I have been playing Elite:Dangerous lately, and it is a really wonderful game. I have also been playing in a Vampire: The Masquerade game online with a few friends. The game is intended to be a long running game, and it begins in Ancient Greece about 403 BC, with the PCs as humans who are not yet embraced.

During the initial encounters with the first actual vampires the players meet, their powers were staggering and mysterious. As one of the PCs dealt with it, he was trying to describe the bewilderment. It wasn’t appropriate to say it then, as it would kind of break immersion but I was again reminded of this exchange between G’kar and Catherine Sakai, in Babylon 5:

Catherine Sakai : Ambassador! While I was out there, I saw something. What was it?
G’Kar : [points to a flower with a bug crawling on it]  What is this?
Catherine Sakai : An ant.
G’Kar : Ant.
Catherine Sakai : So much gets shipped up from Earth on commercial transports it’s hard to keep them out.
G’Kar : Yeah, I have just picked it up on the tip of my glove. If I put it down again, and it asks another ant, “what was that?”,
[laughs]
G’Kar : How would it explain? There are things in the universe billions of years older than either of our races. They’re vast, timeless, and if they’re aware of us at all, it is as little more than ants, and we have as much chance of communicating with them as an ant has with us. We know, we’ve tried, and we’ve learned that we can either stay out from underfoot or be stepped on.
Catherine Sakai : That’s it? That’s all you know?
G’Kar : Yes, they are a mystery. And I am both terrified and reassured to know that there are still wonders in the universe, that we have not yet explained everything. Whatever they are, Miss Sakai, they walk near Sigma 957, and they must walk there alone.

Traveling out in the void in space ships and dealing with mysterious supernatural folks had me reflecting on the great mystery that is life.

Walking the Path,

Chris