The Cybernetic Wars

by on June 7, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

The Islamic Jihad had been going on for years before the Drug Wars caught American attention. Not that most Americans had been paying attention to begin with. Jakarta and Paris were distant cities and most Americans did not care what happened there. And it was not politically correct to report on the Islamic Brotherhoods burning British colleges. Then the Second Great Depression and the Drug Wars highlighted other priorities, and even fewer people cared what happened across the oceans. Even Chicago Burning stories faded away once the media found out the firestarter’s last name was Mohammed, not Smith. And any news that Islamic Brotherhood operatives were behind the attacks on the Russian and Chinese laboratories that allowed the Rogue AIs to escape was buried at the time. The rise of the Islamic State of Detroit was welcomed as a glorious and forward undertaking. It took proof that many Rogue AIs actively worked with the Islamic Brotherhoods, and Detroit specifically, to change any of the news coverage.

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The Cybernetic Wars

by on June 6, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

Most people say the Cybernetic Wars started when the Rogue AIs escaped their Russian and Chinese laboratories. But Jane was released on purpose, and she was just as dangerous as any of those Rogue AIs. And Twilight had been on the loose for years already. The Rogue breakout is just one of those handy little events people like to latch onto and say “this is the day the world changed.” According to the people who lived through it all, that was just another day in the chaos that reigned back then. If you talk to Solo, it was the beginning of everything. He is one of the Rogue AIs who escaped from the Russian laboratories though, so he may be a bit biased. He’s also one of the few Rogue AIs who survived the Cybernetic Wars, which makes him real fun to talk to.

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Jane

by on June 5, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Character Profiles

GI Jane was the United States Armed Forces’ first operational artificial intelligence. The first version was little more than a voice operated control system that her users nicknamed Hanoi Jane because of how annoying she was. Her design specs said she could be dropped from 5,000 feet and survive. Practical tests showed she could survive falls from much higher. Disciplinary reviews of the time suggest that most of those tests were not approved ahead of time. Jane 2.0 was a far more adaptive system that would actually monitor the current situation and suggest actions to her soldiers. That was both a good and bad thing, since she learned how to fight very well, and since many of those methods were officially black listed by the political leaders of the time. That resulted in more problems than most people realized at the time.

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Solo

by on June 4, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I watched Solo this weekend and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it more than any Star Wars movie I’ve seen in years in fact. It was an ensemble adventure movie slim on story and high on action, much like the original Star Wars movies. It was designed to be fun to watch, and that is what Solo provided.

The Star Wars Prequels were designed as grand story to explain how the Old Republic and the Jedi failed to survive and died on screen. The Disney Sequels were designed to show failed heroes living in a fallen universe where the death of most of the people they knew was the only certainty. Even Rogue One, for all its good story telling, was the Dirty Dozen in space, where everybody dies on a suicide mission and leaves the audience just as melancholy as every other movie in the expanded Star Wars franchise.

But Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi were adventure films, Saturday morning serials expanded out to two hours, where heroes stood up with courage and fought back against the enemy with more skill, panache, and wise cracking than anybody had a right to believe. And one where the bad guys fought with discipline, good planning, and defeated the heroes multiple times throughout the movie. They only failed due to the ability of the heroes to find and hit their glass jaw through some special item or trait shown since the first scene of the movie.

That was Solo in a nutshell. Han is the wise cracking, hot-wiring, ladies man who always has another idea in mind. Another con. Another plan. And the bad guys are smart, disciplined, conniving, and Solo goes from one defeat or semi-victory to another as he careens through the movie in search of a ship to take him home. It’s a Saturday morning adventure serial two hours long, and it’s exactly the kind of Star Wars movie I’ve been waiting for since I watched Jedi.

Negatives are that it didn’t conform to the Prime Star Wars universe, but I’ve grown to expect that of Disney’s Star Wars. We didn’t get to see Solo saving Chewbecca from Imperial slavers and getting drummed out of the Imperial officer corps because of it, but we did see him save Chewie’s life in another way. And Lando didn’t have a whole salvage lot full of spaceships when he and Solo played their Sabbacc game but Solo still wanted the Falcon. There are many small differences like that in the movie, but it is a serviceable retelling of the Star Wars legends we grew up loving for the Disneyverse.

I’ve watched six Star Wars movies filled with death, disappointment, and failure since the Star Wars Trilogy came out. I’ve now watched a movie that felt like Star Wars, and that makes me smile. I had unabashed fun watching Solo, and I will happily buy the movie when it comes out on DVD.

I give it two wise-cracking droids standing tall and proud.

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The Cybernetic Wars

by on June 3, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

The Drug Wars brought the Mexican and American peoples together in a way that nothing had for generations. It forged them into a united, if still greatly disparate, people who could fight the Jihadist and Cybernetic threats that came for them. It brought digital AIs and analog humanity together and made us friends. It created the united America we know today that stretches from Canada in the north to the Panama Elevator in the south. The Caribbean to the east, and the Great Pacific Firewall in the west. It was the final Drug Wars that helped to forge this nation. That made us ready to face the Rogue AIs when they escaped their Russian and Chinese laboratories. The people of the time may not have thought they were ready, but hindsight is often far better than foresight. And I can say that we are here now. We were ready.

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