New Years!

We are nearing the New Years. Joy!

And we are nearing the revitalization of the Quantum Spin Plates blog, because frankly, it is downright shameful how terrible I've been about writing this blog.

So...

We're back!

...

What the bloody hell do I talk about?

Lets start with what you've all missed!

1) I pronounced my entire second novel - Shattered Sky - to be guilty of the capital crime of being terribly written and awful. So, I shot the book in the head, rolled it into a ditch and started re-writing from scratch. This is going very well and I'm quite happy with it.

2) My Sunday Rogue Trader game is going astoundingly well and I am very happy that I've made so many awesome friends there.

3) My mother has been watching Glee, which makes me want to listen to songs covered by Glee. It's a sickness, I tell you.

4) I have recently finished the first three novels of the Gaunt's Ghosts Series. If you like military sci-fi, they're worth checking out, but if you ask me, they don't really start getting good until Necropolis...though Necropolis is easily the grimmest of the lot, so be ready for lots of grit, grime and grinding of teeth.

That's the short and sweet of it.

Now, next year, I will resume the blog with some rambling discussions about something or other. I hope that, by creating a continuing stream of random, meaningless posts about whatever crosts my mind, people will be mildly entertained.

Peril, Profit and Adventure!

Man it has been a very very very incredibly extremely long time since I have updated this blog! So, first things first, some updates!

1) As anyone who has been near me for five seconds can attest, I have a kickstarter now! If you use this, you can get my book and sweet merch!

Link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/candlemarkandgleam/print-release-of-debris-dreams

2) I have been working on my various books. This is all going great, better than I have any right to expect.

But now, on to the exciting part, the adventurous part. For the past three weeks, I have had the chance to run my all time favorite roleplaying game: Rogue Trader. Rogue Trader is a game wherein you - the players - take the part of a star-faring merchant princes who captain titanic, kilometer long starships in a dark, gothic future where humanity is beset on all sides by horrific aliens, demonic entities, and foul mutants.

As Rogue Traders, the player characters (PCs) are expected to explore the dark corners of the map, fight evil creatures, land on distant planets, and make HUGE, TITANIC PILES OF MONEY!

And so, I decided to begin leaving a record of these stalwart heroes.

Let us begin...with a DRAMATIS PERSONAE!

Our dashing and brave Lord-Captain, Ansin, is the Rogue Trader. He holds the group's sacred warrant of trade and is a charismatic man who has an exceptional skill with leadership. He is able to boost the abilities of the other characters and generally gives the orders.

Under Ansin is his First Officer, York. York is a Void-Master: A pilot without compare, York is a former naval officer with a burning hatred for Space Orks (which are like regular Orks, but in space!)

But even the best Void-Master can't take a ship through the nightmarish hellscape of the Warp, an alternate universe which allows humans to travel faster than light. Only those blessed with the Navigator Gene can guide a ship through the warp, and for this vessel and crew, the Navigator is Julia Benetec. A proud and noble woman, Julia and her third eye will see the crew to any destination they set their mind too.

Still, a ship is a fantastically complex technological construct. In the grim darkness of the distant future, technology is stagnant and moribund. Science has become, literally, a religion. And so, the next member of the bridge crew is the Enginseer Regina. Enginseers are experienced Tech-Priests, able to maintain the ancient technology of the Imperium, while also finding "new" technology amidst the ruins of the ancient past.

But a ship is more than machinery. It has a crew as well, and that crew needs their souls tended by the fiery sermons of a Missionary: In our case, we have Lady Cenna, a noble born Missionary who seeks to bring the light of the God-Emperor into the benighted regions of space.

And, at last, there are the needs of the Trader Dynasty beyond the vessel itself. Ansin is the latest in a long, proud lineage. He has thousands on thousands of serfs and servants, spread across the galaxy at large. There needs to be someone to organize and handle these vast, spread out fortunes. That responsibility falls on Ansin's Seneschall, Sem. Sem is a logical super-genius with an eternal eye for profit.

Now that we know the names and places of our characters, there is only a single thing left to introduce: The Fortuna!

The Fortuna is our crew's starship: A five kilometer long Dauntless-class light cruiser, designed for long distance exploration and combat. It has been equipped with macrocannon broadsides and lance turrets, weaponry that could shatter a continent if unloaded on a planet. It has a barracks, containing thousands of loyal marines who can board enemy ships and capture them. It has a cargo bay, to carry home the lucre earned in distant planets. It is a stolid ship, and despite it's use in exploration and combat, it has a somewhat plodding, lazy character.

Next week, tune in for the first voyage of the Fortuna into the untamed Koronus Expanse: Ancient alien enemies, piratical miscreants and treachery most foul await!

Why Creationism is an X-Risk

So, I'm not a big fan of Creationism. For one thing, it seems like a really silly part of the Bible to stake a claim on. I have read parts (not all) of the Bible for my Early American Literature course. I mean, Moby Dick pretty much requires the Bible to be used as a cultural cipher...the best comparison would be if you are an ancient Israelite who can somehow speak English and you watched Robot Chicken. That's about how confusing it is to read Moby Dick without reading the Bible.

And you know what? There were some great ideas in the Bible. Some bad ideas. Some weird ideas.

But none of them, as far as I can tell, are predicated on the Earth being 6,000 years old or humanity not being descended from previous lifeforms. Maybe this is because I'm an atheist, and thus, don't have to see the whole thing as connected, but there are a load of parts of the Bible that are just fine on their own.

You know the rules: The ones about distributing your wealth to the less fortunate, refraining from gossip and being a dick (to paraphrase) and so on.

Those are good ideas in general.

Saying that our species is only 6,000 years old, and that the Earth was made in it's present form at the same time, well, it is less of a good idea. In fact...it could be a DEADLY IDEA.

How, you might say, could thinking that be a deadly dangerous risk? How could it be an X-Risk?

I'm glad you asked, random internet person!

Let me list the ways...

1. Plague: Evolution is the basis of modern biology and medicine. Understanding and believing in evolution, plus studying it and using it as a model on the activity of bacteria and viruses, is vital. Without this, we're defenseless against the next pandemic. The Black Death killed 1/3rd of Europe's population and they had no shield against it. If something like that were to come again, we'd at least have a chance of figuring out a cure before it kills 6 billion  people. 
2. Calderas of Doom: I am living in California, which means that I am used to earthquakes. These are due to plate tectonics. What does this have to do with Creationism? Well, um, the Earth is clearly changing. The force of that change is the movement of our tectonic plates, which creates earthquakes and volcanoes. And that leads us to the Yellowstone Caldera, which is basically a supervolcano. If it went off then the whole world would have a really really bad day. In the Creationist model, we lack the understanding that there is even a threat. Without that understanding, we can't even think of a way to stop it. Not that we HAVE a way to stop it, but we might figure it out in the future because we're aware of the issue.
3. SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE: Space can kill us. Really badly. The first example is the asteroid impacts that wiped out the dinosaurs (which isn't mentioned in the Creationist model), but you can argue that there's no reason those asteroids aren't 6,000 years old. So, a Creationist can still keep their eyes open for an asteroid and nuke it. But what about all the other ways that space can kill us? Gamma ray bursts, supernova, galactic impacts (okay, that one is a few million years off, so we're safe for now) and other nasties can be chucked at us...and that all requires an understanding the universe that makes it clear that the thing isn't 6,000 years old. So, was the Earth created near the tail end of the universe's creation? If so, then what was God doing the rest of the time? You know, I'm actually interested where this train of thought leads...
4. Climate: So, climates change. We should all know this by now. Unless, of course, you see the world in a Creationist way...but then you'll get sideswiped by climate change, either the human made or the "natural" kind. Ice ages suck just as much as global warming, and unless you are aware of these threats, you can't prep for them, you can't DO anything about them. This can lead to extinction of other species, which can lead to the extinction of our own. And that's a major drag for everyone involved. 
5. Hubris: This...this is the most subjective of all the X-risks here. But there is a certain...pride involved with the belief that the world was made for us, by a god who loves us, for the express purpose of us to run and do with as we will. A good person will take a gift and do what they can to make it better...but it is dreadfully easy for even a good person to become careless or conceited when they're showered with gifts. It's important to remember just how precarious and dangerous our home is...and just how much we have to remember to work together to make it better, rather than pull it apart to make it worse. Or, you know, nuke it into oblivion. 

Now, you can be a Creationist and be concerned about plague. You can look out for asteroids, worry about volcanoes and do your best to not bomb Russia into the stone age. But the problem goes deeper than the X-Risks: It goes to the fact that Creationism is backwards. Not backwards in terms of intelligence or smarts (there are smart people who believe in Creationism) but rather backwards in terms of PROCESS.

Rather than looking at evidence, then figuring out what it means to come to a conclusion, Creationism looks at a conclusion, then works backwards to find evidence to support it.

With Creationism, you don't have a changing Earth. No understanding of the colossal timelines that geology and astronomy work under. No concept of how vast the galaxy is, or how dangerous. No realization (until it is too late) that extinction can come for even the most successful species. No realization that climate change can even happen at all, that ice ages are things that can ruin your whole week. No evolutionary understanding of bacteria and viruses.

And...at the end of the day, it's just a date. It has nothing to do with being nice to someone. It has nothing to do with loving your neighbor, or tithing 10% of your income to charity. It has nothing to do actually living by a code of morals and ethics and everything to do with just confirming a bias.

Still, I have to admit, a feeling of pride: I've done it.

I've pissed off, offended and irritated 49% of the American population! Only 150 million to go!

The super-funtime Ayn Rand Post: In which your humble blogger touches on an issue that will never offend anyone ever

Oh Ayn Rand.

People really hate Ayn Rand.

People really love Ayn Rand.

People are fascinated by Ayn Rand. I'd say this is the mark of a great novelist, but in my humble opinion, I don't actually think she was a good writer. Her characters were flat and one note, her books could use a serious trimming and their pace started to get downright glacial at times. What she was good at, though, was inspiring people either to vitriol or virtue, with much gnashing of teeth on both sides.

Depending on who you ask, Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism is either a recipe for babyeating or the one true path for human happiness.

But a friend of mine - a fellow D&D player, actually - came up with an astoundingly astute and clear headed way of expressing the awesome and terrible part of Objectivism, Ayn Rand and her seminal novel, Atlas Shrugged, in a single paragraph.

"[Atlas Shrugged] is, basically, about superheroes. That's how superheroes should act to make the world a better place. That's why it doesn't apply to the real world: We don't have superheroes."

It makes perfect sense. Atlas Shrugged, for those who don't know, is a novel about a world being strangled by communism (literally!), where governmental meddling has caused the collapse of the economy for the most part, and that only certain select people, via their own individual activity and drive, could push the world forward...but they were tired of being cheated by the "looters" (I.E, the government and people who relied on the government) and so they left the world with one John Galt.

Thus, the title: Atlas, shrugged.

But the problem is that it doesn't work, because (almost) no one can actually measure up to these character's shoes. This philosophy requires superhumans and regular humans...but in the real world, we're pretty much all equal. Oh, we have different temperaments and different aptitudes and different desires, but at the end of the day, the difference between a farmer, a neurosurgeon and someone who has memorized every single episode of Project Runway...is WHAT THEY HAVE SPENT THEIR TIME DOING.

Farming is hard work, with an immense amount of technique and knowledge required to do anything well. Memorization (even of something "useless" like a TV show) is difficult. And the various things you need to learn to actually act as a neurosurgeon is pretty astronomical. Each of these things requires training and practice and study. The only reason why we humans can all find an individual vocation, rather than having to generalize (and thus, lose any chance of becoming a high quality specialist) is because of a huge, complex, interesting society, which lets people support one another through semi-selfish interaction. A society that might have sigma 9 events, people who are above and beyond the normal, average person...

But.

And here is the big but.

We can't call them an Atlas and have it be the end of the day. Because, and this is my personal issue with Objectivism: Everyone ever wants to be an Atlas. People, just by their nature, prefer to put themselves up while also putting other people down. I find myself doing this too, it's really easy to think things like this.

"God, those people. What the hell is wrong with them? How could they be so stupid for X, Y, or Z reasons? Oh, what a world."

That's the flaw. Objectivism works with superheroes, but not everyone is a superhero. And nothing is more toxic and dangerous to a person's brain than believing that they are an entitled, put-upon genius...because thinking that way means that they're really just an asshole. An entitled asshole.

Now, this doesn't mean that I don't agree with a lot of things in Objectivism. But I still figure that you should always take it with a grain of salt...and remember to never ever let an idea (even one you think is awesome and shiny) blind you to the world and ideas around you. Never think the other person, the one who thinks that your ideas are wrong, is just stupid and evil. No one ever wakes up, cackling and twirling their mustache, to look into a mirror and go: "Today, I will destroy happiness and goodness and be...EVIL!"

People wake up and do the things they do because they believe in ideas deeply and truly. Disagree with those things, sure, but don't discount them. Give them the respect of remembering that they are human beings too.

Unless the person is a Republican. They're pure, babyeating evil.

How to survive the Twilight Zone

You are entering a blogpost, not just of words and images but of mind. A blogpost where a young man has been watching way too much quality television and has begun to think too deeply...on the Twilight Zone.

Before I go on, I want to say this: Rod Serling was a goddamn genius. The guy belted out almost a hundred stunningly good TV episodes, narrated, produced and generally saw to them not sucking, all on budget that would barely pay for some modern actor's cuisine. I've been devouring Twilight Zone episodes ever since I found they were on a totally legitimate website (that is, Netflix. What, what did you think I meant?) and almost every single one has been creative, creepy and insightful.

But I've begun to notice a pattern, a series of events and character flaws.

So, if you ever find yourself drawn into the Twilight Zone, here are some basic tips.

1) Don't panic. This is a simple one that seems obvious, but is often forgotten by the people who enter the Twilight Zone. Yes, a puppet may be trying to kill you. Yes, the furniture might be alive. Yes, you may be stalked by a teleporting hitchhiker. Still, do your level best to remain calm and rational.

2) Are you dead? Once you have become calm, take a moment make sure that you are, in fact, alive. Call your parents (if you have any). Talk to people on the street. Take your pulse. It will save a great deal of hassle if you realize that you are, in fact, dead and everything is a delusion.

3) Assume everything is real. Now that you have determined you are NOT dead (to the best of your abilities, at the very least) you may ask the question of: Well, what if I am dreaming? Don't. It is counterproductive in the extreme. The reasons are simple: If you are dreaming, then you will wake up and everything will be fine, rendering your actions moot. But if you are NOT dreaming, then taking the correct action will see the difference between being dead or walking out of the Twilight Zone alive.

4) Never ever ever EVER accept a deal from Satan.

5) No, seriously, it's a bad idea. Never do it.

6) Think all wishes through. Never wish something without adding in as many safety or control clauses into the wish as you can imagine. The genie is not going anywhere, so feel free to take time and talk it out with others. So that they don't think you are insane (or try to Bogart your genie) make sure to postulate that this is a hypothetical situation.

And finally, the most valuable trick to surviving the Twilight Zone.

7) Be a racial minority! Because so far, only one black person has shown up on the show, and I'm almost 60 episodes in. I know it's the 1960s, but jeeze people. It's almost like the past was racist or something...

Updates and ponies!

Wow, what an exciting time to be me. Not only have I defeated Baron VonDoom's plan to invade the world from his Moon Fortress, solved the case of the Jade Claw, and aided in the defense of the Frost Academy against the dread Eater-Queen Acheron...but, most importantly, I've found that the second season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is on Netflix insta-que.

Clearly, this is the most important part of my week, and I should devote an entire blog post about it.

MLP:FIM (or just MLP from here on out) is actually a really really good show. I won't say it's the best show ever (Babylon 5) or a perfect show (Firefly) or even a super revolutionary show (The Original Star Trek). Hell, it's not even the best animated show ever...that is a tossup between Batman Beyond, Cowboy Bebop and Captain Simian and the Space Monkies.

...okay, we all know it's Captain Simian. Seriously, how can you go wrong with a children's cartoon show that stars Jerry Doyle (Michael Garibaldi, Babylon 5), Michal Dorn (Worf, Star Trek TNG), Maurice LaMarsh (Almost every single worthwhile animated TV show ever) and Malcolm McDowell.

Yes, Alex DeLarge voices a cybernetic rhesus monkey whose primary mode of attack is to launch his disembodied brain out of his head. And then it strangles you. With the spinal column.

And the jokes were amazing. Seriously, they had an entire episode that was an Alien parody. And a really well done, funny, witty alien parody.

Such a great show. Should have lasted 5 seasons, not 1.

...what was I talking about? Ponies? OH RIGHT!

What I'm trying to say is that I'm not being hyperbolic here. MLP is liked by many people because it is a good show. Which is, in and of itself, an interesting thing. Not that MLP is good - anything can be good, for gods sake, one of my favorite shows has a guy whose head looks like a Japanese war-fan and talks like a very drunk member of EuroTrash - but rather peoples REACTIONS to it being good.

See, there is this really insidious cultural artifact in our country (our country being the United States of America, the only country that matters) wherein a boys story is for everyone. Indiana Jones, Star Wars, most of Pixar's work, these are all archetypal boy stories. Manly men doing manly things. There's something for everyone!

But if you do something for "girls", it becomes a freaking memetic ghetto: Princesses? That's girl stuff. One is implicitly inclusive, the other is explicitly exclusive and both are alliteratively awful (at least to me). There is no real reason why stories about princesses and pastel colored ponies and friendship and magic should be exclusive to girls. All that such a story requires is quality.

The saying goes that a good comedian can make reading the phone book funny?

(It's true, just make Christopher Walken do it!)

Well, the same is true of writing: A good writer can make any idea appealing. It is all about execution and skill and craft. And, well, MLP takes the IDEA of Equestria - a magical land where three distinct forms of ponies live in harmony, where they tend to the land using magic, where baby dragons are used as walking I-phones and a sun-goddess alicorn rules for thousands of years due to her ability to raise and lower the sun on a whim - and totally SELLS THE HELL OUT OF IT.

It just takes thought. I mean, it's easy to go, "Well, girls like dresses. Make a character who likes dresses. BOOM. DONE! Lets snort cocaine off the breasts of a hooker!"

(I imagine all TV writers to be the corporate guys from RoboCop. It makes watching the latest inane soap opera make way more sense.)

But the hard thing to do is to take a character and actually make her liking dresses (and fashion) not just believable but also interesting to people who, normally, would never be interested in dresses at all. That requires thinking of clever and interesting character notes, possibly writing a catchy song and top notch animation and voice action. It requires good writing and good craft, in the same way that making an archeologist who punches nazis interesting requires good writing and good craft.

Apply this level of good writing to each of the characters, the world, and the plots, and you have a show that doesn't just escape the girls-only-ghetto, but it blows down the walls. Maybe we'll have a generation of men who have realized that princesses are things worth being interested in...and a generation of writers who won't dismiss "girl stuff" as things you can just phone in on the way to a dump-truck of blow.

Maybe!

Me, I'm optimistic.

Till then, if you've seen an airship that's on fire and contains the soul-devouring army of immortal, psychopathic killers, um...call me!

No reason. Just...uh...

Where did I put my Legacy Blade...

Why we need more Aberrant

I love roleplaying games. For those who don't know, a roleplaying game (or RPG) is a game where you take on the persona of someone more exciting, sexy and awesome than you. You then guide your persona through adventures orchestrated by your "Game-Master", who plays the other characters, handles the rules, arbitrates differences, and describes the world.

It is group storytelling at its finest, with the storytelling mediated by rules and random chance (via dice rolling) so that everything has a structure and flow that just a group of people making shit up couldn't quite manage.

The grand-daddy RPG is Dungeons and Dragons (though it rarely involves either, oddly enough) but there are many others: Eclipse Phase, Pathfinder, Exalted, Star Wars the RPG, Mutants and Masterminds, just to name a few.

But my favorite RPG of all time is a child of the 1990s.

Aberrant.

Aberrant takes place in the (then) future year of 2008. In 1998, an exploding satellite called the Galateia spreads radioactive materials in the upper atmosphere of the Earth, and immediately afterwards, human beings with astounding powers explode onto the scene: Dubbed Homo Sapiens Novus, these meta-humans have a special gland in their brain that let them subconsciously manipulate quantum forces to produce various effects.

So, if a nova (as they were soon called) has a subconscious desire, their brains would literally change themselves and the world around them to fulfill it. A latent nova could be in a car crash, have their gland (called a node) "erupt" into full power...and suddenly be super tough. Or be able to teleport. Or have mastery of magnet!

(Maybe two people got that. Everyone else is just going to call it a typo.)

You might go, "pff, that's not special. That's just like X-Men, but with some quantum handwavium."

And yes, there IS an organization that trains novas to fight for the betterment of humanity. And yes, there is a nova who preaches a credo of nova supremacy and he has an organization of vaguely terrorist novas who bash things up and get into scrums with novas working for the other guys.

But that's where Aberrant gets awesome.

Firstly, the "good guy" organization is Project Utopia: A UN backed regulatory and training organization who is primarily an environmental cleanup and  peacekeeping force. They're more famous for cleaning up after disasters and fixing that hole in the Ozone Layer. And, more importantly, only 20-30% of novas actually work for them, and those that do work for them due to the paycheck and chance at marketing deals. Because novas are basically just people: They're not superheros.

They don't wear masks (most of them at least), they don't have flashy code names (unless they want to sell more records at Quantum Boom, or get that serialized comic book that every money savvy nova wants) and they don't all have a uniform desire to either save the world...or destroy it.

Novas with super-strength don't have a new villain to fight every week. Instead, they usually work a day job: Construction, demolitions, or if they can fly, freight trafficking. Novas who can survive anything that life throws at them have found more work exploring the Challenger Deepness than surviving blasts from Dr. Evilos Ray of Doom-Laser. Of course, those with more violent temperament find work...as flamboyant wrestlers with the eXtreme Warfare Federation, or if they're a few steps more psychotic, as superpowered mercenaries called Elites.

And to add a cherry ontop, Aberrant takes an angle I hadn't seen done very often: That if someone could shoot webs out of their wrists, or fly, or do anything a comic book superhero could do...well, they'd be famous as SHIT. In Aberrant, there is a channel called N!: Thing a combination of TMZ and E! and focused purely on superpowered individuals who can melt tanks with their eyelasers and you've got a good idea of N!. There are nova popstars, nova gay rights activists (or in Tommy Orgy's case, a combination of the two), nova Muslims, Mormons,  Wicca and Buddhists.

It's a great system, a great world, and it is all around great.

But here is one problem.

Aberrant is dead.

It lasted into the year 2000, but was discontinued due to disinterest and poor sales. People just weren't into superheroes at the time. Which is a huge shame, as the game had even more potential that hadn't quite been reached.

But now, it is 2012. RPGs seem to be doing better than ever, with the popularity of Pathfinder, D&D 4th ed...even indi-games like Eclipse Phase are doing better than expected. The company that makes Aberrant - White Wolf - is still in business, mostly by making World of Darkness and Exalted (both fine games, mind you).

And we've just had a huge EXPLOSION of superhero popularity. Bale's Batman movies, the Avengers and every movie that lead up to it, the new Spiderman, superheroes dominate this cinematic landscape. And hell, the last X-Men movie was pretty much the best X-Men movie EVER MADE.

The time is right for Aberrant.

They may not be superheroes...

But they damn well deserve another chance in the spotlight.