Into the Jungle

The Forefather

Instant recap: In the seclusion of their Cascadian colony, Marcus and his kindred laid the groundwork for a primal civilization: they lived in rigorous harmony with nature, and primitive forms like polygamy were uplifted to a new plateau. Biological gender roles were restored and strengthened: boys were trained for mortal combat, and most girls for hearth and motherhood. Further, a new life-path was carved out for girls with a gift for eros, reviving the enlightened tradition of Aryan India: they became Shaktis, priestesses of love.

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7. Into the Jungle

In 1980 the Thule colonies were flourishing but needed an arena of war to turn their boys into men, and freedom from the laws of the ruling gynocracy so that their girls could be turned into women. Marcus hit upon a plan that would solve both challenges: they would find a place effectively isolated from global civilization where local powers were in conflict, plant a colony there, and join the fray. After some research and scouting forays, a perfect location was found: an area deep in the Amazon rainforest straddling the border of Colombia and Brazil. In this heart of darkness no less than four factions were locked in long-term contention: drug cartels, Communist revolutionaries, government forces, and the native Indians. Marcus led a well-armed crew of his most intrepid kindred on a journey up the Amazon, and a native guide led them to a spot where they made friendly contact with the Indians. Marcus quickly discerned that they were the weakest of the four adversarial groups, and hence the most exploited. His psychic powers and natural empathy bridged the language barrier, and local chieftains helped the band of Thuleans to find a swath of land ideally suited to Marcus’ plans.

Over the course of several weeks, Marcus and his people shipped in tools, food, armaments, and everything they would need for a settlement in such a locale. McHenry and Marcus’ other financial backers had their imaginations fired by the project, and so all the necessary resources became readily available. Marcus bought a cargo helicopter and a small fleet of powerboats, which greatly facilitated the operation. The biggest challenge, as Marcus spelled out to the colonists, was for whites to establish a viable and enduring lifestyle in a tropical climate, something that had never been done except by transplanting the technology and infrastructure that had been developed in the temperate white homelands. By contrast, Marcus was determined to “go native” as far as humanly possible while maintaining the elevated spiritual & social calibre of their community. They adapted the primitive architecture of the Indians for most of their dwellings, since this was perfectly suited to the climate and could withstand the daily downpours of the relatively brief rainy season. Necessity, however, dictated a climate-controlled space for paperwork and other materiel vulnerable to the high humidity; this was accomplished with a pair of Quonset huts, which Marcus was familiar with from his military service in Vietnam.

In choosing a name for the new colony, Marcus was inspired by the memory of a TV show he had liked as a child: Ramar of the Jungle. The hero was a white physician who used his skills in service to primitive people who were most in need of them, following in the footsteps of Albert Schweitzer and David Livingstone. With the approval of his kindred, Marcus dubbed the Amazon settlement Ramarland, which turned out to be a remarkable precognition of his grandson Gavin, who took the Godname Ramar in consequence of the May 2000 planetary alignment in Aries.

Reconaissance indicated that there was a sizable distance between the colony and the enclaves of the drug lords and the Red guerrillas, though the thick rainforest could provide cover for many uncharted bogies. A perimeter was established with sentries and sensors for early warning, and there began an influx of settlers from the Valley of the Moon and Cascadia. The frontline of the migration was young men eager to test their martial skills, followed by women who felt ready for the next deeper layer of primal life. There were also some families with children, like the McLaughlins with their five-year-old son Mike, who had picked up the nickname “Spike”. He was destined to become a Kin of Aries, and is featured in his adult years in Pull the Plug.

Marcus renewed his friendship with Jacques, a Frenchman he had met in Vietnam ~ a former colonel in the Foreign Legion who had led a brigade of SS refugees from the Reich in the first phase of the war in Vietnam in the 1950s. Jacques was a frequent visitor at the Thule Colonies, and now came to Ramarland relishing the prospect of putting his military skills to use again. Though he was now in his sixties he had stayed in fighting trim through the years, and Marcus knew his leadership ability and combat experience would be invaluable.

Jacques was in contact with more Reich refugees who had settled in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, where they lived undercover to evade the vengeful Israeli crusade to track them down and execute them. Now Jacques invited his German friends to visit the jungle colony; some of them came with sons whom they had instilled with the vision of the Reich, and all were gratified to see that its legacy lived on in Marcus’ Solarian Sodality, the name which Jacques had first broached to Marcus as a veiled reference to the original SS.

The first engagement came when the Colombian Army launched a campaign against a phalanx of guerrillas and drove them south toward Ramarland. The sentries picked up their movement and notified Marcus, who assembled his troops into battle array. Jacques and the Germans were ecstatic at the chance to fight against Communists, ideological descendants of the nemesis of the Reich. The Reds holed up in a swampy area that gave them a tactical advantage over the soldiers on their north flank; they had suffered only light casualties in their retreat, and the sentries estimated that they outnumbered the Solarian fighters by about two to one. They had no clue, however, that there were any hostile forces on their south flank; Marcus and Jacques decided that this provided enough of a strategic advantage for a surprise attack. Using infrared goggles, they spent the night stealthily surrounding the guerilla camp in a semicircle on the lightly guarded southern side. At the break of dawn they leaped from the brush en masse with a blood-curdling SS battle cry, and laid into the unprepared enemy. Half of the guerrillas were killed or wounded before the survivors managed to pick up their weapons and fight back. “Now the odds are even!” shouted Marcus, and the battle quickly got brutal and bloody as hand-to-hand combat prevailed over marksmanship. The unseasoned troops were inspired by the valor of the few veterans and the elàn of the sons of the Reich. The Reds began to surrender or flee to the north, where the government soldiers had arrived at the perimeter, and cut them down. Soon it was all over, and Marcus’ new army had won its first victory. Many of his men were wounded but they had suffered not a single fatality.

The Colombians assumed that their unexpected allies were another regiment of their own, and were astonished to find that they were foreigners. Marcus had bribed some Colombian officials to sanction his colony, and now he was able to give the commander the name of a chefe which he instantly recognized and gave Marcus a respectful salute. When the report of the battle reached the capitol, it gave full legitimacy to the settlement of Norteamericanos in the Amazon basin.

When the warriors returned to Ramarland those who were not seriously wounded all felt a surge of lust for their women, and there ensued a scene of frenetic fucking which shocked some of the non-participants. Marcus, however, fully understood what was happening from his similar experience in Vietnam, and quickly signaled his consent. Afterwards the whole tribe sat in conclave and unwound by speaking freely of the battle and the erotic aftermath. Some of the couples who had made love weren’t married, a virtually unprecedented violation of the Dharmalove norms that had been developed in the colonies over the course of fifteen years. Marcus explained that it was a higher erotic Dharma, and told how he and Venus had undergone a divine marriage rite in their first act of passion, as described in Conjunction with Venus, chapters 12-15. Further, it was a sacred Thulean tradition: when a noble warrior and a chaste maiden consummate their love with purity of intent, the act itself is the wedding. A literary testimony to the custom is given in the tale of Gawain in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parsifal.

The experience led Marcus to formalize one of the most primal customs of all: henceforth a man must pass the rite of martial combat to be eligible for marriage. The bottom line in the ancient tribes was the first kill: to become worthy to beget life a man must first take life, to prove himself able to defend his family from mortal predators. Marcus and his circle of alpha male advisors decided that this would be too strict a rule for the young tribe, and might encourage needless killing. But they laid down a law that all prospective bridegrooms must serve a stint in Ramarland and acquit themselves honorably in at least one battle.

One of the former SS officers put Marcus in contact with a clandestine network of arms dealers, from which he was able to fulfill his plans to acquire a formidable arsenal of “heavy hardware”. Most of it was not for use in the jungle but for a future showdown against the lords of the world order, or even for the ultimate endgame: the collapse of civilization. Marcus’ armory came to include anti-aircraft guns, medium-range ballistic missiles and launchers, armored vehicles, and combat helicopters. He would’ve bought a fighter jet if there had been a suitable landing strip for it anywhere. Most of the equipment was stored at secure sites near the Amazon delta on the coast of Brazil, where it could be shipped to the USA on short notice if the need ever arose. And as we’ll see, it did.

8. Secret Wars