Greetings.

Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Saigo Shukenja Raijen Shinkeniki, he who treads the pathways of the kami, ardent warrior of the bodhisattvas, avatar of Raijin, bringer of storms, master of lightning, and defender of Nihon-koku.

It is not in my normal custom to use such technology. However, my great great granddaughter has arranged to procure me a computer and is instructing me in its use. She claims that I have been removed from the world for too long and says this device will help us to "keep in touch."

After the creation of an Optical Mail account, I recieved a missive instructing me to come here for an unknown purpose. Who is the headmaster of this domain and for what have I been summoned?

Nodeling, you've been "summoned" because your name is listed in a database somewhere as a nova. When you started your account, and listed your real name, it flagged that database and you were sent an automated opmail.

In other words - the ghost in the machine did it.

This is why we should kill all computers.

I got one too, which was pretty fabulous. I just had a friend set up the system, we powered it up, and there was this message.

Anyway, Hello everybody!

And people wonder why we get such a bad rep. You are not a god, or an avatar, you're a dude with a node, and by comparison with some of today's novas, you're an out dated model.

Hello!

I finally found an internet cafe that would allow me to stay long enough to long on and register! You may call me Citronic, The Forbidden Fruit of Barbados! */play: fanfare.mp4/*

My great great granddaughter has infomred me that the bellicose tone of your message is called "baiting." Therefore, to avoid lowering myself to such base antagonism I will instead respond with grace and civility.

Perhaps you consider my point of view to be antiquated, or even backwater. The truth is, the modern technocratic paradigm is just another in a long series of sets of labels ascribed to existential reality. True, this paradigm has gone far in bringing to light the cause and effect of many things and corrected many fallacies of assumption our ancestors held in high esteem.

However, much like the mythical lernaen hydra, for every mystery science can solve, many more enigmatic questions arise in it's place. Chief among these mysteries is the structure and function of the brain. Of course it is widely accepted that the node, or for the younger generations, the integrated faracyte tissue is responsible for the wide array of abilities our kind possesses. Yet much as always, scientists are baffled at exactly how it is accomplished. It has been, and still remains, a great mystery.

It is people like yourself, afraid to look full on into the vast and incomprehensible void that we inhabit for brief, flickering moments of time who close your mind to the great and terrible truth. You hide behind fragile veils of reason, claiming to know everything. Perhaps that is why you spend your days at the bottom of a bottle Bastion-sama?

For all we know, the gods and spirits and legends of old were just like you and I, and that ancient texts that tell of harnessing the third eye was merely another term from another culture.

In other words, semantics.

You are divine Bastion-sama. You are a Titan walking the Earth, blessed with power beyond even many of your peers. Whether you choose to walk the path of the bodhisattva, working tirelessly not only for your own enlightenment, but for that of the world, or choose the destructive path of the asura...I leave to you.

*checks off one more retarded megalomaniac off his list*

It's the ones like you that make living up to ones potential so difficult. You're just a little taint show running around playing super being.

Discarding reason leads to being an insane, power-drunk, ass-hat. Reason tells us what's right and what's wrong. People like you think a node makes everything right. Honorless cowards for the most.

You don't know me, so don't try and guess. I was doing the right thing and changing this world while you were sitting on your ass somewhere fucking some cosplay idiot dressed up like Sephiroth or rolling around in your own shit for money on a game show, or whatever it is you Japanese do for recreation.

Nut job.

To each his own I guess. I've never understood why anyone would -want- to think novas are divine.

For me, divinity is about ineffability. It represents the subset of infinity (ie - the universe and everything in it) that is not only not known, but cannot BE known. It's the mystery with a capital M.

It's fair to say that, by that definition, novas certainly partake of divinity in that their abilities derive from processes that are not just mysterious but quite possibly Mysterious. The same can be said of baselines. And squirrels. And dirt. This doesn't mean I'm equating novahood with dirt, mind you. I'm pointing out that by this, admittedly broad, definition, divinity is a universal trait. We may never really understand the mysteries of matter and energy's final composition, or the mechanisms that gave rise to the universe. We may never understand how a wet sack of neurons creates art, and beauty and love and hate.

So, in my estimation, it is a healthy thing to understand and respect the divine in one's life. It is less so to actually believe that one is a literal god. To do the first is to acknowledge the limits of human (and nova) understanding, and gain a sense of humility and perspective on the universe and one's place in it. The second is to descend into a haze of ego and potential madness. It's not just dangerous to those around the self-proclaimed "god," but to himself as well.

We live. We think. We create. We destroy. Everything else we do, is white noise against the infinite.

We are the universe made conscious; looking at shadows of reality as we seek understanding.

Very perceptive of you Genesis. Divinity is a property of the universe. The very soil of the Earth is sacred, as are the spirits of the rocks and trees. Every man and woman is a star.

However, as every being in the universe has its place, so does our kind. To an ant, human beings are as mighty titans, influencing the world in ways they cannot comprehend on their scale of life and time. Likewise, most mortals are unable to appreciate the subliminity of an ancient tree's existence. Novas, for better and worse, have been granted the power of the legendary gods of human myth and legend. To deny this power is to hide our heads in the sand. In order to accept responsibility for this power, one must first acknowledge it.

Bastion: Your rudeness and lack of civility speak to your character. I have saved the world more times than you know, boy, and was doing so before your grandfather was born.

I took the liberty of doing some research and now know most everything there is to know about you and your history. You seem to have had a promising start but then let self-pity and the opinions of your detractors keep you from fullfilling your destiny. You are an insolent child and not worth the exertion of my contempt. Fortunately you still have time to grow up. Let's see if you do.

Nowhere in my post was I suggesting denying our abilities. Hell, I'm a poster child for indulging abilities. What I was saying was that a nova is no more a god than a human is a god. You actually, maybe inadvertently, are making an argument that supports my contention.

You compare ants to humans, saying that the capacities of a human far outstrip those of ants. I find that arguable, but even if we decide to accept it pro tem, does that make a human a god? Even to ants? Of course not.

There is a difference between participating in the divine, and BEING divine. The first connects us to our environment, and to each other. The second acts to divide us from everything and everyone, on false assumptions that because we can DO things others cannot that we MEAN more, on a cosmic level.

It is my belief that this idea is a fallacy, and a potentially destructive one. Even if held with the best of intentions.

Perhaps our points of view are not so dissimilar after all. There is a saying in Japan, that there are one thousand views of Mount Fuji...and that all of them are correct.

Please understand, I do not speak of fundamental value. If anything, the gods are the servants of men. I do however believe in the difference of scale. For example, I never stated that ants were worth less than humans. Quite the contrary they perform valuable ecological services for the biosphere. However a human might wield the power of life and death over them, destroying whole colonies, using them for research and in general affecting the world on a scale that is lost to an ant's perspective.

Likewise, the humble fisherman has no more intrinsic value than myself in the face of the existential universe. Even the gods were born of the void and even to them they shall returm. Even gods may die.

However, though I may not be worth more on a cosmic scale than the humble fisherman, I have been given a vastly greater ability to affect the world around me, for good or ill. It is this difference in responsibility that sets novas apart from humans. The bodhisattva has a responsibility to every living thing. Many novas today, like the capricious gods of old, care for nothing more than thier own bloated sense of self importance. They trampel over the world, not seeing the value in the mortals they so callously cast aside. It is for this reason, that the Kamisama teach. To remind us of our spiritual heritage, and as you allude, the interconnectedness of life.

When your opinions matter Guru Kuso Atama, I'll let you know.

Saigo Shukenja Raijen Shinkeniki,

Do you indeed claim to be kami-taken-flesh, to be Kaminari-sama, to be an active great spirit in these days for your people?

If so, perhaps we should speak. My mate is Wakinyan, the Thunder-bird, who has left the flesh behind but who still soars above the sacred skies of Inyan Kara. If you are Kaminari-sama, you and he have much in common, if for different peoples.

Do not worry at Bastion's rudeness. He holds the skepticism of "Western civilization" close to his heart, and has drunken deeply of wasicu poisons.

- Ptehehincalasanwin

Hey, Citronic. Welcome to the board.

Now B and Red... play nice, boys. We're all in the One Race together. As for divinity...

There is One God, and He is Mal.













































Ha... had some of you going there for a moment, didn't I?

Not really... the blank space (similar to the one between your ears) that stretched your post really long sort of gave it away that you had something witty at the end to say.

Pteheincalasanwin,

Thank you for showing honor to my full name. However such honorifics are not necessary between us. Raijin-sama, or Kaminari if you prefer.

Let us meet, and speak of our heritage. Details can be worked out in private.

Message, login, etc. I'm the Comte. Nice to meetcha.

Raijin doesn't strike me as that egotistical. He's just bein' who he is. That's cool.



Try Mammon. Once you go green you'll never go back...