Power of the Dark Side
Page 21
Technology – run awry. Frankenstein(s), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Andromeda Strain, WarGames, A.I., Terminator, The Matrix, Blade Runner, I, Robot, Jurassic Park, Battlestar Gallactica, Minority Report.
Wars - and warring factions. Henry V, Lawrence of Arabia, Godfather, Gangs of New York, Apocalypse Now, Under Siege, The Thin Red Line, Platoon, most war movies.
Gods, monsters, magic, demons, and aliens – Them, It, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, Independence Day, Signs, The Mummy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, most horror movies.
The Dark Brotherhood – the really big bad guys. The Seventh Seal, Black Orpheus, Babylon 5, Conspiracy Theory, Eyes Wide Shut, Legend, The Lord of the Rings.
THE SLIDING SCALE
When you need to up the stakes, go up the sliding scale. Like a thermometer that indicates rising temperatures, or a gauge that measures RPMs, this can be a measure of how it all starts out rather innocently and then gets progressively worse. Here’s just a small sample of naughty-to-bad-to-evil:
mentally criticizing someone’s fashion sense, or lack thereof
• making catty remarks about them to someone else
• making catty remarks to the fashion victim herself
• taking the bigger slice of cake
• hiding the cake so no one else gets any
• denying education, medical care
• denial of civil rights
• unfair incarceration
• verbal/emotional violence
• physical violence
• rape
• torture
• murder
• serial murders
• ethnic cleansing
• genocide
• setting off plagues and weapons of mass destruction
• ecologically destroying continents, and planets
• blowing up planets
• blowing up the cosmos
Add your own, rearrange the items… just let us know what actions your characters actually think are worse, or if they aren’t conscious of being bad, let us know what the system they exist in considers worse, and explore their motivations and ramifications.
THE DARK SIDE OF OUR FUTURE
Okay, you blew up the Death Star, but wasn’t that an escape pod tumbling off into the distance? Count on it, there will be another challenge, and another, and another.
The tools of conflict progress from sticks and rocks to nuclear bombs to… what’s next? As science and technology leap ahead of philosophy and psychology, what new Powers of Darkness will we face? As storytellers, your duty and your privilege is to help discern that and to give us the insights and inspirations to deal with it.
Select two or three problems from these different categories and nest them like those little painted Russian dolls, so that your story progressively reveals deeper interconnected conflicts.
PERSONAL PROBLEMS
techno-phobia
alienation
isolation
compassion fatigue
future shock
regression to fundamentalism as protection from modernism
physical mutations, allergies, and illnesses
inability to focus and learn (too-short attention spans)
SOCIETAL PROBLEMS
failed safety nets of medicine, education, elder care
personal responsibility vs. social programs
emergency preparedness - floods, epidemics, storms
migrations, refugees
apocalyptic fracturing into isolated communes or compounds
integration vs. assimilation for immigrants and invaders
education/training for citizenship, creativity, and workforce
censorship, freedom of press, brainwashing, dumbing down
despotism, anarchy, police states
depressions, recessions, market crashes
BELIEF PROBLEMS
gods and religions vs. other gods and other religions
secularism vs. religionists
neo-social Darwinism – survival of the fittest
aliens (plus alien implants, subversion, manipulation)
cults
fundamentalism
superstition
cynicism devolving into debasement, treachery, and chaos
TECHNOLOGY PROBLEMS
metal fatigue and metal shortages (already happening)
nano-bots and implants gone bad
cloning gone bad
genetically engineered food gone bad
genetically engineered animals and people gone bad
biological-chemical warfare
nuclear proliferation
war in space with fallout on earth
computer-electronics failure
satellite failure
NATURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS
animals gain self consciousness and demand equal rights
the plant or mineral kingdoms advance to ???? (you tell us)
pollution
habitat destruction
extinctions
climate change
water wars (considered the next big resource problem)
rising sea levels – mass migrations
asteroids striking earth
polar shifts
cosmic rays
UNKNOWN PROBLEMS
extraterrestrials: hostile, or friendly but still dangerous
proof of ancient highly advanced civilizations here on earth
proof of ancient civilizations on other planets
proof of current civilizations on other planets
proof of underground civilizations (extinct or extant)
genetic mutations via natural selection
You tell us!
CONCLUSION
Using these three conceptual mechanisms in your stories you can select appropriate antagonists, plot rising conflict, and challenge our imaginations. As in any creative endeavor, strive for both familiarity and surprise, for elegance and improbability, for reassurance and challenge. When you succeed in this, your work will sparkle with a Light guaranteed to both attract and, somewhat at least, transform the Dark Side.
CONCLUSION
Throughout this book we’ve explored many aspects of the Dark Side. We have become acquainted with various villains, seen how they got that way, and how they operate. We’ve also explored ways your characters can counter the Dark Side and ways to use these concepts in your stories.
Hopefully this book will inspire you to explore further, to hold our human fears up to the Light, to reveal our Dark Sides, and to test our strengths and weaknesses. Storytellers can also show us what we ourselves might become if we do not consciously craft the resolutions of our own lives in alignment with the passion and the peace we all long for.
Storytellers are like the Holy Grail knight Parsifal. Unlike pure Galahad who sees the Light and is taken up into it, and unlike bad-boy Gawain who cannot see the Light at all, Parsifal stands in the-place-between. He sees the Light, but he remains in the world to serve the Grail. Parsifal becomes the bridge and the doorway for others who cannot yet see the Light but who can see him.
Your stories can be both bridge and doorway for others. Use the information in this book to bring your own Light to the Power of the Dark Side, then transmute it into inspiration and entertainment for us all.
Onward and Upward!
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WEBSITES
Birth2Work – full community education
www.birth2work.org
Carter Center
www.cartercenter.org
Center for Enhanced Performance,
U.S. Army Academy, West Point
www.dean.usma.edu/CEP/
DARPA: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
www.darpa.mil/
Joseph Campbell Foundation