(Image: The Terminator, available for purchase via Amazon.)

Combine the extreme intensity of a Scorpio Sun with the high-speed, high-adventure, high-volume instincts of a Sagittarius Moon and the result can feel like a heart pounding run through hell. Astrologer Wendell C. Perry writes of the Scorpio/Sagittarius individual, “You feel that you are at war with yourself because you can never be as forthright, expansive, and trusting as you would like. The world is just too scary a place”. (Source). Jacqueline Bigar writes, “Even you want to go ‘whoa’ and stop this ride”. (Source) This is one of the most action oriented of the 144 Sun/Moon pairing as both signs have the theme of “attack” symbolized within their glyphs. Scorpio is symbolized by the Scorpion, the Snake, and the Eagle – all deadly predators who thrive within extremely hostile environments while Sagittarius is symbolized as a wild haired centaur-archer armed with a quiver full of flaming arrows. The pairing is thus well equipped to take on a world that has become a very scary place (Scorpio) to take a ride through (Sagittarius). To illustrate: using its premier date as its date of birth, the original Terminator film is a Scorpio with its Moon in Sagittarius. (Chart) If you’ve never seen the film it’s a fictional but fundamentally accurate projection of what might be the Zodiac’s most courageous, committed, and socially concerned Sun/Moon pairing.

Terminator stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as the “T-800” model Terminator — a heavily fortified contract killing machine from the future who gives no quarter and whose cybernetic brain possesses no fear of death. In effect, the T-800 is the sci-fi world’s version of an assassin (Scorpio) on a mission from abroad (Sagittarius Moon). Opposite him is actress Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, a young woman who transforms herself from a wilting violet afraid of her own shadow into a ferociously self-sufficient badass who defeats the heartless killer sent to eliminate her and her unborn child. Both the T-800 and the Sarah Connor characters are textbook Scorpio/Sagittarians albeit from opposite ends of the spectrum: one’s been programmed to serve the ice cold forces of technological centralization by inflicting death, the other’s been called to disrupt them by preserving life. Both are totally implacable in the pursuit of their objective(s).

Something similar can be said of the Kyle Reese character, portrayed to utterly feral effect by actor Michael Biehn. Both Reese and the T-800 are covert agents (Scorpio) on far-ranging quests (Sagittarius) but one is there to save lives while the other is there to destroy them. Reese is intensely courageous (high-Scorpio) and totally committed (high-Sagittarius) while the Terminator is coldly murderous (low-Scorpio) and unthinkingly fanatical (low-Sagittarius).

The emotional intensity in the film is a good, if exaggerated, approximation of the impassioned zeal this combination is capable of once it’s committed to a cause of life-and-death proportions. Scorpio can be tenacious to the point of being obsessive while Sagittarius can be zealous to the point of being fanatical. Pair the two together and you get somebody who can be absolutely unwavering once they’ve set their mind on a particular path. Astrologer Bill Tierney explains:

In the fictional world of Terminator, Kyle Reese’s all-consuming quest is saving the mother of the future. In the real world this combination is attracted to similarly all-consuming quests that involve epic battles between good and evil. The AIDS epidemic in Africa, the brutality of Iphone factories in China, or human-trafficking in Eastern Europe are the type of causes a Scorpio/Sagittarius individual will often be found crusading against . . . or on behalf of should they turn to the darker possibilities of this Sun/Moon pairing.

If Reese comes off as a paranoid fanatic in the above scenes that’s because paranoia, fanaticism, and phobias, are some of the liabilities of this Sun/Moon pairing. Of course, as the saying goes, “It’s not paranoia if they really are after you”.

Even those Scorpio/Sagittarius individuals who go on all-consuming crusades for non-violence will often find themselves engaged in legal, social, or political confrontations as ferocious as a battle with the Terminator. To illustrate: the chart for the premier of Terminator and the natal chart of film star turned AIDS icon Rock Hudson are uncannily similar. Both Hudson and Terminator have Sun in Scorpio, both have Moon in Sagittarius, both have Jupiter in Capricorn, both have Saturn in Scorpio, both have Neptune in a fire sign, both have Pluto in a water sign. Terminator was about battling an unstoppable cybernetic killer with mysterious origins while Hudson become an icon for battling an unstoppable viral killer with mysterious origins. AIDS is a sexually transmitted killer while in Terminator the T-800 kills Sarah’s romantic and sexual partner. At one point in the film Reese describes the T-800 as, “an infiltration unit, very tough, very hard to beat, it won’t stop until you are dead.” That just so happens to be a good description of HIV as it infiltrates a person’s immune system, is very hard to beat, and won’t stop until its target is dead. The T-800 was made of “heavy metal alloy” that was hard as rock while “Rock” was Hudson’s nickname, conjured up by Hollywood producers to make him seem tough as steel.

In Terminator, Reese’s death at the hands of the T-800 prompts a previously carefree Sarah to learn to defend herself against a heartless computer system known as Skynet. Hudson’s death at the hands of AIDS prompted a generation that had previously been relatively carefree on sexual matters to learn to defend themselves against a heartless virus known as HIV.

Scorpio Sun, Sagittarius Moon: The Enemy of the State

Speaking of paranoia, using its premier date as its date of birth the 1998 film Enemy of the Sate – is also a Scorpio Sun, Sagittarius Moon. (Chart) Like Terminator, the film is essentially a quest (Sagittarius) through the valley of death (Scorpio). In Enemy of the State, it’s the valley of death formed by the world’s most powerful intelligence agency the National Security Agency that the protagonist must crusade through in order to survive:

“Surely the film is at least a bit of a paranoid (Scorpio) exaggeration (Sagittarius), right?” Probably not. According to a 2007 article in the UK Register, intelligence agencies can now perform real time Enemy of the State style surveillance on *all seven billion people* on the planet. (Source) That the film would be so prescient in its depiction of the police state is no surprise given the shrewd, sophisticated, and truth-seeking nature of its Sun/Moon pairing. This pairing makes a good investigator, one that’s excellent at quickly grasping the big picture (Sagittarius) no matter how deep and dark (Scorpio) it might be.

Calling this pairing as the “enemy of the state combination” might seem a bit of an exaggeration but a number of high profile enemies of the state are Sagittarius/Scorpios, be they actual enemies of the state or simply ones in spirit. Former Bloomberg corporate finance reporter Mark Pittman is a Scorpio with his Moon in Sagittarius. Pittman is the journalist who mysteriously died after successfully suing the U.S. Federal Reserve, the central banking cartel that is at the center of myriad global conspiracies. (Chart) Prior to his passing, Pittman had discovered that “the amount going to prop up the financial system dwarfed the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) [issued in 2008]. It added up to $12.8 trillion and it wasn’t clear in all cases where the money was going” according to his Wikipedia entry. So too is Paula Broadwell, the Lt. Colonel turned author who was having an affair with David Petraeus, director of the CIA. (Chart)

Broadwell is likely in a state of complete psychic shock at this time as her entire life has been a vast, all-consuming, totally-committed Scorpio/Sagittarius style crusade aimed at serving, protecting, and doing everything right by “the system”. From being both the valedictorian and the homecoming queen of her high school class to serving 15 years active duty in the Army to getting a Master’s degree from Harvard, she probably never imagined there would come a day when twelve FBI agents would be searching her house at one a.m. over a scandal that seems suspiciously timed to distract people during an election year.

The military-government circles Broadwell moves in are still 1,000% a boys club, one with with serious leanings towards religious fundamentalism and Victorian era moral standards. That means whatever the real reason for this scandal, she’ll be the one taking all the heat for it. Petraeus will simply lay low for 6-to-12 months before sliding into a high paying executive gig at a large military contractor. The situation is unlikely to resolve so smoothly for Broadwell. While she’s not an actual enemy of the state, either in action or in spirit, she is now likely to be treated as a pariah both professionally and socially. Among other things, her security clearance has been pulled which means her career as a counterintelligence officer is about as DOA as Will Smith’s career as an attorney was in Enemy of the State.

Astrologer Carolyn Reynolds writes of the Scorpio/Sagittarius female, “. . . she fares well whatever the climate because she can survive. This one will hunt and fish with you. You can take her to Africa and she’ll out shoot you and the rest of the hunters.” (Source) No kidding. In addition to having served as a special operations command officer, Broadwell has (or had) a side gig working as a firearms demonstrator for the high-end automatic weapons manufacturer KRISS. Here’s a screenshot of her literally “out shooting the boys” taken from one of the company’s promotional videos:

As Broadwell’s curriculum vitae testifies to, Scorpio/Sagittarius is one of the most action oriented of the 144 Sun/Moon pairings. the two together and you have a Sun/Moon pairing that’s predisposed to a life of high speed adventure and high stakes confrontation. Actor Charles Bronson, best known for portraying freelance hitmen, vigilante cowboys, and other battled-hardened characters is also a Scorpio Sun, Sagittarius Moon. (Chart)

Astrologers Suzi and Charles Harvey write of the Scorpio/Sagittarius individual’s deductive prowess, “Your greatest strengths are a probing, questing, analytical mind which is quick to see the large implications of facts . . .” (Source) Astronomer Carl Sagan is a Scorpio Sun, Sagittarius Moon known for having an intensely probing, questing mind. (Sagan’s Chart) Sagan obviously never traveled through literal time or survived a literal nuclear holocaust like his fictional astro-twin Kyle Reese. His work did, however, take him on wide ranging quests through the concepts of space and time. He also spent several years studying the horrors that a large scale nuclear disaster or environmental collapse can bring. (Source)

According to the Harveys, a metaphoric image for the Scorpio Sun, Sagittarius Moon individual is, “A child gazes up at the night sky, captivated by the mystery of deep space. An alien appears, and reveals a glimpse of the child’s future as a famous astro-physicist.” (Source) That image is an almost literal approximation of Sagan’s life story: he was captivated by the mystery of deep science beginning in his childhood, was very interested in the possibility of making contact with extra-terrestrial life, and he did grow up to become a famous astronomer who was well-versed in physics.

Despite being a staunch skeptic of astrology, Sagan would probably be pleased to know that the International Space Station, launched (born) November 20th, 1998 is a Scorpio Sun, Sagittarius Moon just like him. (Chart)

Like many of its Scorpio/Sagittarius astro-twins, the ISS is on a quest (Sagittarius) though an environment (outer space) so fraught with dangers that it is, in a manner of speaking, a valley of death (Scorpio).

Scorpio Sun, Sagittarius Moon: “The Forerunner”

Pablo Picasso is also a Scorpio Sun, Sagittarius Moon. (Chart) His best known painting is Guernica, which he created in response to the valley of death that Guernica became when it was the target of a Nazi blitzkrieg campaign in April 1937. The painting become an international icon for the suffering that war inflicts on both physical and psychological landscapes:

It’s hard not to notice that Picasso’s Guernica bears a number of thematic similarities to the future we’re given glimpse of in Terminator. Take a look at this video of Reese’s flashbacks or at this screenshot of them and compare it to Picasso’s image of Guernica:

While Terminator may not occupy quite the same revered level of art that Guernica does, there are clearly some pretty significant parallels between the two works. The silent horror invoked by Guernica was an all-too-accurate approximation of the highly-mechanized world war just over the horizon for much of Europe. Similarly, the high-tech warfare waged by heartless cyborgs in Terminator has turned out to be an all-too-accurate approximation of the high tech warfare waged for heartless corporations in the year 2012.

That Scorpio Sun, Sagittarius Moon works such as Terminator and Enemy of the State and Scorpio Sun, Sagittarius Moon individuals like Carl Sagan and Pablo Picasso were able to grasp certain truths years before others makes sense given the ecological niche of their Sun/Moon pairing. Astrologer Jefferson Anderson tells us that Scorpio/Sagittarius is the Sun/Moon pairing of “the Forerunner” who “can believe truths that others find hard to fathom, perhaps because it is so far ahead of everybody else.” (Source) This includes truths so unnerving that one must first crusade through a valley of death in order to grasp them.

About the Author: Matthew David Savinar is a California licensed attorney (State Bar #228957), voluntarily inactive as of June 2013. He can be reached for questions, comments, or astrological consults at his contact page.

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