I decoded a long time ago what was on Walt Disney’s mind when he designed the Magic Kingdom, along with specific themes hidden behind the current culture of management that conceals it. And so I took an afternoon to really relish it; after all, it was my vacation and I was thinking about a lot of big stuff. And I was catching up on time with my daughters, one of whom had an obsessive need to ride Pirates of the Caribbean with me to fulfill a quest from her youth. It had been twenty years prior when I had taken all the kids, nieces, and nephews onto several late-night rides of that particular attraction and she had missed it due to a personal problem. And she is the one who grew up with a powerful love of pirates probably as a result of it, because she missed that opportunity. Both of my daughters have extreme reverence for piracy because a lot of what I taught them as little girls was respect for rebellion, leaving them obsessed with skulls. To this day, skulls are a massive part of their lives and mine, and much of that interest traces back to my love of pirate history, the ride at Disney World Pirates of the Caribbean, and many, many, many hours of me talking to them about the need for pirates in the world and what role they played in the formation of the United States. For instance, one of my favorite founding fathers is John Paul Jones, who is also the inspiration for Steve Bannon, the current popular podcaster and former strategist for President Trump—and many other things. And while one of my daughters was doing something extraordinary with her daughter, my granddaughter, I went off with my other daughter to put a bookend to that formally broken Pirates of the Caribbean experience. And I thought about Steve Bannon the entire time I was on that ride.
I have a lot of Steve Bannons in my life, several in my local neighborhood and I value them in the same way I do pirates. That doesn’t mean I support state-sponsored terrorism from which piracy was born, but I see them, as Walt Disney did, as critical to a free society because they are natural hedges against tyranny. Disney when he designed his park, put entirely on purpose the Pirate ride next to his Frontier Land and Liberty Square to remind people of these things for the sustenance of American life. And I had a chance to experience how Disney designed all this on this particular day with my daughter alone at the Magic Kingdom for the first time. The rest of our group, my wife, the rest of the kids, and my daughter’s husbands were back at our camp at Fort Wilderness preparing dinner and swimming to refresh themselves while we took my granddaughter to buy a dress so she could be photographed at the castle. For those who don’t know there is a famous dress store just behind the castle, and for little girls fortunate enough to attend that place with parental figures with deep pockets, you can buy a princess dress and wear it around the park, and the employees know to refer to her as a “princess” whenever they interact with her. And this was what we were up to, for her very young mind. She’s under ten, and this is the prime time of her life to set big goals for herself and create standards that would last a lifetime.
Standards are critical for young people, especially young girls. Women have tremendous power, primarily based on their sexual nature, so good decisions are massively important to their future, how they pick people in their lives, and the consequences of those decisions. So, to get it right, I encourage the young girls in my family to set very high standards in their lives, and this was a day my granddaughter would never forget. A day when she was an actual princess and treated that way by every employee at Disney World. I wanted her never to ignore it, so my daughter and I went out of our way to elevate that experience for her. So we let her buy a dress, put it on in the bathrooms between Frontier Land and Adventure Land, and had quite an excellent time soaking up the exotic environment while my granddaughter was gushing with pride and excitement. High standards—live a good life. While my granddaughter’s mother wanted to go and photograph this experience in front of the castle, a few feet away from all this, my other daughter wanted to catch up on that Pirates of the Caribbean ride. While all this was happening, I was in a texting frenzy with many of my pirate cells all over the country working on real projects that could only be described as rebellions against the established order, modern piracy perfectly and healthily. As we rode that ride, I was glad to think about Steve Bannon and his inspiration of John Paul Jones doing wonderful things that reminded me that after all this smoke cleared, America was going to be much better and so much healthier, not because of the rules and procedures of Washington D.C. but because of the pirate nature of the founding of the country itself and the continued actions of just such people.
It was a special day; we enjoyed the ride, and I had philosophy pouring through my mind, which is when I am happiest. I answered another 25 text messages from many pirates at many levels of society doing great work, and my daughter was elated to have had that personal, one-on-one experience with me, which was beyond her dreams. She had thought about that moment for two decades, and it came out better than she expected, so it was all great. We finished our business there and then left the Magic Kingdom to catch the monorail for the Epcot Center, where we met up with the rest of our group for an ambitious night in that park, which was a wonderful experience. For context, we had spent that entire morning at the Animal Kingdom, so that was our third park of the day, so everyone’s heads were spinning. And it is just such a pace that I am happiest. But the best part was seeing this whole cycle of value and defense of that value. First, you set in an individual’s mind a personal goal, a heightened awareness of expectation. Then, you create a political system that removes barriers to that heightened state. Pirates must constantly push against static methods to allow dynamic personalities to advance culture. And in that way, pirate activity was critical to the formation of America. And it is also crucial to keep exceptional people free to move society in productive ways, which is what Steve Bannon and the Warroom are doing on the national and international stage. And what other rag-tag patriots are doing in their local communities nationwide, which I am very proud to know of. The Pirates of the Caribbean is more than a ride to me and my daughter; it’s a temple. And on that day at that particular time, it was just the recharge I had been looking for.
I often talk about the books I keep right next to my reading chair. The Federalist Papers and The Anti-Federalist Papers are a few that I look at often as I think about Constitutional applications to modern society and the vast history of human achievement that brought us all to this point in history. Because of my study of those books, I think of the American Constitution as the most outstanding philosophy for a mass society ever put to paper. It could have only occurred under the unusual circumstances of America’s creation and early evolution. But with those books, I have another one that I glaze through several times a week just for the pleasure of it. Of course, I’ve read it many times, but the frequent visits to its contents have a nobility to them that I get nowhere else. John Lyde Wilson’s little guidebook for dueling was written in 1838 called The Code of Honor. Wilson had been governor of South Carolina and felt a guidebook for dueling needed to be put to paper because so many people had gunfights to solve personal matters. Wilson, like President Jackson, would eventually feel dueling to the death to be an unfortunate thing to do. But, they also understood the premise of the personal possession of the concept of the words “I” and “My.” In their time, “my reputation” had meaning, significant meaning, and it was worth fighting to the death to defend it. Understanding this little nuance of intellectual philosophy helps to understand the premise of the American Constitution as it was written at the time to reflect this necessity of protecting personal virtue.
As I have pointed out in Ayn Rand’s work, specifically her dystopian novel, Anthem, the word “I” was pushed entirely out of their culture and replaced strictly with “we,” and society devolved along the known Vico Cycle to the point where they had to discover the light bulb once again, literally. In that future society, The Council of Candle Makers ran everything. The nature of that collective-based society was to do everything for the greater good as interpreted by those in charge of that interpretation. All personal needs and values are surrendered to the mass of culture in general, which means that the direction of the entire society gets dumbed down to the weakest links of social discourse instead of the best and brightest. That is why those societies always fail, as they are in our present time. Ayn Rand provided significant warnings about these collective philosophies because she came from the Soviet Union as a young woman and saw up close and personal the results. As the last century evolved, we watched communism spread through most of the Asian world coming out of Russia, and it is to this day, the influence is seeking to conquer the West. China is not shy about their statements, and they have bought off many of our political class with stolen wealth to do precisely as Ayn Rand warned about in her book Anthem. That is why there is more of an emphasis on “teams” and “teambuilding” over individual development. Such emphasis is a process in erasing individual effort for the good of the whole, and it is the biggest challenge of our present time.
Clearly, to achieve their goals, the foreign and domestic forces that are the enemies of our Constitutional law desire to “progress” beyond such a concept into a world of global governance ruled by the United Nations. Study history, as I often do. You can see the apparent path of achievement by the international governing class that has been trying to undermine the American Constitution since it was written. English nobility was never crazy about the Magna Carta in their society. They indeed found it preposterous that the American colonies Declared Independence from them during the Revolution and that a new country was formed in the wake. Among the aristocracies of Europe, they never understood the concept of “I” and “My” to the level that it developed in the vacuum of power, when people were far from their overly controlling governments, how people tended to evolve into personal virtue instead of concern for collective based reasoning. And it was in such a breakaway environment some of the best forms of government have ever been created by mankind, starting with the democracy that was invented in pirate societies in the Caribbean then evolving into the Republic of America. In both cases, pirates helped topple the powers of Europe, first with John Paul Jones during the Revolution, then when England tried to take New Orleans during the War of 1812, it was Jean Lafitte who joined with Andrew Jackson to defeat the British forces, who were much more superior. The unregimented individualism of America, with all its variety and creativity, continued to win out over the old forces of collectivism from Europe eventually Asia, time and time again. And that attitude then went on to create the greatest economy the world has ever seen, and it still outpaces all the ruthless mechanisms to bring it under the control of Europe and Asia to this present day.
Much of that magic came from discovering and protecting the self that the American Constitution afforded people everywhere, including the European concept of slavery. Free people simply outperformed those under the team concept of collective-based societies. Dying for the Queen or an emperor did not match the efforts of gunfighting for the right to a good life and all that could be built with it under the premise of the self. And when the honor of that self was questioned, it meant more to the people who wrote the Constitution to defend their honor to the death than to surrender that concept over to mass society and the bureaucracy of an administrative state which we find ourselves in now. Clearly, we were a better society of law, order, and economy when we fought to the death to preserve our individual honor than when we punt that honor to lawyers and governments to fight on our behalf. We have found that corruption tends to seep into such a society at a maddening pace because there is no individual honor to check it at the door. Without any fear of individual judgment and death by dishonor, there is nothing to keep a criminal class from rising out of chaos and forming right under our noses since honor and personal satisfaction of all concepts of the word “I” have been abandoned in favor of collective rule. When the criminals seek to hide their actions behind the “team” concept, there is no mechanism to identify the evil as individual achievement. Therefore, nobody is ever punished for committing the crime. The crimes then become collective-based because individual judgment can’t be applied to mass culture. That is how criminals are flourishing and why they see to it their best strategy of getting rid of the American Constitutional altogether and thinking of it as archaic. Yet looking back over history, it is clear that we were a better society when individuals could call on each other to have a duel to the death if the value of “I” and “My” needed to be defended. History shows us that protecting “we” has no meaning if the value of personal responsibility is surrendered in the process. And with that in mind, perhaps we should bring back dueling in America and worldwide. I think we would find the behavior of the criminal class that seeks to hide their malice behind rules and regulations under the protections of inefficient mass governments suddenly at a severe disadvantage.
At Mos Eisley Radio these guys not only talk news concerning the most recent Star Wars Game X-Wing Miniatures, which I am crazy about, but a lot more. Have a listen to them for in-depth looks at classes, guilds, lore, and everything else fans care about in the galaxy far, far away. But related to this article, they go into great detail about the strength of ships and strategy of the game for those who are prompted to get more involved by the conclusion of this article. Have a listen while reading the below text!
Recently while on vacation in Florida my nephews along with my kids, my wife and I played a very cool Dungeons and Dragons type of role-playing game called Heroscape over pizza from the best place in Central Florida till the late hours of night with the condo door open to the ocean outside. We had turned our large dinning room table into a war zone and found ourselves intensely engaged in mortal combat with dragons and warriors. Like the referred to pirate game, I enjoy those types of games that allow you to play with several live players around a dinner table. It is a great way to bond with other family members and actually speak to each other, while exercising the brain. I find those types of games to be stimulating in a similar way to reading a novel, or playing a great video game. The difference is that you have to work with other people in a way that is only possible with this type of strategic gaming. For many years these role-playing strategy games have increased in popularity from a sub-culture of Dungeon and Dragon players, to what is now considered mainstream geekdom at major conventions all over the country. The transition came officially from the popular game, Magic the Gathering. The gaming industry in that market has never been the same, which is wonderful for the human race. A short history of this type of gaming can be seen at the link below.
However, for me, I always loved that Pirate game from Wiz Kids the best of any that I have played in the last twenty years. My entire family was deeply into it and our playing time together represent some of the most fun we’ve had together, which is quite a statement. So I have missed it as Wiz Kids stopped making the game in the format we enjoyed, and time and distance has moved us away from the contents. However, I recently received news from Lucasfilm about their latest version of a Star Wars Role Playing game by Fantasy Flight Games which I thought at first would be gimmicky, but upon investigation quickly found that it was a quite in-depth game that actually combined the type of game play that I enjoyed so much in Pirates, the Constructible Strategy game by Wiz Kids and the Heroscape. The new game is called Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game.
Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game is a tactical ship-to-ship combat game in which players take control of powerful Rebel X-wings and nimble Imperial TIE fighters, facing them against each other in fast-paced space combat. Featuring stunningly detailed and painted miniatures, the X-Wing Miniatures Game recreates exciting Star Wars space combat throughout its several included scenarios.
Whatever the chosen vessel, the rules of X-Wing facilitate fast and visceral gameplay that puts you in the middle of Star Wars fiercest firefights. Each ship type has its own unique piloting dial, which is used to secretly select a speed and maneuver each turn. After planning maneuvers, each ship’s dial is revealed and executed (starting with the lowest skilled pilot). So whether you rush headlong toward your enemy showering his forward deflectors in laser fire, or dance away from him as you attempt to acquire a targeting lock, you’ll be in total control throughout all the tense dogfighting action.
Star Wars: X-Wing features (three) unique missions and each has its own set of victory conditions and special rules; with such a broad selection of missions, only clever and versatile pilots employing a range of tactics will emerge victorious. What’s more, no mission will ever play the same way twice, thanks to a range of customization options, varied maneuvers, and possible combat outcomes. Damage, for example, is determined through dice and applied in the form of a shuffled Damage Deck. For some hits your fighter sustains, you’ll draw a card that assigns a special handicap. Was your targeting computer damaged, affecting your ability to acquire a lock on the enemy? Perhaps an ill-timed weapon malfunction will limit your offensive capabilities. Or worse yet, your pilot could be injured, compromising his ability to focus on the life-and-death struggle in which he is engaged…
The Star Wars: X-Wing starter set includes everything you need to begin your battles, such as scenarios, cards, and fully assembled and painted ships. What’s more, Star Wars: X-Wing’s quick-to-learn ruleset establishes the foundation for a system that can be expanded with your favorite ships and characters from the Star Wars universe.
The hook for me was when I saw the game’s version of The Millennium Falcon which is for me one of my favorite fictional symbols in film history of rebellion. CLICK HERE FOR MORE. I remember vividly when I toured the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. to see the actual model of the Falcon in a traveling display that was set up there. I traveled to Washington that weekend just to see the Falcon. I spent nearly two hours looking at it, photographing it and memorizing every pipe, dent, and burn mark on a ship I had watched so many times in the feature films. It was for me one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life. When I saw the level of detail that Fantasy Flight Games had poured into the Millennium Falcon game piece for the X-Wing Miniatures role-playing game it called to my mind memory of that original model in sheer detail and I instantly fell in love. I immediately bought a starter set of the X-Wing game and launched my family onto a new generation of game play that is sure to engulf for many years. In the game players can fly the legendary Millennium Falcon into fast-paced battles for the fate of the galaxy! The Millennium Falcon™ Expansion Pack for the X-Wing™ Miniatures Game allows players to blast through hyperspace with Han, Chewie, Lando, and more. The Millennium Falcon comes with four pilot cards, thirteen upgrades, and all requisite tokens. New rules expand the X-Wing galaxy to include large ships and modifications. With its pilots, upgrades, and lovingly detailed miniature, the Millennium Falcon Expansion Pack is a beautiful addition to the X-Wing game! It may be the coolest thing I have seen in years regarding this kind of thing. It is a marvel to look at and unbelievable to have as a game play option. I consider it stunning.
If the Millennium Falcon didn’t close the deal for me on the new X-Wing game the promise of the next ship did. It doesn’t come out until the end of August, but when it does, I will buy it immediately. It is the HWK-290 designed by Corellian Engineering Corporation to resemble a bird in flight, the “hawk” series excels in its role as a personal transport. The HWK-290 Expansion Pack comes with one detailed miniature at 1/270 scale, a maneuver dial, all necessary tokens, six upgrades, and four pilots, including the renowned Kyle Katarn. Each HWK-290 provides a wide range of support options for your squad and can be outfitted with both a turret weapon and crew member. The reason this ship is significant for me is because it was the featured spacecraft of the main character in the video game Dark Forces.It never appeared in a Star Wars film, but was the home craft of the video game character Kyle Katarn, who would later become a Jedi Master in the novels years later. One of the very first video games that my oldest daughter ever played was Dark Forces. It was a first person shooter that came out in 1995. My daughter was only 6 years old at the time and helped me play it by pressing the space bar on the key board when I told her to which caused my character to jump. She was too young for the complex shooting and strategy it took to win the game, but she knew how to hit the space bar when I told her to and it was that game that launched her into a lifelong love of video games. She and I will always share that unique father/daughter experience, and I will always think of her when I think of the HWK-290. I was dazzled to learn that Fantasy Flight Games was actually inserting that ship into the game mythology before other types of ships, which let me know that the game designers were very serious about expanding the Star Wars experience of role-playing gaming in a format that hasn’t seen such a level of attention since our beloved Pirate Constructible Strategy Game.
Now that I’m going to be playing, it won’t take long before other members of my family will also and soon we will be ordering LaRosas pizza late at night and lining up 2-liters of Coke along our kitchen counter playing Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game well into the night. It doesn’t matter that everyone playing will be well over 20 years old and in my case their 40s. I still get a thrill about purchasing new strategic game pieces that can be used under battlefield conditions that have infinite possibilities. I do not feel this kind of passion for other types of games. The reason is that the role-playing games allow for complete independent freedom of strategy, unlike board games where the path is set and random chance puts players often into a position to win the game. With games like X-Wing Miniatures all the conditions of battle are set and designed by the player, and that is why I love these experiences so intensely. For me the game is only part of the fun. I enjoy often reading the stats of the cards and infinitely considering various strategies before hand. The game only proves a theory good or bad.
I have played these games with people who are really good. They are very quick with their mind and spend a lot more time playing the games than I ever will. It is fun to watch these kinds of players at tournaments and conventions. I will never put the kind of time into these games that they do, but I admire their efforts. Too many adults in our modern age believe falsely that games are for kids and that such things should be put away as adulthood consumes our lives. Games are not for kids, they are for minds. Games like the Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game feeds the mind with more than entertainment, it provides mental exercises that are invaluable to real life. I can’t say how many times I have been locked in epic political struggles and other situations where I resorted on the practices used in these strategy games to apply some skill I tried and won with in theory, against real opponents in real scenarios.
So as I sometimes take breaks from the rebellions of the real world to embark on these flights of fantasy, even in my leisure, strategy is an important part of my life. It is far safer to make errors in judgment among friends and family over pizza and Coca Coke than when it really counts in real life.
And with that said, I am ecstatic to see this new Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game available at what might only be termed, an essentially important period in my life. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect and I am so glad that the good people at Lucasfilm put the short playing clip of the example with Wil Wheaten and Seth Green up so I could see the Millennium Falcon playing piece for the first time and become enticed enough to investigate further. That investigation will yield tremendous benefits that can only be found when adults play the games of young people and further develop their minds against the antagonists who have lost such abilities to their own detriment. Sometimes being good at strategy isn’t about being better at the game itself, but is due to working against un-armed opponents. Those who don’t play these kinds of games find their minds unable to think strategically enough to compete when it really matters, and every time a new game like Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game comes out, I am deeply thankful for the opportunity to feed my mind with the contents that have benefits which extend beyond convention. When a vacation is needed, it’s not just the body that needs rest, the mind does also. But the mind enjoys stimulation, not stagnation, and often a game like this can provide the crucial ingredient that the mind seeks with abundance in all the best scenarios.
To get the gist of what I’m talking about read this review from Boardgamegeek.com. It reveals why this game is so much better than most other games, and why it will become one of the most enduring games of its type in this generation.
Harrowing dogfights, family drama, shootouts, a tender moment, amazing monsters, humor.
There’s a tempo to Star Wars. We all remember Luke screaming NOOOOOOO at Vader. For different reasons, we remember Anakin turned Vader screaming NOOOOOO. But we also remember Leia offering a little cracker to an ewok. We remember first seeing Darth Maul’s double lightsaber. And we remember Han saying “I know.”
It is NOT all pew-pew-pew. It is NOT all Vrusssshhhhhhhzwwwmzwwwmmm. It’s a cycle of teasing action and drama.
Even though the X-Wing Minis game plays out some incredible dogfight sequences, the play of the game is NOT a straight forward flow.
I’ve got dozens of rounds under my belt now, and I’ve been wanting to write a review, and it finally came to me what it is that makes this game such rip roaring fun.
It’s not the astoundingly detailed minis. And anyone complaining about scale needs to take a close look at the movies, where the scale of the ships to each other changes from shot to shot due to the compositing techniques used at the time.
The minis are awesome. I’m somewhat surprised that different ships use different plastics, but I understand why. That denser stuff used on the X-Wing would collapse a Falcon into itself.
The prepaint jobs are incredible. The cards gorgeous, the components just off the scale. Even with the bit more they must pay in royalties to Uncle George, the massive appeal of this game allows them to make a ton of copies and the price, while at first glance seems daunting, isn’t a lot for what you get.
What makes the game work is the pendulum swing. The rhythm.
First, the setup. The agonizing squad building. Is it worth 2 points to raise this pilot’s skill, not knowing what the enemy force contains? It could easily be two points that have ZERO effect on the game. Terribly tough gambles. Now that wave 2 is out and you could just as easily face a hulking mothership like a decked out Slave I or a swarm of the world’s most annoying TIE fighters, you really have to prepare for a wide contingency of opponents.
This setup is tense. You want flexible. But strong. Synergistic support between squad members, but not so much that the loss of a key ship means defeat. And you ALWAYS want about 3 more points for that perfect build. No matter how many points you choose to fight, you will kill for another 3.
So it’s got that whole squad building aspect down great. Especially now that there’s a ton of options. Who knows what your opponent will bring?
But the flow of a turn is brilliant.
Everybody chooses their maneuvers. No downtime. But here in the game is where you are playing cat and mouse. Maybe psychologically toying with the opponent, making them think your plan is A when it is actually B.
Hidden agendas and secret moves. That’s the next game that plays out after the squad building math.
Then the wonderful move system. Everyone slowly reveals their moves, in what might be the games most questioned rule. The lowest skilled dudes go first, and eventually the better skilled dudes, which mean they have a fairly good chance of accidentally hitting and losing their action, where the lower skill guy might pull it off.
But it works in the long run, because it keeps higher skills in tailing positions.
Bit in this phase of the game, again, very, very little downtime, as the nefarious plans and maneuvers are revealed.
Squeals of glee and grunts of horror abound as unexpected collisions happen and skillful turns are executed.
But then comes the start of your devastating on the spot decision making. While plotting your squadrons moves, you had an overall plan. Now, each ship must choose it’s precious action.
Evade? How many guys might end up firing on you? Target? Are you clear to get the shot this or next turn? Focus – the all purpose “Egads, I need help” token. Or maybe that barrel roll or super freakin cool new Boost – move a bit maybe out of a firing arc or -surprise – snap someone into your arc. Maybe you execute some trick of your specific pilot.
Here is where you are tempering your odds. Things that will alter the upcoming luck sequence. carefully guiding the gods of luck to your favor.
The tokens build up on the board as actions get selected. At first, this is a pile of confusing cardboard. In a few games, the counters become invisible, simply reminding you of who plans what.
Whew. So, strategic planning in the squad build, then the secrecy of move plotting, then the agonizing action choices. What more does this game need?
Raw luck.
Bring out the dice. Or the iPad app, if you prefer.
Its Star WARS and the dice bring on the war. Now MORE decisions that hurt. Do I spend my focus token to get that extra damage possibly in, or hold on to it to help me avoid possible damage? What if I hold it and no one fires? What a waste… Two hits coming in… Do I evade? Or hold on to the evade since a crit might come next?
Hopefully, you’ve pile bonus upon bonus on your fighters. Distance, skill, weapon, focus… Or maybe all you’ve got is a shot in the dark.
Fire away.
Even defenders are active, choosing focus and evade moments.
Again, very little downtime. Lots of whining and cheering. Little downtime.
Start the cycle again. Hidden choices, movement reveals and actions, combat.
I think THIS is why X-Wing is such a stunningly successful design. It bobs and weaves each turn. No phase is long enough to overstay its welcome. And you must juggle and balance each phase to support the others.
An excellently designed system that overcomes any of it’s perceived problems due to the overall strength of play.
But Eric is a tough kid and shortly after his injury, he insisted to be taken off his breathing machine. Then he gained feeling in his hands. LeGrand worked every day to move a part of his body and now he can actually stand for periods of time, which is an absolutely tremendous achievement. Coach Schiano who was his coach at Rutgers when LeGrand went down with the injury has been helping the young man stay focused, along with the fantastic support of a mother who refuses to quit, and it is becoming clear what forces have helped give Eric LeGrand the inner strength to beat these impossible odds to recovery.
Coach Schiano is now the coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team that is loaded with talent, but lost their way last season with a lack of focus and leadership. My love of the Buccaneers stems from the ownership of the Glazer family, and how innovative they have been in their approach to the game of football, and the NFL in general. When they hired Schiano after many interviews with many coaches, some who had taken their teams to last year’s playoff games, it was evident they saw something special in Schiano that would resurrect a level of greatness that the fans of Tampa Bay had come to expect.
Schiano has not disappointed so far, he has made some fantastic acquisitions in the free agency market, and this year’s draft is considered to be one of the best in Buccaneer history. The team has managed to create some cap room to work with, and they have used it to get some really good players to fill the voids exposed during the last season. That is why it seemed like a publicity stunt to see that Schiano had put LeGrand on the Buccaneer 90 man roster. After all, there is no way that LeGrand will play DT for Tampa Bay in 2012 if ever. Even if he could gain the ability to walk again, there is simply no way that he could outperform the hoards of other athletes all competing for the same job who have not suffered a debilitating injury. That is the conventional wisdom of the stats and science in placing an NFL player on the field to win football games. But conventional wisdom does not produce exceptions, and in any competitive endeavor, it is the exceptional that tip the balance of power in favor of a victor.
Great players are a dime a dozen, and coaches, teams and fans are always on the look-out for those special individuals who display leadership in the face of adversity and overcome odds that are insurmountable, and LeGrand certainly exhibits these traits without even stepping onto a football field.
I don’t trust much of what doctors tell me, because I find the limits of their medical understanding confining and their belief in the potential of the human body to be deficient. My own doctors and rehab specialists tried to guide me in returning my knee to full function after extensive ACL surgery. I had torn my ACL in a basketball game, and then further damaged my knee by tearing the MCL while jumping through a wall of fire performing a whip stunt. The grass was wet to protect it from being burnt, so when I landed my foot slipped out from under me because there was no ACL to support my leg, and my femur actually drove into the ground leaving a small crater. My knee-joint slipped so far out of socket the bone had no knee in the way to protect it.
Doctors gave me weeks of rehab as the prognosis once they repaired my ACL, but I worked hard to recover as quickly as possible. I had my surgery done on a Thursday; I was walking and back to work on the following Monday. I could have milked time off work for weeks if I wanted to, but that is not how I think. I wanted to recover, and get back on my feet quickly—and I did. I went to rehab every couple of days, and I felt they were wasting my time, like my appointments were simply to provide work for the rehab employees and had very little to do with my actual recovery. I stunned the staff recovering 6X’s faster than the average, according to them. When my insurance company saw my progress with the rehab clinic, they cut the payments to my rehab. And on that day, it was my last session. I wasn’t about to pay for something out of my own pocket that I could do better on my own.
As I was leaving my therapists warned me that I might lose my advanced progress if I did not come to them anymore, in fact, my leg might not be as strong. They were aghast that I refused to take any medication during this time and made it sound as though my leg would fall off if I quit therapy. Within weeks of walking out on my therapists because my insurance company would no longer cover the costs, I was running on my leg again, and jumping through walls of fire—doing what I love doing.
My wife had ruptured a disk in her lower back carrying my youngest daughter the rest of the way up a mountain hike and didn’t realize it until we got home because she had difficulty walking. We went to see a back surgeon and discovered that she was about to become paralyzed from the waist down due to the disk slippage, so she went through emergency surgery.
After the surgery she had lost a lot of feeling in her toes and parts of her leg and was told that those nerves in her leg had been severally damaged, and she may never be able to walk correctly. Well, to my wife, this simply wasn’t an option. She had kids to raise and things to do. We rubbed her legs and feet for hours stimulating the damaged nerves and gradually she regained most of her feeling, and within a month, was able to walk normally. Again, if we had listened to the doctors, she would probably still have problems walking and her body would most likely be addicted to some pharmaceutical product to this very day even though that was well over decade ago.
The injury to LeGrand is much more severe than either one of the injuries described above, but what he has that is in common is a will to recover, to conquer his debilitation and take charge of his own body and its functions, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. For that, Coach Schiano is wise to understand that by placing LeGrand on the very young Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team that the presence of LeGrand will inspire the other players to greatness, to be at the top of their physical prowess, because compared to LeGrand, what does anyone have to complain about. If LeGrand can work out with the Buccaneers players and they see what it looks like to recover from paralysis what does a healthy player have as an excuse to not strengthen a ham string injury, or a sprained ankle?
For the inspiration of having such a positive presence on the practice field, LeGrand is worth the roster spot, and will certainly earn the privilege of playing in the NFL, even if it’s just on the sidelines. Because like most games, the battles are not won just on the field of play, they are won in the mind of the participants before the contest even begins.
I believe that with the positive attitude that Eric LeGrand has, with the support of his very positive mother and mentoring of Coach Schiano, that Eric may very well take his first steps on the practice field at One Buc Place sometime during the upcoming football season. Once Eric is on the field around other athletes, that desire to compete will drive the cells of his body to his cause, and he will walk while in a Buccaneer uniform, and the world will shudder at the miracle. LeGrand will become a shock to the medical industry of the world as new hope will be given to all victims of paralysis. The medicine of positive thinking will begin to get serious reappraisal.
Further, I believe that by the 2013 season, Eric will be running again and will be able to practice on the field simulating plays with the practice squad. And because he will have recovered and worked so hard to come back to that point, he will be a superior athlete, far surpassing what most in his position have otherwise achieved, because he has had to learn to overachieve just to recover.
By the 2014 season Eric will be in the rotation of DT’s in Tampa and he will find that he has surpassed his previous playing ability with a ferocity that defies fear, because he will have a new lease on life and will know that he has survived the worse that can be thrown at him, and he beat it back and the world will gasp at his stunning performance on third downs.
By 2015, just 5 short years from his terrible injury at Rutgers, at the tender age of 27, Eric LeGrand will be the dominate DT in the league and will be the starter for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Many all over the NFL will be comparing him to Warren Sapp and Lee Roy Selmon but Eric will have done something nobody in the history of the world has done, he will have returned from an injury that doctors had doomed him to a life of paralysis to not only recover, but be bigger, stronger, and faster than ever before because he had knocked on death’s door and faced that ultimate fear at the brink, and that will make him unstoppable. And his never-say-quit attitude will carry the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a string of Superbowl wins that will dominate the NFL for a 6 year period up to the 2022 season. And Eric LeGrand will be known as one of the greatest players to ever play the game and he’ll not only change the game of football for the better, but will alter the course of medical science.
It will all come back to the odd decision of Coach Schiano and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to sign a paralyzed, but optimistic kid to their 90 man roster in 2012, a decision that will reenergize Buccaneer football in Tampa to a new decade of dominance and inspire the world to the unlimited possibilities of positive thinking. Once again it will be proven that the prizes of life do not go to the quicker, the stronger, or the largest man, but to the one who simply refuses to quit and believes that they can do anything once they set their mind to it and force their bodies to equal the quality of their thoughts. The strength of heart simply has more value than the bulk of muscle, and is so rare that even if a person is in a wheel chair they can have more value than a whole busload of healthy players that are the best physical athletes of their age, yet lack the inner drive to achieve beyond expectation. That is why Eric LeGrand will change the world, starting with the fate of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers!
Fire the CANNONS!!!!!!
This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon
A friend of mine just opened a new restaurant in Orlando, Florida. Every time I hear about one of these success stories, where an entrepreneur is able to leap all the hurdles placed in front of such an endeavor to open a new establishment I find myself enjoying the announcements more than I should. To me, these types of things should be common place in America. Ideas should be allowed to flourish, and actually encouraged. But the way things are it’s a minor miracle when something like a new restaurant opens because there are so many regulations and looters involved in the process of innovation. By the time all the regulations are satisfied, the permit issues are written, the taxes are paid in addition to all the requirements involved in funding the enterprise; it is only the strongest projects with the most money behind them that survive.
The reason is that America has allowed socialism to permeate every single government position in our country so the amount of government employees that are involved in any entrepreneurial activity directly impacts the chance that a project will survive to actually open. The situation is so bad that John Stossel of the Fox Business Network and Glenn Beck discuss John’s attempt to open a lemonade stand in downtown New York. Watch this video so you can see how difficult it is to even start a business, let alone defend yourself from all the looters who attempt to rob you with law suits and excessive taxes once the business is established.
This is why I get so infuriated by government organizations, primarily schools that push for tax increases. Every business you see is a minor phenomenon. The fact that you see many businesses in your neighborhoods is evidence of 5 to 6 failures for every success. So when a new restaurant is seen opening in your neighborhood or a shopping complex, you are seeing the lucky ones who made it. If an entrepreneur is politically active and gives money to a lot of charities, they find that their chances of success increase dramatically, because paying off officials with political support and getting the crazy emotional mothers of a community appeased with charity work calls off the looting dogs as long as the money flows, but it takes money to pay off such fools. So only the luckiest of the lucky gain the ability to use their money to pay off the trolls who set up shop in our political system.
It is not the “permit” department at your local government office who creates jobs and new ideas. It’s not the regulator of any agency. It’s not the bureaucrat in any capacity who does anything, but creates a barrier for the dreamers, for the entrepreneur. These barriers push up the cost of playing the game so that only those who have been lucky enough to squeeze through the cracks before the looters realize that there is money to be made, make it, because that’s the only way one can achieve success these days. The business needs to either be established or have large financial reserves to combat the looters in court and in politics, or the business must fly under the radar of convention and arrive before the looters realize that the new business is going to be profitable.
I know this tragedy first hand. I’ve been involved in many business start-ups and all of them were made unnecessarily hard by excessive regulation. I once had a building code permit issuer tell me I had to prove to him that the HAVAC unit he was demanding I buy was not required under the Cincinnati Building Code. I spent an entire weekend reading a boring book to prove that the HAVAC unit was not necessary for my change of use submission. In a book of over 750 pages I found one sentence that disqualified my project from the imposition. Once I found it, the administrator gave me a rubber stamp with a smile on his face, as though it was an office joke whether or not I’d find the one sentence out of the thousands that would exclude me. It was literally like finding a needle in a hay stack.
But that wasn’t the end of the road. That was just one issue out of 32 similar complaints by the CBC office, and that was just one organization that had their teeth into my project. There were as many as 7 such agencies that my project had to comply with just to open and my choice was to do the work myself, or hire out a small army of lawyers, engineers, architects and other professionals to do the work of arguing each item for me. By the time all those employees are hired just to meet the cost of compliance the project budget increased by nearly a half a million dollars.
So these days I just write books, and study philosophy. I hire out my expertise because it’s unattractive to argue with all the fools in any endeavor that catapults the idea generators into the quick sand of the social looters. I determined a long time ago that since I refused to play the pay-off game because I find it ethically questionable, and too expensive on the front end, that I have no chance of getting anything off the ground in this modern environment. But I have friends who aren’t so restricted by such limits and they have managed to do the nearly impossible and open new shopping complexes, and restaurants. And for that I admire them.
That is why I get very angry when I hear people proclaim that my friends, are “rich” and they owe their school system more, or they “owe” the township more in taxes, or they “owe” Barry Obama more! They owe their state government more when it is proven that there are too many government workers to pay whose only purpose is to create more bureaucracy, which in turn drives up the cost of compliance as shown above. Anyone who says or thinks such things are correct thinking are fools—and socialist sympathizers. They are parasites to everything America has stood for and are destroyers of its future.
So I do salute with utmost respect my friend and the opening of his new restaurant. The small-minded and looter mentality will look jealousy at him and proclaim that he should do more for his community. They will say that he is wealthy, and if he has enough money to buy a restaurant then he has enough money to pay more in taxes. What those same fools don’t comprehend is that it will take years to return to my friend the money he invested, not just in opening the building, but the cost of fighting the looters along the way. And they don’t know that my friend has plans that will fuel his own retirement in the future and that these restaurants are part of that plan. He has no plans to draw a government pension or a check of any kind. He plans to take care of his own business the way every American should. And every time there is a new cost to him, a new looter who attempts to rob some of his money from him because they are too lazy to do for themselves, it pushes my friend’s retirement further into the future. The ultimate cost is to my friend who has worked hard, created jobs, and fought his way through every kind of red tape imaginable. The cost to the looter is nothing. They simply show up and demand money for doing nothing. It is my friend who must make more money to pay for more looters who have attached themselves to those who create, like my friend.
So congratulations are in order to my friend and those like him who have survived well enough to open a restaurant in the golden land of Orlando, where imagination still counts for something, and making money is expected, and not chastised as criminal behavior by the lazy looters of the government employee. The next time I’m in Orlando, I will stop by for a visit and pay homage to the great ordeal that has become of starting a business in modern-day America as controlled by the looters, the moochers, the derelicts, the welfare recipients, and the mentally deficient who occupy the jobs that make opening a restaurant such a pain in the ass.
Sometimes the best way to see something clearly is to back up so you can put it in focus. It also helps to not view the world exclusively through one particular specialization of which one makes a living. Living life should be a constant adventure of always learning and expanding ones viewpoint, and not relegating a perception to just those within the field of one’s occupation. This is the role of philosophy and story tellers, people I enjoy spending time around more than any other, because they often see the bigger picture of things, excel in this skill and do society great justice when they share the fruits of their labor.
The dark story of making The Hobbit is one that has held the project up for years and is yet another story about how labor unions are corrosive organizations. And its statements like that which have blacklisted me from any future work within the Hollywood community. I made this choice consciously knowing that I will instead shift my attention in these middle years of my life to writing novels instead. So I am happy to let my whip work and other entertainment talents drift into the nature of that independent task of authorship. Because there is no going back now, I’ve said too much.
But what I said needed to be said. It’s the things that Peter Jackson doesn’t want, or need to say. It’s the things that the distributors at Warner Brothers can’t talk about even if their opinions are harsh on the matter privately. This is because a subtle harness is placed upon the entertainment industry and that harness is the exact same gag that exists on public education, and is preventing the open learning and creativity of millions of children from realizing their full potential. It is that of the labor unions.
During Lord of the Rings, the production could be said to be very successful because Peter Jackson as a director is extremely personable, grounded, and fantastic at multitasking. He kept his set fun which allowed for a bonding to occur between his technical staff and his actors which showed up on-screen in a tremendous way. It is unlikely that Lord of the Rings would have been such a great production if Jackson had not been the director, or if the entire film had not been shot in New Zealand.
My wife and I made serious plans to move to New Zealand in the early years of our marriage and live on a sailboat. So I understand the appeal of a country that as of now prides itself on rugged individuality. When one thinks of New Zealand government of any kind does not come to mind, just big open fields, mountains, horses and–sheep. But the one great thing that I’ll say about New Zealand that the film industry can’t say is that one of the reasons Lord of the Rings went together so impressively, and all members of the crew got along unusually well, and communication worked at all levels was the absence of a labor union in New Zealand involving the actors and technical unions. Before Lord of the Rings came out there were only a few major films to come out of New Zealand, The Man from Snowy River films, and the George Lucas spectacle Willow. So the labor unions didn’t protest too intensely when New Line Cinema aligned with Wingnut films to produce a massive three film adaptation to the Tolkien classic, the unions didn’t pay much attention. Jackson wisely shot the films back-to-back while Fellowship of the Ring was still in post production and had not yet hit theaters. The Lord of the Rings films were able to be made outside of the chaos of the usual Hollywood production without a lot of union influence in an almost campfire style production where everyone bonded on the set.
However, success breeds the looters, and after multiple Academy Awards the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance union from Australia decided it wanted to move over into the New Zealand market because they feared that such high-profile big budget films in the future would go to New Zealand instead of Australia where the Star Wars films were shot over similar concerns. These big productions could not be done in the United States, because there is too much hassle these days over labor disputes, so film companies run from unions out of necessity, and in this case New Zealand is the last far-flung corner of the globe without one of these labor unions controlling the industry, so The Hobbit will be the last of its kind. The unions took action against The Hobbit production joining with the Screen Actors Guild and four other international unions to boycott the production.
Peter Jackson in an effort to save his home country of New Zealand the thousands upon thousands of jobs The Hobbit would bring to craftsman and film personnel refused to buckle under the union pressure and called the union what it was, a bully looking for money, membership and power. He threatened to take the production of The Hobbit and its $300 million budget to Europe in order to make the film. You can read that article here:
Thankfully the whole situation settled as thousands of New Zealanders protested to keep The Hobbit production in New Zealand, so the unions backed off socially, and Jackson was able to go and make the film the way he likes to make them. For me personally it is very nice to see Peter walking around on his sets casually without all the egotistical authority that so many of his predecessors displayed. It’s Jackson’s directorial style to be very open, fair and forthcoming in his dealings with his cast and crew. Jackson is certainly a director who would suffer from too much outside control on his projects which is what the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance union was trying to do. They saw Jackson’s success and they wanted to loot off his back, off his creations, and his relationships so they could get a piece of the pie for themselves.
This is what teachers unions have done to our schools. It’s no different in any respect. A school cannot pick up and move like Jackson threatened to settle a union dispute. A community has a school and it’s fixed in place. So if a union infests it with their looting tendency, the community is forced to deal with the extortion measures they employ.
The Disney Company deals with the unions by tossing more money at the problem which is why the Pirate films are so expensive. Disney has the advantage of generating a tremendous amount of money through their subsidiary companies, so they can play that game. They are too big to fly under the radar like Jackson does today, or Spielberg and Lucas used to. Notice that as Spielberg became bigger and more successful over the years, that his films seemed to become more and more bogged down. He still makes pretty good films, but nothing like his final year as a master filmmaker in 1993 with the release of Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List. I know people get angry with Spielberg and Tim Burton (who I think is a fantastic director) for sucking up to the Obama administration now, and the Clinton administration’s back in the 90’s, but at the heart of that evil is a desire for creative people to make their movies as a wall of opposition known as the entertainment unions stand in the way. The union influence shows up in the final product and it does rob the production of some magic. The audience can tell the difference and it does affect Hollywood’s bottom line. They respond by making more comedies, and easy productions that aren’t overly complicated and can be shot around Los Angeles or Las Vegas–easy set ups. The creative minds behind the movies attempt to keep the protesting communists who run the labor unions at bay with appeasement. Disney throws money at unions to advance a project which works, but prevents smaller film makers from being able to compete on equal footing, because the unions hold all producers to the same standard as a company like Disney. Unless the filmmaker makes the film out of the country like Jackson has, they find themselves encumbered needlessly both creatively and financially.
As I see the previews and clips coming in from The Hobbit I am starting to get excited, because such films—stories of such depth are rare for all the reasons described, and are true treasures of our culture. I desire a world where people can speak and do business with each other without the looters standing in the way trying to make easy money for themselves. And yes, my comments here about the education unions have blacklisted me in entertainment which will go on forever. But I have other talents and I’ll use them to tell the story of how human beings get themselves into these fixes. It’s a difficult thing to balance out the need to make a living and then to make a living that is honest and true. Because the chances are, even if you are a wealthy film maker, if your love is to make movies you still need the industry system to make them, so you do your best to shut your mouth and put up with the parts you don’t like. You give money to the Obama administrations as a payoff to a mobster thug and hope they leave you alone politically. And the same holds true for the teaching profession. Or any profession that is controlled by labor unions, it’s hard to come out and speak against it, and to call it what it is, because the system is designed to exclude any voice of dissention. But I will do it, because I’ve already started the process, so I might as well see it through. And in the meantime, I will cheer with much vigor the upcoming film The Hobbit for all these reasons and more. Great stories are so few and far between, and I’m so excited about this one that I may just go get in line for it right now.
Politicians learned from Hollywood how to build their image into a celebrity appeal, and the same Hollywood producers and image makers who create the images we see, seem to not recognize that the looting politician is simply using the Hollywood strategy against Hollywood itself to gain money, and political influence within the organization.
THE GREATEST CAR CHASE IN AMERICAN HISTORY BEGINS WITH A RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE.
A highly rebellious loner whose NASCAR dreams have fallen short finds himself the victim of a governor’s plans to run for President of the United States. Wellington Royce, governor of Tennessee is seeking the support of the Fraternal Order of Police to catapult him into the White House by adding more officers to the highways around The Great Smoky Mountains and to pay for them with increased citations on the tourists who visit. Thrown in jail, abused, and set-up, Rick Stevens in a fit of rage accepts an offer to declare war on the highway patrol by the governors political enemies using $20 million dollars to build the car of his dreams in a plan to wreak havoc in what becomes the greatest car chase in history. The chase emerges as a journey of self-discovery, deep contemplation and new-found romance as an impenetrable gauntlet of guns, missiles and the might of the military sits at the finish line and the treachery of politics proves to be more sinister than even death.
Tail of the Dragon is an intensely layered novel that intricately combines the struggles of emotional growth with breakneck action and imminent danger with peril at virtually every mile of this illustrious car chase. What makes this particular story unique is that the chase is actually instigated and is politically motivated by the protagonist. People who have read the early manuscript say the beginning is reminiscent of the film First Blood while the ending is 100X the chase at the end of The Road Warrior. The lead character knowing what to expect builds a car specifically designed to out-run, out-wit, and out-maneuver anything the police or military can throw at him.This includes the latest in composite armor technology of course, but the two most unique attributes to this mystery car that is built for this epic car chase are elements that I am particularly passionate about.
Just like in the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean where the ships needed to be much faster than the ships they were robbing, my editor pointed out to me a few weeks ago that Tail of the Dragon is a modern pirate story and the car in the story was like a modern pirate ship. That was an aspect I hadn’t considered, since I simply wanted to resurrect the good old car chase stories of the 70’s like Crazy Larry and Dirty Mary, Bonnie and Clyde, Smokey and the Bandit,Vantage Point and many others. But in this story the protagonists actually picks a fight with the law, on purpose and for political reasons which conjured up in her mind a pirate story. That was completely unintentional on my behalf, but was simply a byproduct of my interests which any writer is vulnerable to. For the blank page that sits before a writer will soak up the mind of those who fill it, and my mind has a lot bouncing around in it, as anyone who reads here often will know. So yes, my love of pirate lore found its way into my epic novel! It was unavoidable!
Walt Disney knew what few people were ready to acknowledge when he designed Disneyland, then his much larger theme park Disney World. When I was a kid, I marveled at how Disney got away with having a theme ride about rapists, terrorists, and drunken bastards robbing and looting in an aimless life, and placed that ride within a very short walk from the Liberty Tree in Liberty Square as if both sections of his park were equal in some way. I always felt that Walt Disney was trying to tell people something important. Even though he sold the Disney image with Cinderella Castle there was something under the covers he wanted to instruct every American alive of the importance, and the sign posts are everywhere in Walt Disney World.
This is also why pirates are the keys to understanding what America was supposed to be, and what it still can be. This is also why films like Pirates of the Caribbean, and books like Atlas Shrugged are absolute keys to dusting off American Excepetionalism and becoming once again what we were in the beginning, when freedom was an idea created on a pirate ship, written down by a surgeon, witnessed by a philosopher, studied by revolutionaries, and translated for us by artists. It is why we root for blood thirsty killers like Jessie James even though publicly we chastise them. Deep in our hearts we know that the key to our inner desires is to not fall in line with what society tells us to do. The key is to cast off the control of the politicians and their rules, their laws, their meager attempts to control human beings as though they were cattle. The key to American Exceptionalism is in being…..well exceptional……exceptionally free, and living with a passion to protect that freedom, at any and all cost.
But that’s not all, Duque Marcus Vaccaro, also known as the “Golden Tongue,” is Spain’s most important negotiator. He alone can interrupt the king at any hour, and his imperatives often become reality. He has been dispatched to the Italian city-states, the Knights of Malta, and even to England and France. Devereaux, the French privateer, has lost his sanity to his obsession with finding the Dragon’s Eye, a gem that legend says grants the owner immortality. The beautiful Lady Baptiste, considered both a hero and a scourge, she has even been asked by Madame LaFontaine to be one of her girls. Her allegiance remains true to her ship and crew. Madame LaFontaine is the proprietress of Chateau Fontainebleu, a burlesque house in New Orleans. Her girls report everything they hear to her which she can then sell to the highest bidder. Guy LaPlante born in New Orleans has never seen the France he defends. Both Madame LaFontaine and Vicomtesse Richelieu covert his new-world attitude, but he desires only one treasure: Lady Baptiste. Luc Savard watched Canada become a pawn and forgotten territory while the upstart United States thrived, Savard grew increasingly dissatisfied. Starting life as a pirate preying on U.S. ships was a start, but when he was outlawed by Canada, he vowed to fight on his own until he controlled the entire hemisphere. Tabatha McWarren was run out of Providence. Two months later she arrived in New Orleans with a crew devoted to her life. To join her crew, a sailor must drink a mug of her home-brew of cursed blood. Geoffery Flores signaled his resignation from the French Navy with the dead body of his superior officer, who referred to him as a half-breed. Captain Flores is ruthless to his prey but generous to his crew. Gaston de St. Croix might have damned his soul, but Crimson Angel has shown him the gates of heaven. Jonas Richman knows the seduction of evil only too well. The loss of his family to violent predators left him with a single motivation: the destruction of any servant of evil! Brent Rice has always been signed on with the American Navy; he’s just always been there. Although he has no rank, his stories of ship engagements are so exact, and his knowledge of naval strategy so advanced, he is sought after by every military commander. And finally, Sammy the Skull! While Sammy Skulow was alive, he was considered one of the most brutal and insane captains. It is only fitting then, that his hatred for everyone damned him to living even after his flesh rotted away upon his death as his body roams the seas with his sails set for destruction as a phantom ghost and recruiter for the gates of hell!
I find those types of games to be stimulating in a similar way to reading a novel, or playing a great video game. The difference is that you have to work with other people in a way that is only possible with this type of strategic gaming. For many years these role-playing strategy games have increased in popularity from a sub-culture of Dungeon and Dragon players, to what is now considered mainstream geekdom at major conventions all over the country. The transition came officially from the popular game, Magic the Gathering. The gaming industry in that market has never been the same, which is wonderful for the human race. A short history of this type of gaming can be seen at the link below.
For some hits your fighter sustains, you’ll draw a card that assigns a special handicap. Was your targeting computer damaged, affecting your ability to acquire a lock on the enemy? Perhaps an ill-timed weapon malfunction will limit your offensive capabilities. Or worse yet, your pilot could be injured, compromising his ability to focus on the life-and-death struggle in which he is engaged…
It never appeared in a Star Wars film, but was the home craft of the video game character Kyle Katarn, who would later become a Jedi Master in the novels years later. One of the very first video games that my oldest daughter ever played was Dark Forces. It was a first person shooter that came out in 1995. My daughter was only 6 years old at the time and helped me play it by pressing the space bar on the key board when I told her to which caused my character to jump. She was too young for the complex shooting and strategy it took to win the game, but she knew how to hit the space bar when I told her to and it was that game that launched her into a lifelong love of video games. She and I will always share that unique father/daughter experience, and I will always think of her when I think of the HWK-290. I was dazzled to learn that Fantasy Flight Games was actually inserting that ship into the game mythology before other types of ships, which let me know that the game designers were very serious about expanding the Star Wars experience of role-playing gaming in a format that hasn’t seen such a level of attention since our beloved Pirate Constructible Strategy Game.
The Overmanwarrior 