I may have been noticeable absent last week. It was not my intention. The truth is, I worked the holiday, and spent the rest of my free time at Manticon. I thought I could do it all, and I could not.
It was my first time attending, and only the second year they put it on. Compared to my only other convention experience, Convergence, it was quite the intimate gathering. They ended up with about 350 attendees, compared to about 20 times that for Convergence.
This is a three day convention centered specifically around the Honor Harrington series. You may be thinking that a convention geared toward a sci-fi series most people have never heard of has to be the epitome of geeky. Well... a little bit of column A, and little bit of column B.
We're all nerds, and we all recognize that. It's kind of amazing spending time around so many people who share that. It's a place where you'd be the odd man out for not wearing a uniform of a fictional military.
But there's more than you'd expect. I was surprised to find how many real current and former military members are part of this club. It kind of makes since when you think about it though. It's like the military, which they are interested in, but purely fun. No one really dies, and the good guys always win in the end.
Because of this, the panels there were a little too real for my taste. Some of them at least. They talked about life in a totalitarian government, and the physics of powered flight. But some were fun, like an authentic tea ceremony, and a brief sword lesson.
Having not taken time off of work, I didn't have the time or focus for such practical matters. I ended up spending more time playing games. You can look forward to a detailed description of the Artemis Bridge Simulator in a later post. Lets just say, these guys take gaming seriously.
Now that I've been, I'll definitely go again. Next time I'll have my uniform ready, and take some time off to take it all in.
No comments:
Post a Comment