There's Something About Halo

Back in 2001, one of the greatest First Person Shooters was released. Halo: Combat Evolved quite memorably pit Robocop alongside the Marines from Aliens against scary dogmatic aliens on Larry Niven's Ringworld, oh, and there were zombies! Or more seriously, in the year 2552, the UNSC Pillar of Autumn flees the Covenant destruction of Reach and making a blind slipspace jump, discovers the eponymous Halo.

From there, a new game franchise was born. Going on it had a brilliant first trilogy, spin off games, and numerous outrigger novels which expanded the world of the Halo series into numerous planets, ships, battles and other moments which gave us exciting new ideas and characters. The series has continued recently to the newest installment in the series, Halo Infinite, and while it has given us more Master Chief, something hasn't felt quite right about the plot. That there is now a new television series, which confusingly creates a new timeline (the so-called Silver Timeline) we can expect to see more unique content in that universe. 

Though is it good?

Many would argue no. Now while there's not a whole lot to be said for the depth of Halo's plot - which can be boiled down to "shoot the bad aliens and blow up the ancient artifact" - the outrigger novels have had some gems. The 2001 prequel novel Halo: The Fall of Reach, by Eric Nylund does a wonderful job expanding the universe, the backstory of the Spartans, why they were created, and the beginning of the Human-Covenant War which is the backstory for the series conflict. It is a personal favorite of mine because it examines all the really dark thinking that goes into creating a unit of supersoldiers. This is not really explored in the videogames, but in the novels it creates a backstory that is interesting enough to be adapted in multiple formats and influence the portrayal of the Master Chief from then on.

The games themselves then proceed to get a bit weird. In the sense of upping the ante, Halo 2 begins with the invasion of Earth, which is supposed to be the pivotal moment of the Human-Covenant War, except that doesn't get resolved by the end. Halo 3 returns to Earth, and then somewhere else, and another Halo installation... the storytelling is a bit of a mess.

It can't really be a new surprise then that the new TV series is, while visually stunning, a chaotic mess. In it's first episode it probably breaks the cardinal rule of Halo and shows the Master Chief's face. Over six games now it's been hinted at, he's been vaguely described in the books, but otherwise we never saw the Chief's face. In all of these series from the games, and even to the books, Master Chief has remained a faceless vessel for us to project onto so that we could imagine ourselves in this universe and having these adventures, and enjoy him as an audience surrogate. In a live adaptation, Master Chief as a character in and of himself can be a fatal mistake.

This is compounded by having an overarching plot that was already seen in Halo 5, Master Chief goes rogue, but the reasons are just awful in the television series. In the game, Master Chief is going after the AI Cortana who has been his companion and friend since the first game, players are invested in his journey to re-establish contact with her. In the TV series meanwhile, he touches an alien artifact and is somehow able to simply break years of training and indoctrination and decide to go rogue in favor of an rebel kid who he's just met. An odd decision for a series with some well established relationships which have been done better.

So Halo storytelling being bad is nothing new, but could it be improved?

Arguably we have the template for that already. Eric Nylund wrote The Fall of Reach and Halo First Strike as well as Ghosts of Onyx among other stories like The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole (an unsung hero of the backstory) showing that he, unlike so many others, probably gets the themes and stories to be told in Halo better than anyone. From the exploration of the why of the Spartan program, the tortured emotions of Dr. Halsey, it's creator, to the wild military exploits of humanity's greatest admiral, he captures the essence of what it means to fight and thrive on the bitter edge in this universe. It's dark, witty, and full of edge of your seat action.

If the games had done more of this, arguably they might have been better for it. The false crescendo we got in Halo 2 with the invasion of Earth for instance, most likely needed to be done away with. A videogame following the attempts to get home and the struggle to link up with the UNSC to fight on against the Covenant would have been a more suitable plot, with some wonderful moments to be exploited in space or on alien worlds. The third game being the penultimate Battle for Earth, to save mankind's homeworld, would be more climactic and given the conclusion of the trilogy far more emotional punch.

I won't say too much for the second trilogy, as that is a far longer dissection than I am prepared to undertake today! However, a more structured plot, a few familiar ideas and themes, and the games could have indeed been much more effective in their storytelling, almost as effective as they were in delivering excellent gameplay.

Overall, Halo has had an enduring presence in popular culture since it's debut two decades ago. From some amazing games to an enduring story for super soldiers the Halo series stands strong in science fiction.

Age of Ash

An interesting beginning to a new fantasy trilogy. The city of Kithmar is old, has a grand character all its own, and politics and plots that span centuries. When Alys, member of a street gang, runs a pull that goes awry, she sets in motion a series of events which could undo the whole city. 

In a new trilogy Daniel Abraham, of James A. Corey and The Expanse fame, brings us a stunning visual of the city of Kithmar and its environs. From the sprawling palace complex of Green Hill to the gutters of Long Hill. He is taking us on a new journey with thieves, gods and ancient magics. This is an Age of Ash.

The story revolves around Alys and her friend Sammish, two gutter thieves from Longhill. Her older brother Darro is a hired knife who gets in over his head. Wanting to unravel the mystery of her brother's work she begins treading down the same path as Sammish tries to stop her. Though we also see the trials of some of Kithmar's other residents, especially Andomaka who lives mainly in the sprawling Palace Hill complex and the temple of the Daris Brotherhood. The rich and the poor intertwine in some surprising ways, and we do see true compassion from the top for those on the bottom. One outsider who emerges is Saffa, giving us a small glimpse into the magic of this world, and a mother's vendetta.

It is more about thieves and loss than palace intrigue, and it shows us the poorer side of the city and the desperate struggles to eke out a life on the fringes of society. This is quite well done and I could almost breath in the desperate and grinding poverty of the citizens of the city. Sammish having no family to turn to and scraping out a living by running odd errands, doing odd jobs, and of course crime, makes for some heart rending moments as her life is explored. The progressive strain of her relationship with Alys merely adds to this and I was impressed at how these material conditions also effected her emotional journey as well.

Alys began as my favorite character in the book, but her vendetta became almost background to Sammish's mundane struggles. Both characters worked well as foils for one another and their struggles were almost literal mirrors, becoming intertwined almost by accident. They made for some great reading and a very, very suspenseful third act!

Kithmar itself is a character, in a way. Abraham details so much of it so well that you can see yourself walking these streets and getting lost in the alleys or marveling at the homes of the wealthy and the palace. There's a depth to the city that you don't get from a lot of fantasy locations and I'm looking forward to how it gets used as the trilogy expands. The bare bones of a broader mystery and sprawling contest are laid down for us and it will be fascinating to see them built upon.

However, I do think that for all this detail we were sparse on some background details. There are the Hansch and Inlisc peoples who inhabit the city, but beyond some broad cultural differences we don't get much information. There's gods about, but we get little information on who worships what and why. We also never really get a broader sense of the world, or whether the magic is so powerful. It leaves a lot of mysteries, but also slightly unclear stakes overall beyond our main characters. This is made up for by making the stories so personal and the stakes rooted firmly in their struggles, but it does leave many mysteries unexplained.

Told against the sprawling backdrop of Kithmar, which comes to life as a living, breathing, city, it's a tale of friends at odds and gods in the streets. The story shows us a lot of mysteries, but never quite answers them to our satisfaction. I'll certainly be looking to see more of Kithmar in the future.

Walkaway

In the not so distant future, the world is falling into shambles amid climate change as encroaching privatization leaves many without work, without insurance and without hope. Though technology is plentiful and scarcity could be a thing of the past, the grinding desire of capitalism to own and consume leaves no room for that. It has led many people to simply up and walkaway from the default world and trust altruism and omnipresent technology to help them get by. They're talked about in hushed tones by others. They're terrorists, radical anarchists, Mad Max style hooligans, and much worse. But for some, the crushing horror of the default world is too much and they take their chances with the walkaways.

Enter Natalie Redwater, scion of a zotta (ultra-rich) family and her new friends after a crazy night at a "communist party" where they flip on old printers and just give everything away. After a run in with the law, she and her new friends Hubert-nineteen middle names-Espinoza (otherwise known as Etcetera) and Seth decide they've had enough and decide to give it all up and go walkaway. Enter Limpopo, a veteran walkway and sort-or proprietor of the B&B, a walkaway community where you can stop and get adjusted. She shows them the ropes and helps them decide if they want to stay.

In the background however, the world is changing with technologies that could change the meaning of life itself, and Natalie's ultra rich father, Jacob, has power and reach. Will he let his daughter get out from under his thumb or will he leave her to the changing world of the late 21st century?

Walkaway is a sort-of piece of utopian fiction where a new world is struggling to be born. This is author Cory Doctorow's bailiwick, with the common themes he talks about in both fiction and non-fiction. Omnipresent surveillance, creeping capitalist domination, and the possibility of a post scarcity society just at our fingertips. In this novel he presents a radical ideology of pacifism, technological sustainability, and gift economy which exists outside the norms of capitalist society.

Doctorow does a wonderful job elaborating on these ideas throughout the novel, his characters having real motivations for what they do, and complex and all to humanly flawed personalities which clash with their own ideologies more often than not. Though the throws a lot of slang and terminology at you, he does a good job explaining most of it and fleshing out how his world works, why the walkaway society is great, but by no means perfect. With the power of efficient recycling and 3D printing, the society is one which seems enticing, if weird and alien to the world of default sensibilities. Ideas of owning nothing, and carrying little more than what you have on your back are not only rational, but with the power of printing, viable.

Though the story starts from Etcetera's perspective, it is largely that of Natalie's and her work in adapting to the walkaway lifestyle and the world. The other driving characters are Etcetera and Limpopo who all shape the story to one degree or another alongside others introduced later on.

Walkaway spans multiple years, but this is never clearly indicated between chapter breaks. I found myself getting lost in the plot a few times as suddenly we were years down the line and I had no indication of what had happened which jarred me from the story more than once. The slang and jargon often goes unexplained with you having to pick it up as you go along, which does work in most cases but was a bit confusing at times.

There is also very little preamble into the state of the world leading up to when people just walkaway and despite some mentions of wastelands or abandoned properties I found myself wondering how so much land simply got abandoned. With looks at climate change and mentions of bankruptcy and social disorder, I had some inkling, but much of the world was a little vague for my taste.

That said, I do have a certain thrill that 99% of the book takes place in Canada. Doctorow is a Canadian by birth, and the setting early on in and around Toronto and Niagara was a huge tug at my heartstrings. It made for a nicely familiar setting to me, with talk about some differences between Canada and the US, but also some delightful time shock as it examined the breakdown and atomization of society to this future norm where I scarcely would have recognized Canada of the later 21st century!

Doctorow also does wonders with the aspects of passive and non-violent resistance. Not that walkaways won't defend themselves, but they almost exclusively use non-lethal means, except against drones and that doesn't count. That is part of the walkaway ethos where people can't take something from you if it wasn't yours to begin with. The action in the book primarily revolves around this kind of retreat and technical battling against aggressive electronic warfare by the state. It made for many amazing action scenes in which, on many occasions, no one actually dies! A very different form of action from what I'm used to.

Like any good utopian fiction, it grapples with the flaws and pitfalls of the society it creates. Selfish people still exist and they can drag the whole thing down - no one really solves the free rider problem. There's also the benefits, and they do seem legion. The science fiction aspect of course also plays a role with the technology, with some very interesting ideas being bandied about.

Walkaway is a radical utopia with warts and all. Despite some difficulty jumping in, I did enjoy the story and the trajectory for these characters. It's a fascinating world with radical ideas and some beautiful character growth. Give this one some love.

My Stoic Journey

A few year ago now I stumbled across the idea of stoicism from fellow blogger Jeffery Brooks. It was mere chance that I saw a post he had done on the nature of stoic philosophy and down a rabbit hole I began to travel. It has been an exciting journey of self discovery I would love to share with you!

Stoicism is, in a nutshell, an ancient philosophy which teaches the value of self control through the practice of virtue. The idea is that if one practices virtue, you can become a clear and unbiased thinker. Practicing virtue leads to a better life, and focusing only on what you can control, your reaction to things, allows you to weather the blows of life better than simply giving in to base emotions. The power of the stoic philosophy is well put by one of its greatest thinkers Epictetus:

Philosophy does not promise to secure anything external for man, otherwise it would be admitting something that lies beyond its proper subject-matter. For as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze, so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person's own life. (Discourses 1.15.2)

The stoic philosophy extolls the four cardinal virtues. These are; wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. In the stoic mind the evils of the world follow from ignorance of these principles, or men acting out against their nature, or the innate logic of nature (the logos). Practicing and refining your life around these virtues then is a goal to be strived for and it is not merely a set of spiritual beliefs but something to be strived for. There is an art to stoic living, one that requires, like exercise, constant practice and refinement.

In order to better understand this refinement, the words of the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, can still be easily read in his accidental book of philosophy Meditations. The private thoughts of an emperor written down for personal consumption, they are the innermost reflections of one of the most powerful men in the world as he chides himself, tries to direct his energies to a more productive use, and reminds himself that he is mortal and fallible. Indeed, one can take some of his thoughts and reflect on it well every morning to cope with life's stresses:

“Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. But I have that the nature of good is what is right, and the nature of evil what is wrong; and I reflected that the nature of the offender himself is akin to my own -- not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity. Therefore I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him. We were born for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition.” (Meditations, Book II.I)

It was not with that great and venerable emperor philosopher I began my journey however, it was through the work of Massimo Pigliucci in his work How to be a Stoic. It is an easily accessible book, with diagrams and endless personal anecdotes on the stoic lifestyle, its challenges, and how to live by what the ancient philosophers said. His work is easy to read for a philosopher novice, and he draws heavily on the works of others and tries to break down their language so that it is more accessible to a 21st century reader. Through it all he succeeds admirably, and does a very concise job in showing you the path to living a stoic lifestyle.

I immediately followed this by reading Epictetus's Discourses. It is a good read, but one that is much better suited to someone who has studied philosophy before. Going onwards I immediately read Meditations, which has stood the test of nearly a thousand years! Edited into digestible chunks, it is merely the musings of Marcus Aurelius. Easy to read for many and something that should be read and appreciated!

From there I read a few of the works of Seneca and Cicero, both great writers and thinkers in their own ways. My most recent read however, was from a very modern source, Nancy Sherman's Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience. 

Sherman writes in a very conversational style, only occasionally drawing on the exact words of the ancient writers and instead utilizing her own personal knowledge of stoicism to inform you on how to apply this ancient wisdom to your modern life. From hectic schedules, to cellphones, to the pandemic (which struck as she was writing it) she applies the different ideas of stoic virtues and ways of living/thinking which are so useful to stoics. I sincerely recommend this accessible read to anyone hoping to see how this ancient philosophy is very applicable to their modern lives!

For my own part, having accessed Pigliucci's work and then read through the stoics and managed to try my hand at the stoic way of living through the wisdom of these sages, and finally more recently through the work of Sherman, I am attempting to incorporate its practices into my everyday life. Whether it's Marcus Aurelius's admonishment for every morning, or simply remembering there is very little I can have physical control over in my life, I attempt to bring those ancient ideas forward.

What has been of some great comfort is that stoic practice has directly influenced modern cognitive behavioral therapy, which I also practice. I remind myself what I can control, what I can or should think about, and set concrete expectations on what I can do. It has been very helpful living in these trying times.

Stoic thought too has influenced Christianity, with the Apostle Paul using stoic arguments and metaphors in his epistles to the early churches. The stoic virtues and ideas of consistently refining yourself to the rigors of modern life and the world have resonated with Christian audiences, and can be very useful in guiding the Christian faith. At least I have found so anyways.

Stoicism is though, a powerful philosophy for the modern world. A series of ideas and practices which have withstood the test of time and are as applicable to life now as they were when the first stoic, Zeno, began to spell out his thoughts to his followers all those millennia ago! Hopefully these ideas have been instructive and offer a little glimpse of the philosophy I enjoy, and hopefully you can explore these resources and find out more for yourself as well!

Battlestar Galactica Season 1

It has been forty years since the Cylons rebelled against humanity in one of the most destructive wars the human species has ever faced. Now however, the two sides have agreed to an uneasy peace. The Twelve Colonies of Kobol have thrived, and some have even forgotten the lessons of the Cylon War and are interested in bringing increased advances in computing to humanity to make their lives better, one notable advocate is Gaius Balter. One man who hasn't forgotten the lessons of the last war is Commander William Adama of the elderly Battlestar Galactic which is one of the last vessels of the First Cylon War. On its way to a decommissioning ceremony to become a museum he is looking forward to a retirement from the Colonial Fleet and seeing the transfer of the men and women under his command to new duty stations.

From the ever outrageous ace pilot Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, his alcoholic Executive Officer Colonel Saul Tigh, and his estranged son Lee "Apollo" Adama, his people are important to him and he wants to see them turn out well. Onboard is the Secretary of Education Laura Roslin and her staff, looking for a smooth transition from the ship's final assignment.

Little do they know, the Cylons are coming back. 

The Trent War at Sea

Recently, I did publish an article about what I called "the Cuban missile crisis of the Victorian era" otherwise known as the Trent Affair. In a nutshell, in 1861 the United States and Great Britain nearly went to war right in the middle of the American Civil War. I explored more of the details of that potential conflict there, but I have one little detail I would like to explore more in depth here. And that is the naval war.

With the war ostensibly starting over a ship seized at sea, it seems only logical to examine how the war might be fought on that front. I won't be going too deep into the ideas of battles between ships, fleet strengths, and other issues, which I touched upon briefly in my last article. And I've done some musing on what battles might look like and who would win, but that is a far more detailed analysis than I aim to provide here. Instead I want to examine what the United States had felt would be its most effective weapon, commerce raiding.

History buffs who know about either the War of 1812 or have read about German naval activity in WWI and WWII are no doubt familiar with those campaigns, but for anyone curious, in a nutshell here's why these tactics are adopted. A naval power with a battlefleet inferior to its opponent, like the US in 1812 or the Germans in either world war, will often decide to strike at their opponents commerce in order to take ships out of the line of battle that would otherwise be used against their own navy. This is not a war winning strategy, but it can have very powerful effects economically. Insurance for British shipping rose precipitously in each of these wars, and it caused millions lost in both money and supplies, with raiders making some areas incredibly unsafe for any neutral ships.

In a world where steam powered warships will be chasing sail powered merchant vessels, this will undoubtedly be even more disastrous!

We don't need to look to far to come across an apt historical comparison for how this campaign might look, the American Civil War had its own commerce raiders from the Confederate side. The most famous was the CSS Alabama whose global cruises captured 66 ships, sunk a Union warship, and caused over 6 million in damages. And that was merely one raider, which means we could expect the Union to do even more damage British commerce than the Alabama did to Union commerce right?

Surprisingly, probably not.

To be clear, I'm not making an argument that the US navy could not hurt British commerce, far from it, but merely that there would be large impediments to their ability to do so.

For starters, in no scenario in the hypothetical war does the United States Navy have freedom of action. Its vessels will, within a few weeks, be largely bottle up in harbor by a Royal Navy blockade. This happened in the War of 1812, and would happen here by and large. Like the Confederates proved, many would be able to run the blockade, but the American squadrons would, in few cases, want to seek action with their British counterparts. That means that it would be individual raiders running the blockade to attack British commerce.

Secondly, allow me to illustrate something. Here is a map of the routes taken by Alabama and some ports of call she utilized to keep her world cruise going:

Sharp eyed geographers will note that almost all the ports of call utilized by the raider are British ports of call, which would make them inaccessible to Union warships. This means they will have to take on supplies in neutral ports which are few and far between. 

Thirdly, the reason for that, is that the Royal Navy had peacetime stations all around the world to protect its empire and its maritime trade routes. Every major crossing from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn could see a British warship patrolling it. These stations were given modest reinforcements during the crisis historically (but by no means major ones) and would possibly have received more as the war went on.

To illustrate why this is a problem, allow me to quote Rafael Semmes in his cruise from the Alabama on why he was successful for so long:

The time had now arrived for me to stretch over to the Cape of Good Hope. I had been three months near the equator, and on the coast of Brazil, and it was about time that some of Mr. Welles’ ships of war, in pursuance of the tactics of that slow old gentleman, should be making their appearance on the coast in pursuit of me. I was more than ever astonished at the culpable neglect or want of sagacity of the head of the Federal Navy Department, when I arrived on the coast of Brazil, and found no Federal ship of war there. Ever since I had left the island of Jamaica, early in January, I had been working my way, gradually, to my present cruising ground. My ship had been constantly reported, and any one of his clerks could have plotted my track, from these reports, so as to show him, past all peradventure, where I was bound…the old gentleman does not seem once to have thought of so simple a policy as stationing a ship anywhere. The reader who has followed the Alabama in her career thus far, has seen how many vital points he left unguarded. His plan seemed to be, first to wait until he heard of the Alabama being somewhere, and then to send off a number of cruisers, post-haste, in pursuit of her, as though he expected her to stand still, and wait for her pursuers! This method of his left the game entirely in my own hands

Essentially, because the Union had pulled back its smaller peacetime presence to blockade the Confederacy it did not have enough ships to hand to station them at any point where they might block a Confederate raider. The Royal Navy by contrast has, and will continue to have, these peace time stations all over the world. This combination of port facilities in British hands and a larger global naval presence means that any Union commerce raiders would face daunting odds at making their presence felt. There is no doubt they would cause problems, but these would not be ones which are insurmountable.

Though I can already hear the question, why would the United States not just swamp the British with hordes of privateers? To answer that question one must, ironically, be familiar with the end of the Crimean War and the Declaration of Paris. 

In an oddity, the negotiations there set down the decree that European nations would no longer be willing to indulge private navy's or the commissioning of commerce raiders. The United States, being aware of its smaller navy and the potential for action against Britain, declined to sign. Enter the Civil War, and the United States realizes that by not being a signer of the Declaration, the European powers would have no reason to respect their wishes and a fleet of Confederate privateers might pummel their global shipping. Quickly, they declared they would abide by the Declaration and so the ports of Europe closed themselves to prizes from Confederate raiders, which resulted in the Confederacy being unable to profit from their raids, and so had to burn them.

If the United States found itself at war with Britain, they would face a similar problem. Privateers would find themselves shut out of European ports, or prize vessels simply seized and returned to their owners (as happened to the CSS Tuscaloosa). This would dent and deny the US any monetary prize for their work. No private raiders, but plenty of commissioned warships with commissioned crews converted from merchant steamers.

Finally, the British have a system that they would turn to in 1812 and both world wars, convoys. This is a slower system to be sure, but in 1812 it meant that ships in convoy were rarely lost, it denied the American raiders any easy prey, and it would get supplies to the war front in a reliable manner. Such a system would assuredly be turned to in any American war. I certainly imagine that the British Admiralty may hesitate to do so for a while, believing steam merchantmen can outrun their pursuers, but pressure will eventually make this a necessity.

The American merchant fleet, on the other hand, will have no such luck. Much like historically, where it re-flagged en masse to escape Confederate predations, it would find itself either captured, re-flagged, or simply swept from the seas.

Much like the Confederates in the historical civil war, the Germans in the world wars, or even the Americans in 1812, this would not be a war winning strategy in any hypothetical Trent War. Much worse for the US than 1812 is that the Royal Navy would not be distracted by a conflict with France, and so be able to devote its attentions to the US. The war at sea would be hard fought, and cost many lives and ships, but the commerce war would be lost on the first day. 

The Revelations: My Apocalyptic Journey

Years ago now I was attending church, and doing what I usually did, poking my nose through the little Church library. I stumbled across books regarding the Book of Revelation and the foretold End of Days. They purported to tell me how I would know the world is coming to an end, how I as a Christian could see the signs, and what to expect as the End Times rolled nearer. I lapped these up, and then moved on to the controversial evangelical fiction series Left Behind.

Since then I've become a bit less convinced in these prophesies. 

I recently read a fascinating article from Current Affairs on 'Christian Horror and the end of the world' which tells the long story of attempts by the evangelical bent of Christianity to provoke a conversion experience by telling them of the horrors that await them in the Apocalypse. It also highlights the very troubling trend undertaken in making these more accessible for 'entertainment' to the public, the outright demonization of anyone who doesn't agree with these very narrow denominational views and an adherence to a very questionable idea of Biblical prophecy.

My own interactions with these ideas has also been uniquely American. For decades now there has been a cottage industry of American evangelists and theologians trying to reinterpret the Bible to, somehow, include the United States in prophecy or claim that the United States had a covenant with God. Neither of those things is true, but it hasn't stopped people from trying to claim it so. As such, whenever I read books about the End Times, the United States always loomed large in the authors thinking.

I can't say specifically what got me going down that path towards interest in the apocalypse, I was a pre-teen turning teenager when I began engaging with the ideas of the Christian End Times so perhaps my own changing life had something to do with it. However, I began reading about all the terrible things in the Book of Revelation, then reading Revelation itself. 

It's some pretty grim stuff, plagues, war, slaughter, and a one world government (if some of this sounds similar to contemporary conspiracy theory, take a few guesses about what has inspired some if it). Quite naturally, I began to be concerned. I read the Left Behind series next, wanting to soak in some - what I assumed - well informed fiction on the subject. The books aren't out and out awful, but they're not good either. If you're a teenager just getting into exploring your religion, this is probably not the best way to explore the End Times.

The fictional journey through the Book of Revelation is told primarily through two dimensional characters with some very lame attempts at Christian ideology or feel good conversion stories sprinkled throughout. Many of them come off as talking down to everyone else in the world. The cast is almost all American, and trips to the other parts of the world are inexpertly told and kinda troubling overall. It explores the years of the Tribulations, and the establishment of a one world government by the Antichrist and the eventual triumph of Jesus over the powers of evil. Yes, knowing the end does drain all the tension from the books.

Finishing the series by about the time I was sixteen, I began to wonder about all the prophesies. Was I living in the End Times? It certainly seemed that way! Wars, rumors of war, economic collapse, chronic fear of "the other" after 9/11, and not really having a firm grasp in Christian theology or the context in which Revelation was written made me fearful. Conversations with fellow Christians became worried about, is the end near, are we doing enough?

However, as time wore on, I became a little less worried. Partially thanks to Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32, as touchstones for how misguided the evangelicals warning of the imminent end times were.

With that though, I also realized many of the more firm predictions for how the end of the world would come about were a bit dated. One book I read was certain that Saddam Hussein was the Antichrist who was rebuilding Babylon to bring about the end times and described his time in power as the result of 'Satanic protection' from harm. Considering he was overthrown and executed only a few years before I began my journey into the End Times readings, I was understandably skeptical of further assurances from this writer.

If you go back far enough, many of the assurances or predictions from people seeking to capitalize on the End Times do depend on the enemy of the day. The Russians were fated to bring about the End Times, Gorbachev was the Antichrist, Al Qaeda and Islam would birth the Antichrist, ect. It's a lot of the here and now trying to be shoehorned into Biblical eschatology. Even the contemporary QAnon cult draws on much of the language and prophetic visions we see in Christian eschatology.

By the time I reached twenty there were other weird end of the world theories running around. The Mayan calendar and the 2012 end of the world date was one, and the zombie apocalypse infecting the whole post-apocalyptic fiction genre was also weighing heavily on peoples minds. The end of the world was trendy, and I was beginning to think that the evangelical view of the End Times was less than accurate.

Now I no longer believe in the literal End Times. I believe Jesus is coming back, but I don't quite think the apocalyptic visions promised by Left Behind or may other Christian apocalyptic visionaries are true or accurate. I've moved on from that fear, and I think it isn't a good fear for Christians to engage in. With very real issues facing the Earth like climate change, peak oil, and the horrible potential for nuclear war, we have much bigger things on our plates. The end of the world as we know it can be fun to explore or write about, but is not a theological or evangelical pursuit worth chasing. There are better messages to spread.