Intergalactic Summit

The IGS is all political stuff or announcements or ravings of crazy people (I'm looking at you Ottom Ephesianos).

Can we talk about something different, like what's your favorite holo or book?

Battlemace 40k?

I am still reading Jin-Mei Federation. It's a story about an alternate world where it was the Jin-Mei, with their culture completely intact, being the one to start the whole Federation rather than the Gallente.

Neuromancer, a sci-fi novel written by a pre-Space Age Gallente author is a very good read. It's scary how he predicted the whole Rogue Drone scenario so accurately. Not to mention the whole thing about hacking using only your mind and some machine assistance and the cybernetics and everything. This was written long before we had all of these.

There is also this one piece of short story that amused me to no end. The title was 'On Fire', about a man who is, well, 'On Fire'. Perpetually. The tale is about the challenges of living with the disability of being perpetually 'On Fire'. Things explode alot around him. He can't do anything without them bursting into flames or turning up charred. Not to mention nobody is willing to hug him, he is barred from the public transport and etc.

In the end, he threw himself into the sea and is never heard from again.

For somewhat less infuriating reading, I can also recommend Waking Up - A guide to spirituality without religion.

It's written by an (admittedly non-doctrine) Achuran with a very successful career as a neurologist and skeptic about the human consciousness and spiritual possibilities therein. Highly recommended, and he's also written some interesting books on the connection between scientific and moral truths ('Lying', 'Free Will' and 'The Moral Landscape') that are worth reading.

I don't tend to read fiction, so can't really recommend anything there.

I don't know about reading or watching holos, but I'm currently playing this fantastic game: Water Crest Faiths - Determination

It's about a young Amarr noble who discovers he was adopted and is actually related to Jin-Mei royalty. He or she is torn between the family that raised him, and his blood ties. He must make a decision that will determine his future, and which family he will support in a tactical strategy game!

Managed to score myself the super limited special edition! Costed me a couple of billion ISK on the blackmarket, since it was sold out in the entire cluster twenty four hours after its release. So worth it though!

Specifications and maintenance of Minokawa class force auxiliary ship.

Oh, and I am afraid to admit, I am guilty in watching recently holo series 'Toba 5'.

It is a scientific fiction about future of humankind after the whole galaxy was colonised and new sentient forms of life were found. Toba 5 is a name of a Caldari Alliance space station in a deep space that was built after the first intergalactic war between humans and one of alien races. Alien race was very powerful and wiped out almost all human fleet, but when New Caldari was left defenseless, they suddenly withdrew their forces. The station was built to establish diplomatic relations between humans and aliens and of course, as it is usual, were ran by Caldari military forces.

The series tell story of inhabitants and staff of this military installations. The story goes rather deep, two superpowerful ancient races were found, one was probably the main antagonist of the series - they were forces of Chaos, constantly colliding all the races into unending conflict. Second one represented forces of Order, and all races saw them as religious beings from myths, even human races, pointing out that it were them, who established life in our cluster. I won't give spoilers who won in the end and how.

Second storyline tells about sabotage of Caldari Alliance CEO vessel, whose position was taken by a gallentean vice-CEO Clark. He immediately started spreading gallente propaganda that all aliens are evil and must not be allowed in human part of the galaxy. As the station was a diplomatic outpost, Clark decided to take control over it and change all the staff. They have rebelled when they learned that Clark also started wars inside the alliance, trying to oppress all the colonies that didn't agree with his politics about aliens. The station commander started to gather forces to otherthrow gallentean usurpator to reestablish Caldari order in the alliance. And again, I won't tell spoilers how did it end.

Gallente Beauty

An advertising executive has a midlife crisis when he becomes infatuated with his teenage daughter's best friend.
The holo is described by academics as a satire of Gallente middle class notions of beauty and personal satisfaction; analysis has focused on the holo's explorations of romantic, and paternal love, sexuality, beauty, materialism, self-liberation and redemption.

I like to listen to books being read while I'm in the pod on a long mining or hauling OP.

"Fifty Shades of Gneiss," was pretty meh. Mostly I've been listening to a lot of Matari classics that I've missed over the years.

But I really like this new holo show that's come out. It's about an Amarr pilot who has a violent past and takes up preaching to a small congregation on his homeworld. He's got a Matari thief for a friend who wants his help in a caper. Then a Bloodraider crashes the ship he's in nearby and decides to stay around. Then the preacher/pilot finds out he's got this gift for influencing people...I can't wait to see where this show goes!

That's why you never hold on gate, always lemming through!

There is another novella I am fond of, written by a Brutor author (handily disproving the common impression that they are, well, brutes who can only break shite), titled 'Ship Breaker'.

The story takes place in one of the lowsec planets that, under a very long century of resource mismanagement, has run out of resources and suffered from irreparable climate changes. However, due to the amount of traffic that planet used to receive, plus all the battles that took place over the planet, and the fact that capsuleers had taken residence in the system, the denizens of the planet was able to make a meager living off the wreckages of ships that had made their way onto the surface.

The main character is a Sebiestor kid, who was quite well-known among his peers for being a remarkably tiny runt, even amongst Sebiestor. He is also the best 'duct rat' the salvage party has. The story starts out mostly about this kid and the situation he is in, as well as a little world building. The vicious tropical superstorms that wrecked his settlement, his father's ill-treatment of him and the like colours a lot about this little world the kid lives in and informs of his desperate living condition.

The story really takes off, however, when an inoperable shuttle crash-landed on this planet. In her the kid and his friends found a young girl who turned out to be the daughter of a capsuleer industrialist who had been exploiting the planet's salvage resources for quite some time. So, hounded by his own father and the subordinates of the capsuleer's rival within his own corporation, the kid tries to get the girl to the space elevator to reunite her with her father and, hopefully, make something of himself along the way.

Non-fiction book recommendation: "Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking" - basically a philosopher's toolbox. The book explores, literally, tools for thinking - mental tricks and techniques to aid in not only rational, thorough thought, but also in communicating those thoughts.

Fiction book recommendation: "Blessed are the Simple, or, How I summoned a human" - an odd one this. It's got elfs and magic and demons, but when one of the elfs tries to summon a magical familiar, what she actually gets is a heavily augmented human supercommando called Lambda-602.

Holo series non-fiction: "Worlds at War" - An old and famous Gallentean-made documentary about what the series calls the Luminaire Conflict, but it's remarkably impartial. One of those rare cases where the documentary-makers were more interested in the facts than the agenda. Lots of eyewitness stories and personal accounts.

Holo series fiction: "Chains" - An Amarrian preacher sets up a small mission chapel between two frontier towns in Black Rise, one Caldari and one Gallente. Not only are the locals hostile to each other, they're hostile to him, and he must try and deal with both them and with the fallout from the capsuleer militia warring overhead. Worst of all, his own dark past is beginning to catch up with him...