Microsoft, Getty settle image snatch 'suit

Re: Eddor meets Ploor

The Eddorians were the top of the bad pile. They were introduced in the books earlier because the whole premise of the story arc was that the struggle between the Arisians and the Eddorians was of necessity fought by proxy through the subordinate organisations each of them created, because neither the Arisians nor the Eddorians could defeat the other directly.

The struggle was basically between the side that would hold on tightly to the reins of power, and the one that which would hand on control to those who were more capable, whose creation was necessary to completely defeat the other.

It is necessary to think in terms of the entire story line, from Triplanitary through Children of the Lens (forget The Vortex Blaster, that really wasn't part of the story line, and was a great disappointment when reading the last books in sequence for the first time, because at the end of "Children.." you thought that you still had one more super-epic story to go).

The point that Smith was trying to make was that The Evil could not see it's own limitations, whereas The Good embraced their own limits, even when it would lead to their own demise. The fact that each layer on the bad side thought that they were the top suited the episodic nature of the books, and allowed the story to get progressively more epic with each book. I still feel that it would be possible to produce films based on the books that would suit the effects-led film industry that we have.

In my view, the sequence of films should start with the story in Galactic Patrol, with possibly more than one film per book, and the stories in Triplanitary and First Lensman interwoven as 'prequel' films.

In my formative years, the concept of the stories seemed so simple. It's a shame "the real world" is not like this.