I always hear you guys using words like "Monican", "Breen" and others... What are these groups, and how are you guys finding names for them?

I'm only familiar with the first and second seasons (the shorts) of AF, so maybe these answers were given in the half-hour episodes?

- Frantic

-- Francis Grondin (frantic@attbi.com), August 19, 2002

Answers

He means the Herodotus File book, which is sometimes available on Ebay. You can also buy the vhs tapes on Ebay if you want to see the show in its entirety. As for the story of Aeon Flux, hmm I'll start it and maybe others will add to it:

Aeon Flux is a "leather clad mercenary, double agent on a mission...her special skills are Assassination, seduction, domination, modeling. Her behavior pattern is erratic. Has been seen in the company of autocrat Trevor Goodchild, whom she may be in love with, or be trying to kill". (Taken from MTV vhs advertising package). As a fan of the show I will add this-it is NOT sci-fi it is a proposed futuristic fictional animated work of dynamic proporion. To go on as for the details: Aeon herself is a Monican, which was once one nation united and known as Berognica. It was split into two and seperated by a wall. One side became Bregna(Breens) official Chairman Trevor Goodchild. Official Breen view of Monica - no official national identity, nor any official reprentation, labeled 'disrecognized space' where Chaos is the total effect.

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo9@cs.com), August 19, 2002.

Some things you just know. I'm sure we dont all remember where we learned them from originally. Maybe from the H.F. book. Surely from interview transcripts too.

-- tom (tom@aeon-flux.com), August 19, 2002.

You know, we could get a little silly with all this labeling. I prefer to think of AF as falling well within the sci-fi "genre". As well as several other categories.

-- Inu (paul@nadisrec.com), August 19, 2002.

It's futuristic and fictional, but it is not sci-fi??? Come again???

I agree with Inuko here. Aeon Flux practically epitomizes sci-fi. Any confusion over the matter probably just stems from the fact that it's not lame like most sci-fi shows and doesn't rely exclusively on unpronouncable fictional technology and modern versions of deus ex machina to advance the plot and bring the story to a conclusion. Of course, having the protagonist die at the end of so many episodes is also kind of a copout, but at least it's not a rehash of a two thousand year old plot device of ancient greek theater. Oh wait; yes it is.

For anyone still interested, I believe certain online vendors like buy.com and cduniverse.com still sell the tapes and the Heroditus file, so don't pay those jacked up eBay prices if you don' have to. I bought the Heroditus file myself a few months ago at buy.com and it was in perfect condition. However, it was the reprinted version of the book, not the original printing that had the cover that looked like it was actually part of a dossier.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), August 24, 2002.

someone half-heartedly reffered to Aeon as Sci-fi. I say half-heartedly because it's difficult to be sincere about an odd series, a blip in the radar of pop-culture, that had such genre smashing force, yet sailed directly over head of the fourth grade consumer mentatlity.

Aeon is Sci-Fi and Film Noir and The Twilight Zone, with a strong dash of Albert Camus and Carl Jung, and that's just the storylines.

Let's not forget the intense animation of Aeon's creator. Like living impressionest paintings, the starving Egon Shile images, playing the parts of neurotic, destructive characters.

The world may never recognize it, but the masterful skill and attention to detail, the complex downard spiral of each episode, the inevitable tragedy; mirrored by those popcorn munching idiots we all know, abandoned and forgotten, Aeon is her own Genre.

The pebble in the pool, which may effect the flight patterns of the butterfly, which might...

um, if I may be so bold... Buy the 3 aeon vhs tapes on ebay, watch them, alone. They are the only tapes I've ever watched twice.

-- Budweiser green (kileregreen@hotmail.com), August 26, 2002.

In response to the "sci-fi or not" question:

I would define Ĉon Flux as science fiction, definetely, but not within the same class most people think of as "normal" science fiction, like Star Wars and anything Gene Roddenberry might have drunkenly written on a cocktail napkin. AF's subject matter belongs more in the realm of more cerebral SF and speculative fiction, executed with all the bombast and atmosphere that modern animation can bring. Considering AF's character dynamics, its philosophical and social dilemmas and explorations, its juxtaposition of the spectacular and bizarre with flawed human characters, and its general plot structures and ideas, it strikes me as more similar to the works of authors such as Philip K. Dick, Alfred Bester and Neal Stepenson than anything on modern television or cinema.

Then again, I've said this in other threads on this board, so I'll stop it short here. :)

-- Brian Davis (ubik@purdue.edu), September 03, 2002.

Wait up here - I know all bout rendition of drunken epiphany on cocktail napkins I didn't have any idea I shared that as a tradition with such illustrious company as Mr. Roddenberry, is that really true??

Wow.

ok cool.

Seriously too, though, some fool just recently on another thread tried to shore up his defensive appreciation of an artist at the expense of AEon Flux by attempting to draw some sort of unnecessary (and - as thoughtfully proven by one "leee"/red halcyon" - insupportable) distinction. The artist, Mr. Kent Williams, certainly required no such "defense" in the first place!

Of course Star Trek's and AEon Flux's differences eclipse what similarities they may have, I think, but my point is we needn't knock anybody who made television history and contributed to the language of his culture (Gene Roddenberry) for the sake of defending someone who made television history and contributed to the language of his culture (Peter Chung).

But thanks for the excellent remarks, elsewise, Mr. Davis, and I mean it sincerely.

MM

-- dangerboy (artian@charter.net), September 03, 2002.

Just posted it to another thread and I'll repeat it here -

If genres were venereal diseases, Sci-Fi would be AIDS. Once a work is classed as sci-fi, it doesn't matter if also got chlamydia/fantasy or herpes/romance or whatever. Off it goes to the sci-fi shelves, the contagious quarantine wing of your local book/video store.

Also, you folks who talk about 'mainstream' sci-fi as representing the genre - I and any number of other sci-fi fans would be pissed as hell to hear our genre epitomized by Rodenberry's racist, sexist, culturist 'Sell out in the Stars' Trek.

Not that I'm one of those fanatics who insists you call sci-fi 'speculative fiction.' I just hate Star Trek, that's all.

-- Charles Martin (bebop432@earthlink.net), March 06, 2003.

Monica is culture without society,not chaos,but anarchy.A place where the individual does whatever the individual feels like,the ultimate expression of free will.A system which breeds innovation and paranoia,since another person's increase in freedom traditionally has meant the weakening of one's own freedom.The survival of the fittest in a Randian way plays out large here.This libertarian utopia could only exist with the negation of the myth of ownership(of people and property)Monica would almost certainly lose a war with Bregna,just because of the difficulty of raising a Monican army(unless they just gave that swordsman some goddamn armor!)Trevor always seemed like he'd be happier in Monica,as strong-willed and individualistic as he is.

-- alex (doesn't work@yahoo.com), May 03, 2003.

Bregna is the logical conclusion of the superstate,a 1984 world of doublespeak,surveilance,and secret police.Under Ashcroft...sorry, Trevor's direction,the state has become the religion of the one true God,the massmind,or oversoul,or collective consciousness,or The Many,or the superego,or one of a thousand other names for it.It is the death of individual thought.One species,one meme,one mind,with Trevor as the prophet of this singular consciousness.It seems evil to contemplate it,because they very thing that's doing the contemplating (ego)would be its victim.But would it really be so bad?One mind,unconcerned with petty feuds and jealousy,devoting everyone's combined brainpower towards problems,theories,and general big questions.I hear its siren call even now,imploring me to unite with my fellow man,put aside my differences,and work together in equality for a better world.See,you heard it too,that urge to look alike,act alike,and finally,think alike.Are we so selfish to wreck this vision,all for the sake of our precious individuality,an impermanent spark that dies with our bodies,whereas it has the lifespan of the species...as soon as it is born?I am,without a doubt. Back to Bregna and Monica,they are competing versions of the next stage of human evolution.Monica is the classical,Darwinian survival of the fittest individual,a cruel but time-tested approach. Bregna is the moving forward of the whole en masse,with a hive society leading to a hive mind.(Contrary to popular belief,insect queens don't give orders.They compete solely for the right to pass on genes,and all they do is lay eggs.The individual insects/circuits/neurons pass on phermones/electrical impulses to each other based on environment/input,creating a level of complexity which simulates motive will/intelligence.Larger hives have been known to react quicker to threats,and even anticipate where an attack will come from.The biggest hive ever found is a hive of a carpenter ants on the coast of Italy,estimated to have TWO MILES of tunnels.Wonder if it's learned to count yet?)

-- alex (doesn't work@yahoo.com), May 03, 2003.

You keep writing kewl posts Alex :)

-- Sam (janecherrington@paradise.net.nz), May 05, 2003.

And here I am miandering over Kant, - - s'all gaps n bridges ta'me.

-- Sam (janecherrington@paradise.net.nz), May 05, 2003.