Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted
The Assassins’ Creed games popularized a certain saying. “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” Meaning that the reality that one inhabits is an illusion, to some degree. That one can meekly accept the way things are, or transcend the order of things. This phrase may be an invention. Or, it may have come from the real-life order of hashashins (Assassins). The Assasins Creed games are based on that order. It appears in all of the games, and on a variety of merchandise, including coffee mugs and video game t shirts.
Where did it come from?
The origins of the phrase are a little murky. The Assassin’s Creed cites a 1938 novel by Vladimir Bartol as the origin. But this can’t be true. Books exist from earlier than 1938 that contain the phrase. The book “The Genealogy of Morals” from 1887 is one example. The author discusses the order of assassins. According to him, they say, “Nothing is true, everything is allowed.” Some authors think this really was an old Arabic saying. Others think that someone invented it later. Either way, the phrase is about transcending an illusion. Even in the games, this does not necessarily mean physical reality, so much as the common morality foisted upon one by other people.
Templar Control
The Templars want to use the illusory reality to rule. In the first game, Altaïr realizes that the reality (or morality) that the Templars want to foist on everyone is an illusion that they use to dominate. In later games, Templars control huge companies, especially technology companies. They also seem to have a grip on media, possibly even scientific research and academia.
A gaming t shirt bearing the Abstergo Industries logo
The Templar behind these technology companies sell it as harmless entertainment that anyone can equally have access to. So all of the institutions under Templar control want to rule using the illusion. Those institutions include media, academia, and tech companies. “Nothing is true, everything is permitted” means the consensus is wrong. A lot of people tell Altaïr what’s right and wrong. They tell him to be more compassionate and empathetic.
In later games, the Templars create the Abstergo corporation. Abstergo tries to create a “New World Order” to unify the whole world under their control. If you haven’t played the later games yet, you may recognize the Abstergo logo from where it appears on video game t shirts. The Templar aim for a one-world order. That way they can enforce their absolute rule on everyone equally. They do this with the Pieces of Eden. The Templars have mobilized tech companies to acquire the Pieces of Eden. They also control a lot of professors who study the Pieces of Eden. In the later games, they also control a lot of the media.
The Assassins motto is about transcending all that propaganda. Altaïr realizes this during the first game. The phrase is quietly profound. That’s why it fits so handily on posters and gaming t shirts. It carries through to the later games as well.
How Plausible Is Godzilla?
A Scientific Look At Gojira
I’m a huge Godzilla fan. I watched a lot of the old Toho films as a kid. I collected Godzilla figurines for a while, and they’re still around here somewhere. I even have an old Godzilla t shirt that I’m too sentimental to throw away, although it doesn’t fit me anymore. I also have an interest in biology and physics. And one question I have asked myself is, how plausible is Godzilla? Could Godzilla exist in the real world?
There are a few challenges to an organism of that size existing.
Too much heat!
In the first place, there’s a thing called the cube-square law. Not to get too deep into the physics, but the cube-square law means that, as an object gets bigger, it gains volume faster than surface area. Exponentially faster! Think of inflating a balloon: the balloon gains exponentially more volume each time you blow into it, but it gains much less surface area. Because of a whole lot of thermodynamics that I won’t go into, that means that it’s very hard for big creatures to lose excess heat. They tend to overheat and die. That’s why elephants have those big flappy ears: the ears are thin, so that’s a whole lot of extra surface area to radiate heat. It’s the same principle as your computer’s heat sink.
Godzilla merchandise is everywhere, such as this Godzilla t shirt
One way that Godzilla could get around this would be if his bones had a structure similar to foam. Instead of just a solid chunk of bone, Godzilla’s bones could be full of holes. A lot of dinosaurs had bones like that. Sauropods, such as brontosaurus, had bones full of holes, for example. When you have bones that are full of holes, to the point where the bones are like soap, it makes you lighter. It also makes it easier to beat the cube-square law, because it prevents you from taking up so much volume, and makes it easier to radiate heat. This would also allow Godzilla to remain and support itself despite its immense size.
(Of course, it depends on specifically what size we’re talking about here. Godzilla’s size varies radically between adaptations!)
Big boy’s gotta breathe
Another issue with animals at that size is respiration. A creature Godzilla’s size could never exist with mammalian lungs. It just wouldn’t be able to get enough oxygen. Extinct animals, such as the wooly mammoth and other proboscidae (elephant-like animals) were already at the upper size limit for mammals, and they’re much smaller than Godzilla. So any creature his size would need to have better lungs. We can fix that by giving him lungs like a bird. Bird lungs have air sacs surrounding them, and they have a complicated respiration system that efficiently diffuses air throughout their bodies. It is thought that dinosaurs were able to grow to such an immense size partially because of their bird-like respiratory systems.
Godzilla is fictional. Creatures like him exist in Godzilla movies and on Godzilla t shirts. Something exactly like him couldn’t exist in the real world. But if you get creative, he looks a lot more plausible than you might think at first!
