Tag: space

Anthology Sample!

Gliese 581 g, a real exoplanet where our story takes place

Hey all. As you may recall, me and my people over at Writer’s Worth have begun working on a new anthology. The concept is space travel and colonization, a phenomena which will most likely be taking place in this and the next century. After a lot of brainstorming and hard research, we have even been producing some first drafts.

The first is being written by Khaalidah Muhammed-Ali, the working mother and writer who I’ve mentioned a few times on this site. In her hands is the first story of the anthology, dealing with the families who are selected to take part in the off-world experiment. The second comes from Goran Zidar, another favorite here on my site, who is covering the topic of the terraformers who venture on ahead in order to prepare the planet for settlement.

And then there’s William J. Joel, another Writer’s Worth peer, who has volunteered to cover the daunting tale of the generational ships that will deliver the colonists to their new home. Already he has advanced some ideas which are complex and inspired, and personally I can’t wait to see some drafts. Between these three authors and a fourth installment dealing with exobiology, the first part of the novel is well underway!

And last, but hopefully not least, is my own contribution. As the opening chapter in Part II, it deals with the efforts of the colonists to create a planetary government. The story is told from the point of view of a synthetic named Winston, an AI who has been assigned to work with the planetary council. Programmed with an experimental social science known as “Ethical Calculus”, he will soon learn that working with humans is not nearly as difficult as getting them to work together!

Here is an excerpt from the story which I have tentatively named “Winston Agonistes”:

The sun was beginning to set, casting the sky into a deep orange. It was the time that the first settlers had called “the magic hour”, the many warm hours between dusk and dark. Winston stood at the dome wall and watched. On occasion, he cast a passing glance at his hands, which the glowing sun seemed to casting in the color of a light citrus fruit. He was sure he would find that amusing, if he could. He was sure there was much about this situation that would inspire an emotional reaction.

Alas, such was not the case. Though understandable to him, such things still remained inaccessible. Perhaps someday, with adequate upgrades in the available software…

“Mr. Winston?” a voice called to him from the doorway. The footsteps and tone of voice immediately indicated who it was. He put on a smile and turned to face him.

“Councilman Mutlu. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Winston,” he replied, entering the room. He looked around appraisingly, noting the furniture and layout. No doubt it all seemed excessive to him, but at the same time necessary. “I trust you are adjusting to your new surroundings?”

“Of course, Mr. Mutlu. I am settling in quite nicely.”

“Good, good,” he said, looking around awkwardly. Even without the ability to empathize, he could gauge the man’s discomfort. Then again, many people exhibited this reaction when in the company of a synthetic. In such circumstances, it was always best to focus on matters of a professional nature. At least that was what his subroutines told him.

“Would you care to sit down? I can offer you some refreshment as well if you so desire. Tea? Coffee?”

“Ah, tea, thank you.”

He busied himself with a tray of carafes and a heater as Mutlu took one of the chairs in front of his desk. He noted the sounds of shifting against the seat’s fabric, the way he kept moving his hands from one spot to the next. By the time the water had boiled in the heater and had located an appropriate tea from the stores, Mutlu seemed to have found a comfortable seated position. He approached him with all the assorted items on the tray that had been provided. He set it down between them on his desk and offered Mutlu a cup.

“The business of running a colony is quite stressful work, is it not Councilman?”

“Uh, yes, yes it is,” he said, taking the cup that was offered. “Have you had a chance to look over the proposals we have sent over.”

“I have indeed,” he said, taking the other cup and sitting back in his own chair. He knew this to be mere small talk, as the matter of processing those proposals had been a mere matter of dispensation. Assessing the nature of the problem, suggested measures, and weighing them according to the rubrics of his primary programming. Under the circumstances, asking such a question was completely inane, but in keeping with social norms.

“And what have you found?”

He took a sip from his cup before answering. “Quite simply, that the Council’s draft is in keeping with the best traditions of constitutionalism and humanism. That ensuring the rights of all citizens, regardless of their background prior to making the journey, is the most sensible course of approach. Ensuring that such a baseline exists at such an early stage is the wisest approach in both fostering amnesty between colonies while at the same guaranteeing that they submit to further negotiation.”

Mutlu looked down at his cup, back up again to his eyes. He seemed preoccupied with him performing this most basic function in front of him, but did not appear oblivious to his words. Eventually, he took another sip and smiled.

“Good. My colleagues will be most pleased to hear  that.”

He smiled in return. “Does the Council hold my endorsement in such high regard?”

Joviality. The gesture known as playful irony. Suggesting that the Councilor saw his approval as something very high indeed, a testament to his computational abilities. A gentle mockery of his obvious discomfort, meant to trigger a humorous response.

“Well yes…” he said, entirely serious. “I can only assume that you’ve subjected our hopes to proceed with a formal constitution to your… what did you call it again?”

“Ethical Calculus, sir.”

“Right!” Mutlu set his cup down and began to speak more freely. His hands began to provide gestures that accorded visual representation to his words. “After all, we’ve been subjected to a great deal of criticism from within and without, many people think we should be ironing out the basic agreements between colonies before we commit to any kind of draft that could commit us to policies down the road. I must say I find all those arguments…”

“Distasteful?” Winston suggested.  Mutlu nodded.

“Quite right… it seems a shameful thing that such cynicism has set into the process already. It’s almost as if they don’t think the colonists can…”

“Trust each other?”

Mutlu nodded again. He noticed a growing shimmer in the man’s eye. How quickly he was forgetting that the man sitting across from him was not a man at all.

“Exactly the point. And it’s not like we’re talking about disparate factions here. Everyone on this world came here with the same goal in mind. The same hope for a new beginning.”

“And yet, old habits die hard.”

Mutlu looked at him with surprise. “Are you saying you have doubts, then?”

Winston smiled as broadly as the muscle fibers in his face would permit.

“Purely an observation. Nevertheless, you and the Council are on the right track. You should take heart in that.”

“Excellent.” Mutlu retrieved his cup and began to look at curiously at Winston again. One more, it seemed that the knowledge of what he was dealing with was creeping back into his mind. But at least he seemed at ease. One by one, the Council seemed to be adjusting to the idea of having synthetics amongst them, entrusting their most precious decision making to them even. It was a significant step up from the laborious practices that the other models were forced to endure.

And that’s the story thus far. Stay tuned for more on the progress of this and other Writer’s Worth Anthologies. Speaking of which, Grim5Next, the dystopian anthology which began months ago, is coming along and getting into its third and final part. Progress!

Once in a lifetime view of Venus

There are stellar events which take place once in a lifetime. The arrival of Haley’s Comet, the alignment of three or more planets, and as of yesterday, the passage of Venus across the face of the Sun. According to astronomers, this event will not happen for another 105 years. So for those of us who lucky enough to see it, this really is a once in a lifetime event

News of this has junior astronomers scrambling to get a glimpse, and the web is already buzzing from the first photos to be uploaded. The one featured at top comes from the orbiting satellite known as the Solar Dynamics Observatory, courtesy of NASA, and is the first views of Venus passing in front of the Sun’s Corona. The second, featured below, is from the same satellite and is a close up of the planet as it begins to move across the face of the sun.

But by far the most impressive images come from NASA live’s feed which captured Venus’ early passage from the depths of space into the Sun’s corona. Captured with a AIA 171 wavelength channel (that’s 171 angstrom, extreme ultraviolet) one thing which really stands out are the coronal loops. These are the extended arcs which reach up from the surface of the Sun, where plasma moves along magnetic field lines. The brightest visible spots are the locations where the magnetic field s exceptionally strong near the surface.

This second video comes from NASA’s ESA SOHO spacecraft, which tracked the planets approach before SDO took over and began tracking it across the Sun. Images and feeds are still coming in and can be expected to do for some time. For those people in Hawaii, Alaska and South Korea, the view of the passage is expected to be ideal since it will coincide with their daylight hours. Those of us on this side of the world will just have to be content with what we can catch! I recommend everyone get out back with some protective eyewear – don’t stare directly into the Sun! – and see what they can see. Once in a lifetime people!

… and Aliens

Hello, and welcome back to talk about all things Alien! As I talked about, at length, in my last post, Alien is a sci-fi classic that was both novel and original, not to mention faithful in it’s execution. Then, years later, the studio that brought us the original came back, this time with a bigger budget and a new director, a man who would make his name directing big-budget action flicks and blockbusters. I am of course referring to James Cameron. And with the added s in the title, we were given a preview of what was to come. Maybe not specifics, but anyone looking at the titles could probably tell that in the second, the ante was being upped! And it certainly was. In this movie, as was hoped, we got a dose of action, plenty of awesome sets and characters, and of course, some much needed explanations about the alien species.

(Background—>)
According to many sources, Cameron was the one who approached 20th Century Fox and producer David Giller and asked if he could direct a sequel to the movie. In addition, it was while working on The Terminator that he hammered out the initial script to the movie, and impressed the studio to the point that they willing to foot the bill. Choosing not to follow the lead of the first, he decided that the sequel would be a combat action film that focused “more on terror, less on horror”. In other words, this movie would have more shooting, more explosions, all the fear and suspense, but less gore. And of course, it would also have to illustrate the relationship between the two alien species, the spidery-parasite on the one hand and the hunter-seeker on the other! Strong hints were dropped in the first movie as to how these creatures bred and propagated. Remember the fields of eggs? Yeah, well… something was going to have to be done about that, and I think we all knew that it wouldn’t be pretty. It might be fair to say that the original trailer said it best: “Aliens. This time… it’s war!”

(Content—>)
Picking up where the first left off, the movie opens with Ripley’s ship coming back to Earth after being adrift for over fifty years. The opening sequence, where not a line of dialogue is spoken for several minutes, sets the tone of the movie quite well. Its eery, cold, and kind of suspenseful. There’s also the opening nightmare sequence to remind everyone of what happened last time, and illustrates how Ripley is haunted by the memory of it. Anyway, once she’s up and around, she learns that much has changed since her departure. The big, bad folks at Weyland-Yutani – the ones who screwed her over before, remember? – are still in charge. And now that she’s awake, they’re looking for answers! For example, why did she blow up their multimillion dollar ship, what happened to her crew, and whats all this business about an alien? As their is no physical evidence to corroborate her story, and no recorded instance of this alien being encountered anywhere else, they aren’t inclined to believe her. But in the midst of this strained testimony, she tries to warn them, especially since the derelict ship her crew encountered was full of eggs and the planet they set down has now been colonized! If just one of those things gets loose, she warns, it’ll make what happened to her crew look like a Sunday picnic!

But of course, they don’t listen, she is blackballed and spends the next little while languishing as she tries to find a new job and continues to have nightmares of her encounter. But then, wouldn’t you know it, the company comes calling! Enter their douchey, but seemingly nice corporate laison officer, named Burke (played by Paul Reiser), and the prickish Colonial Marine, Lt. Goreman. Contact with the colony has been lost, and wouldn’t you know it, the company higher-ups think it might have something to do with that alien ship she mentioned. And since she had first-hand experience dealing with the things, the company has decided to let her ride shotgun and offered to reinstate her. She initially refuses, but after another sleepless night of nightmares, she begins to think Burke might be right, that she should go back and face her demon. She agrees, but only on the condition that they are going back to kill it, not capture it for research. The cat, however, is staying behind (no really, what was the purpose of that cat?)

Cut to the Marine vessel establishing orbit around the planet. Ripley and her Marine cohorts are waking up, as is the douchey Burke, and Bishop, the ship’s android (played by Lance Henriksen). After discovering he’s an android, Ripley flips out just a little, since the last time she had a run in with an “artificial human”, it tried to kill her. She then attends the Marine briefing and gives them the low down on everything she knows, but the salty Marines don’t seem too shaken, especially the bad-ass Latina named Vazquez (Jenette Goldstein). Now already this movie has dropped a few hints as to whats to come. We’re pretty sure Burke is going to screw her over, that the aliens are likely to kick their asses, that Hudson (Bill Paxton) is going to be a whiny little bitch, and that Bishop is going to save her (or something) and gain her trust. Yes, unlike Scott, Cameron was a bit conventional. But the funny thing is, back then (as opposed to with Titanic and everything after) it worked for him. He knew how to appeal to an audience without going for the cheap payout. And besides, the movie’s given us plenty to be excited about up until this point, and even a few really kick-ass lines. “Is this going to be a standup fight, sir, or another bug hunt?” “I only wanna know one thing. Where-they-are!” “We’re on an express elevator to hell; going down!” Cue drop sequence!

The scenes that follow are infinitely re-watchable. The Marines drop into the colony, take to the main building and begin sweeping it from room to room. They find no one, but there are obvious signs of a fight. The tension is palatable as they stalk the corridors with their cool weapons and kit, their motion detectors making that eerie beeping noise. Everyone’s literally on the edge of their seat waiting to see what jumps out at them. However, what they find instead is a survivor – a little girl no less – named Newt (Carrie Henn). Apparently, she’s the only one who made it through the alien onslaught, and when she gets to talking, she’s got some cryptic words for them. “These people are here to protect you. They’re soldiers,” says Ripley. “It won’t make any difference,” replies the freaked out Newt. Then, by the one hour mark, we get our first combat scene! After finding the colonists by homing in on their beacons, the Marines go to their location in the neighboring atmospheric generator (Apparently, everybody in the company has these things implanted in them. A bit Big Brothery, you might say, but they sure are handy in the event of an alien abduction!)

As for the action sequence itself, I can honestly that it – and everything leading up to it – is timelessly awesome, made especially so by a number of factors. For one, it takes advantage of all the tension the movie has built up until this point. Second, the scene when the Marines catch a first glimpse of the remodeling the aliens have done. Wow! I mean, the way it was shot, how we see it from the point of view of Ripley and the others who are watching via remote camera, and then from up close, the scary music cutting in for the first time! Not to mention the dialogue that manages to punctuate the moment perfectly. “What is that?” asks the Lt. “You tell me man, I just work here!” says Hudson. Then we get an up close look at the nightmarish, twisted decorations they’ve lined the walls with. Holy Lovecraft, Batman! And last, but not least, there’s the added worry when they realize that they cannot fire their heavy weapons inside the place because they are right beneath the buildings thermonuclear reactor. If they fire, they risk rupturing the cooling tanks, yadda yadda yadda, big explosion! You might think this is a bit contrived, but whatever man, it works! Put it all together, and you got one scary, nerve-wracking scene. And I don’t think there was anyone who didn’t jump out of their seats when that woman hanging from the wall suddenly opened her eyes!

Okay, so then comes the intense fight scene where most of the Marines get killed, they pull back and Ripley finds herself saving the day. After returning to their base to discuss options, they decide to lift off and nuke the facility from orbit. Here we get two previews of whats to come, the first being that Ripley will slay her demons and kiss some ass, and that Burke will betray them. It seems obvious at this point that he wants to bring some of these creatures back, considering the way he’s changed his tune. At the beginning he was giving his word they’d wiped out, now he’s saying that no one has the right to arbitrarily exterminate them. Yeah, way to feign humanitarian concern, asshole! “Watch us,” is about all the Marines have to say in response. But of course, the plan fails when the dropship crashes and goes down in a fiery ball. Seems the little buggers found it while the Marines were out getting their butts kicked and got on board. With their dust-off ship destroyed – cue Hudson’s whiney one-liner (“Game over man!”) – they have no choice but to go to ground and wait for a rescue. And as Newt points out, they better do it soon, because as we see on the far horizon, the sun is setting. And as she says: “They mostly come at night. Mostly…” Woooooo! And so they seal themselves in to their HQ, cover the approaches with remote guns, and wait…

I should make a quick mention of the additional scene that’s included in the Director’s Cut. When I saw the movie on TV as a child, the scene with the remote guns and the aliens trying to find their way in was included. But on video, it was nowhere to be found. Luckily, this scene made it into the Director’s Cut, and its definitely worth while. However, if you’re not watching the DC, this scene doesn’t happen and instead we’ve got the scenes of Ripley, Bishop, Newt and Burke held up in the main building and fortifying their position. Though I prefer the version where the added action sequence made it in, I should say that the movie is still well paced without it, mixing expository dialogue with a lot of strung out talk about how they are going to survive for the night. You can feel the anxiety and desperation, but also the resolve, Ripley having come into her own at this point, her frostiness and fear turned to gridiron, ass-kicking determination. It also becomes pretty clear that she’s formed an attachment to Newt and doesn’t want anything to happen to her. In the DC, there’s a scene that helps explain this at the beginning, how she had a daughter who died while she was adrift in space. Call it transference, but it works! Her attachment, like her resolve, seems downright genuine.

Speaking of exposition, we then get to the part where Burke’s betrayal manifests. Basically, he attempts to infect Ripley and Newt while they are sleeping by letting two of the parasite specimens loose in their room. We already know Burke is a liar and a cheat, thanks not only to his “we don’t want to wipe these creatures out scene”, but also because prior to this, Bishop admits that Burke ordered him to pack some specimens up for transport (seems the colonists took some of the spider’s intact, one that was still alive even). After looking into this, Ripley discovers that Burke was the one who gave the order to send the colonists out to investigate the derelict alien craft. Again, there’s a scene in the DC showing this early on in the movie. But in the original, it is established through dialogue alone (I think I prefer the latter in this case. Sometimes, less is more, even though it means you don’t get to see the alien ship in the second movie). So basically, we are told that Burke is responsible for the situation in the colony. He then tries to buy Ripley’s silence by promising her a share of the money he’s going to make by bringing them back alive, but she tells him to sit on it and rotate! The betrayal seems inevitable at this point, but alas, it fails as both Ripley’s quick thinking and the timely intervention of the Marines sends the parasites to hell! Afterwards, they are deciding what to with Burke, when wham! Darkness! The creatures are coming, and they cut the power…

Bring on action sequence number two! The aliens have managed to bypass their defenses this time and are coming straight for the HQ! Get to the chopper! Hehe, always wanted to say that. So they’ve managed to get a dropship to come down on remote at this point, thanks to Bishop, but in the course of the action, Newt is taken alive! Ripley and Hudson are the only others to survive the attack, the other Marines having died selflessly and Burke dying like the pig he is! Unfortunately, Hudson was seriously burned in the last encounter, leaving Ripley alone to do what she’s gotta do! Namely, go rescue Newt. Strapping into a shitload of artillery, a moment has that lived on in cinematic history as pure gold, Ripley heads straight into the den of the beast. Finding her just in time before a parasite could infect her, we get to the movie’s climax. While holding Newt in her arms, one gun aimed forward, Ripley comes face to face with a field of eggs… She then looks up, and sees the Queen. Her existence is already hinted at during an earlier expository scene, the one that precedes Ripley confronting Burke. But now, we see her up close for the first time! What a perfect metaphor huh? One mother confronting another, the one rescuing her young, the other standing guard over her eggs. The latter is even willing to let Ripley live in order to keep her from blasting them, but wouldn’t you know it, Ripley does it anyway! Screw you, aliens! After blasting the whole field with her flamethrower, she fires several grenades and then hightails it out. And the mother alien, wounded but pissed, breaks free and follows her. It also seems this mother is a lot smarter than her children, for she manages to work the same elevator Ripley used to escape and follow her to the roof. Cornered, Ripley grabs hold of Newt and prepares to die at the Queen’s hands, but she narrowly gets out when Bishop comes to their rescue! Thus we see the android confounding her expectations and proving his worth! Echoes of Blade Runner here…

But wouldn’t you know it, there’s a final action scene, drawing its inspiration from the first movie where the alien snuck aboard Ripley’s escape craft and had to be blasted out the airlock. Ripley does the same here, but not before getting into a mechanized cargo loader and fighting the Queen in hand to hand combat! Sheerly awesome, if just a little bit cheesy! I tell ya, final fight scenes can easily go wrong, but this movie made it work (unlike Lucas who forced us to endure that lightsaber fight between Yoda and Dooku!) The whole thing is punctuated perfectly by one line: “Get away from her, you BITCH!” The whole dueling mothers thing is elevated to true visual art here. The movie then ends with Bishop, eviscerated but alive, telling Ripley she did good, and with Ripley telling Newt they’ll sleep all the way home. And were it not for one inadvisable sequel, they would have done just that! But more on that later…

(Synopsis—>)
You know, looking back on this review, I realize one thing about this movie. It’s got a LOT going on. Many a time I tried to skim past things, but couldn’t because they were just too relevant. And even then, I find that I minimized some things or left them out entirely. Bishop’s performance, for example, which contrasts starkly with Ash’s from the first movie. Whereas the former tried to kill Ripley and was an unfeeling automaton, the latter was genuinely empathic and saved her life (the incorporation of Asimov’s “first rules of robotics” was also a nice touch!). The mention of the name Hyderdine Systems (the androids’ manufacturer) was clearly a shout out to Cameron’s recently-released movie, The Terminator, where Cyberdine Systems was the company responsible for manufacturing the Terminator robots. And then there was the quasi-romance that took place between Hicks (Michael Beihn, also from Terminator fame) had with Ripley. Though nothing romantic ever materializes, you get the feeling that their relationship served as a sort of redemption, not between man and machine, but between men and women. All throughout the movie, Ripley is ignored and dismissed by male colleagues, but this one man listens to her and swears he will protect her. She, in turn, saves his bacon and goes on without him when it comes time for her to save Newt (her surrogate daughter) and confronting the Queen (the enemy’s mother).

Yep, this movie has lots going on, far more than just some kick-ass action sequences. But the funny thing is, you don’t realize it. The plot, pacing and tone wrap all the content up quite succinctly; at no point do you feel bored or overwhelmed. If I were reaching for something bad to say about it, I might try the flip-flop that happens with Burke. Initially, he seems like a nice guy, gives Ripley his word that the company doesn’t have ulterior motives, and then pulls the double-cross. But then again, that’s what you’d expect from the guy, isn’t it? From the beginning he’s oozing an evil sort of charm, you expect him to lie! And then there was the bit about them realizing, 11th hour like, that they can’t use their guns in the aliens lair. You might think they would have thought of that sooner, but then again, it really does seem like something that wouldn’t occur to them in the thick of their pursuit. The way they figure it out before any firing actually takes place actually seemed timely and believable to me. And yes, the somewhat predictable elements I mentioned. Are they predictable because they’re obvious, or because they work? I’d be inclined to go with the latter.

And of course, there was all the stuff it did deliver on. Awesome action sequences, lots of cool gear and sets, Ripley coming full circle, and of course, the full nature of the alien species being divulged. And let’s not forget about the theme of dueling mothers! This movie was downright original in that respect, its action sequences becoming staples of the industry that have often been imitated. Sigourney Weaver herself become an icon thanks to this movie, her gun-toting, mec fighting scenes something that have been imitated many times over! And once again, literary critics and philosophers found lots to praise, all those maternal themes and the conflict between machines and human and men and women mentioned earlier. Overall, the movie was not original in quite the same way that the first movie was. But still, it captures the same key themes and expanded on them quite well. The hostile species, the terror, the evil corporation that wants to possess it, all the while adding in original ideas of its own. Different but comparable, seeking what the original sought without following in quite the same footsteps. Aliens: damn good movie, awesome sequel!

Aliens:
Entertainment Value: 9/10 Hoora!
Plot: 9/10
Direction: 9/10
Total: 9/10 (Pained as I am that this movie has gotten higher marks than the original, the numbers just add that way! Fans of the original, please don’t hate me!)

Universe Today

Hey all. Just wanted to take a minute to publicize a very cool website that deals in all things science, especially astronomy, physics, and the planets. Not only is it a very cool place to pick up some additional knowledge, its also my part-time employer. If you’ve any interest in reading a brief but educational article on a wide range of subjects, just enter my name “Matt Williams” or click around. You’re sure to find something that tickles your fancy!

Universe Today