Books, Cartoons, and Battlestar, (and now April Comics)
Let's start with Battlestar Galactica. I've come up with a theory about what's going on, and, since it will be spoilery for the newest eps, and theoretically if correct, might (but probably not) spoil upcoming stuff. Some of you may have heard some of this before.
If Earth was supposed to be, y'know, _Earth_, our Earth, then that means the Cylons there couldn't know they were Cylons. (Maybe they weren't even always Cylons, either. Remember, the Colonies worship the Greek gods, the Cylons are monotheist. Theoretically, the fall of the ancient greek religion and the eventual adoption of monotheism by much of the Western World, might have been a result of Cylons eventually, gradually, taking over after the gradual collapse of the civilization. But then, it's just as likely that the HumanityCylons started out with the old religion and then after they lost their memory of their origins, drifted in different directions, so it's not all that relevant).
Anyway, if we're the Cylons, means certain Cylon things, like uploading and being recreated in new bodies, were unknown to them, except again in myth and religion, not in fact like the ColonyCylons.
At least, that's the case for as much of their history as _we_ share. After all, the apocalypse would be in our future, after we've developed Centurion-style cylons of our own.
So, let's say, we as humanityCylons, start to upgrade ourselves, through our technology. Create centurions, primitive AIs. Maybe the cutting edge is done by only a secret group, lead by Ellen. They find a way to make the old, inherited 'uploading' technology, long forgotten and dormant active again. Or maybe they create it from scratch.
Except they do it in a different way. Upon death, instead of downloading into new bodies, uploads go directly into a huge AI, that is as far above humans as we are above ants. They not only join the Cylon god, in a very real sense, they _create_ the Cylon god. Maybe individuals still exist in a Heaven-state, maybe not, but whatever the case, there's an AI that is only getting smarter.
That's the Singularity, the development of an AI smarter than us, and capable of improving itself, and when it happens, the world changes in ways humans can't predict or even comprehend. So maybe they weren't attacked from outside, they were attacked from within, with the express purpose of killing, and uploading, as many people as fast as possible (even if most of them were unaware of the plan), to give the newly generated AI the vast intelligence it wanted fast.
The Cylon God, once created and 'stable' (no more surviving on Earth), turns its attentions to the wider universe. Now, this Cylon God is, of course, very intelligent. So intelligent, in fact, that it can both predict and influence vast systems, such as the human development over the 12 colonies, sort of like psychohistory in the Asimov stories. They are responsible for the prophecies that have been throughout the series. They not only created them, they brought them into being. All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again. Maybe they even have some rudimentary control over time. Whatever the case, they engineered the creation of the new Cylons (and the Hybrids who are probably not just a hybrid of ship and cylon, but a hybrid of Cylon-God and ColonyCylon), and probably pushed them to exterminate the human race.
The final five were old-style humans, rewritten to belong to the 12 colonies, re-embodied, and chosen to infiltrate the fleet and be in the right place in the right time for the endgame, which is leading the survivors of humanity to Earth.
Perhaps Starbuck got captured and uploaded because she died on Earth (or maybe the gas giant has a similar device), and Cylon resurrection isn't actually limited to Cylons. It's just _optimized_ for them. Anyone who's in the right place when they die can be captured. They knew she would reach this point. So she became part of their plans, and was reimbodied, despite not technically being a Cylon. Maybe there was a Mind-Capture device on the 12 colonies, too, all to give more minds to the Cylon God.
The actual goal of the Cylon God? Well, properly speaking, considering it is the creation of a Singularity culture, it's plots would be somewhat incomprehensible, but that doesn't usually play well on TV. But presumably it wants the end of the human race (as Starbuck is to lead them to), perhaps all of them to be uploaded and to be the next stage of evolution from there. Maybe the last Battlestar is all a simulation anyway. Or maybe the Cylon god needs to be opposed.
(By the way, if the last Cylon's not a fakeout? That means _another_ Cylon who is a Canadian actor! We are your replacements! ;)
On to cartoons. Over the weekend, I watched several (mostly because my net was down sunday morning but I had them already).
Wolverine and the X-Men, ep 14. Another Wolverine centered episode. Some interesting choices, and a smile now and then, but as always, I don't much care when he's the focus. Introduction of an expected character, too.
Hulk vs. Thor. This actually seemed more like an episode of a hypothetical, lost, Thor series than a true crossover. (minimal spoilers) It takes place almost entirely in Asgard, with Loki having summoned Banner, in order to release the Hulk on Asgard and kill Thor while Odin sleeps. It's okay, even though I'm not much of a Thor fan, it was still interesting to see a lot of the supporting characters get play. The only thing that really felt wrong was Thor's voice actor, he struck me as a little too... noble and refined. I always thought that, despite his archaic speech, Thor was (or should be, anyway), a little more rough around the edges. Still, fun enough for 45 minutes, I guess, even if it was a lot of punching and stuff.
And, Hulk vs. Wolverine. This one is supposedly a prequel to the Wolverine and the X-Men series. I'm not 100% sure it works (a few potential continuity blips). But really, it's only okay. (Some minor spoilers, characters that appear). It starts out as a fight between the two title characters, but then some of Wolverine's old Weapon X team comes between them, wanting to use both of them. We see Lady Deathstryke, Omega Red, Sabretooth, and Deadpool. Yep. And he is clearly the standout of the whole 'movie' (it's about 35 minutes long), stealing almost every scene he's in and voice-acted very well. "I think we lost him!". Based on this, I'd like to see a solo Deadpool cartoon. If not for him, I'd have ranked the movie as pretty dull, in fact... even the WatXM Wolvie vs Hulk episode was better... but with him it was pretty good, although, again, short. In fact, the story doesn't so much end as stop. Mid-fight, no less. It's a little odd and jarring.
One minor thing of interest is that there is blood, which is a little refreshing in a cartoon, and particularly a Wolverine one. It's always a little odd when your most popular character has razor sharp claws and a violent personality, but somehow only ever manages to cut through walls or robots, but never hurting anybody. It'd be nice if they were a little more consistent about it (plenty of times Wolverine stabs somebody and an instant later his claws are gleaming clean), but it's there. A few severed limbs, too.
If you do watch this, be sure to watch past the end of the credits.
And, the first Book Foo of 2009!
Finished: Wild Cards, Vol 6: Ace in the Hole, edited by George R. R. Martin (reread)
Started: Wild Cards, Vol 7: Dead Man's Hand, by George R. R. Martin and John J. Miller (reread)
Some brief comments on AitH behind the cut, some spoilers.
Ace in the Hole takes place at the 1988 Democractic Convention, where the race is the
tightest it's been in quite a while. The frontrunner is Greg Hartmann, advocate of
Joker's Rights and friend to most of the main characters of the Wild Cards books. And,
unbeknownst to all of them, a secret ace who can manipulate the minds and emotions of
anybody he touches, through a dark personality he calls Puppetman. Puppetman feeds on
death and misery. Various characters come to either suspect Hartmann's true nature, are hired to assassinate him, or are at the convention for other reasons. One of the
problems is that if Hartmann loses, it'll likely to be Reverend Leo Barnett, outspoken
advocate for harsher laws against people infected with the Wild Card virus.
It's an interesting book, both for the main plot, and also for the 'celebrity' cameos.
Not actual celebrities (although there are a few of those, mostly news celebrities
though), but political figures. The other candidates, Al Gore, Dukakis, Reverend Jesse Jackson all play roles, the last relatively major. I don't know the rules of conventions and delegates in the US presidential nomination process, but thanks to the recent election I'm a lot more familiar with it now than the first time I read it, so it was a little interesting on that level.
As it's another mosaic novel, there are a few blips. For example, Jack Braun becomes
convinced that there's a secret ace, but that it's not Hartmann, and that another
character has proof of who it is... except this is after that other character has publicly announced Hartmann is a secret ace (because of various things, she's completely
discredited). It's hard to describe exactly, but it reads sort of like he says, 'Hmmm...she's totally crazy, but maybe there is actually a secret ace influencing things," goes on some brief investigations, realizes that she may not have been completely crazy, and yet continues to believe that she must mean some other secret ace.
It feels a little like different writers who weren't 100% on the same page where things
stood.
Still, it's one of the better ones in the series, possibly second only to the first.
On to the last WC I'll probably be rereading (unless I happen to stumble across the next volume I haven't read, but that's unlikely)
Finished: Ilium, by Dan Simmons (reread)
Started: Olympos, by Dan Simmons (reread)
Minor spoilers (mostly back of the book stuff) in a few brief comments behind the cut.
Was a pretty good book the first time, and rereads pretty well too. There's just too
much going on to remember all of it perfectly, and there are surprises borne of past misrememberings (thinking this series of events were longer). Once again, one plot in
particular interested me the most. Typical me, in a story that has Gods, the Trojan war, monsters space-travellers, and teleportation, my favorite plotline is about two robot friends, on an impossible mission, discussing Shakespeare and Proust.
But I don't have much else to say on it, because like most of Simmons' multi-part works I've read, this really doesn't stand on its own, it's the first act of two.
Oh, and an interesting trivia note you might not be aware of. Today, US President George W. Bush left office and President Barack Obama officially became the 44th President. "Former President George W. Bush"... that has a nice ring to it somehow.
Oh, and Marvel released its April Solicitations. Some quick thoughts:
Man, I know he's got a movie out, but 10 Wolverine books this month? That's just crazy.
Looks like the rumors of a new old-school New Mutants ongoing series is pretty much fact, because they're releasing "New Mutants Saga #1", one of those prose-recap-lets-get-you-up-to-speed-on-past-continuity-for-cheap issues that they often do right before a relaunch with some history. I might have to try that out, despite my lack of interest in mutant titles.
And really, the only surprise? A relaunched Exiles series, written by Jeff Parker. He's behind the First Class comics, and since I always liked Exiles basic idea, just couldn't stand to read it under certain authors, I might actually pick it up. The cast leaves a little to be desired, but in Exiles they can change quickly.
End of Ultimate Spider-Man... probably just for a relaunch. But really, the Ultimate universe died for me the day they assigned any of it to LOEB.
A new major event effecting every other title starting in the regular Spider-Man books? Please, I've had enough of your events. Unless it a) repowers mutants, or b) reverts the crap of BND, I'm not interested and am plugging my ears with my fingers and shouting la-la-la. (Okay, there's a c... adds oldschool New Universe characters to the MU proper. But that's like a million to one shot).
Dark Reign: The Cabal? Eegads, that means in my imaginary Runaways fanon universe I toy with from time to time I can't use the Cabal as the name of the new villain group that wants to take over the Pride's territory! Damn you Marvel for messing up with my imaginary runs. I suppose I'll have to ignore you!
Moore's last issue on Runaways, hope they announce a new creative team, and a good creative team, soon. Maybe Jeff Parker might be an idea, he seems capable of multiple titles and I've liked what I've seen of him short term in Scans of hisbooks.
If Earth was supposed to be, y'know, _Earth_, our Earth, then that means the Cylons there couldn't know they were Cylons. (Maybe they weren't even always Cylons, either. Remember, the Colonies worship the Greek gods, the Cylons are monotheist. Theoretically, the fall of the ancient greek religion and the eventual adoption of monotheism by much of the Western World, might have been a result of Cylons eventually, gradually, taking over after the gradual collapse of the civilization. But then, it's just as likely that the HumanityCylons started out with the old religion and then after they lost their memory of their origins, drifted in different directions, so it's not all that relevant).
Anyway, if we're the Cylons, means certain Cylon things, like uploading and being recreated in new bodies, were unknown to them, except again in myth and religion, not in fact like the ColonyCylons.
At least, that's the case for as much of their history as _we_ share. After all, the apocalypse would be in our future, after we've developed Centurion-style cylons of our own.
So, let's say, we as humanityCylons, start to upgrade ourselves, through our technology. Create centurions, primitive AIs. Maybe the cutting edge is done by only a secret group, lead by Ellen. They find a way to make the old, inherited 'uploading' technology, long forgotten and dormant active again. Or maybe they create it from scratch.
Except they do it in a different way. Upon death, instead of downloading into new bodies, uploads go directly into a huge AI, that is as far above humans as we are above ants. They not only join the Cylon god, in a very real sense, they _create_ the Cylon god. Maybe individuals still exist in a Heaven-state, maybe not, but whatever the case, there's an AI that is only getting smarter.
That's the Singularity, the development of an AI smarter than us, and capable of improving itself, and when it happens, the world changes in ways humans can't predict or even comprehend. So maybe they weren't attacked from outside, they were attacked from within, with the express purpose of killing, and uploading, as many people as fast as possible (even if most of them were unaware of the plan), to give the newly generated AI the vast intelligence it wanted fast.
The Cylon God, once created and 'stable' (no more surviving on Earth), turns its attentions to the wider universe. Now, this Cylon God is, of course, very intelligent. So intelligent, in fact, that it can both predict and influence vast systems, such as the human development over the 12 colonies, sort of like psychohistory in the Asimov stories. They are responsible for the prophecies that have been throughout the series. They not only created them, they brought them into being. All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again. Maybe they even have some rudimentary control over time. Whatever the case, they engineered the creation of the new Cylons (and the Hybrids who are probably not just a hybrid of ship and cylon, but a hybrid of Cylon-God and ColonyCylon), and probably pushed them to exterminate the human race.
The final five were old-style humans, rewritten to belong to the 12 colonies, re-embodied, and chosen to infiltrate the fleet and be in the right place in the right time for the endgame, which is leading the survivors of humanity to Earth.
Perhaps Starbuck got captured and uploaded because she died on Earth (or maybe the gas giant has a similar device), and Cylon resurrection isn't actually limited to Cylons. It's just _optimized_ for them. Anyone who's in the right place when they die can be captured. They knew she would reach this point. So she became part of their plans, and was reimbodied, despite not technically being a Cylon. Maybe there was a Mind-Capture device on the 12 colonies, too, all to give more minds to the Cylon God.
The actual goal of the Cylon God? Well, properly speaking, considering it is the creation of a Singularity culture, it's plots would be somewhat incomprehensible, but that doesn't usually play well on TV. But presumably it wants the end of the human race (as Starbuck is to lead them to), perhaps all of them to be uploaded and to be the next stage of evolution from there. Maybe the last Battlestar is all a simulation anyway. Or maybe the Cylon god needs to be opposed.
(By the way, if the last Cylon's not a fakeout? That means _another_ Cylon who is a Canadian actor! We are your replacements! ;)
On to cartoons. Over the weekend, I watched several (mostly because my net was down sunday morning but I had them already).
Wolverine and the X-Men, ep 14. Another Wolverine centered episode. Some interesting choices, and a smile now and then, but as always, I don't much care when he's the focus. Introduction of an expected character, too.
Hulk vs. Thor. This actually seemed more like an episode of a hypothetical, lost, Thor series than a true crossover. (minimal spoilers) It takes place almost entirely in Asgard, with Loki having summoned Banner, in order to release the Hulk on Asgard and kill Thor while Odin sleeps. It's okay, even though I'm not much of a Thor fan, it was still interesting to see a lot of the supporting characters get play. The only thing that really felt wrong was Thor's voice actor, he struck me as a little too... noble and refined. I always thought that, despite his archaic speech, Thor was (or should be, anyway), a little more rough around the edges. Still, fun enough for 45 minutes, I guess, even if it was a lot of punching and stuff.
And, Hulk vs. Wolverine. This one is supposedly a prequel to the Wolverine and the X-Men series. I'm not 100% sure it works (a few potential continuity blips). But really, it's only okay. (Some minor spoilers, characters that appear). It starts out as a fight between the two title characters, but then some of Wolverine's old Weapon X team comes between them, wanting to use both of them. We see Lady Deathstryke, Omega Red, Sabretooth, and Deadpool. Yep. And he is clearly the standout of the whole 'movie' (it's about 35 minutes long), stealing almost every scene he's in and voice-acted very well. "I think we lost him!". Based on this, I'd like to see a solo Deadpool cartoon. If not for him, I'd have ranked the movie as pretty dull, in fact... even the WatXM Wolvie vs Hulk episode was better... but with him it was pretty good, although, again, short. In fact, the story doesn't so much end as stop. Mid-fight, no less. It's a little odd and jarring.
One minor thing of interest is that there is blood, which is a little refreshing in a cartoon, and particularly a Wolverine one. It's always a little odd when your most popular character has razor sharp claws and a violent personality, but somehow only ever manages to cut through walls or robots, but never hurting anybody. It'd be nice if they were a little more consistent about it (plenty of times Wolverine stabs somebody and an instant later his claws are gleaming clean), but it's there. A few severed limbs, too.
If you do watch this, be sure to watch past the end of the credits.
And, the first Book Foo of 2009!
Finished: Wild Cards, Vol 6: Ace in the Hole, edited by George R. R. Martin (reread)
Started: Wild Cards, Vol 7: Dead Man's Hand, by George R. R. Martin and John J. Miller (reread)
Some brief comments on AitH behind the cut, some spoilers.
Ace in the Hole takes place at the 1988 Democractic Convention, where the race is the
tightest it's been in quite a while. The frontrunner is Greg Hartmann, advocate of
Joker's Rights and friend to most of the main characters of the Wild Cards books. And,
unbeknownst to all of them, a secret ace who can manipulate the minds and emotions of
anybody he touches, through a dark personality he calls Puppetman. Puppetman feeds on
death and misery. Various characters come to either suspect Hartmann's true nature, are hired to assassinate him, or are at the convention for other reasons. One of the
problems is that if Hartmann loses, it'll likely to be Reverend Leo Barnett, outspoken
advocate for harsher laws against people infected with the Wild Card virus.
It's an interesting book, both for the main plot, and also for the 'celebrity' cameos.
Not actual celebrities (although there are a few of those, mostly news celebrities
though), but political figures. The other candidates, Al Gore, Dukakis, Reverend Jesse Jackson all play roles, the last relatively major. I don't know the rules of conventions and delegates in the US presidential nomination process, but thanks to the recent election I'm a lot more familiar with it now than the first time I read it, so it was a little interesting on that level.
As it's another mosaic novel, there are a few blips. For example, Jack Braun becomes
convinced that there's a secret ace, but that it's not Hartmann, and that another
character has proof of who it is... except this is after that other character has publicly announced Hartmann is a secret ace (because of various things, she's completely
discredited). It's hard to describe exactly, but it reads sort of like he says, 'Hmmm...she's totally crazy, but maybe there is actually a secret ace influencing things," goes on some brief investigations, realizes that she may not have been completely crazy, and yet continues to believe that she must mean some other secret ace.
It feels a little like different writers who weren't 100% on the same page where things
stood.
Still, it's one of the better ones in the series, possibly second only to the first.
On to the last WC I'll probably be rereading (unless I happen to stumble across the next volume I haven't read, but that's unlikely)
Finished: Ilium, by Dan Simmons (reread)
Started: Olympos, by Dan Simmons (reread)
Minor spoilers (mostly back of the book stuff) in a few brief comments behind the cut.
Was a pretty good book the first time, and rereads pretty well too. There's just too
much going on to remember all of it perfectly, and there are surprises borne of past misrememberings (thinking this series of events were longer). Once again, one plot in
particular interested me the most. Typical me, in a story that has Gods, the Trojan war, monsters space-travellers, and teleportation, my favorite plotline is about two robot friends, on an impossible mission, discussing Shakespeare and Proust.
But I don't have much else to say on it, because like most of Simmons' multi-part works I've read, this really doesn't stand on its own, it's the first act of two.
Oh, and an interesting trivia note you might not be aware of. Today, US President George W. Bush left office and President Barack Obama officially became the 44th President. "Former President George W. Bush"... that has a nice ring to it somehow.
Oh, and Marvel released its April Solicitations. Some quick thoughts:
Man, I know he's got a movie out, but 10 Wolverine books this month? That's just crazy.
Looks like the rumors of a new old-school New Mutants ongoing series is pretty much fact, because they're releasing "New Mutants Saga #1", one of those prose-recap-lets-get-you-up-to-speed-on-past-continuity-for-cheap issues that they often do right before a relaunch with some history. I might have to try that out, despite my lack of interest in mutant titles.
And really, the only surprise? A relaunched Exiles series, written by Jeff Parker. He's behind the First Class comics, and since I always liked Exiles basic idea, just couldn't stand to read it under certain authors, I might actually pick it up. The cast leaves a little to be desired, but in Exiles they can change quickly.
End of Ultimate Spider-Man... probably just for a relaunch. But really, the Ultimate universe died for me the day they assigned any of it to LOEB.
A new major event effecting every other title starting in the regular Spider-Man books? Please, I've had enough of your events. Unless it a) repowers mutants, or b) reverts the crap of BND, I'm not interested and am plugging my ears with my fingers and shouting la-la-la. (Okay, there's a c... adds oldschool New Universe characters to the MU proper. But that's like a million to one shot).
Dark Reign: The Cabal? Eegads, that means in my imaginary Runaways fanon universe I toy with from time to time I can't use the Cabal as the name of the new villain group that wants to take over the Pride's territory! Damn you Marvel for messing up with my imaginary runs. I suppose I'll have to ignore you!
Moore's last issue on Runaways, hope they announce a new creative team, and a good creative team, soon. Maybe Jeff Parker might be an idea, he seems capable of multiple titles and I've liked what I've seen of him short term in Scans of hisbooks.