sinanju

I'm mainlining TRAVELERS on Netflix right now. I'm halfway through the second season. I really hope it gets picked up for a third season. Time travelers from a horrible, apocalyptic future are downloaded into the minds of people in the (our) present--hundreds of years before their time--who were about to die. They take over their bodies and lives and work as teams to perform various missions that they hope will allow them to prevent the awful future, or at least improve it. It's a one-time, one-way trip. The nature of time travel generally prevents "do-overs" so if a mission fails, it fails. There's lots I could say about this series, but SPOILERS. I really like this show.

That's the thing. Nobody is "militarizing" Star Trek. It was always that way. On the other hand, I agree that Kirk (and Picard even more so) often bent over backward to try to avoid the use of force if it was at all possible. They much preferred peaceful solutions when possible, and preferred exploration and diplomacy--and not having any sort of conflict at all--even more. My argument is simply that while, yes, Starfleet was engaged in exploration and scientific discovery, they were *also* the Federation's military arm.

I never said Starfleet was a *coherent* military organization, or well run. Putting civilian family members aboard a warship is the height of stupdity, in my opinion. But claims that Starfleet isn't military are just willful blindness.

And that statement in TNG is a load of crap. It's propaganda, nothing more. I'll believe what they actually showed us through their behavior rather than what they claimed. They can lie to themselves all they like, but the Klingons, Romulans, Ferengi, Cardassians, the Borg and every other neighboring power all knew that if war came, it was Starfleet that would be fighting for the Federation. Starfleet is the Federation's military. Heck, the Borg snatched Picard to assimilate *because* as Captain of the Enterprise, the Federation's military flagship, he was privy to all the military plans for defending the Federation.

The Enterprise sure as **** is a military vessel. They have a military system of ranks and chain of command. They operate under military discipline. They are tried, when necessary, in a court *martial*, not a civilian court. The ship is heavily armed, and provides military defense for the area of space in which it operates. The Captain is vested with the power, on his own authority, to wage WAR on other powers. That is a military vessel, no matter how much they may pretend otherwise. And none of this a "rewriting" of Starfleet--this is all straight out TOS.

"Not telling your troops the whole plan..."? She didn't even tell them she HAD a plan other than jog away from the oncoming fleet til they ran out of gas. Part of being a good leader is giving your troops reason to trust you even when they don't know your plans. She failed miserably at that. He didn't NEED a communicator. He could have APPEARED TO REY (or anyone apparently, as everyone within range could see him as if he were really there) anywhere in the galaxy (apparently) and said, "I changed my mind. Send someone to get me." The order had no idea where he was and, apart from Kylo, no other Force sensitives we know about, now that Snoke is dead. (Speaking of which, is he DEAD dead, or only MOSTLY dead like Luke and Yoda and Obi-Wan and Vader?) So they'd have had no way to find him. Why on earth would Leia or Rey "lose contact with the rebellion" if they went to visit Luke? Rey didn't. She had a magic maguffin that allowed her to find Leia (or whoever held the other magic maguffin) anywhere in the galaxy. (And why wasn't Leai being baked alive by the sheer wattage of whatever broadcast that thing was generating to be detectable at galactic distances?) You're assuming the books were destroyed. We don't know that. Rey might have taken them. Yoda may have "destroyed" them with lightning so Luke wouldn't discover that they're gone. Just because the "wisdom" of the Jedi was lacking (which I agree with), doesn't mean that she can't learn from their history--and I'm assuming at least some of those books are histories/logs/diaries/etc. We're not talking about Rey. We're talking about Luke Skywalker, who saw the potential for redemption in a man whose crimes were literally legendary. A man who'd destroyed the Jedi, murdered countless people, and...well, all of it. He confronted THAT man with no intention of ever killing him. He confronted him ready to die in the attempt to redeem him. And THAT man, THAT Luke Skywalker, would never have tried--even for a nanosecond--to murder a sleeping boy because he feared with that boy MIGHT do.

And you're stating this as if it were self-evidently true. It's not. It's your opinion. Plenty of gamers are perfectly capable of accepting that things will be (gasp!) different in the future!

If the baseline is "communications on a single planet will remain effectively instantaneous" then you're right. But nobody is suggesting that. What you're saying is that if FTL travel outstrips *lightspeed* communication, then that's some how "less advanced" than what we have today. Which is absurd. What we have today (lightspeed communication ON A SINGLE PLANET) + FTL travel (which we DON'T have now) = something more advanced that today. How is THAT so hard to grasp?

If it was, I missed it. This is the first I've heard of that. But using them to disguise Puffins on the island is pretty clever.

And you're doing *exactly* what you accuse the creator of Traveller of doing--assuming that how things are today (effectively instantaneous communication, much slower physical travel) is how it MUST be in the future. I already posted about two possible methods of FTL travel, neither of which would be useful for FTL communication. Lightspeed communication works great for effectively instantaneous communication on a single planet. Pulling even the moon into that web would involve perceptible lags. Communication between planets takes even longer. Realtime conversations are no longer possible. They're even less possible across interstellar distances. Your assumption that if/when FTL travel is invented it will *necessarily* also include even faster (effectively instantaneous) communication is just that. An assumption. "Communication today is faster than travel, therefore, any increase in travel speed in the future MUST also be accompanied by an EVEN GREATER increase in communication speed." You're free to make whatever assumptions you like, as are we all, but to claim that yours is the only correct (or even plausible) one is foolish.

I beg to differ. If, say, the "warp" drive theory proposed recently (the ship that uses the circular rings as part of the drive) were to pan out...that would allow FTL travel, but it wouldn't do *anything* for FTL communication. You can't wrap a warpfield around a radio wave. And that's just one approach. If you posit "jump points" of the kind used by Niven & Pournelle in The Mote In God's Eye, or in David Weber's Honor Harrington series, again--you can move ships instantaneously between systems. But you can't send any kind of messages that way, short of sending a ship (which could then radio someone in that system). So, yes, it's plausible that a breakthru in FTL travel doesn't *necessarily* mean you'll have the ansible as well. Your insistence that the two go hand in hand is just as arbitrary as any other set-up, and not grounded in realism any more than the other approaches.

Light takes a second and a fraction to get from Earth to the Moon. Long enough for a perceptible delay, and would make conversations difficult unless (as NASA did) each party tells the other when they've stopped talking so they can reply. Depending on their relative positions, lightspeed time from Earth to Mars is about 3 minutes (at closest approach) to about 22 minutes (when they're on opposite sides of the sun).

That's a good question. I noticed that as well. The movie doesn't tell us, but if I were to guess, I'd say that just as the only way to know if you're a Bright is to touch a magic wand--and not explode--that's also the only way to activate whatever magical potential you have. So, having handled a wand without dying, and discovered that he's a Bright, Ward now has the *potential* to be extremely powerful and dangerous, even if he doesn't know it. (Maybe, being a Bright, he could *create* a magic wand for himself...if he knew how.) That would keep the Magic Cops up at night, I think.

I didn't feel like the magic was minimized. Yes, there may be minor magics that were glossed over, but the whole story was a chase for a super-powerful magical maguffin. "It's like a nuclear weapon THAT GRANTS WISHES!" as Jakoby says at one point. Everybody wanted it, even if only to keep it out of the hands of everyone else. And even with the deadly cost of trying to wield it, there were plenty of people willing to take that risk.

I just watched it tonight. I enjoyed it. Yeah, definitely Shadowrun with the serial numbers filed off, though also yes--it was pretty much contemporary, so no cyberware. I got a strong "Alien Nation" vibe from the movie, except instead of newcomers it appears that the elves, orcs and whatnot have been here all along. I also liked the "So, you think you have what it takes to wield Phenomenal Cosmic Power(tm)? Yeah? Willing to bet your life on it?" plot point.

Keep telling yourself that. Ignore the existence of General Order 24, by which Kirk threatened to "sterilize the planet" in one episode, or the fact that the Enterprise had the firepower to do it. Never mind the canonical fact--which I mentioned--that Enterprise D was the linchpin of the Federation's defense plans, and all the rest of it. Star Fleet *is* military. A slidshod, half-assed military most of the time. But still the military.

I always thought it was ludicrous that they had civilians (especially dependents) aboard a military vessel in the first place. (And the Enterprise was canonically THE ship to spearhead the defense of the Federation, so arguments that it's not a warship will fall on deaf ears. That said, here are some possibilities. 1. There's nothing to prove definitively that they're carting around the SAME civilians all the time. The Enterprise (and other Federation vessels) might well routinely transport scientists and other specialists from one world to another as and when they have the space to do. 2. Perhaps a lot of the scientists doing research on the Enterprise are civilians, not Star Fleet. Perhaps they book time aboard a starship that will be in the area they want to investigate. They book time to use the sensor arrays, probes, and whatnot, the same way various organizations or individuals will compete for time in observatories or on research ships today.

There's absolutely no evidence for the notion that the dreadnought was actively "hovering" rather than operating in orbit, nor that any other vessels were doing so. This battle was just as non-sensical as every other space battle in Star Wars. (I mean, seriously--bombers? That can only drop their payloads at knife-fighting range? Maybe if they'd used missiles, or even just flung the bombs from a distance, they might not have had the whole bomber force wiped out.

That's a nice try at an explanation, but it doesn't wash. While the pull of gravity at orbital distances isn't much less than it is on the surface...it feels like microgravity due to the centripetal force of your orbital speed trying to force you outward (well, actually, trying to keep you moving in a straight line instead of the curving path you're on). The bombs are moving at that same orbital speed, so planetary gravity would not pull them down. This is just another artifact of seeing WWII planetary air combat played out in space. It doesn't make any sense, and the film makers don't care.

I don't hate the movie. I enjoyed much of it, but it was (in my opinion) much too long. I almost walked out at one point because I was bored by the endless set-piece battle scenes. Part of it, I suspect is based on the saying that, "The Golden Age of Science Fiction is fifteen." I was 18 (not 15) when Star Wars came out--but close enough. From the moment I saw the first trailer--spaceships, space battles, LIGHTSABERS, aliens--I was hooked. All the space opera I'd read all my life was about to become a movie! I saw that film eleven times that summer, and god knows how many times since on VHS, DVD, cable.... Fast-forward forty years and I'm not that kid anymore. I've read a hell of a lot more SF, and seen many, many, many more SF movies. I expect--well, no, I WANT--more from a story these days than I did then. And even then, I could nitpick all kinds of things. It is what it is. A lot of the plot holes go away if you remember that it's not SF, it's fantasy with SF trappings, plus WW II-era combat tactics and strategy played out on a galactic scale. It doesn't make much sense, but that's never been the goal. Spectacle, and exciting visuals are the goal. I'm just less interested in what it is than I once was. And that's okay. Rey's parentage--I think Kylo was telling the truth. I hope he was. I want Rey to be a mutt. No pedigree, no famous family, nothing. Stir the DNA of a galaxy full of humans and humanoids, and *somebody* has to wind up with a potent connection to the Force. It just happens to be Rey. I don't want the whole history of the Jedi (and conflict between rebels and empire) to be a simple Skywalker clan feud. As for the ship wars (Finn/Poe, Finn/Rose, Finn/Rey, Poe/Rey, Rey/Kylo, Poe/Finn/Rey, etc.) --that's the glory of fanfic. EVERYONE WINS. There's fic about every one of those combos, and plenty more besides.

I wasn't impressed by Snoke. He was just more of the same we saw in Palpatine. I saw Luke's snuffing it as more of "I'm done here" moment. Besides, since when does "dying" stop a Jedi Master from meddling in the affairs of the galaxy? Also, who knew a ship's artificial gravity extend so far above the ship that you can *drop* bombs on it from overhead? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! Well, Phasma's armor is reflective. Of course it's better at deflecting blaster bolts. Maybe "matte white" isn't the best color for stormtrooper armor. As for Leia...it would have been better if she'd been the one to Kamikazi the cruiser into the enemy battlewagon. If they'd known....

Dislikes: Agreed--General Haldo took way too long to react to the attack on the transports. WAY too long. So...the Rebellion spent years fighting to overthrow the Empire and succeeded...only to get their asses kicked, and get nearly wiped out, by The Order only a few years later. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. I guess the idea is that the rebels always have to be the underdogs, but it's getting really old. Plus, I don't care who they have on their side, a group that could fit comfortably in my living room is very unlikely to succeed at liberating a city, much less a galaxy. At least they didn't drag out another Deathstar-like superweapon (the battering-ram beam doesn't count). The endless, endless, endless battle scenes. I almost left the theater at the two-thirds mark because I was bored by them. As far as I was concerned, the battle scenes were like videogame cutscenes. Nothing of consequence to our heroes was going to happen in those battles, so I don't really care about them. I stuck it out, and was glad I did because I got to see some other interesting stuff, but my personal fan-edit of the movie would drastically cut the battle scenes in favor of the more personal stuff. Likes: Snoke is dead. These obnoxious, arrogant, physically-deformed Evil Emperors are getting old. Kylo is at least normal looking. "I want every gun we have trained on that man!" "Do you think you got him?" I like Rose. Miscellaneous: Was what Kylo told Rey about her parents true? I think it was, in essence if not in detail. She was clearly abandoned (no matter how desperately she wanted to believe otherwise), and she has no pedigree worth mentioning. I thought it was funny how attached Luke was to the Jedi manuscripts given his history. I've seen it commented on elsewhere (tumblr, mostly) that Luke was successful as a hero mostly because he *ignored* the well-meant training of Obi-Way and Yoda when it went against his sense of right and wrong...whereas Anakin became Darth Vader because he tried so hard to be the perfect Jedi. I did like Luke's comment that the history of the Jedi was one of failure and hubris. Yes. Yes, it was.

I am rewatching Archer, S1-7 on Netflix. I've watched the first episode of Godless, and I intend to watch more. And I'm working my way through Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur on Youtube TV. He's got lots and lots of episodes covering a range of topics, but I'm mostly watching the episodes on getting into and around in space, and space colonization, habitable worlds and the like as fodder for a possible Traveller universe. (He sticks to known science, but it's still got background information even if the existence of artificial gravity, reactionless drives and jump drives in Traveller makes a lot of this obsolete. It still gives me ideas for lower-tech worlds that don't have access to those things.)

I agree. He had the seniority in Engineering, and they install this newbie as Chief Engineer? I'd be pissed too if that happened to me. Okay, yeah, he's a brainiac. So what? Does he have all the necessary engineering classes--to say nothing of practical experience--under his belt? (I *think* they said he had great scores in Engineering, to be honest, but if so it just hits another hot button of mine--which is that in most tv SF, "science" of any sort is indistinguishable from "science" of any other sort. You're a botanist? Well, naturally, you understand temporal mechanics and artificial intelligence systems as well....) I wasn't too keen on Yaphet at first. He seemed like too much of a "this would be funny" character. But episodes like New Dimension (where he gets pissed off by the juvenile prank played on him AND he gets righteously angry about being passed over for promotion in favor of a newbie) have made him more of a real character, and I like it.

Tastes vary. I like the Wild Cards universe very much because it is more grounded in reality--very few characters put on costumes go out to "fight crime" just because they've got Ace powers. And those that do, generally do it for specific reasons (the anti-Ace laws of the 50s and 60s led to some keeping their identities secrets, or the Great & Powerful Turtle, who only ever appears in public in his armored flying shell because that's how his power works). I also like the fact that death in the Wild Cards universe is for keeps; unless your power specifically has to do with surviving death (Demise, for instance), if you get killed, you're dead.