Greetings Earthlings and welcome to our second science digest. Science has been advancing at the rate of Moore’s Law and there’s so much good stuff since we last talked about JPL’s open house and zombified Texas fire ants.

Space Odysseys 2009
I was glued to NASA TV last month as the Hubble was repaired. I was impressed with the way everyone worked together and the dialog between the astronauts and ground control (our politicians could learn more than science from these guys -- who said geeks had poor communication skills?). I was doubly impressed with the clear quality of the sound and video image – all from space! I was looking forward to watching the next mission, which was scheduled to blast off this week, but it’s been delayed until July. In the meantime, I’ll ponder NASA's plan to fly a rocket booster into the moon, with the hope that the resulting 6 mile high explosion will confirm the presence of water (which they hope to use as fuel and sustenance for the planned 2018 return of man to the moon). When we were at JPL last month, one scientist remarked that ours will be the last generation to look up to the moon and not see lights (unless Obama makes good on his threat to cut funding for a Lunar base). If that doesn't boggle your mind, consider a very serious plan to build an inflatable tower which would serve as a way to get into space at a vastly deflated cost.



While we are pondering the stars, I’d like to remind you of one of my favorite astronomy sites: The Astronomy Picture of the Day. I like this one in particular because it reminds me of one of my favorite songs, "Under the Milky Way Tonight," which is unfortunately something that, living in Los Angeles, you don't get a sense of very often.

Seeing Is Not Always Believing
Research about our brain has exploded in the recent past. fMRI technology makes it relatively easy to study the brain while we do things. We’re beyond merely learning about our biological wiring; we’re learning what the electrical blips and bleeps might mean. I’m fascinated with perception and how our brains take sensory data and make a world of it. Did you know that your eyes perceives the world upside down? It’s our brains that turn the image of it right side up.

What profession loves to take advantage of our mis-attention and misperceptions? Put on your white gloves and get our your black hat. It’s Magic! A few months ago, Science News had a cover story about scientists who are picking up a few Neurological tricks from professional magicians. Using eye tracking technology, magician and neuroscientist Gustav Kuhn tested participants as they watched him throw and palm a ball. The eyes watched the ball – even when it was palmed. It was the brain that tricked the participant into believing differently. Wired covered the same topic with Teller from the duo Penn and Teller the same month. These stories reminded me of the “amazing color changing card trick,” that got me a few years ago. Watch the video below and try it yourself (and share what you see in the comments section).



I wanted to learn more about perception and cognition, but I hate standardized tests so I thought MIT’s OpenCourseware (OCW) would be a perfect way to feed my curiosity. OCW classes are free publications and lectures culled from many of the courses taught at MIT. UC Berkeley also has similar online content and other university lectures are available here. (Thanks to @Communicatrix for the tip.) It can be cheap to feed your mind, but sadly, none of these courses count for credit.

Intelligence, Evolution
Transcendent Man, is the new movie about the life and concepts of Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity is Near and The Age of Spiritual Machines (see trailer below). Considered either a crackpot or “the rightful heir to Thomas Edison” (and, by some, both), Kurzweil is one of the most innovative and forward thinking individuals alive today.



Recently Kurzweil came under fire in this Newsweek article, which asserted that many of his past predictions have been proven incorrect. I couldn’t help but be impressed with Kurweil’s respectful response to the author, who it appeared wrote a rather sensationalist story. (The news rag also trashed Oprah recently, which means they must be desperate to boost circulation.) However, regardless of where you stand on Kurzweil, this kind of dialog is rarely seen today and was refreshing to read.

Red Skies At Night, Gas Guzzlers Delight
If you’re looking for crazy sensational science concepts, look no further than this article from TheAtlantic.com, which reports on an idea to use blimps to spray sulphur gas into the atmosphere as budget method to combat global warming. Yes, it’s for real!

As a side effect of the process, our skies would turn red. I guess red might just turn out to be the new blue. The sulphur spraying could potentially be so cheap and effective that our current half-hearted attempts to get nations to go green could be moot. Indeed the Kyoto Protocol itself could become redundant; An international agreement would be unnecessary, since it'd only take one nation to get jiggy with the red stuff to chill the whole planet out. Of course once you can regulate the planet at the touch of a gas-powered thermostat, we might need to agree what the ambient temperature should be. My boyfriend and I argue about the A/C in our car -- imagine that on an international level (this could get ugly).

Heavy Shit
On the lighter side (or the heavier one, depending on how you look at it), the periodic table is getting a new element. Element 112, temporarily named "ununbium," was first discovered over a decade ago by a team of German scientists led by Sigurd Hoffman. It's pretty hard to make, requiring a particle accelerator and a lot of patience, hence it took a while for the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) to officially welcome the new element into its fold. Hoffman has already revealed the existence of more elements with atomic numbers 107-111 and his team are in the game to cook up even heavier ones.

Vampires
In the science-meets-genre video sector, I recently picked up a collection of short documentary films by French scientist Jean Painlevé called Science is Fiction. Imagine old documentaries with a French interpretation (yes, there was the mention of a ménage a trois). Here’s a glimpse of one featuring octopi mating (see below).



And this liquid crystal footage from Painlevé is just asking to be mashed up for club eye candy.

Finally, if you ever wanted to see a real live vampire bat forced to feed, well, let me point you to another of Painlevé's many gems (see below).



Note: this video is a good taster of Painlevé's films (with nice accompanying music), but you’ll have to go to 3:02 to get to the vampire bat and the real action starts at 5:54. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that vampire bat looks too happy in there. OK, I admit, I had to turn away when he started his thing with the guinea pig. I don’t think they’ll let you make films like this anymore. Extra points if you get to the FIN.

Heathervescent is a writer, technology consultant and agent of
cacophony. You can read more of her adventures at www.heathervescent.com and follow her @heathervescent.

We love the content of our games: the characters, the environments, a great lighting trick or a memorable score. But let's be honest. Gameplay trumps all. Without the Portal gun, you wouldn't have Portal. Left 4 Dead proves that you can get more mileage with less plot. And Tetris, arguably the king of games, comes with no content at all.

You could argue that the content is just frosting - except in a few cases. And one of those cases is the oeuvre of game designer Tim Schafer. Schafer's new title, Brütal Legend, due this fall, has stirred up raves and praise from the gaming press after favorable demos at GDC and E3. With Jack Black as roadie Eddie Riggs helming a saga set in a '70s metal fantasy world, Brütal Legend ticks off many boxes on the list of Things That Rawk. The game features the voices of legends such as Lemmy Kilmister, Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford, as well as celeb cameos from the likes of Tim Curry. But the main attraction is Scahfer. If he's behind it, the thinking goes, the game will be massive. It'll be hilarious, yet thoughtful. The characters will be larger than life but true to their hearts. You won't even want to skip the cut-scenes.

But will you actually have fun playing the game?



I've never played Schafer's earliest works. He was a co-writer and co-designer on LucasArts' first two Monkey Island games and Day of the Tentacle, and he made his lead designer debut with 1995's Full Throttle. I first fell for him with 1998's Grim Fandango, a brilliantly executed and head-bashingly tough graphical adventure set in an afterlife that crosses Day of the Dead imagery with Art Deco architecture, Aztec motifs, and classic movies like Casablanca. This pastiche, which served as a background for the adventures of Manuel "Manny" Calavera, a travel agent for the Department of Death in the fictitious land of El Marrow, blended perfectly thanks to Schafer's direction and his sense of humor. Across four acts, clever puzzles stemmed not from abstract logic games, but naturally and believably from the sui generis environments and the masterfully-told story.

I mentioned humor, and his sense of it is Schafer's greatest strength. The humor that he and his team bring to their games is surprisingly broad and all-ages, without crossing the line to "corny." The jokes are witty but heartfelt, and they're free of geek-bait, fan service, or other short-lived references. They reflect a creator who's not in love with his jokes, but with his worlds.



Grim Fandango roosts high on the list of all-time great games. But Schafer's next work, 2005's Psychnoauts, is better known as a great game that nobody played. On its first release it racked up critical praise but dismal sales. And while I liked it enough to finish it, I can see why it didn't "click."

Psychonauts takes place in a summer camp - except this is a summer camp for psychics. The students are Psychonauts-in-training, who jump into people's minds and dreams to battle their nightmares and cure their neuroses. This gave Schafer's team the chance to combine a folksy, familiar setting with a panolpy of surreal dreamscapes, where psychedelic discos and black spy helicopters rub against villas filled with black velvet paintings, and a circus full of fluffy little bunnies, all marching to the slaughter.

That's a broad palette - and unlike Grim Fandango, it doesn't gel. The protagonist is Raz, a stock precocious boy who overshadows a smarter heroine and whose whole quest is basically about himself. He doesn't catch the imagination like Fandango's Manny, and the game's maturity level swings from nostalgically youthful, to flat-out juvenile. On the other hand, the peripheral stuff - the environments, the dialogue, and the secondary characters - shine with love and care. Stroll around the campgrounds and you'll have dozens of opportunities to talk to other kids, and to watch cutscenes just because they're so damn entertaining.

But what really marred Psychonauts is the game. It's a 3-D platformer, which has a niche appeal. The platforming has nothing to do with the game's core themes of psychoanalysis-made-physical however. See, our hero is not only a psychic, he's also a circus performer - which explains why he can monkey his way up all these tightwires and pillars, but has nothing to do with all the cool stuff about breaking into people's imaginations. Many levels end with a feeling, not of triumph, but relief. And when the difficulty spikes in the finale, even the game's biggest boosters admit it starts to curdle.



Which brings us to Brütal Legend. I won't try to judge Brütal before I've even laid my hands on a controller. But I've caught several minutes of gameplay footage, and I've already seen one reason to like it: it's an action-adventure, the burger-and-fries of the gaming world.

Enemies show up, and you mash a button and kill them. You upgrade your weapons and pick up new abilities, and you can mash buttons to use them. Your parents who conceived you to this heavy metal soundtrack will have a blast playing this with you. So far, we've seen no baroque puzzles, and no tricky four-story-high rope courses. You smack the buttons and the little guy on the screen kills people. And when you're done? You go back to a world of album cover skies and disfigured headbangers and leather-clad rock chicks and golden-throated pretty boys, and hours and hours of listening to people yap. It's the best reward of all: more content.


Images - Top: Jack Black in Brütal Legend / Second: Grim Fandango / Third: Psychonauts / Bottom: Ozzy in Brütal Legend.

Rachael Webster (a.ka.a SG member PixelVixen707) is SG's Hit Play games columnist. A game lover and game blogger living in New York City, she also writes at PixelVixen707.com and tweets as PixelVixen707.

Before I go on a tear about this bizarre new game Blueberry Garden, we should chat about indie games (since it is one). I'm nuts about indie culture, and if you're on this site, you probably are as well. You dig the alternative over the mainstream, the underdog over the overlords. I don't doubt your taste in indie film, music, comics, and bien sûr, erotica, is impeccable.

But maybe you aren't sold on indie games. After all, the indie gaming scene is exploding, but it's not exactly accessible. Maybe you don't know where to start with indie games, beyond the ones that make it to the XBLA or the PlayStation store. Maybe the retro graphics, the Mario homages, and the thrill of downloading strange .exe's off the web with no idea if they'll eat your hard drive, just aren't your bag.

Chasing down the indie scene isn't meant to be simple however. After all, half the joy lies in the hunt: searching the blogs for something new, playing something other than the latest dude-shoots-dudes rampager, encountering a new voice that catches you off guard and maybe even makes you queasy. The press - both gamer, and mainstream - could do a more thorough job of spotting, cataloging and posing these talents like critters in a zoo. For now, I'm happy to dive into the wilds with a sketchy map and a tarantula hiding in my rucksack.

And nothing makes my point more elegantly than Blueberry Garden. After all, it won this year's Seamus McNally grand prize at the Independent Games Festival, which is akin to winning Sundance, or landing Pitchfork's album of the year. But it's not a "safe" pick. From minute one, the game is a total head-scratcher.

Here's the premise: you're Mr. Beak, and you live in a garden. Fruit grows here, and you also meet the wildlife, which includes clumsy fat birds, big blue moose, and little guys who look like marshmallows with party hats. Life in the garden is strange, but idyllic - at least, until you realize there's a crisis at hand, and only you can fix it.

This is the latest from creator Erik Svedäng, whose portfolio includes Pixel Cave Adventures - which you play in something called a Virtual Reality Cave, found only at the University of Skövde - and World of Pong, an online game where hundreds of people play Pong at the same time. (It is the funniest thing I've seen in weeks!)

Svedäng expects people to play Blueberry Garden twice before they beat it; the first time, you're just sussing out how everything works. You can take pleasure in the aesthetics, like the austere piano soundtrack and winsome visuals. At the same time, your left-brained gamer side wants to skip all the pretty stuff and work through the rules: What happens when I eat the pear? How high can I get on a running jump? How do I reach the giant pencil that's stuck in that cave? (And why do I even want to?) The game's chief achievement lies in fending off your reasoning, all the better to keep you wandering.

Aesthetics trump gameplay in another sense. Most of the movements feel clunky. Walking is a pain. Flying is, too. To reach certain destinations, you have to cruise to an altitude that's so high you lose track of the ground, 'til you think you're drifting aimlessly. (Maybe that was the point.) And while the game is technically a puzzle-platformer, you won't face puzzles so much as problems, and the tools you use to solve them feel rough and inexact.

But that's the point; the game's world is organic. It's built to creak and amble. After all, you're not controlling Sonic the Hedgehog: you're Mr. Beak, who's stiff and grumpy and a little aloof, but who nevertheless saves the day.

Beat the game, and you'll get a special reward: a link to a private page on Svedäng's website, where you and all the other winners can hobnob and swap notes. Svedäng even shows up to take questions. (Another reason to love indie devs: they're so touchable.) But truth be told, it's not that exclusive. Most people will knock their way through this thing in about an hour, which you should keep in mind before you drop cash on it. And maybe I'm focusing too much on the rules again, but the game seems to skip a chance to explore its own systems - to compound the difficulty, to use the animals in the puzzles, or to come up with any variations on the theme. It scores on charm but lacks depth.

But if you're new to indie games, and you want a title that'll show you what's up with all this fuss? Try Blueberry Garden. It's a perfect example of discovery in games and world-making in miniature. And who doesn't need a shot of 'wtf' in their gaming?


Rachael Webster (a.ka.a SG member PixelVixen707) is SG's Hit Play games columnist. A game lover and game blogger living in New York City, she also writes at PixelVixen707.com and tweets as PixelVixen707.

I discovered that I’ve encountered many things in my life without knowing their names. When I was in college I dated a cutter. I didn’t know he was a “cutter” -- I just thought he was a slightly freaky young man who hurt himself in an attempt to impress and/or control me. (That was fun.)

Later, I fell into a mailing list that I thought was for Babylon 5 fans -- older and wiser, I now realize that a good many of them were furries, as one of their pastimes was to talk about which characters on B5 would make good animals. I followed along like a foreigner caught in a protest who yells the sounds she hears around her to fit into the crowd, the passion moving me without actually wondering if I’d really like to fuck an anthropomorphic fox who vaguely resembles Marcus Cole.

I wouldn’t, for what it’s worth.

And I heard about alternate reality games (ARGs) way back in the day before they were called that, when the failed EA game Majestic was announced. I thought this were a terrible idea. A game that went into the real world, that called you and emailed you? I was working closely with the Electronic Software Ratings Board at the time to create a privacy policy for the computer gaming company I worked for, and privacy was a huge thing on my mind. Didn’t this just break all those rules?

Yeah, I know. And I thought the iPod was a stupid idea too. I’m willing to admit I’m wrong.

EA screwed up because they required payment for the game, and canceled it for lack of players -- not the huge privacy kerfuffle that I had anticipated, but I suck at predictions. Regardless, online privacy and ARGs was just discussed in the ARG Netcast, an excellent weekly podcast about ARGs featuring some of the big names in ARG creation today.

I am slow to catch on to things like this, I admit. (See above iPod comment.) I finally heard about ARGs in 2007 and became fascinated by the idea. See, an alternate reality game is a game that claims it is not a game, but has a central narrative, often on a website or within a novel, with a paths, or ‘rabbit holes’ that lead elsewhere: other websites, phone numbers to call, even places to visit for messages. Each path will offer more information, a puzzle, or a clue. ARGs can have hundreds of pieces of extra content to discover, and it's as immersive as you can make it. The first successful ARGs were devised as marketing material for existing licenses or products (The Beast was connected to the film AI: Artificial Intelligence), but they've expanded since then.

Some ARGs happen in real time, with a definitive start and end. The Beast was one, running three months and engaging three million people. But as I am a late-comer, I’ve been more interested in the ARGs that connect with books. What I’m finding about novel ARGs is that they allow you to be as lazy as you like. The good ones are solid, stand-alone stories that you can enjoy at a casual level, or you can delve deeper and get intensive with your investigation. My first true ARG that I played was with my six-year-old daughter when we started reading the kids’ books, The 39 Clues. We follow two orphans as they discover they’re part of a very powerful family who are all searching for clues that will lead to great power. We have read two novels, and gone online where we took a quiz to see where in the family we belong (there are four branches of the family, resembling closely the four houses of Hogwarts….) Since then we’ve done research, figured out puzzles and played games to learn more about the secrets of the family, and it’s been a lot of fun.

Now that I’ve exposed my wuss characteristics, that I had to play the kid’s game to get into ARGs, I’m more and more interested. I got the Urban Sleuth app for my new iPod Touch, which is doing big time ARGs for major cities, but also allows for other ARGs to be uploaded and played for those of us in the non-important cities. It also allows for people to create their own city-based games, and I’m hoping to check out the content creator tools.

But my first real "big girl" ARG will be out shortly, and I can't wait. I got a chance to check out an advanced copy of the new ARG, Personal Effects: Dark Art, a novel about an art therapist who works with the criminally insane. The story was strong, creepy, and a decent stand-alone product, but I was curious about the ARG standpoint. I didn't get to see any of the extra content that comes with the retail version of the book, and this content is central to the ARG.

When I visited the science fiction convention Balticon in May, I got to hang out with author J.C. Hutchins and see the final book itself. Personal Effects like most ARGs has clues, numbers and websites in the book, but it stands alone because also comes with a lot of extra content such as ID cards for characters in the book, birth certificates, death certificates, notes, and, since the main character is an art therapist, reproductions of art pieces in the book. The amount of extra content was surprising, and I think putting the rabbit hole in your hands (like a portable hole from D&D) instead of making you search it out on the web will be a stronger pull -- the clues in your hand will likely pique your curiosity and make you seek out more answers.

(When I say "you" I mean "me.")

The book also has another phenomenon: one of the supporting characters is actually a person online, and has been interacting with people since fall '08. She’s a gamer and a blogger, quite active on Twitter. Whether she’s real or not is a matter of contention -- clearly there’s someone charming and whip-smart on the other end, and her game writing is well-informed. And as ARGs have been telling us since their birth: this is not a game.

I'll purposefully leave her name out of it. You can find her if you read the book, and if you're already reading her and you don't know she's fictional, then it really shouldn't matter to you, should it?


Mur Lafferty is an author and podcaster who recently released her first novel, Playing For Keeps. She Speaks Geek every month on SuicideGirls.com. Click HERE for more of Mur's musings.

A few years ago a friend was showing me his tattoos at a geeky event I organized. He turned around, pulled down his collared shirt -- and my eyes popped out of my skull. He had a DB-9 port tattooed to the back of his neck. He then proceeded to show me other parts of his body as that wasn’t his only “geeky” tattoo. A few months later I met a friend’s wife who had her name tattooed on her arm -- in binary code. It wrapped her arm like a bracelet of ones and zeros. These geeky tattoos were few and far between, so I went in search of tattoos of the geeky kind. Here's a tour of some of my favorites.

The Transistor

As I mentioned, the first geeky tattoo I saw was on the body of my friend, Eric Gradman. He’s the one with the DB-9 port on the back of his neck. “I got this tattoo at a time when lots of people were getting barcodes on the back of their necks. I have a bit of an aversion to permanent numeric ID markers.”

He tells the story of how he got another one. “I'd been drinking at Zeitgeist in San Francisco for about 7 hours when we decided to get tattoos. Transistors are in every piece of electronics we use and their discovery revolutionized the world. Nobody really uses BJT transistors anymore; they use FETs (which use a different schematic symbol) but the BJT symbol is so classy. Even hippies smile when they see it, mistakenly believing that it stands for world unity.”

011000100110100101101110011000010111001001111001

I’ll bet you know what language the above is–- but I’ll also bet you can’t read it (hint). Lots of people get binary tattoos with their name or special words. The only problem with binary is the quantity of ones and zeros. After researching geeky tattoos on Flickr, I found some very simple binary art that I particularly liked. “I am a geeky person," explains Robert Maki, whose body it belonged to. "Since I love computers and people call me a geek, I decided to get it tattooed on me, in the most primal language of computers.”

Love in 3D

Meg Watcher's tech-head body art is also some that I stumbled across on Flickr. She has a traditional Mom and Dad in a heart on her arm –- with one very cool twist -- it’s tattooed in 3D red/blue lines. “I really liked the look of old-school offset red and blue 3D drawings and wanted to get it done in tattoo form,” Meg told me. I got out my 3D glasses (which I have on my desk) and spied it through the blue and red shades -- and it looked pretty good. If you have a pair of shades, get em out and see for yourself.

Showing the <3

A friend of a friend of mine (thanks for introducing us Joz), Ed Morita, writes a blog on baking and his pastry creations make my mouth water. Earlier this year, Morita asked his readers to help him decide where to get a tattoo featuring the Wordpress logo. “I have been a blogger in some form or another since 2004, and five years is a long time to be using any sort of brand. WordPress has been a big part of my life, and like other big things in my life I think that it is time for me to get inked.” (See photo.)

My Bar Camp LA buddy Jason Cosper wanted to show his love for Apple but only to fellow Apple lovers. “Why get an Apple logo when you can get something that the really hardcore people will get? Also, it's easier to explain it away as a simple Celtic knot when people I don't want to talk to ask about it.” (See photo.)

Fellow Bar Camper Jeremy Kitchen has two Linux tattoos. His first is the classic penguin, “Tux” holding a sign that reads “1337.”

“I was 19, wanted a tattoo, was very gung-ho about Linux, and thought it might be cool.” Last month, he convinced co-worker Terri Haber to join him in his second Linux themed tattoos. His image of choice: Tuz -- the new Linux logo, which was changed to bring awareness to a rare disease that kills Tasmanian Devils.

Time traveling

Our final geek tattooist comes inked with so much good stuff I don’t know where to start. How about with the inside lip tattoo of “geek” (showcasing his inner geek!). What about the yin/yang Tron circuitry on his forearms? The Atari console with green screen and punch cards? The Flux Capacitor? And I can’t forget the Logan’s Run Jewel on his palm? I’d like to introduce fellow SG member: FEJ

In homage to his Dad, FEJ has a complicated tattoo of an Atari console, punch cards, green screen and Dad tattooed in 8-bit binary on his arm.

“Dad had punchcards around the office when I was a kid. I remember seeing them and wondering about them, and as I got older, admiration for him being able to use them in the early days of programming. He worked for Rockwell which made the eProms for the Atari and Activision game cartridges. We had a modified 'Adventure' cartridge with s eProm quick release that allowed us to change games that way. We got games almost a year before they were released.”

And the Flux Capacitor? “One day it just popped into my head (I didn't fall and hit my head on the sink) and knew. Those that know what it is always point it out.”

My favorite of all the tattoos in this article is FEJ's Logan’s Run palm jewel. In this future world, to combat overpopulation and consumption, everyone reaching a certain age is killed. “When someone turned 29, the jewel in their palm glowed and they are supposed to go to 'Carousel' and ultimately be executed in the ceremony. Those that fought the system became 'Runners' and went looking for 'Sanctuary.' I like to think of myself as a 'Runner' on the constant spiritual journey looking for 'Sanctuary'”

Heathervescent is a writer, technology consultant and agent of cacophony. She was unable to find a tattoo of Cronenberg’s back port from eXistenZ and was constantly distracted by this collection of the worst Unicorn tattoos! You can read more of her adventures at heathervescent.com and follow her @heathervescent

I'm no expert on superhero comics. But in the pile of comics in our living room, stuck between The Boys, Walking Dead, and Air, are a few out-and-out good guy vs. bad guy books -- and the best of the bunch is Ultimate Spiderman. Never mind that it's an unusually good retelling of the story of everyone's favorite geek hero. Never mind that Mary Jane has a mean right hook, or that Gwen Stacy went punk. I like the book because it gives us a Spider-Man who's still learning right from wrong.

Spidey taught us -- and say it with me -- that with great power, comes great responsibility. But really, that's just his opinion. And if he didn't have the memory of his dead uncle nagging at him all the time, would he always play nice?

As the SG Gamers group caught on, Cole MacGrath, the star of Sucker Punch Productions's PlayStation 3 sandboxer inFamous, owes plenty to Spider-Man. As the erstwhile motorcycle messenger, you can scale buildings and fall from any height -- not to mention shoot lethal bolts of electricity from your fingertips. Like Spider-Man, when you start out everyone thinks you're a menace: accused of being a terrorist who turned the city into a free-fire zone, you're scoffed and spat upon everywhere you go. But unlike Spider-Man, you live in a city that can't stand in your way. Sometimes the cops sneak out of their hidey-holes to take potshots at the gangs, and the military mans the barricades around the island. But inside the city limits, you are the law. And everybody else looks very, very helpless.

In most games, the run-of-the-mill civilians fall into two extremes: they're either crucial, or insignificant. In a game like Grand Theft Auto, pedestrians are just moving targets. Running down a sidewalk full of people may get the cops on your tail, and a stick-up might bring you a few bucks, but your rampages have no long-term ramifications. The little people just don't matter. At the other end, a real-time strategy game will give you a population to protect or an army to deploy -- and every last one of those folks is a resource. Lose one or two and it's no big thing, but waste too many and you're going to lose the game.

In inFamous, the civilians matter -- but they don't matter much. You can help them, but the rewards are minor. And thanks to that design decision, you'll focus on the role you want to play rather than the points you need to earn.

To be clear, you're also confronted with boldface, lunkheaded moral decisions between a brave act and a craven one, such as, "Do I take a couple bruises from this giant walking trash monster -- or let a dozen people burn to death?" These shift your hero rating as well -- but they're not as interesting as the choices you aren't forced to make.

Choose to be a hero, and you can stop every five feet and heal someone who's wounded and dying on the sidewalk. You get a few experience points for every save, but that's just a "thank you"; knowing that you've saved hundreds of lives is the real reward. On the other hand, have you ever tied your ex's dog to the back of a bus? Or maybe grabbed the last beer in the fridge? If you're the villain-type, inFamous lets you wreak havoc on an already wrecked city, torturing the populace and even draining the last gasps of life from victims dying on the street. All these crimes will nudge your karma toward evil, but in the scheme of things, a few murders here and there don't add up to much -- and anyway, you'll quickly learn how hard it is to do good.

Maybe Spider-Man had time to catch baby carriages and save grandmas from falling taxis. But in inFamous, stray passers-by love to jump in the middle of a firefight, and who the hell has time to protect them? Plus, most of them are obnoxious. I talked to one gamer who tried to play nice, until he got trash-talk from one too many civilians -- so he walked up to the guy and knocked him across the street. Could Spider-Man get away with that?

Yes, he could -- if he wanted to. And nothing made me appreciate the masked webslinger like trying to follow his example, and failing in so many little ways. Don't get me wrong: this ain't Watchmen. The story crams 50 pounds of nonsense in a 5 pound bag, and the hero is just some guy with a squeaky messenger bag and a rechargeable battery for a brain. But the game puts its stubby little finger square on how it feels to be the ubermensch. Nobody can judge you, because nobody can stop you. And yes, all those little people matter -- but they only matter a little.


Rachael Webster (a.ka.a SG member PixelVixen707) is SG's Hit Play games columnist. A game lover and game blogger living in New York City, she also writes at PixelVixen707.com and tweets as PixelVixen707.

It’s a cliché – when life gives you lemons – make lemonade. In my case, a friend had an '83 Toyota Supra that had seen better days. But rather than take it to junkyard for demolition, this past weekend we took it to the racetrack to participate in the 2009 Goin' For Broken 24 Hours of LeMons race at the Fernley Raceway in Reno, NV.

24 Hours of LeMons, an endurance race for cars worth less than $500, was started by Jay Lamm, in response to the elitist racing industry. “Regular racing had gotten way too expensive and took itself way too seriously, ” Lamm explains in an email to me. “Anyone who thinks racing is going to be their career is probably high, but that's what racing has become by and large.” We won’t mention Lamm’s racing career.

This year there are more than 10 LeMon races scheduled all over the US.


Our competition.

Whack jobs
Who is crazy enough to put a six point roll cage into a Geo Metro, Bitchin Camaro, Saab 900 or VW Rabbit with a pancake on it’s head? “Serious racers who've had enough of the seriousness and just want to go out and have a good time for a change. Or whack jobs who've always wanted to get on a racetrack but couldn't figure out how to get started,” says Lamm.

My team was definitely of the whack job variety. Let me introduce them: Dominik our fearless leader had the genius idea to take the piece of junk supra to the races. The car was actually his girlfriend Kelly's, and she used to drive it around south pasadena with her two pit bull mixes in the back. It had broken down on her more than once. Dave was our master welder and patiently bended and often rebended the roll cage pieces. Sam was the least crazy of us all and proved to be the best and fastest driver getting only one penalty when he did a 180. You already know me -- I'm hell on four wheels.

I’d never been on a racetrack (unless you consider LA Freeways a racetrack). I had never seen a yellow flag. And although I owned two helmets and scads of motorcycle safety gear, they were worthless in the car. To my credit, I hit triple digits more often than I care to admit and I have successfully completed Stunt Car Driving School. Still I wondered if I had the balls, or in this case, the lemons?

The guys had spent the past month working weekends on the car. You can usually find snap-in rollcages for most race worthy cars. Not for our '83 Supra however. The guys saw this as a challenge (and excuse for tool purchasing) and built a custom roll cage. The final welding required us to remove the windshield, which we did with a sledgehammer, hatchet and iron pipe. We weren’t planning to bring the car home – even if it finished.


Our team Mad Max wagon.

“It’s like Burning Man with Rollcages.”
The Reno-Fernley raceway is 100 miles south of “The Playa” where the annual Burning Man Festival is held each Labor Day weekend. When we arrive at the paddock, where each team stages their pit, it was like Burning Man meets the races.

There was a group of sexy Elvis' posing around a pink fishtailed Miata; a Lamborghini Testarossa made of plywood; a green Volvo with moss growing on it; competing Spy vs Spy racers – one in white and the other in black, who caused mayhem with each other on and off the racetrack.

We found a place between the Frankenstang, a mustang stitched together with a TV on its roof blasting Frankenstein movie clips and an old truck painted bright orange easily confused with the CALTRANS variety.

I forgot to mention our theme. The supra was spray painted matte black and decked out with sirens, rotating guns and various industrial materials. It was straight out of Mad Max. Our fearless leader, who had an authentic German accent, police suit and fuchsia hair strolled around the paddock with a huge PVC “gun” saying hi to our competition.


The Lemons Meet the Road
Although the race is called 24 Hours of LeMons, racing stops at dusk and resumes the next day. This is a godsend for some race teams as they desperately need time to fix their broken cars. We didn’t know how long the Supra would last, so we scheduled each driver an hour at the beginning of the race. That way, each of us would have a better chance at getting track time before our car went Kaput.

As the cars lined up to enter the track words don’t do justice to the creativity. Over 100 lemons accelerated and one lap later some were back in the paddock. I was the third driver and so far the car was holding up. I suited up in my fireproof suit, squeezed myself into the driver’s seat and snapped the 5-point harness. Gloves, helmet in place and I accelerated to enter the track.

I felt the tactile nubs on the steering wheel. My right foot went from accelerator to brake. My eyes analyzed the track, my brain calculating the curves, the bank; how and where to enter and steer. I didn't notice the pressure from centrifugal force pressing me to the seat as I sped through the curves. I smelled burned oil, brakes and fuel. I heard the rev and pop of engines. I was calm, relaxed and one with the car, the road and the speed.

That’s when I noticed the black flag ferociously waved at me. I had been focusing on the track so much, I had completely forgotten to watch the flags. Black Flag = Penalty Box. My crime: passing on the yellow even though I performed two perfect 180s. I sheepishly pulled off to meet my fate. Two men in black judge robes came up to the driver’s window.

I should explain a little about justice LeMons-style. Just because they have people called judges don't make the mistake of assuming they're fair. These guys are as corrupt as they come -- and they flaunt it. Of course they'll rule your way -- with the right bribes. Past bribes include moonshine, good beer, whiskey and a delightful cheese and wine pairing. I wouldn't bother bringing Coors and cheap porn unless you want extra penalties.

The penalties in a LeMon race can be a bit unusual to say the least. We got hit with the supposedly irritating “playa” penalty, where they made us set up a tent and get everyone from our team in it (see video). Then they threw in a case of water and a boombox with some techno. Since I have experienced the real live Burning Man, this wasn’t that bad. We were expecting the leafblower full of playa dust through the windows at any moment. When one of the team (I won’t say who!) passed on the yellow flag, we got stuck behind the LeMonmobile and had to make “parade laps” around the paddock. I climbed on the hood and we cranked the Industrial music. Later our black mad max mobile got pelted with pink and gold paint.

We heard about dreaded Homie Funeral, where they poured an entire 50 oz of Malt Liquor into the car. One driver had a car alarm installed to go off constantly the rest of the race. I asked Jay about some of his favorite "punishments" and he told me about two classics.

“My personal favorite is still the Al Gore Carbon Neutral Penalty, wherein the smokiest car gets pulled in with a black flag, and then the driver has to plant a tree in the infield while wearing a tie-dye shirt, sandals, and being pelted with tofu. I'm also partial to the Colonel Sanders penalty, which has the driver being covered in Karo syrup and then coated in feathers.”

Whew – I’m glad we didn’t get either of those!


Cursed!
"Rule 1.6: Your Car May Be Destroyed at Any Time: In addition to accidents and other unfortunate boo-boos, one car may be selected by blind ballot of all teams for immediate removal and total destruction."

Here’s one rule you won’t find in any other race. The People’s Curse is the one car all participants join up on to remove and destroy. And by destroy, we’re talking steam shovel destroy. Flattened like a pancake on a bunny’s head. This year there was a twist of fate – instead of a participant’s car being destroyed, it was Lamm’s VW Bus. The same bus that helped met out the parade lap penalties.


Justice LeMons-style.

At the end of the day, we were amazed that our supra finished the race and although we weren't the fasted car on the track, we brought home the Judges Choice Award.

Lamm’s last words were ,“Racing is for anyone who wants to go racing.”

I went. I raced. I’m hooked.

Ps. Think you have the balls, ahem lemons to race. Read their very entertaining FAQ. SG members are welcome to join me in Buttonwillow (the organizers have given me a limited comp list -- message me if you're interested).


Heathervescent is a writer, technology consultant and agent of
cacophony. She's more worried about the attack squirrels that apparently plague JPL than zombie ants, which she just thinks are plain cool. You can read more of her adventures at www.heathervescent.com and follow her @heathervescent.

It's week three and we're still in the "getting to know each other" phase, so now's the time to tell you about one of my favorite games in the history of gaming. I'm a shooter nut and a stealthy killer, so you'd think my top game would be a Half-Life or a Doom. But strangely, the one that's affected me the most over years is a plodding, talky role-playing game. I'm talking about Planescape: Torment, and I still remember the weekend many years ago when it sucked me in and consumed me whole.

10-years young this year, Planescape is brainy and brilliant. But back when I first fell in love with Planescape I didn't appreciate it so much as let it get under my skin. In fact, I wish I'd had it around age 15, because it's self-absorbed, existential, and possibly the most goth game ever made. It plays to the dreams of every teenager who thinks the whole world revolves around their problems. And it does it with wit, brilliance, flexible character development, and the voice of Homer Simpson. (Already sold? It's still available on GameTap, and eBay surely has copies too.)

Here's the premise: you're an immortal, but you're also an amnesiac. You can't die. But every time someone knocks you hard enough in the head, you lose your memories and start from scratch. You've lived hundreds of lives and experienced things most folks can't imagine. But your body's broken, your dreadlocks are frizzed, and your blessing has become a curse. It's time to solve the mystery of who you are and how you got this way.

Planescape takes place in a fringe universe that nobody but the most dedicated Dungeons & Dragons player has ever heard of. Out on the planes, death is beatable, reality is malleable, and the moral becomes physical. Streets can give birth to new streets. Whole cities can slide from one world to the next. Your best friend is a talking skull. In fact, you get to talk to dead stuff all the time. Right around the time I had to take sides between a village of dead people and a sewerful of hypersmart rats, I knew my latent goth side had found a most unholy coupling.

The gameplay is fiendish and subversive. For example, you aren't punished for dying; not only do you bounce back every time you're clocked, but suicide even becomes the answer to a puzzle. One of your sidekicks, a succubus named Fall-From-Grace, carries a diary in her inventory; but while you can see it and take it away, so far as I know, you'll never figure out how to unlock it. Which is a shame, because in this game, words are more fun than deeds. Planescape doesn't have branching conversation trees, so much as a gnarly, evil rainforest of dialogue, where smarter characters get better comebacks and the same answer can be delivered as a truth or a lie.

But more than anything, Planescape: Torment deeply groks the mindset of a moody, Camus-plagued adolescent. It makes you feel like you're grappling with an oh-so-serious personal problem, and the whole world was built to help you solve it. Everything around you reflects your dilemma, from the people you meet on the street, to the giant, endless wars on the horizon. And you can struggle through it any way you please: good guy, knuckle-dragger, bomb-thrower or genius -- there's content for almost any path you take. You can flirt with your best friends -- or sacrifice them to the giant pillar of flesh-eating skulls. Hey, who doesn't have some growing pains? (And 7th grade-style fantasies where frenemies die grizzly deaths.)

Of course, not everyone wanted to gaze at my navel as much as I did. Feeling way too comfortable in the adolescent mind of my character as I played I'd think the world revolved around me -- and just like in real life, I was wrong. Outside of a small circle of friends, my problems affected almost no one. I could be anyone and do anything, but the impact of my actions was nada. And no matter what I tried, the end of the game stayed the same.

I won't give away the ending, except to say that it's a bit of a fizzle. But I'd have it no other way. The finale is the smack in the face we all deserve, when it's time to grow up.

As with so many cult classics, Planescape has plenty to teach the industry. "Hero saves the world" is still the story of most of the games on the shelf today; "anti-hero saves the world" covers the rest. Both storylines try to put you in the shoes of a protagonist and invest you in their fate. But none match the total existential absorption of Planescape, where you are your own worst enemy -- and your only savior. And the only person who even cares is you.


Rachael Webster (a.ka.a SG member PixelVixen707) is SG's Hit Play games columnist. A game lover and game blogger living in New York City, she also writes at PixelVixen707.com and tweets as PixelVixen707.

The official SuicideGirls Flip Strip iPhone app is now available to download from the Apple iTunes store.

Designed by Stuart J. Moore, Flip Strip is based on the classic nudie pen concept -- with a high tech twist. Flick left and right to choose from 10 super sexy Suicide Girls, then flip your iPhone or iTouch upside down to watch her clothes disappear.

The SuicideGirls featured are Lumi, Sash, Zoli, Rigel, Coley, Radeo, Inga, Dot, Antigone and Moxi.

Click HERE to download.

Did we mention it's FREE?!!!

We're on the playground, a pack of girls and boys, huddled around a fortune teller -- you know, the one you make from a piece of paper and pop on your fingertips, and you flip the peaks, back and forth, back and forth, to find the answer to your question. Will I be filthy rich? No. Will I get a new dog for Christmas? Unclear. Will I die before my time? Yes. Giggles. And then you ask the question again. And you get a different answer.

That same feeling hits me when I play the poetic micro games of Argentinean gamemaker Daniel Benmergui, who released his latest, Today I Die, earlier this month. It's an indie game, and it's an art game -- but I use that term carefully, because if you're new to that scene, you might think "art" means "oppressive, overanalyzed, and stuck up its own orifice." And that's not Benmergui.

All three of Benmergui's latest creations -- Storyteller, I Wish I Were the Moon, and now Today I Die -- are short and thematically sweet. Each one hinges on a simple mechanic that helps you tell a story. In the case of Storyteller, you get a fairy tale, and you can change the plot with a click of the mouse. Here's the story when it opens:



But say you don't like that ending. Just switch around the characters in the first and second panels, and you change their fates:



In a role-playing game, you could spend 50 hours getting to one ending, and another 20 to the other. Here, the path not taken is a click away.

Today I Die (see top image) also starts with a clever mechanic: poetry magnets. But that's not what you notice when the scene opens. A woman is tied to a rock and sinking into deep waters, her hair trailing behind her. A poem that reads like a suicide note hangs above her. And the only way to save her is to change the words.

Benmergui's blog calls it a game "about the daily choice of waking up in the morning." When I asked him to reconcile the gravity of drowning yourself with the hassle of crawling out of bed, Benmergui observes that: "We are conditioned to look at life as a series of milestones and achievements, so anything that is not one of those seems to be irrelevant. Like, what you do every day. The game is not about someone who suddenly changes her life in a single, spectacular moment like movies show people doing. It's about a constant choice, an everyday choice."

Benmergui enlisted his girlfriend, Guadalupe Iturbide, for her handwriting. She's also part of the inspiration. As Benmergui puts it obliquely, "The game was born out of something in our everyday life that changed, and an insight I had after that. What was shared was the change, but the game was made after my point of view. I picked a girl because she's inspired [by] Guadalupe. But that character also reflects myself. You could easily reverse the characters."

(You can also add your own characters to Benmergui's game. To make some scratch on a game he gives away for free, Benmergui is taking sponsors. For $75, he'll draw a pixilated portrait of you or a friend. For $497, he'll put you and your s.o. in either Today I Die or I Wish I Were the Moon. And somebody's already paid $995 to give Benmergui a new ending to the game. The buyer "is well known in the industry. He might want to show the custom game or not. I'll let him choose.")

I don't want to spoil a game that you could play in the time it takes to read this column. (Try it HERE. It's free!) But here's the gist: though you start as the drowning woman, you get a chance to turn things around. Shadowy sea creatures surround you; to beat them back, you have to "shine." And when you reach the end and swim to a world of "beauty," you also get the boy -- if you want him.

Benmergui's favorite ending is the one where the girl and boy rise to the surface together. For Guadalupe, "I asked and she said that it's the one in which she surfaces on her own, but I saw her face when she saw the other ending, so she might be lying."

Today I Die is charming. The poem is cute, and, let's say it, sappy: Benmergui even deprecates himself, comparing it to what "a depressed teenager (with little sense for poetry, like me) could have come up with." And the dark vs. light symbolism is not a brain-teaser.

But the real message lies in the mechanic. When I want to change from a "dead" world to a "dark" one and finally, one that's "free," I find the word I need and stick it right into the poem. Just like Storyteller, you're always one step away from rewriting the story.

Now think what that tells us about the story. From the title and the opening image, Today I Die gives us an emergency -- but as Benmergui tells us, the game is about an "everyday choice." This isn't a giant drama but a little one. It'll happen again and again. And same for Storyteller. Even though it tells three life stories in a heroic setting, it's actually a very small, toy-like gizmo. You're not constructing epics; you're playing with one outcome after another.

And there’s his secret. Benmergui takes the epic decisions that change our lives, and the little choices we make every day, and marries them in a single click. Victory, heartbreak, suicide, and salvation are all right there for you, and they'll be there again tomorrow. It takes me back to being a kid, when I could make a choice that seemed huge, and then shake it off and try something else. One day everyone's proud of you, the next you're in detention. Maybe you kiss Colin, and then you brush him off to kiss Stu. And maybe later you kiss Chloe, too. The point is not that every story has many endings; it's that the other endings don't go away. You gather around the playground and flip through the fortune teller, again and again, and the answers always change.



Rachael Webster (a.ka.a SG member PixelVixen707) is SG's Hit Play games columnist. A game lover and game blogger living in New York City, she also writes at PixelVixen707.com and tweets as PixelVixen707.

Welcome to the first monthly recap of Science and Technology news, which we’ve imaginatively called Science Digest 1.0.

With Arthur C. Clarke's quote in mind, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," PhysOrg.com reports that a team led by Berkeley University's Chancellor's Professor, Xiang Zhang, has come up with a Harry Potter-style cloak of invisibility. Though the nanostructured silicon cloak itself can still be seen, when it's place over an object the reflective patterns rendered by the cloak make the bulge it conceals invisible. Zhang's team ultimately hope to develop a truly invisible cloak worthy of the magicians at Hogwarts. "We have come up with a new solution to the problem of invisibility based on the use of dielectric (nonconducting) materials," says Xiang Zhang. "Our optical cloak not only suggests that true invisibility materials are within reach, it also represents a major step towards transformation optics, opening the door to manipulating light at will for the creation of powerful new microscopes and faster computers." Sweet. It'll be really useful for shoplifters too!

Talking of other-worldly technology, SuicideGirls attended the NASA / Jet Propulsion Labs Open House the other weekend at their California Institue of Technology site in Pasadena. Members of the public were able to roam around the space flight operations and assembly facilities, and watch JPL's boffins play with very expensive remote control toys like their Mars and lunar rovers. While the Deep Space Network control room was suitably ground control to Major Tom, it was amazing how much of the research and gadgets on show relied on duct tape and tin foil.



Encouraged by the "Ask A Scientist A Question" badges on offer, SuicideGirls also ascertained that the prototype Mars rover JPL had built at great expense currently relied on wheels bought from the local bike store to get around. (Their giant spider-like ATHLETE rover, intended for use on NASA's 2020 moon mission, was far more impressive however.) When a fellow bystander asked about Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson's plans for space tourism, a JPL boffin was rather dismissive of the endeavor, saying he couldn't understand why folks would want to pay a small fortune for the flights which will only allow time for 15 minutes of weightlessness, during which time approximately 50% of the tourists would get space sick (apparently the resulting vomit would then float in globules around the fellow passengers in the craft). We helpfully explained that it was all about shags in space (Branson's always marketed his ventures using sex) -- and that some people will be willing to pay almost anything to join the 60-Mile High Club. We feel that all parties came away enlightened from this scientific encounter.



We also learned that NASA uses Twitter to update the planet on news of several of their missions. It was @MarsPhoenix that made the first public announcement of water on Mars. If you want to follow an astronaut we suggest @Astro Mike.

Meanwhile, instead of heading out into space, scientists at Lawrence Livermore's National Ignition Facility (NIF) near San Francisco are working on bringing the stars a little closer to home. Using 192 lasers, and some amplifiers and filters a little larger than the ones you might find in your car dashboard, they hope to create tiny stars right here on earth in the hopes that the energy created could put Sarah Palin and the Middle East out of the oil businees for good. Our buddy Dave Bullock took some rather cool photographs (for Wired.com) of the star making machine (here's hoping it doesn't explode like American Idol).

A little further south on the West Coast, researchers at the University of California in Riverside are having fun with what they call "undertaker ants." Seems these six-legged morticians can sniff out dead ants with the help of a few chemical markers. Intriguingly, there's also a "not dead yet" marker for undead ants. Furthermore, researchers from the University of Texas and Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension Service have found that the parasitic maggots of the phorid fly eat the brains of pesky fire ants turning their hosts into zombies that wander around aimlessly "for about two weeks." Turns out that Night of The Living Dead is for real down in the ant hill.

Finally, not everyone can be a Nobel Prize winner (or a zombie ant specialist or rocket scientist for that matter). Most of us won't be invited to the Nobel Prize Award Banquet either -- nor would we necessarily want to sit through the lengthy, speech laden affair. Here's the next best thing: a high speed video of the set-up and party. Experience the whole thing in under 3 minutes!



Heathervescent is a writer, technology consultant and agent of
cacophony. She's more worried about the attack squirrels that apparently plague JPL than zombie ants, which she just thinks are plain cool. You can read more of her adventures at www.heathervescent.com and follow her @heathervescent.

Since I saw Star Trek a little over a week ago, I’ve struggled to write an adequate review of the movie, and what it meant to me, as someone who was part of the first effort to make Star Trek relevant to the, uh, next generation of fans. I’ve started and abandoned a few thousand words, mostly because I can say everything I need to say in just six:

I realize that a column about the movie, and what it meant to me, is going to need to elaborate on that just a little bit, and that’s where the trouble begins. See, I keep feeling like I’m just rewriting what I wrote about Watchmen, which could also be reduced to six words:

I've tried to stay away from Watchmen, but I keep coming back to that comparison because they both played significant roles in my life as I came of age during my teens. I feel a deeply personal connection to them, and I was – I think understandably – worried that these movies would leave me feeling the way I felt when I walked out of Phantom Menace.

In fact, to explain why, I'm going to quote myself, from my review of Watchmen:

And that's the thing, isn't it? Star Trek has meant too much to too many people for too long for those of us who love it to blindly accept that whoever makes it will treat it with the same love and respect that we believe it deserves. I think it was normal and natural for all of us to have reservations, especially about Star Trek.

It turns out, I think, that a lot of our fears, while well-founded, were unnecessary. JJ Abrams may not be one of us in the convention-going sense, but I think he has something in common with us, and I think it's a big reason why Star Trek made so many of us so very, very happy.

A lot of Trekkies got worked up when JJ Abrams seemed to say that he didn't even like Star Trek, and was more of a Star Wars fan:

The usual blogs and geek punditry picked up on that, and freaked out that he clearly didn't care about Trek, and was going to make something that had more in common with Star Wars – and possibly its disastrous prequels and special editions – than the Star Trek we've loved for so many years. I think, living in our post-Phantom Menace, post-ET-with-Walkie-Talkies, post are-you-fucking-kidding-me-with-X-Men 3 world, that's an understandable response. The funny thing is, I never heard anyone bother to add the very next thing he said:

Let's think about that for a moment, because it could mean a couple of different things. It could mean that Lucas made Star Wars movies that were bigger spectacles than the Star Trek movies, and we need to somehow top that ... except JJ immediately says it isn't:

I think this means that JJ Abrams, self-professed Star Wars fan, left the Special Editions and prequels feeling the same way a lot of us did. That is the shadow George Lucas cast over science fiction movies, especially remakes and reboots and re-imaginings. That could be why he made sure that, even though he doesn't love Star Trek as much as we do, he surrounded himself with people who did, and listened to them when he made his movie.

I could be completely wrong, of course, but I think the story in Star Trek supports this: Spock Prime says, "Listen, I know that I've messed with the timeline in your universe, and things are never going to be the same. But the universe that existed before I traveled through time is still there, and now it's up to you to explore this universe."

It's like JJ is simultaneously telling us, "I respect you. I respect the people and starships and adventures and universe that you've loved for 40 years. I'm not going to tell you that it doesn't matter. I'm not going to tell you that you were wrong to love it, and now it's all gone because I have shiny new effects and actors. It's all there, and it's yours to continue exploring as long as you want to.

"But I do have this new starship and a new crew, and we're going to go explore some different places where no one has gone before. If you want to come along with us, you're welcome to aboard. If not, bon voyage. If you treat her like a lady, she'll always bring you home."

This is the fundamental difference between what JJ Abrams did with Star Trek, and what George Lucas did with Star Wars. Lucas told us, "Hey, you know all that stuff you love so much? That stuff that's been a huge part of your life? Well, you're stupid for liking it because I didn't mean it. These are my toys, always have been, and now I'm taking them back. Ha. Ha. Ha. Fuck you, now give me more of your money."

I hope that Star Trek's legacy is two-fold. I hope that it leads to more movies with these actors and this creative team, and I hope that it encourages more studios and film makers to follow the example laid out by people like JJ Abrams, Zack Snyder, and Peter Jackson.

I mean, can you imagine Michael Bay's Star Trek?

Sorry. Sorry. That was cruel, and I shouldn't have put that image into your head. According to some quantum physicists, though, just thinking about that created a universe where it happened, and I'd like to apologize to everyone in it.

I want to talk about something else from Star Trek, but it contains spoilers, so...

I loved a lot of different things in Star Trek. I thought the casting was perfect. I thought the story was brilliantly paced and executed. I thought the photography, editing, sound design, and visual design was superb. But I especially loved...

...because it let us know that JJ Abrams got us. I, um, was also really happy to see a teenager on the bridge again, but I doubt there is another person in the known universe who shares my precise reasons.

In other words: I loved it. It was awesome.

When Wil Wheaton buys a camel, it will wear a Fez.

No one, but no one, is sexier than a spy -- no one, that is, except a female spy. A chick who can infiltrate any base, slip into any disguise, and nix any Nazi without sweating a drop. Violette Summer, the star of the game Velvet Assassin mixes deadly menace with smoky eyeliner and the kind of ass you only get from sneaking around behind enemy lines. If anything, I feared the game would get too sexy. Would the trim S.S. uniform with the stilettos go just a little too far over the top? Let me tell you: she totally pulls it off.

But to understand the appeal of this character, you have to know the history of Violette Szabo, the real life hero who inspired the game. When World War II started, Szabo was working behind the perfume counter of a department store; by 1941, she was a war widow signing up for special operations. She trained in combat, communications, jumping out of planes, and blowing things to hell. She parachuted into occupied France, sabotaged roads and railways, and helped bombers find their targets. She rallied the French resistance. She hated the Nazis.

She braved two missions, and the second ended in tragedy.Szabo found herself pinned down by Germans at a road block. As the London Gazette tells it, she fought back, "exchanging shot for shot with the enemy" 'til she ran out of ammo, and then they caught her. The Germans interrogated her, tortured her, and raped her. She was executed in February, 1945 at Ravensbrück concentration camp. She was only 23.

Szabo's the stuff of legend - a legend that's been retold in books at least one movie (Carve Her Name With Pride, starring Virginia McKenna). But the story hooked me - and I suspect, a lot of people - because she was so brave, and so young, and no one even asked her to be a hero. Yes, she saw her country bombed and besieged. She already had more life experience than most of us would ever want. But still, if it were me? I'm sure I would've stayed behind that perfume counter.

I was intensely curious what a video game would do with a legend like this. Now, I'm a gamer. I love games more than just about anything. In my dreams, I play games for days, perched on a futon amidst a cadre of vigilent manservents who bring me cool beer and hot take-out. Seraphic women with peacock feathers fan my Xbox to keep it from overheating, and two gigantic, muscular men prop up my flat-screen with their - oh sorry, I forgot I'm on deadline.

So, I love gaming. But games aren't always, you know, subtle. The characters rarely show depth or nuance. The scenarios rarely stray from, "Do A to B, before B does A to you." I didn't expect Velvet Assassin to shed light on Szabo's story. The cornball title pretty much tells the tale: they've taken the Szabo story and cranked it to 11.

This is no rookie on her first mission: Summer comes off as stern, smoldering, and war weary. She's not just a secret agent: she's a super-assassin. She can take a flurry of bullets without flinching. She knows fifty ways to stick a knife in a Nazi, from severing his spine to stabbing him in the ear like she's sharing a Q-Tip. And she always works alone, because who needs a squad? In fact, why didn't they just send her after Hitler? This war could've been over in three missions!

When I think of Szabo, I imagine a woman training to be a heroine. But in Velvet Assassin, Summer is already there. When she signals a bombing raid that kills 30,000 civilians, or murders an Allied agent so he won't talk to the Gestapo, she barely winces at her acts. Yes, there's a little bit of a guilt and redemption story here, and a little flicker of humanity. But for the most part, the girl is hot death in leather - and nothing more.

That's the difference between a video game and real life. Violette Szabo was a flesh-and-blood heroine; Violette Summer is a paragon. She's nothing but an ideal. And that's what brings me as close as I'll ever get to feeling like Violette Szabo: minus the kinky SS suit, we're both trying to live up to the same ideal. Every time I hide in the shadows scared that one false footstep will give me away, I get a glimpse of what Szabo felt; every time I score one for Britain, I feel like the super-spy that Szabo aspired to be. But unlike me on my futon, Szabo never got second chances.

Rachael Webster (a.ka.a SG member PixelVixen707) is SG's Hit Play games columnist. A game lover and game blogger living in New York City, she also writes at PixelVixen707.com and tweets as PixelVixen707.

One thing that makes us geeks is the hive mind that we share. Hardcore opinions run through our consciousness like the stripe on a skunk. Star Wars is awesome. Star Wars prequels sucked. The cancellation of Firefly was a travesty. Neil Gaiman is a wordsmith sent from the heavens. They Might Be Giants are the bards we all secretly wish would follow us around, chronicling and singing our lives.

But I gotta admit, there are times I split from the pack. And I find astonishment. Derision. More astonishment. And I'm here to defend myself and my opinions.

1) I do not find Hugh Jackman fuckable.

Now, this isn't specifically geeky per se, but the new Wolverine movie just came out, which has all the geeky women frothing at the mouth to go see Hugh snarl and kick some ass and say, "Bub." I'm not saying Jackman is a dog, I'm saying that the geeky women of the world seem to do a collective sigh when he's mentioned, and I just don't get it. Maybe I don't have a thing for Wolverine, so I think of him with the huge sideburns. I dunno, but when I see him I think, "Handsome guy, sure, but I don't need a sudden change of underwear."

I will bet cash money that there wasn't a dry seat in the house on opening night of Wolverine.

2) Dollhouse is an OK show, and if it gets canceled, that's OK too.

Yeah, I know, all the Whedonites are up in arms already. But I maintain my stance: Dollhouse is just OK. It started weak because it gave us no heroine to root for: Echo is rewritten with a different personality for each show. The strange and casual treatment of rape makes me uncomfortable. What's funny is when they find a rapist in-house, they're all protective, but they still rent these women and men out as whores with new personalities. I suppose you could argue the new personalities consent to the sex, but the whole thing is still shady and uncomfortable.

Many people say that the show began to "get good" when episode 6 hit. Twists! Turns! Revelations into Echo's real personality! But really, why were you watching for five unsatisfactory episodes?

Yeah. I admit, I gave it a chance for four episodes and then lost interest. Then when everyone freaked out so much about #6, I started watching again. And yeah, it got interesting, but it still feels like a show that's "just OK."

We all know every artist, even our favorites, does not shit gold every time they go to the bathroom. Dollhouse has yet to build the incredible ensemble cast that Buffy, Angel and Firefly had. And if it dies, then Joss Whedon will have the time to work on something else.

3) I don't get a lot of classic sci-fi.

This is the most shameful of all. There are several books I've never read that seem to be on the required SF reading list. So I have tried to remedy that. And I don't know if it's the fact that now that I'm an adult, the technology, political, and sexual references are so dated I can't get past them, but many books have failed to hook me. I've tried to read them several times, and each time I drop them either due to flat-out-boredom, confusion, or being utterly offended.

"Wait, the protag is a rapist, and I am supposed to keep rooting for him? Are you fucking kidding me?"

(Incidentally, the only book I can remember really liking even though the protagonists were less than heroic was the bizarre book Geek Love by Katherine Dunn about a carnival family whose parents experimented with drugs and isotopes to create a family of carnival freaks. Bizarre and fun and disturbing.)

And reading, honestly, is where the people begin to give me the looks. "You've never read Dune?" they ask, and I squirm with shame.

"I've tried! Several times! Really!" I say. I cast about for geek cred to make myself cool. "I read Neil Gaiman before Sandman! I have been a Hayao Miyazaki fan since Nausicaa was butchered in editing and retitled "Warriors of the Wind" for HBO viewers when I was a kid! My shelf is full of short story anthologies from the 40s and 50s!"

"Yeah. But you've never read Dune."

While some of my geek heresy shames me, I do realize that conforming to the geek hive mind when I don't want to is worse than standing out like a sore, poorly educated in geeky things, thumb. I refuse to be a sheep, and so you can have your Jackman, your Dollhouse, and your spice. I'm comfortable with my existing geek cred.

(Mostly.)


Mur Lafferty is an author and podcaster who recently released her first novel, Playing For Keeps. She Speaks Geek every month on SuicideGirls.com. Click HERE for more of Mur's musings.

At the end of this month, I'm going to Detroit for a small ubergeek convention called Penguicon. I'm on eleventy million panels about everything from audiobooks to Star Trek, and I'm also pfacing off against Shawn Powers, the editor of Linux Journal in a very serious, very important battle for the ages featuring Combat on the Atari 2600. To warm up for this epic battle, the convention committee sent us each an Atari Flashback II so that we could enjoy our own training montages. I picked it up from my mailbox earlier this week, gently put it into my trunk, and drove home safely and calmly, respecting all traffic laws and my fellow drivers.

Once in the house, I unleashed my inner 8 year-old and tore the box open with reckless abandon. I grabbed the power supply and jammed it into the wall. I connected it to our television, and dove into Adventure, then Dodge-Em, then Yars' Revenge. I may have thrown some late 70s album rock onto the Sonos, to complete the experience.

"So ... it's great that you're having so much fun," my son said from the other side of the room while I was cheering the successful introduction of my Zorlon Cannon to the Qotile's bitch face, "but I'm working on my senior project here."

I toned down my celebration. "Sorry."

I switched to Asteroids, and after clearing two screens, I swear I could feel the chlorine in my lungs and on my skin from any given day in the summer of 1982.

"Hey, remember when you guys used to play your mom's 2600?" I let one small rock drift across the screen, while I racked up points blasting flying saucers.

He sighed and turned around in his chair. "Sort of. This is a really important project."

"Okay, I'll get out of here, but will you play with me when you're done? I need to, uh, practice."

He cocked one eyebrow. "You need to train? What?"

"For this thing at the end of the month. I'm playing Combat at this convention."

"You are so weird."

"I know. Will you play with me?"

"Yes." Our roles thoroughly reversed, he returned to his work and I went back to my office.

Awhile later, he called out to me. "Okay, I'm done!"

I stood up carefully, and slowly pushed my chair beneath my desk. I walked carefully through the house and did not scare my dog when I nearly tripped over her near the aquarium in the living room. I did not nearly stub my toe on the dining room table, and I was not out of breath and flush with excitement when I met Nolan in the family room.

We turned on the television, and a few minutes later, we faced off in tank pong with maximum walls. It was a furious battle, ending in a 7-7 tie when my last-second shot found its mark.

"Again," he said.

I suppressed a smile, and bumped the reset button. I quickly built an 8-3 lead, and Nolan never caught up.

"Two out of three?" I asked.

He made a face that was a combination of amusement and determination. "Yes."

He built a 10-2 lead almost instantly. I spent more time spinning around than I did actually driving my tank, though I bounced all over the map.

"I think there's a problem with this game," he said, as the match ended, 11-6. "It's way too easy to just chain your attacks together and completely own the other player."

"I think that's part of it, though," I said, starting a new game. "You've just got to find a way to keep moving and get in that first shot."

He got in the first shot, and the next five shots. I got in a couple shots of my own, but it wasn't enough. I realized, too late, that I was probably struggling because I'd forgotten to make Survivor play the appropriate 80s inspirational rock song in my head.

"You're the undisputed master of Combat," I said. "As your reward, you get to watch me play Adventure."

I flipped switches, and was soon on my way to collect the various items required to complete my quest.

"What's that?"

"Oh, that's my sword," I said, pushing my little box against an arrow-shaped icon.

"What do you use it for?"

"Slaying Dragons!" I said, as I entered a once-simple maze of passages that the passage of time had made as vexing as it was when I was eight.

"You realize you've gone into that dead end five times, right?"

"Quiet you. This is how we did it back in the 80s."

"You ran into the same dead end over and over again?"

"Yes, it was part of Reganomics."

I finally found my way out of the maze, and approached a castle, anxious to impress Nolan by grabbing the chalice within.

That's when the dragon showed up.

"What the hell is that?"

"It's a dragon, of course," I said, holding the joystick out in front of me like I always did, convinced that if I moved it around, it would help me escape faster.

That's when the dragon ate me.

"This is really what you guys did for fun?"

"Well, there was this, and we'd occasionally fend off Indian attacks when we weren't Dinosaurizing our caves, yeah."

He laughed. "What other games are on this?"

I showed him Yars' Revenge. "This was my favorite 2600 game when I was a kid. I liked it even more than [ii]Pitfall!"

He looked at me.

"I liked Pitfall! a lot."

He continued to look at me.

"We all liked Pitfall! a lot."

"So, you're this insect creature called the Yar," I said as the game began, "and this guy here is the Qotile. He destroyed your home planet or something, and you've built this Zorlon cannon to extract your titular revenge."

I flew around the screen, through the neutral zone and chipped away at the Qotile defenses. My Zorlon cannon activated, and I waited to take my shot.

"From time to time, though, the Qotile turns into a Swirl, and shoots itself at you."

That's when the Qotile turned into a Swirl, and I blasted it out of the sky.

"Yes!" I looked at him, so I could bask in his approval.

"That's it?"

"Well, you get to fly around in this cool screen between levels, too," I said, "and the second level has a rotating shield."

He looked at the flashing graphics on the screen and scratched his chin.

"How many people got seizures from this when you played it?"

"I ... do not know."

"I bet you I can destroy it three times without dying," he said.

"Do it." I handed him the joystick.

"So I shoot at this thing that looks like a distress signal?"

"The Qotile," I said. "Yes, you shoot at the Qotile. With your Zorlon Cannon. Because you're exacting --"

"Revenge. I got that."

I watched with more pride than I thought possible (or revealed to my easily embarrassed teenage son), as it took him about two minutes to do exactly what he said he'd do.

"Does this ever get hard?" He asked.

"THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!"

He shook his head and handed the joystick back to me.

"Sorry. Reflex. Um, yeah, it gets challenging later on. The missile thing moves a lot faster, and the Swirls fly out a lot faster and more frequently."

"But it's pretty much the same two levels over and over again."

"The same two awesome levels, yes."

We looked at each other.

"It came with a comic book. Did I tell you about that?"

"You are so weird."

"But I'm also kind of awesome, right?"

We looked at each other.


Wil Wheaton is weird, and he is totally cool with it.

This month's Geek in Review stands entirely on its own, but also goes well (if I do say so myself) with this week's LA Daily -- click HERE to view.

Oh, Peter Sagal. Has thou forsaken us?

I am thirty-five. And married with a daughter. I’m a grownup who thinks about car payments and deadlines and vacuuming and the horrible state of the economy. And I am also a card-carrying, proud, never-deny-it, geek.

Of course, as I have been writing this column for close to a year, this should not surprise you, dear reader. I just felt the need to say it.

I’ve been a geek for many, many years. I have always loved sci-fi and fantasy, but squashed it a bit in high school to fit in and be cool. (I failed.) I never became comfortable with myself till I accepted that yeah, I like robots and RPGs and Star Wars and Star Trek and zombies and Cthulhu and superheroes.

Notice. I say I “like.” Not I “liked.” Tense is important.

I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. I read L’Engle, Hickman and Saberhagen (and even wrote some Lost Swords fanfic before I knew what fanfic was). I had an Atari and a Commodore 64, and access to a Ms Pac-Man machine at the local gas station where my dad would take me as a reward for good grades. Being geeky kept me sane and kept my imagination strong. Reading and experiencing these magical worlds encouraged me to steal my mom’s word processor and start banging out my first novels and short stories at age twelve.

I’m not alone. My social circle consists mostly of geeks, people who understand me and are passionate about the same things. I married a geek. We are all adults, taxpayers, parents. People who can debate politics with one breath and when exactly Heroes jumped the shark with the next.

We are not losers. We shower regularly. We are aware of current events. We are productive members of society. And, Peter Sagal, one of us is even the president.

I truly love finding out that famous people, the pop culture icons that we look up to, are geeks too. Vin Diesel role plays. Stephen Colbert can recite Tom Bombadil lyrics on the spot from memory. And, Peter, you yourself had a bona-fide geekgasm when Leonard Nimoy appeared on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!.

I love Wait, Wait for its snarky tone and Sagal’s charisma. Only in recent years did I discover he was a geek, which made me like it more. Although I admit it does make me raise my eyebrows when he mocks geeks, apparently going for the “smelly guy in his mom’s basement” cliche for a cheap laugh, which has happened on WWDTM more than once. If you’re going to mock us, mock us for the real stuff: obsessive comic book bagging, boarding and boxing instead of reading, or the incessant “let me tell you about my character” virus that spreads throughout RPG circles.

The blog post in question was in response to an essay about how he spent his geeky childhood reading Lord of the Rings and letting his Hobbit-inspired imagination run wild, and worries about how his daughters are spending their childhoods, looking at various flickering screens. It sounded like he is grumbling, “Kids these days… when I was a boy, we didn’t HAVE video games or the Internet, we read the books and we LIKED IT.”

Are you trying to be what you think an adult is supposed to be; are you squashing what you are in order to fit a mold? You claim to have "geek cred" but then you put down all you've learned. So what if Elvish or Klingon aren't "useful"? Did you learn about the dangers of over-surveilance in 1984? Did you learn about appreciating the simple things from life in the Shire in LoTR? And hell, what were Spider-Man and Buffy the Vampire Slayer but metaphors for how high school can really suck and be overwhelming -- and how the gift of magic bullet-like superpowers wouldn't just fix everything? Read sci-fi short stories from the 1940's and see if you can determine what the people in the real world were thinking about nuclear radiation. A lot of speculative fiction is just a slightly tilted mirror of our own world, commenting on it.

And by the way, I look at what our heroes faced in The Two Towers and think, gee, maybe my bad afternoon with a burned dinner and cranky kiddo isn't so hard to deal with. So yeah, Tolkien did teach me a thing about parenting.

Upon hearing Zach Ricks' latest Geek Survival Guide podcast (fabulously funny advice that you’ll probably never need -- although this episode was dealing with how non-geeks treat geeks, so it had some more solid advice alongside the usual topics such as army ants, vampires, and gremlins), my six-year-old daughter piped up that she was definitely a Pokemon geek, also a Star Wars geek. Yeah, she plays the games on her DS, but only for a limited time every day. When her time is up, she leaves the little flickering screen, runs upstairs, puts on a costume, and plays Darth Vader. Or another costume lets her be a karate master. Or she goes to the kitchen table to draw up her own Pokemon, complete with name and special powers and evolutions. She has an unwavering ambition to be an inventor and has promised me a set of Boba Fett armor, complete with jetpack. We are raising a little geek, and I am absolutely thrilled.

And you know, since my husband and I are geeks too, we can understand her Pokemon comments, and play Lego Star Wars with her, and discuss how Darth Vader eats if he has his helmet on all the time. Another way being geeky has helped our parenting.

By all the gods of mythology, Peter, why do they "have to"? Where is that rule? Why say farewell? So they can make room for baseball and soap operas and needlepoint, obsessions and interests that are oh so much more relevant to adults than our brand of geek? You can still understand the real world and enjoy speculative fiction.

And what if one of your daughters grows up to create the next D&D? Or to write the next Sandman? Or to direct the next Dark Knight? Will you then wish she had left the “childish things” behind?

It was your geekiness that made your Leonard Nimoy interview so damn good, and I’m willing to bet it’s the geek in your personality that’s made me such a fan for ten years. But I have to admit, your talk of wishing you had been less geeky in the past breaks my heart just a little bit, Peter. Geeks have enough trouble defending ourselves, it actively hurts us to have someone act like their once geeky life was a waste of time.

Really, all I can say to you is, "SoH DIchDaq jatlh SoH 'oH QoS!" (Or, if you prefer, in Elvish, "O shor mae O eisi mysia.")


Mur Lafferty is an author and podcaster who recently released her first novel, Playing For Keeps. She Speaks Geek every month on SuicideGirls.com. Click HERE for more of Mur's musings.

Those wacky Japanese are at it again with their love of robot women.

The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has created a cybernetic cute, code-named HRP-4C, with the goal of seeing her do her little turn on the catwalk, on the catwalk, on the catwalk, yeah.

It would appear she (it?) is already on her (its?) way. Just like your stereotypical human supermodel, she's lost a fuckton of weight to gain a competitive edge. No clue if she glosses her teeth with Vaseline, though.

Due to HRP-4C's technological limitations (i.e. she will probably kill any model who stands in her way in a catty, yet precisely calculated fury), she will be kept in her own little section for a March 23rd fashion show in Tokyo.

Ohh, my. That sound you just heard? That quite, yet steady rumble? That, kids, is the sound of a million sex-starved otaku (and equally deprived Blade Runner fans) creaming their pants at the possibilities.

Japan has cornered the robotics market in recent years, with companies from Mitsubishi to Hello Kitty creator Sanrio taking part. We've seen receptionists, companions, and robots as "performance art."

I see this ending in fire. That's all we need is senior citizens manning psychotic Nurse-Bots. Didn't any of you learn from watching Roujin Z?

For now, it appears HRP-4C will be limited to a menial life as a greeter and curiosity before taking the fashion world by storm. Shuuji Kajita, from AIST's humanoid research group, reassures, however:

Step 2...robots invading America's Next Top Model? I don't know about you, but the thought of Tyra Banks getting vaporized by a backsassed 'bot would get me to tune in. I'm a fan of Dancing With the Stars, anyway.

AIST website (in English)

YouTube video of HRP-4C in action

thefreak wonders whatever happened to AIBO.

While all D&D characters begin as a collection of numbers (on paper, my Eladrin Avenger is 14,12,14,14,16,12) those numbers don’t mean anything without a story to bring them to life. Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, maybe it’s because I have an imagination that I’ve always had to actively keep under control, but as long as I’ve been gaming, creating backstories for my characters has been as much fun – in some cases, more fun – than actually plunging them into a dungeon.

This comes from the backstory I wrote for Aeofel Elhromanë, the Eladrin Avenger I played for the most recent Penny Arcade D&D podcast. Though I have created hundreds of NPCs and dozens of PCs in my life, Aeofel was the first character I’ve created in about twenty years. As you are about to find out, I spent a little bit of time fleshing him out...

Two days’ journey from Mithrendain, beneath a thick canopy of leaves in the Forest of Astranz, there is a school, where, for countless human centuries, Eladrin have lived and trained, under Melora’s watchful eye.

Aeofel Elhromanë lived in this school for his entire life, devoting each of his 142 years to the service of Melora. He trained beside monks and clerics, and though he never saw battle firsthand, many of his instructors were veterans of the war with the Drow. He never knew his parents, but his fellow students were his House.

Eight nights ago, during the Court of Stars, the school was attacked by Goblin and Kobold raiders, lead by a human warlord. The school’s alarm, which had been silent for a generation, shook Aeofel and his brothers from their daily trance, and they ran from their quarters, ready for battle.

Aeofel dashed across the training grounds, ready to push the invaders back, but all he found was a trail of bodies –– attacker and defender alike –– from the school’s entrance to its shrine. Near the gate, a few warlords skirmished with kobolds, and wild magic crackled in the field beyond, but the attackers had fled the grounds.

His master, the great Avenger Immafen, stood beside the shrine’s entrance. His sword was slick with Goblin’s blood, and he breathed heavily.

“Master,” Aeofel said, “what has happened? Why were we attacked?”

There was no war. There was no reason. The school’s wealth lay in the knowledge it gave its students, and its power was in their training. Why would anyone attack? What could they possibly gain?

“They have taken the Crest,” Immafen said.

Aeofel gasped. The Crest of Melora was a powerful artifact.

Hours later, when the few remaining Kobolds and Goblins had been captured or killed, the surviving students and teachers gathered in the school’s arbor, where Lady Caelynna, an ancient Sword Marshall who was the school’s headmaster, spoke.

“We know that this attack was well-planned, and our captives prove it did not originate in the Feywild,” she said, her milky violet eyes shining with righteous fury.

A murmur of concern passed among the students. Entrance to the Feywild from other planes wasn’t impossible, but it was infrequent. Whoever lead the invasion was powerful, indeed.

“We do not know who took the Crest or why,” she said, “but should it fall to disciples of Ocrus, it could provide a disastrous bridge from the Shadowfell - or worse.

“All schools guard and hold a different artifact of great power within their walls. We were charged with protecting the Crest of Melora,” she said, her musical voice darkening, “and our failure has placed all Eladrin at risk.

“Many of you have never left this place, but you are our most powerful warriors. The fate of the Crest, and perhaps the fate of us all, is in your hands. You will gather with your masters, and follow their instructions.”

The arbor remained silent long after she left. Gradually, the gathered students broke and found their masters.

Immafen put his hand on Aeofel’s shoulder. “You will travel to the mortal world, at a crossing in the Winterbole Forest.”

“The mortal world is vast, Master. How will I know where to look?” Aeofel said.

His voice was kind and reassuring. “You are Eladrin, child. When the crest is near, it will call to you.”

Aeofel self-consciously gripped the hilt of his longsword. “What if I do not hear it, Master?”

“You will,” he said. “At the crossing, you must open yourself to Melora’s grace, and allow her to guide you. She will tell you where your quest begins.”

He took Aeofel’s hand, and gave him a small implement fashioned from dark Sennalwood into the shape of a shell. “Take this, and carry your House with you as you travel, my student.”

Aeofel closed his hand over it. “By Melora’s Grace,” he said. 

Immafen gazed, unblinking, upon him, for a long while. “By Melora’s Grace.”

+=+=+

In the Winterbole Forest, far away from any path, there is a clearing among the oldest trees. At the center of this clearing can be found a trio of stones, just taller than a halfling. To those who are unknowing, they are little more than an anomalous monument, perhaps left by forgotten ancients, or deliberately built by mischievous children to confuse those who happen upon them. To those who would use them, though, they mark a fey crossing, one of many points where the boundary between the fey and mortal worlds is thin and passable to those who know the way.

Aeofel Elhromanë appeared in their center, in a crackling flash of azure light. He clutched his chest as a cry escaped his lips. He had never been to the mortal world, and feeling his House, his people, his entire land ripped away from him was a pain almost too great to bear.

“If I do not retrieve the Crest,” he reminded himself, “I will feel nothing but that pain for the rest of my days.”

He reached into his robes. On a strap around his neck, he wore the implement Immafen had given him. He held it now, and spoke softly.

“Meloratoh Ancien Ethlochmir. Fea galena sindath.”

Where there had been silence before, he heard the thundering of a river, and knew that it he would find it, several leagues away, through thick forest that would be unpassable, even to Sylvans. A gust of wind blew into his face, swirling leaves into his long hair, and around his face. A voice heard only by him whispered, “Fallcrest.”

With his free hand, he touched one of the stones. He could see the feywild within, the way a footprint remains on the beach, after the sea has washed over it. 

“I will not fail,” he said. “I will return the Crest, and I will punish those who stole it from us.”

He walked into the forest, and began his journey.

***

Now I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect the average gamer to write a fucking novel about their characters like I do, but I love that D&D makes it possible if they want to. D&D is all about engaging your imagination and encouraging you and your friends to build a world and tell a story together. Because I knew exactly where Aeofel came from and why he sought out Acquisitions Incorporated, I knew how he would act in just about every circumstance. I knew why he carried the equipment he carried, why he cared about ridding the world of evil, and why those basic numbers were laid out the way they were.

Here’s a little insight into how I designed him, and why:

All of these stats are at 3rd level, so there’s plenty of room for him to grow and develop as he gains experience. Depending on a whole host of different factors, we may see Aeofel develop a stronger constitution, gain deeper wisdom from his travels, or even become more charismatic as he adjusts to life in the mortal world. As his player, I have some idea of where I’d like him to go, but I prefer to let his actions (via the choices I make during the campaign) shape his destiny. It’s important to me that there is a logic to how he grows, so that he remains a “he” who I genuinely care about, instead of an “it” that’s just a collection of numbers.

It's easy to create a character these days, and much faster than it was when I was a kid, but if you have some time and your imagination is willing, grab some paper and dice, sit on the floor surrounded by your PHB, DMG, and Adventurer's Vault, and take some time to get to know your character while you're creating him or her. Speaking from personal experience, it's well worth the investment.

It was just Wil Wheaton’s imagination, running away with him.

In times like these, you would think that now wouldn't be the best time to try to sell a vintage comic book, especially one as rare as "Action Comics No. 1," the very book that introduced us to everyone's favorite goody-two-shoes, Superman. CNN reports:

Several buyers have already begun to make offers for the book, which is officially listed as being in "fine" condition, including one person who offered his Ferrari as part of a trade.

The book was originally purchased for 35 cents in a secondhand bookstore in the early 1950s, and remained part of a "Aw, Mom, why'd you throw all my comic books into that moldy old basement box?" collection for several years. The owner eventually remembered he owned a piece of American literature history and recovered the book from its basement tomb, and has kept it in storage until today, when online comics retailer ComicConnect.com will officially begin taking bids.

Who knows? Maybe in times like these, with our financial "experts" now in disgrace and their institutions teetering on the edge of oblivion (if not already there), banks are the last place any American wants to put their money –– investing in comics might just be the way to go. Go bust open those piggy banks.

I have a strange fascination with servants. I’m not saying this as a blue-blooded person who thinks that the “help” are quaint. I’m fascinated with them on a level of their potential and their use in fiction.

Butlers, secretaries, assistants, nannies, so many people on the service end of things get no respect but could completely sink the people that they serve, if they chose. They are the pillars upon which the rich and famous rest.

Who does Batman rely on? Not Robin the Boy Hostage; he relies on Alfred Pennyworth, his long-suffering butler. Alfred is not just good at keeping the house, he keeps the secrets, manages the house network, is an accomplished field medic, and, depending on which one of the many plotlines you read, is also good at boxing, swordsmanship, and archery. And he's deft with a shotgun too!

I know CEOs who would be lost without their assistants. These people who do the real work while those on top think the great thoughts and make the big bucks. Assistants and service people are overlooked and underpaid, but man, what potential.

Alfred is probably the most magical for me. His number one job is serving the Wayne family. He wears his suit and is dapper and proper. All about the etiquette, Alfred is never mussed or out of sorts. And still he kicks ass.

When I was writing for the World of Warcraft RPG books I was given a group to flesh out, a group of caretakers who are trained to care for and protect magical weapons. I had so much freaking fun with those guys, giving them combat abilities, trap-making abilities, and repair skills. There was a school they had to attend -- very difficult to be accepted to -- and multiple vows of secrecy to adhere to (on pain of death, natch.)

That was the most fun I’ve ever had writing in an RPG world. Perhaps my love affair with this kind of character has to do with the unexpected. No one pays attention to the janitor or the maid or the receptionist. They’re perfect assassins and spies and bodyguards.

Geeks, forgive me for the next example, but dammit, it fits (despite the weeping pile of bantha-shit that the movie was) but in The Phantom Menace, Padme got a lot more intel from masquerading as a servant than from being all gunked up with LOOK AT ME, I’M A DECOY makeup.

I was talking about butlers with some friends last summer, and just this week one of them sent me this link. Apparently, there is a butler school. It’s an eight week program in The Netherlands. It costs twelve thousand euros but they do point out this covers lodging, food, not to mention your dapper outfit complete with white gloves(!).

The problem is, I’m finding myself obsessed with this idea. I want to apply and go, count it as research, and find out the world of butling from the inside.

Do they have secret training on ass-kicking? Martial arts? I know from my years in kung fu that there’s not much you can learn in two months of training, but maybe it’s extensive -- a morning of etiquette, an afternoon of efficient and effective housekeeping, then four hours of martial arts training. They not only train you to kick ass, but to do so in a way that when you’re done, you don’t have a hair out of place or a rumple in your suit.

The site does have a “specialized training” area, but I couldn’t find “weapons,” “martial arts,” “hidden room architecture,” or “espionage.”

I was somewhat disappointed, I have to say. But maybe they don't advertise that part of the school.

Someone on Twitter told me that as a writer, I should probably just visit the school instead of spending the dough to enroll, but I disagree. Do you really think they’re going to show their secret assassin training area to a writer? I have to get inside, I have to experience it.

Whether I can learn from the inside or not, the service/butler character is a beloved one in my mind. Someone whose job it is to hold shit together is a powerful person indeed and should be trained in more than wine-meal pairings. So if I want to learn more, but don’t want to go to The Netherlands, what can the US offer me? More importantly, what can they offer me nearby?

Most of US etiquette training organizations I came across offer seminars instead of school-based learning, and nearly every one emphasized the value of getting darn kids off our lawns in order to learn some goddamn manners. And a school in South Carolina was a disappointment. Their Butler School's website has pictures of men and women you just KNOW could give Alfred a run for his money, but this page features a nervous guy holding flowers and tugging at his collar. I have no idea what this is trying to tell me.

I find myself wanting to learn more etiquette, as if it would lead me down a path of forbidden and mystical knowledge. Etiquette is so lost on the world, put aside as “stuffy” or “holier than thou,” that it’s becoming somewhat magical. Wow, if that guy knows what fork to eat his salad with, or how to properly mix chemicals to get a stain out of satin, I wonder what ELSE he knows?

Yeah, my imagination is probably making way too much about this, and I doubt I’ll be looking to enroll in butler school any time school. But from now on I’ll be looking at door men, janitors, and concierges with a bit more respect and, yes, wariness.

(Notice I didn’t list butler there -- it’s cause I’m never invited anywhere where a butler works. It might be cause I don’t know any fucking etiquette.)


Mur Lafferty is an author and podcaster who recently released her first novel, Playing For Keeps. She Speaks Geek every month on SuicideGirls.com. Click HERE for more of Mur's musings.