#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]

[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.............?

[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!

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

shaking your hand in 'the dream visitor is a haunting', so how WOULD majexatli feel waking up to see dream visitor althyran for the first time?

I think there’s so much racing through their head. Like, on the one hand they’re terrified, suddenly once again facing the man who took so much from them and who they ran away from decades ago. As much as they believe everything that happens is their fault and don't reflect on the way Althyran was manipulating them and had so much power over them, they also can’t deny that it was Althyran that very publicly blamed them for what happened to them which led to their loss of status in the circle. And losing the circle meant losing literally the only home they ever had and the only family they ever had.

So there’s that but also, seeing him after all this time suddenly throws into perspective the way their relationship wasn’t health or balanced. Because Majexatli has spent at least 2 decades now away from him and becoming their own independent person, and when they see him and instantly fall back into the way they were when they were a teen they can see how different it is. When they first was involved with Althyran, they had never had so much as a friend, let alone a partner, they had no frame of reference for what was healthy or normal back then, they had no idea that things could be different, they had no idea that things could be better, but now they do and can see just the world of difference between how they are now and who they were with Althyran.

On the other hand, though, the dream visitor first appears when Majexatli’s about to transform, when they’re feverish and nauseated and weak and he shows up to help them and. Isn’t that what Majexatli wanted? Those decades ago, when they were weak and barely hanging on after their attack? Majexatli had tried to reach out for Althyran’s hand, both when they were in the cave before the attack and when they were on a cot in the infirmary after it. But Althyran wasn’t there, he pulled away, abandoned them, ridiculed them. All Majexatli wanted was to be comforted by him, to be loved by him.

The Dream Visitor coming to save them, to help them, that’s what they always wanted from Althyran. How can they resist that? Even though they have the knowledge now to realize how what was between them wasn’t healthy and in fact was incredibly abusive and exploitative, even though they can’t help being afraid, they’ve never been able to resist Althyran as much as they hate that, and they can’t deny how much they’ve wanted him to take care of them. One of their biggest things they grapple with, is they still cling to the dreams they once had of marrying Althyran and having a family, and the fact that they cling to the belief that if they had been better or if they hadn’t been so scarred by the attack that maybe Althyran would have actually loved them.

They know it isn’t a dream, because their dreams aren’t kind, the dreams with Althyran almost never are. But it doesn’t cross their mind that it might be an ilithid trick until the next day when they hear their companions mention the dream figure and what it said to them.

I do think the next morning, they stay on their bedroll and the others go off to work on the quests. And they just lay there, awake, just unable to grapple with it all and not wanting to let the others see them like that.

[pen-papers]

also, yall probably already noticed it anyway, with certain pokemon, i like to jazz up their entrance with a special intro video. Ya know? thematically speaking i like feeling like im about to watch a mini movie, but also cohesive themes. I ...have a weakness for them.