NSP: Oh boy. Times like this when I wish I had teh support of the old writers such as Ping_me and Merlin to help out. Ah well, I shall do the best I can to sort this business out.
Orca, first off, I want you to know that I am not against you. After all, you've helped started this story, and I DO think, as I did with The Shadows of Darkness, that you should have considerable say in what goes on. I like the idea that you've made the powers out to be equal in that they all have their own strengths and so forth. And yes, Highemperor, to reaffirm what I told you before, I
am Christian. But I'm not about to jump into widening the rift between the writers in the process. I am after writing a good story as well, and I hope to enjoy doing so, as I hope for the rest of you.
What I must point out again though is that it is important to keep any pre-created characters accurate to their original sources. To say that the Devil or Gaia have powers and mental capacities within an easy realm of understanding is rather demeaning, and to say that God gets angry or quick to judge is, to say the LEAST, a very
crude and
fundamental outlook on the Jewish view of God. And at the highest non-religious degree, it's downright "copyright". I don't mean to make you feel bad, honestly, but if you ask Semievil333, who lives with a mother who has her master's in religous philosophies, he'll tell you something along the same thing. If you ask Krig_the_Viking or Merlin, who have read teh Christian Bible extensively (to a great degree anywhos) they will tell you that your portrayal of God, or Satan, are quite out of the ballpark. And I myself, having been recently exposed to many world religions such as Islam and Buddaism, I have to say that no supporter of any of
those religions would agree with your views, because there is no support (just like those aweful research papers, gotta have the support and research. nurgh, hehe).
The point is that there is going to be some major conflicts if the present course continues, and even though you have a large influence for this story, it's not going to be much of one if you're the only one writing. And I don't wish for that to happen, so if you will hear me out, this is what I propose. First off, you have to realize that you can make the immortal powers equal without God, Satan or Gaia (or equivilant) physically do anything. Angels vs demons vs spirits can all fight equally and be messangers of their superiors, yet the readers and the mortals in the story will never know which power is
truely the greatest, and it'll be up to teh reader to figure that out for themselves. You see, GOOD WRITING is being able to have the main characters of the story never say a word or ever show up. Ever heard the phrase "the greatest trick the devil ever did was makes others believe he didn't exist"? It goes with the other dieties as well. The only thing that doesn't fit is your character's actions. For being a mortal, ESPECIALLY for being a mortal, albeit a powerful one, he should NOT be able to see ANY of the personal deities (which I realize now that in one of my earlier posts I went against this, and if I felt it was a big enough post*more than 2 sentences*, I would go back and change it so that Diaszu DIDN'T talk personally with Gaia).
And just so your views of the three powers dont' go out teh window, I have to say that the views themselves aren't bad. From an
average, non-denominational mortal, they would be accurate enough, and I think it's a good grounds for other mortal character's views of the Decimillenuim battle as it comes about into light. But for sake of keeping accurate with the original sources, and to
challange ourselves into writing a war lead by leaders the reader only knows through second hand sources. Kind of like Suddam Hussain, hehe.
Also, I have thought of a concept for the story in general. For this story, as well as the others that connect to it, I have been thinking of basic symbols that best symbolize the theme. For this one, the story
definately wins the equilateral triangle. It's the most naturally strongest shape, and it has a lot of snifty qualities to them that seem a tad uncanny to such a thing with few lines and sides and points. To elaborate, I will use the same concept Semievil has used in his receipe for ademenite to building the Arena: that there is good, nature, and evil qualities, but that the quality doesn't BECOME good or natural or evil, but is just labeled as such because it flows with it, liek masculine and feminine in foreign languages like French.
--note: Massassi doesn't seem to like to indent, so the triangles didn't come out, but I think you can all imagine them as they should be.--
Good
(mind, affinity, Father, theistic, Islam)
/\
/ \
/ \
Evil /______\ Nature
(body,communication,) (spirit,realtiy)
(Son,beistic) (Holy Spirit)
(Christianity) (deistic,Judaism)
Each of the above, in order with each other, are triangles within themselves. The mind, body, and spirit make up what we know as being human, affinity, communication, and reality are part of the ARC triangle that L.Ron Hubbard devised as part of his philisophy *perhaps the only part that didn't sound wacko*, all needed for "survival" that he considered the only real important part of living. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity that Christians believe God is (hence the 3 points, but make up one triangle, as do the others). For those of you that may not know, theistic is believing in one mind of it's own that is the greater power that one believes in(polytheistic, like the Ancient Greeks, is the belief in
many minds), deistic is when you believe the greater power is not of a mind but more vague and encompassing (not that being theistic doesn't mean you can't believe in the mind being everywhere at once, but it's everywhere because of its power, not because it IS everywhere), and the last, which I sorta made up teh term, is beistic, witht eh root word "be". Being, or "stand out", to be, and being beistic, would mean to believe the greater power lies within yourself (and/or other humans). These three terms are being loosely used in teh fact that you can beieve in power within(beistic), around(deistic), and beyond (theistic), and each makes up the one basic belief triangle, that there IS a greater power. It's kind of hard to deny that, seeing how merely existing and thinking on your own is a greater power. Even if one thinks it's a fluke, it's saying there's a greater power that still brought it around, even if by accident (man, I'm starting to sound existentialist now. Urgh, hehe). It's not a concept even
I can even fully explain, seeing how I'm just thinking of it recently, and involves lots of things that are hard to comprehend by themselves. Perhaps this little explination/example might help:
Good
/\
/ \
/ \
Evil /______\ Nature
In this example, Good is on top. Taking it literally, it means that Good is triumphant over Evil and Nature. In hte "recipe" concept we've been using in this story, it symbolizes the basic Christian message, or the greatest commandments: Love God with all your mind, body, heart and spirit (theistic) and love yourself (beistic) as you love your neighbor (deistic) (both are level with each other, but are a stepping stone to the first).
Nature
/\
/ \
/ \
Good /______\ Evil
Turning the triangle (pretend it's equilateral) counter-clockwise, nature is now on top. again literally, this could mean Nature is above Good and evil. On our concept though, it symbolizes
Nature's main point: Good and evil are at opposite ends of the spectrum, and nature is the middle point, the balance, the peak of two points of great distance. and if this triangle were flipped upside down, Nature would be the fertile valley between the conflicting mountains of good and evil.
Evil
/\
/ \
/ \
Nature /______\ Good
In this example, yep, you guessed it, taken literally, Evil is dominant over Good and Nature. From our concept though (aren't you getting sick of hearing that now, hehe), this symbolizes Evil's basic premise: that Good and Nature are but means to climbing to the peak of Evil, much like building the tower of babylon to reach God (sorry, I can't think of a better example right now) or (sorry,a nother Biblical referance) using Adam and Eve against themselves for the serpent's own pleasure to watch in Genesis.
So I hope that helps out with where I'm coming from when writing this story, and I'll be MORE than happy to rant on if anyone wants me to explain anything I said. And Orca, I realize since what I've said previously that you might feel that this won't be a good story because we all want good to win against nature and evil. That's why Semievil introduced his character of the neutral judge, who will watch over the battle. And trust me, he'll tell you this too, he's NOT really in favor of good (he's not too supportive of Christianity's dogma anywhos) and WILL act as judge to make this not only fair, but suspenseful, even to the writers (no, he won't tell me who's going to win). This will let us all concentrate on playing for each of our sides and developing parts in the story to lead the reader to think why Good, or Nature, or Evil will win in this battle. But by NO means is this to be an open invitation to powerplay-- with ANY PARAT of the story, because it's not fun to the writer or reader for "I'm wearing lava-proof armor and shoot unstoppable Dragonball Z-style energy beams" mentality. If it has to be (which I really hope it doesn't need to be, as it limits creativity), I'll ask Orca and anyone else who is threatening the story with their own powerplaying to list what their characters will and will not be able to do.
Obviously, I don't have the final word in what happens in this story, seeing how I'm officially a "supporting writer" (if anybody, Merlin the creator of ALL it's beginnings, should have the final word). But even if we were to say that Orca has the last word, and all legalities were in place, we'd all have to ask ourselves if what we decided to do is the loving (I'm using this term loosely and as un-mushy as I can) thing to do to our writers in the experience of writing part of a great story and to the (few) readers who I hope get as much out of this stuff as I do. All I ask, Paladin of Nature, is to think all this over carefully before responding. Whatever your decision, I will continue to wish the best to come for all of us.
*phew* I need some more story writing now. Krig, where are ya? Do you need more to go on? Oh, and I have to ask again if you want me to start a new "quest" (liberal wording again) for our other characters. I still hope to pit my pride and joy, Diazu, the "resolute" one of Nature's champions, against the irresolute Space Orca in Nature's trials.
~Geb
[This message has been edited by Gebohq (edited April 27, 2001).]