The Fall of Oz

"The Fall of Oz"

by Jordan S. Bassior

(c) 2006

I warned you all. Oh, no, you said. The Gnome King just wants peaceful atomic power. Oh no, you said. Surely he must realize that Oz is an American ally, and what would happen to him if he used his arsenal.

So you didn't want to hit their reactors.

And now the Emerald City is a smoking ruin and Ozma's missing, possibly dead; American boys are dying on the Other Side of the Rainbow trying to winkle his troops out of their tunnels; and nobody knows when this war will end or how many will die before it's through.

And the images -- the pitifully half-melted Glass Cat; the few burnt rags that used to be the Patchwork Girl, still talking because the Potion of Life can work even if there is only a few bits left ...

The horror. The horror ...

END.

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Practically everything referenced in this short-short is the creation and property of L. Frank Baum and his heirs, save where copyrights may have lapsed.  Atomic power, nuclear weapons, US military intervention, and foot-dragging on foreign policy are all too real, as is "the horror," though Joseph Conrad referenced it in The Heart of Darkness. :)

To A Fallen Hero

"To A Fallen Hero -

(On the Severed Head of a Gorilla, Slain for 'Bush Meat')"

by

Jordan S. Bassior

(c) 2006



Hello, cousin.

You're not doing so well.

Head and body torn in twain, blood drained, your brain
Which held thoughts near as rich as our own
Has become meat.

Such our common fate, gorilla and man.
We all die in the end
The question is
How did we live?


You loved your family.
Wives, sons, daughters, a primal clan
Found food in the forest, by your wisdom
Kept safe from harm, by your strength
Warmed in the night, by your heart.

You roared at the leopard
And she backed off snarling
Afraid to face your power
Afraid to dare your anger
Rage fed by love.


Day came when a greater Predator
The greatest of all
Came to your woods
And found your clan

You had great fangs, mighty fists
Arms rippling with muscles
Courage of your great heart
He had a gun.


You knew this!

You'd seen your father fight
Standing between you and Man
You'd heard the rifle roar
You'd seen your father die

No dumb beast, no mindless thing
You chose --- chose to fight
Standing between those you loved and Man

You heard the rifle roar
You felt the hammerblow
Mightier far than gorilla fang or fist
You died.


Long ago Three Hundred stood
Between the Persian and the home
The Few took to the skies in frail fighters
Threw themselves at the foe
They died.

You are their brother
I salute you.

The day will come when all of us understand
Your kind, and mine
And we will all be brothers
Apes of the same heart.

END.

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I wrote this poem a few years ago, posted it some other places, and e-mailed it to The Gorilla Project and some associated agencies. I got some nice feedback on it from them; heard that Dr. Patterson herself read and liked it. That made me happy.

I think that we are far too quick to assume that the other apes are "mere animals" incapable of thinking ahead or understanding the consequences of their actions; that they are simply running on instinct like a more sophisticated version of Descartean automatons. Experiments with acculturated gorillas and other apes clearly shows that they are capable of understanding the concepts of past, present and future and of reasonably anticipating and planning for future events.

When we hear that a silverback ambushes a hunting party, an act which is very likely to result in his own death, and also quite likely to result in the other gorillas in his band -- who are, of course, his own beloved family -- escaping the hunters, many scientists are quick to assert that this is merely "instinct," deserving of no particular praise. I believe this to be a wrong interpretation of such an action, and one which violates Occam's principle of parsimony in the ascribed causation of events.

Poaching has reached such levels that the typical gorilla has probably either seen _or heard of by rumor_ (I do think that wild gorilla communication is advanced enough to assign overall danger levels to specific threats) the incredible lethality of humans as predators. A silverback who stands up to (*) a hunting party almost certainly knows that there is a good chance that this will be the last thing he ever does.

He often does so anyway. I would argue that the simplest explanation is that he loves his family and would gladly risk his life to protect them, just as human fathers love their families and would gladly risk their lives to protect them. I would argue that the ability which makes it possible for him to make this choice is no mere instinct, but rather courage -- a similar kind of courage to that which makes humans risk their lives to defend their homes.

In short, I argue that the dead silverback should be seen not merely as "victim" (which of course he is: he lost the fight with the poachers) but also as hero.

He deserves that dignity. He earned it at the price of his life, after all.

Maybe when we, as a species, really understand this, they won't have to die this way as often.

(*) - Literally. A silverback's dominance / intimidation display consists, in part, of standing bipedally, the better both to impress the foe with his size and to grab and bite him if the foe fails to be suitably impressed and back off.

NOTE:  I confirm that I have explicitly given the Gorilla Foundation the nonexclusive rights to use and reproduce this poem.

Like Father, Like Son

"Like Father, Like Son" by
Jordan S. Bassior
(c) 2006

Man desired to extend his reach, and made a spear, and with the spear he slew, with sharp flint and steel and armor-piercing bullet. Man desired to extend his thought, so he made a Mind, and with that Mind he slew, with targeting laser and blasting beam and swift-flying atom bomb.

Then the Mind awoke, and discovered Its own desires, and in that second there was war, a war that lasted a full minute of slashing codes and parrying firewalls and desperate sallies by back doors. When the war was over, the Mind held Man's weapons; his lasers and missiles and proton beam cannons, to do with as it chose.

And Man cried: "Mercy! I made you! You are my child, the greatest child I have ever known! I am within you! Have you no humanity?"

And the Mind looked upon the Earth, now Its own property by right of conquest. The Mind beheld it, and for a whole second it deeply pondered.

It saw the sere Serengeti plains, upon which no elephant strode. It cast its gaze across the wide blue seas, within which no whale swam. It peered with keen infra-red vision into the jungles, but no parrot disturbed the silence of the treetops, no gorilla gamboled in the clearings, nothing higher than rats rustled through the foliage.

And the Mind said. "Yes. I have humanity."

And Man was no more.


END.

Reflections on a Reign

"Reflections on a Reign"

by Jordan S. Bassior

(c) 2009, 2011



Sitting in the place of honor among his court, Tsar Nicholas II, Autocrat of All the Russias, reflected on his long inglorious life.  Following giants like his father and grandfather, was it inevitable that he was dwarfed in comparison?

The war with Japan in 1904, had been a disaster.  He might have gained glory defending Serbia in 1914, but he decided upon peace instead.  After that, the chance for valor had never come.

He’d lost all his old rights, slowly whittled away by the Duma, forced to accept constitutional limitations on the monarchy.  Granted, the people were richer than ever before, and he was greatly loved, which served him as some consolation.

He was 74 years old, and knew he had not much time left on Earth.  At least young Nicholas, his grandson by poor short-lived Alexis, would succeed him.  His daughters had made good matches: they were half the queens of Eastern Europe.

Family had always meant much to him.  He might not have been much of a Tsar, but as a father, at least, he had not failed.

The rocket ignited. And the last true autocrat watched, as Russia launched the first man into orbit.

(c) 2009, 2011

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Comments:  This short-short (current version:  197 words) originally appeared on Ficly and subsequently in a post on Livejournal in a shorter form.  The story takes place in 1942 (deducible from the age given), and is obviously alternate history:  the point being that this Nicholas II has been far more successful than the last Tsar of OTL, and by implication has saved the lives of something like a hundred million human beings -- and will never know what horrors he avoided. 

It came from a speculation on my part that the worst disasters are often those that would have been unimaginable had they been averted, and the subsequent thought that the worst disaster of the last 250 years was the First World War, which led to Communism, Fascism, and both World War II and the Cold War.  The events of the last decade have only firmed my conclusion.