Showrunner/Executive Producer/Writer - Dark Matter, Stargates SG-1, Atlantis, Universe, Oops I'm in Love with My Boss's Daughter, Amalgaverse.
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Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 1.2) - "Sending the Puddle Jumper" #Amalgaverse
Youāre sending the puddle jumper. Ā Youāll need a pilot and someone who can bypass and shut down the cruiserās anti-abduction shroud so that everyone can beam back and spare the jumper a fully loaded return trip.
Who are you sending?
A) Sheppard and McKay
B) OāNeill and Carter
C) Sheppard and Thor
D) OāNeill and Data
Choose!
Check below for our Previously On recap - or click through the quote tweets for every stage of our adventure to date. And TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission!
Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 1.1) - "The Rescue" #Amalgaverse
Captainās Log ā Stardate Unknown. We are approaching coordinates 188 mark 44 to take aboard and transport a man named Harven Zax. Ā Heās a broker who has spent years selling secrets to anyone with the latinum for them, and by all accounts he has finally sold one too many. Ā Three separate parties are hunting him, each for reasons of their own. Starfleet wants him delivered alive, and theyāve left the details to us.
The Enterprise drops out of warp. Onscreen you glimpse a black hole in the distance, two ships drifting toward it. The nearer one is your target, a luxury cruiser. The farther one, a mercenary shuttle, is smaller and has drifted deeper, slipping toward the point of no return.
Kirk hails the cruiser. Ā A man who introduces himself as Harven Zax answers, rumpled and indignant that a man of his importance could die somewhere this shabby. He lays out the situation: his engines are dead, and the unmarked ship farther in belongs to a mercenary crew that came to snatch him and cut it too close. Theyāll hit the event horizon well before he does, which he considers his one consolation.
Getting him off that ship is the problem. His cruiser is running an automated anti-abduction shroud, a defensive field built to stop exactly this kind of snatch. It switched on when the mercenaries closed in and locked in place when the power failed. The Enterprise canāt beam through it, and the black holeās pull is too strong for a tractor beam to drag the cruiser clear.
The jumper can make the crossing and, if it comes to it, carry everyone back itself. Ā But every minute spent alongside the cruiser drags it deeper into the gravity well, and a fully loaded jumper climbing back out is no sure thing.
Data proposes another way: āCaptain, if we close to tractor range, I believe we can slow the cruiserās descent. Ā We will not be able to pull her free; the gravitational gradient is too steep. Ā But if Mr. Scott holds the lock from engineering, I can assist Colonel Carter and Doctor McKay in bringing down the shroud from here. Ā I should note that it will likely bring the Enterprise closer to the event horizon than I would recommend. Ā Our margin for error would be four minutes and twelve seconds.ā
Sheppard counters: āOr I just fly the jumper over and we find a way to switch that thing off by hand. Ā If we canāt, we all pile in and ride home together. Ā Getting thereās easy. Ā Getting backās the interesting part.ā
Whose advice do you follow?
A. Risk the jumper and an away team. Ā Board the cruiser and bring everyone back, shroud or no shroud.
B. Risk the Enterprise and use the tractor beam. Ā Hold the cruiser while Data, Carter, and McKay try to crack the shroud from the Enterprise.
Choose!
Check below for our Previously On recap - or click through the quote tweets for every stage of our adventure to date. And TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission!]
Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 1.3) - "The Crossing" #Amalgaverse
The jumper leaves the shuttlebay and swings toward the cruiser. Ā The black holeās pull keeps dragging it off its line, and OāNeill has to keep correcting to hold course.
Data informs Jack: āColonel, I am detecting fourteen fragments of debris from the cruiserās damaged thrusters on an intercept course.ā
āShields gonna hold?āĀ asks Jack.
āWithout a doubt,ā responds Data. Ā āProvided we do not hit anything.ā
Jack considers this, then shoots Data a look: āWas that a joke?ā
āMore of a wry observation,ā answers Data. Ā A beat. Ā āColonel Carter says my timing is improving.ā
āHereās a tip for you,āsays Jack. Ā "Never take comedy advice from someone who tells physics jokes.ā
Data, deadpan: āI am reading a book about anti-gravity. Ā It is impossible to put down.ā
Jack sighs. āGonna have a talk with Carter when we get back."
How to proceed?
A) Punch through. Ā Ride the shields and take the hits to save time, but at the risk of damaging the jumper.
B) Thread it slow. Ā Plot a course around the debris while the cruiser drifts ever closer to the event horizon.
C) Clear a path. Launch drones to blast the wreckage, but every drone you spend now is one fewer youāll have later.
Choose!
Check below for our Previously On recap - or click through the quote tweets for every stage of our adventure to date. And TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission!
Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 1.2) - "Sending the Puddle Jumper" #Amalgaverse
Youāre sending the puddle jumper. Ā Youāll need a pilot and someone who can bypass and shut down the cruiserās anti-abduction shroud so that everyone can beam back and spare the jumper a fully loaded return trip.
Who are you sending?
A) Sheppard and McKay
B) OāNeill and Carter
C) Sheppard and Thor
D) OāNeill and Data
Choose!
Check below for our Previously On recap - or click through the quote tweets for every stage of our adventure to date. And TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission!
Previously On #Amalgaverseā¦
You and 19 others have been stranded in an amalgam universe of myriad SF realities. All 19 are sci-fiās Best of the Best. And then thereās you, uniquely qualified given your encyclopedic knowledge garnered from your world where these characters, their technologies, and their stories are fiction, beloved t.v. shows you have watched time and again. Together, all 20 of you have set off on the Enterprise-D, tasked with finding a way home. On its first mission, the crew answered a distress call from a dead ship and found it was far from empty. Ā Aboard, the away team awoke an android named Maia, discovered a āsurvivorā named Rhea who turned out to be something else entirely, and fought their way off as scavengers closed in. Ā They came home to the Enterprise with two things: a new crewmember in Maia, and a fragment of the signature an entity left behind when it crossed into this reality. Ā Colonel Carter believes itās one piece of a much larger puzzle, and that the rest of it is still out there waiting.
For your second mission, you have elected to follow a Starfleet directive, traveling to pick up and transport Harven Zax, a dangerous intelligence broker, to a rendezvous point at the edge of the Expanse. Ā Upon arrival, you discover his cruiser inoperable, drifting towards a black hole, the shipās automated defense systems preventing Scotty from using the Enterpriseās transporter to simply beam them aboard.
Today, Iām recommending four essential works by Kathleen Ann Goonan, whose fiction fused nanotechnology, jazz, and speculative visions of humanityās future. Ā Her distinctive approach to science fiction led some critics to describe her work as ānanopunkā.
In War Times (2007): A young American soldier in WWII becomes entangled with secret technology that could alter the course of history. Ā This novel won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and was selected for the American Library Associationās 2008 Best Science Fiction reading list.
Queen City Jazz (1994): The first book in the Nanotech Quartet, set in a post-apocalyptic future where nanotechnology has transformed Cincinnati into a surreal landscape of bio-engineered life and once-utopian tech gone awry.
The Bones of Time (1996): Set in a near-future Hawaii, this science fiction thriller follows a conspiracy to clone King Kamehameha, while a mathematician's radical theories about time and space. Ā This novel was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.
Crescent City Rhapsody (2000): A Nebula Award-nominated prequel to Queen City Jazz, exploring the origins of the nanotech-transformed world through an alien signal that disrupts global communications and triggers radiation biological changes.
Check out the quoted thread for the recommended works of Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, C.M. Kornbluth, D.G. Compton, Thomas M. Disch, Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), John Brunner, Judith Merril, Hal Clement, James Blish, Jack Williamson, Katherine MacLean, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Pangborn, R.A. Lafferty, William Tenn, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, James H. Schmitz, Eric Frank Russell, Brian W. Aldiss, Carol Emshwiller, Wilson Tucker, Chad Oliver, Zenna Henderson, Pauline Ashwell, Frederik Pohl, Henry Kuttner, Barrington J. Bayley, James P. Hogan, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret St. Clair, Keith Laumer, Charles L. Harness, Howard Waldrop, Rosel George Brown, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Kit Reed, Joanna Russ, H. Beam Piper, Daniel F. Galouye, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, Harry Harrison, Vonda McIntyre, John Christopher, John Wyndham, Michael Bishop, Doris Piserchia, Bob Buckley, George Alec Effinger, Olaf Stapledon, John Varley, Miriam Allen deFord, Raymond F. Jones, Suzette Haden Elgin, Richard Cowper, Bruce Sterling, Josephine Saxton, Mack Reynolds, Phyllis Gotlieb, E.E. āDocā Smith, Sterling E. Lanier, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, George Turner, Octavia E. Butler, Philip JosĆ© Farmer, Somtow Sucharitkul, Charles Sheffield, Sonya Dorman, Clark Ashton Smith, Norman Spinrad, Naomi Mitchison, Suzy Mckee Charnas, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Preuss, Lloyd Biggle Jr., George S. Schuyler, Damon Knight, Nancy Kress, E.C. Tubb, John Sladek, Joan D. Vinge, Ward Moore, Marta Randall, Robert L. Forward, Ian Watson, Brian Stabelford, Keith Roberts, David R. Bunch, Michael G. Coney, Frank M. Robinson, Christopher Priest, Vernor Vinge, Lee Hoffman, Wilmar H. Shiras, Lucius Shepard, David I. Masson, Mildred Clingerman, Leigh Kennedy, Ernest Hogan, Jack Womack, Kenneth Bulmer, Mark Clifton, Kage Baker, Murray Leinster, Evelyn E. Smith, Kris Neville, Edmond Hamilton, James White, Wyman Guin, Emil Petaja, John Boyd, Christopher Anvil, Alan E. Nourse, T.J. Bass, Colin Kapp, Edmund Cooper, Rog Phillips, Mark S. Geston, James E. Gunn, Walter Tevis, Maureen F. McHugh, John Crowley, George O. Smith, Cherry Wilder, F.L. Wallace, G.C. Edmondson, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Pamela Sargent, Robert F. Young, Fred Hoyle, Eleanor Arnason, Ā Bertram A. Chandler, Charles Eric Maine, and Tanith Lee.
Today, Iām recommending four essential works by Tanith Lee, best known for her fantasy and horror, though her smaller body of science fiction is well worth seeking out.
The Silver Metal Lover (1981): In a future Earth reshaped by catastrophe, sheltered teen Jane falls in love with a Silver, a robot minstrel whose music and apparent humanity upend everything sheās been taught about machines.
Electric Forest (1979): Ā Magdala Cled, an outcast born with features considered hideously deformed in her society, is offered a beautiful synthetic body. Ā But the transformation comes with a catch...
Donāt Bite the Sun (1976): Ā In a domed city where young people enjoy limitless pleasures, can change sex and bodies at will, and shrug off death, one restless teenager searches for meaning in a seemingly perfect existence.
The Thaw (1979): In this darkly comic SF novelette, a young woman is tasked with helping her distant ancestor adjust to life after being revived from cryogenic stasis. Ā But something has gone terribly wrong.
Check out the quoted thread for the recommended works of Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, C.M. Kornbluth, D.G. Compton, Thomas M. Disch, Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), John Brunner, Judith Merril, Hal Clement, James Blish, Jack Williamson, Katherine MacLean, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Pangborn, R.A. Lafferty, William Tenn, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, James H. Schmitz, Eric Frank Russell, Brian W. Aldiss, Carol Emshwiller, Wilson Tucker, Chad Oliver, Zenna Henderson, Pauline Ashwell, Frederik Pohl, Henry Kuttner, Barrington J. Bayley, James P. Hogan, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret St. Clair, Keith Laumer, Charles L. Harness, Howard Waldrop, Rosel George Brown, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Kit Reed, Joanna Russ, H. Beam Piper, Daniel F. Galouye, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, Harry Harrison, Vonda McIntyre, John Christopher, John Wyndham, Michael Bishop, Doris Piserchia, Bob Buckley, George Alec Effinger, Olaf Stapledon, John Varley, Miriam Allen deFord, Raymond F. Jones, Suzette Haden Elgin, Richard Cowper, Bruce Sterling, Josephine Saxton, Mack Reynolds, Phyllis Gotlieb, E.E. āDocā Smith, Sterling E. Lanier, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, George Turner, Octavia E. Butler, Philip JosĆ© Farmer, Somtow Sucharitkul, Charles Sheffield, Sonya Dorman, Clark Ashton Smith, Norman Spinrad, Naomi Mitchison, Suzy Mckee Charnas, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Preuss, Lloyd Biggle Jr., George S. Schuyler, Damon Knight, Nancy Kress, E.C. Tubb, John Sladek, Joan D. Vinge, Ward Moore, Marta Randall, Robert L. Forward, Ian Watson, Brian Stabelford, Keith Roberts, David R. Bunch, Michael G. Coney, Frank M. Robinson, Christopher Priest, Vernor Vinge, Lee Hoffman, Wilmar H. Shiras, Lucius Shepard, David I. Masson, Mildred Clingerman, Leigh Kennedy, Ernest Hogan, Jack Womack, Kenneth Bulmer, Mark Clifton, Kage Baker, Murray Leinster, Evelyn E. Smith, Kris Neville, Edmond Hamilton, James White, Wyman Guin, Emil Petaja, John Boyd, Christopher Anvil, Alan E. Nourse, T.J. Bass, Colin Kapp, Edmund Cooper, Rog Phillips, Mark S. Geston, James E. Gunn, Walter Tevis, Maureen F. McHugh, John Crowley, George O. Smith, Cherry Wilder, F.L. Wallace, G.C. Edmondson, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Pamela Sargent, Robert F. Young, Fred Hoyle, Eleanor Arnason, Ā Bertram A. Chandler, and Charles Eric Maine.
Joseph Mallozzi š“āā ļø retweeted
Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 1.2) - "Sending the Puddle Jumper" #Amalgaverse
Youāre sending the puddle jumper. Ā Youāll need a pilot and someone who can bypass and shut down the cruiserās anti-abduction shroud so that everyone can beam back and spare the jumper a fully loaded return trip.
Who are you sending?
A) Sheppard and McKay
B) OāNeill and Carter
C) Sheppard and Thor
D) OāNeill and Data
Choose!
Check below for our Previously On recap - or click through the quote tweets for every stage of our adventure to date. And TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission!
Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 1.1) - "The Rescue" #Amalgaverse
Captainās Log ā Stardate Unknown. We are approaching coordinates 188 mark 44 to take aboard and transport a man named Harven Zax. Ā Heās a broker who has spent years selling secrets to anyone with the latinum for them, and by all accounts he has finally sold one too many. Ā Three separate parties are hunting him, each for reasons of their own. Starfleet wants him delivered alive, and theyāve left the details to us.
The Enterprise drops out of warp. Onscreen you glimpse a black hole in the distance, two ships drifting toward it. The nearer one is your target, a luxury cruiser. The farther one, a mercenary shuttle, is smaller and has drifted deeper, slipping toward the point of no return.
Kirk hails the cruiser. Ā A man who introduces himself as Harven Zax answers, rumpled and indignant that a man of his importance could die somewhere this shabby. He lays out the situation: his engines are dead, and the unmarked ship farther in belongs to a mercenary crew that came to snatch him and cut it too close. Theyāll hit the event horizon well before he does, which he considers his one consolation.
Getting him off that ship is the problem. His cruiser is running an automated anti-abduction shroud, a defensive field built to stop exactly this kind of snatch. It switched on when the mercenaries closed in and locked in place when the power failed. The Enterprise canāt beam through it, and the black holeās pull is too strong for a tractor beam to drag the cruiser clear.
The jumper can make the crossing and, if it comes to it, carry everyone back itself. Ā But every minute spent alongside the cruiser drags it deeper into the gravity well, and a fully loaded jumper climbing back out is no sure thing.
Data proposes another way: āCaptain, if we close to tractor range, I believe we can slow the cruiserās descent. Ā We will not be able to pull her free; the gravitational gradient is too steep. Ā But if Mr. Scott holds the lock from engineering, I can assist Colonel Carter and Doctor McKay in bringing down the shroud from here. Ā I should note that it will likely bring the Enterprise closer to the event horizon than I would recommend. Ā Our margin for error would be four minutes and twelve seconds.ā
Sheppard counters: āOr I just fly the jumper over and we find a way to switch that thing off by hand. Ā If we canāt, we all pile in and ride home together. Ā Getting thereās easy. Ā Getting backās the interesting part.ā
Whose advice do you follow?
A. Risk the jumper and an away team. Ā Board the cruiser and bring everyone back, shroud or no shroud.
B. Risk the Enterprise and use the tractor beam. Ā Hold the cruiser while Data, Carter, and McKay try to crack the shroud from the Enterprise.
Choose!
Check below for our Previously On recap - or click through the quote tweets for every stage of our adventure to date. And TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission!]
š¤ #Amalgaverse
Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 1.2) - "Sending the Puddle Jumper" #Amalgaverse
Youāre sending the puddle jumper. Ā Youāll need a pilot and someone who can bypass and shut down the cruiserās anti-abduction shroud so that everyone can beam back and spare the jumper a fully loaded return trip.
Who are you sending?
A) Sheppard and McKay
B) OāNeill and Carter
C) Sheppard and Thor
D) OāNeill and Data
Choose!
Check below for our Previously On recap - or click through the quote tweets for every stage of our adventure to date. And TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission!
Apparently there is no recourse here. My @X subscription directs me to file an appeal with either Adult Content or Sensitive Media. The former informs me that my account has not been locked so I have no rights to an appeal, the latter just directs me to report Sensitive Media.
Yes, for some reason @X has decided to label my posts adult content for some reason. Going to try to sort this but if it doesnāt get fixed, Iāll be wrapping up this series early.
Yes, for some reason @X has decided to label my posts adult content for some reason. Going to try to sort this but if it doesnāt get fixed, Iāll be wrapping up this series early.
Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 1.2) - "Sending the Puddle Jumper" #Amalgaverse
Youāre sending the puddle jumper. Ā Youāll need a pilot and someone who can bypass and shut down the cruiserās anti-abduction shroud so that everyone can beam back and spare the jumper a fully loaded return trip.
Who are you sending?
A) Sheppard and McKay
B) OāNeill and Carter
C) Sheppard and Thor
D) OāNeill and Data
Choose!
Check below for our Previously On recap - or click through the quote tweets for every stage of our adventure to date. And TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission!
Previously On #Amalgaverseā¦
You and 19 others have been stranded in an amalgam universe of myriad SF realities. All 19 are sci-fiās Best of the Best. And then thereās you, uniquely qualified given your encyclopedic knowledge garnered from your world where these characters, their technologies, and their stories are fiction, beloved t.v. shows you have watched time and again. Together, all 20 of you have set off on the Enterprise-D, tasked with finding a way home. On its first mission, the crew answered a distress call from a dead ship and found it was far from empty. Ā Aboard, the away team awoke an android named Maia, discovered a āsurvivorā named Rhea who turned out to be something else entirely, and fought their way off as scavengers closed in. Ā They came home to the Enterprise with two things: a new crewmember in Maia, and a fragment of the signature an entity left behind when it crossed into this reality. Ā Colonel Carter believes itās one piece of a much larger puzzle, and that the rest of it is still out there waiting.
For your second mission, you have elected to follow a Starfleet directive, traveling to pick up and transport Harven Zax, a dangerous intelligence broker, to a rendezvous point at the edge of the Expanse. Ā Upon arrival, you discover his cruiser inoperable, drifting towards a black hole, the shipās automated defense systems preventing Scotty from using the Enterpriseās transporter to simply beam them aboard.
Today, Iām recommending four essential works by Tanith Lee, best known for her fantasy and horror, though her smaller body of science fiction is well worth seeking out.
The Silver Metal Lover (1981): In a future Earth reshaped by catastrophe, sheltered teen Jane falls in love with a Silver, a robot minstrel whose music and apparent humanity upend everything sheās been taught about machines.
Electric Forest (1979): Ā Magdala Cled, an outcast born with features considered hideously deformed in her society, is offered a beautiful synthetic body. Ā But the transformation comes with a catch...
Donāt Bite the Sun (1976): Ā In a domed city where young people enjoy limitless pleasures, can change sex and bodies at will, and shrug off death, one restless teenager searches for meaning in a seemingly perfect existence.
The Thaw (1979): In this darkly comic SF novelette, a young woman is tasked with helping her distant ancestor adjust to life after being revived from cryogenic stasis. Ā But something has gone terribly wrong.
Check out the quoted thread for the recommended works of Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, C.M. Kornbluth, D.G. Compton, Thomas M. Disch, Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), John Brunner, Judith Merril, Hal Clement, James Blish, Jack Williamson, Katherine MacLean, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Pangborn, R.A. Lafferty, William Tenn, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, James H. Schmitz, Eric Frank Russell, Brian W. Aldiss, Carol Emshwiller, Wilson Tucker, Chad Oliver, Zenna Henderson, Pauline Ashwell, Frederik Pohl, Henry Kuttner, Barrington J. Bayley, James P. Hogan, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret St. Clair, Keith Laumer, Charles L. Harness, Howard Waldrop, Rosel George Brown, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Kit Reed, Joanna Russ, H. Beam Piper, Daniel F. Galouye, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, Harry Harrison, Vonda McIntyre, John Christopher, John Wyndham, Michael Bishop, Doris Piserchia, Bob Buckley, George Alec Effinger, Olaf Stapledon, John Varley, Miriam Allen deFord, Raymond F. Jones, Suzette Haden Elgin, Richard Cowper, Bruce Sterling, Josephine Saxton, Mack Reynolds, Phyllis Gotlieb, E.E. āDocā Smith, Sterling E. Lanier, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, George Turner, Octavia E. Butler, Philip JosĆ© Farmer, Somtow Sucharitkul, Charles Sheffield, Sonya Dorman, Clark Ashton Smith, Norman Spinrad, Naomi Mitchison, Suzy Mckee Charnas, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Preuss, Lloyd Biggle Jr., George S. Schuyler, Damon Knight, Nancy Kress, E.C. Tubb, John Sladek, Joan D. Vinge, Ward Moore, Marta Randall, Robert L. Forward, Ian Watson, Brian Stabelford, Keith Roberts, David R. Bunch, Michael G. Coney, Frank M. Robinson, Christopher Priest, Vernor Vinge, Lee Hoffman, Wilmar H. Shiras, Lucius Shepard, David I. Masson, Mildred Clingerman, Leigh Kennedy, Ernest Hogan, Jack Womack, Kenneth Bulmer, Mark Clifton, Kage Baker, Murray Leinster, Evelyn E. Smith, Kris Neville, Edmond Hamilton, James White, Wyman Guin, Emil Petaja, John Boyd, Christopher Anvil, Alan E. Nourse, T.J. Bass, Colin Kapp, Edmund Cooper, Rog Phillips, Mark S. Geston, James E. Gunn, Walter Tevis, Maureen F. McHugh, John Crowley, George O. Smith, Cherry Wilder, F.L. Wallace, G.C. Edmondson, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Pamela Sargent, Robert F. Young, Fred Hoyle, Eleanor Arnason, Ā Bertram A. Chandler, and Charles Eric Maine.
Today, Iām recommending four essential works by Charles Eric Maine, a British author known for his psychologically tense, noir-tinged SF.
The Mind of Mr Soames (1961): John Soames awakens from a 30-year coma with the mind of an infant in the body of a grown man. Ā His doctors attempt to educate and Ā prepare him for life in society.
The Tide Went Out (1958): A journalist investigating government censorship of nuclear testing uncover a cover-up, just as the worldās oceans begin to disappear.
The Darkest of Nights (1962): A deadly virus originating in China causes a global pandemic, as governments and elites prioritize their own survival while leaving much of the population to fend for themselves.
Timeliner (1955): A scientistās mind is propelled into the bodies of a succession of future men, crossing eras as he attempts to return home.
Check out the quoted thread for the recommended works of Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, C.M. Kornbluth, D.G. Compton, Thomas M. Disch, Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), John Brunner, Judith Merril, Hal Clement, James Blish, Jack Williamson, Katherine MacLean, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Pangborn, R.A. Lafferty, William Tenn, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, James H. Schmitz, Eric Frank Russell, Brian W. Aldiss, Carol Emshwiller, Wilson Tucker, Chad Oliver, Zenna Henderson, Pauline Ashwell, Frederik Pohl, Henry Kuttner, Barrington J. Bayley, James P. Hogan, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret St. Clair, Keith Laumer, Charles L. Harness, Howard Waldrop, Rosel George Brown, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Kit Reed, Joanna Russ, H. Beam Piper, Daniel F. Galouye, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, Harry Harrison, Vonda McIntyre, John Christopher, John Wyndham, Michael Bishop, Doris Piserchia, Bob Buckley, George Alec Effinger, Olaf Stapledon, John Varley, Miriam Allen deFord, Raymond F. Jones, Suzette Haden Elgin, Richard Cowper, Bruce Sterling, Josephine Saxton, Mack Reynolds, Phyllis Gotlieb, E.E. āDocā Smith, Sterling E. Lanier, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, George Turner, Octavia E. Butler, Philip JosĆ© Farmer, Somtow Sucharitkul, Charles Sheffield, Sonya Dorman, Clark Ashton Smith, Norman Spinrad, Naomi Mitchison, Suzy Mckee Charnas, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Preuss, Lloyd Biggle Jr., George S. Schuyler, Damon Knight, Nancy Kress, E.C. Tubb, John Sladek, Joan D. Vinge, Ward Moore, Marta Randall, Robert L. Forward, Ian Watson, Brian Stabelford, Keith Roberts, David R. Bunch, Michael G. Coney, Frank M. Robinson, Christopher Priest, Vernor Vinge, Lee Hoffman, Wilmar H. Shiras, Lucius Shepard, David I. Masson, Mildred Clingerman, Leigh Kennedy, Ernest Hogan, Jack Womack, Kenneth Bulmer, Mark Clifton, Kage Baker, Murray Leinster, Evelyn E. Smith, Kris Neville, Edmond Hamilton, James White, Wyman Guin, Emil Petaja, John Boyd, Christopher Anvil, Alan E. Nourse, T.J. Bass, Colin Kapp, Edmund Cooper, Rog Phillips, Mark S. Geston, James E. Gunn, Walter Tevis, Maureen F. McHugh, John Crowley, George O. Smith, Cherry Wilder, F.L. Wallace, G.C. Edmondson, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Pamela Sargent, Robert F. Young, Fred Hoyle, Eleanor Arnason, and Bertram A. Chandler.
On This Day in Supervillain History
46 years ago, X-Men #141's "Days of Future Past" marked the debuts of three members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants: Destiny, Pyro, and Avalanche.
š„
Michael gets honest about his feelings on the cancellation of the fourth Stargate series and what would have been his return to the franchise.
youtu.be/82KeJmsBGCw
#SaveStargate
Joseph Mallozzi š“āā ļø retweeted
Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 1.1) - "The Rescue" #Amalgaverse
Captainās Log ā Stardate Unknown. We are approaching coordinates 188 mark 44 to take aboard and transport a man named Harven Zax. Ā Heās a broker who has spent years selling secrets to anyone with the latinum for them, and by all accounts he has finally sold one too many. Ā Three separate parties are hunting him, each for reasons of their own. Starfleet wants him delivered alive, and theyāve left the details to us.
The Enterprise drops out of warp. Onscreen you glimpse a black hole in the distance, two ships drifting toward it. The nearer one is your target, a luxury cruiser. The farther one, a mercenary shuttle, is smaller and has drifted deeper, slipping toward the point of no return.
Kirk hails the cruiser. Ā A man who introduces himself as Harven Zax answers, rumpled and indignant that a man of his importance could die somewhere this shabby. He lays out the situation: his engines are dead, and the unmarked ship farther in belongs to a mercenary crew that came to snatch him and cut it too close. Theyāll hit the event horizon well before he does, which he considers his one consolation.
Getting him off that ship is the problem. His cruiser is running an automated anti-abduction shroud, a defensive field built to stop exactly this kind of snatch. It switched on when the mercenaries closed in and locked in place when the power failed. The Enterprise canāt beam through it, and the black holeās pull is too strong for a tractor beam to drag the cruiser clear.
The jumper can make the crossing and, if it comes to it, carry everyone back itself. Ā But every minute spent alongside the cruiser drags it deeper into the gravity well, and a fully loaded jumper climbing back out is no sure thing.
Data proposes another way: āCaptain, if we close to tractor range, I believe we can slow the cruiserās descent. Ā We will not be able to pull her free; the gravitational gradient is too steep. Ā But if Mr. Scott holds the lock from engineering, I can assist Colonel Carter and Doctor McKay in bringing down the shroud from here. Ā I should note that it will likely bring the Enterprise closer to the event horizon than I would recommend. Ā Our margin for error would be four minutes and twelve seconds.ā
Sheppard counters: āOr I just fly the jumper over and we find a way to switch that thing off by hand. Ā If we canāt, we all pile in and ride home together. Ā Getting thereās easy. Ā Getting backās the interesting part.ā
Whose advice do you follow?
A. Risk the jumper and an away team. Ā Board the cruiser and bring everyone back, shroud or no shroud.
B. Risk the Enterprise and use the tractor beam. Ā Hold the cruiser while Data, Carter, and McKay try to crack the shroud from the Enterprise.
Choose!
Check below for our Previously On recap - or click through the quote tweets for every stage of our adventure to date. And TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission!]
Captainās Log ā Stardate Unknown
Our first mission in this universe put a crew drawn from different realities to the test, and they acquitted themselves well, frankly better than I had any right to expect of people who were strangers to one another weeks ago. Ā And we came away with more than we bargained for ā a clue left by the entity we encountered on that derelict freighter, the signature of its own crossing into this reality. Ā It is one small piece of a much larger pattern that may one day show us the way home. Ā We intend to find the rest.
The hum of the warp core fades as the Enterprise-D drops out of warp, and Ops brings up the three contacts still outstanding from your arrival in this sector:
CONTACT ONE ā A scrambled tight-beam transmission intercepted by the communications array, passing through this sector on an encrypted Ferengi commercial channel. Ops has partially decoded the manifest: a shadow auction for Artifact Omicron-8, provenance heavily redacted. Its appended energy signature matches no commercial technology on record. It reads, partially and imperfectly, like an illicit subspace weapon outlawed under the Khitomer Accords. (The Heist)
CONTACT TWO ā Starfleet priority channel, addressed directly to Captain Kirk. Locate and extract Harven Zax, a dangerous intelligence broker, currently aboard a disabled Vespian cruiser at coordinates 188 mark 44, and deliver him to a rendezvous point at the edge of the Expanse within sixty hours. He is wanted, arguably, dead or alive, by three different groups: the Romulans, the Orion Syndicate, and a Klingon Great House. (The Delivery)
CONTACT THREE ā A lateral sensor sweep reports a complete absence of subspace comm traffic from Kirin Outpost Gamma-3, a Federation research installation on the Expanseās rim. Gamma-3 has a crew of twenty-three and files automated status reports every four hours. The last confirmed report is seventy-five hours old. The stationās emergency beacon is not active. There is no debris field. Simplyā¦ silence. (The Fracture)
Three crises. One ship. No backup.
You must decide where we set course next.
What say you?
Choose!
And cue our Opening Themeā¦
Just completed season one of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
My thoughts...
Like most ambitious 20+ episode/season 90s SF shows, its debut season was an uneven mix. It was packed with intriguing concepts that weren't always fully realized, but clearly showed a series slowly finding its footing. Overall, a strong premise buoyed by memorable characters and strong performances - even if some episodes were occasionally hampered by flat direction, awkward staging, and alien guest costumes that bordered on comically camp. I really enjoyed the gritty political and cultural backdrop, though I was less enamored of the more esoteric elements, specifically the Bajoran spiritual mysticism.
Characters I loved: Garak, Odo and, surprisingly, Quark who I thought would be annoyingly goofy but really grew on me.
Characters I liked (and I expect I'll grow to love): Dax, Bashir, and O'Brien.
Characters that have me on the fence: Sisko is considered by many their favorite Trek commander/captain, but I find him exasperatingly humorless. Kira is constantly aggrieved and combative which grew tiresome after a while. But maybe I'll warm up to these two as the series progresses.
Characters that didn't do it for me: A few of the supporting players who felt fairly one-note - Jake, Keiko, Nog.
Favorite guest star: Tie between Brian Keith as the delightfully curmudgeonly Bajoran farmer Mullibok in "Progress", and Harris Yulin's tour-de-force performance as the tortured "Aamin Marritza".
Favorite episode: "Duet". 10/10 character work and dramatic pacing.
Least favorite episode: I was tempted to go with the silly, low-stakes "Move Along Home", but "The Storyteller" edges it out for giving us Bajoran lore AND an awkward sub-plot involving a smitten Jake and Nog.
All in all, a throughly enjoyable watch. There's a lived-in warmth to the station and its ensemble that makes it hard not to roll right into season 2. But...
I'm switching over to the first season of Babylon 5 now, and look forward to circling back to season 2 of DS9 once I'm done.
Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 1.1) - "The Rescue" #Amalgaverse
Captainās Log ā Stardate Unknown. We are approaching coordinates 188 mark 44 to take aboard and transport a man named Harven Zax. Ā Heās a broker who has spent years selling secrets to anyone with the latinum for them, and by all accounts he has finally sold one too many. Ā Three separate parties are hunting him, each for reasons of their own. Starfleet wants him delivered alive, and theyāve left the details to us.
The Enterprise drops out of warp. Onscreen you glimpse a black hole in the distance, two ships drifting toward it. The nearer one is your target, a luxury cruiser. The farther one, a mercenary shuttle, is smaller and has drifted deeper, slipping toward the point of no return.
Kirk hails the cruiser. Ā A man who introduces himself as Harven Zax answers, rumpled and indignant that a man of his importance could die somewhere this shabby. He lays out the situation: his engines are dead, and the unmarked ship farther in belongs to a mercenary crew that came to snatch him and cut it too close. Theyāll hit the event horizon well before he does, which he considers his one consolation.
Getting him off that ship is the problem. His cruiser is running an automated anti-abduction shroud, a defensive field built to stop exactly this kind of snatch. It switched on when the mercenaries closed in and locked in place when the power failed. The Enterprise canāt beam through it, and the black holeās pull is too strong for a tractor beam to drag the cruiser clear.
The jumper can make the crossing and, if it comes to it, carry everyone back itself. Ā But every minute spent alongside the cruiser drags it deeper into the gravity well, and a fully loaded jumper climbing back out is no sure thing.
Data proposes another way: āCaptain, if we close to tractor range, I believe we can slow the cruiserās descent. Ā We will not be able to pull her free; the gravitational gradient is too steep. Ā But if Mr. Scott holds the lock from engineering, I can assist Colonel Carter and Doctor McKay in bringing down the shroud from here. Ā I should note that it will likely bring the Enterprise closer to the event horizon than I would recommend. Ā Our margin for error would be four minutes and twelve seconds.ā
Sheppard counters: āOr I just fly the jumper over and we find a way to switch that thing off by hand. Ā If we canāt, we all pile in and ride home together. Ā Getting thereās easy. Ā Getting backās the interesting part.ā
Whose advice do you follow?
A. Risk the jumper and an away team. Ā Board the cruiser and bring everyone back, shroud or no shroud.
B. Risk the Enterprise and use the tractor beam. Ā Hold the cruiser while Data, Carter, and McKay try to crack the shroud from the Enterprise.
Choose!
Check below for our Previously On recap - or click through the quote tweets for every stage of our adventure to date. And TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission!]
Captainās Log ā Stardate Unknown
Our first mission in this universe put a crew drawn from different realities to the test, and they acquitted themselves well, frankly better than I had any right to expect of people who were strangers to one another weeks ago. Ā And we came away with more than we bargained for ā a clue left by the entity we encountered on that derelict freighter, the signature of its own crossing into this reality. Ā It is one small piece of a much larger pattern that may one day show us the way home. Ā We intend to find the rest.
The hum of the warp core fades as the Enterprise-D drops out of warp, and Ops brings up the three contacts still outstanding from your arrival in this sector:
CONTACT ONE ā A scrambled tight-beam transmission intercepted by the communications array, passing through this sector on an encrypted Ferengi commercial channel. Ops has partially decoded the manifest: a shadow auction for Artifact Omicron-8, provenance heavily redacted. Its appended energy signature matches no commercial technology on record. It reads, partially and imperfectly, like an illicit subspace weapon outlawed under the Khitomer Accords. (The Heist)
CONTACT TWO ā Starfleet priority channel, addressed directly to Captain Kirk. Locate and extract Harven Zax, a dangerous intelligence broker, currently aboard a disabled Vespian cruiser at coordinates 188 mark 44, and deliver him to a rendezvous point at the edge of the Expanse within sixty hours. He is wanted, arguably, dead or alive, by three different groups: the Romulans, the Orion Syndicate, and a Klingon Great House. (The Delivery)
CONTACT THREE ā A lateral sensor sweep reports a complete absence of subspace comm traffic from Kirin Outpost Gamma-3, a Federation research installation on the Expanseās rim. Gamma-3 has a crew of twenty-three and files automated status reports every four hours. The last confirmed report is seventy-five hours old. The stationās emergency beacon is not active. There is no debris field. Simplyā¦ silence. (The Fracture)
Three crises. One ship. No backup.
You must decide where we set course next.
What say you?
Choose!
And cue our Opening Themeā¦
Previously On Amalgaverseā¦
You and 19 others have been stranded in an amalgam universe of myriad SF realities. All 19 are sci-fiās Best of the Best. And then thereās you, uniquely qualified given your encyclopedic knowledge garnered from your world where these characters, their technologies, and their stories are fiction, beloved t.v. shows you have watched time and again. Together, all 20 of you have set off on the Enterprise-D, tasked with finding a way home. On its first mission, the crew answered a distress call from a dead ship and found it was far from empty. Ā Aboard, the away team awoke an android named Maia, discovered a āsurvivorā named Rhea who turned out to be something else entirely, and fought their way off as scavengers closed in. Ā They came home to the Enterprise with two things: a new crewmember in Maia, and a fragment of the signature an entity left behind when it crossed into this reality. Ā Colonel Carter believes itās one piece of a much larger puzzle, and that the rest of it is still out there waiting.
For your second mission, you have elected to follow a Starfleet directive, traveling to pick up and transport Harven Zax, a dangerous intelligence broker, to a rendezvous point at the edge of the Expanse.
Today, Iām recommending four essential works by Charles Eric Maine, a British author known for his psychologically tense, noir-tinged SF.
The Mind of Mr Soames (1961): John Soames awakens from a 30-year coma with the mind of an infant in the body of a grown man. Ā His doctors attempt to educate and Ā prepare him for life in society.
The Tide Went Out (1958): A journalist investigating government censorship of nuclear testing uncover a cover-up, just as the worldās oceans begin to disappear.
The Darkest of Nights (1962): A deadly virus originating in China causes a global pandemic, as governments and elites prioritize their own survival while leaving much of the population to fend for themselves.
Timeliner (1955): A scientistās mind is propelled into the bodies of a succession of future men, crossing eras as he attempts to return home.
Check out the quoted thread for the recommended works of Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, C.M. Kornbluth, D.G. Compton, Thomas M. Disch, Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), John Brunner, Judith Merril, Hal Clement, James Blish, Jack Williamson, Katherine MacLean, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Pangborn, R.A. Lafferty, William Tenn, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, James H. Schmitz, Eric Frank Russell, Brian W. Aldiss, Carol Emshwiller, Wilson Tucker, Chad Oliver, Zenna Henderson, Pauline Ashwell, Frederik Pohl, Henry Kuttner, Barrington J. Bayley, James P. Hogan, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret St. Clair, Keith Laumer, Charles L. Harness, Howard Waldrop, Rosel George Brown, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Kit Reed, Joanna Russ, H. Beam Piper, Daniel F. Galouye, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, Harry Harrison, Vonda McIntyre, John Christopher, John Wyndham, Michael Bishop, Doris Piserchia, Bob Buckley, George Alec Effinger, Olaf Stapledon, John Varley, Miriam Allen deFord, Raymond F. Jones, Suzette Haden Elgin, Richard Cowper, Bruce Sterling, Josephine Saxton, Mack Reynolds, Phyllis Gotlieb, E.E. āDocā Smith, Sterling E. Lanier, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, George Turner, Octavia E. Butler, Philip JosĆ© Farmer, Somtow Sucharitkul, Charles Sheffield, Sonya Dorman, Clark Ashton Smith, Norman Spinrad, Naomi Mitchison, Suzy Mckee Charnas, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Preuss, Lloyd Biggle Jr., George S. Schuyler, Damon Knight, Nancy Kress, E.C. Tubb, John Sladek, Joan D. Vinge, Ward Moore, Marta Randall, Robert L. Forward, Ian Watson, Brian Stabelford, Keith Roberts, David R. Bunch, Michael G. Coney, Frank M. Robinson, Christopher Priest, Vernor Vinge, Lee Hoffman, Wilmar H. Shiras, Lucius Shepard, David I. Masson, Mildred Clingerman, Leigh Kennedy, Ernest Hogan, Jack Womack, Kenneth Bulmer, Mark Clifton, Kage Baker, Murray Leinster, Evelyn E. Smith, Kris Neville, Edmond Hamilton, James White, Wyman Guin, Emil Petaja, John Boyd, Christopher Anvil, Alan E. Nourse, T.J. Bass, Colin Kapp, Edmund Cooper, Rog Phillips, Mark S. Geston, James E. Gunn, Walter Tevis, Maureen F. McHugh, John Crowley, George O. Smith, Cherry Wilder, F.L. Wallace, G.C. Edmondson, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Pamela Sargent, Robert F. Young, Fred Hoyle, Eleanor Arnason, and Bertram A. Chandler.
Today, Iām recommending four essential works by A. Bertram Chandler, a merchant-marine officer whose science fiction was grounded in the realities of shipboard life.
Giant Killer (1945): This ingenious story follows a colony of intelligent, mutated creatures living in the hidden spaces of a spaceship, locked in a war for survival against the mysterious Giants.
"The Cageā (1957): After their spaceship crash-lands on an alien world, its human survivors are captured by an advanced alien species and placed in a zoo. Ā This thought-provoking short story explores the challenge of proving oneās intelligence to a species with radical different ideas of what constitutes real thought.
The Big Black Mark (1975): John Grimes,takes command of a starship crewed by misfits, only to face mutiny and a desperate struggle for survival. Ā Inspired by the infamous mutiny aboard the Bounty, this novel showcases Chandlerās talent for blending nautical adventure with space opera.
The Rim of Space (1961): Chandlerās debut Rimworlds novel follows washed-up spacer Derek Calver, who joins the crew of the Lorn Lady to explore the remote worlds of the galactic frontier.
Check out the quoted thread for the recommended works of Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, C.M. Kornbluth, D.G. Compton, Thomas M. Disch, Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), John Brunner, Judith Merril, Hal Clement, James Blish, Jack Williamson, Katherine MacLean, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Pangborn, R.A. Lafferty, William Tenn, Kate Wilhelm, Avram Davidson, James H. Schmitz, Eric Frank Russell, Brian W. Aldiss, Carol Emshwiller, Wilson Tucker, Chad Oliver, Zenna Henderson, Pauline Ashwell, Frederik Pohl, Henry Kuttner, Barrington J. Bayley, James P. Hogan, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret St. Clair, Keith Laumer, Charles L. Harness, Howard Waldrop, Rosel George Brown, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Kit Reed, Joanna Russ, H. Beam Piper, Daniel F. Galouye, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, Harry Harrison, Vonda McIntyre, John Christopher, John Wyndham, Michael Bishop, Doris Piserchia, Bob Buckley, George Alec Effinger, Olaf Stapledon, John Varley, Miriam Allen deFord, Raymond F. Jones, Suzette Haden Elgin, Richard Cowper, Bruce Sterling, Josephine Saxton, Mack Reynolds, Phyllis Gotlieb, E.E. āDocā Smith, Sterling E. Lanier, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, George Turner, Octavia E. Butler, Philip JosĆ© Farmer, Somtow Sucharitkul, Charles Sheffield, Sonya Dorman, Clark Ashton Smith, Norman Spinrad, Naomi Mitchison, Suzy Mckee Charnas, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Preuss, Lloyd Biggle Jr., George S. Schuyler, Damon Knight, Nancy Kress, E.C. Tubb, John Sladek, Joan D. Vinge, Ward Moore, Marta Randall, Robert L. Forward, Ian Watson, Brian Stabelford, Keith Roberts, David R. Bunch, Michael G. Coney, Frank M. Robinson, Christopher Priest, Vernor Vinge, Lee Hoffman, Wilmar H. Shiras, Lucius Shepard, David I. Masson, Mildred Clingerman, Leigh Kennedy, Ernest Hogan, Jack Womack, Kenneth Bulmer, Mark Clifton, Kage Baker, Murray Leinster, Evelyn E. Smith, Kris Neville, Edmond Hamilton, James White, Wyman Guin, Emil Petaja, John Boyd, Christopher Anvil, Alan E. Nourse, T.J. Bass, Colin Kapp, Edmund Cooper, Rog Phillips, Mark S. Geston, James E. Gunn, Walter Tevis, Maureen F. McHugh, John Crowley, George O. Smith, Cherry Wilder, F.L. Wallace, G.C. Edmondson, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Pamela Sargent, Robert F. Young, Fred Hoyle, and Eleanor Arnason.
On This Day in Supervillain History
69 years ago, Duplicate Man debuted in World's Finest #106, staying one step ahead of both Superman and Batman by confusing them with his dupe - only to be hypnotized into giving himself up.
Looks like this one will come down to the wire
Captainās Log ā Stardate Unknown
Our first mission in this universe put a crew drawn from different realities to the test, and they acquitted themselves well, frankly better than I had any right to expect of people who were strangers to one another weeks ago. Ā And we came away with more than we bargained for ā a clue left by the entity we encountered on that derelict freighter, the signature of its own crossing into this reality. Ā It is one small piece of a much larger pattern that may one day show us the way home. Ā We intend to find the rest.
The hum of the warp core fades as the Enterprise-D drops out of warp, and Ops brings up the three contacts still outstanding from your arrival in this sector:
CONTACT ONE ā A scrambled tight-beam transmission intercepted by the communications array, passing through this sector on an encrypted Ferengi commercial channel. Ops has partially decoded the manifest: a shadow auction for Artifact Omicron-8, provenance heavily redacted. Its appended energy signature matches no commercial technology on record. It reads, partially and imperfectly, like an illicit subspace weapon outlawed under the Khitomer Accords. (The Heist)
CONTACT TWO ā Starfleet priority channel, addressed directly to Captain Kirk. Locate and extract Harven Zax, a dangerous intelligence broker, currently aboard a disabled Vespian cruiser at coordinates 188 mark 44, and deliver him to a rendezvous point at the edge of the Expanse within sixty hours. He is wanted, arguably, dead or alive, by three different groups: the Romulans, the Orion Syndicate, and a Klingon Great House. (The Delivery)
CONTACT THREE ā A lateral sensor sweep reports a complete absence of subspace comm traffic from Kirin Outpost Gamma-3, a Federation research installation on the Expanseās rim. Gamma-3 has a crew of twenty-three and files automated status reports every four hours. The last confirmed report is seventy-five hours old. The stationās emergency beacon is not active. There is no debris field. Simplyā¦ silence. (The Fracture)
Three crises. One ship. No backup.
You must decide where we set course next.
What say you?
Choose!
And cue our Opening Themeā¦