30 July 2005 (updated 5 August 2005)

"SECOND STAR FROM THE RIGHT AND STRAIGHT ON 'TIL MORNING", or FAREWELL SCOTTY

I have to admit, I lead a charmed life -- or at least a very unusual one. Random, low-probability, events occur to me all the time. Perhaps, then, I shouldn't have been surprised last week.

Despite being a huge sci-fi nerd, despite the fact that all my friends have visited, despite that it's only 3 1/2 hours away, I had never made the trek (nay pilgrimage) to Las Vegas, and had never visited Star Trek: The Experience... before last Wednesday.

So after evading Klingons and battling the Borg (and pointing out two continuity errors in the latter), I enjoyed a hamborger at Quark's. A camera crew was filming interviews, and their attention turned to me. Were the exchange scripted, it would have read something like:

           ONAIR TALENT
      Did you hear about Scotty?

               KRG
      What?  Did he like die or something?

SFX -- Silence punctuated by sound of crickets chriping.

PUSH IN on TALENT whose expression clearly shows that she can't
believe what she's just heard.

           ONAIR TALENT
       At 5:30 this morning.

Well, you get the idea...

Using the argument, since I'd just heard the news my reaction was immediate and genuine, that's how I ended up on the 11:00 news talking about the passing of James Doohan.

What struck me, though, was memories of childhood. Does anybody else remember when our parents were sad because a "movie star" passed? Each time that would happen, I'd see a picture and think "How can that person be a movie star? (S)he's... old. Naturally, that was before I was fully up to speed on the aging thing. t's our turn now, though. First it was Sarek, then Dr. McCoy, now Scotty. Some of us are reaching the point when our childhood heroes will be passing in the not-too-distant future. It's just one more reminder that we're not so far behind, I guess.

For my "services", Ms. On-air talent told me that I could order anything from the bar, her treat. So, yes I was able to drown my sorrows, yes I left there really quite scriffy...

...and yes, as a tribute to Scotty, I had something green.

Scotty has left the building... and has beamed up for the last time. Cheers, Scotty.

ENOUGH WITH THE MARS SPAM, ALREADY!

Have you heard? On August 27th Mars is going to make it's closest approach to Earth in over 60,000 years. Surely you've received eamil announcing the glorious celestial event? Well there's one small snag... that event was August 27th 2003! Yes, two years ago!

But, no, it gets better. The more recent Mars spam has crossed a line into the realm of urban legend. Supposedly, now, Mars will be as large as the full moon. Possible? Well, to first order, Mars is roughly twice the diameter of the Moon. At it's closest to Earth (roughly 50 million miles), Mars is 200 times farther away than the Moon (250,000 miles). You didn't even have to PASS high school trigonometry to realize that this is impossible. What we have here, though, is yet another version of "Cosmic Telephone Line", where the story just keeps on growing.

Sky and Telescope Magazine has a good article on this if you want further info.

SPEAKING OF PLANETS AND MOONS...

One of the biggest discoveries in planetary science in a decade went largely unnoticed this past week. Saturn's icy moon Enceladus orbits within the planet's E-ring. For numerous reasons, mostly based upon images from Voyagers I and II, scientists believe that cryovolcanism, or ice volcanism, on Enceladus generates the material that ends up forming the E-ring. This would imply that there is liquid water within the icy moon.

Based upon the measurements of five instruments from Enceladus, cryovolcanism, or at least active venting from the moon's interior, does seem to be happening.

Sadly, between the "Return to Flight" news of the shuttle, and the announcment of a tenth planet, the Enceladus press release was lost in the cracks.... so to speak.

GALACTICA'S MARY ANN?

I couldn't possibly have an entry where I didn't discuss Galactica, could I?

It's been an age-old conundrum for men who've watched Gilligan's Island (which is just about everybody, isn't it?). Ginger or Mary Ann? Ginger is beautiful and sexy; Mary Ann is pretty, but oh so much more sweet and approachable.

Apparently, Galactica has a "Mary Ann" now, too. I can't tell you how many men have said to me, "Sure Number Six is amazing..." or "Boomer is HOT..." or "Starbuck is sure sexy..." but they always end with, "...but who I really want is Cally."

Specialist Cally, played by Nicki Clyne, seems to put a dent in that old saying "We want that which we can't have." In both cases, Mary Ann and Cally, the appeal is that the lady is approachable, and does seem like the girl who lives next door. She just might be somebody who I, not a millionaire or famous actor, might have a chance with.

My personal opinion? While I see the appeal of all the aforementioned Galactica ladies, I'm quite looking forward to seeing a lot more of Racetrack!

22 July 2005

WHY ME?

When Richard Hatch asked me to consider writing a blog for battlestargalactica.com, my initial reaction was "Alright! Lots of people will read what I have to say!" That reaction was followed, almost immediately, with, "Holy FRAK! Lots of people will read what I have to say!" The latter reaction explains why I initially hacked out my first entry... then sat on it for a couple months. I'll admit that I struggled a bit with the question of whether or not anything I had to say was interesting enough for "mass consumption".

If you're reading this now perhaps you, like me, have read many a web log in what passes for your spare time. Some of my personal "faves": Ron Moore's (No, I'm not being sycophantic, it's really quite a fun read), , "Regular Joe" and Tuesday Morning Quarterback (TMQ). While the latter, strictly speaking, isn't a blog so much as it is a regular column, Mr. Easterbrook's writing style is very blogesque (and if you've never read TMQ, I highly recommend it, it's a very entertaining fusion of indepth NFL analysis, with a smattering of SciFi/Fantasy, haiku, and hot cheerbabes thrown in for good measure). Heck, I even check in occasionally with Sci-Fi Ranter Girl.

Many blogs are fascinating, well-written, and/or thought-provoking. Blogs (and, increasingly, vlogs) provide an excellent alternate means of news reporting, often keeping the mainstream media "honest." Blogs have given us up-to-the minute coverage of major events that no media to date has been able to match) . Some recognize blogging as the powerful tool they are, while others are slower to catch on.

Let's face it, though, there are also more than a few blogs out there that are self-indulgent tripe. Anybody who has ever been to a science fiction convention quickly learns the First Rule of Spandex: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." This should apply to blogs, too.

So, after suitable introspection, I decided to write the blog for battlestargalactica.com because 1) I did work on Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming and The Great War of Magellan with Richard Hatch, and 2) I do currently work, if albeit part-time, on Battlestar Galactica. If I run out of things to say (like that ever happens), I'll just go with the old standby - Fan Q+A.

SCIFI NERDS DON'T GET NO RESPECT-NEITHER DOES SCIFI

If you're reading this you, like me, are probably a nerd (scored 69.6 on the original nerdity test).

As science fiction fans we're used to not getting respect, simply because of our... passion. Co-workers avoid us; family disavows knowledge of our existence. Well it's not surprising to anybody that, in Hollywood, SciFi doesn't get no respect either. There's an interesting article about this in a recent Detroit News.

OLD VS. NEW

I've never been a big fan of reading Internet message boards -- even the ones for which I nominated as "patron saint". Me? Saint? Bwaa haa haa. I digress... I will admit, though, that I've been reading them increasingly more since I started working on Galactica.

A year ago the boards were FULL of "The new Galactica sucks" "No it doesn't, the old one's cheesy". "You're stupid, the new one's boring." "Bite me!" "Frak you!"... and so on. At least, because of the amazing success of the new series, this particular debate has died down and we're left with "Galactica's the best show on TV." "No it isn't". "You're too stupid to appreciate it." "Bite me!" "Frak you!" Actually, there is some serious, intelligent, debate on the message boards, but too much is just... noise.

Let's revisit the "Old vs. New" debate for a moment, because I want to put in my 2 credits. One thread in this debate was "which is the REAL Galactica"? By virtue of being 25 years older, and the original, certainly the 1978 version can make a good claim to this title. On the other hand the combined running time of the original (miniseries and episodes) comes to 24 TV hours. On July 29th however, the current series episode Fragged will mark the point where the new series has aired as many TV hours as the old, and the following week Resistance will see the new series surpass the old in the number of TV hours, thus arguably being the more "successful" of the two.

Personally, I don't see the need for the conflict at all. First, because it IS just a TV show. Second, there would be no "New" Galactica were it not for the "Old". Finally, while I have heard the argument that the new show is so different that it's no longer the same story - it should have a different title - I disagree. Have you ever played the party game "Telephone Line"? Somebody tells a story to a friend, who tells the same story to another...to another... to another.... After the final telling, the last person tells the story and, invariably, it's so different from the original as to be almost unrecognizable. That's how I view the two series. Twenty six years ago we Earthlings heard a story about a rag tag fleet of humans, fleeing the Cylon tyranny, searching for a new home. Unfortunately, then, we heard the story after numerous re-tellings. Today, we've found a new intragalactic RSS feed, and we're getting the story a bit closer to the source. That's all.

Or, better yet, here's an answer to make everybody happy! Recall the words of Pythia, "All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again." So, quite simply, the original series was "the last time around", the current series is the more recent cycle of time. QED.

Now can't we all just get along?

About & Contact Information

Kevin Grazier is a Planetary Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he currently works on the Cassini Mission to Saturn. He also teaches astronomy classes at UCLA and Santa Monica College, in addition to being the Science Advisor for the PBS Animated Series The Zula Patrol and, of course, the SciFi Channel Series Battlestar Galactica. He lives in Sylmar, CA with his precocious parrot Chauncey and four confused cockatiels.

Questions? Feel free to send them to kgbattlestarblog@yahoo.com, but keep in mind one word: Karma.