Repost: These are Terms that Do Not Exist

This is a repost from last year.  After watching the dust up over Gay Marriage in the Supreme Court and having read more than a few blogs discussing it, I thought it was worth sharing again:

Lately I've been playing a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic.  It's scratching a lot of itches for me.  It's a solid WoW-Clone MMO with all the features you'd expect and a solid, reliable, and recognizable interface.  The story is top notch and if you play a Sith you get to have a rocking British Accent.  Unless you're undercover in which case you're supposed to sound like you're from the American Midwest.  Personally, I'd like to find that planet where you sound like you're from Boston*.

At any rate, I was looking up stuff on line related to a recent twist with my newbie operative when I came across a fascinating quote:

After a user expressed concern that Bioware had "disallowed" the use of the terms "gay" and "lesbian" on the boards in a thread titled "GLBT discrimination in forums?" a Bioware forum moderator dropped in and posted this: 

As I have stated before, these are terms that do not exist in Star Wars. 

Thread closed.

Repost: Does Merida being Gay Matter?

This post is a repost of my thoughts after the release of Brave last summer.  They struck enough of a chord that I am reposting this, along with my follow up, to go with the release of the movie on DVD.  Which I cannot watch as my BRDVD needs a firmware upgrade. Grr.

Some disclaimers:  First I'm going to spoil the end of the movie, just a little bit, but no more than I've been spoiled myself in reading reviews and commentary on the sexual preferences of Disney/Pixar's latest heroine. I also have to confess I've not seen the movie first hand.  My wife and son have (they both loved it) and I've read a pretty good number of reviews, and honestly what I have to say about this issue has very little to do with the movie's over all plot.

Which gets us to the question at hand:  Is Merida, Heroine of Brave, a lesbian?  And if she is, does that matter?

Frankly I think that's one of the dumbest questions raised about this movie.  It ignores what actually does matter:

That people are asking the question in the first place.

Love in Space ME3 Style

So I know I'm late to the game, but I am finally playing Mass Effect 3. Finally.

Actually if I'm being honest I've had the game for a while (as in when it came out) and I played it once before but I didn't get very far. I also took a passing stab at ME1 and gave up on it fairly quickly because I wasn't quite sure what to make of a FPS RPG and so despite the reviews I gave it a pass to indulge in other Bioware titles. One of the notable ones I really enjoyed was Dragon Age: Origins, even though I was unable to see it through to the end.

But I'm playing it through and I'm enjoying the story. It also happens that recently the question was raised about the relevance of in game romance and story telling.

And this takes us back to the nature of stories, video games, and the stories we tell. I know for me, part of my writing muse has been to work on the tapestry of a good game and adding my own stories to the characters there.

So, ME3 and the nature of romance....

FFV: Find Your Understanding

Love does not know gender.

Does Merida being gay matter?

Some disclaimers:  First I'm going to spoil the end of the movie, just a little bit, but no more than I've been spoiled myself in reading reviews and commentary on the sexual preferences of Disney/Pixar's latest heroine. I also have to confess I've not seen the movie first hand.  My wife and son have (they both loved it) and I've read a pretty good number of reviews, and honestly what I have to say about this issue has very little to do with the movie's over all plot.

Which gets us to the question at hand:  Is Merida, Heroine of Brave, a lesbian?  And if she is, does that matter?

Frankly I think that's one of the dumbest questions raised about this movie.  It ignores what actually does matter:

That people are asking the question in the first place.

Short Story: The Next Best Thing

As I work on my next novel I've been doing a lot of short stories to help flesh out the world and the characters. I've debated a lot about posting them here on the website and come down on the "share them" side of the debate."

So here we have a chance to meet the novel's protagonist Mercy Lyons when she was still at the Naval Academy and still just a first year Midshipman. This was originally written for the Good Reads website Weekly Short Story Contest Group.


"The Next Best Thing"
1600 Words

I was in my second year at the Academy.

Alexandria, this beautiful thing from Tyson 4, dumped me that morning because she said she knew her cat better than knew me.

Commander LeGrange had just lit me up in front of my entire Terraforming seminar for missing two equations in my draft term paper.

My roommate was back in our bunk with the Hanover twins, and he let me know that I was not to come home that night.

So there I was, at the junior officer bar, two beers into my charted course to complete inebriation.

Romantic Robots

Over on Goodreads a rather engaging question was posed:  Can a robot have romantic feelings without violating the three "Laws of Robotics"?

For those unfamiliar, the Three Laws of Robotics were created by Issac Asimov as proposed fundamental rules that we should have to instill in all robots.  First, a robot cannot cause harm to a human, nor can it allow, through its inaction, a robot to come to harm.  A robot, must, by this law, come to a human's aid.   Second, a robot must obey all orders given to it by a human, unless doing so would violate the first law.  The Third law requires a robot to protect itself, unless doing so would violate the other two laws.  A robot would get out of the way of a speeding train, but it would still rush into the train's path to save a life of a human. A robot would also destroy itself if ordered to do so, since obedience trumps self-preservation.

These three laws were more a vehicle for Asimov to explore the Law of Unintended consequences than they were, I think, actual laws we would need to imprint on robots. Throughout his short stories, attempts to adhere to these laws create a variety of odd and unforeseen behaviors, sending his protagonists off to explain how a robot can be following these rules at the same time.  The stories are one part high science fiction and one part logical debate.

Which brings us around, finally, to the issue of "Can a robot be romantic while still following the three laws?"

Short Story: Missed Connections

Hey.  You see me every morning.  I order the same coffee, and the same breakfast.  We make small talk while you make it, and you ask about my day, or my night, or anything to pass the time.  I doubt you even really notice me in the crowds that pass through every morning.  But I have noticed you and hope against hope you’ve noticed me.  If you have, and would like to make more than small talk across the counter, email me back, and tell me what my morning coffee is.

Goeff stared at the screen and the words he’d typed in.  They had joked so much about Craigslist and the dramas.  She let slip that morning that she’d always considered the Missed Connections postings to be sweet and romantic.

“Wouldn’t it be so romantic,” Micky had asked, “to see someone, and share that look?”  She had handed his coffee over, her eyes lost in thought.  “And then see later that it really wasn’t just in your mind, that you really did have a connection?”

“Do people really check those?” he had asked.

She had blushed.  “Well, it’s not that odd to just skim through them for the stories.”

He had nodded and smiled and said something that he had hoped sounded witty.  He couldn’t remember now what it was.  In hindsight he was convinced it was anything but witty.

He reviewed the ad again.  It sounded corny.  It sounded desperate.  He clicked into text box and highlighted all of the text in the ad.  His finger hovered over the delete key.  This was a horrible idea, really.  

But instead he moved his hand to the mouse and clicked “post”.  Now it was just a matter of time to see what happened.

These are terms that do not exist....

Lately I've been playing a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic.  It's scratching a lot of itches for me.  It's a solid WoW-Clone MMO with all the features you'd expect and a solid, reliable, and recognizable interface.  The story is top notch and if you play a Sith you get to have a rocking British Accent.  Unless you're undercover in which case you're supposed to sound like you're from the American Midwest.  Personally, I'd like to find that planet where you sound like you're from Boston*.

At any rate, I was looking up stuff on line related to a recent twist with my newbie operative when I came across a fascinating quote:

After a user expressed concern that Bioware had "disallowed" the use of the terms "gay" and "lesbian" on the boards in a thread titled "GLBT discrimination in forums?" a Bioware forum moderator dropped in and posted this: 

As I have stated before, these are terms that do not exist in Star Wars. 

Thread closed.