#The aliens were not a fan of the earthling limitations

[sweetescapeartist]

HOW DRAGON BALL CHARACTERS SURPASS THEIR LIMITS

Toriyama explains how DB characters become stronger in an interview.

TLDR; Beings with transformations overcome their limits by transforming into a form that can utilize more ki (Saiyans, Freeza, ect). Beings who cannot transform (Earthlings and other alien races with lower physical limits) overcome their limits by cultivating & raising their ki to higher and higher levels of power. Their progression of power is slower than those with transformations, but with hard work they can surpass most other races.

For a simplistic way to look at it... Earthlings and certain other races like them essentially live life on "Hard Mode" while Saiyans & others are on an easier difficulty.

HOW SAIYANS BREAK THEIR LIMITS

Saiyan breaks their limits through physical transformation; wether it be Oozaru, Super Saiyan forms, or Super Saiyan God transformations.

Contrary to what DB video games show for fanservice & what many fans believe, the truth is that majority of Saiyans cannot turn Super Saiyan due to many, many reasons.

The only transformation that all Saiyans with tails can achieve is the Oozaru/Great Ape form. But even then, there were non-combatant Saiyans who never turned Oozaru (like Beets) and there are even Saiyan combatants who only resorted to transforming into the mindless ape form when it was absolutely necessary to defeat an extra strong race of people.

Without transformations, Saiyans can be surpassed by other aliens & even Earthlings as they have been in the series.

1st Form Freeza > all Saiyans

Krillin, Tenshinhan, Yamcha > 1st form Freeza

Thus, top 3 strongest Earthlings > 99% of Saiyans (not counting Goku, Vegeta, then later Broly who are either a prodigy, a mutant, or raised as an Earthling).

But, Saiyan bodies are capable of getting stronger from intense battles from what fans call "zenkai boosts." Because of zenkai boosts, their obsession for battle, & their Oozaru form, Saiyans are considered to be a warrior race, and that they are. On average, Saiyans were stronger than most other aliens. But, due to their culture's pride being in their strength, they call themselves the strongest race despite Freeza & many other individuals being stronger than them.

Collectively, Saiyans are the strongest race of aliens.

Individually, many other aliens have surpassed & can surpass Saiyans.

HOW MOST ALIENS BREAK THEIR LIMITS

There are transformation-type aliens who are capable of transformation similar to Saiyans, but in a way unique to their own race. These transformations can be for different reasons as well (conserving their power, increasing their power, camouflage, ect). Two examples being Zarbon & Freeza.

Most alien races are born with similar physical strength as Earthlings & don't know how to use ki. But, there are others who are born with the ability to naturally use ki. There are even some aliens who are strong and can fly but cannot use ki blasts, so they use laser guns and other weapons.

It is also very uncommon for most aliens to lower or raise their battle power drastically. One alien who can control their battle power is Captain Ginyu. He was made the leader of Freeza's elite squad because the ability to raise your battle power is a highly valued rarity.

Not only is Freeza capable of transforming, but he also has the ability to raise his strength at will, which is why he values such abilities in his army.

The warrior-clan Namekians & Earthling martial artists also have this ability to control their battle power at will. Freeza found them interesting for a reason on Namek.

Speaking of Namekians, Piccolo has a new transformation. So, it seems that even Namekians are capable of some sort of transformation. Or perhaps it's only for Super Namekians like Piccolo. But, we will have to wait for DBS: Super Hero to explain why & how Piccolo can transform.

(My explaination of Piccolo's power in DBS: Super Hero)

It is referred to as Piccolo's "awakening." It's something similar to Gohan's potential unleashed power.

HOW EARTHLINGS BREAK THEIR LIMITS

Earthlings are part of a rare group of beings that can raise their energy without transforming. They are considered weak at first glance, but they have deep understanding of spiritual energy (ki). Earthling martial artists understand how to cultivate their ki and keep increasing their energy in order to surpass their physical limits of power & overcome the power of their opponents. The extremely skilled ones [like Krillin, Tenshinhan, & Yamcha] have increased their ki to powers beyond most aliens.

Androids 19 & 20 even mistook Yamcha for Goku due to Yamcha's battle power being what they over calculated how strong Goku would be at this point (without knowledge of SSJ).

And although it's an extremely rare case & likely the only occurrence ever (so far), Earthlings can spiritually transform as we see with Krillin's Non-Self State.

Earthlings are born at a great disadvantage, but they have greater spiritual capability & spiritual understanding of how to surpass most aliens in the universe.

This is why Saiyan-Earthling Hybrids like Gohan are so powerful. Saiyan abilities with Earthling spiritual/ki potential.

This is also why Goku is so powerful. Saiyan abilities mixed with Earthling understanding of ki.

#surpassing limits #physical limit #Saiyans #Namekians #Earthlings #transformations #Oozaru #Super Saiyan #Super Saiyan Blue #Non-Self State #No Ego Zone #Selflessness State #Dragon Ball #Dragon Ball Z #Dragon Ball Super #DB #DBZ #DBS

[smokeybrandreviews]

Real Bad News

A friend of mine sent me an article claiming Disney is looking to create a Dragon Ball Z franchise, helmed by Kevin Feige, with the intent on making it larger than their MCU and Star Wars worlds, combined. It’s always the Mouse House, ain’t it. I just got done critiquing Obi-Wan and now this. F*ck, man, they won’t stop until they own everything! Okay, so my gut reaction to this news was "Bad. I feel bad about this." How the f*ck can Disney even make a DB franchise with all of the violence, toilet humor, and sexual innuendo? Impossible! It’d have to be completely watered down, even if they release it under the 20th Century imprint. So i did some quick google-fu and found out that they don't own the rights to Dragon Ball. That's still Shueisha, Toei, and Toriyama. What Disney owns is the same rights Fox did, the rights that gave us Dragon Ball: Evolution. Unless Disney goes back to Shueisha, Toriyama, and Toei, they are incredibly limited in what they can and can't do with those rights. What Disney has with DB is similar to what Star Trek has with Paramount.

I imagine they'll have to create their own universe and can only call those characters by the names they own, but not make them LOOK like the characters, you know? Star Trek created the Kelvin timeline because they don't have the rights to anything created before. That's why the Klingons look different and Picard is an android or whatever. It's why they pushed Spock's black sister that never existed and there is a whole ass cat person on Lower Decks. This is the sh*t Disney is probably going to forced into as the Japanese rights holders hated Evolution so much, they literally created Super in response to it. Evo was so bad, Toriyama rushed Battle of the Gods into production in response, which led to Dragon Ball Super, which gave us the Broly movie (Which is f*cking amazing) and now, Superhero. Dragon Ball Super: Superhero is making so much money in Japan, it’s stupid. AND it’s getting released here in August. They don’t need Disney’s money and, being a whole as Japanese company, Disney can’t even threaten them with acquisition if they don’t play ball. I doubt they'll give us Yanks a shot at that franchise proper again, especially with a Super continuation all but guaranteed at this point. also, if I'm not mistaken, Sony owns the US distribution rights for anything Dragon Ball through Funimation! All that said, after my research and with a better understanding of the rights situation, I still feel pretty bad.

Feige does Marvel justice because he's a fan of the comics. He knows the business of Hollywood very well, too. Both of these things Dragon Ball is not. I don't see how Disney resists the urge to Americanize the narrative in an effort to "broaden the appeal", ie: Whitewash the f*ck out of this show in an effort not to offend or alienate middle America. Dragon Ball, and most manga, are hard to adapt because they are intrinsically Japanese. They approach storytelling completely different than we do and trust their audience way more than any domestic content creator. Seriously, you ever get a Normie to try and watch an A24 film? There’s a reason why mainstream studios don’t fund sh*t like The VVitch or Uncut Gems. And that’s just narrative dense, slow burn, character studies. Imagine having to sell that lore heavy plot, with horrific violence and absolutely evil antagonist, to Karen from Wisconsin. Now, i love the MCU but i love it because i love Marvel comics. None of these stories challenge the audience like, say, the character of a genocidal, narcissists, prince, who is responsible for millions of lives taken, getting the happy ending of marrying the richest woman on the planet and having two beautiful kids. Like, people were mad that Thanos snapped. Imagine them getting a face full of Vegeta, whole ass bodying a planet full of innocent moth people on his way to murder a bunch of earthlings for the Dragon Balls.

Like, Vegeta is a whole ass Thanos, one that gets personally bloody, and he literally never gets his comeuppance. Motherf*cker THRIVES! On top of that, his overtly racist, alien, boss who might as well be Space Hitler and enslaved an entire planet until he got tired of them and blew it the f*ck up, gets a pass, too! This motherf*cker not only comes back to life, but gets to be the fourth most powerful creature in the goddamn universe! People were mad that Thanos had a real point. Motherf*ckers were actually upset that there were cats out there saying "Thanos was right" which he kind of was. In the end, though, Thanos died. He got what he deserved. Twice. How the f*ck are they going to react to someone as irredeemable as Freeza getting redemption? The motherf*cker came back to life, twice, and immediately started Hitler-ing again with no consequence! Like, he’s out there, buying, selling, enslaving, and destroying whole ass planets, and no one is doing anything about it. Goku and Vegeta are just like, “Eh. We stay ready whenever he wants to come and try us but f*ck the rest of the galaxy.” F*ck, i forgot about Goku! How do you Mickey Mouse Goku into a likable character?? How does the Mouse House Square that sh*t? You can't separate the atrocities from Freeza, just like you can’t separate the constantly wold-endangering selfishness of Goku. He’s the f*cking main character! This motherf*cker is not Captain America, he's a slightly more reasonable Omni-Man!

I trust in Feige, always. When it comes to Marvel. I am a little sus about his Star War and even more skeptical that he can handle a franchise like Dragon Ball. The MCU structure cribs a lot from anime and manga, it's basically set up like the narrative arcs or sagas in shonen releases, but these are still very American stories being told. Just because it looks like anime, doesn’t mean it is. Definitely doesn’t mean the man that built the MCU understands anime. As much as people like to claim it to be, Avatar is not an anime but it is the closest thing to it I've seen anyone in the West, outside of France, make. That sh*t was already very Americanized from the outset, some would say very it ever appropriated a great deal from Asian culture, and the live action remake is one of the worst films ever made. If you can’t even adapt something for the American audience, that was already made for the American audience, the f*ck chance does Dragon Ball (or any other anime or manga for that matter) have?  I don't see a live action, US created, Dragon Ball Z capturing that same spirit of it’s Japanese origins, especially when it's being made under the stifling creative conditions of Disney. I trust Feige to make something but i am very much dubious about the end product. I'm curious what they will create but, don't misunderstand me, it's probably going to be bad and it certainly won't be anything close to Dragon Ball Z.

#Dragon Ball #Dragon Ball Z #Disney #20th Century Studios

[smokeybrand]

Real Bad News

A friend of mine sent me an article claiming Disney is looking to create a Dragon Ball Z franchise, helmed by Kevin Feige, with the intent on making it larger than their MCU and Star Wars worlds, combined. It’s always the Mouse House, ain’t it. I just got done critiquing Obi-Wan and now this. F*ck, man, they won’t stop until they own everything! Okay, so my gut reaction to this news was "Bad. I feel bad about this." How the f*ck can Disney even make a DB franchise with all of the violence, toilet humor, and sexual innuendo? Impossible! It’d have to be completely watered down, even if they release it under the 20th Century imprint. So i did some quick google-fu and found out that they don't own the rights to Dragon Ball. That's still Shueisha, Toei, and Toriyama. What Disney owns is the same rights Fox did, the rights that gave us Dragon Ball: Evolution. Unless Disney goes back to Shueisha, Toriyama, and Toei, they are incredibly limited in what they can and can't do with those rights. What Disney has with DB is similar to what Star Trek has with Paramount.

I imagine they'll have to create their own universe and can only call those characters by the names they own, but not make them LOOK like the characters, you know? Star Trek created the Kelvin timeline because they don't have the rights to anything created before. That's why the Klingons look different and Picard is an android or whatever. It's why they pushed Spock's black sister that never existed and there is a whole ass cat person on Lower Decks. This is the sh*t Disney is probably going to forced into as the Japanese rights holders hated Evolution so much, they literally created Super in response to it. Evo was so bad, Toriyama rushed Battle of the Gods into production in response, which led to Dragon Ball Super, which gave us the Broly movie (Which is f*cking amazing) and now, Superhero. Dragon Ball Super: Superhero is making so much money in Japan, it’s stupid. AND it’s getting released here in August. They don’t need Disney’s money and, being a whole as Japanese company, Disney can’t even threaten them with acquisition if they don’t play ball. I doubt they'll give us Yanks a shot at that franchise proper again, especially with a Super continuation all but guaranteed at this point. also, if I'm not mistaken, Sony owns the US distribution rights for anything Dragon Ball through Funimation! All that said, after my research and with a better understanding of the rights situation, I still feel pretty bad.

Feige does Marvel justice because he's a fan of the comics. He knows the business of Hollywood very well, too. Both of these things Dragon Ball is not. I don't see how Disney resists the urge to Americanize the narrative in an effort to "broaden the appeal", ie: Whitewash the f*ck out of this show in an effort not to offend or alienate middle America. Dragon Ball, and most manga, are hard to adapt because they are intrinsically Japanese. They approach storytelling completely different than we do and trust their audience way more than any domestic content creator. Seriously, you ever get a Normie to try and watch an A24 film? There’s a reason why mainstream studios don’t fund sh*t like The VVitch or Uncut Gems. And that’s just narrative dense, slow burn, character studies. Imagine having to sell that lore heavy plot, with horrific violence and absolutely evil antagonist, to Karen from Wisconsin. Now, i love the MCU but i love it because i love Marvel comics. None of these stories challenge the audience like, say, the character of a genocidal, narcissists, prince, who is responsible for millions of lives taken, getting the happy ending of marrying the richest woman on the planet and having two beautiful kids. Like, people were mad that Thanos snapped. Imagine them getting a face full of Vegeta, whole ass bodying a planet full of innocent moth people on his way to murder a bunch of earthlings for the Dragon Balls.

Like, Vegeta is a whole ass Thanos, one that gets personally bloody, and he literally never gets his comeuppance. Motherf*cker THRIVES! On top of that, his overtly racist, alien, boss who might as well be Space Hitler and enslaved an entire planet until he got tired of them and blew it the f*ck up, gets a pass, too! This motherf*cker not only comes back to life, but gets to be the fourth most powerful creature in the goddamn universe! People were mad that Thanos had a real point. Motherf*ckers were actually upset that there were cats out there saying "Thanos was right" which he kind of was. In the end, though, Thanos died. He got what he deserved. Twice. How the f*ck are they going to react to someone as irredeemable as Freeza getting redemption? The motherf*cker came back to life, twice, and immediately started Hitler-ing again with no consequence! Like, he’s out there, buying, selling, enslaving, and destroying whole ass planets, and no one is doing anything about it. Goku and Vegeta are just like, “Eh. We stay ready whenever he wants to come and try us but f*ck the rest of the galaxy.” F*ck, i forgot about Goku! How do you Mickey Mouse Goku into a likable character?? How does the Mouse House Square that sh*t? You can't separate the atrocities from Freeza, just like you can’t separate the constantly wold-endangering selfishness of Goku. He’s the f*cking main character! This motherf*cker is not Captain America, he's a slightly more reasonable Omni-Man!

I trust in Feige, always. When it comes to Marvel. I am a little sus about his Star War and even more skeptical that he can handle a franchise like Dragon Ball. The MCU structure cribs a lot from anime and manga, it's basically set up like the narrative arcs or sagas in shonen releases, but these are still very American stories being told. Just because it looks like anime, doesn’t mean it is. Definitely doesn’t mean the man that built the MCU understands anime. As much as people like to claim it to be, Avatar is not an anime but it is the closest thing to it I've seen anyone in the West, outside of France, make. That sh*t was already very Americanized from the outset, some would say very it ever appropriated a great deal from Asian culture, and the live action remake is one of the worst films ever made. If you can’t even adapt something for the American audience, that was already made for the American audience, the f*ck chance does Dragon Ball (or any other anime or manga for that matter) have?  I don't see a live action, US created, Dragon Ball Z capturing that same spirit of it’s Japanese origins, especially when it's being made under the stifling creative conditions of Disney. I trust Feige to make something but i am very much dubious about the end product. I'm curious what they will create but, don't misunderstand me, it's probably going to be bad and it certainly won't be anything close to Dragon Ball Z.

[nexusprojectvf]

VF Characters as Animals

(Our fic version of the characters)

Keith

No it’s not because he’s an older lady who likes younger guys. It’s because they’re both responsible, dependable and courageous. 

Allura 

A curious critter, with occasionally stiff ears fits our Allura quite well. 

Lance 

Loyal to his pack, strong willed, and fiercely protective of his pups *coughs* Daniel *coughs*.

Sven

A quiet and steady worker, will stubbornly stick to his task until the job is done. Prefers detailed plans and sticks to the rules. Don’t worry, the team is corrupting him. It’s just taking longer than planned. Oh and he likes the cold. 

Hunk 

Has a tranquil strength and determination hidden behind a soft appearance. Don’t make him mad tho. Also they spend 14 hours a day eating and according to Hunk that’s life goals. 

Pidge

Pidge is a Baltan Foxbat, as he refuses to be held to the standards of some earthling animal but, we don’t have a picture of that so...

The raccoon represents curiosity, adaptability, and secrecy/disguise. Which fits our adorable little ninja. 

Romelle 

Swans represent balance, grace, and beauty. Also ever pissed one off? Absolutely petrifying. 

Larmina

Larmina also refuses to be held to the standards of some earthling animal, so she is an Arusian Banewolf. Apparently earth wolves are boring (Sorry Lance). BUT we do not have a picture of said banewolves and the closest thing we have is this pokemon. 

We have been informed that banewolves represent the deep mysteries of the forest which will rip out your entrails if you get on their bad side. *Side eyes Larmina*

Daniel 

Daniel really wanted to be a dragon, his writer said lizard, they compromised. 

Mushu is overconfident, impulsive, self-absorbed but because eventually kicked his ass enough he shaped up and showed that he was a loyal guy with a good heart. Daniel’s still working on that second part, but we’re sure he’ll get there. 

Vince

Elephants are blessed with high intelligence and long memories. They’re strong and wise, but still have a friendly and gentle soul. They also represent patience, which Vince needs in abundance to put up with this team. 

Pride Fic OC’s

Flynn

Scorpions represents rebirth, protection and intensity, which Flynn definitely has. He’s also a scorpio, so this fits him on multiple levels. 

Jace

Jace is confident, focused, and full of passion. That passion usually comes out in some surprisingly creative uses of profanity. Sven still loves him though, so we will too. 

Cam

No, Cam you don’t have a weight problem, so sensitive. Whales represent family, community, and communications. And he is our communications officer, so this fits pretty well for him. 

#Fanfiction #Voltron Force #Reboot #We had a lot of fun with this #Probably too much fun #The aliens were not a fan of the earthling limitations

[movie-magic]

Loki: Every MCU Easter Egg In Episode 1

Loki has officially begun on Disney+, and Tom Hiddleston comes bearing plenty of Marvel Easter eggs in the premiere episode. Here's what we found.

The premiere episode of Loki is burdened with glorious Marvel Easter eggs, from potential future villain teases to skulking Skrulls. Even before the considerable success enjoyed by WandaVision and Falcon & The Winter Soldier, MCU fans were eagerly anticipating Tom Hiddleston's return as the God of Mischief. Now blessed with his own Disney+ solo series, Loki has all of time and space to bother, and the premiere wastes little time throwing Hiddleston from the Avengers' frying pan into the TVA's fire.

After using the Tesseract to escape The Avengers in Avengers: Endgame, Loki is swiftly picked up by the Time Variance Authority - a seemingly omniscient organization overseeing the entirety of time and space. Evidently not ones to take prisoners, Loki's fate at the TVA looks grim, but Owen Wilson's Major Mobius intervenes, handing the silver-tongued variant a reprieve. In the opening episode, Mobius successfully digs to the root of Loki's dastardly ways, breaking him down to (presumably) build him back up, all with the aim of enlisting Loki's services as an ally to hunt down an especially vicious variant murdering the TVA's Minute Men.

Loki's premiere is predictably heavy with exposition, and relatively limited in scope, mostly taking place within the walls of TVA HQ. Nevertheless, Michael Waldron (creator) and Kate Herron (director) pepper the 50-minute installment with an array of references to the Marvel comics, MCU history callbacks, and hints of the multiverse madness to come. Here's every Easter egg we discovered in Loki's "Glorious Purpose."

The Avengers Intro Sequence:

Loki's introductory scene is somewhat of an Easter egg itself, retelling the famous Tesseract heist from Avengers: Endgame. Much of the footage here derives straight from the 2019 box office behemoth, meaning no other MCU stars filmed additional footage or recorded new dialogue especially for Loki. With that said, a few extra Tom Hiddleston moments are spliced into the existing footage to show events entirely from Loki's point of view. The villain's Steve Rogers "search and rescue" gag is zoomed-in, and there's a closer shot of Loki waving goodbye to Hulk in the elevator, as well as fresh reaction shots during the Stark scuffle in the lobby.

An Iron Man Callback:

After commandeering the Tesseract in New York, Loki finds himself falling from the sky above Mongolia's Gobi Desert, landing unceremoniously in the sand below, and this scene might trigger a sense of déjà vu for longtime MCU fans. In 2008's Iron Man, Tony Stark escapes capture by creating a rudimentary suit of hi-tech armor. Flying to safety, the genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist also lands roughly in a remote desert. There's a symbolic correlation in how Iron Man marked the beginning of the MCU, while Loki is now ushering in a whole new chapter, and both begin with their protagonists in matching predicaments. Both characters also crash while evading incarceration, though only Loki immediately finds himself in chains once again.

"Burdened With Glorious Purpose":

As a man who rarely shuts up, Loki has plenty of wry MCU catchphrases, and one of his most famous would be "I am burdened with glorious purpose" from The Avengers. Disney +'s Loki premiere leans heavily into the line's popularity, with Tom Hiddleston repeating the quote on several occasions throughout the episode, the phrase becoming less sinister with every utterance.

The TVA:

The addition of the TVA to MCU canon was confirmed ahead of time via Loki's trailer and, sure enough, the paradoxical pen-pushers play a prominent part in the premiere. Although their motivations and methods are somewhat altered from the source material (as well as their aesthetic, which now sits closer to The Umbrella Academy's Commission), the TVA hails directly from the Marvel comic books. They were introduced by a 1986 issue of Thor that featured several time-hopping agents, one of which picked a random Earthling up for jaywalking.

A Skrull At The TVA:

Given their propensity to shape-shift and assimilate the forms of other races, it's not surprising that a Skrull might be lurking around the TVA's front desk. One of the MCU's green aliens can be spotted in the background as Loki gets marched in, and though it's not clear why the Skrull is present, the distinct lack of guards would suggest they aren't a variant. A timely reminder that Secret Invasion is right around the corner.

The Time Twisters:

As you'd predict, Loki tries running away. With minimum effort, Hunter B-15 (played by Wunmi Mosaku) clicks a device, and Loki is pulled back to where he stood moments earlier, effectively making escape impossible. These time twisters appear to be standard issue at the TVA, and have a vaguely similar counterpart in the Marvel comics called the Retroactive Cannon. Far more lethal than Loki's little clickers, these devices would rewind a person completely until they were unwritten from history. Like The Algorithm in Tenet, but less confusing.

Life Model Decoys:

For someone who spent many, many years unaware he was actually a Frost Giant, Loki probably shouldn't be shocked that some people don't realize they're secretly robots. Heading through the TVA's airport scanner, Loki passes the test with flying colors, though he remains perplexed by the idea someone could be unknowingly cybernetic, Loki's line is a nod to Life Model Decoys, which have appeared in both the Marvel comics, and Agents of SHIELD. These lifelike androids can mimic mankind so perfectly, the LMD itself isn't always certain of the truth.

Secret Wars?:

Whether you've accidentally arrived late for work, or just escaped a group of costumed vigilantes by seizing a glowing blue cube from the beginning of time, being labeled as a variant is confusing stuff. Luckily, the TVA has put together a short animation to fill quantum criminals in on the basics. The helpful Miss Minutes finally provides an explanation of the MCU multiverse, revealing how, long ago, separate timelines fought an inter-dimensional war for supremacy that almost resulted in total annihilation. Since then, the TVA has strictly maintained one single reality - the Sacred Timeline *echoes*. The history lesson bears some similarity to 2015's Secret Wars comic event, in which conflicting universes came together in Battleworld (the setting of the original Secret Wars), and attempts were made to streamline Marvel's sandbox.

The Time-Keepers:

The TVA's infomercial also confirms the organization are led by three Time-Keepers, who oversee the combined reality and dictate the proper flow of history. This big-faced trio were first introduced in the late 1970s, created from the sole remaining survivor of the previous universe's destruction. The mysterious overlords performed much the same function in the comics as they do in Loki, and possessed virtually complete mastery over time.

Kree And Nova's Attack On Titan:

As the animated exposition rumbles on, Miss Minutes (voiced by Tara Strong) uses "starting an uprising" as an example of something the TVA might potentially frown upon. The corresponding image shows two armies clashing, with the blue folk on the left appearing to be Kree, and the force on the right possibly the Nova Corps. Based on the spiky ruins in the background, the battle is taking place on Thanos' home planet of Titan. In Guardians of the Galaxy, Ronan confirmed the Kree and Nova Corps were at war for 1000 years - was the TVA involved somehow?

Nexus Events:

This week's lesson from Miss Minutes explains how stepping off one's designated path can create a "Nexus event," and spiral out of control to spawn countless alternate timelines that trigger another war. This word has cropped up several times in the MCU, first as an internet facility in Oslo (Avengers: Age of Ultron), and then as an antidepressant drug during one of WandaVision's fake commercials. The latter was most likely a reference to the Nexus of All Realities from the Marvel comics, which is essentially a gateway between every possible timeline. The TVA's Nexus events could take their name from the very same source.

The Timeline Diagram:

Throughout Loki's Disney+ debut, the TVA repeatedly use diagrams of a single flowing timeline with branches shooting off to represent unwanted deviations. MCU fans might recognize this from Avengers: Endgame, where the Ancient One drew something extremely similar while explaining the consequences of time travel to Bruce Banner. Perhaps Ms. One has visited the TVA herself once or twice?

Devil In The Church:

MEPHISTO. There, we said it. When Mobius asks a young girl who committed time crimes in 16th century France and the child points to a stained glass window depicting the Devil, Loki knew exactly what it was doing. WandaVision dropped several hints that Marvel's own Satan would appear, all of which proved fruitless, and Loki seems to be heading down the same hellish vein. Alas, there could be a simpler explanation. Mobius claims to be chasing an alternate version of Loki, and it's highly likely the child has mistaken the God of Mischief's famous horned helmet for the demonic horns of Lucifer.

Ravonna Renslayer:

Though her name isn't mentioned in Loki's premiere, Gugu MBatha-Raw's TVA judge is actually Ravonna Renslayer, who made her debut in a 1965 Avengers issue. In the comics, Renslayer is a human from the far future, most often a villainous figure associated with Kang the Conqueror. She certainly isn't a legal official sat behind a desk. One would imagine Marvel Studios has something more interesting in store for Renslayer further down the line.

Explaining Endgame:

During his TVA interrogation, Loki quite rightly points out that it was not he who meddled with the timeline. T'was those pesky Avengers who penetrated the Quantum Realm and disrupted the natural course of events in the aftermath of the Battle of New York; Loki merely picked up the Tesseract that fell at his feet. Unfortunately, this excuse falls on deaf ears, as Gugu MBatha-Raw confirms the Avengers' ambitious time heist was entirely sanctioned by the Time-Keepers. This exchange more or less clears up every single timeline wrinkle in the MCU, including Steve Rogers' reunion with Peggy, and Gamora from the past staying in the present. It's not altering time that irks the TVA; it's altering time in a manner the Time-Keepers haven't permitted.

Loki's "Wooing":

After Owen Wilson saves Loki from being "reset," the pair sit down for a more friendly conversation, but when Loki warns Mobius that cooperation isn't an option, the TVA officer retorts with, "even when you're wooing someone powerful you intend to betray?" Loki has betrayed a fair few people during his time, and Mobius' accusation could easily apply to Odin or Thor. Most likely, however, Mobius is alluding to Thanos here - a powerful figure Loki tried buttering up with intent to usurp him once the universe was brought to its knees.

Josta:

While not strictly a Marvel reference, it's worth noting that Mobius is a big fan of an ice cold Josta. Viewers of a certain age might not recognize this soda brand, but Josta is a genuine Pepsi product that was available in the late 1990s before being discontinued. An early variety of energy drink, there's evidently a few perks to hunting down timeline criminals. In Mobius' case, this includes sugary contraband.

Loki's Greatest Hits:

In a twisted version of It's A Wonderful Life, Mobius tries to change Loki by examining his choices in the past, present and future. Unlike the jaunty 1946 holiday classic, Mobius has access to a handy hi-tech screen which displays Loki's "greatest hits." The footage begins with the God of Mischief's defeat and arrest in 2012's The Avengers - perhaps not an entry Loki himself would've picked for the highlight reel. The screen next switches to Phil Coulson's death (which Loki definitely would pick), before moving on to images of civilian deaths from the Battle of New York, the gala eyeball removal scene, and the dictator speech, all from The Avengers.

D.B. Cooper:

More an Easter egg from real-world history than Marvel lore, Loki reveals the truth about D.B. Cooper - it was Agatha Loki all along! In 1971, an as-yet-identified man boarded a Boeing 727, held the aircraft ransom for $200,000, then parachuted out with the cash. Mobius' dive into Loki's past reveals that, thanks to a lost bet with Thor, the God of Mischief descended from Asgard to pull the plane heist himself as some kind of stunt. From Loki's hairstyle matching the real D.B. Cooper artist's impression to the smattering of bank notes left behind, there's an impressive attention to detail in this scene.

Infinity Stones In The Desk:

The Infinity Stones... Thanos would give his own daughter just for one. Entire worlds brought to their knees by their power. Humans turned into Gods at the merest touch. Gary from the TVA's HR department using one as a paperweight. Threatening Casey with a fishy demise, Loki finally gets his hands back on the Tesseract, only to discover even Infinity Stones are useless within the TVA's jurisdiction. To Loki's immense surprise, Casey's desk draw is chock-full of discarded Infinity Stones, most either of the Time or Reality variety (no surprises there). The scene essentially confirms that the power of these fabled jewels has led to more than a few timeline variant incidents over the years, but perhaps also undermines the once-unstoppable power of the Infinity Stones. Well, the Infinity Saga is over.

A 3rd Millennium Kang Hint?:

In its final scene, the Loki premiere might just be hinting at the future villain of Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. The MCU will soon introduce Kang the Conqueror, a major comic book baddie played by Jonathan Majors, and "Glorious Purpose" could represent the first step toward his arrival. Called out to 19th century Oklahoma, TVA agents find a piece of technology hailing from the 3rd millennium. Though it might be a coincidence, Kang hails from the 31st century, and is known for using advanced tech in his dominion of the timeline. The mysterious hooded figure is more likely a Loki variant than Kang himself, but since Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania and Loki both deal in temporal themes, it wouldn't be strange for the Kang foundations to be laid on Disney+.

- Screen Rant

Loki releases new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+.

#loki series #loki #loki odinson #loki show #loki spoilers #tv news #tv show #movie magic #mcu #marvel #movies #marvel cinematic universe #movie news #mcu phase 4 #news #disney+ #tv series

[loubuggins]

A Titan in a China Shop

Being the watchful guardians of a bustling, crime-ridden city usually required the Titans to visit local businesses they normally would have step foot into. Places like Dan's Fans, Dan's Clam Stand, and Dan's Surf Shop showed the young heroes the variety of small business that made their home in the city, as well as the surprising number of business owners named Dan. Each place their adventures took them to, exposed them to the rich culture of their city. There was a small downside, however, and that downside went by two names Beast Boy and Starfire.

"Okay team, remember we are here to investigate a lead, not shop, so Starfire that means no buying things and Beast Boy that means no touching things." The Titan's fearless leader known as Robin stated whiling giving the two accused Titans a stern glare. Both the alien princess and green changeling nodded their heads solemnly.

Every time the Titans had to enter a local joint, the jubilant female would want to try every product, usually wanting to buy it as part of her "Earthling Culture Collection," while the nosy changeling simply could not control his animal-like curiosity. The two childish young adults were the reason why Robin had to set up a separate account to pay back for all the damages created by the two after each visit to the city.

As the group of friends entered the small shop with the ding of the doorbell, they were instantly greeted with the faces of varies knickknacks and porcelain dolls. The odd antique shop was filled with shelves displaying extremely shiny, interesting, and fragile products. Talk about a bull in a China shop.

Robin spun on his heal, forcing the rest of the group behind him to come to a sudden stop. The tiny and narrow shop was empty besides them and what could easily be assumed was the store owner who sat in the back behind a large and old cash register. The man in the back was quite large and intimating, his scowling face making the gang very uncomfortable. This was the best guess as to why Robin felt the need to whisper to them.

"Listen," he said as he addressed the group like a grade-school class field trip, "I am going up front to speak with the man regarding that lead. Cyborg, I want you to keep an eye on Starfire." The robotic man gave a slight nod and was already following close behind the wondering princess. "Raven you keep an eye on -"

"Beast Boy!" The empath Robin had been speaking to, had her attention on the young man who held his arm out and appeared to be mid-touching a very expensive looking glass bird.

"What, mama? It's a raven, just like you!" The green-colored man said with a genuine smile.

The pale sorceress blushed at her boyfriend's comment, but her sharp gaze never faltered. "Do. Not. Touch." She about growled at him. The young man simply shrugged as he put his arm back down and moved on to look at the next most shiny thing.

Raven turned back to Robin with a quick, "don't worry, I'll watch him," then left to go monitor the curious changeling. When she approached him, he was already eyeing an expensive looking porcelain angel.

"Don't even think about it." She droned.

"Oh, but Rae, you know about half of the animals inside me are begging me to look at it." He said while waggling his fingers mischievously.

The empath blinked at him, but her face remained passive. "Then look with your eyes, not your hands." She deadpanned, causing the shape-shifted to snort in amusement.

"Easier said than done." He commented as his hands fell to his sides. Raven glanced down and noticed his gloved fingers were anxiously drumming against his side. Without warning, the purpled-haired women wrapped her dainty grey hand around his large, covered one.

“Then you’d better hold my hand. You can’t do anything stupid if I’ve got a good grip on you.” She said causally as she pulled the surprised and blushing boy down the narrow isle.

She looked over to the back of the store, where Robin appeared to be in an intense conversation with the store owner, so she decided to pass the time by examining the odd little treasures the store had to offer. Once Beast Boy had recovered from his shock, he was able to regain his charm and leaned down to whisper in the sorceress’s ear. "Your right Rae, this is a much better idea. Besides, you’re my favorite thing to touch." He said in a hushed, but flirtatious voice, but as soon as he noticed his girlfriend's crimson face and matching eyes, he had realized his mistake. "Wait, no that came out wrong!"

"You bet it did." An embarrassed Raven said through clenched teeth.

The frightened changeling waved his free hand in the air. "I just meant that I really like touching you!" He tried to explain. As soon as the words left his mouth, a loud shattering sound could be heard, followed by the clanging sound of glass hitting the floor. Whatever glass object that had been, it was beyond repair now.

The store owner quickly went berserk, screaming all kinds of obscenities as the group of heroes fled the store. Robin shouted a thank you behind them. Lucky for them, Robin had all the information he needed to track down the criminal they were after. Unlucky for them, Beast Boy and Raven were officially banned from entering expensive stores and were assigned laundry duty for the rest of the month. Neither were as bad as the reaction Robin had once he received the bill for an apparently Limited-Edition Baccarat Midnight Elephant (with a value of 37,000 dollars). Thank goodness for that savings account.  

Based on this prompt by @oopsprompts.

#bbrae #beast boy x raven #teen titans #drabble #fluff

[priscilla3850-blog]

Suntan As Well As Psoriasis.

Many males are experienced fans from nude sunbathing, having aches to guarantee proper penis health by keeping the body organ dealt with in a really good, efficient sun block. A ingenious and brand-new research study just recently released in The Quarterly Publication of Speculative Psychological science sheds brand new lighting on the usefulness of skin layer colour as a determiner of face attractiveness That additionally shows that carotenoid pigmentation has the upper palm over melanisation when it relates to the rules of destination. Do your health-pills.info skin layer a support and also select a sunscreen without fragrance. Put on sun screen lotion at all opportunities and also limitation sun direct exposure. In the table here you view the resulting heart beats from the Moon, The Planet and Sunlight. Applying lemon extract on the affected place from the skin layer with your fingers a few times a time will definitely give you substantial improvement. A few of these widely-dispersed atoms right now are consisted of in a solitary fiber of an Earthling's genetic material (DNA), despite the fact that in historical cosmological opportunities they were developed deep within the covert midsts from alien stars-that possess long since perished-that were dwelling in our then-youthful Universe. We must allow our own selves to cease avoiding this Neptunian goal state our company reside in-" also known as the Planet Game-slow down as well as learn how to navigate off our inner light as well as intuition -as this specific haze machine ain't going nowhere at any time soon-especially if Neptune is actually sitting on among your individual worlds.

A sunlight element with 40 volts as well as 5 amps is actually gotten in touch with a 200-watt component, which suggests that this has the prospective to produce 200 watts of electrical energy when in straight sunshine, off of plants or shielding, and away from snowfall or even debris. Wearing the weight of a sari, females sweat a great deal more than they usually carry out. Working females in India choose shalwar kameez over sari given that this is actually light garment as well as performs not stay with the body like a sari does.

Therefore for any person which wants to conserve funds on heating system as well as chemical costs this going swimming time, have a look at the many on call sun pool covers and reels for in-ground pools and also above ground pools and also make the most of the sun's free of cost energy. Light therapy may boost your health condition significantly if you possess a skin layer ailment such as psoriasis or chronic eczema. If you were birthed in the upcoming group of days from December 31st by means of January 6th, you will be luckier in the course of the moon's second one-fourth. That is, all the energy that Clark utilizes to energy his shape as well as capacities is presently an attribute of his Kryptonian anatomy - and lightweight with an insight of 590 nanometers (the very interpretation from yellow) consists of a resonance degree. Merely small wallets of life underground and in deep sea caves managed to survive because of this steady unconfined electric assault, which took in most of the earth, that had eons of your time for the Earth to come to be as well as bounce back fit for lifestyle again. If you appear outside now, you'll view a supermoon lunar eclipse: a mixture from an incredibly neighboring moon - making this respect 14 percent larger - as well as showed orange color from the sunshine, which is actually associated the moon as well as the Earth.

[moviessilently]

A mysterious message from outer space captures the imagination of a Russian scientist. He has other problems, though, as he suspects that his wife is stepping out on him with a petty official who moonlights as a black-market dealer. Oh yes, and there are scenes on Mars.

Home Media Availability: Released on DVD.

Down to Earth

When it became clear that the revolution was not going the way of the czarists, much of the Russian film industry fled the country and many of them ended up in France. I have reviewed and gushed over several of these émigré productions but today we are going to be looking at a sort of reverse émigré. Yakov Protazanov was part of that talented group of refugees but after making films in France and Germany, he made the fateful decision to return to Russia.

You silent movie fans like big headdresses? Oh, honey, you aint’ seen nothing yet.

The Soviets were hoping to create a gigantic spectacle that would put their own brand of cinema on the world map. Their weapon of choice was science fiction and the director was Protazanov. Aelita: Queen of Mars (or simply Aelita) was a hit but it wasn’t the picture that made the reputation of the Soviet film industry abroad—the honor of being most famous Soviet silent goes to a little picture called Battleship Potemkin. However, the bold artistry of Aelita’s Martian designs contributed enormously to the science fiction look as we know it. I dare say that even now, there isn’t a space opera that exists that does not show a little bit of Aelita somewhere.

It all starts here.

The film is based on a novel by Alexei Tolstoy. (I have seen him listed as a distant relation of Leo Tolstoy while other sources say he was no relation at all. Either way, it’s obvious he didn’t spend Sunday supper with the good count.) If you want to fall down a research rabbit hole, do start reading up on dear Alexei. His life reads like a particularly melodramatic novel and so it’s no surprise he went in for fiction. Like Protazanov, Tolstoy fled the chaos of the revolution and settled in France. Poverty did not agree with him and he returned to Russia, spending the rest of his life chapping his lips on Comrade Stalin’s toes.

There are some significant differences between the novel and the film and we will be discussing them later with all due spoiler warnings. I will say now, though, that I don’t think screenwriters Fyodor Otsep and Aleksei Fajko thought much of Tolstoy’s novel as they ripped and tore and sewed and glued and completely reworked the thing.

Our hero. Yes, that is his usual expression.

The main character of the tale is an engineer named Loss (Nikolai Tsereteli). He becomes obsessed with a mysterious message that has been broadcast around the world: Anta Odeli Uta. What could it mean?

Loss is married to Natasha (Valentina Kuindzhi), a real sweetheart and good as gold. Unfortunately, Loss is the jealous type with an overactive imagination and so he is highly suspicious when his wife makes as new acquaintance. Viktor Erlich (Pavel Pol) is a minor official and “sugar profiteer” who sells government supplies on the black market. He spends his time trying to flirt with Natasha and scamming the nerdy Spiridinov (also played by Nikolai Tsereteli), Loss’s friend and co-worker.

The comical, non-murderous couple.

Rounding out the cast is a boisterous soldier named Gusev (Nikolai Batalov), who is flirting with a nurse named Masha (Vera Orlova). Finally, there is Kravtsov (Igor Ilyinsky, best known in the U.S.A. for being the recipient of A Kiss from Mary Pickford), an amateur sleuth who hopes to catch Erlich in his nefarious activities.

But where is Mars in all this? Glad you asked! We take a trip to the red planet where Queen Aelita (Yuliya Solntseva) has become addicted to spying on Loss at the royal observatory. Her husband, Tuksub (Konstantin Eggert), is not pleased with her Earth obsession but Aelita is assisted by her allies, Ihoshka (Aleksandra Peregonets) and Gor (Yuri Zavadsky).

Wire pants are all the rage on Mars.

Back on Earth, Loss becomes more and more convinced that his wife is having an affair with Erlich. He becomes broody and downright nasty as he obsesses over her imagined unfaithfulness. Natasha was tempted by Erlich for a moment but his profligate spending soon disgusted her.

Finally, jealousy becomes too much for Loss. He shoots Natasha and escapes their apartment building. In order to evade the law, he takes Spiridinov’s identity and sets about building a space ship that will fly him to Mars so that he can investigate the mysterious message. Gusev, who is bored with civilian life, volunteers to come along and they are also joined by Kravtsov, who knows that Loss has murdered Natasha.

So Loss’s plan is to murder his wife and flee to Mars? Um, okay…

Will the Earthlings be welcomed by the Martians? Will Loss pay the price for his crime? You’ll have to see Aelita to find out!

Aelita is essentially two films and one is significantly more interesting than the other. It’s not the one you think.

As it turns out, sugar profiteering is much more interesting than a Martian coup d’etat.

Why the design of the Martian segments is groundbreaking and fascinating to see, the characters never really come into their own as three-dimensional people. In contrast, the earthy Soviets of Earth are immediately interesting and sympathetic. However, people see this movie for the sci-fi stuff, so it’s worth taking a moment to compare Aelita’s look and feel with the other silent space operas I have reviewed on this site. (There are many, many more that I have not yet reviewed but in the interest of keeping things to a manageable length, I hope you will indulge me in this limitation.)

Very Melies moon men.

Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon contains, arguably, the most iconic shot in all of early film. It is also one of the earliest science fiction blockbusters. However, the look of the moon and its inhabitants is very much in the Méliès mode. In short, the weird little acrobatic aliens could have just as easily been imps in a fairy tale or nightmare characters tormenting a dreamer. (Not to take anything away from this wonderful film, of course. Just that it followed brand conventions.) However, if we dig below the surface, there is some juicy anti-colonialism to sink our teeth into, so that’s fun.

Chomon’s pastel lunar ballerinas.

An Excursion to the Moon, Segundo de Chomon’s 1908 rip-off lunar fantasy, is significant in that it is the only picture discussed here that has no obvious political message. Chomon’s moon is occupied by a European monarchy, pastel-colored ballerinas, and acrobats in leotards festooned with crescents and stars. The explorers explore a bit, run off with a lunar princess and, presumably, live happily ever after.

Martian vegetarians.

Himmelskibet, made a decade later, is generally reckoned to be the first feature-length space opera and it is interesting to see how many classic sci-fi elements are included in this Danish production. However, the landscape and culture of Mars itself is basically a Greco-Roman hippy commune, which is not surprising considering the naïve, pacifist message of the picture. However, the leather flight suits look suitably sci-fi.

Leather and capes? Yep, “Himmelskibet” is pretty sci-fi.

The Martian designs for Aelita are legendary and for good reason. The sets by Isaac Rabinovich and Victor Simov and particularly the costumes designed by Aleksandra Ekster are the most discussed elements of the film. That being the case, it seems redundant for me to discuss them extensively. Instead, let’s just admire:

Nothing like it have ever been seen in sci-fi and, as stated earlier, we are still feeling the influence of Aelita. Of course, this is not to suggest that Aelita was the first science fiction film with an alien look. Edison’s 1910 film entitled A Trip to Mars creates a bizarre alien landscape populated with giants played by actors sporting heavy prosthetics. However, Aelita’s combination of plastic, wire and sharp geometry is truly iconic. (But even this film could not escape a dab of Greco-Roman design, likely a holdover from the novel as the book Martians were descended from Atlanteans.)

When on Mars…

The film also incorporates praise for the workers’ revolution on Mars, complete with a crossed hammer and sickle. It’s a coarse appeal to patriotism, of course, but no worse than the unfurling stars and stripes that are found in many a silent Hollywood film.

I see what you did there, Protazanov.

Rascals and rogues have always had a place of honor in Russian entertainment and the revolution inspired some truly wonderful works with sleazy grifters as protagonists. I am particularly fond of The Twelve Chairs, an oft-filmed work by the delightful Yevgeny Petrov and Ilya Ilf. (And do read its sequel, The Golden Calf.) One gets the sense that Protazanov and company were far more comfortable on this familiar turf than they were with flitting off to Mars. (Our director was clearly more at home with the grim and gritty romance The Forty-First.) I think the ending of Aelita more than proves this notion.

Support you local sugar profiteer.

Spoiler: All the events after Loss returns home were dreamed up by him. Natasha is not dead, there is no Aelita and our engineer protagonist could really use some therapy. Protazanov does an excellent job of conveying exactly where the break between the conscious and subconscious exists. Once Loss heads back home from his six month government job, the story goes off the rails and the story goes kooky places. Jolly Gusev becomes morose and obnoxious to his wife. Erlich seems to cease his profiteering and disappears from the story almost entirely. The foolish Kravtsov is suddenly getting arrest warrants to serve singlehanded.

He is just that sexy.

More Spoilers: Once Loss and company end up on Mars, the story’s logic becomes even more surreal. Aelita asks him to kiss her and the effect is so electric that she faints on the spot. Yup, Loss dreams himself an irresistible rake who knocks ladies dead with a kiss. (Harry Langdon pulled the same shtick with more success in Soldier Man. At least there it was meant to be funny.) Oh good gravy. While Loss of the book actually is a space traveler, Loss of the film is more of a Soviet Walter Mitty.

A capitalist plot!

Even More Spoilers: It turns out that Natasha was never murdered, Loss missed. Erlich is the real killer (he killed Spiridinov) and the Martian plot was entirely in Loss’s head. The mysterious message? A marketing campaign for tires. Loss goes back to Natasha but I think she’s a fool to take him back, personally. He has been acting like a perfect ninny, which is bad enough, but actually trying to shoot her? Good heavens!

Okay, so our hero is not exactly the most compelling or likable creature ever to grace the screen. (And I’m not entirely sure why it was necessary for Nikolai Tsereteli to play two characters.) However, his dreary presence is more than compensated for by the colorful supporting cast. Valentina Kuindzhi is particularly good as poor, sweet Natasha and I always love to see Igor Ilyinsky in pretty much anything. (If you’ve never seen him before, Ilyinski’s screen persona sort of combines Oliver Hardy’s fussiness with a dim version of Harold Lloyd’s go-getter.)

I liked it even if 75% of the runtime is taken up with brooding.

We also get groundbreaking Martian designs and Protazanov’s smart manipulation of reality. Sure, the final twist is a cliché but at least it was handled as well as can be expected. I enjoyed the heck out of Aelita but I know that a lot of viewers were disappointed. It’s all a matter of anticipation, I think. If you’re expecting a giant space opera, you will be bitterly disappointed. However, if you are expecting a slice of Soviet melodrama with space fantasy sequences, Aelita has a lot to offer. I’m not sure I would recommend it as your first Soviet silent but it is most definitely worth seeing.

Where can I see it?

Aelita is available on DVD from Flicker Alley. It includes intertitles translated to English and a very nice piano score from Alex Rannie.

***

Like what you’re reading? Please consider sponsoring me on Patreon. All patrons will get early previews of upcoming features, exclusive polls and other goodies.

Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924) A Silent Film Review A mysterious message from outer space captures the imagination of a Russian scientist. He has other problems, though, as he suspects that his wife is stepping out on him with a petty official who moonlights as a black-market dealer.

#1924 #Aelita #Aelita Queen of Mars #Aleksandra Peregonets #Igor Ilyinsky #Nikolai Batalov #Nikolai Tsereteli #Russian Film #Science Fiction #Valentina Kuindzhi #Yakov Protazanov #Yuliya Solntseva

[ciathyzareposts]

Ultizurk II: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

Congratulations! Here’s a near-unreadable screen!

             Ultizurk II: The Shadow Master

United States

Independently developed and published

Released in 1992 for DOS

Date Started: 26 March 2019

Date Finished: 7 April 2019

Total Hours: 16 Difficulty: Moderate (3/5) Final Rating: (to come later) Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

Summary:

One of a long-running series of independent games, Ultizurk II borrows its basic approach and many of its plot elements from Ultima games. Although more complicated than Ultizurk I, the author was still an amateur, which comes through in under-developed character development, combat, and inventory systems. There are some decent puzzle-solving moments, but the game overall is too large and too long for its extremely basic approach to role-playing.

****

Ultizurk II ended up comprising five outdoor maps, nine dungeon maps, and 5 “dream world” maps, all 64 x 64. This is far too big for a game of such limited playability. The maps exist in a mostly linear manner, which makes it a nightmare to go back and forth among the areas as you try to solve the various puzzles. Walking through the dungeons isn’t hard, if you bring enough herbs, but it’s long, particularly with the clunky interface and the need to stop and toss sling stones at monsters every five steps. Towards the end of the game, I just couldn’t take it anymore, and I confess that I used a hex editor to figure out the character’s saved coordinates and manipulate them to get him through the dungeons faster.

            The order of the game’s maps.

          You’ll note that all the areas are, indeed, named after features on Mars, although sometimes misspelled or otherwise a bit mangled. I was authoritatively not on Mars for this game, however, as the residents are always referred to as “Arcturians.”

         In Arcturian, leaders are called “schwazzers.” Got it.

          All of the dungeon maps were swarming with monsters. Most of the outdoor maps were, too, but a couple were monster-free. As promised by the manual, each of the cities outside the starting area had one or two NPCs. They all responded to NAME and JOB and then suggested keywords in their responses. Sometimes, the keywords were a bit unintuitive, such as when the leader of the planet says, “I see you are trying to help us, but alas!,” and the next prompt is not HELP but ALAS. None of them had much to say in general, and the game missed on opportunity to better flesh out the game world with these dialogues. None of them had anything to say about any water crisis, and almost all of the maps had a fountain or two, suggesting no crisis at all.

  The Shadow Master had laid it out last time: my goal was to collect three crystals for each city’s mind machine (five total machines), use the crystals to power the machines, enter the dream worlds, and collect an orb from each. The machines require specific crystals in a specific order; the ones a machine requires are usually found closest to that machine. What you don’t want to do is wait until you have a bunch of crystals and then try to figure out what machine uses which ones and in which order. That takes forever and there’s no way to solve it but trial and error.

           Slotting crystals into a dream machine.

          A lot of the crystals are found lying on the ground within dungeons. The three used by the machine in Olympus Mons are dug up from shrines on that map. A few other crystals require you to solve side-quests. For instance, a caveman named Oog would give me a crystal if I could find his kinsman Zog (another Ultima VI reference) and get him to return. The two cavemen were several maps away, so that was a bit of a pain. Another required me to find some blue glass, have it refined by a glass smith, then have it assembled into a gem by a gem maker. 

          Finding Zog in a dungeon. That might be the worst NPC portrait in history.

          The dream worlds all had their own puzzles. Most of them were navigational, such as one that had a bunch of invisible walls and required me to find my way to a bunch of lit braziers and douse them with a bucket of water. When I was done, the bucket of water turned into an orb in my inventory, but there was no message to accompany this, so I spent an extra hour just wandering this level, wondering what I was missing.

            Dousing braziers on a level full of lamps and invisible walls.

        Another dream world puzzle had the player nonsensically meet Wyatt Earp, who was trying to figure out how to best apportion sacks of feed among his buffalo ranch. It was basically a magic square puzzle–the columns and rows had to add up to 10–except with repeating values for the sacks (1,1,2,3,3,4,5,5,6) and no requirement that the values add up to 10 on the diagonals. There are systems for solving magic squares with nonrepeating values, and you can even do it with algebra, but at the time I couldn’t figure out a formula that would work with this nonstandard version. Eventually, I just solved it through trial and error.

               Helping Wyatt Earp feed buffalo by solving a magic square puzzle does, admittedly, sound like something that would happen in one of my dreams.

             When I had all five orbs, I slogged all the way back to the starting area and placed them in their receptacles in the transportation room. Supposedly, I just had to mentally concentrate on where I wanted to go, and I’d go there. Instead, I got a message that said “Overload! Overload! Overload! Machinery too old!” and the orbs all burst into flame.

             Like trying to run any modern PC game on a one-year-old laptop.

             The Shadow Master had nothing to offer about this turn of events, but he did say that he’d dug up an obscure keyword (HOTEYE) that I should mention to the humblest person I had met. Well, I hadn’t met any clearly humble people, but neither had I met so many people that I couldn’t swing by all of them with message. The intended recipient turned out to be Krindell, an Arcturian in Hellas who I’d previously dismissed as a lunatic because he just went on about flowers and how they teach him of the heart.

Krindell turned out to be the leader of the planet. The HOTEYE keyword led to a discussion of “the lens,” a theoretical construct that would melt a glacier in Elysium Mons, thus “restoring the water balance.” But the lens “needs a master” and only an “enlightened one” can create it. “If you have been virtuous, then legend says that the lens will stare you in the eye.”

               Would it have been that hard to make a lens using actual lens-making equipment?

           There really isn’t a way in this game to demonstrate virtue, which is why it was a good thing that, following the conversation, a lens just magically appeared on the ground next to Krindell. That was a pretty lame plot development. I suspect Dr. Dungeon originally had a more lengthy side quest in mind for acquiring the lens.

I took it to Elysium Mons and placed it in an obvious square. The glacier partly melted, leaving a river flowing through it.

           But did it really happen, or was it just implanted?

          Walking up the river, I encountered a generator at the top. When I tried to “use,” it told me to enter the “activation sequence.” I had no notes for anything like that, so I spent some time going around asking NPCs about it. Krindell still acted as if I hadn’t already gotten the lens, and the Shadow Master was still stuck on HOTEYE. After about an hour of futile wandering, I inspected the game’s code and found that the answer was “1175.” Apparently, it’s found on one of the signs scattered throughout the game, which it turns out you have to “use” to read; “looking” at them just tells you that they’re signs. 

             Any true sci-fi fan would have gone with 1138.

          Entering the code brought about the long endgame. First, a computer display lit up on the generator, an automated mechanism engaged, and I had to re-enter the code. “Intergalactic transmission incoming,” it then said, and the face of an alien popped up.

         Greetings, Earthling. Millions of years ago, our race had already developed space travel. We grew in knowledge and stature. We became as gods. We started with virtues similar to thine own. The planet thou hast seen was an experiment in genetics–the creation of life from inanimate matter. We do this because we respect all life, from the smallest microbe to the largest whale. Our policy is not to intervene once we have created a planet and brought life forth from it. The natural way of things must be allowed its course.

The planet thou hast just visited is but one among thousands like it which we developed countless eons ago. It developed along the usual evolutional pattern, but a problem arose with atmospheric pressure. Mathematical probability estimated life could only be sustained for a further maximum of four hundred years.

Then YOU came. Forgive our bluntness, but we’ve never seen such a primitive being display such compassion. You saved an entire world from certain death. You persevered for months. When the teleporter failed, you turned attention away from yourself and towards the planet’s need. The galaxies themselves sing your praise!

                    That sounds great, but how, functionally, do they do that?

          I felt that was laying it on a little thick, particularly since I didn’t bother to help the planet until it appeared that I was stuck there. Anyway, the aliens somehow transported me off-planet, and I was able to witness a little graphics show by which “the red and brown planet turned blue with water and green with grass again!”

            Someone recently discovered vector graphics, I see.

           Then, somehow I was transported home to the Wizards’ Guild. The Dungeon Master began speaking and announced the end to the “contest . . . between the two top adventurers in the world,” namely the Shadow Master–that’s apparently his actual name–and me. This retcons the end of Ultizurk I a bit, where the Shadow Master kidnapped me and I didn’t voluntarily enter a contest.

The Shadow Master was named the new Guild Master given that he returned first. But the Shadow Master got up and made a speech in which he recounted my adventures, said that I had somehow “created matter out of pure mind power!,” and praised my selfless rescue of the Arcturians. At his recommendation the Council unanimously made me the Guild Master, and the Shadow Master went off to take over the Thieves’ Guild, where he “forgot all about his new-found humbleness.” 

             The Shadow Master falls on his sword.

           This conclusion slightly undermines one of my complaints, that the game, despite its subtitle, isn’t really about the Shadow Master. But only slightly.

We’ll let it all sink in while I score the game:

2 points for the game world. None of it makes much sense, and it depends too heavily on recycled plot elements from the Ultima series, particularly Martian Dreams.

1 point for character creation and development. There’s no creation, and development is a matter of getting extra maximum hit points at weird intervals. I seemed to hit the level cap (Level 7) awfully early in the game.

3 points for NPC interaction. No game that adopts a keyword dialogue system is entirely bad, but there aren’t very many NPCs, and the interaction lacks the complexity of the Ultima titles. The bland Arcturians almost made me think fondly of the NPC in Ultizurk I who called me “granmassa” and wanted a potion of healing for her “po’ lil chile.”

             The Shadow Master’s characterization was, I admit, a bit unexpected.

              2 points for encounters and foes. It gets that for the occasionally-good puzzle. The various enemies roaming around the map are just icons with nothing of interest about them.

1 point for magic and combat. There’s no magic system (odd given that the character is a wizard), and the combat system consists of selecting “attack” and specifying the foe.

2 points for equipment. It gets both those points for the somewhat-interesting herb system. I never found any weapons other than the starting club and sling. There’s no armor or usable items. This is another area in which Ultizurk I was better.

         Loot areas like this one in Syrtis Major Planum don’t offer anything but sling stones and food.

           0 points for no economy.

2 points for a main quest with no choices or alternate endings.

2 points for graphics, sound, and interface. There are times that the graphics hold up, and some of the commands work well, but as a while the interface is clunky, the screen makes poor use of its real estate, and the sounds are harsh and offensive to the ears.

             Even with the inventory window up, the game wastes a lot of screen space.

            2 points for gameplay, mostly for a balanced level of difficulty. None of the other things that I look for–nonlinearity, replayability, and a proper length for its content–are present in the game.

             That gives us a final score of 17, a bit lower than I ranked Ultizurk I. But Robert Deutsch is growing as a developer, and I find myself looking forward to Ultizurk III (1993; a two-part game) which, judging by screenshots, at least fixes the screen composition problem. We’ll also have The Great Ultizurkian Underland (1993), Wraith (1995) and Madman (1996) to enjoy. Although I’ve rated Ultizurk II a bit miserably, when you read comments by Dr. Dungeon like this one in an RPG Codex thread, you can’t help but root for the guy. If loving RPG development is wrong, he just doesn’t want to be right.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/ultizurk-ii-won-with-summary-and-rating/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

[medproish]

[This story contains spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War]

It was a grin that changed the scope of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a pleased acceptance at the declaration, “to challenge them would be to court death,” that invited fans both new and old to glimpse a sense of where Avengers were heading. Thanos’ introduction in the mid-credits scene of The Avengers (2012), and his pleased response to the inevitable showdown he would face against Earth’s mightiest heroes, laid the groundwork for Marvel’s following two phases of films, leaving audiences to wonder what he has to smile about.

The task that this introduction created not only pushed Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige and his stable of creatives to build towards this climactic event with each installment of this franchise, but it also provided Marvel Comics with the opportunity to reintegrate Thanos as a central player throughout its line of books. Marvel has taken the past five years to rebuild the character in a number of ways, including a new origin story in Thanos Rising (2013), the event Infinity (2013), from which Avengers: Infinity War borrows Thanos’ cabal of subordinates. Marvel Comics has also published the solo series Thanos (2017) that puts Thanos through an emotional gauntlet. At the same time, Marvel has retained the character’s core elements, as carefully constructed by visionary comic writer Jim Starlin. Ultimately, Marvel has taken all the necessary steps in order to make sure that by this weekend’s release of Avengers: Infinity War, anyone who desired to would know the name Thanos and the weight it carried with it. Josh Brolin’s depiction of the character in Infinity War thus becomes a fascinating synthesis of Marvel past and present in order to create the definitive version of the character.

In the modern age of comics, when the name Thanos comes up, it’s a sure bet that Marvel is about to embark on an event, but this wasn’t always the case. In 1973, Jim Starlin ushered in a new threat in the pages of The Invincible Iron Man No. 55. “My name, Iron Man, is Thanos!” says the purple-skinned alien who lacks the stature and musculature that would become defining features of the character in later appearances. His similarity to DC Comics’ Darkseid, who had appeared seven years earlier, is unmistakable. Starlin has made no secret of his inspiration from Jack Kirby’s tyrannical New God, but the character has become far more than a rip-off over the course of the decades, guided largely by Starlin’s hand. Thanos’ first appearance, which also saw the first appearance of Drax, feels somewhat silly by current narrative expectations, with Iron Man being forced to fight a robotic version of Thanos while the real version escapes in classic villainous fashion. But, the beauty of comics is that even in the quaint and the trite, the seeds of sagas are planted.

In hindsight, it is fitting that Iron Man should be the first Avenger that Thanos comes into conflict with in the comics, even if their relationship is vastly different from the one we see in Infinity War. Marvel Studios has built its cinematic universe around Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, and while no one could have guessed the success that initial film would bring in 2008, Iron Man’s cinematic journey, and increasing anxiety about his own mortality and that of Earth, makes Thanos his perfect foil. The Russo Brothers’ film explores the notion that Tony Stark and Thanos are two sides of the same coin, men seeking power to change the course of fate, whose efforts to avoid their visions of the future come with terrible prices. When Thanos reveals that he knows exactly who Stark is during the film’s third act, the only Earthling he refers to by name, he tells Iron Man that he is “not the only one burdened with knowledge.” The fact that these two haunt each other, and stand in the way of each other’s ability to succeed as futurists perfectly harkens back to the fact that Thanos is originally an Iron Man supporting character, and additionally that this era of the MCU is ending where it began with Iron Man (2008).

Starlin would continue his Thanos epic across the stars in the books Captain Marvel and Warlock. While never top-sellers like The Amazing Spider-Man, Uncanny X-Men, or Fantastic Four, Starlin shaped what would become the cosmic side of the Marvel Universe through these books. Thanos’ quest for power in the form of the tesseract (the cosmic cube) was revealed to be a mating ritual to attract the attention of the personification of Death. His failures at the hands of Captain Marvel, Adam Warlock, and the Avengers, revealed him as fallible, able to be beaten by his own self-destructive nature through his inability to feel worthy of love. Starlin, who has never ceased to explore the subconscious and spiritual side of his characters, depicts Thanos as a romantic, caught in a Shakespearean tragedy where he as its central character can never move beyond the death gaze that “Alas, poor Yorick” entails.

The Mad Titan, as Thanos would become known over the years, didn’t simply threaten and offer villainous cliches. He pontificated, he wondered about his own existence, about the meaning of godhood, and his role in the universe. While most current depictions of Thanos in comics like Infinity and his own self-titled series portray him with a Darth Vader-like personality of few words and ultimate evil sustained by unquenchable bloodlust, Starlin’s Thanos is a poet. Brolin’s portrayal borrows heavily from Starlin’s depiction, and Starlin, who has recently sung the film’s praises (despite having a complicated history with Marvel), received a special note of thanks for his many contributions to the film in the credits. Infinity War’s Thanos is serene, thoughtful, nearly monk-like in his consideration that balancing the universe isn’t a matter of genocide, but simple calculus. The Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy, in their efforts to save lives, only impeded upon a necessity Thanos burdens himself with.

The Infinity Gauntlet (1991), considered to be the ultimate Thanos story, though far from the final act in Starlin’s saga, is at its heart a nihilistic love story about a man who would become a god and wipe out half the universe so that he could know love. In essence, he commits genocide to win the affections of the personification of Death. While Infinity War doesn’t present Death as a presence, and thus removes that love story, Thanos still sees his quest as a noble one. His efforts to balance the universe borrows heavily from the Infinity Gauntlet prequel, which ran through The Silver Surfer in a story collected as Rebirth of Thanos (1990), and the limited series Thanos Quest (1990). It is in these stories that we come to fully understand the depth of Thanos and his love for Death. With the knowledge that the universe’s limited resources ultimately means the death of all things, and subsequently a lack of new life means the end of Death’s existence, Thanos becomes the ultimate environmentalist. Like a hunter targeting deer, he sees his work as a means of population control, though he can’t deny the satisfaction that comes from the sport. Driven by a similar purpose in Infinity War, Thanos acknowledges that others will see him as a monster, while he in turn sees himself as the ultimate hero who is willing to do what no one else can or will.

Thanos’ transition from comics to film, and the evolution that has entailed, is a best case scenario for adaptation. From a knock-off of a more popular character, to a deep cut villain on the other side of the Marvel Universe, to an event-level character who sells books and will undoubtedly break box office records, it’s not death Thanos is courting, but increasing longevity through life. As joy and contentedness spreads across Thanos’ face in the final shot of Avengers: Infinity War, audiences finally know what he has to smile about.

Avengers: Infinity War

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Source link

The post 'Avengers: Infinity War' Has Delivered the Definitive Thanos appeared first on trend views word.

#IFTTT #WordPress

[sweetescapeartist]

Bring out your Self Hating Earthling Alarm, because there's a female earthling npc, Meipo, who's jealous of her Saiyan partner, Hemoro, due to genetics. Like, Meipo really resents how Hemoro doesn't act like a Saiyan and is more a girly girl, but is the stronger one out of the 2, she even wants to make a wish that evolved swapping their genetics! This is in Xenoverse 2 by the way.😶

Interesting. Very interesting... There are 2 ways to look at this imo.

Meipo is a self-hating Earthling & its promoted that ppl should wish they were Saiyans. Because so many ppl would rather have a quick route to power through transformations, instead of cultivating your ki to reach extremely powerful levels of power like Hit & Jiren have.

This is mocking how many fans wish they weren't humans and were Saiyans instead. Mostly due to a quick shortcut for strength. When in reality, control of your spirit & mind is the key to greatly increasing your strength. This Earthling method & understanding of ki is why the top 3 strongest Earthlings are exponentially steonger than 99% if Saiyans. And is why Goku, who was raised as an Earthling martial artist, is able to surpass Vegeta who is a rare Saiyan prodigy.

Its actually best to be an Earthling & keep advancing in ki control. Because in reality, most Saiyans are simply unable to turn SSJ. Only games make it seem like all Saiyans are capable if transformations other than their Oozaru forms.

Vegeta was an extreme prodigy that surpassed his father while he was a kid.

Goku was raised as an Earthling.

The Saiyan-Earthling hybrid children have Saiyan genetics with Earthling potential.

Broly is a mutant amongst Saiyans and has power far beyond the prodigy Vegeta.

Universe 6 Saiyans are the ones who have a higher chance of turning SSJ due to evolving differently. Thats due to them being more "human" than Universe 7 Saiyans.

In Dragon Ball, being more human results in greater paths to power. Being animalistic is basic physical strength (Saiyans and certain other aliens). Being human gives more spiritual strength, which is needed to surpass the physical limits (Earthling martial artists & Warrior Clan Namekians).

That spiritual strength, A.K.A. ki, leads humans to reaching godly strength. Gods in DB have deep & extremely powerful spiritual strength. Especially powerful gods like Beerus. Even Jiren is an example of spiritual strength/control that surpasses gods. And Goku's spiritual strength/control is why he was able to temporarily use Ultra Instinct, an Angelic technique.

Anyway, I got lost answering the question... I ramble often. Lol 😅

#rokta #Self-Hating Earthling #Earthling #Saiyan #Xenoverse 2 #DB #DBZ #DBS

[infactforgetthepark]

[Free eBook] The Stellar Death Plan by Robert E. Vardeman [Science Fiction Adventure Thriller]

The Stellar Death Plan by Robert E. Vardeman, a 1972 Hugo Award finalist for Best Fan Writer in addition to being an author in his own right, is the 1st novel in his Masters of Space trilogy of science fiction space adventure thrillers, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Endeavour Press' Venture imprint.

This was originally published in 1987 by Avon. The series is written in the vein of old school pulp space adventures by E. E. Smith, and stars a man on the run after having been framed for thwarting a nefarious plan, and the wealthy socialite who aids and abets him.

This first adventure introduces the situation which puts him on the run, after uncovering theft of rare materials in his position as a mining inspector for alien overlords, which leads him to a deeper plot whose secret backers will stop at nothing to see it carried out.

Offered worldwide, available at Amazon.

Free for a limited time @ Amazon

Description Earth barely fed its own people. Jobs were scarce and many scholars pointed to this century as a new Dark Ages. This wasn’t the time to raise the banner for a new crusade against aliens. Or was it?

Barton Kinsolving has got a lot on his plate.

As mine supervisor for Interstellar Materials’ Deepdig #2 mining operation, he has to ensure that the mine is run safely, efficiently, and, most importantly, in a way that doesn’t make their alien landlords angry.

Humans are new to the interstellar scene. With a dying planet they were desperate to escape, they went out into the universe in the search of something better, only to find that there were others already there, more numerous and more technologically advanced.

Luckily, the alien races see the humans only as a primitive nuisance, and while they treat Earthlings with disdain, they can come to agreements. Such as allowing the humans to mine their land for rare earth materials that humanity needs to power interstellar flight – at a heavy price of course.

Theft of untold tons of rare materials has occurred, and been moved off-world without paying the tax. And the Lorr, the alien overseers, are not going to like that.

In the cause of his investigation, Kinsolving uncovers a much larger, much more insidious plan and suddenly he is a man marked for murder by the company he once served and the woman he once loved.

Framed for crimes beyond imagination, hunted by human and alien alike, only Barton can avert an interstellar war of unthinkable proportions!

#free ebook #robert e. vardeman #masters of space #science fiction #space opera #pulp adventure #venture press

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 321: Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters (1992)

Let’s not judge this one by its title screen . . .

                Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters

United States

Toys for Bob (developer); Accolade (publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS, 1994 for the 3DO console; later fan ports to other platforms

Date Started: 23 Mach 2019

When I started this blog in 2010, I had already played, at least in adolescence–most of the RPGs that everyone else knows. I may not have remembered all of the details, but I at least could remember the basic outlines of The Bard’s Tale, Might and Magic, Wizardry, Questron, Pool of Radiance, and all of the Ultimas. There were lots of games I had never played–never even heard of–of course, but those were games that most other people my age had never encountered either. It wasn’t until about a year into my blog, with Dungeon Master, that I truly felt I was blogging about a game that I should be ashamed for never having played previously.

For the first time since then, I am in that position again with Star Control II, a game that frequently makes “top X” lists of the best games of all time. My commenters have mentioned it so many times that my usual pre-game search of previous comments turned up too many results to analyze. This one, in other words, is really going to fill a gap.

        . . . even though the first game had an awesome title screen.

         There has been some debate about whether Star Control II is an RPG, but at least almost everyone agrees that its predecessor was not. That predecessor went by the grandiose name Star Control: Famous Battles of the Ur-Quan Conflict, Volume IV (1990), in an obvious homage to Star Wars. It’s an ambitious undertaking–part simulator, part strategy game, part action game. The player has to manage ships and other resources and plan conquests of battle maps, but in the end the conflict always comes down to a shooting match between two ships using Newtonian physics and relying almost entirely on the player’s own dexterity. This combat system goes back to Spacewar! (1962) and would be familiar to anyone who’s played Asteroids (1979).

The setup has an Earth united under one government by 2025. In 2612, Earth is contacted by a crystalline race called the Chenjesu and warned that the Ur-Quan Hierarchy, a race of slavers, is taking over the galaxy. (Star Control II retcons this date to 2112.) Earth is soon enlisted into the Alliance of Free Stars and agrees to pool resources in a mutual defense pact. The Alliance includes Earth, the philosophic Chenjesu, the arboreal Yehat, the robotic Mmrnmhrm, the elfin Ariloulaleelay, and a race of all-female nymphomaniacs called the Syreen who fly phallic ships with ribbed shafts.

On the other side are the Ur-Quan, an ancient tentacled species with a strict caste system. They make slaves out of “lesser races” and only communicate with them via frog-like “talking pets.” Their allies include Mycons, a fungus species; Ilwraths, a spider-like race that never takes prisoners; and Androsynths, disgruntled clones who fled captivity and experimentation on Earth. Each race (on both sides) has unique ship designs with various strengths and weaknesses, some of which nullify other ships. There’s a kind-of rock-paper-scissors element to strategically choosing what ships you want to employ against what enemies.

           No “bumpy forehead” aliens in this setting.

          The occasionally-goofy backstory and description of races seems to owe a lot (in tone, if not specifics) to Starflight (1986), on which Star Control author Paul Reiche III had a minor credit. There are probably more references than I’m picking up (being not much of a sci-fi fan) in the ships themselves. “Earthling Cruisers” (at least the front halves) look like they would raise no eyebrows on Star Trek, and both Ilwrath Avengers (in the back) and Vux Intruders (in the front) look like Klingon warbirds. The Ur-Quan dreadnought looks passably like the Battlestar Galactica.

The original Star Control offers the ability to fight player vs. player or set one of the two sides to computer control (at three difficulty levels). In playing, you can simply practice ship vs. ship combat with any two ships, play a “melee” game between fleets of ships, or play a full campaign, which proceeds through a variety of strategic and tactical scenarios involving ships from different species in different predicaments.  The full game gives player the ability to build colonies and fortifications, mine planets, and destroy enemy installations in between ship-to-ship combats.

          The various campaign scenarios in the original game.

       The “campaign map” in the original game is an innovative “rotating starfield” that attempts to offer a 3-D environment on a 2-D screen. It takes some getting used to. Until they reach each other for close-quarters combat, ships can only move by progressing through a series of jump points between stars, and it was a long time before I could interpret the starfield properly and understand how to plot a route to the enemy.

          Strategic gameplay takes place on a rotating starmap meant to simulate a 3-D universe.

              I have not, in contrast, managed to get any good at ship combat despite several hours of practice. I’m simply not any good at action games. At the same time, I admire the physics and logistics of it. You maintain speed in the last direction you thrust even if you turn. You have limited fuel, so you can’t go crazy with thrusting in different directions. You can get hit by asteroids, or fouled in the gravity wells of planets. And you have to be conservative in the deployment of your ships’ special abilities, because they use a lot of fuel. Still, no game in which action is the primary determiner of success is going to last long on my play list. For such players, the game and its sequel offer “cyborg” mode, where technically you’re the player but the computer fights your battles, but I’d rather lose than stoop to that.

              One of my lame attempts at space combat.

           Star Control II opens with a more personal backstory. In the midst of the original Ur-Quan conflicts, the Earth cruiser Tobermoon, skippered by Captain Burton, was damaged in an ambush and managed to make it to a planet orbiting the dwarf star Vela. As they tried to repair the ship, crewmembers found a vast, abandoned underground city, populated with advanced technology, built by an extinct race known as the Precursors.

         The backstory is reasonably well-told with title cards.

       Burton reported the find when she returned to Earth, and she was ordered to return with a scientific team led by Jules Farnsworth. Shortly after they arrived, they received word from Earth that the Ur-Quan had learned about the Precursor city and were on their way. Burton balked at Earth’s orders to abandon and destroy the base with nuclear weapons. Instead, she sent her ship back to Earth under the command of her first officer and remained behind with the scientific team, planning to detonate nuclear weapons should the Ur-Quan ever arrive.

                   The team ended up spending 20 years on the planet, which they named Unzervalt, with no contact from Earth. During that time, the scientists discovered that the city had been created to build ships, and eventually they were able to activate the machines, which put together a starship. The machines shut down just as the ship was completed, reporting that there were insufficient raw materials to continue. About this time, Farnsworth admitted that he was a fraud, and all the success he’d experienced getting the machines up and running was due to a young prodigy born on Unzervalt–the player character.

          They’re not kidding about the “skeleton” part.

          Burton assembled a skeleton crew for the new starship, with the PC manning the computer station, and blasted off. Three days out, they discovered the derelict Tobermoon, damaged and bereft of any (living or dead) crewmembers. Burton took command of the Tobermoon while the PC was promoted to captain of the new ship. Tobermoon was soon attacked and destroyed by an unknown alien craft, leaving the new ship to escape to Earth. Here the game begins.

          What “plight”? You live on a technologically-advanced Eden where your enemies seem to have forgotten about you.

          The player can name himself and his ship, and that’s it for “character creation.” He begins in the middle of the solar system, in a relatively empty ship with 50 crew and 10 fuel. I intuited that I needed to fly to towards Earth, so I headed for the inner cluster of planets.  

             “Character creation.”

              As the screen changed to show Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, a probe zoomed out and attached itself to our ship. It played a recording from an Ur-Quan (with the “talking pet” doing the talking), informing me that approaching Earth was forbidden, as was my status as an “independent” vessel. The probe then zoomed off to inform the Ur-Quan of my “transgressions,” leaving me to explore the planetary area at will. I guess the war didn’t go so well for the Alliance.

             Well, we now know how the first game ended, canonically.

         As I approached Earth, the screen changed to show Earth, the moon, and a space station orbiting Earth. Earth itself seemed to have some kind of red force field around it, so I approached the space station.

As I neared, I was contacted by a “Starbase Commander Hayes of the slave planet Earth.” He indicated that his energy cores were almost depleted and asked if we were the “Hierarchy resupply ship.” At this point, I had a few dialogue options. One allowed me to lie and say I was the resupply ship. Another had me introduce myself. A third–more reflective of what I was actually thinking–said “‘Slave planet?!’ ‘Hierarchy resupply vessel?!’ What is going on here?'” The commander said he’d answer my questions if we’d bring back some radioactive elements to re-power the station. He suggested that we look on Mercury.

         I like dialogue options, but so far they’ve broken down into: 1) the straight, obvious option; 2) the kind-of dumb lie; and 3) the emotional option that still basically recapitulates #1.

           I flew off the Earth screen and back to the main solar system screen. At some point during this process, I had to delete the version of the game that I’d downloaded and get a new one. None of the controls worked right on the first one I tried. I particularly couldn’t seem to escape out of sub-menus, which was supposed to happen with the SPACE bar. The second version I downloaded had controls that worked right plus someone had removed the copy protection (which has you identifying planets by coordinates). The controls overall are okay. They’re much like Starflight, where you arrow through commands and then hit ENTER to select one. I’d rather be able to just hit a keyboard option for each menu command, but there aren’t so many commands that it bothers me. Flying the ship is easy enough with the numberpad: 4 and 6 to turn, 8 to thrust, 5 to fire, ENTER to use a special weapon. There’s a utility you can use to remap the combat commands, but using it seems to run the risk of breaking the main interface, which I guess is what happened with the first version I downloaded.

             Running around Mercury and picking up minerals. The large-scale rover window (lower right) is quite small.

            When orbiting a planet, you get a set of options much like Starflight. You can scan it for minerals, energy, or lifeforms, and then send down a rover (with its own weapons and fuel supply) to pick things up. Minerals are color-coded by type, and at first I was a little annoyed because I can’t distinguish a lot of the colors. But it turns out that the explorable area of planets is quite small, and you can easily zoom around and pick up all minerals in just a few minutes. In that, it’s quite a bit less satisfying than Starflight, where the planets were enormous and you’d never explore or strip them all, and you got excited with every little collection of mineral symbols. 

The rover doesn’t hold much, but returning to the ship and then landing again is an easy process, so before long my hold was full of not just uranium and other “radioactives,” but iron, nickel, and other metals. In mining them, the rover was periodically damaged by gouts of flame from the volatile planet, but it gets repaired when you return to the main ship.

         Returning to base with a near-full cargo manifest.

          We returned to the starbase and transferred the needed elements. With the station’s life support, communications, and sensors working again, the captain was able to scan my vessel, and he expressed shock at its configuration. Rather than give him the story right away, I chose dialogue options that interrogated him first.

               This seems to be everybody’s reaction.

           Commander Hayes explained that the Ur-Quan had defeated the Alliance 20 years ago. They offered humanity a choice between active serve as “battle thralls” or imprisonment on their own planet. Humanity chose the second option, so the Hierarchy put a force field around the planet, trapping the human race on a single world and preventing assistance from reaching them. But they also put a station in orbit so their own ships could find rest and resupply if they happened to pass through the system. The station is maintained by humans conscripted from the planet for several years at a time.

           Humanity’s fate didn’t seem so bad until he got to this part.

           When he was done, I (having no other choice, really) gave him our background and history and asked for his help. Pointing out that starting and rebellion and failing would result in “gruesome retribution,” he asked me to prove my efficacy by at least destroying the Ur-Quan installation on the moon, warning me that I would have to defeat numerous warships.

We left the station and sailed over to the moon. An energy scan showed one blaze of power, so I sent the rover down to it. The report from the rover crew said that the alien base was abandoned and broadcasting some kind of mayday signal, “but great care has been taken to make it appear active.” My crew shut the place down and looted it for parts.

            My crew files a “report from the surface.”

          Lifeform scans showed all kinds of dots roaming around the moon, most looking like little tanks. I don’t know if I was supposed to do this or not, but I ran around in the rover blasting them away in case they were enemies. I also gathered up all the minerals that I could.

I returned to the starbase, and the commander accepted my report. Just then, an Ilwrath Avenger, having found the probe, entered the system. The arachnid commander threatened us. There were some dialogue options with him, all of which I’m sure resulted in the same outcome: ship-to-ship combat.

            They’re not just “spider-like”; they actually spin webs on their bridges.

         This part was much like the original game, although with the ship icons larger and against a smaller backdrop. I (predictably) lost the battle the first two times that I tried, but won the third time. In my defense, the game’s backstory specifically said that I had minimal weapons. It was also a bit lumbering–slow to turn, slow to thrust.

          The alien ship destroys me in our first encounter.

        When I returned to starbase after the battle, Commander Hayes said he would join my rebellion, and the starbase would be my home base. He asked what we would call our movement, and there were some amusing options.

            The last option tempted me, but I was boring and went with the first one.

            Through a long serious of dialogues, I learned that as I brought back minerals and salvage, the base could convert them into “resource units “(RU) which I could then use to build my crew, purchase upgrades for the Prydwen (improved thrusters, more crew pods, more storage bays, more fuel), get refueled, and build a fleet of starships. I can even build alien ships if I can find alien allies to pilot them.

          My own starbase. Why can’t I name it?

          Hayes had a lot more dialogue options related to history and alien species, but I’ll save those for later. It appears that the introduction is over and I now have a large, open universe to explore, where I’m sure I’ll do a lot of mining, fighting, and diplomacy. In this sense, Star Control II feels like more of a sequel to Starflight than the original Star Control.

             One part of a nine-page starmap that came with the game. I’m tempted to print it out and assemble it on the wall in front of my desk. I suppose it depends on how long the game lasts.

          I appreciate how the game eased me into its various mechanics. I’m enjoying it so far, and I really look forward to plotting my next moves. I suspect I’ll be conservative and mine the rest of the resources in the solar system and buy some modest ship upgrades before heading out into the greater universe.

Time so far: 2 hours

****

While playing Star Control II, I thought it would be fun to have a look at co-author Paul Reiche III’s first CRPG effort, the Keys of Acheron expansion (1981) to Epyx’s Dunjonquest title, Hellfire Warrior. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to get it working. (I’m attempting the Apple II version, but they all seem to have the same problem.) Acheron requires the original Hellfire Warrior to start, and the manual warns you that if you don’t do everything right according to the “Special Loading Instructions,” you won’t be able to play the game. While I can find the manual in plenty of places, I can’t seem to find the loading instructions anywhere, and trying the obvious stuff (e.g., switching disks before entering the dungeon) doesn’t seem to work. A couple of screenshots on MobyGames show that at least someone got it to work. I’d appreciate if anyone has any ideas on these special loading instructions; otherwise, we’ll have to continue to list the game as “NP” and put it on the “Missing & Mysteries” list.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-321-star-control-ii-the-ur-quan-masters-1992/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost