Gratuitous Space Battles

If you’re a sci-fi fan like me, then one of the things you probably love about the Genre are the space battles. There’s really no greater thrill than watching ships flying about, explosions filling out the blackness as something or the other goes down amidst cries of “Shields down!” and such. But all too often such scenes are fleeting in movies; only present for a few seconds or a minute at most of film footage before it’s gone to leave us either in the midst of good or horrible characters..

In games, that feeling and thrill is almost always overshadowed by something else – if it isn’t the pressing need to complete objectives or protect a ship, it’s the need to manage one’s resources and base back at home – or sometimes just going “WTF” at the horribly bad plot and/or voice acting. Either way, something always serves to divert one’s attention away from the space battle at hand while the few games where it doesn’t are rarer than hen’s teeth.

Enter Gratuitous Space Battles. Developed by Positech Games, Gratuitous Space Battles (or GSB for short) pretty much cuts through all that. Its goal is simple: get to the space battles and don’t bother with anything else.

There is no real story here as much as there is a thin paper spy-mask of one. There are four factions (at least in the initial game – the Tribes expansion adds a fifth) available, each one a parody of a major science fiction archetype but at the same time having a specialty associated with them.

The Federation is the free-market economy taken to the extreme and have good hull designs and strength. The Rebels area group that broke off from the Empire due to the harsh military service – only to go ahead and form their own military to just fight them – with ships that focus more on speed. The Alliance are bugs in space with the motto  “Six legs good, 2 legs bad” and have ships that focus on armor and weapon slots, for the most part. The Empire is the tech-oriented species that all work under an emperor that’s apparently “under the weather” for the past 1,100 years (despite the fact that the species lives to 100). Their ships have undoubtedly the best shield bonuses in the game by far.

What’s brilliant though, is that these little blurbs of info are above pretty much serves to sum up the game’s non-existent story – a fact that it recognizes and then brushes aside to provide you, the player, with what matters: the gratuitously explosive space battles.

Pew Pew Pew

How it works is simple: you choose a mission (of which there are 10 scenarios and 2 survival-type) and then a race to play with – the default starting one is the Federation. You make some ships according to the style you want, place them in formation and adjust their orders, hit fight – and then just sit back and relax as you watch the fleets close in on each other and grind themselves to dust in a magnificent show of beams, gunfire and explosions everywhere.

Ship design screen

The system while simple, can get more complicated should one desire. For instance, there is the ship designer, which essentially lets you fit out your ships with tons of modules, split into 4 categories (Weapons, Defenses, Engines, Other). Weapons come in a variety of mixes, from beams to pulses, rockets and missiles.  Defenses range from point defenses to armor, while engines are of course, engines.

There are more modules though – from Tractor beams to EMP Cannons/Defenses to power generators and crew modules (the last two of which are required to power/run your ship respectively). Although it may seem to make the matter complex, it doesn’t really. There are only two resources to keep track of and balance, and their easy enough to do so while still allowing for a mix of ship types from artillery to close range brawlers.

Fleet Creation Screen

These created ships can then be assembled into fleets on the battle screen. Orders can be given to each ship (or group of ships) depending on desired roles and placed into formation. All one has to do then is hit ‘fight’, sit back and just enjoy your very own personal space battle roll out in front of you as fighters zoom out to engage enemy frigate screens, destroying them in a single torpedo wave – only to be shot down as they get tractor beamed and neutered by defense lasers and so on.

Whatever happens, don’t be mistaken – the action is good to watch even if it’s just from a top-down 2D perspective. The ships are very well modeled and the effects are nothing short of gorgeous – easily better than a few of the full-scale productions I’ve seen in other games. The explosions are just as good, as are the battle scars ships get as they fight it out.

It all rolls in together to produce what is a fascinating experience, one that really is somewhat unique to the game itself. Even better though, is the fact that Positech Games – the developer and publisher – is basically rolling out patches that add more and more features every so often, suggesting that the game may just expand to include a few more interesting features in the future.

If you ever tire of the single-player scenarios though, there’s always more to consider in the form of the online challenges. Challenges are the game’s version of multiplayer where one can post up a fleet for others to challenge and defeat. At the same time you can download other people’s challenge fleets, customizing your own to defeat them – which is no easy task. There are some very challenging enemy fleets that are put up out there.

Add to this a vast variety of mods available for the game in the terms of custom hulls – from Star Trek vessels, to Star Wars and even Babylon 5 ships which you can find on the forums – and you pretty much have every sci-fi nerd’s dream battle generator here. Or at least it would be, if not for some glaring flaws.

Eat your heart out, Sci-fi nerds

Despite having a very novel concept and execution at its core, the game faces the problem in that the novelty wears off fast. In my experience it wore off after finishing off the single player battles – at which point the focus shifted from the “oohs” and “aahs” of the explosions to trying to get unique ship setups that were fun and appealing.

This is largely because the battles are…well, to be honest after a while they tend to get boring. The movement of the ships – even with high quantities of engines – is much too slow and watching a battle even at 4x speed on the larger maps can take ages before the actual fighting starts.

The AI’s wonky behavior at times just adds more frustration – which gets worse when you finally see the ships reach each other…and then realize you gave them the wrong orders. What follows then is basically going back to the main screen, resetting the orders (which, if you’ve got a lot of ship types can tend to be a clunky and drawn-out affair) and then waiting for the ships to crawl across the map all over again before they start shooting at each other. It quickly becomes a dull, repetitive affair that pretty much annoys the heck out of a player.

It honestly could’ve afforded to move faster – Battleships Forever, for instance, had far more dynamic and fluid game play. The ships moved fast, they reacted faster and had full freedom of movement in all directions (except up and down since it was still 2D). While the RTS aspect complicated matters, the fluidity of the ships allowed for far quicker and more impressive visuals – especially the zen-esque battle that simply continued to roll on the AI alone in the menu’s background. That one rolling battle alone was nothing short of amazing no matter how many times you saw it. Despite that being an added feature to a game with far poorer graphics, that one feature alone still manages to outshine GSB in sheer Gratuitousness in a way.

It becomes such that as you go on you tend to focus on the other elements of the game – the challenges for instance, are extremely entertaining because there are challenging. Some of the fleets put up by other players that can be very tough nuts to crack. But one has to then ask the question: has the game fallen into the very pit-trap it was trying to avoid all along?

This is part of the main problem with GSB. It simply tries to be too gratuitous in a way. Even though it manages to avoid the major distractions and headaches that block out the space battles, not enough effort has put into the battles themselves. The best way to put it is thusly: while ships and fleets are super-dynamic thanks to the customization, battles are not.  If you’ve seen two or three battles, you’ve pretty much seen them all – even when you try to mix things up by having wildly differing strategies they still play out in that slow, annoyingly ponderous pace.

All said and done though, this is still a good, fun game in many ways. The graphics are good, the game play while repetitive is still solid enough to last a few days, while tinkering with fleets and new strategies never gets old. Tack in the challenges and you have a fairly solid deal despite most of its flaws. It’s lasted far longer than some $50 games I’ve had the bad luck to buy and for $20, you could do a lot worse – but at the same time you have to realize, you can do a lot better. This is especially since the other alternative to this game – Battleships Forever – is basically free and is almost as good –going even so far as surpassing GSB in some minor ways.

Since this is a review that apparently requires a rating (something that I generally hate to do considering how difficult it is to rate something that is, by nature, relative), I’d rate it at a 7.75/10. Beyond that, my final recommendation is this: try the demo first. If you like it, buy it. Otherwise skip it for the time being until its price comes down or it goes on sale.

January 2009 also started cold for me as I sat back in our apartment back home in Ras Al Khaimah.  The weather there was somewhat colder than the previous year – but thankfully not as wet. I can’t quite remember being alone back then. It probably wasn’t possible in such a cramped apartment filled with four people and fireworks out by the Corniche’. Those were the memories.

Ritual demands that I look back at 2009, to see all the follies, the pitfalls and the mistakes I made and to resolve not to make them again. It also demands that I look back and see what went right, trying to emulate that. I’m tempted to tell it to sod off and go wrap myself in a warm blanket and collapse into bed out of the sheer magnanimity of the task.

But the not-so-lazy half of me realizes that such a thing needs to be done, if only to chronicle the wild ride the past year has been. Thus I find myself curled up with a blanket on the sofa; last of my Klondike bars in hand as I type out what an amazing journey it’s been (at least for me) through 2009.

I can’t really remember much of how the year began; my memories are hazy of the first few days save that it was a holiday back then and that the weather in Ras Al Khaimah was nothing short of terrible and fluctuating. For the less geographically inclined, Ras Al Khaimah is a city a hundred kilometers or so north of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. I had been living there since 2007 and was studying at the George Mason University campus located there for around a year or so until then.

The beginning of the year was surprisingly quiet and busy. Between working as an IT assistant and lots of classes the days just seemed to roll by. As my birthday came and went, mistakes were made and awkward social situations needed to be dealt with – situations that I can safely say were low points in my life; saved from the lowest only because of the lessons learnt from them. Such an incident would only be a blip on the radar though, compared to what would come next.

It first came as rumors sometime around the middle of March – GMU was considering closing down the RAK Campus due to reasons related to the economic crisis.  At the time we didn’t consider much of it – it was after all just a rumor; one amongst hundreds circulating within Dubai and RAK as the crisis hit businesses hard. Speculation was rife both in real life and even on the internet. For much of march it remained a rumor. Then the official confirmation came in April. The campus was shutting down. The real reasons I’ll leave out for the sake of confidentiality, but suffice it to GMU was pulling out of the venture in Ras al Khaimah.

There’s not many other news that is more disturbing than the fact that you may have wasted a year and a half of your life – which was very much what this was. It meant that all the money we had invested and poured into this had now gone down the drain. Fortunately, it didn’t quite end up that way. Long story short, we got an opportunity to come to the US Campus cheap instead.

The five months between April and August were in many ways one of the most tense of my lives. April and May flew by quickly to classes and exams – many of which faltered due to the news and poor grades. June, July and the first half of August were nothing short of…tensive. I All I can remember then was trying to write; trying to pass the time in some constructive manner. All that happened was that the time was whiled away playing many of the new video game releases around that time – whatever I could grab my hands on by whatever means necessary, in essence. The prospect of leaving one’s family was nothing new by any means – my experience in the Singapore army had taught me that much at least.

No, it was the prospect of coming to this incredibly strange and fantastical land across the Ocean that we had until then only seen through the TV or the internet – but never experienced it on our own. Amongst my immediate family I was the first one to be crossing that Ocean all the way here. There was apprehension and fear…but actually pinning down that fear is difficult. Was I – or am I still – afraid of whether going there would change me – whom I was, fundamentally? Or was I most afraid that it wouldn’t ? It was – and still is – a deep seated question bearing many complexities and issues that can’t be bothered with in this entry. Suffice it to say, I forced myself to waste away the summer to avoid facing it – much to the dismay of my mother, to whom the task of preparing for such a journey was almost sacrilegious. I can’t blame her for that – mothers are mothers after all, while her good planning ensured some degree of flexibility on arrival.

June and July vaporized into a blur, with August rolling around on time’s handy little conveyor belt. One gut wrenching goodbye later, I was on the plane to the west.

The first step was a brief 5-day stopover at London (which is being chronicled in a separate set of articles) that proved to be very enlightening. I got to visit my aunt and uncle after years, as well as explore a Victorian culture and architecture that until then had only been seen in television or on the internet. It was just after this I got another first experience: with that of airline incompetence. After some electrical failures an unplanned landing pretty much kept us in the Azores for a day or so.

While not an unpleasant experience thanks to the free hotel stay and nothing short of breathtaking beauty of the place, it was still an annoying stay due to it’s own reasons – one that British Airways have yet to reconcile with me. Other lessons were learnt; especially of how useful Skype on the PSP can be if you have an internet connection, as well as how expensive hotels are when it comes to phone calls. Still, it was an interesting experience as I landed with a slightly lighter wallet in the United States around 40 or so hours later than expected and so began another interesting experience. Immigration wasn’t an issue thanks to the Singapore passport (and the fact that we landed at the Dulles IAD).

University life is so…easy in a way. The classes weren’t an issue for me – simply paying attention to and understanding the material works for me most of the time, plus the professors were reasonable about assignments. The next few months flew as things changed both in real life and the internet. I got dug in with a few interesting folks on IRC – you know who you are – while getting involved in a few activities on campus – it’s not much; just an interest group in game design. I came up with a project to embark on for 2009…which unfortunately proved to be a bit too much than we could feasibly do. Still, lessons were learnt; especially when it comes to distractibility and deadlines.

This pretty much brings me to the end of the first day of 2010, where I now find myself still writing out this darn journal entry while distracting myself with even more games and other affairs. It’s saddening in a way, how ADD my mind seems to have become over the past few years; but that’s a topic of different consideration. Wandering back to 2009, basically there’s little more to be said on the matter. It was either spent being busy on campus, in the town house where I currently am or on the bus to somewhere – be it groceries or to my aunt’s.

One major highlight was seeing snow for the first time in my life when the winter storm hit around mid-late December. All I can say was that it was cold – but beautiful at the same time, though. I’ve never really seen snow before and it was a wondrous sight to behold. Although I did learn another valuable lesson: snow compacts into ice, which looks too darn similar to puddles of water and is slippery as hell.

The cold is so different than it was back in the UAE, though. RAK never goes into the single digits – yet here its luck nowadays if it ever goes into double digits. The lack of heat is amongst the things I miss most about the UAE before my mind skips to other things. Things like my family, to easily accessible vegetarian food, to the best damn vegetable Manchurian I used to have at Shalimar’s.

My stomach rumbles in the memory of such good food as I sit here and write this. Just closing my eyes brings forth those sweet, sweet memories of that spicy aroma and the indescribable taste of it. There are few restaurants that I know of that get Indo-Chinese food right; fewer still get it right and as well done as Shalimar did. It makes me a little regretful when I reflect back on my current situation and location. Indian food itself is so hard to find here – Indo-Chinese is even rarer. Hell, just finding decent Vegetarian food is hard.

Well, it could be worse. A lot worse. What matters is that 2009 is pretty much over and done with. 2010 is here – a promising new decade, far different than the one that preceded. Who knows where I’ll end up from here? Maybe the bottom of the Earth in Antarctica or at the bottom of a grave – only time will really tell. All I know is that it brings new opportunity – especially to write and to not waste it away like I did so much of 2009.

I can hear it knocking too; not just on the door by deep in my bones. There’s so much to write about, to do and finish – and yet so little time. The distractions are frustrating in a way – but at the end of the day they are just an obstacle; something that needs to be overcome by any means necessary – lest it keep me behind just as it did for the last decade.

Either way, here’s to hoping 2010′s more productive than 2009.

Regards,
Alternate22

To the two or three readers of this blog out there, have a happy and safe Diwali.

It all started out pretty much very busy. I arrived at Washington on the 24th of August at 10:30 PM. I was finally checked in and unpacked at my townhouse at around 1AM, much to the chagrin of my parents who hadn’t been aware of my flight’s problems and delays and had been worried sick enough to constantly harass the front desk. Lacking a way to properly contact them though, the best I could do was borrow one of  my roommate’s phones to send off an SMS to them. I only managed to get 5 hours of sleep though, before awakening at 6:30 AM and starting off what would be a hellish week.

Before I continue, let me clarify a bit – I’m currently living in the GMU Townhouses, which is around half a kilometer away from the campus. The townhouses are mostly fairly neat and in a good area and quite spacious on the inside. Each unit has anywhere from 2 to 6 people in it, depending on the options chosen. The townhouse I was in houses 4 people; 2 per bedroom essentially. At the time when I arrived, it was only housing two – my roommate and another fellow student from the Mason-RAK campus that had come over as well.

My immediate roommate is a young Chinese man, here on a program of study that will grant him a double degree. For the most part he’s a decent and reasonable person – although my initial impressions were skewered by the large mess that had been left in the living room and dining areas, stinking it up along with his lack of common hygiene. Now I wont say I’m a neat freak – but my experience in the army basically drilled certain standards into me – none of which were met by the horrid condition of the room. For the sake of privacy though, I’m not going to go much further into it save that it basically made the living room immediately unusable – at least for the moment.

The fourth roommate would only be coming in around the 31st of August though, which was the regular move-in date for the residents here. It was also when most of the classes would be starting. Unfortunately this hardly meant that my first week would be anything but quiet. Most of it was spent running around getting the basics set down: a phone, bank account, cleaning supplies, household stuff, some food/snacks, things like that. In almost all matters I ran into issues, however. The bank account couldn’t be opened without a phone number. I wasn’t really familiar with how the phone systems worked, especially since none were available immediately on campus. Similarly, other issues cropped up in trying to figure out the local bus system and where it went.

Fortunately,  most of these issues were solved with the assistance of the registrar that worked in the Mason-RAK Campus. She was incredibly kind by giving me a lift to the Target store, where I managed to finally get a phone, along with cleaning supplies and other essential goods. The roommate from Mason-RAK was also kind enough to let me borrow his phone number temporarily to help me setup the account. By Saturday I had just about set most things up – including cleaning the living area and talking to the roommate and finally contacting my parents via email the previous day. I still didn’t have much in the way of food – I was mostly living on McDonalds and the university’s food court’s salad bar until then. But that was mostly due to lack of anything stored up and limited access to groceries – a problem I intend to solve on the weekend.

This process mostly started out with a copy of the CUE bus map and planning to visit various areas that were marked as malls along with Microcenter, where I could find a laptop. However the first half of the plan was tossed out the window when my roommate across the hall (the Mason-RAK one) mentioned that he and others were going to try to reach Tyson’s corner. I decided to join them and take a look at the metro system – my first (and so far only) foray on it. We took the Cue bus up to the Vienna station, from there catching a train upto the next station. To get to Tyson’s corner we had two options: the first as the group had planned was to go to West Falls Church and catch a bus from there directly to Tyson’s corner.

However, upon studying the map I suggested a different route from Dunn-Long Merifield station, catching the 2C which went significantly closer to the mall than the other bus. It was decided that we would go that way – and as I would later find out, the bad luck from the week would still dog me through this, turning it into a horrible decision. We arrived at Dunn-Long and went to the bus depot. However, it was here that we discovered the bus service would take a long time to reach due to the service running less frequently over the weekend.

We were ready for a long wait – until we saw 2C pull up. Immediately, we boarded it and were somewhat happy to have caught the bus which had luckily come late. It was only around a half hour later when we passed East Falls church station though, that we realized our grave error. Oblivious to the signboards at the bus station, we had boarded 2C Eastbound – which was headed in the complete opposite direction and was now headed to the wrong direction of town. A quick word with the bus driver simply confirmed this; fortunately he was kind enough to drop us off immediately near the station. After a quick figuring out of where we were and a walk back to the station and checking the bus depots there it was decided that going to Tyson’s corner was a bust – and I knew that it was my fault.

Fortunately, there was a backup plan. There was a bus leaving from the station that headed straight to Fair Oaks Mall so most of the others decided to head there. I opted to get off at the Vienna station along the way, catching the Cue bus to Microcenter and look for laptops. I parted from the group at Vienna, giving them my apologies on the mistake. Fortunately there were no hard feelings (I hope). Several minutes later I caught the Green 1 bus heading down Nutley Lane and stopped at Microcenter to search for a laptop.

I have to say this much about the store: it was pretty darn big, and all for electronics too. There was a lot of stuff there as well, from mobile phones to music to games and even television sets. My main intent was to get laptops, though, which is where I went. They had quite a huge variety of them – but all over 400 dollars, which was my absolute maximum budget. There were a few below that line, but most of them were either EEPcs or incredibly horrible low-end laptops. There was one piece that did catch my eye though: an asus piece that costed 399 after rebates which had the right range of specs I was looking for. However, to get that price one needed to mail in a rebate form. Getting it right now meant spending 500 dollars – something I desperately wanted to avoid right now. Still, there were few other options available.

I have to say that I was absolutely fraught with indecision over it. It was agonizing – part of me wanted that laptop desperately; but the other half knew that I had limited resources and simply couldn’t afford it. By now it had approached 2PM and I finally decided to put off the decision and think about it a bit more over lunch. I went back to the road and caught the bus heading down to Pickett Road to search for the Best Buy there in hopes for a better deal. Sadly, it was closed and wouldn’t open till the next week. Sad and defeated I went back upto Micro Center. The horrendous CUE bus schedule meant that by the time I reached there it was fast approaching six. However, a brief examination of other PCs still didn’t yield a result.

With such an unproductive day, things didn’t seem like like it could get worse. Unfortunately it did. After waiting a half hour beyond the time written in the bus schedule, I realized I had made a horrible mistake in my calculations. The bus I’d taken to Microcenter was the last bus to come around, meaning I was now stranded there with no way to get back to the townhouses. With the sun rapidly setting and a deluge of mosquitoes rising out of the forest behind me, I didn’t have much choice save to try calling for a cab – at least that is, until I saw a metro bus come steaming down the road.

Flagging it, I asked the driver if he was going to the Fairfax city circle. Unfortunately I didn’t realize at the time that he had thought I said Fairfax Hospital - to which he promptly replied yes. Grabbing a seat, it was only after around 10 minutes of driving and arriving at an unfamiliar part of town did I ask him again and realize the error. He apologized for the mistake and dropped me at Fairfax Hospital, giving me directions on how to get back via the other buses. Thanking him anyway, I decided to go into the hospital for a drink of water. Due to the time at night, it was mostly empty.

However, I have to say the place is a maze. And I mean this quite literally. There is corridor after corridor after corridor that interconnects and seems to go off to infinity at times. After 15 minutes and asking no less than three people on how to find a fountain, I finally found one – ironically, right near where I started, but in the opposite direction! Tired, fed up and exhausted I decided to catch a cab back to the townhouses before something worse happened. Thankfully I made it back that night in one piece.

The next day ran through remarkably better. I went back to micro center and found an alternative laptop that was cheaper and just as good -a  Compaq system that had a wide screen just large enough to accomodate a numpad on the keyboard – blessed by thy numpads! Suffice it to say, despite being refurbished its served me well so far.

I cant really comment on the days that came after wards. There was little to note save that my TB immunization ended up getting infected, swelling up my arm to a painful state. Fortunately it was treatable with antiobiotics and became better. I got a lot of other things setup – at least, wherever possible. One of the sticky points was the textbooks, however. The bookstore was incredibly slow and inefficient at getting the textbooks; neither giving a time nor a possibility on when they might arrive, making it difficult to decide whether to get from them or just go to Ebay.

In some cases they had better prices, in others I went with ebay/amazon. Either way they really dropped the ball with supply – my English class’ poetry book, for instance, basically only arrived today, a week after I no longer need it. Its funny and amusing just as it is frustrating; but at the end of the day part and parcel of life. Most of the time since then has been spent in classes, slacking or doing assignments and, albeit rarely, sitting down to actually write stuff like this blogpost.

But all of these are really just events that have happened – writing about one feels about this place is an entirely different matter altogether.

America is…strange. Its strange, surreal and frightening in a way all at the same time – a fact that is in its own way, strange. All my life I’ve always existed aloof from the rest of the peers around me; swimming in the Ocean that is the western context. From watching Cpt. Kirk on Star Plus as a kid to reading the works of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov to even just living on the internet for so long – most of my context exists in the west.

And yet…and yet this place is so strange. There are so many people in the campus; so many people milling about doing their own things. Hundreds. Thousands. Its…overwhelming. The largest school I’ve been had a population of 2 thousand at most. Its well over 20,000 here. All of them strangers and strange people, obsessed with their own strange little things – even though I probably share some of them. The only bit of the familiar is now over 9,000 kilometers away; a few strings of text in skype; the occasional long distance phone call.

But at the same time, that familiarity is far away – with all the chains that bound my possible actions. The context to which I had to adhere is 9,000 kilometers away. The only relatives that I know are hundreds of miles away while in many ways I am a stranger here on this campus. In many ways I now have the keys in my hands to unlock doors that a lack of privacy and the wrong context had kept closed for me before.

In a way, for the first time in my life – even if it is for an oh-so-brief period – I am…free. There are so many doors to open…so many paths to take. For once in my life, I am free to take on my own context; to make my own decisions and maybe even forge my own paths. I am free.

And it terrifies me.

It simply does.

But then I remind myself. Am I truly free? Even if I am it begs the question: how far is one willing to go with freedom? I don’t want to hurt my parents – their already struggling and don’t deserve any distress; so in a way I’m still chained by that limitation. I can’t go against my extended family’s beliefs – they are what is making it possible for me to be here. What kind of a human being would I be to rebuff them after that?

Another counter-argument comes about, however: it doesn’t matter. A lot of doors were opened and closed for me to come along this path. I suffered through my childhood – what little of it was there – and my teenage years. I’ve never approached the doors that were closed before, simply because I had no need or want to open them, nor did I have the keys. But the universe seems to have either blessed or cursed me now by giving me the keys to them and making me reconsider that decision of not going through.

Stepping back, I realize that I have a brief window here – that exact isolation works both ways. Things done here need not resonate back across the Atlantic. Purpose has brought me here to learn. Purpose has brought me here, where tools exist with which I can right that which is wrong in myself.

Most importantly, purpose has brought me here for enlightenment. This just proved itself today, when I made use of the library resources and got a copy of The Philosophy of the Bhudda. Reading it page by page was a fascinating affair and each paragraph was, in many ways, a life altering new perception.

I say life-altering as opposed to changing, mostly because I’ve held much of the same perspectives for a good portion of my life – but was never able to have it framed so solidly. Even though it makes my head hurt, I have realized one important concept from it thus far at least: to not desire that which I will not attain; but at the same time to not desire less than what can be attained. To accept the middle way between the extremes is to accept things as they are and as they will be. Life…goes on. You can either go with it happily, or you can go with it miserable. Either way its really up to oneself.

I look back at my keys. I look up at the doors. Can the desires they hold be attained?

…

….

……I think so. I hope so.

Its time to try unlocking some doors.

Part 1

Part 2

Day 2 started fairly quiet, but would prove to be somewhat eventful. I headed out with my cousin on my first trip on the London tube. My first impression upon looking at the map was this: the bloody thing is complicated! Lost count of how many darn lines they’ve got going through the entirety of london – thankfully my previous experiences with the Singapore MRTs (which was blessfully simpler) allowed me to read through it easily enough. At least the ground principles of public transportation are the same in most places!

My intention was to start somewhat simple today, just to get a feel for the system and london itself, avoiding the really busy areas. As such my destination today were the landmarks surrounding Temple station. Getting there was a long journey on the tube – which at first didn’t seem all that tube-ey. In fact, it seemed much like an overground station in all honesty. The trains that came in didn’t change that feeling much either – they felt old, rickety and most importantly: loud.

As annoying as the sounds were, it did bring a fair few memories of trips across India in equally old and rickety trains. Such thoughts were extinguished as we went underground and the sound immediately got worse. Thankfully it was only temporary as you got used to it.

We alighted at Temple station and the first thing that greeted me was a shivering cold breeze, delivered fresh courtesy of the Thames river. We crossed the street and I got my first dazzling view of the London embankment – and off in the distance, the London eye as well. It was good, save for the muddy and dirty water below. But that is to be expected when it comes to busy cities such as this. At least it wasn’t smelling – from what I could tell a few years or a decade ago things were really bad before it was cleaned up.

Our first destination from the embankment was Somerset house. Right nearby the Temple station, it was only a short 2 minute walk before we hit the lower ground entrance. We went inside, but there was a large school group that had come in ahead of us and the dark lighting and confusing signs didn’t help in pointing us how to get into the area further. There were signs to a few galleries, but they required to pay money to enter – and being the cheapskates we were, we went outside instead.

Determined to see the fountains though, we went up to the Waterpool bridge level and tried our luck on entering from there. It was there that I finally got to see Somerset house in its entirety. While not an enthralling sight, it was certainly quite impressive.

The blue bar down there on the right is the Bombay Sapphire Dusk bar. It was closed at the time. On the left we saw this small memorial though.

We moved on from there, pass the Bombay Sapphire Dusk Bar and into the Admiralty restaurant. Beyond was the fountain area, which sort of formed the central heart of Somerset house. It was quite grand actually, but nothing all that special in the grand scheme of things.

Still, it was a good area to stop and relax for a while. The square was surprisingly peaceful despite the number of people that had gathered around at its corners. It was somewhat picturesque and I had to stop for a few moments to take it in. It was kind of strange – the street, the cars and the noise suddenly seemed to go away. It was a weird type of peace; it was as if you were aware of the noise and all the busy stuff going on around you, but simply didn’t care. At that moment the breeze, the fountains, the pigeons and the people around the square were all that mattered.

We sat here for a few moments, at which point I used the opportunity to film the fountains a bit as you can see below.

It was here that I made another observation: the birds. Most of the birds here are huge! The pigeons were around the same size, sure, but the ravens, crows and magpies were a heck of a lot bigger than any I’ve never seen before. They also seemed fairly fearless of most people and in some cases were bold enough to nip off with food that had fallen right next to where people were sitting. I think this is where Alfred Hitchcock probably got his ideas for his movie “The Birds”. I think one of them was watching me with suspicion too. I noted to keep an eye on them. Before we left, I spied another memorial towards the end of the square.

This city sure has a lot of these memorials around – more than likely a product of its incredibly well preserved history (comparatively at least). Just how much history was preserved didn’t really strike me until we moved on from there, intent on reaching the Royal Courts where my cousin had worked briefly. Along the way we passed a few churches, including St. Mary Le Strands.

Its fascinating, really, how such architecture has been well preserved and maintained. In most of the places I’ve been to date, including India, only the grandest temples or really important places are really well maintained – most of the others are simply left to rot and fall into disrepair, becoming rather decrepit parts of the city. Comparatively, seeing this old building in fairly decent condition amidst the bustling metropolis of London was somewhat surreal, to say the least. The use of the contrast of architecture was another interesting thing – especially when we came up to St. Dustin’s church just a short distance after that. At the center of the road in front of the church was this:

I’ve seen statues of Gargoyles (at least I think thats what it is) like this in books, on TV and in photographs but seeing it up close and personal is always a different thing. It was only a momentary pause however, before we went on towards the Royal courts. My cousin told me that if we were lucky, there would probably be a big case going on and a lot of paparazzi or news reporters on the outside and stuff. Supposedly if you hang around the courts long enough you can see some really famous people. Supposedly. When we got there things were actually fairly quiet.

Not much was going on outside; but then that was probably because it was close to lunch time. I inquired about going in and it seemed like a good idea – at least that is, until my cousin told me that there were no cameras allowed inside, along with the fact that there were multiple security checkpoints.

This brought back many comedic (and annoying) memories of my departure from Dubai, when I had to take off my boots (they were large worker’s boots) almost four times as I went through. Wanting to avoid such a hassle again, we opted to head on for lunch at a nearby McDonalds.

An hour later and with somewhat full bellies we left McDonalds and tried to make our way up to Lincoln’s Inns Fields, where the Soanne Museum was according to the guide I had in my hand. Unfortunately we made the mistake of making quite a few wrong turns and ended up on Fleet Street, near some place known as Dr. Johnson’s house, whatever that was. We had the chance to go see it, but didn’t bother – time was running short and we needed to be back home before six.

I have to say though, going through the streets and back alleys of London is like navigating through a maze – while frustrating at times, it can be a fair bit of fun. At Fleet Street we found a map that generally led us in the direction we needed to go – in this case back to the Royal Courts. The path there was…cramped. It was the first time I had actually noticed the feeling when in London – most likely because this was the first time we had navigated from an open main road and the like, but I actually felt a fair bit claustrophobic in the tight alleyways and paths they had. Often I would wonder just how the heck they’d managed to squeeze enough space for trucks and lorries to come in here, much less put in other facilities.

It took a moment to realize that the feeling was an illusion – it wasn’t the alleyways that were small – it was the buildings. The tall towers around us sometimes felt like a roof of sorts and gave the impression of a small space. It was sorta like being in a narrow trail with natural cliff walls to either side. The trail may be more than wide enough for a truck or two and more, but I’ll be damned if it still doesn’t feel cramped.

It took us a while to make our way back to the main road and past the Royal courts again. This time however we managed to get a closer look at the St. Dustin’s church.

I had to wonder as I did earlier – and as many tourists probably have done over time – is the gold-colored stuff real gold? Looks like it. But its a silly thought at the end of the day – its has to be fake otherwise it’d probably have been stolen by now, religious site or no. On our way to the Soanne Museum, we passed by King’s College. The place was gigantic just from the outside – I couldn’t imagine what it looked like from the inside, but it looked like one of those prestigious institutions where the best and brightest go to educate themselves and perform stellar research – or, more pessimistically, just spend their parent’s money on a piece of paper that’ll land them good work despite not caring or needing it anyway.

Either way it didn’t really matter. We continued onwards from King’s College and walked up towards Lincoln Inn’s field, approaching the Soanne Museum. This is where I started to have a fair few doubts – I had no idea what the Soanne Museum was about and the guide I was holding in my hand was starting to look less and less appealing, especially after the walk. My cousin was expressing the same doubts and insisted that they were much better things to see. He was right of course – while Somerset house and the courts had been cool so far, they were much better uses of this time. This became incredibly apparent when we finally reached the Soanne Museum and found out what it was: essentially just a small house that belonged to the famous architect Sir John Soanne that had been preserved in its entirety.

It was actually an interesting prospect to go inside  and take a look, but by this time we were both mostly quite tired and my cousin was already beginning to question the worth of this trip – especially since cameras/photographs weren’t allowed inside. Even though I knew I would regret it, my aching feet made the decision and we turned away from the museum and started off to the Waterpool bridge.

However by this time my feet were killing me from all the walking – the boots weren’t quite built for moving around this much and it was starting to show. So we took a short detour to the park in front of the Soanne museum – Lincoln Inn’s Fields basically. The park was fairly neat – mostly clean, lots of people lying around the grass and a fair few birds, much like any other park. There was a central pagoda where we decided to sit and rest for a while though.

There wasn’t much special to note though – save for a pair of very frisky pigeons and, more pleasantly, a busker or entertainer off in the distance in one end of the park that appeared to be practicing a juggling act of some sort. It was fun to watch as the breeze blew by – a fairly cold one at that. I really needed to get used to the weather here; its such a huge different from the desert. Finally after around 10 minutes we go up and began to head off…not before spotting this though!

Nothing special; but it was an interesting thing to see. The only flying banners I was familiar with until now were the old ones tied to planes that you rarely used to see in India almost 10-20 years ago. You just don’t see those anymore and seeing it on a helicopter now…all I can say is that it was a real throwback. It was also a reminder to me – when some doors close, others open. In this case even though we had missed quite a bit and wasted our time here, it wasn’t a total loss and I got to learn quite a bit about how things worked. No, it wasn’t a waste of time – not by a long shot.

Soon afterwards we went back up to the Waterpool bridge. On the way we passed by a few more places of note: the BBC Bush House, the Aldwych Theater and this time the main road side of Somerset House.

I’m somewhat glad we passed by the front side of Somerset house though – it gave an opportunity to see the exquisite statues up on the top of the entrance. Once more I was faced with the “wonder if that’s real gold?” question as I did so, though.

Before we headed back to Temple station though we decided to go to the Waterpool bridge and just take a look at the river from a higher perch. I’m sort of glad we did – we managed to get a really striking view of quite a few features from the location. For one, we got to see the London Eye from a slightly better angle, along with finally getting a good glimpse of the Palace of Westminster, Big Ben and some of the ships in the Thames – including one that was directly underneath us at the time.

Seeing the boat reminded me of something – if I wasn’t wrong, one of the other guides mentioned a walk around the HMS Belfast, which was moored near the Tower of London. It was then that we decided on a change of plans – we would detour to the Tower Hill station, spend sometime there and then head off home. It would mean being late for dinner with my aunt and uncle, but that could be postponed to the next day. By the time this discussion had finished the wind on top of the bridge had picked up significantly- it was strong enough at times that it almost threatened to pick up and send my camera flying!

We weren’t the only ones having trouble with the surge of wind – the helicopter we had seen earlier had returned now and judging from the slow speed it was moving and the movement of the banner behind it, it was having far more trouble up there than we were down here. We did manage to get a closer and clearer view of the banner though. God only knows what it was though – I lacked the context to understand and didn’t care enough to check it out. We headed onwards to Temple station, intent on reaching Tower Hill and getting home.

The trip there really longer than it should’ve been – most of it was spent waiting for the train to arrive as it had apparently gotten delayed earlier. My cousin cautioned me that this happened all the time – and it got a lot worse on weekends when stations would sometimes close entirely while works were being done.

It took us a while but we finally managed to make it to Tower Hill. One of the first things that got to me was how crowded it was. There were people headed everywhere, along with several buskers within the subway station itself. We made our way through the crowds and exited out into the late afternoon sun. It was a fair bit warmer than Temple station – a welcome relief from the cold. We moved on towards the tower of london, climbing a set of nearby stairs. At the top though, we found quite a spectacular view of the Tower of London and more importantly – a giant sundial.

I’ll be quite honest in this – both as a Geographer and an individual this was a fascinating thing to see. I’d never seen sundials this large before, so it was a fairly new thing from that perspective. But at the same time, what was more interesting were the inscriptions at the bottom that surrounding the outer perimeter of the sundial. The carvings were amazingly detailed and were like hour-hands of a clock, with each hour depicting a tale of exploration, conflict or other interesting events in UK’s history. It was a fascinating piece to see – and I managed to take quite a few photos of each section separately and in decent detail.

During this time my cousin had gone off to partake in some ice cream at the nearby van. While waiting for him, I managed to turn around and actually take a few pictures of the Tower of London. However, due to the clouds and poor lighting at the time only one picture really came out decent.

All I can say that – as one of the very few castles I’ve seen up close and personal – it would’ve looked awesome…if not for the giant ad banner that was sitting on that central tower. I don’t know why, but when I first saw it I thought it was just another of London’s buildings, poached by yet another marketing company. It took a few moments of consultation with a map to realize that yes, this actually was the tower of London. It…really doesn’t look like much of a tower, in all honesty.

I know what I said is a farce – this is quite a site of history as research would prove…but somehow, compared to all the other places I’ve seen so far, it just didn’t click. It was like an old building in an old part of town; albeit on a larger and grander scale – but still an old building overtaken by modern-day advances nonetheless. It didn’t have that air of  sheer contrast that St. Mary Le Strands or St. Dustin’s had from earlier. Still, it was fairly impressive and as I took a closer look I noticed something going on down in the moat below.

Determined to get a closer look, I went and got my cousin from the ice cream van (fortunately after he’d gotten one) and we moved down towards the Tower of London. On our way down to the tower though, we passed by a small garden known as Trinity Square Garden. Unlike the crowded area up ahead this one was fairly quiet and peaceful. There was an interesting building to the side with a statue of one of the Greek God at the top. Most likely a church I think. However, that wasn’t the main interesting thing about the garden.

Rather, it was this: the Tower Hill Memorial Arch, dedicated to all the civilian merchant marine and fishing fleets that had perished over the years nad during the major wars.

There was another section outside as well, with another list of names.

Before this became a bit too depressing though, we quickly moved on, crossing the road to the nearby Tower of London. This was a quite popular destination judging from the number of people around – and I got to take a closer look at the castle itself.

We approached the moat and I had to say that it was massive. I’ve never seen a pit so darn deep outside any structure. It took only a bit of imagination just realize just how much water this must have held – assuming it did, at least. Still, it was one hell of a defensive structure for its time.

Finally I turned to the event that was going on down in the other side of the moat. It appeared to be some sort of show – probably a part of the castle tours which showcased quite a fair bit of medevil weaponry, up to and including a small working trebuchet!

Here’s a video of the volunteers firing it – you really get an impression of how much force it takes to hold the thing down by the way they fell after letting go:

From there we headed down towards the Thames River, intent on finding the HMS Belfast which was supposed to be moored nearby. Along the way we passed by the pier – which was actually fairly busy. There were a ton of people waiting about, either in lines for tickets or lines to get into the various ferries that were going up and down the Thames River. Off in the distance we could see the famous Tower Bridge – a wondrous bridge, if I do say so – but one that we would revisit in a bit. For now we went in the opposite direction and soon reached what we were looking for: the HMS Belfast.

The first thing that hit me was just how damn big it was. I’ve always been a fan of naval warships – but I’ve never seen one up close and personal in my life and this was pretty much my first experience of such. The scale though was boggling – the Belfast was just a cruiser, but just seeing the size of the guns when compared to the people proved how big it was. I couldn’t imagine what the WW1 Dreadnoughts or WW2 Battleships must’ve been like in comparison!

I desperately wished that we weren’t on the wrong side of the embankment so I could go for the tour onboard her. But alas, we barely had the time to get back home at this point and going further was out of the question. Disappointed at not being able to board her, we turned around and headed back to the station. Along the way however,we stopped by the pier and I tried to get a few good shots of the Tower Bridge.

It was a fantastic view, to say the least. The last notable thing we did before leaving the area was take a peek into the Tower of London entrance and bridge. It was incredibly crowded though so we decided to avoid it and head on off.

Another thing I noticed here though were the birds. They were incredibly aggressive in the courtyard and I nearly collided with 3 of them that were flying low around the area while others on the ground didn’t really shy away if you came close – most of the pigeons just regarded you with their blood red eyes. I dont know why, but it was damn creepy and I made my way out of there as soon as possible.

After that we pretty much headed back home, barely making it in time for dinner – however when we got home it turned out that the plan to go out for dinner had been postponed to tomorrow. The rest of the evening was spent in fairly tame matters acquiring a quilt and a thick jacket for use in Virginia, followed by a fair bit of rest. Overall the day had been neutral – while Temple station had been slightly disappointing, there had been other things along the way that made up for it; plus I was now familiar enough with the tube system to go on my own. However, my cousin sister was intent on taking her kids to the Natural History Museum and Science Museum tomorrow, so the next day promised to be interesting indeed. We would see how things went.

As beautiful as the Palm may have been though, it was nothing compared to that of Europe. Rolling green hills, countless farms and rivers and streams – the sheer amount of green was a very welcome change to the depressing  browns and yellows of the Arabian desert. I took several photos at this stage; but similar to the ones before most of them were of very poor quality and mostly for reference.  However, there was a particularly interesting one here:

The picture was taken from about 11 kilometers up and is of what I suspect is Brussel’s nuclear reactor, as that is where we were closest to at the time. For 11 kilometers up, its a surprisingly clear shot. A lot of the other pictures suffered from problems of too much atmospheric haze and being taken from a generally cheap camera (6 megapixels my ass!).

Regardless, it was an interesting sight, albiet it a short one before we finally landed at Heathrow Airport at London. The first thing that struck me about the country was the weather. A somewhat cool breeze greeted me off the airplane before I boarded the bus to Terminal 5. It was a breeze that reminded me just how long it had been since I’d been somewhere actually cold. Sure, Bangalore was cold – but that was only there in the middle of night and then also it was with that tinge of sulphur and countless other pollutants that served to make you feel more sick than refreshed. Ras Al Khaimah was a bit better during winter, but the ever-present dust didn’t help it any.

The breeze here, though…it was a sensation made even more viscerally different due to the fact that the last breeze I had felt had been a hot one originating from the 40 degree heat and humidity outside of Dubai’s Terminal 1. The contrast was incredible, to say the least. And it didn’t stop there either. My aunt had come to pick me up and we headed out towards Southall, otherwise known as the “Little India” of London. Along the way we passed by greenery the types of which I’d rarely seen before. The only place close to it is maybe the Kranji reservoir area in Singapore, but even there it wasn’t as green as this. Either way, it was a truly fantastic sight to see.

The rest of the first day was spent in fair bit more mundane pursuits. My aunt brought me to her house at Southall, I met the many cousins that lived there and much unpacking was done. Turns out I’m staying up in a loft,  A bit later my elder cousin took me out and showed me around a bit more of Southall, including the Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurudwara. Its the biggest outside India, a fact clearly evident from the outside.

Front view of the Gurudwara - there's a section leading to underground parking to the right

The place is gigantic, to say the least. We went inside and paid our respects on the upper floor, which had enough room to accomodate several hundred people easily. Couldn’t get a good enough photo there, but did take some of the ground floor. In order:

Library entrance on the right side

Main entrance and stairs leading up

Me standing in front of the Langar hall, where the food is served

There was also a mural of sorts at the center of the main hall, right in front of the entrance.

Operation Blue Star Mural

The service had already passed by several days earlier, sadly.

We moved on from there and saw a bit more of Southall, including another, smaller Gurudwara. I was unable to catch the full name, but did grab a picture of it.

After that we headed home for the night – its not safe out on the streets at night, supposedly, so returning back was probably a good decision. Either way the next day would promise much, much more things to do.

The weather’s been horrid lately. At well over 44 degrees, the searing sun’s rays are only made worse by the latent humidity in the air; one that sticks to the skin like glue. I can feel it even when I place my hand on the hot windowpane next to me; its oppressive force held back only by the valiant efforts of the air conditioner that rests above it. The heat’s not something I’m going to miss much when I move out of here – at least, for now. There’s a good chance when winter hits in Virginia and I’m freezing on the sidewalk somewhere, I’ll end up begging for a heat wave like this.

If you’ve just tuned in to this and wondering what this is about, my dear reader, then allow me to allay this confusion by introducing myself. My name is a matter of inconsequence – all which is important is the fact that I am a 24 year old individual currently living in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. My current profession is that of an undergraduate student studying Geography and GIS. My hobbies include gaming and writing. My ultimate desire is to help people eventually; be it by building cities or simply by providing new context to the world we so easily take for granted.

My dream however, is far more benign. My dream is to one day surrender to my writing muse; handing it the key to the jail cell where my imagination lies locked up. It is my dream to one day set it free and unleash upon the world stories that were supposed to have been told a long time ago but never could. It doesn’t matter if nobody is listening – that’s never really the point. What matters is that it be told. That it exist, even as tiny 1s and 0s across the internet for the briefest of moments.

But such a day is far, far away and until then I hope to keep my muse occupied here, in this journal. It is here that I intend to catalogue not only my thoughts on various items from gaming to politics and anything else of interest, but offer what I hope is a unique perspective into this somewhat strange and surreal world across which I will soon be travelling.

Much like how comets tend to orbit a large gravity source, so too my thoughts now orbit a soon to be significant even to occur in my life: a shift to the United States to complete my education. To give a bit of a context to this entire thing, let me start from a fair bit earlier. My family shifted here to Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) in 2007 from Bangalore, India. During my first six months here in RAK, I worked. But beginning January 2008, I joined up with George Mason University, Ras Al Khaimah to finally get a degree.

At the time I chose to study Geography, as it was the only course they offered that interested me. It turned out to be a good decision, as the good grades over the next two to three semesters would prove. But then around six or so months ago GMU announced the closure of the local RAK campus, citing disagreements with the local partners. I don’t pretend to understand the circumstances surrounding the decisions taken, nor do I pretend that the sudden announcement wasn’t shocking or disturbing. In fact, it was quite jarring and affected my last semester grades significantly.

But at the end of the day as the dust settled from the slam of one door, the air filled with the somewhat loud creak of another one opening. While the local campus had closed down, the main office was offering its students the chance to study at the Fairfax campus in the United States at the same reduced fare we were paying at the local campus. A few months later and I now find myself with a US visa stamped on my red passport and all ready to go now. My tickets have been booked and I fly first to London and then onwards to the US around 3 days later. It promises to be an interesting trip – but my mind is strangely not worried about what lies ahead of me, but rather what I am leaving behind.

I don’t want to go too deep into my familial problems – such things are better left in privacy; but suffice it to say there are a lot of things to worry about. There were always lots of things to worry about, mind you, and I had to face it all once before when I left to Singapore way back when. The key difference between now and then though, is that I’m actually leaving them now.

Previously the separation was only a matter of the distance between me and my relatives just a few stops away and the next flight back. I knew that should things go wrong back home, there was a safety net that would help me get back. My brother eventually joined me in Singapore too, meaning that was one less thing to worry about.

But this? This is going across the globe, to a country with only two living relatives nearby (and that too around a hundred kilometres away) and which has taken greater men and spurned them away from the religious ideals and practices they’ve held so much dearer to their hearts. In many ways I should be a bit nervous and I was. My mind constantly thought  of the thousand horrible things that could have happened at whom, with me being trapped tens of thousands of kilometres away with little to no chance to help them. It was a frightening thought; a feeling of helplessness almost. But then I remembered the words of my mother, in her great wisdom:

“Do not worry about the things you can’t control, you’ll only end up making yourself worried sick and fail at everything. Focus on what you can change, what you can control directly and let God sort out the rest.”

I’m not much of a person for faith, but to a certain extent I recognize the validity of such a saying. In the highway of life, we are but cars driving along its lanes and abiding by its unwritten rules. Though we may weave through the ebbs and flows of traffic, overtaking our competitors or letting others gracefully pass, our ultimate destination still depends on where the roads take us.

Sometimes we can see the signs of what’s coming and can get off the highway before it does. Other times when the unexpected occurs, we find a ramp to do trick jumps off of to escape. But most of the time we end up focusing on the cars surrounding us a bit too much and don’t pay enough attention to where we’re going. Before you know it, you end up making a mistake and falling off the edge.

I dont intend to fall off the edge; not by a long shot. But to do so means tying up loose ends first, something that I plan to do over the next few days. This journey – this…pupil’s journey is really just a first step; the first in a long line of steps into uncharted waters. Maybe someday at the end of it I’ll find hope, enlightenment and some cake too.

Until next time.

(I hope its chocolate cake )