In the wake of all the strife taking place in Philly in my 🧼opera, Easter, we have a disgruntled civilian named Egg, who, having been disillusioned with authority after his own recent encounter with the legal system moved him beyond reproach, devises a plan to carry-out what he sees is the only logical solution to stop🛑 and prevent any further foul play against his community - the extermination of all police officers, and the dismemberment of local officials (eg. those elected, ombuds, prosecutors, etc.) for whom they serve.
To make matters worse, he is even willing and competent enough to take his cause further - orchestrate an all-out war against anybody who is in disagreement with his self-reliance/self-preservation, protectionist philosophy. Inevitably, random persons are made at fault and no one is a safe target, but by billing himself as the "crown of light", this 'manifestation of abuse' - akin to the Grim Reaper - can rationalize being his own judge+jury (however sadistic) by using the survival of the fittest evolutionary tactic so that he can 'bring a new dawn'.
"If I were you, I'd be afraid of me, too." - Egg
Before being sentenced to a hospital for a non-violent offense, Egg was a firefighter👨🏿🚒 (fire chief) employed by the City on loan to the Philadelphia Water Authority, which is a subsidiary of Lindros FlyerCast & Irons, Ltd.. He was working specifically under a federal grant (a weeks-long hackathon sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service) to build+research urban watersheds for a statewide 'green' ("healthy") initiative. His findings were that somebody was 'poisoning the well', so to speak; for decades there has been foreign particulates (neurological agents) deliberately placed into the drinking water of targeted African-American neighborhoods in Philadelphia and Bucks County. His investigation led him to discover that this had been done perhaps intentionally by an intra-organizational coalition.
/// At first I had Egg working as an engineer for the company, but then realized that the story
calls for someone who thoroughly knows their way around town. -- One of my first job offers in Montana came from the Smokejumper Center in Missoula as a data scientist. I declined, but kept in contact with some of the people there because I find wildland fire🔥 seasons fascinating.In Easter, Egg acquires a lot of power in a very short amount of time, and I figured the most reasonable way for him to do this was for him to be put in a position of trust, where he could easily prey on people's vulnerabilities. Them assuming that as a firefighter👨🏿🚒 he is there to help as a first responder, is a sensible way to dramatize this. Also, being his fire house's department head, he possesses natural leadership skills which will always be on full display. This makes sense considering that it
calls for somebody who knows the city inside-out, like the back of his hand.When he went to report his findings to his superiors, he was immediately re-assigned, and the project spec dismantled. He was later labeled mentally impotent, timely laid-off, and then framed for three (3) counts of tampering with federal equipment. Each count held up to one year as punishable by law. Because these were minor trespasses, the authorities decided to ship him interstate to a psychiatric ward in Deer Lodge, Montana for his sentence (1,000 days).
Whatever happens, happens, and for a reason. That mode of thinking catapulted him into the depths of anguish and back again, taking him to the brink of death, where he began irreversible experiments of self-mutilation. These actions ended up costing him his arm in the process, which was later replaced with a 🦾bionic prosthetic.
While on the inside, with his freedoms/liberties gone, he did plenty of introspection. He may have tried to find religion to some degree, or at least what it means to be 'religious' in the midst of hell, by sampling the unit's library. But then decided that he's actually not a coward; that it's actually against his best interests to seek false protection from others who were legitimately sick (you typically see hardcore thugs find a religion while in rehab as a way to form a safety net).
"Life is Death's clock. I've been gone; I died a long time ago. Today, I'm a soul collector." - Egg
With all of his learning and understanding, he found some things about the Holy Bible to be astonishingly peculiar to him. After reading the good book from cover-to-cover, he began to believe that he was blessed, not cursed. His psychosis became more potent over the course of his sentence, and had gotten to a point in schizophrenia where he totally converted to his own belief system.
And like all people on the journey seeking mental resolve, he found a distant source, and then nit-picked that source to get closer to it, selecting what sounded most interesting to him and in-line with his feelings. What he found came directly from three books in the Bible: Genesis, Deuteronomy, and Revelation (ie. the first, the fifth, and the last):
from Genesis 15:13, he learned that the People (Hebrews) were cursed by God: 📯
"And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;" from Deuteronomy 28:15-68, but especially verse 68, he noted that They came over to the New World cast in irons on slave ships, are generally considered to be "of confused mind" (ie. lacking high intelligence), called bywords (eg. 'nigger'), etc.: 📯
"And the Lord will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer." From those two books alone, he accepted that the Bible speaks in
code, and deduced that Black Americans are the true Hebrews.* This would be a distinct group, separate from the Black Hebrew Israelites or Beta Israel. He used Revelation to further make his case: Revelation 3:7-13: 📯
"To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:
These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. 9 I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars—I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you. 10 Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.
11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. 12 The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name. 13 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches." Those Revelation chapter+verses convinced him of the City of Philadelphia (his hometown) (as) being the last remaining of the Seven Churches, and that the true Hebrews would come from her when called. Figuring that the first slaves were brought to American (Virginia) shores[a] in August 1619, that time is now (202x+), he thinks.
So, when we get introduced to Stu in the church scene alongside Dominique, we know that he's at the tail-end of his spiritual journey. From his personal failings, he has arrived at the inevitable delusion: that because the Negro (Hebrew) cannot thrive under oppression, it should not co-exist with its oppressor(s).* This is the thesis of H. Rap Brown's autobiography.
Back in Philly, he returns home to find his wife making drastic lifestyle changes, his young children having lost respect for him, and he himself an extremely bitter person. With little to lose, no time to waste, and realizing that he must act quickly if he is to self-fulfill a prophesy (of Armageddon and thus ending the curse), his plot for revenge begins. He goes on the hunt for Theo (it was the kingpin himself who helped
frame him; giving the police the planted evidence that sent him away), Maundy (his former employer whom he holds responsible for oppressing his 'Hebrew' people), and every active law enforcer. Accomplishing this is no small feat, as he sees enemies in gangs & street thugs (à la Theo's comrades) as well as the corporations (viewing America itself as a corporation) -- all shareholders in corruption, and which are equally as guilty in oppressing Hebrews over time. Certain targets are harder to hit for reasons that are out of his area of expertise, but that's not going to stop him from trying.
"It's simple economics: you pay for everything you do and don't do. ... If they were already dealt with, then this wouldn't keep happening. -- No regressions." - Egg
I wrote Egg to be perhaps the nastiest, most vicious antihero ever. He is truly a mean motherfucker. Even though the character is
"... and where has being nice gotten us? Remember, there are no devils in Heaven." - Egg
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"Egg is coming for you." - Egg