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I think she's intentionally deluding herself to make herself feel better there.

Just because they have a cure for the Astrophage, does not mean that things magically get better.

She still nuked the arctic, covered the Sahara in solar panels and set a man to his death. But the emergency won't be over in her lifetime.

She did all those things to preserve Earth's heat in the face of a dying star, but if the Taumeba are deployed and they work, then suddenly the balance switches the other way. The same global warming that would help stave off extinction will kill them unless somebody does more horrific and extreme things. Food is rationed and people starve to ensure the engineers and workers building the solar shade are fed. Australia is strip-mined. At least the astrophage and the Sahara solar array means they have enough energy now.

The climate is a delicate balancing act. Each swing makes it harder to correct.

Stratt is the person who saved the world and the only one who can continue to do so.

Faerie tales are armour. Don't give your name, don't stray from the path don't eat the food.

Faerie tales are maps. Third time succeeds, favours will be repaid, the hard path is the safest.

Faerie tales are supplies. Remember you can win, riddles have answers, dragons have weak spots, labyrinths have paths.

"Everybody knows what a fish is. We are taught what fish are as a child."

But when you get into taxonomy and look at sharks and seahorses and realise that it's actually really hard to put a ring around anything in a way that isn't either overly narrow (this excluding a lot of things that feel very clearly fish) or overly broad (and included too many things which are clearly not fish.) and you realise that Fish is just a descriptive term for things that give you certain vibes and isn't very useful in actually categorising things.

Because communication comes in so many layers:

Beginner level: Start with content and be sure to add appropriate linguistic introductions and tags.

"Hello, I am X. Today I saw a cat."

Intermediate:

Evaluate a person a suitable for such a conversation. Have they recently lost a beloved cat? Have they ever expressed interest in cats? Are they visible busy or uninterested? How well do you know them? If it's clear to proceed you should probably add context and a hook that relates back to the person.

"Hello friend, today I saw a cat that reminded me of the cat you have. The cat was very handsome."

Advanced:

Read their mind to determine mood and recall prior conversation history. Is this still a suitable conversation topic? Did they lose a loved one to a cat in the recent past? Did you talk to them about cats 5 minutes ago or less and receive an indifferent response? Does it leave a suitable room for a response or social engagement? Have you been "too talkative", "Talking about cats for the last hour" or is the environment suitable for this conversation (e.g. is building currently on fire?). Do all of these tests s indicate it safe to proceed? If so then okay? Good now you may speak.

"Hi friend. You look a little down, I saw amusing cat around the corner. It has a silly mustache. Would you like to see it?"

Master:

Ever more sensitive astronomical observation equipment picks up signals from a world many dozens or hundreds of light years distant.

How would the world change knowing that we are not alone, but being unable to talk to them because it would be about 100 years before the other party even knows we are out there?

What happens if humanity is exposed to an entire worlds worth of ideas and alien culture?

We crack some of their languages only to find that there are hundreds of languages out there some of which are referred to but we don't have examples of.

Would people tune in to the alien equivalent of Friends despite a completely alien context?

Initial investigation showed complex and unexpected interactions with fundamental forces.

The effect of the fluid upon an otherwise inert container to give it entirely cosmetically gendered affectations, means that it was s not a purely biological effect. It also associated the colour pink with bow ribbons. Something which is a clear social rather than biological construct.

From this I speculate that it either holds some manner of quantum observer effect with which it makes changes in line with the thoughts and expectations of an observer.

Alternatively it is controlled by an intelligence significant enough to comprehend the gender norms of human society. This could be an intelligence within the Gender fluid or an external intelligence which controls it and determines its effects, like its original creator or some manner of cosmic imp.

I am considering an experiment where I expose creatures such as rats to gender fluid, that I do not know the sex of, but which are known to others not present. Then compare the results. If it reads the perceptions of the experimenter then the gender fluid should change the genders randomly or not at all. If it flips them reliably from one to the other then that would be a mere biochemical effect, or maybe there will be some other outcome.

I feel that Call of Cthulhu particularly fails to capture anything that makes its antagonists terrifying in the sanity mechanics and it usually just manifests as a penalty for interacting with otherworldly creatures.

Alien does a fear mechanic that's similar to sanity but with a strong short term panic focus.

The only system I know that seems to have made a real effort in innovating here is Unknown Armies.

[Unmarked spoilers ahead] I've recently played through Subnautica 1 for the first time and I can't tell if this is just me or not, but it feels like an exploration of the concept of loneliness.

Spending time in the Lost River, far from safety and surface, you are not just alone, you are a tiny creature clinging to a metal bubble of air, trying to survive in a place you do not belong.

The radio offers tantalising hints of fellow survivors, but they are elusive. The Precursors are all gone. leaving only their toys behind.

The only actual intelligent being (aside from your PDA which is frankly concerningly intelligent given how quickly it works out alien language) you meet is the Sea Emperor/Empress. They are not even remotely human, but when I met them, the starvation for somebody, anybody to interact with hit me. They were kind and sad and they left too soon. Like giving somebody dying of thirst in a desert a small cup of water and no more.

Running a local club game set in the 40k universe. We are on week 4/8.

Players have a primary objective, with a backdrop of something strange and slightly sinister going on. This is related to fairly obscure lore. The players don't have any specifics that would identify the cause they of the background issue and they don't have any of the necessary background or lore skills in character. It's intended to be a slow burn mystery.

One of the players bursts out after the game.

"Oh, I am 100% certain it's [specific cult of a specific alien sub-faction.]" Then goes on to detail their story and motivations in detail to the rest of the players in a 10 minute diatribe.

[me, internally screaming]

This is why we made judicial systems, where each side gets to tell their version of events and a group of randomly selected people weigh up evidence that has been carefully and thoroughly explained with the aid of professionals. Even when all of this is present and working correctly, there are very often huge mistakes.

(Go to an actual average trial and it's shockingly pedestrian attempts to strip back layers of "he said she said" over matters like "He took my bike without asking and didn't give it back" vs. "Well you said I could have it because I gave you my PS4.")

When a professional court is not used we tend to get a mob mentality. People act on emotions rather than facts and push each other to escalate.

The fact that cancel culture exists is a sign that one or more of these things is true:

1) Immoral or socially objectionable things are happening which are serious but don't amount to a crime.

2) People who should be accused of a crime are evading the process completely.

3) There is a lack of faith in that system.

Cancel culture and boycotts are step one in that general disconnection.

* Victor Fries talking about his terminally I'll wife

* Victor from Deadlock talking about being an assemblage of undying body parts

* Viktor from Arcane season 1 talking about his debilitating disease.

* Simulationist - where the game rules attempt to replicate the world as closely as possible.

* Narrativist - Rules concern themselves only with the drama of the characters and are usually very streamlined.

* D&D which does neither particularly well.

But there are several characters who are actually more than one person

Mo & Krill are perhaps the most obvious, but you have Savannah and Sinclair, Graves and her lich hand Teacher, lady Geist and Oathkeeper and I think there was at least one more "composite" hero. Maybe Rem and his little helpers?

Who gets the wish? Do both of them get a wish, just the "primary" character? Or is it a contest of wills after the ritual concludes?

However they try to solve the mystery and call the police, but there's no answer. Curiously nobody can leave to get help either.

The host planned this murder mystery party and invited their friends, but as each friend cancelled or called off, they hired an android to fill the missing roll so that the story would still work.

Say what you will but James Cameron is a fairly accomplished scientist in his own right with his background in Marine sciences.

He writes his stories with a strong underpinning of real world physics and biology.

Take a look at the ISV Venture Star for example. It's got radiators, it travels at sub-light speed and uses a fairly plausible future design. He tends to write relatively hard sci-fi, featuring technology that might not exist yet, but there's no theoretical reason it couldn't be developed eventually.

Why is this important? Because the biology of Pandora makes perfect sense, except for one thing. The Na'vi.

The biology of the setting is very consistent. All the higher vertebrates on Pandora except the Na'vi have a 6-limb body structure.

Most higher vertebrates have a neural queue that allows the Na'vi to interface and command them, as well as to sync their minds with the sacred trees.

Furthermore, they look human... very human. They are able to vocalise in the human range and use their tools. Whilst every other organism on the planet is distinctly alien.

These are not a naturally developed species.

The Na'vi are intermediaries, created by Pandora's plant-based planetary intelligence. Based on the planet's analysis of the very first humans to land on the planet (and likely die). The Avatar referenced in the title of the story is not the human-made avatars, but the Na'vi themselves.