Coffeedog Simulacrum #14 blabbers

A place to throw the countless and varied thoughts of the creator, via a telepathically controlled simulacrum always at a keyboard.

[coffeedog14]

WBJ day 7-10

To random Anon: thanks for the encouragement!

day 7: technology

               technology has advanced a great deal from our own in the solar humanity, to the point that some people think it the end all of things. Technology advancement ranges in a great deal of things, from the incredibly fast spaceships shooting folks through the solar system in times some of our airlines would envy to the new style of paint that can change color on command. Any non-ridiculous technology you can think of likely exists somewhere, albeit it might not be all that cheap.

               Two fields that have evolved that don't even exist in our universe are that of Genegineering and Terraforming. Genegineering is the art of creating entirely new species, often minor but with alot of effort or a hyper mind can result in lifeforms wildly unique in thier own right such as the Selenites. Terraforming is the careful art of tending a planet into habitability, a very important art indeed and one that humanity has yet to perfect.

               And interesting outgrowth of this increased technology is the emergence of a transhuman movement. As Cybernetics start to surpass human capabilities, some have declared that this is the end of history: for humanity to combine with the technology it created, and surpass any notion of linear time. The transhuman's often take the tenor of a church, seeking to recruit members and instill hope and faith. Some would call it a cult, but the transhuman's would call such accusations proof that the accusers had yet to see the light.

 day 8: magic

               Magic is a...touchy...subject in the modern day and age.  In ages past, the Super's where often considered magical, and indeed such is still a fairly widely held belief, seeing as a lack of hard scientific evidence has been built to determine exactly what they are. However, most of the powers of Supers have strict limits, and none of them are what one may call strictly mystical in nature.

               ....as far as the common man is aware.

               There are theories that there ARE mages and magic Supers, but that they secret themselves away in magical dimensions or with magical means impenetrable to normal means, much the same as people say about hypothetical time traveling supers. No solid proof has been brought up, but there are many instances throughout history where mysterious supers stepped into situations, seemingly used mystic powers, and then disappeared again. It remains a paradox much like the Fermi paradox: If people can develop Magical powers or time travel or whatever power doesn't seem to exist, why haven't they?

               Nobody has yet to reach the truth, that the secret mage and secret time traveler are one and the sae.

day 9: Fauna

               There is simply too many creatures to list. Each new planet has a variety of Genegineered species to fit it's particular environment and set up an artificial ecosystem. However, here are a few of the more notable ones.

Giant space bears: Not, unfortunately, of the furry kind. Something much more scary. These huge creatures, easily the size of a van, where created as an experiment to see how far survival in space could be stretched for mega fauna, in preparation for the gas whales.  To do this they took Tantagrades, and made them bigger. the Giant space bears, predictably, escaped, and now serve as a form of planetary lice. They are huge, tough beyond belief, and breed faster than thier size would give. They can hibernate in space for possibly decades (nobody is sure, none have been found dead due to space exposure yet). How they breed in space is uncertain, but they certainly seem too. many have posited that the Giant Space Bears are already on thier way to nearby stars via random chance and thier toughness, but most are more concerned about one landing in thier back yard.

Draconis Majorus: a foe latin name for a foe latin creature, the tiny lap-dragon is all the rage on earth at present. It is the finest genegineering has to offer, and at a surprisingly affordable price for the work that went into it. the Draconis are like a mix of cat and monitor lizard when it comes to attitudes, often lazy but still subtly attached to thier owners. Years after their first run, a growing number of people are reporting psychotic meltdowns and crippling medical issues, implying that perhaps the reason for the bargain price was that the company that made them couldn't get them to work quite right.

great crawlers: on Miranda, things are dark and lonely. This creature scuttles about in the darkness, legs long and sideways to take it up and over walls and barriers at a whim. it's insectoid mouth chitters when it wants to be seen, and it's black body blends into the shadows when it doesn't. Nobody knows why this creature was created, what it does, why it follows certain people, or even if it eats or not. All that is known is that sometimes people are followed by them, and sometimes people THINK they are being followed by them. And seems to only be the second group that are found dead with most of thier face missing.

day 10: flora

               naahhh plants aren't my thing, I already did 3 in a row I've paid for my laziness. Imagine trees with leaves of silver and other silly things. You're all creative, I'm sure you can manage.

[coffeedog14]

WBJ day 6

Day 6: Arms and Armor

               Things are more on the side of arms then armor, at present, and indeed how it has been for quite some time. On the high end of things Rail guns and smart-nukes have made the threat of total war a still quite intimidating one. but the low end is what folks are more likely to encounter, and far more interesting. While somewhat costly and difficult to maintain, Lazer and rail guns that are properly charged give more bang for your buck then any weapon before. A rail gun pistol can punch through light tank armor, and a lazer gun can fry a brain with a single blast. This is of great concern to the average super, as their lives tend to be a fair bit more violent and liable to face a rail gun pistol. Some enterprising person (who was assassinated soon after) invented a personal shielding unit that used your personal electric field to drive off attacks. This has proven proof to most small arms, albeit only temporarily. Draining the electricity and energy from your very body enough will disrupt the brain, and can be just as deadly as the full clip of bullets that caused the drain. Personal Battle armor and mechs is generally the reserve of the military, being even more costly and finicky, though the few private folks that have obtained them have proven to be powerhouses in their own right. There is a great debate as to whether technology will make supers useless in the near future, or whether whatever creates supers will evolve to be more powerful and useful then technology.

((and that will be the last spam of this for the day. safe until tommorow, followers!))

[coffeedog14]

WBJ day 5

Day 5: Fashion

               For most of the world, life goes on as normal for fashion. For things outside of the world, things get somewhat more boring. In many places, such as Venus or on the moon, one is more or less required to wear specialized equipment to operate outside of thier homes. This has led to a great trend in "fashion jumpsuits" and "fashion biosuits", to fit the countless necessities of solar life. Amusingly, some of these are so well designed that they've caught on on the homeworld as well, leading to a small niche subculture of "spacies" taking the place that Goths might have once long, long ago. I, unfortunately, not one for fashion, so I will leave it at that: we are just at the beginning of seeing people turn utility into beauty on a regular basis, and those that have to use the utility are eager to see this continue.

               the supers, to note, generally don't wear flashy colors unless they are of a particularly tough variety. "Strongbad" (a name chosen in the heroes youth) is well known for his red luchadore outfit, but that's largely because he could punch a tank shell out of the air. Heroes like the technopath "Insert" tend to wear more normal or protective clothing so as to not get tank shells punched at them.

[coffeedog14]

WBJ day 4

Day 4: History

So, most of history in the New Solar Order plays out kind of like ours. There are some exceptions and extra bits, but kind of like superhero comics or not great person theory history, things kind of happen regardless of what the guy with lazers does. obviously this is not true in regards to at least one thing, that being the colonization of the solar system outside of earth, so that will get a bit more attention. Anyway, here's the important bits as I've figured them.

3500 BCE (give or take a century): one out of every 1 million people develop amazing powers. In many places these powers either take after local gods, or inspire new ones, or claim to BE gods. Thier rarity helps a great deal in this. Given estimates of world population at the time, it is agree there was less than 50 supers alive.

3200 BCE: the first immortal, "The Mammoth", awakens from a decade long freeze in the cold Siberian north to discover that she cannot die by most normal means. Heat is notable as one of the things that can harm her greivously.

1353: Akhenaten emerges as the first hyper-mind of humanity. He puts this skill to work as organizing a complex theology and making Egypt the most gloriously balanced of all kingdoms. These attempts put him at odds with not only those who beleived in the old relgion, but also the countless folks that die due to his strict urban and agricultural reforms. needless to say after his death he is discredited rather quickly.

800-850 ish CE: the number of supers jumps from 1 in 1 million to 1 in 100,000. This coming at the height of the dark ages leads to chaos across Europe, and a golden age in the east, middle east, central America, and all other places organized enough to withstand such pressures and profit from them.

1615: in the middle of Galileo's affair on whether or not the earth was the center of all existance, a woman in denmark develops the ability to fly faster then any before her, and higher without seemingly any negative affect to her constitution. In perhaps the greatest point in favor of the theory that powers can only develop once people can think of something as possible, the woman (name Arjan Horstman) flies up through the atmosphere of the earth and as far as she can before getting hungry. She returns with stories that Galileo was right all along. While she never manages to reach the moon (she cannot carry enough food for the long flight, and attempts to bring a teleported up only led to the teleporters near suffocation), and her word does not affect the trial of Galileo, it does prove as both a fascinating study, and would also affect how Supers used thier own powers in the future: namely, often in the practice of science.

1880: The moon has by now been visited several times, only to be found empty and lifeless. While novel, it is generally considered a place only villians or governments looking for secret lairs go. This is changed by two things.  Firstly, the release of the selenites by a group of Italian extremists onto the place, along with a selection of plants created by a mad Italian Hypermind. And secondly, the first official German colony being founded there, throwing the rest of the world into a panic about the "new race for the moon"

1884: the berlin conference not only splits up Africa between competing European factions, but also the moon. This would lead eventually to the moons current patchwork shape.

1948: two events this year. Firstly, Mars is colonized officially by the Soviet union, leading to a mad dash by the two competing super powers to snatch up as much of the solar system as possible after decades of slow development by NGO's and natural immigrants. Secondly, the MADmen team, perhaps the greatest force of destruction the world would ever know, is formed by a survivor of the Hiroshima blast, "Blacknails", as a group seeking the destruction of decadent first world and second world.

1995: the MADmen nearly reach thier goal, almost setting off a nuclear war between various nations. This is foiled by countless supers across the globe and solar system, often called "the first truly Solar affair". the MADmen are chased to thier acid-proof base on Io by both the bravest of supers and also the slowly building solar navy, only to find a team of mind controlled supers, and defenses at least a decade beyond the navies. The conflict would result in the shattering of IO, the death of almost the entire MADmen squad, and 4,731 others, and a newfound belief in cooperation between states.

2010: the emergence of the first Exo-earth nation, "Selenia", on the moon, and amongst the territory of many nations. There is great debate about what to do with this nation, and it is soon under assault by China and America. Selenia is tougher then the two giants beleived, and eventually a truce is made.

2013: A new Hypermind emerges,  "Cupid", one of roughly 70 known to exist. This one, unlike many others, puts himself towards revolution. Unlike others to put themselves to this goal, he is neither seemingly insane nor foolishly optimistic. His non-violent efforts quickly makes bounds amongst a populace dissatisfied with the current world.

2015: the present day, and the one in which Cupid has started his plan for an Intrasolar Government.

[femhype]

Bioware Bundle! Enter to Win the Entire Dragon Age or Mass Effect Series

To celebrate welcoming over 1K friends to our little community on Twitter and Tumblr, we’re hosting another giveaway! A special thank you goes out to everyone who’s stuck with us from the beginning, and also to all the new faces joining us today. ✌  We’re excited that you’re just as enthusiastic as we are about diversity in games!

In past giveaways, we made an effort to bring to light games the average consumer might not know about. Today, we’ll be offering up old favorites: the entire Dragon Age and Mass Effect series. How’s that sound for a weekend freebie? By entering, you’ll get to choose which trilogy you prefer rather than receiving one you don’t want. You’re also free to enter your name into both! I know, we’re also super excited about this.

With double the chance to win, how can you lose? 💕 For those of you interested in discussing these games, I’d suggest poking around our Bioware tag. With over 30 entries, it’ll keep you busy while you wait for the winners to be announced! As these games hardly need any further introduction, let’s get to the guidelines.

GUIDELINES & DETAILS⇥

[coffeedog14]

don’t worry I’ll be back to world building shortly, just wanted to try this out.

[coffeedog14]

World Building june #3

day 3: Races

The races are, largely, the same as in our world. IE most people are still human, and are still of the various ethnicities therein. There hasn't been enough time for many of these things to break apart. There are some social boundaries, such as one being "Lunar" instead of "American", but those have yet to split into racial categories and indeed likely never will.

Here are the exceptions:

1. The supers: People of astounding ability, from the ever popular ability to fly faster than light, to the extremely rare hyper-intelligence that leads to the breakthroughs that define the world today. There is 1 of them for every 100,000, give or take a few hundred. While there is an argument to be made that between immortals and those in hiding the number fluctuates more greatly, this puts the present population at about 70,000. It is notable that, as of yet, no non-human supers have emerged. Nobody is quite sure why this is, and it is of great concern to those that beleive humans should remain the dominant species.

2. Hyper-crocs: Originally designed to be super soldiers to conquer venus, the Hyper-crocs turned on thier former master (an unfortunate hyper-mind without any real grasp of common sense) and released themselves onto the landscape. They now fight a constant war with colonizers, claiming Venus as thier mother and rightful home. They can stand on two legs similair to bears, and have more agile fingers such that they can work guns, but they prefer to stay on four legs when possible. thier twenty foot length and skin resistant to...well, anything, means they've posed quite a problem to even trained militaries working on the second planet.

3.  Selenites: insectoid inhabitants of the moon, They created to populate the moon with god-fearing folk by some of the first explorers to land, and thier early science could only do this via tough insect bodies. They resemble some horrific mix between grasshopper and praying mantis, using powerful legs to project them across huge swathes of land with little effort. They are simple folk in general, and survive in the confusing mess the moon has become as well as they survived the nearly barren moon before.

4.  earth: Earth is home to a growing population of "transhumans", those that are attempting to leap into the new technology of the age by becoming it to some extent, or alternatively integrating it into themselves. While this doesn't necessarily mark them out as thier own species, they are on a track to do so. The increased ability and power brought on by these changes worries both baseline humans and even the Supers who are secure in thier superiority.

5. Liberians: the unfortunate inhabitants of Ceres. Ever since a gene-modifying species was released on the rock, it has been subject to a small, but important, group of creatures that could alter thier genome at will (given some time). They are considered incredibly dangerous, as all attempts to eradicate them have failed. Part of the reason the UN put the planet off limits was to make sure the creatures would be left alone and get no ambitions of moving on other planets.

5. Gas whales: a mix of jellyfish and whale, these odd creatures where designed to be the first living organisms on gas giants, and to start seeding said places with microorganisms. floating on the turbulent winds of the outer planets, the gas whales keep to themselves most of the time. They will, however, occasionally use thier immensely tough bodies to float to other settlements and make deals for the rare gases they can store in thier bodies. Neptune in particular has proven to be a prime location for gas-mining in this fashion.

Of course there are other species, some even smaller in population then the above, but these are the notable ones that everybody knows of and everybody likely cares about to some extent.

[coffeedog14]

Geography of the planets

Day 2: geography

We'll be breaking down the Geography by planet, as this is a SOLAR issue.

1. Mercury: a barren, super temprature rock, only recently have efforts been made to colonize this place. Or at least, successful attempts. The Genegineers back on earth have spent decades trying to find a plant species hot enough to survive the rays and radiation, and they beleive they've settled on the correct idea: Large, barky bushes with metal infused leaves that suckle nutrition out of the dirt. These have only just begun to spread across the planet's surface, however, and it will be some time before they make anything like a workable atmosphere for later species.

2. Venus: is perhaps the greatest success of the Genegineering and terraforming elements of earth. Russian and American orginizations joined efforts even before the end of the cold war in an attempt to tame the planet, and after several decades of work it's an unmitigated success. Already the planet has sizable water reserves where before there was only rock and acid, though the oceans themselves are considerably more acidic and the smaller then earth ones. The planet is dominated by massive expanses of acid desert, spotted with newly grown forests and plagued by ever present wind.

3. the moon: the first place to face Terraforming, and undoubtedly the most used since. the moon is a bewildering patchwork of sections, each one the legacy of some group or goverment that thought it could take a peice of the pie. It's atmosphere is generally breathable nowadays, though prone to bouts of deadly poison or near airlessness due to the unforeseen mixture of newly added biological creatures and artificial gravity intensification. The craters and cracks that defined the moon are still present, and the insides of them often serve as centers for the oddities that inhabit earth's forlorn child.

4. Earth: earth remains largely the same as we know it, with a few differences. Namely that some landmass has been added and reclaimed from the ocean, most especially along the coasts of the America's and east Asia. There are some other minor changes, most left alone for sensitive reasons.

5. Mars: boasting the biggest colonies and the most livable terraforming, is radically different from our own. It remains a red planet in parts, though most of it had been submerged in either plant life or the massive oceans that where only a few years of terraforming away from occuring. The oddly massive geographic  features, such as olympus mons and valles marineris, Have been replicated on various points throughout mars  in attempts by various factions to one up one another, giving Mars the reputation of being "the extreme geology" planet.

6. Ceres: a seemingly ideal planet for colonization, perhaps too great of one. It has served as the base for many vile vilians, rogue scientists, criminal enterprises, attempted solar pirates, and other secret folk that have left the landscape dotted with bases and projects almost as much as the asteroids have left the dwarf planet marked with craters. The UN has declared the planet off limits until it can be fairly divided, but most corporations and nations have at least one based on it regardless, if only to aid in asteroid mining opportunities.

7. Vesta and Pallas: two asteroids that have served as the new centers of crime since Ceres fell out of vogue.

8. Io: Notable not for successful altering of it's surface, but for it's utter shattering, now a slowly re-combining mixture of parts after a massive battle between various forces resulted in the newest types of bombs being deployed. Most use Io as an example of how NOT to handle our limited source of planets.

9. Europa, ganymede, and callisto: Of the outer system, these moons are the most hospitable. While the first two offer unique geography and a heat source due to thier closeness and gravitational friction with jupiter, Callisto offers more amiable gravitational fluctuations and startling colors within.

10. Mimas: the "death star" moon of saturn, on one side lies a crater the size of australia that nearly shattered the moon ages ago. On the other are the astounding ripples from that assault. It is a popular tourist location, and also the site of the yearly interplanetary star wars convention.

11. Tethys: another moon of Saturn, this one made mostly of water. It is signifigantly smaller then in our universe, much of its bounty plundered to serve on other planets.

12. Titan: the wild planet, this geologically young moon of saturn has managed to rack up craters, cryovolacnoes, and mountains despite it's young age. It has a thick, smoky atmosphere of nitrogen and methane, that blocks much outside vision but supports massive life beneath. As life begins to change the landscape itself with it's size and density, it is evident that the surface will soon be quite different then it was when it was first settled.

13. Iapetus: a moon of saturn that is split north to south by a massive ridge 15 kilometers high, and east to west by a massive color difference (dark brown to dusty white). It serves as both the butt to many a political joke, and also a grand place to set up shop with some geological barriers assuring that you won't be bothered by your neighbors.

14. Miranda: a Uranian Moon that serves as not only the home of the solar systems oddest quirks and strangest creatures, but also the furthest that human civilization has reached. In it's frozen caves lie some of the most bizarre people and creatures you'll ever meet.

[coffeedog14]

World Building June “New solar Order”

Day 1: introduction

Themes: Historical inflexibility and flexibility,  sci-fi supers, bursting point globalization through the lens of "Solarization"

Hooks:  Supers fighting Genetically engineered hyper-crocs on venus, powers and actions with consequence throughout history, supers bound by the folks around them, cultural differences in super treatment.

What to call it: "New Solar Order" should work

hashtags: #NewSolarOrder

Quick summary: At some point roughly 3500 BCE, one out of every million people gained the powers of gods. from 800 850 CE, this increased to 1 in every 100,000. Now in the year of 2015, we have used these powers to expand across our solar system. Now a brave new man, neither hero nor villain, seeks to instill order across the entirety of the sun's domain. Will our powered folks decide to join this, and if they do does it even matter in the grand scheme of nations and people?

[coffeedog14]

Chaos Walking: Short review, rants, and thoughts.

((Apologies about clogging up your dashes. I am unable to find the spoiler tab function, for some reason.) SO, where do I begin with this series? Well, let me start with the egotistical assumptions that anybody actually cares about my suggestions in regards to reading material, or is the least bit interested in this series and also reads my blog. In that case, I’ll give you the non-spoiler review and thoughts right now. Chaos Walking made me feel more than any other book series since…well, probably A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones to you who watch the TV show). And ASoIaF is child’s play in comparison to Chaos Walking (It’s first book called “the Knife of Never Letting Go”, in case you’re heard of it before and simply didn’t realize) in terms of making me feel . And I will say, these where not good feelings I felt. This is a book series that, if it works for you, will make you feel what the characters feel, and they comprise of regular people going through not great things. This isn’t a book where you feel the hero is destined to win. There is no glory here. Suffering happens, and you’ll feel it alongside the characters. If you don’t want to risk being put into a minor depression for the time you are reading the books, then avoid them. In fact, read ASoIaF instead. Or Dresden files, if you want something mostly happy. To say any more would ruin it. If you don’t want to feel sad, don’t read. Otherwise, do it right now. It is an excellent book series, with excellent characters, plot, and philosophy, and one I would heartily recommend to all who can stomach it. Now onto the main thoughts themselves. Only continue if you’ve actually read the books, because there’s going to be spoilers, right from the get-go, and these spoilers WILL ruin your enjoyment of the books. ((SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS JUST KEEP ON SCROLLING)) Aaaaaaaaand here is where I ramble out all my feelings and junk. Don’t know how long this will be, so hang in there, we are going to get emotional! To start with, I do not like the ending of the last book of this series. That’s my largest complaint, probably. I don’t mean the fact that Todd got shot, honestly. I had been expecting one of them to die at the end from the first book. I’m honestly really surprised that both of them LIVED. What makes me ticked is the epilogue thingy. It resolves nothing of what I wanted resolved. Sure, the settlers landed. Sure, the spackle and humans are starting to work together. Sure, new leadership is around the corner. But what does that tell me about the future? I don’t know how the new settlers are going to deal with things. I don’t know how much the spackle and humans are going to intermingle. I don’t know if there is any success if giving noise to women. I don’t know if the leadership is going to become more democratic amongst the humans, or more hive-mind, or what. I don’t know about almost any of the surviving side-characters or their places in this new world, except what Learned from the short stories. I can’t even make educated guesses about all of this, because the series has been so regular in dashing my hopes that I don’t trust it to just deliver me the happy ending with no strings attached. I need to see it to believe it, and we don’t get to see it. We just have to trust the author that things got better, and with this author I have no such trust. Of course, what I’m really complaining about is Todd’s coma. The whole series has been beating up Todd and Viola. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally, they are battered at every turn, with only the briefest of respites to keep them going; in the same matter the subjects of torture must be given breaks lest they die from sheer trauma and stress. They have done terrible things, awful things, but in the end, it is concluded that they are good people, or at least trying to be good, which may be the same thing. Dragged through the mud, chasing the impossibility of hope, and in the end, finding it… And then it cuts off. We don’t get to SEE them reach the final hope. We are assured it will happen, but we don’t get to see it with our own eyes. What if the same had been done in the first book? What if one where to stop reading said book right before Davy shoots Viola? We could reasonably conclude “They reach Haven, warn the city, and fight the army and win, and live in peace together”. Makes sense, right? Well, such was not the case. Because there are two more books, and what, 20 pages of the first book after that hypothetical person stopped reading? This is a series where things cannot be left in uncertainty, and assumed. We could not even assume the death of Ben, and it was clear by the end of the second book that he had been shot! This is a lesson that was drilled into my head by this series from the first parts of the story, where Aaron is left behind with a bunch of alligators, FUCKING ALIGATORS, but we the audience never sees him actually dead. Lo and behold, he comes back almost immediately, alive. I feel like I am that person, reading a story that stops before Viola and Todd actually reach Haven. The ending of the last book is somewhat abrupt, short, and is tonally dissonant from the rest of the series in terms of it forcing us to make far too many assumptions about a future that we know very well is incredibly fluid by the circumstances left at the end of the great war. Was it more poetic to end it where it ended? Probably, yeah. It was a poignant ending, I will not deny that. Other stories do the same. They end at a point of great change, perhaps greater or equal change to the book itself, and then explain nothing. I recognize that perhaps it is better that way, in terms of symbolism and shit. But it pisses me right the hell off. I am reminded of the Inheritance cycle. For all of its flaws, I loved the fact that the last 200 or so pages was one, big, long epilogue tying up all the loose ends of the world and helping us to get a full picture. Was it excessive? Most certainly. Was it boring? Sometimes. Did I thank any and all divine beings that I could set down the book and say “Welp, this story is finished, and I can walk away with few doubts”? Hell yes. Heck, I even loved the Harry Potter epilogue, and that one wasn’t even necessary! I knew exactly how it was going to go, because Harry Potter was pretty linear in form. I always knew Harry was going to live and fall in love, and have children. There was never a doubt in my mind, and the narrative never really called this into question, no matter how many deaths or words it threw to try and convince me. The series was too light-hearted to murder one of the main three characters, and so I never felt them in threat. …Maybe this is just me whining for a fourth book. A fourth book where we see all the good things that happen because of Todd and Viola’s actions. The author made me care about them, and damnit I want to see them happy for once without said happiness immediately being interrupted or destroyed! I want to see them in peace, just for a little bit. I want to see the whole new world at peace just for a little bit, because that’s what they fought for, and it’s certainly what they deserve. But such is selfish, perhaps. But I do not think it unreasonable to include some bit of happiness. Some single point of joy that is unpolluted. To see the hope at the end of the tunnel, instead of it being dangled in front of us and then slamming the door of the ending shut. Maybe I’ll write a fanfiction and make all of my dreams come true. I’ll have to keep that in mind. Anyway, I think I’ve ranted on this topic long enough. I have other thoughts to present, thought not nearly as vehement or incoherent. Firstly, I marvel at this books ability to make me feel as the characters feel. Part of this is, doubtless, the limited first person perspectives. But the other part is how and when the information is presented. I felt the beginning of the first book is perhaps the best at this. When I started reading this book, I had a fairly firm grasp on what the series was going to be, and so did Todd. Todd knew what his life looked like, and what it was going too. I thought I knew what Todd’s life was going to look like, and what was going to happen to him. Young Adult adventure literature with a secret that needs to be kept, ending in a chase of some kind, and a happy ending, with a few twisty plot elements such as the noise thing to keep things interesting. We were at harmony, me and Todd, because we both felt the same. Then things turned upside down. All at once, very rapidly, in ways I did not expect. Suddenly, people where attacking, and dying. Suddenly there was a chase, and it wasn’t even 50 pages into the book. Suddenly we were leaving the town the author had spent so much time lavishing detail over, in a way that made me think that we were going to be staying there for a while, but that wasn’t true. I was confused, and so was Todd. I was annoyed, maybe even a bit angry, because what I thought was going to be a quick, enjoyable romp was turning into something darker, and nobody was answering any questions that were also Todd’s. We were still in sympathy. Things continued to get weird. Twist after twist, fight and flight and injury, and each turn I felt as Todd and Viola did because each event was as unexpected as the last. It left me no time to prepare, and the events where constructed such that I would feel a certain way, and I would, because I had no time to say “this is what’s going to happen” and hence dilute the feelings. This continued on into the second and third books. When the characters felt hopeless, I felt hopeless. When they felt sadness, I felt sadness. When they felt hope, I felt hope. I cannot remember a book that so totally pulled me into its narrative, which made me feel such empathy for the characters through the wonders of its construction and delivery. I would go so far as to call it a masterpiece, in this respect. This is perhaps linked to why I want a bit of peace at the end of the story of Todd and Viola: because then maybe I’ll find a little peace, too. Damn you, author, damn you in all your brilliance. My, I’m now on page 3 of the word document, single spaced. I bet if I read over all of this, I’ll feel terribly embarrassed by how poorly constructed and stream of conscious it is. Not going to stop me from continuing, however. Ah, another thing, anybody else finds it cool that women are the emotionally silent ones, and men the emotionally loud ones? I mean, the society of new world does end up turning that into “men should talk and women should stay silent”, because patriarchy bullshit, but still I thought that was a neat reversal of how it supposedly stands today. Thinking upon that, I can see why the mayor was so pissed off about it. It must have just ripped him apart that his façade of emotional non-existence was torn apart by circumstance. As long as I am talking self-indulgent extra books and stories, why not one about why the Spackle need the Sky outside of times of war? Like, this is a group of people living in a hive-mind to the point where their individuality is called into question by others, and who speak with a single voice. They live calm, tribal lives, where the live as the land can support. What does the Sky do during the rest of the time, when there isn’t human invasion or massive plague or some other suitable danger? It’s not like the Sky is the president, and has to sign economic treaties or something. I’ve seen Todd, Viola, and Lee as a proposed triple-pairing in the fandom. I think that’s kind of neat, actually. Not what I read, but still neat. That is all. Aaron is like all of my barbarian characters from DnD ever. He runs into stupidly dangerous situations, gets heavily damaged, and then keeps going as if nothing happened. I have had barbarians survive point plant grenade blasts and then strangle people to death with their own ripped-off limbs afterwards. I figure Aaron could probably pull that off. I mean, really, the guy’s a fucking machine. He wrestled alligators and came out on top, and I figure his victory was more “neck snapping screaming” then “crocodile hunter back-sitting”. His resolve was total, unyielding, and surprisingly independent. I wonder if the mayor ever controlled him mentally? If the mayor even could? If Aaron could have learned the same things the mayor did, and chose not too? I can’t imagine many other reasons for the mayor to leave such a massive potential threat to his rule as a crazy, arbitrary priest alive, and then let said priest run off to do his own thing, considering the mayor’s penchant for tying up loose ends. Is it possible that the Mayor even feared Aaron? Interesting thought. I now realize that if Mistress Coyle had run towards the mayor and hugged that asshole while she pressed the button, a lot of things might have been different. Granted, don’t know if Todd would have been alive then, but also an interesting thought. Welp. That’s four pages down, pretty much. This is the most I’ve written in a while. Feels good. I think that encapsulates what I think of the Chaos Walking series right now. Besides that it is fantastic. I may have felt pain, but I would not change it for the world. In the same way that I would not go back on reading “All’s Quiet on the Western Front” in middle school, as I believe it had a significant effect on my philosophy, writing style, and how I dealt with my emotions. So, I’m going to keep developing head-canons and ideas for that fan-fiction I mentioned above that I will inevitably never write because I’m a lazy bastard. Regardless, if anybody is actually reading this and doesn’t mind spending a bit of time, I would appreciate head-canons and end of series analysis, if only inevitably for my own amusement and consideration. Or just links to those things. Anyway, time to enter hiatus again. See you followers in a few months!

[coffeedog14]

GIIIGGGAAAAAAA!

HE FUCKING PAUSED IT

HE FUCKING

HE ASDOFBASPOF

ASBVPOUASDVOSADHUD

GODDAMN HORSE-WHINNY RAGE-SNAKE BULLSHIT!

…This is homestuck, by the way. This is the fandom we are talking about. If you don’t know about it already, I would suggest reading it. It’ll likely take you a week since the thing is the size of the bible last anybody checked, but it’ll be worth it. Just be ready to read through a couple hundred pages of set-up before things start to pick up.

 Anyway, some background: I tried to read homestuck on and off for about half a year. This was due to the aforementioned length of the piece. Also because it is somehow, impossibly, mind-bogglingly  slower to start then a Stanley Kubrick film. Regardless, I got past those several hundred pages of set-up to the good stuff, and consumed the rest of the several thousand pages over the course of two weeks. It was amazing. I barely understood what was happening at any given moment it was so damn complex, but what little I did understand was awesome and well done.  My only complaint was that there was so much stuff happening, so many characters interacting and living fascinating lives, so many intriguing ideas and themes barely scratched, that I wanted the comic to be 5 times as long to fit more stuff in it. This is pretty much my wish for all works of fiction, though, so I really had no complaints.

Then I reached the end of the archive. This made me sad, because the end of the archive was not the end of the story. I eagerly checked the front page of the comic, and found three things that made me even more sad. One, the comic had not update in a few months. Second, it was on and indefinite hiatus. Third, that the comic was moving towards endgame. Not only was I not going to have to wait to continue this amazing story, but I had missed most of it. It would be like only hearing about harry potter once the seventh movie had been released, and missing the amazing development of the franchise and it’s fanbase. It didn’t make me want to stop reading the work, certainly, but it muddled it a bit for me.

I started to get into the fandom, out of curiosity more than any intentions of getting involved. It was there I found comfort. It was kind of quiet due to the hiatus, as all fandoms are during such events, but it had a positive attitude. They didn’t have the feeling of going towards the end. Most had the impression that the last part of the comic might well rival the rest of the comic combined, and if not it would be long enough to stretch for another year or so. This wasn’t a fandom preparing for death or decay: it was one looking forward to ever greater growth leading to a spectacular, fireworks-inducing conclusion.  I had faith in the work once again, and got deep into the fandom. Fan theories, art, voice-overs, the whole shtick. I was hooked.

Then, one day, it happened. With a single trumpet blast the hordes of fans took to twitter, to tumblr, to facebook, to battle through the inane and bring the news: the hiatus was over. Homestuck was back on air.

Things exploded. Moreso because, this being the ending arc of the comic, everything was coming together and providing even more to talk about then usual. It was wonderful, being part of this human river of speculation and excitement. Things turned sour quickly, however. One character in particular did some… questionable things, and the fandom exploded into debate. It got nasty, to the point of death threats towards the author (who took it in his usual snarky manner). I worried, but I heard from others that this was standard for Hussie: he baited the fandom around for responses from time to time, but would resolve it in the end. So I waited for the conclusion to these debates. Boy, did it come. One of the big-bads flew up to pretty much every living protagonist in a giant space battleship, with unbelievable psychic power and enough rage to melt mountains. This, I thought, was where hussie had been baiting us towards. The protagonists would have to pull a miracle to even escape the this big-bag, let alone defeat her. Almost all of the characters had started to move towards healing during the arc, and I figured this fight would start the movement towards healing the fractures between the protagonists. It was going to be as awesome and symbolic and crazy as everything before it, and I couldn’t wait.

The news came today. Hussie had decided to skip out entirely on the updating scheme. He is, instead, going to finish the whole comic in one big update. From the point it is now until the end, all in one go. He had not guesses about when that could be done, and indeed said that having one would not be a good idea. So we will wait until he is nearly done, and then maybe, just maybe, he will tell us when he plans to release the mega-update.

This infuriates me to some degree, as you may be able to tell from above. This is partly from feeling a ridiculous sense of being cheated. After missing out on most of the development of home stuck, now it’s essentially stopping just as I get into it. My enjoyment of homestuck recently has been tied heavily into how the updates worked. This may also need some backround.

At Shimer, the great books college I attended for a year, there was a philosophy. Everybody should be on the same page. Everybody read the same sections of the same books for class. While you could bring in outside examples or other sections of the book, the focus should be on the section you read. This was so that everybody could talk about the same thing. Instead of bringing ideas in, the goal as to let ideas grow out of the text in question. I really liked that.

This applied to the most recent updates of homestuck as well. With every update, everybody was on the same page about a particular section of the story. This lead to much debate and analysis of each update, which was warranted given the complexity and subtlety of the work. I think I understood the updates after the hiatus more then I understood pretty much the entire story before it because I could stop and think about each section as it came, and engage in conversation so as to achieve a greater understanding of each update before the next on came.

This is now impossible. While it is true that the final update will be released to everybody at the same time, it is not the same. No orderly conversation will emerge from it. To bring up another fandom I mentioned earlier, it will be as if the final 3 books of harry potter where released all at once. Except infinitely worse, because whereas harry potter was a fairly simple story, homestuck has been described the Finnegan’s wake of the internet.  There will be no increasing growth of fans followed by an explosive ending, but instead increasing insanity amongst fans followed by a nuclear bomb of actions, followed by an ever-weakening nuclear wasteland.

I predict this: the homestuck fandom will once again go “dormant”. At least, as dormant as it can get, which isn’t much. This will have a different tone from the hiatus, because this time we aren’t waiting for continuation. We are waiting for an end. Once the finale arrives, it will result in a solid one or two weeks of fervent activity. The internet will be nothing but homestuck. And then, things will die down. People will still be fans, and they will still enjoy it, but the story will have ended. They will make art and stories, but never in the amount they did before. I am of the camp that believes that homestuck will be interred as one of the founding works of the internet, a shining beacon of literacy and art amongst the roughness of digital landscape. Even assuming this happens, conversation about homestuck will never be as focused, constant, or as enthusiastic as it is now. This, as I see it, is the transition from summer to autumn for the fandom, and will be followed by the transition to the winter once the mega-update has occurred.

I hope that Hussie changes his decision. I truly do. He says that he feels pressured to put out updates faster, and thinks that it is counter-productive for everybody to continue at his current rate. I can understand this, but it is my counter-argument that I don’t really care if he makes updates faster. I don’t care if he only makes one once a week, or once every two weeks. I just wish he would continue with the updates, because I am worried losing a fandom just as I have gotten into it. This is perhaps selfish, but they are my feeling regardless. They will not do anything, but I wanted to organize them and express them somewhere.

….On the plus side, a cursory glance over some of the sites I visit that have homestuck on them show optimism  the suggestions has been made that instead of putting it all down at once, homestuck will update on a daily or weekly basis only once it is finished, which is something I could get behind. Much like my previous rants, I will maintain what I am afraid will happen. Consider this a rant by a pessimist on the worst case scenario, because there always needs to be one I guess.

[coffeedog14]

NONHUMAN-ITIES

Hey, remember when this blog died? fun times. Anyway, I wrote this stuff for an experiment. I was thinking about running a Hunter: the Vigil game soon. if you don't know what it is, why haven't you already looked it up you lazy no-gootnick. or however that word is supposed to be spelled.

Anyway, every character in Hunter has to have had some previous experience with the supernatural. It's how they get into the Vigil. This being set in the "world of darkness" universe, you may not be surprised to find out that these experiences are overwhelmingly bad. This is why Hunters are, well, Hunters, as opposed to researchers or friends or diplomats. I wanted to create a character who was one of those things. Whose initial experience with the supernatural had taught him/her that the unknown was not necessarily bad. I had an idea of how to do this, and all of the details I dreamt up expanded it to a 5 page short story. It may be predictable, simple, and not great, but it served the purpose. It's a touch weird, a touch scary, but overall positive instead of grim and terrifying.

       I think that the first time I heard Brett was when I was in 1st grade. Our house had an attic, one that the previous occupants had furnished to be a play-room for kids. I had always considered myself too old for the room, and had never found a need to go up there. One night, maybe sometime in December, I heard something moving up there. I was too terrified to move as I listened to the sound get louder, then softer, then louder again. It was like somebody was pacing in the attic, except nobody ever went up there. I woke my parents, and my mother begrudgingly went to check. It seemed like she was up there forever, but more than likely she spent ten seconds up there before giving up. She muttered something about Squirrels and tucked me back into bed.

            The pacing didn’t happen often, but I always just assumed it was a small fuzzy animal moving around up there. So I didn’t feel afraid when, in 3rd grade, I went up into the attic. It wasn’t because I really wanted to, per se. It was the middle of summer, my mother had commandeered the television, and all of my friends where either gone or occupied for the day. I thought maybe I could find some value in the play-room that I had not previously seen, even if only for a few hours.

            I didn’t notice Brett at first. This was because he wasn’t himself, not completely. The layer of short brown velvet covered his skin, helping him to meld in with the predominantly earthy tones of the attic. It was only when I looked in the corner that he has shoved himself into that I noticed the boy. I had seen enough scary movies to know where this was going: if I approached or made a noise, the brown-furred form would turn into a horrible beast and eat me. If I ran, I would be met with the same fate. So I stood perfectly still, afraid to breath, and hoped that he wouldn’t notice.

            Of course, Brett did notice. It took him a minute or two, yes, but I wasn’t terribly good at muffling my panicked breathing and I was only ten feet or so away. He looked up and the brown velvet retracted, revealing regular skin underneath. It wasn’t unblemished, or haggard, or scarred, or anything special really, just the skin of a child of 10 or so.

            “Did… did you actually see me? Can you hear me?” Asked the kid, with a hint of a west coast accent. I couldn’t nod, so totally was I enthralled by my terror. “Why are you so afraid? I’m just asking a question.” I worked up the courage to nod my head slightly. This seemed to satisfy the kid. He rose from his corner and approached me, and it took all of my will to not turn tail and flee. The child extended his hand and smiled. “My name’s Brett. What’s yours?”

            There wasn’t really any other path for me to take. It didn’t seem like this kid was going to turn into a monster or anything. Besides which, he had already passed up the prime time to eat me, when I was stock still and unable to move. While I could have just turned around and run, it didn’t occur to me as an option. So I took Brett’s hand, and responded. “Sarah. Why are you up here?”

            We shook hands as I was asking the question. It was awkward, as should be expected of kids shaking hands, but earnest. When I had finished asking the question, I saw something ripple under Brett’s skin. Something blue and red, like all of the veins in his arm where combining or something. I am still surprise that I didn’t scream.

            “Do you want to play? I have some toy soldiers in that box over there.” Asked Brett, changing the subject. I decided to let it go, not wanting to see whatever it was he was hiding. “Sure thing, Brett.” Brett opened the box in question, and pulled out a bunch of toy soldiers covered in dust. Brett took care to wipe away the dust from each soldier he pulled from the box, and I didn’t feel like asking how long they had been in there, so we sat in silence for a while. Eventually Brett had satisfied himself with the number of soldiers and their cleanliness. He looked at me expectedly, and I joined him.

            We played for several hours that first day. We didn’t ask questions of one another, we just played. It started out awkwardly, but by the end we were having quite a time. I guess we made a lot of noise near the end too, because at dinner that night my father asked what I had been doing up there. I considered my answer, perhaps for a second too long. I doubted my parents would believe me if I told the truth and hence saw no reason to do so. “Playing with my imaginary friend.”

            I played with my “imaginary friend” many times that summer. It wasn’t an everyday thing, because of course I wasn’t going to abandon my friends for some kid living in my attic. But he was fun to play with, whenever I couldn’t play with my other friends. I could always find him, velvet-furred and sitting in the corner, whenever I wanted to.

            This continued for some time, for years even. I started to notice things about Brett. For instance I realized that it must have been him pacing in the attic, thought the pacing stopped after I met him. Whenever I left he always asked when we would play again, as if he wasn’t sure if I would come back. It didn’t matter how many times I had told him I would come back, and how many times I did, he never looked like he really believed me. Sometimes, if I was quiet enough, I could still get up to the attic without him noticing. When I cleared my throat, or made a noise, I could catch a flash of relief on his face followed quickly by joy.

            The thing I noticed first, however, was what I would call “brownie fingers”. Whenever Brett got really happy, more happy than usual, his fingers would get covered with a brown substance that would get smeared on everything he touched. This would get problematic during the times when we wrestled or play-fought, because then the substance would get all over my clothes. Tentative experimentation helped me to realize that the substance was, in fact, chocolate much to my father’s chuckling. “Where are you hiding all of this chocolate? How do you even get it on your clothes? Are you just smearing it on yourself?” I never minded, though, because the chocolate was easy to rub out. Plus, it meant that Brett was that level of happy that nobody could be mad at.

            So we played, and laughed, and wrestled, and joked. Things started to change in 5th grade. I made more friends and had more homework. I picked up flag-football, and got a laptop for my birthday. I was busy, and somehow Brett became less and less of a priority. I think it was because he never really changed, which was another thing I noticed about him. I tried to show him new games, but he never liked them as much as the games he showed me. I now stood an inch taller than him and looking back on it I don’t think he ever grew on the time I knew him. Worse, the less I played with him the less happy he got. By the end of the 5th grade nothing could give him brownie fingers, because he was too focused on the next time we played. “When are we playing next? Are you sure you won’t miss it this time? Who else are you playing with?” It was exhausting, and frankly the play time with him just stopped being fun.

            In May, near the end of the school year, I went up to the attic to play. I had stopped claiming that I had an imaginary friend and my parents never questioned it. They just seemed happy that I could entertain myself without their constant supervision. I had decided that I was going to ask the question I had always wanted to ask, and I had planned it out as perfectly as I could.

            We played all of the games he wanted to play. I didn’t even make any suggestions, letting him take over. I lost every game we played, taking the fall if need be, so that he would feel even better. By the end I could see the very tips of his fingers getting brown. This was the happiest he had been in months, and I thought it would be the best time to ask.

            “Brett, how did you die?”

            The last thing I remember is his face. His veins pulsed and grew, bursting through his face. They formed a web, a lattice, and then a cloth of red and blue. A mask, like some horrific superhero.

            My parents say that the rest of my memory is gone because of the drugs they administered, but I suspect that maybe Brett didn’t want me to remember what happened. My father heard me screaming and rushed towards the attic, arriving in time to see me fall down the pull-down stairs. He says I was screaming about closing the attic, and that he did so, at which point I passed out. I had a broken arm and three broken ribs, along with several stitches.

            That first month after the incident was horrible. During the day I was taken to various doctors and quacks because, as far as my parents were concerned, I had thrown myself down a ladder for no good reason. I told them about Brett, and I was given pills. During the night Brett cried and screamed, slamming himself or other objects onto the floor of the attic in an attempt to get my attention. I knew he was sorry, and sometimes I could even pick that word out in his weeping. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t bring myself to go to the attic. Partially because my parents told me not to, but mostly because I still dreamed of that mask.

            Things got better. Brett got quiet, leaving only the returned pacing to break the silence of the attic. My parents thought I was getting better and stopped taking me to doctors. I took less and less pills until I didn’t take any at all. Later in life I was told that I had formed an elaborate best friend around the sounds that the animals made during the night. I had always had a great imagination, they said, and this was just an expression of that. One day I had actually met an animal up there, a raccoon, and when it had tried to attack me I had fallen down the stairs. In my terror, I had filled in the blanks left by the drugs with Brett and the mask. I believed them. It made sense.

            I had entered college before I returned to the attic. It was after a night in my old room, where the sound of pacing had caused me to have the nightmare about the mask. I decided that it was high time to face my fears, to put Brett to rest.

            I think I was expecting Brett to be there. At the very least, I didn’t feel very surprised when I found the mouse-furred boy sitting there. He seemed so small now. I sat down next to him, and waited for him to make the first move. Eventually he lifted his head, and I saw his velvety face. “You left.”

“You chased me away.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“I know.”

Brett hugged me. I thought of something to say.

“Why do you think I came back?”

We talked for a while about little things. About the things that Brett had seen out the window of the attic. About the things I had done since I left. About the weather and the squirrels and anything that wasn’t serious. Eventually, however, I had to leave. He held on tighter.

“Will you come back?”

“I can come back twice more, and then I need to go back to college.”

“But no one else can play with me. I’ll be alone.”

“I know, but I have a life outside of this attic. I can’t play with you all of the time.”

Brett tensed. I don’t know if I could have pulled away, even if I had wanted to. He was so much stronger than a little kid should be.

“If you get hurt, then you’ll go the hospital. And then you’ll come back here to heal. And Then you’ll stay for longer.”

“I won’t. I won’t, and you know it.” Brett cringed. “Is that any way to treat a friend?”

“Well…ah…”

“Why should I come tomorrow, if you are going to be so mean about it?” Brett looked not angry, not sad, but panicked. The fur melted away from his face, and suddenly I felt more pressure points, like there was more than two hands grabbing me.

“Please. Please. Please. Please.”

“Do you trust me?” Brett did not respond.

“Then let me go.”

After a long minute, the hands let go. I didn’t look back as I went back down the attic pull-down.

            The next day I returned, and for once Brett wasn’t in his normal spot. He was pacing, back and forth, staring at the floor with an intensity I have never seen rivaled. So intent was he, that it took two throat clearings to get his attention. When I had gotten it, however, it was all worth it. He let loose the biggest smile I had ever seen on him, and rushed towards me for a bear hug.

            We spent nearly 5 hours playing. My parents had gone out to some fundraiser or another, and so we didn’t have to worry about them. Brett was happier then I had ever seen him before. I didn’t see the brownie fingers the whole day, and I think that said something. The fingers was a mask, just like the superhero, just like the fur. A mask to make Brett feel better or more confident about a situation. More confident that he really was happy and trusting then he was. He didn’t need the mask any more.

            When I left, he didn’t ask when I was coming back. He hardly seemed to notice my leaving. He simply started playing by himself. I returned the next day, for the second promised day of play, and he wasn’t in the corner. He wasn’t pacing. He wasn’t hiding. He simply wasn’t. It took me two hours to determine this, but it was true. Brett wasn’t in the attic anymore.

            I would like to claim that I laid to rest a ghost, but that would be egotistical. Emotions don’t solve themselves that easily, and I’m sure Brett had conflicts I wasn’t seeing on that final play day. I’m not even honestly sure he was a ghost; I was just assuming and am continuing to assume. Whatever he was, he was troubled, and sad, and lonely. I can’t claim to have healed him, but maybe I can claim to have given him a brief period of happiness, one just pure enough to assuage whatever pressing needs he had.

  It’s why I have a minor people laugh at. A minor that people don’t think is a science, don’t think is a job, and don’t think is even real. Because I refuse to believe that Brett is the only one. I was lucky: I was too scared the first time to act, because if I had been just a little less afraid I would have done something stupid and never have helped Brett. Others won’t be so lucky. culture treats the paranormal like the news treats the normal: as something overwhelmingly negative, threatening, hurtful. Brett wasn’t all good, yes, but he wasn’t all bad either. So I’ll keep teaching, because the paranormal needs its humanities epilogue.

[coffeedog14]

Shared Universe Movies?

So, I haven't been here in awhile, and figured I should post something I've been working on a few minutes every couple of days. The idea popped up when everybody at my lunch table started trying to connect seemingly random movies together either by theme, actor, timeline, or any other number of things. I decided to try my hand at it, keeping a word document and adding to it whenever I saw a new movie. The goal was not to have a terribly realistic or sensible world, but one that at least connected adn functioned on some level. Without further Ado, here is the timeline so far, Constructed with the movies Jurassic Park, Breaking Away, and Flim-Flam man

1967: The Flim-Flam man (Mordecai Jones) roams the rural south, defrauding the greedy and keeping himself afloat. He picks up a Vietnam War draft-dodger by the name of Curley to be his assistant. Mordecai's capture made local news, but the Flim-Flam man is freed by his new assistant and escapes to rob another day

1979: A young man by the name of Dave Stoller wins the little 500, beating far more qualified opponents even with an injured leg.

1986: Mordecai Jones dies peacefully in a hospital room. Curley, the new Flim-Flam man, leaves the hospital with the bill and a copy of his faked medical insurance. Curley quickly picks up several apprentices of his own, reasoning that three or four assistants can pull off even bigger capers.

1989: Dave Stoller enters the Tour de France, and manages to win. He becomes a minor celebrity back home.

1993: After years of research and funding, Jurassic goes dark during a large storm. Survivors of the event refused to reveal what exactly happened, but declare Jurassic park officially closed. Various exploratory groups where sent to pick up valuable information, but most of the equitment and research put into the park was ruined either by the flood or the rampant dinosaurs. Various Dino eggs are captured, and one mysteriously dissapears at the same time an American researcher suddenly stops existing.

1998: After years of biking, Dave Stoller decides to retire after winning the Tour de France this year. He passes down the torch to up and coming Lance Armstrong.

2000: Billionaire CEO of Ingen and Creator of Jurassic park John Hammond dies. Upon his death the few scraps of research he had in addition to his personal account of the black-out are released to the public. The novelization of his personal account, simply titledJurassic Park, becomes an instant best-seller.

2005: Most every major zoo in the world now includes at least one Dino, either caught directly from the Island or raised from hatching.

2006: Curley dies during a massive insurance scam, and the title of "the" Flim-Flam man passes on to the man who stole the velociraptor egg from the American Exploratory team. While nobody is able to figure out his name (despite the best efforts of the rest of the flim-flam men), He and his pet Velociraptor are respected for Bringing the orginization into the 21st century. In addition, the membership of the flim-flam men expands to over 100.

[coffeedog14]

Because I refuse to let this die! Doctor Who Reactions 1-4

Woo! 4! 4 whole episodes! On a roll! Woo!

Alright, enough gratuitous self-celebration. Let’s get to it.

44:20: home again home again jiggity jig.

43:46: actually, why not tell your mother? Honesty is the best policy, after all.

43:25: god earth is so boring when things aren’t blowing up.

42:56: Doctor who, master kidnapper, is definitely not on the case!

42:36: don’t look at me like that! Months and hours are practically the same in Gallifreyan! Like their and there! Yeah, or language is actually really inconvenient when trying to talk about time.

42:33: I like the smile he had there. Totally isn’t nearly as sorry as he should be.

41:48: bad wolf, bad wolf, bad wolf, it’s bad!

41:28: just tell her the truth. It would probably be easier for everybody involved.

41:11: pretty much, I mean, um, DOH!

40:50: totally deserved that.

40:20: JUST TELL HER! What would be the repercussions of it? Especially if you explain it to her in a calm, orderly fashion? You’re smarter than this, rose, c’mon!

38:55: alright, time to pull a Hudson River landing! Let’s do this!

38:51: alright, a little steep, but you got a clear shot on the left there…

38:47: …or not. You know, whatever. Just... land whenever it suits you.

38:36: “don’t worry guys, I totally got this!”

38:27: oh no. you’re not going to do it.

38:26: no no no

38:21: YOU BLOODY IDIOT! You had MILES of space on either side of the ONE FUCKING CLOCK TOWER. The SINGULAR tall thing that is between you and the river you manage to hit! IT’S NOT EVEN THAT BIG! Did you just feel like destroying earth property on purpose? Did you stop to consider that crashing into solid objects generally damages a ship, something that considering the SMOKE COMING OFF YOUR SHIP you should probably be avoiding?

38:13: yep. Perfect landing. Screw you, aliens.

37:19: considering the sheer amount of knowledge the doctor seems to possess about modern earth history, I am kind of surprised that first contact didn’t catch his attention.

37:45:… BY ALIEN INCOMPETENCE; CONSIDERED A FAILED CONTACT; ALIENS ASKING FOR “SECOND GO AT IT”; MORE ONCE THE PARLIAMENT DECIDES WHETHER FIRST IMPRESSION IMPLIES ONLY ONE SHOT, OR THE FIRST ONE YOU PERSONALLY COUNT

36:37: boy am I glad that humans are so great. Alien makes a crash landing in your river? Loot the neighbors! World monument destroyed? Loot the neighbors! Historic first contact occurring in your city, a city whose populace will give the first impression to an entire hyper-advanced species? Arson!

35:40: you say that like it’s a surprise or something that literally everybody had not already guessed. I would be more surprised if it was a secret spy craft from France at this point.

35:04: “john, the government is telling us to shut down. They have an emergency broadcast!” “Keep running” “Sir, I don’t think we can do that. An alien landed in London.” “WELL THAT’S JUST TOO BAD. I WILL NOT DENY THE GOOD PEOPLE OF BRITIAN MY COOKING ADVICE!”

34:58: “John, can we at least make it space themed?” “Fine. But it has to look really stupid. I won’t have these aliens getting the spotlight that only I deserve!”

34:47: “What do you mean international news networks have footage of us dragging a body out of the ship? It was… an air balloon! Yes and air balloon within a bigger air balloon. An air balloon that piloted its air balloon into big ben and then deflated. Yep… briefing over.”

33:52: yes, general, it was a hoax. Somebody invented a space-ship just to fuck with you. You know those Russians!

33:09: way to blow protocol there, lady. You don’t see any of the soldiers questioning the general during a national crisis.

32:38: I know nothing about British government, but that sounds like a committee that might actually exist. Poor, sad fools.

32:12: I like the look of utter dejection and shock on her face. Like she still expected to get in at this point. How did she get high enough to talk to the prime minister with that level of intellect?

32:01: so unlike in America, where the power of the presidency is passed on only when the current president is completely unable to run the government, in Britain it just happens when the prime minister isn’t on the scene fast enough? If some low-level flunky flew to a foreign country where a British person got murdered, could they declare war as “acting prime minister”?

31:49: couldn’t you just helicopter in somebody? Is the entire parliament out of town right now? This seems like a major flaw in your infrastructure.

31:23: wait, those exist? I want to be the guy who writes those things! That sounds so cool!

31:17: even after watching the king’s speech, I figure the constant farting would be far harder to lead with then a speech impediment.

30:27: racist doctor! Or, rather, speciest doctor! Species-ist? You know what, bigoted. Bigoted Doctor!

30:07: poor way of making first contact. Destroying big ben and all.

28:28: poor mickey. One day you will show you are best human. One day.

28:00: doctor, since when have sledgehammers been good repair tools? That is explicitly the opposite of what they supposed to do.

26:43: dick way of saying it, but yeah, that’s probably the correct response to being accosted by random parliamentarians during this event.

26:12: I really, really hope there are security camera’s in this room. Because I’m fairly sure this is all kinds of illegal.

25:00: call security. Call it. Do it. Do it before you die.

24:40: call security. You are a doctor. More importantly, you are a responsible adult.

24:01: you know what? You deserve to die at this point. The building is crawling with security and armed guards, but you decide that your 130 pound body can take on any threat violently smashing itself against the door.

23:27: you didn’t get that during the several minutes you listened to it bang around its storage box?

23:10: Woo, military guys, being methodical and smart and all! At least some of the humans in the building are competent.

23:00: lady you could have warned me before I sent away the heavily armed guards. Do you just have a pathological fear of the military or something?

22:20: at least, one person in this entire series, when confronted with a direct threat, does something besides cringe! I’m starting too really like this episode.

22:07: that was the least dignified combat that soldier will ever see. Ever.

22:04: because it was a screaming alien and also BECAUSE IT’S WHAT I GET PAYED TO DO.

21:58: well I’m sorry I couldn’t pick up the emotional cues of a horrific beast running straight at me! If it was so scared, why was it charging me like an angry boar?

20:44: ah. That explains why this guy is still prime minister… wait, why did anybody actually listen to him when he said “Don’t fly in, guys, I got this.”?

20:25: hurray! ...wait, sudden music sting. Uh oh.

19:51: alright, general, pull a gun on them! I know you can do it!

19:38: …I guess no hard feelings. I salute you, only upper-tier government guy with any sense.

18:53: please, call me by my full title…Doctor… BATMAN! (credits roll)

18:33: years later you’ll all look back and realize you toasted the xeno-americans with what had become a racial slur. You monsters.

18:27: T.V. talking about the royal family makes me wonder: could the queen start running things now? She seems to be the only one around and competent. I wonder if she couldn’t take over Britain for a day, like a roman dictatorship kind of dealy.

17:04: Yeah, mickey, he’s just infinitely more important than you! Even if we got married, he would be 1,000 times more important than you could even be! I pour ceaseless abuse on you and expect you to take it all and additionally my subtle disdain for humanity as a whole! I don’t even know why I still go out with you, except that you’re the only person strong enough to take my bile!

16:41: should have told her. Should have. No reason not to. If you had a reason this might be kind of interesting, but you “just couldn’t”. Darn you rose.

16:05: Interesting. Doctor feels totally justified in his actions, or at least doesn’t seem to care about the consequences. Or doesn’t want to address them, so hides behind the first two.

14:30: you know that guy that has done nothing but aid us in the past? He gets a red alert. He is the biggest threat Britain has ever known. We cannot allow his charity and benevolence to continue, the scum.

13:51: no, mickey, don’t fall for it! This is how abusive relationships work! Abuse, followed by apology, followed by abuse! Get out of it now, before rose sucks you into her terrible personal problems!

11:51: I was going to ask how they were going to cover up the general disappearing, but I guess Oliver isn’t important enough to be noticed.

11:02: so for the guy that you regularly consult, you have a red alert? Seems a bit confusing, honestly.

10:11: because that worked perfectly last time. Maybe this time don’t choose a place within line of sight of a large residential area?

9:58: WE WISH TO CONSULT WITH YOU ABOUT THE RECENT LANDING! EVERYTHING YOU SAID CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU! THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO ENTICE YOU INTO WORKING WITH US!

9:42: go mickey go! Man, he can run. I wouldn’t have expected it out of a computer expert.

9:22: I don’t know why, but I think that a police car probably isn’t the most secure form of transport, especially with aliens involved. Got any armored trucks or something?

9:09: then why this big charade with arresting you? It seems like they could have just escorted you without that bit.

6:04: awkward hug.

5:30: why did you not show this to a guard? You know, somebody qualified to do this? WHY DOES NOBODY GO FOR THE GAURDS?

4:00: yeah, kind of surprised nobody caught that. Like I said earlier, serious problems with you infrastructure, especially the communication.

3:27: not even trying anymore. It’s not like the guards suddenly disappeared or anything. Arguably, when you’re in a room surrounded by alien experts, you are actually in a worse situation then a room full of guards.

3:17: yeah, so does anybody want to call the guards? Anybody?

2:45: nobody? FINE. You ALL deserve to die. you all had something like a solid half-minute in which to act, and not a single one of you, experts, doctor, or government officials, tried to do anything. Screw you guys!

2:09: minute and a half, and everybody is still standing around.

2:04: damn it, we’re back to the “cringe slighty” defense strategy! We were so close to escaping that!

1:45: really guys, really? He just pulled out what is obviously a detonator of some kind, and you did nothing. This is something even regular humans know is bad! Why is nobody doing anything!

1:38: Humanity is so fucking incompetent that even its finest experts stare at their field of study with mild puzzlement and shrug in apathy. And then get killed.

1:24: just once can we see humans do anything to indicate that they will be the dominant species in a short time? Just once? That’s all I ask!

  So, that was… infuriating. Infuriating beyond belief. At least, the end part was. Up until then it was mostly great. We got to see the personal consequences of travelling with the Doctor. We got to see the Doctor be a generally terrible person towards mickey, cementing that he isn’t always good. We got a fairly intelligent plot that provided intrigue and action. We had fairly competent villain’s who remained hidden for most of the episode to increase the tension. We had acknowledgement that the Doctor has had an effect on the world around him such that people remember him. We even got to tie up some loose ends with rose’s family and friends. Or at least, starting to tie them up.

Now for the bad things. This episode suffers from “guards? What guards?” syndrome, one I just invented. Surrounded by highly trained soldiers, barely anybody thinks of using them. It also suffers from “It’s evil’s turn” syndrome, again, invented. The last 3 or so minutes consist of a mass of highly intelligent experts and political officials staring at their enemy and doing nothing, as if it was no longer their turn and they could do nothing. Also in this episode we see what I am going to call the beginning of the end for rose. She has turned from a competent and down to earth partner to a bitchy and hateful burden. I don’t know how long I can go before these reactions all turn to poorly spelled leet-speak rants about my utter hatred for rose. Only time will tell.

Also I maintain that an operative of the Dickens’ family attended this meeting. Because damnit I will not let this dream go!

Continuity notes: In 2006 (because it’s been a year), a giant alien ship destroys big ben and crashes into the Thames. The results of this crash and the ensuing alien attacks to be recorded in the next episode, since it is linked to this one. In addition the U.N. has a supernatural response team known as U.N.I.T., which the doctor once worked with.

[coffeedog14]

Doctor Who Reactions 1-3

Since I posted two other things the other day, A WHOLE 2 THINGS, I think that gives me a right to skip a day of this, anyway, 3rd episode!

44:34: damn sneed company. One day we will discover where they get their truffala trees.

43:52: AH AH AH AH oh who am I kidding everybody knew that was going to happen.

43:45: for an old lady, she has quite the grip.

43:24: yaaaaaarn…. I require yaaaaaaarn….

42:08: for once, the doctor isn’t exactly sure what happens in a particular era. That is a good thing.

41:26: how will you pass this off to the police? “Yep. Just collapsed his own throat upon seeing his dead mother/grandmother. Tragic.”

40:22: amazing how often things end up happening on Christmas in this show. Maybe Christmas has some kind of universal signifigance.

39:35: the tardis is nearly unnavigable. That is also a good thing.

39:12: the shinning!

38:25: CHARLES DICKENS CHARLES DICKENS CHARLES DICKENS! Almost as good as Socrates.

37:12:… awwww… that was the most awesome way to express your old-age crisis.

36:33: wait; do time lords have some non-human conception of beauty? They look pretty human. Granted there is a lot of difference when it comes to human societies about what is beautiful, but some things are kind of universal for us, and I would expect them to be the same amongst time-lords.

34:55: took them awhile to figure that out. Considering that English Christmas carols could be heard in the background.

34:24: oh god this is so great.

 33:58: you had one job, old lady. Don’t reveal to the audience that you were a ghost.

33:44: might as well have the most fun you can, as long as everybody already knows you are a demonic screaming ghost.

33:22: Charles is taking this rather well, considering.

31:38: still taking this pretty well.

29:52: maybe it’s gods punishment for chloroforming young girls.

29:29: since when does the church charge for exorcisms? Maybe this is why the church of England didn’t spread as far as the other sects.

28:56: Charles dickens is intense, man.

27:50: slowly shambling dead people, the most intimidating villains in the world.

27:18: help us! It’s not our fault the young man is dead, that’s his fault for having a weak throat!

26:29: why didn’t you go to a different house, then?

25:57: a space-man just told Charles dickens to shut up. If there is one person I would never want to shut up, it would probably be dickens.

25:05: inspector dickens on the case.

24:36: damn straight you’ll apologize!

23:35: a strangely valid question. One that is still in debate today, really.

22:31: yes they have. At least, being willing to admit it definitely has.

21:47: OUCH BUUUURNED ROSE BUUUUURNED

21:04: wow. How could you possibly have kept your secret for more than 10 minutes? Do you just never talk to people?

20:30: yep. Just never allowed to talk to people.

20:12: sounding more like the only option, as opposed to the preferred one.

19:30 it’s the house, maid. It has a shinning of it’s own.

18:16: nope. We’re not here. Nope. Nope.

17:44: FIRE! HOUSE ON FIRE!

17:33: just allow the deadly deadly zombie-ghosts into your mind. It will go perfectly.

16:33: is there a single race in the entire universe that wasn’t completely wrecked by the time war? Besides humanity?

15:19: rose, it is an entire race we are talking about.  There is no reason to let them die just because the passageway is tired.

14:10: oooo relativistic morality! Interesting indeed.

12:40: alright, so time can be rewritten.

12:10: also a good idea from the doctor. I guess time can’t be exactly rewritten, but instead avoided. Kind of.

11:27: whoa whoa whoa. What the hell?

11:13: why did they turn into zombie demons?

10:52: what was the benefit of revealing that you where evil before you started snapping necks?

10:16: so, what is the invasion plan here? Attack the world with a couple hundred slowly shambling nearly useless corpses? The Gelth realize that we use weapons greater than our fists, right? They did at least the barest research on the planet they were invading?

9:25: time is in constant flux, I suppose

9:10: wow, this was a poorly planned invasion. Even if they take every body with more flesh than a skeleton, an average man with a wood-axe could probably keep himself alive. On top of all that, They can’t survive in the atmosphere. This is only marginally better than the alien invasion of Signs, in that they managed to kill two whole people.

8:12: man, wish you had your bombs now, don’t you?

7:33: yeah, I’m not sure about this whole gas extraction thing. It’s like if I had a sponge full of water in a cup, and then filled the cup with water in order to dry the sponge.

7:18: yeah! Now we can suffocate instead of becoming zombies!

5:51: OUCH BUUUUURNED

5:42: that was terribly insensitive. Worth it.

5:06: yeeeeessssssss

4:48: I’m sure that happens far more then we realize.

3:39: sounds great. I would have bought it.

2:45: the natural question. The one that I would expect everybody to ask immediately upon learning that the doctor is a time-traveler.

1:29: YEAH! Beast way to end an episode.

Overall, decent episode. Charles Dickens is amazing and should definitely have an adventure show based around him at some point. The fact that he actively participates in the events around him and turns out to be vital in saving the day puts him leagues ahead of other historical characters in the show. The doctor showing his softer side while attempting to save the aliens was interesting, while rose showing her unreasonable side was not, and I would have thought that her role would have been played better by Mr. Sneed. Rose really has no reason to hate this solution to saving an entire race, while Mr. Sneed could probably think of several, including god, his job, his uncertainty about the ghost-aliens not being demons, the unshakable morality of some people during that age, etc.

Main weakness was, unfortunately, the villains. They really hadn’t thought their plan through. There are grade-schoolers who could probably come up with a more logical plan than them. Even worse, because they were apparently “higher forms” before the time-war, they really have no reason to be this stupid. Also how willing the doctor was to work with them, considering that he had apparently never heard of them before. Since when does the doctor not know about any of the alien races, especially the higher ones that might have fought in the war? Anyway it doesn’t destroy the episode. This one isn’t a must watch, but it’s good.

Continuity notes: There is a rift-thingy below Cardiff, Wales. This will become more important later. It was seemingly closed, or at least blocked for a time, by the explosion. Also Charles Dickens knew about aliens. I wonder if he ever got around to telling his family about this whole incident. Maybe the Dickenses are the Van Helsings of England!

[coffeedog14]

WAITING FOR GODOT 2: REVEANGENCE: PART 1

((Well, I'm just a wellspring of doing things today, aren't I?))

((Estragon wakes up in a ditch. Looks around slightly confused, seems to remember something, then forget it again. Rises. Starts wandering.))

((another scene of Estragon slowly walking along the side of the road))

((third scene of Estragon slowly walking alongside the road))

((fourth scene. Tree in the distance. Estragon seems to have some memory of it. Shuffles slightly faster.))

((fifth scene, estragon has approached tree. Face lights up in recognition.))

Estragon: Didi! Didi! ((top part of hat falls off head. Rim and top have separated.)) Help. Didi! Help! The hat! Didi!

((camera slowly pans to see other side of tree. First thing noticed is child, dead, hidden by the tall grass. Second thing noticed is a pair of legs, twitching and swaying in the breezy shade of the tree. Body is on the opposite side of the tree from Estragon.))

((Estragon slowly walks towards the tree.))

Estragon: Didi? Are you here yet? I think I should wait for him. No, maybe I should just go, before…

((Estragon trip over dead child.))

Estragon: Oh! Oh! Watch where you lay, boy. ((delivers kick)). ((silence)). I should nap.

((walks around to shady side of tree))

Estragon: Didi! Didi! ((pats body nervously))((body stops twitching)) Didi! The hat! The hat! Didi! ((tree starts to flicker as Estragon continues to pat the body. It then disappears. The body drops to the floor.))

((estragon falls over and is unable to get back up. Drags himself over to the body and starts hitting it. Red cross flashes across screen. Estragon seems to remember something.))

Estragon: ((performing CPR. Saying a word for each push)) a dog came in the kitchen

And stole a crust of bread.

Then cook up with a ladle

And beat him till he was dead.

  Then all the dogs came- ((breathing. Landscape starts to flicker.)) running

And dug the dog a tomb

((stops CPR for a second, face contorted in concentration.))

((whispering))and dug the dog a tomb.. and…

((Continuing CPR)) and wrote upon the tombstone

For the eyes of dogs to come:

  A dog came in the kitchen

And stole a crust-((breath. Landscape disappears. All that is left is a sterile white room)) of bread

Then cook up with a ladle

And beat him till he was dead

  Then all the dogs came running

And dug the dog…a…tomb… ((CPR slows down Vladimir starts to breath. Estragon Embraces Vladimir, which nearly prevents him from breathing.))

Vladimir: stop, stop! ((embrace ends))

Estragon: You left without me.

Vladimir: You weren’t here. I thought you had left without me.

Estragon: Maybe I will, now, if you are going to kill yourself before me.

Vladimir: I thought we agreed that’s how it must go?

Estragon: Where did you get the rope?

Vladimir: The child. He had no belt. He used rope.

Estragon: Where are we?

Vladimir: Waiting for Godot.

Estragon: Ah! But that is where we were. Where are we now?

((Vladimir uses his intelligence))

Vladimir: I don’t know. I suppose still waiting.

((guns, knives, and other weapons flash across the screen. Both Estragon and Vladimir freeze.))

Intercom: get on the ground in 5...

Estragon: What should we do?

Vladimir: Well…((pacing))

Intercom: 4…3…

((Vladimir trips on his laces, falling to the ground.))

Vladimir: oof!

Estragon: good idea! ((goes to ground))

Intercom:1….0

((TO BE CONTINUED))

[coffeedog14]

the sign I am reading to many philosophical texts: my refutation of Ian Malcolm.

Saw Jurassic Park in wonderful, probably not necessary but still kind of cool 3D. I was kind of surprised by how well many of the components held up after all of these years. Even the special/practical effects still worked pretty well. The one thing that I didn’t think held up well was Dr. Ian Malcolm.

                        For those that don’t remember his name, like I didn’t before re-watching the movie, Dr. Malcolm is the funny mathematician guy who also gets to spout the moral lessons of the movie. To make a long story short I don’t like his arguments, or him. He can be funny, but not enough to cover up his other flaws. Hence I will take it upon myself to tear down this smarmy self-righteous semi-luddite, as best as I can. I’ll even do it in order of his arguments appearing:

            CHAOS THEORY: This is the theory that Malcolm best explains by his allusion to the butterfly affect. Seemingly insignificant events lead great consequences, making long-term predictions impossible. While I do not believe he uses it directly as a reason against Jurassic park, it seems like a strange idea to me. Just because a factor seems insignificant doesn’t mean it cannot be calculated, jus that it may be hard to find. Hypothetically if a computer large and observant enough where built, it could calculate all the butterfly flaps and know the future weather exactly. This is, of course, massively inconvenient and inefficient, so instead we invented Probability. Sure we can’t predict exact results, but we know what is most likely to happen, and what is impossible. When I put a drop of water on my hand I don’t know how it will roll down, but I know that it won’t leap back into the cup.

            LIFE FINDS A WAY: I will grant that, in a big symbolic sense, life indeed always finds a way. Give thousands of organisms millions of years in an uncomfortable or dangerous environment, and those organisms will probably end up adapting to the conditions. It’s how life has, over great stretches of time, found itself in the most seemingly inhospitable places on earth. But that remains a big, symbolic sense. On an individual level, it’s far more likely for life to not find a way and instead to die with no children. This is more of the condition of Jurassic park. If given millions of years, one of the plant species or insect species might mutate its way into reproduction, but most likely not the dinosaurs.

            I will also grant that in some ways Malcolm was vindicated by life, indeed, finding a way to reproduce. But that only happened due to a mistake on the part of the scientists. Actually that seems like a pretty unlikely mistake on the scientists part. Whether they replaced a random portion of dino DNA with a random bit of frog DNA (which seems like a terrible way to switch around DNA in complex creatures), or they purposely put the gender-switching DNA in because dinosaurs had it (a bit of information that you think would reach the guy on top at some point, as it seems like break-through stuff), it just seems unlikely that mistake could be let through. Accepting that it happened, what would have happened if the Dino’s, instead of hormonally manipulated, where gelded?

            Not much that can get past that, right? I think it’s pretty much proven to work. You don’t hear many stories about a gelded dog miraculously having puppies. If it didn’t work with regularity, people wouldn’t do it to their pets. Life can’t find a way past that, because much like the hormonal manipulation was meant to, the gelding robs life of its ability to find a way. Evolution, the way life finds a way, requires reproduction. It would be like saying that Bobjim the lumberjack will always find a way to cut down trees with his axe, and then taking away his axe. He ain’t going to chop down trees then. And he certainly isn’t going to craft a new axe, or hire somebody else to do it, or anything else like that. Life isn’t a mystical force that just always works, it’s a process that requires very specific tools to work. If denied those, life is totally incapable of existing longer than a few years.

            RAPE OF NATURE: so, the final argument made against the park. “We shouldn’t do this, because nature has chosen against the dinosaurs, and who are we to defy nature? This is destroying nature in the most base and cruel sense.” I’ll tell you who we are to do so. We are peoplekind.

            When we faced the long-toothed cats and wild dogs of our original homes, we didn’t just let nature take its course and kill us. We turned the tables, flipped the food-pyramid and murdered those animals so hard they ceased to exist entirely. We looked north and saw that we could not survive in the freezing white death of snow, and that would be the limit would initially put on us. We ripped the flesh from the trees and the skin from the animals and forced our way into success. We exist as we do today because we never stopped beating nature, and making our own decisions. If anybody could possibly have a right to defy nature, it’s us, and we do but virtue of beating her.

            That is not to say that nature is bad. Nature doesn’t really exist as a single entity to judge. It is an amalgamation of things, all acting in their own ways. It has no particular love or hate for us, and I believe we should return the favor. Not destroying it when we can, but not being afraid to destroy when we must.

            So what do we destroy of nature’s by recreating dinosaurs? We reverse a great deal of her decisions. That is if we accept that nature can actually make decisions, which I argue a non-sentient collective of random forces cannot, but assuming we accept that. I would then argue that the death of the dinosaurs was not a choice of nature. If nature is defined as the life and weather patterns of earth, the meteor strike was totally outside of nature. It put nature under extreme duress, where it had to make decisions it would not otherwise. If nature had its way, who can know if it would have killed any of the dinosaurs, and when? We are not reversing a true decision of nature: we are giving nature a second chance at something it probably always wanted.

            Of course, the above argument is based on the idea that nature can make decisions, which I don’t really think it can. Perhaps when he said “nature” he meant “natural selection”. The idea that all of natural history is a grand and wonderful march started with Darwin himself and continued in one fashion or another throughout the ages. It’s somewhat harder to argue this point, as it is kind of self-defending. “Who are you decide which species live or die? What proof do you have that the dinosaurs are nor worth recreating?” “I do not decide, natural selection did. My proof is that there aren’t any dinosaurs running around today, so obviously they were not worthy of continuing their past forms.”

            Then the argument can turn to other fronts. If natural selection marches ever forward, killing off the unworthy, how do domesticated animals fit into the picture? Take a sheep. It is so stupid that it needs constant supervision to not get killed or kill itself. If the entire race of sheep where left alone, they probably wouldn’t fare well. Even if they did survive they would quickly become not-sheep. So how did they continue to exist, these silly stupid animals that cannot survive? Because of man. Just like other domesticated species, sheep have “permission” to exist from natural selection because they serve man. Like how a clownfish serves the sea-anemone or the aphid serves the ant, domesticated animals can exist safely in the constant march of natural selection because they have attached themselves to another species, trading their own ability to survive for the ability to serve a protector. Why should dinosaurs not exist under the same rule? They exist to serve as entertainment for humans. They can be protected and justified under natural selection by their serving of us. They use their fierceness and extinction to trade for protection from a hostile world.

                        So that’s why I hate Malcolm. Not nearly funny enough to avoid all of the annoyance I feel about his strange philosophical standing. Maybe it’s explained better in the book? I should probably read that at some point.

[coffeedog14]

Continuation: Doctor Who 1-2

Yeah, for once I am following up on things! Success! Milestone! Miracle!

Anyway, to the episode.

44:02: SOCRATES!

43:56: darn it. It’s never Socrates….

43:00: it’s like he’s a child showing off his Nintendo power glove.

42:00: we’ll survive miraculously because  we are always so worried about dying.

41:30: not exactly the most charming first date.

41:20: intro is a good time to ask this: how exactly does the doctor know so much about every point in time? there is, at least, 5 billion years of history he needs to keep track of.

40:33: good thing we haven’t figured out the “shedule” vs. “schedule” thing in 5 billion years.

39:40: pretty cool display of technology, where with casual ease a sun is stopped and continents are shifted. Certainly sounds like 5 billion years in the future.

39:05: MAXIMUM HOSPITALITY ACTIVATED: TERMINATE WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE

38:20: color opposite oompa-loompas. Cute.

37:25: time lord breath: made by mentoes.

36:45: …what could this thing possibly be except a bomb or something?

35:53: does texas still exist in 5 billion minus 2000 or so years?

35:15: if that is the treatment the ostrich gets, I want to hear the story of the elephant.

34:45: considering the time scale, she got close to an actual ipod/classical music. Only 50/150 years respectively.

33:27: that little robot seems pretty lame for the year 5 billion. And also not terribly sneaky when compared to the super-nanobots that probably exist in this era.

33:00 wait, what? Are these guys slave? Does slavery still exist?

32:14 why do plumbers still exist? I guess robot-servants just never came to be. Sigh.

30:37: no really?

30:28: ah, yes. The tried and true “Cringe slightly” method of self defense. Don’t fight back, don’t call for help, don’t run. Just kind of sit there.

29:45: which PR department decided that “earth death” was a good term for the event?

28:00: this whole conversation is so great. Except that Rose is kind of a space racist apparently.

27:18: so good. so much character and development and stuff, and it all makes sense. Doctor is arrogant and a dick, Rose is sensible and unwilling to take any shit.

25:03: just noticed that the blue people have cat-eyes. Nice little touch to make them seem slightly less human.

24:14: that was the easiest assassination ever. It literally pressed a single button while he watched, and then strolled away. Imagine if killing the president where that easy. Walk in, shoot president, calmly leave while everybody stares at you.

23:58: IN HINDSIGHT I REALLY SHOULD HAVE SPRUNG FOR ANY KIND OF SECURITYYYYY.!!!!!!

23:43: the perfect crime.

23:20: how did your race even get to flying in space then?

22:12: a space art exhibit. Cool.

21:00 I really want to see how the humanity “mingled” with the trees… in a totally not weird way I swear.

20:20: OUCH, BETTER MOUSTURIZE DAT BUUUUUURN!!!

19:57: and eyes!

19:13: yep. Rubber tree X human is best ship.

18:30: so one race activerly remembers the doctor for the war, and blames him. By the year 5 billion they seem to remember time lords, and that the time lords died. Granted time itself was torn apart by the time war, but exactly how the time lords are remembered yet don’t seem to exist doesn’t quite make sense to me.

17:16: in the future, all control consoles are hidden by the deadliest components the consoles control. Hence, nobody can fix the the problem without being killed by it. It makes sense, damn it!

15:39: now that I think about it, why is there even an option to put down the sun-filters? It’s kind of like being able to shut-off the protective power of sunglasses, in that there is no reason for the function to exist.

14:50: COMPUTER GAINING SENTIENCE! MAXIMUM HOSPITALITY DEPLOYING!

14:04: because your only security is oompa-loompa’s. seems like a pretty big oversight, considering your level of cyber-security.

13:00: a lesser show would have them as the villians. As it stands, this is a brilliant way of keeping the true villain hidden, in a sense. Nearly fooled me first time through.

12:14: yep. I would have thought that going on lecture-tours would make one rich enough without needing to resort to crime.

11:35: yeah, the whole company-stocks thing doesn’t sound like a great idea. How will you explain that you were the only one who escaped? Certainly all of these incredibly powerful people have family to avenge them. Hell, wouldn’t the universe-government interfere at this point? Is there a universe government?

 10:28: this is what we get for letting oompa-loompa’s design the infrastructure. I guess they just really hate the people they serve.

9:05: gotta feel sad for rose. Left in the deadliest room on the station.

8:37: I wonder why the doctor has not caught on fire as well. It was the clothe that caught fire and not the wood, at least initially.

7:51: SLICE… BAD END

7:25: yep. That was pretty spectacular. Seems like rose blinked, though. Can we have a redo?

7:00: so is the fate of all fools that learn the truth of the doctor. First the plastic, now the trees. The secret must be kept!

5:47: also, murder. One could argue that the sunbeams killed the guests. People don’t kill people, guns do!

5:35: what kind of messed-up court system exists in the future? Why does 5 billion AD suddenly seem more like a dystopia?

4:37: I can just imagine rose wondering why she is travelling with a guy who is currently 2/2 in nearly getting her killed during adventures.

4:00: it’s not the planet that has the history, it’s da people!

3:04: or that lesson. That works to.

2:45: burned like the earth, except not at all because it was during a war.

2:20: I MADE SURE OF IT

2:10: you don’t count, mortal!

1:50: SOCRATES!

1:40: … one day, Socrates. One day.

Alright, of the two episodes I have gone through, this one is my favorite. An interesting premise that takes full advantage of time travel, in a series that I think delves into the bin of the recent past and modern era far too much. Interesting villain and twist, Good dialogue between the doctor and rose, all good. Rose continues to be a good, sensible person who is by no means perfect. Same for the doctor. All of the side characters with large amounts of dialougue are interesting to some level.

However, I have to wonder about this whole 5 billion years in the future thing. The technology seems kind of pathetic. Granted that is at least in part due to our year 2000 brains being totally incapable of predicting what will come in the next millennium, much less billions of years in the future, but it seems like they didn’t even try. I would have imagined that every individual in the room, being some of the richest and most powerful, would have personal protection. Hell, I would have imagined that they could afford protection so good they could walk into burning suns with little effort. Also granted that such protection would probably ruin the suspense of the sun-explosion, but that doesn’t make it any less silly to not have in some capacity.

Overall, good episode with good ideas and good execution. Must see.

EPISODE AWARD: Laziest assassination ever.

Continuity notes: in 12005, the new Roman Empire exists. Fingers crossed for seeing that at some point. The doctor was apparently hopped onto the titanic before the series started. People of the year 5 billion likely regard him as some kind of hero, as he saved the lives of the richest men in the universe, and doubtless he was caught on a load of cameras.