Kobold King

Metronome 9 Soulcaster 7 Bone 5 Savannah 5 Brighthead 4 Inhuman 15 Deathskull 5 Substance 3

Plot twist: Rita Blue is a pseudonym. Calamity rises while Twi's on her trip and she becomes real life Voidgaze.

OK, OK, I'll stop. 'Cos mere puns aren't worth Ruining a friendship.

Personally, I think Stormlight puns Rock.

"As prosecution, I hold the Doctor, currently in his sixth regeneration, responsible for the substantial regret and eye strain inflicted upon his future selves. He has made our scrapbooks virtually unusable, as he filled an entire section of the book with pictures of that hideous jacket." "Objection! This jacket is fabulous!" "I rest my case, your honor."

Objection! If I were really were an evil incarnation of the Doctor from the future, don't you think I'd be capable of far more villainous plots than going back in time and suing myself?

Make sure you only use virgin tears for moisture. Virgin tears are the classic choice for a reason.

Wait a minute. In the Fourth Doctor's era, there were two all-powerful beings called the White and Black Guardians. One was the embodiment of all things good, the other the embodiment of all things evil. One was on the side of the Doctor, and the other was dedicated to his torment and eventual destruction. Realize where I'm going with this?

And the same episode reveals Steven Moffat is a renegade Time Lord who's dedicated to killing everyone the Doctor loves.

The vengeful spirit of a hungry receptionist, who seeks to ensure that no one will ever get a peaceful meal in your building?

Exactly what I had in mind.

Is chewing with your mouth wide open an option?

Very well. I shall say it... nevermore.

I want McDonald's to start using Shakespeare to name their products, just so I can purchase a McMacbeth.

Good idea. The more space between Obliteration and the twin gazelles that browse among the lilies, the better and oh Calamity what am I doing with my life. Halp. This isn't a conversation I want to be in

So as long as we keep the date topics firmly away from your, er, fawns, it'll go swimmingly. ... Right...?

Also, shame on you. * smacks Edgedancer on the head with a newspaper *

Am I the only one who ships TwiLyght with Obliteration? She's the only person that understands him.

Is energy processing really what life is all about? Is that all we are--just inefficient energy converters? If so, then civilization will have been the most glorious thing to have ever happened to humanity. If our purpose as a species is just to be the most efficient energy converters we can possibly be, then we need drop all of our petty politics right away and create self-replicating nanobots to take over the galaxy for us. And Earth should be the first planet they destroy, because we're just an inefficient gear that's jamming up the cosmic clockwork. Personally, I don't believe that. If the black day ever dawns when machines wipe out humanity and spread their cold ruthless energy processing across the universe, then civilization will still have been a random fluke--the random fluke that wiped out humanity. Just like the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, civilization will not have been a step forward for life but merely a random occurrence that resulted in our failure as a species. Efficient energy processing is not a sufficient justification for all the wars and suffering committed by civilization throughout history. Frankly, I don't see what the big fuss about efficient energy processing is in the first place. To me, the beauty of life on earth lies in its diversity and complexity and its continual way of renewing itself. Energy production or processing is irrelevant to that; to me, supplanting humanity just to process energy more efficiently would be like shattering a priceless stained glass window just to collect on insurance. The idea to me is abhorrent, and I refuse to believe that humans were put on this earth for the sole purpose of bringing such cold processing machines into existence. At least, that's my opinion.

My beliefs on this matter are often considered unconventional, as I've rejected some standard thinking in favor of my own beliefs. My own beliefs I have formulated over several years, inspired by some outlying writer/philosophers like Derrick Jensen and Daniel Quinn. Now. Let us begin the road to Crazyville. The key point in my beliefs surrounding civilization is as follows: civilization is not a natural step in our evolution. It has become increasingly common for writers to treat it like it is. You see it in science fiction writers all the time--in the eyes of men like Carl Sagan or Arthur C. Clarke, a species goes through a very set path during its evolution. The path they believe all sapient races must follow looks something like this: Life develops. Over billions of years, a species attains sapience and higher awareness. Species develops agriculture, and subsequently civilization. Species advances technologically to the point of interstellar travel. Species colonizes the galaxy. It's a pretty picture, I won't deny. And I'm guilty of utilizing this idea in my own science fiction. It's fun and even comforting to imagine that we as a species have a concrete goal in mind, that someday we'll leave this puny planet behind and explore the universe. It's good to imagine that all the violence and wars and holocausts throughout our history were building up to something good. That somehow, it will all be worth it just for a few of our colonists to walk on a distant planet, taking our place among all the higher races that have already done the same. Unfortunately, this picture breaks down at a simple realization. If civilization were part of a natural progression, just a single step on a road that we were destined to follow, a road that countless races across the universe have followed before us... why did we only take that step five thousand years ago? Why did tens of thousands of years go by without a single human being even conceiving of what we call civilization? And if we're somehow more evolved than hunter-gatherer societies... does that have the unfortunate implication of making us superior to them in some way, like was argued when European peoples exterminated indigenous cultures around the globe? The answer I have tentatively come to is simple. Human civilization wasn't evolution. It wasn't advancement. It was a fluke. The development of complex agriculture and the founding of the first cities don't have any kind of special significance for our race. After tens of thousands of years of development, civilization arose as a statistical anomaly. And it wasn't even the good kind of fluke. Since civilization started on the planet, it has caused more plagues than it's cured, started more wars than it's ended, created more problems with its advanced technology than it's even come close to solving, and most of all, has snuffed out more lives than it's saved. For every penicillin-like discovery there's been a cancer or a new retrovirus that hunter-gatherer cultures never had to suffer. For every global charity movement there's been a genocide, like the conquest of the Native Americans, or the enslavement of Africans, or the outright extermination of the Tasmanian Aboriginals. Civilization isn't a step along some evolutionary path. It's not our ticket to the stars, away from all our troubles. Civilized cultures are just as violent, if not more so, than any of the so-called primitives that inhabited the planet in the past two hundred thousand years. Not only that, but it spreads out of control and wipes out or forcibly assimilates any society that rejects its way of life. Civilization is a fluke, and it's a dangerous one. Which brings me to the Only Joe's fascinating question. What an opportunity! The ability to turn back any of the evils recorded in our history. But... only one. I could stop the Holocaust but leave the Rape of Nanking untouched. I could save Hiroshima but let Nagasaki go up in its mushroom cloud. I could save Europe from the Mongols, but then let the Europeans ravage the Native Americans. It's an impossible choice. Civilization will always commit atrocities, and commit them on a heinously larger scale than any primitive tribe could manage. Like the mythical hydra, for every evil I cut down two more will take its place. Unless... No, I can't do it. The mere thought would be madness. But it would save so many... Ah, what the heck. This is only a hypothetical situation anyway. I choose to erase the Toba eruption. Occurring around 70, 000 years ago, the volcanic eruption that occurred around Lake Toba was a geological event that made the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius look like a violent sneeze. The Toba eruption was 100 times more powerful than the largest volcanic event in recorded history, and the ash that settled in the atmosphere caused climatic disruption across the entire planet. Humanity was nearly wiped off the face of the earth; only around 3, 000 to 10, 000 individuals survived the period of global cooling that followed. That's right. This volcano was so huge, after it blew it top the entire surviving human race could have fit into a single U. S. football field. By wiping away the Toba eruption, I allow humanity a second chance. The human race will never have to struggle through this apocalyptic event. Our improved genetic diversity alone will be staggering, as modern humans are descended from only about three thousand people. But more importantly, this change will be so huge, so monumental, that all of recorded history will change. The statistical fluke of civilization might never occur at all, if we're lucky, which means all the massive wars and the bloody genocides of history will be wiped away. No Roman Empire. No slavery. No Black Death. No Hundred Years' War. No World War I. No World War II. No Vietnam War. The only wars known to humanity will be the simple conflicts of hunter-gatherer tribes, which while violent, are nowhere near as terrible as the fights between civilizations. So there you have it. I hate civilization, because I think it's caused more problems than it's solved. I think it's less of a natural growth of humanity and more of an unnatural mutation, like a cancer. And if I could stop any event in history, I'd stop the eruption that wiped out millions of our Stone Age ancestors and hopefully prevent the cancer of civilization from developing in the first place. For the record, you don't have to agree with me. I respect all opinions. I appreciate this thought-provoking question, and I hope my answer was as thought-provoking for you as it was for me.

To cut down on the special effects budget, it could even be one of the aliens he's met that can mimic the form of a human, like a Zygon or a Krillitane. The companion could still act like a typical companion, but his/her alien nature would open the door to some fascinating storylines. He's spoken to cats, horses, and tyrannosaurs before. Why not have a pug scampering around the TARDIS?

I knew it off the top of my head. Eventually. I already know the answer.

xkcd, specifically the comic entitled "Open Letter"?