Month: April 2016

Yep.

Friday’s post was my second (hopefully annual) April Fools post. I do need to work on my ideas though, because the best April Fool is the one that you could believe as being absolutely true. It gets its own legs and people run with the seed that’s been planted. This one was the kind of spur of the moment inspiration that comes from random brain cells being hit by cosmic rays. Yep. The weird ones.

The same lovely person has given me an idea for next year’s which will take some activity from me over this one as I make notes to prepare for it. Not saying what it is ! Hmm. Come to think of it, that idea probably has potential to be short story or book material. Especially if I make notes over a whole year.

I did want to explain the various references from Friday … That’s something I’ll do and I will usually be so subtle about the references that no one actually gets them. Oops !

People looking from the sky or hits being registered without a country of origin. I have 2 ways of seeing who is visiting, one is our dear fiend Google and the other is statcounter. Statcounter gives a lot of info, which is why I have the stats hidden behind a password. But statcounter gets it wrong, if I look at this blog from my laptop, statcounter will claim I am 50 miles away in Cheltenham. Google gives very little info and it is aggregated together so it is tough to pull out individual visits.

Sometimes hits come in where Google can’t identify the point of origin. Hence people looking at me from the sky, or cloud. (There’s actually a name reference too there and it’s about the person who sparked the idea for the whole post !)

The orientation centre was a bridge, to start the narrative part of the post. But the simulacrum is an idea from an old film called The Last Starfighter, where an arcade game machine expert was whisked away to fight a war and a pretender left in his place. You could say that The Last Starfighter inspired a lot of the content.

Cybo Homo Arcturan Variant – ah ha ! Death to CHAVs ! In this case Cybernetic Bipeds (Homo as in sapiens or neanderthal) from Arcturus who are strange. Yes. I was kinda struggling to come up with words for the acronym.

I do hope you remember where the quote “Never give up, never surrender!” came from. Same film as Grabthar and his hammer by which you shall be avenged. It’s a work of genius called Galaxy Quest which I definitely have to watch again. It shares a fair bit with the April Fool actually, as it involves people being brought from Earth to fight an alien race’s war.

Federation and replicated food is from … you hopefully guessed it … Star Trek. I wonder what replicated food would taste like, can’t possibly be more than the sum of its parts effectively 3d printed into munchies.

The 1812 buggy robot is from Farscape and is a DRD (Diagnostic Repair Droid). The one in the pic is one renamed 1812 by the central character, John Crichton, due to circumstances between season 3 and 4. It’s a cracking series, it had me from the opening scenes to its shocking conclusion at the end of series 4. Yes. I too shouted at the telly “You can’t end it like that !”. Yep. Shocked. And that doesn’t happen too often with me and telly (ok, BSG season 1 conclusion did it too).

In the opening scenes to Farscape, our human astronaut is brought on board a ship. A living ship. Full of strange alien life forms. Help me. Listen please. Is there anyone out there who can help me ? Oops. Caught in that intro again. It was a great start to every episode. Anyway, when he was brought on board, the aliens were talking in their own languages and speaking forms which we wouldn’t even recognise as language. A DRD jabs Crichton and injects translator microbes, which instantly solves the common scifi trope of “Why does everyone speak in English ?”

Farscape had a lot going for it.

Spaceship and the gif come from the Lego Movie, which was an absolute classic. Hopefully the forthcoming Lego Batman movie (trailered before Batman vs Superman !) will approach its level of classicness. “Everything is awesome if you’re part of a team” comes from the Lego movie too.

Pilot engineer is all me. Although I will admit that the stormtrooper joke comes from a series of films, of which number 7 I am looking forward to watching again the day it comes out on bluray.

When I got to Cogs, I was starting to get a little silly. I wanted a pet to have with us. Robot dogs didn’t really make sense, although Rabbit was a good microcharacter in the original Battlestar Galactica.

Medical technology and the limbs ? Oh – not many will get this one … It’s from a game series called Dead Space, where the key mechanic is that it is easier to kill the bad guys by blowing their limbs off rather than the usual game thing of shooting them many times. It’s a horror game which I have no intention of playing but I did enjoy watching the HeyChrissa streams. The Marker in Dead Space is an alien thing that turns people into strange vicious beasts and an onrunning theme is that the Marker wants us to be whole again. (Yep, you have to play the game to really get that one and I wouldn’t recommend it).

Man machine interface through a direct neural interface – this is something I think would be essential when you get past a certain level of technology. A normal interface panel would not cover the information required and the depth of field in space where your view would need to be many kilometers ahead, not just 100s of metres. And a direct neural interface would speed up control immeasurably and should reduce error from fumbly fingers as well.

Yep. Direct neural interface is the way of the future.

FIF Iceangel – oh that one took a little effort to get a chuckle in at the end. I was pondering finding something for Trixabelle too but that’s an acronym too far.

I was glad to get one tribute in to a dearly missed actor who left us this year, a shame I couldn’t leave more tributes !

Haha always ! Oh – I asked Grabthar, there's room for a druid here :-).

(PS clarification if it's needed, the "homo" above comes from homo sapien/neanderthal, I was struggling for words to make that acronym !)

You crazy Iceangel 🙂

This might be the last post I can write for a while.

Yep. They’ve come to take me away.

That sounds wrong. It’s actually a totally willing departure. You see, I appear to have attracted attention from up there. Yep. Up there, in the sky and beyond.

This means I think I’ve figured out where those hits come from where the country of origin isn’t defined. Because there is no country of origin ! They told me that they’ve been reading what I’ve written about space, about piloting, about engineering and they think I have potential. Perhaps they are harvesting others too ?

Actually I wouldn’t call it harvesting. I’m currently in the orientation centre (they’re letting me compose this message as a preparation for what I’ll write later) where they are preparing my simulacrum. That’s a lifesize replica which will be left behind in my place here. There will be an instantaneous link (don’t ask me about the science … yet ! It’s one of the things I fully intend to learn) that means I will be able to talk to people on Earth through a kind of telepresence. So if you talk to me and I seem a little distant, my simulacrum is looking for instructions from me, the one and only original.

How come this is happening now ? Apparently there is trouble coming and they need a few of us humble Earthlings to help keep this trouble at bay. We have a certain … inspiration ? that will help in their war against the coming threat. They won’t tell us what this threat is yet. Come on ! We’re not scared ! (Perhaps that’s the real reason why they want us on board). They have mentioned the phrase “Cybo-Homo Arcturan Variant” and that these unruly creatures are a threat to all.

I do keep hearing another phrase over and over : “Never give up, never surrender” and the main person we’ve been liasing with is Grabthar, Hammer of Rigel. That’s a great phrase.

They aren’t sending us off to the front just yet. We need orientation. To learn what we’re getting into. To get us up to speed with the technology. The ways and means of doing things in the Federation. The food ! It’s replicated out of pattern. They say it’s all the healthy components that make up the diet we need but it doesn’t taste healthy. It tastes glorious and in my experience, if it’s healthy it’s supposed to be yuk.

How can we understand people ?

We got jabbed by these little guys shortly after being beamed up and not long after that, we could understand our alien colleagues. It’s going to be strange getting used to the variety of races up here.

This all sounds like I’ve been abducted doesn’t it ? Kinda yeah.

This was all my own choice, although it will hurt to leave a certain few very special people behind. Maybe in the second wave they can come too ? That would be awesome. It would expand the team. Honestly, I just heard the word “SPACESHIP!” and I was gone.

After all, everything is awesome if you’re part of a team.

Being brought on board for two things I love dearly was just a bonus. That’d be the engineering that makes these things go and the chance to be pilot. That’s what they saw from keeping an eye on me. Someone who would be able to understand the machines, to keep them going, to be that balanced person with a viewpoint that picks people up when they’re struggling. To have second specialisations as pilot and trained observer. That’s really useful when things get dangerous. Have a crew end up stranded on a planetoid because your one pilot had a mischief happen ? Tragedy. Oh, I was evaluated for a more martial role supporting their stormtrooper corps but they thought I was a little short.

They also want me looking after what they affectionately refer to as Cogs. You wouldn’t believe it but these adorable bits of fur are a mix of cat and dog, genetically engineered from specimens taken from our world over a hundred years ago. They combine the loyalty of our cats and dogs, the vigilance of dogs, the cleverness of cats and have the canine and feline parts of their nature acting together in harmony unknown on this planet. Miracles.

I think they added some rabbit too for the improved hearing.

They have massive advances in medical technology too. They can replace my dodgy hip and shoulder with totally organic replacements. That means the replacements are as good as new and work with your body so as to become a part of it. The veterans who spoke with us about it referred to the process as becoming “Whole Again” as the new part is grown from a genetic Marker and reintroduced to replace useless or missing limbs. Magic.

The engineering is something else too ! There are backup panels to control the machines but the main method is through mind power. Through direct neural interface. I had a little try (need training to manage the sensory input load) and as a pilot, it’s like you become the ship. Your eyes are the sensors, in all spectra. Your arms and feet are the thrusters. Your circulatory system becomes the power, air, fluids that keep the ship going.

Yet the technology is a mix of organic and mechanical. Cyborg if you will. That’s so that the systems can repair themselves and survive without power when necessary. Organic is supplemented by the machine, the machine is repaired by the organic.

What’s that ! I hear sirens as the FIF Iceangel (Federation Induction Frigate or FIFI as the crew call her) is being called to alert and Grabthar is waving urgently. Gotta go !

See you around the galaxy!