Category Archives: Stories

May 28, 2022 · 22:35

Tally part two

Straight into the deep we go. Breathe in, hold your breath, dive.

Commerce
I wrote most of the foundation in ‘The stage of commerce’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/25/the-stage-of-commerce/) but not all, the foundation is larger than what I set there. I did it some time ago, but the article came to mind on February 25th 2022. Yet over the last few months I also reconsidered other parts. I stated “In the past I already discussed bookshops, taverns, and smith. We need to include goods and foods. This gives us the shops we need as a bare minimum, and considering the size of any area (in the past shops were seen in larger towns and anyone within a distance came to this place). So we now have the larger stage, and the people in that area add to this commerce.” But the world is larger than this, even if we base it on a 17th century fantasy premise. The cogs tend to simplify the setting, but does not change the dimension and that is what we need. But I feel that additional cogs to prevent the game from falling short. We can all rejoice into tables and the setting for armour, weapons, groceries, food, general items, books, jewels, taverns, masons and the list goes on. There are the cogs that drive 1:1, and the others tend to set the equation 1:2, 1:3, 2:1, 4:1. It is the balance that they set that keeps the game going and the more balanced that is, the longer the attention span the gamer gives it, and that I part of the equation. You can run from quest to quest like some set it, raid after raid and a quick trip to the stores to exchange equipment to coins. The one needs to be prevented, the other needs to be dismissed. The first element was discussed yesterday, by altering the concept and the kind of loot you find, the larger your benefit is in the beginning of the game. As the game progresses we get quarries and mines. The mines might make some of the requirements go away, but not all. As you get into the need of silver weapons, gold for enchanted jewellery. That gave me the idea to add Platinum as a source (it started with an engagement ring, but that is another story and she does not know it yet). But Platinum added a few other options, a few I had not considered before. So as we can find every mine EXCEPT Gold or Platinum we can create a handle on some parts of the equation. Then the idea goes from one side to the other. 

Towns
These are all over the place in many games, there we see villages, towns and optionally cities. This is how it has been, but the setting that we see villages and towns, they support farms, abbeys, convents, and keeps. Keeps have a more central setting in my mind, Keeps are supported by towns and cities, but the distance of a keep allows a town to BECOME a city. That is the larger setting, people can contribute to the creation of a city, but cannot push it. One person does not make an economy, people do, so I had to consider the setting where people are the foundation towards creating a city and even as the player you set the domino stones to get it done, I need a stage where (at least) 10% is out of our hands. I believe that the cog system does work and it works beyond economy, it could be the balance setter for entire games, not to manage it, but to set is as a setting of checks and balances. A setting where we can test the game in its true potential and that is essential. Streaming RPG’s are basically new, they might be based on old games, but the moment the makers realise what else is possible, they will run to what more they can get. They will make their games merely larger but not better. The deeper I dive into creating the next RPG, the more I see that another system is required, another pattern is required and in this I came up with the cog system. It is not unique, it is not the only way that it can go, but it is the way I designed it to go. I personally believe in the cog system. It is flexible, it an be adjusted and tailored to any specific situation or need and that is the foundation towards creating an RPG, is the cog model too small, we can add a cog, we can move cogs to be connected, it is a foundational choice. I believe that for me it is the best choice. For you? You will have to make up your own mind on what works for you. 

Four elements towards any RPG, towards any new story that gives life to a dynasty of gaming, it is time we prepare for the next stage of gaming, whether it is Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, PlayStation 6. We need to prepare what what comes next, not for the 10 year old game that we can play again, even if it was a really good ride. 

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May 27, 2022 · 23:17

First tally of thoughts

After yesterday’s article, I started to make a tally of what the game ‘has’. In the first there was the article ‘Recap to the intro’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/25/recap-to-the-intro/) which had a run down of a lot. But that rundown was not enough. There was the search ‘Lawlordtobe + RPG’ which gave me a lot more of what I wrote (and weirdly enough at least one story I forgot about). The basics are covered. In the basics there is the map, the character and the story. In the deeper run, the map is also covering the environment, the economy and the map itself (which is an environment, challenges and spiking of the map).

Spiking
Spiking is an early term I had. Like in places like Skyrim and Oblivion, there is a lack of caves, ruins and other places. So we spike the map to have these places. Yet the maps to some degree have an approach to caves (and some look really good) but as I personally see them unnatural. There are two problems with my train of thought. Caves are set in stone (literally so), as such they are part of the permanent map. Some places have way too many ruins and these ruins are a weird  form of small. But the idea of some ruins are a good thing, yet how to employ them? 

Brush and thickets, Fallen trees, Hollow trees, Evergreen trees, Rock formations, Rock overhangs, Caves, Low landforms and high landforms. Some are for single opponents, some are for groups. Ruins are a side here. They tend to be a good place for groups. But the setting needs to be natural (or as close as natural as possible). If there is a ruin, there was a reason that the building was there before it was a ruin. And not always is it a castle or a keep. But spiking is a dangerous setting. There is a danger of making it a place of convenience, and that is dangerous for the game. 

As we look into the economy I saw the dangers of ‘loot’ in the game. In some game we enter an old (really old) place, but it has the most modern of ‘loot’. So we redefine what loot is. broken swords, daggers, broken shields, old coins, chains. Elements that can be reforged into metals, old coins (copper, silver, gold) that can be set into metals. Yes there will be chests with actual new(er) stuff. Like groups of brigands, they have bounty, they have conquered stuff (that needs liberating). It will not be about wealth. In one RPG I had 300K, so in what living form of delusional would an adventurer have this much money? Too many RPG seem to value credits as an indication of achievement. That too needs to change. 

I took examples from classical masters, from stories (the non-Robin Hood kind) and from historical events, but they need to evolve in RPG gaming. In the economy that side is merely a cog, but a cog that could evolve. Yet the station of evolution is a larger problem that I have not solved yet. I did like the nemesis system that we see in the Shadow of Mordor, but that was THEIR system, I need a similar but different system. This is to stop grinding, the stage where there will be spawning (one man’s ruin) is the next persons envy. But if the previous group was defeated, the next group will have better defences, and optionally one or two more brigands. There are shelters for singular people and those people are sly a lot more like cutthroats, so no warning. All sides we see very little of in current RPG’s. All sides that are new in the RPG.

Stories
I gave more than one story start and that is central in any RPG, yet there is also the additional stage. You see there is no stage where we can do it all, play it all, live it all (the latter is a matter of debate). But the stories cannot be around you, around the player. The main quests yes, but the side quests need a larger setting than we are used to. There is a side that takes me back to Robert Ludlum’s Scarlatti Inheritance (I think), a local village event and a burial that is part of the story. So to set a side quest needs the seeding of a story all by itself that has several connections. There needs to be an intelligent part in this, so that stories can be written en mass and spread in the game, so that some side quests are not part of every game (another way to prevent grinding) and there we see that we need 50-150 side quests. That can intervene to a larger degree to the character that you play at that time. So far we see the foundation of an RPG that can be played on console or streamer. 

Then we get to the cogs of the economy, I spoke about them but I considered one additional set of cogs for each part. About that in the next story which will happen during my weekend.

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May 22, 2022 · 00:21

Interchanging hope and despair

You think it is odd, but it is not, stay with me. As the body goes through a point where it can no longer tell the difference between pain and pleasure, the soul has a similar event and in that event it can no longer make the difference between hope and despair. You might think that this is some new revelation, but it is not. It is old, very old. I reckon before the first crusade. To understand this we need to take the first sidestep. 

Sheherezade
We all have heard the story of Sheherezade and the 1001 Arabian night. But which version did you read? Most of us have had some translation of Sir Richard Burton, but none of them are complete. You see, if you had the whole complete tale and you would do the math, you will find that 5 stories are missing. 5 nights are not accounted for. This is because some clerics found them too dangerous in western hands. As such the clerics decided that these 5 stories were to be removed. Do not ask me for them, I never saw them either. Only certain members of the Royal family of Saudi Arabia have seen them (if they read the book), they are in a basement, it is one of the most controlled environments in the world. In that room is an altar, some kind of book altar (I think) and on it is an exquisite piece of work, the complete stories by Sheherezade. The only place in the world where the 5 missing stories can be found.

Vladimir Bartol
This is the second sidestep. A novel from 1938, it would become the foundation of the first Assassins Creed game by Ubisoft. It is the story of Hassan as-Sabbah. This is where the slogan “Nothing is true, everything is permitted”, but that saying is actually older, older then Hassan as-Sabbah, It comes from the Arabic clerics who travelled Europe in the 9th century (Spain, Italy, Greece and Slovak areas) They founded the premise “Nothing is true, in this world perception is all. Only a blind man can see what is real. The blind man can smell what is true, can hear what is stated. Perception can not be maintained. In this world, where one is perceived to be noble, nobility tends to not ever be found there. In this world of greed and wringing, like a cloth made devoid of water, of blood. Those wielding perception are in charge of what is real. This is more often seen in clergy and nobility than anywhere else” harsh words, but that was merely the beginning. You see, we now get to the first story.

Speculated story one
The first story was based on the life of Antarah ibn Shaddad al-Absi, and Sheherezade who knew so much also knew of him, and created the story of two student knights and alternative path away from the ways of ethics. The names of these two knights I do not know, there is no hidden thing here, I never saw that book. But the story goes that these two knights plotted in the night, not against their teacher, not against his values. But the simple fact was that the Arabic people could not be protected if they adhered to all ethics, at times ethics must give way to the protection of the people. The infidels deserved no consideration. But the story was one of insight on how ethics  are the cornerstone of what was right, still the story struck to close to the real world and the story was removed from consideration. We do not know what happened to these knights, some tell us that one went north, the other south. The one who went North did not go to Lucera, but his disciples (mostly women) created a convent somewhere in southern Germany (unknown where, some assume the black forest) and in that convent the women kept up appearances and kept to themselves. Seen as a convent and a hospital of mad people, a curtain was created. One wing and its basement were the sick, the mad. The less sick were properly treated for on a higher level of that wing (I presume the second floor) and below the destitute there was a trapdoor and another layer, one where the knights trained, day and night. Where they recorded the deeds of the corrupt, the wealthy the true noble and the christian demonic types. For decades they were there recording it all, reporting it all. If I am correct, it still happens today, but the stage is not the one they had there. They have moved into a very different area and seen as some version of clergy, no one seems to check and there is the rub. In a place without ethics, ethics removed makes one more fluidic, but at a price. The question becomes what is that price?

It is there in that place where hope and despair become faded, one cannot tell the difference, because the ethical walls were removed and who can tell whether they are still a force of reckoning. There is no record of them, there is no telling, no tale. 

So whilst we try to be noble, whilst we try to be true, we act on the values that the perception makers hand us and we seemingly copy these value blindly. Consider that greed comes naturally in banks and consider the life of Bob Diamond (Barclays, 2012) and see where this so called ‘highly respectable’ man had access to, and seemingly still had. You see he was behind an IPO which raised US$325 million (and crashed in 2021). So in a place with ethics, where do you stand where a person like that is trusted with $325,000,000? In many places where the light of perception does not shine, such a person is not allowed to be an uber driver (or a barber for that matter). As such it seems that we have larger problems, because the values we seemingly embrace are the beginning of the end of our souls. When did we sign up for that? It seems that despair is all that some bankers will leave us.

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May 21, 2022 · 15:21

Feeling confused

Well, there are two things, the first is that I got a workable idea to a final twist in ‘Exhaurire vitam’ the mini series that predominantly plays in New Orleans. There are a few scenes in other places, but the bulk is there. There are a few more issues that I uncovered in ‘How to assassinate a politician’, as such I have it close to ready, a movie and a mini series. Then there was the series ‘Kenos Diastima’, I have been tossing and turning on that and I feel that leaving it (for now) with an open ending at season three is the best way to go. Then I got another idea, this one was initially for ‘Exhaurire vitam’, yet the new series (the one I talked about a few times), has more traction with it and it opens up a nice can of worms. You see, the gods are all over all places, so there much have been some dependency. So what happens when one of them is in debt, or better stated, what happens when the debt was opened to a new source? That was the setting I contemplated on the subway. As such the main character would be open to all kinds of other things. That was the setting my mind worked on. And as I contemplated what could be possible when Bastet is thrown in the mix, the equation changed and that has long repercussions, not bad ones, but unforeseen ones and that tends to be good, because the unforeseen brings more than a surprise or a plot twist, it gives the story a new direction and I am all about that. But in part I have no idea why the images are coming to me so rapidly and so directly, that is the part that has me confused. It is like your brain playing some year at Hogwarts and you create the setting, but you never created the stage. In this example we all know it is J.K. Rowling. But the stage I create is new, has never ben contemplated, or written about. I have no idea where it all is coming from, so for now I follow the thoughts and create more stories and optionally more scripts. And I have no idea where it all goes. Even as I seek the implementation of Saudi TV in the movie, I wonder where it will end. So whilst I get that “Bryan Fogel says Netflix, Amazon and others wouldn’t buy ‘The Dissident’ because they were scared of angering Saudi Arabia” my story does EXACTLY the opposite and as such might be loved there, what I do not get is why not more are considering that step. In the end, good business is where you find it and basically I found it. 3 TV series, one movie, a game, console settings and the evolution to another 50 million consoles and beyond that I reengineered several Ubisoft games and created several 5G IP. Not bad for one person in less than 5 years. So if you are wondering what stops others doing the same, I have no idea. But I do believe that they are all looking in the wrong direction and I feel that more and more of that is proven. But the confusion stays. What if this is all between my ears? I do not believe that this is so, but if you cannot look at it from opposition from a distance than it means you have gone bonkers, have gone round the bend. Oh, and I also designed a weapon to get rid of the Iranian navy, so there (and that part is already online). But the confusion stays. I have no idea what is driving this all. Perhaps a last knee jerk action by the brain before it stops? Your guess is as good as mine, I am honestly clueless.

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May 20, 2022 · 19:03

The missing ingredient

We all have that. It does not matter whether it is food, drinks, series, movies, games. When an ingredient is missed, it counts, especially when it is an ingredient we thought highly of. In Assassins Creed it became Ezio Auditore. In Tekken it was your favourite character, in NCIS for some it was Tony DiNozo, for Charmed it was Shannen Doherty. And movies have their own crosses to bare (or was that bear?). Anyway, these thoughts came up as we lost Fred Ward to Eternity. I saw him first in Escape from Alcatraz. I always considered hm a good actor and I enjoyed watching his works, especially tremors. But my mind suddenly set on Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, which was shown in the Netherlands as Remo: Unarmed and Dangerous. There are a few issues with this movie. It would be the first time I saw Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway of the USS Voyager). It was not the greatest film made, but it had humour, which made the movie fun to watch. Joel Grey as Master of Sinanju Chiun was slightly too much over the top, but still fun. What was interesting was the plot. There we see an investigation of a corrupt weapons procurement program within the US Army. You see, that plot was new, or at least I had not seen it before and then the cogs started turning. Why does Netflix buy these rights and overhaul it into a mini series? You see a movie is nice, but 4-8 one hour episodes leading to a much larger, deeper and darker story might be a lot more rewarding in the long haul. And lets face it with the non functional weapons out there (USS Zumwalt, most of the Russian tanks) the setting for a large increased plot theme (especially when we pull the EU (Strasbourg) front and centre, the story could be appealing to a much larger audience, of course we will miss Fred Ward as a key ingredient, but nature tends to be unrelenting in these matters.

It is after-all about the weapons procurement program, and the stage where someone walks away with billions on a model that never went anywhere is a nice touch. It is even better if some elements are kept as close to the truth as possible. You see, Forbes gave us (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/10/30/an-82-year-old-is-suspected-of-decades-long-scam-selling-dangerous-weapons-parts-to-us-military/) ‘An 82-Year-Old Is Suspected Of Decades-Long Scam Selling Dangerous Weapons Parts To U.S. Military’, then there is ‘Metallurgist admits faking steel test results for US Navy subs’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59186655) and there is more where that came from, but consider the second part, consider the idea that the North Koreans (and Russians get a hold of that and a list of Los Angeles attack class submarines that have that steel? Now consider the play that could be made to get a submarine to a specific location and scuttle it ‘accidentally’ because the flaw was unknown. The story that some could write might keep the TV audience on the tip of their seat for the entire mini series, and the bulk of that work was already done. So as Netflix is trying to cut cost, here is an idea that they could use. But I think that they owe it to Fred Ward to have his picture somewhere (as an admiral) or as a father pic of the hero of that story, there are all kinds of ways where we can have a silent tip of the hat to a person who should not be forgotten like yesterdays news, but that applies to so many actors, I will be happy to admit that. When you know your games and consider Sir Alec Guinness as the CEO of Tri-Optimum, you know exactly what I mean. A simple setting of a series done in a few hours, Netflix get to work!

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May 11, 2022 · 23:49

A dark matter of factuality

It was something that had been nagging at me for a while. Whilst I was working on an idea for TV, an idea that was in ‘And a little more’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/04/04/and-a-little-more/) and a few articles before then (and one after), the setting was a little too vanilla, too sweet. Yes, it works when you have a pilot and you need to slowly submerge the viewer into this person. But after that you need to have something more and the dark place is at times so much more rewarding. So what happens when loss, loss that would drive any person insane is part of all this? No matter how we slice it, lets say a child is lost to drunk driving, to whatever reason and that person gets off on a technicality, not something that happened now, but something that happened decades ago. So when some events come back, so does the avenging rage. But not like the timeline. But a timeline that is distorted, as memories come back together. So how would that go? That is what I am contemplating. The vengeance is that he takes the life of a family member every decade. A hunt going on for decades and the family is scared beyond believe because this had been going on and they have no idea who to blame. When you know that EVERY decade on the dot a family member dies extremely brutally, how would YOU react? That is the stuff I am trying to add to the idea. You see the dark appeals to all, the need for vengeance appeals to all. In our lives as we add water to the wine, as we add compromise to our values for fairness, the dark gets a free turn on all of us and that side is appealing to all. Yet the power is not to hide it in some lame ‘conspiracy’ setting. We have seen so many of those, but what happens when the deaths also allow for something more? Lets not forget that this is the story of the grandson of Hades. And that is before we get to the part where his father is Ares. Yet that implies that he has another grandfather. All settings that seem to be clear in season one, so what gives?

A stage where decades of corpses set a line in place, a line that I am trying to give volume, but I cannot yet tell in what direction, because I do not know what the direction is yet. That is part of the thrill of creating stories. You need to keep everything in mind, just like an RPG. And this story needs to have angles, sharp sides, soft sides and surprises. It is setting a ying and yang, but shaped like Hesiod and Plato. The dialogue goes better if there is some polarisation, some opposition to either view whilst the bulk of both views are accepted. That is the stage I need to create, and if I succeed the story becomes a lot better and that is what every storyteller tries to do, create the most enticing story. And that setting works when one side is dark, really dark whilst both sides accepts the darkness and shines their own light on that darkness. You see, shadow die in the absence of light or darkness. Both are needed, a shadow cannot exist in absence of either, the first truth all storytellers learn, most often in the midst of their first story and they rewrite it.

I am no different, although I started when I saw the story became too sweet, too vanilla.

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May 9, 2022 · 03:55

Useful unregistered IP

This is the stage I (and others) are at times set to. You see, I needed an alternative to keeping my IP in house, in house is data at rest and people will get to it, large companies have no scruples when it comes to profit and some are a lot more desperate than others. So I had to create a place where no one would look and I went to a place where EVERYONE looked. The safest place is often underfoot. This is not a place I created, someone created this setting for me. If I was a betting man, I would think it was the Russian Mafia and one of them was a photographing enthusiast. 

He (or she) was good enough to have it on the dark web under the eyes of the NSA for a long time. In the end I have no knowledge if he ever got caught, but the idea was really good, and I stumbled upon it by pure accident. That person, or someone connected to him made the error of placing the photoshop PSD online. If it had been a JPG file, I would never have been the wiser. But it was a photo of the Kremlin. I was looking for a different building and no matter how you set it, the Kremlin is a beautiful building, as is the grand mosque of Riyadh. It does not take an architect to admire the beauty of a building. One does not need to be from San Francisco to admire the Transamerica Pyramid. So there I was looking at the Kremlin in Photoshop. And I suddenly noticed something, in JPG I would have missed it. There was a second magenta level. One was #FF00FF, the second one was #FF02FF and that layer had morse code. 

Now consider a photo, 6720 × 4480 and morse is merely one pixel high. I can easily hide 60 lines in there without anything or anyone picking it up, the eyes cannot differentiate a pixel that is #ff02FF instead of #FF00FF, and if you have two layers. One in Magenta, One is Cyan #02FFFF added to #00FFFF and they end up in a JPG, you have a novel way of hiding a text, especially when it is morse and especially if the only way is to merge #FF02FF and #02FFFF into a combined layer. Consider that and consider

“.. -.     ….. –.     – …. . .-. .     .- .-. .     – .– —     -.. .. — . -. … .. — -. …     – …. .- –     .- .-. .     .. –. -. — .-. . -.. –..–     — . .-. . .-.. -.–     -… . -.-. .- ..- … .     – …. .     – . .-.. . -.-. — —     -.-. — — .–. .- -. .. . …     .. –. -. — .-. .     – …. .     -. . . -..     — ..-.     – …. .     -.-. — -. … ..- — . .-. … .-.-.-“, now consider that this line is one pixel high, I could add 120 lines on each picture and I am smart enough to only place the JPG in a place where 27,000,000 people roam, over all the boards, 3 sets of 4 dozen pictures does not even raise an eyebrow and as the images are not upsetting anyone, no one cares. I never uploaded them from anywhere I worked or lived. So good luck finding them, but on July 30th those images get a reduced limelight and that is the start of a race where some Americans are not invited. They had their chance and now lets see how some treat free IP, will they adhere and respect the consumer or will they make the same mistake? 

It was my way out, live or die, my IP will survive and it optionally will land in hands willing to keep the options open. Others had their options and were willing to make the bet that they could outthink me. But when you see where they would not look, because the margins were expected to remain low, how does that make them worthy of billions? You see, when you’ve never had that, you will never miss it and like others I have pride and I have ego and I find Microsoft unworthy, especially after they betrayed the gaming community (as I personally see it) after they got whipped by Nintendo in gaming (Nintendo Switch) after they got handed their guts with the Surface (Apple iPad) and soon after Adobe slaps them silly and take away their Powerpoint market. After Amazon removes their cloud presence in business and gaming. Why should they be allowed to live longer? They failed in 4 markets, isn’t that enough to ignore them?

Now I am making sure that they cannot claim any of my IP as I set it to an encrypted setting on the internet. And without those logs they remain clueless. I might never be rich, but I’ll have the last laugh and if Amazon catches on what Microsoft missed in META, they will be reduced to a third world IT company that will leave the top 10 of wealth players before 2030. There is only so much failure that they can adjust for, and we get it things go wrong “Uninstall Windows 11 KB5012643 if it crashes your apps”, I personally reckon that proper testing might have prevented a lot, but that might merely be me. We need to consider what we do and even as the US department of Defense trusts them, it does not mean that we need to make that same mistake. In all this, the useful unregistered IP was a way to keep my IP free from certain hassle and it was needed, especially as I find that time is running out and as more and more companies are getting weirdly nervous and greed driven to obtain more and more revenue. Microsoft is not alone, but it is the most visible one, partly due to all the corrections that Microsoft marketing needs to make on a global setting. So I rely on unregistered IP to keep mine decently safe and it is underfoot of a few players who never considered to look where everyone else was looking, they only needed the right pair of shades to see what needed to be seen. Are you catching on yet?

We need to change the way we think, or we become truly lost.

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April 12, 2022 · 23:42

Like a whisper

My mind took me back to the first dream (that I described in ‘Elements of whatever’ yesterday). It was the setting and the setting was incomplete. I saw the two lanes, like esplanades going over the length of the town, parallel, but the road furthest away from the gorge was higher. Both streets had an abundance of tavern like cafe’s. There were all kinds of small shops in between, some selling books, some sold knick knacks and they were always next to a tavern. Filled with people talking, chatting and various kinds of idle conversations. The tables had coffee, they had some kind of wine, but much sweeter like grape juice. Fruity. People were having snacks, mostly breadsticks, some peppered. And I saw a boy run calling for its mother. At first I thought it as me, but my mother died decades ago. The road went on and swivelled towards houses, dozens of houses. Some look like log cabins, most looked like old fashioned French stone houses. Like they were build in the 18th century. The view was magnificent, like an image of Chicken Itza, but no ruins in the background. No roads and no noise. That was the missing part, the part of the noise that is at present EVERYWHERE. It took me a long time to figure it out. The zeppelins are not merely methods of moving, they are the only ones who can move there. Like Asia and South America. The people (the wealthy ones) had enough of the pollution, the seas washing the land away and the people hindering them. I wonder if this is part of Keno Diastima? It is possible, but I cannot tell at present. The land in some places will truly gain value. Land that is now seen as worthless, but it has something high priced land does not. It has CLEAN AIR, and it lacks people. Gated communities that cannot be reached by anything else than a zeppelin. Planes cannot land there, ships cannot get close and car cannot reach these places. The ultimate gated community. Places where there is no fear of war as it I away from everything the greed driven desire, certain players have removed themselves from the game and they are living out there lives surrounded by the things they care for. A book, a drink and a conversation with like minded people.

So what is this a part of? 

I am not certain yet, but if I am correct, these places will come up like mushrooms. Gated places protected and absent of what some would call the Riff-raff. Crime is dealt with directly and with deadly force, these people paid for protection and anyone stupid enough to try their luck will find themselves dealt with like the pirates of old.

It is a larger setting and it is a setting that is highly speculative, not real, optionally the setting of a story, but consider the places. Warm places where heating is not needed. Enough light to fuel solar banks and the zeppelins bring provisions and people. A new iteration of cogs, isolated from all the other worries. Some villages in tropical places and some in places where people enjoy the snow, absent of a lot of people. Can you honestly say that in a place with 8,000,000,000 that they all enjoy each others company? 

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April 12, 2022 · 05:30

Elements of whatever

Another dream, but this time it I different. I had part of this dream before. It did not make sense then and it does not now. Now is even more confusing. The stage is two fold. First the now, because I fear it will leave my mind quickly. I am not sure if it is for. Story, a script, a game or just isolation. I am at the transfer of Dutch KLM. The KLM desk is for a different plane, much larger. There is a PX store. I show a regimental image. I want that shield. I mention that a friend was there. The PX store shows me some wannabe self centred piece of crap. He states to me that the commander of that battalion was a traitor and as such he refuses to give me the shield. OK, I respond, I will talk to the press and ask for clarifications. The man signals another. That man tells me to come with him, with his hand menacing in the jacket. I was holding orange peels from an Orange I just ate. I squeeze them and the peels spray. I merely say ‘Biological!’ And I am gunned down. 

The event is trivial. I suddenly remember the boarding area, almost like a rocket launch from another dream. I pretended to be diplomatic staff. The plane seemed weirdly large. I have been on 747-400, this seemed a lot larger. In the previous flight it was from somewhere in Asia to South America. This I do not know. But the plane stuck. The boarding area stuck. The story seems to matter, there seems to be levels of arrogance, levels of over the top elevation in the boarding areas and it was all linked to Dutch KLM planes. Even now I am starting to remember other elements of the previous dream. The walls were like glass when I looked at them with glasses. They were from some metal. The plane was almost like a Hindenburg on steroids. The plane was like a small town. Like the shop area on a passenger liner. Rooms with chairs, two wide, by the windows, overlooking where we flew. In the Asian part it was overlooking beautiful green forests, mountains and a lot of oceans. It all seemed so peaceful. There are remembrance moments of ‘Murder on the Zinderneuf’ a who dunnit game based on a zeppelin. I wrote about that in ‘Shadows are Us’ (and a few other places), in this setting I wrote about a change to gaming (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/05/31/shadows-are-us/) which I wrote about n May 2021. This is not entirely the same. My mind is wondering if a return to the days of the zeppelin is too wrong a concept. The idea was abandoned during the marshmallow clambake of May 6, 1937, when the Hindenburg burned down. But that was in the era of Hydrogen, later we got Helium, but the need for speed overshadowed everything. Now, in a stage when we can ALWAYS be connected, we can work everywhere. Is speed really essential? We can all understand that we need presence in places at times. But how we get there is another matter. With the era of 3d printing, light weight shops and a more essential setting of what matters during flights, Consider the image below and the way the materials were made. 

newspaper clipping (date unknown) Diagram of Hindenburg living quarters.

Now we can have twice the strength at only half the weight making a zeppelin much more effective. The top of the zeppelin could have large solar cell panels fuelling batteries and the propellors pushing the zeppelin forward. Did anyone reconsider what a Zeppelin could achieve, especially with todays abilities? Even now Titanium is heavier than aluminium, yet you need a lot less Titanium to get the same strength as Aluminium. The stage is all over and the need for a reduced carbon print (or was that a bacon foot print) is out there. So why do we not look at the old ides and how we can offer a renewed idea for getting to places. It is just an idea and it was in parts fuelled by a game as well as its optional newly launched version on Amazon Luna, but I am genuinely surprised that no one has taken up the baton, why is that? I am no airplane designer, so why is this path abandoned? 

There might be reasons that mediocre me had not considered, I am willing to accept that, but the dream was weird and it came twice around. Even now the first dream comes back in waves even as the second one faded away. 

So is Helium a solution, or merely an element of whatever and no one gives a fig? I honestly do not know, but I do really like the idea of a steampunk version of the Zinderneuf, I really do.

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April 9, 2022 · 01:43

Struggle

We all struggle, I am no different, but my struggle is not with the having of stuff, not with the acquisition. It is with creation. I create I keep on creating, yet I see not the reason why I do things. It is not to show me how more advanced I am, how much more perfect or better I am. I create games, stories, movies, TV series and software. Yet, I cannot see why I am doing it. A lot is here in this blog, I have no need for some of it but in the back of my mind, it seems to be about more, and I have no idea what the links are. I am in the dark about WHY I am creating stuff. Is it about old tech? The printable display is there, but I have no idea why I came up with it. The Giggle water (two days ago) is mere fun, to see any liquid infused with nitrous oxide that releases the gas from the liquid on consuming it is fun, but I do not see why my mind is going that way. I see the stage why I went for the 5G, I am a technologist after-all, the new stage of marketing makes sense. Preparing myself for a wave that is inbound and that makes sense. Yet all around it are iterations of innovations and they are linked somehow, but I cannot yet see why they are there. And my mind is screaming to know the why, at times it is deafening.

Is it some delusional part to show Ubisoft I am better than any of them? It seems stupid, Guerrilla Software and Avalanche Software are doing that just fine and I am nowhere near that good. I am for the most a storyteller. Is it part of any story I was creating? Keno Diastima is doing fine for now. The large lines of three seasons are done, the smaller stories of season one are coming along and the large jumps that make for Season 2, and Season 3 are basically done. The end of season 3 remains and open end to the story. I feel it is a better end than milking the idea. The shock stage is what needs to be. That is how I feel it needs to be. Then there is the mini series Residuam Vitam, It is still developing. Some of the storylines are set, are shaped, the involvement of others are coming and so far I left Anubis out of the equation, I need his involvement to be near stellar, but there are gaps in what I know of Anubis from History and from theology. There is a stage from Hades that is now shaping, yet there is  form of duality that I want to explore, but it needs to be defined and I am wondering how to go about it. The part of Meng Po is almost done, but I feel that it needs her personal drive there. There needs to be something that pushes her. I want it to reflect on Lady Meng Jiang, there is the part we see with “Lady Meng Jiang heard nothing after his departure, so she set out to bring him winter clothes. Unfortunately, by the time she reached the Great Wall, her husband had already died. Hearing the bad news, she wept so bitterly that a part of the Great Wall collapsed, revealing his bones.” It is a nice fitting part, a nice piece of a puzzle making an image, but I feel that the image I see is a little different. You see she kept on pouring soup like it was a solution, it was the path to someplace. A set of the mind, a set of pieces of a puzzle, but not the ones any story give me (the parts out in the open), it is possible that Chinese writings give me more, but I do not know Chinese. There is a place that those who give service embrace, but I always felt that Meng Po was doing it to keep ahead of something, to go towards someone and I believe that her path was not set to one person, it was more but I cannot answer it by ‘weaving’ my own tale. Like the story of a game shapes the way we think, the way we perceive and the way we react. Like the technology that opens what we can see and what we could get. These parts seem to be connected somehow. This is not the problem. I feel that I am missing a larger piece of a puzzle, but it is not an image. It is like the puzzle is not an image but a film reel, or there is a 3rd dimension component I cannot see at present. Is it an innovation that is yet to come? Perhaps that is what the mind struggles with? Like a stonemason who has his block of marble. He knows that three more pieces need to be removed, but he cannot see the three pieces. That is how it feels, but there is still another part, it is not as simple as three pieces, and that is where I struggle. It is like there is something just out of view, I see shimmers of what I am supposed to see, but that is as good as it gets. And there I struggle still.

We all do at times, it is what we want to achieve, it is why we want to achieve and for the creators it is not bout the money, it is about the creation, it is ego. I fought ego my entire life, I never accepted it within myself, but I have ego, we all do, the delusional ones think that they are above it, but they are not. In this I personally believe that Vladimir Putin is the latest folly of ego, it slapped him down and he remains in ‘hiding’. In his mind a two bit place like the Ukraine cannot stop the Russian bear and the fact that they did is scaring him, his own ego defeated him and it is more about defeat than anything else. If my ego is to be about success and not failure I need to push myself past ego, my struggle for me is real, I get that and that struggle is more than a fight, overcoming it will open doors to ideas. And that is where I find myself. What idea did my brain work out that I as a person cannot see yet? That is the struggle for me and you face your own struggles, we all do. It is how we go about our struggles, that sets the definition of success or defeat. I do not mind losing, but to be defeated by my own brain is weird. It is not sabotaging me, it is teaching me to look in other directions. I just have no idea in what direction I am supposed to look, lets face it, do you?

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