"A dog is a Masan's best friend."

I was a bit surprised to see the above cartoon in my travels on the internet today - in an odd coincidence, I had randomly picked up a book* earlier today and read an optomistic little 1947 Murray Leinster short story called Propagandist, which is basically this cartoon spread over 24 pages.  

Obviously, the story is a bit more complex than the four panel cartoon.  Propagandist is a first contact story which takes place under the worst possibly circumstances: an unknown alien species has raided an Earth colony and slaughtered half a million human settlers, and a grimly determined Terran space fleet searches vengefully for the aliens responsible.  The light cruiser Kennessee finds inhabited planets in the Masa Gamma system, and sends a scout ship to one of the planets in hopes of confirming that these are the aliens responsible for the barbaric attack on the colony.

Meanwhile, the Masans are struggling with the same problem.  They've detected the Kennessee and are concerned that it heralds a new assault by raiders who devastated their civilization hundreds of years in the past.  If it is a raider ship that presages a new attack, there is only one option:  total war.

The unlikely diplomat who resolves the situation and leads to an alliance that defeats the actual raiders?  Buck the dog, who is captured by the Masans when Holden, his owner, is forced to leave him behind after the unsuccessful scouting mission to Masa Four.  As both sides prepare for battle, the Masans scan Buck's mind, and based on the results, decide to contact the Terran ship rather than destroying it outright - it's impossible that the beings in Buck's memories could be the monsters that they fear. The humans realize that the Masans have not killed Buck  - they can't possibly be the brutal species that destroyed the colony. 

After resolution of the war with the raiders, Holden and Buck visit Masan Four and the scientist who probed Buck's mind:

"Then we knew that men will always repay trust with loyalty." Then the Masan added, "That is, most men."

Holden said uncomfortably: 

"Well - that's something that has worried the skipper.  You people act as if all of us were as decent as our dogs think us.  We aren't.  You'll have to be...well...a little cagey, sometimes..."

"So," said the Masan, "we learned from Buck.  But also we learned that there will always be men to trust."

It's a pleasant little morality tale, although it's probably a good thing that Holden went against the tradition of cats on ships and took a dog instead.  Lord knows what would have happened if they'd read a cat's mind!

- Sid

P.S.  The selection of "boof" for the dog's bark is a bit reminiscent of Clarus, the infamous Apple dogcow - who of course goes moof.

* For any bibliophiles in the reading audience, it was the 1969 paperback edition of Great Stories of Space Travel, edited by Groff Conklin.

Happy Mother's Day!

It's good to see that not every comic book backstory has to involve some kind of parental trauma.

- Sid

May the 4th: A Star Wars Trilogy, Episode 3.

The Empire Strikes Back.

“In every corner of the galaxy, the downtrodden and oppressed know our symbol and they put their hope in it.” 

Vice-Admiral Amilyn Holdo, The Last Jedi

My wonderful wife was kind enough to buy me a Star Wars t-shirt on the weekend - just the simple classic logo on grey, which perfectly matches my design aesthetic. Sadly, on the 4th itself, I was unable to wear the t-shirt because, not only did I have to work from our company offices, I also had to attend a high level subcommittee meeting, for which I felt it necessary to wear a shirt with a collar rather than a t-shirt.  Talk about downtrodden and oppressed...it's a shame that I don't feel more like I could be the spark that lights the fire.

- Sid

 

May the 4th: A Star Wars Trilogy, Episode 2.

The Phantom Menace.

We were recently heading out to Steveston with Karli's sister Stefanie on a covert fish and chips run, and the topic of COVID-19 vaccinations came up.  During the conversation, Stefanie mentioned her concerns about getting sick from being vaccinated.

It's an understandable concern, but misplaced in this case.  In the case of traditional vaccines, they do work by injecting a small piece of the target virus, called an antigen, into your body.  Your immune system recognizes that it's been infected, albeit in a minor fashion, and produces virus-specific antibodies that give you resistance in case you're exposed to the full version of the virus.  

RNA based vaccines, like the Pfizer product that I've recently received, provide the body with instructions on how to build the antigens, so that the immune system can prepare T-cell and antibody responses all on its own that provide resistance without being infected.

Extremely simplifying something that I'd seen on the XKCD webcomic,  I offered the following by way of explanation:

 "No, it's more like the injection gives your body the plans to the Death Star."

A short silence ensued.

Karli, sensing the problem, said, "It's from Star Wars - you know, the big globe thing."

"Well, maybe if it was more of a pop culture reference."

Another short silence ensued.

I cautiously said, "Ummm...Star Wars isn't pop culture?"

"Well, okay, maybe if it was more of a family drama."

"It's literally nine movies about one family," said Karli. 

More silence - and by the time we'd arrived at Steveston, by unspoken mutual agreement we'd moved on to less sensitive topics. 

Regardless of the relatability of the simile, it pleases my science fiction fan heart to imagine tiny little X-wings preparing to do battle with the evil coronavirus - perhaps even a little Luke Skywalker, and the tiny voice of a miniature Obi-Wan Force ghost directing him to turn off his targeting computer and trust his feelings.  And when the pandemic's finally all over, I think that we will all definitely deserve a medal from a princess.

- Sid

 

May the 4th: A Star Wars Trilogy, Episode I.

Attack of the Clones.

I purchased my treasured copy of Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds in 2004 as a part of a Movie Collection games package, along with James Bond 007: Nightfire and Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb. I have no memory of ever installing the Indiana Jones game, and probably played Nightfire a couple of times at most, but Galactic Battlegrounds has been in heavy rotation ever since.

Galactic Battlegrounds is a real time strategy game based on the Age of Empires* game engine, with the obvious substitution of the Rebellion, the Galactic Empire, Trade Federation, Naboo, Wookiees and so on for different historical civilizations. There's a newer version that added more features, but I've always preferred the classic version, to the point where I zealously maintain an older PC running Windows 7 without upgrades pretty much just so that I can play it. It's one of those games that just perfectly suits my playing style and interests, regardless of its age.

I admit to never having completed all of the Galactic Battlegrounds storylines, which are derived from Episodes I, II, IV, V and VI of the movie franchise - I've always just played the single player Standard Game, where you can face off against seven computer opponents. I almost always play as the Rebellion, and I always play against the full range of political groups and alien races - why would I want to play against seven tribes of Gungans? I've played as the other options now and then, but the Rebellion just seems to suit me best (and besides, they're the good guys.)

One of the things that I've noticed again and again is that, win or lose, my casualty rates are almost comically low compared to my digital opponents, as you can see in the above image.** I'm fanatically careful about not losing troops - I assume it affects my score somehow, but it's really just a complete inability to treat my little 16-bit soldiers as cannon fodder. 

I know it's odd, but in my mind, every one of them is this poor doomed Rebellion trooper*** from the boarding scene in A New Hope: how could I let him die again?

- Sid 

 

* Oddly enough, I have never had much success with Age of Empires - funny how the addition of aliens and lightsabers would make me a better player.

** My apologies for quality, it's an actual photo rather than a screen grab.  For whatever reason, Windows 7 can handle the game's 16-bit graphics, but it won't successfully do screen grabs.

*** Whose name, as it turns out, is Pello Scrambas, who knew?  I suppose it's prudent to name as many characters as possible, you never know when you're going to want to put an action figure into production for someone.