
As Oat becomes more massive, he becomes stronger, both in absolute and relative terms, allowing him to move his body faster. So for each rank of Density Increase activated, a rank of Mobility Increase also is automatically activated, up to 3 ranks. At this point, his increase in mobility hits diminishing returns, and the next 3 ranks of Density Increase he activates does not increase his mobility; instead, every additional rank of Density Increase beyond the first 3 ranks actually removes a rank of Mobility Increase, such that by the time 6 ranks of Density Increase are activated, no ranks of Mobility Increase are.
Mechanically, this means that Oat starts at +4 unarmed attack and defense bonuses, and +0 damage and toughness bonuses while at normal mass. He increases all bonuses together (+2 per rank) up to Density Increase 3, at which point he has a +6 damage and toughness bonus, and is capped at +10 attack and defense bonuses. Using Density Increase past that point just increases damage and toughness while reducing attack and defense bonuses, at +2/-2 per rank, up to Density Increase 6, with tops him out at +12 damage and toughness and +4 unarmed attack and defense.
Once he has boosted his mass, Oat cannot just reduce it without incident. He has to release the excess mass, all at once, as energy, using one of his Energy Release powers at an appropriate rank. The blast is straightforward... if he has activated 6 ranks of Density Increase, he has to release a rank 12 blast, which immediately deactivates all ranks of Density Increase (and any of Mobility Increase.) He cannot reduce the strength of the blast; he must use exactly twice as many ranks as he has ranks of Density Increase activated. His explosion is another option, and is a direct 1-to-1 exchange; 6 ranks of Density Increase require using 6 ranks of Energy Release (Explosion) to deactivate.
In case it is uncertain, Oat's power only increases his mass and density, not his size/volume. Consequently, he gains advantages and disadvantages beyond toughness, speed and damage. He has at several times gotten too dense for the surface he was standing on and has sunken into it so deeply he had to literally swim his way back up and then quickly release energy to keep from sinking further. As far as how much mass each rank of Density Increase corresponds to, the following layout provides the details. These are based on Oat's starting mass at normal Earth gravity.
Density Increase at Various Ranks
Rank Mass incl. Chart # Density Bonuses Description
0 1.5 (150lbs./68kg) 1.08g/cc STR +0, Strike +4 (DC 15), Tough. +0, Dodge +4, Parry +4 Normal, unimproved mass
1 2.5 (300lbs./136.1kg) 2.16g/cc STR +1, Strike +6 (DC 17), Tough. +2, Dodge +6, Parry +6 Dense as brick; can no longer swim
2 3.5 (600lbs./272.2kg) 4.32g/cc STR +2, Strike +8 (DC 19), Tough. +4, Dodge +8, Parry +8 Dense & hard as sapphire
3 4.5 (1200lbs./544.3kg) 8.64g/cc STR +3, Strike +10 (DC 21), Tough. +6, Dodge +10, Parry +10 Denser & harder than steel
4 5.5 (2400lbs./1088.6kg) 17.28g/cc STR +4, Strike +8 (DC 23), Tough. +8, Dodge +8, Parry +8 Almost as dense as 22K gold; sinks in dirt
5 6.5 (4800lbs./2177.2kg) 34.56g/cc STR +5, Strike +6 (DC 25), Tough. +10, Dodge +6, Parry +6 Denser than osmium; sinks through brick
6 7.5 (9000lbs./4082.3kg) 64.80g/cc STR +6, Strike +4 (DC 27), Tough. +12, Dodge +4, Parry +4 Sinks through concrete; falls through dirt
My builds can be found in the Roll Call forum [url=]here[/url]. And, here's the latest version of [url=]The Cast[/url].
Currently playing in: [url=][color=#d7af50]Xenoforce: Earth's Strangest Heroes[/color][/url].
• #62
Re: Rush's Characters (new: Synth)
A new twist on the power mimic.
Power-synthesizing mimic
PL 10 (150pp)
Real Name: Theodore Newton
Occupation: Fiction Writer
Personality: INTJ, "The Architect"
Quote: "You know I'll just use that even better than you."
Height: 5ft. 11in. Weight: 195lbs.
Hair: Black Eyes: Brown
Age: 24 Sex: M
Strength 2 (+2), Stamina 2 (+2), Agility 0 (+0), Dexterity 0 (+0)
Fighting 2 (+2), Intellect 3 (+3), Awareness 2 (+2), Presence 0 (+0)
Athletics 2 (+4), Deception 2 (+2), Expertise: Superpowers 5 (+8), Expertise: English 2 (+5), Insight 3 (+5), Intimidation 1 (+1), Perception 3 (+5), Persuasion 4 (+4), Technology 1 (+4), Treatment 1 (+4) - 22 ranks total
Metapower Resistance (Immunity 1) - 1pp
Power Manipulation
Superpower Detection (Linked Effects) - 12pp
Senses 6
Detect Empowered Biological Beings 2 (Ranged), Acute, Analytical, Radius, Extended 1
Enhanced Traits 4
Assessment, Inspire 3
Power Synthesis (Variable 12) - 96pp
Other People's Powers (Synthesized); Free Action, Continuous, Resistable (Will), Uncontrolled
Initiative +0
Unarmed +2 (DC 17)
Grab +2 (DC 17)
Throw +2 (DC 17)
Dodge 2 (+2)
Parry 0 (+2)
Toughness (+2)
Fortitude 3 (+5)
Will 3 (+5)
Abilities 22 + Advantages 1 + Skills 12 + Powers 107 + Defenses 8 = 150
Theodore grew up with a pleasant, uneventful childhood, but with one driving passion: the desire to someday write superhero and sci-fi stories. Of course, the prospect of being a superhero himself thrilled him, but as there didn't seem to be any way for that to happen, he had tossed that dream aside early on.
But then, one day on a high school field trip, his class came to witness a superhero battle between a team of superheroes and an extraterrestrial being of immense power. While rescuing a civilian who had been endangered by the battle, Theodore was ambushed by the alien, who declared he'd use the young man's (apparently unknown!) latent psychic abilities to boost his own power. As Theodore struggled against the creature's manipulations, the heroes were able to strike a finishing blow, short-circuiting whatever psychic ritual the alien had begun on the young man's mind. After the energies settled and Theodore came to, it was immediately obvious what sort of state he had been left in--he was unwittingly synthesizing nearby powers, making them his own! While the heroes kept his newfound ability quiet, Theodore saw his chance and immediately began training.
It wasn't long after that, in the middle of his college years, that Theodore decided he was ready. He approached the local team of heroes and, between their training and a lifetime spent analyzing strange abilities, it was soon afterwards that Theodore was able to present himself to the world as Synth, the synthesizing power mimic!
Synth wears a special one-piece jumpsuit that is normally black, but takes on color changes based on his synthesized powers. He doesn't bother with a mask, and generally avoids handling low-tier crime with "normals," unless he has synthesized an appropriate powerset to handle such. Because of the nature of his abilities, he prefers both working with a team, and fighting against supervillains.
Synth's power is psychic in nature, and is based on detecting and mimicking other superpowers, but with a twist: he synthesizes the various powers of those around him, to generate altered, or even new powers that he can use. Alongside this, he can also sense other's superpowers, as well as their nature and how they work, making him a valuable source of information as to how to shut down enemies or suggest tactics to teammates.
As soon as two or more people with powers are in range, Synth's power goes into action, and synthesizes a powerset for him based on the powersets of the two people who "triggered" his ability. His power continues synthesizing new and/or different abilities as more people come into proximity, with Synth immediately knowing both what powers he has, and how to use them. Past 6 or so though, unless some of the people in range have similar powersets, Synth's ability begins to start gearing his powers toward more generic, bodily-oriented ones: enhanced strength, speed, and senses; and general physical boosts. Past 9 "triggers," the generated powerset is pretty much stabilized and around 90% generic, with maybe a handful of somewhat-specialized tricks more vaguely reminiscent of the contributing powersets.
Anyone with powers entering Synth's range becomes aware of something going on, and can actually resist the initial attempt at synthesizing their power with a successful Will save (which they can voluntarily fail if desired.) If they make the save, they cannot be targeted for synthesis again until they leave Synth's range, then return to it (at which point they may attempt another save.)
While this character can usually be paired with a "setting" for his Power Synthesis representing when he's pretty much maxed out by triggers (meaning it provides a mostly-generic powerset,) the GM should create and modify generated powersets for the character as appropriate, using the example synthesizings (see next post) as a guide.
Power Loss: Range
Synth's power kicks in whenever someone with superpowers comes close enough to him: he has a 100-ft. range. The person's powerset is then synthesized with whatever powerset Synth has currently gained, usually altering it dramatically. He also cannot use his power to detect people with superpowers who are further away than 100 feet.
Power Loss: Not Enough Triggers
While the nature of Synth's power requires there to be someone with superpowers nearby to make the most of it, he is unable to only synthesize one person's powers (even if they have multiple abilities.) There must be at least 2 people with powers within range for him to start spontaneously synthesizing their powers into his own.
Power Loss: Time Limit
While Synth can retain a person's contributions to his synthesized powerset even after the person leaves his range, he can only do so for so long; generally, no longer than 30 minutes after the person has left, he'll lose their power contribution (although this usually results in an overall weakening of his power rather than the power de-synthesizing.) This can, on rare occasion, cause an issue.
Quirk: Intrusive
Synth is used to working with teams and verbally assisting teammates, even experienced ones, in squeezing the most out of their powers. For people he works with who aren't used to this, it can seem fairly intrusive (especially considering how personal most people's powers are to them) and can cause offense, or worse.
Motivation: Responsibility
Synth wanted to be a superhero from a young age, and considers it a great responsibility to use his power to help others.
Last edited by Rush; 11-07-2017, 10:09 PM. Reason: Added link to next post; should have Technology 1, not Stealth 1; fixed Athletics Skill & Offense
• #63
Re: Rush's Characters (new: Synth)
Variable Settings for Synth
Trigger-Maxed - 60pp (for over 9 triggers)
Enhanced Strength 8
Enhanced Trait 8
Dodge 8
Protection 8
Enhanced Fighting 8
Speed 5
Max. speed of 60mph, 900ft./rnd.
AE: Leaping 5
Leap 250 feet at 60mph
Senses 2
Infravision, Ultra-hearing
Quickness 1
-1 Time Rank to accomplish tasks
Movement 1
Wall-crawling 1
Movement 1
Safe Fall; Limited: Only near a surface
Example Settings for Different Triggers
Trigger Inputs:
Has Fire Blast, Fire Bomb (Area Effect), Flight, Flame Shield, Infravision and Burn (Close Range)
Ice Controller
Has Cold Blast, Create Ice, Ice Slide (Movement), Ice Armor, Infravision and Freeze (Close Range)
Possible Synthesis:
Hydrokinesis (Array) - 25pp + 3pp in AEs
Base: Water Blast 10
Accurate 5
AE: Steam Explosion (Damage 10)
Burst Area
AE: Superchilled Spray (Affliction 6)
Hindered, Immobile, Paralyzed; Alt. Resistance: Dodge, Cumulative, Ranged, Accurate 7
AE: Move Water (Move Object 10)
Perception Range, Limited: Only water, Subtle, Precise
Water Shield (Container) - 24pp
Protection 8
Enh. Dodge 8
Enh. Parry 8
Water Disk (Flight 8) - 4pp
Platform, Concentration
Water Sense (Senses 4) - 4pp
Detect Water 2: Ranged (Mental), Accurate
Last edited by Rush; 11-06-2017, 02:17 PM. Reason: Added Fire/Ice Example
• #64
Re: Rush's Characters (new: Rook)
A new twist on the shapeshifter (I know, another character with a Variable power, with a somewhat similar build; yet he plays--and acts--completely differently from Synth.)
PL 10 (150pp)
Real Name: Jeremiah Woodworth
Occupation: Professional Hero
Personality: INTJ, "The Architect"
Height: 6ft. Weight: 200lbs.
Hair: Brown Eyes: Hazel
Age: 23 Sex: M
Strength 2 (+2), Stamina 2 (+2), Agility 2 (+2), Dexterity 2 (+2)
Fighting 2 (+2), Intellect 4 (+4), Awareness 2 (+2), Presence 0 (+0)
Diehard*, Eidetic Memory
* = From a power
Acrobatics 2 (+4), Athletics 2 (+4), Deception 2 (+2), Expertise: Biology 16 (+20), Expertise: Strategy 2 (+6), Insight 3 (+5), Intimidation 3 (+3), Perception 3 (+5), Persuasion 4 (+4), Stealth 1 (+3), Technology 1 (+5), Treatment 6 (+10) - 46 ranks total
Natural Immunities (Immunity 5) - 5pp
Aging, Disease, Poison, Environmental Condition (Radiation), Need for Sleep
Regeneration 2 - 5pp
Every 5 Rounds; Persistent, Feature: Diehard
Biological Shift (Variable 10) - 80pp
Manipulation of His Own Biology; Continuous
Initiative +2
Unarmed +2 (DC 17)
Grab +2 (DC 17)
Throw +2 (DC 17)
Dodge 0 (+2)
Parry 0 (+2)
Toughness (+2)
Fortitude 0 (+2)
Will 4 (+6)
POWER POINTS
Abilities 30 + Advantages 1 + Skills 23 + Powers 90 + Defenses 4 = 150
Jeremiah was born to a family that was already famous due to it's popular, superheroing patriarch, and two older empowered siblings who were already well on their way to follow in his footsteps. When his power developed in childhood, he took to the training his father instilled quite readily, developing his ability to an extraordinary degree even before he turned 18. While he continues to take college courses (at a rather tedious pace,) he is already employed by his father's non-profit which takes donations to provide local superheroes (namely the family) a paycheck for their heroics.
As Rook, Jeremiah has been on teams, gone on numerous adventures, and basically made the most of his superheroing career.
Having a public identity, Rook has no need for a mask, but does have an iconic white and green costume with silver trim that he wears. The costume is actually sensitive to biosignals from his skin, and can change color to match at will.
While common crime or heroics are handled with fairly straightforward transformations, Rook takes a more tactical approach to dealing with empowered criminals, often altering himself in ways that don't seem to directly counter the villain at first, but that are revealed to do so quite well.
Rook has the power to quickly alter any biological aspect of his body for an indefinite period of time, with perfect control and awareness of his biological systems. Strengthening bones and thickening muscles in seconds is just the start: reaction speed increase, generation of acidic fluids, improved or new senses, scales, growing a new organ, even altering his appearance via hair coloration, build, etc. is all within his grasp, as well as any ability seen in nature, such as bioelectric generation, breathing in water or regenerating limbs. He simply concentrates, his eyes glow green, and his biological reconfiguration occurs within seconds. In addition, he has natural immunities to some physical issues such as disease or aging, and his cells also repair his body far, far faster than normal.
His limitation is that he cannot undergo bodily shape modifications that are too extreme (such as sprouting wings,) and cannot alter his biology in any way he cannot understand. He also cannot alter his brain cells, so altering his intelligence or awareness is not really an option--and even if it were, it wouldn't be one he would choose due to the potential for disaster. Fortunately, his power naturally permits more efficient neural operations anyway, and being able to experiment with his power since childhood has led to him learning enough to comprehend biology on a level unreachable by most.
In regards to playing the character, the typical method is to choose one or more of several pre-designed "alterations" and combine them to form Rook's current powerset. A number of available alterations for the character can be found here.
As both the well-spoken son of a popular hero and an accomplished hero in his own right, Rook has a modest amount of fame. He's not a world-class star, but it's not unusual for locals in his city, or older folks who were familiar with his father's exploits, to seek an autograph upon seeing him, or to offer public praise and appreciation. In fact, as a "professional hero," its through donations (usually from locals) that he is able to maintain a living.
Motivation: Doing Good
Rook's sense of right and wrong, and his desire to help others, is one of his driving motivations. If he weren't a superhero, he'd likely be an ER or firefighter. As a hero, he eagerly engages in minor, helpful acts as well as supervillain fights.
Motivation: Recognition
Being the son of a popular hero (with a public identity,) and the sibling of two older public heroes, superheroing was pretty much the family business for Rook. He considered other paths of life, but wanted to be recognized as just as capable as others of his family. It's a goal he has achieved, and even still constantly works to maintain.
Motivation: Thrills
While he'd likely never admit it, Rook loves what he does. He enjoys his ability to alter himself, and gets a thrill out of his ability to do battle with villains, outwit them, and defeat them. He is constantly testing his power and seeking new ways to use it to his advantage, and revels in the biological knowledge it has allowed him to acquire.
Quirk: Elitist
While he's fair and forgiving with average citizens, Rook is a bit of an elitist when it comes to other superheroes. He expects professionalism, competence, and an ability to hold one's own against villains and lowly crooks alike from his fellow heroes, and tends to look down upon any hero who is lacking as being "not a real hero." Needless to say, this sometimes rubs other heroes the wrong way.
Last edited by Rush; 11-11-2017, 11:56 AM.
• #65
Re: Rush's Characters (new: Rook)
Common Alterations for Rook's Power
Alterations with a Green title together form a standard "default" powerset for Rook.
*Note: All of Rook's Affliction powers are resisted and overcome by Fortitude unless otherwise stated
Rounded Defenses - 24pp
Protection 8
Enhanced Dodge 8
Enhanced Parry 8
Survival Defense - 32pp
Enhanced Stamina 6
Enhanced Trait: Uncanny Dodge
Immunity 13
All Environmental Conditions, Suffocation, Starvation & Thirst, Bullets
Tough Defense - 20pp
Protection 12
Enhanced Dodge 4
Enhanced Parry 4
Fast Defense - 28pp
Protection 4
Enhanced Dodge 12
Enhanced Parry 12
Max Defense - 32pp
Enhanced Stamina 8
Enhanced Dodge 8
Enhanced Parry 8
Sacrificial Defense - 16pp
Enhanced Stamina 4
Enhanced Dodge 4
Enhanced Parry 4
Strength & Speed - 22pp
Enhanced Strength 6
Enhanced Close Attack 10
Claws - 24pp
Enhanced Strength 4
Strength-Based Damage 6
Accurate 5, Penetrating 5
Bioshock - 22pp
Burst Area Damage 10
*AE: Linked Effects: Damage 8 & Affliction 8
Impaired, Stunned, Incapacitated; Accurate 4
Senses 1
Detect Electric Fields
Fiery Breath - 24pp
Cone Area Damage 8
Secondary Effect
Acid Touch - 28pp
Linked Effects: Weaken 8 & Damage 8
Weaken Affects Objects, Accurate 4
Lasting Neurotoxin - 34pp
Affliction 10
Impaired, Disabled, Paralyzed; Cumulative, Contagious, Accurate 4
Bio-glue Webbing - 30pp
Ranged Affliction 8
Hindered & Vulnerable, Defenseless & Immobile; Resisted by Dodge, Overcome by Strength; Cumulative, Extra Condition, Limited Degree, Accurate 5, Reversible
Quill Shot - 26pp
Ranged Damage 8
Accurate 5, Precise, Penetrating 4
Basic Mobility - 10pp
Speed 5
*AE: Leaping 5
*AE: Swimming 5
Movement 1
Parkour (Wall-Crawling 1)
Enhanced Acrobatics 2
Patrol Senses - 4pp
Senses 4
Extended Smell, Ultra-Hearing, Extended Hearing, Low-Light Vision
Max Speed - 34pp
Speed 6
Enhanced Dodge 12
Enhanced Parry 12
Enhanced Improved Initiative 3
Quickness 2
Limited: Physical only
Max Senses - 20pp
Senses 12
Infravision, Low-Light Vision, Ultra-Hearing, Direction Sense, Accurate Hearing, Analytical Smell, Extended Smell, Danger Sense 2 (Vision & Hearing), Tracking 2 (Vision & Smell)
Senses 3
Detect Chemicals 1, Acute, Analytical
Enhanced Perception 10
Stealth Mods - 26pp
Odorless (Concealment 2)
All Smell
Chameleon Skin (Concealment 6)
All Vision, All Hearing; Blending
Enhanced Stealth 10
Enhanced Hide in Plain Sight
Influence Mods - 26pp
Enhanced Attractive 2
Enhanced Presence 5
Pheromone Cloud (Cloud Area Affliction 4)
Transformed: Fanatically Helpful; Third Degree Only, Permanent (+2p/r), Subtle, Insidious
Appearance Morph - 16pp
Morph 2
People of roughly same size & gender; Continuous, Precise
Strength-Based Mods - 4pp
Movement 1
Movement 1
Safe Fall; Limited: Only near a surface
*Enhanced Strength AE: Leaping 6
Aquatic Adaptation - 10pp
Immunity 3
Breathe Underwater (1), High Pressure, Environmental Cold
Swimming 6
Enhanced Advantage: Favored Environment (Underwater)
Signaling Adaptation - 38pp
Glow (Environment 1)
Bright Light
Bright Flash (Affliction 10)
Impaired, Disabled, Unaware; Resisted by Dodge, Overcome by Fortitude; Cumulative, Limited: Only Vision, Accurate 4
Amplified Voice (Communication 2)
Auditory (Loud, Low Voice), 1-mile range; Area
Senses 5
Infravision, Ultravision, Ultra-Hearing, Low-Light Vision, Time Sense
Immunity 2
Effects Against One Sense: Vision
Variable Descriptor 2 (Senses)
Enhanced Perception 6
• #66
Re: Rush's Characters (new: Vector)
Yep, another character who can alter his stats in-game. This one's not a terribly original idea; he's not a 4th-wall breaker, but he does believe he's inhabiting a VR. Still, I wanted to try my hand at such a character; Vector is the result.
VR Game Hero
PL 10 (150pp)
Real Name: Victor Rock
Occupation: Professional Gamer
Personality: ISTP, "The Virtuoso"
Height: 5ft. 10in. Weight: 180lbs.
Hair: Black Eyes: Brown
Age: 27 Sex: M
The following stats are when Vector has no Attribute Boosts active, nor Power Ups
Strength 0 (+8), Stamina 0 (+8), Agility 0 (+8), Dexterity 0 (+0)
Fighting 0 (+8), Intellect 2 (+2), Awareness 2 (+2), Presence 1 (+1)
Diehard, Eidetic Memory, Equipment 4, Uncanny Dodge, Well-Informed
All Advantages except Equipment are from powers
Equipment: Heavy Pistol (8ep), Sawed-off Shotgun (12ep)
Athletics 0 (+8), Deception 3 (+4), Expertise: Physics 1 (+3), Expertise: Videogames 3 (+5), Insight 3 (+5), Intimidation 3 (+4), Investigation 1 (+5), Perception 2 (+10), Persuasion 2 (+3), Ranged Combat: Firearms 0 (+
| 0
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<urn:uuid:80b7a27d-e508-42f3-af69-7cc7d4d6de3c>
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Kyle1668/dclm-long-documents-sample-30000-char-limit
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is no question that de la Maza is correct that tactics are supreme and any unrefuted opening (and even a few refuted ones) are playable below 2000-level. But tactics alone are not going to take you very far if you are fighting to survive on move 10. There are definitely things that developing players need not study, and that includes arcane middlegame knowledge (such as "the minority attack") and even most endgames beyond the most basic K+P and R+K+P (especially with the advent of faster rated time controls). But opening knowledge and some other basics can pave the way to tactical success. What's more, you really need to start developing combinative thinking skills and a recognition of more complex strategic motifs to help organize your basic tactical knowledge. In a sense, de la Maza is suggesting you just study addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, but these are really only the building blocks of more complex math.
A good place to find better ideas would be the Novice Nook by NM Dan Heisman, for instance.
Another well-rounded approach to chess study for amateurs is mentioned by Bauer in his review. It was laid out in an article by the late Ken Smith that he used to send to people who purchased through Chess Digest, and which was later published at his now-defunct company's now-defunct website. It is still available at the web archive and worth a look.
The main difference between Smith's course and the "De la Maza Method" is that Smith emphasizes opening knowledge and gambit play. He does not put as much emphasis on tactical exercises as de la Maza, but I think that's because he assumes he is writing to a Class player who has already studied tactics to some extent. Tactics are, however, central to his basic four-part program, which he lays out as follows:
"(1) Keep emphasizing 'tactics'. This part of chess will overcome a bad opening, a poor middlegame and lack of endgame knowledge. Only until you reach 'Expert' can you stop devouring everything on combinations and tactics. You put fear into your opponent when you are known as not letting anyone escape.
(2) Every chess book should be saved and gone over a second time. There was no consensus of how much time between readings. Only that you be at a different level of strength. There must be a balance between this study and play.
(3) Be exposed to different authors -- even on the same subject -- even on the same variation of an opening.
I like Smith's basic idea and I'd simply add a few to his list to make the most well-rounded program possible:
(5) Study tactics and do exercises to improve your board vision at every opportunity (on the train, in the bathroom, on your lunch break, or pausing between tasks at work). If you have time to devote to a program of study using a chess program such as CT-ART, more power to you. But don't let the best be the enemy of the good. Any and all tactical study is beneficial and exercise of any sort is good for you.
(6) Play over as many games as you can in your favorite openings to get a feel for the deeper positions that arise. It's best if you do this with a computer database using a computer program like Fritz (just to know when mistakes are being made). The key, though, is to develop a good sense of patterns and ideas in your lines well into the middlegame so quantity can be as useful as quality. Simply looking at games at online databases is a good start.
(7) Play blitz or speed chess (at ICC for example) only with a view toward cementing your opening knowledge and learning something about typical middlegames and endings that might arise from your openings. Nothing beats experience for cementing the lessons of study, but it cannot substitute for study or for serious play.
(8) Read a few classic books on the middlegame and ending and maybe a book or two on chess history. Be a literate chess player--it will help you at the board and socially. At the very least, if you want to improve your practical results most of all, read Nunn's "Secrets of Practical Chess" and Yermolinsky's "The Road to Chess Improvement." And to help your historical consciousness, at least read "The Development of Chess Style."
(9) Study very closely (and repeatedly over time) at least three books of well-annotated games: one from a major tournament, one from your favorite player, and one that covers a wide range of themes. You can't go wrong, for example, with Bronstein's "Zurich 1953," Botvinnik's "100 Selected Games," and Nunn's "Understanding Chess Move by Move." You could substitute many others. Any World Champion (FIDE or pre-FIDE) or major contender would do as a player, for instance, and there have been many great tournaments and tournament books. Whatever you find suited to your style or level of knowledge will work best, but I don't think I'd recommend doing many more than three at first. The key is to look at these games in depth until you have them memorized. A national master I know still goes over Chernev's classic "Most Instructive Games Ever Played," for example, and it clearly has not hurt him to do so. One thing I'd say about choosing a book: sometimes it's a good idea to read something that's just a bit beyond you at the moment, because once you master it through repetitive study over time you will have made progress.
(10) Play as much serious chess as possible against stronger opponents and analyze your games afterward, first with your opponent (if he or she is willing) and then with the aid of a coach and/or a chess computer. But do not take everything any of them say as gospel.
I should probably add (11) that it can only help you to stay physically in shape by exercising, watching your diet, and avoiding smoking or other bad habits. I hope your mom told you that. I will say, though, that physical fitness is probably what makes the biggest difference over the course of a long tournament or even an intensive three-day event. There is no use studying your tactics if you don't get your rest and eat your Wheaties before Round 5.
I think many experienced players would recognize these additions as not original with me, and anyone would say these are all fairly common and good suggestions that it would never hurt to follow. I'm sure that even de la Maza follows them to some extent, though you'd never know it from his book. And that's precisely the problem. What de la Maza is pitching seems less like a good study plan for a well-rounded chess player than a rather dogmatic religion intended to create speedy self-transformation through a form of intensive prayer. I have no doubt that it will increase performance, but I'm not sure it will make you a better player--let alone a better person. The ten or eleven suggestions above would do both.
In presenting his program as something to do rather than to think about, he is not helping to further a critical consciousness. He may, ultimately, be helping some players to greater success over the board. But he is not helping people escape the sort of autistic repetition to which unhealthy-minded chessplayers are too often prone. Nor will he help you to make the lessons learned from chess useful for life, unless you are preparing to become some sort of religious fanatic. The "Seven Circles" will not bring you closer to God. More likely, they will make it harder to do your laundry or have a social life.
I actually did like one idea from the book, which was to chart your performance mathematically. You can do that in a number of ways, most obviously by keeping track of your performance rating in tournaments. There are others, such as when solving puzzles: one of the appeals of the CT-ART program he recommends (as the followers of de la Maza in the blogosphere will tell you) is that it allows you to keep strict percentages of problems solved to measure your increased performance over time. These are good ideas, on the model of other forms of athletic training. After all, what aspiring track star would not keep strict track of his times in races, down to the nanosecond? I even think it is interesting to use a computer program, such as Fritz, to track the evaluation swings in one of your games to see where the critical moments were that you need to focus on to improve. But I also think there is a limit to how far this sort of math can take you, and believing in numbers too much is dangerous.
It's especially dangerous to believe in the evaluations offered by your computer program, or to think that what it says is right, or to believe that it might pinpoint exactly where you went wrong. To give an obvious example: due to the horizon effect, a computer might not see that something you did at move 10 is wrong until move 15, so its evaluation will not dip until 5 moves after the critical juncture, which could be quite misleading for a developing player.
What's more, his suggestions for "How to Think" strike me as a very primitive version of a computer evaluation function. At each move he suggests you seek to:
"1) Improve the mobility of your pieces" (a typical computer evaluation gauge)
"2) Prevent the opponent from castling" (ok, no problem there).
"3) Trade off pawns" (I don't get that one, except that it creates an open position where you are more likely to have tactical solutions).
"4) Keep the queen on the board" (obviously in order to create more tactical piece play).
And that's it. If you play like that you may get more opportunities for tactical shots should your opponent blunder, but you will not be playing good chess. The sample game of his that he gives on pages 63-71 proves my point. It is completely incoherent and reminds me of early computer games.
My overall point is that de la Maza may give you some tools to improve your rating, but, as even he admits, these tools can only take you so far. Meanwhile, his methods will encourage you to play less like a person and more like a machine, for both good and ill. Like a chess computer, you may see more tactical shots than your opponent and therefore be able to hit him hard when he makes a tactical mistake. But you will be completely reliant upon your opponent to make a tactical error in order to win. Once you start playing better opponents (or computers for that matter) you will have no clue what the hell is going on. And because you will never have the accuracy nor the brute-force calculating ability of a modern computer, no matter how hard you work at the Seven Circles, you will never be able to perform above the level of a 10 Mb machine running a 1000-positions per hour search function with a weak evaluation rubric.
Think about it. Do you really want to train to play like an old chess computer? Or do you want to play good chess and use chess as one way to become a better human being?
I can sum up the best lessons of de la Maza in a few words: study your tactics as often as you can and keep track of your performance. But if you really want to be a good chess player, you should read some books--and good, well-written chess books with some real substance and ideas. At the very least they will make you a more literate and well-rounded person.
Selling-Goeller, Kenilworth CC Summer Tourney 2005
Position after 10.O-O?
Black to play. You should see this one instantly.
Play over the game online or download the PGN file (also posted below as text).
In writing the notes to my game with Ed Selling from Thursday night, I could not avoid recognizing how important relatively simple two- to three-move tactics were at every critical moment. In fact, if Ed had simply paused to do a little careful three-move calculating at move 33 rather than trying to blitz a draw out of me, he would likely have gotten me to take a perpetual check. There is no question that Michael de la Maza is right: if you miss fewer three-move tactics, your performance will go up enormously. It probably helps, also, to manage the clock more effectively, since he played too fast (15 minutes total for the game while trying to blitz me into time trouble) and I played too slow (59 minutes and 50 seconds for the game at Game 60).
My annotations were inspired by my recent reading of "Rapid Chess Improvement," about which I will post something later. I have also used the game as an opportunity to think about my opening a bit since I tried out an interesting novelty while repeating a line that I had played before in the KCC Club Championship.
[Event "Kenilworth CC Summer Tourney"]
[Site "Kenilworth, NJ USA"]
[Date "2005.08.11"]
[Round "9"]
[White "Selling, Edward"]
[Black "Goeller, Michael"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B00"]
[WhiteElo "1750"]
[BlackElo "2023"]
[Annotator "Goeller,Michael"]
[PlyCount "110"]
[EventDate "2005.??.??"]
1. e4 Nc6 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nf6 (3... Bg4 4. d5 Ne5 $5 5. Nxe5 Bxd1 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 Qa5+ 8. Nc3 O-O-O 9. cxb7+ Kxb7 10. Nc6 Qc7 11. Nxd8+ Qxd8 12. Nxd1 $13) 4. Nc3 Bg4 ( 4... g6 $5 5. Be2 Bg7 6. d5 Nb8 7. O-O O-O $11) 5. Be2 { This is most often played but is not most active.} ({a)} 5. Bb5 a6 6. Bxc6+ bxc6 7. h3 Bh5 $11) ({b)} 5. d5 Nb8 (5... Ne5 6. Nxe5 $1 Bxd1 7. Bb5+ c6 8. dxc6 dxe5 9. c7+ Qd7 10. Bxd7+ Kxd7 11. Kxd1 e6 12. Ke2 Kxc7 13. f3 $14) 6. h3 Bxf3 7. Qxf3 g6 8. g4 Bg7 $13) ({c)} 5. Be3 e6 (5... d5 $5) 6. h3 Bh5 7. d5 $1 Ne7 (7... exd5 8. exd5 Bxf3 9. Qxf3 Ne5 10. Qe2 a6 11. f4 Ned7 12. g4 Qe7 13. O-O-O O-O-O {Shchekachev,A-Okhotnik,V/Linares 1999} 14. Qf3 $1 $16) 8. Bb5+ c6 9. dxc6 Nxc6 $13) 5... e6 6. h3 ({a)} 6. d5 $1 exd5 7. exd5 Bxf3 8. Bxf3 Ne5 9. Be2 Be7 10. Be3 O-O 11. f4 Ng6 $13) ({b)} 6. Be3 Be7 7. Qd2 $6 d5 $1 (7... O-O $6 {1-0 Wedberg,T-Miles,A/Oslo 1984 (96)} 8. O-O-O $6 d5 9. Ne5 $6 { was my game with Joe Demetrick in the KCC Championship this year}) 8. e5 (8. exd5 Nxd5 (8... exd5 $5 9. Ne5 Bxe2 10. Nxc6 bxc6 11. Qxe2 O-O 12. O-O Rb8 $15 {0-1 Kawas-ChessDoc/Internet Chess Club 1997 (80)}) 9. O-O (9. Nxd5 Qxd5 $11) 9... Nxc3 10. bxc3 O-O 11. h3 Bh5 (11... Bf5 $1 $11) 12. c4 b6 (12... e5 $5 13. d5 e4) 13. Rad1 Na5 14. Ne5 Bxe2 15. Qxe2 Qe8 16. Bd2 Qa4 $11 { Olszewski,M-Kaula,R/Koszalin 1998 (16)}) 8... Nd7 (8... Ne4 $5 { would be like the game}) 9. h3 Bf5 $11) 6... Bh5 7. Be3 (7. d5 $1) 7... Be7 ({ I had noted earlier, in my game with Demetrick, that better might be} 7... d5 $1 8. e5 (8. Ne5 Bxe2 9. Qxe2 dxe4 10. O-O Be7 11. Qc4 O-O 12. Nxc6 bxc6 13. Qxc6 Qd6 $15 {0-1 Petrov,M-Gelashvili,T/Batumi 2002 (47)}) 8... Nd7 $1 (8... Ne4 $6 9. Nxe4 dxe4 10. Nd2 Bxe2 11. Qxe2 $14) 9. O-O Ne7 $5 {and...c5}) 8. Qd2 $6 {Demetrick played the same move against me in the club championship, but without h3.} (8. d5 $1 exd5 9. exd5 Bxf3 10. Bxf3 Ne5 11. Be2 O-O 12. f4 $14) 8... d5 $1 9. e5 (9. exd5 Nxd5) 9... Ne4 $5 $146 { It's difficult to believe, but this appears to be a novelty.} (9... Nd7 10. O-O-O O-O $6 11. g4 Bg6 12. h4 Nb4 13. Ne1 $16 { seems to offer White the faster attack.}) 10. Nxe4 dxe4 11. Ng1 (11. Ng5 $2 Bxe2 12. Kxe2 Bxg5 (12... Qd5 $17) 13. Bxg5 Nxd4+ $17) 11... Bxe2 $6 { This move helps White's Knight back into the game and should be rejected on positional grounds.} (11... Bg6 $1 12. Bb5 Qd5 $5 13. c4 Qd7 14. Ne2 a6 $5 $15 15. Ba4 b5 $5 16. cxb5 Nb4 17. Nc3 Nd3+ 18. Kf1 O-O $44) 12. Nxe2 Qd5 $5 { I love to get my Queen to the fourth rank. Should Black have to surrender the pawn at e4, his piece activity will be compensation.} 13. c3 {A safe choice. Ed has been blitzing me, as he did for the rest of the game. It is not a bad strategy and it definitely succeeded in putting me in time pressure.} ({ It might be better for White to mix it up, but he purposely avoids the tactical tussle that would follow} 13. Nc3 $1 Qc4 $5 ({possible is} 13... Bb4 14. Nxd5 Bxd2+ 15. Kxd2 exd5 $11 {and I think the Knight should be better in the ending with White's pawns on dark squares.}) 14. b3 (14. Nxe4 $6 O-O-O $1 $40 ( {or} 14... Nxe5)) 14... Qa6 ({or} 14... Qxc3 15. Qxc3 Bb4 $11) 15. Nxe4 O-O-O $44) ({Also possible is} 13. b3 O-O-O 14. c4 Qd7 $36) 13... O-O-O 14. O-O $2 { Diagram # Played very quickly, and the first proof that tactics make the biggest difference between Class players and Experts: White simply overlooks the pin on the d-pawn.} ({Black must play sharply after} 14. Qc2 f5 (14... Na5 $5) 15. exf6 (15. Nf4 Qd7 16. Qb3 $6 g5 $1 17. Nxe6 $4 Na5 $1 $19) 15... gxf6 16. Nf4 Qc4 $13 17. b3 (17. Qxe4 e5 $44) 17... Nb4 $1 $13 {e.g.:} 18. Qd2 Qb5 19. a4 Qb6 20. a5 Qb5 21. c4 Qd7 $36) 14... Nxe5 $17 15. Nf4 Qc6 16. Qc2 Nc4 { I spent a lot of time on this move and had already used 35 minutes to his 5 for Game 60!} 17. Rfe1 g5 18. Nh5 f5 19. b3 Nd6 (19... Nxe3 20. fxe3 Rhg8 $40 { is also fine, but I like my Knight better than I like his Bishop.}) 20. Ng7 $6 Nf7 ({I also considered} 20... f4 $5 21. Bc1 Nf5 22. Nxf5 exf5 $19 { but I still like my pieces better.}) 21. Rad1 {Diagram #} Rhg8 ({ I did not notice the nice three-mover} 21... f4 $1 22. Bc1 Bf6 23. Nh5 Bxd4) 22. Nh5 g4 $40 23. hxg4 Rxg4 24. Nf4 Rdg8 25. d5 exd5 26. Nxd5 $2 { Handing me a pawn and opening his King.} Rxg2+ 27. Kf1 Rg1+ 28. Ke2 Rxe1+ 29. Kxe1 Bd6 (29... Bd8 $1) 30. Ke2 Ne5 $1 31. Bf4 Qe8 $2 {Diagram # I can only say that I was down to less than 10 minutes left and too focused on a possible Knight fork at e7 to notice the fork at f6! More proof that tactics and board vision are central to success.} (31... Re8 $142 $1 $19) 32. Nf6 Qg6 {Diagram #} 33. Rxd6 $2 {Diagram # Ed told me after the game that he could not immediately see how he could win the exchange safely, but he did see the clarifying line he chose which reduces to a Queen and pawn ending, which he assumed I'd never be able to win with under 5 minutes on the clock. I also think that because of my rating he assumed I would not have missed a simple Knight fork!} ({Not} 33. Nxg8 $2 Qg4+ 34. Kf1 Qxf4 $40 { as Ed noticed, but instead}) (33. Bxe5 $1 Bxe5 34. Nxg8 Qg4+ 35. Kf1 { and Black must choose between a draw or an unclear battle:} Qh3+ (35... Qxg8 $1 $44 {with two pawns and attack for the Exchange}) 36. Ke1 Qh1+ 37. Ke2 Qf3+ $11 ) 33... cxd6 ({Fritz points out, but I did not even consider,} 33... Nd3 $1 34. Be3 cxd6 (34... f4 $5 $40) 35. Nxg8 Qxg8 {and the ending of Queen and Knight versus Queen and Bishop is easy for Black who will have quite a strong attack on White's exposed King.}) 34. Bxe5 dxe5 35. Nxg8 Qxg8 $19 { This was Ed's idea: now Black has only three minutes to try for a win.} 36. Qd2 Qg4+ ({Black can actually immediately force off the Queens with a won ending by } 36... Qd8 $1 37. Qe3 Qd3+ 38. Qxd3 exd3+ 39. Kxd3 Kd7 $19 {and it is not hard to see that Black's outside passed pawn at h7 will force the White King to retreat, allowing Black's King to invade.}) 37. Kf1 f4 $6 {Diagram #} (37... Qh3+ $1 38. Kg1 h5 {is better}) 38. Qd6 $2 (38. Qd5 $1 Qh3+ 39. Kg1 Qxc3 40. Qg8+ Kc7 41. Qxh7+ Kb6 42. Qxe4 {is tougher}) 38... Qh3+ 39. Kg1 Qg4+ 40. Kf1 Qh3+ 41. Kg1 Qxc3 42. Qe6+ Kc7 43. Qe7+ Kb6 44. Qd6+ Qc6 45. Qxe5 Qg6+ 46. Kf1 f3 47. Qd4+ Kc7 48. Qc5+ Kd7 49. Qb5+ (49. Qxa7 Qa6+ $1 $19) (49. Qd5+ Kc8 50. Qc5+ Qc6 $1 $19) 49... Ke6 50. Qc4+ Kf5 51. Qc8+ Kf4 52. Qc7+ Kg4 53. Qd7+ Kh4 54. Qd8+ Qg5 (54... Kh3 $1 55. Qd7+ Kh2 $1 56. Qc7+ Kh1 $1 57. Ke1 Qg1+ 58. Kd2 Qxf2+ $19) 55. Qxg5+ Kxg5 $19 {and somehow I managed to force mate from this position in under 30 seconds. But it would be hard for me to accurately reconstruct how I did that, since I stopped recording at move 36.} 0-1[SEP]
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milk!!!!!!!!????????? gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
1. re: CanadaGirl
Even better is what Chris Schlesinger serves at his East Coast Grill restaurant on Hotter Than Hell nights, when an unfortunate diner takes one too many bites of his Pasta from Hell: The Antidote, aka a creamsicle.
1. re: BobB
Aha. And I noted that that Q and A was from all the way back in November of '75 when those sicles were in their heyday.
1. re: CanadaGirl
i understand about dairy, but i am not about to get milk in a chinese place.
1. re: alkapal
I'm not about to get milk anywhere - blech! But it will work best.
1. re: CanadaGirl
i'm usually not having problems with too much heat, and i like milk fine enough -- but if i'm eating hot & spicy, i like beer! ;-)). today, we had beef chow foon with x.o. sauce. didn't need the beer, but had one anyway. haha.
the only time i thought i was gonna lose it from the heat was several years ago when my brother in law shipped out some habanero-type peppers he had grown, and i had no CLUE how hot they were. i was mincing away and then sprinkled them over a tossed salad. WHOOO-WHOOO-WHOOOO. i was in my cousin's home, so was going through all her cookbooks like a crazy woman to see if i could find a remedy. and my fingers burned for two days, too. i learned my hot pepper lesson.
there is a thread somewhere on "remedies," as well. yogurt is always useful with the indian food. ;-).
1. re: alkapal
I minced some habaneros once, and then like the total idiot I am, attempted to rinse my blurry contacts. The pain literally caused my knees to buckle. And my eye turned the color of a cooked lobster. Lesson learned the hard way.
1. re: Perilagu Khan
oh gosh, perilagu khan. that is terrible!
another time i had just been chopping some jalapeños, and it wasn't seeming like any big deal (and i don't recall them being particularly hot in the dish). the next morning i woke up and both of my hands were intensely tingling all over. i didn't associate it with the peppers from the prior day until the nurse on the help line walked me through some questions. i thought i had some weird neurological thing happening. LOL.
2. re: CanadaGirl
White rice works best. You are not going to find milk in a Chinese restaurant anyway.
1. re: scoopG
Better than milk? Do you know why?
1. re: CanadaGirl
My understanding is that milk is the best. The scientific explanation is, I think, something about little things in the milk that somehow coat the taste receptors and prevent the capsaicin from attacking, or at least blunt it.
While it may be true that milk may not be readily available in Chinese restaurants (though I'll bet most would have it if you asked), ice cream should work just as well, maybe better, and they probably have that (pistachio anyone?). Actually, come to think of it the idea of a little ice cream as a side with a spicy Chinese dish sounds intriguing. Even milk haters should be OK with ice cream.
1. re: johnb
JohnB buddy,
Actually this has to do with hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties. Capsaicin is hydrophobic, so water does not was it out very well. Meanwhile, the milk protein casein has the effect of detergent on capsaicin. Just like the fact that washing your hand with soap and water is more effective than washing with your hand with just water.
2. re: CanadaGirl
Milk does work - you are just not going to find that in a Chinese restaurant. Milk works because the casein protein in it binds to the oil which is where the spicy flavor is. Water and water-soluble items just spread spicy oil around the mouth.
1. re: scoopG
The Chinese restaurants in my city must be different than many of yours, as my children ALWAYS have a glass of milk with supper. This has never been a problem in a Chinese restaurant, including those with really great menus and many Chinese customers.
1. re: CanadaGirl
Closest thing I've ever seen to milk in a Chinese restaurant (an authentic one, anyway) is soy drink (or duo jiang).
2. re: alkapal
They're usually hovering with a pitcher of water--or a chemical fire extinguisher--at the ready in case my mouth bursts into flame. But I'd prefer beer.
2. re: freia
Sometimes restaurants will make things purposely too spicy just to teach a lesson to people who are too insistent on getting spicy food. This has happened to my dad before.
1. re: will47
Too spicy? Is that anything like being too handsome? Or too rich?
2. Based on attitude at the local Thai restaurants, telling them "I promise to still pay for the dish even if I find it to be too spicy." does make a difference in how much they'll ratchet it up for you.
1. Very entertaining thread! So do you think this is strictly a Caucasian thing? I'm African-American and I eat a lot of Chinese, Thai, and Indian. I don't always want extra spicy-but sometimes I do depending on the dish, and have never been denied a request or had people peering out at me from the kitchen, LOL!! That must be annoying to have a server argue back and forth with you!
1 Reply
1. re: Luvfriedokra
Maybe. When I say I was it "real hot, not white-person hot", it usually comes out right.
2. Are you sure that they really eat the food that spicy? I get the impression that people obsessed with spiciness, craving really (or overly) spicy food, extremely hot food are Americans. Maybe, what is spicy to the Sichuanese, or Chinese, in general, is less spicy than what it is to a chilihead American? Isn't it all subjective?
3 Replies
1. re: Wawsanham
I think you're right about the chilehead subculture being primarily an American thing, although some of my fellow chilehead loons have been spotted in England, Germany and Australia.
1. re: Perilagu Khan
Judging from what I have been served in restaurants where people of that ethnicity eat, what is available on foreign-language menus, ordering off-menu, and what I have eaten abroad and at local festivals at home, I would say the overall heat level is WAY down for Americans.
The number of Asian hotheads and the level of spiciness they crave can easily match and go beyond what we have in North America.
Yes, I know Asian people who don't like spice. My boss is Thai, and he can't stand spicy food. His overall interest in food is abysmal. Ugh.
Where Americans get themselves in trouble is insisting on hot peppers in food that is not normally served that way. Even then, this is somewhat understandable. Serious heat can salvage the icky sweet food I have come to expect at a typical Americanized Thai joint. It wasn't always that way, but the trend is clearly toward the sweet, so that I no longer enjoy the average Thai restaurants anymore.
1. re: Steve
Steve, I wasn't so much speaking of American tastes generically, but the tastes of the chilehead subculture. These people--and I number myself among them--crave heat that goes even beyond that found in authentic Thai, Szechuan, Indian, Trinidadian and Jamaican cuisine. I agree completely, though, that generally speaking, the American palate is daintier than the quintet I just named.
2. My favourite is always "no, like hot spicy you'd make it" if its authentic....But i do think i go over board as in my favourite Indian eatery told me i was burning my insides
2 Replies
1. re: buffalobobcat
we've discovered that food too hot keeps us from tasting it -- like an over the top vindaloo.
1. re: alkapal
I'm a chilihead. I thoroughly enjoyed all the bih jolokia peppers I grew this year. That said, I know chiliheads who can enjoy more heat than I. I'm not trying to win any chilihead contests.
There is a Sichuan restaurant I like to go to, but only when I'm with my friend who is from Hong Kong. When he orders, they will make the food properly. At least, I think so. Hot dishes are hot. When I go by myself, I get a milder version. My solution for dealing with this apparent culinary discrimination is to simply always bring my friend along. :-)
Ultimate heat isn't what I'm after in any cuisine. I just want the dish to be prepared the way it would be for someone from the region, preferably for one who's taste is for spicy food. If a dish isn't supposed to be spicy, I don't want it spicy either. But if it is supposed to be spicy, then that is how I want it.
I may not be able to win a chilihead contest where the emphasis is on the purest and highest heat levels that can possibly be engineered, but I can eat and enjoy any spicy cuisine prepared the way it is served to native fire-eaters.
2. since there are hundreds of different types of "Chinese" food, and there are few really traditional type restaurants...order hot sauce or hot chili oil on the side and add as much as you want.
1 Reply
1. re: jdcanuck
Perhaps you could do that with all the ingredients... and why limit that to just Chinese restaurants?
Not enough wine in your boeuf bourguignon? Waiter, please bring me a tablespoon of pinot noir......
2. There might actually be a language barrier here. I used to ask for my curry chicken extra spicy. They seem to translate that to more spicy. I now ask for more spicy and I get it that way, but then they are my peeps. I usually don't have any problems getting the spice level that I want.
1. Look the server in the eye, and tell them, "this is wimp food. I want some real spice. Spice to bring tears to my eyes, and cause me to scream for my mama. Can you tell the kitchen to do that?"
Actually, I never temp the kitchen (Chinese, Mexican, Thai, Indian) to really heat it up. They can, and usually will. If I want things "kicked up a notch," I do the requests in degrees, until things are just like I want them to be.
Walk into a little hole in the wall, in Laredo, or Bangkok, and challenge them - could lead to death, or at least days in the ICU.[SEP]
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one ol the
loins thiough which people cieate a lile on the lody-without-oigans, those
conpounds aie not and cannot le the piivate piopeity ol this oi that coipo-
iation, lut aie and nust ienainthe pioducts ol what Maix calls the ‘‘geneial
The connon notion that ucccss tc csscntiu| ncdicincs is ccnstitu-
tivc cj u |ijc expiesses ontologically what activist intellectuals expiess politi-
cally whenthey aigue that ‘‘essential diugs nust le consideied a glolal pul-
lic good.’’
Moie so than a call to ietuin to the violated innocence ol the
connons (which, despite its attiactions, has its own piollens
), a con-
non notion ol this type opens up the piactical geneiality, which is not to say
univeisality, adequate loi ieiegulating, il not also dechaiteiing, the coipoia-
tions that aie the woist enenies ol the intiinsically geneiic conpounds they
connodily. Patiick Bond is coiiect to call the stiuggle against HIV[AIDS a
as was Leslie Doyal whenshe aigued
that ‘‘the denand loi health is in itsell a ievolutionaiy denand,’’
and the
late ]onathan Mann, who pioposed that the stiuggle against HIV[AIDS is
ly definition ievolutionaiy.
Loss ol lile lionHIV[AIDS is less a stiuctuial
asynptote leyond which capital accunulation cannot occui
than a synp-
ton ol a glolalisn alieady ieady to alsoil ¡ust such a loss.
The conpul-
sionto deny essential nedicines to the pooi is piogianned into the ciicuits
ly which glolalizing capital attenpts to iepioduce its own constant iate ol
giowth. Multiplying capital cannot lut nultiply the viius.
How, il at all, does this help us iead ‘‘Castio Hlongwane’’? No doult the
text’s aigunents alout poveity would not le so nisleading weie they lin-
ited to the clain that the spiead ol HIV[AIDS cannot le undeistood apait
lionthe conditions ol extiene poveity that aie one ol the legacies ol apait-
heid. This clain is all too tiue, and Zackie Achnat, chaiipeison ol the
TAC, nakes it liequently.
All the sane, it is pointless to diaw on the tia-
ditional teins ol philosophical logic to ciitique the sophistiy ol ‘‘Castio
Hlongwane.’’ Even locusing on its conlused sulstitution ol the pandenic’s
necessaiy condition (poveity) loi its sufficient condition (HIV) distiacts
Dcniu|isn 777
lion the lundanental piollen. Moie than the naiket’s lailuie to ensuie
the pooi access to ARVs, denialisn writ |urgc desciiles a condition defined
ly the innanence ol HIV[AIDS and capital. In the geneial econony we aie
chaiting, the ieplication ol deiegulated capital and the unllocked ieplica-
tion ol the viius aie so tightly linked that, in effect, they constitute a single
doulle helix.
Wheie capital finds that it can extiact suiplus value lion a
lody oi nolecule, theie ARVs will llock the ieveise tiansciiption ol HIV
RNA in the DNA ol T-cells. But wheie capital finds no connodities to con-
veit to suiplus value, theie the nucleic acid ol the viius copies itsell without
linit in the living cells ol the lody. Undei conditions ol capitalist political
econony, the inteivals ol one iepeat thenselves indiiect inveise piopoition
to the inteivals ol the othei. What’s noie, as two ol the nost lundanental
loices defining the diagian that today goes ly the nane g|cbu|izuticn, and
as loices that aie ly definition neithei dead noi alive, HIV[AIDS and glolal-
izing capital geneiate a situation in which the ontological linit letween
lile and death lecones noie difficult than evei to fix. Maix estallished
long ago that capital is, as dead laloi tine, a nonliving yet undead loice
that iequiies laloiing leings loi its own iepioduction.
Medical ieseaich-
eis, neanwhile, appioach the HIVviius as a conplex noleculai (inoiganic)
stiuctuie the only specifically oiganic chaiacteiistic ol which—iepioduc-
tion—it loiiows paiasitically lion the enzynes, eneigy, and iilosones ol
its host cells.
Given the stiuctuial sinilaiity letween these two ciicuits,
ought we considei the ielation letween then a neie nattei ol honology?
Oi does theii ielation indicate that they exist on the sane plane ol consis-
tency and puisue a single glolal piogian? Il so, how aie we to undeistand
that plane, given that the stiiated disciplines that today ienain in chaige
ol the study ol the viius (nacioecononics, epideniology, and viiology, not
to nention actuaiial science, lusiness nanagenent, and denogiaphy) aie
incapalle ol posing the question ol theii innanence? Il loth ciicuits detei-
nine the shape, extent, and quality ol what we call glolalization, won’t they
each also intensily the othei’s iendeiing indistinct ol the linit letween lile
and death? Il so, how night that indistinction iequiie us to iethink the
seiies ol political, legal, noial, and epistenological concepts lounded on
that linit?
Beloie iesponding to these questions, let ne considei the stiongest
counteiaigunent against the innanence ol HIV[AIDS and glolal capital,
nanely, that the lattei is sufficiently elastic to allowthe loinei to disappeai
without also alteiing its ownlundanental stiuctuie. Foi the stiongest piool
778 Adun Sitzc
that deiegulated capital cannot help lut not help pooi people with HIV[
AIDS, we unloitunately need look no luithei than capital’s own attenpts at
laigesse. Piioi to the eneigence ol Bush’s Eneigency Plan loi AIDS Reliel
(PEPFAR), capital’s lest effoit to addiess the pandenic on its own teins
cane in the loin ol a seiies ol ‘‘piice cuts.’’
The nost inpoitant agieenent ol iecent yeais to ieduce the cost ol
antiietioviials in developing countiies, the acceleiating access initia-
tive, has nade it possille to cut the annual cost pei patient lion
s¡z,ooo in zooo to sqzo in zoo¡. It was launched in May zooo ly
UNAIDS, in paitneiship with seveial UN agencies and five diug con-
panies (Boehiingei Ingelhein, Biistol-Meyeis Squill, GlaxoSnith-
Kline, Meick &Co., andHoffnann-La Roche), lut theie is little to show
loi it. Ovei thiee yeais, 8o countiies expiessed inteiest, ¡¸ have devel-
oped actionplans, lut less thanhall have finally concluded agieenents
with the conpanies, and undei ¡% ol the patients in those countiies
aie ieceiving antiietioviial tieatnents: a total ol z;,ooo people lenefit
in Aliica wheie ¡o nillion people aie HIV+.
Even though these piice cuts had, as an unintended side-effect, loonei-
anging calls loi lowei diug piices in G8 states,
they neveitheless lailed as
an attenpt to lieak with capital’s laws ol iestiicted econony. Like the chaii-
talle donations ol na¡oi philanthiopists, they aiiived wiapped in iestiic-
tions and lound with ‘‘conditionalities.’’
Hence Di. Mohanned Aldul-
lah’s (chaii ol Kenya’s AIDS Contiol Council) iiposte to the UNAIDS offei:
‘‘Il the inteinational nafia—the diug conpanies—ieally nean lusiness,
they should waive theii patent iights and let developing countiies nake the
diugs thenselves undei theii supeivision. Kenya alieady has the capacity
to nake nost ol these diugs. It is the lig five who aie stopping us.’’
PEPFAR, which, like the Glolal Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuleiculosis, and
Malaiia (GFATM),
was loiced into existence ly the tiieless effoits ol AIDS
activists, neveitheless does not lieak with this systen ol cynical sulsidies
lut, on the contiaiy, institutionalizes it.
Even though Bush’s speechwiit-
eis included in his zoo¡ State ol the Union addiess an unusually candid
ienaik iegaiding the ‘‘innense possilility’’ offeied ly geneiic HIV[AIDS
tieatnents, PEPFAR’s only notalle achievenent since then has leen how
quickly it has thiown the innense poweis ol the U.S. executive lianch
lehind Big Phaina’s suppiession ol that veiy possilility.
Neolileialisn’s alandonnent ol sul-Sahaian Aliica is all the noie an-
Dcniu|isn 779
geiing lecause ol the significant gains against HIV[AIDS acconplished ly
the lew states that have leen alle to deconnodily HIV[AIDS tieatnents.
In ¡¸¸6, diawing on a long histoiy ol opposition to diug patents,
passed its Patent Piopeity Law, which allowed the Biazilian Health Minis-
tiy to conline pievention effoits with univeisal and liee access to locally
pioduced geneiic ARVs. The iesults weie good. The viius’s tiansnission
iate was ieduced, Biazil’s AIDS-ielated deaths weie halved, and the gen-
eial state ol pullic health inpioved.
Pnurnuccuticu| E×ccutivc nagazine
dutilully wained its ieadeis.
And so, even though Biazil’s law was con-
sistent with TRIPs,
which lully allows loi conpulsoiy licensing, lecause
ol what one legal scholai geneiously calls ‘‘ianpant conlusion’’ ovei TRIPs
in the Office ol the U.S. Tiade Repiesentative (USTR),
which has consis-
tently and aggiessively nisinteipieted TRIPs as a neiely nininun stan-
daid loi patent conpliance,
Biazil’s tiade law was opposed fiist ly the
Clinton adninistiation, which filed loinal conplaints against the lawwith
the WTO on ]anuaiy ¡¸, zoo¡, and then ly the Bush adninistiation, which
iefiled the sane conplaint two weeks latei.
But even with the thieat ol U.S. tiade sanctions added into the equa-
tion, Biazil’s exanple denonstiatedthe possilility anddesiialility ol lieak-
ing patents in oidei to inplenent a cooidinated piogian ol ARV tieat-
nent and pievention. It was to enulate the successes ol the Biaziliannodel
that the Mandela adninistiation dialted the Medicines and Related Sul-
stances Contiol Anendnent Act, Nunlei ¸o, ol ¡¸¸;. The lill gave the
South Aliican goveinnent the powei to elininate patent piotections loi
phainaceuticals in oidei to ieduce the piice ol nedicines vital to pul-
lic health.
Its section ¡¡(c) vested the executive lianch, viu the ninistei
ol health, with the powei to conpulsoiily license HIV[AIDS nedications
and[oi to paiallel inpoit the sane.
Yet even though this ‘‘quite nild’’
law (as ]onathan King iightly chaiacteiized it
) was conpletely TRIPs-
conpliant, the United States thieatened South Aliica ¡ust as it had thieat-
ened not only Biazil lut also, eailiei, Thailand.
The United States placed
South Aliica on its Special ¡o¡ watch list in ¡¸¸8 and again in ¡¸¸¸. It ini-
tiated what the USTR explicitly called a ‘‘lull couit piess,’’ even deploying
the peisonal chains ol then vice piesident Al Goie to stiike down the law.
This ‘‘nassive lullying effoit,’’ as Roleit Weissnan aptly ienaned it, net
in Apiil ¡¸¸¸ with sustained iesistance oiganized and led ly ACT UP activ-
ists like Paul Davis, Asia Russell, and Shaionann Lynch, suppoited ly pul-
lic ielations effoits lion Médecins Sans Fiontièies (MSF) and inloined
780 Adun Sitzc
ly ieseaich lion the Consunei Pio¡ect on Technology.
Though nany
u|tcrncndiu|istcs cite Seattle as the fiist significant victoiy ovei the osten-
silly anonynous and alstiact loices ol nultinational capital, we nust not
loiget that, two nonths eailiei, seven hundied notivated and highly oiga-
nized people loiced the USTR to announce, against a supposedly invin-
cille Big Phaina lolly, that ‘‘the tiade dispute was iesolved and that the
U.S. goveinnent would cease piessuiing South Aliica on the issues ol con-
pulsoiy licensing and paiallel inpoits.’’
This victoiy olviously woiiied
PhRMA, which, lesides leing inpatient with the inpotence ol the U.S.
executive lianch, was neivous alout the conlination ol intensilying tieat-
nent access activisn in South Aliica and the offei ol inexpensive geneiic
ARVs ly a nunlei ol Thai and Indian phainaceuticals.
Along with its
twinoiganizationinSouthAliica (the SouthAliicanPhainaceutical Manu-
lactuieis’ Association [PMA|), PhRMA filed suit against the South Aliican
goveinnent in¡¸¸¸, naning Mandela as a delendant inanattenpt to stiike
section ¡¡(c) lion the looks. What happened next is difficult to loiget, il
only lecause its loice as an event is still iesonating today. On Apiil ¡¸, zoo¡,
thiity-nine ol the iichest phainaceutical conpanies, acting as a caitel ol
the single-nost piofitalle sectoi ol nultinational capital in the woild, with-
diew theii case against South Aliica, having leen outnaneuveied in and
out ol couit ly the South Aliican goveinnent, the TAC, and the liight-ied
piotest ol the glolal nultitude.
What this cuisoiy chait indicates is that what today goes ly the nane dcniu|-
isnis not and cannot le linited eithei to Mleki oi even to a text like ‘‘Castio
Hlongwane.’’ On the contiaiy, altei tuining a cold haid staie towaid the
piollen ol HIV[AIDS in sul-Sahaian Aliica in the late ¡¸8os and eaily
¡¸¸os, the doninant institutions ol inteinational finance, nultinational
capital, glolal goveinance, and developed states, up to and including the
U.S. executive lianch, ielused sul-Sahaian Aliica access to the potent con-
lination ol geneiic nedicines and capital necessaiy to stall the epidenic.
The eneigence ol this geneial econony ol denialisn is loth dutub|c and
dcncnstrub|c. It is dutub|c lecause the potentialities it suppiessed eneiged
at a veiy specific con¡unctuie defined ly the eneigence ol ARV theiapies.
It is dcncnstrub|c lecause it is lased on an easily ieconstiucted set ol cost-
lenefit calculations that continue to le shanelessly conputed in pullic
today. And it is gcncru| lecause it naiked an alyssal consensus ieached ly
Dcniu|isn 781
glolalisn’s leading institutions. Because glolal capital would not suffei the
expendituie necessaiy to halt the ieplication ol the viius, the ieplication ol
the viius could not le halted. People with HIV[AIDS would ¡ust have to
To piopose the existence ol a ‘‘denialisn writ |urgc’’ oi a ‘‘geneial econ-
ony ol denialisn’’ is neithei neiely to ietuin the insult noi to exoneiate the
Mleki adninistiation. It is to suggest that a quotient ol the loice enalling
the scoinlul ciitique ol the Mleki adninistiation in noithein nass nedia
deiives lion a condensation and displacenent ol denialisn writ |urgc onto
Mleki’s figuie. Readeis ol Tinc and Ncwswcck can sleep well at night know-
ing that iiiational Aliican leadeis (and not the nultinationals whose advei-
tisenents cianthose sane nagazine’s pages) aie iesponsille loi withhold-
ing HIV[AIDS tieatnents lion the pooi. Oui noninalisn iequiies us to
undeistand this denialisnol the fiist oidei. But that sane piinciple olliges
us to acknowledge that denial is noie than a neie ielusal ol ieality. In addi-
tion to naning a psychic synpton and an epistenological eiioi, the tein
also indicates a veiy specific ielation ol powei. When we ciitique the way
a goveinnent denies a peison his oi hei iights, we inply that it ieluses a
peison what is alieady essentially constitutive ol his oi hei veiy leing: the
iight to have iights.
It is this doxa that is at issue when, in the fiist volune
ol Tnc!istcry cj Sc×uu|ity, Foucault suggested that the exeicise ol conten-
poiaiy soveieign powei was no longei a powei ‘‘to tukc lile oi |ct live’’ lut
a powei ‘‘to nukc live oi to cust cut into death [dc ie¡etei duns |u ncrt|.’’
Huiley’s tianslation ol rcjctcr as ‘‘disallow’’ olscuies the sense in which the
soveieign powei to let die nanilests itsell piecisely as a kind ol ‘‘iepudia-
tion.’’ Undei political conditions that place the sul¡ect’s ‘‘existence as a living
leing in question,’’
soveieign powei is what it was loi Sade: a powei to
iepudiate zcc itsell.
Whatevei is ielused in denial is innanent to the lile
ol the denied.
This ielation to institutions ol soveieign powei suggests that denialisn
is not so nuch synpton oi eiioi as glolal dispcsitij.
Undeistood in this
nannei, denialisn’s conponent paits definitely include a way ol not see-
ing oi not speaking alout the potentialities ol HIV[AIDS tieatnent (which
we nay ¡ust as well call ‘‘disavowal’’). But leyond that, it consists ol the sov-
eieign powei to ieluse to the living the loins-ol-lile without which a lile
cannot le alive, and also, alove all, ol the ielations ol econonic and political
loice that enalle disavowal to lecone a soveieignpowei capalle ol actualiz-
ing the potential supeifluity ol pooi people living with HIV[AIDS. Denial-
782 Adun Sitzc
isn will have leen in effect wheievei a disavowal ol the possililities ol lile
with HIV[AIDS finds institutional suppoit in the soveieign powei to alan-
don naked lile. Nuneious enlodinents ol the U.S. executive lianch,
not also the executives ol nuneious Aliican states,
the vaiious institu-
tions ol the Washington Consensus, and the na¡oi phainaceutical capitals
exeicise a denialisn ol this type. A denialist institution is one whose lio-
political clain on lile iequiies it constantly to attenpt to iegistei the colos-
sal ieality ol the HIV[AIDS pandenic (thiough ceaseless studies, shock-
ing estinates, giave pullic statenents, expeit panels, sustained pullic
ielations canpaigns, naudlin chaiity lalls, hall-heaited aid piogians,
stiange donation schenes) yet whose inplication within ciicuits ol capi-
tal spui it to disavow that sane ieality (nainly ly classilying it as an ethi-
cal piollen, which, as Alain Badiou has aigued, has the effect ol ceding
to the naiket a nonopoly ovei the ontological attiilute ol necessity: such
classification alieady invites the active and passive suppiession ol exist-
ing lut unecononical possililities loi slowing the viius ieplication
). The
nost poweilul effect ol such institutions is that those living within theii
¡uiisdictions find thenselves inteinally excluded ly the suileit ol oveilap-
ping soveieign poweis claining to ensuie theii su|us.
Denialisn’s ciown-
ing achievenent is an alsuid lut not unlaniliai geopolitical condition in
which the leading institutions ol glolalizing capital daily ieiteiate theii
connitnent to the fight against HIV[AIDS—a geopolitical condition, then,
wheie people with HIV[AIDS have nevei attiacted noie conpassionate
spokespeople, chaiitalle oiganizations, conceined onlookeis, piolessional
nouineis, pitying philanthiopists, and iock-stai advocates—and yet wheie,
filteen yeais altei ARVs eneiged as a distinct lionedical possilility, they
aie availalle to only ¡o,ooo to ;¡,ooo ol the q.¡ nillion in sul-Sahaian
Aliica who will die without innediate access to then.
A peiplexing contiguity links the geneial econony ol denialisn to its spe-
cific nanilestation in the Mleki adninistiation. Appioached in this liane,
Mleki’s denialisnis still, inManphela Ranphele’s woids, ‘‘iiiesponsilility
loideiing on ciininality.’’
Even leloie the South Aliican goveinnent’s
and the TAC’s iesounding Apiil zoo¡ couit victoiy ovei the phainaceutical
caitel, the Ministiy ol Health indicated that it would not declaie the situa-
tion a ‘‘national eneigency’’ oi ‘‘extiene uigency’’ that, undei Aiticle ¡¡
ol TRIPs would le the suiest way to open an exception to patent enloice-
Dcniu|isn 783
nent and enalle the paiallel inpoits the couit victoiy had nade possille.
Instead, Mleki legan posing, noie insistently and pullicly than evei, ques-
tions he had asked since at least ¡¸¸¸ iegaiding the ielationship letween
HIV and AIDS, the validity ol HIV[AIDS tests, the iacist piesuppositions
ol epideniological studies ol HIV, and the ostensilly intoleialle toxicity ol
When the TAC calls the Mleki adninistiation’s logic ‘‘denialisn,’’ oi
when Pietei-Diik Uys paiodies Mleki ly playing ‘‘MacBeki,’’ they inply
that Mleki’s position is inloined ly a ceitain nadness.
‘‘Disavowal’’ (Vcr-
|cugnung) is ceitainly, loi Fieud, constituted ly a sinultaneous denial and
iecognition ol a tiaunatic ieality that is so consistent it eventually splits
the ego into the two autononous egos ol the psychotic. But the textual
opeiation at woik when ‘‘Castio Hlongwane’’ ie¡ects the ielation letween
HIV and AIDS thiough a senantic analysis ol the signifiei AIDS itsell,
to the point wheie it aigues that to call the illnesses sweeping thiough
South Aliica ‘‘AIDS’’ would itsell le genocide,
suggests that, il theie weie
an opeiation ol psychosis in ‘‘Castio Hlongwane,’’ it would not le intelli-
gille in Fieudian teins. Because the text seens to encountei A!DS as an
inassinilalle signifiei, and lecause its niiacle cuie loi AIDS consists in
nothing noie than a ielusal ol its signified, the nadness ol the text would
seen to consist less in disavowal than in what Lacan, diawing on a ¡uiidi-
cal tein, calls ‘‘loieclosuie.’’
Foi Lacan, loieclosuie takes place when the
sul¡ect’s ielusal, ie¡ection, oi iepudiation ol |c ncn du pcrc ieaches a point
wheie the pateinal signifiei is cast outside ol the synlolic altogethei. The
paiadox ol loieclosuie is that the signifiei which conleis oidei, identity,
and law upon the synlolic is loiced outside ol the sane synlolic oidei it
It is loi this ieason that loieclosuie nanilests itsell in a ceitain
kind ol ‘‘niiaculous’’ synlolic cieativity.
The hallucinations ol the psy-
chotic, Lacan suggests, aie specifically neological in chaiactei, naiked ly
autonyns, new conpound woids, puiely honophonic equivalences, and a
stiuggle against the onnipotent woids ol God.
On this iead, il theie weie
in ‘‘Castio Hlongwane’’ a ceitain opeiation ol psychosis, it would nanilest
itsell at the point wheie the text ienanes the acionynAIDS and intioduces
its node ol tiuth pioduction as a ‘‘niiacle’’ akin to a soveieign peiloinative
(‘‘let theie le light’’).
Like Piesident Schielei’s autoliogiaphy, the validity
ol the text’s statenents would deiive lion its attenpt to occupy the gap in
the synlolic lelt open ly the loieclosed-upon ncn du pcrc. But, keeping
in nind that loi Achille Mlenle, as loi Cail Schnitt, the categoiy ol the
784 Adun Sitzc
niiacle is linked to the paiadox ol the soveieign exception, wheie the sovei-
eign is legally exenpted lion the sane iule ol law he giounds, peihaps we
ought to considei a less psycholiogiaphical appioach to the inteipietation
ol ‘‘Castio Hlongwane.’’
Fion the angle ol a ceitain concept ol political
soveieignty, the text’s theoiies, which ly its own account do lattle with the
signifieis ol an onnipotent appaiatus, would le what Mlenle would call a
‘‘lantasn ol powei.’’ Issued lion the oigan ol soveieign powei, they would
le wiitten with the tip ol God’s phallus.
In this event, it would le inpos-
sille to iead ‘‘Castio Hlongwane’’ without situating its theoiies in the non-
discuisive suppoits that endow then with the capacity to ienain in loice
while also signilying nothing.
Whatevei its etiology, Mleki’s naddening intiansigence loiced the TAC
into action against the sane post-apaitheid goveinnent that nany TAC ac-
tivists had lought to liing into existence.
In August zoo¡, the TAC filed
suit in the Tiansvaal High Couit against the South Aliican Ministiy ol
Health and against each ol the piovincial Executive Councils ol Health,
denanding that Neviiapine le nade availalle to HIV-positive piegnant
wonen giving liith in pullic health institutions, and that the goveinnent
inplenent an effective national piogian to pievent MTCT ol HIV. The
TAC won the case in Decenlei zoo¡, with the high couit iuling that ‘‘the
state lanonNeviiapine outside pilot sites was ‘un¡ustifialle,’ ’’
only to lace
an innediate appeal ly the Ministiy ol Health. At issue in the Ministiy’s
appeal was a questionconceining the lalance ol poweis undei the newCon-
stitution: ly iequiiing the goveinnent to pievent MTCT, was the Constitu-
tional Couit cieating health policy (that is, oveistepping its constitutional
linits) oi neiely enloicing the Bill ol Rights?
It is woith dwelling on this
question loi a nonent. Given the ease with which the teinupurtncid lends
itsell to netonyny, it is no suipiise that the social antagonisns aiound
tieatnent access would quickly lecone naiiated as a stiuggle against a new
apaitheid. Though iecouise to the tein is ly no neans inappiopiiate, the
tioulle with applying it stiaightloiwaidly to the ANC-led goveinnent is
that the ihetoiical plus ol a dianatic dialectical ieveisal does not offset the
logical ninuses ol occluding the tein’s contested histoiiogiaphy, olscui-
ing the caie with which the TAC positions itsell ielative to the ANC and
to South Aliica’s ¡¸¸6 Constitution, and olluscating the conciete way in
which the political legacy ol apaitheid is diiectly at stake in the political
techniques ly which the TAC stiuggled loi access. A noie nuanced vei-
sion ol the sane aigunent would suggest that the TAC’s stiuggle against
Dcniu|isn 785
the Mleki adninistiation is less ieducille to a stiuggle against the ANC
pei se
| 1
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| 14,000
| 45,679
| 27,004
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|
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| 1
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| 16,617
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|
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| 2
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|
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| 2
| 12,000
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|
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