I showed up at the OK Corral, otherwise known as the Handlery Hotel/Resort, about an hour before the 3 p.m. scheduled debate at ConDor, a small sf/f/etc. annual convention.

It's what the old timer fen would call a "relaxacon," because it is small and therefore informal in nature as opposed to something big like a Worldcon or a Celebration or a Comic Con. These cons were established because it was the only way that fans living in a given region could socialize. That's how you met fellow fans and engaged in geeky pursuits such as RPGs, filking, making costumes, buying and selling zines, costuming as a pirate vampire, etc.. Nowadays, the internet is where fans meet and it's media (t.v. shows, movies, video games, anime/manga, etc.) that is the driving force behind much of fandom as a whole.

But the smaller cons allow people the opportunity to actually converse with guests and even hang out with them. That's how I got roped into participating on this hour-long panel about David Brin's book "Star Wars On Trial," which I've written about back in 2006 (look up late July-early August entries for all of those).

Before the panel, I wandered around a little and chatted with my fellow sacrificial lamb. I was really nervous. He was really nervous and he's actually met/argued with Brin before. I just wanted to not suck. I kept joking about how we were basically there for entertainment value.

About 20 people filed into the room, including Timothy Zahn, to watch us hash it out. Brin was a little late because he was in an involved discussion about religion with somebody in the con suite. He showed up and the moderator tried to start things off by having each person introduce themselves. Brin was basically the only guy on the panel arguing his position. Besides James and myself and the moderator, there was a guy on the end who I guess was there to also help move things along.

Well, good luck with that. Brin's introduction went on and on, mostly about the axes he has to grind with Lucas and about the book "Star Wars On Trial." He did make the interesting note that many of the charges were created by the publishers and that he didn't necessarily agree with all of them. Finally, they got around to the rest of us. I made a crack about how I just wandered in off the street. Brin asked me why I wanted to come out and defend SW. I said that I'm a lifelong fan, the movies mean a lot to me, and the characters mean a lot to me. I also said that It's easy to turn something popular into a pinata and I think that SW deserved a fair defense.

Once the introductions were over, Brin went into a long tear about George Lucas's lack of gratitude and his hatred for civilization. It pretty much set the stage for his style the rest of the hour. Yes, it was extremely difficult to get a word in edgewise. Brin tends to go on and on, and all over the place on different issues, so that by the time he pauses to take a breath, you've either forgotten your rebuttal or the topic doesn't seem relevant anymore because he'd moved on to something else. Moreover, they took questions/comments from the audience, which made it harder to get in your .02.

Compounded with my nervousness, it was hard at first to keep my thoughts on track. My only experience with anything close to debate was doing moot court in law school. In moot court, you walk in exactly knowing how you're going to argue your position and what authorities you're going to cite. You can also predict to some degree what the judges are going to ask you.

That said, I don't think you successfully advance an argument just by filibustering. I think I must've done a lot of eyerolling at his long soliloquies about the virtues of Star Trek and the vices of fantasy (even though he admits he has written fantasy). I also didn't like that he took what I thought was a bit of a cheap shot at Papa George by claiming that his divorce from ex-wife Marcia made him hate democracy and civilization. (If you're going to bring that up, at least get the timing right. He claimed "something changed" after Young Indy, which debuted in 1992, and he claimed it was because of his divorce. Well, the divorce happened in 1983, almost a decade beforehand.)

As the panel went on though, I gained enough confidence to challenge some of Brin's arguments (whenever I could talk) and to add comments to some of the audience members' points. They actually were helpful in advancing arguments and pointing out details Brin didn't know or had glossed over. I noticed one guy in the second row who mouthed, "It's just a movie" as Brin went on about SW's hatred of civilization (heh heh). Tim Zahn was nodding along with our points, so maybe that's a good thing.

There was one girl, a member of the San Diego SW Society, who got up and I can tell she was p.o.-ed. She talked about Vader's redemption and it was clear from her comments that she was a Christian. Now, as someone who has spent a lot of time in fandom-land, I knew that was not going to go over well and Brin pretty much scoffed at her comments. But he realized it was an impolite thing to do and he apologized for it.

It did however give me the inspiration to go with a concluding statement about SW giving hope to those of us who aren't as evil as Vader and that everyone can find things in SW that helps them deal with the rough spots in life, etc.. My co-panelist ended with a theory on how the more hair one has in SW, the more good he or she is .

For the record, Brin was gracious to us afterwards and many people in the audience came up to us to tell us we'd done a nice job. Brin doesn't dislike everything about SW and I have to wonder, despite the theatrics that came with his assertions, if he's really just a contrarian who likes to mess with people's heads.

Would I do it again? Having been through it before, sure. In any case, some of the issues brought up in the panel would make for some interesting meta/discussion.