Chapter Ten: Istambul

Subject: Istambul
From: Randall Clay
Date: 04/20/15 01:27
To: Douglas Clay

Tyr thought hard till he hammered out a plan,
For he knew it was not right
(And it is not right) that The Beast should master Man;
So he went to the Children of the Night.
Rudyard Kipling, Song of the Men's Side

Of all the stops on my journey, this is the one I've most looked forward to, the one that would have been on my list even if dad hadn't done business here. This city is a monument to the sort of paperings-over and hypocricies that have made civilization possible, and I simply had to pay my homage here.
In the beginning, there was God. And God, being the jealous type, outlawed idolatry. "Don't go around making images of stuff." he said. "And if you find any graven images made by people who haven't gotten the word just yet, whatever you do, don't go and worship them."
And so it went, with Pagans and heretics and infidels having the monopoly on the entire representational art racket, even if they occasionally bowed down to the sculptures or sacrificed a goat to a painting now and then. Then, in the late Roman Empire, after they'd turned Christian and moved the capital to Constantinople, people decided that representational art was neat, and so they grove a lot of images- good, Christian images of Jesus and Mary and the Saints, but unmistakeably images and undoubtable graven.
Right here, about twelve hundred years ago, give or take, some folks decided that- hey, wait, God isn't all that cool with these images. So they went and burned them and threw them out windows and otherwise Clasted all of the Icons they could get their hands on. And so the early Catholic Church was split, between the Iconoclasts and the Iconodules. And then, a miracle happened: the Iconoclasts lost.
Because of this miracle, western civilization recieved two immense blessings: first, a rich and healthy tradition of representational art that would lead ultimately to, among other things, a working knowledge of human anatomy, and, second, the valuable precident of having a religious issue decided in favor of human conveniences and practicality, and in direct and blatant opposition to the clear meaning of the text.
Oh, there are rationalizations, and that's a good thing. But they don't really hold water, do they? I mean, if the only crime is in making a graven image and worshiping it, then if would be perfectly okay to worship someone else's Golden Bull. But try telling that to Moses. And if the worship is the only 'really' forbidden part, then why bother forbidding making graven images at all? No, it's clear that the text lost to the people, much to the long term benefit of Christendom.
And the new owners, the Turks, are no strangers to papering things over, as the beneficiaries of three campaigns of ethnic clensing, each one among the most complete and successful in history. At least they're getting more and more humane about it: the Greeks were better treated than the Armenians, even though the name of this city really is their business too, and the Kurds were bought out well enough that they were practically eager to go after the Partition of 2010. Bought off with other peoples land, but that's always the way of this kind of thing, isn't it?
Along with Egypt and Indonesia, Turkey is one of the few majority-Islamic nations that it's safe for westerners to travel in, here in the post-nuclear phase of the Long War. Even after the carrot of European membership vanished entirely, the nation's NATO ties and secular traditions endured. Turkey is neutral with regard to all three theaters of the War, and, taking advantage of that neutrality, has become a major player in the arms trade, supplying Indians and Pakistania, Kurds and Arabian, Iranians and even, by proxy, with Israel. Their edge starts with Dad, actually, and some work with Laser technology before it was militarizable, with the new battery technology and the end of nuclear deterrance. Once of the names, both in the notebook and on my general contact list for this area is Khemal Yusef, an engineer emritus with the Turkish branch of the company, and I managed to have a long talk with him over lunch as a fine outdoor eatery about lasers.
"There are some people who think that the laser will never be an efficient military weapon, that even with the portable energy currently availible you are better off accelerating a projectile than focusing coherent light. Your nation's military feels that way." said Khemal, once the introductions and formalities were taken care of.
"They do?" said I.
"Oh, they have some laser programs, but are still thinking in terms of large scale devices-antimissile defenses, orbital bombardment. For personal weapons to be carried by the everyday soldier their research is taking them strictly toward electromagnetically propelled projectiles. But even though you can propel large quantities of metal with such a weapon, that just means that he must carry large quantities of metal into battle with him. But with a laser weapon, all you need is the power."
"And how has it been going?"
"Well, I have been out of the program for more than a year now, but we were only a few years away from our goals when I left. We already have fixed laser antiaircraft weapons which are proving to be most effective on the field. You cannot outrun a beam of light or fool it with chaff. The only problem is that these are too large and heavy to be moved before the enemy can bomb them."
"But the problems are all engineering ones? Nothing in theory stopping it from working?"
"That is what our company has been banking on. Time will be the ultimate judge of the matter."
"What, exactly, was Aaron's involvement in this program?" I asked, getting finally to the point.
"Ah. He was very kind enough to offer us excellent terms on some of the latest laser research from some the European laboratories in France. They had been doing some excellent work in optics as pure science, but, with their government grants unlikely to be renewed, what with the state of the European economy in those days, they were willing to sell us several key patents."
"Did you know him personally?"
"Yes, I did. He seemed a good man, as fair as you'll ever see in that field. He showed me pictures of you and the others, although you've grown so much I can hardle ever recognize you."
It was at this point that our conversation was interrupted by a thunderous noise from the street behind us. A large group of young men were running down the street, whooping and laughing and, occasionally, firing guns into the air. (One more advantage the personal laser pistol would have would be that the laser beams, unlike bullets fired in this celebratory fashion, do not fall down, occasionally causing grievous injury to innocent bystanders.) Quickly enough we learned that this was in reaction to the news of the Pope's assassination. After enough time had passed that most people had gotten the news through one source or another, each time the celebrants passed down the street they were viewed by those people who preferred to go about their business with more contempt and disappointment. I settled up the bill on the expense account, and Khemal and I parted company.
I've spent some additional time here sightseeing and otherwise enjoying the prince of cities, but it is soon time to go, onward (by necessity via multiple airlines and stopovers) to the most dangerous spot on the trip, although with the current borders stretched out as far as they are from it things may be okay.
Next Stop: Jerusalem