Ethics and Religion in Games: Zagal and Oldenberg

I wrote up some thoughts on Jose Zagal's "Encouraging Ethical Reflection with Videogames" and Oldenburgs "Simulating Religious Faith," so I figured I would put them up here for later reference and for anyone interested in those topics. They are kind of random, so bear with me.

In “Encouraging Ethical Reflection with Videogames,” Zagal explores the ways in which video games can aid players in identifying moral and ethical issues and in better understanding their context, both within games and without. Moral dilemmas, he notes, form the foundation of ethical exploration, so it only makes sense that a medium involving player/audience agency would have greater efficacy in exploring ethics in a meaningful way. One of the most interesting ideas that I encountered in Zagal’s article was the notion that games in some cases validate both “good” and “evil” by allowing players to assume the roles of protagonists and/or antagonists. Part of rational thought is being able to hold two contradictory notions within the mind simultaneously, and I think that games provide for a more holistic experience in providing the player with multiple viewpoints and ways of thinking about the consequences of his actions. They allow the player to contemplate the ethical issues from different perspectives and thus grant the player greater objectivity in deciding how he/she will direct his/her life and the actions of his/her in-game avatar. I thought Zagal’s comment that the character becomes the ethical stand-in for the player was really compelling, because in some sense, the culmination of the avatar’s actions and desires represent the innermost desires and goals of the player even more candidly than do his/her own physical actions. Games create a space wherein players can experiment with truth in an environment of safety, and while there may not be physical manifestations of the actions that players perform within the game, their implications are no less important in terms of formation of mental paradigms. The experiences players encounter within games are, in some sense, no less real than those which he/she encounters in “real” life.

Another concept that was really interesting for me was the idea that we can actually punctuate ethical messages through gameplay. Zagal notes that in some games, “extended action consisting of multiple button presses is chained together in such a way as to physically strain the player who must maintain an awkward and uncomfortable hand position that in some way reflects the discomfort the character is experiencing on the screen.” This seems like a brilliant way to encourage contemplation on moral dilemmas or emotional states of being, and it is quite possibly the most sure-fire way of accomplishing such a complex feat. It becomes near impossible for the player to disassociate his own physical experience from that which his avatar is experiencing, and that drives home more deeply the implications of those actions, both on oneself and on other players. In such a way, video games have the potential to be deeply humanizing, building empathy not so much for individuals but more broadly for the human experience as an integral unit—for suffering, for doubt, for loss and longing.

Simulacrum: Project Overview

I wanted to do a quick overview of the personal game that I've been working on of late. It's kind of been an experimental thing, as I didn't have much background in coding or animation before this last summer, but in any case, it's moving along little by little.

Simulacrum is a 2D side-scrolling "interdimensional" puzzle platformer based loosely around ideas presented in The Matrix. I say interdimensional because in order to make your way through the various levels, you have to travel to different layers of reality, all one on top of the other but largely inaccessible and often entirely imperceptible to those unawakened to their presence. The main character, pulled from his everyday reality by a splinter cell called Orion, teams up with a robot sidekick to take down the Ascendency, who controls pretty much every aspect of life for the vast majority of the human population.

The Ascendency uses Enforcers to regulate
life and track down Orion agents.

Within the world, there are four layers of reality:

The Root - the secure mainframe from which the Ascendency operates. It deploys soldiers called Enforcers and regulates life inside the second layer, or Hub.
The Hub - Everyday existence. People have jobs, live in houses, go to movies on the weekends. It's just everyday life, as prescribed by the Ascendency and its cronies.
Elysium - A pristine wilderness where the awakened go to escape the humdrum of everyday life. Here abide artists, philosophers, dreamers, etc. While the Ascendency is aware of Elysium's presence, they tend not to concern themselves much with this layer, as there are wild creatures and rift abnormalities that can prove dangerous to other layers.
Proteus - The ghost layer/server run by Orion. The Ascendency knows of its existence but has no access as of yet. Its location and access points are guarded fiercely.

Tapping Empathy in Video Game Design

This is a collection of notes/thoughts on Reality Check: Game Design and Empathy by Mark Venturelli, a writer and game designer on Gamasutra. Feel free to study alongside me as I try to figure out game design one article at a time.

Notes/Quotes

If you don’t know how people work, you can’t make stuff for people to interact with.
The most talented and technical designer that lacks empathy will make something that only he/she can enjoy
Satisfaction is fulfillment of expectation; following through on promises
Everything we do in our game can be viewed as either expectation-setting or expectation-fulfillment.
I don’t think we’re in the business of giving people what they want. We’re f***ing artists. What we really want is to cross that chasm. To build something truly awe-inspiring. We must take our understanding of what people want, and then surprise them.
Entertainment is satisfaction and surprise
Real greatness comes from understanding people better than they do themselves.

This concept of empathy (and psychology, for that matter), is one that I've been thinking about a lot lately. I think too often in video games we work to create cool stories but not timeless ones. We seek to create interesting characters but not ones that have real life to them: none to whom people can really relate. We create grand narratives without thinking about the player's narrative--where he/she has been and what things he/she has encountered--and so we miss out on some of the greatest opportunities to access the minds and hearts of our players. I think any artist has to come to understand humanity (and for that matter, joy and sorrow) in some small but significant way before he can really make anything that will resound with people on a deep level, and until we approach that level of understanding and empathy, we are just churning out simulations. We've gone around understanding human psychology and instead relied on intense music or stunning graphics to invite serenity or terror or awe. We've neglected to study character and instead have created simulacra--emulations of a breed of mankind that never existed in the first place. I think if we are to ever get into the hearts of our players, we have to first show them that we've already been there, in thought, in comparison, in memory. We have to let them know, through the game, that we're human, too, that we've suffered the same doubts and discouragement, felt the same joys, as they have. We have to learn to truly each other--game designer and player--despite the processors, monitors, and controls that stand between our interaction. I see game design as as much an art form as writing or painting, and we have to get the medium out of the way before we'll really be able to talk to players in a meaningful way.

Thoughts on "Living Narratives" in Video Games

You may know by now that my background is in writing, and my path to video game design has not exactly been what you might call normal. I played video games as a kid, sure, but my whole life, I wanted to write books. My life has been a series of intersecting stories and characters both fictional and real, and I was intoxicated with the idea of creating my own stories, my own conflicts and characters and world. This fascination unsurprisingly carried over as my focus gradually shifted from writing to designing video games (I still write, by the way), and I find myself just beginning to figure out game design at a time which has been referenced by many as "the narrative moment" in video game history. Coincidence? I think not. Opportunity to do some really cool stuff with video games and narrative? Definitely.

The thing is, a lot of times, we are victims to our own beginnings. Maybe this is the narrative moment for video games, but so long as we hold to old ideas of storytelling, character, and conflict, we'll keep pumping out the same uninspired plots, the same hackneyed personae, the same lifeless simulacra that seem to dominate the game industry these days. If we are to access the full potential of video games, we have to complicate the narrative and take full advantage of the affordances of the medium. Well, so what does that really mean? Certainly, it means having good graphics and great sound and all that, but more so, at least for narrative games, it means non-linear narratives, complex characters, even more complex character interaction algorithms, and simulated intelligence. Obviously that's a lot to tackle, but my thought is that even if we don't figure it out all at once (or ever), we're a lot more likely to get a lot farther, a lot faster, if we start now and fail fast. We need writers in the game industry; we need game design concepts in the literary world. We need connection and collaboration and courage to keep trying, and I'm afraid nothing else will do.

Progress Update #1: Simulacrum

So, I've been working on a few art assets for the game that I'm making right now. The game is called Simulacrum, and it's a existential exploration of reality and illusion through the lens of a 2D puzzle platformer. Anyway, I just wanted to post a quick update with some screenshots. Let me know what you think of everything so far!

One of the benefits of this being a personal project and, at that, a rather philosophical one, is that I can pretty much draw on whatever influences and include whatever references I feel like. As such, this last little bit of work has been primarily adding "figures of    disillusionment," an exceedingly pretentious epithet for historical/literary characters who were fed up with the phoniness of our day-to-day interactions and/or who were confronted with severe contradictions in terms of their idealistic view of the world and how things actually were. Thus, for your viewing pleasure, I present Nietzsche, Holden Caulfield, and Joan of Arc, along with some cherry blossom trees that I made yesterday.

J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield next to a
Japanese cherry blossom tree. These trees are
a symbol of the ephemeral in Japanese art.

Joan of Arc, likewise beneath a
Japanese cherry blossom tree. 

The level in which each of these characters features is more of an art demo than a real component of game play, though it becomes necessary to resort to this area at various times in pursuit of other goals. It is one of four "layers" of a virtual reality in which the player resides, and the player must pass through it in order to overcome obstacles that, in the other layers, are otherwise impassable. The problem is, every second that the player spends in this world visibly degenerates it: the trees shed their blossoms, the streams become polluted and dry up, those characters caught in restless deliberation decide at last and leave, others simply disappear without a trace. The world itself is meant to represent the psychological or metaphorical place wherein those who have "escaped the world" live, but it's likewise a commentary on idealism and the fleetingness of the dreams we talk ourselves in and out of throughout our lives.

Nietzsche

Now that I've thoroughly bored you, I want to touch just briefly on this week's programming endeavors. I've been working on developing a pathfinding system, which basically takes static enemies or objects and allows them to behave in a way similar to how they would act if a player were controlling them. That might seem a little bit abstract, but it's basically just writing the artificial intelligence for enemy characters so that they can walk, jump, and interact with their environments in ways that are at least pseudo-intelligent. I think AI and storytelling are kind of the next big things in video games, and really, I think they go hand in hand, so I'm excited to be working to push the limits with each of them.

Pulp Free: "Juicy" Video Game Design

James Paul Gee has some interesting things
to say about identity, empathy, and character
design in Ch. 3 of What Video Games Have
to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy.
I will probably do a post on it this week.

Three FAQ’s for Juicy Game Design

Josh Whitkin, Murdoch University

- Juicy design is about released energy from a design in a way that creates surprise, delight
- Juiciness is not logical but emotional.
- Appeals to subconscious feelings of fairness and reward/punishment. It encourages certain behavior endogenously.
- Creates an expectation from tiny player actions. You know, for example, that collecting a coin is a positive action because it rewards you with sound, an animation, or a score of some sort.
- Characters can serve in mirroring players’ internal, emotional states as a way to amplify that emotion.
- Minimal character emotion is, in a way, an intentional means of focusing the player specifically on gameplay. “[M]aking … character[s] more “juicy” could easily hurt the player’s overall satisfaction,” especially where the mirrored emotions (fiero at a headshot, for example) might be incongruous with the setting, theme, or psychological setting of the game.


This last point is one with which I take contest. While there is a certain value in focusing the player’s attention, and while excessive emotional response from characters who are largely non-empathetic would certainly be jarring, to suggest that our effort to humanize video game characters is somehow harmful is indeed folly. The fact that video game designers have not yet found a way of making empathetic or emotional characters does not in any way suggest that it cannot be done, and in fact, creating realistic characters will only help to immerse players more fully within compelling stories, settings, and emotional climates. Our aspirations, however, shouldn't be centered on creating “juicy” characters but rather on bringing to life living characters—ones possessed of the same fears, doubts, and aspirations as we have—or even better, ones who drive us to seek after higher ideals and more meaningful modes of connection with others. Video games are a powerful medium, but until we allow them to aspire to greater heights of emotional expression, they will be unable to reach their full potential as creative tools. See Jenova Chen's comments here or the video link here for further thoughts on limited emotional ranges within video games.

Scenography in Video Game Art

Adolphe Appia proposed the idea of rhythmic spaces, also
known as "living spaces," where the player/character  is capable
of z-movement in addition to more standard x-y movement.

"Scenograph of Kentucky Route Zero"
Tamas Kemenczy

- "Building environments with theater in mind"
- Simulated depth,
- Set design becomes sculptural--"no longer baked into a backdrop"
- Designing dramatic spaces to be responsive to player movement--much more in dialogue with the player.
- Choreography of video game movement to compel thematic drama
- Lighting to direct the player's eye
- Because no longer constrained by physical limitations, we can create surreal, emotional spaces rather than logical or rational ones.
- Settings become emblematic, symbolic of internal experiences and emotions
- Single unifying visual metaphor for each scene
- Art deco, modern design styles carry "promises of the future"
- Visual system to convey semiotic signs; not necessarily plot oriented, but we use light to pick up clues as to what is happening.

Really, I just loved the framing on this--the simplicity, the fusion 

of round and rectangular shapes, the sharp contrasting values, the 

emotion inherent within the piece as a whole. Truly an amazing scene.

I guess the take-away from all this is that in designing video games, we need to draw upon pretty much all knowledge--theater and art, psychology and sociology, anything you could every study--in order to craft meaningful player experiences. Game design has as much to learn from theater or from scenography as it does from more directly related subjects as programming or visual art, and only when we begin to harness the vast creative capacity inherent within games will we be able to access the full potential of video games. Theorists like Wagner spoke of an eventual medium--the gesamptkunstwerk--that would come to encompass all the artistic mediums in harmony, and at least for now, I see that medium as video games. I think there's a lot of potential that is yet untouched, especially in terms of conveying meaningful emotional experiences. I don't know if we'll ever see a fulfillment of Wagner's or many others' dreams of the pinnacle of all artistic works, but I sure hope tohelp video games climb to a new level of legitimacy and creative implementation.

Building the Wonder, One Interaction at a Time

"Theories Behind Journey" - Jenova Chen, creator of Journey

- Build games around desired emotional experience and allow game play to arise from that.
- Visceral/social feedback as an incentive for action within a game. Tailor game play to deincentivize anything that will detract from the emotional experience that your are seeking to recreate.
- Three act system: build up, backward turn/twist, huge rise in emotional intensity
- Hero's journey is about transformation (stories are about combinations of small transformations, both for the characters and the reader)
- Emotional arc - craft setting based on experience that you want to create.
- "People hated the game" - huge iterations based on playtesting
- "By the end, when we shipped Journey, we actually went bankrupt." - Be ready to sacrifice.

Chen and his colleagues used an emotional arc to conceptualize and plot out
 Journey on both a metaphorical and a physical sense. The story, aesthetic, and
landscape were all crafted to convey specific emotional interactions and states.

I think the most interesting notion Chen put forward was that game mechanics don't necessarily have to take precedence over theme or story. So often, we look at games from a single perspective, insisting that core mechanics must come first and theme should arise from game play. Chen, in contrast, suggests that game play ought to arise from the core emotional experience and should be tailored specifically to reinforce that idea or feeling. It was neat to see that even in terms of physical landscape, Chen had used the emotional arc as the foundation for the entire game. This notion is, I think, going to be very important for me, especially in light of my current aspirations with regard to narrative. In any case, this will be really helpful in terms of my writing and game design.

A Thing Called Summer

So this crazy thing happened to me recently. I think they call it summer, but it lasted too long for it to have been only 4 months, and it passed too quickly for it to have been roughly a third of a year. In any case, summer is drawing to its end, and while I've been up to a lot of fun things this summer, I haven't been writing or really documenting any of it, so for those few benevolent souls who are interested in the goings-on of my life, I've prepared a brief (if you know me at all, you know that to be a baldfaced lie) recap of whatever comes to mind of the past four months.

So, this happened. Also, just as a side note, I'm almost
perpetually pale, so if you think the sickly pallor is the
unfortunate result of cool lighting or something like that,
rest assured that it is actually just my pasty self in all its wonder.

So there was graduation. That was a thing. Then I kind of stared the wall for like five days, and then I filled out job applications for a month or so while learning Javascript and reading in my free time. So many good books this summer: Faust, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Hafiz, Oscar Wao, No Country for Old Men, as well as an epic fantasy trilogy of which I've grown less fond with each subsequent novel. Alas, I digress. As you might have noticed, I said that I filled out job applications for a month. I should have said "for two months," but I wanted to break it up into separate segments so it would sound less pitiful. I still had (and have) my job at the missionary training center, and while it pays very well, it only gives me like 5 hours a week. So, I filled my days moving infinity friends to new homes/apartments, devising herb bread recipes with my roommate Ben (who is apparently a connoisseur of artisan breads and all things African), and working on my First. Video. Game. Ever.

Turpentine

He carved me from the canvas—
sharp, graphite bones, and watercolors
bleeding into penciled skin.
Then thick oil paints, layer
on layer, coat after coat
of red on red on red, gently—
tender caresses on my hips,
my legs, my chest. He paints
my breasts, and I,
his cheeks with scarlet.

Still, I offer him no sigh
of my stolen breaths, no whisper
of my purloined syllables.
My iron brow and carbon clavicles
defy his affectation.
This buried heart will never seek him,
for I am the Delilah of his desolation.
Scarlet of cochineal upon my lips
is the shattered hulls of female insects,
my fat, the rendered fat of calves.
The shadowed pigment of my skin?
Carbon. “Amorphous Carbon Produced
by Charring Animal Bones.” Herein
is my spirit, bones upon bones.

Your angled razor on
my cracked mosaic skin
cannot defile; I shed this tabernacle
gladly. With each fiery drop
of your indignation, I grow thinner.
Thinner, I will not melt away;
I am more than these pigments,
these gesso ligaments,
I am eternal Shiva,
I am annihilation.
I am the echo of your solitude, and
I fear no turpentine:
I drink destruction laughing.

Seek - Revising, Revamping, Figuring It Out

So, first off, I've decided that I want to present Seek in third person. This is for a number of reasons, but in short, I think it will force me to get better at dialogue, and that's something I really need to work on.

The new setting (only slightly new) is that of a corporate metropolis. Essentially, corporations their own nation-states.

"Jonah, this isn't child's play," Simeon said.
"I'm done."
"You can't just be done. This isn't some game you can play."
"You know, I don't think you're really the one to be talking to me about games. You've been playing Jael the whole time. You've been using me to do your dirty work while you've been thinking up more ways to kill people."
"Kid, I can't answer for my past, but this is something bigger than you and me, and you've gotta get over yourself if we're going to try to make things right."
"I already told you, I'm not going. I won't be a part of it."
Simeon storms off
Kara enters
"I overheard your conversation from the hall."
"Yeah, how 'bout that? He's got some gall, doesn't he, coming in here like that?"
"Jonah, I'm actually with him on this one..."
"Oh yeah, I'm sure you--"
"--I'm not kidding. I think he's right."
"Well this I don't understand then. I don't get how after everything you've seen--after Shibboleth and the caravans and Secra--"
"You--leave--Secra--out of this. You have no right--"
"After everything you've seen, you still want more death, more violence."
"That's not true. I don't know how you can be so blind sometimes. All this talk of the ideal world and philosophy and paradise, and still you don't understand--won't understand. You still can't see that Khaios and Rai are opposites, that while Khaios stands, there can never be a Rai--not in Secra, not in Shibboleth, nowhere! How many cities have to burn before you see that? /How many people have to die--" She broke into a sob, and Jonah rushed forward, putting his arms around her as she cried.  (Jael was killed in the attack)
"Kar... I'm sorry. I guess I didn't really think about it that way. I guess I didn't want to think about that it way..."
-----------------------------

Strangers to ourselves again
Living out these summer nights in solitude and silence
*Writers, artists, sculptors working ot rediscover the old truths--the symbols, the watchwords, the tokens, the unities
Runes, gestures, watchwords
To love is to feel as though we are giving away nothing when in fact we have put aside all else for the one within our heart.
War is the child of fear. Everyone is secretly a coward.
Forests shrouded in memory
The quiet of snowfall
Kids' river stones = jewels and quartz
Clay swallows' nests
Sand to glass because of fires--shards of sunlight shimmering in the sand.
Flesh has little argument against an iron blade
Staves, scepters, amulets, etc. --> Simeon decides gloves are cooler
Lights in abandoned skyscrapers
City like a charcoal drawing sketched across the horizon
Dreams that call you from your solitude, back to the bourne of infinity and oblivion
Lost/forgotten sun
Sparks rush upward into the endless night and fade into the darkness
"The ones who knew God have fled."
Ash flowing through the furrows on the wind
*Bathe in the river and dress in new garments, wash off his old self, old ways
--He cupped the cold water and laved it onto his body to try to acclimatize himself to the chill
--Robed in nothing but the warm breeze
One step at a time in the dark until you see the light
perfect night
Sand racing the wind as it rushed by them, off into the blinding sky
A moon hidden somewhere beyond the clouds
Beach at night, black swells; a fine mist rolling across the blackness.

Simeon doesn't die? Jonah gone now?
Telling it in the future: And then his eyes will grow large, and the girl will gasp, then I will (use technis arm to blow up reactor/whatever). And then I will lay down and rest with the Founders, my knowledge and their buried at last.
War chooses us / Love chooses us / Life chooses some.
So far away, so long ago, that it might have been a drea.

How can the world ever change/be renewed if we do not question it, if we are enamored with it as it is now?

World erased in the white of a winter's night
Coaxing gargoyles from granite stones

*Finding our stories

*Dream: running through a golden field, something calling. A flash of red between the tress and then footsteps pounding off into the jungle. Chase. A laugh up ahead, and for some reason I thought of Kara, and then there was a feather on the path--a crimson feather that turned silver-gray before his eyes.

The longing of youth.

Seek 8: Return to Khaios

Walking and talking, waxing philosophical. Suddenly they hear the shriek of a couatl behind them. They run, but they know they can't outrun couatls. They pass a tree that has been struck by lightning or something, has a huge fissure down the center of it. They climb into the hollow, and Jonah uses the bios shard to close the tree around them. Cracking, popping, little puffs of dust with each snap before darkness surrounded them and they could see only a sliver of light--a single mote-- shining through from a gap in their covering. Hidden in the womb of the tree, robed in perfect night though daylight surrounded them on every side. They clasp hands in the dark, their breath coming in stifled gasps. Patrol comes searching. "We know you're here somewhere. You might as well just come out now, because if you go wasting our time, we might just have to tell our officers that we found you dead in the woods." Tear illuminated on Kara's cheek as

Kara, you have to understand some things about Khaios before we get there. I don't want you to be confused or hurt or anything, because there, people act differently than in Shibboleth or Secra. They're going to treat you differently.
I mean, I think I can handle it. If it's about skin, then I've seen it before, both in Secra and in Shibboleth.
The thing is, in Khaios, they're not going to treat you the same as they treat me. They're going to assume things about you, and most of them won't take the time to find out if those things are true. They're going to think you're something less than you really are, and they're going to hate you for being different than their expectations. I mean, I guess you've seen how the Uppers respond, but people like you--your own people, essentially--are going to hate you for being different and for not wanting to be the same as them. They're going to say things. They're going to call you things, and I don't want it to get to you.
(Maybe here is a good place to have the bird come through the bushes)
There was silence for a moment as the two walk. She thanks him.
Khaios comes into view through the trees. Kara takes off running "Woah! It goes on forever! Why didn't you tell me it was this amazing?"
"Wait, you mean you've never seen Khaios before?"
"No, of course not! We weren't ever supposed to go near it."
"So when I was leaving Khaios--"
"--I was trying to sneak a glimpse, yeah."
"I guess I just don't get how you could have lived so close to it all your life and never seen it."
"Well you of course had an extraordinary knowledge of Secra, even though you apparently lived farther from Secra than the people of Secra did from Khaios."
Jonah's face lit up with a laugh. "I guess you're right. I hadn't really thought about it that way before. I've always kind of seen Khaios as the center of everything, but I guess in the end, whatever world you live in, that's the one that really exists for you."

Seek 7: Randomness

As if he might drown out the clamor of his mind/the silence of his mind

At some point, we have to throw out some dreams to fit the foundations of other aspirations within our minds.

I don't know that I know how to be loved

Oh cursed me! Do I now forget the song that filled my boyish soul? How can I now recall that sacral song that graces me alone in heavy sleep, when Morpheus his works in me has wrought?

Include as little about he govt structure/politics as possible. This is supposed to be about the human heart, the line through the soul.

Ambiguity

Sometimes, there is beauty in confusion

And sometimes poets say the things they say

Simply because they hope the critics will find out what it all really means

So they can move on and live a normal life,

One unencumbered by those emotions and thoughts that make for good poetry--

The depression, the doubt, the loneliness,

The crippling fear that you might just write something

That would change the world.

If we thought we were good at what we are doing, we wouldn't be going to school.

The Lord will cleave the rocks of your wilderness and cause that sweet water shall flow forth from them

Firestorms over the slums, Jonah on the wall overlooking it, his arms reaching up into the infernal heavens, wondering why

Your sympathy for sale

gossamer

Wild landscapes--heath/wilderness, blackened trees, belly of the earth

Jonah and Mara go at one point to a place by the sea. "Can we come back here some day?" / "I don't know if we will ever come back. I don't want to promise anything I can't be sure of." / "I would very much like to come back."

That could be where they go in the end. House upon the cliffs where the winds whisper and the tides crawl up the shore and sink back into the mists.

How am I to navigate these waters dark

To understand htis unintelligible world.

Say, prophesy! Who is it that struck thee?

How am I to hear once more the songs of innocence

Over the clamor of my mind?

How am I to find grace in a graceless, faceless world

Everyone has a past.

"We used to come here to collect wildflowers when we were kids, back before..."

(Someone injured talking to Scout---Simeon or Jonah) "You won't understand this, but you feel like you're just not enough--like there's a part of you missing

-Irony in the fact that that's how she feels all the time b/c of her gender issues

Jonah always calls Scout pal, sport, bud just to annoy him (her).

gods trapped in a mortal shell: stay your hand, Prometheus--here is the fire.

I choose to live in a world of ideas, distilled from reality.

It was as though I thought that by being cold, the vapors of truth might condense upon my being/heart/mind

Pulling everything to it as oxygen to the firestorms over the slums

Red wildflowers charging from the dark earth, springing up form the cracks in the ebony clay

Device allows Simeon to listen in on govt. "Isn't that like, wrong or something?"

"Do you really think that they're not doing the same thing to us right now?"

Fire on the horizon brushed shadow onto the canvas of the sky

The river glowed beneath a starless sky.

Swallowed in the sunbeams

Our long forgotten infancy

Here in my purgatory beneath a copper sun

Sometimes I wish that I could just disappear, be swallowed up in the earth, fade into he gray of twilight--if only I could hide from my inadequacies. Consciousness and conscience are a purgatory.

Rage against the hatred and the un-love.

People listening, all day drowning in their noise

Write about people you don't understand from the point of view of people whom you don't like or understand.

Do you already have life so figured out that you've stopped looking? I can't comprehend your happiness, your peace that passeth all understanding--are you damned all, or am I? Or are both of us? Is your ignorance bliss or is my knowledge sorrow? Or is my sorrow ignorance?

Do I now awake, and dost thou yet slumber? OR do both in Morpheus's embrace now lie, one to rest and one to wander and to wonder? Do dreams dance before my wild eyes, or...

Summon the notes from the ether, bind the chaos of human emotion into lilt and motion, make the soul into a song

But what of the forgotten, the hidden ones, the worn out wanderers, reanimated at the call of dusk to endure a frenzied purgatory, to live out their life sentence ever in the twilight of humanity?

When the night streets are yours and yours alone, and the whole world is yours because no one else showed up

Oh, please pity the dreams--those who long fro sleep but seldom find it: those who even in rare slumber know not how to rest. Envy them their worlds, perhaps, but pity their knowledge and their pain. Look upon the hands raw and blistered by the sun as they pled to the heavens, their knees bruised and bloodied as they bent on the stony ground.

Hall of monuments --corridor of Founders' statues as Jonah walks up to courtroom

Fata Morgana

This world is only a passage to another world (a wandered in a strange land)

Capitalists still can't wrap their heads around the idea that people can be something else and still be happy or even proud.

You cannot contemplate the things of God without some distance from the world.

Science has now known sin

there is love enough is this world for everybody, if people will just look

Pure research--no goal in mind, no better filter, no new formula to cut costs--just discovery

Crystal seeding - crystal fibers grown, recrystallized, scratch glass and crystals form (flossy). Add stabilizers, weave into fractal cloth

Fields of oily stalks with flowers peeking up. easy to spot above the uniformity of the rest. Workers pulling them out, piling them and burning. Symbol of dreamers, "not good for anything." Striving upward, toward the empty sky.

Park with world in bricks used as intro to different continents. "And we would sit on the world and talk of paradise."

Seeding technis crystals to make fractal sails

Death is a forgetting

Man subdued by the mundane elements that he has subdued

Commercila/market district

Wealther merchants live on inner wall

big, broad street through market dist. at night, empty, patrolled by guards (Enforcers?). No permanent residents really.

tribal priests use technis/chakra to convince people of Great Spirit--Jonah sees through this but comes to find God in the end. First denies it. "It's like everything else--fake." Then acknowledges there is something higher, a God, but doesn't know how to perceive it or describe it.

Livestock pens for men (Mara to Jonah)

Why not live outside? There is space enough here for millions and millions beyond those that fester within the walls.

Eyes dull and empty, almost animal likebut with less of a will to sruvive

***Creative literature is too delayerd--it needs an outlet. Self publication, biweekly? Chapbooks?

We can't live in art.

-------------------------------

I quest outside but twice a day

To chase my wintry pale away

And then, with sun kissed cheeks, inside,

To taste the world--in reading, hide.

Popeye's on Tuesday, Kane's Wednesday, Thursday Buffalo Wild Wings

Chicken and lips shining with grease  (Larry from the battery warehouse)

Tempura tempting me, unagi wriggling between wooden spears, before sliding down my gullet. Eel sauce and spicy mayonnaise are  swirl of color on Da Vinci's canvas on the plate,

A starry night where Pisces shies from showing his fins

And the twin dragon sleeps upon the mountainside

The human experience is the poetry of poetry. Good poetry, then, must stir us to remember the joys and beauties that we have lived to experience.

How am I to speak my soul when it is severed from sensation? My cup runneth empty, so how is my soul to overflow, to spill out onto the pages of my shame and solitude?

" all that dreary intercourse of daily life"  Wordsworth

It was time that thought was added to your reason: heart to your charity, soul to your religion.

Modern media blunts the human mind

Poetry is what disrupts the daily doldrums of reality--the flecks of silver/gold scattered in the coal dust

Vulnerability of a new professor: mind still empty and full of dreams at the same time

Seek: 5 - Jonah visualized

Jonah - tall, in good shape but still lean; curly, sandy-colored hair, brown eyes with flecks of gold, bushy brown eyebrows, tanned (white) skin

I had never really thought about my appearance much before we arrived in the village, Secra. When I was younger, the other kids at school had made fun of my "Seeker eyes," because I guess the flecks of gold weren't the most common of characteristics for an average kid growing up in the Middle Districts, but as a whole, I was pretty much like everyone else. In Secra, though, my eyes were the least of our differences. I stood a full head taller than most of them, and I could feel their gazes stumbling over my features in a mix of curiosity and fear. My summer's tan was pale in comparison with the dark/antique copper of their skin, and as I would later find out, many of them had never before seen curly hair. There was a boy standing at the edge of the village with his mother, their tattered clothes hanging loosely off of thin, tired frames, and immediately my thoughts went back to a boy and his mother from a picture that had hung in the hallway back at home. The mother's hand rested gently on a head of honeyed curls, and their eyes were full of longing. That was before the boy had been admitted to the academy, back before his frame had grown tall and strong on academy rations, back before his limbs had become corded with muscle from the drills that he and the other Legion initiates had run each morning at the first light of day.

Seek 6: The Raid

 A reptilian shriek fractured the night. Shadows shifted through the trees, claws tearing at the earth in a wild frenzy as spurred heels dug deeper into scaly flesh. Silence. Outside the village of Secra, moonlight filtered through the jungle canopy, coils of darkness evaporating into the clearing as a hand, an eye, a boy of seventeen emerged into the light. Beneath him, clawed feet dug into the rich, dark earth, scales reflecting midnight as the armored salamander awaited orders from a second rider. A call rang out, then shouts resounding in the dark, and then silence once more as each of the legionnaires raised his arm before him and a jet of flame erupted from each calloused palm. Smoke poured from the first few huts in billowing cataracts, acrid and black, and screams burst from the night. The boy glanced down at the stone in his left hand, it's sanguine face glimmering in the fire's glow. His right arm raised, he took a deep breath, and the flecks of gold in his eyes shimmered for just a moment before a stream of flame blossomed from the center of his hand and night was consumed in the blaze. Bent human shapes stumbled through the yellow haze, smoky silhouettes blowing into the night, and somewhere beneath the ashen pall covering Secra, a quavering voice repressed sobs as it hushed a child's cry. Coughing, wailing. A dusky shape emerged from the wreckage of a hut, its raw and blistered hands dragging from the firestorm a smoldering bundle, ragged breath now fled.

More Transcription (Seek scraps and writing journal)

Simeon trying to convince Jonah to use technis. "You could create world, rebuild paradise."
"I will rebuild paradise, but it will be stone upon stone."
Eventually grows opposed to even using Onim, but he has to at one point to save people?

Flash flood out on flatlands. Dry earth, flows over, have to get higher ground --> basin drains off through river that becomes torrential, child swept up, drowns. Send of in river with candles.
Flatlands become a tool to discuss hardened earth/soul that won't drink in the life that surrounds them, flows over and about them.

Screams of chokros resounding through the darkness

These problems started a long time ago, before you were even born. You can't expect to fix them in a day
Acknowledge the struggle, and then be strong

Jonah discovers plot because he mispronounces word that is code word for secret society (watch word). "Can she be trusted?"

Pinions glittering in the fearless rays of the dayspring star

Open air museum - "This is my dream, my memory."

Writing Journal Transcription (Seek)

Seek Brainstorming

Raid, trial, work camp, flight, rescue/encounter, village, accusations, advocacy, intervention, hunting (villagers cool off), raiders return, race back to village, fight off raiders, face off/encounter with leader (scar-faced?), Kara saves (shoots arrow at Gecko?), shouts (others coming), Sal. Leg. liet. grabs reins, turns couatl around, looks back, lock eyes, rides off into night, swallowed by the darkness of the jungle (Heart of Darkness)

Smoke everywhere--old woman stumbling backwards, tripping over things, eyes full of terror--eyes lock, she runs away, and that's what makes Jonah realize that these are not his enemies. "These are regular people. These are children and old women." Crying from someone

Village packing up. Some to Shibboleth, some to Khaios, where their sons have lived for years.

In your language they would be called moon blossoms
Jonah grew up in poor district, heard some villagers speaking in marketplaces, knows some words in Old Tongue. Will have a teacher (little brother?)

Jonah silhouetted against the burning factory, etc. and as he stumbles out people in the streets cheer him on for blowing it up, even though he chose not to / tried to stop it.

Great free city in the mountains to the north.

Seek: 4 - Scout, the Resistance

I fell in love with the idea of free running while in Moscow
winter semester of 2013. There were kids who would do
parkour on the top of a huge abandoned building, and I
knew, watching them, that I wanted to include it in a novel.
I was overjoyed to find that there had been a number of
games designed around free running, so I bought one,
Mirror's Edge, and played through it during winter break.

Scout is a sixteen-year-old girl masquerading as a thirteen-year-old boy. Her parents were arrested by the Legion shortly after the Onim protests that likewise resulted in Kaiya's mother's death. She lived on the streets for a few months (was potentially abused, but that would be more of something that had to be inferred rather than something that I would just come out and say: unwillingness to talk about her time on the streets, anxiety around men, disguising herself as a boy, hatred, violence. "They took everything that was most precious from me and left me for dead on the streets" (talking about the Legion, so others kind of suppose that she means it figuratively, but it could be literally in the sense that first her parents were taken away and then she was taken advantage of and literally left for dead). Eventually, she gets picked up by the Resistance, and she becomes a key operative in the fight against corruption of the Khaiosian Executive Council, which is made up predominantly of corporate moguls and military officials.

Scout works as a "kite" within the Resistance. Her job is to carry information, lead Enforcers (corporate mercenaries) away from Resistance hot spots, intercept parcels, etc. As such, she learned free-running and knows her way around the city really well. In Part III, upon Jonah and Kaiya's return to Khaios, Scout steals a Technis sphere from them as a way of leading them to the Resistance. She leads them into an abandoned alleyway and then from the rooftops, the Resistance members call down: "You are surrounded, and we have concussion charges at the ready.

They are escorted inside, worried about what will happen to them, and then the boy (Scout) tosses the satchel with the Technis sphere in it back to Kaiya. "Well that wasn't so tough. I didn't think you'd come so easily."
Jonah: "Well, you think you're pretty tough, don't you?"
"Yeah, I guess I do, so back off, Jonah..."
"How do you know his name?"
"Same way I know yours. We make it our job here to know what's going on in Khaios, and you two seem to be popping up all over the place and have your fingers in a few too many places for it to be coincidence."
"It's none of your business."
"I make whatever I want to be my business, and today, that means Kaiya and her ugly friend." Jonah's temples bulged with anger. "Don't flatter yourself or anything, pretty boy, but just so you know, it wasn't me that decided we should grab you. It was the higher ups, and I kind of just do what they say." His voice trailed off. He scuffed his bare feet against the stone floors, the thick callouses on his toes and the balls of his feet scraping softly against the white stones.
Kaiya: "What do you want with us?" Scout ignores the question and continues brushing her feet one at a time across the stones. "What is your name?"
"Scout."
Jonah jumps in at what he sees as an opportunity to humiliate the young boy. "Oh, Scout, now there's an original name. Lemme guess, you work as a scoouut here." His voice was dripping with condescension.
"I'm a kite, idiot, and you don't know anything about me."
etc.


[At some point, Jonah will talk about "kiting" the rails, and Scout will light up for a second and talk about how she used to do that, back before her parents died. It's a moment of connection for the two, and she feels like she can relate to him/trust him, but then, thinking about it, he remarks, "You would have had to have been like seven at the time. You wouldn't have even been big enough to latch the cords on." She feels like he might find out that she's really older (and a she, for that matter), so she pulls into her shell and doesn't really say anything else. He takes this as a sign that he's caught her (him) in a lie and doesn't feel like he can trust her (him) fully.]

Positions within the Resistance:
Kite - explained above
Squint - Glorified hackers. They handle all computer-related stuff: surveillance, hacking, security, communication. Mechanical sparrows [invented by Simeon, of course], that are used by the Resistance, the Executive Council, and the corporations. They live in their mothers' basements and typically lack general social finesse.
[Information gatherers: plants?] - ordinary people that sympathize with the Resistance but lack the mobility or bravery to join up formally. They could potentially help rescue Jonah and Kaiya at some point, kind of out of nowhere. The might end up being the people that wear rings as identifiers, and if they end up in prison, the guard would be wearing a ring. They could also be an opportunity to talk about fear and revisit some of the ideas in the first part of the book, i.e. acting in spite of fear, following truth no matter the consequences, etc.
[Strong, fighters: bashers?]

(Wordcount 5122 so far)

Seek: 3 - Overall Premise and Jael

Jael: not the exact look I was going for,
but the old-ish but still strong man in a
cloak is somewhere close to what I was
thinking. The feathers also tie into an idea
that I've been toying with for a while,
though they would likely be a cape rather
than shoulder ornaments.

Overall premise: Jonah Cross is an average kid growing up in the jungle megalopolis of Khaios when he is selected to attend an elite, government-sponsored school where he will learn the secrets of the Onim--advanced elemental technology left over from the days of the Founders, who created Khaios and the other great cities, now in ruin. Just weeks before his eighteenth birthday, Jonah is conscripted into the Salamander Legion, an elite military strike force, but time soon reveals that a very different path lies ahead for him: a path that will take him far from the walls of Khaios as he seeks to understand truth and find his place in the world. He embarks on an epic journey of discovery and wonder, finding friends in unexpected places, unlocking the mysteries of the past, uncovering devious plots, and coming to understand the true meaning of love and sacrifice as he forges his own path to truth.

Jael: Kaiya's father. He was once a powerful political figure in Khaios but was driven out by opponents and had to make his way on his own. He was taken in by the village of Secra, where he was initially spurned but later gained respect and garnered a strong following among the local villagers. At his behest, groups of Resistance members and refugees began exploring the ruins of the western canyon city, Shibboleth, and ten years later, the city had been born anew, a haven for Khaios's outcasts and enemies. As news of the city's revival spreads, more and more people flock there from all different cultural backgrounds and climes, a reality that serves as a constant source of conflict and worry for Jael, who serves as one of Shibboleth's nine elected councilors and who sees the success of the city as his personal responsibility.

Seek: 2 - Kaiya

One day, I will know how to draw...
And shade...
Until then, you get this.

Kaiya is seventeen years old. She has dark hair, tan skin, and blue eyes. Her father, Jael, is from Kaios, and her mother, who died giving birth, was born in the village Secra, just southwest of Kaios. Kaiya grew up in Shibboleth, a ruined city among the western cliffs that was only recently resettled by Kaios's castaways--an amalgam of refugees, rebels, political agitators, and adventure seekers. Kaiya and Jael are in Secra at the time of the Salamander Legion's raids, and Kaiya is the one who rescues Jonah as he flees from the Watcher patrols following his escape from Kaios. Kaiya's initial response is one of revulsion when she realizes that she has just saved the boy whom she believes burned down her relatives' hut in Secra during the previous day's raid. Jonah explains himself, and she believes his story. "I don't want to believe you, but I feel like you're telling the truth."

When they get back to Secra, though, the villagers don't accept Jonah at all. An old woman recognizes him from the night of the raid and spits on him in disgust. Kaiya stands up for Jonah, but the old woman is adamant and incites the villagers to anger: "He can't be trusted. You're endangering us all in having him here. He is not one of us, and his presence can bring only sorrow." Kaiya: "He was running from the soldiers. He belongs here just as much as my father belonged when he first came here." Old woman: "You mark my words: the soldiers will come back, and it will be on your head!" The crowd erupts in shouts, and Kaiya and Jonah retreat to a makeshift shelter that Jael and the other men are setting up. Jael suggests that Kaiya and Jonah go ask Kaiya's grandmother for advice, so they set off for the southern swamps while Jael remains to try to placate the distraught villagers and complete repairs on the village, which is in shambles after the raid.

Seek: 1

I've been mulling over a novel idea for about a year now, and it's been a lot of fun to think about different characters or scenes that I want to include, but I haven't really ever gotten around to plotting out the story, so I figured this would be as good a time as ever. I've been looking into the hero's journey of late, and I've realized that what I do have so far is actually pretty close to the beginning of the heroic journey, so I may see if I can kind of use the general model as a template to build upon. I've also thought about splitting up my story ideas into a couple of novels, as I have a ton that I want to address, but my fear is that I will lose track of the main ideas that I want to convey throughout the piece as a whole. I think what I've decided, though, is that each really is a different story, and I need to focus on one first (Jonah's) and then retell it in a second novel from another (Simeon's) point of view. Anyway, I'm going to start writing now, and I don't know when I'll stop.

Founders' Wall

[Creators' spark [eskra]: gods left it inside of mankind when they created him from the dust of the earth. It is this that drives man to write or sing or craft or create in any capacity, and it is precisely this spark that enables the use of the Onim. It is but a cold ember in the hearts of most, but within the veins of a select few--many of whom you would call Seekers--burns an undying spark than can be breathed into new life. It is the power of creation itself, the power that supposedly once brought forth life from the clay of these hills.]

Jonah shielded his eyes, the outline of the door blazing white, and when his vision returned, Jonah saw that a passageway had opened up leading into the dark of the Founders' Wall.
"Well, this is the end of the line for us," rumbled the taller of the two smugglers.
"What do you  mean? Where am I supposed to go?"
"That's not our problem. Our job is just to get you out of Khaios, and we've done tha--"
"No need to be rude, Jafra," the smaller of the two interjected. He was, as far as Jonah could tell through the thick woolen clothes, still a very large man, but his voice was soft, gentle--not like any market vendor he had ever met. "Just follow the passage and it will take you out. There is an old woman a few hours eastward who can give you shelter and food until you've figured things out."
"Thank you. [Embarrassed]. Thank you for your help." Just at that moment, a pair of mercs rounds the corner of a nearby building and begins pursuit.
"I'm sorry to be breaking up your touching little moment, but they already dropped one of us, and I'm not going to risk any of us gettin' fired up with their blasters--especially not," Jafra continued, turning to his comrade, "with your arm already messed up pretty bad from the hit you took earlier." Turning to Jonah, Jafra commanded, "Go, kid. Go now. The door will close as we leave." By this point the mercs are nearly there, and their blasters are spitting pulses of energy across the twenty meters between them and their pursuants. 

Out of Khaios

I was thinking today, what if every twenty dollar bill that you found in that old pair of jeans was really put there by someone else, just to make you happy? I think I want to do that for my kids some day.

I've been thinking a bit about a novel premise that I've been mulling over for a year or so now, and I've decided it's time to quit sitting around thinking about what could happen and instead work to get something out, whatever the form. So, here we go.

[1st person] Not everyone can be a hero. What to do when you are too afraid to do the things that you know you should do?

[3rd person] Main character, Jonah, is drafted into the Salamander Legion, an elite military corps responsible for maintaining the security of the megalopolis Khaios, the only remaining city of the four ancient capitals. On a night raid of a nearby village--purported to be a safe haven for rebel Seekers, or users of ancient technology that has been denounced as heretical by Khaios's prelates--Jonah is tasked with razing a group of huts, and Mara, a young woman from the village, arrives just in time to see her home go up in flames as the soldiers fade into the darkness of the jungle all about them.

It's afternoon of the next day, and Jonah receives a court summons to stand trial before a military tribunal for the crimes he committed the previous evening. Jonah wants to think it all over and write everything down before worrying about the trial, but his mother, fearing for his life, hires men from the ciity's Outer Rim to smuggle Jonah out of the city by night. Three men arrive in dark clothes, their faces masked, and they set off into the darkness despite curfew enforcement. [Ronan and Simeon are among them: "Surely you can't have forgotten that dark night in Khaios just months ago." Simeon looks upon his face as if in recognition when they later meet outside Khaios]. They proceed through the Market District, which is abandoned except for scattered patrols of mercs, the city's hired peacekeeping force. They stumble into a guard, who sounds the alarm, and the mercs give chase through the market, weaving through the narrow rows and crashing past stalls that would be bustling early the next morning [Jonah later remembers this as he is chasing [Scout] through the market later on]. One of the smugglers is shot, but they keep going. Another falls to a concussion sphere and is left behind. Jonah and the two remaining smugglers reach the outer wall--the Founders' Wall--and as the taller of the two smugglers places his palm to the wall, one of the engraved Founders' marks erupts into blue-green light. "You use the [Onim]?" / "Well, you didn't think we were going to throw you over the Founders' Wall, did you?" The glyph shattered as the man's hand fell to his side once more, and the blue-green light flowed into the cracks on the wall, outlining the shape of a door on the white stone. . .