FASA miniatures: an odd request

 AARRRGH, art, blather, history, Hmm..., science fiction, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jan 152023
 

Back in the mid 80’s, one of the things I got a kick out of was the FASA Star Trek starship combat game. Not just the game itself, but all the books and miniatures that went along with it. I bought, assembled and painted a number of the little metal ships, and have tried to keep them through all the decades since… but through numerous moves and general attrition and entropy, a bunch of the ships have vanished. Recently I’ve had an itch to take the ones I’ve got, strip their decades old paint and try again, and to replace the ones I’ve lost. I’ve looked for replacements on ebay with limited success. Most of what’s available are still in their packages, which means the prices are nuts, and the ones I really want to replace haven’t popped up.

 

So… does anyone have a collection of these things – or even just one – that you want to unload for a reasonable sum? If so, let me know.

 

 

Also: am I alone in having an attachment to these lead/pewter miniatures that simply doesn’t exist for plastic ones, including modern 3D printed versions? There just seems to be something special about them. Perhaps it’s the weight… and perhaps it’s the fact that these were what I had when my brain was developing connections that have ossified since I became an adult. I’d accept either or both explanations, but the fact remains: metal > plastic.

 

 Posted by at 1:46 pm

“Chrome Lords”

 art, awesomeness, history, Hmm..., science, science fiction, youtube  No Responses »
Jan 072023
 

The title of this YouTube video claims that “Chrome Lords” was a 1988 movie that ripped off “RoboCop” and “Terminator.” But in fact “Chrome Lords” never existed. The video is ten minutes of “stills” from a movie that never was… all the images were produced by an AI. And other than places where it looks like AI/CGI, it *does* rather look like one of those schlocky 1980’s crapfest movies. So, well done. But here’s the thing… give it a few years (5? 10? 20?) and someone will have an AI take a few text prompts and spit out a full script, feed these images and the new script into another AI… and shazam, “Chrome Lords” will exist as an actual 90 minute horrible movie. But who – if anyone – will own the copyright?

 

 Posted by at 11:53 pm

This is beautiful

 art, awesomeness, Hmm..., science fiction, youtube  No Responses »
Jan 042023
 

The last ten years or so have seen massive denigration of long-established fandoms. Star Trek, Star Wars, LotR, etc. These fandoms have deep and beloved lore, and many of the modern producers simply don’t care. Why respect the canon, when there is a message to deliver?

 

Fortunately, this is not always the case. Sam Witwer is an actor probably best known for voice acting. He’s voiced Darth Maul in the “Clone Wars” and “Rebels” series, and “Starkiller” in the “Force Unleashed” video game, where he also did motion capture. It’s that latter one that’s of interest here. Turns out that he was knowledgeable in Star Wars lore, and knew how to apply that knowledge… and the director of the game knew to respect that. (This was a 2008 release, before the modern age of garbage; but witness Henry Cavill’s love of Warcraft 40K secured him a post-DCU future.) Behold:

 

 Posted by at 3:41 am

The constantly evolving “Enzmann Starship”

 aircraft, blather, history, Hmm..., Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, projects, rockets, science fiction, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 022023
 

The “Enzmann Starship” is named after Robert Enzmann, who “designed” it decades ago. Just exactly *when* has been an issue of some confusion in recent years.

It first came to light in the late 60’s or early 70’s, with claims that he thought it up around 1964 or so. The design is unique: a giant spherical ball of frozen deuterium fuel at the front, followed by a cylindrical ship, ending with a series of Orion-style nuclear pulse engines. It was an *ok* concept for a practical starship, though relatively recent analysis presented in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society argued that it was not nearly as good as imagined. It became something of a sensation in the 70’s after appearing on the cover of “Analog” in 1973.

Nothing has ever been produced, so far as I’m aware, backing up the concept with any sort of detailed design of analysis until that JBIS paper. No reports, proposals, pages of math, from Enzmann seem to be available… just text descriptions of a few sentences and some art. And that’s fine. But in recent years the claims have become more and more expansive. Enzmann, near the end of his life, claimed that the design for a nuclear-pulse vehicle dated not from the time of the Orion program, but back to the *40’s*.

I spoke to Enzmann on the phone a few times over the years. He was enthusiastic, verbose… and baffling. He made lots and lots of claims about having worked on this or that amazing program, but when asked for verifiable details… it was classified. Those who have picked up his mantle and are trying to carry his torch seem to be following in his footsteps there, continuing his claims without much apparent criticism. I’ve recently engaged their twitter contact to get some sort of verification of his claims… but we have now reached the point where not only am I convinced that no such evidence will be produced, I feel no reason to assume anything remarkable is true at all. Behold:

Claiming that nuclear powered aircraft were actually built in the fifties and then buried in a mountain? Yeah… no. I’m out.

 

Where the thread started:

 Posted by at 11:06 pm

Putin’s War

 blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire, science fiction, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 182022
 

Yes, I’m shocked too… I’m linking to a New York times article that is both interesting and informative:

 

Putin’s War

A Times investigation based on interviews, intercepts, documents and secret battle plans shows how a “walk in the park” became a catastrophe for Russia.

 

For no readily apparent reason, YouTube of late has been tossing videos at me that suddenly started focusing on people reading aloud stories posted on Reddit (handy for when I’ve been working on the cyanotypes). In particular, “HFY” stories… “Humanity F Yeah!” stories, science fiction short tales featuring, generally, aliens deciding to attack dumb ol’ weak humanity and getting their asses handed to them by those hairless monkeys who turn out to be *insanely* capable in the art of war. They are generally fun little tales… usually not *great* by any stretch, often fairly bad by the usual measures of such things, but entertaining. And the idea that Plucky Humans could save the day against galaxy-spanning ravening hordes and evil empires is always fun. But then I read stuff like this NYT article describing the state of the Russian war machine and war effort.

Yes, sometimes humans can be spectacularly expert at the art of war. But often we are phenomenally incompetent. If the Russia that launched this war against Ukraine was the standard of human military capability, even the most mediocre and half-assed alien invasion fleet would mop up Mankind in a lazy afternoon.

 Posted by at 10:10 am

This will put a smile on your face

 art, awesomeness, science fiction, youtube  No Responses »
Dec 072022
 

If you want to get your soul crushed, try to display a classical talent before an audience composed of modern high school kids. “Disrespect” won’t begin to cover it.

So prepare to be surprised as this kid manages to get an auditorium of his classmates to fall into utter silence as he plays the theme from “Interstellar” on the piano. It’s not perfect, but damn it’s good.

 

 Posted by at 12:28 pm
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