Not exactly a wide range of choices is it? But that pretty much tells you what I think about this game doesn’t it? Freespace came along at a time when I was pretty much losing interest in flight simulators. Civilization II was growing stale, Unreal had yet to come out, and the Star Wars franchise was still busy producing Rebellion.
What’s more, Descent: Freespace and its sequel were two of the most awesomely conceived, inspired and original flight simulators I ever played. It presented some truly classic and hard science fiction, combined with just enough commercial appeal, and some genuinely fun fight and flight sequences to keep me entertained for months!
And it’s sequel was equally awesome, adding to the mix with more missions, more story, more ships, and more storyline. Like most gamers, my only disappointment came in the form of their not being a third and final chapter. Because of this, fans have taken it upon themselves of maintaining and enhancing the game engine until a third game does come out. But more on that later…
First up, Descent: Freespace, the game that started it all!
Descent: Freespace – The Great War: The game takes place in the distant future, where humanity has spread into the cosmos thanks to the discovery of subspace travel and formed the Galactic Terran Alliance (GTA). As the game opens, we learn that the GTA is at war with an alien species known as the Vasudans. The war is in its fourteenth year and you, a green pilot, have just joined the Galactic Terran Defense Forces (GTDF) and been assigned to the GTD (Galactic Terran Destroyer) Galatea.
The game also begins with an intro movie which prologues the story. In it, a Terran installation is destroyed by an unidentified alien force that jump into the Ross 128 system and obliterates everything in sight. Before your first mission, the subject of this “phantom attack” is addressed and dismissed, with Command claiming that the Vasudans were responsible.
What follows is a series of missions against the Vasudan armada. However, this ends when a new type of ship arrives and begins attacking you and the Vasudans indiscriminately. After a series of such attacks, Command names this new threat the “Shivans” (after Shiva, the Hindu God of Destruction) and arranges a ceasefire with the Vasudan government. Henceforth, all efforts are dedicated to finding out what this new species is and where they come from.
The next few missions involve extensive intelligence gathering, as it is clear that the Shivans are immensely superior in terms of weaponry and technology. Not only are their ships shielded and virtually impervious to your weapons, their systems make them incredibly difficult to track. But after a series of recon and capture missions, Terran and Vasudan scientists begin to incorporate their technology into our own.
Matters are also complicated somewhat when a new death cult emerges known as the Hammer of Light. Made up of Vasudans who believe that the Shivans are a race of holy destroyers foretold in prophecy, this group begins assisting the Shivans by attacking anyone who resists them. Henceforth, they too must be fended off while you and your Vasudan allies continue in your efforts to study the enemy. The next step in undertaking is the capture of the Shivan Destroyer Taranis.
After you and your squad disable it, the ship is towed back to Terran space, where a landing team goes in and gets first hand look at the Shivan species. They appear to be a race of large, quadruped creatures with a claw-like appendage that have weaponry embedded in their faces. However, no one can be sure if this is the actual species, some form of robotic avatar, or cybernetic war machines. In any case, the landing crew is killed very quickly.
Shortly thereafter, a new ship appears, dubbed the Lucifer, which destroys the Taranis and the Terran station nearby. The ship begins to make appearances all along the front, destroying ships with its two giant beam emitters, and eventually destroys the Galatea. In time, the Lucifer makes its way to the Vasudan homeworld, lays waste to it, and appears to be headed for Earth next. All attempts to stop it fail, as the ship appears protected by impenetrable shields.
Throughout the game, monologues are told which begin to provide some deep back story to the game. After several cut scenes, it becomes clear that the narrator is a member of an extinct species known as the Ancients, which were wiped out by the Shivans millenia ago. This informs the player that the Shivans are very ancient themselves, foreshadows the destruction they will bring, and also hints at what the Shivans weakness is.
The Vasudans stumble upon all this information when a group of refugees land on a world once inhabited by the Ancients. Within a vast alien archive, they discover the records which are shown in the cut scenes and discover that the Shivan’s shields do not work in subspace. After being reassigned to the GTD Bastion, a plan is mounted to track the Shivan vessel as it makes the jump for Earth and disable its jump engines while it is in transit.
A pitch battle takes place after you and your squad race to intercept the ship as it jumps, which is almost thwarted by the last-minute arrival of a Hammer of Light destroyer. You and yours barely make it into the node, pursue the Lucifer into subspace, and engage it and its fighter squads until you can take out its jump engines. The jump node then collapses and the Shivan vessel is destroyed.
The game then ends with a monologue by the main character, who explains that Earth is now cut off from the rest of space and safe for the time being. He also says that the Shivans, in being destroyers were actually preservers, in that they destroyed the Ancients who would otherwise have been too poweful to beat once humanity and the Vasudans encountered them. It is also said that the Shivans will be returning, though not within the narrators lifetime, a bit of knowledge which he describes as “bliss”.
Summary: In case it wasn’t already obvious, I loved this game. In fact, I even consider it to be one of my biggest inspirations when it comes to writing science fiction. The gameplay was fun, realistic, and structured in such a way as to make it all engrossing and suspenseful. Add to that a sense of genuine realism, and you can see why this franchise became so popular. It was the kind of science fiction game that was made by hard sci-fi fans for hard sci-fi fans.
Starting with the gameplay, the fighters and spacecraft are very much realistic, not looking at all like airplanes or ships. None of this aerodynamic crap or old-world paradigm stuff; all vessels looked like they were designed for space only. And the weapons and combat sequences are nothing short of cool! Not only do you shoot things up, you are required to take out ship’s subsystems using EMP’s, scan things using your close-range sensors, and even resupply and repair yourself with support ships. And the display is a very realistic looking HUD that is very well laid out and practical.
You also have a cool command interface with your ships, being able to order them in and out of the fight, to attack various targets, and/or cover you when you’re under fire. Ah, and those explosions… when you light up an enemy capitol ship, it not only blows up. It goes nova! Check it out below. Though it might seem a bit tried by modern standards, it was certainly groundbreaking for its time!
The aliens were also created with some genuine attention to detail, and avoided all the Star Trek-like mistakes which are so common to science fiction. For one, the aliens don’t speak English or have crazy names that are just strings of consonants. The language they speak is gibberish as far as we are concerned and requires a translation matrix. And with the exception of the name Vasudan, the aliens are given designations or equivalencies in English which approximate their meaning in alien languages.
For example, since the Vasudans live on a predominantly desert planet, they are all given names from ancient Egyptian culture. The Vasudans approve of this, as they are a culture that respects longevity, spiritualism, and ancient wisdom. The Shivans, consistently, are all named in accordance with mythological references to destroyers and hostile forces – i.e. Shivans, Lucifer, Sathanas, Cain, etc. They do not speak to us, since we have no basis for cultural exchange, or use their real names.
And another realistic feature: even by game’s end, virtually nothing is known about the Shivans aside from that which is gleamed from their captured technology. And though hints are dropped as to their nature and history, no clear answers are even given. For example, its clear the Shivans have advanced subspace technologies and seem solely concerned with controlling nodes and destroying other sentients. At the same time, subspace is where they are most vulnerable. From this, we are led to believe that perhaps they are from another dimension, and are left wanting more…
Oh yes, and another aspect of this game which I attracted me to it was the similarities it had with Babylon 5, my favorite show at the time and one of the best sci-fi series ever! One of the aspects of the back story to B5 was the war which takes place between humanity and the race known as the Mimbari. The war went very badly for humanity, due to the fact that the Mimbari were more advanced and Earth’s ships couldn’t lock on to them due to some kind of stealth technology.
All of these elements seemed to inform the concept of the Shivans. Not only are their weapons more powerful than yours – at least initially – their ships also possess shields are impossible to track until you gather the intel on how they work. So for the first few missions you see them, they appear as squiggling dots on your radar, are virtually immune to your gunfire, and cannot be tracked by missiles. Much like in the B5, you are told early on that a victory, any victory, is needed against the enemy to bolster morale.
Ultimately, people other than myself were left demanding more and got it almost right away. Not only was there an expansion that followed on the heels of this game, it was also followed by a much-anticipated and muchly awesome sequel (more on that later). On top of that, the game also featured a series of campaign missions that were user-designed and contributed, making Freespace one of the most fan-friendly simulators of all time.
That tradition has continued well into the franchise quasi-retirement, thanks to the creation of the Freespace 2 Source Code Project – a group of programmers currently maintaining and enhancing the game engine since 2002. This engine has been used for games based on Babylon 5 and the relaunched Battlestar Galactica franchise. So in addition to keeping this fan-favorite game alive, the F2SCP also helps other cult favorites come to life in space simulator form.
Stay tuned for more on the Descent: Freespace front, continuing with the aforementioned sequel!
Okay, that title might be a bit of a mislead, but after years of developing the technology, it seems that we might have something which is essentially the next best thing. Until recently, 3D printers were designed for use exclusively by trained technicians. And despite the ease with which modern 3D printers can be used, it is still difficult to design and prep the requisite models, which still requires expertise in modelling software.
But that too could be changing, thanks to the new MakerBot’s Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner. Designed to supplement their printer (the Replicator 2) this device is capable of scanning any object, creating a three-dimensional model, and then uploading it to your printer where it will then be molded into solid form, bit by bit. In effect, people can now create objects as easily as they could print off an inkjet document.
The Digitizer was revealed for the first time at the South by South West (SXSW) Conference in Austin, Texas earlier today, where emerging technologies are being showcased alongside the latest in entertainment and music. And while the device was merely a prototype, one which is still undergoing testing and refining, MakerBot announced that they plan to begin commercial production very soon.
Which makes it official. Human beings now have access to Replicator technology and is one step closer to living in a Star Trek universe! Granted, were not quite to the point where we can generate anything, including food and precious metals, but this latest development has revealed to us a future where DIY can encompass just about anything. If a an appliance breaks in your home, just scan the faulty component and download it into your printer. No need to contact the manufacturer and activate that troublesome warranty!
Foods comes out here, waste goes in the recycling unit!
Naturally, there are concerns about the controversy this will create as well. While the Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner will certainly be another big step towards making 3D printing more accessible, it’s also sure to add fuel the debate over the legality and copyright issues of duplicating real world objects. What’s more, the cost of each unit (most likely a few thousand dollars each) is pretty prohibitive for most households, raising the question of real access.
Nevertheless, this is still pretty exciting news. Since the beginning of recorded history, our collective economic models have been based on the idea of resource scarcity. But with further refinements and the ability to generate objects out of more materials (including the organic), all our economic models are likely to change and we could very well be embarking on a future where scarcity has effectively become obsolete.
Yes, with a little more time, research and cool gadgets, we could be witnessing the collapse of financial history. Where all units of value will be made useless and as a species, we’ll be one step closer to economic equilibrium! And I have to admit, this is one area of change that I find exciting, as opposed to scary!
For roughly a month now, the SETI Institute (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) has been holding an online poll – appropriately named Pluto Rocks! – to help them name Pluto’s smallest moons, officially designated P4 and P5. Discovered in 2011 and 2012 respectively, an online poll ran up until the end of February, at which point researcher and co-discoverer Mark Showalter took the names before the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to finalization.
Although there were several choices for for Pluto’s fourth and fifth moon, it was P4 that became the focus of a great deal of attention. Of all the names for this space rock, two top contenders came out on top: Vulcan and Cerberus. Out of a whopping 450,324 people who took part in the poll overall, 174,062 voted for Vulcan, effectively putting it in the top spot. This was perhaps due to a little Twitter intervention by Mr. William Shatner.
When the contest began back, it seemed that two camps emerged as the forerunners for naming the rock. On the one hand, there were the Trekkies who seemed determined to name P4 after famed-character Spock’s homeworld. On the other, there those who belong to IAU camp, who favored the classical Greek name of the beast that guarded the entrance to the underworld.
After just a few days in, William Shatner, Mr. James T. Kirk himself, proposed the name Vulcan, and not just because of the connection to his show. In Roman mythology, Pluto (aka Hades in the Greek pantheon) was the God of the underworld and Vulcan was one of his sons. Cerberus might have been more appropriate since this beast was Pluto’s/Hades companion, but the connection still works, and provides a nice little tie-in to one of the most popular science fiction shows of all time.
Fans and Trekkies worldwide rallied, and as of Feb. 25th, Vulcan had a comfortable lead over Cerberus and Styx, which were vying for the 2nd place position. SETI has now advised that people be patient, as it will take another months or two for the names of the two moons to be finalized and selected. However, barring any major objections or upheavals, I think it’s fair to say that P4 and P5 will henceforth be named Vulcan and Kerberos.
And I have to say, this is fascinating news in more ways than just one. Not only does it demonstrate that our collective knowledge of the outer Solar System is growing. It also demonstrates how henceforth, astronomical studies and cataloging may become a much more democratic affair. Once considered the province of academics and scholars, space exploration may truly be an open field in the future, subject to mass participation.
Oh, and congrats to Mr. Shatner for his enduring influence, to Mr. Nimoy for the shout-out, and to Trekkies the world over for showing what a committed fandom made up of millions of geeks can do! And may all the people who bullied you for your interests and keen intellectual skills consider what a force you’ve become and cower in fear!
If there’s one thing that’s become an annoying cliche in commercial science fiction movies, and even some novels, it’s the idea of a super-advanced alien race that come to Earth, proceeds to kick ass, but then gets beaten by a ragtag bunch of superheroes by the most implausible means. You know what I’m talking about, the big evil monsters from another planet who seem to have armies, navies and nuclear arsenals beat, but then succumb to germs, basic hacking, and inferior weaponry.
Having grown up with a lot of bad science fiction, I could name a few titles from my childhood which, looking back, kind of insulted my intelligence. But as I’ve gotten older, the list has grown and expanded. And I really thought it was time I did a list that presents all of the bad stories, movies and television arcs that I’ve witnessed over the years, the ones that extra-terrestrial would definitely get a kick out of if ever they saw them. Hopefully, they wouldn’t conclude we humans actually think like this, and hence would be that much easier to conquer!
And here they are, in order of awfulness. The list of incompetent alien invaders!
1. Battlefield Earth: I start with this movie for obvious reasons. As far as logic and plot development were concerned, this movie could not have been more insulting to aliens! Not only was their own ineptitude galactic in proportions, but it flew in the face of everything we were told during the first half of the movie (or quarter of the book). Yes, L. Ron Hubbard (the inventor of Scientology) isn’t exactly known for being the most rational of human beings, but even he was out to lunch on this one!
For starters, it is established early on that the Psychlos – an alien civilization of clawed Rastafarians – have conquered Earth by the year 3000. But in the course of the story, we learn through the main character that it was extremely easy for them to do it. Using their superior technology, Earth’s armies, navies and air forces fell to the invasion after a mere 9 minutes! That’s quite the ass-whooping!
And yet, a group of tribal kinsmen are able to not only defeat the occupying Psychlos, but destroy their entire homeworld in the course of an uprising. How, you might ask? Well, as it turns out, Terl, the governor of Earth – played by director and Hubbard acolyte John Travolta – facilitated it all by giving Johnny Goodboy Tyler (the protagonist of the story) all the lucrative info on their race so he could become a foreman for a private gold mining operation, but in turn used it to train a resistance.
In the course of so doing, Tyler was able to trick Terl into accepting gold from Fort Knox, where he used 1000-year old simulators to train his ragtag misfits in how to use equally old Harriers, missiles, and even a nuke, which they then teleportedto the Psychlo home planet in the midst of their rebellion. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that the Psychlos atmosphere ignites when it comes into contact with radiation? Yeah, that’s kind of important, because it resulted in the full-scale destruction of their home world!
Ignoring for a fact that the physics of this makes absolutely no sense, Hubbard’s tale basically asserts that by relying on the same technology that couldn’t last ten minutes against a bunch of alien invaders in the first place, a bunch of hill people did what ever army on Earth could not and killed off a far more advanced species. How did these Psychlos conquer Earth in the first place? They are not only breathe air that’s the equivalent of dry tinder of gasoline, they’re dumber than dirt!
2. Independence Day: Here we have another instance where audiences were presented with an alien menace that appeared unassailable in the first act of the movie, but then proved to be total pushovers. As the first Roland Emmerich disaster flick to grace the silver screen in America, this movie made a ton of money and set the arc for Emmerich’s career. Fun and silly, it sucked as far as realism and suspension of disbelief were concerned. For me, what endures about this movie is how fun it is to make fun of!
Basically, the aliens come to Earth in a massive mothership that begins deploying smaller motherships across the globe. Using our own satellites to sync up, they begin a countdown to Armageddon and start blowing up every major city on the planet. The only person who seems to notice the countdown ahead if time is a lone cable repair man, and not the NSA, CIA, MI6 or any other covert spy agency on the planet!
All counter-attacks fail, as it seems the alien ships have shields – these big green walls that protect them from our missiles. Nukes are even useless against them. All hope seems lost until, contained within Area 51, this same cable man comes up with an idea… He’s going to download a virus to the alien mothership using his Macbook and set off a nuke inside it. With the help of a fighter pilot who seems oddly and suddenly qualified to fly a captured alien ship, they fly into space, make it aboard the mothership, and begin their hack job.
And while the alien’s shields are down, what remains of Earth’s air forces mount a counter-attack that goes off quite well. It seems that without their shields, the alien fighters are a bunch of total wimps! And the smaller motherships, all you got to do is find a alcoholic, traumatized crop duster to fly a plane up their main gun shaft and the whole thing will blow up! Oh, and the hacker team, they make it out before the nuke goes off and somehow crashland without dying. Hurray for xenocide!
So basically, our species was on the verge of being exterminated, only to be saved by a cable man, a NASA reject, and a drunken crop duster with PTSD. Brent Spiner was right, it WAS just a matter of getting around their technology! And how easy was that? Yeah, they got interstellar spaceships, laser beams and shields, but the bastards can’t even erect a firewall to stop a single hacker? And speaking of those laser beams, turns out all you got to do is stick your finger in the barrel and the whole ship will blow up!
3. Battle: Los Angeles Here we have another instance where aliens attack, manage to do untold amounts of damage, but then seem to succumb when a small band of heroes come together and put their minds to the task of beating them. And in this case, the aliens didn’t even really have an Achilles heel. They just seemed to become beatable once the Marines figured out their physiology, technology and basic tactics, which was surprisingly easy…
It’s almost summer in LA, and a grizzled veteran who’s traumatized over the recent loss of his platoon is about to quit the service. But of course, hostile aliens land off the coast and throw a wrench in his retirement plans! And instead, he is deployed to the city to defend against the first wave of the assault, and is quickly trapped with what remains of his platoon behind the enemy’s lines.
There, they begin to figure out the enemy. This consists of first performing a recreational autopsy on one to find out how to kill it. Turns out all you have to do is shoot them “to the right of the heart”. So, in the chest then? No wonder all the other soldiers couldn’t kill them! They were aiming for the groin! Fleeing with some civilians in tow, they also systematically discover all their other weaknesses…
This includes the fact that the alien airdrones are drawn to their radio transmissions and that all their drones are controlled by some central command module. After realizing they are on their own because the Air Force aint coming, they divert to find the module and then destroy it. All the alien drones are deactivated, the Marines are rescued, and a counter-attack is now underway to clear the last of them. But of course, the Marines refuse to sit this one out and selflessly volunteer to go back in…
So the lesson here is, when entire armies fail and fall back, its a small group of heroes that will save the day. Not bad, but how is it a bunch of grunts in the field are able to figure out how an enemy arsenal works while the higher ups basically have their thumbs up their asses the whole time? Funny how that always seems to be the case!
And sure, I get that the leader of these heroes would be a scarred man seeking redemption, but are we to believe that a man who lost his entire platoon to insurgents would have no trouble leading a handful of people to victory over a far more advanced alien species? Something just doesn’t add up here…
4. Signs: I remember the days when M. Night Shyamalan was considered a big deal, and not some dude past his prime who made a string of critically-panned movies. Yes, in addition to being hellbent on starring in his own films and using material that seemed marginal (comic book heroes, monsters, aliens and ghosts), he also seemed to have a real hard on for stories that were full of holes!
And this movie was no exception, adding to an already rich tradition of scary aliens who don’t seem to have a clue when it comes to conquering planet Earth. The story starts out clear enough, with “signs” of an impending invasion by alien beings. And of course, the heroes here are a single family made up of people strangely qualified to defeat them – a priest who’s lost his faith after losing his wife, a psychic daughter, an asthmatic son, and former baseball player who swings at everything.
When the aliens show up, it turns out his dying wife’s words were a prophecy on how to beat back in the invasion. First, hit them in the head with a bat, they hate that! Then, rely on your sons asthma to prevent him from inhaling their toxic vapors. And finally, realize your daughter’s desire to keep glasses of water around the house are a defensive mechanism, since water is toxic to them.
Really? So these things can travel light years to our planet for the sake of terrorizing and killing us, but are vulnerable to a blows in the head from a blunt object and a liquid that covers 70% of our planet and permeates the air. What kind of invaders are these? Are these the same ones who were defeated in the Simpsons by a “board with a nail?”
Also, did they not notice ahead of time that the most basic element, next to the air itself, was fatal to them? What is it with alien invaders not doing their due diligence? How is it that we here on Earth are able to notice lakes of sulfuric acid on Venus, despite having never landed there, but aliens can’t notice the equivalent on a planet they are actively invading? Kang, Kodos… get off our planet!
5. Battleship: Next up, we have the movie that dared to ask the age old question: “what do you get if you cross Transformers with Independence Day?” The answer being, the same old story of unlikely heroes beating an alien menace, but with a twist! This one is set at sea. And if that wasn’t enough, it also stars Rihanna, who proved once again that there are some singers who should stick to what they’re good at and avoid crossing over!
And much like in Battle: LA, we once again have aliens landing in the sea and wreaking havoc on nearby city – this time in Honolulu. After trapping and destroying the US and Japanese naval ships in the vicinity, the alien ships take control of the communications array on the nearby island of Oahu. A single vessel, captained by a LT after his brother (the Captain) is killed, manages to survive and continues the fight…
This includes the US naval ship taking out two of the alien ships and capturing an alien to learn that they are vulnerable to sunlight. On land, a veteran and quadruple amputee in recovery also figures out what the aliens are doing with the array. Apparently, they are using it to summon more of their ships to Earth. So on land and at sea, we have unlikely heroes who begin unraveling the aliens’ plans.
Using the aliens rather pedestrian weakness to their advantage, the US naval ships manage to blind the last of the smaller alien ships with sunlight and destroy it. However, it too is sunk, but they manages to survive and gets back to base to commandeer the USS Missouri, the last remaining US Battleship in existence. Bringing her out of retirement, they use her big guns to take out the alien ships shields, allowing the Air Force to finish her off.
Following this, the Lieutenant is promoted and given a ship of his own to command. Him and Rihanna also arrange to get married. Hurray! Planet Earth is saved and everybody’s getting laid! And once again, it seems that if you’re a reluctant hero, or you’ve got vengeance on your mind, you can beat the odds and overcome a vastly superior alien foe. Never mind that a small fleet was useless against this enemy, or that your vessel is dangerously out of date even by Earth standards!
6. The Borg (Star Trek: TNG): Here we have a truly chilling and frightening alien menace that started out as a credible threat, but quickly degenerated into a nuisance that was eventually beaten through some unlikely twists! I can still remember when the Borg were first presented in the second and third season of TNG, just how tough and scary they seemed! How they went from this from the clumsy, easily-fooled menace led by a “Queen” towards the end is a mystery…
As Guinan said during their introductory episode, the Borg are a collective “made up of organic and artificial life which has been developing for thousands of centuries.” In addition to being virtually indestructible and entirely collectivized, they are hellbent on assimilating all known lifeforms and technology they come across. This makes them an inevitable threat, one which Q believes they are unprepared to face.
Hence, he arranges for a little face-to-face between them and the Enterprise, and it doesn’t go too well. In addition to finding that their weapons are virtually ineffective against a Borg ship, they also learn that these ships are capable of healing from battle damage, are faster and far more coordinated than their own; and most importantly, that they are crewed by a relentless enemy. They narrowly survive, and only because of Q’s intervention.
Their second confrontation happens shortly thereafter, when a Borg Cube is dispatched to Federation space to begin assimilating them. After an initial encounter with the vessel, Picard is captured and assimilated. The crew learns that he is now part of the Borg and that his knowledge has been absorbed. As the Borg vessel begins advancing on Earth, the Federation loses 39 ships in an attempt to stop it.
In the end, they manage to stop it by recapturing the Captain, tapping into the Borg neural net, and commanding them to go to sleep. The Borg ship self-destructs, realizing their collective has been intruded and they are vulnerable. It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that humanity survives its first engagement with the Borg and lives to fight another day. Scary stuff, and doesn’t bode too well for the future!
Immediately thereafter, the Borg ceases to become a serious threat. Not appearing again until the end of Season 5, at which point Roddenberry had died, the Enterprise discovers a single stranded Borg and rescue him, plotting to return him to the collective carrying a virus. However, they soon realize the lone Borg, who’ve they’ve humanized by naming him “Hugh”, is no longer a Borg per se, and cannot commit to the plan. Instead, they learn that Hugh’s individuality have spread throughout the collective, causing chaos.
Thereafter, the Borg made no real appearance in the series until the spinoff series Voyager, where they make numerous appearances before being vanquished. First, they are shown to be fighting a losing war against beings from a parallel dimension where space is fluid and technology is organic in nature. The Voyager crew assists the collective against this common threat, and gains 7 of 9 as a crewmember.
In subsequent episodes and seasons, Voyager wages a one-ship war with the collective as they flee back to Federation space. They manage to outwit the Borg Queen (weren’t they supposed to be a collective?) time after time, stealing a trans warp coil from her, saving a group of resistance fighters from the collective’s grasp, and coordinating their efforts with a future Janeway to not only make it home, but crash the entire collective with a virus.
From invincible enemy that spoke with one voice, to a bunch of dumb drones led by a megalomaniacal queen that made deals and was easily tricked, the Borg was a truly awesome concept that degenerated into a sort “Evil the Cat” that became all-too-human. Ironic, and quite disappointing really. Much like many elements of the show, this was one of Roddenberry’s babies that seemed to suffer in his successor’s hands.
7. The Day of the Triffids: Although based on a novel that ended quite differently, the film adaptation of this novel has gone down in history as a case of aliens that seemed so menacing, but proved to be very dumb. Written by John Wyndham, the author that brought us The Chrysalids, the story considers the possibility of an alien invasion that doesn’t involve tripods, motherships or little green men armed with ray guns.
No, in the end, Windham’s invasion was much more subtle, patient, and far more effective. It begins when the triffids, a race of seemingly intelligent, aggressive plants that begin popping up all over the world. Initially thought to be the result of bioengineering within the USSR (a possible commentary on Lysenkoism), the venomous plants are soon revealed to be the first wave in an alien invasion.
After being blinded by contact with one of the plants, the main character awakens in the hospital to find it deserted. He begins to walk through the streets of London, apparently surrounded by other blind people. He soon comes upon a group of people who still have their sight and are planning on establishing a colony to repopulate the human race.
In time, it is made clear that the triffids are causing the environment to change, effectively terraforming Earth to become more like the alien environment they are used to. They continue to advance and eventually surround the small home the main characters make for themselves. But at the same time, the main characters learns that a colony has been formed on the Isle of Wight, which is removed from the infestation, where people are attempting to continue the fight.
In creating this story, Wydnham acknowledged a great debt to H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds; though in this novel, the aliens are not foiled. However, in the film adaptation of the novel, the triffids are eventually foiled by a very likely source: salt water! Yes, it seems that an invasive species chose to attack a planet where the majority of the surface is covered by something entirely poisonous to them.
Little wonder then why Shyamalan chose water as his aliens’ weakness. He was ripping off a classic movie! Too bad it was an unfaithful adaptation of the original novel. He could have avoided making one of several bad movies!
8. The War of the Worlds: We come to it at last, the original story that inspired an entire slew of classic alien invasion tales. Written in 1895-97, H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds not only introduced the world to the concept of a “Martian invasion”, it set the tone for all subsequent generations of paranoia and fear regarding extra-terrestrial life. This was not an intended consequences of his work, mind you, just a side-effect of what was arguably a brilliant novel.
Told from a first-person point of view, the story follows a philosophically-inclined author who witnesses the invasion firsthand. It all begins shortly after an observatory notes the appearance of several “explosions’ on the surface of Mars. Shortly thereafter, the narrator is one of many people to notice the arrival of a meteor which turns out to be a large cylinder. When the cylinder opens, disgorging tripods that begin incinerating everything with heat rays.
More cylinders begin falling all over Southern England, laying waste to military units and communities. After meeting up with an artilleryman, the narrator finds out that he has become cut off from his wife, and reroutes to try and find her. People begin to evacuate London, and British forces are able to bring down some of the tripods, but eventually, all organized resistance ceases.
In their wake, the Martian begin to unleash a species known as Red Weed, a native martian plant that begins altering the Earth’s ecology. Of the narrator’s companions, a curate and the artilleryman, the former comes to see the invasion as a herald of the Apocalypse, while the latter begins to advocate that humanity rebuild civilization underground. He eventually leaves both behind and returns to London, where he finds the aliens dead due to infectious disease.
At once brilliant and original, Wells story has undergone extensive scrutiny over the years. It’s plot and thematic makeup have led many critics to wonder what its central message was, whether it was meant as a sort of cautionary tale, an historical allusion, or an indictment on British colonial policy. As part of the larger trend of invasion literature, there were also many who thought that the aliens represented an actual enemy (i.e. Germany), and the point was merely to stoke fears about the possibility of an actual world war.
Summary: In the end, it seems pretty obvious that when it comes to alien invasion stories and movies, everyone is picking at the crumbs from Wells’ table. As one of the first stories involving war between humanity and extra-terrestrials, it was also the first to introduce the world to the concept of a seemingly unassailable alien menace that was brought down because of an Achilles heel.
And without fail, it now seems like just about every purveyor of science fiction has followed in his footsteps. Whether it’s Verhoeven’s disaster porn, classic B-movie adaptations, new generations of speculative sci-fi novels, or mainstream TV shows, the concept of a fearsome, super-advanced species that initially has the edge on humanity, only to be foiled by superior… whatever, is destined to be all the rage!
And much like Wells War, one can’t help but wonder about the psychology and deeper sociological implications of that. Do such ideas remain popular with us as part an enduring xenophobic tendency, or are they part of some deeper destructive impulse, where we just love to see civilization as we know reduced to ashes? In some respects, you might say this a healthy sublimation of that desire, where we allow others to do what we secretly desire, right before we pay them back in full!
I’m thinking this is getting a little too intellectual given the subject matter I started with. This was supposed to about clueless aliens and how these stories and film parody them. Once again, I sincerely hope that if there are aliens out there who are able to listen in on our radio, television and movie transmissions, that they take all of this entertainment with a massive grain of salt.
I think I speak for all of humanity when I say we don’t need no invasions anytime soon! Come back after we’ve developed our own death rays!
Now here’s an alien that isn’t defeated so easily!
God, I’ve been wanting to post this for a long time. Thought the episode is at least two years old, it still brings a smile to my face when I think about it. Not only is it a hilarious spoof on a cartoon that I watched as kid, it also manages to do a hilarious crossover with one of the best post-apocalyptic movies of all time! And when it comes right down to it, what is Inspector Gadget if not a clumsy, oafish version of a Terminator?
There have been several moments in this show’s history that I’ve found pretty damn hilarious. Between spoofing superheroes, comic books, Star Wars, Star Trek, and just about anything having to do with the 80’s, how could I not love this show? Relying on Seth Green’s usual combination of outlandish wit and a load of pop culture references, this clip is sure to please! If you haven’t seen it, do so now. I guarantee if you grew up in the 80’s, it’ll make your day!
In a move that was sure to give Trekies a collective fangasm, William Shatner made contact with the International Space Station this week. This past Thursday, thanks to the marvels of 21st century communications technology, the man who portrayed Captain Kirk was able to speak to Chris Hadfield, an astronaut on board the International Space Station.
The conversation began when Shatner – ahem! – opened hailing frequencies and contacted the ISS. Hadfield replied and, using some Star Trek sound effects as background, the two had a live, streaming video conversation. The entire conversation was recorded and uploaded to Youtube for the benefit of fans and amateur astronomers everywhere.
Needless to say, when science fiction and reality collide like this, it is an epic day in nerdom! Check out the video below…
Well, it seems Star Trek might have gotten another one right. In addition to warp travel, computer pads, and the possibility of a real-life star ship Enterprise being built by 2030, it seems that ion engines that can propel ships on interplanetary missions are also possible. As a staple of many science fiction franchises, many have wondered whether or not the technology would ever be truly feasible.
For years, NASA has been experimenting with various ionic propulsion drives. But with this latest announcement, they’ve not only indicated success, but broke a world record. On Dec 28th, in one of the last news stories of the year, NASA announced that their Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) has operated continually for over 43,000 hours (just shy of five years). Since ion thrusters are believed to be one of the best ways to power long-term deep-space missions, this is a big step towards powering NASA’s next-gen spacecraft.
As the name suggests, ion thrusters work by firing ions (charged atoms or molecules) out of a nozzle at high speed. In the case of NEXT, Xenon (a noble gas) is squirted into a chamber where its molecules are charged via an electron gun, creating a plasma of negative and positive ions. The positive ions diffuse to the back of the chamber, where high-charged accelerator grids grabs them and propel them out of the engine, creating thrust.
The upside of such a thruster lies in its fuel efficiency, in that it uses 10-12 times less fuel than a regular chemical thruster. Unfortunately, the downside lies in the thrust, again relative to its chemical counterparts. Due to this, NASA scientists calculated that an ion engine needs to operate continuously for a minimum of 10,000 hours (roughly a year) to slowly accelerate a spacecraft to speeds necessary to reach the asteroid belt or beyond.
With this test, NASA proved that their new ion thruster would not only be able to propel a spaceship to the asteroid belt, but to the outer planets and their moons as well. That’s good news for people looking forward to visiting Ganymede, Europa, Titan, and maybe even the Kuiper Belt. What’s more, the maximum speed of the spacecraft would be in the region of 321,000 km/h (200,000 mph).
Back in 2011, NASA put out a request-for-proposals for a test mission that will likely use a NEXT engine. Presumably, following this successful engine test, we might be hearing more about this in the near future. And, now that the proof in the pudding, other space agencies are likely to unveil their own prototypes for ion engines, and even equipping the next generation of space craft with them.
Asteroid mining? Mars colonization? Off-world resource and manufacturing allocation? Looks like we got ourselves the means to get us there! Oh, and Star Trek nerds? Looks like you guys got your nacelles! Full impulse ahead!
That look like an AT-AT to you? The Star Wars geek in me earns to think that this sort of manifestation is some kind of indication that there is good news, vis a vis Star Wars upcoming sequels. But the realist in me thinks it’s just photoshop. Who knows? The important thing is, in the weeks leading up to the end of 2012, there were some rather interesting flashes on the news circuit regarding Disney’s recent acquisition.
For starters, there was one development with regards to all the talk about who would direct the next installment in the Star Wars saga. J.J. Abrams, who was rumored to be a top contender, recently admitted in an interview with Empire Magazine that the rumors were true. It seemed that Disney approached him shortly after the merger took place, but he was quick to turn them down:
“There were the very early conversations and I quickly said that because of my loyalty to Star Trek, and also just being a fan, I wouldn’t even want to be involved in the next version of those things. I declined any involvement very early on. I’d rather be in the audience not knowing what was coming, rather than being involved in the minutiae of making them.”
Makes sense. Star Wars and Star Trek are two distinct franchises, and never are the twain supposed to meet, except at ComicCon and tributes to George Lucas (apparently).
In addition, there has been some news as to who is slated to write it. And in this respect, it seems that Michael Arndt, the writer who brought us Little Miss Sunshine, will be taking the helm. Yeah, you might say what do stories about family, dysfunction, and coming together in spite of it all have to do with Star Wars?
Hello, people! Look at Luke and Vader! A father who turned evil and then tried to convert/kill his own son. And let’s not forget Han, Chewy Leia, Lando and the droids. Han and Leia used to hate each other, then they had a weird triangle involving her brother! Ick! But then, in spite of that, they fell in love. Oh, and Han hates C3P0, Lando betrayed Han, and Chewy tried to pull Lando’s head off on more than one occasion. On top of all that, they’ve been arrested numerous times, and Han and Lando clearly have a gambling problem.
Throw in some alcoholism and a visit to the Jerry Springer show, and you’ve got the perfect dysfunctional family! And yet, the family works, and even wins wars! And on a more serious note, Arndt is a great writer, as anyone who has seen Little Miss Sunshine can certainly attest. And great writers are great writers, regardless of the genre. And since it seems he harbors a serious love for Star Wars, I’m sure he can be counted on to bring give A game and inject it with some serious passion.
No word yet on who will be cast in the roles of the main characters, but rumors abound. Mark Hamil was an early signee, but whether or not he will be reprising the role of Luke Skywalker is unclear at this time. There’s no telling how far into the future the sequels will be, and depending on that, Hamil may need to be recast in order to avoid any questions of aging poorly! However, some more creative suggestions were made, particularly by the good folks at Geek Tyrant.
For example, it was said that if Hamil wouldn’t be cast as Luke this time around, that the role would be ably filled by Anton Yelchin – the 23 year old who rose to fame playing the young Kyle Reese in Terminator: Salvation and Pavel Chekov in J.J. Abrams Star Trek.
Suggestions for Han Solo range from Chris Pine – Captain Kirk in (again) Abrams Star Trek – to Garrett Hedlund from Tron: Legacy and Nathan Fillion from Firely, Serenity and Castle. Do I even need to say it? Fillion for the win, people! He’s already played Solo in the form of Mal, the scoundrel Captain and smuggler with a heart of gold. He would be perfect for the role with his characteristic mix of wit, charm, occasionally seriousness, and general badassery.
Mae Whitman and Anne Hathaway have both been suggested for the role of Princess Leia Organa Solo (yes, they eventually get married), who at this point in the story has gone from Rebel agent to a Senator of the New Republic. Personally, I think Hathaway would be the better choice for the role, for she has some experience capturing Leia’s combination of regality and ass-kicker. She’s also had plenty of experience playing the love interest of many a man in Hollywood cinema.
As for the rest, speculation certainly abounds and will continue to abound for some time. Depending again on when the new movies are to take place, relative to the original storyline, there’s any number of spots they need to cast for. Stay tuned, as I plan to be in the know when things begin to break!
Behold, the cool scenes from every science fiction movie ever made, all in one video. Well, not necessarily all of them; in fact, true geeks may noticed that some of their favorites might be lacking. However, I think you’ll agree, this is a pretty good sampling of a wide array of classic films. In fact, the creators merged footage from 100 movies here, a collection of classic and more recent sci-fi films, and set it all to music (Glitch Mob remix of “Monday,” by Nalepa). Enjoy!
The first trailer of the upcoming Star Trek movie, titled Star Trek: Into Darkness, has just hit the airwaves. And if the one minute preview is any indication, it seems that JJ Abrams is sticking to the same combination of carnage and explosions that made the first movie such a hit. Not much is made clear about the exact plot from the trailer, but it does seem to indicate that Earth itself will be threatened by some “awakened evil” intent on getting revenge.
Star Trek geeks, I invite you to plumb this one for some hint as to what the reference material could be. Is Abrams combing the original series for an enemy and a plot arc, or is this something entirely new? Should we all just wait and enjoy the movie when it comes out? Okay then! Enjoy the trailer too…
Not exactly a wide range of choices is it? But that pretty much tells you what I think about this game doesn’t it? Freespace came along at a time when I was pretty much losing interest in flight simulators. Civilization II was growing stale, Unreal had yet to come out, and the Star Wars franchise was still busy producing Rebellion.
The game takes place in the distant future, where humanity has spread into the cosmos thanks to the discovery of subspace travel and formed the Galactic Terran Alliance (GTA). As the game opens, we learn that the GTA is at war with an alien species known as the Vasudans. The war is in its fourteenth year and you, a green pilot, have just joined the Galactic Terran Defense Forces (GTDF) and been assigned to the GTD (Galactic Terran Destroyer) Galatea.
What follows is a series of missions against the Vasudan armada. However, this ends when a new type of ship arrives and begins attacking you and the Vasudans indiscriminately. After a series of such attacks, Command names this new threat the “Shivans” (after Shiva, the Hindu God of Destruction) and arranges a ceasefire with the Vasudan government. Henceforth, all efforts are dedicated to finding out what this new species is and where they come from.
Matters are also complicated somewhat when a new death cult emerges known as the Hammer of Light. Made up of Vasudans who believe that the Shivans are a race of holy destroyers foretold in prophecy, this group begins assisting the Shivans by attacking anyone who resists them. Henceforth, they too must be fended off while you and your Vasudan allies continue in your efforts to study the enemy. The next step in undertaking is the capture of the Shivan Destroyer Taranis.
Shortly thereafter, a new ship appears, dubbed the Lucifer, which destroys the Taranis and the Terran station nearby. The ship begins to make appearances all along the front, destroying ships with its two giant beam emitters, and eventually destroys the Galatea. In time, the Lucifer makes its way to the Vasudan homeworld, lays waste to it, and appears to be headed for Earth next. All attempts to stop it fail, as the ship appears protected by impenetrable shields.
The Vasudans stumble upon all this information when a group of refugees land on a world once inhabited by the Ancients. Within a vast alien archive, they discover the records which are shown in the cut scenes and discover that the Shivan’s shields do not work in subspace. After being reassigned to the GTD Bastion, a plan is mounted to track the Shivan vessel as it makes the jump for Earth and disable its jump engines while it is in transit.
Starting with the gameplay, the fighters and spacecraft are very much realistic, not looking at all like airplanes or ships. None of this aerodynamic crap or old-world paradigm stuff; all vessels looked like they were designed for space only. And the weapons and combat sequences are nothing short of cool! Not only do you shoot things up, you are required to take out ship’s subsystems using EMP’s, scan things using your close-range sensors, and even resupply and repair yourself with support ships. And the display is a very realistic looking HUD that is very well laid out and practical.
And another realistic feature: even by game’s end, virtually nothing is known about the Shivans aside from that which is gleamed from their captured technology. And though hints are dropped as to their nature and history, no clear answers are even given. For example, its clear the Shivans have advanced subspace technologies and seem solely concerned with controlling nodes and destroying other sentients. At the same time, subspace is where they are most vulnerable. From this, we are led to believe that perhaps they are from another dimension, and are left wanting more…
Oh yes, and another aspect of this game which I attracted me to it was the similarities it had with Babylon 5, my favorite show at the time and one of the best sci-fi series ever! One of the aspects of the back story to B5 was the war which takes place between humanity and the race known as the Mimbari. The war went very badly for humanity, due to the fact that the Mimbari were more advanced and Earth’s ships couldn’t lock on to them due to some kind of stealth technology.
Stories by Williams 