Unknown Armies

Dukes

The Unknown Soldier

An archetype shrouded in obscurity, but the truth is much stranger.

The Archetype

The avatar underground talks. People who are curious about the Invisible Clergy connect. They're curious about the Statosphere. Some of them collect the names of as many archetypes as they can; the really exhaustive lists include a lot of speculation and theory.

It's generally accepted that War is a concept large enough to encompass many Archetypes. The most famous is the Warrior, but there's others: the Hunter, the Martyr, the Masterless Man, the Bloodless General, and, it's often mentioned, the Unknown Soldier.

Naturally, the Unknown Soldier is hard to describe. He represents those who die who never make it as heroes. The faceless loss of war. The statistic in the newspaper. The little hero, just as brave and noble as the grand one. The Unknown Soldier served loyally, died anonymously, and it is to him that we owe our life.

As an Archetype, the Unknown Soldier rose to prominence in the 20th century. The trench battles of World War I led to the idea of tragic, anonymous death. The rise of mass media introduced the idea of the orphans of mass media: the ignored masses, the stories that don't make the papers. The growth of public records introduced the idea of someone who was outside that system.

An Unknown Soldier is brave, and deeply human, but has somehow fallen through the cracks. He died in war but his body wasn't identified. He saved your life, but you never saw him or caught his name. He is great and humble at once - a heroic commoner, and legendary in his anonymity.

You'll never meet an Avatar of the Unknown Soldier. Contrary to prevailing opinion, this isn't because it's in the nature of the Unknown Soldier to be anonymous. It's because there's no Unknown Soldier in the Statosphere.

The Truth

Amos Weschurch was an Avatar of the Trickster, a hoax-runner in the Victorian spiritualist scene. He bilked the superstitious, proclaimed meaningless deep statements, and awed people with an enlightenment he didn't actually possess. He was also quite active in the London Occult Underground on the 1880s. He rode the coat-tails of Dipsomancers and Entropomancers, learning the secrets of the dead. Unlike the adepts, he recognized demons for what they truly were: fellow con-artists, liars by trade.

The greatest trick Amos played in the 19th century was to fool the Devil. He isn't sure exactly what he did - he played it by ear, working through adepts who held power over demons. He thinks that he managed to convince the true Cruel Ones that if he ever died, the nature of death would become scrambled and demons would. Or maybe it wasn't the Devil or the Cruel Ones. Maybe it was a powerful Avatar of the Merchant. Or, perhaps he tricked a boozehound into wasting a major charge on him. Amos was playing a complicated confidence game among the living and dead of the morbid spiritualist scene, and his schemes were large enough that he got lost in them. When he left it all behind, though, he was pretty sure he'd done well - he was pretty sure he couldn't die. His suspicions were confirmed when a boozehound put three bullets in his chest after realizing his doublecross. Amos lived, but decided to move away quickly and let the London scene think he was gone.

A few ageless decades later, he became a pilot in the military, looking for a way to get around the world easily. He served nobly in the Great War; he was not the most decorated pilot, but he served adequately. After his plane was shot down, he didn't try to come back and explain how he'd survived. Instead, Lt. Amos Weschurch snuck into a German base and stole another biplane. He became a smuggler, shipping illegal goods in his plane, hanging around airports, always with an extra scheme or two.

He got to know many famous aviators, including Amelia Earheart. When she disappeared, Amos knew why: she'd Ascended as the Flying Woman. He made his plans for his greatest trick for the 20th century: to Ascend to the Invisible Clergy himself. Because the Trickster is forbidden from taking a direct and honest path, Amos had to figure out a game for it, so he concocted a stranger scheme: He made up an Archetype, the Unknown Soldier, and is convincing the world it's real. While he Ascends as the Unknown Soldier, Amos plans to switch midstream and replace the Trickster.

The Plan

Amos is still out there, going by a new name in every town. He's learned to see auras, and works his way into the avatar underground. He mentions the Unknown Soldier as an example that everyone knows about, to build the reputation of the Archetype. Amos also enlists for wars when he gets the chance, to strengthen his connection to his false Archetype. The things he does in those wars often work themselves into his stories of examples of Unknown Soldiers in history.

His vision for Ascension is to become the Trickster Who Fools Reality Itself. He wants to fool the Invisible Clergy into letting him rise as the Unknown Soldier, when all along there's no such thing.

Will his plan work? Probably not. The Trickster in the Invisible Clergy is unlikely to fall for such a scheme, and the Invisible Clergy can tell what he's doing. Furthermore, Amos isn't even the Godwalker of the Trickster, though he's probably in the top ten. It's a hairbrained scheme that just won't work, based on pretzel logic that only makes sense to someone who already understands the Invisible Clergy. The mass consciousness wouldn't even understand the Trick. Of course, Amos sees that as part of the plan. The Unknown Soldier is Amos Weschurch's stab at heaven, and he justifies it sometimes by explaining that it ties into the secrets of subatomic physics, in which unknown things can break the rules of reality.

There's enough real Tricksters out there that the Archetype is strong; Amos is unlikely to unseat such a modern and wily Archetype. If he pushed the matter too far, he'd probably just end up losing the immortality he worked so hard to steal.

But, in the meanwhile, the Unknown Soldier appears toward the bottom of many lists of Archetypes, and Amos Weschurch is out there, mentioning stories he's heard, dropping hints, and generally contributing to the spread of disinformation in the world's already-muddy vision of the Statosphere.

TedPro | profile | Apr 14, 05 | 5:10 pm

Visitor Comments

I wonder if someone other than Amos will ascend to an archetype this fool is trying to fake? It might be hard since the identity of the archetype is bound up in anonymity, but I can see a situation or two in which it's possible.

An excellent descrpition of our fallen comerades, and a truly despicable villain trying to capitalize on the final sacrifice of so many who were known only to their close friends and family. Provacative stuff. Well done.

--The Detective--

Detective | profile | Apr 14, 05 | 9:09 pm

Thanks to DNA technology, America doesn't have Unknown Soldiers anymore... but our enemies do. In fact, much of our military might depends on the transformation of our targets into avatars of the Faceless Enemy.

Menzoa | profile | Apr 14, 05 | 11:00 pm

Depends on your idea of the concept of 'soldier'. Just as a Merchant could as easily be a car salesman or a crack dealer, could an Unknown Soldier also be as likely to appear as a lifelong gang member, faceless Mob thug or permanently low-ranking enforcer?

Uniforms, ideologies and flags change, but the basics work out to be fairly universal.

Mr Unlucky | profile | Apr 15, 05 | 3:14 am

i believe that everything you say about the unknown soldier in the first world war also applies to the civil war. maybe even more so, since records were kept somewhat poorly. vast graveyards full of blank white crosses is a well know image of the civil war. also the part about mass media. there was quite a lot of newspaper coverage during the civil war, especially with the advent of photography. also, i could be mistaken but i thought that the grave of the unknown soldier started with the civil war.

deathmonkey | profile | Apr 15, 05 | 9:00 am

Honestly, I'd consider the Unknown Soldier to be a mask of the Martyr. The theme, channels and abilities of the Martyr ("brave, selfless sacrifice, without expectation of reward") match the concept of the Unknown Soldier perfectly.

This isn't about the Archetype of the Unknown Soldier, really. It's an idea for a Duke - a Trickster who's deliberately jerking around the Avatar Underground to forward his unusual stab at Ascension. The question of a real Unknown Soldier is a tangential note, and a potential pitfall in his plans.

I'd love to see someone put up an idea for the Unknown Soldier archetype, but I suspect it would end up way too close to the Martyr.

Mr. Lucky, you're right, of course - the Unknown Soldier could be a loyal gang member just as easily as a fallen war hero.

Menzoa, that's a really cool concept - deliberately forcing undesirable Avatarhood on someone else. I suspect that merits a lot of expansion.

TedPro | profile | Apr 15, 05 | 2:52 pm

DNA testing would have negligible impact on something like the Unknown soldier. A few people will always know you were lost- your family, friends, those closest to your death. But just because you see someone's face on the news and hear about how they gave their life for you and your country does not mean you know who they are. For example, I personally know the family of a young man who died in combat. I saw his body lying in state, I met people who had tried to save his life, and I know how he died and why. But I do not know who he was.

The conept of complete lack of knowledge about a man who may be an Unknown soldier is silly- someone always knows who you are. That might be why there isn't one, or if there are, they are hiding it very well.

I think if you took the martyr and tweaked it a bit, maybe giving him powers that allow him access because of annonymity ("Do you belong here, soldier? Well, I guess it doesn't matter, we need you anyway.") it would make something separate enough.

--The Detective--

Detective | profile | Apr 17, 05 | 8:24 pm

Actually, America's DNA identification goes beyond someone knowing who you are. There can never even be unidentifiable remains. All soldiers provide DNA samples which are kept on record (not sure if they are sequenced, which seems expensive, or if they merely sequence the missing ones to compare against the remains).

As a symbolic measure, it goes far beyond even dog tags, which can be lost or exchanged, etc. That's why we don't have them anymore. They've stopped adding them to the tomb, which is symbolic in itself. (Actually, I believe there was an addition from either the first Iraq War or Bosnia, but they more or less knew exactly who he was and had to get the permission of the family to forego DNA testing in order to retain the pretense of being "Unknown.")

Menzoa | profile | Apr 17, 05 | 11:06 pm

While this is an important advance in the US military, I don't see how any of it is material to the case of an archetype. I'm not talking about the simple "who you are," I am speaking about the big "who you are" question. The science and process that goes into keeping track of our soldiers is a matter of government records and being able to notify those close to someone who died and as I said, everyone is close to someone.

Whether or not the US still puts people in that tomb, there are still unknown heros doing their utmost every day. The science of DNA testing has done a lot for a fallen soldier's immediate family. Unfortunately, they are still just names and faces to a general public that really doesn't spend the time to care- the men you never knew who died for you. DNA can identify remains, not impart true knowledge of a person. In the case of the many still fighting and kicking, they are the men and women you've never known who fight for you.

As I finish this, I realize that we may be talking about two separate things. I am talking about the possibility of Avatars of the Unknown Soldier in the US Armed Forces (if such an archetype even exists) and I'm trying to point out that DNA testing would do little to hinder that possibility. I think you are talking about simple the fact that the US military can positively ID all of its fallen, which I do not contest.

--The Detective--

Detective | profile | Apr 18, 05 | 2:45 am

Wow. TedPro writes about an immortal trickster trying to get an Occult Underround vibe going around a nonexcisting archetype and instantly he manages to create this same vibe. Skillful!

TedPro: this is good stuff, I like the character and will use the rumour in pretty much every campaign I run from now on (and the guy behind it in the third from now, my players will hate me:-)

Mattias | profile | Apr 18, 05 | 5:50 am

Detective, dressing up like someone and being mistaken for them has nothing to to with actually becoming them, but it's symbolic enough to help make someone a proxy. It doesn't matter that having DNA samples on file for identification doesn't actually make US soldiers any better known to the masses, it's a symbolic measure that does undercut the archytype.

The importance of USA in this is mainly based on its general over-significance to the statophere at large. If American Unknown Soldiers exist at all, it's confined to the Black Ops-type specialists, of whom no records are kept or made available. Perhaps that is the Black Ops "Pull" to the regular military's "Push" to shift the nature of the Archetype. The double-meaning of "unknown" in this context may be a powerful symbolic pivot.

-----------

Mattias, yes life imatating art... no doubt these back-and-forths could make a good sample of the conversations on the topic in the OU.

Menzoa | profile | Apr 19, 05 | 3:31 am

DNA testing might cut back on Unknown Soldiers in the regular (Non-SOF) US Military, there's no way that it would eliminate them completely. If you want symbolism, the fact is that a lot of soldiers/sailors/etc, policemen, and firemen (these last two a lot more since 2001) are still written about and thought of as "unknown" or anonymous in litterature regarding them, even in stuff written by other such servicemen.

The Special Operations angle is neat. CIA agents have blank dogtags, now, colored black, red, or blue according to rank, with internal computer chips that have their info. I've met a number of these specialists, military and otherwise ... if they play role-playing games, they'd think it was pretty cool.

I think I'm done here. TedPro said this wasn't about the Archetype, anyway, and if the Unknown Soldier (huh ... initials "U.S." ... wierd.) is really a mask of the Martyr (a likely possibility) then DNA testing wouldn't matter anyway.

--The Detective--

Detective | profile | Apr 19, 05 | 2:44 pm

Actually, I'd personally think of an Unknown Soldier Archetype to be more closely related to the faithful servant in someway, the person who is ignored and unnoticed but does all the really important work that no one thinks about, the dirty jobs that no one wants to think about too much, but find themselves lost if someone else doesn't do them.

And while doing the job that no one else wants to do so that no one else has to do them, is very martyry, there subservient position is also very important, an Unknown Soldier cannot be a big publicly recognised hero, unless lots of them do something heroic together (because then the hero-ness of the deed gets spread thinnly over the group, maintaining the inherent anonymity of any individual Soldier, for instance, the FDNY is heroic, the individual firemen were just doing their jobs)

At least that's how I'd view the archetype, sort of straddling both the faithful servant and martyr's metaphysical domain (which is why it probably best works as a non-existant archetype, Uknown Soldiers never actually being Unknown Soldiers, but something that could pass for one if you don't examine it too closely)

Miniature Wicker Zombu | profile | Apr 21, 05 | 7:38 am