November 6th, 2024.

- Sid

 

Movin' on up.

Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination.

American sportscaster Vin Scully

In the past twelve years of posting to The Infinite Revolution, I've climbed up almost 8.5 million rungs in the global internet popularity ladder, moving from number 23,702,450 in September of 2012 to 15,213,405.  Yay me.

Interestingly, the number of active web sites has remained around 190 million, whereas the number of inactive sites has more than doubled, going from about 430 million to over 900 million.  It's easy to imagine digital avatars exploring the rotted remains of a website: cautiously climbing through corrupted JPEGs, scrutinizing the fragmented pieces of a database, shoring up the remnants of the HTML architecture - perhaps a suitable concept for a short story.

The most curious part of this numbers game is that according to the report, my global standing has gone down by over five million (granted, I don't know since when), but apparently I was briefly in the top 10 million.  Ah, sic transit gloria mundi...

- Sid

"It is an acquired taste..."

“More rancid yak butter in that?' 'Please,' said Lu-Tze, holding out his cup. ”

“It's the real stuff you got there, Ronnie,' he said, taking a sip. 'The butter we're getting these days, you wouldn't grease a cart with it.' 'It's the breed,' said Ronnie. 'I go and get this from the highland herds six hundred years ago.' 'Cheers,' said Lu-Tze, raising his cup.”

Terry Pratchett, The Thief of Time

"You can get a lot of things in Toronto, yak butter is not one of them."

Tasty Tours food guide Odile Chatelain

This year we're spending my birthday week in Toronto, and for our last day in the city, we did a tasting tour of Kensington Market's eclectic food scene*.  At one of our stops, we were presented with Tibetan black tea with salted yak butter, a beverage option that I would have been unaware of were it not for its semi-regular appearance in the late Terry Pratchett's Discworld fantasy novels. As such, I was probably more excited by the opportunity to sample yak butter tea than the rest of the tour.

How did it taste? Well, as our guide gently commented after surveying the room, it's an acquired taste. That being said, I found that if I treated it more as a broth than a tea, it wasn't that bad - although I couldn't tell you whether or not it was real yak butter.

- Sid

* As an example, during our tour we passed Hungarian-Thai and Jamaican-Italian fusion restaurants. Sadly, we visited neither.  Perhaps a future trip will allow us to sample the cross-over cuisine at Rasta Pasta.

Rising from the flames?

For several years now, I've been travelling to other cities for my birthday.  This year my lovely wife Karli and I have ended up in Toronto - to our relief, given that the threatened Air Canada pilot strike took us right down to the wire in terms of a possible disruption to our travel plans.

As always when I come to Toronto, we paid a visit to Canada's oldest (and best, in my opinion) science fiction and fantasy book store Bakka-Phoenix, currently located on near the University of Toronto on Harbord Street.

Karli generously purchased me a pair of hardcover novels as early birthday gifts: The Mercy of Gods, the first book in a new series by Expanse author James S. A. Corey*, and The Book of Elsewhere, a collaboration between the unexpected duo of actor/musician Keanu Reeves and fantasy-SF author China Miéville.  The Book of Elsewhere takes its inspiration from the world of BRZRKR,  the critically acclaimed 12-issue limited comic book series co-written by Reeves and Matt Kindt, with art by Ron Garney.

I also made a couple of purchases on my own - an autographed copy of All Systems Red, the first novella from Martha Wells' excellent and well-written Murderbot series, and The Folding Knife, a standalone novel by K. J. Parker*.  I enjoy Parker's writing, but I've found that his protagonists are a little too similar in their philosophies and characters - I'm hoping that The Folding Knife will break the mold a bit.

As I was paying for my selections, I noticed that there are Bakka-Phoenix pins available for five dollars, so I added one to my bill.  Given the legendary nature of the phoenix as a bird which is reborn from its own ashes, I do wonder if there's any significance in its addition to the store's name - I'd hate to think that the store might have needed to be brought back from an apparently final immolation.

- Sid 

* James S. A. Corey is actually a nom de plume for authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, and K. J. Parker is actually British author Tom Holt.  I'm reasonably certain that Keanu Reeves is Keanu Reeves.

"By Grabthar's hammer..."

"Unless you wish to poison Potter — and I assure you, I would have the greatest sympathy if you did — I cannot help you."

Severus Snape, Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

"There were five curtain calls. I was an actor once, damn it. Now look at me. Look at me! I won't go out there and say that stupid line one more time."

Sir Alexander Dane, Galaxy Quest

As part of this year's birthday trip, this time to Toronto, my lovely wife Karli and I were invited to brunch with the family at my brother John's house.

John is the family genealogist, and I had some questions regarding our maternal grandmother that I had been unable to answer when they had come up in conversation with my wife.  As part of the discussion, he explained that although our maternal grandfather Harold Coulson had been born a Rickman, he was raised by his grandparents and as a result had taken their name.  

He then casually mentioned that while researching our grandfather, he had discovered that we were actually related to the late British actor Alan Rickman, arguably best known for his portrayal of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies, as well as his epic performance as frustrated ex-Shakespearean actor Alexander Dane in Galaxy Quest.

Now, this is certainly cool, but honestly, even if I had known this twenty years ago earlier, I don't think it would have changed my life - even then it would have ridiculously presumptuous to reach out to him.  However, it's fun to imagine an alternate reality in which I could have sent Alan Rickman a text that said, "Hey, cousin Alan, how's it going?  Sorry to bother you, but any chance of a couple of tickets to the premiere of The Prisoner of Azkaban? If not, no big deal - good luck with the movie!" 

- Sid

"O my precious!"

First editions, original dust jackets, mint condition...and $63,000 USD, before Buyer's Premium. Sigh...  Although, just in case Bill Gates is still reading the blog - hello, Bill, I do have a birthday coming up this month... 

- Sid

Update: final sale price $95,000 USD. It's okay, Bill, that does feel like a lot of money to spend on someone you've never met, even for their birthday.

Comfort Food.

I've been working on a large and somewhat stressful deadline-intensive project for the last month or so, and as such I've found myself gravitating toward lighter reading selections - the literary equivalent of comfort food, if you will.   

Right now I'm just finishing up S. M. Stirling's General series from the early 1990s, which perfectly suits my definition of science fiction comfort reading.  This five-book military SF series is a collaboration between Stirling and fellow SF author David Drake, who created detailed story outlines for the books which Stirling then completed.

The series takes place a thousand years after the collapse of intergalactic civilization, commonly referred to as the Fall.  In the wake of this apocalyptic event, civilization on the planet Bellevue has fallen to a steam-driven level of technology, as per Europe circa the mid to late 1800s, and any remnants of the old world are worshipped as religious objects.

Raj Whitehall, an officer in the Civil Government army, is chosen by Center, a sophisticated pre-Fall quantum AI, to act as its agent in unifying the planet and beginning humanity's climb back to the stars.

Center forges a telepathic link with Whitehall and, with its guidance, he ascends through the military until he is the grand general of the Civil Government forces, which he commands as they conquer Bellevue's various splinter colonies, descended from a variety of Terran cultural backgrounds.

Outside of their well-written military trappings*, the books are just fun little reads. Set on an alien planet where the imported Terran ecology and the more primitive Cretaceous-era native biosphere have intermingled, and cavalry rides gigantic dogs rather than horses**, the dialogue is full of topical references, like talking about the sheep at the carnosauroid's congress, or referring to cavalry as dogboys, rather than cowboys. 

The various polities come from a wide range of Terran antecedents:  the Civil Government culture and language is Hispanic, its Military Government opponents, the Brigade and the Squadron, are North American (Namerique), the first-landing Colony is Islamic, and the barbarian Bekwa Skinners obviously owe a debt to Stirling's French-Canadian Québécois background, up to and including a character named Pai-har Tradaw, fils d'Duhplesi.

The overall storyline is simple but dramatic, and painted with an epic brush - heroes and villains, battles and escapades, feats of daring, court intrigues, honourable enemies, evil allies, and a cast of thousands, as they used to say in Hollywood. And there are dinosaurs - how can you not love a science fiction series with dinosaurs?

- Sid

* David Drake's knowledge of military history and service background combined to provide a solid foundation for the battles that form the backbone of the books, as well as the weapons used in those battles.  As an example, the Civil Government arms its soldiers with something very close to the Martini Henry breechloader rifle used by the British army in the colonial wars of the late 19th century. whereas the opposing army of the Colony uses repeating lever action rifles similar to any number of examples from the late 1800s. 

** Oddly, dogs are the only Terran animals that seem to have grown in stature, which strikes me as a missed opportunity.  Imagine if, say, the chickens had evolved to a similar scale...

Ephemera.

The door swung inward and she led him into the smell of dust. They stood in a clearing, dense tangles of junk rising on either side to walls lined with shelves of crumbling paperbacks. The junk looked like something that had grown there, a fungus of twisted metal and plastic. He could pick out individual objects, but then they seemed to blur back into the mass: the guts of a television so old it was studded with the glass stumps of vacuum tubes, a crumpled dish antenna, a brown fiber canister stuffed with corroded lengths of alloy tubing. An enormous pile of old magazines had cascaded into the open area, flesh of lost summers staring blindly up as he followed her back through a narrow canyon of impacted scrap. He heard the door close behind them. He didn’t look back.

William Gibson, Neuromancer

My lovely wife is away in Victoria this weekend with her sister, and I'm taking advantage of her absence to do a low pass reconnaissance of the Vancouver Flea Market, located on the evocatively named Terminal Avenue at the south edge of the city's infamous Downtown East Side.  I'm hoping that it will prove to be a suitable venue for used book sales, giving me a starting place for liquidating most* of my book collection in preparation for retirement downsizing. 

The web site for the Flea Market claims that it offers almost 40,000 square feet of shopping with 360 tables for your shopping pleasure.  Frankly, it doesn't seem that large - although, to be honest, it never occurs to me to count the tables once I'm there.

For the most part, the sales stock is the standard flea-market selection of worn clothing, mismatched antique china cups, obsolete media - battered vinyl record albums, VHS tapes, and so on - musical instruments, porcelain figurines, wooden carvings, and one table with a corner featuring an attractive selection of reasonably-priced rocks: it's exactly the kind of place you visit if you're desperate for an affordable copy of Kenny Rogers' Greatest Hits. A surprising number of tables feature tools of varying vintage - there must be a substantial community of budget-minded tradespeople in the lower mainland to create this kind of demand.

Some of the tables are almost artistic in their disarray, giving parts of the market a surprising sort of Gibsonesque feel, like visiting Akihabara Electric Town in Tokyo, or paying a call to Metro Holographix from the Sprawl Trilogy, but without quite the same degree of otaku sophistication. (There's certainly no suggestion that there might be a sophisticated criminal cyber-fencing operation going on behind the scenes, although, really, it would be more than a little amateur of them if that was evident to the casual shopper.)

It's not all tools and emphemera, I do manage to discover a couple of sellers with objects of interest to the geek shopper. If I had wanted to start a vintage robot collection, I would have had an opportunity to jump start the process from one table, and another booth contains an astonishing jumble of unboxed toys and action figures, but they're solitary glimmers of light in the darkness, at least as far as my shopping interests are concerned. The booth with the toys is almost frustrating in its lack of organization - there might well be some incredible bargains hidden in there, but I can't help but feel that it would require a lot of sifting through the dross to find any gold.

Ultimately, as far as research for a location to sell my books collection goes, the Flea Market didn't ring the bell at all.  It just didn't seem to be the sort of location that would bring in book buyers, I think I need something with more of a collectors vibe - once again, it's a shame that Canada doesn't have a tradition of outdoor book vendors à la Paris.

- Sid 

* Obviously I'll keep a few things, although it will be challenging to triage my little library.

"Time may change me."

More than 90% of the Canadian population lives within 150 miles of our border with the United States.

Imagine if the situation was reversed, with almost the entire population of the United States living within 150 miles of the same border. Viewed from that perspective, it becomes a ridiculous prospect, with 10 percent of the American population scattered thinly through the vast area south of that limit, punctuated only by the isolated state capital of Los Angeles and its token population of only 7,700 people.*

And yet, that's the reality of Canadian geography - and society, that we have millions of square kilometers of wilderness. To be fair, northern Canada is a punishing environment during the winter months, and it would require a massive investment to create the missing infrastructure that the continental US takes for granted:  power grids, roads, dams, airports and so on.

However, we live in a changing world. Unchecked climate change may lead to parts of the world, such as the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, being uninhabitable by 2050, and much of South Asia, Eastern China, and Brazil by 2070.  As such, northern Canada's frigid environment and relative emptiness could well become a silver lining in a world of rising temperatures**.

With that as a starting point, what would the map of a future Canada be, 100 years from now? 

Tuktoyaktuk becomes the gateway to the North for cargo shipments from China and Russia, as the challenges of the Northwest Passage vanish with a diminished Arctic icepack - a timely alternative to the gently steaming waters of the abandoned Panama Canal, slowly being filled by the blowing sands of the scorching. lifeless Central American Desert.  

The Mackenzie River replaces the St. Lawrence River as the trade conduit to central Canada. Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake become the new Great Lakes, and home to the waterfront cities of New Phoenix, New Houston and New Miami, as we open our doors to a wave of American climate refugees - along with Nuevo Monterrey, Bago Manila, and Nouvelle Dakar.  The good news is that we have a lot of room for these heat-seared immigrants, along with a long-standing tradition of a tolerant cultural mosaic.***

And we need all those people, as the Canadian North turns into the world's biggest boom town, a bonanza of construction, development and expansion. This will be a challenge for the federal government: strict controls will be necessary to avoid having uncontrolled exploitation destroy the already heat-damaged ecology of the muskeg and the taiga, at a time when much of the world would be in the middle of an environmental disaster.

The Canadian government will also be faced with another challenge: indigenous land rights. It would be far too easy to sweep the existing indigenous population of the northern territories aside under the guise of necessity in the face of climate change.  Hopefully there would be a strengthened commitment to the current policy of indigenous reconciliation, making Canada a stronger country at a time when unity and cooperation would be of the utmost importance.

- Sid

*The approximate population of Iqaluit, capital of the territory of Nunavut.

** Ignoring for a moment the disastrous and unfortunate consequences for the Northern Canadian ecosystem itself.

*** Does everyone still learn about the Canadian Cultural Mosaic versus the American Melting Pot in high school?

Really though, shouldn't that be the Wade Wilson Wilson Wade Deadpool?

Vancouver loves Ryan Reynolds, and Ryan Reynolds loves Deadpool.

That's why we are launching this petition to honor our local hero and his iconic character by renaming the Port Coquitlam Community Centre Wading Pool on Wilson Ave to The Wade Wilson Wilson Wade Pool.

Wade Wilson is Deadpool’s real name and Deadpool is one of Ryan’s most popular and beloved roles, and also one of the most successful superhero movies of all time.

Ryan Reynolds is not only a talented actor and a hilarious comedian, but also a generous philanthropist and a proud Canadian. He has donated millions of dollars to various causes, including health care, education, and social justice. He has also supported local businesses and artists, and promoted Vancouver as a film destination.

So, what do you say? Are you ready to join us in this fun and creative campaign to celebrate Ryan Reynolds and Deadpool? Please sign and share this petition to show your support and demand that mayor Brad West make this name change official. Together, we can make history and have a good laugh

Change.org petition: Rename the Port Coquitlam Wading Pool to The Wade Wilson Wilson Wade Pool

In a long overdue initiative to recognize Ryan Reynolds and his many contributions to Vancouver, local radio stations Jack 96.9 has launched a petition to update the pedestrian and unimaginatively named Port Coquitlam Wading Pool to something a bit more exciting:  The Wade Wilson Wilson Wade Pool. Given the existence of local landmarks like Dude Chilling Park, it's not that odd a suggestion, and Reynolds is certainly a local treasure - please use the above link if you want to support the petition!

(By the way, early reviews suggest that the Deadpool and Wolverine movie is excellent, although I suspect it's excellent for a specific definition of the word: if you're not a fan of Ryan Reynold's Deadpool persona, it probably isn't going to be to your taste.)

- Sid

In other news...

Speaking of plots for post-apocalyptic stories - although after the COVID-19 pandemic, this qualifies more as contemporary fiction.

- Sid

Although I think that the analogy fails at some point.

The real joke is that in ten years, people will think that this was actually about Alfred.

- Sid 

 

July 21 update:  well, that makes sense, you give it to Batgirl instead.

"Somewhere in the heavens...they are waiting."

My Saturdays tend to fall into a pattern: my lovely wife Karli and I enjoy a leisurely morning together, including breakfast in bed, then she often goes shopping or to a movie with her sister Stefanie while I stay at home, do laundry, and play games on the computer.

Today, when I logged into Steam™ to continue my Fallout 4 replay, I was happily surprised to see that Marathon, Bungie’s classic 1994 Macintosh first-person shooter, had been added to the site as a free download - an opportunity which I instantly took advantage of.

First in the eventual Marathon trilogy, Bungie's 8-bit masterpiece holds a special place in the hearts of old-school Apple fans. Developed solely for the Macintosh platform, Marathon provided Mac users with their own version of Doom - and, as with Doom and Doom II, Bungie followed up on their success with Marathon 2: Durandal, and Marathon Infinity, continuing the elaborate storyline established in Marathon.

When I launched Marathon, I was surprised by how much I remembered, considering that this was a game I hadn't played for over 25 years.  Full credit goes to the developers, who created a distinctive environment with dynamic lighting, unique sound effects*, and (for the time) elaborate graphics.  I even had some recollection of the maze-based maps that helped to make the game a challenge.

Bungie might have been a minor entry in the early history of games development were it not for their better-known sequel to the Marathon games: Halo, which became Microsoft’s award-winning flagship game for the Xbox debut in 2001.

Apparently there's an updated version of Marathon being planned, which, sadly, will be a team-based extraction shooter** rather than a first-person game.  Personally, I'd love to just see the original Marathon given the Halo treatment - why mess with success?

- Sid

* The first time I shot one of the alien Pfhor, I laughed a bit - I hadn't heard that combination of sound effects for such a long time.

** In an extraction shooter, your team must successfully make its way to an extraction point without dying in order to keep whatever loot you've collected from either the map or the opposing team. 

Chekov's Jukebox.

There's been a jukebox on the bridge of the TARDIS since day one of the new Doctor - why haven't we heard any music?

(When titling this posting, I realized that I've unintentionally created a series of Chekov's Gun spinoffs:  Chekov's Fire Axe, Chekov's Volcano, and now this - maybe I should number them.)

- Sid

Carnac the Magnificent: "Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, and Spacehunter."

"The question is: Name two great movies and a dog."

A recent successful bid on the Heritage Auctions website added movie posters for Silent Running, Outland and Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone to my modest collection. I received the package today, and I'm pleased with my purchases - well, mostly pleased, to be honest.

Silent Running? A favourite film for me, and a great transitional role for Bruce Dern. Outland - a well executed science fiction remake of High Noon, with a strong performance by Sean Connery.  Spacehunter?  Yes, well, Spacehunter...

As far as I can remember, Spacehunter wasn't in the original auction listing but seemed to make an appearance later, and there was never a photo of the poster, the image above is taken from another listing.  It's entirely possible that this item was grouped with the others so as to get the damn thing out the door, for all I know it had been collecting dust in the back room at Heritage for some time.

Faint praise aside, I have to admit that I did in fact see Spacehunter in its 1983 commercial release, back when the original Cineplex multiplex was located at the north end of the Eaton Centre in Toronto. This places me in elite company: the film only grossed $16.5M on a $14.4M budget.*  The film was produced using a two-camera technique called "Native 3D", and I do vaguely remember the 3-D effects, particularly the cyborg villain's metallic claws coming out of the screen.

On paper, all the pieces are there for a successful film.  The film was made in 3D as part of the shortlived craze of the early 80s, and has a reasonably noteworthy cast. Peter Strauss, who takes the leading role of Wolff the bounty hunter, was a workmanlike actor with a solid television resume and some previous big screen experience, and Molly Ringwald, whose appearance as Niki the Zone Scav is only her second movie role after Paul Mazursky's Tempest, went on to fame in the John Hughes trilogy of Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink. Ernie Hudson and Michael Ironside have supporting roles, and Ivan Reitman was the film's executive producer. 

Regardless, none of that was enough to save the film from mediocrity, and the result is one of those bad movies that isn't quite bad enough to have achieved cult status. 

Part of me says that it must be streaming somewhere, and that I should re-watch the film as part of due geek diligence, but I somehow can't bring myself to invest another 90 minutes of my life on the outside chance that it's not a bad as I remember.

- Sid

* I was honestly a bit surprised to discover that it made back its costs.

"Let's Twist again, like we did last summer."

Mrs. Flood: “Never seen a TARDIS before?”

Doctor Who, The Church on Ruby Road

Okay, so first we have Mrs. Flood, Ruby's TARDIS-aware next door neighbour, breaking the fourth wall in the 2023 Doctor Who Christmas Special.  Then there's actor Susan Twist, who has done one-off cameos in every episode of the new Doctor to date (plus one of the 60th Anniversary David Tennant episodes)*.  And, AND, if that wasn't enough of a slap in the face, there's that musical number at the end of The Devil's Chord featuring the lyric, "There's always a Twist at the end." 

Damn it, one of these women had better be the new Master.

- Sid 

*In case you somehow haven't picked up on this (for example, my wife suffers from face blindness, so it's not impossible), Ms. Twist appeared as Mrs. Merridew with Isaac Newton in Wild Blue Yonder, the third 60th anniversary special; shows up in the flashback audience in The Church on Ruby Road; was Comms Officer Gina Scalzi on the Space Babies space station; a canteen employee who dishes out spendy tea to the Doctor and Ruby at EMI/Abbey Road Studios in The Devil's Chord; the helpful Welsh hiker in 73 Yards; and, hard to miss, the face of the Ambulances in Boom. 

"Ch-ch-changes."

In recent years, the world has experienced significant disruptions—the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Israel and Hamas conflict, extreme climate disasters, the surging cost of living, and global supply chain interruptions.

Predicting the next big upheaval may not be possible, but it is crucial to explore possible disruptions and anticipate potential future scenarios. Even seemingly distant or improbable events and circumstances can suddenly become reality, while overlapping disruptions can lead to compounded societal impacts..

Kristel Van der Elst
Director General, Policy Horizons Canada

Looking for ideas for an apocalyptic near-future novel?  Look no further, the Government of Canada has your back.  

Demonstrating admirable foresight, the federal Policy Horizons department has released a report detailing what they see as the top disruptions in Canada's immediate future. It's a sort of disaster bingo card listing 35 possible crises split into five categories, such as AI running wild, scarcity of vital natural resources, democratic systems breaking down, or an American civil war: and, as with bingo, there's a very real possibility of filling a row by having more than one event occur simultaneously, or for events to domino, one event precipitating another and then another.

It's an interesting little document, which breaks out the various disruptions by likelihood, timeline and impact.  If you're interested, you can read it online at https://horizons.service.canada.ca/en/2024/disruptions/index.shtml#report, or download a PDF version.

The odd thing is that they're all negative, with the possible exception of the development of Northern Canada.  I realize that the document is intentionally biased toward the cautionary, but I'd love to see a companion document - Synergies, perhaps? - with 35 possible changes or developments that would improves lives and make the world a better place. Not that I'm against building shelters against the gathering wind - but you know, windmills are also a good response.

- Sid

"And honey...I know how I look."

Hello! I’m Steven Moffat and I’m back to write yet another episode of Doctor Who.

The reason I came back is, I thought, “What if you put the Doctor in incredible danger, in the middle of a battlefield, and you removed from him one thing that he always does, one thing that he always relies on?"

Steven Moffat, BBC interview

Donna Noble : He saves worlds, rescues civilizations, defeats terrible creatures and runs a lot. Seriously, there's an outrageous amount of running involved.

Doctor Who, The Doctor's Daughter

In a noteworthy return to Doctor Who as a writer, ex-show runner Steven Moffat gives us Boom:  an eloquent, well-written script, tight, emotional, loaded with clever exposition, and full of tension. It's a bit of a relief, really, after having a couple of less than inspired episodes to start the season off.  

As per his comments on the story, he wanted to take away the Doctor's ability to flee from danger - in other words, no running - as part of a situation where the danger was both immediate and terminal. The resulting man-on-a-land-mine storyline succeeds on every level.

The story takes place during a war - or does it? The Anglican Army, previously seen in A Good Man Goes to War, has established a beachhead on the planet Kastarion, but the Kastarions have proven to be an elusive foe. The Anglicans are supported by the Villengard arms corporation, which takes an oddly economical approach to combat: soldiers deemed not worth saving are euthanized by robotic AI ambulances rather than treated (in order to maintain predicted casualty rates), and instead of using explosives in its landmines, the Villengard version creates a chain reaction that uses the victim's DNA to create the detonation.  

As the Doctor and Ruby arrive on Kastarion, they hear the screams of a soldier being euthanized.  As they run to investigate, the Doctor steps on a mine: he manages to not trigger the explosion, but can't move without setting off the chain reaction.  The balance of the episode revolves around the trapped and immobile Doctor finding a way to disable the mine and save a wounded Ruby from being terminated. 

It's interesting to see Moffat working with the new Doctor's style as a performer.  For example, the Doctor delivers the following speech:

"I am a Timelord. I am a higher dimension life form, I am a complex space-time event. I am a much bigger bang than you bargained for. I am a lot more explosive than I look, and honey...I know how I look. Put a quantum chain reaction through me and I will shatter this silly little battlefield of yours into dust. All of it. In a heartbeat. Into dust."

It's hard to imagine any of the previous Doctors commenting on how explosive they look* - especially with the endearment of "honey" as a prefix.  But for Gatwa, it perfectly matches the persona he's using for the character, while combining it with a very Doctor-like warning about potentially destroying the arena.

Varada Sethu, who makes an appearance as Anglican Army soldier Mundy Flynn, is reported to be joining the show as a companion. Given that the episode features another cameo by Susan Twist, it's hard to say whether Sethu's appearance is just what it appears to be, a guest spot by an actor, or another piece of this season's big picture puzzle.  It could easily go either way - after all, Peter Capaldi and Karen Gillan coincidentally appeared together in The Fires of Pompeii in Season 4 before making the eventual jump to Doctor and Companion.  Time will tell, as they say...

- Sid

* Okay, maybe David Tennant...