e2Joss

"First there is the Earth.
Then there came the demons.
After the demons then came Men.
The Men found a Girl.
And the Men took the Girl.
To fight the Demon.
To fight all Demons.
They chained her to the Earth.
And then.. I can't read this.
Something about Darkness?"

"You cannot be shown. You cannot just watch, but you must see." - Get It Done

It has been said that in the beginning a supreme force created the heavens and the earth. Actually, the beginning goes back a bit further than that. In the beginning, there was nothing. In fact it was so much nothing that the term nothing is meaningless as is any other word in the English language to describe the abyss that existed back in that time before time itself began. There was no McDonald's, to start with. No shopping malls. There was no such thing as anything the average person takes for granted today. Air? There was no oxygen, nitrogen, or any of the other elements. There were no trees. No rocks. No water. No planets. No stars. Nothing. There wasn't even darkness, because darkness is a something. There were no somethings anywhere. Come to think of it, there was no where. The word void weakens and cheapens the very comprehension of the state of things. There was no void. There were no things. One cannot describe the space as black, for color was nonexistent as was the nonexistence of color. The very use of the word space gives an indication that there was space, however, three-dimensional space had yet to come into being, for there was not even two-dimensional space yet. Not even one-dimensional... Well you get what I mean. "Nothing" actually gives an indication there was something to compare against the nothing. Yet there was not. Attempting to communicate the concept to another with the use of words is more impossible than trying to wash every skyscraper in Manhattan with a toothbrush. It simply can't be done. Well. One could wash Manhattan with a toothbrush, perhaps. But why?

Perhaps even nothing can be defined as something. So perhaps even nothing didn't exist. Yet there it was. There it didn't exist. This nothing. There it did not exist. This nothing. Perhaps this nothing didn't exist for an eon, or perhaps only an instant. It is impossible to fathom, for time had no meaning yet. Now what is quite fascinating is that after some undeterminable amount of ...time, for lack of a better word, there was a something amidst the nothingness, and the instant this something occurred, the nothing too became something. How this happened is unknown, but all of existence tends to operate in a series of cycles, so it is very plausible to assume that it had always happened, and always will, long after you and I have turned to dust. Long after the last sunset falls upon the last planet in the last solar system of the last galaxy in the last universe, all will turn to nothingness and then again into something. Existence likes cycles. There is forever a debate whether it was the light that came first, creating the darkness, or if the dark appeared before the light. Some argue that without darkness, light cannot have anything which to compare, so the darkness must have come first. Others argue that the light came first, creating shadows, and thus light created darkness. Still others say they occurred simultaneously. The first light. The first dark. The first sense of order and the first sense of chaos. The First Good. The First Evil. "A light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out," or so goes an old phrase from a very old book whose pages still turn somewhere. Oh. But I'm getting ahead of myself aren't I? We simply can't have that.

Nevertheless, these two somethings came to be. This dark of something came to be. This light of something came to be. This would be what some scientists might incline to call one-dimensional space. There is no way to understand how this something came to be. Perhaps it was the whim of a supreme force of some kind, but that supreme force has been given many names several millennia later by beings who have no comprehension of it, or even if it is real. Whether or not the supreme force, if it existed, gave itself one of these names is nearly eternally open to speculation. This light of something came to be. It did not know its creator, and it too did not know its name. It didn't think, other than a very simplified insinctual belief that it wanted to continue to be something. The light simply existed, and its very existence was a blasphemy to the darkness. This dark of something came to be. This darkness had previously been nothing, and it wanted to go on being nothing. In the instant --this less than a FRACTION of a nanosecond-- this pinprick of light appeared in the nothingness, the nothingness became darkness, and the darkness was suddenly enveloped and infected by this something of light in the barely calculable number of fractions of nanoseconds that followed, but in that first fraction of a fraction of a nanosecond, there was this something. It was a very tiny, almost imperceptible something of light, which dared to venture out into the nothingness and in turn, turn that nothingness into a dark void by its very presence, and the dark void suddenly came into being like a hibernating grizzly. It hungered. It stirred. It quickly became irritable by its awakening. It damned the light of something for bringing it into existence, and from the very beginning, it vowed solemnly to destroy the something, so that the nothing could return to blissful ignorance of all existence once more. The light of something wants to live. It wants to be. The darkness of nothing simply desires to be no more. It has been this way since the beginning, and so will it be until the end. So this ignorant wisp of a something light ventured forth into the abyss like a small girl wandering alone into an alleyway in the pale moonlight. This something light was smaller than a subatomic particle, yet it had the power to become so much more. This is what some scientific minds might refer to as The Big Bang. The little something wanted to be, more than it wanted anything. It exploded. The light roared. The darkness screamed. The light felt a catharsis. The darkness felt violated. The something which human beings call the universe was born.

Some undeterminable amount of time later, what many theorize to be billions of years, came and went. It's ludicrous actually to refer to the time in any specific alottment of time, because this tale occurs long before grandfather clocks or digital watches. From the center of the universe came an incomprehensible amount of both energy and matter. Over time a massive swirl of this matter and energy congealed into what is now called the Milky Way Galaxy. In a nondescript portion near the edge of the western spiral arm of this galaxy a much smaller swirl of matter and energy congealed into a centralized star, nine or ten planetary bodies, and a larger number of smaller chunks of matter which are now called comets, asteroids, moons and other things. The third rock from the sun happened to be enough equidistant to exist within the ecosphere as it revolved around its star. This third planet has come to be known as Earth. There was a primordial soup of proteins and amino acids, enough to cook under the sun and become something resembling life. This life eventually evolved and became what has dubbed itself Man. Either life crawled out of the primodial slime on its own, or some Supreme Force of Nature which Man came to call a God or gods helped Man along. However, before there was Man, there were Demons. Demons were not native of Earth. They arrived on Earth through something called a hellmouth; a dimensional portal between this place and another. What some dub hell, but that's the name given it by people who haven't been there. Those who have been there, may call it hell jokingly. They know it's far worse than hell, there. It's where demons thrive.

"This world is older than any of you know, and contrary to popular mythology, it did not begin as a paradise. For untold eons, demons walked the Earth, made it their home, their Hell. In time, they lost their purchase on this reality, and the way was made for mortal animals. For Man. What remains of the Old Ones are vestiges: certain magicks, certain creatures." - The Harvest

These demons came here, and began efforting to make Earth another home away from home. They planned to consume all the planet's resources, defecate their waste, and move on. The earliest of Man, what some might call cave men existed originally in blissful ignorance. That is, until the demons discovered their presence, and began using the humanoid bipeds indiginous to this planet for food. At first the earliest of Man would find another of their kind drained of all blood. They would mourn their dead. They knew little of the world around them. Just enough to have barely survived until now. They feared the unknown, and the unknown was all around them. They fought, argued, and spread fear among themselves. Was this a great wild beast's doing? Was it one of their own? They could only guess, and they had little to go on. They buried the first of their kind to die this way in shallow graves, and they wept. Then night came, and the men began being visited upon by the demons en masse. Entire villages were laid to waste. Mankind appeared to be on the road to extinction before it would ever get a chance to thrive. Destroyed by the remnants of its own kind. To add insult to injury, the demons from the hellmouth made plans to invite friends from home. News of how tasty these morsels of humanity were spread like wildfire. The beasts that entered the portal and walked the Earth were not human. You thought those fossils were dinosaurs didn't you? Well. Some of them were. Some of them were not.

Humanity was at facing its own demise. Three of the wisest of the earliest of Men managed to survive the onslaught. Mostly by running and hiding. They managed to save some of the last villages of their kind. They had to determine a desperate plan to save their own kind. Their plan was this: From the last remnants of their kind they found a girl. A virgin. The purest of their own, with which to use as a sacrifice and forge like an ancient sword into a savior. Historically, sometimes, this war between the something and the nothing occurs in the most insignificant of ways. Sometimes it's the smallest of things, which make a difference. Sometimes a butterfly may flap its wings in Tokyo, and in California there is snow instead of sunshine. One may not know why. One may not be able to determine ever, why. There are realities in which David slew Goliath. There are realities in which Goliath slew David. There are realities in which the darkness defeats the light, for a time, and there are realities in which it is the light that is triumphant. Those who seek to maintain a neutral balance have the goal of insuring that by the end of known time, it is an equal number of both that achieves their ends. However, for those who defend the light, they only need one alternate reality more than the dark. Then, the light will feel victorious. The Dark wants it all to fail. It is the only way it can achieve its slumber once more.

The dark creatures battled with the humans, and sought to exterminate them. They did not fully understand why: that they were servants of a darkness which dared to someday destroy them as well so that it could sleep once more. They only knew they had to remove the infestation of light from that small blue planet circling a nondescript yellow star. So that they and their kind which worshipped chaos could thrive. The three wisest of the human kind were known as priests. They fabricated from their hopeless fate a plan of hope. They managed to secure a slice of the very evil which threatened their demise, and with great magicks now lost in time, they managed to distill the evil from the power to a small degree into a living wisp of black dust, and they forced that power into the last living child of their tribe. A girl. A virgin. This gave her great power, but the sacrifice was her humanity. She was dubbed the first Chosen One: the first slayer of the evil that threatened her village, and her kind. She wielded this great power within her with great difficulty, for the evil that managed to remain undistilled from the powerful magicks of the priests threatened to take her very soul, but wield it she did, and alone she faced the menace that threatened to destroy everything she held dear. She was The First Slayer. She confronted the evil, combated it, and forced it to retreat. Then she hunted it down, and cornered it. The last remaining remnants of a once proud and fearful evil race of beings were thwarted. They needed reinforcements to maintain the struggle between good and evil, for this one lone girl was too much of a match for them. So their own priests and their own dark magicks reopened the portal once again. From that portal spewed forth, unimaginable evil, whose sole purpose was to corrupt and eventually destroy all sentient life on Earth. From within. Despite her previous victories against the demons, The Slayer was unable to combat this new evil, for this new evil was designed to kill her own kind, then reanimate the dead tissue and walk among the living, where the undead creatures then attacked its own living kind.

"The books tell that the last demon to leave this reality fed off a human, mixed their blood. He was a human form possessed- infected- by the demon's soul. He bit another and another… and so they walk the Earth, feeding. Killing some, mixing their blood with others to make more of their kind. Waiting for the animals to die out and the Old Ones to return." - The Harvest

The First Slayer found herself combating not only sickening creatures, which were not humanoid in appearance. Now she found herself going up against dead members of her own village. Her friends and relatives and those who praised her as their savior fell victim to this infestation of evil, like a disease. At first she was not aware that they were already dead, and could not bring herself to destroy them. She took their victims who they hadn't yet turned, and retreated to a cave, where for many years she slept on their bones. She was broken. Her spirit cried out at the injustice and the cruelty of her lot in existence. She lost contact with the priests who did this terrible thing to her. For all she knew they too were dead. Or worse. Then the evil cornered her. It came at night. It hid in the shadows like a coward, knowing that despite her frailty and loss of security, she still had the power to destroy it. It hid behind the faces of those she had loved, like masks. It wore her loved ones like unfashionable clothes. She fought bravely, but her will was broken and her hope was sapped. With every piercing strike into the heart of one she once loved, a piece of herself died as well. She continued the fight until despite the great power wielded inside her own form, her body, her mind and her soul simply could take no more.

"She fought, and died, and was succeeded by another, and another, throughout time. Always One. Always a woman warrior. They were trained, sought out and guided by Watchers, descendants of the Shamans who created the first slayer." - The Fray

Yet after her death, there was still life, for inside the mystic force of evil that had been bestowed upon her was a single solitary light: a ray of hope. That ray of hope fought against the darkness. The darkness has never put it out. So the force retained her fighting spirit if not her sentience, and it sought out another Chosen One with which to maintain the fight. And it found her. When she fell, it found another. And so on throughout the ages. And thus began the lineage of The Slayers, from that time to this, and so on in one form or another until the end of all time.

For, in every generation, there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer.

Several millennia later, the power of The Slayer sought a lass by the name of Buffy Summers in a place called California on the surface of that insignificant little blue planet circling a nondescript yellow star. She was the latest guardian. The last slayer.

This was not her story.

"What we know is this-- there was a battle. A slayer, possibly with some mystical allies, faced an apocalyptic army of demons. And when it was done, they were gone. All demons, all magicks, banished from this earthly dimension. I do not know if the slayer lived. But, the demons being gone, she was the last to be called." - The Fray regarding the demise of The Last Slayer

I had a friend (okay, I admit it, she was my girlfriend at the time, but I swear she wasn't referring to me specifically) who pointed this out to me once. Her mother was Danish and she spent a large part of her childhood in Denmark, land of free, open, and supposedly healthy sexuality. This served to highlight what she felt was the somewhat stilted attitude toward sex that permeates American society.

I think what she meant was that in the USA, sex is ubiquitous. It's used to sell everything and sexual references are now embedded in all sorts of supposedly non-sexual expressions and activities. Ever watch a football player dance after sacking the quarterback or scoring a touchdown?

At the same time, compared to much of the world, Americans tend to be exceptionally prudish when it comes to any real public discourse about sex. We're like a nation of 13 year olds, snickering and nudging each other when the topic of sex is raised. Heck, the Surgeon General was forced to resign just because she suggested that teaching children about masturbation might be a reasonable thing to do.

A white paper written by Anthony H. Cordesman from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Commissioned by the federal government shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, this report outlines the current state of the United States’ readiness to deal with a terrorist attack using biological weapons. While it manages to be both full of chilling scenarios and dry statistics, Cordesman manages to set his report apart by asking us to think of biological warfare in terms of the TV show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. He describes both the United States and Buffy as living “in a world of unpredictable threats where each series of crises only becomes predictable when it is over and is followed by a new and unfamiliar one.”

Cordesman describes this uncertain existence as the “Buffy Paradigm.” Other similarities between the current world situation and Buffy include:

• What expertise there is consists largely of bad or uncertain advice and old, flawed, and confusing technical data.
• The importance of any given threat changes constantly, past threat behavior does not predict future behavior, and methods of delivery keep changing.
• Arcane knowledge is always inadequate and fails to predict, detect, and properly characterize the threat.
• The more certain and deterministic an expert is at the start, the more wrong they turn out to be in practice.
• The scenarios are unpredictable and have very unclear motivation. Any effort to predict threat motivation and behavior in detail before the event does at least as much
• Risk taking is not rational or subject to predictable constraints and the motivation behind escalation is erratic at best.
• It is never clear whether the threat is internal, from an individual, or from an outside organization.
• The attackers have no firm or predictable alliances, cooperate in nearly random ways, and can suddenly change method of attack and willingness to take risks.
• All efforts at planning a coherent strategy collapse in the face of tactical necessity and the need to deal with unexpected facts on the ground.
• The balance between external defense, homeland defense, and response changes constantly.
• No success, not matter how important at the time, ever eliminates the risk of future problems

Cordesman also argues that the U.S. government is currently suffering from “The Buffy Syndrome,” that, like the characters in “Buffy,”

(They) constantly try to create unrealistic plans and models, and live in a world where they never really face the level of uncertainty they must deal with. They do not live in a world of total denial, but they do seek predictability and certainty to a degree that never corresponds to the problems they face. In short, they behave as if they could create and live with the kind of strategy and doctrine that is typically developed by the US joint chiefs, could develop and implement an NSC decision memorandum, or solve their problems with the equivalent of a Quadrennial Defense Review.

This piece, with its focus on how uncertain we are on how to deal with terrorist attacks, can be a little frightening. The author manages to present over 20 different scenarios where a small, well-trained terrorist group could cause widespread panic and destruction throughout the United States. Then talks about how easy it is for terrorists to gain access to dangerous materials since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is an excellent report for anyone looking to see what a dangerous place the world can truly be.

As scary as this whole thing is, you can‘t help but smile when you read sentences like:

One of Buffy’s constant problems is that demons are more lethal than vampires, and simple minded as this may be, it illustrates the point that some weapons of mass destruction are far more lethal than others.

The complete text of the report is available at http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/buffy0129021.pdf

All grammar and spelling errors have been left "as is" from the original report. Your tax dollars at work, eh?