The Upper Room

2:42 AM

@JimG. thanks for bringing this to my attention, all comments removed. Please address the doctrines and contents of the question not the OP in future discussions on any matters. This is a thorny issue, and one this site handles fairly well in general.

fredsbend

4:44 AM

@El'endiaStarman Vaguely. I last played the game about 10 years ago.

I remember it sounding robotic of sorts, but not quite what you'd expect.

El'endia Starman

5:19 AM

@fredsbend Realization: Ahhh...

Statement: HK-47 always prefaced whatever he said with what kind of phrase it was or what purpose it served.

Clarification: And he spoke it too.

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman Exclamation: I get is now!

Dumbfounded: Why did you bring that up again?

Afterthought: What idiot programmed the speech application on that robot?

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend Correction: organic meatbag idiot, you mean.

Statement: That should tell you all you need to know.

fredsbend

Wax's original statement reminds me of Data. He says "Query:" a lot before starting a question.

yesterday, by wax eagle

Query: Could Adam and Eve have sinned without an outside influence?

El'endia Starman

Ahhh. Well, I didn't grow up with Star Trek, so that didn't register at all.

fredsbend

That's a sad tale.

For reals.

El'endia Starman

5:31 AM

What're you talking about? Star Wars is clearly the way to go.

fredsbend

Why not have both, I say?

El'endia Starman

Pondering: I wonder which universe has more material: Star Wars or Star Trek. Basically, Expanded Universe books versus episodes.

fredsbend

I first watched Star Trek when I was 5. I would watch it on rerun every day after school. Then my Dad, who's not into scifi, bought the Trilogy on VHS when I was 6. I watched all of them in a row and have probably about 5 dozen times since.

El'endia Starman

Ha, nice.

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman A single large book has enough material for at least a season of episodes. TNG only went 7 seasons.

I think there's a few ST books out there though.

El'endia Starman

5:35 AM

@fredsbend Oh, well, put that way, Star Wars has way more.

Yeah, Star Trek has something like 15 books. All the episodes from all Star Trek series might amount to a couple dozen more. Star Wars has over 120 novels and counting.

fredsbend

But there's 7 seasons for DS9 and Voy each, 4 more for Enterprise and another 3 for TOS.

@El'endiaStarman Yeah, no comparison. Also no comparison in sheer number of fans.

El'endia Starman

Yeah.

fredsbend

Which reminds me of fan fiction. I bet there's tons more for SW.

El'endia Starman

Hmm, yeah, quite likely. I've written some myself.

fredsbend

Cool. I had my hand at some walking dead fan fiction recently.

El'endia Starman

5:39 AM

neat

Hmm. I don't remember, but have you ever participated in NaNoWriMo?

fredsbend

I'm really going for the shock factor. I haven't written out the actual story, which would be quite short anyway, but I have made out the major plot points.

@El'endiaStarman Nope. I don't know what that is.

Thank you google.

Sounds like a good place for a writer to get started.

El'endia Starman

Oh yes.

fredsbend

Have you participated?

El'endia Starman

Yep. Three years so far: 2011, 2012, 2013. Only won 2012 though.

2011, I wasn't prepared for the challenge and only wrote something like 13,000 words. 2013, I became sick near the beginning of the month and then I was too busy with other stuff.

I'll be starting again in 9 days.

fredsbend

How many words do they expect you to write? It's a team effort, right? Like a wiki?

El'endia Starman

5:45 AM

Nope. One writer. 50,000 words. 30 days.

fredsbend

'windows+r "calc" enter`

El'endia Starman

That's an average of 1,667 words per day, which is about 3 pages single-spaced.

lol

fredsbend

That's like eight pages a day.

More like five.

Still kind of a lot for 30 days in a row.

El'endia Starman

yeah

That's the size of a smallish novel.

The story I'm working on will probably top out at around 175,000 words. I've got about 90,000 so far, I think.

fredsbend

You already started? Isn't that cheating? And holy crap that's a lot of words!

You still own your story right?

El'endia Starman

5:49 AM

Eh. I still wrote 50,000 words of new content. I don't consider that cheating.

And yeah.

Yes.

You're even allowed to put into the checking algorithm 50,000 of the letter 'a'.

Or Lorem Ipsum.

fredsbend

Hmmm. I really like the idea. I've been wanting to write scifi for at least ten years. I went through a phase where I wrote down about a paragraph or two of plot lines for various stories. I probably have about 15 or 20.

El'endia Starman

Well, then I highly encourage you to do so. :)

fredsbend

I looked them over one day and realized that I could make a synthesis with all the stories and make one grand epic.

El'endia Starman

oooh, sounds neat

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman Right now, time is very short, at least until dec. 2015. School mostly, then there's young kids and work.

El'endia Starman

5:52 AM

yeah

There's also Camp NaNoWriMo in April and June.

Or July. One of those two.

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman I really would like to do it right though. I need to study some of the great plots and dialogues in literature and find the key elements that make them great.

El'endia Starman

Still, you could set a personal goal of 10,000 words, for instance.

fredsbend

I've always likes story books so long as the dialogue was impressive and believable and the plots where mind bending.

@El'endiaStarman That's why I'm practicing with short stories.

El'endia Starman

[nods] Neat.

fredsbend

I figure I'll do 1000 to 2000 words here and there, or maybe just the key scenes in the plot stories that I have now.

So what's your story about?

@El'endiaStarman ^

El'endia Starman

5:59 AM

There's a scourge that's rapidly spreading all over the world that turns every being it encounters into raging beasts that turn on their former friends. A team of 7 people have to find 7 Relics, one for each element: Darkness, Water, Earth, Metal, Air, Fire, Light. The legend goes that only by bringing these seven Relics together can such a menace be stopped.

When I started writing it, I envisioned developing a game alongside it, so the story and plot is more structured than most.

fredsbend

Yeah, I get a zombie halo feel there. Sounds interesting. Are you going for an epic LOTR feel or an action adventure. Or maybe better, horror.

El'endia Starman

Action/adventure and yeah, maybe a LotR feel.

I don't particularly like horror.

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman Well, I was reminded of heart of darkness, which is a difficult read, but good. Then I was reminded of the movie Kong with Jack Black, when they first arrive on the Island, Jimmy, the boy is reading that story and says "It's not an adventure story is it?" and the captain says no, which rather magnificently foreshadowed that the movie was about to get into some serious scary stuff. And it did!

That's more traditional horror. Perhaps you were thinking of the shock value, gore fests of today.

El'endia Starman

Yeah.

fredsbend

Which are okay sometimes.

I love monster movies.

@El'endiaStarman What is the scourge exactly? Does it matter to your heroes?

El'endia Starman

6:08 AM

@fredsbend As far as they are aware at this point in the story, it's some sort of super-disease, possibly viral.

Scientists are working on analyzing it, of course.

fredsbend

So are you shooting for more scifi or fantasy?

El'endia Starman

Both. :P

fredsbend

They do conflate sometimes and when they do so well it is exciting.

You ever read any 40K stuff?

El'endia Starman

Warhammer? No, but I've heard of it.

fredsbend

I think they mix scifi and fantasy pretty darn well.

@El'endiaStarman The game is fun, but the stories are what make it 10 times more enjoyable.

And there's so many facets, so may ethos mentalities that you can get caught up in.

I love the imperium. It reminds me of the RCC. Rich with ritual, protocol, holy rites, prayers, and, naturally, righteous battle all in the name of the immortal emperor.

El'endia Starman

6:12 AM

Huh, interesting.

Have you heard of or read the Circle Trilogy by Ted Dekker?

fredsbend

Nope.

What's it about?

El'endia Starman

There are three books: Black, Red, and White.

It's centered on one man, Thomas Hunter, that flops between two worlds every time he goes unconscious. Meaning that if he goes to sleep or gets knocked out in one world, he wakes up in the other one.

One world is the Earth we all know. The other is entirely different, and yet calls this one "Ancient Earth".

In the other world, Evil and Good are clearly visible. As in, demons are bats (Shataiki) and angels are...white fuzzy "bats" (Roush).

The plot set in the other world basically compresses the last 6,000 years of history into the life of one man.

fredsbend

Man I swear nothing is new under the sun. I had the idea of that same basic premise, that dreaming takes the character to another reality. I got the idea as a kid when I saw a goofy commercial. I think I was about 10, so like 1996 or something. I feel like Kelso when he invented the wheelchair, bicycle, the wheelchair again, then gave up claiming "It's official! Everything's been invented."

This sounds much different after that for the ideas I had.

Christian?

Seems like it.

So does this also explore how different the world would be pre-flood, assuming YEC and certain conclusions from it?

El'endia Starman

Black begins with the half-planet of Eden, where half the planet is covered with the Colored Forest, which is green and amazing fruits of every color are everywhere. There is a river that circumscribes the world, and on the other side, there's the Black Forest, which is inhabited by the Shataiki. There are three bridges that cross the river.

fredsbend

"Shataiki" Is that a mushroom?

El'endia Starman

6:25 AM

@fredsbend No, actually, although The Guardian (by some author whose name I can't find right now) does, and that's also a book I really like.

@fredsbend Huh, looks like it. Lol. Probably not Dekker's intent.

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman I was joking!

El'endia Starman

Anyway, the Fall happens in Black, and the demons are released to cross the river and corrupt the Colored Forest.

fredsbend

Sounds pretty good. Hows the dialogue? Provocative?

El'endia Starman

Red is basically about Judaism. The Creator, Elyon, leaves the survivors with seven simple rules, and some time later...they've got hundreds. So, Justin comes on the scene, and ends up being the sacrifice. After that, a ritual cleansing no longer works, and in order to be clean, you have to drown. Literally drown (and by your own choice).

White is modeled after Christianity, and follows the Circle, a.k.a. Justin's Bride. The Church, in essence.

fredsbend

How's the theology in these books?

El'endia Starman

6:30 AM

@fredsbend Hmmm. Pretty simple, just basic stuff.

There's also a fourth book named Green that is supposedly the first and last book of the Circle Cycle, but most Dekker fans don't like it very much.

fredsbend

Not written well?

El'endia Starman

Especially not compared to the Trilogy.

And I myself was very unsatisfied with how Dekker closed the loop.

Like, it's literally the last chapter.

fredsbend

I'm a little confused. I don't know of any Christian theology that is cyclical in nature. Seems quite linear, most of it. Creation, sin, redemption, judgement

El'endia Starman

Yeah.

Green feels FAR, FAR more like a fourth book than a zeroth book.

It's basically that Dekker liked the idea and not many others did as well...

fredsbend

So it's a poorly made sequel marked as a prequel?

El'endia Starman

6:36 AM

Prequel AND sequel.

But some fans refuse to acknowledge its existence...

Much like a certain movie based on Avatar: The Last Airbender...

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman Like I was saying, it seems to be modeled off of Christianity's basic theology, so I don't understand how that has been turned into a cycle.

@El'endiaStarman I actually liked it, but I think we've been over this. I don't count because I didn't watch the cartoons much.

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend Thomas wished he could have made different choices in the past, so Elyon/God sent him back in time, but wiped his memory. The very last sentence of Green is the exact same as the very first sentence of Black.

@El'endiaStarman OH! It's actually titled "The Last Guardian" and it was written by Shane Johnson.

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman Sensory overload: There's just so much good stuff out there! I can't even remember it all exists, let alone read it all!

El'endia Starman

Heh, yeah.

There's also the Song of Albion Trilogy by Stephen R. Lawhead. I loved those books.

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman That's a fun idea, but I guess the author didn't do a good job with it.

man you read a lot.

El'endia Starman

6:43 AM

@fredsbend Yeah, he really didn't.

@fredsbend I used to read books more. Now I read stuff online more.

fredsbend

I've read a lot over the last few years, but it's all been informational. At least 2500 pages for school; probably more like 5000. SE's gotta be in the gogol range.

El'endia Starman

Yeah, same here. Informational stuff more the past couple of years.

fredsbend

Since Sep, new semester, I'm adding up about 500 pages. To be fair, some of it was skimmed. Those textbooks are verbose sometimes.

El'endia Starman

Ha, yeah, they can be.

Alright. I need to go to bed.

G'night!

fredsbend

me too.

nite

fredsbend

7:04 AM

@El'endiaStarman I just remembered that there's now 12 movies too.

TRiG

8:38 AM

12

A: Is there any science fiction (or fantasy) canon larger than Star Wars?

The Star Trek canon is substantially larger than the Star Wars canon: Film: Star Trek films: 12 Live-action films Star Wars films: 6 Live action, 6 animated features (1 removed from canon) Clear win for Star Trek TV Star Trek TV Series: 6 (amounting to 726 episodes) Star Wars TV Series...

LCIII

12:11 PM

Most ignored question ever award goes to me: christianity.stackexchange.com/q/33387/11471

Jim G.

1:42 PM

@waxeagle Sure thing. Thanks.

El'endia Starman

4:21 PM

@TRiG Huh, 1000 books and novellas? Focusing just on the novels, every Barnes & Noble I've ever been to has had something like 50+ Star Wars novels on display versus no more than 20 for Star Trek.

El'endia Starman

4:59 PM

@LCIII [clears throat] You didn't get one of these: people who got tumbleweed badges.

Does Elisha speak?

7:13 PM

0

Q: Please help me understand how the action and reasoning of Caleb is right and in accordance with the rules and aims of this site

This question From Scripture, what is the biblical basis that gay marriage NOT a right from God? [on hold]. has been put on hold by Caleb and his reasoning is quoted below put on hold as unclear what you're asking by Caleb♦ Please help me understand how the action and reasoning of Caleb ...

Malachi

7:51 PM

looks like there is some fun stuff going on, on the site today

Does Elisha speak?

10:03 PM

0

Q: What justification is there to flag this question as a duplicate?

What justification is there to flag this question as a duplicate? The question flagged was the one which was asked first and not the other that is being said it is a duplicate of.

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