Helios on the Moon PHANTACEA -- Story SynopsesThe Launching of the Cosmic Express |
Helios on the MoonPHANTACEA -- Story SynopsesThe Launching of the Cosmic Express |
Not much to say about ELEVENTH-Moon, other than it's quite long. So long, in fact, you could think of it as ELEVENTH & TWELFTH-Moon combined and thereby get rid of any concern you might have that it says it's 12th but here I've it listed as 11th. In comic book terms it encompasses a good percentage of pH-5, albeit in perhaps marginally fewer pages.
In terms of PHANTACEA on the Web it condenses most of the action that took place in War of the Apocalyptics, Chapters 11-16 and The Trigregos Gambit, Chapters 10-12, this time more so from the perspective of the Family Thanatos than, but for Demon Land, the actual participants. It is unlikely many, if any, of these chapters are still up, out here in Cyberia, but the blue point-and-click markers provided above should take you to their synopses, which definitely are still up.
As for what the Thanatoids of Lathakra have to do with Helios on the Moon, sometime ago I mentioned they aren't so much antagonists, in the usual sense of the word, as on the side of angels; that is to say the Family D'Angelo. Also mentioned back then, -- rather James Aremar, who isn't as dumb as he sometimes acts, figured it out --, was that the Psychic Siblings were Aspects of Amoebaman, the long dead Leandro D'Angelo.
As we find out this chapter, Leandro wasn't the only one of the D'Angelos who acquired a devil.
Forty-seven years earlier, [the Byronic Nucleus] sent seven of [Tantal and Methandra's] children, Ereba, Castella, Antaeor, Acheron, Auraura, Orinth, and Constantin to the Sedon Sphere. An eighth, Veronas, the epitome of the Summer Season, had betrayed his parents and siblings to Thrygragos Byron and his spawn. For his troubles, [King Cold] executed, not cathonitized, him. Then proceeded to banish his attribute, the season itself, from the Frozen Isle forevermore. Two others, their Thalassa and their Aires, the second born of the two pairs of Elemental Twins, [the Scarlet Empress] saved by accessing the Wandering SAG Gap and, she thought, sending them to the Outer Earth.
Let's see, if you scratch Summer, whom we'll accept is dead, Air, Sea, and Earth, all of whom appear this chapter, how many are still missing? Answer's six: Night, Day, Fire, Winter, Autumn and Spring. And where do you suppose they are? Another dumb question, right? Okay, try this on instead. If you were a multiplicative Amoeba Prime, who would you be? If you haven't got it already, the answer's in FOURTEENTH-Moon.
Unless it's the 13th!
Top of Page"Hear me, rulers. My all-pervasive thought beams are permeating the Whole Earth. Changing the perspectives of sentients everywhere. Converting your serfs to my way, -- the way! The way of totally self-determined freedom.
"Hear me, fascists. Helios is on the Moon. Destroying you!"
Thought
I'd start 12th-Synopsis the same way THIRTEENTH-Moon does just so you
know you haven't clicked into Centauri Island by mistake. You haven't,
but you might be forgiven if you thought you had primarily because, somehat
similarly to last time up's installment when
we dealt with End-War and a minute mite
of GAME-Gambit, we're mostly reviewing
material already presented in Island; Chapters 12-14,
to be specific.
As noted twice previously on these pages, it's unlikely many, if any, of these chapters are still up, out here in Cyberia, but the blue point-and-click markers provided above should take you to their synopses, which definitely are still up. (Isn't cut-and-paste a wonderful invention!)
There are differences of course. The perspective in Moon is mostly provided by Hiyati Samarand, the chain-smoking oriental overseer of Project Centauri. Is also provided by Hiyati Samarand, the three-eyed, devic Dragon Lord of Byron. The former's a homonculus who's still on Centauri Island. The latter's a devil who's controlling his homo from the Hidden Continent of Sedon's Head.
As established quite sometime ago, Alpha Centauri's a homonculus too, one being controlled by the real Alpha Centauri from Aka Godbad City, which is on -- ah, you guessed it. Hush Mannering, the little trickster sometimes called Young Life but currently masquerading as Dorothy Dodgson, a seven year old Norma Normalgirl, is traversing the Cathonic Dome betwixt and between the outside's Island and the inside's City via the Nag (as in Nagasaki) Gap.
She's more busy on the Outer than she is on the Inner Earth. Busy, first of all, procuring trigger fingers from the literally Little Prince, Greygreave Translav, who thinks he's the rightful Czar of All the Russias (Russians?) and definitely is the main man-midget behind the Global Menace. She gives out these fingers, which actually do look like sixth fingers, to Dolph Dulles and his men, who promptly start using them to trigger Valhallan Glomen, -- i.e., blow them up.
She's also busy, second of all, using Trinondev Prison Pods to capture the Byron-spawned Master Devas occupying the homo-Untouchables Big Max targetted before he and Rom Kinesis took off for Cape Canaveral, via Houston, a few days earlier. (They'll be back next time up, in case you were wondering what's become of them. So'll, not surprisingly, the Indescribable Mr NoName and Doc Defiance.) Two of the Untouchables that aren't homos turn out to be Connie Lindquist, the Little Prince's daughter, and George Hannibal, Centauri's lawyer, but she eyeorbs their devils anyhow.
Hush is awfully pleased with herself. Thus, naturally enough, before mid-chapter becomes end-chapter she's dying. So, by the actual end-chapter of Dragon Days, are all the homos, even Samarand's. Someone who isn't, might not even be an ambulatory Dead Thing, is Cromwell Necator, the Valhallans' Big Boss Bull. Protector's a new assignment though, -- to destroy All of Incain, the Master Mother Machine responsible, in a way, for Sharkczar, Crystallion and Hell's Horsemen from over in Island. Of course those really responsible were featured last time up!
By mid-chapter also, Dolph isn't doing too well himself.
Suddenly it was Dulles' turn to scream. He fell onto his knees and opened his mouth. The words that came out weren't in his voice.
"JOHANN SCHMIDT! JOHANN, THIS IS SEAN. AMOEBAMAN'S ALIVE! HE'S A THREE-EYED DEVIL. NO, A SIX, NINE, TWELVE-EYED FUCKING HYDRA! HE'S GOT FOUR BLOODY HEADS ON FOUR BLOODY NECKS!"
Guess you know where we're going to next chapter. Helios on the Moon is the title of our book after all!
Top of PageSorry, if you haven't figured it out already, you'll just have to read the chapter to find out which one's the Amoeba-Prime devil. I'll get back to you. Come next time up!
Two dozen men in SPACE's uniforms-cum-survival suits, now coated in a silver-coloured [Stopstone] substance, were marching out of the Lunar Citadel Mik Starrus revealed Thursday. Unmistakeably they were Ned Johnson and LAC I. Waving banners emblazoned with a Black Rose in the airless space of the Moon, they were shouting over their transmitters. Their words were piped through the Liberty without anyone flipping a switch.
VIVA LA LUNA ... VIVA EL SOL ... LONG LIVE HELIOS ... ANARCHISM FOREVER!
"Attack!" came [James] Aremar's order from the [United Nations of Earth Spaceship] Liberty.
Since I'm writing this in November 2000, consider it next time up and yourself got back to! But wait, -- which question are we answering this chapter? Which one of my myriad characters is Amoeba-Prime, right? Wrong, actually. Question was which one of the missing Thanatoids, Night, Day, Fire, Winter, Autumn and Spring, was Amoeba-Prime. Still, as to which one of my myriad characters is Amoeba-Prime, well, the answer's sort of threefold. Better make that fourfold.
Oh great, you say, McPherson's buggering us around again. Hey, don't blame me. I'm just the medium. My stories tell themselves! And, just to prove it, let's listen in on what an apparently dying Doubleman Sean Smythe tells O.J. Maxwell shortly after the latter reaches the UNES Liberty along with his buddy, Professor Romaine Kinesis.
"Amoebaman, the real Amoebaman, Amoeba Prime from before our Prime was ever devil-rayed, is on the Moon," said Smythe reiterating his thought-shout to Johann Schmidt, the one Adolph Dulles picked up on the night before on Centauri Island. "His name is Constantin Thanatos, though he's possessing, -- his words --, a guy called Anon Sassarian."
So here's the skinny (unless it's the shinny, -- never was too good on colloquialisms). #1 - Amoeba Prime's a devil, a Fourth Generation Deva whose given name was Constantin Thanatos. To answer the real question asked above, he's the Thanatoids of Lathakra's designated Spring and, yes, he's been a star in the Sedon Sphere (the Cathonic Dome or, more simply, Night's Sky above the Headworld or Inner Earth) since 1933 (or 5933 Year of the Dome), which was when he was cathonitized by the Byronic Nucleus of War fame.
#2 - Leandro D'Angelo was deva-rayed in '43 and, until his death a couple of years later, acquired Prime's abilities. #3 - Cosmicompanion Anon Sassarian, Constantin's current host, has been a prisoner/guest in Helios' Lunar Citadel since SECOND-Moon. The Psychic Siblings were all Aspects of Amoebaman, long dead Leandro D'Angelo variety. (By the way, 'Aspects of an Amoebaman' is the official title of Rings '60, which somewhat serendipitously debuts this time up.)
One of the Psych-Sibs was Septupleman Barbara Black. She's dead too -- in fact, of the original seven Septuplemen who truly came into being in 1945 when Leandro was killed on Sakhalin, only Sean Smythe and Johann Schmidt are still alive in December 1980. Before Barb died, however, she had (by Jock Maxwell and not by his adopted son, Big Max, as might have been previously implied, albeit deliberately diversionarily) a son by the name of Adolph Dulles.
Dolph's the Fourth-Fold I was referring to above primarily because, as Hush Mannering has already intuited, he seems an incarnation of Amoeba Prime. Or at least 43-45's devil-rayed facsimile of same. Not to give too much more away but, hey, -- on Fifth-Folded thought, why not? At least in terms of Moon it's never been much of a secret anyhow, has it? Thus, in the continuing interests of clarity, as if such as thing's possible in this day and age (let alone in PHANTACEA), here goes!
The Parents Thanatos, the devic-two-they of the Frozen Isle of Lathakra on Sedon's Head, are bending toward a solitary goal all of their considerable might -- including All the Invincible, the She-Sphinx of Incain, to their will. That goal's the reuniting the fullness of their entire family on the Frozen Isle beneath the Cathonic Dome. They're a lot closer as of this chapter because, now, their six decathonized children on the Moon are finally regaining consciousness. Which I guarantee is going to cause the Gypsium Triumvirate (Harry Zeross, Rom Kinesis and Kadmon Heliopolis, if he is the Helios on the Moon) no end of trouble.
All of which is no doubt very interesting from a plot perspective but it doesn't have much more than a tangental relationship to the main action of this chapter. And action there is aplenty. Our titular character is back and, as usual with him, he's assumed yet another identity. In terms of the comic books, the graphic novel, the various disks still available and of course PHANTACEA on the Web, he's already had a lot of them. I'll refer you back to the overall synopsis of this story sequence for a rundown of a few but, in terms of Moon, let's see how many I can remember.
Was the Wizard of Warped Waves and Wondrous Ways, the Lightray Lunatic and the Holocaster Houdini for three. Now he's Laird of Lethal Letters. Got this Y-Stick, this truth-sayer of his, which is akin to a Trinondev of Weir's eye-stave or a Signallers' Speaking Stick, and uses it to play unholy havoc on the Liberty. More specifically uses it to take the piss out of its overall commander, James 'Don't call me Jimmy' Aremar.
Which doesn't altogether account for the puddle on the floor after he returns to the Moon. What does? Ah, but that would be telling, wouldn't it?
If someone had just walked into the infirmary expecting to see Professor Romaine Kinesis and O'Ryan James Maxwell he wouldn't have thought he was in the wrong place. He would have thought he was on the wrong planet. Wrong planetoid? Wrong ship? They had transformed into their supra-selves: big, Mediterranean tanned-dark, and glowing; plump, ghastly white, and primmed as kneaded dough.
That, at least, they could still do.
"I'm Doc Defiance, the Gypsium Man. And you, friend, must be the otherwise Indescribable Mr. No Name."
"Call me Max!"
Lord Order notwithstanding, Helios really has had it too easy up until now!
Top of PageLots of fundamental tenets of The PHANTACEA Mythos touched upon in decent detail this chapter, making FIFTEENTH-Moon worth book-marking or, even more reliably, printing out for a hard copy. There's stuff on the Entities' Eleventh Lifetime (the one featured throughout the Heliodyssey story sequences), the Trigon Triplets, the Byronic Nucleus, and the Trigregos Sisters (who'll be back a few chapters from now, along with the Ubiquitous Uncle Universe, Atomaunt, Sonshine, Starbaby, and another character we'd thought we'd seen the last of quite sometime ago). Not to mention the devil I kept forgetting to mention over in GAMBIT!
Mostly though we'll be sticking to the saga of the Parents and Family Thanatos, particularly the events that took place in 5933 YD that resulted in the execution of one and the cathonitization of at least seven of the other Fourth Generation Devas. (For those of you looking for a definite answer as to whether Aires and Thalassa D'Angelo are Aires and Thalassa Thanatos, albeit with only two eyes, forget it! To this date, more than a quarter century after I invented them, I still don't know which way to go on that.)
Many more than Smiler, the Thanatoids and the Nucleoids in FIFTEENTH- though. Like FOURTH- and SIXTH- we've a veritable detritus of devas. A few of them even have a sense of humour. Indeed, one's all-but-obliged to call howsoever limited an allotment of such like a devilish sense of just that.
"No," inevitably declared Tantal, loudly and proudly, after he'd listened to his wife and the Smith's theories that their children were potential reincarnations of other devas, some cathonitized, some still extant. "Day and Night are Castella and Ereba. The four elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, are Antaeor, Aires, Acheron and Thalassa; the four seasons, Constantin-Spring, Veronas-Summer, Orinth-Autumn, and Auraura-Winter. No wonder we didn't have more children. What's left?"
"You've blue skin, Cold," joked Tvasitar Smithmonger, the Lazaremist who had fashioned talismans for the ten Fourth Generation Thanatoids. "Seeress is red. Maybe a child representing the third colour, yellow?"
"That's not very funny, smith," Auraura pointed out. "In case you hadn't noticed, my twin's wandered off. He's yellow-skin, golden brown actually, -- a little like Byron's Goldenrod --, but you gave him a white flag for a power focus. He's already decided he's yellow. As in a coward. Thinks father won't have him. There's not much in the way of Summer in Lathakra after all."
Not much more to say about FIFTEENTH-Moon. It's almost all action anyhow and action is best read, not summarized. Certainly reading about it's safer than experiencing it. At least that's been my experience. Then again I've never been shrunk to ten inches high and been forced to drink beer out of a thimble, which is King Cold's end-chapter fate. Might be fun!
Top of PageNo such qualifier this time. SIXTEENTH-Moon is all-action. Hard to be otherwise when the Damnation Brigade are back and, as is their wont, fighting mad. What's left of them anyhow. Remember how ENDGAME-Gambit ended up? Well, this chapter finishes off where it didn't quite. Which may or not mean I can stop trying to remember the name of the devil I kept forgetting to mention over there. Only one way to find out for sure of course!
Plotwise, in terms of Moon recall what I said about Helios having it too easy? Or about who was going to cause the Gypsium Triumvirate no end of trouble? (If you didn't I bet you do now.) Well, in order for all three members of the Triumvirate to get into no end of trouble you'd think they'd have to be in the same place. And they aren't, right? Not yet; not all three of them, though two of them were last seen in relatively close proximity to each other.
So why would the third, Ringleader, risk Gypsium-poisoning by joining them up top? Answer's pretty much same as why Thanatos, which means Death, risked the wrath of Grandfather Sedon and paid a Moloch-forbidden visit to the Weirdom of Cabalarkon back in THIRTEENTH-. So, now that old King Cold's got Rings' attention, what does he go and do?
Ringleader did not have any choice in the matter. "I trust these Thanatoids," he stated. "They may be Mithras Spawn but they're not like the ones I had to fight years ago on Apple Isle. If I do not return, they will send you to Cabalarkon unharmed."
"Then have them do it now," demanded Melina.
Cold ripped his war-axe, his labrys, off his back and swung it at Melina and her three children.
Harry gasped in impotent horror!
Dear old Death's such a family man.
Top of PageMeanwhile, back on the you-know-what, guess who's the Quetzalcoatl of Cosmic Cuisine, a Chef Seriously Sane and Superior. Titular character's joking, right? Maddog-Mad Maybe-God's already severely insane, isn't he? Certainly 'Don't Call me Jimmy' Aremar's convinced of it. So much so that he rather rudely brings a fully-loaded Colt to dinner in Guess-Who-Helios' Lunar Citadel on the you-know-what-Moon.
Supper's the repast; the past is partially Heliosophos and Kinesis reminiscing about their early years on Aegean Trigon, and afterwards, while Moon's Angel's doing much the same about hers, and theirs (hers and Guess Who's predominantly), with Big Max providing Machine Memory's audience. (For those of you still looking for a definite answer as to whether Aires and Thalassa D'Angelo are Aires and Thalassa Thanatos, contained in this chapter is about as close as you'll get to one.)
All of which makes SEVENTEENTH-, like SIXTH- and FIFTEENTH- before it, well worth book-marking or, even more reliably, printing out a hard copy. As entertaining as they are though, the chat sessions only last until about halfway through SEVENTEEN. After that it's back to our usual action mode.
Want a summary? Well, given my feelings about such a thing, try this instead. First of all Milady Female Entity Moon Angel's possessed by ... Which finally fully frees up ... And suddenly, well, I did forewarn you he'd been having things too ...
Whereupon Don't Call Me shoots titular character in the head. Only ...
"You'll have to do better than ballistic bubbles, Jimbo."
Then both Doc Defiance and the Indescribable Mr NoName get in on the fun. Except guess who's side they're on? Recall the puddle in FOURTEENTH-Moon? Well, it turns out he-it's got even more talents than those hinted at way back when. (Wasn't that long ago, was it?)
End-SEVENTEEN's result for James Aremar is he now's Don't Call Me Captain any more either. There are those who might say that, even though he once again shows off many of the altogether impressive abilities that, had he not cheated, nearly made him an equal to the Unity of Order in TENTH-Moon, Helios is still having it too easy. And maybe those would be correct but, then again, in many respects so were .... Still are, -- because ...
"Ye gods!" James Aremar propped himself up in bed and gaped at the person who materialized in his quarters. "I thought you were dead." He flipped on the overhead light. "Fucking hell! Not you too, Sean?"
"Suppose you mean this." Miraculously still-Doubleman Sean Smythe blinked his third eye then held out his hand. "Want one?"
It's safe to say their parents want all of them, together with the rest of the Fourth Generation devic children that go with their somehow extracted third eyes. Oh yes, -- and one more. Even if she only has two of them. Guess that why we've got yet another (and hardly the last) chapter next time up!
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