Word a Day: Space Opera, n.

[Mnoooah]

Hey, I learned a new word! Well actually a read a list of top 10 elements of space opera and I understood it a bit better: http://io9.com/5241996/the-top-ten-rules-of-space-opera

At first I thought RD was an anti-space opera, what with the non-heroes, but on balance, I think it counts. It lacks the massive spacepolitics angle, but in a sense, the spacecorps/JMC (where does one end and the other begin?) is the requisite Big Institution and… well in general, it feels right, you know?

Topic

[Blisschick]

I can’t say they apply to ALL “space operas”, but they’re pretty funny and to the point. A lot of the comments are dead on.

In the novels, I don’t recall a specific “Big Institution”, but there were a few responsible for the creation of the GELFS and Simulants and all the resulting chaos that came with it (rebellion, war, etc.). We never see any that in the series, but we are told a little about it, and there are conflicts dealing with it, so it does exist. In one of the novels (I can’t remember which offhand) there is also a minor space politics angle when it came to deciding which planet would be the solar system’s garbage dump, with each planet taking a vote before Earth was decided upon.

I’ve wondered about the Space Corps/JMC connection, myself. I’m gathering that the JMC is a branch of the SC, kind of like the US Army Corps of Engineers belonging to the US Army. There is a connection, but you have to do some research to figure it out. I’m sure the mining would have something to do with supplying nuclear fuel, raw materials, etc. for building and maintaining colonies and military outposts.

[ChrisM]

Starfleet has been mentioned a couple of times too in Red Dwarf. It was mentioned by Rimmer in BtE episode 2, and I think I heard it mentioned in series 8 too.

I suppose it’s possible Starfleet just refers to the ships and crews while the Space Corps is the whole thing incorporating space.

I wish Doug Naylor had left out Starfleet though and just stuck with Space Corps.

As for JMC, yeah I guess there must be individual companies within the corps. Or alternatively it’s a case of separate companies outsourcing. I.e. JMC utilises ships from the Space corps for their mining operations, etc, etc.

[pfm]

Watched Star Trek today at Manchester IMAX. Fucking brilliant! Casting spot on (especially Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Uhura), script and effects very decent indeed. Any fears you might have about this, throw them out the window right now! (er, unless you’re afraid of shakey-cam, because the camera doesn’t ever stop moving for 2 hours.) I won’t spoil it but Abrams and co have pulled a blinder here. Not even the Trekker ‘purists’ can deny it. Well they can, but they’re only being stubborn for stubborn’s sake (i.e. they’re being a bunch of twats)

It’s the first Trek that absolutely everyone will be able to get into. Wide open, broad and dynamic, not stuffy or overly-‘geeky’ (there’s no other word, unfortunately), what Abrams has done is exactly what Trek has needed ever since The Undiscovered Country. Even though Nimoy’s in it (only for 3 or 4 scenes, sadly) you don’t feel the weight of a 40 odd-year-old franchise bearing down and suffocating this film. Thanks to the twist they’ve taken absolutely anything could happen, and they don’t need to keep looking stuff up in the Star Trek Encyclopedia in case they fuck up canon (though, funnily enough, one cheeky little line confirms that Enterprise is canon here) . They’ve started a new level of canon, a new universe, a new Star Trek. Except with Nimoy so the fans will still watch it…

As soon as it got to the part where Bones meets Kirk (the excellent Karl Urban and the equally great Chris Pine, who IMO in around 2 seconds perfectly grasps everything Kirk should be, and all young boys will want to be him, fucking hell I want to be him!) I knew from the way they were interacting that everything was going to be alright, more than alright. Urban IS McCoy. It’s just so right. And Quinto completely nails Spock. A very carefully measured performance. He pretty much steals the film. Zoe Saldana rocks as Uhura too. She had plenty of screentime (maybe they gave her more when they realised how good she was?) and I hope she has an even larger role in the sequel.

The sequel can’t come soon enough. This is just the beginning. The real second coming of Star Trek.

[JamesTC]

>The real second coming of Star Trek.
Erm, what was TNG?

I have not seen he film but I look forward to it, from what I have read it seems to be like ‘Yesterdays Enterprise’ but with the normal 40 year canon being kept and a new canon being created to live merrily with it (am I wrong?).

What was Simon Pegg like as Scotty?

>though, funnily enough, one cheeky little line confirms that Enterprise is canon here

So if it is this split canon I find it funny that the least popular Trek would be the only canon one in both. Just a side note my favourite Trek is probably Enterprise, maybe DS9.

[ChrisM]

>So if it is this split canon I find it funny that the least popular Trek would be the only canon one in both. Just a side note my favourite Trek is probably Enterprise.

Mine too.

Taking into account that the split in continuity is due to

Minor spoiler ahead, but one a lot of you no doubt know (I haven’t seen the film myself)

… time travel, it makes sense that Enterprise would be considered still ‘canon’. (Ugh, I’m tired of that word.) It was considered part of the continuity of the other series after all.

[pfm]

Yeah, obviously it’s the only series that’s canon within the new alternate timeline because it took place BEFORE events were altered. Glad you’re an Enterprise fan because you’ll laugh at the line!

The only thing that makes me sad is the prospect of never seeing the TNG era ever again. Picard definitely deserved one more outing to give him a good ending and not the shite Nemesis. Something they could suggest in a future movie is that ‘fate’ eventually corrects itself, meaning the TNG era could still all happen just the same even in this new alternate universe. After all, it seems it was always the original series crew’s destiny to join the Enterprise, no matter what happened differently in the past. Fate made sure Kirk and Pike met in the bar. It seems Lost is going down this same path.

[ChrisM]

I think you can still take the events of the other series as happening in the new Star Trek timeline, apart from the alterations. For example, they don’t see Romulans for the first time during the original Star Trek series although those events with the cloaking device in that episode could still happen. I’d imagine the spin-off sequels events would be largely unaltered.

[Somebody]

There’s an incredibly, incredibly long interview with one of the ST movie writers in the TrekMovie.com archives, where he says about fifty times that they made it an alternate reality so that the Original Trek Universe wouldn’t be touched. Here’s a couple of those times:

Anthony: So what happens with the destruction of the Kelvin is the creation of an alternative timeline, but what happens to the prime timeline after Nero leaves it? Does it continue or does it wink out of existence once he goes back and creates this new timeline.

Bob: It continues. According to the most successful, most tested scientific theory ever, quantum mechanics, it continues.

[…]
Anthony: And you believe that the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics is the Star Trek interpretation, based on “Parallels.”

Bob: Yes. I would argue that at the very least, if we are going to do our Star Trek, it has to conform to the latest scientific theories and the most advanced and complete, and right now that is quantum mechanics.

[Indeed, in the ST:Countdown comic prequel, which the movie writers plotted, they specifically include a scene AFTER Spock & Nero get sucked into the past, so you see that Picard & co’s universe doesn’t change.]

[pfm]

Yeah, so even though time travel is involved it’s NOT time travel within the same original Trek universe (it’s a shame that they didn’t establish this is impossible in Trek, but that would mean wiping The Voyage Home and First Contact from canon!), it’s a ‘magic door’ to a parallel universe where ANYTHING can happen, and even before the destruction of the Kelvin there could have been an infinite number of changes making that universe different to the original. You could use that logic to explain why the characters look different to the original cast!

[ChrisM]

Yeah, so even though time travel is involved it?s NOT time travel within the same original Trek universe (it?s a shame that they didn?t establish this is impossible in Trek, but that would mean wiping The Voyage Home and First Contact from canon!), it?s a ?magic door? to a parallel universe where ANYTHING can happen

Not quite. The idea is that the movie timeline is spawned when characters enter the past. Actually I think there’s a universe for every decision that’s ever made, but the point is their entering that point in time causes a fork. They didn’t just cross into another universe that had already been spawned in the Sliders or Jumpleads sense. (I think I got that right.)

I think First Contact still fits in that category. Remember when they scanned the world to find it was totally Borg? They of course went back and set things on track… but they still existed to do that, despite the chages to the past. They gave another explanation at the time (something about being protected from the change of events by the Borg conduit, I think) but I think that still applies to parallel universes. (I.e. they’re there because the start of the conduit was in their unaltered universe.)

[ChrisM]

Actually, on thinking further I realise my ideas concerning First Contact don’t quite work, as why would they worry about following the Borg into the past since their universe was still going along fine? To save the new timeline? But then the Borgified one would still exist… they’re just attempted to spawn yet another where the Borg were defeated in the past…

Ok, so the parallel thing might not be applicable to first contact (or the characters didn’t understand how time works…) Either way, I think my point concerning the Trek new movie-verse is still correct though. Time travel spawning new universe not crossing into existing one.

[Somebody]

If you need an explanation: The backwash from the portal in FC which they thought protected them from the timeline change actually kicked them into an alternate universe where the Borg going back meant they took over the defenceless late-21st century Earth. The Enterprise crew then went back to the fork in the timeline and, by making sure the Phoenix flew and the Borg didn’t win, ended up making sure they went down the right road to get home. If they hadn’t, they would have been trapped in the Borgverse :)

[Author]

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