A return to normal

For the past twenty years I have been running an annual reunion of gamers from my university crowd.  We go back to the Comfy Lounge where so many games were played back in the late 90s and early 00s and catch up, gamble, and gab.

The past two years we had to do it online.

There are advantages to having this sort of event online of course - there is a certain smell that you can never completely remove from the Lounge, and you don't have that in a video call.  However, it simply isn't the same.  Just being in the room and overhearing people yelling about great rolls or terrible luck in a distant game is a huge part of the joy, and you just can't get that online.

Also hugs.  Those don't work well online either.

This year I am determined to go Back To The Lounge properly, and it seems that the government is cooperating as Ontario will have rolled back its covid regulations by the time the event takes place.

It is going to be *weird*.  Tons of people, in a room, all breathing near each other!  

It does raise all kinds of questions for me though.  It is clear that legally speaking we won't require vaccination or masks, but I don't know for sure what rules the university will have.  It may be that university rules end up deciding how I have to run the event, but if they don't I am not sure what I should do.

If I just say "Everyone welcome, do what you want" I may lose people who aren't yet comfortable going without masks, or who are worried that unvaccinated people might attend.  If I try to insist on restrictions, I might lose people who aren't interested in masking anymore.  (Also I have no legal authority to enforce any restrictions at all!)

There is going to be a lot of adjustment to the new normal.  My crowd of people leans pretty heavily towards vaccination and caution in terms of covid, so it may take awhile before everyone gets back to being easy with being around other humans.

I, on the other hand, am *completely* ready to grind my naked body up against as many humans as possible, revelling in the breath and sweat and goo and raw physicality of it all.  I have spent two years now in hiding from covid, and I am so ready to be done.

A great ending, and a terrible one

Recently I finished the final book of the Expanse series.  Having seen many long series end up either in limbo or finished badly I was a little concerned that it would finish up a giant mess - I needn't have been concerned.  The Expanse finished wonderfully, tying up the loose ends well, giving the readers insights into the story that we have long been waiting for, and wrapping up character arcs in appropriate ways.

It was quite the contrast to the other space adventure series I finished recently - Battlestar Galactica - which shambled to a disastrous end that tainted the entire series.

I won't spoil the the final book of the Expanse here, though I will assume you have read most of the books already.  Galactica though, I will spoil ruthlessly.

One of the key things that has to happen for a finale to work is that the authors have to reveal solutions to some mysteries that have continued throughout the story.  To do this you have to have a plan.  The Expanse writers clearly had a plan.  There were many unknowns about the two alien races in the series, including how exactly the war between them played out, and a lot of those gaps were filled in.  More importantly, they were filled in with information that fit everything that came before.  All of the things that happened during the series fit with the information in the final installment, and you can see the consistency of the rules of the world.

Galactica though, wow.  They got to the end and it was clear that they had *no* idea how to wrap up their ongoing storylines.  They had a shared vision among multiple people about an opera house where a child had two people chasing after her to save her, and two others who were taking her away for some unknown purpose.  This vision was a big part of the plot for multiple seasons.  It needed a grand ending, something to justify all the setup.  Then, at the end, the kid in the vision was walking through a ship with those two people trying to find her.  The other two people picked her up, walked ten paces, and put her down.  And that was the entire payoff to two seasons of drama and tension.  

The kid could have walked those ten paces herself.  If no one had been there, nothing would have happened.  If the other two people had found the kid first, nothing would be different.  What a waste, and it made it entirely clear that the writers came up with a cool thing to do in season 2, but never bothered to consider what it would actually mean in the end.

Another key ingredient to a good ending is keeping character motivations and traits consistent.  Again the Expanse did this well.  Holden and Alex in particular got endings that fit their arcs, and had appropriate and emotional callbacks to how they thought and behaved in the early books.  They continued to act like themselves and although they had changed throughout the series the change felt real, believable, and good.  Being able to combine a variety of threads from the first book through to the end to help finish off a character's tale is difficult, and the Expanse nailed it.

Again, Galactica failed spectacularly.  At the end all of the characters decide to throw all of their technology into the sun and become nomadic hunter gatherers.  This wasn't set up ahead of time, even though they had plenty of opportunities to establish religious groups that could have potentially justified this nonsense.  They had a bunch of people totally reliant on modern technology all decide simultaneously "Well, I guess I don't want to have a heater, or medicine, or sanitation, or anything ever again.  It is time for us all to die of exposure and disease... because reasons."

It was embarassing to watch, honestly.  Truly, it is hard to imagine that a space adventure series ends with a "Because God's divine plan, that's why." and that wasn't even the main thing I wanted to rant about.  If the story beats had been paid off, and the characters got appropriate and consistent endings, I could have forgiven Because God as the end of the show, but put it all together and you have something truly pathetic.

If you just want some views, you can make up random crap as you go along.  That works.  If you want an enduring legacy though, you have to actually make a plan.

The Expanse had a plan.  Galactica did not.  It shows.