Smoking's bad mmkay?

Tom the Fanboy · Post by **Tom the Fanboy** » Wed Apr 17, 2002 5:08 pm

Figured I'd post and claim the subject while the image is still loading.

New art! OK lets get crackin!
It is definitely grittier but I'm not really sure what to make of it yet. OK, now that i've looked it over I am still curious about the Fans. It's obviously them listening to the Professor, you can see Alisin right off the bat, no suprise there.

The thing is I confused Stu for Rikk at first. Not in offense to the artist (whose name I still haven't found, bad me) but it's true. It wasn't until I noticed the heroic Rikk in the back that I realized that Stu's cheekbones showed. The tricky thing for me is the other two Fans featured. Is it Will and Kath? It seems more like Shanna's hair and Will looks too doughy. I'll withold a nay or yay on the art until I can see more of the Fans. Eveything else he's done is great though.

OK, who here knew that T would quote Harry Turtledove before there were two threads started with his name in the subject line? Greg you don't count.
How many knew afterwards?
How many know who that is?(no checking google before posting either!)
Well I sure as hell didn't! And you know what? I'm not going to wait for anyone to exlain it to me here. I''m gonna go look him up! Lets hear it for EDUTAINMENT!

Finally, I'd really like to know how many of the Fans! rolled their eyes at the Freud "quote" and how many chuckled. No doubt that it went over Stu's head of course.

_________________
Tom the Fanboy
http://www.geocities.com/tee-moss[begin Fans! code]
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[ This Message was edited by: Tom the Fanboy on 2002-04-17 18:18 ]

Red Viking · Post by **Red Viking** » Wed Apr 17, 2002 5:34 pm

So this is the new art style, huh? Hmmm...Well, I'll have to look at some more strips before I make up my mind. It's alot more realistic though. I liked the way Alisin turned out.

[ This Message was edited by: Red Viking on 2002-04-17 18:36 ]

Lowland Drifter · Post by **Lowland Drifter** » Wed Apr 17, 2002 6:34 pm

I think that's Shanna with her arms folded on the left. I'm still not sure which one Rikk is -- wasn't he wearing a black shirt? His "you are here" one?

Interesting how relaxed Alisin looks, and that she's taken off her battle gear.

Don't know if I like the new art yet... it's pretty hard to get facial expressions. I'll have to wait and see.

Loxley · Post by **Loxley** » Wed Apr 17, 2002 9:24 pm

Ah, CRAP!

Stu. His accent. He's from the South. He's a SERIOUS security risk to this mission. How do I know? Because I know that if I were in his shoes, I would be SORELY tempted to try and stop the Civil War, and bring about a better history than one where either side "won."

It's just possible he may think he's doing a "good" thing. Actually, it's quite likely; most people do things that they consider "good" in some respect.

Or maybe he'll elect to stay. With a high-school diploma and some college under his belt, plus his uptime knowledge, he is easily the equivalent of the higher-educated class of the day. He may even be a KINDER, NICER person than they are, for that matter (remember, he's got that late 20th century socialization).

Comments?

Loxley

Sebastian · Post by **Sebastian** » Wed Apr 17, 2002 10:13 pm

On 2002-04-17 18:08, Tom the Fanboy wrote:
Figured I'd post and claim the subject while the image is still loading.

New art! OK lets get crackin!
It is definitely grittier but I'm not really sure what to make of it yet. OK, now that i've looked it over I am still curious about the Fans. It's obviously them listening to the Professor, you can see Alisin right off the bat, no suprise there.

The thing is I confused Stu for Rikk at first. Not in offense to the artist (whose name I still haven't found, bad me) but it's true. It wasn't until I noticed the heroic Rikk in the back that I realized that Stu's cheekbones showed.

yep, i've confused them, too, until i thinked "why is Stu so near to Alisin?"

The hair are differents, too.

The tricky thing for me is the other two Fans featured. Is it Will and Kath? It seems more like Shanna's hair and Will looks too doughy. I'll withold a nay or yay on the art until I can see more of the Fans. Eveything else he's done is great though.

I think she is Shanna, because she don't use glasses (or she is?). But if is Shanna then is a little too chubby, isn't she? Or maybe is only her position?

OK, who here knew that T would quote Harry Turtledove before there were two threads started with his name in the subject line?

There is a Asimov reference, too

How many knew afterwards?
How many know who that is?(no checking google before posting either!)

I knew him. I've read some of his books and i like them (two of the lost legion saga and "the case of the toxic spell dump", not exactly a (pseudo)historical book

Finally, I'd really like to know how many of the Fans! rolled their eyes at the Freud "quote" and how many chuckled. No doubt that it went over Stu's head of course.

But it is true ? It must be, because no one can make a story so absurd and think that someone could believe it.
No one except reality, of course

Mashed · Post by **Mashed** » Thu Apr 18, 2002 6:52 am

Remember, Rikk's hair is parted - Stu's isn't. I'm pretty sure that's Will standing by the Professor. If it were Tim, the hair would be darker.

The new art is certainly grittier - and since the storyline is going to center around a war, it fits well.

Oh, and I for one don't know who Harry Turtledove is.

Lordjulius · Post by **Lordjulius** » Thu Apr 18, 2002 7:47 am

Harry Turtledove is an sf author who has done lots of stuff under at least 3 names, but is best known for a series of books and stories set in an alternate earth where the Confederacy emerged from the Civil War as a separate nation (I hesitate to say they "won," though at least theoretically if that's what they were fighting for, they did).

Jmarquis · Post by **Jmarquis** » Thu Apr 18, 2002 8:24 am

They won the Civil War. Then lost World War I. Not sure what's happening next - but the next "Hitler" will be from the South.

As for someone sayin that he's going to change the civil war - imagine how that changes the future?

Stu becomes the nerd-snob, Guth becomes...

(And OOC I'm quite sure a time-traveller left those cigars)

KingLeon · Post by **KingLeon** » Thu Apr 18, 2002 10:26 am

But... the story's real... You think time travel actually exists in the real world, then?

You might as well say the people of Roanoke went to another time...

FrustratedPilot · Post by **FrustratedPilot** » Thu Apr 18, 2002 12:32 pm

Or the crew of the Marie Celeste...

I once had a discussion with a friend about time travel...whether it was possible to "discover" time travel by finding a clue left by a "previous"/"upcoming" (same circumstance) traveler in the historical record. Call it a Tempo-cache...

Gormenghastly · Post by **Gormenghastly** » Thu Apr 18, 2002 12:42 pm

Moment of Synchronicity: the mailer from the Science Fiction Book Club which arrived today included a flyer of Turtledove novels.

I've never read any of Turtledove's novels, but I used to enjoy his short stories in Asimov's SF mag back in the day. I was aware of his alternate Civil War novels before this thread started, but never read them because I'm largely ambivalent about the Civil War.

Before anyone jumps on me, I'm against slavery, but I'm also against war, so even if I had sorted through the contrary opinions and evidence well enough to decide for myself whether the Civil War was mainly about ending slavery or not, I'd still have to figure out if ending slavery was worth all the death.

Shatteredtower · Post by **Shatteredtower** » Thu Apr 18, 2002 10:02 pm

On 2002-04-18 13:42, Gormenghastly wrote:
Before anyone jumps on me, I'm against slavery, but I'm also against war, so even if I had sorted through the contrary opinions and evidence well enough to decide for myself whether the Civil War was mainly about ending slavery or not, I'd still have to figure out if ending slavery was worth all the death.

Not jumping on you, but those best qualified to decide that may be those who died, and those who would otherwise have been slaves.

There's always a better way, but reform seldom comes from waiting for someone to find it, unfortunately.

Maccabee · Post by **Maccabee** » Fri Apr 19, 2002 2:59 am

The issues Ghastly and ShatteredTower bring up are ones that have troubled me for a long time.

Was the war brought on by a "blundering generation" that could have solved their problems peacefully if they'd put some effort into it, or was the war inevitable? Did every drop of blood drawn by the lash need to be paid for by one drawn with the sword? I've gone back and forth on this myself.

I'd be curious what other posters here think on this, particularly those who come at the issue with the critical distance of non-U.S. citizens.

Maccabee

Loxley · Post by **Loxley** » Fri Apr 19, 2002 4:00 am

Hrm. How could they have avoided the Civil War... I'm gonna try my hand at being Turtledove...

Well, on the front end, the South was convinced that the North was "out to get them" in a number of ways (some real, some imagined). Had they played it conservatively, and waited to see just what this new President was going to do, the crisis would have happened later, if at all. Remember that Lincoln wasn't bound and determined to see the end of slavery during his administration (although, it'd be reasonable to assume he was), and that it would take a Constitutional amendment to end slavery. With half the states as slave states, that wouldn't happen since it would require a 3/4 vote of the states to pass.

Okay, say this happens. Crisis averted, for now. The South still relies on its slaves for agricultural labor, while the industrialized North doesn't need slaves. The Yankee abolitionists are going to keep on fomenting rebellion amongst the slaves, threatenign the safety and securtiy of their owners. Reprisals should take care of the problem, and show the abolitionists that rebellion is not good for the slaves they are trying to help. As for the Fugitive Slave clause in the Constitution, the Supreme Court would uphold it, and order its enforcement, given a challenge. The wheels of democracy grind slowly, you see, but they would grind nonetheless.

So, what we have is a "free" North, and a "slave" South, and there's nothing anybody can LEGALLY do to change that. So, if the South had just hunkered down and dealt with whoever was in power and rolled with the punches, as opposed to trying to break free and live on their own terms, the war might not have happened.

Slavery would not have outlived its economic usefulness. When machinery finally becomes available that makes more sense to own than a potentially murderous slave, the slaveowners are going to make the switch, getting rid of the slaves.

Ah, but what does "getting rid of" mean in this context? Remember that without the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments won't exist. So... are the slaves gassed and killed, Nazi style, to "scrap" them? Or sent off to the Territories to live on reservations like the Indians? Because the North isn't going to want them, regardless of their anti-slavery feelings.

When the South no longer depended on slave labor, they could afford to become enlightened, and thus the 13th and 15th amendments would happen, the 15th replacing the no-longer-necessary 14th.

Without the Radical Reconstruction of teh South, I can't IMAGINE what things would be like, and how they would turn out as time passes.

So, could the war have been avoided? Probably. I think that it may have been just as well that things worked out as they did. I would much rather have grown up around Civil War Battlefields than Treblinka style deathcamps.

I'd love to hear others ideas as well.

Loxley

Loxley

Gormenghastly · Post by **Gormenghastly** » Fri Apr 19, 2002 2:49 pm

Shatteredtower wrote:

Not jumping on you, but those best qualified to decide that may be those who died, and those who would otherwise have been slaves.

I can agree with you on that. Unfortunately the first group won't be able to shed much light on the issue.

And the second, if defined broadly enough, could include most of the Americans of African descent alive today.

Alas this leads to only hearing one side of the story, something which troubles me on any issue.

Maccabee asked:

Was the war brought on by a "blundering generation" that could have solved their problems peacefully if they'd put some effort into it, or was the war inevitable? Did every drop of blood drawn by the lash need to be paid for by one drawn with the sword? I've gone back and forth on this myself.

There are some questions of right and wrong which are easy to answer even with limited knowledge of the situation. This ain't one of them. A person could spend a very long time studying the issue and still not be well informed enough to make a call.

I guess that's another reason I'm ambivalent about the Civil War, I don't feel knowledgeable enough on the subject to have an informed opinion.

To be truthful, if I was going to become that well informed about a war, I'd probably pick one which would much easier support my opposition to war.

Everyone has biases, I try to know and admit mine.

Shatteredtower · Post by **Shatteredtower** » Fri Apr 19, 2002 11:30 pm

On 2002-04-19 15:49, Gormenghastly wrote:
Shatteredtower wrote:
Not jumping on you, but those best qualified to decide that may be those who died, and those who would otherwise have been slaves.
I can agree with you on that. Unfortunately the first group won't be able to shed much light on the issue.

That's always the trouble - sometimes the most qualified opinion is unavailable.

And the second, if defined broadly enough, could include most of the Americans of African descent alive today.

Alas this leads to only hearing one side of the story, something which troubles me on any issue.

Not really - I did say "best" qualified. I didn't say that theirs were the "only" qualified opinions.

Everyone who paid for that conflict has a right to decide if it was worth it. I just feel that those who had the most at stake may be more qualified than others to make that decision. (Others would argue that education about the origins and nature of the conflict make for better qualifications. Logic is on their side, perhaps - but I am reluctant to measure the stakes of war in terms of logic, which tends to come down in favour of politics and economics, rather than personal cost.)

I'm hard-pressed to answer Maccabee's question. Was the war inevitable? I don't think so, but I haven't got a clue what it would have taken to have avoided it.

I believe that sometimes we are too quick to decide that we have no choice simply because it's easier than examining the ones we have.
(Even what seem the unthinkable ones.)

Gormenghastly · Post by **Gormenghastly** » Sat Apr 20, 2002 6:57 am

Shatteredtower wrote:

Not really - I did say "best" qualified. I didn't say that theirs were the "only" qualified opinions.

Quite right, my bad on that one.

Everyone who paid for that conflict has a right to decide if it was worth it. I just feel that those who had the most at stake may be more qualified than others to make that decision.

I like this a lot, because of the possibility that different people who paid different prices will come to different conclusions. It'd be a great step though if society was more accepting of those varied conclusions.

I believe that sometimes we are too quick to decide that we have no choice simply because it's easier than examining the ones we have.
(Even what seem the unthinkable ones.)

As individuals, I agree. When governments or corporations get involved, I think it's as often true that when someone is trying to get a quick decision made, they're doing so because they have examined the choices and they want to get their choice decided on before anyone else has a chace to examine all the options or mount an opposition.