Got to the Constellation Convention Holiday Inn after dropping my two tykes off at the grandparents across town, and I’m here to tell you what it was like for me.

Huntsville, Alabama where its held, is one of the Rocket Cities, with a tough university (heavy on engineering) and a fair number of Fortune 500 companies.  Missiles, computers, space station building and the like under the shadow of Monte Sano Mountain which at 3,000 feet barely deserves the title.

At one point, it was the number two city in the nation (behind San Fran) for buying Magic cards.

So you’d think the convention would be huge.  Its not, it was small, and its getting smaller.  There were a lot of people I expected to see this year that didn’t show up.

Still, let me underline something…I had a lot of fun.

The con suite, aka the feeding trough, was refilled many times during the day thanks to a very hard working fellow and his assistants, and not just with M&Ms although I certainly ate a lot of them as well.  Spaghetti, chicken bbq, good lunch meats, chile (with habanero’s)–and yes, the chile had meat, beans, and tomatoes in it which might offend some purists but thats how we mostly eat it around here. 

Later, I was able to snag from a seminar elsewhere some cheesecake as well.

The Baen Books Party Room was well-attended and well-stocked as well.  I made off with a Frappucino thinking that playing a tactical board game and drinking don’t mix.  Plus, I’m the type of guy who takes a sip, and thats it.  I’m  grateful again to Baen Books.  And extend my condolences to them on the loss of their publisher, Jim Baen, just this year.

There was a game of "Killer" but I hardly saw anything of it going on.  I don’t know how well it did.

The facilities were pleasant and restauraunts were nearby, and the staff was helpful (although I did nearly get one lady to achieve orbit when I spoke up at her right shoulder.  Poor woman was reading a flyer on a wall, and suddenly almost became a ‘flyer’ as I startled her.  We both laughed about it, and went our ways.)

There was an Anime Viewing Room with the most popular bit being the showing of Japanese commercials as if Anime characters were watching them.  The line-up, from my modest knowledge of Anime, seemed good.

The guests were David Drake (dean of Military SF), Eric Flint ([i]Mother of Demons, 1632[/i] and its abundant spin-offs detailing what happens when West Virginian coal miners take a time trip to the Hundred Years War), and John Ringo ([i]Hymn Before][/i] [i]Battle, Watch on the Rhine[/i]…and about a half-dozen more novels every year), and Sarah Hoyt (Ill Met By Moonlight and the rest of the series which is about Shakespeare meeting faeries, and a bunch of other books–her current effort is urban fantasy about secretive shapeshifters among the human population.)  I found one of her ideas for her Shifter novel to be very clever–you see the shifters can do things like change from Human to Dragon, but one of them–the clueless newb can change from Human to a different Human.  I’m not sure if its any Human he can change into, but I got the impression it was only one, and that just seems funny to me, a neat tweak.

Anyways, I arrived at 2:30 on Friday, and wandered around a bit checking out various things and getting the lay of the land which is what I like to do first thing at cons.  Later, I played in a D20 game run by my uber-brilliant friend J. which used the character sheets from my [i]Land of Lislan D20[/i] adventure [i]Countercoup[/i] which you can buy on Lulu.com, and had a good time with that–playing a rogue with insane levels of skills since Lislan is about using a group of plus 20th level characters.

Later, we played a game of [i]Munchkin[/i] by Steve Jackson Games which is a parody of D20.  It started out cutthroat, but mellowed out after I showed my teeth.  I could have won, but I wasn’t thinking clearly and missed an opportunity right in front of me.  I could have taken a card up, sold it and another of my cards for my next to last level needed, and then used the Divine Intervention card to boost me up the last level.  Oh well.

After that it was off to the Baen Room (there was also a Marcon Party going on, but I missed that, although I heard it was good), and got to listen to Sarah Hoyt recount tales of horror in the publishing industry.  You’d like to think it was more than enough to write a good book, and go from there, but she had a tale of how an innocent writer could get blindsided by fate and other forces out of your control which ends up trashing your book’s chances without a decent chance.

I also asked her what her books were about or idea of her books were, and while she acknowledged that every writer brings views to books, she said that she grew up in a socialist country and so was allergic to putting a message in a book.  I took that to mean that she had been exposed to way too many messages in books.  She did say her view was that one had a responsibility to defend oneself and to try to defend those who were depending on you.

When the talk turned to cats, and computers and jobs, I left to track down some more interesting talk.  John Ringo was holding court outside the doors in the chill air (so he could smoke his small cigars).  He and the others and moi talked for about three more hours until nearly four o’clock in the morning.  He had interesting war stories, some I suspect now of being the ‘lets pull the civilians’ legs variety), but unlike a number of other authors, he had good presence, is energetic, witty, and looks like the specwar guy I believe he used to be.  On top of that he writes a half-dozen books a year.  Its not fair.  sigh.

I met him the next morning as he got ready to leave (and that would be Sunday morning–I’m gettng my days mixed up here), and walked with him a bit.

The next day was watching of the playing of Axis and Allies V.3, which unlike V. 2 has a cool board, and looks like something I would like to play.  Unfortunately, I got there too late to get into it.  Later, Mike showed up with his Heroscape game, and got that set up. 

We spent the next six and a half hours pounding each other into the dust.  My team had the Valkyries (under J who was a newb) and the Nakita Agents (Charlies’ Angels ripoffs), and Roman Legionairres and Roman Archers under moi.  They had Arrow Grunts, a Witch, Sylvestris the Elven Archer, a bunch of Magma guys and Asarno warriors (a single block in melee generated by the defense dice stops an attack with no matter how many successes).

They went to the glyphs which were mostly on the right and left sides of the board.  For those unfamiliar, a glyph in Heroscape creates a magic effect when stepped on.

We pounded them and killed most of their high rank and a lot of their low rank–a massive extermination.  The glyphs regenerated them.  We pounded them again.  They regenerated.  The next time they pounded us, and we didn’t have a glyph to bring us back.

Game over.

In the midsts of this, David Drake came in,a nd looked around, and I got to explain to him some of Heroscape, and the car game Formula D.  He looked militarily erect and good for his advanced years, and seemed very sharp.  I was a bit vague on Formula D since its been over a year since I played it, and he compared it to the Le Mans game put out some time ago.  When I told the Ladyfaire, my wife, this she, who is an expert on board games disagreed with his analysis, but then my information to him had been poor to begin with.

All along I’d been occasionally talking to people about running a Multiverser game (Great game, just great!), but the group never seemed to coagulate into enough people, and I was always tired, and unwilling to try to round people up to make it happen.  So it did not happen.

A bit of a break and I came back for a free-for-all.  I was tired, but unsure what to do.  I took the Romans again–light troops.  J set up his two man army next to mine which had eighteen.  When his shotgun wielder fired buckshot at my Romans he killed six of them in one shot.  After that he had to leave to go fix something on his house the next day, and I was ready to quit too.

Still I heard the guy I gave my Romans too had along with his Samurai the ability to fight it out until three o’ clock in the morning.  Impressive.

I went elsewhere and got into an arguement.  Someone mentioned how wonderful Stracynski’s Bab 5 was and I pointed out that the producer lost me–this was after the 3rd year.  He explained the reasoning of Stracynski with the Shadows and the Vorlons both being the enemy.  I’ve long thought this was stupid.  It probably in great part explains why there isn’t a sequel to Bab 5 (except for Crusade which was horrible, and cancelled after one year).

Then he tried to use an analogy of Buddhism and that this was Ying/Yang and therefore somehow philosophically justified.  Good and evil must balance or something–I hope he’s not right about Buddhism because he made this great religion sound kind of ……ummmmm….lets move on, eh?  I tried to bring up that morally–but evidently one is not allowed to discuss morality when one is discussing philosophy.

For you see philosophy is "the rational investigation of the basic questions of life, and the answers are either unknowable, or there is such a plenitude of answers that deciding among them is unknowable".  As you can see Answer A is functionally identical to Answer B, and that both answers are Philosophy=Uselessness.

I objected to this definition of Philosophy and got condescended too.  The best people know their definition, and I’m not one of the enlightened.  Unfortunately for that, I found a dictionary that agreed with me.  Philosophy is the rational investigation of basic life questions.

The problem is that some people try to make definitions for words that are the equivalent in arguement of "heads I win, tales you lose."  I find this disagreeable to say the least since fairness is a fundamental part of how I try to live my life.

Although frankly, I got the impression that what was going on was "MY Religion is great, and if you don’t instantly agree with me, then I won’t talk to you."  Sigh again.  There are a fair amount of people who are willing to lecture you on their thoughts, just as I’m doing now, but are not willing to listen when you talk back to them.  I find most of this on the Left, but it happens on the Right as well.

Again, more frankly, I’m not sure that was what was going on.  I felt like I was a man punching in a dark room since my opponents seemed to proponents of either surpassing subtelty or possessors of buckets of muddy water they were throwing in my face and trying to convince me it was champagne.  I prefer a clearly stated theses, and then arguements to back up said theses–the whole smoke and mirrors routine is often the sign of someone who doesn’t really know their stuff.  A true expert usually can tell you what he thinks in clear, concise fashion.

Then again, sometimes you do use leading questions to try to build up a framework to some point which is what the conversation shifted too, and got more productive even if still maddeningly indirect.

The next arguement was among other things, the idea that the church councils which formulated the Bible were influenced by politics and therefore how does one know one has the authoritative Bible.  There were other attacks on the authority of the Bible.

However my understanding of the Dead Sea Scrolls differed from my opponents.  As I understand it, they proved the remarkable similarity between them and the modern Bible.  He pointed out that there were other books with them, and asked how did the ones that got chosen get chosen.  A good question, but frankly I’m not a PHd in Bible Studies.  My brother could probably have answered that question in enough detail to make him get down on his knees and weep for mercy because my brother has multiple masters and at least one doctorate in studies of the Bible.  Even worse, my father-in-law has more translations of the Bible than–well lets just say I think he ought to endow some college with a room full of his religious books and Bible translations at some point in the future.  But neither were there, I was, and while I know some, I’m not a PHd as I said.  However, so far I am assuming that they used good reasons, and if I wanted to read a few serious books on it, I probably could find some good arguements against this allegation.

I’m interested in that last  year at Hallowcon, I got roughly the same arguement, more clearly stated, and more concise from a guy who was nicked "Rev. Bob", and it makes me wonder if this is a meme like a flu bug that is going around.  See a few years back the editor of the Rant, Walt Guthrie used to challenge me on the Problem of Evil.  I didn’t know the answer to that then, but I trusted God.  Now, I do know at least one or two answers to that, and could probably smear him. 

And before that, there was the quesitons of Free Will and Determinism, and then it got to the point where I and maybe other Christians could answer that.  It makes one wonder–Bible challenges come like a flu virus, and the host population learns to fight it off, and then later another flu comes and makes Christians sick again, until they learn to fight it off.

Frankly, I’m skeptical of the skeptics as to honorable intentions.

I think that Humanity is having one big circle of arguements–learn to beat off one arguement, and another one pops up.  It reminds me of what one evangelist asked a ’seeker’ after truth.  He said ‘hypothetically, assume I can give you the truth, and you’d know it–would you accept it?’  The seeker thought for a bit, and then shook his head ‘no’.

Jack Nicholson was right.

Anyways, the next day, I checked on my definitions, and informed one guy I was right, and got to play a game of Lunar Rails.  Lunar Rails is by Mayfair Games, and is the same basic system as Iron Dragon, EuroRails, British Rails, etc…….  Its a fun game, and I wish the Ladyfaire had been there to be able to play because she loves those games.

David Drake came in again, and mentioned that Mayfair had made a Hammers’ Slammers game which is of course based on his famous stories.  I wish someone had thought to have a Hammers’ Slammers game in his honor at the con.

I’d heard him in an open seminar say that he thought we should pull out of Iraq, and like Vietnam let it all go to ….. .  I took this as a reference to the Boat People, and a couple million dead SE Asians because we left, and a Democratic Congress cut off the funding we promised to the S Vietnamese gov’t..

This is disheartening when I hear someone who I think would be all for the war be so down in the mouth about it.

So when I got the chance I asked him a couple questions.

"Did you think that we should do in Iraq what we did in Germany and Japan?"  The context being that we burned these countries to the ground, and they were then reconstructed as good democracies.

He replied "Thats a fair question.  However Iraq is not a unitary state.  It was drawn up."

To which I agreed, mentioning the British

He continued "And the people of those two countries were more sophisticated.  Germany even had a democracy."

I do not agree with this analysis even though his points are sound, but I don’t say anything, after all, this is David Drake, dean of military SF I’m talking too.  I ask him if I can have another question.

After he agrees, I ask him about another SF author who thought that in the future we might have a Total Surveillance Society to deal with the threat of out of control technology.

He replied "That person is a politician."

I agreed that he was a paleoconservative.

Drake clarified.  "His degrees were in politics, and he worked for a politician at one time.  He has too much faith in politics, and in directing people.  That type of thing would require a strong central government, and the centripetal forces are just too strong.  Besides, he was always a pessimist."

Drake has several good points here.  To those with a politics degree, all things look political.  And I do think the centripetal forces might well be as Drake said.  MIGHT.  And it is true that the realist perspective in 1960 would have America as a radiocative wasteland or as slaves to the Communists in the year of our Lord 2006–neither happened so that suggests limits to pessimism as a proper approach to deciphering the future.

I added an insight that my friend Edward Carroll had–in a 1984 style world, people would lose the will to live.  Fertility would plummet, and suicide would skyrocket.  Drake was not convinced, and held that a massive totalitarian society would not work.

He’s quite correct there.

Which is my problem.  Bad guys are getting closer to the point where you can have a nuke in every garage if you want, that is, where individuals can get WMD’s, and not even super talented individuals.  On the other hand, Humanity can’t live under totalitarianism.  On the third hand, it looks like there is little support for pressing home a bold war (and I’m not even sure that would work).

I suppose we could wait until Washington DC gets nuked, and then genocide all offending countries, but I really don’t like that strategy.

Its why I’m a Neocon, but sometimes I think–We’re Doomed.  There is no support for aggressive defence, there is little support (except among the Kos Kids for widespread nuking since their leader favored the ‘nuke their cities’ approach–although I don’t know how widespread the target net his "we’ll nuke the ….." in response to a WMD attack here was meant to describe), and sitting behind a defensive line waiting for the barbarians to get through worked just so wonderfully well with the Maginot Line in France….we should start a gambling pool  with survival rations as the stakes on what order the major American cities get nuked (Seattle or Atlanta first?)

No, we’re doomed. 

But maybe, maybe something on the ground will change, and maybe pessimism can be defeated.

I got halfway through my game of Lunar Rails and left to pick up the kids.  Came back with them hoping to go to dinner with a friend, but he had left since I took so long, and that was my convention.  Lots and lots of board gaming and discussions, and I had a great time with great friends.
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One person wanted to know how to make this con better.  John Ringo had some great suggestions on groups to attract (Baen Barfly’s, and the 501st Storm Troopers, and Anime).  He pointed out that Anime writers were cheap compared to even no recognition movie stars, and a good source, and thus at a reasonable price one could have pretty famous Anime writer.

One issue he brought up was that the Barfly’s had been chased out of one con (not this con–they seem great here).  There were two reasons.  One they made some noise.  Problem is a con is a party–you have to control the noise and the aggravation to be sure, but I’ve seen many con workers paranoid about Larps and controlling them.  You have to guide these things, keep them from getting out of hand, but not squish the life out of them, or just kill them pre-emptively.

Second problem I heard the Barfly’s had (and this was not at this con, and I won’t name the one it was at) was the con runners didn’t like the Barfly’s politics.  OK.  If you are running the Shadow Legion con, or you want to run an All-Wiccan con, or a Christian Con….fine.  I’d go to the last one.  I’m not Wiccan, and I’ve never been invited to the SL.  But, if you’re running a general public SF con, then you have to exercise some old-fashioned tolerance.  The conservatives, the libertarians, the anarchists,  the socialists and the plain nutty can get along with a general rule of "Don’t Yell Even When You Disagree.".  Unfortunately, there are some, mostly on the Left, who don’t like to be reminded that intelligent SF fans might conceivably disagree with them, and so the Barfly’s got sent packing.

Personally, I’ll be glad to do a seminar on "why the Victorians were a matriarchal society" right after Ursula Le Guin does a seminar on "why men are bad and oppressive in a Victorian society."

He also pointed out that you wanted to have a cross-fertilization.  Have the Anime guys walking through the game room on the way to Anime, and hey, they might see a BESM game.  Or the gamers might go near the Anime area an a D20 player might see the Record of the Lodoss Wars (or is that Legend of..anyways?).  A common mingling are is key.

In previous years, I saw the LARP guys get posted at the opposite end of the hotel, and I mean, way, way back there.  This is a killer.  Its better to be a little too crowded, than have the Larpers in the next county.

Another issue is the price.  A couple going for a weekend is $80.  Thats almost as much as DragonCon, and DragonCon will comp gamemasters, and DragonCon is well, DragonCon–the Mardi Gras of Gaming–40,000 of your closest buddies and famous people from all over in scads and scads.  I met and talked to Richard Hatch at one, and thats only one of dozens.

Considering how many hours and hours of work I put into my DragonCon gaming preparatiolns, it would have made me money to work for minimum wage for the time it took, and just paid the fifty bucks to get in the door.  Instead, I worked and worked, and took my free entrance as a badge of honor.

Let me add a few more suggestions to my already very long report.

1. Gamers include A)Tabletop Roleplayers which have dozens of breakdowns here.  B)Board gamers  C)Train Games–a Puffing Billy tournameant is a possibility.  D)Serious War Games like Empires in Arms for the really fanatical  E)Miniatures board games ranging from Warhammer to Battletech to Heroscape to all out Napoleonics.  F)Room sized games–I’ve seen people run games with using the floor and large pieces and one outsized game like this adds interest–just one as a kind of Cool Thing.  G)Magic the Gathering tournameant was supposed to be held-wasn’t.  H)Yu-Gi-O–talk to the club or get on the mailing list or the company and hold a duel.  I)Card games. J)Computer gaming.  Try to hit as many of these as possible and increase the indepth amount of the most popular like Tabletop Roleplaying and Board Games and Magic.

Personally, I’d love to see a game of EuroRails with a giant multi-paper sheet map taped to the floor and miniature electric trains and rail pieces and have a construct your own railway in the middle of the game.

2)If you want to add to your Program Tracks which would be a good thing, say try to have two tracks at first, and make one track the Game Design/Game Master/Writers Working Track.  In this track, the focus is on learning skills.  Your famous writer might come to this for one seminar, but he’d be talking "How to construct a character for SF" instead of the Main Track stuff.

Also, this allows you to tap Game Designers to give seminars which will probably add some intellectual heft to your con as game designing is possibly the most conundrum resolvingl of the creative pursuits.  Its a job heavy in logic and in guessing what is likely to happen with rule sets.

I know there were some problems with White Wolf game designers, but ….hmmmmhhh….lets just say thats White Wolf, and rumors of arrogance don’t shock me at all.  You could read their game books and smell  the arrogance floating off it like a fine masculine aftershave.

I’d be able to reccomend several right off the bat, and could easily find some more good ones.  Most game designers are, I think, nothing like WW.

I’ve been thinking this con needed to improve tof a long time.  I told people, and they smiled and ignored.  Gradually, I came to realize that the people who ran things wanted it like it was.  They wanted a con where they got to meet some cool authors and the gamers stayed in their corner, and paid their money, and that was that.  Once I realized this, I readjusted my expectations downward, and enjoyed the con greatly.  But now I hear someone in power wants to know how to fix it…so there’s my Two Squared Squared Squared Cents.