E4 – The Futurism is Now (recorded 10/8/16)
Greetings from Deimos. The Deimos Board of Tourism asks visitors to enjoy the natural splendor of our asteroid home, but please don’t leave with it. We only have the one asteroid, and Deimos is about sharing.
We begin with a rambling talk about setting, instigated by the recent tumblr post about the Spyglass town of Senisen. From there, a round table theoretically about “how to get the pilot out of the cockpit,” and onto our topic: curiosity, inquiry, and optimism in the HSD setting.
Limited technical snafus this week, except that Soundcloud has some fierce upload limits and we’re slowly moving our very brief archive to Blubrry. The journey of discovery continues. Ashtaar’s got the joke microphone this week, and once again Nixxian finds himself drifting through deep space.
Show notes:
♃ 3.29—The hosts look into their crystal balls for next year’s best-selling useless gift. Apparently, virtual hats are a thing.
♃ 5.12—Belated news, the Spyglass Town of Senisen, on Tumblr
♃ 13.24—Questions and Opinions: How to get the pilot out of the cockpit?
♃ 14.17—Corbeau hazily recalls the Remote Vision implant, HSDex p146
♃ 14.33—Whines myth-drops “Coyote Loses His Eyes,”
♃ 16.15—Whines and Corbeau totally fail to reference Kara “Starbuck” Thrace from Battlestar Galactica
♃ 22.18—It HAS been a few years since Star Trek: The Next Generation, so let’s have a little music from Patrick Stewart in Ten Forward. Ales…for everyone!
♃ 22.19—We finally get to the topic, halfway through the episode…Futurism, Optimism, and Ennuie
♃ 32.47—From Douglas Adams, “Restaurant at the End of the Universe,” Hannibal Records. This particular sound bite is the first 30 or so seconds from Track 2.
♃ 36.35—More on the feline genocide campaigns is on HS Ex p.22-23. The sad story of Mars’s missing moon is on HSD p.63. Where are we recording from, anyway?
♃ 36.45—We’re a bit off on population. Mars, 2750 AD, has a population of about 5 billion vectors (HSD p.61). Venus, not a huge success, is substantially less than that—maybe 1-2 billion? (HSD p.63)
♃ 39.45—Longbow, a space station filled with animal-shaped vectors gone “feral,” is on HSd p.57
♃ 40.30—Corbeau’s paraphrasing from Lawrence Person’s definition of cyberpunk
♃ 42.22—Nadia, the main character of “Fate’s Fangs” by Josh Vogt is a ‘taur prostitute with a sideline in being a medical test specimen.
♃ 42.56—For HSD newbies, the “ledger” is a sort of social security plan each vector is born with, an algorhythm that makes stock trades for every vector–a steady source of trickle income and a retirement net. For PC level character’s it’s a bit minimum wage, not enough to buy that starship for sure.
♃ 46.03—More information on Spaceex, Blue Origins. Elon Musk’s plan to reach Mars by 2025.
♃ 47.00—A little wandering ramble on TTI, Transcendant Technologies, Inc. This megacorp developed living ships and teleportation based on lovecraftian newmath. More information when we cover Cuil, next episode.
♃ —Blue Origin and their amazing logo, over on Ars Technica
♃ 50.10—Corbeau name-drops Hugo Gernsback, “the Father of Science Fiction”
♃ 51.47—What’s cool? Corbeau is really interested in Tabby’s Star, the increasingly weird stellar anomaly. Tabetha “Tabby” Boyajian’s TED Talk, “The Most Mysterious Star in the Universe,” is a fun dive into research and astronomical strangeness. I wonder if something like the planet with rings wider than Mercury’s orbit might be responsible.
♃ 56.35—A recent test of one of Blue Origin’s rockets.
♃ 57.38—Bonus! The Many Deaths of Davros.
With thanks to Sirius Beat for our intro music, “Future Club,” and outro music, “Tronicles.”
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