Phoenix would like to thank:

Evi Numen for her tangible aid, buoying encouragement, and love.

My father and Socrates for my first two young awakenings to philosophy.

Friedrich Nietzsche, most of all. He taught me the path of the creator, and the way of the true philosopher. Before I wrote of self-expression, he wrote of the same phenomenon within "will-to-power" (power in the every sense; will-to-power is a push to express from the most "spiritual" sense to the physical). He wrote of the Promethean ideal of life (seeking the integrated strength of the individual) under the name of what is "life-advancing." His writing was the principle inspiration for Prometheanism, and I read him as its precursor. I am grateful, Zarathustra. (I recommend English translations by Walter Kaufmann or R.J. Hollingdale.)

Ayn Rand as a negative and positive example. In important ways, I disagree with Ayn Rand's philosophy and posturing. Her definition of rationalism was rigid and reactionary; Reason to her became like a God, another kind of moral tyranny. She neglected that a strict objective standard does not explain creativity. She became ungrateful and ignoble to her conceptual mentor Nietzsche, from whom she has obviously drawn very much. Her compromises with compulsion in government were naive and hypocritical. Yet, Rand introduced many people to what were usually valuable ideas, such as the value of freedom in private and economic behavior, personal independence, and self-interest.

Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Robert Anton Wilson, Gregory Bateson, Daniel Dennett, John Keegan, et al.

The Austrian school of economists, and other intellectual champions of liberation, prosperity and peace.

David Mack, William Blake for his printing, Louis Sullivan for 'form follows function', and all others who have provided Trilogy design inspiration.

Colin Wilson for The Outsider, Kurt Vonnegut for Harrison Bergeron, Aldous Huxley for Brave New World, Yevgeny Zamyatin for We, Ray Bradbury for Fahrenheit 451, George Orwell for 1984 and Animal Farm, Hesse for Siddhartha, Orson Scott Card for the Ender books, Grave of the Fireflies, Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles, et al.

cEvin Key, Download, VNV Nation, Covenant, haujobb, Einstürzende Neubauten, Skinny Puppy, Front 242, Tom Ellard, Aghast View, :Wumpscut:, Juno Reactor, Klinik, Forma Tadre, Gridlock, Project Pitchfork, Neuroactive, Winterkalte, Index, NCC, Ivory Frequency, Netherfabrik and many others for the underground-industrial-experimental electronic music that inspired, sustained, and entertained along the way.

Self-appointed gadflies, negative examples, harsh critics, and everyone else I have learned from.