1496 Prime Directive.

First off, I want to apologize for the comments on the previous page. I wanted to see just how dicktastic they would get if I just let them go. Generally I don’t need to do much moderating. For the most part people can have conversations without it turning into gainsaying and bullying, but when religion comes up, and its relation to science, people get all touchy and have a desperate need to prove things about themselves and others. On the science side you tend to get people who need to set their superior intellect down in the public record, and they can very rarely do so without being insulting. Basically they Reggie it up. At their core they mean well, but can’t reconcile things when people believe in the unprovable. Of course the other side does similar things, but the logical side tends to want the rules of debate to be observed, while sometimes forgetting to follow them. All that said, things still didn’t deteriorate into a total shitstorm. So my disappointment is tempered by the fact that things remained relatively civil. I’m pretty sure no one got compared to Hitler at any point, so points for that guys. Sometimes we need to fight things out though. Sometimes taking a few punches, and giving a few back, clears the air. At the end of a heated debate I always try to be the one to offer an apology and a hand. Even if you don’t agree on everything we’re all just trying to make sense of our existences, and it’s much better to do it with joined hands rather than clenched fists.

I didn’t involve myself in any of the “debate”, but I would like to talk about something that stuck in my head when I read it, and that was one commenter didn’t see religion as part of a person’s heritage, and I think that’s just incorrect. Most people inherit their religion from their parent, so it is literally part of their heritage. If you choose to convert that’s one thing, but the religion you were raised in, or even atheism, is part of your heritage. The definition of heritage is anything you inherit, so there’s a massive number of things that can include, from eye color to belief systems. Maybe that person has a different understanding of the word.

As long as I’m at it, since it’s not something everyone will, or have, been able to pick up on, Thomas’s statues in the dark line is him passively testing Carol to see how invested in her religion she is. He’s trying to start something, even if he isn’t consciously aware of it. If they can’t come to terms over this issue their relationship won’t last. If she flips out over a relatively benign slight that’s a big warning sign. Luckily for him it flows over her without much pushback. Plus he’s not against the idea of his kids being raised in a particular religion as long as it doesn’t make them likely to infringe on the rights of others. Of course this will only get clearer as the conversation progresses, but I felt like touching on it.

Oh, I almost forgot. Ed’s portrait is up on patreon, and Alex will be along soon. I’m having trouble gathering reference images for some of the cast. If you have any suggestions for real life people the characters look like to you please send them along. It will help the artist make the rest of the images. Carol and reggie are covered, but pretty much everyone else are still up in the air if I haven’t posted their images yet. Anyway, the patreon link is, as always, Nina’s sidebar picture.