Aileron

It's a rock.

Its not an "or", it's an "and". Colonies are sub-accounts which are hosted by SS Forum, lacking several features necessary for growth so that the player can only sustain one by transferring stuff out of his SS RPG account. It isn't described in the tutorial because its still experimental. The good thing about it is that its solves the SS RPG's biggest problem: small player base. In a virtual fashion it doubles the player base. The bad thing about it is here we are going to install Army Core 3 in all of its awesomeness and if this is done the wrong way the game might very well be decided on the Army Core 1 end of things. Hypothetically I might be able to use Core 2 for Colonies, but then the game becomes too complicated.

Well, its not happening anyway so don't worry about it. I figure if player A wants to reinforce B with some mercs, A can transfer some greens and have B buy the mercs. The Spider is going to go through a radical change though, as next round we'll be using Army Core 3, meaning a positive overhaul of everything covert related. Army Core 3 features covert turns, which are like regular turns except used for sabotage. Sabotage will return to its former glory of being able to destroy someone's entire armory within a day. However, those type of results will require significant investment in time in order to get the covert turns, probably from multiple sabbers, needed to do it. It will probably take 3 players a week to stockpile covert turns in order to do it. Additionally Core 3 has caps to the number of turns that can be held, so you can't just stay inactive for the first month, get a mess of turns, and then be a sab god in the last week. The Spiders' role will change signficantly. One Spider will no longer to be the sole source of an entire clan's covert strategy. Currently, one covert guy sabs the entire enemy clan, doing a little damage to each steadily. Next round, the covert guy will need to focus on the toughest enemy, and doing a lot of damage but only on an infrequent basis. If the clan wants additional targets sabbed, they would need more people on their end to contribute. Ultimately the entire clan will need to sab, with the Spider as the spearhead of the sabotage effort. The above results I know will happen because I've seen covert turns before in other MMORPGs, and they have a huge effect on balancing out Sabotage. I am bold enough to say that covert turns actually balances out transfer, though I am not bold enough to put that statement to the test. Its hard to describe in words, but Sabotage will get both stronger and weaker. On one hand it will do a lot more damage to the bigshots like rasta420, Dav, Falcoknight, and JDS. On the other hand there won't be enough covert turns left to pummel players like AstroProdigy into dust. What I'm not so sure about is how this will affect the Spider. My guess is that they will have a tough time competing with the Sharks. Right now, the Spider only has a slightly better sabotage capability than the Shark, but much worse offensive capability, and that thin sab advantage will get even thinner now that it won't be multiplied by ten targets. On the other hand, Colonies mixes up everything. A Spider can simply set up a Javelin colony and earn greens that way. But, the strategy of avoiding massing by not having many troops won't work with Colonies. The attacker need only transfer his armies over to a colony, carry out the mass and transfer them back. I count this as a good thing, because though I have done the strategy in the past, I've always considered it lame. But, the verdict isn't out with Colonies yet.

Well, its not happening anyway so don't worry about it. I figure if player A wants to reinforce B with some mercs, A can transfer some greens and have B buy the mercs. The Spider is going to go through a radical change though, as next round we'll be using Army Core 3, meaning a positive overhaul of everything covert related. Army Core 3 features covert turns, which are like regular turns except used for sabotage. Sabotage will return to its former glory of being able to destroy someone's entire armory within a day. However, those type of results will require significant investment in time in order to get the covert turns, probably from multiple sabbers, needed to do it. It will probably take 3 players a week to stockpile covert turns in order to do it. Additionally Core 3 has caps to the number of turns that can be held, so you can't just stay inactive for the first month, get a mess of turns, and then be a sab god in the last week. The Spiders' role will change signficantly. One Spider will no longer to be the sole source of an entire clan's covert strategy. Currently, one covert guy sabs the entire enemy clan, doing a little damage to each steadily. Next round, the covert guy will need to focus on the toughest enemy, and doing a lot of damage but only on an infrequent basis. If the clan wants additional targets sabbed, they would need more people on their end to contribute. Ultimately the entire clan wil Well, its not happening anyway so don't worry about it. I figure if player A wants to reinforce B with some mercs, A can transfer some greens and have B buy the mercs. The Spider is going to go through a radical change though, as next round we'll be using Army Core 3, meaning a positive overhaul of everything covert related. Army Core 3 features covert turns, which are like regular turns except used for sabotage. Sabotage will return to its former glory of being able to destroy someone's entire armory within a day. However, those type of results will require significant investment in time in order to get the covert turns, probably from multiple sabbers, needed to do it. It will probably take 3 players a week to stockpile covert turns in order to do it. Additionally Core 3 has caps to the number of turns that can be held, so you can't just stay inactive for the first month, get a mess of turns, and then be a sab god in the last week. The Spiders' role will change signficantly. One Spider will no longer to be the sole source of an entire clan's covert strategy. Currently, one covert guy sabs the entire enemy clan, doing a little damage to each steadily. Next round, the covert guy will need to focus on the toughest enemy, and doing a lot of damage but only on an infrequent basis. If the clan wants additional targets sabbed, they would need more people on their end to contribute. Ultimately the entire clan will need to sab,

The V RPG has been in a state of slow development. Despite multiple topics, no artists have stepped foward to help. Images are 75% completed. Stats settings 50% completed. Store inventory 50% completed. Map 5% Completed. Spells 0% completed. Sprites 0% completed. Overall, the V RPG will most likely achieve limited functionality by Feb 1st. By 'limited functionality' I mean no sprites and not much of a map. The rest will be added as the game goes on. As for that Google search - Good Lord! This forum is the 5th result that pops up! If you want to update the SS RPG, please put the latest Army Core 3 in.

Wow...um.... I don't have time to read all of that, but glancing it over I noticed that you actually bothered to come up with serious answers to my sarcastic rhetorical questions. BTW, with 2 I meant Canadian emb!@#$%^&*ies inside major US cities. Look, I do have a habit of wasting time arguing with fools, but in your case I have to draw the line. I've seen more convincing arguements about aliens from outer space visiting Earth.

Well, that doesn't end the side story as to why I was so condescending. I've been around a while and I have done dev work. I probably could make a zone like Armada !@#$%^&*ail if I wanted to, and based upon my past performance it would probably go nowhere just like Armada !@#$%^&*ail has. Usually a good zone takes a whole team of people to get itself started. I'd consider myelf about 10-20% of the manpower needed to create a zone from scratch and get it up and running. My advantage over the people who created AA is that I'm not delusional. For example, I considered the notion of creating a StarGate ground warfare zone. I could make the shipset, the map, and the settings, but realized I lacked a botmaker, gameplay style, time to moderate, and connections to the people who have servers. Additionally it had no main draw. Thus, I aborted the project then and there, saved my time, and spared the community from another lame ground-warfare zone. So, lesson learned is that instead of wasting my time and the community's on something fruitless, I accepted reality for what it is and put my time towards other usefull projects. I was being a condescending jerk because usually a delusional person needs a little insulting in order to wake up. That, and I juse felt like hurting their feelings.

You only provided anecdotal evidence for Extraordinary Rendition. But, the source of the problem is that Syria violates human rights. Remove the human rights violators and the process couldn't happen. The US has done a lot to end the process of Extraordinary Rendition - the US recently toppled two regimes which practiced torture and were potential hosts for the practice. Call it my opinion, but I'd expect that this term is merely a political tool to transfer the blame to the US for the actions of other countries. Besides, why would a Canadian diplomat have to be in fear of this? The only country we could extradite a Canadian citizen to is Canada. For the purpose of this arguement, I'll define "terrorist" as a soldier who uses civilian disguise and civilian means to confuse their enemies about their iden!@#$%^&*y. Khadr isn't a complete name - I'm guessing its not even a complete first name. That to me makes this accusation fishy, because crime victims usually have complete names. But, he's a perfect illustration of my point. Khadr was acting a lot like a soldier when he was throwing grenades around in Afghanistan, then he gets captured. Rather than accept a captured soldier's fate, he then tries to act like a civilian. Soldiers captured in wars don't get trials. When Canadians in WW II captured German soldiers, they did not have a trial which proved the German soldiers were in fact German soldiers, nor did they have a trial to determine if the German soldiers actually did something in the war, and nor would they release the German soldiers if it turned out that they are fresh recruits who haven't done anything yet. Generally its regarded that the soldier should be gratefull that his captors didn't shoot him on sight, and anything beyond that is complaining. Okay, so let me translte this accusation to something that isn't laywer-speak. You had this guy Khadr, who was captured. They put him in a cell, and made him stay there in a "stress position". By the way, real soldiers have to stay in "stress positions" all the time, they call it "standing in formation". The man soiled himself and urinated on the floor, probably because Khadr was supposedly part of an army, and the guards incorrectly !@#$%^&*umed that he had undergone training. The soldier's then cleaned the floor with the "Pine oil", probably some pine-scented cleaning product, and took him out of the cell. That's not torture. That's a wannabe soldier with bladder problems. Now that I think about it if I was both so weak and so dellusional I'd probably not want to be giving my last name out too. Besides, if we're so bad shouldn't he be wanting to be a victim of Extraordinary Rendition? But back to the origional topic - answer me these questions: Do Canadian visitors on the south side of Niagra falls need to watch their back for fear of secret police? Do Canadian emb!@#$%^&*ies in major cities need to be moved into fortified bunkers outside the city limits? Are the Canadian soldiers stationed at Norad in danger of losing their lives at the hands of their US co-workers? Do Canadians living on your southern border need to worry about rocket attacks and border skirmishes by US extremists? Are there huge city wide riots in the US, featuring burning the Canadian flag, the hanging of Prime Minister in effigy, and banners featuring various death threats towards Canadians, every time a Canadian says or writes something that offends someone in the US? I could go on if you like, but case in point this is the case of some liberal loon in the Canadian government who when asked to make a factual and functional guide had instead decided to turn it into a piece of political rhetoric. My two cents is that he should be canned and one of your newpapers should employ him as an opinion writer, because thats where his interests seem to lie.

So now Stray stole the whole map? Odd, at the beginning of this topic he had only stolen one base. And to that allegation...NO! They have some sections which look vaguely similar, but that's it. Still, that doesn't come close to "stealing", and you'd have a hard case for "inspired by". I'd assume that Hyperspace is run by honest enough people, but supposing that they were not, why would they want to steal from your zone? They would want to steal from a zone which is more successful than they are, or atleast doesn't flat out suck. Jeez, I'd bet the population spike resulting from curious forum goers entering your zone just to compare the maps cons!@#$%^&*utes the largest growth you've had in months. Besides, I've made better bases than that myself...and my map-making sucks. As for why Hyperspace is ssb: Its a decent zone. As for why Armada !@#$%^&*ail isn't: it sucks. You got upset that someone tried to make it a Trench Wars event? Trust me - if Trench Wars ever wanted to make AA into an event you should be honored. Ofcourse, that's not happening, because the Trench Wars staff wouldn't want to waste the server space on it. They actually have pretty high standards. Some advice for your zone: -Quit with the whole: "You have to play for a while before we deem you worthy to use all the ships" crap. Subspace is a game of skill, not seniority. If we pretended your zone had any vets, if those vets could get pwned by anyone who shows up, they would need to get better, not be handed a settings advantage. -Your gameplay is split: Are your players supposed to be playing turf in the east and west or playing in the south? I've seen zones survive this, but it doesn't help. -More on the last point: NEVER make a turf map with more than one base. Doing so diverts the gameplay. In a team match, when a team takes the enemy base their reward is to lose their own because its impossible to secure both bases from an enemy team of equal size. Overall, you don't want to reward players for flying to remote locations where nobody is. Now, if your turf is secondary to powerballing you can get away with it, but its still not a good thing. -Your south base (The one that was 'stolen') is way too big. If a miracle happened and you got a decent pop, the defenders could hold the attackers off for literally hours in that thing. The map shouldn't be the thing which requires skill from the offense to overcome. The defending players should be the ones who make it difficult for the offense. That ofcourse would be !@#$%^&*uming both sides had a reason to get in the thing in the first place, which they don't. You have powerballing and turf east-west. Why do you have a large flagging base if your settings don't have flagging? -Duel boxes? What, are you too lazy to make a seperate duel arena? Overall, don't be arrogant. No one is going to steal your worthless map any time soon. If anything, I'm half tempted to look through some SWR and 17th Parallel archives to see if you didn't steal your powerball bases from them. I mean, by your "if it vaguely resembles something of ours, it must be stealing" standards, Armada !@#$%^&*ail definitely stole its map from SWR, but we're talking the standards of the rest of the known universe.

Wow, that article single-handedly describes everything I hate about liberals. Good find.

Hakaku, get a grip. Where did you get that post - Generic Pla!@#$%^&*udes R' Us? All countries have a history of atrocities - the US is a trailblazer because it has a history of doing something about atrocities. Since its Martin Luther King weekend, I'll use the Civil Rights movement. Yes, the US has predudices, but it generated the Civil Rights movement to correct that problem. The countries which violate human rights are the ones that supposedly never were racist to begin with, because in reality they were, buried it, and still are. The problem is that terrorists are people who try to play two roles at the same time. They like to play both military and civilian roles depending upon the time. Generally they like to play soldier when interacting with a civilian population, when handling large weapons, and when they are winning. They like to play civilian when interacting with an opposing military population, when retreating, and generally when they are losing. The reason for Guantanimo Bay is that the US correctly noticed that these people were acting a lot like soldiers when they were shooting at US forces in Afghanistan so they deserve to be treated like soldiers now. The terrorists are resorting to their old standby of trying to switch into a civilian hat. To a soldier, humiliation and hard exercise is part of the job description. Soldiers captured in wars don't get trials. To a soldier, water boarding qualifies as 'a little hardship'. In a way, the Golden Rule is still being applied. The US is treating others like they would expect their soldiers to be treated. Now to a civilian this would be cruel and unusual, but generally there is a certain social contract one undertakes when one joins a military.

The tally score delay was just some ISP problems. By "round over" I mean "time to test the Colonies". That's it.

Maybe, though I also figure that there are a lot of people here who agree with me there. I know I'm a bit tally obsessed, but the requirements for an SSCentral Gods victory are pretty much to take every catagory and hold all ten positions of the top 10 (which it turn means that they would have to recruit more players than are currently active in the game, and instantly transfer enough to the recruits to put them in the top 10), so to get the grand total of 75 per day, and the Gods would have to more or less hold that score for the entire rest of the round. Essentially, the best chance the Gods have right now is to recruit all members of clan lollerskates. Think about that. The best chance the Gods have right now would involve persuading rasta420 and Falcoknight to change sides. On the smaller scale, the individual ranks were with exception to yesterday, constant for weeks. I only post the clan tallies, but also realize that the game had the same top 10, rank for rank, for the past two weeks. I know mid-round changes are a taboo. Still, the outcome of the round has been decided. The only thing that matters now is fun, and I figure that starting a new colony would be more fun than trying to m!@#$%^&* Falco.

I've decided to consider this round defacto over and to try some radical testing of a new feature. Essentially, this is an exploit of the fact that the 1.7 version of Army uses different variables as the 2.0 Version. The feature is "SS Colonies". It allows players to set up a colony with which to extract additional income. Colonies are optional and set up just like your main account. The difference is that for all intensive purposes, colonies can not generate soldiers or turns on their own. You have to send soldiers to the colony from your main account using the transfer function. The advantage of a colony is that soldiers in a colony generate twice as much income as those stationed at your main base. The disadvantage of a colony are that your colonial rank has no impact on the tallies. Additionally, the offensive weapon is stronger than the defensive weapon, making your colonial income more vulnerable. Generally, I've kept the colonies as simple as possible. There are no upgrades. There should be no mercs, though I caught the merc pop increasing in testing. Army verson 1 had no covert possibilities. Also, there is only one offensive and one defensive weapon. The major advantage this feature has is that it adds a layer of strategy to the game, but at the same time is relatively simple. Also, for the purpose of attacking other people it doubles the defensive population while keeping the number of attackers constant. (The colony doesn't generate turns.) Overall, going over this in my head, there aren't any problems. In reality there probably are, so I'm testing this out in an already ruined round rather than potentially ruin yet another round with this.

Dav, what is the "it" you refer to? I honestly don't know what you are talking about here. As a general clarification, I'll state what I can do and what I can't do with converters to pre-empt any suggestions which are impossible to implement due to the core. Converters can only convert from one int variable to another int with no multiplicative factor. I can only set up a converter that will trade one apple for one orange. The following things I can't do: Trade 1 Apple for 2 Oranges Throw out 1 Apple at the cost of 1 Orange ( 1:1 works, 1:-1 doesn't) Trade 1 Apple for 1 Orange at the cost of 1 Pear Also, as it so happens, Weapons and Spy Tools are arrays, not normal ints. They can't be placed in a converter. I suspect that if there are as many elements in the sending and receiving arrays that a transfer is possible, thus it is possible to have players transfer weapons to each other. I might be able to set up a weapons converter if there was only one type of weapon, but not only would that ruin the game, but it probably wouldn't work anyway.

I considered those possibilities with mercs actually. You aren't quite right with using mercs as an income leech. It would take four days for the merc to drain enough income from the victim to offset the points lost by the attacker. If the victim goes four days without logging on, his income will probably be shot by basic attacking anyway, so !@#$%^&*uming he does log on he'll either transfer them back to the attacker or fire them. Given how the players around here operated in the past what'll happen is that everyone confronted with this situation would buy more mercs, and send them all back to an enemy. There would be an ever-increasing army of mercs that keeps getting transferred back and forth between Dav and Falcoknight, which would be funny to watch but probably wouldn't be good for the game. As for transferring them to someone in order to attack them...actually I would consider that a good thing. I'll admit that playing population games is lame. Additionally, mercs would also be subject to the Terrier trading technique.

Look, I haven't looked at the statistics, but...netbanning? The number of netbanned accounts has to be about 1 in 100 or something close to that. While no-one would like to be banned unfairly, the important thing is the reason why the other 99 are not playing rather than the netbanned person.

Final plan for transfer next round: The only thing that will be transferable from player to player is greens. This will remain because the results can be replicated by the attack function anyway. Transfer of weapons, soldiers, and turns will be removed. I did consider leaving weapons and adding one for mercs, as weapons are bought by greens so a weapon transfer is like a green transfer. However, weapons can't be stolen, so the reciever doesn't have to be active at time of transfer, and having both will lead to the "trade with a Terrier" strategy currently being utilized by both clans. It isn't a good idea, so weapons transfer is going away too, and you won't be able to transfer mercs. There will be five converters available: Two will be a converters for Spies and Sentries to Untrained Soldiers, essentially allowing players to untrain covert units. The other three would be merc to green converters. It would be nice to be able to send mercs back to the pool, but the core restricts that. The nearest thing I can offer to that is the ability to trade a merc for 1 green, which is a lot like firing them. Merc income penalty will be restored. Additional proposal: Add a turn to untrained unit converter. This would allow those with extra turns to get something for them. However, with turn rate at 1 per hour and UP about 100 or so per hour in even the weakest players, this would not be significant. Turn rate and max turns per attack would have to be changed to put the value of a turn in the same ballpark as the value of a UU. What this would do is give less wealthy players a break from attacks, as it would encourage players with excess turns to spend them on growth rather than taking some pocketchange.

Good rules to live by. The easiest way to answer the big question this topic is !@#$%^&*led is to consider the alternative. Who here honestly thinks they are going to play Subspace for their whole lives, and p!@#$%^&* that behavior off on your children, and have your children p!@#$%^&* it off on their children and so on? That is what would be required to create an everlasting game. Otherwise, the game will inevitably 'die'. Subspace is dying because the alternative is simply too ridiculous.

Wonderfull? Its not even complete. The page with the mod is here: http://mods.invisionize.com/db/index.php/f/7795 There are two things you need to install. There is a main file, but you also need to download an image pack from the "user contributed files". The images you see currently installed in the SSForum VRPG are actually not from this image pack

Guys, don't bother trying to persuade Falco to take a more moderate approach to alchohol. Yes, those two problems are more related to over-drinking and drinking and driving. Still, he's lost family and friends, so I can understand why he would want to cut it out completely. Falco, I'm sorry for your loss. I wouldn't really know about drinking gue to peer pressure. I usually drink alone. Back to the origional post, yeah I do find the people who brag about drinking. As the internet comic "Foamy the Squirrel" quoted: "People act like they deserve a medal for getting !@#$%^&*faced." What annoyed me the most was people who on Spring Break spent thousands of dollars flying to some exotic location, only to get so drunk upon arrival that they can't leave the hotel room for the rest of the trip. I for one didn't have my parents paying my way through college, and didn't have the kind of money to afford such a vacation, and if I did, I had dozens of better things to spend it on, and even if for some reason I went on vacation anyway, I sure as !@#$%^&* wouldn't waste it in a giant hang-over. And these fools come back bragging about it. The people who go away to gamble knowing they are going to lose all of their money also annoy me. I guess I don't like the people who try legislte drinking and gambling though. I mean, why should Las Vegas get all of our money? The state should let me run a Bar & Casino. That way, during Spring Break half my college buddies get !@#$%^&*faced, the other half lose all their money, and I get to buy a Corvette with all the money I took from them. Everyone would be happy.

People often argue that there is no way to compaire the level of civilization between one culture and another. I know better. The height of civilization in any culture is directly proportional to the production and availability of alchohol in that culture. Anthropologists have determined the most likely reason behind the hunter gatherer societies forming agriculture and thus sedentary communities is due to the desire to grow crops necessary for alchohol production. Some would even argue that in ancient Sumeria and Egypt it was used as the standard currency. As civilization advanced the amount at quality of alchohol improved, and every time a civilization attempted to ban alchohol, the result was barbarism. As for my drink of choice: Jack Daniel's

You just don't get it, do you? The Church hasn't used the word "heretic" for two hundred years. Neither movie was branded as evil, heresy, witchcraft, etc. There is no dichotomy of mixed messages. That behavior is a myth of perception. When a priest gives a homily, it is either about three topics: the gospel reading of the day, abortion, and world hunger and/or poverty. Everything else just isn't worth worrying about. Evil is a dictator robbing the people around them out of house and home. Evil is somebody applying a pickaxe to a baby's head because the mother doesn't feel like closing her legs once in a while. We don't like to confuse evil with bad movie-making. Let me make a hypothetical example: The movie National Treasure which aired sometime around the DeVinci code featured a map in invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Supposing hypothetically a movie aired this year featuring the meaning of life written on the back of the Articles of the Confederation, and then another movie a few years from now featured a lost page to the Bill of Rights, another has evidence of George Washington extorting money on the back of the Cons!@#$%^&*ution, and a bunch of other movies all under the same lines. People would watch all these movies, and eventually some people who spend more time watching movies that learning history would become convinced that our historical do!@#$%^&*ents have all sorts of things hidden all over them. In a normal society, these would be a bunch of middle-aged failures living out of their parent's basement detached from each other along with the rest of the world, but thanks to the internet these people could get together, form a group, and actually start to recruit other people and form protests. And eventually the Smithsonian would probably get tired to break-in attempts, protesting, and generally being considered the arm of some vast conspiracy, and they would probably start asking Hollywood to pick another theme. Thus, try to understand the Catholic position here. We don't consider the works 'evil'. However, what we are tired of is the fact that we can't get a word in edgewise without some idiot accusing us of being the arm of some vast millenia-old conspiracy involving Templars and Freemasons and heresy and censoring and crap. We could try to tell the idiots to grow up, but they won't listen to us because they jump to ridiculous conclusions. As for boycotts making movies more successful, I really doubt it because movie makers have more methods of self-promotion than used car makers. The only fair way to judge a movie is money in verses money out. Judging by month or year only means the movie aired in a dull year. To that end I'd expect that both the DeVinci Code and the Golden Comp!@#$%^&* were huge investments that didn't pay out that much. I wouldn't really say the boycotts were effective as much as that both sucked, no one wanted to see them, and the boycotts had no effect positive or negative.

My random Star Trek tangent was intentionally designed to point out how absurd this all is. The point is that the shear number of fictional literature out there has created certain myths about the Church. For instance, there seems to be a widespread belief that the Church censors any media they disagree with, when in reality they have neither the ability nor the inclination. Back when the DeVinci Code was coming out, people were labasting the Church for censoring the movie, when we didn't! There was no proclamation from Rome branding it as evil, nor any comments from Priest how you would go to !@#$%^&* if you watched that movie, and a fewer number of protesters than were provided by Albino Society. Still, in the fictional minds of the people who read Paradise Lost too much, the Church is an organization which censors dissident opinions, so they anticipated the event and called the foul without it actually happening. Its almost the same thing here. Again, the clergy simply just don't care. The Vatican probably hasn't even heard of this movie, and the local priests couldn't care less. The people running this operation have no authority at all. Additionally, the concept isn't "this movie is evil", it is more like "If this author can do nothing but insult us and our beliefs, why should we give them our money?". Again though, athiests read too much Paridise Lost, and assume that the imaginary Censor Train is coming, so they in turn assume this group as authority, backing from Rome, and is ruling their congregations with overwhelming fear as to what would happen in the afterlife. The truth of the matter is that the Church just doesn't care about movies. We have enough on our plate with poverty, world hunger, and abortion that we don't care what small minds think. Nor could the Church cause a boycott if they wanted to. Priests give homelies, but the people in the parish do what they want to do regardless. The Priest can't use the "You will go to !@#$%^&* if..." line in the real world, because it is understood by all that the Priest doesn't have a phone line directly to God eany moreso than anyone else. The overall point that the myths caused by overwhelming repe!@#$%^&*ion in fictional works are creating problems, and as an example this topic was clouded by the myth that the Church censors everything that disagrees with them. Otherwise this would have been a one-page topic. The truth is that if a movie used racial slurs, they would be boycotted by minorities; if a movie played an Albino as the main villian, they would be boycotted by the Albino Society; and if a movie insults people of faith, they get boycotted by people of faith. There aren't any secret plots and no threats with a trip to !@#$%^&*. Its just a movie insulting potential customers and being denied their money. It's that simple. Without the myth the only debate would have been whether or not these people are too sensitive, at which given how this is a relatively soft boycott and that the movie sucked anyway, I'd say they weren't over-reacting.

I think that's what's closest to the point here: I say Tolkein was influenced by Old English literature and gave examples. You say he was based in Christianity, and pointed out that a lot of people like you made that !@#$%^&*ertation. Telling the same lie 1000 times doesn't make it a truth. Okay, no literature is 100% purely made from scratch. Authors have inspiration. There are varying degrees of inspired vs. created though. The lack of total purism doesn't mean everything is at the same level. Also, you seem to misunderstand how the Church functions. The Church is headquartered in Vatican City. If official directions are to be given, they generally come from the Vatican, and usually its the Pope or atleast a senior Cardinal who gives them. Those directions then filter down the system to the Bishops and Priests. The Church's opinion on abortion is for instance official. This group is a bunch of people who happen to be Christian and just don't like the movie. I'd call it a bottom-up movement, except that's not quite true because it isn't moving up. This isn't the Church telling people what to do, because the clergy have nothing to do with it. Its a group of layman executing their right to free speech. So are you arguing that members of an organized religion should be denied their right to free speech? As for the offense, its really complicated. To an idiot, a lie told 1000 times becomes a truth. The lack of creativity in some authors has caused sort of families of bad guys, each from different works, but which are the same in essence. In this case, the family used is the "Klingon" family. Essentially all members of this family are fanatical warrior or hunter societies who confuse bullying with honor, favor melee weapons, and usually have some sort of invisibility thing. Members of this family are: From Star Trek: Klingons, Gem'Hadar, and some "H" species on Voyager I can't remember the name of, the race from the Predator movies, from Star Wars books, the Mandalorians, from Halo: Covenant Elites, from Starcraft: Protoss, from Stargate: Jaffa, the Ori's lackeys, and to a lesser extent the Wraith. There are a lot more members of the "Klingon" family, and generally the more obscure the media, the less creativity in the author, and the more the child villians fit into the family. If you'll note, the more recent additions to this family are getting increasingly religious, and prone to being manipulated by either false gods or false clergy. The Golden Comp!@#$%^&* is one of the examples of the "Klingon" family moving into the fantasy genre, which has happened before but were in really obscure fantasies. The point is that the lack of creativity from the authors is causing the 1000 lies effect, where people who are really stupid view many different members of this family in many different fictional works, notice a pattern, and begin to apply that pattern to their opinions regarding the real world. Essentially, the opinion the Golden Comp!@#$%^&* offers is "The Church is just like the Klingon Empire". Those of us on the other end of this debate can't really argue against that point because it is simply to stupid and illogical to attack with a logical counter-arguement. Our choices are to either say "No, we're not" 1001 times until it is reverse !@#$%^&*erted, or to dismiss the author as a non-creative idiot and ignore the work by not buying any movie tickets.