Comments on "Joe"

[Alinestra Covelia]

Woah! Feedback!

Right, I'm halfway through the next episode. It'll be a bit longer in coming but it'll make it, no fears.

No, I haven't had anything published for money yet, although when I was at school quite a lot of my writing found its way into the school publications.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Yet more Joe.






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[Alinestra Covelia]

Apologies for the low speed of updates once again. In the past month I have sat exams, graduated, and very quickly left the UK in a big hurry.

Right now I'm juddering around eastern USA and staying with friends and relatives. On the rare occasions I can use PCs, I usually can't linger or they start looking at their watches and tapping toes, etc.

When I find a more stable household I will post again. Should happen roundabout August at the latest. Again, sorry for the inconvenience. If I'm lucky I'll finish the entire story in the upcoming year, now that my studies are officially over.

[problem_child]

Had to suddenly leave the country in a big hurry aye, ah tell me about it buddy i iknow how ya feel, damn Government baya-stids, one a'these days somebodies gonna do something an teach them fedz a lessn.

[Alinestra Covelia]

:blinks in surprise:

Oh, no. Nothing that bad. I just finished my college education, and my permission to stay in UK ran out.

I'm an American by nationality.

[problem_child]

:absolute astoundment and disbelief:

:considered tolerance- and finnally acceptance:

hey i don't mind! even though your American your a good writer and nothing will ever take that away from you (cept maybe a sudden attack of terminal dyslexia)

as far as i'm concerned- your a Brit! and i eagerly await the next installments.

>warning, this post contains problem_humour <

[Argonaut]

I'm shocked, I must say. The wit, the eloquence, the sheer creativity! AND you're American!!!!! Now that's almost too hard to believe Must be the UK education. Don't worry, we'll still be here eagerly waiting for more when it comes. The story's too good not to keep coming back for

[Alinestra Covelia]

Yo. Mo' Joe, bro.

So tallyho.

[problem_child]

*foot taps impatiently, grumpy expression on my face*

bout bloody time too!

[problem_child]

i'm a fan of your work so i get restless!

in yor chiron, are the Hive basically the chinese?
so far i've tended to view the faction leaders as being not particularly representative of their factions ethnic make-up, althogh the Hive to my mind definately have alot of Yangs oriental-flavoured severity (think dojo's, contemplation, refined-disciplines and old-masters) but the chinese have a long history of capitalism before the communist revolution, i've never seen them as inherintly a teeming mass of communists as some do.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I am undecided on the issue of race vs ideology. Regarding the Hive, I have definitely included many Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese names, but I have also included one active Hiverian probe character who is emphatically not Chinese - Anhalt Reinhardt (he was the one who rescued Agent Hu from Governor Halls in DataTech).

As for the other factions, the DataTechs definitely have at least two Chinese names amongst them - Li Min (the agent who now possesses Hu's disembodied head) and Huang (the agent who helped kill Agent Hu).

I have noticed that the ingame factions .txt files tend towards slight racial uniformity within factions, and I have to a point replicated this. The two married Gaians, for example, are Prentice and Joely McClelland - both examples of Scottish names. Bear in mind however that Kumar (one of Lady Deirdre's close assistants) is an Indian/Pakistani name, so I've made some attempt at racial diversity.

Again, I think some racial mindsets lend themselves better to certain types of outlooks on life - hence the success (or at least consistency) of authoritarian rule in China since circa 4000 BC. But I haven't got any particular political statement to make, at least not along those lines. I do have certain agendas from time to time, but I usually don't have the strength to carry them through the whole story from start to finish.

Hope this answers some of your questions

[problem_child]

In that case i think the entire human race has a tendancy towards brutal authoritarian rule, also with
a fondness for good liers with charisma.

Racially inherent politics is an idea that makes me shudder, it means the entirety of the human experience is just so much breeding- so much for things like free will and individuality, they may as well grow us on farms!- oh yeah... we are talking about the Hive here.

please throw in more non-chinese Hivers, for my sake!

[Alinestra Covelia]

Well, I think that people everywhere have different ways of doing things.

The American nation is undoubtedly a good example of when an experiment in free will and individuality and free market economy succeeds. It has gone from being a handful of low-population British colonies to being the unchallenged military, economic, and scientific global eminence.

However, what led up to this transformation is something that interests me greatly, and right now I'm trying (amongst other literary endeavors) to brush up on my US history. Democracy on its own is no guarantor of success - other nations, especially in the Southeast of Asia and India - have instituted democratic governments which are a far cry from the model provided by the American political system.

Why is this? How could something that led to unbridled growth and prosperity in one state, lead to stagnation and relative inactivity in so many others? Indonesia and Malaysia today both have democracies wracked with infighting and confusion. India's democracy has yet to dispose of the caste system, and frequently reverts to feudal politics thanks to the power of landowners and the illiteracy of voters.

Perhaps democracy is a catalyst for great change, but not the single ingredient for success. The American nation has doubtless profited greatly from democracy, and its agenda (to uphold democracy worldwide) doubtless has a noble aspect of global gain to it.

Some people I've spoken to hold American foreign policy to be that of ruthless nepotism, and they point to the fervor which the country displayed in opposing non-democratic countries. I don't hold this view. I think it is more a product of having a true conviction that democracy and the respect of human rights will inevitably bring about immense prosperity for any country, as it did for America.

I also believe that it comes as a great shock and disappointment for the American political system that this does not always work correctly. Likewise, any non-democratic country that enjoys prosperity is also a problem for this theory. McCarthyist America probably regarded China and Vietnam in utter confusion and bewilderment - here were two countries that actually had a choice between communism and capitalism, and they chose communism. Perhaps some of the Chinese-American tension today results from something similar ("How could they possibly be successful/happy/popular? They're a Communist nation!"), although personally I would say this stems more from simple realpolitik than ideological clashes.

Ultimately, it all depends on viewpoint.

Well, the point of this lengthy post is that to forward the theory that economic and cultural differences count for a lot in the acceptance or rejection of democracy. Remember that democracy as we know it is a very young development in the history of human existence. Before that existed many despotic and nondemocratic regimes, some of which were indeed quite successful.

What's to say that a proposed Hive might not work in future? It's happened before - it might happen again. This could be one of the themes of the story.

[problem_child]

I've noticed your Hive is a very subtle beast, as opposed to shere dictatorship, the feel that comes over is one of a society where people just do things different- and absolutely. Hivean culture would seem to be a total-commitment type society, which is not nessesarily a tyranny.

Your intelligent enough not to just assume the Han-chinese and sprawling totalitarian dictatorships naturally go hand in hand (some do! it distresses me)

Yangs personality, his attitudes, background, experience, training and politics would definately play a large part of the Hivean culture, and how the average Hivean, descended from the random survivors that jumped in his escape-pod (to be subjected to his skilled despotism) during planetfal would develop their point of view.

All in all i suppose its the question of purity in the application of ideology upon the uniformly multi-geneous human populations deposited on this isolated planetary petri-dish called chiron.
Abit like America today really, but ideologicaly purer, there's an American from every background in humanity now, but unlike planet- they weren't all there from the start of the culture, nor equal in contribution to it.

an look into the relationship between normal humans, and talents or transende! a caste/class system we've all had to deal with at some time or other (often using non-lethal methods!)

[Alinestra Covelia]

*Two* more Joes. It's like buses, see.