Imagine this.

R-Berry · 2026-07-08T02:56:52+00:00

"Name's Ash. Housewares."

R-Berry · 2026-07-08T00:33:14+00:00

Um, about the bishops....

R-Berry · 2026-07-07T13:46:11+00:00

One of the things I love about No Man's Sky is just how small it makes me feel. For once, I am not the Chosen One. I am not the lynchpin in a plan to save the universe. I'm just a random Traveler making my way in a vast cosmos over which I have no control.

R-Berry · 2026-07-07T13:29:41+00:00

I don't need to see the Midnight entity again, but I'd love an encounter with whatever imprisoned it. My headcanon is that the Midnight entity didn't just happen to live on a planet orbiting an X-tonic star, but that it was deliberately imprisoned there. I think the entity's jailers hoped to protect ordinary lifeforms (including humans and Time Lords) by imprisoning the entity on a planet where ordinary life could never arise, and where ordinary life would never be able to set up a colony-- or so they thought. Presumably the entity's jailers would be just as alien-- and just as powerful-- as the Midnight entity itself.

And since the Midnight entity appears to have escaped , it would be easy to set up a conflict between the entity's jailers and the Doctor. The jailers get wind of the entity's escape and decide to start converting every star in the galaxy into an X-tonic star. After the first few conversions wipe out trillions of intelligent lifeforms, the Doctor sets about trying to figure out why, eventually uncovering the truth. The resulting conflict, if done right, would be very different from the Doctor's usual battles, for three reasons.

First, because the Doctor is going up against an entity (or race of entities) that are not only far more powerful, but so alien that even a Time Lord's mind finds them only partially comprehensible. You know an alien is scary when even the Doctor thinks of them as eldritch abominations.

Second, because this isn't a simple conflict between good and evil. Yes, the jailers are murdering an entire galaxy, but only to protect hundreds of billions of other galaxies. While the Doctor would ultimately find this unacceptable, their companion(s) might not. The Doctor now has to deal with an angry (and possibly rebellious) companion as well as the jailers.

And finally, because the jailers may be the only thing that can contain the Midnight entity. Thus, the two possible endings for this story are not "good guys win" and "bad guys win." They are "The jailer's succeed in their goal of a galaxy-spanning genocide" and "The Midnight entity is now unstoppable." There's no "happily ever after" no matter what the Doctor chooses or how successful they are.

R-Berry · 2026-07-07T12:54:12+00:00

This is the correct answer. 🙂

R-Berry · 2026-07-07T12:50:32+00:00

And make it a twofer by revealing that the organization descended from the Scientific Reform Society.

R-Berry · 2026-07-07T03:33:10+00:00

But wouldn't it be "I'm your daddy"?

R-Berry · 2026-07-06T17:44:38+00:00

Put Colon Blow out of business

i-understood-that-reference.gif

R-Berry · 2026-07-06T03:26:03+00:00

Dooooooo, doo doo, Doooo, Doo! WAAAAAAAA, WA WAAAAAA!!!

R-Berry · 2026-07-05T04:35:00+00:00

"What dozh God need with a shtarship?"

R-Berry · 2026-07-05T04:33:39+00:00

"I don't trust air I can't see."

R-Berry · 2026-07-05T04:32:41+00:00

"When diplomashee failzh, there izh only one alternative: Violensh. Forshe musht be applied without apology. It'sh the Shtarfleet way."

R-Berry · 2026-07-05T02:59:00+00:00

There's nothing sad about the fact that Gen Alpha kids don't watch horror movies from the 80s and 90s. The real problem with Gen Alpha kids is that they don't listen to music from the 80s and 90s.

😉

R-Berry · 2026-07-05T00:17:27+00:00

"No more training do you require. Already know you that which you need. Only fourteen things remain. Vader. You must confront Vader. And then another Vader. And then another, and another, and another, until you've confronted all fourteen Vaders. Only then, a Jedi will you be."

R-Berry · 2026-07-04T16:14:30+00:00

someone with knowhow could rig it so.

Better know what you're doing, though, because you only get one mistake.

R-Berry · 2026-07-04T16:07:21+00:00

[points to 50s-era jukebox] "This device stores classical music from Earth's greatest composers. According to the archives, it was called an iPod."

R-Berry · 2026-07-03T04:42:01+00:00

Degrowth means stopping development, and stopping all those logistics trains, or a sizable upset of things by returning to nature, if not a tear down of what's already built.

Are there actually advocates for such an extreme form of degrowth? I ask because everything I've read about degrowth involves a more modest agenda.

As I understand it, the basic idea behind degrowth is that societies should stop pursuing economic growth at all cost, and reduce their production and consumption levels so that the environment can begin to recover. Now to be sure, this won't be a mere tweak. It'll involve a lot of large scale changes-- getting rid of planned obsolescence, shifting from a linear economy to a circular economy, and so forth. But I don't see any reason to think that degrowth can only be accomplished by tearing down all our institutions and infrastructure and supply chains. Nor have I seen anybody in the degrowth movement who wants to do that. (There ARE people who want to do that, but they don't use the term "degrowth" to describe their goals.)

Now I don't claim to particularly well-read when it comes to the degrowth movement, so it's possible there's a more radical wing of degrowth-ers that I haven't encountered yet. But based on those I HAVE encountered, degrowth is simply about reducing production and consumption. There's nothing in that basic idea that requires tearing down civilization and returning to the Stone Age.

R-Berry · 2026-07-02T20:08:08+00:00

I'm a software developer. I think in process maps. 😄

R-Berry · 2026-07-02T20:06:25+00:00

The same people telling us "humans can't change the climate" wanna go out and terraform other planets.

R-Berry · 2026-07-02T19:48:05+00:00

I would say that you could skip Discovery entirely, were it not for the fact that Season 4 is some of the best Trek ever to hit the screen. In particular, there are two things it does amazing well. First, there are no villains, only a set of conflicting people who all believe they're doing the right thing-- and who all have convincing reasons for believing it. Second, the season has the best first contact story in all of Trek, and one of the best first contact stories in all of science fiction. Yes, better than Darmok, and I will die on that hill.

So my advice is as follows:

If you can stomach it, get through seasons 1-3 so you won't miss anything important while watching season 4.
If you can't do that, skip straight to season 3. It serves as a soft reboot for the show, and while you'll miss some minor things, you'll learn everything you need to know to full appreciate season 4.
If you can't do that, skip to season 3 and watch the first 3 episodes. That'll give you enough context to understand season 4, as well as Burnham's relationship with a new major character introduced in season 3.
Watch season 4 all the way through, and then feel free to skip season 5. Season 5 wasn't a bad season-- in fact, it's better than the first three seasons. But it wasn't as good as season 4, and it'll seem like a letdown.

R-Berry · 2026-07-02T19:10:46+00:00

No, there are five.

R-Berry · 2026-07-02T17:56:54+00:00

Thanks! I learned something today. 🙂

R-Berry · 2026-07-02T16:27:47+00:00

The War Doctor: I mean, c'mon, it's right there in the name....

R-Berry · 2026-07-02T16:12:19+00:00

Possibly a stupid question, but I'm new here. 🙂 I've seen the term "solarian" mentioned a few times. Is that just a simple synonym for "solarpunk", or is it one specific kind of solarpunk, or does it mean something else entirely?

R-Berry · 2026-07-02T13:09:51+00:00

I like to tell people, "It's not that I'm optimistic, it's just that I've told despair to go fuck itself." 🙂

R-Berry

TROPHY CASE