The Gnomes of Thessaly

[Abishai100]

This is an Icarus-oriented story of gnomes accounting for the evolution of human civilization, starting in Ancient Thessaly.

I altered the events of the mythological Titan-Olympian War.


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In Ancient Thessaly, where the Titans and Olympians would soon clash for their historic battle, there lived a peculiar race of hidden tiny people called gnomes. They were led by a shrewd chess-playing brainy gnome named Edils. The gnomes of Edils watched the goings-on of Greek civilization and the divine intervention of the gods in shaping the history of Greece and therefore, arguably, the path of destiny itself. Edils knew that Greek civilization was cultivating a new brand of intellectual fervor based on rational and creative thinking designed to help man get a better grasp on the biophysical processes that give form to chaos (e.g., plagues, stars, motion, cadence, etc.).

Edils remarked over and over again that the defining characteristic of the Greeks was their precocious fascination with war and competitive intelligence --- the drive to do (and make) incredible things to overpower those more 'primitive.' However, Edils' counselor, Jakkob the gnome, believed the Greeks' most conspicuous quality was their incessant and nearly magical curiosity about the rhythm of arithmetic and geometry and how better understanding of human imagination was facilitating the advancement of civilization. Jakkob saw the mighty upcoming clash between the Titans and Olympians as an opportunity to overthrow the authority of the more cynical Edils.

However, when the Titans-Olympians battle came, Edils was proven to be the more accurate analyst of the nature of Greek civilization. The Titans used intricate tools and weapons with sheer ingenuity and imagination to nevertheless create items of devastation and turbulence to tackle the otherwise imposing Olympians. Edils remarked to his gnomes with authority that the world was governed by men with a straight-focus on the impact of intelligence and imagination on war and competitive prowess. Edils predicted some day, humanity would build a giant 'automated trading-floor arena' where property speculators and goods shareholders would exchange tokens of profit-sharing and competitive bargaining. That 'money ravenousness' would be the 'peaceful' face of a warless-civilization.

Thousands of years later, the descendants of Edils and his gnomes still lived in Thessaly and marveled at modern Greece's participation in Wall Street and NASDAQ and reveled about the development of 'smart-weapons' and lasers by a humanity having nearly-perfected its art of 'ambition craftsmanship. The direct descendant of Edils, the now-leader of the gnomes, named Edot, remarked that civilization had used the lessons of triumph to justify its remarkable development of 'intelligence-geared' power-hunting, and what was once the seat of humanity's burgeoning arithmetic, geometry, formal aesthetics, and logic imagination became the memory of a species progressing towards 'perfect power-industrialization.' The Gnomes of Thessaly became the witnesses of man's 'Icarus-face.'

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[Abishai100]

Parallax



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Daniel the Gnome from Thessaly became the first-most 'mad scientist' studying teleportation across dimensions of time and space-time. He created a serum, which transformed him into a shadow-creature of skeletal proportions named Hobgoblin. As Hobgoblin, Daniel the Gnome became an 'underworld celebrity,' a figure of anti-Christian terrorism. Hobgoblin rode on a jet-glider and threw pumpkin-bombs which destroyed Central Park, the Rockefeller Center, and Times Square (on New Year's Eve). Terrorism was chic, and Hobgoblin was the new leader of the school.

Hobgoblin was finally challenged by the heroics of a mysterious crusading masked vigilante calling himself 'Spider-Man,' who was actually the affable photojournalist for the Daily Bugle, Peter Parker. Parker (Spider-Man) believed Hobgoblin would use Daniel the Gnome's mad science background to create a targeted ring of anti-Internet virus hackers-generators to destabilize modern civilization infrastructure (the Information Superhighway). Spider-Man went on an Internet blogging campaign (actually using the alias-avatar 'The Spider-Man') and attacked Hobgoblin verbally.

Spider-Man pulled off late-moment heroics, and Hobgoblin (Daniel the Gnome) was incarcerated in a special science-fiction laboratory at Oscorp managed by a mysterious and very eerie CEO named Dr. Norman Osborn (who himself had ambitions to use a goblin serum to transform into another jet-glider menace). When Peter Parker interviewed Daniel the Gnome for the Daily Bugle, the brooding and studied psycho told him, "You may have incarcerated the great Hobgoblin, but you'll never be master of the dark side of the imagination!"

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[Abishai100]

Kitana and Astrid


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Astrid the Gnome had taken the Oscorp 'goblin serum' and was transformed into the pumpkin-bomb throwing jet-glider soaring maniac the Gray Goblin. Gray Goblin travelled across dimensions of time and space and landed in the Outer-Realms of Outworld where a fierce Mortal Kombat battle (refereed by God of Lightning Raiden) was starting between Kitana the Royal Storm (a warrior-princess carrying blade-fans as weapons and possessing great acrobatic kung-fu skills) and Leatherface (the chainsaw-wielding cannibal and all-around battlefield brute). Kitana seemed to stand no chance, but her skill and elegance wielding her blade-fans helped her take down Leatherface in what was considered the all-time fighting upset in Outworld's history.

Raiden congratulated Kitana and the two were married, and Kitana became Queen of Outworld at Raiden's master-class side. Astrid the Gnome (Gray Goblin) noticed all this and became enraged, for he knew that Kitana was not much more sensible, wise, or kind than the brutish maniac Leatherface whom everyone was nevertheless grateful was defeated and finally subdued. Kitana and Raiden ruled side-by-side as supreme rulers of Outworld, and they opened a combat-training camp for the youngsters of Outworld whose parents wanted them raised and trained to be dutiful Ninja Guardians of Outworld under the leadership of God Raiden. Astrid the Gnome (Gray Goblin) decided to show up at one of the training sessions on his jet-glider and threw pumpkin-bombs at a horrified Raiden.

Raiden was injured severely, and his left arm took one whole year to cure of explosion-related burns. He had to regenerate his skin with the potency of a special dermatology-potion his wife Queen Kitana gave him. Gray Goblin (Astrid the Gnome) gloated in victory, and everyone was shocked that the power and authority of Raiden could be undermined by such an eerie but wily nemesis of Outworld. Kitana ordered Baraka (the arm-bladed minion of Raiden) to track down and shred Gray Goblin. When Baraka discovered Gray Goblin was actually Astrid the Gnome (his childhood friend from Sherwood Forest), he told his old buddy to run and hide and he would falsely tell Kitana he killed him, so no one would find him or hunt him from Outworld. Gray Goblin took the deal and realized he had done enough to inject a power-ethics shock into Raiden (God of Lightning). Kitana schemed to lure Astrid into a love-trap and make him her next victim (this time in honor of her new husband). Would Outworld become like Ancient Athens or Purgatory?

The Gnomes of Thessaly were informed of all these events and decided that this so-called 'kingdom' in Outworld was simply too savage to endure without proper criticism. The Gnomes sent a courier named Daniel the Gnome who took with him a series of stick-figure drawings meant to convey an appreciation of the scholarly understanding of Ancient Egypt (with its various animalia hieroglyphs). Daniel's job was to convince Kitana that a kingdom of savagery would not be weighed well in the halls of memory by those who studied the creative output of every kingdom in the universe. Kitana was offended and started to consider all of the creative positives offered up by her kingdom in Outworld, as her wounded husband Raiden lay healing on her palace bed. Kitana decided to ask Baraka to make stick-figure drawings of Gray Goblin (Astrid the Gnome) in honor of the bravado and intrigue created by the now-famous Raiden-Goblin duel. The Gnomes of Thessaly smiled and realized that Outworld leadership may yield more than just combat arrogance!

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[Abishai100]

Duet for Thessaly


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Tom Cruise and Jennifer Connelly, after having made the comparable films Legend and Labyrinth, decided to meet up with their kids at a Sword of Shannara storytelling symposium in San Diego (California) where they met Daniel the Gnome, a member of the precocious Gnomes of Thessaly who had travelled through time to confront modern post-Industrialization American 'celebrities.' Cruise and Connelly were clearly the king and queen of the prom, and Daniel the Gnome created for them a haunting Egyptian hieroglyph stick-figure on wax-paper drawing and talked about it on the Internet as the 'Cruise-Connelly Chandelier!'

Daniel the Gnome's Internet posts started becoming sensationalized as pro-celebrity gibberish and then as low-brow neo-Machiavellian goosebumps-storytelling. It caught the attention of Cruise and Connelly who decided to meet with Daniel the Gnome in his giant treehouse mansion. Daniel showed Cruise his collection of classic Sega Genesis games and his interests in films such as Ghost in the Machine. Connelly was fascinated with Daniel's special collection of micro-machine automobiles and airplanes. The three struck up a friendship which would prove to be mutually-beneficial before strange betrayal.

When Cruise and Connelly betrayed Daniel the Gnome and had to return to their own realms, they started developing a romantic interest for each other, and it showed in the strange chemistry of their photographs in society magazines and pop-culture journals. The Cruise-Connelly duo became very popular and started marketing leather fashions for young adults and adults living in America. Daniel the Gnome was green with envy! He returned to Thessaly and reported to his people that American celebrities were becoming 'new age deities' challenging the cinematic attention given to politicians. The Gnomes of Thessaly concluded that Americans had become obsessed with daydreams!

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[Abishai100]

The Data Challenge


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The Gnomes of Thessaly sent Daniel the Gnome to modern Los Angeles so he could work with yet another pair of Americans in-chemistry. This time, Daniel was to identify a non-mainstream couple, and they found one in an Algerian-American Internet-blogging self-proclaimed 'vigilante' named Ajay Satan who was secretly dating the actress Diane Kruger who appeared in the historical-thrill film Troy. Satan and Kruger became a hot couple and had apparently developed ties to Republican sympathizers of Sinn Fein in the USA.

Daniel the Gnome enlisted in Sinn Fein under the assumed false identity-alias Sean Combs, a secret former rogue gunman for the IRA who never revealed the face behind his mask. No one questioned who exactly Combs was, since at the time a flurry of IRA-related activity in Belfast and London had taken social attention to Sinn Fein and IRA leadership primarily. Combs (Daniel the Gnome) wanted to uncover the IRA ties that Satan and Kruger had established on American soil (primarily in Hollywood and on the Internet).

Satan made a base of operations on the World Discussion Board of the World Wide Web, a well-managed, well-organized, and well-moderated bright-green colored forum where people from around the world gather to discuss offbeat topics of artistic, scientific, social, political, religious, economic, UN, NATO, etc., etc., significance. Satan started writing that Ancient Greece paved the way for regular computerized metrics (e.g., NASDAQ) from the modern world with its early principia regarding chord-like numeric progressions in geometric ratios and saturation points.

The Gnomes of Thessaly realized that Satan had created an exciting challenge for the Cruise-Connelly celebrity phenomenon (now a major modeling marketing tool for U.S. proletariat leather fashions) with his own brand of 'behind-the-scenes' social advertisements for the IRA (Irish Republican Army) on World Discussion Boards using his secret actress-girlfriend Diane Kruger as a media-messenger. Kruger would say in interviews, "I'm dating an Internet-blogger who likes to relate 'social engineering models' with modern IRA grammar!" Combs (Daniel the Gnome) pursued Satan and Kruger like they were Bonnie and Clyde! He kept a record of his investigation on an Apple hard-diskette.

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