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SPEC: Bermuda Spires and the Sargasso Sea

Spread across many of the A.I.: “the Game” in-game websites, the outline of a web of geographical, historical, nautical, and literary interconnections is now coming into focus. At first, this web of meaning appeared only subtly and almost imperceptibly, but now it is gaining a critical mass making its presence undeniable. The accumulated weight of these direct references and indirect allusions points toward the Bermuda Spires in the Sargasso Sea as having probable significance in the endgame solution of the Evan Chan murder mystery.

The Puppet Masters have constructed the clues of the game on two levels, (1) "bread crumbs" and (2) "detective story": (1) Individual clues and puzzles that advance the game in discrete steps (i.e., a new piece of information leads us to a new website, or gives us the key to some puzzle that leads us to a new piece of information, etc.); and (2) A set of background clues that point to motive, weapon and/or opportunity within the context of an overall narrative milieu. This current spec regarding the Sargasso Sea and the Bermuda Spires pertains to the solution of the background detective story. I have broken down the web of clues into 13 headings. Each of these topics separately seems to signify nothing, but, in concert, this montage of references assumes a semblance of sense and significance. Interpreting this semantic triptych is like listening to a cocktail party conversation just out of earshot.  As the partygoer approaches, one detects at first just an incomprehensible buzz, but then, moving closer, the listener begins to make out sensible bits and pieces; suddenly, the words and noises congeal into a meaningful conversation.

When confronting such a puzzle, the method that will most likely produce a solution is neither deductive nor inductive, but rather, abductive. In the genre of analytic detective stories, the reasoning of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes provides the classic example of abduction: When one has eliminated every other possibility as no longer possible, whatever possibility remains, however improbable, must be the solution. (See Umberto Eco, The Sign of Three -- http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress/books/0-253-20487-9.shtml.)

Initially, many of these clues appear to represent merely the efforts of the Puppet Masters to provide a sense of verisimilitude in the characters of the backstory and the geographical locations of the game universe. Every character must come from somewhere and some past, so not every idiosyncratic detail or trivial reference necessarily bears wider significance. A good example of this is Jeanine Salla's recurring reference to "Spanish dust." However, the mark of a great mystery story is the sudden reversal of the obvious and the hidden. A classic example of this technique is Edgar Allen Poe's "The Purloined Letter." (See John Irwin, The Mystery to the Solution: Poe, Borges and the Analytic Detective Story -- http://www.press.jhu.edu/press/books/titles/f96/f96irmy.htm.) So, how to go about sifting through the morass of references in the Evan Chan universe to solve the backstory mystery?

I would argue for the following three criteria in testing the significance of apparently trivial or idiosyncratic details in the game: intentionality, double-meaning, and non-accidental coincidence: (1) The reference must be uttered in an intentional and communicative manner: the character is saying something to someone in order to convey information. (2) The intentional reference is communicated in such a manner as to bear meaning (possibly secret or hidden) only for those who already know something else. (3) When characters or game texts share references to (fictional or real) persons, places, things, or poetic motifs and conceits, and there is no immediately obvious or everyday explanation for this common reference, then we can only conclude that we are looking at Puppet Master design. When all other possible interpretations are excluded, the only remaining explanation of the coincidental set of references must be given due consideration. In general, there will be no mechanical application of this threefold abductive test; only insight and the accumulated weight of evidence will present the solution.

So, keeping in mind this abductive mode of analysis, what is the intersecting center of meaning of the following network of references and allusions?

  1. HORSE LATITUDES http://catskillseaviewclinic.org/ -- This transcript of Jane Sutter's therapy session with Monica Swinton contains reference to the "horse latitudes." (A transcript of the combined files is available at the Yahoo! Groups files section: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cloudmakers/files/Game%20Websites/catskillseaviewclinic.org/Revised%20Monica%20transcript.txt.) See painting, "Horse Latitudes," by an unknown artist at http://www.lizardkingarts.com/Horse%20Latitudes.htm.

 

  1. DOLPHIN WAVES http://www.familychan.org/evanchanpage.html - Evan's page at the Chan Family Site displays haiku contains a reference to "dolphin waves," echoing Monica Swinton's phrase "horse waves" in the Jane Sutter therapy session at Catskill Seaview Clinic:

Misty morning air
Dolphin waves leaping on high
Where sea meets sky

  1. ALBATROSS http://www.donu-tech.com/employees/e%7Echan/ -- Evan's e-mail inbox at his personal page on the Donu-Tech Site displays the following 07 Feb 42 e-mail from Ibrim Hoxa that references an "onyx albatross":

Date:   07 Mar [sic?] 42
From: ibrimhoxa@donutech.com
To:      e.chan@donutech.com
Subject: On Track
"Mel Green says everything's on track, all it is is just an equipment artifact. Promised will send along figures day after tomorrow at latest. If everything works out like Swem says it should he'll have an onyx albatross for you at the end of the month."

  1. ANCIENT MARINER http://www.bartleby.com/101/549.html - The source of the albatross poetic motif (see Hoxa e-mail to Evan above) is Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In selections below, the Ancient Mariner slays an albatross-traditionally, a harbinger of doom for sailors-and this act is avenged by the becalming of the Mariner's sailing vessel in the "horse latitudes." (For the explicit connection of the "horse latitudes" with the episode in the Rime, see http://www.lizardkingarts.com/Horse%20Latitudes.htm.)

'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!-
Why look'st thou so?'-'With my crossbow
I shot the Albatross.

[...]

We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.

  1. SARGASSO SEA http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/11479.html - The following short encyclopedia entry defines the Sargasso Sea: "... part of the N Atlantic Ocean, lying roughly between the West Indies and the Azores and from about lat. 20°N to lat. 35°N, in the horse latitudes. The relatively still sea is the center of a great swirl of ocean currents and is a rich field for the marine biologist. It is noted for the abundance of gulfweed...on its surface. The Bermuda islands are in the northwestern part of the sea." As the following passage states, the Sargasso Sea was named by the Spaniards and was also known as the "horse latitudes" (http://va.essortment.com/sargassoseawid_ramo.htm):

"The Sargasso Sea is unique among the seas of the world in that it has no coastline. It is completely surrounded by water as a free-floating sea. The location of the Sargasso Sea is in the North Atlantic, bounded by the Gulfstream on the West, the Greater Antilles on the South, and Bermuda to the North. It has a large oval shape of thousands of square miles and rotates slowly clockwise. The most unique feature of the Sargasso Sea is the vast amounts of seaweed floating on it. It was the Portuguese who gave it the name ‘sargaco’ which means ‘grape’ due to the resemblance of the seaweed to grapes. Because the sea is very calm with little wind, sailors since the time of Columbus have mistakenly thought that the seaweed itself is what trapped their ships. The Sargasso Sea is also known as the ‘Horse Latitudes’ because when the Spanish Sailors found themselves trapped in the Sargasso Sea for weeks, they had to toss their horses overboard in order to conserve on water. It should be noted that the famed and feared Bermuda Triangle lies within the Sargasso Sea. In fact, many of the later attributes of the Bermuda Triangle where it was feared that planes and ships were mysteriously lost there, were earlier attributed to the Sargasso Sea because of the many ships lost there. The mystery of the Sargasso Sea was merely transposed later to the Bermuda Triangle."

The region that later became known as "The Bermuda Triangle" is within the area of the Sargasso Sea (http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/500_Leagues_of_Sea/Sargasso_Sea/sargasso_sea.html):

"The heart of the Bermuda Triangle is covered by the strangest and most notorious sea on the planet- the Sargasso Sea; so named because there is a kind of seaweed which lazily floats over its entire expanse called sargassum. . . . . Columbus himself made note of it. Thinking land was nearby, he fathomed the sea, only to find no bottom. The bottom is, in fact, miles below on the Nares Abyssal Plain. The Sargasso Sea occupies that part of the Atlantic between 20o to 35o North Latitude and 30o to 70o West Longitude. . . . Its currents are largely immobile yet surrounded by some of the strongest currents in the world: The Florida, Gulf Stream, Canary, North Equatorial, Antilles, and Caribbean currents. These interlock to separate this sea from the rest of the tempestuous Atlantic, making its indigenous currents largely entropious. Therefore anything that drifts onto any of its surrounding currents eventually ends up in the Sargasso Sea amidst its expansive weed mats of sargassum. Because of the entropious currents, it is unlikely anything would ever drift out. The Sargasso Sea rotates slightly itself and even changes position as its surrounding currents change with weather and temperature patterns during different seasons."

For more on the Sargasso Sea tidal currents, see http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues98/nov98/sargasso.html.  The geographical location of the Sargasso Sea bears possible significance with the context of the game narrative for another reason:  beneath this span of the North Atlantic lies many hydrothermal vents.  Directly east of Bermuda, these hydrothermal vents are situated along the volcanic rifts that have formed the deep sea Mid-Atlantic Ridge.  Evan Chan’s own professional scientific interest in deep-sea thermal research is mentioned in his profile on the Donu-Tech site: "Galapagos Rift hydrothermal vent invertebrate populations" (http://www.donu-tech.com/chan.html). For further information on the Atlantic Ocean deep sea hydrothermal vents, see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/abyss/frontier/ventsatlantic.html. For additional material on the Abyssal Plain, see "Marine Life in the Deep Sea Abyssal" at Nova's "Into the Abyss: Living at Extremes" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/abyss/life/extremes2.html). Incidentally, Spinoza, the Ethical Intelligence at Aragon Institute of Technology, reports his virtual voyage to the "Great Abyss": "I fell into a great abyss, and wrestled with the monsters there" (http://www.ita-es.ro/spinozaspeaks.html). Is this a reference to the Abyssal Plain?

  1. THERMAL-PLANKTON WEB See the recent update to BWU news at http://www.bangaloreworldu-in.co.nz/bwu_news_13.html.  For present purposes, it is useful to note that that plankton thrives in the Sargasso Sea. Message #28680 is a useful reference list to the Thermal-Plankton web thread on Cloudmakers list (see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cloudmakers/message/28680). Also, if one brackets the David/messiah portion of the speculation, message #29440 offers a suggestive analogy (see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cloudmakers/message/29440).  From Bangalore U news updates, we know that the TP communicate via high frequency sound waves.  Here's the relevant portion of the Bangalore U Xander TP sidebar:  "Similarly, each TP communicates only with those in its immediate vicinity. High frequency sound waves exchange information between TP.  This allows TP to co-ordinate and to seek established goals by adjusting reflectivity and temperature.... the crucial TP C&C systems in use are ... the ones developed ... at BWU-Dunedin ... [which] rely on ocean-based control systems using infra-sound. The TP detect these very low frequency transmissions as pressure changes, and watch for a particular signal pattern. By splitting signals between several stations it is possible to send commands to only the TP within a fairly narrow area of overlap."  The BWU Command & Control systems use infra-sound, not the thermal plankton themselves.  Also, the BWU explanation does not rule out unknown modes of communication.  Sound is simply the medium of communication according to their design.  Perhaps there are deep sea sources in communication with the TP in a way not easily detectable to Thor, Vayu, BWU etc -- e.g. the "white sound" ... "cicadas."  Hence, nothing we know so far dictates that there is not a faster degree of communication among various regions of the web than that which infra- or high-frequency sound waves permit.

 

  1. SONAR PINGS See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cloudmakers/message/30770. Is there a connection between the thermal plankton web and Evan’s "dolphin waves"?  Sonar pings in the thermal plankton web?  From the recent update to BWU news at http://www.bangaloreworldu-in.co.nz/bwu_news_13.html, we now know that the trillions of thermal plankton communicate or interact globally through high-frequency sound waves, and that plankton can be controlled locally through infra-sound:

"This is where THOR comes into play, sending commands to the TP in a particular area.  This is harder than you would think. A given TP has no idea where it is, not does it have the "intelligence" to figure out what it should do. The well-meaning folks at AIT hoped to achieve fine control of the TP by targeted micrometer wave transmissions from space, and (weather permitting!) THOR occasionally uses this channel. However, such transmissions are subject to interference from atmospheric conditions… and TP you can't reach due to poor weather conditions are not much use! So the crucial TP C&C systems in use are still the ones developed right here at BWU-Dunedin. We rely on ocean-based control systems using infra-sound. The TP detect these very low frequency transmissions as pressure changes, and watch for a particular signal pattern. By splitting signals between several stations it is possible to send commands to only the TP within a fairly narrow area of overlap. […] Thus, large-scale communication from THOR gives the TP in an area a goal, and the TP co-ordinate their local actions to seek that goal." 

Dolphins use sonar pings to sense their environment.  Is the "ping pattern" to which Jeanine Salla refers in her 3/2/2142 schedule notes (see http://www.bangaloreworldu-in.co.nz/salla/Calendar.asp) a reference to Evan's sonar readings of the "command and control" (neural) network established between the thermal plankton web?:

3/2/2142

Call Allen: intern concerns, + E’s n-net ping pattern?

In addition, see Evan's "notes to self" on his personal page at the Donutech site -- http://www.donu-tech.com/employees/e~chan/Default.asp?foo=www.donu-tech.com/employees/e~chan/Default.asp:

"Vid w/J re: TP firing. Neural wave? Did I already ask her about cicadas?"

 

  1. SPANISH DUST http://www.familiasalla-es.ro/default2.htm and http://www.bangaloreworldu-in.co.nz/salla/oldspanishdust/ -- The Jeanine Miro Salla references to "Spanish dust" and "Old Spanish Dust." (Note that Jeanine's middle name is "Miro," the surname of a Catalonian Surrealist painter.) "Old Spanish Dust" is the name of Jeanine's directory containing her case files on Loki and "Step Self". The phrase "Spanish Dust" also appears on the Salla Family page, Four Women. Among the geographical locations in the game, several prominent sites are in Spain, an historical center of Kabbalah. Aragon Institute of Technology has campuses in the Spanish province by the same name, Aragon, in the cities of Barcelona and Zaragosa, both in the northeastern region of Spain. Evan Chan & Jeanine Salla attended AIT together. Allen Hobby was on the faculty of AIT before going to Cybertronics, where he made breaththroughs in artificial intelligence, especially with regard to human emotions. He created David Swinton, the AI boy which Spielberg's film is about. The phrase "old Spanish" refers to the dialect of Spanish spoken in the region of Catalonia, part of the medieval Kingdom of Aragon, in which Barcelona and Zaragosa are located. The Catalonian dialect, or "Catalan", is also known as "old Spanish". The connection between Jeanine and this region seems clear enough, given the location of her alma mater, AIT. But what about the "dust" portion of "Old Spanish Dust"? "Spanish dust" is listed under Jeanine's picture on the Four Women page on the Salla Family website. Again, this could have a straightforward meaning, since "Spanish dust" is a colloquialism for the torrid environment of Spain & the passionate character of the Spanish people, as in "hot as Spanish dust". The phrase by itself could simply be Jeanine's description of her personality or temperament. But this does not make much sense when combined with "old". I think "old Spanish dust" must mean "Catalan dust" in a more literal, but historical sense. The most important center of medieval kabbalism was Aragon or Catalonia, an area in northeastesn Spain that is almost synonymous with kabbalism in this period and scarcely surpassed since in importance. The most significant figures in the development of Kabbalah during this time were Aragonian or Catalan. For more speculation on this Kabbalah/Catalonian connection, see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cloudmakers/message/32281 and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cloudmakers/message/25850.

 

  1. BERMUDA SPIRES http://www.cybertronics-corp.net/ -- Find "Atlantic Sentient Property Development Center" pop-up by clicking on "Research Division" at the Cybertronics corporate website. The Atlantic Sentient Property Development Center is located in the "Bermuda Spires." Also note scrolling text at bottom of Research Division page: "Just in from Bermuda Spires...", a product development announcement of "the successful birth of Mystopher [2], the world's pre-implanted, AI-partnered Humpback Whale...." The island of Bermuda is situated in the center of the Sargasso Sea, also known as the "horse latitudes": "For centuries the Sargasso Sea was dreaded by the seafaring because of its deadly calms. Many times the Spanish found themselves becalmed for weeks, being then forced to jettison their war horses in order to conserve water. Hence the area known as the 'Horse Latitudes' traverse the Sargasso Sea. Another name would be the 'Doldrums'" (from text [and note map] at http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/500_Leagues_of_Sea/Sargasso_Sea/sargasso_sea.html).

 

  1. 9TH CIRCLE OF SLAVERTRONICS http://www.spcb.org/god/ -- Some Cloudmakers have speculated that Red King's phrase "the frozen 9th Circle of Slavertronics" found in the deciphered text of the SPCB "god" crack possibly refers to Bermuda Spires at Cybertronics. This suggestion is based on the fact that Bermuda Spires appears as the last of nine floating circles at the Cybertronics site at http://www.cybertronics-corp.net/. The "god" file was discovered by solving the "Connect the Dots" puzzle at the intersection of the lines drawn from "Mann to sea" and "Humans to fish" over the text "god" on Laia's "knew him" page http://www.familiasalla-es.ro/mannact.htm. See the Cloudmaker's solution at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cloudmakers/files/Game%20Websites/familiasalla-esro/ctd.jpg. The "Connect the Dots" puzzle is located in a previous RK crack, viewable at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cloudmakers/files/Game%20Websites/spcb.org/secret2.html. See the translation of the "Connect the Dots" puzzle at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cloudmakers-moderated/message/1002.

 

  1. ARAGON, CATALONIA & SURREALISM -- http://www.denkendeneshaus-de.dk/images/brutus.jpg - The Jeanine Miro Salla - Catalonia web of connections is widened and underscored by the multiple paintings by Catalan artists in this montage of references to Surrealist/Dadaist/Cubist paintings by Brutus, the AI of Martin Swinton's house. Brutus communicates with Martin by images placed on video-screens throughout the house. The Brutus.jpg page is accessible through Beate Bosch's "Thinking house" page at http://www.denkendeneshaus-de.dk/metalle.html by clicking on the light at the end of the tunnel in the image on the lower left side of the page. See the Cloudmakers' Brutus jpeg database at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cloudmakers/database?method=reportRows&tbl=34. Some of the main participants in the Surrealist movement were Catalans (Dali, Catalan [see the biographical descriptions re: the painting "The Hallucinogenic Toreador" at http://www.daliweb.tampa.fl.us/92.htm and re: "The Persistence of Memory" at http://members.tripod.com/san_ka/1931_06_t.html]; Miro, Catalan nationalist, born in Montroig, Catalan [see biographical description re: the painting "The Tilled Field" at http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/movement_work_md_Surrealism_1097.html;also see the painting "The Catalan Landscape" at http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/wells/252/surreal.htm]). Picasso, a forerunner of Surrealism, was also a Catalan artist; there is a Picasso Museum in Barcelona, the capitol of Catalonia (see http://search.ebi.eb.com/ebi/article/0,6101,32206,00.html). Beate Bosch's last name alludes to another inspiration of Surrealism, Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights -http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/bosch/delight/. Noteworthy brutus.jpg images with Catalonian & Surrealist themes:

 

  1. ISABELLA, COLUMBUS & SARGASSO SEA -http://www.metropolitanlivinghomes.com/page3.htm - This webpage plays on the Spain/Aragon/Bermuda connection. Kate Nei built the living home, whose AI is Isabella for Enrico Basta. According to this page, the home is "designed around a prow." "Her owner Enrico Basta is a sailor. His house invariably juts out of the landscape like a yacht cutting through a wave. Triangular forms representing the hull and sails suggest the drama of the raging sea. In other places they provide the quiet peace of a safe harbor. Isabella is a well-anchored refuge." Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille, of course, underwrote Christopher Columbus' voyage to discover the New World. The ships of Columbus were stranded for months in the Sargasso Sea. He gave the name "Sargasso," from the Portuguese for "grapes," to this portion of the Atlantic Ocean. The name of the Aragonian city of Zaragosa etymologically derives from the same root. Zaragosa is famous for the Rioja varietal, the grape from which the red wine of the region is made. For a good treatment of the Sargasso Sea, see http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/500_Leagues_of_Sea/Sargasso_Sea/sargasso_sea.html. As a Catalonian, Salvador Dali subscribed to the claim that Christopher Columbus was a Catalan Spaniard, not an Italian. He expressed this nationalist sentiment in "The Discover of America by Christopher Columbus." See Salvador Dali, "The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus" -- http://worldventurefunds.com/suissefinancialgroup/dali_discov_america.html.

 

  1. SHAKESPEARE'S "THE TEMPEST" & BERMUDA Several game puzzles and game sites make explicit reference to Shakespeare's The Tempest. See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cloudmakers/message/23454 regarding a quotation of this play as a solution to Martin Swinton's Diary puzzle: The clue, "We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life," is answered by "Is rounded with a sleep" (Act 4, Scene 1). One of Martin Swinton's homes (the "mythically British home" in Derbyshire, England) is named Ariel, a faerie spirit from the play (http://www.martinswinton.com). One of Martin Swinton's artisans is Caliban, the Evolving Design Intelligence. Caliban is a half-human monster on Prospero's island, the locale of The Tempest. Shakespeare based his play on a famous 1609 shipwreck off the coast of Bermuda (http://www.shakespearedc.org/tempoet.html): "The Tempest is a play of and about magic, yet Shakespeare's most metaphysical work is grounded in fact. The poet's tempest is based on an actual storm and shipwreck off the coast of Bermuda in July 1609, described in detail by Virginia colonists in accounts of their experiences in the New World. These historical documents, known as the ‘Bermuda Pamphlets,’ were written during Shakespeare's lifetime. A close reading of the pamphlets and Shakespeare's text shows that the manuscripts were certainly very much in the poet's thoughts, and probably in his hands, while he wrote his play in 1611." The protagonist of The Tempest is Prospero, an exiled duke of Milan. This character is an Elizabethan magus, a Faust-like figure of great learning and magical power engaged in alchemical experiments and hermetic investigations. Allen Hobby, one might say, is the year 2142 counterpart to Prospero/Faust. For the relation of The Tempest to alchemical and Kabbalistic themes, see http://members.spree.com/education/ibidem/magiimaginationis.htm. The overall theme of The Tempest is the same as the vision pursued by Surrealism: the "future transmutation of those two seemingly contradictory states, dream and reality, into a sort of absolute reality, of surreality, so to speak" (Andre Breton, Surrealist Manifesto).  The Spanish/Aragonian connection is also evident in the play. The name of Ferdinand, a character in the play, alludes to the King of Spain, Ferdinand of Aragon, who, with the Queen, sponsored the voyage of Columbus and his discovery of the New World. The phrase, a "brave new world," also originates with Shakespeare's The Tempest.  Shakespeare's play is a meditation upon the shipwreck of utopian dreams upon the hard shoals of reality. In the Elizabethan period in which Shakespeare wrote, such utopianism was, for example, expressed in Bacon's New Atlantis, inspired by the hermetic speculations of John Dee, Queen Elizabeth's magus-counselor. The Shakespearean Magus, embarked on a utopian transformation of reality, becomes shipwrecked on an isolated island in the Sargasso Sea that blocks all progress toward the New World. In this way, the gyre of the Sargasso Sea comes to signify the irrational contents and pull of the unconscious. The characters of The Tempest are sucked into the whirlpool of the flotsam and jetsam of nightmares and shattered dreams. Surrounded by the floating montage of the jettisoned detritus of the ship's cargo and livestock, the survivors are washed up on the shores of a stranded beach, among sun-bleached debris and driftwood. All the rejected contents of civilization and the baser materials of nature and instinct form a surreal landscape. Indeed, the very term "Sargasso" has acquired a secondary meaning beyond its primary reference to a region of the Atlantic Ocean, coming to signify any such surrealist montage in the language of writers and poets, from Ezra Pound to Nathaniel West.  Completing this nexus of allusions is the fact that the historical root of the principal Surrealist motifs is hermetic alchemy. It is well established that The Tempest is an alchemical allegory.  A famous—in fact, central—conceit of alchemy is the notion of "the Chemical Wedding," a marriage of the Red King and the White Queen.  Is it only by chance that the Evan Chan narrative plays upon exactly this set of poetical allusions?  The hermetic allegory parallels the alchemical process of producing the Philosopher’s Stone. Just as the alchemist seeks to transmute base metal into gold, a fusion of warring opposites into the Philosopher's Stone, so the Red King marries the White Queen, who gives birth to a child, the New Man. What begins as a series of chemical reactions of the elements ends in an alchemical sense of relations, in which each is transformed. This alchemical process takes place in the three metallurgical stages of "whitening," "blackening," and "reddening": Albedo, Nigredo, Rubedo. In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, Alice moves through the same process, checkmating the Red King, who is said to be dreaming the events and characters of Wonderland. As she eventually comes to realize, Alice herself is dreaming the Red King and the world "through the looking glass." Ultimately Alice becomes the White Queen, completing the alchemical allegory, and hence achieving the reconciliation of reality and dream. Shakespeare's The Tempest reaches a similar resolution in the marriage of Ferdinand and Miranda, Prospero's daughter.