At Kotaku, Joshua Wise has a lengthy post about the morality of video games and the efforts of some designers to create reinforcing moral systems in gaming environment. He then proposes an alternative model:

As Aristotle said, the more a person does the good, the more they like doing the good, and conversely, the more a person does evil, the more they are inclined to continue to do evil. Both reason and experience back up Aristotle' s observation. If a person acts in a pattern of charity, they will become the kind of person who is inclined toward charity. If a person habitually degrades other people, they will find it difficult to think well of someone new they meet. One can make an argument for this easily observed reality from theological, philosophical, psychological, and physical grounds. Given this, perhaps the next evolution of the morality system in games should be one which pushed a player toward a particular choice depending on their tendencies. If the player has thrown someone out of the window the past three times he or she has argued, shouldn't that be what he or she is inclined to do this time?

Implementation could be achieved in game by either limiting the player's time to make a choice, and by weighing the way he or she starts off making the choice, i.e. it's easier to click that part of the screen, or you have to go a farther distance with the cursor to get to the alternate choice. This would allow the user to make choices both in line and out of line with his or her tendency, but it would also show how making choices shapes what is most natural for a person. It would also be a good indication to the player of what kind of road their character is heading down. There may come a day, the game might say through this interface, where you are so far gone that the good choice will be utterly out of reach in the time you have. Or it might say that there is a time ahead when that bad choice is so distant from your own character and morality, that it is well nigh impossible for you to make that choice.

So, basically, a player could direct his player at will, but would have to show some sort of moral consistency (something that we've previously discussed).

Would you like to see such a system -- or any other moral system -- in video games?

Link | Image: Eidos

I recently ran across one of my favorite science fiction short stories: "And Then There Were None." by Eric Frank Russell. It's quite a treat. I had forgotten what a craftsman of prose and wry wit Russell was. Here's a passage from when the Earth warship lands on a pioneer planet in order to claim it:

Emergence from the ship was in strict order of precedence. First, the Imperial Ambassador. Second, the battleship's captain. Third, the officer commanding the ground forces. Fourth, the senior civil servant.

Then, of course, the next grade lower, in the same order: His Excellency's private secretary, the ship's second officer, the deputy commander of troops, the penultimate pen pusher.

Down another grade, then another, until there was left only His Excellency's barber, boot wiper and valet, crew members with the lowly status of O.S. -- Ordinary Spaceman -- the military nonentities in the ranks, and a few temporary ink-pot fillers dreaming of the day when they would be made permanent and given a desk of their own. This last collection of unfortunates remained aboard to clean ship and refrain from smoking, by command.

Had this world been alien, hostile and well-armed, the order of exit would have been reversed, exemplifying the Biblical promise that the last shall be first and the first shall be last.

Now that's good writing.

What's your favorite science fiction short story?

Image by deviantART user Prasa used under Creative Commons license.

deviantART user Abigael Casey made this cosplay outfit modeled after Specialist Cally Henderson from Battlestar Galactica. She bought the jumpsuit and added reflective tape and rubber as needed. To age it appropriately for a tired Viper technician, Casey rubbed it over old tires and smeared her face with eyeliner.

If you could be anyone in a cosplay contest, who would you be?

Yesterday, I discovered that Tom Cruise bought the movie rights to William R. Forstchen's novel series The Lost Regiment. My heart soared with this news, for the long out-of-print saga deserved far greater popularity than it acquired.

The nine books of The Lost Regiment series begin in January, 1865. A Maine infantry regiment is sucked into an interstellar wormhole and thrown onto an alien world. There, they encounter a people clearly descended from medieval Russian peasants. After gaining a rudimentary understanding of their language, the Yankee soldiers learn of a dark menace on the planet called the "Tugars".

The saga is a glorious and exciting depiction of courage, honor, and determination. So it would be fitting that so fine a tale would be presented on the silver screen. Alas, the source for this news dated back to 2002, so my hope was unfounded. There's no reason to think that Tom Cruise will bring The Lost Regiment to theaters.

But this does bring me to today's Question of the Day:

What underrated science fiction or fantasy novel do you think should be turned into a movie?

Image: Penguin Books

"Space Western" is a genre within science fiction in which futuristic or extraterrestrial stories feature narrative elements from the iconography of the American Old West. Cowboys and the frontier have loomed large in the minds of science fiction writers, especially American sci fi creators. Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas, for example, have both claimed inspiration by the Western tradition in their own popular works.

Other writers have addressed the subgenre directly. The DC Comics superhero Jonah Hex, is a prominent example. Hex, who is currently the focus of a movie currently in theaters, is a 19th Century Confederate soldier and gunslinger. In the canonical timeline, he returns from the dead in the 21st Century to carry on his personal war.

Traditional novelists have also tried their hand at the genre. Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future by Mike Resnick is a popular space western in print. It tells the tale of a bounty hunter who pursues a viscious killer among the sparsely-settled and quite lawless outer colonies of humanity. A passage from the introduction:

And in this postal station, there is a wall that is covered by the names and holographs of criminals who are currently thought to be on the Inner Frontier, which tends to make the station very popular with bounty hunters. There are always twenty outlaws displayed, never more, never less, and next to each name is a price. Some of these names remain in place for a week, some for a month, and a handful for a year.

Only three names have ever been displayed more than five years. Two of them are no longer there.

The third is Santiago, and there is no holograph of him.

In the television medium, the space western attracted prominence through the short-lived Joss Whedon series Firefly. Though it lasted for only fourteen episodes and one movie, the franchise has maintained a strong and enduring fanbase. In fact, there's a well-funded fan film coming out soon entitled Browncoats: Redemption.

What is your favorite space western?

Images: DC Comics, Macmillan Publishing, and Fox, respectively.

Geeky Tattoos is a great photoblog of both geeky and nerdy tattoos, such as this Knuckles tat, worn by Henrique Barudi.

On occasion, I've thought about getting a tattoo. Maybe of a bear, like from the fantasy novel Shardik. Or just a Starfleet logo on my chest.

If you were to get a geeky tattoo, what would it be?

Dukat, played by actor Marc Alaimo, was a recurring character on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The series started out slow before the Dominion War turned it into a grand space epic. Throughout the entire DS9 run, Gul Dukat was a thorn in the side of the station's Bajoran/Federation crew as he pursued power, revenge, and glory for the Cardassian people. He fell in love, endured loss, gained victories and suffered defeats. And all the while he did so with great panache, style, and passion. This only unraveled with the murder of his daughter Ziyal, whom he sired with a Bajoran mistress during the occupation of Bajor. Dukat loved her, but he also used Ziyal for his purposes. This did not prevent him from mourning as she lay dying in his arms, saying:

We'll go back to Cardassia, Ziyal. We'll be safe there. You'll live with me. Everything will be fine. We'll both be very happy together. I know you forgive me. After all, I am your father. And I forgive you... my precious girl...

Dukat was never the same, and spiraled down into destruction and self-destruction as a consequence.

He was among the most interesting characters on the show, and in the entire Star Trek canon. Dukat was certainly a compelling villain, and a favorite of mine.

Who is your favorite villain from science fiction?

Image: Paramount

What's your favorite time travel novel?

Image: Roc

Which female anime characters would serve as good role models for young girls, and why?

Image: US Renditions
(Cross-posted at NeatoBambino)

What is your favorite love story from science fiction?

Image: TNT

What is the funniest work of anime ever?

Image: Anime Network

It's been about a decade, but this is how I remember the end of the movie version of Fahrenheit 451: Montag escapes from the totalitarian society in which he lives into a resistance group dedicated to preserving the remnant of the world's literature. Each person memorizes one book and repeats it frequently in order to maintain that memory. Montag selects David Copperfield by Dickens.

In such a scenario, which book would you choose? I'd probably choose Ayn Rand's Anthem, but since this is a geek culture blog, let's focus on our genres.

If you could preserve only one science fiction or fantasy novel from the collapse of civilization, which would it be?

Image: Universal Pictures

What science fiction film of the past ten years was most deserving of an Oscar for Best Picture?

Jeff Cooper (1920-2006) was an American firearms instructor who systematically studied, refined, and taught self-defense using the mind, the handgun, and the rifle. His books and his commentaries are interesting to read, not only for his practical firearms information, but his well-written expositions on the meaning of masculinity. Cooper maintained a carefully thought-out vision of what it means to be a man that would not be alien to our friends at The Art of Manliness.

In one passage in The Art of the Rifle, Cooper wrote about the instructional duties of a father to his sons:

Before the young man leaves home, there are certain things he should know and certain skills he should acquire, apart from any state-sponsored activity. Certainly the youngster should be taught to swim, strongly and safely, at distance. And young people of either sex should be taught to drive a motor vehicle, and if at all possible, how to fly a light airplane. I believe a youngster should be taught the rudiments of hand-to-hand combat, unarmed, together with basic survival skills. The list is long, but it is a parent's duty to make sure that the child does not go forth into the world helpless in the face of its perils. Shooting, of course, is our business, and shooting should not be left up to the state.

I'm personally leery of any formal concept of masculinity or femininity because it can mean getting yourself trapped in the identity with which other people desire to burden you (e.g. "X is what it means to be manly; why aren't you doing X?).

Nonetheless, I agree with Cooper's general sentiment that a parent should prepare a child to enter a dangerous world. Here are, of the top of my head, some of the skills that I will intentionally teach my daughters:

• How to change a tire, engine oil, a headlight, a battery, and jump-start a car without assistance.


• How to swim (see also)


• How to seek and apply for a job.


• How to ask a reference question.


• When to keep your mouth shut.


• How to save money.

What skills do you think are essential for parents to teach their children?

via The View from North Central Idaho | Photo by Flickr user bterrycompton used under Creative Commons license

It's the end of the line here at NeatoGeek. Alas, we just aren't cranking out a profit, so we're shutting down this blog. I'm still posting at Neatorama, so you'll see over there a lot of the geekery content that you've enjoyed here.

My thanks to Alex for the chance to try out something different, to my patient wife for giving me the extra time, and all of our readers and commenters who made NeatoGeek a part of their day. It's been a blast.