Wisdom From A wandering mad scientist.

POSITAWESOMISM: A NEW RELIGION IS BORN.

     In the next 5 minutes after reading this post you will witness the birth of a new religion. I'm going to try to define a set of world views from scratch. 

      I am doing this because in this day and age we tend to get drowned out in the arguments between the major labels in the religion debate that we tend to overlook that it is we as conscious human beings who have to make the final decision of exactly what to believe in. 

      So here is my attempt at creating a something to believe in.

Inspired by this video

      Positawesomism is what I will call it, I know its quite a mouth full but hold on, we're just getting started. It is described by the words "positive" and "awesome" which are its central pillars. A good start, that's 3 less than Islam.

     First I need a theme. I'll do away with applying a typical "theism" concept and instead choose to build a set of philosophies like Buddhism. It is a group of fundamental principles that can be summarized in as few sentences as possible.

    10 is way too many and we know that 10 doesn't always work. So I will go with just 2. They have to be relevant now and they have to be relevant when humanity is colonizing Alpha Centauri. Those two core principles are.

1. Stay positive.

2. Keep moving forward.

      Like the name implies this new religion of mine is about staying positive. All adherents must strive to become decent human beings. Since religions often copy from each other this is inclusive of the popular Wheatonism philosophy of "Don't be a dick".

      Positive behaviour is encouraged while anything that hurts the believer, other believers and even Apositawesomists are shunned. There is no sinning in Positawesomism because of the second pillar.

    The second pillar of Positawesomism is to always keep moving forward. Positawesomists are encouraged to become better and better people on a daily basis. This is also an idea taken from other competing religions but the only difference here is that curiosity is heavily encouraged. Not just curiosity in Science but in all manner of disciplines. Say today you don'y know how to dance. You become curious about it and you go out to learn how to dance. Every new bit of new knowledge learned contributes to the overall experience of being a Positawesomist.

Every Religion needs a Good Story.

     Every religion needs a great myth that might or might not be true. This is step 2. The myth that I intend to create is called "Children of the Stars". A long time ago great celestial beings died in a cataclysmic cosmic flame. The essence of these star beings eventually became "Life" after thousands of years of being moulded by the grand spirit of Cosmic Evolution. 

      The descendants of these beings discovered that they could actually connect with their Cosmic heritage by simply staying positive and moving forward. These creatures started movements on their home planet to deepen their understanding of the ancient and vast Cosmos that they came from. They created Science, Art, Music and Language to understand one another, their world and their connection with Positawesomism.

     All Positawesomists walk "The Path" that begins at birth and ends at death. "The Path" is the believers journey of staying positive and moving forward which will ultimately connect them with the Universe. This feeling of connection itself is the reward of walking "The Path". It is similar to the Dharma in Hinduism but with more emphasis on understanding the believers position in all physical reality.

     Now that's a creation myth.

All Positawesomists walk "The Path"

 
     Step 3 which is my final step will be to chose a propagation method. Islam has birth and marriage and Christianity has the Jehovah's witnesses (much good that has done them). For my choice method of propagation I choose the Internet. The internet has become the main battleground for conventional religions and for the most part it has become a battleground that they consistently end up losing. My religion takes the internet and uses it to its advantage. Wherever there may be a Redditor sharing knowledge to help others, that is where Positawesomism flourishes. Wherever there is a YouTube video teaching skills or expanding a community that's where Positawesomist energy will be. 

     There's just no stopping it.

     So there it is. My new age religion called Positawesomism. In 5 minutes I've created something that might live forever and because of how the Internet works a part of it will live forever. Most religions have a shelf life depending on whether they are adaptable to change. Positawesomism takes the best qualities of modern religions, does away with all the BS and simply tells people to live long, prosper and keep looking up.

     Sometimes that's all the timeless wisdom we need.

Sincerely,
SonOfTerra92
First Grand Puba of the Church of Positawesomism. (It's not really a church, more of a commune really)

16/17/2013

So this video happened about a month ago.

     It was a fun video to make but it was a bit too spontaneous for its own good. I was moving out of my apartment and decided to go on a sudden night time adventure since the date of my leaving coincided with the peak of the 2013 Perseids meteor shower in my city.

    I had as much fun making the video with my friends as I did thinking of the grand ideas I wanted to present on that night by the lake as the meteor shower fell in over our heads. In the end, the video was shot well enough. I definitely tried to channel my inner Brian Cox.

Sadly not a pic from that night, but what I wouldn't give to capture something like this.

     Reverie aside, I felt a tinge of disappointment as I was splicing the video together weeks later. Because of the level of spontaneity of the video I did not have long to prepare the material that I wanted to deliver regardless of how inspired I was to deliver it on that night.


    YouTube is hard work, you would think that I would be thoroughly seasoned in this after all these years. Some things just end up getting lost between planning and execution. Its like channel interference in a communication system. But after all that I have been through I have managed to pick up a thing or two.



      The main idea that ultimately inspired me to make a video that night was this sense of interconnectedness that we all share with the universe that we live in. This connection exists whether we realize it or not. It is found in how our existence has been shaped by the Universe that we occupy and in how we are now able to greatly affect the state of our own tiny little part of that Universe that we call Earth.

More than just being a part of the Universe, we are the Universe. It is inside us.

     In ancient times the arrival of an interplanetary  traveller like a comet would normally be considered an omen heralding some sort of special event like the death of a king or the fall of an empire. Human beings have always sought to connect themselves with the world they live in. In times where we lacked the proper knowledge to build a more or less accurate connection we created stories and rituals to bridge the gap in our relationship with the world around us.

      For most of the time we didn't know any better. We didn't know how connected we truly were. We didn't know that the building blocks for life on Earth could have been seeded by a similar cometary traveller billions of years ago. We didn't know that those same building blocks were created from the nuclear hearts of massive stars that had to die just so that we could live. For most of the time it was just the big bad scary Universe and the humans. Only our made up stories gave us some hope for a connection to any of it despite the much richer reality that persisted all along.

It doesn't matter whether it makes you feel big or small. You a living part of it.

      Through Science we are now able to tap into that deeper reality to discover that we live a world of "nearly impossible possibilities" and that we have become connected to that world by our consciousness and curiosity.

      The universal nature of Science provides a way of bridging that gap in understanding more than any made up story ever could and ever will. It brings us closer than ever before to the meteor shower, to the stars we see at night, to the particles that coalesce to make us up and ultimately closer to ourselves and every other human being on planet Earth. 

      On that night as the meteor shower rained above us I wondered of all the humans that had ever seen a meteor shower and the meteor shower itself. I thought of how much more related the two really were, and in a Universe that may not be made for us ...

       It was much closer than we would normally think.

Sincerely,
SonOfTerra92

1/10/2013       

Hey there World, So this video totally happened. It was not what I had originally planned for the moment but I feel that it has its own special place.

And here is the script.

It is perhaps one of the most important questions that we are faced with since learning of our true place in the Universe:

Are we alone?

It is a question that persisted in our ancestors who could only scarcely dream of understanding the true meaning of the lights in the night sky.

And even today we still wonder…

Could the Cosmos be alive with the music of intelligent life?

The billion dollar question: Are we alone in the Universe?

Only recently, in the latter half of the past century have we developed “a means” of truly answering this grandest of questions.

And that method is called Radio.

The search for a common medium of communication: Radio.

 While our ancestors were stuck with mere speculation, modern human civilization has acquired the capacity of tuning into the surrounding noise that fills our universe in an attempt to detect the radio signature of advanced civilizations hidden among the stars.

We do this by listening for radio signals with very unique frequencies. The radio signals we’re interested in exist within a special range of the electromagnetic spectrum which makes them noticeably different from the background noise emitted by the rest of the Universe. The holy grail of this search is the detection of a “narrowband” signal, a signal with a constrained frequency bandwidth. We use similar signals to communicate on Earth and we're hoping that if extraterrestrials exist, that they would do the same.

We've only been listening for a comparatively short period of time, and within a select array of frequencies. Could we actually be in the middle of an intergalactic conversation right now, at a time when we have the chance to listen in?

IS intelligence prominent throughout the Universe ? Or is it a rarity ?

Science, Technology and The Laws of Nature can provide common ground for two very different beings to become aware of each other.  Just as it has connected and unified the billions of human souls on Earth, Radio technology may provide a way for life separated across the vastness of time and space to communicate.

No other means of communication that we can yet derive from the laws of nature is faster. No other means is cheaper and easier to implement. Even civilizations that have yet to fully master interstellar space travel can still afford an extensive radio detection program as evident in our own civilization.

It all depends on where our priorities are. So far our most dedicated program to listen for signals from outer space called SETI (The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) costs less than one predator attack drone a year.

<predator drone video>

Where do our priorities lay?

But perhaps a much more interesting notion than just listening for extraterrestrial signals is the possibility that we've made ourselves noticeable to the wider galactic community. For the past 110 years we've been leaking our own radio signals into outer space. Right now there exists a Radio Sphere 200 light-years in diameter surrounding our planet. Although at longer distances the signals would be too weak to carry any significant information, nearby civilizations with the capability of sifting through the static might still be able to learn of our presence granted they have radio technology and a shared curiosity to listen to the Stars.

Endless distances to venture off to, could one one of those horizons contain beings that ponder the same questions as us?

Just as we are now listening for evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial beings, could they also in turn be listening for us? In due time we will finally be able to answer that question and determine whether we truly are alone or whether the Cosmos is alive with signs of life.

<Outro>

Space Jesus, Darwin and the death of Metropolis *cough *cough New York *cough *coughA look at man of steel

The Superman reboot is here, and its good, but ...

     I don’t want to take a look at what the movie did well as much as I want to take a look at what awkwardly stood out to me. As they say “The devil is in the details:” In summary the movie was a fun ride, managing to elicit genuine emotional responses  in the beginning as we see a young and totally ripped Henry Cavil as Clark Kent searching for his true self. In my opinion it totally resonated more to the DC fan-boy in me than as a casual movie watcher. The action scenes were well done (although a bit too flashy for perfection) and the prop and costume design deserves an article of praise on its own (General Zod’s armour was a masterpiece), A solid film with very few notable downsides throughout its 3 hour running time.

Props to the props =)

     What really struck me throughout the movie was how very “American” they depicted the titular character as. In the beginneing Jor – El played by Russell Crowe keeps saying that his his son Kal – EL (Superman) was to become “the light” or “the beacon of hope” of the whole human race. But throughout the movie the travels and adventures of our Man of Steel only ever does revolve around America with a little detour to the Arctic and the Indian Ocean once he had finally figured it all out. I understand that this is after all an American movie and Superman is an iconic “American” character but still with an opening scene as spectacular as the one presented and characters as epic as the set-up gave I was kind of hoping for a little more depth. Once a Kansas country boy always a Kansas country boy I guess. As the movie picks up one of the ground breaking fight scenes even leads the character to the front of a Sears outlet. What can be more American than that? 

How about a McDonalds in A Wal-Mart in Texas which unfortunately does not make it into the movie. Sigh.

     You could say that since this is just the first movie in a possible series of Man of Steel movies you won’t get to see Superman come into his own as “the savior” of the human race. But when Metropolis looks a hell-a lot like New York (Grand Central Station included) you can’t help feel that this Man of Steel wouldn't look out of place restoring the Star Spangled Banner on the top of a ravaged White House ala the end of Superman 2.

     Another scene that I found to be worthy of this commentary because of my status as a non-believer was when Superman comes out to his local padre that he was the one the bad Kryptonians were looking for. As the world came under threat by an ominous alien spacecraft holding orbit overhead an uncertain Clark Kent seeks counsel from a pastor at a nearby church, the camera pans and represented in a clear mosaic is an image of The Saviour next to “the saviour  as I was mentioning earlier. I cringe, that was just one among many other factors like Kal-EL being the last “child” of Krypton that really hammered home the idea that the writers were trying build this Superman as a form of space Jesus character, and sure enough the man of the cloth advised our intrepid hero to take a leap of “faith”.

The Saviour unsurprisingly much like the story of Superman.

The last scene that kind of ticked me off was during the fight between Sub-Commander Faora and Superman. As a powerful  fighter she is at the core of the fiction a member of a powerful technical civilization that had overcome every challenge that we as a Type 0 civilization is only beginning to confront (every challenge save for the one that eventually became their demise of course). As the two mighty powerhouses brawled in the streets of a country town Superman’s female adversary actually said something along the lines of  “You will lose Kal-El, your morality makes you week. Evolution has shown it.” which induced a second cringe on my part. I don’t really know where that line came from but if I have gotten anything from watching Richard Dawkins documentaries like The Root of all Evil and Sex Death and the Meaning of Life is that morality doesn't make you weak, it’s one of the  traits of an intelligent species that actually makes that species stronger. It adds to survival value in critical situations. It is not a crutch to it.

A cold an efficient killer, But a character without morals?

All in all, looking past the religious connotations and opposition to "morality" I really enjoyed the amount of legitimate Sci-fi that made the movie stand out. I wish there could have been more. This type of new age approach to superheroes brought to life by powerful digital effects and cinematography has a lot of potential. I actually came to take this movie as “First Contact” Sci-Fi scenario foremost and as a superhero flick second despite it featuring the most iconic of all modern caped crusaders. That’s how appealing that these stories can become and that’s where I think the future of these movies is.

Sincerely, 
SonOfTerra92,

23/6/2013

Currently working on something big for the holidays =)

Old video for now, New ones coming Soon ...

Always good for lonely nights.

Quantum Mechanics and The Pursuit of Happiness,

     The story that I am about to tell started off on the wings a serendipitous thought that eventually grew into something golden in my mind. It was born from an exchange between minds that has since dawned on me a new perspective on the wonder of the unknown.

     Science has always been a journey from ignorance to clarity. It is a journey that constantly bears the potential to shape us into beings more in-tune with the world around us. This journey may take us to unexpected places and new worlds undreamt of before. 

     This is the story of my journey into the unknown.

More than just a series of facts, Science is how we question the world.

     It all began on a rainy afternoon as I was going through the motions of another lecture class. This time I found myself tackling the subject matter of Dynamic Programming a branch of knowledge derived from the larger umbrella field of Operations Research. Operations Research gives us various mathematical approaches that can be used to solve real world optimization problems. Dynamic Programming allows us to logically derive the best possible policy from many different permutations of existing conditions.

Operations Research: Reducing possibilities to the most sustainable reality.

     I was sitting at the front of the lecture hall as as time wound itself down towards the end of the lecture when a sudden thought manifested itself in my mind. If Dynamic Programming could allow us to make decisions that guaranteed the highest pay-off granted we had all the necessary variables to do the math, would it be possible for a person with knowledge of all the variables of life to optimize and acquire most awesome of all possible existences.

     Theoretically this person could die (or perhaps even not) without ever regretting a single event that he or she has ever lead since every decision was guaranteed to be acquire the best result. This person would end up with the most fulfilling career, choose to be with people that loved him or her the most and perhaps even get through life without ever getting hurt once.

     During the break I posed my question of the imaginary man to my instructor Mr. Gan, explaining the conditions that I had come up with. His initial answer was that by all means the scenario was possible and that nothing within the deeper theory of operations research was against it.

     But there was a catch (because there's always a catch) ...

From Uncertainty to Confusion to Clarity and then more Uncertainty ...

     The scenario that I proposed would never ever come to be realised because of the laws of Quantum Mechanics. These were his words exactly. "But according to Quantum Mechanics no"lah" (the lah is local Malaysian slang we add to accentuate the end of a sentence), because of the Uncertainty principle we will never ever arrive at a point where we know all of the variables."

     I did not expect him to answer my question like that. In all honesty Quantum Mechanics was the last place that I thought the middle aged University lecturer would go to for an answer and I was supposed to be the resident 'Quantum Guy'. 

      I went back to my seat both stunned and surprisingly satisfied. A friend of mine who was present when I asked the question was equally taken by the response. Here's part of the short exchange that followed.

Me: Well that was really something. I didn't think that was going to
       be his answer.

Friend:  I guess its true what they say, these FOE lecturers are 
             indeed a crazy bunch. But its not easy to find the ones
             that can give approach a question like that. Mr Gan is 
             freaking awesome.

Me: Yeah but it kinda does make sense, I mean according to the 
       Uncertainty principle the more you know about one type of
       parameter the less you know about another in the  
       end we wont really know anything, lolz. I guess
       Quantum Mechanics would weigh in larger overall

Friend: Yeah and no one fucks with Quantum Mechanics. Not 
           even Einstein.

Me: And in this case not even the theoretical being I came up  
       with. 

     And what of our theoretical man and his pursuit of a perfect life. You don't need a scientist to tell you that "perfect" is the domain of theory and speculation. It is most likely true that not a soul in the world will ever get it all right, with or without the use of Operations Research and Quantum Mechanics. This is where life fills us with its greatest mystery, the mystery of not knowing.

     The mystery of Uncertainty.

The main question it to maximise happiness with respect to the constraints of life but what happens when the  constraints are near infinite ?

    In light of all of this I would like to bring up (again as I did in a post one year ago) the late Richard Feynman and his view on the unknown. It was not a problem for him to live in a world of uncertainties. In fact he preferred it that way. Richard Feynman found life to be more interesting with mysteries and hidden variables instead of knowing every answer to all the important questions. That's why he never bought in to organised religion. That's why he was a scientist.

Not afraid of not knowing. For scientists the thrill of the mystery is enough ...

    I draw in conclusion that as human beings it is part of our nature to look for answers to the unknown. We are always in search of some foresight that can give us more control over what lies ahead. Unlike the Christian prophet Jesus Christ who "allegedly" told his followers in Matthew 6:34 to take no thought for the morrow I would argue that we do need to take thought for the uncertainties of tomorrow by answering them with the actions of today and we need to do this regardless of whether we end up answering the questions that we started off with. 

     It is perhaps true regarding the story of science, that we will never know everything about everything. In spite of it all and against all odds human beings will continue to forge down this road because of the pull of adventure, the rush of discovery and the thrill of mystery that awaits us at every turn.

Sincerely,
SonOfTerra92

Written on 
29/5/2013

Published
14/5/2013

Darwin Day Coverage

Once Again from the Top, But now for the first time.

     I was off the other weekend enjoying a polemic between two very differing ideas. It was a discussion that I had already followed several times over online but had never gotten the chance to experience first hand. After all the time I had spent watching Christians, Atheists and Muslims go about on the issue of the origins of life, intelligent design and evolution on YouTube I finally got the chance to catch a real discussion (with real people) on the issue. Although the conversation eventually turned out exactly how I had recalled it from the umpteenth video, with both sides pulling the same punches and going through the same motions I do admit that after the dust had settled I did gain some valuable insight that could help to further the freethinker cause and  communicate science more effectively.

     The title of this post is a nod off to one of my favourite study-casts (That thing you listen to while you study so that you don't die from abject boredom) known as The Thinking Atheist. The host of which is a hero of mine named Seth Andrews who once said that debates with religious people usually run down to the same old premises one way or another. He likened this to a repetitive holiday jingle that everyone knows the words to and can't help sing along with once the rhythm sets in. That repetitive nature of the discussion is what I refer to when I say "Once again from the top." comparing it to the stanza of a timeless song. Whether it is irreducible complexity, cause for a designer or a fine tuned universe the exchange is always limited to the same cycle of contentions and counter contentions. The only difference this time was that I was there to witness it in person.

      I am not going to invest in telling the whole story of how the debate hosted by the APOSL's (The Advocates for the Propagation of Scientific Literacy) went down. There are plenty of good YouTube videos available for you to get educated with over a lazy afternoon for that but I will take a look at the more defining moments well as the implications of those moments.

But if you are interested here is the video.

     What really struck me during the debate was the age difference between the two contending sides. Representing "Intelligent Design" on one side was an ageing and wizened university geology/biology (oh the irony) professor and an ever charismatic Christian apologist. On the other side were two youths born of the information age, one of whom was a girl just fresh out of high-school. The contrasting age composition between the two sides clearly reflects the real world demographic shift of the younger generation gravitating towards the the freethinker movement. 

The young, the headstrong, the bold.

The wizened, the seasoned, the old.

     Another important moment in the debate was when the professor out of all people used the fine tuning argument and said that if Earth were only a little bit closer to the Sun then it would become incinerated and if it were a little farther away then it would freeze over. Immediately a hand shot out from among the audience as someone interjected the professor and corrected him by saying that the habitable zone afforded by the Sun can extend all the way out to near the orbit of Mars. This brazen attitude to challenge authoritative figures in defence of the truth  revealed the true colours of my fellow Malaysian  sceptics. These were my kind of people, ballsy, unafraid and unapologetic. 

     They knew their stuff too, they didn't even have to stop to Google it.

Young hearts and minds continue to fight for the future of Reason, Scepticism and Logic.

So what's your point ? 

     After looking back at the whole event I think that it is time for the freethinker movement to adapt beyond the tact of pure "mythbusting". It is suffice to say that the real evidence is already on our side but more than knowledge we need compassion. It sometimes seemed as if we were the kind of people that think too much but feel too little. What we need is is  to make a move towards putting the "human" back in "human"ism.

It is the people that will make this movement shine and these are among some of my favourite people on the planet.  Wherever the reasonable path may take me, I know I do not walk alone.

     In order for this movement to succeed it has to move beyond the arena of mere confrontational polemics both online and off. It's great when the giants secularism like The Four Hoursemen (Three now. Rest in peace Hitch) get involved in grand debates but when it comes to making a difference in the trenches of ordinary life we have to consider a more subtle approach. We need to hold the moral and social high ground. We need to be every bit as open and accommodating as religious people.

     Beyond the clashes that occur in cyberspace there needs to be a common movement that can precede the actual wave of change. Social groups like the APOSLs are a great way of building strong foundational links between both the freethinker community and the "normies" (every day people). By uniting everyone in a shared appreciation for science we can show the public that we are a much more progressive cause than people usually brand us to be. It also helps to show the public that we are just about as normal as everyone else and that we don't eat babies.

Future Prospects

     There is cause for a lot of concern when we look at the challenges that mark the path ahead. Organised religion still holds substantial influence in the lives of many humans across the globe. Despite the turmoil, I believe that there is a wider world ready to be awakened to a new dawn of reason and through the weekend I was shown what kind of people will be leading the charge against the anarchy that seeks to consume us all.

     The debates may persist, more questions will still be asked. There is still a lot to do.

     There will be a day when we are no longer needed. That will be the day when organised religion is no longer a part of our world. The humans that will populate that world will be much different from us having dealt with all the challenges that come with growing up from the adolescence of our civilization, but they will remember the freethinkers and sceptics that made the stand at the beginning of the 21st century and their perilous struggle for a better tomorrow.

Yours Truly, in attendance.

     The future is waiting to be awakened.

Sincerely,
SonOfTerra92
Cyberjaya
4/9/2013

I'll be gone from the front for the next few days. Here is a video update to pass the time =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr0sM1fcD7U

Will be back to produce more awesome, soon enough ...

Halo: Glasslands book review.

     We here at Science Epic do love a good romp around the stars sci-fi story, and that's exactly what Halo: Glasslands brings to the table: a good romp around the stars, although weighed down by an occasionally cluttered pacing and fictional inconsistencies Karen Traviss's attempt at the Halo license (A license that is now over a decade old) brings enough to the table to bring provide an engaging read.

     So here it is, my review of Halo : Glasslands, we'll take a look at everything the novel has to offer exploring The Good, The Bad and The Sangheili (waited a long time for that one).

The Good

      I admit there was a bit of fanboyism trailing the read of this novel. Karen Travis is no stranger to contributing to sci-fi universes with well established backgrounds. With experience scribing lore for both Star Wars and Gears of War I was eager to see what kind of contribution the seasoned author would make to the Halo universe. That and the fact the story arc would follow the much acclaimed 2006 novel Halo: Ghosts of Onyx. I was all too eager to jump in and continue the story of such notable characters as CPO Mendez (of which I have a Steam account named after) and Dr. Catherine Halsey.

     The story take place after the events of Halo 3, closing the story arc of humans (UNSC) versus  a group of religious alien fanatics (The Covenant) so the stage is already already set for a lot of bitter tension and  clashing emotions. As the two sides start to pick up the pieces of their shattered worlds a lot of old hatreds start to re-emerge and for some the war was not truly over. The story can be considered a mirror of the clandestine operations conducted during modern times especially the Cold War. Karen Traviss no doubt took inspiration from America's own campaign of gun running to morally unsavoury anti socialist factions during during that time period for the backdrop of the story but instead of  despicable humans that want to kill each other you get fanatical aliens that want to kill their fellow kin over ideological differences. This conflict drives a lot of the suspense  behind the actions undertaken by Kilo 5 an ONI black ops team. 

     One thing that I realised off the get go is that this was definitely not another Ghosts of Onyx. Everything here is more cloak and dagger than than rip roaring action, which is a good thing because of how the author portrays the workings of the factions involved. It was interesting to see two different sides to the UNSC represented by ONI and FLEETCOM. I think that this is where the author shines in defining a part of the Halo universe as well as building up the stakes for the characters involved. This is also where some of the more memorable parts of the book come from with characters such as Admiral Parangosky and Serin Osman starkly contrasting that of Fleet Admiral Hood.

     The book does try to keep the reader engaged by running multiple storylines simultaneously. This has been done in many other works of contemporary fiction and although the attempt here is far from flawless (as I will explain in The Bad) I do feel that I was thoroughly engaged by the story particularly midway through the book. I was definitely most interested in the story arc involving Halsey's team stranded on a Forerunner Dyson Sphere (Real science FTW) as I felt that there was more depth to the characters involved. The plot ties up neatly at the end uniting the various subplots together while hinting at some new ones in preparation for a sequel.

The Bad

      With all that said, the book does get some things wrong. There were problems in the writing that were not crippling to the overall readability of the book but may come out as obvious flaws for serious Halo buffs.

     One of the more obvious flaws in the story was the pacing. I felt as if the author spent a lot of time and effort building up to the end so much so that by the time I got there my reaction to the climax was rather lacklustre. I was expecting more. The end made me feel as if the author wanted to make a book that begged a sequel but not in the 'this story is interesting and I want too know more' fashion but the 'this story is interesting but has left me rather unsatisfied and I need more closure'. The end definitely needed a bit more to it seeing as how the only one character that got anything akin to closure ended up incarcerated. If you have ever watched Ridley Scott's Prometheus then you probably have an idea of how I felt by the end. Perhaps the author purposely intended for it to be that way, I won't know until I read The Thursday War.

     One of the problems that I found with the Kilo 5 story arc was that some of the characters were often one dimensional, The team as a whole had a lot of appeal but I felt that some of the ODST characters were a bit forced. One of them was just the group's designated driver. The other two got rage induced revenge boners every time they dissected a piece of intel on the Spartan program. They took up the black ops job offer knowing that they would come into contact with some really unsavoury information on what their own governments had done but then suddenly they want to go all vigilante justice for the sake human decency. I guess someone didn't hand them the proper job description. All of which makes for half baked emotional struggles that I feel could have been done better.

      With a universe as wide and diverse as Halo inconsistencies are bound to occur. This being the authors first contribution to the lore I wasn't surprised to find some parts of the novel out of sync with the wider fiction.  In one part of the novel you find Jiralhanae (brutes)  coexisting with the Sangheili's which I think could have been made to fit better in the context of a post war relationship if the Jiralhanae were some sort of free lancing privateer type (which would have been interesting to contemplate) but nothing more was mentioned on that.

The Sangheili

     I had picked up this novel expecting to get a glimpse of two civilizations in the fallout of a galaxy threatening event. With the Covenant destroyed its client races end up having to re-learn the tricks of functioning as independent space faring civilizations. For some like the Kig-Yar this was easy as they were never really Jesus freaks to begin with but for others like the Sangheili warrior race of the Coveneant the challege of rebuilding is far more difficult. The Sangheili find themselves in a very tough spot after having dedicated their entire species to becoming soldiers. Even simple tasks like farming and repairing their ships become arduous labours what more fighting a civil war. I found that to be an interesting theme with more depth than the whip, boom, pow situations that the Halo universe typically presents to its fans. It is almost on a level of classic hard sci-fi how the issue of running a space faring civilization is explored in the book and it actually made me wet my lips for more. Unfortunately that theme was only barely explored during the early stages of the book.

     The Sangheilis were a proud and powerful race but after the war they were left with nothing but their pride. In whatever stories to come that pride will no doubt become the seeds for their  further downfall. I think Halo: Glasslands provides a lesson in humility in the story of the Sangheili that despite their ferocity they were defeated by simple cunning and deception.

     If anything the book should be commended on its daringness to explore such a unique alien culture. A culture that gave rise to a race of aliens that  would normally be lost on fans of the game as just another enemy type to be blown away. I think that the Sangheili themselves were as much a "character" of the novel as Serin Osman of Kilo 5 or Dr. Halsey was.

Conclusion

     All in all the book as a decent read. Was I completely satisfied with my 35.90 ringgit purchase?  Pretty much, but I do feel that the licence deserves better. Perhaps there is more to be offered from Karen Traviss in The Thursday War. That's all from me. SonOfTerra92 signing off, I'll see you on the Infinity. 

Score: 3/5

Horizons, confessions and new perspectives.

Latest Science Epic Videos =)
 

     Science Epic gets philosophical, insanely emotional, and then just insane …

The Walking Disaster.

I apologize for letting this medium of self expression die off for a while; I've been living on a different plane of existence lately, a plane suffused with copious amounts of confusion and despair. I had contemplated suicide for a while (as I always do) but then I realized that there is still a lot more worth breathing for, living for, fighting for. 

Here I am once again back from the brink with the task of rebuilding my vision for tomorrow. It’s a start. From where I had stood merely weeks ago it seemed as if there was going to be no tomorrow.

While I was adrift for the past few weeks I got a chance to re-examine myself and my priorities. It was not an easy thing to do. For starters, I woke up for the first time in my life and realized that I was tired of “thinking”. Of all the humans that inhabit planet Earth I was the one tired of thinking. As a person that had come to embrace the cold hard truth of our lonely existence in the Cosmos during my late teens and early adulthood I was the one who was tired of thinking? It was a thought that I found hard to reconcile and to quote Neil Degrasse Tyson one that made me “stop dreaming” about tomorrow.

      It was not a fun time.

For the first time ever this picture looked dull.

Out of all the emotions that I had experienced during the past few weeks none were more unrelenting on my psyche than fear and sadness. I feared that I would never break free of the abysmal pit that I had dug for myself and I was sad that I had no other alternatives to choose (other than a permanent one but then again this is pretty much a temporary problem). I had always thought that I was above being held back by emotions. My life hasn't really been smooth sailing for the past few years and despite the composure  I try to portray in my Science Epic videos, I'm pretty much a wreck behind the scenes (Just ask my room-mate. You would think that I would have my own self disappointment wrapped up after being dragged down by the weight of my own failures for more than half a decade but that isn't the case. I'm just pretty much a perpetual mope these days and I think I think I have finally passed the point of no return.

            As a result of passing this psychological event horizon I have since abandoned many of my long term hopes and dreams except the ones I had picked up relatively recently. A year ago I was fighting hard to achieve something that I no longer believe in today (that wouldn't be a first though. I've given up some popularly held beliefs before and it actually made me feel better). But what occurred to me as I fought my way through the haze of smoke and fire in my mind was that I finally realized that I was the victim. All along I had thought that I was the problem that needed fixing through strict regimentation and mental reprogramming. All along I had thought that I was the broken one. Now I realize that I was broken but only broken by the ones that had prevented me from being all that I could be. This self denial and guilt was just my way of reacting to being chewed up and spit out. It was just my luck that I landed in the wrong moment of time to be myself. While everyone else was busy being hammered into the shape that their society, religion, culture, and families demanded of them, I was desperately trying to play the game on my own terms, and I ended up paying for it.

It’s OK  Things like this happen; we can’t all be born on a one straight path to get everything we want. In all honesty that sounds  boring. Some of us are destined to be born from and for adversity.

That’s where I fall in, the walking disaster crowd.

The few That Remain.

I used to embrace the vision that my life was always destined for greater things, on a level where “delusions of grandeur” wouldn't even begin to describe it. I was a straight up closeted megalomaniac, always with an agenda at hand. I had God on my side and I was going to win. Things have changed since then. Reality has since sent me reeling and out of breath. I no longer have any Gods in my life and I learned the hard way that good intentions don’t always carry the day.

 Getting my aspirations shot down one by one is a perfectly natural thing to occur in a Universe that isn't the slightest bit anthropocentric. The Universe doesn't give a fuck and that’s just the way it is. A connotation like this may sound negative but I think it may be in turn an invitation to make a move for greener pastures. Once you realize that you are free of being judged by anyone other than yourself you find that getting through the day is just a matter of breathing and taking it in stride.

We make our own meaning.

I'm the one that decides what matters and what doesn't  not Big Brother in the sky or in the government, not my education, not my friends and not even my parents. I decide what I am, what conditions and goals I aspire to and ultimately what I want to do with my life.

So what is left of me after yet another semester break down?  What few pieces remain that still define me for who I am? Here is where I stand now. This is what I want.

I want to learn to write and start being good at it. I want to better the skill of expressing my ideas to other human beings, to feel the moment in myself and in those around me. I want to be more accommodating of other people and learn to appreciate them for who they are. I want to avoid turning myself inwards like my father.

I want to care less about the pointless things I learn in engineering and care more about the mission of propagating scientific literacy. I want to make a difference now, not wait another 2 years until I'm out of this intellectual shit hole before getting a chance to do some actual good. I want to take a stand for something that’s real and that I can call my own, not some cookie cutter dream handed down to me by a society that doesn't really care (that includes you to Mom and Dad).

I want to live both the Arts and the Sciences while I'm still alive, play music and possibly share whatever talent I have with others, do more pot and appreciate the little things. I want to learn to love and feel; the essence of which has been lost on me for the past few years.

This is who I am now. Whether I persist on being this for the years to come will lead me down different paths entirely. But for now my identity is clear. I have a place to root my feet in the ground and not give way to any trouble that may happen to come down.

This is where I make my stand.


It’s been over a year now. A new cycle of Earth around the Sun since begun, but there remains much left to do.

Sincerely,

SonOfTerra92