Pilot's Log

#2) Binge-Read A Webcomic.

In my case, it was Star Blazers: The Bolar Wars Extended.

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Depends on where it is. I halfway expect the first liveable planet discovered outside the Solar System to be dubbed Vulcan.

I play around with the concept frequently, as a budding science-fiction writer and space wargamer. The reality is that whoever is going to colonize a world is going to be the ones who name it.

COVENTRY

Original premise: Based on the Heinlein "Future History" novellas. In 2012, a radical social ultraconservative man name of Nehmiah Scudder gets elected to the Presidency of the United States. He then suspends the Constitution, enacts the New Crusade to nationalize the Protestant and Evangelist Churches, and begins the totalitarian American Inquisition genocide against Catholicism, Orthodox Churches and non-Christian faiths. As First Prophet he rules America for decades, even after his own physical death. It isn't until well into the 22nd Century that his regime is overthrown and the United States is restored.

American society is radically different after the Second Revolution and subsequent Reconstruction. Two generations later, a young man named David MacKinnon is convicted of the crime of Simple Assault and given a choice of medical treatment or exile. He chooses exile, and is sent to Coventry. Coventry is an open-air megaprison in a reservation that had belonged to a Native American tribe that was exterminated by the Scudder regime. Now it's ruled by the misfits of American society, divided into three realms: New America (basically a parody of lawful order administered by organized crime lords), the Free State (run by fascists and skinheads) and the Angels (the remnants of the Scudder ideology). David, who had hoped to find a peaceful and solitary place to homestead, immediately gets into trouble in New America and is busted out of Death Row by Fader Magee, a professional thief. The New Americans are organizing with the Free State, whom they had been at war with up to then, in an attempt to break out of Coventry and start a rebellion in the greater U.S. Upon learning the news, Fader reveals to Magee that he is a spy for the Secret Service, and the two of them try to get out of Coventry themselves to warn the Army. They succeed, but only through the most hazardous of circumstances. MacKinnon is paroled for "good behavior".

Reimagined: The discoveries of possible inhabitable planets in other star systems and of faster-than-light space travel lead to the idea of exploratory and colonization missions beyond the Solar System. However, the first FTL space travel system available is too bulky and energy-dependent for practical multi-use starships at the moment--what is possible is a device that accelerates single-use, disposable craft on one-way journeys from Earth to the new planets. The governments of Earth decide that the best way to proceed with colonization is to send convicts out to the new planets as the vanguard and force them to do the grunt work of building the colonies. Coventry is selected as one of the colonies.

MacKinnon arrives at Coventry to find that the convicts have invented their own starship drive and have been building warships to attack Earth. He and Fader hijack one and there is an interstellar chase. Can they make it back to Earth before a nuclear war breaks out in the heavens?

It came from seeing THIS FLOWCHART...

And the way the maker of the flowchart split Trekkies into those who liked Wil Wheaton and those who didn't.

I know there probably isn't any new Trek TV series on the horizon, but what if there were? Just thinking aloud.

I'd want a series where Wil isn't necessarily playing Wesley Crusher, of course. I'd rather see him play a new character. He'd be the Captain of a smaller starship, a frigate or destroyer. His ship would be part of a squadron in a sector of the Federation's interior, doing Starfleet's grunt work (search-and-rescue, convoy escort, hunting down pirates and smugglers--and of course those multitudes of operational drills, wargames, and training missions). Unlike TOS and TNG, there wouldn't be much exploration or encounters with new species...there would, however, be opportunities to tidy up the dozens of narrative loose threads left behind by all the previous series. (That alone could fill out several seasons of episodes!)

Angels2200 has resumed after its winter hiatus.

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I'm not sure he would believe I survived as I have. There had always been a part of me that wanted to go for the gusto, even if it meant the high likelihood of dying young. And in conflict with that, the habit of running with the scares and hiding and enduring. (I was about to make the joke from the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which Q takes Picard back to his Academy days and say "Red shirt, or Blue?"--and I realize that I'm wearing the Red shirt--my nee-Char Aznable costume shirt! The joke is on me!)

Sempai Mike called last night. I asked him my question about what actor they'd cast in the role of Khan in Star Trek. He said Cheech Marin.

What a goofball.

I bet he thinks the same thing about me, though.

Last week news broke that Khan was going to show up soon in the Star Trek movies, and I think it would be a good idea to brainstorm actors we might want to see in the role.

Viggo Mortensen?

Johnny Depp?

Sean Bean?

Antonio Banderas?

Who acting today can carry off the combination of menace, panache and (let's be honest here) studliness that Ricardo Montalban had in the role? Your thoughts.