The Year was 2012 (AD).
Was. Soon it won’t be. Soon it will be 2013, and its time to see go back and judge 2012.
2012 started with me in tears. 2011 ended with me breaking up with my GF, and returning to being her best friend. But at the beginning of 2012, I realized I was still pining to get her back, and I had to get that out. I spent the first 2 days of 2012 listening to Modest Mouse, The Cranberries, Alanis Morissette, and writing perhaps one of the most personal scripts I’ve ever written. As one friend on FB put it, “I’m surprised you didn’t kill yourself.” Well, the goal was to kill part of myself, or to get it all out of my system.
It worked. One of my 2012 resolutions was to get over her, and return to being her best friend...and I’m going to say I accomplished that well. 2012 might have started with me still longing for her, but it ended with me feeling like Family. It ended with me celebrating Christmas with her and her family, and then her with my family. Throughout the year there were some fights, some low and high points, but at the end of the year she is my best friend, and I’m thankful we worked through the problems that have arisen. This is most definitely a positive for the year, as there were many times things could have gone wrong. While I’m sure more problems will arise as time goes on, I am confident we’ll fight through those, too.
I also rekindled some old friendships, too. My move to Portland has allowed me to spend more time with one of my high school best friends here. Ironically, moving away from Eugene made me realize I was leaving friends down there, and since then my Eugene friends and I have been talking more. Surprisingly, an old work colleague and I got re-acquainted as well. We hang out quite regularly, and she’s become my movie buddy. How could this be a negative? It’s not.
Despite my attempts, I didn’t really make any new friends. I put myself out there to meet new people, and while I got many new acquaintances, I didn’t get any new friends. A few people that were also regulars at such and such bar, some of the comedy crew, but not any people I’ll be calling to hang out with. If they are there, awesome...if not, *shrug*. So I’m not really heartbroken about this, and won’t count it as a negative.
Same is true with my attempts at dating. I got to go on quite a few dates with a variety of women. One is in line for “rudest” end of date I’ve ever had, and another is in line for “craziest.” There were also lots of mediocre ones inbetween. One girl I saw regularly for a period of time, but it became obvious early on that we desired different things in the long run and that we wouldn’t ever work out as a couple. I feel some remorse that nothing really worked out for me this year, but at the same time... I’m glad I’m not settling. As one friend, who had years of bad dates before she met someone whom she fell head-in-over-heels love with said, its worth waiting for someone good. It’s a minor negative.
I was in the ring for comedy for a bit there. One of my resolutions was to really try for it. For awhile there, I was going 3-4 nights a week. I got up on Helium, and I was getting to the stage I felt like I could do a paid set. For that reason, I’ll say I accomplished my goal. Problem is, it was really taxing on me, both financially and on me as a person. I’m an introvert, and I felt like I had little energy for anything else. That’d be great if I felt like I was growing as a person, but I wasn’t. Comedy is competitive, and I’m a person who does things because I enjoy them. I like being that person, and comedy was changing me away from that. There were other problems as well, but thats the main thing. I might do more in the future, but it will be because its fun for me, and not because I want to make a career of it like so many of my fellow comedians. While I lean towards a positive, I’m going to count this as a neutral aspect in my life.
I also moved a lot this year. I lived in three different houses, which I guess when compared to some friends who were homeless for awhile, I should be thankful for. The first place I loved, but due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to move out earlier than expected. The next place I found seemed like it was the perfect place. While the place itself was great, the next 6 months with my roommate made my life miserable. Near the end, I didn’t leave my room unless I had to because I hated the encounters that occurred. A quick summation would be “Bad times.”
But after that, I moved into my current apartment. My current place is less of a financial strain, but more importantly, I have a much improved roommate. We get along, have great conversations, play the same video games, and overall its a good experience. I am reluctant to call any place “Home,” and I haven’t had a “home” for years, but I am very comfortable here, and look forward to staying here. So, despite the “Bad times,” I would consider my living situation as an overall positive.
I had a lot of bad things this year, too. Opposite of my relationship, I started this year in the job I loved. I was Quality Assurance as well as a Price-Shopper. I listened to people’s phone calls, and gave managerial feedback. I also looked up the rates of our competitors, and made price suggestions for us. I never dealt with customers. Hell, the only time in my job I talked to someone is during my monthly reviews with my manager. During this time, I was able to watch TV while at work and marathoned all of Doctor Who, Torchwood, How I met Your Mother, Babylon 5, and other amazing TV shows. It was low stress, but I still busted my butt and got a lot of work done that I was still getting high praises from my boss. Then my manager changed, and all of a sudden my job was thrown into turmoil. In just a few months with my new manager, I lost my job.
By that, I don’t mean I was fired. I mean, the heads of the company didn’t like the direction my department was taking (*cough new manager cough*), and decided to get rid of the department in its entirety. I chose to stay in the company, where over the next few months my duties seemed to change on a regular basis until they finally settled me into a job that has been qualified as “The most stressful, and hardest job” by many of my peers. I started the year bragging how much I loved my job and appreciated (and felt appreciated by) the company I work for, to feeling completely used and mistreated by my company while having a stressful job. There are some silver linings in the future, but that won’t happen until 2013. I’m trying to make the most of what I got, and be happy with what I have (a decent paying job that also gives me benefits), but this is most definitely a large negative.
It did motivate me to look for a new job, which was one of my resolution. Another one of my resolutions was to do more video work. I started the year off strong with my search, found nothing, learned how much I liked my job, and became complacent. With the change, I started looking again. I went all out. I used my contacts, I called random people, I asked acquaintances who might know a guy who might know a guy who could have worked on Leverage. I applied to every film and video job I could find. So far, I’ve only heard one response, and it doesn’t sound very positive.
During the year, I’ve also been doing volunteer work on a project. This project has been the project from hell, and I’ve more than once almost tore my hair out because of it. My part of the project will be finished on December 31st, thank god. Beyond that, I didn’t get to even volunteer on any other projects, despite what I feel were pretty heavy efforts on my part. I pushed myself to meet new people and apply myself, to e-mail stranger and reach out. Nothing. Hope is awesome when you feel yourself getting somewhere. But for me, it was crushing. I almost got more responses when the economy was dead then now. Film resolution and find a new job resolution are both big fails, and a negative for the year.
Things also died on me this year. My great-uncle, who was always a hoot to hang out with, saw his health drastically fall and then he died. We weren’t close, but I always saw him on Thanksgiving, and one or two other times throughout the year. Thanksgiving will come into a play again here soon. I also lost not 1, but both of my dogs. First Lily went blind, and over an excruciating amount of time, her health dropped slowly until finally she had to be put down. Before we even started recovering emotionally from her loss, her sister Taz, a dog I’ve loved since we raised her as a puppy, got sick. Her health plummeted. We thought she was going to recover, and then over Thanksgiving she took another nosedive. She died shortly after. There are no positives that can be seen here.
My parents did adopt a new puppy this month. Ziva, another boxer. Absolutely cute and wonderful and playful. I have lots of pictures with her which are absolutely amazing. But, she is my parents dog, and I’ll get to see her maybe once a month. I look forward to the next time I get to play with her. It doesn’t make up for the loss of Taz or Lily though. People nor pets can be replaced... but it is nice to have her, and I am in love with my little Calamity Jane.
Backing up a little...Thanksgiving. I’ve talked about it a lot before, and a lot of this will be repeat.
My Thanksgivings have always been large family events. This year it was just my parents. Watching my father and mother “communicate” was heartbreaking, having a dog dying was heartbreaking, and having such a small family was heartbreaking. I knew that I had lost what I had once considered family. The word that could be used for this is...heartbreaking. I am grateful that my best friend was going through a similar life dilemma, and that she was there for me, and that over Christmas I got to experience a large family with hers. It really helped restore something in me.
Let’s end on two upswings. One of my resolutions was to get myself in better shape, and do more races, and finish them. I competed in 3 races this year, the Prefontaine, the Dirty Dash, and the Pumpkin Half Marathon. I completed the Dirty Dash, that was no problem, but I didn’t “finish” either of the other two. Despite that, I still feel accomplished. I ran at least 5 miles of the Pre, but was injured and had to walk 1 mile. Even with injury, I still got an amazing time of almost 10 minute miles. The race did leave me unable to run for about a month, just enough time to “train” for 2 weeks before the Pumpkin Half. I ran at least 10 miles of that, maybe even 12! For having been injured for so long before the race, I feel incredibly accomplished for both. I am already signed up for three races next year, and have plans to do even more. Who knows, maybe this year I’ll finally beat my best friend in one of these races!
A big positive, and my major resolution for the year, was to start my comic book. I found an artist early on, and have been working with him since then. By the end of September I had pages, by December I was doing minor advertisement, and the very beginning of 2013 I’ll be doing more work. I’ve been getting lots of feedback, both positive and negative, and I really look forward to seeing it grow. It took longer to start then I desired, but it has started, and it is rolling right along.
Over-all, I’ll say this year ended on Neutral grounds. It’s very mood dependent, but in a rational mind I think things evened out. I think the events of this year leaned negative, but my life over-all is better than it was in 2011. If it weren’t for some very possible, and real changes, coming in 2013 (a big change in my current job, a possible paying job in video, my comic book growing, and some new dating possibilities) I’d be leaning more towards negative... but already 2013 looks like its going to bring good things to me due to my diligence, and possible suffering, through 2012.
Coming soon to a blog near you: My 2013 Resolution list.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Hipster Puppies
Hipster Puppies
So last night I was at a Holiday party. I was sitting in the middle of the couch, which meant I had a conversation going on to the left of me, a conversation going on to the right of me, people conversing on the other side of the couch, and I was completely overwhelmed and unable to focus on any of it. Luckily for me, on the coffee table my friend had placed a copy of “Hipster Puppies.”
This book was perfect for me. After have finishing my my 2 Towns Ciderhouse hard cider (I had the Incider, which was delicious), I wasn’t in for any heavy reading, and a book that has nothing but pictures of cute dogs dressed up funny with quick quips about hipsters was amazing. I was able to finish the whole book in one sitting! I mean, really, that should sell the book right there.
The downfall of this book is that I kept randomly bursting into a-little-too-loud laughter (that might be the fault of the cider) and caught everyone’s attention. As I wasn’t participating in any of the garbled noise going on around me, I’m sure my outburst was definitely at the wrong time. But the books saving grace, coupled with me living in a hipster Mecca, is that I could then pass the book to my friend, she’d read it aloud and show everyone the accompanying picture, and everyone would laugh. It was like, for a moment, I was the life of the party! Except, you know, it wasn’t my book and my friend is the one who read it, but still I contributed to the party for a moment! Then everyone could return back to their conversation as if my interruption never occurred, but deep down inside, I knew they were all thinking “I can’t wait until that weird guy on the couch bursts into laughter again so I can look at another picture of a dog.”
My favorite line was something to the effect like “Daisy sometimes gets ‘irony’ mixed up with ‘being a complete asshole.’” As I was surrounded by writers and other artists who know what the word irony actually means, this one got quite a laugh and everyone had to pass the book around and read it before giving a chuckle and handing it to the next person. It took awhile for the book to get back to me, which gave me enough time to grab more hard cider. I think it was called Gnarly Tree Cider, and it was the Crisp Apple. As the name sounds, it was a crisper Cider.
That was my holiday read. The rest of my summation of holiday parties is that Yule Logs are delicious, but impossible to serve without destroying it, and that gravity is not a gentlemen and will slam a door closed on your friends mom. Stay tuned, because my next read will be “Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex,” or as I like to call it “Bonk: How I answer phones and try not to say “Clitoris” or “Vaginal wall” while on the phone with a customer.”
So last night I was at a Holiday party. I was sitting in the middle of the couch, which meant I had a conversation going on to the left of me, a conversation going on to the right of me, people conversing on the other side of the couch, and I was completely overwhelmed and unable to focus on any of it. Luckily for me, on the coffee table my friend had placed a copy of “Hipster Puppies.”
This book was perfect for me. After have finishing my my 2 Towns Ciderhouse hard cider (I had the Incider, which was delicious), I wasn’t in for any heavy reading, and a book that has nothing but pictures of cute dogs dressed up funny with quick quips about hipsters was amazing. I was able to finish the whole book in one sitting! I mean, really, that should sell the book right there.
The downfall of this book is that I kept randomly bursting into a-little-too-loud laughter (that might be the fault of the cider) and caught everyone’s attention. As I wasn’t participating in any of the garbled noise going on around me, I’m sure my outburst was definitely at the wrong time. But the books saving grace, coupled with me living in a hipster Mecca, is that I could then pass the book to my friend, she’d read it aloud and show everyone the accompanying picture, and everyone would laugh. It was like, for a moment, I was the life of the party! Except, you know, it wasn’t my book and my friend is the one who read it, but still I contributed to the party for a moment! Then everyone could return back to their conversation as if my interruption never occurred, but deep down inside, I knew they were all thinking “I can’t wait until that weird guy on the couch bursts into laughter again so I can look at another picture of a dog.”
My favorite line was something to the effect like “Daisy sometimes gets ‘irony’ mixed up with ‘being a complete asshole.’” As I was surrounded by writers and other artists who know what the word irony actually means, this one got quite a laugh and everyone had to pass the book around and read it before giving a chuckle and handing it to the next person. It took awhile for the book to get back to me, which gave me enough time to grab more hard cider. I think it was called Gnarly Tree Cider, and it was the Crisp Apple. As the name sounds, it was a crisper Cider.
That was my holiday read. The rest of my summation of holiday parties is that Yule Logs are delicious, but impossible to serve without destroying it, and that gravity is not a gentlemen and will slam a door closed on your friends mom. Stay tuned, because my next read will be “Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex,” or as I like to call it “Bonk: How I answer phones and try not to say “Clitoris” or “Vaginal wall” while on the phone with a customer.”
Friday, December 14, 2012
The Mass Effect Series: Books vs. Video Games
Only one video game has brought me to tears, and that game was Final Fantasy X. Tonight, a second game brought me to tears, and that would be Mass Effect 3.
Some people dismiss video games as mindless entertainment. As just shoot-em sprees that dumb down the population. Some would argue the same of movies. Some would argue the same for everything not a book; and I’m sure some could argue the same for books. They are all different ways of expressing and displaying a story. Yes, if you look at a game like Castle Wolfenstein, where the plot is “fuck! Nazis are attacking! Kill them all!,” or its offspring Doom (either the movie or the game), where the plot is fuck! Aliens are attacking! Kill them all!,” to Love and Peace, yeah video games are mindless entertainment. But compare a Final Fantasy to a romance smut novel, and its the book that is the mindless entertainment. All forms have their great pieces of artistry, and all forms have their cheap entertainment. There have been movies that have redefined how people look at science fiction, and books that cause no original thought. There are video games which are only about blood, and video games that have compelling story lines where you only play through the action to get to the next bit of the story.
From here on out, I may be spoiling major parts of the game. I am not reviewing these games as video games, but under the concept that video-games can provide just as amount story, emotional attachment, and the reader can learn just as much as from a book. That video games can be just as good of a tool to tell a story as a book.
The Mass Effect series has a huge amount of story through it. The base concept is one I’ve talked about before with Babylon 5, and the council science fiction. There are a bunch of alien races that all have united, and the three strongest of the races rule on a council that rule over the laws of the galaxy. Space travel is done through a series of “Mass Effect” relays. While the game never mentions the Higgs-Boson, the concept is that we find ancient alien technology that allows the races to create “Mass Effect” fields. These fields reduce an objects mass, allowing for faster than light travel, and with that comes space travel. This is one of the theoretical applications of the Higgs-boson. Humans are one of the most recent races to be allowed onto the Citadel, which is a giant base station that serves as the hub for galactic life. It also an alien relic. While I don’t necessarily like the relic bit, it is important to the overall story.
The base storyline is that an entity from dark space is coming to destroy all sentient life in the galaxy. The first game you learn about these Reapers, and that they come whenever sentient life reaches a certain level of intelligence, and then these races are exterminated. The reapers have done this for many “Cycles,” for longer than the known history of the galaxy. In the first game, you stop the Reaper known as Sovereign from taking over, and so reinforcements are sent. In the sequel, another reaper known as Harbinger is sent to assess the situation. In this game, we learn about what monstrosities the reapers commit upon the sentient races, and get more of an idea of what the reapers desire. You manage to stop Harbinger and his race of Collector’s, but that does not mean you won. The third game is all out war, against these giant monstrosities, which not only outnumber the collected races, but also have technology well beyond our own. They come straight for all the major races homeworlds. Being a human, you get to be on Earth when they strike. The rest of the game is you attempting to align the races as well as make a super weapon to fight back against the reapers. The entire game you get to listen to battle reports on Earth, and well...Earth is losing. In the end, victory is achieved, but not without making some very difficult choices.
The series of games allows you to make decisions as you go through. Are you going to be the paragon, the renegade, or something between. The choices you make affect you throughout the series. An example is that in the first game, you find a captured Rachni Queen that you can either kill or save. The rachni were an insect like race where the queen is the only one needed to rebuild the hive. There is a huge backstory on the Rachni that you can choose to learn about, but basically they nearly annihilated all life before they were beat back and supposedly every single one was killed. Human scientists found one remaining egg, which turned to a queen, and they started cloning the Rachni for their own purposes. If you save the Queen, you run into her in the third game, and she desires to help you. If you killed her though, the reapers make a clone-like race which are hell bent on seeing you fail. You didn’t know what the consequence would be, and either could be hard. Not all the “Good” decisions are the ones with positive outcomes either, and some evil decisions turn out to be one that needed to be made at the time, and save you a lot of time and hardship by the finale.
As the game goes through, you build a team to go with you. While this team changes somewhat between the games (only three characters are playable through all three games saying you download all the additional content), all the characters and decisions from the first follow you through to the finale (if they survived!). The team grows alongside you, even in each individual game. For example, one of the lead characters is Liara. In the first game she is a fledgling archaeologist looking into the preceding race known as the Protheans. She is young for her race, and naive, and you save her from a simple trap. She grows, develops, and by the end of the third game she is the leader of an intelligence organization where she is laying the traps. Many of the characters go through similar changes.
She is also a possible love interest. In the game, you get to choose to be male or female, and from that you develop relations with your crews. If you do the right things, some of these relations can lead to sex, or even love. Some of it is in your hands, some of it is based on your choices. Through the series, the game allows for lesbian couplings, and the third allows for a gay coupling as well. It treats each coupling the same, there is no more of a big deal talked about the gay man and his losing of his husband than there is of the wife who lost her husband, or the soldier who lost his wife to the reapers. Your character gets to experience love, and lost, and you can choose to listen to the developing tales of others love lives. In the second game, as the game plays through you can walk through the ship and listen to the crew. One crew member’s families were stuck on a planet expected to be attacked by the collectors, who leave no survivors. You get to listen to a replay of a tape of his son’s birthday party. You get to hear that the planet was being evacuated. You listen to him losing contact with his family. We hear that the collectors did attack the planet. And you overhear from the character, crying at his table, what happened. If that doesn’t evoke any emotion, if you’re not interested in what happened to his family...I don’t know what to say in that case.
The part that made me cry is that I played as the male Shepard, and romanced the character named Tali. Tali is a Quarian, and the backstory of them is they created a synthetic race known as the Geth to help them. What they noticed though is that their Virtual Intelligence (VIs) were becoming Artificial Intelligence (AI), and were becoming smarter and smarter. Before things got out of control, the Quarians tried to kill off the Geth. This caused the Geth to rebel, and the Quarians fled their homeworld. Much like Battlestar Galactica, all the quarians live on a fleet of ships, called the flotilla, that fly through space as they plot to retake their homeworld. They wear body suits that regulate their bodies, and after a few generations of this, all their natural immunities have gone away, and now they are forced to be in their suits at almost all times, or potentially get fatally sick. You also learn that the Quarians live somewhat like the Amish in that when the Quarians reach a specific age they are cast out to learn about outside society, and they can (and more often than not) choose to return to the flotilla with a gift to help the fleet.
In the first game, you meet Tali during her pilgrimage, so she is young and learning the galaxy, although not quite as naive as Liara starts. While you don’t get to romance her in this game, a close friendship is obviously struck. In the sequel, you save her from an attack, and some flirting begins (paraphrased: “are you flirting with me?” “Now why would I do that? I mean, you’ve only been my knight in shining armor twice now, and what girl wouldn’t fall in love with that. I mean, did I just say that...I’m going to go back to working on the engine...”). You are there when her father dies, you are there to clear her name when the Quarians suspect her of sabotage, and you watch her grow from these experiences, and your character can grow as well. Despite the riskiness of the whole act, Tali finds a way to quarantine a room so that she can remove her suit and couple with Shepard. She appears halfways through the third game, and is still much in love with you, but the weight of the Quarian world is on her shoulder. Still, in this game the words of “love” are exchanged between the two of you multiple times, as well as some great emotionally bonding scenes, including one silly one where Tali gets drunk by drinking through an “emergency induction port” (aka: a straw). You help liberate her homeworld, and for the first time she gets to be home. Shepard points out that she now has a home, and she hugs him and tells him “I already have a home.” These particular words have great significance to me, but still I think it demonstrates the emotional connection that has grown.
So why did it make me cry? We get all this connection, all this closeness, and the game ends with your character losing a war. You are running to your final objective when a reaper lands to attack you and your team (note: full reapers are taller than skyscrapers). It grievously injures your party, and Tali can’t go on. You carry her to the evac ship, and she cries out “Shepard, don’t leave me behind!” And the way she says it... I just watched the clip again, and the water works almost started again. Especially considering that the game continues, and the choice I made sacrificed Shepard... and Tali is left alone.
But a good book is more than just the emotional connection. It should explore themes and ideas. As discussed above, it already covers some science fiction, and when I use those words I meant theoretical application of actual science. Another science fiction theme is Synthetic, or AI, versus Organic. Throughout the entire series there is a lot of AIs, good and evil and inbetween. As mentioned with the Quarians, the Geth took over the Quarian homeworld in a war, and throughout the first game and the majority of the second game, the Geth are your major adversary as they worship the Reapers as the ultimate form of synthetics. Of course, there are also the Reapers, which are AIs bent on repeatedly destroying all organics. But then you meet EDI, which is the AI that helps coordinate your ship, the Normandy, and at one point you have to “Unshackle” her, letting her be a full AI without restrictions. In the third game, she acquires a synthetic body, and becomes one of your key team members. Throughout the game, while she has lots of questions about humans, she eventually falls in love with the pilot, Jeff “Joker” Moreau (played by Seth Green) and decides to become more and more human, and is most definitely a positive AI. There is also Legion, a collection of Geth programs (Geth are not their physical bodies, but the individual programs), and while he does not regret the war on Quarians, he does want peace between his race and the Quarians.
Despite the good AI, characters repeatedly mention that AIs and humans are always destined to war with each other. The reason I like the best is given by Javik in the middle of the third, which is: Organics do not know their purpose, nor whom their creator is, so they can make their own purpose and can imagine an infallible God. Synthetics are created with a purpose that they know, and they also know who their creators are and more importantly that their creators are fallible. These fundamental differences are what will always lead Synthetics and AIs to war. You further learn its the reasons the Reapers exist; to “preserve,” in a very sick way, both organic and synthetic races of the cycle before the war between AI and Organic continues.
With that also comes the question of doing what needs to be done. You have to make many hard choices throughout the game. The very concept of the reapers is, while a monstrous solution, is a solution that prevents all organics from being destroyed and allows evolution to continue again. The game isn’t saying there is no right nor wrong, but that not all choices are so clear cut. The Rachni queen is an example, releasing her could release a race that once almost destroyed all the galactic races, but killing it is genocide. Another significant choice is that there is a major mass relay near the Batarian homeworld. The specific Mass Relay is the ones the Reapers use to get into the galaxy. Destroying it will greatly slow down the oncoming Reapers, but in doing so you will destroy the homeworld of the Batarians. Now, Batarians are a race who view slavery as a cultural right, so they are total assholes... but you are destroying their homeworld! Do you make the choice to destroy the relay and kill millions, to potentially save billions?
One great writer, Isaac Asimov, spent much of his career writing about the potential problems with AI, alongside many other authors who have explored similar scenarios. This video game gives the same inspective depth as other books. The story is there, and displayed through dialogue. The major difference is that you have some choice how you respond to what a character says, and that you are watching and listening to a character on your screen as opposed to reading it. Countless books, especially post-WWII era, have explored the idea of doing what must be done. This game was able to explore those concepts, but in a different fashion. The game put us in the shoes to make the decisions, and it teaches the lesson. While similar to some books, its a different tool to teach the same lesson.
The game does have lots of violence in it. Much of the game is running around with your team killing Geth, Cerberus agents, Reapers and their minions, and doing lots of little side missions, some of galactic importance and others are settling personal vendettas for individual characters. But, between the gameplay is an in depth story line. A friend of mine hates playing video games, but the story was so interesting that she asked to be invited to listen to the plot points, or would sit beside me reading a book and paying attention when I got to dialogue. It, like many other video games, has spawned a series of books, comic books, and a potential movie. It’s not the mass violence that has attracted people to create these other pieces of art, but the rich and beautiful world and the in depth storyline that not only provides in character growth, but can gleam new thoughts upon the gamer / reader / viewer.
Some people dismiss video games as mindless entertainment. As just shoot-em sprees that dumb down the population. Some would argue the same of movies. Some would argue the same for everything not a book; and I’m sure some could argue the same for books. They are all different ways of expressing and displaying a story. Yes, if you look at a game like Castle Wolfenstein, where the plot is “fuck! Nazis are attacking! Kill them all!,” or its offspring Doom (either the movie or the game), where the plot is fuck! Aliens are attacking! Kill them all!,” to Love and Peace, yeah video games are mindless entertainment. But compare a Final Fantasy to a romance smut novel, and its the book that is the mindless entertainment. All forms have their great pieces of artistry, and all forms have their cheap entertainment. There have been movies that have redefined how people look at science fiction, and books that cause no original thought. There are video games which are only about blood, and video games that have compelling story lines where you only play through the action to get to the next bit of the story.
From here on out, I may be spoiling major parts of the game. I am not reviewing these games as video games, but under the concept that video-games can provide just as amount story, emotional attachment, and the reader can learn just as much as from a book. That video games can be just as good of a tool to tell a story as a book.
The Mass Effect series has a huge amount of story through it. The base concept is one I’ve talked about before with Babylon 5, and the council science fiction. There are a bunch of alien races that all have united, and the three strongest of the races rule on a council that rule over the laws of the galaxy. Space travel is done through a series of “Mass Effect” relays. While the game never mentions the Higgs-Boson, the concept is that we find ancient alien technology that allows the races to create “Mass Effect” fields. These fields reduce an objects mass, allowing for faster than light travel, and with that comes space travel. This is one of the theoretical applications of the Higgs-boson. Humans are one of the most recent races to be allowed onto the Citadel, which is a giant base station that serves as the hub for galactic life. It also an alien relic. While I don’t necessarily like the relic bit, it is important to the overall story.
The base storyline is that an entity from dark space is coming to destroy all sentient life in the galaxy. The first game you learn about these Reapers, and that they come whenever sentient life reaches a certain level of intelligence, and then these races are exterminated. The reapers have done this for many “Cycles,” for longer than the known history of the galaxy. In the first game, you stop the Reaper known as Sovereign from taking over, and so reinforcements are sent. In the sequel, another reaper known as Harbinger is sent to assess the situation. In this game, we learn about what monstrosities the reapers commit upon the sentient races, and get more of an idea of what the reapers desire. You manage to stop Harbinger and his race of Collector’s, but that does not mean you won. The third game is all out war, against these giant monstrosities, which not only outnumber the collected races, but also have technology well beyond our own. They come straight for all the major races homeworlds. Being a human, you get to be on Earth when they strike. The rest of the game is you attempting to align the races as well as make a super weapon to fight back against the reapers. The entire game you get to listen to battle reports on Earth, and well...Earth is losing. In the end, victory is achieved, but not without making some very difficult choices.
The series of games allows you to make decisions as you go through. Are you going to be the paragon, the renegade, or something between. The choices you make affect you throughout the series. An example is that in the first game, you find a captured Rachni Queen that you can either kill or save. The rachni were an insect like race where the queen is the only one needed to rebuild the hive. There is a huge backstory on the Rachni that you can choose to learn about, but basically they nearly annihilated all life before they were beat back and supposedly every single one was killed. Human scientists found one remaining egg, which turned to a queen, and they started cloning the Rachni for their own purposes. If you save the Queen, you run into her in the third game, and she desires to help you. If you killed her though, the reapers make a clone-like race which are hell bent on seeing you fail. You didn’t know what the consequence would be, and either could be hard. Not all the “Good” decisions are the ones with positive outcomes either, and some evil decisions turn out to be one that needed to be made at the time, and save you a lot of time and hardship by the finale.
As the game goes through, you build a team to go with you. While this team changes somewhat between the games (only three characters are playable through all three games saying you download all the additional content), all the characters and decisions from the first follow you through to the finale (if they survived!). The team grows alongside you, even in each individual game. For example, one of the lead characters is Liara. In the first game she is a fledgling archaeologist looking into the preceding race known as the Protheans. She is young for her race, and naive, and you save her from a simple trap. She grows, develops, and by the end of the third game she is the leader of an intelligence organization where she is laying the traps. Many of the characters go through similar changes.
She is also a possible love interest. In the game, you get to choose to be male or female, and from that you develop relations with your crews. If you do the right things, some of these relations can lead to sex, or even love. Some of it is in your hands, some of it is based on your choices. Through the series, the game allows for lesbian couplings, and the third allows for a gay coupling as well. It treats each coupling the same, there is no more of a big deal talked about the gay man and his losing of his husband than there is of the wife who lost her husband, or the soldier who lost his wife to the reapers. Your character gets to experience love, and lost, and you can choose to listen to the developing tales of others love lives. In the second game, as the game plays through you can walk through the ship and listen to the crew. One crew member’s families were stuck on a planet expected to be attacked by the collectors, who leave no survivors. You get to listen to a replay of a tape of his son’s birthday party. You get to hear that the planet was being evacuated. You listen to him losing contact with his family. We hear that the collectors did attack the planet. And you overhear from the character, crying at his table, what happened. If that doesn’t evoke any emotion, if you’re not interested in what happened to his family...I don’t know what to say in that case.
The part that made me cry is that I played as the male Shepard, and romanced the character named Tali. Tali is a Quarian, and the backstory of them is they created a synthetic race known as the Geth to help them. What they noticed though is that their Virtual Intelligence (VIs) were becoming Artificial Intelligence (AI), and were becoming smarter and smarter. Before things got out of control, the Quarians tried to kill off the Geth. This caused the Geth to rebel, and the Quarians fled their homeworld. Much like Battlestar Galactica, all the quarians live on a fleet of ships, called the flotilla, that fly through space as they plot to retake their homeworld. They wear body suits that regulate their bodies, and after a few generations of this, all their natural immunities have gone away, and now they are forced to be in their suits at almost all times, or potentially get fatally sick. You also learn that the Quarians live somewhat like the Amish in that when the Quarians reach a specific age they are cast out to learn about outside society, and they can (and more often than not) choose to return to the flotilla with a gift to help the fleet.
In the first game, you meet Tali during her pilgrimage, so she is young and learning the galaxy, although not quite as naive as Liara starts. While you don’t get to romance her in this game, a close friendship is obviously struck. In the sequel, you save her from an attack, and some flirting begins (paraphrased: “are you flirting with me?” “Now why would I do that? I mean, you’ve only been my knight in shining armor twice now, and what girl wouldn’t fall in love with that. I mean, did I just say that...I’m going to go back to working on the engine...”). You are there when her father dies, you are there to clear her name when the Quarians suspect her of sabotage, and you watch her grow from these experiences, and your character can grow as well. Despite the riskiness of the whole act, Tali finds a way to quarantine a room so that she can remove her suit and couple with Shepard. She appears halfways through the third game, and is still much in love with you, but the weight of the Quarian world is on her shoulder. Still, in this game the words of “love” are exchanged between the two of you multiple times, as well as some great emotionally bonding scenes, including one silly one where Tali gets drunk by drinking through an “emergency induction port” (aka: a straw). You help liberate her homeworld, and for the first time she gets to be home. Shepard points out that she now has a home, and she hugs him and tells him “I already have a home.” These particular words have great significance to me, but still I think it demonstrates the emotional connection that has grown.
So why did it make me cry? We get all this connection, all this closeness, and the game ends with your character losing a war. You are running to your final objective when a reaper lands to attack you and your team (note: full reapers are taller than skyscrapers). It grievously injures your party, and Tali can’t go on. You carry her to the evac ship, and she cries out “Shepard, don’t leave me behind!” And the way she says it... I just watched the clip again, and the water works almost started again. Especially considering that the game continues, and the choice I made sacrificed Shepard... and Tali is left alone.
But a good book is more than just the emotional connection. It should explore themes and ideas. As discussed above, it already covers some science fiction, and when I use those words I meant theoretical application of actual science. Another science fiction theme is Synthetic, or AI, versus Organic. Throughout the entire series there is a lot of AIs, good and evil and inbetween. As mentioned with the Quarians, the Geth took over the Quarian homeworld in a war, and throughout the first game and the majority of the second game, the Geth are your major adversary as they worship the Reapers as the ultimate form of synthetics. Of course, there are also the Reapers, which are AIs bent on repeatedly destroying all organics. But then you meet EDI, which is the AI that helps coordinate your ship, the Normandy, and at one point you have to “Unshackle” her, letting her be a full AI without restrictions. In the third game, she acquires a synthetic body, and becomes one of your key team members. Throughout the game, while she has lots of questions about humans, she eventually falls in love with the pilot, Jeff “Joker” Moreau (played by Seth Green) and decides to become more and more human, and is most definitely a positive AI. There is also Legion, a collection of Geth programs (Geth are not their physical bodies, but the individual programs), and while he does not regret the war on Quarians, he does want peace between his race and the Quarians.
Despite the good AI, characters repeatedly mention that AIs and humans are always destined to war with each other. The reason I like the best is given by Javik in the middle of the third, which is: Organics do not know their purpose, nor whom their creator is, so they can make their own purpose and can imagine an infallible God. Synthetics are created with a purpose that they know, and they also know who their creators are and more importantly that their creators are fallible. These fundamental differences are what will always lead Synthetics and AIs to war. You further learn its the reasons the Reapers exist; to “preserve,” in a very sick way, both organic and synthetic races of the cycle before the war between AI and Organic continues.
With that also comes the question of doing what needs to be done. You have to make many hard choices throughout the game. The very concept of the reapers is, while a monstrous solution, is a solution that prevents all organics from being destroyed and allows evolution to continue again. The game isn’t saying there is no right nor wrong, but that not all choices are so clear cut. The Rachni queen is an example, releasing her could release a race that once almost destroyed all the galactic races, but killing it is genocide. Another significant choice is that there is a major mass relay near the Batarian homeworld. The specific Mass Relay is the ones the Reapers use to get into the galaxy. Destroying it will greatly slow down the oncoming Reapers, but in doing so you will destroy the homeworld of the Batarians. Now, Batarians are a race who view slavery as a cultural right, so they are total assholes... but you are destroying their homeworld! Do you make the choice to destroy the relay and kill millions, to potentially save billions?
One great writer, Isaac Asimov, spent much of his career writing about the potential problems with AI, alongside many other authors who have explored similar scenarios. This video game gives the same inspective depth as other books. The story is there, and displayed through dialogue. The major difference is that you have some choice how you respond to what a character says, and that you are watching and listening to a character on your screen as opposed to reading it. Countless books, especially post-WWII era, have explored the idea of doing what must be done. This game was able to explore those concepts, but in a different fashion. The game put us in the shoes to make the decisions, and it teaches the lesson. While similar to some books, its a different tool to teach the same lesson.
The game does have lots of violence in it. Much of the game is running around with your team killing Geth, Cerberus agents, Reapers and their minions, and doing lots of little side missions, some of galactic importance and others are settling personal vendettas for individual characters. But, between the gameplay is an in depth story line. A friend of mine hates playing video games, but the story was so interesting that she asked to be invited to listen to the plot points, or would sit beside me reading a book and paying attention when I got to dialogue. It, like many other video games, has spawned a series of books, comic books, and a potential movie. It’s not the mass violence that has attracted people to create these other pieces of art, but the rich and beautiful world and the in depth storyline that not only provides in character growth, but can gleam new thoughts upon the gamer / reader / viewer.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Mocking Jay
Mocking Jay
The trilogy’s final is here and read, and this time read through a glowing screen. I didn’t know anyone who physically owned the finale of Suzanne Collins young adult series The Hunger Games, but I did have a friend who owned it on their Amazon kindle. Amazon has a feature where you can lend your digital books to your friends for a 2 week period of time. Despite having the feature, I don’t think Amazon actually wants people to use it as it was not a simple process to either send the book, nor to receive and read it.
When the process of getting the actual book onto my device was done, reading the book off my phone (an Android Razr HD using the Amazon Kindle App) was easy. While I know lots of people with kindles or other e-book reading devices, I rarely hear anything good about digital reading. Generally the complaints are Giles-esque, missing something superficial like the smell of the book. I did miss the feel of a page in my hand, or mass flipping pages to see when the next chapter begins so I know how many pages I have to go through. But I miss them because that’s what I’ve been doing all my life; reading is associated with these antiquated notions, and its not necessarily that one is superior to the other. The print on my phone was the perfect size, and while each page was smaller, that was actually a benefit to me considering I read while at work and am frequently interrupted, and a smaller page makes it easier for me to find my place. Staring at a screen can cause eye-strain (when staring at a screen, you blink less which can cause your eyes to feel strained), but it never affected me in that way. A big benefit to me is that I don’t own a night light, or a desk lamp, or any small lighting device near my bed. If I want to read in bed, I have to get up, cross my room, and turn the light on, and repeat the process when I’m done. Reading from a device means the light from the device is all I needed. Now, when I go camping again, this will eat a lot of batteries, and if the battery dies I lose out on reading. But, when I’m around town or in an area where I know I have easy access to a plug-in, its much easier to carry my cell-phone, which is always in my pocket, then it is to carry an extra book. After reading it, I don’t have a preference for future books.
But I did more than just read on my Kindle, I actually did read a book. A book which will now be spoilered if you continue.
For the final time, the book focuses on Katniss Everdeen. A 17 year old female who tries to be self reliant, but is actually pretty paranoid and reads way too much into everything everyone says. This book at least gives her more reason to actually be paranoid. She has multiple characters that tell her she is just being used; she is also being manipulated from afar by President Snow. She still in love with two different men, and she doesn’t want to admit it, and her little heart strings are pulled through out the book. Oh yeah, and she’s the figurehead of a war after her home city has been firebombed to nothing. She does not mature throughout this book. In fact, she goes a little bit more crazy. Its not entirely unexpected, considering everything she’s been forced to handle and that through the large majority of the time period that the book covers, she is so heavily drugged and removed from society that the world doesn’t even make sense. I still would have preferred a character that matured over time, or more of a denouement. Instead, the book goes through preparing for the war, winning the war, to her assassinating the president, to “and everything was happily ever after.” Seriously, the book just feels like it ends. The epilogue doesn’t count, in fact, I’m going to rant about that later. But first...
The driving factor in this book isn’t my interest in Katniss anymore. The first book I was right there with Katniss, rooting for Katniss, and totally rooting for her as a friend (partially because she was very similar to one of my friends in real life). There’s this book I once read where its all told through a rat’s perspective. The rat isn’t anthropomorphised (yes, I did spell that correctly on the first try) or anything like that, its just a rat running through this apartment complex and sees things. You don’t care about the rat, you’re not supposed to. The rat is just a tool on how to witness the various characters and the plot that unfolds. Katniss is almost that rat. I care about what’s going on with the war, I care what’s going on with Finnick and his wife, I care about what Gale and Beetee are planning, and most of all, I care about the incredibly tortured Peeta. The difference between Katniss and the rat is I care about these characters because of how they relate and interact with her, but not because of her herself. I care about Peeta because he’s constantly tried to protect her through the books; I care about the war because we saw the aftermath of the firebombing of District 12 through Katniss’ eyes. But in the end, I read because I want to see how the world turns out, and not because I’m invested in Katniss any longer. That care and concern for Katniss left me in book 2. She was no longer my friend, but that crazy chick that is always around you, and you gave her advice and she doesn’t take it and keeps going crazy over the same bullshit. Which is just too bad, I liked her so much in the first one.
Something I enjoyed about this book is that it was no longer a black and white story line. It was no longer “Capitol evil, 13 good.”. Yes, The Capitol is evil, but how clean is 13? They are still strong and controlling, and human life is still only a number of calculations. We see how people get pushed to that edge to act like the capitol. There is a vote as to whether or not a Hunger Games should be held. Yes, we see 13 cross this line, but more importantly, we see Gale go well beyond that line. Gale’s plan to take The Nut specifically, but also his emotional trap that is later used to kill Prim. I can’t blame Gale for his crossing the line, I understand why he has snapped.
The book ends with with Peeta asking Katniss if she loves him, Real or Not Real. That’s the ending I like. While it left a lot of strings open, it allowed me to dream the future they might have. Then there’s an epilogue. An epilogue where Katniss and Peeta made the decision to breed. Hate. The way it is described sounds like Peeta pressured her into it. Even after 20 years, I don’t envision Katniss giving in to pressure about something like that. Now, Katniss’ original argument against having children was she didn’t want to watch them go through the reaping for The Hunger Games. Yet, somehow I feel that “because my husband was driven insane and used to go on murderous rampages, and he’s the sane one in the family” is a better reason not to reproduce. At the end of the second book, I had made a wish that Katniss ended with neither Peeta or Gale. Through the adventures in the third book, I am okay with her being with Peeta. He’s the character who got her only real change to occur, which was to stick through it with another person, and not just judge them on how well they serve her.
Despite my dislike for the end, and my apathy towards Katniss’ character, I liked the book much more than I liked the second book, Catching Fire. If Katniss had been more of a relatable character to me, I may have even liked this book more than the first, Hunger Games, as it had a much better plot line, even if the book left so many threads open. It was still a quick and easy read, but the content was much more mature. As with the second one, I really look forward to seeing how this is done on the big screen. The sequel, currently slated to be released November 2013, and this movie will both probably get rid of much of the middle, and focus on the “games” part of the book. Where all the action takes place; but the action that they have to show is going to be outright riveting. I will definitely be paying to see it.
The trilogy’s final is here and read, and this time read through a glowing screen. I didn’t know anyone who physically owned the finale of Suzanne Collins young adult series The Hunger Games, but I did have a friend who owned it on their Amazon kindle. Amazon has a feature where you can lend your digital books to your friends for a 2 week period of time. Despite having the feature, I don’t think Amazon actually wants people to use it as it was not a simple process to either send the book, nor to receive and read it.
When the process of getting the actual book onto my device was done, reading the book off my phone (an Android Razr HD using the Amazon Kindle App) was easy. While I know lots of people with kindles or other e-book reading devices, I rarely hear anything good about digital reading. Generally the complaints are Giles-esque, missing something superficial like the smell of the book. I did miss the feel of a page in my hand, or mass flipping pages to see when the next chapter begins so I know how many pages I have to go through. But I miss them because that’s what I’ve been doing all my life; reading is associated with these antiquated notions, and its not necessarily that one is superior to the other. The print on my phone was the perfect size, and while each page was smaller, that was actually a benefit to me considering I read while at work and am frequently interrupted, and a smaller page makes it easier for me to find my place. Staring at a screen can cause eye-strain (when staring at a screen, you blink less which can cause your eyes to feel strained), but it never affected me in that way. A big benefit to me is that I don’t own a night light, or a desk lamp, or any small lighting device near my bed. If I want to read in bed, I have to get up, cross my room, and turn the light on, and repeat the process when I’m done. Reading from a device means the light from the device is all I needed. Now, when I go camping again, this will eat a lot of batteries, and if the battery dies I lose out on reading. But, when I’m around town or in an area where I know I have easy access to a plug-in, its much easier to carry my cell-phone, which is always in my pocket, then it is to carry an extra book. After reading it, I don’t have a preference for future books.
But I did more than just read on my Kindle, I actually did read a book. A book which will now be spoilered if you continue.
The series of the books is classified as “Young Adult,” and I might not understand what that means. Part of the problem is that by the time I turned 13, I had already read many Stephen King books, including The Stand, which includes not only gruesome deaths, but plenty of sex. My idea of what a “Young Adult” may read is a little warped. Still, this book felt a lot more “adult” than its predecessors. There were people melting, heads getting bitten off, people being set on fire, and a much deeper plot. Comparing the last Harry Potter to the first, there was growth... but that was 7 books over 10 years, and the audience reading the book grew up alongside the characters during that time. The Hunger Games was 3 books in under 2 years; the audience had not grown nearly as much, and the character of the book had barely grown as well. As a 28 year old male reading the books, I was happy to see it go from what felt childish to me (read my review of The Hunger Games), to almost a mature book that just focuses on the life of a 17 year old, but it was still shocking.
For the final time, the book focuses on Katniss Everdeen. A 17 year old female who tries to be self reliant, but is actually pretty paranoid and reads way too much into everything everyone says. This book at least gives her more reason to actually be paranoid. She has multiple characters that tell her she is just being used; she is also being manipulated from afar by President Snow. She still in love with two different men, and she doesn’t want to admit it, and her little heart strings are pulled through out the book. Oh yeah, and she’s the figurehead of a war after her home city has been firebombed to nothing. She does not mature throughout this book. In fact, she goes a little bit more crazy. Its not entirely unexpected, considering everything she’s been forced to handle and that through the large majority of the time period that the book covers, she is so heavily drugged and removed from society that the world doesn’t even make sense. I still would have preferred a character that matured over time, or more of a denouement. Instead, the book goes through preparing for the war, winning the war, to her assassinating the president, to “and everything was happily ever after.” Seriously, the book just feels like it ends. The epilogue doesn’t count, in fact, I’m going to rant about that later. But first...
The driving factor in this book isn’t my interest in Katniss anymore. The first book I was right there with Katniss, rooting for Katniss, and totally rooting for her as a friend (partially because she was very similar to one of my friends in real life). There’s this book I once read where its all told through a rat’s perspective. The rat isn’t anthropomorphised (yes, I did spell that correctly on the first try) or anything like that, its just a rat running through this apartment complex and sees things. You don’t care about the rat, you’re not supposed to. The rat is just a tool on how to witness the various characters and the plot that unfolds. Katniss is almost that rat. I care about what’s going on with the war, I care what’s going on with Finnick and his wife, I care about what Gale and Beetee are planning, and most of all, I care about the incredibly tortured Peeta. The difference between Katniss and the rat is I care about these characters because of how they relate and interact with her, but not because of her herself. I care about Peeta because he’s constantly tried to protect her through the books; I care about the war because we saw the aftermath of the firebombing of District 12 through Katniss’ eyes. But in the end, I read because I want to see how the world turns out, and not because I’m invested in Katniss any longer. That care and concern for Katniss left me in book 2. She was no longer my friend, but that crazy chick that is always around you, and you gave her advice and she doesn’t take it and keeps going crazy over the same bullshit. Which is just too bad, I liked her so much in the first one.
Something I enjoyed about this book is that it was no longer a black and white story line. It was no longer “Capitol evil, 13 good.”. Yes, The Capitol is evil, but how clean is 13? They are still strong and controlling, and human life is still only a number of calculations. We see how people get pushed to that edge to act like the capitol. There is a vote as to whether or not a Hunger Games should be held. Yes, we see 13 cross this line, but more importantly, we see Gale go well beyond that line. Gale’s plan to take The Nut specifically, but also his emotional trap that is later used to kill Prim. I can’t blame Gale for his crossing the line, I understand why he has snapped.
The question of what side is good is further pushed by Peeta, and his repeated question “Real or Not Real.” It shows up most at the end, when the war is too far along to stop. But its important to have in your mind. Who is trying to kill Katniss more, Snow or Coin? We question who Katniss’ friends are, we question who her enemies are, and as soon as we get an answer, we might have to ask again. At the end, the only question I felt answered is Peeta and Haymitch, which are the two characters that I never actually questioned. Katniss’ point of view tried to make me question their intents, but to me I didn’t. They had long ago proven their worth and love.
The book ends with with Peeta asking Katniss if she loves him, Real or Not Real. That’s the ending I like. While it left a lot of strings open, it allowed me to dream the future they might have. Then there’s an epilogue. An epilogue where Katniss and Peeta made the decision to breed. Hate. The way it is described sounds like Peeta pressured her into it. Even after 20 years, I don’t envision Katniss giving in to pressure about something like that. Now, Katniss’ original argument against having children was she didn’t want to watch them go through the reaping for The Hunger Games. Yet, somehow I feel that “because my husband was driven insane and used to go on murderous rampages, and he’s the sane one in the family” is a better reason not to reproduce. At the end of the second book, I had made a wish that Katniss ended with neither Peeta or Gale. Through the adventures in the third book, I am okay with her being with Peeta. He’s the character who got her only real change to occur, which was to stick through it with another person, and not just judge them on how well they serve her.
Despite my dislike for the end, and my apathy towards Katniss’ character, I liked the book much more than I liked the second book, Catching Fire. If Katniss had been more of a relatable character to me, I may have even liked this book more than the first, Hunger Games, as it had a much better plot line, even if the book left so many threads open. It was still a quick and easy read, but the content was much more mature. As with the second one, I really look forward to seeing how this is done on the big screen. The sequel, currently slated to be released November 2013, and this movie will both probably get rid of much of the middle, and focus on the “games” part of the book. Where all the action takes place; but the action that they have to show is going to be outright riveting. I will definitely be paying to see it.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
Man’s Search for Meaning:
When getting back into psychology, I asked one of my good friends who she would suggest I read. Back when I took psychology, Freud was still taught as credible, and we barely even talked about Jung, yet anyone else beyond that. My friend is currently writing her thesis for her masters in psychology, and her suggestions to catch me up with modern psychology were numerous. One book came up as most important, and that was Viktor E. Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
This book is separated in three parts. The first section is his experience surviving through the concentration camps in WWII. The life he lived as a jew in Germany, in Auschwitz, and how he and others survived. He uses that experience to form, or build, upon his theory of psychology called Logotherapy. The next section, he gives detailed definitions, examples, and explains why he believes these things, and draws from his aforementioned experience in the camps. The third section is a speech, and argument, for logotherapy and how it should grow.
Despite being only 175 pages long, with large type on small pages, this book was definitely a much harder read. Often while recalling life in the concentration camp, he mentions how hard it is for people to understand. He is wrong. It is impossible for me to put myself in his shoes. It is impossible for me to image trying to survive on a piece of rotting bread and “soup” that is actually just boiled water. It is impossible for me to conceive of trying to do manual labor for 18 hours a day with no nourishment, no loved ones or family, while being beaten by my guards. Hell, I can’t even imagine having a guard watching me work all day long, yelling at me if I waste any amount of time. All of this is beyond me, and that is not even including having to watch smoke pour from a stack, and knowing that the smoke could be someone I love. Reading this section was long and arduous, and it made picking up the book difficult.
But it led to something good. Reading that section served a purpose, and that is what the book is about. How people can survive horrible suffering. They do it by having meaning in their life. My understanding of logotherapy is its a process to help one realize what their meaning is. The other two primary theories at the time of his writing was that all things were sexual in nature, as purported by Freud, and solving a problem was to figure out what happened to them as a child, and the other was power based, that all problems were a conflict to gain power in some fashion. Both of those theories look to “Cure” the problem, in a way to remove it like a cancer.
Logotherapy does not seek to remove suffering, but to give suffering reason. People who feel like they have meaning in life are happier people, no matter their condition. A person in a cruel situation can be happier than a person with all the things in the world, if the person has meaning. He was able to survive his situation, partially because he was lucky, but because he had purpose in his life. His purpose was to finish his manuscript. Other people’s meaning came from their family, their loved one, to accomplish a great deed afterwards, anything that gave them a reason to continue was a thing they used to continue and not quit on life. He talked about a lot of people in the concentration camps just quitting, people who literally just laid down and died. They no longer felt like they had a purpose, and such their pain was unnecessary, and there was an obvious way out. He uses this as an example for modern day ways of quitting on life as well, such as drug addiction or suicide.
He talks about how you can give meaning to your suffering. If you are suffering needlessly, than that is masochistic, but if it is a situation you can’t avoid you can find the best of it. If you can find a reason for your suffering, you can overcome it. Its not that the suffering goes away, but that it becomes bearable. And by giving it purpose, you become stronger. It is one’s outlook on life that truly affects their happiness, and not the situation surrounding them (albeit, those situations obviously affect things).
One of my favorite quote from the book is: “Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment” (pg 154). While I may not get to choose whether I suffer or not, I can choose how I deal with my suffering, and what I allow my pain to change me into.
When getting back into psychology, I asked one of my good friends who she would suggest I read. Back when I took psychology, Freud was still taught as credible, and we barely even talked about Jung, yet anyone else beyond that. My friend is currently writing her thesis for her masters in psychology, and her suggestions to catch me up with modern psychology were numerous. One book came up as most important, and that was Viktor E. Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
This book is separated in three parts. The first section is his experience surviving through the concentration camps in WWII. The life he lived as a jew in Germany, in Auschwitz, and how he and others survived. He uses that experience to form, or build, upon his theory of psychology called Logotherapy. The next section, he gives detailed definitions, examples, and explains why he believes these things, and draws from his aforementioned experience in the camps. The third section is a speech, and argument, for logotherapy and how it should grow.
Despite being only 175 pages long, with large type on small pages, this book was definitely a much harder read. Often while recalling life in the concentration camp, he mentions how hard it is for people to understand. He is wrong. It is impossible for me to put myself in his shoes. It is impossible for me to image trying to survive on a piece of rotting bread and “soup” that is actually just boiled water. It is impossible for me to conceive of trying to do manual labor for 18 hours a day with no nourishment, no loved ones or family, while being beaten by my guards. Hell, I can’t even imagine having a guard watching me work all day long, yelling at me if I waste any amount of time. All of this is beyond me, and that is not even including having to watch smoke pour from a stack, and knowing that the smoke could be someone I love. Reading this section was long and arduous, and it made picking up the book difficult.
But it led to something good. Reading that section served a purpose, and that is what the book is about. How people can survive horrible suffering. They do it by having meaning in their life. My understanding of logotherapy is its a process to help one realize what their meaning is. The other two primary theories at the time of his writing was that all things were sexual in nature, as purported by Freud, and solving a problem was to figure out what happened to them as a child, and the other was power based, that all problems were a conflict to gain power in some fashion. Both of those theories look to “Cure” the problem, in a way to remove it like a cancer.
Logotherapy does not seek to remove suffering, but to give suffering reason. People who feel like they have meaning in life are happier people, no matter their condition. A person in a cruel situation can be happier than a person with all the things in the world, if the person has meaning. He was able to survive his situation, partially because he was lucky, but because he had purpose in his life. His purpose was to finish his manuscript. Other people’s meaning came from their family, their loved one, to accomplish a great deed afterwards, anything that gave them a reason to continue was a thing they used to continue and not quit on life. He talked about a lot of people in the concentration camps just quitting, people who literally just laid down and died. They no longer felt like they had a purpose, and such their pain was unnecessary, and there was an obvious way out. He uses this as an example for modern day ways of quitting on life as well, such as drug addiction or suicide.
He talks about how you can give meaning to your suffering. If you are suffering needlessly, than that is masochistic, but if it is a situation you can’t avoid you can find the best of it. If you can find a reason for your suffering, you can overcome it. Its not that the suffering goes away, but that it becomes bearable. And by giving it purpose, you become stronger. It is one’s outlook on life that truly affects their happiness, and not the situation surrounding them (albeit, those situations obviously affect things).
One thing I strongly agreed with Frankl about was that the Western world has taught people that they have to be happy. That if you aren’t happy, you are doing something wrong. This makes many people who do not feel happy like they are suffering for nothing. There is very little telling them its okay to be in pain, or that the pain will bring about anything good. Because of this, when people are in pain, it’s made worse. It adds a hopeless feeling, a feeling of failure, on top of the misery they are inflicted with. But through giving the suffering meaning, the pain has a point, it is not useless, and the individual is not a failure, and thus they only have to deal with the pain itself. Logotherapy isn’t about removing the pain, but using the pain to make something better out of it.
I’ll relate a story of my own. I haven’t been in a concentration camp, so I can’t bring up such a horrible story. The easiest story to relate to though is a break up. After a breakup, my ex had managed to find another much quicker than me, and seeing / knowing she was with someone else hurt me at the time. Still, I stuck with her, and having stayed through with her I got to experience the painful knowledge of his presence more. But, for the most part it was bearable because I knew her friendship was worth it. I would even ask how the relationship was going. I was resolved that keeping someone that had been one of the most important people in my life for 8 years by that point was worth keeping around for the next chapter in my life, and it gave my pain meaning. My worst suffering, the times I broke down, was when I felt that the meaning of my pain had been ripped away. When I felt, whether it be real or not, that our friendship would not survive, that I was being tossed to the side. I was willing to be in pain because the friendship was worth it, but if there was no friendship, then that meant my pain had no meaning...and that was when I was at my worst. My reaction was a scramble to reaffirm that what I was going through had merit. And once my worries had been assuaged, for the most part I was better. Another story could be a college student trying to get through college. If they feel that their attempts has merit, they will push on through, but if they feel that their attempts are for nothing, they will most likely drop out. Another would be my grandfather, who stayed alive until all his things were put in order, and shortly after that he passed. He had finished what he accomplished, so he no longer needed to be in pain. (For those concerned, she is still my best friend, and the pain I felt was worth it).
By giving something meaning, you aren’t fighting against it but using it to create something better. That brings us to another point of his of overcoming some conditions. He had a specific example of insomnia, which as an insomniac, I could relate to. If you see insomnia as something wrong that needs to be removed, you fight it. You go against it, and lay in your bed, crunching your eyes closed trying to sleep, and it never comes. The fight is futile, and you know that, and you can’t overcome it. The suggestion he gives, and now a common suggestion for insomniacs, is to give your suffering meaning. If you can’t sleep, do something active. At times, simply being free from the pressure of having to sleep allows one to pass out, or more that the stress of trying to sleep kept you from sleeping. It doesn’t always work, as some of my insomnia is actually chemical, in which case my being productive makes my inability to sleep be more enjoyable, more bearable. I am not suffering needlessly. And he makes a big point about that, it’s still important to remove unnecessary suffering.... but if it you must suffer, there are ways to make it manageable. To make it a growing experience.
Due to the nature of this writing, and the premise of it, the book had times where it felt cultish. Since this was him breaking down something that he wrote 20 volumes into a single, and small book, that could be easily digested, much of the research and numbers are not included. A lot of the stories are personal stories or anecdotal. He includes 20 pages of suggested readings, of research you can look up, and just add ins to get more information, but without that it does feel a little “prescribe to my method and I’ll make you all better! By my book! Drink this kool-aid!” But, seeing as he is an actual respected psychologist with many peered reviewed publications, it is just a problem with trying to write something scientific without including a large amount of statistical analysis.
One of my favorite quote from the book is: “Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment” (pg 154). While I may not get to choose whether I suffer or not, I can choose how I deal with my suffering, and what I allow my pain to change me into.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Making Sushi
Last night was the first time I made my own sushi rolls with the help of two friends and here's the procedure we used, as complete amateurs, to make our sushi rolls:
Get the proper tools. Outside of the sushi-roll mat thing, its all just want you to put on your sushi. We have the wrap stuff, sticky rice, carrots, asparagus, avocado, cilantro, cream cheese, spicy tuna (which was just mince tuna, add a bunch of siracha, and then mix it all up), tuna, salmon, shrimp, and sake. Sake wasn't put directly in anything but our glasses and bellies.
Place the seaweed wrap on the mat. Mostly just a picture to beg for advertisement money from that wrap company! GIMME MONEY...or free wrap.
Then you get to load your roll up. You put it all on the bottom, or one person did middle, so it rolls nice and neat. I made two of these bad boys. This one consists of salmon, cilantro, cream cheese, and avocado. My other consisted of Avocado, Cream Cheese, Spicy Tuna, and Shrimp.
Roll that bad boy up! The mat is there to help get it tight, especially the first roll (as in procedure, not as in first sushi roll) or two, or else it will be kind of messy. I rolled mine with my hands, and it was close, but the edge pieces were definitely...crumbly.
Mine's the one on the right. You see what I mean by crumbly? Still delicious, but crumbly.
After rolling them, you cut them as you please. It should be a nice quick saw motion with a non-serrated blade. If it feels hard to cut at all, just rinse the knife.
Oh yeah, high ball glasses filled with soy sauce are classy.
This is my avocado, cream cheese, shrimp, and spicy tuna. As you can see, its a much tighter roll and easier to handle. Part of that is I used a LOT less rice, and the other part is I tried harder.
So the last stop is the best step...ENJOY!
I only have one or two consistent readers...but we should totally do this. It tasted like top notch sushi (if its not from a place that does deep-fry or specialty sauces), but also gives quite a fun experience.
Then comes the sticky rice. Get a bowl for water so you can wet your fingers (the sticky rice will, believe it or not, stick to your fingers). The idea is to get a consistent thickness rice.
I put way too much rice on. You're supposed to leave enough free seaweed that you can have it cling and close the roll. I left only that. How much rice you use is specific to how much is going in your roll, and we all made huge rolls...and yet still this was way too much. I was told you normally only cover like 1/2-2/3 of the sheet.
Oh yeah, high ball glasses filled with soy sauce are classy.
This is my avocado, cream cheese, shrimp, and spicy tuna. As you can see, its a much tighter roll and easier to handle. Part of that is I used a LOT less rice, and the other part is I tried harder.
So the last stop is the best step...ENJOY!
I only have one or two consistent readers...but we should totally do this. It tasted like top notch sushi (if its not from a place that does deep-fry or specialty sauces), but also gives quite a fun experience.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
GWAR
GWAR!
Alright, for those who don't know what Gwar is... they are a metal band. If you don't know metal, you probably remember them from Empire Records (1995), from Mark's pot-brownie dream as the band that tries to eat him. They are well known for their crazy get ups and characters. In fact, their CD's and characters have followed a story line of sorts. The story is something along the lines that they were outcast from their planet, and they are going around the universe conquering it. Earth is their current conquest.
I mentioned above they are metal; more specifically, they are Thrash Metal or Shock Punk. The fact that they are "shock" should be no surprise when band members have names like "Jizmak da Gusha," and the lead vocalist is "Oderus Urungus" who stands on stage with his massive cuttlefish and broadsword. By broadsword I mean broadsword. By cuttlefish, I mean (fake prosthetic) dick. All the stage hands, that occasionally run out, are wearing man thongs, and their songs and show are filled with jokingly offensive material.
Their concerts deserve the word "Show." It's equal parts rocking out to thrash metal as it is watching a play. The "play" consists of a massive amount of decapitation, mutilation, masturbation, and over all attempting to be "offensive." And by "offensive," I mean its all in good fun. Come on, its a band called Gwar that is coming out dressed up as aliens.
A big thing, that I forgot to do this year, is to come to the concert in a white shirt, because bodily fluids are constantly being shot into the crowd. Generally its "blood" spurting from a decapitated body, but when the dead babies come out masturbation does occur. All these fluids are actually dyes, hence the wearing a white shirt. You go in, and you leave with a brand new Gwar-stained shirt. Again, all in good fun. A note: There are quite a few "Shock" bands that do fling actual bodily fluid or human excrement into the crowd...yeah, not for me...but this show is meant to be ridiculous and fun.
Anyways, onto my experience last night ...with pictures!
Here's the stage. Yeah, that's a massive drum set. There are also two podiums on either side of it.
At the end of the set up, a booming voice comes on and announces that its God, and the end days are upon us. God is going to start by first killing Gwar, and then all of us in the audience. To kill Gwar, God is going to unleash the nastiest, most horrendous, and despicable people upon Gwar to destroy them.
Gwar comes on stage, to find Romney and the 47%. Oderus (above) uses his sword to cuts the 47% head off, followed by spitting on Romney, and decapitating him as well. In the picture is one of the beheaded guys spurting blood as Oderus sings.
First picture is Pustulus Maximus, who is actually the newest member. Cory Smoot played Flattus Maximus (as in, Maximum Flatulence, caused by his diet of eating only Vegeterians) died of natural causes after being with the band for 9 years. They retired his character, and brought in Pustulus Maximus.
Second Picture is Oderus Urungus. I couldn't get upstairs, so I never got a good picture of his junk, but it is hilarious. Next is Beefcake the Mighty, and in the last picture we also see Balsac, the Jaws of Death. Again, due to not getting upstairs, as well as the massive drumset, I couldn't get a good picture of Jizmak da Gusha.
After that God goes silent, and they decide to taunt God. Not pictured is they sewed three dead babies together and played "ring around the posies" with them while Oderus masturbated. Yeah, I purposefully didn't take pictures of that.
They then brought out Jesus, who is "like, the Son of God or some shit like that." After crucifying him, they decide that was unoriginal, and tear him limb from limb, and flay him alive. Again, the crowd went wild and taking a picture of that became impossible. I had a picture of Jesus lower half body surfing, but it was impossible to see what was going on...but yeah. It did happen.
God remains quiet for awhile, and they keep rocking out. UNTIL...
Alright, for those who don't know what Gwar is... they are a metal band. If you don't know metal, you probably remember them from Empire Records (1995), from Mark's pot-brownie dream as the band that tries to eat him. They are well known for their crazy get ups and characters. In fact, their CD's and characters have followed a story line of sorts. The story is something along the lines that they were outcast from their planet, and they are going around the universe conquering it. Earth is their current conquest.
I mentioned above they are metal; more specifically, they are Thrash Metal or Shock Punk. The fact that they are "shock" should be no surprise when band members have names like "Jizmak da Gusha," and the lead vocalist is "Oderus Urungus" who stands on stage with his massive cuttlefish and broadsword. By broadsword I mean broadsword. By cuttlefish, I mean (fake prosthetic) dick. All the stage hands, that occasionally run out, are wearing man thongs, and their songs and show are filled with jokingly offensive material.
Their concerts deserve the word "Show." It's equal parts rocking out to thrash metal as it is watching a play. The "play" consists of a massive amount of decapitation, mutilation, masturbation, and over all attempting to be "offensive." And by "offensive," I mean its all in good fun. Come on, its a band called Gwar that is coming out dressed up as aliens.
A big thing, that I forgot to do this year, is to come to the concert in a white shirt, because bodily fluids are constantly being shot into the crowd. Generally its "blood" spurting from a decapitated body, but when the dead babies come out masturbation does occur. All these fluids are actually dyes, hence the wearing a white shirt. You go in, and you leave with a brand new Gwar-stained shirt. Again, all in good fun. A note: There are quite a few "Shock" bands that do fling actual bodily fluid or human excrement into the crowd...yeah, not for me...but this show is meant to be ridiculous and fun.
Anyways, onto my experience last night ...with pictures!
At the end of the set up, a booming voice comes on and announces that its God, and the end days are upon us. God is going to start by first killing Gwar, and then all of us in the audience. To kill Gwar, God is going to unleash the nastiest, most horrendous, and despicable people upon Gwar to destroy them.
Second Picture is Oderus Urungus. I couldn't get upstairs, so I never got a good picture of his junk, but it is hilarious. Next is Beefcake the Mighty, and in the last picture we also see Balsac, the Jaws of Death. Again, due to not getting upstairs, as well as the massive drumset, I couldn't get a good picture of Jizmak da Gusha.
And some of the people sent to kill Gwar. I don't know if they named the first guy or not, but after they disarm him, the guy stayed on stage and danced for much of the show.
Hitler showed up. They let Hitler defend his actions, in which Hitler just shouted a bunch of angry German at us. Gwar's response was "Pretty sure you're an asshole," to which they then RIPPED OFF HIS FACE. His eyes and brain popped out, and his tongue unrolled, and blood shot everywhere. Unfortunately, the crowd went insane and I couldn't get a good picture of that.
Oh yeah, and bringing out the world's worst people isn't complete until you bring out a pope. I love the picture I took, the entire silhoueted Rock sign as Oderus puts an axe straight into the pope's head...yeah, rock. They then tore his head, and it spurted blood everywhere.
They then brought out Jesus, who is "like, the Son of God or some shit like that." After crucifying him, they decide that was unoriginal, and tear him limb from limb, and flay him alive. Again, the crowd went wild and taking a picture of that became impossible. I had a picture of Jesus lower half body surfing, but it was impossible to see what was going on...but yeah. It did happen.
God remains quiet for awhile, and they keep rocking out. UNTIL...
God unleashes his ultimate weapon: Giant Cyborg Jesus. They fight Giant Cyborg Jesus, and defeat him. Which was just hilarious.
God then threatens to manifest in physical form and destroy them. They look around, and wait. He never shows, the green dude (I didn't catch his name) asks when God is going to show, to which Oderus laughs "Oh yeah, God doesn't even exist!" And then they rock out a little more.
Obama came out and congratulated Gwar. That was nice of him. Gwar comes out and tells Obama that they are glad he kicked the shit out of Romney, but... and they behead him as well. There was a huge roar of cheer to the kicking the shit out of Romney line. Obama's death was the crowd's least enjoyed slaughter, but they did just fight giant cyborg Jesus...so everything is in good fun.
And then they rocked out some more.
I did go into the moshpit. It was manageable for the band prior, but once Gwar got on stage, so many people flooded into the room that it was hard to open up any space for a pit. Even with that said, it was absolutely ridiculous show, hilarious, and fun.
And that was my experience at my first Gwar concert. I look forward to the next time they come up, and that time I'll be sure to be wearing a white tee.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Babylon 5
Babylon 5:
I got into a sci-fi craze. Specifically, the type of science fiction where humans have met other space faring races and are attempting to keep peace in the universe. Generally this involves a tentative council between a few “Superior” races, which the humans are counted as, and a bunch of lesser races under the council’s protection, and then some outlying races that reside in the terminus, or dark space, or over-all outside the majority of the galaxy. This can also include a fear of something great and mysterious, nearly God-like, beyond. I was watching Star Trek (The Next Generation, and Enterprise, with plans to watch Deep Space Nine), while also playing Mass Effect 1 and 2 (I am currently on the 3rd one). I also had a list of books I was, or still am, going to read that deal with these subjects as well when an awesome friend decided to loan me the Babylon 5 series.
Babylon 5 is a perfect example of this archetype of science fiction. Babylon 5 started in 1994, 1 year after Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and aired for 5 seasons, along with multiple movies and a few short live spin-offs. Babylon 5 is, as stated at the beginning of nearly every episode:
I also liked that the show didn’t just climax with the large war, and end there, but that it went into the aftermath. The Vorlons and Shadows are dealt with, but they still had left corruption in two governments, and there were other races willing to try to take advantage of the whole situation. No war is simply just won without fall out, and the show gets into that. Unfortunately, it is all action after the climax, which makes it a little more boring, but the show does try to keep it up. A Civil War is never as interesting as the entire universe being threatened.
Yet the problem I had with the finale is it focussed on the psi-core. Its not how the story was told, although Garibaldi being brainwashed to randomly turn insane was kind of annoying, but something even more basic. I don’t really like Telepaths in my science fiction, or at least not when its a genetic mutation. Sometimes I’m willing to accept psychics if its a mechanical thing, or just an intra-race thing, but when its just walk into a room and know anything... that’s fantasy to me. Beyond that though, its a power that is incredibly powerful, and in a way lessens what other characters actually are capable of. The large majority of the ending dealt with these psi-core, and thus psychics. Now, the storyline itself was interesting. The telepaths were created as weapons against the Shadows by the Vorlons, and given to every race. But their power automatically makes them disliked by the majority of people. Now we have three factions, telepaths who want to fit in, telepaths who believe they are Homo Superiorus and want to take over the human race, and telepaths who just want all the telepaths of all races to be given a homeworld so they can live alone. This battle between them is definitely intriguing, and kept me interested in its own regard, but for the over-all plot I felt that there was enough in the world of science fiction that something else could have been used. At least they dumped the “Techno-mages,” which while I’ve read some awesome books about, those were Sci-Fantasy.
The show had a few made for TV movies, and spin offs as well. Two of the movies, Third Space (1998) and The River of Souls (1998) were movies that were completely disconnected from the plot line. If the show had been episodic, it is possible these movies could have been fun... but the only connection they had was the characters that were used. Third Space was referenced in the show, but unfortunately the movie itself countered some of the pre-existing knowledge of the universe (who the ancient and eldest races were). It also helped explain their version of space travel (hyper-space). The River of Souls expands the storyline of the “Soul Harvesters” and made them sound less like collecting souls, and more like collecting a person’s memories. It also included Martin Sheen’s worst performance as an actor, ever. The other movies were related to the show. The Gathering started off the entire show, and I wish I had watched it first as it would have helped ease me into the show as compared to the seemingly random first episodes. The rest of the TV Movies were much more interesting than the first two as they took directly from the main story, and just extended it. They weren’t necessary to enjoy the show though, unlike The Gathering. The Spin-offs were attempt to create an entirely new story arch. Unfortunately, it focussed a lot on the Technomages, which is much more beyond fantasy than even telepaths. The show had a good cast, a good introduction, and could have been fun, but it did not interest me. Seeing as it didn’t even have a full season, it appears it didn’t catch on to well at all.
Overall I really liked the show. It was awesome to watch a single continuous story be told, without a network or other writers getting in the way (*cough LOST cough*). The writer was great at developing characters, and had a good sense of the communities of races. While the show was very stereotypical in the over-arching story as well as the universe, it also really showed that its the journey that matters and not the destination. If you love these space-council shows that focus as much on the drama and politics as it does action, and you don’t mind a mid-budget 90s show, this should be on your “must watch” list. If you just really like science fiction, the show is 5 seasons long with multiple movies...it is a definite time investment, and as its not on Netflix or other streaming websites that I know of, it’ll be hard to acquire or a large financial investment . You’ll enjoy it, you’ll be glad you watched it, you’ll miss the characters when they are gone, but it isn’t a must watch sci-fi show like Battlestar Galactica. I’d even recommend it, and it if you live in my area, I’ll grab a bag of popcorn and watch some episodes alongside you... but you won’t be seeing me buy it, either. It also, unfortunately, didn’t have any nerdy quotes that I feel the need to randomly blurt out just to check to see who in the room is awesome,, such as Battlestar Galactica’s “So Say We All,” Star Trek’s “Make it So,” Mass Effect’s “I will destroy you!” (I’m determined to make that a thing), or Serenity’s “Shiny.” That’s not to say it doesn’t have some amazing quotes (For serious, “We are star stuff. We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out.” from Delenn, and more silly “Everyone around me dies, Mr. Morden, except those who most deserve it. “ from Mollari), but that not watching the show isn’t going to hurt your street-cred. Enjoyable, fun, intriguing, a growing experience, but not a necessary watch.
I got into a sci-fi craze. Specifically, the type of science fiction where humans have met other space faring races and are attempting to keep peace in the universe. Generally this involves a tentative council between a few “Superior” races, which the humans are counted as, and a bunch of lesser races under the council’s protection, and then some outlying races that reside in the terminus, or dark space, or over-all outside the majority of the galaxy. This can also include a fear of something great and mysterious, nearly God-like, beyond. I was watching Star Trek (The Next Generation, and Enterprise, with plans to watch Deep Space Nine), while also playing Mass Effect 1 and 2 (I am currently on the 3rd one). I also had a list of books I was, or still am, going to read that deal with these subjects as well when an awesome friend decided to loan me the Babylon 5 series.
Babylon 5 is a perfect example of this archetype of science fiction. Babylon 5 started in 1994, 1 year after Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and aired for 5 seasons, along with multiple movies and a few short live spin-offs. Babylon 5 is, as stated at the beginning of nearly every episode:
It was the dawn of the third age of mankind, ten years after the Earth/Minbari war. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call, home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers. Humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5.
Basically, Babylon 5 is the hub of commerce and diplomacy between all the races. Five races sit on a council, as well as a bunch of races in the “League of Non-Aligned Worlds.” The five races are pretty stereotypical. Humans are the youngest of the races, but they’ve shown to be both powerful as well as the most diplomatic; the Minbari, which I would compare to Vulcans from Star Trek or Asari from Mass Effect, in that the Minbari are incredibly intelligent and pragmatic, yet have a strong sense of faith; the Narn is an aggressive, and monstrous in appearance race, but not savages as they have a strong warrior honor code (Klingons or Krogans); the Centauri are an imperialistic and dominating society that dress like they are from the 18th century (Kardashians is the race most akin that comes to my mind easily from the Star Trek universe, and Turians from Mass Effect); and then the Vorlons, which are such a mysterious race that they constantly wear environmental suits (which just look sweet) so that no-one can see what they look like (Quarians from Mass Effect, albeit the godlike presence of the Q of Star Trek is a much better example).
Being Stereotypical isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It makes the races easily processable and allows you to get into the storylines quicker. A fantasy novel that uses elves, dwarves, and orcs is going to be much more easily accepted if it follows its High Fantasy predecessors like Tolkein’s Middle-Earth or Gary Gygax’s Greyhawk. If you start a fantasy novel where elves are these huge savages that live in mountains, dwarves or tree loving hippies who are great with magic, and the common orc is an articulate orator, your reader is going to have to jump over the hurdles of you challenging their pre-existing world, or they will outright reject you. Now if you have elves as the intelligent, but pragmatic tree loving race, orcs as the (possibly honorable) savages, and dwarves as imperialistic miners (there is no coincidence that the major races of High Fantasy have a lot akin to their science fiction counterparts, and even Warhammer 40k specifically designed their races as evolutions of their fantasy counterparts), the reader is going to feel right at home, and then you can start making changes. It’s really the small touches you gave your world that gives the world its unique flavor.
A good change is something that is expected but rarely shown. The Star Trek universe feels relatively peaceful when it comes to the major races, along with Mass Effect and many other shows and books much the same. There might be incursions, there might be even some wars, but over all everything is so removed it is of minor impact to the universe. The Babylon 5 universe is far from that. It is fraught with war, and during the series one of the major races nearly commits genocide on another of the major races. In fact, a good deal of the show is about the constant struggle to keeping the races even on speaking terms, let alone peaceful with each other.
Something great about the show is that it was almost entirely written by J. Michael Straczynski. Depending on where you read, he either wrote the majority of it all at once, or at the least had a clear idea of where things were going from the very beginning. The show is a serial drama, in that very few episodes are not part of the overlying storyline, and much like Battlestar Galactica, missing a single episode might mean you no longer understand what’s going on with the show. A serial drama, all written by one individual, means that there aren’t any random character or story line changes (or if there is, it was planned and you’ll see where the strings came from by the end). This one flowing storyline is what made this show a gem to me. In a sea of episodic sci-fi shows, this one stood out by following a single storyline.
It started out rough for me, though. The first set of episodes feel episodic, and almost unrelated. We’re introduced to a variety of characters, aliens, the creators concept of psychics, and these episodes seem to only be connected by the Babylon 5 space station. In a way, its a great introduction to the world, if you can bare it. Those episodes are not just random spatterings, but they all really set the stage for major future events. Once you get beyond the seemingly inconsequential episodes, you get into an interesting storyline of prophecy, puppets, war between races, internal strife of the races, all occurring while an attempt is made to save the universe from total annihilation.
From this point on, I’m going to start spoiling the show. And I’m going to start by spoiling the major plot line first. So if you have any interest in watching this shows five full seasons, stop reading now.
The show’s overarching storyline is a war between two ancient races, the Vorlons and the Shadows. The two races are, even visually depicted, as angels versus demons, and the two sides are vying for the galactic races to choose a side. One represents order, the other represents chaos or corruption. The Shadows have a great deal of influence corrupting both the human government as well as the Centauri race, while the Vorlons have a great deal more firepower, and have won over the Minbari, as well as the Babylon 5 station and their assets. The war between the Shadows and the Vorlons plays out as so many other angel wars have in both biblical and fantasy novels: the angels attempt to save the races from corruption, and when that fails they move to purge the universe to start clean. And as usual, those being purged all unite together, and gather epic weapons, in this case other ancient god-like races, and manage to beat back the two warring factions.
I skip over it as generic, because again, its the details that make it interesting. We get to watch the characters grow throughout the show. We understand the Narn and Centauri aggression, and we understand why Ambassador Mollari decides to take the shadows offer. We see why he can’t back out, even when his Centauri Empire is getting ready to destroy the Narn homeworld. G’kar, the Narn ambassador, after losing his homeworld, goes through his own change, including finding religion. It’s all these personal touches to the characters that make this story interesting.
I also liked that the show didn’t just climax with the large war, and end there, but that it went into the aftermath. The Vorlons and Shadows are dealt with, but they still had left corruption in two governments, and there were other races willing to try to take advantage of the whole situation. No war is simply just won without fall out, and the show gets into that. Unfortunately, it is all action after the climax, which makes it a little more boring, but the show does try to keep it up. A Civil War is never as interesting as the entire universe being threatened.
Yet the problem I had with the finale is it focussed on the psi-core. Its not how the story was told, although Garibaldi being brainwashed to randomly turn insane was kind of annoying, but something even more basic. I don’t really like Telepaths in my science fiction, or at least not when its a genetic mutation. Sometimes I’m willing to accept psychics if its a mechanical thing, or just an intra-race thing, but when its just walk into a room and know anything... that’s fantasy to me. Beyond that though, its a power that is incredibly powerful, and in a way lessens what other characters actually are capable of. The large majority of the ending dealt with these psi-core, and thus psychics. Now, the storyline itself was interesting. The telepaths were created as weapons against the Shadows by the Vorlons, and given to every race. But their power automatically makes them disliked by the majority of people. Now we have three factions, telepaths who want to fit in, telepaths who believe they are Homo Superiorus and want to take over the human race, and telepaths who just want all the telepaths of all races to be given a homeworld so they can live alone. This battle between them is definitely intriguing, and kept me interested in its own regard, but for the over-all plot I felt that there was enough in the world of science fiction that something else could have been used. At least they dumped the “Techno-mages,” which while I’ve read some awesome books about, those were Sci-Fantasy.
The show had a few made for TV movies, and spin offs as well. Two of the movies, Third Space (1998) and The River of Souls (1998) were movies that were completely disconnected from the plot line. If the show had been episodic, it is possible these movies could have been fun... but the only connection they had was the characters that were used. Third Space was referenced in the show, but unfortunately the movie itself countered some of the pre-existing knowledge of the universe (who the ancient and eldest races were). It also helped explain their version of space travel (hyper-space). The River of Souls expands the storyline of the “Soul Harvesters” and made them sound less like collecting souls, and more like collecting a person’s memories. It also included Martin Sheen’s worst performance as an actor, ever. The other movies were related to the show. The Gathering started off the entire show, and I wish I had watched it first as it would have helped ease me into the show as compared to the seemingly random first episodes. The rest of the TV Movies were much more interesting than the first two as they took directly from the main story, and just extended it. They weren’t necessary to enjoy the show though, unlike The Gathering. The Spin-offs were attempt to create an entirely new story arch. Unfortunately, it focussed a lot on the Technomages, which is much more beyond fantasy than even telepaths. The show had a good cast, a good introduction, and could have been fun, but it did not interest me. Seeing as it didn’t even have a full season, it appears it didn’t catch on to well at all.
Overall I really liked the show. It was awesome to watch a single continuous story be told, without a network or other writers getting in the way (*cough LOST cough*). The writer was great at developing characters, and had a good sense of the communities of races. While the show was very stereotypical in the over-arching story as well as the universe, it also really showed that its the journey that matters and not the destination. If you love these space-council shows that focus as much on the drama and politics as it does action, and you don’t mind a mid-budget 90s show, this should be on your “must watch” list. If you just really like science fiction, the show is 5 seasons long with multiple movies...it is a definite time investment, and as its not on Netflix or other streaming websites that I know of, it’ll be hard to acquire or a large financial investment . You’ll enjoy it, you’ll be glad you watched it, you’ll miss the characters when they are gone, but it isn’t a must watch sci-fi show like Battlestar Galactica. I’d even recommend it, and it if you live in my area, I’ll grab a bag of popcorn and watch some episodes alongside you... but you won’t be seeing me buy it, either. It also, unfortunately, didn’t have any nerdy quotes that I feel the need to randomly blurt out just to check to see who in the room is awesome,, such as Battlestar Galactica’s “So Say We All,” Star Trek’s “Make it So,” Mass Effect’s “I will destroy you!” (I’m determined to make that a thing), or Serenity’s “Shiny.” That’s not to say it doesn’t have some amazing quotes (For serious, “We are star stuff. We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out.” from Delenn, and more silly “Everyone around me dies, Mr. Morden, except those who most deserve it. “ from Mollari), but that not watching the show isn’t going to hurt your street-cred. Enjoyable, fun, intriguing, a growing experience, but not a necessary watch.
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