Author: thetembo

I am a GMO elephant born in Africa, moved to America, until Matumaini launches to the Stars. I like to flap my ears, bounce back and forth from one front leg to another, and wander about the savannah gorging on delicious elephant grass. I speak guttural English, Swahili, and Tembo. In my spare time, I like to travel, take pictures, and write for this blog.
Writing

Weapon System Earth

| thetembo
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Author’s Note: An Homage to Star Trek: Next Generation. Sorry about the #2, I just couldn’t resist the second-grade humor.

“Away team to the ready room for a debrief.”

The team follows the Captain into his ready room. Each sits in the seat befitting their rank, the Captain at the head of the table.

The Captain turns to #1, who lead the away team. “Report. What did you find?”

“The entire planet has been weaponized. The planet has an incredibly sophisticated sensor net capable of detecting any military movement on the surface, in the atmosphere, and to a limited extent, the exosphere. The sensor net is interconnected in a global network capable of relaying data to any of its command posts in seconds. The network also interconnects to a quite deadly actuator system for the launch of an assortment of fissile and fusile weapons.”

“So the whole planet is a giant weapon system?”

“Yes sir.”

“Anything else?”

“The network generates petabytes of information. They use AIs to process the data for threats and response selection. It is doubtful that we could overload the system.”

“Impressive. The recon reports did not indicate such advanced technology. Do you recommend first contact with the Earth?”

The officers look at one another but none takes the initiative to respond.

“Why the hesitation. From your report, it seems pretty cut and dry.”

Again the officers look at one another and back at the commander without responding.

“#1, I want your recommendation, now. Do we abort the mission?” the Captain demands.

#1 responds without hesitation to the direct order, “I recommend for intervention, not abort.”

“Intervention? Explain yourself.”

“Well, despite the sophistication of their weaponized planet, the weapons aren’t pointed against a potential planetary invader. All the weapons are pointed back at the planet itself. The whole planet is jury-rigged like a floor full of mouse traps. If one goes off, it would basically trigger the destruction of the whole planet.”

The captain squints his eyes and shakes his head to work through his incredulity. “What kind of weapon system points at itself?”

#2 speaks. “My team has a hypothesis, sir.”

#2 clears his throat and continues, “We believe it’s a self-destruct mechanism built because the natives would prefer to destroy their planet before enduring alien rule, just like the self-destruct mechanisms we have on the ship to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.”

“But the whole planet? We would sacrifice to keep others out of danger. If they kill everyone, what’s the point. It is just suicide.”

“Yes, sir. That is what we believe. They prefer suicide to subjugation.”

“It would seem prudent to abort then. #1, why then did you recommend deferral? Do you concur with #2’s assessment?”

“No sir.”

“Do you have an alternate hypothesis to propose?”

“Yes sir. I think the Earth suffers from some sort of schizophrenic paranoia affecting all of its inhabitants. Or perhaps an autoimmune deficiency causing the planetary immune system to turn on itself. In either case, it would be our ethical duty to conduct an intervention and provide treatment.”

“True,” says the Ethics officer.

The captain turns to the Exopsychologist and asks, “Exopsychologist. What is your assessment of the mental health of the planet?”

“I believe that #1’s diagnosis of schizophrenic paranoia is essentially correct, although I think the underlying cause is somewhat more nuanced. Despite, their advanced weapon system technology, the population has not yet developed a planetary consciousness. At this point, it does not think like a planet. It does not think like a coherent individual. This planet has grown up as an orphan without either the discipline or love of a parent civilization. You won’t be able to reason with it. You will have to treat it like you are the parent, and it, your unruly, spoiled child.”

“Indeed. The problem is the weapons. Security officer. Do we have the firepower to deter an incident?”

The weapons officer responds, “No sir. By our estimates, there is enough firepower for the planet to destroy itself ten times over within thirty minutes of initiation. We have enough firepower to stop at most 20% of the firepower within our line of sight. Any pre-emptive strike would likely trigger an unstoppable incident.”

The captain grimaces, not happy with any of his options.

The crew waits.

Finally, #1 breaks the silence. “Your decision, sir?”

“Stand down. We will return to base and report the situation to senior management. If they choose to come back with the necessary firepower, we come back and intervene.

“Ethics officer. Do you authorize this course of action?”

“Yes, sir. I think it is the best we can do under the circumstances. Just hope they don’t blow themselves out of the galaxy before they figure it out or before we return.”

The captain stands at attention and straightens out his uniform. “Back to stations.”

The crew and the captain exit the ready room and return to their stations.

The captain sits at the helm and orders, “Plot coordinates for station Sano 1.”

The navigation officer responds, “Coordinates plotted, sir.”

“Engage.”

Neology, Writing

Needomaniac

| thetembo
Reading Time: < 1 minute

needomaniac: a person or thing that requires excessive attention but can never be truly fixed or satisfied.

Every item,
is an ocean of need.
A nymphomaniac,
of infinite greed.
A ravenous hog,
you constantly feed.
Always demanding,
your time it bleeds.
Doing nothing,
still has a fee.
Filling your mind,
like a strangling weed.
Let me leave you,
with this little creed.
The item to tend,
is your sanity.

Neology

A Concrete discussion of Abstraction

| thetembo
Reading Time: 3 minutes

S1 <=> S2
^ ^
v v
~S2 <=> ~S1

This Greimas square explores the opposites of concrete and abstract, using photography as a context. In the Greimas square, these are the S1 and S2 concepts. The ~S1 concept is “not concrete”. The ~S2 concept is “not abstract”. The Greimas square for deriving new concepts or relations comes from relabeling the ~S1 and ~S2 with a more descriptive and less logical label. So here is an analysis to suggest some better words for ~S1 and ~S2.

A concrete photo is of something you would see more or less as-is.

The abstract is the pattern or idea independent of any concrete elements within it.

What is an example of something not abstract yet not quite concrete either? For a photo, a blur comes to mind. A blur photo focuses on one element of the photo and blurs out the rest. The rest is the suggestion of something concrete.

What is an example of something not concrete yet not quite abstract either? I think when the pattern of the elements is more important than the elements themselves. Concrete elements are still visible, but you are drawn to the pattern they create rather than the real elements that compose them. Emergence suggests a new pattern from concrete elements. When does the pattern become abstract? The pattern implies regularity but some of the best abstractions have irregular patterns if you can even call them that. Irregular patterns? Abstract nature? Sorry, this whole topic exudes oxymoron. A pure abstract photo would have no concrete elements in it.

Concrete <=> Abstract
^ ^
v v
Blur <=> Emergence

Concrete and abstract are the foundation concepts. Blur and emergence complete the square. Blur focuses your attention on something concrete while the background gives implied context. Emergence focuses your attention on the pattern but is created by concrete elements.

The concrete is a picture of you standing next to a lit Christmas tree. The blur is you with the Christmas tree blurred in the background, or possibly you blurred out and the tree in focus if the photographer doesn’t much care for you. The emergent is the Christmas tree blurred to bokeh with the lights as or more important than the contents, namely you. And the abstract is a bokeh Christmas tree with only the form of the tree suggested by the pixelated lights.

Of course, categorization is never definitive when it comes to concepts. Probably the most important concept is that you enjoy the picture.

Adventure

Foul Fowl

| thetembo
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Should I write about the ordinary ones? The lousy ones? Like a good picture of a bad thing? Is my job to filter out the dismal or only filter out the low quality? You’ve been warned.

What I wanted was pics of exotic shorebirds and ducks at the National Wildlife Refuge. What I got was a weed-lined tractor trail with two and a half miles worth of an endless pickle weed patch on one side and nothing but overturned dirt on the other, set to a backdrop of an endless parade of truck traffic on the 37, in a bowl of distant mountains and urban skylines.

I followed the tractor trail two-and-half miles to the water of the North Bay. The bushes at the trailhead were littered with tp, looking mostly like a place to pull off the highway and to take an emergency crap. I was hoping that eventually, I would come upon tidal, bird-infested waters. Instead, I side-stepped spent shotgun shells with the remains of a metal carcass, passed by an abandoned structure of some kind, pondered a very lost and large cement block, and covered my nose with my face mask hoping to block out the odors of a foul-smelling ditch. When I arrived at the most northerly point of the North Bay at low tide, I witnessed nothing more than mudflats and vanishingly small birds in the tidal distance.

Trying to make lemonade out of lemons, the temperature was perfect and there was barely a cloud in the sky. Even weeds can be colorful with interesting shapes. The junk piles make for semi-interesting compositions embedded in the pickleweed and a horizon of hills. A kite stopped on a stump protruding ever-so-slightly above the terrain. Two deer ventured out onto the barren fields from a small weed patch. I wondered if deer have ankles to twist as they retreated back at the sight of me over the clumpy dirt to their weedy home, probably confused as to why a person was on the trail at all. As I walked, I drove flocks of songbirds in front of me from one weedy perch to another, apparently not sharing my dim view of the seed-sated weeds.

I often wonder when I hike alone what would happen if I keel over. On this one, I don’t think anyone would chance upon me until the next planting season when some hapless farmer would wonder what that crunching noise was under his big fat tractor tires. I would have expired within sight of the highway with the indifference of nothing more than roadkill. I’ve hiked in remote places with more people than this trail (none). I was close enough to see yet far enough never to be seen.

I felt dirty when I was done, like negotiating with a used-car salesman. It was an ugly hike. As you may suspect, I don’t recommend it. But keeping people away may be just what the birds need.

Uncategorized

Queen Tide

| thetembo
Reading Time: 3 minutes

With every King Tide comes its opposite, an extremely low tide. Is it a pauper tide? An anti-king tide? Why does more water get to be king and not more beach? Because it throws a temper tantrum of wanton power on rocks protecting the road and boardwalk?

The extremely low tide is royalty, too. So, I hereby declare the extreme low tide as the Queen tide, an opposite of sorts in the ways that are of importance for my purposes. I hope to show her moods and airs and beauty worthy of a queen.

The format for this display is “a sort of American haiku.” (Jose gets credit for the appellation.) I take it to mean to put a little unstructured poetry to a picture, to see it as something more than what is in its bare, wooden frame. That is the theory anyway. Here is the practice.

A willet standing on the safety of an island rock surrounded by the mirage of a submerged cliff dropping to the sky:

The surf backing off from the resting reef rocks:

Plovers pulling out the wrinkles of the unkempt sheet of the sea:

Plover snipping at its mirrored self:

Flock disbanding after patiently watching the end of the day:

Cliffs painted on the ephemeral canvas of a silky shore:

The gaudy rouge of an ancient queen tide:

Pocked chocolate stairway to Olympus of the tides:

Well, that is it. What, you want an encore? Ok, one more just for you. King and queen both, the monarchy of the tides:

Neology

Terratrashing

| thetembo
Reading Time: < 1 minute

terratrashing: to transform a planet so that it is unable to support human life.

Terraforming is the process of making another planet habitable for humans. Elon Musk wants to terraform Mars. Science fiction writers like to write about terraforming other worlds, usually to escape all the terratrashing we’ve done to this one. Terratrashing is the word I propose, to describe the process of making a planet uninhabitable for humans, specifically, the one we live on.

Terratrashing leaves no ambiguity about the scale or the cause of what is happening. Trashing is not a natural phenomenon. Trashing a planet renders it uninhabitable for humans.

We need a phrase that describes more accurately what is happening to our planet and more importantly why it is happening to the planet. The phrases “global warming” and “climate change” have no teeth. Worse than that, they make it sound like the processes are natural phenomena. The climate changes all the time. A little global warming sounds kind of nice, especially to people in cold weather climates digging themselves out from three feet of snow. If the worst-case scenario of five degree C temperature rise comes to pass, this planet will be unrecognizable to those of us that live here now. If the carrying capacity of the planet drops to one billion from the projected ten billion peak, nine billion people will die, and everyone will suffer.

Worse, global warming climate change is only one symptom of planetary-wide, human-induced change mostly for the worse and not the better. Plastic pollution. Biomass reduction. Mass extinction. Now what phase will spark more action and accountability to stop that from happening, terratrashing, global warming, or climate change?

Writing

Hug a Zombie

| thetembo
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Author Note: It is a satire, just a satire. More than anything, I want to introduce the idea of digital distancing, maybe the start of my own little Meme. I swear, I tested positive for anti-memes.

So far, scientists have more questions than answers. Here is what they know so far.

ZVoid-21 is the first biodigital virus ever discovered. It is transmitted primarily through memes and social media directly into the brain stem of its victims. The virus immediately affects the production of neurological transmitters. Serotonin production is reduced resulting in OCD-like behavior. You may notice the affected individual begin to incessantly forward meaningless memes to everyone they have social media contact with. The biovirus also induces a dopamine dependency that seems to only be satisfied by immediate and continual likes in response to the sending of the meme.

In the second stage of infection, the biodigital virus attacks the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain. Victims begin experiencing emotional outbursts, pounding excessively at their keyboards, and even verbally attacking individuals that fail to validate their entries. In some victims, the biovirus attacks the hippocampus. Victims begin to experience selective memory tending to only remember things that support their pre-infected dispositions.

In the final zomboid stages of infection, higher functions in the pre-frontal cortex shut down. In this stage, victims become completely withdrawn from their physical social surroundings. While they sit at tables with others, their heads seldom lift from their digital media. The affected individual seems to lose all sense of awareness as a biological entity. Lab studies have shown that the removal of social media at this point results in complete withdrawal or violent attacks to the point of eating their antagonists as you may have seen on the news clips.

Zombies cluster in groups with similar pre-dispositions. Unless provoked as previously mentioned, they seem to be more dangerous to other groups of zombies with dissimilar dispositions than towards the unaffected. Pre-industrial communities have developed no cases of ZVoid-21 nor have they been attacked by any of the affected. The only known attempted attacks on the unaffected occurred during an organized zombie campaign in all the major cities. Fortunately, within an hour, all of the zomboid protesters stopped to post selfies of themselves disrupting the coherence of the event. The only damage occurred to social media servers trying to absorb the massive viral load of selfies and nascent memes.

The only defense against the biodigital virus that has shown any effectiveness so far is digital distancing. All anti-meme inoculations and remedies have so far proved ineffective.

For those who might be asymptomatic, the CBDDC, the Center for Biodigital Disease Control recommends turning off all digital media whenever possible and spending more biotime with your friends and family, gradually extending your digital distancing time into bio-only holidays and vacations.

For those with early symptoms of ZVoid-21, the CBDDC recommends slowly increasing your time between posts and checking for likes. The idea is to slowly reduce your need for immediate gratification and validation with the goal of learning to live with deferred and even withheld stimulus from your friends and followers. The fear of uncertainty in relations and social status is the leading indicator of susceptibility to the disease. A CBDDC spokesperson suggests practicing techniques of manifesting mindfulness and confidence as successfully used in pre-digital times until an effective ZVoid-21 vaccine can be found. They also strongly suggest visiting natural environments with the recommendation that you turn off your alerts, turn on your DND sign, go into airplane mode, and leave the earpods in their case.

Many argue that it is just people living. Epidemiologists who proactively encourage digital distancing are at odds with economists who argue that such behavior will bring the attention economy and ultimately the real economy to its knees. Both groups argue that any sign of intelligence is completely asymptomatic in the other. Social media sites argue that global interconnectedness and the overthrow of hierarchical control systems are far more important than the mostly benign symptoms of most cases of ZVoid-21. 

But that is little consolation to parents who have infected their children, to the scores of friends lost to dings and little red hearts, and to unfathomable petabytes of banal information that threaten to overwhelm the fabric of our society.

As of this writing, there is no known cure and none forthcoming. Until there is, stay safe, digitally distance, and try not to be miserable. Hug a zombie (but don’t take his digital media if you don’t want to become a snack). Who knows, it may help.

Neology, Photography

Besuty or Not Besuty? That is the question.

| thetembo
Reading Time: 4 minutes

I meant to type beauty but I fat-fingered besuty, instead. I was going for the thought of subtle beauty but the sound of the malformed word seemed to capture the idea I was trying to express better than the original. Why not have an explicit word for subtle beauty? Serendipity is the bastard father of many an idea.

Well, any decent word should have an antonym and the opposite of besuty is the opposite of subtle not beauty. The phrase “raging beauty” comes to mind. So the antonym of besuty, in the interest of symmetry, must be beruty. So there you have it, besuty and beruty, my two attempts at new contributions to the English language. And as a kicker I’ve extended the grammar with the idea of an infix, meaning a change of root directly and systematically as an alternative to using a prefix or a postfix, as fitting to modify the root beaut-, a new twist on the expression of inner beauty.

But I digress and enough neology and cleverness for the moment. Let’s get to the hypothesis I originally intended. In this time when so many leaf-peepers are posting the beruty of fall foliage in four-season climates, those of us living through the hot and dry season of our two-season Mediterranean climate still have much in the way to offer with besuty, but we will have to work harder for it. It’s there. It may be small. It may be hard to see. It rarely reaches out and grabs us like the radiant colors of pre-dormant trees or the mega-blooms of spring or the majesticness of a mountain. As besuty suggests, it’s subtle and easy to miss.

Given the alternate hypothesis, I now state the null hypothesis as, “Hot and dry is not beauty. It is common and dull.” Let me see if I can change your mind. What do you say?

The first capture is a dried-out fern I found under a bush. The sunlight lit up the fern like a revelation. I post-processed it to black and white. I think black and white shows off the interplay of light and shadow better than color.

Fern Tree

How about this star-shaped flower carcass? It inspires images of weathering windmills that have lost their willpower to wait any longer for the winds.

The Windmill

The curtain hangs in Hellhole Canyon, consumed in Paradise and Witch fires in 2003 and 2007. The black char has faded to grey and new foliage grows slowly out of the base of the post-fire stumps. The wavy arms of the gray limbs could very well be the skeleton of the flames themselves.

Curtain

The dark centered circle gives this the appearance of a bush of eyes, the all-seeing tree in the chaparral. It’s quite common along the trails in the area, but does common preclude besuty? Or is it exactly the reason we fail to see it so often?

The Tree of Eyes

I love the abstract pattern of the whorl, the contrast of purple and green in the blades, and the threat of sharp-tipped barbs.

Whorl

How about the forest of fronds? The brown and gray make one last stand before crumbling back into the ground. Does it remind you of an above-water coral reef?

Frond Forest

Besuty or not besuty, that is the question? My brother would ask, art or not art? I enjoy the thrilling beruty of grand images and intoxicating colors as much as the next photographer but don’t forget to look for the besuty in the common as well.

High Rises (in a Dr. Suess book)
Writing

The La Grange War Memorial

| thetembo
Reading Time: 7 minutes

You are sixteen years old. You are one of the first recruits to make it into Space Force as an infantry spaceman under the new law permitting anyone sixteen years young to join. You are aboard the Kobayashi Maru, a battleship at space for over a month now.
The Commander stands at the podium facing you and the rest of his troops. The Commander says, “Our mission is to control the L5 Earth-Sun La Grange point.” The green dot of his laser pointer pops against the black void on the cisEarth map on the large monitor. “Its location is programmed into your TDUs (tactical display units).”
You speak out, “There’s nothing there but empty space.”
The Commander responds tersely, “This a key control point of cisEarth space.”
You repeat, “But I don’t see nothing there but empty space.”
The Commander represses his anger at the insubordination. “You look but you do not see.”
You respond defiantly, “I see fine. There is nothing there but empty space.”
The Commander practically spits at you as he speaks. “This point is a La Grange point, a key strategic area in space. It may be 93 million miles from Earth but it is vital to the interests of cisEarth space.”
“What the hell is cisEarth space?” You never made it to physics or astronomy class at high school. They are classes for juniors and seniors. You haven’t made it that far in your high school career yet, but you aren’t going to let your ignorance stop you from asking questions.
“Everything on this map,” bellows the Commander, circling the 93 million mile radius of the Earth’s orbit about Sol. “The objective of our mission is to secure and hold the L5 La Grange point. If there are no further questions.” The Commander ends his statement with an understanding clear to all in the room except for you that there are to be no further questions.
“I have further questions. What is a La Grange point?”
“It’s Hill 1022. You understand the importance of high ground, don’t you? A La Grange point is the high ground of outer space.
“Now if there are no further.”
You miss the meaning of his incomplete sentence. You ask, “This is our secret mission? To take over a piece of empty space? This is what you pay me for?”
“I pay you to follow orders, goddammit. No more questions. Gunny, get control of your man.”
“Sir, yes sir,” shouts out the Gunny.
With that, the Commander dismisses you and the rest of the troops.
You turn to Gunny Highway, “He never answered the question. What the hell is a La Grange point? Why are we here?”
Highway, in his own idiosyncratic way, jerks his head sideways and snarls responding in a hoarse voice, “The La Grange points are points in space with no gravity to pull you back to either the Sun or the Earth. Like floating on the water on a surfboard just beyond the surf line.”
“A point? How big is a point?”
“Well, mathematically it’s a point, but practically speaking, it’s about the size of the Earth, maybe bigger.”
“You mean the space is so frickin’ empty it doesn’t even have gravity? And it’s as big as the goddamn Earth. Why do we have to fight for it?”
“These will be holding points for asteroids captured or piloted to the Earth for mining. So they have strategic value to the tune of trillions of dollars.”
“I don’t get it. You could fit a million asteroids into space the size of the Earth.”
“Like the man said, you’re not paid to think. You’re paid to follow orders.”
“I thought I was being paid to finish high school.”
In his gruff manner and guttural voice, Highway says, “Welcome to the real world son. You should have stayed at home.”

#
A blaring siren noise sounds, “Battle Stations. Battle Stations.”
The Commander stands on the bridge of the battleship monitoring the tactical data display. A bright dot is heading straight for the ship.
“Damn it, they’ve been shadowing us in the light of the sun.” No one catches the irony.
The tactical AI application speaks, “Inbound missile detected. Recommend evasive maneuvers.”
“I need a goddamn AI to tell me that? Evasive maneuvers,” responds the Commander. “Prepare to launch countermeasures. Ready missile bay.”
“Missiles ready,” responds a voice over the comm link to the First Strike Defensive Weapons unit.
“Make the initial trajectory of missile one degree off target. They can’t hide in the sun from both us and the missile.”
“Trajectory plotted.”
“Fire away,” orders the Commander.
“Missile away,” responds the First Strike Defensive Weapons unit.
“Inbound missile intercept in thirty minutes.”
“Launch countermeasures,” commands the Commander.
“Countermeasures away,” responds the Counter Offensive Defensive unit.
“Ground troops at the ready,” bellows the tactical leader of the first infantry unit.
You and all the men in your unit race for your suits and helmets and weapons. Your unit takes its positions in the airlocks.
“Troops deploy,” commands the Commander.
The first infantry team deploys out the airlocks positioning itself off the ship’s midsection about one klick. You and the others fall into formation separated and equidistant from one another. You have nothing to gauge your motion in the deep vacuum of space. It looks to you like you are just hovering over the ship.
An energy beam becomes visible as it closes. The iridescent beam passes through the countermeasures like an asteroid through Saturn’s rings.
In an instant, the ship is nothing more than muon shards in the quantum foam of space. The Commander and the ship have been atomized like the photons out of a light bulb. You don’t hear so much as a single scream from the wreckage. The crew of the Kobayashi Maru is as silent as the space you drift in.
In the distance, a rapidly expanding spherical rainbow of colors marks another explosion. The leading edge of the distant ship’s exploded energy field expands past you and the Kobayashi Maru troops passing like water through a fishnet. Your TDU detects enemy combatants approaching. You and the others speed toward your enemy face on and upright like the offense of a football team charging towards the defense without the bother of actually running. In the anger of destruction, no one bothers to worry about rescue and recovery.
Your tactical display registers a hundred enemy combatants on an intercept course. You charge up your weapon. You lock on to a remote target that you can’t see.
Gunny Highway shouts over your ear pod, “Fire at will.”
You fire.
Other shots from the first infantry unit fire into the void. You see Gunny Highway on your three. You recognize his shape and his inimitable sideways head jerk even through the obscurity of his uniform. He fires off three rounds. You see inbound energy spikes speeding towards yourself and the others. You lock on to another target and fire into the void.
An inbound energy pulse speeds to your right. Gunny Highway is split in half vertically from the top of his head to his crotch. The two pieces of him spin counter to one another like two tops, one in the Northern hemisphere and one in the South. You lock and fire into the darkness at an enemy that is nothing more than a blip on your TDU. Again and again. The TDU-indicated remote targets decrease from a hundred to fifty to ten.
More inbound fire. The men about you split in half like a high-speed wire is cutting straight through them. The sectioned parts spin at the cuts in the strangest of ballets. The feet of one man point toward each other than away and then toward each other again like interlocked gears. Another man’s torso and head appear together but then spin so it looks like he is kicking himself in the back of the head and then he is momentarily whole again. A frozen eyeball drifts past you looking blankly into the emptiness of space. A hand frozen on its trigger fires, again and again, the armed appendage recoiling about like a pinball in a game with no bumpers or paddles.
In seconds, no blips remain on your screen. The enemy fire has ceased. You shout out on your comms. “Kobayashi Maru report.” Static. “First infantry, report.” Static. “Anyone, report.” Static. There is no response. There is no purposeful movement. There is no enemy fire. There is no enemy ship. There is only.

#
You. You are the sole survivor. You have won the battle. You never even saw your enemy. You look at your TDU. You have drifted to the exact location of the mathematical abstraction of the La Grange point solidly painted on your screen. You fire your jetpack to stop your forward motion. Aside from a brief deceleration, with no reference points, before and after makes no difference in your speed or direction as far as you can tell.
You switch your comms to an Earth station frequency. You say, “I claim victory for Space Force and our Great Country. I claim this La Grange point for Space Force.” It takes about eight minutes for Earth to learn of your great success.
In another eight minutes, you hear the ground station response, “We don’t have a signal from the Kobayashi Maru. What condition is your ship in?”
You respond, “It’s only me. No other survivors. No ship.” And spinning corpses beginning to orbit about you in the deep gravity well of the La Grange point.
A distant blue dot hangs in the distance. The moon is barely a pixel in your vision. You are in the greatest nothing, both a real and existential void beyond your comprehension. You chose this job. You chose this path. To get to physics and astronomy classes. To get to prom and teenage awkwardness. To escape your mother from smothering you in a bubble. To hide from your father’s never-ending disappointment.
It takes way more than eight minutes before you finally receive a response. “God speed to you son.”
Spinning severed frozen partially uniformed body parts immerse you in a perverse ballet of rotating harmony. Highway’s neatly halved body continues to spin each eye spying its counterpoint for a brief moment then looking away, then looking again. One side gives an eternally frozen snarl to the other every corporeal rotation. The ballet of the battle-lost bodies orbits about you at the La Grange center of emptiness in a gruesome caricature of a solar system with you as its sun.
Your oxygen is redlining. A voice shouts in your ear in alarm. “Warning. Atmosphere depletion imminent. Warning.” You turn off your audio. You release your weapon. You release your TDU. You extend your arm towards Earth and then your middle finger. You detach the glove from the uniform with your left hand while your right arm remains extended with your gesture intact. Your middle-finger and hand freeze instantly in place as the air rushes out of your uniform.
Within a few seconds, you are frozen-dead, locked in a La Grange orbit forever by the negating gravitational forces of the Earth and the Sun. You are a corporeal monument of the “La Grange Wars” preserving your last commentary on the stupidity of your choice and the feelings about the purpose of your effort for all eternity.

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