The Lack of Married Couples in Speculative Fiction

*Note: The following contains spoilers for season six and beyond of Buffy, and seasons five and six of the new Doctor Who*

I've noticed a very strange trend of late, though the trend itself is not new. There are very few happily married couples in speculative fiction, especially in television.

Now, by "happily married" I don't mean that life is perfect for them, but I mean that they, generally speaking, have a strong connection between the two of them. In short, they aren't constantly second guessing if they love each other or not.

One very obvious example of this, and the one that bothers me the most are Rory and Amy on the current season of Doctor Who. Season five of Doctor Who heavily featured the two of them. Amy begins the season running away with The Doctor the day before her wedding, and right from that moment all the way through to the final episode the season spoke about their relationship. It teased the idea that Amy may leave Rory and was falling in love with The Doctor, but after a turn partway through the season where Rory was erased from existence (not only was he dead, but he had never existed) it turned right around, and Amy found herself crying without knowing why and other heart wrenching moments. Eventually though, Rory got better and came back. Oh, and then he shot Amy, mortally wounding her.

Luckily there happened to be a regeneration box nearby which brought Amy back to life. Unfortunately it would take two thousand years, and so Rory who was at that time immortal decided to stay with the box and protect it for two thousand year and oh my gosh this recap of a great story arc sounds stupid if you haven't seen the show. The point is, it ended with the two of them having proven their love for each other, and getting married. Happy ending right?

Well no, unfortunately the first half of season six has featured several points where Rory is still in doubt whether or not Amy really loves him or the Doctor after she chose him. This irritates me. As much as I like drama, this is the exact same story we saw in season five repeated again. Luckily the midseason finale of Doctor Who seems to have settled this arc, but the fact that they kept it alive shows me a troubling misconception that seems to be filling media right now.

Joss Whedon, who infamously feeds on the tears of fanboys and girls everywhere, has a famous quote. "Happy people make bad television." It really summarizes his philosophy on fiction, and more importantly it really summarizes the fault many writers have fallen into. You see, happy characters do, in fact, make bad television. Or film. Or any kind of fiction, really. No one wants to watch people go around being consistently happy. Shows such as Buffy are mainly about horrible things happening to the main character, deaths of friends and family, and then watching him or her work through it. That creates drama, and, if done properly, it creates a character who the audience not only identifies with, but empathizes with. We'll call them the Woobie from here on.

Watching horrible things happen to the Woobie is painful, and difficult, and emotional. The audience empathizes with the Woobie, and in some cases even put their own emotional troubles onto the Woobie if done really well. Also in some cases, watching the Woobie ride out their fantastical situations can help the audience understand how to make it through their own problems, even though they are much more grounded in reality.



The Woobie is a powerful tool, and it makes the concept of happy people making bad television. However, a very common pitfall that many writers tend to fall into is assuming that relationship drama is the only kind of drama that exists. This is false.

An example of this, coming from Joss Whedon's own show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Specifically between Xander and Anya. Now first of all, if you've never seen a Whedon show, you need to understand that one of his strengths as a writer is amazingly well developed characters. His characters can make even the worst episodes or seasons (looking at you season four of Angel) enjoyable. The character of Xander was one of Buffy's two best friends from the beginning of the series, one of the shows few characters who was an ordinary human. Anya, on the other hand was a former vengeance demon who had been turned into a human. Over the show anya went from being a selfish evil, well, demon, into being a human who, while still selfish and petty, showed a lot of character development. A large part of this was the relationship between Anya and Xander, that ended with Anya and Xander getting engaged at the end of season five.

For those who don't know, Buffy was actually cancelled and resolved after five seasons, and thus the show would have ended there with the two of them getting engaged, if the show had not been picked up by another network. When the sixth season premiered, it was obvious that the writers had very little idea of how to continue. While personally I loved season six and seven, they were less warmly received by many fans.

Unfortunately, one symptom of the shows sudden renewal was that Xander and Anya would not, in fact, get married. Thus after two and a half seasons of growing the characters and building them up as a strong couple despite all odds to the contrary, they began to show doubts.


*Video contains some mildly crude content*

That song I just posted was the only good thing to come out of this story arc. While the arc was, perhaps, more well executed than it could have been if it weren't being written by some of the best television writers ever, it still ended in disaster. Eventually the two of them continue doubting themselves for the first half of the season until Xander leaves at the alter, in a moment that was very out of character. After this Anya's character was, in my opinion, butchered. She forgot everything she had learned while being a human, and the rest of the show became a bitter mess. Understandable perhaps, but painful to watch, and not in the good way I listed above. I maintain that the show would have been better if the two of them had ended up together.

After all, plenty of storylines were going on at the same time, albeit not directly related to the two of them, and without going off into another long explanation, some really bad crap happened to both Anya and Xander over the last season of Buffy.

There is, however, at least one shining beacon of a happily married couple in speculative fiction. Zoe and Wash. Now, while there was admittedly one episode where Wash was jealous over Zoe's relationship with her old friend Mal, the captain of Serenity, the show never treated the two of them as anything but perfect together. While you might suspect this made the characters boring, not so. Firefly being another Joss Whedon show, both characters are beloved, particularly Wash.

Zoe and Wash were, in my opinion, the prime example of a happily married couple in speculative fiction. Bad things happened to them, but instead of arguing and bickering about it, they got through it together. They were always in love, and the show acknowledged that without forcing them to prove their love for each other every five minutes. If more writers took notice of the two of them, I think we'd all be the better for it.

Ok, I've been building up to it, let me finish by slamming the lack of understanding of how to write characters well home. One More Day.

Half the people reading this shuddered, and the rest will understand why in a few moments.

So, for those who don't follow comics, let's talk about Spider-Man shall we? He's a beloved character, arguably Marvel's most famous creation, and has a very successful film franchise. For those not familiar with the comics, Spider-Man, well, Peter Parker, and Mary Jane have been married in the comics for quite some time. Or, I suppose, were. They were married. Because Spider-Man sold his marriage to THE DEVIL.



Couldn't make this stuff up if I tried folks.

Yeah. One More Day was a 2007 four part comic event where, I say it again for emphasis, Spider-Man sold his marriage to the devil.

Well, technically the demon Mephisto but let's not argue semantics. If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and weighs the same as a duck, it's a witch, and should probably be burned.

Now I'll admit I haven't read it myself, but the plot synopsis and fan reaction is enough for me to be nursing a headache just thinking about it. Short version is this: Aunt May is shot and killed by a bullet intended for Spider-Man. Spider-Man, feeling guilty and as though her death was his fault decides to find a way to bring her back, instead of coping with her death like a normal person. So he talks to Mephisto who says that Spider-Man is soooo happy that it disgusts him and if he sells his marriage he will bring Aunt May back to life. And Spider-Man agrees.

If you really need to understand why this is monumentally stupid, watch the following video by Linkara of Atop the Fourth Wall.



...Yeah. Not Spidey's finest moment.

NaNoWriMo Project Update - Day Twenty Nine - VICTORY!!!!

Well I did it. I wrote a fifty thousand word novel in thirty days. Twenty nine days, actually. And for that, I have learned a lot about writing, and a lot about myself. It's been a hectic, yet fun 29 days, and I think I've come out a better writer for it. I actually have a bit of wrapping up to do on the novel left, maybe another few hundred to a thousand words to finish it, but I reached the goal. And I'm proud of myself for that.



* * *


Finally, after what felt like an eternity of searching, we found another deposit of books. As we entered the building Weq and I could both feel Rios’s excitment level rise to unprecidented amounts. He quickly began to search the building, as Weq and I helped. Before too long we had found the section, similar to the last one we had found, brightly colored, with thick books containing pictures, alongside words.
Rios began to go over them. Rios began to get answers to our million questions.

* * *


We spent a very long time in that building. It became a sort of “home base” for us. We slept there, when we did sleep. Rios spent night and day pouring over book after book, deciphering the language. Every day, he sat there, learning a few more words. He had been right, it seemed. The small books had, in fact, been a sort of pictorial depiction of words, kept immediately below them. There was more for him to do, naturally, than simply see what word meant what, of course. For example, he needed to work out how exactly the written word of this culture worked. It seemed, he explained to me at one point, that unlike our written word, where each word was represented by a symbol, individual “letters” which each would have represented one verbal sound, and would have been strung together in order to form words. These words, then, were broken up by a small space, and strung together to form longer sentences. Naturally, though, we couldn’t tell what sound each letter made, without an actual auditory recording of speech, and so he was only able to figure out how to read the written word, and not how it would have been spoken verbally.

While he spent day and night deciphering the written word, Weq and I continued to search the city together. We took the guns with us, naturally, unable to trust Rios with them, however it seemed unnecessary to guard him day and night. His whole purpose was to return to the surface to find just such a thing as he was sitting in day and night now. What was the point, in guarding him? Where would he go?

No, Weq and I let him sit in that building, as we continued to search the city. Of course, nothing we found made much sense to us. More of those metal vehicles sat everywhere, just like everywhere else in the city, more buildings containing various objects whose purposes we couldn’t figure out… Indeed, it seemed as if neither of us could do anything important at all, until Rios had learned to read the written word.

Thanks to the nature of the area we were in, a desert, we came across very little animal life. The only animal life we did come across, were insects, and reptiles. (Interestingly enough, we later discovered our animal classification system was very similar to the Earthlings method of classification. Close enough that about 80% of the classified animals we discovered on Earth would have been put into the same “category” by both my people, and the people of the earth. I’ll cover this a bit more at a later point in time.) They were, naturally, fascinating to Weq. Although we kept our distance for obvious reasons. If our suits were punctured by a threated animal, that would be the end of us, and that was simply a chance we couldn’t take. However, from a distance we did observe the reptiles. One type of the reptiles we noticed, interestingly enough, didn’t have any limbs. No, they were just a long body, with a head on the end. They moved by contorting their scaley body and sliding across the ground.

Another type of animal we noticed, an insect (although the Earth had a special classification for them called “Arachnids”, like I said our classifcation systems weren’t identical.) Was also interesting. It had eight legs, and large claws (in proportions to it’s body size.) The really interesting thing about it though, was what looked like a large sharp stinger on the end of it’s tail, which it held up in the air above it’s body. “I wish I knew why it held it’s tail like that.” Weq said. “I wish I could study the creatures here further.”

“I wish I could… I don’t know… Learn about them.” I said. “About the creature?” He asked. “No… About them.” I gestured towards a building. “We know almost nothing about them, aside from the few pictures we’ve seen of them as we’ve searched the city. Clearly they were a great society, but… We know nothing about them. Nothing.” “Tare…” Weq said to me. “Tare, Rios is really good at what he does. I don’t… I don’t agree with what he’s done, but he’s still very smart, and he will do this. He will decipher the written word of these people, and we… We will learn. You’ll learn about the culture, and I’ll… Someday I’ll figure out a way to study the creatures of this planet. And we’ll learn about this planet.” Weq was good at inspiring people. At supporting them. I’d known that about him before, but it still helped. “Thanks Weq. I hope you’re right.” I said. “I just wish… I waited my whole life to meet intelligent life forms on another planet-” “We all did.” He intterupted me. “Of course! I know we all did! I wasn’t trying to say that… It’s just… Like I said, I waited so long for an opportunity like this and now… We’ve found this planet. And we know there was life here… And they’re… They’re just gone. And I don’t even know what happened to them.” “And you wish they were still here. I understand that. We all do.” I paused for a moment. “It’s… It’s more than that though. These people… Look around. These people were clearly a great culture. I mean, just look at the huge structures, and enormous cities they had built. And now… Desolate. Decrepit. Dying.” I said. “What’s your point?” Weq asked. “Weq… If they could just… Just vanish… What’s to keep that from happening to us? What’s to keep us from dying out?”

Weq and I stood in silence for a long time. We stared at the skies of the Earth. White clouds, blue skies… This planet was so fascinating, and yet we knew so little about it. “Everything about this planet is a riddle.” Weq said to me. “From the history, to the species. From the written words, to the brightly colored walls of the buildings. Everything, every detail, is a mystery. We don’t know what happened to the people of this planet Tare. We have no idea. We don’t even know if they did die out.” “Then where are they?” “I don’t know. But that’s what we’re going to find out, isn’t it? We have to.”

We stayed in that spot for a long time. We stared at the skies. We watched as they faded from blue, to orange, from orange to scarlet, and from scarlet to black. Even then we stared at the stars. The same stars our ancestors had stared at so long ago, and had dreamed of finding this place. I wondered if, back when our ancestors stared up at the skies from our planet, someone was staring back at them from here? As we stared at the stars, I finally spoke. “Look. You see that?” I asked Weq. I gestured towards what looked like a large bright star, moving across the skies. It was probably ten times the size of the other stars, and was moving slowly across the skies. “What is that?” Weq asked me. “That’s one of our ships.” I responded to him. “It’s orbiting above us now. We’re seeing the lights out of the windows of the ship.“
“I wonder what’s going on up there?” He said to me. “So do I.” I responded.

NaNoWriMo Project Update - Day Eighteen

Broke 20k words today, should have broken 30k. I'm 10k behind. I can still make that up, but it's going to take some work.

(I'd like to apologize for any spelling errors in the following snippets, Scrivener's spell check in the windows beta is bugged.)

----



Days passed, and we weren’t allowed to see Trai. He lay in a hospital, and we had no idea what his condition was, other than that it couldn’t be good. He was quarantined, to keep and of the viruses that had leaked into his suit from infecting the rest of the ship. Unfortunately this meant that not only could we not see him, but his condition was kept secretive, and we could only expect the worst.

During the time we were waiting for word on Trai’s condition, Weq, Rios, and myself attempted to convince Yui’Req to let us return to the surface of the planet. Our ships sat in orbit, and continued to send drones down to the surface every day, but Drones were clunky, and difficult to use to gain any valuable information. We must have sent hundreds of them to the surface, all over the planet. We saw everything from lush forests, to frozen wastelands, to large stretches of nothing but sand. We even found more cities. They were just as abandoned as the first. Indeed, it seemed the only thing we couldn’t find were the people who had built the cities.

“Perhaps they’ve gone underground?” Weq suggested at one point, as we discussed where the population had disappeared to. “Or perhaps they devoloped space travel, and abandoned the planet?“ “But why?” I asked. “We can speculate all day long, but the fact remains, until we can get down to the surface, and actually have a chance to study the city… We can’t know anything.” “Then it’s decided.” Rios said, at one point. “We need to get back to the surface. As soon as possible. By any means necessary.”

***

“Steal a ship?!” I asked, hastily. “You’re utterly out of your mind Rios! Steal a ship? Do any of us even know how to-” “Fly?” He cut me off. “Yes. I do. You forget my Father was a pilot. I grew up around the controls of various ships. He always knew I’d follow in his footsteps, imagine his… Surprise, when I told him I wanted to study language.” He looked sad for a moment, before continuing. “I won’t make it fly loops and flips, but I can get us down to the surface, I’m sure of it.”


“Even then, stealing a shuttle? That’s impossible! I mean… They must be guarded somehow-” He intturupted me again, something which was become quite irritating. “The only security system they have is a built in tracking device to see where exactly the shuttle is. That’s where I fall short. I don’t know how to disable that tracking device, to keep them from instantly locating us.” “Well.” I said satisfied, “That’s that then. We can’t steal a shuttle, or we’d be caught instantly.” “Actually..” Weq began, “I have an idea.” “You too Weq?” I said, annoyed. “I don’t want to be no one again! I want to go down to the surface, and study these creatures! I want to find them!” “Fine then.” I said, “What’s your idea?”

“Well… um… That is to say…” He began, losing confidence in himself. “Yes?” Rios said. “Well… Trai would know. I mean, he is a computers expert. I’m sure he’d know how to disable the tracking device, and maybe he could tell us how…” Rios looked at me. “There! Don’t you see! He’s right! It’s brilliant! We ask Trai how we would disable the tracking device, and then do it ourselves. We get down to the surface, and they’ll never know where we are!” I sighed annoyedly. “You’re crazy. Both of you.” I said. “This will never work, and we’re going to get ourselves killed.” Rios looked at me, “Ourselves?” I paused and said with a small laugh, “Well, you two are pretty obviously going down there with or without me, and hey, you only die once right?”

“That’s the spirit!” Rios said. “But you’re forgetting one thing.” I reminded him. “Weapons. If we’re going down there alone, we won’t have Yui’Req to protect us. Where do you suppose we get weapons? We can’t just go down there unarmed. There’s all sorts of vicious beasts.” There was a long pause. “I… I hadn’t thought…”

“There’s only one place to get weapons on the entire ship, and I don’t think the armory is just going to give us guns because we asked nicely.” I said. “No… No of course not.” He said to me. “You’re right. Leave it to me. I’ll get us weapons. We won’t go down there completely unarmed.” “How?” I asked him. “I… I don’t know yet. But I’ll get them.” He replied.

***


I still remember very well going into Trai’s room in the hospital, still under quarantine, but allowing me to enter only with a suit similar to the one we wore down on the planet surface, and telling him of our plan. How Rios, Weq and I had a heated argument about whether or not we should return to the surface, or wait for clearance which may never come. I told him every word that had been said. I told him how I had argued that we should wait, and how Rios had told us that we would never return to the surface, and finally how we had decided to steal a shuttle. He lay there, weak, and listened. Only when I finally reached the point where I told him about the tracking device installed in the shuttle, and that we needed to know how to disable it, did he speak.

“Yes..” He said in a hushed tone hardly above a whisper. “I think I can help you. Get me… Something to record instructions on.” I paused, stunned for a moment. “You mean, you’ll help us? You’re not going to tell me that we’re crazy, or anything like that?” He slowly turned to look at me. “I’m dying, Tare. I lie here, hardly able to breathe. I know that I am in the last days of my life. But I don’t regret a thing. I have set foot on a planet inhabited by other, intelligent life. That’s enough. You though, you’re going to live, Tare. You have a chance to go down there again, and learn about the life on the surface. Maybe even find them. And you ask me if I think you’re crazy? If I think you’re stupid? I would think you were stupid if you weren’t willing to do anything to get back to the surface. I would think you were cowardly if you weren’t willing to give up everything to get back to the surface. I would… I would hate you if you weren’t doing exactly what you’re doing right now.”

I looked at him, and he looked back at me. “Trai…” I began, but before I could say anthing else, he said “Are you going to get me something to give you instructions, or are you just going to stand there?”

***



The time had come. I met Weq and Rios in an area of the ship which was near the hangar where all the shuttles were kept. Weq and I arrived first and waited in silence. I don’t know about him, but I was too nervous to speak, so I was glad he didn’t seem to want to talk either. We waited there for what seemed like an eternity, when finally we saw Rios turn a corner, and come into our vision. He moved quickly towards us, with a large bag that seemed to be holding something heavy. As he approached us he said, “Tare, you spoke with Trai, correct?” “Yes, I did.” I responded. “Good. We need to go. Quickly.” He said. I began to ask why, we hadn’t been seen, and truly we had nothing but time, but before I could say anything, he took off again towards the hangar.

Weq and I quickly followed, wondering why he was going so fast. Perhaps he was nervous too, and this was his way of showing it? I supposed. My question would be answered soon. As we reached the hangar, there was a large gate closing it off. “It’s closed off?!” I asked. “I thought you said that the only security measure.” “Yes, I did say that the only security was a tracking device.” Rios answered, as he held up a small pad to the scanner which unlocked the gate. To my surprise it opened. “How’d you do that?” I asked him. He ignored the question and took off towards one of the shuttles inside. The hangar was a large room with many shuttles within it. Again, the shuttle was locked, but Rios dug through his bag and got out another small pad and held it up to this lock. It opened also, and we hurried to the locked inside of the shuttle, and began to put suits on. As we were doing so, however, someone yelled behind us, “What are you doing?!” and we all three turned simutainiously. A guard stood there, holding a gun (a small one, not one like the one which Yui’Req had used on the surface, although also very lethal.), though not holding it up to us quite yet, apparantly not sure it we were actually supposed to be there or not. Obviously there was more security than Rios had told us about. I was about to surrender to him, and was trying to think up excuses when Rios started digging through his bag. He reached down into it, and pulled out a gun. He held it up and shot the guard before he could react. I was stunned, as I saw the guard evaporate into nothing but particles in front of my eyes. “Rios! What did you do!” I screamed at him. “You told me to get a weapon for just such a situation as this.” He responded, calmly. “I meant… I meant if we were attacked by beasts again not… You killed him!” “Get his gun.” Rios told me. “Get his gun?! That’s all you can say? ‘Get his gun’?! You just killed an innocent guard!” Rios continued to put his suit on. “We don’t have time for this.” “Are you insane?!” I continued to yell at Rios. “This isn’t right! You just killed-” I was intterupted by a voice behind me. “Stop!” I turned, and saw Yui’Req behind us at the entrance to the hangar. “Thieves! Murderers!” He yelled. Rios held up the gun to him but I knocked his hand down as an energy ball shot out and exploded in the corner of the hangar near another shuttle. “You are insane! That’s Yui’Req! He’s-” Something dawned on me in that moment. Rios turned and hit the button to shut the shuttle hatch, as Yui’Req dashed towards us.

The hatch to the shuttle closed just as Yui’Req reached it. He beat on the door, but to no avail. Rios started the engines to the shuttle, and we began to rise. He took off out the open hangar through the pressurization field into open space. “Tare, how do we disable the tracking device?” He asked me suddenly. “Disable the- Are you insane?! Why do you think I would even let you know now? Why do you think I don’t just want us- You! To get caught?!” Suddenly the shuttle began to shake violently. It knocked me to the floor, and Weq just barely supported himself on the wall before falling. “That’s why you want to tell me how to disable the tracking device!” I looked out the window. The ship had targeted us, and was shooting energy weapons, similar to the ones in our gun, but much more powerful, towards the ship. “Tare! Quickly!” Rios said, and I begrudingly handed him the information tablet Trai had given me with the information on how to turn off the tracking device.

Rios quickly began entering the commands into the computer system, while we continued to be shot at. The shuttle wasn’t meant to take a beating, and it wouldn’t last long agains’t the ship’s weapons. The ship rattled again, and there was a beeping from the computer console. “Alright, the tracking is off, they won’t be able to hit us again-” As he said that the ship shook even more violently than before. “I thought you said they wouldn’t be able to hit us again?!” Weq yelled, frightenedly. “They- I mean they- They must have gotten a lucky shot!” He said. “Hold on tight, this is going to be a rough time down!”

***

The next thing I remember was awakening in the twisted wreckage that was once our shuttle. I lay there for a moment, in shock. After regaining myself somewhat, I realized Weq was next to me, unconsious. I stood up, and realized there was something on top of Weq. I attempted to pull it off of him, and he gave a great moan, regaining conciousness, as I succeeded in pulling it off of him. He looked around and said “Urgh… Tare? Tare, are we dead?” “No, we’re not dead yet Weq.” Luckily neither of our suits had been punctured during the crash. We had landed in some sort of desert. It looked as if there were nothing around for an endless stretch, in every direction.

Rios was sitting the pilot’s chair. He too groaned and began to regain conciousness. “We… We did it.” He said. “We made it down to the surface.” I walked up to him and held him down to his chair. “What was that?!” I screamed at him. “’The only security is a tracking device’? That’s funny because it looked to me like there was quite a bit more security than that! And Yui’Req- Why was he here?!” Rios groaned as I held him down, apparantly I was hurting him, but I really didn’t care at that point. I was so angered at him, that I almost reveled in his pain. Almost. Rios was staying silent. He looked at me as I looked back at him with anger and disdain. “What’s going on?!” I screamed at him with rage in my voice.


He hesitated to answer, but I held him down (I was, and always had been, much stronger than Rios.) Until he answered. “You… You told me to get weapons.” He began. “What do you-” I began to ask him. But then I realized what he meant. “You… You stole weapons from Yui’Req.” I said. He stayed silent, but I could tell through his silence that I was correct. “Not… Not just that. I took… Passes. Into the hangar.” “Passes?! You didn’t even tell us the gate would be locked! You didn’t tell us about the guard-” “I didn’t know about the guards.” “How can I believe you? How can I trust you?!” I asked of him. “You… You can’t. I suppose. But it’s the truth.” He said. “I… I knew about the hangar lock though.” “How did you know?” “I had been to the hangar when it was closed before. My father was a pilot, remember?”

“Why didn’t you tell us about It then?” “Because… I didn’t think it was important. I knew Yui’Req would have a key. He was a leader of our unit. Every unit leader has a key. When you told me to get a weapon… I just decided I could take his while I was taking his pass cards.” I looked at Rios with disgust. I picked up the bag which was sitting next to him and looked inside of it. There were three or four guns inside of it. I pulled out the smallest one. “Here, Weq.” I said as I gave him the gun. I pulled out another one, and took it for myself. I looked at Rios. “You don’t get one. If you so much as step out of line…” I held the gun up to him. “You’ll pay.”

I took the bag, and I let Rios up. We looked out around the area we were in. There were some mountains out far off into the distance. “Where did we crash?” I asked Rios. “Near any known cities that we’ve found?” “I set it for the co-ordinates of the city which we landed in last time… Obviously we must have gone off course during the crash.” Rios replied to me. “How far off course?” I asked him. “It’s hard to say.” He said. “Give me an estimate. You’re the one who crashed us.”

He paused and said, “Well, it’s possible that we’re near the city and only went off course towards the end…” “Or?” “…Or, the navigation system was overloaded by the energy discharges we were hit with and we could be anywhere.” He said. “Well…” I began, “We’d better start moving then.”

So move we did. We traveled a long way, and for a long time. I thought we would never stop. Our suits were designed to keep us alive for long periods of time, in case you were stranded on a planet and couldn’t open your suit for long periods of time (as we were), so nourishment wasn’t something to be worried about, and they were climate controlled, so there wasn’t much reason to be afraid of overheating either, however after being attacked by those beasts in the city, it made me nervous of what might attack us in a place like this. The thought made sure I kept a firm grip on my gun.

***

Hours later we had finally reached the outskirts of the abandoned city. It was obvious that it was not the same city we had been to before. The city we had first come to was overgrown, this one however, was not nearly as overgrown. There were still plants scattered about the city, but they were only the same kind of plant that we had seen before in the sandy desert. They dotted the landscape, but otherwise this city was dry and barren. I wondered if it had always been that way, or if the climate had changed since… Whatever happened to the inhabitants. The buildings that made up the city were also quite different. For one thing, the building were much more spread out. The other city had building cluttered next to each other, creating a cramped feeling, but these buildings were far more spread out. There were even what seemed to be open spaces that could have once been fields if the climate had in fact changed this area into a desert.

***

“These symbols…” He said, “They’re the same as the symbols in the objects we found in the building where we landed last time…” I looked at him. “What does that mean?” I asked. “I’m… I’m not sure. But I think… I think that they might be written words.” “Written words? You mean stored knowledge, like we store knowledge on computers?” He paused for a moment. “Yes, similar. Our written word seems to be very different from theirs, but I think… I think it just may be something like that.” “So they stored knowledge on pieces of paper, and metal boxes? That’s so inefficeint. Why wouldn’t they store information on computers instead?” “Perhaps they hadn’t yet invented computers?” Weq suggested.

“I… I don’t think so. I… We need to find another building with those objects again. The ones with pictures on them… Perhaps if I could find more of them with pictures on them I could begin to decode their language.” “Wait, are you saying you could be able to decipher their written word?” I asked. “Well… It’s possible. The pictures in some on some of the paper we found… I think they might have been words for what the object it depicts is.” “Wait. You mean… If that’s true, we could be able to read the more complex ones, without pictures in them.” I said. Rios continued. “Let’s… Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I could still be wrong. First we need to find another one of those knowledge storehouses so I can try and... Figure this out.”

NaNoWriMo Project Update - Day Eleven

Day Eleven of NaNoWriMo and I'm falling behind. I'm currently at 11,534 words, and am 6,800 behind. I also won't be able to write at all this friday and saturday. In other words, I have a lot of catching up to do, but I'm not SO far behind that I have no hope of finishing. Yet.

Either way, here's some new excerpts from the book. They are very rough, naturally, given the nature of NaNoWriMo, and they aren't complete, meaning I'm only picking and choosing which portions to post, since
A. I'd like to refine the book and publish it some day (and believe me, much editing must be done first.)
and
B. 9,000 something words is a bit much to post in one blog post.

And so, here's some more of Legacy.

---


It wasn't long before my Unit met. I entered the chamber where we were supposed to meet first, a bit early. I waited a short time before Rios entered. I looked towards him. As he walked into the chamber he said to me “So what do you think?”

I thought to myself for a minute. “It's hard to say any reasonable assumptions without more information, but there were quite a few... Oddities, I noticed.” I told him. “You and I both.” I looked at him. “What did you notice?” He was quite quick to respond, “Well, the plant life covering the planet seemed odd to me, but what really struck me as strange was the growling.” “What about the growling?” He paused for a moment, clearly thinking how to put what he was about to say. “It was such a long, monotone rumble. It seemed... Inefficient to me.” “How so?” I inquired. “It was just... One noise, one long drawn out noise, with very little variation. It didn't seem like it was trying to tell us anything.” “Perhaps they communicate in more than just verbal ways? Perhaps the verbal is only one portion, and smell is another?” “Yes, I thought of that. I suppose that's possible.” He replied. About that time Weq entered the room.

Rios and I both looked towards him as he said, “So what do you both think?” Rios repeated what he had just told me, and I told them the strange oddities I had noticed. “Yes, all of that is very strange.” He agreed with both of us. “So did you notice anything odd?” I asked him. “Well, it was very hard to get a good look at the life form from the video. So... I didn't really notice anything other than what you said.”

At that moment, our leader Yui'Req entered the room. “I see all but one of you are here.” He said to us. He was very stoic and strict. A cold person. While the rest of us were good friend, he always secluded himself from our group. Whether that was because he viewed it as being below him to socialize with those he was in charge of, or whether he was just a cold person, none of us knew. In any case, none of us knew him very well. “Yes Yui'Req. We're just waiting on Trai.” I told him. He glanced at me. “Waiting on who?” “Erm... Trai'Muh sir.” Yui'Req wanted us to say each others full names in front of him. It was unusual to speak of your equal like that, but he considered it to keep us better as a team, due to being less of a casual feeling. Our naming system was quite simple. The first half of the name (for example the Tare in my name) is our name. The second half is our parent's name. (The Sondre, in my name.) For example my father was named “Sondre'Tsoni”, thus he named me “Tare” a name he had chosen for me. The second half of my name would automatically be “Sondre.” Thus, the two halves would come together to form a “full” name, “Tare'Sondre”.

The full name would typically only be used in very specific situations. When you introduce yourself to someone, you would never introduce yourself “I'm Tare.” You would always introduce yourself as “Tare'Sondre”. The other person would then know instinctively to call you by the first half of the name, based on how you emphasized the name, and context. You would also only call someone ranked above you, like the leader of my Unit, by his full name. It would be unthinkable of me to, for example, call him “Yui”. I would always call him “Yui'Req”.
A few moments later Trai entered the room, and Yui'Req looked at us all and spoke. “We have been chosen,” he began, “to be one of the first few Units to depart for the surface of the planet.”

---


Before I knew what was happening, it seemed, we were descending in a shuttle. Down toward the surface of the planet. To protect from native viruses, and bacteria we were all in minimally restrictive suits. I looked out the windows, down toward the planet surface. It was a quite smooth ride down to the surface. 5 days, of this planet's time. That was how long we had on the surface. I still remember the first step onto the alien surface. It was... It transcended words. It was a feeling... And unbelievable feeling. I was setting foot on a planet that another species of intelligent life had been living on for an indeterminate, but assuredly large number, of years. We had landed not far from where the Drone had explored ever so briefly. I looked around. There was a sort of still in the air. I looked at the overgrown structures to either side of the road we had landed in. Then I walked up toward one of them. I touched the plant life. Thin, long vines grew vertically up the side of it.

We walked through the empty roads. It was day, and the local star shone brightly upon the city. Of us, only Yui’Req carried a weapon. The people of Earth had a term for a similar weapon, a “gun”. Although the earthlings use for these weapons was far different to ours, as I shall cover in detail later on. As such, I shall from here on refer to the weapon as a gun. Understand there is still a considerable difference between our weapons and the earthlings weapons, but for the sake of convenience, I shall refer to it in the way. Yui’Req was the only one permissed to carry one, although even his usage of it was only intended more as a display of technology or to be used for our defense should something terrible happen, and nothing hostile.

---

Suddenly I heard Trai give out a loud yelp, and heard a low pitched growl. I turned suddenly, and saw Trai lying on the ground, with one of the creatures atop him. It had attacked him, and Trai continued to give out loud screams as the creature assaulted him. I attempted to pull it off of him, but to no avail. Suddenly, I realized a disheartening fact. We were surrounded. I looked around the five of us and realized that there were seven or eight of the creatures encircling us. They looked at us with a vicious hunger in their eyes, their ferocity clearly hardly being concealed beneath their harsh demeanor. They watched our every move.

What happened next disturbed me. Yui’Req took out the gun, and shot projectiles at the creatures. “No! Don’t!” I screamed, but it was too late. I watched as the creatures were propelled backwards from the force of the blast, and watched as a cloud of their very being dispersed, leaving nothing behind. “You can’t attack them!” I screamed at Yui’Req. “Why not! They’re attacking us!” He responded, and shoved the beast off of Trai. “We can’t introduce ourselves to them by killing their people!” Yui’Req glared at me. “We need to fall back, somewhere safe!” “Where?!” He asked of me. “I… I don’t know yet! Somewhere… There!” I gestured towards a large structure at the end of the road. It was large, and overgrown like everything else, but it seemed like it would make a suitable place to fall back to, to me.

---

I had to have picked the best building in the entire city, I supposed, to be trapped in. As Trai lay injured we explored the building. Only Yui’Req stayed behind with Trai. It was enormous. A giant building. But the architecture wasn’t what excited me. What excited me was that it was filled with… Well… Knowledge. It was filled to the brim with something my people had never invented before. We had many ways of documenting information, obviously, but it wasn’t like this. The term, as we later found out, for this type of document was a “book”. A book was a collection of many pieces of paper with writing on them, bound between two hard coverings.



The point we finally realized we were sitting on exactly what we needed, to study the planets culture, was when we found one specific section though. It was a brightly colored area of the building. There were images on the walls of brightly colored, and simplified versions of the various beasts we had seen in the picture books we had found. There were images of clouds, and multicolored arcs in the “sky” of the walls. “What do you suppose the purpose of this section is?” I asked Rios, as we picked up the thick books resting upon large wooden structures (we later found out, were reffered to as “shelves” or “bookcases”.) And looked at them These books were not like the other books in the building. They were thick, and each individual piece of paper, was extremely thick, made of the material the covers of the other books were made of. They were brightly colored, like everything else in that section, and there were far less symbols on them, than there were on other ones in the building.

Rios looked at them, with an intensity in his eyes. As if he were devouring every image, every symbol on each individual piece of paper. I was about to ask him again when Weq charged in. “Look at these.” He said, and dropped many books onto the floor. We crouched down and he opened one. “These are from the ones with all the pictures.” He told us. He turned the individual pieces of paper, and we saw various images of wildlife. Very vicious, bestial creatures were recorded visually in this way. Finally he got to one specific image and stopped. “Is that-” I began to ask. “It is.” Weq responded before I finished the words. “Those are the creatures that attacked us." They certainly were. It was undoubtable that these creatures were, in fact, the same that had attacked us before. “But what does this mean?” I asked Weq. Weq looked at me and said “I don’t think those creatures were intelligent.” He responded to me. “You don’t?” “No! Think about it! They didn’t seem intelligent to me! Sure, they surrounded us, but that doesn’t indicate intelligence, certainly not sentience. I mean, look, here they are just listed among the other creatures of this planet. They have one piece of paper dedicated to them, no more than any other creature in here!” “That’s not conclusive!” I told him. “Of course not… But it’s... It’s…” Rios spoke. “I think Weq is right.” He said.

“Why do you think that?” I asked him. “Look at this.” He opened one of the thick books we had found moments ago, and gestured towards a simplistic depiction of a creature on it. “What about that?” I asked him. “Look around, the pictures in here, these creatures pop up everywhere.” I looked at the pictures on the wall. He was right, there were several of them on the wall. Two legs, two arms, and a head seemed to be connecting to a torso on these creatures. “What’s your point?” I asked. “I think those might be the real intelligent life that built this city.” Rios responded to me. “Because there’s more pictures of them? That seems pretty… Farfetched.” I asked. “No, not just that. There’s more. It’s… It’s…” He said frustratedly. “Those creatures we encounted! Those growls… They didn’t seem to be any kind of language. They didn’t seem to be directed towards each other like language would be. They just seemed… Bestial.” Rios paused, and there was silence for a moment. I finally said, “Alright, let’s suppose you’re right. Suppose those are just some beasts living in the city. Where have they gone? The creatures who lived here?”

“I… I don’t know.” He responded. “But I’m telling you, those things, are not what built this city.”


“Interesting.” Yui’Req said. None of us had noticed that he had apparantly approached us silently while we were talking. “So what you’re saying is that they aren’t intelligent at all?” “Yui’Req! What are you doing here? You were supposed to be staying with Trai!” “Trai will be fine. I sent a message out for backup, and a shuttle will be coming to pick us up and take us back to the ship soon.” “What?!” I shouted. “You mean, only Trai, right?!” “All of us.” He responded. “This planet is clearly too vicious to come down to without protection of some kind, beyond these thin suits.” “This is unacceptable! We just got here! We can’t just leave-” “It’s done. The shuttle is on it’s way. That’s why I came to get you all. It’ll be here in a few moments.” I began to speak again, but Yui’Req said “It’s done. Do not complain or else I shall have to take extreme action against you.”

And so we followed Yui’Req back to the front of the building. Moments later, sure enough, another shuttle touched down in front of the building we had been holed up in. Rios looked longingly back towards the building, as Weq and I helped Trai into the Shuttle. As we lowered him to the floor of the shuttle, I turned back to Rios and said, “Don’t worry. We’ll be back.” “Do you know what those pieces of paper we found were?” He asked me. “What were they?” I replied. “They were knowledge. Knowledge of the language, knowledge of the people, knowledge of the species, of this planet. And we’re leaving them behind.”

“We will return here.” I told him, “For now, Yui’Req is right. I wish he weren’t but he’s right, we weren’t prepared for… Whatever it is we’ve found here. Trai needs help- We need help. We’ll get ready and come back.”

“I hope you’re right.” Rios said to me.

I hoped I was right too.

NaNoWriMo Project Update - Day One

So, I've gone and signed up for NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, for those who don't know. The point is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. It's a little bit crazy, but doable.

Today I wrote about 2,600 words (the goal is 1,667 per day, so I'm ahead of schedule). Since I won't be updating this blog much this month I thought keeping people updated on my NaNo project would be a suitable idea. With that note, this is the first chapter of my NaNoWriMo Project, "Legacy".

- - - -

I don't know why I'm writing this. It all seems so futile at times, and yet at other it seems like something I have to do. I... I don't know. I guess I'm writing it because... I'm hopeful. After what we found on that little blue planet, I just can't believe we're alone any more. And even if we are, I know that someday some other life will come along, far after we've faded away into memory, and they will find it. And then they will find this... Recording... I suppose long ago it would have been called a “book”, of what happened to that little blue planet. What we know at least. So perhaps that's why I'm writing this. To preserve the memory of the story. Or perhaps there's another reason, a more... Selfish reason. Perhaps I'm just documenting this so that when we have faded into obscurity, we won't be entirely forgotten. There will still be a small memory of my people, my race... Me.

Yes, although I hesitate to admit it, perhaps that is why I am writing this. Perhaps I'm... Afraid. I'm afraid that some day when what happens to the people of that planet happens to my people, I'll be... Nothing. Not even a memory. Not even a shadow. They left a planet, my people... We shall leave nothing. I won't even be a statistic. Perhaps some day, hundreds, thousands, millions of years from now even, this “book” shall be found, and someone will read it. And maybe, just maybe, for a brief moment of time, I will be remembered.

Yes. Being remembered. That is what I want. That is why I write this. So the planet we found, it's people, and I, shall be remembered. This is our legacy. This is perhaps the last chance of two species to ever be remembered.

And so it is with that purpose that I write this down. It is with that purpose that I record the final story of that little blue planet. It is with that purpose that I write down the last story of Earth.

Before I can tell the last tell of the planet, however, I feel it is necessary to explain who I am. My name is Tare'Sondre. My people are a nomadic race. For thousands of generations, we have scavenged the stars. We search system by system in our massive city ships built by our ancestors. There are hundreds. Thousands, even. They each hold a separate governing structure, ruled by themselves, and hold millions of my people. Together our ships interact together and travel the stars. So it has been for generations. Together we have searched, endlessly hoping, endlessly finding nothing.

And so is the destiny of my people, the “Pol'irion”, so we thought. To seek, and never find. To search endlessly, for intelligent life.

The stories of the Pol'irion say that our ancestors evolved, grew in size, and population, and became what we are today. They slowly built. They built cities, they built technology, and eventually, they had nothing left to build. Any technological advancements were minor conveniences, and there was, quite simply, nothing left to be desired. Quite simply, they got bored. They simply didn't see the point in building any more, with no one to share it with. As far back as anyone could remember, they had always wished for other life. To know that they weren't alone in the universe. But they were never contacted.

And so they built our city ships. They shot for the stars, and scoured the universe for life. And their children searched. And their children's children searched. And so it was for generations, the Pol'irion's one and only purpose in life became to find others like us.
And we never did. And we thought that we never would. And I could hardly even bear to hope that we would.

I still remember what it was like before, I was no one. I couldn't be less important if I had tried. I was just a lowly culture expert, not a commander of a ship, or a member of the government of the ship which I lived on. No one important even knew my name.

I was part of a team called a “Unit” which was composed of myself, a biologist, a linguistics expert, a computers expert, and a “leader” who was in charge of us. Together, our unit was meant to help understand whatever life we found out in the vast emptiness of space. Of course, we never found any, so we didn't have very much to do.

If we ever did find life, the linguistics expert would be the most important. His job would be to, as one might expect interact with the life we found, and understand their method of communication, whether it be verbal, physical, or mental. We would then be able to communicate with the life.

After that, the Biologist's job would be most important. He would be in charge of understanding how the life we found functioned, and perhaps finding ways to improve the life of both their people, and ours.

The job of a computers expert would be to understand how their computer systems work, and try to figure out ways of getting their systems with ours, assuming they even have computer systems.

My job as a culture expert would be an ambassador of sorts. Once the linguistics expert had learned the language, he would teach it to me, and I would be in charge of investigating the culture of the life.

The leader would be who we all reported to, who would distribute our discoveries to others.

My personal team was comprised of myself, as I already told you, a biologist named Weq'Re, A linguistics expert named Yu'Oir, and a computers expert named Trai'Muh. Our leader was named Yui'Req. Together we were quite good at doing absolutely nothing.

Until that day, that is. The day we found the blip.

The day we found Earth.

I still remember that day so very well. I was far from the first to hear about it, of course. But I was certainly one of the most excited. A blip. A blip on our sensors. A noise. A sound. A signal. A sign of life. But of course, I told myself, I shouldn't be too excited. We'd had blips before. Much bigger and more exciting blips than this one. Once we had thought we had discovered intelligently designed tunnels in an asteroid, and it turned out to be caused by a very rare phenomenon where the asteroid was very soft material. It came into contact with some meteors which, instead of shattering it, tore straight through it.

One time we thought we had discovered a planet with a lack of one gas, and a surplus of another, and we seemed to find evidence that there was a strange, abnormal pattern of the atmosphere being converted from one gas very quickly, then slowly back to the other. We thought it might be evidence of intelligent life, which was, for some unknown reason, converting the gases back and forth. It turned out that the atmosphere abnormalities there were caused by a rare kind of gas eating volcanoes, which would absorb one kind of gas, and then the other would be sent out into the atmosphere by eruptions which happened every few decades. The plant life on the planet was able to convert the gas back, but after several decade, the converted gas would become prominent, and the volcanoes would begin to erupt again.

And even if we had found life before, it was never intelligent. We found one planet inhabited by billions upon billions of different species of insect with no noticeable plant life, which ate each other, and seemed to convert gases which they could breath back and forth, via each others.

So, I told myself, I shouldn't get excited. Odds were that it was simply one of those things, nothing important. Nothing new. No intelligent life.

But secretly, I let myself hope. I let myself hope that this time would be different. That this time we would find a real civilization. That this time we would find real intelligent life, in some form or another. That this time I would get to actually investigate a new culture.

I got my wish.

After many days (for simplicity, I shall use what we were able to find to be Earth measurements of time. A “day” was one rotation of Earth, and a “year” was ~365.25 days.) we reached the blip. A small planet, the third one from the star which it orbited. It had a surface covered mostly by water. The first thing we did was send robotic drones down to the surface, to take various readings, and pictures.

What they sent us back would change my life forever.

The readings they took were released to the scientific community, myself included, being a part of a unit, almost immediately. And so I was able to see them with little to no delay. At first, they seemed to be nothing remarkable. The first readings they got back were about the atmosphere. The air was mostly Oxygen with various other gases mixed in. We would be able to breathe it. Then they got mineral scans back. Again, nothing especially remarkable. Then they got a video link with the drone.

It had landed in the middle of a city.

Nothing like our city ships, of course, but a city nonetheless. Large structures, which looked to be made of various materials stood on either side of the drone. As it looked around, what looked to be like large metal vehicles stood in the center of what looked to be a road. Thick green plant life had overgrown almost everything. Millions of cultural conclusions jumped into my head. They build their cities permanently in one spot. The cities can't move. They must consider plant life to be almost exalted, to incorporate it into their cities like this. Perhaps their stomachs are only suited to eat plant life, and not meat? Maybe this is their way of ensuring everyone has food. Or perhaps they can only eat meat, and thus, exalt plants as some sort of thing above being eaten? Or, perhaps they themselves were a kind of sentient plant life?

The drone continued to move through the still and silent city. I watched eagerly, hardly able to contain myself. I was seeing something... I can't even describe it. It was something I had searched for my entire life. My ancestors had been searching for this for generations. My people's sole purpose in the universe was about to be completed. We had finally found sentient life.

Or so I thought.

As the drone continued to move throughout the concrete city... There was nothing. No signs of life, aside from the monolithic structures lining the roads. It was day out, but there was no movement. There was an unnatural still. Perhaps the life forms there were nocturnal? Finally the drone approached one of the structures. The structure was large, and had what seemed to be large transparent barriers at the entrance, although it was hard to tell if it was a material I was familiar with, since it was completely overgrown. The drone managed to bash its way through the barrier.

It was about this time I heard a voice say “Tare, are you there?” (Tare was what many of my friends called me, I shall explain our naming system further at a later point in time.) I recognized the voice, it was Weq'Re, the Biologist from my unit, and close friend of mine.

“Yes Weq, I'm here.” I responded, begrudgingly looking away from the screen which displayed the Drone exploring the inside of the structure. “May I enter?” Weq responded. I responded that he could, and he entered the room through my circular entryway. Weq had hardly entered the room yet when he said “Did you see it? Of course you saw it! Structures! Plant life everywhere! Intelligently designed roads!” “Yes, yes, of course I saw it!” I replied. “But you realize what this means don't you?” Weq said excitedly. “Proof! Undeniable proof!” He continued.

“Yes! Proof! Proof of intelligent life! What I want to know is where they are!” I replied to him. He looked at the screen which sat behind me. It now appeared to be showing the Drone attempting to scale what appeared to be a pathway leading upward, with the ground raising slightly every foot or so. Weq responded to me, “Yes, it is quite odd. Very still, very calm. You'd think we would have at least run into some one... The structures seem quite permanent.” I looked at the screen again. “Yes, I noticed that. I don't think they even move at all.” Weq thought to himself for a moment, “But surely they must be able to move somehow.” I changed the subject for now. “That's not important for now. Why haven't we seen anyone yet. Why is it so completely overgrown? Those large metal things outside this structure, they appeared to be vehicles of some kind, and yet they don't look like they've moved in centuries.”

“Perhaps their a sort of sentient plant life? Or perhaps they evolved to the point that they don't need to use vehicles any more. Perhaps the plant life we saw are the life forms, and they form some sort of network? Like an insect's hive mind?” I responded. “I don't think so. If they had evolved to that point, why wouldn't they move the vehicles out of their city. And look at the structures. They have clear entry points, and there's no practical reason for plant life to build structures anything like this, not to mention the question of how they would build something like this. I don't think we've encou-” I was quickly cut off by noise coming from the screen behind me. I turned and looked at the screen.

There it stood. A fierce looking creature. It was covered in gray hair, and had four legs, and a small tail. Its head and face had two eyes, and a large snout of sorts, its mouth sticking out from its face, with sharp teeth lining either side of the snout. Its nose sat on the end of the snout. As it stared at us with a fiery look in its eyes it gave a strange noise. A sort of low rumbling.

“Do you think it's trying to communicate?” Weq asked me. I didn't respond, not wanting to miss a second of our first contact with the planet's life form. The creature continued to let out a low growl. The next noise I hear was in our own language. Whoever was controlling the drone must have patched his own voice through, to attempt to communicate with it in our language. “Hello. We are the Pol'irion. We have searched endlessly for life, and we have finally-” The creature was clearly stunned by the speech, as it stepped back for a moment. Now it was recovering from the shock though, and let out a loud short, deep noise. A moment later the voice patched through again and said “Sir, we are attempting to find a suitable linguistics expert to attempt to communicate with you in your own-” The creature obviously didn't like that, as it leaped onto the drone, knocking it over. And repeatedly attacking it with its jaw. The drone wasn't built to withstand that kind of beating, and a second later, we caught a glimpse of some wires coming loose and snapping, and instantly the picture went dark.

There was a long silence, finally broken as Weq said, “Well I think we found life.”

We had found life.

And it was hostile.

How Not to Write a Character, As Displayed by Altair

*Warning, the following will contain clips from the M rated games Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed 2, and Mass Effect 2. These scenes may contain language, violence, and blood. It will also feature heavy spoilers for Assassin's Creed, and Mass Effect 2, and minor spoilers for Assassin's Creed 2.*



I've spent the past week and a half or so playing the game Assassin's Creed. I finally beat it today, and while I will most likely review both the game and it's sequel, today I must comment on something specifically. That thing, is how Altair is exactly how NOT to write a character.

Let me give you an example.



That monotone voice, that cold, calculating attitude... These are things that, at first glance, you might think perfect for the character of an Assassin. It's not though. I know exactly what they were trying to get at here, they wanted to make Altair a, shall we say, bad"butt" (keeping it PG rated here.). They failed miserably. He doesn't seem like that because of that, in fact he seems like he's trying really really hard to SEEM like one. To borrow a quote from Mass Effect 2, "In my experience, the most dangerous people are the ones who don't act like it."

Let me now introduce Ezio, the main character of Assassin's Creed 2. Ezio is a young man (at the start at least, I'm not very far into AC2) who actually has a personality. Now, he's not going to win any awards for best character any time soon, but he's likable! He's your typical troublemaker. But you know what? He actually shows some sign of emotion. Including, obviously, when his family is hanged. He actually feels it. Unlike Altair, who shows absolutely no emotion at the end of the game upon learning that his master has betrayed the Assassins and been using him all along. He's just like, "Ok. Killing time."

But, surely, I hear you saying, I can't be complaining that the character of an Assassin is cold and calculating? Yes. I can. There's cold and calculating, and then there's robot. Let me give you an example of an Assassin who's a much better character, a much more human character, interesting since he's not a human at all.



Thane Krios. What a character. I suppose that's to be expected since it's a character from a Bioware game, and Bioware games writing is to normal games writing what the complete works of Shakespeare are to Twilight. Thane is an Assassin. A cold hearted (cold blooded, HEY-O!) killer. But he's also a complex individual. For one thing, he considers himself wicked, as you saw in that video. He considers himself a necessary evil, of course, but an evil nonetheless. He justifies what he does as that he's just a tool, a weapon, and that you don't blame a gun for shooting someone, you blame the person who uses it, and yet you have to wonder from his attitude whether he really believes that himself. He kills and he knows that what he does is wrong, but he's a very religious person as well.



Plus he's just plain cooler than Altair too.

Not to mention his relationship with his son. That's just... Well... Just watch.



Ok, c'mon, Captain Bailey is in this game for like 8 minutes, and he has more interesting of a character than Altair.

Thane is a complex multi-leveled character. He's not what you expect, and he surprises you time and time again. Thane is a good character. Heck, Thane is a great character.

Also, since I'm talking about ME2, I have to post this even though it's completely unrelated to anything.



In short, a good character is interesting. You can make almost anything a good character, and there's no excuse for not doing so. An Assassin can be cold and calculating, and still feel very human, and very sincere. Altair, however, feels like a robot. A robot with an American accent. In the 12th century holy lands. But that's a different rant altogether.

Speech and Life - The Blog Version

Ok, so. For the past few weeks, my youth group has been having student led weeks, where the students prepare everything from the worship music, to the game, to the message. This week was my groups turn.

Overall we spoke on the first 1 Timothy 4:12, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example to the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity."

My subjects were Speech and Life. This is (roughly) what I said about them. Well, actually, this is the long winded version, since I had to cut some things for time.


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Setting an example to believers in speech starts with simply speaking. You may not necessarily be talking about God and religion. However, If you don’t say anything about being a Christian or about God we can’t expect anyone to hear it. Psalm 19:3 says "There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard." If no one had ever told me I could have a relationship with Christ I would have never known I could have one. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the talk show "Jimmy Kimmel Live", which is obviously not a Christian show at all, but it had a special episode after the series finale of Lost last week. In this show, he said something I found quite interesting...



I would hope everyone in this room knows that is not what Christianity is. The bible actually says that no one can get to the bible through works. There is no amount of good you can do to work your way to heaven. You can save lives, deliver babies, solve world hunger, and cure cancer, but at the end of the day there's only one thing that really matters. Have you asked Jesus to forgive your sins? If you have, then no matter how much, or how little good you do, you will be saved.

You have to have bravery to get out there and say that kind of thing to people though. It’s not always easy, like right now I wish I was in the back of the room putting up slides in my comfort zone. Because my comfort zone is, well, comfortable. But, God has not called us to be comfortable. As Christian we have to do hard things. And sometime the hard thing can be as simple as telling your friends about Christ. I have to wonder how it would have changed if anyone had ever told Jimmy Kimmel what Christians ACTUALLY believe? Now, maybe he would never have been saved, but what if he had said what we ACTUALLY believe, up there on national television, broadcasting to millions of people? A lot of good could have come out of that.

So now that we know we have to speak, what should we say? Does it mean we have to speak of Christ all the time? We all know that’s impossible. But a lot of the time, it's less about what we say, and more about what we don't say.

1 Peter 3:10 says “For whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech.”

We can't just be swearing and cursing, and making crude jokes left and right. How easy it is to write it off as "I'm just with my friends, I can say what I want. These guys know me." But we need to be careful all the time. Even people we know judge us by what we say when we are around them.

But, it’s more than that, you never know who else is listening. Speech is a big responsibility. As Humans, speech is our main way of expressing emotions and thoughts, from the simplest ones such as "I am hungry." to much more complex ones such as "I feel hurt because I feel what you did was betraying me, and I don't know if I can trust you any more." What you say, good or bad, people judge you by. And if you aren't swearing and aren't saying bad things then they will have a completely different impression of you, than if you are.

But more importantly, as Christians we need to think about how our speech represents Christ. If we have presented ourselves as believers in Christ people will be watching us and what we do will affect their impression of us. People will think of us as hypocrites, and by extension, all Christians as hypocrites if we say we believe one thing and speak another way.

I know this will shock absolutely everyone in the room but... I play a lot of video games. In fact, I've even been known to play some video games ONLINE. I know, it's shocking.

It took a long time for me to convince my parents to let me use voice chat in the video games I play, for obvious reasons. When I did finally get to do voice chat I felt a large responsibility to not speak in a way a Christians shouldn’t . No, I wasn’t waving a flag and telling everyone I was a Christian. In fact, a lot of them never knew for month, or even years that I was a Christian. However, over time I said things in simple conversations like “I can’t raid on Wednesday night I have church.” Right there it is. Everyone is trying to remember how I have spoken and how I have represented myself. Because I have made a point to be cautious about my speech several times I have actually had people I will never see in person ask me to pray for them.

But it works both ways. We have to set a good example in life, by acting in a way that reflects the way we say we will. I myself have run into many people who have said they were believers too, but not acted in a way that has impressed me. It upsets me when I hear speech like this, or see actions like that, from someone who claims to be a Christian.

One time I was playing World of Warcraft, and I was doing a raid (a group involving a large group of people.) Halfway through, one of the other players (a real person, mind you.) made some wisecrack about Jesus not being real. I privately messaged him and asked him not to joke about things like that. He proceeded, naturally, to yell at me, and rant at me, and yell every curse word he could think of at me, alongside calling me things like "Close minded idiot" and "Bigot" and other things along those lines. In the midst of his words of rage, he mentioned that he was "Just kidding, and believe in Jesus and God too." Could've fooled me. If that were my only example of Christianity, I sure wouldn't have a good impression about it.

Now, I'm not saying this guy wasn't a Christian. That's not for me to judge. That is between him and God. But you know what? I've had people in these same games tell me I was the only Christian they know. How about you? Maybe among your friends, you will be the only Christian influence their lives ever have? Are you setting a good one?

Psalms 119:105 says “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” God’s Word needs to not only guide us in how we should speak, but in how we should live.

Now, I'm not perfect. I certainly don't claim to be. No one is. The only one who's perfect is God. I've slipped up in speech. Everyone has at some point in their lives, said a curse word. I'm most certainly not a perfect example when it comes to setting an example in life. That's impossible. I've done something I said I wouldn't, and I've slipped up as a Christian many times. Everyone does. The point is to try harder.

In life we need to act like a Christian where ever we go. Following Christ is not just about coming to church. It’s about representing Christ wherever we go. This doesn’t mean we have to be serious and preachy all the time. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a big goofball. But there comes a time to be serious. There are people out there that are watching. They hear you say that you're a Christian, and they're just waiting to see you slip up, so they can say they were right and all Christians are hypocrites. So remember, people are watching. Even more importantly, remember, God is watching.

Why I Care, Part 3: What We Love Defines Us

Note: This is part three of three. For part one, click here. For part two, click here.

3. What We Love Defines Us.

You know that phrase, 'you are what you eat'? Well with art, it's "You Are What You Love". What you love, defines who you are. For example, if you like Twilight (YES I'M GOING TO RIP ON TWILIGHT SOME MORE IT'S TERRIBLE), you are a 12 year old girl with no taste (Hey-oh!). Ok that might have been uncalled for, but it's true, what you love says a lot about you.

It's more than that, and this ties into reason 2, but what we as a culture like says a lot as a culture. I mean, look at our culture, Americans like violence in media, and we have high crime rates, we like sex in media, and we're a sex crazed culture. Even more than that, you can go down to a specific area of a city, and what movies people there see reflects a lot on the area.

Now don't get me wrong, this isn't always true, and the degree to which it applies varies on the person. Not everyone who like violent movies is a serial killer, obviously, and not everyone who sees a movie with a sex scene is necessarily going to become some sort of sex crazed maniac. But people who like violent movies might have shorter tempers, or be more prone to fight.

It sounds like I'm trying to say that video games cause violence, but that's not true. All I'm saying is what you love reflects a lot about who you are. Both positively and negatively.

I mean, let's say you were playing the game Team Fortress 2. That's a very violent game. But that doesn't mean you're a violent person, necessarily. TF2 is a team based game. Maybe you are really good at teamwork? Maybe you're a great leader, depending on how you play in it?

Heck even more than that, I can go deeper on the topic. You love playing an engineer. Maybe that says you're the kind of person who likes keeping your team safe, building a turret gun to keep the intel in your base safe? You love playing Spy. Maybe that says you're the kind of person who loves to be sneaky, and trick people?

I don't claim to be able to interpret these things correctly. I don't think there's one correct answer to these things either. The point is, what you love, what you care about, defines who you are. So it's important to care for that reason as well.

So there you have it, 3 reasons why I care so much. I hope reading this has educated you on why caring is so important. It progresses culture, it defines who you are, and we're the first generation that hasn't had to care.

But why should you care what I have to say? I'm just some video game snob. What right do I have to tell you whether or not to care? Well, maybe you're right. Maybe you shouldn't care what I say.

But at least you'd be caring.

Why I Care, Part 2: The Snobs Progress Society

Note: This is part two of three. For part one, click here.

2. The Snobs Progress Society.
To a certain degree, being a snob is not a bad thing. Having standards is a good thing! If you don't have any standards, you're reading Twilight(Hey-oh!)! If you don't have any standards, you're playing My Little Pony: The Movie: The Game. If you don't have any standards, you're watching movies like "Meet Dave" or "The Last Mimzy".

Snobs get a bad rap because people don't like being told that what they are reading/playing/watching is not up to snuff. And it's true, some snobs do take it overboard, and are complete jerks about it. That's not right either. People confuse snobs with people going with the crowd, too. That's not right. Snobs will go against the crowd, and point out flaws with the sacred cows of culture.

But snobs have a very important place in our society. Technology gives us the tools to progress our culture. Art actually does progress our culture. Artists are pushed forward by the snobs. The people who care. The people who critique. The people, like me, who will write articles about why the most successful game of last year sucked.

Without people who care, culture would stagnate. And a culture that stagnates inevitably dies. I firmly believe if one thing will kill the country, or any society for that matter, it won't be a recession, it will be a lack of caring. Once a culture stops caring, the death stops being a matter of if, and starts being a matter of when.

Yes, I'm being very alarmist again. That's because it's alarming.

Don't understand me? Let me explain. Every generation has something new, that the generation before hates. If people from the new generation don't speak up and prove it's not actually evil, then the culture will stop progressing, and stagnate. If you can't progress, other cultures will, and then they will overtake you. Why do people from the new generation speak up against their elders? Because they care.

Think about it, movies were called evil back in the day. People said they were corrupting our youth. People from the next generation pointed out that wasn't true. Society moved on.

TV was corrupting our youth. People spoke up. Society progressed.

Comic books were corrupting our youth. People spoke up. Society progressed.

Now, it's Video Games that are corrupting our youth. If people, like me, don't speak up, society will not progress.

Don't buy that our society would stop progressing with movies, comic books, or TV? Last I checked, a lot of people became interested in the career they chose because of a movie/TV show/comic book. What if some kid becomes interested in medical science because of medical games like Trauma Center, and ten years from now, cures cancer? Well that can't happen if no one cares enough to speak up.

You may think it sounds like a stretch, but you never can tell. And it'll never even have the chance to happen if no one cares.

Note: This is part two of three. For part three, click here.

Why I Care, Part 1: I Don't Have To, And That's Why I Need To

Like I've said before, I really am a video game snob. I do not like the fact that games like My Little Pony: The Movie: The Game exist. (That's what I refer to all shovelware as.) It bugs me that a lot of the crap that's out there is allowed to exist. I can't stand, for example, the Twilight series, as I've touched upon before, and I will inform people that they have terrible taste if I see them reading them.

But there is one question that I am frequently asked, about many things, books, video games, movies, all sorts of stuff. And that question is, "Why do you care?". Why do I care? Why do I care? There are so many reasons, and to be honest, I find it very disturbing that anyone would ask that question. There are three main reasons why, and I'm going to touch upon each of them over the next few days.

I cannot stress the importance of caring, as an individual, and as a society. Caring is very important. So please, allow me to begin to explain just why I care so much.


1. I Don't Have To, And That's Why I Need To.

Technology is an amazing thing. Technology is progressing very rapidly, and every day finds ways to make our every day life easier. It's making our lives a little too easy, in fact.

I'm not talking about making everyone fat, or anything like that. No, the real implications are much more disturbing than that. We are the first generation that doesn't HAVE to care. We're rarely directly affected by anything. Even the war in Iraq doesn't directly affect most of the average teenagers in America.

Really, why should we care? We don't need to. We're being raised in a society where we've been taught, if it doesn't affect you, don't bother thinking about it. That's scary. Really scary. our society really has been on a decline, which I believe to be directly related to the lack of caring in America today.

Make fun of hippies and all if you will, and believe me I do, but they weren't wrong to care so much. It's important to care. I mean, protesters of war did have a point to protest. They had a right.

Think of it, we live in a free country, and while we usually associate that with religious freedom, or freedom to get any work you want, it extends to more than that. It's freedom to care. It's freedom to have an opinion. And to not use that freedom, that's wrong.

I don't have to care. I have an easy life. I don't need to care, for example, about people buying MW2, or some nut saying video games are made by satan, or even a guy who says video games ruined his life. None of those things affect me directly. It doesn't hurt me if that lady has her head in the sand. It doesn't hurt me, directly at least, if that guy is being alarmist about video games being evil.

But that's why I need to. I need to, because if no one does, then what happens? Nothing. What are you if you don't care about anything? Are you really living, or are you just existing?

There's a line I liked from Ghost Town, a decent comedy from a couple years back. "Everything matters. Maybe it only matters to us, but it still matters." How true. Everything matters. The little things, and the big things.

I look at a lot of the people I know, really great people, who don't care. Who don't realize the importance of caring. I know a lot of people who don't care as much as I do about anything. Yes, I'm very passionate about small things. Yes, I rant a lot. Yes, I'm opinionated. Since when is that a bad thing?

I would rather talk to someone with an opinion different than mine, than someone with no opinion at all, any day of the week. People who don't care are boring!

Please, if you're reading this, I beg of you, find something to be really and truly passionate about. For me, it's video games (mind you, I have a lot of opinions about a lot of things, but I'm not passionate about a lot of things like I am about video games.) For some people, it's movies. For some, it's books. For some, it's cooking. For some, it's fashion. It can be anything, the what doesn't matter, but if you're not passionate about anything... I truly think you're not really living. You may hate me for saying that, but hey, at least you'll care.

This is part one of three. For part two, click here.

Darren Chase and the Last Giant Excerpts

For years now, I've had an idea for a book in my head. The story is, without giving too much away, a fantasy adventure set present day. The main idea, is to put a unique spin on the classic fantasy creatures, Elves, Dwarves, Goblins, etc.

The story follows Emily Day, a young woman who, although a very wonderful person, is utterly normal. All that changes one day though, when she has a run in with an odd man named Darren Chase.

The title is Darren Chase and the Last Giant. These are excerpts from the first two chapters.

Note: The following is fairly heavily edited from the actual version that appears in the book, to save continuity, and so as not to spoil several attributes of the story.

****

Emily Day had short, gorgeous black hair, green eyes, and was very good looking in general. Emily was a wonderful person. The kind of girl most guys would die for. Smart, funny, cute, you name it, she had it. But not in a way that ever frustrated you because she was too perfect. She was more than just that though, she was the kind of person who loved life. She loved fun, and she found fun everywhere.

You know how you always hear people saying they want something better? A better life, more excitement, whatever? Emily never felt like that. Emily always loved the life she had been given, and never really wanted more. Ironic then, I suppose, that she was given so much more.

****

Emily walked into the building. It was a very big, impressive lobby. She looked around, marble floors, pillars lined the entrance, a wall of windows looking out on the busy downtown street. Someone had spent a lot of money on this, and she was about to talk to him. “He'll see you now.” the receptionist said suddenly, from behind Emily, making her jump in surprise. “Oh! Uhm, thank you!” She said, as the receptionist led her upstairs to Dan's office.


“I understand,” he said in a cool, slick voice, “that you need to speak to me about something?” He said, while eying her over. He had an odd, piercing stare, that felt like he was staring right through you. Emily cleared her throat, and said “Erm, yes..” He made her feel very uncomfortable. “Y-Yes, Mr. Kennedy I-” “Call me Dan.” He said, in an oddly cold way. “Right then.. Dan.. I need to speak with you about some of your, erm, shipments.”

He sighed, and said sarcastically, as if he already knew the answer, “Oh, and what shipments might those be?” Rolling his eyes. “The ones that have been disappearing. We got a tip that some of your shipments have been vanishing, and upon further inspection, it's true. They leave your warehouses, and aren't ever seen again. No one can account for where they've been going.”
“Yes, and?” He said, again in his calm, voice. The way he spoke was unsettling, as though everyone was merely an annoyance. As though he could kill you in a second if he was so inclined. “..And we would like you to account for what's in them, and where they've been going.” “And what if I don't?” He said with a short laugh. “What are you going to do about it?”

****

“Alright listen here you-” but before Emily could finish saying something she would probably regret, the doors burst open, and a man walked in, with the receptionist following behind him, protesting.

This man seemed like the opposite, of Dan to Emily. Dan gave off a creepy, jerk vibe. This guy, however, gave off a very warm, friendly vibe. He wore a T-shirt, with a brown jacket on over it, and jeans. He had messy brown hair, and brown eyes. He stood just a bit taller than Emily, and, though he wore a serious look on his face, you could tell he had a face that smiled a lot. Or used to smile a lot, in any case.

“Mr. Kennedy, I'm sorry, I tried to stop him but he insisted that he had to see you even without an appointment!” The receptionist said. Dan now wore a look of surprise on his face upon seeing the man. “That.. That's quite all right. Mr. Chase is always welcome here, appointment or no.” The receptionist left, and Dan spoke. “Well.. Darren. What brings you to New Yo-” “Cut the crap Dan. You know why I'm here.” The man, apparently named Darren said, abruptly. Emily liked this guy, she didn't know who he was, but he caught that jerk Dan off guard, so he couldn't be half bad.

Dan paused for a second, and before saying, “Always the conversationalist. Yes I suppose this was inevitable. I didn't expect them to send you though.” This sentence seemed to tick Darren off, for some reason. “Who they send," Darren said, angrily "Is none of your business. All that should matter to you is telling me what was in the shipments.”

At this point, Emily had had enough, and interrupted. “Listen here! I don't know who you are, or why you're interested in the shipments, but you've got some explaining to do. Both of you!” Darren stopped and stared at her, before saying “Oh, I'm sorry, how rude of me, my name is Darren. Darren Chase. And you are?” Emily stared at him. “I'm, um, Emily Day, but-” “Nice to meet you Emily!” he said with a grin, before returning to Dan “Now then, now that that's out of the way, the shipments! What's in them Dan?”

****

That was where things got weird. Dan shot out his tongue, which was several feet long. Emily just stared at it, which I can't recommend doing if you're ever in the same situation. Dan reached it out and wrapped it around the gun, pointing it at her.
“Sorry my dear, you really should have left when you had the chance.” Dan said, slightly distorted because of his tongue. “What are you.. How did you..?” Emily said, unable, at this point, to form full sentences.

“Listen, Dan, she doesn't know anything, you can just let her go..” Darren said. “No, it's too late for that. I can't risk her piecing it all together.. As unlikely as that might be.” “Wha- How...?” Emily said, wide eyed in terror and confusion.
“Goodbye Ms. Day, I'm sorry it had to be like this.” Emily closed her eyes, tight as she could.


Bang.