Avoiding the Debate

The Monday after a convention is always a bit of a challenge because while there's a part of my brain that's revved up and inspired, it tends to get shouted out by my body and the rest of my brain, which just want to rest. But this is going to have to be a busy week as I try to come up with ways to start revving up the marketing machine for next week's big push. And then there's that pesky book I need to be writing.

Nothing really earthshattering came out of the convention. It was a pretty small, quiet con, which meant it was mostly good for hanging out with my friends. We're so busy running things at our own con that it's nice to hang out at one without having real responsibilities. We dubbed it "sofa con" as we spent most of the time sitting around on sofas in the hotel lobby and chatting as people passed by or joined us.

The Star Trek vs. Star Wars debate turned out to be not so much a debate as a discussion of the two franchises, their influences and their influence. The panel wasn't really set up to be a debate, with "moderators" for each team instead of a moderator throwing out questions to the two teams, and many of us on the panel could argue either way. I've never been big on the "vs." mentality that's so common in fandom, where you have to pick a side, and anything said in favor of the "enemy" is taken as a personal insult. I'm just generally keen on things with "star" in the title and spaceships, and I get different enjoyment from each of those franchises. I wouldn't want to give up either one, and both of them were big influences on me or inspirations at different times in my life. Kevin J. Anderson was the Star Wars team moderator, and I was the Star Trek team moderator, and we decided between us to just make it a discussion.

I will say that one possible factor in me agreeing to this was the fact that there were a couple of fully armored Stormtroopers in the audience. That wasn't exactly an incentive to argue against Star Wars.

Since FenCon has some prominent guests from the worlds of both Star Wars and Star Trek this year, I think I'm going to propose that we do have a proper debate with a moderator posing questions, and maybe even a time limit on responses and a formal rebuttal opportunity, like in a high school or political debate.