Ashyr

My wife and I are rewatching The Next Generation and just finished Measure of a Man, the episode in season 2 in which Data’s personhood is legally debated and his life hangs in the balance.

I genuinely found this episode infuriating in its stupidity. It’s the first episode we skipped even a little bit. It was like nails on a chalkboard.

There is oodles of legal precedent that Data is a person. He was allowed to apply to Starfleet, graduated, became an officer and rose to the rank of Lt. Commander with all the responsibilities and privileges thereof.

Comparing him to a computer and the judge advocate general just shrugging and going to trial over it is completely idiotic. There are literal years and years of precedent that he’s an officer.

The problem is compounded because Picard can’t make the obvious legal argument and is therefore stuck philosophizing in a court room, which is all well and good, but it kind of comes down to whether or not Data has a soul? That’s not a legal argument.

The whole thing is so unbelievably ludicrous it just made me angrier and angrier. It wasn’t the high minded, humanistic future I’ve come to know and love, it was a kangaroo court where reason and precedent took a backseat to feeling and belief.

I genuinely hated it.

To my surprise, in looking it up, I discovered it’s considered one of the high water marks for the entire show. It feels like I’m taking crazy pills.

The Three Kingdoms era of Chinese History has long been a topic of fascination for me and my brothers growing up.

I’ve never really GMed my own content before, but really wanted to set up a campaign for my brother, wife, and a few friends who’ve been drawn unwittingly into my esoteric interests. Because nothing existed to support my interests, I cobbled together a combination of Cortex Prime, which is incredibly modular and perfect for the purpose, and Reign, a fantasy RPG with rules for governing interactions between groups.

For those who may not know, the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history is a massive, 80-year civil war during which 1/4 of the entire world’s population died. There are countless factions that ultimately condensed down to three major factions: hence the Three Kingdoms.

My players have assumed the leadership of the fictional Hiahe City, after the previous ruler died at the Battle of Hulao Pass. Dong Zhuo remains ensconced in power in the new capital and rumors of a powerful sorceress becoming his newly adopted daughter imply his power may still be rising.

Hiahe city has been economically devastated by banditry, it’s martial might a fraction of its former self after the battle and internal strife from various political families, many of whom have been courted by the envious Han Fu, a powerful but short-sighted nearby governor.

After spending their first session familiarizing themselves with their problems and the setting at large, the players made shrewd decisions to buy time with internal factions in order to focus on dealing with the banditry.

They located a group of Yellow Turbans (rebels from the civil war just ten years prior) and offered them supplies and potential amnesty should they help with the banditry. With some clever talking from the party’s Taoist monk and some abundantly generous supplies and the former rebels agreed to aid the players.

In an unexpected turn of events, Gongsan Zan’s emissary, Zhao Yun, arrived with an offer of aid due to the city’s former master having saved his life at the battle of Hulao Pass. I fully expected my players to sit on this marker and save it for the storms that lie ahead, but instead they called it in immediately to arrange an overwhelming attack on the Black Mountain Bandits.

The result was an absolutely devastating battle in which two of our players rode out and defeated the enemy commander, Zhang Yan, one of Gongsan Zan’s former lieutenants. With his death and the overwhelming allied might, the bandits routed almost immediately and their encampment was seized and their forces totally dispersed. Even some of the less martial players were able to serve with distinction and make a name for themselves.

Zhao Yun, a legendary warrior from this period, became close friends with the player who serves as the spymaster and for those familiar with the setting, everyone hopes to lure him to serve Hiahe.

Some players were upset at “wasting” the marker from Gongsun Zan. He was a powerful cavalry commander, think Rohan, who could have been a life saver in a pinch or the hammer to their anvil. Time will tell, but building brotherhood with Zhao Yun and completely dispersing the Black Mountain Bandits were unexpected outcomes from my perspective as the GM.

Other players felt that employing former rebels to aid in the battle would come back to haunt them and there are certainly powerful families within the city who will be very upset to see former yellow turbans in the militia.

That said, they’re flush with bandit treasure, have firmly established themselves as the new sovereigns and have laid the groundwork for renewed prosperity in the region.

Still, unrest remains within the city as various factions vie for influence and wealth. Han Fu’s reach grows longer and Dong Zhuo threatens to extend his control beyond the capital once more.

Still further ahead men of virtue and ambition, such as Liu Bei, Yuan Shao, and the infamous Cao Cao, all wait to make their move and build their name.

I've been on Mullvad for a while now, but I'm looking to move to ProtonVPN soon and I'm curious how well it blocks ads out of the box.

I've looked into the possibility of combining it with something like NextDNS or AdGuard, but I'm not super tech savvy, so I think I'd prefer to keep it simple if possible.

Mullvad has been okay, but occasionally ads get through. If ProtonVPN is that good or better, I'll probably be fine.