How to Be a Hero in an RPG

Since becoming the proud parent of an rpg (and faced with the usual paternity-suit sticker shock), I, Dmitri Gheorgheni, have made certain observations about the behaviour of my fellow Researchers in cyberreality which might – I say might – possibly have some nodding resemblance, a soupcon, perhaps, to the problems some of us face in what I have learned to call RL. (Although I question the accuracy of the term – how do you know you’re not a brain in a vat, Professor Putnam?)

The First Dimensional Conversion: The Napoleonic Wars

The coach rattled along the snow-covered roads of Spain in the chill early hours of morning. The sky was lightening on the horizon, with the promise of a cold but sunny day. But Lord Jamison Douglass, Viscount Douglass of Ben Wyvis, was already awake - he had been awake all night, bounced along in the uncomfortable coach, listening absently to the occasional comments of the coachman and his companion in Spanish - a language he did not understand at all - and wondering how he could have been such a fool as to get himself in this position, trying to reach Lisbon and avoid the French, on his way home from Greece and a disastrously planned Grand Tour.

Vive l'empereur

The young Lord Douglass deemed himself a fool on several counts. One, for having allowed Lord Byron to talk him into accompanying him on his trip to Albania to meet with Ali Pasha - Bryon having sussed the notion that Spiridion Forresti, that wily Greek, wanted to take him along to distract the sensual Turkish pasha, and deciding to bring more attractive bait along on his own. The ensuing encounter had been an eye-opener for the young man, used to the straight-laced ways of Scotland, and as yet unsure of himself.

Rigel V

Memo to all personnel aboard the CSS Mariposa

We are approaching the Rigel System through hyperspace. We anticipate entering the system on stardate 5766.10.5. Rigel (Beta Orionis) is a blue giant, its diameter about seventy times that of Sol. The star is turbulent and energetic - starbathing on the Observation Deck is not recommended. The name Rigel is short for Arabic 'Rijl Jauza al-Yusra', meaning 'the foot of the great one', referring to its position in the constellation Orion¹.

The Goth War with the Romulans - An Ongoing Conflict

A minor fracas erupted recently at the Galactovision Song Contest, usually a hotbed of barely suppressed tedium, concerning the Romulan entry.

Our militaristic friends had done it again, entered the latest hit from the Homeworld, Tomorrow the Galaxy.

Neighbouring planets were not amused, and this revived rumours concerning the state of war between Gotha and Romulus, now in its fifth decade, with no sign of weakening on either side.

Well, it depends on who you talk to. According to a Goth spokesperson, the enemy 'is all but annihilated on all fronts, especially in the area of psy-ops'. According to a Romulan spokesdrone, 'those bl****d Goths are trying to pull the wool over your eyes again. They haven't even got an army! There is no war!', followed by incoherent spluttering.

Like I said...

Manifesto of the Campaign for Higher Silliness, Part Two

'There is a world elsewhere.'
Shakespeare, Coriolanus

Now where were we? Ah, yes: The world is a bungled job, a farce, a bad first draft. (Yes, Virginia, or Pollyanna, or whoever writes those simpering bumper-sticker slogans, Life IS a dress rehearsal.)

So what to do? Some say (and don't we just wish they wouldn't?): 'It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.' There are others who seem to think it would be preferable to burn the blasted house down.

Let's try something completely different, shall we?

Manifesto of the Campaign for Higher Silliness, Part One

'That's just paranoia. Everybody in the galaxy has that.'
Douglas N. Adams

The question is, how to make that paranoia work for us?

Beingkind, as has so often been noted (usually in tedious detail) by philosophers, pundits, and general professional cogitators everywhere, is constantly in search of meaning. The collective conscious and unconscious mind of sapients and sentients everywhere in the multiverse is continually thinking, thinking, thinking, gnawing at the knots of the Problem like a mouse at a string bag which its nose tells it contains a tasty bit of cheese. But, like the mouse, the conscious (or unconscious, or semiconscious) mind finds that every time it undoes a particularly tantalizing knot, the whole configuration regroups itself into an even more baffling nodal conglomeration. The mental mouse is, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed.

As the Goths know, the multiverse is a gigantic game of cat's-cradle. You need a partner, and you can't find one. As the Goths are so fond of saying, in Goth baseball, you have to be both the pitcher and the catcher.

So what does that have to do with paranoia? Or silliness, higher or lower, for that matter? Or the price of cheese?

Define the problem.

The ERPU Movement - Equal Rights for Parallel Universes

At the Archives of Parallel Space-Time (APST) on Betamax Delta, where I've been helping out with the cataloguing lately, we've been receiving a lot of threatening metamail on the Trans-Etha Net (like the Sub-Etha, but designed for communication with our collecting agents in Parallel Space-Time). It seems our modest academic efforts have stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment in other space-time continua.

Apparently, the existence of the APST in our space-time continuum has been perceived as a slight on other PST continua, and been interpreted as a snobbish attempt to put forth the claim that our version of events is the definitive one. Or, as one of the (badly misspelled, smudgily photocopied) screeds that came across my desk recently would have it, that 'you're a bunch of temporally provincial, pseudo-causalist, counter-revolutionary blatherskates!'

Ahem.