Peter Hodges

If you haven’t played Point of Existence, a mod for Battlefield 2, do youself a favor and download it.  It has all of the intensity that Battlefield 2 lacks.  However…a few words of caution.  Some of the maps need a LOT more balancing, the commander functions have been castrated, and the tendency of some (ahem, me) to whore the Medic class to achieve high scores is unfair to players who actually frag.

Have you ever had claustrophobia?  I’m told its one of the most common fears that humans have.  I was never bothered by elevators or dark closets, and before our assault, I would have thought that I was beyond such a petty fear. 

The passageway closed in around me, bending slightly with the torus shape of the station, limiting our visibility to about fifty meters.  It was long, longer than I would’ve thought possible from the briefing, and completely devoid of obvious doors.  I was beside O’Leary, moving in quickstep through the dimly lit corridor.  The sounds of heavy breathing, the rhythmic sounds of our equipment clinking and jingling, the trails of sweat coming from my hairline down to the tip of my nose…it all contributed to an oppressiveness that weighed so heavily on me that I thought I would stagger underneath it.  What if the Rak’Lan had an emergency vent system?  They could just depressurize an entire area and we would be left to the quick-seal function of our suits, with its twenty minute emergency supply of air.  I could be alone, drifting in the vastness of space, my last sight in this life would be of Jupiter as I drifted alone in orbit.
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This is old news, but I felt I should comment on it anyway.  Pluto, our ninth planet, has been relegated to the status of “dwarf planet.”  Does anyone else feel sad about this?

I learned the nine planets as a four year old on my Grandfather’s knee:  Mother Very Thoughtfully Made A Jelly Sandwich Under No Protest.  (Mercury, Venus, Terra, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.)  I suppose we need a new way of remembering the planets.  Disney may have to rename the faithful companion of Mickey Mouse.  The Roman god of the underworld is probably seething right now in the depths.

I understand the scientific compulsion to make sure that definitions and taxonomy are applied consistently and logically when describing objects, but the emotional impact to our culture as a whole weighs heavily in favor of waiving the new definition in order to include Pluto in our definition of a planet. 

But then again, who am I kidding?  I asked a high school student today in the grocery store (who had his nose buried in a Chemistry text book while his mother tossed things into a shopping cart) if he enjoyed science.   His reply astounded me.  “I just need to get a good enough grade to get into college.”  Unspoken was that the grade would probably be obtained by a combination of cajoling, cramming, and cheating.  He certainly wouldn’t care that Pluto had been demoted, since his interest in science extended only to receiving a good enough mark to go to college. 

Probably no one cares but a select few journalists and academics, as well as a few of us in the blogsphere.

Vaya con Dios, Pluto.

Okay.  I’ll admit.  I succumbed to fanboy tendencies and bought the book.

It’s good.  It is certainly better than the self-appointed critics at Amazon lead you to believe.  It is certainly not the prose of Frank Herbert, nor does it come close to the philosophical complexity of the original series, but it does provide a nice coda to the Dune series.  I do think some of the plot elements qualify as jumping the shark, but I won’t reveal them here.  You’ll have to judge for yourself.

Expect a full reivew by the weekend.

The Russians and Chinese are on to something that the United States should be.  CNN is reporting that the countries (one formerly Communist and now Mafia, the other pretending to be Communist while using capitalism to profit off of the West) have joined forces to launch a scientific mission to Mars.  Russia will provide the launch vehicle while the Chinese will provide the survey equipment (probably powered by Lenovo computers).  Instead of being front page news, this is relegated to the Science and Space section on CNN.

Our intelligence services couldn’t predict 9/11, they can’t find Osama bin Laden, and they don’t care about the most populous nation in the world developing space capabilities that are independent of oversight from the rest of the globe?  HELLO!  We are begging for China to monopolize our nearest neighbors as an outlet for both industrial might and population pressure.

Most of America will read my headline and give me the inevitable yawn, before going back to figure out if Tom Cruise has had his head frozen by Hubbardites.  Some might dismiss me as alarmist, isolationist, or all those other “ists” that make one of patriotic libertarian leaning so obnoxious.  Wake up to the truth, folks.  The biggest industrial revolution mankind has ever seen awaits us in the heavens, but we’re too interested in feeding out-of-work baby factories that are content with a government stipend to invest some real dollars in expanding our industrial base beyond our Earthly shackles.

China and Russia deserve the frontier.  With our penchant for cranial rectosis, we should be content to slide into decadence and obscurity.

Our intelligence briefings on the Rak’Lan had been remarkably devoid of information.  Having never recovered more than charred bodies from our skirmishes, all we knew was their basic physiology, their shape and size (if that didn’t vary), and a vague understanding of their technology.  Some of our own recent breakthroughs had occurred as a result of the analysis of some of their wreckage, but in other ways, we were far ahead of them.  I suppose that just goes to show how different races evolve along different pathways.

The interior of the Rak’Lan station was bathed in a pale, red glow.  Whether this was characteristic of their normal lighting or if this was emergency lighting was unknown.  The corridors were not square or rectangular; they were ovoid, matching somewhat the curve of the station.  The air was rank with some kind of ester.  This may have been a product of their body chemistry, a source of fuel, or even an example of their cooking.  There was gravity in the corridor.

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Here is the first installment.  Please comment below.  Enjoy! 

My family was against me joining the Solarian Marine Corps. 

Never mind the swelling of patriotism and the unification of humanity in the face of extinction from an extra-terrestrial threat.  I was expected to be an engineer, a doctor, or a lawyer.  According to my family, I would fight humanity’s struggle from a plush office or a cubicle, supporting our efforts with my intellect and not the power of my muscles.

“You’re not cannon fodder,” my father told me, the night before I left for basic training. “You’ll be there with all the teenagers who are being wrongly given a second chance.  Drug addicts, pimps, vandals and thieves are going to be your comrades.  It’s not like those World War II books you’re always reading.  The service isn’t noble…it’s just that we throw the dregs of humanity out there as a shield to give us time to win the war with our intellect.”  He sighed.  “You’re better than that.  Kids of your ability go to college and make real contributions to the war effort.  This is beneath you.”

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