The Name of Trent

In one of my trips to the wikipedia, I discovered that the name Trent is one of the standard cast of characters adopted by the cryptographic community when creating narratives about communications sequences. For instance, "Alice wants to send a message to Bob". Trent is the name used for a trusted third party or a neutral arbiter. Here's the disambiguation page for Trent. As mentioned on the page, Trent was the location of an important catholic convention and a major diplomatic incident that could have changed the course of the American Civil War. The name is a favorite of mine because it is the name of one of the characters from Daniel Keyes Moran's The Long Run.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Tina and I went to see Episode III this morning. The special effects were incredible. The sound was great. The action scenes were fast and furious. The climax of the movie was entirely unbelievable. You might argue that a lightsaber battle in the middle of a lava flow is completely believable in a science fiction movie. Before you play the "suspend your disbelief" card, I would respond by pointing out that the fight isn't the climax. In terms of story structure, the climax is the point beyond which nothing can remain the same. I would argue that the climax is the moment when Anakin falls to the dark side.

It's supposed to be a huge emotional moment. He's choosing to turn from the path of everything he's believed to be good in life to everything he's thought to be evil. I'm left asking why he made the choice. I don't think that the storytellers created enough of a character for me to understand why he made the decision. If I don't understand why he made the decision, then what do I take away from the movie? The purpose of fiction is to allow the audience to learn from the experieces of characters without having to live through the events themselves. When the storytellers fail to create characters that you can believe and identify with, they have failed the audience.

So, I have no trouble suspending my disbelief for a light saber battle between two men who fling things around with hand gestures within instant ignition distance of molten lava. But if you allow the flashy special effects to persuade you to suspend your disbelief of the reality of the characters then the dark side will forever dominate the destiny of science fiction.

Kara Goes Home Again (Spoilers)

This week's episode of Battlestar Galactica, "You Can't Go Home Again", has a few small touches that I wanted to point out. After Apollo recognizes Starbuck's raider, there's a moment where they greet each other by rolling their vipers from side to side. The original Galactica has an episode in it where Apollo and Starbuck fly a captured Cylon raider back from a mission on a Basestar. They signal to the fleet's vipers that they are not cylons by "waggling their wings".

Another moment that I wanted to point out is a line from the deck chief to Apollo. He says, "You can push a man a lot further than you can push a machine." That's a very interesting line if you think about it. Does that line explain the course of evolution that the cylons are following in becoming indistinguishable from humans? An interesting question...

Battlestar Galactica

This is a great show. As a teenager, I was a big fan of the original Battlestar Galactica. Later in life I watched some reruns and learned the awful truth. It was really just another Glen A. Larson TV show. Perhaps I'm being a little defensive here. I was a fan of a lot of Glen A. Larson TV shows. He was the executive producer of most of the popular TV shows while I was growing up. I watched a lot of his TV. I'll admit I was entertained. Now, I'm twice as old as I was when those shows first aired. My tastes have developed. When I was that age I enjoyed grape juice. Now I enjoy a nice Pinot or Cabernet. That is the difference between the original Battlestar Galactica and the new Battlestar Galactica. One was a sugary indulgence and the other is a complex bouquet.

Yes, Starbuck is a girl. If I were Dirk Benedict, I'd be irritated that my writers didn't give me nearly as much to work with as Katee Sackhoff got. Sackhoff just pulls off an amazing performance. I'll admit I was skeptical about the female Starbuck. Starbuck was my favorite character from the original show. But, Sackhoff sold it perfectly. There's all the stuff that I enjoyed from the original Starbuck in there, but there's a layer of complexity sewn on top of it.

Then there's Baltar. It was always difficult for me to understand the motivations of the original Baltar. Why did he sell out humanity? So he could ride around in that baseship and make snide comments to his Cylon sidekick? Now, if Tricia Helfer had been on the battlestar, I could understand his motivation. And so, I can understand how the new Baltar got into the situation he's in. I particularly enjoyed the bit of artistry the writers employed working Baltar's dialogue with Number Six into the conversation Baltar was having with the people actually present in the room.

Then there's Edward James Olmos. Ever since the Bushido episode of Miami Vice, there's been a special place in my heart for Edward James Olmos. He's dead on for playing the new more complex character of Commander Adama. I love that the quest for Earth is just a myth that Adama resurrects as a focal point for his intrepid band of refugees.

I've told the TiVo to record it. I'll be watching...

Stargate Atlantis

I watched Atlantis. Same problems as Stargate. Any time I've seen O'Neil, I've always understood his point of view. He's the main character. Why put in any effort? He knows he's going to win in the end. There's really no need to work for it. It's going to happen one way or the other.

The view of advanced technology portrayed here is ridiculous. The Wraith should be embarrassed by their poor development of technology. You're telling my that if the gate builders had "portable life detectors" that the Wraith don't have any integrated into their defense system? They don't have a computer watching for unpredicted life signs? How about video surveillance? Maybe face recognition is a really hard problem, say harder than creating wormholes, but can't the Wraith's computers tell the difference between Wraith faces and human faces? Oh, maybe the Wraith have a strong sense of personal privacy and can't tolerate the invasion of personal privacy that would result from have cameras in the corridors. Yeah, they seemed like the sensitive sort.

How about simple strategy? Surely during their defeat of the gate builders, the Wraith must have developed some basic tactical doctrines about dealing with Stargates. Why did the Wraith even allow the Puddle Jumper into their system? Why don't they have a shield over the gate?

How about when the Puddle Jumper is trying to escape. Why would the Wraith allow them to fly through the gate? Even if they didn't have control of a shield over the opening , and they couldn't prevent the ship from flying through, shouldn't they have just flow through once the gate was open? Why wait until after the ship went through? Oh right, so they could fly into the shield at the other end and get squashed.

So, humans show up with Atlantean technology. That's obvious right? The Wraith must have scanned the Puddle Jumper. Their AI system must have said, "That's a Class B Atlantean Light Troop Transport." Wouldn't someone would have to wonder, "Gee, where might someone get that kind of technology?" Oh, how about Atlantis? So, now we have to assume that the Wraith don't know where Atlantis is. If they knew, they'd scout it out and annihilate the human infestation there. In fact, if they know where Atlantis is, why didn't they obliterate it long ago? Obviously the shield wasn't up over the gate or the power would have failed. If the Wraith don't know where Atlantis is, why was it necessary to create the shield? I guess I've got to suspend my disbelief by assuming that the Wraith know where Atlantis is, but don't know the Stargate Code to get there. They have some FTL technology that allows them to get there without the code, but it takes a significant amount of time to get there that way. That's the only way the human colony survives until episode two.

Or maybe the Wraith aren't the race that defeated the gate builders. We could hold out that hope. Although unless the Wraith are a particularly stupid species who have inherited their technology from their betters, I think we should expect better from them.