Is it a bad thing if I guess the ending only half-way thru the film??

Sci-Fi Short Film "Singularity" presented by DUST Runtime = 7:45


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, September 14, 2018 - 11:57 pm: Edit

Garth L. Getgen:

In the first case, nothing to worry about, as I am sure an analysis of the plans secreted in his ship will demonstrate a critical weakness in the enemy force that can be exploited.

In short, I recognized that he was being allowed to escape before it was revealed that there was a tracker on his ship.

As to the second film, I have to agree. The denouement was telegraphed well ahead of its revelation.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - 02:49 pm: Edit

A new trailer has been posted for Marvel Studios' Captain Marvel film, which will be released next March.

On a side note, the original "Captain Marvel" - as in, the one who held the title prior to Marvel's acquisition of the term, yet who is now called Shazam - will be getting his own movie next year also.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - 07:26 pm: Edit

This sci-fi short film (runtime = 5:25) shows the true future for man/machine relationships.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, September 20, 2018 - 12:54 am: Edit

The only question is how long did it take to know what it was about even though Garth basically hid the title.

By Mark Hoyle (Usa_Retired) on Thursday, September 20, 2018 - 09:58 am: Edit

Hey, they have smart phones that can move on their own.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 04:51 am: Edit

The actor from Aliens who played Sgt Apone died.

Sad, I loved his portrayal.

https://boingboing.net/2018/09/24/rip-al-matthews-aliens-f.html

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 07:24 am: Edit

I could not tell you if I had ever seen him in anything else, but I liked his portrayal of an NCO on Aliens and was truly sad he did not get more time with the role in the film.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 08:05 am: Edit

I had to look him up, but he was also in Fifth Element and Tomorrow Never Dies.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, October 01, 2018 - 08:07 am: Edit

'The Candidate' - A Sci-fi Short Film presented by DUST Runtime: 20-minutes

Stars a few well-know actors, so this one isn't amature hour.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, October 02, 2018 - 03:23 am: Edit

Garth L. Getgen:

So ... It is obvious why you wanted me to watch it.

You do know I will not go either easily or quietly, rigbt?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, October 02, 2018 - 04:18 am: Edit

I figured you'd be one of the founding members of that society.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, October 02, 2018 - 04:56 am: Edit

Garth L. Getgen:

I will state factually that there really are people in this world who wish me dead. Some of whom wish my demise to be as painful as possible. That there have been such people for several of the preceding decades.

Yet, I am still here, and honestly their numbers have decreased over the years.

So, I am not concerned about this "society," and would not invest any of my time in it as I am pretty much already proof that it does not work.

And I am not talking casual "I wish you would die," but real focused hatred.

By Norman Dizon (Normandizon) on Tuesday, October 02, 2018 - 11:08 am: Edit

Anyone that wants to harm SPP will have to first get past the whole SFB CLAN. And we do NOT go lightly into the Burning Night. There is Nothing Worse than facing a Battalion of Fearsome, Deadly, Middle-Aged, Old-School Wargamers.

You there, what is your Profession? And you, what is your Profession? And how about you, what is your Profession? SFB CLAN, what is your Profession? ARROOO! ARROOO!! AAARRROOOOO!!!!

Our Fleet will meet them at the Hot Gates. BPV 300. Legendary Officers All. Each one fully ready to Never Come Home.

HERE THEY COME! Our Armor is forged from SFB Maps. Our Capes are made from Impulse Charts. Our Spears are made from Counters. Ready now, wait til the time is right .. wait ... Wait ... WAIT .... NOW!!

ENERGY ALLOCATE!!!!!!

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, October 02, 2018 - 03:05 pm: Edit

Norman Dizon:

It is funny, but in a sense there was a part of my life where your jape pretty much came true.

Somehow, while in High School, I found myself committed to fight an individual. I still do not really know what it was about, it simply started during lunch and I found myself agreeing to face off with the individual just off the school grounds after classes had ended. I was (to be honest) completely flabbergasted by the whole thing as I could not recall having ever previously met the individual who seemed determined to issue this challenge, perhaps with the thought that I would back down or simply not show up.

But show up I did because I had agreed to do so, even if I had no idea what was going on.

When I showed up, it quickly became apparent that the individual had brought friends who were clearly, if things were not going his way, going to "assist." In short, this was a fight I was destined to lose, even though what had me confused was that I very clearly outmatched my challenger, i.e., if the two of us met on an even field, he was toast even if my heart was not in the fight. (I was several inches taller, more than a few pounds heavier and not a lot of it wasted weight).

My challenger was at that moment in time aggressive, clearly looking forward to the beating that was going to be administered to me (for what reason, I do not know).

At that moment, "my gang" arrived. I had not asked them to, the thought of doing so never occurred to me. But my then best friend had been present when the individual issued his challenge, and decided on his own to make sure the fight was "fair." So he rounded up members of our "gang."

What was the "gang?" The other members of the ROTC program we were both members of. And the corps of cadets showed up "in force," that is to say my Challenger and his friends were outnumbered about three or four to one.

At which point it became very clear to the Challenger that his friends were not going to help him administer a beating to me, and the assembled Cadets were not going to help me pound on him but were simply going to make sure the fight was between the two of us. As he was (as I have noted) sorely outmatched in a fight by himself with me he became much, much less aggressive and interested in the fight. And really if he had just called it off right then and there I would have been perfectly happy to let it go, since I had no idea what this whole thing was about.

It did come down to a short match (I think he had thought that once I was on the field he and his gang would attack, but under the circumstances, a coin was actually tossed to see who would strike first, strange as that may seem, which I lost, i.e., I had to attack him first and I really did not want to).

So I reached out and shoved him as my "attack" (like I said, I just did not want to fight and could not figure out what this was all about). He responded by making some disparaging comment to his friends, which it turned out was enough to make me finally decide "I have had enough." As I have mentioned, I was taller, and heavier, and at that point in my life did not have a lot of wasted mass even if I was not overly athletic. So I basically grabbed him and started to (for want of a better term) twist him in half and he basically screamed "Uncle" within seconds, so I let him go.

But if my "Gang" had not shown up, it would doubtless have been a "very bad afternoon" for me.

By Norman Dizon (Normandizon) on Tuesday, October 02, 2018 - 03:46 pm: Edit

Amazing parallels between my humorous story and what actually happened to you in real life, SPP. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Now I know you have long had a Title much more Ominous than Darth ... "Uncle" Petrick.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, October 03, 2018 - 06:50 am: Edit

Another one with an ending you won't expect: Sci-Fi Short Film "The New Politics" Runtime: 5:50


Garth L. Getgen

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Wednesday, October 03, 2018 - 01:13 pm: Edit

Great eye candy

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, October 03, 2018 - 03:04 pm: Edit

Garth L. Getgen:

I will admit that I was expecting a much more violent ending.

By David Beeson (Monster) on Wednesday, October 03, 2018 - 04:02 pm: Edit

That was terrific

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Wednesday, October 03, 2018 - 04:50 pm: Edit

OH Garth thank You that gave me a very good laugh.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, October 03, 2018 - 06:47 pm: Edit

Petrick, violent ending? Yes, the first time I ever saw that game at a friend's house, a fist-fight broke out.


Garth L. Getgen

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Wednesday, October 03, 2018 - 07:21 pm: Edit

(* chuckles *)

was NOT expecting that ending …

[* new school old !! *]

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, January 02, 2019 - 06:31 am: Edit

Galactic Battles 2018 - The Ultimate Crossover Fan Film (runtime = 17.46)

Stay for the clip after the credits roll.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, January 03, 2019 - 12:37 am: Edit

SPACE COMMAND pilot episode (runtime = 57 minutes) staring Ethan McDowell, Doug Jones, Robert Picardo, Bruce Boxleitner, Mira Furlan.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, January 03, 2019 - 11:57 am: Edit

No "emperor," or "chancellor," or whatever your preferred mode of government is going to be successful at attempting to directly rule a galaxy.

You are basically going to have to divide the galaxy into "manageable" units, and have layers, and layers of governments who deal with "local issues," and only bring the "real un-resolvable problems" to the central government.

At that scale, the problems are basically going to be revolts against bad (local) governance.

But all of it depends on the "speed of communication" and the "speed of response."

By the time the "President of the Galaxy" is notified that there has been a revolt in Sector AGV798X, it will have already been put down and mobilizing resources is just wasted effort.

The Galactic Leader (assuming some massive communications breakthrough) will probably only know personally the "first tier" governing personnel he, himself, appointed and perhaps be made aware of a few secondary tier and tertiary tier individuals who have done something amazing.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, January 03, 2019 - 12:36 pm: Edit

Fear will keep the local systems in line...

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Thursday, January 03, 2019 - 01:11 pm: Edit

The problem of ruling the galaxy, given good communications, is just the problems of ruling the USA writ larger (or the problems of ruling China if you think an empire can't have an elected government).

In both cases, you've got a larger area than anyone can actually know all about, and the people at the top can't possibly know anything about the vast majority of the actual people they're supposed to be representing. (Statistics all the way.)

For that matter, any large corporation also has the same problem. Yes, it will need to have multiple layers. If on average each member of layer X oversees 3 people in layer X+1 then a population of 1 quadrillion (1E+15) then you need about 31 layers, the last of which is "head of household" and isn't government at all, so 30 layers in the government.

Looked at one way, that's a lot of layers. But the US Federal government has about half as many. So it's tough, each layer adds to complexity and makes top to bottom command/feedback harder. But we're already way past the point where the top boss does much on his own or knows everyone important.

Note that my arbitrary 1 quadrillion number means that you have roughly the US Population in people expected to oversee a group of roughly the US Population. Thus ~twice as many layers isn't a bad rule of thumb.

Hopefully the feedback mechanisms will be good enough that the boss notices incompetence a couple of levels down before it leads to armed rebellion, most of our first world nations seem to be managing it.

Communication's speed and the feedback mechanisms are key to making this work, and you will of course need separate local government structures, just as in major nations today.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, January 03, 2019 - 02:10 pm: Edit

While communication is important homogeneity and travel are probably even more important. While you can argue (correctly) that the United States is diverse (compare California government to New York for example) that there is a strong shared identity there and, most importantly, people travel and move all over the country with relative ease to either relocate or visit or go to school or whatever.

If a galactic empire could achieve the same thing with that level of interaction I think it is workable. The danger is when you have groups of people most of whom have never been off their homeworld and who do not feel like they are real citizens of the Empire that you get discontent. Either the Italian revolt against Rome to be "more Roman" or the desire for independence.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, January 03, 2019 - 02:36 pm: Edit

The reality is that in a galaxy spanning empire, planets are hostage to the good behavior of the populace. Yes, the Death Star is a sort of example, but remember that if a planet revolts, it had best have enough firepower to keep a fleet from visiting or the population will find itself quickly reduced to a relatively low level of technological civilization in short order. Planetary bombardment using asteroids is not that difficult for a galaxy spanning empire.

Command and control is the problem.

In "Star Wars" a "rebel base" existed, but by definition it required "outside logistics" to exist (both on Yavin IV and on Hoth), which means merchant traffic on a fairly significant scale. Thus, in "Star Wars," the Imperial Bureaucracy had to be extremely inefficient, or more than one "imperial governor" had his governmental systems seriously suborned that it was impossible to track the munitions being provided the Rebellion. (It is not like Vietnam where an outside superpower was providing arms and munitions to the North Vietnamese which then provided them to the Viet Cong). The Imperial Bureaucracy should (SHOULD) have been able to track shipments because the Empire CONTROLLED THE WHOLE GALAXY, i.e., there was no external power outside of imperial control that could support a rebellion, and if multiple planets were in rebellion at one time (the movies do not provide this as background) then the imperial fleet should have been selective bombarding some back to the stone-age to bring the others back into line.

Note that the Jedi essentially accessed this capability to find "the Clone Army" that was being built in "Episode II," so it should have been available to the Empire.

And, in the book version of the movie, it more or less was as Alderaan was KNOWN to be providing arms and other supplies to the rebellion, which did make it a legitimate military target (despite Princess Leia's protestations to the contrary). Frankly, however, I would have used the Death Star to first make a demonstration and then demand that Bail Organa and the other traitors in his government be turned over for trial (and execution since they are obviously guilty) and only then destroyed the planet if the populace refused. But then, I have always been more of a "rule of law" villain.

By Mark Steven Hoyle (Markshoyle) on Thursday, January 03, 2019 - 03:17 pm: Edit

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Quote:

But then, I have always been more of a "rule of law" villain.

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By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, January 03, 2019 - 04:22 pm: Edit

From the background the Empire did not have the military might to suborn every planet and they had just dismantled most of the bureaucracy (which was tied to the Senate). According to Tarkin the regional rulers were supposed to be kept in line by the threat of the Death Star (which in the EU was designed to discipline, conquer, or outright destroy a planet). The Empire did not have the resources to control everyone and their anti-alien bias left them with a relatively limited manpower pool and a lot of worlds whose governments hate the Empire.

And a lot of worlds were only nominally aligned with the Empire making tracking commerce very difficult.

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Thursday, January 03, 2019 - 04:52 pm: Edit

There's another aspect of the vastness of space that, IMO, has the potential for storytelling; the administration of conquered areas by the forces that have moved on to conquer more. Now, I'll freely admit that my knowledge of history is spotty (to say the least!!), but IIRC, after the Mongols conquered much of China, they left its administration to another conquered people, the Mandarins, as they went on to conquer more of the world, and the Mandarins promptly founded a Mandarin Dynasty in China.

(If I'm wrong about that, please bear with me...)

Now, let's take a look at a potential Sci-Fi version of that. The "Galactic Overlords" have conquered Earth, enslaved much of us, and have moved on to conquer new worlds. They've left some sycophants in charge (I would guess Lawyers who, as we all well know, have already sold their souls, so why not sell out the humanity they've long abandoned) to rule in their stead. Dissention would grow until there's an active, armed revolt. Would the "Galactic Overlords" be summoned back to deal with it, or would the sycophants use what resources they had available to try and suppress it? Where would that campaign go?

Would it turn into the Jumokian revolt/uprising against the Eneen?

(Now to kick myself; this AIN'T "Real World Space Exploration," but it is still fun. Isn't it?)

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, January 03, 2019 - 04:55 pm: Edit

Jon Murdock:

A lot of that was "grafted on" after the first film. One of the other things that was grafted on after the first film was the increasing incompetence of "the bad guys" (who are actually the good guys). While it was indicated that the Empire's professional officers did not like "bounty hunters" (as an example), it was 'bounty hunters" they did not like, not the fact that most of them were not "human." And they used a "non-human agent" in the first film, with no indication of "speciesism" in addressing him when he gave the stormtoopers the information on the Millenium Falcon and the "droids." And "droids" were seen operating in the Death Star with no negative impacts. (The scene on Tatooine where the trooper says "Look sir, droids" was not an indication of anti-droid bias, just a basic "Hey, a clue to help our search!"

As the series progressed, people kept grafting on more and more things to make the imperials "evil," despite the fact that they were (back in the original films) clearly the good guys.

(I agree that "The First Order" are bad guys, but the rebels are also bad guys ... there are no good guys at all in the current films.)

AND YES, ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION NEEDS TO BE MOVED TO THE "SCI FI OTHER THAN TREK" OR "KOMMODORE KETRICK" TOPICS, EVEN THOUGH THE DISCUSSION TO THIS POINT IS ENTIRELY MY FAULT.