Wow, that was a good book. I'm speaking of Anathem, the book I mentioned in my last post. I'm a Neal Stephenson fan, so I knew I was going to be reading this book anyhow, but it was even better than I had expected.
WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!
I think this is the first openly and explicitly science fiction novel I've read in quite a while. I don't know...it seems like SF is on the way out, and then I read a book like this. It's got classic SF tropes like a spaceships (including one of the best hard-SF generation ships I've encountered, the Daban Urnud) and other worlds. Moreover, it takes scientific ideas, such as the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and builds a good story around them. Very well done in that respect. And it even has a satisfying ending, though enough loose ends remain to make me hungry for more of this.
And it left a lot of room for speculation. We got just a glimpse at Urnud's version of the mathic tradition (and of course heaps of detail on Arbre's). It makes me wonder if "Laterre" has its equivalent. More specifically, it makes me wonder if this is, in fact, the Society Eruditorum, and if the Laterran versions of Fraa Jad and his ilk are none other than Enoch Root and the others who would be considered Wise. In addition, I wonder at the connections, if any, between newmatter and the alternate chemical elements of the various alternate worlds, and the Solomonic Gold. In short, I wonder if there is any connection between this novel and Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle.
There were certainly lots of references to other Stephenson novels. Yes, even The Big U, with the nuclear waste hidden beneath the millenial maths. The descriptions of how the Bolt, Chord, and Sphere worked also reminded me of the various nanogizmos from Diamond Age.
Anyhow, I am very pleased with how this book worked for me. It gave me a lot to think about, which I always consider a good thing.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Anathem
No, that's not a misspelling. I picked up the latest novel by Neal Stephenson recently, and am in the midst of reading it. I'm not far enough along to properly review it but I must say I love it so far. The last few books he read were all historical tales, and were set in the real world, so he didn't get to exercise the world-building skills he did in earlier stories like Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, which were set in the future. Anathem is set in...well...I don't know yet if it's a parallel universe, an alien planet, or what, but it's not Earth. Despite this, it is just enough earthlike to be comprehensible, yet tantalizingly different. In some ways, it reminds me of the feeling I got when I watched Wings of Honneamise for the first time. I felt like I was exploring a world that was not mine, but was nonetheless a real place.
Hopefully I'll have more to say when I finish the book.
Hopefully I'll have more to say when I finish the book.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Theocracy
I had a conversation with a friend the other night, in which the topic of theocracy came up, in particular, as it applies to a potential future system of government for the US (or some other country, but we were talking about this one in particular). I kept thinking about that last night, and I came to the conclusion that I can't really support establishing a theocratic government here in the US.
This is despite the fact that I'm a Christian and a) believe in God, and b) believe that God is basically a good and benevolent being. Certainly, then, it should make sense that putting God in charge of running the country can only be a good thing. After all, God is better able to see the "big picture" and make decisions based on how things truly are, rather than being limited by personal perception and prejudice, as human beings are. The Bible is full of passages describing Him in terms appropriate for a great ruler or leader, so why not put Him in charge of the country?
And I can't really argue with that. If God's name was on the ballot (for any office, not just President) He'd have my vote hands-down. Problem is, He's not on the ballot (as far as I've seen at any rate). And, I doubt He'd step into the oval office even if we wrote His name in.
Which leaves us with the closest alternative--electing some human representative to stand in for God, to rule as He would rule and to speak His words to the people to be their laws. Such a person would be a sort of living conduit for divine will, much as the prophets were in the Old Testament. The OT is full of God talking in the first person, through the prophets, who were talking as if they were God, though they weren't. Rather, it was God speaking through them. I can envision something like this working as well. The problem here comes in finding someone who is a completely reliable prophet of God, and not either a) a false prophet who speaks his own words as if they were God's, but instead serves some other power (such as a false god, himself, or some conspiratorial organization) or b) a genuine prophet who is still a mere human with his own failings, who will sometimes fail to properly channel God's words for reasons similar to those given above.
This brings us to a third alternative, which is probably the closest to what comes to mind when one hears of a theocracy. That is, a person or person who rules in the name of God, and who probably claims divinely-granted authority, but who does not claim to BE God, or to speak directly for God. Priests, rather than prophets.
The Old Testament had its priests, of course. So did the New Testament--and they were often the ones whom Jesus was slamming hardest. So it isn't entirely sure that a priest-ocracy is what we need either. In general, Theocracy generally turns into Me-ocracy, where Me is typically the person proposing the theocracy (i.e. "Why don't you just put me in charge--I'll get things back to the way God wants them!").
So we have to be wary of leaders claiming to be/speak for/rule by God. But what about God's laws? The OT's full of them--people who set out to read the Bible from cover to cover often don't make it past that point in Exodus where was had been a rousing adventure story full of armies clashing and waters parting and strange Fortean meteorological phenomena descends into something more akin to a legal text. The laws of Moses are pretty extensive, and parts are surprisingly modern to readers such as myself (I was intrigued to note that the Bible distinguishes between degrees of homicide, for instance).
Still, Jesus died to set us free from "The Law" which seems to imply at least some subset of the Mosaic Law. Certainly the dietary laws are mentioned explicitly in the NT as not being binding anymore. On the other hand, there are parts of the law that we like, such as that old favorite "Thou Shalt Not Kill." I don't want to be killed, and I'll bet you don't either, so we want to hang onto that law. We don't want Jesus's death to separate us from that one.
The thing is, even if that law is no longer binding on us, that doesn't mean we should go around wantonly murdering people. If I don't kill people, it's not necessarily because the Ten Commandments contain "Thou Shalt Not Kill." It could be because there's nobody I really want to kill--because I personally consider killing so unpleasant and distasteful that it would take a lot to make me do it. It could also be because a totally separate set of laws (the ones that happen to govern the land in which I live) also contain homicide laws that differ from those given in the Bible (perhaps postulating more degrees, and stipulating different sets of punishments) but still are generally along the "Don't do it" vein.
There are a lot of laws in the modern world that have nothing to do with morality. We don't really think the Brits are going to Hell because they drive on the left side of the road--but if one of them comes over here and decides to go for a drive, he'd better stay on the right side instead. I call these laws "Protocols" in the sense of networking protocols. When you're writing network software that's meant to interact with pre-existing hardware and software, you have to follow certain rules in order to ensure that the other machines can make sense of the data you send, and you can make sense of that which you receive. Network protocols ensure the smooth functioning of the network, and protocol laws ensure the smooth functioning of society.
Even the murder laws can be seen this way. Killing people is bad because murder is morally wrong, but it is a crime because it disrupts the smooth functioning of society. Morality does not necessarily enter into the picture (though there's often a lot of overlap). The New Testament talks a lot about love--God's love for us, and our love for God and for each other. To me, this is the source of true morality, not the law of Moses and certainly not the laws of the State of California. But you can't legislate love. You can't put a gun to someone's head and say "You WILL love your fellow man or I will blow your effin' brains out!" Or rather, you CAN, and I have heard proposals from some who favor theocracy that amount to basically this. Or worse, something like "You will believe the things I believe or I will blow your effin' brains out!" Romans 10:9 states "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." You can make someone confess at gunpoint, but you can't make him believe. Force, and thus law (which is backed by force or threat of force) cannot truly convert and cannot truly save. It can only make people act in a semblance of salvation.
But is this enough to be worth the threat of this kind of coercion being misapplied? The current US constitution is incompatible with Mosaic law (which IS law and CAN be applied through force, unlike love and belief). Applying a system of government like that specified in the laws of Moses would necessitate changing or removing many parts of the constitution (which is perfectly possible, and explicitly allowed by the constitution itself--it's a meta-document meant to be changed as needed). However, I personally don't believe that the benefits to be gained by doing this are worth the cost. I think that one of the reasons why Christianity has thrived so well in this country is because there is no official religion. People are free to believe whatever they want. There are countries in Europe where everyone's automatically Lutheran (or whatever) unless they state otherwise, which has resulted in a lot of apathetic, non-practicing Lutherans. Here, you're a Lutheran (or a Baptist, or a Methodist, or whatever) because you choose to, or because you were raised that way and have chosen not to rebel, not because the government says you are. If everyone were forced to at least behave like Christians should, to me that would negate the whole significance of a person behaving like a Christian because he IS one. The law of Moses is not the only legal system that can ensure a smoothly functioning society, and it's certainly not the only one under which Christianity can thrive and grow.
So what do I propose? Keep things basically the way they are, in terms of religion's role in life. A person's faith is a deeply personal thing, not something that can be spread at gunpoint, at least not without perverting it and turning good spiritual food into poison. I'm a Christian, and would prefer it if everyone else were too, but I also believe in freedom of religion. I'd rather you were a Christian, but if you want to worship Cthulhu instead, you're free to do so. If you ever get tired of squid-gods and want a more loving (and lovable) deity to worship, I'll be here for you, ready to tell you the good news of Jesus Christ. But if you choose to worship Cthulhu instead, I'll not stop you with violence or threats thereof, unless you take some action to interfere with the functioning of society (i.e. violate the protocols that we happen to be living under now). So no human sacrifices, for instance, because that's not allowed, because it prevents the victim from functioning in society (due to being dead). But aside from that, your faith is your business, and that's the way it should be here in the US.
This is despite the fact that I'm a Christian and a) believe in God, and b) believe that God is basically a good and benevolent being. Certainly, then, it should make sense that putting God in charge of running the country can only be a good thing. After all, God is better able to see the "big picture" and make decisions based on how things truly are, rather than being limited by personal perception and prejudice, as human beings are. The Bible is full of passages describing Him in terms appropriate for a great ruler or leader, so why not put Him in charge of the country?
And I can't really argue with that. If God's name was on the ballot (for any office, not just President) He'd have my vote hands-down. Problem is, He's not on the ballot (as far as I've seen at any rate). And, I doubt He'd step into the oval office even if we wrote His name in.
Which leaves us with the closest alternative--electing some human representative to stand in for God, to rule as He would rule and to speak His words to the people to be their laws. Such a person would be a sort of living conduit for divine will, much as the prophets were in the Old Testament. The OT is full of God talking in the first person, through the prophets, who were talking as if they were God, though they weren't. Rather, it was God speaking through them. I can envision something like this working as well. The problem here comes in finding someone who is a completely reliable prophet of God, and not either a) a false prophet who speaks his own words as if they were God's, but instead serves some other power (such as a false god, himself, or some conspiratorial organization) or b) a genuine prophet who is still a mere human with his own failings, who will sometimes fail to properly channel God's words for reasons similar to those given above.
This brings us to a third alternative, which is probably the closest to what comes to mind when one hears of a theocracy. That is, a person or person who rules in the name of God, and who probably claims divinely-granted authority, but who does not claim to BE God, or to speak directly for God. Priests, rather than prophets.
The Old Testament had its priests, of course. So did the New Testament--and they were often the ones whom Jesus was slamming hardest. So it isn't entirely sure that a priest-ocracy is what we need either. In general, Theocracy generally turns into Me-ocracy, where Me is typically the person proposing the theocracy (i.e. "Why don't you just put me in charge--I'll get things back to the way God wants them!").
So we have to be wary of leaders claiming to be/speak for/rule by God. But what about God's laws? The OT's full of them--people who set out to read the Bible from cover to cover often don't make it past that point in Exodus where was had been a rousing adventure story full of armies clashing and waters parting and strange Fortean meteorological phenomena descends into something more akin to a legal text. The laws of Moses are pretty extensive, and parts are surprisingly modern to readers such as myself (I was intrigued to note that the Bible distinguishes between degrees of homicide, for instance).
Still, Jesus died to set us free from "The Law" which seems to imply at least some subset of the Mosaic Law. Certainly the dietary laws are mentioned explicitly in the NT as not being binding anymore. On the other hand, there are parts of the law that we like, such as that old favorite "Thou Shalt Not Kill." I don't want to be killed, and I'll bet you don't either, so we want to hang onto that law. We don't want Jesus's death to separate us from that one.
The thing is, even if that law is no longer binding on us, that doesn't mean we should go around wantonly murdering people. If I don't kill people, it's not necessarily because the Ten Commandments contain "Thou Shalt Not Kill." It could be because there's nobody I really want to kill--because I personally consider killing so unpleasant and distasteful that it would take a lot to make me do it. It could also be because a totally separate set of laws (the ones that happen to govern the land in which I live) also contain homicide laws that differ from those given in the Bible (perhaps postulating more degrees, and stipulating different sets of punishments) but still are generally along the "Don't do it" vein.
There are a lot of laws in the modern world that have nothing to do with morality. We don't really think the Brits are going to Hell because they drive on the left side of the road--but if one of them comes over here and decides to go for a drive, he'd better stay on the right side instead. I call these laws "Protocols" in the sense of networking protocols. When you're writing network software that's meant to interact with pre-existing hardware and software, you have to follow certain rules in order to ensure that the other machines can make sense of the data you send, and you can make sense of that which you receive. Network protocols ensure the smooth functioning of the network, and protocol laws ensure the smooth functioning of society.
Even the murder laws can be seen this way. Killing people is bad because murder is morally wrong, but it is a crime because it disrupts the smooth functioning of society. Morality does not necessarily enter into the picture (though there's often a lot of overlap). The New Testament talks a lot about love--God's love for us, and our love for God and for each other. To me, this is the source of true morality, not the law of Moses and certainly not the laws of the State of California. But you can't legislate love. You can't put a gun to someone's head and say "You WILL love your fellow man or I will blow your effin' brains out!" Or rather, you CAN, and I have heard proposals from some who favor theocracy that amount to basically this. Or worse, something like "You will believe the things I believe or I will blow your effin' brains out!" Romans 10:9 states "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." You can make someone confess at gunpoint, but you can't make him believe. Force, and thus law (which is backed by force or threat of force) cannot truly convert and cannot truly save. It can only make people act in a semblance of salvation.
But is this enough to be worth the threat of this kind of coercion being misapplied? The current US constitution is incompatible with Mosaic law (which IS law and CAN be applied through force, unlike love and belief). Applying a system of government like that specified in the laws of Moses would necessitate changing or removing many parts of the constitution (which is perfectly possible, and explicitly allowed by the constitution itself--it's a meta-document meant to be changed as needed). However, I personally don't believe that the benefits to be gained by doing this are worth the cost. I think that one of the reasons why Christianity has thrived so well in this country is because there is no official religion. People are free to believe whatever they want. There are countries in Europe where everyone's automatically Lutheran (or whatever) unless they state otherwise, which has resulted in a lot of apathetic, non-practicing Lutherans. Here, you're a Lutheran (or a Baptist, or a Methodist, or whatever) because you choose to, or because you were raised that way and have chosen not to rebel, not because the government says you are. If everyone were forced to at least behave like Christians should, to me that would negate the whole significance of a person behaving like a Christian because he IS one. The law of Moses is not the only legal system that can ensure a smoothly functioning society, and it's certainly not the only one under which Christianity can thrive and grow.
So what do I propose? Keep things basically the way they are, in terms of religion's role in life. A person's faith is a deeply personal thing, not something that can be spread at gunpoint, at least not without perverting it and turning good spiritual food into poison. I'm a Christian, and would prefer it if everyone else were too, but I also believe in freedom of religion. I'd rather you were a Christian, but if you want to worship Cthulhu instead, you're free to do so. If you ever get tired of squid-gods and want a more loving (and lovable) deity to worship, I'll be here for you, ready to tell you the good news of Jesus Christ. But if you choose to worship Cthulhu instead, I'll not stop you with violence or threats thereof, unless you take some action to interfere with the functioning of society (i.e. violate the protocols that we happen to be living under now). So no human sacrifices, for instance, because that's not allowed, because it prevents the victim from functioning in society (due to being dead). But aside from that, your faith is your business, and that's the way it should be here in the US.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Poser
I attended SigGraph last month, just a one-day, exhibit-hall-only visit, but it was the first time I'd been to one in years. While there, I picked up a copy of Poser 7 from the Smith Micro booth. I've been trying to draw characters in somewhat more interesting poses than just "standing there looking cool," and I'd been wanting to pick up a pose reference book. I figured that Poser would do the job for me, and be more versatile since I could create any pose I wanted, and view it from any angle.
And it's been all that, though I haven't been drawing much lately for other reasons. Thing is, when I bought it, they gave me a coupon code for a free 6 month passport on their web store, Content Paradise, along with a sampler CD-ROM of stuff available from there. The stuff (including a fully posable M1-A1 Abrams tank) is cool enough I decide to give the site a shot. I download the major freebee packages, including three male figures and one female. Looking around at the stuff starts giving me ideas of characters, settings, and plots. I find an anime-esque girl named Terai Yuki and a texture pack for her, and that suggests a character to me--a sort of female version of L or Near from Death Note (one of my favorite manga series) only instead of tracking down a killer notebook, they're looking for terrorists who are using supernatural means in their attacks. There's a lot of spy and action/adventure stuff on the site--commando outfits, vehicles, guns, etc.
So, what started out as a universal pose reference thing for me has morphed into this addictive character-creation and visual story telling program. I picked up a few scenery packs, including a really cool industrial area with pipes and factory-type buildings (I'm a sucker for industrial imagery)--just the sort of place for our heroes to infiltrate--or blow up. I also got a stealth outfit for my infiltrator and blower-upper, who I've named Rydlie. I've created some action poses, including a hanging-from-a-wall pose that I've been trying to draw (unsuccessfully) for a while. This is a really fun program.
Thing is, my main character, the Terai Yuki variant that I've named Kiya (it's amazing how you can throw together clothing and texture options, maybe tweak face and body geometry a bit, and a character materializes, complete with name) only has one outfit. The default Terai Yuki minidress totally fits the way I envision the character, but she really needs more variety. I went through the Content Paradise clothes list looking for outfits, but I mostly just find morphs for existing outfits that don't seem to be present there. I google a bit, and I discover that these are available for sale from a totally different website, called Renderosity. Curious, I decide to poke around to see what they've got there--in particular if there's any outfits or accessories for the other characters I have.
I find very few, but a whole lot of other characters listed that I saw products refer to on the Content Paradise site, but never actually found for sale there. I just figured that they were older versions of the Poser men, women, and children, that they no longer bothered selling because they'd been replaced with newer, better ones. There was a bit of content for these on CP, but not a lot. Renderosity was chock full of such content, much of it very cool. But these figures weren't for sale there either.
More googling turned up Daz3D as the makers of these figures. And they had yet another web store, with these figures and more. I knew there was a Poser community out there, but I had no idea it was this huge, with at least three large, well stocked web stores. I'm wondering what I got myself into.
I also noticed some patterns to these stores. Content Paradise obviously focuses on the e Frontier/Smith Micro figures and content for these, but seems to have more real-world stuff. There are cop and firefighter outfits, office and factory scenes, business equipment like laptops and cell phones, and that sort of thing. Also a lot of military vehicles, such as the Abrams tank I mentioned earlier. This was suggesting some relatively realistic stories, albeit with some fantastic elements (and thus, the Death Note esque storyline). Renderosity has more SF and fantasy stuff, including some really cool looking cyberpunk sets, and some very revealing fantasy outfits for the (Daz) women, which look like something out of Boris Vallejo (or in some cases, Masamune Shirow) painting. And I like SF and fantasy too. Now I don't know what to do!
The funny thing is, I find all of this appealing in more or less the same way I find RPGs appealing. I don't play RPGs to fight, or to loot, or even to socialize (though I enjoy all of these) but mostly to create imaginary people in imaginary places. I think the whole Poser thing is appealing because it lets me do the same sort of thing.
Sigh, now I've got one more drug in my life :)
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The Dark Knight
WARNING -- Spoilers for the Batman movie, The Dark Knight
I finally got around to seeing the lastest Batman flick last night. I wasn't even aware that it was still in theaters, but it obviously was. Not only that, but the theater was packed! I'm used to seeing movies well after their premieres in nearly-empty theaters. This was not at all what I expected.
There was a good reason there were so many people watching the movie though. I agree with those who think that Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker deserves a posthumous Oscar. They finally found someone who can out-crazy Jack Nicholson, and he up and dies after making the movie.
A couple of things struck me about the movie. The first was how long it was! It was almost 3 hours long, and there were several points in the movie where it felt like it was nearing the end--the bad guys seemed to be defeated or nearly so, and the good guys started talking like movie characters do toward the climax of a film. Then something happens and the plot does a 180 and the audience is hauled up yet another lift hill for yet another roller coaster ride. The rhythm of the film was different from the norm for movies, and I think that made The Dark Knight more disturbing, as you really didn't know what would happen next.
The second thing was that Ledger's version of the Joker is now my reference for Chaotic Evil. I like to have characters that, to me, epitomize the various D&D alignments, as an aide to role-playing. Jack Shaftoe from the Baroque Cycle, for instance, is my iconic Chaotic Neutral character. The Joker is CE, caring only about causing destruction, mayhem, and suffering. It's notable that, unlike the first Batman movie, they didn't give the Joker an origin story. He wasn't a crook who got dumped in chemicals that gave him a clown face and a taste for joke-themed crime. The Joker himself was fond of telling stories of his past, but they were all contradictory, and in the end we don't know who he was or what he was--he remains an enigma.
The third thing was that Batman is NOT the "World's Greatest Detective," at least not in this continuity, as he constantly fell for the Joker's tricks. The REAL World's Greatest Detectives (actually the world's THREE greatest detectives in one) would have seen through the deception as he saw through Light's more subtle trickery. Or maybe I'm just an L fan :)
I was thinking of Death Note at a few points during the film. I was curious just what a person with Shinigami eyes would see when he looked at the Joker. Did he really have a real name? Fiction is full of nameless heroes and villains, but is it possible for a person to be truly nameless?
And yes, I managed to turn a blog post about at Batman movie into pointless Death Note speculation. Oh well, I guess I just like Death Note.
But...I also liked The Dark Knight! If you haven't seen it, and you like tense, psychological, yet still action-packed movies (or you like Batman), go see it while it's still in theaters!
I finally got around to seeing the lastest Batman flick last night. I wasn't even aware that it was still in theaters, but it obviously was. Not only that, but the theater was packed! I'm used to seeing movies well after their premieres in nearly-empty theaters. This was not at all what I expected.
There was a good reason there were so many people watching the movie though. I agree with those who think that Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker deserves a posthumous Oscar. They finally found someone who can out-crazy Jack Nicholson, and he up and dies after making the movie.
A couple of things struck me about the movie. The first was how long it was! It was almost 3 hours long, and there were several points in the movie where it felt like it was nearing the end--the bad guys seemed to be defeated or nearly so, and the good guys started talking like movie characters do toward the climax of a film. Then something happens and the plot does a 180 and the audience is hauled up yet another lift hill for yet another roller coaster ride. The rhythm of the film was different from the norm for movies, and I think that made The Dark Knight more disturbing, as you really didn't know what would happen next.
The second thing was that Ledger's version of the Joker is now my reference for Chaotic Evil. I like to have characters that, to me, epitomize the various D&D alignments, as an aide to role-playing. Jack Shaftoe from the Baroque Cycle, for instance, is my iconic Chaotic Neutral character. The Joker is CE, caring only about causing destruction, mayhem, and suffering. It's notable that, unlike the first Batman movie, they didn't give the Joker an origin story. He wasn't a crook who got dumped in chemicals that gave him a clown face and a taste for joke-themed crime. The Joker himself was fond of telling stories of his past, but they were all contradictory, and in the end we don't know who he was or what he was--he remains an enigma.
The third thing was that Batman is NOT the "World's Greatest Detective," at least not in this continuity, as he constantly fell for the Joker's tricks. The REAL World's Greatest Detectives (actually the world's THREE greatest detectives in one) would have seen through the deception as he saw through Light's more subtle trickery. Or maybe I'm just an L fan :)
I was thinking of Death Note at a few points during the film. I was curious just what a person with Shinigami eyes would see when he looked at the Joker. Did he really have a real name? Fiction is full of nameless heroes and villains, but is it possible for a person to be truly nameless?
And yes, I managed to turn a blog post about at Batman movie into pointless Death Note speculation. Oh well, I guess I just like Death Note.
But...I also liked The Dark Knight! If you haven't seen it, and you like tense, psychological, yet still action-packed movies (or you like Batman), go see it while it's still in theaters!
Sunday, August 3, 2008
World of Ruin - Angel City
OK, every good campaign world needs a "starting area," which is given more detail, and which can be expanded as needed as the PCs venture further afield. By default, I'm making this starting area be southern California. There are a number of reasons for this. First of all, it's where I live, so I have a good idea what the geography is like.
Second of all, it's an interesting place, even if you take away the social aspects--it's got mountains, ocean, deserts, hills, and so on. I've also lived much of my life in central Ohio, but that's not as physically interesting--it's mostly flat or nearly flat, and you can pretty much go anywhere you want to if you're not concerned with things like private property. The geography of SoCal lets me more easily define physical limits and barriers, and say things like "These monsters live on THIS side of these mountains," and "troops from THIS valley rarely go to THIS OTHER valley."
Third, it's almost got a World of Ruin flavor to it as is. Ohio's cities blur into the countryside. You might be driving along a busy street lined with strip malls and fast food joints, and as you go along, those businesses are slowly replaced by homes, and the homes by farms, and the farms by forests until you finally realize you're in the boonies. Here where I live now the cities are cut out from the wilderness almost with a laser beam. I've walked through residential neighborhoods where the last row of houses borders scrubland that looks like it hasn't been changed since before the Spanish discovered the place. Yet, on the other side of that divide are new, modern homes with lawns and swimming pools. In short, it's got that "Civilization-bordering-on-raw-wilderness" feel that I want.
In the World of Ruin, there are two main centers of civilization in the area, corresponding to the modern cities of Los Angeles and San Diego. In the place of the former, there's the similarly-named "Angel City." They're my default "local bad guys." Despite the angelic motif of much of their military technology, they're far from heavenly. They're your typical high-tech fascist police state. If you're familiar with the Coalition from Rifts, imagine those guys with a fixation on angelic imagery (feathered wings, halos, etc.) rather than skulls. That said, they are a force for civilization, and they are able to keep their territory mostly safe from monsters, though people who don't back the current government wholeheartedly are probably a lot less safe than they'd be out in the wilds. They're a force for civilization, but probably not the type of civilization that player characters typically favor.
Despite the obviously religous nature of angels, I don't really want Angel City to be a fundamentalist theocracy--that would be too obvious. Instead, they're run by a military government advised (and some people would say, controlled) by a group of four AIs. These AIs occupy heavily fortified structures, called "Citadels" which are located around the central arcology structure of Angel City itself, and are responsible for much of the actual policies of the city-state. The AIs are named Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel, and collectively referred to as the Archangels. These squabble amongst themselves, but generally present a unified front to outside threats.
Downtown LA is completely covered over by a massive arcology tower, nearly as well fortified as the Citadels that protect it. The majority of the population lives in here. Life for a typical citizen is, above all else, safe. There is constant security, protecting the people from crime and accidents, but also from dangerous thought and hurtful speech (where "Dangerous" and "Hurtful" are defined by the government, of course). Most people don't mind this, and go about their daily lives working (at government-supported jobs) and playing (government approved games and sports). The military occupies the highest stratum of human society here, with officially-supported businesses (nominally independant, but in fact subject to significant oversight) directly beneath them.
Other, smaller satellite arcologies are located elsewhere in the greater LA area. These are generally owned by large businesses, and dedicated to housing their workers. People here generally have a bit more freedom of thought and expression (at least, as long as there are no Angel City forces "visiting" at the time), but also lack the protection that those forces provide. Crime and corruption are common, and workers are often exploited by their employers.
Surrounding these arcologies are the "exurbs" -- the remains of the old cityscape from the pre-arcology days. Services of any sort are spotty here--many areas lack electricity, running water, or adequete sanitation. The people who live here are both a resource to be used by the government and corporations, and a constant thorn in their side. It is difficult to adequately police such an area, and violent crime is ubiquitous, but this lack of policing also makes the exurbs a hotbed for revolutionary activity. To help combat this, the Angel City authority offer money and other rewards for turning in subversive elements. This means that betrayal and treachery are a constant concern here, with everyone trying to stab each other in the back for a few handouts--which is exactly how the authorities like it.
In what would be present day Orange County, the influence of Angel City decreases as you head further south. South Orange County and adjacent parts of San Diego County are home to the mysterious and dangerous "Dead Zone." I'll cover that in a later post.
Second of all, it's an interesting place, even if you take away the social aspects--it's got mountains, ocean, deserts, hills, and so on. I've also lived much of my life in central Ohio, but that's not as physically interesting--it's mostly flat or nearly flat, and you can pretty much go anywhere you want to if you're not concerned with things like private property. The geography of SoCal lets me more easily define physical limits and barriers, and say things like "These monsters live on THIS side of these mountains," and "troops from THIS valley rarely go to THIS OTHER valley."
Third, it's almost got a World of Ruin flavor to it as is. Ohio's cities blur into the countryside. You might be driving along a busy street lined with strip malls and fast food joints, and as you go along, those businesses are slowly replaced by homes, and the homes by farms, and the farms by forests until you finally realize you're in the boonies. Here where I live now the cities are cut out from the wilderness almost with a laser beam. I've walked through residential neighborhoods where the last row of houses borders scrubland that looks like it hasn't been changed since before the Spanish discovered the place. Yet, on the other side of that divide are new, modern homes with lawns and swimming pools. In short, it's got that "Civilization-bordering-on-raw-wilderness" feel that I want.
In the World of Ruin, there are two main centers of civilization in the area, corresponding to the modern cities of Los Angeles and San Diego. In the place of the former, there's the similarly-named "Angel City." They're my default "local bad guys." Despite the angelic motif of much of their military technology, they're far from heavenly. They're your typical high-tech fascist police state. If you're familiar with the Coalition from Rifts, imagine those guys with a fixation on angelic imagery (feathered wings, halos, etc.) rather than skulls. That said, they are a force for civilization, and they are able to keep their territory mostly safe from monsters, though people who don't back the current government wholeheartedly are probably a lot less safe than they'd be out in the wilds. They're a force for civilization, but probably not the type of civilization that player characters typically favor.
Despite the obviously religous nature of angels, I don't really want Angel City to be a fundamentalist theocracy--that would be too obvious. Instead, they're run by a military government advised (and some people would say, controlled) by a group of four AIs. These AIs occupy heavily fortified structures, called "Citadels" which are located around the central arcology structure of Angel City itself, and are responsible for much of the actual policies of the city-state. The AIs are named Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel, and collectively referred to as the Archangels. These squabble amongst themselves, but generally present a unified front to outside threats.
Downtown LA is completely covered over by a massive arcology tower, nearly as well fortified as the Citadels that protect it. The majority of the population lives in here. Life for a typical citizen is, above all else, safe. There is constant security, protecting the people from crime and accidents, but also from dangerous thought and hurtful speech (where "Dangerous" and "Hurtful" are defined by the government, of course). Most people don't mind this, and go about their daily lives working (at government-supported jobs) and playing (government approved games and sports). The military occupies the highest stratum of human society here, with officially-supported businesses (nominally independant, but in fact subject to significant oversight) directly beneath them.
Other, smaller satellite arcologies are located elsewhere in the greater LA area. These are generally owned by large businesses, and dedicated to housing their workers. People here generally have a bit more freedom of thought and expression (at least, as long as there are no Angel City forces "visiting" at the time), but also lack the protection that those forces provide. Crime and corruption are common, and workers are often exploited by their employers.
Surrounding these arcologies are the "exurbs" -- the remains of the old cityscape from the pre-arcology days. Services of any sort are spotty here--many areas lack electricity, running water, or adequete sanitation. The people who live here are both a resource to be used by the government and corporations, and a constant thorn in their side. It is difficult to adequately police such an area, and violent crime is ubiquitous, but this lack of policing also makes the exurbs a hotbed for revolutionary activity. To help combat this, the Angel City authority offer money and other rewards for turning in subversive elements. This means that betrayal and treachery are a constant concern here, with everyone trying to stab each other in the back for a few handouts--which is exactly how the authorities like it.
In what would be present day Orange County, the influence of Angel City decreases as you head further south. South Orange County and adjacent parts of San Diego County are home to the mysterious and dangerous "Dead Zone." I'll cover that in a later post.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Real World Weirdness - The Tribe that Doesn't Count
No, I don't mean that they're unimportant. I literally mean they don't do the whole 1-2-3 business. An aside on a web forum post I was reading introduced me to the Pirahã (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_people). They're a tribe of hunter/gatherers in the Amazon, who'd probably be much like any other such tribe (there are a lot, though fewer than in the past) except that they seem to eschew pretty much all forms of abstract thought. Not that they're stupid--they're great at concrete stuff like day-to-day survival. But they have no religion, no fiction, and no mythology, at least as far as researchers have been able to determine. Their language is one of the simplest known, and seems to lack recursion--you can't embed one sentence into another like you can in english and every other known language. And they can't count. Their language has no numbers, of course, but other languages also lack these, and speakers of those languages have no trouble counting. They borrow number-words from other languages if they have to, but they can count just fine using those borrowed words. These guys seem to be unable to learn to count, or at least unwilling to.
Now I don't know why this is, or even if it's really the case or if these guys are just putting on an act to fool those weird pale people who have nothing better to do than to ask random rain forest tribespeople about their personal beliefs. Still, the idea is intriguing, and it suggests a whole range of fictional scenarios based on this concept.
Now I don't know why this is, or even if it's really the case or if these guys are just putting on an act to fool those weird pale people who have nothing better to do than to ask random rain forest tribespeople about their personal beliefs. Still, the idea is intriguing, and it suggests a whole range of fictional scenarios based on this concept.
- First of all, this is a good example of "alien" thought patterns (albeit in humans). Perhaps a race of non-humans is completely incapable of abstract though, while still being intelligent. They might be somewhat like this. I am reminded of the Garuda in Perdido Street Station, who, while very different from the Pirahã, are nonetheless very concrete thinkers. A Garuda criminal refers to himself as being "Too Abstract."
- One article I read mentioned that only men had been interviewed. Perhaps in a fictional culture the women do all the abstract thought, and for all we know are accomplished mathematicians and theologians.
- An article mentioned that the children are largely raised by other children, not by their parents, and have a sort of subculture of their own. Maybe the kids are the philosophers of a culture, and become more focused on daily life when they reach adulthood. There could even be a rite (possibly involving magic) whereby they formally give up their childish thought patterns and devote the rest of their lives to living in the moment. This reminds me of an alien species I read about in a SF novel ages ago, which had a life cycle similar to that of butterflies. The larvae were sapient, and had developed space travel, while the adult forms were largely mindless and devoted only to reproduction.
- The Pirahã apparently only cat-nap, and don't sleep for long periods at a time. Why is this? I can understand the need to not be unconscious for hours on end in a dangerous environment like the jungle, but their neighbors manage to get by just fine sleeping at night like we do. Perhaps there's a connection. I don't know if anyone's done research on what this type of sleep pattern does to peoples' thought patterns.
- Despite not believing in gods, they do believe in spirits of a sort, all of which are actual physical objects. They also believe that these spirits can possess them in some way and change them at a fundamental level. As a result of these changes, they often change their names. This makes me think of a novel called "Vaccuum Flowers" in which it was common to "reprogram" people with different skill sets and even personalities. When the police raided a place, they would reprogram some of the people they caught into more cops, for instance. Or, imagine a world in which aliens were taking over some segment of the population, sometimes switching hosts. These aliens would have different ways of viewing the world than humans do, and might act somewhat like the Pirahã.
The real world is, most likely, not this strange. The most reasonable explanation I encountered is that the Pirahã were as they were for cultural reasons, and felt that their way of life was superior to that of outsiders, and refused to change for that reason.
Still, it's things like this that give ideas to fiction writers. I hope that I'll continue to find real-world wierdness and it'll be come a recurring feature of this blog. I will share my ideas with others, for their benefit and my own.
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