#wormhole aliens

[vesperstardust]

Bajoran Tarot (in a circle, starting left) Celestial Temple (The Star) Ten of Orbs (Ten of Pentacles) The Borhya (Judgement) The Emissary (The Magician) Derna (The Moon) Invasion (Death)

[trekkie-polls]

A reminder if it’s been a while since you saw Sacrifice of Angels:

The Dominion & Cardassians are occupying ds9. A battle involving the Klingons, Cardassians, Federation, and Dominion rages near the station. Rom had mined the entrance to the wormhole to prevent further Dominion Gamma quadrant reinforcements, but Damar has just removed the mines. The defiant punches through the battle only to watch the minefield detonate.

They detect a huge fleet of Dominion reinforcements coming through the wormhole. Sisko orders the Defiant into the wormhole to face them. The Prophets tell him to turn back and save his life, but he counters & convinces them to stop the fleet. They agree in exchange for a penance, and the approaching ships vanished on screen. Sisko says he doesn’t think they’ll be coming back.

[thresholdbb]

I'm a Kai Winn apologist but not because I think she's a good person. She's a compelling tragic character

[mysharona1987]

[skoople]

watching farscape takes so long because you have to allocate time for admiring the costumes and sets and puppets and for yelling at your tv and for researching the corresponding wolf 359 episodes and for jacking off. and you cant even skip the intro!

[erika-xero]

sketching stuff while I have some free time... 

how about my hyperfixation on aliens and living ships

[vertigoartgore]

Wayne Pygram as Scorpius (the big bad of Farscape).

[leohtttbriar]

i think the biggest mistake an audience can make (i.e. me) with a time-paradox story is to try to make sense of it. like there's the surface-level logic here that sisko can be a "chosen one" of sorts because, well, he always was. if you can look down on the fourth dimension of time and see it all laid out in the same way we can look down a two-dimensional square, then everything always is and verb-tenses mean nothing and the layout of What Is is. but that's just so so abstract. (!)

what ends up being implied by the idea of extra-dimensional beings like the prophets is determinism. which doesn't. like. make sense. not from our perspective at least. the universe is just too much for us to be able to see a character like sisko able to interpret the space between what the prophets say and what he should then decide. the prophet above is saying "you need to rest now" and the prophets said that sisko has a path he is "meant" to walk--so was he always going to decide to both marry kasidy and "learn" among the prophets in the wormhole? if his decision-making has no power, why would the prophets tell him what to do to begin with? he says he's already done all the things he is going to do, sort of, so what is his relationship with spacetime? how can someone exist in between non-linear beings and linear time? what makes sisko special--is it his decision-making or his determined life?

i get the feeling this ending for the character was supposed to provoke these sorts of questions but i can't get past how it makes very little sense to me. which i guess is my own reaction to time-paradox stories: arrival and interstellar and even the "children of time" episode of ds9, none successfully convince me of the know-ability of time. even kasidy asking in the prophet vision "is anyone here?" makes my brain hurt, because, like, yeah is anyone there? where do these creatures exist? where and when and how? and in what ways can they contribute to the fabric of a mutable and constantly morphing or expanding and evolving universe?

obviously, it's not like a few sci-fi writers are going to do what only theoretical physicists can only imagine, but something about the tone of this episode, the design and the dialogue, suggests something answer-able. "meant to" and "alone" and "rest" and "ben? is that you?" are temporal and, in the logic of this story, are determined? there are ways to suggest more ambiguity, to lean into the logic of paradoxes--using color and music to imply that nothing here is figured out, that sisko is just a man invited into a perspective that we haven't yet been able to understand. a star trek-y "how mysterious, how weird" sort of answer that emphasizes that tying-up loose ends isn't the best narrative resolution sometimes.

this conclusion for sisko is a bit ambiguous but also not. and i sort of wish kasidy had gone with him. what does pregnancy look like where everything already was and is and yet to come? what is a romance undefined by the progressive beats of relationships and intimacy? what would their relationship say about the ongoing-ness of love?

[stardustinthesky]

so apparently the whole universe speaks english in sg1 without any explanation whatsoever really a testament to good writing /s

[fauvester]

hc that cardassians do have tails but that they're docked or removed at birth (like circumcision tbh) and the practice sort of fell by the wayside post-Dominion. garashir adoptees with the eldest sans tail and the baby sporting a long luxurious 5th appendage

[brionysea]

argyle called el supergirl + mike called el superman, but that scene was about his feelings and insecurities so the superman association is really tied to mike. superman and supergirl are cousins

[saltygilmores]

Thoughts While Watching Gilmore Girls: S3/EP4/One's Got Class The Other One Dyes

Episode titles with 6 or more words (the first four seasons): Season 1: The Lorelais First Day At Chilton, Star Crossed Lovers And Other Strangers Season 2: Red Light on The Wedding NIght, Nick And Nora And Sid And Nancy

Season 3: One's Got Class The Other One Dyes Season 4: The Lorelais First Day At Yale, The Hobbit The Sofa and Digger Stiles, In The Clamor and The Clanger, Girls In Bikinis Boys Doing The Twist, Last Week Fights This Week Tights, Nag Hammadi Is Where They Found the Gnostic Gospel (come on AmyShermanPalladino. Come on. She's just fucking with us with that one. She didn't envision a future where people like me would have to type that shit out). Anyway. This episode is a classic.

Let's have a look at what Jesstopher is reading...

That tracks. Lorelai: I think I'm in touch with the other side. Rory: Republicans? Ba dum tsssh.

What are we doing, naming things we see in the room? Dead cow, dead cow, non paying customer, non paying customer, old timey scale, the only business proprietor in America who purposely tries to drive away his own customers by insulting their selections from his own menu... Lorelai has been having premonitions about her own death. How does she know about the script for my Gilmore Girls horror movie trilogy titled "Blood In The Hollow"?

No, Lorelai will get a much more dignified slaughtering in BITH (at the hands of Rory? Luke? Jess? Her mother? Crusty? Possibly even DEAN, her jilted lover? The script is still in progress).

Now you're just naming all the hilarious ways I've imagined Dean's demise. TWWGG is chock full of "Dean Forrester should get eaten by a ____" , Most recently, it was a pair of T-Rexes. I may have suggested Death by Turtle before, I can’t recall. I do know that when he wore this sweater I said he looked like a turtle anus.

Stars Hollow has never once rocked and or rolled. Lane's got dreams of rock superstadorm. Not if AmyShermanPalladino has anything to do with it. Rory wraps her half eaten burger (The fakest fake burger I've ever seen) in a napkin (this is not a thing) and R&R leave Luke's without paying. INCOMING!

Lorelai's face. Lorelai mutters that Shane is a freak. Because why...? Sure, she doesn't have the best manners with all this barging through the door stuff, but you wanna talk about ettiquite, Miss Dine and Dash? So what makes her a freak? The girl has (horny, horny) needs and she knows how to get what she wants. Shane doesn't play silly games. On a random Tuesday at 6:17 pm, Shane thinks, "I want Jess Mariano's tongue in my mouth" And then she goes to the diner and gets that tongue in her mouth. That doesn't make her a freak, that makes her an example R&R should take after. Shane is a role model. Shane is Rock and Roll. Shane is a modern woman. Shane is a GOD DAMN HERO. SHANE IS SWAN FOOD (soon).

Nobody in the diner even blinks while this is happening.

There may not be any rock and roll in Stars Hollow, but there's certainly free porn, and Rory's going to grab a popcorn and watch the show.

"That was my intention, Uncle Luke"

Introducing for the first time, Zack Van Gerbig and Brian Fuller. I don't have any dog in this fight of "Which boyfriend was better for Lane". Well, maybe I do have a dog, but she's a sleepy bassett hound who can't be bothered to choose because anything that happens after season 4 (aka Lane's life trajectory after high school) doesn't affect me in the grand scheme of things. Alright let's briefly rate the members of Hep Alien: Zack: Lane's first sexual experience with Zack is a complete disaster. Zack enters into a teenage marriage with Lane, buys cheap off brand condoms and knocks her up with twins on their honeymoon, derailing her entire life and destroying her rock and roll dreams. (People on this show need to stop getting married right out of high school, for the love of all that is holy. And stop sleeping through Sex Ed! You live in a blue state where sex ed in school might actually be adequate and available! CHERISH IT). Zack is cuter than Dave. Zack is the lead singer, but I tend to crush on band members that are not the lead singers. Lead singers are trouble. That blond floppy hair is trouble. He looks like he might not shower that often. Dave: Dave didn't do any of those things. Dave definitely takes showers. Maybe too many showers + Impeccably clean, geeky clothes. Did you know Dave read the entire Bible in one night to impress Lane's mother? What a guy. He has curly hair which means he's a good guy. Got sucked up by the Male Gilmore Girls Character California Wormhole but unlike Jess and Max, She liked him so much she never spat him back out. Brian:

Lane gets a taste of the rampant sexism inherent in Rock and Roll when her suggestions for improving the band's sound are totally ignored by the men. Lane's paranoia about her mother is incredibly annoying and stifling to the other members of the band, and they almost walk out, and I'm not saying it's right to ignore her...I'm just saying, I understand.

In my gritty unrated Gilmore Girls spinoff with cursing and nudity and realism titled the Hollow no one would be shielded from perversion. At one point, Kirk apparently had a rock band called "The Kirk Gleason 5" who played covers of Queen songs and Mrs Kim put the kibosh on them.

The people of Hartford to the people of Stars Hollow: Please stop coming over here. There are other cities in Connecticut you can visit if you want to escape The Bubble. What about Stamford? We're full. Lane has to find a way to make it to band practice in Hartford 3 nights a week while still under the watchful eye of Mrs Kim. Rory and Lane try to brainstorm how she might get away with this Super Secret Band Thing, even though Lane has no money, no car, and no instrument.

A circa 2002 Karen (real name: Debbie), calling the Gilmores. Lorelai doesn't remember Debbie-Karen because Rory can only describe Karen-Debbie, the mother of a former classmate, as blond haired and average height. We find out Rory actually had another childhood friend of sorts besides Lane, Debbie-Karen's daughter Kathy. Rory would frequently go swimming at her house. Lorelai claims she can't remember any Stars Hollow Moms because they all look the same, except for Mrs.Kim and a woman with a glass eye. I guess that's Lorelai's way of saying Mrs Kim and Mrs Glass Eye are the only two minorities in Stars Hollow. That tracks. Lorelai doesn't even know Dean's mom? Things might get awkward when Lorelai and Dean have to write out their wedding invitations. Karen-Debbie: The PTA likes to ask prominent locals in business to talk to the students, you know, someone who knows about how much hard work it takes to run a business, and we thought of you. Bahahahaha. Lorelai, a hard worker. Don't make me laugh. Oh wait, I already did. I will laugh some more. Bahahahaha.

The Gilmore Girls California Wormhole is about to claim it's first female snack, Kathy. Things Googled While Watching GIlmore Girls We Owe You Nothing (first tried I Owe You Something because I couldn't see the cover), major cities in Connecticut, Brian's last name (it's Fuller)

[plotandelegy]

Building Futuristic Worlds: A Comprehensive Guide to Crafting Transport Systems for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing

Hey there! Here's yet another world-building article where I detail how to enrich your story world in unique ways. Transportation systems in fantasy, science fiction, and dystopian worlds often get overlooked when world-building. So let's go into some details about how a unique transportation system can be built

First, lets go over inspiration. Mixing different types of transport is an excellent way to get started creating something unique. To get pretty weird with the example, let's say we have a uni-cycle in a rolling bubble under the sea. The rider would have to cycle to move the bubble to its destination. Please don't ask me how they get in or out. A hatch at the top? Maybe the bubble exterior is gelatinous and can be walked through?

Next, let's go over geography. Different terrain will determine the type of transport you'll need to create. Got a vast mountain range? May I suggest teleportation? I'm not too fond of driving in high locations. Underground tunnels might work well too. Bonus points if the tunnels are unstable and cause conflict for your protagonist. 

Now for the fun stuff: add unique and exciting elements to your transport system. In a fantasy world, you might have enchanted gargoyles pulling carriages through the sky. In science and fiction, hovercraft may shift between sky and underwater depending on traffic.

Finally, we'll talk about currency. Do you need one-time magical tokens to board earned through questing? Or do you have to buy your ticket with the meager credits you get from your job at the sardine factory? Please don't ask why we have a sardine factory in a sci-fi environment. I'll add that to the list of things I need to figure out. 

In conclusion, it's your world; do what you will with it. Take or leave the sardines. Mix and match if you need inspiration. Think about why this transport is required. What purpose does it serve? Who needs to use it? Bonus question, what would make it the worst way someone might get around but still has to? What would make it the most magical experience hardly anyone gets to have? Those are some things you might want to think about. Happy world-building. 

-Indigo

Need more? Check out my other articles!

[comradecowplant]

what do you mean jadzia is dead.............?