Leviathan - The Parrot

"A message parrot," Dr. Barlow said. "Based on the Congo African Grey. We've been training it especially for this trip. It can read airmen's uniforms and gondola markings, just like a proper Service lizard."

"Training it, ma'am?" Deryn frowned. "But I thought this Constantinople business came up all of a sudden."

"Indeed, things are moving more quickly than expected." Dr. Barlow lay one hand on the mysterious box. "But some of us have been planning this mission for years."

Deryn gave the box another wary glance, then turned to watch the parrot. It flapped through the ropes and guidelines, straight into the open windows of the bridge.

"That's brilliant, ma'am. It's like a flying message lizard!" (Westerfield, 160)

"They have many of the same life threads," Dr. Barlow said. "In fact, some of us believe that birds share ancestors with the ancient lizards..."

Here, Deryn just noticed Dr. Barlow use a parrot to send a message to the captain, just like how their military uses message lizards to transmit messages. She questions the parrot being used as a messenger and learns that the parrot was trained to essentially be like a message lizard, but with the capabilities of flight. Part of the reason that it was able to be trained to be like that is due to the connection that birds share with lizards from long ago.

It would be interesting to develop traits in animals and even in ourselves that have been lost due to the way inheritance works. We could have the dexterity to swing from vine to vine in the jungles, or even have the ability to make flying squirrels. Zoos would probably be a lot more interesting if they could train animals to regain their lost characteristics. Lizards could start imitating speech, or start flying. Ostriches could have necks as long as giraffes. The number of possibilities would be endless, and it would definitely make going to a zoo more interesting and varied.

The passage makes a point that even different species of animals can have much in common and even share ancestry, despite their looks or behavioral differences. Westerfield makes this point very explicitly; he uses an example of a parrot compared to that of a lizard and notes that birds like parrots and lizards once had a common ancestor way back in ancient times. The parrot being able to do the same duties as that of a message lizard does support the idea that the two are related way back in the past. The idea of a parrot even remotely related to that of a lizard makes us, the readers, reflect upon the objects, the animals, and the people we see every day and wonder if possibly they could also be related to each other as well in some way. For example, nobody would think that chocolate, one of life’s greatest delights for some people with a sweet tooth, is related to a seed. Being able to connect animals to long-lost traits is an advantage in promoting new usages. The Leviathan for example, serves both as an airplane for travel as well as a fighter for war.

The depiction of a future where animals can learn to adopt more favorable traits would seem to indicate that actually our society in the present day would face some sort of challenge that would force animals to adopt more favorable traits in order to survive as part of the Darwinist theory. Global warming and the Earth trying to adapt itself to the new climate changes would probably be the catalyst for such a change. On the other hand, it could just be that our present society is just developing at a much rapid rate than we think it’s developing, and that we can train ourselves and other animals to adopt favorable behavioral patterns.

Leviathan - The Kraken

The huge tentacle swept through the air, a sheet of seawater spilling like rain from its length. The Royal Navy kraken was another of Huxley's fabrications, Deryn had read, made from the life chains of the octopus and giant squid. Its arm uncoiled like a vast, slow whip in the spotlights.

Taking its time, the tentacle curled around the schooner, its suckers clamping tight against the hull. Then it was joined by another arm, and each took one end of the ship. The vessel snapped between them, the awful sound of tearing wood bouncing across the black water to Deryn's ears.

More tentacles uncoiled from the water, wrapping around the ship. Finally the kraken's head rose into view, one huge eye gazing up at the Leviathan for a moment before the beastie pulled the schooner beneath the waves.

Soon nothing but flotsam remained above the waves. The guns of the Gorgon roared in salute (Westerfield, 114).

Here, enemy ships threatening the Leviathan are being destroyed by another creature of fabrication, a kraken, made from the hybridization of the octopus and the giant squid. The Royal Navy saves the Leviathan using this creature to sink their enemy ships to the point that barely any remnants of their ships remained on the surface of the waters.

Being to make mythical sea creatures through hybridizations sounds both fascinating and scary at the same time. Making a kraken would be interesting for a tourist attraction, though setting it out in the ocean would just be devastating to the sea life. Using mythical creatures would be great for warfare though; for example, the kraken would just destroy navies like the situation described in this passage. Though… for the sake of humanity, it may be best not to dabble too much in the arts of combining animals if we get the technology to do so, lest we find ourselves with a planet destroyer...

The situation in the passage seems to show a much dangerous side to these Darwinist creations, or creatures made unnaturally. A single kraken was able to disable and dismantle a whole navy with its tentacles. Westerfield emphasizes this sense of danger primarily through the imagery that he conveys through the kraken’s actions. The way that he describes how the kraken used its arm to take hold of the ship’s sides and how the ship snapped into two suggests how these navy ships are children’s play for the kraken; the ships themselves are like ants against a greater force. The passage definitely brings the readers back from admiring the usage of these sort of creatures like in the last post and makes a point to them of the possible dangers and risks that come along with the power these creatures hold. It’s all fun and games… until a whole navy goes down to a mythical sea creature.

Based on this passage, the way the kraken effortlessly rips these enemy ships suggests that we as society nowadays are capable, or are on the road of being capable, of developing some dangerous things, whether they are creatures or devices. Even in the present day, some scientists have already developed a way to make the bird flu even deadlier by making it contagious through the air. As technology grows, so does our capacity to both provide assistance and inflict harm to our society.

The Leviathan

The Leviathan's body was made from the life threads of a whale, but a hundred other species were tangled into its design, countless creatures fitting together like the gears of a stopwatch. Flocks of fabricated birds swarmed around it - scouts, fighters, and predators to gather food. Deryn saw message lizards and other beasties scampering across its skin.According to her aerology manual, the big hydrogen breathers were modeled on the tiny South American islands where Darwin had made his famous discoveries. The Leviathan wasn't one beastie, but a vast web of life in ever shifting balance.The motivator engines changed pitch, nudging the creature's nose up. The airbeast obeyed, cilia along its flanks undulating like a sea of grass in the wind - a host of tiny oars rowing backward, slowing the Leviathan almost to a halt.The huge shape drifted slowly overhead, blotting out the sky. Its belly was all mottled grays, camouflage for night raids.In the sudden coolness of the huge shadow, Deryn stared up, spellbound. This vast, fantastic creature had actually come to rescue her (Westerfield, 71).

At this section of the plot, Deryn, the female heroine, is drifting as the wind and her Huxley, a creature made unnaturally and is designed for single person flights, take her literally half-way across England. However, the Leviathan appears and rescues Deryn from her long flight, and takes her in. The Leviathan is also a creature made unnaturally, but it is more of an ecosystem; it is designed with hundreds of species present both inside and outside its body working collaboratively to keep the Leviathan afloat. Both the Huxley and the Leviathan are both used as military transportations and even as weapons.

I’m not really too sure as to how I would feel towards using biological creatures for warfare purposes, but I think it probably would not go too well with the public today. To be honest, there would probably need to be some sort of boot camp for actually being able to handle these creatures, and also being able to have the courage to be in contact with them. The creatures themselves are all hybrids, created by merging different species together to obtain favorable traits. Using creatures like these would probably drive off all the soldiers who are afraid of insects, beasts, or just animals in general. Also, environmentalists and religious authorities would be indignant over these developments, most likely saying that it’s unnatural and goes against God’s natural order. However, I think the idea of having biological creatures working together with technology is a possibility, though it’s not an idea that would develop any time soon. I believe it does have the potential to change society for the better, however.

The passage seems to show the possibility of using nature and technology in a way that both parties benefit from one another and to work together for one common purpose. Westerfield describes the Leviathan both in terms of its biology and its mechanics. For example, the Leviathan is described as a conglomeration of “countless creatures fitting together like the gears of a stopwatch”, using a simile to compare the way the species work together in terms of a machine. Even though it is technically one single biological creature, we, as the readers, get the sense that there is some sort of synergy between the nature and the technology used here from the imagery of the beast and its connection to that of technology and machines. It does make us think about a future where we could have this balance between technology and nature, instead of say, technology completely dominating over nature.

This type of future seems to indicate an ideal reality where we can make machines and creatures work together, despite their different functions, body structures, and behaviors. The emphasis in this passage, however, is on creatures of nature. It does seem to suggest that in the present day, we mostly focus on the latest technology, like iPhones, and we don’t particularly care too much about nature. But, there does exist some way in that both technology and nature in present day can work together to achieve a possible common goal, just like how the Leviathan functions. Hopefully, technology won’t completely take over the world in the future and that nature is still alive.

Political Cartoon - Corrupted Justices

In this political cartoon, the nine future justices are shown; two of them look like power-hungry politicians, five of them are elephants, and the remaining two look to be sane and logical. There is the presence of the balloon bubble that says, “Okay, let’s take a vote.”

My first reaction to this political cartoon was that in the future, our government is going to be corrupt; the so-called balance of powers will be shattered and corrupt politicians will rule the country. The U.S. will then become a power-hungry country and wage war against multiple countries because our new policies would make other countries mad at us. The people that actually know how politics work and how to handle such problems are few to none, and even so, they would get outvoted by the people who want power, as seen in this political cartoon. The two reasonable people among the justices are outvoted two to seven by the other justices. If this is the future of our legal system… then it does not bode well for the U.S. in the future. We’ll probably impeach the president because he or she littered or something minuscule like that, thanks to this flawed system.

This political cartoon seems to present the idea that something is wrong with the U.S. government and the artist or creator wants its audience to recognize that as well. Here in the picture, there are elephants as justices. Considering this is part of a system where to even be a justice, high experience and credentials are needed, it seems to be mocking the current system that we have place. Elephants are not exactly the most intelligent when we think about animals to personify humans with, and they’re also not exactly the most serious either; the audience can’t take them seriously when they see them on a Supreme Court justice bench. This is one way the artist depicts the system as flawed; by putting some of the justices as elephants, the creator is making a point that some of the potential future justices may have sketchy credentials and have a status not really befitting of a justice. With the smirking politicians, the creator is making a point that while there are some who may be qualified to be a justice, there is also the power factor; some justices in the future could be biased in their opinions and lend support to a case that favors them more, even if the opposing side technically has a stronger case. The political cartoon evokes distrust for the government from the viewers, and makes them look at their government and question the capabilities of their personnel and wonder if they can be trusted or not.

This political cartoon does use a couple of techniques to coax its viewers into distrusting the government. The smirking politicians and the elephants alone suggest to the readers that something is wrong with the government. The two normal justices looking in awe are the people that the viewers can sympathize in and feel sorry for; in other words, they are an appeal to the audience’s emotions. The audience knows that they can’t win the vote that one of the elephant justices suggested, and therefore, they think badly of them for playing such an underhanded trick.

Back to the Future - Time Travel Technology

In this trailer of Back to The Future by Spielberg, the viewers see the main character slowly walk into what looks like a highly advanced car and activates it, turning on all the lights on the car. The car then asks him how far he will go, giving an answer of about 30 years. The car then takes off, leaving fire in its tracks.

Travelling off into the future would be a cool concept if we could develop it in the future. I could go into the future and look at how society has evolved, maybe also look at some lottery numbers while I’m there. Time travelling does present a myriad of problems though. The future would constantly change if people were time travelling back and forth. If a person time travelled, then the future he or she would see would be a future where the person was gone for however many years they decided to skip out on. When they come back, the future has already changed; it now accommodates that one extra person that went missing for however many years. Also, if people brought back technology from the future, then the future would change drastically; it could be in ruins, or be even more prosperous. Also, bring back lottery numbers would dramatically change the future, and/or cause the lottery to go out of business. Though, going to the future is a way to assess the future situation of a problem and develop ways to combat that situation. If, for example, global warming, became much more of a force in the future, we could develop ways to fight it in the present day so that that future wouldn’t exist anymore.

The purpose behind the creation of such a movie would probably be to explore the concept of time travelling; the main character in the trailer is seen travelling through time with a time machine car, explicitly showing that purpose. For a long time, we have been interested in what the future holds for us. Will we get into college? Will we have a happy life and family? Will we have a good job or strike it rich? These are all questions that we could find out if we had access to the future. But to do that, we create paradoxes within the present timeline, and possibly damage the time-space continuum. The movie does make us think about the interesting things we could do in the future, but through the potential conflicts that could arise, the audience can understand also the negative side of time travel.

One way the film trailer manipulates people into going to the theaters to watch it would actually be the lack of content in this trailer. There are only two sentences ever spoken in this trailer, and the rest was just dramatic build-up. But it works to the filmmaker’s advantage; by not giving a lot of info right away, they appeal to their audience’s natural curiosity about the film, as well as its contradictory title, with the words “back” and “future” (future is associated with going forwards). The flashy lights on the car, as well as the fire effect left behind by the car, provide that “coolness” factor of the movie, at least for the time that it was made in.

2012 - The Destruction of the Earth and its Environments

In this trailer of 2012, it shows predominantly the Earth’s destruction, as well as society’s destruction through unnatural causes. There are fireballs erupting from volcanoes and hitting the earth, tidal waves engulfing the cities, and buildings crumbling and on fire. In short, the trailer mainly showcases the various ways the Earth and society are being destroyed.

The trailer of 2012 does depict a future where most normal people would be frightened by the self-destruction of the Earth on December 21, 2012. I have to admit that I would be scared too; knowing that any time a fireball could come and end my life or being swallowed up by the violent waters or the ground is not a fate I would prefer to die by. It does make me think back to the idea that our planet is angry at us for polluting and damaging its natural environments. Maybe this future, if it would occur in the future, would be prevented if we took extra precautions to help preserve and save the environment from further damage from burning fossil fuels and cutting trees? If the actual event did occur… I would think it would be less dramatic than what the film displays it to be, since the moviemakers has to blow everything up in proportion to make it interesting for their potential viewers, one way of manipulating them into watching their film.

The purpose behind making the film isn’t necessarily to tell the audience that this event is definitely going to happen on this date, but I think, rather to explore the possibilities of what could happen, even if they are highly unrealistic without further evidence. But, that contributes to the enjoyment; imagining different possibilities allows ideas and new hypotheses to come alive. The purpose is explicitly shown through the film trailer. The audience gets to see fireballs wreck the earth, there are numerous earthquakes that shatter the ground, and there are tidal waves that engulf nearly everything up to a certain height. These are all different possibilities that the world could come to an end when it hits 12/21/12. While it does strike fear when we think about all these different possibilities that could happen on that day, one can also say that it’s strangely amusing to think about all these different possibilities. In general, nobody that’s not naïve or stubborn would actually believe that the 2012 theory would actually come true, considering that there’s no evidence for it. In this sense, coming up with different possibilities would be an enjoyable exercise for the creative mind; it is a way to brainstorm about the future.

In this film trailer, they use a myriad of destructive images as an appeal to the audience’s curiosity of what could happen on this date. Fireballs, earthquakes, tidal waves look well done in terms of special effects, and also contribute to the sense that the movie’s quality is also well done. There is actually a lack of words or language in this trailer, with only a half of the words being said, while the other half is stated on screen. This serves to increase the dramatic tension, thereby acting also as an appeal to their audience’s taste in stories with great plotlines.

Ar Tonelico - Hymn about the World

In this hymn from Ar Tonelico, the song describes the birth of the planet, its interactions with people, or its “children”, and the eventual decline of the planet due to human anger and greed, causing the planet to be “angry” at the humans. The hymn ends off with the hope that if everyone contributes to help make the planet better, then the planet would live together with them again.

The hymn reminds me of what the world today is like. We have absurd weather patterns now, like hurricanes, earthquakes, and even snow in October. Is our Earth “angry” at us for polluting its environments with the burning of fossil fuels, as well as cutting down its trees and other natural habitats? Does the Earth want to eliminate us through severe weather patterns because we’re essentially the cause of global warming and the only species on earth that can damage its lands through nuclear warfare? As human beings, we are constantly at war with one another, causing monetary and environmental damages to the lands that we attack. It would be scary to know that the Earth is actually a sentient being that watches over all the lands and knows what is going on in the world. With all the fossil fuels being burned today, it would not look good for humanity decades later if the Earth decided to unleash its full “wrath” and decimate society. I do agree that if everybody just pitched in and respected the Earth more, like not littering on the ground or not smoking or driving the car that often, that the Earth would be a much greener place than before, and that everybody would be happier, including the Earth itself, if it had emotions. An unrealistic goal, but if we somehow accomplished that, then we’re probably one step closer to a utopia.

The overall message of the hymn seems to reflect the idea that every human being should be respecting the world and its natural lands, along with respecting each other and not waging war over greed or power. If we do that, then the Earth should be “happier” than it is now, with its random snowstorms, hurricanes, and earthquakes. The message gets across to the audience by use of a sort of scare tactic. If we continue to bicker amongst ourselves and disrespect the environment, then we are going to suffer the planet’s wrath. In a sense, it’s true because society today is already suffering from natural disasters; the earthquake in Japan, for example. After listening to this song, the audience does feel moved to respect the environment a little bit better than before; they wouldn’t want the planet to be annoyed or angry at them if the environment gets too damaged and have to live in fear of random snowstorms that break the cyclical pattern that we have.

Obviously, this depiction of the future where Mother Earth is angry at us is an idea not too far from the truth in terms of modern day activities. We are cutting down trees to make room for new buildings, burning fossil fuels, which pollutes the natural air and contributes to global warming, and waging war against one another, which in the process, also damages the lands. The Earth is in ways, a living being, though we may not think that. Right now, by polluting the environment and damaging the lands, the Earth is “sick” and “injured”. To feel better, it tries to “expel” what is causing it to be sick, or in other words, it produces random weather patterns in an attempt to shake off what’s causing it harm, similar to how humans sneeze when they have a cold.