What are you in the world of Aeon Flux? A Breen or a Monican?

Do you crave order and voyeurism? Do you feel superior? Do you like to observe the world and it's polical climates? Do you tend to be aloof and project oriented? Then you may be a Breen.

Or perhaps you are the uninhibited? Unafraid of dare and risk? Do you see yourself as a loner on the run? Do you have fetishes and dark desire? Do you just want to be free? Then you may be a Monican.

Myself I am a Breen as I do seem to have some prject going on and in my own world I am brilliant! I also tend to take things seriously.

I probobly wouldn't be Trevor but maybe Number 3 or even FatBoy or in my case SkinnyBoy!

So are you Breen or Monican? Talk it up people! It's my world and you're just living in it! (*joking!)

Oh to be in Bregna in the summertime...

-- Euphoric Industry (rubyanvil@dublin.ie), July 12, 2003

Answers

I've considered this column with swaying opinions for weeks. I've see myself as a Breen happy to be in control. Then again at times I become aware that same system of control takes away and creates less and less genuine spontaneous reaction in myself.

Last week on the Drudge Report I heard a show that caused me to consider the Monican plight. The subject was the diminishing rights of privacy.

They mentioned the surveillance cameras being installed in stores. Traffic control, private industry;in classrooms, in hospitals, in supermarkets. Sex, once a private act is now filmed and advertised as product. Successfully removing the once socially acceptable right to modesty without the public even recognizing the right had been taken. The talk is of placing a computer chip in children to help find them if they are abducted, but the probability is that we will eventually all be chipped, and tracked. Urine is tested at work without an uproar, you haven't that right. Schools have more control of child activities than parents. The common man will not prevail against the onslaught of his rights because he doesn't know they're disappearing. Lulled to complacency for the promise of an easier life.

Is the wall in my own life being built slowly,seperating me from my true nature until I don't even recognize a thought is not my own. Can a Monican become a Breen without recognizing the wall was built brick by brick without any signs of suffocation? A lot to consider.

-- Barb e (Suesuesbeo9@cs.com), August 30, 2003.

It'd be nice to be Aeon or Trevor, but I dont know about being a general citizen of either place.

-- Sam (janecherrington@paradise.net.nz), July 12, 2003.

Sadly, I wish I was Trevor, or even Aeon(if she were a guy), but here I am as Onan. My main strength is that I do not know my weaknesses. A breen who aspires to Monica, but doesn't have the balls. Actually I like all that Breen stuff, but I would also like to be free, and the fetish thing is good(public sex counts right?). But I hold the future of Breigna in my hand, embace it.

-- MDR (nadar@BigPoppaPump.zn.com), July 17, 2003.

I've always identified with Una... I'm a skinny, romantic language freak with dreams of running away on a secret mission... and hopefully, someday, escaping with some beautiful creature. I guess that makes me a Monican.

-- Mat Rebholz (matrebholz@yahoo.com), July 17, 2003.

Hmmm...I suppose I'm Monican. I don't hold down a 'conventional' job, my politics are very liberal (and I don't mind taking a public or private stand behind them), I don't take kindly to being told what to do, etc.

However, I'm quite certain that I'm brilliant, in my world (and maybe yours too, E.I.)...and I do have a project going. To add to that, I have the mind of an aloof observer, a scientist, if you'll allow, so perhaps I'm some odd Breen-Monican hybrid?

-- Synthetic Nemesis (syntheticnemesis@hotmail.com), July 21, 2003.

I'm a custodian. Cover your navels, suckers.

-- eskimonkey (jtreit@cha.ab.ca), July 22, 2003.

I wonder what the rest of the world looks like beyond Monica and Bregna. The two cities cant cover the entire continent. What continent are they on anyway? I wonder if there are still third world countries.

-- Autechre Fan (k_maty@hotmail.com), August 24, 2003.

That's an interesting question. Third world countries in the "Aeon Flux" world...that's of course assuming that in this particular universe, the "continent" that Bregna and Monica comprise is a continent we can fathom. That's part of the magic of the series is that it seems like Earth, and yet it's a very alien world because we have no sense of how far in the future it is, or even if this corresponds to what we perceive of as the future. Perhaps this world is entirely Bregna and Monica? The abundance of different accents we hear from different characters could support this. But this is all just speculation...interesting point though.

As for the question as to whether or not I'd be a Breen or a Monican...personally, I'd think I'm a Breen who longs to be a Monican. Almost like Onan, except that Onan has allowed himself to be fooled by his own misperceptions of Monica, so that even though he has the courage to cross over (or the cowardice to use the woman he professes to care for for his own gain), he doesn't have the courage to handle that way of life. I'm the other way around. I'd have the courage to handle that way of life, but not the courage to risk death to achieve it. I'm content with comfort and security of a Breen lifestyle, but I'm not content to be content. If that makes any sense. Short answer: I'd like to be a Monican, but I'm stuck being a Breen.

-- Ilker Yucel (yucel81x@hotmail.com), August 25, 2003.

Yeah, same here. I guess I'd have to join the libertarian party of Bregna and campaign for smaller government and less custodians.

-- Inu (paul@nadisrec.com), August 25, 2003.