It’s time someone else did a bit now. Several of the characters are industrialists, now someone can perhaps get them together at the conference. We can carry on with Flarsh’s view or we can break away from the alien and deal with things from the Terran or Earthling point of view for some time. I’ve left things very open ended so other writers can develop the story a bit. Proxima Centauri 09:10, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Collaboration, learn by doing, finding useful rules and methods[]
Flarsh walked round Central Park, it could make itself look like an Earthling but could never properly understand Earthlings, well let's say it often felt as strange about Earthlings as many of us feel about aliens. Flarsh bumped into Adam Stanley and could feel there was something bad about him. There was something angry and destructive as well as the Earthling strangeness. Flarsh tried to probe the strange mind of Stanley and found Stanley was going to some type of conference. What was a conference of industrialists? Flarsh couldn’t grasp the alien Earthlings concepts. Others in the park were also going to that conference. A group were in a huddle discussing business, commerce, economics, what on Earth was all that? Who were they? Anyway it was a big conference, the type of meeting that used to happen at the World Trade Center. Flarsh could sense some deep regret deep pain connected with the World Trade Center.
Any rule that authors can write only for their own character is unworkable as someone has to write sections where several characters interact. Despite this the section that I wrote above broke any workable rule because I wrote it from the point of view of Flarsh and my character is Adam Stanley. I rewrote it and introduced Stanley and Flarsh as before but this time I focused on Stanley. MaximusfuqwitII is free to change things if he doesn't like it.
- I think the "write only for your own character" rule can be made to work. First, this is a wiki: everything written for this project can be viewed as a draft. In particular, if I write something about a character other than my own, it can always be changed. So, if someone writes something about your character, view it as a suggestion and make any changes to that suggestion that you want to make (including: totally reject the suggestion). It might be best to first discuss your ideas for other characters. Second, we can make use of IRC chat as a tool for collaborative authoring. For example, this page section was created by using IRC. So, if you want to have two or more characters engage in a conversation, consider using IRC to plan and create the dialog. --JWSchmidt 17:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
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First of all apologies for not being in IRC today. I did not intend to cause a problem with the rule against writing for other characters but was using it to make collaboration a requirement. I believe we can do this in IRC or with an email thread. Above all I wanted to try and make myself and others participate in some real time (IRC) or at least threaded (email) collaboration where we can quickly edit things. If we can not do these things then of course we can always collaborate across the wiki in the traditional style. I understand that people are not always available, myself as an example on the day that I picked. That's life. Apologies. MaximusfuqwitII 04:01, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
- I just spent the past week with a sinus infection, headache, and inability to think about the story.... "collaboration at the speed of life" might as well be the motto for all wiki collaborations. --JWSchmidt 20:34, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Question about nanoprobes[]
The story's open. Can the nanoprobes that enslave Exta Ghantesvara read Stanley's mind and find out what he's been doing that's naughty? That's for a different writer to decide. Proxima Centauri 17:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- The nanites that are associated with Exta do not provide a true "mind reading" or telepathic ability. Under favorable conditions the nanites can enter a person's brain and be used to recognize specific patterns of brain activity that correspond to a particular "thought" or emotion. Such recognition of specific thought patterns depends on, for example, hearing someone talk about a specific topic while simultaneously matching that speech behavior to its corresponding pattern of brain activity. In this case, it is probably enough for Exta to infest Stanley with a nanite probe that will stay with him and monitor his activities and send reports back to Exta. Exta often tries to befriend people who are targets of her study in order to expand her range of contacts and create new opportunities for identifying and observing people who are having a significant impact on the development of technologies and cultures on Earth. In general, she only observes, but one of the key rules that govern Observers is that an effort should be made to prevent technologically advanced intelligences on planets with active ecosystems from damaging those ecosystems. Thus, observation performed by Exta on Stanley could lead to a response from extraterrestrials aimed at limiting the damage Stanley can do to Earth's biosphere. --JWSchmidt 02:46, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
- Someone else should add the next section. Proxima Centauri 12:14, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Bible Belt Christianity[]
I've made this too much into a polemic against fundamentalist Christianity and I suspect that discouraged writers who believe in Christianity, even liberal Christians may be discouraged. Proxima Centauri 10:52, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps we should ask the others if they are comfortable writing about hypocrisy and general harm in the Bible Belt. I don't attack Liberal Christians or other religions unless I can see evidence of harm. Evidence of harm in the Bible Belt.
- I'm wondering if we could allow this story to examine the question of "Christianity and environmentalism". It might be interesting to explore the implications of "Fundamentalist Christianity" for efforts to deal with issues such as global warming. Why should people who hope the "world will soon end" care about a rising sea level? Rather than focus on "harm in the Bible Belt", can we shift the target up to the global level? --JWSchmidt 20:58, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm tired of reading material in Conservapedia about how Republican Conservative Christians shouldn't consider global warming and should concentrate on saving souls instead. Iwould be very happy to write the story that way but would the other writers? Proxima Centauri 10:51, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm putting the two pieces that have been written so far together tentatively. Proxima Centauri 10:51, 29 April 2009 (UTC)