The ZAON CD

Today I found a surprise. In the months following Leif's death, I searched his computers in vain for all the ZAON files I knew he must have. I remembered how hard he had worked on things like weapons, landscapes, and species of alien peoples. I remembered his showing me how he was creating landscapes with a computer program and some of the planetscapes he had created. I remembered things he had showed me on his computer back in Kansas. I searched in vain.

Today I was looking through a small box of his things that was in a closet, a box I hadn't looked at in all this time. They were things someone (perhaps me) had stuck in there when we cleaned out his apartment, little stuff like a couple of pocket knives, refrigerator magnets, a big plastic drinking jug from Alltel, a company he once worked for, and the like. And among the insignificant clutter was a CD with no label. When I looked at it closely, I could see "ZAON" written on it lightly.

To my surprise and delight, it appeared that many, if not all, of his ZAON files were on the CD, at least those he had backed up when he made the CD years ago. I not only found some landscapes he had worked on, but discovered what the program was that he used to make them.

Leif was an avid player of Planetside. I've written about that here before. I didn't know (or didn't remember) that the program to generate landscapes was from Planetside and was called Terragen. There are a lot more interesting planetscapes on the CD but I can't verify that he created them. These three, I believe I can because he named them with his "thegqpirate" handle, which was his email and online name in those days. (He changed it to Graeloch when he moved to Florida to begin a new life.) They were probably created in 2003.

I am sure there are others he created, but whether they are on this CD I don't know and probably never will. Still, I am glad to have these, something of his creativity to save and savor.

The CD had a lot of photos he had downloaded from the internet to use in creating unusual looking extraterrestrial human races, but unfortunately none of those he created from the mix. Those files must either have been on another CD or lost.

I spent a lot of time online recently trying to find out what had happened to ZAON. There are old discussions on some of the science fiction gaming boards asking the same question, but there are never any answers. The domain names are still registered, but there's nothing posted and the links I once had on the blog leading to ZAON are defunct. Sadly, I had to remove all of them.

All of the posts he put on the ZAON forums are lost to me now, and having read many of them in the months following his death and hoping to go back later and save them, I find it sad that so much of what he contributed is lost. All that seems to be left now is a PDF of the ZAON test playbook, an early version of what was someday to be published. Leif is listed as the "reality tester." in the credits. That title certainly did fit. He talked to me endlessly about whether the weapons that were being designed could really work, based on his knowledge as a military armorer, whether living species could actually function, whether space ships were workable designs. Leif really cared not only about the playability of the game, but the workability of the science fiction involved. For him, those were critical questions.

I wish that game had come to fruition and been published. I know he wanted that badly, wanted to see it out there for the gamers to enjoy, and to see his name as being one of the creators, in is way. Leif had the intelligence and talent to have been a designer. He had artistic ability and the capability to learn to use complex software. However, what he didn't have was the "fire in the belly" to go that route. He did not design the ships, the weapons, the planets, the races, but he helped to shape those designs with countless hours of both research and online conversation. It was such a part of him, and the participants in the design and testing of ZAON, and the players in Planetside, truly saved his life when he came back to Kansas from the army, medically retired, an emotionally broken man. I will always be grateful for that.

And now, I am grateful to have found these designs and remember him showing me how he worked on Terragen. Good memories. We need those.

Forever Linked

I don't understand families that treat their family members badly and hurt each other. I don't understand families that don't keep strong ties. There are so many that seem to feel it's just an onerous duty to spend time together.

And then there are families like mine that love to be together and gladly travel great distances to do it, families like mine that find it an important part of their identities, that want to be in contact. The mothers in my family are always bonded to their children, as I am bonded to mine. We are forever linked not just by a family name and "blood," but by love and shared memories.

It's those memories that come back, the happy and the sad, to keep those links alive, even past death. I remember Leif every day, but there are so many different things that trigger memories. Tonight it was a show on television. Peter started watching a science fiction show that took place in space and featured a fighter pilot, just the kind of show Leif would have chosen, would have loved, and would have commented upon. The moment I saw the space ships I thought of him and how he would have liked it. I will likely never look at a sci fi show or movie again without associating it with him, or see NASA photo of outer space without remembering the NASA images he had on his computer, or see the stars and moon in the night sky without thinking of him.

While we were in Egypt we saw some "falling stars," and I've seen one more since we got home. Those I associated with both my sons, Leif, because they were in the heavens at night, Peter A. because of his interest in planetary defense against asteroids.

I am forever linked to my sons, or, at least for my lifetime.

--------------------------
This "stairstep" photo of me with my sons was taken in Hawaii in the summer of 1980, when we were stopping there for a few days of vacation on the long move from Germany to Japan. Leif was five years old.

Avatar - The Movie He Would Have Loved

It was two years ago that Leif bought his Xbox 360 precisely so he could play the game Mass Effect. He was completely mesmerized by it and talked to us at great length about how good it was, in every way, story, graphics, music. He played it for many hours at a time, creating more than one character and playing different choices to see how the game would play out. He was fascinated that he could create a character much in his own likeness, and he did. Leif also liked to play role-playing games from the viewpoint of different characters, and always created female as well as male characters to play, whether in his CyberPunk games, Mass Effect, or others. He took many screen shots of his Mass Effect games and characters and some movie clips of his games, all of which I found on his computer. These are a few of the character shots. I don't know which game he used her in, but one of his female characters was named Arielle.

Leif loved science fiction, from Star Wars and Star Trek to Battlestar Galactica, and it was sad that he didn't stay alive to see the end of the Battlestar Galactica series, one he had watched, purchased through iTunes, watched again, and extolled in many ways.

Leif loved James Cameron's movies and watched them over and over. He had a lot of analytical things to say about them, as he did all the others above.

Yesterday afternoon we went to see "Avatar." Part of the way through it, I turned to Peter W. and said, "This is Leif's movie." It was the quintessential "Leif's movie." How he would have loved it! He would have seen it over and over. He would have purchased it. He would have memorized it. He would have analyzed it.

There were so many themes in this movie that were Leif's, from the injured and crippled marine who found a new life plugged into an avatar link ( which reminded me of the novel he began, the extant chapters of which I posted here), to the blue-skinned and wide-golden-eyed women of the Pandora planet. When he was working with the ZAON designers, one of the things he liked to do was experiment with the "look" of "other species" invented for the game, and change skin color, eye color and mix ethnic characteristics to get startling and striking new combinations. He would have loved the willowy blue beings in Avatar.

He would have loved the individualistic, defiant and courageous Jake Sully, and reveled in the battle scenes, the visual richness of the Pandora world, the incredible technology used to make this film. He would have thrilled to the mission Jake took on to save the Na'vi people and their planet from destruction at the hands of greedy humans from earth.

How I wish I could have shared this experience with him! How I wish he had seen it! The film made me cry, but I cried as much for Leif and the fact he could not see it with me as for the story itself. This was HIS movie.

ClockCycle - A Fictional Remembrance by Ken Katsujin

Yesterday our son Peter A. became a published science fiction author, his first story published in the online journal Kalkion under his pseudonym Ken Katsujin.

I was immensely touched and brought to tears that this story of his was a fictional remembrance of his brother Leif's life and death, and it brought me to tears, both when I read it yesterday and again tonight.

I thanked him for it, for remembering his brother, for writing about him. He seemed puzzled at my thank you, and more thrilled that he is now published and a "contender." I told him I thought he was always a contender, but he meant in the world of science fiction, of course.

I wish Leif could read this story. I wonder what he would think. I wonder what Michael will think. Leif wanted to matter. He just never knew that he did.

Read the story "ClockCycle" here.