#that destroyed the lives of the Donner survivors

[chuthulhu-reads]

[ID: Two panels from Dungeon Meshi. The first scows Senshi clutching his face as tears start to spill out of his eyes, saying, "I've always... always wanted to have this soup one more time." He's not wearing his helmet in this panel, so his face is unusually visible, detailed and vulnerable. The second panel shows himself as a youngster, surrounded by his old mining team, all smiling at each other, one of them rubbing Senshi's head. Modern-day Senshi continues, "Thank you. All of you. Thank you." End ID.]

Holy shit. I anticipated some tragic backstory from the "I must feed the young ones" panels, but what I'd guessed was that Senshi might have become so devoted to cooking and eating literally whatever because he'd previously survived a famine and had seen children starve to death. I did not expect him to have been the child who was the sole survivor of a doomed travel party, one of whom was determined to feed Senshi first because he was the youngest, and that Senshi has lived with the fear of having inadvertently committed cannibalism by eating stew that he'd never quite known the contents of. I'm happy for him that Laios deduced and confirmed for him that it was griffin meat, that he was able to taste the meal that saved his life once more and remember the friends he lost. Seriously, I'm crying, and also earnestly relieved that while his backstory is pretty dark, it's not the type of fucked up I'd been preparing myself mentally for.

[tomwambsmilk]

The thing about the Donner Party is that while most people know about the cannibalism, it's only one small part of a fascinating and complex and horrific saga about a variety of different people of different temperaments and personalities and from different socieconomic backgrounds navigating an extreme catastrophe together. So much of the drama of the story is rooted in the interplay of various types of human strength and weakness and the sometimes surprising outcomes of that interplay.

There's the trading post owner who destroyed letters warning the Donner Party to turn back so it wouldn't hurt the business at his trading post. There's the man who was banished for killing another in an altercation - and that banishment saved lives when he made it out of the mountain pass and was able to organize the first relief parties. There were families who collected 'debts' owed them by other members by taking the last of what they had to eat, and there were families who took them in and fed them from their own supplies. There were parents who lay down in despair and ignored the children in their care and there were parents who hoped against hope and played the fiddle to entertain and distract their starving children. There were 'rescuers' who took advantage of the survivors' desperation and extorted money from them only to abandon the children they were tasked with saving, and there were rescuers so determined to save the families they found dying in the snow that they brought the debilitated children down the trail piecemeal, carrying one for a few hundred meters and then going back for the next.

And yes, there was also cannibalism - there were men who left camp and committed murder for cannibalism and then returned to save their families only to discover their families had been cannibalized. There were young children who survived only because their mother fed them the remains of their father. There was a german immigrant with an unpleasant temper and a debilitating injury that left him unable to walk who might have murdered some of his desperate and dying companions so that he could eat them, or maybe he simply ate the already dead out of desperation and was vilified for it because of his immigrant status, or maybe the actual truth is somewhere in the middle.

The point is that the story of the Donner Party is a deeply human drama with ripe thematic potential and it's a shame that there's very little good historical fiction about it and somebody should really fix that. Terror season 3 I'm looking at you

sorry boss I can't come to work today I'm too busy thinking about the Donner Party

[spartanblacksmith]

The Battle of the Pirate Galleon

Stellaris Story.

Captain's log, Star-date: September 22, 2301

Location: Erak System

The blasted thing wouldn't die.

We hit it with munitions the size of a bus.

Our fighters have been dogfighting for days with the pirates.

We've lost 3 destroyers and 5 corvettes.

Our 2 artillery cruisers are battering the beast while the other 2 line cruisers stand with the rest of the fleet of 7 destroyers and 9 corvettes to battle it and the Old Veterans in close combat.

Admiral Donner and Admiral Reginald are nowhere to be seen, as well as their fleets.

But Admiral Sera and the Torque fleet is nowhere near finished. How we get here, well...

When humanity took to the stars, we were ecstatic, thrilled about what lay beyond. We were young and naive, unknowingly walking into a dangerous universe.

We had just colonized our third planet in the Charlie system when they attacked.

The Young Bloods. A pirate fleet filled with corvettes. They attacked Charlie planet, and we couldn't get reinforcements to them until they were 80% devastated. But as soon as we got their, we cleaned up the rag-tag fleet and the survivors emergency jumped. To where, well, we'd find out soon enough.

One of our science ships found the pirate hideout in the Erak system. They were dumbfounded by what they found, and barely escaped with their lives. A whole pirate battle station, sitting just 4 jumps away from our home planet. It housed 2 fleets.

The Young Bloods that raided Charlie and an Old Veteran fleet that the brass figured was in charge of defending the system. They thought this since the fleet never went on a raid ever since it was discovered.

But the real monster, the real threat, was the Galleon. While the other 2 fleets sported ships no more threatening than our own corvettes and destroyers, this thing was different. The size of a planet, it had so many guns and fighters, no one could overpower it without significant numbers on your side.

Command decided that we would have to expand around Erak and deal with the raids when they came around.

After 100 years after our people went to space, we had formed the borders with the alien neighbors. Our claim was pretty sizable (36 systems), with 3 planets and 4 colony's, with 2 avenues in and out in our northern and southern borders.

Our Klanaxian neighbors of the north had just struck an alliance with us, and a lot of treaty's came with it. They started trading some of their military tech and strength for some overabundant resources and farming tech we had.

With this, Admiral Sera was one step closer to the Erak Raid.

It was a raid that our fleets had been preparing for the past 60 years. Strategies. Positions. Maneuvers. Maintenance.

We had 2 fleets of our own. The Torque fleet, commanded by Admiral Sera, and the Engine fleet, commanded by Admiral Donner.

The Engine fleet was the first fleet of our planet. Made up of nearly 50 corvettes, it has been well maintained for 100 years of service. Commanded by Admiral Donner for 50 years, this fleet has kept watch over Earth, and defended it successfully during the Kor'vur Assault.

The Torque fleet, the one I serve in as captain of a destroyer, was made up of 15 destroyers and 20 corvettes. Commanded by Admiral Sera for 15 years, our fleet has been in charge of guarding the southern border from the Kor'vur empire.

My destroyer, the S.S. Silver-lance, was a lazer/kinetic hybrid ship. Not the fanciest, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

During the war with them 12 years ago, we took planet after planet while Donner held off their assault. We won after they surrendered.

I'm getting off topic.

Admiral Sera, I, and the other captain's were walking though mission command during a retrofit run on Alpha station, next to Earth. Donners fleet was also there, getting retrofit as well.

The 2 admirals and the captain's gathered for a meeting with command.

In the room was command and some greenhorn officer, Reginald.

He was being promoted to admiral and is to be given a fleet. Our navy size could be expanded since our facilities grew and out tech got better. Brilliant, we all thought, a third fleet.

But the news was even better. The egg-heads had designed cruisers for our empire, based on some tech the Klanaxian's gave us. Far bigger than the destroyer I currently sit on.

Command wanted us to reconfigure all three fleets to better suit all needs, but Donner and Sera refused. They felt more comfortable with the ships they've served with for so many years. Very well. But a few ships we're still exchanged.

Donners fleet became 46 corvettes and 1 artillery cruiser.

Our fleet became 10 destroyers, 14 corvettes, 2 artillery, and 2 line cruisers.

Then the third fleet, the Nitro fleet, was made up of a total of 8 cruisers, 4 destroyers, and 10 corvettes.

One destroyer, the S.S. Trident, from our fleet was volunteered to be removed from the formation and given his own task in the raid. Brave S.O.B.

Why am I bothering with all these numbers, you may ask? It gets important down the line.

After all was settled, Admiral Sera asked command if they were going to accept her request. They did. The Erak Raid was on.

It sat right in the middle of our space, constantly attacking planet Charlie and it's star-fort. Even assisted the Kor'vur attacking it.

Soon, we would eradicate it. But it came with risk. After all, even with our new cruisers and upgraded equipment, we only now match them in battle power.

But the two Admirals have been preparing for a long time. They taught Reginald and his captain's their plan.

It was supposed to be a three way assault. First, the S.S. Trident would swing by the 2 pirate fleets and get their attention with a few pot shots.

He would them pull them to the jump point, away from the enemy star-base and the galleon, in which Reginald would hop in to the point and attack them. It was expected the cruisers would carry enough firepower for the job.

Donner would then hop through a second point and charge the star-base and take it out, then swing around to Reginald and rout the pirate fleets.

Sera's task was to engage the Galleon and keep it's attention all through the battle until all of the fleets joined and eliminated the Galleon. Yay for me.

It should have worked. It was so easy. But we should've known. All plans go out the airlock upon first contact.

On the day of August 17, the Erak raid began.

The Trident took the pot shots and was leading the Young Bloods and the Old Veterans away, then the Torque fleet hopped in and engaged the Galleon. It was so much bigger than I could have imagined.

I hear the order to fire. I ordered all gunners to fire, all fighters from my hanger to engage, and all crew to battle stations. It would be a long haul.

We get reports that Reginald has engaged and that Donner is approaching the base. All good so far. Until it wasn't.

Reginald's fleet loses a corvette. I knew their captain, good man. It was rough, but it was war. These things happen. However, Reginald panicked. He went off the book and ordered his cruisers to fall back while his smaller ships kept them engaged.

Command would not look upon his cowardly actions with mercy. Especially with what happened next. Donner had just engaged the star-fort when the pirate fleets descended on him. The Torque fleet could only watch as the Engine fleet is caught between the anvil and the hammer.

This earned some harsh words from Admiral Sera, telling him not to do it. But he ignores her advice. By the time his cruisers are in position, he's lost all 10 corvettes. The fool lost the lives of several of my friends with his incompetence. I'd have shot him myself if I had the chance. Then the enemy starts circling his cruisers, firing all they can.

If he had remained calm, he would have won. He was still battle ready. But Admiral Reginald ordered a full emergency retreat of his fleet, despite his objective unfulfilled.

Donners fleet still did well. They destroyed the Young blood fleet and shut down the star-fort. But before he could escape, Admiral Donners cruiser was destroyed by the Old Veterans. All hands lost.

Then the pirates turned to us.

Which brings us to today, 25 days into the Erak Raid. 8 ships are down, 20 still standing.

My ship has sustained some damage, but it has already healed thanks to our regenerative armor. The majority of the fleet is still engaged with the Galleon. I'm leading a battle-group of 3 destroyers, flying though the Old Veterans Fleet, trying to hit their flagship. After this attack, it should be done.

Weapons ready they tell me. Fire, I order.

I watch out the window as the mentions travel, hitting the side of the Pirate Flagship. It explodes with splendor. Must have hit a ammo storage unit.

After this, the Old Veterans Fleet turns tail and activates emergency jump measures.

Then, me and my battle group turn back to the Galleon, covered in craters. The fleet is circling it like wasps to a giant. We join the fun. Admiral Sera commends us on our small victory, avenging Admiral Donner.

Shells fly, impacts all over the ships shields, the corpses of our fellow ships haunt the space around us, but we press on.

So many volleys of lazer-shot, you'd think it would melt of pure heat from the guns. So many missiles, you could almost hear them explode in the vacuum of space. We were even running out of fuel and ammo for the fighters.

No one knows which shell it was. Whose fighter. Whose lazer-shot. But the massive ship explodes into a flurry of fire and scrap. Our ship shakes and several officers fall out of their chairs due to the shockwave. It quiets down and we look upon the scrapyard that used to be the Galleon.

We clap. We cheer. We jump with joy. It's over. We won.

The construction ships jump into the system to build the mining stations and the star-base.

We pick up the survivors of the destroyed ships of our fleet. Then the Torque fleet heads back to Alpha Station to be repaired.

Unfortunately, only 3 corvettes of the Engine fleet survived the battle. Admiral Donner is confirmed dead.

Reginald's fleet arrives the next day.

He is immediately stripped of rank, dishonorably discharged, and sent to the brig. As for the Nitro fleet, Admiral Sera recommends me for the position.

I accept, with one condition. The S.S. Silver-lance will be my Flagship.

[loretranscripts]

Lore Episode 29: The Big Chill (Transcript) - 7th March 2016

tw: graphic violence

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

Some places are more frightening than others. It’s hard to nail down a specific reason why, but even so, I can’t think of a single person who might disagree. Some places just have a way of getting under your skin. For some it’s the basement, for others it’s the local graveyard. I even know people who are afraid of certain colours. Fear, it seems, is a landmine that can be triggered by almost anything, and while history might be full of hauntingly tragic stories that span a variety of settings and climates, the most chilling ones – literally – are those that take place in the harsh environment of winter: the incident at Dyatlov Pass; the tragedy of the Donner party; even the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 took place in the freezing waters of the north Atlantic. Winter, it seems, is well equipped to end lives and create fear, and when I think of dangerous winters, I think of Maine, that area of New England on the northern frontier. If you love horror, you might equate Maine with Stephen King, but even though he’s tried hard over the last few decades to make us believe in Derry and Castle Rock and Salem’s Lot, the state has enough danger on its own. Maine is also home to nearly 3500 miles of coastline, more than even California, and that’s where the real action happens. The Maine coastline is littered with thousands of small islands, jagged rocks, ancient lighthouses and even older legends, and all in the cold north, where the sea is cruel and the weather can be deadly. It’s often there, in the places that are isolated and exposed, that odd things happen, things that seem born of the circumstances and climate, things that leave their mark on the people there – things that would never happen on the mainland. And if the stories are to be believed, that’s a good thing. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

The coastline of Maine isn’t as neat and tidy as other states’. Don’t picture sandy beaches and warm waves that you can walk through; this is the cold north, the water is always chilly and the land tends to emerge from the waves as large, jagged rocks. Go ahead and pull up a map of Maine on your phone, I’ll wait. You’ll see what I mean right away – this place is dangerous, and because of that, ships have had a long history of difficulty when it comes to navigating the coast of Maine. Part of that is because of all the islands - they’re everywhere. According to the most recent count, there are over 4,600 of them, scattered along the coastal waters like fragments of a broken bottle. One such fragment is Seguin Island. It’s only three miles from the mainland, but it’s easy to understand how harsh winter weather could isolate anyone living there very quickly, and when you’re the keeper of the lighthouse there, that isolation comes with the job. The legend that’s been passed down for decades there is the story of a keeper from the mid-1800s. According to the tale, the keeper was newly married and, after moving to the island with his bride, they both began to struggle with the gulf between their lives there and the people on the coast. So, to give his wife something to do with her time – and maybe to get a bit of entertainment out of it for himself – the keeper ordered a piano for her. They say it was delivered during the autumn, just as the winter chill was creeping in. In the story, it had to be hoisted up the rock face, but that’s probably not true; Seguin is more like a green hill pretruding from the water than anything else but, hey, it adds to the drama, right? And that’s what these old stories provide –plenty of drama. When the piano arrived the keeper’s wife was elated, but buyer’s remorse quickly set in. You see, the piano only came with the sheet music for one song. With winter quickly rolling in from the north, shipping in more music was impossible, so she settled in and made the best of it. The legend says that she played that song non-stop, over and over, all throughout the winter. Somehow she was immune to the monotony of it all, but her husband, the man who had only been hoping for distraction and entertainment, took it hard. They say it drove him insane. In the end, the keeper took an axe and destroyed the piano, hacking it into nothing more than a pile of wood and wire, and then, still deranged from the repetitive tune, he turned the axe on his wife, nearly chopping her head off in the process. The tragic story always ends with the keeper’s suicide, but most know it all to be fiction. At least, that’s the general opinion, but even today, there are some who claim that if you happen to find yourself on a boat in the waters between the island and the mainland, you can still hear the sound of piano music drifting across the waves.

Boon island is near the southern tip of Maine’s long coastline. It’s not a big island by any stretch of the imagination, perhaps 400 square yards in total, but there’s been a lighthouse there since 1811 due to the many shipwrecks that have plagued the island for as long as Europeans have sailed in those waters. The most well-known shipwreck on Boon Island occurred there in the winter of 1710 when the Nottingham Galley, a ship captained by John Deane, wrecked there on the rocks. All 14 crew members survived, but the ship was lost, stranding them without help or supplies in the cold winter. As the unfortunate sailors died, one by one, the survivors were forced to eat the dead or face starvation, and they did this for days, until fishermen finally discovered and rescued them. But that’s not the most memorable story from Boon Island, that honour falls to the tale of Katherine Bright, the wife of a former lighthouse keeper there in the 19th century. According to those who believe the story, the couple had only been on the island for a few months when Katherine’s husband slipped while trying to tie off their boat. He fell and hit his head on the rocks and then slid unconsciously into the water, where he drowned. At first, Katherine tried to take on the duties of keeping the light running herself, but after nearly a week, fishermen in York on the mainland watched the light flicker out and stay dark. When they travelled to the island to investigate, they found Katherine sitting on the tower’s stairs. She was cradling her dead husband’s corpse in her arms. Legend has it that Katherine was brought back to York along with her husband’s body, but it was too late for her. Just like the lighthouse they had left behind, she was now cold and dark. Some flames, it seems, can’t be relit.

There’s been a lighthouse on the shore of Rockland, Maine, for nearly 200 years. It’s on an oddly-shaped hill, with two large depressions in the face of the rock that were said to remind the locals of an owl. So, when the light was built there in 1825 it was, of course, named Owls Head. Give any building long enough, mix in some tragedy and unexplainable phenomenon, and you can almost guarantee a few legends will be born. Owls Head is no exception. One of the oldest stories is a well-documented one from 1850. It tells of a horrible winter storm that ripped through the Penobscot Bay area on December 22nd of that year. At least five ships were driven aground by the harsh waves and chill wind. It was a destructive and fierce storm, and it would have been and understatement to say that it wasn’t a wise idea to be out that night – on land or at sea. A small ship had been anchored at Jameson Point that night. The captain had done the smart thing and gone ashore to weather the storm inside, but he left some people behind on the ship. Three, actually: first mate, Richard Ingraham, a sailor named Roger Elliot, and Lydia Dyer, a passenger. While those three poor souls tried to sleep that night on the schooner, the storm pushed the ship so hard that the cables snapped, setting the ship adrift across the bay. Now, it’s not exactly a straight shot south-east to get to Owls Head, it’s a path shaped more like a backwards “C” to get around the rocky coast, but the ship somehow managed to do it anyway. It passed the breakwater, drifted east and south, and finally rounded the rocky peninsula where Owls Head Light is perched, all before smashing against the rocks south of the light.

The three passengers survived the impact and, as the ship began to take on water, they scrambled up to the top deck – better the biting wind than the freezing water, they assumed – and then they waited, huddled there under a pile of blankets against the storm, just waiting for help. When the ship began to  actually break apart in the waves, though, Elliot, the sailor, was the only one to make an escape from the wreckage. I can’t imagine how cold he must have been with the freezing wind and ocean spray lashing at him from the darkness, but standing on the rocks with his feet still ankle-deep in the waves, he happened to look up and see the lighthouse on the hill. If he was going to find help, that was his best option, so he began to climb. He was practically dead by the time he reached the lighthouse, but when he knocked, no one answered. A moment later, the keeper of the light rode up the path on a sleigh, having been out for supplies, and realised at once that Elliot needed help. He took him in, gave him hot rum and put him into a warm bed, but not before Elliot managed to whisper something about the others.

The keeper immediately called for help and gathered a group of about a dozen men. Together, they all travelled down to the shore, where they began to look for the wreck of the ship and the people who may still be alive onboard. When they found the remains of the schooner, the men began to carefully climb across the wreckage, looking for signs of the other passengers. It was treacherous work – the wood was encrusted in ice and each step swayed dangerously with the waves. When they finally found them, they were still on the portion of the deck where Elliot had left them, but they seemed to shiver whenever the light of the lantern washed over them. Climbing closer, the men discovered why: Ingraham and Dyer were both encased in a thick layer of ice, completely covering their bodies. They were frozen. Not taking any chances, the men somehow managed to pry the couple free from the deck of the ship and the entire block was transported back up the hill to the lighthouse. All that night, they worked fast and carefully. They placed the block in a tub of water and then slowly chipped away at the ice, and as it melted, they moved the limbs of each person in an attempt to get their blood flowing again, and somehow, against all logic and medical odds, it worked. It took them a very long time to recover, but Ingraham and Dyer soon opened their eyes. Ingraham was the first to speak, and it was said that he croaked the words “what is all this? Where are we?” Roger Elliot didn’t survive the aftermath of the shipwreck. Maybe it was the trauma of climbing up the hill to the lighthouse, soaked to the bone and exposed to the freezing winds of the storm. Perhaps it was an injury he sustained in the shipwreck itself, or on the climb to the lighthouse. Dyer and Ingraham faired better, though. They eventually recovered and even married each other. They settled down and raised a family together in the area, all thanks to the man who died to bring them help when all seemed lost.

Later stories from inside Owls Head lighthouse have been equally chilling. Although there are no other tragic events on record there, it’s clear from the first-hand accounts of those who have made Owls Head their home that something otherworldly has taken up residence there. The Andrews family was one of the first to report any sort of unusual activity on the property. I can’t find a record of their first names, but the keeper and his wife lived there along with her elderly father. According to their story, one night the couple was outside and looked up to see a light swirling in her father’s window. When they climbed the stairs, they found the older man shaking in his bed from fright. Some think he might have seen the old sailor, a common figure witnessed by many over the years. When John Norton was keeper in 1980, he claimed to have seen the same apparition. He had been sleeping, but when a noise woke him up, he opened his eyes to see the figure of an old sea captain standing over his bed, just… staring at him. The old sailor has been blamed for mysterious footprints that tend to appear in the snow, footprints that could be found on the walk toward the house. The prints never seem to have an origin point, and always end abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk. Others have claimed to feel cold spots in the house, while some have gone on record to swear that brass fixtures inside the lighthouse, fixtures that were usually tarnished and dark, would be found mysteriously polished. None of the keepers have been able to figure out who was doing the cleaning for them, though. There have been other stories as well, tales of a white lady who has been frequently seen in the kitchen, of doors slamming without anyone in the room, and of silverware that has been heard to rattle in the drawers. Despite this, though, most have said that they felt at peace with her there – more at peace, at least, than they are with the old, bearded sailor.

In the mid-1980s, Andy Germann and his wife, Denise, lived there while tending the light. They moved in and settled into life on the harsh coast of Maine. Andy divided his time between tending the light and a series of renovations to the old lighthouse, which left the yard outside rather chaotic and full of construction materials. One night after climbing into bed, the couple heard the sound of some of the building supplies outside falling over in the wind. Andy pulled on his pants and shoes and left the room to go take care of the mess before the wind made it worse. Denise watched him leave, and then rolled back over to sleep with the lamp still on. A short while later, she felt him climb back into bed. The mattress moved, as did the covers, and so she asked out loud how it had gone, if there had been any trouble or anything unusual, but Andy didn’t reply, so Denise rolled over. When she did, she found that Andy’s spot in bed was still empty. Well, almost. In the spot where he normally slept beside her, there was a deep depression in the sheets, as if an invisible body were laying right there beside her. Of course, it was just the dent where Andy had been sleeping moments before. At least, that’s what she told herself, but thinking back on it later, Denise admits that she has doubts. There were moments when she was laying there, staring at the impression in the sheets, that she could have sworn the shape was moving. Maybe she was too level-headed to get upset, or perhaps she was too tired to care. Whatever the reason, Denise simply told whoever it was to leave her alone, and then rolled over and fell back asleep. At breakfast the next morning, she wanted to tell Andy about the experience, thinking he would laugh it off and help her to explain it away, but before she could, he told her his own story. It turns out Andy had an unusual experience of his own the previous night. He explained how, as he had exited the room and stepped out into the dimly lit hallway, he saw what he could only describe as a faint cloud hovering close to the floor, and this cloud, he said, had been moving. According to Andy, when he walked down the hall, it moved right up to his feet and then passed on through him. That’s when Denise asked Andy where the cloud had been going. “Into the bedroom,” he told her. “Why?”

You don’t have to travel to a lighthouse to bump into tales of the unexplained or otherworldly. You can hear them from just about anyone you meet, from the neighbour down the street to your real estate agent, but lighthouses seem to have a reputation for the tragic, and maybe that’s understandable – these are, after all, houses built to help save lives in a dangerous setting. It might be safe to say that the well for these stories runs deeper than many place – but are they true? Like a lot of stories, it seems to depend on who you talk to. Keepers across the decades have had a mixed bag of experiences. Some see odd things, and some don’t. Maybe some people just connect to the stories more than others and go looking for hints and signs where there are none. One recent family described their time there as “normal”. They never saw ghosts, never watched objects move, and felt right at home the whole time they were there. Another family, though, acknowledged that something unusual seemed to be going on in the lighthouse. They would find lightbulbs partially unscrewed and the thermostat would constantly readjust itself – perhaps whatever it is that’s haunting the lighthouse is just very environmentally conscious. It’s easy to laugh off most of these stories, but we’ve never lived there, we’ve never heard or felt something that can’t be explained away, and like most samples of data, there’s always the outlier. Another family who lived at the lighthouse in the late 1980s claimed to have experienced their fair share of unusual activity, though. One night, while Gerard and Debby Graham were asleep, their three-year-old daughter, Claire, quietly opened her eyes and sat up in bed. She stared into the darkness for a moment, as if carefully listening to something, and then climbed out of her bed and left the room. Her little bare feet patted on the cold floor of the hallway as she made her way down towards her parents’ room. Inside, she slowly approached the side of their bed, and then tapped her father on the arm to wake him. When he did wake up, he asked Claire what was the matter. The little girl replied that she was supposed to tell him something. “Tell me what?” he father asked. “There’s a fog rolling in,” Claire replied, somehow sounding like someone infinitely older. “Sound the horn”. When he asked her who had told her this, the little girl looked at him seriously. “My friend,” she told him, “the old man with the beard.”

[Closing statements]

[amateurfan227]

Shitlist Reviews - Alien 3 - 1992 - Part 1 of 2

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m Amateur Fan 2.27 and welcome to the Shitlist, where bad movies burn, the last time on the Shitlist, I looked over the sequel to the hit movie Alien from 1986, Aliens... this time I’m looking into the 3rd instalment in the franchise, another reason I decided to dive into it is because of the story behind it, mainly because it’s the beginning of the downfall of the franchise.

This movie in particular is stated to be the perfect end of the franchise as it breaks Ripley’s character from survivor into a hero, mainly because of her relation towards the extra-terrestrial threat that she rightly fears, It’s also how the main factor on her relation towards Wayland-Yutani’s downfall as well as she fears that the Aliens are more unpredictable than ever, especially in an environment where no-one is on her side.

As usual, it’s time to dive into the production history first which is pretty important as well as a fun fact for you Seven fans out there, this is David Fincher’s debut as a director. With the success of Aliens, 20th Century Fox approached Brandywine Productions with further sequels but the company wasn’t invested in the idea of it with Producer David Giler explaining that his partners Walter Hill and Gordon Carroll wanted to take it into new directions to explore more of the mythos.

The trio discussed ideas to explore Weyland-Yutani Corporations fascination with the Xenomorphs as well as using them for biological weapons, as well as taking the idea of Aliens towards a different protagonists story-arc, this story eventually settled with a two-way story-arc featuring the underhanded Weyland-Yutani Corporation facing a militarily aggressive culture of humans who have a different ideology causing them to separate Earth’s society.

Michael Biehn’s Corporal Hicks would star as the main lead leaving Sigourney Weaver’s character to star as a cameo only to return in the fourth instalment of the series, the 20th Century Fox was quite sceptical about the idea but they agreed to finance the development of the story as long as they managed to get Ridley Scott to direct the film.

They also asked that the two movies were shot back to back to lessen the production costs, similar to Richard Donner as he directed both Superman and Superman 2 at the same time during production; Scott was interested on returning to the franchise he refused due to the director’s schedule.

In 1987 Giler and Hill approached Cyberpunk author William Gibson (Neuromancer) to create a script for the movie and he gladly accepted due to into his writing was influenced by Scott’s first movie. Feared of an impending strike from the Writers Guild of America, Gibson was told to deliver a script by December of that year, as well as heavily drawn by Giler and Hill’s treatment the script was of course completed

The following year, Finnish director Renny Harlin (Nightmare on Elm Street 4, previous reviewed) was told by Fox for ideas in the film which had ideas from the first 2 movies such as visiting the Alien homeworld or the Aliens invading Earth. Shortly after a failed screenplay Gibson declined to work with them due to the Producers engagement with the films ideas.

Following his departure, Harlin suggest Eric Red who worked on The Hitcher (1986) and Near Dark (1987), Red worked less than 2 months to finish the draft on February of 1989 leading him to state that it was ‘the one script I completely disown because it was not ‘my script’. It was the rushed product of too many story conferences and interference.’

His approach had a new set of characters and subplots with a new breed of Alien; the story was set around a marine team that would take the survivors who fell to the Aliens to a small USA city in a bio-dome in space. This was rejected by Brandywine which left future sequels to be given up. Writer David Twohy (Riddick series) had the idea on setting the story on a prison planet which held illegal experiments on the aliens for Biological Warfare.

This led Harlin to walk out on the project leading Fox president Joe Roth to bring Ripley back due to Sigourney Weaver’s popularity at the time; Hill and Giler did a first draft attempting to enhance the story on the Fasano script, feeling creatively drained hiring Larry Ferguson as a script doctor. Ferguson wasn’t well received in production especially by Weaver who felt that Ferguson destroyed Ripley’s character.

In short time before filming, Hill and Giler took fill control of the screenplay themselves mixing scripts and Twohy’s idea of the Prison Planet to be the basis of the film, Weaver had a clause written in her contract stating that the final draft should be written by Hill and Giler  to also write Ripley effectively. Fox also interviewed music video director David Fincher to replace the current director which he gladly accepted.

Filming began in January 14, 1991 at Pinewood studios without a finished script as well as $7 million dollars spent on production; majority of the movie was directed at Pinewood while some of the scenes were shot at Northumberland’s Blyth Power Station in the UK, the reason with this if for exterior shots on the planet.

Stan Winston, who was responsible for the creature effects of both Alien and Aliens was not available for the effects but recommended former workers from his studio at Amalgamated Dynamics (Mortal Kombat, Starship Troopers). Before Principal Photography had begun, the practical effects team made numerous models of the Alien as well as corpses of the Sulaco victims.

Small shots were created with the use of CGI such as the cracking alien head one the sprinklers cause thermal shock as well as the shadows cast by the rod puppet alien. Fincher wanted something different when it came to the Alien such as a beast rather than a humanoid which lead to thinner legs and removing the pipes around the spine.

The movie was released in the U.S. of May 22, 1992, debuting at number 2 in the box office just beaten by Lethal Weapon 3 with a mass gross of $23.1 million which rose to a total of$159 million of that year, leading it to be a flop in North America with a total of $55.4 million of its $50 million budget on a week’s basis.

Critical reception was given mixed reviews from critics who were disappointed and compared it negatively to the preceding films of the franchise; Rotten Tomatoes gave it a fully bad rating at 44% which is even worse than the fourth adaptation in the series with Resurrection standing at 54%.

You know it’s gotta be a bad one with this instalment is when the worst of the franchise has beaten it on a critical scale. Well that’s what I’m here for folks, so let’s attempt to dive back into the nightmares and see if there’s something good out of a bad situation.

This... regrettably is Alien 3...

 We start our movie back on the Sulaco as we see the residents from the last movie (Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop are returning to safety from the Xenomorph threat to a more safer home only to be unaware that a Facehugger xenomorph has invaded the ship causing one of the residents to be infected, leading the ships computer to launch an escape pod containing the four of them into space.

The pod crash lands on Fiorina ‘Fury’161, a foundry facility as well as a penal colony, otherwise known as a Prison Planet, inhabited by male inmates who suffer from a genetic mutation which presents brutal antisocial behaviour including rape and murder. Fortunately Ellen is saved however for her colleagues are unfortunately unable to live another moment aside from Bishop who is deactivated due to the damage.

Ripley is taken into the infirmary unit by the Prisoners for examination and recovery as we see another living Facehugger reaches towards a dog during the recovery of the escape pod; there are quite a lot of prisoners in this movie so I’m going to look on IMDB to state the names and actors, I’m only going to place some but not all of them.

The Prison Warden, Harold Andrews (played by Brian Glover) informs the prisoners Dillon (played by Charles S. Dutton), Jonathan Clemens (played by Charles Dance), Assistant Warden Aaron (played by Ralph Brown), Morse (played by Danny Webb), David (played by the late Pete Postlethwaite), Junior (played by Holt McCallany) and Gregor (played by Peter Guinness) about the situation as well as stating that a rescue will be there within a week to remove her from the premises.

Wouldn’t it be a lot more easier to attempt to research the part of the ship that she was ejected from to find out more about her or the crew that followed her to begin with rather than just letting her recover in the Infirmary?

Another question would be reactivating Bishop in the first place to discover what caused the escape pod to land or to gain more information about where they came from or the company that he was made by?

Clemens states that she is unconscious due to the crash but will remain in the Infirmary wing until the rescue team arrives, Clemens returns to see if Ripley is still ok only for her to wake up and request were she is, Clemens also informs her that he is the medical officer at the facility due to it being a working prison.

He also informs Ripley what happened with the escape pod as well as the people who were travelling with her are unfortunately dead from the crash; aside from Ripley’s eagerness to leave, Clemens informs her of the facility that it used to be home of 5000 but reduced to 25 staff members due to accidents in work which is revealed to be a blast furnace as well as a mining facility that collects lead sheets for toxic waste.

They bring the wreckage in leading Ripley to request to see the bodies which is held over to the Morgue of the facility after she notices a burnt hole in Newt’s Cryo-tube. In the meantime another inmate, Murphy sees that his dog, Spike (same dog from earlier on) has strange marks over his head mostly from the Facehugger.

Clemens performs the Autopsy which Ripley cries at which is pretty convincing as Newt was like a daughter to her in the sequel, in belief that the Facehugger may have impregnated her with an Alien embryo. I have to admit it is a good suspenseful scene which relates to her beliefs only to be dismissed due to the fact that Newt was killed via drowning and embryo free.

Clemens and Ripley are interrupted however as Andrews arrives and attempts to sort the situation out along with his assistant Aaron, especially due to the fact that Clemens performed an autopsy without his consent, Clemens thinks of an idea with the help from Ripley to get the bodies cremated in case of an unlicensed virus which Andrews approves.

During the cremation, Spike (the dog) falls extremely ill leading to a new breed of Alien to burst out of its chest only to grow instantly into full size, killing the dog, and by god that look of the new Xenomorph looks completely horrendous; couldn’t they at least try to make it convincing? Ripley however has shaved her hair to mingle with the prisoners only for them to disown her due to the fact that she’s the only woman in the prison.

Clemens informs her about the facts that Dillon will remain leader of the group due to the fact that he is more of a spiritual leader rather than Andrews when it comes to Rescuing Ripley but she discovers that Clemens has a crush on her despite him being a convict. The Alien to make its way through the air shafts and brutally kills Murphy.

Clemens though is denied answers from Ripley’s true search over the bodies leading Clemens to be called away due to the current death of Murphy which brings the attention of Andrews; though Clemens finds something interesting as a vent is clearly burnt off near the scene of the death. Ripley on the other hand manages find the wreckage only to be questioned by Clemens about what happened about the burn.

Ripley informs him that she will tell him the truth as long as he finds something in use to look through a flight recorder which he recommends Bishop, who was tossed in the trash; Clemens then leaves to join the Warden in a discussion that Weyland-Yutani is looking for her and ordered the prison warden to keep her looked after.

Ripley on the other hand finds the wreckage where the prisoners are keeping Bishop only for several Prisoners to intervene by attempting to rape her, though this is stopped when Dillon stops them by hitting all of them with a crowbar; though the Alien on the other hand manages to kill 2 more of the prisoners but turns one of them (Golic) into a complete nervous wreck.

Ripley manages to activate Bishop back in the Infirmary where he (once again played by Lance Henriksen) informs her that Xenomorph Facehuggers were found on the ship before they left the planet, ok I have to admit, despite the look of the new dog-alien, the makeup effects they had for Bishop are surprisingly effective, creepy but effective.

Bishop requests her to take him offline which she complies with, only for them to be interrupted when Golic is found and brought into the Infirmary about what he saw that attacked him, which causes the warden to arrive again to question Ripley over her motives as well as the knowledge of the creature.

This review will continue in the near future as time restraints have caused some slight problems with the current schedule especially at the moment at hand, though aside from a separate review entirely underway this will conclude for next year unfortunately which will be interesting at that.

I hope you guys will understand, as always I’m Amateur Fan 2.27 and I’ll see you guys at the next review, Have a nice summer.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 4.25

404 BC – Peloponnesian War: Lysander's Spartan armies defeated the Athenians and the war ends. 775 – The Battle of Bagrevand puts an end to an Armenian rebellion against the Abbasid Caliphate. Muslim control over Transcaucasia is solidified and its Islamization begins, while several major Armenian nakharar families lose power and their remnants flee to the Byzantine Empire. 799 – After mistreatment and disfigurement by the citizens of Rome, pope Leo III flees to the Frankish court of king Charlemagne at Paderborn for protection. 1134 – The name Zagreb was mentioned for the first time in the Felician Charter relating to the establishment of the Zagreb Bishopric around 1094. 1607 – Eighty Years' War: The Dutch fleet destroys the anchored Spanish fleet at Gibraltar. 1644 – The Chongzhen Emperor, the last Emperor of Ming dynasty China, commits suicide during a peasant rebellion led by Li Zicheng. 1707 – A coalition of England, the Netherlands and Portugal is defeated by a Franco-Spanish army at Almansa (Spain) in the War of the Spanish Succession. 1792 – Highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine. 1792 – "La Marseillaise" (the French national anthem) is composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle. 1804 – The western Georgian kingdom of Imereti accepts the suzerainty of the Russian Empire 1829 – Charles Fremantle arrives in HMS Challenger off the coast of modern-day Western Australia prior to declaring the Swan River Colony for the United Kingdom. 1846 – Thornton Affair: Open conflict begins over the disputed border of Texas, triggering the Mexican–American War. 1847 – The last survivors of the Donner Party are out of the wilderness. 1849 – The Governor General of Canada, Lord Elgin, signs the Rebellion Losses Bill, outraging Montreal's English population and triggering the Montreal Riots. 1859 – British and French engineers break ground for the Suez Canal. 1862 – American Civil War: Forces under U.S. Admiral David Farragut demand the surrender of the Confederate city of New Orleans, Louisiana. 1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of Marks' Mills. 1882 – Tonkin Campaign: French and Vietnamese troops clashed in Tonkin, when Commandant Henri Rivière seized the citadel of Hanoi with a small force of marine infantry. 1898 – Spanish–American War: The United States declares war on Spain. 1901 – New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates. 1915 – World War I: The Battle of Gallipoli begins: The invasion of the Turkish Gallipoli Peninsula by British, French, Indian, Newfoundland, Australian and New Zealand troops, begins with landings at Anzac Cove and Cape Helles. 1916 – Easter Rising: The United Kingdom declares martial law in Ireland. 1916 – Anzac Day is commemorated for the first time on the first anniversary of the landing at ANZAC Cove. 1920 – At the San Remo conference, the principal Allied Powers of World War I adopt a resolution to determine the allocation of Class "A" League of Nations mandates for administration of the former Ottoman-ruled lands of the Middle East. 1938 – U.S. Supreme Court delivers its opinion in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins and overturns a century of federal common law. 1940 – Merkið, the flag of the Faroe Islands is approved by the British occupation government. 1944 – The United Negro College Fund is incorporated. 1945 – Elbe Day: United States and Soviet troops meet in Torgau along the River Elbe, cutting the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany in two. 1945 – Liberation Day (Italy): The Nazi occupation army surrenders and leaves Northern Italy after a general partisan insurrection by the Italian resistance movement; the puppet fascist regime dissolves and Benito Mussolini is captured after trying to escape. This day was set as a public holiday to celebrate the Liberation of Italy. 1945 – The last German troops retreat from Finland's soil in Lapland, ending the Lapland War. Military acts of Second World War end in Finland. 1951 – Korean War: Assaulting Chinese forces are forced to withdraw after heavy fighting with UN forces, primarily made up of Australian and Canadian troops, at the Battle of Kapyong. 1953 – Francis Crick and James Watson publish "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" describing the double helix structure of DNA. 1954 – The first practical solar cell is publicly demonstrated by Bell Telephone Laboratories. 1959 – The Saint Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping. 1960 – The United States Navy submarine USS Triton completes the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe. 1961 – Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit. 1965 – Teenage sniper Michael Andrew Clark kills three and wounds six others shooting from a hilltop along Highway 101 just south of Santa Maria, California. 1972 – Vietnam War: Nguyen Hue Offensive: The North Vietnamese 320th Division forces 5,000 South Vietnamese troops to retreat and traps about 2,500 others northwest of Kontum. 1974 – Carnation Revolution: A leftist military coup in Portugal overthrows the authoritarian-conservative Estado Novo regime and establishes a democratic government. 1975 – As North Vietnamese forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost ten years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam. 1981 – More than 100 workers are exposed to radiation during repairs of a nuclear power plant in Tsuruga, Japan. 1982 – Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula per the Camp David Accords. 1983 – American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war. 1983 – Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto's orbit. 1986 – Mswati III is crowned King of Swaziland, succeeding his father Sobhuza II. 1988 – In Israel, John Demjanjuk is sentenced to death for war crimes committed in World War II. 1990 – Violeta Chamorro takes office as the President of Nicaragua, the first woman to hold the position. 2001 – Michele Alboreto is killed while testing an Audi R8 at the Lausitzring in Germany. 2004 – The March for Women's Lives brings between 500,000 and 800,000 protesters, mostly pro-choice, to Washington D.C. to protest the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, and other restrictions on abortion. 2005 – The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937. 2005 – Bulgaria and Romania sign accession treaties to join the European Union. 2007 – Boris Yeltsin's funeral: The first to be sanctioned by the Russian Orthodox Church for a head of state since the funeral of Emperor Alexander III in 1894. 2015 – Nearly 9,100 are killed after a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake strikes Nepal. 2015 – Riots break out in Baltimore, Maryland following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody.