• The actual Bible Passage
• A sample expository on the Scripture

I started Blood and Metal during my college years, as I was attempting to put into context the prevalent mindset of a small, yet as vocal as they are bitter, group of African-Americans. This group believes that they have been—and still are—oppressed by a four hundred year old “Legacy of Hate” by a predominantly European population in America and see no recourse than to return all that anger and oppression in kind. Their ancestors were slaves, so they get to get back at the descendants of the slave owners. Nevermind that the targets of this kind of what I call “Retaliatory Racism” never owned a slave, wouldn't wish diseases on anyone, harbor any ill will toward anybody regardless of ethnicity, wouldn't even think of calling another person anything more charged than "asshole," and will even help out anyone of any race who is in need.

My thoughts turn to the scripture I referenced in the title when I think of “Retaliatory Racism,” which I will list at the start of the book as a ask this question: Should anyone be made to pay for any sins of his ancestors? They have no control over who their ancestors were or what they did, and they certainly wouldn't have any participation on such deeds. I'm not downplaying anything about the past, be it slavery, Jim Crow, experiments like Tuskegee, the KKK and and their clones, racial profiling and police harassment, and so on and so on. Is that any reason to grab some white guy at random and rip out a pound of that guy's flesh, be it physical, financial, emotional, or any other kind, because of what happened long before the person demanding said pound were even born. Equality of opportunity and acceptance is one thing, but equality of oppression and punishment?

Is it out of this question that I began the story of what is today is Eric Krockett's. He was a country boy from Kentucky who was at the wrong place in a race riot and had his left arm shot off. The latter legal defense that dug into Eric's ancestry and found that will is now his great-grandfather's involvement in Tuskegee, which gave the shooter motive and even an excuse in some circles. Eric felt too lost among the media hype that eventually painted him in a terrible light—when racialy-charged groups butted heads outside the courthouse—that he almost willed himself to death. “I just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. For a while, I almost succeeded,” he said as he related that dark time. He was saved when he was put into a robotocizer that attached a cyborg replacement arm and was later sent on a one-way trip to an anthropomorphic fantasy world (because using Furry characters works great for toning down any overly charged material) where he fought an evil force that threatened that whole world.

An evil force, as he saw to his utter shock, that was run by his long lost father.

I wanted to rewrite this story, not only because of the poor ending I had in the first version, but also because of the very drawn-out 2008 election and the controversies surrounding around the eventual Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. By the time he eventually clinched that position, several bitter folks poisoned by Retaliatory Racism came out of the woodwork, including two pastors from his once and former church. In time, he had the sorrowful task of distancing himself from the church he was very close to because of these figures. I can only assume that more such people would pop up by November just as the witch hunt among supporters to squelch political debate and any resistance from Mr. Obama's election will come in force.

People will talk about the 'Race Card;' in 2008, we'll be seeing 'Race Decks.'

If there was any time for me to do something I wanted to do for some time now, and rewrite this book in an original non-Sega inspired world, it would be during this summer and possibly the Barack Obama presidency. It is a cautious tale against responding evil in kind, and that just because your ancestors are just vile evil monsters doesn't mean that you should be just by definition.

Blood does not tell. Character does. And Eric Krockett's character will tell volumes more about who he is, be it as a member of the resistance against Alberect, as a suitor for the princess destined to becoming the next king, a tragic war hero who was taken up by the very empire he was pledged to destroy weeks prior, and eventually a humble rancher who has his simple live, with a long-time lover, feeling complete in life in a free and peaceful world.