But the Rocket has to be many things, it must answer to a number of different shapes in the dreams of those who touch it—in combat, in tunnel, on paper—it must survive heresies shining, unconfoundable … and heretics there will be: Gnostics who have been taken in a rush of wind and fire to chambers of the Rocket-throne…. Kabbalists who study the Rocket as Torah, letter by letter—rivets, burner cup and brass rose, its text is theirs to permute and combine into new revelations, always unfolding…. Manichaeans who see two Rockets, good and evil … of a good Rocket to take us to the stars, an evil Rocket for the World's suicide, the two perpetually in struggle.

—Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow