Monday, January 17, 2022

Anti Teacher Paramilitary Taskforce: Outlander

The Year 1961, Planet earth


An explosion is heard off screen, the camera pans to a lab on fire. We see multiple military supply trucks and convoys evacuating the scene. As alarms blare, One orderly leads 5 Pre-teens to a fire exit. Strangely, they follow suit without much a word

They all load into a military Humvee and drive off, we follow them from a bird's eye perspective, then from the side. The orderly appears calm and stoic, the preteens appear listless. They drive aways, negating and negotiate through traffic and we fade to white
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The orderly pulls over at what appears to be an old, run-down shed of sorts. Upon entering it, a trap door is found, and he instructs them all to follow them. They do, and he picks up what looks like an antique phone. They are surrounded by a baby-blue-ish light and fade away. we fade to black.  

They arrive on a pastel, paradisaical form of earth known as "Bytopia". Finally showing some signs of emotion after all that happened, they run the gamut of shocked, confused, stunned, surprised, and frightened. A venerable man lumbers forth with a walking stick and presents himself to the presumed orderly. The children introduce themselves to him. Cindy, Eric, Morgan, Greg, Tim, and Peter. The orderly introduces himself as Yakob or Jacob. After they talk for awhile, it is decided that they will stay there and that the man will train them in scouting and guiding in preparations for spec ops training when they grow older. Finding a hallowed out Gnome castle, they rename it "Academy" and their training starts. In a medley, they all grow up mastering different elements and skills.

Upon graduation, a medley of the now christened "outlanders" is shown embarking on their first field missions. Eruptor (Eric) made the rank of Captain, Stealth-Elf (Cindy) to the mos of "Assassin" Pop-Fizz (Peter) takes the MOS of "Apothecary" Gill-grunt (Greg), upon completing more training with an earth based divers org earns an amphibious specialist rank Trigger Happy (Tim) takes a ballastics MOS and lastly, Jet-Vac (Yakob) further trains in all form of aircraft with the SAS on earth and takes the aerial vehicles specialist MOS
Present Day

In the presnt, Aizen Magus sends the Outlanders on a combined scouting and hostage retrieval mission citing that two labbies (Test subjects) have been found trapped in the basement of London’s Reading university. They fly their in multiple aerial vehicles and land. Trigger Happy and Stealth-Elf case the parametre and note that for some reason, there doesn't seem to be a guard rotation. Aizen tells them not to be surprised but not keep their guard up, as this

 might be a spring trap. They proceed with caution , team B: consisting of Gilgrunt, popfizz, JetVac, and Eruptor enter the building at night. Inside they meet with a Sympathizing Otter regarding the situation, and he lights the way, guiding them through rooms, and encounters with half-finished zombies. They reach the basement, Gilgrunt and Pop-Fizz Repel out of the building; Stealth-Elf and Eruptor replace them. They signal that those two are going back to base.  

Shattering the silence, the loud abulations of a sickly looking goblinesque creature can be heard. The Otter Exclaims that it’s the “Legendary 001”. All of them flash back to their childhoods at the lab, having seen such htings existing when thehy were youhg, they snap out of it and engaeg in battle, subduing the creature. Both a Masculine anda feminine sounding , but f lat voice are heard, and two tall, green figures with blond hair hang above them. Sealth-elff calls for an air evac, and Aizen Reappears in a medium sized ship.   

Scotland yard, however is not happy with the newsas to what happens. They lauch a smear campiagn against a body of paramilitary teens, as they put it and ban them from further opeaerations in london.. IN Response, and for reasons unexplained, thsands of adults , and their near adult children gather in trafalgar square in protest – Recitingt he outlander creed.  

When he hears this, Aizen is semi heart broken due to all his efforts of the force in the past. Hanzel and Gretel,as they are known suggests they should set up a new base in “Sat Martin’s Land” where they are from. Over the next few weeks, they transfer some major equipment from Bytopia and transport it to a hideout in St Martin’s land. While taking in the environment, neither of htem understand why in the world they were made out to be “the bad guys” Until Hansel and Gretel spill the means. In short, “The Man” AKA “Scotland yard” Knew about the Escape from Rendalshem. However, attempting to repossess the five of them now would be dangerous.  

As the sun sinks under the horizon, Eruptor starts a fire. Aizen Magus gives all of them a breifing. This includes Hansel and Gretel. This is because he’s come tot the suspicion that Ther’s a mole. Not exacctly….ar REGULAR Mole either. Someone told the Prime Minster about them, and that SOMEONE has to be working for Red Syndicate. Red Syndicate is the organization they’e been taking out for years. Everyone agrees, and takes their rank. As part of their gear, they dresss more era appropriate to blend in, however, Gilbert dawns a fedora. Everyone laughs. Trigger happy agrees to be the person who takes the wire, everyone moans. Hansel and Gretel set up the tech and the spycraft, then suit up as well.  

They leave, making it suprisingly into the house of lords unscathed. As they sit down and pretty much put a lid on it, which for Trigger happy is a mircle, things start out as usual. This is until, they find their man. An Annunaki looking suprisingly more homonid known as Lord Ereshkigal. Lord Erishkigal lays out his oproposal for a lab crown, private army. Back in St Martin’s land, Aizen Magus’ Jaw drops in pure suprise, he flashes back to his days seen the birthing bays for a split second. He issues silent orders for htem to wiat for a break-out, spread out again, and meet up at Hyde Park ASAP. There, he sends another Air-evac unit. On the way, NO ONE says anything. When they return, The Outlanders, Hansel and Gretel, and Aizen Talk it out. They have one, ONE objective. TAKE LORD ERISHKIGAL OUT.  

During a Military Tattoo in Luton, they spy their chance. Dawning replica spec ops uniforms, they make their drop. Convinccingly marching in the parade, they spyr their mark and wait for him to fire the first round. He sees them, and does. The fight of the centtury is underhand. Swords, guns,RPGs, and SAS protections stand off. Instead of attaciking the Annunaki directly, they let him take rounds from the SAS planes to weaken him. IT works. When he is, they rail on him relentlessly. HE finally goes down. As the smoke clears, they are no where to be found. The only thing that is heard is the sound of an Evac’s engines igniting….The private Autonomous army request did never pass...

Afterword

In the present day, when they return, everyone holds a small celebration, combing whoops and hallars with the sounds of nature around htem. Aizen Magus is seen smiling drinking a bottle of wine. All he says is “We’ve done it”. The praty goes on long into the night, then everyone

***

Years later, they return to garl Glittergolad’s pub. Everyone sits down to order and they have banter about “The old days” For a bit. This goes when while a group of badgers and otters are listening hiding facial expressions. After, they and Aizen tell some more stories, ther’es a knock on the front door….A VERY battle wheary, older, and disheveled Gilbert walks in, facing Aizen Magus. He faces them all with a soft glow, . “I’m looking to build an army” He says. Right away, they mount their houses, and ride off to the space port.  

End

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Guy’s Allegory of the server: Or an Analysis of “Freeguy”

Guy’s Allegory of the server: Or an Analysis of “Freeguy”

Free….Guy”

A friend of mine who has known me about a score approached me last September and had mentioned that she had seen a movie I absolutely have to see. This person knows me well enough to know my interesting and some what “Narrow seeming” taste in cinema and literature. Between packing and other things, I indulged happily. What I saw, at first, seemed as though it was another “Liberal” commentary on screen use and the stereotype of the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl”. I was wrong….I am happy to report that the grey thing in my head is capable of logic.

In summary, the film follows an avatar known as “Guy” as he navigates the world in what he knows as a “Normal day” similarly to films like “A map of Tiny perfect things”, “Groundhog’s Day”, and the goosebumps ™ Episode “The Ghost Next Door”. It evolves into Guy finding out he’s in a game and breaking character through the person controlling him. He soon becomes a hit with several IRL Lpers**. Shortly after, He himself, is discovered and the person running the game at the company is in the process of creating a sequel to the game. This is the what the crux of the plot is.



Even thought this kind of plot has been popular these days, the way its done int his context is quite refreshing. The writers were probably aware of this, and made every effort to shield the real direction they were going using various writing tricks I have been a gamer since 1989 and into various schools of philosophy since post grad in 2004.

Ascension

In the famous dialogue written by Plato known as “the Allegory of the cave, the whole point of the piece was to illustrate a questioning of reality. Being that all the person in the cave knew was the cave and the shadows dancing and playing off the light, they believed this was in point of fact, reality. Similarly, in the film, once Guy puts on the glasses he’s given by another NPC, he realizes something isn’t as real about his world as he’s thought. He then begins to go against his programming. Thereby, he begins to see the “shadows” aren’t the only reality out there.

T he plot, however, takes an interesting turn near the end. Guy winds up using the powers he gains from figure out that he lives in a game environment to his advantage and convinces a few people to follow him across a bridge juxtaposed with a battle in the “real” world d between the person who runs the company and the main coder. This culminates int eh villain nearly winning until they find out that Guy somehow has the ability to reconstruct he bridge that is being defragged due to the sever destruction. They all cross it, event though it’s breaking down and start their own lives, where like at the end of ReBoot (tm), everything is reset.