Don't Blame The Viewer

In my previous article, I said that writing is a lot like sport. If you want to read that dull piece of text, here's the link:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-do-i-post-what-ruben-hilbers-ljhwe/?trackingId=QX4Pu6s45jaLkbay%2FibBbA%3D%3D

And I want to keep that analogy going here. Writing stories and novels is individual sport, but making a TV-show is a team sport. Soccer, American football, Curling or Cricket, you pick one you like in your head. The writer's room is the team and the show-runner is the coach.

The reason this article come with a Federation flag as included pic, is because Team #StarTrek hasn't been doing well recently. In fact, their latest bout, #StarfleetAcademy has been getting bad reviews from the average audience. Which has led to fiery responses from actors - especially Robert Picardo - and accusations of review bombing. Especially since critics seem to love the show. However, I feel that somebody needs to come out and say the obvious.

TV critics are essentially sport commentators, whereas the actors are on the team payroll. Both groups are telling the team and more importantly, the team #sponsor - #ParamountSkydance - what they want to hear. It's called #survival. They can't afford to get sacked or locked out of the stadium, they have bills to pay.

A good demonstration of this is John Boyega, who didn't air his true opinion about how #Disney treated his #StarWars character Finn until he was no longer financially depended on them.

So, where does #YouTube and the audience fit into this model? Starting with #YouTube, reviewer there are like people who have a good camera and a friend who lives near the stadium with a balcony. They can see the sport being played, but they are not part of the traditional system. And because they are not dependent on the studios for their survival, they can be honest. Hence the brutal burning of #StarfleetAcademy.

And the audience. The audience just wants to see a good game. Good entertainment. And if your team sucks - which as an audience member I can tell you, #StarTrek has been since 2017 under #AlexKurtzman, #AkivaGoldsman and #SecretHideout - they call you out on it. #StarfleetAcademy is not being review bombed, it's just bad. Stop blaming the viewer, learn how to play the frakking game.

Regards,

Ruben Hilbers

PS....In an ironic twist, the only parts of post-2017 #StarTrek that have been watchable have been the parts that neither Kurtzman or Goldsman have had anything to do with. Meaning Star Trek Prodigy and Picard Season 3. Talk about poisoning your own well.

Sorry, #Machinegames, but that's shitty writing...

So, I am a big fan of the #Wolfenstein games, but I have to be a bit critical of a scene they wrote in the New Colossus. After you liberate a cell in #NewYork, when you come back to your base, one of the new characters - SuperSpesh - freaks out at the sight of a working #toilet and quickly goes to use it.

Why is this such a big deal ? Well, the base in question is a nuclear SUBMARINE. And even a complete military nobody like me knows that the toilets aboard #submarines are special, pressurized and complicated gear. You can't just park a civy on the privy and hope it works out. It does in the game.

But, sorry #Machinegames, the most realistic outcome is that it would hit the van and everything and everybody else within a couple of meters. I know, eww !

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers

PS. The point of this article was to demonstrate then when you try to write a "hard" (meaning: following the rules of reality and physics) world, even missing the smallest detail(s) can break the immersion. This is true for all writing, but especially for computer game writing, since the player gets to walk around in your world and see it first (or third) person.

The Mass Effect spin-off of my dreams

BioWare Yep, I'm pitching again. So, enough preamble, let's get to it. Say hello to...

Mass Effect: C-Sec

One of the coolest - and most beloved - places in the Mass Effect Trilogy is the Citadel. A massive space-station that is the beating heart of galactic politics. There is just one problem with the Citadel....we get to see too little of it. Yes, we get snippets in all three games. (Which get smaller as the trilogy goes along.) But this place is MASSIVE, with so much potential for characters and adventures.

One of these characters is Owen Bailey. A Captain in Citadel Security when we first meet him in Mass Effect 2, he is promoted to Commander by Mass Effect 3. And it is this promotion that puts our character on a collision course with destiny. Because when Bailey is promoted, our (customizable) protagonist is promoted to take over his old post...

The Story

Our hero - let go with male and call him Mike - is promoted one week before the start of the Reaper War. Mike has barely read-up on all the files and gotten his new clearance level nailed down when all hell breaks loose. He now has to keep his people safe and do what he can to protect the innocent from the horrors of war. And then there's Cerberus...

The main story would end with the Crucible firing. It would be dependent upon which ending you picked in Mass Effect 3 and how much War Assets you had. But what if you didn't play ME3 ? Plan B is what I'm calling Citadel Readiness Points. You can gather these by completing side-missions. If you didn't import a ME3 save, the game would instead use the CRP's to decide the ending.

So if you did play ME3, the CRP's are useless ? Nope, because there are....

DLCs

The proposal is to do two DLCs. The first would be Aftermath. Which is exactly what it says on the tin. Aftermath picks up after the Crucible fires. In this DLC, you play as Mike's second-in-command. You have to find Mike and pick up the pieces aboard the station. If you had enough War Assets/CRP's, Mike is alive and you go back to playing as him.

If you have low CRP's, Mike is toast and you have to finish the DLC as the second-in-command. The CRP's and which side-missions you completed also decide who you have to help you and what resources you have to work with.

The second DLC would be Fuel Depot Alpha One. This is the fuel depot the closest to the Citadel when its in the Widow Nebula, One of big moments that didn't fit inside Mass Effect 3, was the Reapers taking over the Citadel and moving it to Earth. The main story will fill in this (major) blank from the INSIDE of the station.

FD Alpha will give us a glimpse of what this event looked like from on the OUTSIDE of the station. You will play the commander of FD Alpha as husks swarm the depot. Your job is to get everybody off the depot and somewhere safe.

How much of the Citadel would we see ?

The idea is took take all the sections of the Citadel already created and connect them to form the game world. I would also propose adding the pieces of the Citadel that previous games only let you visit once. A good example is the pre-fab factory where you confront Harkin in Mass Effect 2. In ME: C-Sec, this part of the Citadel would be converted into one giant refugee settlement.

Another example would be part of the Citadel that you visit for Thane's loyalty mission in Mass Effect 2. In the original game, you can only access the upper level. C-Sec would add the full section. (Basically, all the loose parts created for ME2 and ME3 would be integrated into this Citadel 2.0.)

But wouldn't this make the Citadel where predictable if you played the trilogy ? After all, you would know where everything is already, wouldn't you ? Not necessarily. For example, the Volus Banker Barla Von moved offices between ME1 and ME3. So, who is using his old digs now ? And then there is the AI that committed suicide BEHIND his office.

So what is there now ? The Human embassy in ME3 is clearly NOT the same room where you sparred with Udina in ME1 and ME2. And the less said about the mess we made out of Chora's Den (which never reopened) the better.

There are more examples, but the point is that the Citadel has changed a lot during the trilogy. Which leaves plenty of room for new characters and stories.

A Short Announcement

Hello Reader(s),

So, I have something to confess. I haven't been taking very good care of this blog recently. Instead, I've been putting my time and energy into my YouTube Channels (Links below) and my LinkedIn profile. The thing is, my LinkedIn profile leads people...well, here. And if they do click the link and find a blog that has been gathering dust for months, that doesn't really score points.

It also doesn't help my efforts to recruit people to Star Trek: Forgotten Frontier one bit. So, I needed to do something about it. And then I realized that I posted a lot of my LinkedIn articles only on LinkedIn. (Shocker, I know.) Which left me with a way to kill two birds with one stone. Hence, the new From LinkedIn tag on this blog.

The plan is to (re)post my greatest hits from LinkedIn here, giving the blog a nice big influx of fresh content. Also, I'm going to (re)share those post with my X account in the hope of giving that a needed kick in the rear.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka @Dantes74302)

Distant Stars

SSV Ain Jalut 

One word #StarTrek plan that could save the #franchise...

....but won't, because nobody dares to #risk anymore. Paramount Skydance Instead, they just hide behind #rules and #lawyers. Anyway, our #magic word is...

Rassilon

Mad and arrogant, #Rassilon is the former #president of a lovely planet called #Gallifrey. BBC Studios (Lawyers throwing a fit yet?) Long story short his people - the #TimeLords - realized just how much of a jerk he was and were fine with it when one of their heroes - the #doctor - exiled him. Unfortunately for him, when Razzie got boot, his universe was pretty close to dying of old age...

The Plot (How Rassilon could be used exercise Kurtzman Trek from history)

...So #Razzie decides to move to another universe. Which happens to be the #Trek universe. But there is one major hiccup. Time Lords get around in TARDIS'es. Which draw power from the universe they call home. Taking them to another universe. Well, it's like putting #gasoline in a #diesel engine. Fortunately for Razzie, he has access to every log of every #TARDIS, including our favorite #Type 40, belonging to the Doctor.

In the "Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel." Two-part (#DoctorWho) episode, the TARDIS crashes in an alternate universe. But it survives because of a tiny, crystalline power cell. Which Razzie plucks from the logs and decides to scale up to 12. How? He arrives in the distant past, where he messed with the geology of the planet #Boreth. Specifically, the planet's supply of dilithium crystal. Thus explaining how the Time Crystals that are key to Star Trek Discovery came about.

Crucial about these Time Crystals is that you need a SUPERNOVA to charge them. And the Time Lords have the means to cause these. A device called the Hand of Omega allows them to remotely mess with stars. It has even been seen causing a #supernova in the DW Serial "Remembrance of the #Daleks." (Unlimited rice pudding, etc, etc.) Rassilon causes the supernova that wiped out the Tkon Empire, charging his TARDIS with enough power to travel to the 32rd century.

This, however, brings him face-to-face with a new problem. Starfleet and their allies are guarding this part of the timeline. And Rassilon, wanting to be the supreme ruler of time, feels he needs to get rid of them. And he knows a thing or two about messing with genetics.

Back in the early days of Gallifrey, Rassilon created a gene (sequence) called the Rassilon Imprimatur. It binds a Time Lord to their TARDIS and keeps them from being torn apart on the molecular level when they activate the engines.

Using his knowledge of genetics and eugenics, Rassilon brings about The Burn. It's no longer some half-baked coincidence, it's a deliberate, well thought out plan by a supervillain. Except said supervillain didn't do his homework. The Romulans use black holes to power their ships and zero dilithium. He has now created a timeline where the Romulans reign supreme. And to make this worse, his TARDIS needs to recharge.

So he travels back to the 24th century, where he causes the #Romulan Supernova, killing two birds with one stone. He takes the Romulans out of the picture and recharges his ride. Now all he has to do, is whisper the right things into the right ears, causing the Time Wars. Being a survivor of the Last Great Time War, he can do this as easily as you and I put on #socks.

The major powers - including the Federation - then do exactly what he wants them to do. They outlaw time travel altogether. Leaving Rassilon free and clear to mess with the timeline at his leisure.

How to do the #Reset ?

The Doctor figures out what Razzie has done. Because his TARDIS doesn't function in the Trek , he has to join up with a Starfleet crew to stop the former president. They succeed in arresting Rassilon in the 32rd century. Thus starting the chain of events unraveling and the timeline going back to normal.

After a quick pit-stop in the 22nd century to sabotage the creation of Control AI program, our heroes travel to the ancient past. They restore Boreth's geology to normal, removing the time crystals from the timeline. No Red Angel suit, Micheal Burnham's parents aren't killed, so she never gets adopted....

The only thing they can't fix is the Tkon supernova, which turns out be a fixed point. When the timeline finishes correcting itself, 99.9 percent of the #SecretHideout era has been retconned out of existence. The remaining 0.1 percent being the ship that the Doctor has used throughout. So, which ship would I give the role?

The USS Prodigy. Her crew having experience with time travel and then some. And by using one of the animated ships, you don't have to build sets or make props. It's a way to do the whole thing on the cheap. Plus, her Protostar drive is a build-in McGuffin that the Doctor would have no problem modifying into a time drive to allow for the necessary time hopping.

(And could no doubt could be used as an explanation for my the Prodigy itself wasn't deleted when the timeline reset. Because if that happens, we wouldn't get a clean reset, but all sort of timey-wimey fluxing nonsense.)

The Doctor takes Razzie and goes back to his home universe, where the crazy president becomes another writer's room's headache.

And thus ends my pitch on how to clean up the mess that is Kurtzman Trek quickly, quietly and cleanly. Of course, it'll never happen because #lawyers.

For crying out loud, Ron, Sink the Frakking Moon already !

For crying out loud, Ron, Sink the Frakking Moon already !

Hi Rob (and the good people of PGS),

So a LONG time ago, Ronald D. Moore said that he would love to redo Space: 1999. But that the premise was simply too weird. And I will admit that Space: 1999 had issues with scientific accuracy. The Breakaway explosion in the pilot episode would have simply vaporized Moonbase Alpha or broken the moon completely. And that’s just for starters. The beauty of a rebooting of re-imagining shows, however, is that you can FIX stuff like that. 

So, let move on to how to do that. Well, it’s already in the title of this letter. Sink….the….frakking….moon ! In Deep Space Nine’s pilot “Emissary”, the crew has to figure out how to fly the titular space station from Bajor to the wormhole. So they create a subspace field around the station, which dials down gravity’s pull on the station and allows it’s thrusters to do the job. All you have to do, is dial that up to twelve. How ?

Come up with some (technobabble) backstory and BOOM !! Suddenly, the Breakaway explosion creates a particle surge, the surge creates a subspace rift and the moon sinks into subspace. And Tada ! Now, you can have the moon bounce between subspace and normal space whenever the plot requires it. Hell, you have a McGuffin that – properly written – will explain whatever you need it to. Alternate universes, time travel, horrible creatures from dark places, the list goes on. Especially if later seasons see the crew of Moonbase Alpha try to control this bounce. Sci-fi, after all, loves an experiment gone wrong.

So, Ron, sink the frakking moon already !

Thoughts, Rob ?

Regards,

Ruben Hilbers

Bunnyburrow is doomed, not Zootopia

Hi Alex,

I recently saw a few Zootopia theory videos on YouTube and that got me thinking. At the end of Zootopia 2, a feather falls into Judy Hops apartment. This is seen as a portent of doom by several YouTube reviewers. And I agree with that. But the thing is, I disagree with WHERE that doom will strike first.

Zootopia City has weather walls, it has locations - buildings, cars, etc - that can be locked and secured to repel invaders and not one, but two disciplined, well trained forces that can resist. The Zootopia Police Department and Mister Big's Mafia. It might have a lot of people. But it is, from a tactical perspective, a HARD target.

However, in the first movie, Judy has to move to from Bunnyburrow to Zootopia to become a police officer. And everybody keeps pointing out how she is the first bunny police officer. If there was a Bunnyburrow PD, completely staffed by bunnies, there would have been nothing special about Judy becoming a cop. 

Nor would she have had to move to Zootopia. She could have just joined the Bunnyburrow PD. The first movie wouldn't have happened. Combined with the town's location in the fields and lack of other defenses, Bunnyburrow is a SOFT target. 

It is a lot easier to attack by a bunch of angry, hungry, predatory, bloodthirsty birds. On top of that, based on the town's population counter in the first movie, Bunnyburrow has a lot bigger population then Zootopia. 

There is also a darker long-term potential for danger. If I was a tactician with dark designs on Zootopia, I would first attack all the soft targets outside the city I could find. Not only would this provide my force with a large influx of food - as Napoleon said: An army marches (or in this case flies) on its stomach - it forces the ZPD to spread itself thin as they try to find out what is going on. And once that happens, leaving the defenses weakened, THEN I'd pounced on my final target: The city of Zootopia itself.

So, yes, Zootopia is doomed. Just not right away. And with even the smallest drop of realism, Zootopia 3 will not be a child friendly buddy cop movie....It'll be a dark, horrific, dystopian war flick, with people getting eaten left and right. 

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka Commander Nash)