Official Narn Regime History: Resistance Forever (Babylon 5)

The Official History of the Narn Regime and their long war on the Centauri Republic using sources canon to the show.
 https://youtu.be/13dyAYqAK3A?si=ZIXALyV8gZZzdjCj

Unofficial History of the Centauri Republic: Secrets of the Imperial Court Revealed (Babylon 5)

 

A look at the history of the Centauri as presented by the Mongoose RPG set in the universe of Babylon 5. Not canon to the show but still fun.

https://youtu.be/qRYsdzvXUZw?si=0J31NnpgP7mtqSIb

From the Imperial Palace: Official History of the Centauri (Babylon 5)

Using sources that are canon to the television show, we look at the official history of the Centauri people and their state, The Centauri Republic. 

https://youtu.be/HSMqGUAzamA?si=IECwX1nqswePCRbG

Road to Disunion Vol II 1854 to 1861 Secessionist Triumphant By Dr. William W Freehling

     Road to Disunion Vol II 1854 to 1861 Secessionist Triumphant 

By Dr. William W Freehling

    Dr. Freehling was covered in last week's review, so instead of recycling, let’s move forward!  Road to Disunion Vol. II was published in 2007, a full 17 years after the publishing of volume I.  That said, Dr. Freehling had no problem picking right where he left off right, after the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Fugitive Slave Act, and continuing right until the opening exchange at Fort Sumter, which started the Civil War.   

In Volume II, Dr. Freehling continues his core themes. The first, again plainly and openly stated, was that there was no united singular South, but several Souths divided into very different regions with different interests.  Even within those regions, there was division based on social class, location, and life experience, with the biggest distinction he draws being the differences between populations who lived in black belts, regions where there were a high number of slaves, and white belts where the populace was mainly made up of non-slave owning whites.

To illustrate the first theme, Dr. Freehling tackles four failed undertakings that were supported and opposed by various factions in the South: the creation of Kansas as a slave state, the conquest of the Caribbean and Central America to create more slave states, an attempt to reopen the African slave trade in defiance of the American Federal Government, and lastly an attempt to reenslave freed blacks.  Let’s go ahead and take a look at all four, one at a time. 

First was the attempt to ensure that Kansas would be admitted as a slave state, even over the objections of the people who lived there.  In fact, it would be fair to say, especially over the objections of the people who lived there. Over the border in Missouri, where slave owners nervously watched as the number of slaves dwindled and the number of anti-slave white men increased, the idea of being bordered on 3 sides by free states was intolerable.  So they recruited from among the people of Missouri “One Day Kansans” to cross the border and vote in a pro-slave government, as well as sponsored violent armed mobs to terrorize free state settlers and run out anti-slave organizers from the territory at gunpoint.

While this movement enjoyed support in the Southwest and much of the Deep South, the other Border States condemned this behavior, as did the North. So did states like Virginia, as rigging elections was seen as a step too far.  So trying to admit Kansas as a slave state failed to pass in Congress.  Interestingly enough many South Carolina leaders also opposed it because they feared this would lead to people taking slaves out of the economically depressed lands of South Carolina for greener, colder pastures. 

The idea of conquering the nations of South America and trying to seize Cuba and other islands came from New Orleans and was championed by the city’s merchant class.  They were losing business to other ports and thought they needed a set of slave states encircling the Gulf, which would naturally ship their goods to New Orleans. The Federal Government, of course, refused to do this, as most people in the North felt they had plenty of land for settlement to the West already and didn’t like the idea of starting wars with European nations.  Also, there was a great deal of resentment lingering over the Mexican-American War, with some Northerners feeling they had been tricked into an imperialist adventure on behalf of greedy Southern Slavers. 

So their solution was to turn to Filibusters, a name for private armies of mercenaries raised by adventurous wealthy men looking to achieve fame and political power by conquering other states. The United States government did not take this well, often arresting these men for piracy and breaking the Neutrality Laws passed during the Napoleonic Wars.  In one case where a filibustering army led by William Walker invaded the nation of Nicaragua, U.S. Navy Commodore Hiram Paulding counter-invaded and, using his Marines, arrested Walker and his mercenaries and dragged them back to the US for trial.  

Once again the South was divided on this topic. Many Border State slavers feared that adding Caribbean and Latin American slave states would cause the end of slavery in their own states, as men would sell their slaves or simply move further south in pursuit of profit.  So too, did the South Carolina elites,  again fearing the loss of slaves.  Other Southerners in the Middle South opposed it because conquering Native American tribes was one thing, but conquering recognized nation-states was another thing entirely.  

What South Carolina was all in favor of was reopening the African Slave Trade, even if that had to be done illegally. The problem in their view was there weren’t enough slaves to go around, and part of this was driven by the increase in cotton prices in the 1850s, which in turn drove up the price of healthy slaves beyond what many white men could afford. This meant that the wealthiest men in society owned more and more slaves, and fewer and fewer men outside that wealthy elite owned any slaves.  

This received some support in the Deep South, but the Border States and the people of Virginia were simply aghast at the idea. There were two attempts to flout the law, but, interestingly enough, while the captains of the ships were arrested and released by Southern juries refusing to convict them, the firsthand experience of dealing with people freshly kidnapped from their homes was too gut-wrenching for most of the supporters to continue the attempts. So the arch-slavers found themselves too empathic to actually go out and enslave strangers from another continent.  

So a group of South Carolinians decided maybe the easier thing to do would be to re-enslave freed blacks. Allow me to delve into what I will generously call the logic of this idea, which was rooted in plain and simple racism. The argument was that Free Blacks would be worse off than slaves because they were not capable of handling themselves in modern society without a gracious owner to protect and direct them. This fell apart because there were plenty of successful Free Black Men and Women, some of whom even owned slaves of their own. Also, in many other Southern states, this raised cries of protests of subverting the will of the slavers who freed their slaves.  Plus, in many areas freed blacks functioned as a needed artisan and skilled labor class that was simply too valuable to risk. So the idea fell apart pretty quickly. 

So what did unite the South, you might be asking?  After all, they pulled together enough to start the Civil War.  There were two things, really: first was the institution of slavery, and the hatred that outside criticism stirred.  The men of the South loathed being told that owning slaves made them immoral and less ethical than Yankees, who they looked down upon as Capitalist cannibals. In the name of these two things, they were willing to go to any lengths to protect the institution of slavery and silence any criticism, including shattering the nation itself and creating their own where dissent would be utterly forbidden. 

We see this when they are willing to trample the rights of the people who actually live in Kansas, bringing not just voter fraud but also violence and political repression in the name of spreading slavery.  We see this when Northerners or even native Southerners voice criticism or act in ways that could be considered subverting or resisting the social order of slavery, and the reaction to form an angry mob, commit assault and battery, and force the offender out of their lands at gunpoint. We also see this when the non-slave owner inhabitants declare they wish no part of a Southern Confederacy, areas like eastern Tennessee, North Virginia, and North Alabama; the response isn’t respect for their rights to choose their government, but violent repression and bitter denunciation.  Ironic given that they demanded every right to leave their government, but refused to grant that right to others. 

The second driving theme that is unavoidable when reading the text is that the elite class of South Carolina was the wellspring from which the idea of Secession flowed.  That poisoned water would slowly but surely soak into the soil of the South, until it nurtured a Southern-wide crop of young men who believed that the only thing to do was to tear the nation apart, no matter the cost. The effort took decades and constant work to spread the ideals that at first only the elites of South Carolina held dear, that slavery was good and should last forever, and the only way to do that was to split from the Northern Free states.  This would turn out to be one of two things uniting the different Souths into a single South. 

The other thing that unified them was fear of their slaves and the thought that discussion of freedom would cause them to rise up.  The raid on Harper's Ferry by John Brown is discussed at length in the book, and the South was not only terrified of the idea but convinced that the North would continue to send men south to encourage the slaves to rise up and murder them in their beds.  In their minds, the abolitionists would not rest until they had caused a mass race war in the South and destroyed everything they built. This fed the hatred and resentment of the North in the South and led to demands for national censorship and trampling of Northern State rights in the pursuit of protecting slavery.  This in turn feed Northern resentment and hate of high-handed Southern tyrants who would enslave white Northerners just to protect their delicate feelings. 

When South Carolina and the lower Southern states succeeded, many states in the middle and upper South balked.  They hoped that if they could delay long enough, they could hammer out a compromise and reform the Union without violence.  They could serve as middlemen between the Lincoln administration and the rebels and create a lasting peace.  However, when South Carolina’s cannons forced the issue and Lincoln called for volunteers to defend the Union,  many of the men of those states found they would rather kill Yankees than Southerners. Their dislike of having their flaws and faults publicly pointed out, and the decades-long resentment of those critics, outweighed any qualms they had about breaking the country.  After all, at least those Southerners were fellow slave owners

Companion video is found here: https://youtu.be/WF5lA4pIn3g?si=K1NeUS6J7aR5Dct1

Road to Disunion Vol I: Secessionist at Bay 1776 to 1854 By Dr. William W Freehling and companion video

 Road to Disunion Vol I: Secessionist at Bay 1776 to 1854

By Dr. William W Freehling

Dr. William W Freehling was born in Chicago, Illinois on December 26. 1935.  He grew up in Chicago and headed to Harvard for his undergraduate work.  He graduated from Harvard in 1958 with honors, including Magna Cum Laude, and Phi Beta Kappa.  He then headed to the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his MA in 1959 and his PhD in 1964.  He would then go on to teach at Berkeley, the University of Michigan, John Hopkins University, and Harvard, and endowed chairs at The State University of New York, Buffalo, and Kentucky. After a long and respected career, he retired and turned his hand to writing history. 

Today we’re looking at his first published book, Road to Disunion Vol I. published in 1991.  The book sets out to provide a political and social history of the South, from the nation's early days after the Revolutionary War to 1854, just after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act.  This period includes the Missouri Compromise, a compromise passed in hopes of quieting the feud between the North and the South but only ended up inflaming it. In doing so, the compromise became one of the prime sparks that led to the explosion we call the Civil War.  

The book sets out with two primary arguments, the first bluntly and forthrightly stated, and the second is never outright stated, but you’re led to it, as any other conclusion is blocked off.  The first is the argument that there was not A South, but the region we would call the South was several different regions bound together by the overriding tie of being slave states.  The second was that secessionism was something created, nurtured, and, after decades of failure, finally exported to the rest of the slave states from the malaria-choked, miserable swamps of South Carolina.  Let me explore these arguments here. 

First Dr. Freehling carefully splits the region we tend to think of as The South into three separate regions.  First, we have the Deep South, of which South Carolina occupies pride of place in this book, but states like Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi are also part of this region.  Then we have the Upper or Middle South, with Virginia usually being the prime example, but also including North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Lastly is the Border South made up of states that border the Free States of the Union: Maryland and Delaware being the main two, but Missouri and Kentucky would also be part of this region. 

That said, the book also leads me to a fourth region that emerges from the text, the southwestern frontier states like Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri. These states were often in conflict with the older states along the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic Coast, and often acted against those states to secure their own interests. This is illustrated in the book by the extensive coverage of the conflicts between Andrew Jackson and Senator John C Calhoun, men who worked together but whose conflicting interests led to them spending just as long bitterly fighting each other. Given how much time and space Dr. Frehling devoted to those intra-South battles, I feel we should count those states as a separate region. 

The second argument that Dr. Freehling lays out is how South Carolina was different from other Southern states.  Most of the original states were settled by colonists out of England, but South Carolina was settled by colonists from the sugar island of Barbados, who brought their slaves with them.  So unlike, for example, Virginia, where the laws allowing slavery weren’t passed until 50 years after the colony’s founding, South Carolina had slavery as part of its economy, its social structure, and very identity from day one. This would have a profound effect on how South Carolina viewed slavery, a view that would do incredible damage to South Carolina, the South, and the United States as a whole. 

Dr. Freehling leads us through the many crises that pitted the interests of slavers against those of freemen, for example, the banning of slave importation in 1807, along with early attempts to close off new territories to slavery.  If this had succeeded it would have meant that Alabama, and Mississippi for example would have been free states. This was incredibly close, and only failed by one vote because a New Jersey representative was home sick with a fever. We also see the early battles in the Northwest Territories where Illinois and Indiana were almost made slave states; this was prevented by the heroic action of Edward Coles the governor of Illinois at the time, who honestly seems to be a forgotten American hero here.  

We proceed from there to nullification, where South Carolina tried to act alone declaring their right to nullify and ignore federal laws and almost got the entire state’s teeth kicked in by an enraged President Jackson. He parked the US Navy outside of South Carolina’s ports to collect the “nullified” tariffs and threatened to march in with an army, while the rest of the South sat on its hands and watched.  Meanwhile, attempts to block slavery from expanding in Missouri and Arkansas failed. The battle lines were being drawn, though; it was clear that an increasing number of Americans in the North and the Border South believed slavery should not be allowed to spread.  This was something that the aristocrats of South Carolina found utterly enraging, and leading them to formulate the idea of leaving the Union and forming a Southern nation. However, a pan-southern identity didn’t exist yet, and most Southerners considered the aristocrats of South Carolina lunatics. 

We also learn that early generations of slave owners often professed hopes that one-day slavery would disappear from the South naturally, that economic conditions would change, leading to slaves being sold away and, at some tipping point, their distant descendants would pass laws banning slavery (Not that they ever took action to make that happen.).  South Carolinians, however, argued from the earliest days of the Republic that slavery should be eternal, and it was good in and of itself. In fact, members of the South Carolina elite class declared that slavery was not just good but the best organizing principle for society. 

As the nation expanded, the confrontations between those who wanted the evil of slavery contained and those who supported its spread became more protracted and more bitter.  At first slave owners in Virginia would plead for more slave states because that would let them “diffuse” their slaves away from the Border States and Middle South, but as the decades wore on this argument increasingly fell to the wayside. South Carolinian thinkers reached out to the rest of the South in a never-ending attempt to forge a united region under a single political banner, with slave-owning being the common bond across regional and state lines. 

We see how this effort to forge a united front was pushed further by the Gag Rules, where the first abolitionist societies believed that all they needed to do to end slavery was reason directly with the slave owners. To this end, they sent individual slave owners letters outlining why slavery was not just bad for slaves, but also for the owners. The South reacted as if they had found out that abolitionists were sending letter bombs, and demanded that mail be censored and never delivered. Bonfires were created from the letters, and any Southerner who was caught reading these letters risked being thrown on those fires. 

Abolitionists caught by surprise by this decided that, if they couldn’t speak to slaveowners, they would speak to Congress.  They sent petitions to Congress asking for a national ban on slavery, gradual emancipation of slaves, or other plans.  Southern Congressmembers demanded that such petitions to Congress be thrown out unread; this deeply rankled the Northerners, even those unsympathetic to abolitionists. Most Northern Congressmembers had no intentions of granting those petitions, but refusing even to read them was a bridge too far. Eventually the gag was rescinded, but the fact that the South felt it had the right to censor Northern speech deeply offended Northern Americans.  Meanwhile, Southerners resented being told their way of life was evil and not fitted to democracy, even when all they were being told was the truth. 

The next great battle was over the annexation of Texas, which would later be tied into the battle over spreading slavery to the Mexican Cessation, the lands seized from Mexico after the Mexican-American War.  Slave owners wanted Southern California as a slave state, but the North, already irked at having fought a war for slavers and panicking at the idea that Texas would become an English protectorate and a haven for escaped slaves, flat-out refused.  A compromise was found, but it only left behind more anger, frustration, and determination to make the next confrontation the last one. So by 1854, when the book ended, South Carolina’s pan-Southern ideas of secession and a common Southern identity were no longer dismissed.

Each conflict led to a hardening of attitudes in both the North and the South.  In the North, the abolitionists went from a despised fringe group to a mainstream position.  In the South, the idea of getting rid of slavery someday was abandoned as a surrender to outside Northern pressure. As the stances hardened, the battle lines became more set and more dug in, and violence was increasingly likely. The differences between states within the regions of the North and the South increasingly became less important as the major difference of Free vs Slave drowned out everything else. 

This is a very well-detailed book that covers a lot of history and provides an incredible depth of information, especially of parts of our history that are all but forgotten or glossed over by popular histories and schools today. That said, I don’t entirely buy blaming South Carolina for secession.  Yes, they were calling for it as early as the 1820s, but I don’t think a group of people who successfully fought a revolution to split from the world’s most powerful empire would have failed to come up with the idea on their own. That said, I’m still giving Road to Disunion Vol I: Secessionist at Bay 1776 to 1854 by Dr. William W Freehling an A. If you want to dig deeper into the causes and tensions leading to the Civil War, this book is for you.  Just beware it’s a dense and detailed read, so you may have to read it more than once or take a lot of notes to retain information. 

Watch the companion video here: https://youtu.be/cvfKnXwO9nI?si=StGr5WwnF4zThtKr

Disney's The Little Mermaid 2023: Live Action Quest for More Money

 https://youtu.be/BTDrx5zwBOM?si=5aPGxhvU8kQ3aG7y

We end our dive into the lore and legends of merfolk with the latest adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's work The Little Mermaid. The live-action adaptation of the 1989 animated classic

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

 https://youtu.be/KxzRAGGZXCc?si=kI2TQs91lBKNfG0B

We at last look at the story that dominates modern conceptions of mermaids, if you listen carefully you can see the elements that slipped into every movie we've covered so far.

The Fisherman and His Soul by Oscar Wilde or The Opposite of Little Mermaid

 https://youtu.be/6P6NTBup5cA?si=vuAdLE2baebjnnx-

What if instead of the Mermaid seeking to gain a human soul, the human man decided to get rid of his? We discuss Oscar Wilde's fairy tale of a man who falls in love with a mermaid and decides to abandon his soul to be with her, as well as the consequences of that.

Ponyo (2008): A Mermaid Fairy Tale

https://youtu.be/EoRqn63YYVE?si=3HjLUYWsSUxOE0_v

We look at the animated film Ponyo and how it fits into mermaid mythology and have a brief talk about fairy tales.

The Mermaid (2016): To Love or to Murder?

 

https://youtu.be/oHFYRoLSk-o?si=_TNYhY-M5JVMF1dM

We look at the Chinese-made Romantic Comedy The Mermaid and discuss the movie and how it fits into mermaid myth and legend.

The Lure (2015): Blood, Love and Music!

 https://youtu.be/g9KatTDEXS4?si=ksHlxMukNRMqk8IL

I look at and discuss the Polish horror musical classic The Lure, about a pair of mermaids who are hired as singers and strippers for a 1980s Polish nightclub.

1984 Splash, the rise of Madison.

 https://youtu.be/Nk4L2KkjJAc?si=m_JB0KFL77dsugXo

We look at the touchstone pictures film Splash as the first film in our look at mermaids in popular culture.

Aspen Comics: Fathom Vol I

 https://youtu.be/992pDSqUV5E?si=v2mUeWSVMZAmp0PW

We look at the opening volume of the comic series Fathom by Michael Turner.

100th video, an elephant side chat.

 https://youtu.be/77IFyZPp-o0?si=aUMR_ar8PJd83A8p

This is the 100th video I've uploaded to this channel so I'm going to take a moment to just chat for a moment. About how I got here and what's going on.

System is still not letting me upload videos.  Blaugh. 
 

Creature Feature: Mythical beings of the depths and shores

 https://youtu.be/SWQNlj3o3wM?si=XXdskdWlBjLB5Ox2

Wrapping up our almost 5 month long series on Merfolk myths. I take a quick look at various creatures and beings I thought were pretty interesting but did not qualify as merfolks so they did not appear in prior videos.

Dungeon and Dragon Homebrew Monsters: Red Shell Lions and Enchanted Turkeys of Doom

 
https://youtu.be/QKsM1jZD7Zg?si=yPMgBWPIsDvNQaBZ  (account is still being weird, apologies)

So in an earlier video Merfolk of Europe III: In warm sunny seas I mentioned if I hit a certain threshold of likes, I would make a video stating two of the creatures in one of the stories I discuss. We went over the target number so here we are. Now I've been playing D&D since 1994 and I've been GMing a stable campaign in 5th edition for years. Is that going to be enough to make a good pair of monsters or I am doomed to fail? Watch and decide for yourself!

Coils of the Naga: An introduction

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgF-q916eQs

An introductory video to the Naga of Indian and South East Asian myth. We cover the origin story of the Naga, how their feud with Gruda started, and what must be the unluckiest Naga to ever live.

Okay at this point I'm going to just start uploading the video straight from my computer since youtube is being weird.

Modern Merfolk? HP Lovecraft's Deep Ones

 Still having some issues so I'm going to leave a link below.  Hope you enjoy. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbpWlOm5hvA&ab_channel=frigidmagi

We look at a modern creation that does share similarities with some of the tales of merfolk we've looked at in this video series, the Deep Ones from the Cthulu mythos by HP Lovecraft. Also a brief discussion about the author.

Cecaelia: The grasping tentacles of octopus mermaids

 Still keeps screaming I'm not signed in so I'm going to leave a link:

https://youtu.be/jn690Pyrt_U?si=4fhCXwtWgvfps2hu


We look at mermaids who instead of being part fish are part squid and octopus, where did they come from? Also, I talk about why you have to be careful with sources and give a humorous example of the internet inventing a fact, like when Tumblr created a Greek goddess

Merfolk: Twin Tailed Madness

 Okay so I don't know why Blogger suddenly decided I'm not signed in so I can't upload videos so I'm going to go ahead and leave a link here. 

https://youtu.be/1oyS6p9Povs?si=ATL0kqNWlr_dszxY

Merfolk of Europe III: In warm sunny seas

 

We look at myths and legends from the southern parts of Europe, like Italy, Greece, Iberia, and parts of France. Wrapping up our tour of Europe and the world tour of Merfolk mythology.

Join the Ever wise for a dollar a month and vote on upcoming videos! https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads Or buy a Ko-fi https://ko-fi.com/frigidreads Printed Sources used: https://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Book-M... https://www.amazon.com/Mermaid-Other-... Online sources used: https://www.osalnes.com/en/discover/c... https://www.indigovenice.com/unconven... https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/it... https://www.venetoinside.com/en/news-...

Merfolk of Europe Videos I and II

 

Merfolk of Europe I: Of Lochs and Isles

We start our tour of European Merfolk lore by looking at the Mermaids of Greenland, Iceland and the British Isles. The many, many merfolk of the British Isles.

Merfolk of Europe II: The North Remembers

We look at the merfolk of North and Eastern Europe through a variety of stories and myths. Quick note, most of these came from printed sources as I had to plow through over 300 pages!

Serena of Guam, a mermaid legend read by Mr. Davis

 

Mr. Davis a long time friend of the channel reads us a mermaid story from Guam. Chosen and voted on by the ever-wise patrons.

Asian Merfolk II: Mermaids of the Middle Kingdom

 

We look at the different types of merfolk that came out of Chinese myth and legends from the ancient to the recent ones from Hong Kong.

Merfolk of Asia I: From the islands to shore

 

We look at the merfolk of Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea and Japan. Along with some discussion of 1700s fanfiction of an old Japanese Myth.

Join the ever-wise for as little as a dollar a month!   / frigidreads   Or buy a Ko-Fi https://ko-fi.com/frigidreads Printed Sources: https://www.amazon.com/Mermaids-Myths... https://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Book-M... https://www.amazon.com/Mermaid-Other-... Online Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningyo https://www.researchgate.net/publicat... https://wikimapia.org/39002692/Sinjik... https://mermaidsofearth.com/mermaid-s... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningyo#... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant%C5...

African Merfolk II: Mentors and Guardians of river, waterhole and shore

 

We look at the merfolk of Africa who serve as mentors and guardians of the land and people of Africa. Along with a brief discussion of a disagreement over some of the beliefs in question.

African Merfolk I: Predators of river, lake and pool

 

We look at some of the merfolk predators of Africa, with some discussion of how they may have started out as something else entirely but contact with the outside world led to a shift in beliefs and myths around them.

Dagon: The Fish God that Wasn't

 

We take a moment to talk about the non-merman in the room. Dagon, arguably the most famous aquatic god and how he was never depicted as a merman by his worshippers or associated with the oceans.

Divine Merfolk II

 

We continue our survey of Divine and Demonic Merfolk from mythologies and religions from across the world. Today we look at African deities, many of whom crossed the Atlantic with the TransAtlantic Slave Trade and after that, we look at the... Interesting Deities that arose among the ancient Greeks.

Divine Merfolk I

    We finally begin covering actual Merfolk myths thank you for your patience! 

Defining my terms: Mermaids

In which I explain what I am counting as a mermaid for the purpose of this video series and admit it's gonna take a bit because holy hell there's a lot of lore to parse through here.  Thank you for your patience. 

 

Paycheck 2003 Film

 

Paycheck companion video.

 Companion video to the written review, for the short story Paycheck by Philip K Dick

Paycheck (short story) By Philip K Dick

           Paycheck (short story)

By Philip K Dick

Paycheck is a novelette that was written in 1952 and published in 1953, in the June issue of the science fiction magazine Imagination. A fun side fact for y’all, the founder of Imagination was Raymond A Palmer, who was the namesake of the DC comic book character The Atom. The aforesaid Palmer sold the magazine to Greenleaf Publishing on its 3rd issue in 1950; the magazine would continue until 1958, lasting 63 issues. 

But let’s turn to the story we’re actually here to review. Fair warning, given the age of the work I am going to be spoiling the story below.

Paycheck takes place in a future United States recently fallen into a police state, with the ever-present Security Police having wide powers of arrest and questioning. The government’s biggest problem is the Rethrick Construction Corporation, which has so far managed to stay independent of government control. In fact, police don’t even know where the main operations center and factory of the corporation is located, and the company has even managed to keep the identity of the owner and CEO a secret.

As a 21st-century American this kinda boggles my mind, but keep in mind the story was written about 70-odd years ago.  Back then no one foresaw the internet or the sheer difficulty of hiding information in the modern age. However, the story tells us this government is barely more than a year old, and that it hasn’t consolidated its power enough to crack down on large wealthy targets like the Rethrick Corporation. This story element is an example of Philip K Dick’s “less is more” world-building: in Mr. Dick’s short stories, he often prefers to use implication and character actions to suggest elements of his world, letting the readers figure things out from there.

Our main character is an incredibly talented electrical engineer named Jennings. Jennings has been working for Rethrick for 2 years. This is about to become a problem for him: the police have been grabbing known employees of the corporation off the street to interrogate them, the latest of them being Jennings. However, Jennings has no memory of his time with Rethrick, as part of his employment agreement was that he would have all of his memories from signing the contract to collecting his pay erased. And why did he agree to this? He agreed for the hefty sum of 50,000 credits; however, when I looked it up in today’s money, it worked out to be about half a million dollars. I’m still not sure that it was worth it. 

Why Jennings never just tells the police that his memories had been erased is never addressed in the story. To me, this implies that this isn’t a common technology in this world, or else why not just sing that out right when the cops throw you in the back of the squad car? If nothing else, you could at least avoid some unpleasantness when the cops realize you don’t have those memories anymore, although you still might catch a beating just for having made the cops have to do actual work.

Jennings isn’t completely out of luck. It turns out that his past self, instead of taking the 50,000 credits, decided he would get paid with a bag full of small items: a wire, half a poker chip, a ticket stub, a bus token, a strip of green cloth, and a receipt for a parcel left in a safety deposit box. Jennings has to figure out what his past self meant for him to use these items for in order to escape from the police. Jennings quickly develops an intense faith in that past version of himself and refers to himself as an entirely separate person in the story, often asking things like “I wonder what he meant for me to see here.” This raises an interesting question: is a past you, a you don’t remember being and can’t remember being, the same person, or should you be considered entirely separate from the past you? Unfortunately, the story doesn’t have the space or time to really grapple with that question.

What then follows is Jennings hunting for the location of the Rethrick factory, for the sole reason of blackmailing them into giving him sanctuary from the government. And not just sanctuary, but part-ownership; he doesn’t want to come in as an employee again only to get his mind wiped and go through this later, but rather he wants to be brought in on his own terms and have control of his future. It’s hard to blame him; after all, why should he feel any loyalty to either the company or the government? The government is hunting him like a wild animal, and will likely torture him into infirmity or death to get information he can’t give. The company turned him loose with a smile and not even a real warning knowing he was going to be a target! I can’t say I would have any loyalty to these groups in this situation and I’m willing to bet most of you dear readers wouldn’t feel any loyalty either!

Jennings does find the factory, and when he does, not only does he realize what work he’s been doing for two years, but he learns how he knew what items to give to himself in the future. Rethrick has a device he calls a Time Scoop, a device that can be used to look into the future as well as move objects from one time to another. This is a device that the government would kill for, as no secret would be safe from them, and no revolt against a government that can look into the future to identify any future flash points would ever have a chance to succeed. So the question then becomes, having gained the information, what will Jennings do with it?

In all honesty, Jennings' plan can’t be worse than Rethrick’s plan, which was to sit around and wait for a revolution to build up among the lower classes, then sell them all the weapons they need to overthrow the government. I have a few criticisms of this plan. First of all, they declare it will be a revolution of bus drivers, waitresses, and teachers. You know, normal working-class people. People who are not known to have a lot of spare cash. So who are you planning to have to pay for these weapons? Second, if things are that bad and you’re already so good at keeping secrets… why not just build the revolution yourself? You have a device that lets you see the future! This means you never have to guess who to recruit! You just look forward in time, which kills the vast majority of the risk! Why are you sitting around waiting for the revolution, you useless loons!?! Honestly, these people need Jennings in charge, because he can at least devise a plan of action and execute it with results!

The story does have a fair amount of action, mostly from Jennings constantly fleeing the police. He’s not a fighter, so his response to danger is to either outrun it or outthink it. Which I’m actually in favor of; not every protagonist needs to solve their problems with their fists or with weapons. Having a character whose main trait is being fleet of both foot and mind is a nice change. His overwhelming faith in his past self is an interesting twist as well; I don’t know if I would call this a ridiculous amount of self-confidence, or utter faithfulness to an outside force. Because, while Jennings thinks of his past self as a different person (on that, to be fair, he doesn’t remember being), it’s still him, so he’s still putting all his faith in his own abilities. The mystery of what he’s supposed to use those items for and why he traded so much money for them is also interesting enough to draw you in. I found myself trying to figure out just what Jennings was trying to tell himself and what he’d do next.

All this being said, given the shortness of the story, the characterization is sparse. There are three named characters, and of these Jennings is the only one we spend any time with. Also, the plot moves at breakneck speed.  Jennings makes several leaps of logic that I found questionable, but always played out well for him. To be fair, if I were getting clues from my past self, I suppose I could make some logical leaps and land safely too.

 To sum up, this is a short, punchy story about a guy saving himself from getting crushed between an oppressive government and a corporation looking to compete with that government, and it tells this story rather well. It’s also under 50 pages, so even if you end up disliking it you don’t invest a lot of time or energy to read it. I’m rating Paycheck at a C; it’s quick and flashy, and the retro elements will make you giggle a bit, such as when in the story Jennings catches a rocket to Iowa from New York City for example. It’s not something that’s going to stick with you for a while, nor does it stand out among Mr. Dick’s short stories or science fiction short stories in general, but it is a fun read. 

    I hope you enjoyed this review, which was voted for by my ever-wise patrons. If you like a vote on my upcoming content consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month. You can also view a companion video to this review at https://youtu.be/Hu6FQ348dNU Next week I'll be posting a video on the film Paycheck and I hope to see you there. Until then however take care of yourself, each other and of course, Keep Reading!

Radio Free Albemuth 2010 film

 

Free Radio Albemuth companion video