Sharknado

It's a tornado made of sharks! That's really all you need to know about the most awesomely bad movie franchise ever that will air it's third installment this Wednesday on Syfy. Really, it's that simple, if you can get that, you just shut your brain off for the best mindless entertainment available on basic cable. But if you must know more, here are the synopses for the first two movies, as if you actually need to know what's going on. Before I get started on individual synopses, let's start with what they have in common. Both movies involve a sharknado, presumably the scariest thing a Syfy producer could imagine in which a hurricane scoops a bunch of sharks into the air, then comes inland where the tornado continues to cause destruction while dropping sharks onto the fleeing people where in the last throes of life the sharks eat people, and occasionally fall in water where they actively hunt people. Our hero is Finn Sheppard, played b Ian Ziering, a former marine who desperately tries to save his family by gathering them and taking them further inland where he basically takes down the last of the sharks with a chainsaw. Yup that's about it.

Okay, for specifics to each movie, the first Sharknado has Finn running a bar on the beach in California with a bikini waitress named Nova with a distinct scar on her leg. After surfing one morning, they get to work in the bar and the Sharknado hits, destroying the bar. Finn gets away in his truck along with Nova, his best friend, and one of the bar's regulars. The customer dies valiantly trying to protect Finn and Nova and the two make it into the hills where Finn's ex-wife April, played by Tara Reid, lives with their kids and her new boyfriend. Finn tried to convince them they should leave, but the sharknado catches up and a shark swims into their living room, eats the new boyfriend, and everybody else manages to escape and head further inland looking for Finn's son who is at a military flight camp. More random destruction ensues from wind torn refuse and sharks, the guy who does the voice of Choji on Naruto plays a bus driver who gets taken out with a fragment of the Hollywood sign while Finn saves all the children on the bus. The Sheppard clan manages to find Finn's son where they finally come up with a plan to stop the tornadoes by blowing them up from the inside. Please do not try to figure out how the physics of this plan actually works, it is not worth the aneurysm that you will suffer. Finn's friend dies, but the really awesome finale that must be seen to be believed is when Nova is eaten whole by a shark, then Finn jumps chainsaw first into a shark and cuts his way out and coincidentally, it happens to be the same shark Nova was eaten by and they both emerge safely and unharmed, though covered in shark blood.

Few could imagine that there is any way to top this, but they tried and in my opinion, succeeded. I admit it should not have happened but it did, so let's just accept this and move on with the sheer absurd insanity that is Sharknado 2: the Second One. Yes folks, that is the name they settled on; they had a contest with several awesome names including my personal favorite Sharknado 2: the Sharkening, a nod to Highlander 2: the Quickening arguably the worst sequel before the Sharknado series, but Syfy went minimalist. This sequel picks up with Finn and April going to New York City to promote their book, "The Sharknado Survival Guide" which is an actual book you can get and I have a copy. On their flight in, another Sharknado hits their plane in midair and April tries to shoot at the flying sharks which bites off her left hand which is not only holding the gun but also wearing her engagement ring that she never quite got around to removing after her divorce. Yes, this is some ridiculous shit and you know damn well that shark and the hand are coming back later in the movie, but that is much later, so let's just take our time with the amazing, totally unbelievable bullshit that happens in between. First April is taken to a hospital where she's treated for her shark bite/amputation. April pulls through and she's fine other than losing her hand. Meanwhile, she and Finn know the drill and prepare to protect everyone form the sharknado. For a film with a thin plot, it gets padded with cameos and random shark attacks, which are actually quite entertaining to the target audience, because let's face it, if you tuned in, this is what you wanted to see. The film truly surpasses it's predecessor for three specific reasons. #1. Vivica A. Fox fights sharks with a sword. I don't really know why it happened, Finn suggested collecting weapons and Vivica finds a sword in one shop then proceeds to slash at flying sharks with it to defend Finn while he prepares his tornado stopping bomb. I am a sucker for swords so I don't really care if it was the dumbest part of the movie, it was also the most awesome scene ever. #2. Finn jumps into the sharknado with a chainsaw and takes on multiple sharks while flying through the storm. I wasn't sure that they could top the iconic scene from the first movie, but they found a way by just making more of everything, more sharks, more tornado, more chainsaw, more Finn. This was an insane scene but bravo to Syfy for having the balls to do it. #3. the resolution to April's lost hand becomes the ultimate unlikely show of deus ex machine ever: April attaches a small buzz saw to her stump and uses the makeshift prosthetic hand to protect Finn from a flying shark while Finn prepares his last stand, then another shark flies at them while they are on top of the Empire State building, the last shark after the sharknado has been stopped by Finn's explosives, and Finn looks down to see that the shark April took down with her buzz saw is the one that bit her hand off and the hand is still in the shark's mouth with the ring and gun, Finn picks up the hand, uses the gun to shoot down the last shark and then reproposes to April with the ring while discarding her severed hand! You can not make that shit up!

I am not sure exactly what this next one has in store, but I know this, they will be in Washington D.C. the sharks will be attacking politicians, PLAYED BY ACTUAL POLITICIANS, and David Hasselhoff is in it. Bring. It. On.

Mongoliad Book 2

As if the first book hadn't introduced enough, this book chooses to make it even more complicated by introducing a plot regarding the election of the Pope, which actually was a rather notorious event that happened to coincide with the Mongol Invasion. In this book it is only tangentially related by two survivors of the Battle of Mohi, the base event setting the entire story in motion, ending up in Rome and one being Father Rodrigo, a priest with connections to the OMVI or Shield Brethren managing to get into the papal conclave and give us semi-relevant eyes into the whole situation. Meanwhile, the other survivor is Ferenc a Magyar hunter who only knows his unique regional dialect and is entirely unable to communicate with anyone else in Rome, except a young Binder named Ocyroe who can communicate using Rankos Kalba, a form of sign language as fictional as the Binders themselves. We still aren't given much information on these Binders, they are an all female order of messengers with a secret language, but beyond that we know nothing. A large portion of the book is dedicated to these events, but nothing is said of what this has to do with anything else beyond a shared starting point and time.

Meanwhile, in Poland, the story of the circus of swords is elaborated upon following Andreas and Rutger against the Knights of Livonia and Ongwe Khan and their alliance with Kim Alcheon and Zugokaitso no Yama. Farther East, the main heroes get very little coverage as they follow the Silk Road to Mongolia in an attempt to assassinate Ogedei Khan, a plot prolonged primarily by simply being ignored for most of the book. The most consistent story is that of Gansukh and Lian who travel beyond the walls of Karakorum to the borderlands of China.

The story, or rather stories are rather good, but the pace at which the authors switch between them can be annoying, you get started enjoying one story and it switches to something else. In my attempt to write a fanfiction for Kindle Worlds I was very interested in following the story of Hakkon, but after a chapter or two he is mostly forgotten- not dead though, the last mention is that Ongwe Khan delivered him to his father and he is now on the road with the Khagan and Gansukh and Lian, but with the focus in that area shifted off of him, he becomes invisible background. I started reading this thinking I was going to mainly get a story of the fighting Shield Brethren, but this ended up being more about the political intrigue in the Vatican and the romance of Gansukh and Lian and woefully little was said about the people I wanted to read about. Also, the back cover blurb once again has a false sell, suggesting more of a connection between the people in Rome and the travelers on the Silk Road than is actually demonstrated. I can only hope the third installment brings everything together better than this book did.

Jurassic World

I saw Jurassic World and it was awesome. It was exactly what a Jurassic Park movie should be, almost what I wanted the first one to be. I would like to think Michael Crichton would be proud of what was done with this film. It did rehash some old tropes, but it did them so badass that even when you can tell what's going to happen, you still think "Wow, that was cool...do it again!"

So in case you somehow missed what the whole deal is, scientists figured out how to recreate dinosaurs and decided to make a zoo/theme park where people can check out the dinosaurs. In the original movie they attempted to create the park and invited a few experts to see what it was like and coincidentally at the same time a tech decided to steal some of the dino embryos for a competitor and while overriding the security system leaves everyone vulnerable to predatory dinosaurs and also revealed that their attempt to control dinosaur breeding had failed and they were now independent, and oh yeah velociraptors can open doors so there's nowhere to hide.

In this movie, they try the theme park again and this time everything works fine and they hired a guy from the Navy (Owen played by Chris Pratt) to train the velociraptors. Okay, the whole velociraptor trainer thing is a bit contrived to make a hero character, but seriously, he is the most perfectly badass hero this franchise could have. He trains raptors, his most badass moment is when he introduces the raptors to the kids and they ask "Who's the Alpha?" and he replies "You're looking at him." Sorry Sam Neil and Jeff Goldblum, even Sam L. Jackson, nothing you do will make you as cool as a guy who rides a motorcycle and leads a pack of raptors. The only way to make this cooler was if the raptors had some parrot DNA and could speak(not that strange in context, but I'll get to that) and/or Owen was somehow part dinosaur, but that may be in the sequel, so let's not give up hope yet. Seriously though, based on the Jurassic Park franchise thus far, Owen is the guy that would result from winning a fan poll of who you want to see next; a minority of critics may not like Owen, but the other 99% of people who actually watch this film will love him.

Of course, with the velociraptors under control we need a new badass dinosaur, enter the Indominus Rex, a T-Rex that has been boosted with the DNA of multiple creatures to make it bigger and scarier, and well, somethign that should not be. Now, I was a bit skeptical at first, this is supposed to eb a dinosaur movie and creating a brand new dinosaur species is kind of saying nature failed to impress us. But they actually address this in the movie, with an explanation that in our world of advancing technology and wanting to see the next big thing, only little kids with an innocent sense of wonder are still impressed and usually only for one visit, they need something more so they have to breed something new. Then we are reminded of the underlying message of scientific ethics behind this whole concept, should humans be playing god with genetics and creating species that went extinct? As a scientist I can say, no, this should never happen, because the reality is if dinosaurs had never gone extinct humans never would have existed, we evolved from mammals that thrived only because of the Ice Age that killed the dinosaurs, and if we brought them back to our world of global warming, they would most likely hunt humans to extinction, though we may be able to thrive in the arctic, but unless everyone wants to move to Antarctica and farm penguins, no we do not want dinosaurs back in our current ecosystem. Of course corporations don't think that far ahead and proceed with Indominus and it turns out to be the most badass monster ever. I thought of SyFy channel's monster movies, and I want those people to watch Jurassic World so they know what to do, because this is what they try to do but fail. I don't want to give away too many spoilers but there is a scene where a velciraptor and a T-Rex double team the Indominus...there is simply no description I can give that does this scene justice, but it is the scene that is worth the price of admission, you MUST see it. Afterward the T-Rex and the raptor(Blue) look at each other and you can tell the T-Rex is all like, "I'd high five you but...you know...T-Rex arms." and Blue is just like "I got you bro."

So my review is five stars out of five, if you are the kind of person that liked Jurassic Park and want to see more of that, than this is the movie for you. And if you're not, I highly doubt you read this far anyway.

Final Fantasy VII Remake and Crisis Core.

So yeah, Final Fantasy VII is being remade for PS4, so even though I don't own one, I will be purchasing one just to play this game. In my opinion it's still second to FFVI, but I am curious to see what they come up with. I've heard there will be some big changes, I'm expecting voice overs, I hope Steve Burton is back for Cloud, though he's done it for every other game, so I don't see why not. What I really want though is to correct some of the dialogue that got screwed up the first time, specifically two things: #1 "Turks" is always said "Turks" ike it's plural even in cases where it should be the singular "Turk" or other syntax mismatches, please correct that grammar; #2 Barret saying"The Hell..." instead of "What the Hell?" or "Where the Hell?" he's missing a word and I don't want anyoe telling me this is some black person dialect, I know lots of black people and heard them speak all sorts of alternative dialects, none of them talk like Barret, it's not black, it's a lazy translator at Square, probably the same one that did "Turks" own up to it and correct it like you did with "Vicks/Biggs" in FFVI.

As long as I'm on the subject of FFVII, I'm going to talk about Crisis Core. Crisis Core is a prequel concerning Zack Fair and how he connects Cloud, Aerith, Sephiroth, and even the Buster Sword and Yuffie. To understand first you need to know FFVII. The whole game centers around Cloud Strife and Sephiroth. Cloud is the main character, a former SOLDIER First Class who has joined AVALANCHE, a rebel group who are basically eco-terrorists trying to take down the Shinra energy corporation, which is interestingly the only major corporation and seems to be a nation unto itself. To be fair, Shinra has done some bad things, particularly creating Sephiroth from the remains of an ancient monster who himself ends up being the ultimate threat trying to destroy the planet with a meteor. But I'm getting ahead of myself, early on Cloud sees signs of Sephiroth's return which is shocking because he clearly remembers killing him five years earlier. His flashback is critical not only for this game but also Crisis Core because it's really the reason anyone should care about Crisis Core, because it expands on the flashback and tells the whole truth. But before I get to that, let me finish explaining why we need to revisit this critical flashback. Cloud remembers accompanying Sephiroth to his hometown of Nibelheim where Tifa Lockhart is their guide and then Sephiroth discovers a terrible secret at the Shinra Manor and goes berserk burning the whole town and Cloud ends up fighting Sephiroth and kills him. However, once they return to Nibelheim, Cloud's story begins to fall apart and Tifa reveals she remembers Cloud's story, but doesn't remember him being there, she remembers a SOLDIER named Zack Fair, who was Aerith's boyfriend(that last detail is not relevant now, but stay with me). Sephiroth manages to convince Cloud he is actually a clone of Sephiroth and confuses him long enough to get him to hand over the Black Materia which will call the Meteor and end the world. Eventually we sort out the truth, Cloud was there in Nibelheim five years ago, but he was only an infatryman under Zack andf Sephiroth. The reason his memory got screwed up is because Zack had to haul him all the way to Midgar while he was still in a coma after they were locked in a lab after the fight with Sephiroth.

Okay, now let's go to Crisis Core and sort out exactly what happened from Zack's perspective. It all starts during the Wutai War, which means a cameo from Yuffie. Zack is a SOLDIER Second Class, and he has been taken under the wing of Angeal, SOLDIER First Class. The First Class are very exclusive, only three at the beginning of Crisis Core, Angeal, Sephiroth, and Genesis. Each one has a unique sword, Angeal got the Buster Sword from his father as a present for making First Class, and Spehiroth of course has his Masamune, Genesis has a red sword that really doesn't matter, however he is the catalyst that gets things going. These three also all happen to be products of experiments with Jenova cells. Genesis was the first, created by Angeal's parents who didn't realize they were expecting him and accidentally contaminated their own unborn child. This led to two different results, neither perfect, but both providing enough data to get it right on the third try, Sephiroth. Genesis is unstable and kind of loses his mind, so Angeal and the newly promoted Zack have to go looking for him. This is actually a difficult task because Genesis has the power to copy himself, giving his cells to others turnign them into clones so he can use the copies to distract his pursuers. While pursuing the copies, Zack falls into a church, the same one Cloud will fall into five years later and meets Aerith there too. The Turks know about her, but they're takig a less agressive approach at this point, deciding to let Zack be an inside man because it will be too suspicious to simply extract him after he bonded with her. Not a whole lot happens there, just enough to make you really sad about what you know is going to happen later. Anyway, Zack and Angeal pursue Genesis to a remote location and their transport crashes nearby, and Zack has to finish the trek in on foot with one infantryman, namely Cloud Strife. They hit it off quick, but then the confrontation with Genesis happens and Angeal is torn between protecting Genesis and protecting Zack and finally settles on sacrificing himself. Zack finds the Buster Sword and claims it as his own and takes Cloud under his wing the same as Angeal once did for him. Sephiroth is now the leader of SOLDIER and leads an investigation to Nibelheim. This is really the climax of the game, the whole reason you're playing is to watch this part play out and it's just like you remember it from FFVII, only way better graphics and voiceovers. You fight Sephiroth one-on-one with "One-Winged Angel" playing in the background. Then things get wierd. For some reason the ending drags Genesis back for the requisite Death God of Doom Final Battle. I am just perturbed because we already know Spehiroth is goign to be the great destroyer later on and Dirge of Cerebrus gave us Omega Weapon vs Chaos Weapon, which is at least piggybackign on lore from the original game, but Genesis comes out of nowhere, theres not even a real explanation in the game, he just happens like the game wouldn't be complete without this fight. Furthermore, knowing there are already two ways this world is supposed to be destroyed, finding a full third doomsday threat I begin to wonder, maybe we should just let this world die, the odds are stacked against the mortals at this point. Things come back to normal for the finale when Zack finally gets within sight of Midgar and you have to face his true final fight against the full army of Shinra and dies. It's slow, painful and totally fittign for the character's death scene. You already knew it was coming but finding out Zack just realized he and Cloud have been in a coma for four years, and he and Aerith still didn't give up on each other, the whole final scene is just heart-wrenching no matter how much you try to prepare for it.

A while back I heard about challenges to play FFVII with minimal or even no materia. Here's my challenge for the remake, I call it the Story Challenge. You need to work with the story no matter how detrimental it is to your materia and equipment. Since yu can't get rid of the Buster Sword, the Seraph Comb or Barret's gun hand, you must keep these equipped throughout the game. The real challenge is materia, nobody can equip any materia other than what they start with, with four exceptions: Cloud has purple materia in his flashback, so you can equip him with one (or two if one is cover or counter) purple materia on his armor; Aerith may use any green, red or blue materia; Vincent may use fire, ice, or thunder on his gun a la Dirge of Cerebrus and Ifrit because it's similar to his limit break; Yuffie is a materia hunter and may equip any materia especially Leviathan because it's from her story, in fact only she can use Leviathan. This means Tifa, Barret and Cid can't use any materia for the whole game and Cait Sith and Red XIII are restricted to their starter materia. Goodluck when the game comes out!

Finales: Game of Thrones, Inuyasha The Final Act...Wayward Pines(?)

So last week we saw the end of some series/seasons and I wanted to provide my commentary.

First of all, let's just get Game of Thrones out of the way. SPOILER ALERT, lots of people died. Sansa and Theon/Reek did not, at least I don't think so, they just jumped but I think they survived, but Reek will die later. Jon Snow did die, and contrary to many hopes he will not come back. I know the prevailing theory is Melisandre will ressurrect him, but if that were possible, why didn't she do that for Stannis? Not that I want Stannis to come back, I'm glad Brienne got her vengance on that daughter killing prick. The only other death I feel is worth picking out is Jamie Lannister's daughter. I mean, seriously, we have one hapy story going on, she found a man she loves, she knows her uncle is her father, she's cool with everything...and then she dies from poison from that Dornish bitch. I guess George R. R. Martin feels a character is no longer worth keeping if they are actually happy. On the other hand Arya's been blinded after getting righteous vengance on a pedophile, but she needs to learn a lesson about not giving into such personal hatred, the Faceless Men are successful because they have no personal connections and therefore no motives to connect them to the deaths they deal out; once she learns her lesson she will see more clearly than ever. Of course everyone is really thinking about Cersei's naked walk of shame(damn them some nice boobies!). But the real question is...WHERE THE F**K IS BRAN STARK? The previous season left him with the Children of the Forest and this season left him still freezing his ass off in the North Pole. Dammit, he's the Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, the oldest remaining male Stark, he deserves some frickin' screen time!

Meanwhile, in the shadows, a very important series finally ended, Inuyasha. I already mentioned Inuyasha in an earlier post, and after over a decade, the story has finally been concluded. Kikyo finally died, for real this time, but she was the only real casualty,all the other hero types managed to beat death, even Miroku beat his curse! Naraku managed to collect all of the shards of the Shikon Jewel, but it turns out, he himself was merely a tool of the jewel just to try and trap Kagome's soul. Inuyasha's love for Kagome proved stronger and they finally got rid of the jewel and Naraku forever, along with all of his incarnations and minions. Oh and shippers, not only do Inuyasha and Kagome end up together, but so do Miroku and Sango(they even have three kids!) and Koga isn't alone either, his betrothed makes an honest man out of him, and as for Sesshomaru and Rin, she's still a little young, but it's strongly implied they are meant to be as well.

Finally, I just want to say something about Wayward Pines if you're watching, yes, that actually was the truth, no they weren't lying to the Burkes, they were actually preserved in stasis for 1800 years only to live in the last town isolated from a post-apocalyptic landscape full of mutant cannibals.  Aren't we glad we have an extra week after getting our minds blown to recover before going back on that acid trip?

Singularity of Man and Machine

Today I will veer off of my usual entertainment reviews and share my views on something that may blur the lines between science fiction and fact. This subject is the singularity of man and machine, when cyborgs and androids will become possible and virtually induistinguishable. Yes, many talk about it, but I seriously believe this will happen during our lifetime for two reasons.

First, I keep hearing about medical researchers trying to make a chip that will allow for a direct neural interface, or to put it more plainly, controlling your computer directly with your brain. The reality is if you understand neurons and microchips, they both transmit information by electrical impulses, the only difference is the material they are made out of, but it is entirely posible to allow for brain signals to be translated into electronics so that people can operate machines as if they were actually a part of their body. The reason scientists are working on this is to help paralyzed individuals to be more independent by operating robotic limbs or using computers to communicate when their mouths no longer allow them to speak. This technology is key to breaking the barrier between man and machine and as long as altruistic scientists keep pursuing this goal for the greater good with little to no consideration for the possible consequences, this will happen.

Second, the other reason we're going to go Matrix is just how willing we are to accept the next big thing in communications. Consider this, when I was a kid, we still had a rotary phone and a black and white TV that picked up only the basic local networks, potentially thirteen channels, but really only five. We have gone from that to smart phones and widescreen HD televisons with cable and satellite not to mention the internet which came out of nowhere and has become integral in all of our lives. People will sand in line for the next iPhone before it's even announced, do you really think there will be any shortage of people who will upgrade from a touchscreen to surfing the net with their brain? I think not.The reality is it will happen rather seamlessly, people will barely notice when we cross the line. An executive from some cell phone company will agree to fund the research for that brain chip on the condition that his company gets commercial distribution rights. A desperate but well-meaning and altruistic neurologist with a morally ambiguous engineer will agree to those terms and with some young trendsetter who can't wait to Facetime from her brain and agrees to be the first user of the chip will be the four people that break the barrier between man and machine. The breakthrough will be more subtle than you think, no bigger than Google Glass or the iWatch, someone will simply annonce the next interface. There wil be surgery involved, but proponents will argue that putting silicon in your brain is no much different than putting silicone in your breasts. thousands, maybe millions will get wired in the first year or two.

Now here's the significance we need to realize, once we are able to interact with the internet like this, it will only be a matter of time before we live entirely virtually. Someone working on Artificial Intelligence may design a virtual baby app that allows virtual people to propogate online by mixing brain data to create an artificial life form that will exist only in the computers, we will upload ourselves and leave our bodies of flesh behind and the bnext generation of elite will exst entirely in the digital world. Think that's crazy? Take a look around you right now at how many people are on their smatphones checking social networks. It's not that humanity isn't ready, it's that the technology is just a little too slow. But it will happen.

Red Heaven of Alzoidea

I've decided to take some time to share an idea I've been working on for awhile. Red Heaven of Alzoidea is my working title for a sci-fi that I may be working on in a few years, I really have a lot I need to finish before I take on this project. Anyways, the basic premise is this, colonization of Titan the dominant moon of Saturn. There have been many theories about how it may possibly be able to support life as the most Earth-like object in our solar system. My version involves humans taking the most important species of animals and plants to support human civilization to terraform Titan in biospheres. On the way to Titan, the colonists pass by Jupiter, or rather through Jupiter, specifically the great red spot, which is populated by an alien species who call the red spot Alzoidea and themselves Alzoideans(hence the title, the Alzoideans revere their ancestral home and refer to it as the "Red Heaven of Alzoidea"). This species may have evolved from cells that came from Earth, now they appear to be something like a cephalopod species, with twelve tentacles, five on either side webbed like a vampire squid, forming wings that they use to glide through the atmosphere, however they can condense the wings and compress their bodies to resemble humanoids. The colonists finish their pilgrimage with some Alzoideans who settle Titan with them. Convergent evolution leads a few animals to becoming humanoid specifically cats, horses, dogs, pigs, and rats, in roughly that order, at least in hierarchy. The first three were pets, pigs were livestock, and rats were among unwanted pests that stowed away. Some humans began interbreeding with these humanoid animals, resulting in sterile hybrids, until scientists corrected the genetic flaws and made it possible for hybrids to breed with humans and each other. They started with rats of course because rats will always be used for experimentation, and then applied what they learned to others. Horses and dogs were popular among the wealthy eccentrics, pigs and goats were too poor, but the cats changed everything. When the cats first became capable of speech, humans told them about Bastet, the cat goddess, but did not consider how they would come to believe themselves divine and deserving to rule over the others. The trigger was hybrdization, the cats did not like their bloodlines being muddied by humans so they began hunting the feline hybrids. Their ethnic leansing escalated until it became the Hybrid War, the felines declared war on everybody else, enslaving the pure breeds and exiling the mixed breeds. There were god-like immortal cyborgs, but the cats figured out how to destroy them as well, displacing them and claiming their own power over Titan.

A couple of generations after the Hybrid War we meet Martin, a lab rat, literally. Martin is half human, one quarter rat, one eighth dog and one eighth horse. His father was a scientist, himself the offspring of a half-horse and a half-dog, his mother a second generation half-rat that was meant for further experimentation. Martin was modified to be slightly electrogenic which consequently also resulted in meroamelia. His father ended up loving him anyway and raised him until the age of fifteen when he got his full-size adult prosthetic arm. At this point in time, in fact coincidentally the same day, the Bastet Empire comes to take down the lab and capture everyone for the fighting arenas. Yes, fighting arenas, because that's how the Bastet assert their power, forcing the unsavory, especially rats and dogs, to fight to the death for their entertainment. Martin is able to escape eventually and explores the rest of Titan, meeting Alzoidean tribesmen, pig farmers, native Titanians, and a resistance group of dog and horse crossbreeds who intend to overthrow the Bastet and make a world where all species can coexist. Martin falls in love with one of their high ranking members, a beautiful quarter-dog/quarter-horse/half-human and also discovers their secret weapon, the half-human bastard princess of the Bastet.

Well, that's kind of all I've got for now, feel free to give me feedback and we'll see how this goes.