THE EIGHT TRACK MIND #22
Ramblings on RPGs, SF, and misc.
Virgil Greene, resident scribbler
email: Soon to be announced.....
WHEN VISITING BOSTON...
As most of us know, summer is Construction Season with roadwork a plenty on highways and streets. Those of us who live around Boston, Massachusetts and those who visit are likely to be aware of the rather massive "Central Artery" project which will eliminate an old eyesore of a roadway but also snarl traffic for years to come. This project has had the effect of chasing rats out of their abodes and into new ones, much to the annoyance of the human inhabitants of the new places.
What many do not realize, but would if they were familiar with H.P. Lovecraft, is that the construction is also disturbing the habitats of the ghouls. In HPL's time, Robert Pickman found them by specifically looking for a dwelling in Boston's North End connected to an old series of tunnels that linked some forgotten basements and apparently connected into the subways and probably other subterranean constructions. The new highway construction is intended to put the Central Artery below ground and unfortunately is disturbing old established ghoul nests.
Ghouls aren't stupid creatures; they aren't going to fight heavy duty roadworking equipment or even heavy duty construction workers. They're now moving into new homes away from the construction, and may now be encountered by the unwary Boston resident or tourist visiting the area. I have some suggestions for those who wish to avoid unpleasantness.
First, proper hygiene is a must. Ghouls tend to like rotted stuff, and if a person smells like rotted stuff some ghouls may get confused when hungry and sample a sleeping person. This is not a pleasant experience.
Second, one should also avoid leaving food lying around for extended periods, particularly pizza and other Italian cooking. Boston's ghouls have made their main homes in the mostly Italian North End for years and have come to like left over Italian cuisine, although they like it a bit "aged". The college student tradition of leaving left over pizza buried under clothes, papers, garbage and so on may lead to uninvited company.
Finally, if all else fails, remember that ghouls like to read. They seem to be fond of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. They can sometimes be mollified with a few used paperbacks. Some have gotten into roleplaying, but mostly AD&D and Traveller from books that have been tossed; some are now into Dangerous Journeys and a few have made a point to pick up Call of Cthulhu. A few may be tired of endless dungeon crawls (heck, they live underground!) and would like a more creative campaign; they might welcome donations of GURPS and other RPGs and scenario stuff. A truly adventuresome sort might welcome a ghoul or two into their campaign; with a little work they might pass as a hard core gamer.
On to the Official Topic...
THE LINE...
The line between between Fantasy and Reality, that is. I've long felt that role-playing games are something for relatively mature folk and really aren't suitable for really young kids, although I'd not necessarily suggest a rigid age limit as maturity is not necessarily directly related to age.
The failure to see that there is a line may be why some of the "Religious Right" have a problem with RPGs; they don't see that a story or fantasy is not necessarily a reflection of a reality. The British RPG magazine Arcane, in an article on RPG opponents, featured part of a Jack Chic comic-style religious tract in which a young role-player is initiated into a witch cult after she gets to eighth level in a role-playing game. We know that this doesn't happen, but Chic and others don't see that you can indulge in a fantasy in a book or a game without believing it to be reality. At least this isn't as dangerous as it used to be; in flipping through my Encyclopedia of SF I found out that Johannes Kepler illustrated his theories of the solar system in one essay by noting what an observer on the Moon would see. In one draft of the dissertation he got the observer on the Moon by having him placed there by a demon conjured by his mother. This appears to have lead to Kepler having to defend his mother against charges of witchcraft! At least now about the worst thing that can happen is restrictions on game play; beats getting burned or hanged. Still, it's the same sort of thing; a failure to realize that there is such a thing as fantasy, stuff that isn't real.
Ah, but on the other hand there are folk who get carried away in the game; a few whose character becomes more real than their mundane life or who take the game way too seriously. I would argue that these folk have problems outside the game that get reflected in it or they seek escape from these problems in the game. Escapism isn't an entirely bad thing in my opinion; we all have troubles in our lives and getting away from them for a few hours is a good thing. A problem arises when the troubles of life get into the game. I've had that happen; my personal problems seemed paralleled by the problems of my character and my stresses popped up in the game. When this happens, either alter the character's circumstances so it doesn't reflect mundane troubles or drop the character altogether. It's a game, not therapy; don't try to work out your problems in a campaign and irritate everybody else in the game.
As far as the "classic" idea of a person being confused as to what is reality as popularized in the book and TV film Mazes and Monsters by Rona Jaffe...I honestly don't know anybody who's done that. While there are certainly people who have highly developed alternate personalities in things like SCA and LARPs and so on, I think almost nobody is lost in the fictional personality. I recall my reaction as someone who'd never been in a role playing game after seeing the TV movie of Mazes and Monsters; "Gee, that game looks fun as long as you're not crazy." If you're sane going in, I don't see you going insane in the game.
It does occur to me that GMs should avoid making their games too serious. While one should try to produce a fun game, and perhaps convey a certain amount of insights in the game, one should perhaps avoid trying for the Great And Profound Game in Which the Players Shall Confront Their Inner Nature. Sure, be "realistic" when that's appropriate. Get the players to think. Get them to think of their characters as people. Enlighten them to different ways of thinking, maybe. But don't go into the game with a Deep Purpose of Changing the Players Forever. That ain't the point of the exercise.
CRITTER FITTER: WINGED PEOPLE
In the Shifted Land of Greater Massachusetts (roughly the northeastern US plus some colonies), there are three types of Winged People. There are the Bat People who have bat-like wings and prehensile tails; Sprites who have insect-like wings and antennae; and Drakals who are essentially dragon women. Sprites and Drakals are all female, while Bat People are of both sexes. Bat People and Sprites came to be during the intense and sometimes mutating magic of the Shift, while Drakals seem to be human or elvish women changed by dragons by some unknown means or the children of Drakals by human or elvish fathers. There are around ten thousand Bat People, two thousand Sprites, and under two dozen (known) Drakals in Greater Massachusetts.
Winged people are all somewhat magical in nature, as flight for a human sized creature is pretty much impossible without magic or psionics or technology. Unlike Shifted Lands humans, winged people lack psionics. Bat People generally lack other magical aptitudes, although they can use magic as well as the average human and there are a few Bat People Mages. Drakals and Sprites all have Magical Aptitude, and Sprites also Regenerate.
Winged People tend to be rather noticeable. Sprites and Drakals are striking, beautiful people, although in different ways. Sprites are delicate looking, petite winged women with light builds and slightly boyish figures. Their wings defract light into a rainbow of colors. Drakals are usually taller and more shapely, with their scaled skin, bat-like (or more correctly dragon-like) wings and somewhat lizardish tails actually enhancing their alien beauty. Bat People tend to not be regarded as attractive by humans due to their furry (note: fur, not just hairy) torsos and tail (-1 for reaction rolls) and their demonic looking bat wings. However, some are considered beautiful or handsome and there are humans in romantic relationships with bat people.
Bat People
Bat People have bat wings and a prehensile tail. Their torso and tail and wings are covered with soft fur that is the same color as the hair on their heads. Bat People tend to form romantic bonds with other bat people, but some get involved with humans and sprites. Most couriers and fast food delivery people in shifted Boston are bat people; they've entirely replaced the bicycle couriers of earlier times since they don't have to deal with traffic or pedestrians. (GURPS cost: 40 points)
Sprites
Sprites have wings somewhat like lacewing insects and antennae somewhat like those of moths. They tend to be petite, and never have a strength greater than 8 (-3 on ST base). Their antennae give them enhanced hearing and smell (+2 on hearing, smell, and taste rolls). They are very magical; they have magical aptitude, regeneration (one hit point per hour), and they have twice as much fatigue than their ST would normally give. Sprites are often thought of as "flighty" and frivolous; spending most of their time practicing or performing Air Dances (a sort of combination of flight and dance) , or concerning themselves with their appearance. They do tend toward artistic pursuits and generally dress in light, pretty clothes but this is far from universal; many are close to the opposite of the standard stereotype.
Sprites are almost always beautiful (+2 on all reaction rolls made by women , +4 by men), but some humans find it to be a overly alien beauty. Still, sprites seem to have little trouble attracting male humans and elves. Their children are sprites if female and like their fathers if male. (GURPS cost: 74 points)
Drakals
Unlike other winged people, Drakals are not a result of the Shift. Drakals were completely unknown until Andrea Mills returned from the wilderness after a brief relationship with a dragon as a sort of dragon-woman. Being broke and lacking a job, she agreed to pose for a book of "tasteful and artistic" nude photographs of non-human women being produced by a photographer ex-boyfriend. The book was a great success, and Andrea found herself with a modeling career and hordes of fans. This showed other drakals that it was possible to live in civilization despite their change, and some returned.
Apparently, relationships with dragons have shortcomings; dragons tend to sleep for days or weeks or even months, leaving their drakal consorts neglected and bored. Some drakals completely severed their relationships with their dragons completely, but some only moved back to civilization and their dragons visit them in human form frequently. There appear to be no female dragons; dragons court suitable human, elvish, and perhaps other women and by some unknown means change them into drakals. The most any Drakal has said about the process is that it "brought out their true selves"; implying that the women have to have some undefined quality in order to be transformed. Some people believe that this is the truth behind the notion of dragons carrying off virgins although virginity doesn't seem to be a requirement and the known dragons seem to only take willing mates.
The child of a dragon and a drakal will be a dragon whelp, while the child of a drakal and a man will be a drakal. The gestation period is roughly the same in human pregnancies; some suggest that carrying a dragon fetus is what turns a human woman into a drakal, but drakals won't confirm that. Some also suggest that a drakal's first dragon whelp is delivered as an egg; drakals laugh at that. Drakals nurse their offspring for a bit longer on average than human women; young drakals and dragon whelps develop a bit slower than human babies although a whelp is more mobile than a human or drakal baby. The young drakal or whelp does not achieve flight or flame breath until around adolescence; about the same time magical ability or psionics manifests in other races. Drakals are as devoted to their young as any human, but whelps tend to go to live with their fathers around the age of five to share in dragon dreams. Their mothers still visit them and care about them, usually.
Drakals have draconic wings and reptilian looking tails. They have no body hair except on their heads, and their external ears are replaced by a slight ridge. Their skin is finely scaled and feels somewhat like fine soft leather; very pleasing to the touch. Their skin color varies from golden to copperish. They have no eyebrows or eyelashes, but have slight ridges over the eyes. They have claws on their hands and feet instead of nails (+2 damage in combat, -1 on DX for actions involving manual dexterity); the claws are about the same color as their skin, just a bit darker. They also have Magical Aptitude. And of course, since they are draconic, they have flame breath with a range of one yard that does one d6 damage at a cost of two fatigue points. Drakals are always quite beautiful (+2 on reaction rolls made by women; +6 on rolls by men) ; tall, shapely, and usually a bit bosomy. The tendency of drakals to end up in professions where physical beauty is a top priority and their tendency to look as if they were painted by Boris Vallejo has led to them being disparaged as "scaled bimbos" . But there's one drakal lawyer, and another drakal developed the "Flying Dragon" karate variant used by almost all drakals that allows for effective use of flight, tail and claws; they certainly are capable of doing pretty much anything a human can, but they'll have to overcome their stereotyping.
Some people who are particularly uncomfortable with reptiles dislike drakals, and even some who find them attractive are unnerved by their claws and potential for breathing fire. On the other hand, there are so many people who really like drakals that there's a quarterly publication all about them. Drakals always have significant reputations and recognition; even a drakal with no particular accomplishments working in the most boring job that exists will be recognized on the street and pestered by admirers wanting autographs or dates or to take pictures of them.
Drakals always wear some gold jewelry even in bed and when bathing; it seems to comfort and please them. Usually they have a couple of gold chain necklaces, and perhaps some bracelets and ankle bracelets. They are very attached to their gold, and anyone trying to take it is likely to be clawed and/or flamed. (GURPS cost: 80 points)
Notes
The Flight advantage allows for double ground speed. The Flight skill defaults to DX.
It's entirely possible that I'm duplicating some entries from GURPS Fantasy Folk; I don't have that book. However, these winged folk do not have a long history; they are all descended from Shifted humans except for a few drakals that started as Elves or (maybe) others. They function as a sort of human minority more than as separate species.
I picture Bat Winged People as "average Joes" with wings; they have a neat ability, but pretty much act like a human of their culture. Most humans have little trouble dealing with them.
Sprites have their own culture extolling art and dance and the joy of life. Not all sprites follow this way, but the rest of society tends to lump them all together. "Say, why don't you dance for us?"
"I don't dance. I'm an electrical engineer!"
"Oh, you must dance! You're a SPRITE!"
Adventurer sprites probably would be these atypical sorts.
Drakals are really rare, always noticed, and usually a drakal will run into somebody who knows a lot about her in any civilized area. Some fans are obsessive, and many men assume that drakals are free with their affections. While their significant fighting ability will ward off most overly aggressive suitors, they will still get a variety of propositions from the polite to the tacky. Most drakals in civilization are models, spokeswomen, sales people, and in other professions where their exotic beauty is a plus. Drakals probably should have the Longevity advantage, but in the Shifted Lands setting that would be relatively meaningless and would be an unnecessary 40 point cost addition.
[This last bit led to a criticism of the GURPS system, since I was not giving Drakals an ability they should have because of the point cost. I feel that the problem is more the cost of Longevity; it really adds nothing to the character's power for the price of a powerful advantage or a whole lot of skill points. Give 'em Longevity for free.]
[It occurs to me that as there is a certain "sex appeal" aspect to the reaction bonuses for Sprites and Drakals, they might only be applicable to heterosexual observers; gay observers might have the bonuses reversed. Use your judgment.]
[I originally said that drakals lay an egg rather than give live birth, but I though about it and although there's some appeal to the idea of dragon eggs, a bit of thought about it led me to determine that they give live birth.]
SFTV: SEASON OVERVIEW AND ENDINGS
The '95-'96 television season is now only history, but the shows will live on in memory and in everlasting reruns. There are spoilers below for pretty much every SFTV show, particularly season enders. THE TREKS
As always, we start with the Treks. DS9 had a pretty decent season, while ST:V continued in mediocrity with a few real howlers. In the fall, we get Star Trek: First Contact, a new movie with the STNG crew; supposedly there's time travel, Zephram Cochrane (inventor of warp drive), and a Borg Queen (!).
Star Trek: Deep Space 9
This season of DS9 opened with the collapse of the treaty between the Federation and the Klingons, the addition of Worf to the DS9 crew, and the near conquest of the Cardassians by the Klingons being thwarted by the Federation. We ended up with several Worf and Klingon oriented episodes, but there were several other decent episodes. While we still had some of the "soap opera" stories involving O'Brian's family life or Kira's love life or whatever, they weren't dominant this season.
The season ender alters the series as much as the season opener. When Odo suddenly becomes ill, Sisko takes the Defiant into the Gamma Quadrant to contact the Founders. When contact is made, it turns out that the illness is a ploy; the Founders want to judge Odo for killing another changeling. They give Odo a creative sentence; they make him human. However, when Odo was in the Great Link being judged, he learned that the Klingon leader Gowron is in fact a changeling. The Klingons are now on the warpath big time, and they are trying to seize territory from the Feds.
This is apparently going to be the main theme of the next season; a Fed-Klingon war that's really a plot by the Dominion to take over the Alpha Quadrant. I have to wonder how the writers will pull this off. Consider that the Dominion has never lost any major confrontation with Alpha Quadrant powers. Consider that there are shapeshifters infiltrating the Feds, Klingons, Romulans, and probably everybody else. Consider that the Dominion is one thousand years old. How does the Federation win? My fear is that the writers will have a Jem'Hadar rebellion destroy the Dominion; this is basically ridiculous as genetically engineered vat-grown warriors won't rebel against their makers and masters unless the Founders were utter fools. We won't know for sure until next season.
[And we still don't really know for sure, and we've had a story where super-geniuses determine that the Feds can't beat the Dominion. How then do the Feds get their inevitable victory?]
Star Trek: Voyager
Voyager was about as bad as DS9 was good this season, alas. This season featured the horrid episode "Threshold", in which Lt. Paris and Capt. Janeway turn into salamanders, spawn on some planet, and then get turned back to normal. Most of the rest of the season wasn't much better.
The final episode of the season was a cliffhanger. It was also remarkably bad. Let's see, they pick up some Kazon who tells them that Seska (a Cardassian spy that joined the Kazons) has been killed and that her son (fathered from some genetic material taken from Chakotay) is going to be raised as a slave. They decide to rescue the son, fall into a trap, and can't blow up the ship because the unguarded Kazon set off an explosion that disabled the secondary processors. The Kazons capture the ship and strand the crew on a hostile planet, leaving only the doctor and a hiding betazoid prisoner (murderer; from a decent episode) on board. This was all ridiculous; risking the ship for a child that they never knew, falling into a fairly obvious trap, inadequately guarding a person from a hostile power, and having a self-destruct that is so easily disabled.
We know that in the first episode of the next season the crew will get Voyager back and no major character will die. While rumor has it that we'll being seeing less of the Kazons they'll still be running in circles in the Delta Quadrant and making no real progress towards home. And they'll still nearly get the ship destroyed in every other episode but be back to normal in the next episode despite having no access to a space dock for repairs. We can hope that it'll be otherwise; that there will be reasonable stories with the Voyager crew dealing with Delta Quadrant races on a equal basis as opposed to the paternalistic Prime Directive stuff, that Captain Janeway won't be forced by the scriptwriters to do blatantly stupid things, that characters other than the doctor and (sometimes) Tuvok will actually be interesting. We'll see.
Quick thought: I just noticed in a promo for the fall UPN season a clip that featured what sure looked like a Jem'Hadar warship. I've speculated that there was a possibility that the _Voyager_ would run into the other side of the Dominion; this may confirm it. Of course it's also possible that they're recycling footage; I recall how the "Dreadnought" from one episode showed up as an alien ship in another episode. Still, I've suspected that there's a shapeshifter spy on Voyager; maybe he or she will contact the Dominion and that's how the crew will leave their exile.
[So much for that dubious speculation; oh well. On the other hand, since it seems the ship will get back in the upcoming (1998) season there's a good chance they'll end up right in the middle of the Dominion War.]
Greek Myths Revisited and Revised
Once upon a time, Universal's "Action Pack" featured a new take on Hercules. This Hercules wasn't a bearded, pompous, tuniced muscleman with little brain like in the dubbed Italian films featuring Steve Reeves and others; Kevin Sorbo's Hercules is a clean shaven, bright, trousered, sensitive guy. The series went from being periodic movies to a regular show and spun off the series Xena: Warrior Princess.
Both Xena and Hercules play fast and loose with Greek legends, feature some campy bits, and some anachronisms. Women seem to all get their clothes from "Frederick's of Ithaca"; more so on Hercules than on Xena. Their version of ancient Greece is remarkably diverse racially. But they are both well done, and the characters act believably in their settings; they don't seem to be winking at the camera saying "we're just acting".
They've had some clunker episodes; I was unimpressed with the episode where Xena ends up at the Trojan War. There's at least one odd discontinuity between the two series; while in Hercules the war god Ares is a hulking brutish giant, in Xena he's a handsome guy. When the "ultimate weapon" in one Xena episode turns out to be this box with some tablets in it, I groaned. There's also the "guilty pleasure" aspect of watching Xena; while Lucy Lawless is actually a pretty good actress I can see how people may figure that one watches Xena purely because of her sex appeal and sexy (but not illogical, all things considered) outfit. Still, I think both shows really are worth watching.
[A few things. Ares now appears on Hercules in the handsome guy version. How did I miss the famous "subtext"? And at the time I wrote this we did not yet have the weird timeline where Julius Caesar, the future King David, and the Persian Wars existing at the same time so Xena can encounter them. Xena still rules, though. :)]
Babylon 5
Once again, the last few episodes of B5 are held back until the fall. In a way, the episodes "War With End" parts 1 and 2 were pretty good pseudo-endings; answering many questions and posing new ones. The resolution of Sinclair's destiny, the disappearance of the Babylon 4 station and the origin of those prophecies Delenn talks about made for a confusing but satisfactory story.
It was a pretty good season for B5; I actually liked every episode. Heck, the one featuring Jack the Ripper wasn't bad but it would have been better had Sebastian not been Jack; it was a bit too obvious and detracted from the story. Overall, B5 had a better season than DS9 and far better than ST:V.
B5 has managed to survive the dissolution of PTEN, but a number of stations dropped it. Will it make it to a fifth season, or will the Arc be truncated to fit in four years instead of five? I'd guess that if the ratings continue to be good it'll go the distance.
Highlander
Highlander has a potentially interesting season cliffhanger. Joe Dawson was kidnapped and tried for treason by the Watchers. But before he could be executed by them, some young Immortal came along and machine gunned pretty much all of the Watcher leadership. We don't know if Joe will live.
More importantly, why did this immortal kill off the Watchers? I suspect that we might find out the real secret of the Watchers. Think about it; Joe's offense was forging reports. If the Watchers were just historians as we've been told, execution seems to be an awfully severe consequence of peer review; we don't see Holocaust revisionists or Afro-Centrists getting killed after all.
I'm guessing that we'll learn that the whole notion of "There can be only one" is purely a Watcher creation used to control the Immortals and this young Immortal has found that out. Or we'll get something really lame.
[And of course that Immortal was killing Watchers because his lover was killed by the Hunters, not because he'd learned The Truth. So much for my wishful thinking. ]
Forever Knight
Forever Knight has ridden off into the sunrise. I suppose that it never had a large following, just a cult audience. We expected it to die, since USA Network had cancelled it in mid-season but apparently decided to let it go for a whole season. This was probably the poorest season of the show, but it had its moments.
The ending was, well....
Since we knew the end was near, I'd speculated on just how they'd end it.
1. Nick gets cured.
There were at least three possible ways to be cured of vampirism. A better form of a hormone that Natalie tried on Nick, but without the side effects. Some sort of mental process; since a multiple personality vampire could function as a mortal it should be possible to make Nick mortal that way. And there's True Love which made Jeanette mortal.
Could Nick function as a mortal? When he experienced mortality from an experimental hormone he managed to get shot and would have died if the formula hadn't worn off; he relies way too much on his vampiric powers. Also, would LaCroix let him stay mortal?
2. Nick learns to deal with being a vampire.
I'd hoped that when Vachon was introduced we'd see a different sort of vampire; one who is virtuous because his master was virtuous. Unfortunately, Vachon showed little sign of being a great improvement over other vampires, morally. Still, there was the possibility that Nick would realize that the sin isn't in being a vampire but in being a killer and would accept his nature. After his artificially induced near-death experience last season, he should have realized that he couldn't atone for his wrongs in a mortal lifetime.
3. Natalie becomes a vampire, and she and Nick leave for a new life.
I figured that Nat might decide that the only way she could be with Nick would be to become a vampire. She probably could have taken one of the many blood samples she took from Nick and successfully infected herself. She wouldn't necessarily become a killer, since it was established that the blood craving is established by your first feeding. Instead of killing someone as seems to be the norm for vampires she could have kept a couple of quarts of cow blood handy. Alternately, Nick might have been forced to make Nat into a vampire in order to save her life or she'd offer herself to him when he had to feed and there was no alternative.
4. Nick kills himself.
This was the least likely, as he'd had plenty of chances in the past. Also, he knew from his near-death experience that his attempts to make up for his past crimes were not adequate to redeem him; he'd not redeem himself by suicide.
So what really happened? Well, after Tracy got killed Nick was going to leave. Natalie convinced him to try the "make love and only take a little blood" method that made Jeanette mortal. Nick failed to control himself, killed Natalie, elected to not bring her across (make her a vampire) despite the fact that she'd asked him to do so earlier, and had LaCroix kill him. With Cohen and Shankey killed off in the first episode, Jeanette shot after becoming mortal, Vachon killed by LaCroix's angry daughter, and Tracy dead only LaCroix and the new Captain were left alive. This left me speechless; I'd not expected this.
In a way, it's an appropriate ending, but it did reinforce the idea that Nick was a bit of an idiot. To assume that what worked for a female vampire would work for a male was presumptuous; and of course Nat and Nick didn't exactly "make love" unless a couple kisses count as such these days. Of course we didn't actually see LaCroix kill Nick; there's room for a return of the show if it suddenly got revived.
Reassessment: I just saw again the last few minutes of the episode where Jeanette becomes mortal. While I had assumed that she had died, it appears that Nick actually brought her across off camera. LaCroix notes that Jeanette had by a fluke achieved what Nick been struggling to achieve only to lose it to Nick's actions. This shows that one must pay attention and not jump to conclusions. This sort of fits in to what I noted above; we don't see LaCroix kill Nick so if by some fluke the series came back (not likely) they could simply open with Nick having been knocked out, and waking up to find that Nat has been brought across by LaCroix. Well...that's how I'd do it. :)
Mystery Science Theatre 3000
Here's another show that had a pretty final last episode; but according to a post from the Dominion (Sci-Fi Channel web site) it's coming back in February of 1997 on the Sci-Fi Channel. There will be thirteen episodes with only science fiction movies getting the treatment.
The last new Comedy Central episode featured the movie Laserblast. I'd thought that Laserblast was pretty decent when I saw it years ago; well, I was younger then. :) It had loads of Mistiable flaws and made for one of the best episodes ever. One of the highlights was Mike dressed up as Captain Janeway; a dead-on parody. At the end of the episode, well, let's just say it was a pretty final ending. It should be interesting to see how they deal with it when they start out on the Sci-Fi Channel.
Doctor Who
After years of waiting, and loads of rumors, a pilot for a new Doctor Who series finally aired on Fox. It starred Paul McGann as the new Doctor and featured Eric Roberts as the Master. Overall, it was pretty much an average Who story with vastly better special effects. There were some odd bits; the Doctor is revealed to be half- human and the Eye of Harmony is noted as being in the TARDIS. It makes a certain amount of sense for the Doctor to be half-human; he spends an awful lot of time on Earth and around humans after all. As to the Eye of Harmony, well, originally that was the black hole kept inside Gallifrey that provides the Time Lords with their tremendous resources of energy. I'm not sure what the logic is in putting it inside the TARDIS; perhaps there's a sort of copy of the Eye in every TARDIS.
There may be a Doctor Who series as a mid-season replacement on Fox. The pilot movie's ratings weren't all that high, but it was on at a bad night. In Britain, it did really quite well. I'd guess that it could end up as a syndicated series, or on Fox in the '97-'98 season. The one problem I see for it getting picked up by Fox (other than the ratings) is that Fox already has a lot of SF type shows; X Files, Sliders, and I think one or two more in the fall. They may not want to have another SF show.
[No Who for American TV, oh well.]
Short Takes
Space: Above and Beyond failed to survive despite a lot of devoted fans. Apparently its high production cost of around $2 million per show made it not worthwhile to Fox. To be sure, S:AAB was perhaps the most racked show by hard core SF fans since Earth 2; in addition to science nit-picks there were lots of military nit- picks. S:AAB had trained fighter pilots acting as ground troops every other week and soldiers disregarding orders and otherwise performing actions that would get them court martialed in the real world. But it did make it through a full season, assuring that it a place in reruns.
American Gothic didn't survive, as I predicted. For all that it was a critically praised show, I suspect it was just too weird for the general populace.
Sliders came back as a mid-season replacement and earned a place in the fall line-up for Fox. I saw one episode, and that episode introduced a race of villains. I suspect that this is a very bad idea and will kill the show. It appears (from word on the Net) that John Rhys-Davies (Professor Arturo) is leaving the show. One poster noted that in a TV Guide article Rhys-Davies complained of the lack of real science fiction in Sliders; maybe that's why he left. Unfortunate; he was the best actor and character on the program.
[Actually, Rhys-Davis stayed for a while longer, but did ultimately leave.]
Nowhere Man died; I suspect that it's very hard to do such a paranoid show with consistent quality for an extended period without massive logic problems.
REVIEWS
Arcane: the roleplaying magazine
Subscription address:
Arcane Subscriptions Future Publishing Ltd. Cary Court Somerton Somerset UK TA11 6TB
email: subs@futurenet.co.uk
website: http://www.futurenet.co.uk
Arcane is a new (at least to the US) RPG magazine that also has articles on wargames and collectable card games. I picked issue number five at the Boston Tower Records; apparently this is the first issue to be distributed in the USA.
I was initially attracted by the cover story: "Religion: Why the Christian Right Want to Ban Our Games." Remarkably, the article was very well balanced and in a regular column a Christian gamer noted that the Christians had some legitimate concerns and that gamers could also be narrow minded and intolerant.
There's an assortment of good reviews and articles, a nice gaming news section, a nice game supplement featuring a castle floorplan, and a feature called "Retro" recalling old but not forgotten games; in this issue they covered Bushido, the feudal Japanese RPG from Fantasy Games Unlimited that's returning in 1997 from Gold Rush Games.
Arcane has a somewhat different look from American RPG magazines. It's colorful (or should that be colourful?), with a good sense of humor about gaming and a few mildly confusing Britisms. It's one of the better magazines I've seen, and I'd suggest picking it up if you can find it.
[And it's no longer being produced; oh well.]
Independence Day
Unless you've been living in a cave or in a remote area of a non- English speaking country, you've seen a multitude of advertisements for this film. While it would appear from many of the advertisements that this is a horror SF film, the producers of the film (according to an article in Science Fiction Age) were largely inspired by Irwin Allen disaster movies and it shows. It's more of a action adventure disaster film; lots of stuff getting blown up while intrepid heroes struggle to prevent the destruction of mankind.
The story follows four (more or less) family groups; the President of the US and his wife and daughter, a Marine fighter pilot and his girlfriend and her son, a drunken Vietnam Vet (who supposedly was abducted by aliens) and his children, and an MIT graduate working for a cable company, his father, and his ex-wife who happens to be the presidential press secretary. They are brought together by our first open encounter with extraterrestrial aliens; a huge spaceship massing a fourth of the mass of the Moon (!). The giant ship releases a bunch of miles wide spaceships that position themselves over many of the world's largest cities.
The aliens turn out to be hostile, with the President and many others saved in the nick of time by a warning from the MIT graduate cable company worker (played by Jeff Goldblum in a role like many he's played) who detects an alien countdown hidden in satellite signals. Counterattacks against the aliens prove ineffective with only one victory; a Marine pilot (played by Will Smith) manages to get an alien fighter to crash and captures an alien. Ultimately, the main characters end up at Area 51; the semi-legendary place in Nevada where experimental aircraft are tested and where there's (in the movie, if not real life) a recovered alien spaceship.
I won't give away more of the plot; other than to note that this film is in a real sense a Nineties version of the Fifties film Earth vs. The Flying Saucers. It's a pretty decent action adventure with the normal flavorings of interpersonal relationships. The characters aren't particularly developed beyond the bare minimum needed to keep the plot moving. The special effects were (except for a bit on the Moon in the beginning) pretty decent.
There's some big flaws in the film. In the first place, why would aliens destroy Earth's civilization in effort to gain resources? Most of the mass of the Solar System outside of the Sun is off the Earth, and in almost any given star system there's likely to be a lot of resources that aren't on habitable planets. There's little point in taking over a planet with armed inhabitants unless the inhabitants are one of the resources you want or you're wanting farmland. There's also the remarkable ability of the heroes to avoid destruction by forces that trash buildings and toss cars; some things happen for plot convenience instead of for logical reasons.
The sheer evil of the aliens allows for a lot of ruthlessness against them; it is possible that this is the only way we can have an old fashioned war movie , by having hateful aliens. It's perhaps a good thing to have humans united against a dangerous evil instead of "my country against the enemy country".
The movie is worth seeing, but don't expect a great and consistent SF film. Expect an action adventure that ignores logic where it's inconvenient and has lots of big booms. I'd advise seeing it in a theatre instead of waiting for video; it'll lose a lot on the small screen.
TOLERANCE AND INTOLERANCE
This is inspired by Rick Staats' comment in IR #21, "I'm not opposed to conservatism or liberalism per se, it's intolerance that scares the Dickens out of me!" and his comments about how liberals as well as conservatives can be intolerant. I've mulled over the tolerance issue for some time; the following may be a bit of a rant, so be warned.
First, a definition from Webster's II New Riverside Dictionary:
tolerance 1. recognition of and respect for the opinions, beliefs, or actions of others.
Tolerance is not "accepting all views as equally valid" or "subscribing to a certain acceptable viewpoint", but that's my impression of what some folk see to be tolerant.
Christians and Muslims and others aren't "intolerant" if they regard their belief system as the One True Way. But they are intolerant if they try to prevent others from practicing their faiths, or if they try to force others to follow their religious laws.
It is not "intolerant" to condemn wrongful actions; but it is intolerant to condemn someone purely for following his or her faith.
It is not "intolerant" to spread one's views; but it is intolerant to prevent others from expressing their views. It's okay for abortion opponents to protest, but not okay for them to block access and tacky for them to harass clinic clients. It's okay to protest a conservative speaker but not okay to occupy a building and prevent them from making a speech.
It is not "intolerant" to write from one's own religious or philosophical belief system, or to dislike reading works written from a differing belief system. But it is intolerant to condemn someone for writing from the perspective that their belief system gives.
It is intolerant to always jump to a negative stereotype about a group, but it's not tolerant to excuse actions by a member of a group (race, religion) because of past wrongs against that group. That's paternalism, and condescension.
It is intolerant to automatically call a right-winger a "Nazi" or a left-winger a "Marxist" or a "Statist" without having something on which to base that statement. These are specific ideological viewpoints and it corrupts the language to call every right winger a "Nazi", for example.
Tolerance can be a tricky thing. Tolerance doesn't mean you like somebody, or accept that their belief system has any validity, or approve their actions. It does mean accepting the right of others to have differing views.
Do we therefore tolerate white supremacists, or other hate groups? Well, you allow them to speak, and then counter them. Hate groups seem to commit definition of character pretty readily given half a chance. The danger is that the hate group will attract the unthinking with their lies, but I'd have to say that these folk are looking for a channel and a form for their frustrations and would find another outlet that's equally destructive.
Just my opinion; I'm curious what everybody else thinks.
BOOT TO THE HEAD FOR NASA
Recently, NASA decided on a design for the X-33, the prototype for the next generation of manned spacecraft. There were three designs competing: one from McDonnell Douglas, popularly called the "Delta Clipper", that already has had test flights of a smaller model; a design from Rockwell International based on their existing Space Shuttle; and a design from Lockheed Martin that uses a lifting body (sort of like a flying wing) design and a "linear aerospike" engine that uses air pressure rather than a nozzle to shape exhaust gases.
Of the three designs, the "Delta Clipper" appeared, from what I've read, to be the only one that would achieve NASA's goals of drastically reducing the cost of launch in addition to a vastly reduced turn around time. They've already launched the current prototype twice in the same week. The Rockwell design is based on proven technology, but the Lockheed design uses technology that has never been used in a spacecraft. Given a design that already had a working prototype, a design based on existing and proven technology, and a design based on unproven technology, the choice was obvious. Take the one that has the least chance of actually working...what?!
Yes, our guys at NASA elected to go with the Lockheed Martin design. Edward Crowley of MIT said of the choice, "It shows the agency is willing to take risks. That's technologically the most challenging" of the three designs, "the one that's going to really advance the technology."
But that's not the point! The point is to have a cheap, quickly reusable ship to replace the shuttle. The point is to have a ship that can be operated by a private company so that NASA can reduce its costs. The point is not to take great technological risks that would raise costs and cripple the space program. NASA has allotted $900 million to develop this thing; we can pretty well expect overruns and delays. The Delta Clipper was on schedule and within budget; darn, just can't have that!
It is possible that there's factors I'm unaware of, and that the Lockheed design really had an advantage other than stretching technology and looking really cool. But from what I can tell, NASA has elected to chose the flashiest design instead of the best design. I hope I'm wrong, but it appears that NASA has made a decision that will cripple us in the long run.
(Most information for the above from the July 3rd Boston Globe)
[And the last bit I saw on this was Lockheed Martin wanting more money; apparently it's harder than they expected. ARGH!!]
MARTYRS FOR SPACE
There's an interesting short article in the June issue of Final Frontier magazine. Apparently, Yuri Gagarin was not the first cosmonaut to safely travel in space; Vladimir Iliushin was up before him but came back in bad shape and wasn't really presentable to the public.
More unnerving is the note that at least seven cosmonauts died in in six attempts to get into space, starting in 1957. A lot of people, starting with these men and up to the Challenger seven, have died to get man into space. I hope that we don't lose the future they strived for out of narrow budget concerns or unwise decisions made for dubious reasons.
THE MARGARET ATWOOD SCIENCE FICTION COMPETITION
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer noted mainly for The Handmaiden's Tale, a story set in a dystopian future New England. The book won the first Arthur C. Clarke award and was called the best SF novel ever produced by a Canadian, according to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
However, Ms. Atwood claims that she doesn't write science fiction because she doesn't write stories with spaceships, aliens, or robots. My challenge: Dig up stories that do not feature spaceships, aliens, robots, or time travel (just to be certain) but that are clearly science fiction.
My examples:
Flowers for Algernon (movie: Charly) by Daniel Keyes
This story (short story and a novel version), in which mentally deficient Charly Gordon becomes a genius through a medical technique only to lose his high intellect is clearly SF, even though the technique isn't particularly described.
Fahrenheit 451 (movie of same title, another coming) by Ray Bradbury
In this story firemen don't stop fires, they start them in order to burn books. Sure, it's a social commentary but it's SF.
The Postman (ought to be made into a movie) by David Brin
This story of a post-nuclear world has been condemned by Brian Aldiss (in Synergy vol. 1) as overly optimistic, but I think it's a very realistic depiction of such a world. It would have been better if the survivialists had been ordinary people as opposed to augments, but it still worked.
While the Postman tells people that there's no radio because of orbital laser satellites zapping transmitters, he's just making that up; while it would explain some things he doesn't know that to be the truth. In any case, satellites are pretty much real world things and don't necessarily count as spacecraft.
[There is a reference to sentient AI computers; I suppose they could be argued to be "robots". And of course the movie was made and was wildly unsuccessful. ]
There's more out there; show me yours!
LINKS
Single Stage Rocket Technology