The SOLVE ⨺ 18(36) & COAGULA 27(54) Sets

Here you will find card images and information primarily focused on card faces. Brief overviews of card backs will offer links to the full info as it becomes available. This page will be continully updated as the visual designs and information for the prototype develop. 

The COAGULA ⨺ 27(54) Set

Below each card face, the corresponding stage of laboratory alchemy is described alongside its corresponding institutional sector. Each stage and sector (card faces) is reflective of an album from the band 30 Seconds To Mars, as described. This is followed by a guided tour through the story of the visual imagery in Visual Design Notes. Across the series, the triangular form evolves like a signal being processed — from breakdown and release to crystallization and transmission — echoing both alchemical transformation and the mythic architecture of the pyramid as a conduit between worlds. Click the arrows top right of each image to expand to full screen. 

This is the card face which will appear exactly the same on all COAGULA ⨺ 27(54) cards. 

The Coagulation Stage 🜚


This stage represents embodiment : insight or understanding becoming stable, lived, and integrated into daily action.

The Mass Media


For example, television, film, music, journalism, advertising : The systems through which information and cultural signals are communicated to the public.

30STM Album


The Corresponding 30 Seconds to Mars Album which models after this stage of alchemy : 

Potential Future and Final Album (Unreleased)
Themes (anticipated) : embodiment of transcendence, living truth, art as self-realized unity of perceptual opposites.


Alchemy Reflection : Spirit and matter are one. In this hypothetical next phase, we might expect something quieter, purer, or more sacred — the artistic embodiment of everything the previous albums sought to reconcile.

The Mass Media Sector Reflection : In this final phase, meaning is embodied and stabilized through communication. Mass media functions as coagulation by fixing insight into shared cultural form, allowing ideas to circulate, persist, and be lived collectively. This stage and anticipated album represents the moment when transformation becomes visible, inhabitable, and real. This anticipated final phase suggests an album where meaning is not fragmented or performed, but fully embodied and communicated with clarity. 

Visual Design Notes


This form resolves the system into a dense, crystalline structure — reminiscent of an alien signalling device or geometric transmitter. The lattice-like pathways evoke channels through which information flows, while the apex diamond becomes a point of transmission or crystallized signal, echoing both modern circuitry and ancient visions of pyramid capstone technologies. Where distillation releases the essence, coagulation captures and stabilizes it — the volatile becoming fixed, the signal becoming form.

This is the initial card back layout for the  COAGULA ⨺ 27(54) set. 

The COAGULA backs, in gold, have three triangular areas where symbols will soon be placed to indicate forms of gameplay :

Top Area


The top symbol is called Dynamics and will signify relationships between cards : Simbionts (cooperation), Adjacents (neutrality) and Counteragents (non-cooperation). 

Bottom Left Area


The bottom left symbol is called Strategies and will have 9 permutations : 3 for each of the Dynamics. For example, 3 strategies which would be most suited to dynamics of non-cooperation between Counteragents.

Bottom Right Area


The bottom right symbol is called Pathways and will have 3 permutations, one for each of the 9 cards mentioned so far. This means there will be 3 sets of 9 cards, making 27. Pathways specify the modality or form that the strategy will take. These are called Filtering, Exposure and Rendering.

The SOLVE ⨺ 18(36) Set

Click the arrows top right of each image to expand to full screen. Below each card face, the corresponding stage of alchemy is described
alongside its corresponding institutional sector. Each stage and sector (card faces) is reflective of an album from the band 30 Seconds To Mars, as described. This is followed by any notes about the card design where available :

This card face will appear on 3(6) of the SOLVE ⨺ 18(36) cards.

The Calcination Stage 🜃


This stage represents the breaking down of rigid beliefs, ego structures, and false certainties so that something more essential can emerge.

The Financial Sector


The World Bank & IMF, extending to all local banks.

30STM Album


The Corresponding 30 Seconds to Mars Album which is aligned with this card :

30 Seconds to Mars (self-titled) (2002)
Themes : apocalypse, destruction, the illusion of reality, escape, transformation.

Alchemy Reflection : The ego or false self is burned away. The band’s debut erupts in existential fire — tracks like “Capricorn (A Brand New Name)” and “Edge of the Earth” burn with the impulse to dissolve the old self and be reborn. “I’m no one… and I don’t need anyone.” — “Capricorn”

The Financial Sector (World Bank, IMF) Reflection : This album reflects the destructive fire that exposes false systems of value and control. Apocalyptic imagery and existential urgency mirror how financial power structures shape reality through abstraction, debt, and collapse. Calcination here burns away trust in inherited economic narratives, forcing a confrontation with what truly holds value.

Visual Design Notes


This design closely follows the traditional philosophical symbol of calcination, grounding the system in alchemical lineage. The triangular structure is reduced and sharpened, evoking the burning away of excess to reveal essential form. It establishes the visual language of refinement through reduction.

This card face will appear on 3(6) of the SOLVE ⨺ 18(36) cards.

The Dissolution Stage 🜂


This stage corresponds to surrender, emotional fluidity, and allowing previously fixed ideas to loosen and move.

The Medical Sector


Doctors, hospitals, care and the "Big Pharma" pharmaceutical industry and laboratories. 

30STM Album


The Corresponding 30 Seconds to Mars Album which reflects with this card :

A Beautiful Lie (2005)
Themes : confronting deception, emotional catharsis, personal vulnerability, death and rebirth.

Alchemy Reflection : After burning away illusion, the ego begins to dissolve. This album exposes inner chaos (“The Kill,” “A Beautiful Lie”) and begins to break emotional rigidities through raw confession.

The Medical Sector (Doctors, Big Pharma) Reflection : This album reflects the dissolving of personal and emotional structures, paralleling the medical sector's tendency to destabilize as much as to heal. Themes of exposure, vulnerability, and breakdown mirror how medical institutions often intervene by fragmenting the body into symptoms, diagnoses, and protocols. In dissolution, trust erodes, certainty collapses, and the individual is left raw — caught between care and control, healing and dependency.

Visual Design Notes


As it echoes visual similarity with dissolution's philosophical symbol, this design introduces a softening within the triangular field. The interior begins to fragment into smaller units, suggesting the breakdown of fixed structure into fluid states. The geometry reflects a movement from solidity into permeability.

This card face will appear on 3(6) of the SOLVE ⨺ 18(36) cards.

The Separation Stage 🜄


This stage reflects discernment and clarity, learning to distinguish what is valuable from what is no longer needed within one’s thoughts and habits.

The Militia / Arms Sector


From politically oriented militia and beyond to private arms dealers and arms development.

30STM Album


The Corresponding 30 Seconds to Mars Album which is aligned with this card :

This Is War (2009)
Themes : conflict, faith, revolution, duality, surrender.


Alchemy Reflection : The purified elements are separated — truth and untruth, light and dark, war and peace. This is the album of differentiation, where opposites are clearly defined to prepare for synthesis.

The Military Sector (Trade, Development, Conflict) Reflection : The album embodies the logic of separation : allies and enemies, belief and doubt, victory and surrender. Its themes mirror the military sector’s function of defining boundaries and enforcing distinctions, distilling identity through conflict in preparation for resolution or reintegration.

Visual Design Notes


While visually referencing the traditional symbol for separation, this form emphasizes distinction within the system. Elements become more clearly differentiated, expressing discernment through structured division. The triangular container begins to organize what has been dissolved.

This card face will appear on 3(6) of the SOLVE ⨺ 18(36) cards.

The Conjunction Stage 🜁


This stage represents integration : the conscious joining of previously opposing or fragmented parts into a coherent whole.

The Religious Sector


"The Church" as I often call it, or any major or smaller world religions. This includes the institution of the family and its related morals.

30STM Album


The Corresponding 30 Seconds to Mars Album which reflects with this card :

Love, Lust, Faith and Dreams (2013)
Themes : integration, cosmic love, the four elements, transcendence through beauty.

Alchemy Reflection : The alchemist unites spirit and matter. Jared explicitly structures this album into elemental quadrants — Love, Lust, Faith, Dreams — reflecting coniunctio oppositorum, the sacred marriage of dual forces.

Religion & the Family Unit Reflection : Here, opposites are reunited through devotion, intimacy, and shared meaning. The album’s elemental structure reflects religion and family as institutions that bind spirit and matter, belief and practice, individual desire and collective ritual into coherent, lived systems of meaning.

Visual Design Notes


Drawing from its counterpart — the philosophical symbol for conjuction — this design reintroduces balance through symmetrical integration. Previously separated elements begin to align into a unified internal structure. The geometry reflects a moment of synthesis — where dualities reconcile into coherence.

This card face will appear on 3(6) of the SOLVE ⨺ 18(36) cards.

The Fermentation Stage 🜔


This stage reflects a crisis or breakdown that paradoxically gives rise to new insight, creativity, or meaning.

The Political Sector


World Governments, Monarchy and UN

30STM Album


The Corresponding 30 Seconds to Mars Album which reflects with this stage of alchemy :

America (2018)
Themes : cultural decay, identity crisis, resurrection of meaning in chaos.


Alchemy Reflection : The old matter has rotted, and new life begins to emerge. The band ferments their sound — pop, trap, electronic — and their critique of modern culture becomes a philosophical renewal through decay.

The Political Sector Reflection : This album inhabits cultural decay as a generative force, mirroring political systems under pressure. Through critique, irony, and stylistic rupture, it reflects how political life ferments identity during moments of collapse, allowing new narratives and ideologies to emerge from disintegration.

Visual Design Notes


Here the system becomes more emergent and internally active. The geometry grows more complex and alive, suggesting an unseen activation within the structure. The pattern evokes a living process — transformation arising from within rather than imposed from outside.

This card face will appear on 3(6) of the SOLVE ⨺ 18(36) cards.

The Distillation Stage 🜍


This stage corresponds to refinement of awareness through repetition, reflection, and practice, extracting clarity from experience.

The Corporate Sector


Brands, services and business, local, national and transnational.

30STM Album


The Corresponding 30 Seconds to Mars Album which reflects with this stage of alchemy :

It’s the End of the World but It’s a Beautiful Day (2023)
Themes : simplicity, surrender, serenity in chaos, faith in presence.


Alchemy Reflection : The spirit is refined into clarity. After years of grandiosity, the music becomes stripped down, honest, luminous — like vapor rising after the storm.

The Corporate Sector (Brands, Services, Business) : Stripped-down and restrained, this album reflects distillation as refinement through repetition. Its clarity parallels the corporate sector’s ability to condense complexity into consumable form, extracting essence through iteration, optimization, and disciplined presentation.

Visual Design Notes


This design refines complexity into a more elevated and clarified structure. The apex diamond appears as a point of release — suggesting essence rising or escaping the vessel. It marks a critical threshold where the volatile becomes purified, preparing for its return into form.

This is the initial card back layout for the  SOLVE ⨺ 18(36) set.

The SOLVE backs, in silver, have one triangular area where 3 different varying symbols, card to card, will eventually be placed to indicate forms of gameplay.

This symbol is called Dynamics and will signify relationships between cards : Simbionts (cooperation), Adjacents (neutrality) and Counteragents (non-cooperation).