Science Fiction
Mining the future for ideas today
Curious about what’s out there? Tired of mainstream entertainment ruining all your favorite franchises? Downstream Pulp covers the latest in Iron Age creations, not to mention original tales. A place where literature fans can relax, grab a warm beverage, and discuss the wonders of the imagination.
We go to the movies for entertainment, maybe to get away from the reality of our world and just for a few moments we escape that reality and enter a ‘Twilight Zone’ if you will, of adventure, romance, and the like. But is it possible someone is trying to tell you something? Is there ‘full disclosure’ being made on the silver screen? Are you aware of the message or have you been oblivious? Following are movie reviews on the Wizard of Oz and the MATRIX movies. They are presented herein to allow you to understand ‘really’ what has happened and what to understand.
There was once a COBOL programmer in the mid to late 1990s. For the sake of this story, we'll call him Jack. After years of being taken for granted and treated as a technological dinosaur by all the UNIX programmers and Client/Server programmers and website developers, Jack was finally getting some respect. He'd become a private consultant specializing in Year 2000 conversions. He was working short-term assignments for prestige companies, traveling all over the world on different assignments. He was working 70 and 80 and even 90 hour weeks, but it was worth it.
I: In the year after Lorraine’s death I contemplated suicide six times. Contemplated it seriously, I mean: six times sat with the fat bottle of Clonazepam within reaching distance, six times failed to reach for it, betrayed by some instinct for life or disgusted by my own weakness.
If we accept all the Star Wars films as the same canon (as it seems we must) then a lot that happens in the original films has to be reinterpreted in the light of the prequels. As we now know, the rebel Alliance was founded by Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bail Organa. What can readily be deduced is that their first recruit, who soon became their top field agent, was R2-D2.
Kzinti were mentioned for the first time since the animated series!
An old book I read in the late 1970s which I really liked and may have been the inspiration for the devices used in the Stargate TV and book series. This book is actually the third book in a series, but I highly recommend reading this one first. With the backstory more developed, it makes this one more impressive on first read, then makes the preceding books much better.
THE VISITORS FROM PLANET VETA
Two hundred light years from Earth an immense structure rotates around a yellow star. A million miles across, six hundred million miles in circumference, the Ringworld spins fast enough to provide an artificial gravity almost identical to that of Earth. Twenty ‘shadow squares’ orbiting closer to the sun provide the illusion of night and day. It is a habitable area of unimaginable vastness. Living space for trillions of sentient creatures. But it is no paradise…
Ever get stuck naming new characters while writing? This utility will help break your case of Writers Block!
A story from 1909 predicting the way the internet is isolating us from each other. Fascinating reading!
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|_| Ver. 1.5.2
Updated for the current era:
To be fair, 😆😆😩😤you have to have a very high IQ 💯😏🤓😜to understand Rick and Morty. 😤😩💦❤️The humor 🤣😂👍👌is extremely subtle, 👉👌😻and without a solid grasp ✊️💪😫🍆💦of theoretical physics 👁😱😤👀most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. 😉😚😌💯👏👉👍There's also Rick's nihilistic outlook, ☠️😬☠️😵which is deftly woven into his characterisation 😑🙌😼🥃- his personal philosophy 🤓😎😒😔draws heavily fromNarodnaya Volya literature, 💯😩🍑🍆💦😫for instance. The fans understand this stuff; 😝😘👌👏🙌💯they have the intellectual capacity 🤓😏👌🤝to truly appreciate the depths 🤔🙀👽🤤of these jokes, 😂🤣😍👐👌to realize that they're not just funny🤔😲😚😁- they say something deep about LIFE. 😓🤔🤤😏🤓😱❤️As a consequence people who dislike Rick and Morty 👏🙌💯😻😤😩💦truly ARE idiots- 😒🤔🙄🤐of course they wouldn't appreciate, 🙌❤️😾👊for instance, the humour 😹😍🤣in Rick's existencial catchphrase "Wu🅱️🅱️a Lu🅱️🅱️a Du🅱️ Du🅱️," which itself is a cryptic reference 👀👄🙀🤔to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons 😳🤓😝💋🙏I'm smirking😏😏😏😏😏😤🙄 right now just imagining 🤔😑🙄🤣one of those addlepated simpletons 😐😯😑❌scratching their heads in confusion ❓😒🤔😭😓❓as Dan Harmon's 😩🍆💦🍑😤👌👉👌genius ☺️😝🤓😜💯unfolds itself on their television screens. 🙌😆😘😍What fools... how I pity them. 😤😑😂👎 And yes 👍👏🙌😽😻💦❤️by the way, I DO have a Rick and Morty👴 👨❤️💋👨👦😤😫💦tattoo. ❤️👏🙌👍👌💯And no,😖😑😕 you cannot see it. 🚫👊❌🙀🙅♂️‼️💯It's for the ladies' 😤😘🍆💦🍑💁☔️😩eyes only👀💋👅💦👍❤️💯- And even they 😜😋😏😽😻have to demonstrate ☝️👏🙌💯that they're within 5 IQ points💯👍❤️👌😘😍 of my own (preferably lower) 😌😤😎🤓beforehand.🍑🍑🍑☔️💯😏🍆💦💯😻😘😍😁❤️💯😤😩😫👏🙌👍👉👌👊
But - What is a Grand Moff anyway? Would you really want to be addressed with the title of "Grand Moff" anyway? Really, tha's like Grant Fuzzy Kitten or Grand Poobah. A STOOPID title - but the scariest figure to me as a kid. Could you imagine meeting the character Tarkin in real life, just coming down the underground walking tunnel right at you, looking you right in the eyes? Would you cry, pee, or run? Instant death to cross him. He ain't gonna put up with anyone stupid, and will just eradicate them from the future genepool if the be so.
Archive.org now has all old issues of the groundbreaking Sci Fi magazine Galaxy, all issues from 1950 to 1976.
You may know him as the son of Khan in the Star Trek movies, but I originally knew him as The Phoenix. Even worse than what happened to Firefly, this one got canceled after only four episodes. I loved it!
A Delorean DMC-12 is 4216 mm long [1]. When travelling at 88 mph, the car then travels its own length in 4216mm88mph = 107.2 ms. So this is how long the time-travelling wormhole-thingy that opens in front of the car has to be open, or alternatively the minimum time the flux capacitor is actually in effect. Could this time interval be significant
“Science fiction has its own specialized vocabulary, words that are immediately understandable to initiated readers but largely incomprehensible to the world in general—words like hyperspace, teleportation, telekinesis, esper, solarian, terraforming. The subculture known as science fiction fandom has a special esoteric jargon too, and its words are so cryptic that only a fraction of the main science fiction audience would understand them—corflu, filk-song, Hugo, gafia, GoH, and many more.
But it occurred to me the other day that a good many sciencefictional words, and even some of the fannish ones, have escaped from our microcosm and established themselves as standard terms in modern English. I mean words like “robot” and “alien” and “fanzine.” So I betook myself to that estimable reference volume, Brave New Words, otherwise known as the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, to see just how many escapees there are. (Brave New Words, edited by Jeff Prucher and published in 2007 by the Oxford University Press, became self-referential a year later when it won a Hugo for best non-fiction work. Page 93 defines the Hugo as “any of several awards presented annually at the World Science Fiction Convention . . . for excellence in science fiction or fantasy writing, art, publishing, etc.”) From it I drew these examples:
Robot. Everybody knows what a robot is: a big clunking metal machine, usually, but not always, anthropomorphic in shape, that does the jobs humans don’t want to do. Robots perform dangerous tasks inside atomic power plants. Assembly lines in factories use robot arms to put things together. People who speak in dull, monotonous, mechanical tones are described as “robotic.” The word is part of the common language. But it comes straight out of science fiction: Karel Capek’s 1923 play, R.U.R—the initials stand for “Rossum’s Universal Robots”—which is about the advent of quasiintelligent mechanical laborers. Capek didn’t have to reach very far to invent a name for his machines. It came from his native language, Czech, where it means “work,” usually with the implication of hard, boring work. It is found in other Slavic languages, too, which provided a strange experience for me last year when I visited Poland and, on my first day, found a sign posted on the wall outside my hotel that said, UWAGA! ROBOTY BUDOWLANE! I had learned already that “uwaga!” meant “danger!” Were we being warned against berserk robots in the vicinity? Not quite. A Polish friend provided the prosaic translation: “Danger! Construction work!”
Lyrical adaption of 'American Pie' by Don McLean
Music Corporation of America, Inc./Benny Bird Music (BMI)
(Administered by Copyright Management, Inc.)
New lyrics by Al Yankovic
With Special Thanks to George Lucas
The Saga Begins
A long long time ago
in a galaxy far away
Naboo was under an attack
And I thought me and Qui-Gon Jinn
Could talk the Federation into
Maybe cutting them a little slack
But their response, it didn't thrill us
They locked the doors and tried to kill us
We escaped from that gas
Then met Jar Jar and Boss Nass
We took a bongo from the scene
And we went to Theed to see the queen
We all wound up on Tatooine
That's where we found this boy...
Oh my my, this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
"Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
Did you know this junkyard slave
Isn't even old enough to shave
But he can use the Force they say
Ahh, do you see him hitting on the queen
Though he's just nine and she's fourteen
Yeah, he's probably gonna marry her someday
Well, I know he built C-3PO
And I've heard how fast his pod can go
And we were broke, it's true
So we made a wager or two
He was a prepubescent flyin' ace
And the minute Jabba started off that race
Well, I know who would win first place
Oh yes, it was our boy
We started singin'... My my, this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
"Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
Now we finally got to Coruscant
The Jedi Council we knew would want
To see how good the boy could be
So we took him there and we told the tale
How his midi-chlorians were off the scale
And he might fulfill that prophecy
Oh, the Council was impressed, of course
Could he bring balance to the Force?
They interviewed the kid
Oh, training they forbid
Because Yoda sensed in him much fear
And Qui-Gon said, "Now listen here
Just stick it in your pointy ear
I still will teach this boy"
He was singin'... My my, this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
"Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
We caught a ride back to Naboo
'Cause Queen Amidala wanted to
I frankly would've liked to stay
We all fought in that epic war
And it wasn't long at all before
Little Hotshot flew his plane and saved the day
And in the end some Gungans died
Some ships blew up and some pilots fried
A lot of folks were croakin'
The battle droids were broken
And the Jedi I admire most
Met up with Darth Maul and now he's toast
Well, I'm still here and he's a ghost
I guess I'll train this boy
And I was singin'... My my, this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
"Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
We were singin'... My my, this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
Yay!