Page 4 - OCTOPUS COMMISSION REPORT SCHWARZKOMMANDO ENG

OCTOPUS COMMISSION REPORT NOV 3TH 2101
EXCERPT #2
One of the most heated discussions
in the committee revolved around the
name that the Issuer seemed to have
given itself through the combination of
ideograms shown here:
§éz = saturn | land | power
The following is an excerpt from the
committee’s discussion on the issue:
Dr Recht: If we focus on the reference to
the earth, to the terrain, I mean, and rela-
te it to Saturn, the result is an association
that points towards darkness, dissolu-
tion, perhaps even putrefaction.
Dr Mart: I would say we are moving into
the territory of alchemy.
Dr Recht: Exactly. More precisely, towards
the phase that was called Nigredo. In my
opinion, the Issuer refers to blackness.
Dr Net: I don’t agree, we are going too
far back. You humanists love the past too
much and, at the same time, you forget
history! What does the word Saturn im-
mediately call to mind? Let’s not pretend
we’re not in a cosmodrome.
Dr Recht: Saturn V, I see what you’re get-
ting at.
Dr Net: And Wernher Von Braun, of cour-
se.
Dr Mart: Everything is plausible, althou-
gh incompatible with Dr Recht’s argu-
ments?
Dr Net: I don’t know, I tend not to trust
the intuitions of philosophers, even if I
sometimes recognize their fruitfulness.
Among other things, there remains the
problem of the bitmap meaning “power”.
The only association that comes to me,
almost instinctively, is with the concept
of command...
Dr Lem: So, use your instinct, Dr Net,
don’t be afraid! Listen to this: Von Braun,
the black, the command. What comes to
mind, gentlemen?
Dr Recht: Nazism?
Dr Lem: Of course, but that’s not enou-
gh. Be more literary.
OCTOPUS COMMISSION REPORT NOV 3TH 2101
Dr Net: I could at best be more literal
and tell you that you want to talk about
rockets.
Dr Lem: Precisely. So: rockets and litera-
ture, Von Braun...
Dr Recht: Of course, Thomas Pynchon
and his ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’.
Dr Net: Literature... are we sure?
Dr Lem: Leave your preconceptions asi-
de for now and follow my reasoning. By
the way, you should be pleased: your in-
terpretation of the Saturn V rocket, and
therefore of Von Braun, is perfectly com-
patible with the Pynchonian reference,
even if the novel mentions V2. Anyway,
as we know, it all started from there.
Dr Net: Obviously.
Dr Recht: But coming back to us: we
have a reference to Nigredo, therefore
to the work in black, thus to blackness it-
self, coupled with the concept of power
or rather command, as you rightly gues-
sed, without thinking too much about it.
Dr Net: What are you getting at? I’m get-
ting lost in your explanations.
Dr Lem: I apologize, I sometimes di-
gress. Briefly, I propose this translitera-
tion hypothesis for the ideogrammatic
sequence: saturn + earth = nigredo =
black; power = command. In short, black
+ command. Think back now to Pyn-
chon...
Dr Mart: Schwarzkommando!
Dr Lem: That’s precisely what I mean.
Dr Net: It seems like a specious interpre-
tation to me.
Dr Recht: Wait! Let’s give Dr Lem time to
argue better.
Dr Mart: Indeed, I am very curious.
Dr Lem: I’ll be honest, I don’t have any
convincing arguments beyond a certain,
I admit somewhat irrational, feeling of
exactitude. And yet there is something
about the appearance of the Issuer that
seems to me to confirm it. Look at his
metamorphic face, that almost resem-
bles an African ritual mask.
Dr Recht: You are referring to the Herero,
right? The sound of one of their chan-
ts echoes from the Totem found shortly
after the video signal was received. Dr