My Top Five issues with the Star Trek Franchise-

So I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I consider myself a pretty hard core Trekkie, and befor you start with the "true fans call themselves trekker!" Crap, let me start with this Roddenbury used the term Trekkies, and when he was called to task for this at a convention he responded, "No, I made you, I get to name you," fair enough in my mind. But I want to declare myself a fan of Star Trek before I continue. What I say I say out of love and respect for the show. It's easy to attack something you hate. My writing a top five what is wrong with the Star Wars prequels would not only be an exceedingly easy former to write, and would most likely be agreed upon by most, but it would also join the millions of Megabytes of clever jar jar sucks rants already on the Internet, and it won't make fans stop and think. Where is the challenge in that? Stating that, I love Trek, but love means looking deep, not just blindly accepting all of it's flaws. And for all the incredible things about Star Trek, it does have it's flaws.  And this is my top five issues with this most venerated of science fiction sagas.

5-One Note Races- Now I put this as number five because it could be worse. Look at Star Wars were certain races aspire to very specific jobs. such as the huts who are almost always mobster, or how Rodians obsess about becoming bounty hunters mainly because the first ones we see on screens held these jobs. Also to be honest, most fantasy races are based on stereotypes of kinds of people we know, tolkien's elves, dwarves and hobbits coral ate to real world people, chances are you know someone who exhibits elven or dwarven characteristics. Trek races work very much on this mentality. This is why we don't have Klingon doctor characters, or  or Vulcan spies, as "vulcans don't lie." And when a race does break the bonds of this cultural stereotype, not only are they radical, but the lean toward becoming more human. Worf, Spock, and Nog become more "human by rejecting some of the notions of their social stereotypes. This makes these races less alien and more variants on the stereotypes of humanity. Compare this to say the Minbari in Babylon-5  whom while are often
seen as spritual and contemplative on the show, can be crass, rude, even downright belligerent, while
they too are more human than truly alien, it is nice to see races where there is no one specific mold where it is not a major story point NOT to act like the main characters.

4- Famous Firsts- Again, this is not a Trek only problem. We see this a lot in many fictions, it's normally a sign of poor writing, especially when it happens to so many characters. This is the notion to try to make a character extra special, The fact that not one man in 1000 could make it into the captain's chair not impressive enough for you? Viola, Kirk is also, the youngest person to ever do it! Being a half breed with an alien species not exotic enough? Poof! Spock is a singularly unique entity never to be seen again! In the pilot episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, Pickard passes another android in engineering, implying a ship having androids is common place, but in less than a season his secret origin reveals that despite the original series running into several tech caches of android technology, enough to make androids common place several decades later, Data is only one of two
unique devices made by dr. Noonian Singh. Worf? Oh, yeah he is the first and to date only Klingon
to join Starfleet. Geordi's visor, common place? NO it's a unique piece of tech, that no othe blind
person gets (which is espeically crappy when you see that if blindness is caused by genetic defect, we can't genetically modify a person to be sighted thanks to Khan......KHAN!!! )  think of some of the big innovators of our world today, and did they have to be the first or only to make an impact. Was Joss Wheadon, the youngest person ever to write for CBS? Was Steve Jobs the only person working on personal computing?  Was MacArthur the youngest general ever? No. And yet these people's stories can still be compelling. I would love to see more of the common crew in Star Trek, a ship that isn't the flagship with the best of the best of the best with honors. This is one of firefly's appeals, the characters aren't supremely awesome people with incredible gifts (o.k River aside that is). But they are ordinary folk in an Extrordinary world. As one Star Trek slogan is "the human adventure is just beginning!" It might help if the humans were, more human.

3- Enlightened, yet frightfully backwards- The last episode of Star Trek, Turnabout intruder, it is clearl and quite stupidly explained that women simply don't have the mental wherewithal to be Starship captains. And most of us turn a blind eye to this turd of an episode, as it was a dumb concept that Roddenbury didn't sign off on, and we all know better. Later in Trek we would see females take command, and yet when it came to Voyager we took a massive step backward. Janeway was not the ideal Starfleet captain, during a mutiny she cried on the shoulder of her  head mutineer, would Kirk have done that if Spock had mutinied? HELL NO! He's have slugged Spock and exclaimed "You never to that on MY ship mister!" Pickard? Sisko? still no! But janeway by sheer merit of chromosomes has to play it super feminine and cries on Tuvok's shoulder. And then there is Q. an ageless timeless and godlike being of no gender, who gets the hots for which captain? Janeway. They went out of their way sometimes to point out she was not a male. It got old, and could have been handled way better, then there is the whole no gay characters in Trek. Why not? in an inclusive environment as trek why are we going to ignore a diverse group based on sexuality? David Gerald's script blood and ire called for a gay couple, and it was ousted from TNG. (though the good folk at Star Trek Phase II, a fan series did it anyway!) I think this is one Roddenbury would have done but the studios were simply scared that their cash cow could offend, obviously missing that it was loved for it's inclusiveness such as a black woman as an officer and the first interracial kiss, and thus stifling what trek could be.

2- Continuity holes you can drive a Galaxy Class Star Ship through-I Know I Know, any show that has had over 40 years of continuity, multiple series, movies, games, comics,novels and cartoons can't hope to have a concise and perfectly written history that never overlaps and never contradicts itself. Too many chefs ruining the stew and all that. But sometimes you just have to try harder. Harder than the Trill who were an unknown race in the federation in TNG had an officer in the federation grooming Sisko, and helping the Klingons but knew nothing of his medical history. Or if the Dominion War was the biggest event in the federation since the Borg, where the hell was the federation's flagship during all this, Putzing around with the Sona, Really? and this wasn't some odd reference in classic trek that we forgot or chosen to ignore like the crap in turnabout intruder, this was stuff that was written in the series that had people working on all of this stuff at the same time dropping the ball. And don't even get me started on the multiple version of "do Klingons without ridges exist and why?" arguements.

1- Space Booze-  This one has always bothered me. So people in the 24th century without need of money will do work to fill a sense of self fulfillment, even crappy jobs most people today won't do for pay. We have eliminated most vices, no porn addicts in the 24th century, no amputees, and certainly no drugs. We as a species have grown out of using chemicals to get "high" and won't be addicted to these kinds of dangerous substances. Well, except booze. For all it's ills, for the countless examples of alcohol destroying lives, impairing judgement, and being a root cause of accidents. It's not only still acceptable in the 24th century, but almost required. But wait, they have a new kind of alcohol, called synthahol that allows you to "shake off" the effects at will. No one thought about cake that doesn't contribute to type 2 diabetes, but as long as we can still go on toquilla binges we are A OK. years ago Harlan Ellison wrote the script City on the Edge of Forever, in which Kirk and Spock would confront a junkie on the enterprise. The fact that there are no druggies in the future, would prompt Gene Roddenbury to rewrite the script. Something that really pissed off Ellison, Well sorry guys alcohol is a drug. You can't have Wesley give a moralistic questioning on how would people allow themselves to be addicted to some chemical, while Guinan is serving fuzzy navels in 10 forward. Funny thing is Roddenbury angered studio execs by banning smoking from the ship, meaning that he cut out the potential for tobacco advertising revenue. Yet this same man allowed all itterations of Trek to drink like Barney Gumbal, because of the weak plot device of new space booze, why? How is it people can evolve out of so much in Trek but not this? Don't get me wrong Star Wars, Babylon-5, Firefly all have booze, and bars, but they also have druggies, alcoholics, and all the real demons that alcohol brings making it a real part of the world for all its ills and allure. This is a good example though of trying too hard to keep one institution you do like while illogically condemning similar institutions you are against. Weak man, really weak.

To boldly sit around....

So I am at the end of a long project. I have been asked, told and even cajoled into this, but after powering through all 7 seasons I can state I have given Deep Space Nine as much of a chance as I possibly could, and still. I don't really care for it.

League of Exrordinary Bloggers: Hello, My name is...

So with being back in the saddle it's time to jump back into the league, and with out much time to spare this week's Subject is in short- Who am I?

I'm Batman!

Just kidding I had to say it, of course no one has ever seen me in the same room as batman so...

Seriously though, I'm Jamie Herbert, I was born in Odessa Texas in  May of 1972, to Jerry and Linda Herbert. The younger of 2 boys, my father was in the oil business as a roughneck and thus we moved all over the world, From Thailand, to Norway, to Iran, To Spain, to Scotland, and most alien of all Louisiana.

In fact, we left Iran right before all the revolutions happened, I still remember the Shah's face adorning huge paintings in local shops, and on the test pattern of our TV, where my brother would anxiously wait for his portrait to fade so we could watch Tom and Jerry!

When We left we came home to New London Iowa (where My Grandpa and Grandma lives, and more or less the placed lived when in the USA. also where I started going to school. after coming back from Iran, we saw a movie in the drive in that many think of as the touchstone of our generation,

I hated it. Hey, I was 5 years old and jet lagged, i fell asleep through most of it. The second time I watched it however I was hooked. It was awesome, I was obsessed and it was my life, as my other obsessions, The Bionic Man, Megos, Star Trek and of course Superheroes...

I really learned to lessons from moving and being the perennial new kid, First is that everyone is different. For example, when we lived in Scotland I watched plenty of british TV, and not just the classic like Monty Python, but stuff like Blue Peter, The Goodies, Educating Marmalade, and Black Adder. I still recall watching the Doctor Who Episode series "The Five Doctors" When it originally aired and also became a who fan a certain Galifreyan traveler. You know, you never do forget your first doctor. Beyond that I realized that people hate things they don't understand I took flack in iowa for calling teachers Ma'am or Sir, but in Louisiana you did this or got hit, it becomes habbit. When I loved in Scotland we learned about factor trees. and on a math test i took the month after in Louisiana, I got shit for cheating on a quiz where I was showing my work. My brother coped by trying harder to fit in, but not me. I prettymuch became increasingly of the opinion that if you think I am weird or not cool for not following the herd, then screw you, I'm fine with being an iconoclast. This is also probably the reason I hate it when something I love becomes main stream enough that the kind of people who ridiculed me for liking it are now somehow claiming to be the biggest fans of this!

One other thing that i picked up in the UK was Dungeons and Dragons. it was big in the American School in Aberdeen where I went, and My brother had some interest after we had watched Pat Robertson declare it satanic on the 700 club when we were leaving for Scotland the 2nd time.  While my brother was the more interested into getting into it originally, I became the one who fell way deeper for it. The same thing happened with Legos, my mom bought them for Lonnie originally but he showed very little interest, and me, I became a guy who still plays with legos as an adult. Same goes for gaming. He bought the starting games but then When I played, I never looked back I went from D&D to Gamma World, Top Secret, Traveller, Champions, and eventually into miniatures wargaming. Starting with Warhammer, I still get a kick out of building, painting modelling and of course playing, among my current favorites are Bolt Action, Maurice, Infinity, and Kings of War.

Once puberty set in I was like any other male, obsessed with the opposite gender, funny enough, despite the Sterotype of Star Trek fans being all virgins with no chance of getting laid in a women's prison, I actually owe quite a bit of my Sex life to Star Trek. I met my first serious girlfriend at a costume party where I went in a full TNG science officer uniform, I lost my virginity explaining the TNG episode "the Inner Light" and my future wife and mother of my children I had met when I made up the excuse that I was asked to look at the Star Trek Pinball machine at the arcade I worked at to get a glimpse of the new girl. She was pretty hot, and while she seemed uninterested that day the next we had to work together and it was a different story, we have been together ever since, and have our first daughter (Arya Lucia Herbert), and we have as a family been to trekfest, as Captain Kirk's birthplace is about an hour south of us.

So that's me a geek, an Iconoclast, a gamer (actual gamer, not "I play xbox so I am such the gamer" Gamer but real, spent weeks working on modules, painting armies kind, and a husband and parent. and when I am not doing that I Nerd Rage, but you guys already know about that...

So let's look at a few more. SECRET ORIGINS OF THE LEAGUE OF EXTRODINARY BLOGGERS!!!

Monster Cafe
Jathniel
The Goodwill Geek
Geekshow Ink
the Holidaze
Erik Johnson
Pop Rewind
The Trashman

Set Phasers to, Rage!

So this week's assignment from the league is Star Trek, A show near and dear to my heart (and other organs!)- I have always liked Star Trek, but sometime around 1986, I became obsessed with it. Taping episodes on the family VCR, and replaying them constantly taking in every nuance of Gene Roddenbury's epic "wagon train to the stars" Also finding out that I live about an hour from James T Kirk's birthplace of Riverside Iowa, made me have to take the pilgrimage every year. Heck I even got George Takei to sign my copy of the Decipher Star Trek RPG Player's guide. Trek is in my blood, if we are going to argue Star Wars or Trek, this is a no contest for me Trek every time. I would rather deal with the innane space hippies or Wesley Crusher at his worst, than deal with Jar Jar Binks, and midichlorians!

 Not sure I am really this much of a Trekkie (Trekker's take note, I use the term Trekkie, because it is what Roddenbury himself used, hey he created it, he gets fanbase naming rights!) Here is a picture of Me and my wife and dog, Ein, at Trekfest in 2011,

Ein, is Dressed as "Bones" obviously, but yeah I look like goof, in this pic, but the wife and dog look fine. Speaking of Riverside, and knowing that this is Nerd RAGE against the machine, Brings me to a bit of a sore subject. 

One thing that really pisses me off about Star Wars (yeah I know this is about Trek, but just let me give a bit of backstory first!)  fans is their incessant need to try to prove superiority, I recall being in a Firefly discussion on line and listening to such winning arguments as "If it's the future why do they still use bullets, and drills?" Oh I don't know SITHDUDE2013, probably because they are proven to work, how long have nails been around? or the wheel Barrow? even with more modern ways of putting 2 boards together the nail works dumbass! And this from a fan of a show where we have energy beam based melee weapons and yet no one understands the basic concept of railing. the queens palace, endless chasms, no railing, the Deathstar, you need to go out on a 4" ledge over a endless chasm to turn off the tractor beam and of course, no railings. Osha would have a field day in a galaxy far far away how F&*^ing hard is it to come up with a metal bar about chest high, oh sure we can put forcefields all over the damn place the idea of a safety rail alludes us! Well With the new Trek movie, the complaint from all Star Wars fans was the same. "It's like a total rip off of a new hope!" "Old man mentor tells young idealistic kid to lead a bigger life and he fights a planet killing device. I mean Captain Kirk is like a total Luke Skywalker rip off!" So as someone who lives within spitting distance of Kirk's home town let me point this out! 

Riverside Iowa is about 30 miles from Iowa City. the former capital, it is also home to my alma matter, the University of Iowa, which is still rated as one of the top 10 party schools in the USA. The shot above is a normal tailgating during a home game. lets' compare this to the largest city we know that was near Luke Skywalker. 

Mos Eisley, never will you find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. In short a back water world with a heavy crime rate run by a space slug. What is my point? simple Kirk as a teen had access to both a big ten University which has a top flight medical school, and a huge party scene every weekend. While luke (in the script and cutscenes) mostly does chores and hangs out with a few local acquaintances.  Kirk was most likely taking AP classes due to his higher intelligence, and sneaking over to the left side of Burge Hall (the women's side) on the weekend, if not trying to get in to One Eyed Jakes, the Field House or thier 22nd century Equivalents. This is why kirk turned out like this-

While Luke turned out like this. 

The bar scenes in both films tells the story pretty well. Luke meekly listened to Obi Wan, and was victimized in the bar leading to Obi Wan having to save his farmboy ass. Kirk, strode into the place, hit on the hottest girl he could find, and when someone tried to "defend her honor" Kirk was spoiling for a rumble. In this case no meekly hiding behind a Jedi, no Kirk jumped in full bore! this is the difference between Luke and Kirk, Luke is an innocent who was thrust into a much larger world, but Kirk was already too big for where he was.  I won't deny that there are similarities. Just like there are similarities between Star Wars and other established fantasies I mean a small town boy thrust into a war against an evil empire who has been given a power to destroy it, while it's the plot to star wars, it's also the plot to lord of the rings! In fact let's be fair all you Jedi out there, Lucas borrowed heavily from tons of sources, R2D2 And C3PO were inspired by two yojimbo from Kurusawa's hidden fortress. Vader's armor? Samurai.  Han and Chewy? Gunslinger and sidekick from about any western, and Obi Wan Reeks of Gandalf the Grey, complete with best friend who stabbed him in the back, but he comes back more powerful than you can possibly imagine. 

So what are the other blogs up to you may ask? 

Well,

 Fortune and Glory (days) talks Kreo.

AEIOU and sometimes why discusses power records.

the 30ish year old boy discusses heresy,( By going all pro Star Wars)

and infinite hollywood goes for the retro hat trick with mego! 

and for your listening pleasure,

A few more hardcore geek songs.

MC Mr. Napkins

More MC Mr. Napkins

M.C. Chris

More M.C. Chris

and this is just plain fun...

DAMN IT!!!

SO I have been looking at the new Star Trek game for the PSIII with almost as much enthusiasm as the movie. Trek has, unfortunately had a tumultuous history with video games a few good (starfleet academy ect) some bad (see the NES version) but this looks pretty good as a over the shoulder action game, and if done right I would be quite pleased mores because I had heard that the PS Move would get it's own phaser.

As all three of the big consoles decided to embrace the movement tracking schtick this time around after  so many non gamers flocked to the Wii for it's unique controls and easy to pick up play. I was impressed how Sony had at least tried to make the move not just a rip off Wii. Using the standard playstation eye meant you could but move in pieces rather than the whole console or expensive upgrade  options the other companies used. The other thing is they have tried to make motion gaming part of hard core gamer titles such as Resistance III, and Kill Zone III as a  supplemental but not required way to play. It's actually much more fun than i expected to pull out the rifle attachment and play full screen. that being said I thought phaser? Hell Yeah! but it was not to be. I mean just look at the thing! it's awesome add the epic fail of Star Wars Kinect, and it puts some serious prominence on move and Star Trek.
Oh and this is what I mean by Epic Fail of Star Wars Kinect-

So yeah Star Trek move could not dare be this kind of embarrassment to the franchise!