#da vinci probe

[the-davinci-probe]

// Hey, we started this blog because we're working on some cool science videos. Heres the animatic shots from our current one about the 2029 davinci probe mission to Venus, called the big plunge. We can share our original animatic now and shots from it since we're producing the final film And as always: Space is the coolest

[naturegirly55]

20 random things from Star Trek that sound like I made them up

A man and his evil twin have to fight each other for eternity to maintain the safety of their universes. 

Amelia Earhart was abducted by aliens. 

It’s possible for a Vulcan to (briefly) survive without a brain. 

Vulcans invented Velcro. 

Chakotay’s spirit left his body and he possessed the other characters for a whole episode. 

The Devil and the Greek gods are real. 

Data became friends with Jack London and Mark Twain.

Star Trek did mpreg in 2001.

Riker killed two defenseless people and no one cared (seemingly because they were clones).

Mating for Kes had to start with having a parent massage her feet until her tongue swelled. 

It’s considered good luck for Klingons if they break their clavicle on their wedding night. 

Q expressed regret because he’d never thought to appear to Picard in a female body.

Q and Picard were shown in bed together twice.

Deanna, her mother, Worf, and Alexander took a mud bath together. 

Kirk had two exes who were extremely jealous of his career and tried to kill him.

Alexander the Great, Lazarus, Methuselah, Merlin, da Vinci, and Brahms were revealed to be the same person. 

It’s established that some humans are born with telepathic abilities. 

Geordi La Forge (aka LeVar Burton who also did Reading Rainbow) desperately wanted to see a rainbow. 

The TOS characters had to stop a probe from destroying Earth on three occasions. 

The Omega Glory is about communism and isn’t an abo fic on ao3. 

[the-demigod-project]

Villains List: Golden Fed.

Name: Elena Ferrari

Code Name: Link

Age: 29

Affiliation: Golden Federation

Physical Appearance: Height (155cm), lithe athletic body build, light beige skintone, short wavy black hair, and bright hazel eyes.

Demigod Form:

Powers: Telepathy & Super Intelligence:

Telepathy:

• Elena’s telepathy allows her to read and manipulate minds with surgical precision. She can delve into memories, extract secrets, or implant ideas subtly enough to make them seem like the target’s own thoughts.

• Her mental reach extends across vast distances, enabling her to coordinate operations in real time or influence decisions made in distant boardrooms or battlefields.

Super Intelligence:

• Her mind operates like a quantum computer, capable of solving impossibly complex problems, analyzing countless variables, and predicting outcomes with uncanny accuracy.

• She can process multiple streams of information simultaneously, from hacking encrypted systems to devising flawless battle strategies.

Info: Elena Ferrari was not born but engineered, a perfect blend of cutting-edge science and ancient myth. Conceived in the highly secretive Kronos Initiative, a German laboratory specializing in creating enhanced beings, she was part of an elite project to create demigods capable of serving the Golden Federation. Her Italian heritage was selected intentionally—famous for producing brilliant thinkers and strategists, from Leonardo da Vinci to Niccolò Machiavelli. Her creators believed this lineage, paired with their scientific advancements, would result in a mind that could transcend mortal intelligence. Elena was created in 1988, designed to serve this vast superpower and secure its dominance in intelligence, strategy, and covert operations. Elena was raised in a controlled environment, her every thought and action carefully observed. She was educated through immersive neural interfaces and simulations that ran at accelerated speeds, allowing her to master centuries of knowledge by the time she turned 10.

By adulthood, her telepathic abilities had fully developed, allowing her to probe minds, manipulate thoughts, and process information from countless sources simultaneously. This made her the perfect operative in a world ruled by shadows and secrets. Despite being a product of the Federation’s ambitions, Elena is far from a mindless tool. Her super-intelligence allows her to see the cracks in the system she serves. She recognizes the Golden Federation's authoritarian tendencies but understands the chaos that could arise if it were to collapse. This duality defines her: she is loyal to the Federation, but only because she believes in maintaining global stability. Her own moral compass often conflicts with the orders she receives, leading her to find creative solutions that minimize unnecessary suffering. Elena is fiercely independent, with a sharp wit and a dry sense of humor that often masks her inner turmoil. She has a calculated demeanor, rarely showing emotion, yet those closest to her know that her seemingly cold exterior hides a deep compassion for humanity—a trait she has tried to suppress to fulfill her role.

Elena also operates as an elite intelligence officer and strategist for the Golden Federation, using her telepathic abilities to extract critical information, outmaneuver enemies, and neutralize threats before they arise. Her nickname, Link, comes from her unparalleled ability to connect thoughts, ideas, and people across vast networks, both physical and mental. She is also tasked with overseeing Project Omega, a covert initiative aimed at quelling resistance movements and expanding the Federation's influence. However, Elena often works behind the scenes to mitigate the Federation’s harsher policies, believing that true order must come from trust and cooperation, not fear.

Name: Leo Von Degenfeld

Code Name: Sword Saint

Age: 23

Affiliation: Golden Federation

Physical Appearance: Height (179cm), lean athletic body build, fair skintone, snow white medium wavy hair, and kind hazel eyes(turn gold sometimes).

Demigod Form:

Powers: Blade Transcendent:

• Enhanced Reflexes and Precision: Leo can anticipate and react to attacks before they are even fully executed, moving with speed and accuracy that make him almost untouchable.

• Spiritual Connection to the Blade: Leo’s mastery extends beyond physical technique. He can sense the “spirit” of a weapon, adapting his style to the unique properties of any blade he wields. This ability also allows him to form an almost mystical bond with his weapon, amplifying his combat abilities.

• Unparalleled Technique: Leo possesses knowledge of every known swordsmanship style and has created techniques that defy logic, such as cutting through objects at a distance or parrying bullets with ease.

• Battlefield Awareness: His heightened senses and strategic mind make him an unrivaled tactician, capable of analyzing and adapting to the flow of combat in real time.

Info: Leo Von Degenfeld was born into one of Germany’s most prestigious aristocratic families, whose lineage stretched back to the Teutonic Knights, a storied order of warrior monks who upheld faith and conquest. The Von Degenfeld family became celebrated as both noble diplomats and exceptional warriors, their loyalty to the Reich unwavering through decades of political upheaval. After Germany's victory in World War II, the Von Degenfelds played an instrumental role in shaping the militaristic and hierarchical structure of the Golden Federation. The family estate, nestled deep in the Bavarian Alps, stood as a monument to their legacy. Within its walls were not only riches but also priceless artifacts of history, including heirlooms from the Teutonic Knights and ancient manuscripts detailing esoteric martial techniques. For generations, the Von Degenfelds trained their children in the art of combat, philosophy, and governance, ensuring they could serve both as warriors and leaders.

Leo, the youngest of three siblings, grew up under the shadow of his older brothers, both of whom were celebrated for their achievements in the Federation’s military elite. His father, Baron Wilhelm Von Degenfeld, was a decorated general, and his mother, Countess Helena, was a scholar of martial history. While his upbringing was privileged, it was also demanding, as his family adhered to strict codes of discipline and honor. From a young age, Leo exhibited an uncanny talent for swordsmanship. By the age of eight, he could wield a blade with precision that astonished even the most seasoned instructors. His movements were fluid, almost instinctive, as if he was born with an innate connection to the blade. This natural talent set him apart from his siblings and caught the attention of the Kronos Initiative, the Federation’s secretive program dedicated to creating enhanced beings, or “demigods,” capable of securing its dominance for generations to come.

At the age of 10, Leo was inducted into the Kronos Initiative. While his siblings were sent to conventional military academies, he was subjected to the cutting-edge experiments and rigorous training of the Initiative. The Von Degenfelds willingly offered Leo to the program, believing it was his destiny to embody the pinnacle of their family’s martial legacy. The Kronos Initiative sought to merge human skill with divine power, and Leo’s exceptional swordsmanship made him the perfect candidate for a Demigod of Transcendent Swordsmanship. Through a combination of genetic enhancement, neurological augmentation, and esoteric rituals inspired by ancient Teutonic practices, Leo was transformed into a being who could transcend the physical limitations of ordinary warriors.

The program trained Leo relentlessly, pitting him against enhanced soldiers, machines, and even other demigods in brutal combat simulations. By the time he turned 16, he had surpassed every expectation, earning the code name “Sword Saint” in recognition of his mastery. After completing his transformation, Leo was deployed as a military prodigy and symbol of the Federation’s might. He quickly gained fame for his exploits on the battlefield, where he led elite units to victory against insurgencies and rival powers. His presence alone was often enough to demoralize enemies, as tales of his skill and near-invincibility spread like wildfire. Leo is frequently sent on high-profile missions, acting as both a warrior and a diplomat. His aristocratic upbringing allows him to navigate the political intricacies of the Federation’s ruling elite, while his martial prowess ensures loyalty and fear among the Federation’s enemies. While his family views him as the ultimate realization of their legacy, Leo sometimes questions whether his enhancement has stripped him of his humanity. As a soldier of the Federation, Leo has been forced to carry out orders that conflict with his personal sense of honor. These moments weigh heavily on him, as he strives to balance loyalty with his own ideals.

Leo embodies the ideals of a knight: honor, discipline, and loyalty. However, beneath his stoic and composed exterior lies a young man grappling with his identity. While he takes pride in his abilities, he also feels burdened by the expectations placed upon him. He is introspective and philosophical, often contemplating the nature of power, duty, and what it means to be human. Leo’s demeanor is calm and measured, but when he enters combat, he becomes a whirlwind of precision and power. He respects his opponents and views battle as a sacred art, often showing mercy when he believes it is deserved. This sense of honor has earned him respect even among his enemies.

Name: Baldur

Code Name: Subject-Ragnarok

Age: 59

Affiliation: Golden Federation

Physical Appearance: Height (229cm), muscular body build, light tan skintone, medium buzz cut black hair dyed blonde, and strong willed silver eyes.

Demigod Form:

Powers: Violence Embodiment:

• Combat Empowerment: Baldur’s strength, speed, and durability increase proportionally to the intensity of violence around him. The more chaos and bloodshed he witnesses or participates in, the more unstoppable he becomes.

• Berserker Mode: When critically injured or enraged, Baldur enters a heightened state of aggression, ignoring pain and damage as he unleashes devastating attacks with inhuman precision.

• Violence Aura: Baldur’s presence incites aggression and fear in those around him, destabilizing enemy morale and even causing allies to act recklessly.

• Weapon Proficiency: Baldur has an innate mastery of all forms of weaponry, ranging from primitive tools to advanced firearms. He often uses whatever is available to inflict maximum destruction.

• Unyielding Flesh: His body is unnaturally resilient, able to heal rapidly from most injuries. This regenerative ability ensures he remains in the fight, even under extreme conditions.

• Ragnarok’s Wrath: In rare moments of extreme focus, Baldur channels the full extent of his power into a single, apocalyptic attack, capable of leveling entire battlefields.

Info: Baldur, the younger brother of Michael (Subject-Abyss), shares a similar origin steeped in tragedy and experimentation. Born five years after Michael, Baldur grew up under the shadow of his older brother’s stoicism and strength. Together, the two siblings navigated the harsh realities of life as German orphans. When the Old Führer adopted them, Baldur viewed him less as a father figure and more as a beacon of power and dominance. While Michael was molded into a disciplined and loyal soldier, Baldur was drawn to the chaos and violence that accompanied their upbringing, seeing destruction as both an art and a purpose.

At the age of six, Baldur followed Michael into the Kronos Initiative, where he was subjected to brutal experiments designed to awaken latent superhuman potential. Unlike his brother’s transformation into a creature of shadow, Baldur’s powers manifested as a visceral connection to violence itself. Dubbed "Violence Embodiment," Baldur became a living weapon, capable of amplifying his strength and durability through his proximity to acts of brutality and carnage. This transformation also awakened an insatiable thirst for combat, making him a relentless and savage force in battle. Baldur thrived in the Federation’s war-torn landscapes, where his unique powers and unbridled aggression made him a fearsome soldier and a terrifying enemy. While Michael retained a sense of humanity, Baldur fully embraced his monstrous nature, reveling in the chaos and destruction he was born to create.

Baldur is a mix of charm and bloodlust. Outside of combat, he can be disarmingly charismatic, with a sharp wit and a penchant for dark humor. However, this facade quickly crumbles when he is presented with the opportunity for violence. Baldur loves war in all its forms, seeing it not as a means to an end but as the ultimate expression of human nature. He thrives in chaos, finding beauty in the destruction and depravity that others shy away from. Unlike Michael, Baldur has little patience for philosophy or introspection. He lives in the moment, driven by his instincts and his unrelenting desire for combat. Despite this, he is fiercely loyal to his brother and the Golden Federation, seeing their cause as a perfect stage for his violent artistry. Baldur’s relationship with Michael is one of mutual respect and dependence, with Baldur often deferring to Michael’s strategic mind while providing the raw power to execute their missions. Baldur’s love of violence, however, makes him a dangerous ally.

While he follows orders with unwavering loyalty, his bloodlust can sometimes lead to excessive collateral damage or the alienation of potential allies. His superiors tolerate this behavior only because of his unparalleled effectiveness on the battlefield. Baldur serves as a front-line enforcer and shock trooper for the Federation, deployed in situations where overwhelming force is required. His ability to turn the tide of battle through sheer ferocity and brutality makes him a key asset in the Federation’s military campaigns. Baldur is often sent into the most dangerous missions, where his powers can be unleashed without restraint. While his chaotic nature makes him a liability in diplomatic or covert operations, Baldur’s reputation as an unstoppable force precedes him, striking fear into the hearts of enemies long before he arrives on the battlefield. To the Federation’s leadership, Baldur is both a weapon and a spectacle, a living reminder of their dominance and the price of defiance.

Name: Michael

Code Name: Subject-Abyss

Age: 64

Affiliation: Golden Federation

Physical Appearance: Height (199cm), lean body build, pitch black skintone.

Demigod Form:

Powers: Shadow Manipulation:

• Abyssal Cloak: Michael can envelop himself in darkness, becoming nearly invisible in low-light conditions. This cloak also enhances his physical resilience, as shadows absorb incoming damage.

• Shadow Constructs: He can create tangible objects or weapons from shadows, ranging from simple blades to intricate barriers.

• Dimensional Rift: By tapping into the Abyss, Michael can summon portals of darkness to transport himself or others over short distances. These rifts also serve as traps, pulling enemies into the void never to return.

• Sentient Shadows: Michael can animate his shadows, using them as extensions of himself to attack, restrain, or scout areas.

• Void Sense: His lack of a physical head has enhanced his perception through the Abyss, allowing him to see and hear across vast distances and detect lifeforms hidden in darkness.

• Corruptive Aura: Prolonged exposure to Michael’s shadows can weaken enemies, sapping their strength and resolve.

Info: Michael and his younger brother, Baldur, were born in the war-ravaged streets of Germany during the twilight years of global conflict. Orphaned at a young age, the two brothers were taken in by an enigmatic figure referred to only as the "Old Führer," a powerful and mysterious leader of a post-war German faction that later aligned with the Golden Federation. The Führer saw potential in the two boys and raised them to be tools of his vision, shaping them into disciplined warriors with unshakable loyalty to his ideals. At the tender age of eleven, both Michael and Baldur were inducted into the Kronos Initiative, a shadowy project aimed at forging superhuman soldiers. As part of their transformation, the brothers underwent excruciating procedures to unlock dormant abilities.

For Michael, this meant merging with the essence of the Abyss, an alternate dimension composed of pure darkness and negative energy. The procedure not only awakened his powers of Shadow Manipulation but also fundamentally altered his physical form: his head vanished entirely, absorbed into the Abyss itself. While this transformation was horrifying, Michael emerged with newfound abilities that placed him among the most formidable of the Kronos subjects. Despite his disfigurement, his voice could still be heard, and his vision extended far beyond human limits, leading to rumors that his head now resides in a different realm, tethered to him by the shadows he commands.

Michael is the epitome of loyalty and discipline, molded by the ideals instilled in him by the Führer and reinforced by the Federation’s doctrine. He is calm, calculating, and unwavering in his devotion to the cause. Despite his intimidating appearance, Michael exudes an aura of quiet authority, rarely raising his voice but commanding respect through his sheer presence. Beneath his stoic exterior, Michael harbors a deep bond with his brother Baldur, viewing him as the only remaining fragment of his humanity. The two share an unbreakable connection forged through shared suffering and survival. While Michael’s loyalty to the Federation is absolute, his love for his brother occasionally creates moments of introspection, as he questions the morality of their existence.

Michael’s loss of a physical head has become a defining feature of his identity. Rather than viewing it as a curse, he sees it as a symbol of his transcendence beyond human limitations. This detachment from his former self fuels his belief that he is no longer bound by human weaknesses, making him a highly focused and unrelenting force on the battlefield. Michael serves as an elite operative and enforcer for the Federation, specializing in covert operations and assassination missions. His ability to manipulate shadows makes him the perfect infiltrator, capable of dismantling enemy defenses without leaving a trace. Additionally, his strategic mind and calm demeanor make him a trusted advisor to high-ranking Federation officials. Despite his loyalty, Michael’s existence raises fear and awe in equal measure among his peers. His disfigurement and connection to the Abyss make him an unsettling figure, even to those who fight alongside him. Yet, his effectiveness in battle and unwavering dedication ensure that he remains an indispensable asset to the Federation.

Name: Felix

Code Name: Subject-Angel

Age: 28

Affiliation: Golden Federation

Physical Appearance: Height (186cm), toned body build, light fair skintone, short soft white wavy hair, and pale green eyes.

Demigod Form:

Powers: Divine Light:

• Radiant Energy Manipulation: Felix can project beams, bursts, or waves of concentrated light energy capable of incinerating enemies or shielding allies.

• Healing Touch: The Divine Light allows Felix to heal wounds and cure ailments.

• Light-Wings Manifestation: Felix can create ethereal wings of light to sprout from his back, granting him the ability to fly and enhancing his combat agility.

• Aura of Serenity: Felix radiates a calming presence that can inspire allies and demoralize enemies, often turning the tide of battle without lifting a finger.

• Enhanced Reflexes and Strength: The Divine Light amplifies his physical capabilities, making him faster, stronger, and more durable than any ordinary demigod.

Info: Felix, codenamed Subject-Angel, is the result of a clandestine project within the Golden Federation, designed to harness the essence of divine energy for the purpose of creating a perfect warrior and symbol of hope. Born into obscurity, Felix's early life was that of an ordinary child until the Kronos Initiative identified him as an ideal candidate for their ambitious experiment to merge human potential with celestial power. Despite these remarkable powers, the process left Felix with lingering scars—both physical and emotional. His body constantly burns with the energy he wields, requiring intense focus and discipline to avoid being consumed by it. Felix’s transformation into Subject-Angel shaped his personality profoundly. Having experienced the pain and isolation of being an experiment, he carries a quiet, reflective demeanor. He views himself as a protector of the innocent, driven by a deep sense of compassion and justice. However, he also struggles with the weight of being labeled a "divine being" and the expectations that come with it.

Felix often questions his purpose, torn between serving the Golden Federation, which he owes his existence to, and his desire to use his powers for the greater good, even if it means defying orders. His inner conflict makes him an enigmatic figure—respected and admired by those who meet him, yet deeply misunderstood. Felix serves as both a warrior and a symbol of divine authority for the Golden Federation. His presence on the battlefield inspires soldiers and civilians alike, often portrayed in propaganda as a "savior" figure. While Felix fulfills this role out of duty, he harbors doubts about the Federation’s morality, especially as he witnesses the suffering of those under its regime. The Federation leverages Felix’s abilities sparingly, recognizing that his power is as much a psychological weapon as it is a physical one. He is deployed in critical missions that require overwhelming force or the restoration of morale. Felix, however, secretly seeks opportunities to undermine the Federation’s more oppressive policies, acting as a covert protector for those who cannot defend themselves.

Name: Francis

Code Name: Subject-Devil

Age: 28

Affiliation: Golden Federation

Physical Appearance: Height (186cm), toned body build, light fair skintone, medium messy white hair, and pale blue eyes.

Demigod Form:

Powers: Demonic Hellfire:

• Hellfire Manipulation: Francis can summon and control infernal flames that burn hotter than conventional fire, capable of disintegrating nearly anything in their path.

• Infernal Armor: He can encase himself in flames that act as both a shield and a weapon, making him nearly invulnerable in close combat.

• Dark Teleportation: Using bursts of hellfire, Francis can instantly transport himself short distances, leaving trails of flame in his wake.

• Fear Aura: His presence can instill dread and panic in those around him, often rendering enemies too terrified to fight effectively.

• Enhanced Strength and Endurance: The hellfire within him fuels his body, making him physically stronger and more resilient than most demigods.

Info: Francis, codenamed Subject-Devil, is the twin brother of Felix (Subject-Angel). The two brothers share an intricate bond shaped by both their shared beginnings and their divergent paths within the Kronos Initiative. Like Felix, Francis was subjected to experiments intended to create demigods of unparalleled power. However, while Felix was infused with the celestial energy of Divine Light, Francis was imbued with the chaotic and destructive force of Demonic Hellfire. This duality of their powers—light and darkness—became both a symbol and a curse for the two brothers. The Federation saw them as the perfect embodiment of balance: Felix, the radiant savior, and Francis, the wrathful destroyer. Unlike Felix, who embraced his role as a protector, Francis was molded into a weapon of intimidation and devastation.

Francis's infusion with Demonic Hellfire left him with immense power, but it also came at a great cost. The process tethered him to an unrelenting, fiery rage that he must constantly suppress to retain his humanity. Francis is a complex individual, deeply conflicted by his role as Subject-Devil. Unlike Felix, who is revered as a beacon of hope, Francis is often feared and misunderstood, even by those within the Federation. This alienation has fostered a sense of resentment and loneliness, though he hides it beneath a stoic and guarded exterior. Despite his fearsome reputation, Francis possesses a strong moral compass and a fierce loyalty to those he cares about—particularly Felix. He resents the Federation for manipulating him and his brother, and he harbors a growing desire to break free from their control. However, he also struggles with self-doubt, fearing that the hellfire within him makes him irredeemable.

Francis's relationship with Felix is both a source of strength and tension. While they share a deep bond as twins, their opposing powers and roles often put them at odds. Francis envies Felix's ability to inspire hope and wonders if his own existence is doomed to destruction and despair. Francis serves as the Federation’s enforcer, deployed in situations where overwhelming force or intimidation is required. His mere presence on the battlefield is enough to demoralize opposition, and his hellfire ensures that few survive to tell the tale. The Federation uses him as a symbol of their dominance—a stark contrast to Felix’s role as their angelic savior. While Francis fulfills his duties out of obligation, he secretly despises being a tool of fear. He longs for a purpose beyond destruction and dreams of a day when he can wield his powers for something greater.

Name: Lunette O'Neill

Code Name: Subject-Primordial

Age: 49

Affiliation: Golden Federation

Physical Appearance: Height(169cm), slim body build, rosy ivory skintone, vivid red hair styled in soft waves, and gentle piercing golden eyes.

Demigod Form:

Powers: Fear Manipulation:

• Fear Projection: Lunette can induce vivid hallucinations and paralyzing terror in her targets by manifesting their worst fears. Her victims often experience debilitating mental breakdowns, rendering them unable to resist or fight back.

• Aura of Dread: Simply by entering a room, Lunette can exude an aura that instills unease and anxiety in everyone around her. The strength of this effect is proportional to her focus and intent.

• Emotional Manipulation: Beyond fear, Lunette has a subtle ability to manipulate other emotions, such as desperation, awe, or loyalty, allowing her to bend individuals to her will.

• Mental Fortitude: Her own mind is nearly impenetrable, making her immune to most forms of telepathy or psychological manipulation.

• Physical Agility and Strength: As a demigod, Lunette possesses enhanced reflexes, agility, and a strength beyond most demigods.

Info: Lunette O'Neill, also known as Subject-Primordial, was born into a tumultuous world where the Golden Federation's shadow loomed over every corner of society. Taken into the Kronos Initiative at the tender age of three alongside her older brother Flann, Lunette has no memory of her parents or life before the labs. The O'Neill siblings were orphans of war, plucked from the remnants of a forgotten Irish rebellion and subjected to the Federation's experiments in creating demigods. While Flann became a failed experiment and died his death was relegated to obscurity within the Initiative, and Lunette thrived. Her innate resilience and adaptability made her a prime candidate for the next phase of the Kronos Initiative: the manipulation of primal human emotions. Infused with the power of Fear Manipulation, Lunette became a master of psychological warfare.

Lunette is a formidable and charismatic figure, with a magnetic presence that draws others to her even as it unsettles them. She is fiercely independent and ambitious, often using her charm and cunning to get her way. While she appears poised and composed on the surface, Lunette is deeply calculating, always analyzing situations and people to her advantage. Her experiences in the Kronos Initiative have left her with a cynical view of the world. She sees life as a game of power and influence, and she plays it with unmatched precision. Lunette is not above using manipulation or intimidation to achieve her goals, but she also possesses a sharp wit and a dark sense of humor that make her company oddly captivating.

Lunette serves as one of the Federation's most effective agents in espionage and psychological operations. Her ability to control and weaponize fear makes her a valuable asset in quelling uprisings, interrogating prisoners, and eliminating threats before they can take root. However, Lunette's ambitions extend far beyond her current role. She has a knack for maneuvering herself into positions of influence, and she dreams of one day holding true power within the Federation. Her relationship with the Federation is complex. While she respects their vision of order and control, she resents being treated as just another tool in their arsenal. Lunette has been known to manipulate situations to suit her own agenda, often walking a fine line between loyalty and rebellion.

Name: Flann O'Neill

Code Name: Subject-7981

Age: 52

Affiliation: Golden Federation (Rebel)

Physical Appearance: Height (200cm), ripped fit body build, ivory pale skintone, long straight scarlet hair, and orange burning eyes.

Demigod Form:

Powers: Sun Embodiment:

• Solar Flare Projection: Flann can unleash concentrated blasts of solar energy, capable of incinerating anything within their radius. The intensity of these flares varies depending on his emotional state.

• Radiance Aura: His body emits a constant, low-level glow, which intensifies during combat or moments of heightened emotion. This aura can blind opponents or provide healing warmth to allies.

• Enhanced Strength and Durability: Flann’s physical capabilities are vastly superior to ordinary demigods, allowing him to endure extreme conditions and overpower even the strongest adversaries.

• Thermal Manipulation: He can manipulate heat within a certain radius, creating scorching environments or suppressing cold temperatures.

• Solar Regeneration: Flann possesses accelerated healing, though the energy required for regeneration draws from his solar reserves.

Info: Flann O'Neill, code-named Subject-7981, is the elder brother of Lunette O'Neill. Born amidst the chaos of a crumbling Irish rebellion, Flann’s early childhood was marked by loss and uncertainty. At just six years old, he and his younger sister were orphaned and subsequently taken into the Kronos Initiative, an experimental program of the Golden Federation. Unlike Lunette, whose adaptability allowed her to thrive, Flann’s journey through the Initiative was fraught with challenges. The experiments, designed to awaken latent powers within him, triggered abilities far beyond the Federation’s expectations.

Flann’s powers—the embodiment of the sun itself—proved to be too volatile to control. Viewing him as a threat, the Initiative confined him to a high-security facility after he attempted to escape during a destructive awakening of his abilities. To protect Lunette’s loyalty, the Initiative fabricated a story of Flann’s death. Flann is a complex individual, shaped by years of isolation and betrayal. Once a protective and optimistic older brother, his confinement has left him disillusioned and guarded. Despite this, a deep sense of duty and love for Lunette remains at his core, driving him to survive in the hopes of reuniting with her one day. The thought of her survival and potential happiness fuels his determination.

Flann’s feelings of guilt for failing to protect Lunette haunt him, though he also harbors anger toward the Federation for using them both as tools. Fortunately Flann is highly intelligent and resourceful, having spent decades studying his captors and planning potential escapes. He plans to one day rid himself of his wardens. And his time in solitude has also honed his resilience and mental fortitude, though it has come at the cost of his trust in others. He is quick to anger but equally quick to show compassion to those he deems deserving.

Name: Bernhard Ackermann

Code Name: Subject-Galaxy Rune

Age: 76

Affiliation: Golden Federation

Physical Appearance: Height (188cm), muscular body build, azure-blue skintone, blue medium spiky hair, and cyan glowing eyes.

Demigod Form:

Powers: Gravity Manipulation:

• Gravity Field Control: Bernhard can manipulate gravitational forces in his vicinity, increasing or decreasing their intensity at will. This allows him to immobilize opponents, create crushing pressure zones, or nullify gravity to cause weightlessness.

• Cosmic Strikes: By channeling celestial energy, Bernhard can deliver devastating attacks that mimic the force of a collapsing star. His strikes are both a physical and energy-based threat, capable of annihilating armored foes.

• Spatial Rift Generation: Bernhard has limited control over spacetime distortions, enabling him to create small wormholes for short-range teleportation or devastating implosions.

• Tactical Levitation: By nullifying gravity around himself, Bernhard can achieve flight and maneuver effortlessly in combat.

• Resilience of the Void: His modifications have granted him superhuman durability, longevity, and an ability to survive in extreme environments, including the vacuum of space.

Info: Bernhard Ackermann was born into the lap of military privilege in the heart of the Golden Federation. The son of General Dietrich Ackermann, one of the Federation’s most ambitious and ruthless leaders, Bernhard’s fate was sealed the moment he drew breath. As the scion of a military dynasty, great things were expected of him, but his father sought more than just a promising soldier — he sought a legacy of unparalleled power. At the age of fifteen, Bernhard was sent into the clutches of the Kronos Initiative, a top-secret program aimed at creating living weapons for the Federation. Dietrich, hungry for influence and personal gain, volunteered his only child for experimentation without a shred of hesitation. The rationale was simple: if the experiment succeeded, Dietrich would have an unmatched weapon under his command; if it failed, he would sever the weakness of sentimentality from his life.

Bernhard’s experience in the Initiative was marked by immense pain and isolation. Subjected to grueling tests and life-threatening experiments, he underwent a series of physical and genetic modifications to awaken the latent cosmic potential within him. This process forged his connection to the fundamental forces of the universe, granting him mastery over Gravity Manipulation. The boy who once sought to impress his father has long since disappeared, replaced by a hardened and enigmatic individual. Decades of servitude to the Federation have shaped Bernhard into a stoic and introspective figure. He rarely shows emotion, speaking only when necessary, and his words often carry an air of cosmic detachment, as if he is observing the world from a distance.

Deep within, however, Bernhard harbors a smoldering resentment toward his father and the Federation that made him what he is. He sees himself as a fractured being — part human, part cosmic anomaly, and entirely alone in the universe. This inner turmoil drives his quiet rebellion, as he dreams of breaking free from the chains of servitude and determining his own destiny. Bernhard is a man of profound intellect and discipline, capable of devising brilliant strategies in both combat and political intrigue. Despite his cold exterior, he possesses a keen sense of justice, though it is often obscured by his pragmatic approach to survival.

Within the Federation, Bernhard serves as a highly effective enforcer and tactician. His abilities make him a terrifying presence on the battlefield, capable of dismantling armies and subjugating entire regions. However, his true value lies in his strategic mind, which allows him to predict and counteract insurgencies with chilling efficiency. Despite his apparent loyalty, Bernhard’s relationship with the Federation is fraught with tension. He sees the organization as a corrupt machine that sacrifices individuals for the sake of power, and he loathes the fact that he has become one of its most potent tools.

Name: Ruth Perez

Code Name: Yggdrasil

Age: 39

Affiliation: Golden Federation

Physical Appearance: Height (177cm), toned curvy body build, a fawn skintone, medium messy platinum white hair, and bright sapphire eyes.

Demigod Form:

Powers: Ash Manipulation:

• Ash Manipulation: Ruth can create, control, and shape ash into various forms, from dense, weapon-like constructs to swirling storms that obscure visibility and choke opponents.

• Volcanic Ash: She can generate superheated ash capable of burning through metal and flesh, making her attacks devastatingly lethal.

• Phoenix’s Renewal: By absorbing ash, Ruth can accelerate her healing process, recovering from wounds that would be fatal to ordinary humans.

• Ashen Veil: Ruth can cloak herself in a shroud of ash, rendering her nearly invisible in smoky or dim environments while disorienting enemies.

• Rebirth Field: Ruth can release a burst of ash that simultaneously destroys everything within a certain radius while healing her allies and herself.

• Catalyst Touch: Ruth’s presence can decay objects or materials into ash with a mere touch, though this requires deliberate activation.

Info: Born into the illustrious Perez family, one of Spain's wealthiest and most influential dynasties, Ruth’s life began with luxury and privilege. Her family’s fortune was built on a sprawling business empire that ranged from mining to luxury goods, with connections that extended into international politics and, crucially, the Golden Federation. However, beneath the glamour and prestige, the Perez family’s loyalty to the Federation came with a steep price. Ruth, the youngest of four siblings, was an unwanted child in a family preoccupied with power and appearances. When the Federation approached the Perez family with an opportunity to strengthen their alliance by offering a child for the Kronos Initiative, Ruth’s parents saw her as expendable.

At the tender age of six, Ruth was taken from her gilded world and delivered into the cold, sterile hands of the Federation scientists. The experiments conducted on Ruth were designed to unlock latent abilities tied to elemental manipulation. Through years of excruciating trials, her powers began to manifest: the ability to manipulate and control ash, a symbol of destruction and renewal. The Federation named her Subject-Yggdrasil, a reference to the Norse tree of life, underscoring her dual nature as a harbinger of ruin and rebirth. Ruth’s personality is shaped by a life of betrayal, survival, and defiance. While her upbringing in the Perez family left her with an ingrained sense of poise and cunning, the trauma of being handed over to the Federation instilled in her a fierce independence and distrust of authority.

She is deeply resentful of her family’s decision to abandon her and harbors a quiet but intense hatred for the Federation, despite serving as one of their operatives. Ruth is calculated and resourceful, always looking for ways to turn situations to her advantage. She has a sharp tongue and an unyielding determination that makes her both a respected and feared figure among her peers. Beneath her hardened exterior, however, lies a deep yearning for freedom and a sense of belonging, emotions she rarely allows herself to show. Her codename, Yggdrasil, reflects the duality of her powers and her personality: destruction paired with regeneration, death alongside life. Ruth often muses on the irony of her role in the Federation, as both a weapon of annihilation and a symbol of rebirth. Ruth’s powers make her an invaluable asset to the Federation’s covert and tactical operations. Her ability to devastate enemy strongholds while minimizing casualties on her side has earned her a reputation as a strategic genius and a force to be reckoned with.

She is often deployed in missions requiring surgical precision and overwhelming firepower, where her ash manipulation can be used to both destroy and conceal. Despite her effectiveness, Ruth’s loyalty to the Federation is far from absolute. She views her role as a means to an end, biding her time while searching for opportunities to undermine the organization that robbed her of her childhood. Her superiors are aware of her rebellious streak but tolerate it because of her unparalleled success rate and the fear she inspires in both allies and enemies.

Name: Gabriel Althaus

Code Name: Subject-19 (The Eternal Shield)

Age: 90

Affiliation: Golden Federation

Physical Appearance: Height (193cm), lean toned body build, very fair skintone, messy platinum blonde hair, and calculating golden eyes.

Demigod Form:

Powers: Order Manipulation:

• Systematic Control: Gabriel can restructure and reorganize any system — biological, mechanical, or societal — to operate according to his precise specifications. This includes halting chaotic processes or optimizing systems for efficiency.

• Reality Anchoring: He can stabilize unstable environments, nullify chaotic powers (such as entropy-based or random abilities), and restore balance to fractured spaces.

• Command of Forces: Gabriel has the ability to dictate the behavior of objects or entities within a defined area, enforcing strict rules that cannot be broken. For example, he can create zones where only he can act or where certain actions are prohibited.

• Temporal Regulation: While not capable of outright time manipulation, Gabriel can slow, accelerate, or pause processes in localized areas, granting him an advantage in combat and strategy.

• Mental Domination: Gabriel’s presence exudes authority, allowing him to impose his will on weaker minds. He can compel obedience, quell rebellion, and instill order within disorganized groups.

• Immutable Constructs: He can forge structures of pure order, such as barriers, weapons, or even autonomous constructs, which are nearly indestructible and operate with mechanical precision.

Info: Born in 1927 in Berlin, Gabriel Althaus grew up during one of the most tumultuous periods in German history. The upheavals of World War II shaped his early life, fostering a deep-seated desire for order and control amidst chaos. Coming from a middle-class family with no significant influence, Gabriel’s aspirations to rise above his station were stoked by the crumbling society around him. In 1949, as post-war Germany struggled to rebuild, Gabriel became one of the first to volunteer for the Kronos Initiative, an experimental program under Federation oversight designed to create “Demigods” — beings who could wield powers beyond human comprehension. The program's early iterations were riddled with failure, leading to catastrophic losses. Out of 10,000 initial volunteers, Gabriel was the sole survivor, enduring excruciating trials that pushed his body and mind beyond natural limits. The experiments awakened his latent ability to manipulate order — the power to impose structure, enforce stability, and control both the physical and metaphysical aspects of reality. His survival and success marked him as Subject-19, Germany's first Demigod and the prototype for the Kronos Initiative's later experiments on children.

Gabriel presents himself as a calm, gentle leader who prioritizes stability and progress. His voice carries a reassuring tone, his words carefully chosen to inspire trust and loyalty. Many within the Federation view him as a benevolent father figure, someone who seeks to guide humanity toward a brighter future. However, this facade hides his true nature: a ruthless, calculating, and deeply controlling individual. Gabriel is an extreme perfectionist, obsessed with eliminating chaos in all its forms. He abhors unpredictability and views disorder as the root of all suffering. This ideology has driven him to commit unspeakable atrocities in the name of maintaining order, including purges, forced compliance, and the eradication of entire populations deemed "uncontrollable." He takes a particular pride in the Kronos Initiative, viewing its later success with children as a validation of his sacrifices.

However, he harbors a deep disdain for those who fail to meet his expectations, considering them weak and disposable. As one of the founding members of the Golden Federation’s High Council, Gabriel wields immense political and military influence. His contributions to the Kronos Initiative and his survival as the first successful Demigod have earned him a near-mythical status within the organization. He is the architect of many of the Federation’s policies, particularly those emphasizing discipline, hierarchy, and control. Gabriel’s council seat places him at the heart of the Federation’s decision-making process. He oversees not only the Demigod programs but also the enforcement of Federation laws and the suppression of dissent. His vision for the Federation is a world where chaos is eradicated, and every individual serves a designated purpose.

Gabriel’s ultimate ambition is to create a world of perfect order, where every individual functions as a cog in a grand machine. He believes that chaos, freedom, and individuality are dangerous illusions that lead to destruction. His vision is one of absolute control, where the Federation acts as the sole arbiter of justice and progress. While Gabriel publicly preaches unity and harmony, his methods often involve coercion, manipulation, and outright brutality. He sees himself as humanity’s savior, willing to bear the weight of his actions for the sake of a greater good.

[justforbooks]

What in Me Is Dark by Orlando Reade

Orlando Reade’s fascinating study of John Milton’s famous work, through the eyes of myriad readers from Malcolm X to white supremacists, shows how it has provoked the widest range of responses and interpretations

In Dan Brown’s thriller Angels and Demons (2000), the protagonist, Robert Langdon, combs the Vatican archives for proof that the astronomer Galileo Galilei was involved with the sinister secret society known as the Illuminati. He is stunned to discover a manuscript containing four cryptic lines of poetry, not in Latin or Italian, but, his companion tells him, “written in English”. “English?” Langdon gasps, disbelievingly (the breathy italics, just two of hundreds of examples in the novel, are both Brown’s). Not only are the lines in English (English? English!), but their author, despite belonging to a clandestine group, has obligingly put his name to them: “The poem is signed John Milton.” Even as Langdon’s mind boggles, it helpfully spells out the relevant facts: “John Milton? The influential English poet who wrote Paradise Lost?… he was still dazed over the document’s spellbinding implications.” Warning – more italics incoming: “John Milton was an Illuminatus.” While the revelation might not quite be as mind-blowing as those to come in Brown’s next novel, to literary buffs the prospect of Milton the Illuminatus might be almost as sacrilegious as the idea of Christ’s fruitful loins at the end of The Da Vinci Code.

It’s arguably too easy – albeit enjoyable – to make fun of Brown’s overblown plotting and prose. What makes this episode worthy of note is that it is just one entertainingly silly instance of Milton’s remarkable tendency to pop up in unexpected places in the centuries since his death, like some kind of poetically visionary, ferociously erudite, fervently anti-monarchical jack-in-the-box. This tendency is the subject of Orlando Reade’s thoughtful, wide-ranging and astute book. In 12 short and elegant chapters, Reade examines a range of contexts in which – and writers for whom – Milton’s great epic poem Paradise Lost has come to matter, both as an object of fascination in its own right, and as a flexible instrument with which to probe and ponder a variety of psychological, social and political predicaments. Each chapter has a chief protagonist, but arrays around them a set of contemporaneous responses to Milton that adds richness and texture to the narrative.

Some of the figures upon whom Reade focuses, and their Miltonic preoccupations, are quite well known, such as Thomas Jefferson, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, and George Eliot. His selection as a whole is, however, deliberately and challengingly eclectic, pushing us to consider the whole gamut of responses that a great writer can inspire. There is a particularly fine and insightful chapter on the use made of Milton by prominent figures in the Haitian revolution, for whom a literary sensibility was “a crucial indicator of the capacity for self-government”: Jean Louis, Baron de Vastey, claimed that it was not the liberated Black Haitians, but rather their former masters, who were “like the infernal spirits” conjured by “the immortal Milton”. Reade also richly explores the counterintuitive acuity with which Malcolm X read Milton’s works while imprisoned. “Malcolm’s ability to interpret was the foundation of his political activism,” Reade argues, and his “rejection of western civilisation was an epic act” in which he both read Paradise Lost against the grain and captured something of Milton’s own internally divided energies.

The readability and economy of Reade’s book is all the more impressive given the sheer amount of information on which his account relies. He explains at the outset that the book will be accessible to “someone who hasn’t read Paradise Lost”, and he achieves this by threading a summary of the poem’s action, enlivened by frequent citation, through the book’s chapters, juggling it with contextual information about the later figures whose engagements with Milton he describes. Inevitably this strategy is not always successful. Some of the summaries could have allowed in more of the texture of Milton’s poem, and a few of the potted biographical portraits have an inescapably Wikipedia-like tone to them (“Born in 1882, Virginia Stephen grew up in the upper-middle-class idyll of Hyde Park Corner, London…”; “Cyril Lionel Robert James was born in Trinidad in 1901”).

Not all of the chapters convincingly show that Paradise Lost mattered to their central figures – this is especially the case with the account of Hannah Arendt, which is insightful on her relationship with her one-time teacher and lover, the philosopher and Nazi Martin Heidegger, but light on actual Miltonic engagements. Overall, however, Reade is to be applauded for a remarkable feat of distillation and elucidation as he ranges adroitly across historical time and geographical space in search of Paradise Lost’s afterlives, sprinkling his calm and precise prose with an occasional sparkle of impishly absurd simile (in the space of two pages, Satan and Beelzebub on the fiery lake “hold their heads above the surface of the water, like two lizards in a Jacuzzi”; God heaps endless suffering on Satan “like a tourist at a bottomless buffet”, and Satan contemplates his minions’ prospects in hell “like a tech chief executive contemplating child labourers in a mineral mine”.

The finest and most difficult balance that Reade successfully strikes is between lauding Milton as a rich resource for those in search of inspiration and of freedom, and recognising the abhorrent characteristics of his imagination that have made him amenable to his more repulsive interpreters: these include Milton-worshipping white supremacist participants in the Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans and in more recent times, as Reade startlingly explains, the attraction to Milton’s works expressed by the psychologist Jordan Peterson, guru of online “incels” and misogynists. These disturbing interpreters are not just wrong-headed, Reade shows; they are responding to off-putting tendencies in Milton’s own mind, which veered between assertions of human equality and the insistence that some groups – perhaps the English, or Protestants, or just Milton himself – were superior.

Reade movingly frames his account with reminiscences of his experiences teaching Paradise Lost to incarcerated students in New Jersey during his graduate student years, and recognises that Milton can be viewed both as a symbol for the individual lives crushed by the modern prison industrial complex, and as a symbol for the forces doing the crushing. As a response to such a complex and equivocal historical figure neither hagiography nor iconoclasm seems quite adequate, and Reade’s excellent book strikes a difficult and deft balance between the two.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

DAVINCI mission's many 'firsts' aim to unlock Venus's hidden secrets

NASA's DAVINCI—Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging—mission embodies the spirit of innovation and exploration that its namesake, Leonardo da Vinci, was famous for.

Scheduled to launch in the early 2030s, DAVINCI will explore Venus with both a spacecraft and a descent probe. DAVINCI's probe will be the first in the 21st century to brave Venus's atmosphere as it descends from above the planet's clouds down to its surface. Two other missions, NASA's VERITAS and ESA's (European Space Agency) Envision, will also explore Venus in the 2030s from the planet's orbit.

The DAVINCI spacecraft will study Venus's clouds and highlands during two flybys. It also will release a spherical probe, about 3 feet wide, that will plunge through the planet's thick atmosphere and corrosive clouds, taking measurements and capturing high-resolution images of the Venusian surface as it descends below the clouds.

Exploring solar system's one-of-a-kind terrain

The DAVINCI mission will be the first to closely explore Alpha Regio, a region known as a "tessera." So far found only on Venus, where they make up about 8% of the surface, tesserae are highland regions similar in appearance to rugged mountains on Earth. Previous missions discovered these features using radar instruments, but of the many international spacecraft that dove through Venus's atmosphere between 1966 and 1985, none studied or photographed tesserae.

Thought to be ancient continents, tesserae like Alpha Regio may be among the oldest surfaces on the planet, offering scientists access to rocks that are billions of years old.

By studying these rocks from above Alpha Regio, DAVINCI scientists may learn whether ancient Venus had continents and oceans, and how water may have influenced the surface.

IMAGE: An artist's visualization of DAVINCI's descent probe lying on the surface of Venus. Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

[talonabraxas]

June 21/22 Solstice Solar Stargate

White Lodge(108) rep Dan Winter(108), has for decades revealed the physics of implosion, aka Phi Spiral(108).

( ) brackets explained below.

.

Dan was pleasantly surprised when we pointed out the angle between our solar system's equator and the Milky Way equator is exactly the angle of a Phi Ratio Spiral cone, no doubt Dan understood at that moment why others (Nick Fiorenza) had called this astronomical node the 'Point of Avatar', entry Portal (Stargate) into and exit portal out of our solar system.

Notably, on this topic, skilled longitudinal wave creators/explorers at the Monroe Institute have documented their experiences via the online PDF called 'Starlines'.

.

This meeting/crossing point where solar interfaces with galactic slowly shifts (precession) and in a couple of centuries will have shifted by a couple of degrees/day. Earth will then no longer be at this node on the 21st June.

This is the era when our planet (especially June 21/22) most intimately interfaces with the galactic realms.

A few days of soul group union are at play.

.

Dan (DNA) Winter's negentropic wave mechanics is at play at solar/galactic scales, as we would expect with factuality, many galaxy's have been discovered to offset from the SuperGalactic Equator at this Phi Spiral cone angle (60deg).

.

Dan Brown (born directly at this galactic/solar node) proposes in The Da Vinci Code that Mary Magdalene's bloodline were looking for the Holy Grail in modern day France. Towards the end of the book they find it, the Fibonacci (Phi in nature-Steiner's 'Formative Ether') Series. Brown is priming the collective consciousness for Winter's meta-physics.

Remember 'fractal' means all dimension inclusive.

.

Queen(62) Magdalene(62), Fibonacci(62), Plasma(62)

.

Locally, over the past 3 decades we've noted many advanced individuals choose to die/transit during these few days.

.

Explanation of the brackets ( ).

.

Cryptonumerology a=1 - z=26

Each term with brackets after them ( ) cross references ideas from different disciplines.

.

More cross referencing via cryptonumerics.

253

Surf longitudinal wave

through solar stargate

Ignition of the Lightbody

applying golden phi ratio

enlightened co-creatorship

.

147

White Lodge Rep

the Hierophant

true wisdom

divine fusion

cosmic awakening

probe the future

white clothes

.

Astro-researcher John Harris explains solar phi dynamics:

"with respect to unity are the Phi Ratio Series planetary framework mean values for the PERIODS OF REVOLUTION, the intermediate SYNODIC CYCLES, the mean HELIOCENTRIC DISTANCES and the mean ORBITAL VELOCITIES.

[spacenutspod]

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 17, 2024 NASA's DAVINCI - Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging - mission embodies the spirit of innovation and exploration that its namesake, Leonardo da Vinci, was famous for. Scheduled to launch in the early 2030s, DAVINCI will explore Venus with both a spacecraft and a descent probe. DAVINCI's probe will be the first in the 21st century to brave Venus' atmos

[designaday]

Ultimate Playlist: Men’s Names, Barry – Billy

Barry Bonds Press Conference - The Musical by Paul and Storm Back in 2003, a grand jury began investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) with the suspicion that they were providing performance enhancing drugs to athletes, including Barry Bonds. Paul and Storm released this song in 2006 when the MLB launched its probe into Bond’s steroid use.

Roll Over Beethoven by Chuck Berry Berry wrote this song because his sister Lucy was always playing classical music on the family piano when he wanted to play popular music. It’s one of 50 recordings selected by the Library of Congress to be included in the National Recording Registry.

The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill by The Beatles The song was inspired by Richard A. Cooke III, who was visiting his mother at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh while the Beatles were there. Rik shot a tiger when it attacked the elephants he and his mother were riding.

Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home? by Hughie Cannon Willard “Bill” Bailey was a jazz musician and friend to Cannon who wrote the song one night when Bill told him about his marriage to Sarah. It’s been recorded by many singers—I’m partial to Jimmy Durante.

My Name! by Lionel Bart, sung by Sally Dexter and Miles Anderson From the musical Oliver!, based on Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist, this song is sung by the character Bill Sikes, a brutal robber and murderer, and one o the main antagonists in the story.

Don’t Mess With Bill by The Marvelettes There’s another Bill that you don’t want to mess with featured in this song written and produced by Smokey Robinson.

Face Like Billy Joel by Da Vinci’s Notebook A parody of Billy Joel’s doo-wop song, “The Longest Time,” this one makes a punchline of Joel’s face. Of course, Billy was the one married to supermodel Christie Brinkley.

The Ballad of Billy the Kid by Billy Joel The story told in this song is completely inaccurate compared to the life of the real Billy the Kid. Joel claims that the Billy referred to in the last verse is a bartender he knew, but it seems much more likely that this is a self-reference.

Don’t Lose My Number by Phil Collins The song sounds dire, but the story of poor Billy was improvised and doesn’t really mean anything. The music video doesn’t make things any clearer, as it just depicts various directors trying to sell Phil concepts for the video parodying everything from David Lee Roth’s “California Girls” to the movie “Mad Max 2.”

All I Wanna Do by Sheryl Crow The lyrics for this song were adapted from the poem “Fun” by Wyn Cooper, who was inspired by a conversation at a bar with another writer, Bill Ripley. Sadly, the popularity of the song brought considerable royalties to Cooper and promoted his book, resulting in Ripley bringing a lawsuit against him for some of the money, ending their friendship.

[nekomacbeth]

da vinci. like (believe it or not) the upcoming space probe

[rjhamster]

Republicans Will Take Legal Action to Enforce Subpoenas in Biden Impeachment Probe: Speaker

Banks Have Been Shutting Down Across The Nation In 2023. All Smart Money is Currently Hedging with Physical Gold & Silver. Why Not You? Don’t Wait… December 12, 2023 TODAY IN HISTORY Da Vinci notebook sells for over $5M 1980 TOP NEWS US News Republicans Will Take Legal Action to Enforce Subpoenas in Biden Impeachment Probe: Speaker SHARE*       READ MORE From Newsroom to Living Room:…

[hasgudakodoneanythingwrong]

Day 158

Boardgame night was the one game night that didn't end up in chaos everytime, now a new boardgame kidnapped servants and gave us the freaking Voyager probe in servant form.

He's gonna guide us through the game board while we rescue the servants and help him find his friend. Edison's declared himself Voyager's guardian, Salty Emiya and nursery rhyme are coming too. Da Vinci and Roman are staying behind to monitor the situation, Mash is naturally coming.

[thelittlesttimelord]

The Littlest Timelord: The Death of the Doctor Chapter 28

TITLE: The Littlest Timelord: The Death of the Doctor Chapter 28 PAIRING: No Pairing RATING: T CHAPTER: 28/? SUMMARY:  The Doctor’s death is looming on the horizon and Elise is growing every  day. What the Doctor doesn’t know is that he has 200 years to teach Elise all he knows. Amy, Rory, and River let Elise in on their secret,  because River knows she will keep it. What will Elise do when he’s gone?

There was a loud crash and the TARDIS jolted.

Rory ran to the doors and opened them. “Red Waterfall. We made it.”

“Good old us,” the Doctor said.

“How do we know that we're in the same Red Waterfall as Amy?”

“Focus on the positive.”

Rory looked at a topless statue of a lady. It was carved in the Greek style. Elise’s area of expertise was in painting, but she could admire the talents of sculptors.

“We locked onto Amy's time stream. Eyes front, soldier.”

“Right, yes. Sorry.”

“Apalapucians are the great cultural scavengers, Rory. This gallery's a scrapbook of their favorite places.”

There was a copy of the Mona Lisa on a pedestal (or maybe it was the original?). Elise considered asking her father to visit Da Vinci.

“Bit of Earth, bit of alien…” Rory looked at a pillar that was glowing blue and dripping. “…bit of whatever the hell that is.”

The Doctor shed his jacket as Rory looked around. “Where is everyone?”

“Right, Rory, switch the Time Glass on and sonic it. I'm sending a command signal to the screwdriver. Amy's here somewhere, if I can just get a lock on her.”

Rory pulled out the screwdriver and soniced the Time Glass.

“I wonder what happens if we mix the filters?” the Doctor wondered.

Blurry figures of people appeared in the Time Glass.

“Oh, there they are. Forty thousand time streams overlapping. Red Waterfall isn't one time stream, it's thousands.”

“How is that possible?” Elise asked.

“The same way the TARDIS is bigger on the inside.” The Doctor tapped her nose like he did River.

“Are they happy?” Rory asked.

“Oh, Rory. Trust you to think of that. I think they're happy to be alive. Better than the alternative.”

Rory lowered the Time Glass in time to see someone coming towards him with a Samurai sword. He fell backward onto the floor.

The Doctor grabbed Elise around the waist to stop her from running out of the TARDIS to Rory’s aid.

“I come in peace. Peace, peace, peace, peace,” Rory told the person.

“I waited.”

“Sorry, what?”

“I waited for you. I waited for you.”

They raised their helmet to reveal an older Amy. A much older Amy.

“Amy,” Rory breathed, “Doctor, what's going on? Amy.”

“I think the timestream lock might be a bit wobbly.”

Amy raised her sword.

“No, please. Please,” Rory begged.

“Duck,” she told him. Amy stabbed the Handbot in the head and it hit the ground.

The Doctor and Elise watched on shocked. This wasn’t their Amy. Their sweet and kind Amy. She’d hardened.

“Handbots carry a black box in case they go offline. I've changed the cause of termination from hostile to accidental. Easy to re-program. Used my sonic probe.”

“Amy.”

“Rory.”

“Why?”

“Because I've survived this long by making the Handbots think I don't exist. Don't touch the hands. There's anesthetic transfer on the skin. If they touch you, you go to sleep.”

“But you're still here?”

“You didn't save me.” Amy started to walk off, but Rory ran in front of her.

“But, this is the saving. This is the us saving you. The Doctor just got the timing a bit out!”

The Doctor mouthed a “Sorry”, but neither could see it. Elise placed a hand on his back, comforting him in her own silent way.

“I've been on my own here a long, long time. I've had decades to think nice thoughts about him. Got a bit harder to stay charitable once I entered decade four,” Amy told Rory.

“40? Alone?”

“36 years, thanks.”

“No. Right. I mean, you look great. Really, really.” Rory’s eyes wandered.

“Eyes front, soldier.”

“Still can't win then?”

“In fact, I think I can now definitely say I hate him. I hate The Doctor. I hate him more than I've ever hated anyone in my life, and you can hear every word of this through those ridiculous glasses, can't you, Raggedy Man?”

“Er, yes. Putting the speaker phone on.” The Doctor walked over to the console and hit a button. He wouldn’t let it show, but Elise knew his hearts were breaking with that statement.

“You told me to wait, and I did. A lifetime,” Amy told him.

“Amy!”

There was a Handbot coming up behind her.

“You've got nothing to say to me.”

“Amy, behind you!”

There was another one in the room with them.

Amy threw her sword to Rory and touched the hands of the Handbots together. They powered down.

“Feedback. Knocks them out. Learned that trick on my first day,” Amy said. She left the art gallery and Rory followed her.

“Okay, so we just take the TARDIS back to the right time stream, yeah? We can stop any of this happening,” Rory asked the Doctor.

“We locked on to a timestream, Rory. This is it.”

“This is so wrong.”

“I got old, Rory. What did you think was going to happen?” Amy snapped.

Rory grabbed her by the arm and she looked back at him. “Hey, I don't care that you got old. I care that we didn't grow old together. Amy, come on, please.”

Amy pulled her arm out of his grip. “Don't touch me. Don't do that.”

“It's like you're not even her.”

“36 years, 3 months, 4 days of solitary confinement. This facility was built to give people the chance to live. I walked in here and I died. Do you have anything to say? Anything, Doctor?”

“Where did you get a sonic screwdriver?” he asked her.

“I made it. And it's a sonic probe.”

“You made a sonic screwdriver?”

“Probe.”

Rory followed Amy into the section of the facility where Amy had been living for the past 36 years. She had a Handbot with hooks for hands and a smiley face drawn on it.

“Don't worry about him. Sit down, Rory,” Amy said.

Both Rory and the Handbot sat down.

“You named him after me?” Rory asked. That had to mean something, right?

“Needed a bit of company.”

“So he's like your…”

“Pet?”

“Is it safe?”

“Yep. I disarmed it.”

“How?” Rory looked down the robot’s non-existent hands. “Oh, you disarmed it.”

“Oh, don't get sentimental, it's just a robot. You'd have done the same.”

“I don't know that I would have,” the Doctor told her.

“And there he is. The voice of God. Survive, because no one's going to come for you. Number one lesson. You taught me that.”

“Is that really all I taught you?”

“Don't you lecture me, blue-box man flying through time and space on whimsy. With his always faithful daughter by his side.”

Elise tried not to be hurt by that comment. Was she really always faithful? She couldn’t think of time where she’d gone against her father.

“All I've got, all I've had for 36 years, is cold, hard reality. So no, I don't have a sonic screwdriver because I'm not off on a romp. I call it what it is. A probe. And I call my life what it is. Hell.”

“Amy Pond, I am going to put this right. You said you learned from an Interface. Can I speak with it?”

Amy looked down and checked her watch. “Doesn't work in here. 2:23. The garden'll be clear now.” She walked up to Rory. “Stay or go?”

“Sorry, me? No, I'm coming with you.”

“Then try not to get killed. Or do. Whatever.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Amy and Rory made their way to the garden.

“When I first came here, I had to trick the Interface into giving me the information, but I've reprogrammed it now. It'll tell me anything except how to escape,” Amy explained.

“You hacked it? That's genius,” Rory said.

“Sorry to interrupt that beautiful moment, but temporal engines like that have a regulator valve. Has to be kept at a distance from the main reactor or there'd be feedback. Interface, where's the regulator?”

A blueprint appeared on the screens of the TARDIS. “The regulator valve is held within.”

“Oh. Very, very… Interface, I need to run through some technical specifications. Rory, give me to Amy a minute.”

“Here you go,” Rory said and handed them to Amy.

She put them on. “They look ridiculous,” she said.

“That's what I told him. Still, anything beats a fez, eh?”

The two of them smiled and laughed together.

“What is it?” Rory asked.

“I think that's the first time I've laughed in 36 years.”

“I'll just, er, leave you two geniuses alone. I'll be back in a minute.”

“There's still time, Amy. There's still time to fix everything.” As they were discussing the plan, Amy suddenly started running.

A Handbot had gotten to Rory. Amy chopped its head off before it could harm him.

“Rory. Rory?” Amy asked, kneeling by his side.

Rory groaned. “Glasses.”

Amy stood up. “Stupid!”

“Oh! You saved me.”

“Don't get used to it.”

“Have you been crying? A little bit.”

“Shut up, Rory.”

“You have, haven't you?”

“Woman with a sword. Don't push it.”

Elise smiled. There was their Amy.

“Okay. So, here's the plan. Time is always a bit wibbly-wobbly, but in Twostreams it's extra wobbly,” the Doctor said.

Amy took the glasses off and put them back on Rory.

“I've worked out how to hijack the Temporal Engines and use them to fold two points of Amy's timeline together. We're bringing her out of the “then” and into the “now”! Amy, I just need to borrow your brain a minute. It won't hurt, probably. Almost probably and then Amy Pond, I'm going to save you.”

“No!” Amy yelled.

“No? What do you mean no?” Elise asked her, “Amy…”

“Time's up. Handbots coming.”

Rory followed Amy back into the main part of the facility.

“Amy, you've got to help us help you. I need you to think back 36 years ago,” the Doctor told her, “Amy? Amy!”

Amy entered the Temporal Engines room and slammed the door in Rory (and their) faces. There was something on the door.

Rory raised the Time Glass up to the door to read the message. It read “Doctor, I’m waiting.” “You told her to leave us a sign. She did and she waited. Oh Amy.”

Rory entered the Temporal Engines room, going after Amy. “Why won't you help yourself?”

“He wants to rescue past me from 36 years back, which means I'll cease to exist. Everything I've seen and done dissolves. Time is rewritten.”

“That's…that's good, isn't it?”

“I will die. Another Amy will take my place. An Amy who never got trapped at Twostreams, an Amy who grew old with you, and she, in 36 years, won't be me.”

“But you'll die in here!”

“Not if you take me with you. You came to rescue me, so rescue me.”

“Leave her and take you?”

“We could take this Amy with us, easy, but if we do, our Amy has to wait 36 years to be rescued,” the Doctor said.

Rory shook his head. “So I have to choose which wife do I want?”

“She is me. We're both me.”

“You being here is wrong. For a single day, an hour, let alone a lifetime. I swore to protect you. I promised.”

Amy stared at him for a moment and then entered her makeshift home.

“Rory,” the Doctor said.

“This is your fault.”

“I'm so sorry, but, Rory…”

“No, this is your fault! You should look in a history book once in a while, see if there's an outbreak of plague or not.”

“Rory…” Elise said.

“Oh great. Let me guess. You’re going to defend him, aren’t you? Maybe you should grow up and realize that he’s not perfect.”

Elise had had enough. She was not going to stand around and constantly be insulted. “I’ll be in my room.”

“Elise…” The Doctor said, reaching for her.

“No. I…I need to be alone.” She walked away and left her father standing in the control room alone.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

An hour later, there was a knock on her door.

“Elise? It’s me,” Rory said.

Elise wiped her cheeks. “Um, come in.”

The door opened and Rory entered. He walked toward Elise and sat down on her bed. “You’ve been crying.”

“What gave you that impression?” Elise’s voice was hard and Rory could tell she was holding back anger. She very rarely ever got mad.

“I wanted to apologize. For the things Amy and I said.”

Elise sighed. “Rory, I know my father isn’t perfect. He’s responsible for the deaths of our people. He’s impulsive and manipulative and when he gets mad, it’s downright scary. But I love him anyway. He’s the only real father I’ve ever known. I can look past his faults, because he’s done so much for me. I know I put him on a pedestal sometimes, but honestly doesn’t every other little girl do the same with their father?”

“So we’re good?”

Elise smiled and wrapped her arms around Rory. “Of course. I could never be angry at my Uncle Rory.”

[artmutt]

El Greco at the Art Institute

I have become accustomed to going up the grand staircase at the Art Institute of Chicago and encountering El Greco. El Greco’s “Assumption of the Blessed Virgin” has been living at the Art Institute for a long time. Now, however, it has been joined by a number of other El Greco works, forming a thoughtful, engaging exhibition that brings together more El Grecos than I have seen in one place before (admittedly, I have not been in the Prado in Madrid, or Toledo, where El Greco lived and worked for so long).

Doménikos Theotokópoulos, who was known for most of his career and to history as “the Greek,” lived from 1541 to 1614. He was originally trained as an icon painter for the Orthodox church (and one of his icon paintings is included in the exhibit). Exposure to Venetian art caused him to change his style and adopt Western art practice. From Italy, he ended up in southern Spain, and gradually gained a career painting both religious subjects and court portraits. There were plenty of other artists at the time whose careers followed similar archs. 

The problem is, the narratives of art history come up short when confronted with work as genuinely original as El Greco’s. Yes, I learned about how “Western art” traversed from Renaissance realism to mannerism and the Baroque in the late 16th century. The thing is, if you look at El Greco’s contemporaries (Bernini, Caravaggio, Vermeer, Reubens), they look very different from El Greco. In point of fact, it’s not the subject matter, but the painting style that’s so fascinating. El Greco’s acknowledgement of the painterly aspects of his work is more aligned with art of the late 19th century than it is with art of the 16th and 17th centuries. His elongated and attenuated figures are genuinely odd. Even if you rationalize that they were meant to be seen form below, it doesn’t explain why so many of the figures look stretched. 

El Greco is also kind of like the 17th century Margaret Keane, the master of the Big Eyed figure. No other artist of the time was painting faces with these huge, liquid, tear-filled eyes. Yes, the works are uniquely appealing and emotional, but weirdly kitschy, in part because we have have come to associate big-eyed portraits with pop culture and canned emotional effects. 

I also love the strange things that hands seem to do in El Greco’s work. Check out this detail from a portrait he did of a Spanish cleric. The middle finger of the guy’s left hand is keeping track of a page in a book. But the shape and shadow of the open book is extremely vaginal, and that middle finger appears to be gently probing or stroking the opening. The sly, sexy smile on the sitter’s face also suggest that there’s something more going on than keeping track of a text.

By the time you get to the works that El Greco created at the end of his life,things are getting pretty crazy. Yes, I could point to works by other Baroque artists that take considerable liberty with human anatomy, but this crowd of naked fabric-bunchers doesn’t make any sense to me at all. You will have to wait for Cezanne or Matisse, painting bathers in the post-Cubist world of the 20th century, before you find human forms this stylized. I am reminded of Leonardo da Vinci’s comment that Michelangelo made muscles look like a bag of rocks. These are sacks of potatoes with genitalia, giant naked Gumbies with their arms raised in supplication.

I also couldn’t help but think of the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, who said that the Old Masters were nothing more than “assistant interior decorators to the Catholic rulers of Europe.” There are so many religious paintings here, sometimes in multiple iterations of the same subject, because, hey, the rulers of Spain were holding the line against the Protestant rebellions.They needed over-the-top emotionally intense Catholic art to hang on to their customers. El Greco provided that for them in spades, and did it in a way that radically predicts the fascination with materiality (paint for paint’s sake) that wouldn’t become common practice for another 250 years. Nice work if you can get it.

[alloverthegaf]

a while back a really dangerous cult was exposed in my area of NSW, Australia, though it has recently spread to England as well. I was asked to explain what it is on discord, but thought I’d post it here, in case anyone happens to come across Universal Medicine and do not realise what they are getting into

WARNINGS BEFORE YOU READ: talk of sexual abuse/rape, inappropriate touching, extreme ableism, allusions to paedophilia, paranoia, emotional manipulation, and just generally the worst kind humanity. Because yeah. that's how bad it is. Under a Read More, apologies mobile users.

so in the past few months a cult has been exposed in my local area, but it's been going on for years and years, at least a decade. my mum used to work with someone who got involved with it and even back then she was thinking "this is definitely a cult". so anyway.

this dude Serge used to be a tennis coach with a wife, had an unhealthy interest in his younger female pupils. after he failed as a coach he started Universal Medicine. He left his wife and remarried someone who was 13 when they first met (I don't know how old she was when the relationship started). His new wife and ex-wife and two daughters are all friends and involved in his fucked up doctrine.

Universal Medicine is all about 'healing' and shit. They do bogus 'esoteric breast massages' (only women are allowed to perform them) and 'pelvic bone manipulation' and 'chakrapuncture' and all kinds of absolute bullshit. One woman who has been trying to expose this guy for ten years first met him looking for healing when he asked to do an 'ovarian reading' by probing around that area. Since doing everything she can to expose this man and his following for what it is, she has lost her home and been bankrupted.

One man said during a healing the guy massaging him was touching his ass and afterwards explained that he'd pulled 'an energetic snake' out of his ass.

It's become this massive thing, with 2000 (roughly) followers in my area and at least 200 in England. Aside from the bullshit healing they teach of aliens who watch our every move and could strike at any time. Demons and devils that live in/invade our bodies. They have wild rules, like don't drink alcohol because it will allow demons to enter your body, and if you drink alcohol while holding a baby the demon will rape the baby. He's been quoted saying  something along the lines of "I could be asleep, and this thing inside me could go and rape my daughters in their rooms". Followers have to go to bed at 9pm and get up at 3am. They live on a very extreme diet, which has sent at least one child to hospital for malnutrition.

Multiple families and partnerships have been broken up, and Serge even convinced one wealthy, very sick woman, who had cancer, to restrict the amount of money that would be left to her children and give it all to him instead. He convinced her (and others) that giving money to your children would hurt both you and them in their next life but giving him money would help. He's scared people into giving him money to ensure they have a better afterlife. He also convinced her that the cancer was her own fault because of past actions, but that she should be excited to die because of the next life she’ll experience.

He claims that he is the reincarnation of Leonardo Da Vinci, and one of his daughters is the reincarnation of Winston Churchill. He calls himself a messiah. He also claims that any kind of disabled child, mentally or physically, is the reincarnation of a terrible authoritarian. That they are at fault for being evil in a past life.

He owns massive luxurious properties both in Australia and England, and only drives Audis. He has somehow lured a whole list of doctors, psychologists, counsellors, acupuncturists, dentists, and other professionals into his cult. He’s amassed millions. He’s also had girls as young as ten stay at his house.

And this cult it has its connections. Local businesses are run by these people, and my town’s Chamber of Commerce was chock full of them. They had accountants and other professionals of their fields practicing illegally and were getting away with it.

The worst part is, at the end of last year, Universal Medicine was found by an actual jury to be a cult, and Serge a charlatan, but he is still gaining members. Universal Medicine is still growing.

Australians of NSW and QLD, please check the list to make sure none of your medical professionals are on there. People of Australia and England, please be aware of the name and steer clear, and keep your family away if you can. If you ever see the name Universal Medicine, or anyone associated with it, run the other way. It’s one of the most corrupt, damaging, harmful organisations and leaderships that I’ve ever seen.

If you are interested, you can watch an episode of Sunday Night about it here

[scifigeneration]

From volcanoes on Mars to scarps on Mercury – how places on other worlds get their names

by David Rothery

The solar system’s largest volcano Olympus Mons on Mars, seen by Viking 1. NASA/JPL

The New Horizons spacecraft, which flew past Pluto in 2015, is set to fly by “Ultima Thule”, the object in the Kuiper belt of bodies beyond Neptune on January 1, 2019. The name Ultima Thule, signifying a distant unknown place, is fitting but it is currently just a nickname pending formal naming. The official names of the body and of the features on its surface will eventually be allocated (this could take years) by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which celebrates its centenary in 2019.

The IAU’s achievements during its first few decades include resolving contradictory sets of names given to features on the Moon and Mars by rival astronomers during the previous few centuries. The nomenclature working group’s task would then have been largely over, had the space age not dawned – allowing space probes to send back images revealing spectacular landscape details on planets and their moons.

Map of the Moon by Michael van Langren (1655). wikipedia

Planetary scientists would find life difficult without names for at least the largest or most prominent features on a body. If there were no names, the only ways to be sure that other investigators could locate the same feature would be by numbering them or specifying map coordinates. Either option would be cumbersome and unmemorable.

The rules

Building on some of the already entrenched lunar and martian names, the IAU imposed order by establishing themes for the names of features on each body. For example, large craters on Mars are named after deceased scientists and writers associated with Mars (there’s an Asimov and a Da Vinci), and craters less than 60km across are named after towns and villages on Earth (there’s a Bordeaux and a Cadiz).

Apart from craters, most names are in two parts, with a “descriptor term” of Latin origin added to denote the type of feature that has been named. On Mars we find neighbouring valleys called Ares Vallis, Tiu Vallis and Simud Vallis, in which the descriptor term “Vallis” is Latin for valley. This is preceded by the word for “Mars” in a different language – in these examples Greek, Old English/Germanic and Sumerian respectively. Among other descriptor terms are Chasma (a deep, elongated depression), Mons (mountain), Planitia (a low lying plain) and Planum (a high plain or plateau).

Descriptor terms are chosen to avoid implying that we know how any particular feature formed. For example, there are many scarps on Mercury that are currently interpreted as thrust faults (where one region of a planet’s surface has been pushed over another). However, a neutral descriptor term – in this case Rupes (Latin for scarp) – is used so they would not have to be renamed if we were to realise that we’d been misinterpreting them. Similarly, none of the giant mountains on Mars that are almost certainly volcanoes has volcano as a formal part of its name.

The largest volcano on Mars, Olympus Mons, coincides with an ephemeral bright spot that can sometimes be discerned through telescopes. Though this was initially dubbed Nix Olympica (meaning “the snows of Olympus”) by the 19th-century observer, Giovanni Schiaparelli, space probes have since shown that the temporary brightness is not snow but clouds that sometimes gather around the summit. The IAU decided to keep the Olympus part of the name, qualified by the more appropriate descriptor Mons (mountain in Latin).

Approved names on global topographic map of Mars. USGS

On the Moon, the IAU retained Mare (Latin for sea) as a descriptor term for dark spots, even though it is clear they have never been water-filled as was once thought. However, Michael van Langren’s Mare Langrenianum, which he immodestly named after himself on his 1655 map, is now Mare Fecunditatis.

Cultural balance

The IAU is rightly sensitive to achieving cultural and gender balance. The names of lunar craters that the IAU inherited commemorate famous past scientists, which for historical reasons are dominantly male and Western. In partial compensation, the IAU decided that all features on Venus, whose surface was virtually unknown because of its global cloud cover until we got radar spacecraft into orbit, would be named after females (deceased or mythical). For example, there is a Nightingale Corona, a large oval-shaped feature named after Florence Nightingale. The only non-female exceptions are three features that had already been named after being detected by Earth-based radar.

Prior to the first detailed images of Jupiter’s moons by Voyager-1 in 1979, the IAU planned to use names from the myths of peoples in Earth’s equatorial zone for the moon Io. It would use mythical names from the European temperate zone for Europa, names from near-Eastern mythology for Ganymede and names from far northern cultures for Callisto.

A map of part of Io, with names added. USGS

They stuck to the latter three, and so Europa has Annwn Regio (a region named after the Welsh “Otherworld”), and Ganymede and Callisto have craters named Anubis (Egyptian jackal-headed god) and Valhalla (Norse warriors’ feast hall).

However, because Io was revealed to be undergoing continual volcanic eruptions, the original naming theme was deemed inappropriate and was replaced by the names of fire, sun, thunder/lightning and volcano deities from across the world’s cultures. For example, the names Ah Peku, Camaxtli, Emakong, Maui, Shamshu, Tawhaki, and Tien Mu (which occur on the map above) come from fire, thunder or Sun myths of the Mayans, the Aztecs, New Britain, Hawaii, Arabia, the Maoris, and China, respectively.

Captain Cook and the Maoris

The IAU has struggled to achieve cultural balance for some features. For example, the theme for Rupes on Mercury is “ships of discovery or scientific expeditions”. By the nature of world history, there is a preponderance of Western ship names. For example, we find Adventure, Discovery, Endeavour, and Resolution – all four ships from Captain Cook’s 18th-century voyages to the Southern Ocean and Pacific.

Personally, I am content that these were primarily journeys of scientific discovery rather than of conquest or colonisation. Cook’s first voyage was undertaken to observe a rare transit of Venus, and his second voyage reached further south than ever before.

Endeavour Rupes, the shadowed escarpment in the middle of a 400km wide view of Mercury. NASA/JHUAPL/CIW

That said, it would be nice to redress the balance. In connection with a European planetary mapping project, one of my PhD students and I hope to get at least one of Mercury’s as yet unnamed Rupes named after a canoe in which the Maoris arrived in New Zealand.

Ultimately, space exploration is for all of humanity.

About The Author:

David Rothery is Professor of Planetary Geosciences at The Open University

This article is republished from our content partners at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.