Friday, October 4, 2019

Friday, October 4, 2019

 The last couple of days have been heavy (for me, anyway) so the Sleep stomped me stupid today. So let's just have a little fun. It's still weird out there, kids, but let's catch our breath.



 I want to see a fantasy, multi-dimensional type story - a Narnia thing - where however the figure out the language issue, it's incomplete. Like everyone speaks English (naturally), but it doesn't always track. For instance, you might hear "bear" but they might be saying "dance". That might not be funny, but it doesn't necessarily have to be funny. I wonder if that would be a hard story to tell.

 What if the electronic marvels they use in Star Trek started to fritz out when they got older. You won't be able to convince me that mainstream technology meant for use by us common rabble is designed to get less useful after a certain amount of time but not necessarily useless. I think you can still use a rotary phone. I should look that up.

 But even if "forced obsolescence" isn't really a thing, stuff does wear out. I've seen handles on 150-year-old cast-iron skills just snap off after years of use. It happens & I can't see why life in the 24th century would be completely free of wear-&-tear. I'm sure they check before some sort of big, important to-do, but what if you're a private citizen, your translator gets old & maybe battered.

 As an aside, you never saw much of life in the 24th century outside of Star Fleet in Star Trek, & I think that's sort of a shame. Oh, I know The Next Generation, The Original Series, & Deep Space 9 all at least hinted at a world outside the space military. I'd be more interested in seeing that. A private ship, your translator craps out because you waited too long to get the computer serviced/updated. I'd like the see that. For as buggy as it is, it's why I dig Objects In Space as much as I do & wish it hadn't become (apparently) abandonware.

 Anyhow. I think I've rode that line enough & need to move on. I'd really like to do something in the sci-fi area with that in mind, sort of like Firefly but more common man's life. There's got to be a team of raggedy space mercenaries with varying mores & levels of rapscallionitry that doesn't discover the Secret Thing or hide the Important Person or influenced the evolution & development of a civic grouping of persons.

 You know, people just trying to get along in a world that doesn't give a shit. Like Larry Brown writing about firemen in South Mississippi being depressed. And for the record, I don't see even a solar system united under one single entity as being a necessarily Good Thing. I do think it'd be more of a frontier life situation where such governmental entities are small & not inclined to join up. Old West or Ancient Greece or Mysterious Orient, that sort of thing.

 I'm not saying that sort of situation is Ideal, mind. It just makes more sense as far as narrative development. Not the logical outcome but a logical outcome. A "federation" would be am ess, I think, & an "empire" would be impossible to maintain. Doesn't mean they wouldn't try. We keep trying all sorts of goofy shit that fails every single time, but this one won't.

 That's one of the neat parts of Elite: Dangerous' ludonarrative, that's the word I want to use & it probably isn't. They got three types of government controlling the galaxy, all three succeed or fail almost due to whim, & there's plenty of areas uncontrolled & uncontrollable by anyone. Think of how lawless & rowdy something like life in or near the Oort Cloud, for example.

 It's only a take, but it doesn't look like humanity's ever going to establish any sort of presence off Earth, much less out of the solar system. We're not even worrying about the effects of radiation or lack of gravity, long term or short, on the human body. Nor do I think we'll be able overcome the vast distances between anything of interest. I am a cynic by nature, though, so grain of salt.

 Okay, I think that's a good place to tie it off. Maybe I'll come back, but the Sleep has still got me whipped. The news is basically a continuation of yesterdays, life is rolling on. Bernie Sanders had a heart attack earlier in the week, we've been told, but he's fully recovered. I wish him good health & long life, but I do think this is a sign he might ought to find a gig not quite as stressful of being president. It's a heavy gig & we're seeing now what happens when the man in charge can't carry the weight. More power to him either way.

 If I don't see you before then, enjoy your weekend.

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