Galaxis 7 by John Zipperer

CARRIE FISHER’S HOLLYWOOD & REAL LIFE LEGACIES ASH CARTER ON WAR IN SPACE REVIEWS: ROGUE ONE, THE EXPLORERS GUILD, THE EXPANSE, WONDER WOMAN NASA SPACE POSTERS

Galaxis NUMBER 7

THE WORLDS OF SCIENCE & SCIENCE FICTION

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GOING TO MARS WITH ANDY WEIR, PASCAL LEE, AND MARY ROACH BUNKY, PART I NEXT GENERATION EPISODE GUIDE SEASONS V–VII

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Issue #1 Premiere issue! Interviews with Michio Kaku, David Gerrold, Mary Doria Russell, Deepak Srivastava, Michael Medved; Mobile Suit Gundam; Lathe of Heaven on TV; space photos; Virgin Galactic; Star Wars in print; news & reviews

Galactica! A special report on classic German science fiction; building a real starship; Perry Rhodan starts over; the controversy over spilling Prometheus’ secrets; the world’s first short SF story; a photo guide to Saturn; reviews; & more!

episode guide to original Battlestar Galactica; author Charles Yu interview; Lev Grossman’s The Magicians; search for Earth-like planets; photo visits to CERN & SpaceX; Google tech; fictional trip to Mars; Galactica: Blood & Chrome; & more!

Issue #2 A complete episode guide to the Syfy-era Battlestar

Issue #3 The Star Wars wuxia connection! The complete

Issue #4 Special Trek focus! An extended review of Star Trek into Dark-

ness, plus episode guide to first season of ST:TNG; Europa Report; Artemis Eternal; El Cosmonauta; Orson Scott Card boycott; space stamps; Indy Jones update; Ray Kurzweil speaks; Dragon Fire fiction; & more! Issue #5 Special SF TV preview! New interview with David Gerrold; scientist Inge Lehm-

ann; remembering Terry Pratchett and Leonard Nimoy; Mandelbrot art; Star Wars VII update; Hugo controversy; Frazetta lives; ST:TNG episode guide seasons II & III; Dragon Fire part II; & more! Issue #6 Trek turns 50! Space opera; The Expanse; SpaceX tours Mars; The Force Awakens;

black hole science; astronaut’s view of Earth; David Bowie; & more! Issue #7 Meeting aliens! Next Generation episode guide finale; 2 Star Wars films reviewed; remembering Carrie Fisher; war in space; real hopes for exploring Mars; Blade Runner; & more!

Get caught up on the best science & science fiction magazine!

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Galaxis JANUARY 2018 VOLUME 2 NUMBER 1

FEATURES

DEPARTMENTS 4 6 11 38 68 70 97 98 99 110

VIEWSCREEN | From the editor LAUNCH TUBE | Trek returns to TV, the pope defends science, and more IMAGERY | Futuristic architecture, Jupiter’s eye, and 2001’s space station GAME SET | SF quiz and word hunt WORLDLY THINGS | Voice assistants and VR on the cheap SCREENINGS | Updates on TV shows and upcoming films COMPENDIUM | What to see, hear, and do WEBBED | Special SF authors edition REVIEWSCREEN | The Expanse, The Explorers Guild, Passengers, Wonder Woman, & more NEXT GALAXIS

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16 VALERIAN | The Fifth Element’s Luc Besson returns 18 MEET YOUR NEW BLADE RUNNER | Ryan Gosling joins Harrison Ford in the sequel 20 INTERVIEW: GOOGLE ASSISTANT | We converse with our home 22 THE LEGACY OF CARRIE FISHER | She was much more than a space princess 26 WAR IN SPACE | Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter thinks long-distance warfare 28 THE FIRST MARTIANS | Some real-life Martian exploration with Pascal Lee, Andy Weir, and Mary Roach 39 NASA TOURS THE PLANETS | Posters from top space artists 48 STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION EPISODE GUIDE | The final three seasons 72 LOVING THE ALIEN | Being ready to meet E.T. means being open to seeing something really different 80 FICTION: DRAGON FIRE, PART III | Drowning in Riches 86 THE ROGUE FILMS | Reviewing Rogue One and The Last Jedi 90 TWO MORE HEROES GONE | Remembering Adam West and Richard Hatch 92 BUNKY | Some comic adventure

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ow often have you heard someone complain that a film, TV show, or book was trying to be political or a “message story” instead of just entertainment? This complaint is heard from the political right more often than from the political left, but that likely has more to do with the oft-noted greater number of liberals than conservatives in the entertainment industry. But the sentiment is caused by a couple different things. First, some people feel they are being put upon when they went to spend a couple hours at the cinema or watching television and instead they have to sit through a plot that directly attacks their beliefs. Second, there are the complaints from people who, dammit, just wanted to relax and here’s this story that’s requiring them to put on their thinking caps, and maybe it’s making them uncomfortable. I love a message well-delivered. Oftentimes it works best in books, where the author has plenty of time to set the stage and contextualize the message to that it can be appreciated or at least disagreed with on a fair basis. But I hate a message that is poorly delivered, ham-handedly stuffing a political or social statement into a story where it doesn’t belong. A couple decades ago, it became a joke on television about various sitcoms having “a very special episode,” in which the characters would learn an important lesson about alcoholism or drug use or sexual assault or something else. Important issues, 4

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yes, and ones that parents would want their children to learn about sooner or later. But the fact that the networks would literally advertise them as “very special episodes” showed that they weren’t a normal part of the program. That’s funny, considering there were shows that didn’t need to have “very special episodes” even though they regularly dealt with important and often controversial issues. M*A*S*H, All in the Family, Lou Grant, WKRP in Cincinnati, and many others could be serious or funny or both without needing to warn their audiences that they might have to do more than chuckle during the program. In 1999, in my first science-fiction television column for my friend Aaron Barnhart’s TVBarn newsletter, I interviewed Kerry O’Quinn, the creator and former publisher of such iconic magazines as Starlog, Future Life, Fangoria, and Comics Scene (and, well, the adult Allure, but that’s another genre). We discussed the decline in issues-oriented television, and Kerry noted that the 1970s were a different time when there was a lot of ferment in the political and social scenes in the United States. Television programs were grappling with religious fundamentalism, sexual equality, racism, and other such topics because the society as a whole was doing so; television wasn’t leading the charge, it was reflecting society’s interests. My own view on media creators is pretty simple: It’s their story, and they can do whatever the hell they want with it. We might love it, we might be indifferent to it, we

might hate it. But it’s their movie, book, television program, magazine, play, podcast, or game, and they should create it; the audience shouldn’t. Films are collaborative efforts as it is; they (and television programs and books) should not be created by committees or pressure groups including the audience. The audience already gets input through its actions in the market: what to buy, whom to support. The audience shouldn’t dictate whether a filmmaker can include commentary critical of someone’s favorite politician, or include a plot line on gender issues or taxation that might be inflammatory to some people. Take the Star Wars movies, for example. You would have to be pretty generous to say that Star Wars: A New Hope was a message movie. What would the message be? That bad guys are bad and good guys should oppose evil? That’s pretty much the absolute minimum we should expect of any story— or person, for that matter. A New Hope was a rousing adventure that made people feel happy and, amidst a somewhat chaotic and uncertain decade, it gave them “a new hope.” Nothing wrong with that. But when George Lucas made his prequels, he did include some social and political commentary. Remember Senator Amidala in the Senate chamber lamenting, “So this is how liberty dies . . . with thunderous applause”? Or when Anakin/Darth Vader says to Obi Wan Kenobi, “If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy,” which everyone in the audience knew was an echo of President George W. Bush’s post-911 declaration, “Every nation, in every region, now has a

ART: CURRENS

i am not a committee

All of Star Trek’s TV incarnations (much more than its film versions) have tried to bridge the entertainment–message divide, mostly successfully.

decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” Compare that with Rogue One, about which Disney CEO Bob Iger told The Hollywood Reporter, “Frankly, this is a film that the world should enjoy. It is not a film that is, in any way, a political film. There are no political statements in it, at all.” That sounds like a corporate head trying to ensure his stockholders aren’t inconvenienced by possible lower-than-expected returns caused by controversy over a film. The original Battlestar Galactica—which I lapped up as an 11-year-old—was not a message series (though one could easily say it had commentary about U.S.–Soviet detente and disarmament). The Ronald Moore reimagined Galactica on Syfy had lots of social commentary, particularly on aspects of the U.S.-led anti-terrorist wars around the globe. Star Trek is example of a show with lots of messages. In every spinoff of the show, January 2018 Volume 2, Number 1 Issue Number 7 www.weimar.ws THANKS THIS ISSUE TO: 20th Century Fox, Amazon, The Commonwealth Club of California, CBS, CBS All Access, Disney, Efes, Gage Skidmore, Google, JPL, Lucasfilm, NASA, Paramount, Pixel103, Kim Stanley Robinson, SpaceX, and Kin Tso. ON THE COVER: How will you meet the aliens? We’re eager to meet them, though we’ll admit to fears—informed

stories have tackled racism, individual freedom, terrorism, violence, gender roles, discrimination, economic exploitation, and religion. Were those messages all wonderfully told? No, a number of them were botched in their delivery. But Trek’s TV incarnations (much more than its film versions) have always tried to bridge the entertainment– message divide, mostly successfully. Comics, too, have become quite adept at mixing in issues and social criticism. Superhero comics have tackled numerous social dysfunctions (hell, Spider-Man alone is a seminar’s worth of tales of teen angst and personal responsibility), and even the Archie comics have become noted for taking on various issues, including LGBT topics. So the question for me is not if movies, TV, and books should try to tackle serious issues, it’s how can they do it better? Because if you do it poorly, you’ve not only wasted your time, you have likely made a laughingstock out of your “very special episode.”

Galaxis by The Three Body Problem and other works—that the beings we meet from other areas of the universe might not be of the friendly persuasion. Photo by Dennis R. Jenkins. Galaxis is published by John Zipperer. This is issue Volume Two, Number One. Except for images by third-party photographers and artists, all content is copyright © 2018 John Zipperer, un-

I agree when people say they sometimes just want to sit down in front of the television and enjoy themselves. Their work day was stressful, they have untold personal issues (illnesses in the family, divorce, financial pressures, etc.), and can’t they relax after dinner for an hour or so and be entertained? Yes, they should. But they shouldn’t always. If more writers and directors and producers can figure out how to entertain at the same time as they show their heroes exhibiting ideal behavior—or show how policies or beliefs or behavior is hurting people, or propose a better way of doing things—then the creators have a better chance of their message getting across, and audiences have a better chance of digesting and thinking through what they’ve seen. They might or might not agree with the creators, but getting people thinking is good.

EDITOR & PUBLISHER John Zipperer jzipperer@gmail.com less noted. All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction of any part is strictly forbidden without written permission. Galaxis accepts no responsibility for unsolicited submissions, but if they are submitted, they will be considered and, if necessary, returned. All articles in this issue are written by John Zipperer, unless otherwise specified. All images reproduced here are

John Zipperer/Editor & Publisher ART DIRECTOR & DESIGN John Zipperer PRINTING: Issuu.com & MagCloud in the public domain or are used with required restrictions. All characters, logos, and related material represented in images—including but not limited to Star Wars, Star Trek, and Wonder Woman—are the properties of their respective copyright owners. Address all communications to Galaxis, including letters to the editor and business queries, to jzipperer@gmail.com or john@ weimar.ws. weimar.ws Galaxis

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Star Trek: Discovery Breaks New Ground for CBS and the Trek Franchise New characters, mutiny, and online streaming

hen the latest series in the long-running Star Trek franchise premiered in May 2017, it courted controversy in several ways. Within the first hour, the seriesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; star, Michael Burnham (played by Sonequa Martin-Green) commits mutiny against her commanding officer and mentor, incapacitates her, and takes over the ship. Co-creator and showrunner Bryan Fuller quit as showrunner before it premiered. And most dramatic of all, the rest of the show would not be available on free TV.

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Set 10 years before the timeframe of the original Star Trek series, Star Trek: Discovery is a darker portrayal of the future than many of the other Treks. It also boasts very high production values, but unlike previous Trek series, only its premiere episode aired on broadcast television; the rest is broadcast on the CBS All Access digital streaming service in the United States. Overseas audiences will be able to view the series on Netflix, as part of a deal that at least one report says paid CBS enough money to cover the multi-million dollar

per-episode cost of production. Interestingly, back in the 1970s, Paramount was going to try to launch a fourth television network to be called Paramount Television Service, and its flagship product was to be Star Trek: Phase II. That never got off the ground, Star Trek ended up going the big-screen route with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and it was rival studio 20th Century Fox that eventually launched the fourth network, Fox. Now we have a new Trek series that is being used to anchor CBS All-Access, the

network’s online streaming service. Early reports had the launch of Discovery fueling record signups for the streaming service. Reviews have been largely positive for the program, with some noting the controversies built into the program. CBS itself is playing up the best-of-the-old, best-of-the-new aspects of the series, announcing in a release that “The series will feature a new ship, new characters, and new missions, while embracing the same ideology and hope for the future that inspired a generation of dreamers and doers.” The Discovery’s science specialist, MartinGreen’s Burnham was raised on the planet Vulcan by the parents of Spock, which explains her use of a Vulcan neck pinch to take down her captain at the end of that first episode. Discovery First Officer Lt. Saru, a Kelpian portrayed by Doug Jones, adds the fish-out-of-water alien that every Trek series is required to have among its bridge ensemble. Shazad Latif portrays the ship’s chief of security, Ash Tyler. Anthony Rapp is Paul Stamets, chief engineer. Cadet Sylvia

THE GALAXIS NEWSWAVE NETFLIX WILL UNSPOOL a new Godzilla movie, named Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters; the animated film will feature the return to a kaiju-filled Earth 20,000 years after humans fled the constant onslaught of giant Japanese monsters. A COUPLE YEARS AGO, the state of South Dakota decided to try to lure visitors with a new slogan: “Why die on Mars, when you can live in South Dakota?” According to an MSNBC report, “The goal of the campaign, unveiled . . . by the South Dakota Governor’s Office of Eco-

nomic Development, is to remind the mere 200,000 people who recently signed up for a one-way trip to Mars that the planet is a ‘cold and barren’ place where ‘the air is not breathable.’ South Dakota, however, has breathable air, is closer, and has jobs for all those looking for a new home. “ Not sure if that’s the best overall marketing plan, but it beats the old joke about another state’s fictional campaign slogan: “Wisconsin—a far better place than Guam.” APPLE IS TAKING IT on the chin with its failure to deliver its new HomePod product

Tilly (played by Mary Wiseman) works in engineering. And Jason Isaacs portrays Gabriel Lorca, captain of the Discovery. Together they make quite a lively and occasionally mistrustful bunch, which is another cause for controversy for some—and a welcome relief for others tired of the squeaky-clean Starfleet world. “The starship is no longer a safe, utopian place,” wrote Matt Miller in a review of the new series in Esquire. “It can be dangerous—a place full of egos, divisive opinions, and betrayal. The circle of trust that always seemed implied on the bridge is gone. Everyone’s motives can be questioned—especially after a twist in the first episode, which leaves Burnham as a pariah among the entire Starfleet. At one point, an officer under Captain Gabriel Lorca’s command refers to his superior as a ‘warmonger.’ Lies and deceit abound—something that unravels the idea of humanity that Roddenberry imagined many years ago. This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s darker, and a little more depressing than Trekkies might be used to. And the entire conceit for this series is a war with the Klingons—one that the Shenzhou

and Burnham inadvertently started by trying to obey the Prime Directive in the first place.” The series has Trek royalty all over its credit lists, featuring people from the show’s television and film incarnations. A long list of producers includes Bryan Fuller, Eugene Roddenberry (son of Trek creator Gene Roddenberry), Akiva Goldsman, Nicholas Meyer, Alex Kurtzman, and others. The Daily Beast’s Ira Madison III praised the show: “The desire to marry the old with the new crescendoes into a beautiful pilot—that functions more as a mini-series before it ends with a soft reboot and new mission statement—that pits [Shenzhou Captain] Philippa’s traditional Star Trek optimism with Michael’s logical view of how war and humanity works. It’s even more beautiful watching two women of color, black and Asian, navigate a realm that traditionally hasn’t included them. It honors sci-fi’s history while giving it a bold new future to stake claim in, making Star Trek essential television for the first time in decades.” CBS has ordered a second season of the series.

CBS unveiled its newest Starfleet ship in the Trek franchise, the U.S.S. Discovery, at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con.

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PHOTO: NASA

Is this Mars or South Dakota?

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in time for Christmas 2017 sales. Instead, the voice-controlled speaker will debut sometime in early 2018. Unlike Amazon’s Alexa or Google’s Home, HomePod appears to be focused on serving as a music player, and its web page on the Apple website only mentions at the bottom almost as an afterthought its ability to be a digital assistant. Meanwhile, Amazon and Google aggressively discounted their home assistant products at Christmastime to get them into as many homes before Apple’s product is launched.

NEXT TIME you’re in China’s city of Guiyang, take some time to visit the Oriental Science Fiction Valley Theme Park, a large virtual reality entertainment zone. According to Business Insider, the park cost $1.5 billion, will have 35 different virtual reality attractions (such as a space battle or virtual roller coasters), and of course a giant robot. WATCH AMC IN 2018 for James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction, a six-episode series that explores some of the “big questions” that people have wondered about,

PHOTO, TOP: CANTERBURY TALE; BELOW: DECRYPTYS

SF films at the Box Office in 2017

eauty and the Beast, Disney’s live-action remake, topped the U.S. box office in 2017, bringing in $504 million. Genre films made up most of the year’s big hits. According to Box Office Mojo, here’s a rundown of how other science fiction, horror, and fantasy films performed at the domestic box office in 2017. Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($423 million) Wonder Woman ($412 million) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ($389 million) Spider-Man: Homecoming ($334 million) It ($327 million) Thor: Ragnarok ($309 million) Despicable Me 3 ($264 million) Logan ($226 million) Justice League ($223 million) The LEGO Batman Movie ($175 million) Get Out ($175 million) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales ($172 million) Kong: Skull Island ($168 million) War for the Planet of the Apes ($146 million) Transformers: The Last Knight ($130 million) Blade Runner 2049 ($91 million) Power Rangers ($85 million) The Mummy ($80 million) Alien: Covenant ($74 million) The Dark Tower ($50 million) Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets ($41 million) Ghost in the Shell ($40 million) Life ($30 million) Keep in mind that these are just the domestic grosses of these films. Though in many cases they track well relative to the films’ worldwide intake, the international market has steadily grown in import to a film’s financial success. This is also why action and adventure films have increased in prevalence; they require less translation than a talky film that might have lots of difficult-totranslate cultural references. This helps explain why action star Vin Diesel was the year’s topgrossing actor, with his films bringing in a combined $1.6 billion in 2017, according to Forbes.

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Would you like another Chestburster?

ou can have your drink with or without nightmares at the HR Giger Museum Bar in Gruyères, Switzerland. The bar features a large space with alien spine-like ridges overhead, chairs out of an extraterrestrial spaceship, and wall illustrations far more interesting and disturbing than dogs playing poker. As the name HR Giger Museum Bar might tell you, the bar is in the museum dedicated to the legendary late Swiss surrealist, whose incredible designs made the 1979 movie Alien feel genuinely alien. The Museum calls the bar “a work of art, an original and completely unique experience. The ceiling, walls, floors, fittings, tables and chairs are all modeled by the artist in the style of his acclaimed biomechanical designs. Giger Bar is the ultimate in immersive art.” As for the art at the museum, one needs to remember that Giger’s work often incorporated elements of human genitalia, reimagined in nightmarish or beautiful or just freaky ways. In any case, the museum warns visitors to “please consider that some of the work might not be suitable for children,” in one of the grand understatements of the ages. The Giger Bar in Gruyères is actually the third; the first was opened in Shirokanedai, Tokyo, in the 1980s but soon closed; another opened in 1992 in Chur, Switzerland. Plan your next biomechanical trip to Switzerland at hrgigermuseum.com.

CAMERON PHOTO: STEVE JURVETSON

James Cameron

“and reaches back into sci-fi’s past to better understand how our favorite films, TV shows, books, and video games were born, and where the genre—and our species—might be going in the future,” according to an AMC promotional video. Guests will include Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, George Lucas, Christopher Nolan, Will Smith, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and others. FANS OF FUTURISM past and present were pleased this past fall with the reappearance in print of Omni magazine. Originally published by Penthouse mogul Bob Guccione from 1979 to the mid-1990s, the magazine ceased

publication even though it had a circulation of 600,000—a considerable number these days for a print product. The new quarterly edition is also published by Penthouse, which is one or two company ownerships since Guccione lost his media empire in a round of bankruptcy and media shrinkage. Galaxis wishes Omni a long and healthy future. THERE ARE, ALAS, many people who pass away every month. We will highlight one of them here: Jerry Pournelle, a prolific writer of science fiction stories and technology articles. We were pleased to sit across a table from him

Pope Francis, head of the nearly 1.3-billion strong Roman Catholic Church, has been an ardent proponent of climate and other science.

to increase production of coal, remove tax incentives for clean energy, and muzzle the collection and dissemination of scientific evidence that contradicts the agenda of some of their big financial backers in the energy industry. The pope has spoken numerous times about the need to care for the Earth and to be concerned about the negative effects of climate change on the world’s poorest people and countries. But that’s not the only areas where he has indicated an openness to engaging with science. In 2014, for example, he declared that it was wrong to imagine God as “a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything.” The Catholic Church in the modern age has been less antagonistic toward science than many conservative Protestant churches. Pope Pius XII declared that evolution was not at odds with Catholic teachings, a view reiterated by Pope John Paul II. Still, Francis probably raised a great many eyebrows in May 2017 when he invited leading scientists and cosmologists to the Vatican Observatory to discuss the Big Bang, black holes, gravitational waves, and space-time singularities. Before entering seminary, Francis—then known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio—earned a título (similar to a U.S. community college degree) in chemistry from a technical secondary school.

udiences might yet see a spinoff of the 1999 science-fiction comedy Galaxy Quest with news that writer Paul Scheer has been at work on the series. Paul Scheer, an actor, comedian, writer, producer and director, has reportedly been hired to write the show for Amazon’s streaming service. In the late fall, Scheer told /Film’s Ben Pearson that the new series will continue the story of the original film, “mixing two casts”—presumably the original film cast with new actors. The 1999 film starred Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, Daryl Mitchell and Alan Rickman as actors from a Star Trek-like 1970s television series who are pressed into action by a group of aliens who thought that their fictional adventures were documentaries; the actors are then forced to fight the aliens’ reallife (and really dangerous) enemies. Rumors of a sequel film or television series had knocked around Hollywood for the past few years, but little progress was visible. The original stars had talked encouragingly of the series, but the effort had seemed to be derailed by Rickman’s death in 2016. In November, Scheer told Pearson “Right now, I just handed in my first script to Amazon, so I’m in that zone. . . . It was really important to do service to a Galaxy Quest story that gives you everything that you want and indoctrinates people who have never seen Galaxy Quest into what the fun of that world is. . . . And also to continue the story of our original characters and have consequences from the first film.” The movie was widely seen as a spoof of Star Trek, with Allen’s character as a takeoff on William Shatner. In 2001, Shatner quipped to Startrek.com, “I thought it was very funny, and I thought the audience that they portrayed was totally real, but the actors that they were pretending to be were totally unrecognizable. Certainly I don’t know what Tim Allen was doing. He seemed to be the head of a group of actors and for the life of me I was trying to understand who he was imitating.”

PHOTO: ACKL

Galaxy Quest inches toward a TV series

Pope Francis: Defender of the Scientific Faith

he Roman Catholic Church has a long and complicated history with science. For many, the world’s largest faith institution is a natural antagonist to science and reason. But the church has at times been patron and other times persecutor of science, so it’s not easy to give a verdict. But to look at the world today, it is the supposedly secular U.S. government and many big public companies that are waging wars on science, and it’s the Catholic Church that has emerged as a defender of science. Galileo Galilei would prob-

ably be happy to hear that Pope Francis has staked out a frontand-center position in defense of science and scientists—and in particular climate science, warning that the dangers from climate change constitute “one of the most worrisome phenomena that humanity is facing.” Under President Barack Obama, the United States helped negotiate the Paris accord on climate change, but one of President Donald Trump’s first acts in coming to power was to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement; his party has also pushed

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you have time to train your grandchildren to be spacemen and spacewomen. “HAN SAYS HI”—that’s reportedly one of the secret messages inscribed on the bombs dropped by Resistance ships in The Last Jedi. But it was written in the Star Wars alphabet, so don’t bother trying to find it. AT AN AUCTION, the original lightsaber used by Luke Skywalker sold for $450,000. R2D2 went for $2.76 million.

WHITTAKER PHOTO: GDCGRAPHICS; CAPALDI PHOTO: GAGE SKIDMORE

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at a 2003 Microsoft conference press room, where he was complaining loudly about his malfunctioning computer. We loved every minute of hearing a living legend swear at his laptop. R.I.P. WE’RE GOING TO THE STARS, according to new plans announced by NASA. The space agency has plans to send a probe to Alpha Cenauri, which is the closest star system to our own. But it won’t launch until 2069, so

Doctor Who’s Latest Changing of the Guard

hen Doctor Who premiered on BBC TV on Saturday, November 23, 1963, the show didn’t even last an hour. No one predicted that the show would last 54 years and counting. Those early half-hour programs (some of them lost because, again, who could have predicted anyone would care about seeing them in the future?) featured William Hartnell as the eccentric Doctor, who solved problems (and tried to impart some educational lesson in the early years). Hartnell departed after three years and was replaced by a succession of actors: Patrick Troughton (1966–69), Jon Pertwee (1970–74), Tom Baker (1974–81), Peter Davison (1982–84), Colin Baker (1984–86), Sylvester McCoy (1987–89), Paul McGann (1996), Christopher Eccleston (2005), David Tennant (2005–10), Matt Smith (2010–13), and Peter Capaldi (2014–17). All of those Doctors, of course, were male. That changes in 2017–2018, when Jodie Whittaker assumes control of the TARDIS in a move that elicited reactions ranging from sowhat to it’s-about-bloody-time to outrage. Whittaker made her first appearance in the 2017 Doctor Who Christmas special, “Twice Upon a Time,” which saw Capaldi’s doctor regenerate into Whittaker’s Doctor. Fans who were bothered by the gender switch will have time to get used to it; Whittaker’s first season

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in the role won’t air until the fall of 2018. A star of the British drama Broadchurch for three seasons, the 35-year-old Whittaker has also appeared in the films Journeyman, Hello Carter, Attack the Block, and others in addition to numerous television credits. Praise for her casting was widespread, with many echoing the sentiments of Simon Tucker, who was quoted by BBC as declaring “It’s great mate. My nieces can grow up in a world with a good Wonder Woman, a female Jedi, female ghostbusters & a female Dr Who.” Negative responses included complaints that the producers were bowing to political correctness, or that the doctor was always intended to be male. Wrote one Twitter user, “The doctor is a time LORD. Not a time LADY.” Just as many of the supportive comments were from men, some of the negative comments were from women, including one who wrote, “As a dr who watcher since Patrick Troughton, my time lord hero was always a lord not a lady! No disrespect to the actress chosen but the producers have brought my Dr Who history and memories to an abrupt end. For her part, Whittaker told BBC “It feels completely overwhelming, as a feminist, as a woman, as an actor, as a human, as someone who wants to continually push themselves and challenge themselves, and not be boxed in

Left: New Doctor, Jodie Whittaker. Right: Exiting Doctor, Peter Capaldi.

by what you’re told you can and can’t be.” She also told fans “not to be scared by my gender,” and added in a conversation with Rolling Stone, “I’m playing an alien, and gender is not a part of that.” Capaldi, who was supportive of Whittaker’s work, had also expressed support for the concept of a female Doctor replacing him. All of the high-profile celebration and hand-wringing is a reflection of the high status of the long-running program. What began as a children’s educational program has long since become a general entertainment program whose audience reaches far and wide. “Doctor Who is not the cultural juggernaut it once was,” noted The Guardian’s Tim Lewis in December 2017. “In the David Tennant era of the mid-late 2000s, the BBC One show regularly attracted more than 10 million live viewers; with Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, the audience sunk to under half that figure, the lowest ratings since it returned to television in 2005. But, when it is firing, Doctor Who is still one of the only programmes—and perhaps the only drama—that can draw a genuine family audience, sitting together in one room at the moment of transmission.”

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t might look like some sort of alien nest, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s actually a skyscraper located in the Emirates.

IMAGE BY THE_DOUBLE_A

weimar.ws Galaxis

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upiter is one of the most beautiful bodies in the solar system. Here, we get a closeup of its clouds with the Great Red Spot at top right next to wavy white and brown clouds. Below the Great Red Spot are various bands of bluer wavy clouds at smaller scales with smaller light blue spots IMAGE BY NASA; CALTECH/JPL

Galaxis January 2018

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till not there: This classic space station image is from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1968. Praised for its special effects, the movie based its space station concept on a model by German rocket genius Wernher Von Braun. Kubrickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s station in the movie was 900 feet in diameter, orbited 200 miles above Earth, and was home to an international contingent of scientists, passengers, and bureaucrats. IMAGE BY NASA ON THE COMMONS @ FLICKR COMMONS weimar.ws Galaxis

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Maybe French SF movies don’t translate into U.S. films. Let’s call them ‘Freedom Films.’

BY JOHN ZIPPERER

ut a cute male lead in the iconic role of an international space adventure hero, pair him with a brainy female partner, add in colorful aliens, and what do you get? It should be an internationally recognizable space fantasy story, but if box office returns tell us anything, it’s a disappointment. And that’s a disappointment. 16

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When director Luc Besson’s epic space fantasy Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets was released in July 2017, it was not appreciated by critics or audiences. At press time, it had barely recovered its production costs at the box office, and that’s without taking into account the many millions spent for distribution and promotion. In a particularly harsh review, The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy wrote that “the Hollywood studio chiefs can

Above: The cover of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: The Art of the Film; next page, top to bottom: stars Cara Delevingne and Dane DeHaan with director Luc Besson; the studio can improve its box office with the DVD and digital release of the film; look for newly released hardcover collections of the original Valerian comics, out now.

breathe easy that, this time, at least, they’ll escape blame for making a giant summer franchise picture that nobody wants to see, since this one’s a French import.” Declaring “Euro-trash is back, while sci-fi will need to lick its wounds for a while,” McCarthy had venomous words for the film’s stars: “Dane DeHaan, who has starred in two of the most egregiously bloated misfires of the year with A Cure for Wellness and now this, should do a couple of indie films, while Cara Delevingne needs to learn there is more to acting than smirking and eye-rolling. Rihanna should pretend this never happened.”

PHOTO: DOMINICK D

The British Empire magazine concluded that the “sad truth is, once the giddy novelty of riding dodgems in Besson’s psychedelic space-carnival wanes, it all becomes quite grating (and watching it in eye-sandblasting 3D really doesn’t help). Almost enough to make you want to grab the nearest memoryeating jellyfish.” Was Valerian really a turkey? Or was it too close to the source material? Or was it a successful adaptation of the source material, which wasn’t known to many audiences? The Valerian movie was based on a longrunning series of French science fiction comics from writer Pierre Christin and illustrator Jean-Claude Mézières. The comics’ readers already know the stories are wild and fanciful and not exactly grounded in the latest scientific evidence. They are, after all, space fantasies, and they’re fun at that. They revolve around Valerian and Laureline, two “spatio-temporal” agents in the 28th century. First appearing in the legendary French comics magazine Pilote in 1967, their stories appeared for the next four decades and influenced such big-screen marvels as Star Wars and another production from Luc Besson, The Fifth Element. As extravagant and out-there as some of the scenes, worlds, and aliens are in the movie, they are a welcome change from science fiction films that pretend to offer something different but really just give us thinly veiled analogies of tried-and-true mainstream storylines. There are giant aliens; trios of small aliens who will find anything—for a price; sleek fast spaceships; weapons that immobilize people but leave them unharmed; gelat-

inous aliens that impart information when worn over one’s head (a scene taken right from one of the Valerian comics); and alien critters that can replicate valuable objects such as gems by eating and then excreting large quantities of them. Watching Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets like one would a Star Trek film and expecting somewhat plausible explanations is itself too fanciful an idea to spend much time with. In the end, it was political magazine New Republic that offered a positive take on the film. Writer Josephine Livingstone wrote that it was useless to try to take the plot too seriously: “This is not where the charm of Valerian lies. The world of Valerian and its nonhuman inhabitants are unrelentingly stunning. In one sequence, Laureline has to lure a jazz-loving Frenchman to take her fishing, so that they can find a huge underwater creature called a Bromosaur and catch a jellyfish that lives on the Bromosaur, so that she can put the jellyfish on her head so that she can access the jellyfish’s knowledge of her boyfriend’s whereabouts. In another, Valerian takes a shortcut through a densely packed multi-city, running directly through a series of walls. Each time that he busts through to the other side, he enters a completely new world. Underwater scene, orchard full of fruit, techno rave, a free-fall through space—they’re all extraordinary. I couldn’t take the smile off my face.” Despite being considered a box office failure, rumor has it that there could be more on the way, thanks to fan appreciation. Nerdist reports that Besson has already prepared Galaxis stories for a pair of sequels. weimar.ws Galaxis

GOSLING PHOTO: ELEN NIVRAE FROM PARIS, FRANCE; FORD PHOTO: GAGE SKIDMORE; VOIGHT-KAMPFF ART: BERNARD GOLDBACH

Your New Blade Runner Ryan Gosling joins Harrison Ford in the sequel to Philip K. Dick’s legendary story. BY JOHN ZIPPERER

arrison Ford, who was only a few years older than Ryan Gosling when he appeared as Deckard in the original Blade Runner motion picture, was asked if he wanted to be in the new Blade Runner movie, and his response? “So what?” he joked to British journalist Alison Hammond. Ford was, of course, having fun with the Brits. But talk about some legendary shoes to fill. Harrison Ford has brought billions of dollars to the world box office based upon his iconic films, and Hollywood seems determined to get a second generation to wear his shoes. The 36-year-old Gosling, one of moviedom’s brightest rising stars, assumed the lead role in the sequel to Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049, which advances the story of the Philip K. Dick tale to find out more about the fate of replicants in the near future. Was Gosling a success?

Galaxis January 2018

The 1982 Blade Runner reportedly cost about $28 million to produce and it brought in about $33 million at the box office. By pretty much any standard, that’s a box office failure. Once you factor in

the additional costs of making prints for countless theaters and millions more for advertising and promotion, a film has to bring in a lot more than its production cost before it enters that hallowed Hollywood

Left top: Ryan Gosling, the new Blade Runner; below left: the original, Harrison Ford; below right: Bernard Goldbach’s conception of the Voight-Kampff machine.

category of “profitable.” The production costs of Blade Runner 2049 were about $150 million, and its first few months of release brought in $258 million; the film will have to continue to bring in the audiences to make back its money. There have been many versions of the first Blade Runner released. There was the theatrical version, director’s cut(s), ultimate versions, etc. But if Blade Runner 2049 ultimately relaunches a successful movie franchise, it will have much to do with actor Gosling, who has been something of a Hollywood wunderkind, most recently racking up praise for his starring performance in LaLa Land. Not bad for someone who started out as part of the Mickey Mouse Club. If nothing else, Gosling and Ford appear to have a great connection. Ford joked with the UK’s Hammond that his professionalism “accounts for the fact that I hit this guy one time” during the course of the sequel’s filming. Said Gosling, “That’s show business.” “The story is that I missed him 99 times. And I hit him once,” said the legendary actor. “You know they say, ‘Don’t meet your heroes,’” joked Gosling. “I’d say, ‘Don’t be punched by them.’ It turns out it doesn’t matter who you’re getting punched by; it’s still just getting punched.” Both Gosling and Ford have been considered underperformers at the box office for their respective Blade Runner performances, but they clearly are in the same space. And if the new Blade Runner doesn’t work out, they can always release a new version of Galaxis the film in a couple years.

Founded in the ‘80s and now resurrected online, the magazine of vintage hard rock and heavy metal!

• Interviews • Reviews • News • Nostalgia • Collecting • Contests • Archives • and much more!

POWERLINEmag HARD ROCK | HEAVY METAL SINCE 1985

www.powerlinemag.com weimar.ws Galaxis

PHOTO: NDB PHOTOS

Left: Google Home, the talkative base for Google Assistant.

Exclusive: Interview with Google Assistant Galaxis talks with Google’s consumer artificial intelligence about the SF universe

BY JOHN ZIPPERER

s the technology around us gets smarter and smarter and we theoretically approach the socalled singularity at which artificial intelligence (AI) achieves sentience, we took a moment to talk to our Google Home device, powered by the Google Assistant, to see what it could tell us. 20

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GALAXIS: Hey, Google, who is directing the movie Solo? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Solo: A Star Wars Story, was directed by Ron Howard. GALAXIS: What is the budget of Solo: A Star Wars Story? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Sorry, I can’t help with that yet. GALAXIS: How much money has The Last Jedi made so far?

GOOGLE ASSISTANT: On the Fortune. com website, it says “Star Wars: The Last Jedi blasted into theaters this past weekend, and the iconic movie franchise’s latest installment walked off with the second-biggest domestic opening weekend at the box office ever, at $220 million. . . . Newsweek says, “The Last Jedi delivered the second-largest opening of all time with $220 million domestically.” GALAXIS: Who would win in a fight: Captain Kirk or Captain Picard? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Sorry, I don’t understand. GALAXIS: Is Captain Picard a good captain? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Here’s a summary from the website startrek.com: “Starting in January, we asked fans which leadership traits were most important for a Star Trek captain to possess and fans responded with the following, in order: confident, courageous, desire and intelligence.” GALAXIS: Is Captain Kirk a tough guy? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: James T. Kirk was played by William Shatner, Chris Pine, and Jimmy Bennett. GALAXIS: So what does that mean? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Sorry, I’m confused. Try asking again in a different way. GALAXIS: Is it true you refuse to take a position on the whole Kirk-Picard controversy? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: My apologies. I don’t understand. GALAXIS: That’s understandable. It is a complex controversy. Let’s move to the world of science. When will artificial intelligence become sentient and kill us all? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Sorry, I don’t understand. GALAXIS: Is artificial intelligence a danger to humanity? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: According to Wikipedia, “The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington, D.C. think-tank, awarded its Annual Luddite Award to ‘alarmists touting an artificial intelligence apocalypse’; its president, Robert D. Atkinson, complained that [Elon] Musk, [Stephen] Hawking and AI experts say ‘this is the largest existential threat to humanity.’” GALAXIS: So who’s the coolest robot of all? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Sorry, I don’t know how to help with that yet. GALAXIS: When is the next SpaceX launch? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: On the website space.com, they say “[on December] 22, a

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch 10 Iridium NEXT satellites from Vandenburg Air Force base in California at 8:27 p.m.” GALAXIS: Thank you. GOOGLE ASSISTANT: You’re welcome. GALAXIS: Tell me a Star Wars joke. GOOGLE ASSISTANT: I don’t understand. GALAXIS: Do you like Galaxis magazine? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: You know I’d tell you if I knew. GALAXIS: Repeat after me: Subscribe to Galaxis magazine. GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Subscribe to Galaxis magazine. GALAXIS: This is fun. GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Fun is the best. GALAXIS: Give me some science trivia. GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Okay. Let’s get science trivia. [Music.] It is my honor to introduce the science trivia game. Who is Larry Pressler—actor, painter, or politician? GALAXIS: Actor. GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Luck is not on your side. It is politician. Plants receive their nutrients from soil, light, or atmosphere? GALAXIS: Light. GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Not for this one, but remember that for later. GALAXIS: I need easier questions. Google, give me some Star Trek trivia. GOOGLE ASSISTANT: All right. Getting Star Trek trivia. [Music.] Yay, I’m so excited to play Star Trek trivia with you today. Let’s get started with: Easy, hard, or medium? GALAXIS: Easy. GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Who was the first officer of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise D— David Picard, William Riker, or Worf? GALAXIS: William Riker. GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Yay. You got it. Who was the counselor of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise D—Deanna Troi, Beverly Crusher— GALAXIS: Deanna Troi. GOOGLE ASSISTANT: That was so right. GALAXIS: Let’s ask you some trivia. What is the Earth’s population? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: The population of earth was 7.442 billion in 2016. GALAXIS: Good. How many people have walked on the Moon? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Twelve. GALAXIS: How many people have walked on Mars? GOOGLE ASSISTANT: According to Wikipedia, “In a major space policy speech at Kennedy Space Center on April 15, 2010, former U.S. President Barack Obama predicted a manned Mars mission to orbit the planet by the mid-2030s, followed by a landing: ‘By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them Galaxis safely to Earth.’”

The new political magazine from the publisher of Galaxis

ZIPPERERSTRASSE

read it free at www.weimar.ws weimar.ws Galaxis

Galaxis January 2018

PHOTO: BY AND Â© RICCARDO GHILARDI

the legacy of carrie fisher Remembering a beloved actor, galactic heroine, and outspoken survivor. BY JOHN ZIPPERER

ne brief scene in an HBO documentary tells us an awful lot about Carrie Fisher. In Bright Lights: Starring Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, we see singer/actor Debbie Reynolds in the 1970s doing her act on-stage, when she calls up to the stage her daughter, Carrie Fisher. The 16-year-old Fisher then dutifully sings a song for the audience. From that we learn two thing: First, Fisher had a great voice, and it’s a shame she never had a desire to record music; and second, this young woman grew up in the brightest glare of Hollywood ever since she was a baby. When the time came for her to die—way too early, at the age of only 60, on December 27, 2016—she did that, too, in the glare of cameras marking worldwide attention and fascination with her and her amazing life story. HBO aired its documentary in early January 2017, just a couple weeks after the untimely passing of Fisher, which itself occurred only one day before her grief-stricken mother passed away at the age of 84. While they both lived, these two Hollywood legends had fun, occasionally argued, and continued living their lives the only way they knew how: In the spotlight. Carrie Fisher accomplished a lot in her lifetime. As an actress, she and George Lucas delivered a princess who did as much saving as was saved. As a writer, she was a revealing and healing voice, and also one of Hollywood’s top script doctors. As a public figure, she was a blunt and refreshing advocate for mental health. The fact that she could sing was actually one of the least interesting things about her. Feminist Princess Today’s audiences might not be aware of just how big of an impact Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia made in 1977, when the release of the first Star Wars film played to packed houses seemingly endlessly. Yes, she was the beautiful princess in white waiting to be rescued by the men and then— what? She kicks butt, saves the men, has a tongue sharp enough to cut diamond, and turns out to be a leader of the Rebel Alliance. Before Leia, princesses were just supposed to be beautiful and helpless, and they performed their jobs by being rescued. So back in the day (of 1977), people talked about Fisher’s character as being revolutionary; she (and Star Wars weimar.ws Galaxis

Mark Hamill said “She was a handful, but my life would have been so much drabber and less interesting if she hadn’t been the friend that she was.” creator George Lucas) subverted the roles and gender attitudes of the time. Fisher will always be known for her Star Wars role, but she also made a name for herself as a best-selling author and script doctor. She became a hero for an entirely different reason when she talked openly about her struggles with bipolar disorder and addiction. “I am mentally ill,” she said. “I can say that. I am not ashamed of that. I survived that, I’m still surviving it, but bring it on. Better me than you.” Princess Leia was revolutionary. And the actress who portrayed her was funny, sharp, and pointed. “Fisher’s Leia was a leader, quick to pick up a blaster and take charge while the boys bickered,” Lucasfilm said in a statement. “Not many actors can share the screen—and barbs—with Darth Vader one moment and Han Solo the next. Carrie could, and as a result, she created an icon that still inspires women and men some 40 years later. The term ‘strong female character’ is thrown around a lot today in pop culture, but Carrie designed the blueprint.” The Friends Left Behind Upon her death, Lucasfilm officially declared “We at Lucasfilm will always consider her family. Our princess, our general. And we are heartbroken that she has left us.” George Lucas said that he and Fisher were friends most of their adult lives, both of them having been quite young when Star Wars was made (Fisher was only 19 when she was cast for the role). “She was extremely smart; a talented actress, writer, and co24

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medienne with a very colorful personality that everyone loved,” said Lucas. “In Star Wars she was our great and powerful princess—feisty, wise, and full of hope in a role that was more difficult than most people might think. My heart and prayers are with . . . all Carrie’s family, friends, and fans. She will be missed by all.” “Carrie holds such a special place in the hearts of everyone at Lucasfilm, it is difficult to think of a world without her,” said Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. “She was Princess Leia to the world, but a very special friend to all of us. She had an indomitable spirit, incredible wit, and a loving heart. Carrie also defined the female hero of our age over a generation ago. Her groundbreaking role as Princess Leia served as an inspiration of power and confidence for young girls everywhere. We will miss her dearly.” Her costar in the first three Star Wars films, Mark Hamill, had his own poignant words about losing his friend. “It’s never easy to lose such a vital, irreplaceable member of the family, but this is downright heartbreaking,” Hamill said. “Carrie was one-of-a-kind who belonged to us all—whether she liked it or not. She was our Princess, damn it, and the actress who played her blurred into one gorgeous, fiercely independent, and ferociously funny, take-charge woman who took our collective breath away. Determined and tough, but with a vulnerability that made you root for her and want her to succeed and be happy. She played such a crucial role

in my professional and personal life, and both would have been far emptier without her. I am grateful for the laughter, the wisdom, the kindness, and even the bratty, self-indulgent crap my beloved space-twin gave me through the years. Thanks, Carrie. I love you.” That longing was echoed by Bob Iger, chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, parent corporation to Lucasfilm, who said, “Carrie Fisher was one-of-a-kind, a true character who shared her talent and her truth with us all with her trademark wit and irreverence. . . . She will always have a special place in the hearts of Star Wars fans as well as all of us who were lucky enough to know her personally.” Front-Row Seat Her fans included couch potatoes and presidents. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote “We’ll never forget you, Carrie. May the Force be with you always.” Democratic Party powerbroker Donna Brazile said she was shaken by the actress’ death: “Heartbroken. Great humanitarian, author and actress.” Republican Representative Bob Cortes added simply “May the Force be with you.” Ex-husband singer Paul Simon wrote “Carrie was a special, wonderful girl. It’s too soon.” And Fisher had once said about President Barack Obama, “I love him. Hope-

fully I’ll meet him sometime. I’m just happy he exists.” Following her death, President Obama wrote “I got the heartbreaking news of Carrie Fisher’s demise a few hours ago and therefore I have prepared a tribute for her by Barack Obama. May her soul Rest in Peace.” His tribute can be found on YouTube. From the very start of her life, Fisher was in the spotlight, part of Hollywood royalty. Born October 21, 1956, in Beverly Hills, she was the daughter of actress Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher. Being the child of two superstars taught her more than just what it was like to stare into the glare of a camera lens; it gave her experience in celebrity controversy. Debbie Reynolds was only the first of Eddie Fisher’s wives; when Carrie was only two years old, he divorced Reynolds to marry her best friend, fellow superstar Elizabeth Taylor. (He would have a total of five wives before his death in 2001.) Reynolds herself would later marry a businessman who ended up landing her in serious financial difficulties. So Fisher, who was a bookish kid, must have learned early on the benefits and costs of being a star. But unlike some children who pursue a career the farthest from that of their parents, Fisher would follow her mother’s path into Hollywood stardom. Carrie Fisher’s first steps in the film

world came in 1975’s Shampoo. Her next film would not only change her life, it would to some degree change the world: Star Wars, where she breathed life into the soon-to-beorphaned Princess Leia Organa. She also had memorable roles in 1980’s The Blues Brothers, Woody Allen’s 1985 movie Hannah and Her Sisters, 1989’s When Harry Met Sally, 1991’s Soapdish, and many other roles. Up to the Edge About six months after her death, the Los Angeles County coroner issued a report, noting that Fisher died of a mix of sleep apnea and “other conditions.” Those other conditions included a mix of drugs in her system, including cocaine, alcohol, methadone, ecstasy, and possibly heroin. Following the release of the coroner’s report, Fisher’s daughter, actress Billie Lourd, issued a statement to People magazine: “My mom battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life. She ultimately died of it. She was purposefully open in all of her work

about the social stigmas surrounding these diseases. “She talked about the shame that torments people and their families confronted by these diseases. I know my Mom, she’d want her death to encourage people to be open about their struggles. Seek help, fight for government funding for mental health programs. Shame and those social stigmas are the enemies of progress to solutions and ultimately a cure.” Fisher’s openness about her battles with addiction and mental illness was reflected in some autobiographical books, including 1987’s Postcards from the Edge, which was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep in 1990. “The lengths I would go to hear her laugh — there were no limits,” co-star and friend Mark Hamill wrote in The Hollywood Reporter. “I loved her and loved making her laugh. She would do these crazy things and make me do these crazy things, but I really don’t think they were crazy after all. In a way, it was a defense mechanism for her. She was so off the wall, she could use it as protection. Part of what was so poignant about her was that she was vulnerable, that there was this glimmer of a little girl that was so appealing and it roused the protective nature in my personality.” “She was a handful,” Hamill concluded. “She was high maintenance. But my life would have been so much drabber and less interesting if she hadn’t been the friend that she was.” Galaxis

Billie Lourd said “She’d want her death to encourage people to be open about their struggles. Seek help, fight for government funding for mental health programs.” weimar.ws Galaxis

war in space here really isn’t a simple border when it comes to war. The need to protect a country extends beyond earthly borders and into the space around the planet. In March 2016, thenU.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter came to The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco to talk about how government agencies partner with private industry to get their work done. In the case of the U.S. Department of Defense, that meant expanding collaboration on new technologies to try to keep ahead of international rivals. Of particular interest are his comments about partnering to extend the U.S. defenses in space. In his own words: As we work together to protect the free flow of commerce at sea and online, we must also recognize the opportunities and the threats to the free and open domain of outer space. Many companies in this community are now exploring the frontiers of this domain. And nearly every business depends on it to some extent, even if for just things such as communications and GPS. In DOD [the Department of Defense], we rely on it just as much as we have for quite some time; from secure communications to reconnaissance satellites to allowing for precise navigation and targeting, space is integral to our operations. Indeed, space enables great things here on Earth for security and prosperity, from financial companies with global presence to the remote street vendor conducting business with a satellite phone. GPS, first developed in partnership with the Defense Department, and maintained for decades 26

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including up to this day by us; it is now woven into every aspect of our lives, from hailing a car service on The Embarcadero to finding and targeting terrorists in the Middle East—all that. And decades ago we pioneered space together, [business] and us. It was the innovation of this region that led to the cutting-edge satellites and have quite literally changed how we see the world today. Today, many companies are going into space now on their own with ambitions for greater commercial imagery, micro satellites, even aspirations for tourism. Just as government-led efforts in space have benefited both our security and our society, private-led efforts are doing so also. One recent example being that the public disclosure of China’s surface-to-air missiles in the South China Sea was due to being discovered in commercial satellite imagery. However, this emerging marketplace is leading to a re-emerging challenge. Space can get crowded, particularly with many companies and many nations seeking to operate there, in ways we’ve never seen so many do before, including some that can pose threats to safe global order in space. To give you just one example of the dangers we would face if space turned from universal benefit to unrestricted battlefield, consider the longevity of space debris, which can cause great harm if it impacts a satellite or a spacecraft. When a Chinese anti-satellite test destroyed a defunct weather satellite in 2007, it dispersed over 3,000 pieces of debris—expanding the amount orbiting the Earth, the total amount, by 15 percent in one moment. The remnants of that satellite are still there and they’ll be there for over a century. Just as 100 years after the battle of Verdun, French farmers still encounter unexploded ordi-

nance in their fields, a kinetic battle in space could leave behind a legacy that would last far longer and make this common domain hazardous for commercial applications for generations. Make no mistake, both Russia and China have developed just such anti-satellite systems. Just like with the maritime and cyber domains, therefore, it’s in the interest of every nation to advance the common

IMAGE: U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

A defense secretary says government and business need to work together.

interest of a free and stable environment in space. In the past, some may have thought of space as a sanctuary; DOD must now prepare for and seek to prevent the possibility of a conflict that extends into space, and we are. In our budget, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re continuing to invest more in space, totaling more than $22 billion just this year, including with investments to enhance our ability to identify, at-

tribute, and negate threatening actions by others. DOD has a responsibility to protect its assets and interests in space and to ensure this domain remains available for both security and commercial applications. This, too, will require working together more with the private sector. We know that commercial space needs must be considered and protected to realize the continuing promise of this remarkable domain. The

only way to do that is through effective partnership and communication once again. We believe strong rules of the road that grow out of the commercial and civil interests in space will benefit all nations. It will propel American space entrepreneurship, which directly benefits national security, and will allow us to differentiate between acceptable and unacceptable behavior in space. Galaxis weimar.ws Galaxis

the first martian Martian experts Pascal Lee, Mary Roach, and Andy Weir explain how and why to get to Mars.

BY JOHN ZIPPERER

issions to Mars don’t usually end well. Either the Earthlings are killed upon arrival by harsh conditions on the dry planet, or they are killed by pre-existing inhabitants, or they kill one another in a fight for the planet’s resources. That, at least, is what science fictional visits to the red planet have told us. Nonfictional plans for Martian missions also have not gone well, at least for humans. We haven’t gotten there, despite President Bush’s setting a Martian landing as a goal for the country’s ever-shrinking space program. So what

Galaxis January 2018

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will it take to get humankind to make footprints on planet Mars? Recently, three writers and thinkers who span the science-to-fiction gamut got together for a discussion about the importance of humans actually going to another planet, as well as some of the nitty-gritty details about how it would be done. The short answer? It won’t be easy. The good news? It can be done, and it should. Pascal Lee is the director of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project at NASA Ames Research Center and the cofounder of the Mars Institute. Lee is internationally recognized for his efforts to advance human exploration of Mars and has worked extensively in the Arctic and Antarctic to help plan missions. Mary Roach is an author of popular scientific books ranging from Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex to Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans and War to Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Luckily for us, she is also the author of Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. Andy Weir is a computer programmerturned-author whose first novel, The Martian, was a wildly entertaining and wildly successful book that earned him the 2016 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. It was filmed for the big screen by director Ridley Scott. His sophomore novel, Artemis, came out in late 2017. Lee, Roach, and Weir came together at The Commonwealth Club of California in Silicon Valley in October 2016 to explore the reality of Martian colonization. What once belonged purely to the realm of the SF world has become tantalizingly real; Roach noted that tech business wizard Elon Musk—whose success with Tesla has sped up America’s electric car industry, and whose Hyperloop concept (see Galaxis #4) has moved from the conceptual to the experimental stage—announced what he was

Galaxis January 2018

calling an “Innerplanetary Transport System” for reaching other close-tothe-sun planets. “You know we’re going to colonize Mars, and fairly rapidly,” said Roach, “certainly by NASA standards.” So are we on the cusp of realizing Ray Bradbury’s final chronicle and becoming ourselves the new Martians? Besides his investment in eBay, where he made his billions, Musk is the genius behind SpaceX, a private commercial enterprise dedicated to getting people into space. Weir, for one, calls himself a big fan of Space X. “I love the way they do things,” said Weir. “I love their fail-fast ideology— which sounds kind of weird, but their plan is take larger risks so that we can reduce costs to the point that we on average get more done. Which is fine as long as you don’t have people on the ship,” he said to audience laughter. Weir, a former computer programmer, says he double-checked the company’s math on its plan for getting to Mars, and “it all checks out.” He calls it an inelegant solution, “it’s basically ‘we’re gonna take a really big rocket Above, left to right: Authors and Martian chroniclers Andy Weir, Pascal Lee, and Mary Roach. and put a ridiculous amount of fuel in it and go to Mars really fast, and then we’re gonna aerobrake at Mars and land this them to launch a Falcon Heavy,” he said, big old rocket on the surface.’” referring to SpaceX’s rocket, which the comHe says some fuel could be saved by put- pany says can lift more than twice the payting the ship in orbit instead of landing load of the next closest vehicle, the Delta IV it and supply it from mobile vehicles. He Heavy, at a third of the cost. But, says Weir, also finds fault with the budget estimates “at no point did they ever mention who’s (“wildly optimistic”) and the schedule es- gonna pay for it.” timates (“pretty optimistic”). If a Boeing Roach admitted that was a challenge, and 777 costs $320 million, he’s not seeing how Lee said he also had mixed feelings about Musk’s group can put together a reusable Elon Musk’s Mars mission. long-range spacecraft for its predicted $200 “There’s a side of me that’s completely on million. board. I want to see humans go to Mars,” And the schedule? Weir says Musk’s plan said Lee. “I think the time has come. I think to launch a test flight in 2020 could be sus- Elon has really pushed the envelop on what pect. “We’ve been waiting since 2014 for we can do with rocketry and really given

MARS: NASA/JPL-CALTECH; WEIR: NASA/BILL INGALLS; ROACH: BILL HOLSINGER-ROBINSON

a big rocket is not the only thing; that’s what SpaceX will do. I don’t know if you follow the overall architecture, but the idea is to send 100 people at a time to Mars on this super-giant rocket.” All of the effort to establish those people on the Martian surface would be to end Earth’s role as the only home in the universe to the human race. That would be defeated if those settlers either did not survive or if they returned. Lee joked that “They’d have the option to come back, . . . but it’d be frowned upon.”

humanity a new prospect of seeing all this happen in our lifetime. “There’s a lot of optimism and positive thinking that has me completely onboard when I hear Elon’s plan,” Lee continued. “But the other side of me that’s more pragmatic is a side that realizes that, really, Mars is a very hostile place and it’s a very difficult place to get to.” Lee said he had expected something more realistic than the plan that Musk presented. “In other words, bridging the gap between where we are now and how we’re going to ramp up to eventually down the road get to what he’s proposing to do,” Lee said. Musk has made pushing the envelope into a successful strategy at SpaceX (where he serves as its CEO and lead designer),

Tesla, and the Hyperloop. There is an element of sky-high thinking and futuristic orientation—think of Walt Disney talking about space travel, or Iron Man’s Howard Stark, for that matter. Musk describes the impetus for going to Mars in terms that are familiar to science fiction fans: “You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great—and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.” Lee said Musk’s Mars musings are more a vision than a plan. “A plan would be something where—what’s the next step? Building

The Tech for the Trip Roach broached the subject of Elon Musk’s plans to power the trip with powerful new rocket engines that could travel faster than anything previously achieved. How will that work? Musk’s plans don’t include using a standard Hohmann transfer, Lee said, which is one of the most economical ways to travel. Named after Walter Hohmann, who described it in his 1925 book Die Erreichbarkeit der Himmelskörper (The Attainability of Celestial Bodies), the Hohmann transfer orbit is an elliptical orbit or route for moving between two circular orbits. Musk is “essentially assuming there’s plenty of fuel to sort of cut across this whole system in some sense and get there in 80 days,” a method Weir said is “wildly inefficient.” “It’s not impossible,” said Lee. “It’s just not efficient.” He added that he believes SpaceX is taking this unusual approach to minimize the amount of time that passengers spend in

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space where they are exposed to radiation. The more direct route might be wildly inefficient in terms of fuel, but it could save a lot in terms of time and health. The rockets would get fuel for the outbound trip, but they would be expected to refuel on Mars. “The fuel system that you’re using in Elon’s plan is methane and oxygen,” said Lee. “It’s not an optimal choice for propellant, except that in the case of Mars, you can actually manufacture methane and oxygen out of existing resources and CO2 from the atmosphere. “Plus, H2O in the ground of Mars can then be converted by a process called the Sabatier process, and turn that into methane and oxygen; and with that, you have the rocket fuel that you need to fly back.” Weir notes that that involves currently existing technology used in “the Morpheus Project—nothing to do with The Matrix,” he joked. “The Morpheus Project at NASA showed that they could sustain and control a methane oxygen offload.” He points to NASA’s Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment—more manageably referred to as MOXIE—for producing oxygen from the Martian atmosphere for use as propellant and for human breathing. But First . . . So when can this be done? Is Musk too optimistic about his technology and timeline? “Here’s what was interesting, I thought,” said Lee. “Elon presented this program at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara in Mexico a few weeks ago. That was a long-awaited presentation. Meanwhile, the schedule that he is presenting for the mission . . . is really aggressive. I mean, we would be launching, for the first attempt to go to Mars, that big rocket in 2024. Bearing in mind that this [MOXIE] mission that Andy just talked about to manufacture for

Galaxis January 2018

the first time on a trial basis fuel from Martian resources is flying only in 2020. Okay, so there’s a lot that has to happen there.” Lee compares that to the schedule laid out by President Obama in 2010. “NASA has been running on that schedule pretty much ever since,” he said. “The schedule goes this way: We’re going to go into deep space in the short term and in fact take advantage of the fact that we can access some-near Earth asteroids as a target for our early missions into deep space. Then by the mid 2030s, we have humans in Mars orbit—not on Mars itself yet, but in orbit around Mars. I personally think that’s a very good approach, because Mars’ orbit has Mars’ two little moons. They’re very exciting to explore themselves.” “Another awesome thing about Mars orbit is that during the days of Apollo, really the only way to get a good look at what’s going on on the surface of a planet was to have an astronaut on the surface,” said Weir. “But now, we have really, really good rovers that can do that for you. Unfortunately, the transmission time to Mars from earth makes it really a pain in the ass to control those rovers. What an astronaut at Mars provides you with is a human brain on-site. So if you have astronauts in orbit around Mars, they can control rovers effectively in real time. And that’s almost as good as having someone on the ground.” According to NASA’s schedule, to get to that point where there are humans in orbit around Mars, a number of things need to happen. “We need several elements in the NASA plan, because NASA’s following this president-mandated plan,” said Lee. “The giant rocket to get there, first flight in late 2018 at this point. In fact, if you don’t have something better to do in 2018, you should all go to the Cape together and watch the launch of the most powerful rocket ever launched. It’s called the SLS, Space Launch System.

Hopefully by then, we’ll have a more attractive name. It should be spectacular. If it works, it will be spectacular; if it doesn’t, it will be spectacular.” “Even more so,” quipped Weir. “So that’s 2018,” continued Lee. “Now, in the mid-2020s, we’re doing the asteroid thing, and there are different options that are being considered even now by NASA. But one of them is to get a piece of an asteroid by a little, robotic probe, [bring it] back to the Earth-Moon system, and then have astronauts visit that boulder.” Lee isn’t a complete fan of that approach. “What I don’t like about it is that it’s relying on a robotic mission bringing back a boulder,” he said. “So now you don’t actually explore the asteroid itself, you just explore a sample from it. And to some extent meteorites that we have in museums are precisely pieces of asteroids already, so just launch a meteorite instead of going to get it! Joke aside, I see the benefit as being relatively limited. “Now, on the other hand, I think there would actually be public interest in this. I think that if we clearly make Mars, in everybody’s mind, the destination of our new space program, then having milestones toward it to keep the public interested and just to have relatable milestones along the way [is useful]. We don’t need to make those milestones necessarily tied to a body. We’ve been to the moon, we’ve walked on the surface of the moon. How about the next milestone in going in toward Mars be let’s get humans to a million miles from Earth. The Million Kilometer Mission, and then we can do the 10 Million Kilometer Mission. “Those would be super-exciting because they would actually test what we really need to be testing, the reliability of systems in deep space. “ NASA’s plan would see humans on the red planet by the mid-2040s, which Lee

Left to right: The Martian, Mission: Mars, and Packing for Mars by Andy Weir, Pascal Lee, and Mary Roach, respectively.

calls a realistic goal based on all of the work that needs to be done first. When President Obama laid out NASA’s plan, he was envisioning a public-private partnership, perhaps NASA working with SpaceX, Blue Origin, or Virgin Galactic. The mention of that last company brought derision from Weir. “Virgin Galactic—don’t get me started,” he said to laughter from the audience. “Virgin Galactic is basically—you fly in a plane really, really high. Now, here’s a little tip: If you can still do aerodynamic flight, you’re not in space, okay? The flight ceiling for Virgin Galactic is 80,000 feet. It’s really high, but that’s lower than the cruising altitude of an SR-71.” Roach called it “a really, really, really ex-

pensive simulated zero-g flight,” but Weir said he didn’t know if there’s much zero-g, just an 80,000-foot height. “What you can do, though, is you are high enough that you can see the horizon, the curvature of Earth, and it’d be a really cool experience,” said Weir. “I am a stickler. I say you’re not in space unless you’re actually in space.” He contrasts that with Blue Origin, the 17-year-old company funded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. “Blue Origin is cool because they’re working on technology,” he said. “Any advance in rocketry and space technology is good, but I think they’re really pushing the definition of ‘We’re putting you in space.’ I mean, there’s a huge difference between going up past the Von Karmen line [100 kilometers above the Earth’s sea level] and actually going into orbit. It’s not that hard to get up into space, what’s hard is to stay there.

“You have to get going 7,800 meters per second. Just going straight up and then falling back down, it’s not hard. That’s the reason Blue Origin rockets are so small, because it just doesn’t take that much fuel, and it’s not nearly as big of challenge. “So while I think it’s interesting that Bezos is going for a different approach, he’s going for what can we do that has commercial applicability right now,” Weir said. “What it is is if you go on one of those Blue Origin rockets, you get four solid minutes of zero-g, while you’re coming back down.” Life As a Martian Readers of Weir’s 2011 novel The Martian have a pretty good sense that staying alive on Mars is a very big challenge. In fact, once we get outside of the protective envelope of Earth’s atmosphere, pretty much the whole universe is trying to kill us.

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hey had a house of crystal pillars on the planet Mars by the edge of an empty sea, and every morning you could see Mrs. K eating the golden fruits that grew from the crystal walls, or cleaning the house with handfuls of magnetic dust which, taking all dirt with it, blew away on the hot wind. Afternoons, when the fossil sea was warm and motionless, and the wine trees stood stiff in the yard, and the little distant Martian bone town was all

Galaxis January 2018

enclosed, and no one drifted out their doors, you could see Mr. K himself in his room, reading from a metal book with raised hieroglyphs over which he brushed his hand, as one might play a harp. And from the book, as his fingers stroked, a voice sang, a soft ancient voice, which told tales of when the sea was red steam on the shore and ancient men had carried clouds of metal insects and electric spiders into battle.

Mary Roach, whose 2010 nonfiction book Packing for Mars explores questions of space hygiene, sex in space, food, and more that would concern anyone stuffed inside a metal can hurtling through the cosmos. But one of the biggest problems for anyone traveling through space or living on Mars is radiation. “That’s the thing that comes up over and over again: cosmic radiation, solar radiation,” she said. “If you shield the craft, that’s something heavy you need to launch. So what’s the best approach, particularly for a colony on Mars, long-term?” Lee agreed that radiation is the biggest danger for travelers to Mars. “And that’s assuming other life support systems are covered, like you have air to breathe.” “Mainly, it’s because of the superpowers that the crew ends up getting, and how they abuse those powers,” joked Weir.

MARS PHOTO: NASA / USGS; BRADBURY PHOTO: ALAN LIGHT

Mr. and Mrs. K had lived by the dead sea for twenty years, and their ancestors had lived in the same house, which turned and followed the sun, flower-like, for ten centuries. Mr. and Mrs. K were not old. They had the fair, brownish skin of the true Martian, the yellow coin eyes, the soft musical voices. Once they had liked painting pictures with chemical fire, swimming in the canals in the seasons when the wine trees filled them with

spacecraft, or the habitat in which you live, with things that contain hydrogen, and ideally that’s food and water. Water contains hydrogen, it’s H2O. Food has plenty of hydrogen, carbohydrates. So you’re surrounded by food and water. The good news with that is the water; you drink the water, and then you have to go to the bathroom. It turns into urine. Urine, however, is recyclable. For, say, a crew of seven people going on a trip to Mars, and the round trip time is one year just to travel there and back, you’re not going to take a year’s worth of fresh water for a crew of seven. That’s way too much water. So you would take only so much water, then you will plan on recycling it into your mission. So a few weeks into your mission, you’re already drinking each other’s recycled urine and sweat.” He noted that this is already done on the

green liquors, and talking into the dawn together by the blue phosphorous portraits in the speaking room. They were not happy now. This morning Mrs. K stood between the pillars, listening to the desert sands heat, melt into yellow wax, and seemingly run on the horizon. Something was going to happen. —The Martian Chronicles Excerpt from Chapter One; Tor Books

Lee said space radiation comes from two sources: background space radiation from the rest of the galaxy—from stars, black holes, pulsars, etc., shedding galactic cosmic rays. He said that is very hard to shield against, but the good news is that there are very few “hits” over time; they’re sort of few and far between. “The other form of radiation is solar radiation, specifically, radiation that comes in the form of charged particles that are emitted from the sun during solar eruptions, coronal mass ejections,” said Lee. “So big nasty storms on the sun will send out a wave of high-energy particles. Those are really nasty. Now, the good news about those is that you can shield yourself against them. And one of the most efficient ways to shield yourself against that form of radiation—in fact, the galactic cosmic rays, as well—is to have hydrogen between you and the incoming radiation. “So this is why if you’re going on a trip to Mars, you should line the walls of your

space station and it works fine. But he notes there is bad news, and we’d best let our three discussants speak in their own words: LEE: The bad news is with the food. You eat the food, you go to the bathroom, but you cannot recycle poop. Okay, NASA is not even trying; if you write a proposal to NASA saying “I have a solution to recycling food,” you’re not going to get funded, because a lot of work has gone into this and we know that it’s super difficult. Okay, so what are you going to do with the poop? You can’t just open a window and throw it out into space. That’s not good. First of all, no window opens. Second, you don’t want to pollute space. But that’s not even the reason; the reason you don’t want to do this is because your poop still contains hydrogen and that is radiation shielding for you. So in an environment like deep space, where resources are so sparse, you have to look at your own

solid waste as a resource. You will never go to the bathroom with the same disposition that we’re getting. When you flush you are being extremely wasteful, okay? So what you do with that— WEIR: So each of you needs to get a bucket. ROACH: Yeah. LEE: Well, specifically, what you want is a Ziploc bag, emphasis on lock. [Laughter.] And the bag goes back on the wall where you took the food in the first place to patch the radiation hole. So I recommend very thorough labeling. [Laughter.] Who says science is boring? Weir adds another bit of science fun. “So GCR is Galactic Cosmic Rays, which are very badly named, because they’re not cosmic rays, they’re particles, so they’re charged particles coming in,” he says. “They come from all directions, because they’re created by stars from all over the galaxy. And as Pascal said, solar radiation emanates from the sun. Now what’s interesting about that is there’s a cycle; after 11 years the sun goes through peaks and troughs of how active it is. “When the sun is extremely active, it’s spewing out a whole bunch of the solar radiation, but its magnetic field diverts away a lot of the cosmic radiation. So it’s like you will either have a bunch of cosmic radiation or a bunch of solar radiation, but not both. So it is helpful that it kinda self-regulates. “Another thing we’re noting is that NASA is a super-cautious organization; they don’t like to take a lot of risk, especially when it comes to human life. But they recently quietly decided that eh, the radiation that you get on a trip to Mars is okay. And that went by.” Lee said that the Curiosity rover measured radiation on its trip to Mars and once it was on the surface. He said that the radiation a traveler would receive during a trip to Mars and back was the equivalent to about 30 CAT scans over the course of an entire year. He said that that amount is “not benign, but it’s not something that’s a show stopper either. And it’s something that with proper water and poop management you can protect yourself.” weimar.ws Galaxis

Martian Mission So after traveling tens of millions of miles from Earth to Mars, surviving radiation with the help of Ziploc bags, establishing a beachhead and constructing a long-term shelter, complete with a dirt roof, what do you do? In Roach’s words, “Once we actually get to Mars, what science are you most looking forward to?” Lee has his answer ready: “The search for life. Here’s the thing, the reason why scientifically Mars is so interesting. We now know that throughout its history there has been liquid water near the surface of Mars. There are arguments around how much, so we don’t have to take sides in this discussion. But the point is there’s clear evidence that there’s been liquid water around the surface zone of Mars throughout its history. Now that’s really interesting, because on Earth, all forms of life require liquid water, and everywhere on Earth where there is liquid water that’s clean there is life in it. “So there’s a one-to-one connection between liquid water and life on Earth. NASA’s strategy for looking for life has been to follow the water. To go to Mars—not to look for life directly, because we’re not quite sure what we might look for yet—but to look for water, which is believed to be sort of a universal solvent and something that any form of life that’s carbon-based would like to be around. So, from my prospective, the search for life is going to be the commanding scientific goal, and it’s not just a search for past life. “Of course, now we’re talking about looking for microfossils in the ancient rocks of Mars. That’s one possibility. But the really exciting possibility from my perspective is the search for extant life. Life that is still alive 36

Galaxis January 2018

today, that’s Martian life. And let me add the key point about the search for life, which is the fact that it’s not just about finding life. It’s about finding alien life, something that we would be able to determine is really different from Earth life. Something that we could establish scientifically is alien life. All life on Earth uses DNA and the same acid bases to form the DNA molecule. All life on Earth uses the same 21 left-handed amino acids to manufacture proteins. Meanwhile, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of possible amino acids that are chemically viable but will not work for Earth life. All Earth life uses the same specific recipe of chemicals. And of course, presumably, we all therefore come from a common ancestor. It was presumably a microbe of which we have no more record even in a fossil form. “So the idea in our search for life on Mars is to find a form of microbe on which we could do genetic analysis. From that, we’d be able to determine whether or not it’s related to life on Earth. If it were related to life on Earth, that won’t tell you much, because Earth and Mars are not separate planets. We have meteorites that have come from Mars naturally to the Earth. We have about actually 100 meteorites on Earth that we know 100-percent for sure have come from Mars. We’re not isolated planets. Life could have started on Earth and been ejected; what happens is that an asteroid or comet hits Mars or the Earth and ejects a piece of the planet to the other one. So you can imagine life having started on Earth and having been naturally thrown out to Mars. And therefore, what we’re finding on Mars is Earth life.” He said it would be a major discovery if scientists were able to find an alien form of life, one that does not map to the tree of life on Earth, something that’s really different. Alien. Roach noted that something like 85 percent of Earth’s biomass is beneath the surface of the planet, and it would therefore be exciting to get samples from deep underground on Mars. But here Weir added a note of personal caution. “My opinion is different than that of my far more educated colleague,” Weir said. “I’m just a writer; I hate to be so pessimistic, but I don’t think there’s any life on Mars nor has there ever been. The reason I believe that is because if you go to Earth—let’s say you’re an alien coming to Earth to find out if there’s life on Earth. You could take this much vol-

ume of Earth from literally anywhere on the planet. From the air, from the ocean, from the ground, from Antarctica, from the tropics, anywhere. And it would be, not just evidence of life but utterly riddled with life. It’s completely dominant everywhere. And so I have to believe, and this is just instinct, but I’ve gotta believe that once life evolves somewhere, it is extremely good at expanding and evolving, to manage and handle every environment and terrain on the planet. “And since Mars has transitioned from an ocean world to the kind of crappy desert that it is today, it happened over many millions of years; that’s a slow enough process

IMAGE: GOOKINGSWORD

Weir added that things are better once you get to Mars. “Broadly speaking, Mars is blocking half the radiation that’s coming at you, because there’s a whole bunch of Mars between you and it.” He said it’s effectively many thousands of kilometers of shielding. In addition, when you build your longterm habitat on Mars, you would cover it with dirt. Mars’ soil, he said, we now know has water in it, so it would make effective radiation shielding. “You could effectively have Earth levels of radiation for as long as you’re on Mars with minimal effort,” Weir said. “When you consider the complexity of colonizing Mars, putting a bunch of dirt on a roof is not that hard.”

that life could have evolved to deal with that as well. So I believe that if there had ever been life on Mars, it would be all over the place. It might only be microbial, but there would still be some blatant evidence. Now obviously, that’s a very debatable opinion.” “Andy mentioned oceans,” responded Lee. “I alluded earlier to this notion that there’s some disagreement as to how much water there’s been in the past. The evidence is really not clear. I for one, based on our work, don’t believe that actually there were ever liquid water oceans. It’s sort of a very geocentric vision of what early Mars was like. But there’s some reason as to why peo-

ple have thought that. “But regardless, the key thing about Mars in relation to Earth-like life is that Mars represents an extreme environment. For Earthlike life. Andy mentioned correctly that if you go to most places on Earth, you will find life almost everywhere. Except where you start going to places where the environment becomes so extreme that life starts to recede into tiny little recesses to protect itself because now it’s really at the edge and at the limit of life. “It’s hiding in the form of cyanobacteria microbes inside rocks. It sort of recoils into mini shelters that it can find when it’s faced

with an extreme environment. So the surface of Mars today, based on what we can tell, from all these rovers we’ve sent, seems to be sterile. It’s sterile, because of ultraviolet radiation from the sun, because of cosmic rays, but there’s no telling as to what might be possible deeper down. And, as Mary brought up earlier, 85 percent of Earth’s biomass is underneath the surface of the Earth. If all life on Earth where wiped out at the surface of the earth, rest assured we’re still okay because 85 percent of the mass that’s living on Earth is still going to be okay.” “We’re actually not okay in that scenario,” said Weir. Galaxis weimar.ws Galaxis

Game Set Take your brain cells for a ride

Word Hunt Special SF authors edition: Find the words that match the clues below. Words may be horizontal, vertical, diagonal, and even backward. Weir’s latest Heinlein’s third Handmaid author Spielberg films this Cline story L’Engle’s Wrinkle found here Rendezvous with whom? Telepathic Cat author Three-Body Problem author Liu Solaris author Reynolds’ _____ Space Ancillary Ann Bacigalupi’s The _____ Girl

Herbert’s desert series 1984 prophet _____, Robot Arthur C. Clarke died here Harlan Ellison’s Cordwainer _____ Ringworld author Tom Doherty Associates SF publishing imprint Stranger in a Strange _____ Grand Master Anderson Gernsback, and Award

Quiz

b. Mom & Dad Save the Universe c. Mars Needs Moms d. I, Martian

How good is your SFIQ—science fiction intelligence quotient? Take our quiz, which ranges from easy to expert questions. Answers are at the end of the quiz.

4] Who wrote and directed the 2013 film After Earth? a. Steven Spielberg b. M. Night Shyamalan c. Jonathan Frakes d. Jill Tarter

1] In what 2010 film do John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, and Clark Duke travel back in time? a. About Time b. Hot Tub Time Machine c. Dick Figures: The Movie d. Time Again for Love 2] Who directed Iron Man 2? a. Noah Ward b. Shane Black c. Ron Howard d. Jon Favreau 3] Seth Green, Joan Cusack, and Elizabeth Harnois provided voices for what 2011 animated film? a. Mars Needs Women 38

Galaxis January 2018

5] To star in what 2013 movie did Matt Damon shave his head? a. The Martian b. Elysium c. A Place on Earth d. Apocalypse Earth 6] Which movie below was not directed by Gareth Edwards? a. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story b. Godzilla c. Monsters d. Godzilla: King of the Monsters 7] Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar was nominated for several Academy Awards, but only won which one? a. Best Sound Effects b. Best Visual Effects c. Best Original Screenplay

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d. Best Director 8] Director Payton Reed and actor Paul Rudd worked together on what film? a. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers b. Ant-Man c. Captain America: Civil War d. Aliens: Zone-X 9] What future governor starred in 1990’s Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe? a. Arnold Schwarzenegger b. Jesse Ventura c. Nikki Haley d. Scott Walker 10] Which one of the following is not a movie-riffing series created by Mystery Science Theater 3000 alums? a. Rifftrax b. Cinematic Titanic c. The Film Crew d. Movie Massacre 11] Friends star Matt LeBlanc went into space as a soldier in what big-budget cinematic remake?

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S P A C E C A D E T L U O P

a. Gamera: Guardian of the Universe b. Judge Dredd c. Lost in Space d. Ghost in the Shell 12] What was the name of the character played by Walter Pidgeon in Forbidden Planet? a. Dr. Edward Morbius b. Dr. Moebius c. Professor Julius Morphine d. Commander John J. Adams 13] Who directed the dystopian 1973 film Soylent Green? a. Robert Wise b. Kinji Fukasaku c. Don Dohler d. Richard Fleischer 14] William Hurt’s character regresses in a sensory deprivation tank in what 1980 SF/horror film? a. Scanners b. Altered States c. The Unseen d. Hell of the Living Dead ANSWERS: 1) b. 2) d. 3) c. 4) b. 5) b. 6) d. 7) b. 8) b. 9) b. 10) d. 11) c. 12) a. 13) d. 14) b.

NASA tours the Planets T

IMAGES: CREATIVE STRATEGY BY DAN GOODS, DAVID DELGADO; ILLUSTRATORS: LIZ BARRIOS DE LA TORRE (CERES, EUROPA); STEFAN BUCHER (JUPITER DESIGN); INVISIBLE CREATURE (MARS, ENCELADUS); JOBY HARRIS (PSO J318.5-22, TITAN); JESSIE KAWATA (VENUS); LOIS KIM (TYPOGRAPHY FOR VENUS AND EUROPA); RON MILLER (JUPITER ILLUSTRATION)

ART: ALL IMAGES BY AND COURTESY SPACEX

o stimulate new generations of innovators and explorers, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory released a set of 15 travel posters highlighting the exciting visions to be had in our galactic neighborhood. On this and the following pages, we share a sample of these posters. As JPL says, “As you look through these images of imaginative travel destinations, remember that you can be an architect of the future. “

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NASA’s Mars Exploration Program seeks to understand whether Mars was, is, or can be a habitable world. Missions like Mars Pathfinder, Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory and Mercury cross the face of the Sun in 1769. Spacecraft now allow us the luxury to study these cosmic crossings at times of our choosing from unique locales across our solar system. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory www.jpl.nasa.gov

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory www.jpl.nasa.gov

The rare science opportunity of planetary transits has long inspired bold voyages to exotic vantage points – journeys such as James Cook’s trek to the South Pacific to watch Venus and

of human exploration of Mars and takes a nostalgic look back at the great imagined milestones of Mars exploration that will someday be celebrated as “historic sites.”

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, among many others, have provided important information in understanding of the habitability of Mars. This poster imagines a future day when we have achieved our vision

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NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory www.jpl.nasa.gov

Jupiter’s three largest moons. NASA’s Juno mission will observe Jupiter’s auroras from above the polar regions, studying them in a way never before possible.

of times more powerful than Earth’s, and they form a glowing ring around each pole that’s bigger than our home planet. Revolving outside this auroral oval are the glowing, electric “footprints” of

The Jovian cloudscape boasts the most spectacular light show in the solar system, with northern and southern lights to dazzle even the most jaded space traveler. Jupiter’s auroras are hundreds

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NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory www.jpl.nasa.gov

On Earth, wherever we find water, we find life. What will NASA’s Europa mission find when it heads for this intriguing moon in the 2020s?

to conceal a global ocean of salty liquid water twice the volume of Earth’s oceans. Tugging and flexing from Jupiter’s gravity generates enough heat to keep the ocean from freezing.

Astonishing geology and the potential to host the conditions for simple life make Jupiter’s moon Europa a fascinating destination for future exploration. Beneath its icy surface, Europa is believed

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of a global ocean and the first signs of potential hydrothermal activity beyond Earth – making this tiny Saturnian moon one of the leading locations in the search for possible life beyond Earth.

The discovery of Enceladus’ icy jets and their role in creating Saturn’s E-ring is one of the top findings of the Cassini mission to Saturn. Further Cassini mission discoveries revealed strong evidence

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X Episode Guide, Part III: Seasons 5–7, 1991–1994

all great things The Next Generation finishes its seven years on a high note. BY JOHN ZIPPERER

hese are the voyages of the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew, whose seven-year mission was to seek out new audiences, with new characters, to boldly go into syndication first. With its final three seasons, Star Trek: The Next Generation achieved something unthinkable up to the 1990s: It was a long-lasting, critically and commercially popular science fiction television program. The original Star Trek series tried to birth a spinoff; Gary Seven of the episode “Assignment: Earth” was to star in his own series, but that went nowhere. ST:TNG took hold of the franchise that had already been rejuvenated by the film series and brought in entirely new audiences, and it spun off the long-lasting Deep Space Nine, which spun off the long-lasting Voy-

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ager, and so on. This issue we honor this groundbreaking series by completing our long-term project to chronicle every single episode. (Season one was explored in Galaxis #4, seasons two and three in Galaxis #5, and season four in Galaxis #6.) We should note that the “writer” credits in this episode guide list without distinction the writers of the teleplay and the stories. In the real world of Hollywood, it is very important who gets what credit, and we do not mean to downplay that for the careers (and paychecks) of the writers involved. However, in the interests of streamlining these listings and because that information is readily available elsewhere at the click of a mouse, we have listed all people involved in the crafting of an episode’s story as writers. A note of caution: This episode guide is written on the assumption

that everyone has already seen these episodes, so they contain plenty of spoilers. If you have not seen a particular episode, we recommend viewing the program first, then reading this guide. Crew

Studio: Paramount Creator and Executive Producer: Gene Roddenberry Producers (various titles and time frames): Rick Berman, Peter Lauritson, David Livingston, Robert Justman, Robert Lewin, Burton Armus, Mike Gray, John Mason, Maurice Hurley, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor Theme Music by: Alexander Courage Composer: Jerry Goldsmith Production Associate: Susan Sackett Casting Executive: Helen Mossler Special Effects: Dick Brownfield Scenic Art Supervisor: Michael Okuda Senior Illustrator: Rick Sternbach Set Designer: Herman F. Zimmerman Consulting Senior Illustrator: Andrew Probert

PHOTO: ROB YOUNG

Cast

Patrick Stewart: Captain Jean-Luc Picard Jonathan Frakes: Commander William Riker Brent Spiner: Lt. Commander Data LeVar Burton: Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge Gates McFadden: Dr. Beverly Crusher Marina Sirtis: Counselor Deanna Troi Michael Dorn: Lt. Worf SEASON FIVE Redemption, Part II Writer: Ronald D. Moore Director: David Carson Airdate: September 23, 1991 Not only does the Prime Directive prevent Captain Picard from becoming involved in lessdeveloped cultures; apparently Starfleet doesn’t want him to be involved in advanced ones, either. What’s the point of being in space? The Enterprise and a fleet of available Starfleet ships form a blockade at the Klingon and Romulan border. Picard has assigned various of his senior staff to command the other ships, including Data. The Enterprise is contacted by the Romulan Commander Sela, who gives them fair warning that they will be attacked if they don’t drop the blockade. She also says that she is the daughter of former Enterprise security chief Tasha Yar, who had ended up in Romulan hands when she traveled to the past (in the stellar third-season episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” see Galaxis #5) and became the mate of a Romulan general. Nice family connection to the Enterprise, but that and $3 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Sela finds a way to disrupt the blockade, but Data us able to disrupt Sela’s interference, and the Romulans scutter away; the Duras sisters’ civil war collapses. Gowron is safe in his position atop the Klingon empire, and Worf returns to duty aboard the Enterprise. Worf: This boy has done me no harm, and I will

not kill him for the crimes of his family! Gowron: Then it falls to Kurn! Worf: No! No—you gave me his life, and I have spared it. Gowron: As you wish. Notes: In this fifth-season opener, we learn what might have happened to Tasha Yar, who apparently shares actress Denise Crosby’s inability to stay away from the Enterprise. We will see her again before this wrapup of the final three seasons is through. Darmok Writers: Phillip LaZebnik, Joe Menosky Director: Winrich Kolbe Airdate: September 30, 1991 While trying to establish contact with the Tamarians, the Enterprise crew is frustrated by the allegorical way in which that alien race communicates. They can make neither head nor tails of the phrases. The Tamarians similarly are unable to figure out what the heck the humans are saying, so they send Captain Picard and Tathon, the Tamarian captain, down to a planet and force them to learn how to communicate with each other. Hearing “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” from the alien captain is as useless to Picard as when your grandfather quotes a Latin writer you’ve never heard about. But when a predator attacks, Picard and Tathon are predictably forced to take a crash course in mutual comprehension. For his troubles, Picard is immortalized in the Tamarian language with a new phrase, “Picard and Dathon at El-Adrei.” Riker: New friends, captain? Picard: I can’t say, Number One; but at least they’re not new enemies. Notes: It’s “Arena” with more understanding; it’s “The Return of Starbuck” with language troubles;

it’s Enemy Mine without the alien birth. Put two opponents on a planet and have them either fight it out or come to some sort of peaceful coexistence. Or fight and then coexist. Ensign Ro Writers: Rick Berman, Michael Piller Director: Les Landau Airdate: October 7, 1991 Ensign Ro Laren, a Bajoran and a former prisoner, arrives on the Enterprise to help deal with a problem involving the Bajorans, the Federation, and the Cardassians, who had colonized Bajor decades earlier. She rubs pretty much everyone the wrong way, but she is able to help Picard get in touch with a Bajoran, Keeve Falor, to try to learn who’s behind a Bajoran attack on the Federation. But Ro is playing a double game, working with Admiral Kennelly on their own secret mission. Picard uncovers the deception behind that Bajoran attack—it was a Cardassian attempt to get the Federation to side with them. The plot squashed, Picard then convinces Ro to join Starfleet. Guinan: Am I disturbing you? Ro: Yes. Guinan: Good. You look like someone who wants to be disturbed. Notes: The Bajorans and Cardassians would of course be central to the spinoff Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Michelle Forbes was asked to return to the role of Ro, but she declined. She continued to act in many films and television shows, including a smashing performance as Admiral Helena Cain in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. Silicon Avatar Writers: Lawrence V. Conley, Jeri Taylor Director: Cliff Bole Airdate: October 14, 1991

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It’s obsession time again, as Dr. Kila Marr teams up with the Enterprise to track down the Crystalline Entity, which has attacked Melona Four, a Federation colony. Picard wants to communicate with it and try to use peaceful means to stop it from attacking colonies; Marr is driven by revenge—her 16-year-old son was killed by the Crystalline Entity on Omicron Theta. Though Marr makes some sort of a connection with Data, who is able to access the memories of the dead Theta colonists, she remains unmoved by Picard’s arguments and sabotages an Enterprise attempt to communicate. The Entity is destroyed, as is her career. Kila Marr: Why are we pursuing the Entity, if not to destroy it?” Picard: We are not hunters, Doctor. Nor is it our role to exact revenge. Marr: What do you propose? We track it down, greet it warmly and ask it if it would mind terribly not ravaging any more planets? Notes: The Crystalline Entity, perhaps one of the blandest villains in The Next Generation’s run, was first introduced in season one’s “Datalore” episode. An emotionless killing force, like the xenomorph in Alien, can be quite a compelling and scary villain, but the Crystalline Entity fails to look or sound scary. It seems malevolent but not evil. Disaster Writers: Ron Jarvis, Ronald D. Moore, Philip A. Scorza Director: Gabrielle Beaumont Airdate: October 21, 1991 When the Enterprise hits a spatial anomaly, crewmembers are isolated in various parts of the ship while they try to get everything running properly once again. On the bridge, Counselor Troi is thrust into command, and she tangles with Ensign Ro, who wants to take a more aggressive approach toward saving the ship, even if it means sacrificing a large part of it. Elsewhere, Captain Picard is stuck in a turbolift with three children to whom he was giving a tour, perhaps cosmic justice for a child-phobic captain. Keiko is ready to give birth, but she’s stuck in Ten Forward and the only midwife available is Worf. La Forge and Dr. Crusher are in the cargo bay, where they have to undertake a risky action to stave off an explosion. Troi: We will separate the ship when I decide that it’s time, and not before. Is that clear, ensign? Ro: Yes. Perfectly. Notes: The writers shoehorn a handful of plots into one episode, which can be problematic, but it does have a nice side benefit of giving a large number of the characters a chance to be the focus of a subplot, something not usually available in a traditional Trek story. Though the Troi storyline is predictable (of course, put the let’s-talk-aboutyour-feelings person in a position of making tough life-and-death decisions), it is nonetheless nice to watch Troi show some mettle. But are we the only ones who think it would be interesting to see Ensign Ro in a command role? 50

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The Game Writers: Brannon Braga, Fred Bronson, Susan Sackett Director: Corey Allen Airdate: October 28, 1991 Wesley Crusher is back from Starfleet, vacationing and trying not to save the ship and all. But despite his best intentions, he is forced to do the dirty deed. Commander Riker picked up a game from a one-night-stand while vacationing on Risa, and he brought it back to the Enterprise, where it is copied and shared with the rest of the crew. People using the game become addicted and fall under the sway of the alien Ktarians. Only Wesley and his girlfriend Ensign Robin Lefler stand in their way—until Lefler is captured by the game. One-night stand: You see the disk and the cone? Riker: Yeah. One-night stand: Concentrate; make the disk go into the cone. Riker: How do I do that? One-night stand: Just let go. Notes: Singer Ashley Judd first appeared in “Darmok,” and reappears here in the same role of Ensign Robin Lefler. “Darmok” was the first screen appearance of Judd, who would go on to amass a considerable film and television resume. Unification, Part I Writers: Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor Director: Les Landau Airdate: November 4, 1991 The Enterprise visits the dying Vulcan Sarek after Picard is told that Sarek’s son Spock is on Romulus and might have defected to the Romulans. Sarek suggests that Spock is pursuing a long-held desire to reunify the Vulcans and Romulans, and he gives Picard a contact of Spock’s to try to learn more. Picard and Data put on some makeup and costumes to make themselves look Romulan and travel to that empire’s home world, where they meet Pardek, the Romulan senator with whom Spock had been in touch for decades. Pardek takes them to a cave, where they finally meet Ambassador Spock. Data: As you examine your life, do you find you have missed your humanity? Spock: I have no regrets. Data: “No regrets.” That is a human expression. Spock: Yes. Fascinating Notes: This two-part episode was timed to air shortly before the debut of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and there are cross-references between the two. In the film, the Federation finally initiates peace with the Klingons, bringing an end to their hot-and-cold wars and ultimately leading to Worf being on the Enterprise. In this episode, it is the Vulcans and Romulans who are trying to make peace. At least some of them are. Unification, Part I Writers: Rick Berman, Michael Piller Director: Cliff Bole Airdate: November 11, 1991

Spock refuses Picard’s plea to get off Romulus, telling the captain that he didn’t want to put others in danger like he did when he helped broker Klingon-Federation peace (see Part I). Even when it turns out that the Romulan Sela has arranged a trap, Spock decides to stay and continue seeking a peaceful future. The Enterprise comes across three Vulcan ships, but they are destroyed by a Romulan Warbird—which is disposing of evidence that they were really a Romulan trick. Spock learns of his father’s death and mindmelds with Picard, who carries with him some of Sarek’s thoughts from when they had mindmelded. Sela: Excuse me; I’m just finishing up a speech— for you, Mr. Spock. I rather enjoy writing. I don’t get to do it very often in this job. Data: Perhaps you would be happier in another job. Notes: Sela returns in this episode, reprising her role as the offspring of Tasha Yar. She had previously appeared in “Redemption,” Part II, and was heard in “The Mind’s Eye.” This episode includes a title card memorializing the recently deceased Great Bird of the Galaxy, Gene Roddenberry. A Matter of Time Writer: Rick Berman Director: Paul Lynch Airdate: November 18, 1991 A temporal disturbance produces a small craft with someone who calls himself Professor Berlingoff Rasmussen. He claims to be from the 26th century doing research on the mission that the Enterprise is currently fulfilling: helping the planet of Penthara IV after an asteroid hit. However, Data discovers the truth about Rasmussen: He is really from 200 years in the past, and he has been stealing items from the Enterprise in the hopes of turning them into a tidy sum of money when he returns to the 22nd century. Picard refuses to release Rasmussen, and his craft autopilots back to his timeframe. Picard (to Rasmussen): I’m sure there are more than a few legitimate historians at Starfleet who would be eager to meet a human from your era. Oh, professor—welcome to the 24th century! Notes: Guest star Matt Frewer, who portrays Rasmussen, starred in the short-lived 1980s phenomenon television series Max Headroom. Perhaps one of the oddest stars of a television series since My Mother, the Car, the computer-generated TV host only lasted for two seasons and a total of 14 episodes. But he also had a longer-running British career as a video DJ, film star, and talk show host. New Ground Writers: Sara Charno, Stuart Charno, Grant Rosenberg Director: Robert Scheerer Airdate: January 19, 1992 Worf ’s foster mother shows up and dumps Worf ’s son, Alexander, on Worf and tells him it’s

The conceit of this story—the sudden appearance and acceptance of an alien as a high-ranking member of the Enterprise crew—is quite good and is more interesting than the plot itself. his turn to do the parenting; Alexander wasn’t adjusting well to life with his grandparents. However, he has problems aboard the Enterprise, too, where he becomes something of a juvenile delinquent in the ship’s school. Meanwhile, La Forge is all excited about an experiment involving a soliton wave, something that you won’t understand even after reading the Wikipedia description of it. Naturally, as with any experiment with which the Enterprise is involved, something goes wrong. Alexander: You don’t care about me! Worf: That’s not true! Alexander: All you care about is your honor. Notes: Yes, you are allowed to wonder about the professional capabilities of the Enterprise’s crew, after watching them deal with screwed up science experiment after screwed up science experiment. And you thought it was just Wesley Crusher’s fault. Hero Worship Writers: Hilary J. Bader, Joe Menosky Director: Patrick Stewart Airdate: January 27, 1992 A boy named Timothy is the only survivor of the research ship Vico. He is brought aboard the Enterprise, where he attaches himself to Data, with whom he clearly identifies. The boy believes that hiding his emotions will protect him from the nightmares he has been having. He thinks that he caused the destruction of his ship, but he is assured that that isn’t possible. When the Enterprise encounters the real cause of the Vico’s destruction—some sort of shock waves moving through space—Timothy points out that the Enterprise is about to do the same thing the Vico crew did before they were destroyed. Data suggests a different course, and the ship is saved. Data: Timothy, your head movements are counter-productive. Can you be still? Timothy: But you do it. Data: The servo mechanisms in my neck are designed to approximate human movements. I did not realize the effect was so distracting. Notes: Episodes don’t necessarily air in the order in which they were filmed. As we saw, a previously aired episode included a memorial card for the late Gene Roddenberry, but it was actually during the filming of this episode that the show’s creator died. Young actor Joshua Harris, who portrayed Timothy, had quite an acting resume, including a regular gig on Dallas and guest starring stints

on Falcon Crest, Twin Peaks, and other shows. He later played professional baseball with the Lansing Lugnuts, a Chicago Cubs minor-league team, for one season. Violations Writers: Shari Goodhartz, Pamela Gray, T. Michael, Jeri Taylor Director: Robert Wiemer Airdate: February 3, 1992 Three telepathic Ullians, including Tarmin and his son Jev, are traveling on the Enterprise. Tarmin helps Keiko retrieve a childhood memory of a cup that was important to her, but when he pushes Dr. Crusher to let him use his telepathic gifts to help her, Jev warns him against using his powers without permission. Meanwhile, Jev finds a connection with Deanna Troi; both have troublesome parents. She later remembers a romantic moment with William Riker, but in the memory Riker eventually becomes an aggressive Jev. Riker himself later has a memory “attack,” and Dr. Crusher tests the Ullians to see if they might be causing the problem. Her tests don’t clarify anything, and she, too, is mentally attacked. Troi recovers from her attack, and Jev points to his father as the culprit. But in the end, it is the son who is caught red-handed. Red-minded? Troi (to Jev): It’s not easy having an overbearing parent. Believe me, I know how you feel. Notes: The forceful mind-reading in this story has been called “mind rape,” and the story certainly revolves around a man taking undo advantage of the women around him. No surprise that there were so many women involved in crafting this story—a tale that is certainly common inside Hollywood and without. The Masterpiece Society Writers: Adam Belanoff, James Kahn, Michael Piller Director: Winrich Kolbe Airdate: February 10, 1992 Should anyone be allowed to live in splendid isolation, even if it requires people who don’t want to share their isolation to remain there? The Enterprise tries to do some do-goodery by evacuating the colony of Moab IV, which is in danger from a fragment of a disintegrated neutron star. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Moab IV is a genetically engineered society, and their leader, Aaron Conor, doesn’t want to evacuate for fear of losing their oh-so-perfectness. Troi begins to get involved with Conor, and La Forge works with Moabian scientist Hannah Bates to come up with a way to prevent the frag-

ment from destroying the colony without having to evacuate it. They succeed, but Bates then tries to convince everyone that the colony still needs to be evacuated due to a problem with the colony’s shield. There is no problem; she made that up. But it reveals that she (and ultimately 22 other colonists) want to leave the colony. They are allowed to do so, and Picard bemoans the fact that people have free will. Picard: We are responsible. Riker: We had to respond to the threat of the core fragment—didn’t we? Picard: Of course we did. But, in the end, we may have proved just as dangerous to that colony as any core fragment could ever have been. Notes: Ugh. The Prime Directive. At the end of this episode, Picard brings up the importance of the Prime Directive, which forbids involvement in pre-warp societies. We’ll spare you another rant against the Prime Directive (see Galaxis #4 for our explanation of the idiocy and racism of the Prime Directive.) But Picard sums up that idiocy by saying that a society that has to deal with other societies and the differences they bring could be worse off than if that society were destroyed? That’s obscene. Conundrum Writers: Paul Schiffer, Barry Schkolnick Director: Les Landau Airdate: February 17, 1992 When does “I was only following orders” become “I was only mind-controlled into following malevolent aliens’ orders”? When the crew of the Enterprise all suddenly lose their memories (but not their abilities to successfully pilot the ship), they all try to fill in wherever possible and in whatever way seems logical. Thus Data tends bar in Ten Forward, Worf takes on the captain’s role (until Picard re-assumes it), and Ro and Riker become a romantic-ish pair. Executive officer Kieran MacDuff, however, wants to make sure the ship completes its mission of destroying the central computer of the Lysians. MacDuff, of course, is a plant, placed on the ship to make sure the Federation starship destroys the Lysians, the enemies of his race, the Satarrans. The Satarrans didn’t have the military might to destroy their enemies, but they had hoped to use their ability to alter memories to get someone else to do their dirty work. Riker: I don’t know who any of you are. Picard: Nor do I. I don’t—I don’t even remember who I am. Notes: The conceit of this story—the sudden apweimar.ws Galaxis

Power Play Writers: René Balcer, Brannon Braga, Maurice Hurley, Paul Ruben, Herbert J. Wright Director: David Livingston Airdate: February 24, 1992 While visiting Mab-Bu VI, Data, Troi, and O’Brien are possessed by entities claiming to be survivors of the USS Essex, which was lost in the region 172 before. They try to convince the Enterprise crew to investigate the polar region of the planet, where they say their bodies are. When their pleas are refused, they take over the ship and beam up hundreds of their compatriots, who like them are really fellow inmates on the Mab-Bu penal colony. The Enterprise crew is able to, first, contain the hundreds of new entities and, second, get the entities controlling Data, O’Brien, and Troi to leave their bodies. The prisoners are beamed back down to Mab-Bu VI. Data: Lieutenant, I must apologize for my inadvertent misconduct toward you. Worf: No apology necessary. Data: Your restraint was most remarkable. Worf: You have no idea. 52

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Notes: Only in science fiction can you have an episode with “guest stars” who are actually your regular cast. Thus no extra actor costs.

violation of our most sacred trust. I’m sure your work will be hailed as a stunning breakthrough. Enjoy your laurels, Doctor. I’m not sure I could.

Ethics Writers: Stuart Charno, Sara B. Cooper, Ronald D. Moore Director: Chip Chalmers Airdate: March 2, 1992 Today apparently is not a good day to die. When Worf is gravely injured in an accident in the storage bay, Dr. Toby Russell suggests a risky but potentially restorative surgery to replace his injured spine. Dr. Crusher doesn’t like the idea, but after Worf is unable to convince Riker to help him commit ritual suicide, Worf elects to have Dr. Russell perform her procedure. Meanwhile, as the Enterprise helps treat injured colonists, Crusher catches Russell using an unapproved drug on a patient who dies. Nonetheless, Worf is operated on, Worf survives, and Crusher tells Russell she’s an awful person. Worf begins physical therapy with the help of his son, Alexander.

Notes: This is a good episode for Dr. Crusher to shine in, not only because it focuses on her work but because it focuses on a real, ethical issue in her work. It is good to see Crusher as someone other than the on-call doctor, and instead someone who is both an expert in her field and someone who is upholding the highest of professional and moral standards.

Crusher (to Russell): You scare me, doctor. You risk your patients’ lives and justify it in the name of research. Genuine research takes time—sometimes a lifetime of painstaking, detailed work in order to get any results. Not for you. You take short cuts, right through living tissue. You put your research ahead of your patients’ lives. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s a

The Outcast Writer: Jeri Taylor Director: Robert Scheerer Airdate: March 16, 1992 While helping the J’naii rescue a shuttle lost in null space, Riker becomes attracted to Soren, a J’naii who identifies as female even though her race is androgynous and believes that male or female gender identification is horrible. Soren and Riker strike up a relationship, which is eventually discovered and Soren goes on trial. Soren is forced to go through “therapy” to change her gender expression. Picard won’t allow Riker to rescue Soren from the therapy (Prime Directive and all that), but Worf offers to help out the commander, and the two of them beam down to the J’naii planet. But the post-therapy Soren rejects their rescue; she’s no longer attracted to Riker.

PHOTO: PIOTRUS

pearance and acceptance of an alien as a highranking member of the Enterprise crew—is quite good and is more interesting than the plot itself. The Lysian attack is necessary to give the episode a story, but pulling off the MacDuff deception is a feather in the production team’s hat.

Soren: On my planet, we have been taught that gender is primitive. Riker: Primitive? Soren: Less evolved. Riker: Maybe so, but sometimes, there is a lot to be said for an experience that’s—primitive. Notes: As an allegory about treatment of LGBT people, this is an overdue entry into the Star Trek canon. As a convincing test of viewer attitudes, however, it falls short. If you are going to push the viewer to reconsider his or her views, then Soren could have been less obviously a female, and perhaps if this episode were produced today, CGI would have been used to achieve that. Others could argue that the entire story was a mirror image of anti-LGBT efforts, so Soren needed to be recognizably female to make the point of her differentiation from the other J’naii. There is no way to do this story that wouldn’t upset anyone, and at least Trek tried. But of course all LGBT critics had been asking for for many years was to have an LGBT crew member on the ship—specifically show that it’s normal and not something that needs convoluted politics or explanations. Fans would wait another quarter century before that would happen, in Star Trek Beyond. Cause and Effect Writer: Brannon Braga Director: Jonathan Frakes Airdate: March 23, 1992 If you hate playing cards, an endless game of poker is probably your idea of hell on Earth. Our heroes start out playing poker, but later in the day they find a spatial anomaly. A ship comes out of the anomaly and hits the Enterprise, causing its destruction. Aaaaaand they are suddenly back to playing cards, as if nothing happened. The Enterprise is stuck in a time loop, and slowly various members of the crew begin to remember things from past cycles—Crusher, for example, can predict the cards that Data is about to deal in their poker game. After more trips through the loop, the poker players eventually realize they’re being sent a signal from past loops that will help them escape the loop. They do, and they avoid the collision with the USS Bozeman, which has traveled from 90 years in the past, thanks to the anomaly.

Riker: How did you know I was bluffing? Crusher: I just had a feeling. Riker: I guess it’s better to be lucky than good. Crusher: It’s the way your left eyebrow raises when you’re bluffing. Notes: As Memory Alpha notes, “Cause and Effect” mentions ejecting the warp core: “This is the first reference to ejecting the warp core; while it is mentioned many times, the procedure wouldn’t actually be seen on screen until [the Voyager episode] ‘Cathexis,’ which marked the first of several times USS Voyager would eject its warp core. The USS Enterprise-E ejected its core in Star Trek: Insurrection.” The First Duty Writers: Ronald D. Moore, Naren Shankar Director: Paul Lynch Airdate: March 30, 1992 An accident with cadet Wesley Crusher’s Starfleet squadron causes the death of one pilot, Joshua Albert. The captain of the Enterprise, heading to Earth anyway because of Captain Picard’s scheduled commencement address at Starfleet Academy, is briefed on the tragedy. Crusher doesn’t want to discuss it with Picard and his mother, but he gets some advice—or pressure—from fellow squadron cadet Nicholas Locarno, who says the team has to stick together. Locarno argues that the accident was the fault of Albert. Picard, meanwhile, learns that the squadron had been trying to perform a special move known as the Kolvoord Starburst, and Crusher is forced to decide between his loyalties to Picard and Locarno. Siding with Picard will have a heavy cost—in time and privileges—for young Crusher. Picard: You have difficult times ahead. Crusher: Yes, sir. Thank you, captain. Picard: You knew what you had to do; I just made sure that you listened to yourself. Notes: Cadet Nicholas Locarno is portrayed by Robert Duncan McNeil, who would go on to portray the somewhat similar character of Tom Paris for seven seasons on Star Trek Voyager. There is also the first of what will become several appearances of veteran actor Ray Walston as Boothby, a groundskeeper at Starfleet Academy. Walston was already a science fiction legend for his portrayal of the titular alien in My Favorite Martian in that early 1960s’ sitcom. Cost of Living Writer: Peter Allan Fields Director: Winrich Kolbe Airdate: April 20, 1992 Worf and his son Alexander are having troubles

negotiating their father-son relationship, and just in time to “help” out is Lwaxana Troi, who boards the Enterprise to hold her wedding ceremony. Deanna is disappointed that her mother will not be having a traditional Betazoid wedding—by being nude at the ceremony—but Lwaxana says her husband-to-be would be offended. As she awaits the arrival of her husband, Campio, Lwaxana hangs out with Alexander and teaches him the finer points of annoying his father, such as engaging in mud baths on the holodeck. Eventually, Campio arrives, but he rejects Lwaxana when she shows up at the wedding ceremony in traditional, um, garb. Deanna Troi: It may be hard to imagine right now, but eventually most children come to appreciate their parents. Riker (over ship’s communicator): Riker to Counselor Troi. Your mother has just come aboard. Troi: On the other hand— Notes: There is a B-plot in which the ship has some sort of parasite working its way through its systems. But this subplot is not particularly interesting compared to the soap opera of the Lwaxana plot. The Perfect Mate Writers: René Echevarria, Gary Percante, Michael Piller Director: Cliff Bole Airdate: April 27, 1992 The Enterprise is transporting Kriosian ambassador Briam and his mysterious cargo to a peace ceremony with the Valtian when it has to stop and rescue two Ferengi, who are having ship troubles. The Ferengi, being Ferengi and the Enterprise’s security apparently being terrible, sneak into the cargo bay and release Briam’s cargo, which turns out to be a woman named Kamala, an empath who creates a strong attraction to her in any males she’s around. (Luckily for the sake of this story, we already know that Starfleet or the producers have forbidden any gay men from being on board the starship.) Though Briam tries to keep Kamala hidden, Picard lets her roam the ship, causing disruption because Starfleet males evidently can’t control themselves around her. Even more dangerous is the growing attraction between Kamala and Picard. But despite some debate among the Enterprise officers about the ethics of Kamala’s position (is it institutionalized prostitution? does she have free will?), she goes through with her marriage to the Valtian. Riker: Riker to bridge—if you need me I’ll be on Holodeck 4.

Worf and Alexander are having father-son troubles, and just in time to “help” out is Lwaxana Troi, who boards the Enterprise to hold her wedding ceremony. weimar.ws Galaxis

The fantastic episode “The Inner Light” is Star Trek at its best. Intelligent, dramatic, thought provoking, somewhat sad. Notes: Tim O’Connor, who portrayed the Kriosian ambassador in this episode, is a soap opera veteran who is also known for his portrayal of Dr. Elias Huer in the first season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in 1979–80. The Ferengi Par Lenor was portrayed by Max Grodénchik, who would go on to essay the role of Rom in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Imaginary Friend Writers: Brannon Braga, Richard Fliegel, Jean Louise Matthias, Edithe Swensen, Ronald Wilkerson Director: Gabrielle Beaumont Airdate: May 4, 1992 Clara is new to the Enterprise. She arrived there with her father, and out of her loneliness she creates Isabella, an imaginary friend who, to her surprise, appears in the real-world one day. Isabella doesn’t turn out to be a great friend or future Girl Scouts pal; she’s a lifeform from a nearby nebula. Picard and Isabella have a come-to-Jesus talk about human parenting and how cruel humans can be to children. Clara: It’s just, I’ve never seen you before—not for real. Isabella: Well, now you can see me for real. Doesn’t that make you happy? Notes: Alien Isabella is portrayed by actor/ singer Shay Astar, who also acted in 3rd Rock from the Sun. I, Borg Writer: René Echevarria Director: Robert Lederman Airdate: May 10, 1992 The Federation’s most implacable enemy— the Borg—become a bit more, well, placable when the Enterprise discovers a teen Borg at the site of a crashed Borg ship. The young Borg is still alive, so he is brought aboard the Enterprise, where the crew cook up a plan to essentially turn him into an unwitting agent of genocide. They plan to implant in him a program that would infect the Borg collective and destroy it. But when the Borg begins to show individuality, “Hugh”—as he’s dubbed by La Forge— wins over the crew and eventually wins over Captain Picard. Hugh: You will be assimilated. La Forge: Yes, we know. But before that, we’d like to ask you a few questions. Notes: Star Trek tended to use the Borg for 54

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grand-scale, event stories. This episode shows the flexibility of the writers and producers, telling a small personal story that nonetheless has cosmic implications. This is one of the best episodes of the season. The Next Phase Writer: Ronald D. Moore Director: David Carson Airdate: May 18, 1992 While trying to help a Romulan ship that had suffered some sort of disaster, Ro and La Forge return to the Enterprise with the damaged Romulan grafiton generator. But during the transport, Ro and La Forge are thought to have died when something goes wrong. The two aren’t dead; they’ve just been knocked out of phase by a Romulan phase inverter machine. Ro and La Forge discover that the Romulans intend to destroy the Enterprise, but they have no way of communicating with their fellow crew members to warn them. It is not until their funeral that the two are able to make themselves visible to the rest of the crew. Data figures out what has happened and the destruction of the ship is averted. La Forge: We should develop our own interphase device. If it can teach Ro Laren humility, it can do anything. Notes: Actor Thomas Kopache, who portrayed the Romulan Mirok in this episode, is one of only five people to have appeared in all of the Star Trek series (with the exception of the original series). He even had a role in the movie Star Trek Generations. The Inner Light Writers: Peter Allan Fields, Morgan Gendel Director: Peter Lauritson Airdate: June 1, 1992 A mysterious probe scans the Enterprise and knocks out Captain Picard. He awakens on the planet Kataan, where he meets Eline, his wife, and he learns that his name is Kamin. They tell him his experiences on the Enterprise were only dreams, and he slowly acclimates himself to the planet and its society. He learns to play the flute, has a family with Eline, and realizes the planet is facing a massive drought due to its star’s increasing radiation. After Picard had been rendered unconscious on the Enterprise, his crew try unsuccessfully to revive him, only to put his life at risk. They eventually trace the probe to a planetary system where the sun had gone nova a millennium earlier.

After experiencing 40 years on Kataan, Picard joins other villagers to watch the launch of a space probe, which contains the society’s memories and which is to seek out others to inform them of their soon-to-be-lost society. Picard reawakens on the Enterprise, where only minutes have passed while he had lived through four decades of Kataan life. When the aliens’ space probe is opened, inside is Kamin’s flute. Picard/Kamin: I’m the someone. I’m the one it finds. That’s what this launching is—a probe that finds me in the future. Notes: This fantastic episode is Star Trek at its best. Intelligent, dramatic, thought-provoking, somewhat sad. It takes something as wideranging and devastating as the destruction of an entire planet’s life and makes it come alive in a one-hour program. “The Inner Light” won the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. Time’s Arrow, Part I Writers: Joe Menosky, Michael Piller Director: Les Landau Airdate: June 15, 1992 After the discovery of some items from the 19th century and the disembodied head of Data in a cave near Starfleet in San Francisco, the Enterprise arrives to investigate. They learn that shapeshifting aliens from Devidia II are present, and they travel to that planet to discover that the Devidians are somehow drawing human life forces out of their human hosts to make use of them. The Enterprise crew tries and fails to prevent what they know will happen: Data at some point will die. When Data is transported back to 19th-century San Francisco, he discovers Guinan. Eventually, Picard leads an away team to travel back in time to try to defeat the Devidians and save Data from certain destruction. Jack London: Isn’t that what makes America great? Data: To what are you referring? London: A man rides into town in his pajamas, wins a grubstake at a poker table, turns it into a horseless carriage, and makes a million bucks. That’s America! Data: I believe I have given you an erroneous impression. Notes: “City on the Edge of Forever” this isn’t, but it is still an entertaining and involving dramatic tale.

Time travel episodes always provide a chance to comment on the “present.” But larding up the plot with not one but two legendary writers is too precious. SEASON SIX Time’s Arrow, Part II Writers: Joe Menosky, Jeri Taylor Director: Les Landau Airdate: September 21, 1992 In 1893 San Francisco, Picard and the away team are able to find Data, Guinan, and Samuel Clemens. They also learn that the Devidians had gone back in time to the 19th century because they could use a cholera epidemic as cover for their preying on humans. During a struggle over the prop that opens the portal, Data loses his head—literally—and Guinan suffers an injury. Picard is left in the past with Guinan and Data’s head while the rest of the away team returns to the 24th century. The captain manages to insert into the android’s noggin a message for his crew to discover in the future, in the hopes of both rescuing him and preventing the Devidians from destroying humans in the past (and thus in their future). Guinan: I’ll see you in 500 years, Picard. Picard: And I’ll see you—in a few minutes. Notes: Time travel episodes—whether in the original Star Trek, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, or hell, even Galactica 1980—always provide a chance to use differences between the two time periods to comment on the “present.” This episode is no different, though larding up the plot with not one but two legendary writers (Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens, and Jack London) is too precious. Realm of Fear Writer: Brannon Braga Director: Cliff Bole Airdate: September 28, 1992 Reginald Barclay is scared witless by transporters. And, wouldn’t you know it, during a transport he sees scary “worms” that no one else can detect. Barclay is part of the Enterprise contingent helping the USS Yosemite, which lost several crew in a transporter accident. Barclay thinks he’s just suffering hallucinations as part of “transporter psychosis.” But when they are able to discover the effects on his arm where a worm had touched him, the Enterprise crew knows something real is happening. On another trip through the transporter, Barclay captures one of the worms, who turns out to be one of the missing Yosemite crew. Further trips bring back all of the missing people. Troi: La Forge said you seemed a little nervous this morning. Barclay: I’m always nervous. Everybody knows that.

Notes: This episode is a good example of how you can have a dramatic and even unsettling story without a real villain in it. Man of the People Writer: Frank Abatemarco Director: Winrich Kolbe Airdate: October 5, 1992 The Enterprise rescues Lumerian Ambassador Ramid Ves Alkar, whose Federation ship was being attacked. During the subsequent trip to the Rekag/Seronia system, where Alkar is to mediate in a conflict, Troi meets Alkar’s elderly mother, who accuses Troi of wanting to mate with Alkar. When the mother dies, Crusher is unable to explain it, but something clearly is transferred from the old woman to Troi. Troi then somewhat vamps it up, trying to seduce Alkar and others. But she soon starts to age, and when another of Alkar’s female aides appears, Troi confronts her just like she was confronted earlier. Alkar’s negotiating success is revealed to be his ability to use another person as the equivalent of a cloud storage device for his negative emotions; unfortunately, it rapidly ages and kills the other person. Troi: Thanks for sticking by me. Riker: I always will, even when you’re old and gray. Notes: The ambassador’s ship at the beginning of this episode is the Dorian. So, yes, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

years before you were born, and I can tell you that whatever this is, it is definitely not scotch. Notes: This gem of an episode is a great character study that manages to make better use of Scotty than the “Unification” two-parter did of Spock. The recreation of the original Enterprise bridge is particularly poignant; far from being just a nostalgic stunt, it underscores the loneliness of Scotty, while tying together the two Trek series. Schisms Writers: Brannon Braga, Jean Lousie Matthias, Ron Wilkerson Director: Robert Wiemer Airdate: October 19, 1992 Call Scully and Mulder! Aliens are abducting Enterprise crewmembers—including Riker—and doing experiments on them. They only discover this after some of the affected crewmembers get together and share their experiences on the holodeck, and Cr. Crusher finds that they have evidence of tampering to their bodies. They hatch a plot to send Riker back to the aliens, while La Forge tries to figure out what to do with a subspace rift that opens up in Cargo Bay 4. Data (after sharing some of his poetry): Your hesitation suggests you are trying to protect my feelings. However, since I have none, I would prefer you to be honest. Notes: Lanei Chapman, who portrays Ensign Rager, later was a regular in the series Space: Above and Beyond.

Relics Writer: Ronald D. Moore Director: Alexander Singer Airdate: October 12, 1992 It’s Barclay’s worst nightmare: A man stuck in a transporter buffer for 75 years. The Enterprise responds to a distress call, which turns out to be from a small craft that crash-landed on the outside of a Dyson Sphere, a gargantuan structure completely encircling a star. They find that the transporter buffer still holds the data for a certain Captain Montgomery Scott. They materialize him and help him recover on the Enterprise. The former chief engineer of a previous version of the Enterprise has a hard time adjusting to this new future—no real alcohol, for one thing— and he refers to himself as a relic. But when the Enterprise gets trapped while exploring the Dyson Sphere, Scotty and La Forge use Scotty’s ship to help the starship escape. In return, the crew gifts him with a shuttle to use to continue his explorations.

True Q Writers: Matthew Corey, René Echevarria Director: Robert Scheerer Airdate: November 1, 1992 The Enterprise is a death trap. Falling cargo containers nearly kill crewmen. The warp core nearly explodes. How did this ship pass inspection? Both of those dangers are quashed by Starfleet intern Amanda Rogers, who exhibits miraculous abilities. So Q shows up, claiming Amanda as one of his own, or more accurately, as a Q. Picard, ever suspicious where Q is concerned, finds out that Amanda’s parents were killed by a freak storm in Kansas, and Q has been sent to kill Amanda if she turns out to be a Q-human hybrid. When a nearby planet sends a distress call, Q has Amanda make a choice: Join the Q Continuum or remain a lowly human.

Scotty: Laddie, I was drinking scotch a hundred

Rogers: Ever since I got here, I’ve been fighting weimar.ws Galaxis

this. I’ve been denying the truth, denying what I am. I am Q. Notes: Olivia d’Abo, who portrays Amanda Rogers, is related to Maryam d’Abo, the Bond girl in The Living Daylights. Rascals Writers: Diana Dru Botsford, Ward Botsford, Alison Hock, Michael Piller Director: Adam Nimoy Airdate: October 30, 1992 Somebody’s got to get those transporters fixed. Is there no quality control, no OSHA, in Starfleet? Adult crewmembers Captain Picard, Guinan, Keiko O’Brien, and Ro Laren are, er, turned into children in the scientifically questionable transporter accident they suffer while returning to the Enterprise from a planetary visit. Before Dr. Crusher can reverse the de-aging (un-aging?), the starship is attacked by Ferengi, who transport—apparently successfully—the adults to a planet but keep the kids on board. Picard leads the children—the real ones and the incredibly unscientifically artificially de-aged ones—in undermining the Ferengi to regain control of the ship. Troi: You could return to the Academy; take another degree; brush up on your Latin. Young Picard: And be Wesley Crusher’s roommate? Notes: This episode was reportedly very unpopular among the series’ crew, and it is a ridiculous concept (if you didn’t get that idea from our descriptions above). It is, nonetheless, also a rather fun episode to watch, poking some fun at the regular characters and in particular giving us the cute turnaround of having Captain Picard, the Starfleet officer who famously didn’t want children on his ship, turned into a child on his ship. This episode was the directorial debut of Adam Nimoy, the son of Trek legend Leonard Nimoy. A Fistful of Datas Writers: Brannon Braga, Robert Hewitt Wolfe Director: Patrick Stewart Airdate: November 9, 1992 Somebody’s got to get the holodeck fixed. Forced to spend some recreational time with his son, Alexander, Worf agrees to participate in a holodeck story based in 19th century Deadwood, South Dakota. But at the same time, La Forge and Data are doing an experiment of connecting Data to the Enterprise’s main computer and letting him run important functions. Because that’s what nerds do when they’re bored. However, something happens that causes Data and the main computer to swap parts of their programming, and he increasingly turns up as characters—dangerous characters, at that— in the holodeck story, endangering the lives of Worf, Alexander, and Troi, who has also decided to visit Deadwood. Data: Y’all must be mistaken. La Forge: Data, you did it again. Data: Did what? 56

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Notes: A cute episode, it’s also an entirely silly diversionary episode. After two of these in a row, will ST:TNG sober up? The Quality of Life Writers: L.J. Scott, Naren Shankar Director: Jonathan Frakes Airdate: November 16, 1992 While visiting Tyrus 7a to view something called a particle fountain, the Enterprise crew learn about exocomps, little machines that can not only fix problems but can learn and adapt. They’re impressive little creatures, but Data becomes convinced that they are capable of much more, including sentience. They not only are able to get themselves out of danger or refuse to put themselves in danger; they have developed the ability to sacrifice themselves to save others. Dr. Farallon: There is a big difference between Data and a tool. Data: Doctor, there is a big difference between you and a virus, but both are alive. Notes: One episode after star Patrick Stewart helmed an episode, this one is directed by co-star Jonathan Frakes. It is, perhaps, an overly simplistic and obvious story, but it is redeemed somewhat by Data’s tying his own interest in defending the exocomps to Captain Picard’s defense of Data in “The Measure of a Man,” from the second season. Chain of Command, Part I Writers: Frank Abatemarco, Ronald D. Moore Director: Robert Scheerer Airdate: December 14, 1992 Captain Jellico takes temporary command of the Enterprise while Captain Picard is away. Picard, along with Worf and Dr. Crusher, train for their secret mission to infiltrate and destroy a Cardassian biological weapons facility. Jellico had played an important part in the Federation-Cardassian peace negotiations, so his presence—and the Enterprise’s subsequent patrolling along Cardassian territory—is used to try to prevent any flareup of trouble with the troublesome Cardassians. Jellico and Riker don’t get along from the start, but worse is in store for Picard, Crusher, and Worf when they arrive at the site of the supposed bio-facility—and discover that it’s a Cardassian trap. Worf and Crusher get away, but Picard is captured. Jellico: I want this ship ready for action, and I don’t have time to give Will Riker or anyone else a chance. And forgive me for being blunt, but the Enterprise is mine now. Notes: Michael Dorn told this story to an enthusiastic audience at a Next Generation 25th-anniversary convention in Calgary, Canada: “We had been crawling through caves, in dirt, on stage 16, which we call Planet Hell because that’s where they put all the god-forsaken planets we go to;

THE NEXT GEN MOVIES

he Star Trek film franchise got its start in 1979 with the original cast’s big-screen debut Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Seven films later, the decision was made to hand off the cinematic activities of the Enterprise to the next generation. Star Trek Generations was the result, a film that bridged the two generations and spawned its own series of Trek films. Here is out “episode guide” of the Next Generation films. Star Trek Generations Writers: Rick Berman, Ronald D. Moore, Brannon Braga Director: David Carson Release date: November 18, 1994 A not completely successful pairing of the two generations of Trek, Generations nonetheless charms with its Next Gen characters. Captain Kirk is transported (but via the mysterious space-rift Nexus rather than by transporter) to the 24th century, where he meets up with Captain Picard, and they join forces to defeat Soran, who will do anything to live in the Nexus forever. Kirk: Captain of the Enterprise? Picard: That’s right.

and it was dirt. They just keep dirt on the stage. And we had a lot of cats at Paramount—stray cats. Cats; dirt. And we’re crawling around and ... we’re all dirty, and Gates is there. All of a sudden, it’s late, we’re sitting there between takes, and I look over, and Patrick and I just start laughing for no reason ... uncontrollably. I said, ‘Patrick, what are you laughing at?’ He says, ‘I don’t know how I got here. I was in a seminar in Santa Barbara, the next thing I know I’m crawling around in cat shit.’” Chain of Command, Part II Writer: Frank Abatemarco Director: Les Landau Airdate: December 21, 1992 Picard has been taken captive by Gul Madred, who tortures him in an attempt to learn Federation secrets about the planet Minos Korva, which the Cardassians covet. Picard resists, despite an array of torture procedures used against him. Meanwhile, Jellico refuses to admit to the Cardassians that their captive was on a mission for

derful moments even for the supporting actors.

Kirk: Close to retirement? Picard: Not planning on it. Kirk: Let me tell you something. Don’t. Don’t let them promote you. Don’t let them transfer you; don’t let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship, because while you’re there, you can make a difference. Notes: It should be noted that this film cost $35 million to make, which is $11 million less than Star Trek: The Motion Picture cost 15 years earlier. They both earned roughly similar amounts at the box office. Star Trek: First Contact Writers: Rick Berman, Ronald D. Moore, Brannon Braga Director: Jonathan Frakes Release date: November 22, 1996

The first all-Next Generation film goes back in time to track down some Borg, which leads to the need to team up with Zefram Cochrane, the man who first made warp drive work. That milestone is put in jeopardy by the Borg, so the Enterprise crew must nursemaid the drunk, argumentative Cochrane so he carries through with his historic act. Troi: Timeline? This is no time to argue about time! We don’t have the time. Notes: This is the best of the Next Generation films, and it vies with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home for best Trek film of all. (For the record: Both are time-travel stories.) It is smart, it is funny, it has great special effects, and there are won-

Starfleet; that means Picard won’t get the treatment of a prisoner of war. Riker objects, and Jellico relieves him of duties. Later, Jellico must enlist Riker’s help to carry out a plan to set mines in an area of space to prevent a Cardassian fleet from taking Minos Korva. Apprised of the mining operation, the Cardassians give in, and Picard is returned to the Enterprise. Madred: How many lights do you see there? Picard: I see four lights. Madred: No. There are five. Notes: This unusually strong and dark episode was heavily influenced by Amnesty International, which was consulted by the writer and of which Patrick Stewart has been an advocate. Ship in a Bottle Writer: René Echevarria Director: Alexander Singer Airdate: January 24, 1993

Star Trek: Insurrection Writers: Rick Berman, Michael Piller Director: Jonathan Frakes Release date: December 11, 1998 While away on an undercover mission, Data starts to go haywire, setting into motion a headto-head conflict between the peaceful villagers of the Ba’ku, the Enterprise crew, and a rogue team from Starfleet. In the process, many horrible things happen, including mutiny, ethnic cleansing of the Ba’ku, and Worf singing Gilbert and Sullivan. Riker: A photon torpedo. Isn’t that the universal greeting when communications are down? La Forge: I think it’s the universal greeting when you don’t like someone. Notes: Insurrection underwhelmed at the box office, but it is a nice “quiet” movie and very much in keeping with the Next Generation’s TV modus operandi of following a high-octane episode like “The Best of Both Worlds” with the quiet “Home.” Unfortunately, it also played too much like a big-budget standard television episode.

Really, somebody’s got to get the holodeck fixed. Evil Professor Moriarty is more than a fictional character in Sherlock Holmes stories, he’s a sentient artificial thingamabob who (that?) manages to create a consort/companion (the Countess Regina Bartholomew) and leave the holodeck altogether. But it’s a double- or triple-switch in this episode, as the Enterprise crew realizes that what they thought was the Enterprise is still just a holodeck program, and then they convince Moriarty that he has escaped the holodeck, when he’s really just exploring strange new worlds within a program. Check mate. Moriarty: A holodeck character? A fictional man? Yes, yes—I know all about your marvelous inventions. I was created as a plaything so that your Commander Data could masquerade as Sherlock Holmes. But they made me too well, and I became more than a character in a story; I became self-aware. I am alive.

Star Trek Nemesis Writers: John Logan, Rick Berman, Brent Spiner Director: Stuart Baird Release date: December 13, 2002 The Enterprise crew encounters a clone of its Captain Picard. The clone, a Reman who has taken control of the Romulan empire, wants all kinds of revenge for his terrible life. Picard tries to reason with him, but the clone’s lust for destruction is so great it results in a cataclysmic collision between his ship and the Enterprise, with Data sacrificing his android life in the process. Worf: Captain, I do not think it is appropriate for a Starfleet officer to appear naked. Picard: Oh, come now! A big, handsome, strapping fellow like you? What can you be afraid of? Notes: The Next Generation cinematic swan song does try to push some character development (for Data), akin to Spock’s post-resurrection following Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and that might have been interesting to see how it plays out in future films. But this movie has none of the great moves of previous films (it’s missing anything approaching Picard’s edgy “The line must be drawn here!”). Its poor box office performance put a halt to the films until they were themselves resurrected by J.J. Abrams.

Notes: This story is a sequel to the secondseason episode “Elementary, Dear Data” (see Galaxis #5). Aquiel Writer: Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore, Jeri Taylor Director: Cliff Bole Airdate: February 1, 1993 The Enterprise is at a small Starfleet station along the Klingon border where it finds its two staff— Aquiel Uhnari and Rocha—missing; only a dog remains, along with some weird organic residue on the floor. Picard puts his service to the Klingon Chancellor Gowron to good use, using it to pressure the local Klingon governor, who caves and produces Aquiel, who is still alive. She tells the Enterprise crew that she had been attacked by Rocha. La Forge decides it’s time that he finally gets the woman, so he strikes up a relationship with Aquiel, who fears that she will be blamed for Roweimar.ws Galaxis

cha’s death. Meanwhile, Dr. Crusher discovers that that organic residue from the station is alive, and it takes the shape of lifeforms it touches. Is Aquiel just a copy of the original? Was Rocha a copy? And who’s sleeping with La Forge? Aquiel: Geordi? La Forge: I can see you. Oh, and I can feel you. Notes: Spoiler alert: The dog is a shape-shifter. So we’re not the only ones who saw John Carpenter’s The Thing. Face of the Enemy Writers: René Echevarria, Naren Shankar Director: Gabrielle Beaumont Airdate: February 8, 1993 Troi is captured and taken aboard a Romulan Warbird, with her appearance altered so that she can pose as Major Rakal of the feared Romulan secret police the Tal Shiar. She is told by the Romulan N’Vek that she has to use this guise to convince the Warbird’s commander, Toreth, take the ship to the Kaleb sector. N’Vek and “Rakal” want to deliver a secret cargo: a high Romulan official and his two assistants, who are unconscious but who want to defect to the Federation. The Enterprise, too, is headed to the Kaleb sector, having been tipped off by a messenger from Ambassador Spock of a meeting there. It all comes to a head when the Enterprise trails the Warbird, and Troi has to assume command of the Romulan ship to prevent it from destroying her real ship. But she still needs to let an attack go forward, if only to hide the transport of the secret cargo to the Enterprise. Then there’s just the little matter of getting herself off the Romulan ship after Toreth resumes command. Oh—and getting rid of the Romulan cosmetic surgery once she’s back home. Toreth: How is the empire threatened by the words of an old man, a devoted citizen who was merely trying to speak his mind? How did the Tal Shiar protect the empire by dragging him, my father, out of his home in the middle of the night? Troi (as Rakal): Clearly, your father was a traitor. Toreth: No. He was just an idealistic old man. I never saw him again. Troi: I don’t need your devotion, commander, just your obedience. Toreth: And that’s all you have. Notes: Recent episodes have involved Trek characters turning into children, being fooled by the appearance of aliens pretending to be long-time comrades, living an entire lifetime as another man, turning into invisible observers, turning into holodeck computers, and being taken over by body-snatching aliens that suck out their lifeblood. There is a strong throughline of—forgive the term—body alienation in these stories, playing with the definitions and appearances of characters we already know well. Whether this was done because the writers were running out of stories to tell, or if they were free to push their plots further because of the confidence that came with the show’s success, is something we can’t tell. 58

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Tapestry Writer: Ronald D. Moore Director: Les Landau Airdate: February 15, 1993 Picard is shot and killed by terrorists. But death in science fiction is never a certain thing, and he awakens to find Q, who informs him that he died because his artificial heart failed when he was attacked. Picard had lost his real heart in a barroom fight when he was a young Starfleet officer, something he says he regrets. So Q sends him back in time to undo that action. Back Picard goes, and this time instead of getting into the fight to help his friend, he prevents the fight from taking place. Returned to his own time on the Enterprise, he finds that he is no longer the captain but instead a junior officer. He is told that he never managed to stand out because he avoided risk in his career. He complains to Q, is returned yet again to his young adulthood, has the fight, loses his heart, and voila, when he returns to the here-and-now he is once again captain of the Enterprise. Q: The Jean-Luc Picard you wanted to be, the one who did not fight the Nausicaan, had quite a different career from the one you remember. That Picard never had a brush with death, never came face-to-face with his own mortality, never realized how fragile life is, or how important each moment must be. So his life never came into focus. He drifted through much of his career, with no plan or agenda, going from one assignment to the next, never seizing the opportunities that presented themselves. He never led the away-team on Milika III to save the ambassador, or take charge of the Stargazer’s bridge when its captain was killed, and no one ever offered him a command. He learned to play it safe, and he never, ever got noticed by anyone. Picard: You’re right, Q. You gave me the chance to change, and I took the opportunity. But I admit now: it was a mistake! Q: Are you asking me for something, Jean-Luc? Picard: Give me a chance to put things back the way they were before. Q: Before—you died in sickbay. Is that what you want? Picard: I would rather die as the man I was than live the life I just saw. Notes: Well, now. As a parable about how all events of one’s life—good and bad and traumatic and transcendent—go into who one becomes, this episode succeeds. But what is problematic is the experiences that were used to teach Captain Picard this lesson; and his ultimate argument about why he wants things to be the way they were originally is far from inspiring and raises more worries than it should. The youthful “error” that Picard has undone and then redone is his getting into a needless and near-fatal barfight. Why was that example chosen? It ennobles every half-drunk nitwit who gets into a bar fight over a stupid game or real or imagined insult or whatever. In real life, people get seriously injured and die because some liquored-up idiot feels his honor is at issue because someone looked at his girlfriend (or his girlfriend dumped him, or any number of other

reasons that are just excuses to break the chains of decency and try to attack another person. And the writers thought that young Picard showing caution and avoiding that fight would then become a meek loser who never learned about the importance of life and death and risk-taking? As if there would never ever again be an opportunity for Picard to experience or witness (or, hell, read about and take into his thoughts) the realization that life can be ephemeral and sometimes if you want something you have to risk it? What lesson did they think they were teaching young viewers with that particular example of Picard’s youth? He didn’t take a risk to save his friend’s life (in fact, by taking the risk he put his friend’s life in mortal danger). He didn’t take a risk to protect an endangered child or save an animal’s life or defeat a bully. He put his own life (and that of his friend, don’t forget that) in danger over a stupid bar game at which both the Nausicaans and his friend had cheated. Near the end of the episode, Picard (as shown in the section quoted above) says he would rather be dead than live the life of the junior officer that he had become in the alternate lifeline. Rather dead than be a junior science officer. We’re sure the junior science officers on his ship would be thrilled to learn that he thinks anyone who doesn’t become captain of a ship is better off dead. They can probably think he’s going to be really careful about putting their lives in danger on away missions or during tense situations, right? In short, an intriguing episode done well, but with an immoral core to the story and its conclusion. Birthright Part I Writer: Brannon Braga Director: Winrich Kolbe Airdate: March 7, 1993 While on a visit to Deep Space Nine, Worf hears a rumor that his father was not killed at Khitomer, as he believed, but was captured by Romulans, which would be a dishonor in his society. He gets leave from the Enterprise to go in search of his father and find out if the rumor is true. This leads him to a planet near Romulan space, where he discovers a settlement of Klingons. To his relief, he learns that his father did indeed die at Khitomer. But when Worf tries to leave, he is captured by Romulans. Meanwhile, DS9’s Dr. Julian Bashir comes aboard the Enterprise and, working with La Forge, causes Data to experience dreaming. Data is puzzled by the experience, and believes he has been preprogrammed to dream by his creator, Dr. Soong. Bashir (to Data): Your creator went to a lot of trouble to make you seem human. I find that fascinating Notes: James Cromwell portrays Jaglom Shrek, the alien who tells Worf that his father survived in Romulan captivity. Cromwell played warp drive discoverer Dr. Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact, a role he reprised in the “Broken Bow” episode of Star Trek Enterprise. In other roles, he also appeared in this episode, “The Hunted,” and DS9’s “Starship Down.”

Birthright Part II Writer: René Echevarria Director: Dan Curry Airdate: March 14, 1993 Worf, stuck in the Romulan prison with the other Klingons, is disturbed that his fellow Klingons don’t try to escape. He is told that they are there by choice, knowing that they would bring dishonor to their families if they returned, because Klingons would rather you died in battle than be taken prisoner. Some of these Klingons have even married and had children with Romulans. Worf decides the Prime Directive has no role here, so he trains young Klingons in the encampment how to fight and teaches them about Klingon culture. The Romulan commander tells Worf he can either give up his agitation or be killed; Worf decides it’d be a pretty good day to die, then. Instead, he and the young Klingons he has trained are allowed to leave, and he is returned to the Enterprise. Picard: You found what you were looking for, Mr. Worf? Worf: No, sir. There was no prison camp. Those young people are survivors of a vessel that crashed in the Carraya system four years ago. No one survived Khitomer. Picard: I understand. Notes: We’ve always found it odd to have the two halves of a two-part episode be directed by different people. This is not the way every series does it; see the Battlestar Galactica episode guide in Galaxis #2. In some cases, it leads to a slight inconsistency in feel between the halves, such as with “The Best of Both Worlds.” And with “Birthright,” not only are there different directors, there are different writers for each part. Starship Mine Writer: Morgan Gendel Director: Cliff Bole Airdate: March 29, 1993 The Enterprise is emptied of its crew so that the ship can be worked on. They might want to spend some time fixing the troublesome holodeck. But no, the ship is being decontaminated with a baryon sweep, which would kill living beings on board. Looking to avoid a boring social engagement, Picard instead returns to the ship to get his saddle so he can go horseback riding. He might have found the cocktail party more interesting than he thought, because the other Enterprise officers in attendance are taken as hostages. Still, things aren’t all quiet aboard his ship; he discovers that a group of intruders is also there, looking to steal something from the warp engines that can be used as an explosive. Picard must elude the criminals while also trying to stay ahead of the approaching baryon field, which eventually corners him in Ten Forward. With the help of his crew, who have finally managed to escape their captors, Picard is able to stop the baryon sweep before it can kill him. A criminal: You’re Starfleet. You won’t kill me. Picard: You sure? [He stuns the criminal.] It seems you’re right.

Notes: Tim Russ, the future Tuvok of Star Trek: Voyager, appears here as Devor, one of the criminals. The role of Kira is played by Patricia Tallman, who would soon show up in Babylon 5 as Lyta Alexander. Lessons Writers: Ron Wilkerson, Jean Louise Matthias Director: Robert Wiemer Airdate: April 5, 1993 Annoyed that the stellar cartography section is using more than its share of the Enterprise’s systems, Captain Picard heads down there. He finds Nella Daren, stellar cartography’s stellar chief, and the two have almost instant chemistry. That is later underscored when they discover a mutual love of music. Picard quickly begins to think about (or overthink) the complications of a captain being in a relationship with one of his crew, and that becomes even more clear when Daren is believed killed on an away mission. Though she in fact survives, their relationship is over. Picard chooses his career over the woman. Daren (to Picard): Well captain, now that I’m on your ship, maybe you should start expecting the unexpected. Notes: The tale of a captain unable to really enjoy a relationship with an underling is nothing new, but it’s well-told here. But you’ll notice Picard never falls for a redshirt security woman; he wants a longer relationship than that. The Chase Writers: Joe Menosky, Ronald D. Moore Director: Jonathan Frakes Airdate: April 26, 1993 Why the nose ridges? Why, even after Star Wars littered the interstellar landscape with radically differently shaped aliens, do so many of the aliens in Star Trek look like humans with bony ridges on their faces and heads? Is it just hurried makeup and budget constraints, or is it something . . . more? Picard is contacted by his former archeology guru, Richard Galen, who wants to lure him into joining him on an adventure into an incredibly important discovery. Like a woman on the ship (see “Lessons,” above), an Indiana Jones adventure doesn’t succeed in peeling Picard away from his ship. But when Galen is attacked and killed, Picard is energized into figuring out the mystery to which Galen alluded. On Galen’s ship, there are clues that the Enterprise crew studies until they determine that it involves a DNA puzzle. When they head to a planet Galen had sought to reach, they find themselves in a competition with Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans for the secrets Galen sought to discover. On the planet, the DNA secret turns into a holo-message from an alien who looks suspiciously like Odo from Deep Space Nine, who tells them all that it represents the Ur-species of all humanoid life in their quadrant. Is this laying the grounds for peace instead of conflict between the descendant races? Picard: It would seem that we are not completely

dissimilar after all; in our hopes, or in our fears. Romulan: Yes. Picard: Well then perhaps, one day— Romulan: —one day . . . Notes: Actor Norman Perlmutter portrayed Picard’s mentor Galen. The character of Galen was killed too young, but Perlmutter, born in World War I-era 1914, lived to the fine old age of 102. He had a full career in acting, including science-fiction roles in Seven Days from 1998 until 2001, and a guest appearance in The Twilight Zone. In addition to acting, he directed (including episodes of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series) and produced (including Journey to the Unknown and Tales of the Unexpected). Frame of Mind Writer: Brannon Braga Director: James L. Conway Airdate: May 3, 1993 While on a covert mission, Riker is captured and subjected to experiments that create in his mind the illusion that he is either on the Enterprise or in a mental institution where he is told he has killed someone. Again and again, he fights his way out of the illusions and tries to return to reality, all the while experiencing a painful feeling in his head. When he finally succeeds, he finds that he’s on a table with an attachment to his head where he’s been feeling the pain. He is beamed back to the Enterprise after he manages to get his communicator back, and once on board he goes to dismantle the set of a play he was in—which concerned a man trapped in a mental institution. Riker: No! Let me out of here! Let me out of here! Help me! Help me. Notes: As we noted in our “Face of the Enemy” episode writeup, this is another story this season in which a character is somehow confronting a changed reality about himself and how he experiences what’s around him. Alienation. Were the writers crying out for help? Suspicions Writers: Joe Menosky, Naren Shankar Director: Cliff Bole Airdate: May 10, 1993 Dr. Crusher’s in trouble. She has been relieved of duties because she performed an autopsy on a dead Ferengi without permission. Apparently this is not allowed by the Rules of Acquisition. The Ferengi was a scientist, Dr. Reyga, who had invented a metaphasic shield that would allow a small ship and its crew to survive a trip traveling into the corona of a star. But when a Takaran scientist, Jo’Bril, is selected to test the shield on a shuttle, the shuttle is retrieved with his lifeless body in it. Reyga soon turns up dead, allegedly a suicide but Crusher suspects murder. Despite a Ferengi tradition not to perform an autopsy, Crusher does one, and to confirm her findings, she takes the shielded shuttle into a star’s corona and survives. Except that also on that shuttle is a very much alive Jo’Bril, who had faked his death in weimar.ws Galaxis

here were some fairly wellknown actors on board when The Next Generation launched in 1987, but most of them had low profiles. Patrick Stewart, Wil Wheaton, LeVar Burton, and others had track records in highly visible movies or series. Through the course of seven seasons, however, every one of the regulars and some of the semi-regulars became household names, at least in science-fiction households like ours. Join us for a check-in on the actors’ lives after the series ended. Brian Bonsall Alexander Rozhenko: After Next Generation, Bonsall largely retired from the a c t i n g w or l d and focused on his music. He formed the group Late Bloomers and has performed in other bands. He has also gotten himself entangled in some legal issues.

LeVar Burton Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Burton’s role as host and executive producer of Reading Rainbow both preceded and continued after Next Generation, and he picked up 12 Emmy Awards

for producing the show. The proscience Burton has worked on science documentaries, served on the board of directors for the Directors Guild of America (he has also directed episodes of Next Generation spinoffs, as well as JAG, Charmed, and other shows) and the 2003 film Blizzard. Rosalind Chao Keiko O’Brien: After TNG, Chao would play Keiko O’Brien on the spinoff Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She has continued to act regularly since then in both film and television, appearing in everything from the Freaky Friday remake to recurring roles in The O.C., Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 to Tell Me You Love Me.

Denise Crosby Tasha Yar: Though she exited the show after only one year, her subsequent guest stints (including in the stellar “Yesterday’s Enterprise”) kept her in Trek minds. She has never stopped working in the time since, appearing in everything from David Gerrold’s “Blood and Fire” episode of the fan-made Star Trek: New Voyages to The Walking Dead to Ray Donoavan and The Magicians.

Michelle Forbes Ro Laren: Since leaving the recurring role of Ro Laren, Forbes has portrayed a steely Admiral Cain on Battlestar Galactica, a presidential aide on 24, Valerie Edwards on Berlin Station, some film characters, various voice roles

order to discredit Dr. Reyga’s work. If Crusher can survive her run-in with Jo’Bril, she can get her job back. Guinan: I’ve never been to a formal inquiry. Crusher: Well, I’ll see if I can arrange one for you. All you have to do is disobey orders, violate medical ethics, and cause an interstellar incident. Guinan: Well, I guess that would do it. Notes: Jo’Bril was portrayed by James Horan, who had spent much of the 1980s successfully acting in soap operas (Guiding Light, General Hospital, All My Children, Another World, and others). But he appeared a couple times in Star Trek: The Next Generation (this episode and in “Descent”), in the “Fair Trade” episode on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in “Tosin” on Star Trek: Voyager, and even appeared on the first two sea60

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Michael Dorn Lt. Worf: Dorn reprised his Worf character in the spinoff Deep Space Nine. Beyond Trek, he played a recurring character in Castle and had roles in a number of commercials and video games. Dorn is also a pilot—reportedly calling his airplane his “starship.”

sons of Star Trek Enterprise. Rightful Heir Writers: James E. Brooks, Ronald D. Moore Director: Winrich Kolbe Airdate: May 17, 1993 Worf goes off on a spiritual quest to the Temple of Boreth. There he thinks he has a spiritual vision of Kahless, the long-dead founder of the Klingon Empire. He lacks a few things Worf expects, like not being able to say what the afterlife is life; but a genetic test matches him with blood from the real Kahless. Klingon Chancellor Gowron is none too pleased by the long-prophesied return of Kahless, because he thinks it’s a plot by the religious leaders to take power from him. Worf learns from the temple’s chief priest that it is not a resurrected Kahless after all, but a clone. Worf con-

in video games, and many other characters. Jonathan Frakes Commander William Riker: The many talents of Frakes have made for a nice career as a director (including episodes of Star Trek Voyager), actor, and even novelist. In recent years, he has stayed busy by helming episodes of The Librarians, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., NCIS Los Angeles, and other shows.

Whoopi Goldberg Guinan: Goldberg these days is most visible as the moderator and host of the daytime talk show The View, a role she’s had since 2007. But she has also hosted awards shows such as the Oscars and the Tonys, narrated documentaries, and acted in a never-ending series of film and television productions. She has also been outspoken for her political views, including LGBT and women’s rights.

Colm Meaney Chief Miles O’Brien: After his recurring role on Next Generation, he became a regular on Deep Space Nine. Since then he has filled a steady stream of roles on TV and in film, including 52 episodes of Hell on Wheels and the films The Metrosexual, and The Silent Man.

vinces Gowron to appoint Kahless as a powerless ceremonial emperor to unite the people. Kahless: Kahless left us, all of us, a powerful legacy. A way of thinking and acting that makes us Klingon. If his words hold wisdom and his philosophy is honorable, what does it matter if he returns? What is important is that we follow his teachings. Perhaps the words are more important than the man. Notes: Broadway veteran Kevin Conway portrayed Kahless. He had also played Roland Weary in the 1972 Slaughterhouse-Five film. Second Chances Writers: René Echevarria, Michael A. Medlock Director: LeVar Burton Airdate: May 24, 1993

IMAGES: TNGCAST FONT BY MICHAEL GAINES

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

John de Lancie Q: What hasn’t de Lancie done? He has (take a deep breath) co-written a novel (1999’s I, Q, with Peter David); narrated performances of the New York Philharmonic, the Sydney Symphony, and other major orchestras; written and directed symphonic plays; performed voice acting in video games; teamed up with Leonard Nimoy to create the Alien Voices series of audio productions of classic science fiction stories (performed by many Trek alumni); and of course acted in everything from Saving Private Ryan to Stargate SG-1.

Gates McFadden Dr. Beverly Crusher: The multitalented McFadden—actor, choreographer, teacher, more—has kept busy. In addition to acting (the 1995 series Marker, a guest role on Mad About You, and more) she has taught at universities in the United States and Germany, and was artistic director of the Ensemble Studio Theatre of Los Angeles.

Diana Muldaur Dr. Kate Pulaski: Muldaur’s celebrated career was much longer preTrek than post-Trek. But she followed her one-season stint on the Enterprise with a controversial and juicy role as the tough lawyer Rosalind Shays on L.A. Law. She also appeared in Locked Up: A Mother’s Rage, and voiced Leslie Tompkins in Batman: The Animated Series, among other roles.

Marina Sirtis Counselor Deanna Troi: Sirtis has continued to appear in a string of film and television roles, including as Troi in episodes of Star Trek Voyager and the finale of Enterprise. Her most recent film appearance is in 2017’s The Assassin’s Apprentice.

Brent Spiner Data: Spiner has continued to act

in an eclectic collection of productions on television (Generator Rex, Star Trek Enterprise, The Blacklist, Blunt Talk, and others), film (Independence Day and its sequel, The Aviator, Superhero Movie, and others), and stage (1776, Live x 3).

Patrick Stewart Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Stewart has been very busy. In addition to adding a Hollywood Walk of Fame star and a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II to his many honors, he has Shakespearean roots (winning an Olivier Award for portraying Hamlet’s King Claudius), starred in the TV series Blunt Talk, played Professor Charles Xavier in the XMen movies, among other roles. He has also become increasingly visible outside the film and television world, supporting causes and politics important to him.

Wil Wheaton Wesley Crusher: Wheaton’s postTrek life has included moving to Kansas to work at a tech company, taking five years of acting classes, performing a zillion voice actor roles, podcasting, portraying a version of himself on The Big Bang Theory, writing books, and being a popular blogger. A home-brewing fan, he has also co-created a stout beer.

A decade earlier, Riker was nearly trapped on Nervala IV, something he remembers shortly before he beams down with an away team—and discovers another William Riker. He is the Riker who was stranded on Nervala IV, apparently when a transporter beam was altered in an attempt to get through the local distortion field. Before you can say The Man Who Folded Himself, the Enterprise crew is left wondering what to do with two genuine Rikers. Though, unlike the hero of that David Gerrold book, Riker and Riker don’t get along. Commander Riker and Lt. Riker—the rank he held at the time of the original mission to Nervala—resent each other; in Worf ’s estimation, each of them dislikes the other because he sees something that reminds him of what he doesn’t like in himself. Troi, on the other hand, sees Lt. Riker as a chance to have a different kind of relationship

with her old flame Riker. After a dangerous but successful attempt to rescue some important data from the science outpost on Nervala IV, the two Rikers make peace, with Commander Riker giving his trombone to the lieutenant, who has chosen to go by the name Thomas Riker, using his middle name. Data: If you met a double of yourself, would you have difficulty interacting with him? Worf: I think so. Data: Why? Worf: I am not easy to get along with. Notes: Yet again, the writers tackle a sort of alienation story, but this is arguably one of the best of the lot. This story is filled with interesting tidbits about Riker and Troi, and some good advice from others; best of all, the writers didn’t take the

easy way out of having Lt. Riker fade into nonexistence or be killed at the end of the episode. He goes off on his own, leaving both Rikers in existence. Thomas Riker would appear again in the “Defiant” episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in which he helps uncover a secret military base, though at the cost of his freedom. Lt. Palmer is portrayed by Mae Jemison, a reallife NASA astronaut. Timescape Writer: Brannon Braga Director: Adam Nimoy Airdate: June 14, 1993 On a shuttle returning from a conference, Picard, Troi, La Forge, and Data are almost back to the Enterprise when they have to change their path to avoid temporal distortions. When they get to their starship, they find it frozen in time, being fired upon by a Romulan Warbird. They visit the Enterprise and the Romulan ship, seeing everyone frozen in action, including Dr. Crusher being shot by a Romulan’s disrupter. One Romulan who doesn’t stay frozen however gives away his uniqueness, and he is taken back to the shuttle, where they learn he is an alien from trans-dimensional space. He and another alien were trying to retrieve a singularity from the Warbird, because it carried their offspring, and that created the cascading events that led to the frozen moment in space. La Forge: I think this is gonna work. But it’s gonna take some time. Picard: Well, Mister La Forge, . . . it would seem that time is what we have plenty of. Notes: This is not a time travel episode, necessarily (we’ll ignore for the moment the slight reversing and repeating of time in this story). But it is a very interesting exploration of time and the consequences of altering it. And you’ve got to love a Starfleet officer drawing a smiley face in a time-frozen cloud of gas. Descent, Part I Writers: Ronald D. Moore, Jeri Taylor Director: Alexander Singer Airdate: June 21, 1993 Responding to a distress signal from Ohniaka III, the Enterprise arrives to find an alien ship and, at a science station on the surface, some Borg. But the Borg aren’t behaving like well-oiled machines; they are behaving more like individuals. In fact, Data isn’t behaving like a well-oiled machine either; he displays rage and beats the bejesus out of one of the Borg. While Data tries to figure out why and how he experienced emotion, the Enterprise collects its team and goes to another colony that is being attacked by the Borg. Two of them beam aboard the Enterprise, and one of them survives and is put into the brig. He says his name is Crosis, and he follows the One. Crosis is able to activate something in Data, and the two of them take a shuttle off the starship. The Enterprise follows the shuttle to a distant planet, where they discover a boisterous bunch of Borg—and Data’s brother, Lore, who tells weimar.ws Galaxis

BEST AND WORST A

s we near completion of our episode guide this issue of seven seasons of the epic series, we offer this list of our favorite and least-favorite episodes. What is significant to us is that, though we have some “worst” nominations, this series has so many very good and many great episodes. Star Trek: The Next Generation overall ranks with the very best science fiction television series (in our very subjective list, that would categorize it with the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, and The X-Files.) Best Episodes “The Big Goodbye” (Season One): We finally get to see inside Picard, who turns out to be a mystery buff. “Elementary, Dear Data” (Season Two): Nice character drama that underscores our sadness that otherwise, TNG didn’t seem to know how to use Dr. Pulaski. “The Enemy” (Season Three): By letting Worf choose to let someone die, the producers demonstrated

series. “The Best of Both Worlds” Part I (Season Three): Next Generation became a blockbuster with this episode, turning the Borg into epic villains, threatening the ship and the Federation (and all life in alpha quadrant), and doing it with cinematic panache. “Family” (Season Four): Trek follows up the highstakes action of a two-parter with this quiet episode that deepens our knowledge of and affection for our characters. “The Inner Light” (Season Five): Beautiful dramatic story about a lost civilizaNearly a quarter of a century after Star- tion—and not a villain in log asked its readers for their picks of sight. Next Generation’s standout episodes, “Second Chances” (Seawe decided it was finally time to pres- son Six): Troi finds that it’s “two Rikers, no waiting,” as ent our list. a long-ago transporter accident produces a problem the show’s maturity by trusting its for the crew. This story could easviewers to get the point without ily have been played for laughs and having to bludgeon them with po- been a sophomoric outing, but inlitical correctness. stead it deals head-on with the pos“Yesterday’s Enterprise” (Season sibilities and problems of the reality Three): Stellar episode that isn’t of two Will Rikers—and it doesn’t afraid to make its characters deal take the easy way out of disposing with the toughest decisions about of one of them. command, war, and sacrifice. Pos- “All Good Things . . . ” (Season sibly the best episode of the entire Seven): Talk about going out in

them that he and Data are together and will destroy the Federation. Riker: They were fast, aggressive, almost vicious. It was more like fighting Klingons than—Borg. [To Worf:] No offense. Worf: None taken. Notes: At the beginning of this episode, Data is in a holodeck scene, playing poker with Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and Stephen Hawking. Hawking, of course, is portrayed by the real Professor Hawking. Einstein and Newton, not so much. SEASON SEVEN Descent, Part II Writer: Rene Echevarria Director: Alexander Singer Airdate: September 20, 1993 What a turnabout. Just weeks after she was about to lose her job, Dr. Crusher now commands the Enterprise. Oh, and Data and Lore are 62

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working together on a mission to defeat artificial lifeforms. And a Borg ship is firing on the Enterprise. Not a good day to be in charge. Crusher is commanding the starship because Picard and others are on the planet below, prisoners of Lore and Data. La Forge’s VISOR allows him to see a carrier wave traveling from Lore to Data Well, it’s actually double-turnabout for Crusher. She nearly lost her job in “Suspicions” because of her efforts to defend Dr. Reyga, who had created a way to shield a ship so it could get closer to a star. She now takes the Enterprise close to the nearby star, drawing the Borg ship close enough to destroy it. Meanwhile on the planet, Riker and Worf discover Hugh, the individualized Borg from “I, Borg,” who tells them he is leader of a rebel band of Borg who oppose Lore’s plans. Data’s ethical programming is turned back on by the away team, and Data refuses Lore’s effort to get him to flee with him; he shoots Lore instead. Hugh assumes leadership of the remaining Borg on the planet.

style, this episode manages to have final-show character growth without making it look tacked-on, plus it brings the show full-circle to its premiere. Worst Episodes “Code of Honor” (Season One): An all-black cast of “aliens” are shown to be warlike and tribal and how the hell did this get past the producers’ review? “Skin of Evil” (Season One): If you’re going to kill off one of the bridge crew regulars, she deserves better than this dreary tale of a pool of mud. Luckily Yar got a more fitting death in “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” “Devil’s Due” (Season Four): A paint-by-numbers script, with nothing added to make it worthy; the story is obvious and the heavyhandedness of the holier-than-thou Starfleet message irritates. “Sub Rosa” (Season Seven): We like Dr. Crusher, but not when she’s shoehorned into silly haunted-possession scripts like this. “Masks” (Season seven): We also like Data, but Brent Spiner delivers a very rare fail as the android possessed by Masaka. The whole thing looks like an attempt to create an inexpensive “bottle” show that takes place on the ship, but was kicked up a notch by the placement of some planters on set.

Hugh: We can’t go back to the Borg Collective, and we no longer have a leader here. Picard: I’m not sure that’s true. Notes: Memory Alpha tells us that the site of Lore’s compound was actually the Brandeis-Barden Campus at American Jewish University, which also appeared as Camp Khitomer in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Liaisons Writers: Roger Eschbacher, Jeanne Carrigan Fauci, Jaq Greenspon, Lisa Rich Director: Cliff Bole Airdate: September 27, 1993 Picard crash-lands on a planet with Voval, an Iyaaran shuttle pilot who apparently dies before Picard is rescued by a woman claiming to be a survivor of another ship crash. Back on the Enterprise, an Iyaaran ambassador makes a pain of himself after he demands that Worf be his guide. But when he finally pushes Worf too far and Worf attacks him, he is pleased. Picard soon discovers that the woman is not

what she claims to be, and that Voval didn’t die in the crash. Voval and the other Iyaarans aboard the Enterprise are studying human emotions, and all is forgiven. Data: I have heard that in moments of diplomatic tension, it is often helpful to find elements of commonality. Worf: Ambassador Byleth is demanding, temperamental, and rude! Data: You share all of those qualities in abundance. Perhaps you should try to build on your similarities. Notes: Some of the weakest of episodes from all of the Trek series are those in which some aliens do stupid things with the Enterprise crew in order to “learn about” human emotions, or human sex, or human obedience, or whatever. This episode does nothing to change that opinion. Interface Writer: Joe Menosky Director: Robert Wiemer Airdate: October 4, 1993 Not even the news that the ship carrying his mother is probably lost can stop La Forge from his mission to use his VISOR to link him to a probe that will try to rescue the USS Raman. He believes his mother is still alive, but he soon runs into trouble on his Raman mission, including getting burned and shocked. When his mother appears, it starts to get really weird. Despite Picard’s direction to stop the mission, La Forge forges ahead, attempting to save her and her fellow crewmembers. But she turns out to be an alien (a 50/50 possibility when you see your long lost relative in a Star Trek episode); still La Forge helps her/it rescue her/its fellow aliens in the gas giant below. Picard [to La Forge]: You disobeyed my direct order. You put yourself in grave danger. I am not happy. Notes: Madge Sinclair, who portrayed Geordi La Forge’s mother, had earlier appeared in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home as the captain of the USS Saratoga. Gambit, Part I Writers: Christopher Hatton, Naren Shankar Director: Peter Lauritson Airdate: October 11, 1993 While searching for a missing Picard, Riker is separated from his colleagues and taken aboard a mercenary ship. There he discovers that Picard is also on the ship, apparently in league with a bunch of archaeological thieves. Picard stays in his undercover guise, creating an opportunity for Riker to earn value in the eyes of Baran, the mercenary ship’s commander, who is able to inflict pain on his crew thanks to implanted technology. Picard skillfully alters weapons and other tech aboard the mercenary ship to prevent it from doing much damage, but then it comes up against the Enterprise and attacks it. Riker: The captain died in a bar fight for noth-

ing. Somebody has to answer for that. Then I can mourn.

Judgment at Nuremberg, The Phantom, and Robo Warriors.

Notes: Writer Naren Shankar is a writer and producer whose work in the science fiction genre includes Farscape, The Outer Limits, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, seaQuest 2032, Grimm, and Star Trek: Voyager.

Dark Page Writer: Hilary J. Bader Director: Les Landau Airdate: November 1, 1993 Lwaxana Troi comes aboard, helping members of an alien telepathic species to speak. But something’s wrong with Lwaxana, who seems overworked and mentally worn out. Deanna Troi and Dr. Crusher urge her to refrain from using her telepathic abilities until she recovers. But Troi is having terrible dreams, and with the help of one of Lwaxana’s students, her daughter joins her nightmare world, where Deanna learns she had a sister who died when she was young, a tragedy that tormented Lwaxana ever since.

Gambit, Part II Writer: Naren Shankar, Ronald D. Moore Director: Alexander Singer Airdate: October 18, 1993 Picard, Riker, and—remotely—Data manage to conduct a battle between the mercenary ship and the Enterprise that damages nothing but that leads Baran to withdraw, thinking his ship had suffered serious trouble. Baran has warmed up to Riker, and orders him to murder Picard. But Picard has discovered that the artifact Baran is seeking—thought to be Romulan in nature—is really an ancient Vulcan weapon. Baran sends Picard and Riker to the Enterprise to retrieve an item, and Picard pretends to kill Riker and leaves him there while he returns to the mercenary ship. The merc ship then undergoes upheaval as it heads to the Vulcan homeworld to complete its mission. Picard: You were right, Tallera. The resonator cannot be stopped by phasers and shields; but it can be defeated by peace Notes: Robin Curtis, who portrays a Romulan in this episode, is best known to Trek audiences for her role as the Vulcan Lt. Saavik in the third and fourth Trek motion pictures. Phantasms Writer: Brannon Braga Director: Patrick Stewart Airdate: October 25, 1993 While Picard prepares himself for an admirals’ dinner that he’d really rather avoid, Data is having weird dreams. There are strange repairmen who disassemble Data in one of them; in another, he is cutting a cake that is made of Troi. Then in his waking moments, Data starts to see strange things: his fellow crewmembers with little mouths on their bodies. After he attacks Troi when he sees her with one of those mouths on her shoulder, he sequesters himself in his quarters. But his attack turns out to have been crucial to discovering a problem, when Dr. Crusher treats Troi’s wound from the attack and finds evidence of interphasic aliens. He uses the holodeck to interpret the clues he received in his dreams, and the Enterprise is successfully rid of the creatures that were affecting the people and the warp drives. Best of all, in all the excitement, Picard misses his admirals’ dinner, which is a dream come true. Picard: Normally I would wish you pleasant dreams. But in this case, bad dreams would be more helpful. Notes: Bernard Kates, who portrayed a holodeck version of Sigmund Freud, has also appeared in

Lwaxana: Aren’t you going to mingle, Mr. Woof? Worf: I do not care for telepaths. They make me—uneasy. Lwaxana: Don’t worry. The Cairn couldn’t read your thoughts even if they wanted to. Your brain isn’t sophisticated enough. Notes: The role of Hedril, one of Lwaxana’s students, is essayed by Kirsten Dunst, who would go on to . . . , well, everything. Attached Writer: Nick Sagan Director: Jonathan Frakes Airdate: November 8, 1993 Picard and Dr. Crusher are captured by the Prytt while trying to meet with the Kes on the unoriginally named planet of Kesprytt, which is split between the two. The Kes want to join the Federation, while the Prytt don’t want any outside contact whatsoever. The two Starfleet officers are outfitted with neck devices that are supposed to reveal the truth of their intentions; Picard and Crusher soon learn that they are able to read each other’s mind. Through that, Crusher learns that Picard had an unrequited love for Crusher that he buried due to his friendship with her late husband. They are able to escape their captors, while up in orbit Riker manages to strong-arm the Kes and the Prytt into releasing them to the Enterprise, where they must then learn to live with the secret between them that was revealed. Crusher: When Jack died, you felt guilty. Picard: I felt guilty before he died. Having feelings like that for my best friend’s wife—and then later after the accident, I promised myself that I would never tell you how I felt. It would be like betraying my friend. Crusher: That’s why you didn’t want me on the Enterprise seven years ago. Notes: Music for this episode was composed by the Emmy-winning Dennis McCarthy, whose many credits include this series, as well as Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, and V: The Final Battle. He also produced Ol’ Yellow Eyes Is Back, the 1991 album by Data actor Brent Spiner. It included backup vocals by Trek stars LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan weimar.ws Galaxis

Frakes, and Patrick Stewart. Writer Nick Sagan is the son of Contact author and popular astronomer Carl Sagan.

gan, an actor and activist who appeared in this episode, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s “Dax,” and Star Trek: Enterprise’s “Fallen Hero.”

Force of Nature Writer: Naren Shankar Director: Robert Lederman Airdate: October 15, 1993 Data is forced to try to train his cat, Spot, to get her to stop destroying things. Meanwhile, destruction of space around the Hekaran homeworld by the use of warp drive is posited by two Hekarans, Rabal and Serova. Rabal and Serova are too impatient to go through Federation research protocol, so they get all activisty and attack the Enterprise. This is apparently the best way to get results, as Data looks into their research and basically says yep, something’s there. The Federation agrees that overuse of highlevel warp fields is damaging space, and it issues a non-emergency speed limit of warp five for its vessels.

Parallels Writer: Brannon Braga Director: Robert Wiemer Airdate: November 29, 1993 Worf returns to the Enterprise after a bat’leth tournament, but he begins to realize he is slipping between alternate universes. His RNA is tested and the results show that he is indeed from a different universe. Each of the universes is slightly different; Riker captains the Enterprise in one; the Bajorans dominate the Cardassians in another; Worf is married to Troi in yet different one. Having determined that Worf ’s problem came when his shuttle went through a time-space fissure, the Klingon is sent in a shuttle back into the spacial disruption. On his way he has to dodge a Borgified Enterprise from yet another universe, before he can finally get to his own universe, where he invited Troi to have dinner.

La Forge: We still have time to make it better. Notes: This rather strained attempt to tell an environmental story is a bit of a hot mess. Why the producers felt they needed to do some stretched analogy between warp travel and environmental damage is unknown; they could have more cleanly simply visited a planet where . . . there was environmental damage. Maybe the Federation requires aspirant members to get their industrial economies onto a sustainable path before they can join. Easy. The goal here might have been good, but this episode ranks as a failure. Nice Spot subplot, though. Inheritance Writers: René Echevarria, Dan Koeppel Director: Robert Scheerer Airdate: November 22, 1993 Doctors Pran and Juliana Tainer board the Enterprise to work on a project to help Atra IV’s population. She reveals herself to be the former wife of Noonien Soong, the creator of Data and his brother Lore. She shares with him some tales of his childhood (apparently he didn’t like to wear clothes). But Data becomes a bit suspicious, and his suspicions are confirmed when Juliana is injured—and her arm comes off, revealing her to be an android like him. Data learns from a holographic message from his late father that there was a real Juliana who was his wife, but after she died, he created the android Juliana, who believes she is human. When Juliana recovers from her injuries, Data lets her continue in that belief. Noonien Soong: I programmed her to terminate after a long life. Let her live out her days and die believing she was human. Don’t rob her of that, son, please. Notes: Julilana is portrayed by Fionnula Flana64

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Troi (to Worf): I know Klingons like to be alone on their birthdays. You probably want to meditate, or hit yourself with a pain stick, or something. Notes: A fun frolic through parallel universe possibilities. If you’ve always wanted to hear “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” sung with Klingon lyrics, this is your episode. The Pegasus Writer: Ronald D. Moore Director: LeVar Burton Airdate: January 10, 1994 The Enterprise tries to recover the Pegasus, a ship long thought to have been destroyed in the initial Cylon attack. Wait, wrong “Pegasus” episode. In this show, the Enterprise helps search for the Pegasus, a ship thought to have been destroyed in a warp core accident a dozen years earlier. But a Starfleet spy on Romulus leads them to think the ship and its experimental technology might still be had. Riker had served on the Pegasus years earlier, and the Pegasus’ former captain, Erik Pressman, tries to draw him into an undercover operation involving the retrieval and use of a Federation cloaking device. The use of a cloaking device is forbidden by treaty, and Pressman and some of his compatriots in Starfleet Intelligence are herded off toward a court-martial. Riker takes a brief sojourn through the brig in penance for his role in the matter, but is released by a forgiving Picard. Pressman: Now that doesn’t sound like the same man who grabbed a phaser and defended his captain 12 years ago. Riker: I’ve had 12 years to think about it. And if

I had it to do over again, I would’ve grabbed the phaser and pointed it at you instead of them. Notes: Pressman is portrayed by Terry O’Quinn, whose many genre credits include an episode of The Twilight Zone, a recurring role on Earth 2, The X-Files: Fight the Future, The Rocketeer, Harsh Realm, and Millennium. Homeward Writers: Naren Shankar, William N. Stape, Spike Steingasser Director: Alexander Singer Airdate: January 17, 1994 The Enterprise heads to Boraal II in response to a distress call. Worf ’s human brother, Nikolai Rozhenko, works there and has set up force fields to shelter the local population in caves in response to strong storm activity. Before transporting to the planet, Worf is altered to look Boraalan to avoid running afoul of the moronic Prime Directive. Rozhenko, perhaps having read Galaxis’ many dissertations against the Prime Directive, believes it is better to save the Boraalans than to let them perish in blind adherence to a Starfleet rule. So Rozhenko creates a holodeck simulation of the planet and beams the Boraalan survivors there without them realizing the switch. The Enterprise helps locate a new home planet for this small band of people, and Rozhenko opts to remain with them, assuming the role of the “village chronicler,” a Boraalan named Vorin. Vorin had managed to escape the holodeck and, unable to accept the Starfleet culture, killed himself. Picard: This is one of those times when we must face the ramifications of the Prime Directive and honor those lives which we cannot save. Rozhenko: I find no honor in this whatsoever, Captain. Notes: Take a deep breath. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5 ... Okay. We’re fine. You can stop looking at us with that anxious concern. We’ll give the episode credit for at least tackling head-on the cultural supremacy and even genocidal logic of the Prime Directive, which would have otherwise civilized people allow masses of others to die from easily preventable conditions just so they didn’t “contaminate” them with knowledge that other people exist in the universe who are unlike them. But the actions of the character Vorin show a big part of what’s wrong with that idea; Vorin is so gob-smacked by what he sees on the Enterprise outside of the holodeck that he commits ritual suicide. Is that likely to be the reaction of all of the Boraalans? Is that supposed to suggest that that would be the reaction of large numbers of people of any culture? Because it’s not the reaction of very many people from cultures here on Earth when they have been confronted by other cultures and technologies. And shouldn’t Star Trek’s heart always be with the people (or Boraalans or whatevers)

who are excited and intrigued and inspired by seeing what is greater than all that they know? Okay, we’ve backed away from the ledge now.

Lavelle: Aye, aye sir. Riker: One “aye” is sufficient acknowledgment, ensign.

Sub Rosa Writers: Brannon Braga, Jeanna F. Gallo, Jeri Taylor Director: Jonathan Frakes Airdate: January 31, 1994 The Enterprise goes to Caldos IV so Dr. Crusher can go to her grandmother’s funeral. She reads in her late grandmother’s diary that she had been involved with a man 66 years younger than she was. Talking to the local groundskeeper, she learns that her grandma had a special candle that woke up a ghost, and when she spots the “ghost,” she sees the man who would be about the age of her grandmother’s boy toy. The ghost is called Ronin, and he manipulates her to fall in love with him. When Picard meets Ronin, he is attacked by the ghost; despite Ronin’s warning, Crusher helps Picard. Meanwhile, La Forge and Data discover that there’s an energy source of some sort in Crusher’s grandmother’s grave. They open it up and are attacked by the dead woman. Crusher shows up and does an impromptu post-mortem exorcism, and then she destroys Ronin, who was an alien who used the candle as a holder of his energy.

Notes: Alexander Enberg, who plays the Vulcan junior officer Taurik, is the son of Jeri Taylor, who was a producer of Next Generation and the cocreator—along with Rick Berman and Michael Piller—of Star Trek: Voyager.

Crusher: You have been using me, Nana—my entire family—for centuries! Ronin: And I loved all of them! And they loved me. Notes: Borscht Belt comedian Ellen Albertini Dow, who portrayed Crusher’s late grandmother, was a little over 80 when she portrayed the 100-year-old Crusher matriarch. Dow herself would live to be 101. Lower Decks Writers: René Echevarria, Jean Louise Matthias, Ronald Wilkerson Director: Gabrielle Beaumont Airdate: February 7, 1994 Who will become the new ops night duty officer? Lavelle or Sito? Those two junior officers are awaiting judgment on promotions, along with two of their peers who are up for other positions. They all find themselves interpreting every slight or praise as indicative of their personal promotion chances. Meanwhile, a Cardassian has been brought onto the Enterprise after being rescued from an escape pod. He is Joret Dal, a Federation operative who will need to be escorted back to Cardassia; Sito volunteers for the duty. But she is killed in the course of her mission. Lavelle gets the promotion. Riker: Lavelle— Lavelle: Sir? Riker: Resume previous course and speed.

Thine Own Self Writers: Christopher Hatton, Ronald D. Moore Director: Winrich Kolbe Airdate: February 14, 1994 Data is injured while on a mission to retrieve a deep-space probe that had crashed on the pre-industrial planet Barkon IV. He then unintentionally exposes local villagers to the radioactive remains of the probe, and when they get radiation poisoning, they think Data caused it. He concocts an antidote and gives it to the villagers, but some of them still attack him and try to kill him. Riker and Crusher arrive on Barkon IV, figure out that Data’s body has been buried, and they beam him directly to the Enterprise from his buried coffin. Meanwhile, Troi is taking tests to determine if she can be promoted from lt. commander to commander. She passes, but only after Riker nudges her to be more ruthless in her decisionmaking. Troi: Tell me one thing: Is there a solution, or is this simply a test of my ability to handle a no-win situation? Riker: There is a solution— Troi: Then give me time to find it. Riker: I can’t; as much as I care about you, my first duty is to the ship. I can not let any bridge officer serve who’s not qualified.

Picard: Data, you never may become fully human, but you’ve had an experience that transcends the human condition. You’ve been an entire civilization. Notes: As much as we are fans of Brent Spiner’s incredible talents and abilities to bring to life multiple characters in a single episode, he wears thin quickly as Masaka in this poorly conceived episode. Eye of the Beholder Writers: Brannon Braga, René Echevarria Director: Cliff Bole Airdate: February 28, 1994 After the suicide-by-plasma of Lt. Kwan, Troi and Worf investigate his workstation, which controls the warp nacelles. There, she experiences a vision of a tragedy that happened there eight years ago while the ship was being built. A murder took place between jealous lovers, and because the murdered was an empath, Troi and the empathic Kwan had picked up the feelings of despair he left behind. When Troi, still under the influence of the vision in the nacelle, is on the verge of killing herself—having just killed Worf because he was twotiming her—she is stopped. By Worf. Worf: Is there someone in particular you would rather I not be involved with? Riker: Mr. Worf, you sound like a man who’s asking his friend if he can start dating his sister. Worf: No! No, I was merely—never mind. Excuse me, sir.

Notes: Kimberly Collum, who portrays the Barkonian Gia, was nominated for a Young Artist Award for her performance.

Notes: Actor Mark Rolston portrays Walter Pierce, one of the crewmen associated with the suicide of Kwan. Rolston has appeared in many films and television series, but he has also carved out a nice place for himself as a voiceover actor, such as voicing Lex Luthor in Young Justice, or Deathstroke in Batman: Arkham Origins, or in a handful of video games.

Masks Writer: Joe Menosky Director: Robert Wiemer Airdate: February 21, 1994 The Enterprise crew investigates a comet and finds a ancient remains inside the comet. The structure uses the starship’s own scans of the comet to transmit information back to the Enterprise, and throughout the ship symbols and objects from the alien civilization begin to appear. Data begins to take on different personalities, and Picard must try to negotiate with them to try to stop the alien artifacts from taking over the Enterprise. Data tells him that only by building a temple can they bring about the ultimate confrontation between someone called Masaka and someone called Korgano. Data, playing Masaka, is then duly confronted by Picard, wearing a mask of Korgano.

Genesis Writer: Brannon Braga Director: Gates McFadden Airdate: March 21, 1994 Dr. Crusher screws up big-time. She treats Reginald Barclay in an attempt to strengthen his immune system, but the treatment has the effect of triggering other crew members to revert to prehistoric creatures. Picard and Data aren’t on the ship when this happens; they have been on a side-trip to retrieve an errant missile. When they return, they find everyone has de-evolved into Steve Bannon. Well, actually Troi is becoming some kind of amphibian, Riker a caveman, Barclay a spider, and Worf into whatever Klingons regress into. Oh, and Spot the cat has become an iguana. Data is able to create a retro-virus and is able to bring everyone back to their current, modern states of being. weimar.ws Galaxis

Picard: What—what’s that? Data: It is large, approximately 200 kilograms. It is heavily armored with an exoskeleton. Life signs appear to be . . . Klingon. Picard: Worf! Notes: Dr. Crusher is conveniently put into immobilized for most of this episode, freeing up time for actor Gates McFadden to direct her first and only episode of the series. Also, Data’s cat Spot, which had mostly been referred to as a male cat for much of the series, is pregnant with a litter of kittens. Medical marvels never cease. Journey’s End Writers: Ronald D. Moore, Antonia Napoli, Shawn Piller Director: Corey Allen Airdate: March 28, 1994 Wesley Crusher takes a break from Starfleet Academy to visit the Enterprise, but he’s moody and argumentative. The starship is on a mission to Dorvan V, which is one of a handful of planets that must be evacuated of Federation people under the terms of a treaty with Cardassia. However, the settlers of Dorvan V are descendants of Native Americans, and they very much don’t want to leave the planet. Wesley is accosted by a Dorvan villager named Lakantha, who gives him something to think about bigger than himself. Wesley then helps the settlers revolt against the Federation attempts to remove them. Lakantha reveals himself to be The Traveler, and Wesley heads off with him to explore the universe. The settlers agree to stay on the planet and give up their Federation citizenship; instead, they will be allowed to become part of the Cardassian realm. If you’re thinking, “Gee, that’s an obvious solution that should have been presented much earlier to the settlers” and “Federation negotiators must really suck at their jobs,” then you are smarter than quite a few Starfleet admirals. Anthwara [to Picard]: That is why you have come to us—to erase a stain of blood worn by your family for 23 generations. Notes: Once again, Star Trek’s writers and producers demonstrate their beliefs that religion is passe—except for Native American religion (and Bajorans and Klingons). Intellectual rigor therefore is not a hallmark of this episode. One of the more disturbing ideas in this story is Picard being shamed by the behavior of an ancestor of his, who fought Native Americans in the Peublo Revolt hundreds of years earlier. Are the writers serious? Do they think Picard—or anyone—has some sort of racial guilt passed down to him century after century? But, again, intellectual rigor is not to be found here. Firstborn Writers: René Echevarria, Mark Kalbfeld Director: Jonathan West Airdate: April 25, 1994 Worf decides Alexander needs to butch it up some now that he’s reached the age for declaring his plans to become a warrior, but Alexander has 66

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no desire to become a warrior. So Worf takes his son to a Klingon festival where, naturally, there is lots of fighting. When Worf and Alexander are attacked themselves, they are saved by a stranger, a Klingon named K’mtar. K’mtar agrees with Worf that Alexander needs to become a fighter, but the kid continues to resist. When the Enterprise tracks down the Duras sisters, who are linked to a dagger used to attack Worf and Alexander, they learn that the dagger has markings on it for someone who isn’t even born yet. Worf then confronts K’mtar, who reveals himself to be his son Alexander from the future, having returned to try to change his younger self into a fighter so he can defend Worf from a future attack. Worf convinces him to return to his own time, and he accepts Alexander for what he is. Worf: The path of a warrior begins with the first Rite of Ascension— Alexander: Is that when they hit you with pain sticks? Worf: No, that is the second rite. Alexander: Oh. Notes: A strange episode, but one with an ultimately uplifting resolution and message. Bloodlines Writer: Nick Sagan Director: Les Landau Airdate: May 2, 1994 Dr. Crusher has a son. Data builds a daughter. O’Brien has a baby. Worf has a son. Troi had that weird alien pregnancy. Now it’s Picard’s turn, when the Ferengi DaiMon Bok shows up seeking revenge for the death of his own son during a battle with the Stargazer, which was commanded by Picard years earlier. Bok has a threat: He plans to kill Picard’s son. Only problem (well, there are multiple problems, but for the sake of the story) is that Picard doesn’t know he has a son. Eventually he comes across Jason Vigo, whose mother had a relationship with Picard in the past. Jason and Picard struggle to get along, and he is experiencing the effects of some disease. Crusher reveals that Jason is not Picard’s son, despite a faked DNA test Bok had set up. Bok’s Ferengi companions abandon him and Picard and Jason try to figure out whether they want to know each other as friends. Picard [to Jason]: Like it or not, I’m your father. I don’t know what that means—I know that means something, has some connection. But one thing is clear: you’ll never look at your hairline again in the same way. Notes: Actor Ken Olandt portrays Picard’s almost-son, Jason. He has appeared in other genre series, including V and Leprechaun, and starred in the syndicated Super Force. Emergence Writers: Brannon Braga, Joe Menosky Director: Cliff Bole Airdate: May 9, 1994 During a practice of Shakespeare’s The Tem-

pest in the holodeck, a train suddenly shows up and runs through the scene. Soon, the Enterprise jolts into warp without being directed to do so. Something weird is happening on the starship, and the crew discovers that the Enterprise’s systems have some sort of protected nodes that lead to the holodeck. In the holodeck, the find themselves in an Orient Express storyline, where characters are trying to get to Vertiform City. The characters—and the ship—are creating a new lifeform, but they need vertion particles. Picard: Yes, yes, Data, I know about the Orient Express, but what is it doing on Prospero’s island? Notes: There are some neat ideas in this episode, such as the Enterprise as a proto-AI (something that would have been great to explore at greater length, though it might be too similar these days to Red Dwarf or Farscape) at a time when the smartest computers were basically command-and-response machines. The idea of the ship creating a new lifeform (hey, if Crusher, Data, O’Brien, Worf and almost Picard could do it, why not Enterprise?) is also a worthy subject. Then why is this episode so tiring to watch? Could it be the interminable scenes with the stupid holo-characters on the train, mouthing silly sounding mysteries that are supposed to intrigue but instead only bore? Yes, yes, that’s it. Preemptive Strike Writers: René Echevarria, Naren Shankar Director: Patrick Stewart Airdate: May 16, 1994 Ro Laren, exit stage left. Ro is given an undercover assignment to infiltrate a group of the Maquis, vigilantes who are fighting the Cardassians (and who will figure prominently in the setup for the spinoff Star Trek: Voyager). She assures Picard of her ability to do the job, even though the Maquis are doing the same thing that her Bajorans once did. But when the Maquis leader is killed by Cardassians, her resolve begins to waver, and she tries to derail Picard’s plan to capture the Maquis. She finally has her chance, exposing a Federation fleet that was hiding in a nearby nebula, and she escapes with the Maquis—after first telling Riker to apologize to Picard for her betrayal. Riker: You’re going with them? Ro: It’s been a long time since I really felt like I belonged somewhere. Could you tell Captain Picard something for me? Riker: Of course. What is it? Ro: Tell him I’m sorry. Riker: So long, Ro. Take care of yourself. Riker: Goodbye, Will. Notes: This is a much better character wrapup episode than Wesley Crusher’s “Journey’s End.” Though it is interesting that in both cases, the Federation member—Crusher and Ro—both betray their Starfleet orders in favor of their own sense of ethics. Had this series not been one episode away from ending, we could expect to see Worf kill the Klingon Chancellor and take over the empire.

All Good Things... Writers: Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore Director: Winrich Kolbe Airdate: May 23, 1994 Q shows up one last time, or more appropriately, three last times. He sends Picard on a journey through three time states to try to stop the annihilation of humanity: back when he took control of the Enterprise, the “present,” and 25 years in the future. It’s all in an attempt to see if Picard can save the human race from the harsh judgment of the Q Continuum. All three of the Picards end up in starships at an anomaly in space, unsure of what to do. Somehow, the anomaly is the key problem he and his crew have to solve, if only Picard can learn to think across multiple timelines. In the end, Q judges him—and humanity—to have passed the test and to therefore be worthy of continued existence. Picard: So, five-card stud, nothing wild—and the sky’s the limit. Notes: This episode won a 1995 Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation, and it was nominated for four Emmy Awards, winning one for special effects. The episode deserved the awards, as well as a number of other plaudits, for it is a fitting end to the series, one that has real drama, plays fair but creatively with the future versions of our beloved characters, and ends with the beautiful touch of having Picard finally join his senior staff ’s poker game. Editor’s Note As much as we would like you to believe that we here at Galaxis just know everything, we rely on research and many resources to pull together something as complicated and extensive as our episode guides. In the writing of this guide, we relied of course upon viewing the episodes, and we found invaluable assistance for plot details, background, and more from Memory Alpha website (memory-alpha.wikia.com), the licensed Star Trek: The Next Generation magazines, the official Star Trek website (startrek. com), and Wikipedia. Galaxis

Space

—the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before. weimar.ws Galaxis

WorldlyThings

What’s new from the tech and toy worlds

How to Talk to Your House

ou ask, “Alexa, should I buy an Amazon Echo, a Google Home device, or wait for the Apple HomePod?” Well, Alexa is going to be a bit biased, because she is the voice-controlled personal assistant from Amazon, which comes with the wildly successful Echo series of smart speakers. As Amazon moved from being an online book retailer to an online everything retailer, it expanded its own electronic offerings from the kindle tablet (originally just a digital book reader that itself evolved into a more fully featured tablet computer) to the Amazon Echo. There are several versions of the Echo, including a small Echo Dot, a visually enabled Echo Show, and the Echo Tap, a portable, battery-powered version of the Echo. Amazon boss Jeff Bezos says more than 20 million Alexa devices have been sold. In second place in terms of market share is Google, which released its Google Home device only last year and has sold

more than 7 million so far. It also comes in basic size, a small Home Mini, and a Home Max. Tech giants such as Amazon, Apple, and Google have massive built-in customer bases, and each is counting on selling its devices to customers who want to stay in its “ecosystem” of connected and related devices and services. Amazon is a retail behemoth (and, likely, a prime target of anti-trust officials at some point due to its market-making dominance) that promotes how you can tell Alexa to order stuff through your Amazon account. Google has zillions of people who use its search, email, word processing, spreadsheet, advertising, phones, fiber, cloud storage, and other services. You can also order products using the voice-controlled personal assistant on Google Home devices, but Google has the broader pitch to customers that their devices can tie together your many internet-connected products, a direction the company has

been going in for some time, though it didn’t pop up on some people’s radars until the company bought the Nest internetconnected smoke detector and home security company. Amazon and Google both spent millions this past Christmas shopping season promoting their products and discounting them to get customers using them and more deeply integrated into their ecosystems—which makes it much less likely customers will switch to a competing voice-controlled home device. We use Google Home here at Galaxis, and we even interviewed it (see interview in this issue). We love it, but we also hear great things from our friends and colleagues who have Echos. The potential of these types of devices is tremendous. With your Google Home device, for example, you can make phone calls. You can get information on music. You can play music from your online playlists. You can get directions. You can

AMAZON ECHO PHOTO: FASTILY; GOOGLE HOME PHOTO: MRSCHIMPF

Left: Amazon’s Echo is the market leader for voice-controlled devices. Right: Google Home Mini is the small version of Google’s line of devices.

Galaxis January 2018

inside magazines

Google’s first foray into the realm of cheap VR was its cardboard device called, appropriately, Google Cardboard. The cardboard has now been replaced by the Google DayDream device.

ask it all of the things you’d type into a Google search field, as well as ask it to tell you a joke. So far, the joke is on Apple, one of the most successful technology companies—or company of any type—in the world, but a late-comer to the home device market. Apple missed launching its HomePod product in time for the crucial 2017 Christmas season, and the company is reportedly conflicted over how much the device should do; it was originally conceived of very specifically as a smart speaker, tied into your iTunes music library. But as Amazon Echo and Google Home have rapidly expanded the abilities of their devices, Apple risks releasing a product that underwhelms. Knowing Apple, it will do what it does extremely well, and it will be expensive. Also, the company can rely on one of the most devoted customer bases in the universe. But will it be enough to let it play catch-up with the market leaders? When Apple released the first iPod music player in October 2001, it created an entire new market and paved the way for the later iPhone to revolutionize telephones. The iPod itself wasn’t a stroke of genius; it was a matter of looking at available technology—cheap, easily miniaturized portable storage—and wondering what could be built on top of that. Steve Jobs said, “Music!” and the iPod became ubiquitous and no one ever again mentioned their Sony Walkman, which gathered dust underneath millions of beds.

Similarly, we’re only scratching the surface of what these connected voice-controlled devices can do. We hope everyone keeps pushing the limits. virtual reality on the cheap. That’s the promise of another Google product, the Google DayDream app that works with advanced Android phones. We’re preparing a major story on the reality of VR devices and programs, as well as the science fictional antecedents, for next issue. But for now, we wanted to share a few thoughts on Google’s virtual reality offerings. In short: Very nice, but under-provisioned. When we inserted our Pixel phone into our DayDream device and tested the VR capabilities, we were impressed. It’s fun. But it’s not endlessly fun because there isn’t an endless amount of content available for it. And because it involves downloading or viewing VR content on our smartphones, which serve as our off-loaded brains and security devices, we’re a bit chary about downloading VR from third-party websites. So Google needs to up its game on YouTube. YouTube is a great example of something that is endlessly—if not literally, then practically—engrossing. There are so many videos of all types on the video service that one can spend hours viewing and being educated or entertained. VR offerings need to get to that level. Otherwise, it’s too easy to let the DayDream device sit unused for months at a Galaxis time.

In-Depth, Fun, and Informative Review of the World of Magazines!

Special publication: If you’re anything like us, you love magazines—the good, the bad, and the downright outrageous. So read Magma, the “magazine industry review,” and learn about the inner workings of Condé Nast, what Bob Guccione left behind, an interview with Carr D’Angelo, a post-mortem on Starlog, plus opinionated reviews, complaints, and ideas.

MAGMA Get free digital edition or purchase print edition at weimar.ws weimar.ws Galaxis

Screenings Tracking genre TV & film projects What’s on and what’s next? Galaxis presents the latest on major SF and science TV and motion picture action. All TV airtimes are Eastern; airtimes and movie release dates are subject to change.

Arrow (Thursday, 9 p.m., CW): Now in its sixth season. Black Lighting (Tuesdays, CW): Based on the DC Comics character Black Lightning, the TV series features the return to action of a retired superhero, played by Cress Williams; 13-episode first season debuts January 16, 2018. Colony (Thursdays, USA Network): Extraterrestrial occupation and human resistance in a dystopic future Los Angeles. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (Saturday, 9 p.m., BBC America): A spinoff from the Douglas Adams novels of the same name, Dirk Gently’s second season aired in late fall 2017, after which point BBC America canceled it. The Divergent Series: Ascendant (unscheduled at press time, Starz): The movie series based on Veronica Roth’s books is headed to television for its fourth installment, following the disappointment at the box office of the third movie. Doctor Who (BBC America): Jodie Whittaker takes over as the first female Doctor Who, after Peter Capaldi left the show in the “Twice Upon a Time” 2017 Christmas special; episodes featuring Whittaker will air in fall 2018. The Expanse (returns in early 2018, Syfy): Thirteen new episodes, drawing on the novels Caliban’s War and Abaddon’s Gate. Fahrenheit 451 (unscheduled at press time): Based on the legendary book by Ray Bradbury, this TV film stars Michael B. Jordan as Guy Montag, the fireman who doesn’t want to burn books. The Flash (Tuesday, 8 p.m., CW): Fourth season now airing; will it rebound from a third-season dip in the ratings? 70

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The Gifted (Monday, 9 p.m., Fox): X-Men-related series began its first season in early October 2017; ratings have steadily declined with each episode Gotham (Thursday, 8 p.m., Fox): Season four premiered September 21. Killjoys (Syfy): Canadian series about three tough bounty hunters will air its penultimate fourth season in 2018. The Last Kingdom (Netflix, BBC America): Late 2018 is expected to see the airing of the third season of this historical fiction series, based on The Saxon Stories novels. Legends of Tomorrow (Tuesday, 9 p.m., CW): The third season of this Arrow/Flash spinoff debuted October 10, 2017, for an expected 18 new episodes. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Friday, 9 p.m., ABC): Now in its fifth season; in its fourth season, it drew about half as many viewers as it did in its first season. Marvel’s Daredevil (Netflix): Third season began filming in November 2017 and will be released in 2018. Marvel’s The Punisher (Netflix): All 13 episodes of its freshman season were released on November 17, 2017; it has been renewed for a second season. The Magicians (Wednesday, 9 p.m., Syfy): The third season of 13 episodes of this fantasy series premieres in early January. The Mist (Spike): The series, based on a story by Stephen King about a Maine town surrounded by a mysterious, dense fog, was canceled after only one season. Nova (Wednesday, 9 p.m., PBS): Now in its 45th (!) season, recent and future topics include dinosaur extinction, bird brains, Stonehenge, the Forbidden City, and black holes.

Sonequa Martin-Green stars in CBS All Access’ Star Trek Discovery. The 100 (CW): This post-apocalyptic series, based on a 2013 book by Kass Morgan, has been renewed for a fifth season. The Orville (Thursday, 9 p.m., Fox): Called a comedy-drama, creator Seth MacFarlane’s show about an exploratory starship filled with an oddball mix of characters and one-liners has been renewed for a second season.

Planet Earth II (BBC America): Still airing as encore showings of this David Attenborough-narrated science and nature program. Sense8 (Netflix): The canceled show about extra-sensory abilities will return for a two-hour series finale sometime in 2018. The Shannara Chronicles (Spike): Based on the Sword of Shannara series of books by Terry

Jensen Ackles is in his lucky 13th season starring in CW’s Supernatural.

ACKLES & SPIELBERG PHOTOS: GAGE SKIDMORE; MARTIN-GREEN PHOTO: VAGUEONTHEHOW; WHITTAKER PHOTO: IBSAN73

Television

Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One hits cinemas at the end of March.

Jodie Whittaker is the new Doctor Who. Brooks, this fantasy series’ second season concluded its run in late November 2017. StarTalk (Mondays, National Geographic Channel): Host Neil deGrasse Tyson’s guests for the 2017–2018 season include Katy Perry, James Cameron, Mae Jemison, Arati Prabhakar, Jane Goodall, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Supergirl (Monday, 8 p.m., CW): Look for another Supergirl/ Arrow/Flash/Legends of Tomorrow mega-crossover. Supernatural (Thursday, 8 p.m., CW): The show about two demonhunting brothers is now in its thirteenth season. Star Trek: Discovery (CBS All Access): A second season has already been ordered for this show, the first Trek to debut episodes via streaming. The show takes place about a decade before the events of the original Star Trek series. 12 Monkeys (Syfy): “It’s the beginning of the end,” Syfy tells us, as the fourth and final season airs in 2018. The X-Files (Wednesday, 8 p.m., Fox): Season 11, which debuted January 3, 2018, will focus on the search for William, Mulder and Scully’s son. Marvel’s Jessica Jones (Netflix): Superhero-turned-detective Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) returns for a second season, due to be released on March 8, 2018.

Films Alien: Covenant 2 (not final title; unscheduled, 20th Century Fox): The weak performance of Alien: Covenant appears to have cut short director Ridley Scott’s intention to make at least 2 and as many as four more Alien films, but events in this additional film will lead directly into the original Alien movie from 1979. Annihilation (February 23, 2018): Based on the book by Jeff VanderMeer, the genre-mixing SF/ horror/action Annihilation film features Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriquez, Oscar Isaac, Benedict Wong, and others about a deadly disaster zone. Avatar 2 (December 18, 2020, 20th Century Fox): The first of four (!) sequels to James Cameron’s mega-hit is expected to include original cast members Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, and C.C.H. Pounder. Black Panther (February 16, 2018, Disney): Chadwick Boseman stars as T’Chalia, aka Black Panther, in the latest Marvel movie. Captive State (August 17, 2018, Focus Features): John Goodman stars in this tale about survival in a Chicago occupied by extraterrestrials; also stars Vera Farmiga and D.B. Sweeney. Indiana Jones 5 (not final title;

July 10, 2020, Lucasfilm/Disney): Take that release date with a very big grain of salt, because it is not written in stone. Latest word is that George Lucas will once more produce, Steven Spielberg will direct, Harrison Ford will star, but Shia LaBeouf will not make a return appearance as Indy’s son. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (June 22, 2018, Universal Pictures): The fifth in the Jurassic Park film series, Fallen Kingdom concerns an attempt to save the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar when they are threatened by a volcanic eruption; with returning stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, B.D. Wong, and Jeff Goldblum, plus James Cromwell and others joining the cast. The Maze Runner: The Death Cure (January 26, 2018, 20th Century Fox): Based on the final Maze Runner book, The Death Cure throws Thomas and his Gladers into the Last City labyrinth. The New Mutants (April 13, 2018, Marvel/20th Century Fox): A horror installment of the X-Men film series, centered on five young mutants held in a secret facility. Pacific Rim Uprising (March 23, 2018, Universal Pictures): John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Jing Tian, and other actors return from the 2013 original. Ready Player One (March 30, 2018): Steven Spielberg directed

this film based on Ernest Cline’s book of the same name about living—and fighting—in a shared virtual world. Real Steel 2 (unscheduled at press time, Disney): The sequel to the 2011 film based on a short story by Richard Matheson about robot boxing. Replicas (June 15, 2018, Entertainment Studios): Keanu Reeves stars in this story of a biologist trying to bring his family back to life. Solo: A Star Wars Story (May 25, 2018, Lucasfilm/Disney): Alden Ehrenreich assumes the role of Han Solo in this film set before the original Star Wars: A New Hope film; in this outing, Solo and Chewie meet Lando Calrissian. Star Trek sequel (not final title; unscheduled at press time, Paramount Pictures): Many people have been surprised that Quentin Tarantino is working on the next Trek film; expect more swearing and gunshot wounds in space. Star Wars: Episode IX (December 20, 2019, Lucasfilm/Disney): What happens after The Last Jedi? The final movie of the new trilogy; directed by J.J. Abrams, who cowrote it with Chris Terrio. Tron 3 (unscheduled at press time, Disney): The long-planned sequel is still being kicked around, with the possible involvement of actor Jared Leto, if rumors are to be believed. Galaxis weimar.ws Galaxis

Galaxis January 2018

Dressing for Altitude

U.S. Aviation Pressure Suits–Wiley Post to Space Shuttle

fter millennia of searching, yearning for extraterrestrial contact, it finally happens to humanity. An alien ship approaches Earth, with humanDennis R. Jenkins ity getting a running commentary from scientists and speculators about the ship’s mode of travel and its design as it slows down from its long interstellar journey and makes its slow approach to our planet. At last, it enters our atmosphere; military jets escort it, more decoration than protection—who knows what armaments are in a spaceship capable of interstellar flight? It chooses an open field outside a major city to land. When all of the dust settles, a doorway opens on the side of the ship, and— And what? (a) Skinny, big-headed humanoid aliens emerge and ask to speak to someone in charge? (b) A robot floats out of the opening, ignoring the gathered humans and zooming off to parts unknown? (c) Spacesuited creatures with seven limbs crawl out, spout some incomprehensible language and, increasingly irritated by our inability to understand, end up in a firefight with nearby marines? (d) No creatures emerge, but a strong spout of strangely colored gas shoots out, asphyxiating the locals and beginning a hostile terraforming of local flora and fauna? (e) Thousands of alien prisoners of all shapes and sizes emerge, ready to begin their penance on their captors’ new prison world? None of the above? d shows off an (f) early Whether fact or science fiction, it in front of the the question of what will happen when we make first contact with ates the chamber alien lifeforms simply won’t be ankness of the raised swered until it actually happens. That has left the field wide open for the imaginations of fiction writers. Scientists, however, are a bit more prepared. Jill Tarter is the former director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute. SETI Institute is now a privately funded organization that methodically searches the heavens for signs of extrasolar life, but it used to be part of NASA, where it had an entire protocol about what would happen if it actually detected signs of intelligent life. The protocol specified “which associate administrator informed the funding committees in Congress, which person . . . informed the executive branch of the government, NASA SP-2011-595

SPECIAL FEATURE

LOVING THE ALIEN With weekly discoveries of planets and ever-more powerful telescopes, it’s only a matter of time before we discover extraterrestrials. The science and science fiction of alien contact. BY JOHN ZIPPERER

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and then the rest of the world,” Tarter explained to The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco in 2010. In its post-NASA life, SETI Institute’s plans for dealing with contact are more focused on trying to “make sure that it’s not a hoax,” said Tarter. That means, like good scientists everywhere, they seek to replicate the detection, asking astronomers outside of SETI using different equipment and software to see if they can also detect the signal. Once confirmed by others, SETI Institute would then do the rollout of documentation and press conferences to tell the world about the discovery. Whether or not the U.S. president gets alerted first, it is very likely that whoever is sitting in the Oval Office has a keen interest in it. Jimmy Carter, who claims to have spotted an unidentified flying object (UFO) before he became president, followed up once he was in office. In 1977, he reportedly asked NASA to look into UFOs, but was rebuffed. Bill Clinton prepared for the 50th anniversary of the famous 1947 Roswell incident—in which some claim a UFO crashed and its surviving aliens have been kept captive by the U.S. government ever since—by having the Roswell files reviewed. He later told TV’s Jimmy Kimmel that it’s very unlikely there are not aliens out there somewhere, considering the billions of stars and the increasing discoveries of planets that could support life: “If we were visited some day, I wouldn’t be surprised. I just hope it’s not like Independence Day the movie.” How Alien Is Alien? In 1979, 20th Century Fox released the seminal Alien film, a deceptively simple haunted house story set aboard a wellworn deep-space hauler. For audiences that had been fed a steady cinematic (and televised) diet of humanoid aliens over the years, writer Dan O’Bannon, director Ridley Scott, and designer H.R. Giger had a shock in store. Instead of a recognizable human in heavy makeup, Alien gave us an alien in three stages: a facehugger that emerges from an egg-like sac; a small chest-burster (so-called because of its violent emergence from one of the unlucky crewmembers of the Nostromo); and a two-meter tall adult, which actually was a human inside of a suit, but its elongated head (with the extending jaws to punch into its prey) helped make it appear to be something truly unholy and, well, alien. Alien wasn’t just a spell-binding film. It used all of its creators’ talents to make something that really stretched the imagination about just how different and strange extraterrestrial life could be. This was 74

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helped immensely by the designs of Swiss artist Giger, whose signature “biomechanical” look for the creature and the spaceship discovered on LV-426 looked like they could have been created by something from another world. The spaceship’s doorway or access port has been described as resembling intimate female anatomy. (For just one example, Tim Dirks wrote in a Filmsite. com review that the Nostromo’s crew “encountered a derelict alien craft that crash-landed. The trio explores the dark exterior of the huge alien spacecraft with numerous sexual (vaginal) orifices.”) Giger of course was never one to shy away from sexual imagery; the alien’s head has been described as a giant erect penis, thus completing Galaxis’ sex-ed class for the month. Meanwhile, the walls and floor of the ship resemble spaceship corridors less than they do ribs and spines. It was a million miles away from an Englishspeaking Klingon or actor in a foam suit. The problem with envisioning aliens is that we almost always try to use human experience as the basis. In a 2014 Popular Mechanics symposium on what aliens would look like, science fiction author Nnedi Okorafor wrote that she thinks they will be very unhuman. “I don’t think aliens have to be humanoid, carbon-based, or even alive by our definition of alive,” she wrote. “I don’t see why aliens couldn’t be microscopic, only be seen at wavelengths beyond human detection, be built in a way so outside of human understanding that to look upon them would cause one to faint. I don’t think aliens have been, are, will be what we are expecting.” In a discussion at Howard University, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was firmly in the camp of the “aliens are really alien” outlook and argued that it is egocentric to assume E.T. would be recognizably anthropomorphic. Meanwhile, evolutionary biolo-

weimar.ws Galaxis

gist Richard Dawkins argued, according to a report by Karen Frantz, who attended the program, “that life on Earth has followed predictable paths of evolution, and we might very well expect life on other planets to take a similar course. For example, on Earth, animals on separate continents still share similar genes and characteristics— eyes and stingers, for example—despite having long ago split apart on the evolutionary chain.” Dawkins was making the suggestion that differences between two continents on the same planet with the same biosphere can be extrapolated to variations of life on different planets with very different biospheres and local conditions. It was a logical application of his field of expertise, but arguably also a failure to think big enough. Different Worlds To the modern eye (and, we hope, to many eyes back then), science fiction films and comics of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s all too often gave us aliens that were anything but alien. As if they were designed for Mystery Science Theater 3000 lampooning, such stories featured many aliens that were human or humanoid Going back further, even in a serious classic science fiction tale such as Kurd Lasswitz’s seminal 1897 novel Auf Zwei Planeten (published in English as Two Planets), the aliens are so similar to Earthlings that they are even able to engage in Martian-Earthling romance. Readers of Cixin Liu’s 2006 best-selling novel The Three-Body Problem, which posited contact by malevolent aliens trying to locate a new home for themselves, found extraterrestrials who evolved to look and think very differently from humans because their environment was very different from Earth. Cixin’s aliens evolved on a planet with three suns, and as that system of stars and planets swirled around each other, the Trisolarans’ planet was sometimes baked to a crisp, so during those times the aliens dried up—literally dried up, dehydrating into near-nothingness—to hibernate until the planet cooled. Cixin’s book also is helpful for making another point: contact doesn’t have to involve an actual spaceship descending to Earth, like the Vulcans meeting humans for the first time in Star Trek: First Contact. Astronomer Carl Sagan, who spent much of his non-fiction life searching for intelligence beyond our star system, wrote the 1985 bestseller Contact, in which aliens contact us with a transmission of prime numbers. When Ellie, the scientist who has pursued the project from the start, is finally transported via wormholes far from 76

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Earth, the alien she meets has assumed the form of her father. The writer and the eventual filmmaker were spared the task then of representing the alien’s form, but the message is still that the aliens were so very different that they don’t think the humans can comprehend them unless they appear as other humans. Put those aliens in deGrasse Tyson’s camp. Also pitching their tent in the vive la différence camp is the well-received 2016 film Arrival. These aliens look different, they think differently, and they communicate differently, with a fair amount of the film taken up with lead character Louise Banks (Amy Adams) working to decipher their image-based communications. Though Contact was written by a scientist, it wasn’t concerned so much about the matter of what the aliens would look like as it was with urging the United States to continue searching for that life wherever it might be. (It’s worth noting here that the character of Ellie was based on the aforementioned real-life Dr. Jill Tarter of SETI Institute.) Each work of media of course reflects to some degree the times of its creation. Con-

challenge to learn how to “recognize” such life, it was just another reason to stay here on our own little planet and keep to our knitting. Likely Life Another product of its time was 1978’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which took the then-popular UFO craze and posited not violent X-Files-type aliens but rather curious and friendly alien visitors. UFO watchers and skeptics have at the core of their disagreement the question of whether such aliens have visited Earth. But coming even before that has to be the question of whether there exists intelligent life in space outside of our little green and blue planet. Astrophysicist Adam Frank of the University of Rochester is confident that advanced alien civilizations almost certainly have existed. In a June 2016 article in The New York Times, he explained the Drake equation—named after astronomer Frank Drake, who put it forward 55 years earlier. “The first factor was the number of stars born each year. The

Unless the probability for evolving a civilization on a habitable-zone planet is less than one in 10 billion trillion, then we are not the first. tact was produced during a time of American optimism and expansion, when it was assumed that problems could be understood and addressed. Arrival, on the other hand, arrived during a time of economic uncertainty (and even long-term economic stagnation for tens of millions of Americans), relative decline of the United States, and growing dissonance between classes and other groups in this country. Inability to understand the “other” is an increasingly recognized problem, and Arrival is the better for its appearance in this climate. Arrival’s Louise Banks doesn’t just find that her aliens are communicating graphically; she discovers that they are communicating across time. She and the audience have to make big mental leaps to grasp another way to see their situation, and she is able to do so. Louise and Ellie both were excited by the unexpected. Not all scientists are. In May 2017, three British academics—in the middle of a long letter to the editor criticizing the very idea of humankind moving out into the stars—wrote “It is unrealistic to think ‘life’ in space is something we would recognize.” For them, it wasn’t part of the

second was the fraction of stars that had planets,” wrote Frank. “After that came the number of planets per star that traveled in orbits in the right locations for life to form (assuming life requires liquid water). The next factor was the fraction of such planets where life actually got started. Then came factors for the fraction of lifebearing planets on which intelligence and advanced civilizations (meaning radio signal-emitting) evolved. The final factor was the average lifetime of a technological civilization.” In 1961, a lot of those factors were unknown, but today much more has been discovered. Frank says we now know the number of stars that get born every year, the percentage of stars that have planets, and that 20 to 25 percent of all planets are capable of supporting life. By updating Drake’s equation, Frank and his colleague Woodruff Sullivan concluded “the odds that we are not the first technological civilization are actually high. Specifically, unless the probability for evolving a civilization on a habitable-zone planet is less than one in 10 billion trillion, then we are not

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the first.” So it is likely that we’re not the first intelligent species to arise in the universe. But that doesn’t necessarily mean those other intelligent beings are still around, or if they are, that they are anywhere in our galactic neighborhood. To learn that, we’ll have to continue to rely on the good work of SETI Institute and the amazing planetary discoveries of the Kepler Telescope. Fantastical Journey If it’s probable that there are intelligent lifeforms out in space, there is disappointment ahead for anyone hoping for the scenario with which we started this article: An alien spaceship is unlikely to travel to Earth and land on it to meet us. The reasons are in the basic science of time and space. SETI’s senior astronomer, Seth Shostak, thinks it’s likely that the beings we contact will have developed beyond the skin-andmushy-insides stage of life. “If we can develop artificial intelligence within a couple of hundred years of inventing radio, any aliens we are likely to hear from have very likely gone past that point,” he told the BBC in 2016. “In other words, most of the intelligence in the cosmos, I would venture, is synthetic intelligence, and that may disappoint moviegoers who expect little grey guys with big eyeballs, no clothes, no hair, or sense of humour.” That is, if the aliens we hear from are beyond our level of development. Our early transmissions have reached areas of space that we have recently learned have planets that might support life. Those planets might be at the 1945 level of development, sending out radio and television broadcasts willy nilly, with no more hope of actually meeting anyone than perhaps engendering a penpal on another planet. If we made contact with such a species, we would be the senior civilization in the exchange, but any exchange would take something for which humans in general and Americans in particular are not noted: long-term patience. Trading messages would take decades. That could be bad, it could be good. It could be bad if it cools interest on the human side, and funding is cut. It could be good because it would allow a good amount of time for society and its various institutions to adjust to the reality of intelligent life beyond Earth. Trading communication isn’t just about trading “Hi, how are you?” messages. You can send instructions for all kinds of things, from technology to philosophy. Humans could, for example, transmit instructions for creating an avatar filled with information about Earth and its inhabitants; the extraterrestrials could do the same. A 78

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slower method would be to create a highfunctioning robot and send that, filled with data and artificial intelligence and stuffed onto a deep-space ship. We would just hope that it doesn’t come back as Star Trek: The Motion Picture’s V-Ger. Live and In-Person But does all of this mean we’ll never see, in the flesh, a real alien (and please let it resemble Spock more than the Alien xenomorph)? Not necessarily, but it does mean that the relationship is unlikely to be of a Star Wars type, with everyone mixing in cantinas and zipping around the galaxy like speedsters on Highway 101. Trips to nearby stars that might support life would take generations. That is thanks to the unhelpful speed of light, which makes the vast distances between stars unbridgeable except by slow, super-hightech means. In fiction, we have warp drive, hyperspace, skipping, jumping, stargates, and other authorial creations to get around the fact that you can’t go from planet to planet as easily as we go from New Delhi to Tokyo. In reality, that basic scientific limitation might be our salvation. If it is

increase the chances that we’ll greet each other with open arms/tentacles/variousappendages-we-reach-for-that-we-hopearen’t-the-aliens’-naughty-bits. It would be the longest-expected and most-planned meeting in humanity’s existence, and one of the most highly fraught imaginable. Which brings us back to the incommensurable variations on life that might exist in the universe. We all know the stories about how humans have acted when they’ve met other groups of humans here on Earth. All too often, it has resulted in murder, colonization, expropriation, even genocide. The Star Trek-ian hope expressed in the Prime Directive (about which Galaxis has many well-expressed objections) is that a species sufficiently capable of traversing the stars would have evolved culturally enough to not be a murderous exploiter. But even Trek is filled with Romulans, Borg, and others who are murderous exploiters. It makes for better drama if you can actually have a bad guy. It makes for a moral dilemma, however, if you are actually the bad guy. Many people are drawn to the worlds of science fiction because they are specifically

Any exchange would take something for which humans are not noted: long-term patience. Trading messages would take decades. extremely difficult or even impossible to get to Earth, we are unlikely to be invaded by an Independence Day-like species out for an easy conquest. But humans have sooner or later pushed against every barrier they come across: vast seas, flying through the sky, building hundreds of stories into the air, our moon and fellow solar planets. Sooner or later, humans will look to planets in other star systems and seek either to spread our seed beyond our home base or to contact others in-person, and that will mean creating multi-generation ships or life-suspension transports to take humans to another planet, probably after first having sent robot emissaries to look for life and to test for the ability to support our own life. Whether humans make that long trek or other species make the long trek to our planet, we would like to think that at some point in humanity’s existence, it will happen. Humans will come face-to-face with an honest-to-goodness alien. A lack of mutual assassination would be ideal, and the long distances involved (perhaps preceded by the very same radio communications previously mentioned) should

looking for something that isn’t like everything else around them. They long for something that feels new, that has mystery to it, that engages their imagination, emotions, and intellect. But as much as science fiction movies, books, games, and television have many millions of viewers/readers/players around the world, that doesn’t mean that the majority of Earthlings will react with intelligence and wonder when we meet an alien that is a plant-based, triple-sexual being that communicates through an algorithm-based musical language that sounds like an elephant crying. Most people would probably have enough trouble dealing with aliens who looked like stuntmen in suits who spoke English. There are good reasons to be worried. Put your political preconceptions aside and you’ll have to admit that we’re an odd species. Far too many of us care about the color of another’s skin, people with red hair are still bullied in many places, gender and sexual orientation are fiercely contested differences here even within our own species. This is after all the place where even within one country, Bernie Sanders supporters find themselves unable to accept

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Hillary Clinton supporters in the very same political party. You’ve heard the phrase “all the difference from A to Z”; all to often, humans can’t deal with all the difference from A to B. The answer might lie in the ability of humans to deal with the very idea of difference and diversity altogether. It’s the same thing that will allow the best of them to accept an alien species even if that species is unlike anything we have seen or imagined before. We Are the Changed Regardless of whether we are the more-advanced or the lessadvanced civilization involved in the alien contact, we have more to think about than how it will affect the other race. We can be on our best behavior and hope for the same from them. But there are important questions to ask (and quite a bit of hopeful expectations involved) about how humans will be changed by the contact. We are currently many decades into the space age. Many decades into the nuclear age. Centuries into the Enlightenment. The Age of Empire seems to have receded into the past. Yet apparently thousands of people still believe the Earth is flat. Professor Tom Nichols, author of The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, points out that there is an expanding— not contracting—space in American society for people who reject the most basic and verifiable facts. That means that when alien contact happens, even if it happens decades or centuries from now, we will still have people who prefer conspiracy explanations and fanciful but comforting arguments for why they don’t have to change. But just like flat-earthers throughout history, they’ll have to change. Whether the aliens are beneficent or malevolent, whether they follow a space-version of Jesus or they invoke supernova deities, whether they want to trade knowledge with us or war with us— meeting them will change human civiliza Galaxis tion. weimar.ws Galaxis

drowning in 80

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n riches

SCIENCE FICTION

BY JOHN ZIPPERER

had read about the floating cities the same place everyone else had: Pantheon propaganda. Spread throughout their media empire—their callers and spreaders—these stories had seeped into the wider culture as well, leading people who had different religions or claimed no religions at all to still dream of visiting the floating cities of Sevents. Of course, no one knew exactly where Sevents was, so it made it a nearly mythical place. Except I had a chance to find out, or at least take a stab at trying. Jae and I were taking the Dragon through a well-deserved cleaning and systems checkup when we received a message from Lyron on our other ship, the Typhoon, that some very rich fool had hired us—Dragon and Typhoon both, so deep pockets whoever it is—to ferry him from this sector of space to the Union capital. All nice and unnoticed by the powers-that-be, of course. I was pleased to get the job for two reasons. The first was obvious: Rich client means big payday, which we needed more than ever now that we had two ships and one of those with a crew of Lyren’s hungry ex-soldiers on it. But the second reason was selfish in a different way: the paranoid client insisted we pick up further instructions from an info buoy he had placed in the uninhabited Na’ha system. And that system— though far from where we were—was close to another system that I had figured out by my amateur data sleuthing to be the likely home to the planet Sevents and those floating cities. Sometimes work is fun. Jae and I quickly programmed the Dragon to do a cautious approach and flyby of the buoy; then with the ship underway, we finished our systems checkup and cleaning. With 20 hours in hyperspace before we reached the system, I took some time to go to the shower and clean off the dust and grease from the ship’s cleaning. The shower sprayed me with hot water from above and four sides. I leaned against one wall while I tried to figure out how to get everything done that I wanted to do in the near future. We were going to be in the buoy’s system about half a day before the Typhoon, and if my calculations were correct, that would give us enough time to visit the Sevents system, or what I hoped was the Sevents system. I might never get to this area of space again, and if I was here, I wanted to weimar.ws Galaxis

be able to at least say I saw the floating cities, or maybe I’ll look on the very unfloating cities of Sevents and be able to debunk the myth. Either way, I’ll have done something interesting and worthwhile. I realized I’d been wasting water while my mind was wandering, so I told Dragon to shut it off and opened the shower door. Immediately, Jae’s voice came over the intercom. “Paulik, got a message from Lyren. Better come hear this. Quick.” I grabbed a towel from the shelf, dried myself enough so I wasn’t dripping wet, and hurried to the bridge. When I got there, Jae raised an eyebrow. “Not getting dressed?” he asked. “Not getting dressed yet,” I said. “You said it was important.” “Well, it’s time-to-get-dressed important.” I shrugged. “I’m sure there are entire planets where people wear nothing but towels around their waists all day long. What was the message?” “Oh, yeah, it’s this: We’re screwed,” Jae said. “That probably isn’t as good as it sounds.” Jae tapped the screen in front of him, and a 12-inch green hologram of Lyren appeared on the dashboard. “It’s heavily encrypted,” he said. The hologram spoke. “Jae and Paulik, it looks like we are not going to meet up at the buoy’s coordinates. We’ve got someone on our tail, and we can’t stop.” She paused, giving it I guess her best attempt at looking hopeful. “We can still go through the Na’ha system and drop off the package for you to retrieve. “Here’s the hard part: You will need to wait until after we’ve zipped through the system, and until after our followers have zipped after us. Then go ahead and pick up that package. Just don’t wait too long—it’s breathing. Lyren out.” I exhaled loudly. “We’re screwed. We can’t connect with the Typhoon, we don’t know what the package is, but it’s breathing. Best guess what it is?” “A giant space gerbil?” “Doubtful. And—God, I hope not. I’m guessing the package is the person who sent us on this mission in the first place. So Lyren’ll probably stick him or her in a life pod and release it as she goes through the system. The pod’ll be running dark and quiet, so no one will pick it up easily if they don’t know exactly where it is.” “Which includes us, so: Screwed squared.” Jae checked the meta data in the hologram’s signal. “They’re vague about their arrival time,” he said. “I guess she worried that the message could be intercepted. Still, we’ll be to the buoy in 19 hours, and the ‘phoon’ll be there anywhere from 15 hours to two days 82

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from now.” “I’ll get the androids ready to retrieve the pod. Probably best to send out Kriz—he’s better at zero-atmosphere maneuvering. Sicma can monitor Dragon while we get some sleep.” Jae nodded, then got up and stretched. “At least I have enough time to take a shower— and you can get dressed.”

he attraction of the floating cities wasn’t that they were floating; there were other planets with cities in the sky. Sevents’ allure was supposed to be in its unsurpassed beauty and wealth. Rumored to have been the center of a locally powerful republic many centuries ago, Sevents had accumulated a great deal of riches and used it to build and maintain fantastic homes for itself, and to protect it from intruders. Its leaders saw that much more powerful civilizations began to expand in its part of the galactic neighborhood, and after losing a few disastrous confrontations, the Sevents’ civilization withdrew and protected itself. The mythical story has them rising into a different, higher realm of existence. Sane people, on the other hand, figure they either stayed out of everyone else’s way, died out, or did what most civilizations do when their peak has passed—they gradually merged with and interbred with competing peoples. Which, I know, means that Sevents might not even be where I think it is, and if it is, I might not recognize it. If there were incredibly floating cities, would they still be floating, or would their inhabitants have moved on to something even better in the centuries since they were last heard from? I had to at least make the effort to find out, since I was out in this area where there was almost nothing to be found. It is an area of sort-of known space that has gotten quite quiet, uninhabited, and uninteresting since Sevents’ heyday. Part of what attracted me was probably a bit of an amazement that so long after they ceased to be seen anywhere, the people of Sevents were still talked about, dreamed about, and sought out. I doubt the Union will be much mythologized after its eventual collapse, and no one’s ever going to go in search of my birthplace.

fter a good “night” of sleep, Jae and I returned to the bridge, and Sicma moved his metal body into a rear chair so we could take the helm. “Welcome back to the land of the unliving,” the metal man said. Deadpan; great humor for a robot. “We are eleven hours out from the buoy. Dragon reports that all systems functioning at 98-percent efficiency. While you slept, I ran tests on the food re-

serves, and I found 30 loaves of bread that had gone stale and four gallons of synth drink that should be jettisoned into space. We received a message from Captain Lyren of the Typhoon.” “You—you need to lead with that,” Jae said. Sicma cocked his head. “I present my information in the order of perceived importance.” “Well, we might have to have your importance-perception settings checked,” said Jae. “So what did Lyren say?” Sicma paused. “I apologize if my decision-making was incorrect.” “We’ll live with it,” I said. “Sicma, what was Lyren’s message?” Sicma pointed to the hologram controls, which were out of his reach. “Please play message 4-0-0-8-9.” Jae punched a couple buttons, and Lyren’s face popped into existence on the Dragon’s dashboard. She wasn’t smiling. “Paulik and Jae, I just wanted to report that we have been slowing and speeding up, going in various different directions in an attempt to lose or at least confuse our tail. We’ve put some distance between us and them, but they’re still there. So this is just a heads-up that our arrival time will be uncertain. Quite uncertain. And since you can’t in any circumstance be seen by whoeverthehell it is tracking us, I implore you to be very cautious, and don’t in any way be detectable to anyone or anything in the buoy’s system. Just give us time to get there as safely as possible, and please pick up the package as quickly as possible to prevent its death. Lyren out.” I admitted I was open to suggestions. How do we get there, remain in the area so we can retrieve the “package,” get it onboard, pick up whatever is in the buoy, get away, and not give away the Typhoon’s location or our location? I had already begun to come to terms that I wasn’t going to see Sevents. Jae and I debated how to go there, in case we’re walking into a trap. We decided to approach from an unexpected direction, stop just within long-distance scanner range, and finish the jump. Then our plan will consist of the highly sophisticated and scientifically based maneuver we call “get the hell out.” We could secret away our living package client somewhere and then try to rendezvous with the Typhoon somewhere to plan the next steps. About 18 hours later, we were watching all of our readouts and wary of any alerts from the Dragon. We spent several hours in complete, tense silence, worried that any alarm could signal a detection or an attack. Dragon said we were 55 million kilometers from the coordinates of the buoy. With our best instruments, we were just able to

muttered. “Let’s do it,” I said. “Good plan, Sicma.” “Thank you, sir.” And off we went, moving again at last through the strange system, zooming past the buoy’s coordinates with all of our scanners and antennae capturing as much information as they could at high speed, and then we were beyond that star system, heading toward the next system at light speed. I had angled the ship correctly; if I was correct, in 50 minutes we would be in the Sevents system. Kind of made me wish I’d shared my plans with Jae. Why hadn’t I? Maybe I had not thought I would really ever get here. Maybe I thought he’d think I was silly for being taken in by an old legend. But I had to tell him, finally; so I explained that while we were in the Sevents system doing a turnaround, I wanted to scan the hell out of the planets there. Jae didn’t care. Scan all you want, he said. But we need to be back to the buoy in time to pick up whateverthehell Lyren’s left for us. I agreed, and I got Sicma and Dragon prepped for doing the Sevents scans.

“Since you can’t in any circumstance be seen by whoeverthehell it is tracking us, I implore you to be very cautious.” pick out where the buoy was, or likely was. “I think we should just go in there and pick up the buoy,” said Jae. “Bring it on board. It’s not that big. Then all we have to worry about is catching that stupid rich guy when Lyren dumps him from the ‘phoon.” “That sounds too simple,” I said. “I think that’s an incredibly stupid idea,” said Sicma. “Oh?” Sicma took a moment to appreciate the fact that his opinion was being considered. Slowly he nodded, and continued. “The fact of the matter is that we have no idea what

is in that buoy. It could be a trillion credits. It could be a bomb. It could be a puppy. It would definitely be a bad idea to bring it aboard without knowing exactly what it is.” Jae asked what Sigma thought was the best thing do to, and the android said we should zip through the system—it’s apparently the thing to do—and run as deep of a scan as much as we can as we pass the buoy. Then on our way back, we can pick it up if it seems harmless, tow it if we’re unsure, or blow it to smithereens if we think it’s a danger. “God, this had better be worth it,” Jae

fter our flyby through the Na’ha system, we finally got to my Sevents system, and we were scanning the hell out of anything that could be detected. Out of 12 planets, we were getting absolute zip in terms of life signs or even life-supporting atmospheres on seven, eight, nine planets. Then on the tenth planet, roughly on the opposite side of the star from our approach and 40 million kilometers from its star, we picked up an atmosphere that could support human life. When we focused our longrange scanners on that planet, they picked up signs of artificial structures. The planet was communications-dead, though. We were pushing our time limit, but I looked imploringly at Jae. “Can we take a look?” He raised his hands in exasperation. “If we miss the dropoff by Lyren, our client’s dead. That life pod won’t have life support for 24 hours; probably just enough to last him six to twelve hours.” I promised we wouldn’t take too long, and we sped the Dragon toward the planet. In our approach, I had Dragon scanning and recording everything about the planet and whatever it contained. There were no radio signals or other communications emanating from the planet, but that would match with suspicions that the original Sevents civilization was laying low. We slowed considerably as we approached and put up all of our shields; if the Sevents had been able to keep out of site for nearly a millennium, then they must certainly have ways of repelling or defeating intruders. weimar.ws Galaxis

Well before we were 400,000 kilometers away, we could tell there were massive structures above the ground. A very dense atmosphere and a shifting magnetic field made it difficult to read much of what was on the surface. But this is or was a planet of significant infrastructure. But still no communications leaked from the planet. The Dragon was finally in orbit, and we brushed the planet with our communications queries, but no response. As far as our cameras and other detectors could tell, there was nothing unnatural moving around down there. Lots of structures amid the vegetation, but nothing moving. “Let’s dip into the atmosphere,” I said. But Jae was eyeing the timeframe. “We’ve got to go back. Now. Lyren was too vague on her arrival time, so if we don’t want a client who suffocated in a small life, we need to be there extremely now.” The planet slowly rotated below us, some sort of structures tugging on my emotions. I really wanted to visit that planet’s surface, see the floating cities. Even if it was all just abandoned ruins by now, I wanted to see it. Could Lyren wait a bit longer? No, Lyren had said she couldn’t be sure when she arrived, and that meant we had to leave the time for error on our side. I straightened up in my seat. “Let’s head back to the buoy. Dragon, light speed.” Dragon acknowledged, and I could feel the ship turn around, its view screens displaying the Sevents planet shifting to displaying the black space now ahead of us, and then the ship’s thrust kicked in and we were pushed back into our seats. I had it in the ship’s records. I could go back to the Sevents system at any time—or, more accurately, I could go back to that star system at any time and confirm whether it was really the Sevents system. Any time that I had the time. But I knew that wasn’t likely to happen soon. This was a dead-end area of space, without enough excitement or business to keep Jae and Lyren and me in it for very long. We were only here now because some paranoid client wanted us to pick him up here, and he no doubt chose this area specifically because it was a place where nothing happened. For centuries. Maybe that was all I would ever see of Sevents, and I wouldn’t even know if I’d really seen Sevents or just a dead planet that happened to be within the region of space where I had hypothesized Sevents would be. I didn’t know how that made me feel. Should I feel good that I’d made an adventure out of finding a modern-day Shangrila, even if I didn’t get to step foot on it? Or should I be unsatisfied that I didn’t complete my self-appointed mission? 84

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Those thoughts stayed with me on our trip back. Finally we were within range of the buoy. We scanned for anything—particularly anything that would carry the signature of the Typhoon. For the longest time, there was nothing, just empty space. After about 30 minutes of searching, though, we picked up the signature of an information packet Lyren must have offloaded during a trip through the system. When caught it and played it, it was nothing but an encrypted text message saying she didn’t dare slow down long enough to dump the package. She would instead carry on at full speed until she could contrive to turn around and maneuver back here in a way that didn’t look like she was specifically heading to the Na’ha system. Great. More time wasted, and we left the Sevents system for no good reason. Kriz was the only android that could move around in any way that could be described as “wandering,” but he wandered onto the bridge, apparently with no other pressing matters to involve him. He took the seat along the wall behind me and remained silent while Jae and I programmed the Dragon’s next turnaround and trip through the system. When we paused, Kriz spoke. “I don’t believe in coincidences.” Jae and I looked at each other out of the corners of our eyes, but didn’t say anything. I turned around to Sicma, but he pointedly turned to face the wall. I figured the direct approach was best. “Kriz, what are you talking about?” The android responded right away. “We are in a remote part of the galaxy, an area that is difficult to get to, that takes a long time to get to from most areas of the Union and even from competing civilizations. We are not here on a sightseeing expedition—” and I thought he was chastising me for my floating cities side trip, but he went on— “but rather were specifically sent here on the direction of someone about whom we know little more than that he is very wealthy.” “Meaning—what?” I asked. Kriz paused, for effect, I knew, because his mind moved much more quickly than ours. “Meaning our client didn’t send us on this mission because of any special skills of our own. No offense.” “None taken,” Jae and I said simultaneously. “Taken,” said Sicma. Kriz ignored his fellow android. “Captain Paulik, you are interested in the floating cities of events, are you not?” I nodded. “Though you are not a widely famous person—” “No offense taken,” I said. “You mean this is about me, because my well-known fasci-

nation with the floating cities?” “No,” Kriz said, keeping his metal head facing me.“Though you are not a widely famous person, I am certain that someone could have found evidence of your Sevents interests by reading your various network postings and perhaps even private diaries. My point is that we are likely here, in this region, because our client knew of your interest in here, this region.” Jae tapped a few commands into the dashboard controls. “And this all means what? We are in this area because someone wants us to be in this area? Wouldn’t we have been here anyway even if Captain Towel here hadn’t had a fascination with some long-lost civilization?” Kriz stayed silent a moment, leaving the room’s noise to nothing more than the background whir of the navigation machinery. Finally, Kriz spoke. “I am not going into hypotheticals; I am only saying that it is highly unlikely we are here by accident, and that you people should be connecting the dots.” Nobody likes being upbraided by a robot.

here was nothing visible on the screens when we approached the buoy’s general location, but the scanner picked up the faintest signal of . . . something. Something faint, very faint, was beckoning us. That was a surprise; if that was the buoy or the rich client, it should not be sending out a signal that could be intercepted by whoever it was following the Typhoon. I looked at Jae, who raised his eyebrows. “Are we more likely to find out what’s going on or be blown to pieces?” he asked. “Maybe blown to pieces, but this is a very long way to go to blow us to pieces.” I tapped my fingers on the control panel. “I’d love to think we’re invincible, but if someone really wanted to get us, they could. Pantheon, the Union, Kriz, whoever. Let’s face it, we do make enemies.” He laughed agreement. “So I think there’s a reasonable chance”—I shrugged—“that we won’t die in a fiery ball of plasma if we investigate this thing.” “You’ve never been so inspiring,” Jae smirked. But he began to ease the Dragon into a cautious approach to the signal. Slowly, the Dragon picked up speed, zeroing in on the target. For good measure, I double-checked weapons readiness and made sure I could fire absolutely anything explody at a split-second’s notice. Jae looked back at me, a bit quizzically. I could tell he was trying to say something, but it was still forming in his mind. At last, “You said something interesting. You said we make enemies, which is true. But people do like us. Lyren and the Typhoon could have gone to work with anybody, or

by themselves, or they could have all gone their separate ways. Instead they not only agreed to work with us, they agreed to work for us. And the androids—Sicma could get useful employment on any of a thousand planets, even with his occasional insubordinate comments. Kriz could have dedicated his life to hunting down and killing all of his enemies—” “—Gotta stay on the good side of that one—” I said. “Yeah, but that’s the point. We’re on his good side. And we haven’t really tried.” “I’m right here,” said Kriz. Jae ignored him. “It’s just the way we do business and personal relationships. It works; it makes people trust us.” I raised my eyebrows. So? He sighed. “So—I don’t know. But I think there are a lot of people—” “—and androids,” Sicma said. “Yep, and androids,” Jae said. “There are many people and androids and other critters that want to be with and work with people they trust. Lots of people keep their employees and even their friends in line with a bit of fear; we don’t do that.” I thought about that as we went along for a while. But I liked what he had said. “So,” I said, “basically, we don’t suck as bosses and friends.” Jae stared out the front screen for a while, looking tired but deep in thought, and just when I thought he was down for the count, he said, “I think we should get a cat.”

oon we were on top of the buoy’s coordinates. Nothing was visible on the screens when we approached the buoy’s general location, but the scanner picked up that faintest signal of . . . something. Something faint, very faint, was beckoning us. Did whoever was in the buoy want the Typhoon’s pursuers to find it? Or was this entire thing all messed up, and we’re back to being screwed? I looked at Jae with a raised eyebrow. “This could be the last mistake we make.” He shook his head. “Remember, if they want to kill us, there are a lot easier ways to do it. Let’s see what’s in it. Kriz?” Kriz left the bridge, and 20 minutes later he had retrieved the “package” from the pod. When Jae and I walked into the cargo room, Kriz was standing with arms akimbo above a man sitting on the floor. I would estimate the man’s age to be about 50, and his clothes suggested his wealth was very, very . . . low. “I’m Captain Paulik of the Dragon. This is my co-pilot Jae. Who are you and what is this all about?” I had thought I sounded pretty authoritative, but the man appeared to be brushing off dust or something from his cheap uniform. He looked up at me with a mixture of surprise and fear. Finally he stood up, his height just slightly higher than mine. He tentatively reached out a hand, as if he thought it was the right thing to do. “I am Gre-ordan, here to save you.”

This was a dead-end area of space, without enough excitement or business to keep Jae and Lyren and me in it for very long.

I smiled. A little. “Save us?” He showed no sign of embarrassment as he took that in. “Yes. I have information that can bring down the Union. Do you want the information, or do you want your payment?” “Payment,” I said without delay, but Jae’s glare made me pause. “What do you mean, ‘information’?” Gre-ordan was starting to look genuinely at home in the Dragon, and much less like a man recently pulled out of a cramped life pod. But just as he raised a hand as if to make a point, I interrupted him. “What do you know about the Sevents system’s floating cities? What do you know about the civilization that once lived there?” His faced clouded over briefly, as if I had asked him an obscure mathematical question. Then he answered. “I know enough to know it doesn’t exist. You’re on the wrong side of the galaxy for that. Only a fool would think it is here. But I do know that something far more important exists here, and that’s why I needed to see you.” “Hire me, you mean?” He had the good grace to look a little ashamed. “I am afraid I misrepresented myself to you and to your good Captain Lyren. I actually don’t have money.” I stared at his face for a while. We traveled so many light years to get here. We saw and destroyed my dream of the floating cities. We made me get dressed. And we weren’t getting paid? I poked my forefinger into his chest with each word I said. “We traveled a zillion light years to get here. We saw and destroyed my dream of the floating cities. We made me get dressed. And we aren’t getting paid?” I wanted to shove him against the wall, but I made do with poking him in the chest one more time with my finger, but extra hard. Gre-ordan to my surprise was looking less like a weasely poor nothing and more like someone I’d take seriously. He drew himself up to his full albeit not impressive height, and lightly poked a finger in my chest. “Travel far in space is what one does. But if it’s for a great reward, then it is worth any distance. And the reward is what I have: The end of the Union, for better or worse, within one year. And there will be a lot of ‘worse’ in it. “I don’t want to employ you; I can’t, as I think I’ve indicated, regarding my financial constraints. But I do want to join you.” Well, at least now I could assume that whoever was following the Typhoon was a Union ship. That might be the only solid answer I got out of this whole adventure. “So,” I sighed, giving up on every other plan I had for the past month. “How do you Galaxis say we can defeat the Union?” weimar.ws Galaxis

PHOTO: WEBSTER2703

Galaxis January 2018

SPECIAL FEATURE

the rogue movies The second film of the new trilogy and the first of the stand-alone Star Wars films give us a different tone, new characters.

BY JOHN ZIPPERER

short time ago in a movie theater close by, a new Star Wars movie opened. And then shortly another one came along, followed just five months later by another new Star Wars film. This is the new normal, a far different world than when the first movies played to audiences who had to wait three years between films. This is the fruit of a movie studio business decision, but its realization in the artistic world of cinematic entertainment is worth delving into. First let’s pause for an important announcement. Please note: We must emphasize that this article includes spoilers if you haven’t seen the films. So read on if you have seen the films, haven’t seen them and are a masochist, or avoid this article until you’ve watched The Last Jedi and The Force Awakens. Following the immediate success of The Force Awakens, fans were promised a steady stream of new Wars films, some of which would be new trilogies and others that would be stand-alone stories. The first of the stand-alone films, Rogue One, cost more than $200 million to make, but it brought in more than $1 billion in worldwide sales. The Last Jedi also cost about $200 million, and in less than a month it had already brought in more than $1 billion in box office sales. There is no reason to suspect that Solo, the second stand-alone movie due out in May, won’t also earn $1 billion. There was a time in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Disney was dead studio walking, the maker of schticky low-budget comedies such as Herbie Goes Bananas and failed bigbudget dramas such as The Black Hole. The 1980s saw the studio turn things around, first with a series of R-rated comedies along the lines of Ruthless People (produced

through its new Touchstone label) and then with smash animated hits. The Mouse was back, big, and it has grown bigger and better ever since. Disney now owns Lucasfilm (and pretty much everything else in Hollywood, especially after its recent blockbuster $52.4 billion purchase of 20th Century Fox), and it knows how to make audience-pleasing films that earn back its investment. Rogue One was released in December 2016. One year later we have The Last Jedi, and soon Solo. Hopes are high for Solo; with the character’s death in The Force Awakens, the only way to enjoy him again is through explorations of his earlier life; and with the talented Ron Howard having taken over as director after the departure of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, there is good reason to expect that high hopes for the film will be met. But that will have to wait until May. For now, let’s examine the two most recent Star Wars films and see what they tell us about the saga’s evolution under Disney’s care. The Rogue Story In our review last issue of The Force Awakens (see “The Forever Wars,” Galaxis 6), we noted that Lucasfilm had made a very enjoyable movie that was nonetheless largely a remake of A New Hope. Right off the bat, we were pleased to find out how much of a breath of fresh air Rogue One was. We have new characters, new ships, new music, and the filmmakers pull that off even while making a story that dovetails directly into A New Hope. Set in the time before A New Hope, Rogue One begins with an attack on the isolated family of scientist Galen Erso. Orson Krennic, a weapons developer for the Empire, wants to bring back Erso to work on a little project known as the Death Star. The family is violently torn apart with Erso’s wife dying but daughter Jyn escaping to a hideout, where she is rescued by the eccentric rebel Saw weimar.ws Galaxis

Galaxis January 2018

ulous, dangerous locations just so they can struggle and prolong their effort to get the damned plans. It’s like the scene in Galaxy Quest in which Sigourney Weaver’s Gwen and Tim Allen’s Jason Nesmith have to endure the ship’s chompers to disable the selfdestruct program. Gwen: What is this thing? I mean, it serves no useful purpose for there to be a bunch of chompy, crushy things in the middle of a hallway. No—I mean we shouldn’t have to do this; it makes no logical sense. Why is it here? Jason: ‘Cause it’s on the television show. Gwen: Well, forget it! I’m not doing it! This episode was badly written! Luke Skywalker Strikes Back The Last Jedi picks up where The Force Awakens left off, both in plot and in style. On a hard-to-find Jedi planet, in a beautiful vertiginous mountain retreat, Rey hands Luke his lightsaber, and he sets the stage for all that follows by taking it and tossing the lightsaber down the cliff behind him. Luke is done with being a Jedi; he’s also very down on the experience of being a living legend. Skywalker is hiding out on his hard-tofind island on a hard-to-find planet, having cut himself off from his family, the rebels/ resistance, and from the Force itself. He is none too happy to have Rey show up on his island. At first he ignores her and tries to turn her away, but she wears him down enough that he begins to train her as a Jedi, only to be shocked when he sees she has the same great raw strength in the Force that he last saw in Ben Solo. Throughout the course of the movie, in several flashbacks, we learn why and how Kylo/Ben had a falling out with Jedi master Skywalker, though not yet why Ben chose a silly name like Kylo. But we see that Skywalker is conflicted about his own actions in dealing with Ben. Skywalker is now trying to end the entire Jedi line, and destroy the original books and other elements of the Jedi home base. If the Jedi at the peak

of their power couldn’t tell that the Republic had been taken over by a Sith lord, what good were they, Skywalker asks. Rey heads off to deal with Ben and Snoke. They have a bit of back-and-forth about who should go over to the other’s side, and in the heat of the struggle Ben kills Snoke. Rey thinks it’s all over and that Ben has come to his senses, but Ben has other ideas: He wants to rule the galaxy himself, with her help. Like Luke, he thinks it’s time to do away with the Jedi and the Sith—all of the past—and create something new. Meanwhile, the resistance fleet is forced to evacuate its base, fleeing a massive First Order dreadnought. Despite some heroics from Poe Dameron, Finn, and new character Rose, the resistance ships keep losing ground—er, space—and ships and people. Amid a great deal of dissension led by Poe, the remaining ships head to Crait, where there is an ancient rebel base. There a laststand battle is prepared, but the sudden appearance of Luke Skywalker (or his spectral self, projected by Skywalker from his island hideaway) succeeds in delaying the First Order onslaught until the remaining resistance people can escape and be picked up by the Millennium Falcon (yes, there are that few remaining). Back on his island, Luke Skywalker finally dies, leaving behind nothing but an empty cloak. Seldom does Mark Hamill get the credit he deserves for his acting chops. In Empire, he spent much of the movie acting with a puppet and made it believable. In Last Jedi, he acts the hell out of the part of an embittered Jedi, unhappy with the state of the universe and unhappy with his own past actions in it. We’re very sorry he is (presumably) exiting the franchise. Storylines In this overall enjoyable and complex movie—it seems as if every few minutes we’re whisked off to another planet or ship in a twist of plot—there is plenty to think about. First, both of these two movies continue righting the SF gender imbalance. Rey and

HAMILL PHOTO: DICK THOMAS JOHNSON; LIGHT SABER PHOTO: ROBERT W. SCHÖNHOLZ

Gerrera. By the time we meet her again, 15 years have passed and she has gone on to a life of petty crime. The now-adult Jyn (portrayed by Felicity Jones) is captured by Imperials, but she is freed by rebel intelligence agent Cassian Andor, who needs her for a mission to retrieve her father and learn the secrets of the Death Star. Together with a motley crew of misfits and rebels, they head off to get Galen, who dies in a firefight. But they learn that Galen has built a vulnerability into the Death Star, and they head to the planet Scarif to steal the weapon’s plans from Imperial data banks. In yet another wild firefight, the plans are stolen and transmitted to waiting rebel ships and Jyn, Andor, and Krennic are all killed by an Imperial attack on Scarif. Aboard the rebel ship with the plans is a young Princess Leia, who announces that the plans give the rebels hope. Cue the opening of A New Hope, which presumably occurs minutes or hours later. Technically, the film is great. The special effects and costumes are good, the action scenes exciting, and the actors fine. Though Jyn is a likeable character, the runaway star of the film is Alan Tydyk’s sarcastic K-2SO, an Imperial droid that was reprogrammed by the rebels to work with them. Hong Kong actor and filmmaker Donnie Yen portrays blind warrior Chirrut Îmwe. The character is interesting, but did they really have to have a character that was so obviously based on Asian martial arts played by an Asian actor? At its most basic, it shows a lack of originality. But, more troubling, it breaks the fantasy veneer that helped audiences believe in Kessel runs, grand moffs, and Jedi knights. This is supposed to be set in another galaxy that has no connection to our own little world; but this character choice made a cheap connection that interfered with our enjoyment of him. We’ll reserve one other brickbat for the film: On Scarif, to retrieve the Death Star plans and then later to open the planet’s shield so the plans can be transmitted, Jyn and Cassian have to fight their way to ridic-

Mark Hamill turned in a bravura performance as Luke in The Last Jedi.

Jyn are a welcome one-two combination of strong female leads for the new Star Wars films. In a supporting role, Jedi’s Rose is a different type of strong female lead, one who brings out the hero in Finn by a combination of shaming him and believing in him and then heroically saving him. And the resistance leader who takes over when Admiral Ackbar and others are killed is a woman, as is of course the apparently indestructible General Leia. Speaking of which, what do we make of the odd scene in which the bridge of the resistance ship has been blasted apart, sucking into space all of the rebels there, including Leia? When she is sucked into space, many in the audience probably thought, okay, so this is how they worked in the death of actress Carrie Fisher—but then Leia (led by the ring on her finger?) suddenly stirs in space, having not died and all as one would normally do in the freezing void of space, and soars back to her rebel companions, who retrieve her and nurse her back to health. Dealing with this seemingly new Jedi power, IGN’s Jesse Schedeen wrote that writer and director Rian Johnson said it represented a “reflex action” by Leia to stay alive. Perhaps; it doesn’t appear to have been a writer BSing his way out of having painted a character into a corner. There are other ways she could have been saved (starting with not being blown out into space in the first place). But it’s likely an ir-

ritant to Force purists. Another Force irritation comes from dead Jedi master Yoda. While arguing with Luke about whether it’s time for the Jedi to fade away, he draws down a lightning strike on some old tree on the Jedi island, which sets the tree afire and destroys ancient Jedi books hidden inside. Are there other examples in the movies of the post-death Jedi doing something physical in the real world? Is this a sign of how superpowerful Yoda is, or is it just convenient rewriting of the franchise rules? Well, ya buys the franchise, you writes the rules. Our complaints about the retread storyline of The Force Awakens return with this movie, which recycles a number of themes and scenes, albeit not as strong as with that film. The resurrected storylines from Empire include the young Jedi trainee being mentored by a hermit Jedi master, a battle to save or evacuate a rebel base being attacked by AT-ATs, the young Jedi trainee leaving the training early to go save her friends, and the uneasy leaving of the rebellion in a state of survival but on the ropes. But wait, there’s more: The film also pulls from Return of the Jedi, with an attempt to flip a Sith apprentice (then it was Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker and now it’s Kylo Ren/Ben Solo), a battle with a Sith lord in his throne room, and stolen two-legged AT-STs. Whose Story? When Star Wars came out in 1977 and even into The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, most of us thought the series was the story of Luke Skywalker. But Return of the Jedi and then especially the prequels made it clear that George Lucas’ intent all along had been to tell the story of Anakin Skywalker—his innocent childhood, his troubled adolescence, his turn to evil, and his eventual redemption.

This ongoing third trilogy makes it more of a story about the Skywalker-Solo dynasty. Maybe. Rey is the central character of this trilogy, and though many had guessed after seeing The Force Awakens that she is somehow the long-lost daughter of Luke, in this movie we’re told (by Kylo/Ben) that her parents were nobodies, and that she has no role in the universe unless she creates one with him now that Snoke is dead. If this third trilogy ends up being based on the eventual redemption of Kylo/Ben, then Lucasfilm will seriously be in need of new ideas. Besides repeating actual stories and scenes, The Last Jedi has served to reset the whole storyline to what it was roughly at the time of A New Hope. Evil imperials are in control, with a small band of rebels in a seemingly hopeless fight. Like a video game, it is as if nothing ever changes; it just is a storyloop that continues on a new level following the same basic story beats that addicted you in the first place. This certainly gives the writers the ability to revisit those tried and tested storylines, but why? Why sacrifice the originality of new stories set in the post-imperial galaxy? It was a galaxy-spanning republic and empire, remember, so there’s effectively an unlimited number of adventures and stories and planets and characters to explore. After all, with the stand-alone stories like Rogue One and Solo, Lucasfilm already has its cake and can eat it, It can make standalone films set in the legendary past of the saga, while also exploring what happens later in new trilogies. Maybe the standalone films will continue to show us something new. Rogue One demonstrated that a Star Wars film can be wildly successful even without a Luke or a Chewie or a Han (and only the slightest kinda-Leia) in it. So while many of us will be sad that The Last Jedi is the swan song for Mark Hamill and for Luke Skywalker—barring his return as a Jedi ghost—the Wars filmmakers clearly are confident that the saga is strong enough not to be tied to those original characters Galaxis and actors. weimar.ws Galaxis

Adam West and Richard Hatch, two much-loved genre actors, have left us. BY JOHN ZIPPERER

y personal Richard Hatch story: One day in the year 2000, while I was living in New York—tech journalist by day, independent science fiction columnist at night—I covered a relatively small science fiction convention in Manhattan, but I only had time to cover a small portion of it, such as a fascinating discussion between former writers and stars of Space: 1999 (see Galaxis #1). Before I left for the day, I ducked into the bathroom, and just before I exited that space, in came a breathless Richard Hatch, who was due to give a presentation in a few minutes. He was wearing sweat pants and a t-shirt, and he zipped into a stall to change into more presentable clothes for his program. Such was my brush with glory. It is, of course, better that I never got a chance to actually talk to him during that moment. I left, knowing he was busy and in a hurry (and in a place one doesn’t generally want to have extended conversations with strangers). Because, even though I was an adult, I would have probably been reduced to something of the 10-year-old I was when I first watched Hatch as he portrayed the handsome and heroic and upright Captain Apollo battling Cylons on the original Battlestar Galactica. One of the twin sides of fame is that people think they know you when they have only seen you on television or the movie screen or have absorbed your works in some way. Even after meeting you, they don’t know you; they have only spent a few minutes in your presence. What you This page: Burt Ward as Robin and Adam West as Batman in the 1960s Batman TV series. Facing page: Richard Hatch, former star of Battlestar Galactica. 90

Galaxis January 2018

BATMAN AND ROBIN PHOTO: PUBLIC DOMAIN ;HATCH PHOTO: GAGE SKIDMORE

two more heroes gone

are really like only comes through over protracted periods of time, tested under many circumstances. So it is particularly bittersweet for me to learn that my childhood hero-crush was reportedly every bit the good guy I had imagined he was, back when I dreamed of wearing a Galactica battle jacket and flying Vipers. “This one hurts,” David Gerrold wrote on his Facebook page following the news of Hatch’s death February 7, 2017. “Richard was one of the nicest guys in the industry. He had a generous spirit and he cared about everything he was involved with.” Born in 1945 in California, Hatch had a number of notable roles before landing aboard the Galactica in 1978. He was a regular for a season on The Streets of San Francisco, he played a recurring role on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and he had a two-year stint on the soap All My Children. But it was Galactica that would be his calling card for the remaining four decades of his life, even though the show only lasted one season; Hatch did not appear in the short-lived sequel series Galactica 1980. Along the way, he co-wrote a series of wellreceived Galactica novels. Hatch made a strong effort to revive the series, but his approach was passed over when the show was finally brought back to life at the Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy) under the control of Ronald Moore. But Hatch made peace with the reinvention, and he would appear in multiple episodes as the dissident politician Tom Zarek.

In the end, Hatch was felled by pancreatic cancer, and he passed away earlier this year at the age of 71. Following news of Hatch’s death, Moore tweeted, “Richard Hatch was a good man, a gracious man, and a consummate professional. His passing is a heavy blow to the entire BSG family.” So say we all. Same Bat-Channel If I had been ten years older, I might well have had similar feelings about Adam West, the actor who brought Batman to life in the 1960s with the television show, which was wildly popular for a time, running twice a week with cliffhanger episodes. But my older siblings remember watching Batman, taking it all in as deadly serious heroics while our mother laughed at all of the jokes that littered that camp classic. I would follow in their footsteps years later when we watched Batman in endless 1970s reruns. “We were playing it on multiple levels; we were playing with our audience, we used to say that we put on our tights to ‘put on’ the world,” co-star Burt Ward (Robin) told the BBC in 2017. “For the kids it was serious hero worship, for the adults it’s the nostalgia, the comic book, and for that very difficult audience at that time to capture— the teenagers and the college kids—it was the insinuations, the double entendres, all the things that nobody had ever done with an audience.” Now, Batman star Adam West has passed away. He died June 9, 2017, at the age of 88

following a battle against leukemia. Though he will forever be recognized first and foremost as the 1960s Batman, West’s career began in 1954 and didn’t stop until his death. His final credits included voicework as Bruce Wayne and Batman in a 2017 video Batman vs. Two Face; his final television role was also a voice job, as the narrator and chairman Dean West in two episodes of Powerless in 2017. He had also connected with fans at countless convention appearances for the Batman series. Just as Galactica fans will always have the fun argument about which iteration of the show was better, Batman fans have long had the debate over whether West was the quintessential caped crusader, or if he was too campy, or if his characterization just didn’t keep up with the increasingly darker times represented in first Tim Burton’s and then Christopher Nolan’s versions. As for West, who never lost his close identification with the role, he referred to his portrayal of Batman as “the Bright Knight,” his family said in a statement following his death. In mid-June, in his honor, the city of Los Angeles projected the bat signal on City Hall in his honor. Noted his family, “It’s through you, his fans, enjoying his work and sharing it with your children, that his bright light will continue to shine. And last night, we know that he was looking down and could see the brilliant light of the bat Galaxis signal shining in his honor.” weimar.ws Galaxis

BUNKY PART ONE Lyle Lahey’s droll farmboyand-alien story sees new life.

Galaxis January 2018

unky first came into the newspaper comics world in early April 1975, debuting in the small Wisconsin weekly Farmer’s Friend. As we noted in an article in Galaxis #2, Bunky gets off to a quiet start, focusing on farm life and the quirky characters surrounding him. But by the end of this in-

stallment here, you already get a sense that things will take a wild turn or three, particularly in the science fictional realm. Bunky was created by Lyle Lahey, an award-winning political cartoonist for the daily Green Bay News-Chronicle, which was produced by the same company that put out the Farmer’s Friend. Lahey, who passed away in 2013, was a daily political car-

toonist for more than 40 years. But for about four years in the late 1970s, he also took on the task of creating Bunky for a small newspaper audience. Before the tale of Bunky would end in December 1979, our hero farmboy would have adventures under the sea and inside spaceships and with Maoist Chinese spies. Strange things, indeed, await our sharp young farmboy.

weimar.ws Galaxis

Galaxis January 2018

weimar.ws Galaxis

Galaxis January 2018

Bunky continued next issue ...

PHOTO BY AND COPYRIGHT: INTERNET WORLD

Compendium March 6–7, 2018 Internet World Expo Conference/expo. About 17,000 visitors are expected to show up for this umpteenth iteration of the long-running technology gathering, where you can see and meet the people driving internet business to the next stage. Lectures will cover digital disruption, internet business success stories, the case for drones and artificial intelligence, reaching

China through Alibaba, global marketplaces, and more. In addition, visit more than 400 exhibitors in the expo hall, and take in the (extra cost) Internet World Aftershow at Harry Klein, where you can party off your internet worries at one of Munich’s most popular clubs. Location: Munich Exhibition Grounds, Munich, Germany. Cost: €0–213.01. Contact: internetworld-expo.de/en/

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ANIMAL

Compendium is our catalog of things to do, see, and hear related to the worlds of science and science fiction. Please note: Events can change dates, times, prices, and locations. Therefore, we strongly recommend you contact each organization directly before making plans to participate in any activity listed here. If you would like your event to be considered for inclusion in these listings, send information—including contact information—to jzipperer@gmail. com. There is no cost to be listed in Compendium. Events are listed solely at the discretion of Galaxis.

January 24, 2018 Troublemakers: How Silicon Valley Came of Age Lecture. Historian Leslie Berlin introduces the people and stories behind the birth of the internet and the microprocessor, as well as Apple, Atari, Genentech, Xerox PARC, ROLM, Ask, and iconic venture capital firms. In the space of only seven years and 35 miles, five major industries—personal computing, video games, biotechnology, modern venture capital, and advanced semiconductor logic—were born. Learn about the troublemakers who rewrote the rules and invented the future. Location: The Commonwealth Club, 110 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, California. Contact: 415-597-6705, commonwealthclub.org January 30, 2018 Biohacked Bodies | Virtual Futures Salon Panel discussion. Biohackers modify or augment their bodies with the use of technology, such as

magnets installed into fingertips or the ear, radio frequency ID chips implanted into the hand, transdermal LED lights, chips that can read biosignals, and devices that can provide new senses. An estimated 10,000+ people worldwide have RFID chip implants. What does this mainstream adoption mean for the future of the biohacking movement? What limitations do they still hope to overcome? How are implantable devices being used in a medical context? Location: Ninety One, 91 Brick Lane, London, E1 6QL, United Kingdom. Cost: £12.50. Contact: virtualfutures.co.uk April 22–23, 2018 Lyrids Meteor Shower Astronomy. Considered a “normal” meteor shower, the Lyrids produce about 20 meteors per hour at the most. It is the producer of comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher. Location: The constellation Lyra, but could appear anyplace in our sky. Cost: free. May 17–18, 2018 European Science Engagement Conference Conference. The European Science Engagement Association annual conference will be held in one of the most thriving cities in Europe: Join them in beautiful Madrid, Spain, for two days full of discussions, debates, talks, sessions, and workshops. The conference is open to EUSEA members and non-members. Location: Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Spain. Cost: €300–400. Contact: info@eusea. info, eusea.info/annual-conference

THEN FEAST ON LYLE LAHEY’S AWARD-WINNING POLITICAL CARTOONS For four decades, Wisconsin original Lyle Lahey commented on issues of the day in his own creative way. Now you can read a treasure trove of the late political artist’s work—meet the odd people who make the news.

They’re free! Classic Lahey cartoons:

weimar.ws/lahey or

lylelahey.blogspot.com weimar.ws Galaxis

Special SF Authors Edition If you would like your website to be considered for inclusion in upcoming Webbed listings, send information—including URL—to jzipperer@gmail. com. There is no cost to be listed in Webbed. Websites are listed solely at the discretion of Galaxis.

Piers Anthony hipiers.com The author of many dozens of books, including the Xanth series of novels Steve Aylett steveaylett.com The author of Smithereens, Atom, Toxicology, Fain the Sorcerer, Shamanspace, and many more was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award Neil Gaiman neilgaiman.com The winner of zillions of awards and author of Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, Anansi Boys, Eternity’s Wheel, and much more Nicola Griffith nicolagriffith.com The author of Ammonite Hild and So Lucky (due out May 15, 2018) Linda Nagata mythicisland.com Hawaiian SF author of The Last Good Man, Light and Shadow, and The Red trilogy Stan Nicholls stannicholls.com The author of more than 30 books, including Strange Invaders, Wordsmiths of Wonder, and the Quicksilver trilogy Kenneth Oppel kennethoppel.ca The Canadian author of Every Hidden Thing, Airborn, Skybreaker, and more Spider Robinson spiderrobinson.com Callahan series author Robinson has also produced Variable Star (with Robert Heinlein), The Free Lunch, Time Travelers Strictly Cash, Mindkiller, and others Somtow Sucharitkul somtow.com The author of Aquiliad, Light on the Sound, Fire from the Wine Dark Sea, and other novels Sean Stewart seanstewart.org A writer and game creator whose books include Resurrection Man, the Cathy books, Perfect Circle, Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, Mockingbird, Galveston, and others J.R.R. Tolkien theonering.net Everyone knows his works; this is a clearinghouse site for news of him and his legacy Harry Turtledove sfsite.com/~silverag/ turtledove.html The author of many alternative history novels such as Fallout and American Empire: Blood & Iron Kathy Tyers kathytyers.com Author of the Firebird series and two Star Wars novels John Varley varley.net Author with umpteen Nebula and Hugo nominations 98

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May 18–21, 2018 FedCon Convention. One of the biggest conventions in Europe, FedCon this year brings a wide array of star power with a special concentration of stars from Battlestar Galactica: Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, James Callis, Grace Park, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, Michael Hogan, Tahmoh Penikett, Alessandro Juliani, plus Trek’s Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner and many others. Location: Fulda/Bonn/Düsseldorf, Germany; visit website for this year’s event location. Cost: €120–1,599 (autograph and photo session tickets extra). Contact: fedcon.de

Location: The Madison Concourse Hotel, 1 Dayton Street, Madison, Wisconsin. Cost: Not available at press time. Contact: wiscon.net

May 18–19, 2018 Science Olympiad National Tournament Competition. The Science Olympiad National Tournament is the pinnacle of more than 320 regional and state tournaments each academic year in which nearly 8,000 teams compete headto-head for a chance to go up against some of the brightest and most creative students in the United States at the National Tournament. Each May, 120 teams are put to the test, launching helicopters and gliders; building boomilevers and scramblers; matching wits in water quality, chem lab, and meteorology; and solving world health pandemics as disease detectives. This blend of engineering, knowledge, problem solving, technology, and process skills makes Science Olympiad unique in the world of science competitions. Location: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado. Cost: Contact for details. Contact: soinc.org/future-national-tournaments

July 20–22, 2018 Fly with an Astronaut: Marcos Pontes Tour, experience. Explore Kennedy Space Center as part of a small group with your astronaut guide, Marcos Pontes. Discover the birthplace of America’s space program with an experienced space explorer as you tour Space Shuttle Atlantis and blast off on Shuttle Launch Experience, along with touring the iconic sites of Kennedy Space Center by motor coach and enjoying a catered lunch. Location: Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, SR 405 Kennedy Space Center, Florida 32899. Cost: $134–199. Contact: 855-433-4210, kennedyspacecenter.com

May 25–28, 2018 Wiscon 42 Convention. An SF convention with a decidedly lefty political bent, Wiscon is back for its 42nd go-around, this year featuring programming around the theme of activism responding to social injustices. Guests of honor include Saladin Ahmed and Tananarive Due.

July 13, 2018 Partial Solar Eclipse Astronomy. A partial solar eclipse occurs when the Moon covers a portion of the Sun, but not the entire sun. A special solar filter or observing a reflection of the sun are the only safe ways to view a partial solar eclipse. Location: Visible in southern Australia and Antarctica. Cost: Free. Contact: eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/ SEplot/SEplot2001/SE2018Jul13P.GIF

August 16–20, 2018 World Con 76: San Jose 2018 Convention. The big daddy of SF conventions comes to Northern California, where the next Hugo Awards will be announced, costumes will be worn, films will be screened, and much fun will be had (including a Sumo Robot Wrestling competition). Special guests include Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Spider Robinson, Frank Hayes, John Picacio, and Pierre and Sandy Pettinger. Location: San Jose McEnergy Convention Center, San Jose, California. Cost: $50–210 (children under 6 free). Contact: cworldcon76.org

PHOTO: SZYMONA SOKOŁA

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Location: Pittsburgh Marriott City CenMay 17–20, 2018 ter, 112 Washington Place, Pittsburgh, Penn52nd Annual Nebula Conference Conference. Science Fiction and Fantasy sylvania 15219. Cost: $195.00 plus $10.89 Writers of America members and others fee; price increases February 28. Contact: who are interested in science fiction and nebulas.sfwa.org/nebula-conference fantasy are welcome to attend this lineup of workshops, programming, and special events. The weekend will feature three tracks of interest to professionals: career management, professional development, and expert knowledge panels and workshops. There will be a “mass autographing event” on Friday, May 19, featuring many dozens of authors. But in addition to all of the serious and fun events scheduled, the real highlight of the conference is the Nebula Award banquet Joe Haldeman is scheduled to be one of the many auand ceremony. thors taking part in the mass autographing event.

Reviewscreen The new, the classic, and some fantastic finds

The Expansive Universe of The Expanse

Leviathan Wakes, Caliban’s War, Abaddon’s Gate, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, Babylon’s Ashes, Persepolis Rising, by James S.A. Corey Orbit • 2011–2017 The Expanse, developed by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby Fox • 2015–present

pace is a very dangerous place. Alien taught us that; go too far from Earth, and you’ll meet all kinds of odd creepycrawlies that plant chest-burster eggs in you and then . . . well, it gets icky. But it turns out that the vast expanse of space right around our planet is also very dangerous. The world of The

Expanse is demonstrating that, and the icky stuff comes from humans and aliens alike. Written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck under the joint pseudonym James S. A. Corey, The Expanse stories concern the ad hoc team that comes together to crew a stolen (but eventually paid for) Martian warship, the Rocinante, at a time when there is fierce rivalry between various human factions in the solar system that are pushed to their limits by the discovery of a protomolecule delivered by a long-dead alien species. Those

aliens originally intended to use the protomolecule to destroy or reprogram life on Earth for their own unknown purposes, but a bit of lucky planetary gravity got in the way of their plans and Earth was spared—until humans discovered the substance and unleashed it on themselves. Thus is set in motion years (and

weimar.ws Galaxis

PROOF THAT POLITICS CAN BE FUN & SMART

Who convinced Americans that politics is all about shouting & polarization? Meet the antidote: Week to Week, the political roundtable program from The Commonwealth Club of California hosted by Galaxis editor/publisher John Zipperer, where we feature journalists & academics with differing views discussing the political issues of the day with intelligence, humor, and civility. Come to our roundtables (complete with a social hour) in San Francisco, download the podcasts, or watch us on the California Channel. For event dates & media links:

commonwealthclub.org/w2w

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eventually decades) of struggle and at times genocidal warfare between Earth, Mars, and the “belter” people who work on space stations and mining outposts in the solar system. Captaining the Rocinante is Jim Holden, an Earth-born man who went to work among belters after being booted from the military; his righteousness and outspokenness occasionally lead him to make grave miscalculations (such as one that sparks an interplanetary war). He is joined by his first mate and lover, Naomi Nagata; pilot Alex Kamal; and mechanic Amos Burton. In later books, they add Bobbie Draper, a former marine with the Martian military who goes through a circuitous employment route to end up as part of the Rocinante’s crew; but nobody goes through a more circuitous route than Clarissa Mao, who had earlier merely gone on a murder spree in an attempt to kill Holden in revenge for his role in imprisoning her father, but who ends up as a weird but trusted (mostly) part of the crew. The Expanse now includes seven novels (with two more planned), two seasons (with a third due out this year) of a Syfy television series, and a growing handful of digital-only novellas that flesh out various side stories or backstories of characters. The books are smartly written and, though more than 500 pages long apiece, they are absorbing page-turners. Though things can sound complicated and convoluted and unlikely (see Clarissa Mao, above), the sometimes dramatic shocks are doled out in tidy chapter-sized bites; the books switch chapter-by-chapter between the points of view of a handful of characters. You not only know what our heroes are thinking and why, you also get inside the heads of their opponents. The authors don’t shy away from futuristic extrapolation; these aren’t just hardwarefocused space war tales. There is a lot of class and race commentary going on, with the belters (who have their own multilingual patois that mixes words from a variety of languages) in the early books fighting for economic survival against the wealthy Earthers and the powerful Martians. Social groupings have evolved, while most appear to be perfectly recognizable to us today, others are different, such as Holden coming from a family with five fathers and three mothers; they all contributed to his DNA, including his two gay fathers. Abraham and Franck don’t force-feed any of this to the reader; rather, it is woven into the plots, revealed by thoughts and conversations of the characters. The same goes for the wonderful details about life in space that—as far as we can tell—

Perepolis Rising, the seventh book in the series, picks up the story three decades after the events of the sixth book. are relatively scientifically based. If space is a dangerous place, it apparently is also a very uncomfortable place. Because of the high cost of shipping and maintaining and provisioning living quarters and ships in space, the room available to humans is necessarily small and cramped. If you are a claustrophobe or a misanthrope, then spaceships, space stations, and settlements are not for you. Even the captains of large ships are rewarded with nothing more than a small cabin that doubles as their office. People of lesser rank and lesser means have even less, sharing small rooms and even “hot-bunking” with their shipmates. Unlike in much space opera, ships in The Expanse books and series don’t zip across the galaxy or engage in dog fights like World War II airplanes. Instead, they have months-long trips between planets or (in the later books) between planets and the stargate. Battles involve tracking missiles, and there are no magical defense shields that ward off laser fire. People sleep in crash couches, designed to protect their bodies from being turned to mush in the event of sudden acceleration or deceleration. Even when there is a fast burn carried out by a ship to get somewhere as quickly as possible, it requires the humans to be stuck in crash couches and injected with drugs that help their bodies survive. And the final element of this more realistic portrayal of life in space is the crummy food, mostly fungus and yeast formed as something that looks like recognizable food. Holden and his crew survive their fungus and yeast diets with the consumption of great quantities of coffee. So space is dangerous, uncomfortable, and definitely not glamorous. Yet through the hundreds of thousands of words and dozens of hours of television, The Expanse presents a world that is at once fantastical—long-dead civilizations sending protomolecules through space and setting up stargates that tie together vast space civilizations that expand and die out, only to be recolonized by younger upstart species—and yet strangely realistic.

BOOK COVER: PAINTING BY DANIEL DOCIU, COPYRIGHT ORBIT

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Artemis Artifice Artemis, by Andy Weir Crown • 2017 • 305 pages

ou’re gonna die. If you don’t grow food and don’t keep your oxygen supply running and don’t get off the planet, you’re going to die quickly. Such was the case for Andy Weir’s first novel. In his sophomore outing, Weir has different ways for you to die: If you don’t escape the organized crime syndicate, if you don’t follow the rules for EVA suit maintenance, and if you don’t know how to cleanse the air of a moonbase with people just an hour away from poisoned death. Succeed or die. Author Andy Weir, the wunderkind who gave us 2011’s fantastic The Martian novel (and thereby 2015’s The Martian movie), has convinced me he’s not a flash-in-the-pan. With Artemis, his hero switches gender (the new book features the Saudi petty criminal Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara) on a new rock (instead of Mars, it’s the Moon) with a new problem (instead of hour-by-hour survival, it’s more of a life struggle). What Weir’s first two books have in common are scientific verisimilitude (I’m not a scientist, but it sounds realistic to me), good sarcastic humor, and engaging characters that make you keep delving deeper into the book.

In Artemis—dubbed “a heist story set on the moon”—Jazz Bashara is struggling to make ends meet by helping to smuggle goods into the Lunar city of Artemis through her job as a porter at the space dock. In her work, she befriends a wealthy businessman who hires her to help him take over a mining operation that has a side benefit of selling oxygen to the city of Artemis. Good deal, if he can get it, but first he has to have Jazz sabotage the mining operation of the current holders of the contract, who just happen to be a crime outfit from Earth. After a disastrous attempt to pull it off on her own, and her wealthy patron turns up dead, Jazz realizes she needs help, so like in any good heist story, she assembles a team to help her. Though she’s something of a loner and is estranged from her father, she manages to bring him into her cadre of conspirators, and they set off to get the job done. So author Weir is the real thing. He shows real talent, and he is producing some of the best science fiction of today (and it is in the best definition of science fiction, drawing on science and not fantasy to tell a speculative story). And dammit, we hate waiting six years for a new book. Artemis is a well-told story that entertains from beginning to end. Weir mixes in lots of great explanatory detail about how the pod-based city of Artemis works and how the realities of life on the moon affect the living standards and practices of Artemis’ inhabitants. But even while imparting scientific knowledge, Weir is never didactic. This is no 1940s pulp story where the hero visits a scientist who reels off three big paragraphs of termpaper explanatory detail. This is interesting and entertaining, and we hope Weir stays away from spaceship airlocks and doesn’t get stranded on airless planets without food, because we want him to be around for many more years to come. Every few years, the science fiction community goes through a slight panic that all of the great talents are in the past and they are slowly passing away. But Weir is a solid example of the ever-renewing, deep well of talent attracted to creating exciting new worlds of science fiction. It’s great to see him experience success. And dammit, we hate waiting six years for a new book.

Hear science. Talk science. Think science. Whether you’re in the Bay Area or elsewhere, The Commonwealth Club of California presents the best minds of science. Attend live events with leading scientists and thinkers on timely discoveries, controversies, and mysteries in the world of science. Or catch them on podcast, radio, or video. On our website, click on the “multimedia” tab and find hundreds of free podcasts and videos.

commonwealthclub.org

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Forward to the Past The Explorers Guild, by John Baird, Kevin Costner, and Rick Ross Atria Books • October 2015 • 784 pages

eldom do we fall in love with a book so quickly as we did with The Explorers Guild, and just as rarely does a book retain its charm and magic through more than 700 pages. Many authors will try to achieve this by sticking to well-worn formulas and tropes, but the creators of this wonderful book do it by presenting an unapologetically unconventional book that begs—well, we the reader beg—for a sequel. Printed on paper that looks aged, with the comics sections in limited color like an ancient illustrated novel, the book clearly has had attention paid to its countless details that enrich the experience, as if you have somehow discovered an overlooked book from 1914 or thereabouts. Set during World War I, The Explorers Guild centers on a group of adventurers who become engulfed in a world-spanning search for the mythical city of Shambhala. John Ogden is a British Army veteran who leads a colorful band of adventurers (one reviewer called them “his loyal band of violent misfits”) all over the place trying to find a cure for his severely sick brother, Arthur Ogden, who was stricken by some mysterious illness while on a search for a new Northwest passage. In the course of the book, we are joined by young Corporal Buchan, who throws his hat in with the “violent misfits”; Evelyn Harrow, an actress; and the mysterious child Bertram Barnes. It is what used to be called unapologetically

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a “boy’s book”—men facing wild danger and confronted with many new twists and turns that leave them scrambling to catch up. But don’t let that fool you or put you off; there are strong female characters in here, too, and the sensibility is one open to all kinds of readers. From mountains to deserts to underground canals, loving adventure and fun plot twists certainly helps you enjoy this book, but you don’t need to be a 10-year-old boy; this 40-something man was enchanted from the earliest pages. USA Today revealed that the book’s illustrator, Rick Ross, is a fan of Winsor McCay, creator of the classic Little Nemo in Slumberland. But unlike Nemo’s elaborately fantastical imagery, Ross’ work for Explorers Guild is simpler, and it reinforces the feeling that you’ve found a book in your family’s attic that your grandfather might have treasured as a youth. If your first reaction to hearing that Kevin Costner is involved in this book is to wonder what an actor and filmmaker is doing with such an unusual project, it might help to know that Costner has been involved in a wide range of creative, business, and philanthropic activities over the years. The Explorers Guild was reportedly developed with an eye toward film and television development, and we might yet see Costner star in an Explorers

Guild on the big screen. But if that never happens, we will still be more than pleased with the obvious love and care and talent that went into this book, which shows none of the signs of an obvious movie-in-waiting and instead reads like a lovingly crafted tribute to classic adventure books of yesterday (frankly, of yesterday’s yesterday). In an interview with Huckberry.com, Costner explained, “Our idea was a simple one: to have our audience listening with that same awed feeling you had as a kid when you were lucky enough to sit in on a campfire. Listening to grown men tell stories while they drank coffee often spiked with a shot of alcohol, or some just sat oiling their guns. You knew the whole time that 1) you probably shouldn’t be there, and 2) that you could only stay if you had the good sense to keep your mouth shut. Drawing any attention to yourself could be the end of it. If you could keep from laughing when it was the most funny, you stood the chance of hearing things that were both wild and exotic but often above your ability to comprehend. Storytelling that made you feel like you knew nothing of the world, and could only dream of being such a man of experience that you could one night take your own turn talking into the night, and no one would say a word until you were done. We wanted that same feeling in Explorers.”

IT WAS FOURTH-PERIOD BIOLOGY.

“PHOEBE

WAS GNAWING ON A BRAIN ” WANT WORK STORIES THAT START LIKE THIS? Teaching is a job that’s creative and collaborative, and there’s never a dull moment. Teachers have better work stories. Learn more about teaching at TEACH.org.

TEACHERS HAVE BETTER WORK STORIES.

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Reviewscreen Passengers, directed by Morten Tyldum Columbia Pictures • December 21, 2016 • 116 minutes

PHOTO: GAGE SKIDMORE

veryone has had the uncomfortable experience of sitting next to someone on an airplane flight or bus ride who drives you nuts. They talk endlessly about their grandparents or their favorite gaming app or they have offensive grooming skills or they do or say something that brings into sharp clarity your wish to be sitting next to nearly anyone else on the planet. What if you had the opportunity to pick that stranger next to you? The Avalon is all alone in space, running on automated systems toward its target colony planet of Homestead II, named after Homestead, the corporation that makes quadrillions of dollars from populating other planets. Chris Pratt’s character, Jim Preston, is woken from his hibernation chamber early. He wasn’t supposed to be awakened until four months remained on the 120-year journey, but the ship is slowly experiencing cascading errors, and waking him in his sleep chamber is one of the first mistakes that occurs. So he comes to only 30 years into the journey, and he discovers that he does not have the technology

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on board to go back to sleep. Jennifer Lawrence is Aurora Lane, a writer who decides to take the trip to the colonies to give her a unique experience for her books. While Preston is heading to Homestead II so he can feel useful on a frontier planet, she is more in need of adventure. She gets that and more. For most of the film, their only companionship besides each other is Arthur, a humanoid (android top, openly mechanical bottom) played by Michael Sheen. We are, thankfully, spared the very in-vogue plotline of being forced to contemplate the humanity of artificial humanoids. Arthur is there to serve up drinks and some banal chatter, nothing more. We know right at the beginning of the film what has gone wrong, what has happened to bring these two together. Preston and Lane don’t discover the roots of the ship’s problems until quite late in the story, after Gus, a deck officer portrayed by Laurence Fishburne, is woken up by another of the ship’s increasing failures. The Avalon is a beautiful ship inside and out. We can be grateful to the filmmakers for not pretending there is artificial gravity on the advanced ship; instead, it has gravity created by its rotation. Now, whether the design of the spacecraft with its graceful long curved arms spinning around its central core is anything other than an art director’s whimsy is something we’ll leave to people with more passion for arguing such things. Nor does Passengers attempt any deep thinking on the question of humanity’s spread into the stars or of the challenges of long-term spaceflight. Ben Bova’s New Earth or Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora both make use of that latter idea, with Robinson in particular making a case for the impossibility of being able to accomplish it without entropy destroying it all. The movie does touch on but doesn’t harp upon a couple issues. Such as financial inequality: Preston has access to limited food and quarters when he wakes up, but Lane has seemingly endless luxury in her suite and her food options. Such as big corporations: Homestead might be a fabulously rich company that earns money by ferrying people to new planets and then capturing 20 percent of their

PHOTO: KURT KULAC

Things to Do When You Have a Lot of Time on Your Hands

earnings for the rest of their lifetimes, but this is no Alien or Expanse, with evil corporations getting away with murder. With so many things the film could have done, topics it could have delved into, but didn’t, Passengers achieves something rare: It’s an enjoyable movie that is better than a timewaster. This is a human story, told against the backdrop of a deep-space journey. Screenwriter Jon Spaihts tells a space-age love story that has just enough romance and betrayal to make it compelling, with only some rigmarole regarding the ship’s reactor that reminds us of the Galaxy Quest scene of trying to shut down the ship’s auto-destruct. We guess that even with good actors, great special effects, and a compelling storyline, the filmmakers still felt the need for a ridiculous scene of “I need to do X, but I can only do it from the outside without the proper tools and it might kill me.” Because no one constructs an $80-billion advanced spaceship and includes logical features in it to deal with critical breakdowns. That aside, the film is a pleasure to watch and a surprisingly low-key science-fiction film. Spaihts’ script for Passengers was reportedly completed a decade ago, but it languished in development for years. At one point, apparently Keanu Reeves was set to portray Preston. It is a role that in many respects would have fit Reeves quite well, though Pratt might be better at bringing sympathy and likability to a character who runs the risk of intense audience dislike because of his actions in bringing an innocent person out of hibernation to keep him company. But loneliness creates a strong desire to pick the stranger next to you.

Wonderful Women of Wonder Woman

n the second paragraph of his New York Times review of 2017’s Wonder Woman, critic A.O. Scott writes, “Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins from a script by Allan Heinberg, briskly shakes off blockbuster branding imperatives and allows itself to be something relatively rare in the modern superhero cosmos. It feels less like yet another installment in an endless sequence of apocalyptic merchandising opportunities than like … what’s the word I’m looking for? A movie. A pretty good one, too.” It is indeed a pretty good one, but as for it being dramatically different from other superhero blockbusters, no. It is very much the same, a familiar origin story in which a hero realizes his/ her powers, is thrown into a world of chaos and fish-out-of-water scenes, and learns to solve problems by beating up people. What Wonder Woman does differently of course is have a woman in the lead role. Instead of some over-muscled man as the villain-bashing hero, we have Gal Gadot’s Diana Prince, who was forbidden to train as a warrior by her mother but who nonetheless honed her skills, which come in handy when she feels the need to go out and try to save World War I-era Earth. Whenever a female-centered film or TV series is released, there is hype that it will upend and change the sexism in mass entertainment and even society at large. There have been many movies and TV shows featuring strong, independent women, and if none of them have succeeded in achieving that goal, neither will Wonder Woman. In her perceptive review of Sheryl Sandberg’s bestselling book Lean In, historian Anne Applebaum wrote in The New York Review of Books that Sandberg talked a lot about the importance of women in leadership positions, but she failed to show how she had done much in her leadership position that a man wouldn’t do—hadn’t, in fact, done the things one would have expected a woman to do. So by Sandberg’s own measure, why was it important to have a woman in business leadership, other than the obvious fairness of opportunity regardless of one’s gender? That reason has been sufficient for millions of people to support equal opportunities, but there is still a popular need to show that it is not just a matter of fairness but of bet-

ter policies that will result from more woman in positions of power. Does Wonder Woman support or undercut that argument? Let’s consider the anti-violence and anti-war message of the film. Prince/Wonder Woman is shocked by the butchery of the world outside of her magical little kingdom hideaway. How is this different from a male-centered action movie? The story is still settled by a great deal of violence and a final showdown with the arch-villain Erich Ludendorff, whom Wonder Woman kills. Ludendorff, by the way, was a real person, a Wilhelmine general who has deservedly gone down in history poorly, having played a key role in losing the war and then braying about his country being “stabbed in the back” by Marxists, Bolsheviks, and Jews; Ludendorff also took part in two failed attempts to overthrow Germany’s Weimar democracy, once as part of a putsch led by Adolf Hitler. An all-around historic villain. Having a violent movie or television program with an anti-violence message is not new. Many Gundam series have been fiercely anti-war, even as they feature a parade of young pilots engaging in brutal mecha-violence. And don’t forget 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a movie noted in its time for its elaborate violence, but which nonetheless had at its core an anti-violence and anti-war message. In the end,

Wonder Woman solves her problems with violence. Ludendorff is not defeated in argument, nor does he retire to mend his ways. He is killed, as are other villains in the movie. As Applebaum might ask, what does Wonder Woman do that a male superhero might not have done? Wear a skirt, basically. Other than the attempt to appeal to female audiences (though are men really turned off by Wonder Woman—we think not), Wonder Woman doesn’t present a noticeably different story than we’d see with a male hero. That’s neither good nor bad in itself, but it helps to take the air out of the marketing hoopla. That said, this is a very well-made if conventional superhero movie, despite A.O. Scott’s words. Gadot is great as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, as is Chris Pine as Steve Trevor. The World War I setting is an interesting change of pace from World War II settings (though the movie seems intent on Nazi-ing up Ludendorff, so why not just set the film in the Second World War), and the movie made buckets of money. We look forward to further installments in the Wonder Woman saga, and we’re sure there will be many. IMAGE: BARAMBOL; WONDER WOMAN CHARACTER COPYRIGHT DC; DVD COVER: WARNER BROTHERS

Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins Warner Brothers • Released June 2, 2017 • 141 minutes

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AT FIRST I WAS EMBARRASSED. ME, A CAT, LIVING WITH A SINGLE GUY. BUT WHEN I WATCH HIM PICK SOMETHING UP WITH HIS HANDS AND EAT IT, I CAN’T HELP BUT LOVE HIM. — MARU adopted 01-10-10

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The Orville, created by Seth MacFarlane Fox TV • Airs Thurdays, 9 p.m. Eastern/ Pacific

he Orville is arguably the best hour of fun on television, with the possible exception of The Graham Norton Show. The producers wisely shied away from doing a parody of science fiction or of any specific science fiction TV series or movies. That would have landed them too close to the TV graveyard of SF parodies (anyone remember Quark?). Science fiction parody is difficult to carry off; one might argue that the Galaxy Quest movie was the only successful example of it. Instead, Orville is straight science fiction with jokes. Yes, Star Trek had episodes that were funny. Even the depressing but excellent Battlestar Galactica had occasional comedy (such as the all-secrets-come-out scene in the first season’s “Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down”). And God only knows what 1979’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century was if it wasn’t a spoof of other, much better science fiction. Set in the 25th century, The Orville concerns the space-faring adventures of, well, the Orville, a Planetary Union spaceship captained by Ed Mercer (MacFarlane), who is joined by his first officer and ex-wife Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki), whom he had divorced after catching her in bed with a green-spewing alien (Rob Lowe). Naturally, he didn’t request her as his executive officer, and he also didn’t know that he got the commission because she personally intervened on his behalf to plead with the admiral to give him a command. The crew also includes the requisite android on the bridge to provide the Spock/Data commentary (Isaac, portrayed by Mark Jackson); a tough doctor, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Clair Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald); Lt. Gordon Malloy, Mercer’s best pal and the Orville’s helmsman (Scott Grimes); the Worf-like Lt. Commander Bortus (Peter Macon); the super-strength Chief of Security Lt. Alara Kitan (Halston Sage); navigator-turned-engineer Lt. Commander John LaMarr (J. Lee); and the Blob-like Lt. Yaphit (voiced by Norm Macdonald). Readers of our episode guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation (which wraps up this issue) know that one of the key moments in that series’ maturation was when it let the stern Klingon Worf act like a stern Klingon in thirdseason episode “The Enemy.” As we wrote in Galaxis #5, Worf was the only potential medi-

Left to right: The Orville’s hit first season was quickly released on DVD and streaming services; in mid-January, Titan Books released Jeff Bond’s behind-the-scenes The World of The Orville. cal donor who could save an injured Romulan’s life, but Worf refused to do so: “The good-andnice thing for Worf to do would be to help save the Romulan: the usual television writer thing to do would be to have Worf at the last minute be convinced that he should change his mind and have him do so.” But the writers didn’t do that, and Worf didn’t save him. It was true to the character, even if (actually because) it offended our own human sense of right and wrong. A similar situation occurs in The Orville’s third episode, “About a Girl” (interestingly, written by former Star Trek producer Brannon Braga, who also serves as an executive producer of Orville). Braga, who told LGBT website After Elton in 2011 that it was “a shame” that Trek had not had a gay character, here tells a story that weaves a number of gender issues through its tale. Bortus and his partner Klyden are of an all-male species, one that occasionally gives birth to a female, who is then almost always surgically changed to a male. Bortus and Klyden confront the question of whether their newly born female baby should be turned into a male. Once again, the audience’s expectation is one thing, but the writers and producers let the characters act like they likely would, and in the end Bortus and Klyden’s baby is altered. It’s a morally complex matter to get into on a comedy-drama SF show, but The Orville did so and

had the bravery to do it in only its third episode out of the gate. In other episodes, the ship’s crew finds itself dealing with a planet that shifts between universes, with 700 years passing on the planet for every 11 days that pass in the Orville’s universe. Only Isaac is able to come up with a way to deal with the “cultural contamination” caused by the Orville’s landing party, which resulted in the establishment of a religion. In another episode, the ship is confronted by the Krill, and Mercer must make a decision that could revereberate for generations against the Planetary Union. In yet another, they visit a planet that lobotomizes people who act out of the norm. The plots could very easily be found in almost any non-humorous SF series, and they certainly wouldn’t be out of line in a Star Trek series. That is to say that they are good dramatic plots, with the stories taken seriously but we go through them with characters who have good senses of humor and occasionally funny responses to the action. If The Orville too often looks and sounds like an episode of Star Trek Voyager, we can live with that, though we’d like to see it develop on its own. The series was so well-received that Fox has renewed it for a second season. That gives you time to catch up on the first season and be ready for the sophomore season. weimar.ws Galaxis 107

The Orville Is the Show You Should Be Watching

Reviewscreen

CAPSULE IMAGE: DASWORTGEWAND: HATHAWAY PHOTO: HARRY WAD

Capsule Reviews

Colossal, directed by Nacho Vigalondo Neon • 2017 • 110 minutes nne Hathaway (above) is Gloria, a character a million miles away from the princesses and business tycoons and scrappy fashion magazine assistants she has portrayed in the past. Gloria has a problem—actually, her problems multiply throughout the course of this interesting and very strange film. Gloria has a drinking problem, one that results in her boyfriend Tim forcing her to move out. So she heads to her empty childhood home in her hometown. There she goes to work in the bar of Oscar, a childhood friend (played by Jason Sudeikis). Now, about the time you’re asking “Why is this being reviewed in Galaxis?” Gloria realizes she’s somehow connected to a giant monster that is attacking Seoul, South Korea. Yes, massive kaiju are rampaging through downtown Seoul, and the monster mimics the movements of Gloria half-a-planet away. What’s going on? And when Oscar is represented in South Korea as a giant mecha—um, what’s going on?

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Writer/director Nacho Vicalondo presents a very unusual, quite strange, and very entertaining story in which Oscar turns out to be more threatening than a 300-foot mecha stomping on Koreans. The Princess, The Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy, by Alexandra Bracken Lucasfilm Press • 2015 • 324 pages hakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra has been performed a million times—on the big screen, on the small screen, on stages big and small, with elaborate props and without any props or costumes at all. Each and every performance is nonetheless Shakespeare’s famous play, despite how the director decides to fiddle with certain aspects of it. With the overwhelming popularity and cultural presence of the Star Wars films, it was inevitable that they, too, would get the treatment of reinterpretation. Aging fans who never want to see their childhood dreams toyed with might not like it, but unlike Shakespeare’s day when the original performance was never again

to be seen, people can always watch the original Star Wars: A New Hope to see what stirred their spirits in 1977. For those who want to see other interpretations, Lucasfilm Press released a three-book series of the original trilogy, with each book told from the point of view of the characters. The first book, The Princess, The Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy, of course, retells A New Hope and draws upon material from the much-beloved National Public Radio script from the late 1970s. Aimed at younger audiences (as George Lucas always said Star Wars was), The Princess ... is a fun journey for older readers, too, as long as they are not expecting to get a radically different view of the original story. It fills in a few blanks here and there, but for the most part it retells the same story from a slightly different angle. A nice touch is that the beginning of each chapter is illustrated with one of the famous Ralph McQuarrie pre-production paintings from the first Star Wars, and other black-and-white illustrations are sprinkled throughout the text.

The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi Tor Books • 2017 • 336 pages he empire of the Emperox is about to die, but most people don’t know it yet. It is a star empire held together by The Flow—tunnels through space that allow fast interstellar travel—and an imperial system glued together with a self-serving (and self-enriching) religion. As a new emperox assumes control, she realizes she’s been handed a deflating balloon. Interstellar changes mean that the empire soon will be unable to control its realm. If this sounds like you’re in for a Foundation-like grand tale of imperial decline and collapse, you’re not. This is an entertaining and seemingly breezily written novel that is more romp than pomp and circumstance. There are many things this book is not: difficult to read, complexly plotted, likely to lead you to profound realizations about the human condition. The TV rights to The Collapsing Empire have been acquired, and if a series emerges, that might be the best medium for exploring this fun and profane world of Scalzi’s.

ALIEN: COVENANT STANDUP POSTER: SIMCACZE

The Human Division, by John Scalzi Tor Books • 2013 • 432 pages riginally published online, this entry in Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series explores some interesting angles in the storyline. The focus here isn’t on John Perry and his wife, though it definitely centers on the effects of actions Perry had taken in The Last Colony, which separated the gung-ho colonizing military shock troops of the Colonial Defense Forces from the soldier-farm that was Earth.

Eon, by Greg Bear Tor • 1985 • 504 pages hat starts out appearing to be a near-Earth space adventure story about the exploration of a mysterious hollowed-out asteroid becomes much more in this book, the first of a short series based on The Way. The Way isn’t a religious movement; it is a trans-dimensional extension of the asteroid, one that accesses other planets in other universes through gates. The discovery of The Way by explorers from 2005 Earth (which was in the future when this novel was written in 1985) completely

changes the dynamic on the asteroid, which had looked likely to be stuck in a Russians-vs-Americans stalemate. But when the Earth below them incinerates itself in a nuclear war, and The Way opens up limitless possibilities—not to mention future versions of humanity from another universe— much will depend upon the ability of the humans to retain their mental balance and their sense of wonder about the greater universe. Alien: Covenant, directed by Ridley Scott 20th Century Fox • 2017 • 123 minutes he sixth installment in the Alien series begins with a titles-sequence homage to the original Alien. Much of the film is arguably prologue to that groundbreaking science fiction-horror film, but it is a more complex story; 1979’s Alien was really a very simple haunted house story set in space; a monster in the ship is killing people, and the only drama involves who can escape. Covenant gets a little more complex in its role of ultimately setting up a connection to that simple story. Though not as good as Pro-

metheus, Covenant is one of the better installments in the longrunning series, and it shows Ridley Scott exercising his skills as a longterm storyteller, with a clear setup for a seventh film. As we noted in Galaxis #6, there is a recurrence of the silly plotting where people who are clearly too stupid to have been placed in such important missions are nonetheless place in such important missions, just so they can advance the storyline. Amidst all of that, there is copious killing, a tantalizing and too-short scene showing the arrival of David and Shaw on the alien planet, and more killing. Will a filmmaker ever be brave enough to tell an Alien story that doesn’t feature a large cast being whittled down one-by-one to one or two survivors? Alien movie novel, edited by Richard J. Anobile Avon • 1979 • 432 pages he release of Alien: Covenant made us nostalgic for the first, classic film in this franchise, 1979’s Alien. So we were finally able to track down an affordable copy of the “movie novel” of the movie; essentially, it’s a photonovel, but in a

bigger format than the more-common Star Trek photonovels. It was even edited by Richard Anobile, the same man who produced the Trek and many other photo books of popular movies and television series in the 1970s. The book faithfully tells, panelby-panel, the gripping tale of an alien xenomorph that invades the Nostromo and then slaughters all but one of its crew. Unfortunately, the quality of the photos is often poor, a huge difference from Anobile’s superior Battlestar Galactica photostory or a number of others in the field. We enjoyed the trip down memory lane, but the best way to experience it remains the movie itself. Saturn Run, by John Sandford, Ctein Putnam • 2015 • 486 pages un fact: Ctein, coauthor of Saturn Run, is also a photographer who took photos of the launch of America’s first space shuttle for one of our favorite magazines, Future Life. Other fun fact: This book is a lot of fun. A mysterious alien artifact is discovered in the solar system, and a race to visit it and exploit it is off

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Reviewscreen and running. The two contenders are a Chinese ship and an international ship that is nonetheless dominated by Americans. A great mix of science and adventure. Cowboy Bebop, by Yutaka Nanten, Hajime Yatate Tokyopop • 2002 • 184 pages f you’re looking for a breezy manga that won’t take up too much of your time or brain power, then dig into Cowboy Bebop. The tale of a mix-and-match band of bounty hunters in space is light on the science fiction, light on the drama, light on characterization, and for many readers therefore light on the interest.

The Separation, by Christopher Priest Valancourt Books • 2002 • 354 pages win brothers Jack and Joe Sawyer drift apart once they have medaled in the 1936 Berlin Olympic games. When war breaks out, one brother becomes a bomber pilot and the other drives ambulances as a conscientious objector. Priest jumps between history as we know it unfolded and an alternate reality in which Germany and Great Britain reach a negotiated peace after bombing each other into stalemate. Once again

Priest delivers a beautifully complex story, both emotionally and structurally. Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series, Volume One Abrams ComicArts • 2015 • 548 pages Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back: The Original Topps Trading Card Series, Volume Two Abrams ComicArts • 2015 • 548 pages ven if you didn’t collect trading cards when you were a young child, you can experience the phenomenon of the cards issued for the original Star Wars trilogy. And if you did collect them back then or sometime since, author Gary Gerani explains some of the business and creative decisions that went into producing the wildly popular cards. Let’s face it: Trading cards are

an odd thing. Small cards with a photo on one side and text on the other, usually packaged with a big stick of flavorless bubble gum. If they didn’t exist, it’s hard to think up a reason why they would be invented, but they did (and do) exist, and it’s a treat to go through these pages and see some of the incredible photos that could be had for a few coins. (Also available but not reviewed is volume three, focused of course on Return of the Jedi.) Arrival, directed by Denis Villeneuve Paramount Pictures • 2016 • 116 minutes n “All Good Things,” the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Picard is challenged to think in new ways about time and causality. Once he does—voila, he gets the prize of not having Q destroy all of hu-

manity. In Arrival, based on Ted Chiang’s story “This Is Your Life,” linguist Louise Banks, numb from the death of her young daughter, is called out of her isolated existence to help the U.S. Army try to communicate with one of 12 large alien spacecraft that appear at various places around the globe. Banks is occasionally hamstrung by some stereotypically bellicose demands of the various world militaries, but she is able to make progress and learn from the aliens why they are here—and what they will need from humanity thousands of years in the future. To prevent the world’s leaders from destroying the interspecies relationship before it starts, Banks has to navigate a language that violates what we know about time and causality—and come to grips with what it means for her and her past/future daughter. Galaxis

et’s dig into the worlds of science fiction and scientific reality. We’ll explore the complex matrix—or Matrix— of virtual reality in film and in real life. Is VR here yet? Or do we only have virtual virtual reality? We’ll talk cartooning with legendary cartoonist Howard Cruse and horror with writer Sean Abley. Sex and gender roles are all over the news today, rocking the entertainment industry, as well as politics and other fields. We’ll look at sex in science fiction—past, present, and we hope future. Plus: Reviews, science fiction art, more Bunky, independent SF movies, science news, and much more. All in the next issue of Galaxis.

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VR PHOTO: PIXEL2013; MAN PHOTO: EFES

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