You have always been one of us
Not sure when I’ll get to watching this, as I’m traveling on Christmas, little yet getting a review done – could well take until Tuesday or so. So here’s an open thread to discuss the 14th from last episode of the Moffat era.
Sol Invictus.…
Title says it all really.
This time I’m joined by EP’s ‘new recruits’ from 2016, Josh, Shana & Daniel.
We don’t actually talk that much politics, so this is a relatively safe space if you’re trying to self-care a bit over the holidays.…
The Enterprise is on routine patrol of the Romulan Neutral Zone. Perhaps that should be left to speak for itself.
Ironically enough, while making small talk with Commander Riker, Captain Picard says that the Romulans have been “rather well-behaved lately”. Just then, Geordi calls up with a request: Since it’s expected this patrol mission will be rather uneventful, he’d like to take a small science team to investigate Beta Argotha One, which the Enterprise‘s route will take it in very close proximity to. Beta Argotha One is known as “Darwin’s World”, because the species on that world evolve at an incredibly accelerated rate such that every time it’s researched, it’s effectively a whole new planet. Since it hasn’t been surveyed in the past year, it is thus likely unrecognisable from the last time Starfleet checked it out. Captain Picard grants his request, and has Geordi prepare the Runabout USS Yutcan for launch.
As Geordi gets his ship ready, he’s paid a visti by Deanna Troi. Her father participated in the very first survey of Beta Argotha One, and she was fascinated by the stories he would tell her about it as a little girl. If it’s not too much trouble, Deanna would like to accompany Geordi as a member of his team, but she doesn’t even have to ask: Geordi tells her she’s more than welcome, and signs her up then and there. And with that, they’re off: Aside from Deanna, Geordi is joined by a rookie Benzite science officer named Haspan, and two grizzled old command officers and best friends named Smithers and Gilette. As the two old timers rib each other to the young Benzite’s utter confusion, the Yutcan blasts off.
Back on the Enterprise, Worf reports that he’s detected another ship on their side of the Neutral Zone and, funnily enough, it appears to be Cardassian! The bridge crew conclude it’s a transport of some kind, and that it’s been through a rough time. There’s only one survivor, so Captain Picard has the transporter chief lock on and has Doctor Crusher meet them on the pad. Though it’s a bit tricky, the chief gets the survivor aboard and, to everyone’s astonishment, he turns out to be a Romulan. Doctor Crusher looks the man over in sickbay and reports his condition to Captain Picard: He’s doing rather well, given the condition he was found in. Though Bev wants to look over him a bit longer, the Romulan insists to speak to Captain Picard as soon as possible.
The Romulan tells Captain Picard his name is Tavorok, and, until recently he had been one of the Romulan Star Empire’s top research scientists. He had been working on a top secret project that, had it been completed, would have toppled the balance of power in the galaxy permanently: A project to develop an artificial virus of sorts that would eat away at dilithium crystals. The idea would be that the virus, which could be effective in very small quantities and was completely undetectable by Starfleet bio-filters, would be discreetly smuggled aboard Federation starships, thus fairly instantaneously blasting them 400 years back into the pre-warp stone age.…
I’m going to do a readers Q&A for the Monday post next week, since it’s Boxing Day and probably not a great day for reading about Crash. Whereas just after New Year’s seems downright perfect.
I’ve already solicited some questions via Patreon, and I’ll answer all of those, but I’m willing to answer a few more than just those, so if you’ve got a question you’ve been dying to have me answer, leave it in comments. If it catches my fancy, onto the list it shall go.
(And of course there’ll be a Doctor Mysterio review somewhere around there too.)…
It’s my great pleasure to bring you the latest Eruditorum Presscast, in which I sit down and interview Kieron Gillen. Most of our conversation is about his new Avatar series Uber: Invasion, which continues the story of Uber by having Nazi superhumans invading the US. So yeah, it’s a little on the nose right now, as we discuss. We also talk a bit about his other projects, including The Wicked + The Divine, Modded, and Mercury Heat. It’s a good time, or at least, a time where we talk about the horrors of war and fascism a lot. You can download that here.
If this podcast interests you, you’re probably the exact sort of person who would enjoy my new book, The Last War in Albion Volume 1, which looks at the history of British comics as a magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. Volume 1 covers the early work of both men – basically everything pre-Watchmen – putting it in a frankly terrifying amount of context. That’s for sale here. Or, if you’re British, for sale here.
Thanks for reading/listening.…
If you enjoy this and haven’t already, please consider buying the book version of The Last War in Albion Volume 1, which collects the pre-Watchmen history of the War. Your support keeps this project going.
Previously in The Last War in Albion: Actually, this is basically a great jumping on point for new readers, though it helps to know that the previous chapter left off with the line “We do it because we are compelled.”
The line, of course, belongs to Rorschach, the glamorous poison at the heart of Watchmen’s appeal. Moore is self-effacing about the character these days, joking that his popularity is down to the fact that Moore “had forgotten that actually to a lot of comic fans that smelling, not having a girlfriend – these are actually kind of heroic.” But unlike a lot of Moore’s self-deprecation, there’s an edge to this quip. He’s emphasizing his failure to anticipate the reaction to Rorschach, but only as a means to insult Rorschach’s fans even more spectacularly. There are obviously a lot of things about Watchmen that have gone sour for Moore, but at times it seems that there is nothing he resents quite as deeply as the reception of Rorschach.
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| Figure 977: The Zodiac Killer, a Californian serial killer named for his literally cryptic letters, has nothing to do with either Watchmen or From Hell. |
In some ways it’s no wonder. It’s not just the throngs of fans eager to tell Moore how much they admired Rorschach, a phenomenon that is surely associated with the sudden spike in Moore’s popularity that turned comics conventions into deeply unpleasant experiences where he felt crushed and mobbed (the usual anecdote is the time a fan followed Moore into the bathroom to get his autograph, but his recurring nightmare of hands grabbing at him perhaps more accurately captures the sense of horror Moore felt at this). It’s also the sorts of people who identify with Rorschach, a list whose most eye-popping member is perhaps 2016 US Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz, who included him along with Spider-Man, Wolverine, Batman, and Iron Man on a list of his favorite superheroes. Given that Ted Cruz is a warmongering homophobe opposed to any form of social welfare, this is, to say the least, not the sort of endorsement Moore was seeking. And while Cruz is just one (deeply idiosyncratic) datapoint, the truth is that it’s not hard to see why a lunatic right-winger famous for alienating virtually everybody he’s ever worked with might view Rorschach as an aspirational figure.
The fundamental problem at the heart of this is simply that Rorschach is an unsettlingly fascinating character. Even Moore, for all the reservations he would come to have about him, freely admits that “Rorschach was one of the characters I enjoyed writing most.” And no wonder – think of a classic line in Watchmen and the odds are overwhelming that you’re thinking of a Rorschach line, probably either a bit of his opening monologue or “none of you understand.…
Recorded moments after our commentary for Father’s Day, here’s Jack and me doing commentary for the Russell T Davies not-nearly-as-classic-as-it-should-be Gridlock. I think we’re vaguely more on topic this time, but that’s really not saying anything.
Also, in case you missed it, Last War in Albion Volume 1 is out.…
So I’ll admit we start with something that does not entirely inspire confidence: Dax and Bashir in handcuffs being escorted to a prison cell by Romulans, with Koleth being processed separately. As Dax argues with the Romuan guards, Doctor Bashir directs her attention to the window, where they can see the Arvas touching down just outside. On Deep Space 9, Maura is making small talk with her new clientele when Kira and a security detachment come in to escort her to the brig, where Commander Sisko is waiting for her. The Commander politely demands Maura tell him what she’s smuggling through his station, motioning in her general direction with a Romulan disruptor pistol. Maura claims she’s smuggling arms to rebels in the Gamma Quadrant, but refuses to disclose the Arvas‘ destination. Sisko and Kira don’t buy it, and Kira snaps and grabs Maura by the nape of the neck. Commander Sisko calms her down, but informs Maura that since Odo is on the Arvas, he’ll hold her personally responsible should anything happen to him and holds her in the brig until she’s willing to talk.
In The Abyss, Dax and Bashir are called to dinner by Commander T’Alar, in charge of the Romulan operations in the Gamma Quadrant. He’s been expecting them, and in fact has been tracking the crew since they left Deep Space 9. Bashir demands to know where Koleth is, but T’Alar ignores him. Dax presses the commander for how he managed to destroy the K’Tang. T’Alar is taken aback, expecting the science officer to be curious as to why, but Jadzia knows why: The Romulans are trying to manipulate the Klingons into going to war with the Cardassians, thus distracting the Federation and holding them back from advancing into the Gamma Quadrant. T’Alar protests that it’s all a defensive measure to prevent the Federation from continuing its policies of imperialistic expansion. Bashir throws a fit, accusing the Romulans themselves of being imperialistic and misunderstanding Starfleet’s intentions out of fear, and gets escorted back to his cell for his troubles. Jadzia continues to make conversation with T’Alar on her own over dinner, leading to one of the single greatest scenes in all of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Dax reminisces about a Romulan she met back in the Original Series era, when she was serving on the USS Constellation, triggering a flashback sequence. She tells of how she was in a shuttlecraft with a commodore when they crashed in Romulan territory. They sent out a distress signal that was picked up by a Romulan Bird-of-Prey. The ship’s commander, Pakel, beamed down and rescued them both. Dax initially lied to him about who they were and where they were going, but Pakel assured them that they we not prisoners. Pakel wanted peace between the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire, and said it would be a dishnour to him and his people to capture an old man like the commodore. Dax said that she remembers Pakel and his words to this day as model of Romulan honour and integrity.…
Eruditorum Press is pleased to announce that, at long last, the first volume of The Last War in Albion, Phil Sandifer’s epic critical history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, is available for purchase. Covering the period from Morrison’s earliest professional sales in 1978 to just before the publication of Watchmen #1 in 1986, the book charts the beginnings of two of the most fascinating careers in the history of comics. The book features extensive looks at Swamp Thing, V For Vendetta, Marvelman, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Captain Britain, and more, including the first detailed study of Morrison’s early superhero strip Captain Clyde since 1985.
The book is available in both print and digital editions at the following locations.
Print: US ($22.99), UK (£18.99)
Digital: US Kindle ($4.99), UK Kindle (£4.99), Other E-Readers ($4.99)
Please note that the digital editions, for a bunch of very stupid and boring reasons, do not have illustrations. They do, however, have a link at the end of the book where you can download a version with illustrations. We apologize for this profoundly stupid inconvenience, but felt that it was preferable to having to charge $9.99 for digital editions.
Thanks to everyone who’s supported this project through its painfully long gestation. Formatting this was by far the hardest book I’ve ever put out, but I’m really proud of the end product, and think you’ll enjoy it a lot. If you do, please spread the word and post reviews of the book, both on Amazon and elsewhere. These books keep Eruditorum Press afloat.
In particular, as always, I want to thank James Taylor for his inevitably phenomenal cover work. He talks about the process on his blog.
Also, be on the lookout for some fun content over the next week to promote this book, including the long-awaited Chapter Six of The Last War in Albion Volume 2 (in which, among other things, I give The Killing Joke its due) on Friday and a very fun podcast on Monday.
Thanks for the support, and enjoy the book. …
new forms of labyrinths made possible by modern techniques of construction
The brutalist architecture that High-Rise does not critique has many fathers (and essentially no mothers), but its Anthony Royal figure is no doubt Le Corbusier, the pseudonym of Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, whose 1923 manifesto Vers Une Architecture (first published in English as Towards a New Architecture, but these days called simply Toward an Architecture) laid out the principles of a new, sleek modernist style, and whose Unité d’Habitation design, used as the blueprint for several 1950s housing projects, defined the specifically brutalist style with its use of rough (or, in French, brut) concrete.
As an architect, Le Corbusier is a giant. Whatever crimes may be laid at the feet of the movement he spawned (and there are many), his actual buildings were iconoclastic and compelling, and remain striking to this day. But it is in many ways as a polemicist that he really shines. Modernism produced no shortage of manifestos, but any list of the great ones that excludes Vers Une Architecture is simply off its head. It is a work of masterful provocation, full of taunting and grandiose slogans. The most famous of these, and thus, given the nature of Le Corbusier’s impact, the most important is his declaration about a third of the way into the book that “a house is a machine for living in.” Ballard echoes it, almost certainly consciously, in the first chapter of High-Rise when he describes the building as “a huge machine designed to serve, not the collective body of tenants, but the individual resident in isolation. Its staff of air-conditioning conduits, elevators, garbage-disposal chutes and electrical-switching systems provided a never-failing supply of care and attention,” a litany that echoes Corbusier’s next sentence, “Baths, sun, hot water, cold water, controlled temperature, food conservation, hygiene, beauty through proportion.”
But the Ballard quote quietly embeds the critique of Le Corbusier when it notes the distinction between serving the collective residents of the building and the isolated individual. At first glance, this is counterintuitive. Even before his turn towards the harsh greys of raw concrete, Corbusier’s aesthetic had a clear austerity to it that’s implicit in the cold inhumanity of the word “machine.” (Note Ballard’s subsequent use of it to describe how people like Laing “thrived like an advanced species of machine” in the high-rise, and for that matter Corbusier’s own praise for men who are “intelligent, coolheaded, and calm” and in touch with their “mechanical side.”) Indeed, the declaration comes in the course of a three-part essay in which he admires the construction of ocean liners, airplanes, and automobiles, praising the uniform principles of their design across multiple manufacturers, their forms standardized by the needs of the clearly stated problem they solve. The statement “a house is a machine for living in” is, for Le Corbusier, essentially equivalent to the observation that the form of an airplane is not that of “a bird or a dragonfly, but a machine for flying.” He praises at length the long and uniform promenades of ocean liners, describing them as “pure, crisp, clear, clean.”…