So To Speak
Your Humble Scribe went along to the cinema back in 2015 to watch "The Martian" in the flesh, so to speak, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was the film adaptation from Andy Weir's novel of the same name. Andy Weir of the very self-same "Project Hail Mary" which we have read of late. Art!
Mr. Weir is a sci-fi author who attempts to bring real-world chops and credits to his pretend world, and whom wrote TM as an attempt to be as close to real-world as possible.
Well yes.
Of course - obviously! - we would not be here if Conrad and the BOOJUM! collective did not have an alternative point of view to get across.
Mister Weir's version of Mars does not accord with the landscape as determined by the earlier exploratory missions from Zero X. Art!
This is the Martian Rock Snake, a creature composed of silicon allotropes, which spits explosive venom, in order to kill and consume it's prey. Andy deals with this life-form by completely ignoring it, perhaps as a result of his Maresnaut living and working in a completely different timezone - compare his background with that of the Zero X. Where Thund
ANYWAY one of the acknowledged failures in TM, both in print and celluloid, is back at the beginning of the crisis, where the Ares mission to Mars encounters trouble thanks to weather.
Here an aside. Yes, already! Whose blog is it?
Thank you.
No, really, thank you so much.
Can I continue?
Once again, thank you so much.
Your Humble Scribe walked into Royton - a.k.a. 'Lesser Sodom' - this afternoon, being well aware that he'd also have to walk out of Lesser Sodom, thanks to First Bus being on strike. Indeed it was a long, wet walk, more along the lines of extensive spitting rather than a real rain. Wet overall. This has nothing to do with Mars, I just thought you'd like to know. Art!
The theme here is weather. What you see above is the centre of Royton during a period of what we call 'rain', or 'British Summer' weather, where the prevailing winds bring in copious amounts of rain. With more poetry and less meteorological chops, Conrad has in the past dubbed this "The Atlantic paying a call".
I know you're itching to discern where this interacts with TM, and it's quite simple: the initial storm, that threatens to dismount the Ares lander - Art!
Ares Ascent Vehicle
Reeling back a year or two (Steely Dan in-joke for you!), this is the return Martian vehicle to the orbiting Ares spaceship, which those Ares crewmembers on the surface of Mars need to get back to. At a critical point in the original mission a storm hits the Ares Ascent Vehicle, which begins to tilt. There is a critical point in this tilt-schedule, beyond which the AAS cannot launch successfully, so people are on the tenterhooks of themselves tenterhooks, waiting for things to go as pear-shaped as a shaped pear can get. Art!
Jessica looking very fine in a <redacted>
The thing is, as other experts on Mars have pointed out, that the original 'storm' that hit the Ares AAV is way, way, waaaaaaay overpowered. In reality the storm would have hit with about 1% of the cinematic force, thanks to things like O I dunno Real Life and Physics. Thus no over-pitching of the AAV nor the kebab-trauma of Mark Wayney.
Which would, admissedly, make for a very short film. Mind you, we wouldn't need to suffer the Mission Commander's DREADFUL taste in music. That right there has to be reportable to the ICC, right?
Deep Purple "Some stupid with a flare gun ..."
"The War Illustrated"
We've not had any of these illustrations for a while. Bear in mind that these bi-weekly publications were putting across the achievements of the official war machine. By the time we are now archiving, which is early to mid 1944, the war has definitely swung in favour of the Allies in both Europe and Asia. We may have to go back to look at 1940 and 1941 and see what valectdorian value can be wrung from same.
This picture has an incredibly nuanced background. During the Second Unpleasantness, there was an internal Unpleasantness in Yugoslavia, where the locals fought against each other and their occupiers and both at the same time. Perfidious Albion, long skilled at picking out the precursor in a pack of progenitors, picked Tito. They prevailed. This created a bit of a problem for the Sinisters for the next 50 years.
Speaking Of A Loss
As is liberty, one also needs to know that the dictator of Belarus, whom Conrad has long known as "The Fat Controller", is also trying to follow alongside his pal in the Kremlin, whom regards Lukashenko with all the charm and welcome of a pubic louse. Neither likes each other nor gets on with each other, so hearing that the Wagner mercenaries whom are present in Belarus in large numbers - O tigers and lions and bears!
Not to mention that, a la The Fat Controller, you cannot now move between different agricultural enterprises in Belarus. Unless The Fat Controller allows it. This, lest you be unaware, hails back to the more strident days of the Sinister Union.
Can you say Sinister Union 2.1?
"I had these two cats, see, and I only needed one, see, so I SLAMMED THEM TOGETHER - "
"City In The Sky"
The Doctor has managed, either despite or because of the devastation taking place on Earth below him, to get access to those who can help and understand.
‘That’s the first
theatre-range missile salvo from
Ace looked at the big, colourful graphics
on the virtual displays, with labels carefully indicating a series of launches
from Quang-Jing. Another set of pulsing
yellow lines were reaching across
On several lower screens, the scanners
showed video feeds from terrestrial broadcasts and transliterated radio
scripts. There were shots of soldiers
marching, soldiers digging-in, tanks, jets and big missile-carrying submarines.
The
panoply of war. Marching to Armageddon,
mused the Doctor. He took in the
different screens at a sweep, before realising that Mizz Branson had stopped
looking at the screens and now looked at both the new arrivals. Indicating outside with a flick of her head,
she followed them out.
‘Is it getting worse?’ asked Nat, to a
slow nod.
Welllll the Doc can hardly make matters worse, can he?
Finally -
Hmmmmm time for bed, as Zebedee said.
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