Concept over Practicality II.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently won an eBay auction for a set of Major Matt Mason Supernaut Power Limbs.  On Wednesday of this week, I trotted over to the post office at my local Shopper's Drug Mart and, with trembling hands, took possession of the box containing this long-lost childhood memory.

I have to say that I'm impressed. We're talking about a toy which is at least 40 years old, and which depends heavily on hinges made out of crimped plastic.  On that basis, it's in extraordinarily good shape, and even has some of the original stickers.  It's very much the toy that I remember, except that it seems to be a lot smaller than it was when I was twelve. I feel a bit of nostalgic sadness about that.

A couple of people have mentioned that it reminds them of the power lifter from Aliens, and I can see how it would be easy to make that association - after all, how many exoskeletal powersuits are there in popular culture?  But, to be honest, I find it to be a bit of a dubious compliment, given that in my opinion Aliens has some of the worst designed pieces of hardware (from a practical standpoint) in the vast pantheon of science fiction movie technology.

Strike One.
Let's start with the power lifter itself.  Yes, undeniably a clever plot concept that puts Ripley on an equal footing with the Alien Queen, but let's take a moment and talk about physics.

For the last few years, I've been doing publications work for an organization that, among other things, is responsible for training people to use heavy equipment on the waterfront.  Forklifts are a firmly established piece of technology that rely heavily (no pun intended) on weight distribution and low centre of gravity in order to move heavy cargo. There's a reason that things like the power lifter don't exist in the real world, it's because they're horribly impractical.  The centre of gravity would be too high and too far forward to allow any sort of serious weight to be transported. (Not to mention how much smoother the ride is with a wheeled vehicle.)

Strike Two.
Ignoring for a moment the question of exactly what keeps this thing in the air, because it has the aerodynamic qualities of a brick, in the picture above we see it unfolding a variety of what appear to be sheaf missile launchers - AS IT FINISHES DOING AN ATMOSPHERIC INSERTION FROM AN ORBITING SPACESHIP!  As Felix Baumgartner has just demonstrated, things fall FAST when you drop them from that high up.  It makes me wince to think what would happen to an aircraft that tried to do something like this in the real world - if they were lucky, it would just rip the launchers off the hull.  Less lucky (and more likely), the lander would start to tumble almost immediately, followed by a much earlier crash than the one in the movie's script.

And Strike Three.
Why in the world would the Marines have an armoured personnel carrier with less road clearance than a Smart Car?  A US Army HMMWV has a minimum of 16 inches of ground clearance and can go anywhere an Abrams M1 main battle tank can go - this thing would have trouble going up on the sidewalk from the street.

Ah, but don't they all LOOK cool...

- Sid

P.S. If the Power Limbs look taller in the picture above than in the photos from the eBay posting, that's because there are these clever little clips that let you adjust the height of the legs.  Again, how cool is this?

"They give in to the dark side."

Politicians often start out with good intentions. This is true for both natives and non-natives, alike. They get into politics with the idea that they can change the world and make it a better place. The fortunate few succeed in their mission. Many others, however, fail. They become enamored with ego and entranced with power.  

They give in to the dark side. They forget about the principles that define us as Aboriginal people. They ignore the wisdom of the elders and instead listen to the counsel of the lawyers. They cater to their family to keep their voter base intact. They ignore the state of our language and instead focus on the state of their bank account. They would rather sing the praises of their accomplishments than sing the songs of their ancestors. They lead us into treaty instead of leading us into unity. We know that this power is simply just a mask; a mask that can be removed to make them one with the people once again. 

Andy Everson on his Darth Vader print, Power

More Star Wars influenced prints by Andy Everson as he continues to use Lucas' characters as metaphors for a variety of aboriginal concerns and issues.  The new series includes Wisdom (Yoda), Fear (Darth Maul), Control (an Imperial Stormtrooper) and Power (Darth Vader.)  I find his comments regarding the Darth Vader print to be particularly evocative in their description of power as a mask.

Political questions aside, it fascinates me to see how many artists have turned from traditional artistic influences to basing their work on imagery from comic books, video games, and science fiction and fantasy movies and television programs.  Is this an inevitable and natural result of the prevalence of these pop culture icons in the lives of the current generation, or is the artistic community taking advantage of the geek chic factor? 

- Sid

Tidbits III.

I need to have a word with HR.

The last time I did one of these little updates, I announced that we had hired someone who could sneer and say "Star Trek" at the same time.  Now we've hired a woman who is unfamiliar with the expression, "You have the bridge, Number One."  Honestly, where do we find these people? *

Well, at least I've taken care of the last one.
Damn it, I had IMPORTANT things to do this weekend!  I'm trying to build a spacesuit for Hallowe'en, I've got The Avengers on Blu-ray, six new science fiction novels from Chapters to read (courtesy of birthday gift certificates, thanks to all), and I'm behind on blog postings.  And how did I spend most of the weekend? Writing about cargo containers for work. I sometimes worry about my priorities...

Okay, so I didn't write about containers ALL weekend.
I saw William Gibson on 4th Avenue on my way back from the gym on Sunday, and it was all I could do to avoid some kind of uncomfortable fanboy moment.  On the other hand, he's got to be used to that sort of thing by now, he's been an object of geek veneration for almost 40 years.
Seriously, how cool is this?

It was actually a surprise when eBay notified me that I'd won the auction for a set of Major Matt Mason Supernaut Power Limbs with my original bid of $9.99. I'd completely forgotten that I'd even placed a bid, and I frankly expected to be outbid almost instantly - I suspect that the damn things cost about ten bucks when they first came out back in 1969.  (Okay, there was $16 of postage from Ontario, but it's still an astonishing deal.)

And really, what fun is a birthday if you don't get some toys? **

- Sid

*  As it turns out, another one of my co-workers doesn't recognize this quote. I wonder what her excuse is, did they not show The Next Generation in Australia?

** I had one of these as part of my childhood MMM collection until my brother Doug broke it, THE EVIL BASTARD!!!!!!!!!!  (Fortunately I'm not still bitter.)

Gnomic statements IV.

Quiet weekend now that the Ponds have dried up.

- Sid

"This time for sure!"

Many are my names in many countries, he said. Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves, Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the South Incánus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not.

Faramir quoting Gandalf, The Two Towers

There's a longstanding tradition of pubs and bars in science fiction and fantasy:  Arthur C. Clarke's White Hart, deCamp and Pratt's Gavagan's Bar, Spider Robinson and Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, the Vulgar Unicorn, Munden's, The Mended Drum (and The Busted Drum), The Prancing Pony, Chalmun's Cantina, and so on.  For a long time the village tavern was a ubiquitous starting point for Dungeons and Dragons adventures, to the point where it's now a fantasy cliché to start a quest in a pub.

The Storm Crow Tavern, which opened here in Vancouver last month, is in some ways a tribute to this tradition, as well as simply offering a geek/nerd alternative to sports bars and night clubs.  The bar describes itself as "An Olde Medievalle Taverne with rayguns", so obviously I've been curious to see what they have to offer.

I've mentioned my first unsuccessful attempt at visiting The Storm Crow, but, fool me once - this time I check their Twitter™ and Facebook™ pages to make sure that they're open for business. Reassured by both, once again I put on an appropriate Doctor Who t-shirt, and head off to 1305 Commercial Drive.  No problems this time - the doors are unlocked, and I head inside and find myself a seat in the corner. Based on my previous comments about wanting to find a bar that would show Star Wars in lieu of the Stanley Cup, I'm amused to see that I've shown up exactly in time for the start of A New Hope.

The decor is a mix of longsword and laser: in addition to the battle axes and shields, there's an array of ray guns and blasters underneath a Boba Fett helmet and a Cyberman mask*, and the tattered war banners are balanced by a selection of Colonial and Dalek propaganda posters. There's also a comprehensive library of vintage 1980s Choose Your Own Adventure books.

The lager on tap is a locally brewed Howe Sound product, which I order with a bit of caution, having had a couple of dubious experiences with their brewing. The menu isn't very elaborate, but all the meals are six dollars, which is intriguing.  I order the prime rib sandwich with fries - it shows up quickly, it's a good size for the price, and it's quite tasty, although next time I'll ask for well done fries, I prefer mine more on the crispy side.

The bar's wireless password is "mithrandir", and to my amusement the waitress pronounces it like a foreign word and slowly and carefully spells it for me even though I'm already typing it in. I suspect that she hasn't been hired based on her genre background, which, when you think about it, may not be a bad thing.  Logically you want waitresses who can reliably sort out beverage orders for a table of eight rather than list all of Gandalf's pseudonyms.

The place is empty when I arrive, but then very few bars are busy at 3:00 on Thursday afternoon. As time goes on, people begin to trickle in. Notable guests are a woman in steampunk attire, another patron wearing a Sith Inside t-shirt, and a table of confused German tourists who are suffering from the mistaken belief that the banners and battle axes are evidence of a Teutonic bar. Interestingly, as the place starts to fill up, a lot of the clientele are female. Female geeks have become a solid part of the community, and I think it's a positive sign that the bar has a high female ratio.

Because I have a lengthy bus trip home, I pay a visit to the little orc's room on the way out - literally, the men's room being distinguished by a World of Warcraft Orc action figure on the door, and the ladies' by a female Wood Elf.

Overall, I quite liked The Storm Crow, and will certainly go back to help support it as opportunity allows. I realize that my midafternoon weekday visit wasn't really a fair evaluation of a bar like this, in that, as with any social environment, it will be defined by its patrons. I suspect that on a busy night, when the gaming table is in use and the place is full of customers, the atmosphere is brilliant.

Ultimately, all of the bits and pieces of decoration are just window dressing, and I think that the reason for the sudden popularity of the bar is purely conceptual - the decor is almost irrelevant, it's the idea of announcing to the geek community that they have a place to go which will be responsible for the bar's success.

 - Sid

* By the way, Autocorrect on the iPad obviously needs some more work - it didn't recognize either one of these terms when I was taking notes on site.


October 1st update:  attempted another visit at lunch today in the company of co-worker and fellow geek Donovan, only to find out that they were closed again.  Checked Facebook™ and discovered that apparently they'll be closed on Mondays going forward.  This gives them a score of 1/3 so far, which is not great.

Guys, I like your pub, but honestly, two words:  POSTED HOURS.

And trying harder.

 "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." 

- Mark Twain

Congratulations are in order!  According to Internet statisticians Alexa, The Infinite Revolution is ranked 23,702,450 out of all the web sites in the world.

Why, do you ask, does this deserve congratulations?

According to the Techlogon technology information blog, there are approximately 190 million active sites on the Internet.  And those are just the active ones, apparently there's another 430 million that are considered to be inactive.  (An inactive web site is defined as a registered domain name with no content - cybersquatters, companies that bought up variations on their own name to avoid conflicts, etc.)

In other words, just looking at the active sites, my little hobby blog is close to being in the top ten percent of international web sites based on the number of visits per month.  Ha - just you wait, Facebook™...

- Sid

Or the Wardrobe, for you Narnia fans.

This is my living room.

And, as living rooms go, there's really not a lot to say about it.  It owes a large debt to IKEA, as so many transient living rooms do, there's a forgettable Frank Lloyd Wright poster over the couch, a couple of paintings by my friend Norah the artist, books, DVDs, some antique cameras, and that's that. Pictures of my dining nook, my kitchen and my bedroom would reveal a similar approach to decorating.

And then there's this one other room...thousands of science fiction and fantasy novels, comic books under the desk, some boxes of Heavy Metal fantasy art magazines, my toy robots, a Starcraft action figure, my Atlantean shortsword, a chrome battleaxe, my globe of Mars, a Dalek, computer game boxes, the R2D2 mug that my nephew Chris made for me about 25 years ago, and right now a big stack of bits and pieces destined to become a Hallowe'en spacesuit. (Or not.)

It's funny to realize that, as far as my geek life goes, I haven't really come out of the TARDIS, so to speak.  Seal off that second bedroom, and there's no evidence in my apartment of the interest in science fiction and fantasy which has been a mainstay of my entire life.  I've no idea why.  It's not as if I'd have any difficulty decorating the living room with classic science fiction movie posters and moving a few robots onto the wall unit - why don't I?

At some fundamental level, I'm still self-conscious - if not embarrassed - by my hobby.  The term "self-conscious" is well chosen, because other than some high school ostracism, there haven't been any incidents in my life where it's been a barrier in any way.  The current social environment embraces - or at least accepts - the geek lifestyle, but the lessons taught to me during my redneck childhood subconsciously tell me that I should be watching baseball highlights on TSN rather than Voyager reruns on Space.

But there's hope.  After all, I do have this blog with my actual real name on it, and the people I work with know that I'm a geek, and they've generally been pretty accepting.  In fact, as it turns out, one or two of them are geeks as well.  Hmmm...I wonder how they've decorated their living rooms?

- Sid

"Láthspell I name you, Ill-News!"

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Chris e-mailed me a link to an article in the Vancouver Courier about The Storm Crow, a newly opened fantasy/science fiction and gaming themed bar over on Commercial Drive. (For those of you unfamiliar with the derivation*, Stormcrow is one of the names by which Gandalf is known in The Lord of the Rings.)

I've always felt that there was room in the marketplace for a bar that would show the third Star Wars movie instead of the fourth game of the Stanley Cup playoffs, but to be honest, details in my mental picture have been fuzzy (outside of a few unfortunately juvenile ideas regarding costumes for the waitresses).  As such, I was interested in seeing what an actual implementation of the concept would look like.

Apparently the new spot has been a hit, to the point where I've read a few online comments on their difficulties dealing with the crowds. I'm off work this week, and I thought that I would take advantage of the opportunity to go over to the Drive early enough in the afternoon to avoid the rush and scope the place out in relative peace and quiet over a contemplative pint.

So this afternoon at about three, after putting on my London Doctor Who Experience 2011 souvenir t-shirt (hey, if you're going to a gang bar, you got to wear your colours) I was out the door and onto the Number 22 bus.

Fifty-five minutes later, as I was making my way up the last bit of a hill to Commercial, I thought to myself that generally I wouldn't patronize a bar that required a two hour round trip.  SF and fantasy motif or not, it's a big city, there's lots of bars.  However, I had high hopes that it might prove worth it now and then just for the ambience - and, you know, the opportunity to hang with my peeps.

I rounded the corner onto Commercial Drive, there was the sign for the bar, I started to unlimber my Nikon for a picture, and what do you know - CLOSED TODAY FOR STAFF FUNCTION.  So I took three shots of the frontage, a closeup of their sign, and trotted back to the bus stop.

A little investigation revealed that there had been a Tweet announcing their closure at about 2:30, and the fine print on their Facebook™ page also said that they were closed until tomorrow.  Sadly, I didn't decide to follow them on Twitter™ or friend them on Facebook™, I just went to their web site for the address - which, by the way, did not mention any sort of closure in their Events calendar for September 24th.

I realize that these things happen, and that no lives were lost as a result of this. I'll make another attempt to visit The Storm Crow later this week.  However, I would like to suggest to the management of the bar that if you're going to be closed for a full day, you should have that information EVERYWHERE - including, perhaps, your web site.

- Sid

* There are some other genre references to storm crows, but Gandalf Stormcrow is probably the best known one.

Voight-Kampff machines - your tax dollars at work!

Photo by Chris Sumner

I think I speak for everyone when I say that I'd like to see a little more transparency in the British Columbia government's handling of the Nexus Six replicant situation.

- Sid

Take Me Back to Another Time and Place.

(Contributed by Laurie Smith)

Since Sid broached the subject of time travel and made me the central character of his exposition, I felt it only fair to write a short response.

Everybody wants to be part of something meaningful and grand, and the opportunity to experience a pivotal moment in history would be a huge temptation. Time-wise, the ill-fated journey of the Titanic is a brief event. Would I want to spend four days of my life immersed* in that world? Sure. Being a witness to the Hundred Years War? Not so much.

I figured that being a first class passenger would not only provide one with the best amenities that the White Star line had to offer, but also increase the odds of survival; namely because first class women and children were ushered into the lifeboats sooner rather than later on the night of April 14, 1912. As Sid pointed out though, I might not enjoy the experience – no modern conveniences, no hot stone spa massages and only weird food available (cucumber sandwiches, champagne, candied quail eggs, what have you)….rather than protein powder, chicken wraps and stir fried Chinese vegetables. I wouldn’t have my TRX or laptop with me, and the ship likely did not have a proper gym on board.

Dr. Robert Ballard spearheaded the first successful recovery efforts in 1985. Considering the “twonky” issue, what if I had brought my BlackBerry™ onto the Titanic with me and had kept it hidden, but had lost it when the ship sank? The salvage team in the mid 80s would have been almost as puzzled by it as the passengers from a century ago, had I brought it out at the Captain’s dinner table.

I firmly believe that time travel will forever remain in the realm of fantasy, despite its popularity as a topic in science fiction. H. G. Wells was onto something with his 1895 publication of The Time Machine. Far more possible is the future emergence of a Choose Your Own Adventure trip down memory lane, à la Total Recall. They actually had something like this in the 60s and 70s: back then it was called LSD.

- Laurie

* Mild pun intended

September 1st update:  as it turns out, we are guilty of not performing due diligence in our research.  The Titanic gym was located on the starboard side of the Boat deck, adjacent to the second funnel.  Between the rowing machines, the stationary bikes, and whatever other pieces of steampunk exercise arcana were available, Laurie might be able to get an acceptable workout.  In fact, it might be an unexpected bonus for her to have the opportunity to work out in a Victorian gym, just to see what state of the art was like a hundred years ago.

- Sid

She used to own one of those damn necklaces, too.

I don't know about you, but I intend to write a strongly worded letter to the White Star Line about all of this.

Jack Dawson, Titanic

A recent conversation with Laurie brought up the following question:  if you could travel in time, where (or more accurately when) would you go?

Laurie expressed her desire to travel on the Titanic, with the unexpected codicil that she'd like to be one of the survivors. I can certainly understand wanting to see the Titanic during its heyday, but I'm not sure I'd want to go so far as to experience the accident itself, although I'm relieved to hear that Laurie wouldn't want to go down with the ship. She went on to explain that she'd be a rich heiress, at which point I stopped her. 

"Wait, how would you become a rich heiress in 1912?  From whom would you inherit your riches?"

Travelling back in time and experiencing historical events in person is an interesting idea, and something that I think would appeal to a lot of people, but the practical aspects of arranging that sort of a first person temporal holiday are daunting, to say the least.  I don't object to someone wanting to be a rich heiress - no one wants to travel below the waterline, especially in this case - but how do you introduce participants from the future into a well documented, dead-end scenario like the death of the Titanic?

Let's lay down some ground rules first.  Changing the timeline is completely verboten - no going up to the bridge and holding the crew at gunpoint to make them change course, but even smaller Butterfly Effect changes have to be avoided.

We also want to make sure that there are no twonkies. In the parlance of time travel, a twonky is an anachronistic artifact, like a Coke can in a medieval midden - the name comes from a 1942 short story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore.  Avoiding possible twonkies in this situation is especially important because we already know that James Cameron is going to be all over the place in a submersible with an Imax camera less than a hundred years later.  So, Laurie, my apologies, but just to be safe, no iPod. No iPod, no earbuds, no camera, no bottled water, no protein bars, no pantyhose, no running shoes, no Tylenol, no tampons, no hand sanitizer:  roughing it, in other words.

The passenger list of the Titanic is a known historical fact, which either already includes Laurie's name (indicating that she makes the trip into the past from her future timeline) or does not.  But even if she's not on the list, that doesn't mean that she can't go.  Because we know who was on the ship, Laurie could just find someone with a ticket*, whack them on the back of the head, and take their place.

That might actually be the best option, given the difficulties of laying hands on sufficient legal tender for the time period to allow for a ticket purchase.  A top of the line First Class Parlor Suite on the Titanic weighed in at £870, or $4,350**, which is a lot of antique money to find, let along buy. Alternatively, you could haul a big stack of gold back in the time capsule and sell it in 1912, but given that the price of gold in 1912 was about $21, you'd need to take about 210 ounces of gold - that's about $350,000 in today's market.

Other options include counterfeiting the money, or even just making a preliminary trip and robbing a few banks, but again, it's important to avoid making ripples in the time stream.

However, a little research reveals that although there are several Smiths on the ship, they all appear to be married couples rather than heiresses.  (There are also a couple of Trouts, but that's an inside joke.)  So if Ms. Smith is going to be on the Titanic, it's either under an assumed name, or as a stowaway.

Being a stowaway is an interesting solution, in that it avoids all of the issues with passenger lists and money and so forth.  On the other hand, you have to find a place to sleep without being noticed, and discretion is equally important while exploring the ship.  After all, it would be a very bad thing to be locked in the brig without your time travel ticket when the ship started to sink.

This is all based on the assumption that Ms. Smith is the only person who would want to add the ultimate cruise experience to her resumé.  As previously discussed, easy access to time travel allows an infinite number of visitors to arrive at Shakespeare's childhood home if they so wish. Similarly, everyone who has ever or would ever want to be on the Titanic has to show up during that narrow four day window. The joke is that eventually the entire Titanic passenger list would consist of time travelling visitors rather than any of the actual people who originally bought the tickets.***

And me?  Oh, I wanted to see the Beatles in concert in 1965.  A modest ambition, I realize, but at least I don't need to practise treading water in a cork life vest - just in case.

- Sid

* A rich heiress, presumably.

** To be fair, this is a worst case scenario.  A first class berth accommodation was about a quarter of this price, but after all, we are talking about rich heiress territory.

 *** In this scenario, the ship doesn't need to hit an iceberg.  It sinks under the unexpected weight of a million temporal tourists.

One giant leap.

"A bit of history for you…

Do you know how many people are watching this live on the telly?  Half a billion.  And that's nothing, 'cause the human race will spread out among the stars, you just watch them fly, billions and billions of them for billions and billions of years, and every single one of them at some point in their lives will look back at this man taking that very first step and they will never ever forget it."

The Doctor, The Day of the Moon

Neil Armstrong died yesterday at the age of 82.

 * * *

It was, in fact, just one small step.  And I acknowledge all of the people who contributed, all of the ground work, all of the other small steps necessary to make that final small step possible.  But to be that person at that place at that time makes Neil Armstrong a unique figure in human history.

In many ways the potential offered by that moment has been wasted.  Dreams of moon bases and Mars landings have become just that, dreams, as fiscal issues and changed directions diminished the focus on space exploration.

None of that matters.

The instant when Neil Armstrong's foot touched the surface of the moon on July 20th in 1969 changed humanity forever.  It opened the doors to the universe - it made us infinite and immortal.

You just watch us fly...

- Sid

Old school.

I cannot even hint what it was like, for it was a compound of all that is unclean, uncanny, unwelcome, abnormal, and detestable. It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity, and dissolution; the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation, the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide. God knows it was not of this world - or no longer of this world - yet to my horror I saw in its eaten-away and bone-revealing outlines a leering, abhorrent travesty on the human shape; and in its mouldy, disintegrating apparel an unspeakable quality that chilled me even more.

H.P. Lovecraft, The Outsider

"The putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation" - now that's what I'm talkin' about, baby!

- Sid

 

Have Space Suit - Will Travel.

Well, I might as well just come out with it - I'm thinking about building a space suit for Hallowe'en this year.

The company that I work at places a large amount of importance on employee involvement in shared social activities (to the point that we have an Employee Engagement manager) and for the last couple of years, I've maintained my standing by showing up on October 31st in some form of costume.  Two years ago it was my infamous zombie outfit, and last year I took the easy way out and wandered around in a life-sized version of my port pass badge - with my actual face in the space for the ID photo.

Having won the Best Costume prize both years, I was thinking that I might legitimately skip a year in the interests of letting someone else take the prize, but I stumbled across a site that was selling transparent acrylic domes, and I got to thinking...

After all, take a look at the various spacesuits in movies and TV shows (and at NASA) and you'll immediately see that an awful lot of them rely primarily on a padded coverall and a helmet, plus whatever amount of greeblie dressing the designers felt like sticking on.  How hard could it be?

Yeah....

And now I've been foolish enough to put it in writing...wish me luck.

- Sid

 

Eye candy.

In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.

Warhammer 40K

My spare time for the last month has been almost exclusively dedicated to a large work project with a short deadline.  Happily, I finished writing and laying out the first portion of the project at about ten o'clock last night, which gave me Sunday off to relax.  (Well, I have to do laundry and clean and go to the gym and so on, but after a month of doing nothing but write content on how to take cargo containers off ships, trust me, that's relaxing.*)

As part of my R&R for today, I took some time to get back into a game that I purchased on the Canada Day weekend - Space Marine, a third-person shooter set in the Games Workshop Warhammer 40K universe.

For those of you unfamiliar with Warhammer 40K (ie, everyone but Donovan, and Colin a little bit), it's one of those almost stereotypically über-geek multi-player games that involves a fistful of 20 sided dice, rulers, and painstakingly assembled and painted miniatures. Originally launched in 1987 as a spin-off from Warhammer, a fantasy-based game in the same style, it has in some ways eclipsed its older sibling.

The interesting thing is that unlike most entertainment involving dice, tabletops, and arguments over whose turn it is, games like WH40K have developed a deeply complex and involved back story to support the gaming experience.  Checkers, for example, has no plot.  Chess, which is one of the oldest strategy-oriented games on the planet, doesn't bother to name the pieces.  And, as much as you may enjoy Monopoly, would you really expect to find Amazon.ca selling novels about the brutality and squalor experienced by the race car during its time in Jail?  (Without passing GO or collecting $200.)

WH40K has all of that, and that's much of the reason that Games Workshop dominates the tabletop marketplace.  The universe in the 41st millennium is portrayed as a place of constant conflict, as Space Marines and the Imperial Guard, loyal to the godlike Emperor, struggle against hordes of brutal green-skinned Orks, life-stealing robotic Necrons, the ancient Eldar and their perverse cousins the Dark Eldar, the expansionist alien Tau, and the forces of Chaos, including the Chaos Space Marines, former fellows in the armies of the Imperium who have been changed and distorted by the Warp. Each of these groups is supported by reams and reams of what is technically known as "fluff": documents, maps, descriptions, diagrams, novels, iconography and histories - everything that anyone could possibly want in order to enrich and deepen the gaming experience far beyond the movement of painted plastic on a table.

I've never gotten involved in the tabletop gaming experience (although I had a near miss with Dungeons and Dragons back in the 70s) but the WH40K phenomenon is just one of those known factors in the geek continuum.  I was quite pleased with the PC strategy simulation version of WH40K, ending up with all four of the expansion modules, and as such when Space Marine and all its expansion content went on sale for $14.99, I thought I'd give it a try.

Ironically, compared to games like Fallout 3 or Bioshock, Space Marine does not present a complicated gaming experience.  It's very much a linear dungeon-style game, and to date there's been nothing elaborate in terms of quests, challenges or puzzles - so far it's all pretty much just an excuse to kill orks in a variety of gory and graphic fashions.

However, full credit for the manner in which the feel of the Imperium has been translated to the game environment.  The Space Marines are very close to a monastic order, and their world is presented as a dark, gothic environment full of memento mori and religious symbolism.  Space Marine presents a gloomy, atmospheric environment full of towering bastions, flying buttresses, ornamental skulls and massive reliquaries containing weapons upgrades.  For me, this has more than made up for any shortcomings in terms of intellectual challenges in the levels.

So, back to the game - I've gotten out of the sewer complex beneath the Manufactorum that contains the mammoth War Titan, reunited with my brothers of the Ultramarines, and I am eager to return to the struggle with the Ork invaders.

After all, I fight for the Emperor - and I WILL KNOW NO FEAR!

- Sid

* On the other hand, I'm a bit sceptical about my decision to follow up a month of intensive writing by catching up on blog posts...

 

Spoiler follows! Or maybe not.

I saw The Amazing Spider-Man last night, and I have to say it was a surprisingly bittersweet experience.

You see, I know how Gwen Stacy dies.

I'm not special in that regard, a lot of people know.  Gwen Stacy died in 1973, although, in the fashion so common among comic book characters, death has not been a barrier to subsequent appearances in Peter Parker's life.  Regardless, that moment 39 years past when Peter cradled his dead girlfriend in his arms is considered to be a critical event in the history of comics, the end of the Silver Age and the beginning of a changed world not only for supporting characters, but for the heroes as well.

The question is, what do the producers of the Spider-Man reboot have in mind for Gwen?  Unlike any of the other comic movie franchises, The Amazing Spider-Man doesn't feature the hero's nemesis, deciding instead to go with another villain from Spider-Man's catalogue of foes.  The Lizard certainly occupies a strong position in Spider-Man's mythology, but I have to say that I don't consider him to be a first-line villain.

But I can guess at the strategy behind the decision to start the show with Curtis Connor's cold-blooded alter ego.  By connecting Connor's experiments with Oscorp and Norman Osborn, they're setting up the elements for Osborn's appearance behind the mask of the Green Goblin in a future movie.  I'm impressed that they'd gamble on the success of the reboot by refusing to lead with trump, so to speak, and I think it augurs well for the next film.  (Or pair of films, trilogies seem to be the standard for super-hero movies.)

Similarly, I can see why they went with Gwen Stacy for Peter's love interest.  Gwen was Peter's first love, and it was widely believed that Marvel was working their way up to marriage for the happy couple, at least until the events of Issue #121.  As such, she's a better canon choice than Mary Jane Watson for Spider-Man's return - in fact, in the comic version it was shared mourning over Gwen's death that began the process of Peter and Mary Jane becoming a couple.

But does that mean that Gwen Stacy is marked for death?  They've made some minor alterations in Peter's backstory for the reboot, but the major events in his life remain the same.  On the other hand, they've already made a substantial change in the Gwen and Peter continuity by having Peter tell her about his dual lifestyle - in the comic, she died without ever knowing Spider-Man's true identity.  On that basis, I'll be paying a lot more attention to subsequent movies in the series to find out whether or not Ms. Stacy's relationship with her friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man has started her down a path with only one destination.

- Sid