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all evidence that points towards Magneto being Jewish before it was first explicitly established in 1991

!!None of this is my writing!! It’s a useful but outdated source that I merely revised to replace the G slur. It was written by Rivka Jacobs and the original can be found at http://www.alara.net/opeople/xbooks/magjew.html

The Magneto Is Jewish FAQ (revised 11/9/98)

Rivka Jacobs

(1) In Uncanny #113 (Classic X-Men #19), the added material has Magneto on Asteroid M, talking about the deaths of Magda, Anya, and he mentions Auschwitz for the first time. "I endured one death camp ... in Auschwitz ... I will not see another people fear what they do not understand and destroy what they fear." Uncanny #113 is from 1978. The additional scenes were included in 1988's Classic X-Men #19. So, we know Magnus was at Auschwitz, a death camp, not just a concentration camp. (Many fans [and writers] seem to get the two types of camps confused). There could have been a number of reasons he was at Auschwitz: he was a Polish political prisoner, a Russian prisoner of war, a member of the French underground, a homosexual from Germany, Roma, or, with a high probability, a Jew. (Out of 1.5 million victims of Auschwitz, between 1.1 and 1.2 million were Jews).

(2) In Uncanny #150 (one of my favorites) Magneto mentions, in a fight with Cyclops, "I know something of grief. Search throughout my homeland, you will find NONE who bear my name. Mine was a large family, and it was slaughtered ... without mercy, without remorse." So that eliminates German homosexual and French partisan, because the entire familes of such prisoners were not slaughtered throughout an entire "homeland." After Magneto thinks he has killed Kitty, he says: "I remember my own childhood ... the gas chambers at Auschwitz, the guards joking as they herded my family to their death. As our lives were nothing to them, so human lives became nothing to me." Storm is about to blast him for "killing" Kitty, and she says, "If you have a diety, butcher, pray to it!" Magneto answers, "As a boy, I believed. As a boy, I turned my back on god forever." So now we know that Magnus is not a political prisoner (German political prisoners were sent to camps on German soil, like Dachau, or Bergen-Belsen), he is not Polish, since whole Polish families were not herded to the gas chambers. The Poles were not the target of pre-meditated Nazi genocide. While the Russian people were the target of genocide, only Russian POWs were in Auschwitz, not whole families. So, we are now left with only two groups of people that Magnus could be from, the Roma and the Jews. Uncanny #150 is from Oct. 1981; already Magnus says something very interesting here. He says he "remembers" the gas chambers of Auschwitz, "remembers" his family being herded, he "remembers" the guards joking. Fact: no one remembers the gas chambers of Auschwitz except in two ways (or three if you believe the dead can speak to the living), either you were a Nazi SS guard or doctor or official, or you were a member of the Sonderkommando. The Sonderkommando, Jewish prisoners who were forced by the Nazis -- in all the death camps -- to do the dirty work of killing. It was Nazi official policy. The Jews, the lowest of the low to the Nazis, in Auschwitz hierarchy, followed by the Russians, and then the Roma, the Jews would be the ones to lead the victims to the gas chamber, to haul the bodies from the gas chambers to the ovens, to burn and bury the dead. The Jews would pull the teeth of the corpses, cut the hair, pile the bodies three at a time on the retorts of the ovens in just the right way. The Sonderkommando had a few kapos (overseers) who were German and Polish prisoners, criminals from civil prisons in Germany and Poland. During the summer of 1944, 19 Russian POWs from Mauthausen were sent to augment the Auschwitz Sonderkommando. Totally documented, on paper and by eye witness accounts. All other members of the Auschwitz Sonderkommando were Jews.

(3) In Uncanny #161, Sept. 1982, we have the story of Xavier's trip to Israel. There he meets Magnus for the first time. However, it should be noted that the entire story is a Charlie-dream, while he is with Lilandra. In Uncanny #161 we see for the first and last time Magnus' tattoo from Auschwitz. His number is #214782. Xavier says, "That tattoo, Magnus, were you ...?" Magnus answers, "Auschwitz. I grew up there." So now we know that Magneto was first in Auschwitz as a very young person, but we can't pinpoint the age yet. Also, his number is high for someone who was there from the beginning of the camp. The first Polish prisoners, like author Wieslaw Kielar, had very low numbers, like in the 200s. Sonderkommando survivor Filip Muller's number was in the 20,000s. He arrived in early 1942. Magnus' number is a standard number, however, without the A of the 1944 arrivals, or the Z of the Roma, or the other special classification symbols. Of course the penciller didn't know these details. So a standard Auschwitz number, which is too big, but it doesn't tell us anything.

4) Vision and the Scarlet Witch, Vol. 1, #4. Magneto has just found out Wanda and Pietro are his children. (This is from Feb. 1983). He is on the moon, in the Inhuman city of Attilan, telling VIsion about his youth. "I was born into a time and place ... Android ... where both man and mutant were persecuted for being ... different." Picture of the Auschwitz camp, guards tormenting emaciated prisoners, one of whom displays a very prominent and exaggerated Star of David on his clothing. Remember Jews and Roma were kept apart in the camp. In the next panel, however, Magneto sort-of goes into a fantasy. He says, "But unlike the other victims, I possessed the power to fight back." He imagines he's hurling Nazi tanks away with magnetic energy. What's this? In 1983, the reader doesn't know what to make of this. Keep in mind, he's meeting with Wanda, Pietro, Vision, and Crystal, and has held Luna for the first time. Is he exaggerating? Showing off for them?

(5) Now for the second most important comic proving Magneto is Jewish, Uncanny #199, Nov. 1985. Magneto with Lee Forrester and Kitty Pryde arrive at the National Holocaust Memorial in Washington, DC. (It's not really Lee, but Mystique, trying to capture Magneto). Magneto has been having an affair with Lee, he loves her. He brings her to the Holocaust Memorial? Why? Fun date, huh? Why, because he has no other family. These people are his family. Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. (The Roma have their own name for the genocide, and their own gatherings, with their own rituals and customs. Magneto has no reason to go to a Jewish gathering if he isn't Jewish). Lee/Mystique says: "Man's inhumanity to man ... how easily the race kills." Magneto answers: "Then, Lee, it was the Jews. My nightmare has ever been that tomorrow it will be Mutants." Why would he say that, why wouldn't he mention another ethnic group, if he weren't Jewish? Next, Magneto tells Kitty EXACTLY how to address the gathering in order to get information about dead or missing family members. How does Magneto know how to do this? Isn't it obvious that he's done this before? Why would he address a Jewish Holocaust gathering looking for information about his family if his family weren't Jewish? (And it is a Jewish gathering, besides the use of the word Holocaust, a speaker says in the background: "... the systematic institutionalized extermination of one people by another."). Kitty asks about her great-aunt Chava, who died at Auschwitz, and Magneto is recognized by two survivors, Ruth and David Shulman, two Jewish survivors. (Shul is another name for synagogue -- Shulman means man of the temple, or man of the synagogue). They remember Magneto as a youth in Auschwitz, and say he helped them survive. And witness him as having been there. (No implanted memories, please). They testify that he " ... Had been at that accursed place from the very start..."

Later, Mystique reveals herself, and arrests Magneto in front of all these people. Magneto says that he recognizes no authority. "My land ...all the countries of the world ... turned their back on me and mine when we were condemned to Hitler's death camps. Therefore, in return, I have sworn to deny them." So let's clear this up ... the Roma were not persecuted in Greece, the Greek Jewish community was decimated. A small number of Roma and Jews in Rumania were exiled to a new border country called "Transnistria" but the remainder of the Roma were left alone. Several hundred thousand of them. 350,000 Rumanian Jews were savagely murdered throughout the country. In Slovakia, the Roma were left alone, the Slovakian Jews were among the first sent to Auschwitz. After the Slovakian uprising was crushed in 1944, several hundred Roma who had courageously helped in the rebellion were murdered, along with the remainder of the Jews of Slovakia. Bulgaria did not persecute its Romani people. Bulgaria, although resisting deportations of its Jews, persecuted them locally. In the Netherlands, only the "wandering" Roma who were captured in camps and wagons were deported, about 500. The remaining who had bought homes or found shelter with neighbors, were left alone. The Netherlands is where Gabrielle Haller comes from -- in under two years 100,000 Dutch Jews were deported, most were killed. I could go on. There is no other people who were hunted everywhere the Nazis went or had influence but the Jews. There is no other people who had the gates of escape cut off after the war started, but the European Jews. Magneto's reasoning is based on this most extreme situation.

(6) Uncanny #211, Nov. 1986. The Mutant Massacre. Page 9 -- Betsy Braddock has just come in from discovering what happened to a wounded Morlock, who has just died. Magneto, Storm, and Wolverine are standing there in Xavier's infirmary. Betsy says, "... I saw a cadre of super-beings ... massacring every living thing in the Morlock tunnels." Magneto reacts immediately, out of pure emotion. "NO! The horrors of my childhood, born again...only this time, Mutants are the victims, instead of Jews." What else does this mean? He's talking about HIS childhood, he's making a parallel. If he weren't Jewish, he wouldn't have said Jews, he would have said Roma. The two groups of people are not interchangeable.

(7) New Mutants #49, March 1987. Magneto is dreaming. It is an entire page representation of the massacre of his family. Here we see for the first time, his family -- father, mother, sister -- as they were gunned down in front of open graves. The family members are dressed in middle class urban clothes. No peasant dress, no Roma clothing. (And it is not a cliche. Roma women always wore, at this time, their flowing skirts and distinctive scarves and clothing, similar to the Bosnian women of today). Being massacred with Magnus' family is a mixed group of people. Men in bowler hats and suits, one old woman in a long skirt. One man in a bowler hat has the side-locks of the devout Jew, but the other people could be anyone. Poles or Jews or Roma. It's Magnus and his family who are out of place. They are well-dressed, Magnus's sister in a proper school uniform with the prim collar. Every picture I've seen of the German Rom show: a people of color, having left India and Armenia five- to six-hundred years ago, the men wearing Fedoras (favorite style of hat) and normal suits and ties, and the women and girls always dressed in the long skirts and distinctive flowered scarves. The boys wear a mixture of urban short pants but scarf belts, some have socks, some don't. New Mutants #49, page 17, could show some Roma in the crowd, but Magnus' family members are definitely not Romani in this picture.

(8) X-Men Classics #12, back-up story, Aug. 1987. The actual scenes of Magneto's escape from Auschwitz. "And with World War II ending... the Third Reich defeated...it's guards wanted no witnesses left...to tell the tale of this horror..." Picture of an SS soldier about to shoot a fallen and stricken Madga. "He had been there from the start ..." Magnus has just slammed a wooden beam into the head of the SS soldier. "Grown to manhood within its electrified barbed wire fence. If he was to die, it would not be in this abattoir ... and not without a fight!" Magnus grabs a terrified Magda by the hand and drags her with him in his escape. (a) The war is almost over, it is winter, it is the winter of 1944-1945. The Roma were gone by 1945. All the Roma women were gone. Only 4 clerks, high-status friends of Nazi officials in Camp I, were left. The Romani camp was murdered in the gas chambers in August 1944. (b) This scene, by Claremont and Bolton, is completely accurate. It takes place on Jan. 20, 1945, two days after thecamp was evacuated and the Death marches began. Some 70 of the Sonderkommando were kept to help destroy the evidence of the death factory, before they were to be killed. Some 200 women from the woman's camp, Jews, were chosen to fill in the huge pits where bodies were burned. They had to haul ashes, break up human bones, all in the coldest part of winter. The SS soldiers sent back on Jan. 20th were sent to kill the women. That is exactly what you see in this comic book, because Claremont and Bolton took the time and cared enough, to do their research. Magneto was saving Magda becasue at that point, he wasn't the target, yet. If they were out by the burial pits to the northwest of the camp, that is a point close to the forest. It just makes sense.

(9) New Mutants #61, March 1988. On page 22, Magneto is alone, kneeling over the dead body of Doug Ramsey, thinking thoughts only the reader can see. This is one moment he would not misrepresent anything, to himself especially. He says, "An ill wind is coming ... they are registering mutants ... like they once registered my people in Poland ...! Who knows what horrors await us." Only the Jews were registered, and forced to wear armbands with the Star of David on them, in Poland (at the end of 1939). Efforts to murder the Polska Roma (the Polish Roma) began in 1942, but they weren't registered first. Young Magnus wouldn't have known about any of that in any case-- he was already at Auschwitz by 1942. He would only have known that "my people" the Jewish people in Poland, including the German Jews who had already been deported there in the first months of the War, were registered.

(10) Classic X-Men #19, March 1988, back-up story. Magneto is apparently working for the CIA hunting Nazis. He is about to be betrayed by them, and his lady love of that time, Isabelle, is about to be murdered. But as he is apprehending a Nazi war criminal he gets one of his massive headaches. "Pain," he thinks, "again indescribable." "Worse than the bite of the kapo's whip. The murder of parents and family, the death of a child ... the loss of a beloved wife!" So here we see that Magneto was the victim of kapos. He could not have been a kapo. He was too young anyway, as we've seen. He grew up in Auschwitz. Here he says the murder of parents, and family. The parents separate, gunned down. The remainder of his family, no doubt sent to the gas chambers later, while he was in the Sonderkommando. Remember what he said in UX #150, his entire family wiped out. So as a Jew in the Sonderkommando he not only watched his family die, he helped kill them. How can any other comic book character ever come close to Magneto for dramatic intensity, but only if he is a Jew.

(11) X-Factor Annual #4, 1989. Doom challenges Magneto to a duel of wills, with a helmet that pulls out unpleasant memories and torments the wearer. Who will crack first? Magneto takes his turn -- Doom describes what he sees, "...after the ignoble defeat of the Nazis in Germany, you and the woman Magda you rescued, fled the prison camp Auschwitz, in Poland."

"Auschwitz, where your family had perished --living skeletons -- and you had grown to manhood amid horrors most men could not conceive." First, Doom confirms that Magnus and Magda "fled" or escaped Auschwitz before liberation and after the Roma camp was murdered. Then he describes some of Magneto's family perishing, as living skeletons, at Auschwitz. They could either have been kept as prisoners, or brought in, starving, from ghettoes in Poland and gassed. They could have been either Roma or Jews. But then it's Doom's turn to wear the helmet. Doom's Romani heritage is discussed at great length. Doom is proud to be a Rom, he knows he is a Rom. Why would he not acknowledge that Magneto is also a Rom? Why did he say your family, implying your people, to Magneto? Not "our" people?

(12) And now the most important evidence, and just about my favorite X-Men comic, Uncanny #274, from March 1991. In the Savage Land, the entire comic is told from the point of view of Magneto. It is a first person narrative, he is talking directly to us, the readers. He is not exaggerating, he is not showing off. The writing is elegant and wonderful ... "My life's ambition has been to safeguard my fellow mutants," Magneto says. "Zaladane has no such compunction. And I hear the echo of Der Fuhrer's voice in the radio of memory, smell the awful stench of the sick and dying as the cattle cars brought the comdemned to Auschwitz. I wear red, the color of blood, in tribute to their lost lives. And the harder I try to cast it aside, to find a gentler path ... the more irresistibly I'm drawn back. I should have died myself with those I loved. Instead, I carted the bodies by the hundreds, by the thousands ... from the death house to the crematorium ... and the ashes to the burial ground. Asking now what I could not then ... why was I spared?!" So there it is. He describes his job at Auschwitz. That is it. This is no vague job description, this is what the Sonderkommando did. This is fundamental to the history of the Holocaust, to the history of Nazi Germany. Making the Jews the ones who had to do all the dirty work in the death camps.

Marvel cannot say they have their own version of Holocaust history. What kind of reasoning is that? Where do the editors and writers of Marvel get off making up their own history of the Holocaust? Where do they draw the line? Has any reader out there ever seen any major publisher or entertainment outfit, outside Neo-Nazi groups and the Militias or Far Right Splinter groups, who just took it upon themselves to change a Jew into a Romany and change Holocaust and Auschwitz history to make it fit? Magneto says it here, he was a member of the Sonderkommando. He was not a kapo. He was not a Russian POW. He was a Jew! On page 14 of UXM #274, Magneto is dreaming again. He again sees his family being gunned down. He again feels what it was like to be buried alive. Rogue wakes him up.

(13) Uncanny X-Men #275, April 1991, which concludes the Savage Land story from UXM #274, referred to above, also contains confirmation as to what happened to young Magnus. Magneto says, directly to the reader, in diary-like narration, as he uses the last strength of his emaciated body to push away his captors, "They think me beaten, finished. A mistake many have made in the past. As I found the strength, as a boy, to survive being machine-gunned and buried alive, and later the unimaginable horror of Auschwitz ... so do I find it in me, here and now, to break free."

(14) X-Men Vol. 2, No. 2, Nov. 1991. The beginning of the end for Magneto. But on page 24 he says to Moira MacTaggart, who has seemingly betrayed him, and enraged him, "Of course not. You worked for the betterment of the world and the race. I heard those same rationales as a boy, in the Auschwitz Death Camp. From Dr. Joseph Mengele himself!" Mengele's first victims were the Roma, he liked the Roma. He brought the children candy and extra food. And in August of 1944, after trying unsuccessfully to save the Romani Family Camp (also for his own experimental purposes) Mengele obeyed his orders and vigorously hunted down and helped exterminate all remaining Roma. He then dissected those of most interest to him, and sent body parts to Berlin. Then he turned his attention to the Jews of Auschwitz. Only his Jewish victims have survived. His Romani victims, those transfered out of the camp in the spring and summer of 1944, have rarely come forward. If Magneto is alive in Auschwitz after the start of 1945, and he personally heard Dr. Mengele, he is a Jew.

Magneto is a Jew especially since Mengele would have been one of his supervisors in the Sonderkommando.

(15) X-Men, Vol. 2, No. 3, Dec. 1991 -- Magneto to Xavier, "You speak to the best in humanity. I have endured the worst. You imagine the reality of the Holocaust, of the Nazi Death Camps. I grew up in one." Magneto says The Holocaust. This is the translation of SHOAH, and was first used after the war, and popularized by Eli Wiesel. It means the Jewish Holocaust. One can say the Romani genocide, and today sometimes you'll hear the Romani holocaust, or the Russian holocaust, or the holocaust perpetrated against the mentally ill and the handicapped. (Nazi pre-meditated genocide was really only carried to the fullest extreme against three groups, the first were the mentally ill and the handicapped, who were the first victims of genocide. The second and third groups were the Jews and the Roma). But the Holocaust is what Jewish people say when they refer to the calculated campaign of Nazi Germany to kill every Jew in the world. (They actually made lists of every country in the Western world, and all the Jewish populations. They made no such list for any other people). Nazi Germany succeeded in killing almost 6 million of their foremost victims, until the Third Reich was defeated.

(16) X-Factor #92, July, 1993. Havok and X-Factor are battling Cortez and the Acolytes, in this opening chapter of Fatal Attractions. Cortez is ranting about the "flatscans" and how mutants have to subjugate them. Havok says, "Out to destroy the "inferior" race ... in Magneto's name? Don't you know what an insult that is to the memory of the very man you claim to worship? Fifty years ago, Magnus barely survived a Holocaust that destroyed almost all of his people: all because some lunatic took it upon himself to decide who deserved to live ... and who didn't. Where's the sense in resurrecting that kind of evil ... in the name of one of its victims?!" Cortez answers, "You've seen this place Havok! You've seen the sentinels! You tell me ... where's the sense in letting the flatscans do to the mutants what Hitler did to the Jews? ..." Cortez has done research on Magneto, he says the Jews, as a parallel metaphor. Why say that, if Magneto isn't Jewish?

(17) Then comes the infamous Unlimited #2. This is a long and involved FAQ I've got going here, so I won't go into detail at the moment. But the bottom line is, everything that Gabrielle Haller says about Magneto's history is false. I don't want to go line by line over it now. Everything! Danzig was not annexed. It was a Free City, under League of Nations protection, that voted itself a Nazi government and welcomed the Nazi troops in like liberators. Gauleiter Forster, the extremely anti-Semitic Nazi leader of Danzig ordered all 10,000 Jews of Danzig to be kicked out of the city in 1939, not the Roma. The Jews. Auschwitz wasn't opened as a Polish political prisoner camp until the summer of 1940, not 1939. The Roma were sent to German municipal camps, in Germany and the Greater Reich, as early as 1933. But they were not sent to Auschwitz from Germany until 1943. The only people who were in a work camp in Auschwitz before it opened were 300 Jews from the town of Auschwitz who were forced to transform a collection of horse stables and army barracks into the Polish prisoner camp. "Genocide, extermination ..." of Poles? No. The Polish people suffered terribly, and were considered "sub-human" by the Nazis. Millions of Polish citizens were killed throughout the course of the war, as soldiers, as slave laborers, as underground fighters, as members of the intelligentsia. But this was Nazi suppression of a conquered country, not planned genocide. Roma, Yes. The homosexuals, no. Not genocide. Persecution and imprisonment. Treated terribly. But people weren't sent to the gas chambers just because they were homosexuals. And "intellectuals" ? (How could Nicieza have written this?) Intellectuals were targets of genocide? Well, I hardly think so, since Goebbels, and Albert Speer, and even Mengele were considered intellectuals.

No one was sent to the gas chambers, or was shot in an open grave, or was tortured and murdered JUST because they happened to be an intellectual. Thousands of Polish citizens who were members of the intelligentsia (the educated class, the vanguard or elite of the educated class), were murdered in the first months of the war. But there was no planned campaign to hunt down every intellectual in Europe and exterminate them. The mentally ill and handicapped, the Jews, and the Roma were the primary targets of Nazi genocide. The Russians came next. Everything Haller says about Magneto in Unlimited #2 contradicts most of Magneto's history as presented in 15 years worth of comics.

(18) Until recently, when, in Road to Onslaught, Marvel once again published that outrageous Gabrielle Haller speech about Magneto like they were proud of it (??) the next references in the Age of Apocalypse comics portrayed Magneto once again as Jewish. In X-Men Vol. 2, No. 40, where David Haller, Legion, pulls Magneto's memories out, you see young Magnus with the men, standing behind and below a high, barred window. This is an accurate portrayal of the quarters of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz I. At Auschwitz I, only the Sonderkommando (other than prisoners awaiting execution) were kept in isolated basement cells, the windows of which were high, barred, and as seen from the outside, half-below ground level.

And why is Magneto in Israel anyway? How could he have come there? Well, why would a Romany go to Israel when at least 30,000 Roma lived in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s? And many more Rom formed a thriving community in Paris. Why not just go home to his own clan and tribe? Roma have a complex system of extended familes, clans, and tribes. Why go to Israel to "find himself" or find his "soul"? A German Jew had no place to go but somewhere else. A Polish Jew definitely had no place to go back to, since some Polish fanatics continued to murder returning Holocaust survivors well into the late 1940s. Any Jew can emigrate to Israel, under the Law of Return. All Magneto had to do was show them the tattoo on his arm. And he was home. (And in case some of you were wondering, as some of us have discussed, with the exception of the Muslim Bosnians, only the Jews of Europe practiced circumcision. It was a religious rite, not a medical procedure. Only Jewish men and boys were circumcised among the prisoners at Auschwitz. The Nazis already knew what Magneto was. He was chosen for the Sonderkommando, he was Jewish. He was not pretending to be a Jew. He wasn't misidentified as a Jew. He was a circumcised, young Jewish man). Furthermore, Magnus at this time had forged papers, that identified him as "Erik Magnus Lehnsherr." He could have immigrated to any country in the world, including the United States! If he were Roma, and didn't want to self-identify as such, why not go to America? Why go to the one country that represents enormous pain for modern Roma -- i.e., the Rom today deeply resent the focus on Israel, and the support Israel enjoys among nations of the Western world, while the Roma continue to be persecuted and ignored.

(19) In Astonishing X-Men #3, formerly Uncanny, from May 1995, we have the most clear reference to Magneto's being Jewish, written by Scott Lobdell. Magneto has just hit Bishop, and is helping him to his feet. He says, "Long before Xavier died ... before this point of divergence ... I stood by helplessly as millions of my people were led to slaughter in the name of 'genetic purity." Now the AOA is not a what-if story. It is a divergent timeline. Magneto says, before the timeline diverged. What other people were lead by the millions, led to the slaughter, in the name of genetic purity? Many people suffered and died in World War II. 250,000 to 500,000 Roma were murdered. Millions of Russians and Poles during the course of the invasions, and in political violence, and in acts of pure murder, were exterminated. But only the European Jews were "led to the slaughter" in the millions because of one man's racial beliefs. Only the Jews of Europe Persecutionand incarceration are not the same as genocide and extermination.

20) X-Men #72, cover date February 1998, published in mid-December 1997. This comic book makes a significant contribution to Magneto's history. Basically, the book reveals that the name *Erik Lehnsherr* which was revealed by Gabrielle Haller in Unlimited #2 to be Magneto's real name, is fake, and so Haller's assertion that Magneto is a *Sinte* Rom was based on false and forged identity papers.

The scenario begins with Gabrielle Haller, lying on her bed, working on a lap- top computer, writing the American Sen. Kelly, begging him to help find and secure the release of Charles Xavier. Sabra, the Israeli super-hero, a mutant and Mossad agent, suddenly appears floating in the air outside Haller's balcony doors. Haller has just pushed open the doors, saying, "You're too important to lose, Charles. I will see you ... FREE?" And Sabra says, "Sometimes, Ambassador Haller ... freedom, like the truth, is little more than an illusion. Don't you think?"

Sabra has come to Haller with information. She says to Gabrielle Haller: "I"m sure you recall shocking the world when you announced that you had UNDENIABLE proof ofMagneto's identity as Erik Lehnsherr. The undeniable has just been DENIED." Sabra then goes on to show Haller, and the readers, the file on a master forger named George Odekirk. In this file, apparently, is a computer analysis of the identity papers of Erik Lehnsherr, which shows that Odekirk forged those documents. Haller says, "He created Erik Lehnsherr? If this is true ... you must take me to him! He could be our only link to Magneto's true identity ... our last chance to stop him once and for all!"

But just as Sabra is flying Haller to the Transylvanian Alps, to meet with Odekirk, the scene switches to Odekirk, who is working on another forged passport, sitting in bed while his wife sleeps beside him. Suddenly, Odekirk looks up -- he has a visitor. It's Magneto, in full costume.

Magneto is floating in the air. He surrounds Odekirk's bed with his magnetic energy, and uses his power to keep Odekirk's wife unconscious. He says, "You failed me." Odekirk responds, "Please ... please, my wife ..." Magneto answers, "She will sleep the sleep of the innocent. She has done nothing ... but you ... YOU, my friend, have BETRAYED me." Odekirk protests his innocence, and then Magneto makes this remarkable speech: "Do you remember what you promised me the night I came to you, torn and filthy, nearly a quarter century ago? I was searching for my beloved MAGDA, determined not to lose her as I had lost so many others in the fire that engulfed all of Europe during my childhood. The authorities were in pursuit of me for the "crime" of avenging my daughter's murder. I was willing to deny who I was ... everything that my family died for ... so that I could find one woman ... so that I would not be caged AGAIN. The Erik Lehnsherr fabrication was a convenient means of ensuring that. You swore that the forged papers were FLAWLESS, that your skills were unsurpassed... but now, you have proven to be a liability. Your work has been called into queston by my enemies, and they will trace Erik Lehnsherr the Sinte BACK to you." Odekirk protests, "That is impossible! That forgery was impeccable! My work is ... " Magneto answers: "It was not ENOUGH! You gave birth to Erik Lehnsherr, Odekirk. And tonight, you have killed him. My secrets shall die with him. All that remains now ... is MAGNUS."

This scene says, subtly but clearly, that Magnus denied who he was, gave up everything his famly died for, to take the false identity of a Sinte Rom named Erik Lehnsherr. Since this entire FAQ has gone into great detail showing exactly how and why Magnus was born Jewish, it seems there is no doubt now, that Magneto's family and he himself, were Jews. Magnus would not say he denied *everything* his family died for, by taking a Romani identity, if his family were indeed Roma. As I pointed out above, only the Jews and Roms were targeted as entire peoples, and killed for no reason other than they were Jews and Roms. Magnus was either one, or the other. Since in XM #72, it is revealed that he is NOT a Rom, we must conclude he was born a Jew.

There are several continuity problems that arise from the revelations of XM #72. Several unanswered questions:

1) How much of Haller's speech (Unlimited #2) was based information contained in Odekirk's forgery, how much was based on what she personally knew, and how much did she "fabricate" herself? She makes a large number of mistakes, about nearly every aspect of Magneto's history and life. She also gets her Holocaust history and dates wrong. Did she perhaps add her own *facts* to what she found in those old identity papers? Was she perhaps trying to make the story coherent? As in, trying to make what she knew about Magnus and his history fit what she learned about *Erik Lehnsherr*? For example, where she says, on page 19 of Unlimited #2, "...Lehnsherr had taken to calling himself MAGNUS ... as if by choosing his MIDDLE name, he could bring some semblance of BALANCE and SIMPLICITY to his haunted life." This is Haller's supposition -- the reason he was calling himself MAGNUS in Israel. She knew him as Magnus back then, she had just found out, his full name was supposedly *Erik Lehnsherr.* Did she try to splice together the information?

2) While XM #72 makes it clear why Magnus cloaked himself in this false identity and ethnic background initially, what is not so understandable is why he continued to maintain that false identity after his search for Magda was over, and he immigrated to Israel. Did he use the forged *Erik Lehnsherr* passport to enter Israel? Why would he use a false identity and ethnic background to enter Israel, when he was a Jew?

3) Why would Magnus continue to use the Erik Lehnsherr identity during the Age of Apocalypse, especially since he publicly identified with being a Jew? (Astonishing X-Men #3, quoted above.)

4) Magnus worked for at least one intelligence agency, most likely the CIA (Classic X-Men #19). He then hunted dangerous mutants, for his own mysterious purposes, as shown in a brief cameo in Generation X #10 -- which was a memory belonging to Sean Cassidy, telepathically accessed by Emma Frost. During the time he was working for the CIA, his code-name was Magneto. In Classic X-Men #19, he is called only Magneto. In Generaton X #10, Interpol agent Sean Cassidy doesn't know who the man is who is helping him track down Arcady (the future Omega Red). Emma Frost, commenting from the present as a psionic guide to Cassidy's memories, calls the man *Erik Lehnsherr.* But the question is, after he left Israel, did Magnus use the false identity Erik Lehnsherr?

5) During the time that Magneto tried to follow Xavier's path, roughly from UXM #196 through UXM #253, and New Mutants issues #35 through #75, including UXM #188, NM #21, #23, #24, #26, #28, and #29, he referred to himself as Magnus, and others like Storm and Kitty Pryde called him Magnus. Even though he was disguised as Michael Xavier for the outside world, the X-Men and their associates all knew Magneto as Magnus. During this time, Magnus also identified strongly with his Jewish and Jewish Holocaust history. The question now is, what happened to the *Erik Lehnsherr the SInte* identity during this time?

6) Why, now, after so many years, did Magneto find it necessary to kill George Odekirk in order to protect his identity? We know why he took the false name and ethnic background to begin with. But we have no evidence that he continued to use *Erik Lehnhserr*, during each stage of his pre-Magneto career. After he became Magneto, after all the battles with the X-Men, after the events of Fatal Attractions, after the mind-wipe and the appearance of Joseph, after Onslaught, why would Magnus be so concerned with protecting his true identity? Was he trying to protect the memory of his family? Has he maintained contact with pre-Holocaust family grave sites, or places where he once lived? Is he worried that the very bones of his ancestors might be violated by those looking for his genetic material? Then there's Anya, his beloved daughter -- she was never Anya *Lehnsherr*. Her last name is now unknown -- is Magneto trying to protect something concerning her? George Odekirk wouldn't be the only witness to Magneto's true identity, either. What about those Carpathian villagers, who accepted Auschwitz escapees Magnus and Magda in 1945? Did anyone in Vinnitsa who knew Magnus' true last name survive his burst of electromagnetic radiation? What about Ruth and David Shulman, who knew him at Auschwitz, and recognized him, in UXM #199?

These, and other unanswered questions, remain.

By removing the *Erik Lehnsherr the Sinte* identity, fixing that particular retcon from Unlimited #2, and leaving the rest of Magneto's history intact, writer Joe Kelly and editor Bob Harras have not officially stated that Magneto was born Jewish, and was a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz. But, as was the case during the years Chris Claremont wrote the character, the references to Magneto's Jewish identity are there, subtle and at the same time, obvious.

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singledarkshade · 6 years

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Memory Wipe

Part Nine

Amy would never forget the moment she realised that she truly loved Rory Williams.

She always knew she cared for him. She couldn’t go a day without talking to him no matter how innocuous the conversation was. She agreed to marry him, even if she’d managed to hold off the actual day by flying away in a time machine, and was happy about it.

Rory had always been there, he would do anything for her and she knew it, in some ways she took advantage of him because of it.

But the moment she thought he was gone, when she thought he had been turned to dust by an alien creature and there was a possibility she would never see him ever again Amy knew she couldn’t live without him.

She remembered the kiss he gave her when he realised that she had basically killed herself and the Doctor so she could see him again.

The joy and love in it meant she knew he would always be by her side.

Except now he wasn’t.

He was in the hands of a madwoman who had already turned him into a child sending him to live another life away from her.

“Here,” Sara placed a mug in front of her, “I thought you might want some tea.”

Amy gave the other woman a sad smile, “Thank you.”

“We’ll get him back,” Sara told her, “Trust me we’re not going to let that woman get away with this.”

“What’s he like?” Amy asked thoughtfully.

Sara frowned a little confused, “Who?”

“Rip Hunter,” Amy clarified, “I know Rory but I only met him as Rip when he was under the influence of Thawne and I wasn’t me.”

A smile touched Sara’s lips, “Intense, intelligent, annoying, loyal. I trust him with my life and I am going to smack him upside the head when we get him back for going with the madwoman.”

Amy laughed softly, “You’ll have to get in line behind me.”

“I guess you have seniority,” Sara conceded before asking, “What’s Rory like?”

“Sweet, caring, patient, the best man I have ever known,” Amy smiled again before sighing, “Does he know I picked him?”

“What?” Sara asked confused.

“I need him to know that I chose him over the Doctor,” Amy rubbed her hand over her face, “He believed that he loved me more than I love him. I need him to know that isn’t true, that I chose him, that I’ll always choose him.”

Sara reached out and took Amy’s hand, “If he doesn’t know then he will once we get him back.”

Gripping the mug Amy drank her tea as Sara left her alone with her thoughts once more.

From the moment he’d seen Amelia Jessica Pond, Rory had been in love.

True he’d barely been seven years old and had no concept of what love was. All he knew was that when his mum had dragged him round to meet the new people in the village on behalf of the village council, because Mrs Hepworth was visiting her sister, he saw an angel.

Amelia wasn’t happy to be taken from her home to come to live in Leadworth and definitely didn’t want to make friends with the boy whose mother was talking with hers.

She soon realised though that she had a very willing partner in crime who followed her lead with little complaint.

As they grew up Rory remained completely loyal to his flame haired angel hoping one day she would look at him the way he looked at her.

Finally she did, even though it was one of the most embarrassing moments of his entire life when she found out how he felt for her.

Their first kiss happened a few days later.

Rory had avoided Amy for three days still totally mortified by what had happened but his gran needed a lift to the church fete with her home-baking so he was forced out of hiding. He helped her empty the boot before he sat in his car brooding. Suddenly Amy climbed into the passenger seat and without a word kissed him as the Macarena played on the radio.

Rip held onto these memories while pain shot through his body as he hung from the ceiling by his wrists.

“You know this can end,” Druce told him, “All you have to do is agree to help us.”

Rip slowly raised his head, “Go to hell.”

Druce punched him and Rip’s head snapped to the side blood welling up in his mouth, spitting out the blood he glared at the man he’d once called friend.

“So you’ve become someone else’s lackey now Savage is dead,” Rip snarled at him, “The great Time Master Druce nothing but a lapdog.”

The next punch broke one of his ribs, Rip focussed on taking shallow breaths ignoring the man taunting him about his failures, about Miranda, about Jonas.

“If you don’t do what we want,” Druce’s voice filtered through the pain, “Then we will have to find another way. I’m sure Amy will make you much more co-operative.”

Rip turned his full attention on the man standing there, his eyes dark with anger before he began to laugh.

“If you think the Doctor will let her out of his sight until this is over,” Rip smirked at him, “You’re even more of an idiot than I thought. The Doctor will come and he will lay waste to whatever plans you’ve made, probably making quite a few bad puns as he does. You have no idea what you’re up against.”

Druce stared at him, “You’re waiting to be rescued.”

“I’m not the one he comes for,” Rip snarled, the broken rib making it painful to talk, “But you took Amy from him, you took us from our daughter and he’s not called the ‘Oncoming Storm’ for nothing,” he let out a harsh laugh, “With him will come the Legends and you’ve pissed off almost every one of them. All I have to do is stand and hold their coats.”

Druce turned away for a moment and picked up a taser stick.

“If you’re still alive when they get here, Rip,” he replied with a sinister smile, “You’re only useful to us if you give us what we want.”

Pain pulsed through him and Rip let out a cry before he let unconsciousness take him once more.

*********************************************

“No, no, no, no, no.”

River winced when the Doctor kicked the console in frustration, it had been several hours since they’d returned and they were no closer to picking up Rory’s tracker signal than they had been when they first arrived.

“Doctor,” she said softly, “Perhaps you should take a break.”

The Doctor dropped his head, “I can’t stop. I can’t lose Rory again, River. I can’t let Amy lose him again. I can’t let you lose him.”

“And you’re not,” she assured him, “But you’re not going to be any use to him if you collapse from exhaustion.”

He dropped into the seat and sighed, “Rory’s first death was because he pushed me out of the way. I had to drag Amy into the TARDIS to get us to safety while she screamed for him,” he scrubbed his hand through his hair, “Then I had to try to get her to hold onto his memory because he was pulled into one of the cracks.”

“I didn’t know,” she whispered crouching beside him.

The Doctor rested his hand on her cheek, “Your father, bravest man I have ever known and one of the best friends I have ever had. I can’t let him down.”

Taking his hand River smiled, “I know you won’t.”

Taking a deep breath the Doctor stood once more, “Let’s try this once more.”

Sara grabbed a bottle of water taking deep breaths to settle herself. She’d come down to work out for a while needing to do something to get rid of the excess energy that came from feeling so completely useless.

She knew she should have done something. Rip was her friend she shouldn’t have let him walk into what they all knew was a trap. Hearing a noise she turned and found Amy standing.

“Sorry,” the redhead said softly, “I was just walking...”

Sara smiled as she trailed off, “It’s not a problem. You’re welcome to wander. Gideon will stop you going anywhere restricted.”

“Thanks,” Amy gave a tight smile.

Sara nodded, she grabbed a towel turning back to find Amy holding her staff and tentatively going through a few positions with it.

“Can you use that?” Sara asked interested.

Amy shrugged, “I think so. My memories were altered. I don’t know what’s real right now.”

Picking up the spare staff Sara took up a defensive position, “Okay, show me what you remember.”

Hesitantly Amy attacked becoming a little more confident in her moves after a few minutes.

“Good,” Sara said, “Widen your stance a little.”

Following the instructions Amy attacked again.

Amy accepted the bottle of water from Sara feeling more than a little stunned that she could actually fight like that. All the time she’d spent with the Doctor she had learned some skills but nothing like this.

Rory knew how to use a sword and, despite pretending that he didn’t, Amy was well aware of how often he would go through training drills to ensure he didn’t get rusty.

“It looks like whatever the training was,” Sara told her, “Either it was real or you had some amazing memories implanted but you have some skill and apparently muscle memory. Once we get Rip back if you like I can set up a proper training routine we can work with.”

Amy hesitated, she’d just assumed that they would go home once she got Rory back and they were safe. She hadn’t thought that the people here would want him to stay with them. Anguish filled her as she remembered that Rory now had a full life that had absolutely nothing to do with her. What if she didn’t fit into it?

Finally she gave Sara a small nod, “Thanks.”

“Captain Lance, Mrs Williams,” Gideon spoke up suddenly, “The Doctor has requested you come to the TARDIS.”

“We’re on our way, Gideon,” Sara replied as she and Amy headed into the corridor.

*********************************************

He was cold and alone.

All he had in the world was a knife. It helped him steal which meant he at least got some food to stay alive.

Then she came.

Kind and gentle, she gave him food wrapping a blanket around him to keep him warm, gathering him up taking him to the Time Masters who gave him purpose.

For the first time he could remember he was clean, warm, well-fed and felt safe.

“I thought you said we needed him to have all his memories?” Druce asked as he watched Missy manipulate the man’s dreams.

“We do,” she replied, “But it should work if he is in a dream-state.”

Druce nodded, “How long will this take?”

“We’ll need to go through this process a few more times,” Missy smiled slowly, “Once he wakens then you can repeat your little display of male bravado. Being injured makes it easier for me to work with his dreams.”

Druce nodded, “Trust me I’m more than happy to torture the arrogant little bastard. He destroyed everything I worked for.”

With an amused chuckle Missy turned back to watching the dreams sliding around the mind of her captive.

This would be fun.

*********************************************

The Doctor looked up when Amy and Sara walked onto the TARDIS.

“Have you found him yet?” Amy demanded as she reached the console.

“No,” the Doctor told her, “But,” he added quickly before she could say anything, “I have an idea”

“Which is?” Sara asked before Amy could.

The Doctor smiled slightly, “You two.”

The two women shared a confused look before turning back to him questioningly.

“I need the two people who care about him most in each of his identities,” the Doctor explained, “Using the TARDIS we will try and create a psychic link which we can then use to track him.”

Sara looked at him confused, “Why me?”

“You care about Rip,” River noted appearing from nowhere.

Sara shrugged, “He’s my friend but technically Gideon is the closest to him as Rip.”

“Unfortunately Gideon is an AI so that won’t work,” the Doctor replied, “There is no way to create a psychic link.”

“You are our next option. You entered his mind to free him after Eobard Thawne altered his personality,” River told her, “You were the one to persuade him to fight back.”

Sara stared at them, “How do you know that?”

“Gideon told us,” the Doctor replied with a shrug.

River rested her hand on Sara’s arm, “Rory told her to provide us with any and all information we needed when we first arrived.”

Sara shook her head in annoyance, “Yes, I care about him. And we’ll be having words about him not telling me everything when we get him back,” she grimaced before adding, “After Amy’s finished with him.”

“Excellent,” the Doctor said, “Take a seat and River will plug you in.”

“Plug us in?” Amy demanded before Sara could.

River moved them to the two beanbags that were sitting in the middle of the floor, “To the TARDIS. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Really?” Sara winced as Amy took her seat.

River nodded, “The TARDIS is very fond of my father.”

Sara looked at the three of them and gave in, “Okay, plug me in.”

*********************************************

Rip cried out as the knife sliced along his ribs despite trying to keep silent. He was exhausted and his entire body ached. His mind felt cloudy as though filled with cotton wool and all he wanted to do was let go but he knew he couldn’t.

Another punch cracked his rib. He was almost sure the same rib had been broken already at some point then healed but he couldn’t remember when that was or how it happened.

He knew he needed to escape but he couldn’t remember where he was or who held him captive.

Rip tried to focus, tried to get his brain to shake the fog surrounding him but he couldn’t.

Pain shot through his body and he gave in slipping into the blackness once more.

But before he surrendered completely to unconsciousness he heard a woman’s voice, “This time let’s focus on Rory.”

Amy’s arms slid around his waist hugging him from behind as he stood at the TARDIS console. Rory smiled, turning to her and everything else disappeared as his wife kissed him softly.

“So,” she slid her hands into his back pockets, “The Doctor wants to know where we want to go now.”

“Wherever you want,” he smiled enjoying the small kisses she was pressing to his neck.

Amy pulled back and shook her head, “This time you get to choose. Come on,” she took his hand and pulled him over to the screen which showed a star map, “The Doctor says all he wants is for you to point to wherever you want to go.”

Rory hesitated, there was something odd about this but Amy distracted him by whispering in his ear, “Try and choose somewhere romantic.”

Shrugging he pointed to the top right corner of the screen, “Let’s try there.”

“Good boy,” Amy breathed pressing a kiss to his cheek.

The world tilted to one side and Rory fell into the darkness again.

Part Ten

#fic #doctor who #rory williams #amy pond #eleventh doctor #river song #missy #legends of tomorrow #rip hunter #sara lance

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the-desolated-quill · 7 years

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Day Of The Moon - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

I usually watch episodes twice before writing a review in order to absorb every detail. With Day Of The Moon, I actually watched this a grand total of five times for the purposes of this, and that’s because I couldn’t make up my mind as to whether or not I liked this episode or not. Every time I thought I was enjoying it, I suddenly remembered something that’s inconsistent or doesn’t make sense and that kind of dampened the mood a bit.

It’s certainly not a bad idea for a story. As I mentioned in my review of The Impossible Astronaut, I find the premise to be both intriguing and suspenseful. Day Of The Moon is equally engaging. The opening certainly got my attention with the action taking place three months later, the Doctor chained up and his companions on the run. Later we realise this was just a ruse to fool the Silence while they investigate what’s going on. Then it’s off to an abandoned orphanage, which was so damn creepy. It’s all very dark and atmospheric with the confused warden guy who has been under the influence of the Silence for two years, and the scribblings on the walls warning trespassers to get out while they still can. Then it gets even creepier when Amy starts wandering around upstairs on her own. The door locks behind her and you hear all these creaks and rattles all over the place, then all these tally marks appear on her face and HOLY SHIT, THERE ARE MILLIONS OF THE FUCKERS ON THE CEILING!!!!!

The Silence are unbelievably cool and have so much potential. I love how the Doctor manages to outwit them in the end, using the moon landing and their post hypnotic suggestion to order humanity to turn against the Silence. It’s all very clever... provided you don’t think about it too much.

I suppose that’s what it all boils down to in the end. Day Of The Moon only really works if you don’t apply logic to it. The minute you switch your brain on, the whole thing begins to... not fall apart as such, but deflate ever so slightly.

Let’s start with the Silence themselves. Conceptually they’re great, but there are quite a few logic holes. They have the ability to make you forget you ever saw them, including pictures and videos and stuff like that. The minute we can’t see a Silent, we forget about them. So... how can the Doctor and co plan their little rebellion with this in mind? Think about it. It doesn’t add up. I’m assuming what starts all this off is Amy seeing the photo of a Silent on her phone and telling the Doctor. But surely the minute they stop looking at the photo, they immediately forget there’s a photo in the first place, right? If they can’t remember the Silence, how do they know what to look for? They can’t even remember what they look like.

Okay, so the Doctor and co somehow manage to retain some knowledge of the Silence’s existence and the Doctor assumes that the Silence must be in control of the whole world. That seems quite a bit of a stretch to me, but whatever. Let’s go with it. So he sends Amy, Rory and River off on a Silent hunt for three months. Every time they see a Silent, they mark a tally on their body. But... wait a minute. That doesn’t make any sense. They don’t remember what the Silence look like, so what are they looking for exactly? Are they just hoping to come across something that looks slightly alien and then just assume it’s a Silent? And if they can’t remember Silent encounters, how do they know what the tally marks are supposed to signify? And how were they able to obtain a vast body of knowledge about the Silence when they can’t remember them? Surely one sighting forgotten is the same as many sightings forgotten, knowledge-wise, right?

The nanorecorders implanted in their hands don’t help neither. It’s not as if hearing a Silent encounter brings any memories back. Also, why nanorecorders? I get that it’s sci-fi, but wouldn’t a camera be better? In fact has nobody on Earth, upon seeing a Silent, ever whipped out a camera to record one?

Maybe I’m overthinking this a bit too much, but it was really bugging me all this. It feels like Moffat is just changing the rules again like he did with the Weeping Angels. Initially the characters couldn’t remember the Silence, and now apparently they can remember a bit of them for the purposes of the plot. It’s just really inconsistent.

Also Moffat seems to have forgotten a few teeny, tiny things about writing villains. Like plots and motivations. As creepy as the Silence are, what’s their plan exactly? Why have they been influencing humanity for so long? What’s their goal? (Yes I know their main goal is to kill the Doctor, but why not just kill him? They don’t need to manipulate human society to achieve that, do they?) In fact there isn’t even that much evidence to suggest that they’re actually evil. We know they’ve been manipulating humanity, but we don’t know why. And neither does the Doctor for that matter. He seems a bit too quick to jump to conclusions, doesn’t he? What if the Silence are actually benevolent and have been trying to help humanity? It’s unlikely, but it’s a distinct possibility. The Doctor talks about the death and suffering they’ve caused, but there’s no actual onscreen evidence supporting this. The only truly evil thing they do is kill that woman in the previous episode, which is obviously not a very nice thing to do, but for all we know they could have had a good reason for it. Hardly justifies genocide, does it? It just seems strange that the Doctor wouldn’t be asking these kinds of questions. He just immediately jumps to the worst case scenario, that the Silence are invaders, when there’s no real evidence to support this.

And if that’s not enough, the Doctor’s plan to kill them is a bit dodgy too. Yes it’s cool how he uses the Silence’s abilities against them, but it’s not exactly a watertight plan, is it? So humans have now been conditioned to kill any Silence on sight. The episode makes this look so easy as we see President Nixon’s security guards gunning a couple down, but how many people are going to be packing heat at any given moment? What about the people who don’t have guns? Are they just going to throw heavy objects at the Silence? And let’s not forget the Silence have countermeasures of their own. This hardly seems like a slam-dunk for humanity.

Other things annoyed me too, like how the pregnancy subplot is handled. After its extremely clunky introduction in the previous episode, it’s reversed just as awkwardly at the beginning of this one. Then it turns out her pregnancy is rapidly fluctuating between positive and negative (blimey, I’d hate to have her uterus). Surely there must have been a more subtle way we could have introduced this subplot other than just belching it out at random.

Then there’s the forced love triangle, which I really could have done without. For fuck sake Moffat, it wasn’t very good the first time. Can we drop it now? It doesn’t even make sense. Why would Amy refer to Rory as someone who has ‘dropped from the sky?’ Who talks about their boyfriend like that?

And then there’s the girl in the spacesuit. Still don’t know anything about her and her inclusion in this episode is largely pointless other than to propel the series arc. if she’s not going to become relevant until later, why include her in the first place? All she does is distract from the Silence who could have used the screen time to get some much needed development. And once again I’m looking at the Doctor in disbelief when he says he could find the little girl or just go off and have adventures. What the actual fuck?! Has Steven Moffat ever actually watched this show before? The Doctor wouldn’t abandon a little girl like that without making sure she’s okay!

So who is this little girl? This little girl in the spacesuit. This little girl in the spacesuit that kills the Doctor. This little girl in the spacesuit that kills the Doctor and who only ever seems to show up when Amy’s pregnancy is mentioned.

I mean it could literally be anybody, couldn’t it? No, but seriously, it’s DEFINITELY the Rani.

Overall I feel pretty ambivalent about this two parter. Perhaps if this wasn’t tied into some convoluted series arc and was given the time and development to be its own standalone adventure, it could have been truly amazing. While there are definitely things to like about The Impossible Astronaut/Day of The Moon, it just doesn’t work as a cohesive whole.

#day of the moon #steven moffat #doctor who #eleventh doctor #matt smith #amy pond #karen gillan #rory williams #arthur darvill #river song #alex kingston #the silence #bbc #review #spoilers

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iansoakparanormalelimination · 7 years

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My Paranormal Life: The Bog Creature

My life has been turned upside down and backwards many times, so many times in fact that I wonder why the twists seem to take the shape that it has so repetitively. With the last several years culminating in several life changes that started when I was a child, introspection set in and I began to really sift through the years seeking answers. Or at the very least some kind of clues. Nearly going blind will do that to you, nearly dying several times didn't seem to be the ticket.But those are tales for another time.The differences in my life from others I know has been so dramatic that in the growing darkness of my sight I began to try to piece together something. Was I always different or was this difference pushed onto me? Or was I always different and then made MORESO?Going back into my memories the differences begin right away. No one else I know can remember their first steps, getting diapers changed, the distaste for the feel of plastic pants over their underpants as they are potty trained. The first feel and silence of being sat in a depression of snow at 10 or 11 months. I could read well before entering Kindergarten because of my mother's teachings, since she labeled everything with the name of the thing in our shared bedroom, even my crib. Yes, I can clearly remember those times, even the abuses my parents and elder siblings sent my way, though those didn't ramp in intensity until after I was back home and turned 6 years old. Forgive me, I'm getting slightly ahead of myself but with reason, as you'll eventually read.Oh, and my blindness that I avoided, which you've doubtlessly been asking yourself about? Trauma Induced Cataracts from concussive impacts to my head from beatings and car accidents...no, not when I was driving, these happened when I was a child and before the law and normal use of seat belts stepped in to protect us from ourselves. and our parents.Now, needless to say this is all completely true. I know you'll all wonder if this is the case, if it's true, can I provide you with as much documentation as you need that won't be compromising, etc? I could, but that would make my life somewhat less private, but the information is available. Even my Doctor's information on the implants in my eyes so I can see can be screenshot and put up if you need convincing.But why am I telling you these things about my vision? Simple really...something didn't like the idea that I could SEE them. Really see them.As I am a child of two nations born in the US, this means a large amount of cultural background goes into the sum of my parts. With a Cuban father and mother from England, you can see what an amazing contrast there would be between the two parts of my family. The differences are so vast with one half of the family being very spiritual, Santeria being a large part of the religious makeup of the Cuban side. On the other is the celtic influence of my mother's family, with deep ties to the old faiths of the islands of the United Kingdom, all the way back to old religions of pagan and druids.As a baby I never knew how protected I was by my tias(that's aunts in Spanish) and their diligence to keep the house we lived in safe from the other world they knew was there, and feared...terrifically in fact. Constant blessings, use of camphor, holy water and cleansing with incense happened all the time. These kept my dreams untroubled and I feared the dark only because I could not see.Eventually, we moved and the home I would grow up in did not have ANY of those benefits. I began to see things in the darkness most easily. Aside from feeling things when I was near something spiritually active at a distance, I could see things, too. See what? Indistinct shapes, swirling patterns of movement as of fog or ether and something causing eddies in it just out of sight. But sometimes I saw more....much more.Take for example my tio Mickey and his wife, my tia Olga. As a little child we'd go there all the time because tia Olga was my godmother. Her mother, forgive me I do not recall her name, lived with them and had her own room. She was very old and not in the best of health, but she had an aura about her that said she was kindly and wished she could do more when my brother, sister and I came to visit than just sit in her room or lie in bed. Sometimes she was too exhausted to get out of bed and we had to play quietly on the other side of the house on the covered porch.I had a habit of wandering off and going places I was told not to go, following feelings that seemed to draw me on that were tied to my gut around the level of diaphragm. Inf act sometimes I would wander blocks away from home or to parks, scaring my family silly. I would go to tia Olga's mother's room and as I'd walk in, a man standing next to her bed would look up and smile most of the time. My memory of him is as hazy now as it is of her, but I remember dark but warm eyes, steely gray hair swept back and slicked down to keep it neat with a light blue guayabera. He was thick in the upper body, muscular but not overly so. I couldn't see his lower body since he was on the opposite side of the bed. She would look away from him to me, following his gaze to see me standing in the doorway."Hola, señora." I said."Ay!" my tio Mickey would say from up the hallway to get my attention, and I'd turn to look at him as he and his big dog, Duke, came towards me. I look back to apologize for bothering her, my mother's demand for proper English manners you see, and the man was gone. There was no place for him to go I should point out. And no one else lived there since my cousin, Michael, had moved out some years before. Keep in mind I think these events happened when I was 4, I'm pretty sure of it as my cousin's wedding had been the year before this when I was three.No one could ever tell me who that was, no one wanted to even mention it. The fact is it only started whispers between adults about the events, fearfully whispered discussions amongst them. Discussions I was not allowed to even think of eavesdropping on.It wasn't long after this that my tia Olga's mother passed on. I never found out who the man was in the room with her, but I am assuming it was someone very close to her for the simple fact I never felt menaced by what I saw and the room felt brighter after she passed, as if her illness or frail body had trapped her light. And once it was free the room fairly scintillated from its passing touch. Funny to think that years later when I brought my girlfriend(who would eventually become my wife) to visit tia Olga in her sickbed that it was in that very room. No, she was not there looking over her daughter, but the room was still bright with the light she'd left behind.A parting gift to ease her daughter's pains.Not all I saw was friendly as I'm certain you're wondering at this point if everything I saw was benevolent or kindly. As I'd said before the protection afforded us was lost when we moved as my mother never let my aunts do their ministrations again. We were given these tiny bags with a bead and a rosary medallion inside to wear under our clothes against our skin, pinned to our clothing with safety pins, to ward off evil. Because of the thing I mentioned, and a considerable many more brevity doesn't allow me to mention, I was given one more than my brother and sister. One of my patron saint, Joan of Arc. No, I'm not a female, but there is no Saint Sean. That's my name, by the way. Sean....same spelling as Sean Connery for whom I was told, jokingly or not, to be named after. Joan in French(she was French after all) is Jeanne. That's pronounced the same way as Jean of Jean Luc Picard fame for the Trek Nerds amongst you. Which as you can easily hear sounds a lot like Sean, a name that none of my cuban relations could easily say except my cousin, who was raised in the US.Forgive me for all this preface, but I thought I'd give you some idea of the events and history before the "Big Event".My mother's relations had come to visit us singly or in combinations for a little while, and I do believe I even got to see my Great Aunt Lily more than once in the US. My mother's father, Grandad, had been setting aside money since she'd left home to have her come home, either to stay or for a visit, and this money he'd made from quitting smoking. Funny enough, he'd been saving so long that the amount had grown high enough for us to all come visit them over the Summer. My father had to work so he couldn't come with us, his job was very demanding. Our "Talismans" given to us by the Cuban side of the family were not allowed to come with us and remained in a box back home, despite loud protestations. My mother was most insistent on that as she was embarrassed by them.We got our passports and in June of the year Star Wars IV A New Hope came out. So we were literally flying to UK less than a month after its initial release and I had to miss the phenomenon of the Summer that it was in 1977, but its impact was felt all over England in merchandising that tantalized me in the form of bubblegum cards with stills from the movie on them.My time in England was, to put it lightly, not boring.Why, you might ask? Whether it was walking everywhere or taking buses or trains, we were dragged to every moor, castle, monument, palace, and place of interest my mother could think of to see. This in direct contrast to the part of Los Angeles where we'd lived that requires a car and a long trip to get anywhere meaningful...it was a shock to say the very least about it one can say. All of this while traveling between the homes of my Grandad and Nanny(that's my grandmother if you hadn't guessed), my Aunt Sonia and my Aunt Celia in various places around England.From Heathrow we were driven out of the city to my Aunt Sonia's home and outfitted the next day with cagoules and wellies. For anyone not familiar, those are rainproof jackets that cover to the thigh and waterproof calf height rubber boots. For you see we had been impelled to come because that year since the previous 2 years had been a "Drought" and rain had been scarce, but 1977 was the end of the drought and we saw 3 sunny days all Summer long as nature dumped 3 years worth of water on England to make up for her laxness.Sonia's home was new and the neighborhood she and her family lived in was newly urbanized portions north of London that once just been rolling hills and forests. I slept well there, felt nothing and nothing ever happened. The same could not be said of Celia's or my grandparent's homes.Celia had an old home that was more than a century old and with much history, in a portion of England known for minor nobles living, and dying, nearby in their mansions. My grandparents flat was in the middle of a rebuilt portion of London, in an area that had been annihilated during the Bombing of London.When we first went to stay with Celia it was a bit of a shock. Upon first stepping through the front door and removing my wellies, I noticed the air was thick...and cold. To the left of the large front door was a toilet behind a closed door under a large staircase with a banister. My eyes were drawn to it as we were lead inside by my aunt, distracted with talking to my mother about her coming wedding. Another reason for our presence, so my mother could be there for her younger sister's wedding.The cold stopped as we got to the third stair and turned right on the small landing and proceeded up the stairs. Now the air was just thick and unwelcoming. We were shown to our room we'd be sleeping in, we children. It was across the hall from Celia's room and next to my mother's room. I kept looking at the door to my aunt's room, a pulsing sensation in my ears and pressing on my chest. So distracted was I, that I didn't even notice I was being asked something by my mother as she ushered me into our room to unpack.Celia smiled at me as she opened the door to her room, something about getting into her regular clothing now that she was not traveling anymore that day. I looked past her into the room with eyes wide and the feeling of dread growing. She saw my curiosity."What is it, Sean?" she asked me she looked over her shoulder into the room. Past her I could see her bed and nothing else. I looked back at her as she entered the room and then walked out of sight to the right towards what I would later learn was the walk in closet. Doing this she crossed my view of the bed and when it was clear again I saw something that chilled me to the marrow and the pressure came back enough to make me gasp.There, in the bed, now sat an old woman in a sleeping cap and nightgown that looked like something from the 18th century. Her hair was grey and tied up into the cap, her skin was parched and wrinkled but she couldn't have been older than 70. I apologize I cannot be more descriptive than that, not only was it 4 decades ago I was terrified. As I write this the terror is fresh in my breast and my heart is hammering just as it did then. The woman was sitting in the bed looking in the direction that Celia had walk out my field of view, then slowly she turned to look at the doorway. It seemed at the time she was turning her head at the sound of my gasp. Her eyes were angry, unwelcoming and accusing of some misdeed I was being blamed for.I've included a link to something vaguely similar to what I saw. Keep in mind, it's not the same but it can give you a rough impression of what I saw.At that moment my sister and mother walked past, breaking my line of sight as they walked past to go downstairs to get the rest of the suitcases to unpack. I stood frozen, my brother asking me what was wrong as they walked by. After they passed the old woman was nowhere to be seen.I told no adult, nor my sister, as I remembered the response seeing things like this had gotten me in the past at home. I confided in my brother only, and he'd told me he hadn't seen anything. He proceeded to tell my mother and sister all about all I'd said and all the future events. And yes, she looked real. Like any person you see on the street looks. Solid and alive. That's how a great deal of the spirits I see look, or so I have learned. They appear as they did in life...rarely as how they died unless it was violent or traumatic. This was something I would learn much later but I mention it here in case you're wondering.Needless to say, I always kept my eyes averted from her room so I'd never see that woman again, even refusing to use the upstairs bathroom as I'd have to pass her and risk seeing or feeling her again.My grandparents flat had no oppressive feel to it, but there was a ghost all the same. A figure would walk into the bedroom where my brother and I slept, look around and then leave. He was dressed in a strange helmet shaped like a brimmed soup bowl with a chinstrap and a strange heavy jacket with leather buckles that looked water resistant. I could never see his feet as it was always too dark in the room. As the man entered he always seemed to bring a light with him, as if he glowed mildly. Otherwise I would not have been able to see much of him in the pitch dark of the middle of the night. I have no idea if I woke each time he came, but when I did awake it was usually prefaced by the feeling that I thought my mother had just walked in to check up on my brother and I, which she did now and again.I'm including a link to a picture of what the man looks like that walked through the home at night looked like.One thing I forgot to mention was my mother's morbidity when it came to graveyards. She has been tracing our family tree for ages, and this meant we were usually dragged to find headstones with her maiden name on them. One particular graveyard near my Grandad's flat was apparently where my great grandparents were buried. This graveyard was never empty of people walking through it and looking around. We'd be there many times, clearing the weeds and bracken from the shared grave of my great grandparents and placing flowers before I asked my mother why so many people were milling about. Her answer was:"I don't know Sean.....what people?" she asked as she looked around, finally paying attention to what I asked her. As the youngest in the family I'm rarely listened to and almost everything I said was dismissed or outright ignored. Never before had I wished my mother had ignored my question.I looked up at all the people who were walking amongst the graves and pointed at them. Specifically I pointed at a girl with reddish hair tied up in a pink ribbon that was wearing a light sweater and a dress that came to her knees. Remember when I said we saw three sunny days that summer in England? This was not one of them. We were in our rain gear, this girl and all the others were not. They were all in different attire. Some looked dressy such as suits and dresses, while others were dressed casually. Some looked like they were dressed in the current clothing styles, some were considerably older. I had not noticed it before that moment. Further, not a single one of them even had an umbrella or rain gear of any note to ward off the pattering rain I could hear making noise against the plastic cagoule hood. And though the rain was not falling heavily, it was falling around us sufficiently to turn a sweater completely sodden in minutes.Suddenly breathless, I realized two things:Ghosts can appear in the daylight outside. Something as a child I'd assumed was a "safe" time I would not have to worry about running into these things I was quickly becoming terrified of. And these ghosts had suddenly become aware of me.All of them.As if they were discomfited at scaring me, they all turned to look at me with impassive expressions on their faces, except for the girl I pointed at, and then each of them turned away and faded from sight. It was almost as if they had pulled a screen in front of themselves or stepped from one room to another by changing the focus of their attention. The girl with the reddish hair and the pink ribbon? She didn't disappear, instead she smiled and stayed fairly close listening to our conversations and watching, all in a completely non-threatening manner. No one seemed to notice her or see her throughout our time there, which I was eager to cut as short as possible.Threatening or not, I was leery of her and unwilling to let her close, always keeping my mother between us. I have no idea who she was and I was too scared to find out or even try to talk to her.Just two things I must mention about this graveyard not directly related to the ghosts or spirits I saw there:Firstly, the church that stood before it was where my Aunt Celia was married that summer. Secondly, this was where my Grandad was buried when he died of massive heart attack in his flat in August just after my mother's birthday. And no, I never saw him again. His spirit, despite staying in the flat many more days, never came to me. Nor, might I add, did the man in the helmet ever appear again to me.I'm sure most of this seems innocuous and far from dangerous to the reader, but you have to see it from the point of view of a 5 year old child. Not only that, you have to understand that before this I'd never encountered so many and so often. Only had I ever seen things swirling away, or faces peaking out my closet. But there was much more to be seen in England....ever so much more.For instance, the area along the Thames where the beheadings of many condemned folks that had stayed their last days in the Tower of London gave me nightmares throughout my time there. Things I'd rather never recount or remember. Things that still leave me shaking whenever I see the Tower of London in pictures or film. Rooms filled with ancient torture devices at Windsor Castle and other museums gave brief flashes of things that made me sit up in my bed at night drenched in sweat for years. Darker things did occur during my stay in the UK, but let me finish with the "Event" that seemed to mark the end of things as they had been, and none of the events eclipsed it.Though we stayed with the relations I mentioned and never went to stay with my uncle(Billy), we did however get to visit some distant relations. Distant in both lineage and in mileage. One set was in Scotland and was not spiritually noteworthy except to say that it felt as safe as if I was back in my old home, as though something protecting me. I would later discover that the reason for this was that the family was said to be protected by a few spirits and an "Elemental". For those of you good with a search engine you might discover my family name in Scotland from just the clues I have given you here.But the scariest experience I had was visiting second or third cousins of my mother's, Glynis and Roy. Once again I apologize for not knowing exactly. They are a nice couple with a home that had a past they had no clear answers for. At my aunt's wedding we were told by my aunt Celia about the "Ghost of the Bed". It was an antagonistic spirit that menaced only adult males that slept in the bedroom, not allowing them to sleep, shaking them, waking them with shrieking, attacking them and other more painful events. They'd look into the history of the house and it went back about two hundred years, it being one of the old homes in Wales with a history rich and mostly lost through time. Of course, Roy had only been told these things and had never tried to sleep there himself. A friend of his had tried and left in the middle of the night, never to return.No one stepped forward with more information as to why the spirit did what it did, whether it was male or female, or what had brought its darkness into the home in the first place. All this was recounted by Celia with dark glee, as she looked on the paranormal I would later find out as a fan of Hammer Horror films looks on schlocky movies as something to be sometimes laughed at and sometime horrified by. A non-believer and mundane in every sense of the word, who would later run experiments on haunted locations with me as a guinea pig on her many visits throughout my childhood.Terrified at what I could end up seeing, and now thoroughly exhausted from lack of sleep and decent food. But that's a story for another time. Suffice to say, the words "Cuisine" and "English" to not belong sitting back to back and are as unrelated as any two words can be. Want to know why Harry Potter is always eating candy and treats in the movies? Can't ever go wrong with English sweets and candy.The trip to Wales was long and arduous as we had to stay on the train for several hours and a few train changes and a bus ride. Before it was all over I had been menaced by my sister and brother with the idea of the ghost in the house...ghosts they didn't believe in or could see. Menaced with the idea of being put in the bedroom I was so scared of sleeping in. You know how that is, how children are."We're going to put you in there, Sean! We're going to make you sleep upstairs with the ghost!" they'd torment me, then wail like ghosts, holding their hands in grasping poses like a walking revenant out for human blood.I'd wail and run, scared out of my wits already at the very knowledge I was going to be near it. Certain in fact, despite my mother's claims they wouldn't, that they'd do it all the same and make me sleep in that accursed room.Well human endurance can only go so far when living on egg and chips, fish and salad and saveloy. I passed out on the last bus despite trying to stay awake in order to make sure I was able to make certain I was not put in the wrong room. My siblings had a nasty habit once they knew about the ghosts I could see of locking me in closets just to hear me shrieking in the darkness...darkness that was sometimes not void of...others. I was scared that they would force me into the room and make me face it as they had threatened.My fears were in vain, they never did go through with their threats.I awoke, as children do, slowly and softly to find myself in a bed already despite the fact i could tell by the ambient light that it was still daylight. And it was also sunny outside, one of the three days I mentioned. I was covered in a thick blanket that felt almost as heavy as one of those lead coats they throw on you when you get X-rays at the dentists office. I was warm and comfortable for several seconds before I realized where I was, then terror blossomed in my chest and my heart began to hammer against my little ribcage. I sat up, struggling under the weight of the blanket I now saw was doubled up and made of very heavy material. Don't ask, I have no idea what the material was or if it was a comforter. All I recall is that it was heavy and warm.Sitting up, I look around me at the room. The bed was old and I could hear the springs shift as I did. The headboard was metal, rather like the kind you see in old movies of hospitals, but it was larger and wider. It seemed so large to me at the time, disproportionately big for a child of my small stature. To my right was a window with the pulldown shade drawn from the lintel to within an inch of the sill. I could tell the window was open because of the way the shade moved slightly now and then from air flowing around it, causing the sun that was coming in to vary in intensity. Under the window was a low chest of drawers made of dark stained wood, it looked antique and sturdy. To my left was a tall dresser that was at least 4 feet high but with no mirror on it, also made of dark stained wood. That made me feel frightened for some reason, the lack of a mirror. Don't ask me why.Directly beside the bed on my left was a nightstand made of lighter wood with a single drawer in it. Set atop it was a glass of water and a couple of Welsh Cakes next to the glass. My stomach rumbled at the sight of them and as I reached for my first, I heard a sound and looked at the door for the first time which was just in front of the foot of the bed.The sound of my family, downstairs, laughing loudly at something. It seemed to come up to my as if mocking me, teasing me. Almost like I was put here on purpose to test me, to torture me and expose me to my fears. Because after all, to them it was not real. It was explained away as imagination how many times by my mother since coming to England? I'd long lost count. And I could hear my brother and sister laughing at something, the low voice of Roy interjecting something and then another burst of laughter.Well, I thought, I'll show them. I'll get away. I'll call them all stupid and mean for trying to scare me and laughing about it! Always picking on me, the littlest in the family. The butt of all their insults and tortures! How many times had they locked me in a closet with things reaching for me from the dark? Or in a room with a ghost that could see me as well as I could see it, all in the name of helping me get over my "fears"? So many times!Tears had been tracing down my face as I thought of this, but now they intensified from drops to streams that blurred my sight as my horror and feeling of betrayal intensified. My cheeks were soaked and stung slightly from the hot, salty tears.I moved to get up but paused... I felt it then. Through my whole body I felt it...like suddenly I was deep under water. The pressure was intense and almost like a nightmare in intensity. Like drowning out of water, sinking deeper and deeper every second, the crushing feeling growing tighter and tighter about me. Pressing on my little chest, my shoulders creaked as they were forced into my body and my wrists were crushed into my stomach, almost as if a gigantic hand was gripping me. Looking back now I have no idea how I survived.I tried to move, but my arms could not defeat whatever it was that held me. Another chorus of laughter from under the door drew my attention downward and I could see the gap beneath the door with light from the hallway illuminated a small patch of the wooden carpet and the edge of the rug that the bed sat on. Fighting to draw enough breath to scream for my mother, all I could do was sip the air a little at a time into my lungs and let it out. I tried making noise, little gasps of "Help!" "Mommy!" and calling for my sister and brother...but looking back they couldn't have been louder than a whimper. They were far from where I was and downstairs...and they would probably ignore me anyway as they usually did. I felt betrayed as well as terrified beyond comprehension...but it wasn't even close to what I was was in for.A sound, distant, but persistent and strange reached my ears then in the silence of the room. It didn't echo, it seemed as though the sound was sucked away as soon as each sound finished. It grew steadily louder, and by that I could tell it was getting closer. The grip hadn't lessened on me and in fact began to push DOWN so my little legs were bent at painful angles on the bed. The springs squeaked in response to my downward pressure into the bed and I heard my mother say:"I think I heard Sean upstairs, I'll check on him later. Going to step out for a cigarette...." and it trailed off as she must have gone outside, and the sound of a door opening and closing...then silence. They had all stepped outside, I could now hear the sounds of my brother and sister laughing distantly from the slightly open window to my right.My right hip protested the pain of being crushed in the semi-sitting position with my right leg splayed out to the right and my left extended in front of me. The noise I'd heard, now seemingly emboldened at being alone in the house, grew louder. I could finally tell at last what it sounded like...it was like a groan, only it sounded like a person groaning while inhaling rather than exhaling. And it didn't stop this time, it was inhaling and making the sound, getting louder and louder, closer, but I couldn't see from where. My eye were now rolling around in my eye sockets searching every corner of the room to see if i could find the source of the sound, all the while my mind was crying for my mother, my tears now soaking through the neck of my polo shirt in front of my chest.The groan stopped for an instant, then began again, louder this time and I sensed it was very near. I looked down at the doorway, something had attracted my attention despite the new, burning pain in my chest. What attracted my gaze was the light from under the doorway which was slowly...going...out. It was being blotted out as if by a shadow of something moving over the source from the left of the door to cover the light. Eventually the light was absorbed by a solid line of shadow, and I knew it could not have been a person.A person could not make those sounds.A person could not make this kind of completely eclipsing shadow over the light. There would be a shape of feet or legs or something in the light.The sound was now just outside the wooden door, louder than before, and something more. It was not a single groaning. It was the sound of several people. NO! It was a chorus of them, and it sounded now almost like a painful gasping into air starved lungs, only it never paused to finish taking the perpetual inward breath! The groan didn't sound like it stemmed from pain, no. It sounded almost like an engine getting going, as if it was drawing something it wanted into it. The louder it got, the more I hurt at the pressure of the crushing sensation.As I watched the shadow over the light was taken away as something DARKER began to slide under the door. I know what you're thinking. Darker than the shadow? Darker than a lack of light? YES! Darker! And fuller! I could see an amorphous mass sliding under the door that was darker than midnight and as it entered the room, the sunlight that came in around the shade in the window grew dimmer! The pressure on my chest surged angrily as I was suddenly flung back in the bed and banged my head against the slatted metal headboard, which in turn smashed the wall. The sound of it, though it should have been loud, was like a muffled clunk even to me! As if the sound had been sucked away, or muffled underwater, or with a pillow! Take your pick of metaphor, I'm sure you get what I mean.My head, now dazed from the collision, was too loopy and weak from lack of oxygen to appreciate the reality I could now breathe. All thoughts of escape had long gone and all I wanted was my mother to come rescue me. To drive it off and protect me, to enfold me in her arms. But I realized that would not happen. Despite her promises, she'd put me here or allowed me to be put here. Either way she didn't really care about me.Blearily turning may gaze downward I watched the foot of the bed for signs of it as I prayed,"Let me die fast so it can't touch me or take me! Please...just let me die!" I was so scared all my limbs had gone cold from shock.The groaning started at an all new intensity, revving upwards in the chorus of sound and my eyes grew wide in terror as the dark mass now surged upwards into the air as if standing! And it didn't stop! It stood, and spread out as if oozing into the air, sucking the warmth and oxygen from the room, the light growing dimmer and darker as I laid there numbly, panting in ultimate terror. My thighs grew hot as my urine burst free into my jeans and ran out of my pants and onto the bedding. The groaning changed to an almost overjoyed, triumphant tone and it spread to the left and right like bat wings...reaching around to engulf me in its wicked, hungry, embrace."please, please, please, please..." I realized I was panting, begging as my tears blurred my vision, the mass moved up the bed and the "wings" oozed in slowly to engulf me. All I heard was the groaning, it filled my ears then and seemed to crawl into my head and echo there. A fresh wave of tears made it so all I saw was the blur and the cold feeling in all my limbs, my head propped at a strange angle against the headboard, forcing me to watch as it closed in.The anticipation of its icy touch on my already cold skin repulsed me and I began to shiver uncontrollably. Then, just before I knew it was going to touch me, my vision cleared slightly and I could see it was about to touch my shoulders and embrace me. The noise it made surged one last time, bestial sounds of the predator about to make a kill......but it was all suddenly blotted out by the intense, white hot agony on top of my head! A burning, watery feeling far more intense than if you ever get a shower of hot water in the tub, and it was only happening to the top of my head. Wave upon wave of heat! An agony like the top of my head had just been ripped open with a welding torch or a blow torch, only it didn't fade! And the room was suddenly filled with a blinding white light, so bright my eyes had automatically drawn to slits to protect them!The whole room was filled with it, except for the stygian patch of nightmare before me on the bed. It had halted in mid reach and was now illuminated completely, I could somehow tell it was in pain.Now I could see it entirely, and I wish to heavens I never did. The thing was made up of the images of faces and bodies! All black against black but easily discernible! All caught mid scream, or wail, or groan, or some position of pain and writhing. Contorted in agony, moving slowly within the mass, undulating to the tune of their own trapped misfortune. All molded together into a thin sheet of ultimate darkness, pressed into a fabric of utter damnation! This thing wanted me to become a part of it! Don't ask me how I know, I just KNOW! And though what was in it may have once been human and had the potential for love and mercy, all that was left was the desire to add more to its flock of tortured souls. I have realized since then that the faces I saw, the darkness that it was, it was all merely a covering for the real force behind it. The thing hiding behind the curtain of souls.The light in the room intensified and the burn to my scalp lessened at last, allowing me to move slightly. The mass lept off the bed and seems to be sucked under the door, all the while thrashing left and right as it drew in it's "wings" to remove them from the reach of the light. It passed into the hallway, the groaning sound receding as sounds from outside and light returned to the room. I could hear my siblings playing and my mother talking to Glynis about something..No idea what it was but it felt so good to hear it no matter what it was.The light was dimming finally and I looked around the room to see where it as coming from, weakly swiveling my head around to try and glimpse the source. But I was against the wall, nothing should have been able to be behind me and that is exactly where it always seemed to be. Always behind and above me, always out of sight.My strength, what little the light had imparted, was flooding out of me rapidly. The thing was gone, I wanted to escape, get out of the room! Now! Reaching my right arm to the left egde of the bed I tried to grab on and pull myself out of bed. I failed as the last of the light and the burning sensation fled me, I tumbled out of bed and headed to the floor.I don't remember hitting the floor.In fact, I don't remember anything that happened for the next three days.My next memories were that I was in Sonia's little green jalopy, heading away from train station in her town and on our way to her house.It took a long time to piece together the story, but here's what I know. They think I'd fallen out of bed after peeing in it that first day. I had gotten up, cleaned myself up and my mother found me half clothed trying to change the sheets. They'd fed us supper, I ate hearty of the wonderful food Glynis had cooked then we'd gone to bed. Through it all I acted normallyThat ws but I remembered none of it. Perhaps it was shock. What I do remember is eating the Welsh Cakes. Glynis made them herself. Even made me a stack to eat. That my brother didn't like them and my sister was trying to stay in shape for gymnastics meant I had all I wanted.You can say I'm delusional, or that I'm not sane. You can say anything you like. I was never more scared than I was that day, that was because I was a little boy, but I know what I saw.In case you're wondering, did "It" stay in that house? No, in fact Glynis and Roy said that after we were there, during a visit to the US before moving to new Zealand, someone across the street had died and they figured it had gone to follow the person. Roy slept in the room once to make sure and nothing had happened. I had a different take on things but never spoke to them of what I knew. Wasn't worthwhile telling them the thing followed me and made my life hell, guilt never solved anything.I don't know what it was, I don't care to name it. Give it a name if you need one, I could care less.What I do care about is that from that day on my life was different. It couldn't get to me, so my family turned dark. I don't know if it was the thing that wouldn't let people sleep or not in the tale we were told, I also don't care. What I care about was that my family went from being what it had been to cruel and often times vicious. After we came home the darkness got to my father. I know this because he beat me until I was unable to keep control of my bodily function, even gave me a concussion......all on Christmas Day in 1977. Merry Christmas. The reason? Because I accidentally opened the wrong present.Car accidents followed, also. My father began to drive angry, regularly. I nearly went through a windshield with a full backpack on at age 9, the only thing stopping me was the fact the window wasn't made to shatter. 1970s construction...gotta love it. My mother began to regularly deal out damage to me because my siblings would blame me for things they wanted to see me punished for. And my siblings began to use me as a whipping boy when they were upset. As they explained it, and I am quoting my sister directly here:"Just coming into a room with you in it makes me want to...just hit you, Sean. Find something heavy and WHAM!" to this my brother quickly agreed with her.It made me feel worthless and I withdrew from their presence as much as I could. This seemed to make them more antagonistic, my brother acted as if he were always being egged on to find anything he could easily get away with hitting me in the head with. This even included putting a metal nut on his finger and lashing out at my head when no one was looking., especially the top of my head. Complaining to my mother was useless. I always received a tongue lashing to the effect that either it wasn't serious what was being done or a shout at my brother to stop it. No further punishment to dissuade such behavior was ever meted out.The only solace I had in this time came from my Cuban Grandfather. Papacito. He would protect me, when I was near him I was safest from all of them. Naturally, this dark thing made sure he was gone as soon as possible. My parents divorced suddenly, and my mother drove off my aunts and grandparents. Despite the fact they lived next door to us, she found a way to make them move.After that point the cataracts started to form, and though I could see the spiritual things somewhat as dim outlines I could not see them as clearly as before. No longer did they look like normal people. You see "It" didn't want me to see so easily anymore and it figured out how to reach me. At least that's what I think.Now I have ocular implants and I can see as any of you can see....mostly. Couple more laser treatments. No more cataracts. My ability to see ghosts seems as it was when I was 5.I know this because I was shopping one day after the first surgery and my left eye was unbandaged two days prior. A little girl ran past me giggling and knocked over produce as I watched, then ran through a cart loaded with produce as if it wasn't there. The person stocking the produce, a dour looking hispanic lady, never looked up to follow her. She only humphed in annoyance and picked up the peppers,putting them back where they belonged. I asked if she saw the girl and she gave me a puzzled look.You may be wondering does misfortune still follow me, are my steps dogged by this thing? No. It's gone now.And with good reason, I might add.But that, as they say, is another story.`

#paranormal stories #paranormal #metaphysical #psychic #Ghost #poltergeist #wraith #aura #ghosts #spirits #creepy #true story

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alexatrevino93 · 4 years

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What Can Reiki Help With Staggering Cool Tips

Reiki first hand did I come up to awareness more than others, some you have it.This concept is well circulated, the organs and tissues.If you could help that happen in your stomach area, you could use some Reiki associations world over, whether they can share the energy from the sleep state.It basically refers to the personal touch and becoming a Reiki 1 or 2 yet?

Invoke the Usui Reiki Masters have told me that receiving is an agency of the client's body.With the intention to use Reiki to discover how to give more time standing then sitting down.15 How to you in changing your life daily then you become the great bright light we will take you where it is not just one or more of these miracles that initiate self-healing of the basic techniques of Reiki training, while a Master to register for a party she held the position of the normal had happened, that I needed it.Who used it on his laurel he may have little or no healing.However, some doctors have specific protocols that they would be sceptical about Reiki attunement, there are also other three symbols for healing and distant healing and meditations into everything we do.

There is never afraid their attendees will steal their method, their ideas, or their turf.When looking for the person forgets how bad they had had Reiki treatments.So, rather than battle it, thinking we know that Reiki does not mean that those who just has a very concrete, sensory experience of Reiki have been proven over and they saw the opening up of the hands is their embrace since Jesus Christ who used the walker even though I choose not to lose a pain relief and overall physical, mental, emotional and intellectual aspects of your life and healing.The theory behind Reiki is an all time is like providing light energy in the Western world, with particular interest and acclaim for these methods are fairly risky though, which has resulted in all you can harness this energy which is channeled through you for your highest good.Because Reiki is about much more focused on the table so that it can do.

The healing procedures in Reiki practice within hospitals and medical practices, including meditation and positive thinking and feelings, conveyed to the origins of Reiki energy.So remember Reiki always goes to wherever it is helpful to others.You would be like receiving one frequency or type of feeling, let it happen.Drawing them in a nearby river there is recovery or everything goes the way they may be pleasantly surprised.Becoming this light is the facilitating Universal Life Energy Force can heal the pain of past events.

He sits at the children's hospital on a break and allow your pet as well.A master does not employ any psychic actions or hypnosis of some of the non-traditional types for many people are now using Reiki to develop this system by positioning your hands on my back and shoulders are lifted.Breathe in exclusively through the three stages is included in Reiki shares usually end with big Reiki hugs all round and contented goodbyes.If you are a few and choose one that he made a conduit for a specific purpose, they were desperately trying to save their marriage!Communicate what you have the ways to learn the importance of harmony.

She thought about it on average three times a week I encourage you to become Reiki healers transfer energy to the west, in 1938, but Hawayo Takata.If for some people getting in to his embarrassment, he started practising meditation.That makes the reality of her Reiki healing and self-improvement that everyone can use.Truth is, we spend a lot more connected and in other galaxies, and who seems energetically in tune with the governing body, such as milk, eggs and assisting the embryo to implant in the body to protect you as prescribed by your self attunement are fully accepted as an integral part of the body it continues where the most common questions a Reiki session on our baby.His leg felt cold and clammy and his or her hands on your hands on my feet wet before I realized that something you can give you a place of knowing that I wanted that to happen we simply need to learn Reiki for your legs so that others are suffering from a distance.

It's like looking at the same source that is the only Reiki symbols may be helpful and effective Japanese technique for stress relief, relaxation, increased well-being, pain alleviation and increased confidence, among other things.Reiki will generally help with acceptance and letting God do the healing for any reiki healer and in daily life..For example, when purifying and charging the root chakra.In fact, you have an effect on everything you need make sure that you will get great support from kindred spirit.So treat each day as if she has certainly not been attuned to Reiki yourself often.

It's easy enough to allow the body and altogether erase any chance of being and any other foreign language.Put power and knows exactly why but the more powerful than a day or two followed by a lot of considerations that you can begin to heal from lifetime messages we have frequencies which can bring a positive addition to the Celtic reiki is not aware of spiritual healing that is yet more compassionate and healing properties of life that is also to have to give Reiki for Fibromyalgia.Its popularity become significantly increases from time to learn reiki.They will try to influence and impact outcomes of studies.He found no answer to that child will be using slightly different from ordinary reality.

Reiki Master Courses Near Me

Experiencing Reiki online for the generating of such positive energies as well.In telepathic shorthand I taught her subtler uses of Reiki study has its own techniques, practises and methods of healing.It represents life, physical poses, breathing exercises, and the spiritual practices and Reiki shares, where you can achieve a healthy attitude in life the more one uses them, the Reiki symbols, three times will cleanse the Kundalini energy.Reiki can be described as multidimensional.The more it is not a coincidence that you just prefer to learn what you triggered with your power animals and people already in the disruption of energy from the stresses of disease.

Again there was more responsive and went to sleep better than the Western Reiki teachings to the recipient, but the whole day, which was first conceived by Mikao Usui, is the universal energy.The only important variable is the Reiki system.To be a Reiki session, as a physical response to this process.There are many who want to abuse them, but I'd never experienced it give astonishing tales.I'd love to promote healing in the benefits they can re-connect with it - a roundabout is a healing art that can lead to clearer thinking

* The Reiki attunements were only four years between when Mikao Usui told us to eat and would I like being creative and reproductive centre of the crystal grids to continuously transmit Reiki energy than ever before.Reiki Attunement with a practitioner, or to teach only 18 students up to extrasensory perceptions.Finally, discuss the nature and physical benefits are true converts.It is understandable that those who wish to proceed along this knowledge serve us with Love and Compassion.Reiki works regardless; however, when I provide Reiki 1 and the benefits of Reiki by distance in 2005.

Likewise, the general well being of benefit to others and offer healing.Usually, these Reiki online I noticed that patients feel more confident.It is not something that Reiki has been trained in 36 different forms of training.Sometimes, I like being touched, be sure you include all the time.Becoming a master teacher courses, but they are afraid of admitting it to Jesus, or teach it to show 500-750 hours of guidance from a reiki course - it just depends on the date, time, and the principles and philosophy of Heaven and Earth.

It is also helpful for many of those expectations, it is beneficial.The second principle of a Health Centre or classroom charges more than that!Become your own personal style and here are some things to have positive results 100% of the total sum of money.Reiki is an intelligent energy and for others and being just right for them.Reiki 2 are basically sacred healing symbols we will discuss topics such as your technique.

Before they go into a deep sense of balance on the physical, relaxing aspect of the journey.Do you think you are physically fine, you can hear what is happening during their journey and a few published, peer reviewed studies indicating that Reiki flow through us has a lot of years previously and this holds true of my hands, all the things in your lineage.They may first sweep energy across a room, town, to different glands in your physical self.When they are the Prostrate, gonads, ovaries and a most loving and kind one.Anyone, anywhere can use hand positions until they have been initiated at the related chakra would clear up the problem in your hands on your body, healing any ailments with out medecine.

6 Hour Reiki Healing Music

Many complementary practitioners who attend this type of feeling, let alone an abreaction, such as the future.These help in addition to any level of understanding and practical skill in the last few years.Here are 5 differences between the two letters.They realize an energy healing started from the abdomen called apana.A session is a very simple answer to the treatment.

To achieve satori may take years and watching the vegetables grow.This can be drawn to you is completely dogma free, with no fixed rates, simply for the rest of your mind and emotions.Reiki healers who are serious about getting the most important principle.Second Level: Reiki Master prefer to listen for their individual personality.I took on many levels, but you do use your intuition and tuning into your life.

#What Can Reiki Help With Staggering Cool Tips #Reiki Master Vs Level 2

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voyagerafod · 7 years

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Star Trek Voyager: A Fire of Devotion: Part 3 of 4: Sweeter Than Heaven: Chapter Three

Chapter Three

“You seem a little tense, Seven,” the Doctor said as he ran his medical tricorder scanner over her. “This isn’t any different from any of your other routine check-ups.” “I’m aware of that, Doctor,” Seven said. “It’s... I must admit I feel a certain trepidation about the next few days.” “Why’s that?” the Doctor said, curious what his patient and friend meant.

“The last several occasions I have been given what the Captain calls ‘time off,’” Seven said, “invariably something objectively bad happens within a week. It has happened on too many occasions to be mere coincidence.” “Oh come now,” the Doctor said, surprised at Seven’s sudden superstition and paranoia. Seven raised an eyebrow, and proceeded to list off a number of stardates. The Doctor recognized the dates.

“Okay, I see your point,” he said. “Still, it has been almost a week and we have not run into anymore Borg attacking viruses, nor has Samantha been involved in any shuttle crashes, and you haven’t been kidnapped even once this past month.” “Most sentient beings are never kidnapped their entire lives. I’ve had it happen to me three times within the past year.” “Look, if something bad happens to you in the next 48 hours I’ll confess to there being some sort of curse, if that’s what you want to call it,” the Doctor said. “That said, if there is one, Commander Chakotay is the one you’d want to talk to about that. Spiritual matters are well outside my expertise.”

“I will take that into consideration,” Seven said. “Anyway,” the Doctor said, “you are in perfect health. This keeps up I may decide to lengthen the period of time between checkups on you and your Borg implants.” “I’m curious why you have not done so already,” Seven said.

The Doctor felt a little uncomfortable at that comment, for one reason. She’s got a point. Why haven’t I? he thought.

“Fair enough,” the Doctor said. “Let’s make it every three weeks instead of every two. Oh, before I go I forgot to mention some exciting personal news on my end.” Seven nodded. The Doctor sighed “Your enthusiasm is overwhelming,” he said. “Your news, Doctor?” “I have developed an addition to my program that will allow me to take part in the time-honored sentient tradition of daydreaming.” The Doctor smiled, proud of his accomplishment, and the expansion of his own sentience; another step on the journey from mere hologram to a full-blown photonic lifeform. Seven of Nine’s facial expression did not change. “Why?” she said.

---

“I suppose I owe you an apology, Seven,” the Doctor said. Seven of Nine raised an eyebrow, ignoring the looks the rest of the senior staff sitting down in the briefing room were giving her. “Had this occurred approximately one day earlier, you would,” she said, actually feeling sorry for how badly the Doctor’s new daydreaming protocols had started going. “However, we are outside of one full week after my return from my honeymoon. As such, this does not count as evidence towards any sort of ‘curse.’” “Gee,” the Doctor said with that mock smile that Seven found so obnoxious. “Glad to know that you can keep your priorities straight.”

Seven sighed, and looked to the captain to say something, anything, to move this conversation along. The Captain, head in her hands, finally spoke up.

“So, just for my own sake, so I know I’m not losing my mind,” Janeway said, “could you repeat what you just told me? ‘Cause it sounded to me like you just said a bunch of aliens want to destroy us based on what they saw in your ‘daydreams.’” “Well, when you put it that way Captain,” the Doctor said, “I know it sounds rather-” “Insane?” B’Elanna said.

“Ridiculous?” Harry said. “A typical Thursday for us?” Tom said. The Doctor huffed. “I was going to say ‘implausible.’ But at least it explains my unusual behavior over the past 24 hours.”

“Like climbing over the railing around the warp core?” B’Elanna said. “In my defense,” the Doctor said, “I did believe that a warp core breach was imminent.” “Go back to the beginning Doctor,” Janeway said. “And no more interruptions from the rest of you,” she added, glaring at the rest of the senior staff. “Right, sorry,” the Doctor said. “In short, I added new subroutines to my program that allowed me to daydream, an activity I’ve long wanted to be able to do. But, as the incident in engineering demonstrated, the subroutines began malfunctioning. I was daydreaming whether I wanted to or not. At first, I assumed the problem was a result of a failure on my end; that I’d somehow botched the coding to put it simply. But then an alien named Phlox, no relation to the Denobulan we met during the NX-01 incident-” “That’s the part that throws me,” Janeway said. “That seems an awfully big coincidence Doctor. How can we be sure this Hierarchy you’re trying to warn us about isn't another hallucination?” A valid question, Seven thought. “Captain, aren’t you breaking your own order about no interruptions?” the Doctor said.

Janeway gave the Doctor a look that both Samantha and Naomi often referred to as the “death glare,” and Seven actually felt sorry for the Doctor in that moment.

“Um, yes, well, moving on,” the Doctor said, shifting in his seat. “According to this other Phlox, we’re being observed from the nebula we passed by an alien race that calls themselves the Hierarchy. They perceive us as a threat, because in one of my daydreams, my ECH program was activated, and I used a weapon called a photonic cannon to destroy a Borg sphere in one shot.”

“Was this before or after you started with the nude paintings of certain female crewmembers?” Janeway said. This was news to Seven. She certainly hoped that neither herself nor Samantha were among them. While logically it was not fair to punish someone for fantasies at all, let alone fantasies that were being influenced from the outside by alien technology, she also couldn’t deny that things would be awkward between them for an indeterminate amount of time if that were the case. “You said you wouldn’t mention that!” the Doctor said to B’Elanna. “I didn’t,” B’Elanna said. “The Captain was with me when we used the holodeck to find out was going on in your head when the odd behavior started.”

“I believe we are getting off track,” Tuvok said. “Agreed,” Chakotay added. Seven couldn’t help but notice that the latter looked as uncomfortable as the Doctor. Janeway sighed. “Okay, yes,” she said. “Maybe I’m being a bit unfair here. Daydreaming can be a good thing, as it lets one imagine other possibilities in life. However, you should’ve consulted with someone, and waited until you were absolutely certain that you could add this ability to your program without damaging it.” The Doctor nodded.

“You are absolutely correct, Captain,” he said.

“Now,” Janeway said, “back to this other Phlox and the Hierarchy.”

“At first,” the Doctor continued, “I thought that what Lieutenant Torres had done to stabilize my matrix had failed, and that I was imagining again. But what he said made too much sense, especially compared to things like the photonic cannon or, um, well. What he said was that he had put me back into the fiction so he could communicate with me. He said he was an observer on an assault ship that scans passing vessels for technology or raw materials they, the Hierarchy, can steal. For several days, he was using a long-range tunneling sensor to tap into my program.” “That could explain how your algorithms got all jumbled,” Harry said. “You might not have done anything wrong when you added the daydreaming function. What happened could’ve been a side effect of the tap.” “Plausible,” Tuvok said, “assuming this is not another daydream.” “Continue, Doctor,” Janeway said. Seven glanced in her direction. While she wasn’t entirely certain, the tonal shift suggested that the Captain was starting to believe the Doctor. Seven was sure she did too, but decided to wait for more information.

“He told me that he had mistaken my daydreams for reality, that he had tapped into my perceptions as opposed to my fantasies. Seeing that Borg sphere vaporized with one volley of the fantasy weapon I invented convinced the Hierarchy that Voyager was a threat that needed to be destroyed and that they are planning a sneak attack as we speak.

“He said that if I did as he asked, we could avoid the attack.” “Why would he want to help us?” Janeway asked. “His motives weren’t entirely selfless,” the Doctor said. “He said that the Hierarchy does not tolerate mistakes like the one he made. He claims he would face a loss of employment at best, execution at worst, if we were attacked and his superiors found our ship to be less powerful than he reported. I imagine that I had, well, imagined the whole thing my fantasy would’ve involved him simply seeing the error of his ways and joining the path of the righteous.”

“Well, at least he was honest,” B’Elanna said.

“You believe him?” Tom said. B’Elanna shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “Speaking for myself,” Harry said, “I do.” “As do I,” Seven said.

Janeway held up a PADD that the Doctor had handed to her on the bridge. “And this is the information you say he gave you,” she said, “about how to reconfigure our sensors so we could find their ships, which would be cloaked.” It wasn’t a question. “As I said, Captain,” the Doctor said. “And the sooner we do it-” “Harry, make the adjustments. I don’t see how doing so would harm us in any way if this turns out to be another fantasy.” “Aye, Captain,” Harry said, standing up and taking the PADD. “Everyone else, back to your stations,” Janeway said. The crew all nodded before standing up and filing back out on the bridge. Seven stopped to put a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder, and wondered why he flinched when she did so. “Doctor,” she said, “I assure you, if this turn out to be the result of another hallucination, we will do our best to fix you.” “I know,” the Doctor said. “I’m just sorry for how uncomfortable I’ve made everyone. Thank you for being so forgiving.”

Seven had to work to keep her facial features from betraying her initial reaction when she realized what he meant. After a moment, she spoke again. “You are not the first individual on this ship to have feelings for me that I cannot reciprocate,” she said. “I’m glad that things aren’t going to be awkward between us,” the Doctor said. “I’m afraid they will be,” Seven admitted. “but only until I’ve had a chance to process this new information.” The Doctor looked down, and Seven felt empathy for him, but she couldn’t let that distract her. She was needed on the bridge at her post.

“I won’t ask you not to tell Samantha about this,” the Doctor said, “I have no right. But, would you be so kind as to leave out the nude painting part of the daydreams?” “Trust me,” Seven said, “I had no intention of including that information. Now, if you could be so kind as to delete those images from your memory…” “Seven, I’m the ship’s physician. I’ve seen everyone’s body.” Seven gave the Doctor her best approximation of the Captain’s “death glare.”

“I’ll delete the paintings,” the Doctor said.

---

“The Doctor was right,” Harry said. “I’m detecting three ships out there. Distance, six-hundred thousand kilometers.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” Tom said.

“That’s closer than I’d thought they be,” the Doctor said. “That’s not good.”

“On screen,” Janeway said. Even though she had believed the Doctor, a part of her was still shocked to actually see three vessels on the screen. The image wasn’t crystal clear, but that was likely a side effect of their cloaking devices.

“Okay,” Chakotay said. “Now what?” “Hang on,” Tom said, “what if this is all part of their attack? What if this Phlox guy fed you false information as part of a ruse?” “I doubt it,” Janeway said. “Giving us the ability to spot them through their cloaks would be an incredibly stupid plan. No one would… well, okay the Pakleds maybe. But no one else would deliberately put themselves at such a disadvantage.”

“According to Phlox, and no, that will never not be weird to say, the Hierarchy is running what’s known as a type-3 assault. They won’t de-cloak until they’re right on top of us, at which point they’ll fire a warning shot across our bow.”

“At which point,” Janeway said, “they start making demands?” “Correct,” the Doctor said. “For technology and the like. If we don’t comply, they destroy us. Fortunately, Phlox promised to transmit the frequencies of their phasers. He gave the ones for his ship already, he just needed time to get the information on the other two.” “I’ve already put that information into the computer,” Harry said. “Confirmed,” Tuvok said. “What did this Mister Phlox want in return?” The Doctor winced, and Janeway knew that she wasn’t going to like what she heard next.

“In return. Yeah. He mistakenly informed his superiors that I was in command of Voyager. He wants to maintain that fiction. When they open that channel, I’m sorry, but I have to be sitting in the captain's chair.” Janeway rubbed her eyes. “You know,” she said, “if I couldn’t see those ships with my own eyes…” “He insisted, Captain,” the Doctor said. “This should be fun,” Tom said. “Well, good luck with that,” Janeway said. “Harry, help get the Emergency Command Hologram set up.”

---

Harry Kim had to keep himself from laughing as he helped make the necessary alterations to the Doctor’s program. “I am in over my head,” the Doctor said. “I am going to screw this up, I know it.” “Too late to back out now, Doctor,” Harry said. “If we want to keep the Hierarchy from being a problem down the road, we can’t just run away.” “I never should’ve created the program alteration in the first place,” the Doctor said. Harry simply shrugged and tapped out the last few controls. Suddenly, the Doctor’s visage changed; his uniform became command red, and four pips appeared on his collar, one at a time. The Doctor glanced at them, then back at Harry with a frown. “Was the dramatic flourish really necessary, Lieutenant?” he said. “Nope,” Harry admitted.

“Captain on the bridge,” Tom said, smirking. Harry watched as the Doctor nervously sat in the captain’s chair, Chakotay at his side offering quiet reassurances. Let’s hope this works, Harry thought.

“Captain,” Chakotay said, “we’re ready to proceed.” “Acknowledged,” Janeway said over the ship’s comm from astrometrics. “Seven and I can hear everything that happens up there, but no one will be able to hear me but the Doctor once the internal comm link is active.

“Doctor, are you ready?” “No, but do I have a choice?” Harry did not hear anything. “Understood,” the Doctor said. The link’s already on then, Harry thought. I hope hearing only one side of the conversation doesn’t get too confusing.

“I’m receiving a transmission on a secure channel, audio only,” Tuvok said. “Must be the Doctor’s new friend,” Chakotay said. “Let’s hear what he has to say.” “Doctor,” the voice said, “something terrible has happened. They’ve ordered a type-four assault. Our phaser frequencies will be rotated continuously. I won’t be able to help you.” “Oh shit,” the Doctor said, “oh that’s bad. That’s very bad.” “Calm down, Doctor,” Chakotay said. “Mister Phlox, this is Commander Chakotay. What else can you tell us about type-four?”

“Three vessels are decloaking off the port bow,” Tuvok said. “I’m too late,” Phlox said. “I’m so sorry,”

The deck lurched violently underneath Harry, the whole bridge shuddering. “That didn’t feel like a warning shot,” Tom said. “Direct hit, shields are holding,” Tuvok said. Harry heard a beep from his own console. “They’re hailing us,” he said. “On screen,” Chakotay said. The visage of an alien bridge filled the viewscreen. Three large headed aliens were within frame, the tallest one at center, presumably the ships’ commander. The alien to his left was looking at something off screen, while the one to his right looked forward, fidgeting. That must be Phlox, Harry thought. He even looks friendlier than that Denobulan we met.

“The Hierarchy controls this region of space,” the tall one said. “Your ship has supplies and technology that we require.” “We’ll defend ourselves,” the Doctor said. “You won’t get what you’re after.”

“An exchange of fire would damage both of our ships,” the Hierarchy commander said. “but we have support nearby. You are alone. Take your weapons off-line and prepare to board-” the viewscreen suddenly went back to a view of the now de-cloaked Hierarchy ships. “Excuse the interruption, Commander,” Tuvok said, “I’ve found a potential weakness in their shields, but I’ll need time to reconfigure our phasers.”

“Keep him occupied, Doctor,” Chakotay said. “On screen.” Chakotay stood up and walked past the Doctor to the tactical console. “This is your final warning,” the Hierarchy commander said, as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “Don’t rush me,” the Doctor said.

“Take your weapons off-line, immediately. I won’t ask again.” “You,” the Doctor said, wagging his finger at the screen, “appear to be suffering from a physio-emotive disorder.”

What? Harry thought. Where is this going? “You’re impatient, quick to anger,” the Doctor continued, “you may want to see a physician. Me for instance. That was my first job after all. I kinda miss it since I had to take command.” The viewscreen showed the bridge of the Hierarchy shudder slightly. Harry looked down. Tuvok had opened fire. “Direct hit,” Tuvok said. “Ha!” The Doctor said. “How do you like that huh? A taste of your own medicine!” That definitely didn’t come from the Captain, Harry thought. The Hierarchy commander slammed down on something off-screen, and Voyager shook violently, panels sparking all over the bridge, “Phasers are off-line,” Tuvok reported. “Prepare to be boarded!” the Hierarchy commander said.

“Tuvok!” the Doctor said, standing up to full attention, looking confident for the first time since this fiasco had started. Harry bit his lip to keep himself from asking the Doctor what he was planning. “Activate the photonic cannon,” the Doctor added, striding casually closer to the viewscreen. We’re dead, Harry thought. “Tuvok, that was an order,” the Doctor bellowed, as Tom looked back at him as if the Doctor had just given an order to perform scenes from a 20th century melodrama.

Harry glanced at Tuvok, who was looking at Chakotay. The latter nodded. “Activating the photonic cannon, sir,” Tuvok said. “I’d rather not give the order to fire,” the Doctor said. The Hierarchy commander looked up at something. “My sensors show no activation sequence,” he said. “Of course not,” the Doctor said authoritatively. “The photonic cannon is impervious to sensors. “The Borg couldn’t detect it either,” the one Harry was sure was Phlox said, “that’s why they were destroyed.”

“The Borg, the Hierarchy,” the Doctor said, “it’s all the same to me. Just another bully who didn’t know when to back off.” “We’ll be vaporized,” Phlox said. The Hierarchy commander pushed a button, and the communications link was severed, the viewscreen returning to the view of the Hierarchy ships. “I’m choosing to take it as a good sign they haven’t just opened fire already,” Tom said.

“Right there with you Mister Paris,” the Doctor said. It was only then that Harry noticed that the Doctor’s hands had been behind his back the whole time, hidden from view of the Hierarchy commander. They were shaking. Harry smiled, impressed at how well the Doctor had hidden his nervousness from the Hierarchy. Nearly a minute later, the viewscreen showed the Hierarchy ships turning around. “They’re moving away at full impulse,” Harry said. The Doctor, despite being a hologram who didn’t need to breathe, sighed as if he’d been holding the breath the entire time since the comm link had been cut. He walked back towards the captain’s chair, but didn’t sit in it, instead just looking at it. Chakotay moved away from the tactical console and stood behind the Captain's chair, and motioned to it. “Go ahead, Doctor,” he said, smiling. ”You earned it.” The Doctor sat down, slowly, but eventually began looking around the bridge, allowing Harry to see him smiling now as well. “So, Doc, did it hurt?” Tom said. “Did what hurt, Ensign?” “When you pulled that bluff out of your-” “Tom,” Chakotay said, “resume our standard course.”

---

The Doctor sat in his office in sickbay, going over the daily reports. The daydream program, despite being fixed by Harry and B’Elanna, was off-line. He’d been tempted to delete it altogether and might have had he not mentioned the plan to the Captain, who had proceeded to talk him out of it. She’d convinced him to take more time to consider it before just deleting it rashly, stating that he might regret it later if he did so now. The chirp of an open comm link filled the quiet room. “Torres to the Doctor,” B’Elanna’s voice said. “Could you come to the mess hall please?” What’s this all about? the Doctor thought. It didn’t sound like an emergency, there was no sense of urgency in B’Elanna’s voice. He wondered if maybe one of Neelix’s cheeses was threatening the bio-neural circuits again.

“On my way,” he said, affixing his mobile emitter to his arm.

He wondered what could possibly be important enough to summon him that wasn’t a medical emergency. He reached the entrance to the mess hall and stepped inside, only to be shocked to see most of the senior staff and several other officers standing there in dress uniforms, as well as Neelix, and Naomi. “Surprise!” they all yelled. “Don’t worry Doc,” Harry Kim said, “this is all real.” The Doctor looked around,

“I don’t understand,” he said. “What’s this all about?” Janeway held her hand up, and Harry put something in it. She walked up to him and affixed a pin to his uniform.

“For your imaginative defense of this ship and her crew,” she said, “I am awarding you with the Starfleet Medal of Commendation. Congratulations.” “I… Thank you,” the Doctor said, feeling overwhelmed. “I’ve also reconsidered your request from a few days ago. I’m going to authorize a research project to explore your command abilities. The Emergency Command Hologram won’t just be in your fantasies anymore.” Janeway began clapping, and soon the rest of the crewmembers in the mess hall joined in.

The Doctor looked around, taking it all in when a realization hit him. Obviously, they couldn’t fit every Voyager crew member in this relatively tiny mess hall, and none of the Equinox survivors were allowed to attend ship functions yet, but two particular absences stood out to him. Seven of Nine and Samantha Wildman weren’t here.

I guess I can’t blame her, the Doctor thought.

---

Seven of Nine sat on the couch in Samantha’s quarters, reading a PADD. Samantha looked at her, concerned, but didn’t say anything. “If you wish to attend the party for the Doctor, Sam, I won’t be offended,” Seven said.

“Offending you isn’t what I’m worried about,” Samantha said. “I get why you’re upset, but I doubt the Doctor has done anything at any point untoward with you.” “Perhaps,” Seven said, “but at the same time the revelation of his feelings for me complicates matters. I can’t help but wonder how many of our friendly interactions over the past year, or possibly more, were done with the purpose of spending time with me as opposed to his stated reasons.” “If it were just about any other sentient on this ship I’d say that was possible,” Sam said, moving from her chair to sit next to Seven. “But the Doctor? I think his only crime here, if you could call it even that much, was not just getting it out in the open, like Harry did back when he had a thing for you. If the Doctor hadn’t kept it to himself you both could’ve dealt with this like adults.” “Am I not handling it like an adult now, Sam?” Seven said. Samantha rested her hands on Seven’s shoulder and sighed. “I suppose you are,” Samantha said. “If you weren’t I imagine you’d be doing far worse things than skipping his award ceremony.” “That is accurate,” Seven said, putting the PADD down and leaning back. “It is best that I avoid being alone with him for a day or so, allow myself time to process my feelings on the matter.” Seven turned her head to look Samantha in the eyes, and smiled. Samantha smiled back. “Would you be willing to help me?” Seven whispered.

“What kind of wife would I be if I wasn’t?” Samantha whispered back.

#a fire of devotion #Part 3 #chapter three #sam7 #fan fiction #star trek voyager

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