Justin's Fantasy Presidential Election 11:58 AM

Of course I cannot voice criticism or support of any Presidential candidate, but I will say that I've never exactly jumped for joy at the prospect of any of the presidential candidates in my lifetime. I was considering this while watching season five of Babylon 5. For those of you who don't know, or don't remember, that's the last season when John Sheridan (formerly commanding officer of B5) is president of the Interstellar Alliance. Naturally, I had the same thought any giant nerd would have: Why can't I have somebody like John Sheridan for my president?

John J. "Nuke 'em" Sheridan, hero of the Shadow War and President of the Interstellar Alliance, circa 2262

And then I thought; Wait, why not Laura Roslin?!

Laura Roslin, President of the 12 Colonies of Kobol and the woman who helped define "Hot Librarian."

Thus was born; Justin's Fantasy Presidential Election 2016!

That's right ladies and gents, It's John Sheridan, Hero of the Shadow War and the man who, by himself, has used more nukes in his ficitional career than any country has in reality, versus Laura Roslin, the Dying Leader who saved the human race from the Cylon nuclear holocaust and led them to Earth.

So let's break it down by category:

FISCAL POLICY: Granted Space Opera as a genre doesn't spend a ton of time on macro-economics, but we'll extrapolate from what we know:

John Sheridan: as the President of the Interstellar Alliance has to finance the Rangers (the Anlishak, not our Rangers) presumably from funds garnered from a dozen different alien governments (though Earth and Minbar probably front the lion's share). Also Sheridan has access to Michael Garibaldi, after 2262, the head of Edgars Industries and thus one of the Captains of Interstellar Industry. It's not much that we know, but what we know is tentatively positive.

Granted, the Occupy Wall Street crowd probably won't be too happy with his choice of contractors...

Laura Roslin: this may be Laura Roslin's weakest arena. Given the precarious and entirely space-bound nature of Colonial Society after the Fall, what we have in the Fleet is one of the most tightly controlled command economies (outside of the black market) depicted in any work of fiction (at least as "good guys"). This is not to criticize Ms. Roslin, given the situation it was probably the only rational set up available to those who survived, but let's face it, it's hardly the same as presiding over the economy of a free country NOT under the constant threat of genocide.

Okay, guys, I get it, working in the Tillium Refinery Ship sucks, but could you please wait until we're not all facing extinction before you go all Caesar Chavez on us...

Winner: Sheridan.

SOCIAL POLICY: As a min-archist, I tend to think the President really shouldn't have a social policy, per se, as most things falling under “social policy” are matters to be determined by private citizens, but for the sake of argument, let's look at how our candidates line up.

Roslin: Though Roslin is clearly the more liberal of the two candidates at heart, it's in the social arena where Laura Roslin has shown the most pragmatism; outlawing abortion in order to try and boost the population of the dwindling human race. Then again, it is also in the social arena that Laura Roslin has shown her most despotic tendencies; attempting to restrict the Cult of Baltar's right to peaceful assembly because of her fear of Baltar's growing popularity and her own personal hatred of the man.

Caprica Six? Check. Starbuck? Check. D'anna Biers? Check. Tori? Check. Hmm, guess I better start working my way through the extras.

Sheridan: This is the area where Sheridan comes across as a little Pawlenty- that is to say, there ain't much to say. True, Sheridan did support the establishment of a telepath colony on Babylon 5, marking himself as a proponent of minority civil rights, but when the going got tough, Sheridan handed their collective asses over to Psi-Corp, the Gestapo SS of telepaths. Not exactly an Abraham Lincoln moment.

Okay, I probably would have handed this pretentious hippie douche over to Bester five seconds after he showed up anyway...

Winner: Neither is an unmitigated success, but I'll give this one to Ms. Roslin. Her resolve is admirable, even if I don't always agree with her conclusions.

DEFENSE: The issue nearest and dearest to my heart for the tie breaker. This one's tough to call, as both candidates are probably at their strongest here. Let's see how they stack up.

Sheridan: Holder of the Earth Force Silver Star, the only human commander to destroy a Minbari cruiser without sacrificing himself and his ship in the process, the victorious supreme commander in war against not one, but THREE alien races billions of years more advanced than ourselves. Did I mention he's used nukes on FOUR seperate occasions, which is DOUBLE the real world historical number of two? Sheridan is unquestionably one of the finest military minds in his universe.

And I almost forgot to mention, when he defeated the Third Space Aliens, he rode a FREAKING NUKE in his space suit through the middle of the battle- and lived.

Roslin: Ms. Roslin started out a little rocky here, making some questionable early decisions, like refusing to cut losses when the civilian fleet was defenseless and under imminent threat of destruction. However, Roslin showed good judgment and an impressive ability to put aside personal feelings in empowering Commander Adama as military commander of the Fleet (though this relationship would have some serious bumps in its first year). Additionally, President Roslin showed the grit necessary to handle a clandestine enemy in her approach to the Cylon threat. My personal favorite is the occasion when she upbraids Starbuck for using, uh, “enhanced interrogation” on a Cylon skin job, then shoves the skin-job in question out an airlock when she doesn't like his answers to her own questions. Her hard nosed pragmatism allows the ragged colonials to survive when all by rights they shouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell.

And Starbuck is the good cop in this one...

Winner: This is a tough one, but I'm going to say Roslin. Let's face it, in today's environment, we don't need Julius Caesar or Patton in the White House. We need a President who can straddle a very fine line between maintaining the core principles of the Republic, while playing rough enough to thwart an enemy with no moral boundaries of their own. If we were still staring at the Soviet Hordes over the Fulda Gap, I'd probably give the nod to Sheridan, but the fact is he's too idealistic to deal with monsters like Osama bin Laden.

Frak waterboarding, eat vacumn terrorist scum!!

So what do you think? The war hero turned messianic leader of a vast interstellar alliance? Or the school teacher who rose to shepherd the broken remnants of the human race to the promised land?

It's been awhile, short version: went to Afghanistan, had another daughter, came home, waiting on command, trying to get back into writing science fiction and fantasy. Living in absolute paradise with my wife and children.

I've been monkeying with story ideas ever since the last couple months of the deployment and I've been fiddling with some outlining and such since I've been home, but something happened the other day that really kicked me in the ass.

There's a guy named Brad Torgeresen who has his novella on the cover of the latest Analog. Analog, for those not in the know, is one of two actual dead-tree magazines printing science fiction (the other being Asimov's). Analog, Asimov's and their electronic counterparts are heir to the tradition of the original sci-fi pulp magazines that first published guys named Heinlein, Bradbury, Clarke, Asimov and Sturgeon.

The name Brad Torgeresen hit me like a small electric shock. You see, about three years ago I was taking a halfhearted swing at getting a couple of shorts published. There was an online sci-fi magazine called Baen's Universe (now defunct) that allowed anybody, pro or amateur, to electronically submit their stories directly into a slushpile. There, the magazine editors and aspiring authors alike would be able to offer constructive criticism and the story would be considered for publication.

One of the other fledgling half-baked proto-writers with whom I had a fair bit of discussion was... Brad Torgeresen. Three years ago, he was exactly where I was; trying to break into the business. Now he's an established pro. He's won some reasonably prestigious awards, published multiple short stories and novellas and I'm sure I'll be seeing a novel from him soon enough. One of his award winning novelettes is available by itself from Analog via Kindle- I remember reading a draft of it in the old Baen's Universe Slush Pile before that magazine went under.

Three thoughts zipped through my mind, upon seeing his name on the cover of Analog- 1) Good for him. 2) It CAN be done. 3) Get of your ass and start writing, Watson. Seriously, three years ago, you two were in the same place, now he's made it and you haven't.

Okay, sure, I've had a bit going on. There was a trip to Iraq in there, and another to Afghanistan. I have two wonderful daughters and the best wife on the face of the planet, all of whom require a fair deal of attention. But the truth is that neither my family nor my career are really what stopped me from getting published. The real root is that in three years, I don't even have a rejection notice to show for my efforts, and given my writing process, it's not that hard to see why.

Instead of sitting down, outlining, writing, revising and then submitting my work to the appropriate market, my process looks more like this: Sit down, outline... outline some more, okay, maybe write a bit, crap, this sucks, never mind. Knuckle down, come back to it. Well, now I'd rather write a swashbuckling sword and sorcery story rather than a police procedural set in a future colony on Mars. Okay, let's try that then, outline... outline some more... quit color coding elements of your venue in the story... dammit, stop ripping off Weis and Hickman in general... no there isn't room for ninjas in this one either(thanks for that honey, :), okay, write for a bit, oh crap, this sucks too. You know what, I think I'd rather write some classic Space Opera anyway...

And what bruises my ego the worst, I think, is that I know I'm hardly the only person with a creative impulse that suffers pretty much this exact same neurosis. I don't even get to be unique and special in my angst and suffering. I might as well dye my hair black and start cutting myself. Blech,

Well, I have decided to start getting some rejections under my belt. The average length the magazines want for a short is 6,000 words. That takes me about three to four hours to write, once I know what I want to say. The trick is in working and re-working it into something I can sell. To keep the goal modest and realistic, I'm going to commit myself to submitting one short story per month. My first deadline is November 30th, that way I can get in a submission for the quarterly Writers of the Future Contest.

I will keep ya'll updated with the submissions, the rejections, and (eventually) the sales. Wish me luck.