We Have Assumed Control: While walking around the Carolina Bay in Aiken, SC, over the Christmas Holidays in 2025, I found some large pine cones all around the place. It was a very sunny afternoon and the harsh light helped highlight the prickles and the scales of one of them. To me they look like invading spaceships. Thus, the title comes from the end of the Rush song “2112” with the lyrics: “Attention all planets of the solar federation! We have assumed control!”
