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Sorry, I honestly couldn't find anywhere that says it's his own hand!  Also, earlier in the story as I mentioned, Peyne recounts a vague half-memory of Peter St John visiting him with something in his hand.  In part 12, the voice says 'And I finally see what it's holding' - which also leads me to presume that this disembodied voice may well be composed in part of Peyne, who has at last filled in that gap in his memory.  Just my reading of it anyway; as I say I may be wrong.

Something else just occurred to me about zzzenith.com too (which I really liked; though I know it wasn't for everyone).  Apart from the question as to who would be so fecking stupid as to allow the Chimaera to be sliced in half, does the curious last line of the story mean everybody died?  I know it's deliberately ambiguous.

One mystery that I recently did solve though was where Zenith and St John's final conversation was taken from.  I kind of guessed it was a quote from somewhere, then found this.  It seems to be very well-known, but not to me before now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpq-1B_OTbY

Are you sure?  It seems to be Peyne's voice narrating the weird events.  I took it to mean that this event happens / happened outside of linear time; and Peyne's consciousness as part of Chimaera could perceive it happening.

I just re-read Episode 14 of Phase IV and it's definitely narrated by St John, although due to the big reveal at the end it does try to throw the reader off the scent by hinting it might be Peyne.

In fact, Peyne is already dead by this point, and his memoirs are destroyed on the first page.

Just re-read it myself - your theory makes sense but I can't quite understand why St John would be oblivious as to who he himself as the narrator is, and why he would feel so distanced and impartial to what's going on. 
Sorry if I'm being thick, but it seems now to me that it's Chimaera speaking; and Chimaera's consciousness includes (though as a very, very small fragment) that of Peyne, despite his being dead (or pre-born, or post-born, or whatever). 
The voice identifies itself as Peyne, then specifies that part of it is Peyne, or that Peyne is just a part of something bigger. 
Hope that makes sense; please do contradict me if it doesn't.  I'm loving this conversation by the way!

Thanks, folks!  I too love discussing the Zenith universe (hence the thread, I suppose).

3) Peyne doesn't but St John does.

Are you sure?  It seems to be Peyne's voice narrating the weird events.  I took it to mean that this event happens / happened outside of linear time; and Peyne's consciousness as part of Chimaera could perceive it happening.

4) St John constructed it as a trap. He had plenty of opportunity to alter the Chimera universe to his liking.

I thought Chimaera shaped itself; in Zenith's room, without any outside help. St John only learned to use it as a trap. You may well be right, though I prefer Link's explanation:

4) When they were shunted to the Chimaera universe they 'over-wrote' that version of themselves.

6) Lux wasn't dead, he just fell through a mirror into an alternate universe.

I thought this was the case; but I don't remember seeing it anywhere in the story.

7) No, that's the real Peyne within the fake universe. The text makes it pretty clear he's been put there by St John.

Really?  Another bit that went over my head!  Though I do recall Peyne writing about a vague memory of St John visiting him with something in his hand, so your theory makes perfect sense.  Obviously like the Lloigor he had no memory of the event though it was buried somewhere in his unconscious - which also helps to explain number 3.

8) I took it as being one of an infinite number of 'parallels' (similar to almost every comic book universe' idea of parallels.).

8) No, it's a DC comics style Multiverse.

See now, the way I saw it was that the Chimaera events were a sort of explanation as to why there was a Multiverse in Zenith.  Though of course this doesn't explain how they can align as in Phase 3, but then I saw the geometric alignment as only a sort of simplified visual metaphor for what the Lloigor were trying to do.  Much like, I suppose, the pyramid (I know the universe couldn't actually be pyramid-shaped, but that's just how normal people or even superhumans perceived it in Zenith).

Just musing over Zenith, particularly Phase IV.  There probably aren't any black-and-white answers here but just wondering what other people's opinions are.  I won't include spoiler tags; just don't read on if you haven't read Zenith.


1.  If all superhumans in Zenith's world are coterminous* with the Lloigor, why aren't Zenith and St John Lloigor themselves?  Or is that what is implied at the end of Phase 4?  If so, they still seemed to be pretty unLloigorish in zzzenith.com.

2.  How did Peter St John trap the Lloigor in Chimaera?  It was something connected to Ruby smashing what seemed to be the pyramid, I'm sure.

3.  How did Peyne come to see the events of the Lloigor reaching the edges of the replica universe?

4.  Why didn't Lux, Spook and the rest meet miniature versions of themselves inside Chimaera?  Only Zenith and St John seemed to have been replicated by Chimaera.

5.  If Chimaera is pyramid-shaped, does that mean the actual universe is too?

6.  How did Lux come back to life before Phase 3?  Think I missed that bit (not being sarcastic or anything - I really do think I missed it or can't remember it).

7.  Was the Peyne in Chimaera just a Chimaera creation?  If so, is there another, full-sized Peyne in the 'real' Zenith universe?

8.  Is Zenith's universe (not withstanding the parallel ones) an infinite Russian-doll style set of ever-smaller Chimaeras inside Chimaeras?

Come to think of it, is that what our universe is?  Jesus, Morrison, you've quite the imagination, for a bald Scotch magic knight.

*a word I just learned from looking up Yog Sothoth on Wikipedia.

I often wonder to myself whether there'll be another people's revolution in China.  My only evidence is having been there and taught people one-to-one.

Though it would be very rude for a foreigner to bring it up, a bit of chat reveals that absolutely no clued-up person is happy with the government and its system.  The emergence of a new middle class has given a bit of free time to actually think about how the country is run and compare it with other countries.

For this reason Facebook and Youtube are filtered out by the government firewall, but most of the people I knew had proxy software to get around it - and many of them used it specifically to avoid the state-controlled media and glean some objective news about China.

As far as I can see protests happen on a regular basis in places like Tianenmen Square (in which nothing bad ever happened, according to the government, but the people know better) but the perpetrators are quickly arrested and carted away in secrecy, presumably for 're-education' or worse. 

The Mao revolution in its infancy is seen as a golden age by most people, as it was a time when people were genuinely equal (though I suspect Mao and his closest aides were a bit more equal).  There are huge divisions in society nowadays, and corruption is rife.  The countryside is being poisoned at a rapid rate as industry grows.

I remember teaching this I.T. guy, a very pleasant and warm chap as many Beijingers are when you get to know them, who frequently checked outside views of China using his proxy device.  Though it took him a bit of internet translation, he eventually arrived at this impressive statement: 'The government cannot stop the flow of history.'

Anyway, as I say I only have the evidence of having lived there for a short while and met some of the people.  It really does seem like the government is clinging desperately onto power.  Does anyone have a bit more of academic view of the situation there?

In a similar vein (f'nar) one of the salty old dears I used to work in a hospital laundry with was always saying "Gal's had more c*cks than John Wayne's rifle" about any of the junior lady docs.

Nice.

My favourite one was 'she's had more mickeys than a second-hand dartboard'.  Should be 'pricks', of course, but whoever said it to me messed it up and I prefer it that way.

I've just remembered one.  I was on a night bus coming home from the city centre when some chav-type started shouting racist abuse at the black driver and another passenger who was black.  Having my beer-muscles on at the time, I started shouting back at him so as to deflect the abuse away from the black guys (who I would imagine have a tough enough time as it is).
He insulted and abused me for a while ('hairball' is the only bit I remember) then got on the phone to someone and realised he was on the wrong bus.  He got off in a rage, very far from his intended destination, still shouting abuse but helplessly this time as there are no other buses around at that time.  Don't know what happened to him but I hope he had to walk.  At the very least the taxi would have cost him a fortune.

I'll always love Bisley's Sláine, me. I don't know if it's just nostalgia these days but it absolutely blew me away at the time.  I spent much of my early teens copying the pictures and fantasising about Medb and work as a mural painter today, so I have a lot to thank the Biz for.  Can't wait to see his new stuff on  Sláine.

Blimey, I was always led to believe pookas were rabbits.

I remember Robert Anton Wilson saying as much in one of his highly entertaining talks about everything and nothing.  But I always thought pookas were horse-like ghosts that live in water.

Anyway...
'See that for skill-of-an-ape!' :  Used for demanding attention after performing a skillful feat.  Used by my brother and me since we were little.

Things have calmed down a bit now. It took us four days to get hold of his daughter but now we have it is a great weight off of Mrs Albions mind and things can proceed a bit easier now.

Glad to hear things are getting easier and my thoughts are with you and your family.  Thanks for your concern for my brother too and the same to Jimbo.

When did you first notice the rifts between Paul and John, and how much of this did you attribute to Yoko's influence?

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

My brother, a very kind and gentle soul, has just found out at the age of 30 that  he has epilepsy.  This is after a hole in the heart, chronic thrombosis and gallstones that lead to the removal of his gall bladder.  If I could share some of the illnesses with him I would do so gladly.  I don't know much about epilepsy but I hope he can live a normal life, he's well overdue a bit of peace and quiet.

But having just looked at Albion's post, it puts things into perspective.  Very sorry to hear about your loss, Albion.  Hope you're all managing ok.

P.S.  Mods, any chance this thread could be moved to the Off Topic section? Just wondering

Pedantry².  Like it.

Not that I noticed, to be honest. Thought it was pretty good, except for the thoughts of a new character called Nicksie from London - 'Farking' just isn't phonetic cockney in my book, and he says it a lot.
Generally speaking, it's Welsh's third-person narration that gets my goat (I really didn't like Crime, for example, some of his metaphors are painfully contrived), but he seems to have nailed it in Skagboys.  The last line of the book is just beautiful, it really is.

Porno, though, is probably a better book.  It's all internal monologue and it works perfectly; it's also more much more tightly-scripted.  Get oot thair n fuckin read it, ya radge!

Bikes it is then. 
I remember a chap I know who got his bike stolen.  He then waited round the flats where he presumed the culprit came from. He was proven correct when he saw the little tea-leaf riding his bike around proud as punch, so he jumped him, knocked him off his bike and got it back.

Sorry about what's happening to the conversation, Snuffers, it's become the bike-theft-and-Dredd thread.