The Lotus Flower

[MadHatt]

Having recently been struck down by the flu (in the prime of life(thus I may not be making too much sense and use too many parenthesis)) and doing marathons of video games and college work, I was struck by the mention of connections in Scheherazade.

 

Namely the predominance of the lotus flower.

 

For those unaware of it, flowers present a phenomenon known as phyllotaxis. It's basically the idea that the displacement of leaves around a stem occurs in patterns according to the Fibonacci series (which is very much intertwined with the golden ratio). Lotuses are generally offered as an obvious example of this number's application in nature, as are say, fruit sprouts of pineapples, the flowering of an artichoke, sunflowers, DNA, spiral of the ear, the logarithmic spiral of a shell etc. Kepler called it an organization of the cosmos as a whole.

 

Which brings up Mandala and sacred geometry: the flower of life is present in Turkey, India, Egypt, China, England even in ancient times. It's supposed to contain quite, quite, a lot of symbols, magical or alchemical. The complete flower also contains the Kabbalah tree and 3d metatron cube which contains all of the Platonic solids, the building blocks of creation itself.

 

Now, considering what the main plot of the game is so far, the legends it includes and the idea that the golden ratio is the number that can predict everything and is everywhere, I can't help but think that there is a connection to Sadie. If she was represented as the lotus flower and bearer of all knowledge, then she'd hardly even need the apple. Was the plot inspired at all by this or am I taking too many pills at the moment?

 

And I can't help but ask...if Ruddy was so prepared, why didn't he expect the Heisenberg principle to take effect.

[Legate of Mineta]

Hatt;

 

No comment on Sadie, but as to Ruddy, I'll see what the Team says.

 

Here's the answer:

 

1) I don't think Ruddy ever would have claimed that the burden of supreme sociological insight would ever have been easy. Even with perfect information, chaos would creep in around the margins - indeed, he would readily concede that that's presumably what happened to the last legendary figure that took that power. And, heck, he'd also say that's why he couldn't just let Sadie take up the juju on her own; the responsibility for correcting unforeseen and emerging problems would have fallen to him.

 

2) That said, he was totally lying to himself.

 

There's a sense in which Ruddy's just a guy with a really bad gambling problem: after he lost both his families (and, to be clear, he really love Sadie's parents like an older brother and sister) and watched his beloved country take a few swigs of some very bad poisons, he set out to find a way to make everything right again - and every time he failed he doubled down. By 1930-1, he's lost most of his family fortune, he's got enemies all over the place in Germany, he's badly strained his relationships with Lorelei (whom he respected enough to hire, way back when) and Sterling's family... and when it finally came to the endgame he even took steps he knew could alienate Sadie (and possibly even Evelyn), who mean everything to him.

 

He really, really needed to believe that winning would bring it all back and make everything all right, and he wasn't at his best or his most realistic when he imagined how it would happen.

 

Or, to put it another way, he put a lot of thought into how to collect underpants, and relatively little into how that would turn into profit. ;-P

 

3) Werner Heisenberg only published "Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik" in 1927, by which time Ruddy was pretty darn busy planning his magical revolution. In mid-1930, he'd probably never seriously thought about the Uncertainty Principle.

[MadHatt]

Hm...yes, he did seem like a touch too desperate to listen to reason.

 

I knew there was something shifty about the guy, but the whole reality of it really did struck pretty hard. I loved his character and seeing him like you do in Sterling's New Orleans adventure just creeped me out. Kudos, by the way.

 

And this of course, makes him very interesting to watch out for in 1932. Unless I somehow get Zul to shoot him first.

 

I must say, you guys did a lot of research for the game. As someone with an affinity for both travel and history, I salute you gentlemen scholars.

[Legate of Mineta]

MadHatt;

 

Thanks! It was pure pleasure. We even did day-by-day historical ticker tapes, but alas! They did not make it into the final game.

 

Ruddy's big choice comes in 1932, I believe- how you handled things in 1931 will figure heavily in it...

[MadHatt]

How many years are you guys planning? Considering the changes New York was going through at the time, it will definitely be something.

 

Oh, poor Ruddy...I have a feeling that even if Sadie forgives him, Evelyn would skin him alive.

[Legate of Mineta]

Hatt;

 

That would be telling.