#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.

[mysharona1987]

[kara-zor-els]

"People from Metropolis could not handle Gotham" The average Metropolis citizen gets abducted by aliens twice per week and cloned thrice.

[elbdot]

Continuing on the whole "Alola thinks Mega Evos are bad!" thing... even though there ARE potential dangers associated with Mega Evolution that are touched upon even in the Generation they were introduced in, it was always framed in a way that suggested that any complications with Mega Evos tended to be the result of inexperience or other external factors. Not to mention that some Gen 7 Dex entries absolutely frame certain Mega Evo entries in such a way that it reinforces the cultural bias instead of challenging it. Like they carried out experiments to gather data on Mega Evolutions, but in such a way that the results were guaranteed to favor their already skewed viewpoints that favored the use of Z-Moves instead. Like a "We, the Obviously Biased Group of People, have done an internal investigation on whether or not we are in the wrong about this thing and have concluded that, on totally fair grounds, we are absolutely right and correct about this thing all the time forever." sort of thing.

Oh I really like this take, especially considering that we have a shady scientific organisation in Alola that could have absolutely fed into these "findings" through questionable studies (*cough cough* Aether Foundation *cough cough*)

[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

[a-typical]

You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.

― Carl Sagan, Contact

[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

[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

[comradecowplant]

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

[sengenism]

Am I getting over that Senku was comfortable enough to cry in front of Gen and Chrome after discovering that the morse code from the future was fake?

No.

Do I find it funny that Chrome was upset at whyman when it used the voice of a dead man to inspire the world into funding the build of the time machine?

Yes.

Think about it. All three, Senku, Gen and Chrome all decided to use the voice of Lilian during the Stone Wars Arc, and I find this situation hilarious. Like it has come back to bite them in their ass.

This is what I call Karma. Or heavy foreshadowing.

Btw, since the ending is open ended, what do you think happened? I honestly hope Senku will be able to reunite with his dad.

-🧅

[Dr Stone Final Chapter Spoilers]

I'M CRYING IT REALLY IS KARMA LMAOOO

not them being all like "we're gonna go hell together <3" after tricking the entire tsukasa empire by giving false hope that lillian is alive and everyone will be saved

just for that lie to kick senku's ass back???

omg i still feel really bad for him because a) senku and byakuya's relationship is so precious, and b) senku, gen and chrome were only doing all that to save more lives... but also ok yeah they kinda got a taste of their own medicine

AS FOR WHAT HAPPENED AFTER... honestly, i wish there were more discussions on this, because i'd like to know what others think?? time travelling is one of my favourite genres, honestly, and i like it in its many forms (especially time loop shenanigans). playing with time is such a risky thing, but it gives a lot of potential plot for the future of dr stone. so it's nice that it's open-ended, but also a little bit dissatisfying that nothing truly gets answered.

that being said: just like xeno, i think there's no changing of the past– what has happened, has happened and going back in time to change an outcome would create parallel universes. but was an outcome really changed? byakuya could've been petrified after he collected the platinum, and his descendants already began by then etc etc etc. so honestly i have no idea.

but i like gen's point about how the stone world is good to humanity:

i think senku has always wanted to build a time machine. he likes science, he likes the idea of making science fiction into science reality lol but i also think senku has not properly addressed his grief for byakuya and it's causing him to feel such deep regret which makes me frustrated! i want senku to reunite with his father (bc i really do love them both) but i also want him to go through the five stages of grief or something?? like dude needs to rest and heal and it'd be a great development... but i don't see that happening here lol

so what i think will ACTUALLY happen dr stone style: senku builds a proper time machine -> saves byakuya -> does it in a way that doesn't unwrite the villagers -> science is swag yey! ↖(^▽^)↗

[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!