The Hills I Will Gladly Die On

So the inevitable has happened once again. What I mean by this is that life has a habit of bringing up one topic which infuriates me to the point that it is one of the hills I will happily die on. What I mean is I will defend my stance with such fervor that the only way to quell my voice is to kill me. And there are only two topics which affects me to this extent. The anti-vaccine movement and the very idea that autism is something to cure.

Why am I talking about this? Specifically because my elder stepsister (who may as well be my big sis) is doing a paper for a college course and she needs statements from those on the autism spectrum about the anti-vaccine movement. This will be done partially as an opinion piece and partially as a piece referencing peer reviewed scholarly piece. I really have to thank my big sis for bringing up the topic since I have a final paper for Sociology 101 which (if given permission) will be about how autism and the views around it is actually a public health crisis. I hope/intend to use some of this rant as a part of that paper. I will also state that some of this will be based on the research and findings from a similar piece I wrote for English 101 about the same topic, so yes, I actually do know what I'm talking about (mostly).

The Facts

There are several concepts that I feel I should emphasize before I get into the nitty-gritty. First of all, correlation DOES NOT imply causation. Just because one variable SEEMS to influence something DOES NOT mean that there is only one source or cause. This whole concept was emphasized in my Psychology 100 class. So yes, this concept is incredibly important.

A lot of the argument extrapolates and correlates the increase of both the number of vaccinations and the number of autism diagnoses. This correlation is, in fact, correct. To many people, they declare a causal relationship and walk away. However, I deplore you to analyze this string of logic:

If an increase of vaccines is true, would it also be true that it means that children's time around physicians have also increased? If there is an increase of child-physician time, would that also mean that physicians have more of an opportunity to notice indications of autism? By not looking at implications of increased vaccines further than a simple causal relationship, I feel that a whole dimension of the situation is left ignored.

Furthermore, the whole movement is based on what is known as the Wakefield paper, a study made by Andrew Wakefield and 12 colleagues, which clearly accused the viruses which make up the MMR vaccination of remaining in their subjects' intestines. What these people fail to acknowledge was that Wakefield's study had the sample size of 12 people and no control groups. If this doesn't alarm you, then the fact that the funding of the study came from people trying to win lawsuits against caccine-producing companies and the group performing the study was later "held guilty of ethical violations (they had conducted invasive investigations on the children without obtaining the necessary ethical clearances) and scientific misrepresentation (they reported that their sampling was consecutive when, in fact, it was selective)"(Sathyanarayana). 

Another point of evidence which I feel is ignored is that studies conducted in the state of California where the rates of diagnoses and vaccinations were compared. Immunization rates only increased by 14% while autism diagnoses have increased by 373%. I have to thank the anti-vaccine movement in one huge way: without them, we wouldn't have a true control group. Studies have even compiled the rates of autism diagnoses among unvaccinated children and found NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO GROUPS.

The Real Cause?

First of all, some types of autism seem to have a genetic link - such as the link between having an engineer in the family and Asperger's Syndrome. But there are several other variables which we have started to find.

I've recently read Emergence: Labeled Autistic by Dr. Temple Grandin which implies that some types of autism may be caused by an underdeveloped central nervous system, lack/shortage of myelin, or having a brain which is underdeveloped in some areas and overdeveloped in others.

Somewhere, I've also read that there is a relationship between gut bacteria and autistic behaviors. I've even read somewhere that there is some link between some types of autism and having 3x as many neurons in a brain 2x the size of a typical brain.

Personal Opinions

I have tried to be impartial in the previous sections. I know that it is likely I've completely failed. 

The only reason I feel that identifying the cause or source of autism is just so that we can identify autism earlier and have the ability to do more to assist those like me to become what society can accept. So that we can pioneer better therapies. But that can only do so much.

Also, this leads into the whole concept of "curing autism". My opinion is "don't". There's nothing wrong with me - nothing that is worth fixing. The only reason I'm deemed "disabled" is entirely because society is so narrow-minded and unwilling to accommodate those who speak differently or have non-verbal means of communicating. My "disability" is entirely a "social disability" imposed on me by a society and culture which refuses to change to accommodate anyone who differs from the majority. Until then, we will still be stuck with an argument between those who want to "cure" me and those like me who don't want to be cured - I've recently found that I'm not the only one who sees autism as a part of who I am, a lens that I see through to experience the world. Take that away from me and I will never be me. I will become someone else. In a sense, it would be genocide. 

Just think of it this way: every known genius, innovator, inventor have been shown to have something which makes them neurologically different from the norm. Without people like me, we wouldn't have many of the things we now take for granted. By curing autism, we would be preventing the next Einstein, Tesla, or Bill Gates from appearing and creating something society will take for granted. And hey, it could be that little child who didn't learn to speak until they were five. Or the young adult whose means of communicating with the world is a text-to-speech application on their tablet. Please just let them be them.

Sources

• Bearman, Peter. "The roots of the vaccine panic." The American Prospect 22.3 (2011): 33+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 6 Mar. 2012.
• Glazer, Sarah. "Increase in Autism." CQ Researcher 13 June 2003: 545-68. Web. 1 Mar. 2012.
• Grandin, Temple, and Margaret Scariano. Emergence, Labeled Autistic. Novato, CA: Arena Press, 1986. Print.
• Handley, J.B. "Compelling Evidence Shows That Vaccines Trigger Autism." Epidemics. David Haugen and Susan Musser, Eds. Opposing Viewpoints Series. Greenhaven Press, 2011. J.B. Handley, "Autism Is Preventable and Reversible," Larry King Live Blogs, April 2009. Reprinted by permission. Web. 3 Mar. 2012.
• Healy, Bernadine. "Fighting the Autism-Vaccine War." U.S. News & World Report. (2008): n. page. Web. 1 Mar. 2012.
• Keelan, Jennifer, and Kumanan Wilson. "Balancing Vaccine Science And National Policy Objectives: Lessons From The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Omnibus Autism Proceedings." American Journal of Public Health 101.11 (2011): 2016-2021. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Mar. 2012.
• Miller, Lisa, and Joni Reynolds. "Autism And Vaccination - The Current Evidence." Journal For Specialists In Pediatric Nursing 14.3 (2009): 166-172. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Mar. 2012.
• Sathyanarayana Rao, T.S,, and Chittaranjan Andrade. "The MMR vaccine and autism: Sensation, refutation, retraction, and fraud." Indian Journal of Psychiatry Apr. 2011: 95+. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Mar. 2012.
• "Statement on Thimerosal." World Health Organization. World Health Organization, 2006. Web. 6 Mar. 2012.
• Ponte, Maya. "Vying For Credibility In The US Congress: Legitimating Symbols In The Debate Over Immunization And Autism." Focaal 46 (2005): 67-78. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Mar. 2012.
• Rabin, Jack. "Denying denialism." Commentary 129.6 (2010): 9+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 6 Mar. 2012.

Apologies

I figure everyone who has been reading my blog deserves an apology considering that it's been roughly four years since my last post. My life has made some significant changes since then and my intentions for this blog has changed. I still intend for this to be "my area" where I vent and talk about things. But I have other and new reasons for doing so.

As anyone can tell based on the title and previous posts, I'm autistic and was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome under the DSM-IV and this is just a part of who I am and I know that people may be curious as to what it all means or simply dismiss me as being unintelligent or stupid. And this is really why I like to explain what my experience of the world is like - to explain how I think and see things in order to illuminate what it's like and to prove that I'm more than what I appear to be.

It could possibly be that I've read too many entertaining books written by bloggers. But in reality, if I were to write an autobiography, I wanted this to be it.

A Small Habit

Today, I just realized that I have a small habit. I'm still uncertain if it's a good habit or a bad one, but regardless, it's just a habit. What is it?

I make light of my personal pain.

I take my pain and try to crack jokes about it.

For example, during the second (or was it third?) week of November, I had spent five days in the hospital. Three of those days were full of pain and general not feeling well, one of them was when I got a surgery, and a day of recovery and being released. During most of my stay, I made it a personal challenge to make all of my nurses to at least chuckle.

While healing from the operation, I also made cracks that "I'm being held together by glue and tape. I'm a kindergarten arts and crafts project!"

I'd have thought that it was me just hiding my pain behind a sense of humor.

Until today.

For the last few weeks, I've had to deal with what feels like the worst sciatica attack in years. And I had to not just go to college, but I needed to go grocery shopping. So I decided that I was going to need to use one of those scooters they have for people with impaired mobility (like me). And I was shopping by myself when I came to two realizations.

1) Before this attack, the only motorized vehicle I had extensive experience controlling was a bumper car and it shows.

2) "Born to be Wild" is the wrong song to be humming while on a scooter-cart that could maybe go up to 3 MPH.

Of course, the first realization could also be explained away by accusing random things of "jumping out at me". I doubt that last sign in the Safeway could be explained away in that way. I just acted like no one saw me hitting a store sign. I may or may not have made a face while trying to speed away from the scene of the hit and run.

So that's my small habit that I just noticed that I have.

Writing Pet Peeve: Throwing Away Useful Characters

Many apologies for not making a blog post for a while, but this rant just hit me. This last October, I wound up being attacked by a virus. And I'm not talking about Hexadecimal or Megabyte, but a cold bug. So I decided that I wanted to just watch Netflix and veg out. But I had a problem: there really wasn't anything I wanted to watch, but I had remembered that this last summer, I was giving Doctor Who a try and decided to watch some more. I wound up watching from the fourth or fifth episode of the first season of the reboot to the last episode on Netflix within a week. How does this tie into this topic? Because it was the show I was talking about when I started tearing into how writers should not throw away perfectly good characters until there's nothing else they could contribute to the show.

So of course, there will be spoilers up to The Angels Take Manhattan (season 7, episode 5) so if you don't want any spoilers, please stop reading here since I will be using that episode and those before it as an example. Okay, so with that out of the way, let me explain how such a pet peeve has been executed and how this has become a pet peeve of mine.

In the simplest of terms, the Main Character has decided that the other characters who has been hanging around him will die or have terrible things happen to them based on past experiences. So the Main Character leaves them behind with no way of following him and ensuring that their lives will be comfortable. So you would think that these folks are finally gone, having been put on a bus and living happily, safe and sound. But we need our Main Character to be completely snapped in half and there are no such thing as happy endings to an arc with any traveling group. Because somehow, we need to have the next person to befriend our Main Character to fix him. This is exactly what bugs me.

Why? Because if he knows that if he keeps dragging his friends who have become family to him around, why would we see him pulling them along on an adventure? It goes completely against his character development. Not to mention that they are still quite usable as characters at this point. Not as Main Characters, but guest characters.

How? Well, it would be nice for our Main Character to get a new friend while not in a completely broken state. Give the poor guy some hope that there could be happy endings for crying out loud! And they could be usable for when he does get broken, he's got someone to turn to. Besides that, we'd have someone capable of pointing it out to our Main Character when he starts going down the dark path. When you have a character continually fighting monsters, it becomes very easy for the character to become what they're fighting against. And sometimes, past characters who aren't dead who mean a lot to the Main Character are a necessity to snap our Main Character out of it.

In more specific terms, by having the Ponds traveling with The Doctor after he gives them a house AND a car, it goes against his reasoning for forcing them out of the TARDIS to begin with. And how long was he without them before he changed his mind? Two stinking episodes. It takes him two episodes to drag the Ponds with him. Well, two episodes plus several mini-episodes in which he drops by the Ponds or checks in with them. But if he really worried about them, he shouldn't have gone against his better judgment. And the writers shouldn't have had him go a bit out of his character for the sake of making the fandom upset.

The writers finally ended the Ponds' interference with their plotlines by forcing them to die off-screen. Not kidding. They died off-screen with a very flimsy reasoning against allowing the Doctor to see them. How flimsy is the reasoning? The Ponds were hurled into 1938's Manhattan and the Doctor is all upset because he couldn't see them because the Weeping Angels are messing with time too much in Manhattan. Yet, the Doctor himself did spend time in 1938 during last year's Christmas Special, “The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe”. So that means that it's obviously a localized effect that is continually in effect. What throws this whole thing out of the window was that the Tenth Doctor was able to go to 1930's Manhattan with no issue. So assuming that it's a localized effect that happened after the Tenth Doctor's visit, again, there's no issue for him to land the TARDIS on the edge of the instability and travel the rest of the way like any other human. Boy, what a plot hole!

So really, what did the death of the Ponds accomplish? We get a broken Doctor. That's it. The main character being emotionally shattered by permanently losing his family. Any interesting stories? Not unless you like to see a character whose life is literally just one long line of traumatic events. Which at this point, is actually getting old and tired. No wonder he had a psychotic break at the end of Waters of Mars.

But what kind of stories or events that would have happened if the Ponds never went on any adventures after they were dropped off? Well, for one thing, The Power of Three would have still happened. Not to mention that they could still be a good jumping point for adventures happening during their lifetimes. For example, an adventure hook could involve the Doctor visiting the Ponds and then notice something wrong going on. Or they could call the Doctor, telling him of something weird going on that they've noticed. Another use for characters like the Ponds would be someone for the Doctor to go to when he's breaking or broken or when he needs shoulders to cry on. Yet another use would also be when he would get another companion and the Ponds do call on the Doctor or the Doctor visits them, they could advise the new companion too, similar to passing the torch.

This kind of thing bugs me because it becomes quite clear that Moffat (current showrunner for Doctor Who and sadistic writer of the first degree) killed off the Ponds just for the emotional impact on the fandom (who really should be seeing this coming at this point) and just to traumatize our main character with no regard of whether or not they could be used as further tools in the background at least.

With shows who focus more on character deaths for no reason other than to get the fans to cry and to shatter the psyches of the Main Characters for no reason than to do so, I'm starting to not care about the  characters because I know that they will die and die horribly and for no reason than to cause the fans and the main characters to get all weepy. I give the new companion maybe a season before she kicks it. And yes, I'm saying that I have yet to see the newest Christmas Special.

See ya later!

An Objective View of Characterization in Science Fiction and Fantasy

I grew up watching science fiction, mostly thanks to my dad. It was because of him that I was introduced to Star Wars and Star Trek at an early age and from there, I grew into the genre itself. It's half because of how wide the genre is and half because there is almost no limit to the breadth of the types of stories that can happen in space with various kinds of ships and peoples. Some stories within science fiction focus on one or two real staples of science fiction, being the unknown or the technology itself being the main two. But that was back in the 90's and since then, another piece that can make or break a story or set-up is brought into focus: the characters themselves.

What I'm not saying is that science fiction itself is devoid of characters, but what I am saying is that characters haven't been a large part of the spotlight in science fiction, not before the late 90's at least. Well, that I know of (even though I say I grew up on science fiction, I will mention now that my choices were rather limited up until I was a teenager and I can definitely say that my tastes have changed since my childhood and thankfully so, but different types of shows interest me and I'm more open to experiences. And even though my dad did like Star Trek, he didn't watch things like Deep Space Nine, Voyager, or even Babylon Five and I find myself working on quite a backlog.).

I will also warn you, dear reader, that this is an attempt at being objective and this is only my opinion. Please don't take what I say as an ad hominem attack on your favorite show or me just being "close minded". I give everything a good solid try before deciding on whether or not I like anything. And yes, that does include Twilight.

The catalyst for this little piece was a facebook rant at how science fiction shows have become infested: "with crappy dialog about love affairs, power struggles over whos the boss, and children disappointed with their parental figures." And that the studios are doing this to "draw in the female market."

This looks less of a failure or mismanagement in trying to aim for a specific demographic and more like a failure in characterization. In this current atmosphere in television, if one makes content that is based on the characters themselves, the characters must fulfill many requirements:

1. The characters must be able to stand on their own. 
2. The characters must be able to be likable in their own ways. 
3. There must be more to the characters than their archetype/stereotype to seem "more well-rounded." 
4. The characters must never cause the story to fall apart for no reason. 

For this list, I merely fell back to my own general rules for when I'm writing. As a writer, I do what I can to follow these rules and above all, write characters that appeal to some sliver of myself. Whether these rules are incomplete or completely incorrect, well, I'm not perfect. But I feel that this list, for all intents and purposes, is just my general opinion as a writer.

So now, I think I should give you all an idea of when each of the four rules are upheld and broken and cite examples of it from their own shows.

1. The characters must be able to stand on their own.

For this example, I have several examples, but the one that really comes to mind is Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek: The Next Generation). This is a character who can stand on their own, even in times of loss (Nemesis, anyone?) and still finds a reason to keep going. He's made mistakes (as seen in Tapestry among others) and learns from these while sticking to his morals even as the Federation is exploring many ethical and moral dilemmas (see Measure of a Man). Heck, he even learns to overcome such things as his thirst for revenge (First Contact).

One of the biggest failures of this in my mind is Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell (Stargate SG-1). This poor character comes off as if he's written to be a clone of a pre-existing character who was promoted (in other words, put on a bus) away from the SGC. It goes about as well as you'd expect. The failure isn't with the actor, but the writers as they tried to keep a cannon character around but with a new coat of paint. In the end, he never truly fully became his own character, but just "Not-O'Neill". The problem was less of a focus on the differences between the characters on top of just trying too hard.

2. The characters must be able to be likable in their own ways.

So many real possibilities, but I think I'm going to just pick a character out of the pile forming in my mind. I'm going to go with Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Star Trek). This guy is your typical snarky, somewhat-jerkish medical doctor character. But darn it if the character isn't likable in his own way. Heck, I could just say "every character on Star Trek and TNG" but I randomly picked from my own random list. Even if he is typically sarcastic, snarky, and can come off as a bit of a jerk, but the character has a lot of heart to him and cares about others (sometimes even to his own annoyance as seen in the 2009 movie). That's really all I can say without repeating the same old stuff that everyone knows.

The one that really stinks at this is Dr. Nicholas Rush (Stargate Universe). He does a lot of selfish things throughout the show (the whole list would take up most of a page and that's only of what I remember from the first season alone). And what's worse is that he causes a lot of people to lose their life directly or indirectly because of his selfish actions and motivations and what makes him really lose at this is the fact that the writers seem to not be able to make up their minds with this guy. They write him as a completely heartless monster yet shows that he still is human and in the end, they make him a confused character. It wouldn't bother me if they either made him more of a main character or more of an out-and-out villain. What I mean by this is that antagonists don't get as much focus as main characters for a reason, especially if they're of the Snidely Whiplash variety- because there's nothing else to them than the evil acts of evil. But even in shows where the villains are part of the focus (Dr. Horrible, Death Note), there's at least something about them that keeps the viewer interested/entertained. Heck, even the Goa'uld were entertaining because of how over-the-top they were. But this guy... he's just a complete monster of a human being who shows nothing but glee at everything and to me, he's just not likable at all.

3. There must be more to the characters than their archetype/stereotype to seem "more well-rounded."

There's a lot of characters again that I can choose from, but this time, I think I'll go with Dr. Daniel Jackson (Stargate SG-1). He began in SG-1 as literally the sole civilian on the team who serves as one of two scientifically-minded characters and the interpreter. However, he does more on the show than just that. He's also the moral/ethical voice of the team and in later seasons, really comes into his character, even being able to shoot as well as any member of the team, showing a nice evolution of his character.

And then there's Eli (Stargate Universe). He's literally there to explain math and to literally act out parts of old science fiction movies (mostly just the classic Planet of the Apes which to me, does get old and fast!) while babbling on and on about World of Warcraft. The way this guy is written, he is just about the kind of nerd that even the geeks would hit up for lunch money. And worse is that he just keeps being annoying. And in a lot of ways, he reminds me of the bad parts of Wesley Crusher on top of the general annoying-ness, which I guess is almost likable, but he doesn't evolve past the whole "I'm just here to spout math, Planet of the Apes quotes, and babble about WoW" stereotype. He almost makes me feel bad for being a geek.

4. The characters must never cause the story to fall apart for no reason.

This is something I can't exactly cite a specific character on this because it's more of something where if the characters don't do this, no one notices, but if the characters fail in this, it's obvious. Kind of like sound editing- no one notices when it's done good, but heaven help you if you are off even a tad.

By "for no reason", I mean by "for no reason that the viewer can find which doesn't ruin the suspension of disbelief." If it shatters the viewer's suspension of disbelief, you royally screwed up and good luck stitching it back together. If the story falls apart or segues into another subplot in a way which doesn't shatter the fragile suspension of disbelief, you should be more careful. After all, each episode should be at most an "A story" and a "B story" that overlap in some way, typically not one after the other. When you finish the "A story" and go straight to the "B story", sometimes viewers get annoyed that you didn't just flesh out the two stories and have two separate but tenably linked episodes.

Outside of these rules, there's still a few things that can be found as annoying bits of characterization. One of which is when a character comes off overly emotional/depressed. This gets annoying because of such characters get old fast and when they get old, they become very cliched. What helps is if that's not one of the character's defining characteristic. It's completely fine for characters to be depressed or sad for a reason. But not for no reason other than to make the series seem "edgy and dark". When that happens, it's a sign of pandering to a specific demographic who doesn't understand what fine entertainment is. Kind of like Twilight. (I'm being serious. Twilight was specifically written AND advertised to pre-teen and teen girls. Why else would such a book which has many writers like Stephen King calling it not nice things while being hugely popular?)

Another thing to keep in mind, especially if writing for a novelization that can or is connected to Role Playing Games in general, what may be a very awesome character to readers and writers alike can become a bad thing. Case in point is Drizz't. For all accounts, I've heard that he's a good character who faces his own demons just by being a non-evil Drow. For us gamers, he's hellspawn because of his popularity spawning noobs and powergamers playing non-evil Drow en masse. Those of us who play DnD and similar games are still recovering from the ordeal. The message is "if a character is from a typically evil race of evil people, tread lightly. A whole community will thank you."

I honestly hope that I was objective in this (I really tried). If such pieces like this was entertaining/interesting, just let me know and I'll see about writing more on such topics that interest me. See ya later!

Airship Pirates Post-Game post

This session inspired me to put up another post-game post because it was a fun session and I feel like sharing.

At the previous session, the party heard through a Neobedouin shaman contact that there were two tribes ready to go to war with each other near Isla Aether. So the party decided to go to Isla Aether to grab some information before heading to deal with the tribes. They figured that the best place to get information was a random tavern near the docks where those going through would drop in.

So the new Captain (long story short, the previous captain, a misbegotten had to die because the player quit the group due to preparing to move) and the new first mate (also ship's medic) goes into the bar and notices a wizened man who is clearly far older than any human they've ever seen (about mid 60's to early 70's) wearing clothing that doesn't identify him as either Skyfolk, Neobedoin, or Neovictorian. Because he stands out pretty good in the tavern, they approached him. They introduce themselves to the elderly man who just smiles a bit and replies "I already have met you. More times than you know as of yet."

Seeing that there's only one group of people that the PCs know actually have a method of jumping through time, they came to the conclusion that the elderly man is a much older Captain Robert. They continue to talk and the elderly Captain Robert tells them that the Ophelia had a run-in with someone testing out a much newer version of the time-travel device and when he gave up his position of Captain of the Ophelia to one of his daughters, he took the original Chrononautilus with him. They wound up making a deal with the old man- that since he misses being an airship Captain, that they'd give him one last chance at being Captain in return for the Chrononautilus. He took up the offer and we ended there.

This week, we started where we left off and the old man Robert was given permission to be acting Captain unless it would endanger the ship or crew. He left with the First Mate to tour the ship to see the ship and get acquainted with the crew. Said First Mate/Medic wound up becoming friends with him as he made his rounds around the ship.

Long story short, they eventually arrived at the closest of the two tribes, the Sacramento (the pilot was still allowed to be the pilot) and learned that the other tribe, the Western Camelops had been raiding them and taking whatever wasn't nailed down or too big, including women and children. They were clearly set up in the Wiccan tradition and were peaceful and all that jazz. They celebrated that the fact that they had someone willing to help them with a grand ceremony followed by a feast (glazing over it because it could really be too much). After the feast, the religious leaders told the landing party of their plight and that their daughter was missing during the last raid.

They had a night to rest and the Medic caught old man Robert coughing a bit and played it down. He tried to convince him to go to the infirmary for a check up and Robert told him that he would go to the ship's infirmary when he gets the chance. That night, the PCs got together to plot a way how they could get the old man to get into the infirmary without killing him. (which caused a deviation with a song reference and some humming)

They then got to the Western Camelops who claimed that they were being attacked by the Sacramento who would steal everything that wasn't nailed down- the exact story that the Sacramento had told them. The official Captain (Automaton Doll) decided to have the pilot/engineer build what would amount to signal flares, and gave one to each tribe to fire off when the next raid is.

During that day while waiting for the flare to go off, the Medic stuck around old man Robert who was mostly doing paperwork and writing something in a leather-bound book. He told the medic his plans that he doesn't trust the official captain after the deal is done so he's going to ensure that they get to Isla Aether in the dead of night and jump ship after leaving a note of where their payment will be as well as a key to unlock the door. (funny that they'll be heading towards what was once the Seattle area) He coughs again and the medic is unsure if the ship even has the equipment he needs to make a diagnosis.

The flares go off at the same time, a while after nightfall. They head towards the Western Camelops since they control an oil refinery half the year and they see outriders on horses leaving the area. They finally get to three of the outriders, one of which was holding a little girl hostage. Old Man Robert managed to hobble to the Captain's quarters he was temporarily given and took out a pistol and was ready to shoot that guy himself when everyone fired at them. Once he was down before he could shoot the little girl, the two burly men who were accompanying him were fired on- one to the point of exhaustion and the remaining one was shot and killed by a man on a pre-apocalypse motorcycle before said man took off into the ruins and ducked into a garage there.

The ship's actual captain took up command and talked old man Robert into going with her and she interrogated the man to learn that the group the man belonged to were mercenaries and that this was tied into some job (the PCs were mercenaries and are trying to change schticks) and that they use the garage as a repair depot. The man was then slowly killed through being hung upside down from the main deck.

While on their way elsewhere, the captain and old man Robert had a discussion. Old man Robert admitted that he's going to die soon by something that the future has no real cure for- old age. Captain Annika claimed that old age is just a scapegoat. This was followed by a fun set of dialogue:

Annika: Call it...professional curiosity. I want to know what will finally do in the great Captain Robert.

Robert: I'm not that great.

Annika: Fine, the famous Captain Robert.

Robert: More like infamous.

Annika: They're one and the same.

He then told her that even if he did tell her his afflictions, there is no real cure for them, even with her insisting that she must know in order to try to prevent the younger Captain Robert from getting the afflictions.

This led to Robert telling Annika that his actions shaped the world through manipulating the past and how he failed completely, giving Annika ammo and the chance to tell him that she wants to ensure his long life so that he can help her "make things right again." He told her how everything's better due to the fact that there's no large amount of nuclear weapons, no wars constantly being started somewhere in the world at any given time, and that he feels that there's less of a danger to mankind by itself. Annika then started to try to wheedle some information about the future before (through getting a success at a conversation roll) actually asking about the Emperor to which he tells her that the Emperor will be killed in six months by a jealous wife after killing the other wife and before she kills herself. (I apologized for spoiling Wrath of Fate which Annika's player borrowed from me after I had finished it who is still in the second or third chapter)

We left off about at that point where the PCs are preparing to enter the garage and seeing what the future has in store.

My future plans:

-Since it took so long for the PCs to get to the part of entering the garage, the man escaped through a bolt hole (ancient sewers)

-The deal between old man Robert and Annika is completely a test of character to see if he could trust her with the Chrononautilus and to form who she will become since the younger him will see her personality transform and shape since she had been planning to kill the old man after getting payment and now she wants to help him.

-The Chrononautilus, when received is missing bulbs since they all broke or were taken (if the old man is with them, he'll mutter about someone obviously having a need for them.)

-There is always a chance that old man Robert, being of a highly advanced age may not live to see the end of the escapade. (wow, that will really be a downer)

- The missing son and daughter left in the chaos of the raids to be together.

- The man on the motorcycle is the brother of the leader of the Western Camelops who had planned for the son to abandon the tribe for the daughter of the Sacramento and paid the mercenaries to attack both tribes dressed as the other tribe in order to instigate a fight which he knows that the Sacramento can't fully defend themselves from (since they're mostly pacifistic in nature) with the idea that a stray bullet will kill his brother and he will become the leader of the tribe.

Yeah, I mixed a ton of references and call-backs and lampshades all over the place. I dunno if I played an old man Robert well but I still had fun doing so since I figured that he would become a bit craftier in old age and far more knowledgeable of things since he had been around the block more than a few times.

Updates and Airship Pirates

Wow, it's been over a year since I last done anything with this. Wow. I guess starting college does make a person forget the things they did out of boredom. Well, I'll try to post more since I think I'll be using this to do write-ups of gaming sessions. I'm currently running Airship Pirates and Pathfinder on the Fridays that haven't been claimed by the Camarilla (Vampire the Masquerade LARP [Live Action Role Playing] group).

Last Night, I ran Airship Pirates, the tabletop RPG based on the songs of Abney Park. Here's the low-down:

The Characters:

We have the Doll, Annika Sesentay Nueve (translation: Annika Seven of Nine...yeah), who is the First Mate. Then we have Rune, a Neobedoiun Beastdancer and the short Skyfolk Gadgeteer Madgizmo. During last night's session, my elder stepsister who plays Teddy the Misbegotten Cap'n of this crew of Mercenaries had already informed me of her absence beforehand, so I told everyone that the character is still there even if her player wasn't. (I told the group that Teddy will be a “Mark the Red” since everyone has seen “The Gamers”.) Before I go on, their ship is called the Dragon Seeker.

The Session:

We began the session in High Tortuga a few in-game hours after the last session (which included a Pirate Council trial and getting tickets to the huge event that was going to be held that night.) and the crew were heading to the event that was scheduled after sun-down (I reasoned about 8pm or so) at one of the docks since the performers were going to perform on the main deck of their airship. Said airship's gangplank was withdrawn and there were security to check for tickets and to keep those without tickets out of the cordoned area.

I had everyone roll perception, especially the ship's Engineer to detect the small bits that was specific to the performer's airship. They all passed the check and I described the small details of the airship that included the glass bulbs on the outer hull that were filled with pink-ish swirling gasses that were interweaved with small colored lights (I said that out of character, the lights would be Xmas lights that were strewn on the outer hull to make it look less conspicious).

During the event (read: concert [like no one reading this couldn't figure that detail out.]), the performers had a song in which they selected a random member of the crowd to hold a violin. During the announcement, Annika had grabbed the short Engineer and set said guy on her shoulders and jumped around (which they did each and everytime something temporarily broke) and I got annoyed enough at the insistance of Annika's player that I had them be selected to hold the violin and everything.

Since I kept rolling crappily that night (yes, I'm blaming the dice and going off of the Rule of Funny [meaning that if something hits me as funny, I'm likely to just run with it]), Annika sneaked into the darkness and hid below decks and onto the crew decks (I goofed up and thought crew decks was the first deck below the main deck). I had Annika roll a perception and described a sound that sounded like a door opening before I had Annika roll a Hide and Sneak check, which she passed. What followed was a little girl peering out from her door and going “huh...” before going back into her room.

A few songs later, the band goes below decks, talking about which song they'll be ending with and deliberating as the crowd of fans shouted for an encore. When the band got back up on the main deck, Annika decided to find a better hiding spot (she was hiding under the stairs leading to the main deck) and she once again, heard a door opening. This time, said little girl actually spotted Annika, who decided to act as if she was deactivated. The little girl bought the act and started to play with Annika as if she was a life-sized doll (ironically enough), including such activities as playing tea party, “borrowing” Jody's makeup to make Annika up, before I told Annika's player that the little girl returns with a permanent marker (apparently, the player had plans so he reversed time half because of his plans and half because I said the words “permanent marker”), so time got reversed and Annika ran into the second closest room (which I decided was Jody's room where said little girl is putting back the borrowed makeup back). Annika decided to reverse her decision and let the little girl return with the permanent markers (she would have gone overboard otherwise).

At random intervals, I weaved in what the main group were seeing/doing. My group has a habit of calling off actions and taking a long time to think about what they were going to do except for Annika's player. So a lot of the random intervals involved my asking them what they're doing and saying or if they decided. At this point, Annika decided to scare the little girl by suddenly moving and say "boo!". While the little girl is poking the Automaton that just suddenly moved, the funniest thing happened.

The band were heading to their rum storage area (bottom deck since I screwed up) and the first one who had gone down the stairs was Kristina who stopped suddenly at the bottom of the steps and the person behind her wasn't aware of her stopping (it was too funny in my mind) and the two round up on a tangled heap at the bottom of the stairs. The third person down (Nathaniel) noticed two things: the tangled heap at the bottom of the steps (and probably said something like “get a room, guys!”) and saw Annika leaping over the little girl and the heap of two people with the intention of running below decks. I got an awesome roll so Nathaniel wound up leaping over the railing of the steps and chased after Annika, just two yards behind her at the end of initiative.

Annika tried to use her epic social-abilities to convince Nathaniel to hide her right when everyone got to the scene. Annika announced that she knew their secret (aka, she deduced from the lyrics of the songs (perception check) and compared it to the version of history she knew (General Knowledge check) and saw some things not matching up (in hindsight, Post-Apocalypse Punk may have been a wrong song to have them do...). Jody was the only one who saw through the bluff and there was a lot of arguing and Jody trying (and failing) to bull Annika. In the end, the Captain had Annika be turned off and had their two guitarists (Josh and Nathaniel) drag her out onto the decks with Dan making sure nothing happened (he had a pistol in his hands just in case).

So they get Annika turned on and the first thing that Annika says was “they have a time machine! We need it!” They have a long conversation about how Annika would know and such. My crew decides to keep as much of an eye on the Ophelia with the intention of following them. The rest of the session was just one long chase scene, including through a mountainous pass. It got to the point that the Ophelia had to make the pre-planned jump or waste a whole week (or more) of calculating. The Ophelia was 5 seconds from making the jump when the Dragon Seeker hit one of the Chrononautilus bulbs with the lightning gun, shattering the aft bulb.

The session ended with both airships leaving the thunderstorm, the Ophelia having noticed that their persuers couldn't see them and took a hard left turn in the storm. When the ships left the storm, the distance was too great for the Dragon Seeker to continue. No one knows where or when they are (including their GM). We ended because the group wanted to do the light post-dice-rolling roleplaying.

The Result:
Since I've only been running games for about a year with lots of breaks in between, I know I still have a lot to learn. The first thing I learned was to be more patient and learn better ways of describing events (so that maybe Annika would have gotten permanent marker on her). It also helps that when there's a group of NPCs that would appear every so often, to not come up with a random number between 5 and 8 for rolling for said NPCs. But now, I have to scrap every plot thread I had planned on. (this group's doing to me what the gaming group in Darths and Droids did to their GM, but I'm getting better at improvisation!) In the end, I can't wait until I run this game again.

My gaming schedule is looking like I'm not running anything next Friday and on the 28th would be Pathfinder with the next session of Airship Pirates being on the 4th unless the Camarilla schedule changes next month.