The Weapon - Resurrection - part 1
By Diana the Valkyrie
The semiological effect of the Guardian mythos
Update: 08/05/2003 to valkyrie05


I don't usually go down to London, what with the appalling traffic, and the
chance of getting mugged if you stray into the wrong area. Huh. As if I'd know
which areas are the wrong ones. But obviously I went for the conference.
Couldn't miss that.

I'd been looking forward to this conference for months, everyone was. Well,
everyone in the small circle of people who had the common interest. It was the
fiftieth anniversary of her appearance in the world, and so it was an
excellent excuse for those of us who were passionately interested in studying
her, to get together and give papers.

I gave my paper at the conference "The semiological effect of the Guardian
mythos". Well, it was that sort of conference. You weren't there to actually
tell people stuff, you were there partly to impress other people with all the
long words you know, and partly to steal ideas for your next grant proposal.
The paper went down well; they clapped politely when I finished, and I got a
couple of questions afterwards. Nothing difficult. At least they didn't get
confused between "myth" and "mythos".

Since she'd gone, a whole industry had sprung up studying her life, work and
effects, based on government grants. The thing is, she had so much power, that
if a piece of research could lead to tapping even a minute fraction of what
she so casually displayed, it would pay off in spades. And so, if you could
come up with any remotely sensible research proposal, you were pretty much
guaranteed to get a grant. I mean, why bust a gut when you can get government
money?

At least, that was true in the first few years after she disappeared. Now it
was 23 years later, and it wasn't quite so easy to milk that particular cow. A
couple of decades of research had led to "interesting" results (and quite a
lot of completely boring and/or obvious results), but to nothing practical. No
anti-gravity, no mass-to-energy conversion, no warp drive. Plus the big
economic depression was drying up the flow of milk and honey.

My research, on the other hand, had gone well. I avoided the mistake of
studying her directly, that's what every Tom, Dick and Harry was doing.
Instead, I concentrated on the effects she had on other people, hence the
title of my paper. It was my contention that her direct effect on the world
(the classical kitten-in-tree rescues, albeit on a grand scale) was much less
than her indirect effect, via the inspiration that she gave. She was the
Spirit of Hope, she was the ultimate innocent who didn't know when something
was supposed to be impossible, so she'd do it anyway.

And when she disappeared, 23 years ago, it was as if hope had died. At first,
people thought she must have gone on some mission, and would be back soon. But
as months became years, more and more people gave up hope of ever seeing her
again.

That was discussed extensively at the conference, of course. The consensus
opinion was that she'd accomplished what she'd come to do, and so she left to
use her talents elsewhere. There were a few who thought she was still on a
long mission and would return - that was probably not so much realistic, more
a testament to the triumph of optimism over common sense. Me? I don't know. It
would be nice to believe she'd be back, but it would also be nice to believe
in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

On the last day but one of the conference, we had the big formal dinner. And
that was a disaster; the Church of the Holy Guardian crowd gatecrashed the do,
and got up on the tables and shouted at us for being "unbelievers" and
"damned". It's funny how they just adopted all the words and beliefs of
existing religions, changed a few of the words, and then applied it all to The
Weapon. They ranted on about the "Second Coming", because they believed she'd
come back, and about how we had to live by Her Law (no-one ever explained to
me how they knew what Laws she would have passed if she did that sort of
thing, which she never had). And on and on and on, you know how these
religious zealots behave, you don't want to hear all the boring details.
Suffice to say, they wrecked a perfectly convivial evening. The only
compensation was we didn't have to listen to the tame MP stand up and make a
boring political speech about how we should elect him again, "because that's
what she would have wanted", yeah, right. It really gets up my nose the way
everyone seems to know what she would have wanted, and hey, what a surprise,
it's what they want too..

On the last night of the conference, someone suggested that we go out for a
curry. Not everyone, of course, the conference was pretty big. Just the "inner
circle". We knew who we were. Anyone who asked, was told "There is no Inner
Circle, and I'm not a member of it", but we knew who we were. We bumped into
each other all the time on the conference circuit, we'd get roped in as
instant pundits when the TV decided to do yet another documentary on her, we
kept in touch via an email exploder. There was a couple of dozen of us, and at
these big conferences, one of the most enjoyable things was to get together
with your old friends, and beat up on each other's theories. And ask awkward
questions after they'd given their paper.

Someone found a restaurant, and they put together a long table for some twenty
of us. As the "tribal elder" of the group (I was the only one with an official
academic post devoted to studying her, the Chair of Guardian Studies at
Imperial University), the honour of ordering was mine. I summoned a waiter,
and gave the traditional order that we always gave when we got together.
"Bring ... food ..." I said to him. He looked puzzled, so I repeated the
order, "Bring ... food ...", this time, accompanying the words with a mime
intended to convey that we had visited the restaurant in order to eat. On the
third repetition, he got the idea. "Ah," he said, "you would like us to choose
for you." Everyone nodded. It's a good way to get a restaurant to show off
it's specialities.

Shortly after that, food began to arrive. First pappadoms, then various hors
d'ouvres. I was talking to Charlie Foster, he'd come up with a nice theory
about the longer term effects of the Baby Rescue centers. "They're all adults
now," he said, "but they've been raised to believe that people should help
each other. Did you know that most of the funding for the Baby Rescue centers
is now coming from people who grew up in them?" No, I hadn't known that, but
it was a good example of my contention that the indirect effects of her
presence were far greater than all the kitten-in-tree rescues she'd done.

After a while, they started to bring the main course. Dishes of rice, dozens
of different curries, interesting looking vegetables. And as the plates were
being brought to the table, I looked up and saw the face of one of the
waitresses.

Human faces are all very similar, but because individual recognition is so
important to a social animal, we are able to use the tiny differences between
people's faces, to recognise them. It isn't that simple, though. You're
probably not aware of it, but you also use other clues; how someone is
dressed, where they are and what they're doing, the sound of their voice.
Everything is combined together, and out of that, you get to recognise people.
But take someone out of context, and it breaks down. The same person who would
recognise me easily at a conference, could pass me in the street without
realising that he knew me.

Next time she came round with plates, I looked at her more carefully. And I
tried to get her to speak, "Could we have some more rice up this end of the
table, please?" "Yes sir," she almost whispered, her voice was so muted.

I looked around at the others, sitting scoffing their food. They obviously
hadn't noticed anything. Maybe it was just me? I've spent most of my adult
life studying her, thinking about her and her effects on the human race, maybe
I was just a little obsessed. But then I though, well, if that was it, then
I'd be seeing her everywhere. No, definitely I'm obsessed, let's be honest
with myself at least.

She brought the rice, and I looked her straight in the eyes, smiled, and said
"Thank you." She looked back at me, didn't smile, nodded her head, and moved
away.

Her complexion was too brown to be who I had in mind, I was pretty sure. But
anyone can get brown, you can either catch the sun, or use a tanning lamp, or
even a skin dye. And I guess that Indian restaurants would want to hire people
who at least looked like they came from the subcontinent. So her skin
colouration wasn't really a factor.

I spent the rest of that meal covertly observing her as much as I could,
looking at the way she moved. That didn't help me much either. She was walking
like a normal human, although a bit stiffly and clumsily; The Weapon had
rarely walked. Why walk when you can fly? And I never did get more than a
couple of words out of her; "Yes sir" doesn't give you much to go on. I smiled
at her, but she didn't smile back, which is unusual; it's almost a reflex to
smile back when someone smiles at you.

By the end of the meal, I was in total indecision. I didn't want to ask anyone
else there, because I'd look such an utter fool if I was wrong. And if I was
right, I'd wind up sharing the discovery with twenty other researchers. So I
just delayed and procrastinated, which I'm pretty good at, and when I got home
that night, I'd pretty much decided that the resemblance was just a
coincidence. With several billion people in the world, it isn't too surprising
that some of them look very similar to others.