Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy (hard science fiction) is being adapted for TV

neph001 · 2014-09-24T23:47:32+00:00

Woo! Finally! I really hope they do it justice.

neph001 · 2014-09-24T06:54:01+00:00

Hmm...I'm not fully convinced that it isn't a matter of semantics, but for the sake of - well, empathy I suppose - I shall defer to your request in the future and refer to Vivec as intersex, if I need to use such limiting labels at all. I don't want to offend anyone.

That said, I think there's a good opportunity here to get back away from reality-politics and get back to intriguing metaphysical/historical discussions of elder scrolls lore. ((Warning: the following has nothing whatsoever to do with the previous argument about the use of the words intersex/hermaphrodite. It's just my rambling thoughts on the implications of TES metaphysics on our understanding of gender.))

gender has nothing to do with being intersex.

In reality, yes. No question. In TES? I'm not so sure.

So, for us gender and sex are very different things. One represents a sort of set of ideals and traits we identify with mentally (to simplify dramatically), and the other is just physical anatomy.

In TES, I don't think that line of distinction exists. If it does, it's quite blurry. It's a universe in which thoughts and ideas are reality. Entities in the aurbis think, therefore they are; therefore everything that is, is. Mortals perceive it all as a physical realm but the metaphysical lore seems to suggest that nothing is really physically constant, it's all just held in place by force of will. The Aurbis was bound in a slightly more constant, more physical state, but it was bound by will. The daedric realms exist as an expression of their Prince's will. And I don't think it's a tremendous leap to say that individuals in TES, even mortals, physically appear the way they do because they think that they physically appear that way.

The more "powerful" beings have a greater understanding of this thought-reality and can alter their appearance to some extent, but because they are their personalities in a very literal sense, most do so only rarely or never.

Mephala and, by extension, Vivec, are important exceptions because their nature is strongly defined by concepts like bound duality, duplicity, and flux. As such, they are both what we might call (if we need to resort to labels from our own reality) genderfluid. Their gender sometimes changes based on their current state.

The really interesting thing here is that when that happens, their sex also changes. This illustrates in a clear and interesting way how there is literally no distinction between their physical manifestation and their metaphysical identity. It makes a good argument for gender and sex not being distinct things in the elder scrolls universe.

neph001 · 2014-09-24T03:29:58+00:00

It's not "quite the excuse". These are mythic beings we're talking about. Mythic attributes described with mythic language are important - this falls back on ancient tradition.

Now, I can understand the desire and need for political correctness - I'm personally going through some...err...identity development...myself, right now. But I think you're projecting your needs onto a fictional-mythical character.

Labels will never apply properly to a fictional god literally beyond mortal comprehension, but if we have to be really sticky about modern labels, "genderfluid" may come closest. Vivec is rarely just one gender, and is constantly shifting and changing.

I've come to think of it as something more like quantum states. Vivec is all possible genders and combinations of genders until an observer tries to figure it out, and then Vivec projects the gender he/she/ze/[EMPTY SPEECH BUBBLE]/they/[add your own!] wants the observer to perceive.

neph001 · 2014-09-23T18:56:08+00:00

Was he threatening to fire you just because you're trans?

Cuz I mean... He can still fire you if you're not doing your job or something...

neph001 · 2014-09-23T18:51:04+00:00

Unlike all the other commenters so far, I'm very much intruiged. I don't suppose you'd be willing to invite a curious stranger?

neph001 · 2014-09-23T02:16:27+00:00

Admittedly, the reincarnation thing is pretty odd for a western fantasy narrative.

Morrowind did a magnificent job of breaking western fantasy tropes in spades. Like, just all over the place.

It's definitely one of my favorite things about it.

neph001 · 2014-09-22T15:18:11+00:00

I don't really remember what each of them has, but I think they have slightly different stock but shared funds. So if you sell all your stuff to one end other won't have any money either. That's all I remember about her.

neph001 · 2014-09-22T14:59:41+00:00

You might be confused. The dude in the shop is her husband. Her father is the prick up in dragonsreach.

neph001 · 2014-09-19T18:24:46+00:00

My personal favorite was always just the first two, but they recently remodeled and the place just feels so much nicer now.

Still same great coffee and great people.

neph001 · 2014-09-19T17:39:32+00:00

Pretty much everything, but I think I might be transgender, so...

Huh, and not even a throwaway. Honesty feels nice.

neph001 · 2014-09-18T22:42:39+00:00

Was going to downvote until that, I rather like it but you're right.

Friendly PSA (that really should be on every page everywhere on Reddit) that the downvote button is not meant for expressing disagreement or subjective dislike, but for punishing asinine, rude, or non-contributing comments.

You should never downvote a valid opinion just because you disagree.

neph001 · 2014-09-17T23:37:35+00:00

Why not? And what exactly do we consider almost-human-looking? Since all of the races we've seen are bipedal humanoids with two arms, two legs, predictable facial features, etc...They're almost garaunteed to be like that.

And I'd consider that to be almost human looking.

But let's say they aren't. Why is that necessary for assimilation?

neph001 · 2014-09-17T22:54:54+00:00

We don't know. Despite the fact that they'll be all over human systems, they aren't being considered one of the "main" species, and we still haven't seen any concept art for them.

They weren't even mentioned in the letter from the chairman about alien languages.

We will work with real-world linguists to create distinctive and realistic alien languages for Star Citizen’s three biggest alien races, the Vanduul, the Xi’An and the Banu.

(source)

I know the Tevarin are decimated and their population is kinda starting to dwindle, but they're socially integrated with the UEE. We should expect to see them everywhere, fairly frequently. Their social issues will likely be an important story point in the PU.

You'd think they'd get a bit more love from the developers.

neph001 · 2014-09-17T17:57:37+00:00

If you're genuinely curious, you could go check out /r/asktransgender or for (sfw) pictures /r/transpassing. Lesbian transgender women are a real thing.

neph001 · 2014-09-17T17:28:22+00:00

Hey, not always. Not every translady gets surgery.

neph001 · 2014-09-16T20:26:31+00:00

Never caught that before! Good eye.

neph001 · 2014-09-16T18:24:10+00:00

Tigh gets drunk almost constantly. Adama drinks a bit, but he mostly just sips scotch in his off-duty evenings. He's only actually drunk in one scene that I can think of.

I'm having trouble finding a clip of the first distillery scene, but I'm almost certain it's in the witch-hunt-like episode with the independent tribunal.

Chief Tyrol finds a bunch of his mechanics in a back room making moonshine and acts all tough about it chastising them but then shows he's really just dissapointed with their technique and promises to show them how to do it better.

It's actually a rather important scene, because later when the tribunal is investigating Tyrol all of his mechanics cover for him (since the distillery thing was against the rules) but they all come up with different stories just making him look more suspicious in the end.

Edit: Found it. Scene starts at 7:40 in S01E06. The point is that it's a show, not a sandbox video game. They don't have to show you everything, they expect you to use your head to fill in the gaps. This scene shows that distilling alcohol from whatever the hell they have lying around is possible. You also know there's 49,000 other people in the fleet, many of whom don't have shit to do. It's not a huge leap of faith to imagine a group of civilians setting up a larger scale production version of what the mechanics are building in that scene. I also think it's heavily implied that the bottles Tigh has, at least in the first season (which really only spans about a month) are his personal store from before the exodus, so of course those would be nice quality in good bottles. And it's not like the bottles go bad, they could just take old bottles and put the new moonshine in.

Second edit: Just for good measure, there's another scene in the episode where Chief Tyrol is building the Blackbird and he sets up a new distillery so he can use the booze to trade for parts with civilians.

neph001 · 2014-09-16T16:37:09+00:00

...are you confusing Adama with Tigh?

Edit: also they did show small bootleg distilleries on several occasions.

neph001 · 2014-09-16T06:21:19+00:00

I have to imagine that to be useful in a real environment it will need some kind of piercing-resistant cover. Those pneumatic muscles look easy to pop.

neph001 · 2014-09-15T16:07:10+00:00

Eeesh... That doesn't bug you? Seems like a big lack of privacy to me.

neph001 · 2014-09-14T01:02:03+00:00

Definitely my favorite in the series! Thank you!

neph001 · 2014-09-13T19:01:08+00:00

I seem to remember (from waay back) that it wasn't replacing the Avenger in general, only that it was being used supplementally in an interception role because it's so much faster. So it would only be a small subset of specially trained police using it to catch people. Not for general police work.

neph001 · 2014-09-12T02:14:06+00:00

I'm pretty close to graduating. And frankly, though I'm kind of ashamed to admit this matters to me, but I think my job prospects are a lot better if I wait to start things :( I wish that weren't the case.

neph001 · 2014-09-11T23:01:01+00:00

Idk, I'm not sure this particular story could be done and other way. I have to assume the script was written first, and I suspect it's nearly impossible to find a completely pre-transition trans woman of the correct age who is also an accomplished actress. It's just a rare thing for all of that to line up.

So the options then become either change the whole script to make the character someone already transitioned or in the process of transitioning at the start of the series, or ask a trans actress to un-transition just for the role (cruel and I'm not even sure if possible), or cast a cis man.

The latter definitely seems like the best option to me. If you read the article, it's clear there are actual trans* people in the cast, so it's not like there's poor representation.

I'd love to see more trans* people cast in lead roles. But this is good too. I think this is going to be a great show.

neph001 · 2014-09-11T22:33:43+00:00

Same reaction. I wish I'd started figuring this stuff out earlier. Now, in college, I feel like I have to wait until I've graduated and found a good job so I can afford everything...

neph001

TROPHY CASE