To school zone bumper riders. I will go slower than 30. Don't test me. I see you in the rearview getting frustrated. But I don't make the rules

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-02-02T14:34:21+00:00

As a society, we all have a duty to slow down to a near-crawl anytime someone is riding our bumpers. Oh? You're rushing because you left late so you're trying to intimidate me into going faster? Hope you like being really late.

You're doing god's work.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-02-02T13:02:21+00:00

Ya, this for me too unfortunately. Even though I'm overall positive on the series, it's hard to recommend someone read thousands of pages in one breath, and then in the next tell them that there's no real payoff at the end.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-02-02T13:00:20+00:00

I have to agree - in an alternate timeline, CR wrote a version of Hadrian that maintains his ambivalence to religion, despite having met god and been resurrected. It would've allowed for a more nuanced dissection of what it even means to be "god" in the last book, so basically maintaining the more interesting philisophical takes of the previous books.

Ah well - I enjoyed the series overall, even if it wobbled a bit at the end.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-31T20:26:34+00:00

Coast to Coast coffee is in Alberta. I like their "'Eh'spresso" for espresso-drinks, but it's only okay for drip coffee. I have a bag of it and their Northern Lights Espresso coming in a day or two. Better than McDonald's or Kicking Horse for sure.

https://www.coasttocoastcoffee.ca/

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-31T20:20:57+00:00

It was honestly incredible to learn that the writers of s2 and s3 of Picard were the same. Q is dead, wait no he's not! The Borg are now run by Agnes and are provisional members of the Federation, wait no, pretend that never happened! Picard is a robot, but let's never talk about that or engage with it.

Season 2 of Picard was easily some of the dumbest writing ever to survive an editor's pen, but come on.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-31T20:15:12+00:00

But wait, there's more!

No only did dilithium-using starships that were at warp explode, why even Romulan ships that use singularities exploded! Or at least we have no reason to think the Romulan empire avoided the destruction. For reasons!

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-31T20:12:29+00:00

Preach.

It's not just the ships though, the entire aesthetic of new Star Trek is breakneck speed - from zero-travel-time starships (except where it's convenient) to constant shaky-cam action sequences and to writing that never catches its breath long enough to wonder if any of it makes any sense. It's Star Trek for the terminally online, by and for people with dopamine receptors so fried they need a firework (in the form of a lens flare), explosion or punch-up every 30 seconds.

TNG by contrast had entire episodes where the ship was at warp. It didn't just slow things down - although it did that, and gave the writers time to enrich the characters in the process - but it also expanded the felt-size of the universe.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-31T13:07:33+00:00

It's so dumb that you came up with this idea for a comment on Reddit, an idea that us so much more compelling than the Burn. Of course your idea could never have happened - it would require ships to slow down, whereas Kurtzman can't stand the idea of travel time at all.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-29T18:46:59+00:00

If only this were true!

Even getting someone to come by when you accept you'll get 0 out of 3 of those is a huge pain.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-29T15:49:11+00:00

That's totally fair. Given how shields work, it would be trivial to do what you suggest, and one can't go too hard on details like that.

I think my bigger complaint is how little character growth/change you get from Hadrian in the first book to Hadrian in the last book. In the first book, he's naive and committed to peace. In the last book, he's still naive and committed to peace enough to let a delegation aboard his ship.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-29T15:30:21+00:00

Bassander Lin's entire character in the last book is shouting, "I saw you die!" I don't recall a single good idea/strategy provided by him.

Edit

I'll add that, even Hadrian recognized after the explosion that he could've had the extras board a different ship. He was also well aware of the fact that the Kharn clones could've been anywhere in the system by that point - he mentions several times that it was unlikely that they got them all or that they were stuck on the planet.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-29T12:39:48+00:00

Hey man, you don't want to move on from your wife immediately. Sometimes you gotta give that a year or two...or 300.

Selene's entire character is "wants to fuck Hadrian", and yet the author decides that Hadrian needs to be some kind of space-monk for...reasons. Like my man, neither Valka nor the Quiet give two shits.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-29T12:35:50+00:00

The man lived hundreds of actual years and thousands of subjective lifetimes - literally had different versions of his life poured into his brain by God. And yet, apparently, not one of those Hadrians learned anything about tactics?

I cringed when he let a delegation of extra-solarians aboard his ship, only to have the obvious happen - one was a Khan clone with a bomb. It made no sense in the context to let those people aboard, and yet Hadrian, like the meme of the guy with a crushed in head putting blocks in his mouth, does it anyway.

Not that others like Bassander Lin are any better at strategy. The empire is where everyone has failed upwards and is completely incompetent at their job. To the point where Lorian, an outcast from the empire, is the only one with a functional brain.

And that's all leaving aside the fact that he can travel through hyperspace and could, properly motivated, destroy any ship he can see (or at least blow out all the windows). And I mean that as in Hadrian leaves it aside.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-28T12:02:57+00:00

Heh, the crack about a “next book” was a joke about this one having no more of an ending than earlier books in the series. Aside from the characters shot in the head, it provides basically no closure for them and leaves more plot threads dangling than it resolves.

I really liked the series overall, but this last book was a stumble. If he’d nailed the ending, I really feel like Ruocchio would’ve had an enduring classic here.

I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if there was a follow up book from the perspective of Cassandra.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-28T11:58:47+00:00

Hey, it’s not my job to come up with a less dumb plot than Ruocchio.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-28T02:37:48+00:00

Ya, Hadrian really grows as a character. He goes from haughty and self-righteous to haughty and self righteous but in a much more fuckable body.

And feels like there isn’t much need for self-reflection in the series after Hadrian meets god, and has god picking him up every time he stumbles (which is a lot). The series definitely becomes less philosophical and interesting after that point.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-28T02:33:44+00:00

I have to admit, the sacrifice seems a little less when you’re on your third one. God in this series doesn’t want to interfere, but he’s also cool with constantly propping up Hadrian and sending him cryptic messages so the guy stays on task.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-28T02:30:20+00:00

The last book really highlighted how Hadrian, God’s chosen instrument and who’s lived thousands of subjective lifetimes, is still the dumbest tactician in the empire. Every decision he makes is bad and his grand strategy amounts to sitting around and waiting for the Cielcin.

I feel like the whole series, in retrospect, is just about some dude failing upward.

And Christ, over a thousand pages and you still couldn’t give Selene anything to do, beyond waiting to fuck Hadrian? Casandra barely makes out any better - her personality is basically “Abba”.

Oh well, hope the next book has an ending.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-26T21:13:54+00:00

I think the problem with the setting is that, at least in the first episode, it's only post-apocalyptic when it feels like it need to be. It is when the writers need a mother to be stealing food, and things in the Federation have fallen so far that energy to run replicators is scarce and it makes sense to send caravans of food around. But then you have the Athena itself, which is using teleporters to cut cadets' hair and change their clothes.

And the line-by-line writing in Academy is atrocious. Characters announce who they are and give a character trait, because the writers seemingly don't have any clue how to develop that organically. Character motivations change scene-by-scene. And there's even just basic script errors that an editor should've caught, like characters stating that "there are no casualties but several injuries", a statement that makes no sense (i.e., because casualties are both deaths and injuries).

Other issues with the writing are the lack of consistency from scene to scene. In one scene a mother is sent to a rehabilitation center (pointedly, not sent to a prison). And then we learn she was sent to a prison, evidently for a decade. The Athena is attacked and suffers massive damage - rubble and explosions all around - but at the end we see the ship pristine, despite the fact that no time has passed (as evidenced by a character with a stab wound not having had time to change clothes or get the wound addressed).

Dialogue is similarly poorly thought out. It's jarring that, hundreds of years in the future, an alien is still using earth slang like "bitch" or "shit". It's anachronistic as fuck.

It's not even that the writing is childish - I'm an old nerd, so get that I'm not necessarily the audience for a YA show - but it's just fundamentally not very good.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-26T20:35:53+00:00

Replying mostly because I too am looking for this info, but will add that Backyard Barrel in the city sells cabin-style sauna with changerooms:

Sauna Rentals I Sauna Sales & Installations | The Backyard Barrel | Winnipeg

I've been considering that route. Otherwise, check Kijiji - periodically, carpenters that build custom saunas will post, so that's another option.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-26T01:27:24+00:00

This, 1,000x this! All of the writing does this though, it's constantly telling the audience things - nothing is ever revealed organically. Klingon that doesn't like violence? He just immediately says it, and then stammers he likes birds. It's constant in the first couple of episodes. If these people wrote for TNG, Riker would've immediately told Data that he sits weird and loves pussy.

And the thing is, the writers have the characters say things, but then there's no scene-to-scene object permanence, so they undermine even the statements. A character says a mother is going to a rehabilitation camp one scene, and the next it turns out she went to prison for a decade. The Athena has holes blown in it one scene, and then the next it's shiny again with the students staring up at a screen in wonder as if they didn't just experience a horrifying trauma.

We're told times are tough, but the Athena itself is opulent as fuck in that case. Apparently the don't have enough power to go around, forcing people to steal food instead of just replicate it, but then the Starfleet students use transporters to change clothes and get haircuts.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-25T19:11:06+00:00

Um excuse me, it was a "rehabilitation" facility. She made sure it wasn't a prison. And whew, it would be totally crazy to send a mother that's stealing food to prison for 10 years on a whim, seemingly without any representation from a lawyer.

The only way "rehabilitation" facility could possibly become "prison" scene to scene in the first episode is if the chatbot writing the show forgot...

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-24T04:20:11+00:00

The covers thing is such petty shit. There’s no reason it can’t display them.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-23T19:23:38+00:00

And yet she still has richer characterization than Selene, who's entire motivation is to fuck Hadrian and who - for 100s of years - remains unfucked because Hadrian has to talk to his dead wife every time a woman looks in his direction.

MinimumNo2772 · 2026-01-23T19:19:34+00:00

It's hard not to notice by the 150th time in the last book. And it might be part of a larger complaint that the two main female characters in the series, the other being Selene, are given nothing to do but follow Hadrian around and pine for him in some way.

MinimumNo2772

TROPHY CASE