One more detail.

(Contributed by Laurie Smith)

Several postings on time travel have graced the pages of The Infinite Revolution, including frequent references to Doctor Who’s TARDIS.  Sid travelled across the Atlantic Ocean to find a similar looking telephone box, which alas did not have the capacity for temporal transportation. For those visiting Vancouver – look no further than Stanley Park.

Positioned incongruously beside a children’s waterpark and some public washrooms, this rather ordinary looking structure invites those who dare to step inside, with a warning of the consequences.
 

If I was designing this device I would add one more detail to lend authenticity and some humour:  a clock without hands above the posted warning. To the question “What time is it?” the obvious answer would be “Whatever time you want it to be”.

Next time you have a chance to stroll (or run) around the Stanley Park Seawall, duck into the yellow box and see what happens.  

- Laurie 

P.S.  The Infinite Revolution thanks you for another excellent guest posting, Dr. Smith.  Wow - time travel causing cancer, what an interesting idea for a science fiction story, either as a plot twist or a known peril.  That being said, I think it's very decent of the owner of the Stanley Park Time Machine (or perhaps the Surgeon General) to post a warning on the outside of the box.

- Sid

Kneel!

Having seen the latest motion picture attempt to get the Superman franchise off the ground, so to speak, I have to say that I was impressed. There are some issues – there are always issues – but overall, I enjoyed the movie.

It’s an unexpectedly small film at times – there are close-up shots of everyday objects like rainspouts, clothespins in a pail, or abandoned toys in the grass, which I found to be an interesting attempt to thematically establish a sort of intimacy for the story, although it creates an odd contrast to the scenes of massive destruction from the climax of the film. The manner in which they portrayed the uneasy balance between Clark Kent and Kal-El was well done, and, no offense to Christopher Reeves, but Henry Cavill perfectly nails both the characters of the farm boy and his invulnerable alter ego.

All that aside, Man of Steel reminds us of something that tends to be lost in all the traditional "faster than a speeding bullet" verbiage.

Superman can destroy a city.

He can flatten mountains.

If he so chose, Superman could lay waste to the entire planet and there would not be one thing that we could do. We would be helpless against him.

I for one would welcome our new Kryptonian overlord – because really, what choice would we have?

- Sid

I'm in.

- Sid

Don't let the facts get in the way.

I was browsing through my copy of Our Gods Wear Spandex this morning, and found the following passage as part of the section where author Christopher Knowles lays out the influencing factors in the development of the superhero comic book:

Tarzan, whose name means "Skin-Boy" becomes the surrogate son of a gorilla named Kala, whose own baby had died.

Frowning, I made my way to my bookcase and pulled out my copy of Tarzan of the Apes (I own the edition with the Neal Adams cover - which seems appropriate, given that Neal Adams was a comic book artist as well) and flipped through until I found what I was looking for:

And then Tublat went to Kerchak to urge him to use his authority with Kala, and force her to give up little Tarzan, which was the name they had given to the tiny Lord Greystoke, and which meant "White-Skin."

In the next section of his book, Knowles discussed pulp magazines, citing the fact that Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories offered the first appearance of Buck Rogers, "and later, the first stories by sci-fi pioneer E.E. "Doc" Smith."  Ha - about ten pages later would be my guess, if not ten pages before.  Edward Elmer Smith's The Skylark of Space began its serialization in the same August 1928 edition of Amazing Stories that contained Philip Nowlan's Buck Rogers story.

At that point, I thought it was time for a little break from Mr. Knowles.

Those were just the errors I noticed on a casual basis - lord knows what I'd find if I sat down and methodically worked my way through the content.  It's disheartening to discover that someone writing a book isn't necessarily subject to the same demands for accuracy and research that I would have been faced with when doing an essay in high school.

- Sid

Been down so long it feels like up to me.

(Inspired by the previous posting on gravity.)

"He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking."

Spock -  Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

The history of exploration can be measured - literally - by the introduction of standards like the adoption of Greenwich mean time or the development of latitude and longitude as an aid to navigation.  But one of the greatest standards is a standard yet to come, a standard of the future: Universal Down.

I can only speculate as to the genesis of Universal Down, what meeting of slightly seasick (or more accurately spacesick) minds was involved, but the utility of a universally consistent orientation for spacecraft must have been so attractive that it was adopted immediately, in spite of logic.

Because logic, after all, would suggest that it doesn't matter.  Logically, "down" is an abstract concept in space, restricted to the frame of reference created by whatever system of artificial gravity is in place on any given spaceship, and that spaceship only.  Removed from any sort of planetary reference, ships would be able to align themselves in any orientation that they wish.

And yet, regardless of this elementary fact, every passing Imperial starship, Romulan Warbird, or Cylon Basestar manages to arrive on the scene in perfect alignment with the spacecraft already there.  How would this be possible without some agreed upon standard of orientation, perhaps one based upon the lenticular model of the Milky Way galaxy?

If that is the case, then beware, starship captains and battlestar admirals alike.  For somewhere out there is a mysterious alien ship, a ship from Andromeda, from the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, or from Messier-83, a ship which may be upside down or sideways.  

And let there be war...

- Sid

Mission of Gravity.

Geordi:  "Suddenly it's like the laws of physics went right out the window."
Q:  "And why shouldn't they?  They're so inconvenient!"

True Q - Star Trek: the Next Generation

This all started when Christi, one of my co-workers with monstrous geek cred (she’s a card-carrying member of the SCA* and we’ve already seen her desktop Cthulhu idol) marched into my office and pointed an accusatory finger at me.

“The new Star Trek movie?”

"Yes..."

"Where the damaged Enterprise is falling from orbit around Earth?"

"Yes..."

"And they're running on the walls? And everyone is getting thrown around?"

"Yes..."

"WHY. Don’t they have their own gravity???"

First, I’m sorry – not actually my fault, but based on how the conversation was framed, I felt a certain sense of responsibility.

Second - gravity on Star Trek.

Gravity - or lack of it - is one of the great unarticulated elements of television and motion picture science fiction. Issues of fictional technology aside, artificial gravity is a huge convenience for anyone producing a science fiction program - zero gravity involves wires and special effects and, well, money, when it comes right down to it, so producers have generally found a variety of work-arounds to avoid portraying the reality of zero gravity spaceship environments.

However, unlike Star Wars for example, Star Trek has always done its best to document the fictional technology which supports the action, and made at least an effort to pay lip service to the realities of physics.  So, going to the bookshelf and pulling out my copies of The Physics of Star Trek and The Star Fleet Next Generation Technical Manual, let's take a look at what they have to say about gravity.

But first, a little background. Gravity is still the most mysterious of the four weak forces of physics. It's an attribute of mass, and as a result everything possesses a greater or lesser degree of gravitational attraction, but as far as discovery of the graviton, which I think of as the medium of propagation for gravity but which is better described as the "messenger particle", there's been no experimental verification to date.

 

Sadly, Lawrence M. Krauss' otherwise wonderful book on the reality of physics as compared to its treatment on Star Trek doesn't look at the question of artificial gravity on the Enterprise, except insofar as it relates to issues of acceleration. Fortunately, the Next Generation Technical Manual, an astonishing compilation of bafflegab about the technology of Starfleet**, is more informative, dedicating a page to Gravity Generation.

The Enterprise D has 1000 gravity generators scattered around the ship, utilizing the same technology as the tractor beam. The text indicates that this state-of-the-art equipment can generate a graviton field with a short lifetime and range - ergo the need to continually generate the field, and the requirement for a multitude of generators.

Now, admittedly we're looking at the technology of the original Enterprise in the scenario from the movie, but as with replicators, warp drive, transporters and phasers, it's probably safe to say that the underlying scientific framework is consistent across the time span.

Okay, fine - obviously they wanted to play games with the idea of the ship flipping over and red-shirted crewmembers falling to their deaths down corridors turned into shafts.  You could make a case for the gravity generators being off-line, but I'm pretty sure that if that were the case, you'd be getting tossed all over the place rather than just being able to decide whether you were going to run on the walls, the floor or the ceiling.  So, obviously another case of bad fiction winning out over good science.

Again, on behalf of the science fiction community: Christi, my apologies.

I find it interesting that the question of nullifying gravity rather than generating it isn't discussed in the Technical Manual, suggesting that there are still limits to the technology of the 24th century - which may well be a good thing. Gravity is literally holding the universe together in a complex attenuated web of attraction. Anyone with the ability to shut that off with the flick of a switch would have a potential for destruction beyond imagination at their fingertips.

You know, that's not a bad idea for a Star Trek movie...

- Sid

* Society for Creative Anachronism - not to be confused with cosplay or LARPing.

**  No, seriously, just astonishing nonsense:

At Warp Factors 8-9.9, the injector firing frequencies rise to 50Hz, but there is a tailoff of the injector cycle time, owing to limitations of residual charges in the magnetic valves, potential conflict with the energy frequencies from the M/ARC, and input/feedback control reliability.  The longest safe cycle time for high warp is generally accepted to be 53 ns.

Multiply that by 185 pages.  With diagrams.  Sadly, I have to admit that I know that they're talking about the Matter/Antimatter Reaction Chamber.  Or possibly Cycle. 

"Damn it, Jim, I'm a receptionist, not a Star Trek fan!"

In all trust, there is the possibility for betrayal.

William Riker:  Legacy, Star Trek: The Next Generation

After a long and still somewhat jet-lagged day, I decided that it was time to fold up my tents and silently steal away, as the poet would have it.  Locking my office door, I nodded to Kim, who was seated at our departmental reception desk, and foolishly made the mistake of saying, “You have the bridge, Number One.”

“Oh, do you take the Second Narrows to get home?” (For the non-Vancouverites reading this, the Second Narrows is a bridge. It is the second set of narrows, rather than the second bridge. It is actually the third bridge to occupy that location. Don’t let any of this distract you from the issue at hand.)

Sigh.

“No, sorry, that was a Star Trek reference.”

“Oh! Ummm…so we should go to the holodeck now?”

“Thank you, I appreciate the effort, but it’s too late – I’m going to go home now and say cruel things about you on my blog.” *

I realize, based on previous experience, that I should have known better, but seriously, this must be a question on the company’s employment application by now:

8. DO YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT STAR TREK?
    (Please specify:  Original Series Y_   N_    Next Generation Y_   N_ )  

- Sid

*Actually, I think that this has been relatively polite - you know, more in sorrow than anger?

The London Addendum.

The Scottish Chronicles VIII.

London, England

Travel diary - June 26, 2013:  after finding the abandoned TARDIS in Glasgow, used same to travel to London.  Unfortunately, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong with the already damaged camouflage circuit...

- Sid

P.S.  Please note the inclusion of feet - see, it is possible to educate people, even Campbell Brothers.

"Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!"

Something I omitted from the preceding post about Castle Doune is the unique view from the walls.  Gazing out from the battlements, one is presented with an epic panorama of verdant Scottish countryside -  and, of course, the occasional band of knights in search of the Holy Grail.

Wait, what?

That's right  - not only is Doune Castle historically noteworthy for its reconstruction by Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany and Regent of Scotland; for its ownership by the Earls of Moray; and for its representative 14th century architecture, but it was also one of the primary locations used in exterior and interior shots for perhaps the only historical fantasy/parody/comedy film in captivity*, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. 

Interestingly, Doune was not one of the original shooting locations for the 1975 movie, but shortly before production began the Pythons received a letter from the Scottish Department of the Environment, responsible for historical monuments at that time, informing them that they would not be allowed to use any of the castles to which they had requested access.  Apparently there was some concern that the locations would be used in a fashion "inconsistent with the dignity of the fabric of the buildings", and as a result the crew was forced to rely on privately owned structures such as Castle Doune.**

Inconsistent with the dignity of the fabric?  On the contrary - it is a proud and humbling moment to stand in the room where Zoot's twin sister Dingo announced that there would be oral sex after the spanking, to walk the floors upon which the knights of Camelot sang about spam (a lot), or to climb the stairs that Sir Lancelot climbed in his furious and bloody quest to save the captive princess - er, prince.

Regardless of the opinions of the Scottish government in the 1970s, I guarantee that far more people have been to visit Castle Doune as as a result of its association with The Holy Grail than would have otherwise have chosen it as a vacation stop - present company included.  There's even a set of coconut shells available in the ticket shop, for those members of the faithful who have made the pilgrimage to Doune solely in order to be able to trot back and forth in front of the castle while a faithful minion clatters the shells together.

My minion and I didn't enjoy that particular experience, but I will admit that it was difficult to look over the edge of the parapets without briefly thinking of bad French accents, hamsters and the smell of elderberries - not to mention giant wooden rabbits.

- Sid

* Anyone who wants to add Your Highness to the list can just leave now. 

** The castle is now under the stewardship of Historic Scotland, the successor to the Department of the Environment.

...in a storm of swords.

The Scottish Chronicles VII.

Castle Doune, a strongpoint for the Earls of Moray during the 17th century Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

- Sid

...as kings clash...

The Scottish Chronicles VI.

Castle Campbell, the seat of power in the Lowlands for the Duke of Argyll.

- Sid

Let the game of thrones begin...

The Scottish Chronicles V.

 The Royal Great Hall, Stirling Castle, Scotland.

- Sid

"Hail to thee, blithe geekette! Nerd thou never wert."

The Scottish Chronicles IV.

After a lengthy walk from the train station to our hotel in Stirling, and an even lengthier uphill walk to Stirling Castle, Colin and I sought refuge in the lounge bar at the Portcullis Hotel for a pint and a bite before visiting the castle, where it was our pleasure to be served by a shy young geek - a geekette, perhaps? 

We didn't seek specific information as to her area of geekness, the poor thing was disturbed enough by my request to photograph her.

- Sid

"I am definitely a mad man with a box!"

The Scottish Chronicles III.

Glasgow, Scotland

Boy, is this going to make the rest of the trip easier...

- Sid

P.S.  This photo resulted in a spirited debate with the photographer responsible.  I think that feet should be included in shots like this, apparently he does not.  We welcome your input.

I has a disappoint.

The Scottish Chronicles II.

The Parish Church of Tron in Glasgow is a modest example of early 19th century ecclesiastical architecture, but really, wouldn't it be cool if it looked more like this?

- Sid

P.S.  By the way, you may gather from this posting that I am in fact on site in Scotland.

The Scottish Trip.

The Scottish Chronicles I.

Later this afternoon, I'll be boarding a plane headed for Toronto, the first leg in a two-week vacation trip to Scotland, land of haggis, Scotch, kilts, and woad.*  As a bonus, I will have the unique privilege of travelling with one of the infamous Campbell brothers - yes, Cloin Campbell has decided that a visit to the auld sod (or by the auld sod, more accurately) is long overdue, and as such he has decided to make the pilgrimage to the homeland of the Campbell Clan.  He is certain that he will be greeted with open arms once his relatives are informed of his identity, although if I were him, I would more realistically keep an eye out for a carefully tied noose, all things considered.  

Sadly, Ralph Campbell will be unable to join us on this journey of discovery.  Until the authorities have stopped the manhunt** his bad back gets better, Ralph is reluctant to travel.  As a result, I'll be sitting in as an honourary Campbell brother (if we can use the word "honour" in relation to the Campbell Brothers) for the duration of the trip, a proud and awful responsibility.  I feel a bit as if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have just rung me to ask if I can sit in for Pestilence over the weekend.*** 

Seriously, though, it should be a great trip. Colin and I have travelled together before, and had a lot of fun doing it.  He's very excited - he's never been over to the UK, and isn't sure if he'll find an opportunity go again, so it's a milestone trip for him.  We're starting in Glasgow, spending some time touring around Stirling (located near the site of the historic battle of Bannockburn), then going to Edinburgh.  From there, we'll head down to London for the last three days, because it seemed a shame for Colin to not see the City when we're so close.  We'll also be making a brief stop at York, so that I can once again walk the Roman walls around the city in memory of my mother and grandfather, who used to do the same walk almost every day when they lived there.

Research for the trip has been fascinating.  Scotland offers a wealth of history and legend - we'll be visiting abbeys and altars, bastions and battlefields, castles and cathedrals, and perhaps a standing stone or two. When examining maps, I was enchanted by the Celtic poetry of the towns: Kilsyth, Falkirk, Fintr, Oldmeldrum, Findhorn and Nairn, like names from a fantasy novel; and was amused to discover that Argyll is close to Paisley, which, unless you're looking at Cloin's wardrobe, it really isn't.

I'm hoping to report in once or twice during the trip with appropriate postings, but can't guarantee anything, given the dubious track record of my travelling companion.  After all, if things work out the way I'm afraid they might, not only will I not have my iPad and internet access, they'll probably take my shoelaces and belt as well - right after they take our fingerprints.

- Sid

* We're renting a car, which will require that we drive on the wrong side of the woad.
 
** In this case, the authorities are everyone from the Vatican Guard to the Fashion Police - Ralph proudly cuts a wide swath.

*** Actually, it's more like Harpo and Groucho have asked me to replace Chico for a few hours, but you get the idea.  Certainly an awful responsibility, if maybe not that proud.

Gnomic Statements VII.

Honestly, could you not have worn flats, Erica?

- Sid

Star Trek: The Next Imitation.

Christopher Pike: That's a technicality.

Spock: I am Vulcan, sir. We embrace technicalities.

Christopher Pike: Are you giving me attitude, Spock?

Spock: I am expressing multiple attitudes simultaneously sir, to which one are you referring?

Star Trek: Into Darkness

I freely admit that when I headed over to the Scotiabank Theatre last night to see Star Trek: Into Darkness, it was pretty much out of a sense of duty.  I was disappointed by the first movie of the Abrams reboot: too many holes in the plot, the alternate future concept didn't work for me at all, people kept beating Kirk up, and the engine room looked like a brewery. Frankly, I expected more of the same with Into Darkness, but I've had an unused twenty-five dollar Famous Players gift card floating around since Christmas, and this was probably my only chance to see this movie on the big screen.

To my mild surprise, I found that in some ways I very much enjoyed Into Darkness. It still suffers from the same sort of issues and inconsistencies as the first film, and the art direction still isn't working for me (in other words, the engine room still looks like the factory floor at Molson's) but they're starting to establish the elements of character which were the greatest strength of the original series.

One of the brilliant things that Gene Roddenberry did in Star Trek was to create the triangle of Will, Logic and Emotion represented by Kirk, Spock and McCoy. By splitting these personality traits between three characters, he gave the writers of the episodes an unprecedented tool for externalizing and verbalizing the debates and conflicts between these aspects of the human soul.

The fascinating thing about Into Darkness is that we begin to see the development of that three-sided synergy, but it's not between Kirk, Spock and McCoy - in the new version, Uhura is well on the way to replacing the good doctor in that part of the triad.  In the original series, it might not have worked, but the introduction of the romantic relationship between Spock and Uhura allows her access to the dynamic between the two men, and that relationship also lets the writers introduce a completely different level of interaction between the characters.  Spock's feelings for Uhura could humanize him in a way that would have been impossible in the original series, and force him to accept parts of his personality that otherwise would never be allow to surface.

They'll have to be careful, though, or else the Spock/Uhura relationship will be separate from the Spock/Kirk relationship, hereby losing the strength of the original combination.  Can Uhura become Kirk's confidant and friend in the same way that McCoy did? It seems far more likely that she'll need to create a different framework for interacting with the captain.

So far there's no suggestion that the triangle will become a square, that McCoy will emerge as an equal in the interaction of the main characters. There's a bit of an attempt to place McCoy in his original role, but it's not maintained throughout the course of the story - it's almost like they're doing it because that's the sort of dialogue that was written for the character in the original series.

In fact, that sort of homage to the original made the whole thing a bit strange as far as I was concerned.  Watching Into Darkness was like watching a really well done fan tribute to the Sixties version, one with a huge budget, loaded with all the right references, and with professional actors doing brilliant impersonations of the people who originally performed the roles. There were several times last night when I found myself thinking, “Wow, this Quinto guy just did a great impression of Leonard Nimoy, that was bang on!" and the manner in which Karl Urban is channeling the ghost of DeForest Kelley is more than a little eerie.

Similarly, they chose to rework one of the original episodes, albeit in the rebooted universe.  What if they continue to mine those episodes for future movie concepts?  It would be an awful temptation to rework classic scripts like The City at the Edge of Forever*, Amok Time, Balance of Terror, and so on, but I think that would be an unfortunate error.  To make the reboot succeed, they're going to have to take a fresh look at the universe created by Gene Roddenberry, and also allow the actors some freedom to make the roles their own, rather than just imitations of the original portrayals.

Which is as it should be.  Reboot or not, shouldn't they be boldly going where no one has gone before?

- Sid

* And get their asses sued by Harlan Ellison.

July 23rd, 2013:  comments closed due to just ridiculous spamming.  I'd love to blame Eastern Europe exclusively, but there's some air conditioning company in the States that seems to be a frequent flyer as well.

Hero's Journey.

I saw IM3 a few days ago. I thought it was okay. Wasn't as good as I had hoped. The Avengers has set a bit of a high water mark for me.

- IR Science Correspondent D. Hides

Okay, here's why I didn't like Iron Man 3: because of the same things that I didn't like in Iron Man 1.

Ah - you'd probably like a little more information.

I have a very fundamental expectation for movies based upon comic books: I expect that the good guys will beat the bad guys, and I expect them to beat the bad guys because they are in some way better than they are.  I realize that this is a simplistic approach, but let's be honest, at their most basic level that's what comic books are about, the good guys beating the bad guys.  The good guys may suffer setbacks and difficulties (this is called plot) but when it comes right down to it, we all expect that ultimately the Batman will foil the Joker's villainous plans and send him back to Arkham Asylum.

Last year I read the first draft of my friend Annie's fantasy novel, and among other questions that she had for me when I finished, she asked me who my favourite character was. I gave it a little thought, and somewhat reluctantly announced that it was one of the supporting characters, because her part of the story struck me as more interesting than the main character's - she was the one who risked her sanity in an attempt to discover her friend's fate, she was the one whose father may or may not have been the fallen hero, she was the one who ended up with a boyfriend at the end of the book, etc.  Annie somewhat stiffly replied that she would have a problem with the (eventual) publishers of the book if they demanded that the hero have the most interesting journey in the story. 

I thought it prudent to move on to other topics at that point in the conversation (Annie is a little volatile when it comes to discussions about her writing), but really, isn't the hero supposed to be the person who has the most interesting journey?  Certainly not the only interesting journey, but the most interesting?  I would think that by definition that's how you recognize the hero - the person with the most interesting journey.

On that basis, I'll reluctantly give the role of the hero in Iron Man 3 to Tony Stark, because he probably has the most interesting journey, but the flip side of that coin is that it's not really a heroic journey.  If anything, it's a journey away from heroism:  Tony Stark doesn't rescue the President of the United States, he doesn't save his beloved from certain death, and he doesn't defeat the villain.  For a comic book movie, these are odd decisions to make, because (trying to avoid spoilers here) the President is rescued, his beloved does escape death, and the villain is defeated - just not by Iron Man.  The first Iron Man movie suffers from a similar problem, in that ultimately the Ironmonger isn't really beaten by Iron Man.

However, I'm willing to entertain the possibility that there's an attempt to do something more complex in IM3, based on the amount of personal development that Tony undergoes in this film.  The Tony Stark that we see at the start of the movie is in serious emotional and psychological trouble, to the point where the armour has become Tony's refuge from the outside world.  It's interesting to see how over the course of the film, he spends less and less time within that protective shell, and has to rely more and more on his own abilities. At the end of the movie, he has an epiphany:  that being Iron Man, being a hero, ultimately has nothing to do with wearing high-tech armour.

But if that's the purpose of the exercise, Iron Man 3 is a failure, because the journey that precedes it doesn't involve Tony Stark being the hero either.

The quote from my friend Donovan at the start of the posting becomes relevant at this point. What made The Avengers a better movie?  The same things that made Captain America and Thor better movies - the heroes win by being better than the villains, and by a willingness to sacrifice everything, including their lives, to save others. The odd thing is that in The Avengers, Iron Man is that hero - how unfortunate that he couldn't be that hero in Iron Man 3 as well.

- Sid