Weird Deer

Previously, Brian Love, our Visiting Advice Columnist for 2007-2008, received the following questions:

Dear Inquirers,

My mother often said that dreams were like kittens—there were never too many. My father would say kittens, like beasts, spread disease. Little prisoners, the kittens in your questions are trying to break free.

My professional policy has always been: One question. One answer. No More. It’s been as much as I can wrestle out, not a policy of secrecy or hoarding. But, seeing as a number of your questions are essentially the same, I will attempt an answer in one for many.

As in the black arts, one must be cautious in how one attempts to uncover the truth. For what we perceive to be absolute in this cone of four dimensions, can be a goblinoid poison in another. And, as the great poet and seer of accidental touches concedes, the spider of truth possesses many.

Quite a few of you, I am sure, are more than intimate with the world of Galaga. For those who are not, Galaga is a game from the early 80s in which the user controls a star ship to defend the frontier against an insect armada.

In this game, one can find oneself in the situation where the enemy horde captures a companion ship and holds it in relief against the flat galactic star drop, hovering at the top of the screen, tethered in translucent bonds to the captor ship.

Three actions can be taken at this point. One can simply ignore the captured ship that is bound to the insectan overlord and live one’s life alone, in a solitude free from the machinations of the universe; One can destroy the captured ship in mercy, relieving the metallic princess from subjection to an existence of an unloving mate; or one can rescue her.

Which action you take is yours to choose, as we all must choose, but the choice is an elusive one–an earthworm in the rain drowning or waving?

If you choose to rescue the captive, your star ship maneuvers about a continuous pattern of courtiers until the precise moment when the captor is positioned directly between you and the distressed and you fire and the enemy destroyed and the captive lover pirouettes and descends into your lap.

When rescued, the two ships join as one, formidable, yet in the midst of great odds–like pocket snowmen before the flop; two as stiff twin compasses are two, faced against a magnetic field determined to set them apart.

The question if one can obtain a triple ship in Galaga becomes almost academic at this point. The quick answer is no. But, as things are scrutinized, answers become less certain. In the original Galaga it is extremely difficulty to create a triad of ships, if not impossible, for the only way to succeed in this endeavor is to reprogram the machine. Many will say than that this is impossible, but the rumors and legends suggest otherwise.

In a later version of the game, Galaga ’88, it is indeed possible for two ships to be captured then freed by a third and a triple ship created, but many of the purists believe this later game is an abomination of the original and any triadic union is incompatible with the Galaga universe and thus considered void.

I believe if all three ships desire this union, and in this union they are as one, then by all means—be it by reprogramming the constructs of the reality or by entering into a new reality—pursue and seek this path.

Your loving and fallible servant,

Brian Love