Jeffrey’s World

Archive for the ‘SciFi’ Category

I couldn’t sleep tonight, so I decided to take on a mission in Star Trek Online… seems I bit off more than I could chew on that one.

Oh, it started off just fine. In fact, I had no problems at all until the end of the mission, when one of the Klingons turned out to be an Undine shapeshifter and it sent me up against an Undine dreadnought and four frigates. Alone. In a light cruiser. Oh, yeah, that ended well… after getting my @$$ thoroughly kicked about a dozen times, I finally dropped the mission; I’ll have to try it again once I’ve got a (much) bigger ship.

But, alas, I couldn’t end the night like that. Despite the fact that it was by this point nearly 2 am, I still couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to end the game on a sour note. So I took on a simple patrol mission. Patrolled four systems. Simple stuff. Ended up getting promoted from Lieutenant 4 to Lieutenant 5. Unfortunately, now it’s 3am, I still can’t sleep, and my alarm’s going off in 3 hours so I can be awake by 8, out the door by 8:30, and in class by 9…

Open Beta is over, and now Star Trek Online is in “Head Start” for all of us who pre-ordered the game, giving us the opportunity to get a head start before the game officially launches on Tuesday.

In the Open Beta, I planted my tongue firmly in cheek and named my character Captain Dunsel, a tip of the hat to the classic Star Trek episode “The Ultimate Computer.” This time, however, I was somewhat more serious. As in the Open Beta, I named my ship the U.S.S. John Rodgers, after my ancestor and the U.S. Navy vessels likewise named in his honor, but my character was decidedly different. Now that the game is launching, several new options are available, and more will be available on Tuesday; I used the option to make my character a liberated Borg drone named Thirteen of Forty-Seven. Okay, so there’s still a bit of in-joke in the name, but it’s not as readily apparent. At least I didn’t name him Forty-Two of Forty-Seven; that would’ve just been excessive.

Today, I installed and began playing Star Trek Online, which is in Open Beta until the end of the month. I’m very impressed; Cryptic has done an outstanding job translating the world of Star Trek into game form. After only a few hours playing the game, I’m already willing to shell out the cash for a Lifetime Subscription when it goes live in a couple weeks. It’s really that good.

Because it’s Open Beta, our settings won’t be retained when it switches over, leaving us to be somewhat whimsical with our name choices if we desire. One of my friends, Winston, decided to use the opportunity to name his ship the USS Lollypop (It’s a good ship, he insists). I decided to give a nod to the Original Series by naming my character Captain Dunsel. TOS fans will get the joke immediately. I was somewhat more serious with my ship name, the USS John Rodgers; there have been two US Navy ships with that name, in honor of one of my ancestors. I may reuse it when STO goes live; I haven’t decided yet.

Anyone who’s also playing in the Open Beta, I invite you to send me a friend request. My username is @jharlan1977.

Qa’pla!

For the midterm in my Speech class, we were required to give an 8-minute informative speech on a topic of our choice, and were urged to pick unusual topics. Naturally, I picked zombies, and eventually presented a history of zombies in pop culture. Here’s the outline of my speech.
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OK, the numbers floating around for the size of the Enterprise in the new movie have left me feeling like something wasn’t right. The ship just didn’t seem to be quite that big in the film. So, using my trusty ruler and my Playmates model of the new ship, coupled with the knowledge that the viewscreen/window on the Bridge is 26 feet (thanks, Gizmodo!)…

The bridge window is 1/2 inch long on the model. So 1 inch = 52 feet. The model is 18 inches long. Therefore, the ship is actually 936 feet (285 meters) long. Which is about the same size as the original.

See, kids? It pays to pay attention in math class.

Like I mentioned the other day, the Enterprise in the new Star Trek movie is flippin’ huge. Like, monstrously so. Well, someone’s gone and done a graphic representation of how ginormous it is, comparing it visually not only to the old movie Enterprise (which was about the same size as the original), but also to the International Space Station, a Corellian Corvette (from Star Wars), the Battlestar Galactica, and a Colonial Viper. And it’s bigger than all of ‘em. Check it out:

http://gizmodo.com/5253324/how-big-is-the-new-enterprise-compared-to-the-old-one

An interview with ILM co-visual effects supervisor Russell Earl at TrekToday states that the length of the Enterprise in Star Trek is 2,357 feet, or about 785.67 yards (718.4 meters). That’s more than twice the size of the Enterprise in the original timeline (305 meters if anyone’s counting)! The length of the Narada was also revealed as five miles.

Read more at http://www.trektoday.com/content/2009/05/star-trek-xi-creating-the-magic.html

I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around the big picture of all the changes made to the timeline in the new Star Trek movie. I know, I know, why bother? But that’s the way my brain works sometimes. I’d rather worry more about if this means the events of the time travel episodes that hadn’t happened yet (from the perspective of the characters in the film) still, in fact, happen, or if the ripple in the timeline goes both ways, than to worry about how I’m going to pay my rent on the 1st now that I’m not getting a GI Bill check for June. Entertainment is about escaping your life for a while, and I’d really like to escape mine for the summer while I’m (thus far) going to be unemployed (again).
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Director/Producer JJ Abrams has taken Star Trek where it hasn’t gone before by taking it back to where it all began. Surprise; he rebooted Star Trek while no one was looking, and not only did he do it well enough that many casual fans–let alone the general public–won’t even notice, he managed to do it in-continuity with the Trek that had gone before, thanks to a clever plot involving a time-traveling villain who actually succeeds in carrying out most of his goals before he can be stopped, forever altering the history of Star Trek that has been built up over the past four decades. From this point on, as the film makes painfully clear, anything goes.

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I was at the BX today and found the coolest Optimus Prime figure I’ve ever seen:

It’s the “War Within” design from the comic of the same name, set soon after Optimus Prime was given the Matrix, so he doesn’t have a human-based vehicle mode. It’s die-cast metal like the original toys in the 80s, and unlike the statues released of this design, it actually transforms into the Cybertronian vehicle mode. Best of all, it was only $15!