You might be addicted to wargames terrain if …

• You look along the side of every street for debris which might make terrain
• You work in an old building and appreciate the "distressed" quality of the water damaged window frame.
• Your wife has to tell you not to pick up mulch bits when you go out to dinner at a restaurant with landscaping.
• You are more inspired by the sandy texture in the background than the subject itself when you look at a photo of a bird.

All of the above apply to me. How about you? This originally appeared on my Facebook fan page.

A lens

Our reality is not the world. Our reality is how we see the world, through our lens of knowledge, wisdom and faith. Our lens can even be blurred by emotion and chemicals.
When space appears to have shrunk, we assume space has shrunk. We let our beliefs in a rational intelligible universe color our lens. The captain, for example, was full of emotions which would not let him see reality: he was inside a pocket universe which looked much like the real one, only smaller.
As he gazed around, he gathered information and something deep inside his guts, in an unconscious part of him, said the stars were wrong. He could have trusted this instinct, but instead trusted his brain, which led him to terror. "Can you raise Hope? Can you raise the Homeworld?" He feared the answer would be no, and so it happened. Not because his question could change the universe, but because it was the wrong damn question.
The communications officer typed for several seconds, checked boxes on a screen and executed the program. A minute later, she shook her head. "Nothing on any channel, sir."

A beginning

It was quite accidental really how the Timothy found quasi space. They were testing the Graviton Chariot design which might someday allow them faster than light travel. But the circuits overloaded for some reason which scientists at the time could not understand. A surge in power followed and a brilliant flash of light, visible from ultraviolet to infrared.
Luckily, the plasma which expanded ahead of the anti-gravity cone was directed away from living beings and was far away from Timothy 3. This was intentional. Altering the fabric of space-time was very risky, they knew, even though they had never attempted it on such a scale. Therefore they had spent two years taxiing into a vacant orbit between the terrestrial and Jovian planets in their system at very sub-light speeds.
The flash of visible and invisible light wasn't what scared the scientists. When the graviton shield overloaded, just after the flash, all the stars around and behind it took a sickening shift outward as the sudden extreme gravity bent the beams of their light. It appeared, for this was really the effect, that space bulged suddenly. It was as if a fish eye lens the size of Pluto appeared in space. It brought into question what space really was, whether real or illusion.
The scientists were all frozen in horror. It wasn't fear for space-time nor fear for the lives of their relatives at home. It wasn't even simple fear for their own survival, though that was part of it. It was fear that they would live knowing what lay behind the curtain of reality, fear that they would outlive their own sanity.
But that fear was needless. Each of them recovered their wits and momentarily returned to a reality of blinking computer monitors and wailing emergency sirens. They recovered their wits just in time for the next shock. The blackness of space rushed at them, as they accelerated toward infinity.
Surely, thought the captain, we shall be dashed against the proverbial rocks. Surely we can't accelerate to infinity. But he was wrong.
Stars became streams and then disappeared, only to reappear in a tighter sphere.
Had the ship grown infinitely? Had space contracted? "Heavens ... what have we done?!" Tears welled up in the captain's eyes as he thought of a world which would never be the same, of his grandchildren who might never exist even to hate him for captaining a ship that destroyed their world.
He glanced around at stunned bridge officers. He realized he must act. Now was the time for a leader to step forward. Step forward and what? Step forward and at least keep them busy until annihilation. He swallowed hard. "Status report?"

Is there morality without heroes?

I was thinking just after watching The Dark Knight Rises, and relating it to V for Vendetta:

Does the world need heroes? Yes. Not because others cannot fight evil, but because they need symbols, inspiration and, sometimes, that person willing to go beyond normal human limits to save the day or win the battle. In a utopian world of perfection, would we see a hero as such, or would we look for a hero who could shake things up? A hero who until needed is only seen as a villain?

When did government become the villain? Certainly, each form of government villainizes the others. And those who call for revolution each call the current establishment “tyranny.” Is there ever a point where everyone agrees that perfection has been achieved, or is there always someone who thinks it can be improved, much less people who are entirely dissatisfied with its philosophy?

Some heroes have access to wealth and gadgets. Others have superhuman intelligence or superb physical abilities. Some combine these attributes. In a perfect world, would the hero have none of them? Perhaps, in a world where there is no war and discomfort is not allowed, the person who chooses to feel uncomfortable, to risk conflict is the hero. But why is he a hero? Isn't he just seeking a new experience? Isn't he being selfish in trying to leave perfection? Or is he the only one who is aware, in his world, that perfection is not the absence of conflict. What do we fight for?

I don't think a nihilist could be a hero, and probably not a moral relativist. A nihilist hero could do nothing truly good nor truly evil. He would be free from such notions, at the expense of other. He would be a villain.

A hero who sticks to moral relativisim in its simple form, believing that each person has his or her own valid morality, could either choose to act out his or her own morality or try to honor each other person's. Perhaps a relativistic hero would be very interesting. A person with a complete moral code which does not match others' and who has the power to enact his or her will. Does that make him or her a villain? That depends if the victims are relativists, who allow the hero to have independent morality, or not. I guess, by saying it depends, I am allowing relativism.

Or am I. I am acknowledging that people disagree on morality, which is a fact. I am not making any meta-ethical evaluation of whether those members of the public are correct in being relativists or not.

But then again, have I decided what defines a villain? Whether he is or is not a villain based on universal morality, or whether it's up to the world he lives in? I believe there are universal morals, even if people disagree on them. Some are widely attested, but that doesn't make them more true than the morals we haven't even discovered.

A hero is more to me than a person who fits our moral view. A hero is a person who reminds us that we all do agree on some moral truth. A hero crystallizes morality, makes it visible by his or her actions. And even when a hero does something which doesn't seem the best strategically, isn't utilitarian enough in the face of adversity, that in itself is what defines him or her as a hero.

A world without death, or a world without crime, perhaps would seem to be a world without heroes or a world which doesn't need them. But for us to appreciate the story, to hear the moral truth we are listening for to validate it, someone will have to step forward and remind us what a hero is. Someone will have to remind us that morality has truths, even if they are difficult to discern. Or at least, someone will have to make us think of these truths by being the villain, defining the opposite of them.

How He loves us

I was trying to think of how to explain our relationship with God to a young friend, and this image came to me. Imagine you are high up in the sky, floating above trees and buildings, clouds nearby. You are face down and scared to death you will fall, but someone is holding you from behind, someone you can't quite see. It's hard to believe they are there, but they are, obviously, or you would fall. That doesn't do much to quell your fear though.

Life is like that. All we can see is what's in front of us, what's making us afraid. God is there holding onto us, will never let go and, someday, will fly us beyond this. We'll remember all of it and will be able to smile about it infinitely more easily than we can now. Even though this life may scare us, even though it's all we can see right now, it doesn't change the reality that God is behind us the whole time and in charge of the flight. And He will never let us go. That's an important thing to remember, because if He was just there, but could let go, his love would not be perfect. He can't let go because it's not in his nature to stop loving us.

So how can we learn to live better, knowing that what we see on this world is not all we have, not all we are? As someone else wrote, how can we learn to live as LOVED.

New buildings

It's been a while but i am finally finishing the hab block for 40k. still don't like the windows but it will look ok and function fine on the table with some paint.
Also, picked up some packing foam from an office toner to make a nice bunker. Nothing like an upcoming game this week to make me get out the glue.

The beginning of a new story - 1917

This story just fell together tonight, with no preparation and hardly any inspiration. Hope you enjoy it. I'd like to continue it sometime but there's that pesky Blue Umbrella novel I finished writing but haven't edited yet to start 2013. Here goes:

Kublai Khan, captain of the airship Demagogue. What a bizarre title, yet it was real. Kublai, of course, didn’t think it bizarre at all. It was the title he inherited from his grandfather Genghis.

The one who thought it bizarre was Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States of America. Unwieldy though it might be, sounding like something pulled directly from that Peter Pan book his nephew was raving about, the title was real. Woodrow Wilson was about to begin negotiations with Kublai Khan, to ask the Golden Horde of sky pirates to assist in the defense of Europe.

Woodrow would have been laughing, but the wispy mustache and grim, condescending grin Kublai was flashing him now took all humor from the moment. He may have appeared on this Earth just a year ago, yet he understood 20th century politics just as well as his own 13th. Kublai found that politics in two universes, two Earths, had one thing in common: no one trusted each other.

“You seem to know why I have come,” Woodrow said.

Kublai only gestured his assent with an open palm, knowing that a Western man expected a nod as well. He wasn’t about to make any motion which would make this president feel he was on equal footing with the Great Khan. He sat in his golden throne a full three feet above the deck, leaving even a man of Wilson’s stature feeling small.

“Well then let’s not delay the matter.” Wilson straightened his spectacles and greatly wished for the counsel of his friend and first secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan. Yet when he glanced to his left, he saw Robert Lansing who, despite his curriculum vitae, Wilson did not entirely understand. Wilson gestured to his right. “My secretary of war, Mr. Newton Diehl Baker, will explain the situation to you.”

“Great Khan Kublai …” Baker began with a bow of his neck.

At this point, Kublai raised his hand in the universal sign to halt. “I hear you called the most powerful man on Earth, and yet you would have your inferior speak on your behalf?”

Woodrow had studied Khan’s politics, and knew that this was not an invitation to discuss philosophy. He knew Khan was only trying to shake his confidence before meaningful dialogue had begun. He suspected Khan cared far less about the American chain-of-command than about how invoking it could put the Horde in a better bargaining position. Wilson knew all this, and yet his emotional side fought to overwhelm him. He smiled slightly as he recalled something Lansing had informed him of that morning.

“How is business, Lord Khan? I understand you have good relations with the rulers of both Japan and China because you have helped them to return to the tradition of harems.”

Kublai was thoughtful. “Yes, your modern philosophers seem opposed to the practice of slavery, as my tradition is called here. So I proposed an alternative which makes all parties more … pleased.”

“Except of course for the women.”

“You can’t please everyone,” Kublai sipped wine from a richly carved wooden bowl. “So we please those in power. That is the truth of all political systems, regardless of their ideals. You are a political scholar, so you of all men should understand that.” He took another sip.

“Perhaps you are right, which is why I have brought you a gift.” Wilson turned and gestured at a large, polished mahogany box. Two attendants in U.S. Navy uniforms, but relieved of their sidearms outside the cabin, lifted the lid to reveal a black disc and filigreed metal armature.

“Ah, yes, one of your phonographic machines. You Americans seem quite enamored with them, though I cannot fathom why listening to the same piece of music repeatedly, without variation, is so entertaining.”

Wilson’s lip twitched at this, but he had turned his back on the Khan a moment before to pick up the needle arm of the New Edison machine and place it on the slowly turning disc. “Signor Ciccolini endorsed this model himself, saying It sounded more like him than any machine had a right to.”

“I have no use for Italians,” Khan said, taking a heavy sniff from his snuff box.

“This is not Mr. Ciccolini, but it is an Italian I think you will appreciate.”

As the music started, an androgynous voice made several of the men wince. Khan himself was unmoved. “Are you sure it is calibrated correctly. The pitch is … odd.”

“Quite sure,” Wilson smiled. “This man …”

“It is a man?”

“Yes, it most certainly is. A very talented man. A castrato.”

Kublai did not like to be uninformed, so he strained to find the meaning of the foreign word. “A eunuch?”

“Yes, the … operation was performed before puberty leaving him …”

“Not quite a man.”

“Physically, yes. He was well educated, though, and is renowned among musicians. He is the last of his kind, since the barbaric practice has ended.”

Kublai was silent for a long moment, listening to the high-pitched male voice. “I accept your gift. I, too, am a misfit in this time. I assure you, though, that I am fully a man. Shall I prove it?” He stood.

“That won’t be necessary,” said Wilson, adjusting his glasses unnecessarily. Lansing blushed.

Kublai grinned. “You mistake me. I only meant to prove I am a man through combat, or some other such contest. But I will not call your manhood into question.” He stepped down from his dais and strode to the Edison, carefully, reverently picking up the needle and setting the arm back on its rest. “That’s enough music for now. After a second in which Wilson almost reached for the switch, Kublai’s seeking eyes found it and he switched the turntable off. “That’s enough music for now. You will join me for dinner, and then, when we are not distracted by our bellies, we will discuss politics.”

Wilson smiled. “I look forward to hearing your reaction to Secretary Baker’s report.” He waited to see if Khan would now accept this apparent breach of decorum.

“Of course,” Khan smiled. “If you have chosen to castrate this politician by calling him secretary, a title usually reserved for a woman, then it would be rude of me to ignore your feelings on the matter.”

Baker bristled. “Lucky you are that you arrived here after the tradition of dueling had fallen out of fashion.”

“Lucky for you indeed,” Khan said. “Come, let’s eat.”