Dagon

Dagon (Hebrew: דגון'‎, Tib. Dāḡôn) or Dagan (Ugaritic: Dgn, Dagnu, or Daganu; Akkadian: Dagana) was originally an East Semitic Mesopotamian (Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian) fertility god who evolved into a major Northwest Semitic god, reportedly of grain (as symbol of fertility) and fish and/or fishing (as symbol of multiplying). He was worshipped by the early Amorites and by the inhabitants of the cities of Ebla (modern Tell Mardikh, Syria) and Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, Syria). He was also a major member, or perhaps head, of the pantheon of the Philistines.

Name

In Ugaritic, the root dgn also means grain: in Hebrew דגן dāgān, Samaritan dīgan, is an archaic word for grain.

The Phoenician author Sanchuniathon also says Dagon means siton, that being the Greek word for grain. Sanchuniathon further explains: "And Dagon, after he discovered grain and the plough, was called Zeus Arotrios." The word arotrios means "ploughman", "pertaining to agriculture" (confer ἄροτρον "plow").

It is perhaps related to the Middle Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic word dgnʾ 'be cut open' or to Arabic dagn (دجن) 'rain-(cloud)'.

Fomalhaut b

Fomalhaut b or Dagon is a confirmed, directly imaged extrasolar object and candidate planet orbiting the A-type main-sequence star Fomalhaut, approximately 25 light-years away in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus. The object was initially announced in 2008 and confirmed as real in 2012 from images taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on the Hubble Space Telescope and, according to calculations reported in January 2013, has a 1,700-year, highly elliptical orbit. It has a periastron of 7.4 billion km (~50 AU) and an apastron of about 44 billion km (~300 AU). As of May 25, 2013 it is 110 AU from its parent star.

The planet was one of those selected by the International Astronomical Union as part of their public process for giving proper names to exoplanets. The process involved public nomination and voting for the new name. In December 2015, the IAU announced the winning name was Dagon. The name Dagon was proposed by Dr. Todd Vaccaro and forwarded by the St. Cloud State University Planetarium to the IAU for consideration.

Nightrider (DC Comics)

Nightrider (Dagon) is a fictional vampire superhero from the DC Comics universe. He is a member of the Team Titans, a rebel group seeking to overthrow Lord Chaos, the dictator of an alternate Earth ten years into the future.

Fictional character biography

David was an ordinary mortal boy growing up in London. When he was ten, he was hit by a truck. Lord Chaos took a special interest in him, making him a test subject.

At fourteen, he was the subject of an experiment in which he was infused with DNA drawn from the bones of Dracula. This turned him into a blood-hungering monster he dubbed "Dagon", because he felt as if David, the person he used to be, was dead. During the experiment, a demon attacked the research team; Dagon joined it and singled out the chief researcher for special attention. The only survivor was Charlie Watkins, who would later become the hero Killowat.

Dagon joined the Team Titans to get revenge on Lord Chaos, adopting the name Nightrider. They taught him how to control his hunger and assigned him to a team.

Jumper

Jumper or Jumpers may refer to:

Clothing

Computers and software

Arts, media, and entertainment

Jumper (novel)

Jumper is a 1992 science fiction novel by Steven Gould. The novel was published in mass market paperback in October 1993 and re-released in February 2008 to coincide with the release of the film adaptation. It tells the story of David, a teenager who escapes an abusive household using his ability to teleport. As he tries to make his way in the world, he searches for his mother (who left when he was a child), develops a relationship with a woman he keeps his ability secret from, and is eventually brought into conflict with several antagonists.

Plot

One evening, while being physically abused by his father, David Rice unexpectedly teleports (or "jumps") and finds himself in the local library. The origin of this power is never explained. Vowing never to return to his father's house, David makes his way to New York City. After being mugged and discovering that he can't get a job without a birth certificate and social security number, David robs a local bank by teleporting inside the safe, stealing nearly a million dollars. He then begins a life of reading, attending plays, and dining in fancy restaurants.

Jumper (suicide)

A jumper, in police and media parlance, is a person who plans to fall or jump (or already has fallen or jumped) from a potentially deadly height, sometimes with the intention to commit suicide, at other times to escape conditions inside (e.g., a burning building).

The term includes successfully-fatal suicides as well as those people who survive the attempt. The latter are often left with major injuries and permanent disabilities from the impact-related injuries. A frequent scenario is that the jumper will sit on an elevated highway or building-ledge as police attempt to talk them down. Potential jumpers are sometimes encouraged by observers to jump, an effect known as "suicide baiting".

The term was brought to prominence even more so in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, in which approximately 200 people at the point of impact or trapped above the point of impact in the North and South towers of the World Trade Center jumped to escape the fire and the smoke caused by the direct impact of Flights 11 and 175. Many of these jumpers were inadvertently captured on both television and amateur footage, even though television networks reporting on the tragedy attempted to avoid showing the jumpers falling to avoid upsetting viewers.