An open thread dedicated to discussing books, movies, and tv shows we love. And occasionally some politics.

I was going to write about Fringe today, most particularly the episode "Brown Betty." I may still write about that one for next week. Unfortunately, the Wikileaks dump brought something to my attention that trumped my interest in Fringe.

It's not news to me that intelligence and NatSec professionals like the same fantasy and science fiction I like. In fact, they are fantasy and science fiction fans.

This isn't the first time I've noticed this. I don't like it, as you can imagine. I don't like them using the imagery and narratives of my favorite stories at all. And I hate it most when they twist what the original texts, whether written or visual, mean.

Take Palantir, for instance. In case you don't know them, Palantir is a corporation that creates software for the United States military:

https://www.palantir.com/

A palantir is also a device conceived of by J.R.R. Tolkien, in The Lord of the Rings. In his mythology, the men of Numenor invent palantiri as devices through which they can speak to each other across long distances. They are, essentially the communications technology of his fantasy world. However, they can also have an effect on the minds of those using them--if a palantir repeatedly broadcasts the same images, they can have a persistent, and pernicious effect on mental health and judgement. So palantiri both work as phones and also as broadcast media. By the time of The Lord of the Rings, the remaining palantiri are not safe to use--because Sauron has seized some of them, and is using his palantiri to track everyone else who uses one.

As Gandalf says, "We do not know who else may be watching!"

He also has set his palantiri to broadcast messages of horror, despair and war, which causes the Steward of Gondor to go a bit crazy and make some horrific decisions.

From Appendix A4 (“Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion”)

After [his wife's] death Denethor [the Steward of Gondor] became more grim and silent than before, and would sit long alone in his tower deep in thought, foreseeing that the assault of Mordor would come in his time. It was afterwards believed that needing knowledge, but being proud, and trusting in his own strength of will, he dared to look in the palantír of the White Tower.In this way Denethor gained his great knowledge of things that passed in his realm, and far beyond his borders, at which men marvelled; but he bought the knowledge dearly, being aged before his time by his contest with the will of Sauron. Thus pride increased in Denethor together with despair, until he saw in all the deeds of that time only a single combat between the Lord of the White Tower and the Lord of the Barad-dûr, and mistrusted all others who resisted Sauron, unless they served himself alone.

Sound familiar?

One of the reasons I respect Tolkien is that he has an impeccable understanding of what we now call psy-ops, perception management, propaganda.

So I think it should be fairly clear that a palantir is not a good thing.

And we have a company that creates software for the United States military blatantly and openly identifying itself with a tool of Sauron. I can't tell if they imagine to themselves that they are the uncorrupted men of Numenor using pristine palantiri, or if they really are so evil that they identify with Sauron Annatar.

How can you be so evil that you identify with Sauron? I mean, remember...Sauron is the guy who made Middle-Earth look like this:

How in the *hell* can you be on the side of the flaming eye and not those two small figures struggling up the slope?

Though recently, Bill Kristol admitted that he had always rooted for the Empire in Star Wars, so I suppose anything's possible.

I'm going to choose to believe, though, that the creators of the Palantir company are making Gen Keith Alexander's mistake, not Kristol's.

This is one that really got to me.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/15/nsa-mind-keith-ale...

Yes, apparently General Keith Alexander, father of Total Information Awareness and the "collect it all" policy, created a duplicate of the Enterprise bridge, complete with a captain's chair that visitors, or, presumably, employees of the NSA, could sit in and pretend to be Captain Picard. He named it his "Information Dominance Center."

OK. Anyone who builds a version of the Enterprise bridge and calls it an "information dominance center" has a twisted soul. Gene Roddenberry must have spun in his grave the day that happened. The Federation, while imperfect and occasionally corrupt, is a free and open society. It is a multi-planetary representative democracy. The citizens of the Federation have rights:

And they do not "dominate" information! The Federation's passion to explore is not based on a desire to dominate but on a delight in the varied forms of life (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations), and the desire to understand as much about them as possible--something they got from the Vulcans:

Script as written for "Is There In Truth, No Beauty?" written by Jean Lisette Aroeste, dated July 16, 1968 actually is a bit longer and has more information about the IDIC. (The scene is the same dinner scene with Doctor Jones.)

Busy with the seach for expressing her thoughts, Miranda's
hand thouches the medallion pinned to Spock's breast.
She touches it carefully, as though identifying it.
McCoy sees the fleeting gesture her hand makes on contact
with the medallion. He is very intent on her action.

Spock pulls back, afraid he may have scratched her.

SPOCK

Forgive me. I forget that dress
uniforms can injure.

MIRANDA

No, I was merely looking at your
Vulcan IDIC, Mister Spock.
(looks up,
curiously)
Is it a reminder that as a Vulcan
you could mind-meld with the
Medeusan much more effectively
than I could?
(to the others,
but smiling)
It would be most difficult for a
Vulcan to see a mere human take
on this exciting a challenge.

McCOY
(to Spock)
Interesting question. It is a
fact that you rarely do wear the
IDIC.

KIRK

I doubt that Mister Spock would
don the most revered of all Vulcan
symbols merely to annoy a guest,
Dr. Jones.

SPOCK
(to Miranda)

In fact, I wear it this evening
to honor you, Doctor.

MIRANDA

Indeed?

SPOCK
(nods)

Indeed. Perhaps even with those
years on Vulcan, you missed the
true symbology.
(indicates
medallion)

The triangle and the circle...
...different shapes, materials,
textures...represent any two
diverse things which come
together to create here...truth
or beauty.
(indicating the
parts, looks up)
For example, Doctor Miranda Jones
who combined herself and the
disciplines of my race, to
become greater than the sum of
both.

It's not possible to protect a text from misinterpretation. But this may be the greatest violence I've ever seen done to a narrative: identifying the Federation with the NSA, and the Enterprise Bridge with something called "information dominance." Of course, technically, they used the NCC-1701D bridge, from Star Trek: The Next Generation, not the bridge from the old show, so it's really Picard's ship and crew that they are misusing. The idea that the Jean-Luc Picard who did this:

or said this:

would sit in anything called an Information Dominance Center or would support anything like constant mass surveillance is beyond preposterous.

Yes, I care about the integrity of fictional characters. I know it seems silly. But a misused dream can be a terrible thing.

Sometimes, though, it seems an inescapable conclusion that the intelligence and security apparatus of Britain and the United States--which are basically indistinguishable from one another--knowingly identify themselves with monsters.

The latest Wikileaks dump contains, as one of its minor pieces of data, the fact that the CIA and GCHQ named a certain program "Weeping Angel."

The program was designed to make Samsung smart TVs look like they're off when they're actually on. When you think you've turned them off, they start recording audio. They start recording the sounds occurring in your home.

What's interesting to me here is not that the CIA wants to use every piece of networked technology we have to spy on us nonstop. That's basically what "collect it all" means, and we've known for years that that was the aim of the US intelligence community. What's interesting to me is that they're knowingly identifying their program with this:

This image comes from a story by Steven Moffat, who wrote "Blink" in 2007, and who, I have no doubt, is at least a little disgusted today, because he is no fan of police states (watch "The Beast Below," the second episode of the fifth season, if you have any doubts of that).

As various British publications are pointing out today, "In Doctor Who, the Weeping Angels are creatures that appear to be stone statues when you look at them, but when you turn away they become deadly monsters." http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/british-spies-collaborated-joint-o... The only way to defend oneself against a Weeping Angel is to keep your eyes on them and never look away (hence the title "Blink.") I suppose the connection to the software that hacks into Samsung TVs is that when you stop looking at them--when you turn them off--that's when they actually turn on their recorders and gather their data. You turn your eyes away, and it activates. But when you turn away from the Weeping Angels in "Blink," what actually happens is that a monster attacks you. The NSA and GCHQ know that they're attacking their own civilian populations--or each others'. They are putting themselves, or their software at least, in the place of the monster.

But what's even more chilling is what these monsters actually do in the original story. They don't exactly kill you. Not exactly. They transport you to another time period, where you live out a different life than the one you would have lived. Meanwhile, the Weeping Angels consume, and digest, all your lost days. All the days you would have had, the people you would have loved, the life you would have lived.

They steal people's futures. They eat stolen futures.

The angels have the phone box.

What the hell is wrong with those people.