Kobold King

Nine times out of ten, that's an Ad Hominem Circumstantial fallacy. Claiming that your argument is invalid due to your age is illogical as it is attacking the source of the argument rather than the logical integrity of the argument itself.

Well, I'm all for killing the planet, but I think we should start by euthanizing dolphins instead of putting out CO2 emissions. #HowToOffendLiterallyEveryone

This could be interesting! Never done a Secret Santa before. Username: Kobold "Halfwit Booger-Brain" King Favorite Sanderson Novel: All of them? Ugh, fine. The Reckoners Trilogy, if I must pick. Don't make me choose between Reckoners books. Other fandoms: Doctor Who, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic OCs: Here.http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/15990-epics-of-oregon/?p=173250 Favorite Characters: David Charleston, The Eleventh Doctor, Pinkie Pie Type of gift you will provide: Ponies from a Deviantart creator game, a short story where you travel through time to defeat the nefarious Pigeon King, or an essay about an alien race loosely inspired by your profile picture. Some form of Writing, most likely random in some way. Type of gift you want to get: No preference. Part of the fun will be being surprised by what someone sends me.

Hearing old people complain about Millennials makes me wonder if there's a trillion year-old supercivilization somewhere out in the Milky Way that complains about humans and other young races, calling us "Eonics" and accusing us of ruining the galaxy. "When we were your age we were setting up our first Dyson Sphere! What are you doing with your life, Homo sapiens?"

Yes. Feeling sorry for people you've never met is an integral part of being a human being. Feeling angry at the people who destroy precious innocent lives is also an integral part of being a human being. Feeling scared that the same thing could happen to you or your loved ones is also an integral part of a human being. To the best of my knowledge we are all humans, so I'd hazard to guess that we're all trying to express our genuine horrified emotions in the wake of these tragedies.

* makes witty one-liner * * rides off into the sunset * * rides back into frame because he forgot his hat * * rides back off into the sunset *

I left a candy bar under my cushion for later. When I checked back all I found in its place was a stupid room-temperature superconductor.

Now I'm imagining a great schism in the Church of the Singularity over the numerical significance of pears.

So apparently there's a restaurant that specializes in a dish called "the Trifecta." While I'm told the dish is nothing but cabbage, potatoes, and sausage, the idea of it still feels me with uneasiness.

In case anyone here likes the copypastas that abound on the Internet, here's one to use if anyone ever disrespects the Stormlight Archive in your presence.

Well, have you ever seen Twas the Night Before Christmas? The one with the mice and the awesome music? Santa's response to a letter doubting his existence is pretty nasty. I mean, a single public appearance out of his 364-day vacation time would put all the skeptics to rest, but instead jolly old St. Nick elects to spite an entire town full of people. What's up with that. But don't worry. It's a Wonderful Life is safe, if only because I haven't actually seen it. @Mistrunner: my parents never told me Santa was real. As my mom says, it would have been terrible to start a precedent of lying to her offspring so early in their childhoods. We watched Christmas movies, opened presents, and overall had a blast, but none of us had any illusions about who was really paying for the gifts.

My "Dear S.C." story was pretty popular here on the Shard, but the thought processes that led me to write it have exacted a terrible price. I am no longer allowed to talk while the family watches old Christmas specials.

A child born of brilliant minds and Question thread craziness... could this be the Chosen One of prophecy? Whether Voidus Jr. is or not, my hearty congratulations to you both!

Ha. It's comforting to know that even accomplished physics students can get lost in heavy Wikipedia articles. But yeah. I like to think I'm pretty good with alien races themselves, but theoretical technology always eludes my comprehension. I decided to just use alien handwavium for most things, because if I want to imagine my race of eusocial pink rodents flying around in anti-gravity tanks, what right do the laws of physics have to stop me?

Space cookies... exactly what the setting was missing. Though I deliberately chose to make it... sans sparkles.

Watch and be entertained as Kobold struggles with applying theoretical technology for his sci-fi setting! Mass Driver: A device which uses magnetism to accelerate a metal projectile to high speeds, potentially reaching far greater velocities than gunpowder could reach. Railguns are a version that uses a long pair of magnetic rails to achieve this effect, while coilguns propel the projectile through a long coiled tube. Easy enough to understand. EMP: Electromagnetic pulse. Can be used to disable the electronics over a continent-sized area on a planet; without an atmosphere to distribute the pulse, it can be used as a devastatingly efficient weapon against starships. I think. Lasers: High intensity wavelength of light that can punch through metal and people alike... or something like that, I guess? Antimatter Propulsion Drive: Combine antimatter and matter, use the resulting energy gain to kaboom yourself deep into space. The hardest part is making and containing the antimatter, I believe... I'm not a hundred percent sure how this works. Alcubierre Drive: Much faster than antimatter propulsion. Generate negative mass, which then causes space-time to warp in a way that allows a vessel to swiftly cross between one point and another millions of light years away. The problem is that it causes a bunch of highly energized particles to envelop the ship because... reasons, and, uh... what the sparks is negative mass, anyway? ...You know what? Scratch all that. Plutonic Engine. Magic glowing device that does magic stuff when you flip the 'On' switch. Occasionally explodes or overheats when the plot demands it. Possibly haunted. I always thought science-fantasy was a criminally underexplored genre anyway.

Hi Delightful! I want to say that it's awesome that this big argument ends with both of you posting smileys and upvoting each other instead of getting banned. The 17th Shard truly is a magical place.

How I feel whenever I come back online to find the ashes of a mighty forum argument:

They're all awesome. I'll try to get some canon Backtrack up soon.

Backtrack: I take offense at that WHOOC! I am not scared of harmless animals! Sam: Hey, is that a silverfish on your collar? Backtrack: OH GOD HE FOUND ME GET IT OFF GET IT OFF

On the other hand, if I could find one I'd raven-manga-fy every character in the Reckoners RPG and beyond. When you can't figure out what to write because you have too many ideas for short stories, but you can't just pick one at random because none of them are particularly good ideas. #FirstWorldWriterProblems

I can't manga-fy my characters because the only OC I've been developing lately is an immortal magical raven. #FirstWorldWriterProblems

Well there's a sentence you don't see every day. Awesome post!

Life evolves via natural processes. Single-celled organisms become multi-celled organisms, multi-celled organisms become thinking, conscious beings, thinking and conscious beings form interstellar civilizations and occasionally even superintelligent AI's. Despite what most scientists of the cosmos believe, however, this evolution is not wholly random. Life occurs frequently in this universe, anywhere it can and more than a few places where it really shouldn't. Some inherent law of the universe seems to push for life to take hold. The answer to this enigma can't be found in the computer banks of the Cimex swarm mind, or in the forbidden archives of the High Kuraurus Emperor, or even in the memories of the most ancient Celebrants of the Cold. It is, however, to be found within the dogma of the most primitive religion in the universe, one that appears in the history of every sapient species that has evolved in the Milky Way galaxy and beyond: animism. You see, everything has a soul. Not just people or ducks or alien superintelligences. Everything. The stars have souls. The planets have souls. Every grain of sand on a beach has a soul, and every molecule of water in the oceans. They're not conscious souls, certainly not sapient, but they exist as an indestructible connection between the physical world and the spiritual realm beyond. The two realms influence each other, each playing by different laws. Souls happen to follow a set of cosmic laws which commands them to seek greater and greater degrees of complexity. Souls, in a basic sense, want to be enlightened. As a result, matter tends to organize itself. Molecules fling themselves together to make cells. Cells make creatures. Creatures make ecosystems. Ecosystems make great big interconnected planets. The souls of the universe join together to form evermore complex structures... complex structures like scientists, who then puzzle over the phenomenon and conclude that they came together by chance. And no one even sees the folly of it but the Couriers, and no one sees the hilarity of it but the Ancient Daimons. Ah, to laugh like a mortal gone mad again...