Chicago 1: One to beam up.

(First draft written while waiting for a flight to Chicago.)

I greatly enjoy time spent in different locations - all of my best memories involve foreign locales - but I don't enjoy the process of getting there, the actual travel itself.  Our family didn't travel at all when I was younger, so I when I began to travel as an adult, I had no background or experience to draw upon..  As such, even at the age of 52, going to the airport feels like having to take a really important test that I can't study for and which I could fail at any moment, especially when I'm crossing the border to the United States.

So, let's talk about teleportation.

On the face of it, easy access to mechanical teleportation would be fantastic - when I say "easy", I mean something on the level of taking the bus:  not universal, not free, but affordable and accessible. Step into a booth, swipe your card, pick a location, press GO, open the door, and you're at work.  Or in Zimbabwe.*

But, as always with new technology, it would have both a positive and a negative effect.  In the case of teleportation, the effects would probably be massive, changing the world on the same sort of scale as the introduction of the computer. 

Science fiction author Larry Niven has written a lot of good stories and essays on mechanical teleportation, which detail the various issues involving the collapse of all the transportation and shipping industries at once and the subsequent economic issues, the problems involving smuggling and crime (including the end of location as an alibi for murder) and a myriad of other issues. 

Niven also addresses the physics behind the process and the various problems that would need to be overcome.  For example, if you teleported to the other side of the world, you would have to land running at 1670 kilometers per hour to compensate for the simple fact that the other side of the world is rotating in the opposite direction.

But what actually happens when you teleport?  How does it work?

Well, in theory it kills you.

In some way shape or form, you cease to exist.  You are scanned and disintegrated, then rebuilt at the far end, but is it still you?  There are several science fiction stories that look at this question - notably, there's a teleporter in China Miéville's entertaining novel Kraken who goes insane because he's being haunted by the ghosts of all his previous selves who were killed by the process.**  

“This is why I wouldn’t travel that way,” Dane said. “This is my point. For a piece of rock or clothes or something dead, who cares? But take something living and do that? Beam it up? What you done is ripped a man apart then stuck his bits back together and made them walk around. He died. Get me? The man’s dead. And the man at the other end only thinks he’s the same man. He ain’t. He only just got born. He’s got the other’s memories, yeah, but he’s newborn. That Enterprise, they keep killing themselves and replacing themselves with clones of dead people. That is some macabre shit. That ship’s full of Xerox copies of people who died.”

And there are creepier options.  After all, why should the machine disintegrate you when you're scanned?  Or delete the template?  Or just make one copy at the far end?  The most chilling take on this process comes from Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson, who posit the use of doppleganger copies of people being used for suicide exploratory missions in space in their Cuckoo novels.  After all, if the original person doesn't go anywhere, and they get a lot of money, why would it matter what happens to their copy - or copies.

Even more disturbing is the possibility of error in the process, as demonstrated in a couple of episodes of Star Trek, but nowhere more graphically than in The Fly (either version, although the 1983 remake has better special effects.)  Personally, I think I'd want to see a whole lot of other people try the damn thing out before I set foot into a transportation booth.

You know, suddenly security lineups, immigration scrutiny and airline delays seem a lot more tolerable. 

- Sid

* Should anyone reading this actually live in Chitungwiza and work in downtown Harare, feel free to substitute "Vancouver".

**  Not to mention the controversial question of the soul. The next time you watch something from the Star Trek franchise, imagine that everyone on the Enterprise is actually a soulless zombie - creepy, isn't it?  No wonder Denise Crosby seemed so stiff.

Damn - I had my heart set on X-ray vision...

In an odd coincidence, LinkedIn™ was kind enough to inform me as to the nature of my personal super-power while I was working on my posting about Days of Future Past.  Ha - take THAT, Magneto!

- Sid

A stubby would have been even better.

Speaking of Alpha Flight, I was discussing comic book movies with my long-suffering co-worker Terry, and asked if he has seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Upon discovering that he hadn't, I told him that he would have to get it when it reached the general marketplace, because it would fit in perfectly with his conspiracy-oriented view of the government.* 

He replied, "Absolutely - I'll sit down with my son and we'll give it a good watch."

"Isn't Ed a bit young for that sort of movie?"

"Well, he's only four, but he loves that stuff. Spider-Man in particular, he loves Spider-Man.  I was a bit worried about Wolverine, it's so violent, but it doesn't seem to bother him at all."

"Wolverine is an interesting character all around.  He was introduced by Marvel in order to get some Canadian content - at one point the X-Men was being drawn and co-written by a Canadian, fellow named John Byrne, and he introduced an entire Canadian super-group called Alpha Flight, with members from BC and Alberta and Québec and so on.  Wolverine had been a member at one point, and then left under a cloud, so when they meet up again they do that whole weird hero-fighting-hero thing that seemed to happen so often in Marvel comics.  Wolverine and Nightcrawler, the blue X-Man who can teleport, go to Ottawa so Logan can reconnect with Alpha Flight, and there's a whole bunch of Canadian Easter Eggs**, like conversations with Trudeau and Wolverine drinking Canadian beer - Molson's or something similar."

Ah, well, nobody's perfect - a little research revealed that it was actually Labatt's. Although, when you think about it, a can of Canadian would have been a better joke.

 - Sid

* Well, to be honest, his conspiracy theory view of everything.  I'm not certain that Terry believes that we've actually landed on the Moon.

**  Alpha Flight had its own comic for a few years, and if memory serves it continued to have a distinctive Canadian flavour: for example, Northstar, one of the team's super-powered mutant Québecois twins, turned out to have been associated with the FLQ. 

Past, Present and Future.

As per my previous comments regarding comic book movies, I was already familiar with the basic plotline for Days of Future Past when I walked into the theatre: the X-Men of the future send the consciousness of one of their members back in time* to 1973 in order to change history and prevent the extinction of mutant-kind.  However, after seeing the movie, I felt it necessary to revisit the comic book version in order to determine exactly how much the movie version differed from the print version.

The changes are substantial and dramatic – and you know what?

The movie is better.

The X-Men movies have always been back and forth on comic book canon, but the largest variation comes from the storyline of First Class, which in many ways tears down the origins of Professor X and Magneto and rebuilds them from scratch.  Days of Future Past continues that process, but it adds much more depth to the characters of both men, especially Professor X.

Stan Lee initially created these two characters as mutant parallels to the civil rights struggle of the 60s:  the Professor represented Martin Luther King, and Magneto stood in for the much more militant Malcolm X – hopefully no pun intended.  There are glimpses of that aspect of Charles Xavier in First Class, but in Days of Future Past, we start to see his evolution into a more mature character through his relationship with Mystique and Magneto.

The comic book version, which shows Canadian comic book artist John Byrne doing some of his best work, gets bogged down in the sort of clichéd expository team-versus-team fight scene that is one of less pleasant legacies left to Marvel by Stan Lee.  The movie version keeps things much simpler, and offers a far more emotional - and powerful - interaction between the characters throughout.

A special shout-out to the producers for the casting of Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask, inventor of the anti-mutant Sentinel robots. Initially, when word got out that Mr. Dinklage had been cast for the next X-Men movie, it was widely assumed that the story would involve Alpha Flight, Marvel's Canadian superhero team, because one of the members of Alpha Flight was a dwarf.

In the original version, Bolivar Trask is a man of average height, but there’s not one reason why Peter Dinklage would be unable to play the part.  And, impressively, not once during the entire movie does the question of his height garner any sort of mention.  Full points to the producers for casting based purely on talent.

 - Sid

*  The joke is that the original two-issue sequence in the comics was published in January of 1980, and Kitty Pryde is sent back from about 30 years in the future – now, in other words.  How quickly the future becomes the present…

Cautionary Tales.

"All men must die."
                                   The Game of Thrones

People are often surprised to find out that I haven’t been watching The Game of Thrones.  Initially, I didn’t see the need – I’d already read the books, and I was more than a little sceptical about the adaptability of George R. R. Martin’s epic tale of the struggle for succession in the kingdom of Westeros as mysterious supernatural forces gather in the North and prepare to invade.

The bad news is that I think I was wrong.  All evidence seems to indicate that the adaptation is a complete success, a success which I think can be attributed primarily to the casting.  Peter Dinklage has become the most noteworthy breakout star from TGOT – the role of Tyrion Lannister might almost have been written with him in mind, and I have to wonder how he feels about the opportunity to play a character who opens the book (no pun intended) into the difficulties of life as a dwarf.

The good news is that thanks to Blu-ray and the Internet, it will be fairly easy to catch up with the episodes to date, although I doubt that I’ll be doing a four season marathon.  After all, the adaptation has stayed fairly close to the books, so I won’t have that desperate desire to find out what happens next that a new viewer would usually have.

However, I gather that viewers who had not read the books have been shocked, if not horrified, by the twists and turns of Martin’s plotline.  When the TV series began and people were telling me that they were watching and enjoying it, I gave the same advice to everyone:  “Don’t get really fond of anybody.”

The body count in Game of Thrones is astonishing: Martin sets the stage with an extensive cast of players, but no one – NO ONE – is safe.  The plethora of characters presents a target-rich environment, and Martin ruthlessly removes pieces from the board as he sees fit.

This is a deliberate strategy on his part.  Martin makes it clear that the conflict in Westeros is merciless, and those who do not win will die.  The heroes are not invulnerable, nor are the villains, and simply because a character has been an active participant for four of the novels in no way guarantees that they’ll survive the fifth book.  

On one hand, this is a brilliant approach. The reader (or viewer) can never be complacent.  In the majority of fiction, the hero may be placed in harm’s way, but everyone realizes that ultimately they will triumph over adversity.  In The Game of Thrones, you are constantly on the edge of your seat because there are no guarantees that anyone will survive.

On the other hand, the down side of this approach is that it makes it a bit of a struggle to follow the story.  Generally in fiction, one observes a protagonist experiencing conflict (generally referred to as plot).  I have no idea who the protagonist is in The Game of Thrones, and as such, reading the books feels like reading a sequence of disconnected vignettes.  A character will be dealt with in excruciating detail for two hundred pages and then get their head cut off.  As a reader, you end up feeling sort of lost, and perhaps a little bitter that you had invested so much in a character who turned out to be disposable.*

And ultimately, this may be the downfall of both the books and the adaptation.  Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series is a similar sort of epic fantasy tale, albeit with a higher survival rate on the part of the cast. The series spans a daunting 14 books, but after the sixth or seventh novel, Jordan's treatment of the characters was such that he began to lose my interest, to the extent that I no longer cared as to their ultimate fates.  I stopped buying the books, and put the ones that I did own down in the laundry room of my building in hopes that they would end up in a good home.

I don't think that George R. R. Martin will lose my interest in the same way, but he's only five novels in with apparently another three to go, and quite frankly there were a couple of times in the fifth book where my reaction was, "What, are you kidding me? Him too? And her as well?"  Careful, George.  After all, it's a two-way street.  You're certainly allowed to treat your characters in whatever fashion you choose - and we're allowed to stop reading about it.  Or watching.

- Sid

* To illustrate this for readers unfamiliar with either the books or the adaptation, imagine if by the end of The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker had died in the snowspeeder attack on the Imperial AT-ATs, followed by the execution of Darth Vader by the Emperor.  Han Solo is assassinated by Boba Fett, and Princess Leia gang raped and shot in the head by Imperial troopers who then feed her dismembered corpse to an imprisoned and blinded Chewbacca.  Would you not feel a bit confused as to where the story was going?

The New Fan.

(Contributed by Dorothy Hatto)

 
The other day I was talking to one of my friends who is into science fiction and was amazed to discover that she had never heard of Andre Norton, one of the founders of modern science fiction/fantasy.*

Now, my friend is going to Australia, and she takes books rather than her tablet to read. They weigh less in carry on and it's easier to read half a page or so if you have to wait. She suggested that I lend her one of my books to take along.

My brother Sid might be the only one to really empathize with the decision of which book to choose.  Andre Norton or Alice Mary Norton was writing science/fantasy books before it was popular for women to be in the genre. (Ergo the "Andre" of her name.) She wrote under a few other pseudonyms, all male - I don’t think she ever used her actual name in print, although I may be wrong about that.

She was born in 1912, started writing science fiction in the 1940s, and died in 2005, still collaborating with other writers.

So, which book do you choose out of the 300 or so titles that she wrote and co-wrote?

I took a couple of days to think about it and finally chose the same book that I think I read first. My mother owned Daybreak 2250 A.D. as an Ace double and I believe it was the first Andre Norton story I ever read. My current copy was printed in the 1970s and was 50 cents at the time. I have replaced it twice** and also inherited my mother's Ace Double for my collection.

I will have to wait till my friend gets back to see if she liked it, but she does like Anne McCaffrey books and their styles are similar. 

- Dorothy

* Along with H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Hugo Gernsbach, Arthur C. Clarke, and a few I have probably forgotten.

** I always like to get the used copies as the story has changed a bit every time it was published.

Postscript
I completely agree with Dorothy: anyone with a serious interest in science fiction or fantasy should be aware of Ms. Norton's contributions to the two genres.  Andre Norton was one of those rare authors whose mastery of tone and vocabulary was complete and flawless.  Her writing style was formal and dignified, and matched itself perfectly to the stories which she crafted with such consummate skill.

Hmmmm...but which one to lend to a first time reader? Daybreak 2250 A.D., with its outcast post-apocalyptic hero (and his cat) is certainly a good choice in terms of a characteristic novel.  I might have gone with The Time Traders, or Witch World, or Year of the Unicorn (which starts a whole series of connected novels).  The Beast Master?  Star Rangers? Sargasso of Space?  The Crossroads of Time? As my sister suggests, a difficult choice due to the uniform excellence of Andre Norton's writing.

Thanks very much for the posting, Dorothy!

- Sid

“There’s no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse.”

 “What’s the most dangerous thing that you’ve ever done?  And why did you do it?”

Chris Hadfield, TED 2014

If you want to get a really good idea of what’s it’s like to climb into a rocket and leave the planet, I strongly recommend that you watch Chris Hadfield’s TED Talk from TED 2014, held here in Vancouver.

Commander Hadfield evocatively describes watching the Earth “roaring silently with colour and texture as it pours by...” while holding onto the outside of the International Space Station with one hand – and then going blind during his spacewalk. It’s an intimate window into the experience of being in space, and into the relationship between danger, fear and preparation.

For viewers who can’t imagine watching something as long as 18 minutes on the internet, you may prefer to read his book, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth. It’s a readable combination of autobiography, motivation, and insight into the nuts and bolts of space exploration.

- Sid

"Would you ever sign up for a trip to Mars?"

The arching sky is calling

Spacemen back to their trade.

All hands! Stand by! Free falling!

And the lights below us fade.

Out ride the sons of Terra,

Far drives the thundering jet,

Up leaps the race of Earthmen,

Out, far, and onward yet--

We pray for one last landing

On the globe that gave us birth;

Let us rest our eyes on fleecy skies

And the cool, green hills of Earth.

Robert A. Heinlein, The Green Hills of Earth 

It used to be that I depended on television for weather reports, but thanks to the Internet I just check online with The Weather Network whenever I need information more explicit than what I can determine by looking out the window. The Weather Network website does its best to be more than just a list of temperatures and weather predictions by adding in things like trivia, photos from users, videos of extreme weather, and surveys – which often have nothing to do with weather. As an example, a recent survey asked visitors to the site if they would be willing to “Sign up for a trip to Mars” with four possible answers.

I was pleased to see that 31% of the respondents would be willing to go into space, but a little surprised to see that 3% would sign up exclusively for a one-way trip. (Just for the record, I fall into the “Sure!” group, and I honestly can’t say that I thought about it in terms of whether it would be impossible to return.) I realize that this small percentage probably viewed the Martian odyssey as a chance to leave behind the petty concerns of earthbound existence for a life on the frontier, without ever looking back.  That aside, would Martian colonists have to accept that it was a one-way ride with no chance to return to Mother Terra?

Depending on the relative orbital positions of Earth and Mars, and how much fuel you’re willing to burn on the trip, going to Mars could take as little as 130 days or as long as 300. Let’s pick a median and say 210 days, or about seven months. That doesn’t sound like a one-way trip to me. It’s a long haul, admittedly, and 130 days sounds a lot better, but provided that there’s adequate living space, entertainment, and perhaps even work of some sort to fill the time, not a deal-breaker in terms of a round trip.

However, this is the sort of schedule that NASA has used for pieces of technology not bothered by boredom, claustrophobia or lack of gravity. If we do a one-G burn to midpoint and then decelerate at the same rate for the second half of the trip, apparently the trip could come in at less than a week. (With some variance in the exact times - see above re: relative orbital positions.) You need a lot of fuel to pull this off, but I’m willing to bet that there’s some kind of compromise between the two extremes of zero and one gravity* that would make this practical in terms of both time and fuel.

This solves two problems - keeping the trip time to a minimum, and reducing the effects of extended exposure to zero gravity.  Given the various health issues suffered by astronauts returning to Earth after 146 days in the zero-G environment of the International Space Station, anything that either reduces the time line or creates the illusion of gravity through acceleration is a good thing.

In the short term, astronauts get their “earth legs” back fairly quickly, but the long term effects will not be known until, well, the long term – retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield will probably be the subject of regular medical scrutiny for the rest of his life in order to determine whether or not his natural span was reduced by his extended exposure to lack of gravity.

As it turns out, we may have already begun the process of colonizing Mars in some small way, albeit accidentally. A recent study conducted by the American Society for Microbiology revealed that there are 377 strains of bacteria that can make it through the sterilization process used on the Curiousity Mars rover before its departure.** This is probably a non-issue: between exposure to vacuum and high UV levels on the Martian surface, it would be a very determined organism that survived the entire process. On the other hand, there are bacteria that thrive in a wide range of environmental conditions, so it wouldn’t take a lot of shelter for a bacteria to make it to Mars alive.

Hmmm…do bacteria mutate? Anybody remember The Andromeda Strain?  Now that I think about it, maybe it is a good idea after all if no one comes back from Mars - just in case.

- Sid

*And if you do a 2-G trip, I bet you can bring it down to a day or two, but first, that would be really fuel intensive, and second, it may not be a great idea to subject the human anatomy to two gravities for that long.

** There is actually a mandate in the UN Space Treaty that stipulates that space missions "shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies.”

The bad news is that it's a non-speaking part.

One of the best things to come out of the Internet is the concept of crowdfunding.  Looking for working capital for that new indie game that you want to develop?  Trying to put together enough money to record your first album?  Need some money to shoot a new season of your YouTube series?  Pick a platform like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, assemble your sales pitch, create some incentives for contributors, and away you go.

But when it comes to incentives, it's hard to beat the one that director J. J. Abrams - or perhaps more accurately Disney Inc. - is offering to supporters of its new Force For Change UNICEF charity:

Yes - a chance to be in the next Star Wars movie, currently in production.

Seriously, how cool is this?  The joke is that on paper, it's actually pretty cheap as prizes go - two round trip tickets to London and a hotel room for two nights. But in reality, it's spectacular if you're even slightly a fan of the Star Wars universe.  You and your guest get to go backstage for filming at Pinewood Studios and meet the cast members, and the winner will appear as an extra in a scene for the movie.*

The system is very simple.  Contribute ten bucks, get one entry in the contest and the title of Star Wars: Force for Change Founding Member.  Contribute $50,000, get 5000 entries and an advanced private screening of Episode VII for you and 20 guests.**  Obviously there are some levels in between these two extremes.  You probably won't be surprised to hear that I've made a contribution at the hundred dollar/ten entry Advocate level, which is the most popular category for contributors (most likely because you get a t-shirt).

So, if you're at all a fan, or just want to help a good cause, you can enter here. In fact, you don't even need to contribute - A Force For Change is happy to accept entries from non-contributors via snail mail.  But let's face it, ten dollars isn't a lot, and hey, it only takes one entry to win. The campaign is running until July 18th, 2014.

And may the Force be with you.

- Sid

*  There's a small print disclaimer that acknowledges the unfortunate fact that not every scene filmed makes it into the final cut of a film, but which also says that "the Star Wars Team is taking every measure possible to ensure that your scene makes it into the movie!"

** This is not as crazy as it sounds.  I can easily imagine 20 hardcore fans chipping in $2500 each for an advanced screening.

Ordinary effects?

So far I've seen two of the big summer comic book movies:  Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, with Guardians of the Galaxy and X-Men: Days of Future Past still to come.  (To be honest, I'll probably skip Guardians of the Galaxy simply because they're not "my" Guardians - when I think of this particular Marvel team, it's the version from the 60s and 70s that was led by Major Vance Astro, who coincidentally ends up wielding Captain America's shield in the team's intergalactic encounters.)

But I digress.  I really enjoyed The Winter Soldier - Chris Evans repeats his perfect performance as Steve Rogers from the first film, and this time they really showcase Captain America's physical prowess and fighting ability, while cleverly dealing with his position as a man displaced from his own time. The script does a great job of showing the slippery slope of surveillance as a tool of freedom, complete with Robert Redford as an advocate of the new world order of pre-emptive strikes and "getting the job done".  Previous knowledge of the Winter Soldier plotline from the comics meant that one of the film's big revelations wasn't much of a surprise for me, and the dénouement isn't as good as Cap's Times Square revival scene from the first movie, but overall I found it to be an entertaining and eminently watchable movie.

After having such a positive reaction to Captain America, I was primed for an equally impressive second film in the Spider-Man series, but to my disappointment, it almost completely failed to capture my interest.  I didn't quite start yawning during the show, but it was a damn near thing.

But why I didn't enjoy Spider-Man more?  There's some good acting:  I'm a fan of Tobey Maguire's portrayal of Peter Parker, but Andrew Garfield's version of the character is starting to grow on me.  Sally Field is quite good, Emma Stone is suitably plucky, and I liked what Dane DeHaan did with the role of Harry Osborn.  There's some very good bits of Spider-Man dialogue that, for the first time in any of the movies, really evoked the wise-cracking webslinger from the comics, and Aunt May gets to show herself as a person rather than a cardboard cutout that says, "Oh, Peter" every few minutes.

Admittedly, there are some unfortunate script problems*, but they shouldn't have been deal-breakers.  Why didn't I care when Gwen Stacy's life was literally dangling by a thread - or more accurately, a web?  Why was I more emotionally invested in the short scene where a ten-year-old in a home-made Spider-Man costume decides to confront the Rhino than I was in the entire climactic scene of the film?  How did that happen?

I think the problem is that the special effects are more special than effective.  An awful lot of the action in Spider-Man 2 looked like the trailer for a really really impressive video game. I KNEW that they were special effects, albeit really good special effects, but still effects, still "fake" rather than real.  When it comes right down to it, I watched a big fight scene between two sets of computer code.  Why would I have an emotional reaction to that?

Intellectually, I know that there must have been a lot of digital effects in The Winter Soldier.  However, the skill with which they're blended with the live action, and the degree to which Chris Evans does his own stunt work, made me believe completely that I was watching Steve Rogers take out a SHIELD gunship with nothing but a tin shield** and his bare hands, or steel himself for a 150 foot fall after fighting an elevator full of HYDRA agents. 

Maybe this explains why Tobey Maguire kept losing his mask in the other Spider-Man 2:  it gave the audience an opportunity to see him as a person rather than a collection of well-rendered and shaded pixels.

- Sid

* I really hate to say this, but I thought that Jamie Foxx's character was right out of Batman Forever in terms of being a sort of over-the-top camp cypher, and the writers had Spider-Man manage to stop two airline flights from colliding at the last minute - which would be impressive if he'd actually known that the clock was ticking.  As it is, it came across as a weird coincidence rather than a win.

** Yes, I know, it's vibranium, but work with me here, I'm trying to make a point.

Old school.

Right now, I'm attempting to set up a date to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  My prospective companion is a geek, but not, I think, a comic book geek - which no longer really matters when attending any of the recent wave of comic book movies. I think that writers and directors have adequately filled the gap in terms of continuity and backstory to the point where anyone can attend one of the films and know who's who and what's what.

This has been accomplished by recapitulating the evolution of the comic book universes created by Marvel and DC, particularly in the case of the Marvel universe.  We've seen the origins of Iron Man and the Hulk; watched Captain America descend into frigid arctic waters, only to be rediscovered decades later; witnessed Thor's arrival on Midgard; and winced not once but twice as both versions of Peter Parker have encountered radioactive spiders.

And that's a bit of a problem for me.  I started reading comic books in the late 1960s, when Marvel Comics was in the early days of developing the complex layers of character, plot, continuity and retro-continuity that form the current Marvel milieu. As a result, I knew perfectly well that Peter Parker would get bitten by an irradiated arachnid - he has to get bitten, that's what happens, I know that. Similarly, the effects of gamma rays on mild-mannered scientists is a given. I'm aware of Tony Stark's problems with alcohol, there's a Donald Blake joke in the first Thor movie that non-fans would miss completely; and it's a little extra funny to me when the Hulk dismisses Loki as a "puny god". 

As a result, when I go to a comic book movie, I have a pretty good idea of how things are going to go. In the case of the new Captain America film, I already know perfectly well who the Winter Soldier is, I'm keeping an eye out for Agent 13, and I find it a bit amusing to compare the original Black Falcon with the current version - who, in these enlightened times, is probably just "The Falcon".

But, don't get me wrong, I'm not really complaining. In fact, that's why I enjoy these movies, I appreciate the manner in which they are faithful to their origins while updating the look and feel from the world of four-colour press, and rewarding the old school types in the audience with in-jokes and references to the original comics.

As an example, I laughed a bit when I saw someone named Batroc in the opening sequence from The Winter Soldier which has been on YouTube™ for some time.  There is no sign as to whether or not he will leap:  if you got that joke without looking it up, then you know exactly what I've been talking about.  If not - well, enjoy the movie!

 - Sid

P.S. Just for the record, the outfit worn by the comic book Falcon in the picture above is not his original costume, but it is the one in which he was able to fly.

"The Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator"

 

I'm pleased to say that my Buck Rogers XZ-38 Disintegrator pistol arrived in the mail today, more or less on schedule.

I somehow had in my head that it was nine inches long, and I was right - well, nine and a quarter, actually. Regardless of the actual size, it's a bit smaller than I had pictured it, but it fits comfortably in my hand, which is a little surprising given that I'm six feet tall and have average-sized hands.  It must have felt like a serious piece of weaponry in the grip of a ten-year-old in 1935.  To my eye, it doesn't look hokey or funny, it's a well-designed device with an Art Deco feel to it.

As I expected from the pictures, there's some corrosion on the tri-thermal convergence unit* at the end of the barrel, and a slightly wide gap on the back of the grip compared to the rest of the body. A couple of the sub-atomic condenser flanges* are a bit dented, and there's some rust inside the bell itself.

If someone told me that the convergence unit had fallen off at some point in the pistol's life and been soldered back on by some sympathetic handyman, I'd believe them:  the join between the end of the beam definer tube* and the unit looks tinned, the same way that copper water pipes look near a join.

The spring mechanism for the energy release lever* is completely missing in action.  The hinge mechanism is still sound, but when I pull on the trigger it doesn't return to position, and I have to tug it back out of the frame. Whatever sort of noise or spark was supposed to be produced is lost to the vagaries of time.

The finish is in acceptable shape, not perfect but what you'd expect under the circumstances, the joins between halves of the body are good, and it actually feels quite solid when I hold it, well balanced and comfortable. The various Pat. Pending documentation and the Buck Rogers Registered Trademark information is sharp and clear on the side of the body.

Overall, I'd have to say that I'm pleased with my unexpected purchase, regardless of its various signs of age.  All it needs is a fresh impulse generator cell*, perhaps an adjustment of the beam collimation coils* in the convergence unit, and it would be ready once again for use against the enemies of Earth.

 - Sid

* All of these except one are the actual names for the parts of the disintegrator as per the original Daisy box - the other one I just made up based on my extensive background in focused energy weapons.

Travel snapshots.

Photocomp by Jason Major

I love that we're now able to get regular photos from Mars. This particular shot is from the Curiousity rover, who took a break en route to Mount Sharp to bang the dust off some sampling tools and take a few pictures.  As with the Opportunity rover, it's difficult to avoid imagining something like Wall-E, repeatedly thwacking its sieve against a rock, scrutinizing it briefly but intensely, then rapidly banging it again before rolling off with a general air of satisfaction at a job well done.

On the other hand, I'm a little surprised that NASA doesn't have a more sophisticated solution to dust buildup on geological sampling devices than "thwacking".

 - Sid

And it's not just because Todd let me keep the quantum sphere.

In the wake of the whole Continuum-time-machine thing, I have to admit that I'm probably going to re-visit the show.  I saw part of a Season Three episode today in which an 18-year-old character comes to the realization that the forty-ish man he's talking to is actually his son, while a future version of the same 18-year-old sneaks out the door behind his own back in order to save the girl he loves from dying in a couple of days.  And as far as I can tell, these are just the subplots - obviously there are some interesting things going on.

 - Sid

Time After Time.

 

After finding the quantum sphere from Continuum at lunch a couple of weeks ago, I dutifully sent the requested location selfie with time machine off to Todd Ireland, the show's Social Media Coordinator, with the following comment:

Obviously the coolest thing I’ve ever found at lunch. 

A long echoing silence followed. Which, to be honest, didn't bother me too much, since I was a little concerned that Mr. Ireland would either ask for his sphere back, or request that I find a new spot for it someplace else in the Greater Vancouver Region.

To my mild surprise, the following e-mail appeared in my In box on Friday:

From: Todd Ireland
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 10:58:14
To:  The Infinite Revolution
Subject: Re: Quantum sphere, as requested.

Wow! I have no idea how I missed this email in my inbox!!!!

I just happened to be going through my emails to see if I missed anything in the last few weeks and found this.

So happy that you found it!

Can you tell us a little bit about how you found it...

Do you watch the show?

May I use your name and photo in our Twitter feed and Facebook page?

Awesome and congrats!

Hold on to that sucker cause it's rare!

Todd Ireland
Script coordinator
Social Media Coordinator
Continuum Season 3

The good news is that Todd doesn't need me to put the quantum sphere back into circulation, which is a huge bonus - it's obviously an incredibly cool thing for a science fiction fan to have.  Thanks very much, Todd!

 - Sid

P.S. The photocomp image at the start just isn't quite making it for me, so, in violation of ongoing policy, there's a good chance I'll change that in the near future - time machine pun not intended.

"Congratulations, it's all yours!"

 Hi sid_plested,

We hope you enjoy your BUCK ROGERS XZ-38 DAISY DISINTEGRATOR RAY GUN 1935 COPPER ORIGINAL. Pay now to get your item as quickly as possible.

eBay.ca

Welp...I just bought a used ray gun on eBay.

(Come to think of it, last week I found a time machine, this week I bought a ray gun:  is ANYONE ELSE'S March going a bit oddly?  Or is it just me?) 

I can't really say I did it by accident.  As per my previous post on Buck Rogers weaponry, the idea of spending over $150 on an antique Buck Rogers disintegrator pistol activates some kind of mental governor that just stops the whole process.  Unfortunately, the eBay seller in question must have read that posting, since the opening bid that they requested on their item was, you guessed it, $149.99.

In my defense, I honestly didn't think that I would be the only bidder.*  In fact, the lack of other interested geeks makes me wonder if I've paid more than I should have (with no offense to the buyer, I refer solely to lack of discriminating knowledge on my part that, based on the photos or description, should have stopped me from placing my bid).

The pictures on the listing look about the same as all the other pictures of 80-year-old Daisy pistols that I've seen on eBay - you can see that the finish is a bit worn, there's some rust on the emitter bell, and a bit of verdigris on the barrel, but again, they all look like this to a greater or lesser extent.  I've actually seen XZ-38s for sale at about the same price that looked like they'd been literally buried in someone's basement since 1935, so this one is not too bad.

However, it's a bit late for second thoughts - I bid on it, I won the auction, it's mine, and, honestly, I will not miss any meals because of the $150 that I spent on an antique toy.  The XZ-38 will be here in about nine days, at which point I'll be able to inspect it to my heart's content.  And then - release Wilma Deering or beware my wrath, evil hordes of Han! 

 - Sid

* I know, this sounds a lot like my defense for purchasing a Major Matt Mason figure.  Obviously I'm a little self-conscious about this sort of thing.

Things To Do With A Time Machine (Other Than Kill Hitler).

"Oh, about sixty C's up the Road I'm an archaeologist.  Every now and then I come back to bury a few things. Then I go forward and dig them up again. I've already written the paper on this batch. Actually, it's a pretty interesting piece on cultural diffusion. I've got some really nice artifacts from Mohenjo-Daro this time around."

Roger Zelazny, Roadmarks

"If I miss a program I just pop back in time and watch it.  I'm hopeless fiddling with all those buttons."
"You have a time machine and you use it for watching television?"
"Well, I wouldn't use it at all if I could get the hang of the video recorder."

Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

"Ten minutes to you, L.M.," Barney said, "but it's been hours for us. The machine is okay, so we're over the first and biggest hurdle. We know now that Professor Hewett's vremeatron works even better than we had hoped.  The way is open to take a company back in time and film an accurate, full-length, wide-screen, realistic, low-budget, high-quality historical."

Harry Harrison, The Technicolor Time Machine

"But you must understand, it's mostly criminals who seek their refuge in time machines."

"I can't blame them...  What's the price of such a thing?"

"How far do you want to go?"

"Well...uh...my intention is to write the history of the Jewish people."

Paul van Herck, Where Were You Last Pluterday?

 - Sid

The Coming of the Martians.

 It is the year 1895.

There is no television, and Auguste and Louis Lumière have only just shown their first moving picture in Paris.   Science fiction does not exist - it does not even have a name. Jules Verne has published his Voyages Extraordinaires, but ultimately they are just that, extraordinary travels, and he bristles at the suggestion that his tales are based on anything but the facts of science.

And yet, a young English writer named Herbert George Wells was able to sit in his study in the town of Woking and create the following astonishing passage about an alien war machine, part of an invasion from Mars:

And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it?  A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulated ropes of steel dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder. A flash, and it came out vividly, heeling over one way with two feet in the air, to vanish and reappear almost instantly as it seemed, with the next flash, a hundred yards nearer. Can you imagine a milking stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground? That was the impression those instant flashes gave. But instead of a milking stool imagine it a great body of machinery on a tripod stand.

Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles (one of which gripped a young pine tree) swinging and rattling about its strange body. It picked its road as it went striding along, and the brazen hood that surmounted it moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion of a head looking about. Behind the main body was a huge mass of white metal like a gigantic fisherman’s basket, and puffs of green smoke squirted out from the joints of the limbs as the monster swept by me. And in an instant it was gone.

The modern reader has a wide range of sources to draw upon in their interpretation of the Martian tripods:  Transformers movies and cartoons, Japanese animation, the various Imperial Walkers from Star Wars, and so on - a plethora of giant machines, metallically marching to battle. The creative leap performed by H.G. Wells in The War of the Worlds is unaided by any of those influences, and is all the more amazing because of that, especially when you consider that his audience could only be reached by comparing the Martian tripod to a milking stool.

 - Sid

A Practical Guide to Changing History With A Time Machine - Or Not.

 Amy: In a world where rhinoceroses are domesticated pets, who win the Second World War?

Sheldon: Uganda.

Amy: Defend.

Sheldon:  Kenya rises to power on the export of rhinoceroses.  A Central African power block is formed, colonizing North Africa and Europe. When war breaks out, no one can afford the luxury of a rhino. Kenya withers, Uganda triumphs.

Amy:  Correct. My turn.

The Zazzy Substitution, The Big Bang Theory.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from my friend Donovan, who is also The Infinite Revolution's Science Correspondent*, congratulating me on my discovery of a time machine and asking the following question:

"What are you going to change first?"

This is a very serious question, and one which requires a lot of forethought before rushing into anything.

I think that you would want to be cautious making big changes to history.  It's all very well and good to decide to go back in time and kill Hitler, but what are the practical aspects of attempting to alter the course of events in such a fashion?

First, what I have here is a time machine, not a space machine**. Whereas Vancouver is a great place to live, not a lot of the pivotal events that have defined our world have taken place here.  So, step one, relocate to central Berlin. Obviously a little research is required here in order to determine the exact location.

Actually, a lot of research is required here. I probably want to kill Hitler before his rise to power - killing Hitler after, say, the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940 might well be too late in the historical process to achieve sufficient change.  In fact, that might be a horrible mistake. For all I know, killing Hitler in 1940 would lead to Germany winning the war in Europe, as Goering or Himmler took the reins of power and decided not to invade Russia. 

So, we'll be going to Germany to kill Hitler when he's...20?  At that point in time, the young Adolf was an unemployed painter living in a homeless shelter in Vienna. No guards, no soldiers, no security, perfect, done.  All I have to do is sneak a functioning time machine through the various airport security and customs inspections, fly to Vienna, find the correct address, and hit the button.

Then, with no grasp of the German language outside of "yes", "no", "hello", and "one big beer, please" ***, I locate Hitler, find a weapon of some sort, and kill him.  And then I press the RETURN button pretty damn fast, because there's a very good chance that any witnesses to my crime will attempt to detain me for the authorities - after all, I've just killed a homeless young artist for no apparent reason. If I don't get away, well, it may be worth the sacrifice of my life in order to end Hitler's, thereby preventing World War II and the Holocaust, and saving millions and millions of lives.

Or at least that's what I hope is going to happen. Science fiction is full of examples of people trying to change one part of history in order to achieve a specific goal and not succeeding:  killing Hitler, giving the Spartans M-16s at the battle of Thermopylae, sinking Christopher Columbus' ships before they return to Europe, and so on. The joke in the opening quotation from The Big Bang Theory is that it would be impossible to predict the effects of such a massive change.

And that's really why I want to get away and return to the present:  to confirm that I've created a better world by my actions. There's a sobering moment in the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Episode where the War Doctor speculates that the complete destruction of his home world and its people may be necessary in order to produce the Doctor that he sees before him, the Doctor who has saved countless other worlds to atone for his actions.  Perhaps our world needed to experience the horrors of World War II to produce a more compassionate and concerned society - but how terrible to think that all of those deaths were somehow a requirement in order to be where we are today! 

Ultimately, this seems far too great a responsibility for a bald 52 year old Canadian science fiction fan.  So, I'm very sorry, Donovan, but I'm going to to stick with the original plan for just jumping back two weeks with the winning Lotto 649 numbers - that, and maybe seeing the Beatles' live performance in Vancouver in 1964.

 - Sid

* By the way, Donovan, it's been a while since we've gotten a science update.  Don't worry about it, I know it's a busy time for you right now.

** Please note that the Doctor's time travel device, the TARDIS, travels through Time And Relative Dimension In Space.  Obviously the BBC put some thought into this fifty years ago.

*** Jawohl, nein, guten tag, and ein gross Bier, bitte.  I have other bits and pieces, but that's the bulk of it. I know that danke is thank you, now that I think about it.

Well, that was a little naïve of me.

No, seriously, when I clicked on the link that said "Anne Hathaway Flash" I honestly thought that Catwoman was going to make a cameo appearance in the new CW series starring DC Comics' scarlet speedster.

 - Sid

P.S.  Or perhaps a ca-meow appearance....okay, I'm sorry, it's been a long week...

Cities of the Dead.

How sad that we have chosen such a fragile thing as stone for our memorials.

And now, a bit of shameless cross-promotion.

My friend Colin (AKA Cloin, the Campbell Brother) and I have started a shared blog called The Cities of the Dead, where we're posting our pictures of cemeteries and tombstones.  It's very much a collection of art photography, not intended to be morbid or gruesome.  If you're interested, you can pay the site a visit at http://cities-of-the-dead.blogspot.ca/

 - Sid