.H.

Indeed, can't help but agree. As an Islander fan, we know better than the expect anything besides the worst.

Yeah, I don't quite get it. My only guess would that they did not like they way Trotz was coaching the younger players, notably Wahlstrom and Bellows this year, although probably others too. The team played horribly, old and flat-footed, for most of the year. They are going to need to younger kids to come up and play, but I guess Lou thinks they can't really do that if Trotz is benching them for entire games, or stretches of them, for mistakes. Granted, I am no coach and I have no idea if Trotz was doing "the right thing" (frankly, he probably was correct) but it is the only thing I can think of for why they would be cutting ties right now, because they likely will sign exactly zero known quantities as free agents (like usual).

Obviously not WWII focused, but if the logistics part interests you, Volko Rhunke's Levy & Campaign series might be something to look at. I actually just picked up Nevsky: Teutons and Rus in Collision 1240-1242 but haven't gotten to play it yet. They are working on several more installments, the next of which is Almoravid: Reconquista and Riposte in Spain, 1085-1086, and then Inferno: Guelphs and Ghibellines Vie for Tuscany, 1259-1261. I think they have mentioned though that there are something like 20 more in development for the series (the next one might be Plantagenet: Cousins' War for England, 1459 - 1485). But I think they are all set during the Medieval period. I have heard though, that once you get used to the system, what ends up happening is actually few battles, since those are risky and a more chess-like (perhaps) game where you are trying to line up your supplies and force your opponent to make risky attacks.

Yeah, kind of does seem that way. Perhaps you can find someone who wants locally who wants one over the other and trade? Seems like a longshot though probably. I haven't gotten too many new exciting games lately myself, but I did stumble upon a new in shrink copy of the well out of print El Grande Big Box at a LGS when we were on a trip to Houston a couple weeks ago. It wasn't cheap, but below what it would cost online, so I picked it up. It's a very neat, classic game although we have only gotten to play it at two so far, but I was glad to add it to my collection.

From what I understand, the new "reskin" is also very much a reworking to make it play better at 3-4 players. I got Dune Imperium though, myself, since we usually play at 2. The Direwolf Digital App makes the "simulated" third player very easy to enact for the two player games. I haven't gotten to play it at three actual humans though, yet. Waiting on the Rise of Ix expansion now though, since I preordered it a while back for a sale price.

Some people have heard from him (not me) but no idea if/when he wants to return to blogging/online stuff. I am pretty sure the pandemic has not been kind to him/his family, but I don't know what exactly is up. There is/was some circumstantial evidence that some things might be going on, with respect to the series, but there is no way to confirm this, realistically.

Sure, I mean, it's not perfect. But I am not terribly upset with what we got. I still think it is more interesting to me than most fiction I come across. Still, I'm fairly sure even Bakker himself would say he wishes some parts came out better. That's part of what makes the follow up series potentially interesting in their own way, since he admitted he would be treading something like new territory. I get that there is plenty of reason for pessimism, but I do think he is writing and I think he's just had a rough Pandemic-time lately. We can only wait and see though.

Probably, but personally, if I can't over-analyze something, honestly I don't find it interesting enough to give much attention. A totally straight-forward, unambiguous, and clear thing seems like the least interesting thing I can think of. Which, of course, is why I read far more Continental philosophy than physics books (or even fiction). In the end, I am not exactly sure if I care too much if something is there in the phenomenological sense or the noumenal sense, interesting ideas are interesting. If there was an Absolute/Objective manner of reading/writing, there would only be one book worth reading (the one which the Correct View). Maybe it's just that I personally lack a rigorous theory of justification, or again, maybe some personal defect or psychosis, if you like. I mean, I agree, but I guess some might think I have a different view than this? So be it, but it's never been the case. I do find them more interesting than most fiction I try though, still. (But again, I don't read much fiction now, as I find few that appeal to me (no, not an Objective value statement, just personal preference)). I think it is likely that Bakker read Schopenhauer, but I haven't as much as I should, probably because I tend to find Idealism a bit more interesting, personally. One of these days, just wish I actually knew German.

Yeah, I mean, I personally just find Hegel interesting. But there are some lines one can draw back to Bakker, from the Husserl to Heidegger line (who both "fought" Hegel in some sense), to Derrida (the 3rd opening quote is from Hegel in Of Grammatology) and Foucault (with the famous line: "A large part of my indebtedness is to Jean Hyppolite. I know that, for many, his work is associated with that of Hegel, and that our age, whether through logic or epistemology, whether though Marx or through Nietzsche, is attempting to flee Hegel....But truly to escape Hegel involves an exact appreciation of the price we have to pay to detach ourselves from him. It assumes that we are aware of the extent to which Hegel, insidiously perhaps, is close to us; it implies a knowledge, in that which permits us to think against Hegel, of that which remains Hegelian. We have to determine the extent to which our anti-Hegelianism is possibly one of his tricks directed against us, at the end of which he stands, motionless, waiting for us.") Coincidentally (i.e. not at all, to me) Heidegger, Derrida and Foucault are all named by Bakker as influences. In my head-canon though, Hegel is the unnamable influence, too large to be spoken explicitly. Surely though, as always, this says more about me than it does about tSA, Bakker, Hegel, or hermeneutics most probably.

Ah, ok, was not familiar (I'm still looking more into Hegel than anything else, personally), but a quick look seems to clear up what you seem to have been getting at. I think I'd generally agree, even though it is still odd, to me, that these things seem to really bother people where it didn't bother me at all. But, I already knew I am an odd person, so I'm sure this says more about me than anything else. "Funny" enough, Iser's wiki has this line: "However, these gaps cannot be filled arbitrarily, but through interpretive limits given in the text by an author. Iser finds this experience to be the breakdown of the subject-object division, in that "text and reader no longer confront each other as object and subject, but instead the 'division' takes place within the reader himself". Rings a bit familiar...

There is no outside-text, right? If I follow where you are going, that is.

As an Islander fan, I don't.

The first thing that came of mind would be Eclipse: Second Dawn of the Galaxy, since it can play from 2-6 players. I don't think it is super complicated, but it definitely has more rules than Catan, so it likely fails your simplicity requirement to some degree. You could also try Space Base, but I think you need some expansions to bring it up to 6-7 players. But it is a card game, so I'm sure some of the MTG "knowledge" would likely help there. EDIT: And here I rec'd two Sci-Fi games despite you obviously liking Fantasy. Maybe Clank!, which, I think, with the Adventuring Party expansion supports 5-6 players.

I think you are going to be disappointed in any and all reification of the "event." But that way well be the entire point, in an of itself, an Event in the Badiou sense, being a radical rupture, not something continuous with things before and after. I wouldn't worry about "literalist" takes (which are, in themselves a joke, to me), just keep your interpretation in mind and go on to the next series if it interests you. Kellhus is Dunyain too. Debatably more so than Moe. But, Moe states not that the Outside or the gods are not real, but that the Outside is merely a reflection of the Inside and that nothing (in his estimation) violates the Principle of Before and After. It's not a question of existence, it's a question of meaning, that is, does the Outside matter? Moe draws Kellhus to him through the contrivance of the Thousand-fold Thought, so he really doubts anything matters aside the practical (Principle of Before and After and so just the Inside, no Outside). Yes, it does have to do with that, in my opinion, but you'd likely be "better off" reading the next series before tackling that question, again, in my opinion.

Yeah, I guess we can chalk this one up to sub-par rule book plus my sub-par rule reading ability. But the rule book did seem oddly vague and casual to me. But even the Obsession rule book that is pretty decent, I just flat out missed things. Or the fairly simple Rise of Tribes rulebook where I horribly misread and jammed two unrelated sentences together in my mind, making the game super unbalanced by turn order, haha. So I am generally inclined to blame myself for rules understandings. Also very much a reason why Sidereal Confluence has been opened but not played, because I can't quite pin down the rules well enough to teach it for sure (and I don't have 4 players ready for the dive at the moment anyway) even to just try a test game, although that would be a lot of bookkeeping to try to 4-player solo it. But I do have the Norwegian expansion on my wishlist already, seems it is between prints at the moment. Also there is another expansion coming soon too, The Danes, due out late Q3 or Q4 apparently. I'll be looking for both, no doubt.

Free time is always a challenge, but I might try it at some point. Mostly things are two player, with my wife and I. We actually got a game of A Feast For Odin last night. I'm terrible at reading rule books, so I made some mistakes right off the bat, so we did one turn then went back and redid that first turn after watching a "how to play video." We both really liked the game, looking forward to trying it again. Not sure how, but I won, making a couple Longships and pillaging/plundering my way to more points somehow. I had done some research on BGG about it, it seemed good and my wife seeming to be interested so I got it. I have to admit, it's even better than it seemed in the reading/watching. We did get the Upstairs, Downstairs expansion, which does add some neat stuff but is by no means essential (if you are on a budget). But it is nice to have, as it does open the game up some. For anyone who might be interested in buying it right now, it is being reprinted so there should be plenty of copies available on or around August, I'd definitely recommend checking it out then. I'll be picking up the smaller expansions I didn't get already, along with a small box the designer is putting together at a discount rate with some minor error corrections to some cards/tiles from the older printings of the game at that time. If you do play it, I'd recommend the shorter number of rounds when you first start, just to get the feel for it. But (and this won't make sense until you get into the box) I'd recommend the Charles Dickens variant of a constantly refreshing builders market and the Jane Austin variant of a closed courtship. Dickens is probably more "necessary" for us at 2-player, but Austin makes the Courtship a little more interesting (but also a bit more luck based) since you won't know it's theme until it happens.

I actually just got Star Wars Rebellion at the beginning of this month, but have no had the time to learn/play it yet. I also got A Feast for Odin and Gaia Project at the same time, but again, no time to play any of them. I've been working on 3D printing some inserts for them and Scythe lately though. Our go to game lately has been Obsession or, if we don't have as much time, Five Tribes.

Indeed, we need to get down to the real hard-hitting question of "whether a Million of Maiar testicles may not fit upon a Needle's point?"

If only...but going to 7 games versus Phily took too much out of them, I think. They played tired and Tampa was astronomically faster/better in every way last night. I don't know that they ever really catch back up. I was really hoping maybe the Islanders could catch them a little rusty and steal the series in 6. After that showing though, they will need be lucky to get to game 6.

Anyone know if the part that, I think, is supposed to be James Baldwin speaking (I think I read somewhere it is from a movie) is something he actually said/wrote, or is it just something from the Jackie Robinson movie and not something James Baldwin actually said? Nevermind, a better search found it.

Right, I mean, Elvi specifically stayed there to study him and whatever else she could learn from those kids. So, it would seem implausible to me that he is totally out of the story. But likely he is no longer a "main" pro/antagonist.

I always had some vague idea how important a "good" coach would be, but wow has it ever proved rather monumental. It's hard to really say how much was the Penguins not playing well, or the Islanders playing well though. Likely at least some of both. Honestly, I don't think any of the teams left in are all that bad of matchups, except Boston. They played like garbage vs. Boston, so I am very glad the Islanders are on the opposite side of the draw from them.

I have fanciful thoughts about how good he could be if the Islanders can land a real solid "scorer" to play alongside him... Yeah, apparently my dad got tickets, he texted me after the game and said it was wild in there. I'm just glad he didn't jinx them by going!

This is actually a very good point. The allusion to Tiamat would seem to imply a certain primordial nature to the substrate/entity(s). Tiamat also connects to the later conception of Tehom, of the Old Testiment, which is something like a more "passive" form of the foundational primordial water(s): So, it would seem highly plausible that the substrate simply is conscious, perhaps, even is consciousness itself. So, Duarte would seem to be cast as the sort-of-Marduk, but inverted, the evil Marduk. I don't know that this is meant to portray then substrate/Tiamat as "good." Rather, it is a way to see "nature" as specifically not something to be conquered or mastered.

Hmm, well, in a straight "materialism" way, consciousness is just a property of matter. So, the case of all the "zombies" protomolecule just supplied matter to "reconstruct" the same structure and therefor the same consciousness as a human already has. Which begs a bunch of questions as to how the "zombie" remembers anything, but I guess we can say that Amos' brain, or at least his memory, somehow was not significantly damaged by his head wound. That's kind of a different point altogether. The thing might be that even proto-zombie humans still have functionally human-like consciousness, but Duarte had a consciousness that was somehow different, that is, closer to whatever "Roman" consciousness was. So, when that broke, it (maybe) left him with something maybe akin to what the "substrate entities" consciousness now is. I think I need to reread that chapter with Elvi talking about this stuff again... A possible allegory about post-humanism and/or limits to human understanding? I think that seems plausible. Or maybe just as simple as, "things are vastly complex, don't mess with things you can't/don't understand."