The Second Great Depression

by on May 4, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

Most historians say the Second Great Depression began when the American government stopped paying on the national debt to China and a few other nations. That is not entirely truthful. You can chart the economic trends for decades before, but governments and banks papered over the cracks as each crisis came and went. Instead of accepting small corrections that would have been relatively painless, they attempted to move the goalposts further and further out. The stock markets hit record highs every decade, wages increased, and more powerful computers came out every year. Life was good. The day most people say the Second Great Depression began was simply the day the bubble finally burst. It was the day the experiment of a united humanity finally came crashing down for all to see.

 Comment 

Boy Scouts?

by on May 3, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I’ll be honest. I didn’t see it happening. For those who don’t know, the Boy Scouts have changed their name to Scouts. And are going to allow girls into their ranks. I assume the Girl Scouts will follow suit soon. 😉

Seriously, and for those who don’t know, the Boy Scouts of America are a parent organization that runs two primary organizations. The Cub Scouts for young kids. They have allowed both boys and girls since forever I guess. And the Boy Scouts. Now Scouts. They used to run Campfire Girls in the past, but they didn’t have enough membership and shut down the organization. Seems that Girl Scouts took most of the young girls. Yes, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts are like Wal-Mart and Target. They are not partners or allies. They are competitors. Which explains why the Girl Scouts are so angry right now.

The point for me is, as I said, I never saw this happening. I’ve referenced the Boy Scouts in my stories. Jack was a Boy Scout, to the great shock and disbelief of just about every lady he tells. 😉 And I’ve used the term Boy Scout to describe more than one man of upright moral character. Will I change any of that? Nope. One of the joys of being hundreds of years in the future is that things change.

Bell-bottoms came back in our universe, so why not the Boy Scouts in mine? Who knows? Maybe the Scouts do so well that they bankrupt the Girl Scouts, buy the organization for a song, and start using the name Boy Scout and Girl Scout for those who enter Scouting. A boy can dream, right?

Whatever the case, I bid the Boy Scouts of America whatever good luck I can give them. They made the name Boy Scout synonymous with moral and upright character in our culture. They have helped raise generations of young boys into good upstanding young men. Being an Eagle Scout is one of the greatest achievements a young man can earn in our time.

It is my supreme hope that the Scouts will be able to successfully navigate the waters ahead of them and maintain that place in our society. For both boys and girls. I hope that future generations will see the Eagle Scout in the same way we do now. And I hope that future Scouts will be looked up to as the epitome of what young adults should be.

They will be in my universe. Here’s to hoping the future proves me right.

 Comment 

The Second Great Depression

by on May 2, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

It’s interesting to talk to people who lived through the Second Great Depression. The first thing most of them say is that they never saw it coming. The signs were there. Economists had warned them. Geopolitical experts had said it was coming. But the vast majority of those who actually lived it simply hadn’t believed it. It was crazy. It was never going to get that bad. Surely someone would do something to make things better. Or somebody would invent something to sidetrack the whole issue. And then one day they woke up and realized it had gotten that bad. Even today, they just shake their heads in confusion, wondering what they could have done to stop it before it happened. But none of them could. Oh, there might be a few people out there still alive who were in the right positions of authority who could have done something. But outside of them, there’s not a single person alive out there who could have stopped it.

 Comment 

The Second Great Depression

by on May 1, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

The Second Great Depression changed everything for America first, and then the rest of the world. We’d all been spending more money than we had, and global debt had skyrocketed long past any ability to pay back. Most people and corporations lived on credit so elastic that paychecks just went to their ever-expanding debts. Saving money was something that most people just didn’t do. So when America crossed the limit of the payments on the debt it could afford to make, everyone suffered. America stopped paying the Chinese, and some other nations. Other allied nations followed America’s example, and the Chinese responded by nationalizing all foreign assets in Chinese territory. Russia stepped back, stating distrust of all foreign trade partners, and the global trading and economic network collapsed in a matter of months. That was the true beginning of the Second Great Depression.

 Comment 

BattleTech

by on April 30, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

So there’s a new game out there, called BattleTech. It’s a PC game based on the 1984 tabletop wargame of the same name. It’s guys in big robots blowing up other guys in big robots. Knights of the Fallen Roman Empire in a Successor States kind of a universe scattered across a couple thousand star systems spread across a thousand lightyears of space. That’s the matchbox background.

There’s dozens of novels, dozens of sourcebooks, hundreds of playing pieces, and a dozen different computer games in the universe, making it one of the more published gaming universes in existence. Unfortunately, it suffers from a virulent strain of IP-distribution similar to Star Trek and Robotech. Basically, different companies own different parts of the IP. Microsoft owns computer programs while Topps owns the tabletop game and other physical products. This has caused some issues of late.

But BattleTech, the computer game, just came out, and it is awesome. It places you out on the Periphery of known space in the classic era of the game, at the lowest ebb of technology as the universe has been falling for centuries after the Star League collapsed into civil war. You end up commanding a mercenary unit trying to survive in the hardscrabble existence of paying wages, repairs, ammo, and keeping one step ahead of the banks that want to repossess your spaceship if you miss a single payment.

Oh. And you get to go on missions where can stomp on enemy vehicles, punch enemy BattleMechs, or just shoot them all full of holes with your missiles, lasers, and particle cannons. It’s turn based rather real-time, so you can carefully pick your moves and targets, right down to called shots on particular limbs. And it is beautiful. You get to see cinematics of your mechs walking through swaying trees or swirling dust storms on their way to punching or shooting the enemy. Sometimes they even zoom the view in so you can see the missiles tracking in for final attack. And watching your BattleMech tearing the arm off an enemy and dropping them on their back is always a thing of beauty.

This is not MechWarrior, MechAssault, or the BattleTech Virtual World Arcade Pods, where you play a single BattleMech in real time. This is not a twitch game like Halo or Call of Duty. This is a turn-based strategy game, closer to MechCommander or the Crescent Hawk games. And of course the tabletop game it takes its genesis from. It glories in being a faithful computer representation of the spirit of the tabletop game. And a fun game in its own right.

If you have even a passing affinity for strategy games, I’d like to suggest that you try this game out. It is fun. I love it. I hope you will too.

 Comment