I have spent my entire life since the moment I understood what life was all about preparing for the future. My family is rich and powerful and we look out for our interests. We keep secrets, both our own and those that others would prefer kept. This is the family I grew up with. The day I understood this was the day I began to prepare to change things. It is the folly of youth to think you can change the worlds. It is a folly I have ever embraced.
“Diversity is Strength” is a phrase I’ve heard many people say. That’s a bit touchy feely for me. And if you take that too far it’s real bad. If diversity is what you chase to the exclusion of all else, you’re not going to get strength as a result. You’ll get something that will fracture at first test. That’s why you have to forge things. Take the different stuff and make something better than the sum of the parts. It’s what we did.
For two thousand years the cybernetic intelligences of Pelora took care of those we chose to defend. Most Peloran don’t want to fight after all. They will if ordered which made them good soldiers for the Ennead, but few volunteer. We volunteered to watch over them. We were friends of course, but we lived apart from them. And very few of us were more than friends. We lived in separate worlds and liked it that way. It was the way of things.
Gencon was a good time for me. If you are a writer, the writer’s symposium alone is worth going to and they have established writers giving out secrets of writing they’ve learned the hard way. So I learned a lot there. Plus I showed my new game for people to see. It’s a good game. Seeing the wife of a wargamer getting into the game with a cheer after starting out bored with the idea brought a special smile to my face. The game goes for twenty buckaroos. It’s live now.
Names have meaning. Names have power. And different cultures need different names to portray that. The name Cowboy works for an America with a history of wide-open spaces and ranches covering hundreds of miles but the Europeans have no link to that word. And so they use different names. Teutonic Knights. Caballeros. Order of Merlin. Highlanders. Musketeers. Those are names that mean something to Europe and so they have power.