Lucas Cats

by on November 21, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

The cats of San Lucas are at least as warlike as mankind can be. They were in the middle of several rather impressive wars when we colonized their world, in fact. Three, maybe four depending on the exact definition, were religious wars of some kind. One of them was extremely serious, with losses on both sides equaling Earth’s Socialist Revolutions, and destabilizing the political structure of an entire continent. Most of the others were more colonial rebellions, on the outskirts of a previously united empire that had recently fallen into a serious civil war. These wars didn’t end when humanity arrived. There were only a few thousand of us, living on the seashores that any self-respecting cat stayed far away from. We, the aliens who crossed the stars to colonize their world, didn’t matter when it came to the political calculations of power on their world. Let that sink in for a moment.

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Justice and Ragnorak

by on November 20, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I haven’t seen much for movies lately. Going from a 100 dollar a month healthcare plan before Obamacare to a 750 dollars a month plan and another 400 a month to pay down medical costs it doesn’t cover tends to leave a rather massive hole in a budget. So movies have gone the way of the dodo for me in most cases.

But Marvel and DC are an exception to that. Marvel has made one hit after another that I’ve loved, and I keep on hoping DC will make a movie as fun to watch as Green Lantern. Each of them pulled excellent rating off with Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 and Wonder Woman.

But what of Thor: Ragnorak, and Justice League? Thor has been known as a far more serious series, especially the rather dour Thor 2. And we all know how joyful and colorful Batman v Superman was. So how did they fare? Well. I’ll say this, if you’ve seen the previous for either, you have not seen the movie. Both sets of previews successfully avoid spoiling anything.

Thor’s previews manage this by lying to us. Straight up lying. What you see in the trailers is not what you see in the movies. Sometimes the background is different. Sometimes the foreground is different. Sometimes the people are different. They did an awesome job of showing us the FEEL of the movie without spoiling the reality of the movie. Bravo. And Thor Ragnarok stands tall next to the Guardian of the Galaxy movies. It is seriously that good. It’s fun to watch, and every major character gets at least one crowning moment of awesome to show off.

Justice League manages it by…well…changing the director after the previews were done and reshooting a significant part of the movie to be a bit happier. Seriously. A good half of the previews aren’t in the movie. And Superman smiles. Yeah…I know…spoilers. But if anybody DIDN’T know Superman was going to be in the movie, in some way, if only as a dream sequence, they weren’t paying attention, so I don’t feel guilty there. And the rest of the cast steps up and takes notice too. And you know what? After a decade of watching normal people waking up with gifts and choosing to help granny cross the street, and then find a battle to fight where their particular gifts is good, watching gods among men like Wonder Woman and Aquaman going into battle with true alien supersoldiers was amazing. They aren’t normal people who woke up with gifts one day and decided to help granny cross the road. They are warriors, descendents of warrior cultures, trained by warriors to fight, and they SMILE after getting hit, stand back up, and throw it right back at the bad guys. It was FUN to watch the Justice League fight.

And in that way, I have to say that Thor Ragnorak and Justice League are more alike than they are different. Watching Thor, Loki, Hulk, and Valkyrie wade into battle with smiles on their faces was every bit as much fun as watching the Justice League do the same. They are gods, with a small g, rising to meet a challenge to their world that just needs fighting. Good versus evil. Life versus death. A small group of plucky heroes against an endless armada of helmeted bad guys. Ah. Good times.

Thor Ragnorak is standing towards the top of the Marvel movies list for me. Justice League does the same thing for DC movies. Queue the excited “Yeah!” from Aquaman on that little point.

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San Lucas

by on November 19, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Essential Galactic Atlas

San Lucas was simply one of many habitable worlds when South America sent their colony expedition. We thought it no more special than any of the other fifty-odd systems we had colonized, with thick jungles covering most of its equatorial belt. Our settlers picked virgin beaches to place their early settlements and ignored most of the thick jungle belts. They burned perimeter clearings into the jungles after realizing that humans turned out to be tasty morsels for the local animal and plant life, and only a few explorers ventured deep into the jungles. A few scientists reported findings that at least some of the local wildlife could be smarter than we imagined, but they were laughed out of their jobs and their research was discarded. Some say that was our first mistake. Trust me. That was nowhere near our first or our last mistake on San Lucas.

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San Lucas

by on November 18, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Essential Galactic Atlas

I toured the rainforests of San Lucas after The War. I’d fought the Chinese with some of the Loco Cats, you see. They wanted to show me where they’d grown up. I returned the favor, though they thought my home was a little chilly. That’s fair. Their home is a bit warm for my sensibilities. But it only took one visit to see why nobody found them back in the day. Those rainforests are impressive at hiding anything from above, and the cats are nowhere near the most physically dangerous species on San Lucas. The cats are the size of a small horse. But there’s this rhino-hippo-crocodile fuel-of-nightmares thing the size of a large horse that actually holds the title of alpha predator on San Lucas. It’s got armored scales for a hide and jaws that can snap reinforced landing struts. Thank God they can’t climb trees.

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Lucas Cats

by on November 17, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Essential Galactic Atlas, The Races of Humanity

The cats of San Lucas seemed like standard, wild cats when humanity first settled their world. They hunted wild game, sampled the newly imported delicacies where possible, and learned to keep their distance from human settlements. They were smart enough to realize that human weapons were dangerous, but so were many Earth species. It never occurred to the colonists that the big cats were any more intelligent than that for the first several decades. They had other things to worry about. Life. Death. Et cetera. So they kept on going about their lives, driving off the more aggressive cats, going out on hunts from time to time, and doing all the other things that humans do in a new land.

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