Inside Scoop page 1

IT'S TEN O'CLOCK. DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR ALTS ARE?

by Jezz

Recently I've been asked a few times how I cope with being married into a large Federation family. For those of you who don't know me, I'm married to Zardoz, Leader of the House of Doz, and he is generally considered to be somewhat... um... prolific. I've even been asked if I prefer to spend time with Zardoz or his dyslexic brother, Zodraz. Of course the answer to that should be obvious, because I married Zardoz and not Zodraz, but I found the question itself interesting.

I think the real question is more along the lines of "How do you view alternate characters? Is an Alt simply an appendage of the prime or a separate entity altogether?" The only way I can answer is from my own experience. I have an alternate character and I can safely say that she is distinctly different from me. While she and I both may have been spawned by the same mythical entity called The Player, and therefore have some natural similarities, our experiences in Federation space have been quite different. Even if The Player had intended to make a carbon copy, I believe that over time the differences would have emerged because the interactions between characters will never be quite the same from Alt to Alt.

Yes, I know some alts do very little besides hauling for their older counterparts, but that is one of the most obvious differences. While the prime character chats away on the comms channel, the alternate is content to be silent and simply accept their lot in life like a lump on a log... something that the Prime would never have done. I'm sure that many Players (if indeed such a thing truly exists) have found that if they spend time really "playing" their alts, character differences will surface quite naturally. Perhaps within each of us, a different aspect of the Player's personality seeks to be recognized.

Some characters born of the same Player are intentionally very different and it takes a skillful role-player to maintain those gross character differences throughout our Federation lives. I have found that the various members of the House of Doz are different in more ways than the superficial aspects of race or name. The thing that perhaps confuses people is that when need arises, the entire house can act in concert and take on almost a hive mentality. This doesn't mean they stop being individuals. It simply means they can all work towards the same end without arguing about it.

As Leader of the House of Doz, Zardoz has the ultimate responsibility for the wellbeing of the other members of the house. This naturally places a great burden upon him when he needs to make hard decisions for the other members. Zodraz has never really had to do that, which is probably a good thing since Zodraz does tend to get matters a bit backwards at times. I don't think I could have been happy in a house where all the members were clones with the exact same personality traits any more than Zard would want a Stepford Wife.

If you believe that there are "players" behind each and every one of us, creatures that live in a world without space travel or nanofabric clothes, but yet are still powerful enough to dictate every aspect of our lives (as ludicrous as that sounds) then you have to accept our Federation Universe as a role-playing environment. If one is truly role-playing, then the "player" becomes irrelevant and the only thing that matters is the character. Therefore all characters are individuals and the term "alt" shouldn't even exist, let alone be used in a denigrating manner. Most of us, however, seem mentally unable to completely separate character from player, myself included. But I think if we don't at least make the attempt to treat each character as an individual then we are denying part of the potential present in each one of us.

I suppose my point is that relationships in a large Federation family can be complex and interesting. I do try to treat each character I meet as a separate entity because that's what they are. I like some members of the House of Doz more than others because my interactions with them have been different. I know Zardoz doesn't interact with me in the same way that he interacts with my alternate, and if he does and I find out about it, he's going to be in BIG TROUBLE.

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