Has anybody ever established how or why the wall chicken got inside the walls in the first place?

Honestly this is exactly the sort of attitude you want if you want to play fighting games. Being able to get dumpstered 19 times in a row and not lose your will is a necessary skill.

The Jedi aren’t a galactic army, they’re a precision tool used in specific circumstances.

Little skulblaka in backwater USA knew about dragons, but I had never seen one before or successfully convinced anyone that they were real despite a wealth of unrelated cultural works depicting them.

If I were asked to make up some numbers about it, I’d expect that maybe 60% of the galaxy had probably heard of a Jedi before. But none of them had ever seen one or met one. Nor had anybody they knew, or anybody those people knew.

People like Han Solo who frequently travel between planets and systems would probably be more likely to run into someone who had actually had dealings with a Jedi before. But also, maybe not. Han mostly runs with lowlifes, while Jedi usually interact with major story protagonists and/or antagonists, government officials and Sith and the like.

So it’s entirely possible that ‘everybody’ knew about the story of the Jedi, but they were so rare that most systems would go generations without ever interacting with one. Unless that system was involved with the Sith directly, in which case they probably have been told in briefings that the Jedi are both real and likely incoming, and also in which case many of the citizens of said system may not live to escape and tell anyone else about being rescued by Jedi.

During the height of the Jedi Order, there were about 10,000 Jedi across the galaxy.

In a galaxy whose population measures about 400 quadrillion (number is an estimate, pulled from some nerds on StackExchange), yeah, the Jedi may as well be a fairy tale. Your probability of actually meeting one, if you aren’t doing something big and evil that requires direct Jedi intervention, is astronomically low.

Look man, not all of us have access to the damn Akashic Record. Some of us only had shittily translated versions of the Lesser Key when we were kids. Grimoires don’t grow on trees, you know.

This is me also. I don’t know where I picked it up from.

My most recent job has a couple of Spanish guys that call the actual boss man “jefe” and he (the whitest guy ever) responds well to it. I think that’s fun. I don’t know if I can get away with it, though, also being one of the whitest guys ever.

This case was likely relented on specifically because it is a nonimportant issue that doesn’t hit anyone relevant in the pocketbook.

When you protest about real issues is when the violence happens.

Isn’t it as simple as just boiling the water and then freezing it?

But if you want atrocity, mass oppression/suppression you need the state.

Any sufficiently large gang, left well enough alone for long enough, will become the de facto state.

Your own local anarchist conclave may all be friendly and would never do such a thing to their neighbors. But if the next one down the road decides they need your land and resources, and if they outnumber and outgun you, then you’re just done for. No one will come to help defend you. No one will arrive to mete out vengeance afterward.

The state holding an implied monopoly of violence is what enables said state to enact their atrocities, but is also what prevents smaller groups from falling into the same trap.

We don’t have territory wars within the US states because if you start shooting at your neighbors, the police arrive. They are a higher authority that can compel punishment for your crimes. Say what you will about the cops (trust me, I’ve got a lot to say, and most of it ain’t nice), but the threat of the police compels civil behavior from people who would be otherwise disinclined to it.

Another key part of that, is that the police force is effectively inexhaustible. There may be, factually, a limited number of cops that exist in America, but in practice, if you just start blasting at them, you’ll never see the end of it. You’ll be hunted by police and feds and SWAT teams until you achieve death.

In smaller, more localized communities, none of this remains true. You may have local peacekeepers, folks in your community that serve the same function that police would in a different environment, but they aren’t going to be numerous enough or authoritative enough to combat an outside threat. When a bike gang rolls up with a dozen shotguns, and you have, say, five peacekeepers in your commune, the bike gang is getting whatever they want, one way or another.

And here we have the primary argument that prevents me from supporting anarchism as a realistic political standpoint. We can all chant “Abolish the state!” all we want, but when the state is gone and someone takes advantage of their absence, we return to the “might makes right” era of human history, which has, historically speaking, brought about many of the very worst times to be a living human being.

I think we’ve hit a point of diminishing returns for graphics, I expect physics to be the next big leap. In game physics have come a long way but there’s still noticeable jank a lot of the time, stuff that gives away that you’re inside a video game.

Once that gets improved, we’re then on a good path to having VR make a proper return to public consciousness as well. One of the biggest problems with VR right now besides barrier of entry is just how janky the environmental interactions are.

I think everyone here has good points, but I want to introduce a counterpoint to it as well.

Some of the most beloved “children’s” or “teen” series of all time do not pull their punches on that. Two examples that come to mind are Animorphs, and A Series Of Unfortunate Events. ASOUE doesn’t go into gritty detail about it, but the entire series is an extended chain of traumas that these children go through. Kids loved it.

Animorphs sometimes DOES go into the gritty detail. There are things in those books that, looking back on it as an adult, I think might not have been entirely appropriate for a children’s series. But kids like it, because it takes them seriously. Most children’s series are whitewashed to hell and back for reasons that seem to make sense, but also make for a boring story that you can often accurately predict the beats of by the second chapter. Animorphs doesn’t pull punches though, and it touches on the experience of the human condition and it expects kids to relate to that. Which they can, they’re humans too, and they live real lives like the rest of us. Most children’s book series never give their audience that kind of respect, and when I read them when I was younger it was very refreshing to find a series that did.

You wouldn’t expect, say, the political violence, terrorism and unending war of Star Wars to be something that kids would latch on to, but they do. Kids love Star Wars. A lot of that is probably because it’s an ostensibly “family friendly” story but in truth it wasn’t actually written for them, it was written for their parents. It’s a grown up story.

Now, all that to say, I think there’s nothing wrong with writing a gritty, grown up children’s story, and the target audience is likely to appreciate that you’ve done so. But, that said, there is a balance to be struck. Kids know what sex and violence are, but they probably shouldn’t be a core focus. If you’re writing for a younger audience you don’t have to dance around these like they don’t exist, but I wouldn’t write them in compelling detail. They don’t need to read a detailed 3 page description of sexual violence, but they are capable of understanding what that is and what it means if it is a necessary plot point.

A lot of children’s authors just strip all the interesting parts out of their story in order to remain “appropriate” to their audience or to appeal to what they think the audience wants. But largely, kids just want to be taken seriously and treated like real human beings. Showing them a little respect and trusting them to pick up on what you’re putting down, like you would with an adult reader, can go a long way towards making a beloved story.

Heat transfers as a function of time, not instantly. So Picard actually could get away with this as long as he doesn’t leave his fingers in there for too long.

I cannot imagine the amount of cocaine that went into the creation of this document. This is art.

Yeah if anything you want to go beat up Shinto or Buddhism, they have a few heavy hitters but they also have an absolute ton of little guys just littering the place. Just mob farm for levels

Enemy wizards are expecting incoming fireballs and lightning bolts. They aren’t prepared to get capped in the knee with a .44 Magnum.

0.5: Alright, look here, you little shit

See this is really just a staffing problem

Mage first, Warrior second. I don’t usually play rogues.

Many settings can let you pull off some sort of magical warrior, but some very special settings can also let you pull off the Muscle Wizard and it’s my very favorite archetype when it’s viable.