Chapter 7
Julia's other senses slowly returned, along with the pain. The smell in the air was acrid smoke that choked her body. There was a painful ringing sounding in her ears. She tasted coppery blood from a cut on her lip. Pain from the explosion and impact wracked her body in waves. She sat leaning against a splintered door, trying not to feel anything at all. Others started to dimly sit up and she heard quiet yells and shocked, estranged voices over the ringing fading in her head. She wanted to get up and start helping people, maybe see if the person with their arm crushed was still alive, but her senses were still being totally assaulted and there was so much pain she couldn't bear to move a muscle. In all of the noise a single thought rose to clarity "Someone will be here soon. People in 1A would know what had happened because of the constant communication kept up between bases and even if they were too far down to hear the explosion the smoke would soon drift up and out of the hole. Any second now the elevator was going to undock from the relatively untouched elevator platform and shoot upwards, then filled with people that could help them. Any second now. Just wait."
- By Ashton
The Grey Jack Frost
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Chapter 6
Chapter 6
After a few hugs between her coworkers and watching the audience cheer Julia went back to the console and activated a stabilizing field that should keep the Dark Node safely in place inside the cube until research begun.
"Ladies and gentlemen you have now witnessed the first containment of a Dark Node." She said with a smile.
"Are there any questi-" Julia's words trailed off as her gaze wandered back towards the tank. The blue-white patches on the Heliogel had started to pulse and brighten again. Julia looked once again at the console and was getting strange readings. The pulsating started to give off a low vibration each time, like letting a pencil hit the blades on a fan. It started to increase in volume, frequency, and brightness each time. The crowd started looking at the tank with puzzled, slightly worried faces and began to back away. Samuels spoke up.
"Don't you see what's happening we need to get everyone out of here now!" His face was frantic and he backed away from the tank and ran to the door, starting to open it with the small handpad. Julia kept her cool and spoke into the mike at the desk.
"Everybody please calmly and orderly line up behind-" It was a useless effort the group of people was already swarming towards the opening doors. Julia started to follow them at a jog and she looked back at the tank. It nearly blinded her with its intensity and she could feel the vibrations in her torso. She new something was about to happen. Everybody crowded into the hall and started running up the main staircase, trying to reach the elevator. It was utter chaos. People were tripping, alarms were firing, there was yelling and screaming. Scientists and administrators emerged from offices, some of them trying to calm the crowd and some joined them. Even from here the noise was deafening. KRACKOOM. A wave of light and sound hit her like a ton of bricks and she hit the ground hard. The world started to turn to black.
She woke up slowly like she was a creature finished hibernating for the winter. The first thing she saw was darkness. Lights still flickered on and off from the walls and ceiling of the building but she could already tell it was in ruins. A gaping hole was above her head in the ceiling, giving her a view of the elevator that was surrounded by the darkness permeating The Hole. Because the half a year night had begun the only light coming from above were small pinpricks dotting the sides of the hole and running up getting fainter and fainter. She thought it looked like one of those eels that live in the deep ocean, covered in bioluminescence. She groaned and sat up. It looked like she had been blown into an open office room from the hall, she could see a few other bodies lying on the ground in the dim light, motionless or just starting to stir. Her eyes followed a metal beam behind her that one end had fallen from the ceiling. She followed it to the floor where there was only a patch of blood and gore. An arm twitched on her side and she could only assume the rest of the body was on the other side of the beam. She tried her best not to throw up all over herself and wondered. "What the hell just happened. That shouldn't of happened there's nothing about Dark Nodes we know of that could have possibly have caused and explosion like this." She shook her head in disbelief and thought again "We were in uncharted territory. We thought we knew what we were doing. We thought we were safe. We were wrong."
After a few hugs between her coworkers and watching the audience cheer Julia went back to the console and activated a stabilizing field that should keep the Dark Node safely in place inside the cube until research begun.
"Ladies and gentlemen you have now witnessed the first containment of a Dark Node." She said with a smile.
"Are there any questi-" Julia's words trailed off as her gaze wandered back towards the tank. The blue-white patches on the Heliogel had started to pulse and brighten again. Julia looked once again at the console and was getting strange readings. The pulsating started to give off a low vibration each time, like letting a pencil hit the blades on a fan. It started to increase in volume, frequency, and brightness each time. The crowd started looking at the tank with puzzled, slightly worried faces and began to back away. Samuels spoke up.
"Don't you see what's happening we need to get everyone out of here now!" His face was frantic and he backed away from the tank and ran to the door, starting to open it with the small handpad. Julia kept her cool and spoke into the mike at the desk.
"Everybody please calmly and orderly line up behind-" It was a useless effort the group of people was already swarming towards the opening doors. Julia started to follow them at a jog and she looked back at the tank. It nearly blinded her with its intensity and she could feel the vibrations in her torso. She new something was about to happen. Everybody crowded into the hall and started running up the main staircase, trying to reach the elevator. It was utter chaos. People were tripping, alarms were firing, there was yelling and screaming. Scientists and administrators emerged from offices, some of them trying to calm the crowd and some joined them. Even from here the noise was deafening. KRACKOOM. A wave of light and sound hit her like a ton of bricks and she hit the ground hard. The world started to turn to black.
She woke up slowly like she was a creature finished hibernating for the winter. The first thing she saw was darkness. Lights still flickered on and off from the walls and ceiling of the building but she could already tell it was in ruins. A gaping hole was above her head in the ceiling, giving her a view of the elevator that was surrounded by the darkness permeating The Hole. Because the half a year night had begun the only light coming from above were small pinpricks dotting the sides of the hole and running up getting fainter and fainter. She thought it looked like one of those eels that live in the deep ocean, covered in bioluminescence. She groaned and sat up. It looked like she had been blown into an open office room from the hall, she could see a few other bodies lying on the ground in the dim light, motionless or just starting to stir. Her eyes followed a metal beam behind her that one end had fallen from the ceiling. She followed it to the floor where there was only a patch of blood and gore. An arm twitched on her side and she could only assume the rest of the body was on the other side of the beam. She tried her best not to throw up all over herself and wondered. "What the hell just happened. That shouldn't of happened there's nothing about Dark Nodes we know of that could have possibly have caused and explosion like this." She shook her head in disbelief and thought again "We were in uncharted territory. We thought we knew what we were doing. We thought we were safe. We were wrong."
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Julia pulled herself out of the nausea and slight headache from returning to her body and peered at the computer monitor in front of her. The group, for the first time since the tour began clapping and cheering, crowded around the tank and watched the Heliogel form around the cube on the pedestal. It formed relatively fast, making different three dimensional matrixes around the cube composed of more two dimensional polyhedrals. It continuously built more and more onto itself and thin, ribbed, structure tubes began to sprout towards the roof and sides of the tank. As the Heliogel formed a black-grey shape around the size of a beach ball and several supports of varying sizes had been created it slowed down and the monitor in front of Julia lit up. The data was very promising as the conditions in the tank neared perfect.
Two of her closest friends, Samuels and Kate came up behind her. Samuels was an engineer and worked closely with Julia to develop the testing room and tank capable of utilizing the Heliogel; he's always been very quiet and rather secluded but after working so closely with Julia he had started to come out of his shell and quickly became part of Julia's group of friends, herself, him, Kate, Sarah, Bentley, and a few others. The group was much like a band of friends in high school and when worked to keep each other sane, lessen each other's workloads, work towards deadlines, and went why had time off, just have fun. Kate is technically the head of the project being performed at the station but after Julia's miraculous discovery of the Heliogel the position has been rather contestable. Kate was not EXTREMELY competitive but there had been slight animosities coming from her direction after all the attention Julia's gotten from the invention. Despite that minor conflict right now both of her friends looked excitedly on at the experiments progress and congratulated her intermittently. Sam gave her a thumbs up and started speaking into the microphone attached to the console.
"As you can see ladies and gentlemen the Heliogel is creating an ever growing-matrix around the containment receptacle, making perfect conditions to attract a Dark Node."
Suddenly the status bars on the screen lit up and shot up and down across the screen; the number indicating overall status slowly centered on extremely close to perfection. The Heliogel began to pulse and patches of it started to turn a sickly-pale blue that was almost white and it changed texture into something akin to fragile, burnt food. The pale blue patches glowed, pulsating, and the once rigid, patterned shapes, began to randomize, melt, and rapidly grow into something more similar to spiderwebs or crystals. The cube inside was now completely out of sight. Without any warning at all the numbers on the screen reached the peak conditions and the Heliogel glowed extremely bright. The audience was silent and as the gel began to settle on this brightness, the monitor made a sound in front of Julia. They had captured a Dark Node. They may have captured the secrets to the universe
- By Ashton
Julia pulled herself out of the nausea and slight headache from returning to her body and peered at the computer monitor in front of her. The group, for the first time since the tour began clapping and cheering, crowded around the tank and watched the Heliogel form around the cube on the pedestal. It formed relatively fast, making different three dimensional matrixes around the cube composed of more two dimensional polyhedrals. It continuously built more and more onto itself and thin, ribbed, structure tubes began to sprout towards the roof and sides of the tank. As the Heliogel formed a black-grey shape around the size of a beach ball and several supports of varying sizes had been created it slowed down and the monitor in front of Julia lit up. The data was very promising as the conditions in the tank neared perfect.
Two of her closest friends, Samuels and Kate came up behind her. Samuels was an engineer and worked closely with Julia to develop the testing room and tank capable of utilizing the Heliogel; he's always been very quiet and rather secluded but after working so closely with Julia he had started to come out of his shell and quickly became part of Julia's group of friends, herself, him, Kate, Sarah, Bentley, and a few others. The group was much like a band of friends in high school and when worked to keep each other sane, lessen each other's workloads, work towards deadlines, and went why had time off, just have fun. Kate is technically the head of the project being performed at the station but after Julia's miraculous discovery of the Heliogel the position has been rather contestable. Kate was not EXTREMELY competitive but there had been slight animosities coming from her direction after all the attention Julia's gotten from the invention. Despite that minor conflict right now both of her friends looked excitedly on at the experiments progress and congratulated her intermittently. Sam gave her a thumbs up and started speaking into the microphone attached to the console.
"As you can see ladies and gentlemen the Heliogel is creating an ever growing-matrix around the containment receptacle, making perfect conditions to attract a Dark Node."
Suddenly the status bars on the screen lit up and shot up and down across the screen; the number indicating overall status slowly centered on extremely close to perfection. The Heliogel began to pulse and patches of it started to turn a sickly-pale blue that was almost white and it changed texture into something akin to fragile, burnt food. The pale blue patches glowed, pulsating, and the once rigid, patterned shapes, began to randomize, melt, and rapidly grow into something more similar to spiderwebs or crystals. The cube inside was now completely out of sight. Without any warning at all the numbers on the screen reached the peak conditions and the Heliogel glowed extremely bright. The audience was silent and as the gel began to settle on this brightness, the monitor made a sound in front of Julia. They had captured a Dark Node. They may have captured the secrets to the universe
- By Ashton
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Chapter 4
Chapter 4
The elevator steadily zoomed downwards into the icy rock. The Antarctic sunset giving light above slowly became a pinprick above them with only large porthole-like white light embedded in intervals into the rock and blinking red lights in the elevator cart. For around 5 minutes the elevator whirred away and every so often Julia would pinprick the silence by droning on about the experiment. Finally the elevator lowered itself onto a metal platform that was the roof of a few floors above the experiment room and the bottom of The Hole. A door opened a few feet away from the elevator and a new group of her fellow co-workers accepted the group inside, and Julia was every grateful not to have to take care of the sheep anymore. After entering the cold white floor Julia went over mental notes on how the experiment would run and took an alternate staircase to enter the experiment room. She had a few minutes to get everything set up while the group was being shown what little was interesting outside the experiment room.
The room was laid out like an amphitheater with a tall ceiling and dark grey paint. A crescent moon shape for people to watch surrounded the tank where the Dark Node would be caught. The tank was a smaller circle than the room itself pushed up against the back wall. Inside the tank was a pedestal with a transparent cube on sitting empty on the small grey platform. Inside the cube was a transparent coolant and the last defense they had against penetrating radiation, the other two being their location and the tank itself. 4 large enormous mechanical arms were attacked the tank and a console and a neuro-seat was up against the front. The mechanical arms while being controlled by the neuro-seat user would draw Heliogel from 4 large tanks of it across the room and swing back and lock themselves inside the top of the tank. From there the user would further insert the arms into holes in the floor of the tank and the Heliogel would inject itself into the floor mechanism and out of a large grate underneath the pedestal. From out of this grate the Heliogel would emerge and matrix itself around the cube on the pedestal and fill most the tank, penetrate the cube, and create perfect conditions for a Dark Node to be captured.
Julia sighed and smiled, feeling more confident of the experiment's success every second. She sat down in the neuro-seat and the group began to file in. They all looked in awe at the clean splendor of the large room before their gazes rested on her in the chair. All of them expected her to speak but instead she just smiled and leaned back, letting the neural connectors against the base of her skull load her brain scan into the computer console. A few unsettling moments went by of trying to adjust her brain to the thought that her body was indeed not floating in the air where the cameras were but was indeed still in the chair and she was occupying a machine, but she quickly got used to it again. Through loudspeakers across the walls of the room she could speak to the group of people and because it was her own brain scan in the computer it even sounded like her own voice. She explained to them the procedure and lifted her heavy four arms out of the casing around the tank. She stretched them towards the tanks of Heliogel and pierced the syringe-like endings into the receptacles. After a minute of extracting the required amount she moved the arms back to their original position and swung them up so that they poised over the roof of the tank, like venomous snakes ready to strike. The group looked on in awe, even the investors, and she slowly inserted the arms into the tank. They appeared inside the glass and the tank roof sealed around them. Julia moved the arms into the four holes at the tank bottom and she pushed the Heliogel out into the apparatus. At this point Julia was done and everything was self automated so, shaking, (even though technically she wasn't, a machine for God's sake), she separated herself from the computer and let herself flow back into her body. Opening her eyes Julia saw the Heliogel, appearing as a black-blue-green, shiny ooze, rise up out of the grate and form complex shaped and wiring around the cube. What might be the most important experiment in the last century was beginning
- By Ashton
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Chapter 3
Bentley, are the sheep ready to come over?” Julia radioed over to her friend in Installation 1, referencing the investors and tourists to see the experiment.
“Yeah Julia, they’re heading off in a tram right now.”
Bentley laughed into his radio. Julia confirmed they were ready to receive them and started walking down the cold hallway towards the tram station. She was nervous of course and the cold fluorescent lighting and grey walls didn’t do much to soothe her, but she was confident in the Heliogel and confident in her ability to operate the machinery with a brain scan. Julia walked down through a few corridors to the ground floor and finally used a small hand pad to open the large bay doors to the tram station. A black tram materialized out of the darkness and slowly stooped on the track next to the platform. Julia stood atop a flight of stairs and gazed at the people milling out of the tram. There were about fifty of them that she could easily separate into three groups by looking at their faces. One group of men and women in business attire stood away from the others and wore no smiles; those would be the investors. The tourists were all people that obviously had a lot of money and milled around aimlessly with dumb, excited looks. The group of people that would keep her sane, that she felt like she could actually talk to, were fellow international scientists like her that were genuinely curious to see the outcome of the experiment.
“Everybody please follow me, My name is Dr. Summers and I’ll be your guide into The Hole, our creatively named experiment site, and also the main conductor of the experiment using advanced brain scan technology.” She nervously lead the group through a few halls and down a few flights of stairs in order to get to the basement level used to descend into The Hole. The basement level had large windows in the exterior wall so that you could gaze across the entire pit and see the ring of 1A around it. Walkways like the one her and the group were in front of extended from the other 3 cardinal directions out to the central elevator leading into The Hole. They passed a rack of emergency climbing suits and tools and she rambled on about the basement, the suits, and all the safety precautions. As a speech filler and to appease the tourists she also explained how polar night was coming, a period of six month darkness that occurred in the south pole due to Earth’s tilt.
“Do you all really deal with half a year of night down here?” an old tourist in a coat and a baseball hat spoke up from the crowd.
“Yeah it can get pretty depressing sometimes, and today happens to be the sunset, but we tough it out. It’s just another part of the job after a while and six months of night means six months of day too.”
Julia was only slightly annoyed that were more questions about night and day then a dark node experiment. Julia walked over to the left and re-briefed her friend, Sarah, on the details of their trip into The Hole and gave her a few tips for using the brain scan technology to pilot the elevator for the group. Sarah nodded, seemingly confident, and Julia opened the door leading outside. The group donned light jackets once they stepped outside due to the dome over 1A keeping it livable, but near constantly cold. It was eery walking over this enormous dark pit, with the dome riddled with hexagons above and the setting on the arctic expanse. Julia and the group reached the elevator and after radioing Sarah they were ready, began their descent into The Hole.
- By Ashton
“Yeah Julia, they’re heading off in a tram right now.”
Bentley laughed into his radio. Julia confirmed they were ready to receive them and started walking down the cold hallway towards the tram station. She was nervous of course and the cold fluorescent lighting and grey walls didn’t do much to soothe her, but she was confident in the Heliogel and confident in her ability to operate the machinery with a brain scan. Julia walked down through a few corridors to the ground floor and finally used a small hand pad to open the large bay doors to the tram station. A black tram materialized out of the darkness and slowly stooped on the track next to the platform. Julia stood atop a flight of stairs and gazed at the people milling out of the tram. There were about fifty of them that she could easily separate into three groups by looking at their faces. One group of men and women in business attire stood away from the others and wore no smiles; those would be the investors. The tourists were all people that obviously had a lot of money and milled around aimlessly with dumb, excited looks. The group of people that would keep her sane, that she felt like she could actually talk to, were fellow international scientists like her that were genuinely curious to see the outcome of the experiment.
“Everybody please follow me, My name is Dr. Summers and I’ll be your guide into The Hole, our creatively named experiment site, and also the main conductor of the experiment using advanced brain scan technology.” She nervously lead the group through a few halls and down a few flights of stairs in order to get to the basement level used to descend into The Hole. The basement level had large windows in the exterior wall so that you could gaze across the entire pit and see the ring of 1A around it. Walkways like the one her and the group were in front of extended from the other 3 cardinal directions out to the central elevator leading into The Hole. They passed a rack of emergency climbing suits and tools and she rambled on about the basement, the suits, and all the safety precautions. As a speech filler and to appease the tourists she also explained how polar night was coming, a period of six month darkness that occurred in the south pole due to Earth’s tilt.
“Do you all really deal with half a year of night down here?” an old tourist in a coat and a baseball hat spoke up from the crowd.
“Yeah it can get pretty depressing sometimes, and today happens to be the sunset, but we tough it out. It’s just another part of the job after a while and six months of night means six months of day too.”
Julia was only slightly annoyed that were more questions about night and day then a dark node experiment. Julia walked over to the left and re-briefed her friend, Sarah, on the details of their trip into The Hole and gave her a few tips for using the brain scan technology to pilot the elevator for the group. Sarah nodded, seemingly confident, and Julia opened the door leading outside. The group donned light jackets once they stepped outside due to the dome over 1A keeping it livable, but near constantly cold. It was eery walking over this enormous dark pit, with the dome riddled with hexagons above and the setting on the arctic expanse. Julia and the group reached the elevator and after radioing Sarah they were ready, began their descent into The Hole.
- By Ashton
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Chapter 2
In the year 2063, much had changed about the world. We thought that new planes or ships would be the modes of transportation that would rocket us into the future of fast travel but several innovations in hydropower and engineering has led us to trans-continental hydro-dependent bullet trains or TCH trains. TCH trains run on an extremely cost efficient, energy efficient tracks that run just over the ocean's surface. Large hydro-energy factories run on either side of the track. Imagine a long string with a bead attached to it and 2 large flywheels attached to either end. If you turn one flywheel on and the other on reverse the bead will move to the flywheel pulling it extremely fast. That's the basis of the TCH trains both hydro-energy factories work together to move the train extremely fast by pulling and pushing. The base consists of 7 installations surrounding The Hole, a few miles from the South Pole. You could travel between the installations in trams running in above ground tunnels, there were multiple trams and the tunnels run like highways so as to allow transport back and forth frequently. TCH trains run from coastal installations to major cities like New York City, London, Sydney, Barcelona in Spain, and Nagasaki in Japan as well as trains to Russia and Africa. The TCH trains connect the whole world these days and the ones running here to Antartica transport scientists and investors to the installations to see all the work being done here.
Today, March 13 2063, a large group of investors, world renowned scientists not working on the project, and rich tourists were visiting the international base to see the first Dark Node capturing test in The Hole. Julia was in building 1A, an offshoot of Installation 1, the building surrounded The Hole where she did most her work. Compared to the real Installations it was rather small. It formed a ring around The Hole, being about a half mile in diameter and in some places 3 stories tall as well as a basement. Four large sturdy walkways connect across The Hole leading to a very large utility passenger elevator.
Like most the large equipment at the base the elevator was powered by neurotechnology, also an innovation that took place in the last 10 years. All the staff at the base has brain scans in the computer database, letting them access different levels of security. Being stationed at 1A Julia's brain scan had access to the elevator but she really abhorred using her head like that to operate anything at the base. She done it with the elevator a few times before. You sit in a chair next to a small console with a chair back that goes right up against your head and upper neck. With the chair Julia could access the elevator with her brain scan. Because it's an actual scan of her brain while she's using it she has all of the same perception and even some senses. While using it she can "feel" if there's a structure flaw or knot in the rope and "see" through cameras in the elevator and along the elevator shaft. If you use it since it's a perfect copy of your own brain you're using all the same "neural equipment" your brain has so it gives an extremely eery feeling while you're using it; like you know logically that you're an elevator right now but every instinct is telling you you're a human because you can see and feel. Julia had read about experiments with this technology where people had been operating machines with their own brain scans and not realizing that they weren't currently strictly "human." Every console chair where you could operate something with a brain scan were covered in warnings not to use something like that for more than 24 hours. It had never happened before but it was theorized that using it for too long or being interrupted after using it for a long time could result in going... Too far. It wasn't very clear but Julia believed a separation of consciousness was possible where your original self would live on in your body but a separate consciousness, a separate... You... Would be trapped forever in whatever machine you were operating. It had never happened before and Julia was often made fun of for her beliefs but something about that Idea of being trapped, of their being more than one "you" bothered her to the core.
The elevator shaft is constantly shooting out supports to the sides of The Hole and the chances of it going down or being damaged is extremely small, however advanced climbing tools, equipment, and even bulky climbing suits are located at the top and bottom of The Hole. A low dome covers The Hole and 1A protecting from as much excess radiation as possible for the experiment. It also keeps the winds out and the temperature up so it's only slightly chilly; Julia felt it was still too cold and was the major reason why she would get so homesick.
- By Ashton
Today, March 13 2063, a large group of investors, world renowned scientists not working on the project, and rich tourists were visiting the international base to see the first Dark Node capturing test in The Hole. Julia was in building 1A, an offshoot of Installation 1, the building surrounded The Hole where she did most her work. Compared to the real Installations it was rather small. It formed a ring around The Hole, being about a half mile in diameter and in some places 3 stories tall as well as a basement. Four large sturdy walkways connect across The Hole leading to a very large utility passenger elevator.
Like most the large equipment at the base the elevator was powered by neurotechnology, also an innovation that took place in the last 10 years. All the staff at the base has brain scans in the computer database, letting them access different levels of security. Being stationed at 1A Julia's brain scan had access to the elevator but she really abhorred using her head like that to operate anything at the base. She done it with the elevator a few times before. You sit in a chair next to a small console with a chair back that goes right up against your head and upper neck. With the chair Julia could access the elevator with her brain scan. Because it's an actual scan of her brain while she's using it she has all of the same perception and even some senses. While using it she can "feel" if there's a structure flaw or knot in the rope and "see" through cameras in the elevator and along the elevator shaft. If you use it since it's a perfect copy of your own brain you're using all the same "neural equipment" your brain has so it gives an extremely eery feeling while you're using it; like you know logically that you're an elevator right now but every instinct is telling you you're a human because you can see and feel. Julia had read about experiments with this technology where people had been operating machines with their own brain scans and not realizing that they weren't currently strictly "human." Every console chair where you could operate something with a brain scan were covered in warnings not to use something like that for more than 24 hours. It had never happened before but it was theorized that using it for too long or being interrupted after using it for a long time could result in going... Too far. It wasn't very clear but Julia believed a separation of consciousness was possible where your original self would live on in your body but a separate consciousness, a separate... You... Would be trapped forever in whatever machine you were operating. It had never happened before and Julia was often made fun of for her beliefs but something about that Idea of being trapped, of their being more than one "you" bothered her to the core.
The elevator shaft is constantly shooting out supports to the sides of The Hole and the chances of it going down or being damaged is extremely small, however advanced climbing tools, equipment, and even bulky climbing suits are located at the top and bottom of The Hole. A low dome covers The Hole and 1A protecting from as much excess radiation as possible for the experiment. It also keeps the winds out and the temperature up so it's only slightly chilly; Julia felt it was still too cold and was the major reason why she would get so homesick.
- By Ashton
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Science fiction horror story
Here's the introduction to a science fiction horror story I'm gonna write in a few chapters. I haven't titled it yet but I probably will when it's finished.
She'd found it. The Dark Node. In a remote research facility in Antartica her, Julia Summers, and her team had been searching for a notorious type of Dark Matter particle called a Dark Node. A Dark Node is significantly easier to detect and capture due to its size and ability to withstand the low levels of radiation that are present almost everywhere in the universe. Luckily, Dark Nodes are hypothesized to solve even more problems in physics then regular Dark Matter.
It was Julia's own brilliant invention that allowed them to capture the Dark Node, a chemically created substance she called "Heliogel." Heliogel was really just a lucky accident but Julia DID discover it so she tended to brag about it to her fellow co-workers quite often. She was searching for a substance that could send extremely low frequency audio throughout itself, blocked as much radiation as possible, and that was also self-structuring. The self-structuring properties she instilled in it would be capable of creating its own matrix in a large room that would attract and hold Dark Nodes. She was searching for any chemical combination or solution that would have these qualities and after a few months of research she stumbled on the Heliogel. The substance had everything she needed and despite knowing its formula and ingredients, she knew she had only barely scratched the surface of what it really was but after 3 years of searching for Dark Nodes the team's funding was running low and there was no time for further research into Heliogel.
Radiation is so ever-present, especially on Earth that cosmic rays are constantly bombarding everything and even humans give off some radiation. They were already in Antartica which was one of the most secluded places on Earth from human contact and machines that would cause disturbances. Capturing Dark Nodes required such extreme isolation that an enormous... "Hole" for a lack of a better word, was dug into the ice and rock. At the bottom of the miles long hole was one of the coldest, deadest, quietest, most inhospitable places on Earth. It was at the bottom of the bottom of the world that the secrets of the universe would be unlocked.
There's the end of the introduction, I'll write more next Sunday. Bye.
- By Ashton
She'd found it. The Dark Node. In a remote research facility in Antartica her, Julia Summers, and her team had been searching for a notorious type of Dark Matter particle called a Dark Node. A Dark Node is significantly easier to detect and capture due to its size and ability to withstand the low levels of radiation that are present almost everywhere in the universe. Luckily, Dark Nodes are hypothesized to solve even more problems in physics then regular Dark Matter.
It was Julia's own brilliant invention that allowed them to capture the Dark Node, a chemically created substance she called "Heliogel." Heliogel was really just a lucky accident but Julia DID discover it so she tended to brag about it to her fellow co-workers quite often. She was searching for a substance that could send extremely low frequency audio throughout itself, blocked as much radiation as possible, and that was also self-structuring. The self-structuring properties she instilled in it would be capable of creating its own matrix in a large room that would attract and hold Dark Nodes. She was searching for any chemical combination or solution that would have these qualities and after a few months of research she stumbled on the Heliogel. The substance had everything she needed and despite knowing its formula and ingredients, she knew she had only barely scratched the surface of what it really was but after 3 years of searching for Dark Nodes the team's funding was running low and there was no time for further research into Heliogel.
Radiation is so ever-present, especially on Earth that cosmic rays are constantly bombarding everything and even humans give off some radiation. They were already in Antartica which was one of the most secluded places on Earth from human contact and machines that would cause disturbances. Capturing Dark Nodes required such extreme isolation that an enormous... "Hole" for a lack of a better word, was dug into the ice and rock. At the bottom of the miles long hole was one of the coldest, deadest, quietest, most inhospitable places on Earth. It was at the bottom of the bottom of the world that the secrets of the universe would be unlocked.
There's the end of the introduction, I'll write more next Sunday. Bye.
- By Ashton
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Favorite series
Hello. Today I’m talking about some of my favorite non-David Eddings series.
The first series is called His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. His Dark Materials is a very strange, very interesting series. It’s a mix between fantasy and science fiction. It’s a trilogy starring a girl named Lyra who ends up being involved in an enormous conflict between an infinite number of worlds and even Heaven itself. The infinite worlds and growing conflict makes for an exciting trilogy, weaving themes about loss, war, and growing up.
The second series is called The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver. This series I started reading when i was 9 or 10 and I actually never finished reading it. It still stands as one of my favorite series so I might finish it. The series takes place in a mostly forested or icy area similar to Alaska and it’s inhabited by a people similar to some Native American cultures. It’s definitely an action series about a boy named Torak and his companion, a wolf named Wolf. Together they have to deal with evil people and ancient darkness, including the demon-possessed bear that killed Torak’s father.
The last series is called The enemy by Charlie Higson. The Enemy is a 7 book series I am currently reading. I’ve read The Enemy, The Dead, The Fear, The Fallen, and I just finished The Sacrifice. It’s an amazing series because it’s about a virus that started to turn everyone in the world older than 16 into zombie-like, brainless cannibals. The series follows separate gangs of kids in London, fighting to survive against an enemy they have only one advantage over, their wit. They quickly discover that other kids, desperate for resources or power in a world with no adults can be just as deadly an enemy as the disease, but the plague is evolving, the adults are getting smarter.
There were 3 of my favorite series. Bye.
- By Ashton
The first series is called His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. His Dark Materials is a very strange, very interesting series. It’s a mix between fantasy and science fiction. It’s a trilogy starring a girl named Lyra who ends up being involved in an enormous conflict between an infinite number of worlds and even Heaven itself. The infinite worlds and growing conflict makes for an exciting trilogy, weaving themes about loss, war, and growing up.
The second series is called The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver. This series I started reading when i was 9 or 10 and I actually never finished reading it. It still stands as one of my favorite series so I might finish it. The series takes place in a mostly forested or icy area similar to Alaska and it’s inhabited by a people similar to some Native American cultures. It’s definitely an action series about a boy named Torak and his companion, a wolf named Wolf. Together they have to deal with evil people and ancient darkness, including the demon-possessed bear that killed Torak’s father.
The last series is called The enemy by Charlie Higson. The Enemy is a 7 book series I am currently reading. I’ve read The Enemy, The Dead, The Fear, The Fallen, and I just finished The Sacrifice. It’s an amazing series because it’s about a virus that started to turn everyone in the world older than 16 into zombie-like, brainless cannibals. The series follows separate gangs of kids in London, fighting to survive against an enemy they have only one advantage over, their wit. They quickly discover that other kids, desperate for resources or power in a world with no adults can be just as deadly an enemy as the disease, but the plague is evolving, the adults are getting smarter.
There were 3 of my favorite series. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, November 8, 2015
4 favorite iOS games
Hello. Today I'm writing about some more mobile games on iOS.
The first game is called Vector. Vector is a very fun 2D platformer. It's not a normal platformer in that you don't fight enemies or bosses, instead you use parkour to travel to the end of the level as quickly as possible to avoid being captured by The Hunter that's following you. You can also do special tricks and collect bonuses in the levels in order to get a higher score and unlock new levels. There is a story, but it is very simplistic and the story is not one of the game's main selling points. The graphics are nice and stylized but amazing.
The next game is titled Shadow Fight 2. This game was made by the same developers as Vector and has the same art style. Shadow Fight 2 is a ninja fighting game whee you have a lot of different armor, weapons, ranged weapons, and magic to use against your opponent. The fighting system is the best I've seen on iOS before and it gives you a lot of different options as to how you want to fight and the fights are fun yet challenging.
Next is a game named Blood Gate - Age of Alchemy. This is an RPG type game where you fight monsters by matching 3 or more corresponding element orbs in a grid similar to a bejeweled game. There's a pretty good story that's much better than the previous 2 games' and the graphics are really amazing. The game is very fun with tons of weapons and items and it's definitely a game you could keep playing for a long time.
The last game is called Mazecraft. Mazecraft is a charming pixel game where you can build mazes and fill it with challenges like traps and monsters. Other players can play and rate your maze and you can go and play other people's mazes in order to level up and gain access to more content. The game is a very cool concept and the pixel art is nice, however is feels like it is lacking some content. That being said the game is free so there's nothing to lose by trying it out.
There were 4 new mobile games. Bye.
- By Ashton
The first game is called Vector. Vector is a very fun 2D platformer. It's not a normal platformer in that you don't fight enemies or bosses, instead you use parkour to travel to the end of the level as quickly as possible to avoid being captured by The Hunter that's following you. You can also do special tricks and collect bonuses in the levels in order to get a higher score and unlock new levels. There is a story, but it is very simplistic and the story is not one of the game's main selling points. The graphics are nice and stylized but amazing.
The next game is titled Shadow Fight 2. This game was made by the same developers as Vector and has the same art style. Shadow Fight 2 is a ninja fighting game whee you have a lot of different armor, weapons, ranged weapons, and magic to use against your opponent. The fighting system is the best I've seen on iOS before and it gives you a lot of different options as to how you want to fight and the fights are fun yet challenging.
Next is a game named Blood Gate - Age of Alchemy. This is an RPG type game where you fight monsters by matching 3 or more corresponding element orbs in a grid similar to a bejeweled game. There's a pretty good story that's much better than the previous 2 games' and the graphics are really amazing. The game is very fun with tons of weapons and items and it's definitely a game you could keep playing for a long time.
The last game is called Mazecraft. Mazecraft is a charming pixel game where you can build mazes and fill it with challenges like traps and monsters. Other players can play and rate your maze and you can go and play other people's mazes in order to level up and gain access to more content. The game is a very cool concept and the pixel art is nice, however is feels like it is lacking some content. That being said the game is free so there's nothing to lose by trying it out.
There were 4 new mobile games. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, November 1, 2015
The Martian
Hello. Today I'm writing about a movie I saw recently called The Martian.
Last Friday I saw the new movie The Martian with my girlfriend, Jillian. I was pretty excited to see the movie because it was directed by Ridley Scott, who also directed Alien and Prometheus, 2 of my favorite movies. The movie also got a very good rating on IMDB with an 8.2 out of 10. The Martian is a realistic science fiction movie about an astronaut named Mark Wattney that is accidentally left on Mars alone. The movie takes a journey about Mark trying to survive in a completely inhospitable environment with limited supplies and NASA desperately trying to find a way to bring him home alive.
The movie opens in the near future with the crew of Ares 3 collecting samples on Mars. Conflict quickly ensues when an enormous sandstorm starts heading their way with winds much higher than they anticipated. The crew collectively decide to head back to the rocket before it's too late except for Mark, who being the most reluctant to give up on the mission is the farthest back in the group heading towards the ship. During the storm Mark is hit by a satellite dish and thrown into the storm, too far away for the group to rescue and completely out of site. When the crew reaches the rocket they find out that Mark's suit is sending no life signs to the ship and they presume him dead and leave just before the rocket would have been tipped over.
Mark wakes up on Mars and makes it back to the habitat station and pulls the satellite antenna out of his abdomen that severed his life sign signaler on his suit. There he acknowledges in a video log that since he has no way of contacting NASA he has to grow food to last him 3 years until the next mission to Mars is launched. Mark learns that he can grow potatoes using rocket fuel to manufacture water and his and his crews mates feces as fertilizer. Eventually he finds the old Pathfinder probe and uses its camera to finally get in contact with NASA. NASA broadcasts across the world that Mark Wattney is alive on Mars and the entire world unites to try and bring him home. After there's a disastrous explosion that destroys Mark's potato crop and numerous failed attempts to give him more rations by NASA, a slightly crazy scientist on Earth finds a way to save Mark. The scientist proposes a plan to send the rocket carrying the crew around Earth and on back to Mars to rescue Mark. The plan is deemed to dangerous by the head of NASA but an employee secretly sends the plan to the crew onboard the rocket and the crew collectively makes the decision to disobey NASA and go back to Mars and save Mark. Mark travels for days across Mars to reach a small rocket capsule capable of barely getting him out of Mars' atmosphere and from there is an extremely intense climax involving the crew of Ares 3 and Mark trying desperately to attach to Mark's capsule and bring him safely to Earth. After a near failure 1 year later Mark is teaching a class of Astronauts on survival in space, laughing and joking about his experiences on Mars.
So there was The Martian, a very good science movie I highly recommend. Bye.
- By Ashton
Last Friday I saw the new movie The Martian with my girlfriend, Jillian. I was pretty excited to see the movie because it was directed by Ridley Scott, who also directed Alien and Prometheus, 2 of my favorite movies. The movie also got a very good rating on IMDB with an 8.2 out of 10. The Martian is a realistic science fiction movie about an astronaut named Mark Wattney that is accidentally left on Mars alone. The movie takes a journey about Mark trying to survive in a completely inhospitable environment with limited supplies and NASA desperately trying to find a way to bring him home alive.
The movie opens in the near future with the crew of Ares 3 collecting samples on Mars. Conflict quickly ensues when an enormous sandstorm starts heading their way with winds much higher than they anticipated. The crew collectively decide to head back to the rocket before it's too late except for Mark, who being the most reluctant to give up on the mission is the farthest back in the group heading towards the ship. During the storm Mark is hit by a satellite dish and thrown into the storm, too far away for the group to rescue and completely out of site. When the crew reaches the rocket they find out that Mark's suit is sending no life signs to the ship and they presume him dead and leave just before the rocket would have been tipped over.
Mark wakes up on Mars and makes it back to the habitat station and pulls the satellite antenna out of his abdomen that severed his life sign signaler on his suit. There he acknowledges in a video log that since he has no way of contacting NASA he has to grow food to last him 3 years until the next mission to Mars is launched. Mark learns that he can grow potatoes using rocket fuel to manufacture water and his and his crews mates feces as fertilizer. Eventually he finds the old Pathfinder probe and uses its camera to finally get in contact with NASA. NASA broadcasts across the world that Mark Wattney is alive on Mars and the entire world unites to try and bring him home. After there's a disastrous explosion that destroys Mark's potato crop and numerous failed attempts to give him more rations by NASA, a slightly crazy scientist on Earth finds a way to save Mark. The scientist proposes a plan to send the rocket carrying the crew around Earth and on back to Mars to rescue Mark. The plan is deemed to dangerous by the head of NASA but an employee secretly sends the plan to the crew onboard the rocket and the crew collectively makes the decision to disobey NASA and go back to Mars and save Mark. Mark travels for days across Mars to reach a small rocket capsule capable of barely getting him out of Mars' atmosphere and from there is an extremely intense climax involving the crew of Ares 3 and Mark trying desperately to attach to Mark's capsule and bring him safely to Earth. After a near failure 1 year later Mark is teaching a class of Astronauts on survival in space, laughing and joking about his experiences on Mars.
So there was The Martian, a very good science movie I highly recommend. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, October 25, 2015
New iOS games
Hello. Today I'm writing about some more mobile games on iOS.
The first game is called Vector. Vector is a very fun 2D platformer. It's not a normal platformer in that you don't fight enemies or bosses, instead you use parkour to travel to the end of the level as quickly as possible to avoid being captured by The Hunter that's following you. You can also do special tricks and collect bonuses in the levels in order to get a higher score and unlock new levels. There is a story, but it is very simplistic and the story is not one of the game's main selling points. The graphics are nice and stylized but amazing.
The next game is titled Shadow Fight 2. This game was made by the same developers as Vector and has the same art style. Shadow Fight 2 is a ninja fighting game whee you have a lot of different armor, weapons, ranged weapons, and magic to use against your opponent. The fighting system is the best I've seen on iOS before and it gives you a lot of different options as to how you want to fight and the fights are fun yet challenging.
Next is a game named Blood Gate - Age of Alchemy. This is an RPG type game where you fight monsters by matching 3 or more corresponding element orbs in a grid similar to a bejeweled game. There's a pretty good story that's much better than the previous 2 games' and the graphics are really amazing. The game is very fun with tons of weapons and items and it's definitely a game you could keep playing for a long time.
The last game is called Mazecraft. Mazecraft is a charming pixel game where you can build mazes and fill it with challenges like traps and monsters. Other players can play and rate your maze and you can go and play other people's mazes in order to level up and gain access to more content. The game is a very cool concept and the pixel art is nice, however is feels like it is lacking some content. That being said the game is free so there's nothing to lose by trying it out.
There were 4 new mobile games. Bye.
- By Ashton
The first game is called Vector. Vector is a very fun 2D platformer. It's not a normal platformer in that you don't fight enemies or bosses, instead you use parkour to travel to the end of the level as quickly as possible to avoid being captured by The Hunter that's following you. You can also do special tricks and collect bonuses in the levels in order to get a higher score and unlock new levels. There is a story, but it is very simplistic and the story is not one of the game's main selling points. The graphics are nice and stylized but amazing.
The next game is titled Shadow Fight 2. This game was made by the same developers as Vector and has the same art style. Shadow Fight 2 is a ninja fighting game whee you have a lot of different armor, weapons, ranged weapons, and magic to use against your opponent. The fighting system is the best I've seen on iOS before and it gives you a lot of different options as to how you want to fight and the fights are fun yet challenging.
Next is a game named Blood Gate - Age of Alchemy. This is an RPG type game where you fight monsters by matching 3 or more corresponding element orbs in a grid similar to a bejeweled game. There's a pretty good story that's much better than the previous 2 games' and the graphics are really amazing. The game is very fun with tons of weapons and items and it's definitely a game you could keep playing for a long time.
The last game is called Mazecraft. Mazecraft is a charming pixel game where you can build mazes and fill it with challenges like traps and monsters. Other players can play and rate your maze and you can go and play other people's mazes in order to level up and gain access to more content. The game is a very cool concept and the pixel art is nice, however is feels like it is lacking some content. That being said the game is free so there's nothing to lose by trying it out.
There were 4 new mobile games. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, October 18, 2015
New X-Wing Rebel Ships
Hello. Today I'm reviewing some new X-wing ships.
Today it's all rebel ships so let's start with the HWK-290. The HWK-290 is a pretty cool rebel ship and with its title "Moldy Crow" you can really make the best use of focus in the game. The HWK can focus and target lock, with 1 attack, 2 agility, 4 hull, and 1 shield. The Moldy Crow title you can equip it with is really cool because it lets you keep focus tokens so you can accumulate them throughout the game. My Dad has taken advantage of this by giving it the co-pilot Recon Specialist which lets you focus twice, the Blaster Turret which gives it a 360 firing arc with 3 dice at range 1-2 if it spends a focus, and the elite pilot skill Calculation which lets you use focuses to make criticals instead of regular damage.
The next Rebel ship is the K-wing. The K-wing has a 360 degree firing arc, 2 attack, 1 agility, 5 hull, and 4 shields. It can focus, target lock, and perform the new SLAM action which is very useful for maneuvering and speed. It has the modification Advanced SLAM which lets you perform a second action after you SLAM, the twin laser turret which only does 1 damage each time it hits, but gets to hit twice. The most important upgrade on the K-Wing is called Extra munitions which will give it an extra shot on the advanced homing missiles, plasma torpedos, Connor net, and proton bombs. There's also a co-pilot on it called Bombardier that lets it use the 2 template instead of the 1 when dropping bombs.
The last ship is the new T-70 X-Wing from the new Force Awakens Core set. The ship is pretty beefy with 3 attack, 2 agility, 3 hull, and 3 shields, almost matching up to the Tie Defender's 3 across the board. It can focus, target lock, and boost which is new to an X-wing. It has the same upgrade slots as the original X-wing except it can also equip tech upgrades. The ship is definitely a huge improvement on the original X-wing being only 2 more points than the original and still less expensive than an E-Wing, which was considered the X-wings original improvement.
There were some new rebel ships for X-wing. Bye.
- By Ashton
Today it's all rebel ships so let's start with the HWK-290. The HWK-290 is a pretty cool rebel ship and with its title "Moldy Crow" you can really make the best use of focus in the game. The HWK can focus and target lock, with 1 attack, 2 agility, 4 hull, and 1 shield. The Moldy Crow title you can equip it with is really cool because it lets you keep focus tokens so you can accumulate them throughout the game. My Dad has taken advantage of this by giving it the co-pilot Recon Specialist which lets you focus twice, the Blaster Turret which gives it a 360 firing arc with 3 dice at range 1-2 if it spends a focus, and the elite pilot skill Calculation which lets you use focuses to make criticals instead of regular damage.
The next Rebel ship is the K-wing. The K-wing has a 360 degree firing arc, 2 attack, 1 agility, 5 hull, and 4 shields. It can focus, target lock, and perform the new SLAM action which is very useful for maneuvering and speed. It has the modification Advanced SLAM which lets you perform a second action after you SLAM, the twin laser turret which only does 1 damage each time it hits, but gets to hit twice. The most important upgrade on the K-Wing is called Extra munitions which will give it an extra shot on the advanced homing missiles, plasma torpedos, Connor net, and proton bombs. There's also a co-pilot on it called Bombardier that lets it use the 2 template instead of the 1 when dropping bombs.
The last ship is the new T-70 X-Wing from the new Force Awakens Core set. The ship is pretty beefy with 3 attack, 2 agility, 3 hull, and 3 shields, almost matching up to the Tie Defender's 3 across the board. It can focus, target lock, and boost which is new to an X-wing. It has the same upgrade slots as the original X-wing except it can also equip tech upgrades. The ship is definitely a huge improvement on the original X-wing being only 2 more points than the original and still less expensive than an E-Wing, which was considered the X-wings original improvement.
There were some new rebel ships for X-wing. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, October 11, 2015
New X-Wing ships
Hello. Today I'm writing about another new batch of X-wing ships.
This time it's a pure imperial batch starting out with the 2 First Order Ties you get in the new Force Awakens core set. It comes with 5 different pilot cards for each ship and 3 of them are very useful. The lowest point cost is 15 for an Epsilon Squadron Pilot with 1 pilot skill and no ability. The extra 3 points over the lowest regular tie is very worth it because these Ties have 1 more shield, the ability to target lock, and a much better maneuver dial. The new maneuver dial has a Segnor's loop on 2, green 2 sharp turns, and no 3 k-turn. Overall that makes the new First Order Tie highly maneuverable and much better than the normal ones especially since it's only a 3 point difference. The second useful pilot card is the Epsilon leader with pilot skill 6 that lets you remove stress from every friendly ship at range one at the start of the combat phase. This is very useful because if you're flying a formation doing a red maneuver will still give you stress and prevent you from taking an action but since he clears it right after the entire formation could repeatedly pull red maneuvers. The last useful pilot is Omega Ace at 7 pilot skill and his ability is to change your attack results to damage results if you have a target lock on the defender and a focus token. That ability combined with howl runners will make sure your Ties are doing damage with every attack. Every ship can also equip the new tech upgrade slot and a useful upgrade comes with them for tech called weapons guidance that lets you spend a focus to change a blank result to a critical. The Omega Ace can equip an elite pilot upgrade and a card called Wired that comes with it will make it even easier to to damage by letting you reroll an eye result if you're stressed.
The second ship I got is the Tie Punisher. The Tie punisher has a high/low point cost of 21/27 and has 2 attack, 1 agility, 6 hull, and 3 shields. The Tie punisher has upgrade slots for systems, 2 torpedoes, 2 missiles, and 2 bombs so you can really load a ton of secondary weapons on this ship. Another awesome selling point for this ship is that it comes with a torpedo card called Extra Munitions which basically gives you an extra shot for every torpedo, missile, or bomb you have equipped. This is awesome because you could potentially have 10 shots with secondary weapons, so if you have this ship you should be target locking or dropping bombs every turn because you've definitely got the firepower. My favorite pilot to use with this ship is Deathrain at 6 pilot skill because it can drop a bomb from its front guides and then barrel roll before moving, this makes it a lot easier to line up a bomb in your enemies path and get away from it fast. The highest pilot skill card is Redline with 7 pilot skill and his ability is to be able to maintain 2 target locks on one ship as only 1 action which is pretty good for all the target locks you're gonna need. A systems upgrade card that comes with it called Enhanced scopes lets you treat your pilot skill as 0 when it comes to moving if you decide to which could be useful for a bomber because you could drop your bomb and get away before anybody else had a chance to move. The Tie punisher is obviously not very maneuverable but it does have a 1 forward which is useful, and a red 4 k-turn. It has the ability to focus, target lock, and boost.
The last ship is a large ship called the VT-49 Decimator. This ship is a beast. It's huge with 3 attack, 12 hull, 4 shields, and unfortunately 0 agility. With these stats it has high health but is gonna get hit all the time and after only 4 shields those critical hits are gonna be nasty. It's got turreted guns and a high/low point cost of 40/46. It has the ability to target lock and focus. Has upgrade slots for torpedo, 3 co-pilots, a bomb, as well as an elite pilot upgrade for most pilots. My favorite pilot to use is Captain Oicunn with 4 pilot skill because his ability is to cause 1 damage to every enemy ship he's touching after he moves. That's awesome. Whether you're using that pilot or not it has some awesome upgrade cards to choose from. It has the elite pilot upgrade Intimidation which lowers the agility of every enemy ship by 1 that you're touching which is awesome with Captain Oicunn. It also comes with 4 co-pilots, a fleet officer than can focus up to 2 ships at range 1-2 for an action and a stress token, Moff Jerjerrod who lets you sacrifice co-pilots to turn critically facedown, Ysanne Isard who lets you perform free evade actions of you have damage every turn, and Mara Jade who gives every enemy ship at range 1 at the end of combat a stress if they didn't have one. Those are amazing co-pilots. The Decimator has the standard Large ship maneuvering dial except it has literally no maneuvers that give it stress which is again, awesome.
There were some of my new X-wing ships. Bye.
- By Ashton
This time it's a pure imperial batch starting out with the 2 First Order Ties you get in the new Force Awakens core set. It comes with 5 different pilot cards for each ship and 3 of them are very useful. The lowest point cost is 15 for an Epsilon Squadron Pilot with 1 pilot skill and no ability. The extra 3 points over the lowest regular tie is very worth it because these Ties have 1 more shield, the ability to target lock, and a much better maneuver dial. The new maneuver dial has a Segnor's loop on 2, green 2 sharp turns, and no 3 k-turn. Overall that makes the new First Order Tie highly maneuverable and much better than the normal ones especially since it's only a 3 point difference. The second useful pilot card is the Epsilon leader with pilot skill 6 that lets you remove stress from every friendly ship at range one at the start of the combat phase. This is very useful because if you're flying a formation doing a red maneuver will still give you stress and prevent you from taking an action but since he clears it right after the entire formation could repeatedly pull red maneuvers. The last useful pilot is Omega Ace at 7 pilot skill and his ability is to change your attack results to damage results if you have a target lock on the defender and a focus token. That ability combined with howl runners will make sure your Ties are doing damage with every attack. Every ship can also equip the new tech upgrade slot and a useful upgrade comes with them for tech called weapons guidance that lets you spend a focus to change a blank result to a critical. The Omega Ace can equip an elite pilot upgrade and a card called Wired that comes with it will make it even easier to to damage by letting you reroll an eye result if you're stressed.
The second ship I got is the Tie Punisher. The Tie punisher has a high/low point cost of 21/27 and has 2 attack, 1 agility, 6 hull, and 3 shields. The Tie punisher has upgrade slots for systems, 2 torpedoes, 2 missiles, and 2 bombs so you can really load a ton of secondary weapons on this ship. Another awesome selling point for this ship is that it comes with a torpedo card called Extra Munitions which basically gives you an extra shot for every torpedo, missile, or bomb you have equipped. This is awesome because you could potentially have 10 shots with secondary weapons, so if you have this ship you should be target locking or dropping bombs every turn because you've definitely got the firepower. My favorite pilot to use with this ship is Deathrain at 6 pilot skill because it can drop a bomb from its front guides and then barrel roll before moving, this makes it a lot easier to line up a bomb in your enemies path and get away from it fast. The highest pilot skill card is Redline with 7 pilot skill and his ability is to be able to maintain 2 target locks on one ship as only 1 action which is pretty good for all the target locks you're gonna need. A systems upgrade card that comes with it called Enhanced scopes lets you treat your pilot skill as 0 when it comes to moving if you decide to which could be useful for a bomber because you could drop your bomb and get away before anybody else had a chance to move. The Tie punisher is obviously not very maneuverable but it does have a 1 forward which is useful, and a red 4 k-turn. It has the ability to focus, target lock, and boost.
The last ship is a large ship called the VT-49 Decimator. This ship is a beast. It's huge with 3 attack, 12 hull, 4 shields, and unfortunately 0 agility. With these stats it has high health but is gonna get hit all the time and after only 4 shields those critical hits are gonna be nasty. It's got turreted guns and a high/low point cost of 40/46. It has the ability to target lock and focus. Has upgrade slots for torpedo, 3 co-pilots, a bomb, as well as an elite pilot upgrade for most pilots. My favorite pilot to use is Captain Oicunn with 4 pilot skill because his ability is to cause 1 damage to every enemy ship he's touching after he moves. That's awesome. Whether you're using that pilot or not it has some awesome upgrade cards to choose from. It has the elite pilot upgrade Intimidation which lowers the agility of every enemy ship by 1 that you're touching which is awesome with Captain Oicunn. It also comes with 4 co-pilots, a fleet officer than can focus up to 2 ships at range 1-2 for an action and a stress token, Moff Jerjerrod who lets you sacrifice co-pilots to turn critically facedown, Ysanne Isard who lets you perform free evade actions of you have damage every turn, and Mara Jade who gives every enemy ship at range 1 at the end of combat a stress if they didn't have one. Those are amazing co-pilots. The Decimator has the standard Large ship maneuvering dial except it has literally no maneuvers that give it stress which is again, awesome.
There were some of my new X-wing ships. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, October 4, 2015
Strings Class and Cello
Hello. Today I'm talking about my experience with strings class and playing cello.
I started to play cello in sixth grade so I've been playing for 4 years now. In 6th grade at North Middle School the year started with 3 or 4 cello players so I was not alone and there was one person that was abetted player than me so I would have been 2nd or 3rd chair. My teacher was Mr. Cushwaw for most of that year until he stopped teaching so I had another teacher, Mr. Newburger for the rest of middle school. 7th grade was when things really got started because all the other cellos in my grade stopped playing. This meant that I would be the only cello player and I was for the rest of middle school. During concerts if I was lucky there would be 1 or 2 other cellos because that was the only time all 3 grades ever played together. Being the only cello player for so long definitely helped both my playing skills and gave me a lot of confidence since I would often be doing solos. Being the only cello I was also often playing loud, fast, deep parts, which happen to be my favorite part to play and it's also the reason the cello is the instrument I chose. My 7th and 8th grade years playing I had a good amount of friends in the class too, and being an essential part of the orchestra definitely helped me, even though a senior cello player could have taught me some useful things.
After 8th grade I went to high school to play at Spring Mills High. At high school the orchestra was a lot larger because all of the grades are in the same class and practice the same music together, and because of this there was an even larger range of playing ability and there were 2 other cellos, both better than me. I think that this was my worst year because since I was last chair I got a lot less attention and since my orchestra teacher, Dr. Sturm, doesn't have time to teach every single thing to every student, the senior players in each section are supposed to help and teach the others in their section. Neither of the other 2 players ever taught me anything even though they were both much better than me so I started to really lag behind and there was a lot of guilty fake-playing-hide-behind-other-cellos. Also most of what we played didn't have those loud, fast, deep, almost dreary parts that I played in middle school and I definitely missed that and didn't have near as much fun playing these other pieces. One song that did have those elements was Fantasia on Theme (no not Disney) and I very much enjoyed that.
This year I am in the same situation as I was for most of middle school in that the other two players quit and graduated so I'm the only player. This way I've started to actually learn things and grow and get better as a player because I'm being taught directly by Dr. Sturm, who's great. Because I'm actually learning new things and becoming a more well rounded player I'm also enjoying all kinds of music and not only what I was used to playing. Recently there was an event called WV Strings Day hosted at our school where the best players from our school played very challenging pieces with good players from across the state. My regained confidence and skill had me enjoying something I'm sure I would have dreaded the previous year and I was even 3rd chair out of 9 cellos, which is pretty good. There's another girl playing cello this year I'm friends with and she's just starting this year so I've resolved to actually teach her things and help her get better, unlike the other 2 players from my previous year.
I'm definitely looking forward to playing cello at Spring Mills High for the next 2 years and it's going to be a very awesome experience being the head of a section with my friends also a surprisingly large amount of cellos coming from various middle schools next year and the year after that. So there was my history of playing cello and strings class. Bye.
- By Ashton
I started to play cello in sixth grade so I've been playing for 4 years now. In 6th grade at North Middle School the year started with 3 or 4 cello players so I was not alone and there was one person that was abetted player than me so I would have been 2nd or 3rd chair. My teacher was Mr. Cushwaw for most of that year until he stopped teaching so I had another teacher, Mr. Newburger for the rest of middle school. 7th grade was when things really got started because all the other cellos in my grade stopped playing. This meant that I would be the only cello player and I was for the rest of middle school. During concerts if I was lucky there would be 1 or 2 other cellos because that was the only time all 3 grades ever played together. Being the only cello player for so long definitely helped both my playing skills and gave me a lot of confidence since I would often be doing solos. Being the only cello I was also often playing loud, fast, deep parts, which happen to be my favorite part to play and it's also the reason the cello is the instrument I chose. My 7th and 8th grade years playing I had a good amount of friends in the class too, and being an essential part of the orchestra definitely helped me, even though a senior cello player could have taught me some useful things.
After 8th grade I went to high school to play at Spring Mills High. At high school the orchestra was a lot larger because all of the grades are in the same class and practice the same music together, and because of this there was an even larger range of playing ability and there were 2 other cellos, both better than me. I think that this was my worst year because since I was last chair I got a lot less attention and since my orchestra teacher, Dr. Sturm, doesn't have time to teach every single thing to every student, the senior players in each section are supposed to help and teach the others in their section. Neither of the other 2 players ever taught me anything even though they were both much better than me so I started to really lag behind and there was a lot of guilty fake-playing-hide-behind-other-cellos. Also most of what we played didn't have those loud, fast, deep, almost dreary parts that I played in middle school and I definitely missed that and didn't have near as much fun playing these other pieces. One song that did have those elements was Fantasia on Theme (no not Disney) and I very much enjoyed that.
This year I am in the same situation as I was for most of middle school in that the other two players quit and graduated so I'm the only player. This way I've started to actually learn things and grow and get better as a player because I'm being taught directly by Dr. Sturm, who's great. Because I'm actually learning new things and becoming a more well rounded player I'm also enjoying all kinds of music and not only what I was used to playing. Recently there was an event called WV Strings Day hosted at our school where the best players from our school played very challenging pieces with good players from across the state. My regained confidence and skill had me enjoying something I'm sure I would have dreaded the previous year and I was even 3rd chair out of 9 cellos, which is pretty good. There's another girl playing cello this year I'm friends with and she's just starting this year so I've resolved to actually teach her things and help her get better, unlike the other 2 players from my previous year.
I'm definitely looking forward to playing cello at Spring Mills High for the next 2 years and it's going to be a very awesome experience being the head of a section with my friends also a surprisingly large amount of cellos coming from various middle schools next year and the year after that. So there was my history of playing cello and strings class. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Pokemon Go
Hello people's. Today I'm going to look at the upcoming game, Pokemon Go.
Pokemon Go is a game coming in 2016 for iOS and Android. Because of the nature of the game it's making a lot of dorks like me or anybody really that played Pokemon when they were little very excited and nostalgic. It's doing this for a few reasons. The first is that it's going to be on smartphones which makes it a lot more accessible and convenient than only having it on a device solely for gaming. The next reason is that this game is going to have every Pokemon in it, without trading between games, it's the first game that's done this and it's very cool. The biggest reason is that in this game is location based so you actually have to go places to catch Pokemon, trade, or battle with people.
Another cool part of it is that there's an optional clip that you can buy that looks like a pokeball, it helps you by vibrating when a Pokemon is near so that you don't have to have your phone out all the time. One of the coolest parts about it though it is that having it on you lets other people that play the game know that you play it and then you can go up to them and battle and trade with people you don't even know which is awesome. Depending on how expensive it will be I might buy it if I like the game as much as I think I will. The game having every Pokemon in it is very cool because Pokemon has been around since 1996 and every few years they release new games with a new generation of 100 or so new pokemon. Since this game will have all of them it's going to be attracting fans from all across that 20 year timespan so there's gonna be older fans in their 20's battling and trading with little kids that just got into the series.
The coolest and most exciting aspect of the new game is that it's location based. It will work like this, at any point in time when you're walking around your phone might buzz and say there's a wild Pokemon 56 feet in this direction and once you're near the location all you have to do is use the app to access your camera and you can actually see what Pokemon it is right through the camera as if it was standing there in the real world. Now it's obviously not going to be perfect and most the time it's probably going to be half in a wall or just look like a sticker on the screen but that's still pretty cool. Then once you are near it you can battle it and catch it just like you can in the main games and once you've caught it, it's yours to take wherever you want. If you meet someone with the game on their phone it's easy to just fight their team for fun and then you can trade them for ones that they've caught. It's gonna spark so many cool stories like "yeah I found my favorite Pokemon while I was out with my friends and it was right there by the side of the restaurant parking lot" or "yeah I traded this kid I saw in a subway and gave him is favorite Pokemon he was so happy." This is so exciting for fans of the series because we played this game when we were little kids, for me I was only 8 or 9, and we would have done anything to bring the Pokemon we had caught in the games out into the real world to show people or just have a friend or a pet. I can tell you for a fact that there were a lot of birthday wishes that went something like that. (Guilty as charged). And now years later we can experience something that comes pretty close to that and that is why this game is making people so nostalgic and excited.
So there were some thoughts on the upcoming game Pokemon Go. Bye.
- By Ashton
Pokemon Go is a game coming in 2016 for iOS and Android. Because of the nature of the game it's making a lot of dorks like me or anybody really that played Pokemon when they were little very excited and nostalgic. It's doing this for a few reasons. The first is that it's going to be on smartphones which makes it a lot more accessible and convenient than only having it on a device solely for gaming. The next reason is that this game is going to have every Pokemon in it, without trading between games, it's the first game that's done this and it's very cool. The biggest reason is that in this game is location based so you actually have to go places to catch Pokemon, trade, or battle with people.
Another cool part of it is that there's an optional clip that you can buy that looks like a pokeball, it helps you by vibrating when a Pokemon is near so that you don't have to have your phone out all the time. One of the coolest parts about it though it is that having it on you lets other people that play the game know that you play it and then you can go up to them and battle and trade with people you don't even know which is awesome. Depending on how expensive it will be I might buy it if I like the game as much as I think I will. The game having every Pokemon in it is very cool because Pokemon has been around since 1996 and every few years they release new games with a new generation of 100 or so new pokemon. Since this game will have all of them it's going to be attracting fans from all across that 20 year timespan so there's gonna be older fans in their 20's battling and trading with little kids that just got into the series.
The coolest and most exciting aspect of the new game is that it's location based. It will work like this, at any point in time when you're walking around your phone might buzz and say there's a wild Pokemon 56 feet in this direction and once you're near the location all you have to do is use the app to access your camera and you can actually see what Pokemon it is right through the camera as if it was standing there in the real world. Now it's obviously not going to be perfect and most the time it's probably going to be half in a wall or just look like a sticker on the screen but that's still pretty cool. Then once you are near it you can battle it and catch it just like you can in the main games and once you've caught it, it's yours to take wherever you want. If you meet someone with the game on their phone it's easy to just fight their team for fun and then you can trade them for ones that they've caught. It's gonna spark so many cool stories like "yeah I found my favorite Pokemon while I was out with my friends and it was right there by the side of the restaurant parking lot" or "yeah I traded this kid I saw in a subway and gave him is favorite Pokemon he was so happy." This is so exciting for fans of the series because we played this game when we were little kids, for me I was only 8 or 9, and we would have done anything to bring the Pokemon we had caught in the games out into the real world to show people or just have a friend or a pet. I can tell you for a fact that there were a lot of birthday wishes that went something like that. (Guilty as charged). And now years later we can experience something that comes pretty close to that and that is why this game is making people so nostalgic and excited.
So there were some thoughts on the upcoming game Pokemon Go. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Colleges
There are many different colleges with different programs for me to choose from. The main things I'm looking at for each college are locations, the programs, the length of the programs, and the tuition. The programs I'm interested in are anything to do with video game development like digital graphics. Because tuition prices are so incredibly high in America I've made a list of colleges in other countries like Germany and Denmark.
Let's start with Denmark. One of the colleges I saw in Denmark had a rather long name called The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. It had a program titled Game Art, Design, and Development. The program lasts 2 years and is 6168$ per semester. Another university was titled IT University of Copenhagen. The university had a program simply titled Games that also lasts only 2 years that was 7514$ per semester. I wanted to find programs that lasted longer because I assumed that would mean they had more to teach and would treat it more seriously so I kept looking and found some programs for a college called VIA University College. I would reconsider these colleges only if I found out more about the programs they offered that made me excited or if they created new courses or lengthened the existing ones.
Denmark also has a college called VIA University College with 2 game programs. The 2 programs are Character Animation and Computer Graphic Arts. Both programs last for 3 and a half years and cost 7943$ per semester. If I did end up going to this college I would have to look at both programs more extensively in order to make a choice between them, because even though the price is comparatively low, 7 years would be a long time. I guess if I did end up taking both programs then I would want to get an actual job while I was there in the video game field, that way I could continue studying and still be doing what I want to do.
Next lets look at Universities in Germany. I'm looking at Germany because not only would it be really cool to live there and meet the people and the culture, but also because the tuition prices are not even a fraction of what you have to pay in America. First is the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt. The University offers a course in Animation and Game that lasts 3.5 years and has an unbelievable 0$ tuition. Similar to it is the University of Applied Sciences Cologne. It has a program named Digital Games for 3.5 years that is only 249$ per semester. The third college I saw was called Berlin School of Applied Sciences. The program is called Game Design and lasts 3.5 years. A downside as well as an upside is that even though there is a 0$ tuition fee they are only accepting 40 applicants per year. All I can say about that is that hopefully it is a very high class course with a lot to offer, otherwise I might not have a large chance of getting in unless I'd already gotten some training in the area.
While I was looking at colleges in Germany I found one in particular that interested me called the Technical University of Munich. They offered a course called games engineering and what had drawn me so much to it is that the description of the course and the pictures that went along with it was exactly what I had wanted in a college course. The course is very broad in that it isn't confining these games to a single platform like computer gaming or mobile gaming it's looking at all types of games across all platforms, even virtual reality. It also showed that it's a perfect blend of teaching how to create the 2D and 3D art styles of video games and the actual development and coding of them. The course also has a Bachelors as well as a Masters degree available making it last a total of 5 years which is the longest amount of time I've seen for any single program so far. Last but not least all of this comes in at only 127$ per semester which is just incredible.
It's obvious that there are some pretty great colleges in both Denmark and Germany. My two favorite options are still the VIA University College in Denmark and the Technical University of Munich in Germany. The field is still growing so I'm sure that there are going to be more and more opportunities in these countries as well as others and I plan to keep looking at different programs and colleges especially internationally because of the low tuition and amazing experiences I can have there.
- By Ashton
Let's start with Denmark. One of the colleges I saw in Denmark had a rather long name called The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. It had a program titled Game Art, Design, and Development. The program lasts 2 years and is 6168$ per semester. Another university was titled IT University of Copenhagen. The university had a program simply titled Games that also lasts only 2 years that was 7514$ per semester. I wanted to find programs that lasted longer because I assumed that would mean they had more to teach and would treat it more seriously so I kept looking and found some programs for a college called VIA University College. I would reconsider these colleges only if I found out more about the programs they offered that made me excited or if they created new courses or lengthened the existing ones.
Denmark also has a college called VIA University College with 2 game programs. The 2 programs are Character Animation and Computer Graphic Arts. Both programs last for 3 and a half years and cost 7943$ per semester. If I did end up going to this college I would have to look at both programs more extensively in order to make a choice between them, because even though the price is comparatively low, 7 years would be a long time. I guess if I did end up taking both programs then I would want to get an actual job while I was there in the video game field, that way I could continue studying and still be doing what I want to do.
Next lets look at Universities in Germany. I'm looking at Germany because not only would it be really cool to live there and meet the people and the culture, but also because the tuition prices are not even a fraction of what you have to pay in America. First is the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt. The University offers a course in Animation and Game that lasts 3.5 years and has an unbelievable 0$ tuition. Similar to it is the University of Applied Sciences Cologne. It has a program named Digital Games for 3.5 years that is only 249$ per semester. The third college I saw was called Berlin School of Applied Sciences. The program is called Game Design and lasts 3.5 years. A downside as well as an upside is that even though there is a 0$ tuition fee they are only accepting 40 applicants per year. All I can say about that is that hopefully it is a very high class course with a lot to offer, otherwise I might not have a large chance of getting in unless I'd already gotten some training in the area.
While I was looking at colleges in Germany I found one in particular that interested me called the Technical University of Munich. They offered a course called games engineering and what had drawn me so much to it is that the description of the course and the pictures that went along with it was exactly what I had wanted in a college course. The course is very broad in that it isn't confining these games to a single platform like computer gaming or mobile gaming it's looking at all types of games across all platforms, even virtual reality. It also showed that it's a perfect blend of teaching how to create the 2D and 3D art styles of video games and the actual development and coding of them. The course also has a Bachelors as well as a Masters degree available making it last a total of 5 years which is the longest amount of time I've seen for any single program so far. Last but not least all of this comes in at only 127$ per semester which is just incredible.
It's obvious that there are some pretty great colleges in both Denmark and Germany. My two favorite options are still the VIA University College in Denmark and the Technical University of Munich in Germany. The field is still growing so I'm sure that there are going to be more and more opportunities in these countries as well as others and I plan to keep looking at different programs and colleges especially internationally because of the low tuition and amazing experiences I can have there.
- By Ashton
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Sinister
Hello people's. Today I'm talking about the Sinister movies.
So a few days I saw Sinister 2. I'm a huge fan of the first movie, I love everything about it so I wasn't surprised when this one wasn't quite as good. However the movie was much better than the ratings that it got. The basis of the Sinister movies is that a demon called Bughuul, better known as the boogeyman, will corrupt an innocent child until it creatively murders its family, usually with some art involved. In modern times Bughuul tends to use film as the art so it's often grainy old cameras filming gruesome murders. Urban legends about murders being filmed and titled "snuff films" already exist and are a terrifying concept in itself. Add in a terrifying real life boogeyman and creepy children and it's no wonder that these movies are so disturbing.
(SPOILERS)
Both movies center around families moving into a house where one of these murders took place, both families eventually learn about the supernatural causes behind the murders but always find out too late that their own murders would be triggered as soon as they left that house. In the second movie a deputy from the first has been going around and burning unoccupied houses where these murders took place so that all the chains of child killing family Bughuul has created will be broken. However eventually he discovers that there's already a family living in one.. By far the best part of the second movie were the snuff films. In the original film the most disturbing and iconic snuff film is when a family is hanged simultaneously from a tree in their backyard and in the second movie of the 4 new snuff films, all of them are equally or even more disturbing than that. If you watch this movie without seeing the first than these parts will be an enormous shock.
In my opinion if you took the plot from the original Sinister, replaced the least disturbing snuff films with the ones from Sinister 2, and kept the music from the first, then you would have the best possible Sinister story. What was mainly lacking from the second movie was a creative plot line and while I was seeing the movie I started thinking if I could have come up with a better (scarier) ending. Unlike the original Bughuuls plan for the family being murdered fails and only an abusive father is killed. If I had been writing the movie I would have written it so that the mother died, which audiences would have cared about much more, and then after the threat of Bughuul and the murderous child was over I would have a shock ending. The ending would have been the innocent child taking the opportunity to kill his extremely abusive father without Bughuuls influence, showing that true evil is not necessary for the corruption of innocent humans.
(END SPOILERS)
So there were my thoughts of the Sinister movies. Bye.
- By Ashton
So a few days I saw Sinister 2. I'm a huge fan of the first movie, I love everything about it so I wasn't surprised when this one wasn't quite as good. However the movie was much better than the ratings that it got. The basis of the Sinister movies is that a demon called Bughuul, better known as the boogeyman, will corrupt an innocent child until it creatively murders its family, usually with some art involved. In modern times Bughuul tends to use film as the art so it's often grainy old cameras filming gruesome murders. Urban legends about murders being filmed and titled "snuff films" already exist and are a terrifying concept in itself. Add in a terrifying real life boogeyman and creepy children and it's no wonder that these movies are so disturbing.
(SPOILERS)
Both movies center around families moving into a house where one of these murders took place, both families eventually learn about the supernatural causes behind the murders but always find out too late that their own murders would be triggered as soon as they left that house. In the second movie a deputy from the first has been going around and burning unoccupied houses where these murders took place so that all the chains of child killing family Bughuul has created will be broken. However eventually he discovers that there's already a family living in one.. By far the best part of the second movie were the snuff films. In the original film the most disturbing and iconic snuff film is when a family is hanged simultaneously from a tree in their backyard and in the second movie of the 4 new snuff films, all of them are equally or even more disturbing than that. If you watch this movie without seeing the first than these parts will be an enormous shock.
In my opinion if you took the plot from the original Sinister, replaced the least disturbing snuff films with the ones from Sinister 2, and kept the music from the first, then you would have the best possible Sinister story. What was mainly lacking from the second movie was a creative plot line and while I was seeing the movie I started thinking if I could have come up with a better (scarier) ending. Unlike the original Bughuuls plan for the family being murdered fails and only an abusive father is killed. If I had been writing the movie I would have written it so that the mother died, which audiences would have cared about much more, and then after the threat of Bughuul and the murderous child was over I would have a shock ending. The ending would have been the innocent child taking the opportunity to kill his extremely abusive father without Bughuuls influence, showing that true evil is not necessary for the corruption of innocent humans.
(END SPOILERS)
So there were my thoughts of the Sinister movies. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Hello. Today I'm writing about some mobile games for iOS. Here it goes.
The first game is called Pac-Man 256. Pac-Man 256 is regular Pac-Man but I like it a lot better because the maze you play in in regular Pac-Man is infinite in this game. So in this game you have to keep traveling towards the top of the screen to avoid being killed by "the glitch" that consumes the maze at the bottom of the screen. There are many powerups and also different ghosts. The pink ghosts will travel straight at you if they see you but will stop if they lose sight of you. The orange ghosts are normal pac-man ghosts that will follow you until you get away. The grey ghosts follow you like the orange ghosts but are faster so it's only safe to pass them with they sleep for short periods of time. The light blue ghost will go in a circle around a section of the maze but doesn't follow you, and the green and purple ghosts will travel horizontally across the maze without following you. Pac-Man 256 is a really good, creative high score game.
Second is a game called Dice Mage. Dice Mage is an RPG type game where you travel across sky islands and get better and better gear while fighting monsters and bosses. Your ultimate goal is to beat the final boss and retrieve the die of fate which can change fate. There are several different types of equipment. Hoods and robes offer defense and special abilities, staffs offer attack and special abilities, and tomes offer attack and decide what special powers you get when rolling. For instance a tome could have 1-4 out of 6 numbers on a die outlined with powers so it could be 1 is heal 2 is lighting 3 is fire and 4 is vamp. That way when you were in a fight and you rolled a 2 and a 4 you would still activate the lighting and vamp powers even if the monster had a higher number than you did. Over the course of the game you get better and better attack, defense, health, and mana. You don't keep these stats if you die and have to start over but you do keep your equipment. You can use mana to re-roll your dice to try and get something better and you can keep doing it but the more times you try to re-roll in one turn the more expensive it gets to do so. Both the player and the monster get to activate the powers they rolled with their dice but only the highest number dice get to attack the opponent. At exclamation point islands you can get better stats and at treasure chow at and shop islands you can get better equipment. All the other islands are monsters. This is a really good game the only real qualm I have about it is that once you've beaten it there's very little replay value.
Lastly, there's an amazing game titled Goblin Sword. Goblin Sword has exceeded all of my expectations for a mobile game. It costs money but has no in-app purchases and any game that's like that is already much better than free games with in-apps in my opinion. Goblin Sword is a 2D fantasy platformer where you work through levels, fighting monsters, collecting gold and gems, finding treasure chests, and discovering crystals. The levels are extremely fun and challenging especially since the terrain can be as deadly and exotic as the monsters themselves. As far as I know there are 5 areas and 80 levels which is a huge amount of content especially with levels this creative and the creator is constantly updating the game with more content. You can buy and find awesome swords and relics which can help you and costumes for appearances. This game is awesome in that even through swords and relics help you, progression in the game is mostly about just getting better and better at it.
Bye.
- By Ashton
The first game is called Pac-Man 256. Pac-Man 256 is regular Pac-Man but I like it a lot better because the maze you play in in regular Pac-Man is infinite in this game. So in this game you have to keep traveling towards the top of the screen to avoid being killed by "the glitch" that consumes the maze at the bottom of the screen. There are many powerups and also different ghosts. The pink ghosts will travel straight at you if they see you but will stop if they lose sight of you. The orange ghosts are normal pac-man ghosts that will follow you until you get away. The grey ghosts follow you like the orange ghosts but are faster so it's only safe to pass them with they sleep for short periods of time. The light blue ghost will go in a circle around a section of the maze but doesn't follow you, and the green and purple ghosts will travel horizontally across the maze without following you. Pac-Man 256 is a really good, creative high score game.
Second is a game called Dice Mage. Dice Mage is an RPG type game where you travel across sky islands and get better and better gear while fighting monsters and bosses. Your ultimate goal is to beat the final boss and retrieve the die of fate which can change fate. There are several different types of equipment. Hoods and robes offer defense and special abilities, staffs offer attack and special abilities, and tomes offer attack and decide what special powers you get when rolling. For instance a tome could have 1-4 out of 6 numbers on a die outlined with powers so it could be 1 is heal 2 is lighting 3 is fire and 4 is vamp. That way when you were in a fight and you rolled a 2 and a 4 you would still activate the lighting and vamp powers even if the monster had a higher number than you did. Over the course of the game you get better and better attack, defense, health, and mana. You don't keep these stats if you die and have to start over but you do keep your equipment. You can use mana to re-roll your dice to try and get something better and you can keep doing it but the more times you try to re-roll in one turn the more expensive it gets to do so. Both the player and the monster get to activate the powers they rolled with their dice but only the highest number dice get to attack the opponent. At exclamation point islands you can get better stats and at treasure chow at and shop islands you can get better equipment. All the other islands are monsters. This is a really good game the only real qualm I have about it is that once you've beaten it there's very little replay value.
Lastly, there's an amazing game titled Goblin Sword. Goblin Sword has exceeded all of my expectations for a mobile game. It costs money but has no in-app purchases and any game that's like that is already much better than free games with in-apps in my opinion. Goblin Sword is a 2D fantasy platformer where you work through levels, fighting monsters, collecting gold and gems, finding treasure chests, and discovering crystals. The levels are extremely fun and challenging especially since the terrain can be as deadly and exotic as the monsters themselves. As far as I know there are 5 areas and 80 levels which is a huge amount of content especially with levels this creative and the creator is constantly updating the game with more content. You can buy and find awesome swords and relics which can help you and costumes for appearances. This game is awesome in that even through swords and relics help you, progression in the game is mostly about just getting better and better at it.
Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, August 23, 2015
School 2015
Hello. Today I'm writing about what my first week of school was like and my daily schedule.
My 1st period class is Mythology. Myth class is amazing I love having it as 1st because it's an easy, fun way to start the day and 1st period is longer than all the other periods. Ms. Salfia teaches it and she's a great teacher. We've just started Greek mythology with the Greek Muses, we'll do Nordic in the winter, Celtic in the spring, and lastly modern day myths. My 2nd period class is English. English is an alright class even though I really don't like writing unless it's fiction. Every Friday we get to read whatever we want and out of all my classes I have the most friends in that class and ironically it's the same room we all had English in last year but a different teacher. Because almost the whole class are all from the same class last year we're pretty talkative and our teacher Ms. Zelenka has come to notice that.
My third period class is Biology. So I love science and I love biology even more before I consider the study of living things to be one of the more interesting fields. This year biology class should have been really fun and exciting but instead of a young energetic teacher like most all my other classes I have and elderly woman as a teacher with a small droning voice so unfortunately I'm not looking forward to biology all that much this year. My next class is U.S. History. I'm not very interested in U.S. History at all which isn't unpatriotic it just isn't a very old country and I don't find its history particularly exciting, also I have very few friends in that class same as biology and my teacher also has that small droning voice.
My fifth period class is Math. Math is actually one of my least boring classes because the teacher, Ms. Elliot is a very good teacher in her methods, she's not boring at all, and she always keeps you busy which in math class being busy means working equations and for me that's at least semi-enjoyable. After fifth period I have 2nd lunch which is alright, especially since you know food and its fifty minutes long but I have a lot less friends in 2nd lunch then I did last year. After lunch is 6th period Strings class. I am first cello this year which is pretty fun and also probably looks alright on a college resume, and the class is also a nice break from the more difficult academic classes I have in the first half of the day. My last class is gym which doesn't require much thinking which is a good break from the other classes but it does come right before my hour and a half cross country practice after school so I guess the timing could be better. We have lockers and we're going no to start actually dressing and exercising tomorrow.
Bye.
- By Ashton
My 1st period class is Mythology. Myth class is amazing I love having it as 1st because it's an easy, fun way to start the day and 1st period is longer than all the other periods. Ms. Salfia teaches it and she's a great teacher. We've just started Greek mythology with the Greek Muses, we'll do Nordic in the winter, Celtic in the spring, and lastly modern day myths. My 2nd period class is English. English is an alright class even though I really don't like writing unless it's fiction. Every Friday we get to read whatever we want and out of all my classes I have the most friends in that class and ironically it's the same room we all had English in last year but a different teacher. Because almost the whole class are all from the same class last year we're pretty talkative and our teacher Ms. Zelenka has come to notice that.
My third period class is Biology. So I love science and I love biology even more before I consider the study of living things to be one of the more interesting fields. This year biology class should have been really fun and exciting but instead of a young energetic teacher like most all my other classes I have and elderly woman as a teacher with a small droning voice so unfortunately I'm not looking forward to biology all that much this year. My next class is U.S. History. I'm not very interested in U.S. History at all which isn't unpatriotic it just isn't a very old country and I don't find its history particularly exciting, also I have very few friends in that class same as biology and my teacher also has that small droning voice.
My fifth period class is Math. Math is actually one of my least boring classes because the teacher, Ms. Elliot is a very good teacher in her methods, she's not boring at all, and she always keeps you busy which in math class being busy means working equations and for me that's at least semi-enjoyable. After fifth period I have 2nd lunch which is alright, especially since you know food and its fifty minutes long but I have a lot less friends in 2nd lunch then I did last year. After lunch is 6th period Strings class. I am first cello this year which is pretty fun and also probably looks alright on a college resume, and the class is also a nice break from the more difficult academic classes I have in the first half of the day. My last class is gym which doesn't require much thinking which is a good break from the other classes but it does come right before my hour and a half cross country practice after school so I guess the timing could be better. We have lockers and we're going no to start actually dressing and exercising tomorrow.
Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, August 16, 2015
4 mobile games
Hello. Today I'm writing about some more mobile games on iOS.
The first game is called Vector. Vector is a very fun 2D platformer. It's not a normal platformer in that you don't fight enemies or bosses, instead you use parkour to travel to the end of the level as quickly as possible to avoid being captured by The Hunter that's following you. You can also do special tricks and collect bonuses in the levels in order to get a higher score and unlock new levels. There is a story, but it is very simplistic and the story is not one of the game's main selling points. The graphics are nice and stylized but amazing.
The next game is titled Shadow Fight 2. This game was made by the same developers as Vector and has the same art style. Shadow Fight 2 is a ninja fighting game whee you have a lot of different armor, weapons, ranged weapons, and magic to use against your opponent. The fighting system is the best I've seen on iOS before and it gives you a lot of different options as to how you want to fight and the fights are fun yet challenging.
Next is a game named Blood Gate - Age of Alchemy. This is an RPG type game where you fight monsters by matching 3 or more corresponding element orbs in a grid similar to a bejeweled game. There's a pretty good story that's much better than the previous 2 games' and the graphics are really amazing. The game is very fun with tons of weapons and items and it's definitely a game you could keep playing for a long time.
The last game is called Mazecraft. Mazecraft is a charming pixel game where you can build mazes and fill it with challenges like traps and monsters. Other players can play and rate your maze and you can go and play other people's mazes in order to level up and gain access to more content. The game is a very cool concept and the pixel art is nice, however is feels like it is lacking some content. That being said the game is free so there's nothing to lose by trying it out.
There were 4 new mobile games. Bye.
- By Ashton
The first game is called Vector. Vector is a very fun 2D platformer. It's not a normal platformer in that you don't fight enemies or bosses, instead you use parkour to travel to the end of the level as quickly as possible to avoid being captured by The Hunter that's following you. You can also do special tricks and collect bonuses in the levels in order to get a higher score and unlock new levels. There is a story, but it is very simplistic and the story is not one of the game's main selling points. The graphics are nice and stylized but amazing.
The next game is titled Shadow Fight 2. This game was made by the same developers as Vector and has the same art style. Shadow Fight 2 is a ninja fighting game whee you have a lot of different armor, weapons, ranged weapons, and magic to use against your opponent. The fighting system is the best I've seen on iOS before and it gives you a lot of different options as to how you want to fight and the fights are fun yet challenging.
Next is a game named Blood Gate - Age of Alchemy. This is an RPG type game where you fight monsters by matching 3 or more corresponding element orbs in a grid similar to a bejeweled game. There's a pretty good story that's much better than the previous 2 games' and the graphics are really amazing. The game is very fun with tons of weapons and items and it's definitely a game you could keep playing for a long time.
The last game is called Mazecraft. Mazecraft is a charming pixel game where you can build mazes and fill it with challenges like traps and monsters. Other players can play and rate your maze and you can go and play other people's mazes in order to level up and gain access to more content. The game is a very cool concept and the pixel art is nice, however is feels like it is lacking some content. That being said the game is free so there's nothing to lose by trying it out.
There were 4 new mobile games. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Hello. Today I'm writing about Cross Country so far this year.
I recently started Cross Country again just a few days ago. Practice is from 8-9:30 so I get up at 7 to get ready. I just wear a tank top, some shorts, and running shoes because it's still blistering hot. Otherwise I just bring water, my phone, an armband to run with it, and earbuds to listen to music. I listen to all types of music when I'm running but mostly it's rock or alternative.
The first thing we do when we get there is run two laps around the school to warm up. Before the actual work out we do a lot of stretching to get us loose and prevent injuries. Sometimes after the workout we'll do a cool down run that is much less hard and finally we'll stretch again and maybe put our legs up on a wall to drain them of acid. We've done workouts so far. The first thing we did was mile repeats on the track.
Four loops around the track is a mile so mile repeats are just listening to your time each loop and trying to keep it as consistent as possible. The next workout we did was Out N' Backs which is a very hard workout where you run at a good pace out to a cone in the middle of a field in the sun and run back to the starting line 10 or so times. After that we did a cool down of striders on the field which is just trying to lengthen your stride as much as possible. Because Out N' Backs were so hard next we did an Indian Run which is much easier. For the Indian Run the guys and girls lined up in separate lines and jogged in a square and when the coach blew his whistle the line would shuffle even slower and the person at the back would sprint all the way around the square and back to the front of the line. Lastly we've done a sprint workout where we were on the track and we would sprint the straightaways and walked the turns which was decently hard.
So that's been Cross Country so far. Bye.
- By Ashton
I recently started Cross Country again just a few days ago. Practice is from 8-9:30 so I get up at 7 to get ready. I just wear a tank top, some shorts, and running shoes because it's still blistering hot. Otherwise I just bring water, my phone, an armband to run with it, and earbuds to listen to music. I listen to all types of music when I'm running but mostly it's rock or alternative.
The first thing we do when we get there is run two laps around the school to warm up. Before the actual work out we do a lot of stretching to get us loose and prevent injuries. Sometimes after the workout we'll do a cool down run that is much less hard and finally we'll stretch again and maybe put our legs up on a wall to drain them of acid. We've done workouts so far. The first thing we did was mile repeats on the track.
Four loops around the track is a mile so mile repeats are just listening to your time each loop and trying to keep it as consistent as possible. The next workout we did was Out N' Backs which is a very hard workout where you run at a good pace out to a cone in the middle of a field in the sun and run back to the starting line 10 or so times. After that we did a cool down of striders on the field which is just trying to lengthen your stride as much as possible. Because Out N' Backs were so hard next we did an Indian Run which is much easier. For the Indian Run the guys and girls lined up in separate lines and jogged in a square and when the coach blew his whistle the line would shuffle even slower and the person at the back would sprint all the way around the square and back to the front of the line. Lastly we've done a sprint workout where we were on the track and we would sprint the straightaways and walked the turns which was decently hard.
So that's been Cross Country so far. Bye.
- By Ashton
Cross Country
Hello. Today I'm writing about Cross Country so far this year.
I recently started Cross Country again just a few days ago. Practice is from 8-9:30 so I get up at 7 to get ready. I just wear a tank top, some shorts, and running shoes because it's still blistering hot. Otherwise I just bring water, my phone, an armband to run with it, and earbuds to listen to music. I listen to all types of music when I'm running but mostly it's rock or alternative.
The first thing we do when we get there is run two laps around the school to warm up. Before the actual work out we do a lot of stretching to get us loose and prevent injuries. Sometimes after the workout we'll do a cool down run that is much less hard and finally we'll stretch again and maybe put our legs up on a wall to drain them of acid. We've done workouts so far. The first thing we did was mile repeats on the track.
Four loops around the track is a mile so mile repeats are just listening to your time each loop and trying to keep it as consistent as possible. The next workout we did was Out N' Backs which is a very hard workout where you run at a good pace out to a cone in the middle of a field in the sun and run back to the starting line 10 or so times. After that we did a cool down of striders on the field which is just trying to lengthen your stride as much as possible. Because Out N' Backs were so hard next we did an Indian Run which is much easier. For the Indian Run the guys and girls lined up in separate lines and jogged in a square and when the coach blew his whistle the line would shuffle even slower and the person at the back would sprint all the way around the square and back to the front of the line. Lastly we've done a sprint workout where we were on the track and we would sprint the straightaways and walked the turns which was decently hard.
So that's been Cross Country so far. Bye.
- By Ashton
I recently started Cross Country again just a few days ago. Practice is from 8-9:30 so I get up at 7 to get ready. I just wear a tank top, some shorts, and running shoes because it's still blistering hot. Otherwise I just bring water, my phone, an armband to run with it, and earbuds to listen to music. I listen to all types of music when I'm running but mostly it's rock or alternative.
The first thing we do when we get there is run two laps around the school to warm up. Before the actual work out we do a lot of stretching to get us loose and prevent injuries. Sometimes after the workout we'll do a cool down run that is much less hard and finally we'll stretch again and maybe put our legs up on a wall to drain them of acid. We've done workouts so far. The first thing we did was mile repeats on the track.
Four loops around the track is a mile so mile repeats are just listening to your time each loop and trying to keep it as consistent as possible. The next workout we did was Out N' Backs which is a very hard workout where you run at a good pace out to a cone in the middle of a field in the sun and run back to the starting line 10 or so times. After that we did a cool down of striders on the field which is just trying to lengthen your stride as much as possible. Because Out N' Backs were so hard next we did an Indian Run which is much easier. For the Indian Run the guys and girls lined up in separate lines and jogged in a square and when the coach blew his whistle the line would shuffle even slower and the person at the back would sprint all the way around the square and back to the front of the line. Lastly we've done a sprint workout where we were on the track and we would sprint the straightaways and walked the turns which was decently hard.
So that's been Cross Country so far. Bye.
- By Ashton
Monday, August 3, 2015
Fantasy game ideas
Hello people's. Today I'm writing about another project I've started working on. Here it goes.
My last creative project was about ideas for a sci-fi game where the player could build up hundreds of fleets of ships of all sizes and one of my greater achievements there was creating a weapons system that had over 21,000 variations. Recently I started another project that is similar in how it works, in that it is very customizable and large, but opposite in theme. This project is about my favorite genre, high fantasy. I've drawn a lot of inspiration from one of my favorite games from my childhood, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones and a few other things from fantasy books I've read. It would have the same art style as The Sacred Stones in that it would be pixelated, but still very detailed and beautiful like pixel artwork you can find online.
The game is centered around a fully customizable fantasy fighting force. You would control this force to move around a map with an overhead view, so it would be a turn based strategy game where you moved units across a gridded map to fight other enemy units. In this army you would have your own hero who would have slightly better stats than the other units you could eventually promote into any class. You would slowly gather slots for more units as the campaign progressed but different missions would have different parameters for the force size, so you could have an enormous army, or a small band of powerful legends you've created throughout the game. Because of this diversity in the size of your force the missions would range from large confrontations between armies on huge battlefields to a party of heroes going dungeon-crawling.
The class system would be a branching promotional system so that when a certain unit got enough experience it could promote itself into a more powerful class and often that unit would have the choice to promote between 2 or 3 different new classes. The three main class trees are Non-magic, which are physical fighters like knights, Magic, which are sorcerous units like witches, and unique which are a mix between physical fighters and magical warriors. You unlock the unique classes by having a set number of classes from both the magic and non-magic trees, for instance if you have a few Blade Masters and a few Hex Weavers you might unlock the option to promote either of them into a unique class, Spellblade. So far I've created 418 classes.
There will be a large selection of different fantasy metals, all ordered so that the most rare are the most powerful and these metals you could forge into different weapons and amour for your units. There would be unlockable patterns that you could use to forge different those metals into more stylized versions of themselves or if you wanted to you could make your own by removing and placing pixels in a forge grid and applying paint. Alongside the weapons and armor you could also create your own flags, banners, and heraldic symbols. There will also be a very long list of fictional Gods that different units in your force would be able to draw power from and these Gods would all have different elemental and emotional aspects that could help you develop unique strategies. Some units would also be able to ride a mount that would have its own separate stats and special abilities. So far I've created 16 types of mounts including creatures like dragons, horses, and griffons and 75 individual mounts.
So there are some of my ideas for this fantasy game I've got roaming around in my head. Bye.
- By Ashton
My last creative project was about ideas for a sci-fi game where the player could build up hundreds of fleets of ships of all sizes and one of my greater achievements there was creating a weapons system that had over 21,000 variations. Recently I started another project that is similar in how it works, in that it is very customizable and large, but opposite in theme. This project is about my favorite genre, high fantasy. I've drawn a lot of inspiration from one of my favorite games from my childhood, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones and a few other things from fantasy books I've read. It would have the same art style as The Sacred Stones in that it would be pixelated, but still very detailed and beautiful like pixel artwork you can find online.
The game is centered around a fully customizable fantasy fighting force. You would control this force to move around a map with an overhead view, so it would be a turn based strategy game where you moved units across a gridded map to fight other enemy units. In this army you would have your own hero who would have slightly better stats than the other units you could eventually promote into any class. You would slowly gather slots for more units as the campaign progressed but different missions would have different parameters for the force size, so you could have an enormous army, or a small band of powerful legends you've created throughout the game. Because of this diversity in the size of your force the missions would range from large confrontations between armies on huge battlefields to a party of heroes going dungeon-crawling.
The class system would be a branching promotional system so that when a certain unit got enough experience it could promote itself into a more powerful class and often that unit would have the choice to promote between 2 or 3 different new classes. The three main class trees are Non-magic, which are physical fighters like knights, Magic, which are sorcerous units like witches, and unique which are a mix between physical fighters and magical warriors. You unlock the unique classes by having a set number of classes from both the magic and non-magic trees, for instance if you have a few Blade Masters and a few Hex Weavers you might unlock the option to promote either of them into a unique class, Spellblade. So far I've created 418 classes.
There will be a large selection of different fantasy metals, all ordered so that the most rare are the most powerful and these metals you could forge into different weapons and amour for your units. There would be unlockable patterns that you could use to forge different those metals into more stylized versions of themselves or if you wanted to you could make your own by removing and placing pixels in a forge grid and applying paint. Alongside the weapons and armor you could also create your own flags, banners, and heraldic symbols. There will also be a very long list of fictional Gods that different units in your force would be able to draw power from and these Gods would all have different elemental and emotional aspects that could help you develop unique strategies. Some units would also be able to ride a mount that would have its own separate stats and special abilities. So far I've created 16 types of mounts including creatures like dragons, horses, and griffons and 75 individual mounts.
So there are some of my ideas for this fantasy game I've got roaming around in my head. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Hello people's. Today I'm writing about some of my favorite bands and singers. Here it goes.
I buy music by picking out songs I like the best and not buying entire albums unless I like every song so for this blog I'm only mentioning a band if I've boughten more than 1 song by them. The first is a band with electronic, rock, and alternative themes called AWOLNATION. AWOLNATION writes very invigorating songs; all of them I've boughten have very powerful choruses that make their songs stand out. I have 3 of their songs, Sail, Kill Your Heroes, and I Am.
The next band is called Buke and Gase. Buke and Gase is an amazing band. I have more of their songs than any other artist. They have a very unique style you can only describe as experimental rock or indie rock. Their songs are fast with complicated rhythms and undertones and can sometimes sound pretty dark so personally I really like listening to them while reading a scary story. I have 2 of their albums, General Dome and Riposte.
Next is a band called Fallout Boy. Fallout Boy is a rock/alternative band. It has those same qualities I really like as AWOLNATION, in that their songs have powerful choruses and I most enjoy listening to them while I'm doing something physical like running. I have 4 of their songs, Centuries, American psycho/American Beauty, The Kids Aren't Alright, and Uma Thurman.
Another band I've listened to for a long time is The Glitch Mob. The Glitch Mob is an electronic band which is different than most bands I listen to. What makes me really like them is that their songs are not nearly as fast or light as the normal electronic songs and are much more introspective. I have one of their albums, Drink the Sea.
One of my newer favorite singers is Hozier. He is and Irish singer/songwriter. His songs are alternative/soul and to me are very powerful. He has that same quality of extremely powerful choruses and his songs are the most intense emotionally out of all of the other artists I've heard. His songs have a sad but sweet kind of feel to them. I have three of his songs, Take Me to Church, Like Real People Do, and Work Song.
The next band is Imagine Dragons. You've probably heard of Imagine Dragons as they exploded into popularity very recently. They are an Alternative rock band and I love their songs because they are all very inspiring. All of them have a kind of "fight" quality. They are all along the lines of fight for what you believe, or for what you love, or fight for happiness. I have 7 of their songs, Warriors, I bet my life, It's Time, On Top of the World, Demons, Radioactive, and Monster.
The last band is My Chemical Romance. My Chemical Romance is a rock band that continues to be very popular even though they've broken up. They have rock songs that are more powerful than any other rock I have and all of their songs are very helpful to listen to when you're having negative emotions. I have the deluxe version of their album The Black Parade.
So those were my favorite bands and singers. Bye.
- By Ashton
I buy music by picking out songs I like the best and not buying entire albums unless I like every song so for this blog I'm only mentioning a band if I've boughten more than 1 song by them. The first is a band with electronic, rock, and alternative themes called AWOLNATION. AWOLNATION writes very invigorating songs; all of them I've boughten have very powerful choruses that make their songs stand out. I have 3 of their songs, Sail, Kill Your Heroes, and I Am.
The next band is called Buke and Gase. Buke and Gase is an amazing band. I have more of their songs than any other artist. They have a very unique style you can only describe as experimental rock or indie rock. Their songs are fast with complicated rhythms and undertones and can sometimes sound pretty dark so personally I really like listening to them while reading a scary story. I have 2 of their albums, General Dome and Riposte.
Next is a band called Fallout Boy. Fallout Boy is a rock/alternative band. It has those same qualities I really like as AWOLNATION, in that their songs have powerful choruses and I most enjoy listening to them while I'm doing something physical like running. I have 4 of their songs, Centuries, American psycho/American Beauty, The Kids Aren't Alright, and Uma Thurman.
Another band I've listened to for a long time is The Glitch Mob. The Glitch Mob is an electronic band which is different than most bands I listen to. What makes me really like them is that their songs are not nearly as fast or light as the normal electronic songs and are much more introspective. I have one of their albums, Drink the Sea.
One of my newer favorite singers is Hozier. He is and Irish singer/songwriter. His songs are alternative/soul and to me are very powerful. He has that same quality of extremely powerful choruses and his songs are the most intense emotionally out of all of the other artists I've heard. His songs have a sad but sweet kind of feel to them. I have three of his songs, Take Me to Church, Like Real People Do, and Work Song.
The next band is Imagine Dragons. You've probably heard of Imagine Dragons as they exploded into popularity very recently. They are an Alternative rock band and I love their songs because they are all very inspiring. All of them have a kind of "fight" quality. They are all along the lines of fight for what you believe, or for what you love, or fight for happiness. I have 7 of their songs, Warriors, I bet my life, It's Time, On Top of the World, Demons, Radioactive, and Monster.
The last band is My Chemical Romance. My Chemical Romance is a rock band that continues to be very popular even though they've broken up. They have rock songs that are more powerful than any other rock I have and all of their songs are very helpful to listen to when you're having negative emotions. I have the deluxe version of their album The Black Parade.
So those were my favorite bands and singers. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, July 19, 2015
The Runelords
Hello people's today I'm writing about a book I read recently. Here it goes.
It's the first book in the fantasy series called Runelords titled The Sum of All Men. The plot is centered around the Wolf Lord Raj Ahten invading the northern kingdoms of Rofehaven. There are two different forms of magic in this series. Normal people can use magic with runes. The rune process is taking a forcible made of blood iron and giving an attribute, or endowment to another. The endowments are stamina, metabolism, brawn, wit, grace, voice, hearing, touch, and smell. You cannot be physically forced to give an endowment but you can be blackmailed into willingly giving one such as your family being threatened. When an endowment is given the dedicate loses all they had so for instance if you gave brawn you would be extremely weak, or if you gave grace you would always be extremely cramped and stiff, meanwhile the person they gave it to would have twice as much brawn or grace.
Since blood iron is so rare and expensive most the time only nobles receive endowments and in return for giving an endowment you are protected and cared for by the runelord for the rest of your life in a fortress the Runelord owns called the dedicates keep. As a runelord it is your responsibility to protect your people and your dedicates even if it would mean your death so these endowments are often used on the field of war with a heavily endowed Runelord leading an army with soldiers and horses with endowments called force soldiers and force horses. This is a major difference from real medieval battles because in real battles the ruler would have very little power but in this a heavily endowed Runelord could be the deciding factor in a battle.
The second type of magic is elemental powers. Only wizards can harness one of the four powers, fire, earth, water, and air but normal people can be said to "serve" a power. For instance Raj Ahten serves fire because fire is currently a destructive power and he is an extremely, extremely evil person and has several flame weavers, or fire wizards, in his army. Raj Ahten has hundreds of thousands of endowments and is a force of nature on the battlefield. In legend there is a man named Daylan Hammer that took so many endowments in order to repel an invading force that eventually he no longer needed his dedicated to stay alive in order to keep the endowments and he stopped aging. He became an immortal and after he disappeared he became known as The Sum of All Men. Raj Ahten has taken many endowments of metabolism which makes him several times faster than a normal man but also makes him age much faster. His other endowments will make sure he stays equally as powerful throughout the rest of his life but he will still die of old age in three years so his insane goal is to collect enough endowments to become The Sum of All Men and conquer the world.
The Runelords series is extremely intense, harsh, and action packed. It has all the harsh reality and intensity of medieval realistic fiction with a lot of magic and fantasy elements. Bye.
- By Ashton
It's the first book in the fantasy series called Runelords titled The Sum of All Men. The plot is centered around the Wolf Lord Raj Ahten invading the northern kingdoms of Rofehaven. There are two different forms of magic in this series. Normal people can use magic with runes. The rune process is taking a forcible made of blood iron and giving an attribute, or endowment to another. The endowments are stamina, metabolism, brawn, wit, grace, voice, hearing, touch, and smell. You cannot be physically forced to give an endowment but you can be blackmailed into willingly giving one such as your family being threatened. When an endowment is given the dedicate loses all they had so for instance if you gave brawn you would be extremely weak, or if you gave grace you would always be extremely cramped and stiff, meanwhile the person they gave it to would have twice as much brawn or grace.
Since blood iron is so rare and expensive most the time only nobles receive endowments and in return for giving an endowment you are protected and cared for by the runelord for the rest of your life in a fortress the Runelord owns called the dedicates keep. As a runelord it is your responsibility to protect your people and your dedicates even if it would mean your death so these endowments are often used on the field of war with a heavily endowed Runelord leading an army with soldiers and horses with endowments called force soldiers and force horses. This is a major difference from real medieval battles because in real battles the ruler would have very little power but in this a heavily endowed Runelord could be the deciding factor in a battle.
The second type of magic is elemental powers. Only wizards can harness one of the four powers, fire, earth, water, and air but normal people can be said to "serve" a power. For instance Raj Ahten serves fire because fire is currently a destructive power and he is an extremely, extremely evil person and has several flame weavers, or fire wizards, in his army. Raj Ahten has hundreds of thousands of endowments and is a force of nature on the battlefield. In legend there is a man named Daylan Hammer that took so many endowments in order to repel an invading force that eventually he no longer needed his dedicated to stay alive in order to keep the endowments and he stopped aging. He became an immortal and after he disappeared he became known as The Sum of All Men. Raj Ahten has taken many endowments of metabolism which makes him several times faster than a normal man but also makes him age much faster. His other endowments will make sure he stays equally as powerful throughout the rest of his life but he will still die of old age in three years so his insane goal is to collect enough endowments to become The Sum of All Men and conquer the world.
The Runelords series is extremely intense, harsh, and action packed. It has all the harsh reality and intensity of medieval realistic fiction with a lot of magic and fantasy elements. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Running this summer
Hello people's. Today I'm going to be writing about running again. Here it goes.
So this summer I've taken up running a lot more often than I have in the past in preparation for the cross country season in the fall. There are a few neighborhoods that are best for running surrounding my own, before I would just hit a main road. There are 4 different "sections" I can run on. The first is a fairly large, consolidated neighborhood behind my own, the second is running down to and around my old middle school, the third is two very long streets near where I live, and the fourth is another very long street with two small neighborhoods very near it. So whenever I run the first thing I do is consider how long I want to be running for and put a section or two together for that time I want, if I run everywhere that I can it is over 10 1/2 miles
Part of the way through the summer I ran that 10 1/2 mile course and my feet were very blistered afterwards because I did not have very good running shoes. To get very good running shoes we went to a running store in Sheperdstown called Two River Treads. They had me do different exercises and looked at my running style to determine which shoe would be best for me and that was very cool. I also got a foam roller which I periodically use to stretch and put pressure on tender spots on my legs so that they become less sore. The store also has exercise classes every Thursday night and those are very fun I plan to keep going to them and I recommend them to any athlete not just a runner.
I've taken to a routine for running that is best for me. For two days I'll run early at 5 in the morning and for the next two days I'll run late after dinner, keeping the times this way is best because it is very cool out and it fits a more busy schedule. So if I have a good amount of time before running I'll stretch and do a few exercises first. Then I'll put on my running shoes, set up my music playlist, and grab the house keys if I'm running early. Right before I start I decide my route and I start my GPS which will track where I'm going and will tell me my average speed every five minutes through my earbuds. I've even developed something where if I wrap the earbuds cord 2 1/2 around my fingers holding my phone it's the perfect length. When I'm almost done running and I've gotten onto my home street again I sprint as fast as I can home.
So there is my running schedule for this summer. Bye.
- By Ashton
So this summer I've taken up running a lot more often than I have in the past in preparation for the cross country season in the fall. There are a few neighborhoods that are best for running surrounding my own, before I would just hit a main road. There are 4 different "sections" I can run on. The first is a fairly large, consolidated neighborhood behind my own, the second is running down to and around my old middle school, the third is two very long streets near where I live, and the fourth is another very long street with two small neighborhoods very near it. So whenever I run the first thing I do is consider how long I want to be running for and put a section or two together for that time I want, if I run everywhere that I can it is over 10 1/2 miles
Part of the way through the summer I ran that 10 1/2 mile course and my feet were very blistered afterwards because I did not have very good running shoes. To get very good running shoes we went to a running store in Sheperdstown called Two River Treads. They had me do different exercises and looked at my running style to determine which shoe would be best for me and that was very cool. I also got a foam roller which I periodically use to stretch and put pressure on tender spots on my legs so that they become less sore. The store also has exercise classes every Thursday night and those are very fun I plan to keep going to them and I recommend them to any athlete not just a runner.
I've taken to a routine for running that is best for me. For two days I'll run early at 5 in the morning and for the next two days I'll run late after dinner, keeping the times this way is best because it is very cool out and it fits a more busy schedule. So if I have a good amount of time before running I'll stretch and do a few exercises first. Then I'll put on my running shoes, set up my music playlist, and grab the house keys if I'm running early. Right before I start I decide my route and I start my GPS which will track where I'm going and will tell me my average speed every five minutes through my earbuds. I've even developed something where if I wrap the earbuds cord 2 1/2 around my fingers holding my phone it's the perfect length. When I'm almost done running and I've gotten onto my home street again I sprint as fast as I can home.
So there is my running schedule for this summer. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Sparhawk backstory
Today I'm talking about character backgrounds for my planned series off of David Eddings works. Here it goes.
As far as catching up with character story I've only had time to get around to Garion and Riva. Because Garion and Ce'Nedra will both have extremely long lifespans they plan to stay on The Isle of Winds until their son has learned the duties of being a king and then they would retire to a small earthy cottage near The Vale and the woods of the Dryads. It was revealed to them one very special wedding anniversary by the destiny of the universe they had fought for that it has arranged it so that both of them will die peacefully with each other when they had decided it was time.
One day when they are all out on a picnic far north of the castle Geran notices something. They are in a grove nestled between the huge northernmost mountains of the island and he remembers the story his father had told him of how Riva trekked into supposedly these same mountains to retrieve the two hunks of star metal he made into the sword. He finds a strange trace of ore in the wall and Garion is interested enough to call Belgarath and others over to look at it and it's found that it's some form of QuickSilver. It's extremely light, easy to forge, incredibly durable, and beautiful. Belgarath theorizes that it's some sort of "growth effect" from when those two magical stars struck the mountain and now the entire range of mountains on the island is abundant with it.
This discovery leads to a huge boom in The Isle of the Winds' economy and a sister city to Riva is built between those mountainsides as a mining capital of the entire West. Garion has a great idea to dig a canal between the River of Veils that Riva is built over to the North River so that the QuickSilver can be easily transported to Riva to sell to traders. The entire land between those mountains that was once peat bogs has almost healed itself and the land required very little work before a city could be built atop it. With Riva's rapidly rising economy more people migrate to the island nation and the two cities and areas along the river become more and more urbanized with the sheepherders still herding on the west and east sides of the new canal.
That was Garion's and his families background. Bye.
- By Ashton
As far as catching up with character story I've only had time to get around to Garion and Riva. Because Garion and Ce'Nedra will both have extremely long lifespans they plan to stay on The Isle of Winds until their son has learned the duties of being a king and then they would retire to a small earthy cottage near The Vale and the woods of the Dryads. It was revealed to them one very special wedding anniversary by the destiny of the universe they had fought for that it has arranged it so that both of them will die peacefully with each other when they had decided it was time.
One day when they are all out on a picnic far north of the castle Geran notices something. They are in a grove nestled between the huge northernmost mountains of the island and he remembers the story his father had told him of how Riva trekked into supposedly these same mountains to retrieve the two hunks of star metal he made into the sword. He finds a strange trace of ore in the wall and Garion is interested enough to call Belgarath and others over to look at it and it's found that it's some form of QuickSilver. It's extremely light, easy to forge, incredibly durable, and beautiful. Belgarath theorizes that it's some sort of "growth effect" from when those two magical stars struck the mountain and now the entire range of mountains on the island is abundant with it.
This discovery leads to a huge boom in The Isle of the Winds' economy and a sister city to Riva is built between those mountainsides as a mining capital of the entire West. Garion has a great idea to dig a canal between the River of Veils that Riva is built over to the North River so that the QuickSilver can be easily transported to Riva to sell to traders. The entire land between those mountains that was once peat bogs has almost healed itself and the land required very little work before a city could be built atop it. With Riva's rapidly rising economy more people migrate to the island nation and the two cities and areas along the river become more and more urbanized with the sheepherders still herding on the west and east sides of the new canal.
That was Garion's and his families background. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Character backstories
Today I'm talking about character backgrounds for my planned series off of David Eddings works. Here it goes.
As far as catching up with character story I've only had time to get around to Garion and Riva. Because Garion and Ce'Nedra will both have extremely long lifespans they plan to stay on The Isle of Winds until their son has learned the duties of being a king and then they would retire to a small earthy cottage near The Vale and the woods of the Dryads. It was revealed to them one very special wedding anniversary by the destiny of the universe they had fought for that it has arranged it so that both of them will die peacefully with each other when they had decided it was time.
One day when they are all out on a picnic far north of the castle Geran notices something. They are in a grove nestled between the huge northernmost mountains of the island and he remembers the story his father had told him of how Riva trekked into supposedly these same mountains to retrieve the two hunks of star metal he made into the sword. He finds a strange trace of ore in the wall and Garion is interested enough to call Belgarath and others over to look at it and it's found that it's some form of QuickSilver. It's extremely light, easy to forge, incredibly durable, and beautiful. Belgarath theorizes that it's some sort of "growth effect" from when those two magical stars struck the mountain and now the entire range of mountains on the island is abundant with it.
This discovery leads to a huge boom in The Isle of the Winds' economy and a sister city to Riva is built between those mountainsides as a mining capital of the entire West. Garion has a great idea to dig a canal between the River of Veils that Riva is built over to the North River so that the QuickSilver can be easily transported to Riva to sell to traders. The entire land between those mountains that was once peat bogs has almost healed itself and the land required very little work before a city could be built atop it. With Riva's rapidly rising economy more people migrate to the island nation and the two cities and areas along the river become more and more urbanized with the sheepherders still herding on the west and east sides of the new canal.
That was Garion's and his families background. Bye.
- By Ashton
As far as catching up with character story I've only had time to get around to Garion and Riva. Because Garion and Ce'Nedra will both have extremely long lifespans they plan to stay on The Isle of Winds until their son has learned the duties of being a king and then they would retire to a small earthy cottage near The Vale and the woods of the Dryads. It was revealed to them one very special wedding anniversary by the destiny of the universe they had fought for that it has arranged it so that both of them will die peacefully with each other when they had decided it was time.
One day when they are all out on a picnic far north of the castle Geran notices something. They are in a grove nestled between the huge northernmost mountains of the island and he remembers the story his father had told him of how Riva trekked into supposedly these same mountains to retrieve the two hunks of star metal he made into the sword. He finds a strange trace of ore in the wall and Garion is interested enough to call Belgarath and others over to look at it and it's found that it's some form of QuickSilver. It's extremely light, easy to forge, incredibly durable, and beautiful. Belgarath theorizes that it's some sort of "growth effect" from when those two magical stars struck the mountain and now the entire range of mountains on the island is abundant with it.
This discovery leads to a huge boom in The Isle of the Winds' economy and a sister city to Riva is built between those mountainsides as a mining capital of the entire West. Garion has a great idea to dig a canal between the River of Veils that Riva is built over to the North River so that the QuickSilver can be easily transported to Riva to sell to traders. The entire land between those mountains that was once peat bogs has almost healed itself and the land required very little work before a city could be built atop it. With Riva's rapidly rising economy more people migrate to the island nation and the two cities and areas along the river become more and more urbanized with the sheepherders still herding on the west and east sides of the new canal.
That was Garion's and his families background. Bye.
- By Ashton
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Ocean City Family Vacation
Hello people's. Today I'm talking about my recent vacation. Here it goes.
So recently my family went on our annual vacation to Ocean City New Jersey. The place is filled with memories because we get to see our grandma and our Aunt Robin and Uncle Dave and their kids, Isaac and Andrew. We had a lot of fun experiences there this year and I'm really sad to leave. Almost every day we would go out on the beach in the morning, eat lunch there, and head back to the house.
I saw two movies at the beach. The first movie we saw was Jurassic World. The movie was amazing it was far far better than the second and third movies. It brought fresh, new ideas to the series and its quality is comparable to the juggernaut the first movie was. The second movie was San Andreas. If you haven't heard of it San Andreas is about huge earthquakes striking the San Andreas fault line in California. San Andreas was a pretty good movie but it didn't bring anything new to the disaster movie genre.
I also went out fishing with my mom and my little brother. We got on a boat that left the dock at 8 and the first mate taught us how to fish. We would stop at a certain spot on the bat for a little while and fish and if people were catching fish then we would only move to a new spot when they stopped. Alex and mom caught a ton of fish or course but I only caught some crabs and some muscles *heavy sigh*. I got three things this year. I got a really cool Alien from Alien 3 which I have yet to open, it's really nice because I had Aliens from all of the other movies except this one. I also got 2 hoodies. One is black/gray with Ocean City on it in white. My favorite is grey with blue stripes and extra long sleeves and it has Ocean City embroidered on it in red.
That was my Ocean City vacation. Bye.
- By Ashton
So recently my family went on our annual vacation to Ocean City New Jersey. The place is filled with memories because we get to see our grandma and our Aunt Robin and Uncle Dave and their kids, Isaac and Andrew. We had a lot of fun experiences there this year and I'm really sad to leave. Almost every day we would go out on the beach in the morning, eat lunch there, and head back to the house.
I saw two movies at the beach. The first movie we saw was Jurassic World. The movie was amazing it was far far better than the second and third movies. It brought fresh, new ideas to the series and its quality is comparable to the juggernaut the first movie was. The second movie was San Andreas. If you haven't heard of it San Andreas is about huge earthquakes striking the San Andreas fault line in California. San Andreas was a pretty good movie but it didn't bring anything new to the disaster movie genre.
I also went out fishing with my mom and my little brother. We got on a boat that left the dock at 8 and the first mate taught us how to fish. We would stop at a certain spot on the bat for a little while and fish and if people were catching fish then we would only move to a new spot when they stopped. Alex and mom caught a ton of fish or course but I only caught some crabs and some muscles *heavy sigh*. I got three things this year. I got a really cool Alien from Alien 3 which I have yet to open, it's really nice because I had Aliens from all of the other movies except this one. I also got 2 hoodies. One is black/gray with Ocean City on it in white. My favorite is grey with blue stripes and extra long sleeves and it has Ocean City embroidered on it in red.
That was my Ocean City vacation. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Outline
Hello people's. Today I'm playing around with some ideas. Here it goes.
The ideas are for a series I've written about before that I've had in my head for a long time where all the characters from the Eddings fantasy universes discover that they are on the same world. In past blogs I've told you about things I've done to flesh out this universe like create a map with all of the continents on it (directly from Eddings books or from my head) and talking about the four universal species, Destinies, Spirits, Gods, and Mortals. Today I'm just gonna write about different ideas I've had for the storyline. There will probably be more stones of power like The Orb and The Sardion. In the epic he wrote called The Redemption of Althalus, Althalus and his group have the extremely powerful House of Dweios at their disposal which lets them bend space time. Aphrael from The Sparhawk series and Omago and Ara from The Dreamers also have the ability to bend space time. To combat this huge advantage on the forces of good I will devise some sort of plot point where the forces aiding Nothingness will have captured or made obsolete a universal object of power that all "space time benders" draw their power from.
To add even more challenges to our groups of heroic mortals I may create a plot line where the resident Gods of the series have been imprisoned in some sort of celestial jail by Nothingness. Without Gods to guide them and give them a greater view of the world the first challenge will be communicating with each other, exploring new places, and The Nothing working in secret in their minds to drive them to war against each other. Nothingness may even begin to bring back the thought-vanquished evil Gods of the series such as Azash, Cyrgon, Daeva and maybe even Aracia. A major plot point will that Torak Dragon GodKing of the Angaraks will be back. We will follow his story of what took place after his death at Garion's hands and how he became the main embodiment of The Nothing and how he even came to control it and dominate it at some points. His rage will be great. His madness greater. His story will be prideful and a heavily edited version as it is from Torak's point of view. He will probably be re-introduced extremely dramatically during a tragic fall of The Rivan Hall. There will probably be many tragic downfalls and sieges of famous places like Riva, Mal Zeth, Melcene, Vo Mimbre, Val Alorn, Boktor (with especially tragic cultural flashbacks to the eradication of the Drasnians by the Angarak invasion), Elenia's Capitol city, The Domed City, as well as famous places from The Redemption of Althalus and The Dreamers. The Vale of Aldur will probably be the central point of an enormous battle focused on The Tree, the oldest living thing on the planet. It'll probably be victorious.
I also plan to elaborate and make some changes to The Vlagh. The Vlagh itself is an enormous insect queen in The Dreamers series that can churn out millions of creatures with evolutionary advantages and it can just pick and choose these advantages from all animals even though the thing itself will still be a bug. At the end of that series The Vlagh is eternally imprisoned by Omago. In this new series The Nothingness seeks out The Vlagh and cracks it open and reveals what it truly is. It's a spark of creation it was what was supposed to be the birth of a god but there was a malfunction in the printer and instead The Vlagh came out, a tainted creation spark that just took its form as a body as an insect. The Nothingness extracts this creation spark as well as other less powerful ones from the other insect queens of the desert and enslaves them to start creating massive, corrupt armies. The armies would have a way of fast-travel, possibly by The Nothingness bringing back a shadow of Klæl who can use his same powers in The Tamuli to transport armies. A huge plot point would be, as a desperate attempt to push a victory The Nothingness creates time paradoxes where characters have to find what's changed and fix it. Three huge paradoxes I've already thought about are one where Garion and Polgara accepted Torak's deal to become his family, one where Riva went power-hungry and his lineage becomes war-mo gers, conquering the west by force and coming after Torak himself. The most deadly paradox would be one where Cyradis chose Geran to become a god instead of Eriond and Geran rules over the planet he has made a hell with The orb in one hand and The Sardion in the other.
Another major plot point would be having to travel to one of the poles. Their planet is carefully balanced with geothermal heat and distance from the sun that warms that thin strip of land all the mortals inhabit but if you go a short distance past the polar ice that supposedly takes up huge sections of the northern and Southern Hemispheres you come across something new. Because of all the magics and acts of God and literally universe shaking events that have taken place on the planet some sort of physical activity had to of taken place so instead of vast reaches of ice eventually it becomes a very strange magical landscape with strange things like fire-trees, rocks that grow and are harvested like plants, multicolored-clouds as well as even stranger animals and monsters. In this area they would meet strange new characters and civilizations. Eventually after reaching the very pole of one of these sections they could magically transport themselves to the very first happening of Substance which is probably where the final battle with The Nothing would take place.
As far as catching up with character story I've only had time to get around to Garion and Riva. Because Garion and Ce'Nedra will both have extremely long lifespans they plan to stay on The Isle of Winds until their son has learned the duties of being a king and then they would retire to a small earthy cottage near The Vale and the woods of the Dryads. It was revealed to them one very special wedding anniversary by the destiny of the universe they had fought for that it has arranged it so that both of them will die peacefully with each other when they had decided it was time. One day when they are all out on a picnic far north of the castle Geran notices something. They are in a grove nestled between the huge northernmost mountains of the island and he remembers the story his father had told him of how Riva trekked into supposedly these same mountains to retrieve the two hunks of star metal he made into the sword. He finds a strange trace of ore in the wall and Garion is interested enough to call Belgarath and others over to look at it and it's found that it's some form of QuickSilver. It's extremely light, easy to forge, incredibly durable, and beautiful. Belgarath theorizes that it's some sort of "growth effect" from when those two magical stars struck the mountain and now the entire range of mountains on the island is abundant with it. This discovery leads to a huge boom in The Isle of the Winds' economy and a sister city to Riva is built between those mountainsides as a mining capital of the entire West. Garion has a great idea to dig a canal between the River of Veils that Riva is built over to the North River so that the QuickSilver can be easily transported to Riva to sell to traders. The entire land between those mountains that was once peat bogs has almost healed itself and the land required very little work before a city could be built atop it. With Riva's rapidly rising economy more people migrate to the island nation and the two cities and areas along the river become more and more urbanized with the sheepherders still herding on the west and east sides of the new canal.
I also plan to create a timeline where Althalus' and Dweia's baby is born, a girl, at roughly the same time as Geran and on their quest a romantic relationship will develop between the Prince and the little Demigod. Conflict in the relationship will include distance (for a short time) struggles between nations, as well as the Demigod being occasionally urged to speed off the planet as she is part God and her power is increasing all the time. Althalus and Belgarath as being very similar characters will probably become best friends and drinking buddies. So let's go over what conflicts we have so far that can make up different books in the series.
Conflict over meeting new peoples and countries, confusion, threat of war, and panic at where there Gods have gone.
Discovering new "Stones of Power" and people to hold them, power struggles over the stones.
Return of The evil Gods leads to a pretty epic finally of a 3-book Part 1 of the series
The Quest to find out what happened between their Gods and how it was possible for the evil Gods to come back.
The discovery that the huge empire they had been consulting west of The Land of Maag is evil. War begins, the empire had warmachines, magics, and the leader is controlled by a Spirit-God wanting to conquer all.
Many revelations as to what Universally is happening around them. The armies of The Nothing begin to slowly appear before tragically sieging and taking famous cities and places across the world. Ends with the fall of Riva before successfully defending The Vale and completely shattering the armies around them. Tragic, explosive end to a 3-book part 2.
Taking back the cities The Armies of Nothing had conquered, huge magics and combining magics, the stones of power have a huge role, ends with triumphantly, dramatically, taking back The Isle of the Winds. A rebirth type book.
The armies of Hell begin to invade the world looking for a foothold on this decisive powerful world they know will permanently change the universe for good or for bad. May include a wedding between Geran and Althalluses' daughter, much conflict for the fact that she is a Demigod, Geran will mostly likely also become immortal as he triumphantly becomes a hugely powerful sorcerer.
Parallel between beating back the armies of Hell and even The King of Hell himself, with characters being thrust into time paradoxes by The Nothing. Very dramatic and dark, Belgeran and the Demigod become a power couple. Huge ending to a 3-book part 3 leaving with a "what we do now" feel.
The quest to find out how to finally lock away The Nothing, frantic and panicky because his armies are slowly returning. The quest to go into the northnermost section of "Enchanted Earth" begins.
Parallel between fighting back new, more different armies of The Nothing in the fertile trio of land while our party meets to characters, makes universal discoveries and battles against the "Enchanted Earth". Eventually they make it to the pole and are transported to the first Substance.
The Final battle. The armies of Nothing are transported by The Nothing to his side and The Gods (with a half-asleep dormant Substance) all work together to bring the Good armies of that Earth here to this one for the final fight. All of Earth unites triumphantly under the darkest times under a bronze banner with a beautiful, inspiring, flower like Sun on it, the first thing Substance was made into. Enormous battles on unfamiliar, magical, landscapes, explosive sudden fights with the original Elder Gods, mental battles with planet-creating Spirits, tension with the complicated civilization of this planet. Huge "boss" battles when Garion and most the party are taken into the edge of Nothingness. A shocking plot point turns when a character dies and the destiny that gave them some hope to defeat The Nothing is no longer valid and the armies of Earth are beaten back into hiding. The planet Substance was born on as well as their own, begins to crumble and decay as The Nothing begins to claim dominion. Garion stands up and refuses to accept defeat even when their is no hope and takes a small band of heroes, out of hiding, past the armies of nothing (which are warring once more with the armies of Hell), back into The Nothing. Garion's party is incapacitated or even killed and he stands before Nothingess in all its horrible glory standing in the body of Torak the Dragon GodKing of the Angaraks. He puts up an extremely good fight wielding The Orb and magics and skills he has learned on this quest. He finally falls. As Torak/Nothing orates about the new fate of the universe Garion exerts all the will in his body to go back to that place as a child where he could see the good and the bad destinies playing chess over control over the universe and how he was just a pawn. He reflects on all this. And he rejects it. He finds the huge grey wall that was struck up when the destiny that let him defeat Nothingness was destroyed and he repeatedly rejects Nothing, rejects all it stands for and repeatedly strikes huge mental blows at the grey wall with his mental self it's a huge titanic struggle and HE SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DO IT BUT AGAINST ALL ODDS BUT HE DOES. He breaks it. Garion raises his head and there is an odd serenity in his face. Garion slowly picks up his sword and comes back into his battle stance, the world has gone quiet. There's a momentary look of confusion on Torak/Nothing's face and he raises Cthrek Goru. They rain huge massive blows on each other and Torak begins to look more and more scared and frantic until eventually he tears back for a huge blow while his dread sword grows in length in power. And Garion calmly steps out of the way, let's sword slide from his hands, and as Cthrek Goru falls with dreadful speed, the earth already opening up below it on fear of its drestruction, Garion takes the blade in his hand, and with bleeding fingers he breaks the sword over his knee. With a shard of a rapidly crumbling black sword he kicks Torak in the chest and he tumbled to the ground. Garion swiftly drives the bloody shard into Torak's chest. The epilogue would deal with relationships between countries now, character deaths, the destruction of some cities, new couples and new friends and how the world, the universe, has been changed for the better. Garion has become and extremely powerful person he's almost become more than human in that he overcame a destiny, a celestial being thousands of times greater than him with pure force of will. Belgarath, Althalus, and Sparhawk continue to help him adjust.
- By Ashton
The ideas are for a series I've written about before that I've had in my head for a long time where all the characters from the Eddings fantasy universes discover that they are on the same world. In past blogs I've told you about things I've done to flesh out this universe like create a map with all of the continents on it (directly from Eddings books or from my head) and talking about the four universal species, Destinies, Spirits, Gods, and Mortals. Today I'm just gonna write about different ideas I've had for the storyline. There will probably be more stones of power like The Orb and The Sardion. In the epic he wrote called The Redemption of Althalus, Althalus and his group have the extremely powerful House of Dweios at their disposal which lets them bend space time. Aphrael from The Sparhawk series and Omago and Ara from The Dreamers also have the ability to bend space time. To combat this huge advantage on the forces of good I will devise some sort of plot point where the forces aiding Nothingness will have captured or made obsolete a universal object of power that all "space time benders" draw their power from.
To add even more challenges to our groups of heroic mortals I may create a plot line where the resident Gods of the series have been imprisoned in some sort of celestial jail by Nothingness. Without Gods to guide them and give them a greater view of the world the first challenge will be communicating with each other, exploring new places, and The Nothing working in secret in their minds to drive them to war against each other. Nothingness may even begin to bring back the thought-vanquished evil Gods of the series such as Azash, Cyrgon, Daeva and maybe even Aracia. A major plot point will that Torak Dragon GodKing of the Angaraks will be back. We will follow his story of what took place after his death at Garion's hands and how he became the main embodiment of The Nothing and how he even came to control it and dominate it at some points. His rage will be great. His madness greater. His story will be prideful and a heavily edited version as it is from Torak's point of view. He will probably be re-introduced extremely dramatically during a tragic fall of The Rivan Hall. There will probably be many tragic downfalls and sieges of famous places like Riva, Mal Zeth, Melcene, Vo Mimbre, Val Alorn, Boktor (with especially tragic cultural flashbacks to the eradication of the Drasnians by the Angarak invasion), Elenia's Capitol city, The Domed City, as well as famous places from The Redemption of Althalus and The Dreamers. The Vale of Aldur will probably be the central point of an enormous battle focused on The Tree, the oldest living thing on the planet. It'll probably be victorious.
I also plan to elaborate and make some changes to The Vlagh. The Vlagh itself is an enormous insect queen in The Dreamers series that can churn out millions of creatures with evolutionary advantages and it can just pick and choose these advantages from all animals even though the thing itself will still be a bug. At the end of that series The Vlagh is eternally imprisoned by Omago. In this new series The Nothingness seeks out The Vlagh and cracks it open and reveals what it truly is. It's a spark of creation it was what was supposed to be the birth of a god but there was a malfunction in the printer and instead The Vlagh came out, a tainted creation spark that just took its form as a body as an insect. The Nothingness extracts this creation spark as well as other less powerful ones from the other insect queens of the desert and enslaves them to start creating massive, corrupt armies. The armies would have a way of fast-travel, possibly by The Nothingness bringing back a shadow of Klæl who can use his same powers in The Tamuli to transport armies. A huge plot point would be, as a desperate attempt to push a victory The Nothingness creates time paradoxes where characters have to find what's changed and fix it. Three huge paradoxes I've already thought about are one where Garion and Polgara accepted Torak's deal to become his family, one where Riva went power-hungry and his lineage becomes war-mo gers, conquering the west by force and coming after Torak himself. The most deadly paradox would be one where Cyradis chose Geran to become a god instead of Eriond and Geran rules over the planet he has made a hell with The orb in one hand and The Sardion in the other.
Another major plot point would be having to travel to one of the poles. Their planet is carefully balanced with geothermal heat and distance from the sun that warms that thin strip of land all the mortals inhabit but if you go a short distance past the polar ice that supposedly takes up huge sections of the northern and Southern Hemispheres you come across something new. Because of all the magics and acts of God and literally universe shaking events that have taken place on the planet some sort of physical activity had to of taken place so instead of vast reaches of ice eventually it becomes a very strange magical landscape with strange things like fire-trees, rocks that grow and are harvested like plants, multicolored-clouds as well as even stranger animals and monsters. In this area they would meet strange new characters and civilizations. Eventually after reaching the very pole of one of these sections they could magically transport themselves to the very first happening of Substance which is probably where the final battle with The Nothing would take place.
As far as catching up with character story I've only had time to get around to Garion and Riva. Because Garion and Ce'Nedra will both have extremely long lifespans they plan to stay on The Isle of Winds until their son has learned the duties of being a king and then they would retire to a small earthy cottage near The Vale and the woods of the Dryads. It was revealed to them one very special wedding anniversary by the destiny of the universe they had fought for that it has arranged it so that both of them will die peacefully with each other when they had decided it was time. One day when they are all out on a picnic far north of the castle Geran notices something. They are in a grove nestled between the huge northernmost mountains of the island and he remembers the story his father had told him of how Riva trekked into supposedly these same mountains to retrieve the two hunks of star metal he made into the sword. He finds a strange trace of ore in the wall and Garion is interested enough to call Belgarath and others over to look at it and it's found that it's some form of QuickSilver. It's extremely light, easy to forge, incredibly durable, and beautiful. Belgarath theorizes that it's some sort of "growth effect" from when those two magical stars struck the mountain and now the entire range of mountains on the island is abundant with it. This discovery leads to a huge boom in The Isle of the Winds' economy and a sister city to Riva is built between those mountainsides as a mining capital of the entire West. Garion has a great idea to dig a canal between the River of Veils that Riva is built over to the North River so that the QuickSilver can be easily transported to Riva to sell to traders. The entire land between those mountains that was once peat bogs has almost healed itself and the land required very little work before a city could be built atop it. With Riva's rapidly rising economy more people migrate to the island nation and the two cities and areas along the river become more and more urbanized with the sheepherders still herding on the west and east sides of the new canal.
I also plan to create a timeline where Althalus' and Dweia's baby is born, a girl, at roughly the same time as Geran and on their quest a romantic relationship will develop between the Prince and the little Demigod. Conflict in the relationship will include distance (for a short time) struggles between nations, as well as the Demigod being occasionally urged to speed off the planet as she is part God and her power is increasing all the time. Althalus and Belgarath as being very similar characters will probably become best friends and drinking buddies. So let's go over what conflicts we have so far that can make up different books in the series.
Conflict over meeting new peoples and countries, confusion, threat of war, and panic at where there Gods have gone.
Discovering new "Stones of Power" and people to hold them, power struggles over the stones.
Return of The evil Gods leads to a pretty epic finally of a 3-book Part 1 of the series
The Quest to find out what happened between their Gods and how it was possible for the evil Gods to come back.
The discovery that the huge empire they had been consulting west of The Land of Maag is evil. War begins, the empire had warmachines, magics, and the leader is controlled by a Spirit-God wanting to conquer all.
Many revelations as to what Universally is happening around them. The armies of The Nothing begin to slowly appear before tragically sieging and taking famous cities and places across the world. Ends with the fall of Riva before successfully defending The Vale and completely shattering the armies around them. Tragic, explosive end to a 3-book part 2.
Taking back the cities The Armies of Nothing had conquered, huge magics and combining magics, the stones of power have a huge role, ends with triumphantly, dramatically, taking back The Isle of the Winds. A rebirth type book.
The armies of Hell begin to invade the world looking for a foothold on this decisive powerful world they know will permanently change the universe for good or for bad. May include a wedding between Geran and Althalluses' daughter, much conflict for the fact that she is a Demigod, Geran will mostly likely also become immortal as he triumphantly becomes a hugely powerful sorcerer.
Parallel between beating back the armies of Hell and even The King of Hell himself, with characters being thrust into time paradoxes by The Nothing. Very dramatic and dark, Belgeran and the Demigod become a power couple. Huge ending to a 3-book part 3 leaving with a "what we do now" feel.
The quest to find out how to finally lock away The Nothing, frantic and panicky because his armies are slowly returning. The quest to go into the northnermost section of "Enchanted Earth" begins.
Parallel between fighting back new, more different armies of The Nothing in the fertile trio of land while our party meets to characters, makes universal discoveries and battles against the "Enchanted Earth". Eventually they make it to the pole and are transported to the first Substance.
The Final battle. The armies of Nothing are transported by The Nothing to his side and The Gods (with a half-asleep dormant Substance) all work together to bring the Good armies of that Earth here to this one for the final fight. All of Earth unites triumphantly under the darkest times under a bronze banner with a beautiful, inspiring, flower like Sun on it, the first thing Substance was made into. Enormous battles on unfamiliar, magical, landscapes, explosive sudden fights with the original Elder Gods, mental battles with planet-creating Spirits, tension with the complicated civilization of this planet. Huge "boss" battles when Garion and most the party are taken into the edge of Nothingness. A shocking plot point turns when a character dies and the destiny that gave them some hope to defeat The Nothing is no longer valid and the armies of Earth are beaten back into hiding. The planet Substance was born on as well as their own, begins to crumble and decay as The Nothing begins to claim dominion. Garion stands up and refuses to accept defeat even when their is no hope and takes a small band of heroes, out of hiding, past the armies of nothing (which are warring once more with the armies of Hell), back into The Nothing. Garion's party is incapacitated or even killed and he stands before Nothingess in all its horrible glory standing in the body of Torak the Dragon GodKing of the Angaraks. He puts up an extremely good fight wielding The Orb and magics and skills he has learned on this quest. He finally falls. As Torak/Nothing orates about the new fate of the universe Garion exerts all the will in his body to go back to that place as a child where he could see the good and the bad destinies playing chess over control over the universe and how he was just a pawn. He reflects on all this. And he rejects it. He finds the huge grey wall that was struck up when the destiny that let him defeat Nothingness was destroyed and he repeatedly rejects Nothing, rejects all it stands for and repeatedly strikes huge mental blows at the grey wall with his mental self it's a huge titanic struggle and HE SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DO IT BUT AGAINST ALL ODDS BUT HE DOES. He breaks it. Garion raises his head and there is an odd serenity in his face. Garion slowly picks up his sword and comes back into his battle stance, the world has gone quiet. There's a momentary look of confusion on Torak/Nothing's face and he raises Cthrek Goru. They rain huge massive blows on each other and Torak begins to look more and more scared and frantic until eventually he tears back for a huge blow while his dread sword grows in length in power. And Garion calmly steps out of the way, let's sword slide from his hands, and as Cthrek Goru falls with dreadful speed, the earth already opening up below it on fear of its drestruction, Garion takes the blade in his hand, and with bleeding fingers he breaks the sword over his knee. With a shard of a rapidly crumbling black sword he kicks Torak in the chest and he tumbled to the ground. Garion swiftly drives the bloody shard into Torak's chest. The epilogue would deal with relationships between countries now, character deaths, the destruction of some cities, new couples and new friends and how the world, the universe, has been changed for the better. Garion has become and extremely powerful person he's almost become more than human in that he overcame a destiny, a celestial being thousands of times greater than him with pure force of will. Belgarath, Althalus, and Sparhawk continue to help him adjust.
- By Ashton
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