Ashley R. Pollard's Blog, page 8

The Tomorrow War: A Paradox

I'm now going to defend The Tomorrow War by dismantling the criticism I've seen on social media. Wish me luck. Rule number of of time travel paradox movies is that it's a paradox. As such the ending will always seem contradictory.

At the beginning of the story, travelers arrive from the future and announce they are the few remaining survivors and blah, blah, blah.

Notice that the story think skips forward by a year.

That's important.

Also remember that time continues to flow.

Therefore, any sensible response that you can think, of has happened.

For example. We now know that time travel is possible and we start researching how to make a machine, because why wouldn't you?

We also know in passing that the world's militaries rally the troops and send them forward to fight.

Yay!

A Year later the losses are horrendous.

Boo!

Thirty years of preparation go by, but guess what? The aliens don't land in a fancy spaceship, and have bred vast hordes in the faraway places, and before you know it countries start to fall.

Okay, that's a bit farfetched, but assuming no one goes nuclear, it's as plausible as World War Zombie.

The creature breed like rabbits, eat like locusts, and by the time the nuclear option is on the table it's too late.

But at least they have the time machine, and can go back and try again.

We have a hint that this has happened because the heroes daughter tells him how after he came back from his week long tour he was a changed man.

And there's the paradox.

Each time the machine is used you get a slightly different outcome until the time comes when you solve the problem.

Really, is it all that hard for people to see this?

Have at it, roast me social media.

What I've Watched

To say I've been incredibly under active, and incredibly feeling down over the last two years would be rather obvious. I've found myself rather affected by the deaths of some acquaintances, who in most cases died far too young. But, the whole world has been turned upside down, so it's not just about me.

Needless to say we have watched an incredible amount of shows on Netflix and Amazon.

Here's two that we found incredibly entertaining.

First the fun happy one. Queens Gambit, which I wasn't at first all that keen on watching. Probably down to the way it was 'sold' by Netflix with the blurb, "Orphaned at the tender age of nine, prodigious introvert Beth Harmon discovers and masters the game of chess in 1960s USA. But child stardom comes at a price."

Yeah.

Other reviews used big words like intersectionalism. Ignore them. Yes the show used the trope of drug and alcohol dependency, but it is so much more than that. It's about the passion for chess that the lead character is obsessed with, and how she overcomes problems. I like shows where characters grow by overcoming problems.

The other show that knocked my little cotton socks offs was Dark. Another Netflix show, not only made in Germany, but also in German. We watched it with subtitles, there is the option of an English dub. But, Susan has a fair grasp of German, and I soak up tone and accents from listening to foreign languages. It was how I learnt a lot of Japanese.

But that's a digression.

Dark has three seasons for a total of 26 episodes. It's a complete story, and tightly plotted. Think "By His Bootstraps' by R. A. Heinlein. I described it to a friend as a cross between The 12 Monkeys TV show, with the technical obsession of the movie Primer.

Also, the music is outstanding, both diegetic and non-diegetic (music heard by the characters and music for atmosphere and soundtrack. I loved it. Susan found it difficult to keep track of the the familial relationships, which is complicated. Not helped I imagine by the different time periods and the aging of characters by using different actors.

Regardless. Compelling viewing if you like time travel paradoxes, mysteries, and psychological dread.

Other Dimensions

I'm not qualified to answer the question. Not sure anyone is, as in can we take some theory and try to prove it/disprove it? 

Still, I like to think that we do live in a universe with more than three dimensions and time because the idea fascinates me with so many what ifs?

What ifs? are at the foundation of the SF. It is what makes SF a genre. Not mundane what ifs? But the big questions about life, the universe and everything. Cue standard response...

Things are difficult at the moment for me. So, just another post as proof of life. Enjoy.

Dark Matter: The Situation has Changed

My takeaway, caveat I'm not a physicist, this is a bit like the concept of 'wavicles' in quantum physics. So fields and particles equals fieldacles or partifields, I don't know, just saying.

Still, as some one who is interested in how science advances, it's just plain fascinating to see how theories evolve through the process of the 'scientific method.' Nothing is proven, it's only not disproven. A way of thinking that most people seem to have a hard time getting their heads around.

Only natural, as it's contrary to our normal way of thinking and how we take advantage of heuristics to save energy: from an evolutionary, Darwinian perspective thinking a lot is not maximally effective of making the best of minimal resources.

Anyway, enough bloviating.

Archived Episode 22: Another Military Sci-Fi Panel!

Now up on YouTube a podcast that I appeared on (can be heard on) from the Blasters and Blades Podcast with: Doc Cisca (Uber Book Fan and Army Medic); JR Handley (Author andGrunt); Nick Garber (Comic Book Artist andSuper Grunt).

They're talking with me Ralph Kern and Tim C. Taylor. Check it out.

Writing Log 210516

Nothing to see here. Just me recording my first week where I've tried to write everyday.

Target 400 words per day

Weekly target 2800

Monday    177

Tuesday    0

Wednesday    261

Thursday    0

Friday    0

Saturday    0

Sunday    0  

Total    438

Had a week with few spoons.

Writing Log 210509

Again, nothing to see here. Just me recording my second week where I've tried to write everyday.

Target 400 words per day

Weekly target 2800

Monday    0

Tuesday    987

Wednesday    0 (Reading research for Two Moons).

Thursday    43

Friday    175

Saturday    0

Sunday    0  

Total    1205

Starship Lands on Fifth

 

Go for launch, lands on fifth. I'm sure there would've been a good Star Wars meme had SpaceX launched Starship on the fourth of May, but to stick the landing this time is great news.

Our space ambitions are starting to look like what we imagined was possible back in 1950s during the Golden Age of SF, unless one thinks that happened earlier, or is happening now? It all depends on the definition of what makes something 'golden?'

I don't know. I'm not that smart, and who cares? It's all good.

Augmented Reality

 

The US Army's New Augmented Reality Goggles Look Like 1970s Sci-Fi is the title header. Bit what is more important is that this is the development of the 5G system I shared back here.

This is totally rocking the idea that I described in Bad Dog when the Marines are searching under the mountain trying to find the lost Special Forces team that had gone missing.

Writing Log 210502

Nothing to see here. Just me recording my first week where I've tried to write everyday.

Target 400 words per day

Weekly target 2800

Monday    0

Tuesday    443

Wednesday    268

Thursday    214

Friday    771

Saturday    695

Sunday    0  

Total    2391