Alex

by on February 21, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Art, Character Profiles

Alex was one of those popular girls in school. The ones that did cheerleading, track and field, concert band, and stuff like that. All the girls wanted to be her. The boys wanted…well…you know what boys want. But she changed the day I brought Julie over to her home. She started focusing on the stuff that Julie liked. Guitars, tambourines, and other smaller instruments. She learned to play a real mean fiddle. She could pretty much play anything she wanted to if I’m being honest. I learned to play a lot of the stuff I play now from her. Not that I loved every minute I spent with her. She was real suspicious of my motives, and I don’t blame her. I would have been suspicious of me too in her shoes. But she was willing to deal with me if it made Julie happy. She was willing to deal with a lot if it made Julie happy. Her boyfriend? Not so much. He was beyond suspicious of me, and that led to some…difficulties.

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Lucas Cats

by on February 20, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

The lion-derived Toshi of San Lucas lost their rule over the Hankou continent when the mountain of the gods exploded and buried much of it with burning lava. They retreated into the highlands, but there was no escape from the ashfall that came every day. They fought and killed over the scarce resources remaining, or over who was faithful to the gods and who had caused the gods to destroy them for their faithlessness. Our relief teams arrived during the worst of the fighting, and they came at us too. They were insane with hunger and a religious war that could see only themselves and the enemy. We sent aid to save their lives, but all we succeeded in doing was to complete the fall of their civilization. Their survivors live now only in scattered camps, sprinkled throughout the ruins of their once-great empire. They shun us and our aid in hopes of proving to the gods of the mountain that they have not lost their faith. And so they continue to fade into obscurity as the worlds pass them by.

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Thank You, Mister President

by on February 19, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Long ago, before hipsters walked around with cell phones twittering in their hands and dinosaurs walked the Earth, merry bands of Europeans came to America in search of a new life. Some sought riches in the New World. Some sought freedom from the Old World. But as often happens, both riches and freedom were curtailed as time went on. We demanded our liberty and freedom be respected, and when it was denied, we rebelled. We fought.

General Washington led us. Through good times and bad, in bloody summers and freezing winters, he gave one inch of his life at a time. And when our freedom was secured, he retired and went home. But out first attempt at governing ourselves failed. America was collapsing, and so General Washington accepted the position of President Washington under a new Constitution. He is the only President to march with the army when it went out into the field, and his mere presence ended the conflict before weapons were fired. He stepped down after two terms, a precedent followed by every President but one until the two-term limit was made part of the Constitution.

Many say that without George Washington we would not exist as a country. That he was one of those cornerstone individuals around whom history rotates. Perhaps that is true. Or perhaps we venerate him too much. Perhaps another General could have led our armies against the British. Perhaps another President could have held us together in our greatest moment of fractured identity as a young nation. Perhaps.

But I know one thing. It was George Washington who did it. And today is the Federal Holiday celebrating his birth. So I say this. Thank you, Mister President, for helping to create the nation I have grown up in. The nation I love.

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The Gateway Run

by on February 18, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Essential Galactic Atlas

Our Post War Gateway Run was considerable shorter than that available to us before The War. We gained access to the multiple-star system of Capella for instance. And what scientists still called 1 Geminorum. Those systems gave us some of the fastest hyperspace routes that were available to us at the time. They reached farther, faster, and better, shrinking the number of stars we had to cross to a mere seven. And the more direct route shaved nearly one hundred lightyears off our entire transit. The same War era American starship that could only maintain fifteen hundred times the speed of light could maintain over two thousand lights on those routes, and make the transit in eighty days. Or one hundred, or even one hundred fifty if hyperspace was particularly uncooperative. Even that was a significant improvement on our travel times to The Taurus Gate. And we did improve our hyperdrives in the meantime. Modern ships are far faster than old War Era starships, which makes the galaxy a much smaller place today than it was when the Shang brought The War upon us all. All of that is thanks to The Gateway Run and the knowledge that traversed it.

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Alex

by on February 17, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Character Profiles

Alex wanted nothing to do with me the day I brought Julie over to Alex’s house. But I got Julie to pull up her shirt to show Alex the bruises. I told Alex that Julie couldn’t live with her father anymore. I still remember the look of hatred she aimed at me in that moment. They were first cousins, and an abusive uncle would hit every scandal rag if she followed her dreams into the talking head networks. She would be pigeonholed into every parental abuse media panel. She would be the face of abuse on the networks. She wanted more than that. So much more. I was destroying her future by bringing this into her life. Then Alex looked back to Julie and the hatred melted away in favor of compassion and love. She welcomed Julie in to tell her mom, and when Julie made it clear that I was coming in too, Alex gave me just one exasperated smile and nodded me in. Some people say that people can’t change. I know the truth. I saw Alex change before my very eyes in that moment, and I will never forget it.

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