Star Trek and religion

I saw a really interesting episode of Star Trek the next Generation the other day. It was called "Who watches the watchers?" of season 3. It's about how Enterprise accidentally get mixed up in revealing the presence of the Federation to a greatly underdeveloped society on some backwater planet. This of course breaks the prime directive, which says that the federation may never interfere with the doings of another culture. What makes this episode so interesting is that the indigenous society (called the Mintakans), currently in what could be compared to the bronze ages, was developing towards a "rational" society. One without religious beliefs. That is until Picard and friends showed up with the pew pew lazers and beaming up and down to the ship. The Mintakans take the Enterprisers for gods, and specifically Picard whom they call The Picard. Picard is of course quite despondent about the fact of having violated the prime directive so horribly, and with such (according to the views of the Federation) devastating effects to the society of the Mintakans. According to Star Trek, religious beliefs would be a backward development of a society.

Picard tries to explain to the leader of the Mintakans that he seems to be a god to them just as they would seem as a god to cavemen. Eventually she understands his reasoning (it still takes Picard being injured by an arrow to convince the rest of the society however). When the Enterprisers encounter beings that greatly surpass them in development and/or power (like Q for example, or the Traveller), they never view them as Gods however, only as other creatures who have developed further. What is the difference between the Enterprisers and the Mintakans? At first I thought that it just was one of technical development.

It got me thinking, how far developed must a society be to stop viewing the things they do not understand as magical? Even if there are constantly things happening in the Star Trek universe that Picard and his crew can't understand or explain, they never think of it as magical, but only as something natural that they just haven't the knowledge to explain. This is a fictious setting of course, but could be compared to our own society. The less you know about how things work, the more likely is it that you ascribe it magical properties. But my question is, is there some sort of line of knowledge where you simply no longer ascribe anything magical properties, although you don't understand it, because you know so much about how other things work?

But then I realized I was looking at it the wrong way. Although I honestly believe that religion and mysticism, and whatelse there might be like it, originally stemmed from a need to explain things that could not really be explained by any other means, I think that since then religion (and the like) has gotten a whole nother purpose. It still retains it explanatory position to many, but has mainly become much of a set of moral guide lines, which doesn't really have much to with science or knowledge at all. But since then we have also gotten the means to explain many of those things that we previously weren't capable of. I don't even think the most religious fanatic honestly thinks that it is God being upset when there is thunder. Or maybe another way to look at it would be that the scientific cause for thunder is what happens when God gets upset. So it's just another step. We know what happens when there is thunder, but we don't know why. What is the meaning of it? And how can we make sure to control the meaning of it? (I of course don't think there has to be a meaning to things at all, it's just a human way to look at things. But I understand the need some feel to attribute meaning to everything).

In the episode the Mintakans argue about what they should do to please the Picard. Some of them say that since they do not know exactly what the Picard wants, they shouldn't really do anything. Some say instead that they should do something, just to be on the safe side (the something being to sacrifice Troi). And this is really what the difference between religion and science comes down to, in one way. They're both about control. But the one side says it is meaningless to do anything without turning to that which really controls (religion)(I am not saying religion is about controlling god, but about having control over your own life by understanding what god wants). The other side says that it is meaningless to do anything without turning to that which we can control ourselves (science). And in all times has there been people who've tried to explain things scientifically vs religiously (for example some greek philosophers and Gong Fu Zi who didn't turn to the supernatural to explain how the world could work). And people who don't believe one bit in the supernatural still do alot of things just to be on the safe side. "It can't hurt" they think. "At least I've covered all possibilities". So it is about control. Either you feel better about something when you think that you've got control over whoever has control (pleasing god) or feel better when they themselves have the control (experimenting, theorizing). In the end it is still about being in control. The control of what happens or the control of why it happens.

I'm not sure what makes a person prefer one over the other. Obviously they think that one mode of control is better than the other, but why that is... And although some have tried, it doesn't seem possible to combine these two forms of control (but like mentioned alot of people do, but they would never admit it). If you prefer one form, the other form is made meaningless.

I'm not sure I have a conclusion to all this (and besides I have to run to work now). Sometimes just randomly rambling about something can be quite fun too (at least to me!).

Blood-Queen Lana'thel

One of my favorite fights in ICC is actually the Blood-Queen. There isn't so much happening and stuff to think about, so instead for me as a healer this is a great opportunity to get to flex the entire healing repertoire. On this fight you "just" have to do some really intense healing. Which spell you choose at each moment, and who you choose to throw it on might make all the difference. Afterwards you feel like you've just had a gym pass (for your fingers). An analogy to dps would be those fights where they get to nuke the boss and just have to think about executing their rotations as good as possible. We all know dps'ers love those fights the most ;) You take a deep breath of joy (if you succeeded) and long for the next try. At least that is how I feel for this event.

Blood-Queen is fairly straightforward. What I particularly like about this fight is that you can focus on your healing without having to run around like crazy. Sorta like Festergut only more! The biggest difference, healing wise, is that there is way more raid healing, and less intense tank healing to be done. On heroic there is only even more healing needed, since her raid wide aoe damage, that constantly ticks, does 5% more damage for each vampire in the raid (so in the end it does 40% more damage). Also her bloodbolt whirl will probably one shot you if you're standing within 10 yards of anyone else. For a detailed tactic on her look her up on youtube, or check out wowhead.com. Here are some general things to think about when healing her, but many of these tips go for any fight really.
- Spread out. Like on any fight you'd want to distribute your healers so that you always have at least one healer on each raid member. Since Blood-Queen resides in a rather small room, there should be no trouble for all healers to reach the entire raid.
- Huddle, might sound contradictive, but remember that the best thing is to stand just outside of the necessary range (read tactics on why you need to keep a range on this fight). This is so that you can catch as many as possible with that chain-heal, circle of healing, prayer of mending or wild growth. This is yet again especially true for Blood-Queen because most of you will stand still most of the fight.
- As a priest (and if you've specced for it) you can choose between disc and holy. Make sure whatever you choose is well suited to complete whatever other healers you have. But think about that this fight is mostly about awesome amounts of raid healing. On normal this matters less, but on heroic the raid healing will really turn intense toward the end. I preferred holy for this.
- Throw Fear Ward on yourself (or another healer if you happen to be undead/human). Do this even if you have a shaman who uses tremor totem. Fear Ward is instant, but tremor totem pulses. If you're disc (and you don't have a shaman), you might also throw out a quick mass dispel to get most of your raid out of fear as soon as possible.
- Keep your shields/renews up on everyone at all times. They will be used.
- Because of the "cuddly" situation of the room (i.e alot of people standing close to eachother and standing still) this is one of the fights where Circle of Healing works magic. Don't be afraid to use it, especially on the melee group!
- Hps wise you probably need around 4k per healer on normal, and 7k per healer on heroic. Just a rough estimation though.

I've actually healed this fight as shaman too. And I really prefer priest (which may have something to do with the fact that my priest greatly outgears my shaman of course). Although the shamans chain heal could go haywire if people stand at proper distances, both shamans and paladins lack (for now, that will change in cataclysm) a decent aoe healing spell. And this fight is all about aoe healing. Priest must probably be the best suited class for this fight (although it is of course doable with any kind of healer, at least on normal), because of the intense raid healing and richly occurring high point damage that people take (Pact of the Darkfallen, Swarming Shadows, Blood Bolts). A druid would cushion the raid perfectly of course, but have more trouble with the bigger heals needed. A holy priest with Surge of Light could heal both these situations very well. When fighting Blood-Queen earlier today (actually by now it would be yesterday) I had four free. instant Flash Heal procs after another on so many gcds, thanks to PoM and Circle of Healing. That kind of thing is just what you need on this fight. I would cry if I had to heal this fight as a paladin...

How to blog?

Sometimes people ask me how much time I spend writing a post or how I come up with ideas about what to write about. I thought maybe it'd be interesting with a small behind the scenes on this process.

To answer the first question I'd say I spend about 45 minutes writing a post, and of course it varies alot depending on how many pictures I want to add or if I have to do some background information checks. It generally doesn't take less than 30 min though, and I don't think I've spent more than two hours on a post either (except this one time when I was asked to tank something in the middle of a post). The time it takes to write a post sometimes affects which post I decide to write on a special day. If I have alot of other things going on I have to choose a shorter topic of course. If something interesting just happened I might write about that, eventhough I had planned for something else initially. I don't actually plan to spend a certain amount on writing a post, and that would be useless anyway since I always end up spending more time than I thought it would take. I add a little something here, change a little something there... that takes more time than one can think ^^ I am glad the site doesn't display edits for each post, because I usually end up editing small things like crazy. And then in the end there is always something wrong anyway. Ah well, let's call that a "personal" touch ;)

So how do I come up with ideas? Well that part is fairly easy actually, I have a little notebook in which I type the sentence for an idea, like "Warrior guide", "How to improve peoples playstyle" or "why do pets suck". These ideas usually come to me simply by me experiencing something in WoW, or some other place, that I think needs some commenting upon. The problem isn't really to come up with ideas, going about your life will generally give you alot of things to talk about, the problem is trying to make it interesting.

I don't write about anything I don't find interesting, and I never (so far anyway) have avoided a subject because I thought it wouldn't be interesting for someone else to read. If I like to write about it, that's good enough. But sometimes I feel like I'm not "ready" for the task. Like if I write it now it wouldn't come out as good as I want it to be. I read an interview with the author Neil Gaiman about his new book "The Graveyard Book" where he said that he had the idea for it a very long time, but didn't feel like he could do it justice until recently. That is true for blogging too, at least when you try to blog somewhat argumentative like me. I usually discuss a subject, or try to present something in an interesting way, and sometimes I just feel like I don't have the time or knowledge to make the subject justice yet. That means many ideas are on hold until I feel I can make something proper out of them. Here are some examples;

- Presentation of the MMORPG Fallen Earth (lack of knowledge)
- List of funny charnames (haven't found any funny enough charnames yet! Feel free to submit your contribution).
- List of good/bad ingame sounds (not long enough list yet)
- DPS guide (maybe I did that already? Hmm...)

Why do I blog anyway? I've always written alot of stuff, I used to write diaries from 9 years old to 16 years old, or something like it. At work I always scribble thoughts down on some paper laying around, and I always save all those papers! When doing school assignments in groups I always volunteer as the secretary of notes. I like to express myself, and it doesn't have to be to the public. I stopped a while but quickly realized I really missed to be able to scribble some thoughts down every now and then. Doing it on the computer seemed like a better choice, since writing on a keyboard is way less tiresome than by hand (although I still love to type by hand, and do whenever a computer isn't near). So I thought, why not start a blog? That way I can access it from anywhere and a computer meltdown wouldn't wipe all I've written away. My posting rate went up and down some the first years and then last year I finally felt like I wanted to write alot of stuff, not just small fry posts. Best case scenario I'll get some feed back on what I'm writing. But in any case I'll at least get what I want, a means to express my thoughts and have them on print, for my own sake. So although there probably are as many reasons to blog as there are bloggers, my reasons are mainly personal. I am quite sure I'd continue to blog even if I knew for a fact that no one read it (although I'd probably change language to swedish and my way of expressing myself somewhat). In fact I was quite sure for a very long time that no one read it, and I kept on writing anyway. I actually love to read my own posts just because they make me think about what I did when I wrote them. It's like a diary.

I suppose if I were to give one advice to anyone interested in starting their own blog it'd be; never force yourself to write anything you find boring. Don't try to write for other people, write for yourself, but perhaps in a way that make other people understand what you're talking about. If people like it, they'll like it, but it's meaningless if you don't like it.
(This post took 40 minutes to write, and was edited 7 times ;) )

Raines

I stumbled upon an interesting TV-series the other day, and have so far been able to see about half of it. It's called Raines and is about a policeman who solves his murder mysteries by talking to the dead victims. Their in his imagination of course, but quite real to him.

It's quite obvious that the misfit hero has become the flavor of the... decade perhaps. We've had a return of Sherlock Holmes recently, perhaps the most misfit of all misfit heros with his drug abuse and sociopathlike behavior (although in his case it is more of a übermoral behavior instead of the other way around). Watchmen was also recently made as a movie, which also is about misfit superheros. Tv series like House also portray awesome people with awesome issues. Apparently we no longer want to see superpowers, but superflaws. We want to see people who despite, maybe even thanks to (as is the case with Raines) their often really troublesome quirks continue to save the day. That's the kind of people we can, and want to relate to today with all the new focus on mental disorders we're having.

Mental disorders used to be reserved for the bad guy. Now the bad guy is the logical, reasonable person who tries to keep the mental dude from going bananas. Maybe with all the new focus we're having on depressions and people who burnout, we don't want to see cheery superheros with none of these problems. Who've never even heard of these problems. Who never catch a cold (or worse) and still have to work to finish that extremely important deadline. Instead we need to see people who have it worse than us. That not only catch the regular colds and aches and thoughts of self-doubt but even verge on being completely psycho. And who still manage to solve the case. They can't cope with reality, but they can still solve problems no one else can. We want to be super like that.

Oi what a rant. Back to Raines. The main character (Raines, if you hadn't figured that out) is played by Jeff Goldblum, an actor whom I like, despite his horrible (in a good way) character in "The Fly" (see that movie if you haven't already). He has a special way which I like. In the end of the first episode when he is standing on a graveyard talking to one of his imaginary friends again a gravedigger (that's the real name of the occupation, right?) comes up to him and asks him who he's talking to. He answers; "To the dead. They hunger for brains and will come at midnight".
That cracked me up.

So overall it's a good detective series, with an acceptable amount of supernaturality (there's a tendency to overdo it nowadays I think, with all the vampire series everywhere...). Jeff Goldblum does most of the work of course. It's only 7 episodes long, so I recommend it if you're looking for a nice, short series to see. Disclaimer: I haven't seen it all, so I disclaim any responsibility for it having a really bad ending.

How to! Warrior Tank - Level 70-72

There is so much happening on the last few levels up to 80 that I thought I might as well break it up into two-level brackets, instead of the usual ten-level brackets. So I was kinda off when I told you my next post would be my last one, previously. So many instances, so much gear, so much to say!

As with level 59, you just have to quest level 69 out (or if you wanna level by instancing, look for Outland specifics). From 58+ you will be pitted into Utgarde Keep by the random dungeon tool, and you will most certainly not be ready for it, gear wise. The gear you might've found in Outlands usually doesn't cut it for UK, which is a tricky instance actually. If you want to know if you can cut it for UK I recommend at least 10.000 hp, preferrably around 12k. You don't have to be crit immune though. At level 69 this could be difficult to get up to, but at level 70 we can gear ourselves in the wonderful Cobalt set. It is a tankset, crafted by Blacksmithers and consists of Cobalt Helm, Belt, Gauntlets, Chestpiece, Boots, Triangle Shield, Bracers and Legplates, all ready to be used at level 70. It isn't very expensive, but could be difficult to find simply from AH. The best thing is to get all the mats yourself and get some BS to help you, using your "Puppy Eye" special power. If I've counted it correctly the entire set requires 35 cobalt bars to craft, which normally costs around 60g (on the servers I've checked anyway). Don't forget to add a blacksmithers fee to that, but don't let anyone fool you into paying 10g per craft or something silly like that. A 20g fee for them all is generous enough.
With the complete Cobalt Set you'll definitely be ready for UK.
EDIT: A nice tankweapon can be obtained from the escort quest "Trail of fire" (horde) or the timed quest The Shining Light (alliance) in Howling Fjord. It's called Stoneblade Slicer and gives a nice amount of stamina and expertise and will most certainly be better than whatever you've got at the moment.
EDIT (30/4): Finding good bows/guns/thrown isn't easy. We really only need them for the stats, and not at all for the damage they do. Because if that I have used Baelog's Shortbow until level 74 just because it had some hit. I found a really nice replacement however, which you can get already at level 72. It's called Sure-Fire Shuriken (who doesn't want shurikens!) and give stamina and hit. Go get!
EDIT (5/6): I stumbled upon a nice tank neck, which I wish I had known about earlier. Thick Felsteel Necklace is crafted by jewelcrafters (who know the design) and obtainable at level 70.

Glyphs
We've got ourselves the last minor glyph slot to fill. I recommend Glyph of Command, which increases the duration of Commanding Shout by 2 minutes. It's mostly for the convenience of not having to think about refreshing our Commanding Shout every other minute. But some convenience that is!
Another convenient glyph is Glyph of Charge which increases the range of your charge ability by 5 yards. These are both good glyphs, so it basically comes down to if you prefer to not having to shout as often, or feel like you could use those extra yards on the charge.

Talents
Like I mentioned in my previous post we've taken the most important stuff in the Protection tree now so we can go and explore some in the other tree, if we like to. This means I won't give you any specifics but some general recommendations. Deflection and Heroic Strike of the Arms tree are must-haves (Deflection in any case). I also strongly recommend you get Toughness around now. The way you decide to spec (and glyph) as a prot warrior depends on where you intend to tank. There is quite a difference to tanking heroics and raids, where heroics is alot about fast pulls and tanking many mobs whereas raid is about getting alot of threat on one mob (and take those big punches to the face). But I'll go over all that at level 80 and provide you with a typical raid tanking spec, in case you decide you want to take that path.
Myself I've taken one point into Toughness, and one point into Armored to the Teeth (I don't know why, since I was going to complete Toughness, but I must have had a blackout or something. Since I am going to take Armored to the Teeth later anyway this doesn't matter much though).

Skills
We get Shattering Throw at level 71. It is a great skill, but alas - only usable in battle stance. This means you have to stance dance to be able to use it. And not only that, unless you've talented fully into the Tactical Mastery talent (and you shouldn't have), you won't have enough rage to use it anyway after switching stances. That means you have to switch stance and then build rage to be able to use it.
So you won't use it very often when tanking (actually, never). I can see one possible use for this skill. You start out in Battle Stance, build up rage with Bloodrage and use this skill on a boss before changing stance back to Defensive Stance and charging in. But that is alot of trouble for not so much buck, since the debuff only lasts 10 seconds anyway.Of course, the most obvious reason for not using it is that the debuff, 20% less armor, is applied by your Devastate anyway, just that Shattering Throw does it at once (but for only 10 seconds, so still not very useful). Well, actually the two skills stack but seriously, 10 seconds aint worth the trouble.

Instances
For the first two levels we will get to see Utgarde Keep, as mentioned, and The Nexus. There are some quests to be had for both these instances. Two quests for UK can be acquired inside the instance, the other two have to be found in Vengeance Landing. The quests for Nexus have all to be taken at Transitus Shield (as I think it's called). As I always only quest in Howling Fjord, and never Boring Tundra, I usually don't do any Nexus quests. Most of the quests (and that goes for all the instances in Northrend) provide with nice tank gear rewards however, so if you're not as lazy as me, I recommend you try to get them.
Utgarde Keep (level 69-72)
This is a rather tricky instance. Here are some pointers;
- The initial mobs have a stun, so don't pull too many!
- The dragons do a flame breath, so try to point them away from the rest of the party.
- The Strategists place bombs on the ground that do quite alot of damage, you can try to move away from them to avoid being blasted.
- The first boss' (Prince Keleseth, who will return in ICC!) shadow bolts can not be interrupted nor spell reflected :(
- The second boss' (Dalronn) shadow bolts however, can be both interrupted and spell reflected >:) He will randomly cast it around, so don't feel like you're failing if he isn't shooting at you.
- The last boss is nasty. One of the most difficult bosses in normal instancing, at least when you're the "appropiate" level of the instance. He does a smash, which you must move from as it does a huge amount of damage. Simply sidestep, or run behind him to avoid it. When he throws his whirling axes at you (it is almost always at you for some reason) don't try to run from them, they just seem to follow and you'll just get out of sight from the healer and die. This is where you should pop your Shield Wall and maybe Last Stand cooldowns and stand it through!

There is no tank loot in Utgarde Keep.

The Nexus (level 71-73)
Nexus is a very long instance, but I like it for some reason. It has a good mix of mobs and bosses. Not to difficult and none are particularly annoying (except for one, I'll get to that).
- All mobs looking like casters (except the clerics) have silences and mana burns. When silenced you can't thunder clap, as you know. So think about that when pulling them.
- The Berserkers knock you around, so don't stand too close to other mobs when tanking them or you might pull extra.
- Commander Stoutbeard/Kolurg (depending on your faction) does a nasty whirlwind. Which you of course stand through. He is a real boss with blue drops in heroic, but not in normal unfortunately.
- After the second boss (Anomalus) you'll get to an area with alot of little flowers running around. These flowers can't be killed, just put into a non-combat mode. They will resume attack after a minute or so, until you've killed the boss of the area, Ormorok. Here run packs with trees and nymphs. The trees have a frost shield on themselves that has a chance to stun you on attack. This is the annoying mob I was talking about. If you charge in and are unlucky enough to get stunned right away, you can bet your grandmas false teeth on someone pulling alot of aggro from you. Just be ready for it. The nymphs will most likely cast a Tranquility heal when on low hp, so save Shield Bash for that.
- This is important. When facing the last boss you must never stand still. Jump all the time. Just press space bar after each skill. If you stand still for too long you will get a debuff on yourself, that stacks indefinitely and does more and more damage to you. Which is bad.

There is no tank loot in Nexus either >:/