Private Mars Rocket II

I am continuing my ongoing (semi-) rewatch of Star Trek: The Original Series. This post will cover season 2, episodes 6 to 9.

Technical: I think the remastered version uses the same shuttle bay footage that the CGI-ed for "Galileo Seven" in season 1.

Story: This batch is wildly uneven! Episode 6, "The Doomsday Machine" is truly a masterpiece and holds up well today. Then the following episode, "Catspaw" which aired a mere 7 days later is truly shitty. (They tried to make a Halloween-themed Star Trek which originally aired on October 27. They failed.)

The next two episodes, "I, Mudd" and "Metamorphosis" are both breathtakingly sexist to a modern viewer. As a story, "I, Mudd" works, largely because Harcourt Fenton "Harry" Mudd is written as a sexist scoundrel, even by the standards of the time. "Metamorphosis" kind of doesn't. For those not remembering, this is the episode where we meet Zefram Cochrane. It's also where the sole female character, Assistant Commissioner Nancy Hedford, goes gaga over ole' Zef and his alien flying jellyfish.

Fandom frequently mourns the early cancellation of The Original Series. I think we forget sometimes how uneven the various episodes were.

Apologies for the long radio silence at Casa Gerrib Norte. I was heavily involved in running Capricon and then other Life happened. But relax - your silent suffering is at an end.

Comes news today that the FAA shut down the airspace over El Paso, Texas for 10 days on very short notice. Then, after a widespread round of WTF, they re-opened it. Well, the problem resulted from a spat between the FAA and DOD over using high-powered lasers to shoot down drug cartel drones. Apparently the DOD has been using these at Fort Bliss over FAA objections. Also at least one use of the laser was to shoot down errant party balloons. I have thoughts.

1) Dealing with low-and-slow drones over any urban area is tough. There's a lot of stuff flying around.

2) Especially in peacetime, you really should know what you're shooting at before firing.

3) The drone problem will require multiple solutions, to include sending up your own drones to eyeball a target before hitting it with your Mega Death Ray.

4) The (lack of) planning this incident exhibited is reason #3741 why you need competent people in government. Alas, in the current Administration, competency is actively discouraged.

Some time ago, I learned that the famous trench scene in the original Star Wars was based on the movie The Dam Busters. In fact, Lucas hired the special effects guy from this movie to be his director of photography for Star Wars. I was finally able to find a streaming version on Amazon, so I watched it last night.

First, the 1955 movie, filmed in black-and-white, is a docudrama about Operation Chastise, a 1943 raid conducted by 617 Squadron of the RAF's Bomber Command. The operation breached two dams in the Ruhr river valley, causing flooding and significant damage to German industrial production. Per Wikipedia, the movie is a reasonably accurate account of the raid.

Onto the movie itself. It's a very British thing, all stiff upper lips and let's have some tea. Richard Todd, a combat veteran who had parachuted into Normandy on D-Day, played the squadron commander and Michael Redgrave (of that family) played the scientist Barnes Wallis. The RAF fully cooperated in the filming, even resurrecting some Lancaster bombers which were actually in the air during all the flying scenes.

Other special effects, such as the flak (animation) and the dams (clearly models) were of their time. Also of it's time was that Gibson, the RAF squadron leader, had a black Labrador who he named a racial slur. In fact, there was a modern disclaimer before the opening of the movie.

What I found interesting is frankly how much of the final act - the attack itself - made it into Star Wars. I also noted that there was no redshirting here - the loss of life was addressed very directly. Overall, highly recommended.

99% percent of the stuff I want to say about the ICE murder of Alex Petti is exactly the same as what I said about the Renee Good murder. The only thing I want to add is that I've been a member of the NRA for decades, and I remember all the way back to the Clinton Administration them warning me about "jackbooted thugs from the Government." Now that we have said thugs, the silence from the NRA is deafening.

For my records, a couple of links to other's thoughts:

A) Harsh but accurate: "Harder, daddy, tread on me".

B) ICE is untrained and unprepared, part whatever: Two women, detained by ICE, say they helped agent having seizure.

C) Man ICE sought in humiliating arrest of US citizen has been in prison since 2024

Herewith is my schedule for Capricon 46 to be held February 5-8 at the Marriott Chicago O’Hare.

When Does a Trope Stop Being Speculation?
Chicago A • Writing • Panel • Fri 10:00 AM–11:00 AM
There's a flying car in your story. Is it there because it has the flavor of SF or because it can lead to cool chase scenes? Or are you interested in the ramifications of cars in flight? Who will have flying cars? How will they be regulated? How will the change social norms? Will they be built so aerial drag races are impossible? When do you want to riff on a trope? When do you want to use a trope to explore society?

Roundtable: Give Me More Pirates
Wacker • Media • Discussion Group • Fri 11:30 AM–12:30 PM
Pirates of the sea, the sky, of space... what are your favorite stories with pirates? And what makes those particular rogues your favorites?

Queer Tragedies Vs. Burying Your Gays
Wabash • Media • Panel • Sat 1:00 PM–2:00 PM
Exactly what it sounds like - sometimes queer characters dying is written like a tragedy, and sometimes it's written like a chore. Let's talk about the difference as writers and as an audience! And about some of the stories that get it right.

Reading: Gerrib, Herkes, O'Connor & Tan
Monroe • Reading • Reading • Sat 2:30 PM–3:30 PM
Chris Gerrib, Karen Herkes, Patrick O'Connor, and Cecilia Tan read from their work!

Chicago-SF Book Club
Wacker • Literature • Discussion Group • Sat 4:00 PM–5:00 PM
Join with Chicago-SF for a discussion of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818). All are welcome!

Frankenstein on Film
Salon 10 • Media • Panel • Sat 5:30 PM–6:30 PM
Have you seen the new version of Frankenstein? What about the 1931 version, Young Frankenstein, Rocky Horror, Frankenhooker, Lawnmower Man, Reanimator, Frankenweenie and others? The Chicago SF Book Club is discussing the book; let's discuss all the films and watch the remade human rise!

Wizard Pirate Vampire Captain
Chicago B • Fan Interest • Panel • Sun 1:00 PM–2:00 PM
In real life, we wear many hats. We're teachers, parents, chefs, spies, and sometimes mountaineers. Fictional characters are no different! Farmers become warriors. Space captains moonlight as concert pianists. How do these roles interact with each other? What would be some truly spectacular combinations? And what do they add to the story? Our panelists explore some of the exciting ways fictional characters wear many hats.

As promised yesterday, thoughts on immigration.

First, most people seem to think that becoming a US citizen or permanent resident is only marginally harder than getting a driver’s license. This is wrong. Legal residency is difficult, expensive and time-consuming.

Second, here’s some economic reality. There are a number of jobs in America (busboy, drywall taper, landscape crew member) that involve hard work for low pay. We have two choices:

1) Make it easier for non-US citizens to do that work legally. This does not necessarily mean citizenship. Especially for those with seasonal jobs, they’d gladly go back to their home country if they could while still getting back in the US next season.

2) Increase the wages we pay for these immigrant jobs. We need to recognize that the cost for this will literally come out of everybody’s wallet. Food and housing costs will go up.

I vote for Option 1 above. Making it easier to get work visas and allowing people an easier path to citizenship would be beneficial to everybody.

In lieu of commenting on the shit-storm that is Current Events, here's a continuation of my ongoing (semi-) rewatch of Star Trek: The Original Series. I've completed Season 1 and this post will cover stories from episode 19 ("Tomorrow is Yesterday") to the season-ending "Operation - Annihilate!"

Technical: Star Trek caves have suspiciously smooth floors and are well-lighted. To be fair, this is a 60s-TV thing. I remember my dad noting the same thing about the Bat-Cave. With the remastered video, you can see when they swap in the stunt doubles for the main actors in the fight scenes. I noted that they got Shatner a more durable shirt which seems to stay on more!

Story: Generally the stories hold up well. The only full-on dud in this run was "The Alternative Factor" which is the first alternate universe story. It was frankly incomprehensible.

Star Trek invented the concept of red-shirting, which is killing off an unnamed character and completely forgetting he existed by the end of the episode. We see that starting in "Devil in the Dark" (the Horta we meet in those flat-floored caves) - Kirk loses a man, he mourns for two beats, then we're off again. By the end of the episode the mining chief (who's lost 50+ people) is amused by the antics of the young Hortas.

Star Trek also follows a trick as old as Shakespeare - instant love. In "Space Seed" (Ricardo Montalbán, a Mexican playing a Sikh), we have Lt. Marla McGivers going immediately ga-ga and then helping Khan take over the ship. Of course, it ends with Kirk giving these dangerous budding Napoleons their own planet. (We know how well that turned out!)

Lastly, we remember Kirk as a horn-dog with a girl on every planet. I'm not seeing that so far in the series. We'll see what Seasons 2 and 3 may bring.

I'm fat, have a sedentary job, and hate hard sales pitches. This is my story.

As reported above, I'm fat and unless I take active steps I will get fatter. To avoid becoming sedentary enough to grow moss, I have a gym membership. To encourage me to actually go to the gym, I have a personal trainer. I've been going to the same gym since 2018, however due to recent staff changes they can't provide a trainer for when I'm available. So I decided to go shopping.

One of the gyms I visited was the local outpost of a national chain. (It's named after a famous city.) Their parking lot (at 4:00 pm on a Monday) was full, and I noticed, immediately on walking in, they had two rows of desks behind the reception counter. Here comes the hard sell, I thought, and I almost walked right out. I decided to stay.

Well, I got a tour of their nice but crowded facility, then got interrogated by the sales guy. His "head of personal training" took me in for a couple of quick physical tests (stand on one foot, etc.) then I finally got the pricing. It was confusing and it wasn't until I got home and used my calculator that I found all of the membership options were the same dollars, just paid in different increments. They also wanted to sell me personal training sessions in buckets at above the going rate.

There's another gym, closer to my house, which is smaller, less crowded, and has comparable rates. I think I'm going there instead.

Lesbians In Space: The Sapphics Strike Back by J S Fields

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Full disclosure - I am a Kickstarter backer of this and the previous Lesbians in Space anthology.

I rang in the New Year by reading this book. Like most anthologies, there were a few stories that were not to my taste. However, the hits were numerous and the misses few. A couple of standout stories were:

"Try Again Mommy Bex" - this was a mashup of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Resident Evil." I quite liked the twists of this story.

"Waystation" - a nice meet-cute mystery.

"Leader of the Pack" - an alt-history space adventure.

"The Last Voyage of the Headfucker" - a bit raw (as if the title didn't give you that information) but very well done nonetheless.

I highly recommend this anthology!



View all my reviews

So apparently last week's "seriously considering" building battleships for the US Navy morphed into yesterday's full-fledged announcement of the Trump-class battleship, complete with pretty paintings (important for Trump) and some actual technical details (see previous link). Also somewhat lost in the hoopla is that the US Navy is cancelling the way over-budget and way late Constellation class frigate. To replace it, we will essentially buy US Coast Guard cutters and paint them gray. Said "frigates" will not have VLS systems, and so will lack significant anti-air capacity. I have thoughts.

Battleship Dreams

1) Trump's battleships, or a version thereof, have been proposed and discussed for decades. Most of the proposals have been called "arsenal ships" and were basically exercises in "how many VLS missile cells can I cram on a ship and have it still float." The current proposal does have the advantage of more balanced weapons loadout. The only truly experimental weapon is an electromagnetic rail gun, of which the Japanese have recently fired from a ship.

2) The ship is conventionally-powered, which means it will suck a lot of fuel. The US Navy's tanker fleet is stretched now - will we spend the money to build (unglamorous) tankers?

3) The question of where to build such a behemoth (30,000 tons = WWI dreadnought) has been answered - a Korean-owned shipyard in Philadelphia which doesn't seem to have a lot of orders on the books.

4) Three big questions are unanswered, namely a) do we need such a behemoth, b) will Congress fund it? c) One ship, no matter how good, can only be in one place at any given time. Can and will we build enough?

Frigate Reality

1) Cancelling the Constellation is at this point a no-brainer. The original idea, which was "build a European frigate with US radars" has sailed a long time ago.

2) The proposed FF(X) has the same (lack of) firepower as the much-derided (and rightfully so) LCS. What se seem to be getting, at least with Block 1, is something that's much more mechanically-reliable. I will note that Ingalls, the current builder, did originally propose a version of this ship with a small VLS array. One hopes that Block 2 can regain that capability.

3) The FF(X) is supposed to get the same modular weapons systems as the LCS. This makes me nervous, although given that the modules will merely be set on an open back deck it should be easier to actually, you know, provide the modules.

I am no fan of Trump, however I have to say at least these two proposals are worthy of serious consideration.