Darkly Dreaming Demographic.

Hey there,

So I haven’t heard any updates on the starship troopers tv show in development. It could just be one of those things where it’s a rumour trying to meme into existence support for a real project. Or it’s a project that just never gets off the ground. Considering the budget constraints I imagine it’s not a risk many studios would want to burden themselves with. Like if I was going to pitch this I would want to sell it as game of thrones in space with giant alien bugs instead of ice zombies. And this is me the  person who hasn’t seen a single episode of of GOT (and never wants to) haha.

Although saying GOT might not be the best strategy considering how I heard it concluded. I haven’t seen it but apparently it’s like an eight year build for the big bad to get metooed in the back haha.

I mean I don’t give a shit, I’ve never given a shit, the show has never interested me, I honestly don’t really like fantasy or sci-fi haha. 

Well I do but only a specific type of each. I’m just really particular. I hate lord of the rings, but I love Conan and Solomon Kane. I hate the fanciful, ponsey fantasy and I love the gritty, brutal, bone crushing fantasy. So I prefered stuff like Vikings over GOT, although Vikings kinda lost me because the main character sort of got cucked or died. I watch shows mainly for characters so when the characters no longer appeal to me I just stop watching.

I’m kinda the same with sci-fi because I hate shows like star trek but I loved Lexx unironically because it was fun and funny but also felt kind of real and gritty at the same time. And I also loved Battlestar galactica because it felt real, like it was just the real world in the future, it didn’t feel silly or out of place it felt grounded and real.

I’m watching this show called the Expanse on amazon prime right now and it’s even more of that kind of feeling, like just the real world in the future. The characters are a bit eh so far but I love the feel of the show. I just wish all of them didn’t have to whisper their fucking lines with like spaceship asmr playing in the background. Although I love spaceship asmr, I just also love hearing what people are saying. I can’t always read subtitles because I’m usually lifting weights while I watch these shows. But I’m really enjoying it, not really for the story or the characters because they’re both kinda meh honestly. I just love the atmosphere of the show, I like how the world looks and how it feels. It’s one of the reasons I like battlestar because it feels like this could be happening in elite dangerous. Like it’s a micro story in elite, like I’m on the otherside of the galaxy fighting some war while this story is playing out on some space station somewhere and it makes the world feel bigger.

The story is sort of I wanna say Laura in space to sound pretentious (because I read Laura look at me). But it really only borrows the ‘guy falls in love with dead chick he’s investigating’ trope. The story is kinda bog standard but I just love the feel of the world. I could totally imagine myself living on a space station like this and being like a space trucker hauling ice to some far off colony.

I didn’t do a blog the other day because I was busy, work stuff, bit of gardening irl stuff. Work has been particularly shitty recently but I’m excited about the future, I really want that new job. But I got a phone call that didn’t pick up recently from jamaica which freaks me out. Because my phone constantly gets wrong where the call is coming from and that country is too close to be considered a coincidence to the one I actually want to work in. So I’m shitting bricks and the reason I didn’t pick up is because my phone was on silent for my shitty job. So my shitty job might have cost me the good one I actually want which blows so fucking hard. 

But it’s not the end of the world because my cv is gonna be looking a lot stronger by the end of the year.

So about this scene/scenes, err, I kinda like this one from the book because it’s actually decent satire. Which people attribute more to the movie than to the book but there is subtle satire in the book sort of making fun of the intellectual class who thinks they should be running things but don’t really have the will or the balls to really do anything or seize power and probably wouldn’t know what to do with it if they got it. Despite constantly pontificating that they do. 

It’s satire because it’s sort of the way things are run now, the intellectual class make the policy and the science we’re supposed to live our lives by but it doesn’t really work and obviously in this world it all came tumbling down which it will eventually in this world too. Because the point he’s making is that the people that make the decisions have to be the ones who face the consequences of those decisions.  You can’t give power to people who aren’t expected to go out and fight to protect it. Which is why I love the logic of this world. The power to vote or be a citizen isn’t based on your intelligence, it’s based on your commitment to the system. It based on your willingness to give your life to protect it and all it stands for because with that comes the understanding necessary to wield power. 

No longer in this world with people wield power who are so disconnected from the consequences of their choices. The people that make the decisions feel the direct consequence of their actions and they know the effect it will have on them and other servicemen and women and I love that.

The system we have now people just all vote for their own interest so all you really ever get is a tug of war with all these disparate factions arguing over a dwindling pile of resources not knowing or caring what will happen to the other groups, only caring about their own.

This philosophy entirely does away with that and only gives power to a group that has the capacity to see the big picture and sees voting not as a way to get themselves more money and benefit but as a sacred duty to protect the lives and liberties of the people they serve.

That’s what I love about this world, voting isn’t just this meaningless, selfish, pointless thing. It actually has weight and means something and isn’t just a puppet show for big business interests or a shell game to give you the illusion of freedom of choice. It’s a real functioning democracy that functions as a military dictatorship.

It’s like when people say ‘well if you don’t like the system vote to change it’ but it’s a joke because your vote doesn’t really matter. But in this world it does but to get the right to vote you have to be willing to sacrifice your life or at the very least two miserable years of it in which you will be tempered into the kind of person that deserves to vote.

I think it’s a really interesting system that could actually work. I don’t want to go too much into my politics but I’m with Churchill when he said that democracy is great until you talk to the average voter. I genuinely that the right to vote should be more sacred than it is, it shouldn’t be just given to everyone. I’m not taking an elitist position where I think the populace is too stupid like the doctor in the book. I don’t think that smart doctor should vote either. It’s not just about intelligence it’s about being able to see outside of yourself. It’s about being able to put the needs of the many of your needs. 
You don’t just give the right to vote to any average person you give to someone that’s really seen what it means, that understands the consequences of voting for a war because they or someone just like them has to fight it.

How many wars would be started if just the military and veterans were allowed to vote? Probably not very many and if they did they’d be for damn good reasons. The book and the movie hint at the idea of perpetual wars like 1984 for instance with the skinnies where you can’t be certain the aggressor. But I mean what better war to fight in than with the bugs who are this mindless killing force that just want to erase humanity. Although obviously in the later movies and the tv show it sort of builds that there’s more to it to that and they’re not mindless bugs and they still dangle that lame trope of ‘oh maybe we’re the bad guys hurr durr’.

I think that’s really overdone and just sort of solipsistic in my opinion. I think it’s been done to death and people aren’t really interested in it. It’s like a starting block question, or something a stoner would ask. The story starts and you’re ‘hmm am I the good guy or the bad guy’. No you should already know that before the story starts and if you think that’s a twist, it’s not an interesting one. Can we just have a decent story where we’re either the good guys or it doesn’t matter haha? This whole introspective, neurotic questioning of motives is just boring filler. And moreover it’s part of this anti-western attack on imperialism. It’s become sort of trendy to dump on imperialism, you know that thing that built most of the modern world.

It’s just nonsense, without imperialism, the people who complain about imperialism literally wouldn’t exist or they wouldn’t have the means to even complain about it haha. Literally everyone benefited from imperialism and anyone that criticises it is just too stupid to imagine what their lives/countries/cultures would have been like without it.

Now whether it was our place to improve these places is another matter all together. But in my opinion survival is like a shark, if it stops swimming it dies. You need to keep growing and striving and pushing forward with technology and advancement and we need to ultimately make it to the stars or we’ll die as a species. And if we hadn’t advanced, if we’d stayed hunter gatherers and lived off the land we’d have all just ended up like 99.9% of all species on this earth and died. We need to get off this rock if we’re gonna live on as a species, so anyone on the opposite side of that is basically pro-extinction and there’s nothing more nihilistic than that haha.

It’s like people want to ask ‘is it moral for us to exist?’ when I’m like ‘I can’t hear you because I’m too busy existing and propagating my existence into the starts to perpetuate my existence into the millenia’. If you ask yourself this question you will literally just die pondering something that’s ultimately not important, because nothing is more important than your continued existence.

Ok well that fucking went down a weird place into like metaphysical philosophy or some shit, I dunno.

Ok enough ranting, I have editing and cooking to do and maybe more job hunting.

Oh and I just remembered I saw the new Mary Poppins movie and it was one of the most shameless cash grabs I’ve ever seen haha. I’ll probably talk about that tomorrow, or more likely I’ll start ranting and it’ll turn into a review haha.

See you…

 

–

InT. Recruitment facility doctor’s office. Day

 

 

Rico is getting a physical from the doctor, who pokes and prods him in a disinterested way.

 

 

RICO

 

 

What’s the rate at which people fail these tests?

 

 

Doctor

 

 

I never fail anyone. The law doesn’t permit us to.

 

 

RicO

 

 

Then why am I being tested at all?

 

 

DOCTOR

 

 

It’s part of the selection process, finding out what duties you’re physically able to perform.

 

 

DoCTOR (

CONT’D

)

 

 

You know you can’t choose your duties right?

 

 

RiCO

 

 

But I thought we could state a preference.

 

 

DoCTOR

 

 

Sure I can say I’d prefer to be a plastic surgeon living on mars but that doesn’t mean it’s

gonna

happen.

 

 

RiCO

 

 

Is that why you’re here, is this your service?

 

 

DOCTOR

 

 

Me? No I’m a civilian employee.

 

 

DoCTOR (

CONT’D

)

 

 

Military service is for ants.

 

 

DOCTOR (

CONT’D

)

 

 

I

see’em

go and I

see’em

come back, if they come back and for what? A nominal political privilege they don’t even understand.

 

 

DoCTOR (

CONT’D

)

 

 

If I were you, I’d get out while you still can.

 

 

He hands Rico his test papers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INT. desk Sergeants office. Day.

 

 

Karl and Rico are in front of the desk sergeant as he reads over their medical reports.

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT

 

 

Apparently both of you are insufferably healthy.

 

 

He looks at Karl’s papers again and gives him and odd glance. Two clerks come and look at them and there’s whispering.

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT (

CONT’D

)

 

 

We have established you are of sound mind and body and in your right minds to take the oath.

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT (

CONT’D

)

 

 

Repeat after me –

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT (

CONT’D

)

 

 

I, being of legal age and of my own free will –

 

 

Karl and rico together

 

 

I, being of legal age and of my own free will –

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT

 

 

– do now enroll in the federal service of the

Terran

federation for a term of not less than two years and as much longer as may be required by the needs of my service-

 

 

KARL AND RICO TOGETHER

 

 

– do now enroll in the federal service of the

Terran

federation for a term of not less than two years and as much longer as may be required by the needs of my service-

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT

 

 

I swear to uphold and defend the constitution of the federation against all its enemies on or off Terra, to protect and defend the constitutional liberties and privileges of all citizens and lawful residents of the federation.

 

 

KARL AND RICO TOGETHER

 

 

I swear to uphold and defend the constitution of the federation against all its enemies on or off Terra, to protect and defend the constitutional liberties and privileges of all citizens and lawful residents of the federation.

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT

 

 

So help me God!

 

 

KaRL AND RICO TOGETHER

 

 

So help me God!

 

 

They finalise the paperwork and take pictures of both boys.

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT

 

 

All done, time to break for lunch.

 

 

RICO

 

 

Sir can I call my folks?

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT

 

 

You’re on leave for the next 48 hours son, so you can do whatever you damn well please.

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT (

CONT’D

)

 

 

But do you know what happens if you don’t come back after those 48 hours?

 

 

RICO

 

 

No sir.

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT

 

 

Not a damn thing.

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT (

CONT’D

)

 

 

This is where we

seperate

the overgrown babies from the men who are serious.

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT (

CONT’D

)

 

 

Your paperwork will just be marked ‘term not completed’ and you’ll never get another chance.

 

 

DeSK SERGEANT (

CONT’D

)

 

 

So I’ll see you noonday after tomorrow.

 

 

DESK SERGEANT (

CONT’D

)

 

 

If I see you.