Character Profile - Sarge Marshall
A committed conspiracy theorist and flat-earther
Welcome back to Glass Half Full, and thanks for reading! We’re continuing with a series of character profiles from Ship of Fools. Today we’re taking a look at one of the two flat-earthers in the novel. If you haven’t met Sarge and the other characters yet, you can check out the Introduction or jump right in with the Prologue.
Biographical details
Age: mid-40s
Birthplace: Olympia, WA
Degrees: AAS-T in Computer Networking from Bellingham Technical College
Occupation: IT guy, YouTuber
Relationship profile: straight, lives with his girlfriend
Hobbies: restoring and maintaining vintage computers because the newer models are part of the globalist mind control network
Strangely enough, Sarge Marshall was not the most problematic character in Ship of Fools for me to write. That distinction goes to Lonnie Ester, and also maybe to Reverend Paul Lee, both of whom I’ll profile in later installments. But with Sarge, I’ve watched enough media surrounding flat-earthers1 to have a good feel for the type.
A few types, actually. There are calm flat-earthers and angry flat-earthers. Also true-believer flat-earthers and those who seem to be running a con on their gullible followers (which is, of course, exactly what the flat-earthers believe scientists are doing with the rest of us “normies”). Sarge falls into the former category in each of those pairs of opposites: the calm and usually polite true-believer.
He’s been part of the “conspiracy community” since his late teens, when he fell into the 9/11 truther movement. He was in technical college at the time, studying computer engineering. After that, he cycled through all the popular conspiracy theories as he cycled through a variety of IT jobs in the Seattle area. He was always the quirky tech guy who never quite fit in.
He was aware of flat-earthers, of course, but never thought much about their critiques of the globe-earth model. Then he fell into an online debate with a “flerf” on a conspiracy discussion board. Like many casual globers, he had no good arguments to rebut flat-earth claims. After that, he decided to do his own research, soon realizing that the round-earth hoax served as a kind of master conspiracy that explained and absorbed all the others.
Sarge had the good fortune to start posting flat-earth videos on YouTube in 2015, just as Google’s algorithms started working to boost all sorts of edgy and controversial content. He was part of the wave of flat-earther growth on the platform, finding that the resulting ad revenue could supplant the income from his day job. A good thing, because he was fired as soon as someone brought his videos to his boss’s attention.
With a smooth voice and an affable manner, Sarge became one of the most popular flat-earth YouTubers, organizing conferences on the flat-earth and other conspiracy theories, from which he also earned income.
They’re out to get him
Like many (all?) conspiracy theorists, Sarge has a strong paranoid streak. It’s popped up already in the chapters so far, in his distrust of Dawa’s motives. It can be triggered when he feels under threat, which will happen more often as events unfold. At times, his paranoia may just be an accurate assessment of threats against him and his companions.
In the end, Sarge’s conspiracism may simply grow out of a desire to see know-it-alls and experts receive their comeuppance. This is not an unusual feeling for anyone living in a complex society based on a wide array of technical expertise that’s pretty much opaque to the layman. Especially when those experts so often fail the public that relies on them. But in the end, Sarge may find he has a surprising amount of compassion for the one expert who irks him the most.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this character profile, please give it a like, a share, a restack, or a comment. And if you really enjoyed it, I hope you’ll buy me a coffee or upgrade to a paid subscription.
Come back on Friday for Chapter 25 of Ship of Fools, “Murder Penguins”, in which Liz searches for ways to get Sarge off the ship and onto Antarctica, finding the research surprisingly enjoyable.
But never their own media, as I want neither to give them the views nor to screw up my algorithm