A Primer on the Races of Humanity – Branan

by on July 7, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

The Branan left their homeworld less than a century after the Albion disappeared. Technically, they’d left numerous times in the years before, using the Albion shuttles to place satellites in orbit, and do all of the other things a young spacefaring race does. But those were tiny ships that could take only a few people and small amounts of cargo into orbit. A few brave souls floated through the system on exploration trips that took years, far out of reach of any help if there was an emergency, and beamed their findings back home. But most of their time was spent no further out than the outer orbitals. Then the Branan began sending larger boosters into orbit to assemble great interplanetary spacecraft. Albion shuttles controlled the first of them, but the Branan built their own complete spacecraft in time. And that was when they began their true colonization of their home star system.

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Kara

by on July 6, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Art, Character Profiles

Dawn and Dorothy have many sisters. A whole gaggle of them joined the Wolfenheim Project once it started kicking with gas. Kara was one of them. I heard rumors that some fine upstanding young gentlemen were moonlighting in the area, and some of our people were complaining, so I went to investigate. That was when Kara walked on in and was accosted by one of those gentlemen. She was soon explaining to the young man exactly why he had made a mistake in that dark alley. He was lucky the only thing he tried to steal was her handbag. I don’t think he would have walked away if he’d demanded anything more. She told him what she thought of him over ten minutes in multiple languages, and she didn’t repeat herself once. Then she walked away, leaving him hanging by his middle fingers, and went on about her way. I arranged for his boss to see the footage and the fine upstanding young gentlemen ceased to be an issue. And I reminded myself to never underestimate Kara’s mastery of human communications.

High rez version available for free on Patreon

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John Park

by on July 5, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Art, Character Profiles

John Park tutored me in languages during my formative years. He explained how they were created by the underlying cultures to a young man more interested in girls than language. He taught me how to woo girls in a dozen languages, and how to question every sacred cow of nations and cultures. And he taught me to question the traditions of my family. My father did not appreciate this once he discovered the extent of John’s teachings and banished him from the family, but my father was too late. John made me the man I am today. Then he joined the church, became a pastor, and spent a century staying out of the news. I tracked him down after that, and it was not long before he was part of the Wolfenheim Project.

High rez version available for free on Patreon

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Happy Independence Day

by on July 4, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Today is the day to remember what generations of American patriots have fought for. We remember their sacrifice, and we celebrate what they gave us. We remember the Declaration of Independence that brave men signed in the face of a worldwide empire. We remember those who signed the Constitution we live with two centuries later. We stand outside in the evening light and celebrate the birth of our nation by blowing a piece of it up. Today, in typical American fashion, we celebrate our Independence Day.

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Big Robots and Pirates – A Tale of Two Movies

by on July 3, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I saw the new Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean movies in the last two weeks, and in many cases they are the same movie. In other ways, they are completely different. They are both a kind of origin story, adding history and gravitas to the more simplistic movies that predated them. Transformers has more story in this one movie than in all of the other Bayformers movies combined. That is not a good thing.

Transformers was in dire need of an editor willing to cull sacred cows and stuff genies (or wizards) back into the bottles they came from. I didn’t dislike the movie. I also don’t really LIKE the movie. It’s a meh movie. It is full of the some of the best filmed or cg created scenes in the entire franchise. From fan service scenes where Bumblebee actually shows up as a Volkswagen, to them showing us how the Witwickys fit in the world of Transformers. And the fight scenes throughout are almost perfect. You can see the action in crystal clarity as if Bayformers lost the shaky cam. The problem is that the story that brings all those awesome scenes together is…too busy. Too chaotic. Too complicated. We move from cool scene to cool scene in a blinding flash of story bits that serve more to confuse than to inform. What Transformers needed was to cut out a third to half of the movie, and then embellish on what was left. It would have made a great movie that way. As is, it is a meh movie. It’s taken me a week and watching another movie to figure out how to say what I feel. If that doesn’t say anything about Transformers, I don’t know what will.

Pirates on the other hand, was a fun movie to watch. It also has much more story, and was a very complicated movie if you delve into the story. But the story is shown more and told less. And that is the key. Pirates never seems to TELL us anything. It shows it all to us, from Jack Sparrow’s origin to what could be his utter end, in dribs and drabs that leave us wanting more. Pirates was a fun movie to watch, and I find myself wanting to watch it again. And if that doesn’t say anything about Pirates, I don’t know what will.

🙂

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