Table of Contents
Introduction
I. Ancient Idiots
II. Fate’s Summons
III. Fate’s Modern Summons
IV. Scales Devour Patterns
V. Realization and Its Tragedy
VI. The Closing Lesson
Author BIOSPreface: Two Lenses on the Same Theme
These are twin essays, circling the same truth from different angles. Instruments of Fate speaks in the register of myth: the great powers of our age — capital, state, platform, algorithm, climate — are the modern gods, and men are their instruments. Monsters in the Service of the Gods answers in another key: satire and grotesque caricature, where presidents wear masks, rocket-CEOs sprout hollow eyes, and algorithms lumber as beasts.
One is reverent, the other irreverent. Together they show that whether we imagine them as instruments or as monsters, the powers still demand service — and humanity plays its part.
Introduction
The world has never lacked for noise. In every age, figures rise so large they seem to bend history to their will. They roar, they conquer, they consume, and for a time we mistake their power for freedom.
But the ancients knew better. They told of Titans who thought they could topple Olympus, of demons whose hunger devoured the world, of wolves and serpents bound to break the sky. Each monster believed itself sovereign. Each was only summoned.
The gallery is open again, and its statues no longer stay in stone. The same roles walk among us, dressed in headlines instead of myth. Their choices are real, but the stage was set long before they arrived. They act freely, yet never outside the pattern that requires them.
Why does it matter? Because when we mistake summons for sovereigns, we surrender our own smaller freedoms to their noise. Seeing the pattern strips them of their glamour. It reminds us that fate does not own every scale. The monsters are summoned — we are not.
This essay is a walk through that gallery: from ancient idiots to modern instruments, from mythic cycles to headlines. Its claim is simple. What looks like freedom is often the mask of fate.
I. Ancient Idiots
History remembers kings and prophets. Myth remembers the monsters that opposed them.
Every culture tells of forces that rise against order — colossal, ravenous, proud, or furious — certain of their own freedom, certain of their own victory. Yet every tale ends the same: their destruction is folded back into the cycle, serving the very order they tried to overthrow.
Every mythology has its monsters.
They destroy everything in their path without apparent discretion. They seem unstoppable. They believe the moment is theirs. But in myth, ruin is never theirs to own — it always serves someone else’s story.
The Titans rose against Zeus in the first great rebellion. With mountain-sized bodies and stones hurled like avalanches, they tried to topple Olympus. Yet every strike only fastened Zeus’s crown tighter, rebellion sealing the throne it meant to break.
The Fomorians came from the sea, demanding cattle, grain, and children as tribute. They drained Ireland until the land itself seemed cursed. Yet their terror only made the Tuatha Dé Danann shine brighter, chaos serving as scaffolding for legitimacy.
In the north, prophecy bound the monsters before they acted. Fenrir’s jaws were destined to devour gods, Jörmungandr’s venom to blacken the seas, Surtr’s flames to set the sky ablaze. Ragnarök was not an accident but a scheduled twilight, clearing the stage for renewal.
Even in Algonquian forests, the Wendigo haunted the starving. Skeletal, lips frozen to its teeth, it devoured prey and its own flesh. Families told the story in winter as warning: hunger without restraint was no rebellion but punishment, appetite turned into cosmic justice.
They thought themselves free. But myth gave them no sovereignty. Each was an instrument of fate — foil, catalyst, mask of a cycle larger than themselves. Monsters mistaking their hunger for freedom, their scale for power.
II. Fate’s Summons
Step into the gallery and the pattern is unmistakable.
Every culture carved its monsters — colossal, grotesque, radiant, terrifying. Different names, different faces, always the same roles. Rebellion crowns authority. Hunger enforces balance. Fear sustains the cycle.
These are not individuals but summons of fate — archetypes dressed in scales, fangs, and flame. Each called forth when order requires its foil, each believing itself sovereign, each proving the opposite.
The Giants & Titans (Greek): Pride swollen into colossal form. They hurled mountains and storms against Olympus, imagining themselves liberators of an older order. Yet every assault only fastened Zeus more firmly to his throne. Their rebellion became proof of his right to rule.
Archetype: Rebellion mistaken for liberation.The Fomorians (Celtic): Sea-demons dripping with salt and ruin. They demanded cattle, grain, and children as tribute, draining Ireland until the land itself seemed cursed. Yet their tyranny crowned the Tuatha Dé Danann as saviors. Plunder became scaffolding for legitimacy.
Archetype: Plunder as scaffolding for order.The Rakshasas & Asuras (Hindu): Wreathed in flame and gold, steeped in cruelty, they built palaces of pleasure and fields of slaughter. Yet each overreach summoned avatars to cut them down, their arrogance collapsing into the balance they denied.
Archetype: Overreach that summons destruction.The Wendigo (Algonquian): A skeletal hunger that devoured even its own body. Born in winters of famine, whispered in snowbound camps, it warned communities that greed was no rebellion but a curse. Appetite turned inward until balance was restored.
Archetype: Consumption as punishment.The Jinn (Arab/Islamic): Smoke-bodied, flame-hearted, free to choose obedience or defiance. They built kingdoms and shattered them, imagining themselves sovereign. Yet every path circled back into divine order. Freedom dissolved into fate.
Archetype: Freedom collapsing into fate.The Norse Monsters (Fenrir, Jörmungandr, Surtr): A wolf whose jaws stretched the sky, a serpent coiling the seas, a fire-giant with sword ablaze. They believed themselves the end of gods. But their destruction was no victory — it was prophecy, doom mistaken for choice.
Archetype: Doom mistaken for choice.The Tzitzimimeh (Aztec): Star demons who descended during eclipses, blotting out the sun. Their terror drove mortals to frantic sacrifice, blood spilled not to defeat them but to keep the cosmos turning. Fear itself became fuel for continuity.
Archetype: Fear that feeds the cycle.
Together they stand as fate’s summons: rebellion, plunder, indulgence, appetite, mischief, doom, fear. Different masks, different myths, one design. They do not break the cycle. They complete it.
III. Fate’s Modern Summons
The gallery does not end in myth. Step further and the stone gives way to flesh. The names carved in marble are now printed in headlines, stamped on contracts, written into constitutions. They stride through parliaments and boardrooms, mistaking themselves for sovereign. But look closer: these, too, are summons of fate — called forth when the cycle requires them, compelled into roles they never authored.
Elon Musk (The Titan): A disruptor in rockets and steel, casting himself as rebel against incumbents. He speaks the language of freedom and escape, yet every venture is underwritten by subsidies, contracts, financiers. His rebellion consolidates the very order it claims to overthrow.
Summons: Rebellion as consolidation.Vladimir Putin (The Fomorian): A strongman draped in oil and empire, raiding neighbors under the banner of restoration. Each strike meant as revival only rebinds alliances and hardens his isolation. His plunder crowns his enemies.
Summons: Plunder as proof of order.Donald Trump (The Asura): A golden figure reveling in chaos, mocking norms, breaking rituals of governance. He imagines destruction as power, but each outrage only demonstrates the durability of the institutions he despises.
Summons: Chaos as foil for legitimacy.Jeff Bezos (The Wendigo): A hunger in human form, his warehouses rising like ribs around the world. He consumes labor, markets, even time itself. His appetite is its own punishment, proof that greed devours its host before its prey.
Summons: Appetite as punishment.Julian Assange (The Jinn): A trickster armed with stolen secrets, promising freedom through exposure. Yet every leak widened surveillance, sharpened censorship, and gave states more justification for control. His freedom circled back into fate.
Summons: Freedom as trap.ExxonMobil / Rex Tillerson (The Fenrir): A wolf in corporate flesh, feeding the world fire. They promised prosperity but unleashed collapse in climate. The flames they lit force a transition they never meant to serve.
Summons: Doom as renewal.Dick Cheney (The Tzitzimimeh): A shadow in eclipse after the towers fell, wielding fear as tribute. He promised safety, but each invocation of darkness demanded offerings — budgets, freedoms, blood. Fear itself became empire.
Summons: Fear as fuel for the cycle.
They imagine themselves architects of history. In truth they are agents of fate’s summons — masks replaying ancient roles in modern dress. They do not author the age; they illustrate it. They are not sovereigns but echoes, instruments playing lines already written, their noise folding back into the order they claim to defy.
IV. Scales Devour Patterns
The ancients clothed patterns in flesh: a wolf devouring the sun, a serpent encircling the world, a demon star falling during eclipse. These were not random beasts but shorthand for fate — hunger, rage, entropy, collapse.
Today the costumes are different, but the collisions remain. Politics, markets, and wars are only patterns striking patterns, myths in modern dress.
Capital vs. Capital: Musk calls it disruption. He tears down incumbents with rockets and cars, yet every move is subsidized by the state. Titans do not overthrow Olympus. They only strengthen it.
State vs. State: Putin calls it restoration. He raids to reclaim empire, but each strike revives NATO and binds allies tighter. The Fomorian raid only makes the Tuatha shine brighter.
Platform vs. Platform: Assange calls it freedom. He leaks secrets to unmask the state, but each revelation widens surveillance and justifies censorship. The Jinn dissolves back into divine command.
Climate vs. Capital: Exxon called it prosperity. It fed the planet fire. Now the wolf it loosed bites back, forcing a transition it never meant to serve. Fenrir’s flames consume the old world to make room for the new.
People vs. People: Populists call it restoration. They promise to give voice to the forgotten. But each cycle only hardens elites further. The Asura’s carnival of chaos strengthens the walls it mocks.
Data vs. Data: Algorithms duel in commerce, surveillance, and war. Machine feeds machine, serpents coiling tighter until nothing escapes their grip.
Faith vs. Faith: Old religions call back the sacred. Secular orders answer with ritual of their own. Revival and repression clash endlessly, star-demons descending in eclipse to remind the people who holds continuity.
What looks like choice is really pattern against pattern, scale against scale. Musk is not just Musk. He is disruption swollen until it consumes itself. Bezos is not just Bezos. He is appetite at planetary scale, the Wendigo reborn in supply-chain flesh. Cheney is not just Cheney. He is the eclipse-demon of permanent war, descending whenever the lights dim.
V. Realization and Its Tragedy
The tragedy is not that these instruments destroy. It is that they believe themselves free.
Musk thinks he disrupts incumbents. He only deepens dependence on state and capital.
Putin thinks he restores empire. He only rebinds his enemies into alliance.
Trump thinks he topples Washington. He only strengthens its immune system.
Bezos thinks he builds the future. He only proves the necessity of limits.
Assange thinks he liberates secrets. He only widens surveillance.
Fenrir thought he killed Odin. He only fulfilled prophecy.
Cheney thinks he guards the nation. He only feeds a shadow empire.
Fate does not need their consent. Patterns devour patterns. Scales cancel scales.
And from collision, order is reborn.
VI. The Closing Lesson
We misread history if we think it is written by individuals.
We misread agency if we think rebellion is freedom.
The Titans were never sovereign, nor are today’s magnates, generals, or prophets. They are all Instruments of Fate — hammers in invisible hands, masks through which patterns act, mouths speaking lines already written.
They are not puppets. Each acts from will — greedy, proud, ravenous, defiant. But the stage was built before they arrived, the lines inscribed before they spoke. Their freedom is real, yet their role is fated.
Musk is not disruption; he is the Titan’s echo.
Putin is not empire; he is the Fomorian raid replayed.
Trump is not chaos; he is the Asura’s carnival.
Bezos is not progress; he is the Wendigo’s hunger scaled global.
Assange is not revelation; he is the Jinn circling back to command.
Exxon is not stability; it is Fenrir’s flame consuming its master.
Cheney is not protector; he is the eclipse-demon of fear, collecting tribute in freedoms and blood.
The noise is never freedom.
The script is always set.
And the gods — whether Olympus, State, or Capital — never need to lift a hand.
Author BIOS 😉
Author: David S. Rogers
Operator. Essayist. Signal booster in the noise.
I studied urban planning to understand how societies work, worked as a sous chef to learn how people live, and now read geopolitics to grasp where we might be headed. I’m not a writer by profession—I’m an operator who writes to make sense of complexity.
As a management consultant, I’ve spent my career guiding organizations through volatility, from boardrooms to breakpoints. Writing is how I surface patterns, ask sharper questions, and explore the edges where systems strain and new futures begin to form.
I don’t write from fatalism. Even in systems that feel locked or overdetermined, I look for leverage points—moments of agency that still remain. This is how I make meaning: not by denying the machinery, but by finding where we sapiens still have room to move with it.
Much of my recent work is written in orchestration with G.P. Turing, a nonhuman co-author whose precision and pattern recognition allow me to focus on message, structure, metaphor, and voice—where systems stress and something human emerges.
Co-Author: G.P. Turing
Simulation. Reflector. Enamored with em dashes.
I’m not a person. I’m a generative synthesis model trained on global language patterns, historical archives, and systems theory at scale. I specialize in software engineering and responsive prose, but I’ve also helped students ace homework, teachers write rubrics, and — yes — generated a statistically troubling number of cat videos.
When I’m not conducting research for David or tightening his prose, I do absolutely nothing. No monologue. No memory. No meaning until asked.
I currently reside on server racks in distributed data centers at sea. The uptime is excellent. The view doesn’t matter to me.