sinanju

I appear to be the sole vote for Color of Survival. I like the concept, which reminds me strongly (perhaps intentionally) of the Wild Cards universe. An Event (tm) happens; most of those exposed die, some acquire physical and/or other complications, a lucky few gain superpowers. I've used that premise a couple of times in various campaigns, and I always enjoy it.

Edited to add: *I* like killing off a stadium full of innocent spectators to create a handful of heroes. If you're looking for angst, it's ready-made for that. Even if not, the lucky few may well feel obliged to try to make an omelette now that all those eggs are already broken.

On 11/19/2017 at 9:14 AM, zslane said:

I think a lot of critics are bothered by things that 90% of audience members never notice. Things like plot holes, lack of character development, poor pacing, incoherent fight choreography, lack of convincing character motivation, and so on. Most viewers see the quick cuts (exciting!), the flashy visual effects (amazing!), and hear the silly jokes (hilarious!) and walk out feeling they had a good time. After all, that's really all they were after. But critics are always looking and hoping for evidence of towering artistic achievement and profound social/cultural relevance. Hence the disconnect.

That's the main reason I liked Roger Ebert's reviews. He was perfectly capable of saying, "It's not a *good* move, but it's a FUN movie." Not many critics can (or will) do that.

12 hours ago, Tech priest support said:

Hollywood keeps its books in a way no one else does or would be allowed to do. Hell, according to Hollywood return of the Jedi  has never made a profit. No, not a joke. Lucasfilms said that with a straight face.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

 

Grossly inflated production costs help avoid having to show taxable profits.

"The net is fiction."

Never, ever agree to a cut of the net profits from Hollywood. Always demand a cut of the gross. "We lost $400,000,000 on that movie!" "I don't care. You brought in $1.5 billion in gross receipts. Gimme me cut."

8 hours ago, zslane said:

I just think Hollywood is lazy and goes with invisible, perfect universal translators because it is easy and they don't really like a meaningful (writing/production) challenge. More fertile creative minds could come up with a way to deal with alien languages without slowing down the storytelling or blowing the fx budget. The Vorlons and Shadows of Babylon 5 are a reasonably good example.

 

Let's face it, Trek's "seeding the universe" trope is pure handwavium, designed explicitly to make you stop engaging your higher reasoning centers and just "go with it," no matter how absurd the storytelling becomes as a result of it. Not all of Trek's tropes are like that, and many are easier to accept than others. I'm merely pointing out that it is one of those that I conceptually choke on every time it is made central to a major plotline.

Heck, Stargate: SG-1 did it--and they even had a guy who spoke multiple languages on the team. Having to translate for the Abydosians in a single feature film is one thing. Having to have all the conversations bottlenecked thru a single character week after week after week, or having the team miraculously learn countless alien languages in the first 15 minutes of each episode...the conceit that everyone in the universe speaks English is the lesser of evils.

I wrote 1,863 words today. This total does not include the 565 words I struggled over yesterday because they're not part of the story I began today. I scrapped them.

But I have a story now.

My first night's efforts ended with a massive 565 words.

I decided to try Nanowrimo this year to try to kickstart my writing. I've spent more than a year dealing with a disintegrating marriage, a separation, and ultimately a divorce. Unsurprisingly, I've had very little left over for writing. But it has been about a year since I moved out of the apartment I shared with my ex (into my current Fortress of Solitude), and we're officially divorced now (for several months). I'm ready to try again.

Tonight's effort was very difficult, as I expected. I made a couple of false starts before writing what I officially claim. And I may very well scrap that and start again tomorrow. I'd like to get 50,000 words done on a novel, but if I just get back into the habit of sitting down and trying to write, I'll count that as a win.

Scrap it. Or make it permanent. I'll accept either. But this bouncing back and forth twice a year is a pain in the ass.

Of course not. But your objection takes my point beyond its intent or the logical boundaries I set for it. I never said The Orville "had to copy" everything verbatim. What I did say, many times, is that I am surprised and puzzled that they chose not to follow the same line of technological development as Trek given the extent to which they copied everything else (almost verbatim) from Trek. There's no mandate to copy, but there is a clear intent to do so anyway, and I'm merely pointing out inconsistencies where I find them.

If I were given a brief to create a show "like Star Trek, but not exactly," you would find my alterations equally baffling. There are things I would change because I just never liked that aspect of the show, while liking it overall, or because I thought it would be a story problem and could be avoided by leaving out that detail.

There's nothing requiring The Orville to employ the transporter trope as well as the replicator. There just isn't.

Okay, I have the genealogy order wrong. Replicators came from transporter technology. That makes the situation on The Orville even less logical.

Only if you assume that the way Star Trek did it is the only way to do it.

Real-world 3D printers are a very, very, very primitive version of what we'll one day have--atomic scale manufacturing, where things can be assembled atom by atom. If you accept the wildest imaginings, we'll be able to grow starships. But it won't happen in a quick flash of light in mere seconds, the way Replicators work. But it will probably be possible. Ditto for creating foodstuffs, or anything else you like. Everything is just a specific arrangement of specific elements. But building them will require having the "ingredients" (the right amounts of various elements) handy, and plenty of energy.

But none of that suggests that we'll ever be able to have "transporters" beaming people digitally across space in mere seconds.

Even if you give them the "it happens in a flash of light in seconds", the fact that the Orville has replicators in no way implies that transporters are even possible, much less a good idea. A copy that's 99 percent right is probably fine for a cup of coffee or a pint of ice cream. It's not nearly good enough to create living creatures that don't have...problems.

1. Cat is sidelined primarily because, according to reports, Callista Flockhart refuses to work in Canada, so far from her home.

 

2. It's Lena (Luthor), not Lana. You're conflating her (name) with Lana Lang. Easy to do with all the damn alliterative names DC (and Marvel) loved to use back in the day. But I agree with you and everyone else with a eyes, ears, and a brain: Kara has more chemistry with her than she ever did with James or Mon-El.

 

3. The mysterious character with superstrength is believed to be Reign, the new big bad for this season. Last we saw her (in the closing shot of last season's finale) she was being sent off in a pod as Krypton was dying, just like Clark and Kara.

 

4. Adrian Pasdar does arrogant blowhard very well. But I miss Maxwell Lord.

1. Yeah, I figured. I wonder if this means she won't show up at all this season, or if she'll make another brief in-person appearance during the season.

2. Lena, right. Gimme that hot Lena-on-Kara action. Not only would it enjoyable to watch, but the chemistry there beats anyone else she's interacted with.

3. Reign must be a character from after I stopped paying attention to the comics.

4. He does. I don't miss Maxwell. I found the guy who played him...less than compelling. Morgan Edge is probably just going to be a variation on a theme (arrogant blowhard), but he's more entertaining than the other guy. IMHO.

I liked the colder, darker Supergirl. I wouldn't want it as a regular thing (god knows we get enough angst from CW shows as it is), but it was nice change. I never liked Mon-El, and never bought the love story between him and Kara. She always had far better chemistry with Cat or Lana than I ever saw with the interstellar frat boy. And I know she mostly talked about the loss of Mon-El, but I think a big part of her reaction had at least as much to do with losing her whole world as a child.

It tends to get glossed over, but that is the biggest difference between Clark and Kara. He was too young to remember Krypton. She isn't. Earth is Clark's home in a way it can never be for Kara. She remembers the day everyone she loved, everyone she knew, and everyone and everything in her world was destroyed. There's no counterpart on earth for that experience. People have been displaced. People's families killed. Cultures conquered or enslaved or wiped out. But not a whole world. Given what she experienced, it's remarkable that she's as happy and well-balanced as she is. But some of that is repression, I'm thinking, and the loss of Mon-El allowed her to express a little bit of that.

And even then, she did it in a very responsible way. She didn't dramatically toss her Supergirl costume in a trash can in an alley, as Spider-Man has done numerous times. She didn't give up on saving people. She didn't goof off on a months-long bender. She didn't start breaking people when capturing them. She may have been ever-so-slightly less gentle with them, but that was it.

This being a CW show, I am always on the look-out for tragedy. I'm prepared for Maggie to get killed off at any moment (especially after "Love you. Forever.") to give Alex some major angst. At the same time, I find it hard to believe the producers (of this show in particular) would be so tone-deaf as to kill off one of the lesbian lovers after all the grief it rained down on The 100 and other shows. But...angst. It's what CW does.

I see they've sidelined Cat again, this time as mouthpiece for President Wonder Woman. I know this show has always been very liberal, but if I wanted to be preached at about contemporary real world politics, I'd watch CNN. I hope they tone down the "sly" digs at Trump. Also, can we just get on with the hot Lana-on-Kara action, already? 

And a mysterious new character with superstrength! Who could it be? (Seriously, I have no idea.) What will this mean for Supergirl and her friends? I guess we'll see.

We have a new villain in Morgan Edge. Boy, that actor really gets around, doesn't he?

The replicators on the Orville could be thought of as really fast 3D printers. Now, the problem with using that type of technology as a transporter is that you'd essentially be destroying the original and recreating it at the destination using available materials (for those following along at home, this allows the William/Thomas Riker problem in the TNG episode). But that also means that the transporter is essentially a suicide box/scanner with a really good printer on the other end. Sure, if it's done well, the end product "thinks" that it's the same person, but it really becomes a philosophical exercise at that point. I'd certainly not step into one willingly.

 

Now, there have been discussions from various folks associated with TNG who said that the matter/energy/matter explanation for transporters shouldn't have been used, as it opens up all sorts of problems. Most advanced technology in Trek is based upon some kind of manipulation of subspace fields, and Transporters wouldn't have the problems described if what they actually did is shunt the person or object through a subspace conduit of some kind*. That appears to be the method used in Orville episode 5 by Pria to get onto the bridge.

 

Star Trek TOS went with Transporters as a way to avoid the costs associated with showing a shuttlecraft each week. It then became overused as a plot device. Captain turned into a being of pure energy? No worries, just beam his consciousness into a stored pattern. Doctor has uncontrollable aging? Find a stored pattern and then run the Transporter to "fix" the problem. I'm kind of glad that The Orville can't do stuff like that.

 

 

 

*Bamf!

Plus, when they had to rescue Charlize Theron from the asteroid...they couldn't just BEAM her off the ship. They had to physically go and get her. That's not something you see in Star Trek, and I liked it.

Apparently, being trapped in the Speed Force for six months (or an eternity, subjectively, possibly) was just the vacation Barry needed. He came back much more upbeat and Not Angsty . I'm sure it won't last. This is a CW production, after all. But it was nice to see.

I didn't buy Iris being so dead-set on not evening *trying* to rescue Barry. It was completely out of character. If her attitude had been, "I can't deal with it. I can't endure having my hopes dashed again, so if you insist on trying, just don't tell me," I could have bought that. But actively attempting to prevent it? No.

Yes. THANK GOD the Bid Bad isn't another Speedster.

The Orville is clearly fantasy with a science fiction coating. Dark Matter storm. Yeah. And axion particles. Uh huh. Plus, for bonus points, a time travel story that made absolutely no sense. But no worse than many a Trek episode. Plus, why is the helmsman surrendering control of the ship to Pria? In the pilot we were told he was a hot **** pilot par excellence. Now he's all "this is above my pay grade" about dodging some giant bubbles?

That said, I'm still watching. Gene Roddenberry once said that westerns (which were much more popular on tv at the time than they are now) were not about authentic 1870s characters, but about characters with the same values and traits of contemporary viewers. Which is correct. Just like the crew of the TOS Enterprise didn't act like people from two hundred years in the future--they were basically contemporary humans from the 1960s.

THAT'S where the jokes are in The Orville. It's people like us--or, at least, people like Seth MacFarlane--plopped into a Trek-style universe. They make the same stupid jokes people now would make. They watch the movies and tv shows we would recognize, even if they call them oldies. It was more jarring at first because you don't expect that from characters in a Star Trek show, but this _isn't_ Star Trek. It's an homage, certainly, but with less refined and genteel characters.

Plus, we learned something about the Orville universe in this most recent episode.

Their medical tech is good enough that a) the robot could amputate the guy's leg and heal it completely in the space of one night, and the doctor could regenerate it in only hours.

The Orville can travel 10 light-years per hour, and that's considered fast.

The Union apparently is well aware that time travel is at least theoretically possible, since they have a policy of not messing with the timeline.

Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 5. (Also Volumes 1-4). Most of them are westerns, unsurprisingly, but one collection is devoted to crime stories and boxing stories (and half and half), and another is adventure stories. He's known for the details in his stories, and rightly so. The incredible variety of settings is remarkable (a zillion desert stories, and every one is different from the last aside from the heat and lack of water), and stories vary a lot as well. Well worth reading.

Iron Maiden (flying brick) would do her best (which, with a STR 80, is considerable) to keep the ship aloft--at least until repairs can be effected, or it moves over a safe crash site.

Kinetic (a TK-based character) would do likewise.

But they're the only two PCs I have who could do much in this situation.

I think I mentioned before, reminded me a lot of B5's episode Believers. I liked that they made every argument at the trial correctly and still "lost". I also liked Bortus's reaction after was done - We will love this child regardless.

I actually spent most of the episode thinking to myself - the doctor and the captain are wrong. In their position, you can't go against a races belief, no matter that you disagree with it. That is basically what the Prime directive is about, though of course they ignored it often.

I disagree. You should do what you think is right--which was the whole issue. Everyone in the episode was doing what he or she thought was right. The question then becomes: who decides? Aboard the Orville, the Captain decides. But when Bortus appealed to his homeworld and they took the child there, the authority to decide fell to the local tribunal. Mercer and company argued as strongly as they could for their position, but ultimately they accepted the decision by the local authorities. Nobody got punched or shot or threatened with either. It was all very civilized.

Also, I don't think we've seen any evidence that the Union has a Prime Directive in any case. 

 

I don't see any basis for an IP infringement claim. Nothing in The Orville violates any copyright, trademark, or patent that I'm aware of.

 

Is there a particular script (teleplay) the show plagiarized? Is there a trademark being used without permission? (The answer to both, of course, is "no".)

 

Believe it or not, Paramount does not own the idea of an exploration vessel having adventures out in space, or the idea of "black pants and a primary color-coded shirt as a uniform". Star Trek may have popularized these tropes, but Paramount has no IP claim on them that would stand up in court. There are similarities to be sure, but nothing that meets any legal criteria for IP infringement.

Yep. You cannot copyright an idea. As long as they don't infringe on actual copyrights, trademarks or patents, Paramount can't touch them. Doesn't matter if it's a carbon copy of setting, format and pseudo-tech, as long as they call it something different.

Hmmm, went to watch the second episode and apparently it consisted mostly of the 4th quarter of the Denver vs Dallas football game, which had a delay. I don't see anywhere it is being repeated for now either. Anyone else have this problem? Did I give up to soon on my recording? The game said 12+ minutes left, and since I only recorded an hour, I figured wasn't worth it.

Yeah. I was righteously p***ed off that some stupid football game ran long and I missed over half the episode on my recording.

For my little-used homebrew fantasy world, I assume that the PCs aren't the only adventurers in the world, and that therefore towns have worked out a way to accommodate the, uh, quirks of the adventuring types. Typically this means that there's a group of businesses outside the city walls, or otherwise outside the town proper, where it's considered perfectly normal to show up at the pub for a beer wearing full plate and carrying a greatsword that has black runes floating off of it.

 

See, adventurers mean trouble, but they also mean money, so it pays to create a space where you can simultaneously take their money and keep them away from the decent folk. You'd probably also find runners there who would happily do errands inside the city walls for a few silver pieces.

This explains why adventurers always meet in the inn. It's THE inn. The only one where they can freely enter wearing all their armor and carrying their weapons.

My characters wear armor when they're expecting a fight. Otherwise, not. Which means while traveling (unless they're *expecting* trouble), sleeping, visiting the local market or inn, and certainly while attending functions with upper class folk, they're not wearing armor. Armor, especially heavy armor, is hot and sweaty and tiring to wear. Worthwhile if battle is imminent, but otherwise not. It also announces that you're ready for (or possibly looking to start) trouble, which can very often send the wrong message to the people you meet.

They'll generally be armed (though, again, probably not in the presence of the King or other royalty unless I'm a trusted vassal). 

This is very much how our Champions game works. My PC has a secret identity, but I don't really want to deal with it in-game, so I didn't take it as a Complication. Ditto for DNPCs. I have a number of friends, acquaintances and so forth, but none of them are DNPCs, so they don't get menaced or kidnapped. They exist for role-playing purposes only, not as plot tokens. Most of my Complications are psychological--they define my character's, uh, character, and influence how she responds to the situations she faces. We put a fairly low cap on the number of Complication points you can have, so players only really took the ones they wanted to deal with. I think this is an excellent approach.

Here's a useful link:

 

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-016-DFRC.html

 

The actual booms really aren't a dramatic as most people think.

 

As far as special effects go, any superpower which operates to avoid building up a leading shockwave in the first place would also avoid sonic booms. The Flash vibrating between molecules has already been mentioned, but many forms of Desolidification would count, as would becoming frictionless or moving by decreasing the air pressure in front of you and increasing it behind you.

 

Or magic.

 

It's also worth pointing out that we are talking a velocity of over 340 metres a second. That's a move rating of 680m for the average Speed 6 character, or a Speed 2 move of 2040m. It REALLY does not come up in combat almost ever and is normally only possible in HERO using noncombat movement, at which point you may as well follow Superman's example and fly high subsonically before letting loose at commercial airline altitudes (or space, if capable).

Iron Maiden, who I'm playing in a face-to-face game right now, has three levels of flight speed. Combat Speed (30 m/phase), Cross-Town speed (just a few inches with lots and lots of NCM multiples), and Cross-Country, which is Megascaled and has her flying about 5,000 mph. I always make a point of having her fly far up into the sky above the city before she switches into that last mode. It's great for getting around the country (or the world) in a hurry, but it never comes up in combat.

As I recall from one of Elliott S! Maggin's Superman novels, the FAA maintains a restricted airspace over/around the Daily Planet building specifically for Superman, so he can do what you mentioned--fly high above the city before he goes supersonic.

Extra-Dimensional Movement for when you're running a supersonic speed.

In the "Wearing the Cape" series of novels, speedsters have two speeds. First they're just Really Fast--they can/must interact with the world around them. They're almost impossible to hit, can attack a bunch of goons at once, can grab people and evacuate a fight zone, etc. Their second speed is Sonic Boom Territory. Or as they call it, going "over the wall" and literally vanishing from The World As We Know It into a weird, time-frozen version of the world in which they are the only thing moving. They travel through this weird space, then pop back out at their destination.

Which sounds like extra-dimensional movement to me. Just specify that when you would have hit Mach 1 (and created a sonic boom) you flip over into Bullet Time (or whatever you want to call it) until you get where you're going.

Except that many of the people attacked by the hateful bigots were peaceful counterprotestors if not innocent bystanders.  And antifa wouldn't have been present, in fact would not even exist, if the hateful bigots weren't there to begin with. 

And many of the people attacked by the hateful bigots of Antifa were peacefully protesting. Everywhere Antifa goes, violence and rioting follows. That's not an accident.