Seanfram Manor

IV

Lieutenant Argon Palladium: Colonel, is there a point in seeing constellations in the sky?

Colonel Promethium Titanium: What do you mean, the "point" of seeing constellations?

Captain Boron Magnesium: Constellations...of stars?

Lieutenant Argon: Yes, and hemorrhage of blood.

General Officer Vanadio Germanium: Lieutenant, answer the Colonel. What trifle are you discussing now?

Lieutenant Argon: Yes, my General. Why have there been arrangements of stars that have been properly named, like Pegasus and Cassiopeia? Because they represent figures of ancient myths, that is probably fake, right? What is the point of drawing images in the sky?

Colonel Promethium: Why do you presume that we draw the images, you pedant? They happen to be there.

Lieutenant Argon: Right, and how was that determined? There are billions upon billions of stars, only a hundred or so visible from this corner of the planet, and I can join them through imaginary lines and create new patterns.

Colonel Promethium: So is the cartography of celestial bodies the same to you as searching for shapes in the clouds?

Lieutenant Argon: I am just saying that any other shapes could have been traced.

General Officer Vanadio: You do understand that constellations are drawn using the brightest stars as vertexes, Lieutenant?

Colonel Promethium: Argon is confusing science with leisure and fantasy.

Lieutenant Argon: You would have to concede that your General also described constellations as being drawn.

Colonel Promethium: There were the alignments of stars before humanity came to conceive the symbol, and they happen to resemble those identifiable images.

Lieutenant Argon: You are saying that the design was previous to the symbol, but that cannot be. Symbols can only be such when read. If there is no symbol to read, there is only nature.

Colonel Promethium: Before we had an Orion, we had Orion-shaped stars. Call that quantum physics, but out of the possibilities configured by the cosmos, inexhaustible by nature, a set of shapes was formed in the sky and we were bound to find it. Eventually, we would have the creativity to associate it properly.

Lieutenant Argon: I do not know about that...

General Officer Vanadio: You do know that constellations are tools of orientation, right?

Lieutenant Argon: We could have chosen any other group of stars, even if they did not shine as brightly.

Everyone mutters.

General Officer Vanadio: Any thoughts, Captain Boron?

Captain Boron: I tend to believe whoever offers the most complicated proposition, as those who do so tend to be right. Maybe I do not believe them myself, but I bet that they might be right. Leibniz, Menger, Einstein and all the fellows. For a man who does not do science, like me, Occam's razor suffices. The theories that demand the least assumptions seem the most sensible.

General Officer Vanadio: And what must be assumed, according to the razor, for either of these charlatans to be correct?

Captain Boron: God did it.

General Officer Vanadio: Makes sense.

Colonel Promethium: In that case, Argon is right.

Lieutenant Argon: Address me with respect, Titanium!

Colonel Promethium: Apologies, Palladium!

General Officer Vanadio: Quiet!

Captain Boron: In that case, the Lieutenant is right.