Alien Sexuality Part 3 - Corporate Greed And The Sex Drive

Alien Sexuality
Part 3
Corporate Greed And The Sex Drive
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Part 1 of this series on Alien Sexuality is
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/12/alien-sexuality-part-one-root-of-all.html

Part 1 is about the root of all conflict -- i.e. sexuality itself.

Part 2 is about the question, "What is Life?"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/08/alien-sexuality-part-two-what-is-life.html
And this is Part Three about, "What is Power?"

A popular view of decision-makers who seem to have power over our lives and destiny is that they "give away" our jobs (or other rights or possessions) to people who do not use those assets to our advantage.  Corporate Greed, an easily observed phenomenon of everyday reality, has to be accounted for by Science Fiction Romance writers building an Alien culture.

Is every human who acquires Power necessarily Greedy?

Does Power create Greed?

Or is Greed just another innate trait of all humans?

If so, then could we say that the "impoverished workers" referred to in the quote here are not impoverished at all, certainly not by the business owners, but rather are simply Greedy themselves and "projecting" their inner trait onto prospective employers who refuse them jobs?

That would be a very dangerous thing to say, wouldn't it?

What would a powerful but non-Greedy Alien be like? Would such an Alien make a magnetic Love Interest for your Human Main Character?

How does a Powerful person react to being out-competed for a vital resource such as a job?  Are Powerful, Self-Confident people sore losers who are jealous and resentful of the winner's "good luck?"  Or is being a gracious loser the sign of a Powerful person?  What exactly is "power" when it comes to Human Personality and how does it manifest in Human society and economies?

We might view "Power" as the root of the sex drive itself.  Or we might see it as the main avenue of communication between Human and Alien, since "power" is a property of the physical universe we share with the Aliens.

We've talked a lot about how a writer can (and must) create verisimilitude in a novel's Worldbuilding or "background" as well as the "back story" of each Character -- the experiences that make the Characters see things and react emotionally to those things just exactly this way - and not that way.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html
Given verisimilitude, a reader will be able to relate to the most Alien of aliens -- and even fall desperately in love with your Alien character.

The same aura of verisimilitude paints the villain or antagonist as so vile, so corrupt, so bigoted and hate-filled that the reader will become invested in watching the hero or protagonist conquer that villain, out-competing and humiliating the villain.  But what if the villain then takes that defeat (in the middle of the novel) with grace instead of jealous resentment?  Might the reader reconsider which Character is the Hero and which the Villain?

We have seen in Star Trek how a defeated Klingon warrior respects his conqueror without diminishing his own self-respect.  A job seeker out-competed by someone else who adopts the Klingon warrior's attitude might increase chances of being hired for an even better paying job where (plot twist) he/she meets a Soul Mate and lives Happily Ever After.

This dynamic of human relationships is one of the subtle aspects of our natural world that we use to draw readers into science fiction, and it works as a story springboard, too.  Story Springboards are the coiled Power beneath the opening line that propels the character into the adventure.  Defeat always reveals Character and engages reader sympathy.

Love At First Sight is a thematic element that works well as a Story Springboard.  The opening line can be something like, "The woman in the muddy wedding dress leaned against the door to my office and watched me stride down the hall toward her."

So suppose "I" am the alien version of a private detective and the office is on a Pirate Planet that hosts hundreds of space pirate operations, and "she" is a human woman who has escaped a forced marriage to some such Pirate and run for her life.

Pirate operations often grow to be giant international corporations, sometimes going legit as we have seen Organized Crime do.  Look at all the historical accounts of Robber Barons -- in USA History, we find many nefarious deeds building the fortunes of Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, et. al., - railroad fortunes, steel fortunes, - all high-tech exploits of their day.

Fortunes are rarely amassed "cleanly."  It does happen, and such stories are the source of great novels.  But it is rare in real life.

Why is that?  Why are fortunes associated with nefarious dealings or unethical use of force to "twist arms" or "buy politicians?"  Of course, also to own the police.

Is that tendency for nefarious deeds to found powerful fortunes an innate property of human nature, not to be found among Aliens?  Or is defiance of social norms necessary for economic success, thus the acquisition of the Power to deny certain people jobs?

Do humans need to see such a tendency in Aliens in order to fall in Love?  Is the Power to defy social norms sexy?  Are all great fortunes amassed by Bad Boys/Gals?

Bad-Gals are still very hot in 2016.
http://www.usanetwork.com/queenofthesouth

What is the primary substance of which Amassed Fortunes - giant corporations, multi-national banking, and shadow banking are formed?
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/reviews-10-shadow-banking-in-fantasy.html

And how can love conquer all that greed?

To find what readers need in order to immerse themselves in your fictional world, we have to look very closely at the similarities and differences between Love and Sex, between Kingship and Greed.

Yes, "Kingship" would be the opposite of Greed in the fictional worldbuilding paradigm.

We write a lot of romance novels using one or another theory of government by Aristocracy -- the "Duke" is one level of aristocracy that makes grand Romance, and there is a reason for that.

A Duke is one step below King, has a lot of power, land, money, and social influence, but not more than one man could plausibly handle.

A King has no strictures on implementing his whims, irritations, or outright hatreds.  Offend the King and it's "off with your head" if the particular man is incapable of handling Power.

"Power" of the political sort, not electrical, is one of those stripped back basic concepts that we might expect to be the same among Aliens as among humans.

What exactly is Power?

Quick Google search for "What is political power?" yields:

---------quote-----------
Political Power: Definition, Types & Sources - Video & Lesson ...
study.com/academy/lesson/political-power-definition-types-sources.html

Power is the ability to influence and direct the behavior of other people and guide the course and outcome of events. Authority means that an individual or group has the right to use power by making decisions, giving orders, and demanding obedience.
--------end quote-----------

Kingship bestows power and the authority to use it.

Dukes have power allocated by the King, and all the authority to use that power resides still with the King (of course, what the King doesn't know .... hmm).

What is Greed?

Google again yields:

---------quote--------
greed
ɡrēd/
noun
intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food.
synonyms: avarice, cupidity, acquisitiveness, covetousness, rapacity; More
--------end quote----------

And Google also yields:

------quote---------
Greed - definition of greed by The Free Dictionary
www.thefreedictionary.com/greed
greed. (grēd) An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth: "Many ... attach to competition the stigma of selfish greed" (Henry Fawcett).
------end quote---------

Other Google returns imply Greed is not a virtue, but a "dark" trait, explaining it as selfish (implying selfishness is "wrong" on some fundamental level.)

Would all Alien species among all the galaxies classify "greed" as "wrong" (morally wrong?)

Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged to redefine "selfish" as "Light" or as a Virtue that makes a human more valuable to a social unit by increasing the likelihood that the social unit would survive.

If the theories of evolution prevail, the traits that make social units more likely to survive are more likely to survive and become distributed.

Look around you. Do you see any lack of selfishness?  We have plenty of altruism, but we also have immense resources of selfishness.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160318102101.htm
--------quote---------

Your brain might be hard-wired for altruism

Neuroscience research suggests an avenue for treating the empathically challenged

Date:

March 18, 2016

Source:

University of California - Los Angeles

Summary:

By temporarily inactivating a part of the brain involved in impulse-control, neuroscientists have discovered compelling evidence that we're hardwired for altruism. The discovery suggests possible avenues for treating the empathically challenged.

-----------end quote--------

And an older article:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/08/human-altruism-traces-back-origins-humanity

Adulting is the acquisition of the judgement of when to use which trait, selfishness or altruism, to do what job.  Characterization is showing the reader which tool the Character chooses to do which job.

Humanity seems to be a breeding ground where selfishness thrives, so maybe you will also find it among Aliens.  Portraying some of your most dynamic Alien Characters as Selfish could provide your readers with a connecting point into your story.

Every society apparently needs some selfish individuals, but if all the individuals are nothing but always selfish, there will be no society at all.

Note the business owners who passed over some job applicants to take on the applicant who would work for less money were not seen as selfish by those who would work for less money.

Those business owners might have been seen as altruistic or generous by those who would work for less money, and thus the new hire would be grateful and put their heart and soul into the work.  And that might be why the business owner hired them - expecting loyalty and dedication.

As a Romance Writer, your most potent tool of Characterization is Point of View.  The same action seen from two different points of view can Characterize the Viewing Character more than it does the action or the actor.

So selfishness per se has to be an ingredient, not the dominant trait of your Aliens.  To seem human enough to be a Love Interest, the Aliens have to have some altruism, too.

What if "Greed" is not "Selfishness" so much as it is a malfunction of selfishness?

Note that the key definition quoted above uses qualitative words "excessive" "more than" and "needs or deserves."

What of the King, born and raised a Crown Prince, whose whole personality is built on the foundation of the indisputable fact that he he owns everything, even the people, that nothing he chooses to do is "excessive" and he does in fact "need" all that power because "the people" will misbehave if he allows them to have any power or self-determination?  What of the King knows for a fact that he, and only he, "deserves" this position?

That's not "selfish" but simple fact corroborated by the behavior of everyone around him, even those he abuses.  By our standards, it is abuse -- by his, it is not abuse because you can't trust people to behave properly.

Now, what if that King, who knows he deserves all he has, feels insecure?  What if he feels frightened that what he has might not be "enough?"

Or perhaps he feels "empty" inside, or any of the usual insecurities and depression that manifests (in humans) as an inability to feel pleasure from fine, subtle, quiet distinctions.  In other words, he's not happy and needs ever increasing stimuli to feel a distant twinge of pleasure.  The word for this is ennui.

Fear and/or ennui can unleash Greed, and such a King who has so very much "power" may go conquering other countries for the pleasure-hit from destroying "enemies."

The word neurosis is shunned these days, but it specifically describes this psychological condition.  Humans will grab for more and more of one thing in order to satisfy the need for something else entirely -- and then wonder why they don't get satisfaction.

For example, someone who feels unloved might eat more and more chocolate ice cream for solace, and still not feel loved and not feel relieved of that nagging need for love.  Modern psychology dislikes this explanation, but it works very well for fiction writers.  Readers understand Characters who behave this way because almost everyone has a few neuroses tucked away somewhere and live through obsessive/compulsive years now and again.

So we might redefine "greed" to be something our Aliens can relate to.

Greed builds when you want something, work hard and get it expecting acquisition or possession to produce pleasure -- and then you have it, but not the anticipated pleasure, or the pleasure lasts only a moment and ennui sets in again.

So having experienced a twinge of pleasure that faded, you go after MORE of whatever produced the twinge because it just felt so good.

See the pattern of addiction?

Pleasure producing drugs, or pain-relieving drugs, or any action or activity that produces pleasure or relieves pain can be addictive.

The familiarity with this Human tendency to be addicted to pleasure is one reason so many readers reject the plausibility of the Happily Ever After ending.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/06/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-14.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-16.html
Addiction means simply that it takes more of that thing to produce the same result.

Human pleasure nerve-responses are intensely desireable and intensely addictive.

The human nervous system is not designed to sustain pleasure at peak levels.  But that's what we imagine is the "right" condition or the ideal condition for living.  Something tells us that "happiness" is sustained peak-pleasure.  But it is not, and is not possible, therefore the Happily Ever After ending is not possible.

Yet, in truth, below peak levels of pleasure, we have contentment or even true "happily ever after."

Contentedness and happiness can be, for some people, sometimes, simply the absence of misery!

So look closely at these concepts among humans and think how they could function among Aliens.

Love and Sex: Kingship and Greed.

Remember from Astrology Just For Writers that Love is a manifestation of Venus while Romance manifests the character of Neptune.

Sex is the manifestation of Pluto (Power).  Pluto is about the power of regeneration, change, revolution (the battle across the generation gap).

Here's the index to the posts on Astrology Just For Writers
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

Mars, the male principle, is War, and its "upper octave" is Pluto, Revolution.

Mars and Pluto represent two very different activities we lump under the heading sex.

We are seeing Pluto in today's mundane world as countries strive to redefine their borders (Brexit), whole new countries strive to form (ISIS), and political/social values contend for dominance (Pluto is dominance).

So, human society as seen through the lens of History, gives us what is called an "objective correlative" or a gateway through which readers walk into a story, put on the Main Character's suit of armor, and become the Human or Alien in the Romance.

Remember, the Romance Genre has the Master Theme that always must be acknowledged, "Love Conquers All."  That is the explanation of how and why such an absurdity as "Happily Ever After" can be plausible.

Alien Romance then has the master theme Love Conquers All Including The Species Gap.

When looking for the bridge to that species gap, search for the basic fabric of "reality" behind our modern world.  What properties of physics, math, chemistry, atoms, particles, waves, gravity -- the fabric of reality that Living Organisms organize -- what properties of reality create the human species AND the Alien species?

What do we have in common?  And in what do we differ?

One way to select a theme that can make answers to such questions plausible is to look closely at Economics (Capitalism vs. Socialism vs. Communism or some other ism) -- which is how we get food, clothing, shelter, and the excess energy to reproduce.

What is it about human nature that results in multi-national corporations? Why do such complex entities always stomp people into the ground like Kings stomped on peasants?

Also what is it about human nature that results in multi-national governments? At a certain size, governments become "multi-national" with as much concern for the vigor of other countries as for their own.  Sovereign Governments (Kingdoms) become inter-dependent.  Note how the U.N. has morphed and changed over its short lifetime.  And NAFTA and the EU might be viewed as in competition with the U.N. to gather all the Power over the world into one place.

This is mirrored in our everyday experience of modern life, as it becomes obvious that no mammoth fortune has been amassed by the efforts of just one person.

There is no way for one person, or a small group of people, to found a company, grow it to an international behemoth, and become billionaires without the infrastructure built by the blood-sweat-and-tears of thousands if not millions.

And if you think about it, the image, "We stand on the shoulders of giants," is appropriate.

It's not that modern fortunes, modern multinational corporations, were built on the blood-sweat-and-tears of you and me, of our contemporaries, of modern civilization.

Rather it is that our modern civilization was built by the lives and messy deaths of trillions of previous humans all the way back to conquering fire, creating a wheel and axil, deliberately planting food plants where you want to harvest them.

Indeed, we do stand on the shoulders of giants.  The phrase is explained here:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/268025.html

----------quote----------
The best-known use of this phrase was by Isaac Newton in a letter to his rival Robert Hooke, in 1676:

"What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."

Newton didn't originate it though. The 12th century theologian and author John of Salisbury used a version of the phrase in a treatise on logic called Metalogicon, written in Latin in 1159. Translations of this difficult book are quite variable but the gist of what Salisbury said is:

"We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours."

The phrase may even pre-date John of Salisbury, who was known to have adapted and refined the work of others.
-------end quote---------

Most entrepreneurs are well aware of how this process works.

This supports the idea that even if you create a civilization changing invention - Facebook,
https://www.yahoo.com/news/facebooks-political-influence-under-microscope-elections-rage-140839125--finance.html
a Smartphone, a cure for Cancer - and amass a giant fortune from the profits, that fortune is not "yours" because you made it by using the results of the work of others.

If you found  a transport company like FedEx or UPS, you don't "own" the resulting fortune because 'cars and trucks,' the fuel for the engines, the engineering, the roads they move on, the telecommunications used to arrange for things to go here and there, the  methods (RFID) of keeping track of what is where, are the only reason you were able to create that company.

Therefore, the proceeds of your creation do not all belong to you.

The reasoning is good, tight, and clear as the nose on your face.

You owe your success to 15,000 years of humans who went before, and to those now sweating for your success.

The Ph.D. degree is awarded to those who have increased Human knowledge, contributed something new.  We, each and every one of us, have to be the giants upon whose shoulders future generations will stand, produce the bits and pieces that they will assemble into something new - maybe First Contact with Aliens that does not start as a war of annihilation but a Romance.

What you owe to the work of others is as clear and obvious as the simple fact that the world is flat and if you sail off the edge, you will fall off.

We also know because it's obvious that stone is hard, matter is solid.

So any Alien species we run into among the stars will have a History of thinking that way, too.

And they will have a history of repudiating that kind of thinking.

Common sense is common, after all.  Matter is definitely solid.  Just smack your hand on the floor and see!

But we now know how matter is composed of particles, and it is mostly empty space with a certain probability that a particle might be there - or not.

Science Fiction writers make a profession of questioning common sense, finding ways around the obvious (you can't travel to the stars because it would take too long), and looking at the entirety of Creation from a non-human angle.  What if matter isn't solid?  We could walk through walls.

What if an amassed fortune actually does belong to the one who currently owns it?

This opens an entire dimension of Esoteric Wisdom that explores issues such as, "What exactly is ownership?"  But here we're looking at Greed - the overwhelming need to own, not the nature of ownership by itself.

What if certain CEO's actually do earn $10 million a year?

What if what they do is worth that much, while what you do for that corporation is actually only worth $25,000 a year.

$10 million a year isn't "wealth."

$10 million a year is not even just "Capital" as discussed here previously in Part 22 of Marketing Fiction In a Changing World on making a profit as a writer in a capitalist society:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/10/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_11.html

 $10 million a year is "power."  A CEO or founder's profit is a nexus of Power.

A Billionaire is what used to be called a King.

Historically, a King got to be King by being the best killer in the vicinity, the best fighter, the one all the really good fighters wanted to fight with and behind.  The King-to-be was a "winner" -- a wielder of power.

When and where civilization crumbles to bits, we see the rise of "the strong man."  The tribal chieftain, the neighborhood Gang Boss, the swashbuckling Pirate Captain, the "Duke" staging a coups by marrying the Princess.  Take a look at the Balkans a few decades ago, or the Middle East today.

Aristocracy is the first structural organization you see in human society -- usually the relatives of the local King/Chief.  And then that King's appointees get to govern the areas the King conquers.

The USA was founded by people fed up with Aristocrats -- while modern France was founded by those who just beheaded all their entrenched Aristocrats.  Pretty much the same in Russia.  Our modern world is proud of having overthrown Aristocracy and become Democracy.  We are perhaps a bit too proud and too smug.

Science Fiction writers view such smug pride with askance.

What if only the titles have changed, not the distribution of Greed For Power among humans?

What if our modern CEO's commanding monstrously powerful fortunes are the same fraction of humanity that Kings were made of?

Kings often inherited their thrones -- but many Historical accounts indicate that the quality that makes a strong King (or a good King) is not inherited, of not for more than a generation or two.

Historically, and probably pre-Historically, Kings "rose" by killing their opposition (usually literally.)

Today's CEO's of giant corporations kill their way to the top with Character Assassination, stealing credit for the work of subordinates, sabotaging the work of superiors (or making them look so good that they "fail upwards.") and by out-competing them in any jousting contest in the corporate meeting room.

It is not a new thing that our "system" does not reward "goodness" or those of high moral conviction.  It is an old thing.  Very old.  Just go read the rest of the books of the Bible after Deuteronomy.

We didn't get rid of Kings and Aristocrats by getting rid of the Titles and Priveleges.

That personality type (in both male and female versions) has recreated its most comfortable world, shaped and reshaped society and industry as well as government to reward the Aristocrat and trash the rest of us.

The French Revolution was 1789-1799.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin

The U.S. Book of Common Prayer

Common Sense by Thomas Paine (from loc.gov )
Published anonymously in Philadelphia in January 1776, Common Sense appeared at a time when both separation from Great Britain and reconciliation were being considered. Through simple rational arguments, Thomas Paine focused blame for colonial America’s troubles on the British king and pointed out the advantages of independence. With over half a million copies in twenty-five editions appearing throughout the colonies within the first year, this popular pamphlet helped to turn the tide of sentiment toward revolution.

It isn't the system, and it isn't the "ism" flavor of the generation - Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy or Republic - these are not imposed upon us, but rather crafted by the type of human that is "Aristocrat."

Maybe that's not true.  Framing the statement as a question to be a theme, you can generate a multitude of Aliens for various humans to fall in love with.

The commonality that these humans have with those aliens would be simply the existence of a "type" or "kind" of person who views themselves as an Aristocrat, and actually delivers the powerful counter-punches necessary to fight their way to the top, to amass so much wealth that it is raw Power.

There is the book I refer to here quite often, Rich Dad; Poor Dad.

This is the book that explains that rich families teach their children the difference between money and capital.

The assumption is that wealth only comes in Money and Capital.

Perhaps there is actually a third, completely separate, category of wealth: Power.

Power would be a vast multiple of Capital -- as instead of a gigabyte, we now measure Power of computers in Terabytes or Petabytes.

The Aristocratic family teaches their children the difference between Capital and Power.

If Aliens share the phenomenon of having a part of their population be Aristocrats, the Aliens, would understand that Aristocrats come in Good Guys and Bad Guys.

We generally define "Good Guys" as those who do not use their Power to infringe on the soveign Will of another Person.

Bad Guys amass Power to use Power to control the behavior of others, because "We know what's best for you!"

Good Guys know what's best for themselves, and consequently assume everyone else knows what's best for themselves, too.

Bad Guys know that what's best for themselves is not what's best for others but Bad Gys also know that others just don't know what's best because the others aren't "smart" (or whatever trait) enough to know.

So Bad Guys have a Greed is to "be Boss."  The only source of a pleasure hit is using Power to force others to obey.

Good Guys accept Power, and control their Power as a responsibility (Capricorn, Saturn).  Good Guys get their pleasure from spouse, children, siblings, art, beauty, even Nature, not from exercising Power over others.

Note no Historical Romance about Aristocrats is complete without the Drawing Room command performance scene, or the High Tea where the Female Lead plays an instrument or sings for the gathering.  Or perhaps it is a trip to the Opera, or taking on the duties of a Patron of the Arts, commissioning embellishments for the mansion.

The Aristocrats who are Good Guys love The Arts, and find real pleasure in music, dance, horseback riding competitions, etc.  Their pleasure seems phony to non-Aristocrats, but it is fulfilling to the Good Guy/Gal Aristocrat.

The Aristocrats who are Bad Guys love Gambling, Drinking, Whoring, and whatever sorts of drugs that are around their 'circle.'  Their pleasure requires ever greater stimulation to achieve.

There is a reason for that which you can use to build your Alien society and create an Alien Character your human would definitely fall in love with.

Good Guy Aristocrats are internally happy, satisfied, and at peace with themselves, even when their external lives are exploding with High Drama, overwhelming challenges and of course, Romance.

Bad Guy Aristocrats are internally miserable, dissatisfied, gripped by ennui and desperately addicted to pleasure, severely neurotic.

Neurosis doesn't make you Bad.  Good Guys are just as neurotic, but handle it better.

It is important to understand the difference between pleasure and happiness -- they are in fact often incompatible.  The children of Good Guy Aristocrats are taught that distinction the hard way, with pain and discipline, tears, and confessions and apologies.

Upbringing, as we've seen in Historical Romance novels, does not make Guys or Gals good or bad.

As depicted in many "fall in love with the bad boy from the other side of the tracks" Romances, Bad Guys can turn into Good Guys and vice-versa, if they don't Romeo&Juliet first.

Turning a Good Guy into a Bad Guy is called "corrupting."

Turning a Bad Guy into a Good Guy is called "saving" or "salvation."

Many grand novels have been written about both processes.  There wouldn't be so many such novels if there were no examples of this in "real life."

So we have a type of human (not genetically determined) that used to set themselves up as Aristocrats (the 1%, you understand, Kings and Dukes), or as they are termed in Werewolf Romance, the Alpha Male or Alpha Female of the pack.

We all know how hot and sexy the Alphas are, and we wouldn't be reading those books if we didn't understand the connection between sex and power (Pluto).

The Aristocrat comes in two distinct types, Good and Bad.  Individuals can switch sides.

As a whole, the Aristocrat type has recreated Society and our Economy to serve their competitive Power Hungry or Power Stewardship life paths.

The Aristocrats reformed the Economy and Society after we kicked them out of Government (The American Revolution, France, Russia, etc.).

The last vestige of Aristocrats in Government is the Constitutional Monarchy -- but there, the Monarch is basically the leader of the society, not of the Government.

If you build your Alien world's history on that pattern, you will grab your human readers with something they understand from personal experience, and it will seem plausible that a Romance could develop with these Aliens, a Romance that could Conquer the All of the War of the Worlds.

So now, in the 21st Century, we live in a world of giant multi-national corporations and giant multi-national Nations (Euro zone, NAFTA, a while ago the Soviet Union which seems to want to revive itself, and ISIS which sprawls wantonly across artificially created borders trying to re-create the Caliphate).  Even China, if you study history, is composed of small Kingdoms that were swallowed by an Emperor, and India likewise has its regions.  Britain itself is a composite of Kingdoms.

These first few years of the 21st Century is a World Epoch where Pluto is transiting Capricorn.

Capricorn is the Astrological Sign symbolizing 'governing" and thus "government."  It is ruled by Saturn, the power of regulation, the power behind the throne.  Capricorn is the Natural 10th House.

Pluto rules Scorpio, the Natural 8th House - Other People's Resources - thus sexual power.  It isn't "love" but "lust."  It is Power, Transformation, Change.  Pluto magnifies anything it touches.  Pluto signifies High Drama.

Here's High Drama:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/astrology-just-for-writers-part-9-high.html

Here's You Can't Fight City Hall - on Pluto and political power
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-symbolism-integration-part-1-you.html

And here's Would Aliens Share Human Fallacy and the Religious Impulse
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/04/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding.html

So Pluto through Capricorn has stirred the World to re-create Governments and borders.  New countries will be born, new alliances, new tax structures. But first comes destruction.

It is interesting to note that the USA Natal Chart has Pluto in Capricorn -- we are such a Pluto-formed Nation created by Revolution.

The next President will preside over our first Pluto Return.  Pluto transits have the characteristic of dividing your life's memories into 'before' and 'after" -- such as "Before I met John, I didn't know what my life was about."

So Aristocrats create Countries ( a King-to-be rides around conquering then sets himself on a throne -- think King Arthur).  Aristocrats, the 1%, need to govern.  The Bad Guys want to govern others.  The Good Guys are happily ever after if they can just govern themselves.

We kicked the Aristocrats out of Government, so they went and created multi-national corporations, and whole social orders based on Foundations, Charities, and taking over Higher Education where they can be Kings and grant Dukedoms and Baronies.

Check the dates in this Chronology of Harvard University.
http://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance/history/historical-facts
Because half of the Aristocrats (the Bad Guys) crave and lust after Power, and the other half wants to be sure the Bad Guys don't gain control of any Power that matters, the Aristocrats restructured the World Order to create many collection points for Power (thrones, as it were).

A throne is a nexus of Power, a single point where decisions are made that actually get carried out and implemented.

The nexus of Power at the center of a Corporation, or Social Organization (such as a Hollywood Star Performers and Celebrity of all sorts), attracts the new, young Aristocrat types like moths to a flame.

A youth Aristocrat recognizes where he/she belongs (on the Throne of Power), must get to, must be on that Throne in order to live.  Once glimpsed, a nexus of Power becomes irresistible to the Bad Guy Aristocrat and a Fate Worse Then Death But Nevertheless My Fate to the Good Guy Aristocrat.  Again, think King Arthur.

They grow through teens and twenties, striving and struggling to get to existing Power Points.  If they fail, they create their own brand new nexus of Power.

And how do you prevent Bad Guy Aristocrats from slipping into control at such a Nexus of Power?

What kind of pleasure seeking mechanism drives these people to sacrifice everything you and I value to get to such a nexus of Power (where you and I would be miserable)?

I figured that out for myself a few years ago when analyzing the Natal Charts of a whole lot of Politicians (we have had a lot of them running in the last 4 Presidential Election cycles - enough to make a generalization that is accurate enough for fiction, but not real life.)

What I have found is that they share the peculiar Astrological Natal Chart positioning of Pluto with emphasis on several key aspects and positions of other planets.  It was discussed in depth in an 800 page (small print) work on Astrology by Noel Tyl.  It is the signature of fame.

A few of these people with that signature of fame are either constantly or intermittently but frequently driven by Pluto making aspects by transit to key points in their Natal Charts.

Pluto, like all the transiting planets, the planets of this solar system, seems to symbolize both "Good" and "Bad."  Or in the parlance of Astrology, Vice and Virtue.

In Astrology, "Vice" doesn't mean like "gambling" -- it means that the particular symbol is not working well.  It lacks its natural power.  "Virtue" means the symbol is working at its best - all of its natural power is flowing smoothly into the person's life.

So Pluto at its best is Captain Kirk (the Captain's Chair is a nexus of Power) enforcing the Prime Directive -- with a bit of original twist.

Pluto at its worst is Captain Kirk being split into Good and Bad, and the Bad Captain drinking in Uhura's quarters soliciting sexual favors, hinting at doing so by force.

So what I found is that the driving force of the Aristocrat toward a nexus of Power is sexuality (not Love, and not Romance, an act of domination).

The Corporate Structure was created so there would be a nexus of power outside Government.  The combat to grab and hold that throne is driven by Pluto type sexuality -- not "Love" and not "Romance" but "Lust."

So what do we see our Celebrities do?  Behind every Celebrity success story is some kind of Sexual power-grab or misbehavior that you and I would never want to do.  If it's not sex, it's violence, and if not violence then some other kind of dominance game.

All of this misbehavior is "hidden" -- which is another signature of Pluto, the underground, "down" to Hell.  This is not the "unseen" of Neptune, a mystic Mystery, but the unseen of the foundation of a building, the underground sewers and power conduits, the dark of a coal mine -- the unseen upon which all else stands, the shoulders of giants long dead.

From time to time when the transits coincide just so, the hidden becomes revealed as the ground is turned over to plant a new crop. That ground breaking to plow and plant is Pluto in action.  First destruction, then growth.  Pluto turns over the ground and reveals you are planting on an old battlefield strewn with bones.

Note how Star Trek revealed Vulcan Sexuality as "hidden cyclical violence" tamed by telepathic Bonding (also invisible).  No Love involved with such a Consort.  Just sex.

So to create an Alien that readers can believe a Human can fall in love with, depict the Alien world in the same kind of overall struggle that humanity is in -- trying to figure out what to do with our Aristocrats, how to identify them before they do too much damage, and how to educate and train them to handle Power like Good Guy Aristocrats.

Is it only the Bad Guy Aristocrats that give us trouble?

Does Absolute Power (which is the goal) always Corrupt Absolutely?

Do we have better luck with Aristocrats who are raised to strict Noblesse Oblige standards?

We know that merely being rich-kids doesn't necessarily produce responsible Power handlers, though they may understand the difference between Capital and Money.  But does extreme poverty (or even just ordinary poverty) guarantee a kid will grow up to respect the power of Power and handle Power as a responsibility?  If the parents didn't know how to turn Capital into Power, how could they teach their children that?

Where do we get (or how do we make) Good Guy Aristocrats?

Will we meet up with Aliens who have figured out a way to use their Aristocrats, a way to either breed or raise Good Guy Aristocrats who don't need to get their pleasure from beating others down with their Power?

The Harry Potter Series explores a lot of these questions, which could be why it's so popular with this generation.  Harry himself is an Aristocrat of his kind and was raised enduring deprivation among those who have plenty.

Power, its use and abuse, is the central theme of life in this first part of the 21st Century.

We have massive power to destroy this planet with our industrial pollution, to pollute our very orbit with space-junk, to blow ourselves up with Nuclear Bombs.  Our civilization is a bunch of drunken teens playing with a bazooka.

So, what if Corporate Greed that we see running wild, tromping on the poorest among us, is not a function of "Corporations" or of "Capitalism" at all, but actually a manifestation of having thrown the Aristocrats out of Government so they can't be Kings and Queens?

If we cultivate the existence of a nexus of power, we have to expect it to attract Bad Guy Aristocrats who will seize Power.  Making sure there is no one person whose decisions are always implemented just leads to government by committee, which may be a bigger disaster. Hidden behind committees, the Aristocrats could get away with anything.

What if Aliens landed and just told us to put the Aristocrats back into Government where they belong so we can run our Corporations as they should be run?

What if they point to the secret flow of money from Corporations to the coffers of Politicians (personal and campaign) as an attempt by the Aristocrats to grab the Throne of Government back from us peasants?

If you can't make sure there is no nexus of Power in Government, then how do you find a Good Guy Aristocrat, and make sure that Government Power doesn't corrupt him?

Yes, we do things like Term Limits, and other jiggering and tweaking, but it does not seem to help much.

How do you raise a Human to be Incorruptible by Power?

What if the Aliens land and offer to sort out our young Aristocrats and take them off to their world to raise them properly, then return them to take over every nexus of power and manage it carefully and properly?

Who among us would endorse such a move?  Who would give up a kid, this one but not his brother, that one but not her sister, kids the Aliens select, and send them off to be fostered by Aliens?

And what if such a human kid fell in love with an Alien?

What if the "Alpha Male" phenomenon, the Aristocrat, turns out to be genetic?

None of our historical record indicates that it is.  Kids go awry.  Aristocracy does not breed true.

What if the Aliens know what's gone wrong with humans that half of one percent own everything?

Maybe the fostering deal is only for one generation and the Aliens intend to tweak our genetic makeup so that our 1% Aristocrats breed true, and always turn out Good Guy Aristocrats.

Meanwhile, the genetics of the rest of us are to be altered so we never produce Aristocrats.  How long could civilization as we know it survive without any Aristocrats?  If we get our Aristocrats back and they breed true, how long until we kill them all?

Of course it would take a good while for Aliens to raise a generation for us while we no longer breed Aristocrats.  But we need good managers and innovators, we need that rare 1% .

So meanwhile humanity creates A.I. managers who can't be corrupted by the Power they manage, but of course can be hacked.

What would returning, well trained Aristocrat kids now all grown up, do about our A.I. problem?

You see?  If you understand the origin and function of Corporate Greed, and the nature of the Giants upon whose shoulders our Aristocrats stand, and the kind of sexuality that powers that Greed (and what that sexuality would be if manifested as a virtue not a vice) - then you can build a world for an Alien Romance that would be as absorbing as the Potterverse has been.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Astrology Just For Writers, Part 14 - Science Catches Up

Astrology Just For Writers
Part 14
Science Catches Up
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Here is the index to this long series on Astrology Just For Writers.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

Here is the specific blog entry I did in 2009 about how a writer can study an audience, choose an audience, and target that audience by depicting the Characters in a "realistic" way.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

When you use Astrology to build a Character, people understand that Character and their "life" and motives non-verbally.  You don't have to "believe" astrology (I recommend that you don't), but you can use it in a way nobody would notice, to achieve powerful results.

Here is an item that turned up in March, 2016, pinpointing the millenial generation as narcisistic.

http://www.spring.org.uk/2016/03/most-narcissistic-generation-ever-how-millenials-respond.php

This is the beginning of asking the right questions of people, but asking for subjective evaluations is a bare beginning.  Objective measurements must follow.  It will be fascinating.

Note, in Astrology Just For Writers Part 6, the list of where Pluto (in Scorpio) and Neptune (in Sagittarius) were in 1985 which is way down inside my post.  Pluto and Neptune (along with Uranus and Saturn) frame the life experiences impacting character development.

What you seem to be on the outside is not what you actually are on the inside.  You see and evaluate others through the filter of what you are inside (Sun, Moon), and what you seem to be on the outside (Ascendant).

Read this blog series  on Astrology Just For Writers to see what you can learn about your current target audience, and about how to depict a Character born in those years.


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Astrology Just For Writers - Part 13 - The Artist's Dilemma by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Astrology Just For Writers
Part 13
The Artist's Dilemma
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous posts on Astrology Just For Writers are indexed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

The two panels of this graphic are neatly displayed as two sides of the dilemma not back to back, but at an ANGLE.

In Astrology these two statements represent two Houses (everyone has all 12 Houses, so it is there inside you somewhere).

The "Get A Real Job" attitude is more Capricorn or Natural 10th House -- the Cardinal Earth sign that is ruled by Saturn and tends toward the practical.

The "Without Passion" side has the lofty incoherence of Neptune, which as I've pointed out previously represents the mental condition that we describe in Romance as being "In Love."

The Artist is passionate.  The Lover is passionate.

Sex is the Creative act -- which other people do try to constrain (Saturn) and define (Saturn) and manage for you (Capricorn).

Two people in love inspire others in ways that prove, over and over again, that Love Conquers All.

And that does, indeed, "change the world."  Romance, mellowing into Love, settling into Happily Ever After, raising children who understand Love and spread it through the world, all that changes the world.

Capricorn/Saturn is famous for resisting change -- but also then insisting on change, sometimes massive, sometimes painful change, about every seven years.

Pisces is the Mutable Water sign -- and interestingly produces many Engineers, mechanical geniuses, as well as artists.

Pisces is opposite Virgo, the detail-oriented-sign.  Pisces blurs and blends details so they are not distinct.  

In other words, Pisces is bound to its opposite, Virgo, and is 60 degrees from Capricorn -- which visually seems to be about what that image corner shows, an oblique angle.  If it were a "right angle" we couldn't read both sides so easily.

So what's opposite Capricorn?  Cancer!  The sign of Home, the basis of Life, family, parents/children.  

So Capricorn, the "Get a real job" attitude is opposed by Home-Making (Cancer), and pulled off balance by creative imagination (Pisces).

Pisces is the Natural 12th House -- the summation of the meaning of your life.  

Noel Tyl says that the reigning Need of a Natal Chart is shown by the position of the Moon -- ruler of Cancer.  The ruler of the opposite House, Saturn organizes resources to fulfill that Need using the Ideals represented by Neptune.

Ideals are generally considered "impractical" -- and Saturn is the distilled definition of the Practical.  

Note how a story must have two Conflicts -- internal to the Characters and external to the Characters -- that are resolved at the end of the story.  

That oblique angle relationship between the practical Capricorn and the impractical Idealism of Pisces depicts the perfect conflict for a Romance.  You just have to find a resolution you can convince your readers to believe.  Neptune is all about belief.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Astrology Just For Writers, Part 12 - Virgo, 6th House and Soul Mates by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Astrology Just For Writers
Part 12
Virgo, 6th House and Soul Mates
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Often the best reason to go to a religious service is the jokes told by the Priest, Reverend or Rabbi.

These are usually very old jokes, and I do ever so much relish old jokes as plot-material for stories, just as cliche and misnomer supply reams of raw material for story tellers.  There's a reason old jokes survive generation to generation and get laughs from those who are too young to have heard them before -- and that reason is worth deep study if you plan a career in fiction writing.  It is most easily revealed by a study of Astrology -- not to "foretell" the future, but to understand Character Arc.  So this series of posts is Astrology Just For Writers.

The index to previous posts on Astrology is here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

The Alien Romance subject we need to look at here, and will later examine in the series of posts on, perhaps, Theme-Character Integration, is, "What exactly IS a human?"  Until we can answer that, we can't "create" the Alien who can fall in love with our Human Character.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html
What Is A Human Being? is a huge topic, much bigger than me, for sure.

But what brought it into focus for me is a joke, which is not surprising because the entire purpose of Comedy is to reveal that which is too big to see.  If you want to understand Comedy, study the Mary Tyler Moore show.
http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Tyler-Moore-Show-Complete/dp/B00005JLIC

The particular joke that caught my attention, that I just can't get out of my head, was told by a Rabbi at Yom Kippur Services -- how incongruous!  But it worked to open an entire issue Romance Writers must pay attention to, especially when trying to depict an Alien-Human Soul-Mate pair, a very complex Relationship.  If it is a Romance, the Relationship must drive the Plot, and that means the writer must know much more about the structure of Human Nature than the reader is likely to know, as well as how and why Characters "arc" -- and how to depict a Character Arc.  The core of Depicting (show don't tell) is Theme.

Here is a post laying out the basics of Theme and story structure:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-theme-in-writing-romance.html

Here is my earliest post on Soul Mates.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/03/soul-mate-characters-heroic-villainous.html

We've been discussing Soul and Soul-Mate in the context of Romance Craft and how the Romance genre is a natural fit into the Science Fiction Genre for a long time.  We've even touched on Comedy, but not on how to use it to reveal an esoteric thematic point in show-don't-tell.  That's what this joke does -- expresses a huge abstract notion of the nature of humanity in show-don't-tell.

Here's the essence of the joke, which I can't repeat exactly because I'm not good at comedy:

God was challenged by a Mortal who didn't believe in Him.  The Mortal says he can make humans, too, just as God does.

So God accepts the challenge and they repair to an open field to compete.  God reaches down and picks up a handful of dirt, and Creates it into a Human.  The Mortal then reaches down and picks up a handful of dirt and begins to create a human, but God says, "Wait!  You can't use THAT dirt -- I Created that dirt."

If the Mortal uses material that God created, then the Mortal isn't Creating a Human "just as God does."  He's using the material God Created.  His work is derivative, not original, therefore the entity he creates isn't "Human" in the sense that the Humans God Creates are Human.

This joke begs the question, "What is a human being?"

To define "Human" we generally reference Genesis, where God Creates Adam -- or more precisely Adam Kadmon (the first Man).

Adam Kadmon is not a "man" at all, but a genderless, or composit, template with both male and female nascent within.

Then God separates the female, leaving a "man" who is no longer the First Human.

The premise of my Sime~Gen Series is that the Sime~Gen Mutation is of the same order of basic Creation as that separation into male and female, so you have male and female Simes and male and female Gens -- whereupon family relationships become extremely complex, and Romance takes on a whole new meaning.  Playing with Worldbuilding at that original level of Creation makes a writer research and ponder the very essential nature of humanity, so I've spent decades burrowing into Tarot and Astrology, as well as Kabbalah, and every other religion.

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This post on the Astrology of the 6th House is to mull over an observation about the meaning of the 6th House as it pertains to the phenomenon of Soul Mate.  The plot-driver of the Sime~Gen Series is all about Karma and Soul Mates.

By the time you read this, the audible.com audiobook edition of the Sime~Gen novel, Mahogany Trinrose, one of the more esoteric-based novels revealing a lot of the hidden ESP functions pivotal to the series, on amazon.

Mahogany Trinrose Kindle and Trade Paperback

http://www.amazon.com/Mahogany-Trinrose-Sime~Gen-Book-Four/dp/1434412083

As always when studying the "Houses" of Astrology, focus on the "Natural" Houses -- with Aries as the 1st House and Pisces as the 12th.

In this case we are studying the Soul Mate properties of the 6th House.

Because the Astrological zodiac is depicted as circular, divided into 12 "Houses" -- and 12 "Signs" -- which exactly coincide in the Natural position (with 0 degress Aries Rising -- or "on the Eastern Horizon" --) therefore the 6th House is opposite the 12th.

This is an obvious fact, one that is just so blatantly "in your face" that you don't see it.

But the astrological wheel graphically represents something that is equally obvious in the most ordinary glyph used to represent the Kabbalistic Tree Of Life.

 

That "something" is "opposites."  The very nature of opposites, the fundamental concept of "opposition" is so pervasive in our lives that we don't notice it even when we're talking about it.

Both the astrological chart and the Tree of Life smack us between the eyes so hard with this obvious fact that we just don't notice it.  It's too big.  The fact is too stunning to comprehend.

That fact is: opposites exist.

Matter exists.  So does "anti-matter."  The entire universe is constructed symmetrically -- so why wouldn't you think a Human  Being is not symmetric?  We are symmetric on the outside, sort of -- most people a just a bit asymmetric, which lends them "character."  If we are symmetric on the outside, why wouldn't we be symmetric on the inside, composed of Opposites?

It is so simple, so obvious, we just don't incorporate it into our thinking when we plot a Romance Novel.  We think male-female, and that's the only pair of opposites.  But look at the astrological chart, and look at the Tree of Life -- more than one pair of opposites make up the total pattern.

"Opposites Attract" -- yeah, we all know that and use it when creating a "pair" who will fall madly in love at first sight.

What is it about opposites -- and what has that to do with human nature as depicted in the Rabbi's joke?

The punch-line of that joke, which I can't replicate, is where God says "You can't use my dirt and say you are Creating as I Create."  You have to Create your own dirt, then make a Human.  Maybe you can Create humans -- but can you Create dirt?  Clay?  A specific type of dirt that can be molded into a human?

We, (most Human cultures) assume that the Spiritual is OPPOSITE the Material.

We assume Soul is different from, perhaps incompatible with, Body.

We assume Soul and Body are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.

We assume that Soul-Mate and Lust-for-Monkey-Sex are two different things.

We assume that one or the other must DOMINATE.

The proposition to mull over, in order to understand what the 6th House, Virgo, (the accountant, Ruled by Mercury) is that the target state is BALANCE.

Here is a thumbnail sketch of the "meaning" of the Houses given to beginners in Astrology -- misleading in many ways, but a starting point.  It "depicts" the Relationship of Opposites.

Ponder the concept of a dynamic equilibrium, a balance of balances where everything swings, and moves, dances, but stays in a dynamic tension with Pure Energy (what I've termed in previous posts here as Godshine) flowing from one state to the other and back again.  A circuit in perfect BALANCE.

All the assumptions about dividing the world into two-things and then fighting until one or the other dominates, are rooted in our modern culture's origin in the Hellenistic, or Ancient Greek culture that produced Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, et. al.

Fighting to Dominate is what the entire pantheon of Greek gods did, and the impetus to fight and to bully Humans, to rape Humans to create Heroes, came from the explicitly described dysfunctional (insane) family relationships among the gods.  It's all there in the mythology.

As a result of what we've inherited from the Helenistic Cultures, we live in a zero-sum-game culture, modeled and transmitted by Football, and other sports where you keep score to determine a winner, convincing all children that this is Reality.

This non-verbal absorption of a conviction makes any other concept of Reality "unthinkable" -- just literally unthinkable.  Our language contains no words for what the horoscope wheel and the Tree of Life depict, so we can't think these thoughts.

The science fiction romance writer must think such thoughts -- then find words to convey the illusion of understanding the alien.

So let's look deeper into the unthinkable alien.

To determine a winner, there must be a loser.

Winner and Loser are considered "opposites."  But are they?

Winner and Loser come in PAIRS - pairs of opposites - incompatible opposites where one must dominate the other. If one wins the trophy, the other can't have that trophy -- the trophy doesn't suddenly become two-trophies.  What kind of a "marriage" is that?  Where's the Romance in "I get and you don't."  Is winner/loser the correct paradigm to describe the reality of Romance?

Is the immersion of our culture in "Sports" the reason many readers won't touch Romance because the underlying concept of the Happily Ever After ending seems "unrealistic?"

In a true Happily Ever After ending, you can not have one of the couple dominating the other -- because the misery of the one dominated will eventually lead to rebellion.  The Sport paradigm disallows any kind of resolution where one does not dominate the other.

Is Reality Created in incompatible pairs of opposites?  Or is there another Relationship that explains how Reality really works?  This is the subject of The Not So Minor Arcana.  Here we're looking at that subject via Astrology.

Giving every kid a 'certificate' for showing up is not the same as preventing them from internalizing the dominance-based model of the universe, as it differs from the balance-based model of the universe depicted in the Zodiac and the Tree of Life.

The Zodiac was familiar to the Helenistic culture, but the Tree of Life was not common to Aristotelian thinking.

We artificially divide humans into Soul and Body to force the concept "Human" into that Aristotelian either/or model of reality.

The misconception is that Reality is "either/or" based (all computers today are either/or based).

The Bible, however, is entirely rooted in a totally different (opposite, and not incompatible) model of reality.

The Bible starts with that Creation story which culminates in the Creation of Male and Female -- in the Divine image.

Perhaps the concept "Human" as depicted in the Bible actually explains to us what we will encounter when we get out into Space and find Intelligent Life on other planets -- or perhaps we may find already space-faring civilizations.

So lets think about the concept Human in terms of the 6th House.

The salient clue is that the 6th House is the opposite of the 12th House.

6th House is labeled, in this diagram, Service and Health -- but it represents your job, what you do to make money, and the manner in which you do it.  6th House is Virgo ruled by Mercury.

The 12th House is commonly labeled "self-undoing" -- the syndrome where you are your own worst enemy, hoist on your own petard, "busted."  But that's only one possible manifestation.  The 12th House is Pisces, ruled by Neptune.

Neptune ordinarily manifests as "dissolution" or "confusion" -- but one common manifestation is Romance.  12th House, Pisces, Neptune, all together define Romance, and the Soul Mate experience.
The 12th House represents the summation of Life, the synthesis of all the other variables in the Natal Chart, everything so deeply merged and mingled that Neptune has the reputation of being 'confusing' or 'dissolving reality' -- Neptune transits are called 'disorienting.'

Pisces/Neptune/12th House synthesizes everything into one thing, dissolving the borders between different things, for example Husband and Wife becoming One.  Marriage is the perfect symbol of 12th House.  Truly, to be "married" means you must "undo" yourself to incorporate the Other within your notion of Self.

Why is Neptune 'disorienting?'

Because, given our Hellenistic heritage, we 'orient' ourselves in Material Reality by separating off the Spiritual and isolating it as if it were something "other" than Material.

The joke the Rabbi told SHOWS without TELLING that Spiritual and Material are not, in fact, two DIFFERENT things.

Spiritual and Material appear to be incompatible opposites -- just like the nitty-gritty, separate detail orientation of Virgo/Mercury is conceptualized in our culture as "opposite" Pisces/Neptune and its Inclusive Big Picture, everything smearing into one idealistic cloud, portrait of Reality.  Neptune obscures details while Mercury separates them and gives them sparkling-hard-edges.

As you read on here below, always keep in mind that Neptune, the Ruler of the 12th House, is the single most definitive significator of Romance in general, and the Soul Mate (and Happily Ever After ending) in particular.  NEPTUNE is the ruling planet of this blog.  It's all about Romance stories.

Astrologically, Virgo, ruled by Mercury, is the 6th House which represents both what you do to earn a living (your job as distinct from your Career) and your Health.

The connection between satisfaction and success at 'Work' (your job, what you get paid money for) and your Physical Body Health is famous in Astrological interpretations of the 6th House.

Beginners in Astrology puzzle and anguish over finding an interpretation for a 6th House transit.

Seasoned professional astrologers will nail one or the other manifestion, in body or health, with fair accuracy, mostly by ignoring the problem of what the connection is between Bodily Health and Job Performance.  Modern science has pretty much "explained" that to the satisfaction of most people.

This Rabbi's joke tells us explicitly that this designation of 6th House as "Body Health" OR "Job Issues" is nonsense.

This Rabbi's joke tells us exactly how these two apparently unconnected things -- Body and Job -- are actually the self-same-identical thing.

But that connection is apparent only through the Tree of Life view of Reality -- the Biblical Description of the nature of reality as a balance, or dynamic equilibrium.

How the Tree of Life view, the graphic representation of the Biblical view of Creation, tells us the relationship between Body and Job becomes apparent only if you understand that the 12th House (Romance) is the connection between Body and Job.

Get that connection into your head, and your Romance plots will never get stale or repetitive, or derivative.

The connection between Romance, Body and Job is the answer to the question, "What is a Human Being?"  

The assumption you make about the Nature of the Human Being generates all the Themes you use in worldbuilding.

Here is the index to the advanced craft posts on integration of theme, plot, character and worldbuilding.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html
You can use the Helenistic definition of Human, the Roman Definition, or the Japanese, Chinese, Hindu, Native American, or many other definitions to generate dynamite Romance plots.  You can adapt any of them to produce a Happily Ever After scenario if you study and internalize the mythologies of these civilizations.  But there will always be readers who just won't accept that the HEA is possible in real life.

If you do study all these civilizations, and then study the Biblical view of the universe, you will find bits and pieces, a fragment here a shard over there -- traces of the Biblical view in each of these civilizations' mythologies.

The Talmud has it that God offered the Torah to all of the Nations of Earth before he got to Abraham. Each of the Nations asked some questions (typical of their cultures) before answering whether they would accept the Torah, so God just kept on searching.  When he offered the deal to Abraham (then Abram), he just accepted the deal without question, packed up and went to follow God's ways, and then asked what those ways were.

This story explains why you find bits and pieces of Torah everywhere -- everyone got something for considering the offer.  It also illustrates the difference between the culture that accepted Torah, the Biblical View of Reality, and those that regarded that view with suspicion.  The descendants of Abraham are an oddity among humans.

But the Torah also states, boldly and loudly, that eventually all the Nations will "bow down" to God, understand that Biblical View of Reality and rejoice in that understanding.  Nobody loses.  Everybody wins.  Reality is not structured as "either/or" or "I win means you lose."  In the Biblical view of reality, "I win means everyone wins."

That is what is so odd, yet not incompatible, between the general culture's view of reality and the Biblical view of Reality.  When you get a more global grasp of the Biblical View from the perspective of Torah, Tanach, Talmud, Mishnah and Gemmara, you will find that it differs markedly, stubbornly, and emphatically from all the other mythologies.  It is "alien" to every other culture on this Earth, yet is reflected in those cultures, and even the basis of those cultures.

One core issue that distinguishes the Biblical View, yet appears in so many other cultures, is the matter of Body and Soul.

Some cultures say the Body must dominate: "If it feels good, it is good."

Some cultures say the Soul must dominate: "Pleasure is Evil."

Our culture currently is resoundingly rejecting Pleasure Is Evil as a theme -- and going with Pleasure Is The Ultimate Good.  In Romance novels, the first order of business is monkey-sex, then comes Relationship.  Sexual attraction (Body) is considered "irresistible."  Body needs, physical desire, must always dominate any value the Mind (Soul) holds dear.  There's no point resisting the Body because it Dominates the Soul.  That's a thematic premise pervading the Romance field today.

That is, Pleasure (especially sexual pleasure) is the prime indicator by which we distinguish a Soul Mate from the background population.  You have to try out a guy in bed before you marry him, or you'll make a big mistake.  And the guy must be "handsome" -- or the gal "beautiful."  The Body counts more than the Soul.

In other words, the modern USA  culture is working this problem of "What is a human being?" by using the assumption that EITHER the Body OR the Soul must dominate.

Dominance is the only possible way to resolve a conflict, and opposites are always in conflict.  That is a Theme.  You see it working out in International Affairs -- as well as the current Presidential Election cycle.

In other words, in our modern cultural assumptions, Balance is not an Option, unless it is a static balance and tilted to one side or the other.

There is no way to synthesize opposites into a unified whole.

Why do Romance writers and especially science fiction romance writers who deal in the Paranormal (Neptune rules the Paranormal) Romance field need a model of "Human" at all?  Why not just go with your readership's prevailing idea of what a Human is?

Well, if you just accept the prevailing assumption about the nature of Humanity, you will create a lot of read-and-toss, Airplane Read, Beach Read novels, all identical.

What distinguishes one novel from another is theme, and what distinguishes one theme from another is the distinctiveness of that theme.

In Alien Romance, if your Alien character is Human-with-pasted-on-quirks, you won't create a book or series that will be remembered and passed on to children and grandchildren as a "must-read."

The must-read classics are all novels with themes that challenge the unconscious assumptions about Reality, on such a deep subconscious level that the reader is not aware of having their notions challenged.

It's what screenwriting books like SAVE THE CAT! call "off the nose" writing.  You don't call a spade, a spade.  You don't name it on the nose.  You don't hit the nail on the head.  You come at the assumption at an oblique angle and strike a spark that lights tinder in the Soul of the reader.

To do that, you as a writer, need a number of significantly different notions of "what" a human being is.

Your human protagonist has to be able to recognize something "human" in your alien protagonist (preferably that no other human is seeing).

Your alien protagonist has to be able to see something alien in your human protagonist (preferably that no other alien is seeing.)

To pull that off, you have to understand how your target reader understands what a human being is, and you have to have a complete grasp of what other views of humanity can be understood by your reader if you can show them without telling.

As noted above, all cultures have some bit or piece of the Kabbalistic view of the human being. Astrology spans all cultural barriers and depicts mathematically and graphically what we all sense about ourselves, and how we "read" others.

Any reader looking for a Soul Mate novel with an HEA ending will be able to stipulate the existence of the Soul.

Most, however, will not be consciously aware that the resolution of the Body/Soul conflict in our culture is depicted as show-don't-tell in the work/health connection, the 6th House.

I'll give you one example of how this theory can explain the work/health connection, and from that you should be able to create new variations that could form a template for a comprehensible yet alien Alien protagonis.

Here is one way to understand the 6th House, Body/Work connection.

Here are two previous posts discussing the Soul-Time Hypothesis relevant to this quesiton about the meaning of the 6th House.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/cycles-and-seasons-margaret-carter.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/01/theme-symbolism-integration-part-4-how.html

Here's the theory of what a human is that can generate infinite numbers of sexy alien protagonists.

Think back to that joke at the top of this post.

The nature of anything lies in its initial moments.  That's why Astrological Natal Charts of both human births and the "birth" of an Event -- the moment something happens -- hold usable meaning.

The starting point of a novel determines it's ending point, just as the start determines its middle.  Get those 3 points wrong, and the novel not only won't sell to a big publishing house, but it will be panned by comments on Amazon if you self-publish it.

The starting point determines the middle and end.

Or the middle determines the start and end.

Or the end determines the start and middle.

Unlike Euclidean (another Helenistic Greek) Geometry where it takes 3 points to determine a line, or a triangle, "life" only needs one point.

Or at least, that's the Kabbalistic (Tarot) theory.

In other words, in the Biblical View Of The Universe, there is no such thing as "random" -- but it's not "deterministic" either.  Determinism is one of the precepts of all the Ancient Greek plays that were updated by the Romans and copied by Shakespeare.

We live inside a pattern, but we have Free Will.

So any given starting point for a Life contains the potential for all sorts of middle and end points.

Free Will choice determines which of all the possible middle and end points will gain potential energy.  Which of those high-potential-energy points will be actualized is negotiated with God (who is not a Bully like the Greek gods; he doesn't dictate, He negotiates personally, individually.)

That's where the immense variety of human endeavor comes from.  We all contain Infinity because we were Created by the Infinite -- we are (like the Tardis) bigger inside than outside.

Here is a theory of what a child is that can be crafted into a Theme.

A child is born with specifically delineated Potential.  The child has a Soul from conception, but that Soul is enormously complex and thus doesn't all "fit" inside the baby.  The Soul has to "descend" as it prompts the baby's growth.

We say (also a thematic point) that when the Soul leaves the Body, the human dies.

But that idea is based on the either/or structure of reality.  Perhaps the Soul isn't either-present-or-absent.  Perhaps it is a gradual, step-wise, ever increasing habitation of the Body?

Kabbalah delineates Levels to the Soul - just like Atoms were first thought (by the Helenistic Greeks) to be the smallest indivisible particle of matter, but later were discovered to be composed of electrons and a nucleus, and all of those particles are composed of other sub-atomic particles, each with its own Character.

Likewise, the Biblical View of the Universe, gives us a vision of the human Soul as being composed of Levels, all very intricate and complex.

A baby has a Soul connected, but not fully descended.  At various ages, on the birthday (by the Hebrew calendar) the Soul descends a little more.

This explains how and why children at different ages have increasing capacity for self-control, self-discipline, comprehension of the abstract, etc.  The stages of human development show us what to teach at different ages.

Children learn by doing.  Thus, at each age, additional activities are added to the daily regimen, and additional responsibilities are added until at age 12 or 13 the child is fully responsible for the consequences of her/his actions.

Real learning is always non-verbal.  The deeds carve and shape our view of the universe.

With deeds, we learn the words that correspond to those deeds. Charity.  Justice.  Compassion.

None of those words means anything without the previous practice of the deed: "Don't hit your little sister!"  "Johnny, you must share that toy even though it is yours."

So as a child becomes an Adult (sexual maturity is a big part of that), the Soul descends and gains a firmer grip on the Body.

Throughout the rest of the life, there are milestone birthdays (70 and 80, 90 and 100, being major significators) that delineate a firmer and then weakening grip of the Soul on the Body.

For most of the productive (working at a 6th House job) life, the Soul fits into the Body like a hand fits into a glove.

The Soul wears the Body, and like the hand wearing a glove, stretches and shapes the Body into a replica (an opposite, like a plaster cast you pour molten metal into to make a 3-D object) of the Soul.

We now know that you can have many genes that are not "turned on" or "expressed" -- and that the experiences of Life can switch genes on or off.  You are not your genes.  You are not pre-destined (a Helenistic concept incompatible with the Biblical View of the Universe) by your genes.

You are what your Soul can make of you.  That can be infinite possibilities in infinite combinations.

Or maybe you are what "you" make of your Soul.

In the Helenistic view of the universe, the question would be, "Well, WHICH is it -- the Soul that makes the Body or the Body that makes the Soul?"

In the Biblical view of the universe, that question is utter nonsense.

See how you can use various views of the universe in various human cultures to depict truly Alien aliens who can be Soul Mates to a human?

An Alien who has never heard of the either/or zero-sum-game view of the universe would be sorely puzzled by the very question "which is it?"  The question itself is nonsense.

In the Biblical view of the universe, Body and Soul are really the same thing (Neptune synthesizes).

Remember the Rabbi-joke?  "You can't use that dirt.  You have to Create your human from scratch as I did."

That's MY dirt.  I created that dirt.

What dirt is that?  It's the "dirt" or "clay" from which our bodies are "molded."

Just as that clay was Created specifically to be the body of a particular individual human, so too was the Soul that will wear that Body Created.  They are a pair, synthesized, made one, Neptune style.

We know, today, that our Body is a few pounds of carbon, minerals, etc. (dirt) and a whole lot of Water.

We don't know yet what our Soul is, or is made of, other than it is the breath God blew into Adam's nostrils.

In a previous post, I pointed out the Soul-Time-Hypothesis that I think explains a lot about why "science" can't peg the Soul and prove it exists.

Theory: the Soul enters manifestation through the dimension of Time.

The Soul has no material dimensions -- no height, width, breadth, mass, weight, not even "energy" as in electrons or magnetic fields.  That's why modern science can't even find it, nevermind measure it -- all our instruments are made of matter.

The Soul doesn't inhabit the Body or Possess the Body.

The Soul is not the Body, but it is not an "either/or" relationship.

The Body and the Soul are both created by God, designed for each other, just like in the joke.  "That's My dirt!  Make your own."

Now, back to the 6th House.

Theory: suppose the Soul is given a free will choice before conception.

Astrology assigns the meaning of the MC, the 10th House Cusp, to the Purpose of this Life.  Natural 10th House is Capricorn, the Manager, and is ruled by Saturn.  While that 10th House cusp can be in any sign, depending on where and when you are born (when your Life begins), it adds attributes of Capricorn and Saturn to your personal 10th House cusp.

Science shows how hormones trigger birth, and the trigger starts in the fetus.  The fetus's Nature determines the moment of birth.

So suppose the Soul chooses the Parents and the moment of Birth to make the "purpose" of this life.

The Soul takes on a Life to realize the potential encoded into the 10th House cusp.

That sign/ruler combination chosen by the Soul is inflected by Capricorn and Saturn (Management and Discipline).

Saturn is often regarded as "purpose" or "ambition."

You are born with an ambition to realize your potential for completing a certain job, a purpose in life, a career.  By Noel Tyl's theory, the Moon position by sign, ruler and House represents your driving need, and Saturn organizes the world around you to fulfill that need.

But to do that, you need to make money, have a job, 6th House.

Another interpretation of the Natural 6th House, Virgo, is "service."

Virgos make great secretaries, accountants, detail oriented people.  Unless they have a Big Picture attribute highlighted elsewhere in their Natal Chart, they tend toward project-oriented professions. They make great health-care professionals, treating each patient as a project.

But there's nothing shallow about Virgo.  They aren't subservient by nature.

The 6th House is put to the service of the 10th -- the ambition, the Purpose Of This Life is served by whatever you do for a living, as a job.  Your career is the purpose of your life, your job is a means to walk the paths of that career.

It is often said the key to real happiness (as in Happily Ever After) is to Serve.

THEORY:  If your 6th House (job) is serving the Purpose of Your Life, your Body (6th house) will be healthy.

In other words, your Soul took God's job-offer to be You and do Whatever Job He Had That Needed Doing.  As long as you are doing the job you were hired by God to do, you will be healthy enough to do it.

You might not be "healthy" by general human standards.  You might be what is termed crippled or disabled.  You might be melting down with autoimune disease.  You might be missing limbs. You might have impaired senses.  If you are doing the job you were hired to do, then you will be healthy enough to do it.

Sometimes the job is to  be sick, dependent, impaired.

Sometimes the job is to be hale, healthy, strong, and the person upon whom the lame and weak depend.  Sometimes the job is to support the weak.  Sometimes the job is to be weak so that the Strong can do their job.

It's all 6th House.  Service equals Health.

The 12th House, the opposite to the 6th, is about the transcendent Soul, the summation of the Life, what it all means.  Neptune is idealism, a transcendent vision through the Soul's eyes, not the eyes of the Body.

There are a lot of insights into the meaning of the 12th House, Pisces ruled by Neptune (which rules Romance, as I keep reminding you).

The 12th is "reflected" into the 6th House.

Here's a story that illustrates (show don't tell) how this 6/12 axis of the Natal Chart works.

We can regard God as the artist who is Creating one-of-a-kind original artwork, each one a human being (or maybe an Alien Soul Mate for a human being).

All of the crafts our artisans practice express a way that the Divine Creates us.

One of those crafts is the silversmith.

If you research on YouTube you might find a video showing how to smelt silver where the silversmith gives tells the student how to determine when all the dross, or impurities, have been burned out of the silver -- leaving only pure silver.  How do you know when to stop smelting?

The clue the silversmith looks for is the reflection of his/her own face in the melted puddle of silver.

When purified, silver becomes a mirror, reflecting the smith's visage back at him/her.

The metaphore for why God smelts us in the fires of Life, gives us all this hardship, obstacles, difficulties, sorrows and grief, is that he's purifying us as silver is purified.  And he'll know we're finished, we're pure, when he sees Himself in us.

The Biblical description of God has long lists of attributes shown to us over the ages - for example, there are 13 Attributes of Mercy (and that's just one thing, Mercy).  Other Attributes likewise have parts.

When you reflect those attributes, He'll stop heating you in His fire.

Any Romance writer trying to create an Alien Love Interest, a non-human Soul Mate for a human, can use one or a few of these attributes to establish the essential humanity of the non-human regardless of the non-human's biology, form or figure.

Here are the 13 Attributes according to My Jewish Learning.
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-13-attributes-of-mercy/2/

---------quote-------
– The Lord! (Adonai)–God is merciful before a person sins! Even though aware that future evil lies dormant within him.

– The Lord! (Adonai)–God is merciful after the sinner has gone astray.

– God (El)–a name that denotes power as ruler over nature and humankind, indicating that God’s mercy sometimes surpasses even the degree indicated by this name.

– Compassionate (rahum)–God is filled with loving sympathy for human frailty does not put people into situations of extreme temptation, and eases the punishment of the guilty.

– Gracious (v’hanun)–God shows mercy even to those who do not deserve it consoling the afflicted and raising up the oppressed.

– Slow to anger (ereh apayim)–God gives the sinner ample time to reflect, improve, and repent.

– Abundant in Kindness (v’rav hesed)–God is kind toward those who lack personal merits, providing more gifts and blessings than they deserve; if one’s personal behavior is evenly balanced between virtue and sin, God tips the scales of justice toward the good.

– Truth (v’emet)–God never reneges on His word to reward those who serve Him.

– Preserver of kindness for thousands of generations (notzeir hesed la-alafim)–God remembers the deeds of the righteous for thebenefit of their less virtuous generations of offspring (thus we constantly invoke the merit of the Patriarchs).

– Forgiver of iniquity (nosei avon)–God forgives intentional sin resulting from an evil disposition, as long as the sinner repents.

– Forgiver of willful sin (pesha)–God allows even those who commit a sin with the malicious intent of rebelling against and angering Him the opportunity to repent.
---------------End Quote-----------

It doesn't matter what religion you espouse, or even if you're an Atheist or Agnostic, you recognize these behaviors as desireable and a signature of the Lovability of a person (human or not).  So most of your target audience will respond to a show-don't-tell illustration that your Alien character just naturally (without thought or consideration, without hesitation) exhibits one or another of these attributes.

And the reverse is true -- the Alien protagonist will recognize the Alien-Within your human protagonist when one or a combination of these traits comes to the fore in the plot.

Notice the phrase above: "as long as the sinner repents."

You may be surprised how fast the "repents" scene, the confession scene, the tell-the-truth scene, establishes rapport between the Character and your Target Reader, even if the Character is Alien.

The Target Reader is selected by what is repented, to whom, and why (maybe also when in the narrative arc confession and repentance take place).  Different readers will applaud a Character's choices of when to fess up to what, and why fessing up is necessary (or not necessary).

Think about the TV Series I Love Lucy -- every episode with a very funny confession scene.

The Values (2nd House) of your Confessing Character are shown-not-told by that choice of when and to what to confess.

In the 3rd book in the Romantic Times Award winning Dushau Trilogy, I hinted at an Alien's contemplation of condemnation by his father and grandfather when he finally would get home and confess.

His trepidation at confronting his family showed a similarity to human values -- even though he is so definitely not human that his wrong-doing does not seem wrong to a human.

http://www.amazon.com/Outreach-Dushau-Trilogy-Book-3-ebook/dp/B002S525DK

Those 13 Attributes of Mercy embody the essence of what it is to be Human, a  Soul wearing a Body that fits like a glove, a work-glove designed for a specific task which the Soul is dead-set on completing come Hell or High Water (10th House Purpose In Life) using that Body (6th House) to do the Job (6th House).

When fully integrated (purified) into that task, the Soul shines through the custom-Created Body and attracts the Soul Mate.  It is the Soul that is "mated" -- not the Body.  So you can easily depict a Human/Alien Romance.

Romance (Neptune/ 12th House) blossoms, Love At First Sight happens, and Health-Job-Service and everything Virgo manifests as the Virtue of Virgo rather than the Vice.

Every astrological sign can manifest as its best virtue or its worst vice, and it could be that whether virtue or vice is apparent depends on how much of the Soul has infused the Body.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com