Game on, I suppose.

>Well, that answers the question I was coming to this thread to ask,
>which was 'is this storyline ever going to have any peril or an
>antagonist'.
>
>Game on, I suppose.

... were you hoping it would?

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Hm.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

In my opinion, the main conflict is Abhi vs. reality. On some things, reality's winning, on others Abhi looks to be winning as she works to change the world just enough for Teto's happiness. It helps that she has Rin and Gumi as guides.

Peter Eng
--
Look up "literary conflict" in your favorite web search. Conflict isn't always about busting heads or bringing out the shooty things.

Just because I am expressing a preference for some potentially harder conflict in this story doesn't make me some thirteen year old you can talk down to.

Honestly I expected better of people on this forum.

-Tsukaistarburst did not spend four years getting a degree to be lectured on the definition of conflict in literature.

Sorry. I just get tired of people insisting that conflict has to be violent, and I got a bit short with you. That was rude of me, and I'll try not to do it again.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

I feel like I ought to qualify this a little. That was absolutely true of the original Vocaloid Variations; it may or may not be true of every VV story. That's still the general idea--much like The Federation Lives Forever, these are slice-of-life stories that aren't built around a central conflict, like Our Witches at War or most of the main-line stories--but I don't want to say it'll never happen at any point in the series. I don't know that, I haven't gotten to every point in the series yet. :)

As an aside, when I named the original story, I didn't take into account the probability that it would spawn a subseries with the same name as its supertitle. I probably should have given the first story a subtitle to head off the inevitable confusion. May yet go back and do that at some point.

>Also, the variety in the Vulcans in UF is most agreeable; another good
>addition to the cast there in T'Jo.

Joe was kind of a thought experiment. Since I set up Rin and Gumi's situation in The Mother of Invention, the idea of their mechanic has been in the back of my head, a shadowy figure who fixed up the Chrysler for them years ago and maintains it when they stop by. By the end of that story, when the road trip was a set plan, I knew said mechanic was going to be in Flagstaff.* Who or what he, she, or it was wasn't immediately clear, but the arid environment and the out-in-the-sticks-ness of the place suggested a few things.

Once I'd decided she was going to be a Vulcan, I had to think about what sort of Vulcan she was going to be, and it occurred to me: We've seen Vulcans who cleave to the Way of Surak, who struggle with it, who abandoned it, and who never received it, but to the best of my recollection, we haven't seen one who has a mellower take on it. Sort of a Reform Surakian, if you will. Spock and Saavik come close, but they have the wild-card factor that they're both half-breeds with (at this point mostly resolved, but formative) outsider complexes.

Joe is different; she grew up steeped in the Way and believes in it wholeheartedly, but her take on it isn't quite mainstream. She believes that Surak's injunction to control emotion isn't meant to be taken as a literal order to jettison them. To her, that is in itself illogical. They're there for a reason; to reject them outright is to assert that evolution erred in selecting for them, which is a priori preposterous. What ego it reveals in the Master's later apostles that they presume to gainsay 10 million years of biology!

Instead, she takes a different path. She's calm, collected, and logical-minded, but not so crushingly literal-minded as the most vexing of her countrymen can be. She's undemonstrative, yes, but that has as much to do with her personally insular nature as with anything to do with Surak's teachings. Most importantly, she doesn't constantly torture herself over her inability to completely, robotically suppress all trace of emotion. Instead, she simply... abides. She is what she must be; she does the best she can with what she has. To expect more of oneself is illogical. Selah.

It probably goes without saying that Ambassador Soval doesn't get this perspective at all and thinks she's just another apostate nut, like those Charismatic wackos.

(Her husband doesn't really get it either, but he is at least open-minded enough that he hasn't divorced her. :)

--G.
* This is because, when my father and I drove 66 out to California in 1996, we stopped off in Flagstaff to get the oil changed in the car.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Your in good company with a lot of other writers, and even SCREEN writers, G.

The true 'Vulcan Way', as I've assimilated from many sources, was never the complete elimination of emotion; but using logic to control them! That was what I personally think was Surak's teachings... that yes, we feel. And we feel strongly! But if we control these feelings instead of letting them control us?

And, if you look back, even as far back as TOS, where Sarak and Amanda are aboard the Original Enterprise... Even though its not blatantly stated, its Sarak makes it clear that he very much loves Amanda, even though he is supposed to not let even love dictate his actions unless supported by logic. Although, at one point he does observe: "My logic fails me when it comes to my Wife"!

> The two shared a private little smile, and then Gumi applied herself to
> turning the car back onto Route 66 while Rin lounged in her seat, slipping
> on her sunglasses.
>
> "You'll find out," said the blonde with a grin.

I know its not the official end credits, but for some reason my brain started channeling 'Who are You?'

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>

Well, yeah. He's a classical composer, you have to show respect.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Amen, sir.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

"First thing you do when you play a new Forza is put anime skins on your cars."

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