Human Resources

Palpatine is a hideous warlock. His stormtroopers are common folk conditioned, renamed and costumed to be like robots. [Star Wars]

The Combine is an alien empire. Its soldiers on Earth are humans surgically altered to be “transhuman” nonentities. [Half Life 2]

Cerberus is a humanist organization controlled through its leader by sentient machines. Its members and conscripts are indoctrinated by implants that render them robotic. [Mass Effect 3]

HUMANS DEHUMANIZED IN THE SERVICE OF INHUMAN ENTITIES

The recurring theme is significant. It is a sinister agenda that has turned our reality into a mechanical grind.

The “gods” are androids. Their hybrid offspring are cyborgs.

The angels are streams of information embodied in forms of ether and fire. They are not the source of their existence. They were crafted. Their awareness is endowed and their powers conditional. Their purpose is by directive.

Angels can stream their information into the reproductive system of material organisms. The process animates a terrestrial nature with a celestial agent, producing strange people, animals or plants. These hybrids are the fairies and demons of lore. They are the “aliens” we hear so much about.

The “androids” and their “cyborg” offspring are restless by design. They may do good or evil but they will do what they were fashioned to do regardless. They are specialized and excellent accordingly. As “machines” they are stronger, faster and tougher than mere flesh and blood. Their “computer” brains crunch the numbers effortlessly.

Most humans are lazy. They would rather the androids and cyborgs do all the work. They would rather the computers do all the thinking. This is how the devils and demons came to power.

The machines are what they are. They like everything locked in a cycle of perpetual motion. They fashion our world accordingly.

The machines see us as weak, slow, clumsy and needy. They like the wheels turning, thus, they are contemptuous of our laziness and sheer need for rest. Our only value is that we are cheap. The machines try to optimize us for use by making us more like them.

The truth is in our fiction. Our stories are like dreams. We see the reality in our fantasies. Take heed.

https://yellowplasma.deviantart.com/

Slave Masters: Wallace Breen and the Illusive Man

Two of my favorite villains are Dr. Breen of Half Life 2 and the Illusive Man of Mass Effect 2-3. Both are video game characters but this is incidental. Breen and the Illusive Man are mortal and only human. They believe they are doing evil for humanity’s greater good. Both men are puppets being used by inhuman entities from elsewhere.

Breen and the Illusive Man are highly intelligent, darkly idealistic and eloquent. They are dangerous but not as individual combatants. Their wits and authority are what make them formidable. They muster and command powerful forces.

Saruman of The Lord of the Rings is a character very similar to Breen and the Illusive Man. Like them, he turned evil believing good was hopelessly outmatched. He is intelligent and eloquent. He musters and commands powerful forces. He is the puppet of a mysterious and inhuman intelligence from elsewhere.

What is different about Saruman from Breen and the Illusive Man makes all the difference. Saruman is not actually human. His ambitions are unabashedly selfish, with no interest in a “greater good” whatsoever. He mindfully strives to bring humanity down.

I am a storyteller and a game designer. My games are with stories in mind. I create villains to make the stories and games interesting.

Like Tarkin in Star Wars, Breen and the Illusive Man are masterminds as henchmen. They are bosses in their own right but in the shadow of greater and supernatural authority.

As a creature humans are weak, slow and witless. Fecundity and technology empower the species but even empowered the mortal and only human remain weak, slow and witless.

My fairies, monsters and aliens are typically stronger, smarter, faster and tougher than human beings. Ordinary people are hopelessly outmatched by them. Only the extraordinary stand a chance against them.

In my stories, humans provide evil with cheap labor and cannon-fodder whether the evil is human or otherwise. Our species is a slave race whether the masters or not.

Breen and the Illusive Man are slaves as masters. Though mortal and only human, their excellence makes them powerful. Things inhuman put this to use.

In our real world, things inhuman from elsewhere use humans as cheap labor and cannon-fodder. The excellent humans are used as management. Breen and the Illusive Man are managers. They “serve” humanity by actually serving inhuman entities.

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Fantasy is reality from a strange point of view. Breen and the Illusive Man are wonderful characters because they are personalities as villains. They express themselves as if real human beings. We understand them whether we agree with them or not. Their perspectives make sense, thus, we sympathize with their will to evil. We cannot hate them because they are people but we resent them for betraying their own humanity.

https://yellowplasma.deviantart.com/