Category: Science Fiction

In his book How To Write Science Fiction & Fantasy (a Writers’ Digest book), Card analyzes Star Trek and says (EXCERPTS):

The original series creator [Gene Roddenberry] wanted characters with the power to make decisions, and centered on the captain and executive officer of a military starship. Unfortunately, however, as anyone who knows anything about the miltary will tell you, the comanders of ships and armies don’t have many interesting adventures. They’re almost always at headquaters, making the big decisions and sending out the orders to the people who do the physically dangerous work.

In any real starfleet there would be teams of trained explorers, diplomats, and scientists ready to venture forth at the commander’s orders. If Star Trek had been about one such team, the stories would have been inherently more plausible–and there would have been room for tension between the ship’s officers and the exploration teams, a rich vein of story possibilities that was virtually untapped.

Instead, Star Trek centered around the characters with the highest prestige who, in a realistic world, would have the least freedom.

Any captain of a ship or commander of an army who behaved like Captain Kirk would be stripped of command for life. But the series would not have worked otherwise.

At this point you might be saing to yourself, "I should be so lucky as to make mistakes like Star Trek–I could use a few bestsellers." But the point I’m making is that Star Trek could not possibly have succeeded if the captain had actually behaved like a captiain. Centering the series around a commanding officer was such a bad mistake that the show immediately corrected for the error by never, for one moment, having Kirk behave like a captain [p. 68].

In saying this, Card is right (except that–in a few individual minutes–Kirk did behave like a captain). Kirk, and the captains that followed (even on other series, like Capt. John Sheridan of Babylon 5) did not behave like captains when it came to leading missions themselves.

Star Trek thus violated a real-world law.

So what. Sci-fi does that all the time.

And in this case there may well be a reson: When Star Trek started, in 1967, would the networks have bought a show that focused on an exploratory team instead of a commanding officer? I don’t know that at all. A network today would buy that (think: Stargate SG-1), but in 1967 the networks had such a limited undrstanding of science fiction that they barely bought it to begin with (thinking Star Trek "too cerebral" and rejecting the idea of Mr. Spock utterly in the first pass), so it is quite plausible to suppose that the network would have simply passed on the idea if it focused on ordinary soldiers.

Having set the mold for TV space opera with Kirk (who is not, incidentally, without precedents like action hero Capt. Rocky Jones), other captains followed in his stead.

Over time, though, TV and movie sci-fi would have the chance to evolve away from this formula, and that’s something we can all be glad about.

Unfortunately, not all of Card’s analysis of Star Trek is so on the money.

More in a bit.

This year Star Trek: Enterprise this year gave us an explanation of why Klingons look different in different series and thus cleared up a minor mystery.

It’s also cleared up something else: What a Tholian looks like.

In The Original Series, the Tholians appeared in just one episode ("The Tholian Web") and we never saw more than a weird-lookin’ face (?) on a viewscreen.

Folks naturally wonderd what the whole critter looked like, but until now we’ve never got to see.

Some even wondered whether the crystalline-lookin’ Tholian "face" we saw might be a helmet of some kind or if the critters were really crystalline.

The Tholians were almost totally ignored by later Star Trek series, though they were mentioned a number of times on Deep Space 9. A Tholian ambassador visited the station, though we never saw him. Capt. Sisko also had a conversation about (rare and much prized) Tholian "silk." And the Tholians signed a non-aggression pact with the Dominion before the war broke out. But for all the talk, we never got to see.

Now we have. In the two-part Mirror Universe episode "In A Mirror, Darkly," we finally get to see a Tholian.

Since both parts have now aired in all markets (and since this isn’t a matter of the plot and thus not a plot spoiler), I’ll go a head and show you a pic. Here ’tis:

As you can see, the ugly bugs are indeed crystalline. They also have six legs and two arms, which makes them arachnids.

There’s also a suggestion of motion under their crystalline carapace, which I s’ppose accounts for the weird color variations we saw on The Original Series’ viewscreen.

They live in a super-hot Venus-like environment.

So they’re blazingly hot crystal spiders.

Cool!

Only don’t say that to a Tholian. Probably won’t have the same resonance.

If you cool ’em off too much they start to crack. Need heat to live.

Tholian silk must be woven with asbestos or somethin.’

LEARN MORE ABOUT THOLIANS FROM MEMORY ALPHA (SPOILERS).

J. Michael Straczynski has been hinting for some time that there was a Babylon 5 movie in the offing, titled Babylon 5: The Memory of Shadows.

Rumors emerged earlier this year that he was having problems with Warner Brothers over the casting of the movie. Some roles (such as Technomage Galen) were apparently under pressure to be cast with different (and more popular) actors.

Now JMS tells us that the movie deal is off . . . for now. And that he can’t use the script he wrote for it should a movie deal be revived with someone else. (Makes me glad that he, apparently, didn’t tell the story of the Telepath Crisis–as I was hoping–in this script).

JMS writes:

The rule of thumb in Hollywood is that for every thousand scripts that get written, only a few dozen get into development, and out of those, only one will ever get made…if that.

A little over a year ago, I was approached by a company that wanted to make a Babylon 5 movie. They optioned the rights, and commissioned a script. (It’s worth mentioning that I, not WB, own the rights to a B5 movie. When we were negotiating the original B5 deal — by whose terms I will never see a dime in profit — the one thing they did let me have were the movie rights, figuring they’d never be worth anything in the long run.)

Anyway…on December 27th of 2003, the script for "The Memory of Shadows" was turned in, and the process began of trying to make the deal work with all the various forces involved. It is, to say the least, a very difficult process on any movie where the studio does not directly take the financial reins. In terms of B5, Warner’s position was esssentially, "We only do big-budget movies with big names, so you’re on your own." If there were big-name movie actors in the film, they’d get behind it; without that, things become very problematic, especially as far as the financing was concerned. You much have to put together a consortium of international interests and business plans rivaled in complexity only by the Allied invasion of Normandy Beach.

Nonetheless, every attempt was made by the people involved to get this deal in place. This was not being done by Doug or myself, but rather by the company/individuals who approached us and optioned the rights. At times, it seemed we were inches away from a deal…stages were reserved at Elstree, actors were contacted, a director was in place, the script went through many revisions, a few key staff were hired, again not by me…it was really a year-long roller coaster ride. During that time, the people involved, with every good intention, tried very hard to pull the necessary pieces together on the deal. The option expired in late December 2004, but I renewed it without cost, to give those involved more time to try and make things work.

In the end, however, the deal could be put together, and it did not look as if that was going to change at any point in the foreseeable future. So the option has reverted, and to all intents and purposes, the project has dead ended. Nor do I think this particular incarnation will arise again at any point in the future, though prognostication has always been a tricky art, especially if you have to do it without the benefit of hindsight.

This was not the first time someone’s taken a run at a B5 feature film, and it will not be the last. Eventually it will happen, because such things are simply inevitable. If they can do a Brady Bunch movie, you can be sure that sooner or later, somebody’s going to do a B5 movie. The only thing I can say without equivocation is that when that day comes, as the rights-holder, I will make darned sure that it’s done right, because I’d rather have no B5 movie than one that doesn’t live up to what fans and I myself would want to see.

To that end…I can wait.

Anyway, just thought you should know the story.

jms

[SOURCE.]

. . . Or at least all of us who want to know.

Here’s the explanation for why Klingons in the 23rd century were human-appearing, while those before and after are forehead-ridgers.

The episode of Star Trek: Enterprise that establishes the on-screen explanation should have aired in everyone’s town by now, but lest anyone not want to know, I’ll put the spoilers in white-on-white, so you have to select the text (by swiping it or hitting Ctrl-A) to see it.

Here goes:

• In the late 20th century, a group of scientists created a "master race" of genetically altered humans, among them Kahn Noonien Singh. This led to the Eugenics Wars on Earth in the 1990s.
• In the 22nd century, scientific genius Arik Soong (played by Brent Spiner) incubated and birthed a number of embryos from this time. These embryos, because of their augmented DNA, were known as "augments." They had the increased intelligence and aggression of the key players in the Eugenics Wars.
• When Arik Soong unleashed several augments in the 22nd century, the Klingons perceived it as a threat.
• Subseuquently, when several augmented embryos fell into their hands, they exploited their DNA to create Klingon augments to compete with human augments.
• One Klingon augment had a virus that combined with the human augment DNA.
• This virus spread to other Klingons, making them not only have augmented abilities but also to appear more human.
• By the 23rd century (the time of Star Trek: The Original Series), this virus had spread throughout the Klingon race.
• By the 24th century (the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation), this virus had been cured, making Klingons of that era profoundly uncomfortable in discussing why their appearance had temporarily temporarily lurched human-ward a over hundred years before.

So there!

That explains:

1. Why the difference existed.
2. Why characters in Enterprise’s time had the forehead-ridge appearance.
3. Why characters in the TOS period had the human-looking appearance.
4. Why characters from the beginning of the movies onward were back to the forehead-ridge appearance.
5. Why characters introduced as human-looking in TOS were forehead-ridgers later on.
6. Why it seemed to affect the whole race.
7. Why Klingons were embarrassed to talk about all this with outsiders, and:
8. Why the human-lookers were so . . . human . . . looking.

CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS

for this week’s episode, which spells it out in more detail.

. . . the answer to why Klingons looked different in The Original Series (TOS) than they did both before and after this, that is.

Last night’s episode of Enterprise revealed the reason.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil the answer in this post. If you haven’t seen the episode, it may be re-run on Saturday or Sunday night on your station.

CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS.

I will, however, talk a little bit about the problem.

First, the offscreen explanation for the change is clear: When TOS was being filmed, they had miniscule makeup budgets, so they couldn’t make the original Klingons look that different from humans given that they were a major race that would be appearing often.

They tried to have a little more elaborate makeup for the Klingon leaders (other starship commanders equivalent to James Kirk), but the Klingons in the background were often just black guys in Klingon uniforms.

Notably absent were the forehead ridges that got introduced . . . in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Offscreen, when Star Trek went from the small screen to the big screen they went from a small budget to a big budget that could be used on all kinds of things . . . including makeup. So the alien race of Klingons became more . . . alien.

When the change was made, fan theories about it prospered, but onscreen there remained no explanation for the change, the producers of the show hoping that the fans would recognize the makeup change for what it was (the outworking of a budget change) and would just "go with them" on this one.

Fan theories about the change included:

1. The "human-looking" and "forehead-ridged" Klingons were two different races within the Klingon Empire.
2. The human-lookings were hybrids with humanity, while the forehead-ridgers were purebloods.
3. The difference was the result of a virus.
4. The difference was due to Klingons wanting to appear more human in a particular phase of their history (e.g., we know that one character in the TOS episode "The Trouble With Tribbles" was deliberately disguised as a human for covert ops purposes).

When ST:TNG kicked in, a Klingon (Lt. Worf) joined the main cast, and in keeping with larger TV budgets (and better makeup techniques), the Klingons on TNG were forehead-ridgers.

The same inevitably replicated on the sequel to TNG, Star Trek: Deep Space 9. But DS9 added new wrinkles to the puzzle.

First, DS9 established Klingon characters who had originally been introduced in TOS. All those old Klingon ship captains who squared off against Kirk–Kang, Kor, Koloth? They were all back now–as old men–and played by the same actors. But they were in new makeup. Thus here’s a comparison of how Koloth looked in the two series:

Okay. Big diff.

It also ruled out one of the popular fan theories: that the diff was due to there being more than one race of Klingons.

A theory that could have explained the difference (but that I don’t know was ever posed by fans) was that the forehead-ridge appearance developed with age, so that all the Klingons seen on TOS were younger, while those seen later were . . . older. The change might even strike different Klingons at different times of life the way . . . baldness . . . strikes different human men at different times.

We have our own forehead changes, see.

Well, events continued to overtake speculation, and in the 30th anniversary episode, "More Tribble, More TroublesTrials and Tribble-ations," Lt. Cmdr. Worf establishe a new onscreen fact about the difference: Klingons are embarrassed about it. Specifically, Whorf looked uncomfortable and said: "We do not discuss it with outsiders."

When Enterprise initially hit the airwaves four years ago, it had the forehead-ridgers that we were familiar with from TNG onward.

So this left the writers of Enterprise, now that it finally got good and got cancelled, an interesting puzzle once they decided to finally do an onscreen explanation of the difference. Specifically, they needed to explain:

1. Why the difference existed.
2. Why characters in Enterprise’s time had the forehead-ridge appearance.
3. Why characters in the TOS period had the human-looking appearance.
4. Why characters from the beginning of the movies onward were back to the forehead-ridge appearance.
5. Why characters introduced as human-looking in TOS were forehead-ridgers later on.
6. Why it seemed to affect the whole race.
7. Why Klingons were embarrassed to talk about all this with outsiders, and:
8. Why the human-lookers were so . . . human . . . looking.

To my mind, the answer eventually provided last night by ST:ENT to this long-standing Star Trek mystery was a good one.

Don’t spoil it in the comments box.

I’ll reveal it before next week’s episode.

Crichton has already written about the nebulous, non-scientific values ascribe the the variables in the Drake Equation.

Despite not having a whit more evidence, a group of scientists who aren’t going to be listened-to seriously, have decided tha the chance of a nearby extraterrestrial civilization is much higher than most think.

GET THE UNSUBSTANTIATED STORY.

Conspiracy-oriented minds might wonder if this the beginning of the "disclosure" that precedes The Facade.

The UFO community will certainly wonder about that.

Okay, it’s mid-January now, so the new shows are starting up again after the Christmas re-run season.

Last night Star Trek Enterprise fired up its warp engines again and delivered an interesting episode.

Unlike the three-episode mini-arcs that it’s been working this season–arcs that allow it to tell bigger, more ambitious stories–this one was a standalone episode, but it will have a significant place in the Star Trek mythos.

The reason is that, even though it wasn’t a multi-episode story like others this season, it did do something that seems to be part of the mission of Enterprise’s season four: Fill in missing pieces of the Star Trek mythos.

The previous story had dealt with a civil war on Vulcan that led to the evolution of the Vulcans we know and love from The Original Series. In this week’s episode, we see the broader social revolution starting to spread.
That’s not the hole in the mythos that this episode fills, though. It’s something else.

Star Trek has always had a number of pieces of magical technology, the two chief ones being warp drive and the transporter. Over time, we met, learned about, and got to know the creator of warp drive, Zephram Cochrane. We’ve never had the pleasure with the creator of the transporter, though.

Until now.

This week’s Enterprise episode features a guest appearance by Dr. Emory Erickson, the heretofore-unnamed father of the transporter.

Like Zephram Cochrane, he is a flawed genius. He arrives on the ship with plans for a transporter so powerful that it could make starships obsolete (something that we know from previous Star Trek series was a technology that at least one alien civilization had). But he’s also carrying with him a secret.

That secret has to do with his son, and it’s no coincidence that this episode is titled Daedalus.

In the end, the episode turns in a poignant story of a father and his loss.

It’s not a planet-shaking story, but it’s touching nonetheless.

And it’s another piece of the puzzle.

If you missed it, it’ll be on this Sunday night on UPN.

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Watching the news tonight with the continuing coverage of the quakewave disaster brought me fresh impetus to pray.

It also brought to mind something that had occurred to me a few days ago.

The dynamic duo of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle have an excellent sci-fi novel in which they try to do a more realistic take at what an alien invasion of Earth might involve and how we might be able to realistically defend ourselves–against aliens who at first seem completely invincible.

(The idea of being able to contribute something new and different to this well-worked-over theme was a precondition of Niven being willing to participate in the project.)

The cover has a nice blurb from Tom Clancy plugging it: "Nobody does it better then Niven and Pournelle. I loved it!"

I did, too.

Good book.

Very respectful of religion (Pournelle is Catholic). Interesting tidbit (and minor spoiler): The secret American project to deal with the alien mothership is called Project Archangel and involves developing a weapon known as Michael.

Why Project Archangel? Why Michael?

Because they’re hoping that Michael will drive the alien Satan from our heavens.

But here’s the connection that put me in mind of this novel (again, a deliberately vague spoiler): At one point the aliens deploy a weapon called The Foot that does something HORRIBLY reminiscent of what just happened to Indonesia and the surrounding area, only much, MUCH worse.

After the atrocity of unimaginable proportions, when the aliens start to get scared of what we do to them in retaliation (the fate of their race is on the line), you’ll cheer as a defiant human coldly tells the panicking alien leader:

"THIS is the price of The Foot!"

YEAH!

(Now if we could just find some alien butt to kick for what happened in Indonesia.)

GET THE NOVEL

A reader writes:

I have a question that popped into my head while watching the Sci-Fi Monday marathon.

If all energy/data is one-way in a worm hole, how is it possible for an off-world team to communicate with the SGC?

Please don’t underestimate that a reasonably mature ____ year old man, who evidently doesn’t have enough things on his mind, is asking. Please don’t tell my wife!

Will do! (Or perhaps that should be, “Won’t do!”)

Happy to oblige on this question. Here’s the answer:

When a body made of matter approaches the event horizon of an active wormhole, it is instantaneously translated into patterns of energy that can only travel one way (whichever way the wormhole is flowing, to or from a particular stargate). Trying to force matter through a wormhole the wrong way results in it being disintegrated (as normal) but the resulting patterned energy stream can’t flow backwards through the wormhole and so it is never reintegrated.

(Also, wormholes normally only transmit bodies in their entirety, not parts of them, so you can pull a partially-disintegrated object back out of a stargate and have it reintegrated. It’s only when the object wholly goes within the event horizon that it is transmitted along the wormhole–assuming that it has entered the “transmitting” end of the wormhole.)

This is what happens with matter, but ordinary energy (i.e., not energy that is matter patterend by the stargate for transmission) isn’t affected by the one-way rule that applies to converted matter. As a result, normal E/M energy can travel two-ways through a wormhole, as when the M.A.L.P. communicates with Stargate Command by radio.

Got it?

MORE INFO FROM DR. SAMANTHA CARTER ON WORMHOLE PHYSICS.

The cutest part of the Stargate universe.

(Sigh.)

(And smart too!)

(Sighhhhh.)

(Where do I enlist?)

(Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)