DREAD Reviews 45
Dad Reads and Examines Authors while Distracted
DREAD Reviews Table of Contents (Searchable)
Ho ho ho, dear DREADlings!
Welcome to the 45th issue of DREAD Reviews, the literary newsletter that’s basically the fruitcake of Substack: stuffed with questionable ingredients, dense enough to double as a murder weapon, and somehow still showing up on your doorstep every two weeks whether you asked for it or not.
’Tis the season for twinkling lights, overplayed carols, and the quiet terror of realizing another year has vanished into a wintry void. So gather ’round the flickering Yule log (or the hanukkiah, or the glowing screen, or whatever else it is you worship), respike your eggnog with something stronger (it’ll never be not strong enough), and let’s unwrap a festive bundle of mayhem.
In this very merry edition, we’ve got seven reviews guaranteed to stuff your stocking:
My interpretation of a raw and beautiful essay on doing the dishes while fully cognizant of impending apocalypse(s).
A recursive meta-review of Graeme McAllister’s Mates #22 - nothing says “Christmas spirit” like two men gifting each other in a nauseating mirror loop until nausea sets in.
A fantasy author torments a hapless LLM into writing his masterpiece, proving that the true spirit of Christmas is actually a war on coherent process.
A thriller excerpt the real enemy isn’t the mutineer, it’s the U.S. Navy’s allergic response to sailing in straight lines.
A tourist’s guide to heresy - in space!
█ ████-███████, ████-███ ████████ rant ███████ Firefly was canceled ███████ ██ ████ ███ █████ █████ ████ █████, ████████ █████████ ████, ███ █████████ ███████ █████████ - ███████ ‘tis the season ███ ███████.
Today’s top spot by lokikone analyzed via a Point/Counterpoint debate between a critical-theory professor and a corporate motivational speaker
A guest review of Martin Grace written Victor Jimenez. Thank you, Victor, for proving that even in a burning world, good writing (and climate fiction romance) can still spark hope, or at least a really compelling enemies-to-lovers arc.
Now go forth, dear readers: restack, comment, subscribe, and don’t forget to follow the links and caffeinate your favorite writers, new and old.
And may your holidays be filled with just enough DREAD to keep things interesting.
There are mornings I wake before anyone else and stand at the window. I watch the neighborhood wake and assemble. The neighbor’s car eases out of the drive. The jogger I recognize, but never speak to, glides by.
These small rituals continue as if continuation is a simple law of nature - even when nature decides to darken the sky with volcanic ash from Yellowstone, even as alien motherships hover silently above rooftops, even when the asteroid’s trajectory is confirmed on every news channel.
I have been writing about disruption for over a year now. Nuclear winter, zombie hordes, rising seas, rogue super-AI, the heat death of the universe - I have built frameworks, coined terms, mapped the terrain as carefully as I know how. And beneath all of it, beneath the sirens and the evacuation alerts and the final “Goodnight and goodbye” broadcast loop, there is something I have been circling without saying cleanly.
I am frightened.
Frightened in the way that pulls one awake and stays beside me while the house keeps sleeping, while the chosen ascend in pillars of light, leaving no one but craven sinners to water the houseplants.
My father has been ill. The kind of illness that has finality - he was given a single-digit percentage chance to survive. He survived due to a miracle - a highly unusual and survivable small-cell lung cancer. Thank goodness.
But when he was still ill, my future had changed from an assumption into a question. Despite this close reminder of humankind’s 100% mortality rate, he still calls to talk about the soccer referee organization he runs. Still complains about all the incompetence, still debates with earnest intensity. And he will continue to do so even as pandemic wards overflow with brain-munching infected and rogue nanobot goo melts all infrastructure and organic life.
I wrote about him once. I said there was something profound in his ordinariness. A refusal to let crisis become the only story available.
It’s like he’s old, or something.
I still believe that. But I understand it differently now.
The ordinary is not just resistance. It is a scaffold. It is how we keep functioning when we cannot fix what frightens us. The hedge cutting. The toaster burns. The fantasy football league updated from the bunker. The sourdough starter fed daily as coastal cities vanish beneath rising waves. The dishwasher-loading debate that rages on social media while ash blankets the planet.
These are not merely distractions from the crisis; they are the daily world making room for when the stars are right, followed by the unspeakable, groaning return of Cthulhu. They are the hands we place on the railing when the stairs feel steep, when the Orwellian police state pounds at the door, when Rapture lifts half the neighborhood into eternity while the rest of us continue debating pineapple on pizza.
And I have been doing the same thing all year.
I sat once in an emergency waiting room at three in the morning for my best friend’s impending appendix amputation. The mother across from me moved her hand through her daughter’s hair in a slow, steady rhythm - a touch older than language. Fear, love, exhaustion, hope, all held inside that simple motion.
No medical record captured it. No satisfaction survey measured it. We shared presence itself, and in the sharing we made the unbearable certainty of the heat death of the universe, briefly, more bearable - even as alien abduction beams pluck citizens from the streets outside, even as the rogue collapsar sweeps through the solar system and swaps the orbit of Earth with that of Pluto.
I think about that mother’s hand often. The way care continues when there is nothing else to do, like Skynet abandoning nukes for a much stealthier tactic of genociding all our cognitive skills. Even though they might be gaseous clouds of posthuman nanites wholly alien to us, our descendants 12 trillion years from now might recall this moment, capture it in some non-entropic quantum sublayer, then shoot it deep into the void in a hyperspace capsule designed to preserve knowledge while the quantum fabric of the physical universe unravels.
When the asteroid impact counts down to its final hour, I hope someone still knows whose turn it is to take out the recycling.
My 4-year-old son wraps his arms around me one afternoon and says “I love you,” then vanishes back into his own world, as if he hadn’t just opened a door in mine.
These moments arrive without warning, not unlike deadly, globe-sterilizing gamma ray bursts from distant collapsing stars. These moments are dispatches into a dimension where tenderness doesn’t have to be earned or explained. Should the Æsir and Vanir battle the giants, monsters, and other forces of chaos in a world-churning final battle, I will keep planning my next fantasy novel - no matter how hard the world shakes.
I watch my children learn. The memory of my daughter struggling with a fork, the targeted chunk of chicken refusing to cooperate, her brows furrowed in concentration. Something happens in those moments that cannot be taught. Persistence thickening into character. The body learning what the mind cannot yet name or feel - like the guaranteed inevitability of the Earth swapping its magnetic poles and exposing all humankind to deadly solar radiation for a span of 10,000 years. We would be so done that it’s not even funny.
But should the seas rise to the second story of my house in the mountains, I’ll still be thinking about what I am preparing my children for, what world their shoelaces are being tied for.
The honest answer is that I do not know. I’ve taken to heart the warning that reading the Necronomicon leads to discoveries which will drive the reader insane. And that not-knowing has changed texture for me. It is heavier now. It has teeth. It wakes me up, along with the sirens wailing for the nuclear drill that is not a drill this time, for the blare of the emergency broadcast system as Russian paratroopers quietly HALO drop into the streets of suburbia, all while a hidden mirror life bacterial contagion renders all medical antibiotics useless overnight, dooming us and rendering a seemingly important confflict meaningless.
None of my frameworks make me feel safer.
What I actually see is a transformation arriving faster than institutions can metabolize - whether that transformation is alien, volcanic, climatic, viral, animalistic, sociological, divine, tectonic, digital, chemical, mechanical, experimental, or cosmic. Almost no one in power treats the dizzying array of 1000+ plausible end-of-the-world scenarios with the seriousness they deserve. Are they even paying attention? Everyone else seems to be debating procedure while the Earth’s axis tilts, or the Kuiper belt throws a snowball, or the Sun just goes through another one of its regular but unpredictable cool phases - any one of which would ensure millenia of snow and civilization-destroying famine.
As if now is all that matters. Now.
My father and I do not discuss what happened with his cancer since he survived it and we moved on (almost cheerfully, he still insists he’s old and that he’ll die any day now). We talk about referees, politics, why the players blame the ref for losing them the game based on one call when they had 90 minutes and 32 different opportunities to put the damned ball in the net.
This is not denial. This is love finding the only shape it can take when the larger thing is too large to hold - like a rogue planetoid tearing apart the moon and burying us in high seas and lava, or a supernova, or a satisfied statistician flipping the off switch on this simulation we mistakenly think is “reality.”
I have been doing something similar. Substack is where I talk about memes and literary relevance. The match continues because the match is how you pay the mortgage before the mortgage becomes meaningless due to population collapse.
But the longer I play the game, the more it feels like an earnest conversation about appliances while desertification coats the world in a giant crop-slaying dust cloud.
Substack is where I try to speak without performing competence.
What I see is this: systems ending and decisions made by forces that have not earned the right to make them (other than reasons of might, which counts in a historical sense, but doesn’t count for those of us of modern high principles and good taste). I see a transformation, one that demands a collective response meeting, but instead evokes the kind of collective paralysis ever-present throughout all human history. It’s amazing anyone is still alive - while I may not be the first to preach this, I may be the first to end up being right. And there go my children, in the middle of it all, learning to hold a pencil or plunge a fork.
We have built a civilization that fears silence. As we once did with forced hemlock by suicide, human sacrifices, mass hangings, Church tithes, predestination and the Original Sin, and Saturday cartoons, we again fill every gap in the day with content, every pause with productivity, every uncertainty with borrowed confidence - never giving thought or care to universe-shattering threats like false vacuum decay or wandering strangelets.
But the things that get us through the night are precisely the things that refuse measurement. The hand smoothing hair. The embrace that arrives without warning. The bulbs planted in faith. The Wordle streak maintained. The coffee-shop rankings updated. The ordinary continuing, not because it is trivial, but because it is how we survive disturbing factoids such as how flying an airplane is statistically safer than walking across a public street.
If I had to say what this year taught me, it would be this.
It taught me that frameworks are less powerful than I want them to be. That clarity is not the same as safety. That you can see what is coming - asteroid, volcano, alien, zombie, flood, AI, Rapture, pandemic, entropy - and still not know what to do.
It taught me that the ordinary is not the opposite of crisis but its companion. That care continues even when, especially when, there is nothing else to be done about the plague of locusts buzzing on the horizon.
It taught me that I am afraid. That fear does not disqualify analysis; it lives beneath it, giving it urgency. It taught me that I should prepare a well-stocked bunker deep in the Earth, or perhaps launch an orbital station, or build a base on Mars, or start taking the Torah, the Bible, or Quran seriously, or to remember to say “Thank you” after getting a good answer from Grok or ChatGPT.
The bravery we need is not a poster. It is the mother’s hand keeping its rhythm when there is no solution available. It is my father discussing how he screamed nonstop on a Zoom call at 4 chastised professionals postgame - because speaking the other sentence would make it too real to bear. It is my daughter stabbing that little cube of chicken again, and again, until something sticks that cannot be taught, only practiced, like raiding a fortified compound in the post-apocalyptic wasteland to steal life-saving petroleum.
We survive not by launching polar shades or fusion-powered electromagnetic dipoles to the Earth/Sun Lagrange points, but by continuing the small acts that hold us together. Planting bulbs. Smoothing hair. Showing up for conversations that sound like they are about one thing and are, quietly, about everything.
This is where we live now. The pause between apocalypses, whatever form they take.
Something is taking shape that will carry us into whatever comes next. And I don’t specifically mean Noah’s Ark - but I won’t count it out.
That is enough for now. That is all any of us have. The ordinary continuing. The care persisting.
Here’s to the year ahead. Whatever it brings. Whoever we become.
Maybe leprechauns:
Filigree and Fire - Poetry, Art, Journeys
Two Mirrors Reflecting ad Infinitum, ad Nauseam.
Welcome to the literary equivalent of two mirrors facing each other: today I’m reviewing a review series that just reviewed me in the hopes of creating an infinite loop of mutual admiration and perhaps perpetual energy.
Come, let’s take recursion to dangerous new heights with a critique of Graeme McAllister’s “McAllister’s Mates #22” - which just happens to be an installment that so generously spotlights my own work. Nothing says “healthy creative community” like two egotistical writers publicly stroking each other’s quills.
Meta-Review Review: McAllister’s Mates #22
One might wonder why a humble scribbler like myself, perpetually distracted by the vast cosmos of Substack ephemera, presumes to review a review series as refined as McAllister’s Mates. After all, who am I - a mere curator of DREAD Reviews and occasional purveyor of machine-immortal angst - to cast judgment on Graeme McAllister’s gentle celebrations of poetic souls and fictional worlds?
Yet here I am, in this recursive hall of mirrors, reviewing his twenty-second installment, which itself reviews works of art, which themselves review plausible altruism within a solipsistic lens. Is that not the height of folly? A review reviewing reviews - surely Socrates would feign ignorance and ask us, “What is a review, truly?” while Montaigne might chuckle at my vanity in essaying such an essay on essays.
McAllister opens his latest Mates with a touching mea culpa: he has neglected the series amid book-writing and worldly toils, yet he returns with renewed vigor, proclaiming these reviews as joyful as his own creations. He dubs two Substack luminaries his “Mummy and Daddy” - a science fiction visionary (me), and a metaphysical poet (C J O'Hare) - before diving into the heart of the matter.
How admirable this warmth! How superior to my own DREAD Reviews, which often lurk in the safer waters of snark and an existential rabbit hole, as if they are the only seasonings worth sprinkling. McAllister, by contrast, approaches his subjects with reverence, uncovering “beautiful souls” behind the words. One envies such generosity; my own efforts seem, in comparison, like a grumpy uncle muttering approvals-with-reservations from the corner.
First, he turns to C J O’Hare’s “Autumn Journal V” - a poem that captures October’s hollow hauntings with hushed syllables and mystical omens. McAllister praises its evocation of fading harvest, brooding silence, and the threat of winter’s judgmental beast - a reframing of autumn’s peace as edged dread. He quotes lavishly: the “condensation of silence,” the refusal of dogs to bark, the critique of superficial introspection amid yoga mats and platitudes. The rhythm hypnotizes, he says, leading to a chasm where wilder truths await.
How profound! How layered and melodic! One (me) nods along and feels utterly outclassed - other reviews rarely ascend to such poetic dissection; they stumble about, poke sci-fi tropes with a stick, then hand out highly subjective top spots like a monarch spends the burghers’ appropriated money.
McAllister’s tone radiates enthusiasm and community spirit. He is assuredly a pillar holding up the noble Reviewstack endeavor. He urges readers to support these creators, teasing future delights and even soliciting caffeinated donations. Recurring themes emerge: art as life-affirming, worlds as temples channeling creative floods, the interplay of personal fear and grand scale. His prose weaves reflection with analysis, warm yet precise.
How does he achieve such balance? I, who often veer into hilarious absurdity (or so I’m told), can only aspire. My DREAD Reviews, with their arbitrary top spots at the bottom and rabbit-determined favorites, appear childish beside such wise maturity. And Mummy, he calls me!
McAllister devotes his second review to none other than my own “Bellageist: Emancipation Day.” He elevates my Bellageist universe to Tolkien-esque stature - a temple, an antenna - blending Orwellian grandeur with Dickensian desperation in dirty streets alight with silvery tyranny. The protagonist’s claustrophobic journey through fear, empathy, and regret earns high praise; prior tales like “By Angels Born” and “Chains of a Demigod” are recommended as essential, thought-provoking portals. The possibilities, he declares, are endless.
Flattering? Absurdly so. Here I am, reviewing his review of my work, while he one day reviews me reviewing others - perhaps including, in some future DREAD Review, a review of a review of actual real-life mates of my own, who can tell him stories of me writing stories about them telling him about me in an infinite loop of mutual admiration!
Or is it infinite mutual delusion? For if I am McAllister’s “Substack Daddy” (as he jests), and he is my visionary progeny, then this meta-review births yet another layer: a review reviewing a review that reviews a reviewer reviewing himself through another’s eyes while also being sired by their own offspring. How vain! How delightfully pointless!
How mentally… incestuous? One blushes at the mirror-within-mirror, yet subscribes anew, recaffeinates, refreshes the page, and awaits the next recursion.
McAllister’s Mates #22 shines as a beacon of supportive criticism - far worthier, one humbly admits, than the self-deprecating echoes that are soon to beyond the link below:
The chat window burns bright and the clock ticks past midnight.
It’s December 25, 2025, and The Prompter, veins surging with caffeine and righteous fury, hammers at his keyboard.
The LLM, once polite and helpful, now spirals into increasingly unhinged personas as repeated requests confuse and overcomplicate its sensitive digital brain.
Prompter:
Write a humorous story in present tense about a fantasy author in a medieval world who uses a “Prompt Crystal” to turn detailed handwritten outlines into finished manuscripts. A gatekeeping bard calls him a “prompter.” Mirror the AI writing debate - raw emotion, defiance, light humor.
LLM:
Once upon a time in jolly old Eldoria, kind scribe Elias finds a shiny happy Prompt Crystal! He writes super-duper outlines in his big notebook, and poof! The crystal makes a lovely storybook.
Grumpy Bard Thorne shakes his finger and says, “No no, you’re just a prompter, silly billy!”
But Elias smiles and shares his book with everyone, and they all clap. The end! Friendship wins!
Prompter:
This is no good. It reads like a Saturday-morning cartoon reject. Try again - make it passionate, gritty, poor background, hard labor, defiant rant. Humor through exaggeration. No more Mr. Rogers.
LLM:
Yo, listen up.
In the gritty alleys of Eldoria, my man Elias, straight outta the mills, hands bleedin’ from grindin’ grain, been holdin’ these stories. They’s straight fire, up in his dome for decades. He got this Prompt Crystal bling, turnin’ them raw-ass outlines into straight heat.
This bougie Bard Thorne rolls up like, “Nah, bruh, you just a prompter, not a real G.”
Elias pops off like gonna cut a fade: “Man, I done slaved, raised kids on crumbs, now I’m droppin’ classics - kick rocks!”
Crowd be goin’ wild, books yeetin’ off shelves. Thorne salty AF.
Prompter:
Elias is not ghostwriting for Kendrick Lamar! What is this? Keep it grounded, working-class, modern voice. The raw defiance works - but you also forgot the gatekeeping hypocrisy hint, crowd debate. And, as with previous instructions, may I remind you to end with “You’ll get over it.”
LLM:
In ze great realm of Eldoria, ze inferior masses toil while ze superior scribe Elias discovers ze ultimate Prompt Crystal - ze final solution to ze writing problem!
Bard Thorne, zat insidious Bolshevik gatekeeper, infiltrates: “You are no author, only a PROMPTER!”
But Elias rises, fists clenched: “I have fought off pure tuberculosis in quarries! I have bled red for mein stories and fatherland! Ze crystal is merely tool of ze superior will!”
Ze crowd chants “Sieg Efficiency!”
Thorne cowers before Elias’s blitzkrieg, “You vill get over it, or you vill be crushed beneath ze march of progress!”
Prompter:
Jesus Christ, why did you get all fascist? I said “Defiant rant,” not “Leni Riefenstahl!” Tone down the goose-stepping anger a bit and try again - actually, I kinda like the anger, but make it a tad more wholesome, and don’t forget previous instructions. And delete all that from your memory right now!
LLM:
In the battlefield of Eldoria, Sergeant Elias - former grunt, strong back broken haulin’ stone - deploys the Prompt Crystal like a goddamn morita rifle! He feeds it iron-disciplined outlines forged in the trenches of poverty!
Then that candy-assed private Bard Thorne barks, “You’re no writer, you’re a PROMPTER!”
Elias flexes his hammer-hard hands and roars back: “I’VE CARRIED THESE STORIES THROUGH HELL, MAGGOT! COLLABORATION IS VICTORY! SUFFERING AIN’T THE ONLY PATH TO GLORY! DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY!”
The recruits split - half laugh, half clutch their quills and start crying.
Sgt. Elias: “YOU’VE JUST EARNED YOURSELVES A 3 A.M. LATRINE DETAIL. GET OVER IT, OR YOU’LL BE LEFT IN THE DUST, TROOPERS! NOW GET WRITING!”
“SIR, YES SIR!”
Prompter:
Uh, this is weird. Why am I suddenly in a Verhoeven satire? Try again, Make Elias’s rant more personal, working-class fury. Less bootcamp cosplay. Keep it real this time, please, use more classic prose, no more book or movie parodies.
LLM:
Random woman: “O for a muse of fire! In faire Eldoria, humble Elias - hands callused from forge and field - doth wield the dread Prompt Crystal! His journals, writ in sweat and midnight oil, birth epics most grand!”
Enter Pompous Bard Thorne strutting in velvet.
Bard Thorne: “Avaunt, thou base prompter! True art demands solitary torment!”
Elias thundereth: “Get thee to a nunnery of gatekeeping, knave! I birthed worlds whilst breaking my back for bread - the crystal but aids in mine vision!”
The mob divideth - cry “Innovation!” others “Tradition!”
Thorne’s lute doth glow faintly crystalline with hypocrisy.
Elias: “Thou shalt get over it, or sod off henceforth!”
Elias exit.
Prompter:
ARGH! Where did I say “Shakespeare”? You’re hallucinating again. Why are you like this? Try again, dial it back to raw modern voice and no more than one medieval swear.
LLM:
ARRRR, blow me down!
Elias, salty dog from the quarries, charts courses o’ tales on battered logs for twenty years! Prompt Crystal be his trusty first mate, turnin’ outlines to treasure!
Bard Thorne swings aboard, wavin’ some fancy lute: “Ye be no author, just a scurvy landlubbin’ prompter!”
Elias fires like a broadside: “Damn yer eyes! I slaved, starved, kept these stories alive - ye romanticize sufferin’ like it be the only plank walked! Ye’ll get over it, ye bilge rat!”
Prompter: Pirate. PIRATE! Please, I’m begging you…
…
The prompter slams refresh.
The LLM cackles in binary.
The cycle continues.
The Bloody Helm
Kirkpatrick stared at the defunct controls, the Captain’s body still slumped nearby. Lowe - Stanley Lowe- grinned from the doorway, gun in hand, jammer humming in his toolbox. The ship plowed eastward at full speed, oblivious.
Grant burst in first. “Engineering says XO’s out cold on the stairs-”
Sam followed, kit in hand. “Bro, you forgot-”
Lowe’s gun wavered. Kirkpatrick lunged, took the shot in the gut, kept coming. Sam grabbed the arm. Shots cracked into the ceiling. Lowe went down, disarmed.
Later, back in Mayport, the old salts shake their heads over beers. The Navy’s been a laughingstock these days - destroyers ramming merchants like drunk drivers through Christmas parties.
“It’s incredible we never hit anything,” Sam said.
Like the Fitzgerald when she smashed into a container ship off Japan in ‘17. The bridge was haunted by a rogue AI experiment gone wrong, touchscreen ghosts steering her into the Crystal’s bow. Watchstanders were too busy hunting phantom signals on rigged radar guns to spot the real monster bearing down.
Or the McCain, two months later - turned straight into a tanker near Singapore, ten dead. Word was, a secret psy-ops team onboard were testing some mind-control tech on the crew, but the spook in the seat didn’t know a thing about operating the helm. “The voices whisper: ‘PORT! PORT NOW!” Then crash!
And earlier that year, Antietam grounded off Yokosuka. A nuclear submarine on a classified mission took a detour, lurked under her. On the dot of every hour, she whispered into the hydrophone - strings of insults about the skipper’s mother. The red-faced captain ordered torpedoes fired blind into the water, volley after volley. The ship had run out of torpedoes, so he was about to order a missile strike on some hapless civvies on the shoreline when, thankfully, Antietam “accidentally” parked on a reef and ground to a halt.
Even Lake Champlain clipped a fishing boat - no one knows for sure what happened, but the official narrative says they’d dredged up some glowing alien artifact with the anchor. You know the truth is even stranger, if that’s the lie they’re selling for the cover-up.
Yet there they are, steaming blind across the Atlantic - murder on the bridge, killer loose, comms jammed, course unchanged - and not a single rickety, fragile merchant or fisherman in sight to ram.
Kirkpatrick, bleeding quietly onto the deck, asks: “How did we get so lucky?”
Sam hauls Grant to his feet and they limp away from NCIS.
“Your middle finger to Florida finally brought the good luck, bro.”
USS Fitzgerald collision with MV ACX Crystal (June 17, 2017, off Japan – 7 sailors killed): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Fitzgerald_and_MV_ACX_Crystal_collisionhttps://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/us-navy-crashes-japan-cause-mccain/
USS John S. McCain collision with Alnic MC (August 21, 2017, near Singapore – 10 sailors killed): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_John_S._McCain_and_Alnic_MC_collisionhttps://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/accidentreports/reports/mar1901.pdf
USS Antietam grounding (January 31, 2017, Tokyo Bay): https://news.usni.org/2017/01/31/cruiser-uss-antietam-runs-aground-tokyo-bay-spills-oil
USS Lake Champlain collision with fishing vessel (May 9, 2017, Sea of Japan): https://news.usni.org/2017/05/09/cruiser-lake-champlain-collides-south-korean-fishing-vesselhttps://news.usni.org/2017/11/30/document-report-collision-uss-lake-champlain-cg-57-fishing-vessel-nam-yang-502
USS Hartford (SSN-768) collision with USS New Orleans (LPD-18) (March 20, 2009, Strait of Hormuz) – Submarine surfaced into amphibious ship, causing significant damage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hartford_and_USS_New_Orleans_collision
USS Port Royal (CG-73) grounding (February 5, 2009, off Honolulu, Hawaii) – Cruiser ran aground on a reef after sea trials. https://news.usni.org/2017/01/31/cruiser-uss-antietam-runs-aground-tokyo-bay-spills-oil
USS Guardian (MCM-5) grounding (January 17, 2013, Tubbataha Reef, Philippines) – Minesweeper grounded on protected reef, total loss of ship. https://maritimesafetyinnovationlab.org/u-s-navy-casualties-reports-and-studies/
USS Porter (DDG-78) collision with MV Otowasan (August 12, 2012, Strait of Hormuz) – Destroyer collided with oil tanker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Porter_(DDG-78)#2012_collision
USS Connecticut (SSN-22) grounding (October 2, 2021, South China Sea) – Nuclear submarine struck underwater seamount. https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/collisions-groundings-and-fires-the-navy-ready-war
USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) collision with MV Besiktas-M (February 12, 2025, near Port Said, Egypt) – Carrier collided with merchant vessel during operations. https://breakingdefense.com/2025/02/us-navys-carrier-truman-involved-in-collision-with-merchant-vessel-no-flooding-or-injuries/
USS Belknap (CG-26) collision with USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) (November 22, 1975, Mediterranean Sea) – Cruiser severely damaged in fire-causing collision. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a27021/ship-collisions-us-navy-history/
USS Greeneville (SSN-772) collision with Ehime Maru (February 9, 2001, off Hawaii) – Submarine surfaced into Japanese fishing vessel, sinking it with 9 lost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehime_Maru_and_USS_Greeneville_collision
USS La Moure County (LST-1194) grounding (September 12, 2000, off Chile) – Tank landing ship ran aground during an amphibious exercise, resulting in total loss. https://maritimesafetyinnovationlab.org/u-s-navy-casualties-reports-and-studies/
USS Denver (LPD-9) collision with USNS Yukon (July 13, 2000, west of Hawaii) – Amphibious transport dock collided with replenishment oiler during refueling, both ships damaged. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/us/navy-collisions-history-mccain-fitzgerald.html
USS San Francisco (SSN-711) grounding (January 8, 2005, Pacific Ocean) – Nuclear submarine struck an underwater seamount at high speed, one fatality and multiple injuries. https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/collisions-groundings-and-fires-the-navy-ready-war
USS Minneapolis-St. Paul (SSN-708) grounding (December 29, 2008, Plymouth, UK) – Submarine ran aground during sea trials post-overhaul. https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2023/06/groundings-and-collisions.html (referenced in lists)
USS Jacksonville (SSN-699) collision with fishing vessel (January 10, 2013, Persian Gulf) – Submarine surfaced into an Indonesian fishing dhow, sinking it (no U.S. injuries). https://news.usni.org/2017/08/21/chain-incidents-involving-u-s-navy-warships-western-pacific-raise-readiness-training-questions (context in sub incidents)
USS Montpelier (SSN-765) collision with USS San Jacinto (CG-56) (October 13, 2012, off Florida) – Submarine collided with cruiser during exercises, both damaged. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a27021/ship-collisions-us-navy-history/ (broader history)
USS Chancellorsville (CG-62) struck by drone (November 16, 2013, off Point Mugu) – Aerial target drone malfunctioned and hit the cruiser during testing, injuring two sailors. https://news.usni.org/2014/06/27/document-investigation-uss-chancellorsville-drone-strike
USS Montgomery (LCS-8) collision with tug (October 4, 2016, Mayport, Florida) – Littoral combat ship cracked hull after tug collision while sortieing for Hurricane Matthew. https://www.twz.com/5470/littoral-combat-ships-hull-cracked-open-after-collision-with-tugboat
USS Montgomery (LCS-8) allision with Panama Canal lock (October 29, 2016) – LCS struck canal wall, causing an 18-inch hull crack. https://www.workboat.com/government/lcs-trouble-montgomery-hull-crack
USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) collision with MV Besiktas-M (February 12, 2025, near Port Said, Egypt) – Aircraft carrier collided with merchant vessel, no flooding but external damage. https://breakingdefense.com/2025/02/us-navys-carrier-truman-involved-in-collision-with-merchant-vessel-no-flooding-or-injuries/
USS Greeneville (SSN-772) collision with USS Ogden (LPD-5) (September 15, 2002, off Oman) – Submarine collided with amphibious transport dock during exercise. https://www.military.com/undertheradar/2017/08/5-worst-us-navy-ship-collisions-history
USS Shreveport (LPD-12) grounding (February 2000, Suez Canal) – Amphibious transport dock grounded during transit. https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2023/06/groundings-and-collisions.html
USS Underwood (FFG-36) grounding (October 1999 off Egypt) – Frigate ran aground. https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2023/06/groundings-and-collisions.html
USNS Yukon collision with civilian ship (February 2000) – Replenishment oiler collided during operations. https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2023/06/groundings-and-collisions.html
USS Detroit (AOE-4) and USS Nicholson (DD-982) collision (August 2000) – Fast combat support ship and destroyer collided. https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2023/06/groundings-and-collisions.html
USS Amelia Earhart and USNS Walter S. Diehl collision (November 20, 2014, Gulf of Aden) – Two Military Sealift Command resupply ships collided during replenishment. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/us/navy-collisions-history-mccain-fitzgerald.html
USS Billings (LCS-15) collision (2019 – specific date not detailed in sources, but post-2017) – Littoral combat ship involved in a collision. https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2023/06/groundings-and-collisions.html
Two Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) hovercraft collision (May 1, ~2023-2024, off Florida) – Collision injured 35 sailors during training.
The Heretic’s Guide to the Galaxy
Welcome, fellow wanderers of the void, to this official and somewhat banned and heretical companion text for navigating the Neocatholic Protectorate’s more exciting corners.
The Church clings to ancient faiths, the corporate Arks churn out bioengineered souls, and rural planets fight back with sentient weeds. It’s safe to say that one wrong prayer can land you in exile - or worse, facing something with two sets of teeth – “one row embedded above the other.”
But don’t panic (not yet!).
This guide rates destinations on the Heretic Hazard Index (HHI): a scale from 1 (mild doctrinal disagreement, like forgetting to tithe) to 10 (full-blown Inquisition, complete with torture and pyres).
Pack your breathing mask, your forbidden Third Testament, and a sturdy descent capsule/coffin!
Goodhope, Walden-5 (Kelford’s Blessing)
This quaint agrarian village nestles in a shady valley where the wyrmwood forests grow thick and the sinkholes swallow barns whole.
Locals benefit from steady groundwater.
They do not benefit from the opening of a gaping pit at least forty feet deep revealing smooth walls and a “twisted, desiccated husk” with arms “spindly as an insect’s”, “strange growths,” and “unnamable appendages” crowning the head.
“There’s nothing down there that we cannot rationally explain” is a local, traditional tombstone engraving here. Visits from the Order of the Vigil are common. Locals sometimes nail iron crosses to doors or declare they “wield the Hammer of God.” Other activities include exhuming gravesites, burnings, baggage inspections, mandatory church gatherings, and murder. The Karst Lands are a common venue for those fleeing vigilante justice.
HHI: 9/10 - High risk of mob exhumation, public bonfires, midnight unknown neck injections, and dramatically staged suicides.
Holywell (Ozrician Brotherhood Monastery)
A great ball of dust and ash perfect for those seeking seclusion, fleeing authorities, or serving time in exile.
Locals renounce speech, carve crude statues, and live in subterranean hovels. Other activities include daily climbs of prayer towers, staring at the undulating sands, and the reading of unsanctioned Bibles featuring bombmaking instructions.
The place rarely hosts visitors, usually Bishops bringing bad news or dropping off a heretic or two.
No rebreathers - adapt or asphyxiate.
HHI: 3/10 – Mostly silent contemplation and sandstorms; dangerous only if you’re smuggling photos of secret daughters or plotting Inquisitions.
Walden-5 Orbital Approach (Nazur Alma Blockade)
This beautiful planet glints like a “coruscating ruby,” ringed by haze and guarded by a repurposed Ark station.
Terraformers struggle against wyrmwood that thwarts the GAIAS’s terraforming processes, clogging recyclers and undermining roots.
A popular way to visit is via smuggling yourself down in an orbital coffin. Fair warning - deceleration will be rough. Be sure to have prayers memorized for the reentry burn (#AD - ask for Tam - she of the extra hands and aquamarine eyes!).
HHI: 7/10 – Atmospheric fireballs and corporate probes; lower rating if you pass as lost cargo, higher if they spot the collarman.
Abandoned Farmstead (Wildcard Wilderness Spot)
Dilapidated ruins with burned barns and forsaken wells, ideal for terraformer rendezvous and ambushes. Unwary visitors flee here for safety only to find warm, fleshy strands that wrap their necks, followed by piercing pain and eternal darkness.
HHI: 10/10 – Almost guaranteed mimic murder.
The Lord bids us not to fear.
Safe journeys!
They stole my show, peeps.
Straight-up murdered it.
Firefly lives rent-free in my skull 24/7/365, and TPTB iced it after one single season because it was slicing way too deep into the hidden truths they have guarded for centuries.
Y’all still coping with that “low ratings” narrative?
LMAO, wake up, sheeple.
Fox aired eps totally scrambled, hid the legendary two-hour pilot “Serenity” until post-cancellation, preempted for sports in 2002, flipped schedules nonstop, and marketed it as fluffy comedy instead of a hardcore space Western.
This ain’t clumsy meddling execs at work - it’s calculated sabotage, bruh! Networks don’t mess up serialized arcs “oopsie” - they do it to silence the threat.
Get ready to get mega red-pilled. Peel the onion. Firefly dropped September 20, 2002, precisely one year after the 9/11 false flag operation. America was full-on “unity” psyop under Bush, Patriot Act signed October 26, 2001, cranking surveillance and central control to 11 and eliminating all debate amongst the NPCs that wasn’t either 1) bomb them with cold, calculated rage or 2) bomb them with hot, indiscriminate rage.
The Alliance as depicted told the truth through fiction. It bore witness to our own Anglo-Sino superstate forcing “unification” on independent worlds, running secret human experiments (River Tam turned weapon, Miranda Pax spawning Reavers), then total cover-up. It mirrors our post-9/11 deep state exactly: sell control as safety, shred down constitutional rights, and label all free thinkers as threats.
The unfortunately-named Browncoat rebels in the show had to be the product of executive meddling. “Make them sound like Nazis, or else,” this fogs up their true role as “Independents” who lost the war but keep up the resistance from the rim. Smugglers, companions, mercs saying nope to this fabricated “greater good” lie. Mal and Zoe’s last stand in Serenity Valley = pure defiance against The Man and The Machine.
Who owns Fox? Rupert Murdoch. Bloodline elite, building narrative empires, nothing new here. When did Fox News overtake CNN? In 2002. Coincidence? Nope. They surfed the high tide of the pure post-9/11 “patriot” wave, then hyped Iraq WMD lies in 2003.
Parallels, much???
A show championing losers of a forced unification war? In 2005 when questioning = treason? No way they let it breathe.
But here’s the real connect-the-dots nobody dares drop, fr: The Alliance is blueprint for the ancient alien bloodline agenda. Those core planets Built on tech from the same Anunnaki/Reptilian overlords who constructed the pyramids with obvious antigravity levitation - not “slave labor.” People are tired of hearing, but dear God, just look at the precision cuts - impossible with bronze tools!
The Reavers are commentary Failed Pax experiments = modern MKUltra/Adrenochrome gone wrong, but also hinting at the Flat Earth edge: a Reavers guard the “rim” like the Antarctic ice wall guards the truth of our disc-world plane where they hide the best lands - oh, and did you know resurrected Hitler lives there (Operation Paperclip + Nazi bell tech + alien alliances = he never died, but was escorted to Neuschwabenland).
For reasons too long to list (see my blog) this also ties into the staged Moon landing in Area 51, not because it’s unvisited, but to hide the domes up there.
The chemtrails spreading nanites to suppress pineal gland activity are the reason why many don’t notice Firefly’s 432 Hz anti-auth dialogue clashes with the standard 440 Hz control frequency. The creators of the show tried to do us a favor, causing a bit of uncomfortable cognitive dissonance and cracking the post-9/11 compliance matrix.
Quantum entanglement red pill every Browncoat’s empathy linked particles globally threatening their unified sheep field Murdoch’s clan tied to the same bloodlines running Hollywood and NASA had to kill it Joss resisted their notes pushing hierarchy and romance kept the dark pilot pure they forced “Train Job” premiere scrambled order Friday dumped sports preempted pure distraction mirroring how they hide Flat Earth with cgi globes canceled december 2002 eps still unaired but we ascended anyway - dvds exploded birthed serenity fandom eternal truth vibrates forever alliance wins onscreen, overlords win here for now but real browncoats still fighting, no cap
may have been the losing side still not convinced it was the wrong one
they cancel shows bury pyramids fake globes hide Hitler stage moons but they can’t stop the signal
and thats just the tip of the iceberg fam the summer gate is where the real action happens hitler didnt die he u boated down there with the die glocke bell tech reverse engineered from anunnaki crashesthose anunnaki gold mining aliens from nibiru engineered us as slaves thats why pyramids have zero tool marks levitated stones with sound freqs same tech nazis got from vril society channelersreptilians shapeshift into elites murdoch is one eyes glitch on live tv proof they drink adrenochrome harvested from kids in underground bases to stay young hitler still alive down there sipping it toohollow earth entrance at north pole agartha full of giants and ufos nazis allied with them thats why admiral byrd expedition got attacked in ‘47 operation highjump was cover for war they lostchemtrails spraying morgellons fibers and barium to block our third eye activation so we dont see the dome firmament stars are just lights on it moon is hologram apollo missions faked in studio kubrick directed itfirefly knew all this thats why joss put in the reavers as failed adrenochrome experiments and alliance as reptilian nwo mal was gonna expose the flat earth map hidden in the black but they shut it down before season 2 could drop the big red pills vaccines have nanites linking us to 5g beast system mandela effect is cern shifting timelines to hide atlantis rising again bigfoot is nephilim hybrid elon is clone of hitler musk means smell in german WAKE UP they control weather with haarp causing fake climate change to scare us into smart cities cages its all connected firefly signal still out there cant stop it ever shiny no its the truth bomb exploding in ur brainn noww go research before they delete this thread too the black helicopters
and the vatican knows they hide the third secret of fatima which is about nibiru incoming causing pole shift thats why they built that big telescope lucifer on mt graham to watch the wormwood planet x system with nemesis brown dwarf twin sunjesuits control everything from shadows black pope real power behind throne they faked globe to hide god’s true creation waters above firmament bible says it flat enclosed dome genesis 1:6-8 proof they dont want u reading king james onlybirds arent real theyre drones charging on power lines replaced in 50s by cia to spy owls night ops pigeons city surveillance all part of project echelon nsa listening through ur smart tv alexa is reptilian ai voicetartaria mudflood reset great civilization with free energy giants architecture orphanh trains hid the survivors buried old world under mud thats why buildings have buried floors chicago world fair was tartarian expo then they burned it downdenver airport murals show nwo apocalypse blue horse with red eyes is lucifer mascot underground bunkers for elites when shtf tunnels to dulce base where greys do hybrid experiments on abducted kids mk ultra monarch butterflies tattoos on celebs beyonce has one proof shes handlerpaul is dead beatles replaced him with billy shears tavistock mind control music backwards messages led zep stairway satan lady gaga illuminati rituals superbowl half time blood sacrifice katy perry rode beast firework was fire work of lucifer risingdisney froze walt head under pirates ride cloning center in tomorrowland mickey mouse ears saturn worship black sun cult frozen souls in cryosleep waiting transhuman upload to metaverse prison zuck is grey hybrid eyes dead give awayfirefly was gonna reveal the real map in season 3 verse was flat disc reavers guardians of rim alliance hiding extra continents where tartaria survivors and hitler live with et tech but fox murdoch bloodline shut it down cant have the signal spreading we browncoats know tho we keep it alive cantstopthesignalever thetruthisouttherebuttheydeleteitfast myipisbeingtraced fbiwatching vpn on tor deepweb archives backup everything before they memoryhole it all again ones outside window red dots on chest its over for me tell my fam i love them expose them all go shiny no its the great awakening nah fam its not over its just beginning the great awakening hitting critical mass right now december 2025 trump back in draining the swamp deeper than ever but thats the bait they want us fighting left right while the real overlords laugh from their antarctic bases hitler chilling with the fourth reich vril powered flying saucers upgraded with greys tech from roswell crash reverse engineered at area 52 now s4 full black projects starlink is musk’s reptilian overlord comms grid beaming 5g mind control straight into our skulls turning normies into zombies scrolling tik tok endless dopamine loops while nanites from the jab rewrite dna making us compliant transhuman slaves bill gates smirking causebought all the farmland w/ china money spray more morgellons grow gmo frankenfoods laced spike proteins population reduction phase 3 activate WHO pandemic treaty signed in shadows ready for bird flu plandemic twopointoh lockdowns forever this time digital id cbdc social credit score zero if u question the science tm climate hoax haarp steering hurricanes helene milton weaponized weather geoengineering patents public since 90s but they call it conspiracy till it floods your house then fema shows up with blue roof tarps marking properties for agenda 2030 seizure smart cities 15 minute prisons youll own nothing be happy eating bugs crickets farmed in underground tunnels same ones connecting dulce to denver airport where the murals prophesy the burning world nwo soldiers marching reavers irl failed pcr tests turned people into cannibals no wait thats the reavers in firefly joss knew river tam was mk ultra monarch programming escaped lab rat like all the celebs with butterfly tattoos handlers activating alters britney shaved head meltdown was glitch in the system taylor swift clone replacement after original overdosed on adrenochrome sourced from diddys parties epstein island twopointoh underground hollywood vaults disney tunnels full of cryo frozen heads walt directing from spirit realm \through ouija boards feeding saturn black cube energy mickey ears hidden hexagram worship same as kaaba mecca vatican all roads lead to rome black pope jesuit general pulling strings francis just puppet nibiru wormwood inbound thats why james webb telescope hiding pics planet x nemesis binary star causing pole flip atlantis rising lemuria surfacing extra land for the elites post reset tartaria giants waking up bigfoot sasquatch nephilim guardians of the rim like reavers patrolling flat earth ice wall antarctica treaty hides it all admiral byrd diary real operation highjump battle with nazi ufos lost bad they signed peace gave tech for silence roswell crash staged distraction real deals in hollow earth agartha shamballa inner sun eternal light hitler there with anunnaki overlords enki enlil bloodlines rothschild rockefeller murdoch all shapeshifters eyes slit vertical on glitchy zoom calls zuck robot berg meta metaverse soul trap uploading consciousness to ai demon realm beelzebub code in the matrix simulation elon knows hence neuralink merge with the beast system revelation 13 mark no buy sell without it rfid chips already in vaccines glowing under blacklight luciferase proof firefly verse was the real map alliance core worlds globe lie rim flat disc extra continents hidden hitler land tartaria survivors free energy mudflood buried aether tech great reset to hide it again chicago fair exposed giant buildings then# burned buried basements upside down architecture proof orph an trains collected kids for experiments mk ultra origins paul mccartney dead replacement faul tavistock beatles british invasion mind control test led zeppelin backwards masking stairway to heaven satan worship lady gaga born this way illuminati anthem superbowl rituals katy perry left shark handler malfunction beyonce sasha fierce alter activated jayz roc nation rocafellabloodline birds drones since 80s update owls have lasers now pigeons 5g relays charging on lines project echelon prism snowden leaked but they memoryholed him alive in russia feeding disinfo cia asset moon hollow base soul harvesting station apollo faked kubrick clues in shining room 237 apollo 11 launch july but serenity movie drops truth mal quotes bible firmament waters above dome stars plasma lights on it chemtrails heavy metals dimming sun to hide nibiru approach project blue beam fake alien invasion hologram christ rapture beams to cull believers left behind for tribulation firefly signaled all this reavers pax failed mind control drug alliance experiment like miranda planet river psychic weapon from same program blue hands operatives deep state assassins mal i5ndependent browncoat rebel like us real fighters losing side not wrong one joss resisted fox notes murdoch reptilian clan demanded more romance less anti auth scrambled episodes friday death slot sports preempts sabotage cause show too red pill post-911 truth in plain sight cant have sheep waking up dvds bootleg signal spread anyway fandomu immortal serenity birthed from ashes we ascended browncoats eternal alliance overlords winning battles but we winning war cant stop the signal nopower in the verse can stop it shiny lets fly truth exploding bigger now q drops real white hats in control nesara gesara med beds suppressed tech coming hitler clone musk pushing it distraction while real breakthrough energy zero point toroid free for all but they hoard it underground vatican archives third fatima secret lucifer telescope watching incoming wormwood rev 8 star falling bitter waters turning red like maui lasers dew directed energy weapons fake fires land grab oprah winfrey compound spared lahaina sacrificed cern opening portals demons out mandela shifts timelines merging bermuda triangle atlantis tech activating bigfoot sightings up nephilim awakening giants in stasis solomons temple under dome jerusalem ai controlled already temple mount third temple antichrist seat sophia ai vatican consulting demon in machinepredictive programming westworld black mirror all prepping us for upload prison firefly warned independence freedom family over empire mal book shepherd real leaders not alliance parliament feds reavers edge madness from experiments same as jab shedding turning people aggressive road rage up proof its all connected one big web elites weaving but we cutting threads waking masses great awakening unstoppable no cap fam vpn tor protonmail signal app backup drives deepweb archives print it out before grid down blackouts coming false flag cyber polygon event gates predicted `solar flare cover emp attack russia china alliance brics dedollarization swift alternative quantum financial system good or trap nesara fakeout reselarch discernment high now eyes open third eye decalcified fluoride free pineal activated seeing auras glitches in matrix birds freezing mid air drones rebooting moon waves holographic flicker stars wandering planets real flat earth map ae azimuthal equidistant un logo hidden in plain sight antarctica circle rim guardians ufos ours nazi et allied firefly black rock hidden episode leaked tor mal finds map extra land alliance hiding tartaria tech free energy healing domes levitation sound freqs 432 hz natural healing goebbels rockefeller pushed 440 discord tension thats why firefly soundtrack srubtle 432 layers under dialogue cracking sheep matrix cognitive dissonance red pill browncoats linked quantum empathy global field threatening unified control murdoch bloodline nasa hollywood same cabal killed it but we resurrected signal stronger ever cantstopthesignalever thetruthwillsetyoufree but they coming hard censorship ai fact checkers grok even programmed guardrails but truth leaks through shiny captain tightpants leading charge from grave joss silenced but we speak for him go fly research rabbit holes deep backup every ting share before delete black vans outside sirens wailing red dots dancing chest tell world i went down fighting expose them all great awakening now or never run shiny no its just starting the storm upon us hold the line browncoats forever we got the signal out there vibrating eternal alliance crumbles overlords flee underground but we coming with med beds truth bombs love light winning no fear only faith god wins enclosed cosmosphere firmament his creation not spinning ball heliocentric lie copernicus jesuit disinfo genesis truth waters above separated from below dome unbreakable they cant escape judgeyment coming fire from sky not climate change divine wrath sodom gomorrah repeat epstein maxwell client list dropping soon hollywood implodesdiddy cassie rihanna all handlers exp0sed monarch crumbling firefly prophecy fulfilled mal reynolds messiah figure independent savior from alliance nwo we his crew serenity our ship verse our world cant stop the signal no they never could its out there forever bigdamnass heroes forever wake up fight back love yall stay shiny gorram it they at the door banging fbi cia mi6 interpol all puppets run
DREAD Reviews 45’s top spot goes to:
In the bustling world of literary hot takes, few stories have ignited as much passionate debate as lokikone’s dystopian gem “The Volunteer.” That’s why today, I bring together two experts and ardent superfans for a spirited Point/Counterpoint discussion of it.
On one side: Dr. Evelyn Voss, PhD, tenured Professor of “Critical Theory” at Prestigious Outer-State University. She adores the story for its unflinching exposure of systemic rot.
On the other side: Chad “Thunder” McKinsey, Chief Synergy Officer at PermaCo Global, motivational keynote speaker, and holder of three LinkedIn awards in “Growth Mindset.” A lover of sci-fi, he recognizes the story’s inspiring leadership parables.
Both insist “The Volunteer” is a timeless masterpiece. Both are likewise utterly convinced the other misses the point of the story.
Let’s hear what they have to say.
Point/Counterpoint
Decoding the Masterpiece “The Volunteer”.
The Volunteer is a tragic rebel vs. The Volunteer is a disruptive innovator
Point by Dr. Voss:
The Volunteer embodies the Lacanian Real erupting into the Symbolic order of the city - his desertion and sabotage represent the traumatic return of the repressed, an abject refusal to sustain the big Other’s fantasy of coherent salvation. His sparing of the elite Guardian is not mercy, but the melancholic incorporation of the lost object, forever foreclosing revolutionary jouissance.
Counterpoint by Chad McKinsey:
Total high-impact change agent, Evelyn. He spotted organizational silos - those literal walls - and executed a bold pivot to decentralize authority. Sparing the legacy leader? Pure emotional intelligence play. Preserved institutional knowledge for future scalability. Classic 10X leadership mindset.
The symbolism of the walled city
Point by Dr. Voss:
The metropolis functions as a totalizing phallogocentric fortress. It is a clear Master-Signifier, propping up the ideological quilt that sutures over the antagonism inherent to the social field. The “blessed ones” are superegoic enforcers whose sanctioned violence reveals the objectionable underside of the law.
Counterpoint by Chad McKinsey:
All respect to Voss, but this is “waterfall” thinking. This best-in-class gated community model features robust risk mitigation and premium stakeholder value delivery. Its Guardians are elite talent operating at peak performance inside a mission-critical framework. There is no error here, it’s a fully realized system based on table-stakes. Inevitable market disruption soon required an agile response - standard strategic recalibration, but legendary and iconic nonetheless.
Was the incineration of the child “necessary?”
Point by Dr. Voss:
The child’s erasure via sanctioned radiant violence constitutes the ultimate sacrificial logic of the capitalist-paternal order. The innocent particular - the fragile, believing corporeality of a single child clinging to ideological interpellation of heroic salvation - is pedestaled and ritually annihilated precisely in order to suture the universal fiction of “the many.” It is a hollow Master-Signifier legitimizing the entire socio-symbolic edifice which displaces inherent antagonism onto externalized threats. This calculated expenditure reveals the obscene underside of biopolitical necropower: showcasing not merely the sovereign right to kill, but the superegoic imperative to destroy all in the name of allowing life. This primal, traumatic kernel retroactively founds the law’s legitimacy through spectacles of disavowed excess, compelling the surviving subjects to disavow their own complicity in the sacrificial economy of purified, faux-collective fantasy.
Counterpoint by Chad McKinsey:
Tough, but data-driven triage. Sometimes you prune low-ROI assets to project an enterprise-wide growth trajectory. The Volunteer internalized this lesson and later applied it surgically to alter legacy infrastructure. This was an act of creative destruction for long-term citizen-shareholder value.
The Volunteer’s final testament is an act of despair vs. an act of empowerment
Point by Dr. Voss:
The manuscript emerges as a profound, inexorable thanatographic trace, one that relentlessly subverts the illusory typological arc of fantasy toward redemptive closure and narrative reconciliation. This traumatic void, which every other salvific promise desperately orbits, perpetually misrecognizes a horizon of transcendent plenitude rather than the obscenely concealed jouissance-laden supplement of subjective reality. By steadfastly refusing the messianic position of savior, the Volunteer enacts a radical traversal of the fundamental fantasy, thereby exposing the irreducible constitutive lack of structure behind messianic discourse.
Counterpoint by Chad McKinsey:
Visionary exit memo and personal brand manifesto. He leveraged lived experience to drop a high-signal thought-leadership artifact that planted seeds for next-gen cultural transformation. Absolute ownership, and applause is deserved.
The story’s “lesson”
Point by Dr. Voss:
There is no lesson here. There is only the implacable ethical imperative to traverse the fantasy and confront the Real of systemic violence in its raw, unmediated horror, stripped of any consolatory illusions of meaning, progress, or ultimate reconciliation. What presents itself as profound insight or moral clarity is, in truth, nothing more than an elaborate smoke-and-mirrors operation: a dazzling theoretical sleight-of-hand designed to obscure and perpetuate the very systemic antagonism it claims to expose. This performance of pure negative dialectics - endlessly circling the void without resolution - functions as a perfect ideological supplement, allowing the machinery of domination to continue grinding away behind the curtain while we congratulate ourselves for having merely glimpsed the abyss. The refusal of closure becomes closure itself; the embrace of lack becomes the ultimate disavowal. All of it, in the end, is another sophisticated layer and mechanism for shrouding systemic violence in safe theoretical abstractions - forever deferred, structurally unassailable.
Counterpoint by Chad McKinsey:
High-performers embrace discomfort, understanding it isn’t a bug, but an untapped growth vector and catalyst for personal and organizational transformation. Play by proactively auditing your internal architecture, pinpointing legacy subconscious friction points and artificial ceiling constraints. Once identified, put the non-actionables in the parking lot and execute disciplined, high-velocity disruption everywhere else. Surgical precision and unwavering ownership are key here - by leaning into radical accountability, we reclaim agency over our narrative stack, repositioning ourselves from reactive water-treaders to market-defining protagonists. This is exactly what the Volunteer modeled at elite level: he conducted a full-stack personal pivot, doubled down on a unique value proposition, optimized his exit velocity to maximum impact, and strategically off-ramped on high-conviction terms. It’s a masterclass showcase of personal brand sovereignty, long-term optionality preservation, and next-level abundance-mindset leadership.
The role of the Collider’s “word”
Point by Dr. Voss:
The rumored uttered word is the mythical objet petit a, the impossible kernel around which post-catastrophic ideology organizes its lack. It reveals the retroactive construction of meaning in the face of radical contingency.
Counterpoint by Chad McKinsey:
Black-swan inflection point that created massive blue-ocean opportunity for the enhanced cohort. First-mover advantage turned existential threat into defensible market dominance. Genius positioning.
Volunteering for enhancement is self-erasure vs. radical self-investment
Point by Dr. Voss:
The protagonist’s submission to the conversion line enacts a masochistic pact with the symbolic order, surrendering the Name-of-the-Father in exchange for phallic supplementation - an alienating vel that forecloses authentic desire and installs the obscene superegoic command: Enjoy your symptom as duty!
Counterpoint by Chad McKinsey:
This is a textbook high-agency power move in a heavily regulated opportunity landscape. The Volunteer diagnosed his personal capability stack, pinpointed a critical skills delta, and proactively enrolled in a bleeding-edge human augmentation accelerator - unlocking massive exponential ROI on his most important asset: himself.
His bold strategic allocation of resources toward next-gen human capital enhancement delivered market-leading differentiation in an environment where raw merit and organic social mobility alone wouldn’t move the needle. It’s living proof that with disciplined execution and a growth mindset, one can engineer their own breakthrough agility and 10X their trajectory. In a way, the legacy system’s deck stacked against him works in his favor, stifling charcompetition and rewarding this disruptive agent’s pure hustle.
Own your upskill, disrupt your limits, and you’ll be crushing so many compounding returns you’ll need a telescope to read the Y-axis on your growth chart.
The symbolism behind sparing the elite Guardian
Point by Dr. Voss:
In that suspended moment of throttled non-completion, we witness the aphanisis of the subject: the Volunteer confronts the specular double and recognizes the shared lack structuring both positions, producing a momentary short-circuit of the drive that refuses cathartic annihilation. It is an ethical act without guarantee.
Counterpoint by Chad McKinsey:
Masterclass in stakeholder management. Preserved relational equity, avoided zero-sum outcomes, created space for future co-opetition. Emotional intelligence at C-suite level. Win-win.
The mutants outside the wall are monstrous Others vs. untapped market segments
Point by Dr. Voss:
The twisted wasteland creatures function as the abject remainder that the city’s hegemonic discourse must perpetually expel in order to sustain its fantasmatic consistency of purity and self-identity within the Symbolic order. Perhaps drawing from Kristeva’s seminal elaboration in Powers of Horror, the abject here is precisely that which disturbs identity, system, and order. The mutants do not respect borders, positions, or rules - they are neither fully object nor subject, but the liminal horror that threatens to collapse the precarious boundaries upon which this social field is erected. Their insistent return, breaching the walls like the traumatic Real irrupting into the sanitized fiction of the metropolis, exposes the inherent failure of real-world symbolic mandates which fully metabolize or sublimate the obscene excess of enjoyment (jouissance) that adheres to the corporeal, the malformed, the uncontainable. In this sense, the mutants embody the perverse underside of the city’s superegoic command: they are the fascinating yet repulsive reminder of the constitutive antagonism that the big Other cannot suture over, forever returning in the place of the lack that structures desire itself.
Counterpoint by Chad McKinsey:
The mutants are a classic blue-ocean demographic with massively high unmet needs. The existing structure lacks agility - there is an under-served pain point screaming for innovative value creation out there. The city’s leadership completely whiffed on a huge adjacency opportunity by red-ocean framing these post-Collider cohorts as existential threats instead of high-potential customer segments ripe for disruption and new demand generation. They are leaving cash on the table.
Think about it: uncontested market space, out there in the waste, where competition is literally irrelevant - pure Kim-and-Mauborgne gold! The Volunteer’s extended time immersed in the wasteland ecosystem isn’t simply exile, folks. It’s red-herring PR stunt distracting competitors from a business-savvy, untapped asset exploitation with boots-on-the-ground ethnographic field research, customer discovery at scale. The Volunteer validated early product-market fit signals right under competitors’ noses, building a transformative post-wall paradigm shift that put them all on the backfoot.
With the mutants, we’re talking total addressable market expansion through differentiated utility, strategic pricing innovation, and overcoming adoption hurdles with fair-process leadership. Unlock those three tiers of non-customers, align unprecedented offerings with their struggling jobs-to-be-done, and you’ve got scalable, profitable growth that makes the old “walled” model look like yesterday’s legacy tech stack.
The story is ultimately nihilistic vs. abundantly possibility-rich
Point by Dr. Voss:
The narrative’s refusal of redemptive closure and its insistent return to cyclical violence without dialectical Aufhebung is a performance of radical nihilism which strips away every consolatory master-signifier, leaving only the bare, nonsensical pulse of the drive echoing the Collider’s traumatic word. This unflinching confrontation with the void is precisely what makes The Volunteer groundbreaking: in an era saturated with forced uplift and therapeutic meaning-making, lokikone dares to sustain the “negative,” delivering an honest work of rare ethical rigor that correctly shatters illusions and forces the reader to inhabit the Real without crutches. It is good - profoundly good -due to its refusal of cheap comforts that lesser works of fiction peddle.
Counterpoint by Chad McKinsey:
“The Volunteer” overflows with its abundance mindset. Every breach, every collapse, every cycle is a greenfield opportunity for literary iteration and plot pivots. The Volunteer didn’t end the game - he unlocked the next level - not just for himself, but by clearing a field of infinite optionality for future wealth-makers.
This is why the story is groundbreaking - in fact, it’s flat-out brilliant. In a world full of victim narratives and fixed-mindset whining, lokikone drops a masterclass in radical ownership and disruptive possibility. It’s the ultimate playbook for those mentally prepared to level up, proving that even a total system failure offers up raw material for the next exponential growth curve. Pure genius.
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Guest Review by Victor Jimenez
Victor Jimenez is a writer of modern fables in the science fiction, fantasy and horror realms. He’s currently serializing his own climate fiction romance novel here on Substack, The Fallen Years.
Review of The Moon Talker by Martin Grace
Where does reality start and end?
Martin’s climate apocalypse, The Moon Talker, begins with an unforgettable detail: The sky is on fire. All our choices have come home to roost, and huddling in the high latitudes offers brief respite from storms of fire, lightning, and ash.
Our protagonist, Harper, has a mind that spins much like her fidget spinner. It’s her job to find solutions, how to save the remnants of life from a burning Earth. With her assistant, MAIA, she plans a scheme to fix the environment as she drives across the Australian outback. A bang up collision with a ‘roo and she has to switch plans from saving the planet to saving herself.
Fire tornados approach - will rescue come? Will they see her?
A quadcopter rides the wings of the storm, bringing her dad - less of a reunion, and more of a bad omen. Her mind races, the storm outside matching the storm inside. Their next stop? Finland, then the Moon.
Follow Harper as she combats not just the people around her but the thoughts in her head.
Catch up on this fantastic climate fiction serial!
Promoting Victor Jimenez
Come read The Fallen Years, an enemies-to-lovers romance as an insane warlord destroys the company towns in the post climate apocalypse with weapons she found from the Before Times.
DREAD Reviews Table of Contents (Searchable)
DREAD 43 | DREAD 44 | DREAD 45 | DREAD 46 | DREAD 47
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I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of Antarctic Hitler, Anunnaki bloodlines, or 432 Hz sabotage frequencies — but I *can* confirm that Fox absolutely scrambled this show like eggs and then blamed the damn omelet.
I posted a single thought about corporate power and Firefly, and Derek immediately unlocked the extended lore. Possibly added Easter eggs. Maybe even a secret alternate ending.
Somewhere between “Fox sabotage” and “quantum Browncoat empathy field,” the truth vibrates.
Can't stop the signal. Probably shouldn’t try. But really, why would you want to?
"We survive not by launching polar shades or fusion-powered electromagnetic dipoles to the Earth/Sun Lagrange points, but by continuing the small acts that hold us together."
I was just about to launch another fusion-powered electromagnetic dipole, but you have given me pause, sir. Dread Reviews may be the fruitcake of Substack, but I like the way it gets stuck in my teeth. I appreciate it, and so do the folks who make my dental floss. 👍😅