Hey all! New month, time for an update. I had strongly considered doing an April fools post, but I didn’t want to alienate anyone. So I’m going to be boring and stick to the first weekend of the month routine. I’m still working on, and making slow but steady progress with the audio book. I am now editing Chapter 16. Chapter 16 is long. The raw recording was over an hour and a half long. There’s a lot of stuff going on in this chapter. When we get a movie adaptation of Altar of Scales, it will make an excellent montage. By page count, it’s a big chunk of the book. Altar of Scales has 22 chapters total. The latter third of the book has some lengthy chapters in it, so this problem is going to occur again. By page count, we’re about three quarters of the way done though.
Don’t despair about how long it’s taking thought. The text is ready to go, the paperback and e-book formats are good to go. As soon as Nerd Smith Consolidated and all the legal stuff is ready to go, we’re ready to go too. Which brings me to the disappointing news. All that legal stuff is still going on, LLC’s taxes, and all that. it’s a pain. NS-C is getting set up to take over the legal responsibilities of publishing. But it’s a deep rabbit hole, and the more we do, the more we find out there is to do. There’s a planned zoom call with legal advisors, of Friday the 4th, to see what else is left, or if we have all the boxes checked. Sorry my 1st quarter 2025 goal has come and passed, but I think this fresh growing printing company will be better in the long run. This is why I never committed to a specific date, then and I still won’t now. Trust me, I am more disappointed than you are about the delay, but there’s no point in going off half cocked and messing things up for the rest of the series. There are half a dozen other books, already written. I’m just really tired of people asking about them, and not having the answer they’re looking for. I don’t want to disappoint potential readers and have them pass on the book before it’s even out, but there’s little I can do, except keep going, chugging away as best I can. There’s just too much life going on right now to be able to give myself to this full time. I still have to have an income, and keep the lights on and such, so I can keep working on this. I guess I’ll have to keep bleeding for my art.
All is not despair though. I have done more than just editing. I have done some research, some world building, things are still moving in the background, albeit slowly. I’m making progress at roughly 5% of the pace I would like, but I’m just one guy, and working with Nerd Smith consolidated too, limits how much I can get done. But there is progress. May I remind everyone of the existence of the moon, Miranda. Miranda is the smallest of Uranus’s five major moons, closest to the frozen giant. It has a rough, broken terrain, a mixed up mashed together conglomerate of different kinds of rock, perhaps made from multiple bodies slammed together. It’s diameter is only about 290 miles. (470 KM for those who think in metric) I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but there’s a thing, it’s involved. I’ll let the audience ruminate on that potential.
Now as I struggle with all these delays, and roadblocks, I ask for your help. I don’t want these delays to cause potential readers to lose heart and turn away from The Descendant Saga. Can you follow myself and Nerd smith Consolidated on social media? Here are some links to make it easy.
Author’s Twitter: https://x.com/ChaceRandolph
NerdSmith’s Twitter: https://x.com/Nerd_Smith_Co
Nerd Smith’s shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/nerdsmithconsol/?etsrc=sdt
Nerd Smith’s Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/chacepublications/?invite_code=4c183a6e5f7a468c9ce89ed579e5b5ca&sender=986569999529441095
Authors Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/chace.randolph.10
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DescendantSaga
Discord Community Server: https://discord.gg/jBAN36vw33
That way we don’t miss updates, for when it does finally come out. Maybe join our discord? Any way you can help us spread the word, would be most appreciated. If you think my sci-fi content is cool, then please, share it with others who might also think it’s cool. Also, while we’re in this holding pattern, waiting for the legal things to get organized for the publishing company, tell us what else you think we could do. What do you want to see? What do you like in your sci-fi?
Now, as a thanks for sticking with me, and for reading all that mixed news, here’s another one of my old short stories. Sometime soon I’m going to run out of these and have to start writing you new ones. We’ll get to see if my writing has actually improved over time. (P.S. This is another of the things that’s more of a thought experiment, an idea rather than a short story, but I still think it’s a good read.)
No one suffers anymore
…and that’s the problem. The old adage of “Good times breeding weak men” seems to have proven true.
No one in a western country suffers serious adversity anymore. There are houses to keep us warm in the winters, and cool in the summers, there’s food, there’s bleeding edge technology that has exploded in the last thirty years. Giving everyone limitless access to knowledge and now, with 3D printers and CNC machines every house hold if capable of its own limited capacity manufacturing. Technology, information and possibility are limited only by human creativity and ingenuity. Everything is more and more readily available even as the world seems to consume itself hand over fist. With all these things, all this good, all this advancement, and the increasing availability of electric cars and the lowering costs of space flight, advancements in medical technology and so on, with all that dragging us forward as a species, why is there still so much unrest? Why so much violence, and angry people and suffering and needless disagreement?
Humans, are still animals, the biggest difference between us and our Chimpanzee cousins is that we wash our hands after flinging the poo poo at each other. In the scheme of things that isn’t a very big difference. People have been too comfortable for too long, with their air conditioning and automatic transmissions and fan fiction and abundant food. They forget it has not always been so, and they forget, it will not always be so. That animal part of us, is still there. Without the struggle to survive entertaining that animal, we have and will continue to needlessly created new problems, generated, often entirely fabricating social problems, to continue the struggle, to feed the beast.
Just as the atheist fills the religious needs of the soul with something else, rendering unto Caesar something that is God’s. Rather than keeping everything in its rightful place. Instead letting themselves be controlled by illogical, ideological obsessions usually with something all too fallible or even fictional. The modern man, without this conflict, without the daily struggle for survival will fabricate false dichotomies, and divide themselves, needless squabble, and rage, over what is so often no more than a matter of semantics.
An individual, needs to learn to live without the screens, the social media and the constant technologically induced serotonin loop. To appreciate the value of what one has, one must earn it, come around to it the hard way. The instant gratification makes everyone assume everything is disposable, and will be handed to them for the simple asking.
When things don’t go their way, they throw fits. Because they don’t know how to handle any other reality. Or even just simple rejection with the smallest of words “No”. When someone dares disagree with them, it’s earth shattering, paradigm shifting, even cause for war. Much less when something more serious than a differing opinion occurs. What will they do when the power goes out, when you can’t get your favorite off the shelf groceries, when that obscure flavor of Taki’s gets discontinued?
All of those things are nice, but in order for one to appreciate the technologies, to utilize them to their fullest, one needs to be able to operate without them. To survive without the social media telling you what to be angry about today. To understand where the beef in the freezer comes from, how things get to market. To know enough economics, phycology, sociology, history, philosophy, and maybe dare I suggest, some classical literature. To be rounded, in mind, and full in education and experience. To go out and do things, to learn, to read, to study, to climb mountains, to eat something you killed, fix something broken, brew it yourself, roll your own, grow it yourself. Have an adventure, build not just a friendship, but brotherhood.
To become a complete person, to gain multiple dimensions and be able to hold a conversation about something that isn’t on your phone. Learn a skill, or three. When you go through these things, and learn the value of tools and technologies, you also learn the value of yourself.
Because people are soft, and untested. They won’t weather the storm when the tree tips and the power goes out. There is a hardness, a self-reliance, a sense of self-worth and self-assurance that isn’t false bravado or childish confidence, and too often is it missing. To know, and understand when someone or something isn’t worth your time or effort. To have plans, and contingencies, to be ready for multiple eventualities, to be able to handle problems, withing reason, by yourself, because everyone has their own squirrel to chase, and when your chips are down, they won’t stop to help you, unless they can get something out of it too. To mean what you say, to not mince words, and say what you mean, for your words to have value, and be truthful enough to be accepted at face value rather than the listener jumping through hoops to figure out what you really mean.
This softness, this victim mentality needs to be superseded, people must find their personal grit, and what they stand for, even if you find yourself standing alone, you must learn to stand for something, or else you will be left kneeling at the chopping block.
With the entirety of human knowledge at your fingertips or in your pocket, there is no excuse for not learning things, for not gulping down everything the world can teach you. People have lost their curiosity, their wanderlust, and the modicum of motivation seems to be quickly failing too. Have an adventure, break something, fix the thing, learn, do, experience, be human, and not a slave to the media and the corporations. It’s okay for men to go their own way. Find the truth, find what you believe in, harden your heart and sharpen your mind, make your own decisions, become independent in mind and worldly resources. Many things, technology, devices and such are great tools, and can offer much, take you as far as your imagination will go, but one should not be dependent on it. Not risking being rendered non-functional without them. Unplug, and learn not just from the internet, but from the world, from your elders, go outside and touch dirt, and learn what it has to teach you too. You should learn to ride a bicycle before you throw a leg on over a motorcycle.
Suffer a little now to inoculate yourself from the fear and the freezing indecision that comes with surprise adversity. Because sometimes there isn’t time to think, to ask others for help, and one must simply do. Don’t be the deer in the headlights. It might save your hide, it might save someone else’s. Just because you haven’t died yet doesn’t mean you are invincible.
You shouldn’t be afraid of your animal, weary of it yes, but not afraid. It is part of you, and you should never fear yourself. Learn of yourself, become one with it, explore, understand, harness it, utilize it. It gives you strength, fortitude, motivation and maybe even purpose.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
So go struggle with something, learn about yourself, and embrace your inner savage.
The Descendant Saga 