Bridge & Rogue One

Bridge

I needed a break from fiction so this is a path that crosses the chasm...

I looked at the news yesterday and aside from the Queen feeding some bananas to an elephant in a zoo it was all bad.  Is my problem that I get most of my news from Google News feeds perhaps there another news feed out there that is only good news who knows.  Okay so there was the announcement that NASA is going to say something profound about the two "water" planets in our solar system tomorrow.  I wonder did NASA make a deal with Trump that every now again they would make a big announcement to distract the public in exchange for less of a budget cut?  Does not appear to be working to me.

I find it somewhat curious that Trump wants China to deal with North Korea since it is:

...naturally abundant in metals such magnesite, zinc, tungsten, and iron; with magnesite resources of 6 billion tonnes (second largest in the world), particularly in the Hamgyeong-do and Jagang-do provinces. ... Coal, iron ore, limestone, and magnesite deposits are larger than other mineral commodities.

And yet he is happy to attack Syria on the grounds that Assad is a bad leader that kills his own people considering Trump is all about profit.  This attack smacks of an opportunistic gamble to grab some limelight for his failing presidency.  There is the rumour that the airbase had been cleared because someone in Trump's admin had tipped off the Russians which just adds to the theater of the whole affair.  Plus there is possibility that Assad do not have any gas left although Syria is a big place so anything is possible.  Women and children died but what did they really die for? Trump's presidency or Russia's support or Assad's need to feel like he is control of Syria.  I very much doubt if any of them considered the dying people except as a tool of publicity.

This is the world we live in everything is designed to distract us from the horrors of the middle east and war torn countries.  The problem is they have become bored and have started on destroying the countries of the west.  Trump is dismantling America piece by piece, Putin is the new Stalin putting Gay men into concentration camps, does the Road of Bones need resurfacing I wonder. If France's Marine Le Pen wins the election in May then that could be another nail in the EU coffin.

We appear to be on a slippery slope, I am just waiting for the Aliens to turn up and say "We told you so!"

Rogue One (SPOILER ALERT)

Finally watched it and it was good, a Star Wars movie that contained almost no Jedi aspects.  It was a refreshing change from the constant light sabre effects and deep things about the force.  Essentially this is a war film, it happens between episodes three and four.  The story of how the plans to the Death Star were stolen in the first place and its origin story.

It does become obvious however what the likely ending is going to be and that wars are won by soldiers.  And in this case there is no concept that war is glorious, if anybody out there still believes such nonsense try reading some World War I poetry.  I have had the good fortunate not to live through or experience war first hand but its effects are everywhere.

Like all Star Wars movies there is an element of comedy which worked much better than in the film The Force Awakens. K-2SO the new droid voiced by Alan Tudyk delivers his lines with almost British deadpan quality far better than C3PO's slightly snobbish voice ever could.

What I found curious is that when the Death Star is first fired it hits the target perfectly and wipes out a desert town however the second time it is used they miss the Empire base by miles despite being told to fire at the base.  Okay so it did destroy it from the resulting blast but did they miss on purpose so we can have the final death scene?

Yet again this film proves that being dead does not mean you cannot still be in a film Peter Cushing's CGI I have got say is quite awesome and the voice was almost spot on.  Carrie Fisher's CGI is also very good although she was in it very briefly at the end.

Overall a very good film and I will be watching it again.

Route 101 – Thunder Part 3 of 9

Flostam

Even before the D-Shifts started up, this Road has seen its far share of history, originally it ran up to the take-off fields of the Space Patrol of course they didn't last long what with the war between Dwells what a nutty bunch of aliens they were.  They blew the Space Patrol right out of its socks and then surrenders for absolutely no reason known to man.  There's still a big crater at the end of the Road some big scientists say it created a negative pole of instability at that end of the Road whatever that means.  The Dwells didn't stay long but they did give us star-drive capability not that it helped us to travel to other stars of course, theoretically we could as long as we were at least four light years away from the Earth.

Then came the Greys, aliens with zero dress sense and I do mean zero.  They landed at the end of the Road I'm currently sitting stationary at in my hunker about three miles northeast in fact.  Turns out the Greys tended to follow the Dwells everywhere not to patch up their messes like my old Dad no such luck not that I believe in luck of course.  Apparently the Dwells are drawn to highly radioactive materials and the Space Patrol had one of the old G-Reactors that belched the stuff on a regular basis of course back then the bulk of the Space Patrol was completely automated using those daft IA series robots. I mean come on, difference engines make terrible cops.  We sold the Greys plans for the G-Reactors a completely unstable technology for a yet more unstable technology to help with the star-drive the Dwells had supplied us with.  The government was apparently on their game that day because they asked for a demonstration so the Greys put a man in a shuttle craft east of the Road and used the tech to travel to the west side of the Road without apparently moving.  Then they left quite quickly not to be seen again I might add and so did the government boys although we seen them all the time.

Five years later came the first of the D-Shifts and no one even noticed it for another year, it was right in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle so who is going to notice something strange there.  Of course when an ocean liner that has been wrapped in a complete circle appears drifting off the coast tends say something was up, it was a bloody miracle no one was hurt.  The incident in Paris however really made an impression particularly I assume on the French since it was their tower that had the make over in pigeon, I'm sure you've seen the video feed that one moment a very small pigeon in the middle distance flying above the tower and the next a twenty ton pigeon failing to fly and falling on top of it.  Speared quite spectacularly by the tower itself not that the tower managed to support the extra weight for very long, which then bent down before snapping completely in two, only two hundred and seven people killed.  One of the worst disasters the city had faced since the last war, I mean to have survived five wars and then to be destroyed by a twenty ton pigeon.