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1. I just preferred Josephian. I think it rolls better off the tongue.
2. I sometimes put God in quotes to denote that it could be God or mental illness involved in a particular aspect of the story. Believers in Christianity like Joseph naturally believe in God, demons, and angels. The question is whether that's what's really going on with Joseph vs. all of it (including the demon) being caused by mental illness.
4. It's a dangerous future society, so being non-aligned could leave a world open to pressure or outright conquest by the Imperium. The entire society is like our Cold War, with the Realm representing the West, and the Imperium representing the Soviet Union. There is a non-aligned diplomatic moon called Neuer Mond in the story that acts somewhat like the UN. The Imperium happens to find it useful to leave them independent. If the Imperium conquers you, you're aligned with them. If you freely join the Realm, you're aligned with them. Part of whether or not the Imperium can conquer you is determined by your location in space. The Realm would never allow a non-aligned world deep in its territory to be conquered. Most worlds are already aligned since they were colonized by the Imperium or the Realm.
5. The theory behind the Josephian heresy is that God sent an existing soul back (in the body of Joseph) into the galaxy to save it from a man-made Apocalypse until the return of Christ. Peter, Paul, and Moses are the most likely because of the impact they had on Christianity/Judaism. Anyone who helped define either of those religions would be a great candidate for creating a "new" religion. New is in quotes because the heresy is an offshoot of Christianity for the fifth millennium, so it's not like Joseph would be entirely reinventing the wheel with a different God. I decided to keep the idea of a new Bible though since it increases the scale of Joseph's heresy.
6. I've since realized that bringing Catholics and Protestants together as part of Joseph's heresy isn't right for the story. There are about 30B people in the Imperium, the majority of whom believe in the Greek/Roman gods. And there are 20B people in the Realm, most of whom do not believe in Christianity either (mostly secular). New Bethlehem is the only Christian planet in v3 of Galaxy Tales, whose religion had blended both Protestantism and Catholicism. It was mostly Protestant, so I may make it exclusively Protestant in v4 and give passing mention to other major denominations (Catholics, Anglicans, etc.) as living elsewhere. I may or may not have Joseph and Apollo visit a non-aligned New Vatican in act two of the story (TBD). Based on what "God" tells Joseph, he wants the Josephian heresy because it will appeal to everyone. Emperors, kings, and queens will supposedly topple before Joseph/his heresy.

Some of the above was already part of v3, while the rest will be introduced for v4. Things are still evolving, so stuff will no doubt change as I go forward.

For what it's worth, I just checked the site from my phone (which I also do at times) and it had kicked me out there, too. I then checked the site from my Windows desktop, and I had not been kicked out from there.

From different pages. The first time I was finishing a review (the bottom text field). The others I don't remember exactly which pages. I use two devices to access the site most days (a Chromebook and a Windows PC). Any idea if switching between them might be causing this?

Dirk

In what context, njc?

Interesting article about swearing in Star Trek, of which there was/is a lot (beginning with the original series, BTW), including the f-word in more recent series. Remember this famous line: "Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a XXX"? And Captain Janeway was quite a potty mouth, using hell and damn all the time, none of which I recall from watching it originally.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstit … r_trek_an/

I changed it again. The Josephian Heresy.

Interestingly, it took the Catholic Church until the late 1900s to apologize for and clear Da Vinci of heresy. There won't actually be too much detail in the book about what the heresy is, but it won't be an improvement. As noted in a previous post, most of the heretical ideas will result from Joseph unwittingly working with a demon in his head, which he thinks is an important religious figure. I haven't picked one yet, but that figure will replace Jesus in Joseph's head. I'm thinking maybe Moses. I also have to think about what the new heresy will be (in v3 it was the idea that Joseph was the child of Jesus and Mary Magdalene in a former life). There's some funny material in v3 between Joseph and Jesus, so I hope I can save some of it.

The Josephian Heresy is intended to be for the whole galaxy. God tells Joseph that when he's still four years old, which you previously read.

The Christian church remains very much intact. In fact, the major denomination of the church in the galaxy is on New Bethlehem. But "God" told Joseph that the Josephian Heresy is needed since there are 50B people in the galaxy, most of whom are non-Christians. New Bethlehem only has 100M people. And I have yet to decide if I'm going to add a Catholic planet (New Vatican) or just the woke planet (New Canada). For every Realm planet I add, I have to balance it with one Imperial planet for the kids to visit too, so two Realm planets (New Vatican & New Canada) would require two Imperial planets, which is too much additional material. Potentially New Vatican could be a non-aligned planet, so I'd only need one extra Imperial planet.

Or I could make New Bethlehem a unified Christian planet (no more Catholics vs Protestants). Or, maybe they're like Northern Ireland, at each other's throats. That would be another good reason for God to intervene with the Josephian Heresy. One idea for the heresy is that Jesus won't return until Catholics and Protestants reconcile. Perhaps Joseph's life's mission is to bring them together. I like that a lot.

That's the spirit!

Perhaps God expects Joseph to recognize that he'd been brainstorming with the demon, which led to all of Joseph's nutty ideas. I could then keep most of those brainstorming sessions as long as I reveal soon after that he'd been tricked by the demon. But, the entity that Joseph believes to be the real God has been with Joseph since age 4 (that entity is not the demon). Having the Christian God come to Joseph and tell him he's going to create a new religion called the Heresy is hard to swallow. It might make more sense for "God" (who may be real or mental illness) to call it Christianity 3.0 or something less goofy than the Heresy (3.0 because there was the OT period, the NT period, and then the third, latest period). Christianity 3.0 could ultimately be an extension of concepts from Christianity, updated for the fifth millennia and, supposedly, set into motion by God because he wants to save humans from an impending, man-made apocalypse. Further to that, I had previously considered changing the Heretic's Bible to simply be an addition to the Old and New Testaments. So, Joseph wouldn't be writing a new Bible, just a third part to the real Bible. That, at least, could keep open the story question as to whether Joseph is really hearing God, which needs to remain a "real" possibility until the end of the story, which could be up to three books. Naturally, Christianity 3.0 is still a stretch, but not as outrageous, IMO. I do need to include the New Commandments, though, with the first being 'Thou shalt not kill' (not 'Thou shalt not murder', which is the common translation of that commandment). That new first commandment is important at the end of book one.

I have energy rifles called crispers, energy sidearms called toasters, and molten grenades. Needless to say, the molten grenades don't have a stun setting.
I also have car-mounted lasers called mininovas.

Sol, the timeout bug is definitely back. I'm getting kicked out every few hours.

Is anyone else noticing a recurrence of frequent timeouts? I've been kicked out of the system four times in less than 24 hours.

Thanks
Dirk