Army of Dorkness

Carl Sagan vs. Astrology!

2011-04-30T07:43:00.002-06:00

I saw this over at the Hero Games Discussion Boards and had to share it. Huzzah for the Scientific Method!

The Mighty M.O.D.O.K.

2010-09-30T09:17:00.000-06:00

M.O.D.O.K. (Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing) is getting some love on the NPR popular culture blog.

In Praise of M.O.D.O.K: Why Gleefully Goofy Beats Broodingly Brutal

I have a confession to make: I absolutely love comic books featuring M.O.D.O.K. Anytime he appears, I start to chuckle and know I'm in for a great comic book ride. In an era of year(s) long comic book special events (Civil War, Dark Reign, Blackest Night) and edgy/gritty characters, M.O.D.O.K. is a breath of fresh air.

The world needs more M.O.D.O.K.

July 20th - 1969

2010-07-20T12:08:00.000-06:00

This is truly a Dork/Geek moment.

Today is the 41st anniversary of the first time mankind set foot an an extra-planetary body.

Star Trek: Tik Tok

2010-06-21T13:51:00.000-06:00

Instant classic.

That's some darn snazzy editing.

Songs of the Cosmos

2010-04-16T11:43:00.000-06:00

Groovin' with Carl.

Great Cartoon

2009-12-29T09:27:00.001-07:00

This is from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Sometimes so so, sometimes hilarious.

And I Thought They Smelled Bad on the Outside...

2009-12-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

One of the nerdiest things I've ever seen:

Tauntaun Sleeping Bag

I'd love to have a couple of these. If nothing else, I'd love to have one for Sophia to take with her when the time comes for her to go to Girls Camp. Heh.

Stay warm, friends.

Giant Robots!

2009-11-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

Holy crap! I'd love to see a feature film made by this director.

Super Emo Friends!

2009-11-24T23:20:00.000-07:00

Stolen, as usual, from the Hero Boards:

Wow, I thought Cyclops had it rough....

Disney buying Marvel

2009-08-31T10:51:00.000-06:00

Disney is buying Marvel Comics for 4 billion.

Wow.

This was not something I expected to see this morning. Huge huge news for comics. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, this will do to the comics themselves.. I have some hopes, as I think Marvel has been a cesspool of bad writing (with a very few expections) for years, I hope this will make things better. Others will feel differently of course.

The biggest reason, I'm sure, is to get access to the characters for theme parks, movies and videogames.

I've lamented the "disneyfication" of other source material (Hunchback for example, or the Three Musketeers), but as bad as I feel Marvel is right now, I'd welcome it.

Marvel-DC Dustup (Part 5)

2009-08-12T07:03:00.000-06:00

All right, it's been a while, but let's pick up the action right where we left off. Since there are a total of nine pairings left, we'll look at five matchups this time instead of four.

Triathlete vs. Steel
Triathlete? I've never even heard of him. What does he do? I'd better look up his powers and skills and see if he can even give Steel an entertaining fight.
:: looks up info ::
Um, no.
Winner: Steel

Sub-Mariner vs. Aquaman
The 'Meh' fight of the series. Seriously, Fishboy vs. Hook-hand? Hard to get excited about this one. Okay, so you can live underwater and talk to fish. That means you have the same powers as Spongebob Squarepants. Oh, except that Fishboy can't even talk to fish.
Winner: Aquaman

Black Widow vs. Black Canary
This is a hard one to call. Black Widow's espionage skills and combat training (armed and unarmed) make her a formidable enemy. Chances are, she'll take you out before you even know she's looking for you. In a straight-up fight, though, Black Canary's sonic scream gives her a profound advantage.
Winner: Black Canary

Tigra vs. Huntress
Another hard one to call. Huntress is so skilled and so driven that it's hard to pick against her in a fight. But the fact is that Tigra is faster, stronger, and more agile. Huntress keeps it interesting, but Tigra eventually takes the fight.
Winner: Tigra

Vision vs. Martian Manhunter
These two have quite possibly the most bizarre powersets for major heroes in their respective companies. Vision is a phasing energy projecting android flying brick. Manhunter is a phasing shapeshifting telepathic alien flying brick. If you were a GM and one of your players brought either of these concepts to you for a character, would you let them play it? Seriously, though, I think J'onn's wildly varied powers would prove too much for Vision to overcome with his wildly varied powers.
Winner: Martian Manhunter

Tactical Genius!

2009-07-11T08:00:00.000-06:00

Borrowed from the Hero Discussion Boards:

Marvel-DC Dustup (Part 4)

2009-06-16T13:01:00.000-06:00

All right, it's been a while, but here's the next set of match-ups and the anticipated results.

Crystal vs. Ice
Crystal has the ability to control the four classic Elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Ice has control over cold and, well, ice. Hey, isn't ice just really cold water?
Winner: Crystal

Machine Man vs. Plastic Man
Is Machine Man really even an Avenger? I know he's worked with them before, but I wasn't aware that he'd ever been a formal member. Regardless, I think Plastic Man wins. Machine Man is probably stronger, but Plas can stretch farther and can really soak up the damage.
Winner: Plastic Man

Ms. Marvel vs. Power Girl
Carol is super-strong, can fly, and has energy manipulation powers. Kara is a Kryptonian. That pretty well settles it. Another nice fight for the fanboys where costumes are concerned, incidentally.
Winner: Power Girl
Note: If Carol is Binary rather than Ms. Marvel or Warbird, she wins. Easily.

Wonder Man vs. Captain Marvel
I would rather see Hercules against Captain Marvel, but I understand the reason for this pairing. It has a hero from each company using the other company's trademark (Wonder Man /Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel/Marvel Comics). Ah, Irony. Anyway, Captain Marvel seems to be the stronger combatant here. However, Wonder Man's ionic energy makes him a dangerous and somewhat unpredictable quantity. I'm picking Wonder Man for the upset.
Winner: Wonder Man

Your responses, gentlemen (and ladies, if any)?

Marvel-DC Dustup (Part 3)

2009-05-21T11:35:00.000-06:00

Okay, here's the next round of matchups. Starting at the bottom of the picture:

The Wasp vs. The Atom
Ray (this is Ray, right?) is more intelligent and can shrink to a smaller size, both of which are considerable advantages. Janet's powers are more versatile, though (energy blast and flight), and she has years of experience as the leader of the Avengers. These factors tip the balance in her favor.
Winner: The Wasp

Hawkeye vs. Green Arrow
It's hard to pick against either of these two. They are so evenly matched in speed, skill, attitude, and the ability to make snappy patter to distract an opponent. And both of them rarely miss. As Ronin, however, Clint probably has better hand-to-hand fighting skills. Once they both run out of trick arrows, Hawkeye wins.
Winner: Hawkeye

Beast vs. Vixen
Beast is smarter, stronger, and faster. But Vixen's powers give so many different options in combat, I don't think Beast would be able to keep up. Sorry, Hank.
Winner: Vixen

Scarlet Witch vs. Zatanna
Red combat lingerie vs. Magic fishnets. In picking a winner for this fight, the snarky part of me wants to say "Every fanboy who reads the comic". But on to the actual fight. Zatanna typically has to speak to cast her spells, which could be a disadvantage, but not a major one. Wanda probably has more raw power—chaos magic is nasty stuff. But she's just too unstable to rely on in a fight. Zatanna's skill and steadiness wins the day.
Winner: Zatanna

Comments?

DC vs Marvel Dustups part 2a

2009-05-09T08:22:00.000-06:00

My responses to Lord Mhoram's post (below):

Quicksilver vs. Flash:
This fight is over quicker than you can say, "This fight is over." Besides, Quicksilver's a jerk. He deserves to get the snot beaten out of him.

Giant-Man vs. Orion:
Giant-Man loses this fight not because Orion is so much stronger, but because, as Dilliwag pointed out over on his blog, he's Hank Pym.

Black Panther vs. Blue Beetle:
I don't know much about Blue Beetle, but I know that Black Panther is no one to be messed with. Panther wins.

Quasar vs. Firestorm:
Hmm, I'm not as convinced on this one. Quasar, to me, always seemed like a weak Green Lantern knock-off. And in all the published stories in which I've seen him, he seemed either underpowered, unimiginative, or just plain boring. I think Firestorm gives him a run for his money. In fact, I pick Firestorm for the win.

DC vs Marvel Dustups part 2

2009-05-08T22:32:00.000-06:00

I'm going to list what I figure are the blowouts. :)

Quicksilver vs. Flash:
Speed of Sound vs Speed of Light. Duh.

Giant-Man vs. Orion:
A growth based brick (who has fallen to the Hulk pretty easily) vs a guy that can actually hurt Superman. No contest.

Black Panther vs. Blue Beetle:
As much as I love Ted - T'Challa takes him in any kind of fight.

Quasar vs. Firestorm:
I think the Firetorm here is Ronnie, but no Professor. Quasar is one the biggest energy powerhouses in the Avengers. Firestorm has been overwhelmed by Killer Frost and other energy people. Quasar would toast him.

Technological Terror

2009-05-08T10:33:00.000-06:00

I love Star Trek and all, but it certainly isn't Star Wars.

Marvel-DC Dustup (Part 1)

2009-05-07T19:42:00.001-06:00

Hey, fellow authors, remember the days when we used to do group participation posts? Where one of us would post a topic, and the others would respond? I miss that. So I've decided to bring it back. Consider this an engraved invitation to share your wisdom and insights, Lord Mhoram and Dilliwag (and anyone else who wants to play along, I suppose).

Today's topic: Marvel Heroes vs. DC Heroes.

I'm sure everyone's familiar with this picture:

This spread features no less than two dozen pairings of some members of the two companies' flagship teams. The matchups, as best I can tell, are as follows:

Wasp vs. Atom
Captain America vs. Batman
Hawkeye vs. Green Arrow
Scarlet Witch vs. Zatanna
Quicksilver vs. Flash
Crystal vs. Ice
Machine Man vs. Plastic Man
Warbird vs. Power Girl
Thor vs. Superman
Giant-Man vs. Orion
Wonder Man vs. Captain Marvel
Iron Man vs. Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner)
Triathlete vs. Steel
Sub-Mariner vs. Aquaman
Black Widow vs. Black Canary
Black Panther vs. Blue Beetle
Tigra vs. Huntress
Quasar vs. Firestorm
Vision vs. Martian Manhunter
She-Hulk vs. Wonder Woman
Firestar vs. Fire
Hercules vs. Big Barda
Justice vs. Red Tornado
Falcon vs. Hawkman

(Roughly bottom to top. ~~By the way, who's that fighting Red Tornado? Is it Jack of Hearts? Or maybe someone else? I can't tell. Little help here?~~)

Anyway, pictures like this always make me wonder: Who would win?

My invitation is to pick the winner of each fight. (We'll just do the Big Three from each company, to start with.) Give details. Debate. Speculate. You remember the drill.

I'll begin.

Captain America vs. Batman
The toughest fight to pick, right out of the gate. In the comics, these two fought each other to a standstill over an extended period of time--hours, as I recall. It's hard to single out an advantage in skill, willpower, strategy, endurance, or weaponry for either one. In the end, I have to go with my gut feeling: As a wartime combat veteran, Cap wins. Barely.
(Too bad both of these characters are currently dead.)
Winner: Captain America

Thor vs. Superman
God of Thunder. Man of Steel. The two heaviest hitters (with the possible exception of Hulk) in the two universes. Superman has his Kryptonian heritage and decades of skill as a hero. Thor has his Asgardian physiology, his mighty hammer Mjolnir, and mystical control over lightning and thunder. Is it enough to beat Superman? Sadly, Thor, I say thee nay.
Winner: Superman

Iron Man vs. Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner)
Conventional wisdom says that Green Lantern wins this fight, pretty much regardless of who the opponent is. And were the two people involved anyone other than Kyle and Tony, I'd agree without hesitation. Kyle is skilled with the ring and possesses an almost limitless imagination. But Tony is a scientific genius, an experienced hero and warrior, a survivor, and as recent events have shown, a ruthless S.O.B. when he feels the need to be. In a straight-up fight, Kyle wins. Tony makes sure this isn't a straight-up fight. This is my dark horse pick of the first round.
Winner: Iron Man

She-Hulk vs. Wonder Woman
She-Hulk is strong, smart, and strangely able to make green and purple look good together. She's a tough fight for almost anyone. But Wonder Woman is an icon. That, and she flies. All other things being equal--and I don't believe all other things are equal, in this case--that gives Diana the win.
(Incidentally, I think Wonder Woman vs. Ms. Marvel would be a much more interesting fight.)
Winner: Wonder Woman

I look forward to seeing your picks--and your reactions to mine.

Liberation

2009-05-02T10:33:00.000-06:00

And now for a little alternate history:

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot and critically wounded, but survived. When the would-be assassin was revealed to be a communist sympathizer, the Red Scare of the 50's returned to the United States with a vengeance. All the old paranoia returned, matched only by the outcry that something be done to make the country safer. In the midst of this political climate, President Kennedy, now confined to a wheelchair by his injuries, oversaw the transformation of the nation into the single dominant political and military power in the world.

Fueled by outrage in the international community and unprecedented sympathy back home, Kennedy began America's War of Liberation against Communism. Under American military and technical leadership, the New Allied Nations drove the Communists from power in North Korea, North Vietnam, and most of the Warsaw Pact nations. Chairman Mao was forced to abdicate in China, and Chiang Kai-shek was installed as President in a pro-American government. Finally, in 1979, the Soviet Union collapsed and fractured into more than a dozen individual nations, all of them desperately seeking alliances with America.

Enjoying unparalleled prestige and popularity, Kennedy had also moved to consolidate his power base back home. The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution overturned the Twenty-second Amendment in 1967, allowing President Kennedy to run for President in '68 and again in '72. He won both elections easily. By 1976 his newly-formed American Freedom Party had supplanted both the Republicans and the Democrats, and by 1984 he was making his quadrennial run for the Presidency effectively unopposed. In 1992, before cheering crowds, he declared himself President for Life.

Since then, the American Freedom Party has ruled politics in the United States with the proverbial iron fist. The government-sponsored press, the nationalized economy, and the largest military in world history are all answerable directly to President Kennedy. Crime is virtually nonexistent in the United States, as convicted criminals are shipped to prisons overseas and never seen in America again. Unemployment is unheard of; those without jobs are put to work building roads, bridges, power stations, and other projects essential to the nation's infrastructure. Those who will not work are deported.

In 2002, the American Union replaced the outdated United Nations as the world's premiere international organization. Those nations allied with the United States enjoy peace and prosperity. Those that aren't are crushed and left to fend for themselves.

Now well into his nineties, American President for Life John F. Kennedy effectively rules the world. Everyone in America is happy with the state of things—or if they're not happy, they don't say anything.

Late in 2006, a young and idealistic American history student named Marcus Norlander came to a startling conclusion: His country was no longer what he had always been taught that it was. It was not the country that had freed the world from the specter of Communism. It was the country that had supplanted Communism and taken over the world under the leadership of a despot. The Pax Americana was a lie.

That's when the 'accident' occurred. Marcus probably should have been killed in the explosion, but instead he gained superhuman powers: vast strength and resistance to injury, super-speed flight, and the ability to project blasts of pure force with devastating effect. Working with a small group of like-minded renegade heroes, he seeks to restore America to what it once was—and what it should be. Taking his code name from an American heavy bomber from World War II, Marcus now fights for the salvation and restoration of America as ...

The Liberator!

--
Image by me; Story by me based on the "Brave New World" game.

Battle of the imagination

2009-04-13T10:36:00.000-06:00

Found this posted at a message-board. Loved it so I have to share.

Yoda Man!

2009-03-27T19:44:00.000-06:00

Have You Ever Dreamed of Superpowers?

2009-03-18T11:50:00.001-06:00

This is good stuff. Very amusing.

Bail Out Lex Luthor!

2009-03-11T12:55:00.000-06:00

"Lex Luthor Bailout" with Jon Hamm - watch more funny videos

Calling All Browncoats!

2009-02-25T14:35:00.001-07:00

NASA is running a contest to name the third Node of the International Space Station.

You can vote here.

Fans of Firefly and will be happy to know that as of this post, "Serenity" is leading the vote count.

Shiny!

Star Wars for Dummies?

2009-01-14T12:40:00.001-07:00

Star Wars: Retold (by someone that's never seen it) - watch more funny videos

The Physics of Starship Battles

2009-01-05T23:37:00.000-07:00

Excellent video regarding the real life physics of starship battles.

Bring on the particle accelerators!

For the Tatooine Crime Lord who Has Everything

2008-12-02T22:57:00.000-07:00

Merry Christmas, Jabba.

Borrowed from the "Neat Pictures" thread at the Hero Games Discussion Boards.

These are the Voyages . . .

2008-11-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

The first images of the new Enterprise for the upcoming ST movie have officially made it to the web. ST geeks have already started complaining about the design. I've already read everything from "This looks NOTHING like the Enterprise. JJ Abrams is a hack" to "The warp nacelles look 10 meters too long." And that's just the start. I mean, really, do ST fans want anything other than repeats for all eternity? I'm a huge ST fan and I think the redesign looks smashing. Yes, there are some differences from the original ship. This is supposed to be an updated, yet true to form, version of the original. I swear, some fans won't be satisfied until Shatner is back in the Captain's chair. Get a life, geeks!

Thoughts?

Halloween Heroine!

2008-10-31T12:35:00.000-06:00

In honor of the holiday, I present yet another heroine.

She appears only one night each year. But on Halloween night she helps protect the children as they make their way from house to house, and prevents those with mischief on their minds from spoiling the holiday for anyone. She is . . .

. . . Candy Corn Girl!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

You Betcha!

2008-09-30T15:20:00.000-06:00

Your result for The RPG Class Test...

Smart Paladin

59% Combativeness, 20% Sneakiness, 71% Intellect, 78% Spirituality

Valorous! Noble! Or possibly just a self-righteous jerk (but with the brains to keep you alive!)... You are a Smart Paladin!

Paladins are holy warriors. They are valorous defenders of the light. Unfortunately, most of them are so ardent in their defense they tend to meet sticky ends faster than you can say "rampaging red dragon." Many people look up to Paladins, while others just consider them stuck up, overbearing, or self-righteous.

Fortunately for you, unlike most Paladins, you're pretty smart. Which means that you're more likely to fall into the "admired" category, rather than the "obnoxious" or "dead" categories.

Much like the crusades, you manage to combine violence and religion, though unlike the crusades, you add a healthy does of intelligence. You may be a staunch defender of the faith, a valorous champion of the weak, or the stuff that jihads are made of. Which ever one you are, just be happy that you've got the smarts to back it up and make it work.

Take The RPG Class Test at HelloQuizzy

Revenge of the Brick!

2008-08-30T08:49:00.001-06:00

We watched Star Wars - Clone Wars, Vol. 2 last night. This was in the Special Features on the DVD.

Great stuff, especially Obi-Wan avoiding the missiles and the photo in the cantina at the end.

Wizard's First Rule: Legend of the Seeker

2008-08-12T14:54:00.000-06:00

1st Trailer for the new series.

Looks promising?

Mr. Monk

2008-08-07T23:53:00.000-06:00

I Am A: Lawful Neutral Human Monk(6th Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-14

Dexterity-15

Constitution-14

Intelligence-17

Wisdom-12

Charisma-19

Alignment:
Lawful Neutral A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs him. Order and organization are paramount to him. He may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or he may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot. However, lawful neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it seeks to eliminate all freedom, choice, and diversity in society.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:
Monks are versatile warriors skilled at fighting without weapons or armor. Good-aligned monks serve as protectors of the people, while evil monks make ideal spies and assassins. Though they don't cast spells, monks channel a subtle energy, called ki. This energy allows them to perform amazing feats, such as healing themselves, catching arrows in flight, and dodging blows with lightning speed. Their mundane and ki-based abilities grow with experience, granting them more power over themselves and their environment. Monks suffer unique penalties to their abilities if they wear armor, as doing so violates their rigid oath. A monk wearing armor loses their Wisdom and level based armor class bonuses, their movement speed, and their additional unarmed attacks per round.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Detailed Results:

Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (20)
Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (18)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (16)
Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (24)
True Neutral ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (22)
Chaotic Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (20)
Lawful Evil ----- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Neutral Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Chaotic Evil ---- XXXXXXXX (8)

Law & Chaos:
Law ----- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Neutral - XXXXXXXX (8)
Chaos --- XXXXXX (6)

Good & Evil:
Good ---- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Evil ---- XX (2)

Race:
Human ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Dwarf ---- XXXX (4)
Elf ------ XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Gnome ---- XXXXXXXX (8)
Halfling - XXXXXXXX (8)
Half-Elf - XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Half-Orc - (-2)

Class:
Barbarian - (-25)
Bard ------ (-21)
Cleric ---- (0)
Druid ----- (0)
Fighter --- (-2)
Monk ------ XXXXXX (6)
Paladin --- (-23)
Ranger ---- (-4)
Rogue ----- (0)
Sorcerer -- XX (2)
Wizard ---- XXXX (4)

Just a Fantasy

2008-08-06T11:07:00.000-06:00

I Am A: Lawful Good Elf Cleric (5th Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-13

Dexterity-11

Constitution-10

Intelligence-16

Wisdom-13

Charisma-15

Alignment:
Lawful Good A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment because it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.

Race:
Elves are known for their poetry, song, and magical arts, but when danger threatens they show great skill with weapons and strategy. Elves can live to be over 700 years old and, by human standards, are slow to make friends and enemies, and even slower to forget them. Elves are slim and stand 4.5 to 5.5 feet tall. They have no facial or body hair, prefer comfortable clothes, and possess unearthly grace. Many others races find them hauntingly beautiful.

Class:
Clerics act as intermediaries between the earthly and the divine (or infernal) worlds. A good cleric helps those in need, while an evil cleric seeks to spread his patron's vision of evil across the world. All clerics can heal wounds and bring people back from the brink of death, and powerful clerics can even raise the dead. Likewise, all clerics have authority over undead creatures, and they can turn away or even destroy these creatures. Clerics are trained in the use of simple weapons, and can use all forms of armor and shields without penalty, since armor does not interfere with the casting of divine spells. In addition to his normal complement of spells, every cleric chooses to focus on two of his deity's domains. These domains grants the cleric special powers, and give him access to spells that he might otherwise never learn. A cleric's Wisdom score should be high, since this determines the maximum spell level that he can cast.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Detailed Results:

Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (26)
Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (23)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (17)
Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (24)
True Neutral ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (21)
Chaotic Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (15)
Lawful Evil ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Neutral Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Chaotic Evil ---- XXXX (4)

Law & Chaos:
Law ----- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXX (9)
Chaos --- XXX (3)

Good & Evil:
Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Evil ---- X (1)

Race:
Human ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Dwarf ---- XXXXXXXX (8)
Elf ------ XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Gnome ---- XXXXXX (6)
Halfling - XXXXXX (6)
Half-Elf - XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Half-Orc - XXXXXX (6)

Class:
Barbarian - (-27)
Bard ------ (-23)
Cleric ---- XXXXXX (6)
Druid ----- (-23)
Fighter --- (-2)
Monk ------ XXXX (4)
Paladin --- XXXX (4)
Ranger ---- XXXX (4)
Rogue ----- (-10)
Sorcerer -- XXXX (4)
Wizard ---- (0)

A New Hero

2008-07-14T08:11:00.000-06:00

Three days ago, he'd been investigating a fellow Representative in Pierre for corruption. He'd been warned that this senior member of the State Legislature had powerful friends, but he knew the man was engaged in improper (and probably illegal) conduct. A lot of people stood to lose everything they had if something wasn't done. So he decided to do something.

That was three days ago. Since then, he'd awakened deep in the Black Hills with no food, no water, and no protection from the harsh summer heat. Since then he'd wandered, searching in vain for any signs of civilization or aid. He knew his strength would fail him sooner or later—probably sooner. He pressed on, hungry, thirsty, and delirious.

"You don't look so good, friend."

He looked up and saw a man—tall, dark, and serene. He could hardly speak. "Wh...what?"

"I said you don't look so good."

He couldn't believe it. After three days, finally he had a glimmer of hope. Or maybe it was just a mirage. But the stranger looked real. "Water? Do you have water?"

The other pointed. "There's a stream about 20 yards away, behind those rocks."

He stumbled, in a daze, to the brook. He first wet his parched lips, then sipped, then drank deeply of the cold, clear water. He could feel his strength starting to return.

"Where am I?"

"On the back side of the big mountain. The one with the faces."

Almost 200 miles away, he realized. There wasn't much time.

"I need to get back to Pierre," he told his benefactor.

"Why?"

"Because somebody's going to do something bad, something that's going to hurt a lot of people. I have to stop him."

"Ah, the land bill. I see."

He couldn't help but stare. "How....?"

"I am the land," he said simply.

He didn't know what to think of the strange man's words, but he had no one else to turn to. "Can you help me?"

"You revere this place," his new friend said. "Tell me why. Tell me about the men on the mountain."

He looked up to see the familiar faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln looking down on him. He couldn't understand it. Hadn't his friend just said they were behind the mountain?

"They...they were great men. Men who cared about people. About freedom."

"Men like you."

He was amazed. "I...I don't think of myself that way. They were heroes. I'm just an ordinary man. I'm not like them."

"But you try to be."

"Well, yes, I do. I look up to them. I try to learn from their examples. I want to be the kind of man they were."

"Then you will be. You will have the strength of will of George Washington, the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, the vigor of Theodore Roosevelt, and the courage of Abraham Lincoln. You will be as strong and swift as four men. You will stand as a defender of this land and its people. For as long as you desire for this land and its people to be free, you will have these gifts. Now, go, with my blessing." And the dark stranger faded from his view.

Two hours later, he stood upon the steps of the State Capital. He had a land bill to defeat.

Story and image by Michael. Image created with Fábrica de Heróis.

Cooking and RPGs

2008-06-18T21:27:00.000-06:00

This article came up on the Hero Discussion Boards. The commentary has naturally been as amusing as the article itself.

Killjoy Cooking With the Dungeons & Dragons Crowd

To quote from the beginning of the article:

Cookbooks are a lot like Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games. They contain seemingly rigid rules that, in practice, require a certain amount of adaptation for your own tastes.

So how come cooking gets its own TV channel and role-playing games don't even get a show on G4? Maybe the population at large doesn't want to pretend to be a half-elf. Maybe RPGs take more imagination than most people have.

However, it just might have something to do with the role-playing community. If geeks talked about cookbooks the way they talk about RPG books, the results would not be pretty.

Two words: Infinite Oregano.

Stargate Craziness

2008-06-12T21:33:00.000-06:00

Nancy showed me this earlier today. It absolutely cracked me up.

Cap Lives!

2008-05-24T23:46:00.000-06:00

If the following clip is any indication of how Captain America might look on the big screen, count me in!*

*If I understand the context of the clip, the dude fighting the Hulk is a recipient of the government's latest attempt to replicate the Super Soldier Serum.

LOTR According to S. Morganstern

2008-05-05T00:03:00.000-06:00

Lord Mhoram e-mailed this to me some time ago. I felt the time was right to share. Sorry it's so long, but it's entertaining! -M
--

Is This A Kissing Book?

This is a Lord of the Rings/Princess Bride crossover parody written originally by DeVee 2003–2004, expanded on by Molly J. Ringle (aka MollyRingwraith) and the patrons of her board at livejournal.com – and finally written up by Øystein Bech Gadmar 2005.

The Fellowship of the Ring

Prologue:
PETER JACKSON: Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:

Dagorlad, 3000 years ago:
SAURON [swipes away a host of soldiers by magic]: I did that on purpose. I didn’t have to miss you.
ISILDUR: I believe you. ... So, what happens now?
SAURON: We face each other as Eru intended; sportsman-like. No tricks, huge weapons, skill against skill alone.
ISILDUR: You mean, you’ll put down your magic and I’ll put down my host, and we’ll try and kill each other like civilized people?
SAURON: I could kill you now?
ISILDUR: Frankly, I think the odds are slightly in your favor at hand fighting.
SAURON: It’s not my fault being the biggest and the strongest. I don’t even exercise.
SAURON [swings at ISILDUR, but misses]: You’re quick!
ISILDUR: Good thing too.
SAURON [knocks ISILDUR back against a boulder]: I just feared you would give me so much trouble.
ISILDUR: Why is that, do you think?
SAURON: Well, I haven’t fought just one person for so long. ... I’ve been specializing in groups, fighting armies for dominion of Middle-Earth ... that kind of thing.
ISILDUR: Why should that make such a [cuts off SAURON’S ring hand] difference?
SAURON: You see, you use different moves when you’re fighting half a thousand people, then when you only have to worry ... about ... one. [dies]
[...]
ISILDUR: Soldier, are there Orcs ahead?
SOLDIER: If there are, we’ll all be dead!

A torture chamber in Mordor, some time ago:
GOLLUM: So it’s to be torture then? I can cope with torture. Don’t believe me?
ORC: You survived the Dagorlad, you must be very brave, but nobody withstands The Machine.
[...]
ORC: I’ve just sucked one year of your life away. I might one day go as high as five, but I really don’t know what that would do to you. So, let’s just start with what we have. What did this do to you? Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity so be honest. How do you feel?
GOLLUM: Baggins! Shire!
ORC: Interesting.

Hobbiton, now:
FRODO: Gardener!
SAM: Yes, master Frodo?
FRODO: Come with me to Mordor?
SAM: As you wish.

Isengard:
GANDALF: To the death!
SARUMAN: No! To the pain!
GANDALF: I don’t think I’m quite familiar with that phrase...
SARUMAN: Drop. Your. Staff.
[staff flies through the air]
SARUMAN: Have a seat.

The Inn of the Prancing Pony:
STRIDER: I am waiting for Gandalf! You told me to go back to the beginning, so I have. This is where I am, and this is where I’ll stay. I will not be moved.
[...]
STRIDER: I do not mean to pry, but you don’t by any chance happen to have a Ring of Power on your right hand?
FRODO: Do you always begin conversations this way?
[...]
HOBBITS: Who are you?
STRIDER: No one of consequence.
HOBBITS: We must know.
STRIDER: Get used to disappointment.
HOBBITS: Okay.

Isengard:
SARUMAN: Form a brute squad then! I want Fangorn Forest emptied before I send out the army.
ORC: It won’t be easy, Sire.
SARUMAN: Try ruling Middle-Earth sometime.

Rivendell:
ELROND: Who is he? Another elf like that one? Pretty, rich and fair?
ARWEN: No. A ranger. Poor. Poor and perfect, with eyes like the sea after a storm.
[...]
ELROND: Ewiw jewewly. Ewiw jewewly is what bwings us together today...
ARAGORN: Fellowship! Say Fellowship!
ELROND: I pwonownce you The Fewwowship of the Wing!
ARAGORN: Finally! Boromir, keep an eye on Frodo. Legolas, come with me!

Caradhras:
ARAGORN: Give Frodo back the ring. I mean it!
BOROMIR: Does anybody want a peanut?
LEGOLAS: GAAAH!

Moria:
GANDALF: We’ll reach the gate by dawn. ... Why are you doing that?
FRODO: Making sure nobody’s following us.
GANDALF: That would be inconceivable.
FRODO: Are you sure nobody is following us?
GANDALF: As I told you it would be absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable! No one in Mordor knows what we’ve done, and no one in Isengard could have gotten here so fast.
GANDALF: Out of curiosity, why do you ask?
FRODO: Suddenly, I just happened to look behind us and something is there.
GANDALF: What?! ... Probably some local Riverfolksman … out for a pleasure stroll ... at night ... through goblin-infested caverns!
[...]
ORC: Finish him. Finish him, your way.
CAVE TROLL: Oh good, my way. Thank you, Orc. ... Which one is my way?
ORC: Pick up one of those rocks, get behind a boulder. In a few minutes the hobbit will come running around the bend. The minute his head is in view, hit it with the rock.
CAVE TROLL: My way’s not very sportsmanlike.
[...]
LEGOLAS: I do not envy you the headache you will have when you awake. But for now, rest well and dream of large women.
[...]
GANDALF: I am going to duel the Balrog left-handed.
ARAGORN: You know what a hurry we’re in!
GANDALF: It is the only way that I can be satisfied. Fighting is my right. It’d be over too quickly.
ARAGORN: Oh, have it your way.

Isengard:
SARUMAN [to URUK-HAI]: I’ve hired you to help me start a war. It’s a prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious tradition.

Parth Galen:
SAM [to himself]: Go on! Get after him!
SAM [drowning]: I don’t swim. I only dog paddle.
FRODO: GAAAH!
FRODO [pulls SAM into his boat]: I suppose you think you’re very brave.
SAM: Only compared to some.
[...]
ARAGORN: There was a mighty duel. It ranged all over.
LEGOLAS: Who won? How did it end?
ARAGORN: One hobbit ran off alone, and the other followed his footprints toward Mordor.
LEGOLAS: Shall we track them?
ARAGORN: They must have seen the orcs closing in, which might account for their panicking into error. Unless I’m wrong, and I’m never wrong, they are headed straight into the Dead Marshes. Only Merry and Pippin can be helped now. Clearly this was all planned by warriors of Isengard! We must all be ready for whatever lies ahead.

The Two Towers

Caradhras:
BALROG: You seem like a decent wizard. I hate to kill you.
GANDALF: You seem like a decent Balrog. I hate to die.
[...]
GANDALF: Why won’t my arms move?
GANDALF: I’ve been mostly dead all day.

Emyn Muil:
FRODO: He’s climbing down the cliffside ... and he’s gaining on us!
SAM: Inconceivable! ... Faster!!
[...]
SAM: He’s got very good arms.
FRODO: He didn’t fall? Inconceivable!
SAM: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
GOLLUM: Have you the Wing?
[...]
SAM: Kill him quickly.
FRODO [to GOLLUM]: I would as soon destroy a stained-glass window as a creature like yourself. However, since I can’t have you following me either..
FRODO [to SAM]: Tie him up. Make it as tight as you like.
[...]
GOLLUM: If you’re in such a hurry, you could take this rope off or find something useful to do.
FRODO: I could do that.
SAM: But I do not think we should accept your help, since you are only waiting around to kill us.
FRODO: That does put a damper on our relationship.
GOLLUM: But, I promise I will not kill you until you reach Mordor.
SAM: That’s very comforting, but I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait.
GOLLUM: I hate waiting. I’ll give you my word as one of the River-folk.
SAM: No good. I’ve known too many River-folk.
GOLLUM: Is there not any way you will trust me?
SAM: Nothing comes to mind.
GOLLUM: I swear on the Preciouss. You will reach Mordor alive.
FRODO: Sam, untie the rope.

Riddermark:
PIPPIN: I was giving you a chance. It does not matter where you take us. There is no greater hunter than Aragorn. He can track a falcon on a cloudy day. He can find you.
URUK-HAI: You think your dearest love will save you?
PIPPIN: I never said he was my dearest love, and yes, he will save me. That I know.
[...]
ARAGORN: A leaf of Lorien. I’d bet my life on it. And there are the Uruk-Hai’s footprints. They’re alive, or were an hour ago. If they are otherwise when I find them, I shall be very put out.
[...]
EOMER: I tell you once again, surrender!
GIMLI: It will not happen.
EOMER: For the last time, surrender!
LEGOLAS and GIMLI: Death first!
ARAGORN: Do you promise not to hurt them?
LEGOLAS and GIMLI: What was that?
ARAGORN: If we surrender, and I introduce you, do you promise not to hurt my friends?
EOMER: May I live a thousand years and never hunt orcs again!

Fangorn Forest:
MERRY: It’s not that bad... Well, I’m not saying I’d like to build a hobbit hole here, but the trees are actually quite lovely.
PIPPIN: We’ll never succeed. We may as well die here.
MERRY: No, no, we have already succeeded! I mean, what are the three terrors of Fangorn Forest? One, the orc that followed us in here. We already lost him. Two, the hobbit-eating trees which you were clever enough to discover what that looks like, so in the future we can avoid that too.
PIPPIN: Merry, what about the T.O.U.S.’s?
MERRY: Treeherders Of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist.
[...]
MERRY: Now, where is that secret knot? It’s impossible to find. [click]
TREEBEARD: Barum!

The Dead Marshes:
GOLLUM: Do you know what that sound is, hobbit? Those are the shrieking Nazgul. If you don’t believe me, just wait! They always grow louder when they’re about to feed on Ringbearer flesh.

Fangorn Forest:
LEGOLAS: A diversion!
ARAGORN: It’s possible, pig. It might be a diversion.
[...]
ARAGORN: Who are you!?
GANDALF: I’m no one to be trifled with. That’s all you ever need know.
ARAGORN: You were dead.
GANDALF: Death cannot stop true wizards. All it can do is delay them for a while.
ARAGORN: I will never doubt again.
GANDALF: There will never be a need.

Edoras:
SARUMAN [through THEODEN]: There’s nothing to explain. You’re trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen.
GANDALF: Really! In that case, I challenge you to a battle of wizardry.
SARUMAN [through THEODEN]: For the King? To the exorcism? I accept!
[...]
ARAGORN: You have some skill with a blade.
EOWYN: Naturally, you must expect me to attack with Capo Ferro.
ARAGORN: Naturally, but I find that Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro. Don’t you?
[...]
GANDALF: No, I said, "Look to the east on the fifth morning." Rush a miracle man and you get rotten miracles!

Ithilien cave:
FARAMIR: The steward’s stinking eldest son got promoted rather than me. And thank you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you’re at it, why don’t you give me a nice paper cut, and pour lemon juice on it.
[...]
GOLLUM/SMEAGOL: You mock my pain!
FARAMIR: Life is pain, creep. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

Rivendell:
ARWEN: Any word of Aragorn?
ELROND: Too soon, my angel. Patience.
ARWEN: He will become king.
ELROND: Of course. [To himself] She will not become mortal!

Merry and Pippin riding Treebeard to Isengard:
MERRY: Pippin, you did something right.
PIPPIN: Don’t worry. I won’t let it go to my head.

Ithilien:
GOLLUM: Good night, hobbitses. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.

The Return of the King

The Flooded Grounds of Isengard:
MERRY: Yeah, Longbottom Leaf is the greatest thing in the world, except for a nice MLT - mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, when the mutton is nice and lean, and the tomato is ripe. They’re so perky. I love that.
[...]
LEGOLAS: Shall I dispatch Saruman for you?
GANDALF: No. Whatever happens, I want him to live a long life, alone with his cowardice.

Edoras:
PIPPIN: You’re trying to trick me into giving away something. It won’t work.
SAURON: It has worked! You’ve given everything away! I know where the hobbit is!

En Route to The Grey Havens:
VISION: Booooooo! Booooooo! Boooooooo!
ARWEN: Why do you do this?
VISION: Because you had love in your hands and you gave it up! Your true love lives, and you sail off to Valinor! True love saved her from a lonely immortal life, and she treated it like garbage. And that’s what she is, the Queen of Refuse. So bow down to her if you want. Bow to her. Bow to the Queen of Slime, the Queen of Filth, the Queen of putrescence! Boo! Boo! Rubbish! Filth! Slime! Muck! Boo! Boo! Boo! [ARWEN wakes up]
NARRATOR: It was ten days till they sailed. The king-to-be still lived, but Arwen’s health was becoming steadily worse.

Rivendell:
ARWEN: Ada, reforge the sword of Narsil. I want to see my face shining in it by morning.
ELROND: As you wish.

The Stairs of Cirith Ungol:
GOLLUM: You were supposed to be this legendary manservant, you were this great loyal companion, and yet there are crumbs on your jacket!
SAM [to FRODO]: Well, I’m carrying food for three people, and Gollum’s got only himself.
FRODO: I do not accept excuses! I’m just going to have to find myself a new gardener, that’s all.
SAM: Don’t say that, master Frodo. Please?
FRODO: Did I make it clear that your job is at stake?

Throne Room at Minas Tirith:
FARAMIR: Where does my loyalty lie if not here?
DENETHOR: I can’t afford to make exceptions. I mean, once word leaks out that a steward has gone soft, people begin to disobey him and it’s nothing but work, work, work all the time.

Dunharrow:
ELROND: Aragorn, Arwen is dying.
ARAGORN: She’s immortal. She can’t die.
ELROND: Whoo-hoo-hoo! Look who knows so much, heh? Well, it just so happens that your love here is only mostly immortal. There’s a big difference between mostly immortal and all immortal. Now, mostly immortal is slightly mortal.
[...]
EOWYN [at the entrance to the Paths of the Dead]: You’ll never come out alive!
ARAGORN: Nonsense! You’re only saying that because no one ever has!
[...]
EOWYN: Bye bye, boys!
MERRY: Have fun storming Minas Tirith!
EOWYN [to MERRY]: Think it will work?
MERRY [to EOWYN]: It would take a miracle!

Dwimorberg – The Haunted Mountain:
GHOST KING: I know who you are! You’re Isildur’s heir, admit it!
ARAGORN: With pride. What can I do for you?
GHOST KING: You can die slowly, cut into a thousand pieces.
ARAGORN: Tch-tch-tch. You’re hardly complimentary, your Highness.

Tomb in Minas Tirith:
DENETHOR: I am the Dread Steward Denethor. There will be no survivors!
GUARD 1: Now?
GUARD 2: Not yet.
DENETHOR: My men are here. I am here. But soon you will not be here!
GUARD 1: Now?!
GUARD 2: Light him!
DENETHOR: The Dread Steward Denethor takes no survivors. All your worst nightmares are about to come true!
[...]
PIPPIN: Well now, that was an adventure. Singed a bit, were you?
FARAMIR [shakes head]: You?

Minas Tirith:
WITCH KING: Surrender!
GANDALF: You mean you wish to surrender to me? Very well then, I accept.
WITCH KING: I give you full marks for bravery. Don’t make yourself a fool.

Outside Minas Tirith:
WITCH KING: Good heavens. Are you still trying to win? You’ve got an overdeveloped sense of vengeance. It’s going to get you into trouble someday.
EOWYN: Hello. My name is Eowyn. You killed my uncle. Prepare to die!
[...]
EOWYN: I admit it, you are better than I am.
WITCH KING: Then why are you smiling?
EOWYN: Because I know something you don’t know.
WITCH KING: And what is that?
EOWYN: I am not a man!

The Tower of Cirith Ungol:
ORC 1: He’s only mostly dead!
ORC 2: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.
[...]
SAM: I have no Ring.
FRODO: Sam, I’ll tear your arms off.
SAM: Oh, you mean this Ring.

Minas Tirith:
EOMER: What are our liabilities?
ARAGORN: There is but one working gate, and it is guarded by sixty thousand orcs.
EOMER: And our assets?
LEGOLAS: Aragorn’s sword, Gimli’s axe, and my arrows.
EOMER: That’s it? Impossible. If we had a month to plan maybe I could come up with something. But this... I mean, if we only had a host of men, that would be something.
ARAGORN: Where did we put that host of men we had?
EOMER: Why didn’t you list that among our assets in the first place?! Now, what I wouldn’t give for a group of Great Eagles...
GIMLI: A challenge? To the death? I accept!

At The Black Gate:
THE MOUTH OF SAURON: Your hobbit is dead. I killed him myself.
GANDALF: Then why is there fear behind your eyes?
THE MOUTH OF SAURON: He died well. That should please you.
GANDALF: Nothing you can say will upset me. [To ARAGORN] Aragorn, cut his head off.

Mount Doom, After It Erupts:
[Screen goes black]
PETER JACKSON: Frodo and Sam don’t get burned up by the lava.
AUDIENCE: What?
PETER JACKSON: Frodo and Sam don’t get burned up by the lava. I’m explaining to you because you looked nervous.
[Movie continues]

At the Coronation:
AUDIENCE: Is this a kissing book!?
EOWYN: You know, it’s very strange. I have been in the revenge business so long. Now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.
FARAMIR: Have you ever considered marriage? You’d make a wonderful Stewardess.

The Grey Havens:
SAM: What is it?
FRODO: Open it up.
SAM: A book?
FRODO: That’s right. When I was your age, adventures were called books. And this is a special book. It was the book my uncle used to write when he was adventuring and I used to write it when I was adventuring ... and today, I’m gonna give it to you.
SAM: Does it got any sports in it?
FRODO: Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles.
SAM: It doesn’t sound too bad. I’ll try and stay awake.
FRODO: Oh, well, thank you very much. That's very nice of you. Your vote of confidence is overwhelming. Oh. All right: "There and Back Again: A Hobbit’s Tale by Bilbo Baggins." ...

End Credits:
PETER JACKSON: "The End." Now I think you oughta go to sleep.
AUDIENCE: Okay...
PETER JACKSON: All right. Okay, okay, okay. All right. So long.
AUDIENCE: Maybe we could come over and watch it again tomorrow?
PETER JACKSON: As you wish.

Civil War Fallout

2008-04-18T10:40:00.000-06:00

This poster is one of several found over at Michael Paciocco's Mind:

What ever happened to the heroic Iron Man we all grew up with, anyway?

Bump

2008-03-24T17:59:00.000-06:00

Just something funny I saw in my browsings the other day. Reminded me of how long it's been since I saw Dune:

Brought to you by the fine folks at I Can Has Cheezburger?

Wizard's First Rule: TV Edition!

2008-01-29T06:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a piece that should interest one of the two people who read Army of Dorkness.

The "Spider-Man" director is teaming with Disney-ABC Domestic Television and ABC Studios on a new first-run, live-action weekly series targeted for a fall launch. The series, titled "Wizard's First Rule," is based on Terry Goodkind's best-selling epic fantasy series "The Sword of Truth."

I've generally enjoyed the Sword of Truth series. There are times when I have some significant ideological differences with the author--his polemic against peace as a form of active resistance come to mind--but, in general, the series is entertaining fantasy fare. The fact that Sam Raimi is involved gives the series at least a chance of being decent.

Dorknotes

2008-01-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

Star Trek Teaser Trailer. So far, so good. I like the whole "Under Construction" theme as it works on many different levels.

Running With the Demon. Having read almost everything published by Terry Brooks--most of his Shannara books tell the same story over, and over, and over . . . and I still love find them hugely entertaining--I decided to give his non-Shannara trilogy a try. And I found the first book absolutely amazing! The mythology is unique, the characters complex (although they could be fleshed out even more--next book, perhaps?), and the storyline engaging.

Tusken Raiders on Mars!

Relevant Science Fiction?

2008-01-21T00:02:00.000-07:00

Relevant Science Fiction.

Debating Fantasy Literature.

Even More Relevant Science Fiction.

Thoughts? Is science fiction/fantasy supposed to be thought provoking, entertaining, or both? Is it supposed to encourage us to think about the human condition or provide an escape?

Dorknotes

2008-01-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

So, I've obviously been a bad blogger when it comes to making posts. As I surf a number science fiction and fantasy websites every single day, I thought I'd try putting together a handful of my favorite stories each week.

Thank goodness all the Cloverfield discussion is about to come to an end. Is anyone else sick of Cloverfield, Cloverfield, and more Cloverfield on all the science fiction sites? Check out the reviews of Cloverfield. Sounds like a lot of people dig this movie. I suspect it's much ado about nothing and will wait for it to come out on DVD.

The Many Looks of the Imperial Stormtrooper. Nice piece that reviews the evolution and many variants of the Empire's front line soldiers.

New animated web series featuring Iron Man. This is one of the best portrayals of shellhead to date. Seriously. Start with the first video: Iron Man's Adventure. A trailer for the upcoming WB Spider-man Animated is also on the same page.

Has the first picture of the new USS Enterprise from the under production Star Trek movie surfaced? Please don't let this movie suck. I'm not thrilled about JJ Abrams going back to the well--I'd prefer something new--but I do like much of his stuff (Alias, Lost, Mission Impossible 3)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I caught the first couple episodes of this new show and I have to say that it's not bad. It's not brilliant, but I'd rate it as above average. It's certainly better than The Bionic Woman (a show that could have been great, but wasn't). I'm a little worried that the Terminator of the Week formula will get old quick, but I'm going to give the writers the benefit of the doubt and assume they have something else in their bag of tricks.

Sci-Fi's Top 25

2008-01-07T16:11:00.000-07:00

Entertainment Weekly just released its list of The Top 25 Sci-Fi Moments of the Past 25 Years. The link leads to #25; you can click from there and see the other 24 entries in sequence. Here's the list in full:

25. V: The Miniseries (1983)
24. Galaxy Quest (1999)
23. Doctor Who (1963-Present)
22. Quantum Leap (1989-1993)
21. Futurama (1999-2003)
20. Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003-2005)
19. Starship Troopers (1997)
18. Heroes (2006-Present)
17. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
16. Total Recall (1990)
15. Firefly / Serenity (2002/2005)
14. Children of Men (2006)
13. The Terminator / Terminator 2 (1984/1991)
12. Back to the Future (1985)
11. Lost (2004-Present)
10. The Thing (1982)
9. Aliens (1986)
8. Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)
7. E.T. (1982)
6. Brazil (1985)
5. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
4. The X-Files (1993-2002)
3. Blade Runner (1982)
2. Battlestar Galactica (2003-Present)
1. The Matrix (1999)

Naturally, I have comments. First, I'm ashamed to admit that there are six on this list that I haven't seen. (I won't go into detail on which six they are.) As for the other nineteen, well, I have varying opinions on them.

First, he ones on which I disagree. My dislike for Starship Troopers is well-known; I won't rant further on this one. Futurama was okay, but not one of the top 25 sci-fi things of the last 25 years, IMHO. And while Star Trek: The Next Generation was certainly the most influential of the Trek series, most fans will agree that Deep Space Nine was a better series overall.

(Of course, I think Babylon 5 was a better series than any of the Trek. And if you click on the link on The Matrix's page, you can get a list of the most glaring omissions to the list according to EW readers. B5 is second on that list, squeezed neatly between Farscape and Stargate SG-1.)

Now, on to the good stuff. I'm glad that Doctor Who made the list (though I still think Tom Baker was the best Doctor; I'm old school that way). I'm a little surprised that Firefly made it—surprised, but not disappointed. I never really got into X-Files, though I can see why it was so high on the list. And Galaxy Quest should have been ranked higher. It was nothing short of brilliant.

Comments, fellow sci-fi buffs?

The (Orchestral) Power of The Force

2007-12-04T12:36:00.001-07:00

This one just has to be seen.

Brilliant. Just freakin' brilliant.

Role-Playing The Movies

2007-11-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

What would happen if a GM tried to run the average D&D group in an epic Fantasy or Sci-fi campaign? I think it'd run something like these two webcomics:

The DM of the Rings

Darths & Droids

I tried to think of some witty remark to insert here, but the comics speak for themselves. Read them. You'll like them.

When In the Course of Human Events . . .

2007-10-27T16:35:00.001-06:00

The SciFi Channel keeps green lighting pilots which have a ton of potential. Unfortunately, the follow through is usually severely lacking (see Flash Gordon). Once again, SciFi has me intrigued with a revisioning of the American Revolution. This could be a great series . . . if done correctly. Focusing on the two different families--"a loyalist family and a family that is leaning toward rebellion"--is a good start. I hope they also incorporate the view of those who really didn't support either position but were more concerned about making ends meet.* Imagine an episode or two centering on the imposition of a Stamp Act, another on quartering soldiers, yet another on a Boston Massacre like situation and the subsequent trial (and defense of the soldiers by a lawyer who actually leans toward rebellion), and so on. History provides an almost limitless number of plots from which to draw. What gives me great hope regarding this series is the fact that SciFi isn't doing this in house but is purchasing the drama from CBS Paramount Television.

*Most historians will acknowledge that 1/3 of the colonists remained loyal to Britain, 1/3 wanted rebellion, and another 1/3 were apathetic.

Wildly Inconsistent

2007-10-16T18:43:00.000-06:00

I've been making my way through the first two seasons of Star Trek:Voyager these past few weeks. I enjoyed the series when it made its initial television run, probably moreso than most Trek fans did. True, it had its low points, but so did every series, especially in the first two seasons. Remember, even season 1 of The Next Generation was mostly awful.

I'm in the middle of season 2 of Voyager now, and I recently watched two episodes in the order on which they appeared on the disc. First was the train wreck that is Threshold, often 'honored' as the worst Trek episode of any series. And it was bad. It didn't induce the gag reflex that it appears to in a lot of other Trekkers, but it was bad.

Immediately after that, however, was the episode Meld. In this episode, a crewman named Suder, a Maquis with a history or violent behavior (or at least violent impulses), murders one of his crewmates. Under interrogation by Tuvok, Suder confesses that he did it because he didn't like the way the other crewman looked at him. Tuvok cannot comprehend this motive; it is not logical that such a minor act could not trigger such a violent response. So in an attempt to stabilize Suder's mind and to learn more about his motives, Tuvok initiates a mind meld with Suder.

And for the rest of the episode, we watch as Tuvok struggles with his own darker nature and nearly succumbs to violence himself. Meanwhile, Suder has become placid, almost stoic. In the end, Tuvok returns to himself, but it's clear that the experience has changed him, and not for the better. Real conflict, real character growth. The episode was amazing.

How is it that a single series can have two consecutive episodes that are so vastly different in quality? How could the show have been so bad one week and so brilliant the next?

Bionic Wednesdays!

2007-09-26T08:25:00.000-06:00

Anyone else excited about the new Bionic Woman show? Reviews suggest it's a mediocre remake of the original series, which I loved, but that Katie Sackoff steals the show as the bionic prototype gone bad.

I once won a free Chipotle burrito for answering the pop culture trivia question of the day relating to the original Bionic Woman show. The question: What was the name of the bionic dog?

Free Chewbacca!

2007-09-24T22:22:00.001-06:00

Miscast

2007-09-03T22:37:00.000-06:00

I meant to post this a couple weeks back. Keanu Reeves has signed on to play Klaatu in a remake of the Day the Earth Stood Still. Klaatu? Really? I think Reeves' acting skills make him the perfect choice to play Gort.

Personally, I think it's a travesty that such a classic is being remade. Leave it alone.

Friendly Neighborhood Postage Stamps

2007-09-01T19:13:00.000-06:00

I think I've lost a few geek cred points. Would you believe I had no idea the Marvel stamps had already been released? For the most part, I dig 'em.

I have to ask, though, if Spider-woman and Elektra are the most iconic women characters in Marvel comics. Wouldn't the casual person on the street be more familiar with the Invisible Woman? What about the Scarlet Witch or She-Hulk? The most deserving of the Marvel women is probably Wasp, a founder and long time member of the Avengers.

The Sub-Mariner and The Thing stamps don't do much for me, either. What about Thor or Daredevil? One would think either of them are more recognizable than Sub-Mariner.

Nevertheless, I have my sheet of Marvel stamps sitting in my desk and will use them with pride. Now, who will be deemed Iron Man worthy?

teh borgz

2007-07-20T16:52:00.000-06:00

And another, to go with the last one:

Borg

2007-07-19T16:45:00.000-06:00

Just a little something I put together the other day.

Sloshed!

2007-07-09T07:55:00.001-06:00

A "Favorite Comic Book Artist" discussion over at the Hero Games discussion boards led me indirectly to this bit from Ben and Alice:

Rob Liefeld drinking game

The rules are as follows:

Read any comic both drawn and written by Rob Liefeld (X-Force, Youngblood, Brigade, etc.)

Take 1 drink for every time the following occur:

* clenched teeth
* mouth open really wide in battle cry
* action shot where background is just abstract colored space
* leg of running/jumping character positioned so that you can only see thigh
* spray of bullets that doesn't hit anybody
* large gun that shoots colored blasts of indeterminate nature
* character or team moves into/out of another dimension or otherwise warps
* character seeming to fly, who cannot actually fly
* character who is not invulnerable casually jumps out of plane/space ship
* indoor floor that is colored green, silver or red

And that doesn't even cover the bonus round.

Good thing none of the regular contributors to this blog are drinkers....

Friendly Neighborhood

2007-06-24T00:02:00.000-06:00

Spider-man is heading for Kid's WB!

If this show follows the WB tradition of such shows as Batman, Superman, X-men Evolution, and Legion of Superheroes, we could have a hit on our hands.

My Roleplaying Cred

2007-06-04T07:20:00.000-06:00

Your Ultimate Roleplaying Purity Score
Category	Your Score	Average
Hacklust	40.57% Will kill for XP	53.5%
Sensitive Roleplaying	45.57% "But what's my motivation for this scene?"	54.7%
GM Experience	42.75% Puts the players through the wringer	69.4%
Systems Knowledge	91.95% Played in a couple of campaigns	90.4%
Livin' La Vida Dorka	66.67% Goes nuts on the weekends	63.3%
You are 59.82% pure Average Score: 68.8%
Take The Ultimate Roleplaying Purity Test and see how you match up! (By The Ferrett)

And Yet Another

2007-05-28T23:34:00.001-06:00

Well, Lucas didn't announce another movie or anything at CIV but TPTB did release a trailer for the new 3D Clone Wars series.

Clone Wars Trailer

The shot of Anakin jumping from STAP to STAP, deflecting blaster bolts, is pretty nifty. My hope is that this series will develop Anakin and Obi-wan as the heroes of the Clone Wars. The novelization of ROTS did a nice job of emphasizing the fact that Anakin and Obi-wan were household names, but the movie did little in that regard.

Truth be told, I'll love just about anything Star Wars.

Another Reason to Celebrate

2007-05-25T18:05:00.000-06:00

In remembrance of influential (nay, legendary) science fiction writer Douglas Adams, let us all take a moment and grab a towel:

May 25th is Towel Day

Have a great day, all you hoopy froods out there. And Don't Panic.

30 Years

2007-05-25T07:33:00.001-06:00

Star Wars was released on this date in 1977.

Who could have imagined how big it would turn out to be?

Edit: UserFriendly.org offers this tribute today:

Most excellent.

Spider-Mess

2007-05-16T23:21:00.000-06:00

I've been meaning to post my thoughts on Spider-man III for the last couple weeks. When I heard about all the different players included in this film (Sandman, Green Goblin II, Venom, Gwen Stacy), I suspected a messy plot. My fears were not unfounded. There's way too much going on over the course of 2:20 or so. Three villains involving different plots? Come on. You don't need to be a film executive to know that's a train wreck waiting to happen. The action sequences are fun, but the film feels rushed and sloppy. Rather than offering a point by point review of Spider-man III, I thought I'd offer my thoughts on how Raimi could have made an excellent, character driven superhero movie.

1. Ax Venom. The character only works with significant set up. Introduce the black suit in this film and save Venom until the IV installment of the franchise. With all the money generated by the Spider-man films, there will be a IV film.

2. Make Green Goblin II the primary villain. Rather than having GG II and Spidey duke it out all movie, go for the psychological angle. The two meet early in the film and battle to a draw. Harry decides to completely destroy Peter's life (which he does in the current incarnation of the film . . . in 15 minutes. Argh!). Harry dismantles Peter's life in every way possible: job, school, and home. Jameson stops buying his pictures, he gets evicted, flunks out of school, and Mary Jane walks away (manipulated or on her own--doesn't matter). Aunt May might even be hospitalized (Harry will stop at nothing to have his revenge). Much of the film would be about this systematic destruction of Peter's life.

3. In the midst of all this personal chaos, the Sandman goes on a New York crime spree. This further exasperates Peter's situation; he's trying to fight crime while his life unravels.

4. Somewhere along the line, the symbiote enters the picture. Down and out, Peter encounters the new suit and embraces the power it provides.

5. Spider-man finally defeats/apprehends Sandman, only to discover Harry/GG II is behind the crime spree. Sandman is part of the larger plot to unhinge Peter.

6. Feeling the influence of the symbiote, Peter finally gives in to the dark side. Green Goblin II and aggressive Black Suit Spider-man duke it out in a climactic battle.

7. Spider-man wins, but beats Harry to a pulp in the process. Harry's amnesia protects Peter's identity. The film closes with Mary Jane and Peter encountering one another in Harry's hospital room. Visiting hours end and the two leave the room together; Peter asks MJ if she wants to grab a cup of coffee. She agrees and we see the two walk away together, hopeful that things will be set right. As they walk away, we see a shimmer of the black suit from beneath Peter' clothes.

8. Roll credits.

9. No Gwen Stacy. This storyline is sacred ground for Spider-man fans. The films went in a different direction. Leave it alone. Period.

Film IV focuses on Peter putting his life back together, symbiote in tow, and the downfall of Eddie Brock.

You should have talked to me, Raimi. There's no reason these films can't be entertaining as all get out and offer a quality story.

The Top 15 Han Solo Quotes You Need to Use in Regular Conversation

2007-05-09T06:52:00.000-06:00

From Double Viking via Fark.com. The article gives full descriptions of each event.

15. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
When to say it: When you get a bad feeling, obviously

14. “Had a slight weapons malfunction, but everything's perfectly alright now. We're fine, we're all fine, here, now, thank you. How are you?”
When to say it: When your cell phone signal begins to break up

13. “No, no, NO. THIS one goes THERE, THAT one goes THERE.”
When to say it: When working on a project with a partner

12. “Great, kid. Don’t get cocky.”
When to say it: When a friend accomplishes something

11. “Never tell me the odds!”
When to say it: When gambling

10. “Yeah, I’ll bet you have.”
When to say it: When an intergalactic bounty hunter tells you he’s been waiting a long time to bring you in

9. “Here’s where the fun begins.”
When to say it: When you’re about to enter a dangerous situation

8. “You know, sometimes I amaze even myself.”
When to say it: Anytime

7. “What an incredible smell you’ve discovered!”
When to say it: Anytime you smell something awful

6. “Laugh it up, fuzzball.”
When to say it: When a fat/hairy person laughs at you

5. “Wonderful girl. Either I’m going to kill her, or I’m beginning to like her.”
When to say it: When talking about a woman you’re attracted to

4. “How we doin’?”
“Same as always.”
“That bad, huh?”
When to say it: When asking someone about their day

3. “I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful force controlling everything. There's no mystical energy field controls my destiny.”
When to say it: During a debate on religion

2. “Hey…it’s me!”
When to say it: When someone tells you to “be careful”

1. “I love you.”
“I know.”
When to say it: Duh

Look at the size of that thing!

2007-03-28T14:27:00.000-06:00

Well, this should make the postal service rate increase a little more palatable, anyway:

Fifteen Star Wars stamps on a single sheet. Impressive. Most impressive.

Even with a Millennium Falcon stamp, though, I doubt a first class letter will be able to make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.

Marketing Stunt

2007-03-13T21:13:00.001-06:00

From a message board I frequent:

Omega Flight!

2007-03-11T23:09:00.000-06:00

Years ago, I had great hopes for the original Alpha Flight comic. Early on, it was a fun ride. Guardian, Sasquatch, Aurora & Northstar, Snowbird, Shaman, Marina, and Puck!

The series got off to a great start, then faded to that "good but not great" limbo that typically leads to cancellation. And that's exactly what happened. Mac died and Heather took his role (which never really worked for me, btw), Aurora and Northstar had their falling out, and then we were treated to the whole bizarro Alien Marinna Loves Sub-Mariner plot that made its way into The Avengers. Despite the weirdness of the plots and borderline dysfunction of the team, I was a fan. I lost track of the various Alpha Flight restarts, however, and really have no idea what happened to the group over the last decade (with the exception of nearly the entire team being snuffed from existence in the pages of New Avengers. Off panel. Another beautiful death sequence brought to you by the geniuses at Marvel Inc!)

Although Alpha Flight can't seem to pull in enough readers to support an on-going title, Marvel is giving a couple of the old Alpha Flight characters yet another chance. I give you Omega Flight, the new 5 issue limited series.

US Agent? Sasquatch? Beta Ray Bill?! I'm such a sucker. Despite my recent rantings about Captain America, I'll probably give this series a try.

Is it just me or is Sasquatch in serious need of some hair conditioner in that second image?

Bite the Hand

2007-03-07T15:58:00.000-07:00

If this is legit, I'm going to be seriously p!ssed:

Report: Captain America dies on the page

Of all the stupid...I'm speechless. Just speechless.

Roll The Bones

2007-03-05T14:02:00.001-07:00

One thing that makes Hero System different that most other RPGs is the dice. Champions players don't habitually carry around a bunch of dice that make you think of Kepler trying to align the planets within Platonian solids. We use six-sided dice (abbreviated 'd6'), the kind you used as a kid to play Monopoly, Risk, or Yahtzee. We use d6 and only d6. We're pretty exclusive that way. We only use the fancy dice to indicate on the map where the bad guys are—if we use them at all.

So, where D&D might call on a player to roll a d20 (read as 'a twenty-sided die', a geometric shape called an icosahedron), Hero System calls for the player to roll 3d6 (read as 'three six-sided dice'). Why would anyone prefer rolling three dice when you could only roll one? The answer is simple. It's called "The Bell Curve."

Let's say that in order for your character to perform a certain skill, you have to roll ten or less (abbreviated '10-') on the dice. With either a single d20 or with 3d6, the probability of doing so is 50%. So far, so good. Now, let's say that with experience, you character's roll changes so that now you have to roll eleven or less (11-). The probability of doing so on a d20 is 55%, which is not bad. But on 3d6, the probability jumps to 62.5%. The net effect that the mid-range is opened up substantially with 3d6, while the extremes remain highly improbable. (One effect of this is that a person rolling a d20 is ten times as likely to roll a critical failure and get his/her character killed at an inopportune moment.)

The table below, which I constructed based on my own study and knowledge of probabilities back in the mid-90's, shows how likely each outcome is when 3d6 are rolled. There are 216 possibilities that can arise when rolling 3d6: each of the three dice can achieve six different results, which leads to 6³ (6x6x6=216) different total outcomes. Only one of these outcomes produces a result of 3: a '1' on all three dice (abbreviated, for our purposes, as '111'). There are three different ways a 4 can result: each of the three dice could produce a 2, while the others show 1, i.e., 112, 121, and 211. There are six different ways that a 5 can be produced: 113, 131, 311, 122, 212, and 221. And so on.

The table below is organized as follows. The first column shows each possible value from rolling 3d6, 3-18. The second column shows how many different ways (out of 216) that value can be obtained. The third column shows the probability or that value coming up [P_(x)]. And the final column—the really useful one—shows the cumulative probability of all values equal to or less than the current value turning up [P_(x-)]. So, as can be seen from the table, the chance of rolling 8- is about one in four, while the probability of rolling 14- is about nine in ten.

Value	Occurrences	P_(x)%	P_(x-)%
3	1	0.46	0.46
4	3	1.38	1.85
5	6	2.78	4.63
6	10	4.63	9.26
7	15	6.94	16.2
8	21	9.72	25.9
9	25	11.57	37.5
10	27	12.50	50.0
11	27	12.50	62.5
12	25	11.57	74.1
13	21	9.72	83.8
14	15	6.94	90.7
15	10	4.63	95.4
16	6	2.78	98.1
17	3	1.38	99.5
18	1	0.46	100

All hail the Hero System!

Frelling Civl War

2007-02-27T23:11:00.000-07:00

In light of Marvel trying to foist the ridiculous Age of Apocalypse on faithful readers (I gave up comics altogether when I found out Marvel was putting together this steaming pile of universe bending crap), I swore I'd never get sucked into another universe wide marketing event. And I've remained true to that pledge since returning to comics several years ago. Marvel's latest pile of universe bending crap, Civil War, has received some of the most vitriolic criticism I've ever seen. From what I've read the two primary players--Captain American and Iron Man--have been totally out-of-character throughout all seven issues. Would it kill some of these writers to go back and fracking read the comics of those they're about to bring to life? Apparently so. Anyway, here's what I understand is a very humorous rendition of the final issue of Civil wars.

IRON MAN: I am totally surprised that Cloak is using his teleportation power to rescue his teammates, just as I was totally surprised at the Invisible Woman using her invisibility powers to infiltrate our prison and Hulkling using his shape-shifting abilities to impersonate someone! Keep an eye on the Human Torch, I suspect he might be ready to unleash a blast of frigid cold on us!

Ahahahaha! I am SO glad I didn't drop a single cent on this garbage. The various humorous synopses have been a real hoot to read, though. Here's a version with art and everything.

Civil War in 30 Seconds

Brilliant! Way better than reading that drivel at 2.99 a pop.

Babble On and On

2007-01-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

Babylon 5 was, in humble opinion, the best sci-fi on television. The stories were compelling, the writing was tight, the dialogue was naturally witty and often poignant, and the actors' performances were authentic. The show even got the science right. And it all centered around a five year story arc, the scope of which is almost unparalleled in television. It was, for lack of a better word, epic.

So I was sad when it was over. When I got the chance, years later, to watch the entire series from beginning to end, I was even more impressed. My praises of the show ultimately led to my participation here. But when it was over, again I was saddened. The same thing happened when Nancy and I recently watched the series. Babylon 5 was gone, and we missed it.

When we got a Netflix subscription for Christmas, the follow-up series Crusade was one of the first things we queued. We've been through one disk of the 13-episode series, and so far so good. It's not as good as B5, but sequels never are (with the possible exceptions of The Godfather Part II, Toy Story 2, and Addams Family Values). But it's kept us in touch with that universe, and made us wonder if someday we might go back.

So imagine my joy to hear that the first installment of Babylon 5: The Lost Tales is scheduled for release on DVD sometime in the first half of this year.

A synopsis from The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 gives the following overview:

While travelling from Minbar to Babylon 5 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Interstellar Alliance, Sheridan picks up an unexpected guest with a dire warning. Meanwhile, Lochley summons a priest to the station to help with a problem that may have supernatural implications.

There's even a link to some photos taken on-set by series creator J. Michael Straczynski.

And if all of that weren't enough, the second installment of the anthology will feature a story with one of the best characters from the original series: former B5 security chief Michael Garibaldi.

Too bad there will be no more stories with G'Kar, Dr. Franklin, or Zathras, though.

Invincible

2006-12-21T23:03:00.000-07:00

Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, don't screw this up.

Trek News/Rumors

2006-12-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

One way or another, there's new Trek on the horizon.

Animated Web Series?
Trek XI to be released in 2008?

I think I could really dig this animated idea. Look what Clone Wars Animated did for Star Wars.

VIPER Jokes

2006-12-15T06:59:00.000-07:00

For the uninitiated, VIPER is the premier villain organization in the Champions universe. If there's arms smuggling, international theft, harassment of superheroes, or a world takeover plot in the works, you can bet VIPER's got their hands in it.

VIPER is more effective than the comic book organization it's based on (Marvel's HYDRA). There's no shortage of mad scientists, cunning but cowardly Nest Leaders, and supervillains on the payroll, but VIPER is best known for its agents. And that's the problem. VIPER agents have a (not entirely undeserved) reputation for underachievement. Think of Imperial Stormtroopers, but with green uniforms.

Q: How many VIPER Agent does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Five—one to change the bulb, while the rest of his team stands around looking useless.

Q: What do VIPER agents and eggs have in common?
A: They both crack under pressure, and they're both worth about $1.19 a dozen.

Q: Why did VIPER stop using eight-second hand grenades?
A: Most VIPER agents couldn't count past five without using both hands.

Q: What's the difference between a VIPER agent and an automatic transmission?
A: It's hard to replace a transmission.

Q: Why did the Frenchman win the pistol duel?
A: The VIPER agent surrendered first.

Q: What's the difference between a VIPER Agent and a baseball?
A: If a baseball gets knocked over the fence, somebody's going to want to get it back.

Q: How do you get a VIPER Agent out of a tree?
A: Wave to him.

Q: How many VIPER Agent does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two—one to change the bulb, and one to stab him in the back when he's finished.

Q: Why don't VIPER Agents eat omelettes?
A: The average VIPER Agent can't beat an egg.

Q: What do a VIPER Agent and a high school color guard girl have in common?
A: They both carry a rifle for no apparent reason.

VIPER Agents are so lazy they only date pregnant women.

Q: What's the difference between a VIPER Agent and Bigfoot?
A: One's an ugly, hulking, uncultured, foul-smelling brute, and the other has big feet.

I tried to join VIPER once, but I passed my I.Q. test.

I tried to join VIPER once, but they found out my parents were married.

And finally,
Q: How many VIPER Agent does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Just one to change the bulb, after which he'll be shot by his Nest Leader because that's not the way he wanted it done. So none, really.

Superhero Physics!

2006-12-02T08:41:00.000-07:00

In my wanderings around the web this morning, I happened to come across an article by Torsten Ove:

'Physics for Superheroes': perfect for science-challenged dads

Ove starts his article with this rumination:

Being a sober, serious-minded journalist interested in the critical issues of the day, I've long wondered: How the heck does Cyclops of the X-Men fire those eye beams of his without snapping his neck like a matchstick?

Now I've got my answer -- he can't.

The article is a book review for The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios. Being both a comic book fan and an honest-to-goodness college-educated science geek, I had to take a look. And it looks good. One more for my holiday wish list.

Here are the other tidbits mentioned by the article:

» The Flash would have to eat 150 million hamburgers to run as fast as he does. If he stopped running, he'd have to eat another 150 million just to get started again.

» But Flash really could run on water. At such high speeds the water would act like a solid because its molecules can't move out from under his feet fast enough for him to sink before he's gone.

» Superman could leap tall buildings in a single bound. But he couldn't lift up a building or a ship. Oh, he's strong enough, but buildings and ships aren't -- they would crumble under their own weight.

» So would Henry Pym, aka Giant-Man. Even if he could grow to huge heights, he couldn't do much, because his spine would snap under the strain of his weight.

» Angel, the X-Man with big wings on his back, couldn't fly unless he had freakishly huge chest muscles. The guy in the movies and comic books is way too skinny.

» And Spider-Man? Could he jump prodigious distances because of his "proportional strength of a spider?" No....But he could swing from buildings on a thread, and his webbing would be strong enough to stop a jet fighter landing on an aircraft carrier.

But lest we conclude that all comic book science is junk science, consider the following statement from the back of the book in question:

"Surprisingly enough, according to Kakalios, comic books get their physics right more often than you’d think." —The Boston Globe

I've definitely got to read that book.

Free Port

2006-10-02T18:15:00.000-06:00

I was reading some high schooler's blog entry when I came across a comment to this effect:

There are two types of sci-fi fans that I hate: Browncoats and Babylon 5 fans. They think they're so superior. The fact is that while Firefly had the potential to be a great show, it self-destructed after 14 episodes. And Babylon 5 had a five-year story arc with 110 episodes—but every single episode sucked.

Any guesses what TV sci-fi he preferred...?

Anyway, this misguided chap got me thinking. After breaking away from the Earth Alliance, space station Babylon 5 became a free port, open to any who wished to come aboard. And it made me wonder: what if Serenity got blown way the heck off course and ended up in the Epsilon sector? What would the crew of the wayward Firefly do aboard B5? Who would they hang out with? Nancy and I came up with the following:

Malcolm Reynolds and John Sheridan
Mal fought (and lost) a hopeless war against an oppressive totalitarian regime. Sheridan led an insurrection against his own government because it had become an oppressive totalitarian regime. I think they'd find something to talk about.

Zoe Washburne and Susan Ivanova
Both strong women and second in command of their various craft, I can imagine the conversations they'd have. "Okay, let me tell you about the stupid stunt my CO pulled when...."

Jayne Cobb and Michael Garibaldi
This meeting would have to take place during B5's fourth season, when Garibaldi resigned as Chief of Security and went independent. I can see the two of them busting heads in a dive somewhere down in Brown sector. While neither show has any shortage of bad@ssed goodness, these two are the baddest.

Inara Serra and Delenn
Companionship, as such, does not exist on B5, so there's no Guild for her to visit or fellow Companions with whom to socialize. So I think Inara would be drawn to someone who shares many of the same features she has: deeply spiritual, feminine, confident, and stronger than she looks. Minbari ambassador Delenn fits the bill.

Derrial Book and G'Kar
Shepherd Book is a traveling preacher, seeking enlightenment and trying to help out where he can. G'Kar is a reluctant religious icon among the Narn. Both have a history (implied, in Book's case) much darker than their present station would suggest. It would be fascinating to hear what these two enlightened men would talk about.

Simon Tam and Stephen Franklin
Okay, so I took the easy way out by sticking the two doctors together. But it makes sense. Simon is (or was on his way to becoming, anyway) one of the most brilliant young doctors in the Alliance. Stephen's expertise on exobiology is unparalleled. Talking shop for hours is almost a given. Once you got Simon into Medlab, you'd never get him out.

Kaylee Frye and Vir Cotto
These two are both a little naive, and both of these characters are often overshadowed by the stronger personalities that surround them. Nevertheless, they both have an inner strength that is plain to see, once it occurs to you to look for it. I think they'd make great friends.

Hoban 'Wash' Washburne and Marcus Cole
Perhaps a strange pairing at first, these two actually have a lot in common. They both love strong women. They both have a sense of humor that confuses or irritates those around them. They're both exceptionally good at what they do. And, unfortunately, they're both ultimately doomed.

River Tam and Kosh
What can I say? Just lock these two in a room and let them speak gibberish to each other for hours on end. It's really the only way.

Trek @ 40

2006-09-19T23:05:00.000-06:00

A nice nod to the Trek franchise by former contributer, Ron Moore.

'Star Trek' at 40: Still a beacon of hope

ALTADENA, California Four decades ago, when the starship Enterprise first settled into orbit around Planet M-113 on Sept. 8, 1966, I was 2 years old. I could not have known it at the time, but "Star Trek" would change my life.

To say that any television show has changed one's life is to invite both mockery and pity for a poor geek who must surely have been denied direct sunlight for the better part of his days. But in lieu of offering proof that I do not, in fact, still reside in my parents' basement, let me simply tell you how "Star Trek" informed the way I look at the world.

"Star Trek" is often reduced to kitsch: Kirk's paunch, Spock's pointy ears, green- skinned alien girls. But it was more than escapism and rubber- suited aliens. It was a morality play, with Captain James T. Kirk as a futuristic John F. Kennedy piloting a warp-driven PT-109 through the far reaches of the galaxy.

Kirk, for me, embodied an American idea: His mission was to explore the final frontier, not to conquer it. He was moral without moralizing. Week after week, he confronted the specters of intolerance and injustice, and week after week found a way to defeat them without ever becoming them. Kirk may have beat up his share of bad guys, but you could never imagine him torturing them.

A favorite quote: "We're human beings, with the blood of a million savage years on our hands. But we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we won't kill today." Kirk understood humanity's flaws, yet never lost faith in our ability to rise above the muck.

"Star Trek" painted a noble, heroic vision of the future, and that vision became my lodestar.

As I grew into adolescence, the show provided a handy reference against which to judge the questions that my young mind began to ask: What is the obligation of a free society toward the less fortunate? Does an "advanced" culture have the right to spread its ideas among more "primitive" cultures?

And as I grew, and my political views took shape, I treasured "Star Trek" as a dream of what my country could one day become - a liberal and tolerant society, unafraid to live by its ideals in a dangerous universe, and secure in the knowledge that its greatness derived from the strength of its ideas rather than the power of its phasers.

In my 20s, through a combination of luck and determination, I fulfilled my childhood dream - I became a writer for "Star Trek."

For 10 years, I helped propel the latter-day incarnations of "Trek" into new territory while keeping alive the set of moral principles I'd taken to heart. As I plotted the adventures of the Enterprise-D and the travails of the space station Deep Space 9, I gradually became interested in pushing the boundaries of "Star Trek," and began to let Captains Picard and Sisko find the shades of gray in a universe Kirk sometimes saw only in black and white.

Science fiction on film and television has, over the past four decades, moved decisively away from the optimism of "Star Trek." "Blade Runner," "Alien" and "The Matrix" posit much darker, dystopian futures; even the "Star Wars" movies posit the rise of a galactic empire founded on "the dark side." Explanations abound for this shift, but my theory is that "Star Trek" set the gold standard for the idealistic vision of tomorrow and no one has successfully challenged it.

Nowadays, it may appear that I've turned a blind eye to my lodestar as my characters in the television series "Battlestar Galactica" behave in ways that would've been unthinkable in the "Star Trek" universe. But "Battlestar Galactica" remains very much informed by the lessons I learned from that slightly paunchy man in the gold pajama top.

My characters may not have all the answers but they contain kernels of both good and evil in their hearts and continue to struggle for salvation and redemption against the darker angels of their natures. Their defeats are many, their victories few, but somehow, some way, they never give up the dream of finding a better tomorrow.

And, thanks to a 40-year-old television show, neither do I.

Star Trek: Special Edition!

2006-09-18T00:15:00.000-06:00

I kept the TV on way later than usual tonight to check out one of the remastered Trek episodes. As luck would have it my favorite episode, Balance of Terror, was being aired. The changes made in episode are fairly cosmetic--the Romulan warbird received a CGI spit and polish and the Enterprise "phasers," which look suspiciously like photon torpedoes, got an upgrade too. If this episode is any indication, it looks like the reworked bits will mostly concern exterior and background shots. I thought I was going to be really put off by the changes (Greedo shoots first, anyone?), but I think the Star Trek gang knew better than to mess with greatness. Let's face it, the Star Trek franchise has enough problems at the moment. Who needs a bunch of angry fanboys screaming, "Bring back the man-in-suit Gorn!"?

Plucked Chicken vs. Space Tortise!

2006-08-29T20:53:00.000-06:00

I found this image online the other day as I was searching for a decent picture of the White Star:

I followed the link back to its source at Planetside Scenarios, where the following scenario was presented: Who would win in a battle between Babylon 5's White Star and Deep Space 9's USS Defiant?

I don't know, but here are my thoughts.

Armament
Defiant has autofire phasers and quantum torpedoes. They take care of pretty much any opposition they have to face, and it's understood that the Defiant could decimate the surface of a planet (e.g., the Founders' homeworld) if the occasion required.
The White Star has a variety of directed energy weapons that can be fired either in short bursts or in a continuous beam. They handle small and mid-sized ships pretty well, but have difficulty taking out the Shadows' capital ships without help.
Advantage: Defiant

Defenses
The Defiant has the best shields Starfleet has to offer, plus ablative hull plating. The ship is hard to puncture, bit if it ever happens, you have to hope those emergency force fields hold out.
The White Star doesn't have shields—that technology doesn't exist in the B5 universe. Instead, the ship is covered in an advanced organic technology skin. This skin is self-repairing, and it learns from each encounter and adapts to new attacks.
Advantage: White Star

Propulsion System
The Defiant features standard Federation warp drive. This allows for quick jumps to warp speeds and faster-than-light maneuvering in normal space.
The White Star accesses hyperspace through its own jump engines, a feature rarely found on vessels so small. The jump points take a few moments to form, but once the White Star enters, ships without their own jump engines can't follow it.
Advantage: Defiant

Maneuverability
It appears that the design of the Defiant is still heavily influenced by its earthbound roots. The ship is quick and nimble, but it has to bank in order to turn in flight.
The White star can spin 180º on its axis while allowing momentum to carry it on its original course. When needed, the ship can stop, turn, or change direction almost instantly.
Advantage: White Star

Stealth
The Defiant carries a top-level Romulan cloaking device, rendering it virtually undetectable even if the enemy knows what to look for.
The White Star employs no stealth technology.
Advantage: Defiant...unless the White Star is carrying a telepath, which might even the odds a bit.

Accommodations
The Defiant is built like a submarine. The quarters are cramped, the beds are hard, and the medical bay is woefully undersized. Every cubic centimeter is dedicated to the purpose of making the ship as tough as possible, even if it makes it uncomfortable for the crew to operate there.
The White Star is roomy and tastefully lit, but the beds are all slanted because the Minbari are superstitious about sleeping horizontally (it's too much like being dead). In addition, the only way on or off the ship is by shuttle, because transporter technology doesn't exist in the B5 universe either.
Advantage: Neither.

General Technology Level
The Defiant was built to fight the Borg and includes the finest battle tech that Starfleet (with help from the Romulan Empire) can produce.
The White Star was designed jointly by the Minbari (who were already a starfaring race during the last Shadow war 1000 years ago) and the Vorlons (who have been watching over the younger races for something like a million years).
Advantage: White Star

So who wins? I don't have a clue. But I'd love to see the two in battle—as allies. Borg, Shadows, Dominion...whatever. It wouldn't matter. Before these two heavy hitters, the enemy wouldn't stand a chance. I'm reminded of a line from B5 first officer Susan Ivanova:

"Vakar Ashok, our gun arrays are now fixed on your ship and will fire the instant you come into range. You will find their power quite impressive... for a few seconds."

Lord of the Beards!

2006-08-10T00:15:00.000-06:00

Okay, this is freakin funny in a very geeky kind of way.

Long live beards!

Don't Panic!

2006-08-02T09:55:00.000-06:00

Michael sent me this geekrific inspirational poster via email and I had to share it with the occasional readers of Army of Dorkness.

Dead Like Me on SciFi

2006-07-14T01:06:00.000-06:00

Dead Like Me is starting a run on the Sci Fi channel. I just finished watching the first two seasons (and the only two season--stupid Showtime) on DVD. Give it shot. The premise is unique and, unlike many science fiction and fantasy offerings, focuses almost entirely on character development. Did I mention the show also happens to touch on things like family, destiny/fate, the afterlife, human nature, and loads of other deep philosophical ideas? Great stuff. Really. I can't give it a higher recommendation.

Bumper Sticker of the Day

2006-07-05T21:11:00.000-06:00

My gamer fragged your honor student.

Seen on Redwood Road, Salt Lake City, UT.

Regarding Superman Returns

2006-06-21T07:52:00.000-06:00

From a recent message board thread regarding Superman Returns:

"Why couldn't they just wait another twenty years and let Kal-El Cage play Superman?"

Classic.

This film is by far my most anticipated film of the summer. I can't wait to see Singer's take on the iconic hero. Please don't let me down.

That's Using Your Head!

2006-06-16T17:36:00.000-06:00

In this weeks' action with the OGC, our heroes (Wild Card, Sift, and Rham Dhapp) tried to keep VIPER from kidnapping their teammate, Gate. The cyborg VIPER leader, when finding himself facing heroic opposition, immediately called for reinforcements.

Enter the VIPER Vehicle Specialists. Half a dozen or so agents zoomed in on motorcycles wielding shock batons. One drove past Rham Dhapp, who dodged the attack and then smacked the agent in the back of the head with a baton he'd confiscated from another agent. The stunned VIPER agent lost control of the bike and crashed into a parked car. Fortunately, he wasn't seriously injured because he was wearing a helmet.

In other words, the VIPER agents were smarter than Super Bowl-winning quarterback Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Way to go, Ben.

X-Franchise: Definitely Not Dead Yet

2006-06-14T23:54:00.000-06:00

Since we seem to be on an X3 binge the last couple weeks, I've been meaning to post the following tidbit of information. Those involved with X3 admit there's more X-fare in the pipeline. The topic of another movie slipped out during a discussion of Gambit's absence from the first three X-films.

Let me stop and process that for a second. Gambit's absence from the first three films? Gambit? Gambit, the ragin cajun whose mutant power is the ability to deliver a kinetic blast via throwable items (namely playing cards)? That someone would even ask about Gambit's absence from the films, and the fact that one of the authors of the script even considered involving Gambit, speaks volumes regarding the generation of X-fans targeted by the movie industry. They're certainly not catering to the old schoolers like myself. And that's the reason why I'm starting to lose interest in the franchise. I want to see Cyclops, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Kitty, Storm, Wolverine, Rogue, Ice Man, Beast, and Jean emerge as one the premiere super teams on the planet Earth. These are the X-men, with a few other occasional guest stints by folks like Havok, Polaris, Banshee, and Sunfire, who I came to know and love. I want to see them engage the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the Hellfire Club, the Sentinels (what a lame reference to the Sentinels in X3), the Brood, Belasco, and any other number of interesting antagonists. I want to see them engage emotionally, to create friendships, to develop dislikes for one another, to set differences aside when everything is on the line. I realize adjustments need to be made to the original storyline(s) in order to resonate with contemporary audiences. I'm down with that--the first two X-flicks did just fine in that department.

The fact that Gambit is going to appear in future X-incarnations tells me the franchise is headed in the Age of Apocalypse direction, a storyline that resulted in me dropping the X-men as a regular comic. With the exception of Astonishing X-men, written by Josh Whedon, I haven't returned to the X-realm in 11 years. Gambit didn't interest me when he appeared 15 years ago and he doesn't interest me now. Gambit's appearance marks a shift away from the X-men as a morality play with likable, yet flawed, characters. The X-men of Claremont's run were interesting and complex people who found themselves thrust into extraordinary events. Some of my favorite comics from that era focused on the X-men hanging around the mansion between intergalactic travels or terrestrial battles to save the Earth. The Gambit era toward the end of Claremont's run, on the other hand, marked a shift toward style over substance. Comics became more about slick new characters with flashy powers, not the humanness of said characters. Ultimately, I suppose that's my issue with X3. Considering the gravity of the story, I didn't feel much emotionally ::shrugs:: And that's exactly what a feel when I hear Gambit is likely to make an appearance: nothin', mon cheri.

Not Dead Yet

2006-06-09T16:57:00.000-06:00

By all accounts, X3 should mark the end of the X-Men movie franchise. We've had our little war, the bad guys have been defeated, and a degree of peace has been established between mutants and the rest of humanity. And although there have been terrible losses, we have our happily-ever-after ending.

Don't count on it.

An old friend of mine was fond of saying, "If it works, you have to beat it into the ground. That's how they think in Hollywood." So even though X3 provides a pretty good stopping point for the series, the revenues tell a different story.

The largest Memorial Day opening ever? You can't ignore numbers like that. X4 is an inevitability. Write it down.

Now, if anything even remotely resembling the first three X-Movies is going to work, I figure that most or all of the following have to happen:

1. Charles isn't really dead.
2. Magneto hasn't really lost his powers.
3. Jean isn't really dead.
4. Scott isn't really dead.

None of which is really a problem to someone sufficiently creative(or someone with sufficient financial motivation). Observe:

1. Charles isn't really dead.
If you stuck around to watch all the credits, you already know how this works. Jean may have atomized the good professor's body, but his mind lives on in incorporeal form, looking for an uninhabited body. Conveniently enough, there happens to be just such a body in Moira McTaggert's lab in Scotland.^† Problem solved.

2. Magneto hasn't really lost his powers.
This one's already been taken care of, too. At the end of the movie, Eric moves a metal chess piece in the park. Okay, so it's not the Golden Gate Bridge, but even though the 'cure' was supposed to suppress all mutant abilities permanently, it appears that Magneto was so powerful that even the four doses of the 'cure' that the Beast hit him with (or was it five?) didn't quite destroy his powers. With time and practice—and Experience Points—Maggie will be back to his usual charming self before you know it. Check.

3. Jean isn't really dead.
Okay, she really is dead ... but it wasn't really Jean. It was actually ... wait, wait, don't tell me ... a phenomenally powerful cosmic entity who saw Jean trying to save the X-Men, was moved by her courage and compassion, and saved her life by placing her in healing stasis at the bottom of Alkali Lake while it took on Jean's physical form, fought in her place alongside the X-Men, and ultimately died heroically and/or tragically.^‡ Bingo.

4. Scott isn't really dead.
This is the easiest one to fix, because Scott's really not dead. How do we know this? Because we never saw his body. For the newbies, the First Rule of Comic Books is: If you don't see a body, he's not dead! He may be in Acapulco. He may be a deranged amnesiac. He may have even lost his powers. But he's not dead. Count on it. The fact is that the only evidence we have that Scott might be dead is Jean's own confession—and given her state of mind at the time, she's not exactly what I'd call a reliable eyewitness. Quad erat demonstrandum.

So, to those of us who are longtime fans of the superhero genre, none of this is much of a stretch. It's all pretty standard stuff, really. But to the general public, it might be a bit much to swallow, and the movie could flop. X4 might only make $100 million on opening weekend. Tragic.

Hey, if (when) the powers-that-be do eventually decide to make X4 (and beyond...?), here's something really radical they could try: an original story! After all the different storylines that've been botched in the past two movies, how about something that doesn't try to borrow from every single major story arc from the last twenty years? These characters are interesting enough to carry a movie on their own merits, and a good scriptwriter could do amazing things with them. Write a script that tells a meaningful story about the characters, and you'll have a good—and ultimtely successful—movie.^§

'Nuff said, bub.

--
^†The problem here is finding someone to play the Professor. Even with his psyche intact, he'll look completely different. So we'll probably have to have Patrick Stewart's voice dubbed over someone else's actions, kind of like James Earl Jones as Darth Vader. But who to play Xavier's new body...? Maybe Jonathan Frakes is available.

^‡In other words, the 'original' Jean Grey/Phoenix Force storyline—one of the very stupidest rewrites in the history of a genre rife with stupid rewrites. (In my humble opinion.)

^§ Maybe they could get someone like Joss Whedon or J. Michael Straczynski to write the script for X4. Better yet, send Derek, me, and the OGC a few hundred thousand dollars, and we'll write it.

I'm the Juggernaut, B*tch!

2006-06-06T02:34:00.000-06:00

Did anyone else catch the reference to the Dave Chappelle show in X3? Lamest part of the movie, period. The original Chappelle joke isn't all that funny and is, by far, the most overused/referenced joke ever. In light of the ultimate lameness of the dated joke, I offer the following.

I'm the Juggernaut!

Now, that's the Juggernaut, b*tch.

X3: Let's Hope This is Really the Last Stand

2006-05-31T23:36:00.000-06:00

While I generally agree with the majority of Michael's sentiments about X3, my final grade comes in a bit lower: C-. As Michael suggested, the movie was entertaining summer blockbuster fare. However, I couldn't get past some of the significant changes to X-canon. My inner geek wouldn't stop saying, "That's not how it's supposed to happen." The changes in X1 & X2, all handled much more deftly, didn't set off the geek red alert; the klaxon blared all the way through X3. Here are a few of the changes that REALLY irritated me.

First, how many freakin X-plotlines do writers need to mash together? Do we really need to see the Dark Phoenix Saga, the Mutant Massacre, the mutant cure, Days of Future Past, and I don't know how many freakin other plots rolled into one movie? Smashing all these plots stuck in my craw more than anything else. The Dark Phoenix Saga is one of my favorite comic book stories of all time. This movie totally blew it. Jean kills Scott seconds after her rebirth? WTF? The final moment between Scott and Jean in Uncanny Xmen 137 is one of the only times I've shed a tear while reading a comic. Pathetic execution. Don't even get me started on the death of Professor X. What was the point with that scene?

Second, why was there NO mention of the Phoenix Force whatsoever? Dark Phoenix was not Darth Jean; Dark Phoenix was an interstellar cosmic lifeforce doppelganger of Jean Grey pushed to the brink of insanity by the villanous mutant, Mastermind (part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the Hellfire Club, I believe). Jean's psychic imprint, fused with the Phoenix Force, battled the cosmic entity for control of the doppelganger.* Why couldn't this have been the main focus of this film? Call me a comic book geek, but I think this version of the Dark Phoenix story would have been far more compelling than the crapfest showing on the big screen. Tweak the plot a bit, have Jean using her newfound powers in some ethically questionable ways (do the ends justify the means kind of thing), a clash or two with Magneto & the Brotherhood, the X-men are ultimately forced to confront Jean (a battle with Xavier in the psionic realm, a physical confrontation with the others, etc). Scott lives, Xavier lives, and all the X-men must deal with Jean's eventual suicide (sorry if I spoiled the basic plot to Uncanny X-men 137). This could have been a beautiful film about ethics, the means by which we should address hatred, self-sacrifice, etc. Instead, we get multiple personality Jean joining forces with Magneto and the Brotherhood of Whimpy Mutants. A similar rewrite of the Mutant Massacre plotline could also result in an engaging film. Pick one plot and develop it, please. I like stories and characters with depth.

Third, the lameness that was the Juggernaut: "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch?" Dave Chappel does the X-men? Ugh. Juggernaut's powers were the result of magic, not the mutant x-gene. Save him for a future movie or don't use him at all. While I liked the race between Kitty and Juggernaut, I couldn't stand the way she stopped him.

Fourth, have I mentioned the lame demise of Cyclops? How about Professor X? Senseless. Senseless. Senseless. When characters die just to enhance the threat factor of the big bad, you have a case of bad writing (or two cases of bad writing). Deaths should be meaningful, not meaningless.

Fifth, what was with the combined Callisto/Caliban/Quicksilver character?

I could go on and on with the little things about this film that irked me (how about that lame Sentinal sequence, eh?), but I'll stop here. Although I disliked all the unecessary deviations from canon, the film was an entertaining way to spend a Wednesday afternoon.

*At the time, none of us knew the reborn Jean Grey was a duplicate. We all assumed the Phoenix Force possessed Jean's orginal body.

X3

2006-05-30T19:29:00.000-06:00

Warning!
This post contains spoilers about X-Men: The Last Stand. If you haven't seen X3 yet, don't read this post!
(Of course, if you haven't seen X3 yet, it's a wonder you're reading this blog at all....)

Yes, I was one of the millions who saw X-Men: The Last Stand over the weekend. Although I didn't like it quite as well as the first two movies, it was generally satisfactory. Here are my impressions.

The Good
* The Iceman/Pyro fight. The effects here were decent, and it was great to see Bobby all iced up. The closing dialogue was great, too. Pyro: "You should have stayed in the school." Iceman: [after taking Pyro out with a head-butt] "You never should have left."
* Beast. When I first heard they were casting Kelsey Grammer in the roll, I had my doubts. I was wrong. He was perfect. The voice, the attitude, the intonation, the "Oh my stars and garters" were all perfect. Whenever I read X-Men from now on, I'll probably hear Frasier's voice for Beast.
* Mystique's revenge. After being Magneto's right-hand woman (and lover?), he casts her away when she loses her powers. Big mistake. This woman is not someone to have as an enemy, no matter who you are.
* Kitty. I love the way she took out Juggernaut. Classic.
* The Fastball Special. "Hey, Tin Man, how's your throwing arm?"
* Magneto. For the first time, we really see him as a villain. Yes, he's been annoying and arrogant before, but here we get to see him for what he really is: a racist and a ruthless b@stard.

The Bad
* The effects. Too much of the CGI looked like CGI: the bouncing blue Beast, Jean's vaporization effect (especially in the big fight), and so on. Per a conversation in the gaming group last week, there's no excuse for poor CGI in a big-budget movie anymore.
* The death of Charles Xavier. Sure, his "I want you to take over the school someday" speech to Storm was a fair bit of foreshadowing. But to have him die so early in the movie felt anticlimactic. I suppose the plot required his early demise, but I'd have liked to see more of him.
* The death of Scott Summers. Leader of the X-Men, Charles Xavier's prize pupil and chosen successor, he doesn't even rate an on-screen death. At least it's consistent with the comics: nobody gets screwed by his writers quite like Cyclops.
* Jean's descent into madness. We didn't get to see enough of what made her evil: the battle within between her humanity and her lust for power. A few moments inside Jean's mind and/or a well-placed mental flashback or two would have made a world of difference.

The Ugly
* Jean's appearance. Granted, the makeup people did a good job of making Jean look creepy. But the Phoenix is supposed to be a creature of great passion - great joy and great rage. But she didn't look passionate in most of her scenes. She looked constipated.

Overall, I give this movie a B-. The plot wasn't as deep and the dialogue seemed forced much of the time, but there were also a lot of bits in there that kept the movie true to the franchise. In general, it was entertaining. I'll undoubtedly buy it, probably later this year when the three-movie box set comes out.

The Turning Point

2006-05-23T15:11:00.000-06:00

Dear Diary,

The past few days have been the hardest I've had since my parents died.

The year I spent in the foster home was unpleasant, but it was nothing like this. As much as I hated the place, I knew I was never in danger there. Even as messed up as I was, I knew I could handle anything that happened there. It was like a shelter from the real world. I knew that as long as I was there, I didn't have to face the nightmare that put me there.

These past few days, I've had to face the nightmare again.

I met the New Champions while I was still in the home. They were good to me, and Jeopardy told me to contact them when I turned 18 and got my life straightened out. So I did. I cleaned up my act, and by the time I turned 18, I'd done a lot of growing up. I got in touch with them again, and they seemed happy to see me. (Especially Terminal Velocity. The boy's a shameless flirt, but he's got a good heart.) They invited me to join, even gave me a radio and a costume. So I've spent the last few months as a superhero, fighting crime and busting VIPER a couple of times.

But I never had to face Genocide until now.

Things started out pretty normal. I got a call from Jeopardy saying they needed my help. I showed up in the warehouse district, and they asked me to run recon for them. I noticed a 'suspicious vehicle'. (I always wondered what that phrase meant on TV. Now I know.) T.V. went to deal with them. Then Jeopardy radioed me and asked me to see how much dry ice I could get hold of. She didn't say what for, but there was something really scary in her voice. She hasn't told me what was going on, and I haven't dared ask yet. I feel a special connection with her, but there's something about here that still scares me a little.

From there we rendezvoused with Blindside and Deadboy. Deadboy is friends with this rock band that's also publicly known as mutants. Someone had found out about a plot to attack the band at their concert the next evening. We started investigating, and the trail led to Genocide. They had stolen a blimp, and from the sound of it, equipped it with a cloaking device. We told Defender II about it, and he passed it on to the local authorities. But we knew they wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

So took up places at the stadium for the concert. Deadboy was on stage with the band. He fit right in with all that gothic stuff he usually wears. (I worry about him a little sometimes.) Blindside was in the crowd, and Jeopardy was outside the stadium in the parking lot. T.V. was running around all over the place like he normally does. Since I'm really the only flier in the group, I was on top of the skyboxes on the west side.

We were about half an hour into the concert when everything happened all at once. We got a reading on the blimp. T.V. ran up to where I was, and we took off. Meanwhile, a series of foam grenades went off and sealed all the stadium exits. And a truck crashed in the parking lot, and some sort of robot climbed out of the wreckage. So T.V. and I were going after the blimp, Jeopardy started fighting the robot, Blindside tried to clear the exits, and Deadboy was trying to keep the crowd from knowing that anything was even wrong.

At this point, I really only know what I was involved in. We managed to find the blimp, but not before I got hit with some kind of energy ray. I don't know what it was, but it made it a lot harder for me to fly. Still, I got us onto the blimp, but not before they started spraying napalm. We weren't quite over the stadium, so none of it fell onto the crowd. T.V. knocked one of the agents out of the blimp, then started working on closing the valves from the fuel tanks. I fought the other agent for a minute, but he jumped out and activated his jetpack. I don't know how I forgot they had those. It was those damn jetpacks that helped me identify Genocide as the people who killed my parents.

Anyway, as T.V. got the valves closed, the two agents started shooting at the storage tanks. If they punctured those tanks, they'd explode and rain napalm down on the city. So I shot at one of the agents and knocked him unconscious. As he started to fall, I realized he'd never survive a fall from that height, even with his armor. Before I could go after him, though, the other one got off a lucky shot and blew the tanks. T.V. got out just before the explosion, and I went after him. I caught him and got him safely to the ground. The agent who blew up the tanks got away. I never found out what happened to the other one.

Those agents meant to kill everyone in that stadium, just because the band on stage was made up of mutants. Thousands of people, most of them normal people, would have died if we hadn't been there. If that's not pure evil, then I don't know what is.

I've spent most of the last two years beating myself up over my parents' deaths. That stops today. It's time to start beating up the people who were really responsible.

I've told myself that if I hadn't snuck out that night, my parents wouldn't have been out looking for me and Genocide would never have found them. But I was only a couple of blocks from home when it happened. Those agents were in my own neighborhood. I don't know who they were looking for, but they would have found my family that night one way or another if that's why they were there. The only thing that would have been different is that I would have died with them. But Genocide didn't kill me that night, and that was their mistake.

I'm going to spend the rest of my life making them pay for that mistake.

(From the diary of Morningstar)

Prelude and Conversation

2006-04-01T10:28:00.000-07:00

    “We’ve seen satellite photos of the aliens’ base camps all over the world,” Jack Diamond told the other heroes at the table, “and they all look exactly the same. The same dimensions, same organization, same shape.” He saw a couple of his cohorts nod. “That’s what makes this next picture is so interesting.”
     He clicked a button on the remote control, and the projected picture on the conference room screen changed. The previous image’s perfect rectangle was now marred by a large, irregularly shaped protuberance. There was immediate chatter in the room.
    “This is the landing zone in the Nevada desert. Over the past week, we’ve seen this unusual area form and grow. There has been no atmospheric traffic in or out and no particular activity in the area. No obvious reason for such a drastic change. So I went down last night to take a look.”
    He pressed the button again, and a new image appeared. “These are night vision photos, digitally enhanced and colored. As you can see, this new area appears to be a hospital.”
    Row upon hastily organized row of beds stood out in the grainy photograph. They were filled with the humanoid-looking creatures the heroes had come to know so well over the previous five months. More than a dozen similar photos followed in rapid succession.
    “As you can see, a large portion of the enemy camp is now in bed. And as some of you have probably noticed, there are no signs of battle wounds, no missing limbs, or anything of the sort.”
    “That's odd,” Bronze Guardian said. “Why would so many of them be in a hospital unless they were wounded?”
    “They’re not injured,” Impulse offered. “They’re sick.”
    Diamond smiled grimly at her deduction. “That’s what it looks like.” He waited in silence for a moment for that fact to sink in.
    “So we may have an alien plague on our hands,” Thunderstrike said. Sometimes it was hard for Diamond to believe that this baby-faced kid was actually a married man in his mid-thirties with almost two decades of experience as a hero. “Any sign that it’s spread beyond the camp?”
    “Not yet,” Diamond reassured him. “It’s our good luck that they set up shop in the middle of nowhere.”
    “It’s also good luck that we have a world-renowned immunologist in our midst,” Thunderstrike countered, turning to a longtime teammate. “So what do we need, doc? Blood samples?”
    “Blood samples would only be helpful I had some healthy ones for comparison,” the man-wolf answered. “If you can talk them into providing some, I'll be happy to see what I can do.”
    “Fang’s right,” said Momenta, brushing the auburn hair from her eyes. “We need more information, or we’re never going to pin this one down.”
    “It would help if we could tap into some resources beyond what we've got here. Enigma?”
    The blonde-haired ex-intelligence officer looked up from his notepad at Impulse. “I know some people in the NSA,” he told her. “I can see what they might know.”
    “Do it,” she replied, turning her attention back to Jack Diamond. “And if you have any unusual resources that might help….”
    Diamond looked unusually thoughtful. “I think I just might.”

    Jack Diamond knocked at the door. It opened almost immediately, as he had hoped it would. “Enigma….”
    “Please, call me Alex.” He was obviously still not entirely comfortable using a code name.
    “Alex,” he corrected himself. “May I come in?”
    “Of course. Have a seat. Can I get you something?”
    Diamond looked around at his teammate’s quarters. They were spartan, well organized, and immaculately clean. Not surprising, he thought; the man was in the military for ten years. “No thanks, I ate just before the meeting.”
    “All right,” he answered, taking a seat opposite his guest. “What can I do for you?”
    “What do you know about all this?”
    Alex regarded his guest for a moment before answering. “That’s an interesting question.”
    “I hope you’d be interested in an alien disease we may have no way to fight.”
    “Oh, I am, certainly. But that’s not what I was talking about. It’s the question itself that I found interesting. ‘What do you know about all this?’ Not, ‘Do you know anything about this?’ or ‘Have you heard anything about this?’ A little presumptuous, don’t you think?”
    “Not at all. If anyone here knows anything more than I do on this, it’s got to be you.”
    “And why is that?”
    “It’s your business to know things that nobody else knows, isn’t it?”
    “Well, I do have some small talent for gathering information,” he admitted.
    “Yes, and you also have a talent for obfuscation.” Diamond smiled. “And it’s not going to work on me. Tell me what you know.”
    Alex thought for a moment before answering. “I’ll make you a deal. Prove to me that you know I know something, and we’ll talk.”
    Diamond’s smile turned to a smirk. “Okay, we’ll play it your way. First, you have ten years’ experience in Air Force Intelligence, mostly spent cracking computer codes and translating enemy signals. Second, as you stated before, you have contacts in the intelligence community. And third, you love a good mystery as much as I do, and maybe more. There’s no reason you shouldn’t know something.”
    Alex returned Diamond’s smile. “What you’ve given me is speculation and flattery—neither of which is proof. If you really think I’ve got information, you’ve got to know I won’t give it up that cheaply.”
    “All right, then, there’s the matter of your behavior at the meeting a few minutes ago.”
    “Yes?”
    “You were extremely…professional.”
    “Well, this is my profession.”
    “No, it was more than that. You handled the meeting perfectly. Absolutely perfectly. You took notes, nodded at the appropriate times, even offered to help find some things out. You were concerned without being worried, detached without being distant. You have an exceptional poker face, Alex.”
    “Thank you.”
    “The problem is, no one else in the room was playing poker.”
    The man not yet comfortable with the name Enigma allowed himself a small frown. “In other words, I did it too well. I begin to see the nature of the problem. Part of the adjustment to working with civilians, I guess.”
    “It’s not that big a problem, actually. I seriously doubt anyone but me noticed.”
    “What about Impulse?”
    Diamond snorted dismissively. “Being a telepath doesn’t mean you know what people are thinking all the time. She’s a decent investigator, but she relies too much on her powers and not enough on her instincts.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind.”
    “You do that. Now, I believe you were about to answer some questions for me.”
    “Fair enough. I can tell you that what you have deduced so far is true. That is a hospital we see in those pictures. There are something like three hundred and fifty of them in there right now....”
    “Three hundred and thirty-eight, if my count is correct.”
    “I don't doubt that it is. And no, they're not suffering from battle wounds. They're sick.”
    “How sick?”
    “It's probably life-threatening for most of them.”
    “And what's the danger to us?”
    “Minimal.”
    Diamond looked his teammate directly in the eye. “What, exactly, do they have?”
    “Influenza. The same strain that we all suffered through last last winter.”
    He leaned back, exhaled. “So the aliens have contracted a disease that's generally just an inconvenience to us but is deadly to them. Bad break.”
    “For them.”
    “You know, if this disease had been intentionally introduced into their camp, some people would call that bioterrorism.”
    Alex shrugged. “And some people would say the aliens set themselves up for that kind of response when they started dropping asteroids on our major cities.”
    “So, an eye for an eye, eh? One weapon of mass destruction deserves another?”
    He shrugged again. “One of the aims in war is to attack the enemy in a way they can't counter. We can't stop their mass drivers, they can't stop our viruses. We have a balance.”
    “And that justifies biological warfare?”
    “Usually, I'd say no. In this war, I'd be willing to make an exception.”
    “Why this war?”
    “Because this war isn't about power or resources or lines on a map. It's about evolution. If we lose this war, the human species becomes extinct. It's that simple. The choice for us is whether to go gently, or to rage. Until and unless the invaders show that they can coexist with us, we have to fight them with every weapon we have. Including biological warfare.”
    The two regarded each other silently for a moment. “I won't say I disagree with your reasoning,” Diamond finally said. Alex nodded in acknowledgment. “From a strictly pragmatic point of view, it's a hell of a plan. Simple, discrete, devastatingly effective. Once all the planning was taken care of, it probably wouldn't take more than three or four people to implement.”
    “What makes you think it would take more than one?” His face was utterly calm.
    Diamond nodded to himself. The final piece of the puzzle. “I suppose a single operative could pull it off, if it were the right person. Sneaking into an alien encampment to plant a virus would take someone with extensive training in tactics and infiltration. Special Forces training, maybe. They'd need to be smart, able to think on their feet. They'd need nerve, not to mention exceptional talents. Maybe even superhuman powers.”
    “And a rudimentary working knowledge of the aliens' language wouldn't hurt, either.”
    For the first time in the conversation, Jack Diamond was truly surprised. He thought of a reply, then bit it back. He'd said enough, heard enough.
    They sat together in silence for a long moment, then Diamond rose to his feet. Alex followed suit. “Well, I suppose I should get some work done. There's a war on, you know.” He extended his hand.
    Alex took it at once and shook it. “Yes, these are trying times for us all. I'll call my friend at the NSA and see what he knows. Something tells me he'll be able to offer all kinds of interesting information.”
    “Yeah, let me know what you find out. And thanks for the chat. This has been a most interesting evening of...speculation.”
    Alex watched Diamond turn and leave his quarters. He smiled to himself.
    “You never asked me to speculate.”

The REAL March Madness

2006-03-22T23:45:00.000-07:00

March Madness '06: The Ultimate Battle

Deathstroke vs Wolverine?
Batman vs Black Panther?
Colossus vs Green Lantern?
Iron Man vs Earth 2 Superman?
Emma Frost vs The Hulk?
Supergirl vs Superboy Prime?

Who will win it all?!

What If?

2006-03-22T06:47:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite aspects of Science Fiction is the speculative nature of the genre. For example, Star Trek, Firefly, Babylon 5, Space: Above and Beyond, and Battlestar Galactica all take place in the Earth's future, yet they are radically different in tone and content. The major differences, to my mind, are all based on assumptions about what happens between now and then. Change just a few key events, and the entire future changes.

Literature is full of such stories. What would have happened if Germany developed the atomic bomb first, or if Rome hadn't fallen? I heard recently about a video game in which it's assumed that Hitler was assassinated young—which opened the door for Stalin to take over Europe instead. It's fun to speculate how history would change if a single event came out differently.

I saw a movie recently that uses this approach in an unconventional genre, the romantic comedy. It's called Sliding Doors. To explain: A young London woman is fired from her job. On her way back home she rushes down the stairs to the Underground, only to miss her train by seconds. Then we see a rewind effect, and she comes back down the stairs and makes her train. At this point, time splits.

In one timeline, the train gets her home quickly, and she finds her live-in boyfriend in bed with another woman. She leaves him, meets someone else, and ends up starting her own business. In the other timeline, she leaves the train station and tries to hail a cab, only to get mugged in the process. Her emergency room visit keeps her from getting home in time to discover her lecherous boyfriend's affair, and her injury motivates him to pay more attention to her, at least in the short term. We watch the two stories unfold side by side, wondering which one is the real story. I won't spoil the ending for those who haven't seen it, but I will say that the ending features a nice bit of symmetry that unites the two timelines.

In other words, it's basically a chick flick with sci-fi undertones. Something for everyone.

Master This

2006-02-26T22:16:00.000-07:00

Another Jedi Master

2006-02-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

Again, and again and....

2006-02-26T08:36:00.000-07:00

Found a new start wars personality test.

Guess who I got.
Yep.
You guessed it.
That brings that result up to 5 now, I think. on five different quizes. I guess that means they are right. :)

Click on the picture to go to the quiz.

Young Avengers Musings

2006-02-18T09:06:00.000-07:00

This is a comic that when it first came out, I waffled while reading it, trying to decide if I liked it. I stopped reading it, then started again. If the hints are saying what they could be saying, this could be one of the gutsiest books Marvel is putting out.

Here is the line up:

Vision - although he is half old Vision, without his personality, added to Iron Lad's Tech. Iron Lad was one of the myriad versions of Kang, who came back in time as a teenager to try and not be Kang when he grew up.
Patriot - Grandson of the "black Captain America" who takes illegal superpowered enhancement drugs to be a hero.
Stature - Cassie Lang - Scott Lang's daughter who stole Pym Particles when she visited the Avenger's mansion visiting her dad, and has size manipulation powers based on them.
Kate Bishop (no codename yet)- Martial artist, bowwoman. Has Mock's sticks and Hawkeyes bow and arrow, and wears purple. The teammates call her Hawkingbird as a joke. She hates it.

Now we get to the interesting ones.

Hulkling - who actually isn't realted to the hulk. Green skin, superstrength, shapeshifter. We find out he is Scrull Royalty. He mentioned not nowing his dad, and that his dad died of cancer. Then we find that the Kree consider him one of thier own. Odds on, the son of Captain Mar-Vell and the Krull Princess.
Wiccan - Billy, who does magic, as far as he knows, by bascially wanting something to happen, and then it does, most of the time.
Then in last issue we ran into a new young powerful character, Tommy, who is a speedster and can use his speed accelerate and destabalise atomic matter. He also looks just like Wiccan.

Hmmm... Thomas and William, one who seems to make things happen just by thinking about them, and the other a speedster. Where have we seen those names before.... how about Wanda's kids, with one of them getting her brothers powers, but altered.

Love it.

And as a side note - Wiccan and Hulkling are together. When asked if they were going to make that public one responded "Why should Northstar have all the fun". :)

All in all a very good, and as it turns out a very surprising book. Recomended.

Love & Romance, SF/F-Style

2006-02-14T10:28:00.000-07:00

In celebration of the Valentine's Day holiday, let's look at some prominent Sci-fi and Fantasy romances:

» Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson (Spider-Man)
In a universe where most superhero romances end up completely screwed up (i.e., Scott Summers), it's great to see a nice couple like this live a fairly normal and happy life.

» Han Solo and Leia Organa (Star Wars)
"Wonderful girl. Either I'm going to kill her, or I'm beginning to like her." Ah, the joys of love at first sight. Who would have thought a princess and a scoundrel could make it work so well?

» Richard Rahl and Kahlan Amnell (Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series)
The most horrifying things happen to this couple. They face death, pain, torture, betrayal, loss, and grief by the cartload. But their love keeps them alive and hopeful, and that hope radiates to those they lead as they fight the greatest evil their world has ever known.

» Clark Kent and Lois Lane (Superman)
Lois is as central to the Superman mythos as Clark himself is. You simply can't have one without the other, be it in print, television, or movie format.

» Jadzia Dax and Worf (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
While his dalliance with Deanna Troi near the end of TNG was interesting, Worf met his true match and soulmate in Jadzia. Even after her untimely (and useless) death, she still shaped Worf's life like nobody else could. This was the best of all the Trek romances.

» Bob and Helen Parr (Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl) (The Incredibles)
The family that fights crime together stays together. The "I'm not strong enough" sequence is one of my favorite movie scenes ever.

» Marcus Cole and Susan Ivanova (Babylon 5)
One of the greatest romances that never was. Marcus loved Ivanova from afar, adored her, saved himself for her, and ultimately died for her. Ivanova could never bring herself to see, accept, or return his love until it was too late. As tragic as anything from Shakespeare.

» Westley and Buttercup (The Princess Bride)
Proof positive that death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.

» Daniel Drieberg (Night Owl) and Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre) (Watchmen)
When the world is going to hell around you, sometimes all you can do is hold on to someone. And sometimes, that's enough.

» Simon Tam and Kaylee Frye (Firefly / Serenity)
Face it: if Simon—a certified geek whose family issues are, to say the least, problematic—can get the girl, then there's got to be hope for the rest of us.

Star Trek: Reloaded

2006-02-08T08:31:00.000-07:00

The question of where Star Trek goes next is an interesting one. Here's my take:

Obviously, we can't start from where we left off. The Trek universe, at 'present', isn't very interesting.

Here's the current situation: the Dominion is defeated, the Borg Queen is dead, Cardassia has been emasculated, the Romulans are still rebuilding after the Shinzon debacle, the Federation is in a state of détente with the Klingons, the Maquis are gone, and the Ferengi are looking positively benign under the administration of Grand Nagus Rom.

In short, there's nobody left to fight.

Oh sure, the Breen, the Naussicans, and the Tholians are still around. But it's hard to imagine a whole series based around any of these antagonists. They're too inhuman to make it interesting. There are still a few hostiles floating around in the Delta Quadrant—the Hirogen, Species 8472, and the like. It certainly wouldn't break my heart to see the Kazon get their butts whipped a few more times. But those foes are thousands of light-years away. And to be honest, they were of only limited interest in Voyager in the first place.

The Trek universe has become boring.

And to me, that is the real problem. The solution? As Derek suggested, let's go back to a time when things were really interesting. Conflict is at the heart of any good story. And there's plenty of that in the Trek universe of the 'past'.

The Next Generation/Deep Space 9 era is certainly a good candidate for a series setting. It would give potential viewers a sense of familiarity, and there are certainly enough interesting things going on then. We might see the Klingon civil war from one of the other ships in the Federation blockade. Perhaps there were some survivors of Wolf 359. Or maybe, just maybe, there were some interesting things going on back then that didn't involve the Enterprise or her crew in the least.

I've recently been reading some of the Star Trek: The Lost Era books. This would also be an interesting setting. George Takei is almost 80 now, so it may not be practical to show the Sulu-era adventures of the Excelsior. But there are almost unlimited possibilities for Enterprise-B and Enterprise-C. Let's see some action involving Captains Harriman and Garrett. The universe of the Trek Interregnum sounds like a pretty exciting place to me, filled with exploration and confrontation. Bring on the classic nemeses: the Romulans, the Cardassians, and yes, even the Klingons.

Now that we've established the when of the matter, let's talk about who.

The idea of seeing some junior officers, perhaps not even on the Federation flagship, holds some definite potential. Part of the legacy of Star Trek (and most sci-fi TV) is the 'Fairy-tale Syndrome'. Let me explain. Think of any fairy tale that comes to mind, even the animated ones. What do all the main characters have in common? They are all intimately connected with royalty. Cinderella finds her handsome prince. Aladdin finds his princess. Simba is denied his right as king of the pride. Anastasia finds out she's not just a peasant girl but the last surviving member of the Romanov family. And so on. The common folks are typically relegated to supporting roles, if they're seen at all.

So it is with Trek. Consider the Enterprise-D. Think of anyone who could be considered a 'main character', a recurring character whose actions have lasting effects on the ship and/or her crew. I come up with the following: Captain Picard, Riker, Data, Geordi, Dr. Crusher, Dr. Pulaski, Wesley, Troi, Worf, Yar, O' Brien, Barkley, Ro Laren, Guinan, and maybe Lwaxana Troi. Fifteen main characters in the series. The stated crew of the Enterprise is just over a thousand. 98% of the overall story involves less than 2% of the crew. And the majority of those people are command-level officers—the ship's royalty, if you will.

Are there any normal people in Starfleet? Of course there are. They're the ones wearing the red shirts. They're the ones who die in the first five minutes of the episode to show how serious the situation is. To wit, the away team beams down to a hostile alien planet: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, and Slobowski. Hmm, who do you think is not going to survive this mission?

Of course every ship has a captain and a command crew. But think about a modern aircraft carrier. The USS Ronald Reagan has a crew of about 6,000. How many of those folks interact with the captain on a daily basis? How many interact with anyone on the command staff? Probably very few. Maybe commanding officers are more accessible to their crews in the future, but I can still imagine a crewman going through an entire two-year stint in Starfleet and never once having dinner at the captain's table.

So let's see how the other half lives. And more importantly, let's focus on the characters themselves, rather than just their rank and/or position. Part of what I like about what I've read of Kurt Buseik's comics work is that he doesn't tell superhero stories. He tells stories about people who happen to be superheroes. To beat the same dead horse once again, the reason that Babylon 5 and Firefly were so good is because the stories were character-driven. So are the best trek episodes, like "City on the Edge of Forever", "The Inner Light", and "The Visitor".

I guess that's ultimately what it comes down to, for me: tell interesting stories involving characters I can care about, and I'll tune in every week.