[DEFEAT. is Rendar Frankenstein’s truest attempt at fiction.   Presented in weekly episodes, the novella tells the tale of Daryl Millar – a hero who dies at the intersection of pop culture, science-fiction, war epic, and fantasy]

November 17, 1943

To My Beloved Betty,

As I write to you I sit aboard a vessel that, despite being a giant in its own right, is dwarfed by the mammoth that is the Pacific. If it weren’t starting to turn crimson with the blood of good, honest (and not so honest) men, I’d swear this ocean is the embodiment of God himself.

All of the supposed comforts provided by this battleship are revealed as mere feats of human ingenuity – designs of imperfect and selfish beings – when one understands the magnificence of its supporting body of water. I spend a lot of time on deck, staring out into its vastness, wondering how it is that I’ve ever managed to feel important.

The ocean is natural and timeless. Humanity’s current path seems to be anything but.

However, when I think of you and the love you’ve given me I can’t help but remember why it is that I continue. In the long term, I truly believe that we — people, human beings, civilization — will be but a flash in the pan. With that being said, there’s no reason to settle for less during our moment.

Read the rest of this entry »

[Enlarge]

Sometimes when I go to sleep, I picture myself gallivanting about in a space faring society. I know it sounds dorky. Alright, it is dorky. But it brings me some sort of existential tranquility to picture a civilization where the humans haven’t blown themselves to smithereens, or even worse, simply stagnated. No, I picture them flying about, perhaps still bound by the same petty and persistent human drives. But flying.

So when I see this picture of Tracy Caldwell Dyson looking out of a porthole in the ISS, I know for certain that someone is coming close to living my dream. I can’t imagine the sort of mind-fuck nirvana it is, to gaze down at the big blue marble all us lead feet are stuck on. The mind-fuck that comes from saying “I was down there, but now I am up here. But we are all in outer-space, spinning merrily on our way.”

It’s gorgeous.