To Watch A Show

 I’m not sure what to write tonight, but I’ve sat down to try to mash out my 150 words as quickly as possible, only because I want to watch the newest episode of the science fiction series Foundation that went live on Apple TV just a few hours ago. 

Is there anyone else out there that fits in the Venn diagram overlap of “Reads Denis’ Blog” and “Watches Foundation”? I never read the books it’s based on, but according to those in the know, apparently neither did the folks that made the series! Fans of the books tell me, while the show uses characters and themes from the novels, it’s like they read a Wikipedia page, got bored after the Principle Characters section and made everything else up. 

And I love it! It’s crazy far future sci-fi, with ships that travel faster than light, empires that span multiple star systems, clones, and math that accurately predicts the future, but only in huge, civilization spanning level, not the actions of individuals. 

The special effects are high budget movie quality, with huge cities, vast wastelands, and elaborate, shiny spaceship interiors. Much of the sets were built and filmed in Limerick!! There are plenty of Irish accents among the secondary cast, and plenty of Irish names in the credits for all sorts of roles. 

The cast is great. I think, among a quality selection, my favourite actor is Lee Pace. I love every time his character appears on screen and I’m excited to watch his plans and plots come together. That, and I WANT HIM TO DIE! I want him to die a slow and horrible death, and suffer for every moment of it. Oh how I’m going to enjoy that episode when it surely happens. 

If you enjoy sci-fi, think about adding Apple TV to your list of streaming services you’re borrowing from a friend. 

Though that might be tough, as there aren’t many of us around. 

Addendum: Well, I watched the latest episode and it was great. Almost no sign of Lee Pace, but with the size of the cast, not every actor gets to be in every episode. Can’t wait to see what happens next week. 

To The Stars!

Whether it’s Trek or Wars, there’s never been a better time to be a fan of Star stuff. 

I grew up enjoying both, but partly because Star Trek was a weekly show, I think I had a special fondness for The Next Generation series. Also, Star Wars was on hiatus during my formative nerd building years. I didn’t even see Return of the Jedi in theatres, but I distinctly recall being in the theatre with my brother and a friend at a matinee screening of Star Trek: The Undiscovered Journey. 

But tonight I watched the latest episode of The Mandalorian, followed by the second episode of the latest season of Discovery. In case you don’t know, The Mandalorian is a series based in the Star Wars universe, following the exploits and adventures of a lone bounty hunter, while Discovery is based in the Star Trek universe, following the exploits and adventures of the crew of a federation starship.

Both shows are drastically different, and this happy sci-fi fan has room in his heart for both. 

The Mandalorian is a western that happens to be set in space, leaning heavily into tropes defined by the golden age of westerns in cinema and TV. This includes dusty bars, lawless border towns, backstabbing former friends, running jobs to earn pay and delaing with unexpected hiccups to seemingly straightforward tasks, all while riding mostly alone across baren emptiness between episodes, picking up allies along the journey. 

Discovery is bombastic space science fiction, with huge battles, gibberish technobabble, shiny technology, epic, galaxy spanning life-or-death, end-of-the-known-worlds plots, starring a massive ensemble cast of colourful characters and adding to that by picking up new allies along the way.

Mostly though, I chose to write all this to bring up that I just want to see a crossover special where The Mandalorian’s Amy Sedaris and Discovery’s Tig Notaro characters get to meet up and hang out together. I don’t care how. I just want to see these two characters together! They’re hilarious. I feel like they’d be the best of friends if ever they got to meet. 

Expect my next dozen or so posts to be fanfic of just that!

Short Story With Time Travel

This is another short story, and I usually post these without preamble or context, hoping the story will be enough to hold itself for as much as I want to tell. But I feel like this one does need a bit of context. For one thing, normally when I write a short piece of fiction for my blog, it’s a random moment, or the very first few paragraphs to a story. This time, it’s the very last page. It all started when a friend I know through Twitter posted the following exchange a few nights ago:

My 6 yo son: I want to go to your wedding.
Me: Which wedding? Mommy and my wedding?
Him: Yes
Me: But you weren’t born yet. You couldn’t go. You didn’t exist then.
Him: But I exist now.

This instantly sparked a story in my head of a kid somehow getting a time machine just to go back and be there for his parents wedding, but getting into all sorts of trouble along the way.

I responded to her at the time:

This is the start of a ripping great YA sci-fi book involving time travel, dinosaurs and the Temporal Enforcement Division, TED. "Sorry kid. TED talks, you listen. That's just how it is. I won't be taking questions at this time..."

And that was that. Or so I thought. In fact, my brain was running it over and over, imagining scenes and moments and set pieces, and I said so.

[Bleep]. I'm now writing the entire book in my head just to get that one gag into it. I have an ending... I [should] write it down before I go to sleep...

By this time, it was past 11pm. So I went to bed, turned out the lights and shut my eyes.

Then I got up again and got my keyboard for my iPad and sat up in bed and knocked out the following in about 30 minutes. It’s rough, it needs editing, but it was fun to write, and that’s all I care for. Enjoy.

***

He held the Time Piece in front of Connor’s face as it faded out of existence.

“Sorry kid. The adventure’s over for now.” Michael put one hand on his own Time Piece, and held the other out to Connor. “As an officer of the Temporal Enforcement Division, I am authorized to return you to your time of origin.”

Connor didn’t move. He looked down at the thick moss on the jungle floor. “It’s not fair! I just wanted to see my mom and dad’s wedding day. I wasn’t going to change anything, I promise!”

“I know that. Why do you think TED just sent a single officer, me, to deal with you? We keep the big teams for the big bads, the ones trying to rewrite history.”

“Then why did you stop me?” Connor asked, with maybe a little more poutiness in his voice than he had intended.

“Delay” the officer said calmly.

“What?” Connor looked up and saw, really for the first time, not the terrifying figure that had been chasing him since he first got the Time Piece, but a person, a regular other person that had a warmth in his voice.

“Delay. Not stop. You’re just 6 years old.” Michael placed one knee on the moss and a hand on Connors shoulder. “You’re too young to really appreciate this moment. Besides, if we’d let you go now, there would have been two of you there, and that actually would have caused problems for the timeline.”

Connor was silent for a long moment. “So I will get to see it?”

“Yes. And a TED officer will escort you. In fact, I put in a request for the job.” Michael thumbed the Time Piece and Connor saw that now familiar swirling of stars and streaks of purple, and suddenly he was back home. Michael stood up and took two steps back.

“Wait!” Connor said. “What if I tell people about this?”

“They’ll just chalk it up to a six year olds imagination. But you probably won’t. This is a secret that’s worth treasuring for yourself. See you in fifteen years, kid.”

“Fifteen years?!? That’s so long! Will I recognize you?”

“Sure.” Michael looked at his watch. “It’s 3:20 on a Friday afternoon by my timeline. I’ll hopfully be assigned your escort mission before the department shuts down for the weekend. I’ll see you Monday, personally speaking.”

Connor smiled. “That’s nice that you get weekends off.”

Michael shrugged. “Union rules. Nine to five, Monday to Friday. No overtime.”

The officer touched the control on his Time Piece and faded from existence.

***

There are things I’d certainly keep if I ever wrote more. I love the “TED talks, kid. You listen” gag, so the Temporal Enforcement Division would have to stay. I also love the idea that they run a strict Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 work week. Because they time travel, there’s no deadline you have to meet relative to your own time. You can take a break and drop in after a night’s sleep at almost the exact moment you left. I’d put in moments into the story where the officer shows up and seems a little forgetful of specific details of what exactly is happening, despite having been there moments before, because for him, it’s been a whole weekend.

Of course, there are things I think I’d have to change if I ever wrote more. I think the protagonist would have to be a bit older. For the short piece I wrote, I left the reference to him being 6 because my friend’s son is 6. But 6 is very young to be getting into adventures across time. I mean, it’s not impossible to imagine that for a kids book, it would just be a very diffferent story than I’m thinking of.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Sorry about the blog post title. I couldn’t think of anything better. If you liked it, that’s awesome! I like it too. If you didn’t, my friend responded to my initial story seed with “I love it!” so I blame her entirely for all of this and you can too. Either way, you’ll probably never see any more of this story from me.

Because that’s just how I roll! Peace out! [Attempts to leap dramatically out of view, catches foot on lighting rig, falls flat on face and dislocates a shoulder] 

Rogue One Ada Zero

Last night we watched Rogue One at our place. I hadn't seen it since the cinema, and Claire had never seen it. I liked as much as I did the first time, and while it's not perfect, it's still pretty amazing. At least it's better than the remake of A New Hope they put out under the title The Force Awakens. I love Baze and Chirrut, and K-2SO is a solid addition to the droids.

Rogue One also became the first Star Wars movie Ada has experienced, at least in part. She was awake when it started, and excited to see the spaceships and stars. But she fell asleep about half an hour in and I put her to bed.

I can't wait to show her A New Hope. She already recognises a lightsaber thanks to a story book she has about Return of the Jedi. It brought me no end of joy when, while in a toy store recently, she spontaneously picked up a lightsaber, held it to me, and said "whoom-whoom".

She'll make a great role-playing, board game loving, sci fi nerd.

 

Canals On Mars

"Hey Burke."

Burke pushed her hat barely an inch off her face. "Yeah?" From under the brim, she could just see her partner pointing to the skies above.

"See that star, right there. The red one. That ain't a star. That there's the planet Mars. You can tell, because it ain't moving like the rest of the stars. And it's red."

"Is that so?" she said, and let the hat slide back over her eyes.

John shifted on his coat, and Burke could tell by the sound of the grit underneath that he had rolled onto one elbow. "Yup. My dad told me all about it. Was readin' in the papers the other day that some fella in Italy seen canals in its dirt! Imagine that. Canals on Mars!" The excitement in his voice was boyish enough to remind Burke how young John probably was, despite the thick beard he chose to sport.

Burke kept her hat low. "What's a canal?"

"'What's a...'? Are you serious?" John said, and Burke heard him sit upright. "When you'd leave school? A canal is one of them manmade rivers for moving water and boats around. Manmade, Burke!"

Giving up on getting to sleep any time soon, Burke took off her hat and sat up, turning to the warmth of the dieing embers. "You're telling me there's men on Mars? Well that's great, 'cause there's too many of you down here already." Behind her, John was getting increasingly excited.

"No, dummy! There's aliens up there! Little folks that don't look like you or me, but have towns and carriages and probably cows too, I'll reckon." He paused, and Burke imagined him scratching at his beard they way he always did when he was thinking hard. John was great to play poker against. "Maybe not cows. Bugs. Big 'uns. Big enough to ride around on."

At this point, Burke had heard just about enough, but before she could say anything, she heard a loud ping from her coat. She turned to see John starring into the moonlit sky. The red "planet" had suddenly shifted and was now falling through the sky.

"That's weird. What do you-" John said, but the rest of his words were lost as his ashes drifted out on the cool night air. The ship came to a silent hover above the grass.

Burke holstered her raygun. "'What's a canal?' You fucking dumbass."

You've Been Hacked

You've Been Hacked.

I never imagined it would take so little to strike fear right to my core. Just three words on a black background. I opened my eyes and blinked twice.

You've Been Hacked.

It was still displayed on my Message Center, on a red banner, scrolling across my eyes. It took a few seconds before I realised I was shivering, and a few more before I realised why. I stumbled out of the freezing shower, gasping for breath, and fell painfully onto the bathroom mat. You've Been Hacked floated above the back of my hands.

I shook my head, willing my Message Center to close, and had to approve the standard confirmation request in the event of an unread priority message. I looked around, grabbing the towel I kept on the back of the door and wrapping it around myself, without actually standing up yet. Once I felt I had regained enough control of my shaking legs, I tried supporting myself on the toilet and pushed to a standing posture.

My heart skipped half a beat when I opened the door. I could hear low voices from the living area. I didn't remember inviting a guest to stay, let alone enough to hold a conversation without my involvement. My apartment just wasn't big enough for that many people. I inched into the hall, trying to be quiet, but every splash of water from my clothing sounded like a waterfall in my head. I was soaked through. I must have been in the shower for a while.

A moment of brief relief passed over me when I saw that the wall monitor was set to a station, broadcasting a report with someone talking from a studio to a woman standing outside, the honeycomb dome barely visible in the night sky behind her. The sound was turned low, such that, even standing at the doorway, I couldn't make out what was being discussed.

I shuffled, shivering uncontrollably, into the bedroom. I was just pulling on a warm, dry pair of cargo pants when my Message Center flashed up again.

1 Priority Message. 4 Messages. 16 Missed Calls.

I willed my Message Center to display my messages. Two were marked Where are you? One CALL ME, in all caps, and one Have you seen the news feeds? I walked into the living area, expecting it before I saw it.

My face stared, dead-eyed, back at me from the wall monitor. Well, it was almost my face. No amount of rendered pores, blood vessels or muscles could hide the uncanny valley effect of a 3D generated model mask, despite the cost of the police software behind it. But it was definitely me, or my evil, plastic twin.

The woman reporter reappeared, mumbling something just below comfortable hearing level. Lights flashed behind her, reds and blues casting odd shadows across her perfectly retexture features, ruining the effect of a very expensive procedure. Below her, a ticker scrolled past.

16 Confirmed Dead In Terrorist Attack On El-Rail Car

Time to read that Priority Message.

Psychological Trauma

Not having a work permit for Canada means that I've had plenty of time recently to catch up on quality television. Over the last year in Vancouver we've been so busy enjoying ourselves that my old number one time waster has fallen to the wayside. Staying in touch with the newest shows and episodes was once important, but lately I haven't been watching anything. I have yet to touch many shows that I was looking forward to seeing, including the dino-series Terra Nova.

Instead, I've been playing catchup. I'm currently racing through season four of Burn Notice, one of my all-time favourite spy shows. Built in the mold of MacGyver but "with more violence", as my wonderful wife once observed, it was an instant success as soon as they dropped Fiona's Irish accent in the second episode. I've been watching since the pilot, and wrote about it way back then. It helps that not only does it star Bruce Campbell, but also the fantastic Sharon Gless, whom I've enjoyed since watching Cagney and Lacey with my mum back in the '80's.

Along with Burn Notice, I'm hoping to catch up on Community and Fringe with all this time off as well, but all this began with me finishing a show I started way back in 2008.

Battlestar Galactica was a mind blowing experience right from the pilot episode. The first season kept that going from it's opening episode, 33, that put the fleet at the head of an unstoppable chase to it's close, when... well, stuff happened. I got distracted originally late in season two, then got as far as the fifth episode of season three a few years ago.

My enthusiasm was peaked again during our trip to Seattle when Claire and I visited the Experience Music Project, home to the Sci-Fi Museum as well. We had seen the museum in 2008 during our Epic Holiday[TM], and didn't really have much interest in seeing it again. But on arrival, we discovered that there was a BSG exhibit, as well as a James Cameron's Avatar one!

The Avatar exhibit was incredible. There were amazing props, design specs from the production, and other fascinating trinkets throughout. We got to play with not one, but two Microsoft Surfaces and stand in the shoes of an Avatar, literally! The movie was pants, but the designs behind it are incredible.

Of course, the main attraction for me was the Battlestar exhibit. It covered both the new and original series, with costumes, props and models from both. The exhibit was centered around three full-scale ships, a classic Viper, a new Viper and a Cylon Raider. Not only was there pilot and crew costumes, but they had Imaginary Six's red dress as well. There was a neat display related to the series musical score, playing a space combat scene and a switch to alternate between "Action Score", "Emotional Score" or "No Score", illustrating how there can be more than one "prefect" piece for any given scene. Conveniently, it also illustrated what a genius Bear McCreary is.

One of the highlights was seeing one of the Command Center's combat phones against a wall and asking Claire to get a photo of me holding it. I picked it up and put it to my ear, and my eyes widened. Felix Geata was ordering me to battle stations, declaring "Set condition red". For a moment, I was instantly transported right into the heart of Galactica, right there, rubbing shoulders with Commander Adama.

When I got back to Vancouver I picked up where I left off and watched the final two seasons in a short space of time. There were several episodes that had me, literally on the edge of my seat. Given how many episodes ended, I was only too delighted to have waited; I didn't have to bite my nails for a week to find out the resolution to the mutiny, or the identity of the Final 5[1].

In the end, I watched the final ten episodes, as well as the final special created for the big finale all in one day. At approximately 45 minutes an episode, and a feature length finale, that adds up to nine hours of Battlestar Galactica in one day!

It was quite the rush, and an emotional ending.

However, that night, and for several nights after I had the weirdest dreams, involving Cylons, robots, androids, Lego Cylons, and all sorts of other things. It was getting to the point that I didn't want to go to sleep for fear of what I'd dream of this time.

So, the moral of the story, kiddies is: Don't watch nine hours of Battlestar Galactica in one go, especially not the blood pumping, adrenaline charged, non-stop roller-coaster ride that is the final nine hours. It's not good for you health.

[1]- If you watch BSG you know what I mean. If you don't, explaining it won't matter. If you are planning to, or currently in the early seasons... forget I said anything. Move along.