Every year, the Scientific/Technical committee of the Wizards Guild evaluates new and wondrous inventions and devices, then ends with a ceremony where the winners are presented with awards.

This is a long and tortuous process that looks to an outsider as if there are no rules. But there are rules and, like Calvinball, rules can be made up as you go along, and each rule can only be used once.

Being as it's Hollywood, we had to give the fable a happy ending. Unfortunately, the real ending is not happy. But now that it's over, the wizards can tell the story of what really happened.

There was a young wizard who, working alone, created an impossible device. And that device made it possible to shoot a very important scene in a very important movie. Many years later, the wizard, older now, decided to submit his invention for a Wizards Guild Scientific/Technical award. There was no time limit as to how long ago it was invented. The only requirement was that you still be alive.

But the wizard was an outsider, so it took him a little while to figure out how the Wizards Guild Sci/Tech submission process worked. When he made his first submission, he was told that it was too late, and to try again next year.

So the wizard waited patiently, growing older, but still alive, until a year had passed. Once again, he submitted his invention, this time well within the deadline. Lo and behold, it was accepted by the Wizards Guild submission portal. The status was given as: "STATUS: Submitted Pending Review".

And so the wizard waited to see what would happen to his submission. Patiently. From time to time, he would log on to the wizards portal to see if there was any change. Nope. After several months, the status was still "STATUS: Submitted Pending Review". Even more curious, the wizard had not heard from the sci/tech investigators. No questions, requests for further information, or even a rejection.

When the sci/tech wizards announced their "Things we're interested in" list, the wizard didn't see his name, so he went to the submission portal and the status still hadn't changed. Still pending review.

Something was obviously wrong. His submission was quite obviously lost. He would never hear anything from the sci/tech committee.

So he wrote to the sci/tech committee about his lost submission, about the status not changing, and about not being contacted by any investigators. He received a form letter from the chair of the sci/tech group, thanking him for his effort and telling him to get lost. No explanation of what had happened.

But being a wizard, and being as he had already spent a lot of time and effort, there was no giving up and walking away. After some thought the wizard decided to tell his story. If you've read down this page, you've seen the first draft. It will appear in other forms in the future.

See the lost submission from the
Scientific/Technical committee of the Wizards Guild

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