Samuel_Tow

Oh, I like that!

I'd just like to point out that:

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The entire thing is made of a mysterious material which cannot be affected by reality, thus making it indestructable and able to cut through just about anything.

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That's more or less how I view it, as well.

Since I don't have "my character" among the group I have made, I choose my namesake - Samuel Tow to talk about.

His signature weapon is a crystal-bladed katana with a mechanical handle. I'd like to go into a bit of detail about it.

The crystal the blade is made out of is impossibly strong, able to hold the shape of a blade much sharper than any metel could ever acheive. Metal bends and compresses, so there's only so sharp you could make it before the edge of the blade becomes too soft to cut. The crystal is hard enough to sustain an almost perfectly sharp edge. This sharpness and its physical strength allow the blade to cut through any material short of the same crystal.

As an added bonus, the sides of the blade are covered by microscopic spikes and blades, breaking down any surface that comes into contact with the sides of the blade to be shredded into a fine dust. This allows the blade to slip effortlessly through meterial under high pressure without getting stuck. It also makes the blade itself impossible to grab, as it would take the skin off the palm of your hand if you try to touch it.

The handle of the katana has a powerful and calibrated electro magnet, that can be remote activated. Once activated, it can return the sword to Sam's magnetic glove from a considerable distance. That allows him to regain possession of the sword remotely and quickly should he be disarmed in combat. The handle also has a tracking device, allowing him to locate his sword should he ever lose it.

As for a signature attack, this is where physics goes out the window. Through his power, Sam has gained impressive power and incredible speed. By performing a strike just right, he can create a directed shockwave that extends in the arc expanding along the plane of the strike. The shockwave's head is so thinly concentrated that it could cut through most materials you're likely to encounter. The benefit of this is that it expands as it moves, allowing Sam to cut objects (or enemies) far too large to be affected by a direct strike, and it can also strike targets at a considerable range and, most importantly, out of melee range. The bad side is that it's difficult to produce, very exhausting and not nearly as strong as a direct sword attack. It also diminishes in strength the more it expands and the further it travels, so the harder the targer, the closer he has to be to affect it. It also has the tendency to bounce off hard or resonant objects in unpredictable ways.

Does that count?

Unwittingly, I had been recruited into a rag-tag group of outcasts, calling themselves the Southsiders for no conceivable reason that I could ever work out. I suppose they just thought it sounded cool. It was comprised mainly of kids between 10 and 20, though most were in the middle ground around 15. Most of those kids were either orphans, had run away from home or were wanted by the police. None of them really had a home or a family. Most quite literally - they were children of the streets. Of those who had parents, those parents were usually criminals themselves, drug addicts, alcoholics or abusive. The kids that hadn't run away from home officially rarely ever went back to their houses, because when they did their parents tried to ground then, lecture them or beat them up.

For most of those kids, the gang was all they had in life. Kind of like me, actually, but I didn't have even that. I didn't stop to think about it back then. I'm not sure if it would have made a difference in how things turned out, but I know why those kids had turned to gangs. They lived in a neighbourhood that was rife with crime and poverty. There were no real jobs to speak of, nor was there any real sense of security. Their families were falling apart, and there was nothing these kids could do about it. They felt helpless, alone and scared. They thought that they'd never get the things they wanted. But the gang offered them power. It offered them respect. There go those two words again. The gang offered them, generally speaking, instant gratification. They could have what they wanted now, and it gave them security that they wouldn't lose what they already had. They had the power to take what they wanted and the respect to keep what they had.

I would soon find out, however, how little power and respect the gang actually gave. My first impressions of how powerful the Southsiders were came as soon as my "friend" informed me I had been recruited. I wondered why I had been recruited when they hadn't ever seen me before. Turns out they were hurting for members. They had lost a lot of their older members in a recent robbery gone horribly wrong, so to stay in the game, they needed more people. Right there I knew this gang was as small-time as it comes. For them to have to go out and drag new recruits off the street, that meant they were on their last leg. And they were, I later learned, even if their leader wasn't telling his followers the whole story.

Owen was their leader. I'm sure he had a last name, but none of the Southsiders knew it and no-one really cared about it. Everyone just called him Owen. He was a 20-something young man, an exceptionally stern leader and a right [censored]. He ran his gang by fist and boot. He held all the power and he gave all the orders. He had made sure everyone understood that disobeying him would make them wake up with a slit throat the next morning. His orders were law and he made sure that it was kept. He enforced his rule by fear and violence. Why is it that people think this is a good strategy? Why do all authocratic leaders inevitably turn to force to keep their leadership? Even back then, it had become obvious to me that this strategy is always doomed to a slow and painful failure.

I met Owen when I was officially enlisted into the Southsiders. He did his best "big men" act to try and scare me, but I had faced bigger men than him. It became obvious to me then that he was the key reason as to why the Southsiders were at the bottom of the barrel. As good as he was at keeping himself on top of the gang, Owen was a terrible leader. He rode his boys hard, he exploited them shamelessly, and what little profit their work generated he kept for himself. He'd pass down the bread crums so his boys could actually survive, but he didn't really care about them. And it showed. They could all up and die for all he cared, as long as he got his money. So he made sure they obeyed him and made a profit for him. Beyond that, he let them do whatever they wanted.

That was good for me. Even though the Southsiders didn't have the guts to complain to Owen, all one had to do was walk out of his "throne room" and it became pretty evident that everybody hated him. I considered simply openly challenging him, and I even pursued that idea a bit until it became clear it was doomed to failure. The Southsiders were so afraid of Owen that they wouldn't even consider challenging him. So the strategy that I had employed back in the Pit couldn't work here. The moment I challeneged Owen, his followers would come to his aid and kill me on the spot. Anything to remain in the good graces of their leader. I could not show him to be weak, because there was no way the kids could see him as anything other than the monster he portrayed himself as.

So Owen would not go down like Edgar. He had a greater hold over his followers and the group was more tightly-knit than the kids in the Pit. But so had the group of my own followers back then, and that didn't stop Lyle from winning them over to his side. I had spent a long time figuring out how he had been able to acheive that, and I had his methods worked out to a T. So after a lot of revision, I saw the situation in a different light. I had become Lyle, and Owen was me. We were playing out the scenario of my own past failure. Providence arrived with me once again, and I knew what I had to do. The Southsiders followed Owen, because he held the power to fulfilling their agendas. And I needed to find out what those agendas were.

I began talking with the boys and asking around. My questions were innocent enough - what they would rather be doing, what they hoped to acheive, how they wanted to live. Simple stuff, and boy did they have a lot to say. Everyone wanted something different, but most would agree about a few things. Most pressingly, they were all really dissatisfied with the missions that Owen was giving them. They fealt that the ones he was sending them on were for the potential return they held. And when I reviewed what they had done, I had to agree. All Owen had had them do was rob convenience stores and gas stations - the same ones over and over - and commit house robberies. Was this guy an idiot? I had to wonder.

When I talked to him about it, it turned out I was right. Yes, yes he was an idiot. Or rather, he was an inept planner. He didn't have the imagination to plan anything beyond simple robbery, nor did he care to make anything more elaborate. And in his ineptitude, I saw the perfect opportunity. I asked him if he'd let me plan a few operations, and he agreed. He didn't care. He was pretty happy to have somebody else do it. Except, like a fool, he didn't realise that if my operations were profitable and successful, then I would get the praise, not him. But then, he wasn't a very good leader. A stern one, but bad allthesame.

So I planned a few operations. It was simple at first - I just had the boys run around the neighbourhood and look for where the real money was. Banks were out of our league, but they did spot a few pawn shops that had a lot of cash flow going through them. And I mean a lot. They very tight security, of course, but against robbery, not burglary. I had Owen acquire a few building plans for me and I had the boys go look for jobs there. I targetted a pawn shop just outside the neighbourhood - the boys were less likely to be known there, and so more likely to land a job at the shop.

My guy on the inside got me copies of all the keys, but he was unable to diable the shop's door alarm system. So we had to improvise. We hit a hardware store and bought a host of power tools and construction equipement. With that, we followed through with my plan. We broake into an abandoned building next door to the pawn shop, then broke through the wall dividing the buildings and made it inside the shop, bypassing the alarm-protected door. Then with our duplicate keys, we made it through all the security doors, all the way up to the vault. The vault itself was very sturdy, and it took a full night of cutting, but we got it open just before opening hours. Looking back on it, all that stuff came to me naturally. I don't know how I was able to so effortlessly plan such a big heist, but I had. I guess the Southsiders had lowered the bar for crime in the neighbourhood so low that people had loosened their security. Yes, they were just that pathetic.

I had planned to hit the shop just after the owner had managed to sell a load of expensive items, so we walked away with several thousand dollars of cash and jewelry. When I reported back to Owen, he almost choked on his cigar. His mouth was watering as he took the big bag of money off our hands. I let him enjoy his money. He was losing something even more valuable - his leadership. Overnight, I had turned from the scoffed at new guy into a respected member of the gang. Owen couldn't have been happier with my performance, so he appointed me as a permanent operation planner. All the better. The heist had given me my respect, and Owen had just handed me my power. He may as well had given me a loaded gun and pointed it at his temple. Now all I had to do was wait for the right time to move.

But something else happened later that purely astounded me. I had delivered untold amounts of money to Owen, and he had used that to repay his bosses in the local cartel. But when pay day came, very little of that money made it back to the Southsiders. They couldn't say anything to Owen, but they weren't very happy with it. I, on the other hand, could not believe my eyes. I could not imagine how Owen could commit such a blunder. He knew his boys had been cheering about "all that money" they were going to get. How could he even think of giving them the usual pittance. Oh, that played right into my hands, of course, but I was just astounded how he could have been so stupid.

And, just like that, here was my opportunity to make a move. The heist had given me a lot of respect, and Owen had just handed me a lot of power on a silver platter. I had suddenly become a leader, even if not one of the highest of rank. Now it was time to expand. I began asking the boys about things that they'd wish to see changed. I got a lot of different responses, but a few kept recurring. Most of the boys wanted more money, but they were too afraid to embezzle from Owen. I, on the other hand, didn't have to. By that time, I was pulling off one high-score heist every week and bringing Owen more money than he had ever seen. He had become dependent on me. That gave me the power to bargain with him. So I did.

Owen tried to resist. He didn't want to bargain with anyone - he was the leader and no-one was supposed to tell him what to do. But on the other hand, he liked the money I was bringing him. He needed me, and I knew it. So gently I just kept pressing him until he started to make compromises. The first thing that I asked for was better pay for the people who take part in heists - my people, effectively. He agreed. I had just gotten my people better pay. I also demanded a bigger budget for heists. Partly, that let me make bigger heists. Partly, it allowed me to appease another desire - more luxury. Mostly, it gave me my own budget, independent of Owen. I had acquired a whole seperate building by that time. I needed the space to assemble and store my equipement, and the run-down headquarters building wasn't big enough. So I put more luxuries in my own building.

Some peopel wanted wanted lighter work, so I gave them the safer, less paid jobs. Some people wanted more pay, so I gave them more work. Some people wanted favours, so I gave them favours and took it out of their pay. But at least I did things for them. Because my heists were getting more and more complicated, I acquired more and more direct control over the heist teams. Before long, I had people answering to me, personally, and I answered to Owen for them. And people wanted to work for me. Owen gave them tough, badly-paid jobs and got them in trouble. I gave them easy jobs, paid them a lot, sent them on carfully planned missions. I even bailed them out of jail when they got caught. I spent my time training them, I bought good clothes and equipement for them, I organised them.

I knew very well what the Southsiders wanted - a better life. They had joined Owen to acheive that, and he simply wasn't delivering. But I was. Working for me, the Southsiders actually got a better life. I began developing a lot of power withnin the gang. I had already began expanding my own operation, with Owen's conscent, of course, so my power just kept on growing. I was Owen's follower, so his power grew even more. But his power came from me, personally. Over the course of five years, all of the Southsiders power that was going into Owen started passing through me, first. I had expanded my operation so much that it made the rest of the gang, the one directly reporting to Owen, look like an unneeded addition. The time had come to streamline my operation.

An open confrontation with Owen would have been disasterous for me. The Southsiders were still afraid of him, even though he didn't have any real power that didn't come from me. If I had attacked him, my own followers would have turned against me. No, I needed to provoke him into making a mistake. I needed to show how little real power he had. And with Owen, that really wasn't so hard. One night I pulled off a heist without consulting with him. He flew into a rage and stormed into my office. He was actually quite stunned at the condition of my own headquarters building. I had turned it into a regular office building/hotel combo, with pretty good quarters for my boys, training facilites, a conference room, to say nothing of running water and power. Owen's headquarters was still an old condemed building where people lived in poverty and slept on the ground. Owen accused me of anything that crossed his mind at the time, but I didn't back down. I simply handed him the money from the unsanctioned raid and watched his jaw drop.

Just to add a bit of finesse to my defiance of his rule, I had hit a bank. A big bank just before collection day. I can't remember how many thousands I gave him that day, but it was a lot of money. I had several reasons to give it to him. Firstly, I wanted everyone to watch him walk away from the building after he had threatened to kill me. I wanted everyone to see his empty threats for what they were, and see just how who held the real power. Secondly, I wanted his followers to see him him to get a whole lot of money and then see him pay them very little yet again. I wanted them to see just how much he was stealing from their hard work. The consequences of out little meeting did not delay. The very next day rumours had began to spread. Rumours that I had scared Owen, that he was afraid to attack me, that I had challenged him. The scene was ripe for the final blow.

I conducted another unsanctioned heist. It was nothing big this time. Just another pawn shop for a few thousand dollars. It was another act of defiance against Owen, and this time without any good reaso for it. I had simply overruled him and he wasn't going to stand for it. Just like I expected. He grabbed a few of his men, stormed into my office and tried to pull a gun on me. I had briefed my boys on what to expect. Owen had walked right into a trap. As he was babbling on and on about respect, waving his gun around, the hit squad I had prepared earlier opened fire at Owen and his men. It was all over in just a few seconds. Owen was dead, his most loyal followers were dead, and my brand new suit was completely ruined by blood spatter. Thinking about it, I really should have paid more attention on what I was wearing when I expected 20 people to be shot dead in front of me. A white Armani suit was about the worst I could have worn.

And that was that. The next morning the rumours started. Had Owen left? Was he ill? Where was he? I settled them all with a gang meeting. I told them in very simple terms that Owen and his posse were dead. I would be taking over. A few people paniced, but most people knew who had really been running the gang - me. Everyone knew Owen was stealing from them, everyone hated him for how he treated them, everyone wanted to work for me instead of him. And now they could. The great fear - Owen - was gone. He could no longer hurt them, he could no longer oppress them. He could no longer stop them from working for me. And as soon as the dust settled, they all accepted me as their new leader. They knew that I represented the best chance they had to acheive their dreams, and that gave me their loyalty.

A few days later I took Owen's place in the latest meeting with the cartel. A couple of lowly underbosses came by to pick up this month's money and pass down instructions from the bosses. They found the old headquarters building abandoned and a limo waiting for them outside. I met them in my new conference room that I had had built specifically for them. My building, the state of my gang and just the general air of power and professionalism simply blew their minds. Just last month they had met with a thug in a basement and left with just a few thousand dollars. Yes, a few thousand dollars. Now that blew my mind. Apparently, Owen wasn't just stealing from us, he was embezzling the cartel, as well. I would track down the money he stole later, but for now I had to make good with the cartel. They weren't prepared to accept me as the new leader of the Southsiders just like that and they would not accept the loyalty of my men as proof. Money talks and praise walks, I suppose.

So I gave them the money they asked for. I trippled our monthly pay, just as a token of good will towards our benefactors in the cartel, as well as a sign of my superior leadership. It was pretty easy, too. Thanks to Owen's embezzling the cartel had no idea just how much we were making, so even tripple our pay was still lunch money. I could have easily afforded to pay them 10 times the sum, but that would have made them suspicious. I wanted to impress them, but not so much as to make them afraid that I may pose a danger. The underbosses left confused and returned the next day. The bosses at the top had accepted me as the official leader, but were rising our monthly pay by quite a bit. It was a lot, but it was still affordable. Even more so, since my men had gone digging in our old Headquarters building and found Owen's stash of embezzled money. The [censored] had hidden away more than half a million dollars in a hole in the wall. But I didn't let the cartel in on that.

So, just like that, I was the leader of the Southsiders. An 18-year-old man, leader of something so big. In my time serving Owen, I had turned his little rag-tag gang into a proper organisation. But I didn't stop there, on no. I kept going, expanding, upgrading and building my organisation even bigger. A short year later, we had great financial backing, we had professionals working on different jobs, performing bigger and more elaborate heists. We had a front business in the form of an accounting firm, complete with a building permit, a functing infrastructure, even clients we served. We even paid taxes. We had moved on to doing more than just heists and into small-time trafficing and money laundering, though mostly of our own equipement and our own money. The little gang of 100 men had grown into several thousand people, spread around several buildings in the neighbourhood, each of which I had built on plots I bought with my own money. We had actually brought life and prosperity back into the neighbourhood. I had simply involved all the petty crooks into my organisation, giving them bigger jobs to do than mug people in the streets, so the visible crime rate had dropped.

I had risen from the garbage and formed a powerful organisation out of the dredges of society, and done so in one of the worst places in the entire city. I had succeeded. I had become a leader. Just like I swore I would. All of my suffering, all of my pain, all of my life in misery and poverty, all of the people I had had to walk over to get here had been worth it. My calling, my purpuse, my mission... Was to be a leader. And I had become one. But experience had taught me that my work was not done yet. I had become a leader once before, only to lose everything. I had learned my lesson, and I knew my purpuse. I would remain a leader, and expand my power. Until when? Well, at the time I wasn't planning to stop. Ever. Two centuries and one world later, little has changed.

I had reached the extent of my previous experience, and I had reached a level where expansion and evolution had become more difficult. I struggled to understand it back then, but it was quite clear, really - I had simply outgrown the confines that the cartel had put me under. If I were to grow any further, I would need to deal with the cartel directly.

Very soon I would get that chance, and things would get interesting.

I don't get emotional about my characters. Not in an empathic sort of way, at the very least. I have a story to tell, and in that sotry people will get hurt. It's part of how this thing works. If you're shy about hurting your characters, it shows. A good story always contains something bad happening to the lead characters, so it's unavoidable.

I don't identify with my characters, but I will look through their eyes when I'm writing their actions. It's not always easy, as none of my characters are really "me," so I need to compensate for their quirks and personality. I will get emoitional to the point that I understand what kind of a feeling my writing is portraying, and off that feeling I will base my describtions and character interactions.

I can't sympathise with any one character ever, as I'm always writing several of them simultaniously, and if there is favorism in your mind, it shows in your writing and acting. And favorism usually skewers stories pretty badly very often. I have found that unwillingenss or discomfort about hurting your own characters impedes the telling of a good story. It ends up loaded and unrealistic.

In the end, I don't have feelings for my own characters above the feelings one has toward one's own work. These characters are my creations, and my toys to play with. They're not living people, just figments of my imagination. My job is not to communicate with them but to bring them to life. And if I am to do that, then I cannot spare them the pain.

My life behind a trash container was a curious one. I spent my whole time confined in that one little alley. No-one ever came around there. The stench of garbage was too foul for most people to bear. I had bothered me at the beginning, but I got used to it over time. If fact, I began to find it pleasant. Not because it smelt good, no. It didn't. But that was the smell of my home. The smell of safety. The smell of a place where I could hide from the world, a place where no harm could come to me. A place where I could spend my life. Of course, back then that was desperation calling. I knew that I couldn't live in an alley indefinitely. I knew the supermarket providing my food would not be open forever, and I knew that sooner or later the pipe providing my water would be fixed. But that was still the only home I had.

Reflecting on that, I had sunk into a very deep hole back then. I was depressed, thinking only about how my life would be over soon. I was afraid to go out into the street for fear of being arrested, even though realistically, no-one was looking for me. The whole country was slowly sinking into a hell of crime and economic collapse, and an 11-year-old juvenile delinquent was the last thing on the minds of police and officials. I was depressed, but I drew strength from that depression. I was convinced that my life was slowly coming to an end, and I knew that there was nothing I could do to change that. That kind of thinking would make most people contemplate suicide. It would make most people give themselves up to the trials of the world. But for some reason, I didn't. Something had changed within me. I refused to give up. If the world would conspire to destroy me, then it would have to come and get me. Doomed as I thought I was, I was not going to let it take me as long as I had an ounce of strength left it me. If my life was to be over, then by the gods, I would make fate work her [censored] off to get me.

That sort of thing stays with you. It's a part of my life that I could never forget. Even if I wanted to. Even if my memory was not photographic. Because that's not just a memory. That is who I am. Even now, even with all the power I have, even with all my followers and all of my property and money. Even now I continue facing loss and defeat. Dear old Sam sees to it that I do as often as he can help it. But no matter what defeat I suffer, how much I lose or how much damage I sustain, I will never give up my quest. If anyone wants to destroy me, then they will have to come down and do it with their own bare hands. Because I am prepared to endure any amount misery, pain, confinement, anything I have to endure to acheive my goal. As long as I draw breath, I will never give up.

I learned all that over the course of around a year. I'm not sure exactly how long I spent in that alley, sleeping in garbage. I had no way to tell time or count the days, but I know I went through one winter and got to the beginning of another. Winters were harsh for me. I had no real way to keep myself warm. I couldn't afford to start a fire, as that would attract people. I managed to get my hands on a battery-powered electric heater, but it was very weak because of a burnt-out coil, and batteries for it were hard to come by. You don't throw batteries in the garbage, I suppose. I had to burry myself underneath whatever rags I could find, and I actually built myself a little igloo by covering my shelter with snow. Even then I was freezing cold every minute of every hour of every day. At first I was shivering badly, but pretty soon all of the muscules in my body hurt and denied me the ability. All I was able to do is lie motionless underneath a pile of garbage and count the hours until I had to get out of my little shelter and scavange for food.

I had made it through one winter just barely, so at the start of the next one, my spirits were at an all time low. It was coming to that time when fate was finally going to defeat me. But instead, she threw me a curveball. One morning I was awakened by the sound of footsteps. Someone ran past my shelter in a hurry. Before I knew it, two policemen were standing in my alley, looking around. I was convinced that they were looking for me, that they were here to put me in prison or just kill me on the spot. Of course, I wasn't thinking very clearly. I hadn't eaten or slept well in months, after all. So, in my infinite wisdom, I grabbed the knifeblade I used to open cans and attacked them. I was at the end of my teather back then, so I attacked them with everything I had left. I managed to catch them by surprise and stab them to death before they could even react. I had just killed two people for no reason, but that realisation would not hit me for a while longer.

Next thing I know, this kid - must have been around my age - walks out from behind a dumpster. Turns out the policemen were after him. He had stolen a purse and that's why they were chasing him. Only then did it hit me. I had just killed two people who were, for all intents and purpuses, innocent. They were just doing their job. They were not going to harm me. They didn't even know I existed. It made me feel so bad at the time that I think I just collapsed and started crying. I've killed a lot of people since then, and a lot of them for even more insignificant reasons. I no longer care to remember them. It's part and parcel with what I do. But the pain and sadness I felt that day... That is something that I will never forget. I can no longer even understand why I fealt that way. I just feeling so, so sad.

I'm a little hazy on the details after that, but the kid felt sorry for me, and he was greatful to me for saving him from going to jail, so he took me in. Actually, he was part of a small-time local street gang, and he took me into the gang. I spent maybe a day just crying by myself, until thoughts of just ending my life came over me. That was the wake-up call. I had not spent a year living in absolute poverty and fighting for my own sanity to give up over a simple feeling of guilt. I had not endured all of this pain just to let everything go for no reason. No, I was not going to let things end like this. I had a mission. I had a purpuse. And for the sake of my mission and for the sake of my purpuse, I had to go on. Through pain and tears, I put the policemen out of my mind. Their deaths were in the past. Their lives were inconsequential to mine. What I had done did not matter. Not anymore. All that mattered was what I had learned.

I lost something that day. I'm no longer sure what it was, as I no longer remember what it had been like when I had it. Maybe I lost my compassion, maybe I lost my kindness. Or maybe, that was when I lost my humanity. In the long run, it doesn't matter. What I lost was nothing more than a source of pain and depression. I had a mission, and my childish depressions and bouts of crying over myself only served to stand in my way. I made a decision that I would never allow myself to be hurt by anything or anyone. I have stood by this decision for two centuries now, and it has served me well. That day was the last time I fealt sorry for myself, the last time I was depressed, the last time I was hurt. I lost a lot of emotions that day, now that I think about it. Was it for the better? I really cannot say. I've no desire to regain them after all these years, and they did nothing for me but cause me pain and suffering, to say nothing of getting in the way of my mission.

Recently, Xandra tried to play psycho-analyst with me, and her words reminded me of that day. She told me that I had lost my ability to love and be happy a long time ago. Of course, that's not something I will discuss with her, or with anyone else. But it made me think. Have I really lost my ability to be happy? Am I not happy now, ruling my Empire of Rock? Certainly it is satisfying - that's what I want, after all. Success in expanding it and furthering my own goals has always pleased me. But is that true happiness? Honestly, I may well have lost the knowlege of what true happiness really means. I have a purpuse, a mission to accomplish, and that is all that matters. I am happy as long as my mission is being accomplished. As for love... No. There is far too much work to be done to concern myself with santimentalities. And even if I had the opportunity, my dear friend Sam did a good job of showing my why santimentality is nothing but a detriment to my work and a source of even more pain. But I'm greatful for it.

All of the contemplation I did back then alone in that room took me out of my hole and out of my depression. I remembered my mission, and I started looking. I hadn't noticed it, but I had found myself in the ranks of a local street gang. With my childish fears and doubts out of the way, I was able to see an opportunity. An opportunity to be a leader again. A better leader than the one I had been in the Pit. I had a lot more knowlege, understanding and motivations now than I did back then. It was just a matter of work, now.

I was about to face a time of prosperity and personal acheivement, but it would take a lot of work and effort.

The Pit was not a welcoming home. It wasn't run to be one. I didn't understand why that was at the time, but I have learend since. The director only cared about the fat subsidy checks the state was paying him. They were paying him to contain the children they wanted to forget about. Almost everyone in there was the child of a dead or incarcerated criminal, of a beggar who couldn't afford to look after his children, or kids abandoned on the street. The state didn't care, and we certainly had no-one to stand for us. So the director made sure we didn't disturb his operation, preventing us from leaving the Pit or from damaging expensive property. Beyond that he didn't care if we beat each other to death.

And oh, did the kids take full advantage of that. When they say that kids can be cruel, people have no idea just how cruel kids can be. But I found out very quickly. The very first thing I encountered when I was first taken to the Pit was Edgar. Now, Edgar was a special case. He was a big, strong kid, and he was also a natural leader. For Lord knows how long he had been leader of what he liked to call the Pit Mafia. That ridiculous name belied a very dangerous, if ragtag group of kids - the followers of Edgar. They were the orphanage equivalent of a street gang, harassing all the other kids and extorting them for different things. They had established themselves as the top dogs and everyone was afraid of them. As their leader, Edgar ruled over all of the Pit, severely beating up anyone who so much as dared to argue with him. Anyone who didn't do as Edgar said was beaten into a pulp by the Pit Mafia, either immediately or the following night.

My first encounter with Edgar occured as soon as the guards left me. He walked up to me, slugged me in the face and proceeded to explain the entire protocol of how I should behave and what respect I should show to the Pit Mafia. I was the new guy. He had to assert himself over me. He then let his boys have some fun with me. I ended up with a broken nose and a chipped tooth. I watched as all the other kids did their best not to look at what was going on, staring at their feet as they walked away. I also watched as the guards evidently didn't give a damn. One of them was eating a donut the whole time this was happening, and he didn't lift a finger. He didn't even assist me into the infermary. No one did. I had to drag myself off the ground and walk there to get medical care.

Back then I thought Edgar was just mean. I didn't understand what I had done to him, or why he had chosen to hurt me. I don't think even he understood it, but what he was doing was enforcing his rule by fear. In the years since, I learned all about enforcing one's rule, and then some. Using fear to do so is effective only in the short term, and even then mostly against weak-willed subjects. But Edgar couldn't see past his own ego, so he didn't understand that. It wasn't just me that he was bullying. Everyone suffered from his random violence and "reminders" about who is boss. He seemed to like picking on me specifically, however. I was raised and brought up to respect the people around me, taught that violence only lead to me getting hurt. So I didn't fight back. Apparently, that spurred Edgar to pick on me even more. And he made sure to harass anyone he saw with me, as well, so soon no-one wanted to have anything to do with me. They were too afraid I'd get them into trouble.

Edgar was pushing me and pushing me and pushing me. But what he didn't yet understand was that if you push a man too far, sooner or later he'll start pushing back. There is nothing more dangerous than a man who has nothing to lose. And one day Edgar pushed me too far. All my life until then I had lost. I had lost my mother, I had lost my home, I had lost my father, I had lost my freedom, I had lost my dignity. I had nothing left, and Edgar just kept on pushing. He wanted me to feel like less than nothing. One night I had had no sleep. I had stayed up, shivering and crying, contemplating about comitting suicide, as other kids had done before. But Edgar provided me with a better opportunity.

The following day he pulled me out of my room and just started slamming me around the hallways. I had had enough. I lost it completely. What happened after that I simply cannot remember. I learned from the other kids later that I just blew up and started fighting Edgar like a man possessed. By that time I had forgotten what life without pain was like, so his blows didn't do anything to stop me. I'm told that his Pit Mafia had tried to stop me, and I had attacked them, as well. Somehow, amid the chaos and screames, I had managed to fight off 15 people, some of them armed with clubs and pipes. I don't know how I did it. I had nothing to lose, so I poured every drop of strength I had. It hadn't been until the guards themselves had intervened that they were able to stop me.

I came out of it with two broken ribs, two teeth knocked out, a broken leg, a dislocated shoulder, a broken jaw and more scrapes, bruises and lasserations than the treating physician had ever seen on a single person. But Edgar came out comatose. 10 out of the 15 boys who came to help him came out with broken bones and the rest were so beaten up they couldn't walk for a week. I spent a couple of months in hospital, recovering from my injuries and undergoing physical therapy. I swore that I would never allow anyone to bully me like that ever again. So while I was recovering, I worked out a lot, too. The hospital gym was free for physio therapy patients, so I made full use of that.

I managed to recover completely in record time, according to my physician, and I was taken back to the Pit. I was ready to be jumped by the Pit Maifa as soon as I set foot in the door, but everything was somehow different. Edgar was still in the hospital in very serious condition, and the Pit Mafia didn't have a leader for the moment. Oh, they met me at the door, of course, but they didn't attack me. No, they threatened me, but for some reason I wasn't scared. I didn't understand it at the time - I had used to to be so scared of them just walking by, but now they didn't scare me at all. It was as if they were scared of me.

They tried warning me a few more times, but I mocked them in their faces. The once-brave Pit Mafia, the people who would crack your skull open for looking at them the wrong way, simply shied away from my challenges. They knew they could beat me up again if they really tried, but they also knew that I'd put each and every one of them in the hospital in return. So they simply did nothing against me. And then the strangest thing happened - I was approached by a kid with a proposition. He was a young, scrawny kid that the Pit Mafia was always picking on, just like they had once picked on me. He begged me to protect him, and offered to do me a favour. What that favour was I no longer remember, and it isn't important. But it was big enough for me to agree. Next time one of the Pit Mafia members came up to harass the little kid, I tapped him on the shoulder, then gave him a good beating and left him lying in a corner.

That got noticed. I got a bit of flak from the Pit Mafia over this, they tried to attack me a couple of times, but they ran away as soon as drew blood from one of them. It got noticed by the other kids, too. Suddenly, more and more kids were coming to me, asking for protection and offering me favours in return. Where were all these "favours" when I was laying in a pool of my own blood, or when I had my head forced into the toilet, or when I was tied to a radiator and beaten with a stick. The pathetic cowards pretended I didn't exist then, but now they all wanted my help. But why? What had changed, I wondered.

I would reflect back upon this, pondering how much I have learned and how I didn't see things for what they were. But this is the moment when providence came to me. What had changed was that I had acquired power. Power to put the hurt to the Pit Mafia. Power to command my own troop of follower. Power to provide protection. Power to get things done. It was then I learned one of life's great lessons: he who has power gains respect, and he who has respect gains even more power. Inadvertantly, I had gained a lot of power by simply fighting for my suvivial out of sheer desperation. Unwittingly I had made use of that power, demonstrating it, making it know, and so gotten respect and followers. And from my followers and from my respect, even more power came to me. Was I acting instinctively or was this a gigantic coincidence? It didn't matter to me. I had figured out how to bury the Pit Mafia into a very deep hole, and so help me, I was going to bury them all!

But among other things, I learned patience. "All good things come to those who wait," my father kept saying to me when he was still alive, and I had never understood it before. But I came to understand it once I saw that time was on my side. The Pit Mafia were afraid to act against me. The were afraid I would fight back and hurt them badly. And rightly so. But had I taken the fight to them too soon, they would have hurt me and my followers very badly, in turn. But the more I delayed, the more kids joined my side and the more my power grew. And the more my power grew, the more the Pit Mafia feared me and the less they could do to stop me.

A couple of months had passed since I returned from the hospital, and in that time I had managed to take control of nearly everything and every one. Almost every kid in the Pit had to answer before me and was obligated to do as I commanded. That gave me power in a surprising way - I began to bargain with the guards, themselves, and even with the director. I now held the key to keeping the peace in the Pit, or to making it erupt in violence. So they bargained with me to do their job for them. All the better. That just gave me even more power in return.

One thing I never stopped to think about back then, but that I undersood later, is exactly why I, personally, had so much power. Almost all of the power I had came from the people who followed me. So why didn't any of these other people have as much power? Why was it just me who had the combined power of my followers to wield as I pleased? The answer to this, I have found, is very simple. Unlike any of my followers, I had respect, and I had recognition. I stood to represent my followers, to represent their power. Because I had the prestige of a leader, and that amplified all the power I had tremendously. I was a leader then. I just didn't realise it.

But my little empire would soon face the test of time. Half a year after our little fight, Edgar had finally recovered and returned to the pit. He found his Pit Mafia in a sorry and depressing state. I had exiled them from all positions of authority, taken away all their power and consined them to the lowest, darkest hiding spots of the Pit. But Edgar was a leader, himself. Unlike his weak followers, he had the guts to act and the knowlege of how to act. He had, as I learned over time, taken the Pit over from its previous "owner." Who that was I did not yet know, but I was well aware that Edgar was willing to fight me for my power and capable of challenging my authority.

I learned another very important lesson then - presence. The ability of a person to influence others and command respect and compliance. Many of Edgar's Pit Mafia had tried to challenge me before, but none had met with any success. But Edgary himself succeeded by doing just what his followers had tried to and failed. I finally understood why he was the leader of the Pit Mafia and why he was a leader in general. His presence let him influence my followers. He was able to threaten them, to persuade them, to order them and to otherwise get them over to his side. The Pit Mafia finally had a leader figure to represent them, and that magnified their own power tremendously. I found myself losing my followers and losing my standing fast. It didn't take a genius to see where this was going. I had done the same to Edgar's Pit Mafia months before. But unlike them, I saw it coming. And I would not sit by in fear and let Edgar take everything I had worked so hard to acheive.

I needed to act. I needed to challenge Edgar, to fight him. But Edgar was smart enough to anticipate me. He knew very well that even with my followers dwindling constantly, I still had vastly more support and power than he did, so he was in no hurry to confront me. Time was on his side. I was caught in a viscious trap and it seemed like there was nothing I could do. But, instinctively, I came up a bold plan that turned out to be the key. If Edgar would not strike at me, then I was going to make use of that. I made a series of brazen attacks against some of his key followers and destroyed or stole some of his most prized possessions. Those were acts that Edgar would have normally killed over, but he could not afford to act so soon. People saw this. Edgar failed to use his power, so his followers began to doubt him. They began losing respect for him. His expansion decreased and we could both see that it was going to turn around.

I had unwittingly put Edgar into a no-win situation. I had challenged him in a manner that he could not ignore, because doing so would cost him dearly. If he didn't act, he would lose his respect and support, and he would lose any chance he had to oppose me. If he acted, he would lose, as his support was still inferior to mine. I hadn't realised it, but I had managed to provoke Edgar into desperate action. Challenges, I would later learn, are only good if they force your enemy to respond of face severe consequences. And provocations, contrary to what I believed at the time, is not about forcing your enemy to do something, but rather about robbing them of all of their better options. My challenge against Edgar, in the form of my aggressive expansion, had left him no choice but to act.

And act he did. Of course, I expected it. I had pushed him very far, and I kept pushing on all fronts. And pushing, and pushing, and pushing. I knew that sooner or late he would push back. I counted on it. Desperate men make mistakes, as I came to learn years later. And Desperate Edgar attacked me in the worst possible way - openly in the middle of the courtyard, where my followers' superior numbers could best be made use of. He may have been a leader, but he was an attrocious planner, I it turned out.

I crushed him so decisively that even the guards were taken aback. But in what should have been my proudest moment of victory, I found humiliating defeat. I learned, then, the last lesson the Pit would teach me. Men follow you not for the sake of following you, or for the sake of basking in your power. Every man follows you because he has an agenda that he hopes he can use your power to acheive. This personal agenda is the only thing a man is truely loyal to. Your followers are never loyal to you directly, they are loyal to themselves.

For a leader to retain his standing, he has to make sure that his followers' agendas are accomplished by following him, not by double-crossing or challenging him. In my time in the Pit, I had paid absolutely no attention to that. All I had cared about was my standing, my power, my respect, my prestige. My own goals. Luckily, the other kids were mostly driven by a desire to not be harassed, or by a desire for revenge on the Pit Mafia, both of which went through serving me. But not all of my followers' motives were quite as supportive.

I came to know the name Lyle quite well after that fight. Unbeknownst to me, Lyle was the previous "owner" of the Pit, and in fact of the Pit Mafia itself. When Edgar was first transfered into the Pit, he had fought Lyle, hurt him badly and then undermined his position until he userped control of the Pit Mafia for himself. Lyle had been looking for a way to take the Pit back ever since, and I had provided him with the perfect opportunity. On his own, Lyle could never challenge Edgar, but he knew I could. I had the kind of presence neither of them possessed, and Lyle had known that would make me a leader one day. All he had to do after that was to get rid of me, gather a bit of support and then write me out of the story completely.

Getting support was already accomplished prior to the fight. He already had his co-conspiritors ready to put his plan into action. He just needed me out of the picture. And he found the perfect wopportunity. During the fight, he attacked Edgar with a metal pipe and kept hitting him until his split his head open. Edgar bled to death at the scene. Of course, in the melee, few people actually saw what happened, but I was one of them. Before I could actually do anything, I was incarcerated in solitary confinement. Why me? Well, it was pretty simple - I was the obvious ringleader, and Edgar was the obvious opposition leader. They didn't need more evidence than that. Honestly, the director didn't even care, but someone had to pay for it, and I was the most convenient target. Lyle had anticipated that. With me out of the scene, he easily userped my place, threatened the only eyewitnesses into silence and built his own chain of command. He had written me out of my rightful standing in one fell swoop.

I had gone from leader to nobody in the span of half an hour. Sitting there in my 5x6 cell, waiting for the police to arrive, I had a lot of time to think. I thought about where I had gone wrong and what I could have done differently. How could I have succeeded so completely, and yet failed so irredeemably? My failure quickly became evident to me then. I had not paid any attention to Lyle, to what he really wanted and to what he was actually doing. Had I been more vigilant, I would have seen through his facade of support. He wasn't even that good at hiding it, he just made sure to never say anything about it to me. That's about the extent of his subtlety on the matter. But I had been so consumed with my own endevours that I never actually looked, or I would have seen everything.

But something else bothered me. Lyle had taken that which I worked for for so, so long. He had stolen my success and my power. But in the end, through his own methods, he still finished the game with the big prize. I had the power, I had the prestige, I had the respect. I did all the work. For him. I had unwittingly become his follower. Could it be? Could one make people follow him without them knowing it? Could one lead people indirectly, convincing them they are working for themselves, but ultimately guiding them into working for him and his goals? It seemed entirely possible. Lyle had done exactly that. He had led me to believe that I was working for my own standing and power, but all I was really working for was for his success.

I was ashamed of myself for being such a fool, and yet I could not help being excited about the new insights I had gained into the art of leadership. In fact, it was then I actually started thinking of myself as a leader. Before, I was only doing things to get what I wanted. People followed me and I used that. But I hadn't actually thought about organisation, hirarchy, loyalty, oversight and all the other responsibilities of a leader. Again, I did not consider myself a leader. I didn't think I wanted to be one. But once I lost everything, I realised that this was what I wanted. That this was what I missed most of all. I could lead, I had shown that beyond any question. I could lead, I could prosper, and I had found my calling in life.

But all that was about to change. The police arived at the Pit to take me to the area prison. I had seen my mother, a police officer, shot at her doorstep, and I had seen my father shot while in police custody. I had seen the police raid my home, take my freedom and steal my life. And here they were coming to hurt me again. In hindsight, it was really foolish of me to believe so. "The police" were not responsible for my misery, corruption and the stupidity of my parents. I was probably going to be sentenced to a juvenile facility, where I would be in an even better position to ply my trade, and were I would find even better followers. But hindsight is always 20/20. At the time, I fealt my life was going to end if I allowed myself to be arrested.

I was cuffed in my cell, but I managed to pick the cuffs by the time we left the Pit premesis. Pit guards used handcuffs all the time, so most all of the kids there knew how to pick them. I was no exception. As soon as one policeman went to open the door, I pushed the other one to the ground and I ran. And even though reason tells me that allowing myself to be arrested may have been the wiser move, I still remember my will to live, and my will to be free. I ran over fences, accross yards, through bushes, accross streets, over rooftops, along fire escapes, through alleys and through trash. I ran for my life. I put all my strength, all my energy into it. I ran for as long as my legs would carry me, for as long as my muscules would still function. I never looked back. There was nothing left behind me but pain and desperation. So I ran, through fatigue, through injury, through pain. I ran until I collapsed, and then I got up and kept on running. I'm not sure how I lost the police. I'm not even sure how the chase ended. I just remember my whole body hurting badly and there being a single thought in my head: run.

I woke up, heavens knows how long afterwards. Days maybe? I woke up face-down in a muddy puddle with heavy rain beating down on my back and unbelievable cold gripping my body. I had collapsed in the middle of an alley. I ran around looking for escape from the rain, and I found a make-shift shelter. It looked like some bum had put it together from trash to keep himself out of the rain and cold. He had probably died or been arrested, though, as I never saw him return to his abandoned shelter for as long as I was there. I just cuddled among the trash to try and keep warm and I guess I fell asleep. I woke up to the sound of voices the next day - supermarket employees. I had landed at the back of a very large supermarket, right by the container where they threw away their garbage. Luckily for me, they had a high standard for merchandise, and so they threw away a lot of good food. Well, good under the circumstances is relative. It was either rotten, spoiled or dropped on the ground or some such, but it was food. I found a broken water main that leaked a constant stream of drinkable, if somewhat foul water.

So I dined on garbage, drank sewage and made my home behind a trash container. To most people that would seem like hell. But I had come out of a hell that I had made my home, and I had lived under worse conditions before. In fact, I was reminded of my life back in Mexico, where I used to be disgusted at the old insect-ridden shack. Compared to my new home, that shack was a pallace. But at least I was free. I had escaped. I was going to survive and make a leader out of myself again. I was determined to make it. Even if I had to live in absolute misery, even if I had to wait a life time, I would make it.

As it turned out, I only had to wait about a year before fate came knocking on my door once again. And this time, things would be different.

You know, that's actually very well-written. You've managed to actually put into words a lot of the things that I had been trying to work with for a long time now. Understanding has always been my goal, but without understanding, I had been forced to work with concepts that I knew only instinctively. I will give your essay, as you call it, some though, and I think I can learn a lot from it. Some from the things you said, some from the things you meant, and a lot from your wording.

A little more to the point, I'd like to list a specific example of my first experience with what I've grown to see as "mature." That would be anime. Yes, not necesseraly the best place to look for that sort of thing, but one of the first anime movies that I ever saw was Ghost in the Shell. Before that all I had seen was Amercian animated movies and series, and those were all strictly for children, at least in their visuals. I cannot tell you frustrating it was to watch Wolverine never get the chance to use those close when he was fighting Sabertooth or someone like that.

Graphic violence was one thing that was simply absent from American annimation. Back at the age I'm talking about, I actually wanted to see blood and guts. I suppose it was a novelty. But after watching Fist of the North Star, and more recently the Happy Tree Friends series, I came to the realisation that FOCUSING on violence did not make something mature. It just made it sick and gross.

No, it has been my belief for a long while that simply allowing your animated movie or series, or even just your story to have violence when the story calls for it makes a story mature. Actually focusing your story on graphic violence makes the story silly and childish. Nudity follows the same rules.

In general, I believe that a mature environment is one that allows you to use mature themes, such as sex, violence, religion, and so forth. But it's what the members of such an environment do with those themes that ultimately decides how mature it actually is. Those themes are to be used as tool to further the story, not as a focus to shock or find cheap giggles. And again, I find myself unable to express this properly.

Now, there is one more thing. You mention a lot about intent, nature, hardship and how people respond to that. I agree with what you have said about it, but I'd like to add something to that. Over the years I have seen a lot of stories, and I have began noticing what REALLY makes a story mature as opposed to a childern's story. That's really how much the good guys are allowed to suffer.

Let me explain. I've seen a lot of movies where the good guys are always in danger, but they always somehow manage to get out of it. They call their experience an adventure, and it's fun for them to experience it. Those movies are like a carnival ride - intense, scary, but ultimately quite safe. When push comes to shove, they always find a way to secape, be it a secret escape rout, a secret weapon that makes short work of their enemies, a hidden power that makes it all alright or usually just someone comes to their aid just in the nick of time.

Well, things just don't happen like that in life. There are no adventures, at least not in the sense that children's cartoons will have us believe. Fighting evil isn't fun, it's dangerous, hard work that often takes casualties. Heroes get hurt, sometimes badly. Sometimes they die. Heroes have problems that dog them throughout their lives, just like we all do. Heroes often have to make sacrifices. And heroes rarely have the upper hand.

It's not really about shock value, it's about people being taken out of their comfort zone and having to fight odds that are often beyond their capability. It's about things not always going right and how people handle adversity. That's what makes it mature - when the narrative does not look after the main characters. When things don't always go right.

I should probably note here that I have weighed my options and decided to give it a shot. I've posted another story about a character of mine and will update it some time later. Thanks for your support

How long has it been now? Centuries? Ha! That's just like something Sam would say. He always did have the tendency to lose track of time. What with his ability to zone out completely, I'm surprised he can keep track of it at all. And then again, with a mind as shattered as his, he shouldn't be able to most anything. But he does. For all of his shortcomings, for all of his demons, for all of the pain and injury he has suffered, that man has simply refused to die. While I'm well aware of why that is, I still admire his persistence. Even if he doesn't show it most of the time, that man has infinite resolve. More than anyone in this world realises.

He reminds me of myself, back before I aquired my... Skills and power. More and more my mind wanders back to our past encounters, to who he was, to who he used to be, and to who he has become. I cannot help but reflect on my own life, spent mostly right alongisde his, involving ridiculous resources in what was effectively a sparring of leaders. He has changed a lot since his little world-shattering experiment, and yet he hasn't changed at all. And how have I changed? My memory serves me astoundingly, but memory alone will not interpret the past. No, I need to retell it, and in so doing look for the secrets it holds. To this effect, I have started this diary, to be seen by no-one in else but myself.

My name is Ezikiel Bane. Let me start by saying that I'm not from this... World. Where I come from and how I got here is too complicated to bother with at this stage. Let me just say that I come from a world much like this one, but a couple of decades in the future. Visibly, my world was much like this one. The civilised nations lived in large cities, comprised of tall buildings and residental suburbs. People still drove in cars, though admittedly not propelled by gasoline engines. And people still waged wars. But as one of the "civilised people," that was always far away from me. I was an American, a citizen of the most powerful country in the world. But the world would soon collapse from right under my feet.

I survived that collapse, and lived in that world for many, many years thereafter. 283 years, to be exact. Does that seem like too much? Well, understand that as I'm not from this world, so I'm not exactly human. I have a... Gift, shall we say. It gives me many perks. One of which is life as long as the Earth itself. Which is good, because I'm going to need a lot of time. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let us start at the beginning.

I was born Ezikiel Benedict Larsen, son of Ben Larsen and Jennifer Castellano-Larsen. My father was a lowly hustler in the big city of New York, pedalling stollen goods for whoever would pay for it and helping run a local racket. He was also a complete loser. Everything he touched turned to garbage. Everything he did got him and us in trouble. Everyone he had dealings with hated him after a while. He was always losing more and more money, we were always in debt and there was always someone willing to shoot him in the back for one reason or another. My mother was the opposite. She was a high-ranking police officer in the NYPD and leader of the ATF task force assigned with taking drugs off the streets of the city. She was also a dirty cop. She used her position to run her own drug smuggling busness, and she was always pulling strings and paying to get my father out of debt and out of trouble. She was the only reason our family functioned.

But she was also a rotten [censored]. She hated me, she always shouted at me, she never took care of me. For her, getting pregnant and giving birth had been a huge mistake, and for all she cared, I could simply disappear off the face of the Earth. My father ended up taking care of me most of the time, at least as well as he could. He may have been a loser, but at least he loved me as his own son. I spent as much time as I could with him when he was home, though a lot of times he came home drunk or beaten up.

It may seem like a bleak life, but this had become the norm. Out "great nation" was going straight to hell along with the rest of the world. I never did understand why, but I was told it was some kind of economic collapse. Our brave leaders had barricaded themselves in their ivory towers and sent armed policemen to collect taxes. Most major cities were slowly devolving into crime and poverty. It was a sign of much worse to come.

So I spent the first 8 years of my life in this family. I didn't understand it was bad back then. I was just a kid back then. This life was all I knew. But I instantly understood when it got a whole lot worse. Our life just seemed to be picking up, when it all came crashing down in an instant. One sunny morning, mother was gunned down by a drive-by on the front steps of our house. My father apparently knew what it was all about. It was probably some drug deal problem, now that I think about it. She was gunned down by the same people she did her deals with, and my father knew we were next.

He packed our suitcases in less than an hour and we skipped town. We lived at my uncle's house for about a week until he supplied us with false Mexican passoprts. He didn't charge us anything for them. I think he just wanted my father out of his house and out of his life. My father had that effect on people.

So we assumed our new names. My father became Larry Bane. I keep thinking it was a crule joke by my uncle when he was making the passports. As his son, I became Ezikiel Bane. With no money and no real skill in anything, I'm not surprised where we ended up. The only housing my father could find was an old abandoned shack in a ghetto on the outskirts of Mexico City. It was the worst "house" I had ever seen. There were cockroaches as big as my thumb running around everywhere, there were no windows to speak of and the roof leaked and seaped mold and dust when it was windy. My father never allowed me to leave the house on my own for fear that I'd be killed or kidnapped right off the street. And he was right. I kept seeing people stabbed to death right at our doorstep every few days.

Thinking back on it, it amuses me to think I was so disgusted at that place. Since then I have spent so many years in places and conditions so much worse than these that it's almost comical how I can have such horrible memories from Mexico. At least back then I had someone to take care of me, and even in all of the misery and danger, I had someone to rely on. I have not had this luxury in a very long time... Sometimes I think it's depressing how I've always had to do everything myself, how no-one ever wanted to help me, how hard I have had to fight and how much I have had to sacrifice for what I had. And how many times I've lost everything.

But for an 8-year-old me, the experience of Mexico City was traumatising. It was like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. Every time my father left the house I'd hide behind the bed in a dark corner and cower. A few times I heard people walk into the house. Who knows what they wanted. At the time, I was convinced they wanted to kill me or sell me to slavery. My father had made sure that sank in. Now I'm not sure who they were or what they wanted. Probably squatters looking for a place to spend the night, or robbers looking for something valuable to steal. Bah! If they could find anything, my father would have split the profit with 'em! I learned so much about how people think since then it's a little unsettling.

Alas, two years later, my little trip to the depts of hell came to an end. One evening as we were having dinner, policement came barging in. They handcuffed my father and took me away. Apparently the FBI had gotten their stuff together and actually formed a corruption case. It didn't sound so funny to me then - we were being arrested. But in retrospect, in the state our country was in, for the FBI to extradite the husband of a big-time drug dealer to stand trial was like applying a bandage to a gunshot wound. But, funnily enough, they still managed to convince the public that everything was fine and the country was under control. Even prospering. Astounding!

My father and I were extradited back to the US. He was to stand trial for conspiracy, drug trafficing and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Funny. It was even funny to me then. They were accusing him of running away. It seems doubly as funny to me know, knowing that the agent leading the operation was a big-time drug dealer and a high-ranking member of a New York cartel. In hindsight, it was obvious why my father had been brought back - he knew too much and authorities were closing in on him. Rather than let him rat out the cartel, they had brought him to the US to kill him. My father knew that as well. He tried to bargain for entry into the witness protection programme, but he never got the chance to make use of it. He was gunned down in broad daylight in front of the courthouse where he was supposed to stand trial.

And that took everything I had. It left me - a 10-year-old boy - without a single parent, and without a single person to take care of me. Until then, even in poverty and even in danger, I always had my father to look after me. Sleezy as he was, the man was prepared to give his life for me. He worked like a horse to provide for me. And he was my friend. My only friend. And then, he was taken away from me. I suddenly found myself very alone. But the state didn't let me feel that way for long. In a bid to get me off their hands, they stuck me in what has to have been the worst orphanage in the whole city. Hell if I know what it was called. Everyone just called it "The Pit." It was surrounded by high walls and consisted of a giant mud hole of a courtyard, with old, decrepid buildings serving as staff and child quarters. Even after all of the places, all of the holes, all of the dives I've been in over the years, that place remains one of the worst places I've ever been in. But at the same time, it's also one of the places that has taught me the most about life in the few short months I spent there.

[ QUOTE ]
EDIT: Oh yeah, you can PM me if you have any other questions. Just an fyi.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks I'm kind of inept at adapting to new environments, so I think I will.

I'd like to ask a pretty simple question about this board. Pardon me if this makes me sound like a complete idiot, but I feel quite out of my depth here, so please hear me out.

I'd like ot inqure as to the purpuse of this forum. Obviously, it's for roleplaying. It's in the forum name, after all. I'm not very clear on exactly what that means, however, so I would appreciate a bit of explanation into exactly what that entails. Now, I have my own idea of what it means, and in addition to this, I see stories of all kinds posted here as well.

Now, the reason I'm asking this is because I have a few things that I might look into posting here, and I'd like to know if they'd be appropriate and desired. I have reason to ask, because recently I posted a story for admittedly not all the right reasons, and it has generated 48 views. I cannot say wether this is a lot or not, but I cannot be certain how well that was received. If I post anything more here, it will be along the same lines - longwinded and usually in big lumps.

I'm not really looking for recognition here. I just have a few things I'd like to share, and I'm also looking to share other things as I write them. I just need to confirm that I'm putting the right thing in the right place.

One last question of presentation. I see a lot of threads with bracketted clarification. Lord knows how those work, but am I expected to do that, myself? I'd rather avoid it if possible. If I can't, I'd very much appreciate an expalanation of what means what.

Thank you for your time.

Thanks

Next time I say I'm longwinded, remember that I'm not exaggerating

And, to tell you the truth, he is a lot more fun now that I have him figured out. The more work and thought I put into a character, the more complete and real they feel to me. Oftentimes I've started out with but a vague idea and some slap-bang costume that kind of looked good, only to abandon the character because he had no personality to draw me in. And then as time moves on and I return to him, I start adding in bits and pieces of story and building a personality. That actually makes a character that's worty of being in a story, and that just makes me want to play him more.

Actually, I've developed a habbit of re-writing the game's mission briefings and encounters in my head as I play through them. That way the stories are better (to me) and just the way I like them, as well

And, yes, Majik IS cranky. He's arrogant and ego-centric, which is what brings him to villainy. Of course, the circumstances are at fault, but it's how he responds to them that seals his fate in the end.

My name is Garett Brandon, Prof. Dr. of Applied Physics and expert in the field of electricity and electro-magnicity. It has been so long since I took on the mantle of Mek Majik that I don't remember much of my life befoe my discovery. I've even began forgetting my name because no-one ever uses it. The name of Mek Majik was never my choice - it was the idea of Ezikiel Bane, my benefactor. I hate that man for his arrogance, but beggards cannot be choosers. He provides the money and equipement I reqiore to perpetuate my research, and that is all I have left in the world.

But that is all I need, as well. Once my research is complete, once I have the Ultimate Power, everything will go my way. Lord Bane believes I am working for him and that he will possess it once it is done. He can believe whatever he wishes. Our agreement was that I will continue my research at his expense. We made no arrangements of who will retain ownership of it once it is done. Though I fear he may already have planned ahead. Too often now he pulls me away from my work to assist him in his own projects, and I am unable to refuse. Is he purpusefully sabotaging my efforts? Why would he? With that man, I can never be sure if there isn't something happening behind my back, just waiting for the right moment to hurt me. I've no choice but to continue working. I will answer all his questions as briefly as possible and inform him of my progress as little as I can afford. I can only hope that I can reach breakthrough before he expects it.

My work has not always been this difficult or stressful, however. Once, so long ago, I was a respected scientist in Paragon City. I was working with D.A.T.A. on the Magic Shield project. The aim of our work was to produce some technological means for disrupting magical energies, to be used by Paragon City's heroes and armed forces in their fight against groups like the Circle of Thorns, Banished Pantheon or Carnival of Shadows. Since such groups rely solely on magic, any protection against it would go a long way in the fight against them.

I was working in conjunction with a few collegues, but as usual they were all preoccupied with running the same tests over and over again and compiling stathistical data for Lord knows what purpuse. They never acheived any meaningful progress that way, but I don't think they could see far enough past their limitations to actually use some imagination. As usual, I was working mostly alone, but sharing credit for my work with my collegues. It used to bug me once, long ago, but I had grown used to it over time.

Instead of following in the tunnel vision of my peers, I chose to start off something that had already been worked with. Some time ago I had conducted some unrelated research on the Clockwork King's little wind-up toys and found quite by accident that electricity, or more percisely electro-magnicity can, to some small degree, interfere with the application of magic. Then I concluded that this is the reason the Clockwork had been so successful in their fights against the Circle of Thorns enclaves they shared territory with. I went off to see if I could expand on that.

In my free time, I took to practicing magic. Nothing complicated, of course, just the simple things - setting fire to combustable materials at a distance, imparting kinetic energy to stationary objects, even bending and manifesting light. It wasn't part of my official research, but I did this so that I could gain some basic understanding of magic which I hoped would assist me in my work, as well as to have controlled samples on which to test my work.

However, my foray into the world of magic intrigued me. I quickly mastered the basic spells I had tried, so I attempted to move on to more complicated ones. That was a complete failure. It was so... Chaotic. All spells, incantations and ceremonies were written and described seperately, and as such I was expected to remember them seperately. No-one appeared to have ever tried to make any sense of it, or looked for any patterns in the what these rites were performed. That was especially curious, since there were obvious and glaring correlations between the "igredients" that went into casting the spells that I had learned.

I attempted to break the spells into their components and put them under a uniform framework, and I quickly discovered why no order existed in magic - what appeared similar at first turned out to have profoundly different effects on the different spells. To the untrained eye, that would look like utter chaos, but what I saw was simply an incredibly complicated system.

Unfortunately, it was too complicated for me to understand, so I returned to me studies of electricity. But then I noticed a curious thing. Through a series of failed experiments, I discovered that electro-magnicity could, under the right circumstances, replaces some of the ingredients of some of the spells I knew. It could, it turned out, straighten out a botched spell and cause it to be cast successfully. Though contrary to the purpuse for which it was designed, that gave me a testing tool.

I experimented with electricity and found I was able to find the exact calibrations that would reproduce some of the missing ingredients. To my surprise, each missing ingredient had a different electro-magnetic signature, but missing two ingredients, for example, had an entirely different siganture. Working further, I was able to transcend ingredients and find the bare electro-magnetic radiation required to create a spell. Experimenting with other types of energy, I discovered that sound and light wave also had an impact if they were of the correct wavelength, intensity and direction.

With my newfound understanding, I was able to disassemble the effects ALL ingredients had on magic spells to a level where I could reproduce the effects themselves without even considering the ingredients. As a thought experiment, I constructed a machine which could project light, sound and electro-magnetic waves into a point, and which I could calibrate perciselt enough to mimmic the effects ingredients had. Taking the calibrations I had pinned down during my research, I was immediately able to reproduce my simpler spells. I fealt confident, so I attempted some more advanced once. While those failed at first, I was quickly able to alter my calibrations, correct my calculations and ultimately "cast" them, too. I attempted higher and higher magic, until M.A.G.I. refused me access to anything more powerful.

While disappointed, I was not discouraged. I had done the impossible - I had created a machine that could cast seemingly any spell that I cared to calibrate it for. But it was a very impractical machine. It was big, bulky, immobile, it consumed astronomical quantities of energy and was horrible inefficient. I had constructed a brilliant experimentational tool, but I wanted something a little more practical. Something that was not confined to a lab and a city's power supply.

I engaged in further tests, measuring energy levels, calibrations, effects, concocting theories and systematically disproving any of them. And then what I would define as the single greatest instance of good fortune in my life gave me a break-through. I noticed that a dial that was not supposed to be wired to anything was giving me readings during my experiments. At first I thought it was a simple malfunction, but upon reading my logs I found it to be far too systhematic to be a simple malfunction. I scoured my logs and continued my experimentation, watching that dial and trying to figure it out. And then it hit me.

The dial was measuring some kind of energy. But not just ANY energy. It was a consistent energy field that fluctuated in relation to my experiments. It has long bugged me how magic could simply create energy out of thin air, and that dial provided the answer. The energy it read dropped when my machine manifested energy and increased when my machine caused energy to disappear. I concluded that I had discovered a new type of energy, something I dubbed "magical energy." Further tests corroborated my concluison. What I had found WAS the energy of magic.

I had found a type of energy, the existence of which had been completely unknown to man kind. No-one even suspect there was such a thing, and I could see why. It existed, but that was about the extent of its interaction with our world. It did not affect and was not affected by physical objects, or by any energy science was aware of. What I had done to affect it, however, was come upon a way transform that magical energy into energies that can affect our world. Kinetic energy, light energy, thermal energy, the possibilities were limitless.

Having discovered that type of energy, I was determined to find a consistent way to measure it. But no device that I had could detect it. Only that one dial picked it up. Even when I removed it from any machine, it still picked it up. I took it apart and started removing bits, and it still worked. That is, until I removed the ornamental fluorescent tint line on the dial hand. I examined the titn and found it to be an exotic type of photo-luminescent plastic. I contacted the manufacturer and was told that its creation process had proven too unstable, so they had pulled it off the market. The did, however, give me all their reseatch notes on how to create it and what properties it had. I was working for D.A.T.A., after all.

The process proved to be even more unstable than I had been led to believe, oftentimes producing carbonated charcoal instead of the plastic I wanted. I did find several ways to consistently reproduce it, and each of them seemed to have a different degree of reaction to magical energy. After much testing, I found a manufacturing process that produced an exceptionally sensitive plastic. That gave me a measurement tool sensitive enough for me to begin examining this magical energy.

The first thing I found out surprised me. Magical energy was not uniformly distributed in space. There were places of high readings and places of low readings, sometimes even in the same room. It also ebbed and flowed, increasing, decreasing moving its areas of concentration. I walked the city and charted these fluctioations. What I came up was an old theory about lay lines - the lines of energy that circle the Earth. I had thought this an old wive's tales that small minds found comforting, but it was actually based in truth. In fact, Paragon City Hall was built right smach on top of the crossing point of no less than three major lay lines, as well as in a bottleneck that had a lot of magical energy flowing through it. No wonder the M.A.G.I. headquarters were built inside - that place had a lot of energy flowing through it. That also apparently assisted me in my research by providing me with a lot of energy from wich to draw conclusive readings.

I then started researching old text books on magic and myths. I came accross a theory that the use of magic in a single place tended to improve the "magical aura" of it. I put this to the test by moving my test machine outdoors and conducting a series of expetrimets. Within a day, the magical energy flow of the immediate area had increased by no less than two points. I also inadvertantly discovered a small Citcle of Thorns outpost, further proving that theory.

Further experimentation with this reactive plastic revealed a curious side effect - as well as being affected by magical energy and measuring it, the plastic could affect the magical energy in its visinity, in turn. In hindsight, That should have been obvious, but it took some testing to confirm. Further testing allowed me to pin down exactly what concentrations and shapes of plastic produced what effects.

At that point, I came accross an article speculating that sound waves had an electro-magnetic component to them. Given that light waves are in themselves an extrememly high-frequency electro-magnetic wave, I experimented with emulating all magical ingredients with electricity only. It took a lot of work, but I made it. And, in fact, it turned out that using light and sound waves was wasting a lot of energy for no gain whatsoever.

I decided to examine my research to that point. I had found an unkown type of energy that I have been able to link directly to the art of magic. I have been able to acquire a type of magic-reactive plastic that can both measure magical energy as well as focus it. I have also been able to produce a machine that can provide the "ingredients" for magic in raw form, in effect converting magical energy into tangible form. I had all the ingredients of a machine that could do magic, but it was still inefficient.

With my newfound ability to measure magical energy, I was able to trace a major source of inefficiency - a lot of the enrgy I was putting into my spells was going towards dispersing the magical energy I was actually trying to draw upon, wasting my energy and reducing my return at the same time. I also found that the most efficient transformation for magical energy was into electricity and electro-magnicity. I am still unable to explain exactly why that is.

I continued experimenting with my calibrations, and I was able to increase the output of my machine immesurably. But as the calibrations became more and more complicated, my ability to use the machine decreased. It was becoming just too difficult for me to operate it manually. Drawing on a standard PC operating system for inspiration, I was able to write a computer code that allwoed me to calibrate the machine based on what I wanted it to do, rather than manually turning each dial, and the programme would do the calibrations for me. Some efficiency was, unfortunately, lost, but it was a negligible amount, and the return on this tradeoff was my ability to actually use the machine. For the first time since I started this project, I found something that is actually practical, and that I can use without spending days preparing for it.

The switch to automatic calibration, with a few alteration, of course, managed to push the machine into overefficiency - an efficiency of over 100%. I was, in effect, getting more energy out of the machine than I was putting into it. That had several potential benefits. For one, that made it an overunity machine - a perpetual engine, capable of powering itself while doing work infinitely. It also meant that I could make the power source smaller and less powerful while maintaining a high level of output.

And that would have been that, but another point in the ancient books caught my attention - magical armour. Most people believe this is a fairy tale. The existence of magical ore is usually restricted to fantasy novels. But the accounts were so convincing that I did a little digging. I found something very interesting. That reactive plastic I had been using, that was so difficult to manufacture was actually naturally-occuring. It was very rare, and it occured only when crude oil formed over an iron or copper ore vein. The plastic would molecularly fuse with the metal and remain fused even when it is melted. That produced magic-reactive metal which, when crafted into the right shape and consistency, could potentially disrupt the flow of magical energy, robbing mages of the energy that they called upon to cast their spells.

Again, what I had thought to be nothing more than a myth turned out to be true. And I knew that what can disrupt magical energy can also focus it. I experimented with coating metal with the plastic, but that interfered with its effect. Then I thought to introduce the plastic to a molten metal sample in a high-speed centrofuge. While not a very efficient method for production, that did end up giving me a material that was much, much more reactive than pure reactive plastic. Apparently Iron's magnetic properties increased the plastic's reacive properties.

Applying those materials to my machine pushed it into hyper-efficiency - efficiency of over 1000%. My machine was now producing many times more energy than it required to operate, allowing it to be both perpetual AND extremely powerful at the same time. It also allowed it to be extremely light. And that got me thinking. Could I make the machine actually portable? Until now I had imagined of mounting this machine on vehicles, or possibly carrying it in a backpack. But with efficiency as great as this, I could potentially miniaturise it enough for it to be hand-held. Or even integrated.

That sparked my imagination. Could I make a suit of magic aromour and mount my machine into it? It certainly seemed possible. So I got to work and produced what I called my Prophecy power armour. It was powered by small, portable batteries for emergencies, but mostly it was powered by hyper-unity. It was capable of prducing enromous amounts of electricity, enough for it to arc several meters through air and sustain that arc almost indefinitely.

I was actually amazed with myself. I had produced a source of limitless power and been able to mount it on a suit of powered armour. I was sure that with the right calibrations and modifications, I could apply electricity into strengthening the integrity of the armour, thus providing protection, as well as increasing it through capacitors and getting it to jump even greater differences at an even higher voltage. Until then I had not intended to use this technology for violence, but it certainly had the potential to be used for it.

Unfortunately, D.A.T.A. fealt the same way. As soon as they found out what I had been researching, the pulled my funding. They claimed they didn't want to be associated with something as preposterous as techno-magic. The fools wouldn't admit it, but I knew the truth - they were afraid of my technology. Even I was a little afraid at the amount of power I had managed to acheive in such a short amount of time. But to simply scrap it because they're afraid of it? Human shortsightedness has never offended me greatly.

I took my project to M.A.G.I., hoping to receive funding from them. That was a big mistake. Not only did they claim such use of magic was "unnatural," they also made it their mission to erase it from the face of the Earth. I pleaded with them, explained the virtues of the technology. All that got me was being labled a "heretic." The simpleminded fools were willing to sacrifice the greatest invention of human history because it could, under unlikely circumstance, be dangerous? And to think I ever wanted to be part of that "elite."

I went into private research, cashing in my retirement fund and borrowing loans from everyone that would give me one. I was able to make prgress, even in the face of poverty. Some would say that I was obsessed with my work, but I was just doing the right thing. I could not let something as important as this be lost to the shortsightedness of small minds. They took away my whole life. My invention was the only thing I had left. But once it was complete, it would all be worth it.

Or so I thought. But the men in power had made a desperate move. One night the police broke into my basement laboratory and arrested me, confiscating my armour. I was charged with posession of illegal weaponry. Those cretens only saw my work as a weapon. They never saw the potential it could bring. They never understood that it could replace fossil and nuclear fuel forever. No, they couldn't see past their own noses.

They sentenced me to 30 years on trumped up charges, and my defence did nothing to stop them. They confiscated my armour and locked it in a storage boxe in some warehouse, never to be seen again. Oh, the world I had so tried to help had betrayed me. Never again would I try to help. Never!

But good fortune was on my side once again. A person with a vision, with enough intelligence to see opportunity intervened. Lord Recluse's soldiers broke me out of prison and reunited me with my armour. They shipped me off the the Rogue Isles, where I was supposed to meet my destiny. I was also told Recluse appreciated my research, and he wanted to help me continue it.

It didn't take a genius to tell that Lord Recluse want to HAVE my research, not have me continue it, but I was happy to be reunited with my armour in any event. As soon as we arrived, I dispatched of the Arachnos soldiers and their vessle and went on to search for a place to continue my research on my own. I had actually never used my Prophecy armour for battle before, but I was astounded by how effective it was. My electrical grid stopped their bullets and incinerated them without allowing them to even nick my magical metal, while my concentrated electrical blasts simply fried the soldiers in an instant. Incredible!

Then I met my dubious destiny - Ezikiel Bane. Apparently he had been following my work for quite some time and knew of the plans for my break out. I tried to dispatch him, as well, but it was as if my electricity simply had no effect on him. He did not seem to want to hurt me, however, though he was very menacing. He offered me a deal - he would pay for my research and provide the facilities and equipment, and all he wanted in return was for me to carry on my research, as well as assist him some of his projects. He assured me that he wanted my complete product, my "ultimate power," and that I was the only one who could deliver it. He assured me that I was far too valuable to hurt in any way. I'm not sure why I agreed, but I did.

Since then I have been working in his labs, refining my technology, adding more functions and further increasing its efficiency to levels I had not imagined possible. Lord Bane, as everybody calls him, has so far not directly threatened me in any way, nor has he directly interfered with my work. But he has gone to great effort to make it known that things get done his way, and that dissenters are "erased" on the spot. He has also made sure to delay my research by sidetracking me often, and why he's doing that I cannot know.

But none of this matter. Despite Bane's distractions, I will get my project done. But he won't have it. I will. Paragon City wanted to see a weapon in my project, and for that they put me in jail. Very well. I will give them a weapon. I WILL gain ultimate power and I WILL show those smallminded fools what kind of power they refused. I will show them what kind of power they could have had, had they only had the foresight. I WILL make them respect me. Them, and everyone else.

[ QUOTE ]
Well, if the Shadow Shard is nothing but a giant physical representation of an insane inter-dimensional God's mind, then it would make sense that the Soldiers of Rularuu would guard everything in the Shard, Kora fruit included. It makes me wonder what this Kora fruit is though. If the Shadow Shard is what we think it is, then Kora fruit shouldn't really exist. What kind of God would let life-sustaining fruit grow in his insane mind?

[/ QUOTE ]

Pure speculation on my part (but then I'm good at that), but I do believe the Kora fruit is somehow foreign to the Shadow Shard, or in some way related to the breaking. That would be the easy way out. The harder, but more satisfying, is to tie it into the whole overarching "sentient dimension" idea.

Let's run with that idea for a minute. If we view the Shadow Shard as the dreams of a god, or more directly the representation of that god's psychie in physical form, then we can interpret the Kora fruit as the life energy Rularuu. The energy that would normally have sustained him is now manifesting as the fruit on which just about everything in the Shadow Shard subsists.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if all the Kora vines stemmed from one single place, and that they were themselves a fragment of Rularuu. See, with the assumption that I've chosen to run with, anything that appears symbollic is actually literally real. It is real because the symbolism that existed in Rularuu's mind was physically enacted onto the Shadow Shard at the time when it broke.

It's just a theory, though.

[ QUOTE ]
I think what you meant to say was:

1) I didn't back up what I said.
2) It's mean to call people trolls!
So:
1) I did.
2) Trolling is meaner than most things I do.

[/ QUOTE ]

1. You backed it up with assumptions and supposition.
2. Two wrongs don't make a right.

I don't mean to be a jerk, I just don't agree.

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You're cutting a great example of "communication is impossible!"
For obvious reasons, that's scarcely ever a very useful position to take.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quite the contrary, communication is possible witin the right context. You just seem to ignore half the possible context as impossible and immaterial. And I cannot agree with that.

[ QUOTE ]
Those are both in the scope of "necessary" as it's being used when that question is asked.

[/ QUOTE ]

And yet, again, you only acknowlege the former as acceptable.

See, I'm not arguing that what you proclaim is wrong is right. As I said, posts of non-information are quite simply useless, and often end up serving as a precedent for further muddying the waters.

But you go by an assumption that everyone agrees with you, and by exclusion you end up proclaiming that everyone who does not is a troll. Examine that however you will, the fact remains that you make a statement and then demonize disagreement with that statement by liberally throwing around loaded lables. I'm not sure if this is intentional, but that is the net result.

You keep talking on and on about context, yet you only acknowlege the context that supports your claim. Well, ignoring part of the possible context is ignoring context allthesame. If someone asks if a power is necessery and means just that - if he can operate without this power in the most absolute sense - would your guide still apply? Because I believe it would not.

And I didn't see any allowence in your guide for what is by no means a rare occurance. You explore the problem extremely one-sidedly. Quite literally, you only explore one side of the problem. Because equally as often I've seen people ask, and in fact askek, myself, weather a power is necessary, and the answeres have been long debates about numbers and tactics and suggestions when all the question was asking was if play without a certain power is possible.

Would it not stand to reason, then, that people actually pay attention to the context itself, rather than going off guides that try tell them what the context is supposed to be? I'd be campaigning for better understanding right there with you, but I do not believe what you have suggested facilitates understanding. You seem to be promoting even more preconceptions, though be they opposite the popular ones, rather than teaching true inderstanding.

I quite simply feel you're not being objective.

[ QUOTE ]
Edit: Just ran a mission on my EM/EA Stalker that I forgot all about, where one kidnaps Akarist. He states, and I quote: It's strange. This entire dimension is suffused with a mystic power. As if it was all the construction of a single vast consciousness. As if we were walking among the dreams of a God.

[/ QUOTE ]

There! That's where I've seen it! I spent a lot of time theorising about where I've heard that line in the past thread on the matter. But inded, I think Akharist's observation is the single most important piece of information we have.

There are a few reasons we can trust him. First, Akharist himself is many thousands of years old. He's one of the original Oranbegans back from the time of their war with the Mu. Also, Alkarist, as well as being a historian, seems to be a specialist in dealing with the divine, as he was a negotiator to the Demon Prince. Finally, as he seems to be a very high-ranking member of the Circle of Thorns, perhaps even a member of the original Circle of Thorns that gouverned the ancient city of Oranbega, he would simply be very knowlegable about all things mystical.

Now, going off that quote of his, there is a bit of supposition I'd like to suggest. All we ever see is fragments of Rularuu. And all of those fragments are unique in most ways. But we never see the real Rularuu. Even the "Rularuu" that we fight in the Cathedral of Pain trial is just another fragment. Perhaps the biggest one, but a fragment nonetheless.

So why do we never see the true physical representation of Rularuu? Well, perhaps because there isn't one. Perhaps there is no physical being, no entity like that at all. If we are indeed "walking among the dreams of a God," then perhaps Rularuu IS the Shadow Shard. A sentient dimension. An intelligence incarnite in the very fabric of reality within the Shadow Shard.

For the fragments of Rularuu, there can be a few explanations. I will concede that, as creatures, they were once alive. But I'm not certain that they are, anymore. I'm not certain that there is anything left of what they once were. At their core, I feel they are little more than empty, soul-less shells filled with energy and matter. As fragments of Rularuu, they are merely parts of him, his avatars in this world.

The reason why he created them seems pretty clear - as a sentient dimension, Rularuu does not have a lot of direct control over events that go on inside, uh... Him. Certainly he has shown that he can act quite decisively, but perhaps he cannot be everywhere at all times. So he created these aspects of himself to act as his avatars, as his lieutenants.

There is another possible reason, however - madness. We have all seen what madness can do, in the face of Lanaru's "breaking" of the Shadow Shard. As a creature of matter, Lanaru broke the material aspect of the dimension. As the very reality in the Shadow Shard, perhaps it was Rularuu's madness that broke the very fabrik of reality, broke his mind and shattered it into these many fragments, each representing a different side of his mind. Faatim - his kindness, but also his inaction. Ruladak - his ambition, but also his cruelty. Lanaru - his strength, but also his madness.

Faatim speaks of the danger of Lanaru breaking the world "again." Given that there doesn't seem to be anything left to break, one can draw a few conclusions on this. I've chosen to draw the conclusion that if there is something to break now, then perhaps the Shadow Shard looked much the same the first time he broke it. Meaning that what made the world like it is is something bigger.

Or maybe, as an incarnation of Rularuu's madness, Lanaru's breaking of the world actually broke Rularuu himself, giving the fragments life of their own as Rularuu was lost inside his own mind.

Now, I keep speaking of Rularuu's madness for a few reasons. One, that's because a good parallel can be drawn between how madness broke a world into shards, transforming it into the Shadow Shard, and how Rularuu himself is broken in fragments. Once can theorise that it follows logic that it was madness that broke him as well. Further specualtion can point out that these two events may well have been one and the same.

Another reason is that it is said that Rularuu "gazes accross infinite dimensions." Now, this goes well with the idea that he, in fact, a sentient dimension. As such, it stands to reason that he would naturally be able to see into the multiverse as we can see into empty space. Or maybe it just means that Rularuu is a consciousness trapped within itself, thus playing around creating aspects of itself to gouvern itself and pass the time. To actually gaze accross infinite dimensions, or accross dimensions at all, without the use of complex machinery, Rularuu may have attempted to alter his own perception.

This is where String Theory comes into play. It dictates, as far as my knowlege goes, that infinite dimensions exist right on top of each other, and that we can only see the one we are "tuned into," that being our own. Personally, I like to see it as how a 3D picture can be drawn onto a 2D sheet of paper. You only see one instance of the 3D picture, as opposed to the many others that motion in the third dimension would allow.

It is easy to see how Rularuu may have attempted to see accross dimension by altering his own perception. It is also easy to see how that could have driven him completely insane. We are built within our own world, around our means of perceiving that world. If we suddenly started perceiving the world entirely differently, say saw time instead of hight, we would simply be unable to function.

There were a lot of good theories in that previous thread that I suspect may have been a little too abmitious for the actual story. It's still fun to theories, though

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Anyone who answers a question about whether such-and-such a power is necessary, as though they were answering the question "Is it theoretically possible to build a character without this power," is a Troll.
Anyone who answers the question as though they were answering "Does anyone out there have fun in the game without such-and-such a power," is a Troll.

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Curious lables you so dismissively throw out without any form of actual backing. You build your pont on assumption and supposition, yet you feel the need to accuse people of being trolls?

Redefiniton of reality and attributing intent and context to statements that often have neither is the easiest thing in the world, but it just never leads to anything good. You, yourself, seem to be talking in absolutes, as well, which is also quite striking. You define what people mean, what they are asking, what they want to know, what they do not want to no and so forth. Well, you can't know that. Not only can you not know it, not everyone acts the same way.

The simple fact of the matter is that from my own experience, many people start with the assumption that a power is, quite literally, necessary. They may ask if it is, or they may state that it is. When you then go on to explain that it is far from, again used literally, necessery, and that oftentimes it's not even all that good, you can almost feel their heads exploding over the internet.

I agree that answers that carry no information rarely serve much value. However, how much value they do serve depends on the question asked and the context in which it is being asked. You started out so well noting those, and then you seem to have completely abandoned them further down.

It is a fact that some people who ask if a power is necessery, actually want to know if the build they have in mind could function about as well without it. It is also a fact that some people ask if a power is necessary, simply because they hate the power and want to take another in its place if its possible to function without it.

I've asked the latter many times, and off the top of my head I can remember a post "Is it possible to skip Shadow Maul?" in the Scrapper forums. Sometimes when people ask if powers are necessary, they are, in fact, asking if said powers are necessary. Not if they're good enough, not how they can have more fun, not if their build would be good without them. If they are outright necessary.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as it were.

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If you get to play the cranky old man after a year and a half, what does that make those of us who have a year on you?

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You know, I actually do feel like an old man by now. I've seen and done so many things that the new players haven't even heard of, let alone done. Hydra in Perez Park is a good example, yes. A time before respec, costume alterations, capes, back when Elude was a toggle and Blaster nukes left you end drained AND disoriented... Heck, time before anyone took Stamina, before the power builds and powergamers, back when everyone was equally new.

It's amazing how far things have gone, really. I can't even recognise the game now, but it's all been for the better, I should say

The Tech Crey Armoured Lower Body option for the Female and Huge models looks horrid. By comparison, the Male version of it looks spot on.

Here's a pic.

Note how the Male version's sides are lower and almost flat. Now note how the Huge and Female versions have the traditional Armoured "high" sides. The texture on the outside ends before the sides end, and so they're filled with black.

Curious, the post you replied to is dated 30/09/04, or roughly two years ago. Riddle me this.

Yup, the movie was very cool. I wish the game was more like that. Go to a room, activate an objective, have guards come at you, so forth...

Nevertheless, that was a pretty cool movie, with some very fake powers

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The Devs have already said it includes 'free' months. Why are we still talking about this?

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Yes, that's what I'm wondering. OK, so not everybody knows, but it's a well enough known fact that should have come up first thing.

All months are included, paid or free. That's straight from our friends with the red names.

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It's all good, I'm just saying
As for base transporters, those would have to first become affordable to me and my not so numerous friends before I could have an opinion on the matter.

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well sam, if your on virtue, you can join my sg, were only about...2 months away from having working teleporters...maybe.

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No, Victory almost entirely. But the whole point is that I don't like large SGs, really. And because of that, I need not apply for a base.

It's all good, I'm just saying

As for base transporters, those would have to first become affordable to me and my not so numerous friends before I could have an opinion on the matter.

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With his permission, I'm letting you guys know of his response.

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Her, not his.

Honestly, I'd rather not mess with experience. Sure, a day ago I was desperate enough to level up and get some frikkin' missions, but that's smallminded thinking in a bind.

What purpuse does this serve, really? To make people level up faster? To do what? Run out of content faster? It seems very counter-productive to a game that prides itself on the journey to hotwire its experience system in such a way. And, as we noticed with the "just log in and get a level 40 NOW" event on Test, people will froth at the mouth and turn this assumedly kind gesture into an absurd excession.

I don't think it's needed at all. Furthermore, I think it will do more harm than good. Shortcuts like this only serve to drive people nuts, and that's a picture I really don't want to see. We've seen glimpses of this when massively rewarding exploits were found in the past, and we've seen groutesc excessions when those were schedualed to be closed in a short amount of time as people scrambled to abuse every last second of it. We saw the Winter Lord event, we saw Wolf, Dreck, then Barakuda farming, we saw Karken farming, we saw what the Test Recluse's Victory event did.

A double experience event, which I rather doubt is really coming, would be little more than a legalised version of the above, but even better as it's more streamlined and less restrictive, AND stackable with current "uber XP" methods. It's not only counter-productive and counter intuitive, it seems outright stupid to do something like this, and I'm afraid the game will become a bad place to be for a while after this is over, and especially while it's in effect. People have shown they have no concept of measure, so I cannot hope to expect any moderation in the "use" of such an event, were it implemented. I just don't trust people to NOT ruin a good thing.